South Africa: Gender Commission sends condolences to Patrick Shais family

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has expressed its heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of veteran actor and gender-based violence (GBV) activist, Patrick Shai.

According to a statement released by the family, Shai passed away on Saturday morning.

Commission chairperson, Tamara Mathebula, said the news of the passing of Shai has been met with sadness by all at the CGE.

He will be sorely missed by those who had embraced him as a human rights and gender activist. We have worked closely with him in advancing gender equality and issues of men and boys in South Africa.

Ntate Shai was a compassionate hero of our struggle against gender-based violence, who would use his artistic skills to ensure that the message gets across to his intended audience.

It is through men like Ntate Shai that we are seeing a shift in the mind-set amongst many men, and we shall continue in the same trajectory to eradicate the scourge of GBV. As the Commission, we mourn his passing and equally celebrate his life. He will be missed. May his soul rest in peace, Mathebula said.

Role model par-excellence

The Presiding Officers of Parliament have also paid tribute to Shai, describing him as a role model par-excellence.

National Assembly Speaker, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, and National Council of Provinces chairperson, Amos Masondo, said Shai was not just an artist, but a legend.

He was a legend, an inspiring figure beyond the arts fraternity, a change maker, an exemplary leader and a true activist and advocate against gender-based violence.

We are gutted and bitterly saddened by the loss of such a titanic and incomparable talent, an outstanding human being with a humble personality, the Presiding Officers said.

Through his organisation, Khulumandoda, Shai partnered with Parliament in its National Mens Parliament initiative, which brought together about 250 men and boys from across the country to engage them to become agents of change and integral partners in the prevention of, and response in tackling the spread of HIV, gender-based violence and femicide and other social ills.

South Africa has lost an extraordinary human being whose role, unrivalled talent and outstanding service to society can never be replaced. May his soul rest peacefully, Mapisa-Nqakula and Masondo said.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
RTHK: Benedict under fire over 'mistake' in statement

Former pope Benedict XVI on Monday admitted providing incorrect information to a German inquiry about his presence at a 1980 meeting discussing a paedophile priest, blaming an editing "oversight".

"He is very sorry for this mistake and asks to be excused," Benedict's personal secretary Georg Ganswein said in a statement.

But no decision was made at the meeting about reassigning the priest to pastoral duties, it said.

An independent report last week found that Benedict XVI, who stood down in 2013, knowingly failed to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse in the 1980s.

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) was commissioned by the archdiocese of Munich and Freising to examine how abuse cases were dealt with between 1945 and 2019.

Ex-pope Benedict -- whose birth name is Joseph Ratzinger -- was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

In one case, a now notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

Hullermann was reassigned to pastoral duties despite his history and continued to reoffend for many years.

Unveiling the report, the lawyers said that "to our surprise", Benedict had denied attending the meeting in 1980 at which the decision was made to admit Hullermann to the diocese, despite being quoted directly in the minutes of the meeting.

The statement from the emeritus pope, republished by Vatican News, said: "He would like to make it clear now that, contrary to what was stated at the hearing, he did attend the Ordinariate meeting on January 15, 1980.

"The statement to the contrary was therefore objectively incorrect," it added, while insisting this was "not done out of bad faith, but was the result of an oversight in the editing of his statement".

"Objectively correct, however, remains the statement, documented by the files, that in his meeting no decision was made about a pastoral assignment of the priest in question," it said.

Further explanations would follow, it said, but the 94-year-old pope, who is said to be in shaky health, is still reading the inquiry report.

Its release last week sparked anger among many, but also allegations it was part of an anti-Benedict plot.

Jesuit Hans Zollner, a member of the Vatican's commission for the protection of minors, said it was clear that "criminals are hiding among us", and he called for a similar probe in Italy.

But retired bishop Massimo Camisasca said it was a "manoeuvre against Ratzinger... from within the church", and insisted the ex-pope had been "the first to highlight the seriousness of the abuses".

Elected in 2005, Benedict came under fire for his failure to act decisively to end church cover-ups of clerical sex abuse.

In 2010, he admitted that the Church "did not act quickly or firmly enough to take the necessary action".

But in 2019, speaking from retirement, he sparked fresh controversy by blaming the clerical abuse scandals on the 1960s sexual revolution and a collapse in faith in the West. (AFP)

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 24 (ANI/NewsVoir): The recent edition of IBSi Global FinTech Innovation Awards 2021 by IBS Intelligence, celebrated amazing breakthroughs in FinTech. The awards identified and honoured technology players and banks "for their excellence in driving impact through banking technology implementations and innovations using emerging technologies." Among the winners is premier IT company Visionet Systems' data processing product, 'DocVu.AI' which has won the 'Most Innovative Use of AI/ML: Most Agile & Adaptable' award. The winners were announced during a virtual ceremony recently and were chosen from over 191 participants in the Financial Technology space across 48 countries. DocVu.AI is a state-of-the-art AI/ML Intelligent Document Processing solution that supports over 500 documents and variants and over 4000 data points, with more being added every day. It's extensively used by some of the largest banks and leading mortgage institutions for their document processing requirements. DocVu.AI can help any industry with an accuracy of 99% or more and a turnaround time of as less as 30 minutes. The platform extracts idle data and can help companies in various sectors to prioritise workflow, redeploy their workforce and expand their business. Alok Bansal, MD Visionet Systems India & Global Head of BFSI Business said, "The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and a document processing solution like DocVu.Al can be of great help in this journey. With that goal in mind, we wanted to create a cutting-edge product with built-in architectural flexibility and also the adaptability to serve diverse needs of large and small enterprises. We are proud that not only does DocVu.Al meets this brief, it also responds with seamless precision to processes and applications that are unique to every industry. This is why it has become the number one choice for a large number of banks and financial institutions. We have always taken a holistic view of technology and this product is a triumph in that direction with its combination of customer-centric design and advanced analytics. We are much honored to win this award and we will continue to try our best and help industries with smarter, faster, and even more advanced solutions in the times to come." Vaibhav Gupta, Head, Products, received the award on behalf of Visionet's DocVu.AI team and said, "We at Visionet are delighted to receive IBS Intelligence's 'Most Innovative Use of AI/ML: Most Agile & Adaptable' award for DocVu.AI. DocVu.AI fuses OCR, computer vision, and machine learning to bring together the benefits of human ingenuity and artificial intelligence; this enables businesses to stay ahead of costs and provide great customer experience." Visionet Systems has invested over 30 months of intensive research and development in DocVu.AI and made it a next-generation platform that accelerates the processing of large volumes of structured, semi-structured as well as unstructured data. DocVu.AI has helped diverse companies and institutions to leverage new opportunities, improve compliance, and achieve faster ROI. Visionet Systems, Inc. is a premier information technology, consulting, and business process management company that delivers solutions to enable its clients to do business better. Visionet delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a holistic view of business through technology. By combining digital strategy, customer-centric design, and advanced analytics, Visionet helps its clients create successful and adaptive businesses in banking, retail, insurance, distribution, and manufacturing. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, a solid commitment to sustainability, and good corporate citizenship, Visionet has a dedicated workforce of over 7000, with its presence in ten countries across four continents. This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
Mudhol (Karnataka) [India], January 24 (ANI/ATK): The MRN Group, a leading sugar manufacturer in the country, has created a record by reaching the highest sugarcane crushing capacity this year. The group has also created a record by crushing 60,975.983 metric tonnes of sugarcane in a single day. Almost all the units that come under MRN Group have achieved their highest crushing capacity this year thus making it one of the most efficient, successful and trusted sugar manufacturing entities in the country. Established in 1995, the MRN group is a diversified conglomerate with successful business entities across Karnataka. Its businesses range from sugar factories to agro industries, cement, banking, CNG, LNG, retail and ethanol production. The Karnataka based group headquartered at Mudhol in Bagalkot district is the leader in the production of sugar and ethanol in the country. The MRN Group was established by an industrious, young, dedicated entrepreneur Dr. Murugesh Nirani. He was born into a humble farmer family at Bilagi in Bagalkot district. After getting a degree in Civil Engineering, Dr. Murugesh Nirani set his goals and priorities and worked accordingly to achieve success. Starting from scratch, he began his journey as a small entrepreneur and built one of the biggest business conglomerates in Karnataka. He started his business with a small sugarcane crushing unit in Bagalkot with a crushing capacity of just 500 TCD/day and now it has a combined crushing capacity of over 70,000 TCD/day. Apart from the sugar industry, the MRN Group has diversified into various businesses. Today, the group successfully operates several sugar mills including Nirani Sugars, Shri Sai Priya Sugars Ltd., MRN Cane Power India Ltd., Kedarnath Sugars Ltd., and Badami Sugars Ltd. Murugesh Nirani who is currently the Minister for Large and Medium Industries, Government of Karnataka, through his conglomerate of companies provides direct employment to over 70,000 people. He has been providing training and essential new-age skill development to youths through his institutions to make them entrepreneurs. His strategies are not only aimed at making the youths self-sufficient but also job-providers. The minister has been encouraging and providing necessary assistance to young people especially those coming from rural areas with humble backgrounds to achieve success in their respective fields. Nirani, after successfully establishing his industry, decided to step down so that he could concentrate on his public life and dedicate more time towards social causes. He handed over the responsibility to his son Vijay Nirani. The MRN Group is known for strictly adhering to its core values and vision. The company which employs over 70,000 people never compromises on the safety and wellbeing of its employees. The group has been winning accolades for its contributions towards enhancing the rural economy through sugar and agro industries and also its role in ethanol production in the country. Over 1.4 lakh farmer families in north Karnataka and Mandya-Mysuru regions are directly dependant on the MRN Groups factories The sugar mills coming under the MRN Group have created a new record by reaching the highest capacity of sugarcane crushing. Nirani Sugars Ltd., crushed 23,187 metric tonnes of sugarcane while Shri Sai Priya Sugars Ltd crushed 16,411 MTS. The MRN Cane Power India Ltd has recorded its highest crushing capacity of 8,623 MTS, and Kedarnath Sugars Ltd achieved the feat by recording its highest crushing capacity of 6,048 MTS. The Badami Sugars Ltd has also created a record by reaching its highest crushing capacity of 4,124 MTS. Stepping into his father's shoes, managing the affairs of the MRN Group was a huge responsibility for the young Managing Director Vijay Nirani. Under his leadership, the MRN Group explored new vistas, achieved greater success, registered new records and established itself as one of the most vibrant and successful business conglomerates in the country. 'I thank our farmers and workers for this feat. We would not have achieved this goal without their cooperation and hard work. The efforts of our employees and farmers have been significant to our success," Vijay Nirani said. This story is provided by ATK. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/ATK)
Jammu and Kashmir is ready to showcase its potential through government initiatives for a necessary boost to the handicrafts sector in the post-pandemic world. Starting with export promotion in Germany, the Director Handicrafts and Handloom Kashmir, Mahmood Ahmad Shah held an extensive web meeting with Dr Suyash Chavan Consulate General of India (CGI), Germany. The online meeting exclusively evaluated the scope of developing end-to-end export linkages to provide quality handicraft products of Kashmir to the German Market along with the rest of Europe. Since the beginning of the century, numerous German delegations, like the Indo-German Export Promotion have visited the valley with a keen interest in the handicrafts, especially Kashmiri carpets, which have immense potential in Europe. Germany is the largest consumer of Kashmir carpets and in addition imports Chain Stitch, Papier-mache, and Walnut furniture from Kashmir. The country's cold winters make it an ideal destination for the use of Kashmiri shawls, rugs and carpets. This liaison will also help to build a community of art lovers - handicraft importers of Germany with exporters from Kashmir - and result in shared knowledge pool to achieve master craftsmanship and connect with art connoisseurs through digital platforms, ensuring long term sustainability for arts like Papier-mache, Sozni, Kani shawl, basket weaving, Khatamband, wood carving, silver and copper carving, carpet weaving, leather, silk and Pashmina weaving amongst other crafts that Kashmir is celebrated for in German markets. Earlier Kashmir-based firms have participated in the Domotex Hannover Carpet Exhibition, one of the biggest carpet exhibitions held every year in Hannover Germany, and stood out as the show-stoppers. Carpets in the historical backdrop of Kashmir go back to the time of the renowned Sufi Saint, Hazrat Mir Syed Ali Hamdani (1341- 1385 AD) of Persia. When he came to Kashmir, he carried alongside him exceptionally talented craftsmen and laid the base for the cottage industry in Kashmir. Kashmiri carpets are considered to be the finest carpets in the world second only to Persian carpets. Kashmir's participation in upcoming Expos and Trade shows which shall provide international exposure and honor the unsold inventory of Covid days was discussed. Firstly, GI certified products of Kashmir shall be presented to the Consulate General of India, Germany which includes Pashmina, Khatamband, Walnut wood carving, Sozni, Kani Shawl, Hand knotted carpet, Papier-mache, and Saffron for display purposes in the Consulate General Munich office and in the exhibitions at Germany. The consulate general was acquainted with the export incentive offered by the Government on GI certified goods and about the renewed focus on Handicrafts in view of the recent UNESCO Craft listing for Srinagar City. He was briefed about initiatives taken to promote artisans through Craft tours, GI Labelling of Kashmir carpets and adaption of block chain mechanism to check piracy and misbranding of Kashmir handicrafts. The Counsel General was assured that digital content like pictures, videos, brochures will be provided to CG for disseminations in the German Market. The Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC) is playing a catalyst role in connecting international buyers with Kashmir carpet exporters by creating various sourcing opportunities in India and other countries. CEPC has a great hand in skill development, market promotion, establishing key carpet production centres and latest innovation in the carpet industry. In the previous years, 'Made in Kashmir' fairs, culture, crafts and handicrafts shows and exhibitions organized by Safeways Exhibitions in collaboration with the Impact International, a Germany-based company have also proven beneficial. Exporters are being motivated through government initiatives to showcase their talent. Other exhibitions include the Shanghai Handicrafts Fair and other fairs in China, a country which highly values tradition and culture passed through generations. Through such exhibitions, conferences, and ASEAN Buyer-Seller Meets in the past, handicrafts worth more than USD 1,000,000 are easily booked. Such platforms have served as a breeding ground for attracting handicraft exports and people with a keen interest in handmade items. In Kashmir on an average handicrafts worth Rs 2,100 crore are sold annually with 2.5 lakh artisans directly employed. The German awe for Kashmiri artisans goes back to the pre-electronic era - after the Second World War when German-made machines made of iron and steel, especially medical equipment, were common in the Valley. Kashmir was ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh in the 1940s. Impressed by the craftsmen who got a German tourist's equipment working again like no one else could have imagined, the Maharaja lovingly named them 'German Khars' (workers) owing to their expertise. Kashmiri artisans have exceptional magic in their hands. Although this craft has been preserved for decades, today only one blacksmith, Ghulam Mohiuddin, continues the work. With promising propositions from various parties Kashmir art exporters are expecting booming sales in 2022 after witnessing a sluggish market for the last few years. This season both production and conceptualisation of new designs is being undertaken which will aid the sales and earn international recognition. Participation of Kashmir art contributors will also be ensured at Asia's largest gifts and handicrafts fair held biannually and organised by Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH). Dubai's famed exhibition-cum-trade fair is another major focus area. Kashmir handicrafts and handlooms are a focal point in Jammu and Kashmir's Trade and Export Policy (2018-2028), which envisages it to grow almost five times in next five years. The policy provides an e-commerce platform for artisans to foster growth of the handicrafts sector. Just last year in November Union Minister of State, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, launched a pilot project to revive and promote the dying Namda craft in J&K, with impetus on raising the export from Rs. 600 crore to 6,000 crore. Two ambitious projects -- 'Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY) 3.0' and 'Upskilling of artisans and weavers of Kashmir under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), a component of PMKVY', were launched by the Union Minister of State for Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Electronics, and IT. These programs will focus continuously on skilling, upskilling, and reskilling local youth to solidify the foundation of PM Modi's vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat. --IANS dpb/ ( 1005 Words) 2022-01-24-15:12:02 (IANS)
The Indian telecom industry has been at the heart of the technology driven disruption over the last decade. With over 986 million active wireless subscribers, the industry has an opportunity to also drive transformation for businesses across industries. IANS spoke to Dr Sanjeev Chaube, EVP and Head, Big Data & Advanced Analytics at Vodafone Idea to get his insights on how Cloud has been at the core of their digital transformation and how they are leveraging intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics. Dr Chaube believes that there is a critical need for telecom service providers to transform from 'Telco to Techno' and technologies such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, IoT / IIoT / AIoT, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will enable this digital transformation. Excerpts from the interview below: Q: What are the key strategic pillars of digital transformation at Indian Telcos as you look to transform from a connectivity provider to an orchestrator of value-added solutions that meet the needs of digitally-savvy, connected customers? A: I believe businesses are fast turning to digital solutions to empower remote workforces, provide customers with better services, and create an immersive experience with increased visibility, resilience & agility. Moreover the need for eliminating traditional, hardware driven, and large expensive physical operations has been at the core of Digital Transformation worldwide across industries. We need to understand that any transformation starts with data. Hence, a company captures customer data efficiently and leverages it to make smarter decisions. Goal should be to streamline key customer touchpoints to increase spends & reduce efforts. The employees need to be well informed with relevant data, data driven decisioning culture, access to learning & development platforms empowering better organisational transformation. Businesses need to shift from IT departments to consolidated enterprise platforms that can absorb & integrate latest technologies instantly. Datasets, processes, web and apps should be shared across the company and the data needs to be integrated to provide a single source of truth by building appropriate Data Lake, Data Warehouses/Marts over Cloud for massive storage & processing capacities. There are wide range of technology stack for Data Engineering & Analytics such as Hadoop Ecosystem, AWS Cloud, HBase, Cassandra, MongoDB, Teradata, Exadata, Druid, Spark, Kafka, Python, SAS, SPSS etc. are available. Also effective digital transformation enablement requires mobile app development frameworks & technologies for cross-platform app development such as React Native, Ionic Framework, Node, Xamarin, NativeScript, and Flutter, etc. However, the choice of technology stack whether Open-Source or Proprietary depends primarily on the Value vs Cost proposition. Also, the need for scope, scale, speed, quality & ease form the basis for finalising the tech stack. Ensuring near Real-time Customer 360 view in form of Business Intelligence Reports and Dashboard for leadership and at different levels of management ensure better & contextual decision making. Therefore, in my opinion, the key pillars and ingredients for effective Intelligent Digital Transformation Program are a) Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning & Data Science for Data Driven Decision Making, b) Customer Relevance & Centricity Business Processes, c) Engage & Empower Employees aligned around customer, d) Digital First Strategy with leanest possible technology stack, e) Bring Speed, Scale, Simplicity & Values with Platform, f) Enhance Personalization and g) Single Source of Truth & Data Engineering Q: How are you using Big Data, Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Machine learning & Data Science to understand and cater to the needs of your customers better? A: Big Data and Advanced Analytics is extensively adopted to improve customers experiences and business performance. Artificial Intelligence & Data Science techniques especially Machine/Deep Learning algorithms are significantly improving some of the crucial areas/services including Customer Segmentation, Targeted marketing, Personalised offerings & recommendations, Churn Prediction, Product development, Predictive Analytics, Call Drop Analysis, reducing fraud, Price optimization, Network experience optimization, Location based services etc. Over the next five years, rise in mobile-phone penetration and decline in data costs will add 500 million new Internet users in India, creating opportunities for new businesses. Legacy data sets were all structured in nature, however over the last few years, with the explosion of data, unstructured data is gaining equal or more importance in the market. With the advent of 5G technology, the available data from voice, video, social media, messaging, IOT and all new 5G use case deployments are going to increase multifold from hereon. This Big Data generated by telco's has all the features like massive volume, variety, velocity & veracity. It therefore becomes very critical for us to first organise and systematically store the data emerging from multiple applications within Data Ocean, Datalake, Data Warehouse /Data Marts be it using Cloudera Hadoop Ecosystem or Cloud infrastructure. Secondly, this Big Data is then used to perform Data Analytics for decision making at different organisational levels from operations and strategy making perspective. All 5 stages of Data Science and Advanced Analytics lifecycle namely Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive, Prescriptive and Pre-Emptive Analytics are performed to extract information and patterns. Machine learning use cases have great potential & value such as assisting with Customer Acquisition, Retention, Digital Engagement, Anomaly Detection, Root Cause Analysis, Predictive Maintenance, Ticket Classification, SLA Assurance and building intelligent networks with features like Self-Healing, Dynamic Optimization & Automated Network Designs. However, in order to work effectively, they require specific computational, pipeline and support infrastructure as well to support massive data & their parallel processing. Predictive models whether Real-time or Batch processing basis business requirements leveraging structured data feeds such as demographic, usage, billing etc. or Unstructured data feeds like Chat, Text, Images, Video feeds are built to support business with insights beforehand. Social media analytics is performed using Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing (NLP) & Text parsing techniques etc. to extract sentiments of customers across the country for decision making. Different Deep Learning Architectures of Neural networks ranging from Convolutional Neural Network, Recurrent Neural Networks, Self-Organizing Maps, Auto encoders, etc. are used appropriately as per desired intent. Q: What did cloud technology allow you to do that you couldn't do before? A: Cloud is a key enabler of Large-Scale Transformation: be it benefitting Consumer Analytics, Digital Adoption, and Network Monitoring & Management and bringing efficiency in Operations by facilitating faster decisions at scale and speed. As on date, we are India's first Telco to build a full-fledged Big Data AI/ML Cloud Advanced Analytics Platform on AWS Cloud. Before embarking on our cloud journey, our data sets were collected in silos across the country. Then, they were aggregated to run the various machine learning & deep learning algorithms. Also, as the data sets were huge in volume, the available compute & GPU support for data consolidation in the legacy infrastructure was a challenge. All of these complexities added delays to our operations & hampered the productivity of the teams. With the new data science platform deployed over AWS, we are able to address all of these challenges & achieve much more. Using the compute & memory power available on cloud, we can consolidate data & effectively run our machine / deep learning algorithms & also do parallel data processing with ease. The time to run these algorithms have already reduced by over 60 per cent, and with further optimization, we expect our data science platform to deliver more in the near future. Additionally, availability of deep learning frameworks like Tensor flow, MXNet, Keras, Pytorch, Gluon, etc. along with pre-trained ML models as APIs help us experiment more with data sets, at scale & speed & eventually in turn improve our customer experience. This feature rich data science platform with its scalability, elasticity & pay-as-you-go commercial model helps consolidate operations & effectively manage costs. In the future, we'll be able to integrate & effectively use this platform to address our challenges across new technology initiatives including 5G, Edge, IoT monetization, customer 360, Network Function Virtualization transition & so on. Q: What are your views on the rapid worldwide progress in AIoT & IIoT Analytics for Connected Intelligence with Cloud Technologies? A: As per Fortune Business Insights, global IoT market size is projected to grow from USD 381.30 billion in 2021 to USD 1854.76 billion in 2028. While if we follow Researchandmarkets report, globally the AIoT market itself will reach $78.3 Billion by 2026. Also, the Global IIoT market which was valued at about $216.13 in 2020 and is expected to grow to about $1.1 trillion by 2028. The above data clearly sets the roadmap and vision for telecom as a connectivity service provider not only for India but telco's globally. The use of AI for decision making in IoT and data analytics will be crucial for efficient and effective smart city solutions in terms of decision making. This is in line with the Indian government's plan to develop 100 smart city projects including smart airports, smart railway stations, smart public healthcare services etc., where the 5G, AI, IoT & Cloud technologies will play a vital role in developing these cities & services. The convergence of AI and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and solutions (AIoT) is leading to "thinking" networks and systems. The AI-enabled edge device market will be the fastest-growing segment within the AIoT. AIoT automates data processing systems, converting raw IoT data into useful information. AIoT solutions are the precursor to next-generation AI Decision as a Service (AIDaaS). With AIoT, AI is embedded into infrastructure components, such as programs, chipsets and edge computing, all interconnected with IoT networks. APIs are then used to extend interoperability between components at the device level, software level and platform level. These units will focus primarily on optimising system and network operations as well as extracting value from data. These solutions will provide customer's ability to acquire leading wireless enabled AIoT products and reduce their time to market. The key areas of AIoT solutions include Data Services, Predictive Asset Management, Intelligent Immersive Experience, Process Improvement, Next-Gen UI & UX and Intelligent Industrial Automation. This Intelligent connectivity, Big Data & AI/ML technologies are expected to play a major role in key industrial areas such as Agricultural Productivity, Automotive, Transportation & logistics, Industrial & manufacturing operations, Healthcare, Public safety, and security. Leveraged with AWS IoT Cloud services to collect, organise and analyse data from industrial & publicly installed sensors & devices at scale and for near real-time decision making, AIoT enables industries to seamlessly manage and control actions across the edge and cloud. The key components for Artificial Intelligence + IoT (AIoT) Analytics consist of Sensors, IoT Gateway, Network, Storage & Analytics Engine for Data Analysis, Monitoring and Intelligent Automation for actions & notifications at the Edge. Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning algorithms are leverage both at Cloud & Edge over emerging data from IoT sensors such as Visual/Optical Sensors, Temperature Sensors, Pressure Sensors, Infrared Sensors, Gas, Gyroscope Sensors, Accelerometers, Humidity Sensors, Level Sensors etc. to derive descriptive & predictive insights for effective & real-time monitoring, notifications and action fulfilment. --IANS na/dpb ( 1785 Words) 2022-01-24-15:38:05 (IANS)
As per People Magazine, Mugler's daring designs have also been worn by celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Madonna, Cardi B, Cindy Crawford, George Michael, David Bowie, Nicole Kidman, Megan Fox, Katy Perry, Rihanna and more.

The French designer's team announced his passing on Sunday, sharing a black square to his personal Instagram profile with the tragic news, which was written in both English and French.

"We are devastated to announce the passing of Mr Manfred Thierry Mugler on Sunday January 23rd 2022. May his soul Rest In Peace," the caption read.

His cause of death was not readily available. The announcement was met with shock and grief in the comments section.

"So sad. Mr Mugler was a genius," wrote actor Jennifer Tilly.

"Nonononono," model Bella Hadid commented.

"OMG NOOOOO! I am devastated such horrible sad news:(((( my love RIP I live to never forget you!!" nightlife legend Susanne Bartsch wrote.

Born on December 21, 1948, in Strasbourg, France, Mugler began designing in the 1970s. He eventually became known for his dramatic, avant-garde designs.

He retired from fashion in 2002 before Clarins shuttered his ready-to-wear brand the next year, yet the iconic designer remained a staple in the world of fashion. The brand was relaunched in 2010 as Mugler, which is currently under the creative direction of designer Casey Cadwallader.

Mugler has come out of retirement on a few occasions, creating the costumes for Beyonce's 2009 'I Am...' World Tour. In 2019, he designed the dress Kim Kardashian wore to the Met Gala, inspired by Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin.

"He always, it's a full vision from, you know, hair to nails to everything," Kardashian told People Magazine of Mugler in 2019. "His runway shows were the most legendary and iconic runway shows ever." (ANI)
According to People Magazine, on Sunday, the couple attended the KENZO fashion show as part of Paris Men's Fashion Week in France.

They sported matching denim ensembles with black gloves. West accessorized his outfit with black boots, while Fox wore large gold jewellery and denim boots to complement her Schiaparelli attire.

The actress also rocked winged eyeliner and a dark smokey eye as she kept her brunette hair pulled back into a bun.

Sunday's show also marked Bape founder Nigo's official debut as KENZO's creative director after taking over for Felipe Oliveira Baptista.

A source previously told People Magazine that despite West's new relationship with Fox, "he's still telling people that he wants to have (Kim Kardashian) back and he is willing to make appropriate changes to do so." Kardashian filed for divorce last year.

Fox's outing with West on Sunday comes about shortly after the actress said she isn't bothered by the chatter surrounding their relationship on Friday's episode of her 'Forbidden Fruits' podcast.

While opening up about how she's evolved from being an "attention seeker" in her younger days, Fox appeared to address headlines over her connection to the Grammy-winning musician.

"It's funny cause I'm getting all of this attention, but I really couldn't care," she said. "People are like 'Oh, you're only in it for the fame, you're in it for the clout, you're in it for the money.' Honey, I've dated billionaires my entire adult life, let's keep it real."

Fox noted that she only cares about creating art and "putting things into the world."

"Watch my movie, read my book. That is more thrilling to me now than eyes on me. I couldn't care less," she claimed. (ANI)
To mark the special day, Varun took to his Instagram handle and shared three posts with lots of pictures from the wedding festivities.

In the first one, he posted pictures from the wedding ceremony in which they can be seen dressed in coordinated ivory-and-gold outfits.

The next post captured the fun and frolic from the Haldi ceremony.

In captions of both, he wrote, "1 love (heart emoticon)."

The third post captured beautiful moments from the dreamy Mehendi ceremony.

He penned the caption, "1 love (heart emoticon). To infinity and beyond - buzz lightyear."

Friends, fans and fellow film industry members poured in congratulatory messages.

"Congratulations," actor Tiger Shroff said.

"Happy anniversary guys...stay blessed," actor Maniesh Paul chimed in.

"Please don't delete this," a fan added.

The couple got hitched in a private affair that took place at The Mansion House, an exotic beach resort in Alibaug, Maharashtra.

Varun and Natasha have reportedly known each other since their school days. The two fell in love when they met at a music concert, years later. The duo had always kept their relationship low-key.

Varun publicly acknowledged that he is dating Natasha when he posted a photo featuring himself with his girlfriend on her birthday in 2019. (ANI)
According to Variety, the series will receive USD 11.5 million of subsidy from the Australian federal government. The move was announced on Monday by Paul Fletcher, Australia's federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts.

He said that the show will film again in Victoria state, but gave no specifics about the timings. NBC announced the show's renewal in November after seven episodes had aired.

The show's narrative involves a massive sinkhole that mysteriously opens in Los Angeles, transporting a disparate group of strangers to an unexplainable primeval world.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world desperately seeks to understand what happened. One family, torn apart by this disaster, has to unlock the secrets of the inexplicable event to find a way back to each other.

In addition to filming in Down Under, Universal Studio Group and its Australian production arm Matchbox Pictures committed to partnering with the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) on a training initiative dedicated to virtual production.

David Applebaum has created the series and also served as an executive producer of season one. Avi Nir, Alon Shtruzman, Peter Traugott, Rachel Kaplan, Steven Lilien, Bryan Wynbrandt, and Ken Woodruff also executive produced season one.

'La Brea' is produced by Universal Television in association with Keshet Studios.

As per Variety, season one starred Natalie Zea, Eoin Macken, Jack Martin, Zyra Gorecki, Jon Seda, Chike Okonkwo, Karina Logue, Veronica St. Clair, Rohan Mirchandaney, Nicholas Gonzalez, Lily Santiago, Chloe De Los Santos, and Josh McKenzie. (ANI)
Netflix's first Arabic original feature 'Perfect Strangers' has come under intense fire from conservatives across the Middle East within days of its launch on January 20. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the movie got criticized by an Egyptian politician and accused of, among other things, perversion, promoting homosexuality and infidelity and even being part of a plot to disrupt Arab society. However, at the same time, it has also received critical acclaim and been strongly defended by the artistic community and beyond. This remake is the latest in a long line of international remakes of the 2016 Italian hit 'Perfect Strangers' and starring Capernaum writer-director Nadine Labaki and Egyptian star Mona Zaki. It tells the story of a group of friends in Lebanon who one night play a game where they make all the calls and text messages on their phones available to one another, unveiling various secrets and scandals. While it was expected to become a major talking point and push boundaries, featuring a gay character and other storylines considered taboo and rarely discussed outright on screen in many Middle East countries, few would have anticipated the immediate wave of controversy it would provoke. On Twitter, the film sparked a barrage of homophobic messages, accused by some of encouraging homosexuality and "moral degradation," and "putting Western ideas in a conservative society." One user accused the film of being a "crime," adding that not only should it be banned but that everyone involved should face "prosecution." Recently, films such as 'Eternals' and 'West Side Story' have been blocked from cinemas across much of the Middle East due to their inclusion of LGBTQ issues, even if minor. As a film being streamed online on OTT, however, 'Perfect Strangers' didn't need to go through regional censors and was able to land on Netflix uncut. Much of the anger has originated in Egypt, particularly against Zaki, who in one scene of the film removes her undergarment, although there was no nudity at all. One Twitter user accused Zaki, a huge star in Egypt, of being part of an overseas agenda to force social change. Spilling outside of social media, Egyptian lawyer Ayman Mahfouz claimed that the film was a "plot to disrupt Arab society" and that Zaki was the "champion" of it all, reported The Hollywood Reporter. According to reports, Mahfouz, who in 2020 sued the transgender son of Egyptian actor Hesham Selim over an Instagram post he claimed was promoting homosexuality, is now preparing a lawsuit to remove 'Perfect Strangers' from Netflix. In Egypt, unlike countries in the Gulf, homosexuality isn't officially illegal, although it is regularly cracked down upon in society. But with the fiery backlash has come to a flood of support for the film, with many people praising both the storyline, for raising real-life topics often ignored, and the production itself, while also criticizing the attitudes of those attacking it. "Arabs losing their minds over a movie that shows cheating spouses, teenagers being teenagers, gay characters; makes me realize that we are not 1% close to discussing topics like civilized beings instead of enclosing ourselves in a hypocritical regressive bubble," said one user. Meanwhile, a hashtag from supporters that translates as #ImAlsoAPerfectStranger has emerged. Egypt's professional actors' union has issued a statement in solidarity with the cast of 'Perfect Strangers', particularly Mona Zaki, calling for the preservation of "creative freedom" and emphasizing the role of the arts in addressing issues in society. As per The Hollywood Reporter, for all the furore, in terms of numbers, 'Perfect Strangers' has been a huge success so far, topping Netflix's viewing charts in the region and helping underline the drive for more localized content. In France, it's currently the sixth most popular title on the platform. (ANI)
American actor and musician Evan Rachel Wood has accused Marilyn Manson of raping her on the set of the music video for his 2007 single 'Heart-Shaped Glasses'. According to Fox News, the claim was made in a new documentary titled 'Phoenix Rising' that focuses on her life and career. It premiered during the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. In it, the 34-year-old alleged that during a previously discussed "simulated sex scene," the rocker "started penetrating me for real," once the cameras were rolling. "I had never agreed to that," said Wood. As per the star, she was fed absinthe on the set of the video where she played a Lolita-styled character. Wood also said she was barely conscious to object to the 53-year-old's alleged actions. "[I had] never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day. It was complete chaos and I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me," said Wood. Wood said she didn't know how to advocate for herself or say no "because I had been conditioned and trained to never talk back, to just soldier through." She claimed the crew "was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do." Wood said the alleged incident made her feel "disgusted and like I had done something shameful." "I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses. That's when the first crime was committed against me and I was essentially raped on camera," she said. According to the outlet, Wood said her ex-fiance gave her "really clear" instructions on how she was supposed to describe the video to journalists. But Manson teased the press with the notion that there was truth to the music video's "realism." "I was supposed to tell people we had this great, romantic time and none of that was the truth. But I was scared to do anything that would upset Brian in any way. The video was just the beginning of the violence that would keep escalating over the course of the relationship," said Wood. Wood and Manson's relationship became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19. They were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up. In 2021, Wood publicly accused Manson of abuse, alleging she was "manipulated into submission" during their relationship. She previously spoke out about being abused in a relationship but didn't name the person until she detailed the allegations on Instagram. "The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years," Wood said. "I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives," the post shared. She concluded, "I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent." Wood is among several women, including 'Game of Thrones' actor Esme Bianco, who has accused Manson of sexual and physical violence involving torture. Manson has denied Wood's allegations as "horrible distortions of reality." He responded to Wood's allegations with his own Instagram post the same day as hers. "My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how -- and why -- others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth," his post said. As per Fox News, Manson's label, Loma Vista Recordings, said in a statement that after the "disturbing allegations," it will "cease to further promote his current album" and has "also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects." (ANI)
The Maharashtra Congress on Monday urged Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to ban the film "Why I Killed Gandhi", set to release on various OTT platforms on January 30, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. Similarly, the All India Cine Workers Association (AICWA) has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding a total ban on the film, which 'seeks to glorify Gandhiji's assassin Nathuram Godse, and its exhibition would shock the people'. The film features Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Amol Kolhe in the role of Godse, sparking friction among the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi allies Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress since the past few days. Shooting off a letter to CM Thackeray, state Congress President Nana Patole said Mahatma Gandhi's ideology of truth, peace and non-violence is respected all over the world and his death anniversary is observed globally as the day symbolising his teachings. "If the film 'Why I Killed Gandhi' is allowed to be released on the day of Gandhiji's assassination, it would give strength to the fascist forces. Hence, we request you to kindly order a ban on the movie," Patole said. The AICWA sought a complete ban on the film's release as it seeks to "glorifies Godse, a traitor and killer of the Father of the Nation". As the film ignited a massive controversy in state political circles last week, Kolhe said that he had acted in the film way back in 2017, and he had also informed the NCP leadership before leaving the Sena to join it. Though the Congress has strongly opposed the film, the Shiv Sena has adopted a neutral stance, while the NCP feels it should be viewed creatively as a freedom of expression. The opposition BJP has said that there is nothing wrong if Kolhe plays the role of Godse. --IANS qn/arm ( 316 Words) 2022-01-24-20:12:04 (IANS)
Covid's Omicron variant is now in community transmission stage in India, the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) said in its latest bulletin on Sunday, noting become dominant in multiple metros, where new cases have been rising exponentially. The centre's genome sequencing body has also said that an infectious sub-variant of Omicron BA.2 lineage has been reported in a considerable fraction in India. Talking to IANS, Dr Niraj Nischal, Additional Professor of Medicine, AIIMS, said: "Omicron is more infectious compared to Delta variant, but it has a survival advantage as it is not causing severe illness among masses as delta did. The variant has more transmissibility but without leading to serious problems for majority of individuals. "In due course, the variants are replaced always like Delta replaced the earlier variant and the Delta is expected to be replaced by Omicron." However, he also added that it doesn't create any differences for masses as the treatment protocol remains the same. He said that genome sequencing is done only for public health management perspective to monitor for emergence of new dangerous variants as the treatment protocol is same for all variants so far. The INSACOG has said that while most Omicron cases so far have been asymptomatic or mild, hospitalisations and ICU cases have been increasing in the current wave, and the threat level remains unchanged. "The recently reported B.1.640.2 lineage is being monitored. There is no evidence of rapid spread and while it has features of immune escape, it is currently not a variant of concern. So far, no case detected in India", the bulletin said. Dr Anshuman Kumar, a Delhi-based cancer specialist, said: "Declaring the community transmission helps in strategy making to curb the infections. Community transmission is defined as the index virus infection is detected majorly in the individuals who don't have any travel history or any contact with the infected persons." However, terming the Omicron community transmission declaration as illogical, Dr Kumar told IANS that there is no point to declare Omicron community transmission at this stage of time when the variant has already replaced the Delta variant in the country by over 80 per cent. He said that if such declarations are made beforehand, the government gets time to make strategy and extensive planning to curb the rising infection, said Dr Kumar. "Consider all cases Omicron now unless it is proved otherwise. If patient has lung symptoms or reducing oxygen levels, then it should be sent for genome sequencing to check whether it is Delta varaint because Omicron infection is common now," he said. Dr Abhishek Shankar, Associate Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, AIIMS Patna, said: "Omicron has already achieved peak in many of the states in India and they are on the path of recovery. India being a large country has always witnessed variation in the Covid statistics in different states. We have already seen the different timing of peak of 1st and 2nd wave in different states and 3rd wave is not an exception." He added that unlike Delta wave, we are not expecting the fourth stage of pandemic for Omicron in view of affecting upper respiratory tract only. "Prevention with vaccination and maintaining hand and respiratory hygiene will be our best stand to fight Covid," he said. (Avinash Prabhakar can be reached at Avinash.p@ians.in) --IANS avr/vd ( 567 Words) 2022-01-23-21:58:03 (IANS)
New Zealand recorded 24 new community cases of Covid-19, said the Ministry of Health in a statement. Among the 24 new community infections on Sunday, 16 are in the largest city Auckland, five in the Lakes region, two in Northland and one in Waikato. In addition, the country recorded 47 new imported cases of Covid-19 at the border, the Ministry added. Nine Covid-19 cases reported on Saturday in the Nelson/Tasman region have been confirmed as with the Omicron variant. A further case from the same household involved was confirmed late Saturday. These cases were in a single-family who flew to Auckland earlier in January attending several big events. This cluster has already led to an additional infection of a fully vaccinated Air New Zealand flight attendant, said the Ministry. Ashley Bloomfield, Director-General of Health from the Ministry of Health, said that the risk of transmission by the confirmed Omicron cases is considered high. The source of the infection is not known yet. New Zealand will move to Red Light settings from 11:59 p.m. Sunday, announced Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern earlier on Sunday, in an effort to prevent the Omicron infections from spreading quickly in the community, Xinhua news agency reported. According to the Red Light settings under the Covid-19 Protection Framework, gatherings will be limited to 100 people in places where Covid-19 vaccine passports are used. Face covering will be mandatory in many indoor spaces such as public transport, public venues and retail shops. There are currently eight Covid-19 patients being treated in New Zealand hospitals, with none in the intensive care unit. The country has recorded 15,175 cases of Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, including 11,490 cases from the latest Delta variant outbreak in the community. Ardern urged the public to take a booster dose of the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as possible and to get tested if they have any symptoms of infection. Ninety-three per cent of the eligible people in New Zealand are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19. --IANS int/khz/ ( 351 Words) 2022-01-24-02:00:02 (IANS)
A source said that Mandaviya will interact with the health ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh.

This meeting will discuss the prevailing Covid situation and public health preparedness for containment and management of the pandemic in these states, he said.

Earlier on January 10, Mandaviya had held a meeting with the health ministers and senior officials of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa, Dadra & Nagra Haveli and Daman & Diu.

Mandaviya had told these states to utilise efficiently the fund provided under ECRP-II for strengthening the health infrastructure across the country, and urged the states to make robust preparations in terms of physical infrastructure.

Meanwhile, India on Monday reported a substantial decline in new Covid cases at 3,06,064. With the addition of 439 deaths in the last 24 hours, the country's overall Covid death toll has mounted to 4,89,848.

India's vaccination coverage has crossed 162.77 crore with over 49 lakh doses being administered till 7 pm on Monday. More than 87 lakh precautionary doses have been administered to the identified categories of beneficiaries so far.

--IANS avr/arm

( 233 Words)

2022-01-24-20:56:03 (IANS)
In a major step towards streamlining the brewing agitation within its West Bengal unit, the BJP has issued showcause notices to two senior leaders, asking them to explain why action should not be taken against them for "indiscipline". The letter, signed by Office Secretary Pranmoy Roy and approved by state BJP President Sukanta Majumdar, read that the two long-time leaders - Joy Prakash Majumdar and Ritesh Tiwari were giving "anti-party statements" for the last few days which is considered to be a serious breach of discipline. The two leaders were asked to give reason, within 15 days, why action will not be taken against them. Sources in the party indicated that the state unit is going to take strong action against them and if they fail to give satisfactory answers, they might even be expelled. The letter comes few days after Union Minister of State for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Shantanu Thakur had a meeting with the disgruntled BJP leaders of the state, including MLAs Subrata Tahkur and Ashoke Kirtaniya, and Sayantan Basu who has recently lost the post of state General sScretary. The meeting was also attended by Joy Prakash Majumdar - one of the prominent faces in Bengal BJP who has been demoted to a spokesperson from the party's state unit Vice-President. Apart from that, Tiwari, Tushar Mukhopadhyay and Debashis Mitra also joined the meeting. Just after the meeting, BJP state General Secretary, Organisation, Amitava Chakraborty had filed a complaint with the central leadership against 10 rebel leaders for indulging in anti-party activities and also breaking the basic protocol and discipline of the party. Sources in the party had said that the central leadership also assured the state unit that the matter will be taken up with all seriousness. Not only the meeting but recently the city roads were flooded with posters and hoardings against Chakraborty, which was allegedly masterminded by the rebel party leaders. Chakrabarty has mailed the pictures of such hoardings and posters to the party high command. Asked about the letter, Tiwari said, "I am not in the party on someone's mercy. I have been doing the party when I was just 18 and after 32 years, I am not supposed to justify my dedication towards the party. I shall definitely give my response." Interestingly enough though two leaders were given showcause notices, but there are several leaders - some very prominent faces in Bengal BJP who were not touched, such as Shantanu Thakur. "I cannot say whom the party will send a showcause notice. I shall hold a meeting with anyone who comes to me. I shall speak with the agitated leaders of the state. Will the party expel all of them? Is it possible?" Thakur said on the showcause issue of Majumdar and Tiwari from an event in Gobardanga in North 24 Parganas where he was present with all the leaders who are close to him. --IANS sbg/vd ( 494 Words) 2022-01-23-21:40:01 (IANS)
One person who allegedly molested a female PhD student of the Jawaharlal Nehru University on campus six days back was arrested by the Delhi Police on Sunday, a senior police official said. "The accused, identified as Akshay Daulai, 27, a resident of 24 Parganas, West Bengal has been arrested," Deputy Commissioner of Police, Southwest, Gaurav Sharma told IANS. The accused was presently residing in a rented accommodation at Munirka area, adjoining the campus, and was working in a mobile repair shop at Bhikaji Cama place. The molestation incident took place on Monday at around 11.45 p.m. when the research scholar was walking inside the campus. She raised an alarm and shouted for help, but the accused fled from the spot by his motorcycle. Subsequently, a case under sections 354A (Sexual harassment and punishment for sexual harassment), 354B (Assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (Punishment for wrongful restraint), 379 (punishment for theft) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at the Vasant Kunj North police station and investigation was launched. The DCP further said on the day of the incident, before coming to the JNU campus, the accused drank alcohol with his shop owner because he had a fight with his wife. "Going to the JNU campus was a casual routine for him as he had been doing the job of ticket reservation from 2011-2015. During those years, he used to daily go to the ticketing counter in the campus because of which he was well aware of every street and road inside the university," he said. On Monday, when the accused reached the campus, he saw the student and followed her. "As the girl reached the east gate road of the university, the accused approached her and tried to molest her," the DCP said, adding that when the girl resisted and threatened to call the police, the accused fled the spot with her mobile phone. As the police began their investigation into the case, DCP Sharma said they faced several challenges. "The first challenge was that there was no entry of the motorcycle registered in the register book at the University gate and secondly when we examined the CCTV cameras, their quality was very poor so the culprit and his motorcycle could not be identified," he said. The police then examined nearly 1,000 CCTV cameras to check the route of the accused and finally traced him to Munirka from where he was apprehended. "We have recovered the mobile phone which was stolen by him and also the clothes he was wearing on the day of the incident," the official added. --IANS uj/vd ( 458 Words) 2022-01-23-22:20:03 (IANS)
The scuffle between West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress and BJP over garlanding the statue of Netaji SubhashChandra Bose on his 125th birth anniversary on Sunday at Bhatpara in North 24 Parganas snowballed into a political controversy with both parties levelling charges at each other. Trinamool legislator from the district's Naihati Assembly constituency, Partha Bhowmick, alleged that security personnel of BJP's local Barrackapore Lok Sabha MP Arjun Singh fired seven rounds while the latter accused ruling party workers of opening fire, hurling bombs and vandalising his car. "Does the Trinamool hold exclusive rights to honouring Netaji? I was targeted. My security personnel were attacked with guns and bombs. My car was damaged. What can the Police Commissioner do? He is helpless. It is the job of the local police to track my movements and provide security cover but it is never done," said Singh. "A bullet narrowly missed one of the Central Industrial Security Force personnel accompanying Singh. We demand a probe by the Centre. Singh enjoys 'Z' category security cover," said state party chief Sukanta Majumdar who immediately rushed to the spot. Trinamool MP Sougata Roy said: "Bhatpara is a disturbed area and everybody knows that. It is disturbed because of Arjun Singh and one should not have any doubt who is behind it. It is definite that the Trinamool was not behind but it would have been better if the thing didn't happen on the birth anniversary of Netaji." Congress lader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said: "The warring political parties should have been careful about the image of West Bengal. They have tainted the image of the state. This is not acceptable." "I cannot believe that two political parties are fighting with each other on the issue of who would garland the statue first. Nothing can be more ridiculous than that. What precedent are they setting? They have humiliated the people of the state," CPI-M leader Sujan Chakraborty said. The scuffle between Trinamool and BJP workers over garlanding a statue marred the celebration of the freedom fighter's 125th birth anniversary. The programme was organised by the Trinamool-controlled Bhatpara municipality, and Singh alleged that he was stopped from garlanding the statue and subsequently attacked. "The fiasco started after a minor scuffle between two men. Only one man was injured. It has been alleged that shots were fired but no cartridge case was found from the spot. We are looking into this. The Member of Parliament went to the celebration without informing the administration, which is mandatory according to protocol. Policemen deployed at the spot said there was no violence or bombing," a senior district police officer said. --IANS sbg/vd ( 455 Words) 2022-01-23-23:00:03 (IANS)
The Customs Department said it has arrested one Ugandan national who was trying to smuggle in drugs by swallowing them.

Heroin capsules valued at Rs 7 crore were recovered from his abdomen following an operation at the RML Hospital.

The official said that the individual was apprehended on January 16.

"Subsequently, on thorough checking of his baggage, 53 capsules of off-white coloured substances in his black coloured hand bag were recovered. The passenger admitted that he had also swallowed some capsules of narcotic substance," said the Customs official.

The official said that a total of 91 capsules were recovered from him.

The Customs Department said that another Ugandan national -- a woman, was arrested on January 19 for smuggling narcotic substance valued at Rs 9 crore.

Her belongings were thoroughly checked by the customs official. Some material was also found to be concealed in her undergarments.

"On detailed examination, it yielded a total of 1,293 grams of off-white powdery substance suspected to be heroin. On being subjected to diagnostic test, prima facie, it appears to contain commercial quantity of heroin having international value of Rs 9 crore," said the custom official.

Further investigation into the matter is underway.

--IANS atk/pgh

( 233 Words)

2022-01-23-23:08:03 (IANS)
The BJP issued the notices to Joy Prakash Majumdar and Ritesh Tiwari.

Ritesh Tiwari, one of the two leaders, said that the way the party has been functioning for the last nearly eight months" is not good".

Speaking to ANI, Ritesh Tiwari said, "I have received a show-cause where it's written what I have said against party members in the public domain is anti-party."

"Media receives a letter before I do, but I will not answer to media; will talk to the party. The way WB BJP has been running for the last 7-8 months is not good," he added. (ANI)
Bharatiya Janata Party, in this election season during the third wave of COVID-19 in the country, is fully prepared to reach out to a large number of voters in Uttar Pradesh virtually through social media, said state social media head Ankit Chandel. Notably, the Election Commission of India has imposed restrictions on holding physical rallies due to the ongoing third wave of COVID-19. However, the parties have been allowed to hold virtual rallies and door-to-door campaigns in the poll-bound states. Speaking to ANI, Chandel said, "We are preparing for the virtual rallies that are supposed to take place. Planning for the same is underway. The virtual rallies will begin at the end of this month." The social media head informed that the training for the same had begun during the second wave in the country itself in 2021. "The training for the virtual rallies was given during the second wave of COVID-19. We had conducted three big rallies in which national president JP Nadda, Narendra Singh Tomar and Smriti Irani had addressed. Lakhs of people had joined the rally virtually," he said. Talking about the campaigns held by the BJP to reach out to the voters in Uttar Pradesh, Chandel said that the party is taking to social media platforms to apprise the people of the progress of work promised by the party in the 2017 Assembly elections. "A new campaign has been started "Jo Kaha Wo Kiya" (Did what we said). We take a subject in a day that we had promised in the 2017 Assembly elections, we apprise people of progress of work on the social media platforms. One leader does a live session on the related subject in the evening. Similarly, we had launched a campaign in November last year, "Fark Saaf hai" (Difference is clear)," he told ANI. Chandel further said that the campaign will run till the release of the party manifesto ahead of the election, after which a new campaign will be launched. "We have started this campaign in mid-January. We will run this campaign till the release of our manifesto of the election. After the declaration of our manifesto, we will start a new campaign in which we will tell people about the work done in the past and the work we intend to do in the future from here on," he said. The BJP leader said that the party manifesto was expected to be released by the end of January or by the first week of February. "The manifesto is expected to be released by the end of January or in the first week of February as the elections are very close," he told ANI. Chandel revealed the narrative of the campaign and said that the party's narrative for the campaign will be "Soch Imaandar, Kaam Asardaar, UP Phir Maange BJP Sarkar" (Honest intentions, effective work, UP again asks for BJP government). "'Fark Saaf Hai' was an impactful campaign. Samajwadi Party too has started this campaign. It is our success that they have also started this campaign," he added. Chandel further informed that the songs released for the party in this election are composed by party MPs Manoj Tiwari and Ravi Kishan. "Songs on the UP elections are being released. Every week, there would be a release of nearly three songs. Some of them will be in the local language. Our songs are being composed by our own leaders like Manoj Tiwari and Ravi Kishan," he said. Elections to the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
A middle-aged couple from Shillong on Sunday started their 'indefinite hunger strike till death' in protest against the alleged atrocities committed against the people belonging to non-tribal communities in Meghalaya. However, they ended their stir before evening as the authorities allowed them to hold the protest for six hours. The Bengali couple -- Sushit Kanti Choudhury and Kalpana Choudhury -- began their silent protest at Khyndai Lad, near old Meghalaya assembly gate in Shillong, alleging over 40 years of atrocities against non-tribal people in the mountainous state and the government not taking appropriate actions against the culprits. Their hunger strike coincides with the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. The Choudhury couple in their letter to East Khasi Hills District Deputy Commissioner Isawanda Laloo claimed that not a single murderer, attackers, looters, gang of money extortionists and several other criminals have not been properly booked or punished as per the law of the land. "We being the peace loving citizens of India are ill treated in Meghalaya as third grade Indians. We have our democratic rights to protest in a noble silent method against such atrocities and crimes committed for more than 40 years," Choudhury told the media. He said: "Until the Meghalaya government protects our fundamental rights and punishes those accused, we shall not end our fasting." Choudhury said that the non-tribal communities including Bengalis in Meghalaya have been facing atrocities since 1979 by the miscreants. The couple had earlier sought permission from the Deputy Commissioner to undertake the indefinite hunger but the district administration allowed the couple to hold the protest only for six hours and imposed certain restrictions, including not allowing a gathering of more than 10 people at the venue. Members of other non-tribal communities took part in the sit-in to express their "fear and uncertainty" of their lives in the northeastern state. Referring to the January 20 broad daylight attack, Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangha leader Homnath Gautam said "such an assault is meant to create an atmosphere of fear in the minority communities of the state since 1979". On January 20, unidentified miscreants criminally assaulted eight non-tribal people near a police station in the Lumdiengjri locality. Three of the injured persons, including two Muslims had to be admitted to the hospital. Members from the indigenous Khasi and other local tribal communities also expressed their solidarity with the agitating couple. "Despite sporadic violent incidents, police have not arrested the offenders. A civil society cannot support hatred among people of different communities," rights activist Agnes Kharshiing said. Congress MLA, Mohendro Rapsang condemned the recent attack and asked Home Minister Lakhmen Rymbui to take stern action against the culprits. The Home Minister was not available for his comment. --IANS sc/pgh ( 463 Words) 2022-01-24-00:06:02 (IANS)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for unveiling the hologram statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at the India Gate in the national capital. Noting that Sunday was Netaji's 125th birthday, Shah said that Modi in 2021 announced celebrating Netaji's birthday as 'Parakram Diwas' (Day of Valour) and also took a historic decision that the Republic Day will be started from January 23 instead of January 24. Referring to the decision taken by the Prime Minister to install a grand statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at India Gate, the Union Home Minister added that this was a part of the celebration of Netaji's 125th birthday. "Netaji's statue will inspire the coming generations for valour, patriotism and sacrifice for many years and it will be an expression of feeling for Netaji in the minds of crores of people of the country. His journey from Kolkata to Berlin through Japan was a great effort to liberate India and this statue will symbolise that emotion," Shah said. Today, crores of people of the country will be having peace of mind that the contribution of Netaji in the freedom struggle has been respected by the country after so many years and this statue will remain as its symbol, the Union Home Minister added. "The slogan of 'Chalo Dilli' still provides consciousness and energy to the youth even today, the stories of Netaji's struggle for independence still connect the youth to reconstruct India and many youth will move ahead with the inspiration from his personality in the days to come," he said. Without naming the previous government, Shah added that efforts were made to forget the names of those who showed great valour and contributed to the freedom struggle of the country. "Today, during the 'Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav', the decision taken to install a statue of Netaji, the whole country is feeling satisfied and excited." The Prime Minister has taken another major decision to start an award in the name of Netaji in the country, and all the people working in the field of disaster management, the awards associated with the name of Subhash Chandra Bose will always motivate them to work during disaster, Shah said. --IANS ams/khz/ ( 387 Words) 2022-01-24-00:26:04 (IANS)
Manipur is among the five states slated to go to the polls next month.

"Released the Manifesto for the Manipur Elections 2022 along with Dy. CM Manipur, Sh. Joykumar Singh, State Working President, Sh. Jayantakumar Singh and Arunachal State President, Sh. Mutchu Mithi," tweeted Sangma.

Earlier on Sunday, Chief Minister N Biren Singh claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party would form the government in Manipur with more than a two-third majority and added that the central leadership of BJP will take the call on the party's chief minister's face for the state Assembly elections.

Speaking to ANI, Biren Singh that the BJP will contest all 60 Assembly seats.

"Ticket finalisation is with the central leadership. BJP will contest on all 60 seats. Earlier we got 21 seats, this time we will get double of it. We are working hard for the two-thirds majority", stated Biren Singh.

Polling in Manipur will be held in two phases on February 27 and March 3 and the votes will be counted on March 10.

The tenure of the Manipur Legislative Assembly, which consists of 60 members, is scheduled to end on March 19, 2022.

After the 2017 Assembly polls, a coalition of BJP, National People's Party (NPP), Naga People's Front and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) formed the government under the leadership of N Biren Singh. (ANI)
A woman was allegedly beaten up by the police at Chittoor 1 Town police station in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. In a video shared by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) on Twitter, victim M. Umamaheswari of Lakshmi Nagar Colony at Chittoor 1 Town police station limits claimed that she was harassed by the police officials at the police station, pressurising her to accept a theft allegation that was falsely levelled against her by her owner. She said that she was working as a maid at the residence of Venugopal Reddy, Superintendent of District Prisons of Chittoor. Umamaheswari said there was a clash between Venugopal Reddy and his wife regarding some missing money when she visited their house as part of daily work. At that time, the couple asked her about the missing money. Reacting to that, she replied that she was unaware of the money. Later, Venugopal Reddy lodged a complaint against Umamaheswari, at the police station alleging that she was the thief. She was taken into custody after the cash of Rs 2 lakh was found missing from the officers' house. Based on the complaint, the police interrogated both Umamaheswari and her husband. Umamaheswari has claimed that the police insisted them to accept the allegations and return the money. In the same video, Umamaheswari said, "The Police harassed me. Used filthy language against me. They tortured me in a dark room at the police station. Police did not allow me to return to home till late nights". Reacting to it in conversation with ANI over the phone, Srinivasa Rao, Sub Inspector of Police, Chittoor 1 Town refused all the allegations and said that there was "no truth" in her statements. The police officials shared a press release in the name of Deputy Superintendent of Police, Chittoor, refusing the allegations. The police informed, "Venugopal Reddy lodged a complaint against Umamaheswari suspecting her involvement in the theft of Rs 2 lakh, at his house. Based on the complaint, police investigation started. By sending a formal notice to her, the police invited to Station and inquired. She accepted that she took the money. On her acceptance, the police questioned where was that money put. She revealed that, the money was with her husband Deena. She added that if the police would allow, then she would go to her husband and bring back the money. But, the police neither harassed, nor tortured, nor used abusive words against her as she alleged. Since she was asked to return the money, she started alleging on police". Meanwhile, the TDP condemned the incident calling it "barbaric" and "brutal". (ANI)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has used Hindutva for power and asserted that it will not leave Hindutva. Addressing the Shiv Sainiks virtually on the 96th birth anniversary of the party founder Bal Thackeray, Uddhav also said that the party will try to expand its footprint outside the state and aim for a national role. Thackeray said that the Shiv Sena has left the BJP but it will not leave Hindutva. "We are the ones who supported them (BJP). We had an alliance for 25 years. BJP used Hindutva for power. We left BJP but will not leave Hindutva. BJP is not Hindutva. Tactics were used against us when we challenged them," he said. "(Union Home Minister) Amit Shah said fight alone; we are ready to fight alone," he added. The Maharashtra Chief Minister also said that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has shrunk as its old constituents like Akali Dal and Shiv Sena walked out. As the Shiv Sena is now testing waters in other states too, the Maharashtra Chief Minister asked the party workers to not be overwhelmed by defeat. "Even if we lose, don't be overwhelmed. We will win someday," he said. Talking of the recent Nagar Panchayat elections where Shiv Sena secured just the fourth position, Uddhav said that the party did not contest all seats. "Even though we are at number four today, more Nagar Panchayat seats were elected today than those we fought and even won in the alliance (with BJP). We must take this election seriously," he said. (ANI)
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday held "fruitful" discussions with Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on issues of "mutual interest". "Held a fruitful discussion with CM of Nagaland @Neiphiu_Rio ji on issues of mutual interest, people's welfare in both States and strengthening our friendship in presence of Nagaland's Dy CM Y Patton and ex-CM TR Zeliang. I appreciate Rio ji's warmth during the meeting," Sarma tweeted. In July last year, a meeting was held between the Chief Secretary of Nagaland and Chief Secretary of Assam in Dimapur, Nagaland with a view to de-escalating the tense situation prevailing in two locations in the Dessoi Valley Reserved Forest / Tsurangkong valley due to stand off between the armed police forces of Nagaland and Assam. It was decided by both sides that the security personnel of both states shall simultaneously move back from the site of the standoff to their respective base camps. "Nagaland and Assam shall monitor the area by surveillance using UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) and satellite imagery with a view to maintaining the status quo. The Superintendents of Police of the districts of Mokokchung (Nagaland) and Jorhat (Assam) shall ensure an orderly withdrawal of their respective forces and shall be responsible for it in the instant case," read the statement. This meet by Chief Secretaries surfaced after the border dispute between the two states peaked and a fierce gun battle between the forces of the two states resulted in the death of five Assam police personnel and one civilian. One injured policeman succumbed to his injuries later taking the total number of policemen killed to six. At least 50 people were injured in the incident. (ANI)
The Special DGP had reviewed the ongoing anti-poaching operation on Saturday and had visited the recent rhino poaching site yesterday.

Recently, a carcass of an adult female rhino was detected inside the national park. It is being suspected to have been killed by poachers as its horn was missing. (ANI)
Former Punjab chief minister and Shiromani Akali Dal Party patron Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday slammed Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal for not signing release papers of 1993 Delhi bomb blast convict Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who has completed his jail term and said that the matter should not be kept pending. In a video from his hospital bed where he has been admitted after testing positive for COVID, Badal said, "Both Centre and judiciary approved the release of Davinder Pal Singh Bhullar, who has completed his jail term, but due to some unknown reasons, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal is not signing release papers." Urging Kejriwal to look into the matter personally, the former CM said, "This matter should not be kept pending, as it is not in the interest of the state and country. It is an emotional issue, and I request Delhi CM Kejriwal to personally look into it." Several Sikh bodies, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, have blamed the Delhi government for the delay in Bhullar's release. Bhullar is undergoing life imprisonment after the Supreme Court commuted his death sentence. (ANI)
Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Monday slammed Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav saying that no voter will fall for the latter's 'alluring bluff' as the people of the state have got used to 'good governance'. Maurya charged Yadav for spreading riots, hooliganism, exodus in the state. In a tweet in Hindi today, the BJP leader said, "Akhilesh Yadav ji, the people have not forgotten the pain of riots, hooliganism, exodus during your government. Your tenure has not been forgotten even today that was responsible for corruption, religious and caste conflicts. As of now, the public has got used to good governance. Now no one will fall for your alluring bluff." On January 20, Maurya said to the reporters, "He (Akhilesh Yadav) speaks about development. I dare him to contest from any constituency where he has contributed towards development. We have heard that he would be contesting from the Mainpuri's Karhal seat. He didn't even have the guts to fight from an important constituency." Maurya added that BJP would give him a tough fight. "Akhilesh ji will forget to ride a bicycle after that", stated the deputy CM of Uttar Pradesh. Elections to the 403 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
Students were welcomed by teachers at Sadhana Vidyalaya High School, Sion area with enthusiasm.

Principal of the school, Swaroop Sawant told ANI, "We have welcomed students in our school today. We are strictly following the COVID-19 protocols. Social distancing is being maintained and the hands of students are being sanitised."

"Classes via virtual mode will also continue," the principal said.

Meanwhile, Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Aditya Thackeray has said that parents are free to make their own decisions in this regard and should send their children to school.

Thackeray on Sunday told reporters, "Even though we are re-opening schools from tomorrow, it is not compulsory for students to come to school. Parents are free to make their own decisions in this regard and should send their children to school only if they feel it is safe."

The schools in Mumbai have been closed since January 4.

Maharashtra on Sunday reported 40,805 new COVID-19 cases thereby taking the total tally of infections to 75,07,225. As many as 44 fatalities from this virus were logged in the last 24 hours, the state health department said. Of the fresh cases in the state, Mumbai logged 2,550 new COVID-19 cases. On January 16, Mumbai reported 7,895 new cases. (ANI)
BJP leader Ram Kadam on Monday said that Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray should introspect whether Bal Thackeray's ideology is being followed by Shiv Sena before lecturing the Bharatiya Janata Party on Hindutva. Reacting to Uddhav Thackeray's statement that the BJP has used Hindutva for power, Kadam said, "Before lecturing on Hindutva, Uddhav Thackeray should introspect whether Shiv Sena is following late Bal Thackeray's ideology, who had said that in politics and life his party will never join Congress, and if such circumstances arise, he would prefer locking the party (office)." Uddhav Thackeray had earlier also said that the BJP is not Hindutva. "We are the ones who supported them (BJP). We had an alliance for 25 years. BJP used Hindutva for power. We left BJP but will not leave Hindutva. BJP is not Hindutva. Tactics were used against us when we challenged them," he had said. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi's schemes appealing to people to adopt daughters as a symbol of pride, after taking charge as head of the country, which resulted in a "mass campaign" and also "revolutionized the sex ratio". The Home Minister's remarks came as the country observed National Girl Child Day today. Taking to Twitter, Shah said: "Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed people to adopt daughters as a symbol of pride and self-respect across the country through various schemes like 'Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' after becoming PM. As a result of his efforts, the move turned into a mass campaign and revolutionized the sex ratio." The Central government had launched the 'Beti Bachao-Beti Padhao' scheme on January 22, 2015, to address major issues related to female empowerment in the country. The Central government's move had impacted sex ratio and the latest round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS 2019-21) reports that India has 1,020 females per 1,000 males. NFHS 2019-2021 indicates that India has made significant strides in the last five years - in 2015-16, the sex ratio was just 991In a series of tweets, the Home Minister said "Prime minister Narendra Modiji changed the thinking of women's development into the resolve of women-led development and opened the doors of opportunities". "Today the daughters of the country are illuminating the name of India in every field. On 'National Girl Child Day', I convey my best wishes to every daughter of India, the pride of the country," the Home Minister said. A number of Union Ministers and leaders also wished the country on National Girl Child Day, which is being celebrated on January 24 every year. Besides, Shah, Smriti Irani, Nitin Gadkari, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Hardeep Puri posted their wishes on Twitter. The Centre, in 2008, declared January 24 to be celebrated as the National Girl Child Day every year with the objective of raising the consciousness of the society towards the girl child so that she can be valued and respected. This day is celebrated to make the girl child of the country aware of their rights. The event is also celebrated to raise awareness among people regarding inequalities, discrimination, exploitation faced by the girls in society. It is celebrated with various programs including awareness campaigns to create a healthy and safe environment for a girl child. (ANI)
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday hit out at Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav for indulging in appeasement politics saying that SP had built Haj house in Ghaziabad whereas the BJP government has constructed Kailash Mansarovar Bhawan for devotees. "Earlier, here a Haj house was made by flouting norms. Today, not Haj house, but Kailash Mansarovar Bhawan is also made. That's why I tell you that the difference is clear," Adityanath said here. Yogi further added, "They (SP) played with religious beliefs and Kanwar yatra was being stopped." He stated that the BJP-led UP government regularised the Kanwar Yatra. The Chief Minister questioned the Samajwadi Party's candidates list and ticket distribution for the upcoming assembly polls saying that SP has given tickets to rioters of Muzaffarnagar. "If you see the first list of SP candidates, it will be clear what they are thinking. They have given tickets to the rioters of Muzaffarnagar, those who had migrated to Kairana. Those people who are giving tickets to the rioters are again trying to throw the state in the pit of riots. We do not compromise on nationalism." Adityanath stated that the BJP government in UP has given out a new model of nationalism and development. "We did what we promised", he said. He further claimed that SP believes in destruction while BJP's beliefs are in development and uniting everyone. "When a person in SP regime got a government job, the uncle-nephew would start asking for bribes," said the CM. "His (Akhilesh Yadav) casteist thinking was limited to the family, his development was also limited to the family but we (BJP) worked for Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas without any discrimination", claimed Yogi Aditynath. According to CM, the difference in the regime between BJP and Samajwadi Party is clear, while SP used to give protection to rioters and mafia, the BJP government is working with the policy of zero tolerance on crime. "Before 2017 there was an atmosphere of fear; the girls could not go to school. There was an atmosphere of curfew in the evening and every other day there used to be riots somewhere." The CM said that the BJP government in UP after it came to power first took the decision to close the slaughterhouse and formed a squad for our girls. "We made houses for 43 lakh poor," he claimed. He informed that the BJP government is building a film city in Gautam Buddha Nagar. "When people with dynastic and casteist mentality come to power, you have all seen what they did. When SP was in power in 2012, they withdrew the cases of the accused of terrorist attack in Ayodhya at the first chance and gave protection to the mafias. There was no such district in the SP government where there was no riot. Nobody will get a chance to flee from Kairana." "Earlier the government had no concern for its employees, nor pension account was opened, no money was given till 2004-17. We have deposited Rs 10,000 crores of our government", claimed Yogi. "The Opposition said that they will restore the old pension but when the old pension was stopped their very own 'Abba Jaan' was the Chief Minister of the state," Yogi added. He stated that the BJP-led state government did not cut anyone's salary during the COVID pandemic. While speaking about COVID, Yogi said, "The whole world was dealing with COVID pandemic but the recovery model under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi in India has set an example to the whole world. If we compare our death toll with America's, then America has seen twice the deaths that of India. The same is with Europe." "While the opposition leaders were on Twitter, PM Modi was in the lab working on COVID-19 vaccines." He claimed that his government has given free vaccines, rations, tests after the pandemic broke out while Congress Samajwadi Bahujan Samaj Party were absent during the COVID pandemic. (ANI)
Parenting is a process that is never-ending and keeps evolving with day and age. A new analysis has revealed that teaching younger children through 'guided' play can support key aspects of their learning and development at least as well, and sometimes better, than traditional, direct instruction. The analysis was carried out by academics from the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. The study was published in 'Child Development'. The research gathered and assessed data from numerous, widespread studies and information sources, which collectively documented guided play's impact on the learning of around 3,800 children aged three to eight. Guided play broadly refers to playful educational activities which, although gently steered by an adult, give children the freedom to explore a learning goal in their own way. Overall, the study found that this playful approach to learning can be just as effective as more traditional, teacher-led methods in developing key skills: including literacy, numeracy, social skills and essential thinking skills known as executive functions. The findings also suggested that children may master some skills -- notably in maths -- more effectively through guided play than other methods. The relative merits of play-based learning compared with more formal styles of instruction has been a long-standing debate in education, but most of that discussion has focused on 'free' open-ended play. The new study has been the first systematic attempt to examine the effects of guided play specifically, which is distinctive because it used games or playful techniques to steer children towards specific learning goals, with support from a teacher or another adult using open-ended questions and prompts. This may, for example, involve creating imagination-based games which required children to read, write or use maths; or incorporating simple early learning skills -- such as counting -- into play. Such methods are common in pre-school education, but are used less in primary teaching -- a deficit which has been criticised by some researchers. Dr Elizabeth Byrne, a co-author, said: "It's only recently that researchers have started to conceptualise learning through play as something that exists on a spectrum. At one end you have free play, where children decide what to do with minimal adult involvement; at the other is traditional, direct instruction, where an adult tells a child what to do and controls the learning activity." "Guided play falls somewhere in between. It describes playful activities which are scaffolded around a learning goal, but allow children to try things out for themselves. If children are given the freedom to explore, but with some gentle guidance, it can be very good for their education -- perhaps in some cases better than direct instruction." Paul Ramchandani, Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning at the University of Cambridge, said: "The argument is sometimes made that play, while beneficial, adds little to children's education. In fact, although there are still some big questions about how we should use guided play in classrooms, there is promising evidence that it actively enhances learning and development." Guided play has rarely been systematically studied in its own right, but the team found 39 studies, undertaken between 1977 and 2020, which had captured some information about its value compared either with free play or direct instruction, usually in the course of wider research. By combining the results of studies which looked at similar types of learning outcome, the researchers were able to calculate how much of an overall positive or negative effect guided play has on different aspects of numeracy, literacy, executive functions or socioemotional skills, compared with other approaches. These effect sizes were measured using Hedge's g; a widely-used statistical system in which a result of 0 represents no comparative gain, and 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 represent small, medium and large effects respectively. The results offered significant evidence that guided play had a greater positive impact on some areas of children's numeracy than direct instruction. For example, guided play's comparative effect size on early maths skills was 0.24, and 0.63 on shape knowledge. There was also evidence that guided play better supported the development of children's cognitive ability to switch between tasks. Alongside other positive findings, there was also no statistically significant evidence that guided play is less effective than direct instruction on any of the learning outcomes studied. In short, guided playful activities tend at the very least to produce roughly the same learning benefits as more traditional, teacher-led approaches. The researchers offered various possible explanations about why guided play might improve numeracy in particular. One possibility was that the gentle prompting that guided play entails might be a particularly effective way of teaching children to work through the logical steps that maths-based tasks often involve. Equally, the fact that guided play often involved hands-on learning might be important. "Children often struggle with mathematical concepts because they are abstract," Byrne said. "They become easier to understand if you are actually using them in an imaginary game or playful context. One reason play matters may be because it supports mental visualisation." More broadly, the authors suggested that guided play might influence other characteristics which had a positive, knock-on effect on educational progress -- enhancing, for example, children's motivation, persistence, creativity and confidence. Dr Christine O'Farrelly, a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, said: "It's likely that playful activities have the sort of positive impact we saw in our analysis partly because they are acting on other skills and processes which underpin learning. If we can understand more about how guided play shapes learning in this way, we will be able to identify more precisely how it could be used to make a really meaningful difference in schools." (ANI)
Jammu and Kashmir Police is also using 'drones' for better security in the region.

Ahead of Republic day, full dress rehearsals are underway in Srinagar.

"Jammu and Kashmir Police along with CAPF and Army have been looking into the security arrangements. There is drone surveillance as well...will ensure that the Republic Day celebrations are conducted peacefully," said Vijay Kumar, Inspector General of Police Kashmir said today.

In a first, India began weeklong Republic Day celebrations from January 23 instead of January 24, to include the birth anniversary of late freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. It will end on January 30, the day Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated.

To commence the celebrations of Republic Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the occasion of Netaji's 125th birth anniversary, unveiled the hologram statue of the freedom fighter at India Gate in Delhi on Sunday at around 6 pm.

On January 21, the Prime Minister informed that a grand granite statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose will be installed at India Gate soon. The Prime Minister has said that till the time the work for the "grand statue" of Netaji, made of granite, is completed, a hologram statue would be installed at the same place. India celebrates Republic Day on January 26 every year. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) awards come with huge responsibility adding that awardees should not take stress due to the expectations but rather draw inspiration from it. "You have been given these awards when the country is celebrating 75 years of its independence. Throughout your lifetime you can proudly say that when my country was celebrating Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, then I was conferred with this award. With this award, you have been given a huge responsibilty. Now everyone's expections have also increased from you. You do not have to feel stressed by these expectations but draw inspiration instead," the Prime Minister said in an interation with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) awardees for the year 2022 and 2021 today via video conferencing during which he also conferred them with digital certificates. Recalling his visit to Nowshera in Jammu and Kashmir during Diwali last year, the Prime Minister said that he met soldiers, Baldev Singh and Basant Singh who supported armed forces at a very young age in the war immediately after independence. "They played the role of young soldiers. Without caring for their life, at a very young age supported the Army," PM Modi said. The Prime Minister also said that in memory of the sacrifice made by Sahibzadas for the country, we observe 'Veer Bal Diwas' on December 26 every year. He also urged everyone including the youth to read about Veer Sahibzadas. Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar is given as recognition to children residing in India, above the age of 5 years and not exceeding 18 years (as on August 31 of respective year) with exceptional abilities and outstanding achievement in 6 fields of innovation, scholastic achievements, sports, arts and culture, social service and bravery, which deserve recognition. "This year, 29 children from across the country, under different categories of Bal Shakti Puraskar, have been selected for PMRBP-2022. The awardees also take part in the Republic day parade every year. Each awardee of PMRBP is given a medal, a cash prize of Rs 1 Lakh and a certificate. The cash prize will be transferred to the respective accounts of PMRBP 2022 winners," said PMO. These awards are conferred by President Ram Nath Kovind in a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan. The Prime Minister also interacts with these awardees every year. The children along with their parents and concerned District Magistrate of their respective district would join the event from their district Head Quarters. (ANI)
Keeping in mind the present security scenario, intelligence inputs on the eve of Republic Day, BSF Jammu in an official statement said that it has been on high alert on Jammu International Border. BSF is carrying out extensive anti-tunnelling drive, special patrolling and depth area domination despite extremely hostile weather conditions.

To strengthen the border domination, mobilisation of troops have been done. Regular monitoring of suspicious activities of counterpart is being carried out through surveillance equipment.

A joint patrolling/exercise are also being conducted along with the Army, CRPF and State Police to scuttle any nefarious attempts of ANEs.

BSF troops deployed on Jammu International Border have been quite successful and consistent in foiling attempts from across the border by eliminating Pak intruders, Seizing huge caches of Arms/Amn, Narcotics and detecting Tunnels in past one year.

BSF Jammu has always been committed to Border management with a humane face and relentless zeal and vigour. (ANI)
Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat is likely to contest from Ramnagar constituency for the upcoming state assembly polls, sources said. Earlier when asked about the seat where he wants to contest, Rawat said that leadership will take a call on his candidature. But this time, he has chosen his Assembly seat and is likely to get the official stamp in today's CEC meet. Harish Rawat had earlier contested from two assembly seats in the last assembly polls and had lost both. The former chief minister's daughter is also seeking a ticket from Haridwar Rural constituency, where no candidate has been announced yet. The political fate of his daughter will also be decided today in the meeting. It is to be believed that Ranjeet Rawat could pose some resistance if Harish Rawat contests from Ramnagar seat. Sources close to Rawat said that Ramnagar has been his paternal place. He has done his schooling from there and Ramnagar has been the place for Rawat before he started his political journey. A top source in the party told ANI that Harak Singh Rawat is unlikely to get a ticket this time as his daughter in law Anukriti Gusain is all set to be fielded from Lansdowne Assembly Seat. Another big name is Kishore Upadhyaya who is facing the heat from the leadership and have been removed from all the party posts. He will be fielded from the Tehri Assembly seat this time. He had contested from Sahaspur Assembly in the last Assembly polls. Now the party has fielded Aryandra Sharma from Sahaspur who contested as an independent candidate from the constituency against Upadhyay in the last assembly polls. Today, in the CEC meeting to decide on the rest of the 17 candidates for the upcoming Uttarakhand polls. The Uttarakhand Assembly election 2022 will be held in a single phase on February 14. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. The last Assembly polls (in 2017) in Uttarakhand were held in a single phase, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 57 of the state's 70 Assembly constituencies. (ANI)
Punjab Technical Education Minister Rana Gurjeet Singh on Monday urged Congress chief Sonia Gandhi "to intervene into the allotment of party ticket from Bholath to Sukhpal Singh Khaira" for the state Assembly polls and demanded his expulsion while calling him "a tainted minister" for his alleged involvement in 'drug money' laundering. In a letter to Gandhi, Rana said, "He (Khaira) is currently in jail in connection with the money laundering case. It is not the routine money laundering case of unaccounted wealth or money. It relates to drug money. The money in question has been made through drugs, which is unacceptable and indefensible." The minister also said that the Congress party has always been against drugs. "In fact, it was our worthy former President Rahul Gandhi Ji who had flagged the issue in 2015, while referring to the serious problem of drugs in Punjab," he said in the letter while adding, "how can our party give a ticket to someone who is tainted by drug charges or to any of his family members?" "It will be difficult for the Congress leaders and contestants to defend the indefensible that on the one hand, we have sworn that we will eliminate drugs and on the other hand we are giving a party ticket to a tainted person who is in jail accused of money laundering which he accumulated from drugs," he added in his letter. Rana further said that this was high time that the Congress party should take a stand on the issue of drugs and someone who is tainted and is in jail for the same charges should not get the party ticket. "He is not winning anyways and allotting the party ticket to him or any of his family members will not only send a wrong signal but will also mean wasting a precious constituency and during a crucial election," he added. He claimed that as a "loyal and humble Congressman, who has served in Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha for the last two decades" projecting and defending the Congress policies, principles and ideals, he could not turn a blind eye to what was happening in his party and that too just next to his own assembly constituency. Notably, Rana Gurjeet has been campaigning for his son Rana Inder Pratap Singh, who is fighting as an Independent candidate from Sultanpur Lodhi in Kapurthala after the Congress refused to give him the ticket instead of its sitting two-time MLA. (ANI)
Study: Forward-thinking gym lifts weights, shifts attitudes

This current racial moment in society exists because this country has spent trillions of dollars in segregationist policies and practices that keep people apart. Programs like ICWs can combat that investment. Thats what it does. And thats what we need. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  A gym in Boston, Massachusetts, with an inventive vocational path that prepares students to work as personal trainers serves as a telling example for how community-based programs can develop anti-racism practices within organizations that contribute to the cultivation of racial unity, according to a paper published by a University at Buffalo Social Work researcher.

Efforts like this can help break down segregation and begin moving society out of its current racial divide, says the papers author, Christopher St. Vil, PhD, an assistant professor in the UB School of Social Work.

These programs work.

Intergroup contact theory is at the center of St. Vils study. This theory suggests that contact between different racial and class groups is an effective means of reducing bias and prejudice.

Hundreds of papers have been published that support this idea, but that research has been conducted mostly through laboratory studies. St. Vil took the theory into the real world. He explored it qualitatively by speaking with the participants of the Boston program in order to expand our understanding for how intergroup contact works in society.

This study is one example of the effectiveness of programs that utilize intergroup contact to break down racial barriers, but the research also shows how Black and Brown men can serve in these programs that advance anti-racism practices that further diversity and inclusion, St. Vil says.

His findings appear in the Journal of Community Practice.

Much of St. Vils research represents a wide-angle look at cross-age peer mentoring, where older adolescents mentor their younger peers. Unlike traditional mentoring, where the mentee realizes most of the relationships benefits, cross-age peer mentoring provides reciprocal benefits, with the mentor realizing the same gains as the mentee, such as elevated self-esteem and improved connections in school and at home.

Mentoring participants for much of this research often relied on identifying ideal students, but St. Vils work suggests similar results when mentors are selected from underserved populations.

Thats why he went to Boston after hearing about Inner-City Weightlifting (ICW).

ICW is a non-profit established in Boston in 2010. Its goal is curbing gun violence by extending opportunities to individuals who have engaged in gun violence or have been incarcerated. The gyms mission is twofold, and merges physical fitness with social justice.

While the track to becoming a personal trainer fulfills the fitness passion, the second passion of social justice is grounded in improving the plight of Black and Brown men from marginalized communities and eradicating racism, stigmatization and prejudice through anti-racism work, says St. Vil.

ICWs location is not public because of the need to navigate social situations that could lead to recidivism. Its a safe place, a place to work out, but it also teaches, prepares and pays for students interested in pursuing careers as credentialed personal trainers.

St. Vil recruited 19 participants for the study: 10 trainers who completed ICWs preparation, all of whom were Black and Latinx, ranging in age from 21 to 33, who would train clients at a gym in Cambridge. All nine clients for the study were white, between the ages of 29 and 80 and had college degrees, including seven with advanced or terminal degrees.

The idea was to learn whether the benefits of reciprocal mentoring would surface in this context, where people of different races and classes work in a provider-client relationship, by providing meaningful engagement.

Overall, the findings suggest that the intergroup contact facilitated by ICW resulted in a shift in worldview and attitudes of the clients, says St. Vil. Further, the shift in attitudes of the trainers included shifts in views around race and class as well as behavior changes that included desistance of crime.

St. Vil says additional research could explore whether the themes that emerged from his ICW study are as effective in other areas where there exist opportunities of bringing people of different races and classes together.

This current racial moment in society exists because this country has spent trillions of dollars in segregationist policies and practices that keep people apart, says St. Vil. Programs like ICWs can combat that investment. Thats what it does. And thats what we need.

ICW provides one example of an initiative bursting the bubble of racism that currently grips our society.
Kejriwal has requested the people of Delhi to share video testimony of the party's work in the national capital on social media.

"Ek Mauka Kejriwal Ko"- We are starting this campaign from today... Delhi people can make videos telling people of other states about work done by AAP and appeal to them to give Kejriwal-AAP a chance, ahead of polls. Upload these videos on social media," Kejriwal said.

"After polls, I will have dinner with 50 Delhiites whose videos will go viral," he promised.

During his appeal for the videos, Kejriwal said that AAP does not have crores of rupees to contest elections and the people of Delhi are his only wealth.

"If you guys support us, the voice will go far," he added.

Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Goa are heading into Assembly polls. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday told a young dancer from Karnataka that her achievements are much bigger than her age and also extended greetings of National Girl Child Day. The Prime Minister, during an interaction with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) awardees, congratulated Kumari Remona Evvette Pereira who excels in classical dance Bharatanatyam and said that Remona's achievements are much bigger than her age and told her that her art is a way of expressing the strength of the great country. Interacting with Kumari Remona Evette Pereira from Karnataka, the Prime Minister discussed her passion for Indian Dance. The Prime Minister also asked the 15-year-old awardee about her determination towards learning the art form. "At the age of 3, you started practising dance. How did you continuously motive yourself? Did family members insist you or did you have the determination?" To this, Remona replied, "My mother was very much interested in dancing. She started teaching me. Eventually I gathered interest." When PM Modi inquired about the difficulties she faced in pursuing her passion, she said, "I don't have a father; he has died. Because of this, my mother has to face a lot of hardships. Moreover, she has two of us to take care of. However, with a lot of hard work, she put me in a dance class." The Prime Minister complimented her mother for ignoring her own adversities to realise her daughter's dreams. He said that he has been told that Remona performs on broken glass and fire. "Do you not fear it?" the PM asked. To this question, the awardee said that she braved through the difficulty with the help of her mother. Interacting with Master Avi Sharma of Indore, the Prime Minister enquired about the secret of his prolific output with regard to various aspects of Ramayana. Master Avi Sharma said that he got the inspiration by the decision of broadcasting the serial Ramayana during the lockdown. Avi also recited some couplets from his creation. The Prime Minister narrated an incident when he went and heard Sushri Uma Bharti Ji when, as a child, she showed immense spiritual depth and knowledge in a programme. He said there is something in the soil of Madhya Pradesh that gives rise to such precocious talent. The Prime Minister told Avi that he is an inspiration and an example of the adage that you are never too young to do big things. The Prime Minister interacted with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) awardees today via video conference. Digital certificates were conferred on PMRBP awardees for the years 2022 and 2021 using Blockchain Technology. This technology was used for the first time for giving certificates to awardees. Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani and Dr Munjpara Mahendrabhai, Minister of State were among those present on the occasion. (ANI)
A Bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud said that it is not a fit case for bail and dismissed Vijay Mishra's special leave petition.

However, the Court clarified that the petitioner would be at liberty to revive his application of bail after the evidence of main witnesses are recorded in the trial.

Mishra, an MLA from Gyanpur, is allegedly involved in several cases in Uttar Pradesh.

Elections for the 403 Assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases starting February 10. The polling in Uttar Pradesh will be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
A team of researchers has provided the first evidence that parents may talk less to their kids when experiencing financial scarcity. The study has been published in the 'Developmental Science Journal'. "We were interested in what happens when parents think about or experience financial scarcity and found evidence that such strain could suppress their speech to their children," said study senior author Mahesh Srinivasan, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. "Our results suggest that parenting training may not be sufficient to close the academic achievement gap without addressing the broader issue of income inequality," Srinivasan added. The study's preliminary results lend credence to the developmental and educational benefits of such poverty-cutting government programs as the federal American Rescue Plan's Child Tax Credit and other supplemental cash payouts for needy families. "Existing interventions toward eliminating the word gap have often focused on improving parenting skills," Srinivasan said. "But our findings suggest that relieving parents of their financial burdens, such as through direct cash transfers, could also substantially change the ways they engage with their kids," he added. In the first experiment, researchers sought to observe how parents would interact with their children (in this case, 3-year-olds) after the parents were asked to describe times in which they had recently experienced scarcity. A control group of parents were instead asked to describe other recent activities. Of the 84 parents in the study, those in the experimental group who described their experiences of financial scarcity spoke less to their 3-year-olds during laboratory observations than parents who reflected on other forms of scarcity (like not having enough fruit), or parents who had not been asked to recollect experiences of resource insecurity. The second experiment used existing data collected via LENA technology, tiny "talk pedometer" devices worn by children that record their conversations and count the words they hear and say. As the researchers predicted, analyses revealed that parents engaged in fewer conversational turns with their children at the month's end, a time that typically coincides with money being tight as parents await paychecks or other sources of income. "Because we had recordings from the same parents at different times of the month, we could essentially use parents as their own controls," said study lead author Monica Ellwood-Lowe, a Ph.D. student in psychology at UC Berkeley. "This allowed us to really pinpoint differences in their speech patterns when they were more or less likely to be experiencing financial strain, independent of any of their own personal characteristics," she added. The term "word gap" was coined in the early 1990s when University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley tracked verbal interactions in the homes of 42 families to study early language development in the children's first three years. Each day, the researchers recorded an hour of conversation in each household, and then counted all the words the children heard during those recording times. The results were detailed in their 1995 book, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children, and in a 2003 follow-up article, "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3." While some have questioned Hart and Risley's methodology, their basic finding has been replicated many times, prompting calls for approaches to narrow the disparity. Enter Srinivasan and his research team: "It struck us that what was missing from the conversation about the word gap was the possibility that poverty, and the many difficult experiences associated with it, could itself affect parents' speech," Srinivasan said. Preliminary findings support the researchers' hypothesis but also call for a deeper dive into the relationship between money worries and parents' verbal engagement with their children, he said. "This research doesn't mean that children whose parents are struggling financially are doomed to have smaller vocabularies," Ellwood-Lowe said. "The takeaway here is really just the importance of making sure parents have the resources they need to parent," she added. "If you are worried about putting food on the table tonight, or scraping together money for that medical bill, or figuring out where to enroll your child in school now that you have been evicted from your neighborhood, you may be less likely to narrate the color of the sky to your child as you ride together on the bus," the study concluded. (ANI)
A Delhi Court on Monday ordered to frame charges against Sharjeel Imam under sedition in connection with alleged inflammatory speeches made by him in Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia area in Delhi. Delhi's Karkardooma Court framed charges against Sharjeel Imam in FIR 22 relating to alleged inflammatory speeches. Charges were framed against Imam under sections relating to promoting enmity against two groups, inciting enmity and sedition. Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat on Monday passed the order. The court had earlier reserved the order after hearing both the prosecution and Imam's defence counsel. Sharjeel Imam was accused of making alleged inflammatory speeches at the Jamia area in Delhi on December 13, 2019, and at Aligarh Muslim University on December 16, 2019. An FIR was lodged against Imam under charges of sedition and others of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The present FIR was filed under sections 124A, 153A, 153B,505. The prosecutor informed the court that Imam had made attempts to provoke the crowd by stating that 'public anger needs to be used in a productive manner'. Sharjeel Imam, who came into the limelight for his viral video in December 2019, was booked as an accused in various cases relating to violent protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). He was arrested in January 2020 in another case connected to sedition for his provocative speeches which had stoked controversy with his "cut off Assam from India" remark. More than 750 cases were registered over the northeast Delhi violence, in which at least 53 people were killed and several others were injured. So far, over 250 charge sheets have been filed in the riots related cases in which 1,153 accused have been charge-sheeted. (ANI)
Days after the Election Commission of India extended the ban on physical rallies and road shows till January 31, District Magistrate South Goa assured that all guidelines are being adhered to and said that as many as 20 people have been booked so far for violation of COVID-19 protocols. These people were involved in election campaigning related activities. Ruchika Katyal, IAS, Collector and District Magistrate South Goa told ANI, "We know that ECI has relaxed norms and allowed indoor meetings of a maximum 300 people, or 50 per cent capacity of the meeting hall, or limits prescribed by state disaster management authorities." "The Election Commission has also relaxed restrictions on door-to-door campaigns. Instead of five persons, now 10 persons, excluding security personnel, will be allowed," she said. "We have been following the guidelines strictly. Till now, in North Goa, 11 cases have been registered and 9 cases have been registered in South Goa for violating COVID rules while being involved in election campaigning related activities," she said. Amid a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Election Commission of India on Saturday extended the ban on physical rallies and roadshows till January 31, said a press release by the Election Commission. But the Election Commission has enhanced the limit of persons for door-to-door campaign from 5 to 10 persons, as per the statement. Meanwhile, the commission has permitted video vans for publicity at designated open spaces with COVID-19 restrictions. The decision came after the Election Commission of India held a meeting earlier in the day with the Union Health Secretary and the Chief Health Secretaries of the five poll-bound states to review the ban on holding physical roadshows and rallies by political parties ahead of Assembly elections. (ANI)
A bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and CT Ravikumar disposed of the state of Kerala petition and said that it leaves it to the discretion of the trial court to take an appropriate view in that regard. The petition was opposed by Malayalam actor Dileep.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the accused, said that the state is conducting a media trial of his client, who is a famous actor in Kerala.

The Court said that keeping the application pending will give a different indication.

Dileep had been named as an accused in the actress assault case for alleged conspiracy. The case pertains that an actress who worked in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu films was allegedly abducted and molested inside her car by a group of men who had forced their way into the vehicle on the night of February 17, 2017. (ANI)
VCK leader and MP Thol Thiruvamavalavan in a statement on Sunday said that the BJP government at the Centre had ignored a draft prepared by the Indian Law Commission in 2017 to control hate and propaganda in India.

Thiruvamavalavan denied the allegation of the Tamil Nadu BJP and Hindu Munnani that a 17-year-old girl student had committed suicide after she was forced to convert to Christianity in Thanjavur at a Christian missionary run school.

The MP said, "Tamil Nadu government must not be a mute spectator to this hate speech and propaganda and ensure that stringent action is taken against those who indulge in such acts of hate.

The VCK leader said that the BJP was trying to spread hate against the school and the entire Christian community of the state.

--IANS aal/dpb

( 172 Words)

2022-01-24-11:18:07 (IANS)
President Ram Nath Kovind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, and several cabinet ministers, chief ministers and leaders of various political parties spoke to Naidu on the second day of home isolation in Hyderabad today.

After testing COVID-19 positive on Sunday, Naidu has decided to remain in self-isolation for a week and advised all those who came in contact with him to isolate themselves and get tested.

"The Vice President, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, who is in Hyderabad, tested COVID positive today. He has decided to remain in self-isolation for a week. He has advised all those who came in contact with him to isolate themselves and get tested," Vice President of India tweeted. (ANI)
Delhi Police arrested a father-son duo who used to stay in luxury hotels and flee without paying bills. A case of cheating and criminal breach of trust was registered at IGI Airport police station against the arrested persons --Navdeep Singh (son) and Kamaljit Singh (father), residents of Punjab. According to Delhi Police, a complaint was received at IGI Airport police station from Aloft Hotel, Aerocity, New Delhi alleging that Navdeep Singh checked in the hotel on August 11, 2021 and later his parents also checked in the same room and they stayed in the hotel till September 6, 2021. All the three family members availed all the hotel facilities during their stay at Aloft Hotel. Their total bills for stay, meal and other services summed up to Rs 3,41,054 but they paid only Rs 60,000 through bank transfer. The family fled the hotel without paying the balance amount of Rs 2,81,054. Following the complaint, the investigation was taken up by Delhi Police. On information, Navdeep Singh and his father Kamaljit Singh were arrested from a hotel at Mahipalpur, Delhi on January 19. During the further course of the investigation, it was revealed that Navdeep Singh is a habitual offender and also involved in another case registered at Barnala police station in Punjab, in which he imposed himself as an Immigration officer of Canada and tried to extort money from a family in Punjab. Delhi Police said Navdeep Singh and his father used to stay in five-star hotels by representing themselves as a businessman and availed hotel facilities and after some time they use to flee away without paying the bills. Further, a forged letter issued from the Ministry of Finance was also recovered from Navdeep Singh using which he used to induce hotel staff. Police said Singh was also working as an agent and used to cheat people by making fake promises of settlement abroad. He used to stay in five-star hotels to cheat innocent clients by showing them his expensive lifestyle. (ANI)
Former Black Panther Party leader Ericka Huggins to speak at virtual event

Huggins joined the Black Panther Party in 1968 and spent 14 years with the organization. From 1973-81, she was director of the partys Oakland Community School, which was a community-run child development center and elementary school.

Gwendolyn Baxley, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy, and the event's host

BUFFALO, N.Y.  Educator and former Black Panther Party leader Ericka Huggins will speak during a virtual event hosted Thursday by the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education.

The forum, titled Black Women Lead: Ericka Huggins, Black Radical Educational Leadership & The Black Panther Partys Oakland Community School, will take place at 4 p.m. It is free and open to the public. Guests must register at Tinyurl.com/BlackWomenLeadUB to receive login information.

Huggins joined the Black Panther Party in 1968 and spent 14 years with the organization. From 1973-81, she was director of the partys Oakland Community School, which was a community-run child development center and elementary school.

Staffed by teachers and mentors engaged in social and political transformation in every area of society, OCS became an internationally recognized grassroots model for elementary education. The school evolved organically, based on the needs of the larger community.

Huggins, who also has served on the faculty of San Francisco State University, California State University, East Bay, and Peralta Community College District, is a poet, human rights activist and lecturer.

Also speaking during the event will be Angela LeBlanc-Ernest, an independent scholar, author and filmmaker who is directing and producing a documentary about the Oakland Community School.

The events host will be Gwendolyn Baxley, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy in GSE.

With Terri Watson, Baxley co-authored a conceptual article centered on the Oakland Community School that focuses on motherwork, a form of culturally responsive school leadership practiced by Black women educational leaders that identifies, protects and celebrates the cultural practices of students. Watson, associate professor of leadership and human development at The City College of New York, CUNY, was a 2020-21 UB Center for Diversity Innovation Distinguished Visiting Scholar.

The forums moderator will be Tanika Shedrick, a graduate student in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy.

The event is presented by the GSEs Department of Educational Leadership and Policy and The Willower Fund.
The impact of mental health on a child's education and schooling was never taken seriously in this day and age of ruthless and cut-throat competition. At least ten out of every 100 girls older than the appropriate age for their school grade could have accompanied their age group if mental health problems were prevented or treated. New findings from an innovative survey led by a group of Brazilian and British scientists and reported in an article published in the journal 'Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences' reveals many things. The authors set out to estimate the weight and impact of various kinds of psychiatric disorders on educational outcomes. Among children in the Brazilian public education system, data on the incidence of mental health problems are also reflected by grade repetition: five out of every 100 girls would not have been failed. For boys, the age-grade distortion would have been avoided in 5.3 per cent of cases, and grade repetition in 4.8 per cent. Using data for 2014, they concluded that externalizing disorders had broader and more robust negative effects on educational attainment than disorders associated with anxiety and fear. A breakdown by gender showed that they were particularly harmful to girls, resulting in lower levels of literacy and more frequent bullying. At least 11 out of every 100 reports of physical or psychological bullying by girls in Brazilian schools could have been avoided if externalizing disorders had been prevented or treated. For boys, phobias and depression entailed higher school dropout rates. "In epidemiological terms, boys generally have more externalizing disorders, with case numbers reaching double those of girls. In terms of educational outcomes, however, we found that the risk is greater for girls. One of the hypotheses that could explain this finding is a social stigma, since aggressive or oppositional behavior is not expected from girls, and they may suffer more and perform less well at school. The same is true of depression in the case of boys. Society assumes they don't cry or express feelings," Mauricio Scopel Hoffmann, first author of the article, told Agencia FAPESP. Hoffmann is a professor in the Department of Neuropsychiatry at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) in Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). The data was obtained from the Brazilian High-Risk Cohort Study for Childhood Psychiatric Disorders (BHRC[KM1]), a large school-based survey that has followed over 1,000 children since 2010. In their discussion of the 2014 data, the researchers contextualized their findings from a populational perspective and, while warning that their estimates were probably conservative, concluded that at that time at least 591,000 schoolchildren could have been in the right grade for their age if psychiatric disorders had been prevented or treated. Repetition could have been avoided for some 196,000 on the same basis. According to Hoffmann, the situation continued to be similar seven years later, evidencing the importance of prevention and treatment of mental problems if educational results are to be improved. In 2014, 49.8 million children were enrolled in the first nine grades at 188,700 public and private schools. In 2020, these numbers had fallen to 47.3 million and 179,500 respectively. Considered one of the most ambitious childhood mental health surveys ever conducted in Brazil, the BHRC, also known as Project Connection - Minds of the Future, is part of the National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry (INPD). INPD has been supported by FAPESP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). Its principal investigator was Euripedes Constantino Miguel Filho, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Sao Paulo's Medical School (FM-USP). For this latest study, the researchers analyzed baseline (2010-11) data and three-year follow-up (2013-14) BHRC data, considering a screening stage and an assessment stage. Propensity score weights (PSWs) were used to balance participants with and without psychiatric conditions for baseline characteristics. In the screening stage, all parents at 22 state-funded schools in Porto Alegre and 35 in Sao Paulo were invited to participate on compulsory school registration days in 2010. A total of 2,511 families were selected for the full household assessment, including children aged 6-14. Psychiatric disorders were grouped into three broad categories: fear-related conditions, including panic, separation and social anxiety disorder, specific phobia and agoraphobia; distress-related conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorders, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder; and externalizing conditions, including attention deficit, hyperactivity, and oppositional-defiant conditions. The researchers used the Development and Wellbeing Assessment (DAWBA), a package of interviews, questionnaires, and rating techniques, and calculated population-attributable risk percentages to estimate the proportion of adverse educational outcomes that could be attributed to psychiatric conditions. The analyses were conducted separately for males and females. "One of the aims was to find out whether undesired school events could be avoided if mental health problems were treated, and to what extent," Hoffmann said. "We obtained a very clear practical result, since outcomes such as age-grade distortion, repetition, dropout, and bullying are linked to this question," Hoffmann said. Besides the adverse impacts on education, particularly for girls, mental health problems can limit future socio-economic opportunities, leading to an increase in gender inequity in the labour market, for example. Estimates suggested that one in four people may develop mental health problems during their lifetime. Psychiatric disorders were among the leading causes of incapacitation in the 14-50 age group. According to projections by the World Health Organization (WHO), the cost of these cases to the world economy could reach USD 6 trillion in 2030. "Correct diagnosis is the first step," Hoffmann said. "This would help reduce some of the problems faced by schools. Policies that encourage detection of psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence, permitting early intervention, could have profound consequences for educational attainment throughout the population." The school census carried out in 2020 by Brazil's Ministry of Education pointed to age-grade distortion in 22.7 per cent of the children enrolled in the final grades of primary education, and 26.2 per cent of those in secondary education. The proportion increased from the third year of primary schooling onward, peaking in the seventh year of primary school and the first year of secondary school. The distortion resulted from the number of children who had failed and/or dropped out in a given school year, among other factors. The process would be hard to reverse. Children who fell behind in the early years of their basic education tended to remain too old for their grade until adolescence, and often dropped out before they graduated from high school as a result. Indeed, Brazil had the fourth-highest percentage of schoolchildren who repeated a grade at least once during their formal education among 79 countries analyzed in a report published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In the 15-year-old age group, 34 per cent repeated a grade at least once. Ahead of Brazil were Morocco with 49.3 per cent, Colombia with 40.8 per cent, and Lebanon with 34.5 per cent. The report was published in 2020 and ws based on indicators from the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). According to Hoffmann, who is a medical doctor, education and health should partner to strengthen prevention as one of the ways to reduce the adverse effects of psychiatric disorders on schooling. "Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder [ADHD] is an example. We know only 20 per cent of these cases are detected in Brazil. If we could lift that to 30 per cent, some 8,000 grade repetitions could be avoided each year," he said. Teachers could usefully help. The Brazilian research group has created a handbook to help teachers deal with student mental health problems, stressing the importance of their role as mediators to avoid stigma. Mental health has come to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic, and new research has focused on the effects on children and adolescents of social distancing, confinement, and remote schooling. According to Hoffmann, a group led by Patricia Pinheiro Bado, a researcher in the field of neuroscience and human behavior, was investigating the links between engagement in online learning and child mental health. Recently published British research presented evidence that children, adults, and seniors with prior mental health problems had suffered more during the pandemic owing to job loss, illness, and emotional hardship. In Brazil, where schools remained closed for a long period because of COVID-19, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated that 1.5 million children aged 6-17 were out of school and not taking online classes in November 2020, while another 3.7 million attended school but no school activities were available and they were unable to continue learning at home. (ANI)
The SAD leader was booked by Punjab Police under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act at SAS Nagar Police Station on the basis of a 2018 report submitted by the anti-drug Special Task Force (STF).

Majithia had earlier slammed Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and other Congress state ministers alleging a "conspiracy" to frame him to save themselves.

He previously served as a minister in the Punjab government. (ANI)
Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday filed a complaint with the Election Commission of India against the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) over its campaign "Janta chunegi Apna CM" with respect to the selection of their chief ministerial face through telephonic calls alleging that it is fake propaganda as the same is not mathematically viable. Sidhu, in the letter, said, "AAP is creating propaganda suggesting and projecting that they have chosen Bhagwant Mann as their Chief Ministerial face on the basis of the survey conducted by their political party through telephonic calls." It is pertinent to mention here that prima facie, a total of 21,59,475 telephonic calls, voice messages, Whatsapp messages within a short time span of just four days being presented in this survey is not mathematically logical, the letter read. "It is possible that AAP has not attained any advertisement certificate prior to publication of the campaign titled 'Janta Chunegi Apni Sarkar' as MCMC (Media Certification and Monitoring Committees) does not issue any certificate to anyone prior to verification of all facts," Sidhu said in the letter. Further, he requested that EC be duty-bound to verify whether AAP has attained an MCMC certificate to advertise or not and if not, it amounts to Contempt of Court to Supreme Court of India. He stated that the commission should immediately direct AAP to shut this campaign and issue a public retraction of all claims presented thereof. It is also mandatory for every political party to provide details of approximate expenditure being spent on any particular campaign after commencement of Model Code of Conduct, the letter added. "Election Commission is requested to register criminal cases against AAP through its National President Arvind Kejriwal under the relevant provisions of Indian Penal Code," Sidhu wrote in the letter. Meanwhile, Punjab will go to the polls on February 20 and the counting of the votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
The Election Commission of India (ECI) will celebrate 12th National Voters' Day (NVD) on January 25 on the theme 'Making Elections Inclusive, Accessible and Participative.', said a press release on Monday. The theme for this year's NVD, 'Making Elections Inclusive, Accessible and Participative', envisages focus on ECI's commitment to facilitate the active participation of voters during the elections and to make the complete process hassle-free and a memorable experience for all categories of voters. Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu has consented to be the Chief Guest for the national function. However, due to his inability to attend the function in person, his message will be virtually delivered during the function. Union Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju will grace the function as the Guest of Honour. To mark the occasion, National Awards for the Best Electoral Practises for the year 2021-22 will be conferred on State and District level officers for their outstanding performance in the conduct of elections in different spheres such as IT initiatives, Security Management, Election Management, Accessible Elections and contribution in the field of voter awareness and outreach. National Awards will also be given to important stakeholders like government departments, ECI icons and media groups for their valuable contribution towards voters' awareness. During the function, the newly enrolled voters would also be felicitated and handed over their Elector Photo Identity Card (EPIC). The Commission has recently launched a new initiative to deliver the EPIC to newly enrolled voters, along with a personalised letter and a Voter Guidebook. An ECI Publication 'Leap of Faith: Journey of Indian Elections' will be released. The book narrates India's electoral history and the growth of representative and electoral principles in India as it evolved from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. Diligently researched from accredited sources, the book contextualises the very role of elections in the making of modern India. The book focuses on the Election Commission of India's persistent efforts to make the elections genuinely reflective of people's verdict. Another Publication 'Pledging to Vote - A decadal Journey of 'The National Voters Day in India' will also be launched. The book presents the journey of National Voters' Day celebrations by ECI from Diamond Jubilee celebration onwards. Dedicated to the voters of the country, the publication, especially, its pictorials are sure to inspire personnel who serve as 'Frontline Warriors' of Electoral Democracy'. A national voter awareness contest on social media- 'My Vote is my Future- Power of One Vote' will also be launched to reiterate the importance of every vote through creative expression for the ongoing Assembly Elections 2022. With a host of categories like Song, Slogan, Quiz, Video Making and Poster Design, the contest will be open to all. The winners shall be presented with exciting cash prizes and accolades. Since 2011, National Voters' Day has been celebrated on January 25 every year, all across the country to mark the foundation day of the Election Commission of India, i.e. 25 January 1950. The main purpose of the NVD celebration is to encourage, facilitate and maximise enrolment, especially for the new voters. Dedicated to the voters of the country, the day is utilized to spread awareness among voters and for promoting informed participation in the electoral process. (ANI)
Border Security Force (BSF) will soon be procuring handheld 'Anti Drone Guns' to prevent Pakistani drones from entering Indian Territory, said an official in the Ministry of Home Affairs. A senior official in the ministry said that a Draft Qualitative requirements (QRS) have been forwarded by BSF in this regard. They have invited comments from vendors and possible manufacturers to ensure market availability of the subject item. "These handheld anti-drone guns will be useful for patrolling teams in border areas who sometimes see drones flying but couldn't do more as it is out of their firing range," said a senior BSF officer. "Anti-Drone Gun should be Hand Held, easily transportable and operable in day and night environment. The system should be easily deployable with ease and should be a lightweight UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) countermeasure solution designed for one hand or two hand operations," he added. The system should be able to cut off communication between the visually detected UAV and the remote controller by jamming data links to the UAV/RC. In terms of operational capability, it should be capable of neutralizing the flying object (UAV) or group of UAVs (Swarm attack) from a distance (as specified or better) of at least 2,500 metres. "The gun should be capable to neutralize the flying object by jamming its radio and GPS links and force landing the UAV at its place of operation within 10 seconds after detection," the BSF document sent to the Home ministry reads. This year around 60 drone sightings of unmanned aerial vehicles near Punjab were reported and many more remained unreported. The explosives and small arms were dropped using drones from the Pakistan side on Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab border. The intelligence agencies have alerted security forces regarding drones capabilities of terror groups across the border and even in Naxal areas. The majority of drones are being used to drop weapons in the Punjab and Jammu sectors. A senior BSF officer said that last year they have shot down a variety of drones. Some of the drones (hexacopter) can carry much load as the controller sits across the border and achieves the objective without crossing the LoC. The made in China drones are advanced in technology and their memory gets deleted remotely and they can never get anything out of it. "Entire border can't be covered under anti-drone devices but handheld anti-drone guns with the patrolling team could help to detect and bring down the drone," said the BSF officer. Another BSF officer added that these handheld anti-drone devices will be part of patrolling teams and will be much more effective than presently used immovable anti-drone measures. (ANI)
A Delhi court on Monday dismissed Sharjeel Imam's bail plea and directed to frame sedition charges against him in a case related to alleged inflammatory speeches delivered by him at Jamia area in Delhi in December 2019 and at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh in January 2020 against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). Additional sessions judge Amitabh Rawat on Monday dismissed the regular bail plea moved by Sharjeel Imam in the present case. It has fixed the matter for further hearing on February 4, 2022. The Court has directed to send the copy of the order to the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, Special Public Prosecutor and for counsel for the accused through e-mail.The court has passed orders for framing the charges against Imam under section 124A (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, etc.), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 13 of Unlawful Activities ( Prevention) Act (UAPA). One of the organizers of the Shaheen Bagh protest of December 2019, Sharjeet Imam, was arrested in 2020 by Delhi Police from Jahanabad, Bihar. The Delhi Police has filed a charge sheet against him in the present case. It was alleged that he gave speeches inciting hatred, contempt, and disaffection towards the Central government. Delhi Police had mentioned in the charge sheet against Sharjeel that "he is accused of delivering seditious speeches and inciting a particular section of the community to indulge in unlawful activities, detrimental to sovereignty and integrity of the nation." (ANI)
To keep a close watch on the people coming to the parade, the Delhi Police has made a top-notch security arrangement in and around the Rajpath.

Delhi Police said a face recognition system has been installed to immediately identify any terror suspect or criminal. The system has a database of 50,000 suspected criminals.

According to the police, 30 face recognition systems have been installed at six entry points and 16 bridges for the people coming to watch the parade. Whenever a suspected person enters from these places, a red light will appear on the system. Further, three control rooms are keeping a watch on the Rajpath through more than 500 CCTV cameras.

Delhi Police has deployed about 30,000 personnel, including 65 companies of paramilitary forces, ahead of the Republic Day parade.

71 DCPs, 213 ACPs, 753 Inspectors of Delhi Police have been given the command of security of the parade. A counter drone system has been installed to monitor the air space. In view of the terrorist threat, 26 parameters of anti-terror measures have been followed.

In order to gather intelligence input, Delhi Police is continuously verifying all the hotels, guest houses, dharamshalas, tenants living in Delhi, servants working in the houses and labourers. Delhi Police is making security arrangements in coordination with the agencies involved in the Central Vista project without halting the work.

To collect every small input, inter-state coordination is used to avert any terrorist activity. A unit of Delhi Police is especially keeping an eye on social media. People are also being made aware through social media. (ANI)
A couple of days ago BJP accused Mustafa, who is an advisor to Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, of issuing a provocative statement during an election campaign in Malerkotla in Punjab, which they termed as hate speech.

BJP alleged that Mustafa, who was a former Punjab DGP, had said that he won't allow Hindus to organise events near his public rally in Punjab.

A delegation of BJP consisting of Union Ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Hardeep Singh Puri met ECI and urged them to file an FIR against Mustafa and arrest him.

Addressing media in New Delhi, Shekhawat said, "Mustafa had issued an inflammatory speech during the election campaign in Malerkotla. Though Punjab police have filed an FIR against Mustafa, we have urged the ECI to the cognisance of this issue and file FIR against the former Punjab DGP and arrest him." (ANI)
Rashtra Kavi Pradeep's evergreen soulful patriotic song, 'Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon... (O Folks of My Motherland)' will now eject the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi's cherished Christian hymn, the iconic 'Abide With Me' for the Republic Day festivities ending with the Beating The Retreat ceremony this year. However, the family of the legendary poet -- Ramchandra N. Dwivedi, renowned by his pen-name 'Kavi Pradeep' -- has been kept in the dark of the deviation by the government or its ministries, his kin said here on Monday. "This is news to us... Its an epochal development. We are hurt that Gandhiji's favourite hymn has been dropped, but also feel honoured that my father's stirring song has been included," said an irked Mitul Pradeep, the daughter of the late Kavi Pradeep, who is zealously safeguarding her dad's legacy of a nationalistic treasure trove. While making it clear that "there's no need for anyone to take 'permission', least of all from the Indian Armed Forces," she feels it would 'ave been "indeed gratifying if the concerned authorities had at least 'informed; the family", especially when it was replacing Gandhiji's fondest number. "This song is historic for the country and dear to all... My father had specially created it after a request from the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehruji, through the great filmmaker Mehboob Khan, urging Bollywood to do something to boost the shattered morale of the people after the 1962 India-China War," Mitul told IANS. Mehboob Khan had gone to the very same bungalow where she still lives, at Irla in Vile Parle west, with Kavi Pradeep -- already synonymous with patriotism -- instantly agreeing. "Well... in barely a fortnight, "Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon" -- a non-film song -- was ready to carve a permanent niche in the countrymen's hearts and the country's history. Kavi Pradeep's 350-words of patriotic pearls from the pen were musically weaved into a nationalistic garland by the master of the baton, C. Ramchandra and sung by the melody queen, Lata Mangeshkar; now 92, and in a Mumbai hospital since a fortnight for Covid-19 treatment. Veteran Bollywood scribe Jivraj Burman of Thane recalled how the song served to 'break the ice' between C. Ramchandra and Lata Mangeshkar -- who were engaged in a cold-war for some years -- but Kavi Pradeep's number proved be a soothing 'balm' for the entire country and the musical duo who gradually reunited. "When it was first rendered publicly at the 1963 R-Day at the National Stadium, Nehruji was in tears and wanted to meet my dad, who was not invited... Later that day, my father called up Lataji -- now a Bharat Ratna -- and congratulated her for the moving performance," remembers Mitul. Soon after penning "Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon", Kavi Pradeep had willed that all revenues and royalties generated by it should go to the Indian Army specifically for the widows of war heroes. "Sadly, nothing happened till his passing in 1998... Then, I moved the Bombay High Court which ordered the music companies to pay Rs 10 Lakh as royalties to the Indian Army for the past few years and comply in the future, too," she said. From 2005-2015, the Indian Army informed the family that it had got around Rs 200,000 as royalties, and after that, there has been no word from them, Mitul added. "The government should inform the public the exact amount of royalties coming annually from this song for the welfare of the widows of our martyred jawans... We have a right to know... I plan to take it up with PM Narendra Modi and others, too," asserted Mitul. Meanwhile, she said all descendents of Kavi Pradeep, ahead of his 107th birth anniversary on Feb 6 -- shall watch the R-Day gala event on January 29 where "Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon" will be played first time -- but with a tinge of regret as Gandhiji's pet number, "Abide With Me" shall no more abide at the solemn event. (Quaid Najmi can be contacted at: q.najmi@ians.in) --IANS qn/dpb ( 681 Words) 2022-01-24-13:36:05 (IANS)
"Keeping in mind the present security scenario, intelligence inputs on the eve of Republic Day, BSF Jammu has been on high alert on Jammu International Border (IB)," BSF said.

BSF said it is carrying out extensive Anti-Tunnelling drive, Special Patrolling and Depth area domination despite extremely hostile weather conditions.

"To strengthen the border domination, mobilisation of troops have been done. Regular monitoring of suspicious activities of counterpart is being carried out through surveillance equipment," BSF said.

"A joint patrolling/exercise are also being conducted along with Army, CRPF and State Police to scuttle any nefarious attempts of ANEs."

Pertinently the BSF troops deployed on Jammu IB have been successful in foiling attempts from across the border by eliminating Pakistani intruders, seizing huge caches of arms and ammunition, narcotics and detecting tunnels in past one year.

--IANS zi/dpb

( 182 Words)

2022-01-24-13:40:06 (IANS)
Buffalo, WY (82834)

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Rain showers early becoming more intermittent for the afternoon. High 53F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

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With one more candidate in its fifth list, the party has announced 196 candidates for 403 members of the Assembly.

In the latest list, the BJP has fielded Ajay Pratap Singh from Thakurdwara Assembly constituency of the state. In a statement, BJP national General Secretary Arun Singh said that the BJP Central Election Committee (CEC) has approved one name for the polls.

Last Friday, the BJP released its fourth list of 85 candidates, while on Wednesday, it announced one more candidate in its third list.

In its second list released on Tuesday, the BJP has announced two more candidates.

On January 15, the BJP released its first list of 107 candidates for Assembly polls. In the first list, it announced that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will contest from Gorakhpur (Urban) and Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to contest from Sirathu in Prayagraj district.

The Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls will be held in seven phases in February-March starting from February 10.

Counting of votes will be held on March 10.

--IANS ssb/shb/

( 201 Words)

2022-01-24-13:56:05 (IANS)
An air passenger was arrested by customs officials at Trichy Airport for possessing huge foreign currency without having valid documents, official said on Monday. "On January 22, the passenger was intercepted at Trichy Airport when he was about to catch a fight for Dubai. We have seized 50,000 Saudi Arabian Riyals and 5,000 US Dollars equivalent to Rs 13.30 lakh from his possession. He was asked about the currency to which he couldn't give any satisfactory answer after which he was detained and later arrested," said the official. The official said that the currency was recovered from the hand luggage of the passenger. However, the customs official refused to divulge information about the identity of the passenger. The passenger was taken to a government hospital for the medical examination. Later after getting his Covid report the passenger was produced before the concerned court which remanded him to judicial custody. The custom official had told the court that he wasn't required for further interrogation. The customs has informed about the arrest of the passenger to concerned government department. The passport of the passenger was also seized by the official. "In such cases the local police is also informed about the arrest so that their previous criminal record could be checked," said a custom official. --IANS atk/skp/ ( 228 Words) 2022-01-24-14:26:06 (IANS)
The Congress in Goa on Monday accused the Election Commission of India of following two separate Covid protocol yardsticks in the poll-bound states of Uttar Pradesh and Goa. Speaking at a meeting of party workers in the Pernem Assembly constituency, All India Congress Committee secretary in-charge of Goa Dinesh Gundu Rao said that while Union Home Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Amit Shah was being allowed to hold large padayatras with 5,000 supporters in tow, poll officials in Goa had been partisan in cracking down on even small meetings conducted by the Congress party in the coastal state. "Big meetings cannot be held because of corona. There are guidelines and whenever people gather, a flying squad appears to book a case. More so, especially when it comes to Congress party meetings, they are ready to book more cases. That is why we will have to hold small meetings to send a message to the people. We will have to go door to door," Rao said at the party meeting. "I was watching TV the other day. Amit Shah organised a padayatra in Uttar Pradesh with nearly 5,000 people in tow. No one books a case against him. There are thousands of people, but the excuse given is that it was a house to house affair," Rao said. "I request the ECI, do not have one rule for UP and another for Goa. Have one rule for the entire country. Not giving opposition parties a chance to campaign, not allowing them to go to people (is not right). People are against the BJP government. They want to send them home in Goa," Rao said. The AICC official also said that the ruling BJP had taken control of "all institutions" in the country, which Rao said were being used for the advantage of the ruling party. "The BJP has taken control of all our institutions. Whether it is Income Tax, CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation), ED (Enforcement Directorate) or other departments (like) Election Commission. They are being used for their advantage. Therefore in Goa too, they do not want other political parties to campaign, hold big functions," he said. --IANS maya/dpb ( 374 Words) 2022-01-24-14:28:01 (IANS)
The alleged creator of the Bulli Bai app, Niraj Bishnoi, has moved a bail petition in a session court of Delhi on Monday. Bishnoi, a 21-year-old engineering student, who is said to be the main conspirator and creator of the Bulli Bai app on GitHub and the main Twitter account holder of the app, was arrested by Delhi Police Special Cell's Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit (IFSO) from Assam's Jorhat on January 5, 2022. Additional Session Judge Dharmender Rana is scheduled to hear the bail plea of Bishnoi on Tuesday. Earlier, the Magistrate court on January 13, 2022, had dismissed the bail petition of Niraj Bishnoi stating that a vilification campaign against women containing derogatory content and offending material having communal overtones was run on this App being made by the accused. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Pankaj Sharma had said that considering the enormity of the allegation and the stage of the investigation, no ground is made out for grant of bail at this stage. "Bail denied," the Court said adding that the investigation of this case is at the initial stage and police is in process of collecting evidence and identifying the involvement of other persons involved in this disdainful act. The court had also noted that the act of the accused is apparently an affront to the dignity of the women of a particular community and the communal harmony of the society. The court also noted that the facts disclose that the accused created the App "Bullibai" where women journalists and celebrities of a particular community who are famous on social media are targeted and they are projected in a bad light with an objective to insult and humiliate them by objectification. Delhi Police had earlier said that during interrogation, Neeraj Bishnoi disclosed that the app was developed in November 2021 and updated in December 21 and he had said that he created one more Twitter account to talk about the app. Several complaints were received by police stations in the country regarding the listing of Muslim women for "auction" on the 'Bulli Bai' mobile application with photographs sourced without permission and doctored. It has happened for the second time in less than a year. The app appeared to be a clone of 'Sulli Deals' which triggered a similar row last year. An engineering student from Bengaluru, a young girl from Uttarakhand, and one of her friends have also been arrested by Mumbai Police in connection with the 'Bulli Bai' app case. (ANI)
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal on Monday demanded the registration of a criminal case against Punjab DGP S Chattopadhyay for allegedly taking orders from criminals while functioning as the State Police chief. The SAD president was referring to an expose in a leading daily during a brief campaign stop for the party's Mohali candidate Parminder Singh Sohana. He alleged that a tape recording had surfaced which had the DGP talking to a proclaimed offender in the Bhola drug case. "During the course of this conversation, the proclaimed offender instructed the DGP regarding transfer and posting of certain police officers, shifting of notorious prisoners from one jail to another and creating an illegal detention centre in Mohali," the SAD chief said. Alleging that S Chattopadhyay's cordial relations with drug baron Jagdish Bhola were out in the public domain, Badal said "it is now also clear that this police officer was working in league with drug smugglers as well as tainted police officers. Due action should be taken against him as per law." He said now it was also clear why Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi had gone out of his way to appoint Chattopadhyay as the State DGP even though he was not eligible to hold this post. "Channi is also mixed up in these illegal activities which were also proved by the huge recovery of cash and gold from his nephew's house. It is also clear that he was privy to Chattopadhyay's affairs and due action should also be taken against him," he added. The SAD chief also questioned why Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) President Navjot Singh Sidhu was silent after the evidence against an officer who was personally chosen by him to register false cases against the top Akali leadership. "Sidhu should explain why he allowed an officer who was earlier also known to pursue personal vendettas to lead the State police and why he kept quiet about the illegal activities of Chattopadhyay," Badal said. The SAD President also demanded an impartial probe into the tape recordings which had come into the public sphere. "This case has far-reaching consequences vis a vis the drug trade in the region. Besides the DGP and his political masters, there are a number of other black sheep who are involved in drug trafficking. They should also be identified, booked and put behind bars after a thorough probe," he added. (ANI)
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain an application seeking clarification on its judgement of October 7, 2020, in which the top court had said that public roads can't be blocked indefinitely. The apex court had passed the order in connection with a road blockade by protesters at Shaheen Bagh, against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.M. Sundresh told the intervener's counsel that the issue is already over, and wondered what clarification is sought on the judgment. "The judgment speaks for itself", noted the bench, adding that no clarification is necessary. The counsel, representing an intervener, sought a short adjournment on the ground that the arguing counsel is not well. The bench said: "such applications are not maintainable". The top court reiterated that judgment has already been passed and it will not entertain applications in already disposed of matter. The top court judgment had come on a petition filed by advocate Amit Sahni, where it held that public roads and spaces can't be occupied in an indefinite manner for protests, causing inconvenience to the people. The top court had observed that demonstrations expressing dissent must be organised at designated places only. Sahni had sought removal of the protesters, who had occupied a public road at Shaheen Bagh. The protesters later moved out of the site in the backdrop of Covid pandemic. --IANS ss/skp/ ( 248 Words) 2022-01-24-14:58:04 (IANS)
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Monday expressed strong protest to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the proposed amendments to the All India Services (Cadre) Rules and said that the move is against the federal polity of our Constitution. "The proposed amendments militate against the federal structure of our constitution both in letter and spirit. Further, the proposed amendments will also seriously erode the All-India Service character of the IAS. IPS and IFS. Telangana State Government therefore strongly opposes the proposed amendments. This is a dangerous move that is against the constitutional framework and spirit of cooperative federalism. If the proposed amendments are effected by the Government of India, the State Governments would be reduced to be insignificant entities," he said. The Telangana Chief Minister said the proposal is a move to exercise indirect control by the Centre on officers working in the States. It amounts to interfering in the functioning of the State Governments, targeted harassment of officers and their demoralisation, besides impacting accountability of officers to the State Governments. It would also render State Governments as helpless entities in a matter of AIS officers. "Therefore, I demand the Government of India to cease and desist from the proposed amendments in the interest of administrative fairness and the federal polity of our Constitution," he wrote. The Centre has proposed an amendment to the IAS (Cadre) Rules, 1954, which would enable it to post IAS officers on central deputation, bypassing reservations of state governments. (ANI)
According to sources, these states and UTs include Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh.

Earlier, Union Health Minister had interacted with the Health Ministers and Principal Secretaries of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa and Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu.

In the meeting, he had advised that states must review the strengthening of health infrastructure, establish teleconsultation hubs in every district and focus on raising awareness on available services.

Meanwhile, India reported a down surge in the COVID 19 cases as the country recorded 3,06,064 new COVID-19 cases on Monday.

According to government sources to ANI, "it is expected to reduce COVID-19 cases by February 15." (ANI)
Suman Sharma, former Rajasthan women commission chairperson, on Monday attacked the Ashok Gehlot government, questioning the delay in filling the vacant positions of women panel. "Rajasthan Chief minister Ashok Gehlot has hired 10 advisors in state, however, he has kept the state Rajasthan women panel vacant for three years. Is the CM against women, doesn't he like to bring in women empowerment or is he following double standards?" she asked. Referring to Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi's slogan -- 'Ladki hoon lad sakti hoon', she said that the state government is going the other way when it comes to Congress' national slogan. "This is for the first time in the history of Rajasthan that 10 CM advisors have been appointed, but the women state commission panel lies vacant for the last three years," she added. "It's beyond understanding why the commission is lying vacant even at a time when Rajasthan's own Alwar has become women crime capital and the state stays on top when it comes to crime against women." Sharma said that the state government is patting its own back by saying that FIRs are being registered in the state. "FIRs were registered earlier too, however, now the crimes are continuously increasing in the state against women," she added. Surprisingly, the state government is openly flouting the High Court directions too which is quite surprising, she said. The Rajasthan High Court recently questioned the state government for keeping the commission panel vacant and has sent notices to the Chief secretary and women and child principal secretary. Former Jaipur Greater Mayor Sawmya Gurjar also questioned the state government for delaying the appointment of women panel in Rajasthan. "Where should women go to share their pains and problems when the panel is lying vacant for the last three years," she said adding that "we agree that there must be problems in filling other posts, but all governments should appoint women panel with prominence, or else we see devastating results as we are witnessing in Rajasthan with crime against women touching newer heights," she added. Even Congress workers are questioning the delayed recruitments on important positions in the state. A senior leader, on conditions of anonymity said, "Had the government filled the vacant posts of women commission soon after forming the government, we could have completed two tenures as one tenure extends for three years. Hence two sets of workers would have got a chance. It's an irony that the state govt is ignoring what the high command says, he said. Meanwhile, a senior Congress worker told IANS, "It's pathetic as many organisational positions are lying vacant in the state and political appointments are awaited too even at a time when the state has to go for elections after 22 months." Meanwhile, sources confirmed that the state incharge Ajay Maken is busy in Punjab elections and hence the delay. --IANS arc/skp/ ( 492 Words) 2022-01-24-15:26:05 (IANS)
Bharatiya Janata Party national president JP Nadda on Monday while announcing the seat-sharing arrangement among National Democratic Alliance partners in Punjab said that the aim of this alliance is not just to seize power but also to secure the future of coming generations and the security of the state. "Our alliance is not only a means for change of power, nor is its purpose just to form a government in the state. This election is an election to secure the future of coming generations and give stability to Punjab. This alliance aims to do the same. If Punjab is stable then the country will be safe," said Nadda. "NDA is taking this election seriously and it is an important election because Punjab state is a border state. This is the state that is related to the security of the country and stability in Punjab is the need of the country. A strong stable government here is important for the security of the country," he added. Nadda in his address stressed that issues like smuggling of illegal drugs and sophisticated weapons from Pakistan are big issues in the poll-bund state. He said, "The issue of nationality has always been a priority of the BJP." "Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country is moving ahead by leaps and bounds while anti-national forces have made efforts to derail it. They always try to use the western border and Punjab for achieving their target," BJP leader said. Nadda announced that Bharatiya Janata Party will contest 65 seats, Amarinder Singh's Punjab Lok Congress 37 seats and Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) 15 seats in the upcoming Punjab assembly polls. Punjab will go to the polls on February 20. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. In the 2017 Punjab Assembly polls, Congress won an absolute majority in the state by winning 77 seats and ousted the SAD-BJP government after 10 years. Aam Aadmi Party emerged as the second-largest party winning 20 seats in 117-member Punjab Legislative Assembly. The SAD could only manage to win 15 seats while the BJP secured 3 seats. (ANI)
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Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, a Muslim body, on Monday filed a plea in the Supreme Court urging it to urgently hear its petition seeking action against media reports indulging in communal branding of COVID-19 pandemic in the light of 2020 Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin area. The body sought an urgent hearing of its plea in the backdrop of upcoming assembly polls in five states saying the dissemination of fake news and hate speech poses a grave danger to the lives and liberties of a large section of citizens. The PIL was last listed on September 2 last year and since then it has not come up for hearing, stated the application for early hearing. "The present matter has assumed particular importance because elections to the Legislative Assemblies of five states are being conducted presently. The dissemination of hate speech during electoral campaigns poses a grave threat to the peace and harmony in the country. The Applicants/Petitioners humbly submit that this court needs to give specific directions to control the dissemination of fake news and hate speeches and the matter needs to be heard urgently," stated the plea. The PILs filed by Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and Peace Party had alleged discriminatory coverage by a section of the media and spreading communal hatred over the Tablighi Jamaat congregation. The top court had earlier observed that a section of media gives communal colour to news bringing a bad name to the country. It had also pulled up the Central government for doing nothing to curb TV programs that are instigating or impacting a community. The apex court had observed that control over TV programs that are instigating in nature is as important as some preventive measure, and emphasised fair and truthful reporting. It had also observed that freedom of speech is one of the most abused freedom in recent times and had asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to file an affidavit detailing steps it had taken to stop broadcasts in TV channels that are targeting the Muslim community after Tablighi Jamaat incident. In 2020, as per the media reports, at least 9,000 people had participated in the religious gathering at Tablighi Jamaat's headquarters in Nizamuddin West. The congregation had allegedly become a key source for the spread of COVID-19 in India as many of the participants had travelled to various parts of the country for missionary works. (ANI)
The Centre on Monday informed the Delhi High Court that it is consulting with several stakeholders and therefore will need more time on issues relating to various pleas demanding criminalization of marital rape. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted before a bench of justices Rajiv Shakdher and C Hari Shankar that since the dignity of a woman was at stake and family issues are also involved, the Centre will need more time. The Centre also said that the matter may not be looked at from a microscopic angle as the court is dealing with the constitutional validity of a provision. He also submitted that there is no imminent threat that something is going to happen to someone. The bench however said that there are some people for whom every day matters as they say they are facing abuse. The Court said that first let others finish arguments and then it will consider Centre's plea seeking time. Meanwhile, Amicus Curiae and Senior Advocate Rebecca John apprised the Court about receiving hate due to her stand on marital rape and a lot of people asking her to recuse herself from the issue because she had openly supported the criminalization of marital rape. Advocate Jonn apprised these facts to the Court when she was concluding her submission on the issue as an Amicus Curiae. She submitted that other sections like 498A of IPC which are meant to address grievances of married women deal with specific crimes and the crime of rape is outside their purview. She said that Section 375 is separate and Section 498A can not be used as a substitute for Section 375 as every offence is distinct in nature. Amicus on Friday told the Delhi High Court that there can be a legitimate expectation regarding sex in a marriage, but it cannot lead to forcible sex with the wife. The hearing would be continued on Tuesday. The court was hearing a batch of petitions including by the NGOs RIT Foundation and All India Democratic Women's Association who have challenged an exception to section 375 to the Indian Penal Code. The exception to Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, says sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape. (ANI)
According to sources, a decision may be taken to lift restrictions like weekend curfew and the odd-even system in the markets in view of the decreasing COVID cases in Delhi.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will also be present in the DDMA meeting scheduled to be held on Thursday.

Last week, the Delhi government allowed all private offices in the National Capital Territory of Delhi, outside of Containment Zones, to function with upto 50 per cent attendance. The DDMA had, however, advised the private offices to stagger office timing, presence and quantum of staff.

Earlier in the month, DDMA decided to impose a curfew in Delhi on Saturdays and Sundays to curb the COVID-19 surge.

"It is also clarified that Night Curfew from 10 PM to 5 AM every day and Weekend Curfew from 10 PM of Friday till 5 AM of subsequent Monday, on the movement of individuals in NCT of Delhi shall also remain in force till further order," said the DDMA in its order.

Meanwhile, Delhi reported 5,760 new COVID cases and 30 deaths in the last 24 hours.

According to the health bulletin of the Delhi Government, the active COVID cases in the national capital stood at 45,140 on Monday with the positivity rate going down to 11.79 per cent. (ANI)
In the meeting both the States decided to conduct a ground-level survey on boundary status.

"Solving boundary issues with neighbours is our priority. Discussed with CM of Arunachal Pradesh Pema Khandu, who came all the way to Guwahati, measures for a permanent solution to the long-pending issue. We decided to conduct ground level survey on boundary status," tweeted Sarma after the meeting.

Assam has boundary disputes with the neighbouring states like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram. (ANI)
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that the husband of Punjab minister Razia Sultana, Mohammad Sultana, should be arrested in connection with alleged hate speech in Malerkotla district during the election campaign. Puri also said that neither Congress nor Navjot Singh Sidhu has apologised for his inflammatory speech, which means that he has their approval. "We have submitted a complaint to ECI, requesting them to take action against Mustafa as this is a violation of the model code of conduct." he said. He further said that Mustafa, who was a former state DGP and currently one of the advisors of Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, had allegedly given a provocative speech. Puri alleged, "Mustafa said 'I swear to Allah, I will not allow anybody to conduct events during the election campaign'. It is the fundamental right to hold a political rally." The Union Minister also said that it is really sad that there has been no apology neither from Congress nor Navjot Singh Sidhu. (ANI)
Telangana has joined the list of states who are "strongly" opposing the Central government's proposed amendments to the All India Services (Cadre) Rules, 1954. Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling it a dangerous move "which violates the spirit of Constitution and will further strain the Centre-State relationship". A day after Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan and Tamil Nadu's M.K. Stalin joined the list of chief ministers opposing the proposed amendment, Rao also demanded the Centre to drop the move. KCR, as the Telangana Chief Minister is popularly known, wrote that the proposed amendments militate against the federal structure of the Constitution, both in letter and spirit. "Further, the proposed amendments will also seriously erode the All-India Service (AIS) character of the IAS, IPS and IFS. Telangana State Government, therefore, strongly oppose the proposed amendments," reads the letter. "The proposal shows scant regard to the administrative exigencies and requirements of the states. The proposed amendments threaten the spirit of mutual adjustments and accommodation between states and Central governments in the matter of shared All India Services and will further strain the Centre-State relationship," wrote the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief. Stating that the proposed amendment is "nothing but amending the Constitution of India relating to the Centre-State relations", KCR said instead of such a "backdoor method" of amending the AIS Rules, the Government of India should muster "courage" to amend the provisions by the Parliament. "Considering the criticality of functions discharged by AIS officers in the states, the present rule position and practice provides for concurrence of state governments in matter of deputation of officers to the Central government. The proposed amendment seeks to unilaterally disturb the above position, with the Central government assuming the power to take officers on deputation without concurrence of the officers of the state government concerned," he said in the letter. KCR further asserted that if the proposed amendments are effected, the state governments would be reduced to be "insignificant" entities. He said that the proposal is clearly a move to exercise indirect control by the Central government on officers working in the states. "It amounts to interfering in the functioning of the state government, targeted harassment of officers and their demoralization, besides impacting accountability of officers to the state governments. It would also render state governments as helpless entities in matters of AIS officers," he added. --IANS ms/shs ( 415 Words) 2022-01-24-19:02:02 (IANS)
The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Mohd Enamul Haque, who is a prime accused in an alleged multi-crore cattle smuggling case where he is facing corruption charges, saying that his custody is not warranted. A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Dinesh Maheshwari said: "We are of the opinion that continued detention of appellant in custody is not warranted." As Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, representing the CBI, urged the bench to not grant him bail in the matter as investigation in the matter is in progress, the bench pointed out that the investigation in the matter cannot remain open-ended. "We direct the appellant to be released on bail subject to terms and conditions set by the Special CBI judge, Asansol....". Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Haque, submitted before the bench that his client has been in custody for a long time and all the other accused, including the BSF Commandant, have been granted bail. He also pointed at the issue of the CBI's jurisdiction to investigate a case, when the state government has withdrawn its consent. The bench said that against the backdrop of offences involved and the custody undergone by the petitioner, his further custody was not required. It also observed that the petitioner has already been granted default bail by the court in Kochi and he has been in custody since November 2020 and charge sheets have been filed in 2021. During the hearing, it observed that Haque has been charged with offences having a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment. The top court was hearing an appeal by Haque challenging the Calcutta High Court order, passed in November 2021, which dismissed his bail petition citing serious accusations against him. It was alleged that a BSF Commandant in Roshanbagh, West Bengal, had accepted illegal gratification to allow cattle smugglers near the India-Bangladesh border go scot-free. The BSF Commandant was later arrested at a railway station in Kerala, and Rs 43 lakh was recovered from him. It was alleged that Haque had played a key role in the deal with the Commandant. --IANS ss/vd ( 364 Words) 2022-01-24-19:12:02 (IANS)
The TMC in Goa has fielded two ex-Congress leaders for the party election management in Goa. The two leaders quit the Congress recently to join the TMC. The TMC has roped in Ashok Tanwar, former Youth Congress and Haryana President to work for the party in Goa. Tanwar is reaching out to Youth Congress leaders and cadres who are upset with the party. Tanwar speaking to IANS claimed that no government can be formed without the TMC, "the party is going to win more than a dozen seats in the state as the Congress is in self destruction mode, not taking the state leaders into confidence." He said that he is not poaching anybody but it is the Congress workers who have been approaching him due to the pathetic state the party. The TMC is giving formidable options to Goans with former Chief Minister Luizinho Falerio leading the party in the state. Falerio was Congress ex-chief minister and senior leader of the party. Similarly Sushmita Dev who headed the women's wing of the party has also been roped in to woo Congress women leaders and workers into the TMC, which is fighting its first Goa polls. Dev and Tanwar were genext leaders of the Congress but both have parted ways and are now denting their former party's prospects in the state. The Congress had alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Trinamool Congress were contesting in Goa to split the opposition vote and help the BJP. Congress senior observer for Goa, P. Chidambaram, said the people are voting either for the BJP or for regime change. Chidambaram in a statement had said, "My assessment that the AAP (and the TMC) will only fracture the non-BJP vote in Goa has been confirmed by Mr Arvind Kejriwal. The contest in Goa is between Congress and BJP". "Those who want a regime change (after 10 years of misrule) will vote for the Congress. Those who want the regime to continue will vote for the BJP. The choice before the voter in Goa is stark and clear. Do you want a regime change or not? I appeal to the voters of Goa to vote for a regime change and vote Congress," he added. The Congress is facing a tough battle in Goa while trying to be ahead of the BJP as the Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party are spoiling the grand old party's game in the state. After the Congress did not respond to offers of alliance the TMC had launched an attack on the Congress . Trinamool Congress national Vice President Pawan Varma last week attacked the top Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and P. Chidambaram, and had said that they have not been able to "rise above their narrow silos" to respond to the political challenges. "The Congress is driven by the ambition of one leader whose inadequacy I do not need to explain. Since 2012, the Congress under this leadership has lost 90 per cent of the elections it has fought. If it could deliver, why would there be a need for change? You have seen the track record... 2014, 2019," Varma told reporters. --IANS miz/bg ( 542 Words) 2022-01-24-19:22:03 (IANS)
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the petitioner, seeking probe into recent communal violence in Tripura, to file a rejoinder to the state government's response,which urged the court to dismiss the plea. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing advocate Ehtesham Hashmi, submitted before a bench headed by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud that "C" grade TV channels indulge in such whataboutery, but this is not expected from a state government in such a sensitive case of communal violence. The Tripura government, in an affidavit, had asked why public-spirited citizens who filed PIL, were silent on West Bengal violence. Citing the state's response, Bhushan said this does not show it in a good light. After hearing arguments, the bench, also comprising Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, asked the petitioner to give their rejoinder in the matter and scheduled the matter for further hearing on January 31. The Tripura government said: "No individuals or group of individuals professionally functioning as public-spirited persons can selectively invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction of this court to achieve some apparent but undisclosed motive." It also claimed that allegations against it started with planted and pre-planned articles in tabloids. The state government further added that these people were selectively outraged with it, though they remained silent on large-scale post-poll violence, which occurred in West Bengal. On November 29, the top court issued notice on a plea seeking independent SIT probe into the communal violence in Tripura. The plea has been filed by Hashmi, through Bhushan has arrayed Centre, the DGP, Tripura, and the TripuraAgovernment as respondents. The plea claimed that between October 13 and October 27, last year, hate crimes were perpetrated in Tripura by organised mobs. "These included damage to mosques, burning of business establishments owned by Muslims, organising rallies shouting Islamophobic and genocidal hate slogans and delivering hate speeches targeting Muslims in various parts of Tripura," said the plea. The plea said no arrests have been made of persons who were responsible for desecrating mosques or vandalising shops and delivering hate speeches targeting the Muslim community. --IANS ss/vd ( 352 Words) 2022-01-24-19:28:02 (IANS)
After the Election Commission of India allowed the conduct of indoor meetings in the presence of 500 people, the Bharatiya Janata Party OBC Morcha has decided to field workers in every Assembly constituency for Uttar Pradesh elections. BJP OBC Morcha has announced that they would hold indoor meetings in every Assembly constituency with 300 people. Speaking to ANI, President of OBC Morcha, Lakshman said, "We have made our Morcha team in UP. We have decided that following the guidelines of the Election Commission, we will campaign from door-to-door in every assembly constituency." Lauding the work done by the state and the Central government, he said that no other government has worked for the backward classes the way that the Modi-Yogi duo has worked. "The amount of work that has been done under the Modi and Yogi government for the backward classes, such work has hardly been done. We would go among people based on the work that we have done for them and urge them to re-elect the double-engine government. Lakshman further hit out at Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and said that only a few family members had developed under his governance. "In his government, only a few family members have developed in the name of backwards," he said. Talking about the leaders who left the BJP, he said, "They wanted tickets for their family members. This will not work in the BJP. This is only possible in Samajwadi Party and Congress, that is why they have left. The 403-member assembly of Uttar Pradesh will vote in all seven phases will polling to be held on February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27 and March 3 and 7. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. (ANI)
An event organised by the Sikh and Punjabi community in Washington has thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his contribution to Sikh history, tradition and culture. The event thanked Prime Minister Modi for the several initiatives taken for the community, including Veer Bal Diwas, opening of Kartarpur Corridor on Parkash Purab of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, repealing of three farm laws, bringing back Sikhs and Guru Granth Sahib from Afghanistan, and the Rs 43,000 crore project supposed to be launched in Ferozepur for Punjab. Prime Minister Modi was also lauded for FCRA Registration for the Golden Temple in Amritsar, tax-free langar, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's 550th Prakash Parv, promoting teachings of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's 400th Prakash Parv and for powering the progress of Punjab. --IANS san/arm ( 149 Words) 2022-01-24-20:40:06 (IANS)
Appreciating the efforts of the authorities taken regarding overcrowding in the city's Sarojini Market, the Delhi High Court on Monday told the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Delhi Police to ensure the removal of unauthorised street vending in the market area. A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh also directed the NDMC and Delhi Police to submit status reports of the further developments before the court on next hearing in May. In the last hearing on December 24, 2021, the court had turned its ire on the Delhi Police and the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) after taking note of reports, including a viral video, of an enormous crowd, virtually treading over each other, in a leading capital market, amid the rise in cases of Covid's Omicron variant. Taking cognisance of reports of overcrowding in the Sarojini Nagar market, the bench had observed the situation is "frightening" and called on the DDMA and the police to work out a movement plan for the public at large visiting the market in light of the prevailing pandemic. "There can be a stampede where hundreds of people can die. And don't say that this is stage-managed. Hundreds of people are pushing each other and there is no control that people have... They are just flowing like a river," the court said. It was also suggested that if any squatter/vendor's goods are seized for encroachment of the pavement/market road, then these should not be released since the vendors are flouting the court directions and market rules. "Their goods are released after paying a paltry fine. In this way they are able to perpetuate illegal encroachment," the court said. Taking note of the third wave of Covid-19, the court said, whether it's Covid or no Covid, the situation is eerie. The bench also said the Sarojini Nagar market should be regulated by fixing entry points and ensuring that it is not filled to capacity and there is no overcrowding on any given day. --IANS jw/vd ( 349 Words) 2022-01-24-21:04:04 (IANS)
After former chief minister of Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday revealed that he got a request from Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for inducting Navjot Singh Sidhu into his cabinet, BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa accused Sidhu of shaking hands with the enemy to get power and demanded an answer from Congress on the matter. Addressing a joint press conference with his Punjab alliance partners here, Amarinder said, "Pakistan PM sent a request saying if you can take Sidhu into your cabinet I will be grateful, he is an old friend of mine. You can remove him if does not work." The statement has taken the political heat ahead of the Assembly polls in five states including Punjab to another level with the BJP hitting out at the Congress party and demanding the answer on the same. BJP leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa released a self-made video and said, "It is sensational news. Congress should answer it. How the morale of the soldiers might have come down when they would have got the news that Sidhu shook hands with his enemy to get power and did lobbying with the Prime Minister of an enemy nation." Sirsa further alleged that this mindset is "against the country and Army" and demanded from the Congress party to act firmly against Sidhu. "It is a mindset against the country. This thought is against the Army. Congress must respond to this. If Congress believes that Pakistan is our enemy, then they should act firmly against Sidhu," he said. Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that Amarinder also said that Sidhu did not work for months when he was in the cabinet. "Amarinder Singh also said that when Sidhu was the minister in his cabinet, he did not see the files for months and he had warned him even then. Then he said that there was a request from Pakistan," Puri said. However, Congress leader KTS Tulsi termed the Captain's statement a "poor joke" and said that there was no question of Sidhu becoming a minister in the cabinet of Amarinder Singh. "It seems it is a poor joke. There is no question of Navjot Sidhu becoming a minister in the cabinet of Amarinder. Both are impossibilities," he said. Amarinder Singh, who has floated Punjab Lok Congress after resigning as Chief Minister in September last year, had said the Pakistan Prime Minister in his request conveyed through a person "known to them" termed Sidhu as an "old friend" and said he could be removed if he does not work. (ANI)
Ever since rocks were brought back from the Moon to the Earth, during NASA's Apollo program from 1968 to 1972, an enduring mystery continued to baffle scientists: the Moon's magnetic field - one that rivalled Earth's in strength. Now, research led by a Brown University geoscientist proposes a new explanation for the Moon's magnetic mystery. It wasn't clear how a Moon-sized body could have generated a magnetic field that strong. But now, the study, published in 'Nature Astronomy', has shown that giant rock formations sinking through the Moon's mantle could have produced the kind of interior convection that generates strong magnetic fields. The processes could have produced intermittently strong magnetic fields for the first billion years of the Moon's history, the researchers said. "Everything that we've thought about how magnetic fields are generated by planetary cores tells us that a body of the Moon's size should not be able to generate a field that's as strong as Earth's," said Alexander Evans, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown and co-author of the study with Sonia Tikoo from Stanford University. "But instead of thinking about how to power a strong magnetic field continuously over billions of years, maybe there's a way to get a high-intensity field intermittently. Our model shows how that can happen, and it's consistent with what we know about the Moon's interior." Planetary bodies are known to produce magnetic fields through what's known as a core dynamo. Slowly dissipating heat caused convection of molten metals in a planet's core. The constant churning of electrically conductive material was what produces a magnetic field. That's how Earth's magnetic field -- which protected the surface from the sun's most dangerous radiation -- was formed. The Moon lacked a magnetic field and models of its core suggested that it was probably too small and lacked the convective force to have ever produced a continuously strong magnetic field. In order for a core to have a strong convective churn, it needed to dissipate a lot of heat. In the case of the early Moon, Evans said, the mantle surrounding the core wasn't much cooler than the core itself. Because the core's heat didn't have anywhere to go, there wasn't much convection in the core. But this new study showed how sinking rocks could have provided intermittent convective boosts. The story of these sinking stones started a few million years after the Moon's formation. Very early in its history, the Moon is thought to have been covered by an ocean of molten rock. As the vast magma ocean began to cool and solidify, minerals like olivine and pyroxene that were denser than the liquid magma sank to the bottom, while less dense minerals like anorthosite floated to form the crust. The remaining liquid magma was rich in titanium as well as heat-producing elements like thorium, uranium and potassium, so it took a bit longer to solidify. When this titanium layer finally crystallized just beneath the crust, it was denser than the earlier-solidifying minerals below it. Over time, the titanium formations sank through the less-dense mantle rock underneath, a process known as gravitational overturn. For this new study, Evans and Tikoo modelled the dynamics of how those titanium formations would have sunk, as well as the effect they might have when they eventually reached the Moon's core. The analysis, which was based on the Moon's current composition and the estimated mantle viscosity, showed that the formations would likely break into blobs as small as 60 kilometres and diameter, and sink intermittently over the course of about a billion years. When each of these blobs eventually hit bottom, they would have given a major jolt to the Moon's core dynamo, the researchers found. Having been perched just below the Moon's crust, the titanium formations would have been relatively cool in temperature -- far cooler than the core's estimated temperature of somewhere between 2,600 and 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit. When the cool blobs came in contact with the hot core after sinking, the temperature mismatch would have driven an increased core convection -- enough to drive a magnetic field at the Moon's surface as strong or even stronger than Earth's. "You can think of it a little bit like a drop of water hitting a hot skillet," Evans said. "You have something really cold that touches the core, and suddenly a lot of heat can flux out. That causes churning in the core to increase, which gives you these intermittently strong magnetic fields." There could have been as many as 100 of these downwelling events over the Moon's first billion years of existence, the researchers say, and each one could have produced a strong magnetic field lasting a century or so. Evans said the intermittent magnetic model not only accounts for the strength of the magnetic signature found in the Apollo rock samples, but also for the fact that magnetic signatures vary widely in the Apollo collection -- with some having strong magnetic signatures while others don't. "This model is able to explain both the intensity and the variability we see in the Apollo samples -- something that no other model has been able to do," Evans said. "It also gives us some time constraints on the foundering of this titanium material, which gives us a better picture of the Moon's early evolution." The idea is also quite testable, Evans said. It implies that there should have been a weak magnetic background on the Moon that was punctuated by these high-strength events. That should be evident in the Apollo collection. While the strong magnetic signatures in the Apollo samples stuck out like a sore thumb, no one has ever really looked for weaker signatures, Evans said. The presence of those weak signatures along with the strong ones would give this new idea a big boost, which could finally put the Moon's magnetic mystery to rest. (ANI)
A new study has found how lung macrophages develop and these new findings can help to reduce organ damage and are significant for the continued development of important lung disease treatments. The research has been published in the 'Journal of Experimental Medicine'. Lung macrophages begin to develop in humans from birth when the lungs are first inflated with inhaled air. Despite the importance of lung macrophages in the immune system, it had not been previously known how they develop in humans, since in-vivo studies in humans are difficult to conduct. However, with the help of a model, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now been able to directly study the development of human macrophages in a living lung. In the study, it was discovered that lung macrophages develop in two different ways. "In the first type of development, lung macrophages originate from precursor cells that are already present in the fetus' liver," said Tim Willinger, associate professor at the Department of Medicine, Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, who led the study. "After we are born, these precursor cells move from the liver to the lungs via the bloodstream. In the lungs, they are then exposed to various growth factors, which helps them to develop into 'mature' lung macrophages. The second type of development occurs later in life. At that point they develop from adult precursor cells, so-called monocytes, which are found in the blood," he added. The researchers also investigated whether the origin of the lung macrophages affected their function. Here they could see that the lung macrophages, regardless of their origin, had a similar gene expression but with different functions. "We discovered that fetal precursor cells divide faster than the adult precursor cells," said the study's first author Elza Evren, a doctoral student in Tim Willinger's research group. "The fetal precursor cells, therefore, populate the lungs faster, which is important early on in life to quickly remove microorganisms and other inhaled particles," Evren added. The lung macrophages derived from adult precursor cells were instead found to be strongly activated by interferon, a protein that has the task to defend against viral infections. It is therefore very likely that this particular type of lung macrophage has an important function within the immune system to help fight viruses. The researchers were also able to see that these lung macrophages are similar to pro-inflammatory macrophages, which can become overactivated and contribute to serious lung damage in diseases such as COVID-19. The new findings contribute to a better understanding of the origin and function of lung macrophages. The human fetal progenitor cell that the researchers have identified is a potential cell that can be targeted to regenerate tissue-protective macrophages, limit organ damage and promote tissue repair in an injured lung. These findings can also support the development of new treatments for a number of lung diseases. The study was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, SciLifeLab, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Karolinska Institutet, Centre for Innovative Medicine (CIMED), Region Stockholm, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, Petrus och Augusta Hedlunds Stiftelse and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. One of the authors from Yale University has reported conflicts of interest, which are described in detail in the scientific paper. (ANI)
The European Parliament has approved a draft set of measures to tackle illegal content, especially targeted advertising, and to ensure that social media platforms are held accountable for their algorithms and improve content moderation. The law will prevent Big Tech from using sensitive information for targeted advertising. The 'Digital Services Act' will regulate platforms for a safer online space for users. The bill provides for more transparent and informed choice for the recipients of digital services, including information on how their data will be monetised. If their consent is refused or withdrawn, recipients shall be given other options to access the online platform, including "options based on tracking-free advertising". "Much has changed in the 20 years since we adopted the e-commerce directive. Online platforms have become increasingly important in our daily life, bringing new opportunities, but also new risks," said Christel Schaldemose, who is leading the European Parliament's negotiating team. "It is our duty to make sure that what is illegal offline is illegal online. We need to ensure that we put in place digital rules to the benefit of consumers and citizens," Schaldemose said in a statement. Online marketplaces must ensure that consumers can purchase safe products online, strengthening the obligation to trace traders. According to the bill, very large online platforms (VLOPs) will be subject to specific obligations due to the particular risks they pose regarding the dissemination of both illegal and harmful content. "Targeting or amplification techniques involving the data of minors for the purpose of displaying ads will be prohibited, as well as targeting individuals on the basis of special categories of data which allow for targeting vulnerable groups," the European Parliament said. The recipients of digital services and organisations representing them must be able to seek redress for any damages resulting from platforms not respecting their due diligence obligations. "Online platforms should be prohibited from using deceiving or nudging techniques to influence users' behaviour through 'dark patterns'," it added. --IANS na/ksk/ ( 337 Words) 2022-01-24-10:06:04 (IANS)
Dbeibah made his remarks during a graduation ceremony of soldiers in the capital Tripoli, said a statement issued by the government's information office.

"The prime minister stressed the commitment of the Government of National Unity to achieve stability, defend the civilian nature of the country, and reject war," the statement said.

"He also expressed pride (of the soldiers) and confirmed that they will be the protectors of the country," the statement added.

Dbeibah's government was selected by the UN-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) in February 2021, ending years of political division in Libya. (ANI/Xinhua)
Around 50,000 people took to the streets of Brussels to protest pandemic restrictions on Sunday, Belgian newspaper.

"Strongly condemn the senseless destruction and violence at the manifestation in Brussels today, including against our @eu_eeas/@EU_FPI [European External Action Service and EU Service for Foreign Policy Instruments] premises," Borrell tweeted.

Borrell also thanked police officers "for their action."

"The violence witnessed today in Brussels and the attack to our premises are a shameful violation of everything we stand for as EEAS and EU. We are grateful for the tireless work of @federalepolitie @policefederale and we will keep defending peaceful paths of freedom of expression," the EEAS wrote on Twitter in response.

This latest march comes after demonstrations in several other European capitals that also drew thousands of people protesting against vaccine mandates and other virus restrictions. (ANI)
Moscow and Islamabad are in talks to finalize the plan for Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Pakistan this year, a media report said on Sunday. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has already extended a formal invitation to Putin, The Express Tribune newspaper said in its report, adding that Imran Khan reiterated the invitation to him during his telephonic conversation this month. The Pakistani newspaper said Putin's visit was under discussion for the last two years but could not materialize because of several reasons, including the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the report, Moscow also wants that there must be "big-ticket projects" or other initiatives that the Russian president would announce when he finally undertakes the trip to Pakistan. Last year, Pakistan and Russia had signed an agreement for the construction of a 1,100 km gas pipeline from Port Qasim in Karachi to Lahore. The Pakistan media report said that the signing of the Pakistan Steam Gas Pipeline in July last year has brightened the prospects of Putin's visit to Pakistan. Pakistan is keen that President Putin inaugurates the more than USD 2 billion gas pipeline project and wants Russian companies to lay the pipeline from Karachi to Kasur. This project, according to the newspaper, is a flagship project that Moscow and Islamabad intend to undertake and enter into a new era of bilateral ties. The project not only had economic but strategic significance for Pakistan, the Tribune report added citing officials familiar with the development. It further said Pakistan wanted to broaden ties with Russia as part of its efforts to diversify its foreign policy options. (ANI)
Ankara [Turkey], January 24 (ANI/Sputnik): Ankara and Washington will negotiate the deal on F-35 fighters in late January - early February in the United States, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Sunday. "As for the F-35s, we asked [the US], 'we paid this much, how shall we go about the compensation.' The American side said they understood. We agreed to meet at the end of January - beginning of February. Our delegation will go there [to the US]. Six F-35s for Turkey are in a hangar. We are discussing what will happen to them," Akar was quoted as saying by the Turkish Milliyet newspaper. On January 3, Akar said that Turkey and the United States were preparing to discuss the F-35 fighter jet program during a meeting in Washington in early 2022. On January 8, he confirmed that the preparations were well underway. In 2019, the US suspended Turkey's participation in its F-35 program over Ankara's purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system and later completely removed it from the project. In October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Washington invited Ankara to buy F-16 fighter jets as a return for its investment in the F-35 program. (ANI/Sputnik)
"All of these suggestions are derived from international legitimacy resolutions and resolutions of the League of Arab States," Al-Sabah told a press conference on Sunday after a meeting with Aoun on the second day of his two-day visit to Lebanon.

He noted Kuwait does not want Lebanon to be a platform for any verbal or actual attacks against Arab states, Xinhua news agency reported.

For his part, the Lebanese President said Lebanon is committed to implementing the Taif Agreement which ended the civil war in Lebanon and relevant international legitimacy and Arab resolutions, and Al-Sabah's proposal will be subject to consultations.

Aoun reiterated the strength of the Lebanese-Kuwaiti relations while thanking Kuwait for always standing with Lebanon in difficult times.

This is the first visit by a senior official from a Gulf country to Lebanon in an effort to find ways of restoring bilateral ties since a diplomatic rift emerged between the two sides in 2021.

--IANS int/khz/

( 203 Words)

2022-01-24-00:44:03 (IANS)
The United States on Sunday updated its travel advisory for Ukraine urging American citizens to leave the country and authorizing the departure of some embassy employees. "On January 23, 2022, the Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of US direct hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action. US citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options," the State Department said in an advisory on Sunday. This advisory said Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine. "The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv." The State Department said that US citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine would severely impact the US Embassy's ability to provide consular services, including assistance to U.S. citizens in departing Ukraine." The State Department has urged American citizens not to take trips to the country amid "tension" along the border with Ukraine. "Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk. Read the entire Travel Advisory." This advisory comes as several countries, led by the US, have accused Russia of amassing troops near the Ukrainian border in alleged preparation for an invasion. Moscow has said that it has no intention of invading Ukraine while stressing that it has the right to move forces within its own territory. (ANI)
Iran has regained its right to vote at the UN General Assembly after its membership dues to the organisation were paid by South Korea with frozen Iranian funds, Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations announced. Majid Takht-Ravanchi said late on Saturday that as soon as Iran's arrears are received in New York, the country's voting rights should naturally be restored, official IRNA News Agency reported on Sunday. South Korea confirmed on Sunday that it has paid Tehran's membership delayed dues, amounting to $18 million, to the UN from Iranian funds frozen in the country, Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier, Takht-Ravanchi told IRNA that negotiations were underway between Tehran and the world body to lift the suspension of the country's right to vote at the General Assembly and enable the country to pay its membership dues to the organisation, expressing hope that the talks would soon yield favourable results. He noted that Iran, as an active UN member, has always been committed to paying up its membership dues on time and has proven this in practice. The Ambassador stressed that Iran has faced problems with the payment of its membership fee for the second consecutive year due to the sanctions imposed by the US, which have not only undermined Iran's ability to purchase humanitarian items and medical devices but are also impeding the UN's work. Iranian assets of over $7 billion are frozen in two South Korean banks. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced earlier in Janury that Iran and seven other countries have had their voting rights suspended over late dues. Iran had also lost its voting rights in 2021 when the US sanctions had blocked Iranian access to its billions of dollars frozen abroad. The US sanctions have been imposed since 2018 when former President Donald Trump withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal. Since April 2021, rounds of talks have been held between Iran and other remaining parties, namely Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, in the Austrian capital of Vienna to restore the nuclear pact, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with the US indirectly involved. --IANS int/khz/ ( 367 Words) 2022-01-24-01:08:03 (IANS)
Odawa Yusuf Rage, Commander of SNA told SNA Radio Mogadishu on Sunday that the militants' commander who was in charge of Guriel and El-bur town in the region, was among those killed there, Xinhua news agency reported.

"We killed six al-Shabab terrorists and foiled a car filled with explosives in which they wanted to detonate at SNA base in Guriel overnight," Rage said.

He added that the Army recovered weapons and a vehicle during the operation, adding that the Army will remain vigilant and are committed to counter terrorists.

Al-Shabab militants did not comment on the latest onslaught by the government forces.

--IANS int/khz/

( 149 Words)

2022-01-24-01:28:02 (IANS)
Burkina Faso's government has confirmed gunfire in some barracks but denied the information on social media about the Army takeover. Gunshots were heard early Sunday morning in barracks in the capital Ouagadougou. The motives for these shots are unknown, Xinhua news agency reported. --IANS int/khz/ ( 57 Words) 2022-01-24-01:52:02 (IANS)
Many Afghan students studying at United States universities through scholarship programmes say they are unable to return home as it endangers their lives under the current Taliban regime, according to a media report. In the last academic year, more than 100 Afghan students availed the Fulbright scholarship programme. As per the terms of this scholarship program, students are required to return to their home countries at the end of their academic programs however much has changed in their home country now and the Afghan students are fearful of their safety, the Voice of America (VOA) reported. Some of these students arrived just days before the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. As the conflict kept brewing the US embassy in Kabul was also closed. Maryam Rayed who left Afghanistan last August to pursue a master's degree in democracy and governance at Georgetown University in Washington, told VOA, "I have come to terms with the reality that is going back to my beloved Afghanistan and working there is no longer possible." Spokespeople at the Department of State and the Institute of International Education, which administers the Fulbright program, could not confirm to VOA whether there was a plan to waive the Fulbright requirement for the Afghan students to return to their home country after their studies are completed, reported VOA. Another Afghan Ahmad Raheb Radfar who worked as a foreign service officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs until August 2021 for the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan went to the U.S. to study international affairs at the State University of New York in Albany. He said, "My plan was to return to Afghanistan and resume my work at the ministry upon the completion of my program. But now, given the current situation of Afghanistan, I cannot do that," "We have been in touch with the [Fulbright] program administrators and have shared our concerns with them, but so far, they have not offered any assurance about our future," said Radfar. A lot of Afghans helped the US in Afghanistan or had an affiliation with the US before Kabul fell to the Taliban and US, out of fear that the Taliban would target them evacuated tens of thousands of these Afghans. There is no U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan to process visas, and travel from the country is extremely restricted and complex. "We are reviewing the significant safety, logistical, and programmatic constraints which must be overcome to successfully implement the 2022-23 Fulbright Program. We are committed to remaining in communication with the semi-finalist group about the status of the program, understanding they must pursue the choices that make the most sense for themselves and their families," a State Department of official told VOA. (ANI)
Estimated eight construction vehicles and equipment were set ablaze by suspected al-Shabab militants at 29 km from Hindi Town in the coastal Kenyan county of Lamu, a government official said. Lamu County Commissioner, Irungu Macharia on Sunday said the trucks are part of a fleet of vehicles belonging to the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) that is currently building the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor project access road. Macharia also confirmed that there were no casualties during the incident. He added the areas are marred with mobile network challenges, making it hard to communicate with police officers and units on the ground but promised that attackers were being pursued and that security has been heightened. "I am aware the attackers destroyed construction equipment. It has been a challenge trying to reach my officers on the ground but security agencies are currently pursuing the gunmen. I will give more details as I get them," said Macharia. Security reports indicate that the heavily armed gunmen attacked a parking lot at the mini-constriction at 4 a.m. and engaged the Kenya Defense Force before they threw gasoline bottles that burnt most of the equipment. The site is manned by Kenya Defense Forces (KDF), Xinhua news agency reported. A fire exchange lasting for over two hours ensued at the site between the gunmen and KDF, before the militants were finally repulsed and retreated back into the Boni forest. Officers who spoke on condition of anonymity said the network challenges in the area made it impossible for them to call for backup when the attack happened. "There is no network in this area and that has been the major issue in dealing with the terrorists here. We called for backup but the response was slow due to that. By the time we got help, a lot of damage had been done," said the officer. The LAPSSET project is touted as East Africa's largest and most ambitious infrastructure project connecting Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. On Saturday, intelligence reports indicated that the militia group was planning attacks in Lamu targeting the Lamu Port and the road leading to the facility. The Chinese company is constructing the road that will run through Lamu, Ijara and Garissa. --IANS int/khz/ ( 386 Words) 2022-01-24-03:54:02 (IANS)
Last Monday's drone and missile attack by Iran-backed Houthis on oil facilities near the airport of Abu Dhabi, in which several fuel tankers were blown up and three people were killed, took most people by surprise. This is because almost all Emirati troops, which were involved in the bloody fighting in Yemen, had been withdrawn in July 2019 and the United Arab Emirates was always projected as an entirely safe tourist and business hub, free from the bloody conflicts in the region. It should be noted, however, that recently the UAE air force resumed its strikes against Houthi strongholds and its shipments of military hardware to the Aden-based government, which the Houthis try to overturn. The attack on Abu Dhabi attracted international condemnation and could have serious implications on the policies of both the United Arab Emirates and other state players in the region. The UAE has promised it will retaliate against the most significant Houthi attack on its soil since 2018. On Friday there was a military response by the Saudi-led coalition on Yemen's Sa'ada City Remand Prison which, according to the MSF organization (Doctors without Borders) killed at least 82 people and injured 266. On the following day, Saudi-Emirati coalition fighters hit a telecommunication building in Al Hudaydah, Yemen's fourth-largest city, killing 20 people. Houthis' rare attack against the UAE could be a stern warning to the Emirati government that it should reconsider its support for local militias fighting the Ansar Allah- the official name of the Houthi movement- and completely stop its involvement in the Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthis in Yemen since 2015. But what prompted Houthis to carry out the attack and risk military retaliation and possibly a more general conflagration? The answer is that early in January the Giants Brigade, a well-organized militia that is equipped and supported by the UAE, launched a successful military operation to drive out Houthis from the governorate of Shabwa and then moved to Ma'arib. The understanding of Houthis, at the time the UAE withdrew its troops from Yemen, was that the Emiratis agreed not to escalate the situation in western Yemen and stop supporting the militias fighting the Ansar Allah. So, the operations of the UAE-backed Giants Brigade were a clear violation of this understanding. Some military analysts say that the attack against Abu Dhabi may have actually been launched by Iran, while the Houthis just claimed responsibility for it. They think that it is unlikely that the Houthis could launch such a sophisticated and accurate attack from a distance of more than 1200 kilometers. They believe that Tehran is using the war in Yemen to send a message to the Gulf States that they will either take the interests of Iran seriously into account or risk their stability and security and be targeted by the Houthis. Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst, points out that the United States had been exercising pressure on the Emiratis to better enforce the sanctions on Iran, while nuclear talks continue in Vienna, and adds: "The attack against Abu Dhabi also served as a dire warning by Iran to the UAE." Speaking to Al Jazeera, Horowitz referred to a series of attacks against maritime traffic off the UAE and said: "The last time the UAE felt such pressure, it reacted by quietly reaching out to Iran, to try and ease regional tensions. Caution on the UAE's side is far more likely than a shift back to confrontation." Another result of the missile and drone attack against Abu Dhabi is that US President Joe Biden is pondering about re-designating the Houthi rebels as an "international terrorist organization." Last year the US State Department reversed a decision taken by former President Donald Trump to include Houthis in the list of foreign terrorist groups because it would have stopped the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid to Yemen. Undoubtedly, the attack on Abu Dhabi has caught the UAE on the horns of a dilemma. Should it retaliate forcefully and escalate its military involvement in the war in Yemen, but be vulnerable to fresh attacks by the Houthis, or should it scale back its involvement to avoid further confrontation? Both choices present problems. If the UAE chooses to escalate its involvement in the war, it will have to spend tens of billions of dollars to boost its air defense to prevent future missile and drone attacks. It will also be forced to participate more actively in the war and possibly need to send troops to Yemen once again. This will certainly please Saudi Arabia and strengthen UAE's alliance with Riyadh but will endanger the current thaw in Emirati relations with Tehran. It should be noted, however, that the greatest problem with this choice is that, if there are new missile and drone attacks, the reputation of the UAE as a safe and secure country to do business will be badly hurt and the sectors of tourism and financial services will be severely affected. The other choice, that of scaling back its involvement in the war, which seems to be more likely, will mean that the UAE will lose some military prestige, but will ensure that it will continue to play the role of the tourist and business hub in the region. This implies that now the UAE feels more pressure to seek rapprochement with Iran. The downside is that it will probably anger its ally Saudi Arabia. (ANI)
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has announced his resignation, citing the lack of constitutional power for him to solve domestic and foreign policy problems. In a statement posted on the Presidential website on Sunday, he attributed his resignation to "a paradoxical situation when the President has to be a guarantor of statehood without actually having any real tool." "Because of the responsibility I assumed as the President of the Republic. I was obliged to do everything in my power to rule out further deepening of the internal division, possible clashes, which could lead to extremely negative consequences. I also sought to use my reputation and connections gained throughout my many years of work, my international political and economic potential to build a strong, stable state," said the President in the statement. Sarkissian pointed out in the statement that due to the lack of appropriate tools endowed by the Constitution, he failed to influence the political events that led to the current national crisis, Xinhua news agency reported. The statement added that the President does not have the power to influence important domestic decision-making process which is important for the country. He stressed that the purpose of his proposal "was not to move from one model of government to another, but to create a state system based on checks and balances." Sarkissian was sworn in as Armenia's fourth Head of state for a seven-year term on April 9, 2018. Armenia has been transitioning from a direct presidential system of governance to a parliamentary one after constitutional reforms were approved in a national referendum in December 2015. The Parliament can elect a President with a three-quarters majority. Under the new constitutional amendments, although recognised as the Head of state, the President will hold a largely ceremonial role with real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister. --IANS int/khz/ ( 318 Words) 2022-01-24-04:58:01 (IANS)
A panel discussion with Tibetan activists on their analysis of China's growing interference in Australia and the UK was held on January 23, reported a pro-Tibet group named Global Alliance For Tibet and Persecuted Minorities (GMPM) citing Radio Free Asia (RFA) Tibetan language service. The two prominent activists - Kyinzom Dhongdue from Australia and London-based Tsering Passang call on the Tibetans in diasporas to engage proactively and challenge the Chinese regime. Kyinzom Dhongdue is the first Tibetan-Australian to run for public office in Australia and she wants to run for a Senate seat in Australia's Upper House of Parliament. Dhongdue hopes that her candidacy would bring more attention to Tibet's struggle from across the continent of Australia. She admitted that her chances of obtaining a seat in the next election are poor, but she is grateful for the great support she has received from her own community and others. She also stated that her political campaign is only getting started and asked for everyone's support in her New South Wales constituency. Notably, Kyinzom Dhongdue is a former Tibetan MP who represented the Tibetans living in the Australasia region from 2015 to 2020 at their parliament in Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Central Tibetan Administration (de facto Tibetan Government-in-exile). Another Tibetan activist, Tsering Passang a former Director of Tibet Foundation and the Founder and Chairman of the GATPM also suggested that Tibetans strengthen ties with other persecuted groups, such as those from Hong Kong, and challenge the CCP regime as a whole. He stated that the Tibetans came into exile in 1959 with the intention of fighting back and that this should not be overlooked. He further says that Britain's spy agency, MI5 warning to the UK lawmakers of a woman linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and her work to influence the political process of the country by establishing links with Parliamentarians, is a possible tactic by the UK to disrupt ongoing activities of the individual. Earlier, MI5 issued an "interference alert" that Christine Ching Kui Lee has "acted covertly in coordination" with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and is "judged to be involved in political interference activities in the Lee has also been facilitating "financial donations to political parties, Parliamentarians, aspiring Parliamentarians and individuals seeking political office in the UK, including facilitating donations to political entities on behalf of foreign nationals." MI5 alerts Christine Lee's interference in the UK Parliament with donations of over 400,000 made to the Labour MP Barry Gardiner. According to Passang, the MI5 has succeeded in invoking the formulation of relevant laws by the government for considerably stronger restrictions over foreign donations to purchase influence. The purchase of power concerns national security and MI5 has correctly expressed this worry at the highest level. In addition, such law would give responsible authorities legal authority to take necessary action against foreign agents in order to defend national security. He also called on the Tibetan Buddhist leaders to condemn the Chinese authorities for demolishing Buddhist statues and forcing monks and nuns out of their monasteries in eastern Tibet late last year. Pasang indicated that the UK has a tough stance against China by making reference to the 2021 Integrated Review vis-a-vis UK National Security and Foreign Policy. (ANI)
Vietnamese seafood sector to enjoy strong growth in 2021-2030: Report

Vietnams seafood industry is projected to enjoy strong growth in the 2021-2030 period thanks to the increasing per capita seafood consumption in the world, according to a report published recently by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).













Vietnamese seafood sector to enjoy strong growth in 2021-2030. (Photo: VNA)



Free trade agreements (FTAs) signed between Vietnam and its partners will also help spur the seafood industrys development in 2022.



According to the Agricultural Outlook Report 2021-2030, the world's per capita seafood consumption is expected to reach 21.2kg by 2030, up from an average 20.5kg in 2018-2020.



Per capita consumption of seafood products will increase by 3.6 percent during 2020-2030.



In 2030, aquaculture is expected to provide 57 percent of the fish destined to human consumption, 4 percent higher than that in 2018-2020.



Consumption of seafood is hoped to expand on all continents, driven by rising incomes, urbanisation, production expansion, improved distribution channels and product innovation. Consumption is expected to continue to increase over the next decade.



According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), shrimp continues to be the factor driving the growth of Vietnams seafood exports. The shrimp export value is forecast to rise by 10 percent compared to 2021 to 4.3 billion USD in 2022.



The recovery of the food service industry in the US - Vietnam's largest shrimp and tra fish importer - will foster the growth of the Southeast Asian nations seafood industry in 2022.



Vietnamese businesses have flexibly adjusted their production activities in the context of COVID-19 pandemic, thus meeting the growing demand in the US market.



In the first 11 months of 2021, the US imported more than 726,000 tonnes of shrimp, up 7 percent year-on-year, mainly from Vietnam, India, Ecuador, Indonesia, and Thailand.



VASEP said Vietnams shrimp exports to the US are expected to increase sharply in 2022, adding that Vietnams transition to flexible adaptation to COVID-19 will help the country gain market share in the US.



In addition, the US doubled the anti-dumping duty on shrimp exported from India to 7.15 percent from 3 percent in November 2021, thereby enhancing the competitive advantage for Indias rival countries, including Vietnam.



Besides the US market, the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) will also help Vietnam gain a competitive advantage in the EU in 2022.



Under the EVFTA, for Vietnams shrimp products exported to the EU, the tax rate for black tiger shrimp is zero percent, while the rate for frozen white-leg shrimp will gradually reduce to zero percent by 2025.



Aside from shrimp, revenue from tra fish exports is expected to reach about 1.65 billion USD in 2022, equivalent to a year-on-year increase of 7 percent.



According to the Directorate of Fisheries of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnams seafood export turnover in 2021 was estimated at 8.89 billion USD, up 5.7 percent year-on-year, and 4.6 percent higher than the target set for the year./.
An Annapolis alderman will introduce an emergency resolution Monday in response to new environmental violations identified at a construction site near Quiet Waters Park.

Alderman Rob Savidge, D-Ward 7, drafted the resolution last week after constituents identified what he called a whole slew of more/new violations of erosion control and roads and safety standards at the future site of Parkside Preserve, a residential development currently being built by Reliable Contracting Co.

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Following a heavy snowfall and rainstorm, Annapolis officials inspected the work site located off Annapolis Neck Road on Jan. 17 and found violations, including a broken silt fence and sediment flows off-site resulting in two $1,000 fines, City Manager David Jarrell said. The contractor was given one day to fix the fence and a subsequent inspection on Wednesday found the fence was still broken, which triggered a third fine of $1,000.

Subsequent inspections Thursday and Friday found no new violations, Jarrell said.

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This is the third time the city has issued fines to the Anne Arundel County construction company.

In August, inspectors four violations and fined the company $2,000 but did not make the contractor stop working. The company was fined $2,500 in December 2020. Last October, the city gave Reliable a five-day window to address additional environmental concerns identified by residents.

Jarrell said that while the city did not issue a stop work order last week, the field correction notice functioned as one because the contractor had to stop construction to focus on fixing the violations.

If Savidges resolution passes, it would require a stop work order be issued on any project that has an off-site discharge of pollution where the city was not 100% in compliance with the standards in city law or Maryland environmental regulations, according to a draft of the resolution provided to The Capital.

A construction site at Parkside Preserve shows sediment pollution in nearby protected wetlands. (Rob Savidge)

Jackie Guild, deputy city manager for resilience and sustainability, is working on tightening the citys rules related to violations and repeat offenses. Moving forward, the city will move more swiftly to fine developers who commit violations. For instance, instead of multiple off-site flows triggering a citation, the city will now issue a citation after the first flow, Jarrell said. And most violations will be required to be remedied within a day.

The steps taken by inspectors at the Parkside Preserve site are a preview of that new process and will apply to all developments in the city, Jarrell said.

City officials are expected to meet with the contractor and environmental advocates at the worksite this week to discuss the issue, Guild said.

Since July, Savidge, who chairs the Environmental Matter Committee, has raised the alarm about ongoing violations at the worksite and urged the city to issue fines to Reliable Contracting Co. and impose a stop work order until the violations are fixed.

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The Parkside Preserve project has been in the works for a decade. Plans approved in 2015 include a residential development off Annapolis Neck Road with more than 150 new homes on 39 acres near Quiet Waters Park.

According to Savidges resolution, stop work orders should be used in the future more readily as an enforcement tool to establish a clear message that pollution prevention work must be a priority by the contractor.

In a series of emails Friday, Savidge expressed his frustration that a stop work order had not yet been issued for the site. Savidge, and project manager for stormwater management projects in Anne Arundel County, included photos of a broken silt fence, muddy water puddling along roads around the construction site and construction materials laying along city roads.

All of the conditions in the photos are violations of state law, he said.

As an engineer, you know how important these standards are. So why is [the Department of Public Works] giving Reliable so many breaks and passes on a multitude of issues? Savidge wrote to Jarrell and other city officials.

If my sites looked like this in the county I would get shut down ASAP and my director would have serious words with me, and put something in my personnel file, Savidge continued. In short, he would go ballistic.

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Concerns about the future residential site date back years, according to residents who say they are worried about pollution and the citys failure to enforce its environmental laws. On a Saturday morning in October, a group of environmental advocates held a protest, briefly delaying work vehicles trying to enter the site.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 7 Protestors stand outside the construction site for Parkside Preserve in Anne Arundel County Saturday morning. (Rachael Pacella/The Capital)

Savidge is seeking support to suspend the rules and pass the resolution Monday.

After Mayor Gavin Buckley was sworn in for a second term in December, he threw a One Annapolis Ball to celebrate. Among the donors who helped pay for the event was Reliable Contracting Co., which donated $2,500.

The donation shows that the contracting company is trying to buy favor with the Buckley administration, Savidge said.

If the mayor were to sign on to my legislation, it will show he cannot be bought or influenced by these special interest groups, he said.

Buckley said he had not had a chance to look at the legislation but defended the donation, saying the company has donated to prior mayors and is one of the citys largest contractors. The city sustained a heavy snowstorm followed by torrential rain earlier this month, which could have contributed to the runoff and sediment controls failing, Buckley said.

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They put in what looks to me extraordinary measures on this sort of stuff, he said. And if something fails, we need to find out why.
Pakistan's acute energy crisis has triggered protests in the country. It has become a "national issue" and will be one of the focus points of the "long march" against the Imran Khan-led government, organized from Karachi to Islamabad by the opposition parties next month, said a media report. Pakistan has been facing an unprecedented energy crisis. The frequent and long energy shortages are creating difficulties for common households as well as hampering industrial output. This has impacted exports as well, said InsideOver in a report. It further reported that the unprecedented power crisis, mismanagement and lack of recovery plan are nudging the country toward economic calamity. The uneven and interrupted supply of gas, electricity and petroleum products are leading to discomfort among different provincial governments and the federal government of Islamabad. Many cities in Pakistan are witnessing protests from people over natural gas shortage and prolonged power outages. Electricity is not available for several hours across Pakistan. InsideOver highlighted that in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the power shortage leaves people without electricity for 18 hours. And whenever there is electricity, voltage is low, which is making people difficult to draw drinking water. This has led to protests and people especially women are blocking roads to vent their anger. In Gilgit-Baltistan too people hit the streets in the sub-zero temperatures over prolonged power shortages and black-marketing of food supplies. Gilgit-Baltistan based Awami Action Committee (AAC) called it a failure of Pakistan State to provide basic facilities to people. Sindh government invoked a constitutional article and warned the Islamabad government of taking over the gas distribution system if locals are deprived of cooking fuel, which is mainly found in the wells in the province. "The province which produces over 2/3 of the total natural gas in the country has been facing a situation where households are without gas to cook food, industries are shutting down because of huge shortage and low gas pressure and CNG stations are closed for months to come," Sindh Province's Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh wrote to Islamabad government, InsideOver reported. Businesses too are getting hurt. "Exports worth USD 250 million were lost in just a month of fuel shortages which shut mills for 15 days,"said Shahid Sattar, executive director of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association. The supply shortfall is due to the energy ministry's inability to arrange supply and is hurting the very future of Pakistan's exports and economy, InsideOver reported. In the summer of 2021, the power shortage had reached 6,000 megawatts leading to long-hour load-shedding across Pakistan. However, in December 2021, Pakistan hiked the power tariffs by an additional Rs 4.74 per unit to earn additional revenue. Subsequently, the Khan government increased petroleum prices too. Major opposition party Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) called it "Economic murder". Now radical outfit Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) too is joining the protests on the streets. (ANI)
Maryam Nawaz Sharif, the daughter of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and a Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) politician has lashed out at Pakistan PM Imran Khan's statements during a live programme on Sunday and said that he relies "more on conspiracy and plotting than on peoples power'. After Khan's speech, in a series of tweets she rebuked Imran Khan and said that he had not only been defeated, but had also acknowledged his defeat. Taking to Twitter she said, "Imran Khan sounds like a person who is not only defeated but has also accepted his defeat. 4 years into the govt & he is still only whining. The 'cartels' you are complaining about are the MAFIAS on your right & left who have fleeced 220 million & who run your kitchen," "Every word that Imran Khan has uttered today reeks of failure", she rebuked the PM. She added, "Every word that Imran Khan has uttered today reeks of failure, dashed hopes & no faith in his or PTI's future. This was inevitable man. You are history & the history that we will be taught as a lesson of caution to those who rely more on conspiracy & plotting than peoples power". "Your dashed hopes @ImranKhanPTI are a new hope for the incompetency & ineptitude stricken people of Pakistan who are waiting for you to spare them the 4 year-long ordeal that has cost them their lives." While hinting towards PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan in his speech said, "You will not find a place to hide if I take to the streets...I will just need to motivate people and others will be fleeing London to join the ones who already are there,", reported Daily Pakistan. Responding to this she tweeted, "The cases you made against Sharifs and PML-N were false & fabricated and were bound to meet the fate they have met. Now that your reality has dawned on the world, do not blame the judiciary. You have only your vindictiveness & revengefulness to blame," reported The Nation. (ANI)
The coronavirus surge was detected in the city with 13 million population on December 22. It was followed by the lockdown decision the next day. Under the restrictions, residents were barred from leaving their homes unless in cases of emergency.

One person per household was allowed to go out once in two days to buy essentials for their family.

The outbreak saw around 2,000 COVID-19 cases over a week, a large number in terms of the Chinese government's "zero tolerance" policy.

"In line with the situation in the field of prevention and control of the epidemic, starting January 24, 2022, the whole city has become an area of low epidemiological risk," the local government said in a statement.

Residents of the city are allowed to leave it with a green digital "health code," while others can enter Xi'an provided they come from other low-risk regions of the country and have a negative PCR test dated 48 hours before arrival, the statement read, reported the news agency.

Arrivals from average and high-risk areas of China will have to undergo quarantine at their expense.

As of Monday, public places, including tourist sites, malls, theatres, and other facilities reopened and public transport resumed under health rules, including the requirement to wear masks.

Xi'an city is widely known for Terracotta Warriors - sculptures depicting the army of the First Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. (ANI)
The State Ministry in Disaster Management affairs of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) said heavy snowfall in 15 provinces of Afghanistan killed 42 people while 76 were injured in the time span, Khaama Press reported.

State Ministry further stated over 2,000 houses were destroyed across Afghanistan in the past 20 days.

According to the officials in the Ministry of Disaster Management, the emergency aid to affected people have been delivered and they are working hard to prevent further calamities.

Meanwhile, Deputy of the Ministry Enayatullah Shuja said that hundreds of people were stranded on several highways due to heavy snowfall who have been rescued and that the rescue operation is still going on, Khaama Press reported.

Shuja further said that they are working with different aid agencies to deliver emergency assistance to those affected.

Earlier, two earthquakes in the western Badghis province also killed 28 people and destroyed up to 1,000 houses last week.

Freezing winter and heavy snowfall have contributed to the humanitarian crisis of Afghanistan due to vas unemployment, starvation, and drought. (ANI)
Ouagadougou [Burkina Faso], January 24 (ANI/Sputnik): The president of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, is possibly detained following riots in the capital and reports about an attempted coup, the RFI radio broadcaster reported on Monday, citing sources. The LSI Africa news portal reported in the early hours of Monday that the rioters were demanding the resignation of Kabore, who was under the protection of the Gendarmerie. In another tweet, the media outlet said that the president's family had left Burkina Faso. Earlier in the day, media reported that imprisoned Gen. Gilbert Diendere, who was involved in the failed 2015 coup in the African nation, had been freed by mutinying soldiers. (ANI/Sputnik)
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) secretary-general Nayyar Bokhari flays at the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan for his threat in a televised programme that he would become more dangerous if pushed out of power, reported DAWN. The opposition leader said the PTI would not even be existing in the country after the 2023 election, let alone the talks for the next term. He said the PTI would face the same fate which every "establishment-backed" party had faced in the country while adding that the PTI comprised "daily wagers" who would soon jump out of the sinking ship, reported the newspaper. Bokhari pointed out that the results of the recently held first phase of the local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be an eye-opener for Imran Khan. He chided Khan of falsely claiming economic improvement in Pakistan and said over five per cent growth rate existed only on papers whereas the ground realities were totally different. The PPP leader also took exception to the prime minister's tone in his speech while talking about the judicial system in Pakistan. He acknowledged that the courts were dealing with a significant backlog, but he stated that it was the government's job to assist the courts in their tasks. (ANI)
United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West on Monday arrived in Norway's capital city of Oslo to discuss the dire humanitarian situation in Afghanistan with European and US officials alongside Afghan civil society and the Taliban delegation. "Pleased to be in Oslo with Norwegian hosts and U.S.-Europe Group envoys... As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief orgs, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting, and inclusive Afghanistan," West tweeted. According to West, representatives from the US Treasury Department, US Agency for International Development, and US Special Envoy for Afghan Women, Girls, and Human Rights, Rina Amiri, have also arrived in Oslo for talks on Afghanistan, Sputnik reported. West also welcomed Oslo's initiative in facilitating dialogue between the Afghan civil society and Taliban, noting that "civil society leaders are the backbone of healthy and prosperous economies and societies." On Saturday, a delegation headed by the Taliban's acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, arrived in Norway on a three-day visit to deliberate on the provision of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as well as "political, educational and economic issues," Sputnik reported. The Taliban took over control of Kabul on August 15 last year and following this the country has been battered by deepening economic, humanitarian and security crisis. According to the UN estimates, around half of the country's population needs humanitarian assistance, twice as many as in 2020, with about 22 million people facing acute food insecurity. The UN foresees that by the middle of this year, 97 per cent of Afghans may slide below the poverty line, Sputnik reported. (ANI)
Tokyo [Japan], January 24 (ANI/Sputnik): The Japanese government urges its nationals who are currently in Ukraine to be ready for any possible development of the situation in the country and take precautionary measures, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday. "We continue to closely monitor the development of the situation in Ukraine in cooperation with interested countries. We intend to take the necessary decisions without delay. We urge our compatriots who are currently there to be ready for any changes in the situation and take all possible measures for their safety," Matsuno said at a briefing. Overnight Monday, the US State Department updated its travel advisory for Russia, warning against trips to Russia over tensions at its border with Ukraine. It also advised US citizens in Ukraine to leave the country on commercial means of transport, authorized the voluntary departure of US direct-hire employees, and ordered the departure of eligible family members from the embassy in Kiev amid security concerns. Western countries have been accusing Russia of allegedly deploying troops near the Ukrainian border in preparation for "aggressive action." Moscow has repeatedly denied these accusations, pointing to NATO's military activity near the Russian borders, which it deems a threat to its national security. Russia has also affirmed that it has the right to move forces within its own territory and put forward security proposals to the US and NATO, which have yet to be accepted. (ANI/Sputnik)
2022 is very important for China. Next month it hosts the Beijing Winter Olympics, while later is the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) 20th Party Congress. The latter will shape the constitution of China's communist leadership and the country's policy priorities for the ensuing five years and beyond. The congress is thus a seminal event for the CCP and for its leader Xi Jinping. Most speculation agrees that Xi will stay in power for a third five-year term, and he will certainly be seeking stability in the period leading up to that congress. In a webinar entitled "Towards Xi's Third Term: China's 20th Party Congress and Beyond", the Washington DC-based Brookings Institute invited various academic luminaries to give their thoughts on Xi and his ambitions ahead of the congress. Cheng Li, Director of the John L. Thornton China Center, noted, "Beijing has been playing hardball. Xi Jinping believes China now has more leverage in the current global economic landscape... For the CCP leadership, this reinforces its position on Xinjiang and Hong Kong- they're not negotiable - and it will continue the pressure campaign against Taiwan independence." However, there are a couple of key tensions facing the CCP elite. One is that Beijing must reconcile the need for stability with its hardline policies. Cheng perceived three ways Xi is doing this. The first is that the government believes it has gained sufficient political capital from recent successes such as public health, poverty elimination, green development, technological advancement and military modernization. The second is Xi's recent call for common prosperity plus some popular moves to help vulnerable groups. Furthermore, his assertive foreign policy and nationalistic appeals resonate well with the public. The third is that Xi's proteges, especially those to be promoted for the next Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), have substantial leadership experience from provinces like Guangdong known for their vibrant private sectors and international economic engagement. "This will revitalize, in the hopes of Beijing, the confidence of private entrepreneurs and the Chinese middle class." A second tension exists between Xi's core and ambiguity in mandatory CCP retirement ages. The retirement age policy had imparted consistency and a sense of fairness, but many question whether it will continue. Cheng expects only one member of the PSC to retire this time around, but for the others there is no objective criterion to decide who will stay and who will retire, "potentially causing serious resentment and resistance". Recently, Xi has emphasized the importance of unity within party leadership. Things have improved, for in Xi's second term, only two of 376 Central Committee members were purged, compared to 42 arrested for corruption in his first term. Cheng predicted that Xi will undertake three measures to reduce this tension about failures to retire according to age, as per established norm. First is that he will offer intensive justification as to why a small number of leaders will remain in the top echelon, such as continuity of economic policy. Secondly, Xi will probably promote a significant number of "younger" leaders (born in the 1960s) into the Politburo and PSC to signal that a generational change is under way. Such a change is already evident at the provincial-government level where the mandatory retirement age is strictly enforced. Of 31 provincial governors, all but one were born in the 1960s, and 94% were appointed in just the past couple of years. Cheng estimated that 85% of seats in the new Central Committee will be held by people born in the 1960s or later (compared with 52% at present). Thirdly, as part of his promotion policy, he will probably allow some leaders from other factions or those without allegiances to attain seats in the Politburo and PSC "to sustain leadership unity". Also referring to Xi's anti-corruption campaign, Andrew Mertha, Director of the China Global Research Center at John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, highlighted that Xi has peeled away the immunity of communist leaders as high as the PSC level. This was obvious in the case of former national security chief Zhou Yongkang: "This means anyone at the top of the system is potentially a target for charges of serious disciplinary violation," Mertha explained. Right from the beginning, Xi has sought to disempower national leaders and to reverse their rise in influence. This is best seen in his anti-corruption campaign and his strengthening of state-owned enterprises. In fact, Xi has shown incredible skill in navigating CCP politics and establishing himself at the apex. Mertha said many have underestimated Xi's extraordinary intuition. "He's an astute student of CCP history, of its structure and how it functions. And this appreciation and understanding of it forms the contours of much of what he does and how he does it." Metha added, "For Xi, politics is a deadly serious business. It isn't something to be trifled with or to be disrespected. The implication is, insofar that anybody within the ruling class allows competing interests to dilute or otherwise compete with their political mandate, they forfeit their right to undertake the enormous importance of governance in China." Different to the ever-suspicious Mao Zedong who sidestepped or diminished established institutions, Xi has consolidated his power by "enhancing, creating, injecting new sets of institutions to amplify his policy preferences and beef up his power base, often enhancing the authority of the CCP at the expense of government agencies and their traditional mandates". Mertha said this approach was more durable than mere strongman rule. It is possible that the 20th Party Congress might throw up some surprises, though. In a novel piece of speculation, Alice Miller, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, raised the prospect that Xi might create a unique structure within the CCP to allow him to remain in control without necessarily doing a third term as general secretary. This might be in the shape of restoring something akin to the 1956 system where the party chairmanship would be restored and go to Xi (the post of chairman had been eliminated in 1981), whereas the general secretary position could go to a younger man such as Chen Min'er or Hu Chunhua. Xi would then continue as chairman of the Central Military Commission, and still preside over the PSC and supply overall guidelines and vision for policy. The general secretary, meanwhile, would report to the chairman and PSC, and also be a member of it. Leading groups would be led by members of the secretariat rather than the PSC. This was the split-level leadership system created at the 8th Party Congress in 1956. Miller said reintroducing the 1956 system "addresses the problem of leadership rejuvenation. It allows senior leadership around Xi Jinping to continue to guide the general direction of the party's work in the new era, of giving younger leaders a chance to gain executive experience at the top and to carry out policies consistent with the vision..." Miller admitted that, while reintroduction of the 1956 system could be "plausible", it also raised questions over workability. It does not answer the problem of succession, and another issue is that it creates two power centers. For example, what would happen if the chairman and general secretary disagreed with each other? Xi has already undertaken major restructurings of CCP inner workings, but so far he has left the very top structure untouched. After a decade in power, perhaps that could change. However, Cheng Li thinks this will not happen. Instead, he believes the abolition of term limits was already preparing the way for Xi's third term, and that no successor will be designated at this year's congress. Nor has there been any discussion about resurrecting the chairmanship. Anthony Saich, Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Government and Innovation at the Hardvard Kennedy School, said there were similarities and differences between Xi and Mao Zedong. Like Mao, Xi sees the party as crucial to achieving policy objectives, thus requiring a unified, disciplined party that carries out the will of the supreme leader. "There is a need for unity of purpose and thought, and that entails the eradication of alternative narratives and the removal of any potential rivals," Saich explained. Xi pours scorn on the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, where he felt nobody was man enough to stand up and defend it. Xi sees his authority coming through the party, and the party as the natural inheritor of Chinese imperial rule and style. Very significantly, Xi issued a November 2021 resolution on the CCP's achievements of the last 100 years. Saich elaborated: "It was designed to show that Xi Jinping's leadership today, and therefore also into the future after the next congress, is the inevitable outcome of history consolidating his preeminence within the party and empowering him to stay the course for the party over the next 100 years". It was only the CCP's third historical summation, raising Xi alongside Mao and Deng. However, Xi's resolution was very different, since his was not criticizing the past in order to set sail on a new course. Saich again: "Xi Jinping's purpose is distinct. It's not defining the way forward by a negation of the recent past, but rather highlighting how the past plays into his hands to guide the future. The spotlight is on Xi, his achievements, the wrongs he has righted and the future direction for China. Interestingly, Xi is described as the principal founder of the ideology for this new era and the core of the leadership." Thus, all CCP members must rally around Xi as the core and his policy preferences cannot be questioned. Leninist institutions are not always stagnant and inflexible and, as the CCP shows, Xi is willing to remold it. One consequence of the historical resolution, Saich, explained, is that Xi will definitely be appointed for a third term. Secondly, the resolution sanctions policy continuity rather than change, as with the two older historic resolutions. Saich added, "Crucially, it means that Xi Jinping will have to lead through the party rather than being able to float above it in the manner of Mao Zedong. And the party remains preeminent, and therefore structural changes to consolidate Xi's position may be the ones worth watching. But that, of course, presents a possible challenge to Xi Jinping if there is an elite struggle, as his legitimacy ultimately lies with the institution rather than the individual." Cheng of the John L. Thornton China Center thought it noteworthy how Xi, after assuming the leadership mantle, profoundly changed the balance of power between the two main factions via his large-scale anti-graft campaign. That campaign netted many supporters of the Communist Youth League, including former president Hu Jintao's chief of staff Ling Jihua. Having succeeded in sidelining that faction, at the end of Xi's first term he also began distancing himself from the opposing princeling faction too. Now it is Xi's own proteges that dominate the leadership. For example, his powerbase is Zhejiang, where he was once party boss. Perhaps eight or nine members of the next Politburo will be such people from Xi's past, representing about a third of the group, with each owing personal loyalty. Two or three of these will even enter the PSC. With other factions essentially defeated, Cheng suggested that infighting and jostling for power within Xi's own personal following is most deserving of attention. Miller suggested that the strongman status of Xi, as well as his breaking of party norms, is overplayed by Western analysts. Significantly, Xi has not yet violated the age/retirement structure - but that could well play out at the next congress. If CCP norms are examined carefully, it can be seen that Xi has not actually broken many so far. Saich concluded: "It creates a set of problems by [Xi] staying on, there's no doubt, for a third term. What if things go wrong? Who gets the blame? You know, can that power accumulation keep occurring?" The CCP has very limited experience of successful turnovers of leadership, so Xi staying on as leader after the 20th Party Congress does raise important questions. If Xi pushes succession back further, will that make the CCP system more unstable long term rather than stable in the short term? (ANI)
Stockholm [Sweden], January 24 (ANI/Sputnik): Sweden is not planning to apply for NATO membership right now but will confirm to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg that it will make security decisions on its own, Foreign Minister Anna Linde said on Monday. "Actually we have no intention this time to apply for membership in NATO, neither Finland or Sweden ... so this question is not on the table right now," Linde said ahead of her meeting with Stoltenberg. (ANI/Sputnik)
Three Baltimore firefighters were killed and a fourth remains on life support after being trapped in a blaze inside a vacant home Monday thats one of the deadliest for first responders in the citys history.

The firefighters were inside a rowhouse in the 200 block of S. Stricker St. in the citys New Southwest/Mount Clare neighborhood when it partially collapsed.

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Two firefighters were pronounced dead at University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Another firefighter was pronounced dead at the scene. They were identified as Lt. Paul Butrim, firefighter/paramedic Kelsey Sadler and EMT/firefighter Kenny Lacayo. EMT/firefighter John McMaster remains in the hospital. The four have served a collective 44 years with the department.

Baltimore owes them the deepest gratitude and respect, Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement released late Monday afternoon.

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Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 42 Baltimore City firefighters salute as an ambulance carries the body of Lt. Paul Butrim from the scene of a vacant row house fire on S. Stricker Street. Four firefighters were trapped in a collapse while fighting the fire Monday morning. Three have died and a fourth is in critical condition. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun)

This is a gut wrenching tragedy for our city, the Baltimore City Fire Department, and most importantly the families of our firefighters, Scott said. There are no words to describe the pain and the severity of the losses we have suffered today.

Fire Chief Niles Ford, visibly emotional as he addressed media in front of Shock Trauma, called the lost and injured department members his family.

From this moment, we will honor those that lost their lives today for their bravery and courage, he said.

Firefighters were called to the scene shortly before 6 a.m. Monday. While firefighters were inside a vacant structure that was the site of another fire in 2015, the building partially collapsed, trapping them inside. One firefighter was rescued immediately. Two others were extracted within an hour.

Lt. Paul Butrim, (from left) Firefighter Kenny Lacayo and Firefighter Kelsey Sadler died battling a fire at a vacant row house in the 200-block of S. Stricker Street. (handout)

Dr. Thomas Scalea of Maryland Shock Trauma said Sadler and Lacayo suffered cardiac arrests at the fire scene and were unable to be resuscitated.

McMaster remains on life support in the intensive care unit, Scalea said. His injuries have the potential to worsen, Scalea warned, saying staff are keeping a very, very close eye on him.

We pride ourselves on bringing our A-game, Scalea said. Sadly, this morning our A-game wasnt enough.

Asked why the firefighters made the decision to enter the vacant rowhouse, Ford said an adjacent home was still occupied.

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They made the determination they could control the fire and put it out, he said. Its up to those individuals on the scene to see the circumstances they have, and they did.

Members of the Baltimore City Fire Department walk away from the scene of a vacant rowhouse fire on South Stricker Street where four firefighters had been trapped. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun)

Butrim, a 16-year veteran of the Baltimore City Fire Department who died in the fire, was no stranger to thrusting himself into harms way for his job.

In 2015, he rushed into a burning apartment, found a child in a bedroom and brought the child to safety, according to the Firehouse Magazine. Butrim performed CPR on the child alone until more help arrived, the magazine reported, recognizing his great bravery in the face of dangerous conditions as one of Firehouses honorees for its annual Award of Valor.

Lacayo, a seven-year veteran of the Baltimore force, also was remembered fondly. In a Facebook post, the Wheaton Volunteer Rescue Squad in Montgomery County said he was named their paramedic of the year in 2016 and was deemed a top 10 responder in 2015 and 2016. Lacayo also received a unit citation for helping save a person struck by a car in 2018.

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His exceptional skills as a firefighter and paramedic were matched by his bright smile and his unfailing good nature, the squad wrote in the post. He was dearly loved by his fellow WVRS volunteers and will be greatly missed.

Such a deadly fire is a rarity for Baltimores firefighters, which has not lost a firefighter in the line of duty since 2014. That fire, also in a vacant home, claimed the life of Lt. James Bethea, who succumbed to smoke inhalation after a fall. Betheas death led to calls for reform after investigators found fire personnel took a haphazard approach to ventilating the house where he died.

Vacant properties have caused numerous injuries to city firefighters. Five were injured in a 2001 fire when the third floor of a vacant building collapsed, causing the firefighters to fall as much as 40 feet into the buildings basement.

The death toll of Mondays fire puts it among some of the deadliest in Baltimores history. In 1955, six city firefighters were killed in a blaze that consumed the Tru-Fit clothing store in the 500 block of Baltimore St. The nine-alarm fire injured an additional 20 firefighters and was billed at the time as the worst catastrophe in the fire departments history.

In 1888, seven Baltimore firefighters were killed in an early morning blaze at the corner of Sharp and Lombard streets after they were buried beneath the walls of a three-story building.

The deadliest fire to strike the region in recent decades was a blaze that killed three Baltimore County firefighters in 1984. The men were trapped beneath a collapsed roof while battling a blaze at a Dundalk furniture store.

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The Stricker Street property where Mondays fire began was the scene of another fire that injured three firefighters in 2015. The property owners were issued a vacant building notice in 2010, said Tammy Hawley, spokeswoman for the citys Department of Housing and Community Development. Each year, vacant property owners must complete a registration, and the owner of the home on Stricker was cited in 2020 for failing to do so. Efforts to reach the owners were unsuccessful Monday afternoon.

The property was last inspected Jan. 4, Hawley said, when an inspector found the front of the home adequately boarded and cleaned.

Firefighters watch as debris is moved from a rowhouse in the 200 block of S. Stricker St. as they continue to search for a missing firefighter. (Jerry Jackson)

Vacant properties remain a stubborn problem in Baltimore. There are roughly 16,000 vacant homes in the city, and a few thousand are city-owned. Over the summer, the city began posting QR codes on some of the homes, allowing the public to identify their owners.

Afternoon Update Weekdays Updating you on the day's biggest news before the evening commute. >

At the fire scene Monday morning, Celeste Ireland, 55, said she was lying in bed in her home when she began to see flashes of light. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but then her Shih Tzu began to bark and she arose and walked to her window.

Baltimore City firefighters salute as an ambulance carries the body of Lt. Paul Butrim from the scene of a vacant rowhouse fire on S. Stricker St. Four firefighters were trapped in a collapse while fighting the fire Monday morning. Three have died and a fourth is in critical condition. (Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun)

When I opened the curtain  and my house is right behind it  everything was ablaze, Ireland said.

Her home is behind the property that caught fire, across an alley, she said.

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The homes on fire appeared to be vacant, Ireland said. She saw the family that lived adjacent to the blaze be evacuated, she said.

Then, she heard that firefighters were trapped in the blaze.

Im a godly woman, and I just started praying, she said.

Baltimore Sun reporters McKenna Oxenden and Alex Mann and librarian Paul McCardell contributed to this article.
The British Embassy will remain open and will continue to carry out essential work including providing consular assistance and support to British nationals in Ukraine.

The FCDO also requested British Nationals in Ukraine to register their presence there.

The advisory further said that the Terrorist attacks in Ukraine can't be ruled out and asked people to remain careful.

"Since late March 2021, there has been a pattern of Russian military build-ups near Ukraine's eastern border and in illegally annexed Crimea. Since the beginning of November 2021 there has been significant media coverage of heightened tensions between Russia and Ukraine," the advisory reads.

It further says, "Renewed military action anywhere in Ukraine would greatly reduce British Embassy Kyiv's ability to provide consular support." (ANI)
The Bank of Korea (BOK) said on Monday that it has successfully completed its first phase of a two-step mock test of the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) as it is reviewing whether to introduce the potential new form of money. The BOK launched the first phase in August last year and completed the experiment in December, in which the central bank said a CBDC showed normal operations in a cloud-based environment, reports Yonhap News Agency. "We will confirm the possibility of operating various functions, such as offline settlements, and the application of new technologies, such as one intended to strengthen privacy protection during the second phase of the test," the BOK said in a statement. The second phase of the test will be carried out until June 22, the BOK said. Global central banks have been speeding up their research on digital currencies to brace for a fall in demand for cash and the emergence of cryptocurrencies in the private sector. Central banks in some Latin American countries and African countries have started to issue CBDCs. China has been pushing to issue a CBDC this year, possibly making itself the first major economy using the new form of currency, while the US Federal Reserve reportedly launched a review of its potential benefits. --IANS ksk/ ( 233 Words) 2022-01-24-10:26:03 (IANS)
Afghans, based in Norway, protested outside Norwegian foreign ministry office on Sunday against Taliban delegation, which is on a visit to capital Oslo. Dozens of men and women protested, raising Afghan flags and placards that read, "Free Alia Azizi" and Do Not Recognize the Taliban. They have Blood in their hands. Can't be trusted." A poster defined Alia Azizi as a Hazara woman and a former military officer. She was the head of women's prison in Herat province, who was detained and arrested by Taliban two months after they came to power in Afghanistan. The protestors also urged the United Nation to "wake up" to the realities of Afghanistan. They raised slogans "United Nations, wake up, wake up, No to Taliban" Amid the ongoing talks between the Taliban delegation and members of the international community in Norway, protests have erupted in Oslo. Some agitations are also scheduled to be held later today. Norway had invited representatives of the Taliban to visit Oslo from January 23 to 25 for talks. The Taliban delegation is led by their Foreign Minister Amir Khan Motaqi who arrived in Oslo on Saturday and is supposed to meet with authorities from Norway as well as special representatives of France, Germany, Italy, Britain, the United States, and the European Union, The Khaama Press reported. This is their first visit to Europe since returning to power in mid-August last year. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated drastically since the Taliban took control of Kabul. A combination of a suspension of foreign aid, the freezing of Afghan government assets, and international sanctions on the Taliban, have plunged the country, already suffering from high poverty levels, into a full-blown economic crisis. (ANI)
India and Israel unveiled a commemorative logo on Monday to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries. The logo was unveiled virtually at an online event in the presence of Ambassador of Israel to India Naor Gilon and Ambassador of India to Israel Sanjeev Singla. Happy to note that the logo was designed by Indian designer Nikhil Kumar Rai from NID, said the Indian Embassy in Israel in a tweet on Monday. Other senior diplomats from both countries also took part in the event. The logo features the Star of David and the Ashoka Chakra- the two symbols that adorn the national flags of both countries- and forms the numeral 30 depicting the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations. This special logo symbolises the strong friendship, love and admiration that exists between the people of Israel and the people of India. It also depicts the growing strategic partnership between the two sides, according to an official statement. "We are very happy to launch a special logo to celebrate the 30 years of the close friendship between the people of our two ancient civilizations. This is an important occasion to reflect on our mutual successes as well as a good opportunity to look ahead and shape the next 30 years of our relations. I am sure that our close existing cooperation in different fields will only continue to grow and flourish in the coming years," said Ambassador Naor Gilon during the event. "We are proud to mark the 30th anniversary of our bilateral relations and look forward to using the special logo throughout the year to celebrate this special milestone. India and Israel are two ancient people, proud of their cultural heritage, and two vibrant democracies, eager to grasp the future. Together we can shape a better future for India, Israel, and the world," Ambassador Sanjeev Singla said. To create the 30th-anniversary logo, both countries had launched a logo design contest last year for students of prominent design colleges in Israel and India. Entries were invited from Holon Institute of Technology, Israel and National Institute of Design, India. Many Israeli and Indian students participated in this contest. The winning design created by an Indian student Nikhil Kumar Rai, was chosen through a joint decision of the Embassies and Consulates from both countries. It was selected as the official logo for the 30th anniversary of Israel- India diplomatic relations, according to the official statement. Israel and India established diplomatic relations on January 29, 1992. Since then, the bilateral relations between both countries have developed into multifaceted strategic partnerships, the statement added. The 30th anniversary of relations between Israel and India will be marked throughout the year with an elaborate array of cultural events. We stay committed to building upon the remarkable achievements of the last three decades, to further develop this Growing Partnership in the decades to come, for the benefit of both nations. (ANI)
Health authorities said Omicron accounted for 50 per cent of newly added variant infections last week, sparking concerns over the spread of the more infectious strain in the country, reports Yonhap News Agency.

In response, the military said it plans to enhance its polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing capacity by increasing the number of related workers while expanding ties with private testing facilities.

The military will also shorten the quarantine period for service members returning from their vacations by three days to a week to minimise its burden of handling Covid-19 patients.

The military added it plans to prioritise PCR tests for high-risk members should the omicron infections overwhelm its testing capacity.

"The Defence Ministry will continue efforts to maintain a robust and unwavering military readiness posture by thoroughly implementing antivirus measures, while ensuring the basic rights of the troops," the Ministry said in a statement.

While no new restrictions on vacations or off-base trips are planned for now, the military added it may roll out intensive social distancing measures should the virus affect its mission capabilities.

The military, meanwhile, reported 24 additional Covid-19 cases on Monday, including 22 breakthrough infections, raising the total caseload among its personnel to 3,942.

Of the new cases, 15 are from the Army, four from the Marine Corps, four from units under the direct control of the Defence Ministry, and one from the Navy.

Currently, 384 military personnel are under treatment. Of the total military caseload, 2,098 are breakthrough cases.

--IANS ksk/

( 289 Words)

2022-01-24-11:10:02 (IANS)
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies are putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in eastern Europe, reinforcing Allied deterrence and defence as Russia continues its military build-up in and around Ukraine. In the past days, a number of NATO allies have made announcements regarding current or upcoming deployments. Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania in support of NATO's long-standing air-policing mission in the region. Spain is sending ships to join NATO naval forces and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, NATO said in a statement on Monday. France has expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania under NATO command. The Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria from April to support NATO's air-policing activities in the region and is putting ship and land-based units on standby for NATO's Response Force. The US has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the alliance, the statement added. "I welcome Allies contributing additional forces to NATO. NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence," said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. NATO said that in response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO increased its presence in the eastern part of the alliance, including with four multinational battlegroups in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. These units, led by the UK, Canada, Germany and the US respectively, are multinational, and combat-ready. Their presence makes clear that an attack on one Ally will be considered an attack on the whole Alliance. There were no NATO forces in the eastern part of the Alliance before 2014. (ANI)
Stephanie Williams, the special adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Libya made her remarks during a meeting with Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh in the eastern city of al-Gubba on Sunday, reports Xinhua news agency.

"I called for all Parliament members to attend the session, to shoulder their responsibility towards the Libyan people, and to set a new date and a clear path to the elections ... within the timeframe of UN-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF)," Williams tweeted after the meeting.

The solution to the legitimacy crisis will only be found through the ballot box, the UN envoy noted.

"We also discussed the need for the national reconciliation and transitional justice process to accompany the electoral process," she added.

Libya was expecting to hold presidential elections on December 24, 2021.

However, the election was postponed indefinitely due to technical and legal issues, according to the High National Elections Commission.

The Roadmap Committee, set by the House of Representatives to address the failure to hold the elections on time, is expected to deliver its initial report on the future of the electoral process during a session on Monday.

The elections are part of a roadmap adopted by the LPDF, with the aim to bring stability in Libya following years of political division and insecurity.

--IANS ksk/

( 254 Words)

2022-01-24-11:42:04 (IANS)
The Taliban delegation which is visiting Norway's capital city of Oslo has drawn large-scale criticism from the world over. Vas Shenoy, a political researcher, consultant, and entrepreneur who has worked in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for two decades, in a blog post in The Times of Israel, said that the Taliban delegation's visit to Oslo could set a dangerous precedent of legitimizing terrorists. What in Norway is perceived as a pragmatic opportunity to provide aid, is perceived in Pakistan and Afghanistan as capitulation. The Norwegians convening a formal meeting with a Taliban delegation while underlining that such a meeting does not signify recognition is a confusing move with mixed signals. Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed that the visit was "not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban. But we must talk to those who in practice govern the country today." The statement in itself is contradictory. By accepting that the Taliban govern the country, the Foreign Minister has already provided tacit recognition, said Shenoy. The Taliban is a terrorist organization, backed and controlled by Pakistan, which has no intention of making any obvious concessions, said Shenoy. Their only objective is to achieve acceptance from western countries such that funds blocked by the US and other western powers are released. The visit to Oslo to meet with representatives from the United States, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and the European Union, for them, is akin to recognition. Also, there is no representation from other members of Afghan society, political or civil, no members of the Ashraf Ghani government or any other Afghan leaders in exile have been invited. This is another conference on Afghanistan where the only missing group is the Afghans themselves though various media articles state that "The Taliban delegation is also expected to meet Afghans from civil society, including women leaders and journalists, at a time when the freedoms of those living in Afghanistan are being increasingly curtailed.", not specifying who would be representing the interests of the Afghan people, reported The Times of Israel. With the reopening of the EU Embassy in Kabul, this meeting is seen by the Taliban and their allies as the capitulation of the west to their Islamic victory. If there was any hope of laying down pre-conditions as a roadmap to aid, it has now been destroyed. For Norway to maintain its position as a neutral arbiter, it was essential for pre-conditions to be laid down even for this meeting. For aid and assistance to reach the Afghan people and not fund the Taliban's future jihad, it is essential that Norway set some basic conditions, one of which could be a monitoring mechanism that consists of eminent Afghans who represent all ethnicities. Without a firm position, this visit of the Taliban to Oslo will end up destroying any hope for a peaceful future for Afghanistan and end up serving as propaganda for the Taliban's "victory", said Shenoy. (ANI)
First reported by NewsCorp Australia, the WeChat account was reportedly renamed and Morrison faced accessibility problems.

The Prime Minister is now unable to access the account at all.

The account has been renamed as "Australian-Chinese New Life", and the description is: "Providing living in Australia information for the Chinese community", reports ABC News.

"It is a matter of record that the platform has stopped the Prime Minister's access, while (Opposition Leader) Anthony Albanese's account is still active featuring posts criticising the government," Liberal representative Gladys Liu was quoted as saying in the reports.

In China, Tencent-run WeChat has faced growing regulation for collecting more user data than deemed necessary when offering services.

Coalition MP and chair of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, James Paterson, said he believed the move was an act of foreign interference by the Chinese government.

"WeChat is owned by Tencent, which is one of the most closely controlled, theoretically private companies in China," he told Sky News.

Federal Labour MP Mark Butler said the opposition was deeply concerned at the blocking on the Prime Minister's account.

WeChat official accounts allow public figures, media companies and businesses to connect to more than 1.2 billion active users in mainland China.

--IANS na/ksk/

( 244 Words)

2022-01-24-12:04:02 (IANS)
In a statement, a government spokesperson said the cabinet approved establishing a state commission of inquiry that will investigate the case by vote, reports Xinhua news agency.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett abstained, 26 Ministers voted in favour, and one voted against.

The commission was tasked with examining the deals in terms of purchasing three submarines and six warships from ThyssenKrupp, a German multinational conglomerate, between 2009 and 2016.

The approval comes about a year after Defence Minister Benny Gantz appointed a ministerial committee to investigate Netanyahu's possible involvement in the "graft affair".

In May 2021, seven Israelis, including two of Netanyahu's close associates and a former minister, were charged with bribery and breach of trusts in the graft affair known in Israel as "case 3000".

Though not a suspect in the case, Netanyahu is currently facing a criminal trial in three other corruption cases.

The approval of establishing the commission comes three days after the Israeli Defence Ministry and ThyssenKrupp signed a 3 billion euro deal for the development and production of three advanced submarines for the Israeli Navy.

Under Israeli law, a state commission of inquiry has the most extensive powers among various types of inquiry commissions, with the authority to summon citizens including civil servants, and order them to submit confidential documents.

--IANS ksk/

( 258 Words)

2022-01-24-12:12:02 (IANS)
Michael E. Economos, who was a Maryland Institute College of Art instructor for five decades and whose own paintings were defined by figurative realism was also known for his 9/11 portraits, died of cancer Nov. 3 at York Hospital in New York City. The White Hall, Baltimore County, resident was 85.

Michael was a stalwart in the painting and drawing department at MICA for many years, said Fred Lazarus IV, who was president of MICA from 1978 to 2014. He pushed his students hard, but got tremendous results from them. He was just a tremendous teacher.

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Paul Moscatt, who taught painting and drawing at MICA from 1967 to 2000, and had been department chair from 1979 to 1981, first became acquainted with Mr. Economos when both were students at Yale University.They later became colleagues and shared a West Franklin Street studio in Baltimore.

Michaels students responded very positively to him. He was a very strong teacher and I remember him doing very large anatomical drawings for them and he drew those figures right out of his head. He was a great draftsman, Mr. Moscatt said. He always thought I was a little too easy on the students. He was intense, but he cared.

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Michael Emmanuel Economos, son of Michael Economos, an industrial painter, and his wife, Marsula Economos, a homemaker, was born in Athens, Greece, and spent the World War II years with his mother and brother on Mykonos, a small Greek island, in the Aegean Sea.

After the war, he moved with his family to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Worcester High School in 1955 and subsequently earned a bachelors degree in 1961 and masters degree in 1964, both in fine art from Yale University. Earlier, he had obtained a certificate from the Worcester Art Museum School, and after leaving Yale was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in printmaking.

While a student in New Haven, he served in the Navy Reserve for six years.

White Hall residents Barbara Marcus and husband Michael Economos have painted portaits of firefighters and police officers lost to the terrorist attacks of September 11. (Sam Friedman / Patuxent Publishing)

We both came from immigrant families, his was Greek and mine was Sicilian, recalled Mr. Moscatt. He played the guitar and I played the mandolin. He was also a dancer, and as a son of Greece, did all of the Greek dances. His sister said he danced like a Greek sailor.

His early teaching career included drawing and printmaking at the New York Institute of Technology and at Yale.

In 1964, he joined the MICA faculty and commuted twice a week from his home in New York City to conduct drawing and painting classes. He later moved to a Victorian rowhouse in Charles Village and later to White Hall, where his artist wife, Barbara L. Economos, kept horses and painted professionally under her maiden name of Barbara Marcus.

Mr. Economos enjoyed a long dual career as an educator and professional artist. His works can be found in numerous collections, including the Yale Museum, University of Michigan, University of California, Goucher College, Towson University, Chase Manhattan Bank, and the private collections of former Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller and Najla Hosmon, former minister of culture in Beirut, Lebanon.

Teaching is a dignified profession: Youre still in contact with your work. But you tend to be fragmented, Mr. Economos explained in a 1970 interview with The Sun. As the artist, you have to put your foot down and concentrate on your work. This is one of the things I, as a teacher, try to make them [students] understand.

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In his life drawing classes, he asked us to build him a stand and mirrors for models so the students could draw them from a different perspective than just flat, Mr. Lazarus said.

At one point, Michael Economos was placed among the super-realist painters, wrote Sun art critic John Dorsey in 1989. He was also referred to, in on past review, in terms of Andy Warhol (because of his pop subject matter), abstract expressionism (his overall style of painting) and baroque art (his painterly brush stroke, among other things).

In a Facebook tribute to his old friend, Mr. Moscatt wrote: A consummate professional artist and teacher, he can be Mr. Severe, critical, demanding, deadly serious and then turn around and do a hilarious standup routine.

As a graduate student, he was asked by a professor, What is the definition of blue? His answer: The color of your eyes. This was not anticipated as well as Michaels talent for doing flawless voice impressions and imitations of friends and innocent bystanders alike. Perhaps in this day, to be an artist, one needs to have a sense of humor, he wrote.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 61 Ron Galella, the celebrity photographer whose pursuit of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis resulted in a restraining order against him after he stalked her for years, died at age 91 on April 30, 2022, at his home in Montville, N.J., of congestive heart failure. (Carlo Allegri/AP)

Mr. Moscatt wrote that painting is the mother of all arts.

In Michaels development this seems to be born out. At Yale, it was an impassioned brush stroke, a spatial exploration in large black and white DeKooning-esque paintings.

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In the 1960s, Mr. Economos was creating sculptures.

He created formidable sculptures working with a range of materials, polyester, body filler, wood and metal, Mr. Moscatt wrote. The image of woman and esoteric anatomical symbols grew to major proportions and at a time moved and rotated on a central axis.

In 2002, he and his wife joined together and created The Face of Courage, a powerful and emotional project of painted portraits of the fallen first responders who arrived on 9/11 after the World Trade Center in New York was attacked. The exhibit toured extensively throughout the nation.

In my career as an artist, I have never felt a more meaningful mission than painting the portraits of these great men, Mr. Economos said in a 2003 interview with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. As I painted them, every feature, every facial nuance, gave me the feeling that in some way I was resurrecting them for all time.

Thirty three other professional American artists, including Mr. Moscatt, volunteered to help the couple with the project. Of the 60 portraits, the couple completed 23 of them.

The New York City Fire and Police departments asked the families of the responders whether they wanted a free portrait of their loved ones, and if they did, they were to send in photographs.

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We got envelope after envelope, Ms. Economos said in the interview. I cried with every single one, they were so heartfelt.

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Mr. Moscatt said in a telephone interview: Michael did 14 portraits and I did two. It was a very strong show and after it closed in New York City, the portraits were given to their families.

[ Francis G. Gil French, former head of Baltimore City College math department, dies ]

Mr. Economos retired from MICA in 2014, but continued painting at his home in White Hall and at his summer country home in Newport, Vermont.

His wife of 33 years died in 2004. She was 50.

Michael was devastated when Barbara died, Mr. Lazarus said.

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A memorial gathering and reception for Mr. Economos will be held from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 19 at the Gallery of Manor Mill, 2029 Monkton Road, Monkton.

Mr. Economos is survived by his brother, Nickodemus Economos of Atlanta; a nephew; and a great niece and nephew. An earlier marriage to Nancy Hagin ended in divorce.
An Indian-American police officer, who has been on the job for just over six months, is being hailed a hero for rushing to neutralise a gunman who shot a police officer and wounded another. Sumit Sulan, 27, shot the assailant who surprised the officers opening fire on them in his mother's flat on January 21 where police were called because of a domestic dispute. Jason Rivera, 22, was killed and Wilbert Mora, 27, was wounded, but Sulan who was in the police party advanced and shot the alleged gunman, Lashawn McNeil, 47, according to police. McNeil is in hospital with serious injuries. Before taking on the gunman, Sulan had moved the mother and her other son to safety, police said. Sulan and his two colleagues had gone to the flat in the Harlem neighbourhood in response to a call by McNeil's mother that her son was threatening her. He had a close escape when he rushed to take on McNeil as the man allegedly was firing with a super-charged weapon - a modified Glock pistol fitted with a high-capacity drum with 50 rounds, turning it into a virtual machine gun. His mother Dalvir Sulan told the New York Post: "I'm proud. Everyone (says) he did good." She said that he was still struggling to deal with the events and "his brain is stuck on the situation". According to her, the family had immigrated to the US about 15 years ago from India. Sumit Sulan, who entered the police force only in April 2021, has been nicknamed "Super Rookie", according to the Post. He had worked for the city as a taxi and limousine inspector before joining the police. Sumit Sulan had responded earlier this month to a domestic violence incident during which a gun was seized, his police station tweeted with a picture of him holding the weapon. In a city caught in a wave of escalating violence, Friday's incident was the third gun attack on police officers this month. They are a direct challenge to Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, who took office on New Year's Day with a promise to crack down on crime. He called the shooting of the police officers an "attack on the city". Police have come under sustained attack around the country from the Democratic Party's left and its supporters with a sustained movement to either abolish or cut the police force in a campaign that started in May 2020 after the killing of an African-American by police in Minnesota. While Adams, who is a Democrat, has pledged to take a hard line against crime, others in his party have taken the opposite tack. His party colleague Avin Bragg, who was elected the public prosecutor for Manhattan, where the January 21 attack took place, has announced that he would not prosecute several categories of offences like most assaults; theft without guns that would affect Indian news-stand operators and Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants running grocery stores; not paying fares on the metro rail system, and resisting police, which in effect would decriminalising them. So far the Black Lives Movement and the Democratic party's left have been silent on Sumit Sulan and have not attacked him for shooting McNeil, who is African-American, as they often do when a Black person is shot by police. The slain officer and his wounded colleague are both Latinos, members of a minority community. --IANS al/ksk/ ( 583 Words) 2022-01-24-12:22:03 (IANS)
"Had a substantive and wide-ranging telecall with Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Managing Director & Group CEO of @AdnocGroup on various issues relating to bilateral energy partnership," said Puri in a tweet on Monday.

"We agreed that significant progress has been made on critical issues for furthering this very important partnership, since our last meeting in November 2021. I conveyed India's support to UAE and condemned the recent terror attack on UAE last week," he added.

The Minister also informed that Dr Al Jaber expressed his condolences at the loss of the lives of two Indian nationals (Hardeep Singh Ji and Hardev Singh) at the recent attack in UAE.

Jaber said that under the guidance of UAE leadership, the country is committed to supporting the families and children of the two deceased Indians. (ANI)
Akbar hoped that the ongoing process of accountability will continue under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan as per the manifesto of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), according to News International.

"I will remain associated with the party and keep contributing as a member of the legal fraternity," he added.

Earlier, a former deputy prosecutor for the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Akbar was appointed as the special assistant to the prime minister on accountability in August 2018.

Later, in December 2019, he was also given an additional portfolio of advisers to the prime minister on interior affairs.

In July 2020, the barrister was promoted and made adviser to the prime minister on accountability and Interior with the status of a federal minister, as reported by News International. (ANI)
Russian Foreign Ministry Head of the Second Asia Department Zamir Kabulov told Sputnik that Oslo talks with the Taliban are unlikely to yield positive results.

"As for Oslo, we have always stood for bilateral relations with Afghanistan, although Norwegian negotiations raise doubts," Kabulov said.

On January 22, a delegation headed by the interim Taliban government's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, arrived in Oslo on a three-day visit to negotiate on the provision of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as well as "political, educational and economic issues."

United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West has also arrived in Oslo earlier today, accompanied by the US-Europe Group envoys, the US Special Envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights Rina Amiri, the US Treasury and USAID officials.

The sides are expected to discuss a disastrous humanitarian situation in Afghanistan with European and US officials as well as with the Afghan civil society and the Taliban's leaders.

Afghanistan is facing a dire situation as a result of the takeover by the Taliban. In August 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. The Taliban's swift ascension to power resulted in economic disorder and food shortages that pushed the country to the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

According to the UN analysis, nearly half of the country's population needs humanitarian assistance, twice as many as in 2020, with about 22 million people facing acute food insecurity. (ANI)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday said that a huge build-up of Ukrainian forces on the Donbas line of contact indicates Kiev is preparing for an attack. Peskov also pointed out that information hysteria in the West, not Russia, should be blamed for the increased tensions around Ukraine, reported Sputnik. "Indeed, the Ukrainian authorities are concentrating a huge amount of forces and equipment on the border with the self-proclaimed republics on the line of contact. Indeed, the nature of this concentration points to preparations for offensive operations, and, indeed, there is such a threat now", said Peskov. He said that in this case, Moscow would like to see NATO countries urge Kiev not to even think about the possibility of a military settlement in Ukraine. According to Peskov, the delivery of each unit of weapons to Ukraine inspires Kiev to start military operations in Donbas, reported Sputnik. "The threat of provocations from Kiev in Donbas is now very high, even higher than before", the Kremlin spokesman noted. Meanwhile, Peskov commenting on drills in the Baltic Sea said that Russian troops cannot ignore the increased NATO activity near borders of the country, reported Sputnik. NATO has announced that it is increasing its presence in Eastern Europe over the situation in Ukraine. Russia's Baltic Fleet later said that two corvettes went on a long voyage, which will take place as part of mass exercises led by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, reported Sputnik. "First of all, you should ask the Defense Ministry about this. Secondly, such actions by NATO and the increased activity of NATO near our borders cannot be ignored by our military, who are responsible for the security of our country. And thirdly, there is still a constant process of exercises, maneuvers, military construction, which has never stopped and will continue to continue," said Peskov. (ANI)
A gunman opened fire at a lecture hall in Germany's southwestern town of Heidelberg, leaving several people injured, said the police, informing that the attacker has been killed, reported Sputnik on Monday. Germany's Mannheim police said that a lone attacker with a firearm injured many people at a lecture hall. The police informed that they conducted an operation in Heidelberg during the gunman attack adding that several people were injured incident, according to Sputnik. "An attacker injured several people in a lecture hall, using firearms. He is dead," the police tweeted. (ANI)
Muhajir political activists --Muslim immigrants who migrated from various regions of India after the Partition of India-- on Sunday decried Tando Allahyar killing of Khalilur Rehman Khanzada, alias Bholu, outside a court in the police's presence and baton charge on women who protested against the arrest of their family members in the district. Leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) on Sunday condemned Friday's killing of the party's senior worker Khanzada, reported The News International. Addressing workers gathering at the park adjacent to the party's headquarters, MQM-P Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said the police and provincial administration had been trying to give the Tando Allayar tragedy an 'ethnic colour' by using force against the Muhajir protesting women and cracking down on Muhajir political activists, reported The News International. "The MQM-P does not want to give the incident an ethnic colour. It was an act of terrorism and we demand that the government and law enforcement agencies arrest Khanzada's killers," he said. He alleged that the police had set an example of fascism by forcefully crushing the peaceful protest held by women and violating their sanctity. "Police personnel should be ashamed of beating women with sticks," he said. The MQM-P convener said the Tando Allahyar incident had created restlessness among the Muhajir community across the province, reported The News International. MQM-P leader Amir Khan said Khanzada was a brave and courageous man who had presented himself in court in a false murder case. "Four days ago, the killers quarrelled with Khanzada in the court and beat him up in front of everyone. Following the incident, he demanded government protection after receiving death threats but he was not given security," said Khan. He added that other people who were absconders in the case had been roaming freely and Khanzada's killer was taking selfies in the police custody, reported The News International. (ANI)
South Korea congratulated India as the country will be celebrating its 75th Republic Day on January 26 by distributing 300 rice cake packs to local people through an NGO on Monday. To commemorate the 75th Republic Day on January 26 in India and Korean New Year's Day in the lunar calendar ('Seollal') on February 1, Korean Cultural Centre India (KCCI) distributed 300 Korean sweet rice cakes in the colors of the Indian flag to local people. While celebrating India's Republic Day, KCCI introduced the Korean 'New Year' celebration, the culture of sharing food and rice cakes with neighbors, read KCCI press release. Hwang Il-yong, Director of Korean Cultural Centre India said, "I was thinking about how to practice the role of a friend who is with you and cheers you up during difficult times in India amidst the third wave of Corona, and then we planned and carried out this project. I sincerely congratulate India on its 75th Republic Day, which has achieved its independence through a nonviolent pacifist movement despite difficult circumstances and has continued to overcome difficult situations like us, Korea." "In Korea, we also are in celebration mood for our Lunar New Year Day, a great national holiday & festival on 1st February. So we prepared a special gift, sweet rice cake with the meaning of the Lunar New Year, when the whole family gathers to celebrate the New Year and shares rice cakes and food to fulfill the hope and wishes for the New Year. I hope the local people in Delhi will warm their hearts with new hopes this year through this gift of Korean rice cake in 3 colors which symbolizes the national flag of India," he added. The Korean food distribution was done in five areas of Delhi which included in North -Kashmiri Gate ISBT & Mori Gate, in West Mahipalpur and Uttam Nagar, in East East Lajpat Nagar flyover, in South Moti Bagh and Sanjay Camp and in Central at Motilal Nehru camp, New Delhi, read the release. A volunteer-oriented non-profit organization (NGO), 'Aasha Aur Pragati' which runs local slum relief and education projects for especially vulnerable youth volunteered to deliver the rice cakes and share the joy and hope with people. India celebrates its 75th Republic Day since the Constitution of India as an independent republic was enacted and came into effect on January 26, 1950. Although the Constitution had already been passed by the Indian Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, the reason that it was announced in effect on January 26 of the following year is that India's Declaration of Independence was issued on January 26, 1930, just like Korea's '3.1 Declaration of Independence' on March 1, 1919, from Japan colonization. Korea has celebrated March 1st as a national holiday for commemorating this Independence declaration. And two countries have the same date of Independence Day, 15th August, Korea achieved its Independence on August 15, 1945. Korean New Year (Seollal) is one of the major Korean national festivals and holidays commemorating the first day of the Korean lunar calendar. The celebration usually lasts three days Koreans meet and greet each other, seek blessings, perform ancestral rites, wear Hanbok (their traditional dress), share and eat traditional food like rice cakes and play folk games together. (ANI)
Political analysts believe that such meetings could play a vital role in solving the problems in the country, according to Tolo News.

Acting Afghanistan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and his delegation met with the envoys of the European Union and seven countries on Monday in Oslo, as reported by Tolo News.

Further, acting Foreign Ministry's spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said on Twitter that the delegation met with the EU special envoy plus those from the US, UK, Norway, Germany, Italy, France, and Qatar.

"The meeting focused on discussions about the economy, humanitarian aid, security, the central bank, health and other relevant issues," he said.

"The discussions are in progress, a full report will follow," he added.

Earlier, The US special envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West in a series of tweets on Sunday evening said that the US and allies were seeking ways to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

"As we seek to address (the) humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief organizations, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan," he said.

On the other hand, Taliban characterized Norway's initiative as preliminary steps for the recognition of the Afghan government, however, the Norwegian foreign ministry said that the meetings were not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban, as reported by Tolo News. (ANI)
An estimated one million Uyghurs are in concentration camps, treated as little more than chattel, and enslaved. Both men and women endure systematic physical and sexual abuse, including rape and torture. Young men remain absent from the streets of Urumqi, and women are sterilized and forced to marry men from the dominant Han Chinese ethnic group. Rory O'Connor, the founder of the Athenai Institute and Jianli Yang, founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, writing in Newsweek said that it's time to boycott China by divesting companies complicit in Uyghur genocide. As per them, the answer to China's human rights abuses now lies in divestment: a bottom-up, grassroots movement of the politically conscious. Beginning with students, young people, and everyday citizens, we are calling for the divestment of university endowments from companies that are complicit in the Uyghur genocide, said Connor and Jianli. And with the help of public officials, we seek direct divestment of public pension funds from any companies complicit in the oppression of Uyghurs or the Chinese Communist Party's human rights abuses, added the experts. The objective is to financially disentangle the United States from its complicity in the Uyghur genocide and hold to account those who are responsible. The momentum to boycott China is growing -- the Catholic University of America recently committed to divest its USD 276 million endowments in response to overwhelming student demands, and the call for divestment has been echoed at universities across the country by students calling for similar action. The theoretical and moral basis of the Uyghur Genocide Divestment Movement has, in practice, been laid for quite some time. In May of 2020, students from both College Democrats of America and the College Republicans National Convention came together to release the Washington Appeal, a joint letter outlining the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party to academic freedom and liberal, democratic institutions. The letter sought to address "a long-term campaign undeniably aimed at expanding the reach and power of the Chinese state's apparatus of oppression," and outlined "the scope of this threat, the need to counter it, and the precise actions demanded by our circumstances. Signatories also included prominent Chinese dissidents such as Teng Biao and organizations such as the World Uyghur Congress, Campaign for Uyghurs, the Uyghur American Association, and Engage Action, reported Newsweek. The Washington Appeal paved the way for divestment by demanding, among other things, "the full and public disclosure of all ties, both financial and academic, between centers of higher learning and all Chinese state agencies and proxies." Public officials ought to seek to support the grassroots, bipartisan efforts by students, and use them as the pretext to take further action at the local, state, and federal level, said the experts. In August 2020, then-Under Secretary of State Keith Krach commended the Washington Appeal, and used the same spirit to call upon university administrators to divest their financial holdings from China in his ground-breaking Letter to the Governing Boards of American Universities. Nonetheless, divestment alone is not enough, and our solidarity with the Uyghur people must be active. Not a noun, but a verb -- continued action rather than a single and circumscribed act. We need a broad set of related actions to overwhelm the regime and those that enable them, added the experts. It's critical that divestment be complemented with a broad and ferocious set of similar actions, including sanctioning more officials in the regime responsible for the genocide and increasing transparency around NGO, think tank, and academic funding. (ANI)
The US Navy Carrier Strike Groups Carl Vinson and Abraham Lincoln will engage in operations aimed at strengthening maritime integrated-at-sea operations and combat readiness, according to a statement from the US Navy.

"Our ability to rapidly aggregate and work collectively alongside CSG 3, highlights the U.S. Navy's ability to deliver overwhelming maritime force, when called upon, to support a free and open Indo-Pacific region," Rear Admiral Dan Martin, commander of the strike group led by USS Carl Vinson, said in a statement.

The operations include enhanced maritime communication operations, anti-submarine warfare operations, replenishments-at-sea, and maritime interdiction operations, the statement read.

The announcement from the US Navy came the same day that Taiwan reported warding off 39 Chinese aircraft flying in its defence zone -- including 34 fighters, four electronic warfare craft and one bomber. This was the largest incursion of China's air forces in that zone in October.

Further, US warships frequently transit areas of the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait drawing anger from Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, according to Hill.

The Navy's statement noted that since early September, units of the carrier strike group led by the Carl Vinson have conducted multiple operations alongside Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces.

More recently, the two forces participated in an annual naval exercise alongside the Royal Australian Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and German Navy in the Philippine Sea, according to the Hill. (ANI)
US special representative to Afghanistan, Thomas West on Monday will discuss the establishment of an all-inclusive government in Kabul with the 15-member delegation of the Taliban which is in Norway. Earlier, State Department in a statement released on Sunday, January 23, said that the meeting is supposed to take place on Monday, in the Norwegian capital Oslo, according to Khaama Press News Agency. The statement reads that forging an inclusive government in which all the people have a say will be dominating the agenda of Thomas West with the Taliban. In the meantime, counterterrorism and the US security concerns from Afghanistan will also be discussed in the meeting. Meanwhile, an official of the State Department has reiterated that inclusivity of Afghan government, addressing the ongoing humanitarian and economic crisis, security concerns, counterterrorism, human rights, and girls' education will be part of the agenda between the US envoy and the Taliban, according to Khaama Press. Further, the Taliban are optimistic of the three-day visit to Oslo and said that the meeting will be helpful in changing a warring situation into a peaceful one, as reported by Khaama Press. (ANI)
The explosion took place when the soldiers were carrying out an operation to hunt down the militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group in Wadi al-Shay, a rugged area in southern Kirkuk, Abbas al-Obaidi told Xinhua.

The explosion resulted in the killing of four soldiers and the destruction of their military vehicle, al-Obaidi said, adding a reinforcement security force rushed to the scene after the explosion.

The provinces, which the IS militants had previously controlled, have witnessed their intense activities during the past months, despite repeated military operations to hunt them down.

The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the Iraqi forces defeated the IS in 2017. However, IS remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. (ANI/Xinhua)
Both leaders shared "insights on economic recovery, vaccine equity, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) matters, technology transfer, sustainable lifestyles & biodiversity."

Further, they also reviewed India-France cooperation in the G20 context.

"CIM & G20 Sherpa @PiyushGoyal held a fruitful virtual meeting with French G20 Sherpa Emmanuel Bonne today. Shared insights on economic recovery, vaccine equity, IPR matters, technology transfer, sustainable lifestyles & biodiversity. Also reviewed India-France cooperation in G20 context," tweeted Arindam Bagchi, Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs.

Goyal has been appointed as India's Sherpa for G20. India will be holding the G20 Presidency from December 1, 2022 and will also convene the G20 Leaders' Summit in 2023 for the first time.

G20 is an intergovernmental forum consisting of 19 countries and the European Union (EU). This grouping works to address major issues related to the global economy like international financial stability, sustainable development and climate change mitigation. (ANI)
China faces vast financial inequality and is using strict measures to counter it as a recent report has shed light on the rising wealth gap worldwide, said a report. "One per cent of Chinese own 31 per cent of the country's wealth, according to Credit Suisse Research Institute. The coronavirus pandemic further exposed disparities, as the rich returned to luxury spending while other Chinese continued to struggle," The New York Times had reported. The world's ten richest men more than doubled their fortunes from USD 700 billion to USD 1.5 trillion --at a rate of USD 15,000 per second or USD 1.3 billion a day-- during the first two years of a pandemic that has seen the incomes of 99 per cent of humanity fall and over 160 million more people forced into poverty, revealed a report by Oxfam last week. "If these ten men were to lose 99.999 per cent of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be richer than 99 per cent of all the people on this planet," said Oxfam International's Executive Director Gabriela Bucher last week. "They now have six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people." China's financial regulators have cracked down on the country's tech giants, extracting pledges of loyalty and hefty donations. Tycoons have been detained on corruption accusations. And online, the authorities have ordered social media platforms to scrub the hugely popular videos that make clear the gap between the haves and have-nots, according to The New York Times. If China's financial inequality goes unaddressed, the imbalance could pose a threat to the authorities' near-total control, which rests on a promise of economic comfort. Exorbitant urban housing prices and accelerating competition for white-collar jobs have left many young people feeling that the "China Dream" is out of reach. Even Chinese President Xi Jinping has called the rich-poor gap a "major political matter" touching on the party's legitimacy, reported The New York Times. (ANI)
Washington [US], January 25 (ANI/Sputnik): The ongoing situation between Russia and Ukraine would not have occurred under the Trump administration, former US President Donald Trump said on Monday. "What's happening with Russia and Ukraine would never have happened under the Trump administration. Not even a possibility," Trump said in a statement. Tensions between Russia and Ukraine amid a buildup of forces near the border have sparked discussions of further US involvement in the European security situation, including by supplying great military aid to Ukraine as deterrence to a potential invasion. Russia has resolutely denied that it intends to attack any country and has warned NATO that its activities near Russia's borders are a national security threat while Moscow reserves the right to move forces on its territory. The Trump administration requested in its fiscal year 2021 budget some $317 million in aid to Ukraine, including providing military assistance, and later it did provide $1.5 million in assistance to improve Ukraine's special operations forces training facilities. However, the US House of Representatives in December of 2019 also voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for allegedly freezing military aid to Ukraine in order to press Kiev to probe political rival Joe Biden. The Senate then acquitted Trump on all articles of impeachment. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in July of 2020 during testimony to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Trump administration supported increasing lethal aid to Ukraine. (ANI/Sputnik)
The UN's top envoy in Afghanistan met Taliban's interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani in Kabul on Monday, where she asked the leadership of the Islamist group to probe the issue of missing Afghan women activists. Taman Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel were abducted from their homes by the Taliban last week. The United Nations had earlier said it was concerned about the disappearance of Afghan rights activists. "In a meeting with Sirajuddin Haqqani in Kabul today @moiafghanistan, UN envoy @DeborahLyonsUNurged the Taliban leadership to probe the issue and secure the liberty of the missing Afghan women activists who were reportedly abducted from their homes last week," the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a tweet. Last week, the UN mission in Afghanistan had called on the Taliban to account for the whereabouts of the activists. "The UN shares growing concerns about the disappearance of two Afghan women activists, Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel, reportedly abducted from their homes overnight Wednesday. We urge Taliban to provide information on their whereabouts and to protect rights of all Afghans," the organization had said on Twitter. Last month, the Taliban had issued a decree on women's basic rights and urged relevant institutions to take action to enforce them. However, many women have repeatedly taken to the streets of Afghan cities to call on the authorities to respect their rights and ensure representation in the government. Last week, the UN International Labour Organization said that after the Taliban takeover, employment of women in Afghanistan declined by 16 per cent. (ANI)
Hasnain Shah, who is a crime reporter on a private TV channel, was shot dead outside Lahore Press Club. This incident has led to condemnation from media persons across the country.

"HRCP condemns the assassination of Capital TV journalist Hasnain Shah, who was killed in broad daylight on Davis Road in Lahore earlier today. This is yet another testament to the failing law-and-order situation and the increased vulnerability of journalists," the HRCP said in a statement.

Hasnain Shah was sitting in his car outside the press club when the suspects, riding a motorcycle, intercepted and shot at him, killing him on the spot, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

Pakistan Federal Union of Journalist (PFJU) President Shehzada Zulfiqar condemned the incident, saying that the provincial government has failed to maintain law and order in the city.

The journalist union demanded the authorities arrest the suspects at the earliest.

The Lahore Economic Journalist Association also condemned the killing and said that the lives of journalists are not safe and the administration has failed to protect them.

Lahore Press Club President Azam Chaudhry said a journalist's murder in front of the press club in broad daylight is a moment of reflection for the government.

He added that the incident would not go unnoticed and the authorities will be held responsible if culprits are not apprehended soon. (ANI)
The United States government is banning all imports from China made using forced labour from the Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced on Monday. Rights groups estimate that over one million people from Muslim minorities groups have been detained in recent years in camps in China's Xinjiang province. Beijing denies claims of genocide or the existence of forced labour camps and accused the US of peddling lies about the northwestern region. "The DHS announced, as part of its implementation of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), that it will seek public input to inform the Department's continued efforts to prohibit goods from being imported into the United States that are produced with forced labour in ...China, including in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region," the DHS said in a Twitter message. This message comes weeks after US President Joe Biden signed the "Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act" that bans importing of goods into the US made with forced labour in Xinjiang. The UFLPA prohibits goods from being imported into the United States that are either produced in Xinjiang province or by certain entities identified in the forthcoming UFLPA enforcement strategy, unless the importer can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the goods were not produced with forced labour, the DHS noted. "As part of our efforts to advance the Biden-Harris Administration's priority to eradicate forced labour from U.S. supply chains, we are taking an important first step today to implement the UFLPA," Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said. "Every day, the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection ensures that goods made with forced labor are not able to enter the U.S. supply chain, and I am proud to work alongside the world's leading forced labor investigators in their mission to protect human rights and international labor standards." (ANI)
A majority of the 8,500 US troops placed on high alert over the Ukraine crisis, Pentagon said on Monday amid the growing military build-up at the Russia-Ukraine border area. Speaking at a press briefing, the US Defense Department spokesperson John Kirby said these 8,500 troops on high alert are from brigade combat teams, medical personnel, aviation support, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. "No deployment orders have been sent and no missions have been assigned," Kirby added. The United States is not ruling out the option to move US troops in the European theatre in order to bolster NATO's eastern flank amid the Ukraine crisis, the spokesperson said. "I'm absolutely not ruling out the possibility that there will intra-theatre moves as well inside Europe to bolster NATO allies on the Eastern flank," he said during a press briefing. Kirby further said a potential deployment of additional US forces to Europe over Ukraine tensions will depend on a decision by NATO. Ukraine crisis has taken shape over the past several months after the US and its allies accused Russia of a troop build-up near the shared border and is preparing for invasion. Meanwhile, Moscow has denied these accusations, pointing to NATO's military activity near Russian borders, which it deems a threat to its national security. Amid the rising tensions at the Ukraine border, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an increase in diplomatic efforts and more dialogue. "What the secretary-general would like to see is a diplomatic buildup, increasing number of dialogue and the reaffirmation by all [those] involved that there can only be a diplomatic solution," UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told a press briefing. He added that Guterres continues to be concerned about current tensions and appeals to all parties involved to take immediate steps to de-escalate and remain focused on the diplomatic process. (ANI)
People against vaccine mandates rally in Highland Park on Jan. 23, 2022, at Port Clinton Square. (Judy Fidkowski / For the Pioneer Press)

More than 250 demonstrators sent a message Sunday in Port Clinton Square in downtown Highland Park saying people should be free to choose whether to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or wear masks as a preventive measure.

This is about freedom and prosperity, Suzanne Wahl, a Highland Park resident who helped organize the rally, said. I dont want my children to tell my grandchildren this is what freedom used to be like.

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On the north side of Central Avenue across from the rally was a group of more than 20 people with a different message. They believe vaccination is for the greater good as people are protecting both themselves and their neighbors.

Being vaccinated is about protecting others, Mary Pike, a Highland Park resident and retired Highland Park High School teacher, said.

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Counterprotesters hold up signs as people against vaccine mandates rally in Highland Park on Jan. 23, 2022. (Judy Fidkowski / For the Pioneer Press)

The opposing groups carried signs and braved 16-degree temperatures at a snow-covered Port Clinton Square to voice their opinions.

Wahl said she organized the rally for freedom because the Highland Park City Council established a requirement for people dining at restaurants and other places where food is served to show proof of vaccination for COVID-19 upon entry.

This is a rally for privacy and freedom, Wahl said before the rally. This is the only place outside of Cook County which discriminates on our medical situation. Im not going to share my medical information with anyone but my doctor.

Representatives of Illinois Standing Against Tyranny, who came from nearby suburbs to protest Highland Parks requirement, joined Wahl and her group that she calls Take Back Our Town Highland Park.

Joshua Alvarado, a retired U.S. Army sergeant with Illinois Standing Against Tyranny, said Americans cannot yield the freedoms they have, and that requiring masks and vaccinations are an imposition on American freedom.

Any freedom we give up is a freedom our children will never know, Alvarado said. If the government knew what it was doing about (the coronavirus pandemic) this wouldnt still be going on after two years.

A person holds up a sign during a rally in Highland Park calling for an end to vaccine mandates on Jan. 23, 2022, at Port Clinton Square. (Judy Fidkowski / For the Pioneer Press)

Alvarado likened actions like the restrictions in Highland Park, Chicago and suburban Cook County to policies implemented by communist governments and others where people are not free.

People opposed to the Highland Park mandate were carrying signs saying My body, my choice, and Passports for travel and not for tacos. Another sign compared Dr. Anthony Fauci to Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz concentration camp doctor.

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Rachael Wachstein of Highland Park, who helped organize the counterprotest, said Illinois Against Tyranny has presented ideas at rallies in Arlington Heights and other suburbs comparing mask and vaccination mandates to policies in Nazi Germany.

When you do that you trivialize the Holocaust and the millions who were murdered, Wachstein said. Believing that is disrespecting the 6 million who were killed and that is a form of antisemitism.

During the rally, Pike crossed Central Avenue, walked into the crowd with a megaphone and started saying why vaccination is a good idea. She was loudly criticized by people taking the opposite view.

Several members of the Highland Park Police Department got between Pike and those who disagreed with her. There were approximately 20 members of the Highland Park and Lake Forest police departments present to maintain order.

Highland Park City Manager Ghida Neukirch said the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing the right to free speech will always be supported. The police were part of protecting everyones rights.

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We had a large police presence to help ensure a safe and peaceful event for everyone, Neukirch said in a text after the event.
In an apparent bid to shift responsibility for rising incidents of terrorism, Pakistan's Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said on Monday that India's intelligence agency RAW is paying local criminals in Pakistan to sabotage peace there. Rashid made these remarks during a Senate briefing, the Dawn newspaper reported. He informed that five to six outfits, including Daesh, Tehreek-i-Taliban (TTP) Pakistan, and some Al Qaeda offshoots, were operating in the country's Balochistan province. "Our security forces are vigilant and will continue to take action against terrorists who want to destabilize the country," he added. On the issue of talks between the Imran Khan government and proscribed TTP, Rashid said the talks were not being held anymore. "Talks are not possible with those [elements] who are against the integrity of Pakistan," he emphasized. The minister also stated that Pakistan did not feature directly in the talks, which were held between the Taliban and the TTP. Amid the recent rise in incidents of terrorism in the country, Pakistan media has raised concern about the trend that experts say may continue in the coming weeks. Earlier, Rashid had informed that his ministry had alerted all armed forces in the country, asking them to stay vigilant. An opinion piece published in the Dawn newspaper raised concerns about how the TTP has escalated terrorist attacks in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban took power in Afghanistan. Even Pakistan's interior minister last week admitted that a "surge in the wave [of terrorism]" had been observed in the country in the recent past, with terrorism incidents rising by around "35 percent" since August 15. Writing for Dawn, Pakistan security analyst Muhammad Amir Rana said that any probable alliance between the TTP and Al Qaeda or with ETIM against Chinese interests can prove lethal and cause a diplomatic crisis. He cautioned that Pakistan has to devise a different approach to deal with the TTP threat. (ANI)
"An F-35C Lightning II, assigned to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, had a landing mishap on deck while USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) was conducting routine flight operations in the South China Sea, Jan. 24, 2022. The pilot safely ejected from the aircraft and was recovered via US military helicopter," the US Navy said in a statement.

The US Navy said that the pilot is in stable condition. However, seven sailors were injured in the incident.

The condition of three sailors required being evacuated to a medical treatment facility in Manila in the Philippines. The other four sailors were treated by onboard medical personnel. (ANI)
Five people, including two teenagers from Victorville, died in a series of incidents and accidents authorities say took place on High Desert roads last week.

Five people, including two teenagers from Victorville, died in a series of incidents and accidents authorities say took place on High Desert roads last week, though the coroner has released only a few details in each case.

The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Coroner Division disclosed the deaths on its website. It tied them to four incidents between Wednesday and Saturday. One was at an intersection in Twentynine Palms; the other three happened on freeways in Apple Valley, Phelan and Hesperia, including the single-car crash that killed the two Victorville teenagers.

Barry Alan Absec, a 40-year-old man from Chino, was the first person killed in the series of events.

The California Highway Patrol said officers from its Victorville station responded to a call at 6:19 a.m. Wednesday. Officers responded to the area of State Route 138 and State Route 2 in Phelan, where the coroner says Absec was declared dead on the scene about 15 minutes later.

This intersection of the state highways is in a sparse area of unincorporated Phelan. The Mountain Top Cafe and a group of telecommunication towers are the closest nearby commercial sites amid surrounding desert and mountains.

The second death came early Thursday in Twentynine Palms.

Christiellen Rodrigues Almeida, a 47-year-old Twentynine Palms resident, was described as the passenger of a vehicle who died Thursday morning.

CHP said its Morongo station dispatched officers at 6:15 a.m. to the intersection of Indian Trail and Morongo Road, near a large solar farm in an otherwise sparse area of desert flatland. Almeida was declared dead at the scene more than two hours later, at 8:37 a.m., for reasons undisclosed by the coroner. It was unclear whether the car had been involved in a collision.

Two more deaths came Friday evening in Apple Valley.

A pair of teenagers from Victorville, described only as 17-year-old Hispanic males, died in what the coroner described as a single-vehicle rollover on northbound Interstate 15, near Wild Wash Road.

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CHP said officers from its Victorville station responded to the scene at 8:25 p.m. Friday. One teen was declared dead at the scene nearly 30 minutes later, the coroner said, and the second was declared dead about 10 minutes after that in Victor Valley Global Medical Centers emergency room.

The fifth death disclosed by the coroner came early Saturday.

CHP said its Victorville station dispatched officers at 3:55 a.m. to I-15, near the highways crossover with Main Street in Hesperia.

About 25 minutes later, at 4:20 a.m., an unidentified driver was declared dead on the scene. It was unclear whether the vehicle had crashed.

A coroner spokesman said the highway patrol stations are the agencies handling the investigation in each case. An active investigation is a common reason cited by law enforcement for not providing details on incidents to the public.

The coroner, which went from being an independent agency to a division of the county sheriffs department in 2006, told the Daily Press it isnt authorized to release details beyond its online disclosures. The CHP stations investigating each death couldnt be reached Sunday for further information.

Charlie McGee covers the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities for the Daily Press. He is also a Report for America corps member with the GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and around the world. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: 2 Victorville teens among 5 people killed on High Desert roads within days
A 24-year-old was arrested after police said he stabbed a man outside a downtown Sioux Falls bar.

Benjamin Fernandez, 24, of Sioux Falls, was arrested around 1 a.m. Sunday for aggravated assault, according to police spokesman Sam Clemens.

The incident was reported to police after a group of men heard a "commotion" outside the Top Hat Bar & Lounge located at the 500 block of First Avenue, Clemens said. Upon going outside they found a 23-year-old man who had been stabbed multiple times.

More Argus911: Sioux Falls man changes plea in 2020 homicide case.

The victim received wounds to his head, neck, shoulder and arm, Clemens said. He was taken to the hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.

The victim was intoxicated and couldn't give police much information. Officers were able to locate Fernandez and arrested him without incident a few blocks on the 200 block of E 12th Street, Clemens said.

Got a story idea from your community? Email reporter Alfonzo Galvan at agalvan@argusleader.com or follow him on Twitter @GalvanReports.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Sioux Falls man arrested for stabbing 23-year-old outside bar
An Ohio National Guard member fills out paperwork after arriving with 69 other troops who arrived at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center on Jan. 24, 2022, to help with the COVID-19 surge.

Another 70 Ohio National Guard troops arrived Monday to help University of Cincinnati Medical Center staff during the latest COVID-19 hospitalization surge.

The troops are among those Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine sent to the state's hospitals to help healthcare staff during the barrage of COVID-19 cases triggered by the omicron variant. The addition of Guard members at UC Health's Corryville facility comes days after a group arrived at Christ Hospital Health System in Mount Auburn.

UC Health is experiencing a record number of patients seeking care for COVID-19 within our hospitals, and this is putting unprecedented strain upon our care teams, said UC Health spokeswoman Amanda Nageleisen. Hospitals workers have described the recent pressure, coming after two years of pandemic-related exertion, as a "PTSD-like situation."

The new arrivals will be deployed to assist in several areas: grounds, environmental services, patient transportation, food and nutrition services, inpatient acute care areas, sterile processing, the pharmacy, the emergency department, a patient relations and patient experience department, employee health and safety, central supply, and the operating room department and lab.

An Ohio National Guard member talks with a University of Cincinnati Medical Center staff member on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. Another 70 troops arrived to assist UC Health staff during the omicron-fueled surge of COVID-19 cases. They did PPE (personal protective equipment) fit-testing and had orientation on Monday.

They join 20 troops already working at the hospital:10 medics in the emergency department and 10 non-clinical guard members in environmental services, Nageleisen said in a press release. And another 10 National Guard troops are helping with UC Healths COVID-19 Community Testing Center.

We are grateful for the support provided by the men and women of the Ohio National Guard, and we thank them for their service.

Christ Hospital last week welcomed 20 Ohio National Guard troops to help its hospital workers and anticipated having another 30 arrive this week.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio National Guard arrives to assist UC Medical Center with COVID-19 surge
The Daily Beast

Claudio Peri/Pool/ReutersROMESince the beginning of Russias invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper.I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow, he told Corriere D
MARIUPOL, Ukraine  Second Capt. Roman Varianitsyn was on high alert. As waves slapped the side of his small armed cutter, he surveyed the horizon through a steamy window. A helmsman navigated the growing swells as another watched a radar screen. A man in the rear of the vessel stood by a small machine gun.

They were on the lookout for Russian navy vessels that President Vladimir Putin has dispatched to the Sea of Azov, where some fear an amphibious military operation could be launched as part of a new invasion of Ukraine.

Varianitsyn, who invited BuzzFeed News to join his crew of Maritime Guards of the Border Guard Service of Ukraine during a regular patrol, said the Russians constantly harass and provoke them here. Sometimes they head directly toward Ukrainian vessels like theyre playing a game of chicken before breaking away just moments from a collision.

They come directly near our ports. They record and control and monitor all of our activities, Varianitsyn said. They are constantly monitoring the situation near the Ukrainian coast [and] everything that happens here.

Some 5 nautical miles out, a Ukrainian patrol ship appeared. The Donbas, a patrol boat named after the eastern region that is ground zero of the eight-year war that Russia has waged against Ukraine with unmarked troops and separatist proxies, holds two double-barreled 30mm anti-aircraft guns, a heavy machine gun, and several smaller machine guns. The cutter shadowed it for several minutes. But no Russian ships were spotted during the patrol.

Still, they lurked somewhere out there, waiting for their orders.

BuzzFeed News joined Varianitsyn and his men on Jan. 19, as the situation around Russia, Ukraine, and the West intensified and President Joe Biden warned that a return to heavy fighting here could be imminent.

On Sunday, Biden was reported to be considering deploying several thousand US troops, warships, and aircraft to NATOs allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. And the Western security alliance announced that it was already preparing to send additional ships and fighter jets to the region.

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Meanwhile, the Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of US government employees and ordered the departure of family members of all American diplomats at the embassy in Kyiv, effective immediately.

As to President Putins intentions, we dont know if he has yet made up his mind to invade, but he is building the military capacity along Ukraines borders to have that option ready at any time, a senior state department official told reporters.

If the Russian leader does decide to take further military action, people living in this port city worry it could come from this shallow body of water slightly larger than Lake Erie.

Albert Khomyak, a military chaplain and widowed father of 16 adopted children, said he is making preparations to evacuate his kids to cities in central Ukraine, where he believes theyll be safer when  not if, he said  Russia attacks.

However, he concedes, if Russia wants to take all of Ukraine, there may be no place thats completely safe. And no amount of Western security assistance to Ukraine is going to be enough for it to defeat the military of the countrys former ruler.

In this situation, Im afraid there is nobody who can help us, Khomyak said. It may be up to God only.

There have been several incidents and close calls between the two countries' navies here. On Nov. 25, 2018, Russian FSB coast guards opened fire on and captured three Ukrainian navy vessels and 24 sailors as they attempted to transit from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait. The sailors were released only after months of tense negotiations and international pressure on Moscow.

Ukraine narrowly escaped another attack in December just as new tensions between Moscow and the West were on the rise when Russian navy boats claimed the Ukrainian command ship Donbas, a 400-foot Soviet-era vessel, was acting provocatively in the sea; Kyiv said it was carrying out a routine training exercise. In the end, a crisis that could have sparked renewed large-scale fighting in Ukraine was averted.

Since 2014, Russia has significantly increased its presence in the Sea of Azov  as well as the larger Black Sea to which it connects  and tightened its grip on the strategic body of water that washes both Russian and Ukrainian shores.

The Russian fleet here is composed of dozens of vessels, including warships much more powerful than anything Ukraine has. They have the advantage [on the sea]  the advantage in the number of ships and in firepower, Varianitsyn said.

Ukraine never boasted a powerful navy, but it lost 70% of the fleet it had in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and seized Sevastopol, the Black Sea port city. I was there in March 2014, when Russian ships blocked Ukrainian vessels and delivered an ultimatum to their sailors over a loudspeaker: stand down and hand over the ship peacefully, or else prepare to be attacked.

It was a chilling message. Disoriented and without orders from Kyiv, the Ukrainian sailors conceded.

Since then, Ukraine has worked to rebuild its fledgling naval force and gotten some help from the US in the form of used Coast Guard patrol boats. We are stronger and more prepared after eight years of war, Varianitsyn said. But his naval force is a far cry from what it used to be, let alone Russias navy.

Meanwhile, Moscow is reportedly moving several large landing ships from its Baltic Fleet toward the Black Sea. That movement, along with the current Russian presence here and the buildup of ground forces around Ukraines border  more than 106,000 troops in all, according to Lt. Gen. Oleksandr Pavliuk, head of the Joint Forces Operation in eastern Ukraine  has raised alarms among the Ukrainian Maritime Guards.

They believe that if Russia launches a new invasion of Ukraine it could be a multipronged attack.

Rob Lee, an analyst with Kings College Londons Department of War Studies, told BuzzFeed News that a large-scale attack via the Azov or Black seas is unlikely. But one possible scenario would be for Russian special forces, possibly under the cover of darkness, to fake an amphibious raid to draw Ukrainian forces there, he said. I think that that part is likely.

Forcing the Ukrainians to fight on multiple fronts and thus stretching their military thin, Lee said, would go a long way toward what he believes the Kremlin may be gearing up for, based on the type of military forces and weaponry being positioned around Ukraine: a ground invasion toward the capital, Kyiv.

Of course, its possible, Lee conceded, that Russia tries to seize the Ukrainian shoreline here and take the strategic city of Mariupol and neighboring Berdyansk, which are home to Kyivs only ports in the Sea of Azov. The prize would be a land bridge connecting annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland.

That scenario has long worried the half a million residents of Mariupol.

Halyna Odnorih, a Mariupol-based activist working on issues related to the Sea of Azov, fears a new Russian invasion is imminent and that Mariupol, with its large factories, warmwater ports, and a mostly Russian-speaking population that has long enjoyed close ties to its larger neighbor to the east, is a key target.

We need serious defensive help from the United States, Odnorih told BuzzFeed News. This is such an important and dangerous moment for us.

More on this
Tim Thompson grew up in the family business. Today he oversees William Thompson and Son Funeral Home in White Cottage, after working with his father, G. William Thompson, for 27 years.

WHITE COTTAGE  Hes spent (almost) his entire life in the village of White Cottage. In fact, he lives about a hundred yards from the house he grew up in, and hes about that distance from his business  William Thompson and Son Funeral Home.

Hes the son: Tim Thompson.

Im the man in charge here, he said. I have some part-time help who assist me with funerals and visitations but Im the funeral director, embalmer, arrangement director, office manager and lawn maintenance man.

Now 57, Thompson graduated from Maysville High School in 1982, earned a biology degree from Muskingum in 1986, then graduated from the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science in 1987. He did his apprenticeship under his father, G. William Thompson, passed his state and national board exams and began working with his dad.

I never had another career path, he noted. I started here full time in the fall of 1987.

Thompson worked with his father for years. William Thompson passed away in 2014.

I was fortunate to work with my dad for 27 years, he said. He was very devoted to his work and emphasized the personal nature of the business and going the extra mile to carry out the wishes of the families we served. Growing up, I knew what it entailed.

I enjoy what I do, Thompson added. When a family requests my services, theyre entrusting their loved one to my care. A lot of responsibility goes along with that. And if I meet the needs of the family, then at the end of the day I can say I made a positive contribution.

Tim is a hard worker, assessed Tim Humphrey, co-owner of the J. E. Humphrey Funeral Home in Shawnee. And I must say he goes above and beyond when it comes to the funeral home. Hes an old school funeral director who was taught the families he serves comes first. He always tries to make sure he does all he can to make a terrible time in their lives more bearable.

This is a helping and caring profession, Thompson responded. Empathy is important in this business. Im seeing more deaths in the younger population due to overdoses and COVID-19. I get emotionally attached to the families I serve.

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Ive been very blessed with my life journey, he concluded. Time marches on very quickly. Its too bad we cant hit the pause button.

William Thompson and Son Funeral Home is located at 5765 Gladstone Drive in White Cottage. For more information, call 740-849-2323 or log on www.williamthompsonandsonfuneralhome.com.

About the series

Aces of Trades is a weekly series focusing on people and their jobs  whether theyre unusual jobs, fun jobs or people who take ordinary jobs and make them extraordinary. If you have a suggestion for a future profile, let us know at trnews@zanesvilletimesrecorder.com.

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Tim Thompson followed in his fathers footsteps in the funeral business
(Reuters) -Activist investor Blackwells Capital LLC wants exercise equipment maker Peloton Interactive Inc. to fire its chief executive and consider selling itself to a fitness or technology company, two sources familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

The pandemic turned Peloton which offers stationary bikes and treadmills with livestreamed workouts from popular instructors into one of the market's hottest stocks, but the company's stock price has plummeted 84% in the last year.

Peloton is now valued at roughly $8 billion down from $50 billion at the peak of its popularity roughly a year ago.

Blackwells is blaming John Foley, Peloton's co-founder and chief executive, for strategic missteps including manufacturing strategies that have contributed to the sharp drop in the stock price and now wants the board to replace him, the sources said.

The investment firm, run by Jason Aintabi, is urging Peloton to sell itself to a company like Disney, Apple, Sony or Nike, one of the sources said.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Blackwell's campaign against Peloton.

A representative for Blackwells declined to comment and Peloton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Peloton's fortunes have been fading for some time as its customers began shifting away from its classes when gyms reopened and other companies offered rival products.

But the trouble mounted very recently. Last week its stock price tumbled 24%, wiping away $2.5 billion in value, after CNBC reported https://cnb.cx/3FVT27l that Peloton was temporarily halting the production of its bikes and treadmills amid lower demand.

Foley wrote to his employees that "layoffs would be the last lever (the company) would ever hope to pull but that it is evaluating the structure and size of the team and that it was "considering all options as part of our efforts to make our business more flexible."

The company is scheduled to release earnings on February 8 and Foley said more details would be announced then.

Blackwells has successfully pushed for change at companies including Colony Capital and posted very strong returns during the early part of the pandemic when many activists were nursing losses.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Diane Craft)
Overseeing a small island dominated by a castle, seals and a pub, an English council is searching for a new king or queen.

Claimants to the ancient throne, carved from old oak and soaked in the beer of coronations past, can apply for the job through the local governments website.

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The job listing, posted this week by the Barrow Borough Council in Cumbria, is technically seeking someone to run the pub on Piel Island, half a mile off Englands northwestern coast. Winters are wet, travel is limited and an eccentric tradition of naming a king survives at the islands old pub.

Were not talking about St. Lucia or the Hawaiian islands, said John Murphy, a 73-year-old resident of nearby Walney Island, and the guide of walking tours of the area for four decades. Were talking about a small and very isolated island in the north of England.

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The primary responsibility of the position, called a landlord, is to run the pub, called the Ship Inn, and to manage and maintain the islands roughly 50 acres of grass, rock and sand. Neighbors include four private cottages and a 14th-century castle with a history of medieval monks, Scottish raiders and a pretender to the English throne.

After the previous landlord retired, Ann Thomson, the leader of the borough council, announced the search for a new one, describing the island as an absolute jewel in the boroughs crown.

But she said the successful applicant would need to be dedicated to the task. While there are periods when the pub and the island is bustling with people, she said, there will be periods of quiet, too  something the successful applicant will need to embrace. The council is seeking someone who will make a 10-year commitment.

Separate from the announcement, the council described the custom that sets the job apart: Tradition holds that each new landlord is crowned King of Piel in a ceremony of uncertain origin.

Tony Callister, another member of the council, said Wednesday that the custom would continue. The person coming in gets the title of King of Piel, which is nice to have, and theres no reason for that to change, he said.

The origin of the ceremony may be obscure because the pub, said to be more than 300 years old, also has a murky history. It may also be because the title probably originated from a 19th-century pub game and the ceremony involves a lot of beer. Seated in the old chair, outfitted with a rusty helmet and sword, each new landlord gets a gallon of beer poured on their head, Murphy said.

He said the new landlord also swears an oath whose terms include being a good smoker, a good drinker and to give anyone found dead on the sands free refuge in the pub.

Once the pageantry is over, the regent of Piel Island has to see to their duties: stocking the bar and kitchen, running the pub and tending to various parts of the island, including campgrounds where visitors can stay overnight.

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The duties do not involve Piel Castle, which is overseen by English Heritage, a charity that manages historic buildings and monuments. The borough council said several projects were planned for the island this year, including adopting a green energy plan.

From April to September, Piel Island welcomes a host of visitors, some of whom find their way to Barrow on trips to Englands Lake District. On Piel, they can book a room at the inn, watch seals and sunsets over a pint, and tour the ruined castle, which was built up by monks affiliated with the nearby Furness Abbey.

The monks used the castle as a place to store goods from their estates, take refuge from Scottish raiders in the 1300s and possibly to smuggle materials like wool. It becomes this symbol of defense, said Mark Douglas, a properties curator of English Heritage. Not many abbots built castles as well as monasteries.

The island is also where Lambert Simnel, the young son of an Oxford tradesman, landed in June 1487 with an army of mercenaries and a claim to be the rightful heir to Englands throne. He marched on London, was promptly defeated by Henry VII, and wound up a kitchen servant.

The King of Piel custom was probably invented in the early 19th century as a reference to Simnels doomed claim, Douglas said. Sort of a looking back to the good old days, and reinventing some kind of arcane ceremony, he said. Its a bit weird.

In the fall and winter, the history buffs and picnickers leave the island to the birds, the seals and two full-time residents in one of the private homes. Its a very tranquil place, Murphy said. If you dont have any customers, you have to be a Robinson Crusoe and enjoy the facilities that youve got in your mind.

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Callister said some parts of the landlords contract would be negotiated with the council, including pay and whether the landlord would have to live on Piel year-round.

Its an opportunity for somebody thats really open-minded, loves that style of business, loves the outside, loves history, Callister said. At the end of the day, when we all get a little bit older, you think, I wish Id have done that. Dont pass that opportunity over.

Murphy said the job requires someone who, at minimum, doesnt mind a lot of time alone. He described the winter as very harsh indeed, with storms bringing heavy wind and rain. You are virtually stuck on the island alone.

And once youre there, you have only so many ways to leave. When the tide recedes, its possible to walk  carefully, if you know the way  across 2 miles of sand. But when the tide returns, the only transport is a small ferry that Murphy described as a rowing boat with a little engine on the back.

He said one of the islands two full-time residents, in order to pick up groceries from a Tescos supermarket, has to call ahead and then drive across the sands at low tide. In order to legally make that drive, Murphy said, one has to acquire a special license from the Duke of Buccleuch, who owns the sands around the island through ancient rights.

Murphy acknowledged that this was all a little weird: I see that pub from my house every day and I smile every day and think how absurd are we.

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c.2021 The New York Times Company
Actor Garrett Hedlund attends the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Actor Garrett Hedlund is reportedly out of jail after he was arrested Saturday night in Tennessee for public intoxication.

The "Friday Night Lights" star was released from the Franklin County jail on a $2,100 bond, according to a Sunday report from TMZ. His arrest comes shortly after he and fellow actor Emma Roberts reportedly called it quits.

The Franklin County Sheriff's Department did not immediately respond Sunday to The Times' request for comment.

Hedlund, 37, and Roberts, 30, began dating in March 2019 and welcomed their only child together, Rhodes Robert Hedlund, in December 2020. In January 2021, Roberts celebrated the birth of their son via Instagram by posting a sweet photo of herself and baby Rhodes.

"Thank you 2020 for getting one thing right," the "American Horror Story" star captioned the picture. "Our bright light Rhodes Robert Hedlund."

According to TMZ, Hedlund was already on three years' probation for driving under the influence in January 2020. Per People magazine, a mother and daughter  who claim they were "severely" injured in a "horrible head-on crash" with Hedlund the day of his 2020 DUI arrest  filed a lawsuit against the "Tron: Legacy" actor earlier this week.

The complaint alleges that Hedlund's blood-alcohol level during the collision was more than four times the legal limit, at .36%. The plaintiffs are asking for punitive damages and a jury trial.

The day before his Saturday public intoxication incident, Hedlund  who is also a recording artist  released his latest single, "The Road." He joined Instagram on Monday in order to promote the song and hasn't posted since.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Hedlund is filming "The Ploughmen," a movie about a friendship between a deputy sheriff and a murderer, directed and written by Oscar-nominated actor Ed Harris.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)  A federal jury has convicted an Afghan refugee housed at Quantico Marine Corps Base after he fled the country with a sexual assault.

The jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria on Friday found Mohammed Tariq, 24, guilty of abusive sexual contact.

Tariq was arrested in September at Camp Upshur in Quantico after Marines observed him fondling the girl, who was not related to him, above her clothes on her private parts.

According to court papers, Tariq tried to explain through interpreters that his conduct was acceptable in his culture. Efforts to have his statements suppressed were rejected by the judge.

Tariq, who was brought to Virginia after working alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan, is scheduled for sentencing April 26.

People who come to our country seeking haven from tyranny and terrorism deserve to live here in safety, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Aber, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a statement Monday announcing the verdict.
Hello, Minneapolis! Let's get to today's headlines.

First, today's weather: Mostly sunny and frigid. High: 0 Low: -16.

Here are the top 4 stories today in Minneapolis:

1. Attorneys made opening statements Monday in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights. J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are on trial for "failing to provide Floyd with medical care as fellow officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes," KARE11 reports. (KARE11)

2. More than 8,000 people have applied for Minneapolis' guaranteed basic income pilot program, according to Axios. There are 200 spots available in the program, which will give low-income families $500 per month for two years. (Axios)

3. Minneapolis nonprofit Alight says it is expecting more than 250 Afghan refugee families to arrive in the Twin Cities by the end of February. The organization is accepting monetary donations, food and furniture to assist the refugees upon arrival. (KSTP)

4. School districts across the state are following the lead of Minneapolis Public Schools by using staff shortages to determine if schools should close. Officials in Osseo and Rochester shifted to remote learning after COVID-19 led to limited staff. (Paid source: Star Tribune)

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Enough of you took Betera up on their 15 percent discount on first orders for Patch Daily readers that theyve extended the offer for another week. Use PATCH15 at checkout. Highly recommended  try Betera here.

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Today in Minneapolis:

Join the U.S. Bank Stadium Winter Warm-Up. (5 p.m.)

Trivia at Lakes & Legends Brewing Company . (7 p.m.)

The Fulton Environment Committee meets. (7 p.m.)

Patty Griffin and Parker Millsap perform at Pantages Theatre. (8 p.m.)

From my notebook:

Northrop received a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. ( Minnesota Daily )

Local woman Shamaria Jordan is selling apparel to help send young Black women on college visits . ( CBS )

Two actors with local connections will star in the upcoming Fox sitcom Welcome to Flatch. (StarTribune)

More from our sponsors  thanks for supporting local news!

Events:

Loving the Minneapolis Daily? Here are all the ways you can get more involved:

Send a friend or neighbor this link so they can subscribe

Get your local business listed in front of readers

Send me a news tip or suggestion at georgi.presecky@patch.com

That's all for today, Minneapolis! See you tomorrow for another edition of the Daily.

 Georgi Presecky



This article originally appeared on the Minneapolis Patch
Representatives on the floor continue to use electronic voting system as the Alabama House of Representatives restarts the session at the State House in Montgomery, Ala., on Monday, May 4, 2020.

The Alabama Legislature should take its first votes Tuesday on a plan to spend $774 million in federal COVID relief funds, mostly on broadband, water and sewer infrastructure and health care.

Both bills moved out of committee on Thursday with little discussion or debate. Legislators had the weekend to review the bill to make any changes. But legislative leaders said Monday morning that they did not expect the bill to change on the floor.

It looks like this Legislature has figured out how to do special sessions, said Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund chair Greg Albritton, R-Atmore.

Relief money: Special legislative session on COVID relief money opens with pleas for help

The bill would allocate about 36% of the funds to broadband projects and support services. About 30% would go to water and sewer projects, and 19% would go to health care. The rest would go to restoring the unemployment compensation fund, telemedicine, emergency responders and compensation to counties for housing state prison inmates.

The money is not expected to fully fund all the needs in the state, but it could provide a starting point for some projects.

Republicans in the Legislature seem to be in broad agreement on the use of the funds. House Democratic leaders said last week they would not challenge the current allocation of funds.

I think people are satisfied, the members are and the constituents around the state, said House Ways and Means General Fund chair Steve Clouse, R-Ozark. Based on the breakdown I expect it to move on through.

Legislators want to get the legislation to Gov. Kay Ivey before Jan. 31. The $79.5 million allocated to the state unemployment fund could bring it to pre-pandemic levels, and bring the tax employers pay to an average tax tax of 1.1%, as opposed to the current average of 1.54%. According to the Alabama Department of Labor, the tax would go up to an average of 1.58% without the funding.

Both Clouse and Albritton said they did not expect legislators to take up any other bills in the special session, which leaders want to wrap up this week.

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The state should get $1 billion in additional COVID money later this spring. House Democrats suggested last week there could be more controversy over the spending of that money, and several organizations left out of this round of funding asked legislators last week to consider them in the next.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brian Lyman at 334-240-0185 or blyman@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Alabama COVID-19 relief funds package should get first votes Tuesday
Americans have an enduring, though contradictory, fondness for local institutions. On the whole, it can be summed up as its bad out there, but its fine where I am. Polls have long shown Congress is held in low regard bordering on naked contempt, for example, but everyones own representatives are somehow immune from that harsh judgment. Your congressman is far more likely to retire or decline to seek another term than to lose a reelection bid. We evince a similar skepticism toward the health care industry, yet few professions are more trusted than doctors and (especially) nurses.

This same phenomenon has long been true of schools. For decades, Americans have given failing grades to public education at large, but we regard the schools our own children attend as the exceptions to the rule, with solid majorities giving local schools grades of A or B.

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Because of this dynamic, when advocates for private school choice, charters, online education, microschools, homeschooling and other alternatives to traditional public schools were heralding the arrival of a new normal (or, more cynically, a crisis too good to waste) in the early days of the pandemic, I cautioned skepticism. Our enduring fondness for local schools suggested that public education would snap back into its old normal shape at the earliest possible moment. The overwhelming majority of American children  85 percent before the pandemic  attend zoned public schools. This figure cannot be fully explained away by a lack of alternatives, or a failure of imagination or entrepreneurship. It suggests the persistence of a valued cultural habit. We simply like sending our kids to local public schools and mostly think theyre pretty good.



But here we are, deep into a third consecutive school year disrupted by COVID-19, or living under the threat of it, and the evidence is now mounting and irrefutable that Americans relationship with local public schools is not as solid, reliable or unshakable as it has been historically.

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To say 2021 was the year of school choice elides the fuller picture. True, there were new and expanded choice initiatives in more than 20 states, potentially affecting about 4.5 million students. But it was also the year of just about everything else. The unprecedented visibility of remote school Zoomed directly into millions of American homes raised questions about both class content and instructional rigor. Angry parents protesting at school board meetings were likened to domestic terrorists. What were they angry about? You name it: critical race theory, activist teachers and woke curriculum. Staying in person, going remote. Gender-neutral bathrooms and book bans. Mask mandates and a lack of mask mandates. It was also the year that public education fell into the voracious maw of partisan politics, becoming a prominent issue in Virginias governor election, rewriting political scripts and playbooks for the 2022 midterms and perhaps the next presidential election.

Add it all up, and it seems uncontroversial to suggest that the historically solid and reliable relationship of most Americans with their neighborhood schools has never in living memory seemed more in play than at present.

One neednt be a social justice activist or angry parent to question your relationship with the neighborhood school, however. Theres an even simpler phenomenon at work: inertia. It is not an indictment of local schools (or at least not intended as one) to say that among their most salient features is predictability. The rhythms of the school year largely dictate family life. Your kids have somewhere theyre supposed to be Monday through Friday for 40 weeks of the year. Working families are accustomed to making plans for their children well in advance for summer vacation and winter recesses  not the night before, when schools close due to staffing issues or when your child is quarantined weeks at a time out of an abundance of caution to stop the spread of COVID. The less reliably schools are open and accommodating, the more likely parents are to make other plans. Two years and counting of uncertainty and improvisation is, frankly, too much to ask of parents. Its plenty of time for new habits to form and to stick.

The cracks in the foundation are visible and growing. Just before the holidays, NPR compiled head-count data from more than 600 school districts in 23 states and the District of Columbia. They found that very few districts, especially larger ones, have returned to pre-pandemic attendance levels: New York Citys school enrollment dropped by about 38,000 students last year and another 13,000 this year. In Los Angeles, the head count declined by 17,000 in the 2020-21 school year and nearly 9,000 this year. Chicago is down nearly 25,000 since the start of the pandemic. All told, there was a 3 percent decline in public school enrollment, which adds up to about 1.5 million children. Many families simply opted out of remote learning in the non-compulsory grades of pre-K and kindergarten, NPR reported. School leaders hoped this year would bring recovery.

It hasnt.

Will this exacerbate inequity? I dont see how it cant. Parents who have the means and motivation have already made other plans. Those who lack resources cant and wont. The data suggest significant numbers of students have already slipped through the cracks, ending whatever tenuous relationship they had with formal education. Some older kids are exiting the education system altogether; in 2020, US colleges saw a 13 percent decrease in first-year enrollment compared with pre-pandemic rates, while high school dropout rates surged. Community college enrollment is also down sharply.

Related: Lennon & Stanton: Rising HS Dropout Rates & Declining Community College Enrollment Are Twin COVID Crises. How to Fix the Broken Education Pipeline

The extent to which this turbulence presages a permanent change in Americas habits of educating its children will remain unclear for some time. But the responses across the education sector have been instructive to watch. Schools of choice that are accustomed to competing for students have been more likely to remain open for in-person instruction and have reaped the benefit of increased enrollment. Many families flocked to Catholic schools, which were committed to remaining in person; Across the nation, the Catholic school approach is to stay open wherever we are allowed, said Tom Carroll, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Archdiocese of Boston. At the same time, charter school enrollment grew 7 percent and homeschooling rates tripled over the course of the pandemic. Other families opted for smaller, boutique options, like learning pods and private tutors.



Most telling is the apparent lack of urgency among the public school establishment, particularly teachers unions, to getting kids back in school or to keeping them there. They seem stubbornly determined to push parental patience to its limits and beyond. Despite the overwhelming evidence that remote learning has harmed students academic and social development, especially for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, many districts are still closing as a first resort, not a last one, whether its to stop the spread of COVID, deal with staffing crunches or provide mental health days for staff and students.

The staunchest defenders of public education as an indispensable institution argue that public schools provide a common good that goes beyond academics. Yet its often those very same defenders insisting schools be closed and access restricted. The damage wrought to students, particularly those from historically marginalized communities, during a time when our children and parents so desperately needed the stability and resources of schools was self-inflicted and flew in the face of mounting evidence for well over a year, observes Paymon Rouhanifard, a former school superintendent who last year cast the only vote against a statewide masking mandate on the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The failure to prioritize the well-being of children has troubled him for more than a year. Frankly, its unforgivable, he says.

Its long been a popular notion among school choice advocates to suggest that education is no different than any other category of goods or services and should be subject to the same market pressures, but this is a grand oversimplification. In truth, our relationship with a school is closer in kind to that of a church or an employer than a restaurant or grocery store: You dont switch casually or quit in a fit of pique. It would take a perfect storm of parent frustration, political upheaval and respectable alternatives to disrupt the long-dominant paradigm of sending our children to a convenient and trusted local school.

But that perfect storm is exactly whats been brewing since March 2020. And the forecast seems to suggest its not over yet.

Robert Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of the book How the Other Half Learns (Avery, 2019). Jessica Schurz contributed reporting for this essay.

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Kyiv, Ukraine  With more than 100,000 Russian troops massed near the Ukrainian border, the U.S. government ordered the families of American staff members to leave the country's capital, Kyiv. The State Department advised all private U.S. citizens to do the same, along with American non-essential embassy personnel.

Moscow has denied a British government intelligence report suggesting that President Vladimir Putin wants to install a puppet government in Kyiv. But with his forces now deployed on three sides of Ukraine, American officials say Putin has the capacity to launch an invasion at any point  though they remain uncertain as to whether he's made the decision to do so.

The Kremlin has sent mixed signals. Moscow denies any intention to invade Ukraine, as it did in 2014, but has warned repeatedly of unspecified "military action" if Putin's demands  most notably for NATO to rule out accepting new members in eastern Europe, including Ukraine  are not met.

What are Putin's intentions in Ukraine?

But while American and British diplomats pack their families up and send them home, many Ukrainians tell CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams that they have nowhere to run. They can only hope for peace, while the threat of a Russian attack hangs over them.

Williams traveled from Kyiv to a crossing point on Ukraine's northern border with Russia. Just across the frontier, Russia has massed tens of thousands of its forces  on its own soil. Just to the west, Russian fighter jets, troops and missile systems have been moved into Belarus  a Russian ally that also shares a border with Ukraine  for what Moscow says are military exercises. Three decades after the Cold War inspired hope for a safer, more stable world, a U.S. ally in Europe is living in fear of a Russian invasion. Nina Belaya lives in one of the villages nearest to the border  potentially in the firing line if there is any Russian incursion. She showed Williams her cellar, where she stores food for the winter and where, more recently, she's planned to hole up for shelter if Russia attacks.

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Nina Belaya, left, who lives in a Ukrainian village near the border with Russia, speaks with CBS News correspondent Holly Williams. / Credit: CBS News

Many Ukrainians now believe their freedom and their country's young democracy are being threatened by their colossal neighbor, and what some believe is Vladimir Putin's ambition to create a new Russian empire. Russia insists there are no plans to launch an invasion, and Putin's government blames the soaring tension on the U.S. and its allies, for arming Ukraine and refusing to reduce the Western military presence in the region.

But the fact is that Ukraine is already fighting Russian-backed separatists, and it has been since Putin invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The U.S. has stepped up its support of Ukraine's forces with both training and weapons. The latest support, $200 million in emergency military assistance from the U.S., has already started arriving.

On Monday, NATO said member states had put forces on standby and deployed at least one warship and fighter jets to Eastern European nations as part of efforts "reinforcing the eastern part of the alliance."

"NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

The Spanish Navy frigate Blas de Lezo sails from Ferrol, in Galicia, Spain, to join NATO's permanent grouping number 2 in the Black Sea, January 22, 2022, after the warship's departure was brought forward by three weeks due to the crisis in Ukraine. / Credit: Jose Diaz/Europa Press/Getty

"We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment," he said, noting Denmark's recent deployment of a warship and some planes to the Baltic states, Spain boosting its naval presence in the Mediterranean and the Netherlands putting one ship and some land-based military units on standby.

A Pentagon official told CBS News' David Martin over the weekend, meanwhile, that President Biden had been presented with options to send "several thousand" American troops to Eastern Europe to bolster NATO allies in the face of the Russian buildup.

Russia reacted to the NATO movements, and the possibility of more U.S. troops arriving in what it considers its backyard, by claiming it all as further evidence that it is the West stoking tension, not Moscow.

Russian lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov, who heads the defense committee in Russia's parliament, said Moscow would "respond appropriately" if the United States sent more forces to Eastern Europe or the Baltic countries, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

The attempt to frame the crisis as the West's fault is all straight out of Russia's playbook, according to former U.S. National Security Advisor, General HR McMaster.

"What they do is they twist reality," he told CBS News. "They're always denying what is quite obvious in terms of the form of aggression that they're undertaking." McMaster said President Putin only understands one thing: deterrence, and if the U.S. should have learned one thing by now about how to negotiate with his government, it's that the Russian leader will always push his luck.

"It's power. I think Putin understands this," said McMaster. "Putin will take whatever he can get."

Another shipment of U.S. military hardware and munitions was expected to arrive in Kyiv on Tuesday morning.

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A look at some of today's top stories, the weather forecast and a peek back in history.

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The COVID-19 pandemic forced U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to cancel or postpone thousands of appointments, which has affected essential immigrant workers.

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Today, you can expect it to be sunny, with a high near 68 degrees. Mostly clear at night, with a low near 43 degrees. Get the full forecast here.

Today in history

On this date in 1887, the first donation to build the Mormon Temple in Mesa was received from Mrs. Helena Roseberry, a poor widow of Pima.

In 1917, a revolt broke out in the Arizona National Guard encampment at Naco with Company M parading up and down the Company Street, shouting that they wanted to go home.

In 1935, El Capitan Kelly, last of the Yuma Indian war chiefs, died at what was believed to be about 125 years of age.

In 1947, Laura B. Middaugh, who claimed to be the great-great niece of Jacob Walz and to have in her possession authentic maps of the Lost Dutchman Mine, headed into the Superstition Mountains in search of the mine.

In 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the lifting of a ban on women serving in combat.

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BRUSSELS (AP)  Belgium's health ministers have approved a recommendation to use a fourth dose of coronavirus vaccine to better protect people with a weakened immune system against the virus.

Christie Morreale, the minister for public health in the federal government, said Monday that she and her regional counterparts have greenlighted the proposal made by the country's health council. Morreale did not give a date for the start of the program.

About 77% of Belgium's nearly 11.5 million people are now fully vaccinated, and some 6.3 million Belgians have received a booster dose, according to the latest figures from health authorities.

Belgium had 2,851 COVID-19 patients in the hospital as of Monday, including 364 in intensive care units. At least 28,800 people have died from COVID-19 in Belgium since the start of the pandemic.

On Sunday, police fired water cannons and thick clouds of tear gas in Brussels, the capital, to disperse people protesting COVID-19 vaccinations and government restrictions that aim to curb the fast-spreading omicron variant.

Police said the protest drew an estimated 50,000 people, some traveling from France, Germany and other countries to take part. Protesters yelled Liberty! as they marched and some had violent confrontations with police. Video showed black-clad protesters attacking a building used by the European Unions diplomatic service, hurling projectiles at its entrance and smashing windows.

Brussels police said 228 people had been detained Sunday for disturbing public order. In addition, 11 people were arrested on charges of possession of a weapon, rebellion against the law enforcement and damage. Three officers and 12 demonstrators required hospital treatment.

___

Follow all AP stories on the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic
With a pandemic underway in the spring of 2020, Russell Castro's phone began to ring as office workers setting up shop at home searched for a comfortable chair.

They might not have missed their commute or all the background noise from co-workers. But they missed their chair that could swivel and roll and tilt and didn't leave their back aching at the end of a long day.

"They started saying, 'Hey, I want the chair I sat in at my office,' and they're like, 'It's $1,200,' and they didn't know that," Castro said. "They couldn't afford that. They got sticker shock. So that's where we fit in really well."

Castro and his wife, Andrea, started OFIS Furniture, taking high-end office furniture that has been liquidated from corporate offices  investment banks, law firms, consulting companies, publishers  and reselling it to the public at a deep discount.

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The business has attracted hundreds of people each Saturday to a nondescript warehouse on Route 1 in North Brunswick. It has capitalized on the pandemic's economic upheaval. And it has shined a light on the price businesses have been willing to pay to maximize their employees' productivity.

Consider the ubiquitous office chair.

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'Makes the day easier'

Ana Catalfumo, of Manalapan was working in the technology staffing industry in March 2020 when she retreated from her company's Parsippany office and began to work from home.

Catalfumo sat on a wooden kitchen chair with a flimsy seat cushion for eight to 10 hours a day in a set-up that was taking a toll on her body, at least until she found a lifeline: a Facebook post from OFIS Furniture for Herman Miller chairs that promised comfort.

She doesn't remember how much she paid for it; she thinks it was about $200. But that amounted to an 80% discount from what the chairs would sell for new.

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"You feel like you can get more accomplished," said Catalfumo. "And it just makes the day easier to get through. Working from home is not always easy. You need to remain focused. And if you're just shifting in your seat and uncomfortable and having body aches, it certainly doesn't make for a pleasant day."

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Russell Castro, owner of OFIS Furniture LLC, which sells high-end office furniture from large corporations at liquidated pricing, talks about his decision to pivot as workers began working at home instead of the office by opening his warehouse directly to the public at his warehouse in North Brunswick, NJ Wednesday, January 12, 2022.

OFIS is short for Office Furniture In Stock. The business shares space with its parent company, a liquidator called Furniture X-Change, in a 150,000-square-foot industrial warehouse here.

The retail business is open to the public on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., one Sunday a month, and by appointment.

And it is vying for a share of an industry that had reached $14.7 billion nationwide in 2019, the year before the pandemic hit, according to the Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturers Association, a trade group based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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Russell Castro, owner of OFIS Furniture LLC, which sells high-end office furniture from large corporations at liquidated pricing, talks about his decision to pivot as workers began working at home instead of the office by opening his warehouse directly to the public at his warehouse in North Brunswick, NJ Wednesday, January 12, 2022.

Field of furniture

The North Brunswick warehouse would be a good place for archaeologists to learn what American office life was like in more collaborative days.

They would find corporate America spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on office furniture, trying to tap into the productivity that lies just beneath the surface of the standard worker. Short of that, at least the furniture looked cool.

There are ergonomically correct chairs with breathable backs, standing desks, cubicles, sofas, work pods, vending machines and high-backed chairs that resemble a cocoon.

Much of the furniture comes from companies in Manhattan that are leaving their offices with no need to take the items with them. The furniture is transported to the warehouse, where 120 employees work to get it ready for reuse.

Russell Castro, 54, and Andrea Castro, 50, live in Marlboro with their three children, Andrew, 19; Amanda, 16; and Robert, 9, and they have spent a long career in the furniture liquidation business.

Russell graduated from the State University of New York in Buffalo with an economics degree and joined long-time friends who started a business in the late 1980s taking back phone systems and electronics from companies that either upgraded or went out of business.

On one job, Castro said, the client's office manager asked them to take all of the furniture as well. Castro stood on the New York City sidewalk, handing out everything-must-go fliers to passersby, and he learned that the furniture sold better than the phone systems.

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Russell Castro, owner of OFIS Furniture LLC, which sells high-end office furniture from large corporations at liquidated pricing, talks about his decision to pivot as workers began working at home instead of the office by opening his warehouse directly to the public at his warehouse in North Brunswick, NJ Wednesday, January 12, 2022.

'The calls were just flying in'

By the mid-1990s, Castro and his colleagues had a 600,000-square-foot warehouse in Elizabeth reselling furniture. But Castro said he thought the business was growing too fast, so he and Andrea left to start their own company that focused on servicing, refinishing and cleaning furniture.

When the pandemic began, Castro started fielding calls, not from facilities managers he knew, but from individual employees who weren't allowed to take their chairs home with them. Some of them had stipends from their employers to help them buy replacements.

"The calls were just flying in," Castro said. "And I didn't have thousands of chairs. We were running out very quickly of our inventory."

Castro reached out to his former partners who operated Furniture X-Change here, and he pitched the idea of reselling furniture not only to companies, but also to a new customer base: home-office workers.

OFIS Furniture opened in 2020. It was stocked with items like Herman Miller and Steelcase chairs. And annual revenue has grown to upwards of $1.5 million, Castro said, thanks to a giant shift in how people work.

Russell Castro, owner of OFIS Furniture LLC, which sells high-end office furniture from large corporations at liquidated pricing, talks about his decision to pivot as workers began working at home instead of the office by opening his warehouse directly to the public at his warehouse in North Brunswick, NJ Wednesday, January 12, 2022.

A Gallup poll last October found two-thirds of white-collar workers said they worked from home at least part time, and 54% hoped to return to a hybrid arrangement, dividing their time between the home and the office.

Workers are sprucing up their home offices, from comfortable chairs and standing desks to backgrounds that convey a professional image when they are meeting on Zoom, said Heather McKeown, owner of Land and Sky Design in Red Bank.

"I think people are paying more attention to their home-offices," McKeown said. "The key difference is that their Zoom backgrounds look nice."

The transition leaves OFIS Furniture in an enviable spot. Since it only needs to transport office furniture from the region, it has managed to avoid supply-chain delays. It has plenty of inventory from companies that are scaling back.

And it has found a growing market from people working remotely, Castro said, most of whom are stunned to find out just how much their employers spent on office furniture.

"They always say, 'I would have treated my furniture so much better if I knew,'" he said.

Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter who has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry for more than 20 years. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: OFIS Furniture NJ warehouse takes off with discount home office sales
BRUSSELS  Tensions soared Monday between Russia and the West over concerns that Moscow is planning to invade Ukraine, with NATO outlining potential troop and ship deployments, Britain saying it would withdraw some diplomats from Kyiv, and Ireland denouncing upcoming Russian war games off its coast as unwelcome.

The Western alliances statement summed up moves already announced by member countries, but restating them under the NATO banner appeared aimed at showing its resolve. It was just one of a series of announcements that signaled the West is ramping up its rhetoric in the information war that has accompanied the Ukraine standoff.

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Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraines border, demanding that NATO promise it will never allow Ukraine to join and that other actions, such as stationing alliance troops in former Soviet bloc countries, be curtailed. Some of these, like any pledge to permanently bar Ukraine, are nonstarters for NATO  creating a seemingly intractable deadlock that many fear can only end in war.

An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP)

Russia denies it is planning an invasion, and says the Western accusations are merely a cover for NATOs own planned provocations. Recent days have seen high-stakes diplomacy that failed to reach any breakthrough and maneuvering on both sides.

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NATO said Monday it is bolstering its deterrence in the Baltic Sea region. Denmark is sending a frigate and deploying F-16 warplanes to Lithuania; Spain is sending four fighter jets to Bulgaria and three ships to the Black Sea to join NATO naval forces; and France stands ready to send troops to Romania. The Netherlands also plans to send two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria from April.

NATO will take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, Secretary-General jens Stoltenberg said. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

In Washington, Pentagon leaders have proposed a range of options for President Joe Biden to reinforce the U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltics as a demonstration of American commitment, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

One of the officials said no specific deployments have been proposed but some unspecified U.S. military units have been told to start planning for that possibility. The other official said Sunday it is possible that reinforcements could be sent from U.S. bases, in addition to possible shifts of troops within Europe, but for the moment the White House and Pentagon are only exploring options.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov charged that it was NATO and the U.S. who were behind the escalating tensions in Europe, not Russia.

All this is happening not because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is happening because of what NATO, the U.S. are doing, Peskov told reporters. He also cited U.S. media reports suggesting that Russia is evacuating its diplomats from Ukraine, something Moscow denied.

The NATO announcement came as European Union foreign ministers sought to put on a fresh display of unity in support of Ukraine, and paper over concerns about divisions on the best way to confront any Russian aggression.

In a statement, the ministers said the EU has stepped up sanction preparations and they warned that any further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine will have massive consequences and severe costs.

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Separately, the EU also committed to increase financial support for embattled Ukraine, vowing to push through a special package of 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in loans and grants as soon as possible.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday and said the U.S. would give Russia written responses to Moscows proposals this week, offering some hope that any invasion could be delayed for at least a few more days.

The West is nervously watching Russian troop movements and war games in Belarus for any signs that a new invasion of Ukraine is imminent. Russia has already invaded Ukraine once, annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Moscow has also supported pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists fighting the Kyiv government in the eastern part of the country known as the Donbass region. About 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Asked whether the EU would follow a U.S. move and order the families of European embassy personnel in Ukraine to leave, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: We are not going to do the same thing.

Britain also said it is withdrawing some diplomats and dependents from its embassy in Kyiv.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said an invasion was not inevitable, but the intelligence is pretty gloomy. He added that I think that sense can still prevail.

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Ukraines Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said the U.S. decision was a premature step and a sign of excessive caution. He said that Russia is sowing panic among Ukrainians and foreigners in order to destabilize Ukraine.

Germany has issued no order, but it said the families of embassy staff may leave if they wish. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed that we must not contribute to unsettling the situation further; we need to continue to support the Ukrainian government very clearly and above all maintain the stability of the country.

At the EU meeting, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said he would inform his counterparts that Russia plans to holds war games 240 kilometers (150 miles) off Irelands southwest coast  in international waters but within Irelands exclusive economic zone.

This isnt a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of whats happening with and in Ukraine. Coveney said. The fact that they are choosing to do it on the western borders, if you like, of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that in our view is simply not welcome.

Some NATO members nearest Russia  Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania  said they plan to send U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by the United States.

But questions have arisen about just how unified the EU is. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. About 40% of the EUs natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine  and many are skittish about being cut off from that supply in winter, with prices already soaring.

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The EUs two major powers appear most cautious. French President Emmanuel Macron has renewed previously rejected calls for an EU summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Late on Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Adm. Kay-Achim Schoenbach, resigned after coming under fire for saying that Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula, and for suggesting that Putin deserves respect.

Still, diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EUs executive branch, the European Commission. They were reluctant to detail the measures or what action by Russia might trigger them but said they would come within days of any attack.

___

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dasha Litvinova in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Jill Lawless in London, Robert Burns in Washington, Mike Corder in The Hague, and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.
President Joe Biden held a video call with European allies on Monday as Western nations warned the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high and the United States put thousands of troops on alert to be sent to the region if needed.

The call was with the leaders of the European Commission, European Council, NATO, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom, according to the White House, which said they planned to "discuss diplomacy, deterrence and defense efforts" as well as what would constitute potential sanctions against Russia. It lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes, the White House said.

The White House said after the call that Biden and European leaders "reiterated their continued concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine's borders" and also discussed "preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATO's eastern flank."

The statement, though, didn't explicitly mention the possibility of the U.S. sending more troops to the region.

"The leaders underscored their shared desire for a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions and reviewed recent engagements with Russia in multiple formats," the statement from the White House said.

Biden's official @POTUS Twitter account also tweeted a photo of him in the Situation Room for the meeting, with the caption: "Today, I spoke with European leaders in response to Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's borders. We discussed our joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression, such as preparations to impose severe economic costs on Russia and reinforce security on the eastern flank."

Earlier, at the end of opening remarks at a meeting on economic competition, Biden said the U.S. and its European allies had "total unanimity" on Ukraine.

"I had a very, very, very good meeting. Total unanimity with all the European leaders," the president said.

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The Pentagon announced Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had placed around 8,500 U.S.-based troops on "heightened alert" for rapid deployment to assist NATO if needed.

No decision to deploy them had been made, though, according to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, who noted that the U.S. could also offer troops already stationed in Europe.

PHOTO: Ukrainian soldiers are pictured on the front line of Katerynivka, in the Luhansk province of eastern Ukraine, Jan. 18, 2022. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times via Redux)

Asked if those troops could be sent directly to Ukraine, Kirby indicated there had been no change to when Biden said last month, that sending troops to the country was "not on the table."

Kirby said there had been "no decisions" about moving the fewer than 200 U.S. troops who are already in Ukraine out of the country; those service members have been training members of the Ukrainian military.

He said the personnel included "additional brigade combat teams, logistics personnel, medical support, aviation support, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, as well as transportation, and maybe even some additional capabilities after that."

Biden's administration has developed a range of options as it seeks to reassure European allies while deterring Russia, including sending more U.S. troops to the region, a U.S. official told ABC News. But the official stressed that "no decisions have been made" yet, and the White House denied there had been any shift in strategy.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that the U.S. response to a possible Russian invasion could result in a cyberattack launched against the U.S. by the Russian government or its proxies.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden walks on the South Lawn after returning to the White House on Marine One on Jan. 24, 2022 in Washington, D.C. President Biden spent the weekend at Camp David. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The New York Times, citing unnamed Biden administration officials, reported Sunday that over the weekend, senior Pentagon officials presented the president several options about moving American military assets closer to Russia.

One choice, the Times reported, involved sending 1,000 to 5,000 American troops to Eastern European countries.

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A senior Russian member of parliament on Monday said Russia would "give a relevant response to the escalating threats," in response to the Times' article.

"Obviously, Russia will not let such actions slide," Andrei Kartapolov, the chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee, said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday declined to confirm the specifics of the Times' report -- or provide a timeline for Biden to make a decision on sending troops -- but said the U.S. strategy had not shifted.

"We've always said we would reinforce our allies on the eastern flank" of NATO, she said. "And those conversations and discussions have certainly been part of what our national security officials have been discussing with their counterparts now for several weeks."

PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the Governor of the Kamchatka Territory at the Kremlin in Moscow on Jan. 24, 2022. (Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden has, in fact, publicly threatened to send more troops to eastern Europe if Russia's President Vladimir Putin escalated the situation militarily.

MORE: State Department orders diplomats' families to leave US embassy in Kyiv amid Russia tensions

"We're going to actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, et cetera, if in fact he moves, because we have a sacred obligation in Article 5 to defend those countries," Biden said Wednesday, referring to the principle of collective defense enshrined in the NATO treaty.

The president met with national security advisers on Saturday while he was at Camp David, the White House said.

NATO on Monday outlined several steps that its member nations had taken to deter Russia from invading, including deploying troops and ships.

The Kremlin, which has denied Russia plans to invade Ukraine, said Monday that NATO's latest statement about deployments "leads to the further escalation of tensions."

"Please note that all of that is not happening because of what we, Russia, do," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "This is happening because of the actions of NATO and the United States and the information they release."

PHOTO: White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, D.C, Jan. 24, 2022. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

On Sunday, the State Department Department ordered diplomats' families Sunday afternoon to depart the U.S. embassy in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, amid heightened fears of a Russian attack on the country.

In an updated travel advisory issued later Sunday, the State Department confirmed the drawdown and urged U.S. citizens in Ukraine to consider departing the country now using commercial flights.

And on Saturday, the British government accused Moscow of "looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine." Russia's foreign ministry denied that was the case.

Psaki on Monday threatened a response if Russia moved forward with such a plan.

"Reports of this kind of plotting are deeply concerning," she said. "If acted upon would constitute a severe escalation, and certainly there would be consequences."

ABC News' Luis Martinez, Matt Seyler, Justin Gomez, Conor Finnegan, Tanya Stukalova, Patrick Reevell, Cindy Smith and Kirit Radia contributed to this report.

Biden meets with Europeans about Ukraine as US puts 8,500 troops on 'heightened alert' to be sent to region originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
(Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden will speak with European leaders on Monday to discuss the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine, including Russia's military buildup on Ukraines borders, the White House said.

Biden will speak with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Polish President Andrzej Duda and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a video call, the White House said on Monday.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru)




President Biden is reportedly weighing the deployment of U.S. troops to NATO allies amid increased tensions with Russia and concerns that Moscow is planning an invasion of Ukraine.

The New York Times, citing unidentified administration officials, reported that Biden is considering sending troops to allied countries in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, a move that would increase the U.S. military's presence across the globe at a time when diplomatic conversations between Washington and Moscow appear to be at a stalemate.

Biden met with senior Pentagon officials at Camp David on Sunday, when the top officials presented him with a number of options that would move U.S. military forces closer to Russia, the Times reported. Officials reportedly told the president he could deploy between 1,000 and 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the option of increasing the number tenfold if circumstances unravel in the region.

More U.S. warships and military aircraft could also be sent to the region, according to the Times.

NBC News, citing unidentified defense and administration officials, reported that courses of action discussed at the meeting include sending bomber flights over the region, sending ships to the Black Sea and transferring troops and some equipment from areas in Europe to Poland, Romania and other nations in close proximity to Ukraine.

None of the options on the table, however, would send additional troops to Ukraine, the Times noted. Administration officials told the newspaper that Biden could decide next steps as early as this week. Pentagon Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both reportedly participated in the Camp David meeting virtually.

Top U.S. and Russian officials have been engaged in diplomatic discussions for days, though no breakthroughs have been reported. With talks stalled and concerns of a Russian incursion rising, the Biden administration is beginning to shift from its do-not-provoke strategy, according to the Times.

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Officials told NBC News that the goal of an increased deployment is to avert Russian aggression while also illustrating that NATO is unified and strong.

"We're going to actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, etc., if in fact he moves because we have a sacred obligation in Article 5 to defend those countries. They are part of NATO," Biden said during a press conference last week.

"We don't have that obligation relative to Ukraine, although we have great concern about what happens in Ukraine," he added.

NATO, meanwhile, announced on Monday that allied countries were dispatching more ships and fighter jets to alliance members in eastern Europe. The alliance also pointed to reports that the U.S. is considering deploying troops.

"The United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance," NATO said in a statement.

Pentagon and Biden administration officials declined to comment on the new reporting to The Hill.

Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border, stoking fear among the U.S. and its allies that a Russian incursion into Ukraine may be imminent. Moscow, however, has declined having plans to invade Ukraine.

Biden and top administration officials have warned that any movement of Russian forces into Ukraine would be met with serious consequences.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday said a "swift, a severe and a united response" from the U.S. and Europe would follow "if a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way."

Administration officials told the Times that the deployment of U.S. troops to eastern NATO countries - including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - is a situation that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been trying to avoid.

Biden's reported meeting with Pentagon officials came the same day the State Department ordered family members of government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to depart the country, pointing to reports that Russia "is planning significant military action against Ukraine."

The department also authorized nonessential staffers to leave Ukraine.

Officials told NBC News that Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, the commander of U.S. European Command and NATO's supreme allied commander of Europe, has been arranging military options for weeks. He has reportedly been keeping Austin and Milley aware of his work.

- Updated at 7:46 a.m.
A two-alarm fire in Garfield on Monday morning significantly damaged a building on River Drive containing a fire safety business and upstairs apartments.

The fire displaced four residents living in the second-story apartments, but none were injured, said Garfield Assistant Fire Chief E.J. Morano. He said a police officer was hurt after slipping and falling. Crews responded to the call shortly after 5 a.m., Morano said.

The business on the first floor of the building is Firematic & Safety Equipment, a fire protection business that has been in operation since 1949, according to its website. Its services include fire extinguisher recharging, sprinkler inspections and fire safety consulting.

In addition to Garfield, crews from Saddle Brook, Elmwood Park, Moonachie, Wallington and Hackensack responded to the scene. The Garfield Police Department is investigating to determine the cause, Morano said.

Liam Quinn is a breaking news reporter for NorthJersey.com. To get breaking news directly to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.

Email: quinnl@northjersey.com

Twitter: @Liam_D_Quinn

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Garfield fire safety business Firematic damaged by blaze
Watch: PM orders inquiry into Nusrat Ghani claim of Islamophobia in ministerial sacking

Boris Johnson has insisted he is taking allegations a Tory MP was sacked over concerns of her faith "very seriously" after launching a Cabinet Office investigation.

Tory MP Nusrat Ghani claimed over the weekend thaat she was sacked as a junior minister because of her 'Muslimness'.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Ghani said a Government whip told her that her Muslimness had been raised as an issue and an MP had said her faith was making others uncomfortable.

Speaking on a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital on Monday, the PM said: We take these allegations extremely seriously, I took them very seriously when they were raised with me 18 months ago very glad theres an investigation taking place now.

I cant say more, really, about it.

Asked if Chief Whip Mark Spencer could stay in post while the investigation was conducted, Mr Johnson dodged the question, saying: This is something I take personally extremely seriously, I took it very seriously 18 months ago, we must wait and see what the investigation produces.

Conservative Party MP Nusrat Ghani alleges she was sacked as a minister because of her Muslim faith (Getty)

Spencer previously identified himself as the whip Ms Ghani had spoken to but denied the substance of the alleged conversation.

Ghani, 49, was born in Kashmir to Pakistani parents and grew up in Birmingham.

The prime minister initially responded to her claims, saying he met her in July 2020 to discuss her allegations.

No. 10 said the PM had "serious concern" over the allegations and he invited her to make a formal complaint, but Ghani chose not to.

Boris Johnson has insisted he is taking allegations a Tory MP was sacked over concerns of her faith "very seriously" (PA)

Johnson at a coronavirus vaccination training hub during a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital in Buckinghamshire( PA)

A No 10 spokeswoman said: The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP.

At the time these allegations were first made, the Prime Minister recommended to her that she make a formal complain to CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters).

She did not take up this offer.

The Prime Minister has now asked officials to establish the facts about what happened.

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As he said at the time, the Prime Minister takes these claims very seriously.

Ghani said she welcomed the PM's decision to order an investigation into her claims.

Read more: Johnson faces crunch week as lockdown parties inquiry prepares to publish

Chief whip Mark Spencer later identified himself as the whip Ms Ghani had spoken to but denied the substance of the alleged conversation (PA)

The Conservative MP for Wealden said: As I said to the Prime Minister last night, all I want is for this to be taken seriously and for him to investigate.

I welcome his decision to do that now.

The terms of reference for the inquiry must include all that was said in Downing Street and by the whip.

I look forward to seeing the terms of reference.

Following the allegations, Tory MP Michael Fabricant sparked further controversy after he saif Ghanis claim of Islamophobiastinks.

Watch: Tory MP Michael Fabricant says Nusrat Ghani is not obviously a Muslim

Fabricant said the timing of her claim was very suspicious, and suggested it was linked to moves to get rid of Johnson over the Downing Street lockdown parties scandal.

He said Ms Ghani was not obviously a Muslim, and it was lame to claim that was the reason she was fired as a transport minster in a reshuffle in 2020.

Labour described his comments a shameful and called for the Conservative whip to be withdrawn.

The latest allegations of Islamophobia come as Johnson faces a make-or-break week to keep his job as Whitehall await Sue Gray's report into widespread reports of lockdown parties in Downing Street.

The PM is said to be determined to hang on to his position believing that he has done nothing wrong.

But depending on what Gray's report finds, he could be left with no choice but to leave Number 10.

The Tories have seen their ratings polls plunge as allegations were made about repeated parties in Downing Street and other government offices as the rest of the nation was under strict lockdown laws.




The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) has agreed to return a looted 17th century painting to the descendants of the Jewish art collector to whom it last belonged before it was declared missing following World War II.

In a statement, Matthew Teitelbaum, director of the MFA, said it is "pleased to have worked so quickly and amicably with the heirs of Ferenc Chorin to redress this historical loss."

The 1646 painting "View of Beverwijk" by Dutch Golden Age painter Salomon van Ruysdael had been deposited into the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest by Chorin in 1943 before his family fled Hungary the following year. Chorin had bought the painting from the estate of fellow collector Frigyes Gluck in the 1930s.

"The return of Ruysdael's View of Beverwijk underscores the importance of transparency and providing online access to our collection," Teitelbaum said.

The painting is currently on public view at Christie's in New York. It will go up for auction later this year.

As the MFA noted, Chorin was a prolific Hungarian industrialist and banker with an impressive collection of artwork that included paintings from Francois Millet and Charles-Francois Daubigny as well as furniture pieces from the Italian Renaissance. Despite being discovered by the Nazis after going into hiding, Chorin was able to survive the war and eventually settled in New York City.

"Historical justice entails not only restituting the works of art that have been stolen by the Nazis. In many cases the claimants have to struggle for years before obtaining justice," said Agnes Peresztegi, an attorney for the Chorin family. "In this case, I would like to pay homage to the MFA for not only restituting the work to its rightful owners, but also doing it in an elegant, professional, swift and just manner."

"View of Beverwijk" was acquired by the MFA in 1982 from a London dealer under an incorrect description, obscuring its status as a missing artwork. The museum was notified by scholar and researcher Sandor Juhasz in 2019 that the painting had once belonged to Gluck, eventually leading to the discovery Chorin's family in 2021.

Just last month, U.S. officials agreed to return $11 million worth of Italian artwork and antiquities that had been illegally trafficked into the country. The U.S. returned 201 artifacts to Italy in December, with 161 of the pieces being resettled there.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said at the time that the artworks will be returned to where they were stolen from. The returned pieces included ancient pottery and a 4th century sculpture.
Kennie Carter, 16, died after he was stabbed in Stretford, Greater Manchester. (Reach)

This is the first picture of a 16-year-old boy described as a "beautiful young soul", who died after being stabbed at the weekend.

The teenager, named locally as Kennie Carter, was killed in Stretford, Greater Manchester on Saturday night.

He was rushed to hospital but later died. His family has been informed.

Four teenagers aged between 15 and 17 were arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the incident.

Watch: Teenage boy fatally stabbed in Manchester named

Emergency services were called to Thirlmere Avenue in Stretford at around 7pm on Saturday night, where the 16-year-old was found with stab wounds.

Greater Manchester Police said three arrest warrants were executed on Saturday night in Stretford, Old Trafford and Hulme, leading to the four arrests.

Four teens have been arrested in connection with the stabbing, which happened on Thirlmere Avenue in Stretford, Manchester. (PA)

Read more: Royal Navy seizes a tonne of drugs worth 15m in Gulf of Oman

A GMP spokesperson said: "Our Major Incident Team have four teens in custody after three warrants were executed last night (Saturday 22 January) in Stretford, Old Trafford and Hulme.

"The suspects are all boys aged between 15 and 17, and are being held on suspicion of murder."

Tributes have poured in for Kennie following his death. (PA)

Cordons remained in place at the scene overnight as investigators continued with enquiries, the force said.

Tributes were paid to 16-year-old Kennie in the aftermath of the incident.

Close family friend Beckiee Carol-Jadee McCabe said: "I grew up with his family, my family are very close with his. They are like family to me. Im absolutely heartbroken.

"That such a beautiful young soul has been taken far too soon at the age 16, he was such a quiet boy growing up - wouldnt do any harm to no one.

"Loved by so many people Its so devastating that hes had to lose his life because of knife crime. Hes going to be deeply missed by all that knew Kennie.

Investigations are ongoing and a cordon remains at the scene. (PA)

"There will always be a place in my heart for him."

A woman who lives locally told the Manchester Evening News that Kennie was a friend of her son.

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She said: "He was just a lovely boy. He didnt cause problems or harm to anybody. He was funny, he made everyone laugh and had a cheeky smile."

She added: "A group of lads keep coming down and bullying the lads round here and the kids here arent like that at all.

"They need stopping because theyre not going to stop."

Watch: Arsenal helps tackle knife crime with 'No More Red' campaign
Patrol graduates 41 troopers in a virtual graduation ceremony

COLUMBUS  The Patrols 168th Academy Class graduated Friday after 30 weeks of intense training. They include three troopers assigned to the Marion post, which is part of the Bucyrus District.

The are: Eli Heaster of Findlay; Christian Reed of Bellville; and Matthew Walker of Lexington.

Courses completed by the 168th class included crash investigation, criminal and traffic law, detection of impaired drivers, firearms, physical fitness, self-defense and emergency vehicle operations.

Each of the graduates reported to their posts on Sunday. The graduates first 70 working days will be a field-training period under the guidance of a veteran officer. The new graduates are assigned to 24 of the Patrols 59 posts.

Richardson to hold district office hours

COLUMBUS  State Representative Tracy Richardson (R-Marysville) will be holding office hours in the 86th Ohio House District next month. Richardson be at the Marion Public Library, 445 E. Church St., on Feb. 7 and at the Marysville Police Department on Feb. 11.

Anyone who would like to speak with her should schedule a meeting with her office at 614-466-8147 or rep86@ohiohouse.gov.

Local youth to Perform in Back to the 80s at the Palace Theatre

Under the direction of Emily Yaksic, more than 40 young people from Marion and surrounding areas are coming together to present a live production at the historic Marion Palace Theatre stage. The cast, ranging in ages 7 years to 13 years, will perform the comedy play Back to the 80s at 7 p.m. Feb. 18-19 and 2 p.m. Feb. 20.

Written by Dean OCarroll, Back to the 80s follows the story of modern teen Mary Fitzfry (played by Alexis Folk) after she is sent back in time by an eccentric Professor Gelb (Abby Wickham). Mary finds herself in the middle of a cavalcade of '80s pop culture.

Joining Folk and Wickham in the production are Alayna Adams, Ayden Ash, Elly Ash, Kenneth Ash III, Emma Bradac, Gwen Brown, Swayze Carlyle, Harper Davis, Lexi Edens, Skylee Gottfried, Skyler Hatten, Jasmine Ho, Derek Holderman, Ryleigh Holderman, Myles Hursey, Cheyenne Jordan, Harleigh Kennedy, Paysleigh Kennedy, Devyn Kindell, Elise Kramp, Joe Maharry,Jillian Matthews, Amelia McFarland, Connor Moore, Keygen Moore, Mallori Polley, Sophia Raimo, Scarlett Roston, Elli Schenk, Halli Schenk, Alexa Schertzer, Eden Schertzer, Olivia Shirring, Andryc Stump, Lucy Turner, Avelyn Tway, Leelah Wagner, Brooklyn Wallace, Anthony Wampler, Maebry Werling, Waverly Werling, Katelyn Wicker and Layla Willey.

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Tickets are $19 for adults and $12 for children ages 12 & younger. Call the box office at 740-383-2101 or order tickets online at marionpalace.org.

Tickets will also be available at the door one hour before each performance.

This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Briefs: Three new troopers join Marion Ohio Highway Patrol post
ST. PAUL, Minn.  Opening statements have begun in the federal trial of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyds civil rights.

J. Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are the other three officers who were at the scene May 25, 2020, as Derek Chauvin pinned Floyds neck to the ground with his knee for 9 1/2 minutes as the Black man was facedown in handcuffs and gasping for air. Chauvin was convicted last year of murder.

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FILE - This combination of photos provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office in Minnesota on June 3, 2020, shows, from left, former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. A state court trial for three former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd has been rescheduled for June 13, 2022, after both the defense and prosecutors requested a postponement. (AP)

Kueng, Lane and Thao are broadly charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority. All three are charged for failing to provide Floyd with medical care. Thao and Kueng are charged additionally with failing to stop Chauvin.

Kueng and Lane helped Chauvin restrain Floyd. Thao held back bystanders who were shouting at Chauvin to get off Floyd.

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A jury that appears mostly white was seated last week in a single day. The judge has said the case could last four weeks.

Floyd, 46, died on May 25, 2020, after Chauvin pressed him to the ground with his knee on Floyds neck for 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng knelt on Floyds back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening.

Attorneys for the Floyd family have said bystander video shows that the three officers directly contributed to (Floyds) death and failed to intervene to stop the senseless murder.

On Thursday, 18 people were chosen for the jury; 12 will deliberate and six will be alternates. Two of the jurors  one expected to deliberate and one alternate  appear to be of Asian descent. The rest appear to be white. The jurors include people from the Twin Cities area, the suburbs and southern Minnesota. The court declined to provide demographic information.

Federal prosecutions of officers involved in on-duty killings are rare. Prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

The indictment charges Thao, who is Hmong American; Lane, who is white; and Kueng, who is Black, with willfully depriving Floyd of the right to be free from an officers deliberate indifference to his medical needs. The indictment says the three men saw Floyd clearly needed medical care and failed to aid him.

Thao and Kueng are also charged with a second count alleging they willfully violated Floyds right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not stopping Chauvin as he knelt on Floyds neck. Its not clear why Lane is not mentioned in that count, but evidence shows he asked twice whether Floyd should be rolled on his side.

Both counts allege the officers actions resulted in Floyds death.

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U.S. District Judge Magnuson told jurors that the trial could last four weeks. Its not known whether any of the three officers will testify. Its also not clear whether Chauvin will testify, though many experts who spoke to The Associated Press believe he wont.

Lane, Kueng and Thao also face a separate state trial in June on charges they aided and abetted both murder and manslaughter.

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Associated Press writers Tammy Webber contributed from Fenton, Michigan.
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP)  More than a dozen mutinous soldiers declared Monday on state television that a military junta had seized control of Burkina Faso after detaining the democratically elected president following a day of gunbattles in the capital of the West African country.

The military coup in a nation that was once a bastion of stability was the third of its kind in the region in the last 18 months, creating upheaval in some of the countries hardest hit by Islamic extremist attacks.

Capt. Sidsore Kaber Ouedraogo said the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration "has decided to assume its responsibilities before history. The soldiers put an end to President Roch Marc Christian Kabores presidency because of the deteriorating security situation and the presidents inability to manage the crisis, he said.

It was not immediately known where Kabore was, and the junta spokesman said only that the coup had taken place without any physical violence against those arrested, who are being held in a safe place, with respect for their dignity.

A soldier in the mutiny, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of situation, told The Associated Press that Kabore had submitted his resignation.

The new military regime said it had suspended Burkina Faso's constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. The country's borders were closed, and a curfew was in effect from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Ouedraogo said that the countrys new leaders would work to establish a calendar acceptable to everyone for holding new elections without giving further details.

After the televised announcement, crowds took to the streets, cheering and honking car horns in support of the takeover. People hoped that the coup would ease the devastation they have endured since jihadist violence spread across the country.

This is an opportunity for Burkina Faso to regain its integrity. The previous regime sunk us. People are dying daily. Soldiers are dying. There are thousands of displaced, said Manuel Sip, a protester in downtown Ouagadougou. The army should have acted faster in ousting the president, he said.

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After the overthrow of strongman Blaise Compaore in 2014, several people told the AP they no longer cared if they had a democratically elected leader. They just wanted to live in peace.

The communique read aloud on state broadcaster RTB was signed by the countrys apparent new military leader, Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba. He sat beside the spokesman without addressing the camera during the announcement.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on coup leaders to lay down their arms. He reiterated the U.N.s full commitment to the preservation of the constitutional order in Burkina Faso and support for the people in their efforts to find solutions to the multifaceted challenges facing the country, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The U.N. chief said the military takeover was part of an epidemic of coups around the world and in that region.

The U.S. State Department in a statement expressed deep concern about the dissolution of the government, suspension of the constitution and the detention of government leaders. We condemn these acts and call on those responsible to deescalate the situation, prevent harm to President Kabore and any other members of his government in detention, and return to civilian-led government and constitutional order, spokesperson Ned Price said.

In a statement, Kabore's political party accused the mutinous soldiers of trying to assassinate the president and another government minister and said the presidential palace in Ouagadougou remained surrounded by "heavily armed and hooded men.

The coup "is a signal of frustration and exasperation on the heels of a growing struggle to stem the threat of militants, cope with the degraded security structure, and an attempt to restore faith in the institution of the military, said Laith Alkhouri, CEO of Intelonyx Intelligence Advisory, which provides intelligence analysis.

Gunfire erupted early Sunday when soldiers took control of a major military barracks in the capital. In response, civilians rallied in a show of support for the rebellion but were dispersed by security forces firing tear gas. On Monday, groups of people celebrated again in the streets of the capital after reports of Kabore's capture.

Kabore was elected in 2015 after the popular uprising that ousted Compaore. Kabore was reelected in November 2020, but frustration has been growing at his inability to stem the jihadist violence. Attacks linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have killed thousands and displaced more than an estimated 1.5 million people.

The military has suffered losses since the extremist violence began in 2016. In December, more than 50 security forces were killed and nine more died in November.

Mutinous soldiers told the AP that the government was out of touch with troops. Among their demands are more forces in the battle against extremists and better care for the wounded and the families of the dead.

About 100 military members have planned the takeover since August, according to one of the mutinous soldiers.

The West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS said in a statement that it was following events in Ouagadougou with great concern. The bloc has already suspended Mali and Guinea over military coups. Those coup leaders appear in no hurry to return their countries to civilian rule.

Burkina Faso has also seen its share of coup attempts and military takeovers, although it experienced a period of relative stability under Compaore, who ruled for 27 years until his ouster in 2014.

In 1987, Compaore came to power by force. And in 2015, soldiers loyal to him attempted to overthrow the transitional government put into place after his ouster. The army was ultimately able to put the transitional authorities back in power, who led again until Kabore won an election and took office.

___

Associated Press writers Krista Larson and Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Raised in a house right down the road from the back entrance into Naval Air Station Pensacola, Kayla Romero grew up immersed in U.S. Navy culture and tradition.

But her connection to the Navy was grounded in much more than mere proximity.

Romeros father, grandfather and paternal great-grandfather were all career Navy men. Even her maternal grandfather fought in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Marine Corps.

After a childhood dominated by connections to the Navy, no one in her life was surprised when as a teenager Romero swore that shed never enlist. Then again, it also wasnt too big of a shock when, as a young woman, she changed her mind.

Kayla Romero, 24, of Pensacola, trains at U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.

Romero  who as a little girl watched Blue Angels practice out her bedroom window  is now a 24-year-old young woman and is 13 weeks into her training to become a naval aviator.

She spoke to the News Journal from U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.

My dad had always said that whatever I did in life, he would be proud of me, but that he didnt want me to join the Navy. So, naturally, thats what I did, Kayla Romero said.

For his own part, her dad, retired Chief Joseph Romero, told the News Journal, I said that as a, what do you call it  as reverse psychology.

And it worked.

It was kind of always a second choice for me, a Plan B, and then my Plan A kept changing, Kayla said. And eventually I decided the one thing that hasnt changed was the idea of joining the military. So, I decided I wanted to try making it plan A.

Kayla joined the Navy last year and began OCS in September.

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Being from a Navy family, my dad was stationed on carriers, she said. So Ive always seen aviation, been around it, grew up seeing the Blues, worked at the National Flight Academy and its the one thing of the few things that Ive always loved my whole life.

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Kayla was just 13 years old the first time she stepped aboard her first air craft carrier. It was 2011 and her dads last deployment at sea during a Tiger Cruise mission on which families of Navy personnel were permitted to come aboard the military vessel for an entire weekend.

The Tiger Cruise afforded Kayla the opportunity to travel from Jacksonville to Virginia aboard the carrier alongside her father.

Being on the carrier is what started the fantasizing and dreams of how cool it would be to be a naval aviator, she said. But at that time I was, I think, 13 at the time. So, I was still in that bit of rebellious stage and was like, Well I dont want to be like my dad.

Kayla Romero, 24, of Pensacola, trains at U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.

But the older she became, the more her mind began to change.

Kayla graduated as one of the top students in her class at West Florida High School and was the valedictorian of her college, Florida Tech, where she started out as an aerospace engineering major.

But then I decided I would rather fly planes than design them, she explained.

The concept and idea of human flight started to fascinate her more and more.

Honestly, I just love everything about it, Kayla said about flying. I love the exhilaration, the freedom, the excitement of being in the air and feeling like Im getting to do something that humans shouldnt naturally be able to do  getting to test our own limits and doing something that is unique and exciting while also, being part of the military, getting to do my duty to my country.

After she completes OCS, Kayla will be sent straight back to her hometown to begin training at NAS Pensacola to become either a helicopter or jet pilot.

Only about 5% to 10% of each flight school class at NAS Pensacola end up flying fighter planes.

Still Kayla has high hopes and her eyes set on one singular goal.

Im hoping for F-18s, sir, she said.

Asked about if she thought she had the "right stuff" to reach her goal, Kayla responded, Absolutely, sir.

Kayla Romero, 24, of Pensacola, at Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island.

Mom, Beth Romero, and dad agree.

She is a very, very hard worker. She works hard, Joseph Romero said. She is very disciplined. The biggest trait is her leadership skills. All throughout her time, she has wanted to step up and be the leader.

Colin Warren-Hicks can be reached at colinwarrenhicks@pnj.com or 850-435-8680.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola woman in training at U.S. Navy Officer Candidate School
New UW System leader will need to get up to speed quickly to face array of challenges

Milwaukee attorney Jay Rothman, named Friday as the eighth president of the University of Wisconsin System, faces an array of challenges, from enrollment declines, to tuition increases, to improving relationships with the state Legislature and the public. He said he wants to talk to campus leaders and financial experts in the system before making any decisions.

Asked at which point he thought a smaller campus should close due to low enrollment, Rothman declined to outline metrics on such a decision. "The first thing I think we need to look at is are there students in those areas that those campuses serve that we haven't accessed," he said. "Is the demand there for the educational opportunity ... have we done everything we can to reach into the K-12 environment, or into the tech school environment for people who are transferring into the system, before we think about it?" At the end of the day, if a campus isn't viable, Rothman said the system has to face the difficult call of looking at "some other option."

Asked if he would support a tuition increase by the board, Rothman declined to get into specifics, saying he'd want to talk to the system's finance experts first. Chancellors have long expressed dismay at the idea of tuition freezes, saying they ultimately hurt the quality of education, especially if legislators won't provide supplemental funding to make up the difference.

Rebecca Kleefisch used 'indefinitely confined' voting method she now wants abolished, says it was a mistake

The revelation could complicate Kleefisch's bid for governor because she has centered much of her run on tightening the state's voting laws. She has derided Democratic Gov. Tony Evers for vetoing Republican-backed voting legislation  including one bill that would have prevented her from using the voting method she did in 2020.

Thousands of disabled and elderly people who cannot easily get out of their homes have long used the law. Voters decide for themselves whether they qualify as indefinitely confined and do not need to submit medical information to election clerks. In 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic surged, the number of indefinitely confined voters exploded. That November, 215,000 voters claimed to be indefinitely confined, compared with 67,000 in the 2016 presidential election.

"The indefinitely confined status was clearly made by mistake," Kleefisch spokesman Alec Zimmerman said by email. "Upon learning of that designation, Rebecca asked her clerk to correct it and voted in person in 2020. When she requested her absentee ballot in the spring of 2020 she was told by her clerk that she did not need to upload her photo ID because they had one on file for her."

5 homicide victims found near North 21st and West Wright streets in Milwaukee

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Police were making a welfare check at a home near North 21st and West Wright streets. When they entered they found five people dead, four men and a woman. Police don't have a motive or suspect in the deaths.

It is important not to feel numbed by the ongoing violence in our community," Acting Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said. "A horrible crime has again occurred, and it is not a movie or a fictional account. These victims died in our city, in one of our neighborhoods."

At the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office, the weekend's death investigations included eight homicides, eight probable overdoses, five from COVID-19 and one suicide, according to a tweet from the medical examiner's office.

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The Money

KOHL'S: A hedge fund has targeted Kohl's Corp. with an unsolicited $9 billion purchase offer.

FOLEY & LARDNER: Milwaukee's largest law firm has named a new chair and chief executive officer. His predecessor was just named UW System's new president.

The Games

MU: It's basketball season now, right? And we've got some really good teams in this state. Latest example: Marquette won for the sixth time in a row, including the last three over ranked teams. On Sunday that was No. 20 Xavier, who they dispatched 75-64. Marquette has to be in the top 25 when the rankings come out today, right?

PACKERS: Yes, painful. Here's some of our coverage:

Today's Weather

We're going to wake up to a little snow and a messy drive in  if you still drive in, that is. High of 22.

Not yet a Journal Sentinel subscriber? Please consider signing up at jsonline.com/deal.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Challenges for UW's new leader and five found dead in Milwaukee
MILAN  Chiara Ferragni has been steadily expanding her namesake brand over the past two years but she knows more financial muscle will enable her business to get to the next level. To that end, Ferragni has given a mandate to BNP Paribas to help her find an investor.

I want to stay on as central to the brand, to be fully engaged and have my say on strategies, but my goal is to continue to grow the brand internationally and I believe this is the right moment to seek a partner, Ferragni told WWD. To grow, we need injections of capital and investments that will allow us to make a quantum leap.

More from WWD

Asked about the stake she is potentially willing to sell, she said, It depends on the investor; we are only just teasing the sale now.

Ferragni is looking for an investor in her Fenice Srl company, which closed 2021 with sales of 4.6 million euros, threefold growth compared with 2020. Net profit totaled 800,000 euros, climbing 23 percent compared with the previous year. Ferragni is the founder and chief executive officer of Fenice.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization amounted to 1.2 million euros, or a 26 percent margin on sales, up 240 percent compared with 2020.

Ferragni expects a solid 2022 for Fenice, forecasting a net profit of 1.7 million euros, up 113 percent compared with 2021, on sales of 12.5 million euros, which would be 172 percent growth compared to last year. EBITDA is expected to double to 2.4 million euros.

Weve just closed a very intense and profitable period of growth since 2019, investing in building a lifestyle concept for the Chiara Ferragni brand, said the entrepreneur, who has been expanding her product offer through a number of new licenses, seeing the results of the strategy beginning last fall.

Aggregate turnover totaled 26 million euros last year and it is forecast to grow 130 percent to 61 million euros in 2022.

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The licenses include ready-to-wear and accessories with Swinger, whose first collection under the agreement bowed for fall 2021; footwear with Mofra; a childrens line with Monnalisa; innerwear and beachwear with Velmar; jewelry with Morellato; stationery with Pigna, and childrens products, from strollers to furniture and textiles, with Nanan. Her eyewear collection produced and distributed by Safilo is bowing for spring.

Her own first makeup line was launched last November, and performed beyond expectations, she said. She insisted she did not want to sign a license for the category, rather choosing to work with Intercos. The makeup collection is exclusively available at the Douglas perfumery chain in Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as at the online stores of both her brand and the retailer.

I have always believed in the project and choosing this path with the right partners, she offered, saying she felt confident enough after her beauty capsule collections with Lancome. I realized the public was interested in my name [associated with makeup].

Her makeup line sold out in one month, she said, even before the Christmas season. Three additional drops are expected in April, September and December.

Featuring signature sparkling pink packaging and her signature blue eye logo that brands all items under the Chiara Ferragni umbrella, the offering included three shades of lipsticks, a mascara, an eyeshadow palette, a highlighting blush and a brow gel.

A licensed fragrance is in the pipeline, most likely to be launched next year, but details are still under wraps.

Asked if skin care could also be an extension, Ferragni said she is interested in this category, but at the right moment. I am super careful because you must be very knowledgeable about it.

Ferragnis Instagram handle has 26 million followers and she continues to build her social media fandom, while she also piles up modeling contracts and ambassadorships with brands ranging from Hublot to hairstyling products company GHD. At the same time, she is president and chief executive officer of TBS Crew, the company she founded in 2009 and that manages her The Blonde Salad blog and activities.

That company closed 2021 with a profit of 1.4 million euros, up 8 percent compared with 2020 and sales of 6.8 million euros, climbing 42 percent on the previous year. EBITDA amounted to 2.7 million euros, a 40 percent margin on sales, and a 35 percent gain compared with 2020.

For 2022, Ferragni expects a net profit of 3.3 million euros, up 136 percent compared with last year and sales of 13 million euros, almost doubling revenues last year. EBITDA is expected to reach 6.2 million euros, up 130 percent.

The total sales volumes that revolve around Ferragnis business amounted to 46.3 million euros last year.

While Ferragni has attended fashion shows for years, she believes in communicating her own brand through collaborations and capsule collections, rather than presenting it during a scheduled fashion week.

I like to do things at my own pace, applying a consumer-centric strategy so that the brand is in tune with the customers needs. We communicate our products when they are accessible to the public, and this is what I like as a consumer, too  not having to wait months, said Ferragni, who is planning an event in May. Drops are a more modern way to do business.

A Christmas party capsule, for example, was highly successful, she said and reached a diversified customer target  not only young girls, she underscored. She ticked off her winning collaboration with Nespresso in 2021  which led to her promotional tours last summer and the opening of a temporary bar in Milan.

I choose unexpected brands that I love for a surprise effect, and not necessarily in the fashion arena, she explained. For example, previous collaborations were launched with Evian, Laduree, Converse and Tods, among others.

Ferragnis appointment to the Tods board made headlines last spring and drove up the price of the Italian luxury companys shares. Tods chairman Diego Della Valle at that time explained that Ferragni would help to build solidarity and support projects for those in need, raising awareness and involving the new generations more and more in these kind of operations.

Asked to comment on the experience, Ferragni she said has created strong and personal relations with Della Valle and other top industry figures such as Maria Grazie Chiuri and Donatella Versace. These are authentic relationships, not forced. They are true geniuses and when I have doubts, I turn to them for advice, theres a true generational exchange based on respect.

Ferragni has been increasingly building a structured organization and Fenice now counts 20 employees, expected to reach 30 by the end of 2022. In the second half of the year, she plans to move her employees  80 percent of them are women  under the same roof in new Milan headquarters, spanning over 9,720 square feet, in central Via Turati.

Italy accounts for 50 percent of sales, and, while continuing to build this market, she is increasingly eyeing international growth. Europe represents 40 percent of revenues, while 10 percent comes from the Rest of the World, from America and the United Arab Emirates to Asia Pacific.

In addition to her stores in Milan and Cortina dAmpezzo, the brand is available at department stores ranging from Rinascente and Coin Excelsior to Galeries Lafayette and Harrods.
CHICAGO  Police will be increasing patrols in the Little Village neighborhood following Saturdays fatal shooting of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Monday.

Ortega was shot in the head while walking with her mother at 2:45 p.m. in the 3900 block of West 26th Street, according to Chicago police. She was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

The last few days have been really, really hard for the family of Melissa, the neighborhood of Little Village, all the residents, and the men and women of the Chicago Police Department, Brown said. Its just unspeakable to lose the life of an 8-year-old, a little girl, under these circumstances or any circumstances for that matter. And we owe it to Melissa and her family and the city to hold every person involved accountable.

Police said the shooter wasnt aiming at Melissa  who was a student in the third grade at Emiliano Zapata Academy  or her mother. Authorities said the shooter intended to harm a 26-year-old man who was walking out of a store not far from where the girl and her mother stood.

The 26-year-old also was shot in the lower back and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition; officials did not have an update on his condition as of Monday afternoon.

Brown at the news conference said everyone must rise to this occasion and that the Police Department wont stop working until there is justice. Brown said the department is collaborating with New Life Center Church and the Mexican consulate to provide resources to Melissas family and residents of the Little Village community.

We have to work together to make change, Brown said. Every effort we make today impacts the safety of our city tomorrow.

Chief of Patrol Brian McDermott said the Police Department will spare no expense to bring justice to Melissas family. The department will put additional resources into the area that covers Little Village to target gangs and prevent retaliatory shootings. Specialized units will saturate the neighborhood.

Story continues

I can only hope this senseless violence makes everyone as sick to their stomach as I am, McDermott said. I can assure you that all CPD members take this as personally as I am.

Ernest Cato, chief of the Bureau of Counterterrorism, said the criminal networks group is trying to identify who is driving violence. Chicago police are also working with federal organizations and violence interrupters.

Far too often, innocent lives are caught in the crossfire, Cato said.

Brown said so far this year, 578 guns have been seized, 100 people have been arrested related to carjackings, and $6 million has been seized from gang members.

At an unrelated news conference Monday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot extended her condolences to Melissas family and said the mayors office is providing support to Little Village.

Im pleased to say that as it always does, the Little Village community has really stood up and rallied to wrap its arms around the Ortega family and really help with every conceivable need. My team and the mayors office and across city government has also provided support and were continuing to do so, Lightfoot said. Ive been following the investigation very closely. I cant get into a lot of specific details, but I can tell you that the detectives have been literally working 24/7, that there are some promising leads and I hope that well have a more substantive announcement soon.

Lightfoot said gangs and guns are the primary drivers of violence in Chicago.

Weve got to make sure that we send a very clear message and strike very hard blows against every gang member in our city, Lightfoot said. Obviously, this little girl was not the intended target, but the fact that they are reckless and operate without any regard for the sanctity of human life, we have got to stand up and stop them and use every tool at our disposal to do so.

Melissa and her mother moved to Chicago in August after emigrating from Mexico, according to an online fundraising page created to offset funeral expenses. The GoFundMe page said she is to be buried in her hometown of Los Sauces in the Mexican state of Tabasco.

Those with information about the shooting can call the Chicago Police Departments anonymous tip line at 833-408-0069.



(Chicago Tribunes Sarah Freishtat contributed to this story.)


PANAMA CITY  Comcast has announced small businesses owned by women in Panama City and surrounding areas will now be eligible to apply for the Comcast Rise program.

The program offers marketing and technology resources for small businesses. Previously, eligibility for the program was only open to small businesses owned by people of color.

Worker shortages: Panama City restaurants begin new year struggling with inflation and worker shortages on the menu

Trending story: Panama City woman who has spent $24K helping stray cats gets nationwide aid after sharing story

According to a news release from Comcast, the Comcast RISE program, which celebrated its first anniversary last November, is a part of Comcasts efforts to advance digital equity and provide underrepresented small business owners with access to the digital tools and funding they need to thrive.

Small businesses owned by people of color, which includes Asian, Black and Hispanic-owned businesses, among others will remain eligible for the program, the release states.

Once a small business is selected, the applicant will receive one of the following:

Local broadcast advertisements over a 90-day period in partnership with EffecTV, Comcasts advertising sales division

Production of a 30-second television commercial, also from EffecTV, that will be run on local broadcast stations over a 90-day period

A technology makeover from Comcast Business

Anyone interested in complete program information or to access the online application can visit comcastrise.com.

A program to help strengthen thousands of small and diverse businesses hard hit by COVID-19, Comcast RISE provides access to resources such as grants, computers, internet access, commercial production, media campaigns, website upgrades, marketing advice and more.

Comcast RISE has provided more than $60 million in grants, marketing and technology services to more than 6,700 small businesses owned by people of color in the first year alone. Of the 6,700 Comcast RISE recipients to date, nearly 70% have been businesses owned by women of color, spurring Comcast to take a deeper look into the unique challenges faced by women entrepreneurs, the release states.

According to a study by the National Association of Women Business Owners, 42% of businesses in the U.S. are owned by women, with more than 1,800 new businesses being started every day. However, women-owned businesses are growing at only half the rate of those run by men, namely because women struggle to access capital and other resources to help them succeed, the release states.

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Women-owned Panama City Florida businesses offered aid through program
The mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut, announced Monday that the police department's handling of the investigation into the death of a 23-year-old Black woman found unresponsive in her apartment in December by a man she had met on a Bumble date has been referred to its Office of Internal Affairs for an independent investigation.

This comes just days after an attorney for the woman's family said they plan to sue the city over what they described as the police department's "racially insensitive" handling of the case.

"First, I would like to restate the city's condolences to the family and friends of Lauren Smith-Fields, and to the many caring individuals who have reached out seeking answers for Lauren," Mayor Joseph Ganim said in a statement Monday. "I recognize that the family and the community is experiencing a lot of pain because of the loss of a young woman in addition to unanswered questions and concerns about the way the matter has been handled."

An attorney for the family filed a notice of claim Friday, charging that acting Police Chief Rebeca Garcia, Ganim and three other police officers violated the rights of Smith-Fields and her family under the 1983 Civil Rights Act and failed to provide her and her family with the due process accorded to them under the 14th Amendment.

Smith-Fields was found unresponsive Dec. 12 in her apartment in Bridgeport by the 37-year-old man, who is white, she had met on the dating app Bumble. NBC News is not naming the man because he has not been charged.

Family and friends of Lauren Smith-Fields gathered for a protest march in her memory in Bridgeport, Conn., on Jan. 23, 2022. (Ned Gerard / Hearst Connecticut Media via AP)

Smith-Fields' family has alleged that they were not notified of her death by police and instead learned about it from her landlord who directed them to a detective.

In his statement, Ganim said "sensitivity and care is of utmost importance when working with the family of a victim."

"There is no tolerance for anything less than respect and sensitivity for family members and their loss," he said. "To that end, this matter has been referred to the Office of Internal Affairs to conduct a full and fair investigation."

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He said he shares the concerns echoed by many about the length of time and the manner in which a family is informed of a loss.

"Death notifications should be done in a manner that illustrates dignity for the deceased and respect and compassion for the family," Ganim said. "Therefore, I will work with the Chief of Police to make appropriate changes here in Bridgeport now for our department's policies and practices regarding notifying family members of a death."

He added: "I support and add my voice to the family, community, and elected officials who are calling for state legislation on this issue."

The office of the chief medical examiner said Monday that Smith-Fields' death was accidental resulting from "acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine and alcohol." Her family's attorney, Darnell Crosland, said they are awaiting the results of an independent autopsy.

Crosland said Tuesday that the medical examiner's findings don't cure the police department's "lack of process," but make it worse.

Crosland said if the police had better investigated the scene and the man Smith-Fields was with, the family would know more about her last moments.

"As a result of a botched investigation or lack thereof, this morning we are left with more questions than answers," he said.

Ganim said he had contacted the state medical examiner to "request assistance in expediting this matter so that the investigation can proceed and detectives may provide a comprehensive report to family and parents of Lauren Smith-Fields."

"I offer my support in bringing closure to the family during this terrible tragedy," he said.

The police department has not responded to specific questions from NBC News about allegations made by Smith-Fields' family and their attorney, including that they were told by the first detective assigned to the case to stop calling to inquire about the investigation, and that the man who reported her unresponsive is not a person of interest in the case.

In a statement Friday, the acting police chief said the department expressed its condolences to Smith-Fields' loved ones and that the investigation remains open.
Louisiana reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 63,399 new cases. That's down 28.1% from the previous week's tally of 88,195 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Louisiana ranked 33rd among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 14.9% from the week before, with 4,770,122 cases reported. With 1.4% of the country's population, Louisiana had 1.33% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 27 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

More: Hospitals in Lafourche, Terrebonne cope with increased admissions amid COVID omicron surge

Many counties did not report during data during the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, disrupting the current and previous weeks' statistics. Week-to-week comparisons are skewed and these numbers will be unreliable even as they're accurate to what states reported.

Lafourche Parish reported 1,450 cases and two deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 1,793 cases and two deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 23,792 cases and 325 deaths.

Across Louisiana, cases fell in 53 parishes, with the best declines in East Baton Rouge Parish, with 6,667 cases from 11,728 a week earlier; in Jefferson Parish, with 4,344 cases from 8,585; and in Orleans Parish, with 3,499 cases from 7,102.

>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases

Louisiana ranked 47th among states in share of people receiving at least one shot, with 59.2% of its residents at least partially vaccinated. The national rate is 75.5%, a USA TODAY analysis of CDC data shows. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are the most used in the United States, require two doses administered a few weeks apart.

In the week ending Sunday, Louisiana reported administering another 63,202 vaccine doses, including 37,303 first doses. In the previous week, the state administered 61,153 vaccine doses, including 15,841 first doses. In all, Louisiana reported it has administered 5,882,950 total doses.

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Within Louisiana, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in West Carroll Parish with 2,927 cases per 100,000 per week; East Feliciana Parish with 2,738; and East Carroll Parish with 1,938. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.

More: 'Completely full' ICUs as omicron wave stresses hospitals; FDA expands use of remdesivir. Latest COVID-19 updates

Adding the most new cases overall were East Baton Rouge Parish, with 6,667 cases; Jefferson Parish, with 4,344 cases; and St. Tammany Parish, with 4,233. Weekly case counts rose in 11 parishes from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in West Carroll, LaSalle and Beauregard parishes.

In Louisiana, 187 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 83 people were reported dead.

A total of 1,060,022 people in Louisiana have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 15,324 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 70,700,678 people have tested positive and 866,540 people have died.

>> Track coronavirus cases across the United States

Louisiana's COVID-19 hospital admissions falling

USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Jan. 23.

Likely COVID patients admitted in the state:

Last week: 2,543.

The week before that: 2,752.

Four weeks ago: 702.

Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation:

Last week: 188,864.

The week before that: 197,883.

Four weeks ago: 99,261.

Hospitals in 25 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 22 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 30 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Daily Comet: Lafourche Parish COVID cases increased by 1,450 this week
Hello, Oak Park and River Forest! Let's get to the news for Tuesday.

Want to support local news in Oak Park-River Forest? Become a Patch Supporter for just $5 per month and help keep the Oak Park-River Forest Daily going, plus get other exclusive perks. Click here to learn more.

First, today's weather: Mostly sunny and frigid. High: 14 Low: -5.

Are you a local business owner or marketer in Oak Park-River Forest? We love showcasing trusted businesses who can solve problems for our amazing local readers. Learn more here.

Here are the top 5 stories in Oak Park-River Forest today:

1. A man attempting to steal a liquor bottle from the CVS Pharmacy on Madison Street was arrested and charged with battery on Jan. 15. According to police, Jimontai W. Lyles of Dolton punched the store clerk and threatened him with a knife. (Paid source: Oak Leaves)

2. Oak Park School District 97 will host its annual legislators forum tomorrow via Zoom. Guests include Senate President Don Harmon, Representatives La Shawn Ford and Camille Lilly and Sen. Kimberly Lightford. (Twitter)

3. COVID-19 vaccine clinics will be held today at Cheney Mansion (10 a.m. to 2 p.m.) and Roosevelt Middle School (4-8 p.m.). First, second and booster doses will be available at both events. (VOP/Wednesday Journal)

4. Oak Park and River Forest High School is celebrating the completion of several renovations  the first major construction at the site in 60 years. Updates include renovated classrooms, a new cafeteria and student resource center. (Paid source: Oak Leaves)

5. On this date in 1902, Oak Park was officially incorporated as a village. In honor of the 120th anniversary, the library is offering a curated list of resources about village history and reads from local authors. (OPPL)

From our sponsor:

Last week, we told you about our new favorite non-alcoholic go-to  the refreshingly bitter drinks from our partners at Betera. Theyre chef-created from natural botanicals, lightly effervescent and worthy of life beyond Dry January. We mentioned that their Ginger-Orange was excellent; weve since tried Elderflower-Lime and loved it as well  light and floral with the perfect amount of zing. We're converts.

Story continues

Enough of you took Betera up on their 15 percent discount on first orders for Patch Daily readers that theyve extended the offer for another week. Use PATCH15 at checkout. Highly recommended  try Betera here.

Today in Oak Park-River Forest:

St. Giles Parish is hosting a weekly grief support group, beginning today and running through April. (10 a.m.)

Take a virtual chair yoga class with Oak Park Public Library . (Noon)

Activist Billy Brooks gives a virtual talk on the importance of youth empowerment as part of the Family, Literacy & Social Justice Speaker Series . (6 p.m.)

Trivia Night at Elmwood Park Public Library . (7 p.m.)

Fitzgeralds hosts a Songwriter Circle with Donnie Biggins. (7 p.m.)

From my notebook:

The Oak Park Village Board will meet today via virtual platform. ( VOP )

Today is the final day to recycle Christmas trees , wreaths and garland in River Forest. ( VRF )

Forest Park Public Library is offering one-on-one technology consultations today. (Burbio)

More from our sponsors  thanks for supporting local news!

Featured businesses:

Events:

FREE 3-Hour Use of Force Law Class for Civilians who are Gun Owners & CCL Holders (January 29)

Lowered Costs for 2022, Get Your Cannabis Card in 24 hours from home! (January 29)

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Announcements:

Oak Park, River Forest BHHS Chicago Ranks #1 in Units for 2021 (Details)

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That's all for today, OPRF! See you tomorrow for more local stories.

 Georgi Presecky



This article originally appeared on the Oak Park-River Forest Patch
A memorial for 8-year-old Melissa Ortega grows Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2022 at the corner of West 26th Street and South Pulaski Road where she was shot and killed Saturday in Little Village. Chicago police announced charges Wednesday against two suspects in her killing. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune) (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago police will be increasing patrols in the Little Village neighborhood following Saturdays fatal shooting of 8-year-old Melissa Ortega, Superintendent David Brown said at a news conference Monday.

Ortega was shot in the head while walking with her mother around 2:50 p.m. in the 3900 block of West 26th Street, according to Chicago police. She was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.

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There last few days have been really, really hard for the family of Melissa, the neighborhood of Little Village, all the residents, and the men and women of the Chicago Police Department, Brown said. Its just unspeakable to lose the life of an 8-year-old, a little girl, under these circumstances or any circumstances for that matter. And we owe it to Melissa and her family and the city to hold every person involved accountable.

Police said the shooter wasnt aiming at Melissa  who was a student in the third grade at Emiliano Zapata Academy  or her mother. Authorities said the shooter intended to harm a 29-year-old man who was walking out of a store not far from where the girl and her mother stood.

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Just after 2:50 p.m. Saturday, police officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert in the 4000 block of West 26th Street, according to a police report. When they approached, bystanders waved them down and told them someone was shot.

The officers then discovered Melissa, who had been shot once in the right side of her head, the report said.

Melissas mother, 26, told police she was walking westbound on 26th Street from Pulaski Road when she heard gunfire and tried to run into a bank in the 3900 block of West 26th Street when she suddenly felt her daughters body go limp in front of the bank door, the report said.

The officers then learned that there was a second victim, a 29-year-old man, the report said. The man told police that he was standing at the corner of Komensky Avenue and 26th Street when he heard gunshots. He started to run toward a liquor store before he realized he had been shot in the back.

He was taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital in fair condition, the report said.

Police later learned that a 47-year-old man had been sitting in his parked car in the 2600 block of South Komensky with his 44-year-old wife and 9-year-old daughter when gunshots hit the back rear window and rear passenger side window, the report said. None of them were injured.

Police found 13 shell casings, two bullet fragments and one fired bullet at the scene, the report said.

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Witnesses told police they saw an older white Chevrolet van at the scene, the report said.

Police investigate at the scene on Saturday of a shooting where 8-year-old Melissa Ortega was fatally shot and a 29-year-old man was also in fair condition (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

Brown at the news conference said everyone must rise to this occasion and that the Police Department wont stop working until there is justice. Brown said the department is collaborating with New Life Center Church and the Mexican consulate to provide resources to Melissas family and residents of the Little Village community.

We have to work together to make change, Brown said. Every effort we make today impacts the safety of our city tomorrow.

Chief of Patrol Brian McDermott said the Police Department will spare no expense to bring justice to Melissas family. The department will put additional resources into the area that covers Little Village to target gangs and prevent retaliatory shootings. Specialized units will saturate the neighborhood.

I can only hope this senseless violence makes everyone as sick to their stomach as I am, McDermott said. I can assure you that all CPD members take this as personally as I am.

Ernest Cato, chief of the Bureau of Counterterrorism, said the criminal networks group is trying to identify who is driving violence. Chicago police are also working with federal organizations and violence interrupters.

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Far too often, innocent lives are caught in the crossfire, Cato said.

Brown said so far this year, 578 guns have been seized, 100 people have been arrested related to carjackings, and $6 million has been seized from gang members.

At an unrelated news conference Monday morning, Mayor Lori Lightfoot extended her condolences to Melissas family and said the mayors office is providing support to Little Village.

Im pleased to say that as it always does, the Little Village community has really stood up and rallied to wrap its arms around the Ortega family and really help with every conceivable need. My team and the mayors office and across city government has also provided support and were continuing to do so, Lightfoot said. Ive been following the investigation very closely. I cant get into a lot of specific details, but I can tell you that the detectives have been literally working 24/7, that there are some promising leads and I hope that well have a more substantive announcement soon.

Lightfoot said gangs and guns are the primary drivers of violence in Chicago.

Weve got to make sure that we send a very clear message and strike very hard blows against every gang member in our city, Lightfoot said. Obviously, this little girl was not the intended target, but the fact that they are reckless and operate without any regard for the sanctity of human life, we have got to stand up and stop them and use every tool at our disposal to do so.

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Melissa and her mother moved to Chicago in August after emigrating from Mexico, according to an online fundraising page created to offset funeral expenses. The GoFundMe page said she is to be buried in her hometown of Los Sauces in the Mexican state of Tabasco.

Those with information about the shooting can call the Chicago Police Departments anonymous tip line at 833-408-0069.

Chicago Tribunes Sarah Freishtat contributed.

pfry@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @paigexfry
Dave's Hot Chicken is slated to open in Menomonee Falls Jan. 28. It will feature hot chicken tenders and sliders, along with sides of house-made kale slaw, mac n cheese and french fries. The chicken is offered at seven various spice levels ranging from no spice to reaper.

Dave's Hot Chicken will open its first franchise in Wisconsin on Friday, company officials confirmed.

The restaurant, N92 W16125 Falls Parkway, Menomonee Falls, will be open from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week. It will be in the space formerly occupied by Grate Pizza, Mac & More, which closed in November.

More: 'To positively impact lives': Meet Menomonee Falls Humanitarian of the Year, Mike Moore

More: Menomonee Falls is planning a new winter farmers market for 2022. Here's what it'll look like.

Dave's Hot Chicken is scheduled to open at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 28. It will open N92 W16125 Falls Pkwy, at the Whitestone Station development, in Menomonee Falls.

The "fast-casual concept" specializes in hot chicken tenders and sliders, along with sides of house-made kale slaw, mac n cheese and french fries, according to a company news release. The chicken is offered at seven various spice levels ranging from no spice to reaper; each piece of chicken uses a proprietary spice blend crafted specifically for its heat level.

Daves Hot Chickens newest Menomonee Falls location features indoor seating and custom artwork throughout the restaurant, including murals.

"We are ecstatic to be opening our first restaurant in the state of Wisconsin, said Dave's Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps in a statement.

Owners of the Menomonee Falls franchise will be Mike Pranke who also owns Roaring Fork Restaurant Group  that operates the 54 Qdobas in Wisconsin, three in Illinois, and one in Iowa  and business partner Ron Stokes.

The Fork Restaurant Group formed MR Chicken LLC in September 2021, according to the restaurant group's website. Through MR Chicken LLC, they signed a master development agreement to bring 14 Dave's Hot Chicken restaurants to Wisconsin over the next six years.

Dave's Hot Chicken is slated to open in Menomonee Falls Jan. 28 N92 W16125 Falls Pkwy, at the Whitestone Station development. One of the features of the Menomonee Falls location is the colorful decor and the murals.

The Menomonee Falls location will be the 44th Dave's Hot Chicken store.

Arman Oganesyan and best friend Chef Dave Kopushyan, along with brothers Tommy and Gary Rubenyan, started the restaurant started as a parking lot pop-up in 2017. Daves Hot Chicken quickly took off, opening its first brick-and-mortar restaurant in East Hollywood soon after.

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According to the news release, in 2019, the team struck a deal with Wetzels Pretzels co-founder and former CEO Phelps and movie producer John Davis to begin franchising the Daves Hot Chicken concept.

The release said the company has sold the rights to almost 500 franchise locations in the U.S. and Canada; an additional 25 locations are slated to open this year.

Cathy Kozlowicz can be reached at 262-361-9132 or cathy.kozlowicz@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @kozlowicz_cathy.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dave's Hot Chicken is set to open Jan. 28 in Menomonee Falls
The tourist posed near this gate, which reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work sets you free). SOPA Images/Contributor/Getty Images

Guards detained a tourist at the Auschwitz Museum on Sunday, Polish News reported.

She was reportedly posing for a photo while using the infamous Nazi salute pose.

The woman was detained by museum security and fined, according to Polish News.

A woman visiting Poland's Auschwitz Museum from the Netherlands was detained on Sunday for making a Nazi salute gesture, Polish News reported.

The 29-year-old woman, who has not been named, made the gesture while posing for a photo that her husband, 30, took during their visit to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp, according to the outlet. She posed in front of the main gate, a visual symbol of the Holocaust, which reads "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work sets you free).

"The Nazi salute is one of the symbols associated with terrible human suffering and filled with contempt and hatred," representatives for the museum told Insider. "While it should not be present at all in the public space, using it at the site of the former camp is unacceptable. It is disrespectful to all victims of the camp."

According to Polish News, museum security guards saw the photo being taken, immediately detained the woman, and alerted the police before 1 p.m on Sunday. The couple was taken to the local Oswiecim headquarters, where the husband was questioned as a witness, according to the outlet.

The entrance to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp-turned-museum in Poland. Wolfgang Kaehler/Contributor/Getty Images

Polish News also reported that the district prosecutor's office in the south Poland town of Oswiecim imposed a fine on the woman, which she accepted. The news outlet did not specify the amount of the fine, and representatives for the district prosecutor's office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the matter.

Bartosz Izdebski of the Maopolska Police press office said the woman called her act "a stupid joke," according to Polish News.

The outlet reported that it's illegal to promote Nazi propaganda in Poland, and public promotion of fascism can be punishable by up to two years in prison. According to an article on Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center's website, there are many countries throughout Europe with similar laws.

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This was not the first time someone has faced legal consequences for posing in front of the gate at the former camp, which is now a museum. Polish News reported that in 2013, two students from Turkey were fined and sentenced to six months in prison after making a Nazi salute for a similar photo.

A museum spokesperson told Insider that they hope this recent offense will serve as a warning to future visitors. "We hope that the immediate reaction of the security of the Memorial will be a warning to all people who will be considering using the site of the Memorial as a stage for such shameful manifestations," they said.

Read the original article on Insider
By Robin Emmott and Sabine Siebold

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union called on Russia on Monday to defuse tensions over Ukraine and reaffirmed that Moscow would face "massive" consequences if it attacked its neighbour.

The EU's 27 foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, said the bloc "condemns Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine and calls on Russia to de-escalate."

"Notions of 'sphere of influence' have no place in the 21st century ... any further military aggression by Russia over Ukraine will have massive consequences and severe costs," they said in a statement, giving no details of the "consequences".

Russia has massed tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine's borders. It denies planning an invasion but NATO https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nato-sends-ships-jets-eastern-europe-ukraine-crisis-2022-01-24 said it was putting forces on standby and reinforcing eastern Europe -- moves that Moscow described as "hysteria".

Denmark said the EU would be ready to impose "never-seen-before" economic sanctions on Russia.

The European Commission, the EU executive body, proposed a 1.2-billion euro ($1.36-billion) financial aid package for Ukraine [L8N2U42SZ], but there are differences among EU member states about how hard to be on Russia.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis suggested Russia wanted to "splinter the West" and that the EU could not afford to be divided.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has urged Europe and the United States to think carefully when considering sanctions and some European politicians, and Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg underlined the EU's heavy dependency on Russian gas..

TALKS WITH BLINKEN

Asked about potential sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany, which is yet to win regulatory approval, Schallenberg said sanctioning something that is not yet operative was not a credible threat.

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Another potential sanction would be cutting Russia off from the SWIFT global messaging system, but German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said wielding the "hardest stick" may not always be the best way to deal with such a situation.

The EU has been largely sidelined by direct Russia-U.S. talks, but the foreign ministers began talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken remotely on Monday.

"Russia should know, (President Vladimir) Putin should know that the price of using provocations and military forces to change borders in Europe will be very, very high... We are ready to undertake the most severe sanctions, also more severe than in 2014," Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod told reporters.

He declined to say what sectors would be targeted.

The EU, along with the United States, imposed economic sanctions on Moscow targeting its energy, banking and defence sectors after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

For now, the EU does not plan to withdraw diplomats' families from Ukraine, its foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said after Washington announced such a move.

($1 = 0.8854 euros)

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Ingrid Melander, Marine Strauss, Robin Emmott, Writing by Ingrid Melander, Editing by Nick Macfie and Timothy Heritage)
By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Former Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged on Monday he had been at a 1980 meeting over a sexual abuse case when archbishop of Munich, saying he mistakenly told German investigators he was not there.

A report released last week on abuse in the archdiocese from 1945 to 2019 said then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ex-pope-benedict-criticised-munich-church-abuse-report-2022-01-20 failed to take action against clerics in four cases of alleged abuse when he was its archbishop between 1977-1982.

At Thursday's news conference in Munich, lawyers who investigated the abuse contested an assertion by Benedict in an 82-page statement that he did not recall attending a meeting in 1980 to discuss the case of an abuser priest.

They said this contradicted documents in their possession.

In a statement on Monday, the former pope's personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Ganswein, said Benedict did attend the meeting but the omission "was the result of an oversight in the editing of the statement" and "not done out of bad faith."

Ganswein said no decision was made at the 1980 meeting about a new assignment for the priest but only a request to provide him with accommodation during therapeutic treatment.

"He (the former pope) is very sorry for this mistake and asks to be excused," Ganswein said.

'SHAME AND PAIN'

He said Benedict planned to explain how the error happened after he finishes examining the nearly 2,000-page report, sent electronically last Thursday.

Benedict, 94, infirm and living in the Vatican, resigned the papacy in 2013.

"He is carefully reading the statements set down there, which fill him with shame and pain about the suffering inflicted on the victims," Ganswein said. A complete review "will take some time due to his age and health," he added.

Presenting the report last Thursday, lawyer Martin Pusch said Ratzinger had done nothing against the abuse in four cases and there appeared to be no interest shown to injured parties.

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"In a total of four cases, we have come to the conclusion that the then Archbishop Cardinal Ratzinger can be accused of misconduct in cases of sexual abuse," said Pusch.

"He still claims ignorance even if, in our opinion, that is difficult to reconcile with the documentation."

Conservatives have defended the former pope but victims groups and experts said the findings of the German report had tarnished the legacy https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/conservatives-defend-ex-pope-after-report-experts-see-legacy-dented-2022-01-21 of one of Catholicism's most renowned theologians.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
(Reuters) - The Biden administration is readying a U.S. export rule used against Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei that could curb Russia's access to global electronics supplies if President Vladimir Putin decides to invade Ukraine.

While it is unclear how the rule could impact Russia, the restrictions hobbled Huawei's smartphone business. Last month, the company said it expected 2021 revenue to have declined nearly 30% and predicted continued challenges this year.

WHAT IS THE RESTRICTION?

The Foreign Direct Product Rule, as it is called, may be adapted to halt Russias ability to import smartphones, key aircraft and automobile components, Reuters reported last month.

The administration is considering restricting chips and products with integrated circuits bound for Russia, a senior official said, imposing its authority over items made abroad if they are designed with U.S. software or technology, or produced using U.S. equipment.

WHAT EXPORTS TO RUSSIA COULD BE IMPACTED?

The restrictions could apply to critical industrial sectors like artificial intelligence, maritime, defense, and civil aviation, the official said, and could also be imposed more broadly, to include consumer electronics.

The scope of the rule against Russia has not been set but White House National Security Council officials have warned executives from the Semiconductor Industry Association, a chip lobbying group, of possible unprecedented actions, as Reuters reported last week.

It is unclear whether the rule could have the kind of devastating effect on Russia that it has had on Huawei.

"A strict imposition of the Foreign Direct Product rule would significantly affect trade and output in Russia, though its hard to say by how much," said Jeffrey Schott, an expert on international trade policy and economic sanctions at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

HOW DID IT IMPACT HUAWEI?

The Foreign Direct Product Rule now restricts both U.S. and non-U.S. companies from shipping items to Huawei that are the direct product of U.S. technology or software. Such shipments can only be made with a U.S. license.

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The rule was added to the curbs on Huawei after the telecommunications equipment maker was placed on an export control blacklist known as the "entity list" in 2019 and it did not stop the global flow of chips to the company.

The initial listing affected U.S.-made goods and some limited items made abroad with U.S. technology but did not block overseas shipments to Huawei from companies such as Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker.

So in 2020, the United States added the Foreign Direct Product Rule to expand its authority to stop shipments of foreign-produced items to Huawei. Companies like TSMC that use U.S. chipmaking equipment are required to obtain U.S. licenses before supplying Huawei and licenses for sophisticated chips are denied.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
The claim: Americans need to show 'papers to eat in a restaurant, but not to vote'

In the days leading up to the Senate's vote on Democrats' voting rights legislation, claims of lax voter identification requirements across the USA circulated widely on social media.

"When you need to show papers to eat in a restaurant, but not to vote, something is wrong," reads text in a Jan. 18 Facebook post.

The post accumulated more than 3,500 shares within two days. Similar claims have also racked up tens of thousands of interactions on Facebook and Instagram, according to CrowdTangle, a social media insights tool.

The posts appear to take aim at COVID-19 vaccine requirements, which in some places apply to people who dine at restaurants. But the claim paints an overly broad picture of both voter ID laws and vaccine requirements nationwide.

"This is a patently silly claim," Joshua Douglas, a research professor of law at the University of Kentucky, said in an email.

USA TODAY reached out to the Facebook user who shared the claim for comment.

Voters fill out their ballots at a church being used as a polling station on election day in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 2, 2021.

Most states ask for ID at polls

The claim makes it seem like voters in most states don't have to show their ID at the polls. But that's misleading.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 35 states have laws requesting or requiring voters to show ID at the polls. Each state has its own rules, with some more stringent than others.

"Some states have strict limits on what counts as a government-issued ID," Richard Briffault, a professor of legislation at Columbia Law School, said in an email. "Texas, for example, counts a government-issued handgun permit, but not a state university student ID."

Fact check: Georgia investigation into alleged ballot harvesting is not evidence of election fraud

Other states request ID, but residents can still vote without it.

In Florida, for example, voters who don't present ID cast a provisional ballot, and officials compare the signature to the one they have on file. In other states, including Michigan and South Dakota, voters who don't present ID must sign an affidavit before casting their ballot.

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In the remaining 15 states and the District of Columbia, voters can cast their ballot without presenting any form of identification, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. But election officials still verify their identities.

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In California, for example, officials must confirm voters are on the registration list. First-time voters who did not provide their driver's license, state identification or partial Social Security number on their registration may be required to present an ID at the polls. Other states, including Illinois and New Mexico, have similar rules.

"In large part due to litigation, virtually every state now has a fail-safe backup if a voter shows up without an ID," Douglas said. "That's important because it offers a workaround for an ID requirement. The same goes for other things that people say require an ID, like flying or buying Sudafed."

It's worth noting that confirmed cases of voter fraud are relatively rare.

An Associated Press review found fewer than 475 cases of voter fraud in six battleground states disputed by former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. In most cases, the ballots weren't counted. USA TODAY has previously debunked the claim that widespread fraud affected the outcome of the election.

Paul Molakides of Boro6 Wine Bar in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, prepares a coffee on Friday, January 14, 2022. Boro6 requires patrons to show their vaccination card to eat at the restaurant.

Some major cities require proof of vaccination

USA TODAY could find no evidence of a statewide proof-of-vaccination requirement for indoor diners. However, some major cities do have such rules, and private businesses in most states can require their customers to be vaccinated.

According to Ballotpedia, five states have specifically exempted fully vaccinated people from some COVID-19 restrictions. Others have vaccine mandates for certain kinds of workers.

None of those rules single out all in-person diners, as the Facebook post makes it seem.

More: Supreme Court's vaccine mandate ruling means businesses chart their own course

Some states, including California and Washington, require businesses hosting large indoor gatherings  including concerts and sporting events  to verify the vaccination or testing status of attendees. In Hawaii, travelers who are fully vaccinated or test negative for COVID-19 are exempt from the state's mandatory five-day quarantine.

However, some major cities do specifically require restaurantgoers to be vaccinated.

One example is New York City, which in August became the first city to announce a vaccine mandate. Anyone older than 12 must show proof of full vaccination to dine indoors, hit the gym or go to a movie theater, while children ages 5-11 are required to show proof of one dose. Several other cities, including Boston, Chicago and San Francisco, have similar rules in place.

Fact check: Reports of adverse events due to COVID-19 vaccines are unverified

Meanwhile, 20 states have expressly prohibited proof-of-vaccination requirements by legislation or executive order, according to Ballotpedia.

Most of those measures, including those in Alaska and Oklahoma, bar state agencies from mandating proof of vaccination. But some, including measures in Alabama and Florida, go a step further by banning private businesses from requiring their customers to be vaccinated.

USA TODAY has previously debunked claims that vaccine mandates violate federal law.

Our rating: Missing context

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that Americans need to show "papers to eat in a restaurant, but not to vote," because without further context it could be misleading.

In 35 states, election officials ask or require voters to show their ID at the polls. In states that don't have ID requirements, officials verify the identity of voters in other ways. Meanwhile, most states do allow private businesses to require proof of vaccination. But sweeping mandates exist only in a limited number of cities.

Our fact-check sources:

Thank you for supporting our journalism. You can subscribe to our print edition, ad-free app or electronic newspaper replica here.

Our fact-check work is supported in part by a grant from Facebook.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Voter ID, COVID-19 vaccine rules comparison is misleading
On his second day as Chicago Public Schools CEO, Pedro Martinez promised transparency in the way the district publicly reports student and staff member COVID-19 cases.

On our website, we will be reporting out cases daily. We will be more complete. We will not only just show active cases, well show quarantine. Please give us some grace. Because it is daily, that means there will be some cleanup of data, Martinez said at a Sept. 30 news conference with city public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady.

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CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, left, and city public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady, right, give updates on the plan to safely return students to class after the winter break at a City Hall news conference on Dec. 30, 2021. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)

CPS came under fire last week when it was revealed the district had quietly changed the method by which it presents COVID-19 data on its public dashboard to only show closed cases at individual schools instead of all reported cases of COVID-19 among staff and students, as the district had done since September. The backlash grew as CPS continued to experience an omicron-fueled surge in infections, with 660 adult cases and a record 2,200 student cases reported districtwide last week.

The districts dashboard change was noticed by parent and cloud engineer Jakob Ondrey, who maintains his own website that tracks and visualizes COVID-19 cases reported by CPS. He pointed out that parents visiting the dashboard to find out case numbers at their childrens school would not get a complete picture of the cases reported by students and staff of the school. His Twitter thread drew attention from elected officials such as aldermen Brian Hopkins, 2nd, Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd, and Maria Hadden, 49th, who demanded answers from the district.

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In a statement Friday afternoon, the district said it discloses on its public dashboard all reported cases at the district level, but recently switched to only showing cases that have been investigated by district contact tracers on the individual school pages of the dashboard.

This change was made to provide a more accurate number of closed positive and confirmed cases and to protect the privacy of our students and staff, especially in some of our school settings where the case count was very low and there was subsequent speculation about the health status of specific individuals, the CPS statement read.

The district promised to reevaluate its data reporting in light of the omicron surge and in the interest of broader transparency.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez gives an update on schools and COVID-19 at City Hall in Chicago on Jan. 4, 2022. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

The districts dashboard falls short in other areas as well. CPS does not share vaccination rates of students on its dashboard, as it does staff members. A CPS representative recently told the Tribune that the Chicago Department of Public Health only provides vaccination data to CPS twice a month. The CPS dashboard also doesnt provide case numbers for its 100-plus charter schools. More than 330,000 students are enrolled in CPS, the nations third-largest district.

When CPS reached a safety agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union this month after a battle that saw classes canceled for five days, the district promised it would share on its dashboard the number of classrooms or school buildings that transitioned to remote learning because they met the thresholds set in the safety deal. That information has not been reported on CPS dashboard.

As of Monday, the district was reporting 19,414 students and 809 adults in isolation because they tested positive for COVID-19 or in quarantine because they came in contact with an infected person. CPS has repeatedly expressed confidence in its contact tracing process, though some parents and teachers have reported delays in hearing about positive cases that affect them.

tswartz@tribpub.com
A Russian businessman with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin who is accused of being involved in an insider trading and hacking scheme will be detained pending trial, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled Monday morning.

Image: Vladislav Klyushin (U.S. Justice Department via Reuters)

The man, Vladislav Klyushin, 41, had sought to be released pending his federal trial in Boston. He proposed a $2.5 million bond comprised of properties in Russia and the U.K., as well as hiring private guards to ensure his presence in court.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler denied bail, saying Klyushin had "absolutely no incentive to remain in this country.

"This court is not convinced that a defendant, who is an individual well-versed in sophisticated financial matters, has access to substantial financial resources and absolutely no ties to this country, will appear as required, Bowler said.

Bowler wrote that a Pretrial Services report lists $7 million in Russian and London real estate, as well as a yacht valued in excess of $4 million, as just some of the assets Klyushin is alleged to have.

She also cited the lack of any extradition treaty with Russia and the difficulty of seizing his London property if he fled the country as two of the reasons to deny him his release.

A U.S. attorney for Klyushin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Klyushin was extradited to the U.S. from Switzerland last month. He was arrested on insider trading and computer hacking charges and had previously spurned approaches by U.S. and British intelligence agencies while traveling in Europe, his lawyer told NBC News.

U.S. officials described Klyushin as being close to Putin, and one of his co-defendants in the insider trading case has also been charged with 2016 election hacking.

He was perceived by U.S. intelligence as someone who may have confidential information or state secrets, said Oliver Ciric, who represented Klyushin in a bid to keep the Swiss government from extraditing him to the U.S.

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Some of the charges carry maximum terms of 20 years in prison  a possibility that appears to hand U.S. intelligence agencies considerable leverage.

Klyushin was arrested when he flew in a private jet with his family to Switzerland for a ski vacation in March and was held there until he was flown to Boston over the weekend.

Ciric said his argument to Swiss judges in his unsuccessful bid to stop the extradition was that this is not a simple case of insider trading  the insider trading charges are disingenuous.

He added, Its not a secret that his company had a series of government contracts in Russia, including with some of the national intelligence agencies.
Fiona Hill, former top Russia advisor to the White House, provides testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump in 2019. Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Hill in a New York Times op-ed says Putin views the US as weakened by Trump's presidency.

She wrote that Russia is trying to use Ukraine as leverage to force the US out of Europe.

Resolving the escalating crisis "requires acting, not reacting," Hill said.

Fiona Hill in a new New York Times op-ed published Monday contended that Russian President Vladimir Putin saw an opportunity to renew aggression toward Ukraine after the US was left weakened by four "disastrous" years under former President Donald Trump.

Beyond the impact of Trump's presidency, Hill also pointed to the Afghanistan withdrawal to explain why Putin sees an opportunity to challenge the West on Ukraine. President Joe Biden continues to face criticism in Washington and beyond over his handling of the Afghanistan pullout, which coincided with the Taliban regaining control of the country.

"From Russia's perspective, America's domestic travails after four years of Donald Trump's disastrous presidency, as well as the rifts he created with U.S. allies and then America's precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, signal weakness," wrote Hill, who served as the top Russia advisor on the National Security Council under the Trump administration.

Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Hill, who wrote a biography on Putin, said that the Russian president wants to "evict the United States from Europe."

"In the 1990s, the United States and NATO forced Russia to withdraw the remnants of the Soviet military from their bases in Eastern Europe, Germany and the Baltic States. Mr. Putin wants the United States to suffer in a similar way," Hill said, adding later: "Ukraine is both Russia's target and a source of leverage against the United States."

Russia has amassed military force along Ukraine's border in recent months, sparking fears a new conflict in Europe is on the horizon. The Kremlin says it doesn't plan to invade, but Western powers are skeptical given Moscow's history in the region. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea and has since supported rebels in a war against Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region.

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As the US scrambles for a diplomatic resolution to the situation, Russia has made demands for binding security guarantees  including that Ukraine and Georgia be prohibited from ever joining NATO. The US and NATO have remained firm that the alliance's open-door policy is not up for discussion.

Hill wrote that Putin is hoping "he can strike a new security deal with NATO and Europe to avoid an open-ended conflict, and then it will be America's turn to leave, taking its troops and missiles with it."

The US has warned that Moscow will face severe economic consequences if Russia invades, while weighing sending more troops to Eastern Europe as a deterrent. The Pentagon on Monday said 8,500 US troops are on heightened alert.

Hill warned that another Russian attack on Ukraine would "challenge the entire U.N. system and imperil the arrangements that have guaranteed member states' sovereignty since World War II."

Resolving the escalating crisis "requires acting, not reacting," Hill wrote, urging the US to "shape the diplomatic response and engage Russia on the West's terms, not just Moscow's." She said the US needs to make clear to Putin that he will face "global resistance" in the event of an invasion that would isolate Russia politically and economically.

In November, Hill told Insider that Putin views Ukraine as "unfinished business" and that he's "deadly serious" about taking action.

"One way or another, he wants Ukraine neutralized," she added. "You've got to take it seriously because Russia has crossed the Rubicon many times before when people said they wouldn't."

Read the original article on Business Insider
James Iannazzo, the Merri Lynch employee who was fired after going on an anti-immigrant tirade at a Connecticut smoothie shop and throwing a drink at a worker has defended himself in a statement he made to the police.

The man became furious after his 17-year-old son was served a smoothie that contained peanut butter. The teen had a peanut allergy, which caused him to reportedly collapse and require hospitalisation. Mr Iannazzo claims the workers were explicitly told not to include anything with peanuts in the smoothie due to his sons allergy.

He was later arrested.

"I had returned to Robeks to determine what ingredients were in the smoothie that I had previously ordered," Mr Iannazzo said in his statement to police. "I made my regrettable comments because my 17-year-old son was taken to the hospital suffering from life threatening anaphylactic shock. He collapsed at our home while drinking the smoothie from Robeks, which contained some sort of nut product, after I had advised them of his nut allergy when I ordered his drink."

The exchange was captured in a TikTok video, which shows an irate Mr Iannazzo demanding to know who made his son's smoothie. The employees say they don't know, as there are four of them making drinks, which further agitates Mr Iannazzo. He begins insulting the workers and eventually throws a drink at one of them, prompting them to call the police.

He then calls one of the workers a "stupid immigrant," which infuriates the workers, who call him a racist and say he's "going to jail." He then begins pushing on the door to the employee work area before he leaves.

Mr Iannazzo issued a statement through his attorney after the incident began spreading on social media.

"My actions at Robeks were wrong, and I deeply regret them. They do not reflect my values or my character. I feel terrible that I lost my composure so completely," he said.

Merrill Lynch confirmed that Mr Iannazzo was fired after the incident provoked outrage on social media.

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"Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind," the company said in a statement. "We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm."

The backlash against Mr Iannazzo continued after his firing. Individuals began bombing his Google review rating with one star reviews in response to the video.

I would rate zero stars if I could. Enjoy being in the unemployment line while the immigrants are out here actually earning their money, one of the reviews said.

Another reviewer said they would give him a "zero but my only option is a 1. Stinky."
Freeze warnings. Frost advisories. In Florida.

Most of the state was shivering early Monday from some of the lowest temperatures seen this year, prompting officials in some locations to open cold-weather shelters and the National Weather Service to issue freeze warnings and frost advisories.

Meteorologists in the National Weather Service office in Melbourne discovered frost on their cars after midnight Sunday.

Brr!! 



Its 4:30am and its 37 at our office here in Melbourne! The midnight shift donned their coats and found frost already forming on the cars and in the grass. Any early birds (or night owls) out there seeing similar conditions?#FLwx pic.twitter.com/Z6tuAEMEVp  NWS Melbourne (@NWSMelbourne) January 24, 2022

The National Weather Service office in Tampa Bay also reported frost well before sunrise and warned residents to give themselves extra time this morning to scrape frost off their cars.

Low temperatures in the upper 20s were found in parts of the Florida Panhandle and northern Florida Peninsula Monday morning. This included cities like Jacksonville, Florida, where average low temperatures were in the lower 40s in January.

Page Field, an airport in Fort Myers, recorded a low temperature of 40 degrees Monday, the coldest morning on record in more than two years, according to AccuWeather. The average low temperature at Page Field is 54 degrees.

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What is this white stuff??? pic.twitter.com/O4uEQtxaoG  Dan D (@DanDickson24) January 24, 2022

Is more cold weather in the forecast for Florida?

What's ahead? There will be a slight chance of lightning storms across the state Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night, as a developing low over the Gulf of Mexico moves east toward and then across the Florida peninsula.

But more cold weather could hit early next week as Alberta clippers bring cold air into the South. An Alberta Clipper is a quick-moving winter storm system originating from Alberta, Canada, according to AccuWeather.

"Times of cold air are far from over, and next week could feature not one, but two cold air masses moving into the Lower 48," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Lauren Hyde.

"Cold air could reach as far south as northern Florida, leading to a chilly situation for parts of the Sunshine State," Hyde said.

NWS Mobile: Weather forecast for Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach

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 Another chilly night is anticipated tonight! Temperatures will dip into the upper 20s to lower 30s north of I-10 and into the 30s near the coast. #mobwx



 Make sure to bundle up as well as protect pets against the cold by providing warm shelter!  #WinterSafety pic.twitter.com/lB71OfkrMJ  NWS Mobile (@NWSMobile) January 23, 2022

Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 58. Calm wind becoming southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon. Tuesday: Showers, mainly before noon. High near 55. Northeast wind 5 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80 percent. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 54. North wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 56. Northeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming south in the afternoon. Friday: A 20 percent chance of showers before noon. Mostly sunny, with a high near 53. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 48. Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 55.

NWS Tallahassee: Weather forecasts for Panama City, Tallahassee

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8:05pm ET 1/23/22 - A forecast haiku for you this evening 



The next seven days,

Cold weather will stick around.

We are shivering. 



Here's a look at your highs and lows for the next week:#ALwx #FLwx #GAwx pic.twitter.com/4dpWAojh32  NWS Tallahassee (@NWSTallahassee) January 24, 2022

Today: Areas of frost before 9 a.m. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 59. West northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm. Tuesday: A chance of showers before 8 a.m., then rain, mainly after 8 a.m. High near 52. Calm wind becoming east around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 80 percent. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 60. North wind 5 to 10 mph. Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 58. Friday: A 20 percent chance of rain after 8am. Partly sunny, with a high near 56. Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 49. Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 56.

NWS Jacksonville: Weather forecasts for Jacksonville, St. Augustine

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Advisories:

 A frost advisory is in effect until 9 a.m. for coastal St. Johns, Flagler, Nassau and Duval counties. Temperatures could drop as low as 32.

Here are the forecast lows toward daybreak. Generally lows across the interior of SE GA and NE FL in the upper 20s to lower 30s, and the mid 30s closer to the coast. pic.twitter.com/tiyb8xM4vZ  NWS Jacksonville (@NWSJacksonville) January 24, 2022

Today: Widespread frost before 10 a.m. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 61. Wind chill values as low as 26 early. West wind 6 to 9 mph. Tuesday: Showers likely, mainly after noon. Cloudy, with a high near 56. Calm wind becoming east around 6 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 70 percent. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Wednesday: A 20 percent chance of showers before 8 a.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 61. North wind 7 to 14 mph. Thursday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 59. Breezy. Friday: A 20 percent chance of showers after 8am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 59. Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 51. Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 58.

NWS Melbourne: Weather forecasts for Daytona Beach, Melbourne, Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Stuart

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Advisories:

 A freeze warning continues for Lake and inland Volusia counties.

 A frost advisory is in effect until 8 a.m. from coastal Volusia, Okeechobee, Osceola, Seminole, Orange and Brevard counties. Temperatures as low as 33 to 34 across the area.

Jan 24| The only delay to the morning commute should be to get the frost off the car! Expect lots of sun with highs rebounding into the 60s. Another system approaching on Tuesday will spread clouds and rain into the area late in the day. pic.twitter.com/FOLSrF5zuI  NWS Melbourne (@NWSMelbourne) January 24, 2022

NWS Miami: Weather forecast for West Palm Beach, Naples

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1/23 at 7:30pm: Inland Broward County has been added to the Frost Advisory as the latest forecast has trended a tad colder. Low temperatures are forecast to range from the mid to upper 30s near Lake Okeechobee to the low to mid 40s elsewhere! Stay warm fellow South Floridians! pic.twitter.com/JpWZEDX974  NWS Miami (@NWSMiami) January 24, 2022

Surface temperatures will hover just above freezing thresholds, which may allow for frost across portions of the interior this morning.

Today: Sunny, with a high near 64. Wind chill values as low as 42 early. Northwest wind 9 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Tuesday: A 20 percent chance of showers after 1p.m. Partly sunny, with a high near 72. Northwest wind 6 to 10 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Wednesday: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 73. Breezy, with a south wind around 16 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70 percent. Thursday: A 20 percent chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 73. Breezy, with a north wind 15 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Friday: A 20 percent chance of showers after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 72. Breezy, with a west wind 14 to 17 mph. Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 60. Windy. Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 65. Breezy.

NWS Tampa Bay: Weather forecast for Lakeland, Fort Myers, Sarasota

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Advisories:

 A frost advisory is in effect until 8 a.m. for DeSoto, coastal Pasco, inland Charlotte, Highlands, inland Sarasota, inland Manatee, Polk, inland Hillsborough and Hardee counties. Temperatures could drop as low as 33.

It's a chilly morning with temps in the 20s and 30s over most inland areas, but still in the 40s to near 50 along the coast. If you're in some of those inland areas you'll likely need to allow time to scrap the automobile windows as frost has formed.#FLwx pic.twitter.com/HTj41qhy2u  NWS Tampa Bay (@NWSTampaBay) January 24, 2022

Today: Patchy frost before 7 a.m. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 64. Wind chill values as low as 38 early. North wind 3 to 6 mph.

Tuesday: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1 p.m. Increasing clouds, with a high near 69. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 7 mph in the morning. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Wednesday: A 30 percent chance of showers, mainly before 1 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 70. East northeast wind 5 to 9 mph becoming north in the afternoon.

Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 73. North wind 7 to 9 mph.

Friday: A 40 percent chance of showers after 1 p.m. Partly sunny, with a high near 70. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 59.

Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 65.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Florida weather: Temperatures drop to freezing, bringing frost
Ford Motor Co. will temporarily stop accepting all orders on its all-new 2022 Maverick compact pickup truck  both hybrid and gasoline versions  until summer, the automaker confirmed Monday.

Ford told dealers in a letter emailed Monday that orders for a gas-powered Maverick will be accepted through Thursday at close of business.

Ford hit pause on hybrid truck orders in December, which the Free Press tweeted Jan. 10.

This latest decision is an effort to avoid potential customer disappointment related to potential delivery delay, Ford spokesperson Said Deep told the Free Press.

"The plant builds Bronco Sport and Maverick and it's running full steam," Deep said. "We're trying to manage customer expectations on timing."

The company will open up its order process midsummer, he said.

2022 Ford Maverick compact pickup

The vehicle was revealed in June and consumers responded immediately to the award-winning pickup that starts at $20,000 and gets 42 mpg in the city.

The company saw reservations surge to 100,000 in August, mostly from California, Texas and Florida  specifically Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston and Orlando.

More: Popularity of Ford Maverick hybrid pickup has left automaker stunned

"We've seen incredible demand by consumers for the Maverick," car dealer Thad Szott said Monday. "Every month since the Maverick came out, we dealers get 'allocation.' At Szott Ford in Holly, we have had so much demand that every allocation we received had a customer, meaning we sold every one and had a list of people interested."

The Ford Maverick compact pickup can tow up to 4,000 pounds.

As a result of the overwhelming demand, Ford took back Mavericks given to its executives and sent them to a handful of dealers to sell, Szott said.

"It wasn't a lot, but Szott Ford received one," he told the Free Press. "As soon as we got word that we were receiving one, we went to our list and presold it in 10 minutes. When we found out that it was going to arrive, the customer that purchased it came to the dealership and waited for the transportation truck to show up with it. They immediately signed and took it home."

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Ford confirmed that the company asked its executives to turn in their leased Mavericks so that they could be sold to eager customers.

Two words sum up the Maverick demand, Szott said: "Wild times!"

His auto group also sells Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Toyota vehicles.

More: Ford Maverick team ate tons of Oreos while working in secret room

More: Ford F-150 Lightning dealer backs down from $10,000 markup

Meanwhile, many dealers will have Maverick pickups in their showrooms for sale, and dealers can call around to other dealers and try to find the color and special features that buyers are seeking, Deep said.

But for the buyers who want to special order, and that group is significant, "a good dealer will take your name and number and call you back," he said.

The new orders placed this summer will be for 2023 Mavericks, Deep said.

Steve Thomson, 69, is a Ford shareholder who retired as a parts manager at Koetting Ford in Granite City, Illinois, in 2016. He is seen here at Festus Ford in Herculaneum, Missouri on Oct. 21, 2021 with a 2022 Ford Maverick painted Area 51 gray. He loves the compact pickup.

This isn't the first time Ford has stopped its order process to manage an overwhelming response. In December, Ford stopped taking reservations for its all-electric F-150 Lightning.

Ford has seen strong demand and long waits for the Mustang Mach-E and Ford Bronco as consumers scramble to get these award-winning vehicles during a pandemic, when vehicle production has been slowed globally and prices are spiking.

Update: @Ford is building Maverick hybrid pickups to fill orders in the system now. The automaker to resume accepting new orders in August.  via spox Said Deep 1/10/22 #soldout https://t.co/HPvD9c9RWP via @freep @freepautos @FordTrucks  phoebesaid (@phoebesaid) January 10, 2022

The Maverick, Bronco Sport and Mach-E are assembled in Mexico. The all-electric F-150 is assembled in Dearborn. The full-size Bronco is built at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne.

More: How discontinued Maverick sedan evolved into Ford's newest thing in little pickups

More: How Ford kept its Maverick pickup a secret from everyone: 'Wildly audacious'

(This story has been corrected. Ford will take orders for the 2022 Maverick through Thursday.)

Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: phoward@freepress.com or 313-618-1034. Follow her on Twitter @phoebesaid. Read more on Ford and sign up for our autos newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 2022 Ford Maverick orders to pause until summer amid high demand
MILAN  Consistent with its bullish expansion plan  and now backed by the Italian private equity Made in Italy Fund, managed by Quadrivio and Pambianco  streetwear brand GCDS is opening more stores in China, a country that has been on the companys agenda since the beginning.

The brand is to open three new units in the Asian country, two located in Shanghai and one in Beijing, which will be directly operated.

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GCDS already counts doors in both cities, as well as five flagships in Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanjing, Shenzhen and Xian, opened over the years in partnership with entrepreneur Adrian Chengs Luxba Group.

We continue to believe that an online and digital identity is key, but not enough. Were committed to building a brick-and-mortar identity, too, to offer our customers the right experience and telegraph the brands ethos, said Giordano Calza, the companys cofounder and chief executive officer.

Detailing his plans for the APAC region in an interview with WWD last year, Calza had shared his commitment to address the Chinese market directly given the following the brand has garnered in the county.

The directly operated Beijing unit covers 1,184 square feet and is located inside premium department store China World Mall in the Central Business District. In keeping with the flamboyant and Kawaii-inspired aesthetics of the brand, the unit boasts metallic curtains and colorful displays and furniture including a claw crane machine.

In Shanghai both units are located inside malls and cover 1,184 square feet and 2,152 square feet, respectively. The former, on the second floor of the IAPM shopping mall, features ice-colored flooring and metallic details, as well as a life-size sand sculpture of the hero Matilda bag. The second unit is bowing at the Shanghai Village Outlet and is decorated with a giant reproduction of a sharks jaw.

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Since its launch in 2015, GCDS fun fashion creations, runway extravaganzas and pop-tinged aesthetics have gained a cult following in the country, which holds a special place for brothers Giuliano and Giordano Calza, both of whom have lived there.

In this country I was able to broaden my horizons, shaping my creativity and discovering the Chinese culture and traditions that continue to inspire me in my daily work, said Giuliano Calza, who holds the creative director title.

Overall, the brand operates 14 stores globally, including flagships in Rome and London and at Hong Kongs K11. It recently ran a temporary pop-up on Milans Via SantAndrea during the holiday season, which bowed in tandem with the launch of the GCDS x Bratz collection of dolls.




The Georgia prosecutor investigating possible efforts by former President Trump to interfere in the state's 2020 presidential election will be able to seat a special grand jury to aid in her probe.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) sent a letter last week to Fulton County Superior Court Chief Judge Christopher Brasher asking to impanel a special grand jury to assist in her investigation. A panel of judges agreed to that request on Monday.

The special grand jury will be impaneled on May 2 and can remain seated for up to a year.

"The special purpose grand jury shall be authorized to investigate any and all facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to alleged violations of the laws of the State of Georgia," Brasher wrote in an order on Monday.

Willis's investigation began in February and is primarily focused on a Jan. 2 phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), in which the former president said he wanted Raffensperger to "find" the roughly 12,000 votes that he would need to beat President Biden in the state's presidential election.

Special grand juries have the power to subpoena witnesses and gather documents, though they cannot return indictments. In her letter to Brasher last week, Willis noted that some witnesses have so far refused to comply with her investigation without a subpoena.

Among those witnesses who declined to cooperate absent a subpoena was Raffensperger, who found himself on Trump's target list last year after he rebuffed the former president's pleas to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Trump has repeatedly defended his call with Raffensperger, insisting in a statement last week that nothing he said in the conversation was inappropriate and claiming that it was a "perfect phone call."

More than a year after leaving the White House, Trump has continued to claim without evidence that he is the rightful winner of the 2020 election and that widespread fraud marred the outcome of the presidential race.
BERLIN (AP)  More than 120 employees of the Catholic Church in Germany publicly outed themselves as queer on Monday, saying they want to live openly without fear" in the church and pushing demands for it to allow the blessing of same-sex couples and change its labor rules.

A group of 125 people  including priests, religion teachers and administrative employees  identified themselves as backers of the initiative titled #OutInChurch  For a church without fear.

In a document last March, the Vaticans orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said Catholic clergy cannot bless same-sex unions because God cannot bless sin.

The document pleased conservatives and disheartened advocates for LGBT Catholics around the globe. But it drew notable pushback in Germany, which has seen discussion on hot-button issues such as the churchs teaching on homosexuality as part of a formal process of debate and reform.

Bernd Moenkebuescher, a pastor from western Germany who helped initiate blessings for same-sex couples last year, told the dpa news agency that the participants in the new initiative were inspired by a public coming-out by 185 actors in Germany last year.

The initiative is calling for all LGBTIQ who work for the church to join up, and appealing to bishops to give its manifesto public support. It assails the church's discrimination against same-sex relationships and argues the church should make clear that LGBTIQ+ people, whether living alone or in a relationship, are blessed by God.

The initiative especially calls on church officials to allow queer people to come out at work if they're working for a Catholic institution without having to fear that their work contracts will be canceled.

The #OutInChurch initiative demands ... to change the churchs labor law in such a way that a life in accordance with ones own sexual orientation and gender identity, also in a partnership or civil marriage, does not lead to exclusion from tasks and offices nor to dismissal, supporters of the initiative wrote.

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The German Bishops Conference welcomed the initiative, according to dpa.

I would like to welcome this on behalf of the German Bishops Conference as a sign that we are working to ensure that such a climate of freedom from fear must prevail and arise in our church, Aachen Bishop Helmut Dieser said on the sidelines of consultations of the Bishops Conference Permanent Council in Wurzburg.

No one, he said, should be discriminated against, devalued or criminalized because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

We have an image of man that tells us that the person is unconditionally loved by God, Dieser added.
Rich primate species in Vietnam threatened: WWF report

About 25 different primate species out of 44 found in Vietnam call the Greater Mekong home, but these unique species are increasingly threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, hunting and illegal trade.









A Hatinh langur, an endangered primates species is released at a forest in central Vietnam. About 25 different primate species were found in Vietnam out of a total of 44 in the Greater Mekong.

"Primates of the Greater Mekong: Status, Threats and Conservation Efforts"  a new World Wildlife Fund report, highlights the amazing diversity of lorises, macaques, langurs and gibbons that live in the five Greater Mekong countries -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.



The profiled species include the skywalker hoolock gibbon, which was described as a new species in 2017, and the Popa langur which was only described as a new species in 2020.



The 44 primate species found in the region, 19 of which are endemic, are a testament to the amazing biodiversity of the region, but their conservation status is a stark reminder of the grave threats they face.



Deforestation, habitat degradation and hunting driven by the wildlife trade have forced many primates in the Greater Mekong to the brink of extinction.



One-quarter of the species are classified as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List, while about half are categorized as Endangered.



Vietnam is home to five endemic primate species, all of which are included in the list of the worlds 25 most Critically Endangered species. Moreover, the latest Red List assessments show an increased extinction risk for a quarter of the primates compared to the previous assessments conducted in 2008, while the rest showed no reduction in their extinction risk.



Primates from this region are not only losing their precious habitat at an alarming rate, but they are also severely threatened by the wildlife trade - both legal and illegal. Their meat is sold as food, parts are traded for use in traditional medicine, and live animals are marketed as exotic pets or props for tourist selfies.











Rangers check a camera trap in the Saola Conservation site in Thua Thien Hue Province. Endangered species are increasingly threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, and hunting driven by consumption and illegal trade.



In Vietnam, although all primate species are protected by law or community convention, hunting, illegal captivity and trading are the primary causes for a decrease in primate populations.



The number of primates in the legal wildlife trade - often for use in biomedical research and pharmaceutical testing - has been on the increase, with the legal trade in primates estimated to be worth US$138 million in 2015.



Furthermore, research has predicted that all apes and Asian and African monkey species are at high risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans.



Zoonotic diseases - which have their origins in animals and are often caused by the frequent and unsafe contact between wildlife and humans in the trade - can then be transmitted back to animals, further threatening their survival.



Rhesus macaques and long-tailed macaques, both of which occur in the Greater Mekong region, have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in laboratories and developed COVID-19 symptoms similar to humans.



Fortunately, many organizations, government agencies and local communities are working tirelessly to protect some of these unique species from disappearing. The WWF is carrying out surveys in some protected areas to monitor primate populations, such as the white-handed gibbons in Nam Poui National Protected Area in Laos, or the Ha Tinh langur in Thach Hoa District of Quang Binh Province in central Vietnam.



In Vietnam, the WWF supported patrols are removing snares and releasing primates caught in traps back into the wild in the Annamite mountains.



Connecting fragmented forests and improving forest quality has also been a strategy that WWF has carried out in Vietnam to protect species over the past 30 years. Recently, WWF supported the upgrading of Song Thanh from a Nature Reserve to a National Park in Quang Nam Province, established two new Saola Nature Reserves in the central Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue provinces, and assisted government partners to extend protected areas in Quang Nam, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces. All of these efforts are to establish safe corridors for species to thrive.



Community awareness-raising activities about wildlife and primates are regularly carried out in communities that live close to the species habitats, as well as with other key stakeholders at the national level. Besides providing conservation knowledge, WWFs campaigns in Vietnam also encourage public changes in behaviour and engage local communities to protect their primates.



Many other conservation organisations are protecting, researching, rescuing and restoring the unique primates in the region. Fauna and Flora International is working extensively in Vietnam and Myanmar to monitor and protect threatened primates in key locations.



The Endangered Primate Rescue Centre in Cuc Phuong, in the northern Ninh Binh Province of Vietnam, is rescuing and working on breeding threatened species to reintroduce them to the wild. The Little Fireface Project is researching lorises in the wild while also working to tackle their trade as pets and props for selfie-tourism.



Organisations like the Jahoo Gibbon Camp in Cambodia and the Gibbon Experience in Laos are creating safe ways for tourists to see and hear primates in the wild, with above local economy and livelihoods and in turn, reduce hunting pressure.



If the remaining primate populations in the Greater Mekong are to survive and eventually recover to viable numbers, governments, NGOs, corporates and local communities must all work together and implement conservation measures targeted at primates, said Van Thinh Ngoc, CEO of WWF-Viet Nam.



WWF is currently working with other primatologists to review primate conservation efforts in Vietnam; there is hope to save these incredible species that make our region unique, but we must act swiftly and decisively.



The WWF is calling on decision-makers to include interventions needed to address key drivers of zoonotic disease outbreaks in their pandemic prevention plans. Closing forests and high-risk wildlife markets, for example, will help recover wildlife populations and maintain local and global biodiversity that naturally help regulate disease, as well as help ensure sustainable use of natural resources.



To support the fight against COVID-19, citizens are highly recommended not to buy, sell or consume wildlife products.
Agents from the FBIs Chicago office searched the Rolling Meadows offices of the Center for COVID Control on Saturday, a source said.

The company has earned scrutiny from law enforcement in Illinois and Minnesota for alleged fraud and deceptive business practices in its testing facilities.

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In an emailed statement, the FBI said that agents were conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in Rolling Meadows on Saturday.

The Center for COVID Control storefront is closed in the 1600 block of East Oakton Street in Des Plaines on Jan. 14, 2022. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Department of Justice policy prevents the FBI from commenting on the nature of any investigations that may or may not be occurring, the statement read.

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The center was supposed to have reopened on Saturday after announcing its temporary closure days before the Illinois attorney generals office announced a probe into possible fraudulent activity.

I opened an investigation into the Center for COVID Control in response to our residents contacting my office to report a number of concerning issues at the Center for COVID Controls pop-up COVID-19 testing locations throughout Illinois. Complaints have ranged from testing results being delayed or not received at all, to results being provided to individuals who were never administered a test, to tests being stored improperly, and staff incorrectly using PPE and face masks, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement released Thursday.

According to a news release dated Thursday, the Center for COVID Control said it was delaying its reopening. As previously announced, CCC is using this operational pause to train additional staff on sample collection and handling, customer service and communications best practices, as well as compliance with regulatory guidelines. CCC will provide an update on reopening plans when appropriate.

Raouls announcement also came the same week that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a lawsuit against the center and a second group, claiming the center failed to deliver test results, or delivered test results that were falsified or inaccurate.

Minnesota officials found former employees who reported finding samples in bags that were well over 48 hours old, being ordered to falsify dates of receipt, and being instructed to lie to patients about their tests being inconclusive or negative when the sample had not been tested.

Numerous consumer complaints regarding not receiving test results, poor customer service and requesting personally identifiable information led the Better Business Bureau of Illinois to give the center a grade of F.

Pop-up COVID-19 testing locations arent regulated by any government agency, according to Raouls office.

Opened in 2020, the Illinois-based company runs more than 300 testing sites, including 30 across Chicago, according to WGN-TV.

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Chicago Tribunes Jason Meisner contributed.
BRUSSELS (AP)  As the United States grapples with the 5G rollout affecting airlines, a European Union watchdog warned on Monday the EU faces much bigger economic and security threats unless member countries step up cooperation.

The alarm bells are included in a special report on the 27-nation blocs preparations for 5G, the fifth and next generation of wireless communications. 5G is projected to propel the world into a new digital age -- one with greater technological innovations but also vulnerabilities.

The study by the European Court of Auditors has a two-pronged clarion call, saying Europe is falling behind North America and Asia in the rollout of 5G networks and the EU needs to beef up its strategy to counter accompanying national-security risks.

There are considerable delays in the member states deployment of 5G networks and further efforts are necessary to address security issues in 5G deployment, the Luxembourg-based ECA said in its 69-page evaluation.

In the U.S., the start of 5G telecommunication services has prompted airlines to complain about possible interference with planes navigation instruments and disruptions to air travel.

The world is rushing to install 5G infrastructure as a result of its higher data capacity and transmission speeds, which promise to transform everything from car driving and livestock farming to sports broadcasting and goods manufacturing.

In this race with high economic stakes, EU nations are moving too slowly because of a failure to do things such as assign radio spectrum for 5G services, according to the ECA.

It said a majority of the blocs member states is set to miss a common rollout target fixed for 2025, when they are supposed to ensure uninterrupted 5G coverage in urban areas and along main transport routes.

By mid-decade, just 35% of all mobile connections in Europe will be based on 5G compared with 51% in North America and 53% in Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, according to a telecommunications industry study cited by the ECA. The projected 2025 figure for China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan is 48%.

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As a result, most EU countries may also fail to achieve a more ambitious joint goal for 2030: making 5G services available to all segments of the population.

There is a high risk that the 2025 deadline  and therefore also the 2030 one for the coverage of all populated areas  will be missed by a majority of member states, the ECA said.

The lost economic benefits for the EU could be large. 5G is expected to trigger exponential increases in the consumption of data in a bloc, where services account for about 70% of gross domestic product.

Citing a separate, tech-industry study, the ECA indicated that 5G could add as much as 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) to the European economy and create or transform 2 million jobs between 2021 and 2025.

But such economic rewards require a lot more spending on 5G, whose deployment across the EU until 2025 could cost almost 400 billion euros ($452 billion), according to the ECA. These funds need to come primarily from mobile network operators, it said.

Differences among EU countries over 5G security partly explain the delays in the rollout of the infrastructure, the ECA said. It highlighted member-state divergences in the treatment of Chinese 5G vendors such as Huawei, which face U.S. allegations of serving the geopolitical ambitions of Chinas Communist Party.

While the U.S. government has taken a hard line against Chinese suppliers involvement in American 5G networks, the European Commission  the EUs executive arm  has tread more carefully. A key constraint for the European Commission is that national-security decisions remain in member countries hands.

Although the EU has come up with a toolbox to align national approaches to classifying high-risk 5G vendors, ambiguities exist and the whole initiative needs more bloc-wide regulatory teeth, according to the ECA.

There remains a risk that the toolbox in itself cannot guarantee that member states address security aspects in a concerted manner, the organization said.

The European Commission sought to offer assurances on 5G security after the ECA published its report, saying in a statement that it's very attentive to reinforcing the security of 5G networks and that, based on the toolbox, most member states have managed to protect the most sensitive parts of the networks from high-risk suppliers.

___

This story has been corrected to show that the currency conversion in the 14th paragraph is $452 billion, not $352 billion.
One bill would test New Hampshire public school teachers loyalty to the United States. Another would give parents the power to opt their children out of lessons they find objectionable.

A pair of bills aimed at public school classrooms have driven a fresh round of debate in the State House over the balance between teacher discretion and parental oversight.

The Republican-backed bills, which were taken up by the House Education Committee Thursday, seek to advance mechanisms for parents to exert more control over their school curriculum, part of an effort the party has made to curtail the perceived intrusion of critical race theory into public schools.

My intent is to make sure that teachers are educating and not indoctrinating, said Rep. Alicia Lekas, a Hudson Republican who sponsored the teacher loyalty bill, House Bill 1255.

Conservatives already made major strides toward that goal in 2021, when the Legislature passed a law banning certain concepts around race and gender from being taught in public schools, and allowing parents to sue teachers they believed were in violation. The new legislation this year adds further requirements for teachers.

House Bill 1015 would expand the existing statute that requires that teachers provide two weeks of advanced notice of their curriculum for health and sex education in schools. The bill would require teachers to provide notice of materials for all courses, and allow parents to lodge objections to materials they found objectionable and require the school to provide alternative instruction.

HB 1255 would create an area of statute centered on teachers loyalty that seeks to target any teachings that the United States was founded on slavery.

No teacher shall advocate any doctrine or theory promoting a negative account or representation of the founding and history of the United States of America in New Hampshire public schools which does not include the worldwide context of now outdated and discouraged practices, the bill states. Such prohibition includes but is not limited to teaching that the United States was founded on racism.

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Teachers that are in violation could find themselves facing disciplinary sanctions from the State Board of Education, including a loss of their license, the bill states.

For the teachers who came to the State House Thursday, the newly proposed bills are the latest potential challenge to their ability to teach freely.

Some took issue with HB 1015, testifying that a mandatory two weeks of notice of all course materials could make spontaneous lessons difficult to pull off.

Megan Tuttle, NEA-NH president, the largest teachers union in New Hampshire.

Good teachers adjust their lessons daily, said Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, a former eighth-grade social studies teacher. Two weeks in advance isnt always whats going to be happening in the classroom.

Others took aim at the loyalty bill.

Questioning my loyalty is demeaning, said Jennifer Given, a history teacher in the state. Questioning my loyalty is an insult. The idea that I show up to work every day for low wages and in unsafe conditions, and Im not loyal, I mean, I would love to know what your definition of loyalty is.

Given, who teaches AP World History, said her lessons demonstrate the scope of slavery and forced labor around the world, and include nuance. But she said that certain lessons were clear cut: fascism and slavery are wrong. Teaching that, she said, is not indoctrination.

The Legislature is in my view over-solving the problem by reaching so far into my classroom as to tell me what I can and cannot say in order to try to address some kind of vague assertion that people have made or somebody watched a YouTube video (about), Given said.

Deb Howes, president of the American Federation of Teachers of New Hampshire, echoed the point.

The problem with saying you dont want indoctrination is indoctrination is in the eye of the beholder, Howes said. It is a very subjective term. It is a very vague term. And when you tie that to peoples livelihoods, then you have put a punishment over something that is vague and subjective.

A parent who testified, Russan Chester, had a different view. Teachers should remove any intention of teaching students what to think about historical events, Chester argued to lawmakers, and let students decide themselves.

I would argue that its not our educators job to teach that slavery is wrong  although it is, in my opinion, Chester said. Its not the teachers job to teach that Jim Crow laws were wrong, or what happened to the Japanese Americans in our country was wrong. Whats important is you teach them the facts. You provide them with the ability to understand and form their own philosophies and opinions about what is and is not their truths.

Lekas, speaking to her bill, sought to draw a distinction in terms.

Theres a big difference between education and indoctrination, she said. It is one thing to try to teach religion, and dive into conflicts that have happened as a result of it.

But, if I were to try to persuade you that my religion is the right religion  if I were to ask questions on a test that if you didnt go along with that, then you got a bad grade, thats indoctrination, Lekas said.

One former student opposed the bill for personal reasons. When Jonah Wheeler attended school in Peterborough, he was the only Black person in his school. In third grade, ahead of a class introducing the life and works of Martin Luther King, his teacher took him aside one on one, Wheeler recalled to the committee.

And she told me about Martin Luther King, sort of separate from the conversation that we were having in the classroom, Wheeler said. Because she knew that the conversation around King, the realities around what he was doing in that time, its too much for a third-grader. But if youre a third-grader who has no mentor to look to, a third-grader who has no one who he can say, Hey, thats me, then you need to know that history. Because you need to know who you are.

It was the kind of conversation that Wheeler believes might not have been possible under the recent teaching restriction law or the proposed teacher loyalty bill. But it was one that he thought was important to be had freely and openly.

We all have some understanding of the horrors that government or unchecked government can do to people, Wheeler said. Why would we not want the future leaders of our country, the future educators of our country, to have a full and fruitful discussion about those horrors?

This story was originally published by New Hampshire Bulletin.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH teachers push back against efforts to regulate instruction
FARMINGTON  The Navajo Nation controller's office is working to release hardship assistance checks this week to eligible older tribal members after a setback earlier this month.

The rollout was delayed because the office was short-staffed after several employees tested positive for COVID-19, a Jan. 23 news release from the tribal president's office explained.

Last week, acting Controller Elizabeth Begay mentioned the staff shortage in a report to the Budget and Finance Committee.

"We got behind because we had COVID breakout here in my office," Begay said to the committee on Jan. 19.

She explained that the office was closed by the tribe's Health Command Operations Center for two days during the week of Jan. 10 because of COVID-19 infections among staff.

In addition to the office closure, employees are handling more than 16,000 requests from hardship assistance recipients to change mailing address, Begay explained.

Elizabeth Begay

Tribal leaders approved using funds left from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to help enrolled tribal members aged 60 and over who received hardship assistance checks in either 2020 or 2021.

The president's office news release stated these recipients "can expect" checks in the mail this week.

Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in the release that the rise in new COVID-19 cases on the tribal land has impacted employees within the three branches of government.

"We have employees who are required to quarantine, isolate and work from home due to infections and exposures," Nez said. "We understand that our elders need relief now and our employees are working hard, but we have to take safety precautions as well."

The controller's office is still looking at releasing hardship assistance checks from the American Rescue Plan Act in February.

Work on those payments will start after assistance for older Navajos is complete, Begay said.

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It has been nearly eight months since the tribe received the first amount in ARPA funding from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. Support local journalism with a digital subscription to The Daily Times.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Hardship assistance checks to older Navajo coming, officials say




Today is Monday. Welcome to Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Subscribe here: thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

Follow The Hill's tech team, Chris Mills Rodrigo (@millsrodrigo) and Rebecca Klar (@rebeccaklar_), for more coverage.

Attorneys generals in three states and Washington, D.C., filed lawsuits against Google on Monday focused on allegations that the tech giant made misleading claims about privacy and deceived consumers into giving their location data.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that Russia may pursue a cyberattack against the U.S.

Let's jump into the news.

Going after Google

Google

The attorneys general of three states and Washington, D.C., are filing lawsuits Monday alleging that Google deceived consumers into giving up their location data.

The suits allege that the search giant made misleading promises about how much privacy it could guarantee users dating back to at least 2014.

Google also allegedly used "dark patterns" - user interface tricks employed by websites to get individuals to do things against their will - to inadvertently make consumers share more data, the attorneys general claim.

"Google falsely led consumers to believe that changing their account and device settings would allow customers to protect their privacy and control what personal data the company could access," D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D) said in a statement.

The attorneys general of Texas, Washington and Indiana are expected to file lawsuits in their own states as well.

"Google's founding motto is 'Don't Be Evil,'" Texas's Ken Paxton (R) said. "And yet it systematically lies to millions of consumers in order to stack billions of dollars into its coffers."

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said in a statement that the AGs are "bringing a case based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings."

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"We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data," he added.

Read more here.

DSH issues warning on Russia

V. Putin

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is warning that Russia may pursue a cyberattack against the U.S. as tensions escalate over Moscow's buildup of forces near the border with Ukraine, according to multiple reports.

The DHS bulletin, dated Sunday, outlined that Russia could launch such an attack if it perceived any U.S. or NATO response to be a threat to its own national security.

"We assess that Russia would consider initiating a cyber attack against the Homeland if it perceived a US or NATO response to a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine threatened its long-term national security," the agency said in the bulletin released to law enforcement partners, ABC News reported.

Administration officials have pinned both the Colonial Pipeline attack, which shut down the flow of oil, as well as the attack on meat supplier JBS on attackers based in Russia.

The Sunday bulletin noted Russian military assets have also launched attacks in Ukraine, pointing to attacks on the former Soviet state's power grid in both 2015 and 2016.

Read more here.

INFLUENCER SENTENCED TO HOME DETENTION IN JAN. 6 CASE

A social media influencer has been sentenced to three months of home detention for a charge stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Brandon Straka, 45, who founded a pro-Trump social media campaign that works to steer Democrats away from their party, was sentenced to home detention, three years of probation and a $5,000 fine, according to The Associated Press.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of disorderly conduct in October. He was initially also charged with impeding law enforcement during civil disorder, but prosecutors dropped that count. Prosecutors had recommended that he receive four months in home detention, according to the AP.

Straka is the founder of the "#WalkAway Campaign," which he started after his video, titled "Why I left the Democrat Party," spread rapidly online in 2018.

Read more here.

BITS AND PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Why Congress should pass data privacy legislation in 2022

Lighter click: Fact checking (Taylor's version)

Notable links from around the web:

Facebook Promised Poor Countries Free Internet. People Got Charged Anyway. (The Wall Street Journal / Justin Scheck, Tom McGinty and Newley Purnell)

Nothing Sacred: These Apps Reserve The Right To Sell Your Prayers (BuzzFeed News / Emily Baker-White)

Amazon's Mandatory 'Wellness Huddles' Tell Workers to Eat Their Vegetables (Motherboard / Lauren Kaori Gurley)

One last thing: Court allows Assange to appeal

Julian Assange can appeal a decision that said he could be extradited to the United States, the High Court in London said in a decision handed down Monday.

Assange is wanted on a dozen espionage charges in the United States, which is pushing for his extradition.

Late last year, a British court ruled that the WikiLeaks founder could be extradited to the U.S. over the charges.

But London's High Court will allow Assange to appeal the case to the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom.

The Supreme Court, however, must accept it before it progresses any further, a process that typically takes about eight weeks, according to The Associated Press.

Read more here.

That's it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill's technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We'll see you Tuesday.
In need of a new mascara? Here's why this Holly-approved one is worth adding to your basket. (PA)

Yahoo Lifestyle is committed to finding you the best products at the best prices. We may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Pricing and availability are subject to change.

Holly Willoughby graces our screen almost every day of the week, as she co-hosts This Morning most weekdays and Dancing on Ice at the weekends, alongside Phillip Schofield.

And every day we can't help but feel in awe of the 40 year old presenter's look, whether it's her stylish high street ensembles, or her extravagant evening gowns and glamorous beauty looks.

Willoughby's make-up artist, Patsy O'Neill, is always on hand to share the products behind Willoughby's flawless skincare, which always includes a few affordable faves, from a bargain 5 concealer to a 14 mascara.

On Saturday, O'Neill posted all the details behind Willoughby's latest Dancing On Ice look, but it wasn't the soft purple eyeshadow that caught our attention, it was Willoughby's full, long lashes, which O'Neill revealed she created using Glossier's Lash Slick Mascara.

Glossier is a firm favourite with beauty fanatics.

It burst onto the scene in 2014 and quickly become one of the most talked about beauty brands on social media, having now amassed over two million followers on Instagram and a hugely loyal fan base.

And it wasn't the the first time O'Neill has used the product on Willoughby either.

The mascara was also used in a February episode of Dancing on Ice last year, when Willoughby opted for a pink ensemble and blush make-up look to follow the Valentine's Day theme.

So, what makes the mascara so great, you ask?

Well, it's already a permanent feature in my make-up bag, so allow me to share with you why this Willoughby-approved product is definitely worth the hype.

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Why I rate it

For me, Glossier's Lash Slick Mascara ticks all the boxes: It's lengthening, helps to define each individual lash and doesn't cause my lashes to clump together (my pet peeve).

With just one coat your lashes are lifted to accentuate your everyday look without looking "overdone". This is thanks to Glossier's Japanese Fiber Technology, which adds fibres to the lashes to lengthen them.

My favourite part of this beauty buy is the tapered comb brush. It has tiered bristles, as well as a precise tip, to allow you to evenly coat every individual lash from root to tip, while also avoiding any clumping.

The formula contains vegan biotin, which nourishes and conditions for healthy lashes. Not only does this make my lashes feel nourished and hydrated but it also prevents any dry flaky mascara residue building up.

Plus, it is water-resistant and smudge proof, which means it is long lasting, (although it is important to stress Lash Slick is not waterproof).

14 at Glossier

But that doesn't mean it is stubborn to remove. It wipes off with ease with make-up remover, micellar water or cleanser.

Lash Slick is cruelty free and fragrance free, plus it has been dermatologically and ophthalmologically tested, so it is suitable for those with sensitive eyes and contact lens wearers.

The mascara offers all this for a super affordable 14, which when compared to the huge variety of more expensive options I've tried over the years, is well worth the money.

This mascara is one cosmetic product I can't live without. It's subtle enough for the "no make-up, make-up look", but also ideal for effortless glam looks.

What the reviews say

Not only are we, Willoughby and O'Neill fans, but so are other shoppers, as Lash Slick has racked up over 3,000 glowing reviews from customers.

Here's what the reviews say:

"Lash Slick is awesome. It's lengthening, never comes out in clumps, and the spoolie is thin so it's easy to get to the base of your lashes."

"This mascara effectively lengthens and curls my stubbornly straight lashes without feeling heavy. I prefer a natural but more defined look, and that's exactly what it achieves. It's my favourite mascara."

"I love this mascara, it is so natural and doesn't flake."

"My search stops here! Love this mascara. Rich colour but not too heavy, and doesnt flake."

"I was obsessed with this mascara when I first bought it and still am two years and a few tubes later! Its perfect for making my lashes noticeable on no make-up days."

Buy it: Lash Slick Mascara | 14 from Glossier

Lash Slick mascara

Watch: How to make your make-up last all day
Heather Kasten, president/CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce.

Leadership matters and its not for the faint of heart. Its a critically important concept, and a focus for your Greater of Sarasota Chamber of Commerce team in 2022.

Leadership starts at the top and is usually the difference between a company that excels and one that struggles. At the Chamber, we are diligently working to build, support and grow leaders in the business community and the community as a whole. We understand that supporting and strengthening leaders creates the opportunity to unlock new economic opportunities and is a building block for private sector job growth.

So, when it comes to leadership from the business community, where does the rubber meet the road in 2022?

 The Sarasota Chamber of Commerce for over 100 years has served and will continue to serve as a platform for connection, referrals and collaboration for our businesses. Building a network of relationships with our members is key to having a strong, united business community.

 The Chamber will be collaborating with many notable community groups to improve access to affordable housing, smart development and other programs focused on building Sarasotas bright future. Affordable housing is a legitimate business issue that affects our economy and the workforce of this community.

 A key resource that we provide at the Chamber is being a source of reliable, relevant, and impactful information for the business community. Here at the Chamber, we not only see knowledge as power, but also as intel that serves to arm businesses with the information, they need to power their businesses.

 We need to continue to develop the prosperous business climate in Florida and Sarasota. Not having a state income tax, for instance, attracts businesses from other highly taxed states to Florida. Many times, these calls come to the Chamber from businesses looking to relocate to our area. We work with our partners at the EDC to steer them to the resources they need to make a transition happen. The momentum of growth in Florida is stronger than ever, with close to 1,000 people a day moving here. If Florida were a country, it would be the 15th largest economy in the world based on GDP.

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 We need to prepare our infrastructure for smart growth and development. Our transportation systems need to be constructed to better meet the needs of the working middle class. According to a study from the Tampa Bay Partnership, we have some catching up to do relative to metropolitan areas of similar sizes and with similar demographics  specifically increasing the availability of transportation options.

 We must continue the full-court press around workforce development, creating a solid talent pipeline for our employers. Through the Chambers CareerEdge programming, we partner with companies to upskill workers and create fast-track programs in the region. Our internship programs are a win-win for companies, as well as the individuals who participate in them. Its a great try before you buy for both parties. Right now, Florida is creating 1 out of every 4 jobs in the country, per the Florida Chamber Foundation.

 Our Opportunities for All program will continue to build upon the success of its inaugural year of placing minority interns with local companies and supporting small minority-owned companies through our business grant program. Building and supporting a diverse business ecosystem helps all of our local businesses to thrive.

 The Chamber will continue to build and strengthen local leaders through our Leadership Sarasota programs. This year we had a record number of applicants for this prestigious program, which is an immersive acclimation to the Sarasota community and its needs. In addition, the Young Professionals Group is an active group designed to engage professionals 40 and under with a platform of events geared towards career growth and connection.

Well be sharing more insight on all of these topics at our upcoming 2022 annual Chamber Breakfast on Friday, March 25, at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota. Our featured speaker is Natalie Johnson, who will be speaking on the topic of leadership. Natalie is also the founder and co-owner of ViDL Solutions.

On Feb. 10, we will be hosting our annual Party By The Bay" event at the bayfront lawn of the Van Wezel. This event brings community leaders together to enjoy an evening of delicious foods, cocktails, and conversations with the backdrop of a Sarasota sunset. Bringing leaders together in a world-class setting for a very special evening is an event that you wont want to miss. For more information on this event and all Chamber programs, please visit sarasotachamber.com.

We have a full docket of opportunities and challenges before us in Sarasota, all of which are things that need our collective attention, engagement and leadership in order to continue to have a strong and robust economy for us to live and work in.

The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce works to cultivate Sarasota's prosperity and quality of life through our member businesses. To learn more, please visit our website and CareerEdgefunders.org.

Heather Kasten is the president/CEO of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and has been with the organization since March of 2019. She has a bachelors degree from the University of Iowa in business administration and a MBA from Webster University. Contact her at hkasten@sarasotachamber.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: HEATHER KASTEN: Sarasota Chamber focused on smart growth, development
BOSTON  For a second time, former mayor Jasiel Correia II, destined to report to federal prison in a week, asked Judge Douglas Woodlock on Friday to stay out of prison  this time until March.

Correia, who was sentenced to six years in federal prison in September for political corruption, cited an increase in infections of the omicron variant of COVID-19. His attorneys, William Fick and Daniel Marx, asked to delay his reporting to prison "in light of the ongoing public health crisis," for either at least 45 days or until two weeks after the close of evidence in co-defendant Gen Andrades trial, set to begin March 7.

The attorneys suggest that "by then, the current COVID-19 surge may have subsided."

The five-page court filing also shed light on where Correia will be spending his time in prison: Federal Correctional Institution Berlin, in Berlin, New Hampshire.

Former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II enters John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse in September 2021 with his wife, Jen Correia.

COVID delay: Former mayor Jasiel Correia gets a few more weeks of freedom due to pandemic surge

Government: If Correia can work at a restaurant, he can go to prison

Later on Friday, the government filed its opposition to the motion, saying "Justice delayed is justice denied."

Prosecutors noted that other convicted felons with serious health conditions have been denied compassionate release due to the COVID pandemic, and included evidence they suggest shows the omicron surge is already beginning to wane.

Correia's defense attorneys wrote that their motion is not intended as a tactic for improper delay, and if it is allowed, Mr. Correia will continue to work for his familys small business and to abide by all conditions of supervision, as he has since his arrest more than three years ago, on October 11, 2018.

Prosecutors were unmoved by the motion. "Correia, who recently turned 30 years old, presents no physical ailments that put him at any greater risk in prison for COVID-19 than the older and more physically frail defendants already serving their debts to society," wrote U.S. Attorney Rachael S. Rollins in the government's motion. "Indeed, if Correia is apparently of sound enough health in order to run 'front-of-the-house' and 'back-of-the-house' duties ... at his familys luxury steak house ... he is hale and hearty enough to start serving his prison sentence."

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What's coming in 2022: Jasiel Correia fraud and corruption saga will continue. Here's what to expect

Then-Mayor Jasiel Correia walks down South Main Street, waving to a cheering crowd during the Fall River Children's Holiday Parade on Dec. 1, 2018.

This could be Correia's third delay

If Woodlock approves this latest request by Correia and his defense team, it would be the third delay for the 30-year-old to self-report to a Bureau of Prisons facility.

In November, Correia asked for a one-month reprieve from his original report date Dec. 3, to Jan. 3, to help out during the holidays at the Towne House on Purchase Street, the restaurant and function hall owned by the family of his wife, Jenny Correia.

Woodlock gave him that extension, adding an extra week to take him to Jan. 10. Woodlock granted him another delay to Jan. 28, at that time citing an increase in COVID cases.

Defense: Too many COVID cases in FCI Berlin

The Bureau of Prisons website indicates that FCI Berlin holds a total of 757 male prisoners  723 in a medium-security facility, and 34 at an adjacent minimum-security camp.

In Correia's motion, his attorneys maintain that according to BOP data, approximately 25% of the total population of prisoners at FCI Berlin have tested positive for COVID, or 188 cases. They also note nine positive cases from staff.

Those alarming figures put FCI Berlin in the top 10 of the hardest-hit prisons among all BOP facilities nationwide. As an emergency measure, the BOP has indefinitely suspended all visiting at the prison, according to his attorneys.

A warning on the website for FCI Berlin confirms that no visitors are allowed at the facility "until further notice."

Asking for a delay: Jasiel Correia wants to stay free while he appeals his conviction on fraud and extortion

Former Fall River Mayor Jasiel Correia II enters John Joseph Moakley Federal Courthouse in September.

Correia's conviction appeal is pending

Correia is appealing his conviction in May after a monthlong trial with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and has asked to stay out of prison pending that appeal.

To date, Woodlock has yet to rule on that motion.

Correia needs that ruling to either stay out of prison pending the appeal if Woodlock rules in his favor; or if not, to ask the appeals court for a stay before they decide whether he should get a new trial.

Andrade trial moved to March: Here's why the judge continued the trial of Jasiel Correia's chief of staff

Correia says Andrades March trial could affect his motion

The corruption trial of former mayoral chief of staff Andrade started on Dec. 6, but halfway through jury selection was abruptly halted when it was discovered one of the governments witnesses had contracted COVID. Woodlock never identified the witness.

Correia's most recent motion asks to be kept out of prison pending Andrades trial, that he be given a delay of his surrender date until 14 days after the close of evidence in her proceeding, which is set to begin again March 7.

Among other reasons, evidence introduced at Ms. Andrades forthcoming trial may inform this Courts consideration of Mr. Correias pending motion to stay, his attorneys argued.

Then-Mayor Jasiel Correira and Gen Andrade, his chief of staff and co-defendant on corruption charges, in a November 2020 photo.

On May 14, Correia was convicted of 21 counts of wire fraud, tax fraud, extortion and extortion conspiracy. A jury found that he intentionally misused hundreds of thousands of dollars in investors' money in a smartphone app he developed called SnoOwl, spending it on everything from luxury clothing and cars to student loan payments to adult entertainment. He also was found guilty of lying on his income taxes, and extorting potential marijuana vendors for the paperwork necessary to do business in Fall River. However, during sentencing, Woodlock threw out 10 of the wire fraud and tax fraud convictions on grounds that prosecutors provided insufficient evidence for a conviction.

Woodlock sentenced Correia to six years in federal prison and ordered Correia to pay about $300,000 in restitution to the investors in SnoOwl.

Andrade is facing four counts of extortion conspiracy, aiding and abetting extortion, bribery and lying to government law enforcement.

Jo C. Goode may be reached at jgoode@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism and subscribe to The Herald News today!

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Jasiel Correia asks to stay out of New Hampshire prison until March
About 40 police departments and law enforcement agencies from around the Hudson Valley showed their support Sunday for the New York City police officer who was killed during a domestic disturbance call in Manhattan on Friday night.

On Sunday afternoon a caravan of vehicles traveled as one group from the Westchester County Police Academy in Valhalla to the NYPD's 32nd Precinct in Harlem, where Officer Jason Rivera worked before he was shot to death on Friday.

"We mourn the loss of life that has occurred and stand united with the men and women of the NYPD," the Westchester County police said in a statement Sunday. "Our officers brought wreaths, food, cards and a contribution to the fund that will assist the families impacted by this enormous tragedy. Our collective message to the NYPD was: We Stand With You. Different patches, same police family."

Hudson Valley police departments brought wreaths to the NYPD's 32nd Precinct in Harlem on Jan. 23, 2022, to show support for slain officer Jason Rivera.

NYC: NYPD Officer Jason Rivera killed during shooting in Harlem

Protests: Do they work? Research sheds light on racial justice movement

COVID: More NY kids ending up in hospitals, fewer getting vaccinated

Many local police unions and agencies also contributed to the fund established by the NYPD to support Rivera's family, the Westchester police said.

Rivera, 22, was shot at an apartment on 135th Street in Manhattan while responding to a call from a woman who needed help with her adult son. Police said Rivera and another officer, Wilbert Mora, walked down a hallway in the apartment and were met by the son, who swung open a bedroom door and opened fire at them.

Hudson Valley police departments traveled to the NYPD's 32nd Precinct in Harlem on Jan. 23, 2022, to show support for slain officer Jason Rivera.

Rivera was killed, while Mora was critically injured.

Sunday's caravan was organized by the Westchester County police and Port Chester police. It included departments from Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Fairfield counties.

Hudson Valley police departments traveled to the NYPD's 32nd Precinct in Harlem on Jan. 23, 2022, to show support for slain officer Jason Rivera.

Among the participants were police in Ardsley, Bedford, Bronxville, Clarkstown, Dobbs Ferry, Eastchester, Greenburgh, Harrison, Kent, Larchmont, Mount Pleasant, Mount Vernon, New Castle, New Rochelle, North Castle, Orangetown, Pelham, Pelham Manor, Port Chester, Rye Brook, Rye, Scarsdale, Sleepy Hollow, Stamford, Tuckahoe, White Plains, Yonkers and Yorktown; Westchester County police; the sheriff's departments in Dutchess, Putnam and Rockland counties; New York State Police; Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police; Rockland District Attorney's Office; Westchester B.L.U.E. Foundation; Westchester County Public Safety Emergency Force; Westchester Department of Emergency Services; and Dutchess County 10-13 Foundation of the Hudson Valley.

Matt Spillane covers breaking news throughout the Hudson Valley. Click here for his latest stories. Follow him on Twitter @MattSpillane. Check out our latest subscription offers here.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hudson Valley police show support for slain NYPD Officer Jason Rivera
Every six months, 6-year-old Hazlet resident Julia Gartner visits Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia for tests. Julia has a brain tumor, is immunocompromised, and doesnt exactly look forward to going.

She does, however, enjoy bringing her custom-made hospital gowns along. Theyre adorned with patterns of rainbows, unicorns and butterflies. Her favorite gown features Elsa, the princess in "Frozen" of Disney fame.

It helps make the trip a little bit easier, said Sabrina Gartner, Julia's mom. "She does not really like wearing the gowns that are at the hospital.

Julias handmade gowns are longer, brighter-colored and come from a special source: Giuliana Demma, an 11-year-old from Freehold Township who sews and sends gowns to pediatric cancer patients around the country.

Julia Gartner of Hazlet wearing a handmade Elsa hospital gown given to her by Giuliana Demma

I wanted to make gowns for kids who are going through hard times in the hospital as they battle cancer, Giuliana said. Im doing it because it makes me happy knowing what I can do for kids who are fighting for their lives.

Shes donated 150 gowns so far. They're being worn in Florida, Wisconsin, California and even Canada. Her initiative, Gs Giving Gowns, even received corporate backing  $1,000 from ImageFIRST, a national medical laundry provider that cleans and packages Giuliana's gowns to hospital standards.

Giuliana is truly an inspiration, mom Vanessa Demma said. Shes also inspiring her friends, who want to buy sewing machines and help out. Shes really spreading light.

11-year-old Giuliana Demma, 11, of Freehold creates gowns for pediatric cancer patients. She started a charity that sends her handmade gowns to pediatric cancer patients. She was motivated by a 10-month-old cousin being diagnosed with cancer. Freehold, NJWednesday, January 12, 2022

Inspired by cousin's battle

The spark came from within the family. A few years back a cousin, Giada Demma, was diagnosed with a brain tumor at 9 months old. Vanessa ordered custom-made gowns with Disney patterns for the child, and they were a huge hit.

Fast-forward to 2020. Giuliana got hooked on sewing during a summer camp and received a machine, a Juki, for her birthday. Remembering the gowns theyd sent her cousin, who is in remission now, Giuliana decided to use the machine for a higher purpose. Giadas mother put her in touch with other pediatric cancer patients and the concept took off from there.

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I size and cut the fabric and sew it, explained Giuliana, who is a sixth-grader at Barkalow Middle School. I use bright, fun and colorful patterns because I know it will put a smile on their face.

11-year-old Giuliana Demma, 11, of Freehold creates gowns for pediatric cancer patients. She started a charity that sends her handmade gowns to pediatric cancer patients. She was motivated by a 10-month-old cousin being diagnosed with cancer. Freehold, NJWednesday, January 12, 2022

Some of her recipients sought her out first. Others she finds and contact through social media. She takes requests. And she always enjoys getting photos of kids donning her handiwork.

An act of kindness makes all the difference in the world, she said, oozing wisdom beyond her years. Kindness is contagious.

For example: People drop off fabrics at our door, Vanessa Demma said. Its such a good lesson for her. When you do something kind, people want to help you.

11-year-old Giuliana Demma, 11, of Freehold creates gowns for pediatric cancer patients. She started a charity that sends her handmade gowns to pediatric cancer patients. She was motivated by a 10-month-old cousin being diagnosed with cancer. Freehold, NJWednesday, January 12, 2022

Kids helping kids

Emma Edwards understands. Her daughter, Olivia Liv Lipnicky, was diagnosed with brain cancer at age 8. That next summer, the courageous young lady organized a clothing drive that raised $10,000 for cancer research. She died in 2019, but her family continues her mission with Liv like a Unicorn, a nonprofit that supports families and the search for a cure.

Each year the charity sends out Unicorn boxes of gifts to dozens of kids who are in treatment for brain and spinal-cord conditions. In 2022 those boxes will include Giulianas gowns.

Kids helping kids, were a huge proponent of that, Edwards said. Any time young children can have such empathy, its amazing.

11-year-old Giuliana Demma, 11, of Freehold creates gowns for pediatric cancer patients. She started a charity that sends her handmade gowns to pediatric cancer patients. She was motivated by a 10-month-old cousin being diagnosed with cancer. Freehold, NJWednesday, January 12, 2022

And as Edwards saw firsthand, when a child is in treatment and they can have something with them thats a little more personal, it makes them feel more comfortable.

Thats why Sabrina Gartner, Julias mom, reached out to Giuliana after reading about Gs Giving Gowns on Facebook. Shes glad she did.

It gives kids a feeling of knowing theyre loved and cared for by others, Sabrina said. Theyre not alone in their battle.

Ditto for the parents.

Its a small thing that could mean a lot to somebody, Gartner said. When I got the gowns, it was very emotional. We actually cried. It was so nice that someone did that for us.

For more information on Gs Giving Gowns, or to request a gown or donate, visit www.gsgivinggowns.org. For more information on Liv like a Unicorn, visit www.livlikeaunicorn.org.

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shores interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Freehold girl delights pediatric cancer patients with handmade gowns
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Saturday inaugurated the country's new contemporary cultural landmark, the House of Music, here in the capital Budapest on the occasion of the National Culture Day.



"The House of Music is not a standalone project, but an integrated part of a huge cultural investment," Orban said at a ceremony, adding that being a cultural nation is an extremely important part of Hungarians' self-definition.

The 9,000-square-meter building is part of the Liget Budapest Project, a large urban cultural development project that envisions the renewal of Budapest's central public park.

Designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, the House features a vast undulating roof and has three levels to encourage visitors to participate and interact with sound and music: subterranean exhibition level, ground floor performance area, and rooftop level with museum education.

The new building is nestled amongst the trees of the City Park. The designers have taken inspiration from the synergy between sound and nature, presenting the building as a continuation of its park context.

The House's facade is panelled in a curtain of glass to create a completely translucent building that blurs boundaries between indoor and outdoor space.

Hungarians have been celebrating the National Day of Hungarian Culture since Jan. 22, 1989, in memory of the birth or the completion of the manuscript of the national anthem on this day in 1823.
NEW YORK (AP)  Kohls confirmed that it has been approached about a possible sale of the department store chain, sending shares up more than 30% in early trading Monday.

The company said that it would not comment further, but its confirmation follows media reports that the private equity firm Sycamore Partners had approached Kohls about a potential deal. Days earlier, a group called Acacia Research, backed by activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP, reportedly bid $64 per share, or about $9 billion

Kohls Corp., based in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, said Monday that its board is reviewing the offers. A spokesman at Sycamore declined to comment, while Acacia couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The reported offers come just a week after activist hedge fund Macellum Advisors released a letter urging Kohls to explore strategic options, including a sale, if the chain doesn't take action to improve its business and increase its stock price. The investor said it planned to nominate a slate of director candidates at Kohl's shareholders meeting this year, unless Kohls decides to embrace some changes.

In April 2021, Kohls announced it was adding three independent members to its board of directors as part of an agreement it struck with a key activist investor group that included Macellum. In addition to Macellum, the group also included Ancora Holdings, Legion Partners Asset Management and 4010 Capital.

Shares of Kohl's spiked 32% or $15.29 to $62.18.

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Follow Anne DInnocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
Krispy Kreme has a sweet incentive to help with the nationwide blood shortage: free doughnuts.

The chain, which had one of the largest vaccine incentives last year, announced Monday that it will give a dozen glazed doughnuts to those who donate blood or platelets now through Jan. 31.

The United States is facing its worst blood shortage in more than a decade, largely as a result of a drop in blood drives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Red Cross announced Jan. 11.

Since the not-for-profit organization's announcement, Krispy Kreme said in a statement that winter weather has further complicated efforts to rebuild the blood supply with hundreds of blood drives canceled because of winter storms.

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Hopefully a free Original Glazed dozen will increase awareness and even mobilize those who can give blood, Dave Skena, Krispy Kreme chief marketing officer, said in a statement. We want them to enjoy the doughnuts with our thanks but also share the doughnuts while encouraging others to roll up their sleeves.

Blood donations to organizations other than the Red Cross qualify for the freebie, too, according to the offer's frequently asked questions.

January is National Blood Donor Month and the Red Cross also is partnering with the National Football League to automatically enter those who donate blood, platelets or plasma through Jan. 31 into a raffle for a getaway to Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles and other prizes.

Paul Sullivan, senior vice president of donor services for the American Red Cross, said the organization hopes this thank you from Krispy Kreme will help provide a dozen more reasons for eligible individuals to make and keep their donation appointments in the days ahead.

Krispy Kreme told USA TODAY that it gave away nearly 4 million free doughnuts with its vaccine incentive that ended Dec. 31.

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Krispy Kreme has a new promotion to help with the national blood shortage.

How to get free Krispy Kreme doughnuts for your blood donation

Give blood any time between Monday and Jan. 31 and show proof of your blood donation and the date through "your donor band or sticker, or flash your donor app" to get a free Original Glazed dozen at your local Krispy Kreme. There's a limit of one free dozen per blood donation and no purchase is required.

Learn more about Krispy Kreme's offer at Krispykreme.com/offers/redcross2022.

Contributing: Christine Fernando, USA TODAY

Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko. For shopping news, tips and deals, join us on our Shopping Ninjas Facebook group.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Krispy Kreme free donuts: Help Red Cross blood shortage, get freebie
Levar Burton

Taylor Hill/Getty

LeVar Burton was a sophomore at the University of Southern California when he won the role of Kunta Kinte, a young man from Gambia who is captured and sold into slavery. Less than a year later, he was on screens across the U.S. in Roots, one of the biggest TV events of all time.

The miniseries, based on Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, told the sweeping story of Kunta's horrific experience in Colonial America, encompassing generations of his descendants in the centuries to come. It aired across eight consecutive nights, beginning on Jan. 23, 1977.

Though Burton, now 64, acknowledges "ABC kind of backed into" Roots' success by choosing this scheduling strategy  which was highly unorthodox at the time  the end result was that Roots become a television juggernaut, an inflection point for American race relations and ultimately, a global cultural phenomenon.

"I continue to be surprised by the enduring popularity of Roots worldwide," Burton tells PEOPLE. "I've been to places on the globe like Suriname, where Kunta Kinte is a national hero and songs are literally written about him. Kunta Kinte is an international symbol of freedom and resistance, is something that I'm really, really proud of. And that's something that has certainly grown over time. I don't think I could be more proud."

Ahead of the miniseries' 45th anniversary, Burton spoke with PEOPLE about Roots. He shares his memories of stepping onto the set with a legendary ensemble cast, how Roots opened the door for his eclectic career and where he sees Roots fitting into today's social and political landscape all these years later.

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS

Burton filmed Roots in Savannah, Georgia, and Los Angeles in the spring and summer of 1976. While he says he experienced nerves during his audition, his first day on set "was more inspiring than it was intimidating."

"I felt like I knew who this kid was, so intimately well. That's all I focused on," he explains. "All I needed to do was play this part. And from the very first moment I read the first set of sides, I knew, I knew who Kunta was, inside and out. And that never wavered for me. Never."

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ABC/Getty

RELATED: Roots Producer LeVar Burton, Star Malachi Kirby and PEOPLE's Janine Rubenstein Take Genealogy Test to Discover Their History

It didn't hurt, of course, that on his "very first day as a professional actor ... my very first scene, Cicely Tyson played my mother. Maya Angelou played my grandmother. I was in the presence of royalty."

"They treated me like a peer, a young peer, which was great for me because they all schooled me," he continues. "Everything I know about the professional work ethic of an actor, I learned on Roots from Lou Gossett, from Maya Angelou, from Cicely Tyson, from Moses Gunn, from Hari Rhodes, from Ji-Tu Cumbuka. I was the kid. They were the vets, and they took me under their wing."

Nearly three months later, after filming had wrapped, Burton says, "I did not want to let the character go. ... The experience was so enlivening for me. It's like I found my place in the world."

EMBRACING A PHENOMENON

Burton recalls the premiere  a trio of screenings of the first two hours of the miniseries in Washington, D.C.  as "very low-key by today's standards."

Though miniseries at the time typically aired one episode per week, he tells PEOPLE that ABC hedged its bets by choosing the eight-night timeline.

"They were very nervous about how the series would perform," he says. "If it failed, because nobody wanted to watch a show starring Black people as the heroes and white people as the villains, how would it play in Poughkeepsie?"

"And as it turned out, that was the decision that really changed the course of television history [when America got its first taste of binge-watching]," he adds.

RELATED: Inside Roots, the Searing 1977 Series That Started a National Conversation

Roots won nine of the 37 Emmys for which it was nominated and attracted an audience of more than 255 million, with its final night still standing as the second-most-watched finale in U.S. television history.

For Burton personally, the impact of Roots' unheralded success "came much quicker than I ever anticipated."

He emphasizes, "Again, I was a sophomore. My plan was to finish my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and move to New York and hustle my way on to the stage. Television and film acting were not in my plan."

Instead, he was now a household name  or at least a newly familiar face.

"There was a moment on the morning after night two," he recalls. "I was running an errand for my mom at the supermarket, and I got recognized for the first time. That was a trip."

READING THE ROOM

Once the series ended, Burton unexpectedly found himself positioned to be sort of a de facto cultural educator because he "had just seen a nation transformed by eight consecutive nights of television."

So, after five years of steady work as an actor, he was offered a new role in 1983 that "made perfect sense": Reading Rainbow.

"When I was presented a few years later with the idea of using the medium of television to steer children back in the direction of literature and the written word during the summer months, I thought, 'Yeah, that makes sense to me,'" he explains. "Reading Rainbow was a good idea, a good use of the television airwaves and a perfectly legitimate way for me to tell stories to perhaps the most important audience for all of us."

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READING RAINBOW, LeVar Burton

PBS/Courtesy Everett

RELATED: LeVar Burton Immortalized with Figurine Designed to Encourage Kids to Read

Roots and Reading Rainbow are just two of the roles for which Burton is stopped on the street. (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Community and his upcoming turn as the host of the Scripps National Spelling Bee are a few of his credits.) A throughline of education and representation runs across many of the projects he chooses.

And in a moment where America is grappling with fierce arguments over those very topics, including the culture clash surrounding Critical Race Theory, Burton tells PEOPLE, "I don't grapple at all. The work is not done. The beat goes on."

He affirms, "I do consider myself to be a social justice warrior. And as such, I am acutely aware that we are in the midst of an ongoing battle. America's ascendancy and her current moment, where she is teetering in the balance, has always been a journey of progress and retrenchment. So this is nothing new, is my point."

"We come here again and again, and I think each time we get the message out a little bit more. We are able to spread that sense of empathy," Burton continues. "However, at its very core, this has always been America. I'm of the generation that we're not ducking down. We're certainly not going away. This is our country as well. Our ancestors fought, bled, died ... That's why representation matters so much. Because this is a country that is made up of diverse stories. And to pretend that they aren't is really foolish."

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Jemal Countess/Getty

LEAVING A LEGACY

As evidenced by Burton's day-to-day schedule of hosting, directing and even podcasting LeVar Burton Reads, he's clearly not passing any torches any time soon. Still, as he approaches his 65th birthday, he says, "I have really embraced what I believe to be my role as an elder now, I think it's a good thing."

With the wisdom that accompanies his "elder" status, he's able to look back and see how Roots' role in U.S. culture  its impact on storytelling and shaping people's views of their fellow Americans  has evolved over nearly five decades.

"Even though it was really widely embraced  they used to show it every year on television and schools would show it as part of their history classes  I think the real work that Roots did took time," he says. "You can measure the viewership in the overnights, but you can't measure the depth to which people's hearts and minds got changed and then were able to pass that on to succeeding generations, in their own families."

As for his own Roots family, Burton admits it's been difficult to stay in touch with such a large ensemble over the years but to mark this milestone anniversary, he has a thought: "I wish we had a Roots group text. That would be awesome," he muses. "Maybe we'll start one. That's how we celebrate the 45th  start a Roots group chat."
The chairman and CEO of the cruise operator Genting Hong Kong, Lim Kok Thay, has resigned after one of the companys vessels was diverted from Miami to end its journey in the Bahamas to avoid a US warrant.

The company has filed to end its business after the Covid-19 pandemic hit the cruise industry hard. The company said in a stock exchange filing that the chairman, who owns 76 per cent of Genting Hong Kong, stepped down on 21 January.

The deputy CEO and president of the company, Au Fook Yew, also stepped down.

The company appears to be moving towards liquidation as its operations are seemingly falling apart, Bloomberg reported.

Authorities in the US are ready to seize one of the companys ships in Miami because of unpaid fuel bills. Online bookings for some of the company cruises have been paused and its shares have been suspended in Hong Kong.

Mr Lim launched the company in 1993. Part of the reason was to diversify the risk associated with the Genting groups casino operation in Malaysia.

But the struggles of Genting Hong Kong may not a have large impact on other Genting companies in Malaysia and Singapore as they have no cross-shareholdings apart from Mr Lim holding stakes in all companies.

More follows...
Walt Disney Pictures has remade many of its classic animated films in recent years into live-action movies, but theres one upcoming project Peter Dinklage believes they should stay away from.

Disneys live-action adaption of the 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs drew waves last summer when the studio tapped Latina actress Rachel Zegler to star in the titular role. But its the premise of the movie in modern days, not the casting decision, that has Dinklage raising eyebrows.

The Game of Thrones actor, who has a form of dwarfism, did not agree with Disneys decision to make a new version of the film.

Literally no offense to anyone, but I was a little taken aback ... when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White. Youre still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dinklage said in a recent episode on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast. Take a step back and look at what youre doing there. It makes no sense to me.

Disney has not revealed many plot details of the upcoming movie. Starring opposite Zegler will be Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot, who will play the Evil Queen in the reboot.

Production is slated to begin this year, Us Magazine reported. Its unclear how the movie will include the dwarfs, which some people deemed offensive in retrospect of the original film.

Youre progressive in one way and youre still making that f---ing backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. What the f--- are you doing man? Dinklage said.

He suggested Disney make the film as progressive as possible, but did not offer a way regarding how the studio can incorporate the seven dwarfs in a politically correct way.

Have I done nothing to advance the cause? Dinklage said in jest.

Dinklage has famously refused to play roles in which his height is mocked or used as a stereotype. Despite that, he said in a 2019 New Yorker article he is not politically correct about his condition.

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I dont really care. I think that can be damaging as well, he told The New Yorker.

He said on Marons podcast he is not politically correct because I get to make fun of myself.

The Snow White remake follows a long list of live-action movies Disney has made off its successful animated films. The studio has already made live-action flicks for Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Jungle Book and Mulan, among others.

Classic Disney films get stronger warning of racist content. Wrong then and wrong now
An Oklahoma City woman says former state lawmaker Jose Cruz cornered her in a bathroom and sexually assaulted her while at a party last month before pleading with her not to tell anyone.

Sarah Rivin, a lobbyist, has accused Rep. Jose Cruz of sexual assault during a New Year's Eve party. Cruz resigned last Friday after saying he acted "inappropriately" on New Year's Eve.

Sarah Rivin, who works as the state director of government relations for the American Heart Association, told The Oklahoman she hosted a New Years party at her Oklahoma City apartment on Dec. 31, which Cruz and his wife attended as invited guests. At around 10 p.m., Rivin went into the bathroom to fix her lipstick before taking a photo with some friends when Cruz followed her in and shut the door behind him, Rivin told The Oklahoman.

'I made it clear I wanted it to stop'

Cruz complimented Rivins legs and said, I just cant stop watching you, Rivin recalled. Cruz then ran his hand up her leg and blocked Rivin from leaving the bathroom before eventually moving out of the way.

I know I made it clear I wanted it to stop, Rivin, 33, said. He said some inappropriate things and he touched me inappropriately. I know I made it clear I was uncomfortable.

Rivin said she was blocked in the bathroom.

I wanted to get out of that bathroom as fast as I could, Rivin said.

The Oklahoman typically does not name victims of sexual assault, but Rivin gave permission to use her name for this story.

Jose Cruz resigned from Oklahoma House last week

Cruz, 31, resigned as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives last week without providing any details, except to say, I started 2022 by exercising poor judgment and acting inappropriately, during a New Years Eve party, according to a statement he released last week.

Cruz

Cruz, a Democrat who represented south Oklahoma City, said my actions made someone else uncomfortable. Im upset with myself and embarrassed.

Cruz resigned on Friday.

Rivin filed a report with Oklahoma City police Sunday.

State laws: Majority of states treat sexual assault perpetrators differently if victims drank

Cruz did not respond to a phone message, text message, Twitter direct message or email seeking comment for this story.

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Cruz and his wife left the party at around 12:15 a.m., Rivin said, and he began texting her about 15 minutes later.

Please dont tell anyone. Im so sorry, Cruz texted, according to screenshots Rivin shared with The Oklahoman.

Sarah Rivin upset with Jose Cruz's statement

Rivin said she considered Cruz a friend and had never before observed him acting inappropriately.

"Since I started telling people that this happened to me, other women have told me this happened to them with Representative Cruz," Rivin told The Oklahoman. "People need to understand that this was not an isolated incident."

Rivin said she was glad to see Cruz resign his state House position but was upset with his statement.

Representative Cruz tried to act like this was an isolated incident, he claims to be a champion for women. As someone who has been assaulted by him, I dont think that is accurate, Rivin told The Oklahoman. That statement does not reflect the severity of what happened.

Rivin told police "two other women have made statements that similar incidents with (Cruz) had occurred to them in the past," according to the police report.

On Monday, Rep. Emily Virgin, the leader of the House Democratic caucus, said she first learned about the assault from Rivin on Jan. 13. Four days later, Virgin recommended to Cruz that he resign, according to a statement.

Party affiliation aside, the type of behavior Rep. Cruz engaged in is not acceptable for anyone, particularly an elected official in a position of power, Virgin, D-Norman, said in a statement. His position alone could have prevented this victim from coming forward in fear of facing retaliation. We believe it is past time to have a serious conversation at the Capitol about the way legislators conduct themselves.

This story is provided in part through a grant by the Kirkpatrick Foundation. To support work like this, please consider purchasing a digital subscription today at https://cm.oklahoman.com/specialoffer/.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Sarah Rivin says ex-Oklahoma Rep. Jose Cruz sexually assaulted her
The Lubbock Composite Squadron, Civil Air Patrol helped recover this missing plane after a crash the evening of Jan. 13 in Dawson County.

The Lubbock Civil Air Patrol Squadron assisted a 70-year-old pilot who was forced to walk for several miles in rural Dawson County after his plane crashed.

The Civil Air Patrol Squadron was notified about a plane missing east of Lamesa early on Jan. 14.

Dennis Harrington, a 70-year-old pilot, was flying a Piper Tri-Pacer plane when he lost control and crashed into the rocky terrain of Dawson County the night of Jan. 13.

Harrington suffered minor injuries and walked to a distant road to find help.

A 70-year-old man crossed miles of rough terrain in Dawson County after a crash the evening of Jan.13.

The Lubbock Squadron dispatched a ground team to aid Dawson Countys EMS department to locate the crash site and recover the plane. Nobody, including the pilot, knew where the crash had occurred.

Firefighter Levi Roberts said Harrington was flying to Lamesa to stop and refuel on his way to Hobbs, New Mexico.

One member of the Lubbock Squadron played a key role in the discovery of the aircrafts crash location with his personal drone. The drone was able to cover 40% of the search area in one flight.

Ground teams were able to quickly determine what area to focus on during the search, which led to them successfully finding the missing plane.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Lubbock Civil Air Patrol Squadron helps find missing plane after crash
Hamilton Central School agriculture teacher Johanna Bossard's classes include fun activities like drone flying and car racing.

She is the school's FFA adviser, guiding her members to become the leaders of the future. And she is an ardent advocate  or "agvocate"  of farmers throughout the State of New York.

Her tireless efforts were saluted Jan. 21 as Bossard was honored with Nationwide's Golden Owl Award, naming her a finalist as 2021-22 Ag Educator of the Year. The annual award recognizes extraordinary teachers and supports their future educational efforts. Bossard was one of 11 finalists across the state.

Hamilton Central School agriculture teacher Johanna Bossard, center, is surrounded by students and her daughters Brynley and Raegan Jan. 21 after receiving the Golden Owl Award as a finalist for state ag teacher of the year.

Thanking farmers: Hamilton Central School FFA members deliver care packages

More than plows and cows: Today's FFA nurtures leaders of tomorrow

Bossard admitted she was surprised by the award presentation  which interrupted her seventh-grade class and their final day of learning to program and fly drones  and she felt humbled by the honor.

The secret to her success is really no secret at all.

"I just love what I do," she explained.

New York FFA Director Derek Hill, left, reads off some heartfelt tributes to Hamilton Central School agriculture teacher Johanna Bossard, center, Jan. 21 as district Superintendent Bill Dowsland, right, and the audience in her classroom listen.

Leading the ceremony, held in Bossard's own HCS ag classroom, were New York FFA Director Derek Hill, state FFA Vice President Paige Warren, Keith Peavey of the Tanner Insurance Agency in Madison representing Nationwide and John Wagner, New York Farm Bureau's director of county farm bureau relations and development. School district officials included Superintendent Bill Dowsland and Board of Education President Michelle Jacobsen.

"Johanna brings to her students a dedication and passion that really helps them to build a better understanding of the world of agriculture," Hill complimented.

"She just does so much to provide opportunities and enrich the experiences of our students here," Dowsland added.

He pointed out that one student in the candidate recommendations had said how Bossard is like a second mom and provides them love and nurturing. She sets high expectations, Dowsland said, and pushes the students to do things the right way, with respect, leadership and compassion.

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"That embodies everything she brings to the school," Dowsland said. "We are fortunate and blessed to have her here."

Learning can be fun: Hamilton Central School agriculture teacher Johanna Bossard, far right, and her Bossard 500 project give her eighth grade technology class plenty of education as they build and race their wooden cars.

Many of her students attended the ceremony, filling the classroom.

"She is always super supportive and really listens to her students and uses their input in the classroom," said HCS junior McKinley Craven.

Wagner told the students that they know her as their teacher, but he knew Bossard as a friend and constant proponent of agriculture. He noted that Bossard also led the Madison County Farm Bureau Takeover fundraiser for six years in her "free time," raising money for the hungry.

Student showcase: Local FFA members sell wares at Hamilton Farmers Market

Ornament outreach: Hamilton students craft holiday decorations for needy

Bossard was presented with a $500 cash prize and a plaque and now goes on for the chance to be crowned New York's Ag Educator of the Year in May. That honor comes with a prize of $3,000 to help fund future educational efforts.

Bossard lives in Fabius with husband, Bret, and their daughters Brynley and Raegan, who also attended the award presentation. They are co-owners of Barbland and White Eagle Dairy. She has been the ag teacher and FFA adviser at HCS since 2010, currently teaching seventh-grade agriculture, eighth-grade technology, horticulture, ag mechanics, environmental science and pre-vet science.

Bret complimented his wife for being an inspiring example to not only her students but everyone around her.

"She really puts her heart and soul into everything she does," he said. "She is always going and the rest of us just try to keep up with her."

Mike Jaquays is the community news reporter for the Mid-York Weekly. Email him at mjaquays@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Madison County teacher Johanna Bossard finalist for Ag Educator of Year
Malvern Village Council discussed the snow plowing at its Jan. 19 meeting.

"I think the guys did a fantastic job plowing," said Village Administrator Derik Kaltenbaugh. "The main job was to keep the roads open. There is always going to be complaints. We had two new guys who haven't done it before and one truck is getting fixed. I think with that in consideration we did extremely well."

Council agreed and named some things to improve next time.

Councilmen Jan Wackerly and Tom Holmes and took a moment to thank The News Leader and this writer for the coverage over the years. The News Leader's final edition is this current edition.

In other business, council:

HEARD there will be two Habitat for Humanity houses built in Malvern between Wilson and Carrollton Street near where the Hornet's Nest was located. The village has to assign house numbers.

HEARD Kaltenbaugh thanked Vincent Osborn of Malvern News, Cime, and Neighborhood Watch on Facebook for getting the word out online to keep cars off the road for the snow trucks. Kaltenbaugh noted there were hardly any issues this time with vehicles being in the way.

PAID the village bills from the appropriate funds for $23,935.78 pre-approved by the Finance Committee Jan. 19; $7,789.19 pre-approved by the Finance Committee Jan. 20.

The next meeting will be held Wednesday, Feb. 7, 7 p.m. at the Malvern Village Hall.

This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Malvern Village Council discuss snow maintenance
Nasas James Webb space telescope has reached its final destination after a one million mile journey that took a month after its launch.

The telescope, which took off from French Guiana on Christmas Day, entered its final parking spot called L2 beyond the moon on Monday.

Now it is finally in place the space observatory will be able to look at exoplanets, which are worlds outside of our solar system, as well as observing objects within it.

The telescope is an international project led by Nasa in collaboration with the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, and is named after James E Webb, the Nasa administrator from 1961 to 1968, who was a key figure in the Apollo missions.

Some targets of Webb include ocean worlds in our solar system, such as Jupiters moon Europa and Saturns moon Titan, John Mather, Webb senior project scientist at Nasas Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

 Home, home on Lagrange! We successfully completed our burn to start #NASAWebb on its orbit of the 2nd Lagrange point (L2), about a million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. It will orbit the Sun, in line with Earth, as it orbits L2. https://t.co/bsIU3vccAj #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/WDhuANEP5h  NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) January 24, 2022

The $10bn observatory, which observes in infrared light, must now have its mirrors aligned and its infrared detectors chilled before it can start working fully in June.

Its design includes a five-layer sunshield to protect its giant mirror and instruments from the suns rays as they need to be kept at negative 370 degrees Fahrenheit to operate.

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Were one step closer to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. And I cant wait to see Webbs first new views of the universe this summer! Nasa Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement.

At a distance of more than one million miles away, the telescope, which is considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, is more than four times further away than the moon and is too far for any repairs to be carried out.

The telescope will be able to scan the universe for any alien signs of life as it orbits the sun.

The position of Webb means that teams on Earth will be able to communicate with it via the Deep Space Network, which uses three antenna ground stations in Australia, Spain and California.
Perhaps no cartoonist better captures China's history in the 20th century than Liao Bingxiong (1915-2006). His art evolved alongside China for over 60 years, recording history as it unfolded. From the initial stages of the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression to the era of reform and opening up, Liao was there to paint it all. As a result, his enormous compilation of cartoons, paintings and woodcuts each offer little insights into more than half a century of Chinese history.

Liao was born into a poor family in Guangzhou in 1915. His father died when he was only 4 years old, and he lost his mother to psychosis at age 6  traumatic experiences that influenced him for the rest of his career. Liao himself remarked: "Whereas cartoons everywhere are humorous, my work tends to express sadness and anger. I don't create cartoons to relax people. Instead, I make people feel oppressed and shocked."

However, his work also reflected a deep love for his native Guangdong province, which is the focus of the work curated by the Guangzhou Museum of Art in this exhibition. In it, you'll find a rich collection of his depictions of Cantonese local customs and culture, including works from the entirety of his life. Sometimes heartwarming, other times tragic  all Liao's work leaves a lasting impression.

Liao established himself as a painter during the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, and his piercing cartoons satirizing the colonial oppressors won him wide recognition throughout Chinese society. In 1944, the legendary Chinese historian Jian Bozan even commissioned him to illustrate his book the "Compendium of Chinese History." Following Japan's defeat, Liao aimed his satirical wit at the Kuomintang, extensively documenting their corruption and abuses of power.

Liao offered his political critiques via a seamless blend of calligraphy and caricatures, resulting in compositions overflowing with energy and meaning. Therefore, even in a spacious exhibition hall, you're bound to feel the impact of historical events through his paintings.

Non-Chinese speakers do not fear. Despite his extensive use of Cantonese idioms and rhymes, Liao was an artist of the people and took great pains to make his work understandable by all, including the illiterate. Moreover, his caricatures ensured that his work was exceedingly salient, even for those who could not understand the writing.

However, Liao is known for much more than just his political cartoons. And the variety of Liao's artistic styles that the Guangzhou Museum of Art has curated makes attending this particular exhibition even more worthwhile. In the 1960s and 1970s, he engaged in stage art design for the Guangdong Puppet Theatrical Company and created many backdrops for their productions. During this time, he increasingly experimented with color and form. The vivid gradients and colors he employed were a stark divergence from his primarily monochromatic cartoons and are today a testament to his mastery over many art styles.

Perhaps the most memorable part of his repertoire comes from later in his career. In the 1980s, as China began to open up to the world, Liao's work turned inward and became more introspective. This period culminated in some of his most remarkable and unsettling creations. A prime example is "Sing Loudly to Amuse Myself," with its vulgar calligraphy surrounding a crazed portrait of Liao seemingly trapped inside an urn. Indeed, shortly before he died, Liao said that this period of his career was his proudest achievement.

His career as a cartoonist ended amid China's rapid social transformation in the late 1990s. Witnessing hamlets and farmland transform into soaring cities, Liao reflected that reality had become even more exaggerated than his imagination. Thus, he gave up drawing cartoons.

Ultimately, the exhibition "Caricatures in the Voice of Southern Guangdong" is a unique reflection on China's recent history by one of the country's greatest cartoonists. The Guangzhou Museum of Art has yet to set an end date for this exhibition, and there's still plenty of time to visit. So, if you're interested in China's history but don't fancy slogging through a history book, make sure to check it out.

Address: 13 Luhu Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong province

Opening hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (Entry until 4:30 p.m.)

Closed Mondays (Except for national holidays)

General admission: Free
Don't be surprised if you spy a common loon at Lake Hefner.

If, perchance, you have had the opportunity to do some tent camping and canoeing in The Great North Woods in the vicinity of the U.S.-Canada border, then you have experienced first-hand knowledge of how the phrase "crazy as a loon" came to be. The territorial/courtship call of this unique bird sounds not unlike some maniacal hysteria. You would be mistaken, however, if you were to assume this bird never makes an appearance in central Oklahoma.

The loon is a bird whose life depends upon ice-free lakes. When the winter season does its worst, many loons come to central Oklahoma in order to seek out an ice-free refuge and sanctuary. You have but to go on a nature hike on the shore of Lake Hefner in order to see this unique bird.

A word to the wise: Pay particular attention to the direction of the prevailing wind on the day of your visit. If the wind is out of the south, walk the south shore of the lake. Do just the opposite if the wind is 180-degrees opposed to this. The reason can be pretty self-evident; you do not want to be subjected to the wind after it passes over the lake. Humidity can have a dramatic impact on how comfortable you will be on an outdoor excursion.

Oh, and don't forget to take along a thermos of hot chocolate. For you, not the bird.

Neil Garrison was the longtime naturalist at a central Oklahoma nature center. His email is atlatlgarrison@hotmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Nature & You: Loons seek refuge on ice-free lakes in Oklahoma
FARMINGTON  The Navajo Nation Council is using the time before its winter session starts on Jan. 24 to raise awareness about human trafficking. During the session, a bill authorizing helium extraction agreements may be a main topic.

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month and Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty is organizing the walk in Window Rock, Arizona to bring attention to the problem and to remember missing and murdered Dine relatives.

The winter session is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. and will be held in hybrid format because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaker Seth Damon is sponsoring a bill to authorize operating agreements for helium development by the Navajo Nation Oil and Gas Company.

Beautiful Mountain is seen from Navajo Mine on Oct. 13, 2021. A bill on the Navajo Nation Council's 2022 winter session agenda seeks permission to place a helium development project near the mountain in Sanostee Chapter.

The company, a tribal enterprise, is seeking authorization to examine helium extraction activities within the chapters of Sanostee, Red Valley and Teec Nos Pos.

When the bill went before the Naa'bik'iyati' Committee in January, Damon told delegates that the project would financially help the tribe.

Opponents say while company officials have met with Sanostee Chapter leadership, individuals who hold grazing and land permits have not been consulted or have consented to the development.

Some delegates during the committee commented about the lack of consideration for community members.

A forum for community members to discuss the proposal with Damon and company officials was scheduled for Jan. 23 at the Sanostee Chapter house.

More: Horror film made by Navajo siblings finally arrives in theaters

Prior to the forum, a group called Dooda (No) Helium Extraction Organization is scheduled to host a meeting outside the chapter house at 11 a.m.

Another environment-related bill proposes waiving part of the tribe's sovereign immunity so it can participate in California's cap-and-trade program, a key element to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state.

Cap-and-trade systems are one of several market-based ways to reduce greenhouse gas and other emissions, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.

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The Navajo Nation Council will start the 2022 winter session on Jan 24. The session will be in a hybrid format because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The tribe would join in the program through the Navajo Forestry Department, whose director wrote in a letter to tribal leaders that participation would generate revenue for the tribe by selling emission credits.

If tribal leaders authorize participation in the program, then the tribe would be under the legal jurisdiction of California state courts for matters related to the program.

Another piece of legislation proposes changing the date when voter registration closes for tribal elections.

More: Navajo Transitional Energy Company CEO to retire at end of January

Such action would alleviate problems for the Navajo Election Administration because it would create a gap between when voter registration closes and absentee voting begins, the bill states.

There are 11 bills on the proposed agenda, which is on the council's website.

Additional bills can be added by delegates when the adoption of the agenda occurs, according to the Office of Legislative Services.

Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 or by email at nsmith@daily-times.com.

Support local journalism with a digital subscription to The Daily Times.

This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Navajo Nation Council to consider helium development at winter session
NFT Investments, a London-based incubator specialising in the market for non-fungible tokens has entered into a non-binding letter of intent for the acquisition of Pluto Digital PLC for 96 million ($127,5m).

The company will acquire 100% of the issued capital of Pluto through the issuing of 2.4 billion new ordinary shares in NFT Investments at four pence per new share.

The acquisition will, the company said, create a significant global metaverse company and advance it in the non-fungible tokens sector, as the Pluto Ventures division has invested heavily in NFTs and NFT gaming.

Jonathan Bixby, executive chairman of NFT Investments, commented the company was very excited about the prospects of Pluto and NFT merging to create a large global metaverse company.

This is a transformational deal that will provide us with the scale to expand and diversify our investment portfolio in a rapidly growing sector and thereby create long term value for shareholders, he said.

NFT Investments owns a 20% stake of NFT Studios which, in conjunction with high-flying Hollywood executive producer Niels Juul, is creating A Wing and a Prayer  the first ever Hollywood feature film to be fully funded by NFTs.

The acquisition of Pluto is NFT Investments largest acquisition since its IPO in April 2021.

Pluto invests in, incubates and advises digital asset projects based on decentralised technologies (DeTech), decentralised finance (DeFi) and networks such as Ethereum and Polkadot.
The Nets have come back to win nine games where they were down double digits this season. Sunday night did not mark No. 10.

Instead James Harden no-showed the fourth quarter in an embarrassing Nets defensive effort: a 136-125 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Sunday night, and a performance that only could have been saved by Houston Harden heroics.

Harden was hardly that at Minnesotas Target Center. He finished with only 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting from the field. The most concerning part of Hardens performance was his fourth-quarter disappearing act.

He took all 13 of his shots through the first three quarters and did not attempt one in the fourth.

Nets head coach Steve Nash quickly diagnosed Hardens struggles after the game. He said the Timberwolves doubled his pick-and-rolls and attributed Minnesotas long and athletic player profile to The Beards decision not to take shots down the stretch.

Harden, however, said the Wolves defense didnt hamper him at all.

Nah. It was just me, he said. Just kind of being passive and not really attacking how I need to attack consistently. We had a lot of opportunities, a lot of rim opportunities and three opportunities, but I put that on me, just not being able to get to the basket like I needed to.

There goes that word again: passivethe word we hate to see in the same sentence as Harden. He is the NBAs 2018 Most Valuable Player of the Year. He is an unstoppable force and one of the most gifted scorers in NBA history.

When he chooses to be.

The Nets have asked a lot of Harden this year, and for good reason: They pay him $44.3 million in salary this season, and if they extend his contract like they extended Kevin Durants, Hardens next deal projects to be in excess of $200 million.

So he can handle a shifting landscape, roster turbulencehe can adjust to Kyrie Irving being in and out of the rotation.

Irving was spectacular, potentially the greatest road act in all of sports. He finished with a game-high 30 points on 11-of-20 shooting from the field, then said Im slowly crawling into my prime after dazzling the crowd in Minnesota.

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Irving banked in a mid-range shot after getting shoved, contorted his body and switched hands for a layup over two defenders and hit a number of pull-up threes to power the Nets offense. And he wasnt alone: Patty Mills scored 21 points on 8-of-15 shooting and hit five threes on the night, and rookie Kessler Edwards logged yet another impressive performance with 15 points and impressive defense all night.

But an MVP-caliber performance from Harden was needed to mask a growing Nets issue: a defense that has regressed to the mean.

One thing thats stood out about Harden, who attempted just four free throws on the night: When he doesnt get the whistleespecially when he actually gets fouledHarden has a tendency to check out of a play.

Sunday night in Minnesota was yet another stamp on Hardens campaign for poster boy of the leagues foul-calling changes. The Wolves shot 31 free throws to Brooklyns 15, scoring 11 more points at the linenot coincidentally, the margin of victory.

I dont even wanna talk about it, but its definitelywhen I get to the basket, its the same calls that other guys are getting, Harden said. Obviously you cant call all of them, but theres ones where theres clearly stiff arms and trips and things like that, but on the other end theres no consistency. Its frustrating.

Still, the Nets clawed back from a 15-point deficit, cutting the Timberwolves lead down to just four at the 9:44 mark in the fourth quarter. Harden checked in two minutes later, and the Wolves blew the cap off the Target Center. By the 4:41 mark, the Timberwolves led by 16.

Minnesotas Big 3 of Karl-Anthony Towns, DAngelo Russell and emerging star Anthony Edwards combined for 71 of the teams 136 points.

Thats 26 more points than Minnesotas average for the season, and the Wolves are climbing up the Western Conference standings, now in ownership of the Wests eighth seed.

I dont think the defense was sustainable, Nash said of the second half. Minnesota scored 72 points in the first half alone, then went on a game-ending run after the Nets late-game rally. If were going to come back in a game youre down (10) at halftime, youve got to put together sustainable runs defensively. Youve got to keep it going for longer stretches and we just never could get more than a couple minutes, two or three minutes of stops.

This is where the camera shifts back to Harden, the superstar scorer whose gifts are supposed to help compensate for the teams other shortcomings. Those gifts werent on display on Sunday, a microcosm of what can happen in later games if he doesnt find consistency this season.

Meanwhile, the former inconsistent Nets forward Taurean Prince shot 6-of-6 from the field and hit a momentum-swinging three in the fourth quarter. How coincidental it is that Prince had a perfect night, while the player he was traded for struggled to score.
Synergy, a six-member a cappella group from Nordonia High School, will perform for the Ohio Music Education Association's conference in Cleveland. Members include, from left, sophomore Keirstin Trehan, junior Nick Spinetti, sophomore Amaya Mayes, senior Laila Burrell; and on the bottom stairs, freshman Julia Greenberg, and Caeden Bolling.

A six-member a cappella ensemble from Nordonia High School will be one of the high school and university music groups to perform at this year's Ohio Music Education Association's conference next month.

Synergy will perform during the conference which takes place Feb. 3 through 5 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland. John Pickering, the choral director at Nordonia High School, said this is the first time Synergy has been invited to perform at the annual music educator's conference. The ensemble "will be singing for all of the music teachers in the state of Ohio." Synergy was selected through a blind audition process.

"We are the only high school a cappella group to have been selected from throughout the state," Pickering said.

Pickering said that Synergy has performed at Playhouse Square, E.J. Thomas Hall in Akron, and has opened for national touring groups such as Vocalosity and Disney's D'Cappella. The six members include freshman Julia Greenberg, first soprano; sophomore Amaya Mayes, second soprano; sophomore Keirstin Trehan, first alto; senior Laila Burrell, second alto; freshman Caeden Bolling, bass; and junior Nick Spinetti, vocal percussionist.

"They are unique in the sense that they are one on a part," Pickering said. "Most groups have multiple people on a part. Synergy is Nordonia High School's premiere vocal ensemble. While their auditions are open to anyone at Nordonia High School, membership is limited to students that are enrolled in one of our 3 concert choirs. It is in these choirs that technique, sight-reading and other fundamentals of singing is refined."

Synergy logo

Laila said she first heard about a cappella singing through Nordonia Middle School's a cappella group. She added that she prefers singing a cappella, which is traditionally singing without instrumental accompaniment.

Keirstin said that the six of them "typically have one rehearsal three hours a week, but with the [festival] coming up plus the conference, we've added a couple of extra rehearsals."

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"We love performing," Keirstin said. "We performed at Hudson High School recently."

The festival is the annual a cappella event Nordonia High School hosts for area high school a cappella groups. This year's event is Feb. 18 and 19, with the performances on Feb. 19 at 7:30 p.m. Aca-Fest includes performances not just from area high schools but national groups. This year will feature headliners The Filharmonic, a Los Angeles a cappella group featured in NBC's The Sing Off and appeared on screen in Universal Pictures "Pitch Perfect."

Pickering said the two-day educational festival also brings in clinicians "from all over the country that are in the music industry." Schools from multiple states, including Wisconsin, North Carolina and Arkansas have traveled to attend the festival. Tickets will be available to purchase.

As well as Synergy, all of the Nordonia Hills schools' a cappella groups will perform that evening. This includes Genesis, the district's fifth and sixth grade group; Knight Rhythm at the middle school; and Momentum, a larger a cappella ensemble at the high school.

"I really love the songs we do," said Amaya. She added one of her favorites was an arrangement of "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac. "It's a ballad we perform off mic. We focus on the dynamics."

Caeden said participating in a group such as Synergy requires "a mix of both work ethic, and expectations for yourself and others around you."

"Synergy can help you grow and learn to do things with others and with music," Caeden said.

For details on the Nordonia Hills City Schools choir programs and the a cappella festival, visit https://www.nordoniachoirs.com online.

Reporter April Helms can be reached at ahelms@thebeaconjournal.com

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Synergy was the only a cappella group chosen to perform at conference
Hundreds of Oklahomans took to the streets on Saturday to publicly declare their stance against legalized abortion and to share their hopes that 2022 will be the year Roe v. Wade is finally overturned.

Organizers of the Oklahoma March for Life estimated that a crowd of about 500 gathered on the north steps of the state Capitol before marching down Lincoln Boulevard toward the Midtown area.

Participants in the anti-abortion Oklahoma March for Life march from the state Capitol on Saturday in Oklahoma City.

Before they marched, the group was challenged by more than one leader to help ensure that the 49-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling is overturned before it marks another anniversary in January 2023.

"Who wants to make sure that Roe doesn't see 50 years?" the Most Rev. David Konderla, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa, asked the crowd. "This is a sad commemoration  49 years. Let's make sure we don't see 50."

Roe v. Wade was the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalized abortion in America and the impetus behind the March for Life that has been held in the nation's capital each year since 1974, one year after the controversial ruling. At the time, organizers vowed to march annually until the ruling was overturned.

The Most Rev. David Konderla, bishop of the Diocese of Tulsa, speaks to a crowd at the March for Life, an anti-abortion march from the state Capitol to Midtown on Saturday in Oklahoma City.

Saturday's event in Oklahoma City was held under a similar premise as the 2022 March of Life on Friday in Washington, D.C.

Besides Konderla, several other leaders addressed the crowd including U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City; the Rev. Todd Fisher, executive director-treasurer of Oklahoma Baptists, formally known as the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma; and Rocio Montes, a member of the anti-abortion movement from Enid. Paul Abner, leader of a faith coalition called Oklahoma Faith Leaders, introduced each speaker.

Abner led things off with his impassioned remarks about seeing Roe v. Wade overturned and the end of abortion rights.

"Forty-nine years ago, they thought we would get tired. They thought by now we'd be done," he said. "Are there any quitters here? No! Our heart has been sick for the last 49 years as we have seen this egregious thing happen to our country, but we never stopped, we never stopped fighting."

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Oklahomans, many holding anti-abortion signage, participate in the Oklahoma March for Life from the state Capitol to Midtown on Saturday in Oklahoma City.

Lankford told attendees that he had participated in the March for Life on Friday in Washington. He said there was much energy and enthusiasm from the crowd because of their belief that 2022 will be the year the nation's highest court "finally will admit what has been obvious to everyone that a life is a life is a life is a life and the Supreme Court of the United States does not have to right to be able to say to some children that you get to live and to some children, you do not."

Taking the anti-abortion battle to the states

Lankford, a Southern Baptist who served as director of Falls Creek Baptist youth camp for many years, talked about his vision of a "post-Roe America" becoming reality soon. However, he said abortion probably won't end if Roe v. Wade is struck down because it will then be up to each state to decide if abortion will be legal within its boundaries.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford speaks Saturday to a group at the state Capitol during the the March for Life anti-abortion event in Oklahoma City.

To that end, he said Saturday's dialogue and march was preparation for Oklahomans to be ready to tell their legislators that every child is worthy of life. The congressional leader said one of his Democratic colleagues had called him an "extremist Republican" for his anti-abortion views, and the crowd cheered when he said he accepted that "badge."

"Here's how extreme I am. I believe children are important and valuable and I believe children's lives are valuable. If that makes me an extremist, so be it," Lankford said.

Meanwhile, Fisher said the anti-abortion movement is at a crucial moment in history and he liked seeing "so many generations united for one grand cause such as this."

Citing scripture from the book of Genesis, he said each person is made in the image of God and thus every human has worth and value. He said God had a "call to action" for each march participant, ways they could stand for the unborn beyond Saturday's event.

An Oklahoma March for Life participant holds up an anti-abortion sign during the anti-abortion march from the state Capitol to Midtown on Saturday in Oklahoma City.

"I want to declare this simple statement: We stand for life," Fisher said.

Montes also shared scripture from Genesis. Sharing remarks in both English and Spanish, she said human life must be protected from the moment of conception.

Konderla said he had learned the importance of being committed to ending abortion after working 17 years to get an get an abortion clinic in Texas closed during his time as a priest in that state.

The Tulsa bishop also urged attendees to remember that "the devil" is the real enemy of the anti-abortion movement that is "fighting for the soul of the nation" and not women who have abortions, the fathers of their unborn children and abortion clinic staff workers, who often feel shame and regret.

"God wants you and me to be his voice to them, to make sure that they know that we do not condemn them, that we wish to restore in them God's life and to bring them back into the fold," Konderla said.

Along those lines, he said there are currently many more faith-based pregnancy help centers offering alternatives to abortion, and post-abortion ministries, than there are abortion clinics.

'A right to live'

As Fisher stated, Saturday's crowd was multi-generational. Many Oklahomans braved the sunny but chilly weather, bundling up their babies, young children and teens to attend the rally.

Oklahoma City resident Edgar Gaytan, 43, a member of St. Joseph Old Cathedral, arrived with three of his five children.

"The main reason we came is because we think it's important for us as Christians, specifically Catholic Christians, to come out and show support for the idea that we love all people, from conception to natural death and one way to do that is to gather together with people who believe that same thing," he said. "As a father, it's important for me to be here so that my kids can see me and know that I live out what I believe  it's not just something that I talk about but I come out here to my sacrifice my time and energy to show my support."

Gaytan's daughter, Eliana,17, a Christo Rey Catholic High School senior, had her own views to share about the importance of Saturday's march.

"I think one of the primary goals of the pro-life movement is not just to change law but to change culture because our laws should be a reflection of what the culture is," she said. "Once we get all our communities to respect life then that law should come with it."

Meanwhile, numerous people carried signage touting sanctity of life messages like "Pro Life is Pro Science" and "Respect for Life Begins in a Mother's Womb."

Mary Chrismon, 69, said she made the roughly 70-minute drive from her home in Cyril to take part in the anti-abortion event. A member of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Anadarko, she said she liked the idea of Oklahomans gathering together to publicly declare their desire to see an end to legalized abortion.

"I believe in the sanctity of life," Chrismon said. "I believe you're a person from conception on and I'm just trying to get abortion stopped."

Dan White, 61, of Midwest City, handed out anti-abortion pamphlets to people in the crowd. A self-described evangelical and member of Grace Place Baptist Church in Oklahoma City, he said attended the march to let Oklahomans know that protecting life is important.

"We shouldn't have the power to take someone's life," White said.

Terri and Tim Leger of Broken Arrow brought about 40 youths from the Church of St. Benedict to the march. Terri Leger, 58, said she and many members of the Broken Arrow church have participated in the March for Life in Washington numerous times over the years.

"I think it's important that we speak for those who can't speak for themselves, which are the most vulnerable  and it's not just the unborn, it's the elderly, it's anybody who can not speak for themselves. Everyone has a right to live," she said.

Leger voiced her optimism that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade soon, but she said the issue of legalized abortion should ultimately be up to the states and not the federal government anyway.

"We want people to know there's always a choice and that choice is life," she said.

Movement sees momentum

As several of the march speakers stated, the anti-abortion movement has experienced momentum over the last year. Experts have said this is largely due to the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and the court's decision to let a Texas six-week abortion ban stand.

Abortion rights activists see this turn of events in a different light.

A regional director for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, covering a four-state region of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and western Missouri, said the abortion rights movement continues to see attacks on access to a patient's reproductive freedom on the recent anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

While January 22 marks the 49th anniversary of the landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling, it also serves as a solemn reminder of the fight for choice that still lies ahead," Emily Wales, interim CEO and president of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said in a statement.

"In 1973, Roe recognized the right to safe, legal abortion, but that right has consistently been chipped away  especially here in the Great Plains. Planned Parenthood Great Plains and its dedicated providers, staff and supporters remain hopeful Roe is upheld to see another anniversary, because patients depend on critical access to abortion care.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains said the Supreme Court's decision to let the Texas six-week abortion ban and its coming decision on a Mississippi abortion ban, means there is a possibility that it might soon overturn Roe v. Wade.

The agency's leaders said many states, including Oklahoma could immediately attempt to pass laws banning abortion.

"Ultimately, abortion bans force individuals to carry pregnancies against their will and disproportionately harm Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities, people in rural communities, LGBTQ+ people, and people struggling to make ends meet," the organization said.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma anti-abortion March for Life draws about 500 to state Capitol
A West Virginia man died following a crash along state Route 657 and U.S. 62 on Sunday afternoon.

One person was killed Sunday afternoon in a traffic accident in Licking County.

Tony F. Riffle Jr., 33, of Milton, West Virginia, was killed in the crash that occurred around 3:20 p.m. at state Route 657 and U.S. 62, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.

>>Read More: Another couple inches of snow expected Monday in Columbus area

Riffle was driving a 2014 Subaru northwest on Route 657 when he failed to yield at a stop sign while crossing U.S. 62. Riffle's car was struck in the intersection by a Ford F-150 being driven by David Carpenter, 51, of Heath, who was not injured, according to the State Highway Patrol.

>>Read More: Two arrested following overnight stabbing at Ohio State parking garage

Riffle was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. A juvenile passenger in Riffle's car was injured and also transported to a hospital, according to the state patrol.

The crash remains under investigation.

mfilby@dispatch.com

@MaxFilby

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: One dead, one injured in Licking County crash Sunday afternoon
You are here: China

The General Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has released a set of regulations on managing leaders of public institutions.

They aim to improve the mechanisms of selecting and supervising leaders of public institutions, such as those under Party committees or government organs.

The regulations stressed the principles, including the Party's leadership.

Leaders of these institutions should be selected based on integrity and ability, with priority given to integrity, and on merit regardless of background.

The leaders should live up to the requirements of their specific fields, added the document.

Those in charge of scientific research institutions should uphold the principle of self-reliance and serving the people, and hospital directors should have advanced management philosophies and practical experience, it noted.

It also made detailed provisions regarding leader selecting, performance evaluation and oversight, and leader retirement and removal.

Those who perform below standard in the annual or term assessment will be removed from their posts, said the document.
Updated Jan. 26

This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Los Angeles families are divided along racial lines and income levels over how well the Los Angeles Unified School District handled remote learning and other issues during the pandemic, a new poll shows.

The annual poll by Great Public Schools Now of 500 Los Angeles families found 43 percent of very low income and 27 percent of families of color did not believe the quality of remote learning was good; while just 7 percent of higher income and 27 percent of white families experienced similar problems during the 2020-21 school year.

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Many low-income and families of color feel positive about what is going on in public schools in general; but not at the same level as higher-income families and white families in the school systems, write the authors of the report.

One resounding finding is that ensuring all students and their families have access to the same quality experiences is still not realized, the report concluded.

When classes went remote in the spring of 2020, many L.A. students faced challenges such as not having devices or wifi access, the poll found. Concerns were also expressed about student mental health services and educational resources, with white families often reporting better interactions with the school system.

Here are 5 key findings from the report:

1 Opinions on mental health support for students varied by race and income

78 percent of the respondents said schools handled mental health support well, but racial and income gaps persist: While 80 percent of white families approved of how student mental health supports were handled, just 61 percent of Black families felt that way.

2 Opinions on the quality of remote learning were also mixed

More than 80 percent of higher income, and 63 percent of white families said remote learning made things better for their children, while just 30 percent of very low income and 57 percent of families of color had that experience.

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3 Students faced struggles accessing the internet at home  an issue that was true for students from all backgrounds

According to the survey 84 percent of families encountered internet connection issues at home. This issue transcended race and income with 25 percent of Latino families reporting poor access to good internet compared to 24 percent of white families; and 18 percent of Black families.

4 Survey showed gaps in family perspective on school decisions

A majority of the respondents (81 percent) reported feeling listened to when it comes to school decisions, but not everyone feels heard equally. Families with higher incomes overwhelmingly felt they had more influence on school decisions than those poor families; while fewer low income families felt this way.

5 Across the board, Los Angeles families wanted a better quality of education

Looking ahead, Los Angeles families uniformly wanted more and better educational resources; with tutoring at the top of the list; followed by after school programs that offer both academic and non-academic support, and out of school time support.

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Patricia Dyer was sentenced Monday in the killing of a German shepherd at Friendly Hills campground last summer.

ZANESVILLE  A Zanesville woman will spend 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to charges that she killed a dog last summer.

Patricia Dyer, 61, was sentenced to prison Monday after she pleaded guilty last month to the killing of a German shepherd. She initially was charged with five felonies but instead pleaded guilty to three.

Dog shot to death: Woman pleads guilty to felonies after executing German shepherd in campground eviction dispute

Dyer was sentenced to 18 months each for burglary, a third-degree felony, and tampering with evidence, also a third-degree felony. She was also sentenced to 12 months for prohibitions concerning companion animals, a fifth-degree felony.

The terms will be served concurrently for 18 months total.

Dyer was working as manager of the Friendly Hills campground in Zanesville when she was later found responsible for fatally shooting a tenant's German shepherd.

Police were first called to the camp in August when Dyer was reportedly threatening to evict a tenant who was not paying his rent.

According to Muskingum County Assistant Prosecutor John Litle, Dyer was told she would have to file a formal eviction in court to get the man and his dog, Lincoln, to leave the property.

A few weeks after that she took Lincoln to the riverside and shot him.

Dyer couldn't be found after that. It was discovered she had been staying in the campground's bunkhouse.

Litle said Dyer later acknowledged that she shot Lincoln because his owner wouldn't leave.

Dyer has no previous criminal record.

ecouch@gannett.com

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Twitter: @couchreporting

This article originally appeared on Zanesville Times Recorder: Patricia Dyer gets prison for killing German shepherd dog Lincoln




Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has requested an all-member briefing on the evolving situation in Ukraine, her office confirmed to The Hill, amid growing concerns of a Russian military incursion.

Pelosi's office didn't immediately provide further details of the request, which was first reported by Punchbowl News.

However, the request further demonstrates Capitol Hill's interest in the conflict as support for Ukraine has emerged as a rare bipartisan point among lawmakers.

"We have been in close consultation with members in leadership from the beginning," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters when asked about the request. "I am sure we are working to meet the request and needs of members."

Russia has amassed at least 100,000 troops along Ukraine's border, sparking fears that Moscow may launch an invasion. In 2014, Russia invaded and then annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

The Kremlin has denied it plans to invade Ukraine, but diplomatic engagements have been unsuccessful at trying to get Moscow to draw down its forces.

Pelosi's request comes after the administration appeared to send warning shots about the potential of an invasion over the weekend.

Late Sunday evening, the administration ordered family members of U.S. government employees in Kyiv to leave the country, while allowing nonemergency employees to voluntarily leave.

The New York Times and NBC News reported that the administration was weighing sending several thousand troops to bolster NATO's eastern flank amid a possible invasion, with the option of increasing that number if circumstances unravel in the region.

However, none of the options reported would involve sending troops directly to Ukraine.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby





The Pentagon is readying up to 8,500 U.S. troops to potentially deploy to Eastern Europe as Russia ratchets up its aggression towards Ukraine.

"The United States will act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to actions by Russia that harm us, our allies, or partners," press secretary John Kirby told reporters Monday.

In light of that and at the direction of President Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin "has placed a range of units in the United States on a heightened preparedness to deploy, which increases our readiness to provide forces if NATO should activate the [NATO Response Force] or if other situations develop."

"All told, the number of forces that the secretary has placed on heightened alert comes up to about 8,500 personnel," Kirby said.

The Pentagon's prepare to deploy orders follow warnings from Western officials that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent as the Kremlin has amassed some 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine.

Moscow has also placed an unidentified number of its forces in Belarus under the claim of war games.

Biden has already threatened high economic costs on Russia if troops cross the border and said that an invasion of Ukraine could result in troops being sent to bolster NATO's defenses.

The commander-in-chief was set to meet virtually with European leaders on Monday afternoon to discuss the situation, which has grown more dire in recent days and prompted the State Department to reduced staffing at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv.

Kirby stressed that there has been no decision made to deploy and there's no intent to send troops to Ukraine. He said the heightened alert was "about getting troops ready" and reassuring NATO allies.

He noted that the "vast majority" U.S. troops placed on alert would help the NATO Response Force (NRF), a multinational force comprised of around 40,000 land, air, maritime and special operations forces the alliance can deploy on short notice as needed.

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Austin also wants to be "postured to be ready for any other contingencies as well," he added.

"We're going to be ready, we're going to be prepared to help bolster our allies with capabilities they might need," Kirby said. "We're going to do this in lockstep with them ... This is really about reassuring the Eastern flank of NATO."

The Defense Department on Monday was still notifying military units it would send to Eastern Europe, but they would include "additional brigade combat teams, logistics, medical, aviation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, transportation and additional capabilities" in the event of "NATO's activation of the NRF or a deteriorating security environment," Kirby said.

To add to the sense of urgency, Austin's order would also speed up military units' deployment preparation. In some cases, units time to prepare to move would go from 10 days down to five days

Washington earlier this month sent two weapons shipments to Ukraine as part of a lethal aid package approved in December, and NATO countries are also sending ships, fighter jets and weapons to locations in Eastern Europe.

In addition, the European Union has vowed to speed up a financial package for Ukraine worth $1.4 billion.

Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly denied it is planning an invasion and has accused the West of ratcheting up tensions.

Updated at 4:35 p.m.
Soldiers take part in joint military exercises of units of Poland, Britain, US and Romania at the military train ground in Bemowo Piskie on November 18, 2021. Janek Skarzynski/Getty Images

The US has 8,500 troops on "heightened alert" amid Ukraine-Russia tensions, the Pentagon said Monday.

Russia has gathered tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine's border in recent months.

The Kremlin says it has no plans to invade, but Western leaders are highly skeptical.

The Pentagon on Monday said that 8,500 troops are on "heightened alert" amid growing concerns that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, but no final decisions to deploy US forces have been made.

"The US has taken steps to heighten the readiness of its forces at home and abroad so they are prepared to respond to a range of contingencies, including support to the NATO Response Force (NRF) if it is activated," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said, referencing NATO's rapidly deployable force of 40,000 multinational troops.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has "placed a range of units in the US on a heightened preparedness to deploy, which increases our readiness to provide forces, if NATO should activate the NRF, or if other situations develop," Kirby said, adding, "The number of forces that the secretary has placed on heightened alert comes down to about 8500 personnel."

Kirby also said it's "very clear the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating."

The Pentagon's announcement on Monday came after reports that President Joe Biden was weighing sending thousands of troops to Eastern Europe with the region on high alert over Russia's posture toward Ukraine.

Russia has gathered more than 100,000 troops at Ukraine's border in recent months. Given Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and annexed Crimea, there are serious concerns Moscow is planning another military incursion. Russia has also been supporting rebels in a war against Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbass region since 2014.

The Kremlin has said it doesn't plan to invade, while also resisting calls from Western leaders to pull its forces back from the Ukrainian border.

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The Biden administration has warned Russia it will face severe economic consequences if it invades, but has ruled out deploying troops to Ukraine given the former Soviet republic is not a NATO member and the US is not obligated to defend it. That said, the administration has provided Ukraine with roughly $650 million in military assistance over the past year, including weapons or lethal aid.

Diplomatic efforts by the US and its allies to stave off a broader confrontation have so far failed to yield any major breakthroughs, and the White House has expressed concerns that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Crew members on the L&R Sarnia break ice as part of the Black River seawall construction work on the Black River between Seventh Street and Military Street in Port Huron on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022.

Ice breaking operations began early Monday to assist contractors working on the installation of a new seawall along the Black River in Port Huron.

Ice breaking is expected to end on Feb. 4, according to a press release from the city. There will be open water on the Black River from the Seventh Street Bridge to the St. Clair River.

City Manager James Freed has said the project, including reconstructing much of the adjacent West Quay Street parking lot, is roughly 45 feet into replacing a 105-foot seawall.

Read more: Ice breaking to assist in ongoing Black River seawall construction begins

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Ice breaking begins in Black River to assist in seawall work
CCTV footage of the man suspected to have killed two Canadian national at a hotel in Mexico (Lucio Hernandez Gutierrez)

Police are looking for a shooter involved in the killing of two Canadian guests and injuring a third at a luxury hotel in Mexico on Friday.

The incident took place at an upscale resort on the Riviera Maya of Quintana Roo states the suspect, a lone gunman approached the group and opened fire at them, according to Riviera Maya News.

According to the authorities, the suspect, who is believed to have fired the shots, has a long criminal record in Canada, reported Reuters. Quintana Roos head of public security, Lucio Hernandez posted photos of the alleged shooter  a man in a grey track suit and black face mask wielding a gun in front of green landscaping.

Authorities are coordinating "a strong operation for his capture," Hernandez tweeted: "Any information leading to his prompt arrest will be greatly appreciated."

The three victims were taken to the hospital after the law enforcement arrived at the hotel, reported Newsweek. Of the three, one victim died in the ambulance, the other in the hospital, reported the outlet citing Quintana Roo prosecutor Oscar Montes de Oca. The third victim, a 29-year-old woman is still in the hospital.

Este es el huesped que disparo ocasionando las lesiones que posteriormente provocaran la muerte a uno de ellos, las autoridades del grupo de coordinacion despliegan fuerte operativo para su captura, cualquier informacion para pronta detencion estaremos profundamente agradecidos. pic.twitter.com/PRDC0hhBBe  Lucio Hernandez Gutierrez (@Lucio_HG) January 21, 2022

The two deceased, identified as Thomas N and Robert N, had a criminal history, said the authorities, citing information from Canadian police.

While Thomas N, had criminal records related to drug trafficking, weapons, robbery and false identity usages, the criminal history of the second fatality, Robert N, were not shared, reported Riviera Maya News.

In a statement, the Xcaret group said it deeply regrets the incident and is providing support to those affected.

Additional reporting from the wires
Jan. 24Officials in Maine's largest city are asking for help as a growing number of asylum seekers in need of emergency shelter stretches resources and prompts concerns about the upcoming budget.

Portland is currently providing shelter to about 1,150 people per night, more than twice as many as in the summer of 2019, when another influx of asylum seekers meant the city had to house about 440 people and it turned the Portland Expo into a temporary shelter to do so.

"We've had to scramble to deal with the resettlement issue ,and it's not something one municipality the size of Portland should be addressing for the entire state of Maine," said Interim City Manager Danielle West. "We want to see these families succeed and help them as much as we can, but it is extremely difficult to be able to provide all these services."

The city has been in ongoing conversations with the state about the issue. West said she and Mayor Kate Snyder are hoping to meet with members of Maine's congressional delegation this week to talk about the restrictions that bar asylum seekers from getting jobs and the federal funding that is helping to pay for emergency housing.

"We just really need help so we're asking all of these individuals to try and help us handle this issue so these people can be served in the best way they can be," West said. "No one wants to see us fail and not be able to provide the services these people so desperately need."

The arrival of asylum seekers, most of whom are coming from African countries such as Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Portland isn't anything new. But at a City Council meeting last week, staff told councilors the city is seeing the highest ever nightly averages of people in need of shelter. "Simply put, we are in a crisis situation," Director of Health and Human Services Kristen Dow told the council.

The situation has also taken on a new level of urgency as the city heads into budget season. At a workshop earlier this month, Director of Finance Brendan O'Connell estimated the city could spend $30 million this fiscal year on emergency shelter costs  far exceeding the $2.7 million that was budgeted  though federal and state reimbursements will offset those costs.

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The city is currently using 10 hotels across five municipalities in addition to its two shelters to house people. In July, the city spent $1.1 million on hotel costs. In December, it spent $2.5 million. It's not just that more people are being housed in hotels, O'Connell said; the city has also exhausted the supply of cheaper hotel rooms.

"In the beginning we were paying $59 to $79 (per room) per night in the hotels we were using, but now we're paying $220 per night as Portland has already occupied the inventory of less expensive hotel rooms," he said.

State law requires municipalities to provide "general assistance" for people who are unable to cover their basic necessities such as housing, food and electricity.

Right now, the state reimburses 70 percent of emergency housing costs and federal funds pay for the remaining 30 percent  so Portland taxpayers aren't shouldering the increase in emergency housing costs.

But while the federal funds set to expire in April have been renewed in the past, O'Connell said he expects that could change in the coming fiscal year. If the 30 percent reimbursement disappeared but hotel costs remained the same, the city would be looking at a $9 million bill  or a 4.8 percent increase in the tax rate.

"This is the biggest budget challenge we have for next year," O'Connell said.

Meanwhile, asylum seekers continue to arrive, and many of them families with young children. In 2021, the city took in 307 families  1,006 people  more than double the 138 families made up of 487 people that arrived in 2020.

The majority of families that arrived last year came in the second half of the year, said Jessica Grondin, a city spokesperson, and in the first three weeks of this year, the city has already taken in 39 new families  about one-third the number of people the city saw in all of 2020.

On Friday evening at one hotel in South Portland, a small group of volunteers from the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition worked to prepare meals for the new arrivals  cassava leaves, chicken and fufu, a dough-like food that is a staple of many African cuisines.

They spent over an hour packing more than 200 individual servings to distribute at three hotels.

Private donations and grant money are being used to provide hot meals six nights a week, said Mufalo Chitam, executive director of the coalition, and other agencies also offer services, such as a weekly English class. But Chitam said the newcomers still face a host of challenges, including transportation, laundry and finding money to pay for phones.

"They are in transition to get into housing," Chitam said. "That's the biggest challenge. The hotels are not a home. These are families, people with children. It's not set up in any way to be comfortable. It's uncomfortable. But it's a roof over their head."

Staff from Portland are coordinating services in nearby communities such as South Portland and Freeport where asylum seekers are being housed in hotels. On Friday, Dow, the city's health and human services director, said she was emailing back and forth with a lieutenant in the Freeport Police Department about the languages Freeport would need help with in order to communicate with families. Dow said she would like to have a conversation with state officials about what it would look like for the state to take the lead.

"In each community, we're coordinating these services," she said. "If the state were to take this over, they could be the one coordinating these services instead of the city of Portland working in Freeport and Old Orchard (Beach) and Westbrook."

Councilors at last week's meeting also called on the state, other communities and Portland lawmakers to help. "I think we're beyond the point of talking," said Councilor Mark Dion. "I like the idea of task forces and the idea of engaging and collaborating and discussing what should be done. But people are drowning. It's not the time to discuss what the life ring will look like. We need a life ring."

In October, Portland's mayor sent a letter to Gov. Janet Mills asking for help in coming up with solutions to homelessness statewide. Since then, Snyder said, she and West have been meeting regularly with the governor's staff to discuss funding, staffing and assistance with resettlement efforts.

Snyder said state officials have been supportive but are also facing their own staffing and capacity challenges. "I would say the work with the state is ongoing," she said. "The partnership feels strong. The recognition that this is an unexpected challenge is front and center for all of us and we need to continue to push for state support, state leadership and state partnerships."

The governor's office is aware of the situation in Portland and has been communicating regularly with city officials, said Lindsay Crete, spokesperson for the governor, in an email Friday. In 2019, the state played a proactive role in addressing the arrival of asylum seekers through agencies like the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maine Emergency Management Agency.

The Maine CDC assigned public health nurses to work with new asylum seekers at the Expo in 2019 and MEMA provided cots and blankets and coordinated with nonprofits and volunteer organizations.

Today, Crete said, those state agencies are focused almost entirely on pandemic response. "The state recognizes the growing issue, though, shares the city's concerns and is considering how it might play a constructive role in supporting the city and surrounding municipalities in the short-term," she said.

In the long term, she said, comprehensive federal immigration reform is needed to expedite both the review of asylum applications and work authorization.

Snyder said the city is eager to talk with Maine's congressional delegation about the laws governing asylum seekers' ability to work. "That is the big issue here," she said. "People are not eligible to work. There's a long ... process to determine whether or not asylum seekers can actually be granted asylum and be here and work."

Families are averaging about five months in hotels before getting rooms in the city's family shelter, according to Snyder's letter to the governor. It usually takes another four months for them to secure housing elsewhere.

"It's not unusual for someone to be here for a year or more and not be able to work," Snyder said. "Our economy needs more workers, and it's a very stabilizing factor for families to have work, so to be prevented from working, which is governed by federal law, is (something we're focused on.)"

Spokespeople for Maine's congressional delegation, including Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and Rep. Chellie Pingree, said their offices have been in contact with local officials about the asylum seekers.

"City employees in Portland and their partners in the nonprofit community have been doing incredible work to care for migrants, but meeting these humanitarian needs should not fall on the City of Portland or the people of Maine alone," Collins said in a statement.

She said she would look for ways to support humanitarian efforts and provide relief through federal appropriations, and that Congress could change the law that prohibits asylum seekers from working for an extended period of time and look for a better way of processing asylum seeker claims.

"We are facing a national problem, requiring a national solution," Collins said.






Speakers:

Tian Yulong, chief engineer and spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)





Luo Junjie, director general of the Bureau of Operation Monitoring and Coordination of the MIIT





Zhao Zhiguo, director general of the Bureau of Information and Communications Administration of the MIIT





Chairperson:

Chen Wenjun, director general of the Press Bureau of the State Council Information Office (SCIO) and spokesperson of the SCIO





Date:

Jan. 20, 2022

Chen Wenjun:

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Welcome to this press conference held by the State Council Information Office (SCIO). Today, we have invited Mr. Tian Yulong, chief engineer and spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). Mr. Tian will brief you on the development of the industry and information technology sector in 2021 and take your questions. We are also joined by Mr. Luo Junjie, director general of the Bureau of Operation Monitoring and Coordination of the MIIT, and Mr. Zhao Zhiguo, director general of the Bureau of Information and Communications Administration of the MIIT.

Now, let's give the floor to Mr. Tian.

Tian Yulong:

Ladies and gentlemen, friends from the media, good morning. I'd like to begin by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to you for your attention and support for developing the industry and information technology sector. Next, I'll brief you on the general situation of 2021.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has made significant decisions to develop China into a manufacturer of quality and build the country's strength in cyberspace. Under the guidance of these decisions, China's industry and information technology sector has seen historic achievements and transformation, providing strong support for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. In 2021 especially, against the backdrop of complex and challenging environments and multiple risks and challenges, all government bodies and departments involved in the industry and information technology followed the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. We earnestly carried out decisions made by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and worked hard to coordinate epidemic prevention and control with economic and social development. We forged ahead and overcame difficulties, redoubled our efforts to ensure stability on the six fronts (employment, finance, foreign trade, foreign investment, domestic investment, and market expectations), implemented the tasks of guaranteeing stability in six areas (employment, people's livelihood, market entities, food and energy, stability of industrial and supply chains, and grassroots operations), and thoroughly carried out the strategies of developing China into a manufacturer of quality and building the country's strength in cyberspace. As a result, China's industrial economy sustained recovery and development. Its information technology sector made positive progress, putting the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan off to a good start. The overall growth of industry and information technology in 2021 has the following four features:

First, the industrial economy saw sustained recovery and development. In 2021, following the requirements being made by the Central Economic Work Conference, notably safeguarding macroeconomic stability and ensuring that the economy operates within an appropriate range, we have given greater priority to promoting the stable growth of the industrial sector and taken a series of measures. Through strengthening the guiding role of planning and policies, we introduced and implemented various plans from the 14th Five-Year Plan concerning key sectors and fields of industry and information technology. We formulated a series of policies and measures that ensure the industry's stable growth. We proactively addressed the adverse impact of sporadic pandemic outbreaks, the price hikes in bulk raw materials, and the constraints on energy. We adopted coordinated policies, managed to guarantee the interests of market players, stabilize investment and foster consumption, and effectively ensured the generally balanced and stable development of industrial production. In 2021, China's added value of industries above designated size grew by 9.6% year on year, or an average two-year growth rate of 6.1%. Among them, the growth rate in the third quarter of 2021 declined. However, as our policies on revitalizing the industrial economy took effect, the declining trend was reversed, and the growth rate of the industrial economy rebounded gradually. Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, we managed to overcome various obstacles. As a result, the development of the industrial economy in 2021 generally went well with satisfying results, and this did not come easily.

Second, industrial transformation and upgrading accelerated notably. In 2021, we focused on stabilizing the industrial and supply chain, sped up the digital and green transformation of industries, spared no effort to enhance the core competitiveness of the manufacturing industry, and strived to facilitate the transformation and upgrade of traditional industries as well as the development of emerging industries. As a result, we have accomplished achievements in three aspects. First, the digital transformation of the manufacturing sector was accelerated, and the innovative development of the industrial internet saw remarkable progress. Security systems for internet platforms were established, and the "5G+industrial internet" was applied in 20 scenarios and 10 key industries. The capacity of innovative applications ranked in the top tier globally. Second, the green and low-carbon development of industries saw positive progress. We formulated and published implementation plans concerning carbon neutrality in industrial fields and key sectors and steadily advanced the green transformation of traditional industries. The output of crude steel in 2021 decreased by 32 million metric tons compared with the previous year, down 3%. In the first 11 months of 2021, the energy consumption per unit of the added value of industries above the designated size reduced 5.5% year-on-year, which was remarkable progress. Third, emerging industries maintained a relatively fast growth, and high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing grew a more vital driving force and saw rapid development. Industrial software, big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other new technologies, industries, and business forms projected a strong growth rate. The new energy vehicles (NEVs) sector, which attracted widespread attention, saw rapid development, and more than 3.5 million NEVs were produced and sold respectively in 2021, up 160% year on year. Therefore, the industrial transformation was brought onto a fast track in 2021.

Third, measures providing vital relief to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were implemented and enhanced effectiveness. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council have attached great importance to the development of SMEs and regarded facilitating the development of SMEs as a long-term strategy for stabilizing growth and employment. Under the leadership of the State Council's working mechanism on promoting the development of SMEs, the MIIT has been working with relevant departments of the State Council and local governments to strengthen coordination, supervision, and guidance. We have been working to constantly optimize the business environment of SMEs, further protect and stimulate the vitality of market entities, provide more favorable policies and continuous services. We have also introduced policy packages that provide vital relief and benefit to SMEs and established long-term mechanisms that prevent and resolve the problem of defaults on payments to SMEs, which has proved to be effective currently. Policies such as tax and fee cuts and inclusive financing continue to take effect and significantly reduce the burden on enterprises. In the meantime, we strive to promote the rapid development of SMEs towards high growth potential, advanced technology, and a strong market competitive edge. The MIIT worked with relevant government bodies and introduced policies on developing high-quality manufacturers and improving SMEs' competitiveness. Over 40,000 enterprises in China have high growth potential, advanced technology, and a strong market competitive edge. The number of "little giant" enterprises in China amounted to 4,762, and single-product manufacturing specialists reached 848. They have become the benchmark demonstration enterprises in their respective and specialized fields, and a group of innovative enterprises and business startups continue to emerge and grow.

Fourth, the information and telecom industry made new leaps forward. Last year, by further leveraging the enabling role of the new generation of information technology, we continued improving and building new types of infrastructure, and vigorously fostered new forms of business and new applications, thus continuously enhancing our capacity to support the digital transformation of the economy and society. Here we outline the main features. First, the industry developed at an increasingly higher speed. In 2021, the revenue of the telecom business increased by 8% year on year, and that of software and information technology services grew by 17.7% year on year. The construction of "double gigabit" network infrastructure sped up, covering 300 million households with gigabit optical fiber networks. A total of 1.43 million 5G base stations were established and opened, and 512,000 administrative villages across the country got access to broadband. All those are of historic significance. What is also historic is that telecom difficulties in poor areas were addressed, a remarkable achievement even worldwide. Substantial outcomes were made in the innovative supervision of the industry, with major progress in special projects to regulate the internet industry, regulate apps infringing on users' rights and interests, and upgrade internet applications for the aged. The foundation of security was continuously consolidated, with solid progress in the prevention and combat of telecom and internet fraud, the protection of personal information, and the management of data security. At the same time, the whole industry actively participated in and served major national events. We offered sound telecom and cyber security services to the celebrations of the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last year and are going all out to ensure those services at the Winter Olympics and Paralympics. All the venues in the three competition zones in Beijing and Zhangjiakou have realized full coverage of 5G, strong support and guarantee for online broadcasting of events and a smart Winter Olympics.

Those are the main features of our work in four aspects last year. In 2022, we face a more challenging, complex, and uncertain external environment. China's industrial economy faces triple pressure from shrinking demand, supply shock, and weakening expectations, and the task of ensuring stable growth remains a challenge. We will thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important addresses and the Central Economic Work Conference, continue to follow the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, and promote the high-quality development of industry and information technology. We will coordinate epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, balance development and security imperatives, focus on our goal of building China into a manufacturer of quality and building China's strength in cyberspace, and give top priority to stabilizing industrial growth. We will do a good job in anticipatory adjustments, fine-tuning, and cross-cyclical adjustments; strive to enhance the core competitiveness of the manufacturing sector; improve the quality and efficiency of the industrial economy while promoting its stability; and keep the proportion of the manufacturing sector basically stable. We will strengthen and boost the real economy and lay a solid foundation for the economy so as to welcome the convening of the 20th CPC National Congress with outstanding achievements.

That is all I have for now. My colleagues and I are ready to answer your questions. Thank you.

Chen Wenjun:

Thank you, Mr. Tian. The floor is now open to questions. Please indicate the media organization you work for before raising questions.
Jan. 24A propane heater caused a fire that destroyed a Rostraver home used as an animal shelter, a state police fire marshal determined.

About a dozen cats died in the Jan. 14 fire at the Route 51 home of Wendi Kraemer, who operated the nonprofit Angels Journey Home Animal Rescue there. The house was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived shortly after 3:45 a.m.

The fire marshal said the blaze was determined to have started from a propane heater used in an enclosed porch. No other details were provided.

About two dozen cats and eight dogs survived. Kraemer was not hurt.

Other rescue groups were helping Kraemer care for the surviving animals.

Brian C. Rittmeyer is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Brian at 724-226-4701, brittmeyer@triblive.com or via Twitter .




Prosecutors told a jury on Monday that three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights did nothing to prevent the murder of George Floyd.

During opening statements for the officers' federal trial, prosecutor Samantha Trepel said, "These three CPR-trained defendants stood and knelt next to officer Chauvin as he slowly killed George Floyd right in front of them," according to The Associated Press.

The officers, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, are all charged with depriving Floyd, a Black man, of his civil rights and failing to provide medical care.

Thao and Kueng face additional charges for failing to stop Derek Chauvin, the white officer convicted of murder and manslaughter for kneeling on Floyd's neck.

Attorneys representing the Floyd family have said that footage taken by bystanders shows that the officers "directly contributed to [Floyd's] death and failed to intervene to stop the senseless murder," the AP reported.

During the encounter that caused Floyd's death on May 25, 2020, Chauvin pinned him to the ground while Kueng knelt on his back, Lane held down his leg and Thao held bystanders back, the AP added.

Last week, the jury selection for the officers' trial was completed in just one day. The jury is composed of 18 people, most of whom are white. Jury selection for Chauvin's trial on state charges took two weeks. That group was more diverse and was made up of half white and half nonwhite members.
Shantell Fields, Lauren Smith-Fields' mother, stands with family members during a rally at the Morton Government Center in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Sunday. Smith-Fields was found dead in her Bridgeport apartment in December, and her family and friends marched in her memory on Sunday, which would have been her 24th birthday. (Photo: Ned Gerard/Hearst Connecticut Media via AP)

In a notice announcing an intent to sue, an attorney for the relatives of Lauren Smith-Fields accused a Connecticut police department of being racially insensitive toward them and bungling its investigation into the young Black womans death.

The familys lawyer, Darnell Crosland, filed the notice Friday, saying his clients will be filing a lawsuit against the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where Smith-Fields, 23, died after a date with a man she had met on the dating app Bumble in mid-December.

The Police Department has been racially insensitive to this family and has treated this family with no respect and has violated their civil rights, the notice says.

Its very concerning that the police have not done more to investigate Matthew LaFountain, the 37-year-old white man who was on the date with Smith-Fields, he added.

They have failed to investigate this matter, and they refuse to view the last person with Lauren Smith-Fields before she died as a person of interest. This behavior is unacceptable.

In the notice, Crosland says police failed to contact Smith-Fields family, leaving her loved ones to find out about her death from her landlord. The first detective assigned to the case told the family to stop calling with questions about the investigation, Crosland also claims. The medical examiner has yet to release an autopsy report.

Relatives of Lauren Smith-Fields, who died on Dec. 12, say there are inconsistencies in the police report about the 23-year-old's death. (Photo: Courtesy of Smith-Fields family)

Later on Monday, Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim announced that the police departments handling of the investigation has been referred to the citys Office of Internal Affairs for an independent investigation.

I recognize that the family and the community is experiencing a lot of pain because of the loss of a young woman in addition to unanswered questions and concerns about the way the matter has been handled, he said in a statement.

Smith-Fields was found dead in her apartment on Dec. 12, 2021. According to the police report, she and LaFountain were drinking tequila in the apartment when she became sick and went to the bathroom to vomit. They started drinking again until Smith-Fields, who police say was intoxicated, got a text and said she needed to step outside to get something from her brother. When she returned, she reportedly went to the bathroom for several minutes.

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LaFountain told police that Smith-Fields fell asleep while they watched a movie and he carried her to bed, where he lay down beside her. He said that around 6 a.m., he woke up, found his date was not breathing, saw blood coming out of her nose and called the police.

But Lakeem Jetter, the brother Smith-Field went outside to meet, told Rolling Stone last week that the police report doesnt add up.

She looked normal, he said. She didnt look sick, she didnt look tired, she didnt look drunk. Im her second older brother, if I would have seen her drunk I wouldve said What are you doing?  Why do you look like that?

Her mother, Shantell Fields, also told Yahoo News that the police did not collect evidence from her daughters apartment and that she later found both a condom filled with semen and a pill there that the family believes may be a sedative. Police reportedly collected those items two weeks later at the familys urging.

The Bridgeport Police Department has come under fire for racism in recent years. In 2019, the Racial Profiling Prohibition Project found it was the only municipal department in the state to have above-average racial disparities in traffic stops and violations the year prior.

Bridgeport police have not responded to the familys specific accusations but issued a statement to NBC News saying the investigation remains open and active and that its awaiting the final report from the Chief Medical Examiners Office for cause and manner of death.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Related...
Longtime Daily Advertiser publisher and community leader Richard "Dick" D'Aquin has died. He was 94.

He died Saturday at his home in Lafayette, according to his obituary.

D'Aquin was publisher at The Daily Advertiser for 33 years. He began his newspaper career as an advertising salesman for the Advertiser. He was named editor and publisher of The Rayne Acadian Tribune and Church Point News, which were under the same parent company as the Advertiser.

In 1963, he was named publisher of the Advertiser when Thomson Newspapers purchased the paper. He remained publisher until he retired on Dec. 31, 1995.

Richard D'Aquin, longtime Daily Advertiser publisher, as seen in tgus July 10, 2008, file photo.

"When I first became publisher in 1962, one of the first things I did was to adopt a motto for The Daily Advertiser," he said when his retirement was announced in December 19. "That motto reads: Dedicated to making Acadiana a better place to live.

"That has been the mission of our newspaper and I have tried through the years to guide it in that direction."

In other news: Area colleges increase students' chances for employment by training for high demand jobs

D'Aquin, who was a Korean War veteran, was also involved civically in Lafayette, sitting on a number of boards and committees. He helped create an Acadiana Caucus in the Louisiana Legislature. He also put his influence behind such far-reaching developments as the Cajun Dome.

He served three terms on the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce board of directors, was on the executive committee and served as vice president. He was active in the United Way and was the 1969 recipient of the Lafayette Civic Cup award.

2021 Civic Cup winner: Service comes naturally for 2021 Civic Cup winner Barry Berthelot

D'Aquin served on the Louisiana State Board of Education for three years, serving as vice president and a member of the executive committee. He also was a charter member of the Louisiana Board of Regents.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations can be made in his memory to Hospice of Acadiana. Mass will be held at 3 p.m. Monday at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Lafayette. A wake will be held at the church at 1 p.m., followed by the Rosary at 2 p.m.

Contact Ashley White at adwhite@theadvertiser.com or on Twitter @AshleyyDi.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Richard 'Dick' D'Aquin, longtime Daily Advertiser publisher, dies
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed coordination of a "strategic partnership" on the global arena in a phone call with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the Kremlin said on Monday.

They also agreed to "activate" contacts on various levels and to strengthen bilateral ties.

(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin)
By Maria Tsvetkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A proposal to ask Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognise two breakaway east Ukraine regions as independent will not be ready for discussion by the relevant parliamentary committee until next week, the committee's head told Reuters on Monday.

The proposal, initiated by the Communist faction in the Duma, is significant because - if parliament approved it and Putin agreed - it would mark a hardening of Russia's stance in the Ukraine crisis and further raise tensions with the West.

A source in the Duma, parliament's lower house, said its speaker would hold consultations with party leaders this week on the motion.

But Leonid Kalashnikov, head of the Duma's committee on relations with the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States, said it would take until next week to gather submissions from all the parliamentary parties.

RIA news agency quoted another Communist deputy as saying the draft would be discussed "in February". The Duma Council, which decides when votes should take place, is next scheduled to meet on Feb. 7.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014, is part of a wider crisis in which Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops on its neighbour's borders and NATO has moved to deter a potential Russian invasion by reinforcing its eastern flank.

Recognising the breakaway Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states would kill off the already struggling peace process and could provide Putin with a pretext to send troops into those regions to "protect" them.

The Kremlin has so far declined to comment.

"The only interest for Russia to make such a move would be the scenario of war in Ukraine," said Igor Delanoe, deputy director of the French-Russian Analytical Center Observo, based in Moscow.

He said he did not see Russia recognising the separatist regions unless it had concluded there was no possibility of implementing the 2015 Minsk agreement aimed at ending the conflict by granting them special status within Ukraine.

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A European diplomat in Moscow said they did not see recognition as likely.

"Russia currently has nothing to gain by recognising them, except for perhaps the public support of some groups inside the republics themselves," the diplomat said. "Of course, if the security talks completely break down, then they could do anything."

(Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova, Mark Trevelyan and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Alison Williams)
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ  Next Tuesday, Feb. 1 all Rutgers students and teachers will return to class. On Jan. 31, Rutgers ends its one month of virtual learning that it imposed at the beginning of January, imposed because of skyrocketing cases of the omicron variant.

And all 71,000 Rutgers students and 25,600 employees statewide must prove they got a booster shot to return back to campus.

Rutgers said it did not have any data on how many students and teachers already complied with the booster shot. Rutgers was also the first university in the county to require its students get a coronavirus vaccine.

"The university requires all employees to be vaccinated and obtain and upload proof of a vaccine booster by January 31, 2022, or when otherwise eligible, or to have an approved medical or religious exemption," said a university spokeswoman.

Other New Jersey universities such as Princeton and Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken also require their students get a booster. At Princeton, students must receive booster shots by Jan. 31, while Stevens Institute of Technology requires students and staff get booster shots no later than March 31.

Get great local news. Sign up for Patch emails: https://patch.com/subscribe Contact this Patch reporter: Carly.baldwin@patch.com

This article originally appeared on the New Brunswick Patch
Samuel L. Jackson has been one of Hollywood's go-to scene-stealers for decades. But the Pulp Fiction star isn't about to take credit for the cameos he didn't make. On Jan. 23, Black activist Zellie Imani posted an archival photo on Twitter that purportedly showed a younger Jackson  who was then a student at Morehouse College  observing Martin Luther King Jr. in a Georgia pool hall in 1966.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. shooting pool in 1966. Samuel L. Jackson, who was a freshman at Morehouse College at the time, is in this photo. pic.twitter.com/R3YUVxWv7k  zellie (@zellieimani) January 23, 2022

Hours later, the actor entered the chat to correct the historical record. "Okay, I met Dr. King but not at a pool hall," Jackson wrote. "That's not me!!"

Okay, I met Dr King, but not at a pool hall. Thats NOT me!!  Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) January 23, 2022

While it's never easy to be fact-checked in real time  and by an Oscar-nominated celebrity no less  Imani was gracious in acknowledging his error and grateful to Jackson for the correction. "LOL, whoops," he wrote in reply to the actor. "Glad he was able to chime in and correct me," Imani told another writer who chuckled at the exchange.

Glad he was able to chime in and correct me!  zellie (@zellieimani) January 23, 2022

While Jackson may not be featured in that particular pool hall photo, he was in attendance for King's funeral in Atlanta two years later. Writing in The Hollywood Reporter in 2018, the actor recalled serving as an usher during the April 9, 1968 procession, held at Spelman College.

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"They needed volunteers to help people find their way around campus, and I became an usher," Jackson wrote. "I remember Mahalia Jackson singing. Id been listening to her all my life, so it was great to hear her sing 'Precious Lord, Take My Hand' live. I remember seeing people like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. People that I thought Id never see, let alone have a relationship with later on in life. The funeral was pretty much a blur."

But the experience also brought Jackson's future into sharper focus, launching him on a path that led to political activism and, eventually, an acting career. After getting involved with anti-war groups at the height of the Vietnam War, a close brush with the FBI led him to make the trip to Hollywood ... and he never left.

"We were buying guns, which kind of put me on the radar of the powers that be," Jackson wrote of his dramatic departure for the West Coast. "We were fully expecting a revolution to happen. That summer of 69, somebody from the FBI came to my moms house in Tennessee and told her she needed to get me out of Atlanta before I got killed. She showed up and said she was going to take me to lunch. I got in the car and she drove me to the airport and said, 'Get on this plane, do not get off. Ill talk to you when you get to your aunts in L.A.'"
ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NY  Molloy College kicked off the spring semester on Monday by hosting the Mount Sinai South Nassau "Vaxmobile."

The free booster clinic helps students and staff comply with the college's COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Pfizer and Moderna shots were given by appointment only.

"Its really great for everyone," Dr. James Lentini, President of Molloy College, said in a statement. "The vast majority of our students and employees are very happy that we have created a safe environment with very few cases reported in the fall semester."

This marks the first Vaxmobile visit to Molloy. It has been touring the Town of Hempstead, free of charge, since March.

"We all need to do our part and getting the vaccine is just another way to get back to normal," Madeline DiDomenica, a junior and a nursing student at Molloy College, said. "Now we can go into our clinic in person and attend classes with our professors for hands-on experience instead of being virtual online."









This article originally appeared on the Rockville Centre Patch
By Clare Jim

HONG KONG (Reuters) - China Evergrande Group on Monday sought more time from its offshore bondholders to work on a "comprehensive" and "effective" debt restructuring plan, amid signs Beijing is tightening control over the cash-strapped property group.

Evergrande, once China's top selling real estate developer, has more than $300 billion in liabilities, including nearly $20 billion of international bonds all deemed to be in default after a run of missed payments late last year.

Last week, a group of Evergrande's offshore creditors said they were ready to take "all necessary actions" to defend their rights if the company did not show more urgency to resolve a default.

Evergrande on Monday urged bondholders to refrain from taking "radical legal actions" and that it looked forward to communicating with various overseas creditors to formulate a debt restructuring plan.

The company needs further studies and evaluation before entering into communication with the creditors, it said in a statement on its website.

"The board, the risk management committee and the entire company are sparing no effort ... to formulate a comprehensive, detailed and effective debt restructuring plan to protect the legal rights of all parties," Evergrande said.

Evergrande's shares rose earlier on Monday after it named two new board members, including Liang Senlin, chairman of China Cinda (HK) Holdings Company Limited, a unit of China Cinda Asset Management - one of the country's four biggest state asset managers.

Evergrande set up a risk management committee last month, mostly comprising senior officials from state entities including China Cinda Asset Management.

Evergrande's assets are expected to be taken over by state-owned firms in a restructuring led by the provincial government of Guangdong, where the developer is based, and the naming of an official from a unit of a state asset manager to its board could signal the restructuring was moving forward.

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The other new board member was Siu Shawn, chairman of China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group Limited, a business the parent company plans to prioritise.

Evergrande's shares also drew support from a Friday report by Financial intelligence provider REDD that said the Guangdong provincial government was aiming to release a framework debt restructuring plan by March.

It plans to separate the company's offshore assets and sell them to pay off foreign debt, the REDD report said.

Evergrande has not responded to requests for comment on the report.

The developer's stock ended the day up nearly 4%.

ASSET SALES

Regulatory curbs on borrowing have driven China's property sector into crisis, highlighted by Evergrande, which was once the country's top-selling developer, but is now the world's most indebted property company.

Beijing has taken steps to restore stability, including making it easier for state-backed developers to buy up distressed assets of indebted private firms, a source said.

Guangzhou-based Agile said on Monday it sold its 26.7% stake in a mixed-use complex to one of the joint-venture partners, state-owned developer China Overseas Land (COLI), for 1.84 billion yuan ($291 million).

The complex is Guangzhou Asian Games City, and COLI owned 20% interest in it before the purchase.

Shimao, which holds a 26.7% stake in the same complex, is also trying to sell its stake to COLI, local media Cailianshe reported. Shimao did not respond to a request for comment.

Agile Group and Shimao Group ended up 7.4% and 0.2% respectively. The Hang Seng Mainland Properties sub-index edged up 0.6%.

Last week, Shimao said it had sold commercial land in Shanghai for 1.06 billion yuan to a company owned by the Shanghai municipal government to reduce debt.

($1 = 6.3327 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Jane Merriman)
SHOREWOOD, WI  A private COVID-19 testing site in Shorewood and hundreds more locations like it across the nation will continue to be shuttered as investigations into their parent company, Center For Covid Control, continue.

Federal agents searched the company's headquarters in Rolling Meadows, Illinois on Saturday, according to reports. A spokesperson for the FBI's Chicago office told USA Today they were conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity.

NBC News reported federal records show the company has billed over $120 million to the federal government for testing people without insurance.

On Jan. 13, after complaints filed in from people who took the company's tests, and some states began investigations into the company, the company announced it will halt operations across all locations until Jan. 22 to allow for further staff training.



On Jan. 20, two days before Center for Covid Control initially said it would resume operations, the company announced the closure across its 300 locations will be extended until further notice. Alongside the announcement, the company said any location that is conducting business can be reported to them via email.

The people who are listed as owning or managing the broader Center For Covid Control company, Akbar Syed and Aleya Siyaj, have come under scrutiny after purchasing luxury vehicles and a mansion, USA Today reported.

The Minnesota Attorney General filed a lawsuit on Jan. 19 against Center for Covid Control, LLC and Doctors Clinical Laboratory, Inc. The lawsuit charges the companies with false advertising, deceptive trading practices and violation of the Minnesota state consumer fraud active.

SEE ALSO:

COVID-19 Testing Company Lied About Results: MN Attorney General

Private Shorewood COVID-19 Testing Site On Pause After Scrutiny

Oregon DOJ Probe Leads National COVID Testing Biz To Pause Ops

According to the Minnesota Attorney General's office, former employees of the company said they found samples in bags that were well over 48 hours old. Investigators said management told employees to lie by telling customers their tests were negative or inconclusive when really samples were not even tested in the first place.

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Complaints found online have not specified the Shorewood location, although cautions and concerns have surfaced in other parts of Wisconsin.

At the 2223 East Capitol Drive site on Jan. 11, before the closures, a sign could be seen in the window saying it is only offering rapid tests. A large banner appeared in the window with the company name.

The make-shift facility was marked by a lack of decor, empty floor space, and empty red interior walls. The site appeared to be staffed by two employees.

As they arrived, test-takers were instructed to take a bag containing a small vial and a nasal swab from a central table and to sit at a TV dinner tray nearby. Staff directed test-takers as a group to swab both nostrils five times each, and to then stir the swab in the vial of liquid at least 20 times. Test results were sent to one Patch reporter within an hour of taking the test.

On Monday, the prominent sign advertising "Center for COVID Control" could not be seen in the storefront's window, but from outside, testing supplies appeared to still be inhabiting the interior of the building.

At one point, the company appeared to be advertising options to open a test site on its website. The location, centerforcovidcontrol.org/coming-soon which has since been blocked with a password, was accessed by Patch on Jan. 14. It reads:

"Are you interested in opening up a testing site? Welcome to our onboarding department!"

It then listed contact information.

"Please be patient as we process all requests. We are excited to have you on board!"

Center For Covid Control via email declined to comment on further questions from Patch about the advertised "onboarding" options. Patch reached out again via email on Monday.



While the company advertised several sites across the Milwaukee area on its website before scrutiny and investigations took off, none of them appeared in the Wisconsin Department of Health Services' official list of community COVID-19 testing sites.

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Health Services told Patch via email "DHS researches each inquiry or complaint regarding COVID-19 provider testing or billing practices that do not align with current policies."

"We conduct outreach to providers to investigate each situation as appropriate. That includes education about current policies and regulations and any next steps required by the provider and/or DHS."

The agency spokesperson said the DHS was unable to comment on specific allegations, complaints or investigations.

Patch reached out to the Wisconsin Department of Justice for comment.

Patch Editors Ethan Duran and William Bornhoft contributed to this report.



This article originally appeared on the Shorewood Patch




Wisconsin authorities said six people who were found dead in a Milwaukee-area home were shot as police seek to identify suspects in the case, The Associated Press reported.

Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) Assistant Police Chief Paul Formolo said in a news conference Sunday evening that officers were responding to a welfare check Sunday afternoon when they found four men and one woman dead at the residence.

In a tweet, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office said the body of an additional person, a man, was also found at the residence.

In an emailed statement on Monday, MPD Sgt. Efrain Cornejo told the news wire that all of the victims suffered gunshot injuries, adding the department is seeking "unknown suspects" in the case.

"The recent acts of violence are a stark reminder of the work that still remains to addressing the root causes of violent crime in our city," Milwaukee County Sheriff Earnell Lucas said in a statement.

According to CNN data, Milwaukee has recorded more homicides in 2021 than any other year on record. Cornejo told the news outlet that there were at least 192 homicides in the city in 2021, two more deaths than the city recorded the previous year.

In a statement, Milwaukee's acting mayor, Cavalier Johnson (D), expressed his condolences to the families of the victims.

"The murders discovered today on a residential block in the heart of our city are horrific," Johnson said in his statement. "It is important not to feel numbed by the ongoing violence in our community. A horrible crime has again occurred, and it is not a movie or a fictional account. These victims died in our city, in one of our neighborhoods."

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office said autopsies will be performed on the victims on Monday, the AP noted.

The Hill has reached out to the Milwaukee Police Department for more information.
This story first appeared in The Southern Illinoisan.

The Jefferson County Sheriffs Department is pursuing new technology in identifying a 1993 murder victim whose decapitated head was found in a local state park.

Police are using new technology anthropological re-analysis and DNA extraction to identify the unknown woman named Ina Jane Doe.

The presumed white females decapitated head was found on Jan. 27, 1993, on the side of a wooded roadway within Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park, police said in a news release Tuesday.

The sheriffs office has investigated Ina Jane Does cases for nearly three decades and has still been unable to identify her.

Digital Recreation of Ina Jane Doe without eye makeup.

Thanks to new technology that was not available three decades ago, police are able to use new identification techniques.

Avenues pursued include anthropological re-analysis from University of New Hampshire assistant professor Dr. Amy Michael, DNA extraction and sequencing by Astrea Labs, and forensic genetic genealogy by Redgrave Research Forensic Services, police said.

New forensic art has also been prepared by sketch artist Carl Koppelman to reflect updated findings.

One image is without eye makeup and the other is with eye makeup, police said.

The news release posted on Facebook garnered hundreds of comments with people comparing the new forensic images with images of other missing persons; however, so far, no identifications have been proven.

The head of the victim was originally found by two girls  ages 10 and 12  who were running through the park, according to an Associated Press newspaper clipping obtained by The Southern from January 1993.

The head was dumped on a peninsula that extends into Rend Lake, the story read.

The victim was estimated to be 30-to-50 years old at the time of her death, and she had likely died two to three days prior to discovery, police said.

The police described her as having long reddish hair and a pin-shaped mole in her left ear.

Shed had extensive dental work, including a silverpoint filling, and she had possibly worn braces at some point, police said.

Story continues

Original Associated Press article published in the The Post-Dispatch in the Jan. 31, 1993, edition.

The victim also had skeletal asymmetry that, in life, may have been visible in her facial features.

Additionally, she may have experienced issues with her neck, police said.

Anyone with information about this females identification or this investigation can contact Detective Captain Bobby Wallace at the Sheriffs Office 618-244-8004 or Crimestoppers at 618-242-TIPS (8477).
Jan. 24An employee at a St. Paul liquor store who confronted a shoplifter Sunday afternoon was shot twice and is in stable condition, police said.

Officers responded about 3:45 p.m. to reports of a shooting in the parking lot of liquor store at 140 N. Snelling Ave., according to Steve Linders, a St. Paul Police Department spokesman.

When they arrived they found a man in his twenties had been shot twice in the abdomen, Linders said. Officers provided first aid until medics arrived and took the man to Regions Hospital where he is listed in stable condition.

Witnesses told police the man confronted a shoplifter who had just left the liquor store. The shoplifter pulled out a gun and shot the employee.

The shooting remains under investigation, and no suspects had been arrested as of 6 p.m. Sunday.
Washington County and state health officials are encouraging local residents to report positive COVID-19 results from home tests through a new online reporting system the state set up.

Letting state officials know about positive results will help with contact tracing and determining the community's transmission rate, said Danielle Stahl, spokeswoman for the Washington County Health Department.

The Washington County Free Library also will be changing the way it distributes free at-home test kits it receives from the health department, focusing distributions on Saturdays when kits are available.

The Maryland Department of Health launched a weblink about two weeks ago for people to report positive COVID-19 test results from at-home tests. The link is through the state's online OneStop hub for state permit and application forms. Visit onestop.md.gov and search for "COVID."

The county health department also has a link to the state reporting site through its website about COVID-19 testing and will be updating its webpage, washcohealth.org, with more information about home tests, Stahl said.

As of Monday, 1,372 positive tests, including 44 from Washington County residents, have been reported through the portal, according to state health department spokesman Andy Owen.

Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 at-home test kits

Free test kits

The public has been able to buy home test kits for months, but free public distribution of the kits has been emphasized in recent weeks as cases have risen dramatically with the easier transmissibility of the omicron variant.

The Biden Administration went live Jan. 18 with COVIDTests.gov so people can order four free tests through the mail.

The U.S. Postal Service will start shipping tests ordered through that website in late January, with shipping expected to take a week to 12 days, according to its website. The site also has instructions for formatting your address if you live in an apartment and how to file a service request if you live in multiunit building and are having difficulty placing an order for test kits. In some cases, an issue can pop up if someone in another apartment has already ordered tests because the postal service doesn't always recognize the apartment as a single residence address within the building.

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The county health department began distributing home test kits, which it received through the state, on Nov. 15. Those kits have been given to organizations that help at-risk communities like the homeless and low-income populations, as well as to the public library system to distribute to the public, Stahl said.

As of Monday, the health department had received and distributed 4,746 rapid test kits, Stahl wrote in an email. County health officials expect to receive their next batch of test kits this week. The kits also will include masks to distribute to the public. When it gets the masks and kits, the department will announce more information and is planning to use the library system to distribute the masks as well, she said.

Gov. Larry Hogan announced on Jan. 13 that the state health department would start distributing 20 million N95 and KN95 masks to Marylanders at no cost, through multiple sources including local health departments, state-run testing and vaccination sites, and nursing homes.

The N95 and KN95 masks "provide additional infection protection compared to cloth and general use face masks," according to a news release from the governor's office.

The library did not have any test kits left as of Monday, according to a message on its phone system.

Sarah Nadeau, community partnerships librarian, said Washington County Free Library is changing the way the at-home test kits will be distributed with the next batch it gets.

Instead of calling the library to reserve kits, the kits will be distributed first-come, first-serve during certain hours on Saturdays when tests are available, Nadeau said. This is to give staff a chance to focus on just passing out kits and to give people who work during the week an opportunity to pick up tests, she said.

Nadeau said she did not know, as of Monday morning, if kits will be available this Saturday. Staff organizes the kits into bags with instructions.

When the library system is ready to distribute the kits on a Saturday, the Boonsboro, Hancock, Smithsburg and Williamsport libraries will close for regular business from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m. and the downtown Hagerstown library will close from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. During those times, staff will distribute the bags of kits outdoors, perhaps on the library's front porch, Nadeau said.

The two pink lines in the window on the COVID-19 Ag card indicate a positive result in this home test kit.

More: COVID vaccine and testing clinics in Washington County for the week of Jan. 24

More: Are N95 and KN95 masks reusable and how should you store them?

More: COVID mask guide for omicron surge: Why N95, KN95 masks are so much more effective than cloth

Taking home tests and what to do if it's positive

Read the at-home test kit instructions thoroughly, Stahl said. Make sure to swab your nose per instructions to get enough specimen for the test, she said.

Also, some people might not take the second test in the kit as they should, Stahl said. Because the home antigen tests aren't as sensitive as PCR tests, people should wait at least 24 hours but no more than 48 hours to take the second test in the kit, she said. The first result could be a false negative. There might not have been enough virus in the system for the antigen test to detect it the first time, she said.

The Maryland OneStop reporting system states that positive results to be reported are from at-home tests taken within the past 10 days.

When a positive result is reported through OneStop, the resident will receive guidance about isolating and a personalized web survey link or phone call with more instructions.

The latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that someone who tests positive for COVID-19, regardless of their vaccination status, should isolate at home for at least five days depending on their symptoms.

If you test positive and don't have symptoms, isolate for five full days.

If you test positive and have symptoms, isolation can end after five full days if symptoms are improving and you have been fever free for 24 hours without taking fever-reducing medication.

If you test positive and were severely ill with COVID-19, isolate for at least 10 days and consult your doctor before ending isolation.

Everyone who tests positive is to continue taking precautions through day 10. That includes wearing a mask, avoiding travel and avoiding people who are at high risk.

"At this point, we suggest everyone wear a mask anytime they are outside of those inside their household," Stahl said. People should mask up everywhere, but especially indoors, she said.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Washington County health officials encourage reporting positive tests
JERUSALEM (AP)  Israeli settlers drove through a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank on Monday, throwing rocks through the windows of vehicles and businesses and injuring a teenager, a Palestinian official said.

It was the latest in a series of settler attacks in recent months. On Friday, settlers attacked Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the West Bank and set a car on fire. Last month, a settler was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman, setting off revenge attacks.

The Israeli military confirmed the incident on Monday, saying the Israelis had caused significant damage" and that police have opened an investigation.

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official, said a Palestinian teenager was taken to the hospital after being struck in the head by a stone. He said the teenager was lightly wounded."

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz released a statement saying anyone who throws stones or lights cars on fire is a terrorist and will be treated as such.

Israeli officials have repeatedly vowed to take action against settler violence in recent months. Palestinians and Israeli rights groups say the army rarely intervenes and often sides with the settlers.

Nearly 500,000 Israeli settlers live in 130 settlement and dozens of unauthorized outposts across the occupied West Bank. The Palestinians view the settlements as the main obstacle to resolving the conflict. Most countries view settlements as a violation of international law.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. Israel considers the West Bank to be the biblical and historical heartland of the Jewish people. There have been no substantive peace talks in over a decade.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a GOP lawsuit challenging proxy voting rules set up by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in response to the pandemic.

The decision to not hear the case lets stand a federal appeals court ruling that said courts are barred from reviewing the internal rules of the House of Representatives.

Weeks after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the House approved a measure allowing lawmakers unable to come to Capitol Hill to designate another member as their "proxy" to cast floor votes on their behalf.

Republicans, led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sued Pelosi, contending that the Constitution does not allow proxy votes. That argument rests in part on the quorum clause, which requires a majority of the House to be present in order to conduct the chambers business. That clause also says a group smaller than a quorum may be authorized to "compel" the attendance of "absent members."

The power to compel absent members to attend would make little sense, McCarthy told the court, if the framers of the Constitution did not expect lawmakers to vote in person.

From left, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Dec. 10, 2021.

"Nothing shook that uninterrupted tradition  not the Yellow Fever epidemic, not the burning of the Capitol in the War of 1812, not the Civil War, not the Spanish Flu, not two World Wars, not the 9/11 terrorist attacks," Republicans told the Supreme Court.

Lower federal courts never addressed that claim. Instead, a federal district court ruled that the speech or debate clause bars courts from getting involved in House voting rules. That clause says that lawmakers "shall not be questioned in any other place" for any speech or debate, terms the Supreme Court has read broadly. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that ruling last year.

The Constitution, Pelosi told the court, gives the House "wide discretion" to set its rules.

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"In light of the pandemic and advances in modern technology, the House has reasonably authorized members to vote remotely by providing binding, precise instructions to a member on the floor," Pelosi told the court.

Affirmative action: Supreme Court to consider use of race in college admissions

The Supreme Court itself has wrestled with how to conduct its business during the pandemic. For more than a year the court held oral arguments remotely, allowing the public and journalists to listen to live audio of those arguments for the first time in its 230-year history. Even after the court returned to in-person arguments in October, several of the justices and attorneys have occasionally taken part remotely.

"The Supreme Court's refusal of House Republicans' request to overturn the dismissal of their frivolous lawsuit is a victory for the Congress, the rule of law and public health," Pelosi said in a statement. "Both the Constitution and more than a century of legal precedent make clear that the House is empowered to determine its own rules  and remote voting by proxy falls squarely within this purview."

A McCarthy spokesman said that if Republicans win back control of Congress in the midterm elections proxy voting would eliminated "on day one."

Proxy voting on the floor has never occurred before, though House committees used the practice as recently as 1995. Proxy votes are frequently used for committee votes in the Senate.

Contributing: Ledyard King

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court refuses GOP challenge to House COVID proxy voting rules
By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - Western powers and Turkey accused Syria on Monday of imposing "starvation" and siege warfare in opposition-held areas, as Syrian officials said foreign forces were illegally occupying parts of the country suffering from U.S.-led sanctions.

Britain and the United States were among those at a U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva calling on Syria to end unlawful detention and disappearances, and allow humanitarian aid to reach all civilians after nearly 12 years of war.

Syrian deputy foreign minister Bashar Ja'afari, addressing the forum's first review of Syria's record since October 2016, said that the Syrian government was facilitating aid deliveries while facing a "systematic terrorist war".

"France, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Turkey and Israel are all countries that are involved in the occupation of parts of my country and are violating international law by doing so," he said.

"The Americans are experts in destroying the infrastructure in the Euphrates region, they are destroying oil and gas infrastructure," he added.

Bathsheba Crocker, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, urged Syria to grant unhindered access for humanitarian aid to besieged areas and release people "arbitrarily imprisoned and held without trial".

British Ambassador Simon Manley said Syria's treatment of its people was "simply appalling", adding: "We strongly condemn its attacks on civilians and infrastructure. The use of starvation and siege warfare in opposition-held areas is deplorable."

Jerome Bonnafant, France's envoy, urged President Bashar al-Assad's government to halt "unlawful executions, torture and inhumane practices in places of detention".

Russia, Assad's ally, has provided critical military support, helping to turn the tide in the war.

"Obstacles towards normalising the situation in the country continue to include the illegal presence of foreign military contingents as well as the unilateral Western sanctions which run counter to international law," said Russian Ambassador Gennady Gatilov.

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Israel's deputy ambassador, Adi Farjon Israel, said: "In the last decade, the Syrian regime has killed over 500,000 civilians, gassed its people, and used siege and starvation as a tactic of war. It has detained hundreds of thousands of people and subjected them to sexual violence, mock executions, and severe beatings, leading to death."

Ja'afari did not directly address Farjon Israel's remarks but said allegations raised that Syria's military had targeted hospitals were "baseless lies".

Assads government has denied many previous U.N. accusations of war crimes and says it does not torture prisoners.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) -Kurdish-led forces said they raided part of a prison seized by Islamic State fighters in northeastern Syria and forced at least 300 of the militants to surrender on Monday.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG militia, said militants were still holed up in other buildings, and plans were underway to clear the rest of the detention complex in Hasaka city.

"The operations to break into the prison have begun," one SDF source said. Another said allies in a U.S.-led coalition were involved in the "ongoing operations" without elaborating.

At least 180 inmates and militants and 27 security forces have died since Islamic State fighters attacked the jail on Thursday in a bid to free their members, officials have said.

Islamic State's Amaq news agency said militants holed up in parts of the prison and in the vicinity engaged in violent clashes with Kurdish fighters on Monday for a fifth consecutive day.

The group did not mention any losses in its ranks and claimed on affiliated Telegram accounts that its militants killed and injured a number of the Kurdish fighters.

The SDF initially said it had thwarted https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/seven-kurdish-led-security-forces-23-islamic-state-militants-killed-prison-2022-01-21 the prison breakout, but later acknowledged that inmates had taken over parts of the facility.

The United Nations children's agency (UNICEF) called late on Sunday for the evacuation of the nearly 850 children held in the complex with the militants and their families, saying their safety was at "immediate risk".

SDF officials declined to go into further details on their planned operation.

"Very sensitive developments are taking place regarding ending the mutiny of Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State) mercenaries," SDF spokesman Farhad Shami said in a tweet.

Arab tribal figures in touch with relatives said they feared the death toll was much higher than figures released by the SDF.

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Residents said thousands of families had fled since security services raided the surrounding Ghweiran neighbourhood to search for freed prisoners.

The jail is the largest among several publicly known oneswhere the SDF holds suspected militants and other detainees in what aids groups say are overcrowded and inhumane conditions.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch says the SDF holds a total of about 12,000 men and boys suspected of Islamic State affiliation, including 2,000 to 4,000 foreigners from almost 50 countries.

Elders say support for Islamic State has grown withrising local resentment against the Kurdish-led administrationthey accuse of discriminating against the majority Arabpopulation it rules, many of whom reject its policy of forcibleconscription.

The Syrian Kurdish forces deny the accusations and say their rule redresses injustices as an oppressed minority during decades of Arab nationalist rule from Damascus.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Additional reporting by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Richard Pullin)
Photograph: Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images

Three years ago reporter Lourdes Maldonado Lopez stood up before Mexicos president at a press conference and told him: I fear for my life.

On Sunday she was gunned down in the city of Tijuana  the third Mexican journalist to be killed this year in what is a deepening murder crisis facing the countrys press corps and its populist leader, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Maldonado, a former journalist for Mexicos biggest network, Televisa, was reportedly shot in her car outside her home at about 6.20pm.

Related: Two journalists exposing Mexicos corruption and drug violence murdered within one week

This cannot be happening. Fuck! tweeted Manuel Ayala, another member of Tijuanas tight-knit journalism community, as news of the shooting spread.

Maldonados killing came less than a week after the murder of another veteran local journalist, the photographer and crime reporter Margarito Martinez. Martinez, 49, was shot dead last Monday  also outside his Tijuana home  for reasons that remain murky. Days earlier another journalist, Jose Luis Gamboa, was fatally stabbed in Veracruz state.

Activists say nine Mexican journalists were murdered last year and more than 50 have been killed since Lopez Obrador took office in 2018.

Journalists and photographers take part in a vigil honouring late Mexican photojournalist Margarito Martinez, in Tijuana, on Friday. Photograph: Jorge Duenes/Reuters

The trio of murders have stunned Mexicos beleaguered press corps  particularly in Tijuana, the scene of two of the crimes. On Friday friends and relatives buried Martinez in the Mexican border city before holding a public protest. The hardest thing was covering the crime scene of a murdered friend. I never thought this would happen, photographer Omar Martinez told the local news group Cadena Noticias.

Maldonado, whose shooting is still being investigated, made headlines in March 2019 when she publicly spoke out over a long-running dispute she was having with a former employer  a media outlet owned by a powerful regional politician and media boss called Jaime Bonilla Valdez  which she accused of wrongful dismissal.

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At one of Lopez Obradors regular mananera press conferences, Maldonado asked for his help resolving the situation with Bonilla, who is a member of the presidents political party, and said she feared for her life. Lopez Obrador, who is best known as Amlo, asked one of his communications chiefs to look into the accusation and offer support. Last week it was reported that the media outlet had been ordered to pay Maldonado restitution.

There is no suggestion of a link between the work dispute and her killing, but the fact that she had publicly voiced concern over her safety  and subsequently was murdered  drew widespread attention after Sundays attack.

The media freedom group Article 19 said Maldonado had been included in a protection scheme for journalists as a result of threats she had received while covering issues such as politics and corruption.

Addressing reporters on Monday morning, Lopez Obrador recalled the journalists 2019 plea but claimed it had not been a matter of threats or violence.

What has to happen in Mexico for journalists to be able to operate safely and freely? one reporter asked Amlo, whom activists accuse of doing little to halt violence against the press.

Mexicos president called for a fairer and more humanitarian society but sought to shift blame for the bloodshed onto the rotten neo-liberal legacy, which he said meant he had inherited a profound social, economic and moral crisis.

We are coming out of this period of decay and violence, Amlo insisted. Corruption, inequality and violence  this is what they left us.
How are you doing? I've started to loathe that question.

When someone casually asks about my general condition, the first thing that comes to mind is everything that makes me feel anxious. The list seems longer than usual. And I'm not alone.

Compared to pre-pandemic 2019, when about 11 percent of adults reported having anxiety or depression disorder symptoms, the number of folks in the dumps has spiked exponentially, according to a CDC survey.

KONKOL COLUMN: How Are You Doing? Coping During America's Pandemic Depression

Shovel Your Sidewalk. High: 30 Low: 7.



Every time you poop, you're helping track the spread of coronavirus. People shed the virus through their nose and mouth and in their poop! The city is using sewage data to help keep tabs on transmission. (WBEZ)

Activists demanded justice for 8-year-old Melissa Ortega, who was shot and killed in Little Village over the weekend. "You shot this little girl's brains out. It's time for justice. I don't care who your target was. You targeted that little girl. When you miss, you hit our babies! This was somebody's baby," community activist Andrew Holmes said. (FOX32)

An off-duty cop working as a security guard at Bottega Veneta was injured when a four-person robbery crew targeted the luxury boutique on the Magnificent Mile. (CWB)

Feeling sad? Try bunny yoga! It's yoga with bunnies brought to you by Red Door Animal Shelter. You can take a class at Indian Boundary Park in West Rogers Park. (WGN)

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 Mark

This article originally appeared on the Chicago Patch
By David Shepardson and Costas Pitas

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States on Sunday ordered the departure of family members of staff at its embassy in Ukraine, citing the continuing threat of military action from Russia.

The U.S. State Department also authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. government employees and said Americans should consider departing immediately.

"We have been in consultation with the Ukrainian government about this step and are coordinating with Allied and partner embassies in Kyiv as they determine their posture," the U.S. Embassy said.

Russia has massed troops near the border with Ukraine prompting tensions with Western powers. Moscow has insisted it has no plans to invade.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv warned in a statement that "military action by Russia could come at any time and the United States government will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency, so U.S. citizens currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly."

The State Department also said it was authorizing the "voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees."

The New York Times reported late Sunday that President Joe Biden was considering deploying several thousand U.S. troops to NATO allies in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the New York Times report but noted that Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Friday said, "we're going to make sure that we have options ready to reassure our allies, particularly on -- on NATO's Eastern Flank."

"If there's another incursion and if they need that reassurance, if they need the capabilities to be bolstered, we're going to do that and we're going to make sure that we're -- that we're ready to do that, Kirby said.

U.S. and Russian diplomats made no major breakthrough at talks on Friday.

On Sunday, Britain accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv.

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The State Department late Sunday also reissued its advisory for Russia warning Americans not to travel, citing "ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine." It also added "given the on-going volatility of the situation, U.S. citizens are strongly advised against traveling by land from Russia to Ukraine through this region."

State Department officials declined to say how many Americans are currently believed to be in Ukraine.

The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said the decision was made "out of an abundance of caution due to continued Russian efforts to destabilize the country and undermine the security of Ukrainian citizens and others visiting or residing in Ukraine."

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is continuing to operate and its Charge dAffaires Kristina Kvien remains in Ukraine, State Department officials said.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Diane Craft)
WASHINGTON  Americans should consider leaving Ukraine "now," nonemergency diplomatic employees were authorized to depart, and eligible family members were ordered to evacuate Sunday amid Russia's continued military presence along the country's border, the U.S. State Department said.

While family members of embassy employees in Kyiv were required to depart, the others covered by the travel advisory were not, a senior State Department official said.

The State Department also warned Americans not to travel to Ukraine or Russia, citing the possibility of Russian military action, as well as "the potential throughout Russia of harassment towards foreigners, including through regulations targeted specifically against foreigners," a spokesperson said.

Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops at its border with Ukraine.

The "do not travel" advisories, designated as top-level travel warnings, cited "the increased threats of Russian military action," as well as "the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens."

President Joe Biden has said military action, including invasion, could be imminent. In his news conference last week marking one year in office, Biden warned that Russia would face "disaster" if it invaded Ukraine.

"If they actually do what theyre capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia," he said, adding, "Our allies and partners are ready to impose severe costs and significant harm on Russia and the Russian economy."

Biden said at the news conference that the U.S. has sent $600 million worth of "sophisticated equipment, defensive equipment," to Ukraine's government. That presumably includes $200 million worth of gear pledged last month.

Ukraine's embassy in the U.S. said Saturday that the first U.S. shipment of lethal aid," including ammunition intended for Ukraine's "front line defenders," had touched down in Kyiv  less than 24 hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Russian counterpart.

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Blinken said Sunday on NBC News' "Meet the Press": "In the event that there is a renewed Russian incursion, Russian forces going into Ukraine, there is going to be a swift, a severe and united response."

Blinken said other incursions, including cyberwarfare, were possible.

The U.K.'s Foreign Office said Saturday that the Kremlin was seeking to install a pro-Russian regime in Ukraine, an allegation National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne said Sunday was "disturbing."

The U.S. and its allies have long tussled with Moscow over Ukraine because of its strategic position between Russia and Europe. While Ukraine has evolved toward a Western-style government, Russia is in the grip of authoritarian President Vladimir Putin.

"The United States attaches great importance to the success of Ukraine as a free and democratic state with a flourishing market economy," the State Department has said.

The senior State Department official said the advisory should not be taken as a sign that the U.S. believes an invasion will definitely happen in the following hours or days.

"The U.S. government will not be in a position to evacuate U.S. citizens," the source said. "So U.S. citizens currently present in Ukraine [should] plan accordingly, including by availing themselves of commercial options, should they choose to leave the country, and commercial options are available now."

The official said the advisory is not intended to affect U.S. support for Ukraine.

"I just want to be clear that these are prudent precautions that in no way undermine our support for or commitment to Ukraine," the senior official said. "And we continue to follow our commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."




The British government on Monday announced some staff members at its embassy and their dependents in Ukraine were being withdrawn due to the "growing threat from Russia."

"Some Embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to growing threat from Russia. The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work," the British government said in a statement.

On Sunday, the U.S. State Department ordered the family members of U.S. Embassy workers in Kyiv to leave Ukraine, while permitting nonessential workers to also depart.

"U.S. citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine would severely impact the U.S. Embassy's ability to provide consular services, including assistance to U.S. citizens in departing Ukraine," the department said in an advisory.

The U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) advised that people limit themselves to only essential travel to Ukraine, also directly citing the buildup of Russia's military along the country's eastern border. Around 120,000 Russian military members are believed to have amassed at the border now.

While the situation in Kyiv and other eastern cities close to Ukraine border, like Donetsk and Luhansk, appears to be "calm," the FCDO warned that events are currently "fast moving" and there is "continuing uncertainty" around Russia's intentions.

U.K. travelers in Ukraine are advised to stay knowledgeable of what is going on through the media and to register their presence in Ukraine.
Ukrainian Servicemen of the 30th Army Brigade are seen outside of Svitlodarsk, Ukraine - Anadolu

The United States has placed 8,500 troops on "heightened alert" over the Ukraine standoff, warning that Russia has "no intention right now of de-escalating".

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said no final decisions have been made on deployments and that the order is about ensuring that the US is ready to respond if Nato decides to deploy its response force.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was on a call with US President Joe Biden and a number of key European leaders about the escalating situation.

Earlier on Monday, Mr Johnson said that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be "painful, violent and bloody business" for Vladimir Putin, as Britain withdrew its diplomats from Kyiv.

The Prime Minister said the UK was "leading on creating a package of economic sanctions" against Russia but added: "We also need to get a message that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business."

"I think it's very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya," he said.

Nato allies have already sent aircraft and warships to Eastern Europe.

10:48 PM

A readout of the call from the White House

"President Biden held a secure video call with European leaders today. They reiterated their continued concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraines borders and expressed their support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"The leaders underscored their shared desire for a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions and reviewed recent engagements with Russia in multiple formats. The leaders also discussed their joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine, including preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATOs eastern flank.

"They committed to continued close consultation with transatlantic Allies and partners, including working with and through the EU, NATO, and the OSCE."

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10:27 PM

Moscow faces 'heavy consequences' from West if it attacks Ukraine

Germany issued the threat after the call with Mr Biden and other European leaders. So far only dribs and drabs have been released of what was discussed. The US President said he had a "very good" call with European allies and there was "total unanimity".

A statement read: The leaders agreed that, should a further Russian incursion into Ukraine happen, allies must enact swift retributive responses including an unprecedented package of sanctions.

10:15 PM

Call between leaders lasted over an hour

President Joe Biden's call with eight European leaders on the deepening crisis in Ukraine started at 3:05pm EST and ended at 4:25pm EST (9.25pm GMT), according to the White House.

09:02 PM

What the White House Press Secretary said

Jen Psaki was speaking to reporters earlier from the White House.

.@PressSec Jen Psaki: "While we can't get into the mind of President Putin, we are seeing the preparations that they're making at the border. The president has been direct that military action by Russia could come at any time." https://t.co/KOngaWfRdT pic.twitter.com/WvxYVeXo21  The Hill (@thehill) January 24, 2022

08:51 PM

Germans insist they are being tough

Germany's ambassador to Washington attempts to play down concerns that Berlin is going soft on their response to Russian aggression.

.@SecBlinken on @MeetThePress: The Germans "are resolute in being determined to respond and to respond swiftly, effectively, and in a united way."



Yes we are. And we fully agree with the US that further aggression by Russia would be met with massive consequences.  Emily Haber (@GermanAmbUSA) January 24, 2022

08:39 PM

Why isn't Ukraine on the call?

Asked why Ukraine isn't included in US President Joe Biden's call this afternoon with eight other European leaders, Jen Psaki points to other conversations that have happened with Ukrainian officials and says Ukraine "will be a part of many conversations moving forward."

07:58 PM

Phone call to start soon

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to join a call with US President Joe Biden and key European leaders in the next few minutes.

The pair will speak with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Boris Johnson on the phone - Andrew Parsons / No10 Downing Street

07:55 PM

Russian and Ukrainian officials to meet in Paris

Officials from Russia and Ukraine are set to meet in Paris on Wednesday for talks with their counterparts from France and Germany in a bid to defuse tensions, an aide to French President Emmanuel Macron said.

The meeting - a revival of four-way talks between the nations known as the Normandy Format - is part of efforts to avert war, with France seeing "a path to de-escalation" that would include steps from Ukraine and Russia, the aide told reporters on condition of anonymity.

07:41 PM

8,500 US-based troops on high alert

The Pentagon announces that 8,500 American soldiers are on alert to prepare for their deployment to Europe if necessary.

John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesperson said: "The United States has taken steps to heighten the readiness of its forces at home and abroad so they are prepared to respond to a range of contingencies, including support to the NATO Response Force if it is activated."

No decisions have been made to deploy any forces from the US at this time," he adds.

"Approximately 8,500 US troops have been put on "higher alert, and higher alert only," Mr Kirby says.

07:34 PM

Prepare to deploy orders issued to US troops

This morning, it was reported that the Biden administration was in the final stages of identifying specific military units to send. The next steps would be 'prepare to deploy orders' and then 'deployment orders.'

According to the Wall Street Journal, the prepare to deploy orders have been issued to troops stationed at several U.S.-based installations.

John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary is speaking now.

07:19 PM

How Russia could invade Ukraine

Where are the troops now and what could happen next?

07:04 PM

White House Press Secretary speaks

The United States is refining its military plans for all scenarios in the Ukraine crisis, the White House has, as Washington worked to bolster deployments on NATO's eastern flank.

"We've never ruled out providing additional assistance to eastern flank countries in advance of any invasion," said Jen Psaki, White House spokeswoman.

"We always said we would support them and an invasion would not be a prerequisite for that."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki - AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Asked whether Mr Biden thought an invasion of Ukraine was imminent, Ms Psaki said: "We cannot get into the mind of president Putin. We are seeing the preparations that they are making at the border."

"It's important to remember who the aggressor is, it's not the US or eastern flank countries, it's Russia - they have the power to de-escalate," Ms Psaki said.

06:31 PM

US politicians ask for updates

Amid reports that the US is preparing to mobilise thousands of troops, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked the Biden administration for a briefing on the Ukraine-Russia situation for all members of the House of Representatives, according to an aide.

The uncertainty is affecting stock markets, with the Dow Jones down 1,000 points today.

The FTSE 100 has closed lower as the escalating drumbeat of conflict risk in Ukraine is concerning European investors.

London's main index dropped 2.6pc to 7,297, as the UK followed the US in announcing that it was removing non-essential embassy staff from Kyiv.

06:02 PM

'You have to avoid a nervous breakdown'

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell sought Monday to calm Western fears over the Ukraine crisis after talks with US top diplomat Antony Blinken.

"We know very well what the degree of threats are and the way in which we must react, and no doubt we must avoid alarmist reactions," Mr Borrell said.

"You have to stay calm doing what you have to do, and avoid a nervous breakdown."

European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell - JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images

05:46 PM

Flight schedules changed

Germany's Lufthansa has rescheduled at least two flights to Ukraine this week, in one of the first changes to air traffic since the latest step-up in tensions between Russia and the West.

A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Kyiv on Sunday afternoon was moved to Monday morning, with Lufthansa service centre staff saying this was because crew could no longer stay in Kyiv overnight due to the current "problems", a Reuters reporter who witnessed the announcement said.

Several countries have issued warnings over the risk of flying near Ukraine's eastern border region, some 450-550 miles south-east of Kyiv, since Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in 2014, killing all 298 people on board.

Lufthansa plane - REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

The US Federal Aviation Administration recently renewed a ban on US airlines flying over parts of eastern Ukraine.

Canada warned last week of "heightened military activity" and the "threat posed by miscalculation and miscommunication".

"We have adjusted our flight schedule to Ukraine for operational reasons only," a Lufthansa spokesperson said on Monday, while another confirmed there would be no layovers in Kyiv for the time being.

05:06 PM

Telegraph's Ukraine crisis webinar tomorrow

Join our Ukraine crisis webinar with The Telegraph's senior foreign correspondent, Roland Oliphant and Moscow correspondent, Nataliya Vasilyeva, at midday on Tuesday Jan 25.

Sign-up, here.

05:00 PM

Key leaders to hold phone call tonight

US President Joe Biden has updated his daily schedule to include a phone call with key European leaders this evening at 8pm GMT.

Mr Biden is due to head to the Situation Room and speak with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Joe Biden receiving updates at Camp David over the weekend - The White House via AP

He has allowed two hours before his next engagement. As reported earlier, he is considering sending 5,000 American troops to Eastern Europe, but the number could be increased tenfold at short notice if the situation deteriorates.

04:37 PM

Nato could deploy more combat units

Nato could deploy additional combat units in eastern Europe in response to Russia's military build-up on Ukraine's border, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday.

"We are considering to further enhance our presence in the eastern part of the alliance, this could include the deployment of additional Nato battlegroups," Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

So far, Nato has based about 4,000 troops in multinational battalions in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, backed by tanks, air defences and intelligence and surveillance units.

04:33 PM

Canadian diplomats staying in Ukraine

Canadian diplomats and their families are staying in Ukraine for the time being but Ottawa is constantly reviewing their safety, which is of paramount importance, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated on Monday.

Trudeau side-stepped questions about whether he would order an evacuation and also did not answer when pressed on the possibility of Canada sending troops to Ukraine as a way of countering Russia's military build-up along the border.

04:20 PM

Ukraine tensions: Nato sends 'ships and fighter jets' to Eastern Europe

Nato has announced it is sending additional ships and fighter jets to existing bases in Eastern Europe, as well as putting extra troops on standby, as tensions escalate in Ukraine.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of Nato, said the move is designed to enhance deterrence and defence in Eastern Europe, adding that Nato "will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment".

"Nato will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance," Mr Stoltenberg said in a statement.

Read the full piece by Marcus Parekh and David Millward here.

04:18 PM

Vitali Klitschko: Germany has 'betrayed' Ukraine as Russian threat mounts

Vitali Klitschko, the former world heavyweight boxing champion turned mayor of Kyiv, has accused Germany of betraying Ukraine.

Vitali Klitschko seen dressed in army combat uniform in a video clip posted on his Instagram feed in October 2021 - Instagram

In a guest editorial for Germanys highest-selling newspaper on Monday, Mr Klitschko took aim at Berlin for its ban on arms exports to Ukraine and its continued support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia.

Read the full piece by Justin Huggler in Berlin here.

04:12 PM

Biden considering sending 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe

US President Joe Biden is considering sending 5,000 American troops to Eastern Europe amid mounting fears of an imminent incursion by Russia into Ukraine, writes Jamie Johnson, in Washington.

In what would be a significant change of tactics, the 79-year-old is also looking at moving warships and aircraft to NATO countries which neighbour Ukraine.

This morning, CNN has reported that the administration is in the final stages of identifying specific military units to send. The next steps would be 'prep orders' and then 'deployment orders.'

The New York Times reported that while the initial number may only total 5,000 troops, this could be increased tenfold at short notice if the situation deteriorates.

Former US President Donald Trump said in a statement: "Whats happening with Russia and Ukraine would never have happened under the Trump Administration. Not even a possibility."

03:29 PM

Russian drills 'not welcome' off Irish coast, says Dublin

Russia will hold live-fire naval exercises off the coast of Ireland, a move condemned as "not welcome" by Dublin amid mounting military tensions, reports Brussels Correspondent Joe Barnes.

Moscow informed the Irish government that it plans to dispatch battleships next month for the drills around 150 miles off the countrys south-west coast, inside its controlled airspace and exclusive economic zone.

"I have made it clear to the Russian ambassador in Ireland that its not welcome, Simon Coveney, Irelands foreign minister, said on Monday.

"This is not a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what is happening with and in Ukraine at the moment."

Russia, under UN conventions, is allowed to conduct military exercises in international waters within economic zones of other countries as long as they do not stray into territorial waters.

In order to comply with legal obligations, Moscow informed Irelands aviation authorities of the planned activities in advance of the operation.

The Irish Aviation Authority said there would be no impact to the safety of civil aircraft operations.

The Russian drills will form part of a wider series of naval exercises involving some 140 ships and 10,000 troops in the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, North Sea and Sea of Okhotsk.

03:27 PM

Lizz Truss 'demented' for comparing Chinese aggression to Ukraine situation

Liz Truss is demented for comparing Chinese aggression in the Indo Pacific region to the possible invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the former prime minister of Australia has said, writes Europe Editor James Crisp.

The Foreign Secretary suggested that Moscow and Beijing were working together as they looked to dominate their spheres of influence in an interview in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Paul Keating, a former Labor leader who left office in 1996, accused Britain and its disreputable government of suffering from delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation.

Asked if China could copy Russias tactics against Ukraine, Ms Truss said, I dont think we can rule that out.

Russia is working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in concert and I think its incumbent on countries like ours to work together, she said.

Ms Truss and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, were in Australia last week for talks on countering Chinese influence in the region.

Mr Keating, 78, said Ms Trusss statement was nothing short of demented.

Not simply irrational, demented, he added.

He said that the UK government was disreputable and collapsing in an attack which puts him at odds with cross-party agreement in Australia to condemn Chinese aggression.

Mr Keating branded the visit a desperate effort to push the UK as a strategic partner to contain China.

03:21 PM

Truss: Britain will call out Russian attempts to subvert democracy

Britain will call out Russian attempts to subvert democracy, foreign minister Liz Truss said on Monday after her department accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine.

"The reason we put that out into the public domain is we are going to call out every instance of Russia trying to influence democracy, trying to subvert Ukraine, false flag operations and sabotage," Truss told reporters in Brussels.

02:54 PM

Watch: Johnson warns Putin invasion would be 'bloody' for Russia

02:24 PM

Ukraine takes aim at UK and US for leaving

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked European Council President Charles Michel and EU national leaders on Monday for their solidarity and support during his country's standoff with Russia, which has massed troops along their shared border.

"I'm grateful to you, Mr. President of the European Council, and to the leaders of the EU countries, whose diplomats remain in our state and support us, doing their job," Zelenskiy told Michel in a telephone conversation.

Zelenskiy also said Ukraine would not respond to provocations from the Russian side.

02:24 PM

British couple's nervy wait as they wait for baby's passport

A British couple living in Ukraine while their surrogate-born baby is issued a passport have described their "nerve-racking" wait amid mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

The threat of a Russian invasion has put Nato forces on standby and led the Foreign Office to begin withdrawing some staff and dependents from the embassy in Kyiv - where some British expats said they have bags packed ready to "go west".

Ben Garratt and his wife, Alice, live in Queen's Park in London but moved to the Ukrainian capital at the end of the December to meet their baby and oversee official paperwork.

"Ukraine has very different surrogacy laws to the UK which means that it's much easier to work with an IVF clinic and a surrogacy agency here to have a baby that way... so Ukraine is an international hub of people coming for surrogacy services," Mr Garratt, 40, told the PA news agency.

"We've always known that it would be a load of paperwork once he was born, for us to bring him home - but obviously, what was going to be a period of potential boredom, waiting in an apartment in Kyiv for two or three months, is now more nerve-racking.

"Unless we can get a passport for Raphael in the conventional way, or if that becomes impossible, the British Embassy get to the point they can give Raphael an emergency passport, we can't leave - so it is nerve-racking."

02:05 PM

Russian navy ships set out into Baltic Sea

Twenty Russian navy vessels set out into the Baltic Sea on Monday for drills, the RIA news agency reported, amid heightened tensions between Moscow and the West over Ukraine and reports that the United States might send extra troops to the region.

The ships will perform exercises focused on naval and anti-aircraft defence, RIA quoted the Baltic Navy as saying.

Russia has said it would "respond appropriately" if Washington boosts troop numbers in Eastern Europe, after the New York Times reported that the White House was considering such a move.

02:04 PM

EU: UK and US are 'dramatising' Ukraine situation

The European Unions top foreign diplomat has accused the UK and US of "dramatising" the situation in Ukraine by withdrawing diplomats from their embassies in Kyiv.

Josep Borrell insisted the bloc would not follow suit by pulling out its own representatives in the Ukrainian capital before holding talks with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

"We are not going to do the same thing, because we do not know any specific reasons," Mr Borrell told reporters, arriving at a gathering of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

He added: "I do not think we have to dramatise."

01:53 PM

Russian action will not be 'cost-free', warns Johnson

Boris Johnson insisted that any Russian action against Ukraine would not be "cost-free".

The Prime Minister's comments came after US President Joe Biden suggested that a "minor incursion" may result in a more measured response by the United States and allies.

Mr Johnson said: "The UK is in the lead in creating that package of economic sanctions... helping to stiffen the resistance of our Ukrainian friends with defensive weaponry that we are supplying, making it clear that we stand fully four-square with the people of Ukraine and that we support the sovereign integrity of Ukraine, and we do.

"But we also need to get over to Russia that any invasion, any incursion - of any kind, of any dimension - into Ukraine is not going to be a cost-free business... there will be casualties."

01:52 PM

How Russia could invade Ukraine

01:51 PM

Johnson: 'The intelligence is pretty gloomy'

Mr Johnson said he had visited Ukraine and knew the people of the country, adding: "My judgment is that they will fight."

Asked if he believed an invasion was imminent, the Prime Minister, on a visit to Milton Keynes, said: "I've got to tell you that I think the intelligence is pretty gloomy at this point.

"There is certainly a very, very large array of Russian forces and we have to take the necessary steps.

"I don't think it's by any means inevitable now, I think that sense can still prevail."

The Foreign Office confirmed the move after the United States ordered the families of all American personnel at the US Embassy to leave the country in response the the risk of an invasion.

Russian forces have massed at the border with Ukraine and intense diplomatic activity has failed to ease tensions.

The Foreign Office said: "Some embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to the growing threat from Russia.

"The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work."

Sources at the Foreign Office told the BBC the move was not the result of any specific intelligence targeting British diplomats, but a response to the growing risk of a Russian incursion and the potential risk to UK officials in the Ukraine.

01:50 PM

British combat troops would not be used to defend Ukraine

Downing Street said British combat troops would not be used to defend Ukraine.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said there were "further signs of Russian aggression" on the country's border and that "the West is - we are - ready to act if needed".

The spokesman said around 30 British diplomats - including the ambassador - remained in Ukraine.

But he said there were "no plans to send UK combat troops" to the region but sanctions were on the table if Russia proceeded.

The spokesman said: "We don't speculate on things like sanctions, but certainly there will be significant economic measures put in place."

The UK believes there is a significant risk that the Russian president Vladimir Putin will launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Tensions in Ukraine have been increasing for months after the Kremlin massed 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders, a dramatic build-up the West says is preparation for a war to prevent Ukraine from ever joining the Nato security alliance.

01:50 PM

Ukraine: US and UK withdrawal 'premature' and 'excessive'

Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko described both the UK's and US' withdrawal of staff from the country as "premature" and "excessive".

He said: "We have taken note of the US Department of States decision RE departure of family members of the US embassy in Kyiv staff.

"While we respect right of foreign nations to ensure safety and security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution."

When it was later confirmed Britain was following the US' lead, Mr Nikolenko said his comments on America also applied to the UK.

01:49 PM

Raab: 'The world needs to keep its eye on this'

Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, has accused the president of plotting to install a pro-Moscow leader as head of the Ukrainian government.

The Foreign Office took the unusual step of naming the former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate to take over in Kyiv - a claim dismissed as provocative "nonsense" by Moscow.

Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, warned on Sunday that there was a "very significant risk" of a Russian invasion of its neighbour.

"The world needs to keep its eye on this and be very clear with President Putin that it would not do this cost-free, that there would be a price," he told the BBC. "A price in terms of the strenuous defence that we would expect the Ukrainians to put up, but also the economic cost through sanctions, which are of course more effective if the international community speaks as one or at least with a broad consensus."

01:48 PM

Pictured: The British embassy in Ukraine

The British embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, pictured on Monday - the day the Foreign Office announced staff were being told to leave - Gleb Garanich/Reuters

01:48 PM

EU has no plans to withdraw diplomats from Kyiv

The European Union does not plan to withdraw diplomats' families from Ukraine at the moment, Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief, said on Monday after Washington announced such a move, pointing out a military attack by Russia could come at any time.

The US State Department announced on Sunday that it was ordering diplomats' family members to leave Ukraine, in one of the clearest signs yet that American officials are bracing for an aggressive Russian move in the region.

"We are not going to do the same thing because we don't know any specific reasons. But (US) Secretary (of State Antony) Blinken will inform us," Mr Borrell told reporters.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied planning to invade, but the Russian military already took a chunk of Ukrainian territory when it seized Crimea and backed separatist forces who took control of large parts of eastern Ukraine eight years ago.

"Negotiations are going on," Mr Borrell said, adding he saw no reason to leave Ukraine "unless Secretary Blinken gives us an information that justifies a move."

The EU's foreign ministers are expected to issue a warning to Russia over its troop build-up at Ukraine's border.

01:47 PM

Von der Leyen: 'The EU stands by Ukraine'

In a statement on Monday, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: "The EU stands by Ukraine. We are firm in our resolve.

"I am announcing a new financial assistance package, made of emergency loans and grants, to support Ukraine in the medium and long-term.

"It will help Ukraine now, to address financing needs due to the conflict and support the countrys resilience-building efforts.

"It consists of:

New macro-financial assistance package of 1.2billion Doubling of bilateral assistance this year, with another 120million

"On top of this, we will soon start work on a second, longer-term MFA programme to support the countrys modernisation efforts and continue to invest in the countrys future thanks to our Investment Plan for Ukraine.

"This plan aims to leverage over 6billion in investments."

01:47 PM

Pictures from the front line

An Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman poses with his weapons in a trench on the frontline with the Russia-backed separatists near Zolote village, in the eastern Lugansk region, on January 21 - Anatolii Stepanov/AFP

Ukraine Russia Conflict - Allied Resolve 2022 Original description: Tactical training with the engineers of the Guard of the Red-Snow of Russia's Armed Forces in Voronezh region, east of Ukraine border, in frozen and sub-freezing temperatures on Friday Jan 21 - Avalon

An Ukrainian serviceman of the 30th Army Brigade on the job with dogs just outside of Svitlodarsk - Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu

01:45 PM

So what happens now?

Mounting tensions between Ukraine and Russia has led the Foreign Office to begin withdrawing some staff and dependents from the embassy in Kyiv.

Here we look at the background to the situation and what might happen next:

What is the cause of the tension between Russia and Ukraine?

Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 but maintained close economic and cultural links with Russia.

Alarmed by Ukraine's move towards closer ties with the European Union and a popular uprising which forced out Moscow-leaning president Viktor Yanukovych, Russia annexed the strategically important Crimean peninsula in 2014.

Putin wants Ukraine to remain inside Russia's sphere of influence, its "near abroad", and to avoid becoming a Western-style democracy with ties to the European Union and Nato.

What has caused the latest crisis?

Russia has denied any intention to invade Ukraine, but has massed an estimated 100,000 troops along the country's border.

Troops are also taking part in exercises in Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north.

The UK has also accused Russia of increased cyber activity and widespread disinformation, as well of plotting to install a puppet government in Kyiv, something dismissed as "nonsense" by Moscow.

What has been the response?

Western nations have responded by threatening sanctions against Russia and supplying arms to the Ukrainian forces.

The UK has around 100 troops providing training, although this number fluctuates, as part of Operation Orbital.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace confirmed the UK would supply "light, anti-armour, defensive weapon systems" to the Ukrainian forces, while the US has also sent what it described as "lethal aid" including ammunition.

The Nato alliance is increasing the number of warships and fighter jets in eastern Europe.

Could war be prevented?

US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva on January 21 and although there was no breakthrough the diplomatic path does not yet appear to have been closed off.

But one of Putin's key demands is for a guarantee that Ukraine will never be admitted to Nato, something that the allies will not promise, saying that such matters are decisions for Kyiv and the Nato members.

US President Joe Biden has warned that any invasion would result in Russia paying a "heavy price", with severe economic sanctions although he also hinted at divisions in the West about what the response might be to a "minor incursion".

What is the Foreign Office doing in Kyiv?

An update to travel advice revealed that some British staff and dependents are being withdrawn from the embassy in Ukraine's capital because of the "growing threat from Russia".

The US State Department was taking similar action, ordering the departure of family members from its embassy due to the continued threat of military action.




Ukraine has received a second shipment of weapons from the United States as part of $200 million in defensive aid promised amid fears of a Russian invasion.

"The second bird in Kyiv! More than 80 tons of weapons to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities from our friends in the USA! And this is not the end," Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said in a tweet on Sunday.

While the U.S. and its allies have warned for weeks that Russia is moving closer to a military attack against Ukraine, as it has amassed 100,000 troops along the border, Moscow has denied having plans to invade.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have pressed the Biden administration to quickly send additional military aid to Ukraine.

"We need to be an integral part of doing more than has already been announced, and we need to make sure that if Vladimir Putin takes this step and makes this mistake ... it will be a mistake that he will long regret and long remember," Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters during a GOP press conference Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Spain, France, Estonia and the United Kingdom, among others, have provided varying kinds of military support to Ukraine in anticipation of Russian aggression.

The United States has sent approximately $2.7 billion in military assistance to Ukraine since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula. In the past year alone, Washington has committed $650 million in security assistance to Kyiv.

However, the White House has been hesitant to provide more lethal aid in recent months, instead focusing on diplomacy with Moscow.

On Thursday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on four current and former Ukrainian officials believed to be working to assist Russia's influence effort in Ukraine.

During an interview on CNN on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a diplomatic path to ease tensions between Moscow and Kyiv is "preferable" but noted that a "swift, a severe and a united response from us and from Europe" would follow if "a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way."
The U.S. State Department announced on Sunday it was ordering diplomats' family members to leave Ukraine, as U.S. President Joe Biden weighed options for boosting America's military assets in Eastern Europe to counter a buildup of Russian troops.

"We respect foreign states' rights to provide security to their diplomatic missions; however, we consider this U.S. move as premature and a manifestation of excessive caution," said spokesman for the Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oleg Nikolenko.

The order, which also allowed U.S. diplomats stationed at the embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to leave voluntarily, was one of the clearest signs yet that American officials are bracing for an aggressive Russian move in the region.

"Military action by Russia could come at any time," the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. Officials "will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency, so U.S. citizens currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly," it added.

The British Embassy in Ukraine said on Monday that some staff and dependants were being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to "a growing threat from Russia."
An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, in a park in Kyiv. AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

The US and UK ordered the family of embassy personnel out of Ukraine, citing the threat of a Russian invasion.

The US also said Americans in Ukraine should consider leaving the country.

Ukraine, the US, and other Western powers warn Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine.

The US and UK ordered the families of embassy staff in Ukraine to leave the country immediately and warned citizens against traveling there, citing a potential war with Russia.

The US State Department said on Sunday that it was ordering the departure of some family members of US embassy in Kyiv employees "due to the continued threat of Russian military action" and said that some direct hire employees were also being allowed to leave.

"US citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options," it said.

It added: "Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19."

The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also said on Monday that some embassy staff and their dependents "are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to growing threat from Russia."

Australia's government also told its citizens to leave Ukraine,

The US, Ukraine and their allies are warning that Russia is poised to invade Ukraine.

Ukraine says Russia has deployed more than 100,000 troops. And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week: "We believe we're now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine."

Russia has repeatedly denied any intention of invading.

Read the original article on Business Insider
2021 Thank a Teacher Art Contest winners from left to right, Karmare Brownlee, 8th grader at Tabb Middle School in York County, Sarah Saravanan, 1st grader at McNair Lower Elementary School in Fairfax County, and Andrew Gibson, senior at Gretna High School in Pittsylvania County.

The Virginia Lottery is calling on students to submit custom artwork for the fifth annual Thank a Teacher Art Contest.

"We encourage all Virginia K-12 public school students to showcase their talents by submitting designs that demonstrate just how much they appreciate all of the Commonwealths dedicated educators," Public Affairs & Community Relations Director Jennifer Mullen said.

2021 Thank a Teacher Contest winning artwork by Karmare Brownlee.

Be prepared...: COVID-19 at-home tests free from government: Order online, no charge for USPS delivery

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One top-prize winner will be selected from each school level: elementary, middle and high.

The winners' artwork will be featured on thousands of virtual thank-you notecards. Students, parents, and the general public will be able to send the cards to deserving teachers across the state during National Teacher Appreciation Week in May.

Students who win will also receive a monetary prize of $150 in the form of a Visa gift card from the Virginia Lottery to use for art supplies.

2021 Thank a Teacher Contest winning artwork by Andrew Gibson.

Each school where the contest winners are enrolled will receive $2,000 for their art department, $1,000 from The Supply Room and $1,000 from the Virginia Lottery.

Students must submit original art pieces that convey their gratitude for Virginia's teachers. Visit thankateacherva.com for eligibility requirements, design criteria, prize structure, submission guidelines and to enter. The winning designs will be announced in March.

2021 winners

Sarah Saravanan, 1st grader at McNair Lower Elementary School in Fairfax County

Karmare Brownlee, 8th grader at Tabb Middle School in York County

Andrew Gibson, senior at Gretna High School in Pittsylvania County

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"We are always looking for ways to highlight the Virginia Lotterys mission of contributing to our K-12 public schools, Mullen said. We look forward each year to encouraging Virginians to thank as many teachers as possible through our Thank a Teacher campaign."

2021 Thank a Teacher Contest winning artwork by Sarah Saravanan.

This contest is the collaboration of the Virginia Lottery, The Supply Room and Virginia PTA. Now, more than ever, Virginias teachers deserve to receive kudos. Hurry, the deadline to enter is January 31.

Contact Mullen at JMullen@valottery.com or 804-692-7770, if you have questions regarding entries.

Historic Appomattox Plantation: Petersburg National Battlefield seeks public's two cents on preservation project

No shortage of ready-to-eat cereal: Shaquille O'Neal, Wendy, Little Debbie, Fred and Barney: What do they have in common?

 Kristi K. Higgins aka The Social Butterfly columnist is the trending topics and food Q&A reporter at The Progress-Index. Have a news tip on local trends or businesses? Contact Kristi (she, her) at khiggins@progress-index.com, follow @KHiggins_PI on Twitter, and subscribe to us at progress-index.com.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Virginia Lottery Thank a Teacher Art Contest: Three top-prize winners
Republican candidate for Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares Virginia speaks at an event at Virginia Union University in Richmond, Va., on Thursday, July 29, 2021 with Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin.





Virginia's newly elected Republican attorney general has urged the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and hand abortion authority over to the states, reversing the commonwealth's legal position in a landmark challenge now pending before the court.

Under the state's previously Democratic-led administration, Virginia joined 21 other states in urging the justices to invalidate Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban and reaffirm the core holding of the court's 1973 decision in Roe.

But in his first week on the job after defeating the state's Democratic incumbent in a November election, Virginia's new attorney general, Jason Miyares (R), announced a dramatic shift in course.

"The [new] Attorney General has reconsidered Virginia's position in this case," Miyares told the justices in a letter Friday. "Virginia is now of the view that the Constitution is silent on the question of abortion, and that it is therefore up to the people in the several states to determine the legal status and regulatory treatment of abortion."

Roe prohibits states from banning abortion before fetal viability, which occurs around 24 weeks. A decision over the fate of Mississippi's 15-week ban, which directly clashes with Roe's central holding and the nearly five decades of Supreme Court precedent upholding it, is expected by June.

During a tense hearing in the case last month, the justices seemed prepared to roll back the legal regime that emerged from Roe in a manner that may permit states to place new limits on abortion.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is seen as a key vote in the case, seemed focused on Mississippi's argument that abortion is a matter best left to the states. More than once, Kavanaugh asked why the court is the best-suited branch of government to balance the interests of pregnant women seeking abortion against the interest of fetal life.

"Why should this court be the arbiter rather than Congress, the state legislatures, state supreme courts, the people, being able to resolve this?" he asked an attorney for the government. "And there'll be different answers in Mississippi than New York, different answers in Alabama than California, because they're two different interests at stake and the people in those states might value those interests somewhat differently."

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In his letter to the justices last week, Miyares aligned himself with the legal position embraced by 19 Republican attorneys general and a dozen red-state governors across the country in calling for a return to state control of abortion.

"It is Virginia's position that the court's decisions in Roe and Casey were wrongly decided," he wrote, referring also to the 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that barred states from placing an undue burden on abortion access before viability. "This court should restore judicial neutrality to the abortion debate by permitting the people of the several states to resolve these questions for themselves."

Advocates say abortion access would be sharply curtailed across the country if the Supreme Court undermined Roe. Such a ruling, they warn, would have a cascading effect in dozens of states, with the heaviest burdens falling on the American South and Midwest, which could see severe restrictions and even outright bans placed on the procedure.

Earlier this month, a Virginia lawmaker introduced a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, about a month earlier than federal protections under Roe allow. That legislative effort currently faces an uphill battle in the Virginia legislature, where Democrats control one of the two chambers by a razor-thin margin.

But it may also foreshadow a shifting landscape over abortion following the November election of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who opposes abortion. Experts say that if the GOP takes over both legislative chambers, there is a decent chance of restrictive abortion bills being signed into law.

"I think that the new 20-week bill is the most likely vehicle now," said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. "However, stricter measures could still be introduced and possibly passed."

Whether those measures would be deemed constitutional will likely depend on how the Supreme Court rules in the Mississippi case this summer.
ORLANDO, Fla.  Florida is once again the shark bite capital of the world as numbers jumped globally after three years of declines, according to the annual update from the International Shark Attack File.

The group released its annual report this month and found 73 documented attacks last year, a stark contrast from 2020s total of 52. Numbers dont appear to be jumping the shark. Rather, experts say the 2021 number aligns with the five-year global average of 72 annually. International fatalities also saw an increase with 11 deaths reported. 2020 saw 10 deaths, which was unusually high given the years low shark bite count.

The increase in attacks and fatal incidents is surprising for experts, but not a cause for concern as overall short-term trends of both counts are still decreasing, the ISAF said.

The spike in 2020 and 2021 is almost certainly because of the expanding numbers of white sharks, which have been increasing in various localities likely in response to a boom in the seal populations they feed on, said Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museums shark research program based in Gainesville.

The U.S. led the world in 2021 shark attacks, but it only recorded one death, which took place in late December off a California beach. A man was surfing in Morro Bay when he was attacked by what appears to be a great white shark, according to a report by ABC News. The man later died at the scene.

U.S. attacks last year amounted to nearly double that of the next country listed, Australia, partly because of its enormous shoreline and its high turnout of beachgoers. Florida makes up 60% of all attacks in the country. Hawaii is second on the list, but the Sunshine State boasts a total of 896 attacks since 1837 compared to Hawaiis 182.

While Florida is the biggest fish among state shark bites, Volusia County continues to hold the title of the Shark Bite Capital of the World, accounting for 63% of all Florida attacks, the ISAF said. Last year, Florida reported 28 attacks, 17 of which took place in Volusia. That number is striking to experts given its departure from Volusias five-year average of nine incidents a year, ISAF records show.

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However, Volusia County experiences considerable variation in the number of bites from one year to the next, the ISAF said.

Bull sharks appear to be responsible for most Florida attacks, with blacktips not far behind. Both sharks prefer to swim in shallow coastal water, but the former is known to be extremely aggressive and dangerous toward humans, according to the National Wildlife Federation. Blacktips arent known to be as aggressive, but are much more prevalent in Floridas waters.

Every year thousands of blacktips, 3 feet to 5 feet on average, make their way from North Carolina south to Florida, Tyler Bowling, a manager at the ISAF, previously told the Orlando Sentinel.

Theres a lot of them out there. In fact if youre walking the beach at sunrise theres a pretty good chance youll see one riding in the waves, he said. We dont have a whole lot of fatalities from sharks in Florida, and youll never get a fatality from a blacktip.

ISAF also found that most attacks were related to surfers and other board sports, which accounted for 51% of all attacks. Experts believe sharks attack surfers because of murky water and a resemblance to sea turtles, Bowling said. Also, surfers tend to spend time in the surf zone, an area frequented by sharks, and probably attract sharks by splashing and paddling.

Even with 2021s higher shark attack count, experts are still seeing short-term trends decreasing, and emphasized the odds of being bitten by a shark remain very low.

The total number of unprovoked shark bites worldwide is extremely low, given the number of people participating in aquatic recreation each year, the ISAF said.

However, Bowling says COVID-19 may have played a part in the lower number of shark attacks with pandemic restrictions limiting beach activities. The jump between 2020 and 2021 may have been representative of beachgoers returning to the beach.

Shark bites dropped drastically in 2020 due to the pandemic. This past year was much more typical, with average bite numbers from an assortment of species and fatalities from white sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks, Bowling said.

Although, the 2021 numbers arent final and could even increase because of problems in the chain of reporting last year, Bowling said.

The ISAF saw a high number of not confirmed cases for the second year in a row, which it attributes to first responders having to deal with the pandemic.

Because first responders have been focused on COVID response they generally had less time to invest in shark bite investigations. In other words they have less free time to discuss with scientists an issue thats not an emergency, Bowling said.

If the ISAF cant confirm the details with a credible source, then it documents the attacks existence and waits to confirm the details at a later time.

We saw this in 2020 as well, and had to circle back to many cases months later when COVID waves calmed down and were able to get more information, he said. We will likely have to continue this pattern as the pandemic continues.

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Music legend and Cincinnatian Bootsy Collins showed his pride for the Bengals by releasing a remix of his classic song "Fear Da Tiger" just in time for the game against the Tennessee Titans last weekend.

And it must have been good luck because the Bengals beat the Titans and are now up against the Kansas City Chiefs in this coming weekend's AFC Championship game.

Collins revamped his 2005 "Fear Da Tiger" song with a new music video (released Jan. 21) featuring shots of Bengals fans, dancers and cheerleaders. The singer himself appeared decked out in an orange and white striped jacket, pants, Bengals jersey, top hat and his signature star sunglasses.

The whole song is Bengals and Cincinnati themed, from the costumes to the backdrops to the lyrics themselves.

Bengals-heavy lyrics include:

"Fear the tigers, fear the tigers, cause we're the tigers."

"We're ready to rumble, we're ready to rumble, 'cause we king of the jungle."

"Who dey, who dey, who dey, who dey think they gonna beat them Bengals."

The 2005 track was also dubbed the "unofficial theme song of the 2005 Cincinnati Bengals."

Born William Earl "Bootsy" Collins, the legendary musician, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and Cincinnati native first rose to prominence with James Brown in the 1970s, and later was the bassist for the funk collective Parliament-Funkadelic.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bootsy Collins releases new remix of Bengals-themed 'Fear Da Tiger'
Kevin Ryan, Team Rubicon's communications lead for Wisconsin, poses for a portrait in front of stacks of donated toys and children's items on Jan. 20, 2022. The disaster relief organization is managing donations for Afghan evacuees who are resettling in the Milwaukee area.

Boxes full of donated items, from baby clothes to winter boots to bedsheets, are stacked high inside a former Milwaukee County bus garage, awaiting new homes.

Since December, volunteers with the national disaster relief organization Team Rubicon have been sorting through what they estimate to be 250,000 items in a massive logistical operation to direct donations to Afghan families resettling in the Milwaukee area.

"Filling up a warehouse is definitely a significant effort," said Chase Adams, incident commander for the site. "Then getting the specific items you're looking for is even a more complicated issue."

It's a task that's grown more timely as the pace of resettlement picks up. Thousands of people who were evacuated from Afghanistan are being moved from their temporary housing on military bases and into homes across the country.

More: World-renowned Afghan women's rights activist Maryam Durani and her family begin a new life in Milwaukee

Since the resettlement agencies that typically furnish refugees' first apartments are swamped with new arrivals, a wide network of adjacent groups are stepping up to fill in the gaps.

The veteran-run Team Rubicon has taken on a major role in the process, both locally and nationally.

The group, which is typically involved in cleanup and humanitarian relief after natural disasters, has become the nation's de facto coordinator of donations to Afghan evacuees  both at military bases and in the cities they're moving to.

When the evacuees first arrived at places like Fort McCoy in Sparta, donations were flooding in from all angles: corporations, church groups, individuals with gently used clothes and toys.

The way Team Rubicon's Kevin Ryan sees it, the U.S. government didn't expect that managing those donations would be such an enormous task.

"When they started to sense the scope, they were like, now what do we do?" said Ryan, communications lead for Wisconsin. "There really wasn't anybody that could do donation management at this national level."

Story continues

It's been a similar experience as Team Rubicon begins working with often overwhelmed resettlement agencies.

"We're sort of stepping into the void," Ryan said.

At the bus garage-turned-donations warehouse, volunteers have inventoried and sorted roughly 130,000 items in the last month and have begun distributing them to groups that are working one-on-one with Afghan families.

Another 120,000 or more items are yet to be counted, Ryan said.

The groups, whether Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities or Hanan Refugee Relief Group, send in requests, and Team Rubicon fulfills them and delivers the items where they're needed.

They say: Can we have three car seats for a family we're working with?

Sometimes, the orders are huge, likely to fill several box trucks: 1,000 sets of sheets, 500 pillows, pallets of diapers.

Mary O'Connor of South Milwaukee looks through a box of children's clothing for a specific size on Thursday, Jan. 20. She has been volunteering with Team Rubicon since August.

One day last week, Mary O'Connor, a retired teacher from South Milwaukee, was looking through a box of new children's clothing to fulfill a request for 18- to 24-month-sized outfits.

For much of the previous week, she counted and sorted a big shipment of pants donated by the girls' fashion brand Justice.

O'Connor also spent time last year with Team Rubicon helping the Afghans staying at Fort Bliss in Texas. She finds the work meaningful since her son fought in Afghanistan.

"It's kind of come full-circle because he had (Afghan) interpreters helping him. So now I get to help them," O'Connor said. "They came here with absolutely nothing."

More: 'We didn't have anything': Fort McCoy Afghans describe losing it all, starting over in America

Volunteers are working to set up the warehouse like a store, with clothes hanging from racks and shoes displayed in shelving units, in the hope that evacuees could one day visit and choose items on their own.

Currently, though, the warehouse isn't open to the public.

Adams is juggling incoming and outgoing donations while trying to prepare the warehouse for those future plans.

Girls shoes seen inside of the donation warehouse for Team Rubicon who has been managing donations to Afghan refugees at military bases is opening a donation warehouse in Milwaukee.

From a folding table he uses as a desk in a back room of the warehouse, Adams fields a constant stream of calls and texts on three cell phones.

A growing part of his work is to wrangle donations from companies  like the pallets of girls' pants from Justice.

About three-quarters of the items at the warehouse are donated by corporations, Ryan estimates, while at Fort McCoy it was about 40%.

Corporate donations have their perks. Volunteers don't need to spend as much time sorting through individual items, and they know the items are new and good quality. That's not always true with items donated by the general public, Adams said.

"Getting things from the community is really a stopgap effort until you can lock down consistent sources to meet the quantities of items you're looking for, which is really what come through in your corporate partnerships," he said.

Corporate donations the national Team Rubicon organization receives are often split between Milwaukee and the two other warehouse sites in Minneapolis and Denver. There are plans to open close to 30 such sites, Adams said.

"This is very much a national logistics operation," he said.

Right now, mattresses, bed frames, kitchen tables and other furniture are "super high" on Adams' priority list, based on the requests he's gotten from resettlement agencies.

"Those are items that those agencies don't have," he said.

Household items and kids' toys displayed inside a donation warehouse for Team Rubicon in Milwaukee. The disaster relief organization has been managing donations to Afghan evacuees at military bases.

It's unknown how long Team Rubicon will work out of the warehouse. Much of the evacuees' journey, from Afghanistan to the bases to their new homes, has been marked by unexpected delays and complications.

For Adams and Ryan, it's about making the biggest impact as quickly as possible.

Getting the LEGO sets, winter coats and shampoo bottles they have on hand into homes.

Plus, thousands of evacuees haven't been resettled yet.

"It's going to have to go on for a while," Ryan said.

How to help

Team Rubicon is not accepting donations from individuals at its warehouse right now, although there are plans to open it as a drop-off site in the future.

Adams asks individuals who wants to donate to purchase items from Team Rubicon's Amazon Wishlist. Orders will be shipped directly to the warehouse. Find the list at amzn.to/3nQHWdD.

For companies or organizations that would like to donate a bulk shipment, fill out Team Rubicon's Google Form: bit.ly/3GWFPwg. Those with specific questions can email resettlementsupport@teamrubiconusa.org.

Those who would like to volunteer at the warehouse can sign up at teamrubiconusa.org/resettlement and click on the Milwaukee volunteer link.

Contact reporter Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Team Rubicon managing donations for Afghans resettling in Milwaukee
A mother whose daughter and grandchildren were murdered now has another heartache: Her son's body was found over the weekend in Apopka.

Jonathan Suarez Nieves, 34, of DeBary, had been missing for nearly a week. His body was found Saturday morning in Apopka and no foul play is suspected, according to the Orange County Sheriffs Office.

Jonathan Suarez Nieves

Apopka Police had not responded to a request for information from The News-Journal as of Monday afternoon.

Nieves vanished hours after an incident in Daytona Beach Shores in which the police said he went to a stranger's hotel room, because he said he believed his sister, who was murdered in 2013, was inside.

Nieves is the son of Felicita Nieves and brother of Yessenia Suarez. Yessenia Suarez, along with her two children, Thalia Otto, 9, and Michael Elijah Otto, 8, were murdered in Deltona on Oct. 23, 2013. Their bodies have not been found.

Felicita Nieves speaks of her daughter and two grandchildren on Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. The three were killed eight years ago. Luis Toledo was convicted of the murders but has not revealed what he did with their bodies.

Felicita Nieves could not be reached on Monday. Friends and family posted messages of condolences and prayers on Facebook for her and her family.

Suarezs husband, Luis Toledo, was convicted of their murders and sentenced in 2018 to three consecutive life terms. He has never revealed what he did with the bodies.

Previous coverage: Woman whose family was slain by Luis Toledo in 2013 now reports her son is missing

Family slain: A grandmother marks eight years since daughter and grandchildren were killed in Deltona

Nieves' wife, Jazmin Reyes, reported him missing about 3:07 a.m. on Jan. 17, according to a report from the Seminole County Sheriffs Office. She said Nieves told her at about 7:30 p.m. on Sunday that he was going to take a drive and clear his mind, according to the report.

About 8 p.m. Nieves was involved in a crash with an RV parked in the westbound rest area on Interstate 4 in Longwood, the report stated.

Reyes then stated that the Apopka Police Department told her that his truck, a 2015 white Ford, was involved in another crash about 45 minutes later.

Story continues

The Florida Highway Patrol was notified on Jan. 16 of a crash in which a Ford F-150 registered to Jonathan Nieves struck a firepit at 932 Grand Hilltop Drive in Apopka, according to an email from FHP Lt. Kim Montes. The driver left the scene, the email stated.

Earlier on Sunday, Nieves was staying with his wife at the Hyatt Place in Daytona Beach Shores when the report said he knocked on a persons room door and identified himself as a police officer.

The person did not let him in and when police responded, Nieves told them he knew his sister was in the room, and he wanted to get her out, the report stated. Nieves and his wife were asked to leave the hotel, the report said.

Felicita Nieves said in a previous interview about her missing son that she believed he had PTSD from the murder of his sister and her children.

No further details were available.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida woman whose daughter, grandchildren were slain now suffers son's death
.

AUSTIN

Women's Fund to award grants

The Austin Community Foundation has announced a request for proposals for the Womens Fund.

The Womens Fund is a collective giving network that provides grant funding to support the economic security of women and their children in Central Texas. The Womens Fund plans to award 25 unrestricted, general operating grants totaling $500,000 this spring to local groups that work in the following areas:

 Housing  providing affordable housing opportunities that include a network of support and/or opportunities for long-term wealth-building.

 Child Care  increased access to affordable, convenient, culturally competent and quality child care for families with low incomes.

 Education  providing access to an ecosystem of support  academic, emotional and financial  for women pursuing educational dreams.

 Womens Health  focusing on reducing health disparities faced by women of color.

 Unintended pregnancy prevention  providing access to consumable, unbiased pregnancy prevention resources.

The application deadline is 5 p.m. Jan. 31.

For more information about the proposal requirements, eligibility criteria and application process: austincf.org/womens-fund-grantmaking.

Courtesy of the Austin Community Foundation

GEORGETOWN

Arts board approves grants

The Georgetown Arts and Culture Board approved $9,284 in grants in January.

The grants were given to local arts and culture groups to help with funding programming that includes visual art, music and performance art.

Recipients include the Austin Civic Orchestra Society, with $4,784 for Paint to Music at the Klett Performing Arts Center; Texas Bach Festival Inc. with $4,000 for the Texas Bach Festival 2022; and Full Circle with $500 for Full Circle: Speaker Series for Creatives.

The next grant cycle will accept proposals June 1-30 for events and programs occurring from Oct. 1 through March 31, 2023.

For more information: arts.georgetown.org.

From news reports

Story continues

NORTHWEST AUSTIN

Orchestras collaborate at high school

Members of the Austin Symphony Orchestra and students of Lake Travis High School will perform together at "A Night with the Austin Symphony Orchestra at 7 p.m. March 26 at the Lake Travis Performing Arts Center, 3324 RM 620 South.

The night will begin with a performance by members of the ASO with selections by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Francis Poulenc and Johann Strauss.

Over three-dozen high school orchestra and band students will perform after the intermission. The night will crescendo to a collaborative performance with the ASO and LTHS musicians featuring Romeo and Juliet Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky.

Ticket cost: $15-$50. For tickets: ltisdschools.org/finearts. For more information: lakeway-tx.gov.

From news reports

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Womens Fund plans to award 25 general operating grants
China recently released its major economic indicators in 2021, with the GDP reaching 114.37 trillion yuan ($18 trillion), which is a year-on-year increase of 8.1%, beating expectations. The growth rate was much higher than the world average of 5.5% in 2021.



Among others, China's foreign trade of goods totaled 39.1 trillion yuan ($6.05 trillion) in 2021, increasing 21.4% yearly. Moreover, its imports and exports exceeded the $6 trillion threshold for the first time. Meanwhile, foreign direct investment broke all previous records, with the actual amount of foreign investment used in China being 1,149.36 billion yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 14.9%.

One of the crucial factors to ensure China's resilient economic performance is its continuous endeavors to pursue reform and opening up to achieve high-quality economic development. Despite the tremendous pressure brought about by the changes in the economic environment at home and abroad, the fundamentals of China's strong economic toughness, sufficient potential, and long-term improvement have not changed.

The China International Import Expo (CIIE) has been held every year since 2018. After three years, the exhibition has developed into an essential platform for international procurement, investment promotion, cultural exchanges, and inclusive cooperation, serving as "an international public good for the world to share." In addition, the expo facilitates factor resource sharing and internal and external market connectivity and helps boost the world economy.

In recent years, China has made great efforts to promote multilateral cooperation. In addition to the CIIE in Shanghai, the China International Fair for Trade in Service (CIFTIS) in Beijing is another important event showing the country's determination to open up for multilateral cooperation. Moreover, China has been working on rule-based institutional reform and opening up, which can be witnessed with the accelerated construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port and the continuous promotion of the Pilot Free Trade Zone.

Likewise, several mechanisms have also been well established to ensure that China can work with more countries globally conveniently and smoothly, including the China and the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries cooperation mechanism, the China-ASEAN dialogue relationship, as well as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum.

As the world's second-largest economy, China's effort to ensure its door opens ever-wider to the world and determination to promote international cooperation under the frameworks of various multilateral agreements will encourage more countries to tap into its market potential and achieve joint development.

The World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report predicts that global economic growth is expected to significantly decelerate to 4.1% in 2022 from the 2021 level of 5.5%. The rate is expected to be 3.2% for the year 2023. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant indicates that the pandemic will likely continue to disrupt world economic activity in the days to come. Moreover, a notable deceleration in major economies will weigh on external demand in emerging and developing economies.

China's development will face pressure and challenges ahead, given the external uncertainties. However, the country's economy is expected to maintain a stable growth momentum as it continues to accelerate the development of the digital economy. In addition, China will continue to improve its business environment and deepen institutional reform, which will steer economic globalization towards open, inclusive, balanced, and win-win results and contribute to the global economy.

He Shuquan is a professor at the School of Economics, Shanghai University. He is also a member of Fudan University-Jinguang Group Think Tank.

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.
On Monday, the Potter County Commissioners Court unanimously selected Amarillo attorney Stacy Zavala as guardian ad litem for its Child Protection Court.

Zavala

As the guardian ad litem, Zavala will represent the interests of children involved in Child Protective Services cases. She will investigate and review medical, psychological and school records to help determine what is best for the minors involved and make those recommendations to the court.

Clarifying her duties to members of the court, Zavala expounded on the role of guardian ad litem.

My role is to be a voice for the children in the court system and its kind of a two-fold responsibility, Zavala said. "You have to look at what the children themselves want while also looking out for their best interests. Sometimes those are the same, sometimes they are not.

Zavala stated that this is a separate position outside of the department and court to advocate for the children in the CPS decisions.

We thought it would be beneficial to hire a CPS attorney in this role," said Precinct 3 Commissioner John Coffee.

It is good to have this type of advocate, but also sad that we need one, said Potter Judge Nancy Tanner. This is a very necessary position for the county.

Zavala was chosen over three other applicants for the position.

She graduated from the Texas Tech School of Law in 1999. Zavala relocated to the region in 2008 from El Paso and previously served as an assistant attorney general in the child support division of the panhandle from 2010-15. She is a partner in the Zavala Law Firm with her husband, Felipe Zavala.

In other business, the commissioners court discussed the upcoming March 1 primary election.

The Santa Fe building was added as an early voting location for Potter County. Also announced as voting locations were Casey Carpet One, United Amigos, Hillside Baptist Church and Cornerstone Outreach. All sites, except for United Amigos, will also be available for election day voting.

Story continues

This is a big win for voters to open up the Santa Fe Building on election day because we have so many people that think we are open for this anyway," said Melynn Huntley, Potter County elections administrator.

Locations for early voting are:

 Main Location: Santa Fe Building, 900 S. Polk St.

Hours Feb. 14-18, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Feb. 19, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Feb. 20, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Feb. 22-25, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

 Branch locations:

 Casey Carpet One  3500 I-40 W. Frontage Road, main entrance

 United Amigos  3300 East I-40, northwest entrance

 Hillside Christian Church NW, 600 Tascosa Road, southwest entrance

 Cornerstone Outreach  Fellowship Room, 1111 N. Buchanan St.

Branch location hours: Feb. 14-18, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Feb. 19, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Feb. 22-25, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Zavala appointed guardian for Potter County child protection court
The new US Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, arrived in Tokyo on Sunday.

After landing at Haneda Airport with his wife, Amy, Emanuel posted a message on Twitter in both Japanese and English. It said, "Amy and I are excited to have arrived in Japan and are eager to meet the people of Japan as we travel throughout the country."

The 62-year-old Chicago native is known for his hard-driving style. He was a member of the US House of Representatives before serving as chief of staff to then-President Barack Obama. Emanuel is known to be close to current President Joe Biden, who was Obama's vice president.

In an interview with NHK before leaving for Tokyo, Emanuel indicated he will work to further strengthen Japan-US relations, with China's growing influence in mind. He said the two democracies are at a critical juncture to advance their common value systems.

The post of US ambassador to Japan was vacant for about two and a half years after William Hagerty stepped down in July 2019 to run for the Senate.

The US Embassy in Tokyo said Emanuel is expected to start his work as ambassador after 10 days of quarantine at his official residence in the capital.
Metro area law enforcement agencies are reminding people to watch their speed in conjunction with Speeding Awareness Week.

More than 20 agencies and organizations in Iowa and Nebraska are emphasizing that following posted speed limits is critical to driver, passenger, pedestrian and cyclist safety, according to a joint press release from metro area law enforcement agencies.

Why? Sgt. Ron Albers of the Council Bluffs Police Department summed it up in one sentence.

Wed rather have you arrive late than not arrive at all, he said. The faster youre going, the more likely you are to be injured in an accident.

As traffic volumes have rebounded from an initial decline during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, speeding has remained a serious issue. These two factors  speeding and high volumes  have resulted in a staggering number of speeding tickets in the Council Bluffs-Omaha metro area, the press release stated. And while areas across the country are dealing with excessive speeding issues, metro area agencies are hoping to combat the problem via an educational campaign before traffic volumes increase even more during the spring and summer months.

Metro area law enforcement agencies and first responders have noticed that speeding has increasingly become a factor in crashes, both in minor incidents and more serious crashes, said Austin Yates, an engineer with the Iowa Department of Transportation. This is an issue that cant be ignored. Any speeding puts more lives at risk, which is why we partnered up to declare this week Speeding Awareness Week.

Speed impacts those outside of vehicles, too. Changes in speed can have real-life consequences for pedestrians. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, if a person is hit by a vehicle going 20 miles per hour, there is a 10% chance of fatality, the press release stated. The chance of fatality increases to 40% if a vehicles is going 30 mph, and then increases to 80% of fatality if the vehicles speed is 40 mph.

This week, motorists can expect to see messages related to Speeding Awareness Week on social media, digital ads and dynamic message signs around the metro and both states.

The reason speed is so important is it can save your life, Albers said in a video he posted Monday morning on the Council Bluffs Police Departments Facebook page.

It comes down to stopping distance. Speed limits are set at 25 miles per hour in residential areas so you will be able to stop in a reasonable distance, he said. At highway or interstate speeds, stopping takes much longer. If youre going 55 miles per hour, youre traveling 81 feet per second, he said. Just to react takes 120 feet.

The average person takes 1.5 seconds to react, he said.

Thats why drivers education students are told to follow at least two seconds behind the vehicle in front of them, Albers said.

In all, stopping a vehicle at 55 mph takes 265 feet  and thats if your tires are in good shape and youre on dry pavement, he said.

If youre going 65 mph, youre traveling 95 feet per second, Albers noted in his video. Reacting and stopping takes a total of 343 feet. And at 75 mph, youre moving 110 feet per second, and your total stopping distance is 432 feet.

Speed limits are posted as they are for one very good reason: safety, said Jeff Sobczyk, Vision Zero coordinator for the City of Omaha. The risk of fatalities even at relatively low speeds is too great to make any speeding worth it.

Said Albers, Its important to manage your speed and pay attention and not be in such a hurry.

To view Albers video, visit facebook.com/CityofCB.

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Greenland Technologies Holding Corporation, a Chinese group that develops and manufactures 100% electric industrial vehicles has signed a distribution agreement with Morocco, its first platform in Africa.

The Chinese technology developer and manufacturer of electric industrial vehicles and drivetrain systems for material handling machineries and vehicles announced over the weekend it has signed a new distribution agreement with a minimum potential market value of $5 million to $8.4 million.

This exclusive distribution agreement to access the Moroccan market includes both fixed and adjustable minimum purchase requirements across a multi-year term to accommodate Greenlands expanding electric industrial vehicle product line, the company said in a press release.

If the distribution partner to the agreement were to maintain the minimum purchase requirement used in the second year of the agreement, it would increase the minimum potential market value to approximately $8.4 million, it said.

Under the agreement, the Companys distribution partner, Elive Maroc S.A.R.L. A.U., will have the exclusive right to market and sell Greenlands industrial EV vehicles in Morocco.

Access to the Moroccan market is a first step in the companys strategy to establish itself firmly in Africa, according to Raymond Wang, CEO of Greenland.

This agreement plants a Greenland flag in Africa, which we expect to build upon as we move forward given our advantaged competitive position and expanding electric industrial vehicle product line. With 53 other countries in Africa, we have plenty of growth opportunities ahead of us, the companys CEO was quoted in the press release as saying.

We could not have structured a better agreement and we expect this will serve as the blueprint for how we accelerate our sales growth worldwide. Our multi-year agreement has a great deal of upside and we expect this to be another important growth driver for our business, he stated further.

As to the choice of the Kingdom for this first commercial establishment on the continent, the Chinese group underlines that Morocco is an advantageous market ready for the electrification of industrial vehicles as electricity costs remain at a market low price of $0.116/kWh compared to rising diesel costs over $4.00/gal.

Besides, the company explains, the Kingdom has committed to the United Nations a goal of 80% renewable energy use by 2050.
Moroccos ambassador to Germany Zohour Alaoui is expected to return to Berlin after German authorities have voiced a clear support to Moroccos autonomy plan offered for the Sahara under its sovereignty.

Rabat recalled its ambassador to Berlin last May and suspended all cooperation ties and contacts with the German embassy in Rabat and German political organizations in protest against hostile stands regarding Moroccos territorial integrity.

According to press reports, the imminent return of Moroccan ambassador to Berlin, probably this week, comes after German Foreign ministry issued end of last month a statement supporting Moroccos autonomy plan for the Sahara and commending the key role played by the country in regional peace, security and stability.

Moroccan authorities welcomed the positive statements and constructive positions voiced by the new German federal government.

In another positive move, German President Frank-Walter Stein has invited King Mohammed VI to pay an official visit to Berlin to launch a new partnership between the two countries.

In his New Year message sent to the Sovereign, the German president hailed the reforms spearheaded by the King and hailed the autonomy initiative as a basis for reaching a political solution to the Sahara regional conflict.
Morocco deplored the bias shown by Human Rights Watch in its annual report in which it sidelined with separatists and ignored facts on the ground.

The International rights watchdog has derailed from the principles of impartiality which were supposed to underpin its work, the interministerial body in charge of human rights said.

HRW has also failed to shed light on the suffering inflicted by Algeria on a population forsaken to a separatist militia that trades in their ordeal, it said.

Morocco also accused HRW of putting forward uncorroborated claims of rights violation adding that HRW attempts to undermine the independence of Moroccos penal justice system.

By rehashing rumors, HRW also criticized the freedom of expression in Morocco. Once again, instead of revealing and scrutinizing the facts, and presenting them objectively, HRW has chosen the easy way out by engaging in a political campaign hostile to our country.
President checks security in HCM City ahead of Tet

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered Ho Chi Minh Citys public security forces to ensure social order and safety during Tet, the traditional Lunar New Year festival, to allow residents to enjoy a happy and safe holiday.















President Nguyen Xuan Phuc reviews the guard of honour at the HCM City Department of Public Security's headquarters. (Photo: VNA)

Phuc, who is also Chairman of the National Defence-Security Council and Commander-in-chief of the Vietnam Peoples Armed Forces, made the request during his visit to the municipal public security departments headquarters on January 24 to check the forces' preparedness during the upcoming holiday.

He highlighted the key role of the public security forces in maintaining security and social order in the city, particularly during the time when the southern economic hub was struggling to contain the fourth COVID-19 wave last year. The city has seen positive progress in combating crimes, with the crime rate down more than 11 percent in 2021, he said.



The State leader conveyed his Tet greetings to local public security officers and families of those who have died or injured on duty in the fight against the pandemic, requesting the Ministry of Public Security and its HCM City department to ensure social welfare for these people.



The president particularly required the HCM City Department of Public Security to speed up investigations and legal proceedings against child abusers and strictly punish them.



On the same day, President Phuc visited HCM City High Command. He hailed the armed forces for having made significant contributions to the citys COVID-19 fight. Last year, the HCM City High Command established and run 20 COVID-19 treatment hospitals and eight quarantine sites, while sending personnel to work at many other hospitals.



The President urged the high command to stand ready to coordinate with other forces to protect security and social order during the New Year festival and keep up the good work in 2022./.
 Flash

Iran has regained its right to vote at the UN General Assembly after its membership dues to the organization were paid by South Korea with frozen Iranian funds, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations announced.

Majid Takht-Ravanchi said late on Saturday that as soon as Iran's arrears are received in New York, the country's voting rights should naturally be restored, official IRNA News Agency reported on Sunday.

South Korea confirmed on Sunday that it has paid Tehran's membership delayed dues, amounting to 18 million U.S. dollars, to the UN from Iranian funds frozen in the country.

Earlier, Takht-Ravanchi told IRNA that negotiations were underway between Tehran and the world body to lift the suspension of the country's right to vote at the General Assembly and enable the country to pay its membership dues to the organization, expressing hope that the talks would soon yield favorable results.

He noted that Iran, as an active UN member, has always been committed to paying up its membership dues on time and has proven this in practice.

The ambassador stressed that Iran has faced problems with the payment of its membership fee for the second consecutive year due to the sanctions imposed by the United States, which have not only undermined Iran's ability to purchase humanitarian items and medical devices but are also impeding the UN's work.

Iranian assets of over 7 billion U.S. dollars are frozen in two South Korean banks.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced earlier this month that Iran and seven other countries have had their voting rights suspended over late dues.

Iran had also lost its voting rights last year when the U.S. sanctions had blocked Iranian access to its billions of dollars frozen abroad.

The U.S. sanctions have been imposed since 2018 when former President Donald Trump withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal.

Since April 2021, rounds of talks have been held between Iran and other remaining parties, namely Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, in the Austrian capital of Vienna to restore the nuclear pact, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with the United States indirectly involved.
(Bloomberg) -- Key iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. may achieve an unprecedented performance in the first quarter, according to Chairman Young Liu.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Shares in Hon Hai, the worlds largest contract manufacturer of electronics for global brands from Nintendo Co. to Apple Inc., climbed as much as 1.5% in Taipei. Manufacturers around the world are racing to build up inventory out of the fear that outbreaks of the omicron variant and other uncertainties could further disrupt their supply chain.

Our performance in the first quarter may surpass how we did in the past few years, and it is likely that some staff at key sites will only get two days off during the lunar new year holidays, Liu said in prepared remarks for the companys annual party on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei told analysts he expects companies to maintain a higher level of inventory compared to the past to ensure supply security.

Hon Hai, the flagship unit of Foxconn Technology Group, runs most of its manufacturing operations in China, which will shut most offices and businesses for seven days starting Jan. 31 for the lunar new year.

In addition to being a key manufacturing partner to Apple, the Taiwanese company also makes gadgets for other global brands including Dell Technologies Inc., Sony Group Corp. and Nintendo.

(Updates with share action from the second paragraph)

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Manifesting for an outpour of Girls' Love media content soon!!

HUGE Disclaimer:

7 Boys' Love Series That You Should Watch:

1. Bad Buddy

(Thailand, 2001)





[ Spoilers ] Aof said enough with your "only gay for you" and makes it very clear that these boys aren't straight. Like, through literal statements made by the characters! Also, there's a lovely sapphic surprise as well but I don't want to spoil it!

2. To My Star

(South Korea, 2021)





[ Spoilers ] Viewers familiar with K-drama have probably heard of the term "dead fish kiss" - feel free to Google the term if you haven't but, unfortunately, these are very common in Korean dramas, including the few BL dramas that have been released. Well, I'm happy to tell you that To My Star will satisfy those that want their slow burn romance to culminate with a better display of affection that sad pressed lips.

3. A Tale of Thousand Stars

(Thailand, 2021)





4. We Best Love: No. 1 For You

(Taiwan, 2021)





5. Not Me

(Thailand, ongoing)





6. Lovely Writer

(Thailand, 2021)



7. Where Your Eyes Linger

(South Korea, 2020)





cultural reset

And I'ma lso manifesting for director Hwang to incorporate some Girls' Love into this universe!

If you were on Twitter on this past Friday, you probably the hashtag #BadBuddySeries trending worldwide. About a million or so users flooded this hashtag on this day with their live reactions as the final episode of this BL () romcom from Thailand aired. So what's the hoopla all about?Praised for being "a beacon of tenderness in a harsh world and a genre-defining example of the increasingly popular Boys Love (BL) format" has quickly become a favorite of many that are frequently seeking stories that center on LGBTQ relationships, myself included.Althoughcurrently dominates the conversation, as it ended a few days ago, it isn't the only work of BL media that premiered within the past year that provided viewers seeking out this genre with a satisfying viewing experience. Fans of BL content, often members of the LGBTQ community as well, ate very well in 2021 and 2022 is looking promising, too.Therefore, along with, I bring you a list of recommendations of recent BL series for those of you interested in stories about LGBTQ romance, specifically thepart.My intention with this post is only to recommend some good quality content for other people, like myself, who are interested in watching stories featuring Lcharacters as main characters. Holy repetitiveness but I really want to get this point across. I am specifically recommending Boys' Love material as it is a genre I have gotten into recently in my quest for just any kind of LGBTQ stories.I'm not here to discuss the merits or demerits of this because, frankly, I just want to enjoy some non-heterosexual stories. Doesn't mean that I'm consuming content without thinking critically - I have standards, I promise.I do want to say, however, that there's more and more content within the BL genre these days that is worth getting into. To put it bluntly, using the Internet's favorite word, there are lessworks being produced and more content that outright criticizes the toxic tropes that have become associated with the genre. Furthermore, plenty of BL dramas are being helmed by openly LGBTQ and women directors., for instance, was directed by Backaof "Aof" Noppharnach, who is openly gay; he also released another great series in 2021 besides, which is also featured on the list.So, if you are also an LGBTQ individual and have been wary on this genre, I urge you to give any of the titles on this list a chance.Ever since they were young, Pran and Pat's families had a deep and raging rivalry - trying to one-up each other on everything. This was also extended towards their sons. Comparing their sons achievements and merits, whether academic or extracurricular - the two families have left no stones unturned to outshine and gloat in front of the other. It was almost like the rivalry was passed down as a family heirloom and the two boys became rivals as well. Until - they grew tired and became friends. Really good friends. However, because of their families' rivalry, their friendship will have to be kept under wraps. And so begins a journey of secret friendship - and then perhaps a sweet secret romance?  Everyone's obsessed right now withfor a good reason. The chemistry between Nanon("Pran") and Ohm("Pat") is immaculate. There is even a tally on r/boyslove of the number of kisses and pecks throughout the series between them and it's in the two digits.The series doesn't play around and makes it very clear that Pat and Pran are really into each other. They want to kiss and do. This ain't no bromance.Furthermore, director Aof readily blasts some of the sillier BL tropes throughout the series. For examples of how, and you don't care for spoilers, continue reading under the the following tag:Actor Kang Seo Joon was once one of South Korea's biggest and most popular stars, but his career is now in decline. Despite his fall in popularity, he believes he has had a change of fortune when he meets and falls for a dashing young chef named Han Ji Woo. Despite having wildly different personalities, the two enter a relationship. However, their love comes under threat when the more conservative Han Ji Woo and the free-spirited Kang Seo Joon realize that their outlooks on life, love, and everything else appears irrevocably different.  The recent crop of Korean BL series, most of which were released within the last year or so, consist mainly of mini series with shorter than average episodes. The first season of, for example, is comprised of 9 episodes of 15 minutes each.However, I urge you to stick with this particular series despite this. Despite its length, this series delivers one of my favorite slow burn and opposites attracts romances in a while. It'ss my personal favorite BL series so far. The chemistry between Seojoon and Jiwoo is, no exaggerating, literally perfect. But what captivated me specifically was the way the both, in their own ways, communicate clearly with one another. Saying more will spoil some of the story but it's just such a healthy portrayal of a relationship between two flawed people, who despite this show respect and concern for each other's well beings in small gestures, some of which may even go unnoticed by some viewers. It's these little details that has made the series so special for me.Another thing that is celebrated by those familiar with Korean BL dramas - heck, Korean dramas in general, is a bit of a spoiler so I will place it under a tag. Read at your own discretion:A second season finished filming earlier this year, with the entire cast returning. Hopefully, by the time you're done with this series, we will get a release date!After a volunteer teacher dies in a tragic accident, her heart is transplanted into Tian. He learns about his donor's life through a series of diary entries that reveal her secrets and interests. Included is her promise to count a thousand stars with Chief Forest Officer Phupha.Tian decides to follow in her footsteps and fulfill her promise. Now a new volunteer teacher himself, Tian attempts to befriend Phupha, who initially gives him the cold shoulder.As the two slowly grow closer, Tian notices his new heart beats quickly whenever he's near the officer. Much like the heart's previous owner, Tian cannot help but fall for Phupha. Treading on dangerous ground, can he still go through with the thousand-star promise?  The other Aof masterpiece that was released in 2021. He DID that - gaves us bothandin the same year.I consider this series to be nearly impeccable. It's a drama that I recommend even to those who aren't specifically into BL series. Actually, it's one of my mom's favorites of last year. She, too, was, shouting at the TV for the main couple, Phupha and Tian, to kiss time and time again! Though it is the very definition of a slow burn romance, it is such a satisfying watch. Don't get confused, though, since the very beginning of the series it is made very clear that both Phupha and Tian are into each other. The story makes it clear time and again that we are watching a love story. Furthermore, the series features one of my favorite coming out scenes in a BL dramaThe series is set in a small village in Northern Thailand. The relationship that Tian builds with the children he teaches and the villagers is heartwarming and wholesome. There will be trials and tribulation but it is all for the sake of delivering an exceptional viewing experience. A must watch, indeed.Oh, and also, Chief Phupha is hot:Zhou Shu Yi stared at the class report and saw Gao Shi De's name above him again. He didn't understand. He had always ranked second ever since Gao Shi De came into his life. For this reason, he was excited to go to college and part ways. He hoped to never see Gao Shi De again. In college, he joined the swimming club and was revered by everyone. He was happily enjoying college life until Gao Shi De suddenly appeared at the swimming competition during their senior year. This made him wonder why Gao Shi De always followed him wherever he went. But little did he know that Gao Shi De had eyes for him and would never let him go.  Another slow burn romance. The chemistry between Sam Lin (Shi De) and Yu (Shu Yi) is legendary. So much so that a sequel to this drama has been released already, We Best Love: Fighting No. 2 , and there's a part 3 coming up as well. I preferstorywise but despite whatever qualms I had with the sequel, damn, the chemistry between the two is good enough that some of the questionable storylines can be forgiven.Also, the kissing scenes between these two are always top notch.Black and White are twins with a powerful connection. After their parents separation, though, White's father took him out of the country, their family effectively severed in two. It isn't until fifteen years have passed that White, now grown, returns to Thailand.One day, seemingly from nowhere, White feels an agony like death. He recovers in the hospital, but they're unable to determine the cause. Then he picks up a call from a childhood friend, Todd. Todd tells him that Black is in a coma following a vicious attack and he learns that Black is in a motorcycle gang. Unable to endure the harm done to his brother in silence, and suspecting it was one of Black's close friends - Sean, Gram, or Yok - who betrayed him, White disguises himself as Black to root out the traitor.But White doesn't know his brother as well as he thought; he's not behaving like the Black Sean knows, distrustful and uncaring about the feelings of others. Sean's suspicious. The difference gets under Sean's skin and makes him feel things he shouldn't.  A common complaint about BL series in general is that they appear to exist in a vacuum. The characters live in a fantasy world where sexuality doesn't matter and where the biggest obstacle our heroes aren't a reflection of what most LGBTQ individuals face in the real world.Well,is a BL series that revolves around a "motcorcycles gang" comprised of four young men who, when we meet them in the very first episode, are en route to set fire to the home of a billionaire Elon Musk-esque character who built a mansion on stolen land. That Internet meme, the whole "be gay, do crime" one? That's essentially them. Their mission, as of the last episode, is to fuck up the rich and powerful and use this opportunities to bring attention to the injustices committed against ordinary citizens.The main character, White, "infiltrates" this gang, posing as his identical twin Brother "Black", who was almost killed and is in a comma. He wants to to find out attacked his brother and is part of the gang just for this purpose. He's led a pretty privileged life and, in fact, expects to get a job as a diplomat, like his father. He is told that the job will be essentially handed down to him, so he doesn't have to go through the process ordinary citizens have to undergo if they want to have a shot at being a diplomat.His time spent with the gang, however, exposes him to the injustices perpetuated by those in power and forces him to acknowledge his privilege.Romance wise, this is, too, a slow burn one. Besides the main couple, there's a secondary mlm couple that will steal your heart.Definitely a different type of story but a welcome one, in my opinion. If you decide to watch it as it airs, I promise that you will be waking up every Sunday and go directly onto YouTube to look for the latest episode.Gene is a professional writer, whose publisher suggests he try writing a different and new genre: Boys' Love.Accepting the challenge, he writes a Y novel that is both acclaimed and commercially successful. So successful, in fact, that it gets adapted into a BL drama. When looking for actors to said series, Gene is invited to auditions and gets asked his opinion on certain actors for the main role of his newly adapted series. He's not really concerned about any of the actors until he meets Nubsib, who right from the start shows his affection to Gene. Will Gene accept Nubsib love? What will it lead to?  This series open with our protagonist, a writer currently working on a BL novel, attempting to write a steamy sex scene. As he types this specific scene, making sure to met the specifications requested from his publisher that has urged him to make use of tropes generally seen in popular BL works, he shouts in frustration and proceeds to delete what he's written before shouting: "Isn't this sexual harassment?!"Besides being very effective at dissecting and poking fun at some of the darker aspects of the BL media world,also features aromance that is unapologetically gay. The chemistry between the main couple is spectacular and the love scenes are not lacking in quality nor quantity.A must watch if you, like our protagonist Gene, have found yourself at one point or another puzzled over some of the content that is passed a romantic in popular BL works!Meet Han Tae Joo, the 18 year-old student and successor to the TB Group. Blessed with a wealthy family, good looks and popularity, he has few worries. Kang Gook, his thoughtful childhood friend, is physically strong and is trained in different martial arts disciplines. Tae Joo is Kang Gook's only friend. Tae Joo trusts Kang Gook and feels at ease around him. Tension erupts between them when a new female student, Hye Mi, shows interest in Kang Gook. As the two go on a date, Han Tae Joo becomes irritated, and soon after, long-suppressed emotions start surfacing. Could there be more to their platonic friendship?This is the very first foray into creating a BL series for director Hwang Da-seul, who also helmed the aforementioned. I think it might also be considered one of the first BL drama from Korea I became aware of. Essentially, I believe Korea went from producing almost no BL content, compared to Thailand/Japan/Taiwan, to a sudden outpour of content within these past two years! 2022 is looking pretty stacked as well.In any case, this is another slow burn, friends-to-lovers drama with some soft-angst. The chemistry between the lead couple is lovely. There are some references to some of the events of this drama on, so it seems that director Hwang is creating her own MCU universe? I'm excited to see what she will do next!And that's it for today's recommendations!I apologize in advance for the egregious lack of recommendations from Japan, Philippines, China and Vietnam. I'm still fairly new into this foray so I have a pretty long list of series to watch, with stuff like Cherry Magic! and Gaya Sa Pelikula at the top. Now that I can admit to myself that SOTUS just won't ever happen for me, no matter how important it is as a BL series, I can finally move on.If this post gets enough interest, I will be happy to periodically post recommendations for older series and definitely for upcoming ones. 2022 is looking stacked: tons of Thai dramas, of course, but Korea has plenty of highly anticipated titles coming up as well. Taiwan also always delivers.
This man has such a boring career.

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He should have attempted the Channing Tatum.

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blah hes so bland. Yes he was bland in Knives Out as well

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That cable knit sweater did all the heavy lifting

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His dog does the heavy lifting offscreen

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lol at this title

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I yawned so hard that I swallowed my own tail - sorry world.

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Gene Kelly not-a-biopic aside, I appreciate that Chrevans stopped trying to be taken seriously as an Actor and is openly going for the big money grabs. He knows his lane. It's what I appreciate about Blake Lively; they stopped trying to punch above their weight. (Insert Tiktok Pope Little Rick Star sound).

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And this is not related to Red Notice, a globe trotting adventure comedy also starring The Rock??

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Also not related to Red, the globetrotting adventure starring Bruce Willis. Nor Red Dawn, the Spokane-trotting adventure starring Chris Hemsworth. Nor Clifford the Big Red Dog, the NYC-trotting adventure starring a big red dog. Nor-

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By globe trotting they mean set in a jungle at some point right? I swear Dwayne Johnson must write it in his contracts that vines be on set

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lol the accuracy of this comment

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Im counting this as Gregg Davies laughing at my joke, bucket list material

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For sure there'll have stops in London/NY or LA

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waiting for the inevitable Gal Gadot casting announcement.

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IDF fighting princess

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Don't forget her sister-in-slaughter Scarlett Johansson

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"globe-trotting, four-quadrant action-adventure comedy, imagining a whole new universe to explore within the holiday genre."



this is the most corporate plot description i've ever read

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Lol! You can feel the focus group insights being used to describe it.



Sounds like they want to do those rom com holiday flicks but for action AND see if they can get some Die Hard is a holiday movie buzz/residuals.

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also nothing about him screams holiday to me, if anything the exact opposite can we stop putting the Rock in everything already??also nothing about him screams holiday to me, if anything the exact opposite

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Let me guess the plot. Santa gets kidnapped by terrorists, and Chevans and Rock are begrudgingly thrown together to save him. Buddy cop movie meets Hallmark Christmas Movie meets action tent pole wannabe universe movie meets psychological thriller

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And, plot-twist, Chevans is Santa's secret love-child .

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No doubt the Rock would say heh, looks like like someone got a little something extra in their stocking.

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Id see this

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Why can't Dodger star in the film instead of Chris?

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Imagine these two talking about politics together. How insufferable lol.

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sometimes a rock action movie is fun! and chris is charming, so i'm sure it'll be decent enough?



like he's not gunning for the oscar bait pics at least

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Yeah lol I dont mind a mindless fun action pic once in a while!

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like i will always dunk on this man for ASP but i like him in movies 99% of the time

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The United States is poised to increase its production for the first time in three years.

This was supposed to be a follow-up to my previous article on the lithium market. However, I got a tremendous amount of feedback and numerous inquiries following that article. I am going to speak with a few more people in the industry this week before I finish that article. But I also like to get in my energy predictions in early January, and we have just slipped into the second half of January. So that seems to be an appropriate alternative.

Whenever I get most of my energy sector predictions right  as I did in 2021  I often question whether I was aggressive enough with the predictions. I always try to strike a balance between realistic predictions, and those that are too obvious. But then sometimes we have a year like 2020, when even the most obvious predictions were quickly turned upside down by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused incredible turmoil across many sectors, including the energy sector. As I have argued before, fallout from the pandemic was the single-biggest factor behind the surge of energy prices last year, and it will continue to have an influence on supply/demand factors for the foreseeable future.

The energy sector is also in transition to a lower-carbon future. Even most major energy companies publicly recognize this. It seems clear to many where things are headed in the long term, but it is much more difficult to predict the trends on a year-to-year basis.

With those factors in mind, below are my predictions for some of the significant energy trends I expect this year. As I usually point out, the discussion behind the predictions is more important than the predictions themselves. Thats why I provide extensive background and reasoning behind the predictions.

I also make predictions that are specific and measurable. At years end, there are specific metrics that will indicate whether a prediction was right or wrong.

The average price of WTI in 2022 will be between $70/bbl and $75/bbl.

My oil price prediction in 2021 was the one clear miss among the five predictions I made. I was correct that oil prices would rise as the economy recovered from the pandemic. But the recovery was stronger than I predicted, and supplies were slower to respond. That caused an imbalance, and an oil price surge well beyond what I predicted.

Because oil is still the worlds most important commodity, I generally lead off with a prediction on the direction of oil prices. I make this prediction by looking at supply and demand trends, as well as inventory levels.

According to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, in 2021, the average daily price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was $68.14 per barrel (bbl). That was nearly $30/bbl higher than in 2020. Prices exceeded $80/bbl during 2021, and closed the year at $75/bbl, down from the highs of October and November.

If we look at futures prices, about half the 2022 contracts for WTI are presently above $80/bbl, but they do decline steadily as the year proceeds. This is consistent with my expectations. I expect U.S. production to change course this year (more on that below), and that will help curtail the rise we saw in 2021.

It seems to be a reasonable bet to me that 2022 prices will average higher than they did last year, but I dont expect us to see a huge price increase as we did a year ago. Thus, I am going to predict that the average annual price ends up being in the $70-$75/bbl range, which is where it is presently. I also think we will see significantly less volatility in oil prices than we did in 2021.

Of course, OPEC is always the wildcard. There is no doubt they would like to steadily push prices higher. But I think their power is going to be more limited this year, because of my next prediction.

Total U.S. oil production increase for the first time in three years.

U.S. oil production plummeted in the second half of 2020. Production began to recover in late 2020, but the recovery was slow. Thus, 2020 production was lower than 2019 production, and 2021 production was lower than 2020 production.

But, even though 2021 marked a second straight annual decline, by the end of 2021 it was clear that a recovery was underway. Late 2021 production reached 11.7 million barrels per day (BPD), which was still a million BPD below 2019 levels, but a million BPD better than late 2020 levels.

Related: Are Americas Drilling Hotspots Preparing For A Pivot To Renewables?

Further, the rig count has rebounded strongly. That is a good indicator of the future direction of oil production. In late 2019 there were about 700 rigs drilling for oil. In 2020, that number fell below 200. But, ever since bottoming in the summer of 2020, the rig count has steadily increased. The latest weekly report from Baker Hughes showed that the rig count has climbed back to just under 500.

All of this points to the likelihood that U.S. oil production will be higher this year than last year. We wont yet return to the highs of 2019, but we will get there in a year or so if oil prices remain above $70/bbl.

The average natural gas price will be lower than it was in 2021.

Last year I predicted that natural gas prices would rise at least 25% over the previous year. That did in fact happen, and was my second consecutive correct prediction on the direction of natural gas prices.

In 2021 the average Henry Hub natural gas spot price was $3.89/MMBtu, which was the highest annual average since 2014.

Falling oil production means a decline in natural gas supplies that are associated with that oil production. That tightens up supplies, which was a factor in the surge of natural gas prices in 2021.

But since I believe oil production is going to continue to climb, I think natural gas supplies will increase. I dont expect a huge price decline, but I think it is likely that natural gas prices will break lower this year.

The Biden Administration will announce additional releases of oil from the SPR ahead of the midterm elections.

Although the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is supposed to be used in case of emergency, politicians have historically used it for political purposes. Primarily, when voters are complaining about gasoline prices, presidents have released oil in an attempt to cause prices to dip.

President Biden has already done this once in response to rising complaints about high gasoline prices. The administration announced a 50 million barrel release from the SPR, and another 18 million barrels are required by Congress to be sold by the end of 2022. But I believe the Biden Administration will announce more releases as the elections approach.

The Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) will return at least 20%.

Last year I predicted that major oil and gas producer ConocoPhillips would return at least 30% in 2021. It ended the year up by more than 70%, while the entire energy sector vastly outperformed the S&P 500.

I dont think we will see that kind of performance again from the energy sector in 2022. High expectations are priced in, and after last years blowout performance, I think it will be hard for the energy sector to outperform the S&P 500 for two consecutive years.

But one sector that did take a step back in 2021 was the solar sector. Even though the solar sector continues to grow  and is up by triple digits over the past five years  solar companies sold off in 2021.

The Invesco Solar ETF (TAN) is based on the MAC Global Solar Energy Index (Index). TAN invests at least 90% of its total assets in the solar energy companies that comprise the Index. It is therefore a good benchmark for the solar sector.

Over the past five years, TAN has returned 298%. But in 2021, the fund lost 27% as rising input costs hit renewable energy companies across the board. However, I believe these input prices will start to abate in 2022, and the solar sector will get back on track.

There you have my 2022 energy sector predictions. The themes are that U.S. oil production will continue to recover, that oil and natural gas prices will moderate as a result, that the Biden Administration will be under increasing political pressure to address gasoline prices, and that solar equities will get back on track.

As always, I will grade them at the end of the year.

By Robert Rapier

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The U.S. Administration is in talks with energy companies and major gas-producing countries globally about the potential for a large supply of natural gas to Europe in case Russian deliveries are interrupted if Russia invades Ukraine, U.S. officials with knowledge of the talks told CNN.

Russia, which supplies over one-third of the natural gas that Europe consumes, could weaponize gas deliveries if the West imposes sanctions on Moscow over a possible invasion of Ukraine, European allies of the United States fear. In addition, in the event of military action and subsequent energy sanctions against Russia, Europe will be hit the first and the most, including in its gas supply from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom, analysts say.

The standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine continues amid the Russian military buildup on the border with Ukraine. On Monday, the U.S. Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. government employees and ordered the withdrawal of family members of U.S. government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, effective immediately.

Amid the continued threat of possible Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Biden Administration is seeking to reassure Europe about its natural gas supply at a time of record-high gas and power prices amid low gas inventories and lower-than-normal supply from Russia.

Norway and Qatar, major gas producers and exporters, are among the countries with which the U.S. has been holding discussions about higher supply to European customers, according to CNNs sources.

Earlier this month, Reuters reported, citing industry sources and U.S. officials, that the Biden Administration has been looking at contingency plans for alternative supply to Europe if a Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupts gas flows to Europe.

The international energy companies approached by the U.S. told officials that natural gas supplies globally were tight, and there wasnt too much gas available to replace Russias large amount of supply, the industry sources told Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The new 20-year co-operation deal between Iran and Russia was not finalized at last weeks visit to Moscow of Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Instead, according to a senior source close to Irans Petroleum Ministry spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com, the first visit of an Iranian president to Russia in almost five years discussed in-depth key points that are contained in Tehrans final draft proposal for the agreement. This draft covers a wide range of issues relating to the general trade agreement, transportation initiatives, banking and finance structures, and security. According to comments from Irans Petroleum Minister, Javad Owji, several parts of the 20-year cooperation deal that relate to the development of oil and gas fields, construction of petro-refineries, and technology transfer were signed.

For Iran, a key concern reflected in various elements of the draft agreement is that Moscow supports its interests at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), at which Russia holds one of the five Permanent Member seats, with the others being held by the U.S., the U.K., France, and China. Russia has long been playing a double game with Iran on this issue, using promises of protecting Irans interests at the Security Council to extract favorable deals in oil and gas fields, but the facts are that Iran still has no new JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action  nuclear deal] and sanctions are still in place, said the Iran source last week. Even before the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA, Iran had also been asking Russia for the means to defend itself better against any attacks, especially those that might come from Israel or the U.S.  specifically the S-400 missile defense system and the latest jet fighters, the source added.

The resolution of these two issues in Irans favor might well allow some of the senior political and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) figures to agree to the other tougher clauses that the U.S. wants in any new iteration of the JCPOA. A significant part of the main meeting between Putin and Raisi on Wednesday [19 January 2022] was taken up with discussion over Russia finally providing Iran with the S-400 missile defense system and Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets, with payments again to be made through favorable terms for oil and gas sector deals, the Iran source said. The favorable terms for the recent supergiant Chalous gas find  exclusively reported by OilPrice.com  were cited by Iran during the meetings in Moscow, the source added.

The full list of the original 12 tough clauses that former U.S. President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, wanted in the original draft of the JCPOA but which were removed after U.N. Permanent Members France, China, and Russia  plus Germany - supported Iranian objections to them can be found here, as delineated exclusively at the time by OilPrice.com. These were precisely the key clauses that Trump  and his former National Security Advisor, John Bolton  wanted to be put back in any new version of the JCPOA that would occur after Iran was suitably crippled (as the plan was) after sanctions were re-imposed after the unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the deal in May 2018, as analyzed in-depth in my new book on the global oil markets. Irans ongoing negotiating position can be found here, as also delineated exclusively at the time by OilPrice.com, and these basic positions are still those held by each side as of now, according to Irans source.

However, the source added, because of continued economic difficulties that are affecting the scope of the IRGCs power at home and abroad, there is the possibility that Iran will trade in a considerable element of its ballistic missiles and nuclear enrichment capabilities and ambitions if it can be assured of better protection from its enemies, via the S-400 system and the latest warplanes, the provision of the former having long been intimated by Russia. The most serious economic ramification for the Supreme Leader and his core supporters of the IRGC is that its foreign currency reserves fell again last year to stand at less than US$10 billion at the nd of December 2021 [compared to about US$114 billion just before the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018], and its gold reserves are also very low. This means that the IRGC is facing a crunch point when it comes to funding its international network of proxies used to project Iranian influence, including in the key operational theatres right now of Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, as these people want payment in either [U.S.] dollars or gold, the source underlined.

Russia, though, has perennially linked these military hardware requests from Iran not just to favorable terms for its companies in the Islamic Republics oil and gas sectors but also to other of its own security concerns across the Middle East. There is Syria, where Iran and Russia need to finalize the political settlement process and, more importantly, determine the terms of cooperation on Syrian territory after the war, said Gevorg Mirzayan, associate professor of the department of political science and mass communication at the Financial University, in Moscow. On the one hand, Iran perceives Syria to be its exclusive sphere of influence, but on the other hand, the Iranians have a sound understanding of the situation and understand that Moscows and Tehran's interests on Syrian lands dont necessarily contradict each other, he added. Russias long-term military presence in Syria complicates any of the Americans and Turks military and political plans in the Levant, and in the Middle East as a whole, and their Russian military bases per se will help the Iranians neutralize external threats, he underlined. This said, he concluded, although Moscows behind-the-scenes agreements with Tel Aviv and even Washington have been cited as obstacles to the sale of the weapons [the S-400 system and Sukhoi Su-35 warplanes], now the chances of selling the weapons have slightly grown, as Moscow has promised the Americans to respond to the refusal by NATO to take its concerns into account.

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com

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Low spare production capacity could leave the world without a buffer to offset sudden supply disruptions, which are always lurking in the global oil market.

OPEC+ has been undershooting its collective production targets for months and will likely continue to do so in the months ahead.

The oil market is quickly realizing that many OPEC producers may not have the capacity to boost output much further.

As the OPEC+ group unwinds its production cuts, the oil market has realized that not only do many producers in the pact lack the capacity to boost output further, but those who can pump more are reducing the global spare production capacity, thus exposing market balances to unexpected supply disruptions, and oil prices to further spikes. Most of the worlds global spare capacity is currently held by OPECs Middle Eastern members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Those two producers have the potential to raise their output as OPEC+ continues to unwind the cuts, but they are doing so at the expense of declining spare capacity.

Low spare production capacity could set the stage for a prolonged oil price rally because the world would have a lower buffer to offset sudden supply disruptions, which are always lurking in the global oil market.

The unrest in Kazakhstan and the blockade in Libya in the past month highlighted the challenge that the oil market will be facing if spare capacity continues to shrink. And shrink it willthat is, if OPEC+ continues to add 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) to its production quota every month until it unwinds all the cuts.

Higher OPEC+ Production Means Lower Spare Capacity

The problem with OPEC+ is that only a handful of producers can keep some capacity in reserve while raising production. The few who can include OPECs top producer and the worlds largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and to some extent, Kuwait and possibly Iraq. Iran, under U.S. sanctions, has over 1 million bpd that could return to the market. But Iran will be able to tap that capacity only if the ongoing nuclear talks are successfula development that many analysts doubt will occur anytime soon.

With Iran currently out of the equation, its mostly up to the Arab Gulf states to produce more oil and at the same time have some spare capacity left. The other issue is that the nameplate spare capacity may not be equal to the producers ability to pump oilthe limit of spare capacity has never been tested, even in Saudi Arabia.

Sure, the United States, Canada, and Brazilall of which are outside OPEC+ pactsare expected to raise their oil production this year as high prices and growing demand incentivize more activity and drilling. In the U.S. shale patch, however, capital discipline continues to be a key theme, so annual production increases are not expected to be anywhere near the 2018-2019 surge in output.

With demand expected to exceed pre-COVID levels this year, the low spare capacity and the low upstream investment in recent years are setting the stage for even higher oil prices.

OPEC+ will see its spare capacity reduced to just 2.3 million bpd by July 2022, at the height of the driving season, according to Bloomberg estimates. This would be the lowest spare capacity since the end of 2018. Most of it will be held by the Arab Gulf producersthe only ones thought to be able to pump to their OPEC+ quotas throughout this year.

Related: Russias Oil Output Could Peak In 2023

Even Russia is struggling. Russia has seen setbacks recently in its attempt to pump to its quota, and will likely continue to lag in the coming months, analysts tell Bloomberg. Russia may be able to raise its output by 60,000 bpd each month in the first half of 2022just over half of the monthly production growth of 100,000 bpd it is entitled to, according to analysts polled by Bloomberg.

Triple-Digit Oil

Russian supply will level off in the next two months, Francisco Blanch, head of global commodities at Bank of America, told Bloomberg last week, saying that triple-digit oil is in the works for the second quarter this year.

Demand is recovering meaningfully, while OPEC+ supply will start leveling off within the next two months, Blanch said, noting that it will be only Saudi Arabia and the UAE that can produce incremental barrels to add to the market.

Moreover, OPEC+ has been undershooting its collective production targets for months and will likely continue to do so in the months ahead.

Even OPEC officials admit that the OPEC+ group will struggle to increase supply as much as the nameplate monthly increase allows, and prices could spike to $100 a barrel, some officials from OPEC producers have recently told Reuters.

Apart from Bank of America, other major Wall Street banks also predict that declining spare capacity and the inability of OPEC+ producersexcept for just a fewto boost production will lead to triple-digit oil prices.

Oil prices could hit $100 this year and rise to $105 per barrel in 2023 on the back of a surprisingly large deficit due to the milder and potentially briefer impact of Omicron on oil demand, Goldman Sachs said this week. Due to gas-to-oil substitution, supply disappointments, and stronger-than-expected demand in Q4 2021, OECD inventories are set to dip by the summer to their lowest levels since 2000, Goldmans analysts note. Moreover, OPEC+ spare capacity is also set to decline to historically low levels of around 1.2 million bpd.

At $85/bbl, the market would remain at such critical levels, insufficient buffers relative to demand and supply volatilities, through 2023, Goldman Sachs said in a note.

JP Morgan, for its part, expects the falling spare capacity at OPEC+ to increase the risk premium in prices, and sees oil hitting $125 a barrel this year and $150 a barrel next year.

We see growing market recognition of global underinvestment in supply, the bank said in a note last week carried by Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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 Flash

A double-decker tourist train built by Chinese manufacturer Zhuzhou CRRC Special Equipment Technology Co., Ltd. for the Republic of Korea has come off the production line, the company said Sunday.

The train has three carriages and can carry up to 300 passengers. It can travel at a maximum speed of 25 km per hour and features a low-floor design. The latter offers a more stable and comfortable experience, the company noted.

So far, Zhuzhou CRRC Special Equipment Technology Co., Ltd., located in the central Chinese province of Hunan, has over 40 tourist transportation projects in operation in scenic sites, resorts, forest parks, and amusement parks across China.
European industries could grow using clean energy only if the European Union (EU) decides to classify some nuclear power plant investments as sustainable, the head of Europes top copper producer, told Bloomberg in an interview.

Theres no other logical way for the European industries to grow, based on clean energy, than through nuclear power, Marcin Chludzinski, chief executive of Polish copper producer KGHM Polska Miedz, told Bloomberg.

Even if we maintain profitable production despite rising gas and electricity costs, some European steel and iron makers arent able to do this any longer, Chludzinski added.

KGHM Polska Miedz announced in September last year a preliminary agreement with U.S. firm NuScale Power to develop and build the first small nuclear reactor (SMR) in Poland.

KGHM Polska Miedz, a top electricity user in a country where coal currently makes up around 70 percent of power generation, is looking at low-emission solutions to power its operations as it aims to be carbon neutral in its own emissions by 2050.

Yet, the issue with whether nuclear power should be considered green has created a row among EU member states, with some strongly supporting the ideaincluding Poland and Franceand others openly hating the possibility of putting a sustainability label on nuclear energy. The latter include Germany and Austria.



Related: Russias Oil Output Could Peak In 2023

Early this year, the European Commission launched expert consultations over whether nuclear power and some natural gas projects can be considered sustainable investments, receiving immediate backlash over green nuclear from Germany and Austria, which accused the EUs executive branch of greenwashing.

Austria expressed opposition to nuclear power being labeled as sustainable and, unlike Germany, it criticized the European Commission for considering including some natural gas projects under the sustainable taxonomy.

Over the weekend, Germany again slammed the green nuclear classification.

As the federal government, we have once again clearly expressed our rejection of the inclusion of nuclear energy. It is risky and expensive, Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a joint statement with Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, carried by Reuters.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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Iraq is already scheduling crude oil shipments for delivery in March thanks to strong demand, the deputy head of the State Organization for the Marketing of Oil, or SOMO, told media in Baghdad, as quoted by Reuters.

Ali Nizar also told media that Iraq's oil exports were stable this month and were going to be slightly higher next month, Bloomberg reported.

For this month, the average daily rate of exports is seen at 3.2 million bpd, the SOMO deputy director-general said, adding it would likely increase to 3.3 million bpd in February. These are the figures from Iraq proper only, excluding exports of 340,000 bpd from the Kurdistan autonomous region.

Asked about oil prices, the SOMO official declined to give a specific projection, saying it was too early to say whether benchmark crude would reach $100 per barrel.

Separately, however, Reuters reported last week that some in OPEC believe oil could indeed reach and even top $100 per barrel. The drivers behind a continued rally would be sustained demand and tight supply resulting from the cartel's limited spare capacity.

The last time Brent crude traded at $100 and more was eight years ago. During that cycle, Brent hit $110 per barrel before slumping to less than $50 in January 2015.

"There will be increasing pressure on oil prices in at least the next two months," one OPEC source told Reuters, adding, "Under these circumstances, the price of oil may be close to $100 but it will certainly not be very stable."

Due to constraints of various nature, OPEC has been falling short of its own production targets for months now. In December, the cartel reported an output increase of just 170,000 bpd, while its quota was for a boost of 253,000 bpd, per the OPEC+ production control agreement that stipulates a 400,000-bpd output increase for the extended cartel.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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The new Dos Bocas refinery that Mexicos government is building to reduce the countrys dependence on fuel imports is being built in record time. Opinions around the world are very positive, according to energy minister Rocio Nahle.

Bloomberg reports that the energy minister was responding to media reports that the Dos Bocas project was plagued by cost overruns and delays. According to the reports, the refinery is running $3.6 billion over budget, and delays could mean that the flagship project of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador may not start operations this year and not even in time for the state oil firms plan to end oil exports in 2023 and focus on refining fuel domestically.

Mexico plans to suspend all crude oil exports next year as part of the presidents plan to increase local fuel production and reduce imports. The export phase-out announcement was made by the chief executive of Pemex, Octavio Romero, in December. He also said that Mexico would reduce oil exports from next year by more than 50 percent, to 435,000 bpd.

Currently, Mexico is the third-largest oil exporter in the Americas after the United States and Canada, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. There are already doubts the government would be able to afford to suspend crude oil exports despite growing domestic fuel demand, which motivated the plans to boost local refining, including by building a whole new refinery.

The Dos Bocas refinery will have a capacity of 340,000 bpd and will cost some $12.4 billion, according to calculations from last year, when Pemex warned the refinery could end up costing 40 percent more than initially expected. That was a revision from the original $8 billion price tag that Pemex said the project would have in 2020. That original was then revised to $8.9 billion and then to $12.4 billion.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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Mexicos well-known oil hedge is showing no signs of diminishing, even in the wake of Mexicos ambitious plans to curb oil exports.

Mexicos hedge for 2022 crude oil production, in fact, was similar in size as it has been in previous years, Bloomberg reported.

This, even as Mexicos President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to halt all crude oil exports as it looks to improve its self-sufficiency by making more crude oil available for its own needs.

According to an anonymous Bloomberg source, Mexicos oil hedge for 2022 exports is now complete, at a cost of around $1 billionsimilar to the $1.2 billion average cost in previous years. Another Bloomberg source said that the number of barrels hedgedbetween 200 million and 300 million barrelshas not changed for 2022.

Under this hedging program, Mexico buys put options from Wall Street investment banks to sell hundreds of millions of barrels of oil. With these put options, Mexico is granted the rightbut not the obligationto sell its oil at a predetermined price for the upcoming year.

For some years, Mexico has done exceedingly well with its oil hedge programyears such as 2015 and 2016 when oil prices tanked as the contracted upfront price for oil ended up being much higher than the market price.

Mexicos oil hedge program is the largest oil hedge in the world. It is also a major revenue source for Mexico, accounting for 4% of Mexicos GDP.

According to Bloomberg, some traders had thought that Mexicos oil hedge would be smaller this year, as the country looks to stop exporting oil next year. But the market is still skeptical that Mexico will be able to achieve this lofty goal.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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Reliance Industries expects the global natural gas crunch and the gas price rally to continue benefiting Indias oil-to-telecoms conglomerate with more earnings in the coming months after higher oil and gas production and price realizations helped it deliver record quarterly earnings.

Reliance Industries, the biggest company in India led by Asias richest person Mukesh Ambani, expects India to raise the cap on the offshore gas sales by 60 percent in April, to $10 per million British thermal units (MMBtu), the groups senior vice president for exploration and production, Sanjay Roy, said at the presentation of the Q3 results, as carried by Bloomberg.

The higher gas prices and the increased gas production from the Krishna-Godavari (KG) oil and gas fields in the Bay of Bengal drove higher revenues and core earnings for the conglomerate in the quarter ended December 31.

According to Roy, Reliance Industries and BP, its partner in the KG fields, expect to raise gas production to 30 million cubic meters per day next year, from 18 million cubic meters per day now.

In its quarterly earnings report, Reliance Industries said on Friday that the revenues of its Oil & Gas segment increased multi-fold in the quarter to December 2021, led by a ramp-up of gas production from the KG D6 block. Revenue growth was also supported by higher gas price realization in KG D6 and CBM blocks, the conglomerate said.

The recovery in global oil and energy markets supported strong fuel margins and helped our O2C business deliver robust earnings. Our Oil & Gas segment delivered strong growth in EBITDA with volume growth and improved realization, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, said in a statement.

Ambani also noted Reliance Industries recent commitments to invest billions of U.S. dollars in renewables in India. The conglomerate plans to invest as much as $76 billion in green energy projects in India over the next 15 years, it said earlier this month.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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Retirement communities have evolved from simple, no frills homes to vibrant social environments devoted to living life to the fullest among active, like-minded peers.

In recent years, the trend in 55+ communities has tilted toward luxury and comfort, flexibility and independence, and a wealth of options in everything from fine dining to on-site healthcare. Here are seven trends youll find on display at Ovation Heartwood Preserve in Omaha.

Miles of walking trails

Location is as important in choosing a retirement community as it is in buying a house. Situated on the 500-acre development of the former Boys Town Farm in Omaha, Ovation Heartwood Preserve offers miles of walking trails along with a brand-new central downtown for gathering and socializing.

Located steps from the Ovation community, the downtown is lined with local shops, restaurants and national, name-brand retailers and private apartments, hotels and office buildings.

Resort-style living

Inside the Ovation community, a soothing indoor pool, hot tub and massage room create a year-round, resort-like atmosphere. Adding to the ambience are upscale beauty and barber salons and spa, a lounge and billiards room and a high-end business center. A full-time concierge can arrange car and valet services at residents requests.

Upscale accommodations

Acknowledging the impact environments have on mood and health, upscale retirement communities like Ovation have made their spaces warm, welcoming and functional. Studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartment homes, assisted living apartments and memory care suites feature high-end appliances, quartz countertops, elegant fixtures and rich finishes.

Better living through technology

Many retirees are tech-savvy and have come to expect tech features that enable connection with family and friends and make life convenient. Accommodations at Ovation Heartwood Preserve feature wireless internet and voice-activated home technologies. The latest systems and programs enable residents to control the temperature of their rooms, turn lights on and off, chat with a neighbor and view upcoming activities and events.

Fine dining options on-site

Gone are the days of a single, cafeteria-style dining room.

At Ovation Heartwood Preserve, multiple restaurants, a demonstration kitchen and regionally inspired recipes provide varied culinary options from a bistro/coffee shop, poolside services and the casual Millers @ Omaha to fine dining at the 1863 restaurant.

Ready access to healthcare

Access to the level of healthcare active adults have come to rely on is one of the most important considerations in choosing a retirement community. Ovation Heartwood Preserve offers separate residences for individuals at different stages of their lives that are equal parts lifestyle amenities and healthcare, including around-the-clock nursing.

Social and cultural opportunities abound

Theres so much to do at Ovation Heartwood Preserve  opportunities to take French classes and cooking workshops with area chefs, for example  or just experience the natural beauty of the surroundings. Poolside activities allow for casual meetings and the rooftop 360 Social Club and event spaces provide ample opportunity for planned gatherings.

To schedule a tour or to learn more about life at Ovation Heartwood Preserve, visit OvationHeartwoodPreserve.com/contact or call 402-234-8428.

This content was produced by Brand Ave. Studios. The news and editorial departments had no role in its creation or display. Brand Ave. Studios connects advertisers with a targeted audience through compelling content programs, from concept to production and distribution. For more information contact sales@brandavestudios.com.
Nebraska hit a new all-time high for COVID-19 cases last week, but the pace of growth slowed.

And hospitals across the state continued to see more coronavirus cases.

Jeremy Nordquist, president of the Nebraska Hospital Association, said Monday that Nebraskans might have heard that COVID cases and hospitalizations are beginning to come down across the country.

When numbers finally start to drop here, he said, the pressures on the states hospitals wont immediately go away.

Were still in for a long haul here in terms of caring for Nebraskans in our hospitals, he said.

A significant number of hospital staffers are out sick with COVID or are caring for ill family members. In addition, some staffers have left for other jobs, and the demand for both COVID and non-COVID care is high.

Compounding those issues, Nordquist said, are shortages in blood supplies and an increase in patients seeking COVID testing in hospital emergency rooms. Patients with mild symptoms are urged to seek testing at clinics, community testing sites and pharmacies.

Nebraska added 29,141 new cases for the week ending Thursday, up from 27,987 the previous week, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That 4% growth in cases was well below the 85% growth the previous week that ranked among the highest in the nation.

The number of daily hospitalized patients in Nebraska averaged 686 for the week, up 6% from the preceding week. New daily admissions hit 87 per day on average, up 13%.

As of Thursday, 737 Nebraskans were hospitalized with COVID, the most since early December 2020.

The slowing of Nebraskas COVID case growth could suggest omicron may be nearing its peak in the state, though the state still was seeing 5,000 new cases a day at the end of last week.

Health officials also caution that official case counts likely are lower than actual infections, given tight availability of testing, particularly in rural areas, and the fact that at-home test results arent reported to health departments.

Locally, Douglas County, the states most populous, reported 8,371 cases for the week ending Saturday, down a little more than 1,100 from the preceding week. Both the Lincoln-Lancaster and the Sarpy/Cass Health Departments also reported slight decreases in cases last week from the preceding week.

The omicron wave already has peaked nationally, with nearly half of states posting declining numbers last week. Hospitalizations nationally have begun to fall, too. Most of those states that have peaked are in the northeast and far west, but also include neighboring Colorado.

One challenge hospitals have faced is a lack of places where they can send patients who are well enough to be discharged but not well enough to go home.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis that the state was looking to relieve that pressure by opening 100 skilled nursing beds in Omaha, Lincoln and Grand Island.

Nordquist said the first of those beds are expected to open early next week in closed wings of existing facilities.

Ricketts also testified that he planned to supplement the federal at-home COVID testing initiative by implementing a state at-home testing program. The state also would provide links to the state health system to allow people to voluntarily report their test results.

Dr. Harris Frankel, chief medical officer with Nebraska Medicine, said the tipping point that led the health system to enact its crisis standards of care on Jan. 13 was staff absenteeism.

COVID-19 patients currently occupy between 22% and 25% of inpatient beds, Frankel said. That has significantly impinged on the health systems ability to care for inpatients. It also has affected the hospitals ability to accept transfer patients.

Manuela Banner, president and CEO of Memorial Community Hospital and Health System in Blair, said patients have waited three and four days for transfers. Staff members have gone beyond what they thought was within their capabilities to care for them.

Ryan Larsen, CEO of Community Medical Center in Falls City, said transfers can take a couple of days and, in some cases, a couple of weeks.

We are taking care of people in new ways, he said. Its about everybody trying to help in whatever way we can.

Larsen said his hospital also is starting to see more patients with lingering COVID symptoms, particularly cognitive ones. Banner said she thinks health care providers are just beginning to see the impact of care delayed during the pandemic.

Some 73% of Nebraskans adults are now fully vaccinated, just below the 73.8% U.S. rate and ranking 25th among the states. Just under 50% of the fully vaccinated Nebraska adults also have received a booster dose, well over the 43% U.S. rate.

While schools are getting hit hard with COVID outbreaks and staff absences, most parents dont seem to be in a hurry to get their kids vaccinated.

Only 34.7% of Nebraska children ages 5 to 17 are fully vaccinated. Thats 22nd among states. Iowa ranks 28th at 31.8%. Vermont leads the nation at 59%.

Nebraska added 29 COVID-19 deaths during the week, bringing the total for the pandemic to 3,569.

When Ricketts ended the pandemic state of emergency in Nebraska effective June 30, the state had seen nearly 225,000 total cases. In less than seven months under the delta and omicron variants, the states case number now exceeds 413,000.

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The United States has ordered the families of its diplomats in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to leave the country "due to the continued threat of Russian military action," the State Department said Sunday.

Washington has also authorized the "voluntary" departure of its embassy employees, adding to tensions between Russia and the West over European security.
A Bellevue woman was fatally shot Saturday night, and her husband has been arrested.

Bellevue police say the victim is Deyvonndra L. Jones, 40.

According to scanner traffic, a man called police to 2112 Jefferson St. at 10:42 p.m. to report that he had shot a woman in the home while a child was sleeping upstairs.

Lovell Jones Jr., 43, surrendered to police without incident, authorities said.

An officer radioed from the scene that the woman had been shot several times and had at least one gunshot wound to the head. The child was unharmed, according to scanner traffic.

Bellevue police say Jones was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder, first-degree domestic assault and use of a firearm to commit a felony. He is being held in the Sarpy County Jail.

His wife was taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in critical condition, where she later died from her injuries, according to Bellevue police.

A neighbor said they hadnt heard anything until police arrived.

Earlier in the day, the little girl was outside building a snowman, said Ken Croisant, who lived next door to the couple. The child would often be outside when adults were there, he said.

Beyond that, he said he didnt know the family well.

* * *

An earlier version of this story listed the victims age incorrectly, based on information provided by police.

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Manhole covers also stolen

Copper wiring isn't the only city property that's been stolen recently.

Steve Andersen, Omaha's sewer maintenance manager, said roughly 50 manhole covers have been stolen within the last few months, mostly in northeast Omaha.

Scrap metal prices have increased, which usually leads to a rise in thefts of such items, Andersen said.

"It's been tough sourcing the number of manholes needed," he said.

A new manhole cover costs about $125, and with labor, the price reaches $500, he said. Officials have had to look elsewhere, like Kansas City, to supply the manholes.

At least one person has recently been arrested in connection with some of the thefts, Andersen said.

A resident found that her doorbell camera captured a manhole cover theft and notified the city and shared the video. Someone recognized the truck, and police arrested the person, Andersen said.
A judge said she will decide by noon Tuesday whether people in Omaha will have to continue wearing masks in public.

Douglas County District Judge Shelly Stratman said she realized the immediacy of whats going on and would go over almost 51 exhibits before deciding whether to issue a temporary restraining order that would end Omahas current mask mandate.

The judges comments came after a two-hour hearing in which attorneys for the State of Nebraska urged the judge to overturn the mandate. State leaders  including Gov. Pete Ricketts and Attorney General Doug Peterson  argue that Douglas County Health Director Lindsay Huse didnt seek permission from the State Department of Health and Human Services before issuing the mandate.

The state says such approval is needed under state law. Attorneys pointed to a statute that requires county health directors to adopt measures with the approval of the Department of Health and Human Services.

But attorneys for the City of Omaha and Huse argued that she was serving as health director of the city, not the county, and had a right to impose a mask mandate within city limits as she saw fit. Huse said she did so Jan. 11 amid spiking cases of COVID-19.

About 30 people attended the hearing via online teleconference. Most were attorneys and reporters. Also watching: City Council members Brinker Harding, Aimee Melton and Don Rowe, Republicans on the officially nonpartisan council who joined the lawsuit against the mandate.

A dozen mask protesters gathered outside the Douglas County Courthouse, holding signs and trying to get drivers on Farnam Street to honk. Very few, if any, went inside to watch the arguments over whether they should be required to be masked.

The two hours of arguments boiled down to this: Stratman will have to determine whether there is a distinction between Huse as a county health director and her appointment as health director for the City of Omaha.

All parties in the case agreed that Huse would have to seek HHS approval if she were operating as county health director. But she wasnt acting in that capacity, the city and county argued. She instead was acting under the authority granted to her by an Omaha City Council resolution, they said.

A key question for Stratman: Would the state, which is suing, suffer irreparable harm if she didnt stop the mask mandate? The state argued that it would because citizens could be arrested, fined or jailed if they dont comply with the mask mandate. It is unclear how many people, if any, have been cited over failing to wear a mask under the current mandate.

The city argued that the greater risk of harm would be if the health director were not allowed to impose restrictions to combat the surge in COVID-19 cases brought on by the omicron variant.

Bernard in den Bosch, a deputy city attorney, noted that the City Council determined that during a pandemic, it shall be the duty of the health director  to issue  such orders, regulations and instructions as may ... be deemed effective for the prevention, removal or limiting of such disease.

In den Bosch  joined by Deputy Douglas County Attorney Josh Woolf and private attorneys Robert Slovek and Edward Fox  said former County Health Director Adi Pour was also appointed city health director during her tenure. Though she didnt impose mask mandates, she did deliver COVID-19 reports to the City Council as part of her duties as city health director.

Dr. Huse has been characterized as a rogue bureaucrat acting independently when in fact she has ... made a thoughtful, considered judgment with the help of others, and most importantly with the help of science, Slovek said.

Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell and Dave Lopez, a former assistant Nebraska attorney general now representing Harding, Melton and Rowe, said no one is questioning Huses intentions, but rather her authority to act. The attorneys note that Huse previously deferred to HHS for permission to impose a mask mandate but now says she can impose one on her own.

The state says Huse is trying to tiptoe an intellectually dishonest tightrope  that she isnt acting as a county health director but as the citys de facto health director. She is doing so to sidestep a county health directors need for HHS approval.

Campbell said the state is not saying she acted irrationally. Its saying she acted illegally.

This case is not about whether mask mandates are good public health policy, Campbell told the judge. Rather we raise a legal issue whether Dr. Huse had authority to decree a mask mandate.

Under Huses order, masks are required for people over age 5 in indoor public venues such as schools and many businesses. Exceptions include religious services and places where it is possible to maintain 6 feet of distance.

Huse has said the measure might last four weeks from the date it was issued.

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Todd Cooper Reporter - Courts Todd Cooper covers courts, lawyers, trials, legal issues, the justice system and government wrongdoing for The World-Herald. Follow him on Twitter @CooperonCourts. Phone: 402-444-1275. Follow Todd Cooper Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
The Sarpy County attorney will pursue the death penalty against a Bellevue man accused of fatally shooting two Sonic Drive-In employees and wounding two others.

The announcement Monday marks the first time that Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov has sought the death penalty in a case in his 22 years in office.

In order to upgrade the case to the death penalty, Polikov dismissed then refiled the nine felonies that 24-year-old Roberto Silva Jr. had faced. He also filed additional attempted first-degree murder and firearm charges involving three employees who were able to flee to safety.

I took these procedural steps today because I intend to seek the death penalty in this case, he said. I based my decision on the initial investigation as well as new information we received after the case was initially filed, which fit the aggravating circumstances necessary to seek the death penalty.

Authorities have said Silva arrived at the Sonic at 1307 Cornhusker Road on Nov. 21, 2020, and fired numerous times. The shots killed employees Nathan Pastrana, 22, and Ryan Helbert, 28, and wounded Zoey Lujan, 18, and Kenneth Gerner, 25. Silva had driven a U-Haul truck there, which he later set on fire. He also threw several incendiary devices at the restaurant, a prosecutor has said.

Silva was arrested at the scene.

Polikov plans to file a notice of aggravators that will explain why he thinks Silvas alleged crimes merit the death penalty. A jury or three-judge panel would decide whether those aggravators exist, and a three-judge panel will decide whether to impose the death penalty if Silva is convicted.

We think a number of those nine aggravators are applicable in this case, Polikov said at a press conference.

If Silva were to be sentenced to death, he would be the youngest person on Nebraskas death row.

Polikov said his decision to seek the death penalty for the first time in his elected official career was not taken lightly.

My thoughts and support are with the victims and their families as they continue to deal with this unimaginable tragedy, he said.

The last time that the death sentence was handed down in Sarpy County involved the 1983 slayings of two young boys, Danny Joe Eberle and Christopher Walden. John Joubert, who confessed to the kidnappings and murders, was executed in 1996.

In November, judges decided that 24-year-old Bailey Boswell should spend life in prison instead of being put to death in the 2017 killing and dismemberment of Sydney Loofe. Her counterpart in the killing, 55-year-old Aubrey Trail, was sentenced to death in June.

Polikov also said Silva faces a felony attempted escape charge and misdemeanor assault charges in connection with an incident on Oct. 7 in which he flung cups of feces and urine at three county corrections officers at the Sarpy County Jail.

On Monday, Silva pleaded guilty to two felonies  second-degree assault and use of a weapon  for attacking an inmate at the Sarpy County Jail on May 12.

Silva was found standing in a cell near another inmate with serious cuts to that inmates ear and neck and superficial cuts on the inmates body, according to the Associated Press. The inmate told officers that he stabbed me and he shanked me with something sharp and flushed it down the toilet.

Silva has been moved to the Tecumseh State Prison, Polikov said.

World-Herald staff writer Nancy Gaarder contributed to this report.

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Alia Conley Alia Conley covers breaking news, crime and courts. Follow her on Twitter @aliaconleyOWH. Phone: 402-444-1068. Follow Alia Conley Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today
Students in the Omaha Public Schools have been getting free lunches during the pandemic under a temporary federal program aimed at ensuring that children have access to healthy meals.

Now OPS has been approved for a different federal program that will ensure that its roughly 53,000 students can receive free lunches for the rest of the current school year and three additional years, no matter their economic status.

At a school board meeting last month, members approved OPSs districtwide involvement in Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that allows high-poverty schools and districts to serve meals at no cost.

We all know the importance of sharing meals together as school communities, said Charles Wakefield, chief operations officer for OPS. Our cafeterias are places where students learn about each other, experience new foods, practice making healthy food choices and fuel up for their day of learning.

Wakefield said five North Omaha elementary schools have been involved in the Community Eligibility Provision program in the past based on their poverty: Druid Hill, Franklin, Lothrop, Howard Kennedy and King.

Last fall, when the district submitted data to see if more schools could qualify, the Nebraska Department of Education said OPS qualified for free meals districtwide.

Officials said OPS, the states largest school district, has also been offering free breakfast to all students since 2000 through the USDA. That has helped increase the number of students eating breakfast.

Almost 78% of OPS students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch last year, according to Nebraska Department of Education data. Fifteen years ago, that percentage was 60%.

More and more students are qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch statewide. Nebraskas free or reduced-price lunch rate has increased from about 36% in the 2006-07 school year to 46% in the 2020-21 school year, according to state data.

In order to get a free or reduced-price lunch in the past, families had to apply and meet income requirements.

A family of four could qualify in the 2021-22 school year if their annual household income was $49,025 or less, according to the state education department.

To me its a no-brainer, and its just one less thing our families would have to worry about, said Shavonna Holman, board president. Its just an opportunity for all our students to be fed.

In OPS, if a student didnt have enough money in their lunch account, they would receive an alternative meal, and officials would reach out to the students family, the district said in an official statement.

Though we would not describe it as common, it does happen, officials said.

Almost 65,500 people in Douglas County are food-insecure, which means they lack access to sufficient food because of financial hardship, according to 2019 data from Feeding America, which coordinates the work of more than 200 U.S. food banks.

Half of those in Douglas County who are food-insecure have an income that is too high to qualify for Nebraskas Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Food insecurity and hunger is one of those huge aspects that can severely limit a childs education, said board member Marque Snow.

Even though more students may have a need for free meals than those who qualify based on their familys income, some concerns still have been raised about the districts decision to take part in CEP.

Board member Spencer Head said hes heard from some Omahans who dont oppose the program but still dont approve of families who can afford lunches receiving free meals.

Essentially what they are saying is just because we have such a high percentage doesnt mean that everyone should get a free lunch, Head said. I generally agree, but especially with COVID, all of our families have seen hardship, lost jobs or had a decline in income.

With a district poverty rate of almost 78%, almost 12,000 OPS students who might not qualify for free meals based on family income would continue to be eligible to receive the free food. Officials said some families who could qualify for free or reduced-price lunch choose not to apply.

Officials said while the program doesnt provide a cost savings for OPS, it does alleviate the need for staff to manage or check account balances.

As every student receives their meal at no cost, the process for serving meals is more efficient, providing more time for students to enjoy their meal, Wakefield said.

For the 2021-22 school year, the USDA reimburses most school districts around the country between $4.48 and $4.56 per lunch, according to the departments website.

Only one elementary school receives free lunches through the CEP program in the Ralston Public Schools, one of the Omaha metro areas higher-poverty districts, said Jim Frederick, district spokesman. About 57% of the districts students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in 2020.

Frederick said if the USDA would stop its current universal waiver for free meals nationwide, which was implemented because of COVID, the district would look into extending CEP to other schools.

The Lincoln Public Schools hasnt applied for CEP, according to a district official. Almost 47% of the district qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in 2020.

OPS Superintendent Cheryl Logan said while the meals are free through the 2024-25 school year, the district still will provide families with a form that will include information needed for students to qualify for other free or reduced-price benefits. Qualifying families have the opportunity to apply for things like waivers for athletic fees, discounted internet service and student scholarships.

Logan said shes excited about the implementation of the program, even if it isnt making much of a difference right now because of the current meal waivers put in place during the pandemic.

This is something that has been a goal of mine since I got here, Logan said.

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 Flash

Malawi's journey to the year 2063, when it aspires to become an upper middle-income economy, started in earnest on November 9, 2021, when President Lazarus Chakwera unveiled the Malawi 2063 First 10-Year Implementation Plan (MIP-1) during the opening ceremony of the 2021 National Development Conference at the Bingu International Convention Center in Lilongwe. In 2063, Malawi will have attained its centenary of self-governance.

In his keynote speech, Chakwera described the event as the country's way of heeding the wisdom of the Chinese proverb, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

The MIP-1, to run from 2021 to 2030, replaces the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III as the country's new medium-term development strategy. Its goal is to assist Malawi to reach middle-income economy status and meet the majority of Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, which will require an estimated $15 billion in funding.

It also projects that if the economy grows at an annual average rate of 6 percent, Malawi could attain the lower middle-income status by 2030.

A lower middle-income country is classified by the World Bank as having attained a gross national income per-capita range between $1,036 and $4,045 per annum. MIP-1 identifies "quick wins," which are interventions that are already in the pipeline or have low-cost implications or just require scaling-up in the next five years.

According to the MIP-1 blueprint document, funding is to come from sources that include external grants, sustainable domestic and international debt, public-private partnerships and other regional and international financing mechanisms.

Agriculture driven

The 210-page document targets a per-capita annual income of $1,000 by 2030, a similar target that was not met by the predecessor document, Vision 2020.

Currently, Malawi's per-capita income, which is derived by dividing national income by population, is ranked one of the lowest in the world at around $600.

But from the onset, MIP-1 appears to be ambitious. For example, the document says the plan is to grow the share of agriculture, forestry and fishing to gross domestic product (GDP) from 22.8 percent in 2020 to about 30 percent in 2030.

Agricultural productivity and commercialization are the first pillar of the Malawi 2063, and make up Malawi's second long-term national development plan, replacing Vision 2020.

According to MIP-1, the agriculture sector is already enjoying huge financial support from both the government and development partners.

The president is reported to have emphasized the need to digitize farming in order to make it more efficient and more productive, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.

"We need to re-educate our youth to understand that farming is one of the surest paths to the wealth and prosperity they desire," said President Chakwera at the MIP-1 launch.

He called on young people in the country's colleges and universities to be aspiring either to use their education to make the country's farming smarter, or to use farming as a foundation for building wealth.

The MIP-1 also acknowledges that the agricultural sector enjoys spillover benefits from the implementation of strategies and programs in cross-cutting areas such as climate change, land and environmental management.

However, production and productivity of the sector has remained below its potential and is insufficient to match the increasing demand from domestic and export markets. Despite the high dependence of the economy on agriculture, commercialization of the sector is limited.

"Overall, the sector is characterized by low productivity, low levels of improved farm input use, limited private investment and low mechanization levels," says MIP-1 document.

Providing comparative statistics, the document reveals that the average added value per agricultural worker in Malawi has only amounted to $209, far below the Sub-Saharan average of $680.

Similarly, in 2019, Malawi's score in the Enabling the Business of Agriculture Index, a publication issued by the World Bank to measure how regulations affect the livelihood of domestic farmers, was very low at 41.51 out of 100.

Ambitious plan

From the industrialization point of view, MIP-1 aims to improve the share of manufacturing to GDP from 9.1 percent in 2020 to at least 13 percent by 2030. Similarly, the share of mining to GDP will increase from 0.8 percent in 2020 to at least 10 percent in 2030, while the share of export of non-agricultural products to total exports is expected to improve from 20 percent in 2020 to at least 25 percent by 2030.

Currently, Malawi's industrial base is very narrow. During the past decade, the share of manufacturing to GDP grew from 10.7 percent in 2013 to about 12.2 percent in 2020. Industrialization has stagnated mainly because of high production costs due to, among others, inefficiencies in energy and transport and poor standards leading to non-competitive products on international markets.

Economist Betchani Tchereni from the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences described Malawi 2063 as an ambitious plan that can benefit the country if well executed.

"It is an ambitious document with very specific goals that we want. For us to achieve this, we need to be disciplined and sacrifice a number of our egos. There is a need for a collective approach because we must all understand that it is for the future," said Tchereni.

He, however, noted that since the country has a specific goal, there is also a need to follow specific plans and clearly state how the country wants to get to its destination.

During a panel discussion organized by Malawi's National Planning Commission, held on the sidelines of the National Development Conference, Ngabaghila Chatata, one of the panelists who is also the managing director of Thanthwe Holdings Ltd., lamented that over the years, Malawi's agriculture sector has been struggling to succeed as a result of poor implementation of policies, as well as misallocation of resources within the sector.
CHICAGO - One minute 8-year-old Melissa Ortega was walking with her mother through their Little Village community Saturday afternoon. The next, gunshots rang out, and mother and daughter broke into a sprint, trying to run to safety in a nearby bank.

But it was too late.

One of those bullets had already struck Melissa in the head as the pair walked in the 3900 block of West 26th Street at 2:45 p.m., according to Chicago police. She was rushed to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, where she was pronounced dead at 4:43 p.m.

The Cook County medical examiners office identified her Sunday morning as Melissa Ortega, 8, of the 2800 block of South Tripp Avenue, also in Little Village.

Police said the shooter wasnt aiming at Melissa  who was a student at Emiliano Zapata Academy  or her mother. Authorities said the shooter intended to harm a 26-year-old man who was walking out of a store not far from where Melissa and her mother stood.

The 26-year-old also was shot in the lower back and he was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition; officials did not have an update on his condition Sunday morning.

Melissa and her mother moved to Chicago in August after emigrating from Mexico, according to an online fundraising page created to offset funeral expenses. The GoFundMe page said Melissa is to be buried in her hometown of Los Sauces in the Mexican state of Tabasco.

They were both excited to start a new life in Chicago and build their American Dream. I was honored to have met Melissa and will always remember her beautiful smile, the creator of the page wrote.

No arrests have been made and detectives continue to investigate.

In a statement, the Chicago Teachers Union lamented the shooting of another innocent child, and extended its condolences to the Ortega family and Melissas community at Zapata Academy, saying it sends its love to Melissas family and the Zapata Academy community, and wish them peace and healing from this heartbreaking tragedy.

The union also decried the ongoing violence in the city.

Our union mourns the loss of another student from one of our school communities. This suffering is becoming all too familiar for many of Chicagos children and families, who our educators nurture and support every day, said the statement from CTU spokesman Ronnie Reese.

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SPRINGFIELD  A Sangamon County judge is considering a motion to block Illinois schools from requiring people to wear face masks in classes and excluding students and staff from school buildings if theyve had close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19.

Circuit Judge Raylene Grischow heard oral arguments last week in a class action lawsuit against 145 school districts that was filed last year by Greenville attorney Thomas DeVore, who has unsuccessfully challenged the states COVID-19 mitigation measures in several other lawsuits.

In September, DeVore filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to permit students to continue in-person learning in school.

Attorney General Kwame Raouls office is defending the districts and the Illinois Education Association, along with the Illinois Federation of Teachers, has entered the case as intervenors on behalf of the teachers they represent.

The cases were originally filed individually in several Illinois counties but were later consolidated into Sangamon County Circuit Court.

At issue is whether school districts are violating state law by implementing orders from Gov. J.B. Pritzker and guidelines from the Illinois Department of Public Health and Illinois State Board of Education to impose certain mitigation measures in order to hold in-person instruction.

Those measures include requirements that all students, staff and visitors wear face coverings in school buildings, that students and staff be excluded from buildings if they test positive for COVID-19 or have been in close contact with someone else who has, and that school personnel be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

In the suit, DeVore argues that exclusions amount to a kind of quarantine and that under the Department of Public Health Act, schools cannot exclude students for public health concerns without their parents consent or a quarantine order from a public health department.

He also argues that schools have no legal authority to require vaccinations or the wearing of masks unless a public health department has issued a quarantine order.

The plaintiffs have a right to insist the students not be excluded from school, and denied their right to an in-person education, except as provided by law, the lawsuit states.

Quite simply, the defendants are infringing upon the lawful right of the students, and of their parents or guardians, to be free to choose for themselves whether mask wearing as a treatment, or type of modified quarantine, for the purpose of limiting the spread of an infectious disease, is, absent a court order, appropriate, the lawsuit states

DeVore has been the attorney in numerous lawsuits representing businesses and individuals challenging Pritzkers executive orders during the pandemic. In one, he represented state Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, a Republican candidate for governor.

Judge Grischow, however, threw out that case in December 2020, finding that the governor has the authority to issue multiple, successive disaster proclamations stemming from one ongoing disaster.

In a motion to dismiss the case, the Illinois Education Association argued that masking and exclusions are not quarantines and therefore are not preempted by the Public Health Act. It also argues that the joint guidance issued by IDPH and ISBE gives school districts lawful authority to impose mask and exclusion mandates.

In a separate filing, the Illinois Federation of Teachers argued that the public health interest involved in preventing the spread of COVID-19 outweighs any individual right of the students and parents who are challenging the mandates.

Those parents, students, teachers and staff who are not before the court have a compelling interest in the enforcement of mitigation measures that reflect the best judgments of policymakers facing rapidly changing circumstances, attorneys for the IFT wrote.

The case against the school districts has generated significant public interest. During a hearing on Jan. 5, Grischow noted in a journal entry, the court and the court's receptionist began receiving emails from outside sources setting forth their position on the issues being argued in the case.

The court did not review the emails and turned them over to the U.S. Marshals office to review for security reasons, Grischow wrote. The emails will not be kept or reviewed by the court. Any opinion rendered in these matters will be based on the law and not personal opinions.

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ARLINGTON HEIGHTS  In front of the TV. In waiting rooms. On planes.

A group of women in Lake County has spent countless hours knitting, crocheting and, more recently, sewing and quilting to make thousands of handmade items -- hat, scarves, blankets, quilts, mittens, wash cloths, headbands, toe warmers and even stuffed toys -- to donate to nonprofits and community organizations.

The Ela Township Charity Knit Crochet Quilt Group has been meeting weekly for 16 years, with the added benefit of friendships forming along the way, its members said.

"It's just a great group of very giving women. Extremely giving women," said member Barb Swichtenberg of Lake Zurich.

"You're doing something for somebody else," said member Lia Douglas of Deer Park. "You're bringing a little bit of joy and comfort to somebody else."

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the group mostly has met remotely on Zoom, with the exception of a few meetings -- either outdoor or indoor with masks -- last summer. Despite the inability to see each other face to face, the women last year crafted more than 1,650 items for students, clients of domestic violence shelters, oncology patients and others, the Daily Herald reports.

Recipients say the group provides a great service to the community.

"It's a huge, huge contribution to us being able to provide our clients what they need," said Demaris Lorta, chief development officer for A Safe Place, a Lake County nonprofit that provides services to domestic violence and human trafficking victims. The agency last year received 90 hats from the group.

The craftsmanship is evident in each of the donated pieces, said Jessica Ceisel, community engagement coordinator for United Way of Lake County, which got 69 sets of hats and scarves that went to clients of the nonprofit Family Focus Highland Park.

"I got to meet a couple of the ladies," Ceisel said. "They are so kind and passionate, and it was very sweet to see how much they truly care."

The group was started in 2006 by Susan Fackler, who retired last year as director of Ela Township Community Family Services. The only remaining original member just moved to Georgia.

The group first met in the basement of the Foglia YMCA, followed by about a decade at the Ela Township Community Center. Their current home is the Ela Township building. All are in Lake Zurich.

Douglas said she learned to knit from her grandmother and joined the group in 2018, after she retired.

"It has a calming effect," she said of knitting. "It's something that you see that you are doing and you have sense of accomplishment. And you have a way to express your artistic needs, because you put together colors and shapes."

Swichtenberg, too, relishes the group as a way of giving back during her retirement years. Sewing suits her best because she has tendinitis, she said.

Among her favorite endeavors is donating to The Lake County Haven, which helps homeless women achieve independent living, and to Lake County's Women's Residential Services program, each of which received blankets last year.

"That's a very special thing," she said.

A longtime recipient is Joanie's Closet, a District 95 Educational Foundation committee that provides school supplies and winter gear to under-resourced students and families in the Lake Zurich-based school district. Last year's donation from the group was 50 youth hats and 150 adult hats.

"It's truly a phenomenal experience for the people in our district, because it's not just store-bought hats," said Ann Marie McConnell, chairwoman of the committee. "They give us beautiful things. I wish I could knit, seeing what they do."

Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital received 150 blankets and 77 toe warmers, plus 17 hats and 13 scarves for the hospital's radiation oncology group. The items are sought after, said Karen Sticha, a radiation oncology nurse specialist.

"The fact that there are people who care enough to offer these gifts -- something so kind, personal and beautiful -- means so much to our patients as they undergo treatment," she said. "There is a lot of love and intent behind each and every piece we receive."

Before the pandemic, up to 20 women attended the group's meetings, but that has dwindled to six or seven, Douglas said.

Some members are not comfortable with technology or don't like virtual interactions, and others have moved out of state. The group keeps in touch via weekly emails so everyone can work on needed items at home and drop them off at the township.

Still, "we would love to get new members," Douglas said. "We're always looking for new members."

Swichtenberg agreed.

"The group is much smaller during COVID, but the need is so much greater," she said. "We're trying so hard to keep the flame. I don't want this group to die out."

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Kentucky officials have released the cause of death for a prominent metro-east contractor who was found dead in Kentucky Lake last summer.

Charles "Chuck" Poettker, 69, of O'Fallon, died of an accidental drowning with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and ethanol intoxication as contributing conditions, according to a document provided by an attorney for the Trigg County coroner's office.

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease refers to hardening or narrowing of the arteries. Ethanol intoxication refers to the consumption of beer, wine or other alcoholic beverages.

The document provided to the BND is called a "formulation of death page," said Farris Marcum, president of the Kentucky Coroners Association. He's not involved in the Poettker case but explained that the document is part of the medical examiner's autopsy report, designed to help the coroner determine cause of death.

"Dr. Kiefer is telling Mr. Phillips, 'This is how I would sign out the death certificate,'" Marcum said, referring to Dr. Christopher Kiefer, who works for the Western Kentucky Regional Medical Examiners Office; and Trigg County Assistant Coroner Matthew Phillips.

Phillips declined to provide a death certificate or comment on the Poettker case. The formulation of death page was provided to the BND by Stacey Blankenship, attorney for the coroner's office.

"The family motioned for a restraining order to prohibit the coroner's office from releasing any information (on Poettker's death), and the judge granted the motion," Blankenship said. "So we have an order that does not allow the coroner to produce any records."

Poettker was founder and CEO of Poettker Construction Co., based in Breese, one of the largest construction companies in the metro-east.

Poettker was boating with his wife, Linda, on July 17, 2021, when he jumped into the water for a swim, authorities reported at the time. His body was found after divers searched more than two hours.

Trigg County Circuit Judge C.A. Woodall III granted the temporary restraining order against the coroner's office on Dec. 3, 2021, in response to a petition by Poettker's four grown children, Kimberly Luitjohan, Ryan Poettker, Keith Poettker and Kevin Poettker.

The family didn't know at that time what records were in the coroner's possession, according to the order, but they had reason to believe he might release some that were sensitive, confidential and exempt from disclosure requirements in the Kentucky Open Records Act.

"We basically wanted to protect any personal information regarding Dad's health records, photographs that were taken and all that stuff," Keith Poettker said. "And under Kentucky law, the only way we could do that was by filing for a temporary restraining order."

The order will give the family time to look over the records and make sure no private or protected information gets released, said their attorney David Riley, of Paducah, Kentucky.

Death records can include coroners' reports with notes from scene investigations, autopsy reports from medical examiners and toxicology test results.

Coroners generally don't release such information to the news media or general public, Marcum said, but they have discretion to determine if it's appropriate to turn it over to law enforcement, life insurance companies or family members and their attorneys.

Marcum, who has served as Lincoln County, Kentucky, coroner for nearly 20 years, said it's unusual for a family to file a restraining order against a coroner. But the Poettkers apparently persuaded Judge Woodall to take action.

"The disclosure of the nature, extent, manner, and pain of their father's death is something that any family should work to protect and should not have to relive through disclosure to a gawking and sensation-driven public," the judge wrote in the order.

The family received Charles Poettker's death certificate in late December or early January, according to Keith Poettker. They had been waiting more than five months due to a backlog in cases being handled by the Kentucky Office of the Medical Examiner.

Now that a death certificate has been issued, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources can complete its report on Charles Poettker's death, said Sgt. Daniel Richardson, lead investigator. He estimates that it will be ready in about a week.

Last summer, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources reported that:

Charles and Linda Poettker were regulars on Kentucky Lake with their 47-foot boat, a Sea Ray Sedan Bridge.

They were out boating on Saturday, July 17, 2021.

They dropped anchor about 3 p.m. in the Sugar Bay area of Trigg County.

Charles Poettker jumped off the rear swim platform into the water and disappeared.

Officials launched a search after a friend called 911.

Divers searched for more than two hours before finding Poettker's body.

A family spokeswoman described Poettker as a capable swimmer. Keith Poettker has pondered the possibility that they may never know for sure if a drowning caused a heart attack or a heart attack caused a drowning.

Charles Poettker's autopsy was performed July 18, 2021, at the Western Kentucky Regional Medical Examiners Office in Madisonville.

"In Kentucky, all drownings are required to be autopsied," Marcum said.

Poettker Construction Co. has been operating in Breese for 42 years. It has about 200 employees and a second location in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Keith Poettker is based.

Poettker replaced his father as CEO under a succession plan that the company developed in 2016. Brother Ryan is now president. Management also includes sister Kimberly Luitjohan, executive vice president and chief financial officer, and brother Kevin, director of business development.

Keith Poettker said it was difficult to lose a father, friend, business partner and mentor so suddenly.

"He was a giant, and he left a lasting legacy," Poettker said. "We certainly appreciate all the thoughts and prayers from the community. We've had so many people reach out to us. We're very thankful, very appreciative."

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Israel became the United Nations 59th member on May 11, 1949. In the seven decades since, the General Assembly, now numbering 193 countries, has passed uncounted resolutions blasting the Mideasts sole democracy. Slander and libel and unfairness by a majority of tyrannies gathered at Turtle Bay against the worlds only Jewish state is mind-numbingly routine.

But at least when it comes to dead Jews, the Parliament of Man has some decency. Only twice in the 73 years since Israel joined the U.N., the General Assembly has approved resolutions offered by Israel, both dealing with the Holocaust.

The first time was 2005, when the General Assembly designated Jan. 27 as the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the Jan. 27, 1945, liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by the Red Army. Israel had 104 co-sponsors.

The second time was Thursday, the 80th anniversary of the Jan. 20, 1942, Wannsee Conference of top Nazis, where the German state planned how to murder all 11 million Jews in Europe. The ever-efficient Germans got about halfway through their victims before the Allies destroyed Hitlers thousand-year Reich. This resolution denounces Holocaust denial, a sickness of weak minds inextricable from the ancient hatred of antisemitism.

Joining Israel as prime sponsor was Germany, and more than 100 states signed on to write into the annals of the United Nations that the Holocaust was real, and that to deny or distort the historical facts is wrong on every level and dangerous to society and needs to be to countered with education. The resolution also urges governments and social media companies to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion by means of information and communications technologies and to facilitate reporting of such content. Let the truth be known.

New York Daily News

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Ghanas Real Estate sector over the past years has attracted a great deal of interest from tourists, investors, to home searchers and buyers, industrial businesses, to the diaspora community, and even the local Ghanaian people.



Today, tourists, visitors, and those in the diaspora are looking for decent accommodation to rent or buy.



This can be attributed to the quality of architecture design and modern smart building technology applied in the construction of these structures.



It is of no doubt that Ghanas construction sector has boomed and continues to grow attesting to the fact that there is a significant potential in Ghanas real estate sector.



One Real Estate Company delivering smart construction infused with modern architecture is the indigenous Ghanaian company COD Realty and Properties.



COD Realty and Properties led by its Managing Director, Mr. Cwesi Oteng Desmond is seeking to be a niche developer committed to delivering high quality and design excellence to modern homebuyers.



COD Realty and Properties have been designing contemporary homes, offering luxury and comfort while maximizing space; as matter of fact, lands are never wasted in their hands.



This Real Estate company builds homes in the most sought after and prime locations in towns and cities.



Its signature of contemporary designs tailored to satisfy the lifestyle and dreams of homebuyers, on the Ghanaian market is the companys target.



According to Mr. Cwesi Oteng Desmond the company is into a wide choice of apartments, houses, homes suiting 21st century standards and preferences.



The company is also calling on potential investors to come on board to explore these amazing opportunities.



ALSO READ David Kankam Boadu writes: True facts about Ghanaians; #Let'sReviveTheCountry

With Ghana booming as a tourist destination, we also want to be associated with Ghanas growing tourist hub potential because the real estate sector also draws its large market from tourism.



.We, are, therefore, calling on investors to be part of this huge potential because we believe its a good time for investors to look into the Ghanaian market. We are targeting real estate companies ranging from those looking to invest in Ghana and also individuals who are looking to buy apartments or houses to rent.



He revealed that in the 2019 Ghana recorded 1.13million visitors travelling to Ghana according to data from the Ghana Tourism Authority as it celebrated the Year of Return.



This was a growth of 18% over the previous year 2018 and above the global average of 5%. This indeed offers a huge potential for the real estate industry that must be strategically explored.



Touching on the services offered by COD Realty & Properties, Mr. Cwesi Oteng had this to share:



When it comes to COD Realty & Properties, we are into the sale of houses, rentals, real estate marketing consultancy, building construction. If you happen to be outside the country and you want a company to build your dream home for you we are more than ready to deliver for you.



For more information call: +233 (0) 246329094



Also Follow:



https://youtube.com/channel/UCaJ_JbnBzooSi347MdubZVQ



https://www.instagram.com/itz_cod1/?hl=en

Source: 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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An Accra High Court has struck out an application by the Lighthouse Chapel International seeking a default judgment against The Fourth Estate.



The charismatic church was seeking default judgment after it claimed those associated with The Fourth Estate had failed to file their defence within the stipulated time.



The Lighthouse Chapel had sued the Editor-in-Chief of The Fourth Estate, Manasseh Azure Awuni; the reporter who worked on the Lighthouse story, Edwin Appiah; the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa, Sulemana Braimah; and the Media Foundation for West Africa(MFWA), for defamation.



The church filed three different defamation suits covering the three-part series, Darkness in a lighthouse, which was published by The Fourth Estate in 2021.



The Fourth Estate is a non-profit journalism project of the MFWA.



The lawyer for the defendants, Samson Lardy Anyenini, in opposing the application for default judgment, argued that the churchs application was premature.



The application, which received wide media publicity even before a copy would be served on lawyers for the defendants, was scheduled to be argued today. But when the case was called, the lawyer for the church, Kweku Paintsil, said he was withdrawing it.



He said even though a search at the court registry on January 10, 2022, indicated defence had not been filed, he was later served and he realized the four defendants had actually filed their defence earlier on January 6, 2021.



Addressing Justice Joseph Adu-Owusu Agyeman, Kweku Painstil indicated that he was withdrawing the motion for a default judgment against all four defendants.



The lawyer for the defendants, Samson Lardy Anyenini, said though the withdrawal was expected, the application for default judgment was premature.



He argued that the defendants filed appearance on December 20, 2021, and the courts were on vacation from 23rd December and resumed on January 6, 2021. He said he had come to raise legal objection. He read Order 79 of the Civil Procedure Rules of court.



The presiding judge, Justice Joseph Adu-Owusu Agyeman, struck out all three applications as having been withdrawn.



The judge also ordered the church to bring a fresh writ of summons consolidating all three cases as one suit because they are materially the same.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah, a Governance expert, has rebuked the youth in Nima and Mamobi who engaged in a violent clash on Tuesday.



A timely intervention by the Police on Tuesday afternoon prevented the incident from escalating into a bloodbath.



However, some persons sustained fatal injuries as a result of the clash with four persons reported dead.



Nine suspects have been arrested so far and are assisting with Police investigations into the incident.



Touching on the clash during Peace FM's morning show ''Kokrokoo'', Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah wondered why the youth should be fighting each other.



He dreaded this incident may reflect the behavior of the youth in Ghana today, thus called on the nation's leaders to sensitize them about the repercussions of resorting to violence in addressing conflicts.



''The leaders in Ghana must rise and talk to the youth. The youth are getting out of hand, particularly those doing drugs.''



Dr. Otchere-Ankrah applauded the leadership of the IGP Dr. George Dampare for swiftly intervening in the situation and causing the arrest of some of the suspects.



He charged the Police to ''arrest them all and when they have been arrested, let no elder go and beg on their behalf''.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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The Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia arrived in New York on Sunday to participate in a meeting of the UN Security Council and hold discussions with Secretary-General Antonio Guteress on Tuesday.



Ghana, assumed a seat on the 15-member UN Security Council on January 1, 2022, having been elected for a two-year tenure, the fourth time since its independence.

Dr. Bawumia will deliver a statement on behalf of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the Security Council debate on the protection of civilians in urban conflict.



The Vice-President is also scheduled to meet US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Molly Phee, in Washington, DC, the US capital, on Wednesday.



Ghana wants to use its UN Security Council seat to mobilize international support to bring violent extremism in the Sahel under control and curb piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.



Ghana chairs the African Unions Peace and Security Council and is serving on the UN security council alongside Gabon and Kenya.



President Akufo-Addo also chairs the ECOWAS Council of Heads of State at a time of political uncertainty in Mali and Guinea.



Dr. Bawumia was met on arrival by officials of the Ghana Mission to the UN-led by the Permanent Representative, Mr. Harold Agyeman.

Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), Lawyer Justin Kodua Frimpong has promised the people of the Western North Region more jobs this year and beyond.



According to him, the jobs will dominantly be in the areas of agriculture, craft and entrepreneurship.



He gave the assurance at the commissioning of an ultra-modern office complex in the Western North Region to facilitate its operations.



The facility comes with a job centre, complaint unit, offices, modules support office, among others.



The office complex was born out of the need to have a fully functional secretariat that will see to the creation, facilitation and the development of jobs and job opportunities tailored to the needs of the people in the region.



It also serves the governments vision of evenly spreading infrastructural development across the country, especially in the newly created regions.



Lawyer Kodua Frimpong explained that YEA is the fulcrum of the Presidents One Million Jobs agenda  and as the CEO, he would make sure that this vision is fully realised through an effective collaboration with institutions like the National Entrepreneurship & Innovation Programme (NEIP), Ghana Enterprises Agency, Forestry Commission, National Youth Authority and the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs).



We are already in partnership with NEIP, Ghana Health Service, GEA (formerly NBSSI), Forestry Commission and even private partners that yielded in close to 150,000 jobs over the past four years, he stated.



He commended President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for spearheading the creation of six new regions, including the Western North Region.



The new regions came with new administrative offices, hence the construction of the YEA office in the Western North Region to facilitate its work, he said.



He stated that the Agency, since 2017, had added four modules to its existing modules to enhance the provision of employment avenues for Ghanaians, especially the youth.



"The sector minister and YEA management have put in place a good number of measures in providing jobs for the teeming youth, he disclosed.



Mr Kodua Frimpong said the YEA Job Centre is to provide adequate data on job avenues that are readily available, and he urged the youth to take advantage of it.



With the setting up of this new ultra-modern office, he hinted that particular focus would be set on the Western North Region in the coming years to create thousands of jobs to fit the purpose of the structure and to gain value for the amount of money expended on the construction.



The YEA CEO stated that the Agency would maximise the efforts of its Artisan Directory in the region to train young men and women to have professional craftsmen and women and help them to obtain jobs or create their own.



In addition, he said YEA would also bring artisans in the region on to a single platform to serve as an easy source for clients and to also boost the market size of participating artisans.



According to Mr Kodua Frimpong, agriculture which thrives in the region is an area of interest to the YEA, and funds and training are being made available for potential beneficiaries in the coming months.



He stated that he would love to see farmers who mechanise and receive professional training and practices to double or quadruple their yields in the coming farming seasons.



The Board Chairperson of the YEA, Mrs Anita Kusi Boateng, lauded the Agency for putting up the edifice within a short time and said it would help coordinate activities in the region.



She said the YEA does not discriminate in providing employment opportunities for the youth regardless of their qualification.



She urged both staff and all stakeholders to be motivated by the structure alone to give off their best in using the YEA Job Centre, Work Abroad, Artisan Directory, fagship projects and the entrepreneurship support to find decent jobs for the people of the region.



She emphasised the significance of the new policy initiatives and the traditional modules to the YEA Governing Board and the will to create the highest possible number of jobs for the youth of Ghana.



Mrs Boateng hinted of more programmes and modules to be rolled out in the short term, including the Community Health Worker programme.



Stakeholders in the region, including the Regional Coordinating Director who represented the Regional Minister, MDCEs, chiefs, NGOs other government agencies took their turns and commend the YEA Governing Board for this infrastructural development and the accompanying innovative policies that will obviously see to the massive reduction of unemployment in the region.



They all promised to work together with the YEA Regional Secretariat to achieve the Presidents primary focus of job creation.



The Wiawso Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Louis Owusu-Agyapong, on behalf of all the municipal and district chief executives in the region, said the creation of the region was yielding results and pledged their unflinching support to the Agency.



The Chief Director, Western North Regional Coordinating Council, Mr Sampson Amoako Kwarteng, on behalf of the Regional Minister, said the region had benefitted from a good number of infrastructural development.



These include the construction of the Western North Regional Education office at Bibiani, Regional Health Directorate at Bodi, the Food and Agriculture office at Juaboso and the Feeder Roads office complex at Enchi, with some others at various stages of completion.

He mentioned the construction of the Benchem-Adjoafua road, Wiawso roads and Akontombra road as some of the roads being worked on.



Mr Kwarteng said a Regional Police Command and a three-storey accommodation for the police were being constructed. He lauded governments policies aimed at reducing unemployment in the country.



The Chief of Amafie and Dabehene of Wiawso Traditional Area, Nana Kwaw Ampem Ababio, who represented the paramount chief, commended President Akufo-Addo and his government for creating the region, which has resulted in the provision of a number of development projects.



He urged the youth to take advantage of the YEA Job Centre to help reduce unemployment and called for attitudinal change in the redress of grievances, saying they should use the appropriate channels instead of taking the laws into their own hands.

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.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday exchanged congratulatory messages with Israeli President Isaac Herzog to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Xi noted that since the establishment of their diplomatic relations, the two peoples have deepened their friendship and bilateral relations have achieved remarkable progress.

Since China and Israel forged an innovative comprehensive partnership in 2017, exchanges and cooperation in various fields have yielded fruitful results, bringing tangible benefits to the people of the two countries, Xi added.

Noting that he attaches great importance to the development of China-Israel relations, Xi said he is ready to work with Herzog to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust, deepen mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation, expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and promote the stable development of the China-Israel innovative comprehensive partnership, so as to benefit the two countries and their people.

For his part, Herzog said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, the two countries have been deepening their bilateral relations with exchanges getting even closer.

Bilateral cooperation has reaped bumper harvests in such fields as economy, agriculture, health, tourism and culture, which has benefited the people of the two countries, Herzog added.

Noting that he highly values the innovative comprehensive partnership between Israel and China, Herzog said he looks forward to further promoting bilateral relations during his term of office.

Also on Monday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang exchanged congratulatory messages with his Israeli counterpart, Naftali Bennett.

Li said in recent years, innovative cooperation between China and Israel has made rewarding results and achieved win-win outcomes.

China stands ready to work with Israel to uphold the spirit of win-win cooperation, strengthen political mutual trust and further improve pragmatic cooperation in various fields, so as to push for greater development of bilateral relations, Li added.

In his message, Bennett said since the two countries fostered diplomatic relations 30 years ago, especially since the establishment of an innovative comprehensive partnership five years ago, bilateral cooperation has developed in an all-round way.

Bennett voiced confidence that Israel-China cooperation will continue to deepen in the future so as to bring more gains to the people of the two countries.
The Paramount Chief of Chirano Traditional Area has expressed his deepest condolences to the people of Apiate after a massive explosion that destroyed the entire community.



The chief is a statement described the incident as unfortunate  adding that, I and my elders are saddened and devastated by the heartbreaking incident that took away lives of innocent people who are breadwinners within a wink.



Read below statement



I express my deepest sympathy to the victims and bereaved families of the tragic incident which occurred at Apiate.



I have learnt that about 14 people have lost their lives following the road accident involving an explosive-laden truck and a motorcycle at Appeatse a Community near Bogoso which has also rendered many homeless.



As a Paramount Chief of Chirano Traditional Area and the Vice President of the Western North Regional House of Chiefs, I wish to extend my deepest condolences to the families of the lost precious souls and also to those who are seeking medical care a speedy recovery.



I and my elders are saddened and devastated by the heartbreaking incident that took away the lives of innocent people who are breadwinners within a wink.



I pray to the Almighty God to give the affected families the strength and mental fortitude to quell those painful times.



I would like to also use the opportunity to thank the Management of Kinross, Chirano Gold Mines Limited for their kind gesture to support the victims of the Apiate disaster with relief items.



I am, therefore, appealing to philanthropists, well-wishers to support the government as a matter of urgency to rebuild the devastated community.



May the good Lord grant the departed souls a peaceful resting place in the bosom of Father Abraham.

Source: 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 rider of the motorcycle said to be involved in the Apiate explosion claims he did not collide with the explosive-carrying truck as being reported.



He told the Ghana News Agency that he was rather hit by another vehicle from behind and rushed to a nearby health facility before the explosion occurred.



"I didn't collide with the said truck, neither was I at the scene during the explosion," the rider (name withheld) said.



He said he was receiving treatment at the health facility when he was informed that a truck had exploded.



I dont know where that story is coming from because I was not at the scene. I did not see any truck around me when the accident occurred. I was in the tricycle with one woman and the two of us were carried to the health facility.



The people that conveyed us to the hospital later informed me that it was a sprinter bus that hit my tricycle and that the driver ran away after the accident, he insisted.



Preliminary investigations by the Police indicated that a mining explosive vehicle moving from Tarkwa to the Chirano Gold Mines collided with a motorcycle resulting in the explosion at Apiate, a farming community between Bogoso and Bawdie in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality in the Western Region.



A team of investigators from the Criminal Investigative Department of the Ghana Police Service on Sunday, January 23, 2022, interrogated the truck driver and the rider of the motorcycle believed to be involved in the accident.



The team interrogated the two persons at the disaster site as part of measures to unravel the cause of the explosion.



The driver of the truck looked distraught with a part of his face bandaged.



The motor rider had his elbow and knee bandaged with bruises on his hand and chin.



The truck driver declined to engage the media after the interrogation, saying: I have been instructed not to speak.



The CID team said the interrogation would help them to unravel the circumstances that led to the accident and the subsequent explosion.



Fourteen people were killed and 179 others injured in the explosion, which occurred on Thursday, January 20, 2022.



The Minerals Commission on Saturday shut down Maxam Ghana Limited, owners of the explosive truck, to pave way for investigations into the accident.



Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia who led a Government delegation to the community on Friday, said Government would collaborate with the State Housing Corporation and mining companies to construct temporary housing facilities for those displaced in the explosion.

Source: GNA









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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One of the visible non-governmental organisations in Ghana, Lord Rayden Foundation has pledged to provide the necessary support be it medical, legal or financial to bereaved families in the event of the passing of a security service personnel in their family.



The main objective is that Lord Rayden Foundation has an established network of medical, legal and finance professionals in Ghana who will provide practical support to families and individuals struggling with the loss of a loved one who was a serviceman/woman.



Meanwhile, Lord Rayden Foundation will also aim to make and influence that directly affect individuals who have been widowed or orphaned under such circumstances.



Ultimately, the objective will be to also collaborate with other non-governmental organizations, both in Africa and globally, in addressing issues affecting widows/widowers and the dependents of servicemen who perish in the line of duty.



In an interview with one of the non-executive board members, he maintained that, our vision is to create a system and place that provides an environment conducive for recovery and posttraumatic growth. Our core values reflect the need to provide the basic and specialized support necessary for the families of the servicemen we lose in the line of duty which is always a cataclysmic event. We wish to address the fact that such facilities are not available in our part of the world.



Who is Lord Rayden?



Evans Amo-Darkwah affectionately known as Lord Rayden was born to Mr Francis Kofi Amo and Mrs Veronica Amo on the 24th October 1986 in Tamale. His parents later moved to Kumasi where he had his formative years together with is 5 other siblings.



Lord Rayden had his primary education in 2 Brigade Basic school in the year 2002 where he passed out with flying colours. He was admitted into Kumasi National Vocational Training Institute after which he furthered his education in Obuasi in the Amanse Municipality opting to study Information Technology.



He was enlisted into the Ghana Armed Forces in 2008 and was posted to Base workshop after successfully completing his military training. .



Due to his diligence and hard work he was selected as one of the officers who traveled to keep peace with the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) GHANBATT 72. He was happily married to his beloved wife Mavis Akua-Wusuah.



Lord Rayden met his untimely death while on barracks patrol duty on 28th May 2016.



About Lord Rayden Foundation



The foundation was founded by KaicyAmo-Darkwah, brother of the late born in the early 90s, to Ex-Staff Sergeant Francis Kofi Amo and Madam Veronica Amo.



He had completed his Elementary school and High school in Ashanti Region Kumasi, later proceeded to Greater Accra where he had his Diploma.



He also worked as a network engineer for couple of reputable companys in and later left to the United States in the year 2019.



He is believed by most to be a man of kindness and pure benevolence; he is said to be extremely focused and very influential when it comes to the society he comes from.



The idea of this is to give the rightful support to the security services of his beloved country which lacks couple of support.



Meanwhile, people interested in contacting Lord Rayden Foundation can do so through their official website.

Source: 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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Leading African Telecommunications Company, Telecel Group says it remains committed to supporting early-stage Ghanaian tech startups across sectors including FinTech, InsureTech, AgriTech, eCommerce, HealthTech, and CleanTech.



Speaking at Cohort II of the Telecel Group ASIP event held in Accra yesterday for Ghanaian startups, the Executive Deputy of Telecel Group and ASIP Director, Eleanor Azar, disclosed that Telecel Group will support the scaling and development of the selected Ghanaian startups and provide them access to Africa markets.



She believes with the right support, Ghanaian startups can find innovative solutions to several local challenges because they understand the context better.



Driven by Telecel Group values and the commitment that all our entities will do better in thriving environments and communities, Telecel Group is developing social enterprises with a digital focus to create jobs, wealth and solve challenges in various communities, said the ASIP Director.



Representing the Minister of Communications at the event was the CEO of the Accra Digital Centre, Kojo Baah-Agyemang, and the Head of Programmes, David Ofori. David Ofori noted that one of the best ways the governments Digital Inclusion Agenda could be achieved was for startups and digital entrepreneurs to be supported with the requisite industry skillset that Telecel Group brings so they can compete regionally and on the global market.



He welcomed Telecel support to Ghanaian startups through ASIP and encouraged them to expand to support more social enterprises and help the governments digital inclusion agenda.



Representing Stanbic Bank as a partner, the Head of Engineering, Eric Nsarkoh, described ASIP as a novel platform.

I believe the ASIP event is really a novel platform as it cuts through Africa and has the potential to provide a regional market for startups, he said.



The National Project Coordinator, NTFV, ITC at the United Nations, Isaac Newton Acquah, applauded Telecel Group for introducing ASIP to Ghana and was impressed by the list of seasoned mentors.



Providing mentors who have been there and done it is very important to startups, they can avoid a lot of the early mistakes and focus on building the right business models and solutions he explained.



Commenting on the quality of entries and competence of some of the startup founders during the engaging sessions, the CEO and Co-founder of Startupbootcamp, Afritech, Philip Kiracofe, said the innovative solutions put forward by young Ghanaian minds were impressive.



The quality of the entries from young Ghanaian businesses is really impressive. They are dedicated and committed to developing their ideas to the next level, he said.



Africa Startup Initiative Program (ASIP) is a Telecel Group social investment Accelerator Program powered by Startupbootcamp Afritech to develop and scale the next generation of tech businesses and entrepreneurs for the African continent. Targeting Tech startups with an emphasis on the African market, ASIP aims to help its target beneficiaries redefine their business models and scale up with suitable investment and guidance.



About Telecel Group

Telecel Group operates in four different lines of business all under the telecom industry: (1) Telecel Mobile, owns and operates several mobile operators in Africa and Europe; (2) Telecel Global Services, provides wholesale, enterprise and digital security services to telecom operators and enterprises worldwide; (3) Telecel Play, a digital platform that is digitizing mobile users; and (4) Africa Startup Initiative Program supports innovative startups in Africa and offers them funding and guidance to scale and For more information on the Telecel Group program, visit http://telecelgroup.com



About the Africa Startup Initiative Program

Africa Startup Initiative Program (ASIP) is a Telecel Group social investment Accelerator Program to develop and scale the next generation of tech businesses and entrepreneurs for the African continent. Targeting Tech startups with an emphasis on the African market, the Africa Startup Initiative Program aims to help its target beneficiaries redefine their business models and scale up with the right investment and guidance. The initiative created the first virtual accelerator program launched across Africa and has a range of exciting and successful startups from several African countries. www.asiprogram.com



About Startupbootcamp AfriTech

Startupbootcamp AfriTech was launched in 2017 as the first multi corporate-backed pan-African startup accelerator. They run world-class accelerator programs, work with some of the most disruptive startups on the African continent, and provide access to a global network of corporate partners, investors, and mentors. For more information visit http://bit.ly/sbcafritech









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 National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Wa West, Mr. Peter Lanchene Toobu has accused government of trying to cow the Minority Members in Parliament into submission by dragging Hon Cassiel Ato Forson to court.



The Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Enyan-Esiam, Cassiel Ato Forson together with two others, has been dragged to the High Court on five counts of willfully causing financial loss to the state, contravening the Procurement Act, and misapplying public property.



According to the facts of the case, Dr Ato Forson, who doubles as the Ranking Member of the Finance Committee of Parliament executed a contract by the government of Ghana to purchase some 200 ambulances for the National Ambulance Service when he was a Deputy Finance Minister under the erstwhile Mahama administration.



Despite the granting of a medium-term loan facility of 15.8 million for the 200 ambulances, only 10 were shipped to Ghana in 2014.



A post-delivery inspection of the first batch of 10 ambulances revealed that same were without any medical equipment in them. Other fundamental defects included defects on the body of the vehicles and the patient compartment of the ambulances, the writ noted.



However, the Wa West MP says it's an attempt to silence the "vociferous" minority MPs.



Speaking in an interview on Neat FM's Me Man Nti programme, he defended the MP "insisting he's done nothing wrong. he was a deputy minister you only take instructions from the substantive minister...this one is just an attempt to cow people; an attempt to silence the vociferous minority in Parliament. Ato Forson was a deputy Minister and took instructions from his minister..."



Listen to him in the video below





Meanwhile, Dr. Ato Forson has been granted a self-reconnaissance bail to the tune of three (3) million Ghana cedis.He is to file his disclosure by February 8, 2022, and return on February 15 for Case Management Conference.

Source: 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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Member of Parliament for Sekondi, Andrew Egyapa Mercer has lambasted the Minority in Parliament for claiming the withdrawal of the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin's military protection is politically motivated and geared towards gagging him.



The Minority led by its leader, Haruna Iddrisu, have expressed disgust over the order for four soldiers who were guarding the Speaker to return to base.



Accoridng to a letter signed by Major General Nicholas Peter Andoh, the Chief of Staff at the General Headquarters of GAF, the soldiers were "attached to the Office of the Right Honourable Speaker of Parliament without the proper procedure".



The Chief of Staff therefore requested the ''personnel are withdrawn with effect from 14 January 2022 while efforts are made to regularise their attachment''.



To the Minority, ''the only reason given for the shameful withdrawal of Mr Speakers security detail is that the attachment was done without following the proper procedure''.



They added; ''Curiously, the government fails and/or omits to spell out the procedure for the attachment of military personnel to high profile personalities such as the Speaker of Parliament. If the action of the military high command is in good faith, the irregularity in relation to the attachment could be rectified without necessarily having to withdraw the personnel...the minority is certain that the action of the military high command relative to the withdrawal of Mr Speakers security detail is politically motivated and calculated to diminish his confidence in his bid to impartially and independently steer the affairs of the legislative arm of government.''



Responding to the Minority's claims, Lawyer Egyapa Mercer was of a strong view that they have taken such position on the Speaker's issue because of the controversial e-levy proposed by the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, which they strongly oppose.



According to him, the Minority just wants to stir political emotions.



''The entrenched position that they have taken is borne out of their political interest, not the interest of Ghanaians'', he told host Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo''.



On the claim that the government is gagging the Speaker, he said ''the Speaker is not a Member of Parliament. He doesn't participate in our voting'' and so asked ''the government wants to gag him to achieve what?''





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.

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Former Head of Monitoring Unit of the Forestry Commission, Charles Owusu has added his voice to discussions on the return of E-levy to Parliament.



"It's not about the payment of the money but what it will be used for. Government seems to be creating the impression that the E-levy will solve all our problems; that seems to be the idea...they need to come clear for Ghanaians to really understand" he told sit-in host Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM's morning show 'Kokrokoo'



Government recently suggested that the Electronic Transaction bill will be resubmitted to Parliament for approval despite the minority's insistence that the rate of 1.75 should be reduced.



Meanwhile, Majority leader Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu says the bill has already been approved.



Addressing a capacity building workshop organized for the Majority Caucus in Parliament and some Ministers of State, on January 22, he said: it is a difficulty for me when people are kicking against the e-levy when you know that in the adoption of the motion to approve the budget, we approved of that. So, it means that the first step has already been surmounted...then the e-levy has been factored into the various estimates that we have approved for all the sectors. That is the second thing we did. The third step is when we encapsulated everything into the Appropriation Bill and passed the Bill unanimously. What does it mean, you have approved of the E-levy.



Listen to him in the video below





Source: 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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Genetic material found in permafrost sediments from the Yukon contains rich information about ancient ecosystems. Credit: Julius Csotonyi/Government of Yukon

In 2010, small cores of permafrost sediments were collected by a team at the University of Alberta from gold mines in the Klondike region of central Yukon. They had remained in cold storage until paleogeneticists at the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre applied new genomics techniques to better understand the global extinction of megafauna that had culminated in North America some 12,700 years ago.

These tiny sediment samples contain an immense wealth of ancient environmental DNA from innumerable plants and animals that lived in those environments over millennia. These genetic microfossils originate from all components of an ecosystemincluding bacteria, fungi, plants and animalsand serve as a time capsule of long-lost ecosystems, such as the mammoth-steppe, which disappeared around 13,000 years ago.

How exactly these ecosystems restructured so significantly, and why large animals seem to have been the most impacted by this shift has been an active area of scientific debate since the 18th century.

We can now use environmental DNA to help fill the gaps that have driven this debate.

Ancient DNA, cutting-edge technologies

Bacterial, fungal and unidentifiable DNA make up over 99.99 percent of an environmental sample. In our case, we wanted a way to selectively recover the much smaller fraction of ancient plant and animal DNA that would help us better understand the collapse of the mammoth-steppe ecosystem.

For my doctoral research, I was part of a team that developed a a new technique to extract, isolate, sequence and identify tiny fragments of ancient DNA from sediment.

Synthesis of dated bones, ancient environmental DNA and archaeological sites in Yukon and Alaska. Credit: Tyler J. Murchie

We analyzed these DNA fragments to track the shifting cast of plants and animals that lived in central Yukon over the past 30,000 years. We found evidence for the late survival of woolly mammoths and horses in the Klondike region, some 3,000 years later than expected.

We then expanded our analysis to include 21 previously collected permafrost cores from four sites in the Klondike region that date between 4,000 to 30,000 years ago.

With current technologies, we not only could identify which organisms a set of genetic microfossils came from. But we were also able to reassemble those fragments into genomes to study their evolutionary historiessolely from sediment.

Tremendous environmental change

The Pleistocene-Holocene transition, which occurred about 11,700 years ago, was a period of tremendous change across the globe. In eastern Beringia (the former Eurasian land bridge and unglaciated regions of Yukon and Alaska), this period saw the collapse of the mammoth-steppe biome and its gradual replacement with the boreal forest as we know it today.

This brought about the loss of iconic ice age megaherbivores like the woolly mammoth, Yukon horse, and steppe bison, along with predators such as the American scimitar cat and Beringian lion, among many others.

We found ancient environmental DNA from a diverse spectrum of ancient fauna, including woolly mammoths, horses, steppe bison, caribou, rodents, birds and many other animals.

An evolutionary tree showing the location and relationship of horses and their relatives with genomes reconstructed from bones and sediment. Credit: Tyler J.Murchie, Author provided

We were also able to observe how ecosystems shifted with the rise of woody shrubs around 13,500 years ago, and how that correlated with a decline of DNA from woolly mammoths, horses and steppe bison. With this remarkably rich dataset, we observed four main findings.

There was a surprising consistency in the signal between sites, suggesting our data was representative of ecological trends in the region. Woolly mammoth DNA declines prior to the BllingAllerd warming, a warm period at the end of the last ice age, suggesting that megafaunal losses may have been staggered. Forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) make up a substantial component of the mammoth-steppe ecosystem alongside grasses. There is a consistent signal of woolly mammoth and Yukon horse persistence into the Holocene, as much as 7,000 years after their disappearance from fossil records.

When paired with other records, our genetic reconstructions suggest that the transition out of the last glacial period may have been more drawn out than dated bones alone would suggest.

Mammoths, for example, may have declined in local population abundance thousands of years earlier than other megafauna, which is potentially correlated with the first controversial evidence of humans in the area. Further, grassland grazing animals may have persisted for thousands of years in refugia (habitats that support the existence of an isolated population), despite the environmental shift.

Woolly mammoths alongside humans

Our data suggest that horses and woolly mammoths may have persisted in the Klondike until approximately 9,000 years ago and perhaps as recently as 5,700 years ago, outliving their supposed disappearance from local fossil records by 7,000 years. However, it is possible for ancient environmental DNA to survive erosion and re-deposition, which could mix the genetic signals of different time periods, necessitating a degree of caution in our interpretations.

Until recently, there was no evidence of mammoth survival into the mid-Holocene. But studies have now shown that mammoths survived until 5,500 and 4,000 years ago on Arctic islands.

Researchers in Denmark found evidence of woolly rhinoceroses surviving in Siberia at least 9,800 years ago. Credit: Shutterstock

Researchers at the Centre for GeoGenetics in Copenhagen found evidence for the late survival of horses and mammoths in Alaska until as recently as as 7,900 years ago. They also found evidence of mammoths surviving as recently as 3,900 years ago in Siberia, alongside woolly rhinoceros to at least 9,800 years ago.

Steppe bison, which were thought to have disappeared and been replaced by the American bison during the Pleistocene, have likewise been found to have survived even as recently as perhaps just 400 years ago. We were able to observe the presence of distinct genetic lineages of both woolly mammoths and steppe bison in the same sediment samples, which suggests that there were likely distinct populations of these animals living in the same area.

There is a growing body of evidence that many ice age megafauna probably survived well into recorded human history, roaming the north during the Bronze Age and while builders worked on the pyramids of Egypt.

Genetic archives of our ecological past

The growing sophistication of environmental DNA methods to study ancient genetic microfossils highlights just how much information is buried in sediments.

Permafrost is ideal for preserving ancient DNA, but as this perennially frozen ground thaws and degrades with a warming Arctic, so too will the genetic material preserved within, and the evolutionary mysteries they once held.

Advances in paleogenetics continues to push the boundaries of what was once relegated to science fiction. Who knows what undiscovered evolutionary information remains frozen in ordinary sediments, hidden in microfossils of ancient DNA?

Explore further Ancient DNA found in soil samples reveals mammoths, Yukon wild horses survived thousands of years longer than believed

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Neuroterus valhalla is a newly described species of cynipid gall wasp discovered in the branches of a live oak tree near the Rice University graduate student pub Valhalla. Credit: Miles Zhang/Smithsonian NMNH

Its name sounds legendary, but the newly discovered insect Neuroterus (noo-ROH'-teh-rus) valhalla doesn't look or act the part. It's barely a millimeter long and spends 11 months of the year locked in a crypt.

N. valhalla does have the noteworthy distinction of being the first insect species to be described alongside its fully sequenced genome, and the Rice University researchers who discovered it are preparing to see how the tiny, nonstinging wasps may have been impacted by Houston's historic February 2021 freeze.

N. valhalla is described in a paper published this month in Systematic Entomology. Its name is an homage to where it was discovered: just outside the Rice graduate student pub Valhalla.

"It would have been a missed opportunity to not call it something related to Rice or Valhalla," said graduate student Pedro Brandao-Dias, lead author of the paper, who first collected N. valhalla from the branches of a massive live oak tree near the campus bar in spring 2018.

Brandao, a Brazilian, had never seen an oak tree before visiting Rice in 2015 for an undergraduate research fellowship in the lab of evolutionary biologist Scott Egan, corresponding author of the study. Brandao returned to Egan's group in 2018 for graduate school, and though Brandao's primary research centers on the use of environmental DNA to detect endangered or invasive species, everyone in the lab pitches in each spring to study insects of family Cynipidae. Known as gall wasps, they're a favorite of Egan's group because they can be collected from the live oak trees that blanket Rice's 300-acre campus. In Egan's eight years at Rice, his lab has discovered at least as many new species of either gall wasps or predators that attack them.

"At Rice, we emphasize learning by doing," Egan said. "In my lab, undergraduate and graduate students share in the experiential learning process by studying biologically diverse ecosystems on the live oaks right outside our front door. Armed with some patience and a magnifying glass, the discoveries are endless."

N. valhalla and other gall wasps trick their host tree into feeding and sheltering their young. The wasps lay a biochemical cocktail along with their eggs. The chemicals coax the tree to form a crypt, or gall, around the egg. The gall shelters the egg and feeds larvae that hatch from it.

There are almost 1,000 known species of gall wasps. Some emerge from spherical brown galls that form on the underside of oak leaves. Others form galls inside branches and others on the trees' flowers, which is where Brandao first collected N. valhalla.

"Once they emerge, they only live three or four days," Brandao said of the tiny insects. "They don't eat. Their only purpose is to mate and lay eggs."

One reason it took almost four years to describe the new species is that N. valhallalike many other gallerslays eggs two times a year. Finding where N. valhalla laid its eggs in its alternating generation took a bit of time.

Brandao and labmates first noticed N. valhalla on the big tree outside Valhalla while they were collecting live oak flowers, or catkins, in late February and early March of 2018. They were looking for another species of galler that was known to form galls on the flowers. When DNA tests revealed two species, the researchers took a closer look at their catch and noticed a few smaller insects with lighter colored legs.

"They lay their eggs into the catkins that are developing," Brandao said of N. valhalla. "They develop in galls on the flowers, and then they emerge. And that happens in March. But the flowers are a one-time thing each year, and by the time they emerge, there are no more flowers for them to lay eggs on. So they have to lay eggs on a different tissue."

Artists illustration of the lifecycle of Neuroterus valhalla, a cynipid gall wasp that uses chemicals to induce live oak trees to grow protective crypts, or galls, around its eggs. N. valhalla females (A and D2) lay twice per year in alternating generations at different locations on trees. One generation emerges in February or March, laying eggs in live oak flowers (B) and inducing galls (C1) where adults will emerge in 2-3 weeks. These lay eggs at branching stem nodes (E), inducing galls (F1) from which adults will emerge 11 months later. Ecologists discovered N. valhalla at Rice University, and have yet to find a male member of the species (center). Credit: Barbara Rossi

Egan said alternating generations of gallers have often been mistaken for new species in the past. Genomic testing combined with detailed observations in nature was crucial for determining N. valhalla was a unique species. Finding out where the insects went in their alternate generation took both luck and hard work.

Kelly Weinersmith, an adjunct assistant professor of biosciences, and collaborators at the University of Iowa got the lucky break in 2019. Weinersmith sampled galls from a Florida live oak species that differed from the Rice trees where N. valhalla was found. Weinersmith sent samples from the Florida trip to Iowa collaborators Andrew Forbes and Anna Ward, who noticed two distinct kinds of wasps were emerging from cryptic gall swellings at branch junctions. DNA tests showed the unknown wasps were the missing generation of N. valhalla.

"To confirm where they were going after they left the flowers, I performed an experiment where we offered the wasps a bunch of different tissues from the tree and observed them," Brandao said. The idea was to watch N. valhalla that had just emerged from catkin crypts at Rice and catch them in the act of laying their eggs into a different part of the plant.

With COVID-19 restrictions limiting how many people could be in laboratories on campus in early 2020, a lot of the work fell to Rice undergraduate Camila Vinson, who was living on campus in Brown College.

"We would go out together and collect the catkin galls and tissues for the behavioral tests in petri dishes, but she had to go everyday to the lab to see if any bugs had emerged," Brandao said. Vinson both cataloged and collected samples of wasps that emerged from the catkins and "did the observation experiment where we'd put the bugs into a petri dish with a bunch of tissues and then watch to see where they go," Brandao said.

"Because this was during COVID, I took some of them back home and put them in the microscope and took pictures with my phone," he said.

The team confirmed the petri dish findings by examining trees where they'd previously collected N. valhalla. They found both emergence holes from old crypts and more than a dozen galls that still contained larval N. valhalla.

Brandao said the N. valhalla generation that hatches in live oak catkins goes from eggs to fully formed adults in 2-3 weeks. The cycle takes 11 months for the generation that grows inside branches.

"If they come out at the wrong time, and there's no flowers around, they can't lay their eggs and they just die," Brandao said. "They have to come out at the exact time the tree's flowering."

The trees flower at different times from year to year, and it isn't clear how the wasps coordinate their emergence with flowering. Vinson was the first to pose the question of how N. valhalla might be affected by February 2021's winter storm, which caused record cold temperatures and delayed live oak flowering across Houston.

"The day the freeze happened I asked Pedro, "Is this going to mess up when they come out or their ability to even reproduce?'" she recalled. Brandao circulated the question to an international group of gall wasp researchers. All agreed it was worthy of follow-up. So Vinson decided to tackle it for her senior thesis. She said it's part of a bigger question about how climate change will affect specialized insects like gall wasps.

"Our gall wasps live on live oaks from the southern United States all the way down through Mexico," Vinson said. "Those environments are not used to the sorts of temperatures we had last February. And those sorts of freezes are probably going to happen more and more frequently with climate change.

"The big question is, "Are these populations going to be in danger, or can they quickly adapt? Do they have strategies that mesh well with a changing climate?'" she said.

Explore further Crypt-keeper wasp found to parasitize multiple species of gall wasp

More information: Pedro F. P. BrandaoDias et al, Describing biodiversity in the genomics era: A new species of Nearctic Cynipidae gall wasp and its genome, Systematic Entomology (2022). Pedro F. P. BrandaoDias et al, Describing biodiversity in the genomics era: A new species of Nearctic Cynipidae gall wasp and its genome,(2022). DOI: 10.1111/syen.12521
After hours of video meetings, employees often need to take a breather mid-day. Credit: Unsplash

A number of countries have recently introduced legislation giving employees the legal right to disconnect electronically from work. Originating in France, right-to-disconnect initiatives mandate that organizations cannot expect employees to be available outside of their established working hours.

This legislation has now expanded to Ireland, Canada, Spain and other countries.

However, by maintaining a focus on a set of established working hours during which employees must be available, the right to disconnect simply takes the physical time clock off the wall and figuratively puts it into the cloud. Although an important initiative, a greater focus on employee autonomy is needed to maximize the benefits intended by these laws.

Although the right to disconnect may foster high performance by allowing employees to recharge their batteries, the major intent is to promote employees' work-life balance by allowing them to disengage from work, handle different responsibilities and ensure their well-being. Right-to-disconnect laws signal a greater focus on employee well-being, and a rejection of the idea that workers need to be "always on."

Limitations of the right to disconnect

But right-to-disconnect legislation has limitations. It focuses on specific hours employees are free to disconnect and establishes a window during which they must be accessible.

However, establishing working hours during which employees must be available is a holdover from the industrial age when the value of employees was based on the inputs they providedphysical labor, for example. It fails to recognize that the value of today's employees is often based on their outputs, including creative work.

However, when organizations implement policies that allow employees the freedom to choose for themselves when and how to disconnect, the well-being and performance benefits of disconnecting are maximized.

For example, someone working at home may choose to disconnect in order to go for a run at 2 p.m. and then work at 8 p.m., after their kids are asleep. Also, different people operate more effectively at different times of the day.

Similarly, an employee completing a series of intense meetings might want to take a break before re-engaging in work. Giving employees the right to disconnect on their own terms may be the best formula for promoting both performance and well-being.

Fostering autonomy

These benefits can be maximized when work is designed to provide employees with an appropriately high level of autonomy, which refers to the discretion employees have over how, when and, increasingly, where they complete their work tasks. Numerous classic and contemporary studies demonstrate the value of employee autonomy.

For example, research shows that employees who have the freedom to choose how to structure their workday and schedule their tasks (work-scheduling autonomy) have higher levels of work engagement and innovative work behavior.

Other studies indicate that allowing employees to make decisions (decision-making autonomy) and choose for themselves how to perform tasks (work-method autonomy) reduces mental strain, increases work motivation and improves job performance.

Similarly, research shows that when employees have the discretion to choose where to work (location autonomy) they select environments that promote both their productivity and well-being.

As these studies demonstrate, there are a variety of forms of autonomy. Employee well-being and performance will be enhanced if greater autonomy, of various types, is built into right-to-disconnect initiatives.

In structuring work this way, organizations effectively separate work hours from work outputs and focus squarely on results rather than the time clock. Doing so also reduces concerns over how to manage employees remotely.

Overseeing an employee's work behavior may not, in fact, be necessary as long as workers are generating outputs on time, within budget and at an acceptable level of quality. As long as employees are meeting organizational objectives, when, how and where they work may be largely immaterial.

Limits to autonomy

Different jobs have different levels and forms of autonomy they support. For instance, an emergency room nurse cannot choose to work from home or independently decide when to arrive at the hospital for a shift. The relationship between autonomy and work outcomes may vary depending on the nature of the work and the employer.

Issues such as the nature of the work, co-ordination requirements, dealing with deadlines or crises, work standards and employee tenure should all be considered in deciding how much autonomy is warranted. But the general principle should be to provide as much autonomy as a job will allow and support employees in their exercise of it.

Additionally, work groups should have the opportunity to establish the parameters of autonomy themselves and revisit this issue on a regular basis.

The right to disconnect is an issue that has emerged due to technological developments that have allowed organizations to keep employees tethered to work 24/7. Implementing this right effectively requires overcoming the industrial age mentality that imposes constraints on employee autonomy that are unnecessary, and possibly counterproductive, in the modern age.

The best way to help employees disconnect from work is to allow them the autonomy to choose for themselves how, when and where to disconnect.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Graphical abstract. Credit: DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2021.11.001

Researchers from Hokkaido University have proposed a framework to assist in the demarcation between genetically modified organisms and genome-edited organisms, taking into account both scientific and socio-ethical considerations.

Producers have been breeding plants and animals for desired traits, including higher yields, better taste and flavor, and disease resistance for millennia. With the advent of techniques to manipulate DNA in the 1970s, genetic recombination between different species became feasible. Genetic recombination is used in the creation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), such as plants and animals that contain genes from another species. Following more recent technical developments, genome-edited organisms (GEOs)organisms whose genomes are more directly changed to obtain desired traitshave also been developed.

Megumi Ishii and Tetsuya Ishii from the Office of Health and Safety at Hokkaido University have provided a detailed, clearer framework for distinguishing between agricultural GMOs and GEOs, featuring scientific, ethical and social considerations. Their work was published in the journal Trends in Biotechnology.

There are ethical concerns involved in the introduction of DNA from one species into another unrelated species (exogenous DNA), including risks to human health and the environment. As a result, most countries have enacted laws that regulate the creation and use of GMOs. Currently, several countriesJapan excludedhave commercially cultivated GM crops for food; however, globally, only a few GM animals have been approved for food consumption.

Creating GEOs with genome-editing techniques, such as CRISPR/Cas9, involves a more direct use of DNA-cutting enzymes within cells. Most GE plants and animals are created without containing exogenous DNA, and so the ethical concerns about exogenous DNA do not normally apply to them. From a legal standpoint, a handful of countries consider GEOs to be GMOs. On the other hand, several countries, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Japan and U.S., have regulations distinguishing between the two based on the existence of exogenous DNA; however, those regulators assess the non-existence of exogenous DNA in GEOs on a case-by-case basis. Fundamentally, genome-editing could unintentionally cause genetic recombination if exogenous DNA is present in any part of the process.

The authors set out to provide a detailed framework that included both scientific, ethical and social considerations, to make a clearer distinction between the two. Even in those countries where the legal distinction between the two already exists, this framework will enhance the reliability of the relevant regulations.

Depending on the method used to create GEOs, they may contain exogenous DNA, which has a chance of being integrated into the organism. Hence, within the framework, if there is no exogenous DNA involved in the process, the resulting GEO can safely be considered as distinct from a GMO.

However, if the reagents or culture medium contain exogenous DNA, then the resulting GEO must be rigorously tested for the absence of exogenous DNA in the genome. This may be done by first determining spots in the genome where exogenous DNA is likely to be integrated. Those regions are then analyzed by multiple complementary assays, such as target DNA sequencing, whole genome sequencing and genomic Southern blots. If exogenous DNA is found, the GEO shall be considered a GMO.

According to the authors, the proposed framework also requires ethical and social considerations before widely implementing policies to exempt GEOs from GMO regulation. A cost-benefit analysis, weighing the potential benefits of adopting a GE crop or animal against the potential harms to humans, the environment and animal welfare. Depending on the considerations, the regulatory bodies may apply a simplified test to detect exogenous DNA. However, the final regulatory decision must be made based on informed public consultation and social consensus.

Explore further Pseudobulbs: sink for exogenous nitrogen in epiphytic orchids

More information: Megumi Ishii et al, Proving that a genome-edited organism is not GMO, Trends in Biotechnology (2021). Journal information: Trends in Biotechnology Megumi Ishii et al, Proving that a genome-edited organism is not GMO,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.tibtech.2021.11.001
Distribution of the joint impacts of climate change on cereal yields in Tibet from 1993 to 2017 based on the fixed-effects model. Credit: Shi Wenjiao

Food supply has always been a major concern in Tibet's development. As the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is particularly sensitive to climate change, it is important to clarify the impact of climate change on the yield of cereal, the main crop in Tibet.

Prof. SHI Wenjiao's team at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has found that the climate change positively affects the cereal yields with a rise of 1.5 percent to 4.8 percent. Relevant results were published on Journal of Geographical Sciences on Jan. 6.

The researchers adopted datasets of meteorological stations and statistical yearbooks and used three types of statistical models to assess the impacts of climate change (minimum temperature, precipitation, growing degree days and solar radiation, etc.) on cereal yields in Tibet from 1993 to 2017 at the county, prefecture-level city and autonomous region scales.

Ding Rui, the first author, a graduate student supervised by Prof. Shi, conducted the analysis. Results indicated that the impacts of climate change on cereal yields in Tibet were generally positive. Cereal yields in Tibet were more sensitive to temperature (minimum temperature and growing degree days) than precipitation and solar radiation.

In addition, the greatest impacts of minimum temperature, precipitation, and growing degree days were in Lhasa, whereas the greatest impacts of solar radiation were in Shannan. The fixed-effects model was the most robust among the three models adopted.

These results are helpful for implementing more spatially targeted agricultural adaptation measures to cope with the impacts of climate change on agricultural ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau.

Explore further Winter important for cereal yield

More information: Rui Ding et al, Contributions of climate change to cereal yields in Tibet, 19932017, Journal of Geographical Sciences (2022). Rui Ding et al, Contributions of climate change to cereal yields in Tibet, 19932017,(2022). DOI: 10.1007/s11442-022-1938-0#citeas
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

More than 70 million tons of carbon were prevented from being released into the atmosphere under a deforestation emissions reduction scheme in Indonesiabut researchers point out this is only 3 percent of the total required by Indonesia's Nationally Defined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement.

Indonesia is home to the world's third largest span of tropical rainforest and is one of the largest greenhouse gas emittersfrom 2000-2016 it was responsible for around a quarter of global emissions from deforestation, forest degradation, peatland decomposition and fires.

In 2011 Norway began a partnership with Indonesia to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation through a moratorium on granting new licences for palm oil, logging and timber concessions.

The partnership, part of the international framework for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) established at COP13, saw Norway pledge $1billion to Indonesia as a performance based payment for carbon emissions reductions in the forestry sector. Under the REDD+ approach Norway committed to pay $5 per ton of carbon if the forest-rich tropical country reduced its emissions from deforestation.

The study, by a group of researchers including Professor Ben Groom, Dragon Capital Chair in Biodiversity Economics at the University of Exeter Business School, analyzed the effectiveness of the scheme, and asked whether Norway received good carbon value for its money.

The researchers compared satellite data from 2004-2018 on forest cover inside the moratorium area, initially spanning 69 million hectares of forest land, with a control area outside the moratorium.

They divided forest cover throughout Indonesia into 400,000 grid squares and then matched grid squares inside and outside the moratorium area, ensuring they were comparing similar areas of forested land. The impact was measured by comparing trends before and after the 2010 moratorium.

The researchers calculated that the moratorium had resulted in 67.8-86.9 million tons of carbon emissions reductions, with dryland forest inside the moratorium area having on average 0.65% higher forest cover compared with similar areas outside the moratorium.

But on peatlands, which are huge natural stores of carbon, the study found that the moratorium had zero effect.

The researchers said that while they found the scheme had been moderately successfully, the impact was "tiny" compared with the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for carbon reduction set out in the Paris Agreement.

"Our estimates suggest a 3-4 percent annual contribution to Indonesia's NDC of a 29% emissions reduction by 2030, which is only a small dent in Indonesia's overall commitment," said Professor Groom.

"This is a problem because in Indonesia around 65 percent of emissions are from forest areas so the forest sector is a very important place to stop emissions coming from if they're going to meet their NDC commitments for the Paris Agreement.

"The scale of the finance needs to be much bigger for implementation to be effective."

In 2019 Norway agreed to pay Indonesia $56.2 million for preventing the estimated emission of 11.23 million tons of carbon in 2017.

This estimate of performance used the average deforestation rates for the whole of Indonesia rather than just the moratorium area, so is not an accurate measure of whether the program was effective, said the researchers.

Using well-established policy impact methods to estimate carbon emissions reductions, the researchers calculated that over the period 2011-17 the moratorium was more effective than this calculation suggests, meaning that for $56m Norway effectively bought carbon emissions reductions at a rate of less than $1 per ton.

"We find that Norway should probably been paying a lot more because the impact starts much earlier, from 2013 we estimate some modest but statistically significant changes, yet the payment was only calculated for 2017, with no proper counterfactual." said Professor Groom.

While the carbon pricing was a "good deal" for Norway and global emissions reductions, Professor Groom adds that the agreement, which ended in 2021, could be seen as unfair towards Indonesia.

"Norway is looking for ways to invest its wealth by investing in this global public good: carbon emissions reductions. In the end there should be more efforts like Norway's in the world.

"However, the global benefits of mitigating climate change, which economists measure using the social cost of carbon, is far greater than the $5 per ton they were payingthe US government uses $50 per ton, New York State $125 per ton, many argue it is higher still so while Norway got a good deal, and cost-effective carbon policy is important, it wasn't necessarily fair from an Indonesian perspective not to get a greater share of the global benefits. Maybe perceptions of fairness were driving the failure in this otherwise positive bilateral arrangement"

"Carbon emissions reductions from Indonesia's Moratorium on forest concessions are cost-effective yet contribute little to Paris pledges" was co-authored with Dr. Charles Palmer and Lorenzo Sileci both at the Department of Geography and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Explore further Efforts to restore Indonesian peatlands could save billions in wildfire costs

More information: Carbon emissions reductions from Indonesia's moratorium on forest concessions are cost-effective yet contribute little to Paris pledges, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Carbon emissions reductions from Indonesia's moratorium on forest concessions are cost-effective yet contribute little to Paris pledges,(2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102613119
Hippopotamus with its mouth open. Credit: Nicolas Mathevon

Hippopotamuses are rather vocal animals. Their "wheeze honk" calls can be heard over long distances, leading researchers to suspect the calls play an important role in maintaining social groups. Now, a study in the journal Current Biology on January 24 shows that hippos recognize each other's voices. They also respond less aggressively to the calls of a neighbor compared to those of a stranger.

"We found that the vocalizations of a stranger individual induced a stronger behavioral response than those produced by individuals from either the same or a neighboring group," says Nicolas Mathevon of University of Saint-Etienne, France. "In addition to showing that hippos are able to identify conspecifics based on vocal signatures, our study highlights that hippo groups are territorial entities that behave less aggressively toward their neighbors than toward strangers."

Mathevon and his colleagues are interested in bioacoustics, the study of how animals exchange information through sound. They're especially interested in communication networks, in which multiple individuals send and receive information all at once.

Hippos are tough animals to study because it can be difficult to identify and locate individuals. The researchers managed it by working in the Maputo Special Reserve, Mozambique, an area that includes several lakes inhabited by hippos.

First, Mathevon and his team recorded calls representative of each hippo group. Then, the researchers played the recordings back to all the other hippos to see how they'd react to the calls of their own group (familiar) versus another group from the same lake (neighbor) or a more distant group (stranger).

A hippo's "wheeze honk" call. Credit: Nicolas Mathevon

The researchers found that hippos respond to hearing a played-back call by responding vocally, approaching, and/or spraying dung. Interestingly, the response varied depending on whether they were hearing hippos that they knew or ones they didn't.

The overall intensity of the hippos' response grew when they heard a stranger. The hippos were also more likely to spray dung, a territorial marking behavior, when they heard the sound of a hippo that didn't belong to their group.

When the hippos are in the water, they look pretty inactive, Mathevon explains. But these results show that they really are paying close attention to their surroundings. When they heard the call of another hippo played from the shore, they responded right away. "The responses to the sound signals we broadcast were very clear, and we did not expect that," he says.

The findings offer useful insights into hippo communication and social groups. They also have important implications for conservation policy, the researchers say. For instance, they explain, animals often are relocated to maintain local populations at healthy sizes. But the findings suggest that precautions are needed before making that kind of move.

A group of hippos responds vocally to the recorded calls of other hippos. Credit: Nicolas Mathevon

"Before relocating a group of hippos to a new location, one precaution might be to broadcast their voices from a loudspeaker to the groups already present so that they become accustomed to them and their aggression gradually decreases," Mathevon says. "Reciprocity, in which the animals to be moved become accustomed to the voices of their new neighbors before they arrive, could also be considered."

In future studies, the researchers hope to learn more about what hippos communicate through their calls. They'll explore how they recognize the sound of other hippos and whether the voices give away other characteristics, such as size, sex, or age.

Explore further Could hippos be meat eaters?
Children and tourists rejoiced after Istanbul was hit by its first snowstorm of the winter.

Europe's busiest airport shut down in Istanbul on Monday while schools and vaccination centres closed in Athens as a rare snowstorm blanketed swathes of the eastern Mediterranean, causing blackouts and traffic havoc.

The closure of Istanbul Airportwhere the roof of one of the cargo terminals collapsed under heavy snow, causing no injuriesgrounded flights stretching from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and Asia.

Travel officials told AFP it marked the glass-and-steel structure's first shutdown since it replaced Istanbul's old Ataturk Airport as the new hub for Turkish Airlines in 2019.

The winter's first snow created a fun atmosphere across the squares of Istanbul's ancient mosques, where children built snowmen and tourists posed for selfies.

But it proved a major headache for the 16 million residents of Turkey's largest city, where cars ploughed into each other skidding down steep, sleet-covered streets and highways turned into parking lots.

The Istanbul governor's office warned drivers they would not be able to enter the city from Thracea region stretching across the European part of Turkey to its western border with Bulgaria and Greece.

Shopping malls closed early, food delivery services shut down and the city's iconic "simit" bagel stalls stood empty because suppliers could not get through the snow.

Snow has been falling on the Turkish capital Ankara for days, briefly shutting down the highway connecting it to Istanbul.

The storm blocked roads across central and southeastern Turkey before crossing into neighbouring Syria, where it piled more misery on the war-scarred country's northern refugee camps.

Istanbul Airport serviced more than 37 million passengers last year, becoming one of the world's most important air hubs.

But critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had long questioned his decision to place the airport on a remote patch along the Black Sea coast that is often covered with fog in winter.

"Due to adverse conditions, all flights have been temporarily stopped for air safety," the airport said in a statement, posting pictures on Twitter of yellow snowploughs circling stranded aircraft.

The airport extended its suspension twice, saying late Monday that service would not resume before 4:00 am (0100 GMT) Tuesday.

Temperatures plunged to -14 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in Athens, where schools and vaccination centres closed.

'Everything is frozen'

Most of Turkey's main institutions stayed open.

But in Greece, where overnight temperatures plummeted to -14 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit), the storm suspended a session of parliament and forced schools and vaccination centres to close in Athens.

Hundreds of motorists were trapped in cars around the capitalmany of them venting their anger on TV stationsdespite attempts by police to seal off motorway entry points to the north of the city.

"My wife has had nothing to eat since morning. We had a small bottle of water between us," one driver who identified himself only as Christos told private Star TV.

"Everything is frozen stiff."

The army, firefighters and police began work to free the stranded motorists in the early evening.

Greece's climate crisis and civil protection minister Christos Stylianides apologised for the chaos and blamed the company managing the motorway for not keeping it open.

A newlywed couple from the United States enjoyed the snowfall during a photo shoot in Athens.

A cold snap with sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds last hit Athens in February 2021, killing four people on the islands of Evia and Crete and leaving tens of thousands of households without electricity for days.

Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens, told ANT1 TV that the capital had not seen back-to-back winters like this since 1968.

The snow uncharacteristically fell on several Aegean Sea islands, isolating some mountain villages on Andros, Naxos and Tinos, and covering beaches in Mykonos, in summer a party island.

Explore further Severe weather brings snow to Athens, Greek islands

 2022 AFP
Scanning transmission electron microscopy images of catalysts metallic copper (yellow) and zinc oxide (pink/orange). In the image on the left, metallic Cu and Zn oxide are mostly present as separate particles after activation with H2. The image on the right shows Zn oxide decorating metallic Cu particles after induced activation with H 2 /CH 3 OH/H 2 O. Credit: of Xuan Tang and Prof. Sheng Dai, East China University of Science and Technology

The science of catalysisthe acceleration of a chemical reactionis perhaps not the most recognizable branch of study, but it is absolutely embedded into the fabric of modern society.

The development and production of fuels, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and other goods depend on catalysis. Catalysis plays a critical role in energy generation and the mitigation of humanity's impact on the environment, and is involved in the manufacturing of some 25 percent of all industrial products in the U.S. From a consumer's perspective, if a thing is made, worn, lived in, played with, driven upon, or otherwise used by people, catalysis likely plays a fundamental role in its origin story.

Research in the field of catalysis enables new and improved products and more efficient ways of doing and manufacturing, well, just about everything. But with such deep entanglement in the world around us, advancement in industrial catalysis can be costly in a macroeconomic sensewholesale changes that require a "rip and replace" strategy do not sit well with firms and supply chains that power and provision our modern economy.

In a paper published online today (20 January 2022) in Nature Catalysis, researchers from Lehigh University, in collaboration with colleagues from the East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST), propose a novel method of significantly enhancing the catalytic efficiency of materials already in broad commercial usage, a process they have termed "induced activation."

The article, "Induced activation of the commercial Cu/ZnO/Al 2 O 3 catalyst for the steam reforming of methanol," The research team, supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, includes Israel E. Wachs, the G. Whitney Snyder Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University, Ph.D. student Tiancheng Pu of Lehigh's Operando Molecular Spectroscopy and Catalysis Research Lab, and Minghui Zhu, a 2016 Lehigh Ph.D. who now serves as a professor of chemical engineering at ECUST. Other collaborating ECUST researchers include Didi Li, Fang Xu, Xuan Tang, Sheng Dai, Xianglin Liu, Pengfei Tian, Fuzhen Xuan, and Zhi Xu.

Induced activation: A game-changer in the control of catalytic surface

"The surface structure of heterogeneous catalysts is closely associated with their catalytic performance," explains Wachs. "Current efforts for structural modification mainly focus on improving catalyst synthesis. Induced activation, on the other hand, takes a different approachmanipulating the catalyst surface by controlling the composition of reducing agents at the catalyst activation stage where the catalyst is transformed to its optimum state."

The team says that the use of the "tried and true" industrial catalytic material copper/zinc oxide/aluminum oxide (Cu/ZnO/AlO 3 ) enables firms to take advantage of the breakthrough without the need for a costly retooling.

"This development effectively doubles the catalytic efficiency of these materials, enhancing their productivity and extending the life of the catalyst," Wachs says. "And importantly, induced activation can provide significant benefit to industry without shutting down a chemical plantor the building of a new and costly one."

Explore further Catalyst surface analysed at atomic resolution

More information: Didi Li et al, Induced activation of the commercial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst for the steam reforming of methanol, Nature Catalysis (2022). Journal information: Nature Catalysis Didi Li et al, Induced activation of the commercial Cu/ZnO/Al2O3 catalyst for the steam reforming of methanol,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41929-021-00729-4
A view of Mars south pole. Research led by The University of Texas at Austin found that a 2018 discovery of liquid water under the Red Planets south polar cap is most likely just radar reflecting from volcanic rock. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

Liquid water previously detected under Mars' ice-covered south pole is probably just a dusty mirage, according to a new study of the red planet led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

Scientists in 2018 had thought they were looking at liquid water when they saw bright radar reflections under the polar cap. However, the new study published Jan. 24 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the reflections matched those of volcanic plains found all over the red planet's surface.

The researchers think their conclusionvolcanic rock buried under iceis a more plausible explanation for the 2018 discovery, which was already in question after scientists calculated the unlikely conditions needed to keep water in a liquid state at Mars' cold, arid south pole.

"For water to be sustained this close to the surface, you need both a very salty environment and a strong, locally generated heat source, but that doesn't match what we know of this region," said the study's lead author, Cyril Grima, a planetary scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).

The south polar mirage dissolved when Grima added an imaginary global ice sheet across a radar map of Mars. The imaginary ice showed how Mars' terrains would appear when looked at through a mile of ice, allowing scientists to compare features across the entire planet with those under the polar cap.

Grima noticed bright reflections, just like those seen in the south pole but scattered across all latitudes. In as many as could be confirmed, they matched the location of volcanic plains.

On Earth, iron-rich lava flows can leave behind rocks that reflect radar in a similar way. Other possibilities include mineral deposits in dried riverbeds. Either way, Grima said, figuring out what they are could answer important questions about Mars' history.

A radar map of Mars as seen through a mile of ice. UT Austin planetary scientist, Cyril Grima, built a computer model to cover the Red Planet in ice and observed how it changed the radar data. This caused volcanic plains (seen in red) to reflect radar in a manner that resembled liquid water. The finding challenges a 2018 study that appeared to find liquid water under Mars south polar cap. Credit: Cyril Grima

Although there may not be liquid water trapped under the southern polar cap, there is plenty of water ice on Mars, including in the thick polar caps. In fact, the new study hints at Mars' wetter past.

Isaac Smith, a Mars geophysicist at York University, believes the bright radar signatures are a kind of clay made when rock erodes in water. In 2021, Smith, who was not part of either study, found that Earth-based clays reflected radar brightly, just like the bright spots in the 2018 south pole study.

"I think the beauty of Grima's finding is that while it knocks down the idea there might be liquid water under the planet's south pole today, it also gives us really precise places to go look for evidence of ancient lakes and riverbeds and test hypotheses about the wider drying out of Mars' climate over billions of years," he said.

Grima's map is based on three years of data from MARSIS, a radar instrument launched in 2005 aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express that has accumulated tremendous amounts of information about Mars. Grima and co-author Jeremie Mouginot, a research scientist at the Institute of Environmental Geosciences in Grenoble, France, plan to dig further into the data to see what else MARSIS can turn up about Mars.

For Smith, the study is a sobering lesson on the scientific process that is as relevant to Earth as it is to Mars.

"Science isn't foolproof on the first try," said Smith, who is an alumnus of the Jackson School of Geosciences at UT Austin. "That's especially true in planetary science where we're looking at places no one's ever visited and relying on instruments that sense everything remotely."

Grima and Smith are now working on proposed missions to find water on Mars with radar, both as a resource for future human landing sites and to search for signs of past life.

More information: The Basal Detectability of an Ice-Covered Mars by MARSIS, Geophysical Research Letters (2022). Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters The Basal Detectability of an Ice-Covered Mars by MARSIS,(2022). agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.co  10.1029/2021GL096518
Map show sinkhole distribution in Florida. Credit: Florida International University

New research shows that with special radar satellite technology, it's possible to detect warning signs and pinpoint exact locations where sinkhole activity is happening.

FIU geophysics professor Shimon Wdowinski and his former postdoctoral research fellow Talib Oliver-Cabrera collaborated with a team from University of South Floridaincluding Sarah Kruse and Tonian Robinsonto inspect several areas throughout densely populated West-Central Florida's "Sinkhole Alley."

The team used special radar technology and analysis tools to detect changes in the land and identify the exact areas where land subsidencea common effect of sinkholesis occurring. They found land subsidence is happening at rates of up to a quarter inch a year at various sites in Hernando and Pasco counties.

"Our research shows that with special radar satellite technology, we can monitor large areas for localized subsidence and provide highly valuable warning information that could protect people and their property," Wdowinski said.

Sinkholes are so common in Florida because porous limestone lies below the ground. Rainwater penetrates the soil and dissolves the rocks. When the water causes too many cavities and holes, the soil cover layer move downward into the holes and the ground subsidesand in some cases, it can cave in.

There are different triggers that can make a sinkhole collapse. When it happens, though, it causes major social and economic effects to people, homes, businesses, roads and other infrastructure.

As the study's authors point out, detecting sinkholes is a tremendous challenge. Sinkholes form over underground cavities that can only be detected with geophysical surveys or by drilling into the ground.

Land subsidenceone of the most important clues to sinkhole presencealso cannot be seen by the human eye. But, it can be seen with the help of InSARInterferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar. This special radar technology allows researchers to detect very small changes on Earth's surface. In fact, over time, changes can be detected with millimeter-per-year accuracy.

Once the radar satellite detected ground movements, the team used ground-based technologies, such as ground-penetrating radar, to look for any evidence of sand or soil flowing into cavities in the ground that could later collapse.

These findings also have important and lifesaving implications for Florida, as well as other areas around the world that face the threat of sinkholes.

"While we tested the method only in Hernando and Pasco counties, it would also work in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, and anywhere else with similar construction and vegetation patterns," Kruse said.

The results were recently published in Remote Sensing of Environment.

Explore further Satellite data points to land subsidence in Cartagena

More information: Oliver-Cabrera Talib et al, Detection of sinkhole activity in West-Central Florida using InSAR time series observations, Remote Sensing of Environment (2021). Oliver-Cabrera Talib et al, Detection of sinkhole activity in West-Central Florida using InSAR time series observations,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2021.112793
The brown marmorated stink bug feeding on a cherry. Credit: CABI

A new CABI-led study has examined the relationship between two closely-related natural enemies of the brown marmorated stink bug in respect of how they interact when trying to attack the fruit and nut pest's egg masses.

The brown marmorated stink bug is a global pest which in 2016 caused $60m worth of damage to Georgia's hazelnut (a third of its crop) and in 2010, $37m worth of apples were destroyed in parts of the U.S..

Dr. Tim Haye, an expert on the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) based at CABI's center in Switzerland, teamed up with researchers from the MARA-CABI Joint Laboratory for Bio-safety and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, to understand how competition between two scelionid parasitoids on the stink bug's eggs may provide insight into how they may coexist to fight the devastating crop pest.

Leading the fight

CABI is leading the fight to see if the Asian Samurai Wasp (Trissolcus japonicus) can be used as a natural enemy to control the pest. The latest research, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution, examined larval and adult competition between two Asian natural enemies of the pest, Trissolcus japonicus and T. cultratus (Hymenoptera: Scelionidae) associated and coevolved with the brown marmorated stink bug in its native range.

Competition of the two species was assessed by providing parasitized egg masses to each species at various intervals post-parasitism, and measuring host acceptance, developmental suitability, and guarding behavior.

Trissolcus cultratus on brown marmorated sting bug egg mass. Credit: CABI

Dr. Haye, and colleagues Dr. Jinping Zhang, MSc Marion Risse and Dr. Tara Gariepy, found that adult Samurai Wasp showed high acceptance of parasitized eggs up to 72 hours following oviposition (the process of laying eggs) by T. cultratus, despite a very poor developmental outcome.

T. cultratus generally avoided oviposition

In contrast, the scientists found, T. cultratus generally avoided oviposition in H. halys eggs containing early-instar larvae of Samurai Wasps but did not avoid parasitizing in eggs that contained eggs and third instar larvae wasp.

The researchers argue that the adaptive value of this behavior was supported by the developmental outcome of larval competition inside eggs that had been parasitized by both species. T.cultratus outcompetedSamurai Waspeggs but not early-instar larvae, and a trophic shift occurred whereinT.cultratusdeveloped as a facultative hyperparasitoid (thereby demonstrating extreme survival behavior) on third instar larvae of the Samurai Wasplarvae. This ability to develop as a facultative hyperparasitoid provides a competitive niche for Asian T. cultratus and confirms its competitive superiority in the larval stage. This also occurs, the researchers say, in a biologically distinct European population of T. cultratus, suggesting that facultative hyperparasitism as a competitive strategy is retained in geographically separated populations that have not coevolved with the brown marmorated stink bug or the Asian Samurai Wasp.

Superior competitor in the adult stage

In contrast, T. japonicusbeing a poor competitor in the larval stagewas a superior competitor in the adult stage, and accordingly females invested more resources in guarding egg masses parasitized by themselves (812 times longer than T. cultratus) and more aggressive attempts to oviposit egg mass guarded by their competitors.

The new study is a unique example for counterbalance competition, wherein coexistence is possible if an inferior larval competitor evolves superior host exploitation abilities as an adult.

Explore further First discovery of adventive populations of Trissolcus japonicus

More information: Tim Haye et al, A temporal trophic shift from primary parasitism to facultative hyperparasitism during interspecific competition between two coevolved scelionid egg parasitoids, Ecology and Evolution (2021). Journal information: Ecology and Evolution Tim Haye et al, A temporal trophic shift from primary parasitism to facultative hyperparasitism during interspecific competition between two coevolved scelionid egg parasitoids,(2021). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.8483

Provided by CABI
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A tongue-in-cheek editorial about the death of the Great Barrier Reef undermined efforts to build action on climate change and amplified conflict, a new study in Media International Australia has found.

Researchers from Griffith University and the University of Tasmania used Google Trends to trace the re-emergence of the idea of a 'dead reef' back to the article "An obituary for the Great Barrier Reef" by Rowan Jacobsen in a 2016 Outside magazine.

"The 'news' of the Reef's demise went viral and the economic and political furor that followed was immense," said Associate Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton from the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research and Griffith Climate Action research program.

"The imagined spectacle of a dead reef, triggered by a single article in a niche magazine in America, devolved into a sideshow of climate change politics back home here in Australia.

"The way the reef is communicated about is critical to public understanding and political action on climate change."

Using Google Trends to measure when the idea of a 'dead Reef' occurred in public sentiment and Google News to dissect how the idea was conveyed, the researchers demonstrate how the reported annihilation of the reef was used by different interests for their own ends.

"Politicians, for example, scampered to reassure Australians and the world that the reef was indeed still alive and beautiful," said Dr. Claire Konkes from the University of Tasmania's Institute for Social Change.

"While in the public sphere, climate science deniers and those advocating for climate action collided over the impacts of global warming to Reef health."

Dr. Foxwell-Norton said Australian mainstream news reporting data showed the amplification of this message was generally used to serve political and financial interests to discredit claims for action on climate change and as part of a public platform for the repetition of Australia's 'climate wars,' now centered on the Great Barrier Reef.

"As general audiences struggled to separate the satire from the science, global digital communication networks spread the confusion and climate change deniers in the Australian news media used the confusion to their advantage.

"Tourism industries who are especially reliant on international arrivals, were impacted by this satirical communication as potential visitors took news of the Reef's passing as fact."

The global reach of communication networks makes it easy for messages created in a one context to be misinterpreted and misunderstood in another.

"While satirical representations of climate crisis can cause an emotional response that stimulates interest and action, apocalyptic messages of ecological crisis, like that of Jacobsen's dire reef obituary, can also paralyze action," Dr. Foxwell-Norton said.

"This is particularly unhelpful in an era of climate change denialism and digital media, where audiences are aware of climate change but already perplexed about their ability to respond."

"The greatest impact of the satirical imagining of a dead Reef was to confuse audiences, enflame divisions, harm local Reef communities/businesses and, stall Australian action on climate change, which is so urgently needed."

More information: Kerrie Foxwell-Norton et al, Is the Great Barrier Reef dead? Satire, death and environmental communication, Media International Australia (2021). Kerrie Foxwell-Norton et al, Is the Great Barrier Reef dead? Satire, death and environmental communication,(2021). DOI: 10.1177/1329878X211055852
One of the distinguishing characteristics of S. mapama is a short and narrow line of small scales which gives this new species the common name small-crested angel shark. Credit: D. Ross Robertson - Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Between 2010 and 2011, two research expeditions sponsored by the Spanish government exploring the biodiversity of benthic organismsthose living on the ocean flooron Central America's Pacific and Caribbean coasts, came across a new shark species. The Squatina mapama n. sp., collected off the Caribbean coast of Panama became the first record of an angel shark from the Central American Caribbean. A new paper co-authored by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute staff scientist, D. Ross Robertson, described and named it.

Many angel shark species are considered endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Their genus, Squatina, goes way back, most likely originating in the Cretaceous (from about 145 to 66 million years ago).

Squatina are flat-bodied sharks resembling stingrays, and generally speaking, the different species are not easy to distinguish from each other with the naked eye. In fact, S. mapama (named after the Spanish government fisheries organization) looks much like another species that lives in the same part of the Caribbean, and also occurs in Panama: Squatina david. However, aside from a number of subtle physical differences between them, genetic analyses helped to establish them as a separate species, and distinct from other new world angel sharks.

In reference to one of the distinguishing characteristics of S. mapamaa short and narrow line of small scales or dermal denticlesthe authors suggested giving this new species the common name "small-crested angel shark".

The small-crested angelshark is the fourth new species of Squatina identified in the Western Atlantic in the last decade, and although the total number of species in the genus has not been established with certainty, this study reveals the forensic value of genetic analyses for understanding the true biological diversity of a genus with various cryptic species (those that have very similar appearances).

Explore further Ancestors of whale sharks in Panama may come from distant waters

More information: Squatina mapama n. sp., a new cryptic species of angel shark (Elasmobranchii: Squatinidae) from the southwestern Caribbean Sea, Squatina mapama n. sp., a new cryptic species of angel shark (Elasmobranchii: Squatinidae) from the southwestern Caribbean Sea, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5806693
A basic route diagram of the researchers' proposed genetic improvement and seed industry development in farmed fishes and other aquaculture animals. Credit: Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB), Chinese Academy of Sciences

The advent of the genome era and the demand for global food safety has led to significant breakthroughs in the field of fish biology and biotechnology in the past decade. These discoveries have not only seen new theories developed, but provided solid technical support for the modern aquaculture industry and the world's fish supply and food security.

In a review paper published in the journal Water Biology and Security, a group of researchers from the Institute of Hydrobiology (IHB) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, set out to reexamine fish biology and biotechnologies in the wake of these ongoing changes. Based on their findings, they have developed a new nine-step blueprint for improving the use of genetics and new breed creation in aquaculture species. In their paper, they also share their analysis of the potential of these new breeding strategies to improve the aquaculture seed industry (development and promotion of aquaculture varieties) and strengthen food security.

Professor Jian-Fang Gui, the investigator who led the study, explains that "the importance of aquaculture for global fish supplies is now widely recognized. Fisheries are the fastest-growing food-producing sector in the world and fish are one of the most promising protein sources for feeding the 9 billion people projected to inhabit this Earth by 2050. In fact, global fish demand looks set to double by the middle of this century. This is, in part, because fish and other aquatic foods provide important nutrients, such as long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, vitamins and micronutrients, and their carbon footprint is lower than other forms of animal production.

"However, this growing demand for fish is already putting pressure on supply chains and, in recent years, we have seen the impact of overfishing on fish stocks, with some breeds threatened with extinction. At the same time, there are concerns over the levels of chemicals, such as mercury, and plastic traces found in the fish we eat, and questions over the nutritional value and health of farmed fish. Our goal with this review was to examine and highlight several outstanding advances in burgeoning genome resources, and prompt a rethink of the development goals and future trends in the aquaculture seed industry that are required to meet world fish supplies, and strengthen food security."

He adds that their "review makes it clear that theoretical breakthroughs and technological innovations in fish biology and biotechnology are not only frontier scientific issues that should be given more attention, they are also an important driving force for conserving aquatic biodiversity and sustainably developing aquaculture. We believe our blueprint offers a valuable path forward."

Explore further Feeding both fish and pond yields more protein with lower quality feed

More information: Jian-Fang Gui et al, Rethinking fish biology and biotechnologies in the challenge era for burgeoning genome resources and strengthening food security, Water Biology and Security (2021). Jian-Fang Gui et al, Rethinking fish biology and biotechnologies in the challenge era for burgeoning genome resources and strengthening food security,(2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.watbs.2021.11.001

Provided by KeAi Communications
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

A survey led by the University of Birmingham says people from middle and upper-class occupational groups are more likely to hold prejudiced views of Islam than people from working class occupational groups.

The survey, which was carried out in conjunction with YouGov, found that 23.2 percent of people who come from the social group ABC1 harbor prejudiced views about Islamic beliefs compared with only 18.4 percent of people questioned from the C2DE group. This is based on responses to the question: "For each of the following religions [Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and Judaism] please say whether you think the religion teaches its followers that its sacred text should be taken literally, word for word, or symbolically, understanding its poetic meaning and historical context." In the survey we use the response 'totally literally' as an indicator of prejudice.

However, when asked their views about Muslims, or most other ethnic or religious minority groups, older people, men, working class people and Conservative and Leave voters are consistently more likely to hold prejudiced views.

The survey, presented in a report titled "The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain," interviewed a sample of 1667 people between 20th and 21st July 2021 which was weighted by age, gender, social grade, voting record, region and level of education to ensure representativeness. Weighting was based on the census, Labour Force Survey, Office for National Statistics estimates, and other large-scale data sources.

Other key notable findings in the survey are:

Muslims are the UK's second 'least liked' group, after Gypsy and Irish Travelers: 25.9 percent of the British public feel negative towards Muslims (with 9.9 percent feeling 'very negative'). This compares with 8.5 percent for Jewish people, 6.4 percent for black people, and 8.4 percent for white people. Only Gypsy and Irish Travelers are viewed more negatively by the British public, with 44.6 percent of people viewing this group negatively. More than one in four people, and nearly half of Conservative and Leave voters, hold conspiratorial views about Sharia 'no-go areas': 26.5 percent of the British public agree that 'there are areas in Britain that operate under Sharia law where non-Muslims are not able to enter." This increases to 43.4 percent among Conservative voters and Leave voters. In addition, 36.3 percent of British people, and a majority of Conservative voters (57.3 percent) and Leave voters (55.5 percent), also agree that "Islam threatens the British way of life." Support for prohibiting all Muslim migration to the UK is 46 percent higher for Muslims than it is for other ethnic and religious groups: 18.1 percent of people support banning all Muslim migration to the UK (9.5 percent 'strongly support'). Overall support for prohibiting Christian Migration is 13.1 percent, Sikh migration is 11.8 percent and Jewish migration is 12 percent. The British public is almost three times more likely to hold prejudiced views of Islam than they are of other religions: 21.1 percent of British people wrongly believe Islam teaches its followers that the Qur'an must be read 'totally literally." The figure for Islam compares with 7.5 percent for Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, 3.9 percent for Sikhism and the Guru Granth Sahib, and 4.8 percent for Christianity and the Bible British people are more confident in making judgements about Islam than other non-Christian religions but are much more likely to make incorrect assumptions about it: British people acknowledge their ignorance of most non-Christian religions, with a majority stating they are 'not sure' how Jewish (50.8 percent) and Sikh (62.7 percent) scriptures are taught. In the case of Islam, however, people feel more confident making a judgment, with only 40.7 percent being unsure. This is despite the fact that people are much more likely to make the incorrect assumption that Islam is 'totally' literalistic.

Dr. Stephen H. Jones from the University of Birmingham and lead author of the survey says: "Prejudice towards Islam and Muslims stands out in the UK, not only because it is much more widespread than most forms of racism, but also because prejudice toward Islam is more common among those who are wealthier and well-educated."

The survey also has made specific recommendations to scale back the rise of Islamophobia:

Government and other public figures should publicly acknowledge and address the lack of public criticism that Islamophobic discourses and practices trigger, and how Islamophobia stands out compared with other forms of racism and prejudice.

Civil society organizations and equality bodies concerned with prejudice and discrimination should acknowledge that systemic miseducation about Islam is common in British society and forms an important element of Islamophobia.

Educators should provide clear guidance clarifying when tropes about the Islamic tradition move from acceptable criticism to become harmful.

Civil society organizations should introduce religious literacy as a component part of any large-scale equality and diversity campaign or policy initiative.

The BBC and other broadcasters should maintain their commitments to religion programming, but with renewed emphasis on combatting intolerance.

Commenting on the recommendations Dr. Stephen H. Jones says: "No-one is calling for laws regulating criticism of religion, but we have to recognize that the British public has been systematically miseducated about Islamic tradition and take steps to remedy this."

Explore further Islamophobia represents a form of racism mixed with cultural intolerance
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A new Home Office report has found that domestic abuse perpetrators are increasingly using digital and online technologies to monitor, threaten and humiliate their victims.

The report, based on a project funded by the UK Home Office Domestic Abuse Perpetrators Research Fund and compiled by researchers from the Universities of Portsmouth and Kent, found an increasing number of cases and reports of technology-facilitated domestic abuse (TFDA), where perpetrators are engaging in a wide range of abusive behaviors incorporating offenses under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act (CMA) and digital tools. These include:

Using spyware to access their partners' or ex-partners' accounts and also to monitor their movements.

Creating fake accounts to abuse and harass victims or impersonating victims and presenting them in a derogatory manner.

Using new forms of technology (e.g., smart devices, voice assistants, connected cameras, GPS trackers/tags) and smart home appliances (e.g., heating systems) to monitor, stalk and harass victims.

Stalking and controlling their victims via location apps and geo-location on social media.

Image-based sexual abuse, also known as 'revenge porn," where perpetrators threaten to release intimate pictures or videos to friends or family or publicly release online.

Unauthorized access of emails and social media accounts.

The report's lead author, Dr. Lisa Sugiura, senior lecturer in criminology and cybercrime at the University of Portsmouth, said: "With the increased use and development of technology, perpetrators of domestic abuse are progressively using CMA offenses and digital tools to monitor, threaten and humiliate their victims.

"Technical skills are not necessary to perpetuate most forms of technological abuse. Many of the tools used are everyday technologies, readily available, accessible, and familiar. Apps are affordable and easy to use."

Dr. Jason Nurse, Associate Professor in Cyber Security at the University of Kent, co-authored the report and commented: "Perpetrators are adept at adjusting to new technology and exploiting legitimate tools. Smart devices such as Alexa, Nest and Hive (smart heating systems), and Ring doorbell and cameras, are also being used within domestic abuse contexts. These are in addition to the various technologiesfrom teddy bears with covert cameras to car trackersthat we found online marketed for stalking and spying on one's partner."

The researchers state that while technology is a facilitator, online abuse is another coercive and controlling behavior that can be part of a wider pattern of domestic abuse. While for some victims there is no physical abuse, digital technologies are used for other forms of harmful behaviors, which are no less serious.

The report also found that children are increasingly being involved in TFDA cases, especially in post-separation shared parental situations. Children are being used to facilitate the abuse of the other parent, with their devices such as phones, tablets and games consoles being exploited by perpetrators to monitor and maintain control over victims.

Dr. Sugiura said: "Within coercive and controlling relationships, the use of technology to further that abuse is likely. Perpetrators may already have manipulated access to their partner's accounts or are already accessing them or spying on them without their partner knowing."

The report provided several recommendations to tackle harmful behaviors, including:

Change all passwords on accounts and devices when a relationship ends. This includes smart devices and internet connected devices around the home.

Avoid passwords an intimate or ex-partner might guess.

Check any devices with internet connectivity for spyware trackers pre-installed (mobile phones, laptops, smart fitness trackers and wearables, etc). Cookies should be deleted, and the browser history cleaned.

Be mindful that gifts, toys, and other seemingly innocent items may contain secret cameras, microphones or GPS trackers, so do check these items if they have come from an abusive partner.

Check the privacy and use of facial images and email addresses on social media accounts.

It also recommends that policy, legislative and support responses consider these rapidly developing practices of abuse. The researchers call for the specific inclusion of the role that technologies can play in facilitating and exacerbating domestic abuse within the Domestic Abuse Bill; training police to identify potential criminal offenses in under-utilized areas (for example Computer Misuse Offenses), which could often be used earlier in cases against offenders; for tech companies to do more to prevent the creation of fake accounts, and removal of those who repeatedly do so; and for online retailers to clamp down on the sale of spy kits and technologies, particularly those directly marketed to tracking and spying on partners.

Dr. Sugiura said: "As technology becomes ever more ingrained into our everyday lives, hastened further by the COVID pandemic, which has driven many more human interactions and tasks online, TFDA is only going to escalate and increase further the risk of harm, unless appropriate interventions in prevention and enforcement occur.

"We hope our findings inform studies that provide digital safety guidelines for individuals, empower and protect victims, and also provide guidance for government and platforms on how to limit the access of these technologies to perpetrators."

The report authors recognize there needs to be further research into the experiences of underrepresented groups including male TFDA victims as well as victims and perpetrators who are BAME/ LGBTQI+ / have disabilities, and that future studies should focus on working with specialist domestic abuse service providers who support these groups.

Explore further Study reveals extent of technology-facilitated abuse in Australia
The Shoal chub is a widely distributed small fish species being studied as part for a Texas Water Development Board project to help identify flow regulation in the state to benefit water users while maintaining a sound ecological environment. The Shoal chub is listed by the state of Texas as an imperiled species. Credit: Texas A&M AgriLife Research photo provided by Joshuah Perkin

Shiners in the streams could serve as canaries in a coal mine for tracking water availability and planning for future droughts, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist.

Joshuah Perkin, Ph.D., fish ecologist in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University, has been focusing on how small fish species react to disruptions to water flow in creeks, streams and rivers.

Perkin said these fishes' sensitivity to change and their populations' success or failure in streams are good indicators of how groundwater depletion or drought are impacting freshwater ecosystems. The rise and fall of these fish populations are also a good prognosticator for how these changes could impact humans.

Small fish like shiners and minnows could represent an important early warning signal for policy makers as long-term weather projections predict increased variability, he said. This could include extended periods of drought due to climate change, Perkin said. But the small fish are also an important link between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

"Small shiners tell us so much about water quality and quantity," he said. "Much like canaries' sensitivity to low oxygen levels warned miners, these small fish species raise red flags regarding water shortages and contaminants. Their sensitivity can give us an idea about what to expect when it comes to water rarity and quality as environments are altered or conditions change."

Small fish, large role

Perkin said aquatic ecosystems are linked to all life on Earth. Aquatic ecosystems include freshwater and marine ecosystems in streams, rivers, reservoirs, wetlands and oceans.

The fish and aquatic life in these areas provide countless services, including food and recreation, to people around the globe. They also hold cultural significance.

Aquatic lifeforms also provide food for animals on land, in the water and in the air. Aquatic ecosystems regulate nutrients and resources like carbon dioxide and link all these services through a network of watersheds across continents and around the globe.

Small fish like shiners play a large role in all these services, but Perkin's work is focused on the informational services these fish provide. They are a key signaler of habitat health and habitat response to change.

Natural changes like drought or artificial changes like dams, reservoirs, water use and land fragmentation can impact stream water levels, which subsequently impact populations of small shiners. Perkin has studied several small fish species and the impact water availability and quality has on their populations, from the Great Plains to the Appalachian Mountains.

One of Perkin's projects funded by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department looked at how one of these sensitive speciesthe plains minnow, which once dominated the Southern Great Plains, has reacted to changes in groundwater connections. Habitat fragmentation, dams and reservoirs have created a seasonal ebb and flow for the minnows' populations.

"Reservoirs and dams are important for storing water for hydroelectricity and other needs, but they also matter in the ways we can preserve these fish," he said. "When water is rare over a season or over a matter of years, the fish populations decline accordingly. When water returns the populations grow."

For example, populations of the plains minnow and other species such as the peppered chub and the prairie chub in the upper Red River declined significantly during drought conditions in 20112013, Perkin said. Their numbers bounced back when rains returned, but the dry period was a good indicator of how the species react to water scarcity.

Using ecology to plan sustainably

Drought affects small fish habitats, but water use also affects changes in flow, Perkin said. The public, agriculture and industry all consume water.

Being conscious about water availability and attempting to conserve water during times of plenty will be critical as populations surrounding Texas rivers grow, he said.

"Our ability to change riverscapes to our advantage has outpaced our understanding of the consequences, but ecology provides some insight," he said.

Water consumption and continued land-use changes, coupled with drought and increased weather variability, make it vital to understand fluctuations in water availability, Perkin said. Researching effects on small fish populations adds to the ability to forecast and respond to changing water flows.

Modeling technology allows researchers to use historical and real-time data to provide scenarios regarding water flows, Perkin said. These projections can help guide policy related to water conservation and sustainability for the shinersand ultimately for humans.

"We have to provide an answer for how to maintain water amid dynamic changes," he said. "Answering the question of how we create balance that meets societal needs responsibly will have to come from ecology. We're going to have to use these organisms that are really in tune with water availability to understand the consequences of actions and ultimately lead us to managing resources in a sustainable way."

Explore further Aquatic ecologist says dams are boxing in fish, causing them to disappear from Kansas
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Having been shocked when personally witnessing the extreme brutality of vigilante violence, sociologist Muhammad Asif decided to study why people take the law into their own hands. His work culminated in a new theory of the causes underpinning vigilante violence, which combines explanatory factors such as distrust of the state or the police, and strong emotional reactions to violations of moral values. Asif's study took place in Pakistan, but his insights are also relevant to other cases of collective violence around the globe. He will defend his Ph.D. thesis on Wednesday, 2 February, at the University of Amsterdam.

On 15 August 2010, two teenagers were brutally beaten by a group of people in the city of Sialkot in Pakistan. The teenagers were suspected of robberies in a neighborhood nearby. After seeing footage of the incident, Asif decided to look into the phenomenon vigilante violence: "I had never witnessed such brutality in my life. The scenes I saw were so intense I remained in a state of shock for days after the event." In his research, Asif moved from looking at traditional causes of vigilante violencesuch as weak state-level intervention and police illegitimacyand developed a new theory to explain why people take the law into their own hands.

A new theory of vigilante violence

Asif's theory, called vigilante rituals theory, goes beyond the traditional ideas about such vigilantism by incorporating both emotions such as anger or desire for revenge as drivers of the violence, and political encouragement of the violence. "Even when people perceive the police as legitimate and effective, they may turn to vigilante violence," explains Asif. "People can experience strong emotions and might desire punitive action if they feel moral values they deem essential to their group identity have been violated."

Furthermore, vigilante violence is often enacted under certain socio-legal conditions of legal illegitimacy, exposure to violence, and the authorities' encouragement of violence, adds Asif. "These help organize the microsociological processes that underly the vigilante rituals that lead to violence and the punishment of the offender. Political leaders might induce and exploit emotions by setting these rituals in motion to create acts of collective violence."

Analyzing vigilante violence and lynching in Pakistan

Vigilante violence might begin with ordinary slapping and punching, escalating to more intense extrajudicial punishment of the offender. When alleged offenders are punished and killed by torture and mutilation, it is defined as lynching. Asif specifically studied vigilante violence and lynching in Pakistan, where they are often linked to emotions and values around the avoidance of blasphemy.

Asif initially empirically examined two hypotheses that derived from his vigilante rituals theory, namely that people would support vigilante violence when they experienced a lack of police and state legitimacy, and when they were angry because moral values were deemed to have been violated. He found that people do indeed support vigilante violence when they perceive the police as illegitimate and corrupt or when they are easily angered.

"The findings revealed that people who are easily angered may prefer vigilante punishment instead of deferring to the legal authorities, even when the latter are present," says Asif. "These findings support the theory that both the emotion and legitimacy approaches are related to support for vigilante violence."

Asif also attempted to discover if vigilante violence is mobilized and channeled through vigilante rituals and if its likelihood increases when authorities encourage such violence. Based on in-depth interviews with perpetrators, witnesses and government officials, along with video footage and newspaper clippings, he analyzed how lynchings proceeded and are enacted. His analysis revealed that lynchings are orchestrated through vigilante rituals, whereby crowds generate a feeling of moral communion under the active encouragement of religious-political "ritual engineers." These engineers mobilize crowds by chanting slogans and singing songs to activate bodily alignment processes (participants synchronizing the movements of their bodies). Vigilantes then proceed with the lynching of the alleged offender to restore the integrity of their moral values. "The aim of religious-political leaders in inciting crowds seems to be controlling the community for political gain and showcasing their own ability to uphold the law," concludes Asif.

Vigilante violence around the globe

Although vigilante violence and lynching might be more present in some African and Asian countries, there are also cases in the Western world. Maybe the best recent example was the crowd storming the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, incited by former President Donald Trump. Explanatory factors like a lack of legitimacy of the state and police, the violation of moral values, and political encouragement also played a role in that incident. "This implies that vigilante violence in particular, and collective violence in general, need to be seen as an interaction between micro ritual processes and macro conditions of political strife," says Asif.

Asif concludes that his new theory is more integrative and comprehensive than its predecessors, as it provides a broader, more inclusive understanding of vigilante violence and lynchings than earlier sociological and criminological theories on the subject.

Explore further Domestic violence goes unrecognized in faith communities
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Results of a study published in the scientific journal Risk Analysis indicate that the recent increase in mail-based voting due to COVID-19 has not jeopardized the safety of the U.S. elections process. Instead, mail-based voting increases voter access and may reduce the likelihood of adversarial interference, the authors argue.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to swift changes in the U.S. primary elections held during and after March 2020. By the general election in November 2020, 94 percent of states had expanded their traditional use of mail-based voting. (Eight states already used mail-in ballots as their standard voting process.) This rapid expansion of mail-based voting has led to questions about the security of elections going forward.

To address these concerns, Natalie Scala, associate professor at Towson University and an expert in elections security, examined the risks involved with mail-based voting with colleagues from Towson and the U.S. Military Academy. Their investigation focuses on the only known mail voting "attack tree," generated in 2009 by the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) and the University of South Alabama. This graphical representation divides dozens of potential attack scenarios, from the registration of deceased voters to coercion of voters via advertisements, into three categories: insider threats, external threats, and voter error.

Using the state of Maryland as a case study, the researchers updated the attack tree to reflect changes that have taken place over time and in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes include the use of more drop boxes, extra time for returning ballots, and more allowable reasons to request absentee ballots. An investigation of local and national media reports, documentation from bipartisan think tanks and organizations, and voter instruction sheets, as well as discussions with Board of Elections officials, allowed them to identify 30 "new" threats. Insider threats included manipulating a return envelope, deliberately misspelling a name on a ballot, and denying or altering a vote. External threats included stealing or destroying ballots, acquiring access to a drop box, and stealing blank ballots from mailboxes. An expired voter ID was a new threat assigned to voter error.

The updated attack tree included a total of 73 potential threat scenarios associated with mail-based voting (40 insider, 23 external, and 10 voter error). Using an established assessment framework, the researchers then conducted an analysis to determine the relative likelihood of each attack scenario.

Their results indicate that the top three (most likely) threat scenarios for each branch in the attack tree are: 1. losing a ballot in the destination mailroom (insider threat) 2. organizing coercion through debate and vote parties (external threat), and 3. failing to sign a ballot correctly (voter error).

All three are found in the original attack tree, along with five other "higher-than-average" potential threats. "To fully secure the integrity of mail-based votes, these scenarios should have the attention of election officials and policy makers," says Scala, adding that "most states and localities already had mitigations in place before 2020." To assist election officials, the authors make specific recommendations for mitigating each threat (for example, ensuring that mailrooms are appropriately staffed to handle the influx of ballots and their timely delivery).

Importantly, says Scala, none of the 30 "new" threats were identified by the analysis as of high concern. "What we found in our study is that the dramatic scale-up of mail voting in the 2020 election did not increase risk," she explains. "We argue that expanding mail voting is safe and should be used moving forward because it increases voter access and reduces the likelihood of adversarial interference."

Explore further Researchers see risks in online vote system for 3 US states

Provided by Society for Risk Analysis
Amerigroup New Jersey, a managed health care and health insurance provider for low-income residents, has provided over $230,000 to dozens of organizations across the state.

The focus of the grants was to help groups working to address hunger, health education, medical assistance and health care access. The group also sought to promote overall empowerment across the state, according to a news release.

Teresa Hursey, the president of Amerigroup New Jersey Medicaid Plan, said these grants would ensure low-income New Jersey residents have their critical needs met.

Our mission is to ensure that low-income residents have access to vitally needed resources, Hursey said in the news release. These awards have already impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in New Jersey.

Amerigroup New Jerseys hunger-focused donations included grants that awarded $10,000 each to the Center for United Methodist Aid to the Community and the Communities Affairs and Resource Center; $33,500 to the Community Foodbank of New Jersey; and $30,000 to Tomchei Shabbos based in Lakewood, Ocean County.

Grants designed to promote health care access include $10,000 each to the Hatzolah, a volunteer first-responder organization, and Lev Rochel Bikur Cholim, both in Lakewood; the Misameach volunteer organization for helping hospitalized children or adults with disabilities; and the Trinitas Health Foundation.

For community uplift, Amerigroup donated $15,000 to Shoe for Your Soul, $12,500 to the Special Olympics and $15,600 to the United Community Corporation.

Amerigroup New Jersey also gave $10,000 to the Malcom Jenkins Foundation, the mission of which is to increase opportunities for young people in underserved communities in several states including New Jersey. The foundations namesake is current New Orleans Saints safety Malcom Jenkins, who played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 2014 through 2019.

Amerigroup New Jersey also gave grants to several other organizations, the Food Bank of South Jersey, the Parish of All Saints, Heat Screen, the National Islamic Association and the Salvation Army.

Amerigroup representatives pledged to provide ongoing hands-on support for the organizations who have received Amerigroup grants.

These grants are but part of the work we do with our amazing community partners to serve the residents of New Jersey, said Anya Nawrocky, the Amerigroup New Jersey director of marketing.

Contact Chris Doyle cdoyle@pressofac.com

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BUENA  People hoping for a smooth start to 2022 for borough government have had their hopes dampened.

The Buena Borough Hall, or municipal building, is currently closed due to an emergency situation involving flooding from two of its bathrooms. The borough website instructs residents to leave their tax and Municipal Utility Authority payments at drop boxes outside the front and back entrances of the complex, with pickup occurring periodically throughout the day.

Councilwoman Patricia Andaloro, who is also the chair of the boroughs Building, Grounds and Improvements Committee, said the flooding happened on the night on Jan. 8, during which the borough saw cold, winter weather. Andaloro said people throughout the borough began noticing flooding around 9:30 p.m. on Central Avenue, where the hall is located, and there were reports of an apparent broken pipe.

Around an hour later, a councilman who had gone to Borough Hall to report problems with the boroughs water alerted Andaloro and her other colleagues that the hall had flooded.

Andaloro said the flooding was caused by two bathrooms overflowing.

They have to pick up the floor, the carpet and the tiles all down the hallway and into the offices, Andaloro said.

Mayor David Zappariello has not yet responded to request for comment on the incident.

The Minotola Fire Company helped respond to the scene. In the ensuing days, the boroughs insurance company was notified of the flooding, which in turn brought in companies to respond. Andaloro said people rehabilitating the facility have brought in large dehumidifier fans to dry out the floors. She also said the borough would need to have checks done for hazardous asbestos due to the age of the building.

Borough employees had originally tried to avoid relocation as repairs were being done and worked in the building during the work week of Jan. 10 through Jan. 14, according to Andaloro. However, conditions inside the building, especially the noise from the dehumidifier fans, had grown too inhospitable, leading the borough to make the decision to vacate the building on Jan. 18. There was also too much disruption on the site for residents to be able to easily enter the building to make municipal utility or tax payments.

At its Jan. 18 meeting held via conference call, the Borough Council voted to appoint the borough engineer as floodplain administrator and discussed plans to relocate municipal employees. Andaloro told her colleagues that the only move-in-ready location where borough workers could be relocated was the former Landisville firehouse, which was vacated after the dissolution of the Landisville Fire Companys Fire District No. 1 last year.

Zappariello said the borough was also considering having employees work from trailers.

Andaloro said Sunday that the borough and its insurance company ultimately opted for the trailer relocation plan. Borough employees will be relocated at temporary trailers to be set up near Borough Hall as repairs are being done. The borough is currently storing documents and records in temporary storage units.

Although the Landisville firehouse was ultimately not selected as a location, Andaloro praised the commissioners of the Minotola Fire Company for their help and cooperation. The Minotola commissioners, who service Fire District No. 2, took over responsibility for the Landisville companys fire district after its dissolution.

The nutrition center near Borough Hall was also flooded on Jan. 8. Andaloro said Atlantic County employees were busing people who usually attend nutrition-center events in Buena to an alternative site in Hammonton.

The Jan. 18 meeting also addressed controversies that have impacted the borough for the last several months. Council authorized the borough to pursue litigation against Landisville Fire Company and the former commissioners of Fire District No. 1. The legal dispute centers on allegations that the company and district commissioners did not return property that belongs to the borough after Fire District No. 1s dissolution.

The vote on the authorization was 3-1, with GOP Councilmen Joseph DAlessandro III, Jorge Alvarez and Matthew Walker voting in favor; and Democratic Councilwoman Gina Andaloro, Patricias daughter, voting against. Patricia Andaloro, who is also a Democrat, abstained because she was a commissioner for the Landisville fire district three months before its dissolution.

The borough dissolved Fire District No.1, which had been serviced by the Landisville Fire Company for 99 years, in July 2021. The dissolution came after a series of investigations led by the New Jersey Office of Public Employees Occupational Safety and Health unearthed over two dozen code violations at the Landisville company.

Supporters of the Landisville Fire Company note that it had passed inspection in June 2021 and argue that the elimination of the fire district compromises the boroughs safety. Resident Sue Romeo maintained during the Jan. 18 public comment section that the property the borough alleges is missing belonged to the Landisville Fire Company, which is distinct from Fire District No. 1, and so did not have to be turned over to the district. She added that confusion could have been avoided if the borough had worked more closely with the Landisville Fire Company and district commissioners after the July dissolution.

The Landisville companys supporters speculate that discontent over the dissolution propelled the Democrats to success in the borough during the November elections, which saw the Andaloros unseat two GOP incumbents. There are currently petitions circulating to recall Zappariello and DAlessandro.

Neither Zappariello nor Borough Solicitor Angela Costigan has replied to request for comment on the controversy surrounding the fire company. Costigan has previously declined to comment on the matter due to the ongoing litigation.

Andaloro estimated it would tentatively take two to three months for the building to be fully dried and rehabilitated. She said that there had been recurring problems with the boroughs water systems over recent years, and said that the borough should take proactive steps to prevent similar accidents from happening again.

Its working out, it is, Andaloro said of the relocation efforts. We all have to work together to get over these hurdles.

Contact Chris Doyle cdoyle@pressofac.com

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ATLANTIC CITY  New At-Large Councilman Bruce Weekes ran on a Democratic ticket with Mayor Marty Small Sr. and his team, but hes already setting himself apart as an independent thinker.

Sworn in at the Jan. 1 reorganization meeting, Weekes recently criticized the Small administrations policy that council members cannot take constituent issues directly to department heads. Instead they must take concerns to Council President George Tibbitt to take to Business Administrator Anthony Swan.

Its not that I separated from anyone, Weekes, 35, said in a recent interview at his City Hall office . I just had a difference of opinion. I try to be unbiased.

Weekes grew up in Atlantic City in a prominent family known for being trailblazers in business and law.

He is a graduate of Atlantic City High School and Howard University in Washington, D.C., and said he worked in finance in New York City after graduating from college in 2008.

In 2016, he moved back to Atlantic City to pursue elected office, believing he could benefit his home town with his knowledge of finance, he said.

His main goals on council are to start initiatives that make it easier for locals to understand finance and how to fund businesses; and to help small businesses thrive, he said.

I plan to never get personal but when it comes to issues, I wont back down, Weekes said. If my side loses, Im OK with that. A lot of times a lot of the people make it personal.

A first run for office in 2017 failed, but he stayed and worked various jobs, including in the casino cage at Harrahs, he said. He also worked in the city finance department in 2017, as former Mayor Don Guardian was leaving and former Mayor Frank Gilliam was coming in.

After Small took office, he soon hired Weekes as community services liaison. He gave up that city job, as required, when he won elected office.

Now, hes job hunting again, he said, as the council job is only part time.

Weekes grew up in the city with a father and grandfather who were community leaders and are credited with many firsts in the city and region.

His father, also Bruce Weekes, in 1985 became the first African American chief municipal judge in Atlantic City. He was the first Black lawyer to become an assistant city solicitor, and in 1976, he became the first full-time municipal public defender in state history, according to his family.

The councilmans grandfather George Weekes owned Mutual Taxi and a gas station and mechanic shop, and was the first African American to own a business on Atlantic Avenue.

City Council designated the corner of Connecticut and Atlantic avenues, where he had a business, George N. Weekes corner in 2020.

His father died in 2016 and his grandfather in 1991.

Weekes describes himself as unmarried, but not single. Im in a relationship.

Weekes has also expressed disappointment about councils decision to hold a hearing to potentially remove Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority Board Chair John Devlin, a political opponent of Small, over alleged interference with ACMUA operations.

Current and past executive directors of the MUA have alleged, in letters to the state Department of Community Affairs, that Devlin interfered with an insurance contract with a company called Fairview and almost cost the MUA its insurance, city attorney Robert Tarver has said. Devlin also has been accused of inappropriately interfering with the daily operations of the MUA.

I just want to say, I believe this ... (is) a poor reflection of judgment of the administration and mayor, Weekes said. With everything the city is facing ... the first order of biz in 2022 is a thinly disguised personal attack and political retaliation.

Devlin has called the allegations a far-fetched plan to unseat a political rival.

The city should not want to foster an environment in which disagreements lead to personal attacks and retaliation, Weekes said.

Voting against the resolution were Dunston; 6th Ward Councilman Jesse Kurtz, who appointed Devlin to the MUA board, and Weekes.

Voting for were Councilman Kaleem Shabazz, Tibbitt, newly elected Councilwoman Stephanie Marshall, and Councilmen Muhammad Zia and MD Hossain Morshed.

Councilman Aaron Sporty Randolph was not present.

Devlins hearing, first set for Jan. 25, was postponed by a Superior Court judge for at least two weeks.

As for the rule that he must take concerns to Tibbitt rather than Swan or department heads, Weekes said he is concerned that there is no system in place to ensure constituent issues dont fall through the cracks.

Tibbitt, along with new Councilwoman Stephanie Marshall, also ran with Weekes.

I have no idea what is going on with Bruce. I never had a falling out with him, Tibbitt said. I will take him at his word and wish him the best. I hope he does a good job for the people of the city.

Tibbitt said Friday that the mayor simply decided to follow state statute Title 40 rules, that outline organization of the Faulkner Act form of government used by Atlantic City.

It says the BA (business administrator) runs the day-to-day operations, Tibbitt said, There are rules in place to keep council members from attempting to run the city.

At the same time, Weekes supports the mayors road diet plan for Atlantic Avenue, at least for now.

Im actually for it, Weekes said. We have to repave and this accomplishes that with federal funds.

Its important to improve conditions downtown to attract new businesses, he said.

Many members of council have said their constituents do not want the four-lanes of traffic on Atlantic Avenues reduced to two, with bike lanes and parking added. Those council members will vote against Phases 2 and 3, they have said.

They include 1st and 2nd ward Councilmembers Aaron Sporty Randolph and LaToya Dunston, and 6th ward Councilman Jesse Kurtz.

Its my understanding that if it doesnt work, it can be undone, and wont be too costly, Weekes said of returning to four lanes of traffic. I think we need to give it a shot.

REPORTER: Michelle Brunetti Post 609-841-2895 mpost@pressofac.com

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Debra Ann Sadusky is buried in a cemetery near the southwest branch of Rancocas Creek in Medford, Burlington County, surrounded by the graves of hundreds of people who were still walking the Earth when she died unexpectedly.

This was all grass, her youngest brother, Michael, said during a recent visit, recalling that summer more than 40 years ago. All these people passed away afterward.

In August 1980, Saduskys body was found inside the cabin of a boat that had capsized in Margates bay, near a rowdy bar scene then dubbed the Barbary Coast. She was 20 years old.

Police considered her death suspicious: She was cut and bruised and wore only a bra.

They circulated a sketch of an unidentified mustached man  a bandage taped across the bridge of his nose  with whom Sadusky had been dancing at Merals Inn just before she went missing. Police wanted him for questioning.

But no arrest followed. The case, chronicled in a few short local newspaper stories, seemed to fizzle out within days. Authorities ruled Saduskys death an accidental drowning.

That Labor Day weekend, as shoobies flocked to the Jersey Shore, her family held a funeral back in Medford. The years rolled by in the close-knit town, dotted with mom-and-pop stores on Main Street. There were high school reunions, and with the dawn of social media, Facebook photos of Debbies friends  each image, for her brothers, a stinging reminder of their loss that summer.

You see all these faces, said Michael Sadusky, who owns a Medford auto-body shop with his brother David. And my sisters not there.

Her name still comes up from time to time. Old friends and acquaintances who bring their cars into the shop might notice the family photo under the glass on the front desk. Debbie standing behind her fathers left shoulder, smiling.

Even today, few accept that her death was just an accident.

Not her three brothers. Not her friends who last saw her alive. Not the fisherman from Northeast Philadelphia who was haunted for years by a muffled call for help on the bay.

Something always just didnt sit right with me, said Michael Sadusky, who was 16 when his sister died. I always had that feeling that someone had something to do with it, that things just didnt add up.

About a year ago, the family hired a private investigator. He now believes he has identified the man in the sketch from 1980. That man has declined to take polygraph tests offered by the investigator and law enforcement officials.

New Jersey State Police have been working the case, conducting interviews over the last year, from South Jersey to Northeast Philly.

This month, a detective with the departments Cold Case Unit told The Inquirer that Saduskys death has been reclassified and is currently considered unsolved.

A cry for help

On Aug. 23, 1980, the night Sadusky left the bar, Bob Margeson, then a 32-year-old newlywed, was fishing off the dock while the college-age crowd partied at the bars across the street on Amherst Avenue. The moon, nearly full, hung over the bay, which was as calm as a lake.

Late that night, Margeson noticed a man and a woman sitting on a boat docked at the adjacent pier. One thing caught his attention.

When he turned his head, I thought, What the hell is that? Margeson said in a recent interview. I saw the bandage across the bridge of his nose. It was, like, shining off his face.

Later, while Margeson was sleeping in his own boat, ahead of an early-morning tuna fishing trip, he heard a womans voice call for help, twice. He thought maybe he was dreaming, so he went back to sleep.

Ive had all this in my mind for 41 years, said Margeson, 74, who owns a heating and air-conditioning business and lives in Philadelphias Holmesburg neighborhood. For the first 10 years, that went through my head: Help me. Help me. Id hear it and shudder. I wish I wouldve gotten up.

The next morning, Margeson awoke to find that the boat on which hed seen the man and woman sitting had somehow sunk.

It wasnt until the following day, when they towed the boat to nearby Longport to be hauled out of the bay, that Debbie Saduskys body was discovered inside the cabin.

The way that Margate police officers handled the case still troubles Margeson. Once he learned that a woman had been found inside the boat, he went to police to tell them everything he knew. He recalls being shocked by an officers creepy attitude.

He says: Youre an avid fisherman, right? What would you do if you were out fishing and you pulled her naked body in? Margeson said. And hes grinning as hes saying it.

Margeson, who has two daughters, was furious. Then, he said, police seemed to view him as a suspect in Saduskys death. But they never bothered to talk to his wife or best friend, who also slept on his boat that night, he said.

Jackasses is how Margeson described the local investigators. How do you drown accidentally, naked, in the cabin of a boat? They were busy focusing on me, and they had a composite sketch.

Cynthia Burton, then a reporter for The Press of Atlantic City, recalled a similarly disturbing experience with Margate police when, she said, an officer made a sexual remark about Saduskys body.

It was a little stunning to us at the paper, said Burton, who would go on to have a long career at the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer. It sticks in your craw. This naked girl in an upside-down boat. Just no respect for her.

No one who was working for the Margate Police Department in 1980 still works there today.

Ill be right back

Born in North Jersey in 1960, Debbie Sadusky moved with her family to Willingboro a few years later, then to Medford in 1976. Her mother was a homemaker, her father a millwright at the old Schmidts Brewery in Fishtown, now The Piazza.

Growing up with three brothers made her pretty tough. She drove a big Chrysler station wagon to school, acted in plays, did volunteer work, and liked to write  inspirational stuff, her brothers recalled. She was also a great swimmer. In 1978, she graduated with honors from Shawnee High School, where she was a drum and bugle corps majorette.

Carol Williams, who shared Christmas dinners with the Saduskys in Medford, said Debbie was a devout Christian and a cheerful, stabilizing presence in her circle of friends. Williams recalled a brief time at Shawnee High when she and Sadusky werent on speaking terms. Sadusky ended the standoff on the bus one day with four words: I love you, Carol.

I was like, Son of a gun. Now I cant be mad at her, said Williams, 62, a recently retired administrative assistant who lives in Mount Laurel, Burlington County.

In the summer of 1980, Debbie was enjoying herself. Shed enrolled at the former Stockton State College with the hope of becoming a dance teacher and was living on Asbury Avenue in Ocean City, with Williams and other friends. She worked long hours at Eckerd Pharmacy.

Darkly tanned and deeply religious, shed talk Williams into going to church with her. At dusk, theyd hop on their bikes and race to see the sunset. Williams still recalls those memories when the sun sets today.

She told me not to worry so much, and to live my life, Williams said. She was one of the happiest people I ever knew. I often felt she was too good for this world.

On the night Sadusky disappeared, Williams and two other friends were with her at Merals Inn. Sadusky was dancing with a man Williams described as a surfer kind of guy. They didnt know him. They did notice the bandage on his nose.

Debbie didnt really have boyfriends and I was like, finally, she met someone, Williams said. She just looked like she was having a good time.

They werent at Merals long, maybe an hour, an hour and a half, by Williams estimate, when Sadusky asked Williams to keep an eye on her purse and said: Dont leave without me. Ill be right back.

She never saw her again.

Not handled right

Debbies friends later went looking for her, calling her name around the bar and the marina.

When Sadusky didnt show up to work at Eckerd, Williams called hospitals, then Debbies home in Medford. Soon, Joseph and Marilyn Sadusky got word about the discovery in the boat. They headed for the Shore to identify the body of their only daughter.

Michael and his brother David, then 17, stayed up that night, waiting. Their oldest brother, Joe, a Marine, was stationed at Camp Lejeune.

They came home and said that its her, Michael said of his parents. I remember being in the living room and kind of having a group hug.

From the beginning the family had questions.

How did the boat sink? Who was the man in the sketch? Why were most of her clothes removed? Was the cabin locked from the outside, as one person on the marina claimed?

Joseph Jr., who was 22 when Debbie died and now works at Barbera Autoland in Northeast Philadelphia, questions whether Margate police were reluctant to pursue a potentially high-profile death investigation right before Labor Day weekend, a key income source for the town. Violent crime is rare there.

It was just not handled right, he said. There are so many unanswered questions.

Debbies room in Medford remained largely untouched until her parents moved to a new house about a decade later. They struggled with her death. Marilyn Sadusky became more religious, while Joseph, a tight-lipped union worker, talked even less. Eventually, the brothers learned that discussing their sisters death was too hard for their parents. When the topic of Debbie came up, it was about how she lived, and how much they missed her.

Joseph and Marilyn Sadusky were buried beside their daughter in 2004 and 2014, respectively.

After 40 years, were still kind of looking for closure. My parents went to the grave not knowing, Joseph Jr. said. The not knowing. Its always there. You replay things in your mind.

In December 2020, the Sadusky brothers hired William Trump, a private investigator.

Trump, a former New Jersey State Police detective, ran into a wall almost immediately when he sought the records in the case. He said many are missing, and those that he could locate raise questions about the quality of the initial investigation and autopsy. Some repeatedly misspell Saduskys name.

When Trump reached out to the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office about a year ago, he said he was told the records had been destroyed in Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Im very suspicious about them not having that, Trump said.

Trump hasnt been able to determine to what extent investigators looked into the possibility of a sexual assault or if they ever identified the man in the sketch.

Earlier this month, Bruce K. DeShields, chief of county investigators in the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office, disputed that any records were missing.

The Atlantic County Prosecutors Office lost no records as a result of Hurricane Sandy, DeShields said in a statement. The facts at the time of Debra Saduskys death led the investigation to be treated as an accidental drowning. As a result, the case was closed.

Nearly three months after her death, in December 1980, a doctor filed a supplementary report stating that Sadusky had a blood-alcohol concentration of .284, a gross state of intoxication that is 3 times the current legal limit for driving. She also had methaqualone in her blood, from taking a quaalude, which was a popular recreational drug at the time.

The report said the combination of alcohol and methaqualone could have led Sadusky to become comatose, or even to have died of a fatal overdose if she didnt drown first.

For Trump and Saduskys friends and family, that report is concerning.

Either the blood-alcohol concentration is wrong  inaccurate test results were not uncommon at that time, Trump said  or Sadusky likely would have had to consume a massive amount of alcohol after leaving Merals with the unidentified man. Carol Williams said Sadusky was not a heavy drinker in general and did not appear intoxicated when she left the bar.

Newspaper accounts from August 1980 include police statements that the cuts and bruises on Saduskys body might have been caused when the cabin cruiser was towed from Margate to Longport.

But, even if thats the case, why was she naked, except for a bra?

She didnt lose her clothes when that boat was rocking around. How did that happen? Trump asked. To me, it just didnt happen the way they wanted it to sound. It definitely calls for more investigation, without a doubt.

Man in the sketch?

In recent months, Trump said, he has identified a person of interest, a man still living in South Jersey. Carol Williams, who provided police with information for their 1980 sketch and has viewed old photos of the man on Facebook, said they are of the same person.

Definitely the guy Debbie was dancing with, she said last month.

The New Jersey State Police Cold Case Unit, which was created in 2020 to work on unsolved crimes, is also looking into Saduskys death.

Detective Shaun Clark, a member of the unit, declined last week to comment in detail on their work because it is considered an open case.

The case is considered active but administratively closed, Clark said. Technically, it is an unsolved death investigation.

While the Cold Case Unit has already had some early success in solving old crimes  including the recent arrest of an Egg Harbor City man in the 1996 sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl  the Sadusky case presents particularly difficult challenges: no DNA evidence and an apparent lack of contemporaneous records.

There isnt much documentation from the past, Clark said.

The three Sadusky brothers, the fisherman Bob Margeson, and Carol Williams said they were interviewed by State Police detectives last year.

Trump said last week that, according to his own sources, criminal investigators in October confronted the man he has been focusing on. The man agreed to answer some questions, Trump said, but left the police barracks when asked to take a polygraph.

Trump also offered the man a polygraph and he wouldnt do it.

My belief is he knows a lot more than what hes saying about Debbies death, Trump said.

The Inquirer is not identifying the man because police have not named a suspect in the case.

In a phone interview shortly before Christmas, the man denied ever meeting Debbie Sadusky. He said that he would never go out dancing with a bandage on his nose and that many guys looked the way he did back then.

I have no idea who the girl is, he said. Im not a hostile person at all. I dont even know where it all came from. Just very odd.

Asked if any law enforcement official contacted him about Saduskys death around 1980, he replied:

I really dont remember. I dont recall.

Anyone with information about the death of Debbie Sadusky can contact New Jersey State Police at 833-4NJ-COLD or coldcase@njsp.org.
PLEASANTVILLE  City police are searching for a missing Egg Harbor Township man they say was last seen early Sunday morning.

Irving Mayren-Guzman, 19, was last seen leaving the Centerfolds strip club, in the 200 block of E. Delilah Road, heading east on that road toward Atlantic City, police said.

Mayren-Guzman is described as Hispanic, 5-foot, 5-inches tall, weighs about 170 pounds, and has curly black hair. He was last seen wearing a black Jordan hoodie and grey pants.

He also has ear piercings and birthmarks on his nose and forehead, police said.

Many gathered outside of the club late Monday morning as authorities continued searching the area using a helicopter. Others in the community stood along Delilah Road and handed out flyers with Mayren-Guzmans picture, hoping someone passing by would have leads that could help investigators.

Mayren-Guzmans brother, Edwin Lugos, of Pleasantville, said his brother was with several friends before he went missing.

Mayren-Guzman and one of his friends entered the club while the others stayed outside in their car.

The friend returned to the car, but Mayren-Guzman didnt, Lugos said.

The group tried contacting Mayren-Guzman between 2:30 and 3:30 a.m. but were unable to locate him. No one inside saw Mayren-Guzman when the friends asked, but one of the employees discovered his cell phone, Lugos said.

The friends later reported him missing after looking for him for two hours, Lugos added.

Anyone who has seen Mayren-Guzman or knows his whereabouts is asked to call Pleasantville police at 609-641-6100 or email supervisor@pleasantvillepd.org.

Anonymous tips can be sent through the city police website or Atlantic County Crimestoppers, at http://www.crimestoppersatlantic.com

Contact Eric Conklin: 609-272-7261 econklin@pressofac.com Twitter @ACPressConklin

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WASHINGTONAs Russian military forces and equipment continue to flood into Russian and Belarusian territories adjacent to those countries borders with Ukraine, Radio Free Europe/Radio Libertys (RFE/RL) Ukrainian, Russian and Belarus services and Current Time digital network are reporting the facts on the ground on either side of the Ukrainian frontier.

On January 19, RFE/RLs Russian Service, in collaboration with the Conflict Intelligence Team, published the results of a joint investigation that exposes the scale and nature of Moscows military mobilization along Ukraines borders. Using Russian-language social media posts, the investigators traced the movement since January 7 of Russian soldiers based in far-Eastern Russia towards Belarus. In about half of the posts, the investigation notes, the friends and relatives of Russian contract soldiers write about the soldiers dispatch for assignment or for training.

These posts and others offer further evidence of Russias massive concentration of troops and equipment from throughout Russia near Ukraine. RFE/RLs Belarus Service reported on January 21, citing a Telegram post by Belarusian railway workers, that 33 of 200 Russian military trains, each averaging 50 cars bearing passengers, munitions, and other equipment had already arrived in Belarus for joint military exercises near the borders of Ukraine. The service supported this information with audience reports about Russian troop and equipment movements in Gomel region, only 150 miles north of Ukraines capital, Kyiv.

To track the Russian military buildup, RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service has created an up-to-date interactive map (in Ukrainian) that provides new information on troop deployments and equipment stockpiles along Ukraines border in Russia and Belarus, and within the territory held by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

RFE/RL has also sent reporters to Ukraines borders with Russia and Belarus, as well as the eastern Ukraine conflict zone, to learn more about the views of Ukrainian soldiers and local residents about the looming threat.

To provide insight on Ukraines ability to defend itself in the face of the military threat from Russia, RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service aired an exclusive interview on January 23 with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, and the day before its Crimea Realities unit posted an exclusive with Ukrainian naval forces chief Rear Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa. RFE/RL and its services have also interviewed numerous other foreign officials, including Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks, Polish Member of the European Parliament and former foreign minister Radek Sikorski and Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil, as well as U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R) and Chris Murphy (D), who visited Ukraine on January 17 as members of a bipartisan delegation.

RFE/RL has also provided audiences in-depth reporting and analysis on the summit discussions in December between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin; the January 10 U.S.-Russia talks, January 12 NATO-Russia meeting, and January 13 OSCE Permanent Council session; and the January 21 discussions in Geneva between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

RFE/RLs Ukrainian Service, with a monthly average of over 8 million visits and 11 million page views to its websites as well as nearly 600 million video views on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram in 2021, sets a standard in the Ukrainian media market for independence, professionalism, and innovation. Its comprehensive coverage includes the award-winning reporting of its Donbas Realities and Crimea Realities websites and Schemes investigative reporting team.

Labeled an "extremist organization" by the Belarus government, RFE/RLs Belarus Service provides independent news and analysis to Belarusian audiences in their own language, relying on social media platforms such as Telegram, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as mirror sites and an updated news app to circumvent pervasive Internet blockages and access disruptions.

RFE/RLs Russian Service is a multiplatform alternative to Russian state-controlled media, providing audiences in the Russian Federation with informed and accurate news, analysis, and opinion. Despite being labeled by the Russian government as a foreign agent, The Russian Services websites, including its regional reporting units Siberia.Realities and Northern.Realities, earned a monthly average of 12.7 million visits and 20.6 million page views in 2021, while 297 million Russian Service videos were viewed on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Current Time is a 24/7 Russian-language digital and TV network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA. In addition to reporting uncensored news, it is the largest provider of independent, Russian-language films to its audiences. Despite rising pressure on Current Time from the Russian government, which has labeled the network a media foreign agent, Current Time videos were viewed over 1.3 billion times on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram/IGTV in FY2021.

About RFE/RL

RFE/RL relies on its networks of local reporters to provide accurate news and information to more than 37 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 7 billion times on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram/IGTV in FY2021. 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.

----

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Martins Zvaners in Washington (zvanersm@rferl.org, +1.202.457.6948)

Karin Maree in Prague (mareek@rferl.org, +420.221.122.074)
World health officials are offering hope that the ebbing of the omicron wave could give way to a new, more manageable phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as they warn of difficult weeks ahead and the possibility of another, more dangerous variant arising.

In the U.S., cases have crested and are dropping rapidly, following a pattern seen in Britain and South Africa, with researchers projecting a period of low spread in many countries by the end of March. Though U.S. deaths  now at 2,000 each day  are still rising, new hospital admissions have started to fall, and a drop in deaths is expected to follow.

The encouraging trends after two years of coronavirus misery have brought a noticeably hopeful tone from health experts. Rosy predictions have crumbled before, but this time they are backed by what could be called omicrons silver lining: The highly contagious variant will leave behind extremely high levels of immunity.

COVID-19 antibody drugs from Regeneron and Eli Lilly should no longer be used because they are unlikely to work against the omicron variant that now accounts for nearly all U.S. infections, U.S. health regulators said Monday.

The Food and Drug Administration said it was revoking emergency authorization for both drugs, which were purchased by the federal government and given to millions of Americans with COVID-19. If the drugs prove effective against future variants, the FDA said it could reauthorize their use.

A cluster of COVID-19 cases in Beijing has prompted authorities to test millions and impose new measures two weeks ahead of the opening of the Winter Olympics, even as the city of Xi'an in north-central China lifted on Monday a monthlong lockdown that had isolated its 13 million residents.

Officials in Beijing said they would conduct a second round of mass testing of the Fengtai district's 2 million residents, where the majority of the capital's 40 coronavirus cases since Jan. 15 have been found. That came a day after authorities announced that anyone who buys or who has bought fever, cough or certain other medicines in the past two weeks would be required to take a COVID-19 test within 72 hours.
The Easter Bunny was representing the prosecution in several hundred Polk County criminal cases.At least thats what Iowa Courts Online, the court systems official, statewide web-based repository of court records, indicated for most of April.On April 4, the online docket sheets for hundreds of Polk County cases  primarily misdemeanors and drunken-driving cases  were revised to indicate the prosecution of those cases had been transferred from one particular assistant county attorney, Kailey Gray, to another prosecutor in the county attorneys office by the name of Easter Santa Bunny.And thats where the cases remained as of Thursday morning.Bret Lucas, an assistant county attorney, said Thursday the situation stemmed from a recent realignment of cases within the county attorneys office. Gray took over a colleagues cases, and Iowa Courts Online accurately reflects the transfer of those cases. But Grays old cases, he said, were transferred to the Easter Bunny until all of the work on the digital case transfer could be completed.We had contacted the Judicial Branch and they worked with their information technology department to facilitate the mass transfer of cases, Lucas said. Apparently, the Judicial Branch and the IT department decided to put that placeholder in there because, obviously, no one else would have that name.  So they were all aware of that, and it sounds like they must still be in the middle of that transfer process.Stacy Curtis, a supervisor for the criminal division of the Polk County Clerk of Courts Office, said the references to the Easter Bunny should not be visible to the public either through a name search or in the docket sheets for the individual cases. She said the office took extra steps to make sure members of the public didnt see any reference to the Easter Bunny and only clerks, lawyers, judges and others with higher security clearance could see it. It appears that the opposite may have occurred, as the Easter Bunny references could be seen by members of the public who werent even logged into the site.This has been a nightmare for me, Curtis said. We moved everything from Kaylie to the Easter Bunny, and those should have all been cleaned up so you wouldnt be able to see that.Many of the cases that were publicly assigned to the Easter Bunny are open, active cases, but hundreds of others are dormant, though not technically closed because of probationary sentences that have yet to be completed or fines that have yet to be paid.The only practical effect of the Easter Bunny designation is that some defendants may see that information online and not know who to contact at the county attorneys office about their case.After being contacted by the Iowa Capital Dispatch on Thursday, court officials were working to erase from the website any mention of the Easter Bunny, and by late afternoon it appeared they had succeeded.Santa bailed out by RudolphThe Easter Bunny cases are not the only criminal matters listed on the court systems official website to have featured nonexistent lawyers or defendants. In what appear to be training exercises for clerical staff, fictitious test cases are sometimes created and then posted to the public website but never removed.For example, a December 1997 case shows Santa Claus being convicted of felony burglary and kidnapping, with a charge of assault on a peace officer dismissed by the court. The court records indicate a sentence of 999 years in prison was imposed.As part of that same test case, the court imposed a no-contact order prohibiting Santa from having any contact with Mickey Mouse. Santas bail  listed as one million bucks in a possible punning reference to Santas reindeer  is stated to have been posted by Rudolph.In 2014, Santa Claus was charged with second-degree robbery in Scott County, according to the Iowa Courts Online site. Although theres no record of a conviction in that case, Claus right to carry a gun was revoked.The court systems website also shows that in 2014, Mickey Mouse filed a small claims case against Donald Duck in Marion County.For more information, visit iowacapitaldispatch.com.
Agents from the FBIs Chicago office searched the Rolling Meadows, Illinois, offices of the Center for COVID Control on Saturday, a source said.

The company has earned scrutiny from law enforcement in Illinois and Minnesota for alleged fraud and deceptive business practices in its testing facilities.

In an emailed statement, the FBI said that agents were conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in Rolling Meadows on Saturday.

Department of Justice policy prevents the FBI from commenting on the nature of any investigations that may or may not be occurring, the statement read.

The center was supposed to have reopened on Saturday after announcing its temporary closure days before the Illinois attorney generals office announced a probe into possible fraudulent activity.

I opened an investigation into the Center for COVID Control in response to our residents contacting my office to report a number of concerning issues at the Center for COVID Controls pop-up COVID-19 testing locations throughout Illinois. Complaints have ranged from testing results being delayed or not received at all, to results being provided to individuals who were never administered a test, to tests being stored improperly, and staff incorrectly using PPE and face masks, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said in a statement released Thursday.

According to a news release dated Thursday, the Center for COVID Control said it was delaying its reopening. As previously announced, CCC is using this operational pause to train additional staff on sample collection and handling, customer service and communications best practices, as well as compliance with regulatory guidelines. CCC will provide an update on reopening plans when appropriate.

Raouls announcement also came the same week that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a lawsuit against the center and a second group, claiming the center failed to deliver test results, or delivered test results that were falsified or inaccurate.

Minnesota officials found former employees who reported finding samples in bags that were well over 48 hours old, being ordered to falsify dates of receipt, and being instructed to lie to patients about their tests being inconclusive or negative when the sample had not been tested.

Numerous consumer complaints regarding not receiving test results, poor customer service, and requesting personally identifiable information led the Better Business Bureau of Illinois to give the center a grade of F.

Pop-up COVID-19 testing locations arent regulated by any government agency, according to Raouls office.

Opened in 2020, the Illinois-based company runs more than 300 testing sites, including 30 across Chicago, according to WGN-TV.

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Madison County's state's attorney filed a lawsuit Friday to try to stop a plan opponents say allowed Democrats to pull the rug out from under two local Republican judge candidates.

Earlier this month, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a law that splits the current 3rd Judicial Circuit  which includes Madison and Bond counties  into new sections called subcircuits.

The change is unconstitutional and scrambles election planning for two openings in the 3rd Circuit by using an outdated precinct map, according to the suit filed by Madison County State's Attorney Tom Haine.

It also affects two judges temporarily appointed to circuit vacancies: Republicans Christopher Threlkeld and Amy Sholar. Threlkeld has held the seat since February 2020 and Sholar since April 2021, and both announced plans to run this year.

The new map means they would have to move in order to run for election to their current seats, according to Haine's office.

"Every citizen should be concerned anytime that legislative actions are taken to influence the court system," state Rep. Amy Elik, R-Fosterburg, wrote in a newsletter Friday.

Democratic House Speaker Emanuel "Chris" Welch said the subcircuits will allow communities to elect judges who represent their interests and create diversity on the bench. Voters will only be able to vote for judges in their own subcircuit; before they could vote for judges countywide.

"These new subcircuits will help improve the diversity of opinion and background of judges, while giving everyone a voice in electing a bench of judges they feel best represent their communities," Welch said in a statement in early January.

The lawsuit says the newly drawn judicial map used old precinct boundaries no longer in effect. The Madison County Board adopted a revised precinct map in December.

"This redrawing of voting precincts in Madison County has changed the makeup or completely eliminated a number of precincts referred to in the (law)," the suit says.

The change causes confusion among candidates planning to circulate petitions, as well as for voters, the lawsuit alleges.

Madison County's current voter registration cards don't include any information on the new subcircuits, meaning they'll have to be redrafted to inform voters about which subcircuit they live in, the suit states.

The requirement "poses an undue burden on Madison County Administration in terms of the time, manpower and resources it will take to implement for the 2022 elections," the lawsuit states.

Changes to other circuit maps don't go into effect until 2024, but Madison County's map goes into effect this year with no explanation for the "differential treatment," the suit says. Additionally, the Illinois Constitution doesn't allow the General Assembly to eliminate all countywide judgeships, the lawsuit argues.

Haine filed the suit in Sangamon County, home to the state Capitol, and it names Pritzker, the Illinois State Board of Elections and Illinois Supreme Court Clerk Cynthia Grant. Pritzker and the state elections agency didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday. The clerk's office declined to comment.

A hearing could happen as early as Monday, according to a spokesman for Haine. The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order to stop the plan from going into effect until a judge makes a ruling.

"We are arguing that a pause is warranted here to let clearer heads prevail," Haine said in a prepared statement. "With this pause, our upcoming 2022 judicial elections can be held county-wide, as they have always been, while the courts closely review this very dubious new subcircuit scheme."

The 3rd Circuit is one of 23 statewide, according to the Madison County Circuit Court. Each circuit is made up of between one and 12 counties dependent on population, and therefore can be changed following the U.S. Census every decade. The Democratic-majority state legislature controls redistricting.

The current makeup of the court includes eight circuit judges and 12 associate circuit judges.

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A gunman holding four people hostage at a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue last weekend provides another reminder of the daily threat of gun violence to our local communities. San Jose, where I am mayor, is hardly immune: Our 1 million residents have endured three mass shootings in three years, along with hundreds of gun-inflicted killings, suicides and serious injuries.

Last June our City Council unanimously approved my proposals that will mitigate gun harm in our community  and a final vote on Jan. 25 should turn them into law. The proposals include two requirements for gun owners that no city or state in the U.S. has ever implemented: the purchase of liability insurance and the payment of annual fees to fund violence-reduction initiatives. We anticipate that a barrage of lawsuits from the firearm industry and gun rights advocates will follow.

Why should any city subject itself to litigation? Because now-common horrific reports of shootings throughout the nation do little more than elicit a performative parade of prayers and platitudes from Congress. Because problem-solving must be elevated over political posturing.

Because, as one grieving mother urged as I hugged her at her sons memorial, we just need somebody to do something.

My proposals take a page from public health approaches that have reduced auto-related deaths, tobacco use and teen pregnancy in the U.S. They incentivize responsibility, draw on multi-disciplinary learning and invest in proven harm-reduction initiatives with the guidance of experts.

Requiring every gun owner in my city to carry liability insurance will better compensate unintentional shooting victims and their families for medical and related expenses. More importantly, insurance can also incentivize safer gun ownership. Risk-adjusted premiums will encourage owners to take gun-safety courses, use gun safes or install child-safe trigger locks to reduce the annual toll of accidental gun harm.

Unintentional shootings  often involving children  annually claim the lives of 500 Americans and injure another 26,000. The new laws coming to San Jose apply lessons from the insurance industrys impact on auto safety. Reducing premiums on policyholders who drive more safely or buy cars with airbags or anti-lock brakes helped to reduce per-mile auto fatalities by nearly 80% over the last five decades, saving 3.5 million lives. We need a similar approach to address unintentional firearm risk because approximately 4.6 million children live in a household where a gun is kept unlocked and loaded, and shootings have become the second-leading cause of death among U.S. children and adolescents.

Imposing a modest annual fee on gun owners can support underfunded domestic violence and suicide prevention programs, gun-safety classes, mental health services and addiction intervention. Weve invited doctors, public health experts, and yes, gun owners, to help identify how to allocate the money from these fees in ways that will reduce gun violence. Prioritizing those investments to serve residents in gun-owning households will have the biggest impact because studies suggest that even a properly stored firearm in the home significantly increases occupants risk of death by homicide and suicide.

Gun rights advocates argue that gun owners should not have to pay a fee to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms. To be sure, the Second Amendment protects the rights of citizens to own guns, but it doesnt require the public to subsidize gun ownership. Every day, taxpayers bear the financial burden of police officers, ambulances and trauma surgeons responding to gun violence. These direct costs of gun violence total $40 million annually for San Jose taxpayers, and $1.4 billion for taxpayers statewide.

Critics say that criminals wont obey insurance or fee mandates  and they are right. But these ordinances create a legal mandate that gives police the means for at least the temporary forfeiture of guns from dangerous law-breakers. Particularly given the legally frail status of concealed-carry regulations before the current Supreme Court, law enforcement agencies face steep challenges keeping communities safe amid the ubiquitous presence of guns. Giving the police the ability to distinguish the scofflaws from the law-abiding among gun owners will have tremendous public safety benefits.

These new laws wont end all gun violence. Were deploying other interventions as well, such as bolstering gun violence restraining orders, banning untraceable ghost guns and preventing the illegal purchasing of firearms for people such as felons or minors who are not allowed to buy guns themselves. We need to coordinate early mental health interventions for individuals showing signs of distress as well.

While Congress dallies, communities dont have the luxury of dismissing the devastation of gun violence. We live among grieving family members; we hear echoes of painful eulogies and we work with traumatized friends. These new laws are no panacea, but they can reduce the unnecessary suffering in our community during a crisis that it is long past time to do something about.

Sam Liccardo is the mayor of San Jose, Americas 10th-largest city. 2022 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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CHICAGO  A gunman targeting someone else on Chicago's southwest side instead shot an 8-year-old girl in the head, killing her, police said.

The Cook County medical examiner's office identified the victim Sunday as Melissa Ortega, whose family recently moved to Chicago from Mexico. Police said she was walking on the street with her guardian on Saturday afternoon when someone fired shots at a 26-year-old man who was leaving a nearby store. Police believe he was the intended target.

The girl, who was shot in the head, was pronounced dead at a hospital. The man police believe was the intended target was shot in the back and was hospitalized in critical condition. Authorities did not have an update on his condition Sunday.

The attacker got away and had not been arrested as of Sunday.

Police Superintendent David Brown said the department "will not rest until the perpetrators" are brought to justice.

"The tragic and senseless murder of 8-year-old Melissa has shaken our city," he tweeted Sunday. "There are no words of comfort when a child's life is cut short. There are no words that can describe the grief of a family."

The shooting happened amid a spike in homicides in Chicago. Last year was the city's deadliest in a quarter century, with roughly 800 homicides.

Melissa was a student at Emiliano Zapata Academy, an elementary school in the city's heavily-Mexican Little Village neighborhood, according to the Chicago Teachers Union.

Her family emigrated to Chicago from Mexico last year, according to family members organizing an online effort to pay for funeral services expected to be held in Mexico.

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As the warmth of the holiday season ebbs, Americans are taking a cold look at their Christmas gifts. Many don't like what they see.

One in 4 Americans expects to return at least one holiday gift by next weekend, according to a report by UPS. That's at least 60 million packages in a single returns season for the world's largest package shipper alone, and a 10% increase over 2020 holiday returns. As the costs of shipping and handling those returns increases, retailers and consumers are facing an expensive and unsustainable shopping future.

For generations, savvy retailers adopted lenient return policies as a way to project reliability and retain customers. They knew perfectly well that unscrupulous customers could exploit no-questions-asked or receipt-optional refund policies. But the success of retailers like Nordstrom Inc. and Target Corp., both of whom have famously permissive return policies and loyal customers, highlighted the countervailing benefits. In a recent survey of apparel companies, 86% of respondents agreed that returns are a necessary evil.

Online retailers recognized the necessity early, adopting lenient return policies and free return shipping to build trust and loyalty with consumers new to e-commerce. Perhaps the most aggressive proponent was Zappos, the online shoe retailer now owned by Amazon.com Inc. Early on, the company encouraged customers to order shoes in multiple sizes and then return the ones that don't fit  and paid for the shipping. As far back as 2010, Zappos was happily telling reporters that its best customers are the ones who return the most products.

It's an expensive way to gain market share. In 2020, U.S. consumers returned around $428.6 billion in merchandise, or 10.6% of total retail sales. Now online retailers, buffeted by picky COVID-era consumers, face return rates between 15% and 30%.

Refunds are just the start of a retailer's costs. According to a recent analysis from companies involved in the returns industry, it costs $33 for retailers to process a $50 return item in 2021, a 59% increase over the previous year.

Several familiar factors figure into those rising costs during the COVID-19 era, especially for e-commerce retailers. Rising transportation costs have made it more expensive to move returned goods to specialized processing centers and then to their final destinations. Rising labor costs have pressured retailers in need of employees to open, assess and route returned products.

But the biggest costs, by far, are related to write-downs and liquidation of returns (on average, between $6.50 and $35.25 per $50 product). Few returned products are rerouted back into a retailer's inventory. The flood of returns is so heavy (and growing) that it's simply impossible for retailers to assess whether each individual pair of jeans, porch furniture combo or Lego set is in resellable condition.

To manage the volume, retailers rely on a byzantine network of brokers, resellers, liquidators and  sometimes  themselves to wring value out of returns. For example, Home Depot Inc. hosts online liquidation auctions of returned products with lot descriptions like "Truckload (18 pallets) of Outdoor Power Equipment, Vanities & More." Winners sort and  hopefully  resell the products. But there's no guarantee that everything will work (it's a return, after all), and thus the reseller also takes on the burden of disposal.

That can be a heavy burden. In 2020, retail returns produced nearly 6 billion pounds of waste. Some of that is packaging. But much of it is returned product that cant be resold. In those cases, resellers and retailers, faced with an unmanageable flood of returns, are known to incinerate returned inventory or dump it in landfills. Retailers who fail to address the problem not only bear responsibility for the waste, but risk alienating customers.

The financial burdens are just as serious. Last month, the U.K. online fashion retailer boohoo Group PLC cut its sales forecast due, in part, to a ruinous 12.5% surge in returns over December 2020.

They're not alone. In recent years, venerable retailers, including Nordstrom, have tightened up their once-liberal return policies in the face of rising costs. So-called free returns are being scaled back and consumers are being encouraged to deliver unwanted products to brick-and-mortar locations.

Solutions that avoid alienating consumers accustomed to free returns remain scarce. For example, many online apparel retailers have invested in virtual fitting rooms to assist online shoppers in purchasing right-fitting clothes. So far, the fitting rooms don't seem to have had much of an impact on returns.

A better approach might be a retail industry campaign that outlines the environmental and financial costs associated with product returns. At a time when consumers and retailers are keen to burnish their sustainability credentials, an honest acknowledgment of what happens when consumers buy more than they need (or want) could benefit everyone.

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is the author of Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade and "Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale." 2022 Bloomberg L.P. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Louella Fredrickson has long created makeshift fixes to fill gaps in the spotty medical care available to her as a member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Montana.

The 86-year-old uses dollar-store reading glasses to improve her blurry vision because shes worried about the cost of an eye appointment. And when she needed hearing aids, she was told it would cost her more than $1,300. So Fredrickson asked a doctor to tweak her husbands old pair to fit her smaller ears. My husband had only used them for a few months before he died, so they work OK, Fredrickson said.

But one thing she hasnt solved is the 200-mile round trip from her home in Great Falls to the closest Indian Health Service clinic that offers such services to tribal members for free.

Soon, though, getting care will be easier for Fredrickson and other Little Shell members living in and around Great Falls. The Little Shell Tribal Health Clinic is slated to open in this city of about 60,000 people on Jan. 31, roughly two years after the tribal nation achieved its long-sought federal recognition.

For the first time, Little Shell members will have guaranteed access to health services  and see their culture reflected in the offerings. The brick-and-mortar hub is a powerful symbol for a tribe that lacks a reservation, especially given the clinics focus on providing care to people who have faced long-standing health barriers that the pandemic underscored.

The building is a tangible example of what Little Shell can become, said tribal member Darrel Rummel, 81. The clinic, its going to be the heart of it all.

Little Shell became the United States 574th federally recognized Indigenous tribe in December 2019, roughly 150 years after Little Shell leaders began advocating for the tribe to be acknowledged as a sovereign nation. That recognition came just months before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and disproportionately killed Indigenous people due to entrenched structural health inequities. Of the nearly 2,800 Montanans who had died by Dec. 3 from COVID-19 complications, 12% identified as Native American. Indigenous people make up an estimated 7% of the states total population.

Amid the health crisis, the Little Shell Tribe used federal pandemic relief dollars to fast-track the opening of its clinic. It will offer primary and behavioral health care, plus dental, vision, pharmaceutical, lab and radiological services.

The tribe has had free access to Indian Health Service clinics statewide since Montana recognized it as a tribal nation in 2000. But such clinics can be scattered far afield and, even then, medical services vary. Little Shell members said their access has faltered when health facility budgets tighten and the clinics must prioritize care for tribal members affiliated with local reservations.

Molly Wendland, Little Shells tribal health director, said that the new clinic, initially run by the Indian Health Service, will be open to any member of a tribal nation and that the tribe hopes to eventually expand services to anyone else after it takes over daily operations. IHS will oversee it for at least three years.

Making our community and our members healthy means we have a healthy tribe, she said. I wanted this clinic to be comfortable and something new and nice. Our members deserve that.

On a recent day, Wendland smiled as she pointed to the word boozhoo on the clinics entrance, welcoming people with the word in the Ojibwe language that means greetings. Inside, above the reception desk, is a massive image of Ayabe-Way-We-Tung, also known as Chief Little Shell III, who began pushing the U.S. government for a reservation in 1872. Historical photos of Little Shell people decorate walls nearby. Lines of gray and burnt orange take the shape of abstract tepees along the clinics walls and floors.

Plaques, designed with help from the tribes language students, name clinic rooms after animals in Ojibwe, such as waagosh alongside its English translation, fox. For rooms Wendland calls talking rooms, two chairs face each other in place of an exam table and doctors stool, which she said lends more to a conversation between patient and provider. It really takes down that power differential, she said.

Upstairs is a small apartment, which Wendland hopes will serve as a place for traveling doctors to stay when they come to offer additional services, such as fittings for hearing aids.

Another room on the main floor is the smudge room, where patients can burn plants such as sage in a ceremony to cleanse a person or place.

This is a place to pray and just for families to kind of catch their breath, Wendland said. If people are going to have to travel, I want everything they need to be here.

The Little Shell headquarters is in Great Falls, though many members are scattered across Montana, Washington and beyond. The tribe is still trying to set up ride programs for its members who live in rural parts of Montana.

But for those tribal members in central Montana, the clinics opening will be an immediate benefit. Sherlie Bolich, 76, of Great Falls said she has sometimes waited for services amid backlogs of patients at other tribes facilities.

When Bolichs kids were in high school, she changed jobs for more flexible hours to take her kids on the four-hour round-trip drive to a clinic in Browning. Years later, she made those same trips when her aging mom needed more frequent medical care.

Even then, Bolich said, Indian Health Service clinics have felt like safe spaces because Indigenous people are the minority elsewhere, and the costs of health care services outside the federal health service can outpace paychecks  even with insurance. Yet now shes excited to have something closer, something for her tribe.

With the clinic here, you feel that youve got somebody here watching out for your people and all of us, Bolich said. My grandchildren will be able to go in and see somebody right away.

With the clinic here, you feel that youve got somebody here watching out for your people and all of us.

Little Shell member Rummel also has long traveled beyond Great Falls to places such as Browning for care. Since last fall, she has had spells of vertigo that can make it hard to stand and said she was told she would have to wait until spring to see a doctor.

At the Little Shell clinics recent open house, Rummel said, she wore a pair of beaded earrings and a traditional ribbon skirt, with pink, blue, purple, yellow and white ribbons wrapped horizontally down to just above her moccasins. Shes proud to see her tribal nation reflected on the new clinics walls. Like many Little Shell members, Rummel said, she grew up in a predominately non-Indigenous culture and is still working to learn the traditions of her people.

She immediately noticed the Ojibwe words printed on the clinics doors and walls  the first time she had seen her tribes language in a permanent spot. I was so impressed with that, I thought, That's going to help us learn our language, Rummel said.

And, she said, she hopes she can finally get those dizzy spells checked out once the clinic opens its doors.

Katheryn Houghton is the Montana correspondent for Kaiser Health News (KHN), covering all things health care across the state. Previously, she reported for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and the Daily Inter Lake. KHN is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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Tenants in Richmonds largest Latino community were ready to assist lawyers from the Virginia attorney generals office with a housing discrimination inquiry into their landlord.

But since firing the attorney who started the probe, new Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares office has not yet committed to meet with residents at the Communities at Southwood.

There has been no further communication [since the firings], said Jon Liss, co-executive director of New Virginia Majority, an advocacy group that has worked closely with tenants at the apartment complex to fight for better conditions.

The shake-up occurred on the eve of Miyares transition into an office previously led by Democrat Mark Herring. It spurred concern about whether the inquiry into the apartment complex and its property manager, Seminole Trail Management, would continue and, if so, how it would be handled.

Liss and his staff recently had an initial meeting with staffers from the attorney generals office. Afterward, they followed up with two dates for the lawyers to meet with tenants directly.

Two days later, Miyares fired Helen Hardiman, the housing attorney leading the inquiry, in a move Democrats and tenant advocates decried and Republicans defended as a routine part of the transition.

Our hope is that [Attorney General] Miyares will properly staff the office and quickly and thoroughly investigate the bad and potentially discriminatory treatment of Latinx tenants at Southwood Apartments, Liss said.

Victoria LaCivita, a Miyares spokeswoman, said recently that the firings would not stymie the work and that the new attorney general will look at every lawsuit, investigation and opinion with a fresh perspective.

Asked Friday what Miyares next steps were for the Southwood inquiry and whether he had tapped a new lawyer to lead it, LaCivita said in an email: This inquiry remains open and is ongoing by the Office of Civil Rights within the Civil Division. Any wrongdoing found will be fully pursued, but due to the ongoing nature of this case the Office of the Attorney General has no further comment at this time.

Herrings Office of Civil Rights initiated the probe in early January, following a three-month Richmond Times-Dispatch investigation. Reporters observed homes where children live rife with mold, rat and roach infestations; obsolete appliances; and other maintenance issues the landlord is legally responsible for repairing.

Tenants say management ignored requests or failed to adequately address problems brought to their attention.

Over the course of three months, reporters sought to interview Carroll Steele, Southwoods property manager, about the conditions.

Steele ignored or declined the requests before agreeing to respond to questions in writing. She blamed tenants from third-world countries for infestations and claimed her office had no record of maintenance requests from residents who spoke with reporters.

Richmond officials condemned Steeles comments and expressed support for the housing discrimination probe. They also pledged greater oversight at the property, including monthly inspections of at least one building at the roughly 1,300-unit complex. Code enforcement temporarily shuttered two units after finding infestations, mold and fire safety issues on an initial visit last month. Management made the repairs afterward.

The local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization in the country, expressed outrage at the inhumane conditions at Southwood outlined in the report by The Times-Dispatch, according to a letter addressed to Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney and the Richmond City Council and obtained by The Times-Dispatch.

The organization called for an immediate investigation into the complex and for tenants to be protected from intimidation, retaliation and displacement for cooperating with investigators.

All members of our community deserve safe, clean, dignified, and affordable housing in which they can live, care for their families, and thrive. We will settle for nothing less.
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney has tested positive for COVID-19 again, almost exactly a year after first being infected with the virus.

His symptoms are far milder this time, he wrote in a tweet Sunday afternoon, a fact he attributes to being fully vaccinated and boosted. In line with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, the mayor plans to isolate for five days.

Jim Nolan, Stoneys press secretary, said any future planned events or meetings that have been postponed due to the mayors positive test result will be announced Monday.

Since his symptoms began Saturday, his isolation period would be up on Thursday unless he tests positive on a rapid test at the end of those five days. That would extend Stoneys isolation to Feb. 1.

As we continue to live with COVID, no one has to die from it, Stoney said. Tell those you love to get vaccinated.

The most likely to be infected, hospitalized or die from COVID continue to be those who have yet to receive a shot, per Virginia Department of Health data. Unvaccinated Virginians are also the ones who face the greatest risk of severe illness every time theres a surge in cases, which the state is currently in as omicron  the most transmissible variant yet  drives infections to record levels.

Cases have declined since reaching more than 26,000 in a single day on Jan. 8, but Virginia continues to average more than 14,000 daily infections, which is double the highest average recorded in all of 2021. With more than 3,800 COVID patients on any given day, hospitalizations surpass last years figures, threatening a collapse of Virginias health system.

In the past week, Stoney attended a national mayors conference where President Joe Biden spoke and had his weekly in-person media briefing at City Hall. Stoney was also present at Gov. Glenn Youngkins inauguration last Saturday, where he sat in front of former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Chuck Robb, 82.

Its unclear how the mayor may have gotten infected or from who, but Nolan noted that every attendee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors  of which Stoney was heading a panel on Living With COVID as the chair of the Children, Health and Human Services Committee  was tested each day. A negative test result, in addition to being fully vaccinated, was required for participation.

Stoneys press secretary did not specify how many people the mayor was in close contact with, but said they have all been notified. None of them includes staff members or anyone on the City Council. As of last Tuesday, the latest available update, Nolan said the city has 116 employees out due to COVID.

Of those, 79 have tested positive and 37 are in quarantine.

Youngkins COVID action plan, released Thursday, asks healthy individuals with mild symptoms to stay home and use discretion on testing as supply chain shortages and difficulties in having the staff to meet the demand have strained capacity.

The National Institutes of Health defines a mild illness as people who have various signs of COVID but do not have shortness of breath. The CDC advises anyone with a known exposure to get tested and for people with any symptoms to isolate until they receive a negative diagnostic test result.

As the governor plans to empower residents with choices, not mandates when it comes to vaccinations and roughly 69% of the states population is fully vaccinated, Virginia is averaging 12,653 shots administered daily.

Thats the lowest number the VDH has recorded in over a year.
Richmond Public Schools and six other Virginia school districts sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Arlington County on Monday in an effort to block his executive order to make masks in schools optional. The governors order went into effect Monday in localities that havent decided to defy it.

The Richmond School Board  which voted Sunday to authorize legal action  joined school boards in Fairfax, Prince William and Arlington counties and the cities of Alexandria, Hampton and Falls Church to challenge Youngkins plan to allow parents to decide whether their children wear masks in school.

With COVID-19 transmission rates high, our hospitals at crisis level, and the continued recommendation of health experts to retain universal mask-wearing for the time being, this is simply not the time to remove this critical component of layered health and safety mitigation strategies, said a joint news release from the school divisions. School divisions need to continue to preserve their authority to protect and serve all our students, including our most vulnerable, who need these mitigation measures perhaps more than anyone to be able to continue to access in-person instruction.

Last week, a group of parents from Chesapeake brought a separate suit against Youngkin in the state Supreme Court seeking to block the executive order.

Youngkin, in an interview Monday on WRVA radio, addressed the resistance to his order.

When youre pressing forward with an agenda that cuts across what has been happening in Virginia, where we have not been looking after parents rights, we have not been standing up for our kids, then, you know what, were going to have some pushback, Youngkin said. This is what Virginians sent me here to do.

Youngkin said he found it ironic that the group of Chesapeake parents who sued him in the state Supreme Court are mad because central government isnt telling them what to do.

The school districts suing the governor say that at issue is whether the order violates Article 8, Section 7 of the Virginia Constitution, which says the supervision of schools in each school division shall be vested in a school board. The school districts say that provision means they have the authority to oversee the daily operations of their divisions and set their own policies.

They are also challenging whether Youngkin can use his executive order power to reverse a state law the General Assembly passed in 2021 that says school systems should follow COVID mitigation guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the maximum extent practicable. That state law, which spelled out rules for return to school amid COVID, is set to expire later this year.

Youngkin has cited a separate state law that says: A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education and care of the parents child.

This is going to play out in our favor. I feel strongly about that, Youngkin said in the radio interview, noting that Virginia was one of 16 states that still had statewide mask mandates. At the end of the day, the rights of parents, particularly, to make decisions with their kids must be upheld.

The new lawsuit by the seven school districts represents around 300,000 students, with Fairfax County, the states largest school district, taking the lead.

Richmond Public Schools has had a mask mandate in place since it reopened schools for in-person learning. It was the first district in the state to implement a COVID vaccine mandate, though it was effectively killed months later. RPS has also been among the most conservative in the state around COVID mitigation policies and became the last school district in the state to reopen for in-person instruction.

Theresa Kennedy, a mother of two boys in Richmond schools, spoke in Richmond on Monday morning during a news conference held by the state Democratic Party. She said she was baffled that Youngkin would issue the executive order at a time when COVID is spreading in schools.

This is not about our personal freedoms or our personal choice. That is false, Kennedy said. This is about the safety and health of every child in school with my kids and every teacher and staff member in school with my kids and in every school in this commonwealth.

Lawmakers sound off

Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, a public school teacher, said Monday was not an easy day for teachers, principals and school administrators who now must deal with how to address many new conflicts.

He said the 2021 law passed by the General Assembly was done with the intent of making sure schools were open safely.

Del. Elizabeth Guzman, D-Prince William, praised her local school board for joining the lawsuit against Youngkin. Guzman said her youngest daughter tested positive for COVID in December. Within days, four of the six members in Guzmans household were positive, too.

Omicron is highly transmissible and schools are struggling to enforce isolation protocols, Guzman said. So Governor Youngkin is not interested in protecting clients. Hes interested in advancing a dangerous agenda that puts our children at risk and places a greater burden on already stressed parents.

If the lawsuits against the order are upheld in the courts, one Democrat could help shore up Youngkins policy through legislative action. Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax City, said in an email to the Fairfax County Parents Association that the district should create an off-ramp for the mandatory masking policy.

Otherwise, the General Assembly will again step in. It is not an acceptable long-term solution, he said regarding mandatory masking in a statement sent to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The unions have something to say

In a joint news conference Monday morning, the Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico teachers unions emphasized their support for upholding mask mandates.

We call upon our districts to put the health, safety and education of their students above the political whims of the executive, Henrico Education Association President Patrick Miller said at Mondays news conference outside of the Richmond Education Association office. We need clear guidelines for school closures. No teacher, no administrator, no parent and no child is demanding all schools return to virtual learning. ... However, when hundreds of educators are home sick, quarantined, preparing for a sick family member, we cannot reasonably expect all learning to take place in person until there are enough healthy professionals capable of staffing our buildings.

The Chesterfield Education Association is asking for a clearly written and communicated plan for in-person learning that discloses the minimum percentage of instructional staff needed in a building and giving staff a choice in giving up their planning period for covering a class, and that if a staff member refuses, they will not face repercussions or disciplinary action, President Christine Melendez said Monday.

Katina Harris, president of the Richmond Education Association, said virtual learning should be used only when absolutely necessary. In order to maximize in-person learning, Harris said the union is focusing on six areas including protecting high-risk individuals, more transparency and improved contact tracing.

Harris said that if a student does not wear a mask to school, staff members have been told to encourage them to wear one. Some teachers are creating reward programs for students who wear a mask. No major disruptions to schools were reported across the Richmond region.

In Loudoun County, WTOP reported that some parents cheered as students walked into schools maskless despite the school divisions mask mandate. Those students were required to spend the day in a school auditorium.

The Chesterfield School Board, which in a split vote last week approved upholding its mask mandate until the superintendent of public instruction issued additional guidance, is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting Tuesday regarding its mask mandate following a 4 p.m. budget work session. A majority of the board last week signaled they may be willing to scrap the mandate after receiving more guidance from various state officials on keeping schools safe.

According to the Chesterfield union, of the thousands of comments sent in during last weeks mask vote, 1,728 comments were in favor of keeping masks while 583 were in favor of parental choice.

I would say that that is a majority of constituents who are still in favor of keeping masks at least during this [COVID] surge, Melendez said. This is a perfect opportunity to remind School Board members that they are elected officials and that their decisions are supposed to be reflective of the constituents who elected them.

A group separate of the Richmond Education Association on Sunday announced that they were planning a sickout in response to the surge of the omicron variant. A spokeswoman for the district did not respond to The Times-Dispatchs request about teacher absences by press time Monday.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed more than $3.5 billion in amendments to the $158 billion two-year budget left by his predecessor, Gov. Ralph Northam, but doesnt say where he would find the money to pay for his priorities.

The centerpiece of the new governors proposed amendments is a campaign promise to double the standard deduction for state income tax filers at a cost of more than $2.1 billion in state revenues.

Youngkin also proposes to exempt up to $40,000 a year in military retirement benefits from income tax, phased in over three years at a total cost of $515 million.

The other big piece of the new governors tax cut package would raise the amount of money given to taxpayers as one-time rebates by about $203 million for a total of about $1 billion when combined with tax relief that Northam proposed in his outgoing budget.

The amendments, released late Friday afternoon, break precedent with the past three governors  one Republican, two Democrats  whom the House Appropriations Committee did not allow to propose budget amendments directly, but only through members of the House of Delegates.

The practice has been you need to pay for what youre proposing, former House Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, said Monday.

Jones confirmed that he and his predecessor, former Chairman Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, did not allow incoming governors to propose executive amendments to the budget  from Gov. Bob McDonnell, who took office in 2010, through Gov. Terry McAuliffe in 2014 and Northam in 2018.

The custom and practice was the governor was not allowed any amendments, said Jones, noting that governors propose the budget in subsequent years for the General Assembly to consider.

House Appropriations Chairman Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach, said Monday that he is not bound by precedent because the assembly allowed budget amendments by two previous incoming governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats now serving in the U.S. Senate.

McDonnell took office during the Great Recession, Knight noted. He said he gave Youngkin an additional week to submit budget amendments, which were due the day before he was inaugurated as Virginias 74th governor.

He understands the separation of powers, the chairman said. I have no doubt we can co-exist.

Senate Finance Chair Janet Howell, D-Fairfax, said she also gave the new governor an additional week to propose budget amendments.

We will treat them like any other members, she said.

But Howell, whose committee is controlled by Democrats, added, A responsible governor would have explained how to pay for them.

Knight, who became chairman this month after Republicans gained a 52-48 majority in the House, said few delegates adhere to the past committee practice of requiring them to show how they would pay for their proposals, so he wont require it of the governor.

Im not going to hold him to that, he said.

Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for Youngkin, said, The governor appreciates the General Assemblys willingness to accept a package of amendments that reflects the governors priorities for this budget cycle. He especially appreciates Senator Howells willingness to do so as a gesture of good faith.

The package reflects the priorities outlined in the day one game plan, and the governor looks forward to working hand in hand with the General Assembly to incorporate them into the budget they are already working on.

Youngkins 21 proposed line-item amendments would add more than $3.5 billion to the budget that Northam proposed last month. Northams proposal left about $150 million unappropriated, which means budget writers would have to cut from Northams plan in order to back the new governors proposals.

Youngkin is counting on unprecedented revenue growth projected in Northams parting budget, which could increase again when the new administration considers a potential mid-session revenue forecast next month.

Im optimistic it will be reasonably good news, Secretary of Finance Steve Cummings told the House Appropriations Committee on Monday.

Tax cuts

Youngkin wants to give rebates of $300 to individual taxpayers and $600 to couples, compared with Northams proposal of $250 for individuals and $500 for couples. House Finance Chair Roxann Robinson, R-Chesterfield, has proposed legislation to require the refunds.

He also proposed a $75 million credit next year on income taxes paid by small businesses and included language in the budget bill for this fiscal year to require the tax rebates and suspend the most recent 5-cent-per-gallon increase in the state gasoline tax.

Other big winners in Youngkins proposed amendments are economic development initiatives proposed through the existing GO Virginia grant program and a proposal by the Growth4Virginia business coalition for spending on higher education.

The governor proposes almost $84 million for GO Virginias talent pathways program and $32 million for a higher education program to expand paid internships and other work-based learning opportunities with state businesses.

Both are priorities of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, which is closely aligned with McGuireWoods Consulting. The lobbying firm is an offshoot of the powerful Richmond law firm, whose former chairman, Richard Cullen, serves as Youngkins counselor.

Youngkin also proposed to add $29 million to the $150 million Northam provided to expand a state economic development program to prepare ready sites for immediate development by new or expanding industries.

Richmond

In Richmond, the government proposes $10 million over two years for the state and city to create a slavery and freedom heritage site in Shockoe Bottom, which was the heart of the second-largest domestic slave market in the U.S. before the Civil War.

Youngkin also proposed new spending on public safety, including $27 million over two years for cities and large counties with police departments through the so-called 599 program. Local police departments were left out of big boosts in compensation to state police, local sheriffs departments and other law officers in the current budget and Northams parting proposal.

He also proposes $40 million to expand cybersecurity initiatives, including $12 million from consolidating existing programs.

Youngkin proposes $100 million in federal money from the American Rescue Plan Act to provide grants to state and local law enforcement agencies for training and equipment, and $65 million in capital funding for a new State Police Training Academy.

Charter schools

In K-12 education, the governor has proposed $150 million in funding over two years to create what he calls laboratory innovation charter schools, as part of his push to use state money to expand privately run public school choices for parents. He also proposes more than $50 million to provide grants to local school divisions to hire school resource officers for security in schools.

But Youngkin did not seek more money to help local school divisions repair or replace crumbling schools, in addition to $500 million that Northam proposed.

I see nothing for schools, Del. David Reid, D-Loudoun, told Cummings during the committee meeting.

Knight, the chairman, stepped in to answer the question.

School construction has never been a function of state government, he said. Its always been a function of local government.
The Richmond School Board voted Sunday to take legal action to preserve its authority to oversee city schools and enforce COVID-19 protocols in an apparent effort to block the governors executive order on masks.

Its unclear whether Richmond is considering filing its own lawsuit or joining the one brought by Chesapeake parents asking the Supreme Court of Virginia to agree with them that the executive order making masks optional in schools violates a 2021 state law. That law requires schools to adhere to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Preventions COVID guidelines to the maximum extent practicable.

The 5-3 vote in favor of filing and/or joining legal action, with Shonda Harris-Muhammed abstaining, followed an hourlong closed session.

Today I voted no on a motion to file a lawsuit against Governor Youngkins executive order, School Board member Kenya Gibson said after the meeting. I did so because I believe we are better served by asserting the democratic legal authority we definitively have and focus on addressing the public health crisis we are facing as a district.

Gibson also emphasized in her statement that she planned to support the will of the board.

Mariah White and Jonathan Young also voted no, with Young telling a pool of reporters that he protested the gag order that was being put on the board in an effort to preclude members from publicly making statements about the lawsuit they plan to file.

Harris-Muhammed, who chairs the board, asked Superintendent Jason Kamras and School Board members not to speak about the matter publicly Sunday.

I cant even speak to what we did today, except for to recite the motion, which was granted very ambiguous but spoke to litigation and I believe it spoke to an executive order, Young said. He would not go into further detail about the matter.

Youngkins executive order allowing parents to decide whether to send their kids to school in masks is set to take effect Monday.

Youngkin has said he expects his order to hold up in court.

While the legal process continues on the parental opt out of mask mandates for their children in schools, I urge everyone to love your neighbor, to listen to school principals, and to trust the legal process, Youngkin wrote Saturday on Twitter.

The board late last week called a meeting for Monday to discuss legal matters. A school division spokeswoman said that meeting was called to discuss the systems masking policy. On Saturday, the meeting was moved up to 3 p.m. Sunday for the board to hold an emergency meeting with a closed session on legal matters.

Richmond Superintendent Jason Kamras has previously said publicly that he does not support Youngkins executive order to allow parents to decide whether their children would wear masks in schools. And last Monday, the Richmond School Board voted 8-1 to uphold its existing mask mandate.

Some of the largest school divisions in the state  including Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico counties, and five school systems in Northern Virginia  plan to defy the governors order and continue requiring masks in schools. Fairfax County says students who show up without a mask Monday will be considered in violation of the dress code.

Dozens of teachers say theyll call in sick Monday

The move toward a lawsuit comes as dozens of teachers say they are planning to call out sick on Monday out of frustration with Richmond Public Schools COVID protocols.

The Omicron surge has resulted in severe staffing shortages, which make daily operations difficult and place tremendous strain on remaining staff who struggle to meet the needs of students, the news release from a group of dozens of teachers states, many of whom are absent themselves due to illness, quarantines, or fear of coming to school.

The letter calls for more information on when schools would close, better access to KN95 masks, and virtual or half-day Wednesdays among other safety measures.

Weeks ago, the Richmond Education Association, which is not the organizer of the sickout, told the administration that teachers were heading toward a crisis and that in-person school was becoming more difficult to conduct.

Teachers in RPS who spoke to the Richmond Times-Dispatch on background say theyve seen days where half of their students are absent due to COVID. Theyve also said some staff members have caught COVID upward of three times, and describe the schools as a place where it is spreading rapidly.

In Kamras daily newsletter, RPS Direct, where he announces new COVID cases among students and staff, numbers have increased exponentially. Kamras has vowed to keep schools open, deploying central office staff into school buildings.

Kamras acknowledged Sunday that teachers are under stress but urged them to come to school.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP)  Virginias new Attorney General Jason Miyares has fired lawyers for two large public universities, his office said, marking more significant changes as the Republican ascends to his new job.

Tim Heaphy, counsel for the University of Virginia, and George Mason University counsel Brian Walther have been let go, Miyares spokesperson Victoria LaCivita told The Washington Post. School counsel within Virginia's public colleges and universities are appointed by the attorney general.

Heaphy, who along with UVA also confirmed his removal, worked at the school for about three years. He was on leave from the job to work as the top investigator for the U.S. House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol, the newspaper said.

LaCivita said Heaphys firing had nothing to do with that investigative role. Rather, she said in a statement, Heaphy was a controversial hire and Miyares Democratic predecessor, Mark Herring, had excluded many qualified internal candidates when he brought in this particular university counsel.

Our decision was made after reviewing the legal decisions made over the last couple of years, LaCivita said. The Attorney General wants the university counsel to return to giving legal advice based on law, and not the philosophy of a university. We plan to look internally first for the next lead counsel.

Michael Kelly, Herrings former chief of staff, said LaCivitas characterization of Heaphys hiring was inaccurate. Heaphy was a well-qualified attorney with much experience and the first choice of UVAs administration, Kelly wrote in an email.

Far from being controversial, his hire was celebrated by the university community and leadership, Kelly wrote.

Referencing Walther's firing, according to the newspaper, LaCivita said it is common for an incoming attorney general to appoint counsel that shares its philosophy and legal approach. Both Heaphy and Walther are Democrats, according to the Post. LaCivita also didn't say whether other counsels at Virginias public colleges and universities had been let go.

A former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, Heaphy was hired by UVA in 2018. Earlier, he had conducted an independent investigation of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

Heaphy, a UVA graduate and longtime Charlottesville resident, said in a statement that it has been a tremendous honor and privilege to serve as the schools counsel. UVA said in a statement that leaders were grateful for Heaphys outstanding service and disappointed to see it come to an end.

Walther referred questions about his firing to George Masons university communications department, which referred questions to Miyares office. The school said Walther had served as counsel since 2017 and the Mason community is grateful to Brian for his work and his many years of service.
Virginia ABC stores are gradually recovering from distribution problems that have caused many shelves to go bare.

Distribution issues and distillery production shortages, compounded by the pandemic, have caused stores throughout the commonwealth to be lacking customers favorites, said Mark Dunham, chief retail operations officer for the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority in Richmond.

Inventory can vary, so shelves at one store could be out of a product while other stores have it in stock, Dunham said.

No two stores are alike, he explained.

For six months starting last March, Dunham said the agency dealt with a unique shortage of more than 200 of its standard products.

Suppliers just didnt have product to ship to us, he said.

Product availability has been a roller-coaster ride with supplies on the rise, then out-of-stock products spiking again at 242 after Christmas, then improving again to well under 200 at the beginning of this month, Dunham said.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, the number of out-of-stock products was lowest at 55 in April 2020 and reached a peak of 250 in January 2021.

The toughest time was between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, according to a number of local store managers.

Nationwide, there are several factors contributing to the liquor shortages.

Distilled spirits have been impacted by widespread disruptions in the supply chain like other products in retail stores, said Dawn Eischen, ABC public relations manager.

Glass bottles and raw materials are in short supply, and the trucking industry experienced its own set of challenges, she added.

Some of ABCs suppliers have indicated that if current sales trends, logistics challenges and the scarcity of raw materials continues, it may be mid-2022 or later before they are able to sustain inventory levels to fulfill consumer demands, Eischen said.

Port congestion and delays in shipments led to problems securing import products that are in high demand  such as gin and scotch  Dunham said.

For example, at one Williamsburg area store shortly after Christmas, there were only eight lower-priced bottles of gin available on five shelves, each about 20 feet in length.

To exacerbate the situation, the ABC distribution process began moving products out of its new Richmond area warehouse in the late fall. Our move in late October and early November had some issues, Dunham said.

As we moved, we trusted suppliers to make sure we had inventory at both locations, but it didnt happen, he said. We needed to verify we had inventory and when we didnt, it caused a lot of headaches.

Ironclad Distillery in Tidewater sells two products through ABC, owner Stephen King said. One seemed to move without problems, but he said 650 bottles of another have been sitting in the Richmond warehouse for the past month.

I talked to ABC folks in Richmond and they cant explain why our product has not moved, King said. Theyre going to check into it and weve been assured that the problem will be resolved.

Chris Richeson, managing member at Chesapeake Bay Distillery in Virginia Beach, said he believes distribution to ABC stores was directly affected by the change of warehouse locations and associated logistical staffing.

But its the availability of glass that has caused the primary problem for Richesons distillery.

Right now, we cant make any of our flagship products. We have no bottles. We placed an order in July and have yet to receive it. Later, we placed an order for bottles from a producer here in Virginia and were supposed to get them in November or December, but the date was pushed again, he explained. Now, they say another three months!

King said he knows other distilleries like Chesapeake Bay that are short on bottles. We heard about the glass situation last year and were able to lay in a years supply, he said. But there is a shortage of corks now and even of paper that labels are made out of.

Demand was also a factor in liquor shortages. Purchases statewide as of Dec. 14 by ABC store licensees  restaurant and bar buyers  were up 120% over 2020, Dunham said.

Transactions werent necessarily up so much as calls for more premium, higher-end products that most often were not in the distribution chain, Dunham said.

Steve Smith, owner and director of operations of Opus 9 Steakhouse near Williamsburg, said the number of out-of-stock items hes seen has been unprecedented in the past six months, but he understands that ABC store operators are likely as frustrated as anyone else. Smith, who owns multiple restaurants, said that they order a couple thousand dollars worth of products from ABC stores each week.

The restaurants regularly shop at the ABC store on Monticello Avenue near Williamsburg, but if they have trouble finding liquor products, they will also check other stores in Williamsburg, then stores in Newport News and Gloucester County, Smith said.

If we cant find the product at those places, then were out of luck, he said.

Bob Hughes, who owns 10 restaurants with nine in Virginia Beach, said that licensees have been having trouble for months keeping their bars filled with various liquor brands. He said the restaurants offer the liquors they have, but he expects the situation to continue through 2022.

Weve been planning for future menus and were just taking a lot of liquors off them, Hughes said. Were unable to prepare certain specialty drinks because the liquor is not available.

Before placing an order or going to a store, ABC officials encourage customers to check the status of products at abc.virginia.gov or by calling their local store.
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A movie featuring locations at Smith Mountain Lake, Roanoke and Vinton will have its red carpet premiere at the Grandin Theatre on Feb. 10.

After several years of waiting, Princess Cut 3: Beauty from Ashes will be debuting on the big screen. The movie was filmed in 2018 and used scenes that included an alpaca farm in Hardy.

The movie is the second sequel to Princess Cut, the debut feature-length film by Paul and Sheilah Munger of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The couple worked as writers, producers and directors on each.

The sequel Princess Cut 2: Hearts on Fire also featured area locations, but came out in September without the fanfare of a premiere event. Sheilah Munger said the decision to skip the premiere was due to an increase in COVID-19 cases.

Munger said she is eager to premiere Princess Cut 3. Grandin Theatre also plans to show Princess Cut 2 beforehand, giving an audience the chance to see both on the big screen.

Two expectant couples that are best friends face crushing upheavals in their lives which force them to make life-altering choices, according to a blurb about Princess Cut 2 posted on the Grandin Theatres website, grandintheatre.com. A single mom struggling to make ends meet as a waitress witnesses a domestic disturbance and develops an unexpected relationship with the policeman investigating the case, reads the Grandins blurb on Princess Cut 3.

It has been a long road to completion. Munger said she expected to finish the films post-production in 2020, but was hit with significant delays.

On top of COVID-related delays, Munger said they had to wait on a tax credit from Virginia for the filming. A computer hard drive failure wiped out a portion of work done on the third movie.

It really has been an exercise in patience, she said.

Next months premiere will give local residents the opportunity to see the results of eight weeks spent shooting both movies in the area. Crews filmed between October and December 2018.

Munger said she loved living in the area during the shoots, a schedule extended several days in 2018, when more than a foot of snow fell.

That weather forced a change in the shooting schedule, but Munger said it allowed for some beautiful scenery of snow covered fields, especially at the alpaca farm. Actors spent the day at the farm, owned by Robbin Martinelli and Jay Pratley, and worked closely with the animals.

Munger said having alpacas gave the film a unique quality. It created an endearing element, she said.

For more information on the Princess Cut trilogy, including viewing options, go to watchmanpictures.com, website for the couples faith-based Watchman Pictures.

The Princess Cut 3: Beauty from Ashes premiere is set for 8:15 p.m. Feb. 10. The theater will show Princess Cut 2: Hearts on Fire at 6 p.m.
A man suspected of going on a rampage in Roanoke that left one dead, one injured and police drawing fire at one point Sunday night has been found and arrested in North Carolina.

The deadly string of events unfolded at convenience stores in different parts of the city beginning with a fatal shooting reported about 7:15 p.m. in the 500 block of 8th Street Northwest.

Workers at the 8th St. Grill & Market said a man flung open the door of the busy neighborhood shop, stepped back and then began firing into the store until the door swung shut again. One customer who had been standing by the counter was hit.

The police said a man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Majed Ibarhim, a manager of the 8th St. Grill & Market, said security cameras picked up no signs of an altercation or earlier event that might shed light on the violent eruption.

It seemed to have happened just for nothing, he said.

I dont know why, he said, adding the shooting was a tragic first for the corner store. Ive been here for like 15 years. I dont ever have any problems with anyone.

Officers who responded found no suspects on site but, while investigating, came under fire from a vehicle parked about a block away, police said. The vehicle was described as opening fire in the direction of the officers, and then driving a short distance before firing toward them again.

No officers were hurt. The vehicle fled afterward.

Investigators believe the same man behind that altercation also accosted and shot a woman in another part of town later that same night.

Sai Ram, a clerk at a Shell station on Hershberger Road Northwest, said he was working when he heard a gunshot outside.

A woman who had been in the store moments before came back in pleading for help. She had been wounded in the leg. Ram locked the door behind her and called 911.

Im just hoping she will be fine, he said.

The police said the woman was hospitalized with injuries that appeared non-life-threatening. The second shooting happened about 9 p.m. in the 2900 block of Hershberger Road.

Investigators said it appeared a man approached the woman, shot at her and stole some of her belongings before fleeing.

Ram said it was difficult to process what had happened. The man suspected in the shooting had been inside the store minutes ahead of the woman. He paid for gas without incident. Nothing about him stood out at the time.

Investigators identified the man charged in both cases, and were working to find him early Monday when the Greensboro, North Carolina, Police Department alerted them that the man was in custody there for an unrelated incident that occurred after the Roanoke shootings.

The suspect took someones car at gunpoint at about 10:45 p.m. Sunday and ultimately was apprehended by Guilford County, North Carolina, sheriffs deputies and booked about 2 a.m. Monday, according to a Greensboro police spokesman.

The Roanoke police didnt immediately release any details about the North Carolina charges. More information, including the name of the accused, will be announced once authorities are able to serve the arrest warrants issued in the local cases, officials said.

No other suspects are being sought in the shootings, said a police spokeswoman. The name of the man who was killed wasnt released Monday afternoon as officials were notifying his family.

Annette Ayers of the Greensboro News & Record contributed information to this story.

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What follows is a story about an American dream that was not blocked, demolished or abandoned and the resulting generational prosperity that has endured against the odds.

Bits and pieces of the late James Stephenson William Olivers story appeared here about a year ago, most of it sourced as anecdotal and presented by landowner Michael Beahm, one of Olivers neighbors on the Botetourt County side of the line with Roanoke County.

New biographical information for Oliver (1896-1986) and Bell Grove, the house and property where he lived and farmed at the curving intersection of Old Mountain and Shadwell roads, has since arrived. The sources are Michelle Washington, for whom Oliver was a great-great uncle; Frank Longaker, who now owns what is left of the Oliver property including the Bell Grove residence; and more from Beahm, whose email provided the basis for the initial report.

The original 143 acres of farmland was sold by Caleb Gish Nininger to Julius Oliver, James Olivers grandfather, in 1881 for $4,581, according to the deed recorded with Roanoke County. The sale would have been just another exchange of rich farmland from one prosperous farmer to another except for one detail: Julius Oliver and his wife Minerva (or Manerva, depending on which primary source document you were looking at) were Black and just 16 years removed from enslavement.

That Julius and Minerva were formerly enslaved had been told to Beahm, a great-great grandson of Caleb Nininger, by his family. Washington confirmed that about the Julius Olivers in a 2004 email exchange with Alison Blanton, who was assisting Longaker in his efforts to secure national and state historic property status for the remaining 1.75 acres of the Oliver tract including the circa 1881 homeplace that stands across Old Mountain Road from the Longaker residence.

The property was subdivided among Julius Olivers heirs after his death, as per his will. The last of it Washington sold to Longaker on behalf of her aunt Kathryn Ellen Taylor of Roanoke. Taylor, related to Washington on her mothers side, was the last family member to own the property, having bought it from James Oliver and his twin sister Nellie.

The Olivers at one time probably owned more land in Roanoke County than any Black family. During an era when the average Virginia farm was 167.4 acres, according to a 1915 University of Virginia study cited in the Longaker historic property application, the Olivers had increased their holdings to 252 acres.

The Olivers were among the 43 property owners listed as colored in the Big Lick magisterial district of Roanoke County in the 1898 tax book. The total of Black-owned land in the district was listed at 470.4 acres. In other words, the Olivers owned more than half of it.

By comparison, the average Black-owned farm in southwest Virginia in 1915 was a little more than 40 acres, according to the university study. For close to 100 years ending with James Olivers stewardship in the 1980s, the Olivers and their farm produced. Theres more to it than that, though.

I am proud to say, Michelle Washington wrote in 2004, that this property gave rise to a rather accomplished, highly educated African American family.

Washington, who could not be reached for this column, then offered details starting with she and her sisters, Kathryn Ann and Pamela. All three were raised in Washington, D.C., and went on to become lawyers like their late father Melvin J. Washington. Michelle, the middle daughter and born in 1966, went to law school at Yale, Kathryn Ann at William and Mary, and Pamela at Tulane.

Their mother the former Flora Taylor was related to the Olivers on her mothers side. The Washingtons and Taylors continued to visit the farm as the Washington sisters were growing up. Michelle Washington recalled how her mother spoke of accompanying her uncle James when he made produce and dairy deliveries to old Bellvue School, now the Longaker home.

Michelle Washington remembered when she and her sisters visited the farm James Oliver, lifelong bachelor, looked like many farmers  sun-beaten dark red, deeply-wrinkled skin; he also had pure white hair and a high-pitch cackle laugh. I was terrified of him, which made him laugh all the more.

By the way, Michelle Washingtons mother and aunt set outstanding examples of accomplishment for the next generation. Flora had a masters degree in library science and taught school for 35 years and Kathryn (K.T. to her family) was a Lucy Addison High honors graduate, Phi Beta Kappa at Howard University, the top of her class at Howards medical school, and a pediatrician and ambulatory pediatrics director at the former District of Columbia General Hospital.

As for Julius Oliver, whose pre-Bell Grove (which he had built) days are unclear, he arrived at his new property with a table on his back, according to family lore. From such origins an empire was born.

The connection to the Niningers may include a family tie, Washington was told. If so, it is not shown at Caleb Gish Niningers four-generation deep fan chart at familysearch.org.

Nininger (1829-1915) was part of a prominent Botetourt County Church of the Brethren family that were among the founders of the old Daleville College previously written about here. The Gishes made their fortunes in milling and built the old mill on Glade Creek in Vinton that still stands and was also covered in this space.

Michael Beahm speculated that because the Brethren were adamant slavery-haters, that may have been added incentive for Caleb Nininger to do real estate business that might serve to advance the prospects for a former slave.

Although the 1870 census listed Julius and Minerva Oliver as illiterate, they clearly had an interest in education. The Washingtons have a copy of the 1872 deed for 2 acres of land in Cloverdale that provided the site for the Colored People of Cloverdale Church, later to be Cloverdale Baptist, and the Public Free School of Amsterdam School District for Black children.

Julius Oliver donated the $95 purchase price for the land. Sellers were Caleb Nininger and his wife.

One more interesting connection was noted by Beahm between the Olivers and another prominent family of the same name. Beahms research of the original title to the land found it had first been sold in 1857 by a white man named Yelverton Oliver.

A horseman and gambler, Yelverton Oliver built the house that still stands on the other side of Read Mountain called Monterey. Yelverton Oliver, who has also been written about in this space, was the son of Charles Oliver, who bought the property in 1823 after moving from Nottoway County.

Beahm heard that some of the Black Olivers or their relatives had been brought from Nottoway in slavery to work for Charles Oliver on his new property. When freed by the Civil War, they remained in Roanoke County.

Oral history can be hard to trace, but imagine finding prosperity after origins like that.

If youve been wondering about something, call Whats on Your Mind? at 777-6476 or send an email to whatsonyourmind@roanoke.com. Dont forget to provide your full name (and its proper spelling if by phone) and hometown.

If youve been wondering about something, call Whats on Your Mind? at 777-6476 or send an email to whatsonyourmind@roanoke.com. Dont forget to provide your full name (and its proper spelling if by phone) and hometown.
Sean Bennett started throwing up blood, so he went to the emergency room at LewisGale Hospital Montgomery near his home in Riner . Bennett has dealt with prolonged liver disease for over a year, sending him to the hospital repeatedly.

A small community facility, LewisGale didnt have a gastrointestinal doctor available to treat his condition, an enlarging of the veins in his esophagus called esophageal varices. There wasnt a hospital with both a GI doctor and an available bed for 200 miles.

They tried everywhere, said Bennett, 38.

So LewisGale staff put him in an ambulance and sent him three and a half hours east to Henrico Doctors Hospital, which had a bed and a doctor.

But a few weeks later, in late summer, he was spitting up blood again, and he returned to the Blacksburg hospital. This time, the closest available bed was 250 miles away at Reston Hospital Center. Doctors determined his condition was so urgent, they sent him there in a helicopter.

When he became ill for a third time, LewisGale put him back in a helicopter and flew him to Henrico Doctors, once again sending him across the state.

Six months after the nursing crisis began, omicron has brought the highest number of COVID-19 patients to Virginia hospitals, putting beds at a premium and patients with all types of ailments at risk.

Some patients, like Bennett, have been transferred hours away across the state. Others remain in hospitals ill-equipped to treat them. And others sit in emergency room beds  or chairs  waiting for an open bed upstairs.

Waiting diminishes the care the patients receive, and searching for open beds eats up the precious time of emergency room staff.Christopher Finley, spokesperson for LewisGale Regional Health System, said all four of the companys hospitals in the region from Pulaski to Alleghany County are working to enhance the surge plans developed for previous waves of COVID-19 cases. As part of a larger HCA Virginia Health System, the smaller regional hospitals are able to expedite care for those needing inpatient care by relying on their partner hospital in Richmond.

This month Virginia has set records for hospitalized COVID patients.

There were nearly 90,000 emergency room visits the first week of the year, 45% higher than before the pandemic began. The non-COVID patients are generally sicker than before.

Virginia Commonwealth University Healths downtown medical center is seeing unprecedented demand for inpatient care, a spokesperson said.

As patients flood in, they are being treated by a smaller, weary medical workforce that lost 8,100 nurses nationwide in September alone.

This perfect storm represents a failure of our bigger medical system as a whole, said Dr. David Fosnocht, head of Augusta Emergency Physicians in Augusta County.

Transferring patients

In the fall, a patient with a brain bleed arrived at an emergency room in eastern Virginia. Dr. Todd Parker, president-elect of the Virginia College of Emergency Physicians, determined the patient needed to be transferred to a larger hospital with an ICU.

Parker and his staff contacted 17 hospitals in five states but couldnt find an open bed. After 12 hours of searching, a bed became available in the same hospital system.

From his hospital in Hampton Roads, he has sent patients to University of Virginia Health, Duke Health and Inova Fairfax.

Before the pandemic, Fosnocht often transferred patients to Carilion Roanoke Memorial and UVa. Now, those hospitals are often full, sending him to look in all corners of the state. One night, he could find only one available intermediate-level bed  hospital beds are divided into categories based on severity of illness  in the entire state.

The longer a patient is in transit, the greater the risk, doctors say. Transferring critically ill patients to a new hospital often means taking them out of the hospital and putting them in an ambulance for an hourslong trip.

Transferring patients is labor intensive and takes a doctors time away from other patients. Fosnocht carries a printed spreadsheet of 25 or so of the largest hospitals in the state. Its updated regularly to show which ones have the capacity for new patients. The open ones are highlighted.

To initiate a transfer, he calls the closest open hospital on the list. He usually starts with UVa  a 40-minute drive away  or Carilion Roanoke, which is 1 hours away. When a hospital tells him it cant accept his patient, he moves down the list and expands his geographic circle.

If he can find a receiving hospital in 15 or 30 minutes, thats a success. The difficult transfers take hours.

For years, he never transferred patients to Inova Fairfax, which is more than two hours away. Now, he does so routinely. Sometimes, he sends patients to Hampton Roads, some three hours away.

If no bed can be found, a patient might stay in a sub-optimal hospital. During one week in September, when the delta variant was at its worst, there were 27% fewer transfers than the same week in 2019.

If a patient cant be transferred, the hospital will hold them, hoping conditions dont worsen. If they dont worsen, sometimes the patient can be released. If they do worsen, the hospital will search for a transfer destination again, asking other facilities to make an exception for a serious condition.

Transferring a patient also raises the cost of the medical bill.

A 50-mile transport through the Richmond Ambulance Authority can cost $2,500.

And it occupies transport services. Augusta Health typically operates two ambulances of its own at a time, depending on staffing. If one ambulance is dispatched to Hampton Roads, half of the hospitals ambulance resources become tied up for more than six hours.

American Medical Response operates many of the inter-hospital transports in the area. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment.

Boarding in the ER

Sometimes a patient doesnt need to be transferred away, but the hospital doesnt have a bed to offer, either. So the hospital admits the patient but keeps them in the emergency room while waiting for a bed upstairs, a circumstance known as boarding.

One day this winter, in a 50-bed emergency room in Hampton Roads, 36 beds held a patient boarding, Parker said. That creates a logjam, preventing the emergency room from seeing other sick people.

Recently, having 10 or 20 patients boarding in his ER is normal, Parker said. Long an issue in health care, boarding has been exacerbated by omicron and the nursing shortage.

Sometimes it takes two or three days for a bed to open up  maybe a patients entire hospital stay.

Its horrible, Fosnocht said. It continues a downstream effect on quality and being able to take care of patients the way it really should be done.

While boarding, patients dont get the same level of care, the doctors said. The emergency room is chaotic, noisy and bright, and its a hard place for patients to sleep. Instead of a dedicated nurse, staffers rotate in and out. The nurses are less familiar with the patients medicine and treatment. The doctor in charge isnt down the hall  they are on another floor, maybe on another wing.

Those small details result in poorer care, Fosnocht said. Boarding is a significant risk to morbidity and mortality every hour theyre there.

When every room is full, patients may wait in chairs, be seen in the waiting room or get a bed in a hallway.

When an emergency room can accept no more patients, it gives itself a designation known as diversion, directing ambulances to go elsewhere. Diversion isnt unusual  one day last month, 12 hospitals in the region were simultaneously on some form of diversion, unable to accept certain patients based on their medical needs.

In less urban areas, hospitals cant go on diversion, because there are no other nearby facilities.

Carilion Clinic has an operations center in Roanoke to help manage the flow of patients in and out of its system, dating to before the pandemic. But even with the Carilion Transfer and Communications Center operating around the clock, the waves of COVID cases have strained the system, according to a statement from Michael Abbott, senior vice president at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

Carilion has at times established emergency waiting rooms in tents, reconfigured spaces to isolate suspected COVID patients, and delayed nonurgent or elective procedures, Abbott wrote. The hospital also has been unable to accept transfers on occasion because a bed with the appropriate level of care was already full, he wrote. The situation depends upon the type of care needed.

Lower staffing

Burnt out, nurses have left emergency rooms and intensive care units in droves. In Virginia, the workforce of about 100,000 nurses is probably 10% below what is needed, Kathy Baker, associate chief nurse for VCU Health, said in the summer.

The number of nurses employed can sometimes dictate the number of beds a hospital can keep open. At Augusta, fewer nurses have forced the hospital to operate about 25% fewer beds than ideal, Fosnocht said. The three major health systems in Richmond  VCU Health, Bon Secours and HCA  declined to say how many nurses they have lost this year and if they are staffing fewer beds.

The hospitals other option is to operate the same number of beds with fewer nurses, stretching their staff thinner, giving every nurse more patients to care for.

There are just no options for nursing staffing right now, Fosnocht said. Its a nationwide crisis, and it certainly is in Virginia and locally here as well.

Hospitals are left competing for scarce resources, squeezing their budgets to pay nurses more, even though they arent receiving higher reimbursement from insurance companies.

Sometimes its easier to send a patient not to the hospital 30 minutes down the road but to the one three hours away. Thats what happened to Bennett.

A hospital will go to greater lengths to accept a patient already in the health system. Because large hospitals are already taking patients from smaller facilities in their own system, they often cannot accept patients from other systems.

When Bennett got sick and went to Montgomery LewisGale, he entered a facility owned by HCA Virginia Health System. Doctors sent him to two other HCA hospitals  Henrico Doctors and Reston Hospital Center. A spokesperson for HCA said doctors consider a patients needs, bed availability, the timeliness of the transfer and continuity of care to decide if the patient will stay in the system or leave it.

When Bennett arrived at Henrico, his gastrointestinal doctor recommended Bennett stop visiting LewisGale, because hed keep getting transferred, Bennett said. The doctor recommended Carilion Roanoke Memorial, about a 40-minute drive from his home. Its the largest hospital in the Carilion system, and it was unlikely Bennett would be transferred farther from home.

So Bennett started visiting Carilion, and he hasnt been transferred since. But that doesnt mean the care has been quick. Sometimes he has waited four or five hours before seeing a doctor.

The Roanoke Times contributed to this report.
RICHMOND  Richmond Public Schools and six other Seven Virginia school districts sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin in Arlington County Monday in an effort to block his executive order to make masks in schools optional. The governors order went into effect Monday.

The Richmond School Board  which voted Sunday to authorize legal action  joined school boards in Fairfax, Prince William and Arlington counties and the cities of Alexandria, Hampton and Falls Church to challenge the governors plan to allow parents to decide whether their children wear masks in school.

With COVID-19 transmission rates high, our hospitals at crisis level, and the continued recommendation of health experts to retain universal mask-wearing for the time being, this is simply not the time to remove this critical component of layered health and safety mitigation strategies, said a joint news release from the school divisions. School divisions need to continue to preserve their authority to protect and serve all our students, including our most vulnerable, who need these mitigation measures perhaps more than anyone to be able to continue to access in-person instruction.

Last week a group of parents from Chesapeake brought a separate suit against Youngkin in the state Supreme Court seeking to block the executive order.

Youngkin, in an interview Monday on WRVA radio, addressed the resistance to his order.

When youre pressing forward with an agenda that cuts across what has been happening in Virginia, where we have not been looking after parents rights, we have not been standing up for our kids, then, you know what, were going to have some pushback. Youngkin said. This is what Virginians sent me here to do.

Youngkin said he found it ironic that the group of Chesapeake parents who sued him in the state Supreme Court are mad because central government isnt telling them what to do.

The school districts that filed suit in Arlington say that at issue is whether the order violates Article 8, section 7 of the Virginia Constitution, which says the supervision of schools in each school division shall be vested in a school board.

The school districts say that provision means they have the authority to oversee the daily operations of their divisions and set their own policies.

They also say they are challenging whether Youngkin can reverse, through executive order, a state law the General Assembly passed in 2021 that says school systems should follow COVID-19 mitigation guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the maximum extent practicable. That state law, which spelled out rules for return to school amid COVID, is set to expire later this year.

Youngkin has cited a separate state law that says: A parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education and care of the parents child.

This is going to play out in our favor. I feel strongly about that, Youngkin said in the radio interview, noting that Virginia was one of 16 states that still had statewide mask mandates. At the end of the day, the rights of parents, particularly, to make decisions with their kids must be upheld.

The new lawsuit by the seven school districts represents around 300,000 students combined, with Fairfax County, the states largest school district, taking the lead.

Richmond Public Schools has had a mask mandate in place since it reopened schools for in-person learning. It was the first district in the state to implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, though it was effectively killed months later. RPS has also been among the most conservative in the state around COVID-19 mitigation policies and became the last school district in the state to reopen for in-person instruction.

Theresa Kennedy, a mother of two boys in Richmond schools, spoke in Richmond Monday morning at a press conference held by the state Democratic Party. She said she was baffled that Youngkin would issue the executive order at a time when COVID is spreading in schools.

This is not about our personal freedoms or our personal choice. That is false. This is about the safety and health of every child in school with my kids and every teacher and staff member in school with my kids and in every school in this commonwealth, Kennedy said.

Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, a public school teacher, said Monday was not an easy day for teachers, principals and school administrators who now must deal with how to address many new conflicts.

He said the 2021 law passed by the General Assembly was done with the intent of making schools were open safely.
(Thai Police handout)

A British man has been killed and another injured in an attack believed to involve a sickle in Thailand.

Marcus Evans, a 49-year-old from Berrow in Somerset, was killed in the early hours of Saturday in the western Kanchanaburi region.

He was found dead at his home with knife wounds, according to police.

A 55-year-old man, also British, was injured and taken to hospital. He was reportedly a friend of the British man who was killed.

Thai police said they had arrested a 22-year-old man in connection with the incident, which they believe involved a rice sickle.

The instrument  which has a curved metal blade and is used to harvest rice  was reportedly found at the scene.

Police said their initial investigations suggested the Thai suspect may have attacked the men for drinking and playing music loudly in the early hours.

Local media reported the attack happened just before 0400 local time [2100 GMT].

Officers said the suspect was being given psychiatric support, Sky News reported.

A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said the government was in contact with Royal Thai Police following the death of one British man and the hospitalisation of another in Thailand.

The department said it was ready to provide consular support following the events.

Additional reporting by agencies
FILE PHOTO: Man is seen at an Jio-bp electric vehicle (EV) charging point, in Navi Mumbai

By Sudarshan Varadhan

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Delhi city state government has proposed mandating a quarter of new cab registrations to be electric vehicles, according to a draft note by its transport department.

The proposal would mandate apps providing transportation or delivery services, including cab operators such as Ola and Uber and food delivery apps Swiggy and Zomato, to register with the Delhi government as soon as the law comes into effect.

The Delhi government has sought comments from stakeholders on the draft, which also proposes mandating half of all new two and three wheelers used for ride sharing and deliveries to be electric within a year of registration.

The transport sector is the biggest polluter in and around New Delhi, the most polluted city in the world, followed by industries and utilities, according to a report by India's federal Earth sciences ministry.

The report observed that cabs had emerged as one of the major polluting sources in Delhi, with every cab operated by ride hailing companies such as Ola and Uber travelling nearly 145,000 km (90,000 miles) per year on average.

The draft, if approved, could provide relief to Delhi's citizens and the finances of its public health system, which environmental experts say incurs millions of dollars in healthcare costs every year due to pollution.

The move could also reduce demand for fossil fuels in and around the region, among the biggest consumers of gasoline, natural gas and diesel.

The draft also proposed imposing penalties on companies that don't comply with electric vehicle transition targets.

(Reporting by Sudarshan Varadhan and Aditi Shah in New Delhi; Editing by Mark Potter)
ELK POINT, S.D. -- A Beresford, South Dakota, man accused of sexually assaulting a toddler has pleaded guilty of possession of child pornography.

Mark Cornish, 30, entered his plea Monday to four counts of possession of child pornography. The charges, all Class 4 felonies, each carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Sentencing was scheduled for March 14 in Union County Circuit Court.

Cornish was indicted in September on 39 counts of possession of child pornography and single counts of first-degree rape and sexual exploitation of a minor. No plea agreement had been filed by late Monday.

Authorities began investigating Cornish on Aug. 26, when police were notified of his behavior with a 13-year-old girl at the Family Dollar store. The girl told police she had babysat Cornish's two children and that she and Cornish had kissed, hugged and cuddled at his home. She also admitted they had sent nude photos of themselves to each other.

On Aug. 29, police seized Cornish's cellphone and laptop during a search of his home, where he lived with his fiancee and their two young children.

According to court documents, investigators searching the phone and laptop found dozens of downloaded images and videos of nude children, some engaged in sexual activity. Investigators also found a video of the rape of a child they believed was taken on Cornish's phone inside his home.

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STORM LAKE, Iowa -- A Storm Lake man has been arrested and charged in connection with an incident in which a child was accidentally shot in a Storm Lake home.

Kaurav Randhawa, 32, was arrested Monday morning on charges of child endangerment causing bodily injury, a Class D felony, and making firearms available to a minor, a serious misdemeanor. Randhawa was booked into the Buena Vista County Jail and released on bond.

Police and rescue personnel were dispatched Wednesday evening to a home in the 600 block of East 12th Street, where a 9-year-old child had been shot.

According to court documents, a 7-year-old child found Randhawa's loaded 9mm handgun on a shelving unit in the living room. The 7-year-old thought the gun was a toy and pulled the trigger, shooting the 9-year-old in the right hip. The bullet exited out of the child's right buttocks, missing major arteries, court documents said.

The 9-year-old was treated at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center for the non life-threatening injuries.

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SIOUX CITY -- The parents of a boy who was attacked and cut by a fellow East Middle School student have sued the Sioux City Community School District.

Chad and Mandy Sorenson allege their son's injury was the result of negligence by the school's staff to adequately supervise students in hallways and to allow weapons in the school.

Their son was injured on Dec. 14, 2020, during a confrontation with two female students, who were 12 and 13 years old at the time, at East Middle, 5400 Lorraine Ave. According to a police report issued after the incident, the boy, who was 12, received a minor laceration on the back of his head from an "X-acto" style cutting tool used for crafts and hobbies that the 12-year-old girl had in her possession. The girl was referred to Juvenile Court Services on a charge of willful injury.

In addition to suing the school district, the Sorensons also are suing Sandra Benigno, the mother of the girl accused of injuring their son.

The district does not comment on pending litigation, communications director Leslie Heying said.

The parents said in the suit, filed last week in Woodbury County District Court, that their son has permanent injuries that will require future medical expenses, in addition to the expenses occurred to treat the injury at the time of the incident. They did not specify a dollar amount of damages being sought, but requested a judgment that will "fairly and adequately compensate them for their injuries and damages ...".

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The health department will offer free curbside COVID-19 testing from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday outside the Dakota County Courthouse, 1601 Broadway St. Members of the public are to wear masks and remain in their vehicles the entire time. Test results will be available in one or two days.

Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 will be administered from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Jan. 31 at the health department, which is located on the first floor of the courthouse. Appointments are required. Adult vaccination clinics are held every Wednesday by appointment only.

Call 402-987-2164 to schedule an appointment.
Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My daughter started a YouTube channel three years ago, when she was 13. At the time, she had a viewership of maybe 10 people (mostly family members), and my husband and I encouraged her in this pursuit, as it taught her about video editing, marketing, and other skills we thought could be useful. She begged us for years and we finally relented, thinking it was a good idea.

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Well  fast forward to now. She has over 10,000 subscribers and has made actual money from her channel. On paper, everything is going well. She seems like a happy, well-adjusted kid whos still in school, pursuing hobbies, and hasnt changed much of her life in light of her newfound fame. But privately, things are a mess. My daughter is obsessed with her viewer count, her sponsorships, and trying to come up with content all the time. It causes tremendous anxiety because any unstructured time she has is all devoted to coming up with new content. She also receives a lot of negative comments and messages which are damaging to her self-esteem.

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My husband and I are now at a place of seriously wanting her to reconsider this endeavor. We hate that her life is pretty much lived online now, completely at the whim of mysterious internet strangers who dont really have her best interests at heart. There have been so many times shes said no to trying a new activity or spending time with friends/family because she needs to film.

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Whats the best way to handle this? We dont want to have a situation where we say no and our daughter rebels by leaning in even harder, but we also want to make it clear we are concerned about her well-being and emotional health. Any advice?

Parent of a Producer

Dear Parent of a Producer,

Your daughter has grown an entrepreneurial endeavor from 10 followers to 10,000 at the age of 13. Thats really impressive. It may also be a case of too much, too soon. Too much pressure. Too much online exposure. Too much vulnerability to criticism. Its great that youve been encouraging up to this point, and its also right for you to be concerned right now.

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Because it sounds like this is primarily your daughters project, with limited intervention or oversight from you and your husband, it makes sense, as you broach the subject of suggesting that she reconsider continuing to run her business (and thats what it is, at this point), to make sure she has a very high stake in the decision-making process here.

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Let her know that youre concerned about her social and emotional well-being. Ask her to work with you and your husband on writing up a pros-and-cons list. What do each of you think is still beneficial about her channel? Whats potentially damaging about continuing to run it? What will she have more time for if she gives it up? What will she miss about it? Make sure that she understands each of the points you raise in the con column, and ask her if shes also noticed these not-so-great aspects of running her channel.

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One compromise worth considering is a hiatus. Suggesting that she take a break from producing new content is different than urging her to shut the whole enterprise down. If she worries about losing followers, find strong examples of other content creators whove taken breaks and returned successfully and use those as illustrations. Let her know that, regardless of our level of ambition, hard work is commendable, but vacations and mental health breaks are also quite necessary. I hope youre all able to reach an agreement that works for everyone, especially your daughter.

Dear Care and Feeding,

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My 22-year-old nephew is launching a recreational marijuana dispensary and brand in a state where the business is legal. He and his partners are very motivated with many retail spaces open or being built out for opening soon. His organization has a network of partners that are expanding the business into neighboring states as dispensaries become legalthey would want one in the state where my family resides once its legal. I have a background in developing snack foods and beverages. Working on side projects for my nephew seems to be a no-brainer.

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Enter my 8-year-old daughters absolute condemnation of working with drugs. Any time Im doing background work (think researching ingredients and what label laws look like without any marijuana on hand), shes totally flipping out. I truly have no idea where shes getting it from, as we dont condemn responsible use of any legal substances in our home. My entire family including older generations have had nothing but support for my nephews business. Even my 80-year-old mom is wearing the chains branded hoodie out and about. My daughter was a virtual student last year so she didnt have DARE drug lectures. I dont get it.

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What Id like to do is work through this so that she has some comfort level in my side hustle as well as the possibility of me working with the newfound family business in a dispensary when recreational marijuana becomes a thing in this state. How do I do this?

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To Pot or Not

Dear To Pot or Not,

I dont want to minimize your 8-year-olds feelings. Im glad she feels free enough to share them; it means that youve cultivated an environment at home where she feels like her opinions matter and should be expressed and taken seriously. Thats great.

While I think it might be helpful to find a few examples to share of how and why marijuana is used, both medicinally and recreationally, theres still a possibility that she may continue to disapprove of your involvement in this endeavor. Once youve tried to reassure her that marijuana is safest to consume when purchased through a dispensary where its quality can be controlled and regulated, she still may find herself ill at ease about the fact that weed is a drug.

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If so, it will be good practice for you both in learning how to disagree agreeably. You wont always approve of each others choices, but as an adult, youre currently the only one who can make a final call without the others say-so. Remind your daughter of that, if it comes down to it. Let her know that youre sorry she doesnt think you, your nephew, and the rest of your family are making a wise choice here in supporting recreational marijuana use, but the business your nephew is operating is a legal one. Neither he nor you are at any legal risk in working in this field, and in states where marijuana use is legal, like the one where your nephews dispensary is located, many, many people are exercising personal freedom in purchasing and consuming marijuana.

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Perhaps your daughters opinion on this will change when shes older. At 8, though, Im not sure any justification you may present will make much difference. Good luck trying!

Catch Up on Care and Feeding

 If you missed Sundays column, read it here.

 Discuss this column in the Slate Parenting Facebook group!

Dear Care and Feeding,

I have a 14-month-old son that is just starting day care. We were in a position that I have been the primary caretaker up until now, with his father working from home as well. I am starting a new job this week, so I have been trying to transition him into day care. In the last two weeks, we moved from Germany back to the USA (we are both Americans) into a new rental house, and he has started day care. I know this is a lot of change for anyone, let alone a baby. Our kid has never had another caretaker other than a parent due to COVID, and will start crying if we leave the room (even for a minute). We have done half days for the last week to give him time to acclimate, and he has barely stopped crying while there and refuses to eat and drink anything there. The day care provider is lovely and warm, and there are only four other kids in the home day care (fully accredited). I thought that the small number of kids and home setting might be easier for him to adjust to, but so far its been horrible for all parties. We have to have him cared for by someone other than us and he needs to be fed there, but Im at a loss of what to do to help the situation. Do we need to try different day cares? Is it something he will adjust to? Should we talk to his pediatrician or is it too soon for that?

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Back-to-Work Mama

Dear Back-to-Work Mama,

Im so sorry your family is having such a difficult time making these necessary transitions. Its never too soon to consult a pediatrician with any concern your child faces, so feel free to reach out to yours.

Separation anxiety is difficult at any age, but for a 14-month-old whos never been away from his primary caregivers, it can be especially challenging. How much have you and the child care provider communicated about what goes on during your sons time in their home? What do they do to entertain or educate the child? Do they spend time outside or are they primarily indoors? Do nap times coincide with your sons established nap schedule?

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It may be useful to try troubleshooting which, if any, activities or practices at day care are consistent with the ones your son is accustomed to at home. Are there any family ritualssinging or playing music, bouncing or rocking him a certain way, using a blankie or comfort toythat can be used at the day care? Exhaust those options before moving to another day care, as it sounds like your family has already undergone a great deal of transition in a short time.

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Its also important to give this new situation a bit more time. You mentioned that you relocated from Germany two weeks ago and have only had your son in day care for the past week. It often takes longer than a week to acclimate to such a big change. New faces, new sights, sounds, and scents, and new routines take time for babies and toddlers to adjust to. Though its hard to see your son struggle to adapt, try to be patient with the process. I wish you all the best!

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Want Advice From Care and Feeding?

Submit your questions about parenting and family life here. Its anonymous! (Questions may be edited for publication.)

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I have two adult daughters. Both will likely begin having children within the next few years. We would like to be involved grandparents (assisting with child care, etc.) but theres one issue: We just bought our dream home thats located about an hour outside of the nearest major city. It has all the land we could ever hope for, but is quite a trek from anywhere our children and their families would reasonably want to live. Our neighborhood is nearly 100 percent retirees (plus one family who home-schools their children because the nearest public school is a 45-minute bus ride away).

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My daughter has started conversations around expectations regarding our involvement in child care and our grandchildrens daily life. Its becoming exceedingly apparent that the location of our new home will be a deal-breaker of sorts. My daughter said she and her kids will probably visit us once a month or so, as an hour of driving is really tough on them. I offered to drive into the city and stay with my daughter overnight but she wasnt pleased with that ideashe said she didnt want to be a hostess.

I think an hour is not a big deal and shes punishing us for moving further away by withholding the opportunity to see our grandchildren. My husband says Im taking this way too personally and that if my daughter doesnt want to drive and visit us, thats fine, we just wont be providing free child careand as soon as she realizes how inconvenient that is for her, shell reconsider her no-driving stance. Essentially he wants to call her bluff. Meanwhile, Im worried our grandchildren will pick up on this tension and potentially turn against us. Whos in the right here? Whats the best way to have conversations about frequency of visits with grandchildren?

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Grandma-to-Be in Georgia

Dear Grandma-to-Be,

At this point, these are all hypothetical scenarios, as neither of your daughters is expecting children yet. When they have children, theyll realize that many of their best-laid plans will require readjustingincluding their position on not hosting you overnight, when it would mean being able to get a good nights sleep themselves or to get a few hours reprieve from the demands of infant care. Your husband may be right; an hours drive could sound a lot less daunting if the alternative is having no child care at all.

The more immediate issue seems to be your daughters unwillingness to consider your feelings now. You and your husband have found a home in a location that suits your current needs as a couple. You should not have been expected to forgo buying this dream home for grandchildren who dont yet exist. Instead, the parents of those eventual children should take your location into account when they consider their needs and wishes for grandparent involvement, and they should adjust accordingly.

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In the event that that proves prohibitive, youve offered a suitable compromisetraveling to them and staying overand theyve declined. Im not sure what else you should be expected to offerespecially now, when the future (and the children who may or may not be in it) are unknowable.

Stacia

For More Parenting Coverage, Listen to Mom and Dad Are Fighting

More Advice From Slate

My daughters teacher recently told me that my daughter is a great student, eager to learn, and very fun to have in class. But he also mentioned that he often asks her to partner with difficult students in class. When I asked my daughter about this, she said that these difficult students are often boys that dont pay attention and dont really want to be in the class. It seems wrong to saddle her with this. What should I do?
Few people are as knee-deep in our work-related anxieties and sticky office politics as Alison Green, who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website Ask a Manager. In Direct Report, she spotlights themes from her inbox that help explain the modern workplace and how we could be navigating it better.

If you believe reports from employers, theyre desperate to find good workers but cant lure them at any price. Talk to job seekers, though, or existing employees at those same companies, and youll hear a different story.

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From job seekers perspectives, companies do have plenty of vacancies, but they havent adjusted to the massive sea change the job market has undergone in the past two years. Theyre offering laughably low salaries although candidates can command far more, or requiring years of experience for entry-level jobs, and theyre still operating on a model of underpaying and overworking at a time when workers have much better options.

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These accounts are pretty typical of what Im hearing from job seekers, as well as from employees at companies that say theyre having trouble hiring:

 Ive lost count of the job ads Ive seen that want 58 years of experience (in a fairly unique field) but are only paying $1718/hour in high cost of living areas and where the job is in-person. I imagine the employers think that is a good pay rate, but it really is insulting.

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 My employer is absolutely desperate for another key staff member, but doesnt want to give any more than a week vacation. Wont budge at all. Its incredibly short sighted.

 I recently went through a job search and it was interesting. I received an offer from every interviewone actually called while I was on the way home. What some employers were offering is still laughable though. One health care agency that involved direct contact with medically vulnerable patients boasted in the interview that they encourage taking time off and promoting a healthy work-life balance. Their PTO benefits were seven days off a year, which included both vacation and sick time, with no COVID-related sick time allowance. Unbelievable. Last I saw they still had a job ad up marked as urgently hiring.

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 In my industry (biotech, specifically cell therapy) I keep hearing and seeing that there is a desperate need for trained employees.  I know that in my department weve been trying to hire some specialized positions forever, and at least some interviews have happened, but the interviewees turn the jobs down because were not paying anything like what our closest (job type and physically) competitor is paying. Since everyone in our department knows this, no one Ive talked to seems to know why we arent offering market rate.

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 We are hemorrhaging talent, both salaried and production (factory workers) and cant find/hire qualified applicants who will work for what previous employees were making. Were going months without filling positions, mostly because our HR VP believes that were all overpaid. The market believes otherwise I wonder who will win??

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At the same time that companies are failing to offer competitive salaries, many of them are overstuffing the job descriptions well beyond whats realistic:

 My organization is struggling to fill a role, complaining about how they cant find anyone qualified and when they do find someone somewhat qualified, they get turned down. Well, no kidding. The position is a combination of two very different jobs, so good luck find someone with several years of commercial land transaction experience AND volunteer management experience. Oh, and you want to pay this experienced person who has to do two very different jobs and report to two different supervisors peanuts? No wonder theyve been trying to hire for this position since July.

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 In my field, Im seeing a ton more postings for jobs over the last month or so, and Ive had multiple recruiters contact me just this week. But the job descriptions are wildly demanding, even more so than pre-pandemic. So many very specific skills that youd be very unlikely to find in one person.  I had a client rant to me recently about how they werent getting good candidates for their positions. I suggested that they consider focusing the job description a bit more on the skills they most want, and he got really defensive and just said again how much they needed all this work done. Then YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. There is just utter disbelief that they no longer hold 100% of the cards.

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That resistance to adapting to new conditions seems to lie at the heart of whats happening in the market. Employers are still operating like they did a decade ago, without considering how they might need to changeto raise offers, increase benefits, and generally make themselves a more attractive place to work.

Theyre also not approaching their hiring processes with the seriousness or urgency that this market demands, as this person points out:

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What Im hearing about the job market doesnt match what Im actually seeing. Im hearing, Wed hire anyone with a pulse and half your experience. Im hearing, Please apply, I could use someone like you. Im hearing, Youre a great fit for this role from the recruiter. What Im seeing is I apply into a black hole. Im being told to reach out to people who never get back to me. Im seeing desperate companies take a lot of time to think about it. Im seeing people get to the final round of interviews, and suddenly be disqualified for something that, according to the company, should have disqualified them when they first spoke to the recruiter. (Seriously, a friend went to a final interview after getting extremely good feedback from his internal recruiter on every prior step in what I think was a four-part interview, only be told that the company was looking for entirely different skills for the role. Think interviewing in French and then being told the job requires Japanese. Youd think theyd have figured that out much sooner in the process.)

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Companies that are managing to hire effectively right now are changing their processes in order to do it:

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I recently was hiring for a position and it was a fast job market for the best candidates we had 2 turned down offers (one person had 4 competing offers)! We realized our typical process was too slow (it took approximately 3 weeks). We knew we had to be fasterthe third time through, we had an offer in their hands within 9 days of their application, and it was accepted. We also increased the salary nearly $20,000 from the first posting to the third posting, because the market was showing us that the candidates we wanted could command more money! (We discussed keeping the same salary but making the role more entry level, but decided to increase salary instead).

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To be fair, some employers do seem to be doing everything they can do but are still running up against the realities of a job seekers market:

My company is in the software sector and finding experienced developers, programmers, and implementation folks in our specific, very competitive, ecosystem is REALLY hard. Were fully remote (with fully supported IT), pay competitively (really), pay at least 80% of medical insurance premiums and have other really nice benefits, have amazing work-life balance, require folks to take their vacations and a very supportive, transparent, employee-centric culture.  Weve had folks accept our offer, then renege two to four days later. Weve had someone start working and after two weeks, quit because they accepted another offer. Our specific job market has always been competitive, its now insanely competitive.

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Ultimately, though, too many companies have become used to not having to pay competitive wages, offer attractive benefits, or generally treat people well. Now that thats changed, some of them are finding it easier to complain about the labor market than to figure out how to make themselves a place people would be eager to work even when they have other options.

Its unclear how long this moment will last and whether it will be long enough for more companies to be forced to alter their mindsetsbut the longer it does last, and the more accustomed we get to these changes, the better off workers will be.
Mayor Eric Adams provides New Yorkers with the best chance in well over 50 years to make real changes to the ways the New York Police Department operates, both on the streets and in its disciplinary processes. He has ample plans, but does he have the will?

The citys mayors have frequently vowed to reform policing, but usually failed to secure many accomplishments. Most recently, Bill de Blasio came into office in 2014 committed to rolling back the aggressive policing that Michael Bloomberg had championed, especially the zealous use of stop and frisk.

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However, by the end of de Blasios first year in office, the NYPDs rank-and-file had turned on him, figuratively and literally, with thousands showing him their backs at the funerals for two murdered officers. Pat Lynch, president of the officers union, the Police Benevolent Association, accused de Blasio of contributing to their deaths by supporting protests against the police killings of Eric Garner on Staten Island and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

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Adams is the first mayor since 1950 who is a former police officer. He has positioned himself as the ultimate insider, a policeman whose origin story begins with a cruel station house beating, which led him to want to change the departments racist, violent culture from within. Adams experience, while shocking, was not uncommon. As I illustrate in my new book, The Harlem Uprising: Segregation and Inequality in Postwar New York City, the NYPD has a long history of indiscriminate violence, particularly against men of color.

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Adams did this work in a very public way for over a decade, criticizing Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Bloomberg and the PBA, as well as conducting workshops on how young Black men should behave during encounters with NYPD officers. While Brooklyn Borough president, he even came to de Blasios defense during the 2014 controversy and has remained steadfast in his assessment that the police treat Black and brown people as suspects by default.

Despite this, the PBA viewed candidate Adams as an acceptable choice during the Democratic primary season. The PBA represents 24,000 of the citys 35,000 uniformed police officers. It is politically powerful and has been since the 1960s, when it organized and won a referendum permanently removing civilians from any role overseeing the police in any way.

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Since then, the PBA has gone to war with many mayors, including Giuliani and Bloomberg, and has been utterly unwilling to tolerate criticism, reform, and above all any measure of increased accountability. In the mid-1990s, it was lobbying Albany to pass a bill removing the police commissioners ability to fire officers.

Pat Lynch and his leadership teamstill overwhelmingly white and male even though the force is less than half white and about 20 percent femaleare determined combatants who know how to fight and win. Theyve been doing it for decades.

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Adams only experience with the PBA seems to be as foe. He began his career with the New York City Transit Police, which had its own unions. By the time Giuliani merged the transit and housing police into the NYPD in 1995, Adams was a sergeant, represented by the Sergeants Benevolent Association, a union also fond of controversy.

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Appointing reformers at the highest ranks is no easy fix. The rank-and-file are quick to turn on departmental leaders they feel are not supporting them 100 percent, a dynamic that has endured for decades. Commissioners and their chosen executives run the department in name, but the PBA and SBA significantly constrain their abilities.

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The PBA has several tactics it deploys to great effect. It has an enormous amount of money it eagerly spends on lobbying, political donations, and attack ads. Another is Lynch himself, unafraid to engage in dire hyperbole, often menacing the public with the specter of a lawless tomorrow should policing change in any way. Finally, it wields the threat of a work slowdown, a promise it has fulfilled several times, designed to coerce city leaders into compliance.

The steps Adams will need to take, such as shifting the burden of civil financial judgments to individual officers who violate peoples rights, will elicit rancorous conflict and bitter invective. But does anyone really think taxpayers should be spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to settle suits against violent, lawless officers who are rarely disciplined, let alone fired? The mayor must decide what matters and what he is willing to do to provide effective and ethical policing, which he insists are not mutually exclusive goals.
The country would brace itself to welcome people running across the eastern border.

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Thousands of scared Ukrainians crossing Slovakia's eastern border. They pass the reinforced border check without complications, all they need to show is their ID card.

They are not headed to a camp, they will find refuge with their relatives and friends who have lived in Slovakia for a long time now.

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The government will announce a national emergency and call up reserve soldiers. Meanwhile, a NATO mission arrives to military bases. Hundreds of troops from various countries will arrive for more of a symbolic mission. If the military conflict spills across the border, allies are ready to protect Slovakia.

The economy minister cooperated with his Czech and Hungarian counterparts to negotiate extraordinary gas supplies in the event Russia lives up to its threats and halts the gas flow through Ukraine.

The foreign affairs minister is preparing to expel Russian diplomats. Other EU states are doing the same.

This is one of several possible scenarios Slovakia might experience if the conflict between Ukraine and Russia escalates into an all-out war.

A war between two countries in the immediate neighbourhood would be a new experience for Slovakia in its recent history. Many things remain unpredictable, but we can roughly estimate the challenges Slovakia would need to face.

Will foreign troops enter?
52 percent of respondents would like to see a snap election.

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If the parliamentary elections took place in January, opposition party Hlas would win them with 18 percent of the vote.

This stems from the poll conducted by the AKO polling agency for Television Joj on 1,000 respondents. Data was collected through phone calls between January 10 and 17.

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Eight parties in parliament

Coalition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party came in second with 14.2 percent support. Smer came third with 13.8 percent of the vote.

Other parties received less than 10 percent of the vote: coalition party Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO) was supported by 9.3 percent of respondents, non-parliamentary Progressive Slovakia gained 8.5 percent of the vote and coalition party Sme Rodina gained 6.5 percent. The last parties which would enter parliament are Republika, made up of renegades from Peoples Party Our Slovakia, with 6.2 percent and the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) with 6 percent.

The following parties did not gain enough support to make the 5 percent threshold necessary for entering parliament: the Hungarian party Alliance with 4 percent and Slovak National Party with 3.6 percent. Peoples Party Our Slovakia (LSNS) gained 2.9 percent and coalition party Za Ludi has 2.2 percent support.

More than half of voters want snap election

The AKO agency also asked respondents if they support the idea of a snap election. Up to 52.2 percent of respondents supported the idea; of this figure, 35.2 percent of respondents definitely agree with this alternative and 17 percent rather agree.

Another 27.3 percent of respondents definitely disagree with shortening the term of the current government in office and another 17.3 percent rather disagree. 3.2 percent of respondents did not want to answer the question.
Scenarios drafted for potential war between Russia and Ukraine. Home isolation shortened. Trains around Bratislava will be lacking again.

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Good evening. Read the Monday, January 24, 2022 edition of Today in Slovakia to catch up on the main news of the day in less than five minutes. We wish you a pleasant read.

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War in Ukraine would impact Slovakia

Vysne Nemecke-Uzhhorod border crossing between Slovakia and Ukraine. (Source: TASR)

The Sme daily has reported on possible scenarios Slovakia might experience if the conflict between Ukraine and Russia escalates into an all-out war.

One scenario envisions thousands of scared Ukrainians crossing Slovakias eastern border, passing the reinforced border check without complications  all they need to show would be their ID card. They would find refuge with their relatives and friends who have lived in Slovakia for a long time now.

The government would announce a national emergency and call up reserve soldiers. Meanwhile, a NATO mission would arrive to military bases, and hundreds of troops from various countries would arrive for more of a symbolic mission. If the military conflict spilled across the border, allies would be ready to protect Slovakia.

The economy minister would cooperate with his Czech and Hungarian counterparts to negotiate extraordinary gas supplies in the event Russia lives up to its threats and halts the gas flow through Ukraine, while the foreign affairs minister would be preparing to expel Russian diplomats.

A war between two countries in the immediate neighbourhood would be a new experience for Slovakia in its recent history. Many things remain unpredictable, but we can roughly estimate the challenges Slovakia would need to face, Sme reported.

The Defence Ministry claims that it has drafted plans for such a situation. The plans are secret.

There are no legal commitments for Slovakia to defend Ukraine, and it would not be able to actively join the conflict, according to Sme.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korcok (SaS nominee) said Slovakia sees no reason to prepare the evacuation of diplomats from Kiev.

Conversely, their presence is important because it is a proof of our ability to achieve political solution, Korcok said, as quoted by the TASR newswire.

Read also an opinion piece by James Thomson, who claims that the parallels between Russias approach to Ukraine and Hitlers to Czechoslovakia in 1938 are uncanny:

There goes the neighbourhood Read more

For a deeper insight into current affairs, check out our Last Week in Slovakia report published earlier today. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

Coronavirus and vaccination news

The Value for Money unit published statistics concerning the death rate of Roma population. (Source: TASR)

3,503 people were newly diagnosed as Covid positive out of 9,684 PCR tests performed on January 23. The number of people in hospitals is 1,497 ; and 32 more deaths were reported on Sunday. The vaccination rate is at 50.70 percent , 2,788,590 people having received the first dose of the vaccine. More stats on Covid-19 in Slovakia here.

out of 9,684 PCR tests performed on January 23. The number of ; and were reported on Sunday. The vaccination rate is at , 2,788,590 people having received the first dose of the vaccine. More stats on Covid-19 in Slovakia here. As many as 40,751 people tested positive in the past week , 23,897 more than a week before. The highest number of positive PCR tests were reported in Zilina Region (7,467), the least in Banska Bystrica Region (2,932), according to the National Health Information Centre.

, 23,897 more than a week before. The highest number of positive PCR tests were reported in (7,467), the least in (2,932), according to the National Health Information Centre. The home isolation of people who test positive for Covid will be shortened from 10 to five days , starting on Tuesday, January 25 . In addition, the ordinance published by the Public Health Authority contains several new definitions, for example of those labelled as close contacts, and new clinical symptoms for Covid. Those who received a positive test result before January 25 follow the old rules.

of people who test positive for Covid will be , starting on Tuesday, . In addition, the ordinance published by the Public Health Authority contains several new definitions, for example of those labelled as close contacts, and new clinical symptoms for Covid. Those who received a positive test result before January 25 follow the old rules. The death rate of inhabitants of marginalised Roma communities was double that of the majority population during the second pandemic wave, according to analysts from the Value for Money unit.

If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription. Thank you.

Picture of the day

Slovak Olympic and Paralympic athletes made a vow to President Zuzana Caputova. Altogether 50 athletes will represent the country at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, scheduled for February 4-20, and the Winter Paralympic Games scheduled for March 4-13.

Feature story for today

The Three Borders, a place where the countries of Slovakia, Austria and Hungary meet, is accessible again. In mid-November 2021, the Club of Slovak Tourists (KST) marked a new touristic path to this popular venue bypassing a fence that Hungary built along its highway as one of its anti-pandemic measures. The Three Borders spot lies on the edge of the Protected Bird Area (CHVU) Syslovske Polia. As it has the fifth and highest degree of protection, people are prohibited from entering this area. Walking is allowed along the official touristic path.

The Three Borders near Bratislava is accessible again, legally Read more

In other news

If the parliamentary election took place in January, the Hlas party would win it with 18 percent of the vote. Junior coalition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) would come second with 14.2 percent support, followed by the opposition Smer party with 13.8 percent, according to a recent AKO poll conducted for the private broadcaster TV JOJ between January 10 and 17 on 1,000 respondents.

with 18 percent of the vote. Junior coalition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) would come second with 14.2 percent support, followed by the opposition Smer party with 13.8 percent, according to a recent AKO poll conducted for the private broadcaster TV JOJ between January 10 and 17 on 1,000 respondents. The police have detained well-known far-right extremist Marian Magat in Cadca , northern Slovakia, for an unknown reason. Magat is known for his admiration of Adolf Hitler, whom back in 2013 he called a peacemaker, great economist, speaker and a person with his heart in the right place.

, northern Slovakia, for an unknown reason. Magat is known for his admiration of Adolf Hitler, whom back in 2013 he called a peacemaker, great economist, speaker and a person with his heart in the right place. About three dozen trains running to and from Bratislava will be cancelled this week , the state-run passenger carrier ZSSK announced. The reason is the lack of engine drivers and the coronavirus pandemic. A similar step was adopted the previous week, with the carrier stating the same reasons.

, the state-run passenger carrier ZSSK announced. The reason is the lack of engine drivers and the coronavirus pandemic. A similar step was adopted the previous week, with the carrier stating the same reasons. The AirCar dual-mode car-aircraft vehicle has been issued the official Certificate of Airworthiness by the Slovak Transport Authority, following the successful completion of 70 hours of rigorous flight testing compatible with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) standards, with over 200 takeoffs and landings.

More on Spectator.sk:

Slovak cinemas screen Nordic films this week Read more

After years of absence, river otter returns home Read more

If you have suggestions on how this news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk.
https://sputniknews.com/20220123/burkina-faso-imposes-curfew-following-reports-of-shooting-attempted-coup---reports-1092471747.html

Burkina Faso Imposes Curfew Following Reports of Shooting, Attempted Coup - Reports

Burkina Faso Imposes Curfew Following Reports of Shooting, Attempted Coup - Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The authorities of Burkina Faso have imposed a country-wide curfew following riots in the capital and reports about an attempted coup, local... 23.01.2022, Sputnik International

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The authorities decided to impose a curfew from 20:00 to 05:30, according to the local Radio Omega.Radio France Internationale previously reported that intense gunfire was heard on Sunday morning in two military camps in Burkina Faso's capital city of Ouagadougou. One of the camps houses a prison where Gen. Gilbert Diendere and other military involved in a failed 2015 coup are being held. Radio Omega also reported that there was shooting in the city of Kaya northeast of Ouagadougou.The government confirmed that there was shooting in the capital, but denied reports that the military had seized power in the country. Burkina Faso's Defense Minister Barthelemy Simpore also dismissed claims that President Roch Marc Christian Kabore was detained and said that the situation in the country was under control.The events come a day after clashes erupted between police and protesters who staged a rally after the authorities failed to curb violence that gripped the country. Earlier in January, a group of soldiers was arrested for allegedly plotting to destabilize institutions, the country's media said.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220123/former-german-bundeswehr-chief-inspector-against-schonbachs-dismissal-over-crimea-remarks-1092471218.html

Former German Bundeswehr Chief Inspector Against Schonbach's Dismissal Over Crimea Remarks

Former German Bundeswehr Chief Inspector Against Schonbach's Dismissal Over Crimea Remarks

BERLIN (Sputnik) - Former Inspector General of the German Bundeswehr Harald Kujat said on Sunday that he saw no grounds for a disciplinary action against the... 23.01.2022, Sputnik International

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harald kujat

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On Saturday, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht accepted Schonbach's request for resignation. It came a day after Schonbach said that Crimea will never come back to Ukraine and called the West's accusations of Moscow allegedly planning to invade Ukraine "nonsense." The resigned navy commander acknowledged on Twitter his remarks were a mistake following backlash from the public and Kiev.The retired general also saw no issue with Schonbach's remark that Moscow wants to be treated with respect and as an equal by the West, noting that it was exactly what Washington was doing, given that it needed Russia to keep its strongest adversary, China, in check.There are no grounds for disciplinary action against Schonbach since he did not violate the military law or damage the Bundeswehr's reputation, according to the former inspector general.At the same time, he urged all sides to avoid provocative statements in the future and focus on de-escalating tensions, while keeping Ukraine's interests in mind. Kujat also condemned statements made by Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin, who compared Germany's refusal to sell lethal weapons to Kiev with the treatment of Ukrainians by Nazi Germany, calling them "disgusting."

https://sputniknews.com/20220122/german-naval-chief-reportedly-resigns-after-backlash-over-remarks-on-putin-crimean-peninsula-1092455983.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/bjp-slams-opposition-party-leader-for-calling-china-and-not-pakistan-indias-real-enemy-1092481221.html

BJP Slams Opposition Party Leader for Calling China, and not Pakistan, India's 'Real Enemy'

BJP Slams Opposition Party Leader for Calling China, and not Pakistan, India's 'Real Enemy'

The political row between Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Samajwadi Party comes ahead of the election in India's most... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

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India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday hit out at prominent opposition leader Akhilesh Yadav, a day after he said in a newspaper interview that New Delhi must treat China, rather than Pakistan, as its real enemy.[China] is encroaching on our land, encroaching on our businesses. The Indian government should think about this and consult opposition parties on how to deal with the situation, Yadav added, as he cited the ongoing Ladakh border dispute.Sambit Patra, a BJP spokesman said on Monday that he was pained by Yadavs remarks.I am really pained by the statement that Pakistan isnt Indias enemy, stated Patra.The BJP spokesman also reiterated New Delhis official line accusing Islamabad-backed terrorist groups of perpetrating cross-border terrorist attacks against Indian targets. Islamabad denies these charges.The BJP has often been accused by political opponents such as Samajwadi Party for polarising voters on religious lines for political purposes, an allegation its leaders deny. With a population similar to that of Brazil, Uttar Pradesh also has the largest Muslim population (according to the 2011 census) of all Indian states. Yogi Adityanath, BJP leader and Uttar Pradeshs present state chief, on the other hand has regularly targeted the Samajwadi Party for preferring Muslims to Hindus in its policies while it was in power in the state the last time (2012-2017).'Tricky Situation' For India To Maintain Trade Ties With China, says YadavYadav also said during his interview that New Delhi is faced with a tricky situation in carrying on trade with China despite the ongoing border differences.Though nationalist allies of Prime Minister Modi have also called for boycotting Chinese goods and services in view of the ongoing military standoff, latest figures released by Beijing this month showed that imports from China into India reached a record $100 billion in 2021.Yadavs politically charged remarks come at a time when thousands of troops from India and the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army have been involved in a military standoff in the Ladakh region for nearly two years now. The military standoff turned deadly in June 2020 when soldiers from both sides clashed at Galwan Valley, one of the friction points in the Ladakh region.Prime Minister Modis government has consistently denied accusations that Beijing has encroached upon Indian territory in the ongoing standoff.

https://sputniknews.com/20191228/1000-aligarh-muslim-university-students-in-hot-water-over-violence-property-damage-charges-in-india-1077888553.html

https://sputniknews.com/20211202/indian-fm-china-has-unrealistic-expectations-border-tensions-have-spilt-into-other-areas-1091205806.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/burkina-faso-military-declares-that-theyre-now-governing-country--1092479423.html

Burkina Faso President Kabore Reportedly Detained by Troops Amid Clashes in Ouagadougou

Burkina Faso President Kabore Reportedly Detained by Troops Amid Clashes in Ouagadougou

On Sunday there were reports of heavy gunfire in the capital city Ouagadougou but authorities initially denied there had been any coup attempt. 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

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burkina faso

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AFP reported on Monday, citing security sources as saying that President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained by the armed forces.Later in the day, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said in a statement that the situation was "an attempted coup" and urged the military to end the unrest, adding that the armed forces are now responsible for the "physical integrity" of the presiedent.In the meantime, Air France reportedly cancelled two flights to Burkina Faso on Monday, and the French Embassy in the country advised citizens not to go outside, following reports of violent clashes and unrest in the military.The news came after Burkina Faso witnessed massive clashes between protesters and the security forces on Sunday; demonstrators were demanding that President Kabore resign because he has proved himself unable to quell the terrorist insurgency, which has been plaguing the country for years.There have been reports of unrest in the army, but Minister of Defence Aime Barthelemy Simpore told state broadcaster RTB it was just "a few barracks" in the capital.The country's northern regions that border Niger and Mali have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists affiliated with the al-Qaeda* and Daesh* terrorist groups. There was a spike in attacks in recent months, which prompted the Burkina Faso government to evacuate some settlements.* Daesh (also known as Islamic State, ISIS or IS), and al-Qaeda are terrorist organisations banned in Russia and many other countries.CORRECTION: Sputnik initially reported this piece as "Burkina Faso Military Declares They're Now Governing Country". However, it still remains unclear whether there was a coup attempt by the armed forces, and who is in charge of the country at the moment.

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africa, burkina faso, military coup, coup, coup d'etat
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/daddys-favorite-trump-would-let-don-jr-go-to-prison-before-ivanka-ex-fixer-michael-cohen-claims-1092474371.html

Daddy's Favourite: Trump Would Let Don Jr. Go to Prison Before Ivanka, Ex-Fixer Michael Cohen Claims

Daddy's Favourite: Trump Would Let Don Jr. Go to Prison Before Ivanka, Ex-Fixer Michael Cohen Claims

Earlier this month, NY Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas to former US President Donald Trump and his two eldest children, Donald Trump, Jr. and... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T03:34+0000

2022-01-24T03:34+0000

2022-01-24T04:22+0000

new york

donald trump

trump organization

ivanka trump

donald trump jr

letitia james

new york attorney general's office

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Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and fixer, told MSNBC on Saturday that there is "not a chance" Trump would throw himself on the line for Ivanka and Don Jr. The NY AG's office has filed a motion to compel the trio to respond to subpoenas requiring separate sworn testimonies as part of a probe examining the Trump Organisation's valuations and transactions. As for Ivanka and Don Jr., Cohen believes the chances they cooperate with the probe are "slim to none".Cohen, 55, was disbarred and served three years in prison after pleading guilty to eight criminal counts, including five counts of tax evasion. Cohen's crimes were committed while he was retained as Trump's personal attorney. The New York state legal action is reportedly designed to advance a civil investigation into whether the Trump Organisation committed fraud while reporting the valuation of certain properties to tax authorities and banks."For more than two years, the Trump Organisation has used delay tactics and litigation in an attempt to thwart a legitimate investigation into its financial dealings", the NY AG noted in a news release."You may recall that there was the district attorney's case here for Trump Soho where it was either Don or Ivanka was in very big trouble as a result of lying about the number of units that had been sold", Cohen recounted to MSNBC. Ivanka and Don Jr. notoriously avoided criminal indictments from the Manhattan DA's office in 2012, after long-time Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz contributed over $50,000 to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr.'s re-election campaign. In 2017, a joint probe conducted by ProPublica, WNYC, and The New Yorker found that the Manhattan DA's fraud investigation was dropped some months after the Trump legal team reached a settlement in which they agreed to return 90% of the disgruntled Trump SoHo buyers' deposits, as well as their legal fees. Vance maintains that his decision was ethical.In an unusual move, the plaintiffs agreed to not cooperate with prosecutors in the future, unless subpoenaed.

https://sputniknews.com/20220119/ny-ag-letitia-james-takes-legal-action-to-force-trump-his-children-to-testify-in-fraud-inquiry-1092357318.html

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Evan Craighead

new york, donald trump, trump organization, ivanka trump, donald trump jr, letitia james, new york attorney general's office
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/dhs-claims-russia-may-mount-cyberattack-on-us-amid-ukraine-tensions--reports-1092489397.html

DHS Claims Russia May Mount Cyberattack on US Amid Ukraine Tensions  Reports

DHS Claims Russia May Mount Cyberattack on US Amid Ukraine Tensions  Reports

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Russia may conduct a cyberattack on the United States if it concludes that its national security is threatened as a result of a US or... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T18:25+0000

2022-01-24T18:25+0000

2022-01-24T18:25+0000

russia

ukraine

cyberattack

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On Sunday, DHS distributed a memo to critical infrastructure operators and state and local governments in the US, warning them of potential cyber threats.At the same time, the authors of the document believe that the threshold for the use of Russia's cyber arsenal against the US "probably remains very high."The US and NATO continue to accuse Russia of preparing a military invasion of Ukraine. Moscow denies the claims and points to the alliance's increased military activities near Russian borders, while waiting for a response to its proposals to Washington and NATO on security guarantees in Europe.

ukraine

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russia, ukraine, cyberattack
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/dozens-of-peaceful-protesters-injured-amid-continuing-unrest-in-khartoum-1092489661.html

Dozens of Peaceful Protesters Injured Amid Continuing Unrest in Khartoum

Dozens of Peaceful Protesters Injured Amid Continuing Unrest in Khartoum

KHARTOUM, (Sputnik) - Dozens of peaceful protesters fed up with the military authorities were injured on Monday in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum in a police... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T18:30+0000

2022-01-24T18:30+0000

2022-01-24T18:30+0000

protests

sudan

africa

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Protests against the military authorities are held weekly to demand a transition to full civilian rule.Khartoum police used tear gas against the protesters heading for the presidential palace in the Sherwani district north of the capital. Dozens of protesters were injured and the crowd retreated.Protests have also flared up in Port Sudan city in the east of the country, with hundreds of participants. A few thousand protesters have gathered in the streets of Wad Madani in the southeast. More than 60 people have been killed in clashes with the military authorities since the beginning of the unrest.Sudan entered a political crisis after coup leader General Abdel Fattah Burhan arrested Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok in October. Subsequent protests forced Burhan to sign a pact stipulating the reinstatement of the prime minister in his duties, the release of all political prisoners arrested during the coup, a promise to hold elections in July 2023, and handing power to an elected civilian government.On 2 January, Hamdok announced his resignation due to the actions of the military, who violated the agreements. The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sudan, Volker Perthes, announced talks between the sides, which were rejected by the opposition.

sudan

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protests, sudan, africa
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/eu-diplomats-not-going-to-leave-ukraine-borrell-says-1092478188.html

EU Diplomats Not Going to Leave Ukraine, Borrell Says

EU Diplomats Not Going to Leave Ukraine, Borrell Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The European Union will find out from US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken why the US has decided to evacuate some of its diplomats from... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T08:48+0000

2022-01-24T08:48+0000

2022-01-24T08:48+0000

europe

russia

ukraine

eu

josep borrell

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https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107957/53/1079575342_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_d1a0f02b667c922c3b5753b1aca994af.jpg

Earlier in the day, the US State Department has updated its travel advisory for Ukraine urging American citizens to leave the country and authorising the departure of some embassy employees.This announcement comes amid escalating political tensions around Ukraine. The US and the UK previously started evacuating their diplomatic staff from the country claiming there is a threat of a "Russian invasion". Moscow has repeatedly denied those allegations, saying it is just part of a disinformation campaign, as Ukraine and NATO are planning a provocation against Russia.

ukraine

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europe, russia, ukraine, eu, josep borrell
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/ex-un-expert-us-nato-narrative-of-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-has-turned-into-religious-dogma-1092470865.html

Ex-UN Expert: US-NATO Narrative of 'Russian Invasion' of Ukraine Has Turned Into 'Religious Dogma'

Ex-UN Expert: US-NATO Narrative of 'Russian Invasion' of Ukraine Has Turned Into 'Religious Dogma'

The US and European mainstream press is continuing to ramp up "Russian invasion" narrative and subject those who are questioning it to harsh criticism.

2022-01-24T05:41+0000

2022-01-24T05:41+0000

2022-01-24T05:41+0000

france

emmanuel macron

world

europe

us

russia

ukraine

germany

nato expansion

european security

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https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/105362/39/1053623927_0:277:5320:3270_1920x0_80_0_0_8bbe9dd88a0e85d1957e16300a2dd671.jpg

American and European media and policy-makers are continuing to ramp up the narrative of Russia's alleged preparations for an "invasion" of Ukraine, despite Moscow repeatedly shredding the assumption as groundless and nonsensical.At the same time, the mainstream press in the West was quick to denounce French President Emmanuel Macron's proposal for Europe to negotiate a security order with Russia as "badly timed" and "suggest[ing] cracks in Western unity". Kay-Achim Schonbach, a vice-admiral in the German Navy, who said that the idea that Russia wanted to invade Ukraine was nonsense, was immediately pressured into quitting.Sputnik: The German naval chief was forced to resign over saying that he doesn't believe in Russia's "imminent invasion" of Ukraine; that Ukraine is not ready to join NATO; and that Crimea would never come back to Ukraine. What's behind this drastic backlash against a prominent military officer and Operation Enduring Freedom veteran for saying the obvious?Alfred de Zayas: What Schonbach said was correct and necessary. Unfortunately he had to recant (like Galileo)  but that did not save him from having to resign. In Germany, there is a policy of "zero tolerance" when it comes to criticism of NATO. You believe because you have to believe. As the 3rd century philosopher Tertullian wrote "Credo quia absurdum"  "I believe because it is beyond my comprehension". I take the official narrative as existential dogma. For many years now "cancel culture" has taken over Western societies, and there is a tremendous pressure to conform. Some Germans call this "Meinungsterror"  or intellectual terrorism. Some also complain about "Einheitsmeinung"  or the exclusivity of only one acceptable opinion, directly and indirectly imposed by the government, and enforced by the political correctness of your peers. Germany is anything but a free society. Those who step out of line are punished. If you are a civil servant you will be disciplined or fired. If you frequent colleagues who are dissenters, you too will be ostracised. If you are a dissenter, you will be treated like a leper. Sputnik: Would you agree that Germany has fallen victim to the US-NATO Ukraine policies given the postponement of Nord Stream 2's certification and the looming energy crisis? Is the new German government strong enough to choose the nation's independence and prosperity over bellicose plans exerted on it by the US, the UK, and NATO leadership?Alfred de Zayas: This was predictable. Trump/Pompeo and Biden/Blinken have been doing everything in their power to frustrate Nord Stream 2. There is no political party in Germany that would dare claim independence from the United States. If they did so, they would promptly be labelled "extremist" and banned by the German Constitutional Court, which has already issued some remarkable judgments, which I would consider contra-legem.Sputnik: The UK has claimed that Russia is plotting to install a "puppet government" in Ukraine. The story came on the heels of US claims that Russia is going to stage a false flag op on the Ukrainian border, and that Russian troops could invade Ukraine "at any moment". What's your take on these frenzied speculations  rubbished by the Kremlin as fake news  and ongoing hysteria in the European and US media? Do people buy into these stories?Alfred de Zayas: The only war that NATO ever won was the information war. It is remarkable how comprehensive the propaganda and psychological war has been. US and NATO propaganda has been far more effective and enduring than any of Goebbels' attempts at manipulation of public opinion. Noam Chomsky and others have again and again exposed the official lies and the efforts to "manufacture consent" through disinformation  to no avail.With regard to the UK's claims, and in many other cases, I would like to ask, "where is the evidence?" Many are weary of evidence-free allegations from "anonymous" sources that rely on "secret" documents. It is breathtaking to see how the UK accuses Russia of plotting the overthrow of the Ukrainian government, when it was the US, UK, EU that in 2014 colluded in the coup d'etat against Viktor Yanukovych, the democratically elected president of Ukraine. It is appropriate to recall that infamous recording of a telephone conversation between US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (she is back in the Biden administration, in the same position) with Ambassador Pyatt in Kiev.Sputnik: Will the US-UK-NATO anti-Russia campaign succeed or will it awaken Europe given French President Emmanuel Macron's recent calls for a "frank" dialogue and security negotiations with Russia?Alfred de Zayas: I am no friend of Emmanuel Macron. But he does possess a certain French arrogance that might help him compete well with the US, UK, and NATO hubris. [Russian President] Vladimir Putin has not threatened anybody, not provoked anybody. In the past he has not abused his leverage. But NATO wants to justify its existence. And if it wants to survive, it must invent an enemy. That is the role that has been assigned to Russia  an aggressive, dangerous bear from whom all of Europe must be defended. It is time to move away from this obsolete NATO mindset. It is not only sclerotic, it is dangerous to continue the provocations against Russia and China. We are adults and know that in a nuclear world errors can occur, and a miscalculation could lead all of us to the apocalypse.

https://sputniknews.com/20220123/kiev-german-navy-chiefs-resignation-for-speech-about-crimea-not-enough-to-restore-trust-in-berlin-1092463184.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220118/russia-us-security-talks-is-ukraine-vital-for-nato-1092339352.html

https://sputniknews.com/20211229/ex-un-expert-stop-lying-pentagons-war-budget-has-nothing-to-do-with-us-defence-1091892229.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220122/russian-foreign-ministry-blasts-nonsense-uk-claims-that-moscow-sought-puppet-gov-in-ukraine-1092457170.html

https://sputniknews.com/20211227/observers-blaming-eu-gas-crunch-on-russia-is-cheap--dishonest-way-to-cover-up-europes-own-faults-1091836733.html

france

ukraine

germany

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Ekaterina Blinova

Ekaterina Blinova

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Ekaterina Blinova

france, emmanuel macron, world, europe, us, russia, ukraine, germany, nato expansion, european security, maidan coup, nato, eu, nord stream 2
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/former-alaska-governor-sarah-palin-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-1092485926.html

Sarah Palin's Defamation Trial Against NYT Postponed After She Tests Positive for COVID-19

Sarah Palin's Defamation Trial Against NYT Postponed After She Tests Positive for COVID-19

Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican US vice-presidential candidate, has tested positive for coronavirus. 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T14:39+0000

2022-01-24T14:39+0000

2022-01-24T16:33+0000

us

sarah palin

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https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/18/1092486317_0:0:3185:1791_1920x0_80_0_0_c3bbe4bb3961b31c8b88d19e9186e12d.jpg

Sarah Palin has tested positive for coronavirus, according to US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who is presiding over her defamation case against the New York Times, Reuters has reported.According to Rakoff, Palin "is of course unvaccinated".Her positive test comes as she was set to go to trial against the outlet. The trial was set to begin on Monday in a Manhattan federal court, but was postponed by the judge to 3 February after the news.Palin herself has not made any comments in regard to the matter.The former Alaska governor accused the NYT of defaming her in a June 2017 editorial that linked her political action committee (PAC) to the mass shooting that took place in 2011 in Arizona. The incident claimed six lives and left former Democrat Representative, Gabby Giffords, seriously wounded.The editorial, titled Americas Lethal Politics, said "the link to political incitement was clear" in the 2011 shooting and noted that the incident took place after Palins PAC shared a map that put 20 Democrat lawmakers, including Giffords, in "stylised cross hairs". Later, the NYT issued a correction to the editorial, saying that it incorrectly stated that a link existed between political rhetoric and the 2011 shooting".According to The Hill, Palin is seeking unspecified damages, along with about $421,000 in reputational damage.

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2022

Daria Bedenko

Daria Bedenko

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Daria Bedenko

us, sarah palin
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/georgia-judge-approves-das-special-grand-jury-request-for-trump-election-interference-probe-1092492591.html

Georgia Judge Approves DA's Special Grand Jury Request for Trump Election Interference Probe

Georgia Judge Approves DA's Special Grand Jury Request for Trump Election Interference Probe

A Georgia judge has approved Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' request for a special grand jury to investigate allegations of election interference... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T21:28+0000

2022-01-24T21:28+0000

2022-01-24T22:25+0000

georgia

donald trump

grand jury

election interference

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The request was submitted last week and approved by Christopher S. Brasher, Chief Judge of the Superior Court of Fulton County, on Monday, January 24, 2022. The special grand jury will allow the DA to gather evidence and compel witnesses to testify in their investigation into claims that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 US presidential election results in Georgia. The investigation will be supervised by the Honorable Robert C.I. McBurney.The need for a special grand jury was deemed necessary due to witnesses and evidence being hard to come by without the powers of the court, according to Willis. The investigation began when an audio recording of Trump asking Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find the votes necessary to flip the state from Joe Biden was revealed. Clark D. Cunningham, a Georgia State law professor, suggested that the decision is "extremely significant." Willis will have the power to issue subpoenas to individuals inside and outside the state of Georgia as well. The investigation is likely to begin May 2022 and is expected to not last longer than 12 months.

georgia

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2022

Nevin Brown

Nevin Brown

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Nevin Brown

georgia, donald trump, grand jury, election interference
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/german-foreign-minister-baerbock-draws-line-between-ukraine-and-nato-amid-tensions-with-russia-1092482372.html

German Foreign Minister Baerbock Draws Line Between Ukraine and NATO Amid Tensions With Russia

German Foreign Minister Baerbock Draws Line Between Ukraine and NATO Amid Tensions With Russia

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) - German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock dodged a question on Monday about whether Germany, a NATO member, would send troops to eastern... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T12:15+0000

2022-01-24T12:15+0000

2022-01-24T12:15+0000

europe

russia

ukraine

germany

nato

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"As an alliance, we stand in solidarity with Ukraine and, at the same time, we naturally stand together as an alliance, but we should not confuse Ukraine with the alliance's territory," she added.Baerbock, who spoke ahead of an EU foreign ministers' meeting, said the Europeans and the Americans, as NATO partners, were considering different scenarios for responding to the Ukrainian crisis.Russia and NATO have accused each other of escalating tensions over Ukraine. The New York Times reported over the weekend that US President Joe Biden was considering sending thousands of troops, as well as warships and military planes to eastern Europe and the Baltics ahead of what US media claim is a looming Russian invasion. Moscow has repeatedly denied plans to invade Ukraine, labelling them a provocation.

ukraine

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europe, russia, ukraine, germany, nato
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/kremlin-says-huge-ukraine-military-buildup-on-donbass-line-of-contact-shows-preparation-for-attack-1092481474.html

Kremlin: Ukraine Amassing Troops on Contact Line in Donbass in Apparent Preparation for Attack

Kremlin: Ukraine Amassing Troops on Contact Line in Donbass in Apparent Preparation for Attack

Tensions around Ukraine are on the rise as NATO puts its troops on standby amid Western media claims about Russia's alleged military buildup near its borders... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T11:54+0000

2022-01-24T11:54+0000

2022-01-24T13:25+0000

ukraine

russia

dmitry peskov

nato

troops

deployment

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https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e6/01/18/1092482761_0:0:3148:1771_1920x0_80_0_0_696497238ae2d2b0a24c372da112c41e.jpg

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that a huge buildup of Ukrainian forces on the Donbass line of contact indicates Kiev is preparing for an attack.He said that in this case, Moscow would like to see NATO countries urge Kiev not to even think about the possibility of a military settlement in Ukraine. According to Peskov, the delivery of each unit of weapons to Ukraine inspires Kiev to start military operations in Donbass.Dmitry Peskov also pointed out that information hysteria in the West, not Russia, should be blamed for the increased tensions around Ukraine.He was echoed by Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in Eastern Ukraine, who said earlier on Monday, that Kiev is moving artillery and tanks to the Donbass line of contact.Pushilin added that the Donetsk self-proclaimed republic "is on high alert because anything can be expected from Kiev.NATO Troops on StandbyHe spoke as NATO announced that it is putting its forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to the sites of the alliance's deployment in Eastern Europe, a move that NATO said was caused by Russia's purportedly continuing "military build-up in and around Ukraine".The deployment unfolds amid accusations by Western officials and media outlets that Russia is amassing troops on the border with Ukraine, ostensibly in preparation for an "invasion". Russia rejects the allegations, stressing that it can move the nation's troops on its own territory at its discretion, especially in the midst of NATO's continuing eastward expansion. Moscow also accuses the West of artificially ratcheting up tensions and possibly egging on Kiev to try to resolve the conflict in the eastern Donbass region by force.In a bid to defuse the tensions, the Russian Foreign Ministry published security guarantee proposals in mid-December urging the US and NATO to halt the bloc's eastward expansion, and proposing a number of measures, including legally-binding limitations on the deployment of troops, missile systems, aircraft, and warships in areas where they could be considered a threat to the other party. NATO was quick to respond by stating it won't abandon its "open-door" policy, signalling, though, its readiness to continue the dialogue with Russia.

https://sputniknews.com/20220124/ex-un-expert-us-nato-narrative-of-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-has-turned-into-religious-dogma-1092470865.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220121/uk-dispatches-30-elite-troops-to-ukraine-amid-escalation-fears-reports-suggest-1092423306.html

ukraine

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ukraine, russia, dmitry peskov, nato, troops, deployment
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/liz-cheney-risks-losing-primary-to-a-trump-endorsed-candidate-over-her-role-in-6-january-panel-1092489776.html

Liz Cheney Risks Losing Primary to a Trump-Endorsed Candidate Over Her Role in 6 January Panel

Liz Cheney Risks Losing Primary to a Trump-Endorsed Candidate Over Her Role in 6 January Panel

The former Republican president has made it his goal to ensure that Cheney is not re-elected in 2022 following her decision to vote for Trump's second... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T20:11+0000

2022-01-24T20:11+0000

2022-01-24T20:10+0000

us

liz cheney

midterms

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House Republican Liz Cheney's (R-WY) reelection as a lawmaker in Wyoming is facing the prospect of an ugly fight on the stage of primaries against Harriet Hageman  a GOP candidate now endorsed by Donald Trump and many other Republicans  all due to Cheney's participation in the US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, several lawmakers and officials pointed out in comments for the Hill.A main reason for concern is the Republican electorate in the state, which is not only highly conservative, but also strongly supported Trump in the last election, according to a Cheney ally, state House lawmaker Landon Brown. The former president earlier vowed that he would spare no effort to end Cheney's career as a GOP lawmaker because she criticised him and became the vice chair of the 6 January committee.Some polls show that Hageman overcoming Cheney by as much as 20%, while others suggest she can secure the nomination in 2022 despite significant opposition from within her own party. Cheney has not backed down on her commitment to the 6 January committee in the face of a possible electoral loss. On the contrary, she has suggested that a vote against her in primaries would be a vote in favour of perpetuating Trump's "big lie", referring to the latter's baseless and consistent claims that Democrats committed voter fraud in 2020 to steal the election.Trump and his allies in the GOP have increased pressure on Cheney to convince as many Republican voters as possible to switch their support to Hageman. Some voters, it has been suggested however, could abandon Cheney on grounds unrelated to party infighting. An unnamed adviser to Hageman has asserted that in what was referred to as her crusade against Trump, Cheney had lost touch with her constituents and their needs.House Democrats primarily established the US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and were joined by several Republicans later branded by Trump and his followers as 'RINOs', a label that stands for "Republicans in name only."The House committee seeks to identify those responsible for the deadly events of 6 January. On that day, in what many are increasingly referring to as a failed coup, a group of Trump supporters forcibly entered the Capitol building in a failed attempt to thwart the certification of the 2020 US presidential election results. The violence and vandalism led to at least five deaths and widespread damage. The Jan 6 committee is more recently focusing on the communications and actions of Trump and his allies. The panel threw a wide net of subpoenas for former White House officials, lawmakers and their telecom data. The committee has also invited several people to testify, and has held several Trump allies in contempt of Congress for failing to appear.

https://sputniknews.com/20220124/wolves-will-become-sheep-ex-us-house-speaker-warns-6-january-panel-might-face-jail-after-midterms-1092482065.html

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us, liz cheney, midterms
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/olaf-scholz-praises-resignation-of-germanys-ex-navy-chief-who-said-ukraine-wont-get-crimea-1092490579.html

Olaf Scholz Praises Resignation of Germany's Ex-Navy Chief Who Said Ukraine Won't Get Crimea

Olaf Scholz Praises Resignation of Germany's Ex-Navy Chief Who Said Ukraine Won't Get Crimea

BERLIN, (Sputnik) - German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the statements of the former head of the country's Navy, Vice Adm. Kai-Achim Schoenbach, about Crimea... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T18:52+0000

2022-01-24T18:52+0000

2022-01-24T18:52+0000

europe

germany

olaf scholz

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"The statements made by the vice admiral do not correspond to the ideas of the federal government," Scholz said, commenting on Schoenbach's resignation at a briefing in Berlin.The head of the German navy said at a conference hosted by India's Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses that Crimea would never again be part of Ukraine and called the West's claims that Moscow was preparing for an invasion nonsense. The commander also noted that Putin wanted respect from his Western partners and that it was not that hard to show him some respect since he "probably deserves it." Schonbach then requested to be relieved of his post after facing backlash.On Saturday, German Defene Minister Christine Lambrecht accepted Schonbach's request for resignation. The navy commander acknowledged on Twitter his remarks were a mistake following backlash.The Kremlin, in its turn, said that Schonbach's statements on Crimea and Russia are a good indication that "not everything is lost".

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/several-people-injured-in-heidelberg-germany-massive-police-deployment-reported-1092483410.html

Several Wounded as 'Lone Attacker' Opens Fire at Lecture Hall in Heidelberg, Germany

Several Wounded as 'Lone Attacker' Opens Fire at Lecture Hall in Heidelberg, Germany

According to the official Twitter account of the Mannheim Police, a shooting incident occurred in the Neuenheimer Feld area of the city, so people have been... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T12:48+0000

2022-01-24T12:48+0000

2022-01-24T13:52+0000

europe

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A police operation is underway in Heidelberg, Baden-Wurttemberg after several people were injured by a gunman on the campus.The German news agency DPA reported, citing security sources, that the gunman was a student, and that he killed himself after the shooting.The police didn't specify how many people were wounded, and didn't provide any details regarding their condition.

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europe, germany, police
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/source-gulf-boiling-with-anger-over-gazas-support-of-houthi-rebels-vows-retaliation-1092479877.html

Source: Gulf Boiling With Anger Over Gaza's Support of Houthi Rebels, Vows Retaliation

Source: Gulf Boiling With Anger Over Gaza's Support of Houthi Rebels, Vows Retaliation

It is not yet clear how Riyadh and Abu Dhabi will choose to respond following a Saturday rally organised by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T12:34+0000

2022-01-24T12:34+0000

2022-01-24T12:34+0000

gaza strip

yemen

saudi arabia

houthis

middle east

uae

houthi rebels

houthi

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On Saturday, thousands of people took to the streets in the Gaza Strip to express their support for the Yemeni people and the Houthi rebels, following an alleged Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a detention centre in the province of Saada that led to the deaths of at least 80 people on Friday, accusations the coalition has denied.Participants in the rally chanted anti-Saudi slogans, including "Death to the house of Al Saud", in protest against the country's involvement in the Yemeni war, and that caused Riyadh and its closest ally -- the United Arab Emirates -- to boil over with anger.Mounting FrustrationMessages of anger and frustration at Gazans' support for the Houthis have been seen on many Twitter accounts of Saudi and Emirati nationals, but that's not where it ends.Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in the Gulf linked to the highest echelons of the Emirati and Saudi governments, says the leadership of the two states is frustrated too, especially because it didn't "appreciate" such a response from Gaza.Over the years, Riyadh has been one of the Palestinians' major donors and for the past two decades, it has provided them with more than $6.5 billion, of which at least $250 million was allocated to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA.The UAE has also been a major donor and before it signed a normalisation agreement with Israel in September 2020, it used to inject more than $50 million a year into UNRWA. But the pact with the Jewish state and the criticism it prompted from the Palestinians made the Emirati leadership reconsider their cash flows.No More Money?Now, as Gazans take sides, opting to support the Houthis and, consequently, its patron Iran, the Gulf states' main regional rival, the source says neither Riyadh nor the UAE will be "sitting idly by".It is not yet clear what measures Riyadh and Abu Dhabi will be taking. It could be that their revenge will take the form of trimming their monetary assistance to the Palestinians. It could also be that it will be expressed in removing their diplomatic backing from their cause, but the official in the Gulf is certain: "The authorities are outraged and they will be hitting back".In the Gaza Strip, Hamas - which governs the enclave - knows the repercussions Saudi rage can entail. News outlets associated with the Islamic group did not cover Saturday's rally, instead they tried to sweep it under the rug. Officials from Hamas attempted to distance themselves from the event organised by their allies, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a group that's believed to be linked to Iran.Shortly after the event, Hamas released a statement, saying "the chants that have been heard on the Palestinian front [i.e. Death to Al Saud - ed.] do not reflect the steady policy of the movement that has always refrained from meddling in other countries' internal affairs".Similar messages have also been released by Fatah, a party that controls the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority condemned the Houthi rebels for targeting Saudi Arabia and the UAE and vowed support for their "Arab brothers".Will these statements soothe tensions in the Gulf? History teaches that they might. In the 1990s, amid the bloody Iraq-Kuwait war, the Palestinians took the side of then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, despite the financial and diplomatic assistance Kuwait had given to the Palestinians.Years later, the Palestinians apologised and the ice started to melt. But for that to happen with the Saudis and Emiratis, they will need more than just an apology.Both states consider Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations, and for a rapprochement to happen they will want guarantees that these two have changed their ways.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/state-department-us-prepared-to-meet-directly-with-iran-amid-talks-standoff-1092490980.html

State Department: US Prepared to Meet 'Directly' With Iran Amid Talks Standoff

State Department: US Prepared to Meet 'Directly' With Iran Amid Talks Standoff

Iranian diplomats met with P4+1 representatives in Vienna on Monday to review draft texts on guarantees and verification for the removal of US sanctions in the... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T19:17+0000

2022-01-24T19:17+0000

2022-01-24T20:11+0000

us

iran

us state department

vienna talks

joint comprehensive plan of action (jcpoa)

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"We are prepared to meet directly" with Iran to resolve talks on reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which has so far been negotiated by Eurasian partners on Washington's behalf, a US State Department spokesperson told Sputnik on Monday.Earlier on Monday, a Western diplomatic source told Reuters that Iran's negotiating team had recently made an appeal for direct talks."We've heard nothing to that effect. We'd welcome it," US Special Representative to Iran Robert Malley, who headed the US delegation that agreed to the 2015 deal, told Reuters in response to a question about the appeal.The 2015 deal saw the US lower decades-old sanctions against Iran in exchange for Tehran accepting strict limitations on its nuclear program, including on the quality and quantity of refined uranium it could produce and store. However, in 2018, the administration of then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the deal, claiming Iran had been secretly violating it in pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Iran denied the accusations and the other partners to the deal were unconvinced by Washington's evidence, but they acquiesced to US demands to comply with new "maximum pressure" sanctions.New talks on reviving the deal began in early 2021 after US President Joe Biden took office, but after seven rounds in Vienna, no new deal has yet been struck. However, several draft texts have been agreed upon thus far, with talks on more resuming in Vienna on Monday between Iran and the P4+1 nations - the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China - which are also party to the deal.However, on Monday, Malley introduced a new condition for a final agreement that was totally unconnected to the nuclear deal: the freeing of four US citizens allegedly being held in Iranian custody.In response, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh dismissed such a precondition, saying, the negotiations are complicated enough. One should not further complicate them."

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us, iran, us state department, vienna talks, joint comprehensive plan of action (jcpoa)
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/talibans-luxury-visit-to-norway-blasted-as-disrespectful-to-taxpayers-mockery-of-the-fallen-1092475793.html

Taliban's 'Luxury' Visit to Norway Blasted as 'Disrespectful to Taxpayers', 'Mockery of the Fallen'

Taliban's 'Luxury' Visit to Norway Blasted as 'Disrespectful to Taxpayers', 'Mockery of the Fallen'

Criticising her government's ongoing talks with the Taliban* on human rights and humanitarian crises, Norwegian Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug said it... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T06:02+0000

2022-01-24T06:02+0000

2022-01-24T06:02+0000

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The arrival of a Taliban delegation at Oslo Gardermoen for three-day talks with diplomats from Norway and other countries at the high-end conference hotel Soria Moria in the Norwegian capital has sparked a backlash both at home and abroad.Progress Party leader Sylvi Listhaug argued it made no sense for the Norwegian government to spend taxpayers' money on the Taliban's visit to the country."This is a meaningless use of taxpayers' money, to invite the extremist terrorist organisation Taliban on a luxury trip to Norway. It is a glaring example of how the government wastes our tax money", Listhaug noted in a written comment, demanding an answer from the government on how much the visit would cost the state. A few hours later, the Foreign Ministry replied that the visit, including the rental of a private jet, is estimated at NOK 7 million (nearly $800,000)."Even though this is not a lot of money for the Foreign Ministry, which manages a whopping budget of NOK 40 billion ($4.5 billion) in development assistance, it is still disrespectful to taxpayers", Listhaug concluded.She furthermore argued that it was naive of the authorities to believe that this effort would somehow help to establish a dialogue with the Taliban.While Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt emphasised that the visit is neither a legitimation nor a recognition of the Taliban regime and the talks are focused on human rights and the severe humanitarian crisis that Afghanistan is currently facing, the visit sparked harsh criticism even from Norway's allies.Danish liberal-conservative party Venstre's foreign spokesman, Michael Aastrup Jensen, called it "completely wrong" and likened it to a "grenade shock".He furthermore ventured that taking steps toward cooperation with and recognition of a "terrorist regime" is tantamount to "breaking the musketeer's oath" on Norway's part and mocking the numerous victims of the Afghanistan war."It is a direct mockery that a NATO country goes in and negotiates with those who have killed so many Afghan civilians and not least is the cause of the many fallen NATO soldiers. The government mocks the many victims and fallen who have been in this conflict", Aastrup Jensen told Danish Radio.The Taliban took full control of Afghanistan following the abrupt withdrawal of US and allied forces that marked the end of the 20-year war there, the longest and the costliest in modern American history and that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead from both sides.*The Taliban is an organisation sanctioned by the UN for terrorist activities.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/true-to-form-brits-take-lead-in-nato-psy-war-against-russia-1092486513.html

True to Form Brits Take Lead in NATO Psy-War Against Russia

True to Form Brits Take Lead in NATO Psy-War Against Russia

After weeks of non-stop beating of war drums by the US and NATO against Russia, the latest sounds out of London show the Brits are taking the lead in promoting... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T15:10+0000

2022-01-24T15:10+0000

2022-01-24T15:11+0000

columnists

op-ed

united kingdom

ukraine

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For it is a pernicious historical role that the British establishment is a past master at. A deeper understanding of history shows that the British ruling class has been instrumental in starting the last centurys two world wars centered in Europe.British imperial rivalry and skulduggery against Kaiser Wilhelm II led to the first. While conniving with Nazi Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union led to the second. All told, those two conflicts resulted in nearly 100 million deaths. It is a shame and an astounding feat of brainwashing that Britains nefarious role remains largely hidden from general public understanding.Anyway, currently, the way things are shaping up over ever-sharpening tensions between the US-led NATO military bloc and Russia is putting the world on notice of another world war. The US and its NATO partners are recklessly militarizing Ukraine and the region while accusing Russia of aggression.The whole media campaign to demonize Russia has the hallmarks of a psychological operation. To fabricate a casus belli when there is none is in itself a war crime.There is no evidence of Russian preparations for such an invasion that it is being hysterically accused of. We hear of satellite data; where is it? What do the few dodgy images show? Russian troops in Russia! The whole confrontational narrative has become a religious dogma of blind faith, as former UN diplomat Alfred de Zayas eloquently debunks.Moscow has repeatedly and categorically denied any alleged plan to attack Ukraine or any other nation. Yet, sinisterly, we are being told by the US and its allies that the window for diplomacy is closing. A window that was fleetingly opened and rapidly slammed shut by the Western states when their envoys met Russian counterparts last week only to rebuff Moscows proposals for security guarantees. It seems that a decision to militarize relations is deliberately being prioritized. This is insane and indeed amounts to a willful pursuit of crimes against peace by the Western powers.What gives the dynamic added menace is the way London is lending its dubious black arts to the scene. Notably, in certain ways, the Brits are taking the lead on all the other NATO powers to make the case for war more likely.London was the first to announce in recent days that it is withdrawing diplomatic staff from its Ukraine embassy. Now the Americans have followed suit with the State Department advising some of its staff to evacuate. Interestingly, other European countries did not make a similar withdrawal. This points to the Brits as leading the way in creating a pre-war crisis atmosphere.Then over the weekend, the British Foreign Office declared that Russia was planning to install a puppet regime in Kiev after it (allegedly) invades Ukraine. The story was obviously timed for the Sunday newspapers to amplify. Russia rubbished it as misinformation and called on London to stop making provocative claims.That latest British claim is ropey and shot through with inconsistencies. Even the normally dutiful BBC questioned the timing of the Foreign Offices intervention (more accurately, invention).However, the embarrassing lack of credibility did not stop Washington jumping enthusiastically on to the British claims, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying the alleged plot to install a puppet regime in Kiev is straight out of the Kremlins playbook.The irony of London and Washington accusing others of regime-change plots is beyond words. These two rogue powers have overthrown more foreign governments than the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. The present crisis over Ukraine is largely a consequence of the CIA, MI6-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 when a Neo-Nazi regime seized power against an elected president. That Russophobic regime has been doing NATOs bidding ever since in an attempt to destabilize Russia.Britain taking a lead role in the propaganda campaign against Russia has an ominous aspect.Ever since the British ruling class lost its blood-soaked empire and became the junior partner in the special relationship with the United States, the role that Britain provides is one of spin-meister for war. That plummy accent and pretentious air of self-importance has a certain, if dubious, media cachetThe classic example of this was Tony Blair acting as the international PR agent for GW Bush to make the case for war against Iraq in 2002-2003. In a secret memo recently published, Blair openly professed in private conversation to provide this precise media role to Bush, and thereby unleashed a criminal war that caused over one million deaths.The Brits are at it again.

https://sputniknews.com/20220124/kremlin-says-huge-ukraine-military-buildup-on-donbass-line-of-contact-shows-preparation-for-attack-1092481474.html

https://sputniknews.com/20220124/uk-has-reportedly-begun-staff-withdrawal-from-its-embassy-in-ukraine-1092477890.html

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/uk-court-allows-assange-to-challenge-us-extradition-decision---wikileaks-1092480050.html

UK Court Allows Assange to Challenge US Extradition Decision

UK Court Allows Assange to Challenge US Extradition Decision

In December, the London High Court ruled in favour of the US appeal to extradite Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who was accused by Washington of... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T10:52+0000

2022-01-24T10:52+0000

2022-01-24T11:30+0000

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On Monday, the London High Court decided to allow Julian Assange to appeal to the UK Supreme Court and challenge the previous verdict that approved his extradition to the United States.Assange's fiancee, Stella Moris, hailed the decision as a victory for the Australian journalist.The ruling followed a December decision by the London High Court to greenlight the US appeal to extradite Assange. An earlier decision that the Australian journalist cannot be extradited to the US due to health issues and the inhumane conditions he might face in the US prison system was overturned at the time. In a move to challenge the December High Court decision, Assange's legal team argued that, should the WikiLeaks founder be extradited to the US, he would be "subjected to near total isolation" - something that could severely affect his mental health and even potentially lead to suicide.Assange requested that the High Court approve three points of law of general public importance, as at least one certified point is necessary for the UK Supreme Court to hear Assange's appeal against extradition to the US.Now it is up to the Supreme Court to decide whether Assange will be extradited to the United States to face 18 criminal charges, including espionage. The Australian journalist faced the charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified documents that shed light on war crimes committed by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the event of being convicted in the United States, Assange could face up to 175 years behind bars.

https://sputniknews.com/20220113/assange-asks-uk-court-to-certify-3-points-of-law-to-move-appeal-to-supreme-court-his-fiancee-says-1092235840.html

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Daria Bedenko

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https://sputniknews.com/20220124/uk-has-reportedly-begun-staff-withdrawal-from-its-embassy-in-ukraine-1092477890.html

UK Has Begun Staff Withdrawal From Its Embassy in Ukraine

UK Has Begun Staff Withdrawal From Its Embassy in Ukraine

The tensions around Ukraine have flared up over the past several days, with the US Department of State ordering the evacuation of American diplomats' families... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T08:03+0000

2022-01-24T08:03+0000

2022-01-24T08:40+0000

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The United Kingdom decided to withdraw part of its embassy staff from Ukraine on Monday, claiming there is a "growing threat from Russia".London has been stirring up the panic over a so-called "Russian invasion" for some time, promising "nuclear" sanctions against Moscow and claiming that the Kremlin plans to install a "puppet government" in Kiev. The Foreign Office even named former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential candidate to head the "pro-Russian government", despite him having been under sanctions in Russia since 2018. Even the Ukrainian politician himself mocked the British authorities, suggesting that "Mr. Bean" should be asked for clarifications on the UK's claims.Russia, in turn, blasted the UK government, urging the United Kingdom to "stop the provocations" around Ukraine.Over the past few months, NATO countries have repeatedly accused Moscow of preparing for aggression, and gathering troops along the Ukrainian-Russian border. The Kremlin has refuted the claims and has pointed to NATO's military activity near the Russian border as a threat to national security.In a bid to de-escalate the tensions, Russia put forward security guarantee proposals, suggesting to place limits on troop, warship, aircraft, and missile deployments for both sides. The draft agreements offered by Moscow also stipulated that NATO not expand or establish bases near the Russian border, however, the bloc maintained it would not cease its "open-door" policy.

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ukraine, uk, russia, diplomats
https://sputniknews.com/20220124/us-to-continue-along-path-of-diplomacy-in-what-concerns-russia-ukraine---state-department-1092474033.html

US to Continue Along Path of Diplomacy in What Concerns Russia, Ukraine - State Department

US to Continue Along Path of Diplomacy in What Concerns Russia, Ukraine - State Department

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is still interested in finding diplomatic solutions to the Ukrainian crisis and has advised its citizens to leave... 24.01.2022, Sputnik International

2022-01-24T02:08+0000

2022-01-24T02:08+0000

2022-01-24T02:07+0000

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On Sunday, the State Department authorized the voluntary departure of US direct hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from the embassy in Kiev amid security concerns. US citizens in Ukraine are being advised to leave using commercial transportation options.The official reiterated that Russia will face massive consequences if it decides to "invade" Ukraine and said that Washington is urging Moscow to de-escalate the situation.Tensions around Ukraine have intensified over the past several months after Russia was accused of a troop build-up near the Ukrainian border and allegedly preparing for an invasion. Moscow has denied these accusations, pointing to NATO's military activity near the Russian borders, which it deems a threat to its national security. Russia has also said it has the right to move its forces within its own territory.The senior state department official said on Sunday that Washington thinks Russia could cause a "false pretext" for "going into" Ukraine and expressed concerns over recent attempts to destabilize Ukraine.The British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office claimed on Saturday that the Russian government was "looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kiev" and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Murayev was being considered as a "potential candidate." No evidence was provided to support the claims. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the UK allegations "disinformation" and urged London to stop provocations.The Russian Foreign Ministrys spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper this weekend that the West is using Kiev as an instrument in order to advance its own interests in the region. She emphasized that Western countries need reasons to constantly justify anti-Russian sanctions and are using Ukraine in that respect despite the fact that there is no evidence of any plans of Russian "aggression."The Russian Foreign Ministrys spokeswoman reiterated that Moscow is waiting for a response from the US to its proposals on security guarantees.

https://sputniknews.com/20220123/report-uk-claims-moscow-plans-to-install-pro-russian-govt-in-ukraine-are-based-on-us-intel-1092466456.html

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Jim Mann began his journalism career at 10, delivering newspapers for The Free LanceStar in the Fredericksburg neighborhood where he lived. His duties included placing a paper in a basket at the home of longtime Star publisher and owner Josiah Rowe.

Life took Mann off to college in Iowa and into the war zone of Vietnam. But he eventually returned to a career at The Free LanceStar that saw him rise from reporter to assistant managing editor and gain a family of lifelong friends at the paper and throughout the community.

James Arthur Mann completed the final chapter of his life Jan. 16. He was 79.

The one thing that connected all of his stages of his life was always publishing and writing about people, said Manns son, Geoff.

Born March 11, 1942, in Washington, D.C., Mann moved with his parents, Arthur Newton Mann and Hazel Marie Dunnington, in 1950 to a home they built on Winchester Street, where Jim would grow up and later raise his own family with his wife, Mary.

Mann attended James Monroe High School, where he served as class president and also ran an underground newspaper, The Sea-Gull Journal. Mann studied political science and journalism at the University of Iowa. He joined the Reserve Officers Training Corps, entered the Army as a second lieutenant and served three years on active duty, including deployment to Vietnam as a member of the 128th Assault Helicopter Company.

The stories he eventually shared about his adventures as The Cheerios Kid, flying Hueys with more bullet holes than the maintenance officers could accurately count, explained why he was honored with the Distinguished Flying Cross, twice, within a three months. Eleven years after returning from the Vietnam War, he returned to flying helicoptersthis time with the Virginia Army National Guard in Richmond.

While on active duty during the Vietnam War, Mann compiled and printed a regular newspaper called Smoke Signal and maintained his connection with The Free LanceStar as a correspondent.

He returned to The Free LanceStar in 1969, where he spent the rest of his career, except for a brief hiatus to start the Billingsley Printing business with his brother Tom in 1974. Mann served as a reporter, photographer, designer and eventually assistant managing editor before he retired in 2004.

He met his wife, Mary, at the newspaper while she was working on a summer edition of the Mary Washington College student paper. They were married for 52 years and had three children: Geoff, Emily and Zephyr. When Mary gave up her career to care for the family, Mann hung her photography awards front and center in his officeright next to an autographed photo of Don Knotts as Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show series Mann loved.

Manns office was the go-to place for newsroom staff needing to vent, pitch a story or even solve a personal problem.

I remember countless times where I went into Jims office to complain about something or other and he would listen quietly, while nodding along, said Maria Carrillo, a former local news editor at the paper. And then he would turn the conversation to a story about his kids or Mary or his mother-in-lawsomething that had absolutely nothing to do with what I was complaining about. But before too long, I had forgotten why I had come into his office or what I was upset about. It was brilliant.

Longtime Free Lance-Star colleague Laura Moyer remembers the lesson she learned from Mann when she wrote a story about a couple who got married after reuniting at a friends funeral.

Jim read the draft and said I had to warn the [friends] mother, Moyer said. She couldnt be blindsided. It just wasnt fair.

Calling the bereaved mother was the last thing Moyer wanted to do. So Mann offered to call her instead, and the mother was honored that her sons memory played a role in the couples happiness.

He didnt just tell me how to be a better journalist, he showed me, Moyer said.

Reporters who were having a hard day often returned to the newsroom to find Carls ice cream on their desk, courtesy of Mann. Reporter Kristin Davis once discovered the back end of her car had been smashed in The Free Lance-Star parking lot while she was in the newsroom.

No one fessed up, but Mann meticulously measured the damage, determined that a circulation truck was responsible and convinced the company to fix the car. He personally saw to it that the vehicle went to a quality repair shop and was restored appropriately.

I will forever remember how he came to my rescue when he didnt have to, and how kind and steadfast he was, Davis said.

Mann was never ruffled, even on a deadline. When presented a problem, the most discontent he showed was an eye roll and a woh, boy!which usually made the crisis of the moment seem funny.

Jim was the soul of the newsroom, said Ed Jones, the paper's retired editor-in-chief. He not only had this commitment to tell-it-like-it-is journalism, he also had a manner about him that was so infused with kindness.

In 2005, Jim received the the Virginia Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists highest honor, the George Mason Award. But he but used his acceptance speech to highlight the stories of others he enjoyed editing and reading.

The fun-loving, easygoing Mann loved telling stories, whether in writing or around the table. He often wrote of Mayberry as an American ideal and loved Emily Dickinsons poetry. He briefly owned a hearse as a personal vehicle, which he loved to drive around town.

After reading about Persian Gulf War soldiers using condoms to protect their rifles from sand, Mann collected more than 1,000 weapon protectors to hand out as party favors during the Virginia Army National Guard convention. He labeled them with sizes to distribute in accordance with the military rank and position of those in attendance.

He was never afraid to come up with an idea, follow through on it and spread positivity into the world, said Manns daughter, Emily.

He was a longtime volunteer with Boy Scout Troop 170 and a member and a fixture at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, where he and another legacy member cared for the bell tower. They affectionately called themselves the Grand Ding-a-Lings, and Mann ensured that any kid who wanted to ride the bell-tower rope had the opportunity to do so.

Mann is survived by his wife, Mary of Fredericksburg, three children, Geoff (Becky) of Henrico, Emily of Hanover and Zephyr (Erin) of Richmond; eight grandchildren: Theo, Jackson, Ellie, Josie, Liliana, Gunner, Ginna and Vanessa; a brother, Tom Mann of Fredericksburg; a sister, Jane Patton of Florida (Charlie); and nieces Lisa Randall (Chuck), Aude and CoCo.

A viewing will be held at Mullins and Thompson from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 27. The funeral is scheduled Friday, Jan. 28, at 12:30 p.m. at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, with interment following at Oak Hill Cemetery. A reception will be held at 3 p.m.
A 43-year-old Maryland man was killed Sunday in an automobile accident in Fauquier County, Virginia State Police said.

Gilbert F. Dzakpasu of Germantown, Md., died at the scene.

He was driving a 2021 Jeep Wrangler north on U.S. 17, just north of the interstate, about 6:50 p.m. when it crossed a double solid-yellow centerline and collided head-on with a southbound 2017 Dodge Ram.

Dzakpasu was wearing a seat belt, Sgt. Brent Coffey, spokesman for the Culpeper Division of the Virginia State Police, said in a statement.

The Dodges driver, a 22-year-old Marshall man, suffered serious but non life-threatening injuries and was flown by helicopter to INOVA Fairfax Hospital. He was also wearing a seat belt.

State Police said speed is considered a factor in the crash, which is under investigation.
A record year for Lincoln startup investment in 2021 apparently was even bigger.

BasicBlock, a financial technology company that makes it easier for truckers to find financing and get paid, announced Monday that it received $78 million investment that is a combination of debt and equity.

Among the lead investors in the round were Autotech Ventures, Clear Haven Capital Management, Emergent Ventures and Nelnet. Previous investors Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, SaaS Ventures and TNT Ventures also participated.

While the investment was disclosed on Monday, it actually was finalized in November, which means BasicBlock's pot of money, one of the largest ever for a Lincoln-based company, likely pushed last year's record-breaking venture capital haul to close to $300 million.

BasicBlock's investment follows three other very large ones last year: $120 million for Monolith, $46 million for Virtual Incision, and $30 million for CompanyCam.

The company got its start in 2018 as an app that allowed truckers to do factoring of their invoices and get paid faster with less of a discount. Factoring involves having an investor pay upfront for the value of outstanding invoices, for a discounted rate, and BasicBlock facilitated the factoring at a low rate of 2-3% of the invoice value.

The company has since "evolved to provide critical working capital to fleets who cannot secure it through traditional financial institutions," said Taylor Monks, BasicBlock CEO and co-founder.

Monks said research he did prior to starting the company showed that 96% of all trucking companies have fewer than six trucks "and one of their biggest pain points is access to capital."

The company said in a news release that the $78 million investment will allow it to continue focusing on factoring while adding and expanding services to help carriers grow their fleets. One of the company's goals is to eventually be able to offer 0% factoring.

Some of the investment also will be used to open and staff a new office in Chicago. Just since November, BasicBlock has seen a 50% increase in the number of drivers it serves and a 60% increase in the amount of factoring volume.

"Establishing an office in Chicago, one of the leading freight-tech cities in the U.S., will enable us to meet the needs of our increasing national customer base and improve upon our already industry-leading customer service," said Brett Byman, the company's chief operating officer.

Burak Cendek, a partner at Autotech Ventures, one of the lead investors, said traditional financial institutions are not meeting the needs of small trucking firms, and BasicBlock has "developed a solution to enable this critical piece of the supply chain access to financing."

"Autotech Ventures sees great potential in BasicBlock's current offering as well as its plans for the future," Cendek said.

Reach the writer at 402-473-2647 or molberding@journalstar.com. On Twitter @LincolnBizBuzz.
The Nebraska Press Association (NPA) has launched a new public website to provide greater public access and notification to the workings of all government entities and courts in Nebraska. The website  www.nepublicnotices.com  is a cooperative effort of all Nebraska newspapers and is managed through the NPA.

The free-access website was initiated in June 2021. Currently there are over 90,000 notices on the site and more are posted each day. The notices are fully searchable by keyword, type of notice, by date, by publication, by county ,or by city or village. After public notices appear in print in newspapers  as required by state statutes, they are then uploaded by newspapers to the website within 24 to 48 hours of publication.

The executive director of the Nebraska Press Association, Dennis DeRossett, said the newspapers across Nebraska funded development of the site, as well as all costs involved with hosting and maintaining it; there is no additional cost to any government entity or court for notices to appear on this website.

This is a true public service to the people of Nebraska, provided by community newspapers across the state, he said.

Amy Johnson, owner and publisher of the Springview Herald and current board president of NPA, said, This project has come together extremely well because Nebraskas newspapers are committed to the belief that public notices are an essential part of the foundation of a democracy. Through public notices, units of government at all levels notify taxpayers when, where and how they conduct the publics business. Nebraskans get their local news and information from printed newspapers and digital platforms and this new statewide public notice website enables a larger audience to have access to this important information.

DeRossett said the goal is to have 100% of all public notices in Nebraska to be on the website after first appearing in print, which establishes the legal basis for statutory publishing requirements.

Through the cooperation of all newspapers across the state, and using advances in technology, we are confident we can achieve this self-imposed benchmark by June 2022  the first anniversary date of the site, he said. To back up its commitment to provide for expanded accessibility of public notices, the NPA board of directors recently amended its bylaws that makes compliance with uploading to the website a condition of membership.

Johnson added, The aggregation of all public notices from the units of government and courts in all 93 Nebraska counties did not exist before now. Most people may only be affected by or concerned with notices from their local community but having access to all notices statewide is a valuable resource in many ways.

As an example, she said, bid notices will now get wider exposure which could result in more bidders for projects and possibly more competitive pricing. She added, whether its a notice of a meeting or public hearing, or an ordinance that changes zoning requirements, or a request for bids, these involve use of taxpayer dollars. Public notices are the key in providing that information from the unit of government back to the taxpayers.

DeRossett said that state statutes spell out publication requirements for public notices to appear in newspapers, as well as rates newspapers can charge.

Public notices are not just advertising  they are an integral part of a legal process of notification and accountability by units of government, and the courts, to the taxpayers, he said. Im proud of the commitment Nebraska newspapers have made to ensure public notices are available to all citizens of Nebraska.

The Nebraska Press Association is the oldest trade association in Nebraska; it will celebrate its 150th anniversary year in 2023.

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LINCOLN  A collaboration between Nebraska Public Media Labs and the University of Nebraska State Museum (UNSM) allows visitors to virtually travel back in time to prehistoric Nebraska and get a feel for how it has changed over the millennia.

Visitors to Expedition Nebraska: A Natural History VR Experience can use laptops, mobile devices and soon VR (virtual reality) headsets to meet some of the animals that lived and died during the millions of years before humans migrated to the Great Plains.

To visit Expedition Nebraska: A Natural History VR Experience on the web go to ExpeditionNebraska.org. Versions for mobile devices are available now in the Apple App and Google Play stores.

The collaboration is among the first of its kind between a museum and a public media company. It leads the way in creating the next generation of public media, demonstrating the potential for these sorts of emerging media collaborations between cultural institutions.

The journey begins in a courtyard set within a landscape resembling Nebraskas Sandhills during a summer sunset. As visitors move virtually through the courtyard, they encounter photogrammetrically rendered models of animals  including Nebraskas iconic Archie the mammoth skeleton  giving a sense of actual size and scale.

A second portion is a recreation of UNSMs Museum Builders exhibit from 2019, and documents the history of the museum. Set in a simulation of the first museum site, a room that was located in the long-since demolished University Hall on the University of Nebraska-Lincolns City Campus, University Hall and the 1870s prairie can be seen out the windows. As visitors move around the room they can interact with virtual models of some of the first items added to the museums research collection.

The first full exhibit in Expedition Nebraska is the Cave of Time. Within a simulation of a Dakota Sandstone cave, inspired by Robbers Cave in Lincoln, visitors can access seven ages of North American land mammals. These fully immersive bioramas show how Nebraskas climate changed over the ages and feature photogrammetrically rendered fossils.

The fossils appear either with holographic shapes of animals once made up of those bones, or as specimens on floating on tables. As visitors explore each age, they are invited to play audio that explain more about these creatures and the environments in which they lived.

The goal of the interactive experience is to give visitors the world over access to the rich scholarship and collections existing within the University of Nebraska State Museum, and over time, create a repository of educational resources for future generations.

Keeping their eyes on a distant horizon, both Labs and UNSM plan additional content, accessibility features and exhibits to be developed over the course of the next decade.

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Among a population that has sadly faded into the everyday background in a growing cityscape, Spencer Parks stands out for one big reason when he panhandles near busy intersections.

Duchess, his sweet, 120-pound Staffordshire Terrier mix, standing watch nearby.

They say dont choose a dog, let the dog choose you, Parks said. She chose me. That dog is my soulmate.

Because hes homeless  Parks sleeps in a tent many nights  his options are limited when it comes to caring for Duchess.

For myriad reasons connected to health and safety, overnight and emergency shelters dont take pets. Its similar with friends whove offered couches.

Youre welcome to stay  but you cant bring your dog.

So when the cold, snow and ice barged into what had been until recently a mild winter, Parks never considered heading to a shelter even for a night. Absolutely not. I couldnt, he said.

Earlier this month as he considered limited choices with overnight lows approaching 20 degrees, a chance encounter changed everything as a single act of human kindness turned into an avalanche of support.

Loyalty runs two ways

Nobody wakes up one day and decides to go live in the woods. It happens gradually and then suddenly.

In general terms, homelessness almost always results from a combination of factors including bad luck, poor decisions, the loss of a job or family support, financial hardship, substance abuse and/or crippling health problems, both physical and mental.

Its complicated, thats for sure, Parks allowed.

Among other things, Parks deals with a Polyarteritis Nodosa, a rare version of vasculitis, that hes had since grade school. In recent months, its left him unable to wear a shoe on one foot and a painful, slow-healing leg wound.

(Polyarteritis Nodosa is an auto-immune disease that attacks the vascular system and internal organs by inflaming and bursting blood vessels. It leaves open sores, constant pain and has no cure. Symptoms are managed with steroids and pain medication.)

When he was able, the 33-year-old Parks said he worked construction jobs. Hes on disability now, but a few hundred bucks a month from Social Security only goes so far.

For about three years, he and Duchess have lived in a tent. His sister stays with them sometimes. It wasnt so bad, he said. It had a queen-sized mattress with a pillow topper, a couch and an Ottoman.

Paying for food, medicine and gas money for several round-trips each week to a clinic in High Point quickly drains his meager monthly disability payment, so Parks panhandles (with a city issued permit) to get by.

Strangely enough, thats where his luck began to turn.

A passerby couldnt help but notice the bearded Parks, his large companion and a hooded sweatshirt with her picture emblazoned on the front.

That person stopped for a brief conversation, snapped a photo and relayed it all to a co-worker named Maria Wood, a board member at FurEver Friends N.C., a nonprofit dedicated to animal welfare, because she knew Wood might be able to help.

And because Wood is who she is, she immediately started to act by tapping into a long list of generous contacts. I tell my dogs I go to work so I can pay for their house, she said with a laugh.

More than $850 was raised in a matter of days to pay for a motel stay. Dr. Amy Pugh with the Animal Hospital of Clemmons agreed to examine Duchess and treat any illnesses  free of charge.

Vet care is huge, Wood said. Its not cheap.

Once word spread about what was afoot, dog lovers from as far away as Maine sent blankets, a handmade dog sweater for Duchess and made sure that food and medicine would not be an issue.

Not that feeding Duchess has ever been a problem. Shes well cared for, to the point where when Parks said he had always made sure shes fed before he even thinks about his own needs, you believe him.

And the affection is clearly returned. She sits patiently by his side, looking at him when he speaks as if she understands every word. When he scratches her head and belly, Duchess responds by licking his cheeks.

Duchess understands the loyalty and returns it.

People have said, Why dont you just get rid of the dog? Shes only got a couple of years left, Parks said. But I cant. I know I could find a place (to live). I love her. 

It seems cruel to have cared for her all these years and then leave her when the end is near.

Before any of these things could happen, before Duchess and Parks could even move into their small, spartan motel room, a few obstacles remained  not least of which was physically locating Parks to set it all in motion.

An easy ask

Once her coworker described meeting Parks and Duchess, Wood tried contacting him through a Facebook account that hadnt been updated in some time  a total crap shoot.

To her surprise, the message was seen and Parks called the phone number Wood had left. She learned the area where he camped, his ailments and the challenges of finding a place for them both.

But before Wood could go in person to get Parks, she tested positive for COVID-19 and got stuck in quarantine. (Is there anything COVID hasnt wrecked?)

Rather than wait, she phoned Debbie Garner, a fellow dog-rescue volunteer, and asked for help. It was not a hard sell.

Garner tried the cell number Parks had provided and rang. Hed moved into a friends garage for a few days, and was harder to find. Still, he answered a call from a number that he didnt recognize. She confirmed the news that a room indeed had been paid for and said shed be by to pick him and Duchess up straight away.

He was excited, Garner said. Before he could hang up I heard him say Duchess, were going to get warm and Daddys going to get a shower.

Parks figured the offer was for a day or two. But it had turned into much more than a temporary shelter.

By then, what had started as a simple effort to secure a motel room for a couple nights had snowballed. A months rent, the vet visit and even assistance getting into a local health-care clinic to eliminate the long commute were all offered.

Garner also contacted a friend, Lea Thullbery, the director of diversion and outreach at Cities With Dwellings, to see what long term options might be.

Thulbery in turn saw that Parks was added to a lengthy list of people waiting for transitional/subsidized housing and asked about other needs.

Meanwhile, the pet-rescue community has continued to raise money to help offset the obscene cost of Parks own medicine, collect camping gear for when the weather breaks  the wait list for housing is more than a year  and explore longer term options to aid other homeless people who cannot bear to abandon beloved companions.

As for those whod stepped out of comfort zones, eye-opening lessons were learned about the everyday obstacles homeless people clear just to survive.

I knew, well I thought I did, from reading so many times about it, Garner said. But when you see it in person  being homeless is a full-time job. Its exhausting.

None of this is lost on Spencer Parks. He fully realizes that strangers have gone way out of their way to lend a hand.

I had started to lose faith in humanity, he said. But its starting to come back. I appreciate everything everyone is doing, believe me.

WANT TO HELP?

Contact Maria Wood at runningwiththabulls@gmail.com or email me and Ill forward your contact info.
Community members can receive free COVID-19 vaccines, booster shots and food boxes at a resource fair Tuesday afternoon at Longview Presbyterian Church.

The Molina Healthcare Charitable Foundation is hosting the resource fair from 3:45 to 5:30 p.m., or while supplies last, at the church at 3808 Pennsylvania Street. The foundation is partnering with Molina Healthcare of Washington, Washington State Department of Health, Food Lifeline and Operation Warm for the event.

COVID-19 vaccines for anyone 5 years old and older and boosters for people who are eligible will be available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend everyone 12 years old and older receive a booster dose at least five months after completing the primary series.

As part of the event, Operation Warm will provide new winter coats for all Mint Valley Elementary students. The national nonprofit manufactures new coats and shoes for children in need.

Attendees are required to wear masks.

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Editors note: Information is provided by the Cowlitz County Corrections Department and local law enforcement agencies. Each individual named in this report is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Assault  Castle Rock police Saturday arrested Ezekeal Thomas Eldridge, 22, of Castle Rock, on suspicion of second-degree assault.

DUI, attempt to elude  Longview police Sunday arrested Andrew Dwight McCann, 39, of unknown residence, on suspicion of attempting to elude, felony driving under the influence and reckless endangerment.

Burglaries

1400 block of Schaffran Road, Castle Rock. Saturday. Someone broke into the residence between 9:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. and stole a jewelry box and a safe containing $25,000 in cash, silver and gold, and a Springfield .45 handgun.

500 block of Park Street, Woodland. Sunday. At about 3 a.m., a hooded and masked man broke out the back window, trashed the kitchen area, took the register and broke gumball machines for the coins inside.

Stolen vehicles

500 block of Seventh Avenue, Longview. Saturday. Black 2017 Bentley Bentayga with black rims. Stolen from the Walmart parking lot.

900 block of 16th Avenue, Longview. Sunday. White Ford Ranger. Washington C28320S. Tail gate down with a large piece of plywood in the truck bed.

Thefts

1400 block of Alabama Street, Longview. Saturday. License plates stolen. Washington BRX1731.

3100 block of Washington Way, Longview. Saturday. Donation jar taken.

800 block of Seventh Avenue, Longview. Saturday. Boost Coolpad phone stolen.

3700 block of Ocean Beach Highway, Longview. Sunday. Employee suspected of multiple small incidents of under paying or taking property without paying for it.

Vandalism/malicious mischief

1200 block of 11th Avenue, Longview. Saturday. Known suspect kicked in the vehicle back window.

100 block of Hillshire Drive, Woodland. Saturday. Truck back window broken out, another vehicle has a cracked windshield and another truck has a broken window.

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NASA has captured an amazing image of the Sun where it can be seen emitting a massive solar flare.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has captured an image of the Sun emitting a significant solar flare on January 20, 2022. This was a mid-level solar flare which peaked at 1:01 am EST on the same day. NASA has classified the solar flare as M5.5. Informing about this, NASA tweeted, "The Sun emitted a significant solar flare early this morning, peaking at 1:01 a.m. ET. NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the event, which was classified as M5.5. http://go.nasa.gov/3GPiqNg."

What is solar flare and can it affect humans on Earth? A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. However, what needs to be noted is that the harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to affect humans on the ground. Though, when intense enough they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

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Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare can't pass through Earths atmosphere to affect humans on the ground, however  when intense enough  they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS & communications signals travel.  NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) January 20, 2022

According to NASA, flares are our solar systems largest explosive events. They are seen as bright areas on the sun and they can last from minutes to hours. Typically a solar flare can be seen by the photons (or light) it releases, at most every wavelength of the spectrum. The primary ways NASA monitors flares are in x-rays and optical light. Flares are also sites where particles (electrons, protons, and heavier particles) are accelerated.

Solar flares travel at the speed of light

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the sudden outburst of electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light.

"Solar flares usually take place in active regions, which are areas on the Sun marked by the presence of strong magnetic fields; typically associated with sunspot groups. As these magnetic fields evolve, they can reach a point of instability and release energy in a variety of forms. These include electromagnetic radiation, which are observed as solar flares," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Solar flare intensities cover a large range and are classified in terms of peak emission in the 0.1  0.8 nm spectral band (soft x-rays) of the NOAA/GOES XRS.
Figure 1. Swirling of ants. Credit: Egor Nuzhin et al./Scientific Reports

A group of Skoltech scientistsPh.D. student Egor Nuzhin, Assistant Professor Maxim Panov, and Professor Nikolay Brilliantovapplied artificial intelligence methods to explain an enigmatic natural phenomenon: animal swirling. While AI has already proved its outstanding performance in a wide range of applied problems and engineering environments, the new study published in Scientific Reports demonstrates another facet of AI: its ability to solve fundamental problems, in this case, understand the collective behavior of living beings.

Swirling is observed in large groups of animals at different evolution stages, ranging from fish to insectsthe creatures move coherently around the common center of a group. The biological function of this bizarre behavior has long since puzzled evolutionary biologists and systems scientists.

The conventional approach to explaining swirling assumes artificial forces acting between animals, which move together subject to these forces. In contrast to this, the Skoltech researchers proposed an aim-centered model. It is formulated in terms of reinforcement learning, a powerful tool in the AI toolkit.

Based on simple rules and natural restrictions, the beasts in the simulations learned, by trial and error, to achieve the goal of moving together. Namely, they strived to maintain certain distances between each other and to the center of the pack. Surprisingly, this resulted in spontaneous swirling. Even more strikingly, swirling turned out to be essential for survival: It helped the animals resist hazardous external forces such as wind or underwater flows. A group trained for swirling could resist them hundreds of times more effectively than an untrained one.

Figure 2. Optimal grouping for six, seven, and eight birds. Note the asymmetric patterns for odd numbers. While the depicted arrangements minimize energy expenditure, additional factors may be at play in a natural setting, such as protection from predators. Credit: Egor Nuzhin et al./Scientific Reports

Another interesting application of AI in this context is the grouping of animals. Birds migrate in flocks, fish assemble in schools, wolves hunt in packs, etc. Moving together, with an optimal mutual location, could be very beneficial, as it leads to motion with minimal effort. Applying the same aim-centered approach, together with reinforcement learning, the team demonstrated that the animals were able to find the most efficient patterns of locomotion. Those were the linear arrangement for a group of two, triangles for a group of three, a rhombus for a group of four. These and other, sometimes unexpected patterns for larger groups, were found by another independent method, which additionally validates the RL-based approach.

"Realizing full well that everything is built of elementary 'building blocks of mathematics," I can't seem to stop being astonished by the power of AI methods," Professor Brilliantov concluded.

Explore further Nature's most beautiful performances could inspire the next generation of artificial intelligence

More information: Egor E. Nuzhin et al, Why animals swirl and how they group, Scientific Reports (2021). Journal information: Scientific Reports Egor E. Nuzhin et al, Why animals swirl and how they group,(2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-99982-7
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

When West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin stabbed President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Bill in the back, he also "signaled" his support for the energy modernization and environmental elements of the bill. Of course, earlier, he "signaled" that he did not support a 4-trillion-dollar bill but might be interested in a smaller bill. Two trillion dollars in cuts later, it's hard to know what his signals mean. While he struggles to survive the deep red politics of West Virginia, he is a very smart guy, and knows that fossil fuels are on the way out. Federal funding to modernize the energy system and make it more efficient and "green" doesn't penalize his home state fossil fuel businesses too much and may provide the resources to invest in a lower cost and more reliable energy system. America will need such an energy system to remain competitive in the global economy. America's electric grid is increasingly unreliable. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency: "On average, U.S. electricity customers experienced just over eight hours of electric power interruptions in 2020, the most since we began collecting electricity reliability data in 2013." Most interruptions are caused by major weather events. Climate change is responsible for more frequent and intense weather events. Without redesign and reconstruction, we should expect increased energy blackouts.

That is the sales point that seems to be missed when we are discussing the energy system and climate change. The current system is highly centralized and vulnerable to climate and cybersecurity impacts. It also depends on fossil fuels. Even if fossil fuels were not destroying the planet, they remain a technology ripe for displacement. In the long run, fossil fuels will be far more costly than renewables. Fossil fuels are finite, and while there is plenty of supply left, it's getting harder to get to it. The sun, by contrast, will last longer than our species. The technology of solar cells, batteries, and wind power continue to improve and get more efficient and less expensivesort of like computers and smartphones. A multi-million-dollar computer in the 1970s had far less computing power than your $300 smartphone. The source fuel for renewables is free. Contrast that to fossil fuels. Oil, coal and gas must be extracted from the earth at a cost to the pocketbook and ecosystems, transported to where they are burned (more cost) and then finally burned. Expense on top of expense. It's a technology that is being disrupted and displaced by renewable energy.

For the foreseeable future, we still need an energy grid, and with high-capacity transmission lines, we might transmit renewable energy from sunny and windy places to cities. But efforts like the ridiculous one in California to tax homes with solar arrays to pay for the grid will not work and grid finance is going to be more difficult when distributed power generation reaches an as yet unknown tipping point. We can expect to see electric utilities and their regulators pushing back on efforts to promote renewable energy. An effort in California to tax solar arrays was lampooned by former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a New York Times op-ed last week. According to Arnold, the state was proposing:

"a new monthly "grid participation charge" that would average an estimated $57 a month for solar customers. People who power their homes with fossil fuels wouldn't pay this. So let's call it what it is: a solar tax. This solar tax would also apply to customers who invested in batteries to store that solar energy. Battery storage is critical for the transition to clean energy and grid resilience. But this tax will only discourage that progression. Moreover, the commission would cut credits to new solar customers (and some older ones) as much as 80 percent for the electricity they don't use and send to the grid under the net metering program. Those credits in turn can lower their utility bills. This is just another case of the big guysthe investor-owned utilitiesfighting for themselves and hurting people who have invested or want to invest in solar panels."

The political reaction against the California Utility Commission effort was swift. As a result, Governor Newsome and the Commission seem to be backing off. According to Rob Nikolewski, reporting in the San Diego Union Tribune:

"In an unsurprising move, the California Public Utilities Commission has postponed a vote on a controversial proposal that would dramatically change the way the state's 1.3 million rooftop solar customers get compensated when their systems produce more electricity than they consume. The commission had originally scheduled a vote on Jan. 27 but the agenda for next Thursday's meeting had no item listing the proposed decision on what's colloquially called NEM 3.0, or more formally, the Net Energy Metering tariff."

The institutional and financial interests invested in fossil fuels and the electric grid are major obstacles to modernizing our energy system. While currently, owners of solar arrays and batteries often sell back their excess to the grid, thus lowering the cost of energy on the grid, an effort to tax household solar could result in decisions to disconnect from the grid entirely. Technology may develop that will make cutting the energy cord less risky and more common, leaving those dependent on the grid with higher costs. We have seen this with telephone landlines and cable television. Why should electricity be immune from similar forces?

The issue in California is that the payment to homeowners and businesses selling energy back to the grid may have been set too high in an effort to encourage renewable energy investment. The cost of maintaining and updating the grid needs to be paid by someone. The capital investments needed are in part subsidized by the federal infrastructure and Build Back Better climate provisions. But the long-term shape and financing of the electric grid will need to be rethought and refinanced as part of the effort to modernize and decarbonize the energy system.

Since I live in an apartment in New York City, I have no place to put rooftop solar. But a number of companies are working on placing solar cells in window glass. That technology shows enormous promise and should lead to a time when people in multi-family homes or offices in skyscrapers will be able to generate their own electricity. While all of these technological developments will help reduce greenhouse gasses, when coupled with advancing battery technology, they also promise lower cost and more reliable electricity.

At one time, homes were heated by fireplaces and light came from oil or gas-fueled lamps and candles. Those technologies were displaced by oil, gas and electric heat and electric light bulbs. There is no reason to believe that the current method we use to power our homes will continue indefinitely. In the future, electric utilities will play a different role than they currently play in powering our economy. We all have an interest in an energy transition that prevents the bankruptcy of electric utilities and encourages their active participation in the transition to renewable energy. We should not use taxes on renewable energy to fund the transition, at least until the use of renewable energy is more widespread. California has over a million installations, but it is a state of over 39 million people. They have a long way to go, and the rest of the country has an even longer road to renewable energy.

It will take national-level resources to provide the capital needed to modernize the grid. By relieving utilities and their ratepayers of some of these capital costs, utilities can reduce costs by making the grid less wasteful and less dependent on fossil fuels. A large-scale, national project like modernizing the electric grid will require subsidies, but once built, some of the continuing costs of grid maintenance and energy generation can be reduced and built to accommodate a different load than the current system seeks to meet.

The transition will be complicated, and financing needs will vary by location. Interest group politics will feature intense lobbying by utilities, fossil fuel companies, renewable energy companies and environmentalists. But the goal should be a lower cost, more reliable and less polluting energy system. By wedding those three elements together, under the umbrella of modernizing our energy system, we can create a broader coalition than an effort dominated by the goal of greenhouse gas reduction. Energy modernization is the goal, greenhouse gas reduction is a much-needed byproduct.

Explore further There is more than one way to accelerate decarbonization

This story is republished courtesy of Earth Institute, Columbia University http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu.
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

The U.S. semiconductor chip shortage is likely to continue well into 2022, and a Georgia Tech expert predicts that the U.S. will need to make major changes to the manufacturing and supply chain of these all-important chips in the coming year to stave off further effects.

That includes making more of these chips here at home.

Madhavan Swaminathan is the John Pippin Chair in Electromagnetics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He also serves as director of the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center.

As an author of more than 450 technical publications who holds 29 patents, Swaminathan is one of the world's leading experts on semiconductors and the semiconductor chips necessary for many of the devices we use every day to function.

"Almost any consumer device that is electronic tends to have at least one semiconductor chip in it," Swaminathan explains. "The more complicated the functions any device performs, the more chips it is likely to have."

Some of these semiconductor chips process information, some store data, and others provide sensing or communication functions.

In short, they are crucial in devices from video games and smart thermostats to cars and computers.

Our current shortage of these chips began with the COVID-19 pandemic. When consumers started staying at home and car purchases took a downward turn, chip manufacturers tried to shift to make more chips for other goods like smartphones and computers.

But Swaminathan explains that making that kind of switch is not simple. Entire production operations have to be changed. The chips are highly sensitive and can be damaged by static electricity, temperature variations, and even tiny specks of dust. The manufacturing environments must be highly regulated, and changes in the process can add months.

The pandemic highlighted another challenge with the semiconductor chip industry, according to Swaminathan.

"There's a major shortage of companies making chips," he says. "If you look worldwide, there are maybe four or five manufacturers making 8090% of these chips and they are located outside of the United States."

This creates supply chain hiccups with the raw supplies needed to make these chips as well. Add in the fact that many of these companies only design their chipsthey don't manufacture them directly.

"American consumers use 50% of the world's chips," Swaminathan says, which creates a serious challenge when the overwhelming majority of those chips are manufactured in other nations.

In the short term, the costs of the chip shortage is being passed on to the consumer. We see this directly with products like PlayStations and Xboxes that are more and more expensive and harder to purchase when the chips necessary for the consoles to function are in short supply.

Beyond 2022, Swaminathan says we need to work to revitalize the industry domestically.

"We need to bring more manufacturing back to the United States," he says. "The U.S. government has recognized the importance of this semiconductor chip shortage and is trying to address the issue directly."

That means investing in new plants to manufacture the chips, but America's journey toward chip self-sufficiency will continue to be a work in progress.

"This is a cycle," Swaminathan explains. "But this is probably the first time where it has had such a major effect in so many different industries."

But consumers can take direct action on their own in the coming year. "Reduce the number of times you purchase or upgrade electronic devices like phones and cars," he says. "Then it becomes just a supply problem, not a demand and supply problem."

Explore further Canon scrambles as its own printers think ink cartridges are fake due to chip shortage
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new 3D printer combines the principles of a CT scanner with light modeling of materials to produce objects with unique property combinations in record time.

Imagine producing a copy of Albert Einstein's bust figurine equipped with soft cheeks, a solid forehead, and containing physical replica of the wonder of a brain just by pressing "print." Or even more impressive, an artificial heart with the same stiffness as a real one. That is just a few examples of 3D printed objects that researchers at Technical University of Denmark (DTU) are working to make a reality with a new 3D printing technology based on light.

According to the leader of the multi-departmental team, Assistant Professor Yi Yang at DTU Chemistry, the printer utilizes the principles of a reversed CT scan.

"Our printer will build a physical object at the intersects of computed tomographic images. The technology enables us to build 3D objects embedded with different properties and material transitions," says Yi Yang.

A CT scan provides a three-dimensional image of, e.g., a brain by reorganizing information in a large number of two-dimensional images attained from X-rays projections, which rotate around the patient and reveal different tissue types. The new 3D printer, on the other hand, will produce physical objects by letting light rays hit a rotating mass and shape the mass according to a three-dimensional image made up of two-dimensional images.

The first results of the interdisciplinary project recently became openly accessible in Nature Communications. Recently, Yi Yang received a Villum Experiment grant of 2 MDKK, which will finance a postdoc and a technical-administrative employee to advance the project.

Prints in three planes

Although current 3D printers produce objects in 3D, the actual printing takes place in lower dimensions. The material, e.g. plastic resins, is cured layer by layer, or point by point, and prints objects from the bottom up on a printer board. However, the new 3D printer will actually print in three dimensions, Assistant Professor Yi Yang explains, "We use a method called Tomographic Vat Photopolymerization (TVP), which allows us to print all points in a 3D object simultaneously. One has to imagine a box containing a liquid polymera kind of polymeric printer ink. By exposing the ink to light of certain wavelengths, determined by a 3D image and built up as a CT scan, the ink turns solid in the desired shape."

Can adjust the elasticity

Alongside Associate Professor Aminul Islam at DTU Mechanical Engineering and Professor Kristoffer Almdal at DTU Chemistry, Assistant Professor Yi Yang is developing the right apparatus types for a novel recipe of light-sensitive polymeric resin, which is important in order to take advantage of one of the great benefits of the technology of light-dependent 3D printing.

"We can vary the softness of our 3D object based on our computer model by controlling the different wavelengths delivered from the light sources," says Yi Yang.

So far, the printer has succeeded in printing a variety of complex geometries with functionally graded materials.

The assistant professor explains that the potential of the printer extends far into commercial production of various items. But the unique possibilities for quickly adjusting the softness and shape of the print also means that he sees the potential in the vascularization of artificial replacements for patients who need new, functioning tissues and organs.

"The degree of detail and flexibility in our 3D printing will hopefully be so extensive that the technique can be used to produce fully vascularized constructs using biopolymers as 'ink.' This technology might be able to replicate the softness and unique build-up of blood vessels, capillaries, and muscles. There is a long way to go, but hopefully the printer can bring us closer to the goal," says Yang.

Unprecedented speed

While some of the potential benefits of the printer lie years into the future, it already has features that could revolutionize 3D printing.

Usually, the speed of 3D printing depends on the complexity of the object and the number of voxels. Voxels are 3D pixels, which can be described as all the small dots that form an imageor in the case of voxels, the points in a three-dimensional figure.

However, since the new 3D printer uses an inverted CT image as template and simply changes the polymeric material with light rays instead of printing point by point, objects can be produced almost instantly.

"In principle, the technique allows one to send a CT scan of an object and press 'print.' The moment after, there will be a copy of the object in real-life softness," concludes Yang.

Explore further A 3-D printer that can print data sets as physical objects

More information: Bin Wang et al, Stiffness control in dual color tomographic volumetric 3D printing, Nature Communications (2022). Journal information: Nature Communications Bin Wang et al, Stiffness control in dual color tomographic volumetric 3D printing,(2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28013-4
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison opened his WeChat account in 2019 ahead of Australian elections that year.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's WeChat account has disappeared, prompting accusations of Chinese "interference" from senior members of his government Monday.

But Tencent, the Chinese tech giant that owns WeChat, has denied that the prime minister's account was hacked or removed from its platform.

"Based on our information, this appears to be a dispute over account ownershipthe account in question was originally registered by a PRC individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology services company," a Tencent spokesman said.

Morrison's account on the Chinese social media app, which was launched in February 2019, appears to have been replaced with one titled "Australian Chinese new life."

The name was registered by Fuzhou 985 Technology Co., Ltd. on October 28, 2021.

However the account has posts dating back to February 1, 2019, including Morrison's first, which reads: "I'm very happy to open my official WeChat account".

It's understood the Australian prime minister had a Weixin account, which needs to be registered by someone in mainland China, rather than a WeChat account, which can be accessed by overseas users.

Fuzhuo 985's legal representative Huang Aipeng told SBS on Monday that the purchase of the account was legal.

There was no immediate comment from Morrison but a senator from his ruling centre-right Liberal Party accused Beijing of being behind the change.

"What the Chinese government has done by shutting down the prime minister's account is effectively foreign interference in our democracy," James Paterson told 2GB radio on Monday.

WeChat is China's most-used messaging app and social media platform.

Paterson called on Australian politicians to boycott WeChat in response.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke and Coalition MP Gladys Liu have joined the boycott.

Morrison first launched his WeChat account to communicate with Australia's sizable Chinese-Australian community ahead of the country's last federal election in 2019.

That year, Morrison was asked by reporters whether there was a risk his account could be censored by the Chinese Communist Party.

"We haven't experienced any such censorship," he said.

In December 2020, WeChat removed a post from Morrison that defended Australia's investigation into allegations of war crimes perpetrated by Australian soldiers.

The post also criticised Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who had tweeted a fake image of an Australian soldier holding a knife.

The last post on the "Australian Chinese new life" account is from July 9, 2021.

The Daily Telegraph reported Morrison has been locked out of his account since then.

All of the posts on the "Australian Chinese new life" account relate to Australian government announcements or messages from Morrison.

Tencent said the company "will continue to look into this matter."

Explore further California WeChat users claim China surveillance in lawsuit

 2022 AFP
Former Sen. David Perdue and his wife Bonnie didnt have to wait long in line Monday to cast their ballots for the May 24 primary, which will determine who will receive the Republican nomination for the race to serve as Georgias next governor.
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James Holys lives by a word few have likely ever heard: diakonos.

Holys, a music teacher at Wasmer and Seedling Mile elementary schools, is studying to become a deacon  an ordained minister  in the Catholic Church.

The word deacon comes from diakonos, which means to serve, Holys explained. So Im called really to be a servant that can help with mass, if God wills that I be ordained.

However, Holys hasnt waited to see if hes ordained before serving. In my daily life as a teacher, when I do the stuff with music, I think, 'How can I serve others better? How can I serve my students better?'

Late last week, bags of t-shirts were carefully stacked on desks and countertops in Holyss classroom in preparation for Sing Around Nebraska. The vibrant yellow shirts contained within were especially for the youth choirs participants. Holys helped organize Grand Islands event, as Sing Around Nebraska happens at numerous schools across the state.

The to-do list for Holys and co-chair Carla Jacobs, music teacher at Lincoln and Knickrehm elementary schools, was lengthy, Holys said.

We had to contact the teachers, get the music from Nebraska Choral Directors Association (who oversees the events). We help order the music and keep teachers updated over, heres how Dr. (Clark) Roush (Sing Around Nebraska conductor) wants to do the song. We also let them know the details of where theyre going to be what they need to do.

Participating schools at the Grand Island site included Grand Island Public Schools, Grand Island Northwest Public Schools, Holdrege, Fairfield, Seward, Giltner and Wood River.

We just touched base with them, let them know everything and we put it together, Holys said. That included, as his classroom showed, enough t-shirts for the nearly 160 fourth- through sixth-graders who sang at the event.

We got them all sorted. We get the snacks for the students We talked to the high school about using the facility and we set everything up. Its a lot of work, but its definitely worth it. I like bringing happiness, and I like how music has that power.

Holys also teaches music at Create 308, an arts academy in Grand Islands downtown Railside district that focuses on developing dancers, musicians, actors, designers and other young artists. There Holys teaches both vocal and instrumental students.

He said hes always been interested in music, but it was his sophomore year at St. Patrick High School in North Platte that he was meant to teach.

I went to a music camp... It was a show choir camp in Estes Park (that) Hastings College. At that camp, I had a profound experience and I really thought this is what I want to do.

Teachers reinforced that throughout his life, Holys said. Growing up I had great teachers and they made me want to give back. They really modeled that.

Teaching hasnt disappointed, as Holys said he treasures the seemingly small moments in the classroom.

I know its cliche  its very cliche, he said, smiling and shaking his head. When you say something, the student gets it and their eyes light up, and they smile: they made a connection. Thats what we live for. I think any teacher does. It wouldnt be a cliche if it wasnt true.

Holys has been having his own extra study sessions as he works on becoming a deacon.

Im in the second semester, and Im taking two classes now, Holys said of the process, which progressed following a lot of prayer and reflection, and being interviewed. Every other month, Holys and his classmates meet in person. The other months, the class has a Zoom meeting.

We have some people from Grand Island, the Grand Island Diocese, but then we have people from Pennsylvania, taking it online, people from New York and all over, Holys said.

Besides teachers, another person special in Holyss life helped encourage his deaconship hopes.

I was heavily inspired to begin the discernment process for the Diaconate by Father Jim Golka when he was at St. Marys (Catholic Church), Holys said.

The drive and inspiration to strive to do good seem to find Holys.

I felt like I was called deeper, to make myself better and serve others better, Holys said. Every day I am grateful that I get to teach students. Im grateful I get to help people. Every day I try to appreciate it more, get better at it every day.

Its a lot of work, but thats OK with Holys. Its the hardest work youll ever love, he said.

Jessica Votipka is the education reporter at the Grand Island Independent. She can be reached at 308-381-5420.

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WASHINGTON  Corn farmers who split-apply nitrogen now have another option for insurance coverage. The U.S. Department of Agricultures Risk Management Agency announced the details of its Post Application Coverage Endorsement in certain states for non-irrigated corn, providing coverage for producers who use this practice that saves producers money and is considered better for natural resources.

PACE provides payments for the projected yield lost when producers are unable to apply the post nitrogen application during the V3-V10 corn growth stages due to field conditions created by weather. PACE is offered in select counties in 11 states, including Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

It is available as supplemental coverage for yield protection, revenue protection and revenue protection with harvest price exclusion policies. The first sales closing date to purchase insurance is March 15.

To split-apply nitrogen, growers make multiple fertilizer applications during the growing season rather than providing all the crops nitrogen requirements with a single treatment before or during planting. This practice can lead to lower input costs and helps prevent runoff and leaching of nutrients into waterways and groundwater.

To learn more about PACE, visit the RMAs Conservation webpage, which has frequently asked questions, a fact sheet and other resources.

Funding available for farmers to establish soil health demonstration projects

LINCOLN  The U.S. Department of Agricultures Natural Resources Conservation Service is continuing an effort to enhance the adoption of soil health practices through the establishment of soil health management demonstration projects.

landowners interested in applying for funding to establish a soil health demonstration project should submit their application to NRCS by Feb. 18.

According to NRCS, the purpose of this initiative is to demonstrate and validate soil health management systems applicable across Nebraska. The goal is to support the adoption and continued application of the NRCS Soil Health Principles: Use plant diversity to increase diversity in the soil; manage soils more by disturbing them less; keep plants growing throughout the year to feed the soil; and keep the soil covered as much as possible.

NRCSs Environmental Quality Incentives Program will be used to fund this initiative. Producers selected can receive EQIP funding for three to five years. Funding will compensate producers for conducting strip trials of cover crops vs. no cover crops within a diverse crop rotation using no-till planting and other soil health management techniques. Producers will receive $1,800 per treatment comparison unit, up to a maximum of $7,500 per year, to conduct these strip trials, develop case studies, and host field days.

For more information on Soil Health Management Demonstration Projects, contact NRCS at the local USDA Service Center.

Applications open for conservation incentive contracts

LINCOLN  The U.S. Department of Agricultures Natural Resources Conservation Service is providing Nebraskas farmers and ranchers financial and technical assistance to plan and implement conservation practices through Conservation Incentive Contracts. Agricultural producers have until March 11 to apply for 2022 funding.

Contract incentive contracts are an option available through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (that offers producers financial assistance to adopt conservation management practices on working landscapes. Conservation Incentive Contracts are available nationwide and help producers address priority resource concerns, like sequestering carbon and improving water quality.

Producers may use incentive contracts as a steppingstone, from correcting resource issues on specific land units, to achieving sustainable stewardship on their entire operation.

Conservation incentive contracts: Have an initial length of five years; require producers to address at least one priority resource concern during the contract period; and offer two types of payments (practice implementation payments, which are paid after completion and certification of a conservation practice; and management practice payments, which include management practices that will serve as annual payments and are paid as soon as practicable after Oct. 1 of each fiscal year).

For more information contact NRCS at your local USDA Service Center.
A portrait found in Grand Island Public Librarys storage is ready to be displayed for the public, only theres a problem.

No one knows the identity of the woman in the portrait.

GIPL Foundation Executive Director Leigh Lillibridge said she doesnt know who the subject of the portrait is, nor do any of the foundations board members, many of whom have been in the community for quite a long time.

Im wondering if potentially she was one of the founding board members for the library, decades ago, Lillibridge said. I dont know. Im guessing she was a prominent person.

The portrait was done by Eve Ryder, a Grand Island artist. There is no information on the back of the portrait, and no sense of how old it is.

There is absolutely no marking, Lillibridge said. The back is in very poor condition. I dont know if its because of storage or if someone in the past has tried to identify it and it was not archived.

It is suspected to be a portrait of a Wolbach, a prominent family in Grand Island. She could possibly be the wife of E.N. Wolbach, who is the father of S.N. Bud Wolbach.

Bud and Gloria Wolbach started the Wolbach Foundation.

When (E.N.) passed away, he left the starting funds for the Greater Grand Island Community Foundation, Lillibridge said. Were wondering if it might be Mrs. E.N. Wolbach.

This supposition is due to the unmarked portrait being found next to a portrait of Mr. Wolbach that was also in storage. That portrait is by a different artist, though, and the frames do not match.

Mr. Wolbachs portrait will go in the librarys Wolbach Room, a dedicated study space.

If we can identify that thats her, theyll go up together and wed like to do that at the same time, Lillibridge said.

The portrait was checked against photos of Mrs. Wolbach, but the effort was inconclusive.

There hasnt been enough likeness in the people we think it might have been for us to feel comfortable displaying with a nameplate, Lillibridge said.

Adult Services Librarian Shaun Klee sent information about the portrait to Grand Islands Stuhr Museum for help with the identification.

We tried to look through old pictures of who we thought it might be, but we couldnt tell, he said. I sent information about it and a picture to the museum to see if they knew anything, but they didnt really either. Thats as far as I got with it.

Messages to Hall County Historical Society have so far gone unanswered, Klee said.

Klee was able to solve one mystery, however.

A large pencil drawing of a young girl was also found and its subject was identified.

It was signed by the name Coolbaugh, and I found there was a Coolbaugh family that had connections with one of the banks, he said. I posted on a Lost Treasures Facebook group and someone in Virginia knew who the family was. It was the daughter of a banker in Grand Island.

That drawing has been donated to Stuhr Museums collection.

According to Klee, the unmarked portrait was found in a closet.

It is not known how it ended up in storage.

We dont know if it was in storage due to our renovation or if it was in storage before that, but now we want to really identify who it is so we can get it displayed, Lillibridge said.

In the librarys makerspace, a nameplate can be made for the portrait once it is identified.

Wed like to be able to display paintings, portraits, works of art that have been donated to us, but we really need to know who she is so we can get her displayed in the library, she said.

Lillibridge hopes the community will be able to provide a clue to the identity of the woman in the portrait.

We want to make sure that were honoring them, she said. Now that our renovation is over and were ready to start getting all these archived pieces back on the walls we want to make sure were doing it correctly.

She added, Hopefully we can get proper identification and get this displayed.

To share information, contact Grand Island Public Library at 308-385-5333, or contract GIPL Foundation at giplfoundation@gmail.com.

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Jetting across America has become hard work

Air travel, which used to be fun and exciting, has become an ordeal.

I may have reached that conclusion as Ive become larger. But its not just about weight.

My big complaint involves leg room. If I didnt sit on the aisle, I would have no chance of making it through a flight.

The cramped conditions aboard a plane are either comical or criminal; I cant decide which. You might just say theyre very sad.

I know that many people dont have a problem sitting in the middle seat, or next to the window. It helps if theyre small.

But as they get older, many people cant leave their legs in the same position. Because of arthritis or other aches or pains, they have to regularly adjust their legs. Thats tough to do when youre sitting in the middle seat.

Looking around my surroundings, I marvel at the conditions in which 200 people hurtle through the air. This is not what Orville and Wilbur Wright had in mind.

On top of everything else, the clown in front of me sometimes feels it necessary to lean his seat back. In a modern airplane, that should be illegal.

Its all a bit too much for me. Until the last decade of air travel, I never knew I had claustrophobia.

Some planes have video screens on the back of each seat, right in front of your face. Ive never mastered the art of changing the channel. So Im struggling across America with the same video clips playing inches from my nose over and over. I close my eyes, hoping and praying that Ill make it through this nightmare.

Flying the friendly skies, indeed.

As we fly, my wife usually chats with the person sitting next to her. But I have no interest in talking to people. Im just trying to survive.

Ive given up all hope of ever visiting Australia. I would never make it through a 21-hour flight.

Movies from the 1960s and 70s show us how civilized air travel used to be. Those people dont know how good they had it.

Throughout the modern aircraft, space is at a premium. If youre going to work as a flight attendant these days, youre going to have to be skinny.

For many people today, flying is all about the overhead compartments. Passengers seem more interested in stuffing their carry-on luggage into those bins than they are in finding their seats.

Speaking of competition, Im amazed at how quickly people get to their feet when the plane parks. They are in such a hurry to deplane youd think they were offering free doughnuts in the jetway.

You see some passengers looking out for one another. But for the most part, self-interest rules the skies.

Much of the glamour of air travel has faded. Weve all heard that flight attendants are basically waitresses.

My wife says that in hauling herds of people around, a pilot is a glorified bus driver.

I do tip my cap, though, to experienced pilots. I have a lot of admiration for the people in the cockpits who really know what theyre doing.

Sitting in airports, Im astounded at all the people moving about with authority. So many people seem like they fly on a regular basis. How do they afford it?

I also notice that Im the only person looking around. Everybody else is staring at their phones, or trying to finagle a better seat from the poor woman at the gate.

COVID has made air travel even worse. Last year, flight attendants kept a close eye on my mask, telling me if it was no longer covering my nose.

Flying today is hard work.

Because of the hassle of air travel, I often think about driving instead. After getting to the airport, your plane doesnt usually take off for a couple of hours. Then after landing, it might take an hour or more to get your luggage and on your way.

In the four or five hours that experience requires, you could cover a good distance on the highway. And its a lot less stressful.

Im a big fan of Amtrak. But if you get a sleeper coach, train travel is about as expensive as a flight.

I think the late John Madden had the right idea, traveling leisurely across America in a comfortable bus. If I ever win the lottery, Im going to buy myself a Madden Cruiser.

Jeff Bahr is a reporter for The Independent. He may be reached at jeff.bahr@theindependent.com.

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Gov. Pete Ricketts cracked open the door to medical marijuana Friday, just weeks after appearing in television advertisements denouncing the substance.

The governor's apparent softening came in response to a medical marijuana bill sponsored by Sen. Mike Groene of North Platte. Groene, himself a former opponent, introduced LB1275 on Thursday.

While I continue to have concerns about marijuana use for any reason, I am open to learning more about this bill, Ricketts said when asked about the new proposal.

John Kuehn, a former state senator and co-chair of Smart Approaches to Marijuana Nebraska, also expressed a willingness to consider Groene's proposal.

Both took a different tone than the SAM-sponsored ads that aired last month. They featured Ricketts decrying the dangers of medical marijuana and arguing that the only difference between medical and recreational marijuana is the terminology.

Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln, the Legislature's leading proponent of medical marijuana and co-sponsor of a medical marijuana petition drive, said she welcomed former opponents recognizing the benefits of medical marijuana. But she said Groene's bill would be of no help to Nebraskans.

Wishart said key problems include that LB1275 does not provide for the growing and processing of cannabis in Nebraska, while federal laws prohibit the transportation of cannabis across state lines.

In addition, Wishart said, the bill would create so many hurdles for families of children with epilepsy that it would make access "impossible" and would limit other users to those with terminal illnesses, very advanced cancers or severe or persistent muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis or muscular dystrophy.

"I will not stop our ballot initiative for any legislation that does not legitimately create a safe and effective medical cannabis system in our state," she said. "Access for sick Nebraskans is not something I am willing to settle on. I will continue to have their back."

The Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana petition drive includes a pair of proposed laws. One would allow qualified patients to use, possess and acquire limited amounts of cannabis for medical use. The other would set up the regulatory structure for entities that manufacture, distribute and dispense cannabis to patients.

Groene said he had introduced LB1275 out of concern that, if the Legislature doesnt act, the petition initiatives will get on the ballot and pass. He said his bill would allow the Legislature to put in the controls needed to regulate marijuana for medical purposes.

He previously opposed medical marijuana but changed his position last year, saying he had heard from a number of families who believe that marijuana helps with the treatment of epilepsy and cancer and in end-of-life scenarios and are getting the marijuana from other states.
YORK  Representatives of the EDF Solar Energy Company will be meeting with the York County Commissioners on Tuesday, to discuss their solar field project which has been termed as K-Junction.

This will be the first time the company has talked about the project with the commissioners  they will be providing information about their intent to establish a large solar field west of McCool Junction.

Questions had been brought forward to the county board during their past few meetings by people who live and own land in that area of Hays Township. They asked about zoning regulations which may pertain to this type of a project, whether there were stipulations the company has to adhere to and whether they were going to have to go before the planning commission and the county board itself.

Two weeks ago, a large contingency of people from the rural McCool/Lushton area were in attendance for the county board meeting as they  as a group  had requested being on the agenda. They said they had concerns about the project because there hadnt been any public information provided to them. The commissioners acknowledged their concerns, noted the company had never come before them or the planning commission, and informed them that the company had already asked to be on the Jan. 25 agenda.

On Tuesday, it is expected those questions will likely be answered, as the company will have representatives there, in person.

No official action items are scheduled for Tuesday, regarding this project  as this will be an information-only session.

Also on Tuesdays agenda:

 The county board will consider giving the chairman authorization to sign emergency declarations and have the ability to close the courthouse should an emergency arise.

 The commissioners will reaffirm the appointment of Harvey Keim as highway superintendent, which is done on an annual basis.

 The board will consider whether they want to have a firm or interruptible gas contract with Black Hills Energy. This stems from questions that arose after extreme cold temperatures last February led to a much-higher-than-normal gas bill and it was realized the courthouse operates on an interruptible contract (dating back to when the courthouse was built in the early 1980s).

 The reappointment of Doreen Luethje to the York County Visitors Bureau will be brought forward.

 A contract with Stanard Appraisal Services will be reviewed.

 The commissioners will consider appointing a Housing Committee.

 They will also consider a retainer with Bill Baker for zoning regulation work.

 The board members will talk about their committee assignments.

The public is encouraged to attend the meeting, which will begin at 8:30 a.m., in the commissioners meeting room located on the main floor of the courthouse. The meeting can also be viewed/listened to via Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84279321522.
Expert Viewpoint: Data Privacy Week

Student Data Security and Privacy Must Be Taken More Seriously

School districts continue to see value in using Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, video conferencing platforms, and other cloud apps even as remote learning restrictions have eased. However, as the use of these online solutions has increased, so have the student data privacy concerns.

Its no secret that school districts have been a popular target of cyberattacks. These cybersecurity incidents pose a threat to the privacy of the data stored by districts as more cyber criminals extract it for malicious use. Couple this with more activity by students and staff in the cloud, and you can see why data privacy in schools is threatened.

Data security and privacy are inseparable. With today kicking off Data Privacy Week, its a good time to take a step back and look at the efforts being made to ensure the privacy of our students data is being protected.

Government Efforts to Improve Data Privacy in Schools

Federal data security and privacy laws like FERPA, COPPA, CIPA, and others have provided a layer of protection. However, many agree that these regulations are outdated and do not offer enough to protect student data privacy and security in schools.

Given the increasing frequency of cybersecurity incidents in school districts, states are not waiting for Congress and are introducing their own laws to protect student data and privacy. According to Data Quality Campaign, 43 bills were signed into law in 22 states in 2020with more being introduced.

Here is a short list of states and regulations I believe are leading the way:

Illinois Student Online Personal Protection Act: Effective July 1, 2021, school districts are now required by the Student Online Personal Protection Act to provide additional guarantees that student data is protected when collected by educational technology companies, and is used for beneficial purposes only.

Texas Senate Bill 820: Passed into law in 2019, SB 820 requires school districts to develop and maintain a cybersecurity framework that will: Secure the district against cyberattacks and/or incidents Establish a framework that meets the standards set by the Department of Information Resources Establish a risk assessment and mitigation plan Assign a Cybersecurity Coordinator to serve as the liaison between the school district and the DIR Report any cyberattack or incident as soon as possible to the DIR

New Yorks State Education Law 2-d: Introduced in January 2020, the regulations guide schools and their third-party vendors to strengthen data privacy and security. Education Law 2-d outlines the minimum requirement necessary to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of State Education Department Information Technology assets and data.

Californias Student Online Personal Information Protection Act: Since taking effect in January 2016, the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act prohibits operators from sharing student data and using it for targeted advertising on students for a non-educational purpose. It also requires operators to delete a students information at the request of the school or district.

Federal Approach to Protecting Student Data?

Momentum is beginning to pick up at the federal level, most recently with the K-12 Cybersecurity Act being signed into law in October 2021. This law requires the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency to study the cybersecurity risks facing elementary and secondary schools and develop recommendations that include cybersecurity guidelines designed to assist schools.

The study must evaluate the challenges schools face in securing information systems they own, lease, or rely on. It will also evaluate the challenges in securing sensitive student and employee records. Upon completion of the study, CISA will develop an online training toolkit designed for school officials and make the studys findings, the cybersecurity guidelines, and the toolkit available on the Department of Homeland Security website.

It is important to note that the use of CISAs recommendations is voluntary by school districts, which raises the question: Are district administrators taking data security in their school districts seriously?

The State of Data Privacy and Security in Schools

If the proper cybersecurity measures are not put in place by school districts, then the information of students stored is vulnerable to a breach. The bills and laws are being brought forth by state and federal government, but is it leading to action by district administrators?

According to a report from ManagedMethods and EdWeek Research Center, this may not be the case. Of the hundreds of district administrators surveyed, 77% said they were not very concerned with data breaches or leaks. In regards to complying with government regulations, 79% reported not being very concerned and 43% said they either do not monitor for potential regulatory violations or do not know if they do.

The pandemic sparked a massive change in the way education is delivered. For district administrators, it has created a new and everchanging challenge to ensure learning environments are secure and student privacy is protected. The survey by EdWeek Research Center suggests administrators may be under-informed about what steps must be taken to protect what is created, shared, and stored in the cloud.

There is no data privacy without data security. Federal and state governments are becoming more involved in creating guidelines for privacy policies and cybersecurity practices. Its time for district administrators to get more serious and take action to protect the privacy of our students.
A panel discussion next month will explore local impact of the United Nations work globally, along with organizations efforts in Afghanistan both before and since the United States withdrawal in August.

The U.N. and Afghanistan: Connecting Global Roads to Local Goals is from 4 to 6 p.m., Feb. 6 at the Carbondale Civic Center, 200 S. Illinois, Ave. Sponsored by the Southern Illinois chapter of the United Nations Association USA, the discussion follows a business meeting.

The event is free and open to the public and also available for viewing via Zoom, Facebook Live and YouTube. Organizers presently plan for the discussion to be available both in person and virtually under guidelines that are compliant with the states Restore Illinois plan.

The event may, however, convert to a complete online format, if needed. Registration is via Zoom.

Panelists include SIU faculty/students

Cindy Buys, a professor in the SIU School of Law and a UNA-USA Southern Illinois board member, will moderate the discussion. She will briefly discuss the United Nations work in Afghanistan while the United States was operating there and since the U.S. withdrawal last year.

There are several U.N. agencies actively assisting the Afghan people, such as the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Buys said. Other panelists will discuss their experiences with U.N. agencies and the international community working to improve economic development in Afghanistan.

Charles Ruffner, a forestry professor in the School of Agricultural Sciences, will discuss agriculture projects in the country. Ruffner will highlight projects in Afghanistan that he and other SIU faculty were involved with  the Afghanistan Water and Tech Transfer (AWATT) and Agricultural Development for Afghanistan Pre-Deployment Training (ADAPT) projects. As part of the ADAPT project, Ruffner was deployed with the Mississippi National Guard Agribusiness Development Team in Zabul province from August 2012 to May 2013. Ruffner added he often uses slides from a previous presentation titled Fixing a Broken Land: Attempts to Improve Agricultural Outputs in Rural Afghanistan.

Buys noted that other panelists will include:

Two SIU Carbondale graduate students from Afghanistan, who will provide a perspective on life in Afghanistan.

Cheryl Barnett, a U.S. veteran who will discuss her deployment in Afghanistan.

Roni LeForge, public relations officer, city of Carbondale, who will discuss efforts by the city along with local civic groups and faith communities to resettle Afghans in Carbondale.

For more information on the event, contact Pamela Umlauf-Brown, the UNA-USA Southern Illinois chapter president, at plauf@siu.edu.
The Orangeburg County School District will hold meetings throughout the county to gain public input on its $190 million building plan.

That plan includes the construction of a new Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School and consolidation of some local schools.

The district recently presented a community meeting schedule which will allow the public to provide input on the district's demography and facility planning study.

The meetings are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at the following locations:

 Edisto High School  Feb. 15

 Bethune-Bowman Middle/High School  Feb. 16

 Lovely Hill Baptist Church  Feb. 22

 Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School  Feb. 23

 Lake Marion High School  Feb. 24

 Vendor/contractor/subcontractor drop-in  March 1. Location and time to be determined.

OCSD officials say that, without the plan, existing schools would need an estimated $429 million in repairs. They say the plan also addresses the problem of underused schools.

The district is planning a November 2022 bond referendum to ask voters to approve borrowing $190 million for the plan.

The district says if the bond is approved, it would allow the district to borrow funds for school improvements without an impact on taxes.

In other business during the school boards Jan. 11 meeting, school trustees received a presentation from officials with Alpharetta, Georgia-based ABM Buildings Solutions LLC.

Trustees last year entered into a contract with ABM to conduct an energy performance assessment of the district's electric, light and water systems. The firm was charged with looking at the district's energy costs and providing guidance on what the district can do to save money on energy.

ABMs Rick Higgenbotham said 91 percent of the districts heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment is past its useful life. He also recommended replacing older lights with more energy-efficient LED lighting and replacing inefficient plumbing fixtures.

The district is on the verge of a major capital requirement due to failing HVAC in most buildings, Higgenbotham said.

He noted that upgrading the districts central controls would increase energy and maintenance efficiency with local control, LED lighting would improve building safety and water conservation measures would provide additional energy savings.

We call this the critical needs program and this would require an investment by this district. An investment of $39.9 million is what were looking at right now, Higginbotham said.

He described the plan as a comprehensive and proactive program that addresses the replacement of existing aged and outdated infrastructure while eliminating capital and budget volatility.

Energy performance contracting agreements allow organizations to update heating and air, building envelope, windows and lighting to more energy-efficient systems, with the savings in energy costs guaranteed to more than cover the cost of the upgrades.

Its taken some time to get stuff in, but we would project that we could begin construction in April, probably projecting a year and a half, somewhere in that neighborhood, for construction, maybe two years. But then your first payment would not be until one year after that construction was complete, Higginbotham said.

OCSD Superintendent Dr. Shawn Foster said, This plan right here is for the present schools, omitting the schools that arent involved in the actual plan that were now presenting to the actual community. So if this was to go and both plans were to run simultaneously, it would not include those facilities that would not be here currently.

Trustee Dr. William O'Quinn said, "So this is actually making assumptions tonight with this that the plan that was presented that's going to be brought to the communities is going to pass. We don't know that that's going to happen.

OQuinn said he felt it was too early for the board to make a final decision on an energy performance contracting agreement.

I think we're jumping the gun just a little bit to start work on some of these schools, or even spend money, or save money as we've been presented tonight. I just think that it's a little premature to make the assumption that all those things are going to pass and that we might end up leaving some schools out of this program, he said.

OQuinn continued, I've been through this, some of these things before in other districts, and these companies that come in that say they're going to save us money. Youve still got to spend that money along and along anyway. I think we need more than one night of presentation of this before we make any sort of decision, but that's just my opinion.

Foster said, We're not bringing this for any vote tonight. This is bringing it for information. This is not a motion or an action item on the agenda. I would not dare bring something like this for a board to consider in one night.

The timeline for the project can be altered, Foster said. The plan is something for the board to consider and then ask questions as the district moves forward.

Contact the writer: dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or 803-533-5534. Follow "Good News with Gleaton" on Twitter at @DionneTandD

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(TBTCO) - Thi truong ket thuc thang 4 voi muc giam 8,4%, tro thanh thang giam sau nhat trong vong 2 nam. Hang loat co phieu chiet khau gia cuc sau tuy gay thiet hai rat lon cho nhieu nha au tu, nhung cung se tao co hoi cho cac nha au tu khac.
The death penalty is no longer on the table for Dale Wayne Eaton.

Court filings show that Eaton, who was convicted of the 1988 murder, rape and kidnapping of Lisa Marie Kimmell, is set to receive a non-capital sentence.

A sentencing hearing was set for Friday, but Eaton did not appear despite a transport order entered in November.

The hearing was initially set for November, but has been postponed twice and will now tentatively take place in March, said Eatons attorney Terry Harris. The Kimmell family appeared Friday to give victim impact statements, but will now have to wait for March.

Natrona County prosecutors agreed to withdraw their intent to seek the death penalty in September 2021, court documents state.

The decision comes after Eaton completed a mental evaluation at the Wyoming State Hospital in August. Court filings state that evaluators found Eaton was not competent to withstand a capital sentencing hearing, but that he is able to proceed with sentencing that does not include the death penalty.

The parties agree that Mr. Eatons death sentence ... must now be replaced with a life sentence as required by federal law, a stipulation filed by Harris in September states. Mr. Eaton will undoubtedly remain in prison until he dies no matter how this court exercises its remaining sentencing discretion.

Eaton is already serving a life sentence plus another 40 years, the filing states.

A jury concluded in his 2004 trial that he should be put to death for the crimes, but a federal judge took him off of death row in 2014 after finding he didnt have appropriate representation during the penalty phase of his trial.

During that period, Eaton was the only person in Wyoming on death row. The last execution in the state took place 30 years ago, with Mark Hopkinson in 1992.

When prosecutors moved again for Eaton to receive the capital penalty, the court ruled that a mental evaluation was needed.

According to the state examiner, Eaton showed signs of dementia and depression, and has also recently suffered strokes that have damaged his brain function. He is confused at times, the examiner reported, and has trouble with speech and memory. A doctor noted Eaton thought he was 10 years older than his actual age.

While death penalty hearings can take months, sentencing without capital punishment as an option is much quicker, less complex and calls far fewer witnesses.

The sentencing is mostly a formality, since Eaton will already be spending the rest of his life behind bars. While the crime was committed in 1988, evidence did not implicate Eaton until more than a decade later.

Fourteen potential death penalty cases have been presented to Wyoming prosecutors since 2006. Just five of those have made it to a trial, and none of those resulted in a recommended death sentence.

Recent proposals have been made in the Wyoming Legislature to abolish the death penalty in the state, as opponents cite how much more expensive it is to prosecute cases with the potential punishment. The most recent attempt at repealing the death penalty in Wyoming died on the Senate floor during the 2021 legislative session. The bills sponsor, Sen. Brian Boner, R-Douglas, said that it costs around $750,000 a year to keep the states lawyers trained to deal with death penalty cases.

Capital trials tend to take up to four times as long to complete as other criminal cases, and often require the accused to be placed in special solitary confinement facilities with increased security, further adding to the cost.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 27 states, the federal government and U.S. military still have the death penalty. Aside from Colorado, Wyomings neighboring states all still have capital punishment on the books.

Follow city and crime reporter Ellen Gerst on Twitter at @ellengerst.

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LARAMIE  A former Albany County Sheriff s deputy is suing a longtime colleague alleging a years-long pattern of racial abuse and discrimination.

Jamin Johnson, an Albany County man who was a deputy from 2007-2017, filed a lawsuit in federal District Court last week claiming his supervisor, Sgt. Christian Handley, relentlessly demeaned Mr. Johnson with racial slurs and innuendos, even once in front of Mr. Johnsons wife and children.

Handley, who also is no longer with the sheriffs office, is the sole defendant named in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, including loss of wages and benefits, emotional distress and punitive damages.

The alleged behavior by Handley displayed racism, bigotry and discrimination in the workplace (that) almost defies belief, the lawsuit states.

The abuse ultimately led to Johnsons resignation Aug. 2, 2017.

Continuing at the sheriff s office at the time would have meant enduring more racism, more bigotry and more discrimination, none of which was tolerable, the lawsuit claims.

While Johnson said he was the focus of Handleys alleged racial abuse since beginning at the Albany County Sheriff's Office, Handley was promoted through the ranks ahead of him, which put Handley in a supervisory role over Johnson.

The pair worked together as patrol deputies from 2011-14, during which time Mr. Handley began to engage in overt and abhorrent racism against Mr. Johnson, the only Black officer at the ACSO, the lawsuit says. That includes routinely being called the n-word and a jigaboo, something Handley also allegedly did toward other Black people in the community.

When Handley was promoted in 2014 and became Johnsons supervisor, his racism became even more blatant, the lawsuit claims.

For example, Mr. Johnson once stopped several Black people in a vehicle. Mr. Handley arrived at the stop as the supervising officer only to ask, What did these (n-words) do? Comments like these were routine.

One of the last straws came a couple months before Johnson resigned in June 2017 in a common area at the sheriff s office.

Mr. Handley asked whether Mr. Johnson had ever had sex with a Black woman, the lawsuit says. Taken aback, Mr. Johnson said nothing. Mr. Handley followed up: Because that would be nasty. That is like having sex with a dog.

The lawsuit also alleges Handley once, in describing an arrest he made the night before, said that I stopped a car full of (n-words).

When he saw Johnson was in the room, he added, Youre not one of them, but some Black people are just (n-words).

Another claim is that once while Johnson was outside walking with his family, Handley drove by them and yelled a racial slur.

Johnson was ultimately forced to resign after Handley, as his supervisor, continued to target him and other top-level administrators at the sheriff s office wouldnt intervene, the lawsuit says.

It wasnt until Sheriff Aaron Appelhans, Wyomings first Black sheriff, was appointed last year that an investigation into Handleys conduct was initiated. Handley was terminated from the ACSO soon after.

Handley is being represented by the Wyoming Attorney Generals Office, which did not respond to a request for comment before the Boomerangs press time.

He has 60 days from Jan. 18 to file a reply to the lawsuit.

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For the last two weeks Robyn Rofkar has been waking in the cold darkness of 3 a.m., rising early to begin simmering beans or baking blueberry muffins, making sure the 20 Shoshone speakers gathered in the Latter Day Saints church in Fort Washakie are taken care of.

Elders arrive at 9 a.m. each day and gather into small groups to remember and record words through a process called rapid word collection.

A linguist from the Language Conservancy, which the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center has partnered with to complete the project, names a category, something like sky. Shoshone speakers then list words that relate: from stars to the sun and the colors that make up the firmament.

The group has recorded more than 4,000 words, which will eventually be turned into an online dictionary. Its one more step toward ensuring the Eastern Shoshone people have a way of remembering and learning their own language, a project Rofkar, who is a member of the tribe, and the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center has been engaged in for years.

The oldest person to attend the daily gatherings of Shoshone speakers was 98 years old. Another woman celebrated her 90th birthday during the project. All the fluent speakers of Shoshone tend to be at least 60 years old, Rofkar said, and there are probably fewer than 200 of them in all.

Years ago it was forbidden for these same elders to speak their own language, Rofkar said.

Thats because generations of Native American youth were punished for speaking their language, said Wil Meya, president of the Language Conservancy.

 The basic issue is that languages, especially in the United States, are all in tremendous danger, Meya said. To a high degree, that language endangerment was the result of government policies that forbade the use of language and things like the boarding school system that were in existence for over a hundred years.

By 1954 most tribal members stopped passing their language on to the next generation, he said, and those born after that year primarily spoke English.

Rofkars family didnt speak Shoshone when she was growing up, but she learned some words through Central Wyoming College courses. During her 28 years working at Fort Washakie School, she helped out with Shoshone-language-related programs. Post-retirement, Rofkar took a job as the administrative assistant at the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center, where she began applying for grants to revitalize the Shoshone language in her community.

New funding became available through the American Rescue Plan Act, and the Cultural Center was able to secure a grant that supported the rapid-word-collection process. While the Cultural Center already has a dictionary with roughly 8,000 words, it doesnt include pronunciations and spelling isnt standardized, according to Rofkar. Because of certain vocalization characteristics the Shoshone p is more of a b sound, for example. Writing Shoshone words without detailed pronunciation instructions poses a challenge, she explained.

Language has the power to shape our worlds. Shoshone, Rofkar noted, is so descriptive. A lot of the elders are always making jokes, teasing kind of, and there are these funny little ways of putting the words together. Its very enjoyable to hear.

The creation of a dictionary accompanied by recorded pronunciations can be a foundation for Eastern Shoshone people. The dictionary really becomes a great cornerstone for many of the other materials that might be needed, Meya with the Language Conservancy said. We kind of act as a bridge between generations, being able to work with the elders, and help bring the language out in a way that is then accessible to the young learners.

Rofkar is interested in potentially creating a textbook or online materials to help Eastern Shoshone learn their language. We need more Shoshone language teachers that are fluent, we need to really pass this on before its lost, she said.

The center is applying for another grant to put intensive learning programs in place, she said. The idea behind that initiative is that one or two fluent elders would gather with a group of learners, and within 18 months the learners would become fluent and be able to teach the language to others.

Rofkar, in the meantime, is also still learning Shoshone herself. Im working on it. I dont know if Ill ever be fluent.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

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Miss Vietnam arrives home after recovering from Covid-19 in the US

Miss Vietnam 2020 Do Thi Ha has just returned to Vietnam after being treated for Covid-19 in the US.





Miss Vietnam 2020 Do Thi Ha in a new Facebook status on January 24



Ha posted some new photos taken in HCM City on her Facebook account on January 24. She returned to Vietnam several days ago and had just completed a quarantine period for Covid-19 prevention.



The status surprised many of her fans as she did not inform people about her return earlier. Many people also commented that she looked so fresh in the new photos.



Speaking to Tien Phong Newspaper, Do Thi Ha said that she was now busy with lots of work in HCM City before reuniting with her family in Thanh Hoa Province for Tet Holiday.



Do Thi Ha went to Puerto Rico to participate in the Miss World 2021 Competition on November 20, 2021. After a month of participating in various activities and sub-contests, Ha and other contestants were informed that the final round had been delayed until March 16 this year after many candidates and the organisers tested positive for Covid-19.



Ha returned to the US to wait for her flight back to Vietnam but then tested positive for Covid-19 and had to stay in the country for treatment.



The organisers of Miss World 2021 have just announced that Do Thi Ha was selected among the top 40 contestants who would continue to compete at the final round of the beauty pageant scheduled to take place in Puerto Rico on March 16.



Earlier, Do Thi Ha was named in the top 27 of the most talented contestants, the top 13 of the Top Model category and the top 16 of the Head to Head Challenge category of the Miss World 2021. She had set a target to be selected in the top 12 of Miss World 2021.
DOUGLAS  The Wyoming Republican State Central Committee selected three candidates Saturday to fill the state superintendent spot left vacant by Jillian Balows resignation earlier this month.

In a landslide, the committee chose Thomas Kelly, with 67 votes, Marti Halverson, with 56 votes, and Brian Schroeder, with 52.

The central committee, which is made up of three Republicans  a chairman, a committeewoman and a committeeman  from each county, voted on 11 candidates at a Saturday meeting in Douglas.

The fourth-place candidate, Megan Degenfelder, the former chief policy officer for the Wyoming Department of Education, received only 19 votes.

There were a total of 73 ballots cast, and each central committee member had to list three candidates for their ballot to be counted. They could not vote for the same person three times.

All three winning candidates received over two-thirds of the vote.

Kelly is currently serving as the chair of the Political and Military Science Department at American Military University, according to his resume.

He and his family left Colorado for Wyoming in part because the schools were teaching climate change, multiple genders, and white privilege to grammar school children, he wrote in his cover letter.

They moved to Sheridan in 2019.

Halverson is far-right former state representative and chairman of the Lincoln County GOP, making her a part of the state central committee. She told the Star-Tribune and the committee that she did not vote despite being a part of the panel.

Schroeder, who moved to Wyoming recently, possesses extensive experience in school administration, as a K-12 teacher and as a youth counselor.

The 11 candidates were given a short time to give a general speech about themselves and what they would bring to the office. Next, there was a question and answer session in which the three candidates answered the same three questions:

What is the role of the state superintendent and school boards in COVID masking policies and vaccine mandates in schools;

How would you have voted on Senate File 104 (a law from 2013 that stripped away power from the state superintendent but was later overturned);

The Wyoming Department of Education gave $215,000 to Panorama Education Services, which was founded by Attorney General Merrick Garlands son-in-law. Do you support this expenditure?

Masks became like the liberal MAGA hat, Kelly said during the question and answer session, adding that masks in schools arent useful because kids dont wear the right ones, and if they dont want to wear them, put them under their chins.

Halverson said she stands with whatever parents want to decide for their children regarding masks and vaccines and added that she voted against Senate File 104 while she was in office.

One central committee member, former Speaker of the House Tom Lubnau, raised concerns before the meeting that the process of selecting the candidate was unconstitutional because it does not comply with the one man-one vote principle.

Considering the extreme differences in population among Wyomings 23 counties, any vote on a county basis would disenfranchise voters in the more populated counties and would constitute a violation of constitutional principles, Lubnaus letter to GOP leadership read.

An attorney for Lubnau told the Star-Tribune that a lawsuit on the matter was expected to be filed Tuesday.

Frank Eathorne, the state party chairman, said he was advised to move ahead with the process by two lawyers, Brian Shuck and Mitch Edwards, the current and former legal counsel for the state party.

Gov. Mark Gordon is now responsible for choosing a replacement to fill out Balows term, which ends in January 2023. He said he hopes to interview them all in person.

Gordon is statutorily required to make a decision within five days.

Follow state politics reporter Victoria Eavis on Twitter @Victoria_Eavis

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The Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes will each receive roughly $1 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Thursday.

Each tribe is set to receive $1,035,000 from the federal grants.

According to a release from HUD, the Eastern Shoshone Housing Authority plans to put the money towards quarantine services, utility payments, and personal protective equipment to families impacted by COVID-19.

The Northern Arapahos share is set to go toward two mobile medical units, which will provide health care and temporary shelter for those impacted by the virus.

The grants are part of HUDs Indian Community Block Grant program, funded by the American Rescue Plan. Wyomings tribes did not receive any money in this programs first two rounds of COVID payments, according to data from HUD. They have, however, received other federal money that has gone to COVID services, stimulus payments and other pandemic response expenses.

This tranche of funding totals $83 million, split among 74 tribal communities across the U.S. Thursdays release said that additional tribal grants will be announced on a rolling basis, as there is roughly $71 million left to disburse from the community block grant ARPA allocation.

It is imperative that we continue providing Tribal communities with resources needed to protect the health and safety of their communities, said HUD Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman in the release.

Last week, the Northern Arapaho Business Council voted unanimously to stop approving requests for hotel stays for tribal members needing to quarantine after testing positive for COVID.

At the end of 2021, COVID-19 emergency measures were slightly relaxed on the Wind River Indian Reservation, allowing buildings on the reservation to operate at 50% capacity, rather than 25% under previous orders. Tribal health officers may approve plans for higher capacities on a case-by-case basis. Masks continue to be mandated in reservation buildings and offices.

The Northern Arapaho were hit particularly hard by the virus during the pandemics first few months. Tribal members accounted for a third of the states COVID-19 fatalities. Cases fell off after the tribe implemented a stay-at-home order.

Follow city and crime reporter Ellen Gerst on Twitter at @ellengerst.

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The University of Wyoming distributed free high-quality masks to community members in preparation for the start of the spring semester, which started last week.

When it comes to preventing the spread of COVID-19, any mask helps. But respirators offer the most protection, according to recent recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

People are increasingly looking to respirators to help them fend off the highly contagious omicron variant. The new strain of COVID-19 has spread rapidly through the U.S. since the holidays, including in Wyoming, where it is causing nearly all of the new COVID-19 infections.

Its spread so quickly, in fact, that the University of Wyoming ditched plans to conduct a back-to-school mass COVID test when students and employees returned to campus this month. The school will still test a random sample of people each week.

The university has provided KN95 masks, one kind of respirator, to students and staff in an effort to boost protection.

While many people experience mild symptoms, that is not the case for all people, and many within the UW community live with people who are at high risk or are at high risk themselves, University of Wyoming president Ed Seidel said in a news release Jan 15. Probably the most important thing we can do right now to protect those people  and to avoid quarantine and isolation for many of us  is to wear better masks.

KN95s and other respirator masks are meant to be disposable, but theyre safe to reuse if theyre left to sit for a few days, according to the CDC.

In most circumstances, university community members are required to wear masks indoors when they cant practice social distancing. That rule will stay in place until at least mid-February, when the schools board of trustees reconvenes.

Cases have surged in Wyoming since the beginning of the month. The state set new daily records for infections on both Wednesday and Friday, and health officials say more high marks could be set before the surge peaks in the coming weeks.

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SMALL business owners in three Caribbean countries will get the opportunity to showcase how their enterprises are transforming their communities, and themselves, due to support from the social enterprise, Nudge Caribbean.

The opportunity comes tomorrow, at an event called Nudge Now, which is being organised by Nudge Caribbean, which was founded by Anya Ayoung-Chee, design strategist and social entrepreneur, and Julie Avey, Massy Groups senior vice president of People and Culture.
Osmond Baboolal will be 40 years old soon. Those who know, will always see him as a child.

He could have been saved. He deserved being saved. But we all failed him.

This is how.

NEAR the junction leading to the mud volcano and narco mansion of Piparo is the turn-off to Pooran Street in the former sugarcane village of Williamsville.

Here you will find the ruins of a burnt-out house hidden behind the bushes.
CARACAS, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on Sunday that the country has registered a record daily count of COVID-19 cases.

A total of 2,401 COVID-19 infections and three deaths from the disease were reported on Saturday, bringing the national counts to 467,864 and 5,402 respectively.

Maduro said that the pandemic has been "getting worse in recent days."

The Venezuelan president added that 96 percent of people aged over 18 have been vaccinated, calling on parents to immunize their children aged over two.

He said that the country will remain open despite surging cases to avoid damage to economic and commercial activities. 
And so it has come to pass. One week after the island-wide blackout of February 16, we told you in this space that, from among the best authority available, there would be, there could be no one to blame for what happened.

We told you that the determination had already been made as to what happened, how and why, and that nobody could have been held responsible for that. It was a warning against the natural national tendency to go for blood. Loud had been the shouts of sabotage, the result of worker discontentment, and a clamour for heads to roll.
If you have not heard the phrases gig economy or gig worker, you probably soon will.

Essentially, a gig worker is an independent contractor, performing a specialized service to multiple clients and is not normally considered an employee of any one company. While the concept is not new, it is growing fast. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2017, nearly 34% of US workers were gig workers. They expect that number to increase to 52% by 2023. Today, the gig economy contributes more than a trillion dollars each year to the U.S. economy.

There are many reasons for the consistent growth in the gig economy. These include benefits to the gig worker and benefits to the gig employer. In addition, COVID-19 presented new challenges to business operations. Hiring gig workers has proven to be an effective solution to many of those challenges.

For example, COVID-19 created an environment conducive to the rapid expansion of gig workers for food delivery services like DoorDash and GrubHub. COVID-19 also created a shortage of health-care workers, especially nurses. This has led to increased demand for traveling nurses, and their incomes have skyrocketed recently.

Technology advancements have also contributed to the rapid growth of the gig economy. Application development and websites make it easier to hire and manage gig workers. Companies like Uber and Lyft can easily connect with thousands of independent drivers.

The gig economy is here to stay and should continue to grow. This may present opportunities for many existing businesses if they are open minded, and they pay attention to changes in their environment. To ignore these changes could be detrimental in many ways.

Bill Nordbrock is vice president of community relations for SCORE Southern Arizona, a nonprofit that offers free small-business counseling. For more information, go to southernarizona.score.org or call 520-505-3636.

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State Rep. Mark Finchem says he arrived at the U.S. Capitol about 1:45 p.m. on Jan. 6.

He says he left about a half-hour later.

Violence began at the Capitol around 2 p.m., but somehow, Finchem says, he didnt learn about it until 5 p.m.

What did Finchem do between 2:15 and 5  the crucial hours when the Capitol was stormed, members of Congress fled for their lives, and deaths began, eventually amounting to five?

This is among many questions members of the Arizona Legislature ought to know the answer to as they consider their colleagues future.

Rep. Cesar Chavez, a Phoenix Democrat, and dozens of residents of Legislative District 11 have filed complaints with the House Ethics Committee about Finchem, a fourth-term Oro Valley Republican.

But Rep. Becky Nutt, the Clifton Republican who chairs the committee, has given no indication shell ask the committee to deal with any of them.

Seeing the lack of action, Rep. Athena Salman, a Tempe Democrat, filed a resolution this week asking for the House to expel Finchem.

Most House Democrats co-sponsored the resolution, but no Republicans did, and its hard to believe many of them have the stomach for expelling Finchem based on this resolution alone.

Theres been absolutely no action whatsoever that the (GOP) majority has taken to even investigate wrongdoing by the legislator, let alone hold him accountable, Salman said in an interview Tuesday.

On Monday, she unveiled House Resolution 2006 arguing that enough evidence exists already to expel Finchem, a move established by the state Constitution.

The argument, in short, is that Finchem violated his oath of office by inciting and attending the insurrection Jan. 6, feeding the fire by lying repeatedly that the election was stolen from Trump.

We know that Mark Finchem has violated his oath of office, he has violated the Arizona state constitution and he has violated the constitution of the United States, Salman said at an event Monday. And we know he is unfit to serve in elected office.

Maybe so, but there is so much we dont know.

It just came out, for example, that Donald Trumps reelection campaign paid Finchem $6,037 for what the campaign termed Recount: legal consulting.

Finchem is not an attorney, though he likes to style himself a constitutional scholar. He retired from the Kalamazoo, Michigan, public safety department and now works as a real estate agent.

Finchem told The Arizona Republic the payment was a reimbursement for crowd control and security costs at the public meeting he organized Nov. 30 at a downtown Phoenix hotel. Thats the one, attended by Rudy Giuliani and receiving a call-in from Trump, where Finchem tried to lay the groundwork for disenfranchising Arizonans by claiming election fraud.

What other money has been coming to Finchem and leaving his accounts is not totally clear. He paid more than $600 in campaign funds twice in December, on the 11th and the 18th, toward American Airlines. Perhaps those campaign donations were paying for his trip to D.C.

Several news organizations have also made public-records requests for emails, text messages and other communications to try to figure out exactly what Finchem has been doing since the election.

Finchems attorney denied that any messages sent on private devices were public records (a contention that has been ruled against in previous cases) and said Finchems constitutional rights supersede state law.

Even if the records you seek are public records, which they are not, the threat of criminal prosecution gives rise to certain Constitutional rights that may overcome the duty to disclose otherwise public documents under Arizonas public records law, Alexander Kolodin said in a letter to news outlets.

Nutt, the chair of the ethics committee, has the power to get to the bottom of these questions. In fact, the Legislative District 14 representative is the best positioned of any legislator to get to the bottom of what exactly did.

I asked Andrew Wilder, the House Republican spokesman, about alternative paths to an investigation, perhaps motivated by Salmans expulsion resolution, but he said the ethics committee is the only logical place for one to occur.

Tucson is well-represented on the committee: Nutts district reaches the southeast side of the metropolitan area, and Tucson Democratic Reps. Alma Hernandez and Domingo DeGrazia are also members.

But its Nutt alone who has the power. She can ignore the complaints against Finchem altogether if she wants. She has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, Feb. 10, but the agenda shows it is only an organizing event.

What she should do, though, is hire an independent investigator to delve into Finchems actions. Few if any Republicans will be convinced by Salmans arguments that Finchem has already earned expulsion.

But we dont know what independent investigators will find and how that could change opinions.

+7

Contact opinion columnist Tim Steller at: tsteller@tucson.com or 807-7789. On Twitter: @senyorreporter

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Arizona residents who test positive for COVID-19 and might benefit from outpatient anti-viral treatment are not guaranteed the medication that could help them.

Thats because the drugs, while available with a prescription in pharmacies around the state or through referrals to some Pima County sites, are in extremely short supply.

Your provider will determine if you qualify for these treatments, said Dr. Marjorie Bessel, Banner Healths chief medical officer, at a press conference Monday. Due to limited supply, not all who qualify will receive them.

The Arizona Department of Health Services has developed antiviral prioritization tiering based on the supply in our state, she said.

Those who are 70 years of age or older or individuals with major immune suppression are top priority, she said. Outpatient treatment for those who test positive with COVID is also available, though supply of these treatments remains limited.

These treatments include the monoclonal antibody IV therapy Sotrovimab and oral antivirals called Paxlovid and Molnupiravir. (For more information, visit the states anti-viral site at azdhs.gov/antivirals or learn more about treatment options at azdhs.gov/findtreatment.)

Bessel said about 90% of the cases Banner is seeing are now related to the variant omicron and that there is almost nothing left of the delta variant or other variants in the state at this time.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 or suspected infections from the novel coronavirus have been rising since the beginning of the month and hospital workers are continuing to be sick, she said.

Staff illnesses have led Banner, the largest hospital network in Arizona, to temporarily close some of its urgent care centers around the state.

Bessel recommended people call ahead to see if an urgent care center is open, and also to make an appointment online first to limit wait times.

Banner Health currently reports that 83% of hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated or are partially vaccinated and 87% of Banners intensive care patients are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

When positivity rates and case counts increase in our communities, she said, our team members are exposed and infected with the virus, too.

Hospitalizations in Arizona are still very high and continue to be of concern, she said, as confirmed cases over the last three weeks have been at record highs.

As a reminder, hospitalizations typically lag overall cases in the market by one to two weeks, Bessel said. For this reason, our forecasting models predict that hospitalizations from this most recent omicron surge will peak around mid-February.

Banner isnt the only hospital seeing spikes. Tucson Medical Center had 100 COVID-19 patients hospitalized on Monday, a jump from 60 a few days ago.

Contact reporter Patty Machelor at 806-7754 or

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This isnt some armed invasion

Re: the Jan. 14 article Ducey urged to use power on immigration.

A group of Republicans are urging Gov. Doug Ducey to use a special war power that states possess to repel an invading army. U.S. states are forbidden to engage in acts of war unless invaded, and these Republicans are likening what they call an invasion of immigrants at the border with Mexico to an invasion by an armed force. They claim that rights granted to states by the Founding Fathers allow states to act unilaterally when invaded.

I remind them of another tradition of this country, inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty, Give me your tired, your poor; Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free; The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. I think the Founding Fathers would be very disappointed by that group of Republicans who wish to repel todays immigrants with the same force reserved for an invasion by a foreign army.

John McConnaughey

Oro Valley

Make decisions for greater good

Much has been said and debated over the issues of vaccination, mask-wearing and isolation to name a few. When reviewing the surge in new hospital patients due to the pandemic  not personal health issues such as heart attacks, vehicle accidents and home injuries  it is time to consider when personal freedoms of self-interest interfere with personal health care of others. To this end, perhaps something like the Extinction Protocol should be considered; i.e., The extinction of others  due to my own self-interest  is not only illogical but unethical. Your personal freedom is to decide your actions in the pandemic  mask/unmask, vaccinate/dont vaccinate, etc., but your personal freedom comes with your own personal responsibility and doesnt include taking a hospital bed  through your own negligence or stubbornness  from someone who is suffering a life-threatening illness or injury which may result in his or her death.

Richard Rebl

East side

Do your part for public health

COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing in Arizona. Saturday, Jan. 15, there were 25,000 new cases reported. This is an undercount, as most people who use at-home tests are not reporting their results, and asymptomatic cases are not being tested (although they still can spread the virus). There have been over 25,000 deaths in Arizona directly attributed to COVID-19. Our hospitals are being overwhelmed, and pediatric COVID-19 hospital admissions have quadrupled in the last month. Although breakthrough cases of COVID occur in fully vaccinated persons, unvaccinated persons are still much more likely to be hospitalized and more likely to die.

Sadly, Gov. Doug Ducey refuses to take action, despite the advice of public health and medical professionals like myself. I know that everyone is tired of COVID, but please do your part: Get vaccinated and boosted, wear a mask (N95 or KN95 if you are able) and avoid large crowds indoors.

Melanie Bell

Midtown

Amend filibuster, pass voting bill

To protect the integrity of our democracy, it is critical to amend filibuster rules to pass voting rights now. Recall when Democrats in 2017 mounted a filibuster of President Donald Trumps first Supreme Court nominee, Neil M. Gorsuch, Republicans moved to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations. Senator King (I  Maine) is in favor of suspending the filibuster in order to pass voting rights. I beg Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to be on the right side of history and vote to suspend the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation.

Beverly Sullivan

Oro Valley

Science backs wolf protections

Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) held a public hearing regarding the Mexican gray wolf (MGW), a species nearly hunted to extinction in the Southwest over the last century. A ruling by the Arizona courts has required the USFWS to revise their wolf management plans to increase protections of the MGW, a species protected under the Endangered Species Act. There were many voices statewide opposed to current plans. Frequently raised issues were: 1. The plan does not change the wolves status from nonessential  to essential, a status that is critical for further protections. And 2. The plan does not extend the USFWS boundaries north of I-40 where wolves have been killed illegally. Scientific research on wolves strongly supports both of these positions. Protection of the MGW is crucial to keep our wildlife diverse and balanced and is our responsibility as a citizenry who values Arizona wildlife. The USFWS needs to follow the science in wolf management.

Linda Dugan

Midtown

Surely Brnovich prosecutes fraud

I am sure in just a few days, Attorney General Mark Brnovich will refer both of the questionable lists of official Arizona Trump electors sent to the Electoral College during the phony Trumped-up election fraud fiasco of last year to the Department of Justice for further review. Like other responsible officials in states where this occurred, Brnovich will continue the fight for the people of Arizona to ensure open and secure elections in our state. Or maybe not?

Alan Barreuther

Foothills

Bills on abortion, racism untenable

Soon after the twice-impeached president paid our state a visit, extreme members of the Legislature introduced a bill not to teach racism in the public schools and to ban abortions after six weeks. Where do these people come from? Who do they represent? What are their values? Taking away the right for children to learn about Arizonas very shameful and racist past so that past is never repeated is a disgrace. Sounds like this person envisions a society only of people who share her distorted beliefs.

The copycat Texas anti-abortion bill is even more frightening as our current governor, who is trying to get back into the former guys good graces, might actually sign that horrible bill into law. If one wants to speak about racism, the anti-abortion bill denies women, especially women of color, a basic health right. We have to remain vigilant and bombard our legislators with letters, phone calls and public shaming. These two bills cannot stand. They must be shouted down.

James Robinett

Southwest side

Being friendly is not difficult

Re: the Jan. 20 letter Even a nod will do on The Loop.

Ill add a bit to her thoughts. Im the 80-year-old geezer on The Loop getting a little exercise on my old bike (which probably cost less than some riders sunglasses). I dont have an outfit, just casual clothes. I nod, Good morning to all the walking or riding loopers. Heres my take: 100% of the pedestrians, 80% of the females riding in partnership with a male, and 10% of the speedies (solo or in groups) acknowledge my existence. One would think that the costumed riders would encourage or, at least tolerate, an old duffer trying to get a little aerobic exercise rather than getting upset that he/she may be in their way. I realize that they may be in the zone, but thats not a good excuse for not being friendly, especially in todays atmosphere. You say Hi to a fellow snow shoveler.

Paul Blumentritt

Northwest side

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ADDIS ABABA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 people were killed after a passenger bus veered off a cliff in northern Ethiopia, local media reported on Monday.

Authorities are investigating what caused the accident, which also injured six others Sunday in the Amhara regional state, Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) reported.

Traffic accidents are fairly common in Ethiopia, many blamed on bad roads, reckless driving, and lax enforcement of safety rules. 
Tom Gilbert Chief Photographer I joined the Tulsa World in 1988 after graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma. I lived in Saudi Arabia before graduating from Broken Arrow High School. I'm married to Karen Gilbert and have three grown children. Phone: 918-581-8349 Follow Tom Gilbert Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Tulsans Andrew and Sally Whitney have passion. A passion for beer and helping others. They started Good Cause Brewing to merge those passions.

Good Cause Brewing started last October and is currently contract brewing at The Cape Brewing Co. in Jenks.

Good Cause's Pluto is a blueberry acai sour wheat ale, that comes in at 8.5% ABV. It's brewed with golden promise malt, fuggle hops along with blueberries and acai. He describes it as a light wheat beer with a little bit of tartness and not too sour.

"We were working towards a kind of neutral sour, one that wasn't overly acidic, something we could get through a whole pint of which is kind of uncommon with most sours. It's hard to get a whole pint down of a sour ale without destroying your pallet," Andrew Whitney said.

"Good Cause was kind of serendipitous. It just kind of came together that we wanted to do good things. We had found another brewery that we really liked in Colorado and we wanted to kind of mirror, kind of highlight the things that we liked about their business model and do something similar here. We wanted to get back to good causes that we felt were good journeys to go down with beer and with our community, " Andrew Whitney said.

A portion of Pluto's sales benefited BeHeard Movement Outreach, which help homeless with a mobile drop-in center with warm showers, haircuts, laundry and other resources.

"We really believe that whatever we put our energy into it is going to the greater good one way or the other whether it's people or organizations," Sally Whitney said.

Pluto is available at The Cape Brewing Co., 736 W. Main St., Jenks and area liquor stores. Here's a locator map to help you find Good Cause's beers tinyurl.com/ybv8shjk

Past Beers of the Week:

Tom Gilbert 918-581-8349 tom.gilbert@tulsaworld.com

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High school graduation rates dipped in at least 20 states after the first full school year disrupted by the pandemic, suggesting the coronavirus may have ended nearly two decades of nationwide progress toward getting more students diplomas, an analysis shows.

The drops came despite at least some states and educators loosening standards to help struggling students.

The results, according to data obtained from 26 states and analyzed by Chalkbeat, are the latest concerning trend in American education, which has been rocked by a pandemic that left many students learning remotely last year and continues to complicate teaching and learning. Some fear that the next several graduating classes could be even more affected.

"It does concern me," said Chris Reykdal, the schools superintendent in Washington state, where the graduation rate fell by about half a point. "I don't ever want to see a decline. We've made such steady progress."

Keep scrolling for a listing of the best school district in every state

In 2020, when schools shuttered for the final months of the school year, most states waived outstanding graduation requirements and saw graduation rates tick up. But the picture was different for the class of 2021. In 20 of 26 states that have released their data, graduation rates fell. Comprehensive national data will likely not be available until 2023.

Those declines were less than a percentage point in some states, like Colorado, Georgia and Kansas. Elsewhere, they were larger. Illinois, Oregon, and North Dakota saw graduation rates drop 2 points, and Indiana, Maine, Nevada, South Dakota, and West Virginia saw declines of at least 1 point.

Where rates increased, growth was modest. Florida had seen graduation rates jump by more than 2 points every year for a decade but gained just a tenth of a point in 2021, even as state officials waived certain diploma requirements.

"We do have to be concerned that grad rates are down and that some number of kids that earned a diploma, they've learned less than prior years," said Robert Balfanz, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and director of a research center focused on high school graduation. "What we're going to have to learn in the future is, how great is the concern?"

Last year's senior class saw school disrupted in distinct ways. In Nevada's Washoe County schools, for example, the graduation rate tumbled by 2.6 points as many teens worked longer hours or spent more time caring for siblings.

Carly Lott, a counselor at Hug High School in Reno, grew concerned last year as the hours on her students' pay stubs, which the school collects to offer elective credits, rose from 20 to 30 a week to 40 to 50. Some students worked during remote school days, while others took late-night shifts that left them too tired to concentrate on schoolwork.

Lott made sure students knew about the district's food bank and grew used to asking, "Do you absolutely need to work, or can you cut back?" As course failures stacked up, a trend schools reported nationwide, counselors nudged seniors to come to school in person to make up missed credits.

"If they were at home, they weren't engaged  they were doing other things," Lott said.

One of last year's graduates, 19-year-old De'karius Graham, had an up-close view of how 12th graders struggled.

There was no prom to look forward to, and all his senior classes at Florida's Polk County schools were online, an experience he describes as "low social interaction, low teacher interaction." He often turned to YouTube to figure out confusing assignments.

"It was a lot of self-teaching and self-motivation," he said. "I was just really alone with it all."

At the same time, Graham was running his own landscaping business to make money and helping seven school-age siblings with their homework. He also spent time working with a close friend who struggled with online assignments without reliable internet.

Other students got derailed. Eighteen-year-old Lailani Greaves had been behind before the pandemic but was aiming to graduate with the class of 2021. Without in-person connections, her motivation plummeted.

"I didn't have a clear head where I was focused and able to go every day and catch up on some work and log in to the computer," she said. "Just talking to a computer  it didn't feel real."

The New York City student contemplated dropping out and getting her GED but ultimately transferred to a smaller high school and is hopeful she'll graduate this year.

"I realized that I could go farther with my high school diploma," said Greaves, who wants to pursue a career in medicine.

Despite those challenges, statewide graduation rates are still typically higher now than they were a few years ago. But the modest declines are striking departures from recent trends.

In 2001, an estimated 71% of U.S. students who started ninth grade at a public high school graduated four years later. By 2019, that number had jumped to 86%, although the nation's way of calculating that has changed slightly.

On its face, that increase is one of the biggest recent success stories in American education. A recent Brookings Institution study concluded that the gains were a result of new federal pressure on states and schools and found little evidence that the long-term improvements were due to lower standards.

The causes are much debated, though. A 2015 NPR investigation found that many students graduated with the help of hasty, low-quality credit recovery courses. Some of the states with the nation's top graduation rates, like Alabama and West Virginia, also have very low test scores.

Some fear that cumulative effects of the pandemic stand to hit future graduating classes hardest. In both Oregon and Nevada, the share of high school freshmen who finished last school year on track to graduate was about 10 percentage points lower than before the pandemic. This school year, attendance has also been unusually low.

Lott worries many seniors won't graduate on time this year, either.

"We have a significant group of kids on our campus who failed an entire year of high school," she said. Those students get extra check-ins with Lott, who says it will be hard but not impossible to make up those classes through online credit recovery.

"I tell them, there will be a time that you're going to want to give up," she said. "That's when we need to talk with you, because we can help you through that motivational slump."

Schools have received large sums of federal aid that could be used to help students to graduate, but Washington's Reykdal said schools have recently been focused on staffing and safety.

"If I had talked to my districts a year ago, they all would have said graduation and recovery, and right now they're saying more PPE, finding substitutes," he said.

Still, some educators are hopeful last year's dip represents an anomaly. In Peoria, Illinois, where the graduation rate fell 4 points after climbing steadily for years, Superintendent Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat thinks the district's expanded "safety net" for struggling students will help.

Every week, a team of educators identifies students with failing grades for extra support. The district has also added ways for working students to earn credits in the evenings or on weekends, and has hired three "navigators" to help students who are in the juvenile justice system to finish school.

"It is not easy," Desmoulin-Kherat said. "It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint."

***

Chalkbeat's Sarah Darville and Christina Veiga contributed to this report.
Election deadline: Monday is the deadline to request an absentee ballot for the Feb. 8 primary election. Broken Arrow, Catoosa, Tulsa and Union each have one school board seat requiring a primary, plus Bixby, Catoosa and Jenks are each putting a school bond package before voters.

Funding opportunity: The Oklahoma State Department of Education announced Friday it will partner with DonorsChoose to provide an additional $6 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds for classroom needs brought on by the pandemic.

Starting on Feb. 4, all Oklahoma public school teachers will be able to submit their project requests via DonorsChoose. In order to be eligible for the additional funds, requests must be for student resources and teachers have to include an essay linking the request to student learning in the wake of COVID-19. Projects may receive up to $800 and those funds will be distributed on a first-come, first served basis.

Information session: Catoosa Public Schools is hosting a community meeting Tuesday from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at Cherokee Elementary School about its $52 million bond package that will go before voters on Feb. 8.

Meet the candidates: The Union Classroom Teachers Association and Union Public Schools Parent-Legislative Action Committee are co-hosting a moderated candidate forum for Zone 2 school board candidates on Thursday from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Union 8th Grade Center.

Candidates for the Zone 2 seat are Shelley Gwartney, Dr. Chris McNeil and Derek Rader. Currently represented by McNeil, the district includes the campuses of Andersen, Cedar Ridge, Moore and Peters elementary schools.

Test help: The Muscogee Nations Johnson OMalley Program is accepting applications through Feb. 4 for assistance with 2022 Advanced Placement test fees.

The tribe will pay for up to five exam fees per Muscogee student per year. Students must include proof of tribal citizenship and proof of enrollment in AP courses with their application.

Cancellation: The Tulsa alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. has cancelled its annual Robert I. Mayes Sr. Ebony Awareness Bowl for area middle school and junior high students. COVID-19 also forced the event to be called off in 2021.

COVID-19 by the numbers: Despite staff shortages continuing to force sites to shift instructional methods throughout the week, several area school districts published updated COVID-19 case counts on Friday.

Tulsa Public Schools reported 190 cases among students and 121 among employees. Booker T. Washington High School accounted for 58 cases.

Bartlesville Public Schools reported 19 positive cases among its employees and 35 among its students. The district has an additional 13 staff and 223 students in quarantine due to close contact exposure, including 51 students at Wayside Elementary School.

Bixby Public Schools reported 308 cases among its staff and students, including 55 at Bixby High School.

Broken Arrow Public Schools reported 106 student cases and an additional 257 cases among its employees. The district does not differentiate among campuses in its public-facing reporting.

Collinsville Public Schools reported 35 cases among staff and 98 among its students, including 39 at Collinsville High School alone.

Glenpool Public Schools reported three cases among its students and 22 positive cases among its employees.

Jenks Public Schools reported 200 cases among its students and an additional 99 among its employees. East Intermediate School was the only school that had less than 20 reported student cases.

Owasso Public Schools reported 205 cases among its students and 67 among its staff. OPS does not differentiate among sites in its public-facing reporting.

Sand Springs Public Schools reported 84 cases among its employees and students.

Sapulpa Public Schools reported eight cases among its employees and 52 among its students.

Union Public Schools reported 125 cases among its staff and 243 among its students.

Skiatook did not publish updated case counts by the close of business Friday.

School board schedule: The boards of education for Collinsville, Owasso and Tulsa are scheduled to meet on Monday.

The state board of education is scheduled to meet Thursday in Oklahoma City.

lenzy.krehbiel-burton @tulsaworld.com

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A new psychiatric hospital to be built in downtown could turn out to be nearly twice as large as originally planned.

Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner Carrie Slatton-Hodges confirmed last week her agency has asked for $38 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act money to build a 106-bed facility, instead of the 56-bed hospital first proposed.

The governors office sent out a message that this is really a once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure development opportunity, said Slatton-Hodges. Instead of thinking in terms of what you have, think about what the need is. So we changed our application.

The original plan, and the one that remains in effect if the $38 million request is not approved by the Legislature and the governors office, involved building a 56-bed hospital with a combination of philanthropic and state funds, with at least some of the state money being borrowed through a bond issue.

ARPA, which makes available an estimated $5 billion to Oklahoma state, local and tribal governments for infrastructure improvements, caused ODMSAS to request the amount it would otherwise have borrowed to complete the hospital.

After some consultation, however, a decision was made to request the $38 million to build a facility that, as Slatton-Hodges put it, more closely meets the need, especially over the long term.

To me, this is one of the most exciting things thats happened in a very long time, she said. We want people to be able to get their care and treatment in a place that promotes recovery just in terms of what the building looks like, what the facilities look like, and not to have to feel like these disorders are somehow less (important).

Slatton-Hodges said she doesnt know when a decision will be made about the ARPA funding, but that response from lawmakers and others involved in the process is encouraging. The money would come from state governments $1.87 billion allocation.

When our Legislature sees the community being involved and raising funds themselves, that makes it more likely that they can support a project, she said.

The planned hospital will replace one of similar size as the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health in the old Doctors Hospital complex at 2323 S. Harvard Ave.

When the department leased that space years ago, they leased it with the thought theyd be in it two years, said Slatton-Hodges. Now its been greater than 20. The location was never ideal for an inpatient psychiatric unit. It was kind of a retrofit. It is not the caliber we would want to be treating people with mental health issues.

The new hospital will be on the north side of a medical complex being developed on the grounds of two former state office buildings between Third and Seventh Streets and Houston Avenue and the western inner dispersal loop. The two former office buildings are being converted into a VA hospital, while the psychiatric hospital and a city-owned parking garage will be new construction.

The OSU Medical Center is south of the planned complex and will be affiliated with both hospitals, as will the OSU Center for Health Sciences, which is about a mile away on Southwest Boulevard.

Officials said the new psychiatric hospital will provide additional residency slots for psychiatry students at OSU-CHS.

The project involves OSU, the Veterans Administration, state and local government and local philanthropic organizations led by the Zarrow Foundation.

Its just so long overdue and Im so glad to see this happening where I can lay eyes on it and see it come to fruition, said Slatton-Hodges.

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In the first year of the pandemic, Owasso Public Schools offered parents the option of sending their children to class or choosing remote education. Over 75% of all parents chose in-person schooling, making it clear where their preference lay, even in the COVID-era.

In direct contradiction to the wishes of parents, however, Owasso schools eventually moved to 100% virtual learning. At that point, I made the decision to start homeschooling, which has been an enormous blessing to both my children and me.

When schools eventually reopened, we decided to stay put.

Most of my neighbors and their children, however, soldiered through virtual learning and eventually returned to in-person classes. With the omicron variant continuing to tear through the state and many schools once again closing their doors, I know they are experiencing a familiar sense of terror and powerlessness.

And while many parents worry their childrens educations will be essentially put on hold, they are also being reminded  or perhaps educated  about the limits of the control and influence they have over the public school system that is purportedly designed to serve them and their children.

As I did, they are learning that our school board members, who are elected in April by a tiny percentage of our voting-eligible population, do not feel accountable to parents. Instead, they are beholden to the organized interestsmostly tied to teachers unionsthat dominate school board elections and hand pick candidates.

They are also learning that parents have little if any recourse when local school boards or superintendents make decisions that directly contradict their wishes.

If they care to look, however, they will also learn they are not alone in being outraged by the way the wishes of parents have been pushed aside, or in their desire to seek change. There exists, both in our local community and through online forums like Facebook, a large group of like-minded parents.

At the start of the pandemic, we formed Parent Voice Owasso and, eventually, Parent Voice Oklahoma, which now has local chapters across the state.

You may have seen our members at school board meetings. We ask pointed questions, and we hold school board members to account. Individually, we were ignored; collectively, we are now a force to reckon with.

Our advocacy has already made a difference. Last year we supported the successful statewide legislative push to expand available funds for Equal Opportunity Education Scholarships, paving the way for an additional 1,500 students to get the financial aid they need to attend private schools.

In 2022, we will be pushing to move school board elections from April to the November general election. The change will dramatically increase voter participation and ensure our school board members are beholden to the will of the parents in their district, not just well-organized special interests.

Were also pushing for Education Empowerment Accounts which give parents control over their childrens education tax dollars  the ultimate form of local control.

This week is National School Choice Week, continuing through Saturday, and I like to think of it as a coming out party for parents who, above all, want to assert their right to seek the best education for their children. Many of us will be at the Tulsa Education Expo on Jan. 25 to learn about education options in the Tulsa area and what rights are available to us as parents.

School Choice Week is just the beginning. As we approach the next legislative session and the November elections, expect to hear more from parents in Oklahoma and nationally. COVID, school closures and the mistreatment of parents have woken up a sleeping giant, as last years gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey have shown.

If 2021 was the year of the pandemic, 2022 is the year of the parent. I, for one, cant wait.

Featured video: Tulsa World Opinion: Teacher shortages, tribal disputes and golf courses

Jennifer Johnson is the mother of four children and a founder of Parent Voice Oklahoma.

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It took more than a decade of local urging and new federal funding, but Tulsa County levees are finally getting much-needed safety upgrades.

A $137.4 million federal package announced last week will be completed in four phases with work beginning next summer. It includes new relief wells, water pumps, detention ponds and 13 miles of filtered berms with toe drains in the levee system, according to a story from reporter Kevin Canfield.

The project will build a cutoff wall at the Superfund site in Sand Springs to prevent unsafe materials from emptying into the Arkansas River. The levee system, stretching from Sand Springs to Southwest Boulevard, was finished in 1945.

More than 10,000 residents live behind the levees along with about the same number working or attending schools. It also includes more than 4,000 commercial, residential and government parcels valued at about $2 billion.

Tulsa County officials were caught off-guard in surprise. County Commissioner Karen Keith has prioritized levee repairs since her election in 2008 and said, This is the day we have all waited for.

District 12 Levee Director Todd Kilpatrick described himself as numb by the news: Ive waited over a decade for this moment right here, and its surreal.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, known as a champion for Oklahoma infrastructure needs, sought funding for Tulsa levees for years.

But, in what ought to be a lesson about blind partisanship, Inhofe voted against the legislation that funds this project. It comes from a disaster recovery appropriation embedded in a continuing resolution passed by Congress in September. Only Fourth District Congressman Tom Cole voted for the bill.

The effort certainly benefited from the years of pushing for funding and promoting it as a priority from Inhofe. But, it also benefited from the congressional Democrats who successfully secured appropriations.

Inhofe thanked those involved and said it was a good day to be a Tulsan.

The Biden administration announced the Tulsa levee upgrades as one of about 500 projects worth a total of about $14 billion. The U.S. Corps of Engineers will pay for the entire cost up front with local government having up to 30 years to repay 35% of the cost.

We are grateful for all those who have spent years advocating for the levee project. In a time with volatile climate changes, having strong infrastructure is crucial for safety. These are the types of projects Americans need and requires people to set aside political games to get it accomplished.

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Read what is in the news today:

Politics

-- Vietnamese State President Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Sunday presented gifts to workers of Thu Duc City under Ho Chi Minh City on the occasion of the Lunar New Year (Tet) festival.

On the same day, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also gave presents to heroic mothers, workers, and poor people in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho and offered Tet greetings to officials and people of the neighboring province of Vinh Long.

Society

-- More than 0.5 kilograms of sharp metal objects was found on Sunday on Provincial Road 10 Overpass in Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City, where the issue has repeated for years as repair shop owners along the road are believed to purposely scatter the rhombus-shaped metal items to puncture tires and thus force drivers to use their service, normally at exorbitant prices.

-- The Department of Health of southern Binh Duong Province announced on Sunday evening its first imported case of COVID-19 infection carrying the Omicron variant, a Vietnamese returnee who arrived in Ho Chi Minh City from Canada on January 9, has been placed under quarantine ever since.

-- As the Lunar New Year holiday is just a week to go, Ho Chi Minh City-based Tan Son Nhat International Airport has been packed with people who either fly home for family reunion or go on holiday during the festive season.

-- The Peoples Procuracy of southern Ba Ria - Vung Tau Province announced on Sunday the indictment against Tong Thi Tung Linh, a 21-year-old local resident, for murdering her father with cyanide over a conflict before staging an arson to cover up her crime earlier last week.

-- Another wave of cold air is forecast to hit the northern region on January 28, causing the temperature to drop deeply to ten degrees Celsius along with rain that will last for a couple of days.

Business

-- The Central Highlands province of Lam Dong aims to welcome five million visitors, including 150,000 foreigners, this year, according to the conference held by the provincial Department of Culture, Sports, and Tourism on Sunday, according to the Vietnam News Agency.

Sports

-- Chelsea kept alive their remote Premier League title chances with a 2-0 win over London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, set on their way by an exquisite strike from Hakim Ziyech which was quickly followed up by a Thiago Silva header, Reuters reported.

World news

-- The United States on Sunday said it was ordering the departure of eligible family members of staff from its embassy in Ukraine and that all citizens should consider leaving due to the threat of military action from Russia, Reuters reported.

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Four latest Omicron cases just detected in Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City, in southern Vietnam, have taken the total Omicron infections in the Southeast Asian country to 139, as recorded since the coronavirus variant was first reported in Hanoi in December last year, health authorities said.

The Binh Duong Province Department of Health on Sunday evening confirmed its first Omicron case, a Vietnamese woman who returned from Canada on January 9.

On Monday morning, Ho Chi Minh City's health department announced three more patients linked to the previous three Omicron community infections, VnExpress cited Dr. Nguyen Van Vinh Chau, deputy director of the department as saying.

The Ministry of Health has yet to elaborate on the number of domestic cases included in the 139 Omicron infections registered in 11 localities, but in Ho Chi Minh City alone, six Omicron patients have been detected in the community thus far.

The city is topping the countrys list of Omicron infections with 71 patients, followed by Quang Nam with 27 cases, Hanoi with 14 cases, Khanh Hoa with 11 cases, Da Nang with eight cases, Thanh Hoa and Quang Ninh with two cases each, and Hai Duong, Hai Phong, Long An and Binh Duong with one case each.

Current COVID-19 vaccines can help prevent critical conditions as well as mortalities caused by all coronavirus strains including Omicron, so getting full vaccination is the best way to protect oneself in general, the Department of Health said.

To date, hospitalizations and deaths caused by Omicron have been relatively low in Vietnam thanks to high COVID-19 vaccine coverage, the department said.

The first Omicron infection in the Southeast Asian nation was announced on December 21 last year in a Vietnamese man who returned to Hanoi from the UK two days earlier.

The mutant was designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a variant of concern on November 26, 2021, two days after it was first reported to the WHO by South Africa.

The strain, which health experts stated appears to be more contagious but less virulent than previous mutants, has now been found in over 130 countries and territories and has become dominant in many places, according to international media.

The infection rate of Omicron is likely seven times higher in the unvaccinated group and three times higher in the fully vaccinated demographic, so it may lead to a very rapid increase in infection cases, overloading the health system and pushing up deaths, Vietnamese Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long warned.

Therefore, it is necessary to continue strengthening epidemic prevention and control efforts, Long said.

The health ministry said it has been updating information about the Omicron strain from the WHO in order to cope with any new epidemic developments.

Vietnam has documented 2,141,422 COVID-19 cases, with 1,804,849 recoveries and 36,719 mortalities, the Ministry of Healths data shows.

Heath workers have administered 78.86 million first vaccine doses, 73.88 million second shots, and 23.15 million third jabs to people nationwide since vaccination was rolled out in March 2020, the Ministry of Health reported on Sunday.

Currently, 100 percent of the adult population of the Southeast Asian nation have received their first COVID-19 vaccine doses, while 48 among the countrys 63 cities and provinces have reached a second-jab rate of more than 90 percent.

The ministry has urged all localities to complete the coverage of second vaccine doses for children aged 12 to 17 within this month, while preparing for immunizing children from five to 12 years old.

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Workers are rushing to wrap up preparations for the Lunar New Year (Tet) flower festival at Tao Dan Park in downtown Ho Chi Minh City as the opening is just a couple of days away.

Centered around Spring of the Homeland - Warm Love and Compassion, the 2022 Tet Flower Festival will welcome visitors from January 27 to February 6 at Tao Dan Park in District 1, said Le Cong Phuong, director of Ho Chi Minh City Greenery Parks Company.

Residents will not have to pay for admission this year, according to the plan of the municipal Peoples Committee.

Tickets to the Tet Flower Festival cost about VND30,000 (US$1.3) in previous years.

Employees of Ho Chi Minh City Greenery Parks Company add flower pots to an area at the 2022 Tet Flower Festival at Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

As of Sunday, welcome posters and the iron frames of the entrances to the fest had been erected, according to the observation of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters.

Employees of Ho Chi Minh City Greenery Parks Company were speeding up the construction and decoration works inside the venue.

A number of flower pots have been added to several areas and more will be brought to the park in the coming days.

Construction works are being finished at the 2022 Tet Flower Festival at Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

There will also be a stage, stalls, exhibition areas, and a kid zone at the venue.

We are very happy that the flower fest will be able to welcome visitors during the upcoming Tet holiday despite the COVID-19 outbreak, said Tran Van Ty, an employee of Ho Chi Minh City Greenery Parks Company.

The 2022 Lunar New Year falls on February 1, with preparations and celebrations starting a week before and lasting until a week after that date.

Preparations are being made at the 2022 Tet Flower Festival at Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

Potted chrysanthemums are added to the 2022 Tet Flower Festival at Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

A kid zone is being set up at the 2022 Tet Flower Festival at Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

Potted flowers are brought to Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

Tiger statues as part of the decorations at the 2022 Tet Flower Festival at Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

Iron frames are being installed at the entrance to Tao Dan Park in Ho Chi Minh City, January 23, 2022. Photo: Le Phan / Tuoi Tre

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ADEN, Yemen, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's Houthi rebel militia on Monday claimed responsibility for striking numerous vital sites deep inside Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones.

Al Dhafra Air Base and other sensitive sites in the UAE's capital Abu Dhabi, and vital sites in Dubai were the targets of the strike, the Houthi military spokesman Yehya Sarea said in a statement.

The militia also struck several military bases in Saudi Arabia's Sharurah and other regions "with a large number of drones," and fired ballistic missile against vital and sensitive areas in the regions of Jazan and Asir, Sarea added.

The Houthi spokesman reiterated his call for foreign companies and investors in the UAE to leave as it has become "unsafe."

"The UAE will be constantly targeted as long as it continues its aggression and siege of the Yemeni people," he explained.

Earlier in the day, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen announced destruction of a ballistic missile fired by the Houthi militia against the Saudi governorate of Dhahran Al Janub, while the UAE announced interception of two Houthi-fired missiles targeted at Abu Dhabi.

According to the coalition, the strike caused material loss but no casualty inside Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the UAE Defense Ministry also said in a statement released by the official WAM news agency that the attack caused no human casualties, adding fragments of the missiles fell in various locations around Abu Dhabi.

The UAE ministry underlined its readiness to deal with any threats and said it would "take all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks."

The strike came just a week after the Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a drones attack on three oil tankers in the Mussafah area of the UAE, killing three civilians and injuring six others.

During the past 24 hours, the Saudi-led coalition launched a series of airstrikes targeting various locations controlled by the Houthi militia across Yemen.

In Yemen's Houthi-controlled province of al-Jawf, the Saudi-led coalition claimed to have destroyed the launch pad from which ballistic missiles were fired against Abu Dhabi.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since late 2014 when the Houthi militia seized control of several northern provinces and forced the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi out of the capital Sanaa. 
6 part Irish crime drama Hidden Assets begins next week on SBS.

This screened internationally in November.

A routine raid led by Emer Berry, a detective in the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau, reveals that a small-time drug dealer has been receiving substantial funding from a seemingly untraceable source  not in cash, but in rough diamonds. When these diamonds are linked to a series of bombings in Belgium, Emer is forced to work with Police Commissioner Christian De Jong. Eventually, reluctantly banding together, they unravel a political conspiracy fueling domestic unrest for financial gain  caught up in this web of greed are the Brannigans, a wealthy Irish dynasty with ties to Antwerp. Drawn into a battle of wits with the family, Emer, Christian, and the CAB team must follow the money to stop another terrorist attack  before its too late.

Episode One:

A police raid in Limerick, a dead body in Antwerp and a terrorist bombing campaign  Detective Emer Berry and her CAB team must work out how they are all connected.

Wednesday, 2 February at 9.25pm on SBS

Language.
The Logie Awards are moving venues.

After two years at The Star, Gold Coast, it is shifting next door to the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The move is to give the event more room to be staged.

The TV Week event still comes with the support of the Queensland Government via Tourism and Events Queensland with funds to directly support each TV network in flights and accommodation.

Its been two years without a Logies event, but chatter suggests it returns to a mid-year event to screen on Nine.
Actor Vince Colosimo has been charged with drug driving following an alleged incident last April.

The Herald Sun reports it is the second time he has faced similar charges.

Victoria Police said in a statement: A 55-year-old Elwood man has been charged on summons with unlicensed and drug driving.

Prahran Highway Patrol members intercepted a car on St Kilda Road, St Kilda about 2.30pm on Saturday 3 April, 2021.

Its alleged the man was driving unlicensed. He also underwent a drug test which returned a positive result.

His car was impounded and he will appear before Melbourne Magistrates Court on February 14.

The former Underbelly actor has had a number of brushes with the law and was told at a 2017 court case, Youre risking a jail term  if youre back here for a fourth time it wont be pretty.

Colosimo also features in Nines upcoming season of Celebrity Apprentice. Nine is understood to have been unaware of the pending case at the time of filming.
Tyler, TX (75702)

Today

Mostly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 71F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph.
Alok Sharma will urge countries to deliver on the pledges made at Cop26 so they are not just words on a page in his first major speech since the summit.

Addressing stakeholders, business leaders and reporters at Chatham House in central London at around midday on Monday, the Cop26 President is due to encourage countries to work together on their commitments.

Through the Glasgow Climate Pact signed in November, 197 countries agreed to strengthen their emissions-cutting targets for 2030 by the end of next year in an attempt to limit global warming climbing above 1.5C.

Join @AlokSharma_RDG, #COP26 President at our upcoming members event & hear Mr Sharma reflect on the success of the Glasgow summit & set out the UKs priorities for the rest of its Presidency #CHEvents  24 Jan 12:00  13:00 Hybrid Register > https://t.co/v0mtxPOsvh pic.twitter.com/Xq6u3XQsGc  Chatham House Events (@CH_Events) January 19, 2022

Negotiators also agreed to the weaker commitment of phasing down the use of coal after China and India declined to agree to it being phased out completely.

Mr Sharma is expected to say: There is no doubt that the commitments we secured at Cop26 were historic.

Yet at the moment they are just words on a page. And unless we honour the promises made, to turn the commitments in the Glasgow Climate Pact into action, they will wither on the vine.

We will have mitigated no risks. Seized no opportunities. We will have fractured the trust built between nations. And 1.5 degrees will slip from our grasp.

Story continues

So my absolute focus for the UK Presidency year is delivery.

The cabinet minister recently visited the Cop27 President, Egypt, and Cop28 President UAE to underline the importance of building strong partnerships ahead of the next summits.

He will also be meeting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) next week to discuss implementation of the measures agreed in Glasgow.
Sir Winston Churchill entered the pop charts not once but twice (Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

This article is part of Yahoo's 'On This Day' series

Both Theresa May and Boris Johnson have shown off impressive dancefloor skills - but there is only one British Prime Minister who has entered the pop charts.

Whats more, Winston Churchill managed the feat not once, but twice.

The first time was shortly after his death on this day in 1965, when Churchill has aged 90, and had suffered a series of strokes.

After his death, the BBC World Series said, Winston Churchill  is dead. The words are like great boulders falling silently down a cliff into the sea. the greatest man of our age has gone from among us.

Watch: Today in History for January 24th

In the mourning that followed Churchills death, a recording of his speeches entitled The Voice Of reached number 6 in the charts.

But Churchills second chart hit was rather more unexpected, coming decades after his death in 2010.

Churchill was 136 at this point, becoming the oldest person to enter Britains top ten.

The album celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain (Getty)

Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a historian, a writer (as Winston S. Churchill), and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States (Photo by: Pictures From History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Reach for the Skies sampled two of Churchills most famous speeches (Their Finest Hour and Never In the Field of Human Conflict), with horns and piano over Churchills words, played by the Central Band of the Royal Air Force.

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Where are the stars of the Spice Girls movie now?

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How John Lennon's death was announced during a live NFL game

Why 'Frozen' was a Disney classic 70 years in the making

Churchill reached the top ten alongside Phil Collins, Mumford and Sons and KT Tunstall, reaching number 4 in the UK album charts - and displacing the Manic Street Preachers and Brandon Flowers.

Wing Commander Duncan Stubbs, director of the Central Band of the RAF, said If through our music we can help keep the tradition and spirit of the Battle of Britain alive, then we have done a good job."

(Eingeschrankte Rechte fur bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) Churchill, Winston, (*30.11.1874-24.01.1965+) , Politician, Great Britain, Prime Minister 1940-1945, on his desk (Photo by ullstein bild via Getty Images)

The Official Charts Company said, "It is great that to a long list of stars including Elvis, Madonna, Cliff and the Beatles, we can now add Winston Churchill. It is also a tribute to the amazing sacrifices of our servicemen that the British public have bought this RAF album in such large numbers."

Story continues

Churchill was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The album was released to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and features two speeches from 1940.

Dickon Stainer, president of record label Decca, added: "Churchill's speeches are as potent today as they were 70 years ago when they motivated the RAF to one of the greatest victories in British history."

Winston Churchill became the oldest person to ever enter the pop charts. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The album also featured stirring wartime themes such as the Dambusters March, Battle of Britain March and 633 Squadron.

The album was "Dedicated to all the men and women who fought in the Battle of Britain, said Official Charts Company Managing Director Martin Talbot.

Churchills Finest Hour speech helped to boost morale after France surrendered to Hitler, and was delivered to the House of Commons, before being broadcast on radio that evening - its still widely considered among the best political speeches in history.

Watch: Boris Johnson and Nancy Pelosi bond over Churchill picture
The 2022 WSOP International Circuit Rozvadov 1,700 Main Event is one step closer to crowning a champion at the King's Resort in Rozvadov. Only 59 players out of 808 total entries remain in contention after an eventful Day 2 and they have all locked up a portion of the 1,189,780 prize pool. Besides their cash prizes, the top 12 finishers will also receive an entry for the 2022 WSOP Europe 10,300 Main Event as well.

Best-positioned to battle for the coveted WSOP Circuit gold ring is Dutchman Mahersh Selvakumaran with a massive stack of 2,507,000. He ran hot towards the second half of the day and was also responsible for bursting the money bubble. In somewhat remarkable fashion, Enrico Campanile was the last to leave empty-handed after suffering the same fate in the 2021 WSOPE Main Event at King's Resort as well.

Second in chips is Ronnie Lemmens with 1,912,000 and another six players claimed a seven-figure stack to their name. This includes Simone Andrian, who won his maiden WSOP gold bracelet at King's during the 2021 WSOPE festival. Andrian was at risk with kings versus aces on the direct money bubble but survived and subsequently spun it up to 1,703,000.

2022 WSOPC Rozvadov 1,700 Main Event Day 2 Top 10 Counts

Position Player Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Mahersh Selvakumaran Netherlands 2,507,000 157 2 Ronnie Lemmens Netherlands 1,912,000 120 3 Simone Andrian Italy 1,703,000 106 4 Matteo Cirillo Italy 1,700,000 106 5 Cecil Moagi Germany 1,395,000 87 6 Albert Hoekendijk Netherlands 1,216,000 76 7 Ioannis Chaitas Greece 1,060,000 66 8 Matteo Calzoni Italy 1,052,000 66 9 Simone Miracoli Italy 989,000 62 10 Gertjan Albers Netherlands 980,000 61

Notables with decent stacks sizes for Day 3 include Simone Miracoli, Aleksandar Tomovic, Josef Gulas, Claudio Di Giacomo, and Marius Gicovanu. Five WSOP bracelet winners are also still in the mix. Besides the big stack Andrian and Albert Hoekendijk, this also includes Dalibor Dula, Alessandro Pichierri and Sergiu Covrig.

Enrico Campanile eliminated on the bubble

The last player to leave without anything to show for was once more Italy's Enrico Campanile. For the second major tournament at King's Resort in a row, he departed the poker arena as the bubble boy after running ace-queen suited into pocket aces while holding an average stack.

Among the players that cashed but ran out of chips in the frantic final stages at the end of the night were notables such as Aleksandar Trajkovski, Michael Strauch, Jan Bendik, Raoul Refos, Ion Tabacaru, Mark Bongaerts and Mark Helou. All 59 survivors have 3,730 locked up for their efforts and the next pay jump is already in sight as of 55th place, which comes with a prize worth 4,156.

The returning blinds for Day 3 as of 2pm local time will be 8,000-16,000 with a big blind ante of 16,000 and the penultimate tournament day will whittle down the field to the official final table. All levels will continue to last 60 minutes each and the action will be broadcasted on the King's Resort Twitch channel for the remainder of the tournament. As usual, the PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor as well to provide as many key hands as possible.
A man removes snow from a vehicle in Istanbul, Turkey, on Jan. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Shadati)

ISTANBUL, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Istanbul Airport, the largest of the three airports in Istanbul, cancelled all flights on Monday for safety concerns, after the Turkish metropolis and financial hub was swept by a strong snowstorm, according to the airport management.

"All flights at Istanbul Airport have been temporarily halted for flight safety due to bad weather conditions," the airport management announced in a post on Twitter.

Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya asked locals not to travel unless necessary, and warned that heavy snowfall is forecast in the city center during the evening rush hour.

Public employees were allowed to end their shifts at 3:30 p.m. local time (1230 GMT), according to Yerlikaya.

The Istanbul Governor's Office said in a separate statement that due to the snowstorm, vehicles heading from the Thrace area in the northern part of the country to Istanbul would not be allowed to enter the city.

More than 7,400 municipal teams in Istanbul had been working around the clock to keep the roads open, according to Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of the city with a population of approximately 16 million.

Heavy snowfalls stranded 4,603 persons on roadways around the country in the last 24 hours, according to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority.

Turkish authorities issued a five-day extreme weather alert on Friday, warning of heavy and continuous snowfalls, ice, and strong winds in most parts of the country. 

A man clears snow at a park in Istanbul, Turkey, on Jan. 24, 2022. Istanbul Airport cancelled all flights on Monday for safety concerns, after the Turkish metropolis and financial hub was swept by a strong snowstorm, according to the airport management. (Xinhua/Shadati)
Students will have an opportunity to learn about resilience and hear from keynote speaker Duncan Kirkwood at the University of North Georgia's (UNG) 14th annual Student Conference on Leadership. The event runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 5 in the Hoag Student Center on UNG's Dahlonega Campus.

Kirkwood is a veteran, author, speaker, trainer, and global resilience advocate. His professional life has focused on empowering young people, parents, organizations, and communities.

"It is my passion to help individuals push through their perceived limits to take control of their lives," Kirkwood said. "Learning how to deal with setbacks and failure is something that every successful person must master."

Students who attend the free event will receive breakfast, lunch and other giveaways.

Kirkwood's keynote address is from 10-11 a.m. Breakout sessions will include yoga and mindfulness, vision boarding, and team building. Mallory Rodriguez, UNG's director of student leadership, said these sessions are opportunities to act upon the conference topic.

"We recognize that the past two years have been incredibly difficult. This is a great opportunity for us to learn resilient leadership skills and traits," Rodriguez said. "This is not the only time we will face challenges and roadblocks. We want to equip these students to lead their communities."

Students, faculty, staff and community members also will lead sessions at the event.

As a state-designated leadership institution, UNG strives to enhance students' leadership skills. The annual conference supports that mission by giving all UNG students a chance to learn about leadership and grow as leaders while networking with their peers and distinguished speakers.

Some of the sessions will count toward one of two non-credit, co-curricular certificate programs: one from Student Involvement on leadership and one offered via Multicultural Student Affairs on cultural competence.

Rodriguez is grateful that the conference will return to an in-person format after being held virtually in fall 2020.

"We look forward to students being together in the same place to share their experiences and insights about overcoming obstacles," she said.
TEHRAN, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman on Monday ruled out the possibility of an "interim deal" in ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers in Austria's capital Vienna.

"Iran is looking for a stable and reliable agreement and will not accept anything less than that. The quality of the agreement is important to us, nothing less and nothing more," Saeed Khatibzadeh made the remarks in his weekly press conference.

"An interim agreement has never been on Iran's agenda, and we have a serious need to reach a qualitative and substantive agreement, and I hope Washington has realized this," he said, adding "obtaining guarantees is very important" to reach a stable and reliable agreement.

Commenting on the status of the talks in Vienna aimed at removing anti-Iran sanctions and restoration of 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he said "good progress" has been made in some areas, and it is important that all parties in Vienna have agreed that the United States should not leave a possible agreement again.

The JCPOA was signed between Iran and the world powers in July 2015. However, the U.S. government under former President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Iran.

In the current talks in Vienna since April 2021, Iran has insisted on obtaining guarantees that the succeeding U.S. governments would not drop the deal again. 
Some states, including those in the West, may take longer than others to reach their peak, despite the number of cases declining nationally and in the first-hit states.

It has taken less than two months for the Omicron coronavirus to spread over the globe and result in a staggering increase in the number of new cases.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Omicron is responsible for more than 99.5 percent of all new infections in the United States at the time of publication. In mid-January, the nation recorded up to 800,000 new cases each day, which was more than three times the number of cases documented at any previous point in the pandemic's history.

Scientists have been putting quite a lot of effort into understanding Omicron. Even though many questions remain unanswered, this is what they have learned thus far.

The omicron wave in the United States may have crested due to a drop in COVID-19 incidences.

It is undeniable that the number of new cases continues to climb and that hospitals in many parts of the country remain overwhelmed. Nonetheless, occurrences are steadily declining, especially in the first hard-hit places such as New York and Massachusetts, and experts think that instances have reached a peak on a national level as well.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the seven-day average number of new cases in the United States decreased from approximately 798,000 on Jan. 15 to about 744,000 on Jan. 19. This is the first drop in cases since mid-December when the highly transmissible omicron variant took hold and cases rose rapidly.

In the words of Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California-San Francisco, "I feel we have reached a tipping point."

While incidences are dropping throughout the country, especially in the hardest-hit regions, experts caution that the United States is a large country, and particular areas, such as Western states like Montana and Wyoming, may take longer to reach their peaks before the epidemic is entirely eradicated.

Additionally, they caution that hospitalizations and deaths may be considered lagging indications, meaning that they may continue to rise for a few weeks after cases have begun to fall. According to the newspaper, according to a tracker maintained by the New York Times, there are a record 160,000 people hospitalized with the condition, with about 2,000 people dying from it every day.

In comparison with Delta, Omicron seems to be a less dangerous virus. According to recent research, people who contracted Omicron infections were less likely than those who had Delta infections to be admitted to the hospital, end up in the critical care unit, or need mechanical ventilation.

Omicron is less likely than previous versions to induce lung harm, which is one possible explanation. When a variation occurs just in the upper respiratory tract, it is more likely to result in a less severe illness in most people. In contrast to Delta, unvaccinated individuals seem to be less likely to be hospitalized when infected with Omicron, which is one evidence of lesser severity.

Omicron is very effective in evading the antibodies produced by vaccination, resulting in the development of new epidemics, even though those who have been vaccinated are still protected from the most severe illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, booster doses of mRNA vaccinations are 90 percent effective in preventing Omicron hospitalization. However, Omicron's apparent mildness may be related to its infecting a far greater number of vaccinated individuals than Delta.

The United States may be in a much better situation in a few weeks, once hospitalizations have had a chance to decline.

Omicron cases are expected to reach a national apex as the Biden administration adopts extra safeguards that experts have been urging for months, including free N95 masks and a website where individuals may seek free rapid testing.

These technologies may become more readily accessible once the worst of the omicron wave has passed.

As William Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, put it, "there's a connection here regarding horses and stable doors." "It was something that should have been done a long time ago."

When the omicron wave passes, Gandhi believes the country will enter a more "endemic" phase of the virus, in which the virus continues to exist but no longer poses a threat to everyday life, and widespread masking and testing among the general public will no longer be necessary, as was the case last year.

Moreover, since such a large number of people would have been exposed to the virus during this wave, the population will have greatly improved immunity as a consequence of the wave, in addition to the protection provided by vaccines and boosters. Instead of being sick, experts underline that it is much better to prevent infection completely and get protection via vaccination and booster shots rather than being sick.

According to Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease specialist, whether or not there will be another significant increase from a new variety in the future will be determined by how well the following variant can avoid the protection that many Americans have developed against the virus in the present.

According to him, the worst-case scenario is "a variant that is so unique that it evades the building of immune protection that we've earned via vaccines and prior infections," which is the most likely scenario.

We must be prepared for the worst, he added. "I hope it doesn't happen; I can't give you a figure on the possibility of that happening," he said. "As a result, we are hoping for the best while preparing for the worse."

More than half of the world might be infected with the omicron strain by the end of March, according to Christopher Murray, head of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, who published his findings in The Lancet this week.

He believes that a combination of this protection, together with targeted vaccinations for new strains and newer antiviral medicines, would result in the virus entering a new phase.

"The era of extraordinary efforts made by governments and society to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 will come to an end," he continues. In the aftermath of the omicron wave, COVID-19 will reemerge, but the pandemic will not.

Over the last few months, experts have advocated for greater vaccination efforts throughout the world as the only way to ensure that a new fatal strain resistant to current vaccines does not emerge in the future.

More than 80 Democratic lawmakers sought $17 billion for global vaccines and other programs to battle the disease in a prospective government budget proposal last month, which will be included in the next government budget package.

This, together with the fact that the omicron variant generally results in less severe disease, has helped prevent a more catastrophic outcome than would have occurred if it had been as awful as the delta form on average.

Are omicron cases close to peaking?
As many of our readers will be well aware, Avro Lancaster B.VII NX611 Just Jane is under restoration to airworthy condition with the Lincoln Aviation Heritage Center at former RAF East Kirkby in Lincolnshire, England. The group has made magnificent progress, even during the pandemic, and we thought that our readers might like to see a recent (edited) report, reproduced here with permission

The Rivet Club  Newsletter 158

by Andrew Panton

We are back from our Christmas break and starting to get back into the swing of restoration work.



Thankfully we received the new wooden forming-blocks which we will use for the production of replacement aluminium formers for KB976s rear fuselage. These wooden blocks are made in two halves, as per the aluminium formers, along with a 4 overlap. The main forming-block is cut from 18mm plywood, with an identical shape cut from 12mm ply to clamp atop the aluminium blank sandwiched between them. This will ensure that the aluminum trapped between the two wooden blocks will not buckle whilst the edges are beaten into shape to create the new former. Under production conditions, aircraft factory workers would typically shape these new formers from aluminium alloy sheet stock in its softest tensile state, i.e. T-0, and then harden the fully-shaped part via solution heat treatment to raise its tensile state to T-3 classification. Production via this technique allows aluminum shapes to be formed with tighter bend radii, since higher tensile strength aluminum, while stronger, is less flexible and can crack if bent too sharply or over-worked. It is also a lot easier to shape aluminum sheet in its softer state as well, but there are obstacles as well, including added expenses from heat treating, time delays and then coping with the potential for adverse deformation during the heat treating process. T-3 aluminum sheet can still be shaped provided all bend radii are larger than the material limits dictate, so we decided to trial-produce formers straight out of T-3 to determine its practicality. We used an offcut of T3 material and shaped it around the forming blocks tightest radius. The trial went very well and did not result in any cracking, so we ordered the appropriate T-3 material for making new formers.

John has been progressing well with NX664s wing now that it is fully secured in the jig. He began working on the wings underside as the new year began, focusing on the number 2 fuel tank bay. The team has started removing the strengthening plates from around the tank bay in order to assess their condition and address any corrosion issues. We will disassemble the tank bays to clean and repair the components. We will also be working on the damaged ribs between the number 2 fuel tank and the wings inboard edge. This cleaning down process is extraordinarily labour intensive, so we plan to move on to a soda blasting process as soon as we can.

We have managed to begin inspecting some of the parts we brought back from the Kent Battle of Britain Museum last summer. The first parts we have cleaned up are the two Hamilton Standard propeller domes. At first glance, we didnt hold out much hope for them, and we certainly wouldnt have bet any money on them being in good condition given their history. In a surprise to us all, and giving us the years first good news, both domes came apart with relative ease and proved to be in very good condition. The rubber seal in the dome mechanism often traps moisture against the dome shell, which then leads to corrosion, however that did not occur in this case; they really do appear to be in excellent shape. We will inhibit them for storage, ready for a propeller overhaul company to more formally inspect the parts for certification.

The oil coolers which we collected from the Kent Battle of Britain Museum have been with Anglia Radiators since we collected them. The company has since inspected, serviced and pressure tested these components and certified them as airworthy! This was a real result for the Centre, and brings us one step closer to completing full set of power plants for the airworthiness project. The coolant radiators we collected and dropped off with Anglia Radiators, however, will need new cores, and this will cost 18,000 per radiator. Although this is an expensive process, it will result in two spare radiators to match the spare oil coolers we now have. Our team should begin working through the first CASA/Heinkel power plant assembly (from the Kent Battle of Britain Museums CASA 2.111) soon and receive the second unit in due course  more news on that soon!



We have received a key component for the Frazer-Nash FN82 rear turret restoration. This is the spun aluminium disk which forms the turrets base. The only remaining part we need for the FN82 is the cast ring which forms part of the mount and rotational mechanism for the turret. We expect another turret update soon and I will publish this when it is available.

Were a little light on news this week, but the rest of the team will arrive soon and we should see some nice progress in all areas as the team get back up to full force.



Stay safe and thanks for your support.



Andrew Panton

Below is the latest video of the restoration work

Thats all for this particular update. We hope that you have enjoyed reading it. As can be seen, a lot of work remains to be done, but the aircraft is well on the way back to flying condition. It is being done in a methodical and careful manner in order to keep the aircraft available for ground-running operations during the summer months. For those interested in helping support this important project, please click HERE

Be sure to check out their store HERE as well There are many cool items to buy which will help get Just Jane back in the air!
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Uncertainties lie ahead for Latin America in 2022, as several countries are about to hold presidential elections and main economies lack development momentum amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

Left-wing parties in Peru and Chile came to power in 2021. As Brazil, Costa Rica and Colombia will hold presidential elections in 2022, whether the region will usher in a new round of left-wing governance has gained much attention.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has once again become the leader of the Workers' Party, and is seen as the most likely candidate for the presidency because of his high political prestige if he runs for the position.

At present, among Costa Rican presidential candidates, Jose Maria Figueres from the left-wing National Liberation Party leads in the polls, while leftist Gustavo Petro in Colombia has the highest support rate now.

Xu Shicheng, an honorary member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that no matter left or right parties take office, they may face difficulties in fully meeting the expectations and demands of voters as the region is faced with haunting pandemic waves and economic downturn.

As the Omicron variant spreads, many Latin American countries, which saw another wave of the pandemic, have tightened their prevention and control measures, such as resuming the "mask order" in public places.

Despite mass vaccination campaigns against COVID-19 in 2021, the continent is still plagued by a shortage of vaccine supplies and low vaccination rates.

According to the Pan American Health Organization, the current vaccination rate in Latin America is about 57 percent, and there are wide disparities between countries, which pose a potential threat to the region.

Noting that Latin American countries are still fighting the pandemic alone without effective regional cooperation, Lu Siheng, an associate researcher with the Institute of Latin American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that countries in the region should enhance cooperation at the sub-regional level and strengthen communication and coordination on jointly formulating action standards and implementing emergency response plans.

On the economic front, Latin America and the Caribbean is expected to grow 6.7 percent in 2021, but the growth is projected to slow to 2.6 percent in 2022 before increasing slightly to 2.7 percent in 2023, according to the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects report.

Experts pointed out that due to the rising external uncertainties and the difficulty in eradicating internal structural problems in the short term, Latin America's economic growth is facing a lack of momentum. In particular, some Latin American countries are confronted with high debt risks, which threatens the economic recovery.

Though trapped in some crisis, Latin America has seen steady growth in its economic and trade cooperation with China, which has injected great impetus into the region's economic development.

According to data released at the 14th China-Latin America Entrepreneurs Summit, trade volume between China and Latin America has reached 331.88 billion U.S. dollars from January to September 2021, a sharp increase of 45.5 percent year-on-year.

Besides, more and more Latin American countries have joined the Belt and Road, hoping to board the express train of China's development. 
Dear Amy: In 2019, after a five-year-long process to make up his mind, my son married a young woman who is the only child of an Indian couple whose own marriage was arranged.

Our daughter-in-law has not embraced our family and doesnt seem interested in interacting with us.

This past Christmas, she mostly kept to herself, doing things on her computer, playing with her dog, or just staying in the guest bedroom while my son hung out with us.

We are a very warm family. Our son and daughter participate, while my daughter-in-law doesnt help in the kitchen at all, avoids hugs, and goes to her bedroom after dinner without a word.

She has no social graces and her behavior, especially toward me, has always been extremely cold and distant.

I am trying not to take it too personally because she is like this with most people of our generation, including in her own family.

She doesnt have a very good relationship with her own mother, and they clashed a lot when organizing the wedding.

The day before they were supposed to return home, my cup was full and some steam escaped in the form of harsh words to my son about her, which she overheard.

Since then, I have written a long email to my son to apologize for my ugly words against the woman he loves.

I also intend to apologize to her after I have been reassured that she will accept my apology. I intend to mention that I do not understand her coldness and hostility toward us.

So far, my son has not replied; its been a week.

Any advice on how to reconnect with them?

 Upset MIL

Dear Upset: You should not wait for assurance that your apology will be accepted before offering one. Nor should you double down and place any blame on the person youve offended.

You should call your son and speak with him about this. Ask him to pass the phone to his wife. Your apology should be direct and sincere: I am so sorry you overheard my harshness at Christmastime. Ive been searching for ways to be closer to you, and this is definitely not the way to go about it. Im very embarrassed and feel absolutely terrible about this. I hope you can forgive me.

If you are unable to do this by phone, you should write directly to her.

Dear Amy: I have a blessed life.

My spouse and I have a wonderful relationship, Im financially secure, and I enjoy going to work every day.

While it may not be truly idyllic, its pretty close.

One of my dear friends life is the complete opposite.

He is still searching for that perfect someone. He hates his job, but isnt able to move, and his current finances are a mess.

When he vents, I listen and give advice when asked.

When he asks how Im doing, my life is pretty positive, and while he says hes happy for me, based on his non-verbal communication, I get a sense that Im taking a screwdriver to his gut and am twisting it.

How do I talk to my friend?

Am I allowed to share news only when its negative?

I dont want to add salt to his wound, but thats what it feels like when I share.

 Wondering

Dear Wondering: First of all, I give your friend credit for actually asking about you!

So often when people vent, they forget to show any interest in the person receiving the vent.

You dont need to hide your own blessings under a bushel, but I do think it is important to read the room.

Ask your friend: How does it feel for you when I share stories about my own good luck when things are going well? I do not want to add to your burdens in any way.

Dear Amy: Methinks you have fallen for an urban myth that the word tip is an acronym for To Insure Promptness. First of all, the word is ensure, not insure.

Its a simple fact check.

 Disappointed

Dear Disappointed: There is a healthy and important debate regarding the use of tips to compensate restaurant workers.

In terms of the acronym, my simple fact check regarding this assertion was borrowed from the New York Times: One [London coffeehouse] frequented by Samuel Johnson had a bowl printed with the words To Insure Promptitude, and some speculate that tip is an acronym for this phrase.

You can email Amy Dickinson at askamy@amydickinson.com or send a letter to Ask Amy, P.O. Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068.

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WATERLOO  One person has been arrested for allegedly shooting at an occupied vehicle Thursday.

Waterloo police arrested Lovelle Cortez Banks Jr., 21, of 306 Mobile St., on Friday for intimidation with a weapon and possession of marijuana with intent to deliver while in possession of a firearm. He was released pending trial.

Authorities allege Banks shot at a vehicle in the 900 block of Cutler Street around 5:24 p.m. Thursday and then followed the vehicle for a distance, according to court records. The vehicle was hit several times, but no major injuries were reported.

Police found spent .40-caliber shell casings at the scene, and footage of the suspects vehicle following the victims vehicle was found on a traffic camera, according to officers.

When police searched Banks home Friday, they found two guns, ammo, a large amount of cash and bags with marijuana residue, according to court records.

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WATERLOO  Four finalists for Waterloo Community Schools next superintendent were announced Monday by the Board of Education.

Darren Hanna, Stephanie Jones, Amy Kortemeyer and Jared Smith will vie for the position after the board interviewed them and two other semi-finalists Wednesday through videoconferencing. Three of the candidates  Hanna, Kortemeyer and Smith  currently work in Iowa. Hanna and Smith previously were employed by Waterloo Schools.

I think they each have a unique perspective, which we were very excited about, Sue Flynn, president of the board, said in an interview. They all have excellent backgrounds and experiences and they were diverse. Were looking forward to meeting them in the formal interview on Thursday.

She added, Theyre all excellent candidates. Were really excited. Its going to be a very difficult choice.

According to a news release from the district, each of them is an approachable leader who possesses a strong background in embracing diversity and inclusiveness, promoting communities of care for students, and recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers and staff. Those are top qualifications sought by the board for the districts next leader.

Darren Hanna serves as superintendent of the Emmetsburg Community Schools, where the news release said he has developed and enacted a comprehensive strategic plan, implemented professional learning communities for staff, and overseen critical technology infrastructure upgrades. He also worked to create and execute a 10-year facilities plan for the district.

Previously, Hanna was director of elementary education for Waterloo Schools from 2015 to 2019. Before that, he was director of instruction and technology for a year in the Mt. Pleasant Community Schools, according to Courier files.

He had worked for Mt. Pleasant Schools since 1989, as a physical education teacher prior to becoming an administrator. He was principal of Wisdom Quest Alternative School and a middle school associate principal before serving as middle school principal from 2002 to 2014.

Hanna holds a masters degree in educational leadership from the University of Iowa and bachelors degree in physical education from the University of Northern Iowa.

Stephanie Jones serves as chief officer in the office of diverse learner supports and services for Chicago Public Schools. In this role, she oversees programs that serve more than 70,000 students in 638 schools. According to the Chicago Schools website, in an earlier stint with the district she was as a special education teacher and case manager at two military academy high schools.

In her current position, she regularly hosts community-based meetings focused on building relationships across the school district, the news release said. Most recently, she facilitated an overhaul of educational operations during the COVID-19 pandemic which included restructuring curriculum, virtual classroom management and co-teaching.

Jones previously served the South Holland School District #151 as director of special services and as the liaison for homeless children and youth. South Holland #151 is a suburban Chicago elementary school district.

The graduate of Chicago Public Schools has a bachelors degree in psychology and masters in special education from Lewis University. She earned her doctorate degree in educational administration from Capella University. Her dissertation was on Association of Professional Learning Communities, Collective Efficacy, and Job Satisfaction Among Teachers.

Amy Kortemeyer is the deputy superintendent of educational services in the Iowa City Community Schools, where she oversees student enrollment, mentors first- and second-year principals, and supervises all teaching and learning in the district. She also helped to create ICCSD Online, a fully accredited online learning program. According to the Iowa City Schools website, she started with the district in 2015 as director of elementary schools before moving into her current position in January 2016.

Kortemeyer previously served as superintendent of the Springville Community Schools and elementary director of teaching and learning in the Linn-Mar Community Schools. Her biography on the Iowa City Schools website said she also worked as a teacher, coach and elementary principal in two other Iowa districts. She started her teaching career in Houston, Texas.

She holds a masters degree in elementary reading/language arts from UNI and a bachelors degree in elementary education from the University of Iowa.

Jared Smith has been the superintendent of the South Tama Community Schools since 2018, according to the districts website. The Waterloo Schools news release said South Tama has become the top district in the state for community engagement via social media under his leadership. He has focused on creating positive work environments for staff, resulting in increased staff culture and climate scores four years in a row.

He is also the author of several books, articles and presentations on various issues related to educational leadership.

Smith previously served as a principal in the Muscatine Community Schools after working in the Waterloo Schools. He was an assistant principal at Waterloos East High School from 2012 to 2016, according to Courier files. He was an assistant principal from 2008 to 2012 at two different Fort Dodge middle schools and before that taught fifth- and sixth-grade in Chicago Public Schools and high school math at a Sarasota, Fla., high school.

Smith holds a doctorate in educational leadership from Iowa State University and a masters degree in educational leadership from National Louis University. He holds a bachelors degree in education from UNI and is a graduate of Waterloos West High School.

The board is seeking a new district leader to replace Superintendent Jane Lindaman, who is retiring. Board members have been working with Grundmeyer Leader Services of Ankeny to conduct the search. The process has included a community-wide survey, asking district residents along with staff to provide their input on the qualities and characteristics they would like to see in the districts next superintendent.

As a next step, the board, district leadership team and two community stakeholder groups will conduct the final interviews Thursday with each of the four candidates. Flynn said the community groups each will include 15-20 people representing stakeholders like business owners, volunteers, community leaders, district staff and retirees, and organizations that partner with the Waterloo Career Center.

The board plans to then discuss the candidates in closed session and reach a final decision soon after the formal interviews. Flynn said the board expects to come into open session to approve offering a contract to one of the finalists. The contract would not be finalized until the chosen candidate has a chance to review the offer and accept it.

The new superintendent will begin serving Waterloo Schools July 1.

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Although she raised 13 times more money than her leading opponent last year, Gov. Kim Reynolds plans to run like shes 10 points behind.

Thats how Ive always run any race that Im in, Reynolds said when asked about her most recent campaign finance report showing she has $4.8 million cash on hand compared with Democrat Deidre DeJears $8,500.

Reynolds was elected Clarke County treasurer four times and served a term in the Iowa Senate before being elected lieutenant governor in 2011. She became governor when Gov. Terry Branstad resigned in May 2017, and she was elected to a full term in 2018.

Reynolds hasnt officially announced shes running for re-election, but she has a campaign staff and is raising money and making campaign appearances.

However, during a Thursday visit to Van Meter, a wholesale electrical distributor in Cedar Rapids, she insisted that for the time being she is focused on the legislative agenda she laid out in her Condition of the State address earlier this month.

I think it continues the momentum that weve seen in Iowa over the last three to four years, she said. Were going to focus really hard on getting that agenda done and helping Iowans succeed, grow prosperity and opportunities across the entire state.

DeJear, a Des Moines businesswoman, says the state can do better if Iowans elect new leadership this fall.

Weve seen the politicization of so many issues in the last five years of this administration, and none of that has served the best interests of Iowans, she said.

However, DeJear acknowledged the money disadvantage she faces  the fuel that keeps us going, she said a fundraising appeal Thursday evening.

Defeating an incumbent is challenging because of how much money they are able to raise. Kim Reynolds has the entire MAGA GOP establishment backing her, DeJear said, a reference to former President Donald Trumps Make America Great Again campaign theme.

When she shifts her focus to the campaign, Reynolds believes she has a good story to take to voters.

Im proud of the progress that Iowans have made in the last several years  through a two-year pandemic, two derechos, floods, tornadoes. Through all of that, weve continued to be able to grow and expand, she said.

Its a testament to Iowans and our businesses, our small business owners, our educators, just everybody that has really come together over the last several years with everything that we faced, the governor said. Were coming out. Were in a really good position to continue to grow.

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The world changed with the first news of a mysterious virus suspected to have originated in a China. An unexpected perfect storm was on the horizon. News of COVID-19 elbowed its way into our consciousness along with a failed impeachment trial in January and February of 2020. Politicians were girding for a presidential election, and with that, this societal perfect storm needed only a lit fuse.

The Memorial Day killing of George Floyd lit that fuse. The anticipated opportunity for legitimate and peaceful protests was not to be. Legitimate much-needed reform efforts were kicked aside by anarchists and thugs. The stage was stolen by violence, looting, and destruction.

Lets connect some dots.

Fear, the most powerful human emotion, gripped many state and local governments. Law enforcement was told to stand down in the foolish and futile hope of letting angry emotions burn out. But violence raged for months, and in many communities it continues still. Despite a spiking crime rate, many radicals were inclined to label the violence and destruction as somehow virtuous, and defund the police movements gained popularity.

Old-fashioned tolerance has been radicalized into intolerance and identity politics. And there is a new all-encompassing word to describe it  wokeness. People are afraid of speaking out because disagreement or debate isnt tolerated. For some, differences of opinion are treated like personal offenses. Intimidation and fear are incompatible with freedom and make it impossible for philosophical opponents to work together. And we learned another new word  cancellation. This new cancel cultures success was nurtured by societys fear.

New ideologies led radicalized leftists to conclude that they know better than some old white guys who founded our country; better than those whose statues adorn our parks; and are certainly better informed than those whove written our history books. Rather than working to fix our many flaws, their appetite for chaos would have us start over as a society and country  surely a doomsday choice.

Eventually, the joy found in destroying historical relics and statues deteriorated. Attention turned to new destructive exploits. Leftist district attorneys are displaying an appetite for removing criminal accountability. For example, many jurisdictions no longer enforce shoplifting or loitering statutes. And the habit of catch and release with little or no bail is common, even for serious crimes. These measures seem intoxicating to woke folk.

Some radicals even support releasing much of the prison population. They believe leniency and compassion will reduce crime. Rather, we see new and ever more bold crimes, including a smash-and-grab pandemic and fearless car jackings.

Who would have imagined that Americans would be arguing about enforcing law and order? Law enforcement is receding as violence and other crimes increase. Im frustrated that some see justifiable purpose in the destructiveness and actions of cancellation. And Im saddened by the permanence of so much of the destruction.

Hopefully, the radical movement to achieve what theyve labeled as criminal justice reform will burn itself out. Lets bring an end to the time that opposition to lawlessness is labeled white supremacy. We should no longer find chat rooms and letters to the editor discussing ways to dodge violence and about where to find safety.

Gone should be the time that true crime is falsely labeled as an elite construct for preserving white privilege. Petty crime should no longer be accepted as an unavoidable reality of urban living. Lets think once again about character and not just about skin color. True criminals should no longer be considered unfortunate victims. Lets bring back responsibility, accountability, and enforced rules of law.

Public safety requires rules and stability. Think about the things that keep us safe and secure. How can we have a nation, or culture, and how can we be called a civilization, without them? Begone fear, uncertainty, confusion, and societal division.

Steve Bakke is a Courier subscriber living in Fort Myers, Fla. He is a retired CPA and commercial finance executive.

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Iowans share the desire to live in communities where our children attend schools that prpare them well to live, work, and raise their children. The condition of Iowas roads and bridges directly impacts Iowans quality of life, opportunities, future economic growth, and safety. Iowa infrastructure is a nonpartisan issue.

The Iowa DOT has reported that Iowa leads the nation with the most structurally deficient bridges in America. The new federal infrastructure spending will prioritize repairs for those roads and bridges in farming communities and in underserved neighborhoods in urban communities.

With the economic restructuring underway, Gov. Kim Reynolds and the Legislature need to embrace federal and state initiatives that unlock the value of the untapped economic potential of neighborhood central business districts. Investing in infrastructure should not be a partisan issue.

In this 2022 legislative session, elected officials need to be accountable -- engaging in every community they represent, regardless of party. One such opportunity would be Empower Northend in Waterloo.

It is our moment to create a more perfect union: In Iowa, everyone counts, regardless of social demographics. By investing in Iowa, history will report that not only did we answer the call to serve, but we did it well.

Terrance Hollingsworth, Waterloo

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Interesting: Since Russia has no idea, no desire and no care to invade Ukraine.unless someone else starts it all first and it is looking real serious in the Ukraine attacking Donbass at the whim of USA desires.

On January 23, 2022, the Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees (USDH) and ordered the departure of eligible family members (EFM) from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action. U.S. citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options. There are reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine. The security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv. U.S. citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine would severely impact the U.S. Embassys ability to provide consular services, including assistance to U.S. citizens in departing Ukraine. For more information, please review what the U.S. government can and cannot do to assist you in a crisis overseas. The Department asks all U.S. citizens in Ukraine to complete an online form so that we may better communicate with you. This is especially important if you plan to remain in Ukraine. Source: Ukraine Travel Advisory

Really tired of the lies and this is just one more game played by a dying empire and I am noticing that the US Admin is getting testy at people telling that the USA is collapsing

Dying Empires get really Grumpy!

WtR
News from Our Alums

Sally Anton has been enjoying her full-time job at the State of Missouri Welcome Center in Eagleville, which includes the opportunity to travel around the state to different towns and cities and to explore the different attractions advertised at the Welcome Center. She wrote to Dr. Hall that she had been teaching and would miss it, since she felt "like I was just getting into it, but I have been hoping for a career with the state since before I graduated, so I am happy with this offer."

Sally graduated with her M.A. in History from WIU in Fall 2007, after earning her BA in History, with honors, in Spring 2006. For several summers she worked at the Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site, where she engaged in research for the museum, designed a temporary display, and prepared for and performed in a living history presentation. Through her experience at the Mark Twain Historic Site, she discovered the historical sources concerning Twain's life that she used in writing her first published article, "'A Man Enjoys Every Foot of It': Mark Twain and the West," recently published in Journal of the West 47 (Spring 2008): 62-69.

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TAIPEI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan on Monday reported 51 new COVID-19 cases, among which 15 are local infections and 36 are imported, the island's disease monitoring agency told a press briefing.

Among the local cases, eight were reported in the city of Kaohsiung, four in Yilan County and three in Taoyuan City, the agency said.

In light of the recent rise in local infections, the disease monitoring agency has announced a two-week extension of the current Level-2 COVID-19 alert to Feb. 7.

Stringent anti-epidemic rules have also been announced. Starting Monday, visits to hospitalized patients or people in long-term residential care facilities will be banned unless for emergency.

To date, Taiwan has confirmed 18,376 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, including 14,918 locally-transmitted infections. 
News from Our Alums

Jesse Burrow writes that he now lives in Maui, Hawaii, where he works as a community-based provider for Easter Seals. He substitute teaches for Maui schools as much as possible and can't get enough "Aloha!"

Before moving to Hawaii, he taught night school for Illinois students who had been kicked out of day school and keep busy with substitute teaching in several districts and tutoring at the Huntington Learning Center, with students from 5th grade up to the college level.

More News from Our Alums
News from Our Alums

Mike Ciletti is ABD ("All But Dissertation") at Western Michigan Universitys Ph.D. program in History. Hes hard at work on his dissertation, which is entitled, "Go Ahead and Be an American: Pauline Byrd Johnson and the African-American Community of Kalamazoo, Michigan in the Twentieth Century." Pauline Johnson (1905-1989) was a writer, teacher, and community activist whose personal struggles in many ways mirrored the struggles of the community in which she lived. She was a racial trailblazer, the first African-American woman to attend Kalamazoo College, attending graduate school at both the University of Chicago and NYU (in the 1920s!) and later became the first African-American schoolteacher in the city of Kalamazoo. She became known as the "Lone Wolf" during her career as a columnist for newspapers and for the Christian Science Monitor, because of the cutting attacks she unleashed on her opponents during the fight over school busing in the 60s and 70s. Hed love to hear from friends from his days at WIU.

More News from Our Alums
News from Our Alums

Irene Herold , Dean of the Library at Keene State College in New Hampshire, is a doctoral candidate in Simmons Colleges Ph.D. program in Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions (in Boston, Massachusetts). She is now deep into her dissertation work, on top of her full-time job.

She shared a link to her work as one of New Hampshire's two delegates to the Vision 2020 national project on Women & Leadership. In addition, she recently had an article in the Keene State Today magazine. Plus, her article, "Digital Archival Image Collections: Who Are the Users?," has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian (vol. 29, no. 4, 2010, pp. 267-282).

Her son is almost sixteen, a sophomore in high school, in honors classes and doing extremely well. Her husband continues to teach high school World Studies. After the dissertation, Irene may develop a course on women inventors for Keene State's general education programs topic-based first-year thinking and writing curriculum.

More News from Our Alums
News from Our Alums

Major John Nawoichyk continues to serve overseas in the U.S. Army as the Logistics Advisor for the US Military Training Mission/Joint Advisory Division in

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Most recently he writes that he "was in Estonia for an international military simulations conference at their National Defense University (NDU). It was a really interesting trip. Tallinn, the capital city, is a walled Medieval city. Tartu, where the NDU is located, is an old university town. So of course, during my free time I explored both places. In addition, the attendees were really an interesting group of people: there was an officer from Azerbaijan who fought with the Soviets during the Afghan War, officers from Croatia who had been many of the same places I had been in Bosnia, a Bulgarian Colonel who had been stationed at the then Soviet base where the conference was held at, and the Estonian host had been a conscript in the Soviet Army. The combination of the place and the people made it a great conference." Major John highly recommends visiting Estonia, if you ever get the chance.

Some time ago he attended a staff ride to the site of the Battle of Yamama (632 A.D.) with the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces Staff College Joint Professional Military Education Level II students, all of whom were senior officers in the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces and the British Defense Attache. The Battle of Yamama was part of a series of battles conducted after the Prophet died in order to solidify the Muslims' hold on the area. Maj. Nawoichyk also recently attended a Central Command conference in Cairo.



Maj. Nawoichyk with Admiral Ahmed, a Saudi Naval Officer. They are standing in front of a former police station built by King Abdul Aziz Al Saud in the 1920s as he began to establish the country of Saudi Arabia (which became a nation in 1932).

Maj. Nawoichyk (2nd from right) with the British Defense Attache, Commander Mushareff (Saudi Naval Officer), and Commander Miller (US Navy Advisor)

Briefing at the site of the enemy camp at the Battle of Yamama.





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Dr. J. Q. Adams, Educational and Interdisciplinary Studies, has conducted interviews with scholars and activists whose work has advanced the understanding of cultural diversity in the USA. Each of the interviewees offers insights into diversity based on their research and experience.

Rev. C. T. Vivian (SpeakOutNow.org)

Rev. Vivian: Nonviolence is the only alternative to violence in our time. Quoting Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass): Every struggle makes a greater struggle necessary. Thats a deep truth.

Rev. C. T. Vivian, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses his participation in the Civil Rights Movement: lunch-counter sit-ins in Peoria, IL and Rock Hill, SC; seminary studies and nonviolent direct action training in Nashville, TN; the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Wade-in in St. Augustine, FL; Freedom Rides through the South and imprisonment in the State Penitentiary in Jackson, MS.

Rev. Vivian speaks of civil rights leaders with whom he worked, including Rev. Martin Luther King. Rev. James Shuttlesworth, Rev. James Bevel, Dr. James Farmer, and Rev. James Lawson, and others in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He also speaks passionately of nonviolence as the only viable means to effect social justice, of the preparation and motivation that prevented fear from ever becoming a factor in his quest for racial equality, and of the necessity for strong, in-depth education in the development of leaders who understand and embrace nonviolence as the response to violence.

Dr. Ronald Takaki

Dr. Takaki: I think America is coming to terms with [its cultural] diversity. America is recognizing that diversity has become Americas Manifest Destiny.

Dr. Ronald Takaki, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams in Berkeley, CA, discusses a wide range of topics from a multicultural perspective: his upbringing in Hawaii, undergraduate studies at the College of Wooster in Ohio, graduate studies in history at the University of California, Berkeley, the first Black history course at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1967, the comparative ethnic studies program and the multicultural requirement for graduation at UC, Berkeley, his multicultural history of the United States of America, A Different Mirror, and the ongoing research prompted by his commitment to multicultural history based on the personal accounts, the personal stories, of real people.

Professor Takaki discusses his admiration for Dr. Martin Luther King and his interest in the Mississippi Freedom Summer and its 1964 voter registration drive, in slavery and the roots of racial hatred, in the critical contributions of African American Union soldiers during the Civil War, in the WWII internment of Japanese in the USA, the 1965 Watts rebellion, and the governments contemporary detainment and deportation of Muslims. As important are his insights on comparative studies, integrated, interdisciplinary approaches to education, critical thinking, epistemology (knowing how we know what we know), race/ethnicity, cultural diversity, assimilation, colorblindness, equality, and the master narrative of US history.

Dr. Maulana Karenga (Dept. of Africana Studies, California State University, Long Beach, 562-985-5620)

Dr. Karenga: There is no alternative to sharing the world we all live in.

Dr. Maulana Karenga, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at the African American Cultural Center in Los Angeles, California, tells the story of his evolution from the Civil Rights Movement (1955-1965), through the Black Power Movement (1965-1975), to an increasingly inclusive and complex understanding of liberation movements throughout the world. In doing so, he mentions some of the leaders who influenced him, including Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Rev. Martin Luther King, Elijah Muhammad, leader of the American-based Nation of Islam, and Malcolm X, a disciple of Elijah Muhammad who later rejected the Nation of Islam and its separatist doctrine. Dr. Karenga goes on to explain his study of African ethics and the philosophy to which it led. That philosophy, Kawaida, sees culture as the foundation of a peoples identity and purpose and seeks, through continuous dialogue, the best of what it means to be both African and human in the fullest sense.

Kawaida has influenced Dr. Karengas exploration of multiculturalism and of African and African American histories and cultures. It has led as well to his deepening understanding of how critical mutual respect and an ethics of sharing are to genuine multiculturalism. While recognizing that ethical values and truth are inevitably rooted in specific cultures, he indicates that being deeply rooted in ones own culture enables one to search for commonalities among cultures and to embrace an ethics of sharing that values everyone. Though his analysis of multiculturalism and human potential are overwhelmingly positive, he does not ignore the problem of racism; he sees it as a violent imposition, an ideology, and an institutional arrangement that perpetuates inequality.

Mr. Tim Wise (SpeakOutNow. Org)

Mr. Wise on colorblindness: If you say you dont notice color, A. I dont believe you, but B. even if you are telling me the truth, the problem is that kids in your class are experiencing color. I mean theyre experiencing what it is to be black or to be Latino.

Mr. Tim Wise, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, identifies himself as an educator, writer, and activist whose work revolves around race relations, racism, anti-racism, and institutional racism, discrimination, and white privilege. These are the issues he and Dr. Adams explore in this interview; they do so initially as the issues play out in P-12 and higher education. From these perspectives Wise discusses colorblindness, white flight and its impact on student populations, the role of school principals in strengthening the learning of all students, Affirmative Action and white preferences, and the opportunities college offers students who are open to deepening their understanding of their own identities while learning about the cultural identities of others.

Mr. Wise also discusses the fears many whites have of losing their culture in an increasingly multicultural world, a fear exacerbated by what he describes as a perfect storm of racial anxiety brought on by the election of the first USA president of color, an economic meltdown, a demographic transition moving the population from majority white to majority people of color, and a multicultural popular culture. He cautions against racist thinking based on good-bad divisions and on exceptionalism (identified primarily as whites recognizing the abilities and accomplishments of some people of color while maintaining a sense of superiority over most), and he points out the necessity of recognizing the limited lens with which each person views the world. Wise prefers agency to hope, given that hope can remain passive while agency demands action.

Dr. Heather Hackman (www.hackmanconsultinggroup.org)

Dr. Hackman: [A] social justice framework looks at critical thinking; it looks at issues of power and privilege, and in terms of issues of race, . . . it asks questions not just how racism targets folks of color but also asks how white people benefit.

Dr. Heather Hackman, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses her work as a faculty member in the Human Relations and Multicultural Education Department at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and as a workshop facilitator whose primary interest is social justice education. Though aware of the value of diversity education and cultural competence that revolve around the awareness and appreciation of cultural difference and cultural values, Dr. Hackman stresses the importance of social justice in education. When social justice is the goal, educators and students probe more deeply into the historical events and decisions that form the contradictory foundations of the USA, most notably, its democratic ideals and its disenfranchisement of whole segments of its population, including women and people of color.

A social justice framework demands critical thinking: exploration of issues from multiple non-dominant perspectives, rigorous self-reflection, and examination of power and privilege, liberation and oppression. It encompasses a study of the construction of race, of whiteness, and of white privilege. As important: a social justice framework inspires empathy and action. Dr. Hackmans perspective on education and history has been influenced by many scholars and activists, including Paulo Friere, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities, and Waziyatawin, who wrote What Does Justice Look Like? One of the resources Dr. Hackman has found valuable in her teaching is the California Newsreel/PBS documentary series RaceThe Power of an Illusion.

Dr. Shakti Butler (world-trust.org)

Dr. Butler: [T]his drive to be human, this drive to grow, this drive to learn and change is alive and well, and I refuse to believe otherwise.

Dr. Shakti Butler, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses her work as a filmmaker and educator who explores issues of oppression, primarily through the lens of race. Her films include The Way Home: Women Talk About Race in America,a distillation of eight months of discussions among 64 women who came together to examine their own and others' perceptions and attitudes about their identities and their place/s in society; Light in the Shadows, in which a small group of women continues the conversation chronicled in The Way Home; and Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, which brings together a number of educators, who are white, to discuss white privilege . Like all of her films, her most recent, Cracking the Codes: The System of Racial Inequity, invites viewers to examine the system of racism and white privilege in the USA, in this instance as it permeates personal beliefs and values as well as the societal structures that continue to perpetuate it.

In her interview with Dr. Adams she speaks of colorblindness as a way to undercut the relevance of race by eliminating the language that makes race visible. Her films, as well as books such as Clarence Lusanes The Black History of the White House and Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow, counter this by demonstrating how race not only played a role in history but impacts contemporary life. She also addresses the issue of individualism as an unexamined and often invisible USA value that glosses over persistent disparities within the country. Her work puts her in touch with a wide range of young people, with Spoken Word artists, with conscious hip hop artists, and with activists who are using a variety of organizational methods and approaches to make a difference in their particular areas of interest.

Dr. Pedro Noguera (Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development, New York University, pedro.noguera@nyu.edu)

Dr. Noguera on the Achievement Gap: At the most fundamental level the achievement gap is about inequality. It is an educational manifestation of social inequality.

Dr. Pedro Noguera, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, focuses on the need to eliminate the achievement gap experienced primarily by students of color, particularly black male students. He sees it as an allocation gap and a preparation gap as well as a gap between parents and teachers, between teachers and students, and between ability and performance. In discussing this multifaceted issue, he repeatedly comes back to the central role relationships play in education and the needon the part of teacher education programs--to prepare teachers to establish bonds of trust and respect between themselves and their students. As an essential and integral aspect of teaching, establishing relationships demands teachers understand their students cultures and meet them where they are rather than vice versa. To accomplish this, teachers must listen to their students and colleagues, enter into dialogue with them, and, as Paulo Freire advocated, maintain open minds.

Defining education as a civil rights issue, Dr. Noguera identifies the responsibilities the federal government, state governments, teachers unions, school boards, and local administrators have to ensure quality education for all children. He is confident we know how to educate all kinds of people and is able to give examples of successful schools even among those most frequently stereotyped as likely-to-fail (schools in the Brownsville, TX school district and PS138 in New York City), but he can also identify the biggest obstacle to comprehensive quality education: politics.

Dr. James A. Banks (Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle, jbanks@uw.edu)

Dr. Banks on the challenge of education: How do we prepare students . . . to live in a world where theres shared dominance and shared coalitions and where decisions are made not by just Western nations?

Dr. James A. Banks, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, chronicles his professional evolution from African American studies to ethnic studies to multicultural education and his increasing interest in cultural diversity as it plays out globally as well as nationally. Widely recognized as the Father of Multicultural Education, he has focused many of his publications, most specifically the Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education, the four-volume Encyclopedia of Multicultural Education, and the Multicultural Education Series he edits for Teachers College Press, to help institutionalize the field of study. He allows that it is always a struggle, given the hegemony that persists despite a growing population of people of color whose presence is essential for the continuing vitality of the USA.

Dr. Banks points out that nations tend to resist change until it is in their best interest to change. The USA is no exception. Up to now, the USA has been able to survive well asserting its hegemonic perspective in global contexts and to prosper as a predominantly monolingual nation, but the growth in prominence and power of other countries is repositioning the USA vis a vis the dominance it has exercised. Greater diversity within the country as well as increased power sharing among nations reinforces the need for educators to teach students to be flexible and to think deeply as they encounter an increasingly diverse nation and world. The challenge for educators is to help create a world in which people enjoy flexible citizenship and can move in and out of a world characterized by multiple hegemonies, coalitions, and shared decision making.

Dr. Paul Gorski (New Century College, George Mason University, pgorski1@gmu.edu

Dr. Gorski: I think we need to take the schools back [from corporate interests] and I think the best way to do that is to work with local communities.

Dr. Paul Gorski, in this interview with Dr. J. Q. Adams at Western Illinois University, discusses the necessity to replace a deficit model of education with a greater focus on critical inquiry and equity. He describes the deficit model as one that identifies students and teachers as problems within the educational system, blaming them for lack of progress or success and shifting attention from inequitable educational opportunities to inaccurate cultural stereotypes. Because he sees this deficit model as favoring corporate interests and an attempt to shift education from public community responsibility to private control and profit, he reframes the discussion about educational reform around an understanding of equity literacy, challenging educators to recognize inequity within the system and to redress this inequity in the long as well as the short term.

Dr. Gorski points out that, though educational leaders themselves must value critical thinking before they can expect teachers and students to make it a priority, critical analysis, especially when it leads to challenges to the system, is not rewarded on the educational track to leadership. Aware of this, he is attempting to bridge the gap between scholarly analysis and pragmatic demands through his writing. As important, however, is building community among all segments of the educational world, including teachers, students, and parents. Increasingly this has become the focus of his work, organizing people around interrelated social justice issues, whether these are identified primarily as economic, environmental, or educational.
Weather Alert

...MORE WINDY DAYS ON THE WAY, WITH COLDER TEMPERATURES AND RAIN/SNOW SHOWERS FOR MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND... --Thursday and Friday-- * A pair of systems brushing through the region will bring gusty winds both days, with Friday looking to have the strongest peak winds. Anticipate wind gusts of 35-45 mph Thursday, and 35-55 mph Friday, locally stronger in wind prone locations. Winds will bring travel difficulties both in the air and on the ground. Travel restrictions for high profile vehicles are possible. Check with CalTrans/NDOT for the current road information. * Area of blowing dust are possible both afternoons downwind of the Carson Sink, possibly affecting portions of I-80, US 50, and Highway 95. In addition, backcountry and ski recreation could be impacted along with choppy conditions on area lakes. * A few light showers with minimal liquid totals are possible in far northern Nevada and northeast California. --Mother's Day Weekend into Early Next Week-- * It will remain breezy throughout the weekend, with a secondary max in wind speeds on Sunday due to a strong cold front. This front will usher in a much colder air mass and high temperatures on Mother's Day will be 15-20 degrees below normal. * There will be rain and snow showers with the front, but again, liquid amounts will be minimal. There are solid chances for snow levels to fall to all valley floors by Sunday evening, which may catch many off guard, though it is hard to get snow to stick to roadways in lower elevation valleys this late in the spring. * Well below normal temperatures and chances for light showers will continue into Monday and Tuesday next week. While still some uncertainty due to winds and cloud cover, it's possible we could have frost and freeze concerns Sunday and Monday nights.
BEIRUT, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon's Foreign Ministry on Monday condemned Yemeni Houthi militia's missile attacks on the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a statement, the ministry expressed Lebanon's "solidarity with the brotherly UAE leadership and people, in the face of any attack on its sovereignty, security, stability and territorial integrity."

On Monday, the UAE Ministry of Defense announced that its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthi militia aimed against the UAE. No casualties were reported as a result of the attack.

Soon after the attacks, the UAE ministry announced that a ballistic missile launcher in Yemen's Al Jawf governorate was destroyed.

The latest exchange of fire came after a Houthi attack on the UAE on Jan. 17, during which three petroleum tankers burst into a fire near Abu Dhabi National Oil Company storage facilities in the UAE capital. Three persons were killed and six others injured in the attack.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the Jan. 17 attack in the UAE, an active member of the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen. 
If you find yourself ready to socialize indoors again, you're in luck. This week holds many ways18 in factto enjoy your time around the Bay.

Head to Napa for Cooking with Comedians or a vineyard hike. Get your art fix with Edith Heath: A Life in Clay at OCMA, see the murals that brightened up our 'hood during shelter-in-place under one roof, and catch Oakland-based tattoo and textile artist Chris Martin's pop-up installation at ICA.

Plus, there are plenty of in-person, virtual, and hybrid ways to celebrate Lunar New Year around SF.

See you out there.





When it opens in the fall, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) promises to become a central hub for art in San Francisco. Until then, head to the unfinished building for Meantime, a series of artful pop-ups and programs. See Oakland-based tattoo and textile artist Chris Martin's installation "Ancient as Time," which sparks dialogue about the Black experience in the American South via soft sculptures and large tapestries emblazoned with bold typography and rebranded archetypal imagery; through April 16th. // ICA San Francisco, 901 Minnesota St. (Dogpatch),icasanfrancisco.org





Bring your whole pack for Barks & Brews trivia night. Your $10 donation benefits the Family Dog Rescue, plus you'll get a beer on the house; 4pm to 6pm Thursday. // Temescal Brewing, 4115 Telegraph Ave. (Oakland); tickets at eventbrite.com





Get your daily dose of shrooms at Cal Academy NightLife's Fungus Among Us. Get your hands dirty in a mushroom cultivation workshop, learn about the personal and planetary healing of fungi, and more; 6pm to 10pm Thursday. // California Academy of Sciences, 55 Music Concourse Dr. (Golden Gate Park), calacademy.org





Ain't no party like a dumpling party, especially one that includes wine. Head to Holman Ranch tasting room for a hands-on sweet and savory dumpling-making class paired with Holman Ranch wines; Thursday, 5pm to 7pm. // Holman Ranch Tasting Room, 18 W Carmel Valley Rd. (Carmel); tickets at tock.com

Chop it up with Napa Valley chefs and comic Paco Romane at Cooking with Comedians. Get your LOLs in while learning culinary tips and enjoying a four-course farm to fork dinner; Friday at 6:45pm. // Vista Collina Resort, 850 Bordeaux Way (Napa); tickets at crushersofcomedy.com.





Rihyonce: Name a more iconic duo, we'll wait. Get down to the sounds of Queen Bey and Bad Gal RiRi all night long; Friday at 10pm. // Oasis, 298 11th St. (SoMa); tickets at eventbrite.com





Seize the day with a 1.5-mile vineyard hike followed by sun salutations, stretching exercises, breath work, and meditation. Bonus points for panoramic Wine Country views; Saturday at 9am. // The Meritage Resort & Spa, 875 Bordeaux Way (Napa); tickets at cellarpass.com.





Pour one out at Luka's Farewell Weekend. Beloved Oakland institution Luka's Taproom & Lounge has been slinging comfort food for nearly two decades. Now it's time to let it go, on the dance floor with a strong drink; Friday through Saturday. // Lukas Taproom & Lounge, 2221 Broadway (Oakland); details at facebook.com

Celebrate the Year of the Tiger.Classic events like the Chinatown night parade, the Flower Market Fair, and the 44th Lunar New Year Run make their IRL return to SF this weekend. Restaurants, too, are are serving special holiday menus for onsite dining and takeout this week through mid-February; // Details at 7x7.com





Ride your wheels of choice down to Golden Gate Park for a lighted bike parade. Prizes will be awarded for most creative light displays; Saturday, 5pm to 7pm. // Peacock Meadow, 240 John F. Kennedy Dr (Golden Gate Park); details at sanfranciscoparksalliance.org

Learn how to preserve and frame your own insects with a butterfly spreading workshop with our favorite curators of all things odd and exotic. You'll learn step-by-step how to hydrate, spread, and pin a butterfly or moth to take home; Saturday at 10am. // Paxton Gate, 766 Valencia St. (Mission), paxtongate.com





Experience some not-so-average psychedelic puppet music for yourself. Supergroup of musical magical weirdos The Fungineers are taking over The Great Northern; Saturday, 9:30pm to 2am. // The Great Northern, 119 Utah St. (SoMa); tickets at eventbrite.com





Celebrate the Lunar New Year in the East Bay, at Jack London Square, where the festivities will include lion dancers, Year of the Tiger mask-making, and exciting giveaways; Saturday, 1pm to 3pm. // Broadway Plaza , 98 Broadway (Oakland, jacklondonsquare.com.

Discover the origins of Heath Ceramics' signature dishes and homewares through historic objects, photographs, documentary video, and personal memorabilia at Oakland Museums much anticipated exhibit, Edith Heath: A Life in Clay; Saturday through October 30th. // OMCA, 1000 Oak St. (Oakland); tickets at museumca.org





Silver lining to yet another Covid-lurking start to the year? Sundance Film Festival is going virtual. Break out the microwave popcorn, mix yourself something nice from the bar cart, and take advantage of a rare opportunity to watch film premieres, attend talks, discuss projects with fellow film fans, and more; through Sunday. // festival.sundance.org





Celebrate the mural artists who enlivened boarded-up storefronts during shelter in place. The City Canvas: A Paint the Void Retrospective features 49 murals that were painted across SF in early 2020. Enjoy the collection along with food and drinks, a playlist curated by Fault Radio, and even purchase a piece of your own; Thursday through Saturday. // Pier 70, 588 22nd St. (Dogpatch), pier70sf.com





Sundays just got a little less scary with the debut of Chef Heena Patel's supper series. Leela's Sunday Night Khichdi Supper Club is inspired by Patel's mother, Leela, and cozy family dinners from her childhood. It is the perfect way to gather with friends and family for a moment of connection before the week ahead. // Besharam Restaurant, 1275 Minnesota St. (Dogpatch); reservations at tock.com
2. Make a family plan

Discuss caregiving matters with all involved members of your family. Put in writing who will be responsible for which caregiving roles  and have all parties sign.

This is not a legal document, but it will help keep peace within the family by making everyone's role clear. The biggest precursor of legal problems is bad communication, Sabatino says.

3. Organize important papers

Most people don't realize how many legal documents they already have, or how many they will need for matters that arise. Important ones include:

birth certificate

marriage certificate

divorce decree

citizenship papers

death certificate of a spouse or parent

power(s) of attorney

deeds to property

deeds to cemetery plots

military discharge papers

insurance policies

pension benefits

Organize these documents into files that are easy to navigate.

4. Explore potential financial help

Investigate public benefits such as:

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), monthly payments for people unable to work due to a serious medical condition

Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a safety-net benefit for older, disabled and blind people with very limited income and assets

Medicare, the federal health-care program for people age 65 and older



Medicaid, the federal health-care program for low-income individuals and families

Veterans benefits, including financial support for caregivers of former service members

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps)

Online tools like AARP Foundation's Local Assistance Directory and the National Council on Aging's Benefits Checkup can help you find local, state and federal programs you qualify for.

Also, examine your loved one's insurance and retirement plans, including (where applicable) life insurance, disability coverage, pension benefits, long-term care insurance and workplace health insurance. See whether any of them cover home health visits, skilled nursing, mental health services, or physical therapy and other short-term assistance.

If you need to take a leave of absence from your job to care for a loved one, you may be entitled to up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Some employers offer paid family leave, and seven states (California, Connecticut Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Washington) and the District of Columbia mandate paid leave for caregiving. Oregon and Colorado are set to follow suit in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

5. Look for tax breaks and life insurance deals

Your family member may be able to claim federal tax deductions for many health care costs, including a hospital bed or wheelchair; out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance; remodeling the home to make it accessible; and hiring a short-term or part-time home health aide to provide respite for the main caregiver. Save receipts for medical expenses.

Also, find out whether your loved one has a life insurance policy that makes accelerated death payments to help pay for long-term care.

6. Think beyond your loved one

If a parent passes away or becomes unable to take care of people who depended on them, you may need to take on additional caregiving roles. This includes assuming responsibility for adult children with special needs. Make sure that child gets every available benefit, such as SSDI, local and state disability, special education programs and transportation assistance.

You may also need to assume oversight of benefits of the surviving spouse, too, by making sure he or she is the beneficiary of your loved one's IRA, bank account, life insurance policy and pension benefits. Your loved one may have also made a plan for pets in their will and set aside money to pay for their care.

Editor's note: This article, published Oct. 23, 2020, has been updated with additional information on public benefit programs and new information on states with paid family leave policies.
The Biden administration is in the final stages of identifying specific military units it wants to send to Eastern Europe and writing up the military orders in an effort to deter Russia, according to multiple US and defense officials, and pictured President Joe Biden, on January 19, in Washington, DC.
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso  Gunfire rang out late Sunday near the home of Burkina Fasos embattled President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, raising the specter that a military coup might still be under way after mutinous soldiers seized a military base earlier in the day.

Government officials had sought to reassure people that the situation was under control even as shots rang out for hours at the army base. But by days end anti-government protesters supporting the mutineers also had set fire to a building belonging to Kabores party.

It was not immediately known whether Kabore was at home but several people in the area told The Associated Press that in addition to gunfire they could hear helicopters hovering overhead.

A mutinous soldier also told AP by phone that heavy fighting was under way near the presidential palace, a claim that could not immediately be independently corroborated.

Sundays mutiny came one day after the latest public demonstration calling for Kabores resignation as anger has mounted over the governments handling of the Islamic insurgency. Anti-government protesters lent public support to the mutinous soldiers, prompting security forces to use tear gas to disperse crowds in the capital.

The West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS, which already has suspended Mali and Guinea in the past 18 months over military coups, issued a statement of support for Burkina Fasos embattled president and urged dialogue with the mutineers.

Defense Minister Aime Barthelemy Simpore told state broadcaster RTB that a few barracks had been affected by unrest not only in the capital of Ouagadougou but in other cities, too. He denied, however, that the president had been detained by the mutineers, even though Kabores whereabouts remained unknown.

Well, its a few barracks. There are not too many, Simpore said. In some of these barracks, the calm has already returned. So thats it for the moment. As I said, we are monitoring the situation.

A news headline on the state broadcaster described the gunfire as acts of discontent by soldiers.

Contrary to some information, no institution of the republic has been targeted, the headline continued.

At the Lamizana Sangoule military barracks in the capital, however, angry soldiers shot into the air Sunday, directing their anger over army casualties at the president. About 100 motorcycles later left the base, chanting in support of the mutineers, but were stopped when security forces deployed tear gas.

The soldiers put a man on the phone with The Associated Press who said that they were seeking better working conditions for Burkina Fasos military amid the escalating fight against Islamic militants. Among their demands are increased manpower in the battle against extremists and better care for those wounded and the families of the dead. The mutinous soldiers also want the military and intelligence hierarchy replaced, he said.

There were signs Sunday that their demands were supported by many in Burkina Faso who are increasingly distressed by the attacks blamed on al-Qaida and Islamic State-linked groups. Thousands have died in recent years from those attacks and around 1.5 million people have been displaced.

We want the military to take power, said Salif Sawadogo as he tried to avoid tear gas on the streets of Ouagadougou. Our democracy is not stable.

Kabore first took office in 2015, winning the election held after longtime President Blaise Compaore was ousted in a popular uprising.

Still, Kabore has faced growing opposition since his reelection in November 2020 as the countrys Islamic extremism crisis has deepened. Last month he fired his prime minister and replaced most of the Cabinet, but critics have continued calling for his resignation.

On Sunday, protesters who supported the army mutiny said they had had enough of Kabore even though the next presidential election isnt until 2025. Demonstrator Aime Birba said the violence under Kabore has been unlike anything Burkina Faso experienced during the nearly three decades Compaore was in power.

We are currently under another form of dictatorship, he said.  A president who is not able to take security measures to secure his own people is not a president worthy of the name.

Earlier this month, authorities had arrested a group of soldiers accused of participating in a foiled coup plot. It was not immediately known whether there was any connection between those soldiers and the ones who led a mutiny Sunday. Military prosecutors said nine soldiers and two civilians were being held in connection with the plot.

West Africa has seen a spate of military coups in West Africa over the past 18 months, causing the regional bloc known as ECOWAS to suspend two member states simultaneously for the first time since 2012.

In August 2020, a mutiny at a Malian military barracks led to the democratically elected president being detained. He later announced his resignation on national television, and the junta leader there doesnt want new elections for four more years.

In September 2021, Guineas president also was overthrown by a military junta that remains in power to this day.

Burkina Faso, too has seen its share of coup attempts and military takeovers. In 1987, Compaore came to power by force. And in 2015, soldiers loyal to him attempted to overthrow the transitional government put into place after his ouster. The army was ultimately able to put the transitional authorities back in power, who led again until Kabore won an election and took office

___

Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, and Arsene Kabore in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, contributed to this report.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  Using Iranian bank funds freed from American sanctions, South Korea has paid Irans $18 million in delinquent dues owed to the United Nations, Seoul said Sunday. The step was apparently approved by Washington to restore Tehrans suspended voting rights at the world body.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Seoul had paid the sum using Iranian assets frozen in the country after consulting with the United States Treasury  a potential signal of flexibility amid floundering nuclear negotiations.

The ministry said it expected Irans voting rights to be restored immediately after their suspension earlier this month for delinquent dues.

Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Iran state televisions English-language arm Press TV quoted Irans permanent representative to the U.N. as confirming that the dues had been paid and Irans voting rights would soon be restored. He did not specify how the money had been paid.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, as an active member of the United Nations, has always been committed to paying its membership dues on time, Majid Takht-e Ravanchi said. He expressed outrage at the U.S. for what he called its brutal and unilateral sanctions against Iran that have prevented Tehran from gaining access to funds to pay the arrears for the past two years.

The funds had been impounded at Korean banks under sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump after he withdrew the U.S. from Tehrans landmark nuclear deal with world powers. The U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control must grant a license for these transactions under the American banking sanctions imposed on Iran. The Treasury did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the unfrozen funds.

The Biden administration wants to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, which granted Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Diplomats are now engaged in delicate negotiations to revive the accord in Vienna, although a breakthrough remains elusive as Iran abandons every limitation the deal imposed on its nuclear enrichment. The country now enriches a small amount of to 60% purity  a short, technical step away from weapons grade levels  and spins far more advanced centrifuges than allowed.

Under the United Nations Charter, a nation that owes the previous two full years worth of dues loses its voting rights at the General Assembly.

A letter from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres circulated earlier this month revealed that Iran was among several delinquent countries on that list, which also includes Venezuela and Sudan. The General Assembly can make exceptions to the rule, determining that some countries face circumstances beyond the control of the member.

According to the secretary-generals letter, Iran needed to pay a minimum of $18.4 million to restore its voting rights.

Iran also lost its voting rights in January of last year, prompting Tehran to lash out at the U.S. for imposing crushing sanctions that froze billions of dollars in Iranian funds in banks around the world. Tehran regained voting rights last June after making the minimum payment on its dues.

Iran over the past few years has pressured Seoul to release about $7 billion in revenues from oil sales that remain frozen in South Korean banks since the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Iran.

The frozen funds hang in the balance as diplomats struggle to revive the nuclear deal. Senior South Korean diplomats including Choi Jong Kun, the first vice foreign minister, flew to Vienna this month to discuss the fate of the assets with their Iranian counterparts.

___

Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
TEHRAN, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday that Iran is ready to solve the prisoners issue with the United States for humanitarian purposes.

"This issue has been on our agenda both before and in the process of the (Vienna nuclear) negotiations," Saeed Khatibzadeh said in his weekly press conference when asked about U.S. prisoners in Iran and Iranian prisoners in the United States.

"This issue can be resolved in the shortest possible time if the United States adheres to the agreements already made," Khatibzadeh added.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley said the United States is unlikely to strike a deal with Iran to save the 2015 nuclear deal unless the latter releases four U.S. citizens held in prison in Iran.

"Unlike our citizens who have been taken hostage in the United States under the pretext of circumventing illegal and unjustified extraterritorial U.S. sanctions against the Iranian people, those (American nationals) imprisoned in Iran have been fully charged by the judiciary with crimes processed in a competent court," said Khatibzadeh.

The nuclear negotiations and prisoners issues are separate, but if there is a will in the American officials, there is "the possibility of reaching a stable and reliable agreement in the shortest possible time in both directions," he noted. 
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

Back in the day before patrol cars and police radios, it took some inventiveness to get a cop when you needed one.

In the early 1900s, for example, there were few phones in Albuquerque, but there was one in the White Elephant Saloon, located at what is now the southeast corner of Central and Second.

In those days, if someone, a police department official or a private citizen, needed to contact an officer on night patrol, hed call the saloon. The bartender would take a meat cleaver, go outside and bang on a metal lamp post, making a jarring noise that would alert an officer to check in at the saloon to find out who needed what, how bad and where.

Thats one of the fascinating facts youll discover while touring the Albuquerque Police Department Museum under the guidance of volunteers such as Robert Teel or APD members such as Lt. Paul J. Haugh.

Teel is quick to point out that APD, which dates back to 1880, moved on as quickly as it could from the raucous meat cleaver/lamp post alarm system. He said that approach was replaced by activating a blinking red light on top of a pole to summon officers. Sort of like Albuquerques own version of the Bat-Signal.

Two chiefs

The museum is located in a comparatively small space on the back side of the APD building at 400 Roma NW. It was founded in 2008, but is just now reopening after being closed two years due to the coronavirus pandemic. The museum is dedicated to Paul Shaver, APDs longest-serving police chief. Shaver joined APD in the 1930s and was chief from 1948 to 1971. He died in 2005.

Shaver was named APD chief of detectives in 1945 and in 1948, he took an exam for the chief of police job.

He passed with flying colors, Teel said. Shaver created (APDs) juvenile division, pawn shop detail, community relations division, records unit, the Police Academy, and he had a pistol range constructed. Rapport between police and the community was improved because of him.

Shavers dress APD uniform is displayed on a mannequin in the museum. Theres also a museum display case containing journals  filled with hand-written notes and newspaper clippings  that Shaver kept during his years as chief. Youve got to believe theres some captivating reading there.

Another prominent Albuquerque police chief was Patrick OGrady, who joined APD in 1908 and served as chief from 1925 to 1945, the year he died. One of the most noticeable exhibits in the museum is a huge reproduction of a black-and-white photo taken of 18 members of APD, circa 1930. Chief OGrady is in the front row, fourth from left. He would have been about 55 then, and he looks official and capable.

OGrady was born in Ireland on St. Patricks Day in 1875, but emigrated to the United States, settling first in Chicago. OGrady moved to Albuquerque in 1906 and worked as a gateman at a lumber company before joining APD two years later and being assigned to night patrol in Albuquerques business district. He would have been one of the officers responding to the racket of that meat cleaver/lamp post routine.

In his 2006 book Albuquerque Remembered, the late Albuquerque newspaperman and history writer Howard Bryan notes that OGrady was a tough but beloved police officer who knew almost everyone in Albuquerque and always wore a green tie with his uniform on St. Patricks Day. OGradys uniform is sported by one of the museums mannequins, but it does not have a green tie. Maybe on St. Patricks Day.

Calling all cars

Another museum photo shows a female Police Academy graduating class in 1966. In the 60s, female police officers wore skirts, and requirements for service as a female officer were that she be between the ages of 21 and 34, at least 5 feet, 3 inches tall and able to take 80 words a minute shorthand and type 40 words a minute.

They got a badge, a sidearm and were sent off to do clerical work, Teel said. All that changed when women went on patrol duty years later.

Patrol methods have evolved considerably since policemen on foot responded to clanging noises and blinking red lights. One photo, date uncertain, shows a smiling police officer with a two-humped camel.

Teel said that apparently APD attempted at some point to replace mounted horse patrols with mounted camel patrols.

Camels did not require horseshoes and had more endurance than horses, Teel said. They could withstand heat better.

For some reason, the camel experiment did not take hold.

Teel said the fastest and easiest way for police to get around is by motorcycle, and there are exhibits in the museum that delve into APDs cycle history, which started in the 1920s when the department got a Harley-Davidson. The museum boasts a three-wheel Harley used for parking-ticket enforcement and accident investigations, as well as a sleek Kawasaki, the make of cycle APD switched to in 1978. Today, the department uses BMW motorcycles.

BMWs come straight from Germany, fully loaded for police duty, Teel said.

APD added eyes in the sky in 1969 when it acquired a Cessna 172 Skyhawk fixed-wing aircraft. On display in the museum is a searchlight that was fitted to the Skyhawk. The plane had a two-man crew, the pilot and an observer who faced backward and operated the searchlight.

But radio cars are what most people think about when they envision police on patrol. In 1933, APD had two Model A cars equipped with one-way radios. Headquarters could contact officers in the cars, but the patrolmen could not respond by radio.

Officers had to carry pocketfuls of dimes because they had to check in (by pay phone) every hour, Teel said. Sometimes they would use phones at businesses or residences.

Two-way radios were installed in APD cars in the 1940s.

Bombs, billy clubs and bullets

APDs bomb squad started with two officers in 1971. Back then, terrorists were not a problem. Haugh said the departments bomb squad was developed to assist people who found aerial bombs while excavating their property, especially on the citys West Side. During the World War II era, military pilots trained by making bombing runs on a range west of Albuquerque.

One of the museums most intriguing exhibits includes an early bomb-disposal robot that looks like a lawn mower with a bad attitude. The contraption is armed with a shotgun that could be used to detonate suspected bombs when people were out of harms way.

The museum has several displays of more conventional weapons, including billy clubs, brass knuckles, switchblade knives and homemade hatchets.

And guns, of course, everything from a .455 Webley British Bulldog five-shot revolver to a Glock 17 9mm semi-automatic to a 12 gauge shotgun capable of firing buckshot or bean bags.

In a 1959 photo of a police briefing in the basement of the main police station at that time, you can see that the wall behind the attentive officers is pocked with bullet holes. It turns out that basement room was once used as a firing range.

In memory

One wall in the museum is dedicated to the 15 members of APD who have died in the line of duty between 1886 and 2015. Of those 15, 11 died of gunshot wounds. The first two were Town Marshal Robert Bob McGuire and Assistant Marshal E.D. Henry. They died as a result of a Nov. 20, 1886, gunfight with outlaws John Kid Johnson and Charlie Ross at a one-room adobe house in Martineztown. Henry was killed during the gunfight and McGuire died of his wounds six days later. According to Don Bullis, Rio Rancho author of books about New Mexico history, the two outlaws, due to escape and other circumstances, were never tried for killing the marshals.

The APD Museum is a tribute to the many ways police work has changed since the late 19th century. But the museums memorial wall is a reminder that the one constant is the danger faced by the men and women who do the job.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

David Chacon, 37, spent more than five months in the county jail charged with aggravated assault.

During that time he got COVID-19 and staph infections at least three separate times, in three separate locations on his body.

He missed the birth of his daughter and the last moments of his grandfathers life and the funeral services. He lost his job.

Then, in late January 2021, the case against him was dismissed because belt tapes from the arresting deputies  turned over after many delays  revealed discrepancies and called into question the credibility of the allegations against the defendant. On the tapes deputies could be heard saying they thought his accuser was drunk and lying and wondering whether they should charge her with making a false report, according to a lawsuit filed against Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales and county commissioners.

The suit, filed at the end of November, alleges, among other things, false arrest, malicious prosecution, defamation and negligence in training and supervision on the part of the sheriff.

Defendants, through its deputies and Sheriff, falsely arrested and imprisoned (Chacon), and maliciously prosecuted him, knowing that it had  evidence in its possession and within its knowledge, but refused to release it to detectives or the District Attorney, the lawsuit states.

Chacon is asking for compensatory and punitive damages for the months he spent behind bars.

The Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office did not respond to requests for comment. The county declined to comment.

Chacons attorney, Ryan Baughman, said in the months since his release from jail Chacon has basically had to start his life over, finding a new job while caring for a newborn baby at home.

Now he is working, he is doing great, he is raising his family, he is really happy, Baughman said. Theres just this whole six months of his life that are missing. Its unfortunate that this is how this played out.

Criminal complaint

According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, on Aug. 13, 2020, a woman called 911 to say her neighbor, Chacon, messaged her and told her to go outside and he will put a bullet in her mouth. She said he was outside with a gun.

Deputies were sent to the Sage Canyon Apartments on Fourth Street near Montano NW where they talked with the woman who appeared to be very upset. She told them she had gone outside and Chacon had walked toward her and grabbed a black pistol out of his waistband  implying he would use it  and told her he would put a bullet in her.

The deputies set up a perimeter and ordered Chacon to come out. He did and raised his hands in the air but then did not comply with the deputies demands to get on his knees, according to the complaint. He yelled at them to shoot him and the deputies shot him in the chest with a pepperball, a nonlethal weapon.

Chacon was taken into custody and charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a fourth-degree felony.

Prosecutors cited the felony charge and the allegations against Chacon and asked for him to be held in jail pending trial. The motion was granted.

In the meantime, his attorneys began requesting evidence  including belt tapes from the arresting deputies  be turned over to them in order to prepare for trial.

It took months, and three requests, before the deputies finally complied, according to the lawsuit.

Thats when the defense and the prosecution heard the deputies say things on their belt tapes that dramatically undermined the case. The deputies described the alleged victim as drunk and (expletive) lying, discussed discrepancies in her frequently changing story and suggested they could get her for making a false report, according to the lawsuit.

Despite knowing that (the womans) stories were conflicting, she was severely intoxicated, was lying to deputies, and deputies were contemplating charging her with making a false police report, the deputies did not inform the detectives of any of the exculpatory evidence, the lawsuit states.

Five and a half months after Chacon was charged, prosecutors asked for the case to be dismissed, saying that the contents of the belt tapes made it so the state could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The content of the outstanding belt tapes revealed discrepancies between what was documented in the police report and what was in the belt tapes, the prosecutor wrote in a motion. The belt tapes further called into question the credibility of the allegations against the defendant and the validity of the search warrant that was the basis for the collection of evidence.

Chacon was released from jail.

Pretrial detention

The issue of pretrial detention has taken center stage as the governor and several lawmakers push an anti-crime package that includes pretrial detention reform.

In an attempt to cut rising violent crime, the detention proposal would make it easier to keep some people charged with violent crimes in jail pending trial. But defense attorneys and some researchers insist such proposals will not reduce crime and say more people will end up sitting in jail when they shouldnt.

As it is, the Law Offices of the Public Defender says that in recent years more than 20% of those held pending trial were not convicted of the crime for which they were locked up. The District Attorneys Office said the majority of cases that fail do so because of a lack of witness or victim cooperation.

Baughman says there isnt much civil recourse for those individuals because most of the cases dont involve allegations of misconduct.

But Chacons case appears to be different.

In this instance deputies  knew he shouldnt be charged with a felony, they knew if they included all the facts in the search warrant theyre not going to get it, so it basically deals with their lack of truthfulness, Baughman said. Theres really not a recourse if the case is just dismissed unless there is wrongdoing on the part of the officers.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  A handful of Democratic state senators  including three powerful committee chairmen and a physician  are pushing for New Mexico to tap into its flood of federal stimulus cash to establish a school of public health.

A similar proposal failed to advance in last months special session, but a slimmed-down version resurfaced last week as lawmakers began a 30-day session expected to focus on budget and tax legislation.

Supporters say a school of public health would expand New Mexicos access to research funding and ensure policymakers have the data necessary to make wise spending decisions. New Mexico is one of just a few states without such a school.

This is the one transformational act that this Legislature could take for health in New Mexico, state Sen. Martin Hickey, D-Albuquerque, said in an interview.

The $75 million proposal, however, faces a challenging path to approval. It wasnt included in the initial state spending package now being vetted by the House Appropriations and Finance Committee, a key budget-writing panel.

But the legislation, Senate Bill 119, also has influential supporters. The sponsors include Hickey, a physician and former health care executive, and three committee leaders in the Senate: Gerald Ortiz y Pino of Albuquerque, Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces and George Munoz of Gallup, all Democrats.

They are asking Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, also a Democrat, to support the bill and for the funding to be added into the state budget.

Ortiz y Pino said lawmakers are forced to make too many health care spending decisions based on gut instinct rather than hard data on what works and what doesnt  a problem the legislation would address.

The point of having a school of public health, he said, is to try to refocus our emphasis in the whole health care system from waiting until people get sick and treating the heck out of it to preventing them from getting sick in the first place.

Poor health outcomes

The proposed school would be a joint effort of the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, but located at UNM.

Hickey said New Mexico is particularly well positioned to draw research funding for public health because of its small but diverse population and poor health outcomes, rooted in poverty.

He envisions using the initial $75 million state investment as startup money, with ongoing operations later supported largely by private and federal funds.

It would draw a huge amount of money, Hickey said.

The state, he said, has an expert with practical experience building a school of public health  Dr. Douglas Ziedonis, executive vice president for UNM health sciences and CEO of the UNM Health System  to draw on.

Ziedonis helped establish such a school at the University of California, San Diego.

In a written statement, he said New Mexico is a promising location for a school of public health and that it would build on UNMs research strength in other areas, such as health equity and addiction.

The legislative requests come at a particularly important time, as the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the world how critical public health expertise can be in a crisis, Ziedonis said. By graduating students trained in public health and population health  who are equipped with first-hand knowledge of our states unique health care challenges  we will provide New Mexico with a vital health care resource in both the private and public sector.

UNM is now issuing about 25 masters degrees in public health a year, a figure supporters say would sharply increase in coming years under the legislation.

The proposal calls for spending $50 million to build a school of public health at the UNM Health Sciences Center. It would also make $20 million available to UNM and $5 million to NMSU for operating costs and program development.

Unallocated cash

Funds for the proposed school would have to be incorporated into the broader spending package lawmakers are working on.

New Mexico has about $724 million in unallocated federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, the source of money eyed by supporters of the school.

Neither the governors nor the Legislative Finance Committees initial budget plans announced last month included specific funding for a school of public health.

Theres still time, however, for the idea to make it into the budget. The state budget legislation, House Bill 2, is in its first committee and will be a focus of debate and amendments throughout the 30-day session, which ends Feb. 17.

Sen. Crystal Diamond, an Elephant Butte Republican and member of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, described the school of public health as a much-needed investment at a critical time in the pandemic.

Moving forward, we need more data-driven policies and independent analysis without the politics, Diamond said in a written statement. I hope this hefty investment in our states flagship universities will put us on track to better address the public health needs of all New Mexicans.

In a special session last month, a school of public health was proposed as part of a broader $335 million plan to invest in public health infrastructure.

Members of the Senate Finance Committee rejected the proposal, saying they needed more time to vet the idea.

Lujan Grisham spokeswoman Nora Meyers Sackett said Friday the Governors Office is reviewing the proposal.

Certainly the pandemic has taught us (and continues to teach us) that we need more investments in public health, Sackett said.

Journal staff writer Stephen Hamway contributed to this article.
SAN FRANCISCO  Pacific Gas & Electric is poised to emerge from five years of criminal probation, despite worries that nations largest utility remains too dangerous to trust after years of devastation from wildfires ignited by its outdated equipment and neglectful management.

The probation, set to expire at midnight Tuesday, was supposed to rehabilitate PG&E after its 2016 conviction for six felony crimes from a 2010 explosion triggered by its natural gas lines that blew up a San Bruno neighborhood and killed eight people.

Instead, PG&E became an even more destructive force. Since 2017 the utility has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people.

In these five years, PG&E has gone on a crime spree and will emerge from probation as a continuing menace to California, U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote in a report reviewing his oversight of the utility.

While on probation, PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter for a 2018 wildfire that wiped out the town of Paradise, about 170 miles (275 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco. Now PG&E faces more criminal charges in two separate cases, for a Sonoma County wildfire in 2019 and a Shasta County fire in 2020. PG&E has denied any criminal wrongdoing in those fires.

Even more potential criminal charges loom. California regulators already have linked PG&E to the massive Dixie Fire last year, when a tree is believed to have hit the utilitys distribution lines in the Sierra Nevada  part of a sprawling, often rugged service territory covering 16 million Northern Californian customers.

During its probation, PG&E also plunged into bankruptcy for the second time in less than 20 years. Before emerging from bankruptcy last year, PG&E reached settlements of more than $25.5 billion, including $13.5 billion earmarked for wildfire victims that may fall short of doling out the amount initially promised.

PG&Es conduct prompted its court-appointed monitor, Mark Filip, to raise alarms about the utilitys wildfire prevention efforts, though he applauded the sustained and substantial improvements in its natural gas operations.

We doubt anyone would seriously contend PG&Es performance has been adequate, or that substantial improvement is not still imperative, Filips team wrote in a report filed with Alsup late last year.

PG&E, a 117-year-old company, generates about $20 billion in revenue annually while serving a 70,000-square-mile (181,300-square-kilometer) service area in the northern and central part of California that includes farmland, forests, big cities and the worlds technology hub in Silicon Valley.

Alsup, who repeatedly excoriated PG&E during its probation, last year signaled he was interested in keeping the utility under his watch. But he dropped the idea earlier this month after the U.S. Attorneys Office filed documents saying it didnt plan to seek an extension of PG&Es probation, citing the unique history and circumstances of the case.

We have tried hard to rehabilitate PG&E, Alsup wrote in his final report. As the supervising district judge, however, I must acknowledge failure.

Alsup declined an interview request from The Associated Press to elaborate on his concerns about PG&E.

Catherine Sandoval, an energy professor at Santa Clara University and a former California power regulator, believes Alsup was far too hard on himself, although she agrees PG&E hasnt proven it should be freed from supervision. She blames federal prosecutors for backing off an attempt to extend PG&Es probation because there appears to be no binding case law on this point, according to the U.S. attorneys report.

If there was ever a test case for whether a companys probation can be extended, PG&E is it, Sandoval asserted during an interview. She also unsuccessfully fought to hold a hearing to extend the utilitys probation in 58-page brief filed with Alsup earlier this month.

Noah Stern, the federal prosecutor handling PG&Es probation, didnt respond to a request for comment.

While acknowledging its problems, PG&E claimed in a report to the judge that its electricity grid is fundamentally safer now than in January 2017. It also defended the roughly 40,000 employees and contractors who maintain its operations.

Vilifying them and threatening to criminalize the exercise of professional judgment or the making of honest mistakes serves neither safety nor fairness, and instead severely detracts from PG&Es efforts to bring the skills of the best and brightest to bear on stopping wildfires, PG&E lawyers wrote. We are all in this together.

As signs of its progress, PG&E cited the more than 3.3 million trees near its equipment that were either trimmed or removed in the past two years.

The utility says it now spends $1.4 billion annually to trim or remove trees, up from $400 million annually in 2017. But Alsup estimated PG&E still has a seven-year backlog of high-risk trees that need trimming or removal.

The company also cited a sweeping overhaul of its board and management, including bringing in Patricia Poppe as its new CEO last year. Poppe, a former Michigan utility executive, became PG&Es fifth CEO in five years, part of an unusually high turnover rate that the companys federal monitor said makes reform more difficult.

We know there is more to do, PG&Es lawyers told Alsup in their final probationary report. These are not just words on a page or a poster, they are a commitment to make it right and make Californians safe.

PG&E declined further comment about the end of its probation.

Sandoval, who was among the regulators overseeing PG&E as a commissioner for the California Public Utilities Commission from 2011 to 2017, accused PG&E officials of being mired in a pattern of cognitive immaturity and lazy thinking that should require its executives and board to submit to counseling.

PG&E, the corporation, needs the training an individual criminal defendant would have received in prison to break the cycle of criminal thinking that endangers public safety, Sandoval wrote in her in brief to Alsup.

In his separate report, Filip suggested California consider regulatory changes or new approaches to keep PG&E in check.

The federal monitor cautioned that in PG&Es service territory, the consequences of a single misstep  a missed hazard tree, the failure to replace corroded hardware on power lines  can be death and destruction.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

A familiar face is back at Albuquerque City Hall.

Eric Griego, a former city councilor and onetime state lawmaker, will serve as the citys director of outreach and advocacy, Mayor Tim Kellers office announced last week.

Griego has a history of public service in a variety of roles, both elected and appointed. He served on the Albuquerque City Council from 2001-2005 and in the New Mexico Senate from 2009-2012. He is a former assistant secretary for the states Economic Development Department.

He has in the past also headed the advocacy organization, New Mexico Voices for Children, and the progressive-minded New Mexico Working Families Party.

Griego said he and Keller  with whom he served in the state Senate  had a few years ago discussed his possible return to city government, but he was focused on his education. Just before joining the mayors office, Griego completed his doctoral degree at the University of New Mexico with a dissertation on the role of community in economic development decisions.

He said his new role involves engaging the community in the policy-making process, which he said is a natural fit.

I have a pretty broad background working  on early childhood and health care (issues) and Ive done a lot of economic development work, he said. I think Im really going to be sort of a utility player in the sense Im going to try to engage as much as possible with people who are most affected by some of the priorities and policies we have before the city.

Kellers office announced Griegos return along with the hiring of Valerie Hermanson as the citys Vision Zero coordinator and the promotion of longtime city employee Bobby Sisneros to deputy director of the Transit Department.

Each of these hires fills a need in a key role for our city and will help us achieve shared goals in this next chapter of our citys journey, the mayor said in a statement.
WASHINGTON  Count 30-year-old Ethan Miller among that subset of Americans who are actually eager to file their taxes once income tax filing season opens Monday.

The financial planner who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, is looking forward to claiming the new deductions that will come from buying a home. He also wants to get a jump on a tax season that promises to bring lots of extra headaches and delays for filers this year.

Im trying to get a head start on my taxes as much as possible, Miller said, adding that he is not too nervous about forecasts of extra delays because he will file online and will not be waiting for too big a refund.

Plenty of other filers, though, may be in for more heartburn.

An IRS worker shortage, an enormous workload from administering pandemic-related programs and stalled legislation that would have given the agency billions of dollars for more expeditiously processing returns will combine to cause taxpayers pain this filing season.

The IRS right now has unacceptable backlogs and the customer service that people are receiving is not what the American public deserves, White House press secretary Jen Psaki acknowledged Friday. The agency has not been equipped with the resources to adequately serve taxpayers in normal times, let alone during a pandemic.

She stressed that the problems predate the Biden administration and she urged understanding for beleaguered workers already saddled with huge backlogs. Its going to take some work, its going to take some time and I think people need to understand that they need funding, Psaki said.

Agency officials are already warning filers that in many areas, we are unable to deliver the amount of service and enforcement that our taxpayers and tax system deserves and needs, as IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig put it earlier in the month.
OSLO, Norway  A Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday started three days of talks in Oslo with Western officials and Afghan civil society representatives amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

The closed-door meetings were taking place at a hotel in the snowcapped mountains above the Norwegian capital and are the first time since the Taliban took over in August that their representatives have held official meetings in Europe.

The talks were not without controversy, however, reigniting the debate over whether they legitimize the Taliban government, especially since they were being held in Norway, a NATO country involved in Afghanistan from 2001 until the Taliban takeover last summer.

Speaking at the end of the first day of talks, Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam told The Associated Press that the meetings with Western officials were a step to legitimize (the) Afghan government, adding that this type of invitation and communication will help (the) European community, (the) U.S. or many other countries to erase the wrong picture of the Afghan government.

That statement may irk the Talibans Norwegian hosts. Earlier, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed that the talks were not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban.

On Sunday, 200 protesters gathered on an icy square in front of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry in Oslo to condemn the meetings with the Taliban, which has not received diplomatic recognition from any foreign government.

The Taliban has not changed as some in the international community like to say, said Ahman Yasir, a Norwegian Afghan living in Norway for around two decades. They are as brutal as they were in 2001 and before.

Taliban leaders met with some womens rights and human rights activists on Sunday, but there was no official word about those talks.

Starting Monday, Taliban representatives will meet with delegations from Western nations and will be certain to press their demand that nearly $10 billion frozen by the United States and other Western countries be released as Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation.

We are requesting them to unfreeze Afghan assets and not punish ordinary Afghans because of the political discourse, said Shafiullah Azam. Because of the starvation, because of the deadly winter, I think its time for the international community to support Afghans, not punish them because of their political disputes.

The United Nations has managed to provide some liquidity and allowed the Taliban administration to pay for imports, including electricity. But the U.N. has warned that as many as 1 million Afghan children are in danger of starving and most of the countrys 38 million people are living below the poverty line.

Faced with the Talibans request for funds, Western powers are likely to put the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan high on their agenda, along with the Wests recurring demand for the Taliban administration to share power with minority ethnic and religious groups.

Since sweeping to power in mid-August, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women. Women have been banned from many jobs outside the health and education fields, their access to education has been restricted beyond sixth grade and they have been ordered to wear the hijab. The Taliban have, however, stopped short of imposing the burqa, which was compulsory when they previously ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s. The Taliban have increasingly targeted Afghanistans beleaguered rights groups, as well as journalists, detaining and sometimes beating television crews covering demonstrations.

A U.S. delegation plans to discuss the formation of a representative political system; responses to the urgent humanitarian and economic crises; security and counterterrorism concerns; and human rights, especially education for girls and women, according to a statement released by the U.S. State Department.
TUCSON, Ariz.  Twenty quilts stitched together with clothes abandoned on Arizonas migrant trails will soon be displayed together for the first time at the Arizona History Museum in Tucson.

The 13-month exhibition, called Los Desconocidos: The Migrant Quilt Project, opened recently at the museum west of the University of Arizona campus.

The intricate quilts are the work of more than 50 artists recruited by border relief volunteer Jody Ipsen and project curator Peggy Hazard to honor those who have died while crossing the desert in search of a better life.

Each quilt memorializes the migrants whose bodies were found during a single federal fiscal year in the Border Patrols Tucson Sector, which extends from the New Mexico state line to the eastern edge of Yuma County.

Those whose remains have been identified by the Pima County Medical Examiners Office are listed by name. The rest are remembered simply as a desconocido or unknown.

The quilts are beautiful yet poignant representations of a very difficult subject, said Vanessa Fajardo, Museum Curator with the Arizona Historical Society.

Since 2000-01, the fiscal year of the first quilt, the bodies of more than 3,600 migrants have been found in Southern Arizona, according to records compiled by the medical examiner and the Tucson-based humanitarian group Humane Borders.

About 1,400 sets of remains have gone unidentified.

Ipsen launched the migrant quilt project in 2007 after meeting with people in Mexico and Central America whose loved ones died or disappeared while trying to reach the U.S.

The names of the dead are included on the quilts whenever possible, but a large percentage of the bodies recovered from the desert are not identified. They are listed as desconocido or unknown.

The subversive quilt-making collection, as she calls it, tells their stories of loss and suffering using scraps of fabric and personal items collected from the same desert where so many people have died.

The 2002-03 quilt features a map of Arizona made from multicolored squares of denim and covered in 205 tiny Xs marking the spots where bodies were found.

The 2018-19 quilt incorporates postage stamps from the migrants home countries arranged in the shape of crosses.

The 2015-16 quilt includes pesos the quilter found hidden in the hems of several pairs of jeans left behind in the desert.

The new exhibit will mark the Tucson debut of the latest work in the series, the 2019-20 quilt by renowned textile artist Susan Hoffman.

The exhibit also includes statements from the various quiltmakers about their experience with the project.

Ipsen and company donated their creations to the Arizona Historical Society last year so they could be preserved, displayed and loaned out to other museums, churches and public buildings around the country for years to come.

They were the first contemporary works to be added to historical societys expansive textile collection, which includes roughly 200 quilts dating to the early 1800s.

Each new migrant quilt that is made in the future will also go to the historical society for safekeeping.

Ipsen has said the project will continue as long as people continue to die in Arizonas borderlands.

Based on the latest figures from Humane Borders, 226 sets of remains were found in the Tucson Sector in 2021 alone.

Thats the highest total for a single calendar year since the medical examiner began tracking a dramatic increase in migrant deaths two decades ago. It does not account for the unknown number of people who died in the desert but whose bodies were never found.
BURLINGTON, Vt.  The family of a woman strangled by her husband nearly three decades ago in Vermont is handling the sudden news that her killer could go free soon under a deal struck with prosecutors.

Gregory Fitzgerald, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Amy Fitzgerald, contended his defense attorney neglected to tell him about a plea deal that would have reduced his sentence.

Faced with another appeal, and no way of knowing what Gregory Fitzgerald was told, the case was settled this month.

Terms tracked with the original plea deal. His sentence was reduced to 35 years to life in prison in exchange for him taking responsibility.

With time off for good behavior, the 64-year-old could be released from the Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield, Vermont, in six to nine months, officials said.

The victims brother, Alan Zeltserman, told WCAX-TV, which first reported the deal, said Gregory Fitzgerald was responsible for a cold-blooded, calculated murder that took his sister away and destroyed the lives of his parents.

Im just completely tired and devastated, and extremely disappointed in the states attorneys office with the way this matter was handled, he later told The Boston Globe. Its just a horrible feeling, he said.

At the time of the killing, the two natives of Newton, Massachusetts, were attending college in different states while getting graduate degrees.

She was an Army captain and veteran of the Persian Gulf War who was studying health technology at the University of Vermont and was on her way up the ranks in the Army, her brother said.

Her husband was supposed to be studying at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In reality, he was kicked out and was living a double life with a 22-year-old girlfriend when he traveled to Vermont to kill his wife, prosecutors said. Investigators were able to piece together the multistate murder scheme involving plane trips, rental cars and dual identities.

Her body was found in the bathtub of her home in Shelburne in May 1993. Her family suspects Gregory Fitzgerald killed her because he stood to collect about $100,000 in military benefits.

A jury convicted Fitzgerald of first-degree murder in 1994. Since then, he has filed more than two dozen appeals and claims. But he agreed to end all appeals with the plea agreement reached on Jan. 12.

Zeltserman labeled Gregory Fitzgerald is a master manipulator who maneuvered his way out of prison.

But Chittenden County State Attorney Sarah George said it was a just resolution because there was no way to prove whether or not Gregory Fitzgerald knew about the plea agreement proposal.

Fitzgeralds current lawyer, Mark Furland, said his client has genuine remorse, accepted responsibility and professes to be a changed person.
PHOENIX  Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey sued the Biden administration on Friday over its demand that the state stop sending millions in federal COVID-19 relief money to schools that dont have mask requirements or that close due to COVID-19 outbreaks.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix comes a week after the U.S. Treasury Department demanded that Ducey either restructure the $163 million program to eliminate restrictions it says undermine public health recommendations or face a repayment demand. The Treasury Department also wants changes to a $10 million program Ducey created that gives private school tuition money to parents if their childrens schools have mask mandates.

Duceys lawsuit said the Treasury Department created restrictions on spending the money Arizona receives under President Joe Bidens American Rescue Plan Act on its own and without legal authority. It asks a court to declare that the Treasury Departments rules are illegal and permanently block enforcement and any demands that it pay back the $173 million it is spending on the two programs.

Nothing in that underlying statute authorizes Treasury to condition the use of (ARPA) monies on following measures that, in the view of Treasury, stop the spread of COVID-19, the lawsuit says. If Congress had truly intended to give Treasury the power to dictate public health edicts to the States, and recoup or withhold (monies)  it would have spoken clearly on the matter. It did not.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends universal mask-wearing in school settings to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

By discouraging families and school districts from following this guidance, the conditions referenced above undermine efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, the Treasury Department wrote in last weeks letter.

The Treasury Department started demanding that Ducey change the programs in October. It was part of a concerted effort to force Arizona and some other Republican-led states that have opposed mask mandates or were using pandemic funding to advance their own agendas to end those practices.

Ducey rejected Treasurys request the following month, and last week the Biden administration followed up with a formal demand that it cease using the money for the disputed programs or face either repayment demands or withholding of additional money it is set to receive under Bidens COVID relief bill.

Fridays lawsuit said the Treasury Department initially recognized that states have broad latitude to choose whether and how to use the (money) to respond to and address the negative economic impact of COVID-19. But then it changed course, and created the new rules, the suit said.

The Treasury Department said it backs its decisions on the rules.

Treasury believes the rule is correct and allowed by the statute and Constitution, spokesperson Dayanara Ramirez said.

At issue are two state programs the Republican governor created last summer meant to help schools and students.

Arizonas Education Plus-Up Grant Program provides $163 million in funding to schools in higher-income areas that received less than $1,800 per student in federal virus aid. Districts that require face coverings or that have closed due to virus outbreaks are ineligible.

Another called the COVID-19 Educational Recovery Benefit Program provides for up to $7,000 for parents if their childs school requires face coverings or quarantines after exposure. It lets parents use the money for private school tuition or other education costs and its design mirrors the states existing school voucher program.

In a letter sent last week, the Treasury Department warned that the state has 60 days to remove the anti-masking provisions before the federal government moves to recover the relief money, and it threatened to withhold the next tranche of aid as well.

Ducey created the programs in par t to up the pressure on school districts that had mask mandates or other COVID-19 restrictions, saying they were hurting children and parents who had endured more than a year of school shutdowns, remote learning and other restrictions. Provisions in the state budget that barred school mask mandates statewide were later thrown out by the Arizona Supreme Court because they were improperly adopted, but Ducey did not change the programs.

Safety recommendations are welcomed and encouraged  mandates that place more stress on students and families arent, Ducey said in August. These grants acknowledge efforts by schools and educators that are following state laws and keeping their classroom doors open for Arizonas students.

Arizona has received about half of the $4.2 billion awarded to it under the 2021 coronavirus relief bill, and the Treasury Department said it may withhold payments if Ducey failed to comply with its demands.

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Associated Press reporter Fatima Hussein contributed from Washington.
RCEP set to boost recovery, multilateralism

08:13, January 24, 2022 By LIU ZHIHUA in Beijing, HU MEIDONG in Fuzhou,HU MEIDONG and MA ZHIPING in Haikou ( China Daily

An aerial view of the container dock of the Qinzhou Port section of China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone in Qinzhou, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. [Photo/Xinhua]

Pact to add more resilience to regional industrial, supply chains, experts say

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is set to accelerate regional economic integration, inject more growth impetus into the world's economic recovery and shore up multilateralism and free trade, experts said on Sunday.

They made the remarks at the RCEP Media &Think Tank Roundtable Forum with the theme of "The RCEP comes into effect: New prospects for regional cooperation and development".

The forum was jointly organized by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Hainan Provincial Committee, China Daily, the Hainan-based China Institute for Reform and Development and the Hainan Institute for Free Trade Port Studies.

The agreement came into force on Jan 1 in 10 of the 15 RCEP member states. The world's biggest trade pact, it covers one third of the global population and domestic gross product and will add more resilience to regional industrial and supply chains, the experts said.

While speaking at the opening ceremony of the event, Zhou Shuchun, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, said a unified regional market will unleash the huge potential of trade growth in the region. It will also vigorously promote regional economic integration of a higher quality and at a deeper level, and strengthen the presence of the Asia-Pacific region in the global economic and trade arena, he added.

The trade pact's implementation is a testimony to true multilateralism and free trade, which also indicates a future of mutually beneficial cooperation with opening-up practices and win-win outcomes, Zhou said.

"Removing wall-like barriers instead of building more is the trend of history, and it is in line with interests of people in the world to firmly support a multilateral trading system," he said.

The free trade agreement was signed by 15 Asia-Pacific countries, including all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in November 2020. It came into effect in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and six ASEAN statesBrunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnamat the start of the year and will be implemented in South Korea on Feb 1.

With provisions on liberalization and facilitation in both trade and investment, it is widely expected the pact will provide an all-around boost to regional economic growth and global free trade.

Hong Nanwei, general manager of Fujian Chuangxing Ocean Sci-Tech Co, a frozen seafood processor and exporter in Quanzhou, Fujian province, said thanks to reductions and removals of tariffs in the pact, the company is more confident of better growth in overseas markets.

Chi Fulin, president of the China Institute for Reform and Development, said tariffs on about 90 percent of goods traded within the region will eventually be eliminated and significantly reduce trade costs and product prices.

The cumulative rules of origin, which allow products to have just 40 percent of their value added within the region to enjoy tariff reduction or elimination, will encourage enterprises to source from the region. That will then promote the formation of a closer, more stable and more competitive regional industrial cooperation system, according to Chi, who is also president of the Hainan Institute for Free Trade Port Studies.

Chen Geng, chairman of Fashion Flying Group, a large-scale outdoor garment manufacturer based in Fuzhou, Fujian province, said the RCEP agreement will help the company tap the potential of Southeast Asian markets.

Citing a study by the Asian Development Bank, Bert Hofman, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said the pact will increase member economies' income by over half a percent by 2030, adding some $245 billion in annual income and 2.8 million jobs in regional employment.

"It is important for mankind to work together and to benefit from globalization and to benefit from high standards in trade," Hofman said.

Chi suggested member economies strengthen efforts to accelerate alignment of market regulations and share and recognize customs clearance information to accelerate the formation of a united regional market. Efforts are also needed to advance the construction of integrated markets in key areas such as agricultural products, services and the digital economy, he said.

Ong Tee Keat, president of the Center for New Inclusive Asia in Malaysia, and also Malaysia's former minister of transport, said the regional free trade deal can serve as a building block for multilateralism in the future.

(Web editor: Zhong Wenxing, Liang Jun)
BAGHDAD, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- A total of six militants of the Islamic State (IS) group were killed on Monday in airstrikes near the Iraqi capital Baghdad, the Iraqi military said.

The Iraqi warplanes, based on intelligence report, conducted a series of airstrikes on the IS position in the Tarmiyah area, some 30 km north of Baghdad, leaving six IS militants killed, the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

The latest airstrikes came after another series of airstrikes earlier in the day targeting an IS position in the Makhoul mountain range in the northern part of Salahudin province, reportedly killing four militants.

The areas, which the militants had previously controlled, have witnessed intense activities of the IS militants during the past months, despite repeated military operations to hunt them down.

The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the Iraqi forces defeated the IS in 2017. However, IS remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts, and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians. 
AUSTIN, Texas  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has rejected a prosecutors demand for records of his appearance at a pro-Donald Trump rally that preceded the assault on the U.S. Capitol.

Last week, the Travis County district attorneys office had set a four-day deadline for Paxton to turn over the records involving the Jan. 6, 2021, rally or face a lawsuit accusing him of violating the state open records law. But in a letter to the district attorneys office Friday, the attorney generals office denied any violations and rejected the offices demands.

The Texas Tribune was the first to report about Paxtons refusal. A message to the district attorneys office seeking comment wasnt immediately returned.

Paxton and his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, appeared at the event in Washington, D.C., where the attorney general gave a speech touting his failed legal push to overturn Joe Bidens victory in the presidential election.

Several news organizations have requested Paxtons communications from around that time under the Texas Public Information Act. Last March, six news outlets jointly published a story raising questions about whether Paxton was breaking open records laws.

Earlier this month, top editors at five Texas newspapers  the Austin American-Statesman, The Dallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News  filed a complaint asking the district attorney to investigate the alleged violations.

Paxton faces several GOP challengers in his reelection bid this year.

In 2020, eight of Paxtons top deputies accused him of bribery, abuse of office and other crimes in the service of another supporter, an Austin real estate developer who employs a woman with whom the attorney general allegedly had an extra-marital affair. The FBI is investigating those allegations.

The attorney general has also spent most of his time in office under a separate felony indictment. He pleaded not guilty in 2015 to three state securities fraud charges but is yet to face trial.
PHOENIX  A state appeals court says legislative privilege does not broadly protect the Arizona Senate from having to release hundreds of public records related to the review of the 2020 election.

The Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a lower courts narrow view of the legislative privilege, rejecting arguments by lawyers for the Republican-controlled Senate.

The Senate and Cyber Ninjas, the inexperienced firm it hired to run the GOPs 2020 election review, have been battling for months over two public records lawsuits, one each filed by the parent of The Arizona Republic and American Oversight, a government watchdog group.

The Senate has disclosed more than 20,000 records but is withholding all or part of about 1,000 documents citing the legislative privilege, which is meant to promote robust debate among elected officials.

Senate Republicans argued that the privilege applies broadly to lawmakers communications about the election review. But the judges ruled the privilege applies only to discussions related to the process of passing legislation.

The judges directed the Senate to release the records to American Oversight or give them to a judge to decide whether the more narrow view of legislative privilege will allow the Senate to withhold specific documents. The Senate also could appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Kory Langhofer, an attorney for the Senate, said Senate leaders are still deciding how to proceed.
WASHINGTON  Rep. Henry Cuellar is an increasingly rare politician in the Democratic Party, a conservative-leaning lawmaker whose unapologetic defense of gun rights and the energy industry during his 17 years in Congress long delighted his Texas constituents.

That was once a winning strategy for Democrats running in moderate swaths of the country. But for Cuellar, whose district stretches from the San Antonio suburbs to the Mexican border, those stances could leave him vulnerable to a challenge from the left by 28-year-old immigration attorney Jessica Cisneros. She nearly beat Cuellar in the 2020 primary and is seeking a rematch with hopes of tapping into growing frustration among progressives about the pace of change in Washington.

An FBI search near Cuellars home this week could add a new dimension to the contest. Cuellar hasnt been charged with a crime and the bureau has said nothing about the scope of its investigation, including whether he is the subject of a probe.

But the development added to the stakes of the March 1 primary in Texas, which will usher in several months of contests across the nation to determine which candidates advance to the fall general election. Progressives are closely watching the race as a test of whether they can topple other moderate, establishment-oriented candidates as the primary season unfolds.

I think Jessica had a strong shot before the investigation, said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for the progressive group Justice Democrats, which has backed Democratic primary challengers against more moderate members of Congress around the country. I think she can win.

Representatives for Cuellar did not comment for this story. His office issued a brief statement after the search, saying the congressman will fully cooperate in any investigation.

He is committed to ensuring that justice and the law are upheld, the statement read.

Shahid compared Cisneros to progressive stars like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts who have really become rising figures in the party and part of this new generation of leadership.

When Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in a 2018 primary, she ushered in a new era in which progressives take on veteran, establishment-oriented incumbents in an effort to move the party to the left on issues including the environment and health care.

Progressives hoping to add Cuellar to the list of defeated incumbents are gauging whether the FBI search is the type of late-stage development that could shift the campaign in their favor.

Cisneros has so far not rushed to promote the raid as a potential political liability, saying in a statement only that, We are closely watching as this develops. In the meantime, we are focused on our campaign.

Justice Democrats has not showed such restraint, with its executive director, Alexandra Rojas, releasing a statement on Cuellar asking What is he hiding? Shahid said Democratic elders have closed ranks around Cuellar, noting that the Texan tweeted that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer had endorsed him just before word of the FBI search broke.

In all of our races the Democratic Party establishment tends to consolidate around the incumbent, Shahid said.

Justice Democrats first recruited Cisneros to run against Cuellar in 2020, after supporting Ocasio Cortezs upset primary win two years earlier.

Cisneros, who was an intern in Cuellars Washington office in 2014, racked up endorsements from many of the lefts leading national voices, including Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, as well as Ocasio Cortez. She branded Cuellar as Trumps favorite Democrat and ultimately came within 4 percentage points of beating him.

First elected to Congress in 2004, Cuellar serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and was outspoken in blaming national Democrats move to the left during the 2020 campaign on issues like health care and the environment as contributing to some disappointing losses in the House .

He argued that GOP suggestions that Democrats opposed police, embraced socialized medicine and would sacrifice jobs in key industries like oil and gas created a narrative that helped ensure Democrats retained their majority in the chamber by only the slimmest of margins  even as the more moderate Joe Biden won the presidency.

Cuellar has drawn progressive criticism for years, in part because of the praise hes attracted from groups like the National Rifle Association. He also was the lone House Democrat to oppose major abortion rights legislation in September. And Cuellar joined a group of moderates who helped force passage of a major public works bill that had broader bipartisan support before Congress could tackle a larger, spending and social welfare package championed by Biden and top progressives. It still hasnt passed.

The primarys outcome could prove even more critical this cycle, as Democrats look to defend their narrow control of the House in November.

After topping Cisneros the first time, Cuellar cruised to a nearly 20-point win over a little-known Republican opponent. New congressional maps based on the 2020 census make the district slightly more Democratic, picking up blue territory along its northern extremes near San Antonio.

Still, Republicans are hoping to stay competitive in a district thats nearly 80% Hispanic, betting they can capitalize on former President Donald Trumps unexpectedly strong 2020 showing among Latino voters, especially in south Texas. Biden won Latinos by a 59% to 38% margin over Trump two years ago, but that was 7 percentage points lower than Hillary Clintons 66% to 28% margin in 2016, according to Pew Research Center data.

Tania Unzueta, political director of the progressive Latino organization Mijente, which has endorsed Cisneros, said the group sees political investment in south Texas as especially important to counter the rise of right-wing candidates and ideology in the area.

Whats great about it happening close to elections is that people are actually able to take action pretty immediately, Unzueta said of the FBI search near Cuellars home. And we have a good alternative.

But Democratic strategist Matt Angle noted that so much remains unclear about the circumstances of the FBIs investigation and, with more than a month until the primary, the political implications for Cuellar are uncertain.

That was a contested and competitive primary no matter what, he said.
OSLO, Norway  The Taliban and western diplomats have begun their first official talks in Europe since they took over control of Afghanistan in August.

The closed-door meetings were taking place at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains above the Norwegian capital.

Taliban representatives will be certain to press their demand that nearly $10 billion frozen by the United States and other Western countries be released as Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation.

We are requesting them to unfreeze Afghan assets and not punish ordinary Afghans because of the political discourse, said Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam on Sunday night. Because of the starvation, because of the deadly winter, I think its time for the international community to support Afghans, not punish them because of their political disputes.

Ahead of the talks, western diplomats met with Afghan womens rights activists and human rights defenders to about their demands and assessment of the current situation on the ground. The meeting was attended by representatives of the EU, the U.S., Britain, France, Italy and hosts Norway.

Standing silent as attendees gathered, womens rights activist Heda Khamoush, who lives in Kabul, held up the photos of Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parwana Ibrahimkhel, two women arrested by the Taliban last week following an anti-Taliban protest against the compulsory Islamic headscarf, or hijab, for women. They havent been seen since.

Rejecting the accusation the Taliban had abducted them, Azam said he was not aware of that and suggested activists may be using this event to seek asylum.

The three-day talks opened on Sunday with direct meetings between the Taliban and civil society representatives.

On Monday the Talibans acting foreign minister spoke to reporters, saying meetings with Afghanistans civil society were not a negotiation, but rather a constructive exchange. The countrys new rulers have been sharply criticized for their heavy-handed approach to security, dispersing women protesters with pepper spray and firing in the air, intimidating and and beating journalists and coming in the night to arrest anti-government demonstrators.

The Taliban have been criticized for establishing an interim Cabinet that is all-male and all-Taliban. Most are ethnic Pashtuns. Successive Afghan organizations as well as the international community have urged the Taliban to open the government to non-Taliban, as well as a strong showing of ethnic and religious minorities and women.

Muttaqi said most of the civil servants who have returned to work are from the previous government and about 15,000 women are working in the health and education sectors. There has been no decision yet he said on more women in the government work force.

We have not dismissed anyone, he said. This is progress, but of course it is not enough.

Talks with European and U.S. representatives were expected to cover everything from education to humanitarian aid to greater inclusivity.

Muttaqi said he had a message to Afghans and the international community:

Our message is that after 40 years of war Afghans are in peace. War is ended and now is the time for progress and economic activity . . . We want Afghans to be happy after all those years of suffering. We want good relations with the world, with our neighboring countries, with the European countries . . . We have had good results and progress in our meetings.

Womens rights activist Mahbouba Seraj acknowledged the progress made. Yes, they were listening. I should say that, she said Monday morning. We gave them a paper. We asked them what we wanted. They took it. They were very, very cordial about it.

The talks come at a crucial time for Afghanistan as freezing temperatures are compounding misery from the downward spiral that has come with the fall of the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban takeover.

Aid groups and international agencies estimate about 23 million people, more than half the country, face severe hunger and nearly 9 million are on the brink of starvation. People have resorted to selling possessions to buy food, burning furniture for warmth and even selling their children. The United Nations has managed to provide some liquidity and allowed the Taliban administration to pay for imports, including electricity.

Faced with the Talibans request for funds, Western powers are likely to put the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan high on their agenda, along with the Wests recurring demand for the Taliban administration to share power with Afghanistans minority ethnic and religious groups.

Since sweeping to power in mid-August, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women. Women have been banned from many jobs outside the health and education fields, their access to education has been restricted beyond sixth grade and they have been ordered to wear the hijab. The Taliban have, however, stopped short of imposing the burqa, which was compulsory when they previously ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The Taliban have increasingly targeted Afghanistans beleaguered rights groups, as well as journalists, detaining and sometimes beating television crews covering demonstrations.

In a tweet Monday the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West welcomed talks between Taliban and the countrys civil society representatives and said we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan.

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Rahim Faiez and Kathy Gannon contributed to this report from Islamabad.
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso  More than a dozen mutinous soldiers declared Monday on state television that a military junta had seized control of Burkina Faso after detaining the democratically elected president following a day of gunbattles in the capital of the West African country.

The military coup in a nation that was once a bastion of stability was the third of its kind in the region in the last 18 months, creating upheaval in some of the countries hardest hit by Islamic extremist attacks.

Capt. Sidsore Kaber Ouedraogo said the Patriotic Movement for Safeguarding and Restoration has decided to assume its responsibilities before history. The soldiers put an end to President Roch Marc Christian Kabores presidency because of the deteriorating security situation and the presidents inability to manage the crisis, he said.

It was not immediately known where Kabore was, and the junta spokesman said only that the coup had taken place without any physical violence against those arrested, who are being held in a safe place, with respect for their dignity.

A soldier in the mutiny, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of situation, told The Associated Press that Kabore had submitted his resignation.

The new military regime said it had suspended Burkina Fasos constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. The countrys borders were closed, and a curfew was in effect from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Ouedraogo said that the countrys new leaders would work to establish a calendar acceptable to everyone for holding new elections without giving further details.

After the televised announcement, crowds took to the streets, cheering and honking car horns in support of the takeover. People hoped that the coup would ease the devastation they have endured since jihadist violence spread across the country.

This is an opportunity for Burkina Faso to regain its integrity. The previous regime sunk us. People are dying daily. Soldiers are dying. There are thousands of displaced, said Manuel Sip, a protester in downtown Ouagadougou. The army should have acted faster in ousting the president, he said.

After the overthrow of strongman Blaise Compaore in 2014, several people told the AP they no longer cared if they had a democratically elected leader. They just wanted to live in peace.

The communique read aloud on state broadcaster RTB was signed by the countrys apparent new military leader, Lt. Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba. He sat beside the spokesman without addressing the camera during the announcement.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on coup leaders to lay down their arms. He reiterated the U.N.s full commitment to the preservation of the constitutional order in Burkina Faso and support for the people in their efforts to find solutions to the multifaceted challenges facing the country, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The U.N. chief said the military takeover was part of an epidemic of coups around the world and in that region.

The U.S. State Department in a statement expressed deep concern about the dissolution of the government, suspension of the constitution and the detention of government leaders. We condemn these acts and call on those responsible to deescalate the situation, prevent harm to President Kabore and any other members of his government in detention, and return to civilian-led government and constitutional order, spokesperson Ned Price said.

In a statement, Kabores political party accused the mutinous soldiers of trying to assassinate the president and another government minister and said the presidential palace in Ouagadougou remained surrounded by heavily armed and hooded men.

The coup is a signal of frustration and exasperation on the heels of a growing struggle to stem the threat of militants, cope with the degraded security structure, and an attempt to restore faith in the institution of the military, said Laith Alkhouri, CEO of Intelonyx Intelligence Advisory, which provides intelligence analysis.

Gunfire erupted early Sunday when soldiers took control of a major military barracks in the capital. In response, civilians rallied in a show of support for the rebellion but were dispersed by security forces firing tear gas. On Monday, groups of people celebrated again in the streets of the capital after reports of Kabores capture.

Kabore was elected in 2015 after the popular uprising that ousted Compaore. Kabore was reelected in November 2020, but frustration has been growing at his inability to stem the jihadist violence. Attacks linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have killed thousands and displaced more than an estimated 1.5 million people.

The military has suffered losses since the extremist violence began in 2016. In December, more than 50 security forces were killed and nine more died in November.

Mutinous soldiers told the AP that the government was out of touch with troops. Among their demands are more forces in the battle against extremists and better care for the wounded and the families of the dead.

About 100 military members have planned the takeover since August, according to one of the mutinous soldiers.

The West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS said in a statement that it was following events in Ouagadougou with great concern. The bloc has already suspended Mali and Guinea over military coups. Those coup leaders appear in no hurry to return their countries to civilian rule.

Burkina Faso has also seen its share of coup attempts and military takeovers, although it experienced a period of relative stability under Compaore, who ruled for 27 years until his ouster in 2014.

In 1987, Compaore came to power by force. And in 2015, soldiers loyal to him attempted to overthrow the transitional government put into place after his ouster. The army was ultimately able to put the transitional authorities back in power, who led again until Kabore won an election and took office.

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Associated Press writers Krista Larson and Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
LONDON  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday won the first stage of his effort to overturn a U.K. ruling that opened the door for his extradition to U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges.

The High Court in London gave Assange permission to appeal the case to the U.K. Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court must agree to accept the case before it can move forward.

Make no mistake, we won today in court, Assanges fiancee, Stella Moris, said outside the courthouse, noting that he remains in custody at Belmarsh Prison in London.

We will fight this until Julian is free, she added.

The Supreme Court normally takes about eight sitting weeks after an application is submitted to decide whether to accept an appeal, the court says on its website.

The decision is the latest step in Assanges long battle to avoid a trial in the U.S. on a series of charges related to WikiLeaks publication of classified documents more than a decade ago.

Just over a year ago, a district court judge in London rejected a U.S. extradition request on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. U.S. authorities later provided assurances that the WikiLeaks founder wouldnt face the severe treatment his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

The High Court last month overturned the lower courts decision, saying that the U.S. promises were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely.

Those assurances were the focus of Mondays ruling by the High Court.

Assanges lawyers are seeking to appeal because the U.S. offered its assurances after the lower court made its ruling. But the High Court overturned the lower court ruling, saying that the judge should have given the U.S. the opportunity to offer the assurances before she made her final ruling.

The High Court gave Assange permission to appeal so the Supreme Court can decide in what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state  in extradition proceedings.

Assanges lawyers have argued that the U.S. governments pledge that Assange wont be subjected to extreme conditions is meaningless because its conditional and could be changed at the discretion of American authorities.

The U.S. has asked British authorities to extradite Assange so he can stand trial on 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse linked to WikiLeaks publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents.

Assange, 50, has been held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison since 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that, he spent seven years holed up inside Ecuadors Embassy in London. Assange sought protection in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

American prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.

Lawyers for Assange argue that their client shouldnt have been charged because he was acting as a journalist and is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of the press. They say the documents he published exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He should not face criminal prosecution and decades in prison for publishing truthful information of great public importance, said Barry Pollack, his attorney in the United States.

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Jill Lawless in London, and Eric Tucker in Washington, contributed to this report.
SIERRA VISTA, Ariz.  A 14-year-old boy suspected of building pipe bombs in his Douglas home will serve at least 18 months in a juvenile detention facility.

The Sierra Vista Herald reported Monday that the teen pleaded guilty to one count each of promoting terrorism and possession of a prohibited weapon.

Cochise County Deputy Attorney Doyle Johnstun said a disposition of his case indicates he will go to the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections.

The teen wont stay there beyond his 18th birthday. In an email, Johnstun said his release date will be up to the corrections department.

The boy was arrested in May 2021 after authorities found a pipe bomb and preparation for a second in a back room of the home he shares with his mother and older brother.

He was already on the FBIs radar because of terrorism-related social media posts.

Prosecutors wanted him tried as an adult. His attorney, Xochitl Orozco, argued his client should be tried as a juvenile because of his age, autism and other mental issues.
A pro-Trump social media influencer who posted video of himself at the U.S. Capitol during last years riot was sentenced on Monday to three months of home detention after a federal prosecutor accused him of abusing his online platform to stir up the mob.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said she finds it deeply disturbing that Brandon Straka, 45, used his social media influence to encourage and defend the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Election challenges are fought in the courts, not by storming the Capitol, Friedrich said.

The judge also sentenced Straka to three years of probation and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine.

Also on Monday, a federal judge in Texas heard arguments on whether to jail the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group while he awaits trial on seditious conspiracy charges. U.S. Magistrate Judge Kimberly Priest Johnson said she expects to issue a written ruling in the next day or two on whether to detain Stewart Rhodes.

In the case of Straka, it was noted that his personal Twitter account has nearly 500,000 followers. Using his significant public profile, Straka encouraged others to storm the Capitol, to take a protective shield from a police officer and to hold the line even after he departed the Capitol grounds, a prosecutor said in a court filing.

Even if he didnt personally engage in violence or property destruction during the riot, Straka encouraged and celebrated the violence of that day, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Reed wrote.

Straka, a former hair stylist, founded the #WalkAway Campaign after posting a video that went viral in 2018. The video, titled Why I left the Democrat Party, has nearly 900,000 views on YouTube. He also chairs a tax-exempt nonprofit  the #WalkAway Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia  that reported more than $600,000 in revenue in 2019.

Straka told the judge that he and his social media followers dont condone violence.

Its not who they are, and its not who I am, which is why they love our movement, he said. My relationship with my fans and followers is not just about politics. Its about love.

Prosecutors had recommended four months of home detention for Straka, a longtime resident of New York City. The Nebraska native pleaded guilty in October to a disorderly conduct charge, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment.

More than 720 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Unlike most riot defendants, Straka isnt accused of either entering the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, or engaging in violent or destructive behavior.

His attorney, Bilal Essayli, accused prosecutors of attacking Strakas constitutionally protected political speech and attempting to make a public example of a prominent Trump-supporting influencer.

The judge, however, said Straka wasnt prosecuted or punished for his political views or personal beliefs.

None of the criminal conduct to which Mr. Straka has admitted is covered by the First Amendment, Friedrich said.

Essayli also said that when federal authorities interviewed Straka, they were focused on establishing an organized conspiracy between Straka, former President Donald Trump and Trump allies to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.

Straka answered all questions truthfully and denied the existence of any such plot, his lawyer wrote in a court filing.

After President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Straka frequently told his followers that it was time to rise up as part of a civil war, according to Reed, the prosecutor.

Many of these messages contain rhetorical flourishes that are common in political speech. However, some of Strakas references to concrete planning and action could reasonably have been interpreted by some readers as a call for more than just a figurative struggle, Reed wrote.

Straka was scheduled to speak at a rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, after Trumps speech near the White House. Straka learned that the Capitol had been breached before he arrived at the building.

A video captured Straka telling the rioters to go, go, go as they tried to enter the Capitol. Straka also can be heard saying take it, take it as rioters grabbed a shield from an officer.

Straka tweeted, Patriots at the Capitol  HOLD. THE. LINE!!!! after he left the area. Thousands of Twitter users liked or retweeted the message.

Straka did nothing to display to these followers that his conduct was shameful. He even boasted about his conduct by posting about the riot the following day, Reed wrote.

Straka made statements on social media that were in retrospect irresponsible and potentially inflammatory, but he hadnt witnessed some of the worst violence on the west side of the Capitol, Essayli wrote.

Once understanding the full context of the events, Brandon retracted and removed his prior statements, Strakas lawyer added.

Straka was jailed for two days after his arrest in Omaha, Nebraska, last January.

In the Texas case, Johnson heard arguments from federal prosecutors that Rhodes is dangerous, destroyed evidence of his alleged crimes and a is flight risk who could easily disappear with the help of his broad network of supporters.

Rhodes defense attorneys countered that the 56-year-old has no passport, has cooperated with investigators and that the actions the government claims were dangerous took place many months ago.

Defense lawyer James Lee Bright said Rhodes is being punished for his political opinion and called it disingenuous for the government to now claim hes a risk after waiting a year to arrest him.

___

Kunzelman reported from College Park, Maryland. Bleiberg reported from Plano, Texas.
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  A proposal to amend the state Constitution and pay New Mexico lawmakers a salary for the first time began moving through the Legislature Monday.

The legislation, Senate Joint Resolution 8, would call on the State Ethics Commission to review and establish salaries for state elected officials in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

It would also make changes to the composition of the ethics commission, granting the Supreme Court authority to appoint two of the seven members.

New Mexico is currently the only state that does not pay its legislators a salary, though they can qualify for a legislative pension plan, and draw daily payments during the session and for attending meetings, based on federal per diem.

This years daily rate ranges from $173 to $202, depending on the time of year  or about $5,200 for the 30-day session that just started.

Theres an argument that New Mexico has a tremendous tradition of volunteerism and public service, said Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, an Albuquerque Democrat and co-sponsor of the proposal. Theres another argument that the people are getting what they pay for.

The proposal cleared the Senate Rules Committee on a 7-1 vote and heads next to the Judiciary Committee, potentially its last stop before the full chamber.

If adopted by the Legislature, the amendment would go before voters later this year.

Under the proposal, the ethics commission would set the salaries of about 330 elected state officials every two years, a group that includes legislators, judges and the governor.

Salaries for the governor and statewide officials are now set by law and have not been changed in 20 years.

The past two governors  Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham and Republican Susana Martinez  each vetoed proposals that would have raised their $110,000 annual salary.

Supporters of the constitutional amendment said it makes sense to grant salary authority to an independent body, rather than having legislators and the governor periodically considering their own pay.

Voters dont want us setting our own salaries, Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth, D-Santa Fe, said. I think the independent commission is the key to the success of this.

Much of Mondays debate focused on lawmakers compensation. Common Cause New Mexico and other advocacy groups said offering a salary would broaden the pool of people willing to serve in the Legislature.

Few careers, they said, allow someone to take a month or two off each year to serve in Santa Fe every day, in addition to attending interim hearings held throughout the year.

Were going to really expand the universe of people who are able to serve if we do have a salaried legislature, Sen. Katy Duhigg, D-Albuquerque, said. Right now, its largely the rich and retired.

Senate Minority Leader Greg Baca, R-Belen, was the lone no vote against the proposal. He did not elaborate on his opposition.

Past proposals to establish a legislative salary have failed repeatedly.

Some opposition has focused on whether it would be appropriate to hand over spending power to an unelected body.
New Mexico has made an impression on Antiques Roadshow.

The long-running PBS series, will return to New Mexico for its 27th season on June 14 in Santa Fe.

The production will visit Museum Hill in Santa Fe for the first time. Santa Fe was supposed to be a spot in 2020, but the pandemic shut down all productions.

It will mark the fourth time the series has been in New Mexico. Albuquerque was the sixth city ever visited for the series. New Mexico is also the site of one of the top Antiques Roadshow finds, when a guest brought in what turned out to be a Tang Dynasty Marble Lion in 2002.

The City Different will be one of five cities during the new season, which stops exclusively at distinctive, historic locations. The tour will also be visiting Nashville, Tennessee, Boise, Idaho, Woodside, California and Shelburne, Vermont.

I cant wait to resume our familiar appraisal-event production format this year and am most excited to interact with our fans on-set, said Marsha Bemko, executive producer. The magic of a Roadshow event is the serendipitous moments captured by our cameras, and were ready to discover New Mexicos treasures during our day at Santa Fes Museum Hill.

According to Bemko, production will follow all COVID-19 policies and appraisals and filming will take place outdoors.

At each appraisal event guests will receive free verbal evaluations of their antiques and collectibles from experts from the countrys leading auction houses and independent dealers. Each ticketed guest is invited to bring two items for appraisal.

Admission to Antiques Roadshow is free, but tickets are required and must be obtained in advance. Fans can enter for a chance to win one pair of free tickets per household. The 2022 ANTIQUES ROADSHOW sweepstakes opened Monday, Jan. 24. To enter for a free pair of tickets, go to pbs.org/roadshowtickets. Deadline for entries is Monday, March 21, 11:59 p.m. PST. No purchase necessary, restrictions apply, must be 18, void where prohibited.

For more information you may also call toll-free 888-762-3749.
DUBAI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Defense Ministry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced on Monday that its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi militia.

The attack, which came one week after a deadly Houthi attack on the UAE's capital Abu Dhabi on Jan. 17, caused no casualties, as the ballistic missile fragments fell in several locations around Abu Dhabi, the official Emirates News Agency reported, citing a statement of the ministry.

The ballistic missile launcher in Yemen's Al Jawf governorate was destroyed shortly after it launched the two missiles against Abu Dhabi, UAE's Defense Ministry announced in a post on its Twitter account.

Video footage posted on UAE Defense Ministry's Twitter account showed a huge fire erupting at an infrastructure, which was described by the ministry as a ballistic missile launcher in Yemen, after it was hit by a missile. The missile was reported to have been launched by an F-16 fighter jet.

The ministry also said in a statement that it is ready to deal with any threats and will "take all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks."

Meanwhile, Houthi military spokesman Yehya Sarea asked foreign companies and investors in the UAE to leave, because the country has become "unsafe."

"As long as the UAE continues its assault and siege of the Yemeni people, it will be repeatedly targeted," he said.

Yemen's Houthi militia on Monday claimed responsibility for using ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones to strike a number of facilities deep within the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both of which have joined a military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen.

The strike had targeted the Al Dhafra Air Base and other sensitive sites in Abu Dhabi, as well as important sites in Dubai, Houthi military spokesman Yehya Sarea said in a statement.

The militia also used "a large number of drones" to attack multiple military bases in Saudi Arabia's Sharurah and other areas, and fired ballistic missiles against the Jazan and Asir regions, according to Sarea.

The strike against Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi-led coalition, resulted in material losses but no casualties.

Turkey and Lebanon condemned the Yemeni militia's missile attacks shortly after they occurred on Monday.

The Houthis have frequently launched cross-border missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia, and on Jan. 17, they staged an unexpected attack on the UAE, in which three petroleum tankers caught fire near Abu Dhabi National Oil Company storage facilities. The attack resulted in the deaths of three people and the injuries of six more.

In the week following Jan. 17, a Saudi-led coalition conducted a series of airstrikes across Yemen, hitting various Houthi-controlled targets and killing dozens of people. (Murad Abdo in Aden, Yemen contributed to the report) 
Copyright  2022 Albuquerque Journal

A judge sentenced Anthony Aragon on Monday to six years in prison for helping conceal the bodies of two teenage boys tortured and shot to death in 2018.

Aragon, 39, pleaded guilty Dec. 7 to two counts of tampering with evidence and a third count of conspiracy for burying the boys bodies in a remote area west of Rio Rancho.

Three other men alleged to have killed Collin Romero, 15, and Ahmed Lateef, 14, are scheduled to stand trial in August.

Stephen Goldman Jr., 22, Jimmie Atkins, 25, and Julio Almentero, 18, each were charged with two counts of first-degree murder, three counts of kidnapping, two counts of armed robbery and other charges in the boys deaths.

During a sentencing hearing Monday, Collins mother told Aragon she spent 10 days searching the West Mesa for her sons remains before searchers found the bodies.

I was on my hands and knees, crawling around different areas in the middle of the West Mesa, Amanda Kimbrel said.

I was sniffing mounds of freshly overturned earth, sniffing for a hint of decaying bodies, she said. Do you realize I would still be doing that today had you been successful at hiding my son and Ahmed?

Aragon apologized for his role in the killings before he was sentenced.

I want everyone who loves them to know that I am so sorry, Aragon said. I take full responsibility for what I did. I can never make it right, but I can, and I will, be a better person.

After burying the bodies, Aragon fled to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he committed three armed robberies in three days, according to Nevada court records.

He pleaded guilty in Nevada in 2019 to multiple counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to between six and 15 years in prison, according to a Nevada Court of Appeals opinion upholding the conviction.

In handing down Aragons sentence on Monday, 2nd Judicial District Court Judge Alisa Hart ordered Aragons New Mexico sentence to run consecutive to his Nevada sentence.

Aragon told Albuquerque police that Goldman called him seeking help the day the two boys were killed, according to a criminal complaint.

Aragon met Goldman, Atkins and Almentero at a West Side motel and was told that the bodies of the two boys were in the trunk of a white Buick, according to the complaint.

Aragon and Atkins drove the Buick to the West Mesa where they dumped the bodies, the complaint said. The two returned days later and buried the bodies out of fear that searchers would find them, it said.
WENN/Brian To Celebrity

After the actress and Golden Globe Award-nominated director confirmed her son's tragic passing on Friday, January 21, it's now reported that he committed suicide on the day he turned 26 on Wednesday.

Jan 24, 2022

AceShowbiz - New heartbreaking detail of the death of Regina King's son has surfaced online. Several days after the actress broke the sad news, it's now revealed that Ian Alexander Jr. took his own life on Wednesday, January 19, the day he turned 26 years old, according to law enforcement.

Regina announced her son's tragic passing on Friday. "Our family is devastated at the deepest level by the loss of Ian," she said in a statement to the press. "He is such a bright light who cared so deeply about the happiness of others. Our family asks for respectful consideration during this private time. Thank you."

Ian committed suicide a few days after he made alarming tweets. "You know that episode of SpongeBob where they go inside his brain and it's a bunch of mini spongebobs just losing their s**t.....yea that one really hits home," he wrote in one of his last tweets.

The deejay also admitted that Instagram is not good for his mental health. "I don't think instagram is healthy for me," he penned in a separate post.

Ian is Regina's only child whom she shared with her ex-husband Ian Alexander Sr. They divorced in 2007 after ten years of marriage.

Ian would sometimes appear on red carpet with Regina. When attending the 2019 Golden Globe Awards together, he reflected on having the "One Night in Miami..." director as his mother. "Usually people will ask me, 'What's it like having Regina King be your mother,' " he told E! News. "She's just a super mom, really. She doesn't really let bad work days or anything come back and ruin the time that we have, so it's really awesome to have a mother that...I can enjoy spending time with and all that."

Regina, meanwhile, gushed that Ian was someone who "makes me happier than anything in the whole world." She was an avid supporter of her son's music career, calling herself a "proud mom" on Instagram after he released his debut single in April 2021.
Instagram Celebrity

Brande Roderick's comments arrive after 'Secrets of Playboy' trailer sees the participants detailing allegations about a 'cult-like' atmosphere at the infamous Playboy mansion.

Jan 24, 2022

AceShowbiz - While some former Playboy models are speaking out against Hugh Hefner, the late magazine publisher found support in Brande Roderick. The former Playmate weighed in on Holly Madison's cult allegations on "Secrets of Playboy" docuseries.

"For me, I have a real fond love for Hef, he was a wonderful person," Brande revealed to Ashleigh Banfield during her Friday, January 21, appearance on "Banfield NewsNation" show. "I learned about art, I learned about music, you know, big band and jazz, old classic films."

Further gushing over Hugh, the 47-year-old went on to say that she "learned grace from Hef." She added, "That's one thing that I learned and got to see firsthand is the way that this major iconic man, who's super famous, would react with everybody.  He was just so graceful, which is something you don't see a lot of times from celebrities in Hollywood."

The 2001 Playmate of the Year continued, "Well, you're talking to someone who was there in the '70s. For me, it was not like that whatsoever. In fact, there was one night at one party where security came to Hef and said, 'There's somebody doing cocaine in the bathroom.' He had them kicked out and never allowed at the mansion again. He was very much against drugs."

"How about the girls there preying on these rich men?" the "Baywatch" alum further questioned. "I mean, come on, that's ridiculous.  They were all there at their free will: No one was holding a gun to their head."

Brande also criticized her fellow Playmates who only started speaking out after Hugh died in September 2017 at the age of 91. "I feel so sad that I even have to defend him because he's such an amazing person who has done so much for so many people," she said. "And the fact that some women are coming out because maybe they have a book coming out, maybe they want 15 more minutes of fame, maybe they're out of it, whatever, and to do it now, after he's dead, when he cannot defend himself, to me is disgusting."

"Why not go on the other documentaries that have been made while he was alive and say these things about him?  He's not those things," she continued.

Brande's comments arrived after A&E released a trailer for the docuseries earlier this month. In the clip, the participants detailed allegations about a "cult-like" atmosphere at the infamous Playboy mansion and what its parties were actually like. "We were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as, like, this really good guy," Holly said in the video.

The "Vegas Diaries" author added. "You started to feel like, 'Oh, he's not what they say in the media - he's just a nice man.' You had a 9 o'clock curfew, you were encouraged to not have friends over. You weren't really allowed to leave unless it was, like, a family holiday. I kept my waitressing job one day a week because I just wanted something easy to go back to, should things not work out. He said it made him jealous, and he would appreciate it if I quit my job."

In response to the claims, Playboy issued a statement which read, "Today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy." The company's statement on Thursday, January 20 continued, "We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences.  We will never be afraid to confront the parts of our legacy as a company that do not reflect our values today. We are committed to our ongoing evolution as a company and to driving positive change for our communities."
WENN/Avalon Movie

The 'Cruella' actress finds it difficult to bare her skin while filming 'Good Luck to You, Leo Grande' as people are not 'used to seeing untreated bodies on the screen.'

Jan 24, 2022

AceShowbiz - Emma Thompson has opened up about the difficulty of shooting nude scenes at her age. In a new interview, the actress portraying Baroness in "Cruella" admitted that being nude at 62 years old for her new film was "challenging."

During the Cinema Cafe conversation at Sundance Film Festival on Saturday, January 22, the actress talked about rehearsing "entirely nude" and filming a full-frontal scene for "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande". On her decision to shoot the scene, she said, "It's very challenging to be nude at 62," before adding of her character, Nancy Stokes, "She stands in front of a mirror alone and she drops her robe."

"I don't think I could've done it before the age that I am," Emma continued. The "Love Actually" star went on elaborating, "And yet, of course, the age that I am makes it extremely challenging because we aren't used to seeing untreated bodies on the screen."

Emma also discussed the "dreadful demands" put on women both in the real world and in acting. "Nothing has changed in the dreadful demands made upon women in the real world but also in acting," so said the Academy Award-winner.

"[Sophie Hyde, the director], [Daryl McCormack] and I rehearsed entirely nude and talked about our bodies, talked about our relationship with our bodies, drew them, discussed the things that we find difficult about, things we like about them, described one another's bodies," Emma shared. "This thing of having to be thin is still the same as it ever was, and actually in some ways I think it's worse now," the "Nanny McPhee Returns" actress added.

Elsewhere during the conversation, Emma shared that she formed a bond with her co-star, Daryl, by going on walks around London's Hampstead Heath and navigating the muddy and slippery terrain. "That was very important that we could hold onto each other and laugh," she claimed.

"Actually, that's what we've done the entire time, held onto each other, slid about, and laugh," Emma talked about her relationship with the 29-year-old Irish actor. "That walk kind of was emblematic of the whole journey," she noted.

"Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend. The film follows Nancy, a widowed school teacher who hires a male escort, played by Daryl, for a date, hoping to experience an orgasm for the first time. The film also stars Isabella Laughland and it has yet to be picked up for distribution after its world premiere at Sundance.
British Vogue Magazine Celebrity

Taking to Twitter, some Internet users call the February cover, which is intended to highlight African beauty, an example of 'black skin porn' and 'black fetish' instead of an art.

Jan 24, 2022

AceShowbiz - British Vogue faces backlash after it reveals its February 2022 cover. The controversial cover features nine African models as it's intended to highlight African beauty, but people take issue with the editing which allegedly makes the models look darker.

Featured in the cover were Adut Akech, Amar Akway, Majesty Amare, Akon Changkou, Maty Fall, Janet Jumbo, Abeny Nhial, Nyagua Ruea and Anok Yai. The models could be seen striking poses in front of cameras while donning all-black ensembles.

"With a new generation of models in the spotlight, fashion is at last embracing what it is to be truly global. The nine models gracing the cover are representative of an ongoing seismic shift that became more pronounced on the SS22 runways; awash with dark-skinned models whose African heritage stretched from Senegal to Rwanda to South Sudan to Nigeria to Ethiopia," the magazine wrote in an Instagram caption.

The caption continued to read, "For an industry long criticised for its lack of diversity, as well as for perpetuating beauty standards seen through a Eurocentric lens, this change is momentous. @FunmiFetto talks to some of those redrawing the map in the February issue of #BritishVogue."

The cover, however, was met with criticism from Internet users, who appeared to think that the appearances of the models, who are either Ethiopian, Nigerian, Rwandan, Senegalese and South Sudanese, looked weird. "This cover is weird. The lighting is off. The backdrop is off. The various skin tones and highlights are missing. And the African models are all in European styled wigs. Huh? @BritishVogue definitely needs to hire Black women photographers," one critic said.

"I just would like black women to be represented as they are. Those women are stunning. Sometimes the European (or fashion) gaze exoticizes black women by darkening them to 'make art' and it's giving a bit of fetish. Even very dark skin has tones and highlights and isn't just 1-D," another user added.

Someone else noted, "I am South Sudanese. I have lived here probably longer than these models and I can assure you that there is nobody moving around looking like this. As an artist, I can also assure you that this is not art. This is Black Skin Porn. Black Fetish. Reverse Bleaching."

However, Vogue Editor-In-Chief Edward Enniful, who also styled the photos, seemingly believed that what the magazine did was capture the current "wave" of where fashion is headed. "I saw all these incredible models from across Africa who were just so vivacious and smart," he explained the inspiration behind the cover.

"These girls are redefining what it is to be a fashion model," he continued. "You know, fashion tends to follow waves. We've had the Brazilian wave. We had the Dutch wave, the Russian wave, the Eastern European wave And while, in the last decade, the Black model has come to prominence, I love that we are finally giving more space to African beauty."

British Vogue has yet to comment on the backlash.
WENN/Will Alexander Celebrity

Ye also shows displeasure over the current laws which allow paparazzi to take photos of celebrities without permission as long as the photos are captured in a public setting.

Jan 25, 2022

AceShowbiz - Kanye West seemingly isn't bothered by being followed by paparazzi, as long as he gets his share of the money made from his images. The purported billionaire said that one of ways for celebrities to take more control of their likeness is by receiving a percentage of the money made from paparazzi photos and interviews.

"Right now y'all get to shoot us without having to pay. I'mma change that," he told some photographers on Saturday, January 22 as he was leaving the airport in Miami. "I'm not saying it in a negative way."

The "Donda" artist went on to explain, "It's just like, right now, it's just really one-sided. You guys can follow us, you guys can stand [outside] a hotel at any given time-you don't give us any percentage of what you're making off of us, off of our kids, and I'm gonna change that."

The Yeezy founder added, "We all gotta make money together. It can't be a one-sided thing. Look, if I'm just with my kids, I say I don't want you to shoot me, then that's just something y'all gotta respect. We can get that money together, but we gotta have a conversation."

During the discussion, Ye showed displeasure over the current laws which allow paparazzi to take photos of celebrities without permission as long as the photos are captured in a public setting. "I'm gonna make sure we get our rights," he said. "We're real people, also."

The estranged husband of Kim Kardashian later talked about his altercation with Justin Poplawski, a 40-year-old autograph-seeker who was allegedly punched by Kanye in Los Angeles this month. Ye, who was named the main suspect in the battery investigation, refused to consider Justin a fan, adding that he's someone who was simply trying to make money off his name.

"I respect your job. My dad was a photographer at a newspaper. I love paparazzi," he said. "But as Americans, we gotta respect each other. We gotta bring the pride back to this country."

Ye reportedly got into a physical altercation with the male fan on early Thursday morning, January 13 outside the Soho Warehouse. The "Gold Digger" spitter allegedly pushed and then punched the man, knocking him to the ground.
ET Money, one of Indias fastest growing investment and wealth management platforms, today launched ET Money Genius, one of its kind membership service that will deliver personalized investing intelligence. To ensure a hyper-personalized experience, ET Money has revamped its entire App, brand identity and introduced a new design system. It has also unveiled a new logo, called Wheel of Wealththat signifies stability, protection, personalized approach to wealth & the sense of freedom that wealth gives to an individual to make & live their life choices. It has also changed how it spells the brand name from ETMONEY to ET Money to align to how users of the App preferred to spell it.

Speaking on the launch, Mukesh Kalra, Founder & CEO, ET Moneysaid, India is witnessing a phenomenal influx of new investors across different investment products. From being just savers in physical assets, Indians are opening up to new investment ideas. Indians are lapping up Stocks, Mutual Funds, IPOs, NFOs, Crypto and many other investment products. But instead of becoming investors, Indians are at risk of becoming a mere buyer, a shopper or just a collector of Investment Products. People are buying investment products like they shop for goods on shopping apps. This is happening because of the missing layer of personalization from the industry where players are focused on inducing transactions or just investment inflows because of a mis-aligned business model. In absence of personalization, everyone is buying the same types of investment products, irrespective of their Investor Personality, Risk Profile, time horizon or life goals. We are taking on the challenge of ending this impulsive behavior of shopping & collecting Investment Products to build personalized portfolios, thats powered by Investing Intelligence of ET Money. This service will be a member only offering and will be offered under our new service, ET Money Genius.

ET Moneys new brand identity and a brand new App experience along with their membership service of ET Money Genius marks the beginning of its adding more impetus to its mission of helping India take informed financial decisions. The brand has always stood for simplifying Mutual Fund investments. It has continuously upped the innovation quotient of its offerings by not merely making it easy to transact but also added a layer of investing intelligence by way of building innovative tools like Fund Report Card, Investor Personality & Portfolio Health Check. It's now set its eyes on a bigger & more transformational goal of helping personalize this investing intelligence.

With a renewed App experience and a revolutionary product called ET Money Genius, ET Money is staking a claim to become Indias largest Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) within a few months of launch. Commenting further, Kalra added, SEBI has a vision for the Wealth Management industry & that vision has a prominent role for RIAs who are supposed to be fiduciary to their clients & not create a business model on commissions or brokerage. ET Money has led the way for the industry making Direct Mutual Funds as a preferred way to participate in Indias growth story & now we are deepening our commitment further by bringing in hyper personalized investment intelligence to our investors & become Indias largest RIA by number of paying clients. ET Money Genius will start rolling out beginning January 27, 2022 and culminate into a public launch before mid-February 2022.
GoodWorker has appointed Hill+Knowlton Strategies (H+K) as its official communications agency of record in India following a competitive pitch. With an ambitious vision of impacting 300 million lives by bridging the gap between workers and employers by 2030. H+K will partner with GoodWorker and support its aim of transforming the lives of blue-collar workers in India. The mandate will encompass raising visibility, driving brand awareness, and building thought leadership across India amongst national and regional audiences.

Goodworker aims to help blue workers by building digital platforms that will offer multiple services; provide access to quality jobs, facilitate their joining in new workplaces, leverage an online learning community to enhance their career-related knowledge & skills and other quality of life services.

Confirming the appointment, Ketul Acharya, COO, GoodWorker said, We look forward to working with Hill+Knowlton Strategies India as our public relationship and communications partner. H+Ks diversified experience across sectors and its track record of success makes them an excellent partner to drive our communications in a compelling manner and support our immediate endeavor our vision of empowering millions of workers

Commenting on the announcement, Abhishek Gulyani, CEO, Hill+Knowlton Strategies India said, We are delighted to begin an exciting journey with GoodWorker and to support their strategic communications in India. Through this partnership, we will help them build a reputation through insight, analysis and broad media, investor, and influencer relationships. With a dedicated team and sectoral knowledge, H+K is well placed to deliver the desired outcome and positioning of the brand. We are thrilled to become a part of GoodWorkers brand story in India.
UTTAR PRADESH

BJP To Retain Power With Lesser Seats

The Polstrat-NewsX pre-poll survey predicts the BJP to retain power in Uttar Pradesh in the upcoming assembly elections. Of the 403 seats, BJP+ is expected to win 218-223 seats with a 40.9% vote share.

SP+ is expected to emerge as a strong opposition, securing 152-157 seats with a 36.4% vote share. BSP is expected to get 19-22 seats with a 12.3% vote share, INC is expected to win only 5-6 seats with a 5.9% vote share. Others are expected to get 0-2% seats with a 4.5% vote share.

UP Wants Yogi To Return As CM

47.51% of the respondents want to see Yogi Adityanath retain his chief ministerial candidature in 2022. The survey reveals that Yogi Adityanath is equally popular amongst female (49.14%) and male (51.51%) respondents, more popular in the age bracket 36-45 years (55.62%), amongst Upper Caste Hindus (64%), and in the Awadh region (62.74%).

SP's Akhilesh Yadav has emerged as a strong contender against Yogi Adityanath. 38.93% of the respondents opted for Akhilesh as their choice for Chief Minister in 2022. Votes of the remaining respondents split amongst Mayawati (5.31%), Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (3.42%), and others (4.83%).

Religion, Law & Order To Draw Votes

46.52% of respondents believe that religion will be a deciding factor in the polls, 4.32% said to some extent; while 39.23% said it is not, and the remaining 9.94% can't say/ don't know.

A majority of respondents (78.68%) lauded the improvement in the law & order situation of the state. However, only 47.30% of the total respondents see the change as drastic, 31.38% say there has been only a slight improvement, and 12.67% of respondents say that the law & order in the state has deteriorated under the Yogi government.

UTTARAKHAND

Seat Share & Vote Share Predictions

In Uttarakhand, the Polstrat-NewsX pre-poll survey has predicted BJP's sweeping victory in assembly elections 2022. Of the 70 seats, BJP is expected to win 37-40 seats with a 39.4% vote share. INC is expected to be a close second by winning 27-30 seats with a 36.5% vote share, and AAP is expected to secure only 3-4 seats with an 11.7% vote share.

Uttarakhand Backs Dhami

40.73% of the respondents want current Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to retain the post in 2022, followed by Harish Rawat (37.01%), Col. Kothiyal (13.65%), others (8.6%). Pushkar Singh Dhami is more popular among females (50.1%) than males (41.6%), in the above-56 age bracket (57.14%), and among Upper Caste Hindus (54.32%).

Major Issues

Among various issues, 51.88% of the respondents said jobs are the single biggest voting issue, as compared to hate speech(20%), government stability(11.29%), and COVID management (6.93%).

PUNJAB

Congress Likely To Lose Power

In the run-up to Punjab assembly elections, the Polstrat-NewsX pre-poll survey predicts Congress is unlikely to retain power in the next term. Of the 117 seats, Congress is predicted to win 42-45 seats with a 37.2% vote share. The Aam Aadmi Party, seeking to solidify its position in Punjab, is predicted to defeat Congress by a considerable margin with 52-55 seats with a 39.7% vote share. SAD is predicted to get 17-20 seats with a 16.6% vote share, while BJP is predicted to get only 0-2 seats with a 2.7% vote share.

Bhagwant Mann Most Popular Choice For CM

The Polstrat-NewsX pre-poll survey finds that 38.92% of the total respondents want to see AAPs Bhagwant Mann become the next Chief Minister. Current CM Charanjit Singh Channi (Cong) and SADs Sukhbir Singh Badal are tied for second place in this regard, with a meagre difference. Channi was favoured by 20.78% of the respondents, whereas Sukhbir Badal had 20.34% of respondents supporting his candidature for the post.

Punjab Wants Jobs

The survey tried to identify the issues that will be the major deciding factors when the state goes to the polls. Punjab is heavily divided on some of the major issues in the state. Even though employment opportunities emerged as the single largest issue among voters, the issue is the top priority for only 32.5% of the respondents. The next two major issues were development (19.8%) and sacrilege (13.9%). MSP for agricultural produce, which was a key demand during the anti-farm law protests, will be a significant issue for 10.4% of the voters.

GOA

Easy Win For BJP

The Polstrat-NewsX pre-poll survey predicts Bhartiya Janata Partys thumping victory in Goas upcoming assembly polls. Of the 40 seats, BJP is expected to win 21-25 seats with a 35.6% vote share. The Aam Aadmi Party is expected to get 6-9 seats with a 23.4% vote share, while Congress is expected to get only 4-6 seats with a 20.1% vote share.

Favourite CM Candidate

BJPs Pramod Sawant is the favourite candidate for the post of Chief Minister of Goa with 40% of the respondents supporting him, whereas, 30.91% of respondents opted for Congress Digambar Kamat. A considerable share (29.09%) of the respondents preferred other candidates as the states next CM.

Biggest Issues

36.36% of the respondents said employment would be the biggest voting issue followed by infrastructure (15.45%) and COVID management (14.55%). Mining in the state was the main issue for just 7.27% of the respondents.
Armasuisse

Bern, 24.01.2022 - A delegation from armasuisse led by National Armaments Director Martin Sonderegger is meeting representatives from Lockheed Martin today in Fort Worth, Texas. The talks will revolve around the planned procurement of the fighter aircraft F-35A from this manufacturer for the Swiss Armed Forces.

To discuss the current issues and the further procedure concerning the planned procurement of the F-35A, National Armaments Director Martin Sonderegger will travel together with Peter Winter, Head of competence sector Aeronautical Systems and Programme Director of Air2030, to the USA.

The Swiss delegation will meet with representatives of the manufacturer Lockheed Martin as well as the US administration. Among other things, the programme will include discussions on the current status of the F-35 programme as well as the planned offset activities of Lockheed Martin in Switzerland. The possibility of a production of the future F-35A of the Swiss Air Force in Cameri, Italy will also be discussed. The Swiss delegation will also gain an impression of the production of the F-35 during a visit to the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

The planned procurement entered the next phase when the Federal Council decided on the F-35A Lockheed Martin for the Swiss Air Force on June 30, 2021. Since then, talks have intensified based on the submitted offer and the Armed Forces Dispatch 2022 has been prepared, with its main focus on the procurement of the new fighter aircraft and the renewal of the extended range ground-based air defence system (Bodluv GR).

Address for enquiries

Kaj-Gunnar Sievert

Head of Communications armasuisse

+41 (0) 58 464 62 47

Publisher

Armasuisse

http://www.ar.admin.ch/



General Secretariat DDPS

https://www.vbs.admin.ch/



Defence

http://www.vtg.admin.ch




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Looking back over the past several weeks, the durum market has remained flat with no impressive moves one way or the other. That said, most lo
The major reports from USDA in mid-January basically confirmed what the market already knew  that the U.S. had a very large soybean crop. The final production total was actually slightly higher than expected, but not dramatically so.

For soybeans, (USDA) did increase production a little. So the national average yield increased slightly from what we were expecting, but it was well within the range of estimates, so not a big shocker, but it did go up a little, said Frayne Olson, grain marketing economist at North Dakota State University.

Looking at the market, Olson said there are two big uses for soybeans  domestic crushing and exports. Of those, domestic crush is still running very strong and the U.S. actually had some record crush levels in November and December.

So the industry is still doing very well, he said.

As for exports, he noted there is strong demand for soybean meal, including nationally and internationally, as well as a growing demand for soybean oil, which is whats really driving the margins right now because of interest in renewable diesel.

Right now, the capacity we have will not increase, he said. We know how many plants we have and how much they can handle, so theyre running pretty much full bore. Even if prices do change, I don't know if the volumes they use are going to change much.

Looking at soybean exports, Olson said the market always has an eye on China  the 800-pound gorilla in the global market.

And although China is the one that really has the sway, Mexico is the number two customer for U.S. soybeans and is also important.

I want to keep reminding people that our trade with Mexico is really important. Theyre our next door neighbor and really good customers of ours. I don't want people to get too focused just on China without recognizing our good, steady customers, he said. The challenge we have is that there are two things going on in global soybean trade right now. One of them, of course, is how big is the South American crop for Brazil, in particular, but also Argentina.

When people think about trade for soybeans, it's really China and the U.S. And although Argentina produces a lot of soybeans, theyre number three in global production. But most of their soybeans are crushed into oil and meal and theyre exported as oil and meal products and not as whole soybeans.

While China purchased a near record volume of soybeans last year from the U.S., they have had a drop in their purchases of soybeans globally, partially because of the trade war, but also because of African swine fever, according to Olson.

Their hog herd was cut pretty dramatically due to African swine fever. Theyre still trying to rebuild their herd, he said. But, the demand base, the amount of soybean bushels they need going forward, has flattened.

The competition for providing soybeans boils down to mainly the U.S., Brazil, and Argentina. Olson pointed out the U.S. produced a record soybean crop last year and the second-largest corn crop in historyall in the same year. Brazil, up until recently, was forecast to also have a record bean crop, but because of drought conditions, primarily in the south, those numbers are coming down. Right now, the average trade estimate is that it likely will not be a record year, but its still going to be very good.

So, we add a good production year with flat demand from China, and people are looking around and saying, well, how much soybean do we really need? That change in thought process is starting to put some downward pressure on soybeans. Now the demand base is still very good, were still talking about some very big numbers, he said.

But the grain market, a lot of it is about psychology. Its all about what the people expect to happen, he continued. On the positive side for price increases, the forecast for smaller Brazilian soybean production and Argentine soybean production is slipping every day just because it is so dry, particularly in southern Brazil and Argentina.

That said, northern Brazil is still going to have a very good crop, especially in the Mato Grosso area and adjoining states.

Those yields are very good. Theyre starting harvest already and yield reports are very strong. Its the south thats having the hot dry weather, he said.

Well have a much better idea in the next several weeks about the size of the South American crop and right now thats where all eyes are focused  on the weather forecast and yield projections coming out of South America. Right now, the general trend is lower yields, which will support prices, he continued. On the positive side we have that, but on the neutral side is that the Chinese demand base is not growing as quickly as it has in the past, so we have some mixed-messaging going on.

Looking at soybean prices, they range from $13-$13.25 depending on location.

Those are still very good prices. Theyre down from what we saw before Christmas, but cmon, $13 soybeans are not bad, he said.

At one local elevator in west central Minnesota regularly followed in this column, as of Jan. 18, the January cash price for old crop soybeans was $13.23 per bushel and basis was -35 cents under. The June 2022 futures price was listed at $13.75 and basis was -11 cents under.

Looking ahead, Olson noted that producers are already looking ahead to crop rotations this spring, but one of the things people are really focused on right now is fertilizer prices, as well as chemical prices.

Thats because prices for chemicals, Roundup and Liberty, as well as a lot of other chemistries, are going to be higher. That is a concern, he said. Right now, the current thought process is we likely will not see any kind of softening or reduction in those chemical and fertilizer prices until we get into mid-summer and fall, and even then it may not drop very much.

Olson thinks that the cost of fertilizer, location, as well as chemistry for weed control, could flip some acres.

The ultimate question the market is asking is will that change the crop mix. Well have to wait and see as we get closer to spring, but that could shift some acres up here in the Northern Plains, he added.

Olson offered a word of caution to producers regarding the timing and purchase of fertilizer and chemicals.

If youre buying fertilizer now, be sure you try and sell or market some of your crop, at least enough to cover your fertilizer expenses, because with todays prices you, using new crop pricing, you can still make money at these numbers, he said. Even if you have an average yield, you put a pencil to it, you can still make money with these kinds of chemical and fertilizer prices.

But, if you buy those chemicals and you buy the fertilizer now and you wait to price some of the grain until the summer and we have low prices, thats going to be much more difficult, he added. What Im trying to ask people from a risk management standpoint is to try and match up. If youre buying fertilizer and chemicals  pre-paying  make sure that you sell some crop to cover those expenses, to lock in that margin.

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On Jan. 3, the Montana Beef Council (MBC) announced the hiring of Albert Koenig to the position of field representative. This is a brand new position within MBC, and as the first person ever to hold the job, Koenig will be solely dedicated to working with producers and as a brand ambassador.

Born and raised on a family cow/calf operation outside of Belgrade, Mont., Koenig grew up exposed to many aspects of the beef supply chain. From hauling hay to calving out cows to working at sale barns, Koenig was learning and gaining industry insight every step of the way.

Like many youth, 4-H and FFA served as defining aspects of Koenigs life. He found great success judging both meat and livestock and through those state level successes, Koenig was able to compete in meats and livestock judging competitions on both the national and international stage. The culmination of Koenigs involvement in FFA was his service as the 2016-17 state president.

In this new position, I am drawing a lot of parallels from my year as a state officer to what I am going to be doing here with the Montana Beef Council. Im representing a slightly different group of people, but there is a lot of overlap, he said.

Just shy of turning 25 years old, Koenig is stepping into his role at MBC not long after serving as state FFA president. Despite his impressively young age, Koenig brings an impressive wealth of industry knowledge to the table and his passion for livestock production runs deep.

Ever since my time in FFA, there has been a series of events that have just spring boarded and I have been constantly building on that foundation I got in FFA that has taken me all around the world working in the beef industry and the live cattle export industry, he added.

As the field representative, Koenig will be the direct line of communication back and forth between cattle producers and the MBC. He will help facilitate the flow of information and ensure producers are aware of the work the MBC is doing on their behalf.

Koenigs position is entirely mobile, so he will be spending his time traveling around the state visiting producers and various industry stakeholders. He aims to serve as a listening ear for the beef industry  always there to hear questions and concerns and relay those in their integrity to the MBC as a whole.

We have 11 different industry organizations represented on our board and my job is to listen to their concerns and what they are hearing from their members and try to build off of that information, he explained.

With so much going on within the nuances of the beef supply chain and underlying discord in the industry, Koenig is more than excited to step into his new role at this time. He strives to promote unity during his tenure with the goal of fostering further industry sustainability.

I feel like now is a very pivotal time in the industry to take care of some of this fragmentation that we have seen and really try to unify us as producers to maximize our bargaining power and our strength in the marketplace, he stated.

As a perfect fit for this new position, Koenig has already hit the ground running. He encourages anybody and everybody involved in the Montana beef industry to reach out to him with any questions, concerns, or suggestions. Koenig may be contacted directly by calling 406-580-8442 or e-mailing him at albert@montanabeefcouncil.org.

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The race among Republicans who want to be the states school chief could come down to whethe
The recent Marshall fire in Boulder, Colorado, and neighboring communities was the most destructive fire in Colorado history, moving quickly and relentlessly, destroying more than 1,000 homes, leaving an apocalyptic level of destruction in its wake. Nature can be vicious, oblivious to human activities or desires.

A confluence of weather events including high winds and lack of recent precipitation combined to fan the flames of this inferno. The fire was quickly and predictably blamed on global warming, now called climate change, although a changing climate, including moisture and drought, is nothing new to Colorado and has been occurring long before gas-guzzling SUVs and air conditioners were a staple of American life.

Dont tell the corporate media, however. This is how they reported on the Boulder wildfires.

From NBC, How climate change primed Colorado for a rare December wildfire. The Washington Post agreed, How extreme climate conditions fueled unprecedented Colorado fire. An echo from Colorado Public Radio, Why a fire scientist sees climate fingerprints on the suburban Boulder County fires. And from Axios, Climate changes linked to Colorado's fire disaster.

YouTube screen grab

Colorado was once under water. Not recently, but during both the Paleozoic and Cretaceous periods of the Earths history. Colorado was home to rainforests and 70-foot-long sea creatures called plesiosaurs. Somehow, long before human activity, the climate changed, and Colorado went from warm beachfront to high desert and cold winter temperatures.

Chicago was once covered by a mile-thick ice sheet. The Laurentide Ice sheet covered most of Canada and a large chunk of the northern United States. This was between 20,000 and 95,000 years ago, and then the climate changed, with enough global warming to melt the ice sheet. This all occurred long before there was any significant human activity. Obviously, something else changed the climate, making it colder, then warmer.

A changing climate is a staple of Planet Earth, with both long and short temperature cycles, influenced by solar activity, ocean currents, and other factors poorly understood and impossible for man to control. Dont take my word for it. The IPCC confirms, The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. But the celebrity climatologists think they know better.

Thoughtful discussion regarding climate change would be facilitated by Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, or Prince Charles explaining what happened to the mile-thick sheet ice over Chicago and Canada. Once sitting over current Michigan Avenue and Oak Street Beach, this ice somehow melted. How did that happen? What caused the climate change that melted millions of cubic miles of ice and raised the sea levels?

There was no human activity at that point in time, other than a few small fires warming the caves of early man. Yet the climate changed and those who push man-made climate change fail to offer any explanation or reconciliation of this inconvenient truth. Another question would be what is considered normal temperature? Take Chicago, for example. Is the temperature considered normal today, a year ago today, or 50,000 years ago today when the Windy City had no wind, instead a mile of ice covering Lakeshore Drive?

Without defining normal, how can we know if the temperature is too warm or too cold? Normal blood pressure is defined, making it easy to know if it is too high or too low. Can we say the same about temperature?

Climate change is a staple of Earth and will continue to occur, as it always has and always will. To pretend otherwise is foolish and a mockery of science.

Are wildfires in Boulder a new phenomenon or an unfortunate but natural part of history? The Boulder County website provides an answer.

Wildfires have always been a natural occurrence in Boulder County, but various land management practices, including fire suppression, over the last 100 years have resulted in forests with vegetation densities 10 to 100 times their natural state. Combine this with factors such as steep terrain, drought, high summertime temperatures, seasonal high winds, and an increased human presence in the form of development and recreational use, and the result is an environment prone to extreme wildfire behavior.

Note that wildfires are not new, perhaps only worse recently in their severity. What were wildfires like 500 or 5000 years ago? Was anyone around to take photos and report on them?

While the climate has changed, many times in fact, what has also changed is vegetation and population density. Some years are wetter, others drier. Can the Boulder City Council control that? Will more rules and regulations change the weather?

There is little discussion over environmental activism, leading to a reluctance to cut and remove trees, and builders placing more homes closer together, creating a setup not only for fires but for far more damage when they do occur.

When Boulder was sparsely or not populated years and centuries ago, fires still occurred but no one was around to record them. They burnt themselves out and the fires actually helped manage forests by giving them a necessary haircut of sorts, removing dead trees, branches, and underbrush which now acts as kindling to turn a small brush fire into a raging inferno.

Florida has also experienced an analogous phenomenon. Once nothing but swampland, ferocious hurricanes battered the Florida peninsula routinely, bringing needed rain to the interior of the state, rejuvenating the swamps and wildlife. Destruction was not an issue when Florida was one large swamp.

The same can be said for much of the Gulf coast. Far more ferocious hurricanes hit New Orleans long before Bourbon Street and the French Quarter existed, with nothing to damage other than trees and wildlife in the storms path.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution notes regarding another hurricane-prone locale:

Intense hurricanes, possibly more powerful than any storms New England has experienced in recorded history, frequently pounded the region during the first millennium, from the peak of the Roman Empire into the height of the Middle Ages, according to a new study.

It wasnt until coastal America was populated with homes, condos, and high-rise apartments, that hurricanes caused human and property damage measured first in the millions, now in the billions of dollars of damage.

Similarly, mountain homes in Colorado and Northern California, surrounded by dead trees and debris, are sitting in a tinder box ready to ignite, independent of whatever the climate happens to be doing at the time. Its not Texans driving big pick-up trucks or Georgia barbeques causing mismanaged Colorado forests to burn like an inferno once ignited.

This is not to dismiss or mitigate the damage of the recent Boulder wildfires which is beyond tragic for the thousand homeowners suddenly displaced, losing their possessions and memories, but to add another perspective. Simply blaming the ever-changing climate, something which we cannot control, ignores measures that we can take, including forest management and housing density. Governments will waste taxpayer dollars on so-called solutions that accomplish nothing but virtue-signaling.

Blaming climate change incessantly in a predictable and hackneyed fashion becomes the boy who cried wolf. Those who ask questions are labeled as deniers, to be thrown in jail, according to one of the self-anointed environmental smart set, science guy, now prison warden, Bill Nye.

This response is similar to governmental COVID policy, ill-thought-out solutions which are anything but, many creating their own problems. How about a bit more science and less hot air and media gaslighting?

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. On Twitter as @retinaldoctor.
KHARTOUM, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Sudan on Monday condemned the attacks launched by the Houthi group against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.

"Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns, in the strongest terms, the attacks committed by the Houthi group today by firing ballistic missiles in the UAE and Saudi Arabia," Sudan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry reiterated the firm position of the Sudanese government and people in standing with the UAE and Saudi Arabia in the face of all forms of aggression targeting their security and stability, the statement said.

On Monday, Yemen's Houthi group carried out new attacks with ballistic missiles and drones against targets in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The UAE Defence Ministry announced the interception of two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthi group towards its territories.

Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition said in a statement that it intercepted another missile fired by the Houthi group towards Saudi Arabia's southern Asir province. 
Why does reality seem unreal these days? The short answer is this: we are all being dragged into a government-controlled matrix. In the blockbuster movie that popularized that concept twenty years ago, Keanu Reeves's character discovers that his mind is "living" in a virtual reality neural network while machine overlords keep his physical body comatose and imprisoned in a pod. A lot of powerful people apparently watched that story and decided that the machines were actually on "the right side of history."

Whereas the film championed the ideas of liberation and free will over submission and control, in the real world today, it is subjugation and authority that are championed over freedom and individual rights. Governments, corporations, and a small global oligarchy are working diligently to put us into our pods, shut us away from reality, and hook us directly into the matrix they've created to keep us under their total control.

Depending on your age, life experience, and level of cynicism, this truth is either obvious or preposterous. When you accept it as fact, however, then the world doesn't look chaotic at all. It looks exactly as one would expect if the machines had just begun rounding up humans for their forced hibernation.

The goals of our overlords are indistinguishable from those of the machines they emulate: (1) eliminate personal sovereignty, (2) elevate absolute government control, and (3) track all human activity. How are such goals accomplished? By teaching humans that individualism is bad, that government coercion in the name of the "common good" is ideal, and that privacy hinders "progress." How do you teach these lessons? Through indoctrination and behavioral modification.

Consider the most important doctrinal issue for Big Government over the last half-century: planetary extinction from the use of hydrocarbon energy. These energies are responsible for saving more people from poverty than any other resource in human history, but they also led to a natural population explosion that frightened the traditionally powerful. More people with more wealth mean more freedom and less centralized, authoritarian control. So how have our machines responded? By calling for the strict regulation of all energies. And how is regulation accomplished? By creating a religious fanaticism predicated on the worship of "green" idols, the demonization of hydrocarbon energy, and the revelation of apocalyptic visions prophesying the end of the world. For people who have been proselytized, all human activity must be regulated because all human activity involves the use of hydrocarbon energy. Freedom is eliminated by the "need" for governments to monitor everything.

Of course, promises of planetary doom depend upon dates for a coming apocalypse that are sufficiently distant that they don't come and pass as unceremoniously as Y2K. There's the rub for our machines. A date too soon, and the con is exposed. A date too far off, and it becomes more difficult to convince the rabble to voluntarily return to life as it existed during the Bronze Age, just so the descendants of some "woke," genderless Gaia-worshiper can enjoy further Bronze Ages two centuries from now. For all the global hysteria directed toward brainwashing the masses with visions of a dying planet, too many people simply refused to get into their pods. This has made our machines mad.

So what to do? Aha! You move the date of the apocalypse up to the present by scaring the bejesus out of the world with a mysterious pandemic caused by a threat unseen. Unlike with tales of planetary destruction, the more invisible the enemy, the more intimidating it becomes. It could be anywhere! On that grocery shelf, on your office stapler, on the familiar face you always kiss  look out! What a winning formula: fear of death + fear of the unknown = a population screaming at the government machines to tuck them safely away into their pods with dreams of a better world before the viral nightmares attack. And our machines have giddily obliged: "Step right in here, we'll keep you safe, don't worry about a thing."

Abracadabra, welcome to their matrix.

Of course we'll wear three masks, kind machines. Of course we'll dutifully watch our loved ones die from a distance through many walls of glass. Of course we'll stay locked inside, spend all our savings, isolate from friends, and destroy our futures. Of course we'll embrace censorship, mandates, and coercion. Of course we'll allow you to digitally track us for the rest of our lives. It's for the "common good," right, machines? Anyone who protests is a selfish individual! There can be no personal freedom when lives are at stake! Follow the Science! Science is good, it's settled, and it's absolutely worth obeying!

"My goodness," says one machine to another. "We were right all along. Fear of death does cause humans to welcome their own enslavement. We just had to find the right monster."

Is it any surprise that, except for President Trump, no world leader ever called for steady calm or rallied people to face the China Virus with bravery and fortitude? Instead, the order of the day has been, "Panic!" Can you imagine trying to survive the great plagues and wars of the past if leaders everywhere were demanding that people be afraid? I don't know if I'd go over that hill, if I were you; if all the barbed wire doesn't get you, the machine gun nests certainly will. Yet here we are fighting a disease that would have gone relatively unnoticed by previous generations, and leaders all across the West can only exclaim, "We're all gonna die!"

When "fear" is being sold by the same governments that in the past would have encouraged "bravery" during much darker times, is it not time to take a step back and ask what's really going on? Does it not then become clear that we're not fighting a virus at all, but rather fighting a complete takeover by government of the personal sphere? And if that thought awakens one to the possibility that government leaders are currently in the business of not protecting, but subjugating their populations, then doesn't it become obvious that the last two years have had nothing to do with public health and everything to do with public control? If so, then you might be willing to accept that you're living in the government's artificial matrix.

The oligarchs might call it the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" or the "Great Reset," but when you're the one being imprisoned in a pod under the machines' supervision and direction, it is their free will, not your free will, that is flourishing. Next up comes a techno-religious opiate for the obedient  the introduction of mass virtual reality, so that those under real and total control can experience fake and illusory freedom. If television and phone screens made vegetables of some, widespread virtual reality will surely strain them into vegetable puree. And ironically, even in the artificial worlds being constructed for our amusement, freedom must remain regulated enough that the slaves never learn to rise against their real-life masters.

The good news is this: no authoritarian has ever succeeded in completely extinguishing the human desire to be free. That indomitable spirit does not reside in a few distinct bloodlines but appears in unexpected places from one generation to the next. Like a game of whack-a-mole, every time governments believe they have succeeded in snuffing liberty out, new voices grow louder and multiply once again. That's why our overlords and their matrix are doomed to fail.

Rome fell when enough Goths, Vandals, and Huns decided to make their own world. Something similar happens when we break free from our suffocating pods and recognize the government's matrix as the mental prison it really is.

Image via Pixnio.
In California, the most populous state in America, a proposed bill allows children as young as 12 to consent to a vaccine without parental permission. This is yet another leftist effort to break down the nuclear family. This is the latest front in California's battle against parents.

According to the AP article, the proposal before the California Legislature comes from San Francisco's Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat. The openly gay Wiener, a Harvard Law graduate, has dedicated himself to several issues revolving around sexuality and children.

While he was a San Francisco supervisor, Wiener got the Board of Supervisors to agree to bar the city from doing business with companies based in states that haven't passed civil rights laws that, instead of just applying to all citizens equally, make special mention of people on the LGBTQ+++ spectrum.

Once he was elected to the state Legislature, Wiener was a leader in making California's government documents recognize "non-binary gender." To date, he has not proposed an option for other mythic creatures, like unicorns or elves. Wiener also led the charge to prevent any misgendering for LGBT seniors in old-age institutions, a law that the Court of Appeals finally killed because it attacked employees' free speech rights.

One of Wiener's most recent and successful bills requires criminals to be housed in the prison that aligns with their "gender identity." In other words, a physically intact rapist can "identify" as a woman and be housed in a woman's prison. Weiner also tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent parents of those few babies born genuinely intersex (that is, with both male and female sexual organs) from performing reconstructive surgery on the babies. Instead, he wanted those children to go through life as victims of horrific teasing and abuse until the children themselves decided on the surgery.



Image: Vaccines in Victoria, Australia. TikTok screen grabs.

And now, once again trying to interfere with parents' ability to have a say in the child, Wiener wants the vaccine decision to be put into a child's hands:

"Giving young people the autonomy to receive life-saving vaccines, regardless of their parents' beliefs or work schedules, is essential for their physical and mental health," he said. "It's unconscionable for teens to be blocked from the vaccine because a parent either refuses or cannot take their child to a vaccination site."

To justify this position, Wiener points to the fact that, in California, children 12 and over can already get Hepatitis B and Human Papillomavirus vaccines, as well as being treated for sexually transmitted diseases. It's noteworthy, too, that children in California can get contraceptives and, if those fail, abortions, without Mom or Dad butting in.

Leftists usually justify such laws by saying children are too afraid of their parents to report that they are sexually active and suffering. Unspoken, of course, is that these laws are a dream for sexual predators, both adults and fellow minors, who prey on vulnerable children.

Of course, California doesn't squeeze out parents entirely. Children under 18 still need parental consent for a tanning bed and body piercing (other than ears). For tattoos, consent is insufficient, and the parent must be present.

In other words, the state says that if a teen wants to get a flower tattooed on her ankle, Mom must be there. However, it's contemplating allowing a child to take an experimental injection with no data about its long-term consequences. Further, the injection fails to protect against a virus that doesn't affect healthy children to begin with.

Meanwhile, as you think about that, you might want to watch this pro-vaccine video from the Youth Affairs Council in Victoria. You'll note that the older woman is quite obviously older than the child she's "dating." Meanwhile, the girl, who still talks about her parents as a child would, is identified as being "over 14," implying that she's just achieved 15  or perhaps, to avoid statutory rape charges, she's 16. You'll note, too, that the wokeness extends to a Black Muslim health care worker:

I originally read that the government promoted the video, but the Twitter account stating that has been deleted. Certainly, the Youth Affairs Council got so much pushback that it was forced to issue a statement justifying the ad  with its statement boiling down to saying that the law says kids can get vaccinated, so our video is fine.

Ultimately, leftists are promising young people that they will take better care of them than their parents will. However, legalized euthanasia is instructive. Socialized medicine countries morally justified it by saying a kind state, unlike greedy families, wouldn't guilt people into killing themselves. However, the state does not love you. You are a widget, whether you're a 15-year-old girl or a 70-year-old cancer patient. Your family will bankrupt itself to give you life; the state (and statists) will encourage you to pull the plug to save it money.
[See also The Europeans are afraid of Biden's rush to war]

For those who pay attention to history, it's completely unnerving watching Joe Biden seemingly plan to drag America into a war in and over Ukraine. The great powers' focus on this little country is eerily reminiscent of the start of WWI, a war that laid the groundwork for everything wrong with the last 108 years of Western history.

Ukraine, a small, corrupt country on Russia's southwestern edges, was once part of the former Soviet Union. For reasons that make absolutely no sense, the U.S. is determined to see Ukraine join NATO, although NATO is less thrilled about that, given Ukraine's corruption and the fact that it does nothing to help defend Europe against Russia (which, after all, was the point of NATO).

Meanwhile, Putin is absolutely horrified at the thought of Ukraine joining NATO because that means he has a putatively hostile country sitting immediately on his border  and, worse, potentially affecting his access to the all-important warm water port that is the Black Sea (which leads to the Bosporus and from there, eventually, to the Mediterranean). That's why Putin is making such a big show of massing troops on Ukraine's border.

It's unlikely that this would have happened on Trump's watch, for he never would have let matters get to this point. True to his credo, he would have figured out a deal that would have allowed all parties to maintain face and defuse the situation on the border.

But Biden is not Trump. As Robert Gates once said, Biden has "been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." The word "nearly" is too kind. When it comes to foreign policy, Biden has invariably been a disaster, and his Afghanistan withdrawal shows that he hasn't improved with age and dementia.



Image: After the Battle of the Somme (more than one million combatants wounded or killed). Public domain.

Matt Rowe has offered one intelligent solution for solving the problem with Ukraine, which is to make it a neutral nation, thereby allaying both Putin's and NATO's concerns. There are surely other intelligent solutions that don't include yelling threats. Nevertheless, strident threats are all that the weak Biden has in his arsenal. Two headlines sum up the situation:

Biden weighs troop deployment near Ukraine as U.S. orders embassy families out, issues travel warnings

Blinken warns of "massive consequences" for Russia if Putin invades Ukraine

Sadly, there are no calmer, cooler, wiser heads in the Biden administration.

And all that I can think of regarding this posturing over a nothing nation (sorry, Ukraine, but it's true, especially when one considers America's interests) is how World War I started. That war laid the foundations for World War II, the communist century, and the convulsions in the modern Middle East. In America, it also introduced the damaging Wilson Doctrine that has dominated post-WWII American foreign policy.

So how did WWI start? Going deep, it started because of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm and his plans for alliances to offset French and British power, the various small wars that had raged across Europe and the far east for the forty years before, and the extreme instability in the Balkans. But in terms of the first shots, that happened when Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian seeking to liberate his country from Austria, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

That assassination should not have ended with Britain on the battlefields of Flanders. Yet that's precisely what happened. First, Austria went to war against Serbia. Russia came to Serbia's support. Because Germany and Austro-Hungary were allies, Russia's move was seen as an attack on Germany, too. Germany, in turn, insisted that France, which might have capitalized on Germany's focus on its eastern side to attack the western side, remain neutral. France refused and, instead, prepared for war. Britain, in the meantime, was committed to support France and maybe Belgium, too.

Once Germany and Russia went to war, England promised to remain neutral if Germany left France alone. Germany, of course, did not leave France alone, and so, in August, England joined the war, although everyone was sure it would end by Christmas. The war ended over four years later, with 10 million war dead and probably 8 million dead civilians. In addition, it triggered the Russian Revolution, the start of a communist century that saw 100 million dead civilians around the world. It also provided the perfect vector for the Spanish Influenza, which killed as many as 75 million people in two years.

When the great powers get involved on opposite sides in the affairs of small countries, bad things happen. And when one of the great powers has an imbecile at the helm, it's time to be very, very worried.
Anti-COVID mandate protests have been going on for a while now, led by Europe, North America, and Australia. Various international groups over the weekend held a global day of COVID mandate protests, which some ignorant reporters labeled "anti-vax" protests but, in fact, were anti-vaccine mandate protests.

One thing was different from the past protests: they are turning violent. Here's the Politico report from Brussels:

Protests in Brussels against coronavirus restrictions spiralled into violence on Sunday as protesters clashed with police officers and vandalized the offices of the European External Action Service, the EU's diplomatic arm. In one of the largest demonstrations against COVID-19 measures in the city, an estimated 50,000 people poured onto the streets, including groups traveling from outside Belgium, according to a police spokesperson. The demonstration was organized by the EU-wide network Europeans United for Freedom and other groups that oppose health restrictions. Police used teargas and water cannons to clear the Cinquantenaire park near the EU institutions after groups of protesters threw objects at officers and charged at them. Live footage showed protesters at street level hurling metal fences and a burning dustbin at policemen below them in the entrance to a metro station. An escalator was later shown burning. Hooded and masked demonstrators shattered the glass exterior of the EEAS office while police were inside. "The side entrance was vandalized," said a Commission spokesperson, adding that nobody was in danger. Top diplomat Josep Borrell visited the offices to inspect the damage and tweeted his condemnation of "the senseless destruction and violence."

WATCH: Drone footage from the massive protest against Covid mandates in Brussels today. @EvaVlaar pic.twitter.com/WlERUY8RR2  Election Wizard  (@ElectionWiz) January 23, 2022

Massive protest in Brussels against Covid mandatespic.twitter.com/xksG4LGFap  Election Wizard  (@ElectionWiz) January 23, 2022

Part of a large protest against strict Covid mandates in #Brussels today devolved into violent rioting. Those involved include a group in black bloc. Police are attacked and pelted with projectiles. pic.twitter.com/dTfo00O3vf  Andy Ngo  (@MrAndyNgo) January 23, 2022

Brussels: Thousands rally to protest against against Covid vaccine mandates. The world has had enough. pic.twitter.com/iDAche2SEA  checkmate    (@Emma89572703) January 23, 2022

Another Francophone territory got violent as well:

Guadeloupe becomes a war zone again as the local government tries to implement more COVID mandates.



The first time this was tried Guadeloupe descended into chaos with massive violent protests so the government backed off, yet they are trying it again.pic.twitter.com/Nw1dMERbT9  Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) January 21, 2022

Other protests were largely peaceful.

Breaking: Thousands protest covid-mandates in Barcelona, Spain. pic.twitter.com/KDIcev8ptr  Alfred States  (@Alfred_StatesX) January 18, 2022

Spectacular protest against lingering vaccine mandates and COVID tyranny tonight in Las Palmas, Spain.pic.twitter.com/3An6bTaAj0  Michael P Senger (@MichaelPSenger) January 22, 2022

In Spain, thousands took to the streets to protest the countrys COVID-19 restrictions & vaccine mandates. Take a look:pic.twitter.com/EmshyLhcnr  Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) January 22, 2022

Tel Aviv gathers tonight to protest for an end to COVID mandates. pic.twitter.com/PkDuSvTIJG  Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) January 23, 2022

Thousands of people turned out in Washington to march in protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates on Jan. 23one of the largest U.S. events and protests held against the mandates since the start of the pandemic.



https://t.co/z4EsZ8s2yE  George (@geopolytica) January 24, 2022

Thousands of Canadians protested against #COVID19 mandates and restrictions on Jan. 22 as part of the #WorldWideFreedomRally.



The protest focused on advocating for individual freedoms. https://t.co/n3W12FyucL  Epoch Times Canada (@EpochTimesCan) January 23, 2022

Time lapse of the protest in central London by NHS staff and supporters against covid vaccine mandates  pic.twitter.com/DA8ehhteac  Chromatic III (@iii_chromatic) January 23, 2022

More than 60 different protests all across the Netherlands tonight against COVID mandates. pic.twitter.com/j2Es2w6aWK  Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) January 19, 2022

On Worldwide Rally Day (22 January 2022), the people of Sydney, Australia, marched in masses to the streets in different parts of Sydney, to protest the draconian Covid restrictions and vaccination mandates imposed by their government.https://t.co/5hpgVLVDFJ  Himalaya Australia Gnews (@HAGnews2) January 23, 2022

Why is it that Belgium's and Guadeloupe's protests turned violent?

Perhaps some clues can begin from the protesters themselves. One reporter, Amy Jones, writing at Unherd, went and asked what was at the root of the protests, interviewing protesters in the U.K.:

It would be easy to paint this protest as "antivax", but as I spoke to the NHS staff who were protesting, it became apparent that doing so would be simplistic at best and disingenuous at worst. While some mentioned their belief in natural immunity, and antibodies in lieu of vaccination, the vast majority of people I spoke to were less concerned about the vaccine itself and more worried about what the mandate represented  not only for themselves, but for their colleagues, and the NHS in general. Many were vaccinated, but chose to stand against the policy in solidarity with their unvaccinated colleagues. Some, such as Anne, a midwife with 8 years' service, were worried about the impact on staffing. While she had been vaccinated, she was adamantly opposed to the mandate, explaining: "I don't want them to sack my colleagues. We are so short-staffed. This will destroy us".

...and...

Others were concerned about what kind of precedent this mandate would set. Many feared that it would give the NHS the power to alter employment terms and conditions retrospectively, which could result in them losing their jobs. But the central theme to have emerged from my conversations with protesters  vaccinated and unvaccinated  was the importance of bodily autonomy and consent. As Alice, an emergency nurse practitioner explained: "It's about the principle. I cannot advocate for consent for my patients and deny it for myself and my peers". This sentiment was shared by Dr Steve James in his interview with UnHerd as well.

Bodily autonomy was the top reason; staff shortages and arbitrary government power were two others.

Over in Guadeloupe, a French overseas department, the restrictions seemed to be particularly harsh:

The protests were called for by unions to denounce France's COVID-19 health pass, which is required to access restaurants and cafes, cultural venues, sport arenas and long-distance travel. Demonstrators were also protesting France's mandatory vaccinations for health care workers.

In Belgium, where the protests were also violent, an organizer cited the country's ruined democracy to Politico:

"Our main demand is that emergency measures are introduced in a democratic and balanced way," Tom Meert, chairman of Europeans United for Freedom, wrote on the group's website. "We do not deny that there are diseases. Our arguments would be the same in the case of a natural disaster or any other crisis: a country's policies must be deliberate and founded on the principles of the democratic rule of law."

Why did it come to what it came to in Belgium and Guadeloupe? Perhaps because the people feel more powerless and voiceless, their protests happening again and again, and always coming to nothing.

Anne Applebaum a few weeks ago examined the strange new problem of mass protests being ineffective in an Atlantic piece called "The Bad Guys are Winning." She spoils her piece with gratuitous shots at President Trump, but the beginning effort is pretty good.

All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like. There is a bad man at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services (military, police, paramilitary groups, surveillance), and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources  the troll farms that promote one dictator's propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another  and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America. This is not to say that there is some supersecret room where bad guys meet, as in a James Bond movie. Nor does the new autocratic alliance have a unifying ideology. Among modern autocrats are people who call themselves communists, nationalists, and theocrats. No one country leads this group. Washington likes to talk about Chinese influence, but what really bonds the members of this club is a common desire to preserve and enhance their personal power and wealth. Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, the members of this group don't operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of companies  call it Autocracy Inc. Their links are cemented not by ideals but by deals  deals designed to take the edge off Western economic boycotts, or to make them personally rich[.]

While Applebaum focuses on pariah dictators who get away with their misdeeds every time, impervious to the crowd sizes and condemnation of global opinion, what she describes seems reasonably apt for what is happening in places like Belgium, where officials have become entangled with corporate interests, science suffers, and locals have reached their wits' end. They now seem to have turned to violence in desperation  entangled government and corporate interests, which limit personal freedom every time.

Both Belgium and France are well known for the arrogance of their bureaucrats, and this was evident before COVID came along, so they must be nightmares now. Remember this Benelux guy? Remember this charmer? Remember this showdown from famous Brexiteer Nigel Farage? This is what's on offer in places like Belgium and France. In February, I compared France's Michel Camdessus to Dr. Rochelle Walensky of the CDC, which was pretty interesting. Back in 1998, when Camdessus led the IMF, he left capitols on fire across Asia. He was the ultimate arrogant bureaucrat. Now COVID has supercharged the Camdessus-ian arrogance. And sure enough, the arrogance has come full circle: Europe's cities are on fire.

Image: Twitter screen shot.
Over the weekend, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stated the obvious in politics -- that what goes around comes around.

He told Fox News's Maria Bartiromo:

Newt Gingrich said this morning that people serving on the J6 Committee are going to go to jail if Republicans take over Congress after the next election. pic.twitter.com/OFhWdbEPdq  Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 23, 2022

You have  both with Attorney General [Merrick] Garland and with this select committee on January 6, people who have run amok, Gingrich argued. He added, What they need to understand is on January 4 next year, youre going to have a Republican majority in the House and a Republican majority in the Senate. And all these people who have been so tough, and so mean, and so nasty are going to be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every e-mail. Gingrich went on to blast Garland and the Jan. 6 committee as a lynch mob. He warned that Republicans may look to imprison their political opponents next January  arguing that their inquiry is breaking the law by running over peoples civil liberties.

According to Mediaite, it was a follow-on from an essay he has written for Newsweek about the 'wolves' eventually becoming the 'sheep' with the coming midterms, where Democrats are expected to be thrown out of power by angry voters:

When some people acquire power, they act like wolves. They take whatever savage actions are needed to win and dominate. They turn their opponents and critics into sheep, who learn to be quiet or face vicious attacks and destruction. Think of Joseph Stalin killing his rivals. Think of the Castro brothers torturing, imprisoning and exiling political opponents. Consider the decay of Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, as political opponents were imprisoned, killed and exiled. Recall the ruthlessness of Hugo Chavez in taking over Venezuela. He destroyed or exiled middle-class opponents. Meanwhile, the militia was cheerful about using force to destroy the middle class, which had created a successful, wealthy Venezuela. The United States has had relatively few bouts of wolf-like behavior, because the separation of powers woven into the constitutional fabric of our federal government, as well as the federalism that exists between the federal and state governments, have made it impossible to sustain wolf-like behavior. The American people routinely reject overreaching politicians,

Which, while heavy on the analogy, and maybe over the top, does describe basic political dynamics, as well as some type of overreach coming from the 1/6 committee, whose vindictiveness, non-transparency, Pelosi-approved members, and refusal to consider all evidence has made it nothing but a vicious partisan star chamber, with about as much credibility.

Who should show up when the harsh remarks were made but Liz Cheney herself, the Republican In Name Only on the committee, to howl her outrage:

A former Speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6 attack on our Capitol and our Constitution.



This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels. https://t.co/vpQZjTg9em  Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) January 23, 2022

Nobody else on the committee said anything about Newt, it was just her. It was the equivalent to Newt saying something stunk in a closed room full of people and Cheney yelling her farts didn't stink, inadvertantly admitting that she was the one who created the problem.

Gingrich's essay in fact cited Democrats and their view that their power is permanent as a very foolish political model to conduct politics on. At one point, he named a handful of Republicans, so we know he knew about her, but mainly, his target was Democrats. Democrats seem to be convinced they will always be in power, so they will always have a green light to rig kangaroo committees, and do what they want with the law, which is what they are doing as if voters will never vote them out.

We now have a president and an attorney general who see at least half the country as their enemies. They are focused on attacking, smearing and defaming fellow Americans with whom they disagree. More frighteningly, the attorney general has the power to direct the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Offices to frame people and put them in jail on the most trivial of charges.

If Cheney had any principles whatsoever, she'd be just as concerned about this activity directed by Democrats as she is about whatever outrage she has about the Capitol crowd control issue of Jan. 6. But she doesn't. She's furious at Gingrich, and effectively declares that the autocratic activity she's doing on the committee to construct a narrative about Trump directing rioters into the Capitol in order to prevent him from running again (just as Hugo Chavez used to do) while concealing facts, such as Nancy Pelosi's role, is an attack on 'democracy.' In other words, people don't make up any sort of demos, democracy is just her.

It's kind of comical that with Newt bringing up the terms 'mean and nasty,' out she comes to the Twitter feed. Newt didn's name any names but she knew who he was talking about.

That she spoke out when others on the committee didn't pretty well tells us also that this is "her" committee, despite the fact that she's acting as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's useful idiot. She's the one with the misplaced umbrage, not the other members, who would flick Newt away like a moth near a porch light. The committee is her baby, and its 'democracy' is essentially her. Where is her outrage about her fellow party members getting kicked off the committee at its inception based on Pelosi's fear that they might ask the wrong question? Pelosi knew that no such 'wrong' questions would come out of her as she sought to construct her 'narrative' to Get Trump.

She set the terms of the politics in this, not Newt. Newt just warned her there would be a voter reaction, and Cheney can't stand voter reactions. Well, too late now, cat's out of the bag. If the committee wants to create political crimes, well, that's the terms now, and two can play that game. One can only hope that Cheney, a political carpetbagger with no ties to actual politics before she won her congressional; seat, learns this the hard way.

Image: Twitter screen shot
The news over the weekend had binary stories about the ongoing situation on the Ukraine border, where Putin is amassing tanks and troops. On the one side, we have stories about Biden doing the tough guy thing, with his talk about troops on the ground and his orders that diplomats' families leave Ukraine. However, on the other side, the European side, the two biggest E.U. nations are trying to set up their own peace talks with Ukraine and Russia.

In a separate post, which I won't repeat here, I discuss Biden's bizarre aggression toward Russia, a stance that does nothing to serve America and that may well be the trigger for a conflagration. Over in Europe, the leaders of Germany and France (the two biggest E.U. nations) are approaching things very differently  so differently, in fact, that they don't want to have anything to do with Biden's belligerence:

The EU must open its own talks with Russia rather than rely on Washington, France's president, Emmanuel Macron, has said as he warned of the prospect of the "most tragic thing of all  war". In a wide-ranging speech in Strasbourg, Macron said it was not sufficient for the US to negotiate with the Kremlin over its threats to peace but that Europe needed to have its voice heard. Macron said he hoped to revitalise four-way talks between Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine, known as the Normandy format, to find a solution to the escalating crisis.

And while Macron is planning direct talks with Russia, Germany is refusing even to talk to Biden:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned down an invite at short notice from U.S. President Joe Biden to discuss the Ukraine crisis, German magazine Der Spiegel said on Friday.

The claim is that Scholz's schedule is too full. Stacey Abrams made the same excuse when Biden came to Atlanta. If Biden mattered, both Abrams and Scholz would have cleared their schedules.



Image: The irrelevant Joe Biden (edited in befunky). YouTube screen grab.

I can think of multiple reasons for the European Union nations' plan to exclude Biden from talks with Russia. In no particular order:

1. In one year, Biden has so weakened America's prestige that it simply no longer matters on the world stage. This is what Richard Grenell suggested in his tweet:

The new German Chancellor refused to meet with Joe Biden to talk Ukraine.



And now they have cut him out.



This is a crisis for America - and the europhiles at @StateDept havent noticed they arent respected. pic.twitter.com/JucuKUrp4l  Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 23, 2022

2. Biden and the E.U. are cleverly engaging in a good cop/bad cop routine that will give Biden a way out that allows him to save face, something all-important in Russia.

3. The Europeans cannot risk losing access to Russia's fossil fuels, so they will do anything Russia wants. (This might have been different if Biden hadn't ended America's status as an oil-exporting nation and announced that he won't support Israel's natural gas pipeline to Europe.)

4. The Europeans have a cultural memory of the horrors of both WWI and WWII, which were fought on their soil. Even though America participated in both those wars, Americans themselves were spared. Europeans, therefore, will do anything to avoid a repeat of what could become a continent-wide war.

I'm sure you've noticed that only one of my theories shines a positive light on Biden. Otherwise, he has successfully achieved Obama's goal of ending America's status as the world's pre-eminent nation. We are now a big nothing and can expect the world's hyenas to start nipping at us very soon.
The vaccines are proving to be a constantly moving target. Two shots will save us. No, three will. No, better make it four. Heck, let's just keep it open-ended, but you'd better get shots if you want to work, shop, eat out, go to a concert, maybe even board a plane. But what happens to this manic shot regime when we're beginning to get data showing that not only do the shots not prevent people from getting COVID (which is the traditional effect of a vaccine), but they may actually leave people more vulnerable to COVID?

Israel, which was so terrified of having COVID shut it down, thereby leaving it vulnerable to the genocidal organizations and nations around it, embarked upon the most aggressive vaccination program in the world. Now it's the nation with the world's highest per capita COVID rate, per a weekend report:

Israel recorded 69,201 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, according to an update to the Health Ministry's website on Friday. There are 427,023 active Covid cases in Israel, making it the country with the highest number of cases per capita, ahead of Slovenia. The caseload, driven by the highly contagious omicron variant, includes 638 patients in serious condition and 124 on artificial lung ventilation. Of those currently hospitalized in serious condition, 84% are over the age of 60. The death toll, as of Friday afternoon, was at 8,371. The positivity rate in Covid tests reached record highs of 20.13 percent. In total, 2.2 million Israelis were infected since the start of the pandemic. Some 4.5 million received three doses of the vaccine and over 500,000 four doses.

That kind of news report tells me that the vaccines don't work as vaccines. That is, they do nothing to stop people from getting the disease. This runs counter to our 200-year-old understanding of what a vaccine is  namely, the single dose of a substance that triggers the body's natural immune system ensuring that the person will never get the infectious agent that is the vaccine's target (e.g., smallpox, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, etc.).



Image: Everybody gets the vaccine. Freepik license.

Indeed, the CDC's Rochelle Walensky has conceded that the vaccines stop people from neither catching nor spreading COVID. The new rap from the CDC is that the shots formerly known as vaccines are now therapeutics. Oh, and there's no end to the number you'll have to take to get that vax pass for working, shopping, traveling, education, etc.

None of that addresses the newest, most concerning information about the vaccines: what if it turns out that they're not even a therapeutic? What if you get more sick, not less sick, from the vaccination? Data out of Scotland suggests that this is a real possibility:

Scottish data shows that the COVID-19 age-standardized case rate is highest among the two-dose vaccinated and lowest among unvaccinated! It further shows this trend of negative efficacy for the double-vaccinated persisting for hospitalizations and deaths. Something is very wrong here, and together with other data points, it raises concerning questions about the negative effect of waning antibodies, constant boosting, and the consequences of a leaky vaccine with narrow-spectrum suboptimal antibodies against an ever-evolving virus.

Daniel Horowitz has a detailed analysis of the data in the above-linked article, and I recommend reading it.

Of course, this was always a risk with mRNA vaccines. In August, Pandra Selivanov wrote about the chicken experiments that today's arrogant scientists ignored:

Marek's disease affects chickens, not humans. It's one of the deadliest viruses in the world, killing one hundred percent of unvaccinated chickens in ten days. Not even Ebola, one of the most feared viruses that affects humans, kills everyone it infects. Maybe only ten percent of people infected with Ebola live, but that's still ten percent more than chickens infected with Marek's. And why am I thinking about a disease that infects only chickens? It's because the vaccine for Marek's not only protects chickens against the disease but it also makes the virus far more dangerous. Vaccinated birds rarely die but can spread Marek's to unvaccinated birds, just as vaccinated humans can spread variants of COVID to unvaccinated humans.

At the end of all of this, we're going to discover that the vaccines made minimal difference to the spread of COVID. I think we'll also discover that, in America alone, hundreds of thousands of people died because the Fauci-guided bureaucratic and medical institutions insisted on these pointless vaccines while ignoring therapeutics.
Anyone alive during the Soviet era remembers that one of the hallmarks of Soviet countries was chronic shortages of goods. Without the profit motive, production never kept up with demand. Rationing was the order of the day. Now, in Washington, D.C., rationing is also the order of the day. D.C.'s mayor, Muriel Bowser, has been asking people to ration voluntarily. However, we all know that if grocery items continue to be in short supply, mandatory rationing will soon replace that voluntary shtick.

It seems that this rationing rule has been in place for over a week now, via a tweet from Bowser's government, although the internet just caught up with it:



Twitter screen grab.

This has a decidedly Soviet feel about it. When governments interfere with the flow of goods and services, those goods and services cease to exist. I figured that out when my father, in 1987, had the opportunity to visit his sister. She was a devout communist who left Israel in 1949 to return to East Berlin so she could live in her communist paradise.

When Dad saw her, she was retired, having loyally served the German communist government for over three decades. Her reward, despite being a single woman, was that she got to live in an apartment with its own bathroom. In addition to convenience, this had the added benefit of giving her an extra sink  something of a necessity because her kitchen sink was broken. When Dad asked how long she'd been suffering through this inconvenience, she told him "Nine years." Then, seeing the disbelief on his face, she hastened to add, "But I'm on the list!"

That's how socialist economies work, and that's what we're seeing in D.C.

In a post on the subject, Sundance added a pertinent point, which is that government interference often has unexpected results. In the case of D.C., the problem isn't simply that the supply chain is broken; it's also that the supplies are misdirected:

The shortage of food products, in/around the metro-DC area, is a direct consequence of that same area demanding Vaccination Passports to enter any venue providing "food away from home." The vaccine passport mandate blocks people from restaurants, dining, bars and other sources of food. The process forces people into grocery stores where they are encountering shortages. In essence, what we are seeing in the DC-Metro area is a microcosm of what previously happened nationally with shortages in food supplies and basic essentials. The retail food delivery system in our nation is not designed or prepared to shift large numbers of people out of the "food away from home" lane and into the "food prepared at home lane." It really is that simple.

To understand, think of the toilet paper shortages in early 2020. There actually was enough toilet paper in America. However, it was at offices and commercial spaces, where people usually spend most of their waking hours. That's why, when I went to get my hair cut, my hairdresser offered me rolls of toilet paper. She had too many rolls for a business with no customers, while her few customers had too few rolls because stores weren't set up for so much homeowner demand.

As the I, Pencil video shows, every consumer product is the result of thousands of individual decisions that respond in real-time to market forces. When the government shows up, it's like Godzilla stomping on Tokyo, utterly destroying a functioning city  or nation.

The only good thing about all that's happened in the last two years is that it's given Americans a front-row seat on the perils of a government-managed economy. Let's hope that voters figure out that the way to return us to a true normal is to replace every elected official with a free-market, constitutional conservative who trusts the American people and lets them get back to the ordinary business of their daily lives, unimpeded by non-stop government mandates on health, trucking, shipping, shopping, manufacturing, and everything else.
The beautiful 16th century Veerabhadra temple, also known as Lepakshi temple, is located in the small historical village of Lepakshi in the Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, India, about 15 km east of Hindupur and approximately 120 km north of Bangalore. Built in the typical style of Vijayanagara architecture, the temple features many exquisite sculptures of god, goddesses, dancers and musicians, and hundreds of paintings all over the walls, columns and ceiling depicting stories from the epics of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas. This includes a 24 feet by 14 feet fresco of Veerabhadra, the fiery god created by Shiva, on the ceiling, which is the largest fresco of any single figure in India. At the front of the temple is a large Nandi (bull), the mount of Shiva, which is carved from a single block of stone, and is said to be one of the largest of its type in the world.

Visitors demonstrating the hanging pillar of Lepakshi temple. Photo credit: unknown

Veerabhadra temple is famed for another engineering wonder. Among the 70 stone pillars, there is one that hangs from the ceiling. The base of the pillar barely touches the ground and is possible to pass objects such as a thin sheet of paper or a piece of cloth from one side to the other. It is said that the pillar is a bit dislodged from its original position when a British engineer tried to move it in an unsuccessful attempt to uncover the secret of its support.

Veerabhadra temple was built by the brothers Viranna and Virupanna, who were Governors under the Vijayanagar Empire during the reign of King Achutaraya.

The village Lepakshi holds a significant place in the great Indian epic Ramayana. Legend has it that the bird Jatayu, wounded by the king of Lanka, Ravana, fell here after a futile battle against the king who was carrying away Sita, the wife of Rama, the king of Ayodhya. When Rama reached the spot, he saw the bird and said compassionately to him, Le Pakshi  meaning Arise, bird in Telegu.

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Sources: The Hindu / Navrang India
When American war correspondent and photographer Michael Yon went accompanying US soldiers to Afghanistan in 2009, and began photographing the troops and their equipment there, he noticed an unusual phenomenon. Whenever a helicopter was taking off or descending and there was lots of sand in the air, the blades of the rotors began to glow like distant galaxies.

The halos spark, glitter and veritably crackle, but in still photos the halos appear more like intricate orbital bands, Michael Yon wrote in a blog post.

The halos usually disappear as the rotors change pitch, dust diminishes and the ramp touches the ground, he wrote.

KoppEtchells Effect seen on a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey at an undisclosed location in Southwest Asia. Photo: Lance Cpl. Clarence Leake/Cpl. Akeel Austin/Wikimedia Commons

Yon asked the pilots but nobody seemed to have a clue. But they did have their own theories. Yon describes speaking to one pilot who said the halos were a result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other.

But this theory has a problem. A static discharge does not produce a shower of sparks as seen in these pictures. The real explanation is this:

When an helicopter is very near the ground the rotor blades kick up an enormous amount of dust and sand into the air. To protect the rotor blades from abrasion from this dust and other hazardous particulate matter in the air, the leading edges of the blades are fitted with strips of tough materials like titanium, or nickel alloys. These materials work great under normal battlefield condition, but the desert is a harsh environment. Sand is harder than titanium and nickel that make up the abrasion strip. So when the blades cut through a cloud of sand, the sand particles hit the blades, and gouge out tiny grooves on the blades surface. This sends bits of metals flying into the air. This fine metallic dust spontaneously ignite when it comes into contact with atmospheric oxygen, a phenomenon known as pyrophoricity. It is the same phenomenon that cause sparks to fly out when you are sharpening a knife against a grinding wheel, or hit two stones (or pieces of metals) with each other. Not all metals exhibit pyrophoricity, but some do, such as iron, aluminium, magnesium, calcium, uranium, titanium, tungsten, bismuth, hafnium, thorium, osmium, neodymium, lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, caesium and a handful of others.

Dust lights up the rotors of a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. Photo: Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod/Wikimedia Commons

When Michael Yon discovered the phenomenon, he was surprised that it didnt have a name yet. How can the helicopter halos, so majestic and indeed dangerous at times, be devoid of a fitting name?, he asked.

He decided to name it the Kopp-Etchells Effect, in memory of two soldiers who killed in combat in Sangin, Afghanistan in July of 2009Benjamin Kopp, a US Army Ranger, and Joseph Etchells, a British soldier.

Its not hard to imagine the two Corporals have already linked up and regrouped, and in sense they have. Knowing combat soldiers, its easy to imagine them laughing away at the idea, Yon said.

Photo: Michael Yon

Photo: Michael Yon

Photo: Michael Yon

Photo: Michael Yon
LAGOS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Two police officers were killed by some unknown gunmen in north Nigeria's Jigawa state, local police said on Monday.

The two policemen were gunned down on Sunday while responding to a distress call informing a group of gunmen invaded the house of a resident in the Kwalam town of the state and abducted him, said Lawan Shiisu, a spokesperson for the police in Jigawa.

"Upon receipt of the report, we mobilized a team of police officers and headed to the scene. On arrival, we engaged them in a gun duel and they fled," Shiisu said.

He said the two police officers were shot dead close to an improvised patrol vehicle that was set ablaze by the gunmen.

The police spokesperson said security agencies were working to free the abducted victim and apprehend the gunmen.

The most populous African country has seen a series of armed attacks in recent months, leading to the deaths of security operatives and civilians. 
Four years after the events in Salem in Massachusetts, the United States, that saw the execution of nineteen innocent victims charged with witchcraft, one of the last witch trials of western Europe began in a town called Paisley, near Glasgow in Renfrewshire, central Scotland.

It started with Christian Shaw, the eleven-year-old daughter of the wealthy landowner named John Shaw of Bargarran, accusing Catherine Campbell of witchcraft. Several weeks earlier, Christian had caught Catherine, who was one of her family servants, stealing a drink of milk. When Christian reported the incident to her mother and was duly reprimanded for the theft, Catherine flew into a rage and cursed Christian wishing that the Devil would haul her soul through Hell.

Shocked by Catherines words, the god-fearing Christian actually took ill with violent seizure and convulsions much like those described in the Salem witch trials a couple of years before. Contemporary records describe her fits as strange, sometimes blind, sometimes deaf and dumb, the several parts of her body sometimes violently extended, and other times as violently contracted. After eight weeks of suffering, Christian was taken to the eminent Glasgow physician Matthew Brisbane, who could find no cause for her symptoms. For a while, her symptoms abated and the girl appeared to recover, but ten days later the fits returned with increased violence. She would become as stiff as a corpse and be senseless and motionless. This time, Christian began to pull out balls of hair from her mouth and vomited up all sorts of trash including straw, coal, gravel, egg shells, bones and chicken feathers. She was also reported to have spit out lumps of coal cinders the size of a chestnut and too hot to touch. At times she appeared to converse to an invisible Catherine Campbell, pleading for a return to their former friendship.

It became clear to the doctor and the local parish minister that the child was possessed, a common affliction in Europe at that time. Tens of thousands of people, women mostly, were executed in the 16th and 17th centuries for witchcraft across Europe; 4,000 in Scotland alone. There was a time when fear and hatred of magic and its practitioners reached such a fever pitch that hundreds of men and women were hunted down and made to suffer terribly for alleged crimes of witchcraft, explains Scottish author Lily Seafield. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the skies over many Scottish towns frequently clouded over with smoke from the fires that sent these people to their deaths.

Gallow Green, the place where the witches were hanged. Photo: Paisley Scotland/Flickr

Upon questioning, Christian began naming her tormenters. Initially she identified only Catherine Campbell and Agnes Naismith, but as time wore on she implicated others, and eventually 35 were accused. Of these, seven people were summoned to appear before a commission in Paisley. Despite their protests, all seven were found guilty of witchcraft and were condemned to die. One of those convicted, James Reid committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell, using his handkerchief attached to a nail in the wall. The remaining six were hanged and then burned on the Gallow Green in Paisley on 10 June 1697. It was the last mass execution for witchcraft in western Europe.

The execution itself was harrowing. One account states that some of the condemned were still alive when their bodies were burned, and that the executioners borrowed a walking stick from an onlooker with which to push their victims' moving limbs back into the fire. Its owner refused to take it back after it had been in contact with witches.

One of the women, Agnes Naismith, was said to laid a dying curse on all the townspeople present, and their descendants. In order to keep her curse at bay, the witches' mass grave was sealed with a horseshoe, and a legend grew up that Paisley would suffer, if the horseshow was ever disturbed.

Nonetheless, Agnes curse was blamed for every accident and tragedy that befell Paisley, including a fire in 1810 that killed eighty-five people. In the 1960s, during road works, the horseshoe was lifted and immediately after, Paisley went into an economic decline.

Photo: unknown

Shortly after the trial in 1697, the former Scottish Secretary of State James Johnstone observed that the parliaments of France and other judicatories who are persuaded of the being of witches never try them now because of the experience they have had that it's impossible to distinguish possession from nature in disorder. By then, witch trials were already on the decline. The last execution took place in 1706; the last trial in 1727 and was of questionable legality. In 1736, the British parliament repealed the Witchcraft Act 1563 making the legal pursuit of witches impossible. Nevertheless, basic magical beliefs persisted, particularly in the Highlands and Islands.

And what became of the accuser Christian Shaw? Well, she recovered and went on to become a successful business women within the mill industry. After the death of her husband, Christian went on a tour to The Netherlands with her mother to observe the Dutch spinning techniques. Christian sketched the thread production process that she saw, and is said to have smuggled some associated machinery back to Scotland in her luggage. With these she began new production methods resulted in a more durable whiter thread, and Shaw established a small thread manufacturing company, "The Bargarran Thread Company", in Johnstone on her return. Her Bargarran trademark thread became a mark of quality, and others in the area began to emulate her techniques, starting an industry in which Paisley once dominated the world, and which shaped the town's history. The last known record of Shaw is her marriage in February 1737 to William Livingstone, a prosperous Edinburgh businessman.
(Image source from: thehindu.com)

PRC GO: AP officials approach High Court for Cancellation:- The government officials of Andhra Pradesh have been strongly opposing the GO of PRC that was finalized during the latest cabinet meeting. The GO was approved by the state cabinet. The government officials announced that they would head for a strike if the GO is not withdrawn. The AP government invited the officials for talks but the officials refused to attend the talks before the GO of PRC gets cancelled. A writ petition was filed in the Andhra Pradesh High Court by the AP Gazetted Officers Joint Action Committee chairman K.V. Krishnaiah on the revised pay scales. A Division Bench comprising Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and B.S. Bhanumathi will reveal their decision today.

The officials appeared before the High Court with black badges and protested against the government of Andhra Pradesh. The officials stated that the GO is contrary to the provisions of AP Reorganization Act, 2014. The officials will serve notices to Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma that they would head for a strike on February 7th. The Cabinet of AP passed a resolution on January 21st to implement the GO. Though they offered to negotiate with the officials, they are not in a mood to head for talks before the GO is cancelled or put on hold. The move of Andhra Pradesh government is awaited.
(Image source from: eenadu.net)

PRC Saadhana Committee serves notices for Indefinite Strike:- The government officials of Andhra Pradesh are unhappy with the new PRC model and the GO issued by the government and the state cabinet. They approached the High Court to dismiss the GO and the AP government invited the government officials for talks today. The officials of AP decided to initiate talks only after the government of AP calls of the GO. The PRC Saadhana Committee has been formed to fight against the government. The committee served the notices to the AP government announcing that they would head for strike from the midnight of February 6th. 20 steering committee members served notices to Sasibhushan Kumar, the Principal Secretary for the state.

PRC Saadhana Committee consists of employees, teachers, pensioners and other unions. The employees made it clear that the strike would continue till the GO of PRC will be withdrawn by the government. They said that the government and the state cabinet never consulted the officials or the unions before issuing the GO on the PRC. A plan has been chalked out by the officials and the protests are planned in the next week. Ministers Perni Nani and Botsa Satyanarayana have stepped in to discuss about the issue with the employees but they did not turn out to the state's Secretariat.

Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy, the Advisor to the government of Andhra Pradesh for Public Affairs urged the employees not to take any extreme step and he asked them to come for talks. He said that the government is ready to discuss with the officials and take the further call on the PRC. Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy said that the government is ready to discuss with the officials even after the notice for the strike is served.

(Video source: 10TV News Telugu)
(Image source from: twitter.com/Collector_RSL)

KTR seeks Rs 14,000 Cr for several Key Projects:- The Union Budget will be presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1st in the Parliament. Ahead of the Union Budget, Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao sought a budget of Rs 14,000 crores for several key industrial projects in the state. The nodes are requested in the corridors of Hyderabad-Nagpur, Huzurabad, Hyderabad-Vijayawada corridor, Hyderabad-Bengaluru and Jadcherla-Gadwal-Kothaguda corridors. KTR also sought a grant of Rs 5000 crores for the establishment of the Pharma City in Hyderabad. The Hyderabad Pharma City bagged the National Investment and Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ) status reminded KTR.

KTR also urged Nirmala Sitharaman to sanction Rs 3000 crores for Mancherial and he wanted the Finance Ministry to sanction Rs 5000 crores for the master planning and the development of internal and external infrastructure for Hyderabad Pharma City at NIMZ that is located in Rangareddy district. KTR also launched the water supply works for the Outer Ring Road in Hyderabad. KTR wrote to the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and explained about the projects in detail saying that they would generate enough number of jobs. KTR also reminded about the Make in India initiative of the Union government and how the largest pharmaceutical cluster will support the plan.
North Andover, MA (01845)

Today

Periods of rain. High 53F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low 47F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Google is removing Verizon and Boost as mobile phone billing options for Play Store purchases in the US. The company hasnt made any public announcement regarding this but has updated an official support page to reflect the change. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular are now the only four participating carriers through which you can pay for Play Store purchases.

According to a thread on Reddit (via Android Police), Google has sent emails to Verizon customers notifying them about this change. The email says Verizon carrier billing for Play Store purchases will no longer be available starting February 22, 2022. This will not majorly impact users who make one-off purchases on Play Store. They can select some other payment method for their future purchases.

However, for users who have selected Verizon carrier billing for recurring payments such as monthly subscriptions, this upcoming change will require them to act. They will need to update their subscriptions and change the billing method. Google has provided several useful links in its email, so if youre one of those users, you might want to act fast.

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Its unclear if Boost subscribers have also received a similar email from Google. They presumably have. As for why the company is dropping support for carrier billing for Play Store purchases via these two carriers, its anybodys guess. When asked about it, Google said it cannot disclose those details due to security concerns.

Google Play Store purchases will not support Verizon and Boost carrier billing from February

Google offers carrier billing options for Play Store purchases in several countries. If you sign up for it, any purchase you make on the Play Store is charged to your carrier bill. This way, you dont require to share your credit or debit card information with multiple businesses. It also makes things easier. Unfortunately, Verizon and Boost customers will no longer be able to take advantage of this from next month.

Meanwhile, if youre an AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, or US Cellular customer, you can still select carrier billing for Play Store purchase, at least for the time being. As the company notes, you will receive an SMS starting with DCB or DCB_Association when you sign up for it. Purchases made on Google Play Store will reflect on your carrier account after 15 minutes.

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Other accepted payment methods on the Play Store include credit or debit cards, Google Pay balance, Google Play gift cards, and Paypal.
Back in February 2021, Google announced a new supervised YouTube experience for older kids and teens who are ready to move on from YouTube Kids. While this experience is still in beta, the company is adding YouTube Music into the fold. In an email to Google Family Link users, the internet giant revealed that children whose parents have granted them access to the supervised YouTube experience will soon be able to use YouTube Music as well. Once rolled out in the coming weeks, supervised accounts will be able to access the music streaming service on Android, iOS, and the web. The video experience, meanwhile, will also be accessible on TVs.

The whole thing will remain under parents supervision, of course. So its up to them to decide whether their children should have access to the main YouTube app instead of YouTube Kids. Moreover, they will also be able to control what music and videos are available to their children. All of these controls are available from account settings in the Google Family Link system.

Google says this move comes after listening to the feedback from Family Link users. Every child is unique, and we work hard at YouTube to provide options for parents and caregivers that support the individual needs of their families, the company said in the email (via Reddit).

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Google is finally addressing a major complaint with its Family Link system

Googles Family Link system is a great platform for parents to monitor their childrens online activities and keep them away from inappropriate content on the internet. Children are given a supervised Google account linked to their parents accounts. This gives parents access to their account settings, allowing them to control everything.

But parents have always had a major complaint with this system regarding music listening. They couldnt give their kids access to Googles music streaming service, i.e. YouTube Music, which already offers family plans and uses a Google account. Moreover, it comes bundled with a YouTube Premium subscription.

As a result, many users had to subscribe to alternate music streaming services just for their kids. Google is finally addressing this complaint by offering access to YouTube Music via a supervised Google account. Google Play Music, the default music app on Android that the company replaced with YouTube Music in 2020, did allow kids under 13 to have their own music libraries. So Google is quite late in rolling out this ability to the succeeding service. Hopefully, a broader rollout isnt too far off. We will keep you posted.
JAKARTA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has allowed quarantine-free cross-border travel between Singapore and the two Indonesian cities of Batam and Bintan, with an aim to revive the tourism sector in both areas, an official said on Monday.

"The government has encouraged the travel bubble between the cities of Batam, Bintan and Singapore to boost the recovery of the tourism industry," Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto told a virtual press conference.

With documents of negative tests for coronavirus in the last 72 hours, visitors from Singapore with complete COVID-19 vaccinations are allowed to enter both cities via boat terminals of Nongsa Batam and Telani Bintan.

The visitors are required to have insurance with a guarantee of 30,000 Singapore dollars (about 22,300 U.S. dollars) to activate Indonesian COVID-19 tracing programs and track applications.

The Indonesian Presidential Staff Office's Deputy for Infrastructure, Energy, and Investment Febry Calvin Tetelepta said Monday that the uncertain conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic in both countries have delayed the plan several times.

The travel bubbles are expected to restore the economy of these two cities and to provide a high multiplier effect on them, said Tetelepta. 
Posted on: January 24, 2022 3:32 PM

Two persons have been injured in an attack against the Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan in Bor Town, Jonglei State.

The Province of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan has been under attack in Bor Town, Jonglei State, according to a statement released by the Primate, Archbishop Justin Badi Arama. Bishops were attacked in the Church compound at 3am on 22 January. Two people were injured.

This is the third time such an incident has happened on the church premises in Bor. Early in 2021, two youth members were shot by the police in the church compound, and later in 2021, two bishops were stopped at Bor airstrip and deported back to Juba by the government of Jonglei state.

In a statement released on 22 January, Archbishop Justin Badi Arama said: The ECSS [Episcopal Church of South Sudan] leadership condemns in the strongest possible terms the continuous attack on the ECSS in Bor TownIt is sad to learn that some senior politicians from Jonglei are misleading innocent citizens to practice such evil acts against the church. We appeal to all Christians in Jonglei to refrain from violence and we continue to pray for the safety of bishops, clergy and other ECSS workers as they carry on with their pastoral activities.

He ended the statement by saying: We pray for peace and harmony in Jonglei State and the whole of South Sudan.
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Anniston, AL (36206)

Today

Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. Low 62F. Winds light and variable.
(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 24 - Premier Mario Draghi and Justice Minister Marta Cartabia had a video-conference meeting on Monday with Paola and Claudio Regeni, the parents of Giulio Regeni, the Italian student abducted, tortured and murdered in Egypt in 2016, the premier's office said in a statement.

It said "possible initiatives" were discussed on how to follow up on a petition to the government to intervene in the case from a Rome preliminary hearings judge (GUP) Earlier this month the GUP called on the government intervene to enable the case to move forward against four Egyptian National Security Agency (NSA) officers over Regeni's homicide.

In October the Court of Assizes in Rome had ruled the trial in absentia of the four Egyptian security could not proceed until there was proof the defendants had formally received notice of being on trial, sending the case back to the GUP.

The GUP then transmitted the case documents to the government to verify if anything had come from warrants sent to the Egyptian authorities in April 2019 and to see if there was any room for dialogue with Cairo on this matter. (ANSA).


'Portable sanctuary for goddess Anuket' on display in Turin At Egyptian museum, two guided tours

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JANUARY 24 - "A portable sanctuary for the goddess Anuket" debuted at the Egyptian museum. The show is curated by Paolo Del Vesco, since 2014 an archeologist at the museum, with excavation experiences in Italy, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Sudan. At the center of the exhibit, which is part of the cycle 'In the laboratory of the researcher', dedicated to the scientific activity conducted by curators and Egyptologists of the Department Collection and Research of the museum, there is a little wooden sanctuary, dating back to pharaoh Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC), dedicated to the goddess Anuket and other divinities venerated in the religious center of Elephantine, near Aswan, in southern Egypt.



The excellent state of conservation, the presence of a portico with two columns on the facade and the decorations on walls are some of the elements that make the finding a unique object of its kind.



For other examples of small wooden sanctuaries which belonged to a different era and did not have a frontal portico with columns, it is necessary to go back to the funerary kit of pharaoh Tutankhamon. The sanctuary comes from the site of Deir el-Medina, the village that during the New Kingdom hosted artisans that made the tombs of the Valley of the Kings and Queens. Some stele on religious life of the community of Deir el-Medina are also displayed.



Two guided tours with the exhibit's curator are also scheduled: on January 25 and March 1, both at 4:30 pm. A maximum of 25 people can attend by booking online; the cost is seven euros per person (entry ticket is excluded). The show runs until March 20. (ANSAmed).




Istanbul airport halted due to snow Over 50 flights cancelled, operations blocked until 6 pm

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JANUARY 24 - Heavy snowfall reported in Istanbul since the weekend halted all flight operations at the main city airport until 6 pm local time Monday, various Turkish media outlets reported while air carrier Turkish Airlines announced the cancellation of 52 flights scheduled today from the airport of Istanbul. The snowfall already caused problems to transport over the last few days and the two main highways between the largest Turkish city and the capital Ankara were closed since last night until late on Monday morning. Snowfalls have been forecast until Wednesday.(ANSAmed).




Journalist arrested for 'insult' to Erdogan: 'I'm not afraid' Sedef Kabas in jail for citing proverb on TV

(ANSAmed) - ISTANBUL, JANUARY 24 - Turkish journalist Sedef Kabas "is in good spirits and is not afraid because she is right", her attorney Ugur Poyraz said after visiting her in prison. Kabas was arrested on Saturday "for insulting the president of the Republic" due to a statement made during a television program broadcast by private television Tele1.



Kabas is in preventive custody in a prison for women in the district of Bakirkoy in Istanbul and rejected the accusations.



"There is a very famous saying: a crowned head becomes wiser.



But we see that it isn't true. The ox does not become a king by entering the palace but the palace becomes a stable", the journalist, who is well-known in Turkey, said during the program, subsequently sharing the proverb on her Twitter account, which is followed by nearly 900,000 people.



The reporter's arrest caused an uproar in the country, along with many messages of solidarity by politicians and journalists.



Criticism was expressed against her and Justice Minister Abdullahmit Gul condemned her statement.



According to a report prepared by the main opposition party Chp, in 2021 at least 31 Turkish journalists were arrested while working and 105 reporters were abused or threatened.



Currently, 58 journalists are in jail according to data by independent Turkish website Expression Interrupted, funded by the European Union. (ANSAmed).




VIENTIANE, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Lao government has pledged to remove barriers that hinder business operations and improve the investment climate in the country.

The strengthened focus on business is part of the government's policy to tackle the country's economic and financial difficulties and support economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Reducing red tape and improving the investment climate were among the five topics discussed at the cabinet's monthly meeting held on Jan. 20-21, local daily Vientiane Times reported on Monday.

The two-day meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh and attended by other cabinet members.

"The meeting instructed the Ministry of Planning and Investment to work with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and other sectors to review policies and legislation and revise them," the government spokesperson, Thipphakone Chanthavongsa, told a press conference on Friday.

Meanwhile, the Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry was advised to strengthen its role, especially in setting up production groups and associations to boost their bargaining power.

Business leaders were told to improve their operating methods, enhance their competitiveness, and modernize their operations to benefit from regional economic integration.

In addition, cabinet members agreed to try to increase the amount of revenue earned from the mining and trade in digital currencies, as well as from taxes and fees levied at border crossings.

"We will also place more emphasis on increased productivity, the processing industry, services and tourism, in association with the Laos-China Railway," Thipphakone said.

It is also viewed as critical to improve railway services and facilitate large-scale freight transport and cross-border logistics to further boost economic growth.

The meeting also instructed the National Taskforce Committee for COVID-19 Prevention and Control to closely monitor the situation surrounding the virus outbreak and to ensure a balance between infection control measures and economic recovery efforts. 
RABAT - Morocco has endured "an unprecedented regression in the freedom of expression and the press in 2021", said the NGO Moroccan Association of Human Rights (AMDH). During the presentation of its annual report, the NGO listed the damages and consequences of what it described as an authoritarian resurgence.

The list for 2021 is long: "170 cases of trials and detentions against journalists, bloggers and social activists, as well as a ban which blocked 140 demonstrations under the pretext of the health emergency".

As an observer of the UN Economic and Social Council, the Moroccan association asked for "procedures against journalists and bloggers to be annulled, for restrictions on associations to be lifted, especially those dealing with fundamental human rights, so they can go back to work".
Syria: 154 killed in clashes around Hasake prison, NGO 'Jail controlled by militants, Kurds ready for final assault'

(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, JANUARY 24 - At least 154 people have been killed, according to a death toll that is being constantly updated following violent clashes that have been ongoing for the past four days in northeastern Syria between ISIS militants and Kurdish-Syrian forces near and inside the prison of Hasake, which was stormed by jihadist insurgents in the night between Thursday and Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The monitoring group said that 102 Isis militants and detainees were killed, while 45 victims included prison guards and Kurdish militants. Civilian victims so far are seven, according to the same source.



The observatory and other sources on the ground agreed in stating that the death toll is expected to grow in the coming hours. Since Monday morning, Kurdish forces aided by the US-led anti-ISIS coalition concentrated tanks and more forces around the prison of Ghweiran and are preparing for the final assault against an unspecified number of jihadist militants and detainees who have refused to surrender.



Thousands of civilians in the area around the prison were forced to flee over the last few days, while a curfew was imposed on the entire city, whose residents are in difficult humanitarian conditions due to the absence of electricity and low winter temperatures. It is unclear how many ISIS detainees evaded and how many are still fleeing but local sources said that many jihadists who escaped prison are hiding among the local population. (ANSAmed).




ROME - Lawmakers from both houses of parliament and regional representatives started the process of electing Italy's new president on Monday.



Most of the 1009 'grand electors' are expected to cast blank papers in the first ballot with no deal so far between the major political parties on who should replace President Sergio Mattarella, whose seven-year term is coming to an end.



Indeed, the centre-left parties and Matteo Salvini's League have said that this is what they will do.



There is set to be one vote a day and a majority of two-thirds of the grand electors is needed to vote in a new president in the first three ballots.



After that a simple majority of 505 is sufficient.



It is expected to take around six hours for the votes to be cast and counted in each ballot while respecting COVID-19 protocols.



A drive-in voting station has been set up in the Lower House's car park to enable around 15 grand electors who are positive for the coronavirus to vote. The first such voter came by ambulance on Monday.



On Saturday ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi announced he would not stand amid staunch opposition to him taking the top job from the Democratic Party (PD) and the 5-Star Movement (M5S).



The PD and the M5S said the president should be a more impartial figure.



Under the Constitution, the head of State acts as a sort of referee of Italian politics and the role is especially important at times of political crisis.



There has been talk of the PD and M5S proposing Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the Sant'Egidio Community, a Catholic lay association.



Premier Mario Draghi had talks with Salvini on Monday, ANSA sources said.



Salvini is also meeting PD leader Enrico Letta on Monday.



The centre-right alliance has not come up with a candidate yet after Forza Italia leader Berlusconi pulled out.



Draghi is among the favourites to be the nation's next president, although if the former ECB chief is elected head of State, it could lead to early elections.



This is because many find it hard to imagine the broad spectrum of parties supporting his national unity executive agreeing to get behind another figure.



Indeed, on Sunday Salvini said it would be "dangerous" for Draghi to leave the role of premier at the moment.



M5S leader and ex-premier Giuseppe Conte has also spoken of the need for "continuity in the government's efforts".



The rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, the only major opposition party, on Monday proposed former prosecutor Carlo Nordio, who made his name with Bribesville probes of leftwing cooperatives and later led a bipartisan bid for judicial reform, for the presidency.



Nordio, 75, from the Veneto, started out with probes into the Red Brigades leftist terrorists of the 70s and 80s and ended his career with investigations of graft at Venice's 'Moses' flood barrier project.


BEIRUT - Former Lebanese premier Saad Hariri, son and political heir of the late ex-prime minister Rafiq Hariri, who was killed in Beirut in 2005, announced today that he means to withdraw from political life and that he will not participate in the next legislative election scheduled in Lebanon in May.



Hariri also urged Future Current, which he has directed for years, to follow his example and boycott the vote in May. "I will not run in elections and I will not present a candidature of Future Current in my name", said Hariri during a speech in Beirut in front of his party's members. "After the assassination of Rafiq Hariri - said the former prime minister, referring to his father's murder - I was chosen to follow his project, and not for the Hariri family to remain in power". "This project can be summed up in two ideas: preventing any civil war in Lebanon and guaranteeing a better life to the Lebanese. I succeeded in the first but not in the second", he said.



"Avoiding a civil war pushed me to accept the compromise, including the accord of Doha, the visit to Damascus, Michel Aoun's election to the presidency, and other things", he recalled. "These compromises were taken at my expense I lost in terms of personal fortune, friendships and even brothers. I could stand all this but I can't stand to see the Lebanese who think that I am part of a system that can't find solutions anymore", he stated.



Hariri, long connected to Saudi Arabia like his father Rafiq, left Lebanon last July after several attempts to create a new government failed. Since then, he has lived in the United Arab Emirates where he invested part of his capital. Lebanon is dealing with the worst economic crisis of the last decades and the government announced default in March 2020. Hariri's political exit is a problem for other Lebanese political-confessional leaders with whom the former Sunni premier had been forging electoral and political accords.
Boris Johnson warned that gloomy intelligence suggested Russia was planning a lightning raid on Kyiv as British staff and their families began leaving the Ukrainian capital.

The Prime Minister warned President Vladimir Putin that an invasion of Ukraine would be a disastrous step which could see Russia bogged down in a bloody and protracted conflict.

Mr Johnson said he did not believe war was inevitable and there was a chance that sense can still prevail.

But confirming the exit of some British staff from the embassy he said: We do think it prudent to make some changes now.

The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see.

We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step.

He warned that the people of Ukraine would resist any invasion and from a Russian perspective, (it) is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business, he said.

I think its very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya.

The United States has also ordered the families of all American personnel at the US Embassy to leave the country in response the the risk of an invasion.

#Ukraine Some Embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to growing threat from Russia. The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work. (see Summary' page) https://t.co/NDOk0vdKBg pic.twitter.com/OSm9fd89id  FCDO Travel Advice (@FCDOtravelGovUK) January 24, 2022

But the European Unions foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: We are not going to do the same thing and Ukraines foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said the US decision was a premature step and a sign of excessive caution.

Mr Johnson indicated he would have talks with allies, including US President Joe Biden, later on Monday.

The Prime Ministers comments came after Mr Biden suggested that a minor incursion may result in a more measured response by the United States and allies.

Mr Johnson said at any invasion, any incursion, of any kind, of any dimension, into Ukraine is not going to be a cost-free business there will be casualties.

Downing Street said British combat troops would not be used to defend Ukraine.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman said around 30 British diplomats, including the ambassador, remained in Ukraine.

But he said there were no plans to send UK combat troops to the region but sanctions were on the table if Russia proceeded.

The spokesman said: We dont speculate on things like sanctions, but certainly there will be significant economic measures put in place.

Russian forces have massed at the border with Ukraine and intense diplomatic activity has failed to ease tensions.

The Foreign Office said: Some embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to the growing threat from Russia.

The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work.

Meanwhile, Nato committed more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe.

Allies are sending more ships & jets to enhance #NATO defensive deployments in eastern Europe. A strong sign of allied solidarity. Offers include: F-16 jets to Lithuania troops to Romania F-35 jets to Bulgaria frigate heading to the Black Seahttps://t.co/2GnJKupEA9 pic.twitter.com/UvsRXpkvLT  Oana Lungescu (@NATOpress) January 24, 2022

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania, Spain is sending ships and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, France has expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania, and the Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighter planes to Bulgaria from April.
A Scottish charity which helps provide life saving surgery to children in some of the worlds poorest countries is celebrating the opening of its landmark 50th operating theatre.

Edinburgh-based Kids Operating Room, founded by husband and wife Garreth and Nicola Wood in 2018, has opened its 50th operating room, giving the charity the capacity for more than 30,000 children a year to access safe surgery.

Mr Wood, who is the chairman of the charity, hailed the remarkable achievement and said that it was a particularly proud day for Nicola and myself and the rest of our dedicated team here at KidsOR.

KidsOR has equipped two state-of-the-art paediatric operating rooms in Ghana (KidsOR)

Our vision is a world where every child can access care they need so that common conditions such as appendicitis or a broken leg do not have to result in a childs death or a lifetime of disability, he said.

We achieved a great deal since starting the charity, however, for us this is just the beginning.

By 2030, we aim to have installed 120 dedicated childrens operating rooms across Africa, providing essential surgery to more than 635,000 children.

Since the organisation founded it has worked with Governments, hospitals and doctors in low- and middle-income countries, and has delivered more than 200,000 individual items of equipment.

Each operating room has more than 3,000 pieces of kit which were tested, packed and shipped from Scotland.

The charity has opened theatres in Africa and Latin America and hit its 50th operating room after setting up two at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, in Kumasi, Ghana.

Dr Michael Amoah has been working at the hospital since 2003, said: Before the new ORs were installed, we did not have a dedicated operating room for paediatric surgery, so we had to compete with adults, meaning we were only able to do around 40-45 paediatric procedures in a month. Most of these were emergencies.

The state of the theatre was not paediatric-friendly. We had to use adult-sized tools and equipment to operate on small children.

I believe the KidsOR operating rooms will provide a safe environment for our patients and will shorten the waiting time for both electives and emergencies, thus reducing complications and mortality.

The charity, which has bases in Edinburgh, Dundee and Nairobi, also funds the training of surgeons and anaesthesia providers.

It said around 1.7 billion children and teenagers worldwide do not have access to surgical care.
Scientists believe the speed of responses can offer an indication of how you 'click' with someone. (Getty Images)

Sometimes we meet a complete stranger and it can feel like weve known them forever, that you somehow just 'click'.

While it might seem a little odd to be finishing off each others' sentences within minutes of meeting, it seems science has recognised the phenomenon of having an instant rapport with someone and there's a simple sign to indicate if it has happened to you.

New research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by a team at Dartmouth college, set out to study the science surrounding why we click with some people and not others.

"Clicking is one of the most robust metaphors for social connection," study authors explain. "But how do we know when two people 'click'?"

The research team asked pairs of friends and strangers to talk with each other and rate their felt connection.

Interestingly, the results indicated that for both friends and strangers, the speed in response was a robust predictor of feeling connected.

The study involved 66 participants who took part in 10 conversations, each with a different partner of the same gender.

Read more: Cringey or cute?: Top couples' pet names revealed

Sometimes you meet a stranger and you just 'click'. (Getty Images)

They were allowed to choose any topic of conversation while the exchange was being videotaped by the researcher.

Participants watched the video playback and rated how connected they felt moment by moment during the dialogue.

Researchers found people were more likely to feel a stronger social connection if response times during the conversation were shorter.

Members of the first study were invited to come back to their close friends and repeat the experiment.

While close friends rated conversations higher than strangers, response times still determined moments where they felt more strongly connected.

In a third study, participants listened to audio clips of conversations where the response times between speakers had been manipulated.

Again, third party observers felt speakers were more connected when their response time was faster rather than slower, the researchers found.

This suggests a person's response times are a powerful indication of how socially connected they are to someone else, in other words how quickly you reply to a person can be a sign of 'clicking' with someone.

Weve all had the experience of clicking with some people but not others," explains graduate student and first author, Emma Templeton, from Dartmouth College.

"We wanted to see if something in peoples conversations reveals when they click.

Our results show that the faster people respond to each other, the more connected they feel.

Read more: The subtle changes in language that could reveal your relationship is about to break up

Senior author Professor Thalia Wheatley added: "Its well-established that, on average, theres about a quarter of a second gap between turns during a conversation.

"Our study is the first to look at how meaningful that gap is, in terms of connection.

When people feel like they can almost finish each others sentences, they close that 250-millisecond gap, and thats when two people are clicking.

So why do we click with some people and not others?

Lee Chambers, psychologist and wellbeing consultant says clicking with someone is a feeling that is hard to describe.

"You might be introverted or be in a conversation topic you know little about, but you feel like you've clicked with the person in a way you just can't forget," he tells Yahoo UK. "The words they use resonate deeply, and the rhythm of your speech feels like a dance, matching step by step. The conversation flows like a waterfall, no boundaries or obstacles stopping the flow."

Chambers says clicking is a form of "interpersonal synchronisation", whereby body language and spoken words match in synchronisation, with the other persons body language mirroring what you are feeling in a way that feels like they are in your mind.

"Even our brain activity can synchronise, with the same neural pathways activating," he adds. "That feeling of clicking is like our brains coupling together. It requires focused attention and a connection of voice and body language. But when it does happen, we get a feeling that is hard to describes and feels somewhat magical."

Read more: The nation's biggest dinner date turn-offs revealed

Why do we click with some people and not others? (Getty Images)

It isn't the first time the phenomenon of 'clicking' has been analysed.

In a 2018 study, 42 volunteers watched short video clips while scientists measured their brain activity.

The scientists had previously mapped everyones social network, noting who was whose friend, who was a friend of a friend, who was a friend twice removed, and so on.

Results revealed the brain activity while viewing the clips was exceptionally similar among friends.

But that similarity decreases with increasing distance in the social network, psychologist Thalia Wheatley of Dartmouth College, who led the study, told Greater Good Magazine.

In other words, friends were most similar in their patterns of neural activity, followed by friends of friends, and then friends of friends of friends.

Those neural patterns, Wheatley said, suggest that we are exceptionally similar to our friends in how we perceive and respond to the world around us. You 'click' more with friends than with non-friends, which fits with our intuition that we resonate with some people more than others. There seem to be neurobiological reasons for that.

If you're still unsure whether you've actually 'clicked' with someone or not, a 2018 study, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, found that people behave in specific ways when theyre attracted to or are 'clicking' with someone.

The top signs include initiating conversation, wanting to be in close physical proximity and mirroring the other persons behaviour.

So if you spot any of these signs it's likely you've 'clicked' with someone.
JAKARTA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Prosecutors of Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) ordered on Monday a four-year and two-month sentence in jail for the country's former house of representatives deputy speaker Azis Syamsuddin for his alleged involvement in a bribery case.

At the Central Jakarta Corruption Court, the prosecutors also demanded that Syamsuddin pay a fine of 250 million Indonesian rupiahs (about 17,400 U.S. dollars) and his political right to run for office be revoked for five years after serving his punishment.

As a senior Golkar Party politician, Syamsuddin was suspected of allegedly paying 3.1 billion rupiahs (about 216,180 dollars) and 36,000 dollars in bribes to former KPK investigator Stepanus Robin Pattuju and lawyer Maskur Husain in 2020.

He allegedly made the move in a bid to prevent his name and another cadre of the Golkar Party from showing up in a KPK investigation into a graft case in Central Lampung district, Lampung province.

Syamsuddin, who was arrested at his residence in South Jakarta by the anti-graft body's investigators in September last year, resigned from his post shortly after his arrest. 
A union has demanded an energy company on the verge of making more than a thousand of its staff redundant explain why it made around 40 million in loans and payments to other firms owned by its boss.

Unite has said its research showed nearly 20 million from Ovo has been loaned to a number of companies owned by Stephen Fitzpatrick, while 21 million has been paid out to Imagination Industries, the energy firms parent company, for brand royalty fees.

Ovo said it did not recognise the 40 million figure given by the union, and Mr Fitzpatrick said the brand licencing agreement is a common commercial agreement put in place to protect brand ownership and that Imagination Industries has already reinvested these funds into founding several new businesses.

Ovo Energy is set to make more than 1,000 of its staff redundant (Steve Parsons/PA)

But SNP MP Pete Wishart, whose constituents will be impacted by the closure of its Perth office, said the research raises serious concern.

There is more than enough in the Unite research to raise serious concern about Ovos accounts, said the MP for Perth and North Perthshire.

Ovo needs to be transparent about its books when one in four jobs face the axe. Ovo simply cannot ignore this.

SNP MP Pete Wishart, whose constituents will be impacted by the closure of its Perth office (UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor)

And Sharon Graham, Unite general secretary, said it shows there are a lot of questions that need answering about Ovos accounts.

Mr Fitzpatrick has hit back at the claims, and said he still believes the UK is a great place to do business.

I am proud of the companies that Imagination Industries has founded and invested in, creating high skilled jobs in the UK as well as attracting hundreds of millions of pounds of investment from overseas, he said.

I founded Ovo Energy with my own savings in 2009 and still own more than 60% of the company.

The Ovo brand licencing agreement was set up in 2014, as we prepared for external investment and is a common commercial agreement put in place to protect brand ownership.

The licence fee is budgeted for annually as a normal business charge and has been referenced in all of our accounts filed at Companies House over the last eight years.

Imagination Industries pays full UK taxes on its licence fee income, and has already reinvested these funds into founding several new businesses, including Vertical Aerospace, an electric aircraft company based in Bristol.

All investments have been made in UK companies  most in the zero carbon sector.

Earlier this month, Ovo said 1,700 jobs would be cut by the energy firm, and it would reduce the number of offices from 10 to three.

The cuts represent a quarter of the number of employees at Ovo, which has around 4.5 million customers across the UK.

Ovo said it is also increasing its minimum wage by 15% to 12 an hour, giving a pay rise for 1,000 employees.

The company added it will reverse the policy of offshoring from the previous owner and create more high-skilled jobs in the UK, and open a new Ovo Academy in Glasgow.

Around 1,000 call centre staff will be trained to become zero-carbon living advisers, with specialist knowledge of green home products and technologies from tariffs to making homes more energy efficient.

The three remaining offices will be in Bristol, Glasgow and London, while more employees will be supported to work flexibly from home should they wish.
The mother of a 13-year-old boy who died after allegedly being pushed into a river is waiting for a ruling on the merits of a decision not to prosecute a teenager accused of being responsible.

Christopher Kapessa was allegedly pushed into the River Cynon near Fernhill, Rhondda Cynon Taff, by a 14-year-old boy in July 2019, a High Court hearing has been told.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided that a prosecution was not in the public interest.

Christophers mother, Alina Joseph, who is from the Cynon Valley, has taken High Court action against the Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill, who heads the CPS.

Two judges are due to deliver a ruling on Monday.

Lord Justice Popplewell and Mr Justice Dove considered argument at a hearing in London earlier this month.

Lawyers representing the CPS told judges that the decision being challenged had been made by a specialist prosecutor after a review.

They argued that Ms Josephs challenge should be dismissed.

Barrister Michael Mansfield QC, who led Ms Josephs legal team, argued that the decision not to prosecute the suspect, who is now 17, was unreasonable or irrational.

Mr Mansfield said the decision was unlawful and ought to be quashed.

He said Ms Joseph wanted to understand fully what had happened to her son and to see justice done according to that truth.

Mr Mansfield said the CPS failed to properly value human life.

He said evidence existed to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for manslaughter.

Judges heard that a number of youngsters were at the scene.

Mr Mansfield said there were 16 video interview statements from witnesses.

Christopher had expressed concern about his lack of swimming ability and had been unwilling to enter the water freely, he said.

He said the suspect had pushed Christopher deliberately into the water, and Christopher had drowned and been killed as a result.

Mr Mansfield said Christopher and his family had been relatively new to the area and were a black family living in a predominantly white community.

Duncan Penny QC, who led the CPS legal team, told judges that the decision at the centre of the case had been taken by Moira MacDaid, a specialist prosecutor.

Ms MacDaid had concluded, after a review, that the original decision not to charge the suspect with manslaughter was correct, he said.

Mr Penny said Ms MacDaid had considered all relevant evidence with scrupulous fairness.

He said her decision that a public interest test was not met was neither irrational nor undermined by any error of law.
Environmental activists are planning a national day of action to protest against the expansion of the HS2 high-speed railway  as the Bill for the project is laid out in Parliament on Monday.

The organisations Stop HS2 North and HS2 Rebellion will be joined by other groups and individuals to raise awareness of the environmental and financial impact of phase 2 of the railway.

A Stop HS2 North spokesperson said nationwide action, events and solidarity protests will be held from midday along the line in Manchester, Birmingham, Buckinghamshire and London  with a particular focus on Birmingham and Manchester.

The spokesperson added that the Bill, which Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has called a landmark moment, will sanction immense and irreversible destruction to the environment, during a climate and ecological emergency.

The spokesperson said: The financial costs of HS2 are now out of control, having risen from an initial 37 billion in 2009, up to 98 billion last year.

Lord Berkeleys review in 2019 suggested it would cost over 110 billion. The former chair of HS2, Terry Morgan, has admitted that nobody knows what HS2s final cost will be. Recent estimates suggest the final figure will be closer to 200 billion.

An early representation of what the new HS2 trains could look like (HS2/PA)

Despite spending vast sums of public money on PR and greenwashing to try to promote HS2 as a green project, HS2s own figures show that it will never be carbon neutral during its 120-year lifespan. The UK Governments own strategy commits us to Net Zero by 2050. HS2 actively harms our ability to achieve that.

People are being faced with a choice between being able to heat or eat. Meanwhile, HS2 has a blank cheque to commit terrible and irreversible ecocide. This money ought to be used to properly fund our NHS, improve local transport links, help ordinary people with the rising cost of living, and to resolve our energy crisis.

A spokesperson from HS2 Rebellion  a co-organiser of Mondays day of action  added that HS2 will be an unnecessary contributor to carbon emissions, which will shuttle a wealthy minority to new, purpose-built airport stations.

Construction work being carried out for the HS2 line at Long Itchington Wood in Warwickshire (Joe Giddens/PA)

The Bill to extend HS2 to Manchester  Phase 2b  will cut travel times by around 55 minutes for journeys between London and Manchester, and up to 45 minutes for trips between Birmingham and Manchester, according to the Department for Transport (DfT).

It will also at least double capacity on those routes, the DfT said.

Extending HS2 from Crewe to Manchester was included in the Governments 96 billion Integrated Rail Plan (IRP) published in November, although it has been part of the high-speed rail project since it was given the go-ahead by the then-coalition government in January 2012.

The IRP caused outrage among many northern leaders because it included the scrapping of HS2s eastern leg between the East Midlands and Leeds, and also because of a failure to use new lines for the full Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) project boosting east-west connections.

But the Government insists the IRP will result in similar benefits from previous plans, and they will be delivered faster with better value for taxpayers money.

The Bill will allow HS2 tracks to be installed and new stations and junctions to be built at Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport.

The line is expected to open between 2035 and 2040.
Plans by Russia to hold navy military exercises off the coast of Ireland are a non-story, the Russian ambassador to Ireland has said.

At a press conference in the Russian Embassy on Monday, Yury Filatov downplayed the significance of the navy exercises after concerns were raised by the Irish Government.

Irelands foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney had earlier said the plans were not welcome.

The artillery drills at the start of February will take place in international waters but within Irish-controlled airspace and the countrys exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

At the press conference, Mr Filatov said: It has been hugely overblown. These exercises are part of the yearly plan of naval activity for 2022.

He said the exercises were not a threat to Ireland or anyone else.

No harm is intended and no problem is expected. All that has been communicated to our colleagues at the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland, he said.

Mr Filatov said the real story lies elsewhere.

He added: It looks like the topic of exercises fits in the ongoing propaganda campaign waged by the US and its Nato allies to create an illusion of a Russian threat to Ukraine.

I think we all witness a daily drumbeat emanating primarily from Washington and London, other Nato capitals, about imminent invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

I will say once again, it is a fake.

Mr Coveney, who is expected to brief the Cabinet on Tuesday, said the exercises are to take place 240 kilometres (150 miles) off the Irish south-west coast.

Speaking to reporters on Monday evening, the ambassador said the objections raised by Mr Coveney had been relayed to the Russian government.

Russian ambassador to Ireland Yury Filatov said the real story lies elsewhere and accused the US and its Nato allies of an ongoing propaganda campaign (Niall Carson/PA)

However, he played down Irish concerns and suggested it is unlikely the exercises will be called off.

He said: Why would we do so?

I dont see any reason for changing that because there are no problems actually.

Mr Filatov described talks with Mr Coveney over the issue as open and productive.

Calling it a small exercise involving three-to-four ships, he warned against apocalyptic overtones.

He said: I think we could expect that our Irish and other European colleagues would seriously look into the ways in which the European Union could help this dialogue between Russia US and NATO on this issue, rather than whipping up tensions in the region with the irresponsible and alarmist rhetoric.

Mr Filatov said Ireland is not a choice for the exercises, which he said will be held in a region of north-eastern Atlantic that has been usually the area for military training for many navies of the world, Russian included.

He said: So there is no Irish connection here whatsoever.

In compliance with legal requirements, Russia informed Irelands aviation authorities of the planned activities in advance.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said there would be no impact to the safety of civil aircraft operations.

Mr Coveney said Ireland does not have the power to prevent the exercises.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Coveney said: I have made it clear to the Russian Ambassador in Ireland (Mr Filatov) that its not welcome.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney is in Brussels for a meeting of EU foreign ministers (Brian Lawless/PA)

This is not a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what is happening with and in Ukraine at the moment.

Its important that I brief my colleagues on those intentions.

Russia, under international law, can take military exercises in international waters, but the fact they are choosing to do it on the west borders of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that is in our view not welcome and not wanted right now, particularly in the coming weeks.

Tanaiste Leo Varadkar later echoed Coveneys comments that the Russian exercises are not welcome, and said Cabinet would discuss the issue on Tuesday.

In relation to the situation with regard to Russia, Ive been briefed on that by Minister Coveney. I expect he will brief Cabinet on it tomorrow as well, he said.

While the Russian military can, within the law, carry out these exercises off our waters and in our economic zone, theyre certainly unwelcome.

That has been communicated to the authorities.

Mr Coveney was in Brussels on Monday for a scheduled meeting with other EU foreign ministers at which the ongoing tensions on the Russia/Ukraine border are being discussed.

This is an important day today for EU foreign ministers to reinforce a message of unity from the European Union in relation to Russian/Ukraine tension, Mr Coveney added.

There are two very clear messages that EU foreign ministers will want to get across today.

First of all, a clear message and ask of Russia to defuse tension in the context of their activities on the borders of Ukraine and give reassurance to the rest of the world in terms of their intentions.

Secondly, a strong message of unity from the EU that should Russia decide to invade Ukraine militarily, that there would be very severe consequences of that action from an EU perspective in terms of sanction and restrictions that would follow very quickly, that I think would be the most comprehensive that the EU has put together in many decades.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has called for a practical solutions to resolve the deadlock with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Ms Truss is travelling to Brussels for her second meeting with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic since taking over responsibility for the talks following the resignation of the Brexit minister Lord Frost.

Following their first encounter at the Foreign Secretarys country residence at Chevening in Kent earlier this month, the two sides agreed officials would enter into intensified talks in preparation for Mondays meeting.

It is expected that Ms Truss and Ms Sefcovic will hold a closed session with just the two principals present before opening up the discussions to include senior UK and EU officials.

In a statement ahead of the talks, Ms Truss said: Fundamentally this is about peace and stability in Northern Ireland.

Whether you voted Leave or Remain, represent the UK or EU, the focus must be on protecting the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and fixing the protocol.

Rather than re-running past arguments, we need to focus on delivering for the people of Northern Ireland, finding practical solutions to problems on the ground and maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom.

The Government is seeking substantial changes to the protocol  which forms part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement  arguing that it is hampering the free movement of goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and damaging community relations.
London Ambulance Service attended the scene (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

A woman has been stabbed to death and a man killed after being hit by a car in west London.

The Metropolitan Police said it had launched an urgent investigation after the horror in Chippenham Road, Maida Vale at around 9am on Monday.

Officers were called to reports of a stabbing, and when they got to the scene also found a man who had been hit by a car.

Ambulance crews were called as well as London Fire Brigade, who freed the man as he was trapped under the vehicle, but both victims were declared dead at the scene.

Detective Chief Inspector Neil Smithson said: This morning an incredibly serious incident has unfolded in the Westminster area which has seen two people pronounced dead.

Our officers are on scene and are working to establish exactly what has happened.

As soon as we have more information will keep the public updated but for now we must avoid speculation and allow investigators to do their work.

What I can say at this time is that the incident is contained and we do not believe there to be any wider threat to the community.

We have spoken to a number of people already but anyone else who witnessed the incident, or who has information that could help us, is urged to make contact immediately.

Police are working to inform their families, and said that post-mortem examinations will be arranged.

A spokeswoman for London Ambulance Service said: We were called at 9.02am to reports of an incident on Chippenham Road, W9.

We sent a number of resources to the scene, including two ambulance crews, two clinical team leaders, an advanced paramedic, two tactical response units, a medic in a car, an incident response officer, and members of our hazardous area response team.

We also dispatched by road Londons Air Ambulance.

Despite our medics efforts, two people died at the scene.

Witnesses can call police on 101 quoting the reference 1496/24jan, or to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online.
A serious situation just got a little bit sweeter.

Krispy Kreme announced Monday it would be offering one dozen, free Original Glazed Doughnuts to anyone who donates blood this week.

The offer comes after the American Red Cross declared its first-ever "blood crisis" earlier this month. The organization supplies 40% of the country's blood and said in a press release it has experienced a 10% decrease in the number of people donating since the start of the pandemic.

Krispy Kreme is giving blood donors a dozen free doughnuts to help combat a nationwide blood shortage. (Krispy Kreme)

The current nationwide blood shortage traces back to previously cancelled blood drives due to staff shortages and limitations, the flu season and the ongoing pandemic, according to the American Red Cross.

"The American Red Cross is facing a national blood crisis  its worst blood shortage in over a decade, posing a concerning risk to patient care," the organization said in a press release. "Amid this crisis, doctors have been forced to make difficult decisions about who receives blood transfusions and who will need to wait until more products become available. Blood and platelet donations are critically needed to help prevent further delays in vital medical treatments."

And since this January is National Blood Donor Month, Krispy Kreme decided to make a dozen of its doughnuts free through next Monday, Jan. 31, for anyone who donates blood from now until then.

"With the nation facing its worst blood shortage in over a decade, Krispy Kreme wanted to find a way to show our support for those willing to roll up a sleeve and give blood during January, National Blood Donor Month," the company said in a press release. "Its our way of helping the American Red Cross increase awareness of this urgent need and saying 'thanks' to those who step up to help their community."

This isn't the first time Krispy Kreme has offered free doughnuts in response to a health crisis. Last March, the company offered one free doughnut every day for the rest of the year for anyone who got vaccinated against COVID-19. Then, the following August, they sweetened the deal to two free doughnuts per day for the following two months. The chain gave away nearly 4 million doughnuts as part of its vaccination campaign.

Eligible blood donors are 17 or older (16 with parental consent), weigh at least 110 pounds and are of general good health. They must show a valid blood donor card or driver's license before their donation can be taken at an American Red Cross location.

To get the free doughnuts, donors must order in-person at a Krispy Kreme shop and show proof of their donation to the American Red Cross or any other blood donation organization.
Tax season is upon us and there are some key changes in 2022  including this year's deadline  but most largely stem from pandemic-era tax legislation.

The pandemic significantly shifted the tax landscape as billions of dollars in aid were processed by tax returns, Kathy Pickering, the chief tax officer at The Tax Institute at H&R Block, recently said in a webinar hosted by the National Consumers League (NCL). For many Americansthe tax return is the most significant financial transaction of the year. The past two years reinforced this point as millions of families relied on their tax return to tap into critical government relief.

This year, tax season started on January 24 with the deadline on April 18, instead of the typical April 15. For Maine and Massachusetts residents, the tax deadline is April 19 due to Patriots' Day, a holiday in both states.

Sponsored by H&R Blocks Tax Institute, the NCL webinar outlined what you need to know this year as we head into another tax season that is quite different from the norm, Garrett Watson, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, said.

(Photo: Getty Creative)

Taxpayers need to reconcile the Child Tax Credit (CTC)

Many Americans received advance payments for the Child Tax Credit. Under the American Rescue Plan enacted in March 2021, the credit amount was increased and eligibility was expanded so families with little to no income could qualify. Additionally, the legislation allowed half of the credit to be disbursed in advance in monthly payments from July to December last year. The other half is distributed as part of your tax refund.

To get the correct remaining amount, taxpayers must use a new tax document this filing season, IRS Letter 6419, to reconcile the amount they received in advance from the Child Tax Credit, according to Manuel Dominguez, a senior tax research analyst at H&R Block.

As previously reported by Yahoo, taxpayers whose refund is solely based on this credit may see a smaller tax refund this year. If you didnt receive IRS Letter 6419, you can get it on the IRS Child Tax Credit Update Portal. You will need this document to file this year.

Know if you owe the IRS for excess CTC payments

Advanced child tax credits were based on 2020 tax returns, so divorced or unmarried parents who alternate claiming dependents may have received an excess in advance CTC payments if they arent claiming the child this year, according to Dominguez.

The Safe Harbor Repayment Protection provision provides protection from paying back that excess amount for lower earners. The income thresholds are $40,000 for single filers, $50,000 for heads of household, and $60,000 for joint filers.

If your income exceeds these thresholds for your filing status, you may need to pay it back. Consult with your tax professional to determine what to do.

The child and dependent care credit is fully refundable

(Photo: Getty Creative)

There are two big changes to this credit. First, the amount of allowable credit has increased substantially. In the past, taxpayers were capped up to $3,000 for child care expenses for one dependent and up to $6,000 for two dependents. For this year, the amount is $8,000 for one dependent child and $16,000 for two dependents. It also includes out-of-pocket expenses for child care, day camps, or any type of dependent care.

The second big change is the credit is fully refundable as long as taxpayers meet certain requirements. This means taxpayers can get the full credit amount even if they dont pay any taxes.

Taxpayers who had lower- to moderate-income andno tax liability when they filed their tax returnnever saw any benefit of this credit, Dominguez said. But this year now that the credit is fully refundable, they can get the benefit of it.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) threshold increased

There are three big changes for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) that taxpayers should know.

The income threshold has been increased for single filers with no children: If you filed last year and your income was just above the limit to claim this credit, know that the income threshold has increased, Dominguez said, and you may now be eligible for this credit this year.

Married taxpayers filing separately can qualify: You can claim the EITC as a married filing separately if you meet other qualifications. In previous years, this wasnt available for those taxpayers.

The lookback election can help you qualify: If your income in 2019 is higher than your income in 2021, [the lookback election] using that 2019 income allows you to claim a higher earned income tax credit, Dominguez said.

If you received a third stimulus check in 2021, you need to reconcile it

If you received a third economic impact payment (EIP)  stimulus payment  the IRS is mailing Letter 6475, which should be received by mid-February. You will need this document to reconcile the third stimulus payment on your tax return.

The document will show your personal information  your name and address  and the amount you received as your 2021 EIP. Using the letter to correctly fill out your taxes will help ensure your taxes and refund will be promptly processed.

Some folks are stillworried that they may have to repay some of these payments, [but] there arerobust safeguards against that for the stimulus payments, according to Watson.

You may now be eligible for a stimulus payment

There are several reasons you may now qualify for the third stimulus payment. To receive that amount, you must claim the Recovery Rebate Credit on your tax return.

Taxpayers whose income was higher in 2020 and did not qualify for the full stimulus payment, did not receive the full stimulus payment, but now that they're filingtaxes for 2021, if their income has lowered they may qualify for an additional stimulus payment in the form of the recovery rebate credit, Dominguez said.

If you had a new child in 2021 (birth, adoption, or fostered), you may also be eligible for the Recovery Rebate Credit. Also, first time filers may not have received the credit.

Remote workers might face double taxation on state taxes

(Photo: Getty Creative)

Because of the pandemic, many employees worked remotely. Some employees moved out of state causing state tax filing implications if your employer is outside the state where you worked remotely. Last year, some states had temporary relief provisions to avoid double taxation of income, but many of those provisions have expired.

If your employer is in one state and you live in another state as a remote worker, there are six states that have special convenience of employer rule to avoid double taxation, Watson said. Those states are Connecticut, Delaware, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

If you dont live in those six states, consult with your tax professional to see if there are other ways for you to mitigate the double taxation.

Increased deduction for cash charitable contributions

This year, if you gave cash to a charity, you can get take the standard deduction and still deduct up to $300 for single filers and up to $600 for joint filers. Last year, that threshold was $300 for both single and joint filers who took the standard deduction, and before that, only taxpayers who itemize their taxes could deduct charitable contributions.

Refunds may fluctuate up or down based on the Child Tax Credit changes

(Photo: Getty Creative)

We have to reconcile those advanced [child tax credit] payments, so that's going to lower the child tax credit that you're claiming on your tax return, [but] the child dependent care creditcan substantially increase it, Dominguez said.

Again, if your refund is solely based on the CTC, you may likely see a smaller tax refund. However, if youre eligible for other tax credits, you might not see a decrease in your refund.

To avoid refund delays, e-file and file early

When you e-file your returnthat's a much quicker process thanpaper filing [that] is gonna get caught in that backlog somewhere [and] if you do a refund use direct deposit that just reduces the time, Dominguez said.

File accurate returns to avoid delays in processing. If you enter an incorrect amount for your stimulus check or CTC advance payments, it can delay your processing. Have paperwork like IRS Letters 6419 and 6475 ready to reconcile your Child Tax Credit and stimulus checks. Additionally, taxpayers should electronically file and use direct deposit for refunds to prevent delays.

If you owe this year, you dont have to make a payment until April 18. Thats where filing early helps you plan. If you cannot afford a tax professional, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) offers free tax preparation for moderate- to low-income individuals, disabled, senior citizens, or those who have a language barrier.

VITA is a 50 year-old federally funded program [and] volunteers are all IRS certified[with] a lot of experience with things like tax credits, [and] are focused on the low income tax filer, Ain said. Due to the pandemic, VITA is doing in-person meetings with clients, drop-offs, and virtual meetings depending on the location. If you're looking for a VITA practitioner or other options, [check] the IRS free file options.

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Ronda is a personal finance senior reporter for Yahoo Money and attorney with experience in law, insurance, education, and government. Follow her on Twitter @writesronda

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Liquid water previously spotted beneath Mars ice-covered south pole may just be an illusion, a new study suggests.

In 2018 scientists thought they were looking at water when they saw bright reflections under the polar cap.

However, according to new research, the reflections match those of volcanic plains found all across the red planet.

The current temperature and pressure makes stable liquid water unlikely at the planets surface, researchers have said.

Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin think they have a more plausible explanation for the 2018 discovery, and suggest it was volcanic rock buried under ice that was seen.

Lead author, Cyril Grima, a planetary scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG), said: For water to be sustained this close to the surface, you need both a very salty environment and a strong, locally generated heat source, but that doesnt match what we know of this region.

The south polar mirage dissolved when scientists added an imaginary global ice sheet across a radar map of Mars.

They found that the imaginary ice showed how the planet would appear when looked at through a mile of ice.

This allowed them to compare features across the entire planet with those under the polar cap.

Mr Grima noticed bright reflections, just like those seen in the south pole but scattered across the planet.

And many matched the location of volcanic plains.

Iron-rich lava flows on Earth can leave behind rocks that produce similar reflections.

The scientists suggest other possibilities include mineral deposits in dried riverbeds.

But even if there is no liquid water on Mars, there is plenty of ice on the planet.

Isaac Smith, a Mars geophysicist at York University, believes the bright radar signatures are a kind of clay made when rock erodes in water.

He said: I think the beauty of Cyril Grimas finding is that while it knocks down the idea there might be liquid water under the planets south pole today, it also gives us really precise places to go look for evidence of ancient lakes and riverbeds and test hypotheses about the wider drying out of Mars climate over billions of years.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is based on three years of data from Marsis, a radar instrument launched in 2005 aboard the European Space Agencys Mars Express.
YANGON, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar recorded 37 more COVID-19 cases of the Omicron variant on Monday, bringing the total tally of confirmed Omicron cases to 183, according to a release from its Ministry of Health.

The release said the Omicron variant was found in 36 Myanmar nationals and one foreigner who recently arrived in Myanmar by relief flights.

Out of the returnees infected with the Omicron variant, 15 were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), seven from Malaysia, six from India, four from South Korea, three from Singapore and one each from Thailand and Russia, the ministry said.

According to figures released by the ministry on Monday, COVID-19 infections have increased to 534,163 in Myanmar with 92 new cases confirmed in the past 24 hours.

No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported in the Southeast Asian country on Monday, leaving the death toll at 19,310.

The health ministry said an additional 130 recovered patients have been discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries from the pandemic to 512,331 in the country. 
A Houston deputy was killed early Sunday morning after pulling a man over in what officials described as a "brutal attack."

Cpl. Charles Galloway, 47, was shot multiple times after pulling over a white Toyota Avalon at about 12:45 a.m. Sunday, according to Harris County Constable Ted Heap. The man driving the car exited the vehicle and immediately began to shoot at Galloway, who died at the scene.

Constable Ted Heap. (Harris County Constable Precinct 5)

He is survived by a daughter, as well as his sister, and the numerous numerous numerous officers here at Precinct 5 who were trained by him, who he mentored, and who are going to miss him tremendously, Heap said Sunday.

A suspect in Galloway's shooting has not yet been identified. Heap described it as a routine traffic stop.

Witnesses described the suspect as a young Hispanic male, who allegedly used what was characterized as an "assault type" weapon. The suspect returned to the car and drove off after the shooting.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner urged anyone with information on the suspect to reach out to police.

"Corporal Galloway served with honor and distinction, and his life was taken as he served to keep the rest of us safe," Turner said. "Thank you for your service."

The investigation will be taken over by the Houston Police Department, according to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner.

"This is senseless, it makes no sense whatsoever," Finner said. "Our special investigative unit homicide has taken lead on it in a message to this suspect: The best thing you can do is turn yourself in. Peacefully."
Layton Williams stars in "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" at the Ahmanson Theatre. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Even for a theater critic, the decision to see Everybodys Talking About Jamie, the West End musical hit that opened Friday at the Ahmanson Theatre, wasnt an easy one.

On the one hand, who at this point in the COVID-19 pandemic isn't fed up with living in suspended animation? On the other, the headlines about the explosive Omicron surge paint a stark picture of a more transmissible variant overwhelming already stressed hospitals.

I went with trepidation. My fear wasnt so much about my own health. I wore a good quality mask, didnt socialize before or after the performance and took some comfort in being boosted.

What troubled me was the societal impact of attending theater in a viral hurricane. If it were up to me, venues would take a brief Omicron pause until the surge subsides in our area. I wouldn't encourage my loved ones to see a show right now. How could I write a review that might spur my readers to do something that could potentially inflict harm on themselves or someone around them?

Before the show, I reached out to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which directed me to its website for official guidance. When I followed up to ask about the advisability of attending a performance at a large indoor venue during the current surge, I was met with radio silence.

Caught between an epidemiological rock and an economic hard place, the authorities are leaving these choices in individual hands. Science and our own inexpert judgment are all we have to rely on as we navigate what I hope will be the final chapter of this long ordeal.

Its a pity that Everybodys Talking About Jamie, an exceptionally sweet-natured show, couldnt have hit Los Angeles at a more welcoming moment. The genial musical wears its heart on its sleeve, and though its formulaic and sentimental, the force of good will coming from the stage is hard to resist.

Hugh, a.k.a. Loco Chanelle, has pizzazz in "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" at the Ahmanson Theatre. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Jamie (Layton Williams), left, performs for his friend (Shobna Gukati) and his mother (Melissa Jacques). (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

The show was inspired by the British television documentary Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, which chronicles a teenage boy's determination to wear a dress to his prom despite the resistance he faced from school administration and the local community. Jonathan Butterell, the shows director, turned the story into a musical with authors Dan Gillespie Sells (music and orchestration) and Tom MacRae (book and lyrics).

The production, which began in 2016 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, before moving to London's West End, is receiving its North American premiere at the Ahmanson. Broadway is likely punched into its GPS, but the route so far has been circuitous. A global tour that has so far included Japan and Korea and a movie adaptation (streaming on Amazon Prime) have preceded this American landing.

If the premise seems like a close cousin of "The Prom," which reached Broadway in 2018 (after a 2016 premiere in Atlanta), the shows move to different rhythms. "The Prom" has more traditional musical comedy DNA. "Everybody's Talking About Jamie," more pop-based and video-infused, seems geared toward jumpier attention spans.

Reviews have been strong, but the show is more of a commercial triumph than an artistic one. Agreeably effective rather than original, the musical has a generic score (think gay bar mixtape, sprinkled with a few ballads) that lays down an infectious groove without too much concern for lyrical precision. No matter: Familiarity breeds content in a theater audience eager to sway and shed a tear or two.

Set in Sheffield, "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" is loosely constructed as a set of musical scenes, in which obstacles to Jamie's inevitable happy ending arise and fall away. The show sticks to the surface, not wishing to delve too deeply into Jamies psychological and social turmoil. The brutality that is routine in the lives of LGBTQ+ youth might prove too disturbing to a musical theater audience looking for an evenings diversion. The violence is limited, and the risk of suicide for boys like Jamie (although hinted at in the song "Ugly in This Ugly World") is left for a more realistic offering.

Layton Williams (who replaced John McCrea, the musicals original star, in the West End) reprises his fawn-like performance as Jamie with a breathy intensity and a sashay flair. The sympathetic figure he cuts in his school uniform doesnt depend on his acting. Williams can look forlorn or super-fabulous, but he seems a bit lost when something more dramatically complex is required of him. Still, it's impossible not to root for his character.

Jamie is supported by Margaret (a top-notch Melissa Jacques), his economically struggling single mother, who sacrifices all she can to compensate for the boys absent father (Cameron Johnson). Margaret doesnt want Jamie to know that his dad rejects him, but her coverup has its own unfortunate consequences.

Ray (Shobna Gulati), Margarets staunch friend, is usually around to buck up morale with a naughty wisecrack, some discount candy and a heartfelt word of encouragement. At Jamie's birthday party, she cheers him on as he gingerly takes a few steps in the pair of killer red pumps his mother has bought for him. The affectionate, open-minded nature of this nontraditional domestic scene may be the musicals warmest touch.

Hugo, a.k.a. Loco Chanelle (Roy Haylock), performs. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Jamie (Layton Williams) just wants to wear a dress to prom. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Hugo, the proprietor of Victors Secret, a drag clothing store, becomes another crucial ally. Hugos drag moniker is Loco Chanelle, and the role is played by a performer who also comes with two names, Roy Haylock, better known to fans of RuPauls Drag Race by his stage name, Bianca Del Rio.

A kindly mentor, Hugo ensures that Jamie is properly kitted out. But he's just as concerned with the boy's drag persona, a chosen identity requiring defiant imagination and grit. In the number The Legend of Loco Chanelle, this drag veteran, backed by fellow drag queens, demonstrates to a young acolyte just how an origin story is concocted. (Kate Prince's frolicsome choreography allows the camp to saunter in the spotlight.)

Jamie can always count on his best friend, Pritti (Hiba Elchikhe, refreshingly sincere), a studious hijab-wearing Muslim girl who also feels like an outcast at their working class school. When she expresses confusion about the meaning of his new high heels, Jamie clarifies that he doesn't want to be a girl but that he would like to be accepted as a boy "who sometimes wants to be a girl."

I want to be a drag queen, he explains. For a job. You can do that, you know, make some money. Just not in Sheffield, can you imagine.

But as Hugo later teaches him, drag is more than a show. It's a form of empowerment. Drag queens should be warriors," he declares. "Performance is a battle. Makeup is armor.A boy in a dress is something to be laughed at  a drag queen is something to be feared.

The enemies lined up against Jamie include a fellow student named Dean Paxton (George Sampson), whose homophobic taunts betray a deep masculine insecurity. Jamies father deals the most devastating blow when he tells Jamie that he disgusts him. And then theres Miss Hedge (Gillian Ford), Jamies well-intentioned but skittish teacher, who after a complaint from a parent, informs Jamie that he cannot go to prom dressed as a girl, no matter how glamorous.

Margaret, who wishes for Jamie the dazzling life she could never imagine for herself, takes on her son's problems as though they were her own. During a momentary mother-son crisis, she gives vent to her feelings in the showstopper "He's My Boy." The lyrics are soppy, but Jacques delivers the maternal sentiment with a thunderous passion worthy of Jennifer Holliday.

The Wall in My Head, Jamies cry of the alienated heart, serves nearly the same function in Everybodys Talking About Jamie as Waving Through the Window does in Dear Evan Hansen. Except that the words arent as piercing and the inner life of the character seems a bit more pat.

The production is overlong, with a series of endings that are a drag in both senses of the word. In no universe should this show take nearly three hours, but particularly not in one in which theatergoers are breathing behind protective face masks. (Incidentally, a few COVID-19 jokes and allusions are perfunctorily included, though the musical is largely set in a pandemic-free realm.)

The design scheme of the production can be summed up as fluorescent drear, presumably to convey the grimness of Jamies school. Video projections that sometimes seem like a playful version of FaceTime enliven the visual tedium, but I felt a great sense of relief every time we returned to Margarets bright yellow kitchen.

I cant advise whether you should see Everybodys Talking About Jamie, but I found the musicals gentle generosity to be uplifting. Its far from a perfect show, but theres a reason its found favor throughout the world. This heartening tale of extravagant individuality triumphing over claustrophobic conformity is made for the theater.

Layton Williams, center, in "Everybody's Talking About Jamie." (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Rick Caruso, shown in 2019, says he has changed his registration to Democrat from no party preference as he weighs a run for Los Angeles mayor. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)

Rick Caruso, the shopping mall magnate who is considering a run for mayor of heavily Democratic Los Angeles, said Monday he has changed his political affiliation from no party preference to Democrat.

Caruso dropped his longtime Republican affiliation in favor of no party preference when he previously considered running for mayor, the L.A. Daily News reported in 2012.

He has donated to Republicans and Democrats, including President George W. Bush and one of Caruso's potential mayoral rivals, Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles). Today he sits on the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation.

In a city as blue as Los Angeles, this shift is the strongest sign yet of Caruso's seriousness about running.

"I am registering as a Democrat so that I can stand firmly on the side of the fundamental values that we will all need to invoke and enforce to thwart the coming attacks on our democracy," he wrote in a letter he posted on Twitter  a platform he joined over the weekend.

"What kind of Democrat will I be? I wont be a typical Democrat, thats for sure. I will be a pro-centrist, pro-jobs, pro-public safety Democrat.

Last week, Caruso told The Times that he would be making this final decision shortly about entering the race.

Should Caruso decide to enter the 2022 mayoral race before the Feb. 12 filing deadline, his candidacy and the prospect of a self-funded campaign could disrupt a June 7 primary contest that includes Bass, City Councilmen Kevin de Leon and Joe Buscaino, City Atty. Mike Feuer and downtown business leader Jessica Lall among several dozen others.

In the run-up to the 2020 election, nearly 57% of voters in the city of Los Angeles were registered Democrats, according to the California secretary of state.

Bill Burton, a top strategist for Buscaino's campaign, invoked in a tweet Caruso's past support of Republicans, saying it "put women's rights  guaranteed in Roe v Wade  in real peril." A spokesman for Caruso said he supports abortion rights and the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision.

Throughout the early 2000s, most of Caruso's political donations at the national level went to Republicans, according to federal election records. That included giving $100,000 in 2004 to a reelection committee supporting then-President George W. Bush and $25,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2003 and again in 2006.

In advance of the 2008 election he supported Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney's primary run for president, giving $2,300, along with Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell's reelection to the Senate, donating $4,300.

He also began giving to Democratic candidates for Congress. He donated a total of $7,200 between 2008 and 2009 to former Rep. Xavier Becerra, who is now U.S. secretary for Health and Human Services, and a total of $5,800 to Bass in 2010 and 2011.

While his giving to Democrats at the federal level increased around this time, he gave $50,000 to a joint fundraising committee backing then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) in 2017. McCarthy is currently the House minority leader.

The letter Monday telegraphed as well where Caruso will stand on some of the issues that are sure to dominate the mayoral debate. Previously, the owner of the Grove and Americana at Brand shopping malls has sharplycriticized Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure on criminal justice reform.

He hinted that he favored schools staying open and that addressing homelessness and public safety would be at the center of a campaign if he were to run.

"As a Democrat, I will prioritize the safety of our families  not hamstringing our police but helping them be better and more effective," Caruso wrote.

"Most of all, this means managing homelessness as an unprecedented, city-threatening crisis, with both compassion and firmness that ensures that those who are following the rules are not disadvantaged by those who refuse to do so.

In 2020, Caruso was appointed to a Trump-era task force about the COVID-19 economic recovery. He said in 2016 that under "no circumstances could I see myself supporting Trump," adding a few months later that Donald Trump was not welcome at the Grove.

Bill Carrick, who previously worked for Mayor Eric Garcetti and now advises Lall, noted that Caruso, who Forbes estimates is worth $4.3 billion, had supported many Democrats, such as Mayor James Hahn and Gov. Gavin Newsom. As a result, he wasn't shocked.

"We love converts, though," he said.

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to House rules allowing proxy voting, a system adopted during the Covid pandemic.

McCarthy asked the high court last September to overturn the proxy voting rules, which allow lawmakers to cast votes through a colleague so that they dont need to be physically present in the House chamber.

Republican lawmakers have taken advantage of the process themselves, which took effect in May 2020.

McCarthy said in a statement at the time that he wanted the court to reverse House Speaker Nancy Pelosis perpetual proxy voting power grab.

In late December, Pelosi, D-Calif., announced that remote voting would continue until Feb. 13. It was initially set to expire on Jan. 4.

A spokesperson for McCarthy said in a statement Monday that "Members of Congress should show up to work on behalf of their constituents, just as they have since our nation was founded."

"We can't rely on a separate branch of government to make Congress do their jobs as intended by the Constitution, and if Republicans earn back the majority, proxy voting will be eliminated on Day One," the spokesperson added.

Pelosi called the Supreme Court's decision a "victory for Congress, the rule of law and public health."

With this failed lawsuit, Republicans have worked to recklessly endanger the health of colleagues, staffers and institutional workers," Pelosi said. "In doing so, they have fought harder to try to score political points than they have fought to help struggling families during the pandemic."

Pelosi also noted that more than half of House GOP lawmakers last year designated a proxy so that they could vote remotely.

An NBC News analysis of proxy letters found that more than 90 lawmakers have submitted one since December 2021, with about one-sixth coming from Republicans.
By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world is "not on a good track" to meet a global goal to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and must intensify efforts to move away from fossil fuels this decade, John Kerry, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, said on Monday.

"We're in trouble. I hope everyone understands that," Kerry told an event called Building Momentum to UN COP27 hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and officials from Egypt, the host of the next UN climate summit.

Kerry told the event he is concerned about the recent uptick in the use of coal globally and about plans to build new coal plants without carbon capture technology.

In November, Egypt will host the next UN climate summit, known as COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh where the government will look to showcase its own work to phase out coal in power generation, improve management of waste water, and launch construction of public transportation projects.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry said as the host of the UN climate summit, Egypt aims to be a voice for mobilizing climate finance to support developing nations and transferring clean energy technology to African nations who are among those hurt most by climate change.

"We will be listening to the needs and priorities of Africa and other developing countries who have suffered greatly from the negative effects of climate change," said Shoukry, who will be the president of COP27.

Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad said Egypt's goal is to generate 42% of its electricity from renewable energy sources.

Kerry said actions countries have taken do not meet the severity of the problem, even though "a huge amount of good" came out of the COP26 summit in Glasgow last November, including concluding the "rule book" for executing the Paris Climate Agreement.

Kerry said the recent uptick in coal use over the last year and plans by countries to continue building coal plants will worsen global warming and urged countries to change course.

"Most countries have the ability to deploy very significant additional amounts of renewables and they're not choosing to do that," he said, adding that sticking with coal or planning to build out natural gas infrastructure would lock in decades of additional greenhouse gas emissions.

Many Chamber of Commerce members support building more natural gas-fired power plants while the country transitions to renewables, and Kerry told the group he "is for gas" but only if it includes carbon capture technology.

"If it's abated - terrific. If you can capture 100% [of the carbon and methane emissions] and it makes it affordable - that's wonderful. But we're not doing that," he said.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Gregorio)
Americans have started grabbing their morning cup of coffee outside the house again, according to new data, in the latest signal that consumers are slowly reverting to pre-pandemic normalcy.

Research from data analytics firm Placer.ai shows that foot traffic at chains like Dunkin', Starbucks (SBUX) and Dutch Bros. Coffee (BROS) topped the dining sector's in 2021. The firm referred to the morning coffee routine as a "proven necessity" based on customers' visits during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite shifts in daily schedules, and many white-collar professionals working from home.

Foot traffic at the top ten performing coffee chains was up 2.8% compared to two years ago in June 2021, Placer.ai found, but dining visits were down 4.6%. By the end of last year, the contrast grew more apparent: In November, the coffee space saw an 8.4% jump in foot traffic compared to 2019 levels, while December saw a 7.5% increase.

Meanwhile, the dining sector saw a decline of 6.4% and 1.8% compared to 2019, reflecting the rise of new COVID-19 variants.

"The numbers reveal that necessity and convenience are not the only two drivers of coffee shop foot traffic," Placer.ai said, with many customers opting to pay for a cup of joe outside of their homes.

"For the many coffee-drinkers working from home, making coffee in their kitchen is no replacement for the experience of a trip to the coffee shop," the report added.

However, at-home coffee brands like Dunkin' and Cafe Bustelo from J.M. Smuckers (SJM) have also seen a boost from customers opting to drink their coffee at home.

In an interview in late November, CEO Mark Smucker told Yahoo Finance the "entire business benefits from folks having stayed at home and continuing to stay at home as we go back to a new normal, where folks will probably work more time from home than away from home or in the office."

Dutch Bros muscles its way into the coffee convo

(Courtesy: Placer.ai)

When comparing foot traffic levels to 2019, newcomer Dutch Bros may be giving well-known players like Dunkin' and Starbucks a run for their money according to Placer.ai. Throughout 2021, the Oregon-based coffee chain saw a major spike in monthly visits compared to 2019, a jump that hit a high of 160% in December of 2021.

Starbucks and Dunkin', meanwhile, only saw foot traffic increase by less than 20% throughout March to December, with declines in both January and February.

Ethan Chernofsky, CMO of Placer.ai, told Yahoo Finance LIVE in a recent interview that "beyond seeing visits going up over time, we see that visits per location number going up, which really indicates that loyalty" for the Dutch Bros brand.

"They're really focused on getting the product out in a really positive way, drive-thru and a fast service model that enables them to grow really quickly in a really efficient manner," he added.

In the past five and half years, Dutch Bros expanded its presence from 250 stores to nearly 500 stores, with plans to reach 800 stores by 2026.

However, "expansion isnt having a significant impact on visits to the current kings of coffee," Placer.ai noted in its report. Despite a smaller jump in foot traffic for the major brands throughout March to December compared to Dutch Bros, both companies have topped pre-pandemic levels.

(Courtesy: Placer.ai)

According to Placer.ai's white paper, the "significant increase" in visits last March may be attributed to the release of spring menus. On top of that, warmer weather may have spurred cravings cold beverages which "often require special equipment and ingredients" that they may not have at home.

Starbucks  where cold drinks currently dominate sales  continues to benefit from "pumpkin spice latte season." Foot traffic at the coffee giant was up 14.6% last November, the start of a holiday surge marked by the return of seasonal red cups.

Placer.ai believes that the overall well-being of major brands proves that the "the days of one coffee brand monopolizing a given region are drawing to a close." Dunkin' is seeing major growth in California, and Starbucks has gotten a boost in New York compared to two years ago.

"The coffee demand is strong enough that it can sustain several national leaders," the firm noted. "In fact, the data shows that multiple chains can be part of a single individuals coffee mix by providing different values and products depending on the demand."

Late morning effect

NORWELL, MA. - MARCH 17: A Dunkin' worker hands a coffee out of a drive-thru window wearing gloves and a mask as the Coronavirus continues to spread on March 17, 2020 in Norwell, Massachusetts. (Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)

One lasting "COVID-induced shift" is late morning visits to coffee shops. Last quarter, 26.2% of consumers visited their go-to coffee shops during the hours of 9 AM-12 PM, Placer.ai found. But in Q1 of 2020, a little more than 23 percent of customers visited during that time, with more customers opting to go midday (12 PM-3 PM), or in the late afternoon (3 PM-6 PM).

The report noted that in Q4, "this rise in late morning visits seems to come at the expense of visits in the late afternoon  between 3 PM and 6 PM" which have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

This could have potential for coffee chains to rethink their offerings, depending on what they may crave.

"Early morning coffee seekers may look for different products and a different spatial layout than late afternoon and evening ones," the report indicated. It could allow chains to identify the needs of customers currently compared to the needs of what Placer.ai calls "pre-pandemic patrons," giving them a possible "leg up on the competition."

As the world looks to return to work, the concept of the "third place" may see a boost long-term as workers seek hybrid work models.

"As more people looked for ways to meet with friends and family outdoors, buying a coffee to-go and sitting on an outdoor bench transformed from a lame date idea to a popular rendezvous concept," the report noted.

Brooke DiPalma is a producer and reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @BrookeDiPalma or email her at bdipalma@yahoofinance.com.

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Some British embassy staff and their dependants are being pulled out of Kyiv in response to the mounting Russian threat to Ukraine.

The Foreign Office confirmed the move after the United States ordered the families of all American personnel at the US Embassy to leave the country in response the the risk of an invasion.

#Ukraine Some Embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to growing threat from Russia. The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work. (see Summary' page) https://t.co/NDOk0vdKBg pic.twitter.com/OSm9fd89id  FCDO Travel Advice (@FCDOtravelGovUK) January 24, 2022

Russian forces have massed at the border with Ukraine and intense diplomatic activity has failed to ease tensions.

The Foreign Office said: Some embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to the growing threat from Russia.

The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work.

Meanwhile, Nato committed more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe.

Allies are sending more ships & jets to enhance #NATO defensive deployments in eastern Europe. A strong sign of allied solidarity. Offers include: F-16 jets to Lithuania troops to Romania F-35 jets to Bulgaria frigate heading to the Black Seahttps://t.co/2GnJKupEA9 pic.twitter.com/UvsRXpkvLT  Oana Lungescu (@NATOpress) January 24, 2022

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania, Spain is sending ships and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria, France has expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania, and the Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighter planes to Bulgaria from April.

The UK believes there is a significant risk that Russian president Vladimir Putin will launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has accused the president of plotting to install a pro-Moscow leader as head of the Ukrainian government.

The Foreign Office took the unusual step of naming former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate to take over in Kyiv  a claim dismissed as provocative nonsense by Moscow.

 Disinformation circulated by @FCDOGovUK is yet another indication that it is the @NATO Members led by the Anglo-Saxon nations who are escalating tensions around #Ukraine.  We urge the Foreign Office to stop spreading nonsense.  https://t.co/KShxdSpIB4 pic.twitter.com/5c30waMx6r  MFA Russia  (@mfa_russia) January 23, 2022

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab warned on Sunday there was a very significant risk of a Russian invasion of its neighbour.

The world needs to keep its eye on this and be very clear with President Putin that it would not do this cost-free, that there would be a price, he told the BBC.

A price in terms of the strenuous defence that we would expect the Ukrainians to put up, but also the economic cost through sanctions, which are of course more effective if the international community speaks as one or at least with a broad consensus.

There are concerns that the crisis could trigger a spike in European energy prices, with The Times reporting that officials fear Russia could restrict supplies of gas in response to sanctions.
The UK embassy in Argentina is to host its first ever Burns Supper after a diplomat whose family are from the poets birthplace was appointed as ambassador.

Kirsty Hayes has always loved the celebration and has organised an inaugural event for 30 dignitaries at her official residence in Buenos Aires for Burns Night on January 25.

She was born in Aberdeen, however, her father was from Alloway, Ayrshire, birthplace of Robert Burns, while her grandmother shared the name Elizabeth Paton with the mother of the poets first child.

Mrs Hayes, 44, was appointed to her role as ambassador in September, replacing Mark Kent, who is now chief executive of the Scottish Whisky Association.

A mural of Robert Burns on the sea wall at Ardeer beach, near his birthplace of Alloway (Jane Barlow/PA)

She said: My familys Alloway roots mean Burns Night has always been a big thing for us and Im reliably informed that this will be the first time the Embassy in Buenos Aires has hosted a Burns Supper.

I was born in Aberdeen, but my father was from Alloway and even though we moved about a fair bit growing up, we always visited Ayrshire on holiday to see my granny and my aunt.

Burns first child was born illegitimately to a servant girl, Lizzie Paton, and thats my grans name so maybe theres a family connection.

Ive always loved going to Burns Suppers and although this inaugural event is small because of the Covid situation, the plan is to build on this for the future when things get back to normal again.

Last year, Mrs Hayes led the embassys first St Andrews Day event, attended by 70 people, which celebrated the Argentine government reducing tariffs on Scotch whisky.

She said: It was the first time haggis had been served at the ambassadors residence in Buenos Aires. The cook did not put it inside the stomach, but it tasted really good.

They made cranachan and tried to make tablet, although that did not turn out as well. Theyre going to have another go for Burns Night.

My Argentine guests told me they loved the haggis, but one of my Argentine staff suggests they were being diplomatic, although there were definitely no complaints about the whisky.

She added: It drives me mad if Im introduced as the English ambassador, so thats why celebrating Burns Night and St Andrews Day is always important to me.

People around the globe celebrate Burns Night to mark the anniversary of the poets birth on January 25 1759.

In neighbouring Brazil, Fiona Lappin, from Ayrshire, development director at the UK embassy in Brasilia, will be addressing the haggis at a Burns Supper there.

Ambassador Peter Wilson will be hosting an event for 40 guests in Brasilia, at which there will be an official presentation of three sets of MacRae bagpipes to Brazilian navy chief, Admiral Almir Garnier Santos.

Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, said: This Burns Night, I want to salute the many Scots at the heart of delivering UK foreign policy as a force for good around the world.

Kirsty and Fionas stories highlight how the UK Government is using its extensive consular network to strengthen friendships and open up trading opportunities for Scottish industry.
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HELSINKI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Finland underlined the need to secure the continuity of the welfare state structures throughout the Nordic area as it began its rotating presidency of the Nordic Council on Monday.

"The themes of the Finnish tenure are the future of the Nordic welfare formula and sustainable North," Council President Erkki Tuomioja told a virtual gathering, where the Presidency of the Council and all four committees meet remotely.

Established in 1952, the Nordic Council is a cooperative forum for the parliaments of the five Nordic countries including Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland.

"Continuity can be assured through the focus on basic services, wellbeing, high employment level, and a sound fiscal base," Tuomioja was quoted in a press release.

The Finnish blueprint noted that new challenges of the Nordic economies put the welfare model to a test. It listed "economic insecurity, widening inequality and a deterioration in the dependency ratio due to an aging population" as problems. It also referred to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We want to make a critical assessment of the current state and challenges of the Nordic model and must openly face the problems that the welfare model encounters in the 2020s," the Finnish document said. 
Podcast: The life and legacy of the late Senator Johnny Isakson with Joan Kirchner Carr
Schools across the state were closed in the first week of January due to a spike in the coronavirus cases

A teacher traditionally welcomes a student upon her arrival at a school in Mumbai on January 24, 2022, after schools were reopened that were closed as a preventive measure to curb the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus. (Photo: AFP)

Mumbai: Schools resumed physical sessions for classes 1 to 12 in Maharashtra on Monday and the state government expressed hope that students would enjoy being back to their classrooms in a safe atmosphere.

Last week, the Maharashtra government allowed the offline classes to resume from January 24 after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray approved a proposal to this effect that was sent to him by the school education department.

Schools across the state were closed in the first week of January due to a spike in the coronavirus cases and in the wake of the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant. However, a number of parents, activists in the field as well as teachers had strongly opposed the move to shut the schools, saying it would adversely affect the students.

In Mumbai, the local civic body had earlier announced the closure of schools for Classes 1 to 9 till January 31.

But, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) assessment later indicated that the cases of Omicron infection were not on the rise, and it had said the curve was flattening. It had prompted officials to propose the reopening of schools for physical attendance.

On Monday morning, Maharashtra School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad greeted students and parents on the reopening of physical classes.

"Wishing all parents and students the very best as physical classes reopen today onwards. We hope you enjoy your day back in a safe atmosphere. #BackToSchool. @scertmaha @CMOMaharashtra @msbshse," Gaikwad tweeted.

In Mumbai also, various schools resumed offline classes in the morning.

Last week, BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal had said that in-person or offline classes will resume in pre-primary schools too.

While allowing the schools to resume physical classes, the state government has asked them to strictly adhere to COVID-19 protocols and guidelines.

On Sunday, Maharashtra reported 40,805 COVID-19 cases, taking its tally to 75,07,225, while 44 fatalities pushed the toll to 1,42,115, a health department official earlier said.

No Omicron case was detected in the state on Sunday, keeping the tally of those affected by the new variant to 2,759, of whom 1,437 have been discharged so far, the official said.
Taking the cue from Jia, one needs to ask whether viewing the region through the prism of 'absolute national security' is any longer useful?

In a world preoccupied by the still-surging Covid-19 pandemic, and particularly its Omicron variant of concern, as well as the strategic moves by the Sino-Soviet alliance of convenience, an interesting piece by Jia Qingguo has appeared in the Journal of International Studies of the University of International Relations, Beijing. He is a foreign policy adviser to the Chinese establishment.

Jia makes the point that the concept of absolute national security can be self-defeating. He explains that to ignore the comparative nature of security and blindly pursue it absolutely would ultimately make any nation less secure. The 22-page article analyses comprehensively the Chinese national security strategy. Indirectly, it casts a shadow on the aggressive posturing by China under President Xi Jinping.

Jia illustrates his thesis by examples from history. The Soviet Union, he argues, erred by placing excessive emphasis on defence spending.

Although the Soviet economy was half the size of the then American economy, diverting an inordinately large chunk of national resources to defence took a toll on economic growth and development. This led to public disenchantment which, given an opportunity, spilled into the public domain.

Then Jia reasons that absolute security may be attainable if a nation cuts off all economic links with the world, making it immune from external sanctions or pressure. In a globalised world that is impossible if a nation has to grow and not be left behind in the race for trade and technology. Companies grow and improve only when exposed to international competition. Jia is, advertently or otherwise, bringing out the paradox in President Xis theories of common prosperity and dual circulation. The latter involves growing exports, meaning international circulation, and expanding domestic demand, implying internal circulation. How do you keep the two properly aligned when aggressive nationalism colours the approach to almost the entire maritime and continental neighbourhood? Jia perhaps could not frame the issue in this manner but that is how it will be seen. But the irony manifests when President Xi argues at Davos 2022 for globalisation and freedom to grow and foster technologies.

This cautionary piece comes as China approaches in the coming autumn the twice-a-decade Party Congress. In addition, the Omicron variant has already spread to the political capital, Beijing, and the financial centre, Shanghai. With the blighted Winter Olympics just weeks away now, diplomatically boycotted by the United States and some of its allies, bubbles are being devised for the athletes. For outdoor events that presents a great challenge as the venues are widely spread. China also had the slowest growth rate of four per cent in the last quarter, in the post-Covid period.

Jia is hinting at exactly these new challenges, which now present China with headwinds for trade and a clampdown on technology transfers. In other words, overly national security-driven foreign and defence policies are beginning to be counterproductive.

China has also complicated matters by going after domestic Big Tech, shackling its adaptive private sector. It remains to be seen if China can also sustain its Zero-Covid policy, using extremely stringent quarantine methods to check the virus.

A similar question can be asked about the Narendra Modi governments foreign and defence policies. Jingoism colours the approach to western neighbours Pakistan and Afghanistan while playing backfoot defence against the Peoples Republic of China.

Taking the cue from Jia, one needs to ask whether viewing the region through the prism of absolute national security is any longer useful?

Jammu and Kashmir, we learn, will have statehood restored and Assembly polls will be held only after the delimitation is done.

Combined with greater communal polarisation, as the BJP finds itself electorally challenged in Uttar Pradesh, the solutions may not lie in strong-arm tactics. Blind pursuit of politics and diplomacy through an absolutist national security mindset will, as Chinese analyst Jia has warned, only make the nation and the region less secure.

Pakistan presented its first-ever National Security Policy (NSP), running into 110 pages, on January 14. The instinctive Indian official reaction was to reject it as posturing. This is precisely what is meant by the absolute security bias. One can concede that Pakistan has reiterated its stand on outstanding issues like Jammu and Kashmir. Their narrative about Pakistani soil not being allowed to be used by terrorists also lacks any conviction as groups targeting India have always enjoyed sanctuary or even support across the border. But India also needs to constantly reassess its policy options. A proper cost-benefit analysis is necessary to see whether Pakistan can still be weaned away from its dependence on terrorism as an anti-India weapon.

Assembly elections are weeks away in Punjab, which has slipped from being the number one state, on a per capita basis, in 1980 to number 16. Punjabi youth see no future and are leaving in droves to settle abroad. Industrial and agricultural rejuvenation would be so much easier if the India-Pakistan border is opened to investment and trade.

There are old proposals like TAPI or the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Now Pakistan is examining a Russian proposal to bring gas from Kazakhstan to Pakistan. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor itself will benefit if India became a player. At the very least, Indias role can well reduce the Chinese stranglehold on Pakistan.

Pakistans euphoria over the Talibans capture of power in Afghanistan is fast dissipating. The Taliban have not been very accommodative in controlling Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. After a one-month ceasefire, the outfit is back to attacking Pakistans security agencies. The Pakistani optimism about the China-sponsored CPEC has also ebbed.

None of this may be possible. But keeping Indias policy options frozen in a doctrine of national security based on paranoia and permanent animosity defies logic. But the starting point has to be to accept that the Hindutva philosophy cannot be the sole determinant of any governments electoral strategy or national security. The coming state elections are important from this perspective. The BJPs leaders will give their Hindutva agenda one last heave in Uttar Pradesh, a state that has become its primary cradle. If they retain power there, they are unlikely to review their electoral strategy and core beliefs. If they do not secure a mandate, however, it is logical to assume that they would have to rethink the utility of an excessively Hindutva-laced agenda.

Two old civilisations, India and China, are now facing the choices that all rising powers face. How to calibrate the rise domestically and abroad: to retain power at home and enlarge their zone of influence abroad.
Amid diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to meet Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu

An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

MOSCOW: Russias Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim that the Kremlin is seeking to replace Ukraines government with a pro-Moscow administration, and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev is a potential candidate.

Britains Foreign Office on Saturday also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said had links with Russian intelligence services, along with Murayev who is the leader of a small party that has no seats in parliament.

Those politicians include Mykola Azarov, a former prime minister under Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president ousted in a 2014 uprising, and Yanukovychs former chief of staff, Andriy Kluyev.

Some of these have contact with Russian intelligence officers currently involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine, the Foreign Office said.

Murayev told The Associated Press via Skype that the British claim looks ridiculous and funny and that he has been denied entry to Russia since 2018 on the grounds of being a threat to Russian security. He said that sanction was imposed in the wake of a conflict with Viktor Medvedchuk, Ukraines most prominent pro-Russia politician and a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Murayevs Nashi party  whose name echoes the former Russian youth movement that supported Putin  is regarded as sympathetic to Russia, but Murayev on Sunday pushed back on characterizing it as pro-Russia.

The time of pro-Western and pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine is gone forever, he said in a Facebook post.

Everything that does not support the pro-Western path of development of Ukraine is automatically pro-Russian, Murayev told The AP.

He also said he supports Ukraine having neutral status and believes that striving for NATO is tantamount to continuing the war. Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists have been fighting in the countrys east since 2014, a conflict that has killed more than 14,000.

Ukrainian political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko described Murayev as a significant figure in Ukraines pro-Russia camp, but added: Murayev is a second-place player. I dont think Murayev has direct connections in the Kremlin.

The U.K. government made the claim based on an intelligence assessment, without providing evidence to back it up. It comes amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over Russias designs on Ukraine and each sides increasing accusations that the other is planning provocations.

The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging app Sunday. We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the information shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking.

Truss urged Russia to deescalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy, and reiterated Britains view that any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.

Britain has sent anti-tank weapons to Ukraine as part of efforts to bolster the countrys defenses against a potential Russian attack.

Mark Galeotti, who has written extensively on Russian security services, said: I cant help but be skeptical about the British claim.

This is one of those situations where it is hard to know whether what were facing is a genuine threat, a misunderstanding of the inevitable overtures that were being made to various Ukrainian figures by Russians or strategic communication  which is what we call propaganda these days when were doing it, Galeotti, who is honorary professor of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College, London, told the AP.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he could not comment specifically about the British claim, but weve been warning about just this kind of tactic for weeks.

This is very much part of the Russian tool kit, he said in an interview on CNN. It runs the gamut from a large, conventional incursion or invasion of Ukraine to these kinds of destabilizing activities in an attempt to topple the government. And its important that people be on notice about that.

The U.K. governments unusual decision to release the thinking of British spies, though not the evidence behind it, comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is distracted by a leadership crisis over lockdown-breaching parties by his staff during the coronavirus pandemic.

Keir Giles, a Russia expert at the international affairs think-tank Chatham House, said the British warning was a sign of the U.K. effectively taking the lead of a strong NATO and European response to Russias threats to Ukraine.

With the U.S. apparently willing to engage with Russias demands on Moscows terms, and the EU irrelevant and asleep at the wheel, it has fallen to the U.K. to deal with the challenge both in terms of rhetoric  and in terms of direct action, raising the likely cost of a Russian incursion in Ukraine by providing direct shipments of defensive munitions, Giles said.

Amid diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to meet Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for talks in Moscow. No timing has been given for the meeting, which would be the first U.K.-Russia bilateral defense talks since 2013.

The U.S. has mounted an aggressive campaign in recent months to unify its European allies against a new Russian invasion of Ukraine. The White House called the U.K. government assessment deeply concerning and said it stands with the duly elected Ukrainian government.

The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically elected partners in Ukraine, National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said.

The assessment came as President Joe Biden spent Saturday at the presidential retreat Camp David outside of Washington huddling with his senior national security team about the Ukraine situation. A White House official said the discussions included efforts to de-escalate the situation with diplomacy and deterrence measures being coordinated closely with allies and partners, including security assistance to Ukraine.

In Washington on Sunday, the U.S State Department ordered the families of all American personnel at the American Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion. The move came amid rising tensions that were not eased during talks Friday between the U.S. and Russia.
Tata Group had on October 8 last year acquired Air India for Rs 18,000 crore

As a part of the deal, the Tata group will also be handed over Air India Express also. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: Air India is likely to be handed over to the Tata group by the end of this week, senior government officials said on Monday.

After a competitive bidding process, the government had on October 8 last year sold Air India to Talace Private Limited -- a subsidiary of the Tata group's holding company -- for Rs 18,000 crore.

Following that, on October 11, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to the Tata group confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 percent stake in the airline. On October 25, the Centre signed the share purchase agreement (SPA) for this deal.

Officials said on Monday that the remaining formalities regarding this deal are expected to be completed in the next few days and the airline will be handed over to the Tata group by the end of this week.

As a part of the deal, the Tata group will also be handed over Air India Express and a 50 percent stake in ground handling arm Air India SATS.

Tatas had on October 8 beat the Rs 15,100-crore offer by a consortium led by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh and the reserve price of Rs 12,906 crore set by the government for the sale of its 100 percent stake in the loss-making carrier.

While this will be the first privatisation since 2003-04, Air India will be the third airline brand in the Tatas' stable  it holds a majority interest in AirAsia India and Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines Ltd.
The 28 feet-by-6 feet hologram statue is powered by a 30,000 lumens 4KW projector

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a programme to unveil a hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and confer Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskars for 2019 to 2022, in New Delhi. (PTI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a hologram statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during a special event at India Gate on Sunday to mark the occasion of Netajis 125th birth anniversary.

The 28 feet-by-6 feet hologram statue is powered by a 30,000 lumens 4KW projector. The light is thrown on a high-grain, 90 per cent transparent holographic screen that is not visible to visitors. The 3D image of Netaji is projected on it to create the effect of a hologram, which is a photographic recording of a light field instead of the traditional image formed by a lens. The hologram statue will remain under the canopy at India Gate, where the statue of British monarch King George V once stood, till the time the actual statue made of granite is ready. The statue, when installed, will be visible from Raisina Hill.

"The role of our heroes, whose memories were being erased post-Independence are now being revivedIt is unfortunate that after Independence, along with the culture and rites of the country, work was done to erase the contribution of many great personalities," Prime Minister said at the inauguration event.

Union home minister Mr Amit Shah said this was not just an ordinary granite statue but also a befitting tribute to legendary Netaji, who gave everything for Indias freedom.

Netaji used to say Never lose faith in the dream of independent India, there is no power in the world that can shake India. Today we have a goal to fulfil the dreams of an independent India. We have a target to build a new India before the 100th year of independence, 2047. We have laid emphasis on reform as well as an emphasis on Relief, Rescue and Rehabilitation. We modernised the NDRF, expanded it across the country. Space technology and other best possible practices have been adopted for planning and management, PM Modi added.

The PM also conferred the Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskars, for the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 at the event. The Union government has instituted this annual award to recognise the contribution and service rendered by individuals and organisations in India in the field of disaster management.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was on Sunday conferred with the Netaji Award 2022 by the Netaji Research Bureau. Consul general of Japan in Kolkata, Nakamura Yutaka, received the honour on behalf of Abe at a function organised by the bureau at the Elgin Road residence here of the national icon.

Mr Abe expressed his gratitude in a message read out by the consul general.

As former Prime Minister of Japan and in my capacity as a member of the House of Representatives, I am determined to do my utmost to continue contributing to the development of bilateral relations, he said.
Mamata, however, reminded the ruling BJP that mere installation of a statue would not 'end responsibility'

Kolkata: In a startling revelation, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed on Sunday it was her "pressure" which forced the Centre to decide to install the statue of iconic freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the India Gate. She however reminded the ruling BJP that mere installation of a statue would not "end responsibility."

Paying tribute to Bose on his 125th birth anniversary at his statue on Red Road, the Trinamul Congress supremo told the Centre, "You are installing his statue only under our pressure. Didn't any thought of building a statue come to your mind for so long? Come here and see our statue which is live and not artificial. It inspires us everyday. Remember, installation of a statue does not end responsibility."

She added, "You built so many statues spending crores! But did you ever study the history of the country or try to protect it? Instead, you destroyed heritage and are now trying to wipe out history. Installation of a statue can not be everything. Netaji can not be loved by installing his statue and extinguishing Amar Jawan Jyoti."

Attacking the Narendra Modi government for failing to crack the mystery about the death of Bose, Ms Banerjee said, "Netaji left for abroad in a great escape. We still do not know what happened to him later. It has remained a mystery till date. This government had stated that it would unravel the entire mystery. But it did nothing. We already declassified the files on him public, digitized and archived it. But you failed to unravel the mystery about his death. The birthday can be written on his statue. But can you write the date of his death on it? None of us can do it. No one knows the history about it even after 75 years of our independence. Where did he go? Did he go missing?"

On the Centre's focus on the National War Memorial, the CM observed, "Netaji gave the first shape of today's Indian Army by raising INA. Today you are playing politics over a memorial. We salute all, be it the soldiers and common people who sacrificed their lives, at a war memorial. Martyrs can not be divided."

Ms Banerjee, protesting against the Centre for dropping her government's tableau on Bose at the Republic Day parade, asked, "What was the objection to the tableau? It could have been there. Earlier we had suggested something about unity between Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. That was also rejected. We earlier participated in the R-Day parade on two consecutive occasions. We stood first in both. Why is there so much allergy and ignorance towards Bengal?"

She also announced the formation of a body like the Planning Commission, which was the brainchild of Bose and existed at the Centre, in the state. Earlier the CM tweeted, "We again appeal to the Central Government that Netajis birthday be declared a National Holiday to allow the entire Nation to pay homage to the National Leader and celebrate #DeshNayakDibas in the most befitting manner."
Iran says UN voting right "naturally" restored after paying off membership arrears

Xinhua) 08:17, January 24, 2022

Majid Takht-Ravanchi (front), Iranian permanent representative to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council's semi-annual briefing at the UN headquarters in New York, June 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

TEHRAN, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Iran has regained its right to vote at the UN General Assembly after its membership dues to the organization were paid by South Korea with frozen Iranian funds, Iran's ambassador to the United Nations announced.

Majid Takht-Ravanchi said late on Saturday that as soon as Iran's arrears are received in New York, the country's voting rights should naturally be restored, official IRNA News Agency reported on Sunday.

South Korea confirmed on Sunday that it has paid Tehran's membership delayed dues, amounting to 18 million U.S. dollars, to the UN from Iranian funds frozen in the country.

Earlier, Takht-Ravanchi told IRNA that negotiations were underway between Tehran and the world body to lift the suspension of the country's right to vote at the General Assembly and enable the country to pay its membership dues to the organization, expressing hope that the talks would soon yield favorable results.

He noted that Iran, as an active UN member, has always been committed to paying up its membership dues on time and has proven this in practice.

The ambassador stressed that Iran has faced problems with the payment of its membership fee for the second consecutive year due to the sanctions imposed by the United States, which have not only undermined Iran's ability to purchase humanitarian items and medical devices but are also impeding the UN's work.

Iranian assets of over 7 billion U.S. dollars are frozen in two South Korean banks.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced earlier this month that Iran and seven other countries have had their voting rights suspended over late dues.

Iran had also lost its voting rights last year when the U.S. sanctions had blocked Iranian access to its billions of dollars frozen abroad.

The U.S. sanctions have been imposed since 2018 when former President Donald Trump withdrew from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal.

Since April 2021, rounds of talks have been held between Iran and other remaining parties, namely Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, in the Austrian capital of Vienna to restore the nuclear pact, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, with the United States indirectly involved.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
LONDON, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has won permission from a court here to appeal against his extradition from the United Kingdom (UK) to the United States, where he faces espionage charges.

The High Court in London decided on Monday that Assange had an arguable point of law that UK Supreme Court justices may want to consider.

However, the High Court refused him permission for a direct appeal, meaning the Supreme Court will first have to decide whether it should hear his challenge.

Assange's lawyers now have 14 days to prepare the application to the Supreme Court.

Last month, the High Court ruled that Assange can be extradited, as it overturned an earlier judgment based on concerns about Assange's mental health and risk of suicide in a maximum-security prison in the U.S.

Assange, 50, is wanted in the United States on allegations of disclosing national defense information following WikiLeaks's publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked military documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars a decade ago.

He has been held at south London's high-security Belmarsh Prison since 2019. 
Twenty-nine children, including 14 girls, were awarded in six fields

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged youngsters to support the vocal for local campaign by eschewing foreign products, just as they had taken forward the cleanliness campaign. He said the youth were at the centre of all policies being framed by his government.

During an online interaction with the recipients of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, Modi briefed them on the unveiling of the hologram statue of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the India Gate and said the biggest inspiration we get from Netaji is duty and nation first.

Taking inspiration from Netaji, you have to proceed on your path of duty for the country, he said.

Twenty-nine children, including 14 girls, were awarded in six fields of innovation, scholastic achievements, sports, arts and culture, social service and bravery. The recipients were awarded certificates digitally using blockchain technology. Each child was also given a medal and a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.

Just like you came forward for the cleanliness campaign, you should also come forward for the Vocal for Local campaign. You count at home, make a list of the products that are not made in India, and urge the people of the house that when a similar product is bought in the future, it should be made in India," the Prime Minister told the children.
Modi government decided to instal a statue of Subhas Chandra Bose under the colonial canopy at Delhis iconic India Gate

Decades before the Narendra Modi government decided to instal a statue of Subhas Chandra Bose under the colonial canopy at Delhis iconic India Gate, there were plans to place Gandhi at the same spot. This proposal led to a robust debate with several architects, academics and conservationists objecting to this space, pointing out that a colonial canopy was an incongruous spot to instal a statue of the Father of the Nation who fought against colonial rule. The late Jagmohan, who had served as Delhi lieutenant governor, was among those who objected to this proposal for this reason. The debate raged on with a section of architects and academics even going to the other extreme, suggesting that the canopy, which had been lying vacant since 1968, served no purpose and should be removed. This suggestion was vetoed. Today, the government has decided to place Bose under the same canopy. Clearly, the powers-that-be did not think this through considering Bose,like Gandhi, was at the forefront of the battle against the British. But surprisingly, unlike the last time, there is no public debate involving a heritage space. It is learned that even the committee set up to draw up programmes to mark Boses 125th birth anniversary, was also not told or consulted about this.

After considerable speculation, the Bharatiya Janata Party finally announced that Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath will contest the upcoming Assembly election from Gorakhpur Urban constituency. Earlier, the BJP leadership thought of fielding Yogi Adityanath from Ayodhya and even leaked this information to the media. However, the party decided to play safe as it got feedback that Ayodhya may not prove lucky for Yogi Adityanath. The constituency is essentially dominated by Brahmins who, as is well known, are not well disposed to Yogi Adityanath as they believe he has been favouring Thakurs, the caste to which the chief minister belongs. Though there was a section in the BJP which felt Yogi Adityanath would make it in Ayodhya, the leadership did not want to take any chances. Besides, the chief minister himself did not wish to shift to another constituency where he would be dependent on the party organisation. On the other hand, Yogi Adityanath has been a five-term MP from Gorakhpur and, as head priest of the Gorakhpur Math, has a band of personal loyal workers to run his campaign.

With 10 prominent OBC leaders leaving its ranks in the run-up to the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, the BJP has every reason to be worried as it was the consolidation of non-Yadav backward classes which had powered the BJP to a massive victory in 2017. The party has been trying to make amends after these leaders charged that the party had systematically disregarded the interests of backward classes over the past five years. As a first step, the BJP deputed its OBC face and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya to dissuade the disgruntled leaders from leaving. After this mission failed, the BJP has been desperately sending out the message that it values its backward class leaders and is giving them sufficient prominence. It is no coincidence then that Keshav Prasad Maurya, along with state BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh, has recently been fielded by the party on important occasions. For instance, when Mulayam Singh Yadavs daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav joined the BJP, Mr Maurya was seated prominently on the podium to welcome her.

Mulayum Singh Yadavs daughter-in-law Aparna Yadavs move to the BJP is predictably being celebrated as a major victory by the saffron party. But the truth is that Aparna is no political heavyweight. Aparnas decision to cross over to the enemy camp is actually triggered by a family feud. Aparna is married to Prateek Yadav, son of Mulayam Singh Yadavs second wife Sadhna Gupta who always resented the fact that her stepson Akhilesh Yadav had been anointed as her husbands political heir. Since her son was not interested in pursuing a career in politics, Sadhna Gupta instead encouraged her daughter-in-law to enter the electoral fray, persuading Mulayum Singh Yadav to give her a ticket from Lucknow in the last election which she lost to Rita Bahuguna Joshi. Aparnas decision to join the BJP is not surprising as this is her way of getting back at her husbands family.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals decision to hold an opinion poll to decide that Bhagwant Mann would be the Aam Aadmi Partys chief ministerial face in Punjab provided a cue to others in the electoral fray to do the same. For instance, social media has been flooded with similar surveys showing how Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi has the highest approval ratings while his rivals both in and outside the Congress, whether it is Navjot Singh Sidhu or Mann, are trailing way behind. These surveys or opinion polls are being posted on social media, not by the Congress official Twitter handle, but by unknown persons who are supposedly Channi supporters. These surveys followed a video posted on the Congress official handle virtually projecting Mr Channi as the partys chief ministerial candidate. Mr Sidhu, who also sees himself as a future chief minister, has yet to respond.
However, to be able to make use of this geo-economic opportunity, says the NSPP, Pakistan has to modernise its economy

Pakistan was conceived as a geographical entity with an Islamic identity. Its founding leaders were helped by the fact that the departing British and their American cousins understood early the strategic significance of Pakistans geographical location. Located southeast of the Soviet Union, southwest of China, west of India, east of Iran and the Arab states and at the head of the Arabian Sea, West Pakistan was geo-strategically blessed throughout the Cold War era. It first became a military ally of the United States and then enjoyed the benefits of a menage-a-trois during Americas honeymoon with China.

The loss of the eastern flank in 1971 coincided with the increased importance of the western flanks geo-strategic importance during the US-China entente cordiale and the subsequent US War on Terror. Little wonder then that the recently published National Security Policy of Pakistan 2022-2026 (NSPP) repeatedly uses the term geo-strategic, to underline the continued relevance of Pakistan to its region and to the world.

The world, however, is rapidly changing. The Americans retreat from Afghanistan, the Russia-China condominium in Eurasia, the emerging new equations in West Asia and Indias own rise, even if it has faltered more recently, have combined to reduce Pakistans geopolitical relevance to the Big Powers. The influence recently acquired in Afghanistan is a mixed blessing for Pakistan. Indeed, the return of the Taliban to power next door could exacerbate Pakistans internal security threats arising out of Islamic radicalism, terrorism and violent sub-nationalisms, as the NSPP states.

So, how does Pakistan reinvent the relevance of its geography and boost its national security given the emerging multipolar balance of power system? In the words of Moeed Yusuf, Pakistans national security adviser, the NSPP offers a geo-economic paradigm that supplements its geo-strategic approach. The essence of this geo-economic paradigm consists in positioning Pakistan as an economic link between Eurasia and maritime Asia (West Asia and Southeast Asia), Africa and Europe.

Our geo-economically pivotal location, the NSPP declares, in an economically and strategically relevant region affords Pakistan the ability to offer itself as a melting pot of regional and global economic interests through connectivity initiatives. Elsewhere, the document says: Pakistans location at the crossroads of historic confluence provides unique opportunities amidst regional and global competition, especially as a hub for connecting important economic and resource-rich regions.

If during the Cold War era and during the War on Terror Pakistan had used its geography as a military ally of the Big Powers, in the emerging multipolar world it seeks to deploy its geography as an economic hub. Pakistans geo-economic pivot, says the NSPP is focused on enhancing trade and economic ties through connectivity that links Central Asia to our warm waters. The authors of the NSPP want Pakistan to take advantage of its geo-economically pivotal location to operate as a production, trade and investment and connectivity hub for our wider region to strengthen our economic security.

However, to be able to make use of this geo-economic opportunity, says the NSPP, Pakistan has to modernise its economy and invest in the education and welfare of its people. Many are unaware today that till the 1980s Pakistans economy had outperformed Indias. Indias economic rise really began in the 1980s, while Pakistan consistently fell behind over the next two decades. While it saw an improvement in its economic fortunes during the years that Gen. Pervez Musharraf was in power, there has been a downward slide since then.

For this reason, the NSPP states clearly that Pakistans vital national security interests are best served by placing economic security as the core element of national security. The document seeks an improvement in Pakistans external economic balances and a reduction on both inter-class and inter-regional inequalities within the country. The policy focus is on offering Pakistan as a base for foreign investment, presumably by China, the West Asian states, European Union nations and other capital surplus economies.

Fiscal reform, the ease of doing business and investments in the skilling of the local population aimed at increasing inward remittances through the export of skilled labour figure prominently in the NSPPs to-do list. The NSPP has several other policy recommendations in the areas of economic and defence policy, information technology, space and cyber capability, the blue economy, shipbuilding and so on.

While the NSPP makes all the expected statements about India that would naturally irritate Indian readers, it should be clear to both the documents authors and its readers that Pakistan cannot operationalise its proposed geo-economic pivot without establishing stable and good relations with India. For this reason, the NSPP could be viewed as an indication of new thinking in Pakistan on relations with India, and not dismissed as old wine in new bottles, as some have done.

The document is candid in its admission of the internal security challenges facing Pakistan. Indeed, they are no different from Indias own internal security challenges, shaped by poor governance, lack of economic opportunities, threats ranging from sectarianism, violent sub-nationalism, extremism, narcotics and organised crime and terrorism. While India points fingers at Pakistan over cross-border terrorism, with some solid evidence, the NSPP does a tit-for-tat without evidence.

Interestingly, while the NSPP has received much attention in India, with several policy analysts commenting on it, in Pakistan itself there have been many critics. The highly regarded Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi has dismissed the document as an under-graduates term paper.

Whatever the merits and drawbacks, the Imran Khan government should be complimented for producing a medium-term vision for the country that is focused on national economic development as a route to enhanced national security. The government has made the summary document public, perhaps partly to please creditor nations and institutions to whom Pakistan is at present heavily indebted.

It wants them to know that their dollars, riyal and yuan will be put to good use.

Indias National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) had also produced a national security strategy paper as early as in 2000. This columnist wrote its chapter on economic security. Alas, successive governments have kept it and subsequent papers of the NSAB under wraps. India too deserves an informed debate on what policies would enhance national security and what are in fact harming it.
At the weekend, a court ordered the imprisonment of reporter Sedef Kabas, guilty of using a proverb "offensive" towards the president. In one year 79 journalists lost their jobs for their critical opinions. Another 56 were victims of violence and targeted attacks, dozens of programmes were suspended.

Istanbul (AsiaNews) - A Turkish court this weekend ordered the remand in custody pending trial of the journalist Sedef Kabas, accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan using a famous proverb.

On 22 January, at two o'clock in the morning, officers detained the famous reporter, locking her up in a cell at police headquarters in Istanbul. The next day she appeared before the judges, who ordered her arrest using an article of law that has put tens of thousands of people in prison before her in recent years.

During a TV broadcast on a station close to the oppositions (and in a subsequent tweet), the journalist used a Circassian proverb that reads: "The ox does not become a king because it enters the palace, rather the palace becomes a stable", making a comparison with President Erdogan's years in power. According to the court, Sedef Kabas expressed a 'vulgar insult' against the president and the institutional office he holds.

The case is just the latest in a long line of arrests, repressions, prison sentences and fines against critical voices in Turkey, further confirming Turkey's 153rd place out of a total of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index. In addition, the Independent Communication Network (Bia) released its 2021 annual report yesterday, according to which 35 journalists were sentenced by judges last year to a total of 92 years, six months and 24 days in jail.

In the last 12 months, at least 41 Turkish journalists have been imprisoned, bringing the total figure for the last five years to 270. Not only jail, but there is also the threat of dismissal for those who do not align themselves with official propaganda: in 2021 79 journalists lost their jobs, for a total of 807 in the period 2017-2021. There is also the axe of censorship, with at least 975 articles blocked in the last year and 5,975 in the last five years.

In addition to imprisonment, there are personal attacks and targeted violence against the press: in 2021, 56 journalists were victims of violence (141 in five years). One example is the death of Hazm Ozsu, who worked in a radio station in Bursa, who was killed in front of his home by a person who "did not appreciate" his judgments and comments.

Finally, there are the fines imposed on broadcasters and press organisations "not aligned" with government policy and official proclamations. The Supreme Council for Radio and TV (Rtuk) imposed 158 administrative fines and suspended 48 programmes, with total fines of 31,630,000 Turkish liras (more than two million euro).

The Turkish judiciary, at the instigation of the government, represses with particular force any voice critical or "defamatory" of Erdogan. Since 2014, the year of his ascension to the presidency, at least 70 journalists have been tried and sentenced to prison and fines for "insulting the president" under Article 299 of the Penal Code. The European Council has repeatedly asked - in vain - Ankara to cancel or at least amend the rule, which continues to be applied with extreme rigour and continuity.
by Shafique Khokhar

The distribution was made possible thanks to the support of the Saving Lives Welfare Organization. Now 11 people with different handicaps will at least be able to leave their homes. For the father of one of the lucky beneficiaries, only Caritas takes care of them.

Karachi (AsiaNews)  Working in cooperation with the Saving Lives Welfare Organization, Caritas Pakistan handed out wheelchairs to a group of disabled people in the Archdiocese of Karachi. The ceremony was held a few days ago at the St Catharine youth hostel.

Caritas Pakistan Karachi executive secretary Mansha Noor explained that the objective was to support vulnerable people so that they can manage their own lives. He thanked Sarfraz Dennis Nazeer, founder and president of Saving Lives Welfare Organization for their generous support.

Every person with a disability has the right to be respected, Nazeer said. They have the right to lead a life of dignity and equal opportunities and have access to the educational, economic and social spheres without any discrimination".

At the event, Nazeer and other guests handed over wheelchairs to 11 people with different handicaps. A tearful Muhammad Ali, father of Hussain who suffers from a disability, thanked both organisations.

We are poor, so we haven't been able to buy a wheelchair for our son, Mr Ali explained, But now he can get out of the house and do small jobs. We all pray for Caritas because it is working very hard to support people who do not receive support from anywhere else.

The United Nations estimates that more than 650 million people in the world live with one form of disability or another, mostly in vulnerable countries, with greater risk of their numbers increasing due to wars, terrorist attacks or natural disasters.
by Mathias Hariyadi

Founded in 1922 by the Jesuits, over the years PT Kanisius has published important works on theology and philosophy. The first book printed in Javanese was dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier. Since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the company has had the opportunity to develop its online presence.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  PT Kanisius, Indonesia's first Catholic publishing and printing house, celebrated its first one hundred years.

Currently led by Fr Azismardopo Subrotoe, the company, which is based in Yogyakarta (Central Java), recently released a video that looks at its history, and presented a new logo and theme: Dreams and Works Colouring Indonesia.

Founded in 1922, its original name was Canisius Drukkerij (Printing Company). According to its website, it began with two machines and three employees.

Before that, the Canisius Vereeniging (Canisius Society) was created in 1918 by Dutch Jesuits in Muntilan, also in Central Java, Paulus Widiantoro from PT Kanisius told AsiaNews.

Fr J Hoeberechts legally set up Canisius Drukkerij in 1922. Printing work was carried out by Brother Bellinus FIC and his three assistants, he added.

In 1928 Pope Pius XI gave his special blessing to the publishing house, saying: Tell the whole territory of the East Indies that printed paper has always been one of the most effective and most powerful tools for carrying out our pastoral mission".

The first book published by Canisius Drukkerij was dedicated to Saint Francis Xavier, written by an anonymous author who signed himself "ADMG". The first missal in the Javanese language was published in 1928.

During the Second World War, the Japanese governor jailed Fr Bellinus. After the end of the Japanese occupation, the new Indonesian government handed over Canisius Drukkerij to Fr Djajasepoetra, later bishop of Jakarta from 1953 to 1970.

Canisius was also authorised to print the very first Indonesian banknotes.

Changing its name to PT Kanisius in 1968, the publishing house continued to publish texts of primary importance to the Indonesian Church and local cultural issues.

It published the first Latin-Indonesian dictionary as well as Philosophy of Human Beings by Fr Nicolaus Drijarkara, an important Indonesian Jesuit philosopher.

The COVID-19 pandemic provided the firm with the opportunity of developing its e-commerce branch and allow people to buy their books online.
by Vladimir Rozanskij

The Russians want to ban transactions with digital currencies, which are difficult for the authorities to trace. They are used by criminal organisations, but also by humanitarian organisations, to escape Kremlin controls. In Kazakhstan, the trafficking of cryptocurrencies played a role in the recent riots.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Russia's Central Bank has proposed banning all operations with cryptocurrencies, to discourage their use in the country. According to Bloomberg sources, Bank President Elvira Nabiullina has taken this initiative under pressure from the FSB, the national security service, especially after recent events in Kazakhstan, which is considered a serious financial threat to the country.

The use of cryptocurrencies are widespread globally and differ in volatility, popularity and, above all, level of privacy. Often, cryptocurrency transfers are impossible to trace even for the special services of the various states. Financial analyst Vladimir Levcenko commented on Currentime.tv that "it is known that cryptocurrencies are primarily used for trading weapons, drugs and similar items related to organised crime, but they are also used in many other cases; many people use them as a useful investment tool to make money from their savings, without committing anything illegal".

Seven years ago, the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin, cost about 0 each, now it has reached about ,000, with peaks close to ,000; 11% of the world's cryptocurrency is made in Russia. It is not clear who the operators of this new type of financial market are. When the authorities declared the Naval'nyj Anti-Corruption Fund an "extremist organisation" last summer, its leader Leonid Volkov urged all members to make transfers to the Fund in cryptocurrency, precisely because "it is not subject to the control of central banks and governments".

Naval'nyj's Fund survives abroad after being disbanded in Russia and publishes the revenues it receives: to date it has reportedly collected 666 bitcoins, but it is very difficult to translate this figure into dollars, euros or roubles, without knowing the dates of transfers and operations, and above all it is impossible to know the identity of the donors, which drives the FSB members crazy. In fact, this is the purpose of the crypto-system, according to Volkov: "As the state puts pressure on those who make traditional transfers from the banking system, we have to patiently learn to use a freer system".

In general, all Russian organisations on the blacklist of 'foreign agents' are trying to use cryptocurrencies, although it is impossible to quantify them. The problem is often that those who operate with this system submit to the rules of those who offer them, without the possibility of control not only by the competent authorities, but also by the investors themselves. The prohibition of this type of operation, moreover, is very unrealistic, unless access to the internet is completely shut down.

Cryptocurrencies are needed by the powers-that-be as well as by oppositions, in order to move financial resources across borders, especially in the presence of international sanctions. After China banned cryptocurrencies last autumn, Kazakhstan jumped to second place in the world in this field, and for many this was a not insignificant factor in the disputes that led to the street clashes in Almaty at the beginning of January. According to research by the University of Cambridge, Kazakhstan has an 18% share of the cryptocurrency market, with the US leading the way with 35.4%.

In Kazakhstan, mining (validation of cryptocurrency transactions) is favoured by the low cost of energy, the very factor that has provoked clashes in the streets over the prevalence of market logic over the lives of citizens, as well as very 'friendly' taxation. The advantages would all go to the ruling caste, hence the riots against the "Nazarbaev clan" and Russia's support for President Tokaev, also to defend its own interests: cryptocurrency is a lifeline from marginalisation in world markets, and the Russians have no intention of securing it for anyone, neither at home nor abroad, not even for their "brother countries".
Leading in the polls Ferdinand Marcos Jr is holding to a more ambiguous position. Other candidates call for the 2016 ruling against Chinese claims to be upheld. The four want closer cooperation with the United States and its allies as well as greater Philippine military presence in the area.

Manila (AsiaNews)  Four of the five main candidates in the upcoming Philippine presidential elections on 9 May are against the South China Sea policy of the outgoing head of state, Rodrigo Duterte, who is considered too pro-Beijing.

Their positions emerged over the weekend during a joint interview with GMA News. Frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr did not participate in the event.

Since his election in 2016, Duterte has built a privileged relationship with China.

Unlike his predecessor Benigno Aquino III, Duterte has tried to reduce tensions with Beijing, ignoring a ruling by the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which called Chinese claims to nearly 90 per cent of the South China Sea without legal basis.

The Philippines is opposed to Chinese territorial claims, along with Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and to a lesser extent, Indonesia. However, this has not prevented China from militarising some islands and coral reefs in the South China Sea.

To contain Chinese expansion, US warships make regular patrols near these military outposts.

Current Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo said that if she wins the election, she will try to form a coalition of countries against China's military actions in the disputed waters.

According to the presidential candidate, the initiative is based on the 2016 arbitration ruling, which rejects the Nine-Dash line, the territorial demarcation claimed by Beijing based on alleged historical reasons.

Another candidate, Senator Panfilo Lacson, is on the same wavelength. In his view, the Philippines should strengthen its alliances with the United States, Japan, Australia, the European Union and other governments with strong armed forces.

By contrast, as soon as he was elected, Duterte announced the "separation" of his country from its US ally.

More recently though, he has changed position. In late July 2021, he scrapped the idea of cancelling the Visiting Forces Agreement, which allows US forces to be stationed in the Philippines.

Manny Pacquiao, Dutertes opponent within the PDP-Laban party, said that Manila must not accept Beijings bullying, even though he urges more talks on the South China Sea issue. The famous boxer has often criticised the current president for being too soft on China regarding territorial disputes.

For the fourth candidate, Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, the country must boost its military presence in the disputed area.

Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr, son and namesake of the dictator who ruled the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, has so far remained ambiguous on territorial issues with China.

According to several observers, his presence next to Sara Zimmerman Duterte-Carpio, daughter of the outgoing president who is running for the post of vice president, suggests that he is looking for a difficult balance between Beijing and Washington.

Beijing would like to see Duterte's policy continue, which is centred on strengthening relations with China (and Chinese investments only partly delivered), despite his country's traditional alliance with Washington.

In order to reduce tensions, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long been committed to negotiating with China a code of conduct that would regulate navigation in the South China Sea.

However, talks have dragged on since 2016 with little results, above all because the Chinese refuse to make any agreement legally binding.

Robredo, Lacson, Pacquiao and Moreno all said they were in favour of joint exploration activities in the South China Sea, which is rich in oil and gas deposits.

For Vice President Robredo, this can only happen if all parties in the case acknowledge the ruling of the Hague court.
ROME, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The first ballot to elect Italy's next president ended with inconclusive results on Monday, after a procedure that lasted over five hours.

Casting their votes were some 1,008 "grand electors," namely all the members of the parliament plus 58 representatives chosen by regional councils.

With a large majority of blank ballots among all those registered at the end of the day, no majority was found on any name.

The outcome of this first round was largely expected, since no official candidate was backed by both alliances -- center-left and center-right -- holding the most parliamentary seats and currently governing the country together in the coalition cabinet.

According to the Italian constitution, a majority of two-thirds in the first three rounds of voting is required to elect a president, followed by a simple majority, or at least 505 votes, from the fourth on.

The parliament in the joint session of both houses will keep gathering this week to hold new rounds of voting until a candidate gathers enough support.

The seven-year term of President Sergio Mattarella will expire on Feb. 3.

The president in Italy is a traditionally ceremonial figure that plays a balancing role within the institutional landscape.

However, the role becomes crucial in cases of broad political instability, since the president is tasked with helping solve major deadlocks between the government and the parliament. 
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Along with the teaser, the Italian marque that is a part of the Stellantis conglomerate has also announced a motto with the world premiere: "La Metarmorfosi," which is Italian for metamorphosis.It might be related to the fact that the Tonale will be the first plug-in Alfa Romeo. As you are already aware, the Italian marque will offer its 2023 Tonale inform, and an electric version is expected later. Other versions will come with mild-hybrid tech, and some markets will also get a diesel engine.The Tonale has seen multiple delays , and it will have the task of lowering the company's CO2 emissions average while boosting sales in Europe. It is worth noting that the Tonale will also be teased on Alfa Romeo's U.S. website, which should be an indication of the fact that the Milanese brand will launch it on the North American continent as well.Alfa Romeo will position the Tonale below the Stelvio , and it is supposed to be more affordable than the Giulia. That means that there is a good chance that the Tonale will be the most affordable model offered by the Italian marque in 2022.The Tonale will come with up to 240 horsepower, as rumors and company insiders reveal. There is no official confirmation on the matter, though. Expect the model to come in both two-wheel drive and all-wheel-drive variants. The latter might be hybrid only, but we will learn more about that once it is revealed.Later, Alfa Romeo is set to launch the Brennero, which is even smaller than the Tonale. The Brennero is an overdue replacement of the MiTo, while the Tonale will be positioned as an successor of the Giulietta , the company's compact class premium hatchback.
PHEV

Stephan Winkelmann, the chief executive officer at Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., told CAR that production will start in 2023 with a complete new V12 engine. The companys first series-productionwill be followed by Urus and Huracan successors in 2024. The CEO further confirmed V8 and V12 engines for the Urus and Aventador, but he didnt spill the beans on what hides under the hood of the Huracans descendant.We are not yet disclosing what type of engine it's going to be, but it's a completely new engine, nothing in common with the Urus or Aventador engine. Considering that Audi has confirmed the next-generation R8 with all-electric muscle instead of a hydrocarbon-guzzling V10, we shouldnt be surprised if Lamborghini eyes an electric powertrain for its baby supercar.On the other hand, Lamborghini cant afford to lose the unmistakable sound of a supercar whereas the four-ringed automaker from Ingolstadt is backed up by a flurry of yawn-inducing cars and crossovers that fly off dealership forecourts. CAR understands the Huracans heir apparent will switch to a V8 developed by Lamborghini rather than Audi or Porsche, a brand-new V8 capable of redlining to 10,000 revolutions per minute and compatible with synthetic fuel. Including e-assistance, 850 horsepower are expected.A fourth model is rumored as well, a rumor weve been hearing for quite a few years now. Remember the marvelous Estoque concept presented at the 2008 Paris Motor Show? Timing couldnt have been worse due to the financial crisis, but obviously enough, the idea stuc k with Lamborghini.Considering that Porsche and Audi sell technically similar electric vehicles in the guise of the Taycan and e-tron GT, an electric grand tourer featuring the proud Raging Bull insignia would be within the realm of possibility.
Successful static test completed. We will announce launch date and time when we receive our license from the FAA! pic.twitter.com/0W4zoGX29k  Chris Kemp (@Kemp) January 22, 2022

The company has made tremendous progress over the last few years. Founded in 2016, Astra seeks to use its rockets to provide operators flexible and cost-effective rides to space. The company left our skies for the first time in December 2020, during a test flight of its vertically-launched two-stage vehicle, Rocket 3.2.Then last year in November, Astra reached orbit with its Rocket 3.3 , an improved version of its launch vehicle. It took off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska's Kodiak Island, successfully carrying a payload for the U.S. Space Force.Now, the company is getting ready for its first operational satellite launch, which will be conducted from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The flight is part of NASA's Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) program, which awarded Astra a $3.9 million contract back in 2020 to launch small satellites into space.The company is targeting January 2022 for liftoff. A video of the Rocket 3.3 coming to life at Cape Canaveral was recently posted on Twitter by Astra's founder Chris Kemp. He also mentioned that the date and time for the mission will be announced once the company receives its launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).Although there's not a fixed launch date still set, the test shows that preparations are in full swing. Once everything gets settled, the rocket is expected to carry four small research satellites, known as CubeSats.The CubeSats will be flying on the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa 41) mission and will get launched from atop the rocket's upper stage into Earth's orbit. Once deployed, they will demonstrate various new technologies meant to speed up space operations.
EV

The result came from three main aspects: range, construction refinement, and ergonomics. Edmunds has long been showing that most Tesla vehicles fail to deliver their EPA ranges, and the Model Y was no exception. Instead of providing the 291 miles (461 kilometers) at which it is officially rated, it got only 263 mi (423 km).The exact opposite happened with the IONIQ 5. With an EPA range of 256 mi (412 km), it delivered 270 mi (435 km). It was not only more than it was rated for: it was also superior to the true Model Ys numbers. Any customer taking EPA numbers as a reference for their purchase would feel aggrieved.When it comes to building refinement, this is another nail in the coffin for the tale that Tesla sells luxury cars. The IONIQ 5 felt quieter and more composed than the Model Y. According to Ryan Zummallen, you can listen to rattles and creaks while you drive the Tesla , as if there was something loose in the. This is not what you would expect from a luxury car.The IONIQ 5 has some aspects that deserve improvements. The moving central console is an example. Hyundai could have seized the flat floor to add a third seat in the first row, like older vehicles and the Fiat Multipla used to have, even if just as an option. Instead, it made the central console slide back and forth as if there was any benefit from that.Regarding ergonomics, the Hyundai IONIQ 5 is far from perfect. The infotainment screen is far from the driver, who has to lean forward to select whatever they need from it. Despite that, most commands are within reach and are easy and fast to activate. Teslas proposition of concentrating everything on a single screen makes life more difficult for the driver.Without a screen in front of the driver or a head-up display, the Model Y also forces anyone behind the wheel to take their eyes off the road to check for information. The IONIQ 5 offers both the screen and the head-up display with an augmented reality aid. In other words, it provides a safer driving experience. Make sure you check Edmunds evaluation below to discuss if it was fair or not.
Hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth, there's no help of rescue if even the most minute detail goes awry. But the James Webb Space Telescope has performed almost flawlessly since its harrowing launch on Christmas Day last year. If all goes to plan, the first mission directive images, i.e., photos taken for the purpose of collecting scientific data and not just test images, may begin as soon as a few months from now, just in time for the summer season."The James Webb Space Telescope will unlock some of the universe's biggest mysteries, and it stands as a testament to what's possible when industry and government work together," said Scott Willoughby, Vice President and Program Manager James Webb Space Telescope, Northrop-Grumman. The news caps off a spectacular couple of months for the aerospace contractor. A period in which they also began operations of their MQ-8C Fire Scout autonomous helicopter drone with the U.S. Navy.The Northrop-Grumman team was responsible for much of the manufacturing of non-scientific sub-systems within the James Webb Telescope. It's hoped that their support and communication systems will allow for seamless scientific research conduction as scientists attempt to photograph objects so distant the distance between itself and the Earth is enough to bend the fabric of space-time. As mind-blowing and Star Trek adjacent as that may sound, it's as real as it gets.Combine these achievements with the Artemis NASA program slated to return Americans to the moon by the end of this decade, and it's pretty safe to say it's the best time to be a space travel enthusiast since at least the late 1960s. One giant leap for mankind? Try several.
That isnt stopping Mars geeks from continuously looking at the planet with hope in their eyes, and from jumping from the edge of their seats every time something that looks remotely similar to what intelligence would do surfaces. I should know, I am one of those geeks, and also totally dependent on the brains tendency of seeing familiar shapes and patterns where there are none.Take a look at the potato-shaped feature we have here. It almost looks artificial, placed there, why not, as a means to hide something under the surface. And for all intents and purposes, it does hide something, even if it's not artificial.The feature is located in the Protonilus Mensae region of Mars, in the planets Northern Hemisphere, and is shown as seen through the lens of the HiRISE camera from an altitude of 300 km (186 miles). NASA and the University of Arizona describe this thing as a lobe-shaped debris apron emanating from a massif.Like most other features of this kind, the visible portion is likely made of a layer of debris, but its what hides underneath that is of interest to us: nearly pure water ice. The blanket of debris protects the water ice from sublimating in the challenging Martian atmosphere, making it of particular interest for scientists here on Earth.Thats because we humans have begun an all-out hunt for water in the solar system as we plan to harvest it and use it for our missions to other planets. Luckily, NASA estimated not long ago the Solar System is awash in the substance, and places like this one on Mars only come to confirm that.
In order to keep #SamplingMars, Ive emptied my latest partial sample. Watch closely to see one piece of cored rock drop to the surface in this movie. Thankfully, I can reuse this tube for another sample from the same rock.



Latest blog: https://t.co/kHxq9S2GXx pic.twitter.com/kwSzBlFVBt  NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) January 21, 2022

A few weeks ago, the Perseverance rover had successfully drilled into a Martian rock and collected a sample (the 6th rock core ever collected by a spacecraft on another planet). The rover did what it knew best after extraction  it went to store it in a sample tube inside its belly.Thats where Perseverance stores all the equipment that it needs to collect samples, including a rotating drill carousel, which is a wheel with different drill bits. Next to this carousel are 43 sample tubes that await to be filled with fragments of the alien world.However, something went wrong on December 29th: pebbles blocked the transfer of the drill bit and sample tube into the carousel. As a result, the rover stopped its scientific operations. Since then, the Perseverance team has tried to come up with a solution to remove the obstructing chunks of debris.Recently, the team commanded the rover to rotate the bit carousel. That effectively removed two of four rock fragments stuck in there. That means there are still two more left. But according to NASA, the way they are positioned does not seem to affect the machines operations.Additionally, the sample tube with the rovers latest partial core sample was emptied on January 17th. Perseverance used its robotic arm to position the drill with the tubes open end above the ground and rotate it. The camera on its head captured some of the material that fell out. Luckily, now the sample tube can be reused.Currently, the team is planning the next steps that must be taken. Hopefully, the rover will resume its operations soon and will get back to drilling into the rocks from the Jezero Crater.
This Chinese supplier works with both carmakers. On January 22, 2022, it held a ceremony to present a 6,800-ton die-casting press and announced a deal with LK Technology. Both companies will cooperate in developing a casting press with a 12,000-ton capacity. The agreement also informs that Guangdong Hongtu wants to purchase eight sets of large-scale and super-large-scale intelligent die-casting units. No supplier would make such an investment without companies wanting these parts.CNEVPost reported rumors about six Chinese automakers wanting to use these giant cast parts. Tesla started adopting them, and the deal between Guangdong Hongtu and LK Technology shows there are no coincidences in this story. LK Technology owns IDRA Group, the Italian company that sold Tesla its Giga Presses.The connection between this deal and the two Chinese carmakers CNEVPost mentions is not explicit. Zeng Shuxiang, NIOs motor division XPT CEO, sent a video that was played at the ceremony to congratulate Guangdong Hongtu. Jiang Ping, XPengs vice president, was personally there to praise the supplier.Other signs that these two companies may adopt these huge castings come from NIO. On October 18, 2021, NIO said it had developed a heat-treatment-free alloy. This is a crucial step for these massive cast parts to be economically feasible.Apart from that, CNEVPos t heard from William Li that the ET5 uses an integrated die-casting process for the rear subframe. The NIO CEO did not go further than that, but the material about the new car stated that it uses what the automaker calls an integrated hollow cast-aluminum process.According to NIO , it would save 13 kilograms (28.7 pounds) in the structure, which would also be stronger than the stamped and welded rear subframe. Instead of 31 kNm/deg, it would offer 34 kNm/deg. The final advantage would be that the trunk could get 11 liters (0.4 cubic feet) more space with this giant casting.If NIO and XPeng confirm they will use these huge cast parts, they will probably have to say why BMW is wrong in its assessment of them. When asked about them, Oliver Zipse noted that their partially lower manufacturing cost is overcompensated by casting costs. The BMW CEO is convinced that there are much more efficient ways to build a car body.
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- A man was killed Sunday night in a shooting in the Madison South neighborhood of Portland, U.S. state of Oregon, police said.

The man's identity has not been released, and no arrests have been made, local police said Monday morning.

People living in the area heard five to seven gunshots Sunday night at a housing complex. Neighbors said they did not hear police sirens until about an hour after they heard the shots, according to a report by Oregonlive.

In August 2021, two gang members were fatally gunned down at a nearby intersection, and four others were wounded, the report said.

The homicide marks the sixth fatal shooting in Portland since the start of 2022. In 2021, the city had 90 homicides. 
Few people in the world would purchase a plane and just decide to turn it into an exclusive place to hold parties. But Suzannah Harvey, CEO of Cotswold Airport, thought it would work. As incredible as it may seem, in 2020, she purchased a British Airways Boeing 747 for just 1. Of course, one can imagine that the remodeling wasnt as cheap.During the health crisis, British Airways retired its fleet early due to the travel downturn, and Harvey hopped on the opportunity to purchase an aircraft that bears the Negus livery, which was used by British Airways in the 1970s and the 1980s. The aircraft entered the airline's fleet again in February 1994, and its final commercial flight was in April 2020. The last time the C-CIVB jet touched down was in October 2020, on a flight from London Heathrow to Cotswold Airport.There isnt much change to its original structure, but the remodeling, which cost 500,000, included stripping out the economy section to add more space, putting in modern, minimalistic furniture, and the gallery has been turned into a bar. It cant be an event space without custom lighting, and the cabin underwent a full rewiring.Suzannah said to The Sun : "I paid a pound for her, and we have a certain obligation to maintain it as is practical for public use. The company has had to spend nearly 500,000 getting her prepped and ready here, but I think it's money well spent and it preserves her for future generations."Suzannah added: "It's been a long old slog. She came into us in October 2020, and at the time I rather naively thought we'd have her up and running by the following Easter. We've had such tremendous support from everybody. All the contractors, all the people that have volunteered who are current BA 747 engineers - and here we are finally. She's ready and she's good to go."You can hire this luxury space for any kind of event, from private birthday parties to corporate events or even weddings. The Jet is currently at the privately-owned Cotswolds Airport in the UK. If youre wondering about the price, it comes with a charge of more than 1,000 an hour, but the owner revealed she received a lot of inquiries, including from streaming service Netflix. That sounds like a unique location for a remarkable event, if you can afford it.
FSD

EV

AWD

There's actually nothing wrong with that, especially when you're a completely new face on a market full of century-old dinosaurs. However, it all comes down to what it is you decide to sacrifice along the way to achieve that goal, and in Tesla's case that's been the quality of its products (too many cases to mention only one), the safety of its customers (see Autopilot andBeta), and the post-purchase customer service (ranging from bad to dreadful).Why, you might be wondering, is a company that refuses to use a dealership network on the premise that it wants to keep a grasp on the relationship with its customers, doing such a poor job of it? Well, it's all down to that growth I mentioned earlier, and the fact it needs to have an exponential rate. Well, production basically needs to double year over year, meaning Tesla has to ship two million units in 2022.With all that focus on producing cars, do you really think there are any resources left to cater for the people who have already given Tesla their money by buying a car? Take Steven Salowsky's case, for instance. The man needed a new seat for his Model 3 due to an issue with the airbag (so a safety-related problem). However, he had to wait more than a year for service because there were no parts available. During all this time, however, Tesla was building hundreds of thousands of Model 3s that had the exact same part that Steven was needing. Priorities.Well, it may seem now like this strategy is paying off seeing how Tesla is fresh off its best-ever year, but if it stays the same, it will ultimately bring the company's demise. No, it's not because it'll run out of new customers - more people are getting their driver's license each year than Tesla will ever be able to build vehicles. Plus, Musk talked about the importance of keeping the birth rate up, so I imagine a lot of his more ardent followers have already heeded his warning and started doing their part by producing as many little Stans as they can.The real problem is that when you get so many disgruntled customers, their voice will eventually become so loud, it will be impossible to ignore for all those considering the acquisition of a Tesla. At the moment, it's still relatively easy to dismiss any critics as "oil shills" and "shorters", but as their number grows, maintaining this conspiracy rhetoric will prove impossible.In fact, the house of cards is slowly starting to crumble already. More and more supporters of the brand are starting to take off the rose-tinted glasses they've been using to look at the company through so far and see the real problems a lot of existing customers are facing. They're also beginning to realize that FSD Beta may be a lot further away than what Tesla is painting it as so before you know it, the spell is gone, the veil is lifted, and the-maker is exposed for what it truly is: just another company trying to make as much money as possible.It helps not to think of Tesla in a vacuum, either. The EV maker may have been virtually alone at some point, but that's rapidly changing. Fans are doing their best to dismiss the "threat" posed by the rest of the industry by focusing on the ever-diminishing number of advantages offered by Tesla products (and ignoring the negatives), but the fact of the matter is the number of competitive alternatives on the market is increasing every year.Take the Porsche Taycan, for example. OK, it may be more expensive, but it's also in a completely different galaxy when it comes to build quality and finish, two things a lot of customers will value more than 0-60 mph acceleration (which it's reasonably good at, too). Sadly for the German electric sedan, it falls severely short compared to its Tesla rivals when it comes to maximum range. Except it doesn't.Tesla did a great job exploiting the EPA's testing methods to get a favorable estimate, whereas Porsche couldn't care less. As a result, the American vehicle will fall short of meeting its official figures in the real world, whereas the German one will exceed them. The result? Virtually identical range figures (297 miles for the Porsche Taycan and 310 miles for the Tesla Model 3 Long Range, according to tests performed by InsideEVs ).And then there's the Lucid Air. Assuming the startup manages to mass-produce its battery-powered sedan, the Air's powertrain would put Tesla in a position it's never found itself in so far: playing catch-up in the EV game, an area it has dominated from the beginning (even if by a lesser margin with every passing year).If Tesla was indeed a company focused on steady, sustainable growth, then it could very well establish itself as one of the industry's main names by making sure its products were well-built and its customers well taken care of. Instead, the current model points toward a short-lived, flash in the pan type of approach where the primary care is the stock value - when that comes tumbling down, so does the rest of the company. It all depends on which comes first - the stock collapse or the change in approach. There's still time for the latter, but it looks like Tesla has no interest in doing that. Either that or it's doing a hell of a job hiding it.
Over 300 personnel from the Royal Air Force will be taking part in this years Red Flag exercise, together with their American and Australian counterparts. Aircraft from the three air forces will get to show off their capabilities while facing multiple types of simulated challenges.Theyll have to deal not only with aggressor aircraft mimicking enemy fighter jets, but also with ground-based defense systems and cyber threats, since electronic warfare capabilities are one of the crucial components of air combat superiority. Going from simple to complex combat scenarios and operations, the exercise gives all three air forces a great opportunity to test and practice joint procedures for seamless integration in future air operations . As with most exercises of this kind, the goal is to develop strategic capabilities even further, in a high-threat, contested environment.In RAFs case, Typhoons will be the stars of the show. More specifically, the 1 Fighter Squadron and the 41 Test and Evaluation Squadron. Theyll also be supported by Voyagers from the 10 Squadron and 101 Squadron.The Typhoon FGR4 is the next-generation version of the multi-role combat aircraft thats ready to conduct precision attack missions. However, its current main role is to provide quick reaction alerts (QRA) in the UK and the Falkland Islands airspace. Its equipped with three types of missiles, including the infrared-guided, short-range ASRAAM, plus an advanced Captor radar, and an electro-optical targeting system.As RAFs only air-to-air refueling tanker, the Voyager will provide support for the Typhoon squadrons, throughout the exercise. The British Typhoons will stay on U.S. territory until mid-February, when Red Flag will come to a close.
kW

Folks, if you've never heard of sCarabane , you wouldn't be alone. I, too, just ran across this French brand of mobile homes. From 2013 to 2017, sCarabane popped up on the mobile home market as a brand of Fillon Technologies, a time in which they offered three prototype homes capable of completely functional on their own.That's right, the sCarabane is a mobile home that can keep all functions running without you even being there. All that's done with a slew of "green" technologies that may end up costing you nothing more than water consumption.Now, just to get a clear idea of what it is we're looking at, the newest model, the 2017 prototype, is a mobile home that comes in with a price no less than 200,000 EUR (226,812 USD); bear with me, it may just be worth every penny First of all, the sCarabane makes use of the natural elements on a scale rarely displayed by mobile housing units. It harnesses the power of the Sun via two sources and even wind. All that's missing is a waterwheel. Then again, it doesn't need it because the three previously mentioned systems can produce a maximum of 4of energy at full blast. Is that really necessary? Kind of, yeah.The first feature that sCarabane uses is a parabolic mirror and receptor for heating water. This system produces a peak of 3 kW of juice. Then there are five solar panels mounted on top to produce another 500 W of juice.That's all great and all, but what do you do when there's no sunlight? In that case, sCarabane deploys a wind turbine with which to harness the power of another readily available energy source. Again 500 watts of juice will be produced by this system. Here's a homework lesson for you; check out Gorlov helical turbines and Savonius turbines. This one seems like a mix of both.One other trick up this home's sleeve takes all those systems and boosts their capabilities to the next level. Overall, sCarabane is set up on a 360-degree rotating platform with a wheel bearing. It's on this platform that your habitat will sit, and it does this so that it can automatically track and rotate the home to always be in optimum positioning to use the Sun's rays. I swear, it moves like a sunflower , always following the Sun.Don't worry, all this energy will be used by the people living in this habitat. Once you've found your favorite spot and are ready to settle down for the evening or weekend, the side of the trailer drop into position, revealing two "wings" and central living space, the initial trailer.From here, one of the wings is transformed into a patio area suitable for group activities and even a barbeque. At the same time, the other wind can be nothing more than an empty lounge to be set up as you like, or do things by the book and create two bedrooms, one with a double bed and the other with two singles.The central living space, or trailer, includes a modular dinette suitable to sleep another two guests, a fully-stocked kitchen worthy of this machine's asking price, and finally, the bathroom, equipped with a toilet on one side and shower and vanity on the other. Features like dishwasher or washer/dryer combo are also seen in the images.The kitchen space also features a portion of the wall that lifts to reveal direct access to the patio, perfect for a bar-like experience. The dining area also includes that massive viewing bubble seen at the end of the trailer. Imagine falling asleep under this thing.All that is then neatly packed up and ready to move as a structure 2.5 m (8.2 ft) wide, 7.8 m (25.6 ft) long, and 2.8 m (9.2 ft)high. Overall, it's going to weigh 2.5 tonnes or 2.75 tons (6,062 lbs or 2,750 kg). Not bad, considering what this thing turns into when you're stationary.Since the manufacturer's website does not mention any other furnishings or systems you may find, all we have are the images to keep us busy. Better yet, give this crew a call and see just how much you're dream sCarabane will run you. While the end product will seem like quite the hole in your pocket, it appears that this home does so much more than your average home or RV.With the way things are moving, it won't be long before RVs and mobile homes do the whole mobile bit on their own, all from the comfort of an app on our phone. What, it's not that far-fetched a statement; give it time.
Tesla was rocked with some unfortunate news on Wednesday, January 19, as one of its employees died while working on a production line at its factory in Fremont, California. Officials from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, are now investigating the cause of death of the production associate, who collapsed while working on Tesla's powertrain line.

Health and safety officials from the agency released a statement via email on Thursday morning, saying that "Cal/OSHA is gathering more information to determine the work-relatedness of this event and whether to conduct an inspection." Cal-Occupational Safety and Health Administration spokesman Peter Melton also confirmed that Tesla notified his agency about the worker's death.

Officials still investigating Tesla employee's cause of death of

The employee's identification has not been released, but the Fremont Fire Department relaid the circumstances surrounding his death. According to spokesperson Aisha Knowles, their crews responded to a report at around 5:38 a.m. on Wednesday of a medical emergency at Tesla's factory.

The call was upgraded to a rescue while the firefighters were on their way to the factory after dispatchers found out that a male employee was possibly trapped in the machinery. The firefighters, who arrived at the scene first, updated the response back to a medical emergency as they discovered that no machinery was involved in the incident.

Upon learning that development, the Fremont Fire Department canceled sending additional crews to the factory to help in the rescue. Knowles added that Falck paramedics pronounced the worker dead at the scene. According to the carmaker's website, he died while working on a powertrain, an improved motor, inverter, and gearbox.

Related Article: Major Concern for Jaguar as Sales for Electric SUV I-Pace Drop to Below 10,000 in 2021

Tesla employee commits alleged murder on co-worker

His death comes just a little more than a month after a Tesla employee allegedly murdered his co-worker outside the company's factory. Charges of murder and the special circumstance of lying in wait, as well as possession of an assault weapon, were filed against 29-year-old Anthony Solima after he fatally shot 42-year-old Lee Brasier.

Prosecutors said that Solima allegedly waited for Brasier to get off work before fatally shooting the victim in the head in the Tesla factory's parking lot. Authorities said that Solima and Brasier argued earlier that week with the suspect abruptly walking off the job.

Things took a turn for the worse when Solima returned to the Tesla facility armed with a .223-caliber short-barreled AR-15. He waited in the parking lot and drilled Brasier with a headshot after the latter finished his shift at work. Braiser was entering his car when the shooting took place with his keys still in the door of the Toyota Tundra.

Brasier was pronounced dead at the scene, with the victim sustaining at least one gunshot wound. According to court records, the suspected murder weapon, which had no serial number, was found by the police inside Solima's car.

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A Crystal Cruises ship bound for Miami changed course Saturday and sailed toward the Bahamas when U.S. authorities issued an arrest warrant for the vessel due to unpaid fuel bills, USA Today reported.

What they're saying: "We all feel we were abducted by luxurious pirates!" one passenger posted on Facebook, according to CBS News.

The big picture: A federal judge in Miami issued an arrest warrant for the ship on Thursday, meaning that a U.S. Marshal would have boarded and taken over the ship once it reached U.S. waters, per CBS News.

The ship, the Crystal Symphony, was meant to dock in Miami on Saturday but kept passengers on board an extra day when it changed course for the Bahamas.

Tracking data indicates that the Crystal Symphony is currently docked on the island of Bimini, and passengers were transported by ferry to Fort Lauderdale on Sunday, CBS News reported.

State of play: Peninsula Petroleum Far East filed the lawsuit to try to recover $4.6 million in unpaid fuel bills from Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises, which chartered or managed Crystal Symphony, per CBS News.
To avoid tensions with Washington, Israel coordinated with the Biden administration in advance of a high-level tech and economy summit held virtually with Chinese officials on Monday, two Israeli officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: Monday's summit, led by Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan, followed low-profile consultations on China last month between the U.S. and Israeli governments  a sensitive issue given U.S. concerns about Chinese investments in Israel.

During Monday's meetings, which included representatives of several government ministries on both sides, Israel and China agree to a three-year plan for cooperation on the economy, science, research and development, and technology.

Many of these issues are at the center of the Biden administration's concerns. Both the Trump and Biden administrations have expressed concern in particular over Chinese investments in Israeli infrastructure projects.

Behind the scenes: The Israeli Foreign Ministry notified the State Department of the gathering in advance at a senior working level" and the U.S. didn't raise any concerns, an Israeli official told Axios.

Both Israeli officials stressed they were cognizant of U.S. concerns and wanted to proceed with maximum transparency. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Flashback: On Dec. 14, Israeli and U.S. teams led by the deputy national security advisers from both sides held wide-ranging talks on China policy. A week later, national security adviser Jake Sullivan raised some of the same issues with Lapid and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett while visiting Israel.

Go deeper: Biden administration presses Israel on Chinese investments
Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Congressional Budget Office; Chart: Axios Visuals

Yes, the pandemic has created unusual temporary labor market dynamics. But in the bigger picture, the 2010s were a golden age for companies seeking cheap labor. The 2020s are not.

The big picture: In the 2010s, the massive millennial generation was entering the workforce, the massive baby bo0m generation was still hard at work, and there was a multi-year hangover from the deep recession caused by the global financial crisis.

But now, boomers are retiring, millennials are approaching middle age, and the Gen Z that follows them is comparatively small.

Why it matters: Demography is destiny, and U.S. demographics in the years ahead favor workers over employers.

By the numbers: The Congressional Budget Office forecast in July that the size of the U.S. labor force will grow by a mere 0.2% a year from 2024 to 2031. Employers can't count on a flood of new workers to fill empty jobs.

"We're trying to warn employers that this is not just a passing fad but a new reality," said Bruce Evans with Emsi Burning Glass, a firm that analyzes job listings.

"When I entered the labor market, all these systems were set up to keep people away, because every job was overwhelmed with the number of workers looking to do those jobs," said Evans. "Now that's just not true anymore, but all those systems have been retained."

The bottom line: Fortune favors the bold  as well as the companies that recognize that the labor market of the 2020s isnt going to be like that of the 2010s.

Go deeper:
NATO said Monday it's sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe due to Russia's buildup of troops near Ukraine.

Driving the news: "NATO Allies are putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in eastern Europe, reinforcing Allied deterrence and defense as Russia continues its military build-up in and around Ukraine," per a NATO statement.

Details ... NATO outlined the following announcements by member states over the last several days:

Denmark is "sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania in support of NATOs long-standing air-policing mission in the region."

is "sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania in support of NATOs long-standing air-policing mission in the region." Spain is "sending ships to join NATO naval forces and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria."

is "sending ships to join NATO naval forces and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria." France has "expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania."

has "expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania." The Netherlands is sending two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria and is putting a ship and land-based units on standby for NATOs Response Force.

is sending two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria and is putting a ship and land-based units on standby for NATOs Response Force. The U.S. has "made clear" that it is "considering increasing its military presence" in eastern Europe.

The big picture: Russia has been deploying forces on all sides of Ukraine's border  including in Belarus  and sending further military aid to Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

NATO's announcement came hours after the U.S. State Department said it would begin evacuating families and nonessential staff from the American Embassy in Kyiv "due to the continued threat of Russian military action."

The U.K. government began withdrawing some staff and dependents from the British Embassy on Monday.

What they're saying: "NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

"We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence," Stoltenberg added.

Go deeper... In photos: Behind the frontlines in Ukraine
From Cybersex to Child Sacrifice: New GFA World Report Probes 'Children in Crisis'

From U.S. border to South Asia, 1.2 billion children face 'horrors,' exploitation on sickening scale



CYBERSEX TO CHILD SACRIFICE: The humanitarian crisis on America's southern border featured in a shocking new report that examines the horrors facing the world's children in 2022. "Children in Crisis: The World's Greatest 'Badge of Shame'" (www.gfa.org/press/KidsCrisis), just released by Texas-based mission agency GFA World (www.gfa.org), reveals child exploitation on a global scale.

NEWS PROVIDED BY

GFA World

Jan. 24, 2022

WILLS POINT, Texas, Jan. 24, 2022 /Christian Newswire/ -- America's humanitarian border crisis is featured in a shocking new report that examines the horrors facing the world's children in 2022.

Many migrant boys and girls fall prey to human traffickers, smugglers, and drug cartels en route to the U.S., according to the report "Children in Crisis: The World's Greatest 'Badge of Shame'" (http://www.gfa.org/press/KidsCrisis) by Texas-based humanitarian agency GFA World (www.gfa.org).

The report highlights a terrifying U.S. Border Patrol video that shows human smugglers dropping sisters  3 and 5 years old from Ecuador  over a 14-foot section of the border fence in the New Mexico desert. The smugglers ran off, leaving the young girls alone in the dark.

The border situation, says the report, is a "stark reminder" that children are "in crisis right on our doorstep  wherever we live in the world. And the problem is growing worse."

Situation Critical

The report estimates 1.2 billion children worldwide are vulnerable to a host of calamities, including abuse, hunger and diseases. It's a "toxic combination" driven largely by poverty and supercharged by the pandemic, the report says.

Among the horrors are child slavery, sexual exploitation  including the online cybersex industry  and even child sacrifice.

In Uganda, a young mother found the headless body of her 17-month-old son in a shallow grave. The child's killer turned out to be his own father who was paid $2,000 by a businessman in return for the boy's head, the report says. It's believed the child's head was considered by him to be a "good luck" charm.

The report highlights the following disturbing facts:

30-35% of sex workers in the Mekong sub-region of Southeast Asia are 12-17 years old

Mexico's social service agency reports more than 16,000 children engage in prostitution, mostly in tourist destinations

20-50% of prostitutes in Lithuania are believed to be children  sometimes as young as 11  and orphans have been exploited to make pornographic movies

North Korean girls, some as young as 9, are forced to perform sex acts in front of webcams, live-streamed to paying customers worldwide

"GFA World is helping children escape poverty and protect themselves against such vile abuse and atrocities," said the organization's founder K.P. Yohannan, also known as Metropolitan Yohan. "Unless we act now to protect all children and show them God's love is real, the consequences will be unforgivable."

GFA World (www.gfa.org) is a leading faith-based global mission agency helping national workers bring vital assistance and spiritual hope to millions across the world, especially in Asia and Africa, and sharing the love of God. In GFA World's latest yearly report, this included thousands of community development projects that benefit downtrodden families and their children, free medical camps conducted in more than 1,200 villages and remote communities, over 4,800 clean water wells drilled, over 12,000 water filters installed, income-generating Christmas gifts for more than 260,000 needy families, and teaching providing hope and encouragement in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry. GFA World has launched programs in Africa, starting with compassion projects in Rwanda. For all the latest news, visit the Press Room at https://gfanews.org/news.

SOURCE GFA World

CONTACT: Gregg Wooding, 972-567-7660, gwooding@inchristcommunications.com
Virginia's new Republican attorney general has urged the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, stating that it is now the state's position that the case was "wrongly decided."

Why it matters: Previously, under a Democratic AG, Virginia had joined 22 other states, and Washington, D.C., in September in arguing that Mississippis 15-week abortion ban was unconstitutional. Attorney General Jason Miyares letter marks a notable policy shift in the state from a Democratic to GOP administration.

Miyares' letter will have little bearing on the Supreme Court case, the Washington Post notes. During arguments last year, the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority seemed likely to weaken abortion rights and perhaps to let states ban the procedure altogether.

The newly elected attorney general argued in the letter that it should be up to the "people in the several States to determine the legal status and regulatory treatment of abortion."

What they're saying: "Virginia is now of the view that the Constitution is silent on the question of abortion," Miyares told the justices in a letter Friday. "Virginia now urges this Court to reverse the Fifth Circuit."
Sarkissian announced his unexpected decision to step down late on Sunday. He attributed it to his lack of constitutional powers.

Lawmakers representing the ruling Civil Contract party and the opposition minority in the National Assembly countered that Sarkissian was well aware of the largely ceremonial powers vested in the presidency when he agreed to become president in early 2018.

Didnt he know the limits of his prerogatives when he was elected president? said Civil Contracts Khachatur Sukiasian. He must have familiarized himself with the constitution before taking office.

Sukiasian, who is also a wealthy businessman, went on to question Sarkissians patriotism and attachment to Armenia.

If an Armenian keeps 90 percent of their capital in a foreign country I cant help but wonder to what extent he trusts and loves the Republic of Armenia, he said, referring to a fortune made by Sarkissian in Britain.

Sarkissian, 68, had lived and worked in London for nearly three decades. Former President Serzh Sarkisian offered him to become the head of state as Armenia completed its transition to a parliamentary system of government. The countrys former parliament controlled by Serzh Sarkisians Republican Party (HHK) elected the new president for a seven-year term in March 2018.

Hayk Mamijanian, an opposition lawmaker affiliated with the HHK, charged that Sarkissian has not performed his duties properly since then.

He has sung the same song for four years, Mamijanian told reporters. Taking about the same things -- powers, powers, powers -- for four years is not comprehensible for me.

Serzh Sarkisians political allies have been particularly critical of the current president. They have claimed that he is afraid of pushing back against what they see as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians authoritarian tendencies.

Under Armenian constitution, parliament speaker Alen Simonian will take over as interim president if Sarkissian does not withdraw his resignation within a week. In that case, the National Assembly will have to elect a new head of state within the next 35 days.

To become president in the first round of voting a candidate has to be backed by at least 81 members of the 107-seat parliament. The legal threshold is set at 65 votes for the second round.

Pashinians Civil Contract controls 71 parliament seats, putting it in a position to install the new president. The ruling party has not yet indicated who could be its presidential candidate.

The two opposition factions in the National Assembly also did not say on Monday whether they will field a candidate.
Kristine Grigorian will formally take over as ombudswoman on February 24. Grigorian served as a deputy justice minister justice until January 20. She had held other senior positions in the Armenian Ministry of Justice from 2015-2018.

The 40-year-old lawyer was nominated for the post by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinians Civil Contract party. She was backed by 68 members of the 107-seat National Assembly.

Both parliamentary opposition forces rejected Grigorians candidacy and decided to boycott the secret ballot.

Grigorian skirted most questions asked by opposition lawmakers during a debate that preceded the vote. She essentially avoided criticizing or questioning government policies relating to human rights. She also refused to echo opposition claims that there are political prisoners in Armenia.

Speaking shortly before Mondays vote, opposition deputies deplored what they described as Grigorians pro-government stance.

You are being given a mandate to defend Nikol Pashinians regime, rather than human rights, Anna Mkrtchian of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc told the incoming ombudswoman.

Civil Contract deputies rejected the criticism and defended Grigorian. One of them also hit out at Armenias outgoing ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, who has been increasingly critical of Pashinians administration.

In particular, Tatoyan has denounced Armenian troop withdrawals ordered by Pashinian following the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh and accused the authorities of undermining judicial independence and bullying opposition groups that defeated the ruling party in recent local elections.

Tatoyan also repeatedly criticized Pashinians fiery rhetoric during campaigning for snap parliamentary elections held last June. The prime minister pledged to purge the state bureaucracy and wage political vendettas against local government officials supporting the opposition.

A senior Pashinian administration official responded late last year by accusing Tatoyan of engaging in counterrevolutionary activities in support of opposition forces.

Speaking in the parliament on Friday, Grigorian said that the office of the human rights defender must not be perceived as a body alienated from the state and fighting against the state. She said that if elected she will strive to correct these misconceptions.
Afghanistan has topped the Open Doors 2022 World Watch List of the 50 countries where Christians face the worst persecution.

North Korea was number one on the list for 20 years but the devastating fallout from the Taliban takeover has pushed Afghanistan to the top spot.

Open Doors warned of Christian men "facing almost certain death" if their faith is discovered. For women and girls, the price of their faith is being married to young Taliban fighters as the "spoils of war", or being trafficked.

The Taliban are using existing intelligence to actively track down Christians, going door-to-door to find them. Once discovered, they are often detained in order to identify more Christians. Then they are killed, Open Doors said.

Much of the tiny, hidden Christian population of Afghanistan has now fled to rural regions or refugee camps in neighbouring countries, according to the human rights group, but many of these countries are also hostile to Christians.

Hana Nasri, an Open Doors senior partner based in the Gulf region whose real name has been changed for security reasons said, "The withdrawal of the US troops in August represented the withdrawal of freedom. It was only 2,500 troops, it wasn't a large number, but they represented a very strong message of freedom.

"The withdrawal of these troops said to the people that the symbol of freedom was gone and it made them despair and feel hopeless."

The fall of Kabul has also emboldened Islamist extremists "worldwide", Open Doors warns.

"The rise of Afghanistan to the top of the World Watch List is deeply troubling," said Henrietta Blyth, CEO of Open Doors UK and Ireland.

"Apart from the incalculable suffering it represents, it sends out a very clear message to Islamic extremists everywhere: 'You can continue your brutal fight for influence, unchecked.'"

This can be seen in the the "Talibanisation" of West Africa - especially Nigeria - and other places, where the fall of Afghanistan has given rise to "a new mood of invulnerability" among other jihadist groups who now believe that they will not face serious opposition from the West.

"Factions like Islamic State and Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF) now see their goal of an Islamic caliphate - once thwarted in Iraq and Syria  as, once again, achievable," Blyth continued.

"The cost in human lives and misery this new-found sense of invincibility is causing, and will continue to cause, is hard to overstate."

Nigeria has moved up two places in the WWL to number 7, with 4,650 Christians killed - 79 per cent of the worldwide total.

There are fears that Mali, number 24 on the WWL, could become the "next Afghanistan" as social order continues to deteriorate.

Open Doors said it expects to see an increase in violence in these countries as well as the Central African Republic (number 31), Burkina Faso (number 32), Niger (number 33) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (number 40).

Open Doors has been publishing its annual World Watch List since 1993, recording levels of persecution and discrimination across the globe.

This year's list covers the period 1 Oct 2020 to 30 Sept 2021 and found that the number of Christians suffering high levels of persecution and discrimination reached 360 million during this period - an increase of 20 million on the previous year and the highest recorded since the first list was published 29 years ago.

Recorded killings of Christians for their faith rose from 4,761 registered cases in the last WWL to 5,898 this year, with most of these occurring within Sub-Saharan Africa and Nigeria especially.

The total number of churches attacked also rose from 4,488 registered cases in the 2021 WWL to 5,110 this year, while detentions and arrests increased 44 per cent from the previous report to 6,175, with 1,315 of these being in India.

Open Doors said that of the 84 million people forced to leave their homes last year, a "significant number" were Christians - what it dubbed "the refugee church".

In Myanmar (number 12), Christians have been targeted in the latest conflict, leaving at least 200,000 internally displaced and forcing another 20,000 to flee the country.

Many Christian internally displaced persons can be found in Iraq (number 14), Syria (number 15), Lebanon and Jordan (number 39).

In Burkina Faso, the northern regions have been "emptied" of their Christian population and churches forced to close, says Illia Djadi, Open Doors' senior analyst on freedom of religion and belief in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Islamic extremists are taking advantage of the fragility of these states - the absence of the state and good governance, poverty, their porous borders, a lack of education and so on - and they are using these to divide the countries along ethnic and religious lines," he said.

Those forced to flee face poverty and insecurity, but for Christian women and children there is the double threat of sexual assault, rape and sexual slavery both while on their journey to safety and inside the camps.

Open Doors also expressed continued concern about the plight of Christians in North Korea, where it said persecution reached record levels this year despite the country falling from the top of the WWL.

It blames the increase in persecution inside North Korea on a new 'anti-reactionary thought law' that has led to a rise in Christians being arrested and house churches closed.

"Arrest inevitably means imprisonment in one of the nation's brutal 're-education camps', from which few people emerge alive," Open Doors said.

In China, which is number 17 on the list, it reports an increase in surveillance and the "authoritarian imposition of conformity" on citizens, as evidenced by legislation last May requiring that religious leaders not "undermine national unity", and that they "love the motherland, support the leadership of the Communist Party and the socialist system".

"This is enforced by the ruling party's use of pioneering technology to surveil and control its citizens. In two provinces, all official Christian churches have surveillance cameras installed," Open Doors said.

"And this technologically fuelled authoritarianism is rapidly spreading far beyond China. Numerous other nations have seen the way this imposition of 'unity' over diversity has been rolled out by the ruling Communist Party."

Commenting on the findings, Dr David Landrum, Director of Advocacy at Open Doors UK and Ireland, said this year's World Watch List "makes for sobering reading".

"With emboldened Islamists, resurgent nationalism, and China developing more sophisticated forms of digital persecution, we are entering a new era of diminishing human rights," he said.

"With religious freedom providing a foundation for so many other freedoms, we desperately need to see a renewal of commitment to shoring up human rights in 2022.

"When even paying lip-service to human rights is shrinking, the promotion and protection of religious freedom is more urgent than ever."

Open Doors' 2022 World Watch List (2021 rankings in brackets)

1 Afghanistan (2)

2 North Korea (1)

3 Somalia (3)

4 Libya (4)

5 Yemen (7)

6 Eritrea (6)

7 Nigeria (9)

8 Pakistan (5)

9 Iran (8)

10 India (10)

11 Saudi Arabia (14)

12 Myanmar (18)

13 Sudan (13)

14 Iraq (11)

15 Syria (12)

16 Maldives (15)

17 China (17)

18 Qatar (29)

19 Vietnam (19)

20 Egypt (16)

21 Uzbekistan (21)

22 Algeria (24)

23 Mauritania (20)

24 Mali (28)

25 Turkmenistan (23)

26 Laos (22)

27 Morocco (27)

28 Indonesia (47)

29 Bangladesh (31)

30 Colombia (30)

31 Central African Republic (35)

32 Burkina Faso (32)

33 Niger (54)

34 Bhutan (43)

35 Tunisia (26)

36 Oman (44)

37 Cuba (51)

38 Ethiopia (36)

39 Jordan (38)

40 Congo DR (DRC) (40)

41 Mozambique (45)

42 Turkey (25)

43 Mexico (37)

44 Cameroon (42)

45 Tajikistan (33)

46 Brunei (39)

47 Kazakhstan (41)

48 Nepal (34)

49 Kuwait (48)

50 Malaysia (46)



Reposted with permission from Christian Today
Bluefield, WV (24701)

Today

Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High near 70F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low 49F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
Five Unusual Rock Structures of Oregon Coast: Shapes to Weird Steps

Published 01/23/22 at 5:36 PM PST

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff

(Oregon Coast)  From faces in the sea to head-scratching shapes, to oddly convenient formations in the rocks: the Oregon coast is full of stuff you've never encountered inland. It's a wilderness of wild discoveries in the sand and covering the sands. The rocky places here make for some remarkable finds, some of which lurk in out-of-the-way places. (Above: strange natural steps at Strawberry Hill near Florence)

Here's five spots you'll have to see to believe, including one bizarre concept in rocky finds.





Depoe Bay's North Point. It's not an easy place to find but it's oh-so-worthwhile.

Look for Vista Street at the north end of town, then follow it through a small, winding road through a neighborhood. This blob of a promontory here is called North Point, but you'll likely see the sign Depoe Bay Scenic View Area (there's actually two spots called that in town  yeah, confusing). Trudge out between the bushes and trees and you'll find a chunk of basalt that's truly distinctive.

Stop here at the right time, if the waves are rollicking enough, and you'll feel this otherwise sturdy, ageless rock vibrate beneath you. It's a wild sensation.

At its southern edge, you can peek out at the central Oregon coast town from the west  as if you're out on a boat. This finger-like ledge that juts out here is a familiar one from viewers on the seawall: it's where those waves crash with such scenic ferocity. While you're here, though, it winds up spraying you with ocean water if you get too close.





Cape Kiwanda. Sweeping and grand yet surreal, Cape Kiwanda is the golden child of the Oregon coast  quite literally. When the sunsets hit it just right, the entire headland fires up into various shades of gold and bright yellows, creating a striking visage. In other moments, there's a wide variety of textures and shades, along with shapes that are sometimes a little inexplicable.

One part of it lies in a forbidden path, a no-go zone that is extremely dangerous but which people have trod on for over 100 years. There, it's a strangely pock-marked landscape riddled with sights that look more at home in a Star Trek alien moment than somewhere here. Another section soars with a towering dune and trees that look shredded by weather and winds, barely clinging to life.

Still other parts sit just beyond the headland: little islands of sorts that have been disconnected from the main section for maybe hundreds of years, sometimes with little green tufts at their tops, probably by now having developed their own tiny ecosystem. Looking down from some areas starts to resemble the old Roger Dean album covers from Yes.

Just what is Cape Kiwanda? It may not be quite what you think.

Kissing Rock Near Gold Beach. A crusty and slightly kooky sight if there ever was one, Kissing Rock on the south Oregon coast looks more like a tattered old doll head with maybe a bit of a kissy face going on. In actuality, it looks a little more like a Pac Man face in mid-bite.

In any case, you'll find it just a tad south of Gold Beach at the Hunter Creek Turnout.

The rock itself and its surrounding rocky bits seem to provide a slight labyrinth-like shelter, with some spaces way more claustrophobic than others. These, in turn, make for decent smooch spots, should you want to stop for a moment for beachside makeout session. By and large, however, it's one of those fab south coast stops with plenty of grayish to darker sands (the darker sands indicate possible gold), and varying amounts of funky rocky blobs to play on.





Bandon's Face Rock. She's working on nearly a quarter billion years old, but she doesn't look a day over 40 million. (Photo courtesy Manuela Durson - see Manuela Durson Fine Arts for more)

It's an eerie but beautiful sight, and something you can't unsee: that rock looks just like a face sitting in the water. Face Rock looks just like a woman's face, to be exact  like a giant mummy. This depends on your vantage point, however: some angles it's just a blob out there.

She was called Ewauna by local Coquille tribes, in a complex tale that involves a vengeful god that turned her to stone and doomed her to forever stare up at the sky. Other sea stacks around her were called her kittens and there's even a dog involved (Komax, also known as Howling Dog and Wizard's Hat Rock).

Geologically, Face Rock is an intriguing mixture of stuff that's been crammed together down the ages, starting from a bit over 200 million years ago. The south Oregon coast is simply surprising in that way.





Mystery of Natural Rocky Stairways. They're probably the most unusual rock structure finds along the Oregon coast, and they seem to mostly be in the Lane County area where there's some really old basalt. (Above: Cook's Chasm)

In spots like Neptune Beach, Strawberry Hill or around Cook's Chasm (as well as North Point at Depoe Bay, seen above), you'll see what look like small, crooked steps embedded in the rocks. They're clearly a natural feature, however.

Evidence of Ancient Aliens? Hell, no. It's some rather complex geology, however. They're called cordwood joints by most geologists, and they occur because fiery lava injects itself into cracked basalt (which is from some previous lava flow), and then expands things in there, cracking the area even more. Cracked basalt is always easier to erode, so they wind up getting whittled away into steps-like features over millions of years. See Mysterious Step-Like Rocks of the Oregon Coast.

Oregon Coast Hotels in this area - South Coast Hotels - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours





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I don't think there is a single adult on this planet that can say with a sound mind and a straight face that 2020 was a same old same old kind of year.

NO ONE

On March 11, 2020 the World Health Organisation declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak to be a pandemic. We had one other pandemic since the 21st century; 2009 H1N1 and there were a few in the 20th century but none of us have ever lived through the kind upheaval that this pandemic has brought.

Countries sealed their borders, global sporting and social events were cancelled, schools went on lockdown, people lost their jobs by the thousands or were told to work from home. Tourism ground to a halt, families were separated and words cannot describe the trauma of those who lost loved ones or were sick unto death themselves. It was a year like no other.

2021 rolled around and brought a sense of hope with the introduction of various covid vaccines, world wide travel opened up again, economies rebounded, things were looking up... or were they?

Hospitals were packed to capacity, health care workers at all levels were at their wits end, the DELTA variant emerged and then OMICRON followed. People were still losing loved ones to COVID-19 and millions of children around the world were not back in school.

New year, same things?

So here we are staring at our third calendar year of an ongoing pandemic with many persons asking "God, why?"

It is natural for us to ask questions when something big happens in our lives. When our worlds feel like they've been shaken and we're trying to figure out our heads from our tails, there will be a desire for as many details as possible, to have an understanding of timelines and be assured of when and how things will return to normal, back to what we're comfortable with and what makes us happy.

We often bring our questions to God based on the (erroneous) assumption that His purpose in our lives is to fulfill our desires and make us happy. Standing on that assumption when things don't go our way, when tragedy comes knocking at our doors, when we've done everything right but it still came crashing down around us we conclude that God has failed us, we feel let down.

If we allow ourselves to sink into our feelings we end up running to God not because we are acknowledging His omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, no. We actually rush at Him because He has offended our expectations and must give an answer for why we are not receiving what we deserve.

What do we deserve?

It is all too easy for us to forget that we are loved by a God that sees and has always seen not just the big picture but the entire picture. It is all too easy for us to forget that His plans for us are always for our good, even when we have no clue what that looks like. It is all too easy to forget that God has been giving us way more than we deserve since the beginning of mankind.

We deserve to be tossed aside like the chaff that the wind blows away. We deserve to receive the full payment for all of our sins which is death.

We need to rise to levels of gratitude and humility that remind us that the very act of us waking up to see another day, as hard as that day may seem, is by far above and beyond what we actually deserve.

It sounds cold to say such a thing in light of persons being abused, having to say goodbye to loved ones too early, genocide, tragic accidents and the many things we have to deal with in this sick sad world but again we must remember that we are viewing and experiencing life through our very narrow lens.

He is the I am

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Deuteronomy chapter 31 verse 8

These words were spoken by Moses to Joshua in the presence of the Israelites as he handed over the mantle of leadership. Moses had literally spoken with God, he had witnessed the devastation of the plagues and lived through God's provision and protection with the Israelites in the wilderness.

At this point in time he knew he would not be permitted into the Promised Land, he could have raised a furore over what he deserved and all he'd been through but Moses knew he was dealing with the great I AM and had enough humility to acknowledge that.

I AM the ONE who transcends time, the ONE for whom the past, present and future are laid out before Him all at once, the ONE whose decision making process is so complex that we can't even begin to try to understand it.

Moses' words to Joshua right before God commissioned him as leader are an encouragement to us all as Christians.

What if it is 2020, too?

Suppose this year does line up to be a repeat of 2020 or worse?

Some people would probably start tearing out their hair and screaming that they won't survive.

The same God that walked with Moses as he led the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land, a journey that began with plagues, was fraught with trials and resulted in an entire generation passing away, that same God is with you right now.

He has gone before you into 2022, He will never leave you nor forsake you. Not one single person on this earth can predict what will happen this year but if you have decided to follow Jesus you can face it all and not be afraid or discouraged.
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Jury duty has been canceled for all of Jefferson County until at least the end of the month.

The District Clerks office confirmed that jury duty has been canceled for the month of January due to a rise in COVID-19 cases in the area. The grand jury, which falls under an exception, has not been canceled at this time, the office said.

They are reassessing next week to see if we are going to cancel for February, Jefferson County District Clerk Jamie Smith said.   Due to the uptick in COVID numbers, for the sake of public safety, and the employees at Jefferson County we decided to cancel jury duty until the numbers start going down.

Related: New Beaumont COVID testing site is emergency call to action

According to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday, Jefferson County had a total of 3,975 confirmed cases of COVID in 2022.

The state health department reported 1,301 cases in a seven-day period that ended Jan. 20. Fewer than 10 deaths were reported for the countys population of 251,56 people, of which nearly 50% are fully vaccinated. In the past week, the county saw over 165 new hospital admissions, the data said.

A COVID Tracker provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using data from the state health department, said Jefferson County has a high level of community transmission.

Everyone in Jefferson County, Texas should wear a mask in public, indoor settings, the information said. Mask requirements might vary from place to place. Make sure you follow local laws, rules, regulations or guidance.

On Wednesday, the Texas Department of State Health Services said in a social media post that omicron continues to spread rapidly through Texas communities and strain hospital capacity. The post also said there are some signs the increase in spread is starting to slow.

Related: TX DSHS on COVID: 'Some signs the increase in spread is starting to slow'

Those who were summoned for jury duty in Jefferson County need to call to reschedule, the office said.

This is not the first time that the pandemic has canceled jury duty in Jefferson County. In 2021, the 252nd District Court, the Criminal District Court, two misdemeanor courts and drug court also suspended jury trials for the month of August.

Related: Jefferson County Criminal Courts suspend August jury trials due to COVID

meagan.ellsworth@beaumontenterprise.com

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Former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi speaks to reporters at the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex after a judge ordered him to enter a defense on 47 charges involving criminal breach of trust, graft and money laundering, Jan. 24, 2022.

The president of Malaysias largest party will have to answer money-laundering and other corruption charges involving millions of dollars tied to his charitable foundation, a local court ruled Monday, saying the prosecution had made its case.

Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah ordered Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, a former deputy prime minister who heads the ruling United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party, to present his defense on all 47 counts against him.

Zahid is accused of using more than U.S. $30 million from Yayasan Akalbudi, a foundation he set up, for personal expenses.

I find no merit to the contention that the case has immunity in relation to the 12 charges under section 409 of the penal code, Sequerah said.

After a maximum evaluation, the prosecution has proven ingredients of all 12 charges and has successfully made a prima facie case. The accused is asked to enter a defense for all 12 charges, he said, referring to specific charges of criminal breach of trust.

The judge issued similar judgments against Zahid on corruption and money-laundering charges.

Zahids lawyers had argued that their client should receive immunity for information and documents about his foundation that he disclosed to anti-corruption authorities on July 2 and 3, 2018. Charges were filed in October and December 2018, as well as in February 2019.

Last September, after testimony from 99 witnesses, public prosecutor Raja Rozela Raja Toran said Zahid was not entitled to immunity simply because he gave information to the anti-graft agency.



Delay approved

On Monday, the judge set April 26 as the date for Zahid to begin defending himself in court, after defense lawyers said that the original date, March 28, did not give them enough time to prepare.

We have to interview the witnesses and submit their statements. Witness statements must be prepared and served 14 days ahead of the prosecution, defense attorney Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told the court.

Sequerah gave Zahid three options.

He can opt to testify under oath from the witness stand where he can be cross-examined by prosecutors; give his unsworn testimony from the witness stand, where he cannot be cross-examined; or choose to remain silent, Sequerah said.

Zahid, who was accompanied to the courthouse by his eldest daughter and son-in-law, appeared calm as he sat and listened to the judges ruling.

Also present were Mohamad Hasan, UMNOs deputy president, and Ahmad Maslan, the partys secretary-general. About 30 UMNO supporters who gathered in the court complex lobby prayed with Zahid and the others before they entered the courtroom.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Zahid said he would fight the charges and testify.

The decision is the judges ultimate right and I accepted it. My team of lawyers will do their work according to the court procedure. The date has been fixed, he said.

UMNOs Hasan said he expected the opposition to use the judges order to attack the party in the run-up to elections to be held in Johor state before March.

Cases of prosecution have already been diluted. It has been going on for two to three years. How far are they going to use this court cases, he asked reporters, referring to the complaints of massive corruption against Zahid and his former boss, ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Najib has been convicted of charges linked to a subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Berhad, the state development fund he founded in 2009. He is standing trial on additional charges linked to what U.S. and Malaysian prosecutors alleged was the theft of at least $4.5 billion (18.8 billion ringgit) from 1MDB.

Want to be in power

Wan Saiful Wan Jan, the information chief for the Malaysian United Indigenous Party (Bersatu), was among those speaking out against UMNO on Monday.

I have said this before that the court cluster is desperate to avoid prison. Started with Najib followed by Zahid, he said in a social media post. Both are facing jail terms because of the same reason  they were accused of embezzlement.

Today, they used their party to force Johor to face [an] election. They are greedy and want to be in power, he alleged. [They] did not want other parties to be in existence as the check-and-balance in the government so if there is corruption, it can be hidden.

In early 2020, Bersatu joined forces with UMNO when Muhyiddin Yassin established a coalition that led to his appointment as prime minister only days after Mahathir Mohamad stepped down.

Mahathir had led a coalition that upset UMNOs Barisan Nasional coalition in the 2018 general election. Mahathirs bloc, four years ago, had campaigned on a platform of ridding Malaysian government of deep-seated corruption stemming from the 1MDB scandal.

In mid-2021, Zahid persuaded a few MPs to pull support for Muhyiddin, leading to his fall from office. Power returned to UMNO when the King appointed Ismail Sabri Yaakob as prime minister.

Noah Lee in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.
Malaysias ruling UMNO party may call early national polls if it extends a winning streak by clinching state legislature polls expected in Johor within the next two months, analysts say.

The United Malays National Organization already holds an edge in Johor, the partys birthplace, and a third consecutive victory in state-level polls since November  after victories in Melaka and Sarawak  could embolden UMNO to move up a general election now scheduled for mid-2023, says one observer.

A Johor win will definitely give further confidence for UMNO to call for an early general election. Theres a momentum that has been built since the Melaka elections, Tunku Mohar Mokhtar, a political analyst at International Islamic University Malaysia, told BenarNews.

UMNO probably sees this as the best opportunity for it to return to power through an election, he said.

UMNO and the Barisan Nasional (BN) alliance head an unelected government. They suffered a shock defeat in the last general election, in 2018. But last August, they cobbled together a coalition to recapture power at the national level, 17 months after the government led by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad fell.

Over the weekend, Johors ruler  a royal position  signed off on the state chief ministers decision to dissolve the legislative assembly.

UMNO, which headed the state government, wanted to hold elections to make the government more stable, former chief minister Hasni Mohammad claimed to the media last week. With the death of a supporting lawmaker, UMNO was left with a majority of only one in the 56-seat assembly.

Since the emphatic win for the party in Melaka in November, a section of UMNO has been clamoring to move up the national election. Calls only grew louder after UMNO easily retained power in the Sarawak state election a month later.

But not everyone is happy about the Johor election being called a year before the state governments term ends. The main opposition Pakatan Harapan bloc said UMNO was being irresponsible by calling for the Johor election at this time.

We are of the view that the dissolution of the Johor Legislative State Assembly was an act that was planned with the aim of pushing the prime minister to dissolve the parliament and pave the way for the 15th general election as soon as possible, the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council said in a statement Monday.

The people of Johor, it said, are still suffering economically because of the COVID-19 pandemic and also because of the recent floods.

Opposition has got weaker

As for the prospects in the Johor election, analyst Tunku Mohar fancies UMNOs chances.

If Melaka is an indication, UMNO-BN may win the state elections with a clear mandate. It has the grassroots to mobilize to vote, Tunku Mohar said.

UMNO [also] has an advantage over the rest as Johor was its stronghold. The opposition has a disadvantage because under current [COVID-19] conditions, it cant hold political rallies  its major strength  to reach the fence-sitters, he said.

Another political analyst, Sivamurugan Pandian, concurred.

The opposition has got weaker, which can be clearly seen in the Melaka and the Sarawak state elections [results], Sivamurugan told BenarNews.

The Johor state election was not a must, but more of political strategy by the United Malays National Organization. For political parties, timing is important, he said.

Another analyst, Awang Azman Awang Pawi, said UMNO is trying to restore its political standing, and it can be expected that it is hard for opponents to beat UMNO especially in their strongholds.

The under 21s

But one factor that could spoil UMNOs hopes is the 18-21-year-old section of the electorate that has just been enfranchised. This is the first time that voters in that age range will get to exercise their right to vote, after the implementation of an amendment to lower the voting age.

UMNO deputy president Mohamad Hasan said the Johor polls would see an additional 700,000 voters, many of whom are aged 18-21.

Definitely we have to prepare with a new focus.  It will not be a walk in the park for UMNO, he told reporters on Monday, acknowledging that political parties now have to woo even younger voters.

The state election will show whether the new voters will make a difference, said Oh Ei Sun, an analyst at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIAA).

It will be good test case to see what effect the youth voters will have in the election, as we simply do not have any precedent as to the voting predilection of these new electoral cohorts, he told BenarNews.

Meanwhile, analyst Tunku Mohar believes UMNO may call elections earlier than July 31 this year, even though Prime Minister Ismail Sabri has signed a pact with the opposition Pakatan bloc to not call national elections before then.

That might not be enough to prevent UMNO from going ahead, the analyst said.

Many in UMNO are desperate to win a general election and wipe out the memory of the partys defeat to the Pakatan Harapan coalition in 2018. Theyre banking on the fact that a lot has happened since then that increases their chances of winning, such as the need for a stable central government amid an ongoing pandemic, analysts say.

On the UMNO side, the party is divided. One faction supports PM Ismail Sabri and another backs party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. The Zahid faction wants polls as soon as possible, SIAAs Oh Ei Sun and Tunku Mohar said.

It surely looks that the non-Ismail faction currently has the upper hand.  The party president does not give [Ismail Sabri] the space to stamp his authority and that makes him a lame duck PM, analyst Tunku Mohar said.

If UMNO wins big in Johor, it will put even more pressure on [the party] to have the elections earlier.
Masked protesters raise clenched fists near the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila during a rally to commemorate the 49th anniversary of the New Peoples Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, March 28, 2018.

The nations chief intelligence officer said Monday that four of the leading candidates running for president would be insane if they considered restarting peace talks with the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines.

Alex Monteagudo, director general of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, was responding to candidates Leni Robredo, Panfilo Lacson, Francisco Domagoso and Manny Pacquiao who answered yes on national television when asked if they supported resuming talks with the CPP and its armed wing, the New Peoples Army (NPA).

A fifth top-tier candidate, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., did not participate in taped interviews with the GMA Network that aired over the weekend.

The objective of the CPP/NPA is not peace, the objective of the CPP/NPA is power  they want to grab power. That did not change, Monteagudo told reporters during an online news conference.

Mr. Einstein, Albert Einstein, the genius, said doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insanity, Monteagudo said.

He noted that the candidates could have declared they favored the resumption of the peace talks for political reasons, knowing that such efforts were destined to fail. He hopes they will reconsider their statements ahead of the May 9 general election.

What they (insurgents) will do is hide for the meantime, lie low for five months and when the new administration comes in, they will come out in the open, Monteagudo said.

Monteagudo said every administration since Philippine democracy was restored in 1986 has engaged the rebels in talks that eventually broke down. He noted that one of President Rodrigo Dutertes first actions when he took office in 2016 was to re-establish talks with the CPP/NPA.

But a year later, the talks collapsed with both sides accusing each other of carrying out attacks despite the peace process. Duterte also dared CPP founder Jose Maria Sison  his former university professor  to return home from exile in the Netherlands and talk to him personally.

Duterte has ruled out any more talks with the rebels.

Even the administration of President Duterte went into peace talks, but the same result, the same peace talks, the same result. You will never get a different result, we have to do it differently, Monteagudo said.

Alex Monteagudo [AP]

Rather than engaging the communist leadership, Monteagudo said the government should continue the work of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in engaging insurgents in addressing poverty  one of the chief causes of the insurgency. The task force, established in 2018, is composed of government agencies but is primarily led by the military.

The NPA has been waging one of Asias longest-running insurgencies, which dates back to 1969. The NPAs strength is estimated at around 5,000 fighters nationwide, down from at least 20,000 at its peak in the 1980s.

Maj. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro, head of the national polices Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, warned the candidates that their statements could encourage the communist guerrillas to regroup.

If negotiations were to resume, the country would encounter the same problems caused by communists in the past, he said.

Meanwhile, the new military chief for northern Luzon, Lt. Gen. Ernesto Torres, vowed to wage a massive information drive to demoralize the NPA.

As your commander, I call on every soldier, airman and sailor of Northern Luzon Command to always maintain a balance by developing a character that is loved by the people, but feared by the enemy, Torres said as he assumed command Monday.

We shall wage massive information campaigns using available media platforms to demoralize and induce the armed rebels, fighters to surrender, Torres said.
U.S. Navy aircraft take part in a joint exercise in the Philippine Sea involving the Carl Vinson and Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Groups, Jan. 22, 2022.

China sent 39 military aircraft into Taiwans Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Sunday, the same day two U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Groups began a joint operation in the South China Sea.

The Chinese sorties included 34 J-16 and J-10 fighter jets, four Y-8 and Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft and an H-6 bomber, according to Taiwans defense ministry.

Taiwan scrambled fighters and issued radio warnings while air defense missile systems were deployed to track the Chinese aircraft activities, the ministry said.

The incursion, the largest since October, highlighted the cross-strait tension and also served as a warning message to Taiwan and the United States, said a prominent Taiwanese analyst.

By this, China wanted to say to the U.S. that it should think twice about the freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) rather than taking them as a matter of course, said Ming-Shih Shen, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwans Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), a government think-tank.

On the same day, the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Groups with more than 14,000 sailors and marines began dual carrier operations in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy said. They had earlier joined a military drill in the Philippine Sea.

The Navy said the carrier strike groups will engage in joint operations to include enhanced maritime communication operations, anti-submarine warfare operations, air warfare operations, replenishments-at-sea, cross-deck flight operations and maritime interdiction operations to strengthen maritime integrated-at-sea operations and combat readiness.

The training will be conducted in accordance with international law in international waters, it said.

Just one day before that, the two carrier strike groups took part in a joint exercise with the USS Essex Amphibious Ready Group, the USS America Expeditionary Strike Group and Japanese Navy helicopter destroyer JS Hyuga in the Philippine Sea.

The strike groups precise location on Monday was not immediately clear.

Observers said China would not turn a blind eye to such a show of force. Last October when the U.S. Navy was conducting joint drills with British and Japanese ships near Okinawa, the Chinese military sent a record 145 fighter planes to Taiwans ADIZ prompting the Taiwanese minister of defense to say that cross-strait tensions were at their worst in 40 years.

Seaman Ethan Burney stands watch during flight operations aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, Jan. 22, 2022. (U.S. Navy)

Strategic waterway

Beijing has yet to comment on the latest event. In the past, it had said that such flights were to protect its sovereignty and target collusion between Taiwan and the U.S.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that should be reunified with the mainland while most Taiwanese people see their homeland, which is democratic and self-governing, as a sovereign, independent state.

An ADIZ is an area where civilian aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a countrys airspace. It does not restrict travel in and out of its limits, nor does it usually apply to military aircraft, although there is no international rule or law saying it cannot.

Taiwans ADIZ roughly corresponds to its exclusive economic zone, a 200 nautical mile boundary off its coasts. However, usually only those PLA flights that cross the median line between Taiwan and mainland China are reported as incursions.

A map provided by Taiwans Defense Ministry showed the Chinese aircraft flew in an area to the northeast of the Taiwan-controlled Pratas (Dongsha Islands) in the South China Sea.

This area is at the crossroad between strategic waterways from the Taiwan Strait and the Bashi Strait to the South China Sea, explained Ming-Shih Shen from the INDSR think tank.

Chinas intensified flights here can, on the one hand, block military assistance from Taiwan to Dongsha Islands, and on the other hand monitor the entry of U.S. naval and air forces into the South China Sea.

Intrusions of Chinese military aircrafts in Taiwans ADIZ at a large scale are designed to eventually turn the Taiwan Strait into the inner sea of China. China would then have actual control of the Taiwan Strait and even the Bashi Strait, Shen said.

Countries [in the region] must pay attention to Chinas naval and air force deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea, he said.

The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, insisted that U.S. ships presence and activities in the region are to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Rear Adm. Dan Martin, commander of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, was quoted in the Navy web portal as saying on Monday: We are committed to ensuring the lawful use of the sea and free flow of commerce while deterring those who challenge the shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific now and into the long-term future.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha attends a groundbreaking ceremony for a monument to the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej at a memorial park in Bangkok, Dec. 5, 2021.

Prayuth Chan-o-cha this week will become the first Thai prime minister to visit Saudi Arabia in decades, in an effort to restore trust in bilateral ties that chilled after a Thai janitor pulled off a major jewel heist from a Riyadh palace 32 years ago, a government spokesman said Monday.

The August 1989 theft of the U.S. $20 million in jewels included a 50-carat blue diamond, which authorities never recovered and remains at the heart of the diplomatic rift.

Prayuth is honored by the invitation from Saudi Arabia, Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana, a spokesman at the prime ministers office, told a press conference in Bangkok.

This will be the first high-level visit between the two countries in three decades, Thanakorn said.

This visit will help restore trust and improve the relations between the nations and the people.

In early 1990, months after the heist, two Saudi diplomats and a telex operator assigned to Riyadhs embassy in Bangkok were killed in the Thai capital and a Saudi businessman sent by Riyadh to Thailand to investigate the jewelry theft disappeared, deepening tensions between the two kingdoms. The killings and the businessmans disappearance remain unsolved.

Prayuths two-day visit, scheduled to start on Tuesday, comes at the invitation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabias first deputy prime minister, who is considered the Saudi kingdoms de facto ruler.

This is wonderful news to receive an invitation to visit for the first time in 30 years, Thanakorn said.

Saudi Arabia said the visit marked an effort to strengthen joint relations and build bridges of communication with all countries worldwide, according to a Saudi government statement published by the state news agency.

The visit comes after consultations that resulted in a convergence of views on many issues of common concern, the statement said.

Analyst: Visit will benefit Thailand

Thailand stands to gain from Prayuths trip to Saudi Arabia, an analyst told BenarNews.

Prayuth and Salman will talk about the economy and trade, visas for Thai migrant workers, and increasing the number of Thai Muslims going to the Saudi kingdom for religious pilgrimages, said Salai Bawi, a political analyst at Chiang Mai University.

This effort to improve bilateral relations will definitely benefit Thailand. There are far fewer Thai workers in Saudi Arabia, which might pick up after this meeting, Salai said.

Another issue is the limited number of Muslims allowed to visit Saudi Arabia for Hajj and Umrah, Salai said.

According to Sarawut Aree, an academic with the Institute of Asian Studies at Chulalongkorn University, 200,000 Thai laborers worked in Saudi Arabia before 1989. The number has since decreased to only a few thousand.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, has not sent an ambassador to Thailand for decades.

Riyadh has also restricted travel between the two countries, impacting tourism and remittances by migrant workers.

The Thai Ministry of Commerce says the Southeast Asian country has imported crude oil and biochemicals from Saudi Arabia, while exporting rice, seafood and auto parts.

But things may be changing, according to Sarawut.

Saudi Arabia wants to create a new image among the global community and Thailand wants to fix the relationship because it has good relations with all countries in the Muslim world, except Saudi Arabia, Sarawut said in a blog post published in 2020.

Normalizing Saudi-Thai relations to pre-1989 levels is not impossible, but it will take time, Chiang Mai Universitys Salai said.

According to Sarawut, Thai-Saudi ties plummeted after the Thai police failed to find and return most of the jewels allegedly stolen by Thai-born palace worker Kriangkrai Techamong.

Thailand, in particular, could not recover the most precious stone, the stolen blue diamond.

Kriangkrai was arrested in 1990 and confessed to his crime, Thai authorities had said. A few of the stolen jewels were found and returned.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, alleged that of the jewels returned, some diamonds were not real.

The relationship worsened when the Saudis received what they thought were fake diamonds, Sarawut said in his blog, adding that the killings of the Saudi diplomats only exacerbated deteriorating relations.

In 2014, a Thai court dismissed the case against five men, including a senior Thai policeman, who were accused of involvement in the Saudi businessmans disappearance in 1990.

Kriangkrai, who had sold most of the gems before his arrest, was sentenced to three years in jail. He became a monk in 2016.
You know that feeling when youre riding a fancy brand-new rollercoaster and youre literally being smashed and banged around from side to side and never know what to expect next? Well, as cheesy as it sounds, I can think of no better analogy to describe my college experience  a rollercoast
Bennington, VT (05201)

Today

Rain. High 56F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low 46F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.
Federal trials in Massachusetts, including at the United States Federal Court House in Springfield, will be suspended at least through Feb. 11 due to the omicron surge.
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.
We were thinking, Wow, that would be a good idea to expand it, Ha said. Asian cultures have a lot of similarities, but some differences as well, so we thought it would be interesting to look at Asian women and leadership, and we didnt see any book like that in the marketplace.



Though each chapter differs, a common thread was that its authors saw the need for additional leadership research in cultures that typically have not received much academic study.

While Asia has made enormous economic progress in the past few decades and Asian womens participation in economic and political activities has resulted in promoting their social status and leadership, the role of Asian womens leadership in their countries and abroad has not earned sufficient attention, said Chao, who is a professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

There is an immediate need to examine cultural differences with a gender perspective when researching Asian women leadership, she continued. Asia is significantly different from western countries where the mainstream of research studies on women in leadership has been conducted.



At the NCAs 2021 conference, the book won the International and Intercultural Communication Divisions Outstanding Co-Edited Book Award and the Asian/Pacific American Communication Studies Divisions Outstanding Book Award for its contribution to the communication field.

I think we have seen women leadership books, but we used a non-Western setting, which is very rare, Ha said. We were pleasantly surprised that both divisions saw the books value and awarded us in the same year.

BGSU faculty and alumni are a consistent presence in the published research.

Dr. Lisa Hanasono, an associate professor in the BGSU School of Media and Communication, co-authored a chapter, and the books table of contents is packed full of BGSU alumni whose research comprised multiple chapters.

In addition to Chao, Dr. Yahui Zhang, 08, Dr. Qi Tang 08, Dr. Dhiman 18 and Sriya Chattopadhyay 19, Nicky Chang Bi '19 and Fiouna Ruonan Zhang '19 all served as contributing authors for the book.



Has chapter, co-authored with Chang Bi and Zhang, covers Asian women leadership styles and experiences in academia in the U.S., China and Taiwan.

Zhang and Chao delved into politics, researching media portrayal of Chinese first lady Peng Liyuan and former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama.



Ha said the book had special meaning to her and Chao because of its topic and its connection to the University, so it was rewarding to see the NCA recognize the effort.

I think this book had a lot of meaning to us for several reasons, and one is that there was so much contribution from BGSU, Ha said. The second thing that I think is important is that there is a stereotype that women cannot be leaders, and we have shown a lot of examples  though there are constraints and difficulties  that they can be leaders.

We used those examples for people to consider as possibilities for women in general and Asian women in particular to aspire to leadership roles.
Spearfish, SD (57783)

Today

Cloudy with rain ending for the afternoon. High 52F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy early, then clearing overnight. Low 39F. Winds light and variable.
The atmosphere is full of joyful anticipation. Families and friends are dressed in festive clothing. The room is decorated with meaningful beauty. People smile while tears fill their eyes. Why do weddings fill our hearts with such emotion? Perhaps experiencing the union of bride and bridegroom is reminding our hearts of something for which we were made, toward which we are headed?

The Bible is full of allusions to Gods people being his bride. In the Old Testament, the prophets often portray Gods people as a beloved bride who is also often an adulterous wife. God is seen as a faithful husband who pursues and wins back his bride time and time again, whose steadfast love is strong and lasting.

For example, the book of Hosea portrays the prophet Hosea as being directed by God to remain faithful to a wife who was repeatedly unfaithful to him. This gives us a picture of what God is like in the face of our own idolatry (see Hosea 3).

Jeremiah also contains imagery of Gods people as a formerly loving bride who has now become a prostitute, chasing after other men who use and abuse her (see Jeremiah 2). Ezekiel portrays the tender and generous love of God for his people, which is then thrown in his face as he watches her not even accept payment for her prostitution, but instead bribe other men, paying them to let her be with them (Ezekiel 16). After showing the unfaithfulness of the people in dozens of chapters, Isaiah ends with a beautiful reaffirmation of Gods faithful and enduring love for His people:

It will no longer be said to you, Forsaken, nor to your land will it any longer be said, Desolate; but you will be called, My delight is in her, and your land, Married; for the Lord delights in you, and to Him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you; and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you (Isaiah 62:4-5).

What Does It Mean That Jesus Is the Bridegroom?

Instead of giving up on his adulterous people, God himself came near as Immanuel who dwelt among us. In the New Testament, John the Baptist calls himself a friend of Jesus, who is the bridegroom, saying: The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete (John 3:29).

Jesus also calls himself the bridegroom when he was criticized for not enforcing the level of fasting that the Pharisees practiced among his own disciples, saying: The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast (Matthew 9:15).

What Does It Mean That the Church Is the Bride of Christ?

Metaphorical language can be mysterious. It is a beautiful idea that the church is the bride of Christ, but what does this really mean? Paul explains the mystery after giving instructions to Christians husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:25-32:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

What Are Characteristics of the Bride of Christ?

Based on this passage, we see two main characteristics of the Church as the Bride of Christ: she is beloved and beautiful.

1. The Church Is Beloved by God

Just like a bridegroom loves his bride, God adores his Church. He hasnt merely professed his love in words, but also showed it through sacrificial actions: God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Sally Lloyd-Jones explains that the Bible is a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throneeverythingto rescue the one he loves.

All the great love stories of the world echo this greatest of love stories. And just like a good husband acts, Gods actions towards the Church are always full of love. He nourishes and cherishes her in everything. She is not left alone (Matthew 28:20). He has her back (Isaiah 58:8). He provides for (Philippians 4:19) and protects her in all things (2 Thessalonians 3:3).

2. The Church Is Radiantly Beautiful

Just like a glowing bride dressed in a white gown on her wedding day, the Church is portrayed in the Bible as washed and splendidly pure because of the work of Christ. Though the Church is made up of sinful people, redemption is a powerful restorative force that also looks forward to glory when everything wrong will be made rightwhen God sees his Church, he sees her made whole and holy, gloriously and graciously freed from the stains of sin and shining in the light of his love.

And just as He demonstrated in the Old Testament through the prophets who portrayed Gods people as a straying wife with an ever-faithful husband, we can rejoice that God delights to cleanse his bride in an ongoing way when she stumbles: If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

Still Awaiting Happily Ever After

As with so many aspects of the Christian life, there is an already, but not yet element to the Churchs identity as the Bride of Christ. This is the heavenly reality, but the wedding supper celebrating the eternal union of God with his people is still to come. As believers, we are told to await this feast with great joy and anticipation and to prepare ourselves.

Revelation 19:7 lets us see into the glorious future that is to come: Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. Revelation 21:2 is reminiscent of the glorious moment in a wedding ceremony when the bride appears: And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21:2).

Paul P. Enns sums up what we are preparing for: The church is the bride of Christ. The kingdom will be the eternal celebration of the wedding of Christ and the church. We will enjoy rapturous celebration as the bride of Christ in the eternal kingdom.

We can join with all believers throughout the ages, longing for our bridegrooms second coming, saying: Come, Lord Jesus! We are part of the greatest love story of all time, and just like in all great love stories, we truly will live happily ever after.

Photo credit: Unsplash/Chein Pham
SMITHS FERRY - Idaho's Highway 55 near Smiths Ferry will remain closed in both directions at least through Monday afternoon due to a rockslide that occurred on Saturday night. The Idaho Transportation Department said experts would be on site Monday to assess the safety and stability of the hillside before reopening the road to the traveling public.

ITD says it will issue an update on the situation Monday afternoon, once there is more information about when the road could reopen. Until the highway is reopened, travelers can use U.S. Highway 95 as the alternate route.
LEWISTON - For the second time, the Idaho Animal Rescue Network has been named a recipient of a $5,000 spay/neuter grant from the Pet Lovers Fund.

Last year, using the funds the rescue partnered with the Lewis Clark Animal Shelter, Helping Hands Rescue, Nez Perce Tribal Housing Authority, Stella's Shelter Fund and the Nez Perce Tribe to host a vaccine/microchip clinic in Lapwai. At the clinic, spay and neuter vouchers were distributed to those in attendance.

Funds from this grant come from Idaho's Pet Friendly License Plate sales. The Pet Friendly License Plate fund was established in 2019 and raises money from the sale of the plates to assist low-income citizens with spay and neutering services for their dogs and cats.

To learn more, visit petfriendlyplate.com.
Paula Cunningham has retired twice.

Well, I transitioned twice, she said.

Cunningham was the president of Lansing Community College then the CEO of Capitol National Bank. Shes been the state director for AARP Michigan since 2015.

Shes representative of many older Americans who want to stay in the workplace, even in the face of possible age discrimination.

Not only are people waiting longer to retire, but theyre going back to work after they retire, Cunningham said. They want to go back to work.

Close to one in three Americans in their 50s plan to postpone their retirement, and that number goes to one in five for those in their 60s, according to a January survey by SimplyWise, a retirement planning website.

Those are the highest numbers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to AARP.

As older Americans postpone retirement, the workforce ages.

Among those 75 and older, the labor force is expected to grow by 96.5% by 2030, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But many older American workers are experiencing age discrimination, which is at its highest since 2003. According to AARP, 78% of older workers have seen or experienced age bias on the job.

In Michigan, 2,489 age discrimination claims were made with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2017. This makes Michigan  which has the ninth-largest population  12th in the nation for claims made.

In mid-January, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a Saginaw County case filed by a former human resources department employee who was turned down at age 60 when she applied for a different position. Coventry Medical Center hired a younger applicant instead.

A jury awarded Denise Doster $540,269 in damages, but a Court of Appeals panel threw out the verdict. Now Doster wants the Supreme Court to reinstate the award.

AARP, whose members are 50 or older, runs a program to help older applicants bypass discriminatory employers. Meanwhile, many older workers are calling for more legal protections, including a tougher federal law.

Discrimination often takes the form of comments pushing an older employee to retire or expressing the desire for a younger employee, said Jennifer Salvatore, a Detroit-based civil rights lawyer.

It can also include choosing a younger job applicant over an older one because of their age. In an extreme case, Salvatore said an employer set an illegal policy requiring employees to retire at 59.

In some ways, I feel like its almost more socially acceptable for people to discriminate based on age than it is to discriminate based on race or gender, Salvatore said. You hear more comments, you hear more direct evidence of age discrimination than you do other types of discrimination.

Michigan AARP and Michigan Works! run a program where employers can list a job opening and an application is emailed to AARP Michigans 1.3 million members. AARP also hosts hiring events where employers and applicants can meet.

Cunningham said those employers know beforehand that applicants are older, which helps prevent discrimination.

The program was piloted in 2019 in Grand Rapids, Lansing and Detroit  74 people were hired during that pilot run. After that, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the program to virtual.

There are more than 100,000 unfilled jobs in Michigan, according to Pure Michigan Talent Connect.

Older Michigan residents can help fill these vacancies, Cunningham said, and bring more experience to the table.

The data has shown over and over and over again that older adults are more reliable, Cunningham said. They come to work on time, they stay all day. They dont have drama. Theyre great mentors for younger people in the workplace, so we need to get them connected to employers.

Older workers tend to be more reliable and show up to work more consistently, according to a 2018 study in the academic journal Revista De Gestao.

There are federal and state laws protecting older workers. At the federal level, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects those who are 40 and older. In Michigan, the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act protects older residents.

But 96% of older workers said laws to combat age discrimination should be stronger, according to a 2020 AARP survey.

Salvatore said that the trend toward mandatory arbitration of disputes hurts all workers, including those who experience age discrimination. That means that employees sign a policy waiving their right for disputes to be heard in court by a jury rather than by an arbitrator who is often more likely to be pro-employer.

To strengthen protections for older workers, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in November that would make clear that job applicants are covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

Senate passage is uncertain due to a lack of Republican support, according to an article in Forbes.

If age discrimination is curbed, older workers can help fill the current labor gap, Cunningham said.

For every job thats unfilled, it impacts our economy. People are not going to the movies (or) going to dinner because theyre not working, she said. It is a real issue for the state of Michigan.
To explore opportunities for further collaboration and knowledge sharing

The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in South Korea and the National Vaccine Institute (NVI) of Thailand have signed a Definitive Agreement to strengthen the collaborative partnership between the two organizations.

The agreement was signed by Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of the IVI, and Dr. Nakorn Premsri, Director of NVI, witnessed by Dr. Manki Song, Deputy Director General of Science of IVI, and Dr. Sunate Cheunkitmongkol, Deputy Director of NVI.

This agreement will strengthen the collaborative relationship enjoyed by IVI and NVI since NVIs establishment in 2018. IVI has been working on several vaccine R&D programs in Thailand since 2002, including an HPV single-dose study, a Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) country investment case study, Dengue vaccine research and clinical trials, an Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) Phase II clinical trial, and studies on Shigella and Japanese Encephalitis (JE).

As of 2022, IVI is conducting several clinical trials in Thailand, including Phase II/III clinical trial of Chikungunya vaccine, SK bioscience COVID-19 vaccine trials, Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial with Mahidol University. These programs have been conducted in collaboration with local partners in Thailand, including the Thai CDC, the Ministry of Public Health, and NVI.

From 2002 until 2019, over 70 Thai scientists and physicians have received training in IVIs annual International Vaccinology Course held in Seoul, South Korea. In 2021, NVI supported IVIs 20th International Vaccinology Course, which was held virtually, and 182 registrants were from Thailand.
The study conducted in TN, Kerala, Odisha, and Punjab identifies key operational, logistic and infrastructural challenges in drug delivery system

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) and Krea University, Chennai, have conducted a study that can help states boost medical deliveries. The study showed that fill rates of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha, and Punjab could potentially rise to 53 per cent as compared to an average fill rate of 30.95 per cent.

These four states were chosen for the study as they were the largest Indian states with the largest populations in the country. Essential medicine procurement in the Indian Public health system is undertaken by the state-level medical service corporations (MSC). Some states, such as Kerala, follow a centralised system, while others like Punjab. Tamil Nadu and Odisha follow a decentralised system, which is a mix of the two.

The study found that despite the operational, logistic, and infrastructural challenges that exist in the current drug supply system, several measures can be undertaken by state governments to considerably ease the system and address the medicine shortage.

The study focussed on issues that are identified in the procurement process of essential medicines. The medicine procurement data and contract information from the four States were central to the current study.

The entire research and modelling were done based on data available in the public domain, with advice from policymakers.
After leaving Ogilvy in 2019, after five years at the agency, Pete Case has returned as interim CEO of the Ogilvy South Africa Group. In this exclusive interview to Bizcommunity.com, Pete shares why he has returned to Ogilvy.

Pete Case, new interim CEO of Ogilvy

Previously you were chief creative and innovation officer at Ogilvy. How is your new role different?

Ive always found benefit from the reality that the worlds biggest and most exciting changes take place at times of adversity and thats where I feel we are as an industry right now.

When you left Ogilvy, you said it was the right time to leave (although you said: there is never a right time to leave Ogilvy). Why is this the right time to return?

You played an integral role in forming Ogilvy SAs industry-leading position after joining the company in 2014. In 2022 what are the goals you are setting for yourself and the agency?

During this time, and longer, you also worked as a creative business consultant investing and mentoring small businesses. What did you learn from this that you think is pertinent to a bigger business such as Ogilvy?

"I think its increasingly relevant in the current turbulent times we find ourselves in to believe in ones own ambition and not follow the crowd. Ive seen a tendency in the market to copy and undercut  which I feel is a fight to the bottom."

In 2018 in a Bizcommunity opinion piece you said to keep brands relevant in this fast-changing world, your biggest focus areas will be to help simplify the process for clients and make sense of all the noise, to nurture future shaped talent, to keep an investment and focus on agency culture inside an age of procurement and to deliver highly potent and engaging creative, within faster timelines and often in real time: At the speed of culture. Has this remained the same or has it changed?

Pete Case founded Gloo, a digital marketing business, when digital marketing wasnt even a business yet. Fast forward to Gloo being part of Ogilvy, and Pete ranked number 1 as chief creative officer in South Africa and number 9 in the Global WARC report, with Ogilvy was ranked the Number 1 creative and effective agency. He has won over 1,000 industry design and marketing awards for effective and creative marketing, including four Grand Prix at Cannes, eight Loerie Grand Prix and two Emmy Awards.Previously my focus was on the end product that Ogilvy creates. It was a fast paced, exciting and rewarding role that entailed amongst others, modernising the work across the group by increasing the fusion of digital with more traditional thinking. My new appointment has more of a holistic view and role that allows me to apply my wider business experience and skills, especially the ones I have gained over the years when I started and grew my own advertising and design businesses.I will also bring in my learnings from my most recent role, last year, when I assisted in the implementation of Ogilvys latest strategy across various country offices in the global network. Ultimate success in our industry is about creating consistently impactful work - it creates growth for its clients and the agencys own people.I feel very energised to work with the teams across Ogilvy, to achieve this goal for some of the greatest and most loved brands in South Africa.It was an extremely hard choice to leave in 2019 as I love the industry, but on a personal level I hadnt taken a break since starting my first business back in 1990. After working in a series of different businesses since then and weekly commuting between cities for over a decade, I simply felt I deserved a break.For those that know me, Im not a relax on the beach for a year type of person so my break consisted of a change of scenery where I enjoyed working again with start-ups and small businesses, looking at the wider picture of creating a healthy business.I also spent time consulting with the worldwide Ogilvy network and was reenergised by the new strategy put in place by Andy Main and the new global leadership.So, when I was approached for this role, it felt like a great fit - a company I like, a global strategy that feels truly relevant, a lot of faces that I know and respect both locally and globally, alongside a remarkably interesting socio-economic time.Ive always found benefit from the reality that the worlds biggest and most exciting changes take place at times of adversity and thats where I feel we are as an industry right now. Opportunity awaits those that shift and evolve with the times. Its with this positive headspace that I enter the new role.At this stage all I can really share is that together as a leadership team, we are very ambitious. So watch this space!Meantime the recent appointments of Samantha Presbury as PR managing director, Kabelo Moshapalo as CCO and Zoe Willems as head of strategy, alongside the promotions of Saf Sindhi as creative partner and Mel Carney to lead our experience offering  are all indications of the calibre of people that were building to lead a new era of Ogilvy South Africa.As mentioned earlier, I rekindled a previous skillset and realised that a broader CEO role would be a challenge Id be open to accept it if it came along.A common theme Ive seen in the business mindset, is that when youre a small business you wish you were big and when youre big you wish you were smaller! Ive sat on both sides of this fence many times and I intend to use every advantage of that knowledge.Meantime through my more recent work, Ive really seen the strength of the Ogilvy network in practical terms. And I think this has previously been an underutilised tool here in SA. The strength of coupling locally relevant insights with the power of borderless creativity and technology from the globe.I dont think the industry has moved forward as much as it could or should have done since 2018. There are many reasons for this, but ultimately for me this means that the points I made remain relevant today for anyone in our industry.What stands out as the most important for me, is the fight to attract, grow and nurture talent, as I believe our business success starts with having the best people. The strategy, mindset and approach all flow from there.I think its increasingly relevant in the current turbulent times we find ourselves in to believe in ones own ambition and not follow the crowd. Ive seen a tendency in the market to copy and undercut  which I feel is a fight to the bottom. I believe that the clients we really want to attract and help, appreciate originality in the work they buy and will embrace lateral thinking when it comes to procurement.A final point is ensuring an agencys ability to look beyond the creation of awareness. The concept of making consumers aware is only a quarter of the power of what we need to do for our clients if we want to be true growth partners for them. The most value is post this initial phase into consideration, engagement, interaction, and re-engagement.Im excited to show the market where we can further unlock this value at the intersections of deep specialism where content and platform experiences meet data, insights, performance media and retargeting.
Premier Alan Winde accompanied President Cyril Ramaphosa last week to the launch of the Accelerate Africa's Access to Advanced Healthcare (AAAH) coalition and the official opening of the NANTSA vaccine manufacturing campus in Cape Town.

Source: Premier Alan Winde. The interior of the new NantSA vaccine plant opened in Cape Town at the same time as the launch of the AAAH coalition .

Growing Cape Town's health-technology sector

SA positions itself to be a global leader in pharmaceutical supply

Supporting the growth of the country's bio-technology firms

Source: Alan Winde. South African-American businessman Patrick Soon-Shiong opens a new vaccine plant in Cape Town.

Wednesday marked the launch of Africas Access to Advanced Healthcare (AAAH) coalition with NANTSA which aims to manufacture a billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by 2025.The coalition also aims to establish innovative manufacturing techniques to provide new treatments for life-threatening diseases including cancer, Covid-19, Tuberculosis and HIV/Aids."I had the opportunity to join President Ramaphosa in welcoming this launch, led by Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, which includes biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, various levels of government, NGOs, and academia  to bolster this manufacturing sector," Winde said."The fact that this investment is happening right here in Cape Town is great news for our economy, which already has a growing health-technology sector and is well-positioned to grow over the next decade. This is critical as we focus on the second pandemic of unemployment, by creating the jobs we need to recover."It is also inspiring that Cape Town, will play a major role in ensuring that access to life-saving vaccines is achieved across the African continent. Throughout our vaccination programme, we have emphasized that access and equity are non-negotiables to a successful programme because every life matters and no person should be left behind. This should be the case within South Africa, but also across the world."I am also excited about what this means for our established health-technology sector in the province. This sector generated nearly R1bn (R912.3m) in medical devices and pharmaceutical exports in 2019. Between 2015 and 2019, pharmaceutical exports saw a year-on-year increase."Nationally, the pharmaceutical and medical-devices markets were at an estimated R62.7bn and R19.7bn respectively in 2020, and were expected to grow to R90.4bn and R29.6bn respectively by 2025. If we leverage this clear competitive advantage, we can become global leaders in this space and ensure, that right here at the southern tip of Africa, we play a leading role in the fight against the major health challenges of our time."In supporting NANTSA - a division of NANTWorks - we, together with Wesgro and the City of Cape Town, have been facilitating since 2020, site visits and providing technical details on properties being considered for the campus. This has included the streamlining of property planning and approval processes."The Western Cape Government has also supported businesses in the biologics, pharmaceutical and vaccine space more generally by partnering with Wesgro - the City of Cape Towns economic investment unit - and the Department of Science and Innovation since 2011 to support growth."In the last two years alone, we have supported the following initiatives:* Afrigen and WHO hub: together with the City of Cape Town, we have facilitated Afrigens property-permitting and planning-approval processes to enable a more efficient process towards their establishment of the World Health Organisations first mRNA technology transfer hub in Africa.* Biovac expansion to accommodate Pfizer vaccine-production facilities on current site: Wesgro facilitated Biovacs permitting and planning applications for expansion on their current site to enable vaccine manufacturing. The building plans for the modification of the facilities were received on 25 November, 2021."We have also supported the broader health-tech industry in the Western Cape by:* Establishing the Health Tech Business Week for industry B2B and B2G engagements, hosted on a virtual platform during the pandemic.* Promoting the industry by creating and distributing the health-tech industry promotional publication, "Health Tech Pioneers".* Supporting the establishment of the Western Cape Medical Devices Cluster towards increased production and export.* Placing 12 health-tech companies on the Endeavor accelerator programme for export purposes."We know that we need to roll out the red carpet for investors and make doing business as easy as possible in our province. We can accelerate economic growth and create jobs if we do so. This is our number one priority."I want to especially thank and recognise Dr Soon-Shiong for his pioneering contribution to our region. Our investment teams stand ready to assist you as you execute this amazing project so that we not only save lives but also create jobs, in our country and on our continent."
Pulse Communications is run by the dynamic duo of Samantha Thomas and Kirsten Roos and we find out more about the small, dynamic team, that specialises in strategic direction and implementation related to public relations, influencer engagement, content creation and stakeholder engagement.

Samantha Thomas and Kirsten Roos

Can you tell us a little more about Pulse Communications?

When, how and why did you get started?

What is the core function of Pulse Communications?

Could you name some of your clients?

What are some of the obstacles you've had to face since you started?

Have you received any funding to get Pulse Communications up and running? If so, what was the process like?

What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs?

As an entrepreneur, what would you like to see changed in the South African landscape?

Where would you like to see Pulse Communications in the next five years?

Born out of a passion for purpose-led communications, Pulse Communications aims to reinvigorate brands through impactful storytelling, meaningful relationships and an expert grasp of the media landscape and is run by two partners, Kirsten Roos and Samantha Thomas.Specialised in public relations, influencer engagement, campaign management and execution, content creation and creative concepts; Pulse Communications has the understanding and experience that communications needs are unique to each individual business, offering tailored strategic communications services that drive internal and external messaging to support a brands objectives.All work produced by Pulse Communications is done so with intent, and integrity at the core, with the ambition to achieve effective and top-quality results.The business was started in the midst of the 2020 pandemic, originally with the intent to service small businesses struggling financially off the back of the economic crisis. Whilst Pulse Communications does still offer services to small businesses, at competitive rates, the business has evolved and grown to work with larger establishments too - which we are very proud of.We are firm believers in acknowledging and owning your strengths  and not accepting work you dont believe you can create an impact on. With this said, our passion and skillset lies in the management and execution of public relations, content creation, influencer relations, partnerships and creative concepts, credited to our years of prior agency experience.We offer white-labelling services to larger agencies across the country, and whilst we cannot divulge who, we have had the opportunity to work on some exciting global and local brands. During our tenure, weve worked across brands such as local furniture manufacturer, Balconybar; provided publicity services to young activist and philanthropist, Tony McPherson; and conceptualise, manage and execute on a variety of beauty conglomerate, ARC Stores, brands such as Huda Beauty, Kayali and Wishful Skin.Starting, building and running a business is not for the faint of heart - weve faced many obstacles which weve come to recognise as learning opportunities to support us in our growth. The biggest obstacle  or realisation  has been the unknown of owning a business, specifically financial forecasting and capacity planning. Weve worked hard and quickly to ensure that we have the right experts in our team to advise and support us in our development.Pulse Communications has been entirely self-funded  something we are immensely proud of. We were lucky enough (read: hard-working) to land a major account in our first two months of operation which provided the capital to boost the business and which we attribute to the solid relationships that weve built in the industry over the past decade.Be brave. The discomfort that you feel in your gut is what pushes you to do better, think bigger and take chances  dont ignore it.As entrepreneurs behind a small business, wed like to see more opportunities available for SMEs to pitch against larger corporations for business. Data shows that only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more, with up to 45% failing within their first five years. There are many attributions to this  such as leadership issues within the company, business processes and requirements of potential clients, outdated thinking all-around  which may hinder growth and the opportunity to succeed.Our defining word, since the business launched, has  and will continue to be  growth. Were looking to grow the business, provide job opportunities and continue to work with clients that were passionate about over the next few years with our end-goal being that we developed an agency adept at creating meaningful impact for our clients.
How amateur U.S. "China experts" stir up hostility

Xinhua) 08:22, January 24, 2022

-- The past few years have witnessed how a cohort of charlatans, who claimed to be experts on China, managed to incite hostility towards the Asian country rather than bridging the U.S. understanding gap about it.

-- Lacking knowledge about how traditional Chinese thoughts including Confucianism came to shape Chinese social interactions, and how human rights operate in China, those "China experts" have relentlessly launched a smear campaign after the Chinese rejected their projection of a Western way of thinking on China.

-- To restore the U.S. image as the leader of Western democracy, some U.S. experts and politicians have since then colluded to divert attention from the deep-seated problems within the U.S. systems and portray China as the nemesis of the so-called "Free World."

Photo taken on Oct. 28, 2021 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Understanding one another is a difficult task, whether among citizens or between nations. Misunderstanding occurs as a result of disparities in culture, history, ideology, or political systems.

"But it is essential for our nations (the United States and China) to appreciate the other," said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in his greeting message to the 2021 Understanding China Conference.

For decades, a group of renowned U.S. China hands, including the late Harvard scholar Ezra Vogel, who helped bridge the United States and East Asia, have dedicated their careers to studying and then introducing China to the American public, so that the two countries could better understand and cooperate with each other.

Unfortunately, the past few years have witnessed how a cohort of charlatans, who claimed to be experts on China, managed to incite hostility towards the Asian country rather than bridging the U.S. understanding gap about it.

CHARLATANS CRAWLING OUT OF THE WOODWORK

A news junkie today could easily lose count of the number of self-proclaimed "China experts" quoted by U.S. news outlets, who either smear China or extol the importance of confronting China in critical fields.

"Throughout the various government administrations, I believe I had a pretty good understanding of who the (China) experts were and who, in fact, was influencing the decision makers," wrote Chi Wang, president of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation who previously served as the head of the Chinese section at the U.S. Library of Congress.

Today, however, individuals who have no qualms over claiming expertise "are crawling out of the woodwork," Wang lamented, warning that it is easy to pretend to be an expert when no one is checking the credentials.

"It seems everyone with a pen, an opinion, and an audience is suddenly somehow an expert on arguably the most complex bilateral relationship in the world," said Wang, also a professor of U.S.-China relations and modern China at U.S. Georgetown University.

Failing to study and comprehend why China's development path fits its national conditions, those "China experts" blatantly attempt to tamper with history by claiming that the U.S. policy of engagement with China had gone under because Washington had failed to "induce change" in it.

Lacking knowledge about how traditional Chinese thoughts including Confucianism came to shape Chinese social interactions, and how human rights operate in China, those "China experts" have relentlessly launched a smear campaign after the Chinese rejected their projection of a Western way of thinking on China.

People visit the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the United States, Jan. 17, 2022. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

"I would say the West does not understand China. It makes precious little attempt to try to understand China," Martin Jacques, a well-known British China scholar, said in an interview with Chinese media.

"Because Westerners have been brought up to essentially believe their way of doing things is the exemplar for the rest of the world and the Western paradigm is superior to all others," said Jacques, who until recently was a Senior Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University.

SPECULATORS PUSHING OWN AGENDA

Among those self-proclaimed U.S. "China experts," some are constantly competing for prominence in the field by selectively using texts to push their policy preferences.

In the past years, some U.S. pundits have joined the political and military elites in Washington to peddle the so-called "Chinese military threat" by selectively quoting reports on the Chinese defense budget.

"There is a lot of selective listening going on among American securocrats and pundits, who filter out Chinese explanations of what China is doing and replace these with their own speculation and conjecture about what the Chinese ought to be doing to be able to contend with us for global hegemony," Chas Freeman, the U.S. retired diplomat who served as late U.S. President Nixon's interpreter during his 1972 trip to China, said at a Middle East Policy Council event.

"Without such a threat from China, it is increasingly difficult to justify perpetuation of the huge force structure and defense industrial base we developed to do battle with the USSR," he noted.

Unlike those speculators who sought prominence by deliberately demonizing China's peaceful development, Freeman, also the director for Chinese affairs at the U.S. State Department from 1979 to 1981, sought to understand China's relationship with the rest of the world by studying its rich repository of ancient ideas.

"China is still the homeland of the great strategist, Sunzi, and it takes seriously his insight that the best wars are those that are never fought," he said.

After introducing to his audience China's subjugation by Western and Japanese imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries and enumerating the challenges of governing China, Freeman correctly concluded that China has a great many things about domestic development on its mind and "not much inclination to pick fights with foreigners."

"Not surprisingly, China's leaders have made the maintenance of a peaceful international environment the organizing principle of their foreign policy," he said.

People wait for COVID-19 testing in the Queens borough of New York, the United States, Dec. 29, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

BIGOTS FOSSILIZED BY COLD WAR THINKING

Ever since COVID-19 broke out about two years ago, every aspect of the still ravaging pandemic has exposed America's poor governance and devastating inequalities to both Americans and the rest of the world.

The myth of the United States as the so-called "beacon of democracy" was further shattered by the U.S. Capitol riots as well as the botched and chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

To restore the U.S. image as the leader of Western democracy, some U.S. experts and politicians have since then colluded to divert attention from the deep-seated problems within the U.S. democratic systems and portray China as the nemesis of the so-called "Free World."

As a result, the U.S. media, often with its own anti-China agenda, is now flooded with such sensational and tabloid-like headlines as "The Free World vs. China and Friends: It's ideology, stupid," in which self-claimed "China experts" clamor for an ideological showdown with China.

For the old generation of true China hands in the United States, though, it is crystal clear that China has no intention of exporting any ideology.

In his opening remarks at a one-on-one discussion hosted by the Institute of Peace &Diplomacy in September 2021, Freeman said that "inventing... predatory ideological aspirations for China serves domestic U.S. political purposes."

"The contest between America and China is not primarily military or ideological. It is about relative national strength and performance. China seems more focused on this reality than the United States," he said.

Photo taken on Sept. 17, 2021 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

It was also around this time that those "China experts," already hardened by Cold War thinking and ideological bigotry, willingly accepted the lies and fabrications of Adrian Zenz, a German right-wing religious extremist who has churned out a slew of ill-founded, sensational accusations against China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Adrian Zenz is not a so-called "expert on China studies," but a member of the far-right group "Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation" sponsored by the U.S. government. He is also a key figure in an anti-China organization set up by U.S. intelligence agencies and a notorious racist.

However, some U.S. experts and politicians are more than ready to accept the so-called findings of Zenz's unreviewed research that falsely claims that Xinjiang has carried out "forced sterilization" on the Uygur women despite significant rumor debunking by studies based on reliable sources.

People are programmed to believe whatever they want to believe. What distinguishes a true scholar from an imposter who pursues only self-interest is the former's dedication to the study of truth.

As the old generation of China experts in America retires, some are concerned that a new generation of U.S. scholars who truly understand China has yet to emerge.

"These pseudo-experts clamoring for their voices to be heard only add to the noise and make it increasingly difficult for policymakers and the average reader alike to come to informed conclusions about China and its relationship with the United States," Wang said.

Everyone who understands the importance of keeping China-U.S. relations on track should keep such an admonishment by an old China hand in mind. (Video reporters: Ding Ting, Zheng Yihan, Wang Jian; video editors: Peng Ying, Yin Le)

(Web editor: Peng yukai, Liang Jun)
Since taking NYC's top job, Adams has been confronted with a seemingly non-stop stream of high-profile violent crimes, including a subway-pusher who killed an Asian woman, unleashing a frenzy about security on the badly underfunded MTA.

Speaking in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America", Adams, a former police officer, said that local police departments aren't well equipped to disrupt gun trafficking organizations, and that this task would be better left up to the Feds.

"The police department is doing their job taking thousands of guns off the streets, yet each time you take a gun off, theres a constant flow of new guns coming here," Adams said. "And if we dont coordinate to go after those gun dealers that are supplying large cities in America such as New York, we are losing the battle, and the federal government must step in and play a role in doing so."

During an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union", Adams said that street cops can't seize guns fast enough given the constant stream of guns being supplied to NYC.

"We have to stop the flow of guns. We are removing thousands of guns off our streets, and it appears for every gun weve removed from the street, five are coming in. That is unacceptable," he said on "CNNs State of the Union."

All of this follows an emotional speech from Hizzoner on Friday evening, where he lamented that "there are no gun manufacturers in New York Cit. We don't make guns here," but somehow, so many still find their way into the hands of criminals who reside in the Big Apple.

We need Washington to join us and act now to stop the flow of guns in New York City and cities like New York.

Lashawn McNeil, the 47-year-old man who allegedly shot the pair of NYPD cops Friday evening, used a Glock .45 with a high-capacity ammunition magazine that was stolen from Baltimore in 2017, the NYPD said.

Adams wasn't the only New York Democrat to pledge a crackdown on gun trafficking and related crime. Gov. Kathy Hochul claimed in a statement this weekend that she had "tripled" funding to stop guns coming into the Empire State. She also said we need "Washington teaming up with locals teaming up with us" to get it done.

Last night, a shot from an illegal gun took the life of a @NYPDnews officer.



When I say were going to do everything we can to stop the scourge of illegal guns in our state, its not just talk. We are tripling funding for efforts to get these guns off the streets. pic.twitter.com/zXv0xbL4Em  Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) January 22, 2022

During his primary campaign for the Democratic nomination, Adams staked his political fortunes on his ability to assuage the city's worsening crime problem. So far, he's been off to a rough start. But immediately calling for help from Washington doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Maybe NYC can get AOC to raise a citizen's watch so Gracie Mansion doesn't have to be put in the awkward position - politically speaking - of raising spending on law enforcement after the 'defund the NYPD' movement of 2020 led to meaningful budgetary cutbacks.
Major western news publications are running a story about a sinister plot by the Russian government, and - you may want to sit down for this - the sources of the report are anonymous, and the evidence for it is secret.

The New York Times reports that according to anonymous individuals within the US and British governments, Russia is currently plotting to topple the existing government of Ukraine in some way using some method and then somehow install a puppet regime that is sympathetic to Moscow using some sort of means. What specifically those means and methods might be are not revealed to us in this very serious news report.

The communique provided few details about how Russia might go about imposing a new government on Ukraine, and did not say whether such plans were contingent on an invasion by Russian troops, the Paper of Record informs us.

British officials familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the intent was both to head off the activation of such plans as well as to put Mr. Putin on notice that this plot had been exposed.

Sounds like Britain has taken what the US actually did to Ukraine in 2014, and rebooted it for Russia. Here's Obama-Biden official Victoria Nuland & then-US Amb. Geoffrey Pyatt privately deciding to install Arseniy Yatsenyuk ("Yats is the guy") as Ukraine's next Prime Minister: https://t.co/PDoXBIY5kM pic.twitter.com/0fTraRMEvl  Aaron Mate (@aaronjmate) January 22, 2022

Now if you are hoping to be provided with some sort of evidence for these incendiary claims, Im afraid Im going to have to disappoint you, because get this: the journalists reporting on this story have not seen any evidence. Apparently theyre just passing on unverified government assertions made by unknown spies to their readers because they were told to, which I guess is something journalists can do now?

I know, I know, I was a little surprised when I learned that too. But here it is, straight from the horses mouth:

The British communique provided no evidence to back up its assertion that Russia was plotting to overthrow the Ukrainian government, the Times reports.

You will be reassured however to learn that despite the actual evidence of the actual Russian nefariousness being kept invisible to us, anonymous officials within the US government have reviewed the intelligence gathered by anonymous British spies for us and concluded on our behalf that the evidence is solid.

In Washington, officials said they believe the British intelligence is correct. Two officials said it had been collected by British intelligence services, The New York Times informs us.

You see that?

These claims about a devious Russian conspiracy have been confirmed by anonymous government operatives in both the US and the UK. Thats two separate, completely unconnected governments independently verifying that these claims are true. Thats called independent corroboration, gentlesirs. Basically the same as ironclad proof.

This story  which the British government has handed to media outlets  is so fake that it doesn't sound remotely credible to anyone who knows anything about Ukraine.



If Russia were to conjure a scheme like this, Moscow would choose someone from the largest opposition party. https://t.co/9JfyZ6Atb0  Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) January 23, 2022

It does seem a little strange to me, though, that after taking great license to report anonymous government assertions without evidence The New York Times seems to take issue with the Russian government making unevidenced claims.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied any intention of launching an attack against Ukraine, dismissing such accusations as hysteria and claiming without providing evidence that it is the government in Kyiv that is seeking to escalate tensions, write the articles authors.

When this report came out I was a bit surprised by the way unproven claims by anonymous government sources are treated as actual news stories for grown adults to read instead of empty nothing stuff to be ignored and flushed down our mental toilet tubes, as Im sure you were too. But I did a little digging and it turns out that this sort of thing is actually quite commonplace within western news media institutions, like when we were told without evidence that the Russians were plotting a false flag operation in Ukraine, or like when we were told without evidence that the Russians are using high-tech ray guns to scramble the brains of US diplomats and spies and it turned out to be baseless, or like when we were told without evidence that the Russians were paying Afghan resistance fighters to kill western occupying troops and it turned out to be false and wrong, or like when we were told without evidence that Russians interfered in the United States election and it monopolized all news reports and political discourse for years, or like when we were told without evidence for years and years that Russia was about to invade Ukraine any minute now and then it kept not happening.

Im sure this time is different, though. After all that practice and all that trial and error, Im sure our trusted news media institutions have perfected their craft and are now masters at reporting the truth.

* * *

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During the past week, the world has looked on as the now two-year long COVID-19 mainstream media narrative collapsed almost instantaneously.

In timing that cannot be described as anything less than suspect, in the same week that the World Economic Forum held its virtual Davos Agenda event, Ireland and Britain announced the sudden and immediate ending of virtually all Covid measures and the World Health Organisation called for the end of Covid-related travel restrictions, with the organisation also stating that the end of the Pandemic may be in sight, in stark contrast to a recent announcement that such a prediction was premature.

With the theme of the World Economic Forums 2022 annual summit meeting, due to be held in May and the first in-person meeting of the forum since 2019, being Working Together, Restoring Trust the optimistic among us may say that there has been an acceptance amongst the global elite that the growing awareness worldwide of the corporate power-grab over public life that the past two years has entailed, as well as the steady march towards a digital ID system as envisaged in Klaus Schwabs concept of the fourth industrial revolution via the use of vaccine passports, has become so widespread that it is no longer feasible to continue the current COVID-19 media narrative.

However, the sudden dropping of COVID-19 by the corporate media also presents the opportune moment to immediately switch its focus to something else  a possibly imminent false flag attack in Ukraine, used as a pretext for the Western-backed Kiev government to launch an attack on the breakaway pro-Russian republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east of the country, thus triggering an armed conflict between Ukraine and Moscow, one that has the strong possibility for worldwide ramifications.

Since the end of November, the Western media, in lockstep, has promoted the narrative that Russia is planning an imminent military invasion of its smaller Western neighbour  with Kiev having come under control of the US and EU backed governments of Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky since the 2014 CIA and MI6-orchestrated Euromaidan colour revolution was launched in response to then-President Viktor Yanukovychs November 2013 to suspend an EU trade deal in favour of pursuing closer ties with Moscow.

Despite the only evidence offered so far over the past two months of such an incursion being the legitimate movement of Russian troops within Russias own borders, the Neocon-influenced Western media still determinedly vows that a Russian invasion of Ukraine is only a matter of days away from taking place  in a manner not dissimilar to their previous assertions that Saddam Hussein had the capability to launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes in the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

The claims of a Russian invasion of Ukraine also come at a time of wider tensions in Eastern Europe with Russian President Vladimir Putin, alongside his Belarusian counterpart and sole European ally Alexander Lukashenko, being accused of attempting to destabilise the European Union via a build-up of African and Middle Eastern migrants on the Belarus-Poland border  the fact that many of said migrants are fleeing the wars and colour revolutions imposed on both regions by the US-NATO hegemony being conveniently ignored by the Western media.

Should a false flag attack be launched soon in order to trigger a conflict between Moscow and Kiev however, it would be a tactic with recent previous usage by the regime change lobby which, like a theoretical war between Russia and Ukraine, also almost resulted in a wider armed confrontation between Moscow and NATO  In 2017 and 2018, two chemical attacks where launched against the Syrian town and Khan Shaykhun and the city of Douma respectively, both attacks being blamed by the West on the Moscow-allied government of Bashar al-Assad and both resulting in the US launching cruise missile and air strikes against Syrian government targets  just stopping short of a full-scale military intervention.

Indeed the use of a chemical weapons provocation was outlined as such by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu only last month  a false flag attack that the Western mainstream media, with its sudden dropping of the COVID-19 narrative, may soon be focusing its attention on instead.
Five years following a potentially catastrophic incident that couldve inundated Islamic States former capital Raqqa and many towns downstream Euphrates River in eastern Syria and caused more deaths than the deployment of any weapon of mass destruction, the New York Times has finally mustered enough courage to report [1] that at the height of US-led international coalitions war against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, US B-52 bombers struck Tabqa Dam with 2,000-pound bombs, including at least one bunker-busting bomb that fortunately didnt explode.

In March 2017, alternative media was abuzz with reports that the dam was about to collapse and entire civilian population downstream Euphrates River needs to be urgently evacuated to prevent the inevitable catastrophe. But the US national security establishment had issued a gag order to mainstream media not to sensationalize the issue. The Times deserves a pat on the back for bringing the facts to the light, albeit five years too late.

The bombshell report notes that the dam was contested between US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the Islamic State. A firefight broke out in which SDF incurred heavy casualties. It was then that a top secret US special operations unit called Task Force 9 called for airstrikes on the dam.

The explosions on March 26, 2017, knocked dam workers to the ground. A fire spread and crucial equipment failed. The flow of the Euphrates River suddenly had no way through, the reservoir began to rise and authorities used loudspeakers to warn people downstream to flee.

The Islamic State group, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the US militarys no-strike list of protected civilian sites, and the commander of the US offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of US involvement were based on crazy reporting.

Its worth noting that it was the same rogue Pentagon General Stephen J. Townsend, currently the commander of US AFRICOM and then the commander of Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF)  Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) responsible for leading the war against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, who was responsible for another reckless confrontation an year later that brought two global powers engaged in the Syrian conflict almost to the brink of full-scale war.

On February 7, 2018, US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor province of eastern Syria that reportedly [2] killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the Russian private security firm, the Wagner Group.

The survivors described the bombing as an absolute massacre, and Moscow lost more Russian nationals in one day than it had lost during its entire military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September 2015.

Washingtons objective in striking Russian contractors was that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)  which is mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias  had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of the Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which was the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syrias northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies during Ankaras Operation Olive Branch in Syrias northwest that lasted from January to March 2018.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located to the east of the Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor.

The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF  mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive in outlook  was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of the Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently causing a carnage in which scores of Russian nationals lost their lives.

A month after the massacre of Russian military contractors in Syria, on March 4, 2018, Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent working for the British foreign intelligence service, and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a public bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury. A few months later, in July 2018, a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after touching the container of the nerve agent that allegedly poisoned the Skripals.

In the case of the Skripals, Theresa May, then the prime minister of the United Kingdom, promptly accused Russia of attempted assassinations and the British government concluded that Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a Moscow-made, military-grade nerve agent, novichok.

Sergei Skripal was recruited by the British MI6 in 1995, and before his arrest in Russia in December 2004, he was alleged to have blown the cover of scores of Russian secret agents. He was released in a spy swap deal in 2010 and was allowed to settle in Salisbury. Both Sergei Skripal and his daughter have since recovered and were discharged from hospital in May 2018.

In the aftermath of the Salisbury poisonings in March 2018, the US, UK and several European nations expelled scores of Russian diplomats and the Trump administration ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle.

In a retaliatory move, Russia also expelled a similar number of American, British and European diplomats, and ordered the closure of American consulate in Saint Petersburg. The number of American diplomatic personnel stationed in Russia drastically dropped from 1,200 before the escalation to 120 now, and the relations between Moscow and Western powers reached their lowest ebb since the break-up of the former Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in December 1991.

A month after the Salisbury poisonings in March 2018, an alleged chemical weapons attack took place in Douma, Syria, on April 7, 2018, and Donald Trump ordered a cruise missile strike in Syria on April 14, 2018, in collaboration with the Theresa May government in the UK and the Emmanuel Macron administration in France.

The strike took place little over a year after a similar cruise missile strike at al-Shayrat airfield on April 6, 2017, after an alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun, though both the cruise missile strikes were nothing more than a show of force, and the alleged chemical weapons attacks were at best dubious, as subsequently reported by credible sources.

But the fact that out of 105 total cruise missiles deployed in the April 14, 2018, strike against a military research facility in the Barzeh district of Damascus and two alleged chemical weapons storage facilities in Homs, 85 were launched by the US, 12 by the French and 8 by the UK aircrafts demonstrated the unified resolve of the Western regimes against Russia that couldve escalated into Third World War between two global powers, a doomsday scenario far more frightening than the collapse of Tabqa Dam on Euphrates River.

Citations:

[1] A dam in Syria was on a no-strike list. The US bombed it anyway:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html

[2] Russian toll in Syria battle was 300 killed and wounded:

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie/russian-toll-in-syria-battle-was-300-killed-and-wounded-sources-idUKKCN1FZ2EI

About the author:

Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.


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Bradford, PA (16701)

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Local Ukrainians are watching with nervous apprehension as a growing global military force rallies against a new potential Russian invasion of their home country.

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Local Ukrainians are watching with nervous apprehension as a growing global military force rallies against a new potential Russian invasion of their home country.

Olga Boiko, who has called Brandon home since 2010, said it has been stressful watching the news and speaking with family in Ukraine wondering what the future might hold.

The rising tensions in Ukraine are driven by the Russian government, she said. The Russian advancement has been an attempted show of force to scare the world, Boiko said, but it is affecting the lives and safety of people in Ukraine.

"For us, its, of course, its very nervous and very stressful. We feel angry when we hear the news, when we watch the news. Its hard to imagine how stressful and nervous that situation is for our families and other Ukrainian people," Boiko said. "I cannot imagine how they fall asleep and what they are even thinking about."

Outside of Ukraine and Russia, Canada has the worlds largest Ukrainian population, with about 1.3 million inhabitants identifying as such for the 2016 census.

It is a scary and unpredictable time in Ukraine because families do not know what each day will bring during the crisis. Things are often changing by the minute, she said.

"I talked to my parents this morning. They smile, they feel like what else can they do," Boiko said. She added her parents keep all of their important documents and essential items together in case of emergency.

Her parents have said, "we are not going to leave our house. We will defend it," Boiko exclaimed.

Boikos parents live in the northern part of Ukraine, close to Russia and Belarus. Boikos dad has told her every day they are greeted with an unimaginable amount of military might, moving closer to the border.

It is a scary and surreal situation, she said.

The Canadian Press reported Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops near the Russia-Ukraine border, leading to fears of an invasion. The West has rejected Moscows main demands  promises from NATO Ukraine will never be added as a member, no alliance weapons will be deployed near Russian borders and it will pull back its forces from Central and Eastern Europe.

Russias troop movements near Ukraine have prompted speculation across Europe about an imminent invasion, something Russia has denied. Russia has positioned about 100,000 troops across Ukraines borders along with tanks and other heavy artillery.

A statement from Ukraine said 200 men and women of the Canadian Forces have trained 32,000 Ukrainian military personnel to NATO standards, reported The Canadian Press. The mission is set to expire at the end of March. Though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken supportively of it, he has not formally extended it.

"We have hundreds of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles deployed along the Ukrainian border and in the occupied parts of Ukraines territory. Facing the risk of a further Russian invasion, we need to defend our land. The U.K. and the U.S. have already shipped the military equipment and we would appreciate it if Canada follows suit," said the statement.

The statement said Ukraines new Territorial Defense Forces are in place to counter that threat, but to "better equip them we highly seek to receive the critical supplies from our friends in Canada."

The diplomatic efforts to prevent an invasion continued Friday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.

Vasyl Marchuk has lived in Brandon for 14 years, and his parents and brothers still call Ukraine home.

Ukrainians will stay and fight for their country if push comes to shove, he said.

Ukrainians have done so in the past, such as during the revolution in 2014, Marchuk said. At the time, the Russian military forcibly annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula. Russia seized Crimea, and fighting in the east erupted that same year.

"They joined in Kyiv and stayed together, a big mass of people," he said. "They stayed together and if something happens, I think we will be together again."

Ukrainians across the world living in different countries were incredibly supportive in 2014, Boiko added, holding protests, fundraising, sending medical support and taking other actions to demonstrate their support for Ukraine.

Ukraine is a new country that wants to be treated with respect, Marchuk said, and Ukrainians do now want to see things return to what they were like before under the Soviet Union. Ukraine officially declared itself an independent country in August 1991, separating from the Soviet Union.

Marchuk worries the latest actions from Russia are pushing to force unification with the country once again.

"This is a huge message from people because they would never like to be slaves again," he said.

"Ukraine fights against an enemy almost all of her history. We are still a nation and we have our liberty and we would like to have it forever."

Boiko added she appreciates how other countries are eager to support Ukraine during this time of crisis.

"It makes us hopeful that Russia still wouldnt do anything, or Putin will realize that maybe thats too much, or he will think about possible results or conclusions for the whole world because we all know that the results may be very bad for not just Ukraine," Boiko said. "Nobody wants a third world war."

Canadians and the Canadian government have also shown support through offering aid to Ukraine, along with the United States and other European allies.

She hopes Canadians are watching or reading the news to understand the issue, as Ukraine is making daily appearances. Boiko encouraged those who are engaged with the topic to realize the seriousness of the current situation.

She has seen a rising number of people interested in Ukraine and appreciates how people are checking on her and her family.

Marchuk said he has seen the same increased interest. People want to know why Ukraine and Russia are fighting so they can better understand what they are seeing in the news.

He is thankful to the Brandon community and the help and care they have provided.

On Friday, The Canadian Press reported the Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa called on the Trudeau government to provide weapons to Ukraines military, impose further sanctions on Russia and extend and expand the Canadian military training mission of its forces.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Friday that Canada was giving Ukraine a $120-million loan to help bolster its economy as it faces a hostile buildup of Russian forces on its borders.

The Ukrainian statement said "Canadas firm political position in support of Ukraine can be reinforced" by the "extension and expansion of the Canadian military training mission" known as Operation UNIFIER, providing the defensive weapons and equipment, and "imposing severe sectoral sanctions."

It called Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Jolys visit to the country part of the "active" and supportive international diplomatic efforts toward Ukraine, noting the two countries have "a special partnership" and are celebrating the 30-year anniversary of their diplomatic relationship this week.

The Canadian Press reported Saturday that Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, has thanked Canada for a $120-million loan aimed at bolstering his countrys economy amid a hostile buildup of 100,000 Russian troops and hundreds of tanks and armoured personnel carriers along its borders.

A statement issued late Friday by the Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa said the loan represents another example of the "special partnership" between the two countries.

Canadas support of Ukraine could be reinforced by the extension and expansion of the Canadian military training mission known as Operation UNIFIER.

About 200 members of the Canadian Armed Forces have trained 32,000 Ukrainian military personnel to NATO standards.

After the meetings, Global Affairs Canada issued a statement saying Joly had reaffirmed Canadas support for Ukraines sovereignty and condemned Russias military buildup.

There was also a commitment to provide additional support to Ukraine, but no details were offered.

"I hope they support Ukraine," Boiko said.

 ckemp@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

 Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp
BRUSSELS (AP)  The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has put up to 8,500 troops on heightened alert, so they will be prepared to deploy if needed to reassure NATO allies in the face of ongoing Russian aggression on the border of Ukraine.

An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

BRUSSELS (AP)  The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has put up to 8,500 troops on heightened alert, so they will be prepared to deploy if needed to reassure NATO allies in the face of ongoing Russian aggression on the border of Ukraine.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said no final decisions have been made on deployments. He said the order is about ensuring that the U.S. is ready to respond if NATO decides to deploy its response force.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. European Union foreign ministers are aiming Monday to show a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of Ukraine, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

What this is about is reassurance to our NATO allies," Kirby said.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.

BRUSSELS (AP)  Tensions soared Monday between Russia and the West over concerns that Moscow is planning to invade Ukraine, with NATO outlining potential troop and ship deployments, Britain saying it would withdraw some diplomats from Kyiv, and Ireland denouncing upcoming Russian war games off its coast as unwelcome.

The Western alliances statement summed up moves already announced by member countries, but restating them under the NATO banner appeared aimed at showing its resolve. It was just one of a series of announcements that signaled the West is ramping up its rhetoric in the information war that has accompanied the Ukraine standoff.

Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraines border, demanding that NATO promise it will never allow Ukraine to join and that other actions, such as stationing alliance troops in former Soviet bloc countries, be curtailed. Some of these, like any pledge to permanently bar Ukraine, are nonstarters for NATO  creating a seemingly intractable deadlock that many fear can only end in war.

Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, left,, speaks with Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides, center, and Denmark's Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod during a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. European Union foreign ministers are aiming Monday to show a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of Ukraine, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Russia denies it is planning an invasion, and says the Western accusations are merely a cover for NATOs own planned provocations. Recent days have seen high-stakes diplomacy that failed to reach any breakthrough and maneuvering on both sides.

NATO said Monday it is bolstering its deterrence in the Baltic Sea region. Denmark is sending a frigate and deploying F-16 warplanes to Lithuania; Spain is sending four fighter jets to Bulgaria and three ships to the Black Sea to join NATO naval forces; and France stands ready to send troops to Romania. The Netherlands also plans to send two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria from April.

NATO will take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, Secretary-General jens Stoltenberg said. "We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

In Washington, Pentagon leaders have proposed a range of options for President Joe Biden to reinforce the U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltics as a demonstration of American commitment, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Romania's Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. European Union foreign ministers are aiming Monday to show a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of Ukraine, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

One of the officials said no specific deployments have been proposed but some unspecified U.S. military units have been told to plan for that possibility. The other official said Sunday it is possible that reinforcements could be sent from U.S. bases, in addition to possible shifts of troops within Europe, but for the moment the White House and Pentagon are only exploring options.

Weve always said we would reinforce our allies on the eastern flank and those conversations and discussions have certainly been part of what our national security officials have been discussing with their counterpart now for several weeks, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

Later Monday, Biden is to hold a video call with several European leaders on the Russian military buildup and potential responses to an invasion, the White House said.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was NATO and the U.S. who were behind the escalating tensions, not Russia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen makes a statement on EU financial support for Ukraine at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP)

All this is happening not because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is happening because of what NATO, the U.S. are doing, Peskov told reporters.

The NATO announcement came as European Union foreign ministers sought to put on a fresh display of unity in support of Ukraine, and paper over concerns about divisions on the best way to confront any Russian aggression.

In a statement, the ministers said the EU has stepped up sanction preparations and they warned that any further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine will have massive consequences and severe costs.

Separately, the EU also committed to increase financial support for embattled Ukraine, vowing to push through a special package of 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in loans and grants as soon as possible.

A woman walks past the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. The State Department is ordering the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave the country and allowing non-essential staff to leave Ukraine. The move comes amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine despite talks between U.S. and Russian officials. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday and said the U.S. would give Russia written responses to Moscows proposals this week, offering some hope that any invasion could be delayed for at least a few more days.

The West is nervously watching Russian troop movements and war games in Belarus for any signs of an invasion. Russia has already invaded Ukraine once, annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It also supported pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists fighting the Kyiv government in the country's eastern region known as the Donbass. About 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Asked whether the EU would follow a U.S. move and order the families of European embassy personnel in Ukraine to leave, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: We are not going to do the same thing.

Britain said it is withdrawing some diplomats and dependents from its Kyiv Embassy.

In this photo taken from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Russian military vehicles on a railway platform on their way to attend a joint military drills in Belarus, in Russia, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. Russia has sent an unspecified number of troops from the country's far east to its ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine, for major war games next month. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said an invasion was not inevitable, but the intelligence is pretty gloomy. He added that "I think that sense can still prevail.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said the U.S. decision was a premature step and a sign of excessive caution. He said Russia is sowing panic among Ukrainians and foreigners in order to destabilize Ukraine.

Germany has issued no similar order, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressing that we must not contribute to unsettling the situation further."

At the EU meeting, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said he would inform his counterparts about planned Russian war games 240 kilometers (150 miles) off southwestern Ireland  in international waters but within Ireland's exclusive economic zone.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen makes a statement on EU financial support for Ukraine at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP)

This isnt a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of whats happening with and in Ukraine. he said. The fact that they are choosing to do it on the western borders, if you like, of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that in our view is simply not welcome.

NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said they plan to send U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by Washington.

But questions have arisen about EU unity. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. About 40% of the EUs natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine, and many are skittish about being cut off from that supply in winter.

Diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EUs executive branch, the European Commission. They were reluctant to detail the measures but said they would come within days of any attack.

In talks with European allies throughout the crisis, administration officials said they have remained cognizant that Europes trade, energy and financial linkages with Russia are far more significant than they are for the U.S.

A senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said as theyve approached designing potential sanctions, theyve kept in the front of our mind the need to be responsible about their possible effect on European and global economies.

But the White House has also suggested theyve approached talks with Russia with a measure of confidence and backing from European allies that they didnt have before the annexation of Crimea.

Russia's brittle economy is overly reliant on energy exports. President Vladimir Putin has made clear his ambition to diversify the economy, particularly in sectors like defense and civil aviation, but the U.S. and European allies have a dominant position in producing and exporting the technologies, software and equipment crucial for Russia in those sectors.

Throughout the talks, European officials have underscored having a legitimate analysis and understanding of ... what will actually make Russia hurt and what the collateral costs might be, according to a second senior administration official.

___

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dasha Litvinova in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Jill Lawless in London, Robert Burns and Aamer Madhani in Washington, Mike Corder in The Hague, and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.
Corporate Australia has rejected claims by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce that businesses and individuals have been hoarding rapid antigen tests, saying Australia is a victim of the global supply chain crunch.

Mr Joyce told ABC Radio on Monday the government had been working hard to import rapid COVID tests but said the products were being hoarded, with both individuals and businesses buying more than they require.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has blamed the shortage of rapid antigen tests on hoarding by companies stockpiling them for workers. Credit:Chris Hopkins, Alex Ellinghausen

Corporations and businesses who buy up more than youd expect ... Its like saying youre not producing enough toilet paper because people are swiping it off the shelves, I dont know why they do it, but they do, Mr Joyce said.

His comments came as the government launched a national program to provide free tests to concession cardholders, despite pharmacists warning they will not have enough stock to fulfil demand.
A federal government plan to change defamation laws in a bid to crack down on online trolls has been dealt a fresh blow as the peak body for the legal profession said the Commonwealth should not intervene in defamation policy while the states and territories investigated better options.

Top lawyers have already warned that the Morrison governments proposal to amend defamation laws  traditionally a state and territory responsibility is likely to increase legal costs, waste court time and make it harder to get defamatory posts removed.

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash and Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the proposed defamation changes in November. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

In a submission to the federal government, released on Monday, the Law Council of Australia said the governments draft bill was unlikely to achieve its stated objectives and defamation law was a relatively ineffective mechanism ... for reducing trolling activity on social media.

Law Council of Australia president Tass Liveris said intervention at the federal level in the law of defamation should not occur while the states and territories completed a review of the laws that was already under way, under which better alternatives for reform were being investigated.
A new funding stoush looms between the federal government and the states over COVID-19 PCR tests, with Canberra seeking to recoup millions of dollars it suspects were incorrectly charged to Medicare by private pathology providers.

Health Minister Greg Hunt has sought an urgent investigation into millions of Medicare payments, each worth at least $72.25, in a move that could lead to state governments paying back half the cost.

There are questions over who pays for COVID testing. Credit:Joe Armao

The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald has reviewed more than a dozen examples in Victoria and NSW where the full private and public pathology rebate from testing hubs was claimed through Medicare. Not all tests have been billed this way.

The Victorian government argues testing approved by a medical practitioner, including those at state COVID-19 hubs, can be billed solely through Medicare as part of a national agreement brokered at the beginning of the pandemic two years ago.
Amid concerns about interference in her office, Queenslands outgoing Integrity Commissioner might have the chance to give evidence to a parliamentary committee before her early abrupt departure.

Nikola Stepanov, who regulates the states booming lobbying industry and advises state MPs on integrity matters, quit the statutory position last week part-way through her second three-year appointment.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Monday that she understood Dr Nikola Stepanov had taken a new job within the state, but would remain in her position until July. Credit:Facebook

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk brushed aside concerns about the resignation and Opposition claims Dr Stepanov had been shown the door.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the Premier was now facing a full-blown integrity inferno, alongside calls for the corruption watchdogs own boss to step down following a damning parliamentary committee report into the handling of its since-dropped case against Logan councillors.
McMahons offending statement acknowledged the deep affinity between Aboriginal people and the land, but went on to assert that there would be no land rights as they would lead to uncertainties and possible challenge in relation to land titles in Australia which are presently unquestioned and secure. McMahon also declared that although assimilation was now a matter of choice, separate development as a long-term aim is utterly alien to the governments objectives. The four Aboriginal men arrived at the lawn, erected a beach umbrella and fixed a placard designating the site as the Aboriginal Embassy  an idea of poet Coorey, according to scholar and activist Professor Gary Foley, a prominent figure of the embassys earliest iterations. The next day, members of the Black Caucus  as the Black Power movement in Australia was known  began to arrive en masse. By July 1972 the embassy had grown. Credit:Archive Many had been attending an anti-racism conference at the University of Queensland in Brisbane to challenge white university student activists to do more to confront racism in Australia rather than elsewhere in the world, and to step down from some roles in favour of Aboriginal candidates. The activists included Foley, then 21, Paul and Isobel Coe, Alana and Savannah Doolan, Cheryl Buchanan, Ambrose Golden-Brown, Charles Chicka Dixon, Bruce McGuinness and Marjorie Thorpe, among others. In the days and weeks that followed, others arrived from all states and territories in support, many now recognisable names in Aboriginal rights advocacy: John Newfong, Denis Walker, Roberta Sykes, Pearl Gibbs, Shirley Coleen Smith (known as Mum Shirl), Bob Maza, Brian Lovett, Gary Williams, Lyn Thompson, Pat Eatock, Sam Watson, Naomi Mayers, Gordon Briscoe, and others. International activists, including Sekai Holland and the leader of the Polynesian Panther Party, Will Ilolahia, also joined.

Twice the embassy was torn down by police, the first time on July 20, 1972. Ten days later, protesters re-established it accompanied by about 2000 supporters, before it was again forcibly removed in wild scenes. On December 13 that year, the ACT Supreme Court declared the embassys removal was illegal. It was re-established once more and remained on site until February 1975, when an agreement was reached for it to withdraw. It then existed in various locations around Canberra. In 1992, its 20th anniversary, it moved back to the Old Parliament House lawns. Descendants of the original activists remain closely involved with the embassy and are leading the organisation of the 50th anniversary events that begin on Tuesday. The embassys greatest impact on the national political stage came in the first few weeks following January 26, 1972. From February 5 to 6, members of the Black Caucus drew up a five-point petition to present to government which demanded control of Northern Territory, legal title and mining rights to all other reserves and settlements in Australia, including all Australian cities, as well as the protection and preservation of Aboriginal sacred lands. It also demanded $6 million in compensation for all lands lost and an annual percentage of the gross national income.

Then opposition leader Gough Whitlam visited the embassy on February 8 to discuss the petition, and left offering public support and promising Aboriginal land rights. At a rally organised by the embassy on February 22, Whitlam spoke. And in his election speech on November 13 that year, Whitlam said: We will legislate to give Aborigines land rights, not just because their case is beyond argument, but because all of us as Australians are diminished while the Aborigines are denied their rightful place in this nation. The embassy is one of the worlds oldest continuous protests. Credit:Archive Upon taking office in 1973, the new Whitlam government granted land rights in the NT where it had control. Elsewhere, though, state governments refused to back the legislation, and the push for national legislation was eventually shelved. Foley says embassy leaders felt Whitlam had reneged on his promise. The embassy and Australia Day To the core embassy protesters, McMahons speech, but particularly its delivery on Australia Day, was a deliberate provocation. According to Foley, McMahons choice of such a strongly contested and controversial day as the one known to Aboriginal Australia as Invasion Day was extremely provocative, and went against the advice of the governments own appointed Council for Aboriginal Affairs.

It inevitably agitated the young black radicals of Redfern, he says. Archival footage of the embassys earliest iterations shows placards reading No Pride in Genocide, the fore-runner of todays Abolish Australia Day movement. William McMahon in 1971. Credit:Archive The embassys activism finds modern expression in protests against Australia Day, which most Aboriginal people now call Invasion Day, Day of Mourning, or Survival Day. For the past decade there has been a growing movement to reshape the way the Australian public thinks about the day. The change the date movement emerged in the early 2010s, and the slogan quickly became embedded into the views of white supporters of Indigenous rights and adopted by progressive political parties. In the middle years of the past decade, Blak activist group the Warriors of Aboriginal Resistance adopted a policy to abolish Australia Day. The move has gathered supporters particularly amid the rise of the global Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020.

Its understanding that true history of the country and what has happened to Aboriginal people. That history didnt just happen on January 26. Its about abolishing the mindset of white superiority over Aboriginal people, says Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance co-founder Boe Spearim. White Australia is still holding institutions that are harmful towards Aboriginal people to this day. Loading Spearim says the expression also challenges the non-Indigenous people who might turn out for Aboriginal rights on January 26, but who for the rest of the year ignore issues affecting Aboriginallives. Aboriginal Rights campaigner, scholar and descendent of the Yiman peoples, Professor Marcia Langton says the idea of Australia needs to be based on 65,000 years of history, not a muddled concoction from some historical records. January 26 is an ex post facto invention. Its a muddle of ideas. None of which are correct, she says.



The embassy commemoration The earliest details of the embassys history were chronicled poorly in the past, Foley says, and as a political phenomenon, it has also been overlooked or disregarded by political leaders  sometimes wilfully, sometimes inadvertently. From the perspective of First Nations peoples, the Tent Embassy remains a symbol how Indigenous communities are treated around the country. It stood for and remains to this day a symbol of Aboriginal resistance to government indifference, duplicity and deceit, Foley told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald ahead of a series of seminars about the embassy titled Black Fire, held over the weekend. Activists prepare the embassy grounds for the 50th anniversary celebration this week. Credit:Rhett Wyman The Embassy brought international awareness of the land justice issues in this country and an end to the assimilation era when it forced Whitlam to change policy after he became prime minister the following year.
We have lost proportionality of response and have ignored the Australian way of life. Business and systems have planned for this date for two years. We are as ready as we will ever be. Being on the frontline of COVID-19, Dr Torre told 6PRs Oliver Peterson his number one concern was the consequence of betraying peoples trust. The problem, Mr Premier, is that if you say 80/90 per cent triple-vaxxed then we open, well, Im sorry mate, youve burnt your reliability, youve burnt your sincerity, he said. And all I would say back to you is fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Former national and state president of the Australian Medical Association Michael Gannon was among more than 1000 signatures on the petition, despite WAs AMA branch lobbying heavily for greater suppression. Theres a variety of views amongst doctors and within the AMA Council, but this is a very human piece of writing and I was very happy to put my name to it, he told 6PR. I was very disappointed when the Premier pulled the rug from beneath 2 million Western Australians. Our day with the virus is coming and to the extent that we can control it ... we should take that opportunity and take it now. Dr Gannon said those oldest and sickest, and first-tier healthcare workers would be three months post-vaccination as of February 5, with vaccination effectiveness starting to wane.

Loading If we choose to wait until winter to have our peaking cases, then the burden of disease with influenza around at the same time is likely to cause more debt, more destruction, he said. Dr Gannon said people needed to move away from the debate about the unvaccinated or those who were anti-vaccine being a menace to society as they would end up at a GP, or in an emergency department in a hospital in an intensive care unit. He said it was more important to put in place public health measures like social distancing, masks and limited attendances, which New South Wales failed to do. Dr Kannan Venugopal, a Perth gastroenterologist, said fearmongering about the situation in eastern states hospitals was false, telling 6PR the average age of those dying from COVID-19 was 84 years old.

It is not killing young people it is a disease which is killing older people mainly, not that that is to be taken lightly, but we have to reassure people, he said. So the government messaging has been really bad and the AMA has been terrible. He said 50,000 to 60,000 infections did not consider there was 70 to 90 per cent less chance of dying from Omicron than previous variants. So the risk of dying from Omicron COVID-19 is 1.4 in 100,000 if double-vaxxed and 0.27 per 100,000 if youre triple-vaxxed, he said. The medical world has come out with a formidable medical arsenal; we have vaccines which are very, very effective, we have treatments which are effective. And it is important to have our civil liberties back.

The sentiments were shared by a pair of Perth-based doctors, who did not want their names published as they were seeking work in the eastern states to escape WAs hard border measures. In a letter to 6PRs Gareth Parker, the couple wrote that two years of not being able to see their families overseas with no end in sight is too much. The doctors  one working in a hospital emergency department and as a general practitioner  said last weeks border delay announcement did not make sense due to waning immunity for the vulnerable and healthcare workers. They said opening up in winter, when GP practices and emergency departments were at their busiest, would lead to worse outcomes, not better. AMA WA president Mark Duncan-Smith agreed Omicron was a mild virus but said it was three times more infectious than other variants and modelling showed states could reduce the peak of infections from 30,000-40,000 to 6000-10,000 cases through suppression.

Last Monday when I presented those figures based on the South Australian modelling, which that modelling has proved to be incredibly accurate, I called for restrictions, Dr Duncan-Smith said. Loading I did not call for a delay in the borders. He said medical opinions had been polarising, and had received letters from those advocating for more time to vaccinate children, while others wanted to see their families. Dr Duncan-Smith was surveying his members to see what they believed was the best solution, but in the meantime called for low-level restrictions to be enforced to limit capacities and stop superspreader events.

He denied that he was overstating the case and scaremongering. Its backed up by evidence. And to me that isnt fearmongering, thats providing evidence and a scientific basis for decision-making. On Sunday, Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Mark Olson disagreed that immunity would wane significantly by holding back WAs reopening. When it comes to your protection against severe disease, thats not going to wane that much, Mr Olson said on Sunday. The studies are telling us that where it wanes is in the actual catching of the virus, not in the protection against severe disease ... [or] keeping all of you out of hospital.
Ukraines top diplomat in Canberra, Volodymyr Shalkivskyi, said emergency cyber help for critical networks was at the top of our list in the discussions after at least 70 government systems came under attack at the height of tensions with Russia. With the United Kingdom accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of trying to install a puppet leader in Kyiv, US President Joe Biden is said to be considering plans to send several thousand troops as well as warships and aircraft to allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe to deter any Russian aggression. Mr Shalkivskyi dismissed talk of Australia sending troops to defend Ukraine but said his country needed more help like the cyber security assistance and medical supplies it had received in the past. There is no easing of the situation, for sure, so we rely on the position, stance and assistance of our partners in this situation, because the Russian military superiority is undoubted, he said. Thousands of civilians in Ukraine are joining Territorial Defence units, receiving basic combat training. Credit:Getty

We will fight with international assistance or without international assistance. It is our land and we are not going to give up. So it will cost the conqueror. The occupation of Ukraine would cost a lot to Russia. We appreciate any assistance but we do not want to have speculation about Australian soldiers. It is not on the agenda. Australia provided cyber security training to Ukraine over the past year and appears willing to broaden that support after Senator Payne spoke to her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba last Wednesday. Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Senator Payne has asked Australias critical technology ambassador, Tobias Feakin, a top diplomat with information security experience, to lead the talks with Ukraine officials on the best way to deter attacks on the critical systems. Loading Australia strongly supports Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity and we call on Russia to de-escalate immediately, she said in a statement. Australia has imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian individuals and agencies in response to its aggression against Ukraine, including military incursions in 2014 when pro-Russian forces downed Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, killing 298 passengers and crew including 38 Australians. But the Russian embassy in Canberra warned against support for Ukraine on the grounds the United Nations Security Council had endorsed a process agreed in Minsk in 2015 to settle differences.

All those genuinely concerned about peace and security in Ukraine should support the UNSC -endorsed Minsk process rather than encourage Kyivs reckless efforts to break it, a Russian spokeswoman said. Loading Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov did not rule out an invasion when asked about Russias intentions at a press conference on January 14. He met United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Geneva last Friday without any agreement to ease the tensions. Mr Shalkivskyi, the Charge dAffaires at the Ukraine embassy in Canberra, said Australia had offered help to Ukraine in recent years including military uniforms in 2015, medical supplies in 2018 and cyber security support last year. I presume it will take time, there are no specific agreements, the discussion has only just started, he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

We will appreciate any kind of assistance that Australia will find relevant and possible, and probably cyber security is at the top of our list. In one example on the pressure on Ukraine systems, Mr Shalkivskyi said he could not manage or modify the official site of the Ukrainian embassy in Canberra even though the site remains online. Loading The New York Times reported on Monday that Mr Biden was looking at plans to send several thousand US troops, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, along with sending warships and aircraft. The ABC reported last Friday that Ukraine had asked Australia for more help on cyber-security when the subject arose in the call between the foreign ministers last Wednesday.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce has blamed the shortage of rapid antigen tests on day one of the governments free pensioner scheme on hoarding by companies stockpiling them for workers.

People have been buying not what they require, but more than they need, Mr Joyce told ABC radio on Monday morning.

Rapid antigen test supplies have been difficult to find. Credit:Christian Stokes

Corporations and businesses who buy up more than youd expect ... Its like saying youre not producing enough toilet paper because people are swiping it off the shelves, I dont know why they do it, but they do.

Under the federal government scheme, aimed at ensuring that vulnerable Australians can access a rapid antigen test, 6.6 million pensioners and concession card holders can access up to 10 free tests at pharmacies over the next three months.
The Aboriginal flag will be transferred to public hands for the first time, freeing its use for Indigenous community groups and sporting codes after the Australian government reached a historic deal with its creator to permanently acquire copyright more than 50 years after it was first flown.

The $20 million taxpayer-funded settlement will end a long-running legal controversy surrounding its use by allowing the ensign to be painted on sports grounds, used on apparel such as sports jerseys and shirts, on websites, in paintings and other artworks, digitally and in any other medium without having to ask for permission or pay a fee.

A man sits on a bench in front of a mural of the Aboriginal flag in Newtown, NSW. Credit:Kate Geraghty

The flag  its upper black half representing the Aboriginal people, the lower red half the red ochre earth and its yellow circle the land and sun  had been entangled in a legal stoush between its designer and copyright holder, its licensees and dozens of community and sporting organisations. They had received cease-and-desist letters from a non-Indigenous company WAM Clothing, which was granted exclusive use by Luritja artist Harold Thomas in 2018.

Mr Thomas said the flag was a deeply personal piece of artwork that was never intended to be a political platform.
Latest News Big four banks lift variable interest rates Increases across board for home loan customers

Commercial lending market flourishing 40% to 50% uplift, says brokerage

Determined to increase your business this 2022? Here is what some of Australias top brokers think is their most powerful marketing tool  reviews.

Daniel Pym, of Loan Market Double Bay, and winner of the 2021 Mortgage Awards Equity-One Broker of the Year for Productivity, said the best thing to do for marketing is actually Google reviews.

If your clients are happy with the service and they can leave you a five-star Google reviews I think that is really powerful, Pym said. Thats what everyone around the world can rely on and  if you got a 100 five-star Google reviews and they come updated, thats really important.

Another big thing that helps keep Pym and his team top of mind is doing annual reviews for every client. This saves clients a lot of money and keeps Pyms team in contact with their clients, helping them get more referrals. He said that a third of their business comes from existing clients, and another third from referrals.

John Contarino, of Mobile Finance Broker, winner of Broker of the Year for regional, also agreed that Google reviews is a powerful  and most successful  sales strategy. Contarino said that getting more reviews on Google, and in turn getting better placed in that page, resulted in more leads for his brokerage.

And a good thing about is it is absolutely free, Contarino said. So several days after settlement, we try to listen to our clients we put some links and ask them for feedback and to provide for their overall experience.

Contarino added that roadside billboards and marketing on television is really about branding, but 95% of business still comes from word of mouth and people searching on Google.
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FMCG major Adani Wilmar, which has grown to become the largest category leader through acquisitions, has set aside Rs 450 crore from the share sale that opens later this week, to tap more acquisition-led growth opportunities primarily in its non-edible oils business.

The company, which is an equal joint venture between the Adani Group and Singapore's Wilmar Group, is launching a Rs 3,600-crore on January 27.

Its flagship Fortune brand of edible oils is the largest selling brand in the category controlling nearly a fifth of the organised market, and is among the top five fastest growing packaged food in the country in terms of revenue, according to a report by the industry tracker Technopak.

The report also says that Fortune controls 18.3 per cent of the retail market, while runner-up brand Ruchi Soya has around 8 per cent.

"We are looking at more inorganic growth opportunities to grow our non-oil/FMCG business. Accordingly we've earmarked Rs 450 crore from the proceeds to acquire manufacturing units or brands in the food staples business such as wheat flour, rice and besan, ready-to-cook and ready-to-eat segments," chief executive Angshu Mallick told PTI without offering a timeline for the same.

Inorganic growth arises from mergers and acquisitions rather than an increase in a company's business activity.

In the case of Adani Wilmar, acquisitions will be from the broader packaged food industry which may include edible oils, foods & staples, FMCG products, spices & condiments both in the domestic market as well as outside, he said.

Going forward, the company will focus on increasing the market share in the edible oils segment on one hand and grow the food business on the other and an acquisition should speed up the growth process, he added.

"We believe we have the building blocks in place to continue to deliver market leading growth. We will continue to leverage the strengths of our promoters, our strong brand 'Fortune' and our integrated business model to increase our profitability and competitiveness," he said.

"When we succeed in becoming the biggest manufacturer of essential food products, we will have the biggest brands and distribution network which can be used to launch smaller volume but higher margin products like noodles, pasta, ready-to-eat, ready-to-cook products," he explained.

They are looking to expand the FMCG portfolio to capitalise on growing demand for branded kitchen essentials. Of late, it has been increasing focus on value-added products, to diversify revenue streams and generate higher margins.

The value-added products launched since 2013 include functional edible oil products such as rice bran oil, fortified food, ready-to-cook soya chunks, packaged wheat flour, rice, pulses, besan, sugar, and ready-to-cook 'khichdi'.

The domestic packaged food retail market has been growing 11 per cent annually from FY20 and is expected to touch Rs 10,13,000 crore by FY25 from Rs 6,02,000 crore in FY20, according to Technopak.

Yet the market penetration is low compared to global economies with the annual per capita spend on packaged food only Rs 4,700, compared to Rs 16,000 in China and Rs 1,125,000 in the US.

In April-September 2021-22, its sales stood at Rs 24,957.3 crore as against Rs 16,273.73 crore a year ago and net income at Rs 357 crore, up from Rs 288.78 crore. FY21 revenue was Rs 37,090 crore and net profit was Rs 727.6 crore, according to its RHP filing.

Its product portfolio spans across three categories--edible oils, packaged food & FMCG, and industry essentials. As much as 73 per cent of its revenue have come from edible oils and packaged food and FMCG sales in FY21 and the rest from industry essentials which are as non-branded.

The company has 22 plants across 10 states, comprising 10 crushing units and 19 refineries. Of the 19 refineries, 10 are port-based to facilitate use of imported crude edible oil and reduce transportation cost, and the rest are in the hinterland in proximity to raw material production bases to reduce storage cost. They also have 36 leased tolling units as of September 2021.

Its Mundra refinery is the largest single-location refinery with a designed capacity of 5,000 metric tonnes per day.

Mallick said edible oils contributes 65 per cent of its business in volume terms and the rest come from food and industrial essentials segments and the food business is growing around 25 per cent annually.

After the IPO, which will be a fully primary offer with no offer-for-sale, public shareholding will be 12 per cent and the remaining 88 per cent will be equally held by the two promoters.

(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.)
Independent directors of Future Retail have turned down Amazons offer of financial support to the company through a deal with private equity firm Samara Capital, saying any legally invalid offer cannot be accepted.

Future Retails independent directors had last week asked if it was willing to give a long-term loan to avoid default on repayment of Rs 3,500 crore loan due on January 29. replied to that saying it was willing to financially assist Future Retail through the deal but the retailer must shelve Rs 24,713 crore deal with the Reliance group.

Independent directors say hasnt shown them the money that Future Retail urgently needs to stall being declared a defaulter. They want to know if Amazon can act on behalf of and has the authority to negotiate and finalise such a transaction on its behalf.

Speaking to PTI, Ravindra Dhariwal, an independent director of Future Retail Ltd (FRL) said if Amazon wants to help FRL, it needs to show the structure through which it will put the money.

We cannot accept the offer until and unless it is legally valid and unless it comes in time. What is the point of giving an offer after chidiya chug gayi khet... If you want to help, then show us the structure through which you will put the money and we have asked you in good faith to put in Rs 3,500 crore now so that we can repay the bank and the company is not treated as NPA and is not liable to IBC, he said.

Amazon told FRL that remains interested in buying out the debt-strapped retailer's businesses such as Big Bazaar for Rs 7,000 crore, and had asked FRL to provide its financial details to Samara Capital for the private equity fund to conduct expedited due diligence.

Dhariwal expressed concern that the support being extended is more of publicity.

They just do not have a tenable structure, neither do they have a viable structure. The issue is very simple. We owe money to the banks, bondholders and vendors, he said.

Asked if Samara has directly reached out to the independent directors, Dhariwal answered in the negative. We, the independent directors, have never heard about Samara. We have no idea why they are interested, why they want to do it. We, independent directors, have never talked to Samara.

Samara has discussed the terms sheet with the promoters of Big Bazaar with Biyani brother and they have acknowledged the term sheet, but not supported the term sheets. It is one of the 2-3 term sheets which they (FRL) have got. They never discussed it with us and never made it to the Board because they (Biyanis) found it inadequate, he said.

Samara Capital had, in June 2020, signed a non-binding term sheet to acquire FRLs businesses including Big Bazaar, Easyday and Heritage among other chains for Rs 7,000 crore.

While Amazon is opposed to billionaire Mukesh Ambanis group acquiring businesses of FRL along with other group for Rs 24,713 crore, it seemed from the letter that it was open to Samara Capital taking over the business.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ola Electric, the ride-hailing firms electric vehicle (EV) arm, has raised over $200 million from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others. The latest round values the company at $5 billion, an increase from its previous valuation of $3 billion.

In October last year, Ola Electric, raised over $200 million led by Falcon Edge, Softbank and others, tripling its valuation to $3 billion. In July 2019, Ola Electric raised $250 million from Masayoshi Sons SoftBank. It was just a two-year-old firm at that time. The investment made the fledgling venture a unicorn, or a start-up valued at more than $1 billion.

Over the last 12 months, Ola Electric has built the Futurefactory, the worlds largest two-wheeler manufacturing facility, Ola S1.

The two-wheelers are being sold to customers using a direct to consumer model with fully digital purchase. Ola also offers home test rides, doorstep delivery and after-sales service.

In India, Olas competitors include electric two-wheeler makers such as Ather Energy, Bounce, Hero Electric, Bajaj, TVS Motor Company and Boom Motors. This recent funding is expected to help Ola Electric compete with rivals.

Ola Electric is creating Indias EV revolution and is driving cutting edge manufacturing from India for the entire world, said Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Ola. With Ola S1, weve changed the entire scooter industry and are now looking forward to bringing our innovative products to more two-wheeler categories, including bikes as well as cars. I thank the investors for their support and look forward to partnering with them to take the EV revolution from India to the world.

Ola Futurefactory, which will employ over 10,000 women at full capacity, will be the worlds largest women-only factory and the only all-women automotive manufacturing facility globally.

This funding is expected to help Ola accelerate development of other vehicle platforms, including electric motorbike, mass market scooter and its electric car. The funding will further strengthen Olas Mission Electric, which urges the industry and consumers to commit to electric and ensure that no petrol two-wheelers should be sold in India after 2025.

Indias electric vehicle market could be worth nearly $206 billion in the coming decade if India were to achieve its 2030 EV ambitions, according to an independent study released by the CEEW Centre for Energy Finance (CEEW-CEF). The report also estimates a cumulative investment need of over $180 billion in vehicle production and charging infrastructure until 2030 to meet the country's EV ambition.

To cater to the growing demand, Olas rival Ather Energy has commissioned its second manufacturing facility in Hosur recently, taking its manufacturing capacity to 400,000 units from its current capacity of 120,000 units.

The company has also invested heavily in the charging infrastructure to ensure a seamless and hassle-free transition to EVs.

Another company Bounce, a smart mobility solution company, has plans to raise funding of about $200 million to scale up the operations for its electric vehicle (EV) business.
Chennai-based vertically integrated defence and aerospace electronics solutions provider (India) has received a development order for Rs 27 crore from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for the next generation wideband RF front end units for Electronic Warfare (EW) receivers.

The order is for a new programme that will allow next-generation wideband EW receivers to be configured for naval, land and aerial platforms. The wideband RF front ends allow faster scanning of enemy emitters to enable better electronic intelligence with enhanced detection and avoidance. The specifications not only allow faster scan rate but also better dynamic range providing better detection.

We are happy to receive yet another prestigious order from . This contract enhances the continuing leadership of in the homegrown EW segment with EW products comparable to international specifications. It also gives us another opportunity to showcase our indigenous capability in cutting edge defence technologies, said Srinivasagopalan Rangarajan, Managing Director, (India).

Data Patterns has developed a wide range EW receivers and Direction Finders including wideband Radar Warning Receivers, Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) Systems and Communication Intelligence (COMINT) Systems for air, land and sea platforms with .

Data Patterns core competencies include design and development across electronic hardware, software, firmware, mechanical, product prototype besides its testing, validation and verification. The company works closely with the defence PSUs such as Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd as well as government organisations involved in defence and space research like and Isro.
Ola Electric on Monday said it has raised over USD 200 million (about Rs 1,490.5 crore) from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others, valuing the electric vehicle maker at USD 5 billion.

In September last year, Ola Electric had announced raising a similar amount in from Falcon Edge, Softbank and others that had valued the company at USD 3 billion (about Rs 22,272 crore).

Ola Electric is creating India's EV revolution and is driving cutting edge manufacturing from India for the entire world. With Ola S1, the best scooter ever made, we have changed the entire scooter industry and are now looking forward to bringing our innovative products to more two-wheeler categories, including bikes as well as cars.

I thank the investors for their support and look forward to partnering with them to take the EV revolution from India to the world, Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said in a statement.

Over the last 12 months, Ola Electric has built its 'Futurefactory', which it claims is the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturing facility, and launched its electric scooter Ola S1. Ola's facility will employ over 10,000 women at full capacity and will be the largest women-only factory globally.

In the past, Ola Electric has raised from various investors, including Tiger Global and Matrix India. In July last year, Ola Electric had announced signing a USD 100 million (about Rs 744.5 crore) 10 year-term debt financing agreement with the Bank of Baroda.

(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 Monday asked the Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and the Reliance Infrastructure's subsidiary, Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) to appear before the High Court on January 31 and request it to hear the dispute relating to execution of the over Rs 4,600 crore arbitral award to DAMEPL at the earliest.

A bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai said the hearing on the execution application does not brook any further delay as it is detrimental to the interest of both the parties.

The apex court on September 9, 2021 had upheld the 2017 arbitration award of around Rs 4,600 crore in favour of DAMEPL, enforceable against the DMRC.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for DAMEPL, submitted that there is a flurry of actions against the company.

"There is no defence after the apex court has upheld the order. Let them deposit the money. The court can give them a few months but the execution cannot be stalled for no reason," he submitted.

Senior advocate Parag Tripathi, representing DMRC, submitted that it was ready to take over DAMEPL's liabilities to the extent of the award money as it would be in a better position to negotiate with the lender banks.

He submitted that in their communication, they were agreeable to the proposal.

Rohatgi, however, said, "I will deal with my creditors myself. Who is he to deal with my creditors?"



Tripathi informed the apex court about a December 30, 2021 letter written by DAMEPL to DMRC asking if it was ready to take over its debt which was to be paid by DAMEPL and Reliance Infrastructure to their lenders.

The bench then asked, "What is this? There is an award in their favour, which is confirmed by this court. Now you are saying we will negotiate with your bankers."



Tripathi submitted that undertaking a sudden liability would impact public interest and the result would be that whole metro operations would come to a close not only here but in five other cities.

"I am not running away. I have deposited Rs 1,000 crore after the order. All I am saying is permit me to negotiate . We asked what the total dues were." Tripathi said.

The apex court, however, said, "Where is the question of negotiation, when he is saying pay me my money."



Tripathi replied that because he has himself said so and quoted letters to support his contention.

"I have money for Nagpur, Patna and cities. These are special grants from various authorities including multilateral loan agencies. If these are attached it will create a very serious problem. I am not running away. I am not a fly by night operator," Tripathi submitted.

The top court then asked Rohatgi," If they are willing to pay the money, what objection do you have?



Rohatgi replied that he was not anymore interested in talking to them.

The apex court then asked the parties to appear before the high court on January 31 and request the high court to dispose of the execution application without any further delay.

"The execution application filed by petitioner was adjourned to March 29, 2022. The HC recorded the finding that there were efforts to settle the dispute relating to the manner of payments with the banks and financial institutions, which did not yield any results. without commenting on submissions made on either side, we are of the opinion that hearing on execution application does not brook any further delay.

"The parties are directed to appear before the high court on January 31 and request the high court to take up the matter at the earliest. We request the high court to dispose of the execution application without any further delay as consequences of pendency of this application is to the detriment of the petitioner and respondent." the bench said in its order while disposing of the appeal filed by DAMEPL.

The Delhi High Court had earlier pulled up DAMEPL for playing hide and seek with the court and holding out-of-court communications with DMRC to settle the dispute relating to execution of the over Rs 4,600 crore arbitral award passed against the PSU.

The arbitral tribunal in its May 2017 award had accepted DAMEPL's claim that the running of operations on the line was not viable due to structural defects in the viaduct through which the train would run.

The decision by a division bench had come on DMRC appeal against a single judge order of March 6 last year upholding the arbitral award in DAMEPL's favour.

The concession agreement between the two was signed on August 25, 2008. Under the agreement, DMRC was to carry out the civil works, excluding at the depot, and the balance, including the project system works, were to be executed by DAMEPL, a joint venture of Rinfra and a Spanish construction company -- Construcciones Y Auxiliar De Ferrocarriles -- with a shareholding of 95 and five per cent respectively.

The Airport Express line was commissioned on February 23, 2011 after an investment of over Rs 2,885 crore, funded by the DAMEPL promoters' fund, banks and financial institutions.

(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.)
Global engineering and product development digital services firm on Monday said it will hire over 3,000 innovators over the next 12 months under its expanded talent acquisition programme.

The company plans to ramp up its workforce in all major markets globally and India, which includes Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, among others, said in a statement.

The move to add talent comes at a time when the firm has been growing rapidly on the back of the move to autonomous, connected, electrification and shared (ACES) mobility and accelerated investment in digital, as manufacturing adapt to meet new and evolving customer needs, it added.

"We are looking for innovators to join us and be part of a movement that will see lead the rapidly growing engineering services outsourcing (ESO) market," the company said, adding it has "expanded its talent acquisition program to hire 3,000+ innovators over the next 12 months".

Tata Technologies Managing Director and CEO Warren Harris said, "Besides competitive remuneration, we offer innovators an opportunity to work on global projects, upskill and learn through classroom and global eLearning platforms and collaborate with (over) 9,000 global talent pool. We also offer new recruits the privilege of becoming part of the globally recognised Tata Group".

Tata Technologies with its vision of engineering a better world enables global OEMs and their ecosystem of partners to engineer, manufacture, and realise better products that are innovative, sustainable and competitive, he added.

The company has launched a new brand campaign #ComeJoinUs in #EngineeringABetterWorld, inviting innovators across the world to be part of its "transformation journey and grow with it while innovating safe, sustainable solutions for the global OEMs and their ecosystem of partners", the statement said.

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, investments in technology-enabled changes have accelerated. Products have fundamentally changed, business models have been reengineered, manufacturing enterprises have transformed, and digital has become a way of life, the company 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.)
Traders' body on Monday filed a complaint with the Competition Commission of India against accusing the e-commerce major of committing a fraud while seeking approval for the takeover of More Retail's stores in India.

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) claimed that in case of acquiring More Retail, committed the same fraud, misrepresentation of facts, misleading the in the matter too as was done in takeover of Future Retail.

"It amply exposes the sinister designs of to control Indian retail in a fraudulent manner to capture the physical retail trade and inventory-based e-commerce in India causing enormous harm to the traders," the traders' body alleged.

said that Amazon has taken over More Retail through Samara Alternate Investment Fund (Samara AIF) that owns 51 per cent equity in Witzig Advisory LLP that in-turns owns More Retail Limited.

It further stated that Amazon has obtained approval from for the takeover of More Retail Limited "by suppression and concealment".

An email sent to Amazon India did not elicit a response.

"As is the case with Future, Amazon has represented to that (a) Amazon has made only a financial investment in Witzig. It has not invested in More Retail; (b) the rights Amazon has acquired over More Retail Limited are only investment protection rights and Amazon has no strategic interest in More Retail," claimed in its complaint.

Future group and Amazon have been locked in a bitter legal tussle after the US e-commerce giant dragged Future Group to arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) in October 2020, arguing that FRL had violated their contract by entering into a deal for the sale of its assets to billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail on a slump sale basis for Rs 24,713 crore.

Earlier this month, FRL had said it had missed the due date for payment of Rs 3,494.56 crore to banks and lenders as it could not sell assets due to its ongoing litigation with Amazon, impacting its monetisation plans.

Notably, in December, Competition Commission of India (CCI) suspended the 2019 approval for Amazon's deal to acquire a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL), FRL's promoter and also slapped a penalty of Rs 202 crore on the e-commerce major.

The CCI order has been challenged by Amazon before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), which has issued notice to the fair trade regulator and FCPL. The NCLAT has directed the matter to be listed on February 2 for the next hearing.

(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.)
Marking its aggressive foray into e-mobility space, Murugappa group company Tube Investments of India (TII) has decided to come up with a 100 per cent subsidiary to focus on clean mobility and is planning to infuse around Rs 350 crore into the newly-formed arm through a combination of equity, preference and debt instruments.

The new subsidiary will also acquire a 70 per cent stake in Cellestial E-Mobility, a Hyderabad-based start-up engaged in the design and manufacture of E-tractors. The Cellestial stakes are valued at around Rs 161 crore and will be acquired through a combination of primary and secondary purchases of shares.

The formation of a separate subsidiary and acquisition of a controlling stake in Cellestial will enable the Company to bring required focus to the emerging growth opportunities in . These new EV products along with the existing product portfolio of bicycles and e-bicycles will further strengthen the Companys efforts towards climate change and sustainability, said M A M Arunachalam, Chairman of the company.

According to TII, the makers of iconic bicycle brands like BSA and Hercules, Cellestial offer several advantages like a swappable battery, regenerative brakes, power inversion, charging from residential AC outlet, fast charging and lower total cost of ownership compared to current IC tractors. Besides, these E-tractors will also result in lower CO2 emissions, promote green farming, and will take a step towards a circular economy. Cellestial had unveiled the countrys first electric tractor in March 2020, claiming to be having the capability to cover 75 km on a single charge.

TII has been exploring new growth opportunities within clean mobility. In line with this strategy, the Company had recently lined up its electric 3-wheeler plans. This new subsidiary will consolidate the electric three-wheeler venture and other EV-related ventures.

Late last year, Kalyan Kumar Paul, president of TI Cycles of India had told Business Standard that the company will gradually look into the cargo segment, scooters and e-rickshaws. TII, which operates in three business divisions including engineering, bicycles and metal-formed products, has a market share of around 25 per cent in Indias bicycle market.

The company will be coming up with EVs at a separate unit in its Ambattur facility that may see an investment of around Rs 150-200 crore during the first phase, till 2023. TIIs strategy is to first look into Southern markets and then quickly accelerate its presence to other regions of the country. The advantage with TII as an EV player will be an established supply chain of 3500 direct dealer points for bicycles and 190 exclusive retail outlets under the brand Track & Trail, that the company can make use of in the initial stages of its EV foray.
The on Monday alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party has been deliberately not implementing the Janlokpal Bill and is only misleading people over the issue, a party statement said.

However, the in a statement responded that the saffron party was playing politics over the issue of corruption by raising the issue of Lokpal when their own Lieutenant Governor rejected the proposal.

BJP's unit chief Adesh Gupta in a statement charged the Kejriwal government with lying on the Janlokpal Bill and misleading people and said that came to power by repeatedly talking about the Janlokpal bill but now they stand exposed before the country as the Bill is not yet implemented.

Bharatiya Janata Party leader claimed that for past seven years despite getting it passed Arvind Kejriwal government did not implement the Janlokpal Bill.

He said that the government claimed on December 4, 2015 it had got the bill passed in state assembly and sent it to Lt Governor.

On December 29, 2015 when at a news conference asked for it as to what happened then the AAP replied the same has been sent to Lt Governor for his assent, the statement said.

"An RTI in this regard made it clear that the Lt Governor received file on September 25, 2019 and that was returned to law department on same September 27. Where was this file for past four years?, Gupta asked in the statement.

Gupta asked when the Lt Governor had returned the file on September 27, 2019, the government should tell us why it hasn't been implemented so far.

MP Manoj Tiwari also alleged that the was misleading on the issue of Janlokpal Bill.

When AAP was being formed in 2013 it was announced that the moment its government will come to power, Janlokpal bill would be enforced. But to no avail, Tiwari said in the statement.

Responding to allegations, the AAP said that BJP is playing politics over the issue of corruption.

They are only playing dirty politics by raising the issue of Lokpal when their own LG rejected the proposal. The BJP is the most corrupt party in the history of independent India. They have no right to speak on corruption, the AAP said in a statement.

The party said that the had eliminated corruption in 49 days. But when AAP formed government again in 2015, BJP snatched away the ACB (Anti-Corruption Branch).

Why did the BJP's central government take away ACB from the Government? Not only did they snatch it away, they didn't take a single step against corruption. We challenge them to return ACB to us and we will show how corruption can be completely eliminated, the AAP said in the statement.

(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.)
A on Monday framed charges under sedition against JNU student Sharjeel Imam in a case related to alleged inflammatory speeches made by him during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019.

Charges are being framed under sections 124 (sedition), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to integration), 505 (Statements conducing to public mischief) of Indian Penal Code, and Section 13 (punishment for unlawful activities) of UAPA, Additional Sessions Judge Amitabh Rawat ordered.

As per the prosecution, Imam had allegedly made speeches at Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13, 2019, and at Aligarh Muslim University on December 16, 2019, where he threatened to cut off Assam and the rest of the Northeast from India.

In his defense, Imam had earlier told the court that he is not a terrorist and his prosecution is a whip of a monarch rather than a government established by law. Whereas, the prosecution claimed that violent riots took place pursuant to Imam's speech.

He is in judicial custody since January 2020.

Delhi Police had filed a charge sheet against Imam in the case, in which it alleged that he allegedly gave speeches inciting hatred, contempt, and disaffection towards the Central Government and instigated the people which led to the violence in December 2019.

(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.)
and on Monday decided to conduct ground level survey on the status of inter-state boundary as a step towards resolving the vexed border row, Chief Minister said.

He held a meeting with his counterpart Pema Khandu here on Monday to discuss the issue.

Following the discussion, Sarma wrote on Twitter, Solving boundary issues with neighbours is our priority.

and share a 804.1 km-long border and there are 1,200 points of disputes along it and the two states have decided to conduct ground level survey on boundary status.

Discussed with Hon'ble CM of Arunachal Pradesh Sh @PemaKhanduBJP, who came all the way to Guwahati, measures for permanent solution to the long-pending issue, Sarma tweeted.

Arunachal Pradesh was a centrally administered region after Independence and became a union territory later before attaining full statehood in 1987.

Sarma, who has been taking the initiative to resolve Assam's border disputes with its neighbours since assuming office in May last year, had said at a press conference here on Sunday that the differences with Arunachal Pradesh will be solved in "due course of time".

Assam and Meghalaya, after several rounds of talks at different levels, have submitted recommendations to Union Home Minister Amit Shah earlier this month for resolving the dispute in six out of total 12 areas of differences.

Sarma had held talks with Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio here on Sunday, following which the latter told reporters at Kohima on Monday that the two states are ready for an out of court settlement of the long pending inter-state boundary dispute.

Rio said Nagaland and Assam delegations are likely to meet Shah in February to discuss and formulate how to go about the settlement.

Sarma had, however, said on Sunday that verdict of the Supreme Court, which has been hearing the cases related to the inter-state dispute between Assam and Nagaland, can be expected in two-three years and did not indicate any talk between the two states on out of court settlement.

Assam also has boundary issues with Mizoram though no talks have be held as yet to resolve it, the chief minister had 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.)
recorded 30,215 cases in the last 24 hours that was slightly lower than 30,580 infections added to its registry on January 23 but the fatalities rose to 46 - about six more than that recorded the previous day.

The toll so far has mounted to 37, 264. With a total of 31,64,205 people testing positive till date, the number of active cases, including those in isolation, rose to 2,06,484, according to a bulletin from the State Health Department on Monday. Passengers who returned by road from Andhra Pradesh were five in number, and Karnataka and Tripura one 1 each, all added to 30,215 fresh infections today, the bulletin said.

With 24,639 COVID-19 positive patients getting discharged following



treatment today, the total recoveries increased to 29,20,457 till date.

New infections, which peaked to 30,744 on January 22, saw a marginal decline to 30,580 on Sunday and to 30,215 cases today. Among the districts, Chennai continued to witness 6,296 fresh cases albeit a slender decline from 6,383 cases the previous day. The State capital also recorded the maximum deaths of 17 today.

Next to Chennai, Coimbatore recorded the highest number of cases at 3,786 followed by Chengalpattu 1,742, Tiruppur 1,504, Kanyakumari 1,236, Erode 1,199, Thanjavur 1,117 and Salem 1,089 cases. Mayiladuthurai saw the lowest number of 88 infections. Eleven districts reported more than 500 cases while six other districts recorded cases below 200.

With 7,418 getting discharged today, Chennai's net recoveries increased to 6,37,042 and the fatalities increased to 8,832. The metro accounted for 6,98,616 positive cases while the active cases remain at 52,742.

Meanwhile, the Raj Bhavan here has decided to postpone hosting the At Home reception on the Republic Day due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A communique from Raj Bhavan said the reception would be hosted in due course once the situation improved. Governor R N Ravi urged the people of to follow the COVID-19 protocol and government instructions on safety, the release added.

The government too directed the district collectors not to conduct Grama Sabha meetings on January 26 due to the prevailing COVID-19 situation. On behalf of the government, the director of Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department asked the Collectors to ensure the village panchayats did not convene any meeting on that day.

(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's top virologist, Dr has called the prescription of monoclonal antibody therapy by the doctors in the private hospitals of the country for the treatment of Omicron variant of COVID-19 patients "unethical, immoral and unscientific" and asked the medical fraternity to "practice better medicine than this".

Notably, monoclonal antibodies treatment for COVID has been excluded in the revised National COVID task force treatment.

In a series of tweets, Dr Kang said that she received a call from a 90-year-old diabetic patient from Chennai who narrated to her that he was advised admission to the hospital for the antibody treatment because he was in contact with someone who tested positive for SARS-CoV2.

"A call from a 90-year diabetic uncle in Chennai who said he has advised admission to hospital and antibody treatment because he was in contact with someone who tested positive for SARS-CoV2 sparked this thread," she Dr Kang tweeted.

"We know that 90 per cent or greater infections are currently Omicron in Indian cities. We know that the licensed monoclonal antibody products in India do not neutralise omicron. Yet doctors in private hospitals are prescribing monoclonal antibody therapy (and admission)," she added in her tweet.

The Doctor further pointed out that there is little data in India which is why we do not know if the percentage of vaccinated elderly with Omicron will progress.

"Please remember that even among clinical vulnerable, most contacts will stay asymptomatic or have mild symptoms & recover. Small no. develop severe illness (in India, we have little data so we do not know whether 5% or 20% of vaccinated elderly with omicron will progress)," she tweeted.

"In any case, all the ones who would have gotten better anyway will do fine--but having given antibodies, doctors will ascribe that to their treatment and the hospitals will laugh all the way to the bank. The argument I hear from well-meaning doctors (thankfully not infectious disease specialists) is that it is only one lakh and my patient can afford to buy it, so why not?" Dr Kang said in the tweet.

Dr Kang said that it is unethical, immoral and unscientific to provide the antibodies treatment and asked the doctors to practise better medicine.

"Why not? It is unethical, immoral and unscientific. Surely, as doctors, we can teach and practice better medicine than this. And as patients, please ask for what each drug is expected to do and the evidence to back that up," Dr Kang 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.)
It is dangerous to assume that will be the last variant, or the pandemic is going to end, when global conditions are seen as ideal for more Covid variants to emerge, said the World Health Organization (WHO) chief on Monday.

Addressing the 150th session of WHO's executive board, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Omicron, which was first identified in late November, has spread to 171 countries.

More than 80 million cases of the highly contagious variant have been reported to WHO, more than the Covid cases reported in the whole of 2020, he said.

However, he noted that the "explosion in cases" has so far "not been matched by a surge in deaths".

Ghebreyesus said that the pandemic is not going to end, rather new variants will emerge.

"It's true that we will be living with Covid for the foreseeable future," said the chief.

"It is dangerous to assume that will be the last variant, or that we are in the endgame.

"On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge," Ghebreyesus said, adding that the world cannot "gamble on a virus whose evolution we cannot control or predict."

He noted that the world must learn to live with it, which doesn't "mean that we give this virus a free ride".

"We will need to learn to manage it through a sustained and integrated system for acute respiratory diseases, which will provide a platform for preparedness for future pandemics."

He said to change the course of the pandemic, it is essential to achieve the target to vaccinate 70 per cent of the population of every country.

About 85 per cent of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine, he lamented.

He also recommended strong clinical management, equitable access to diagnostics, oxygen and antivirals at the point of care; boosting of testing and sequencing rates globally to track the virus closely, and monitor the emergence of new variants.

--IANS

rvt/pgh

(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 of on Monday ordered the Commission (JPSC) to furnish information whether reservation was granted to candidates appearing in the 7th JPSC preliminary examinations held last year.

A division bench of Chief Justice Dr Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad also sought a report from JPSC on how many candidates of the reserved category have been selected in the general category.

The bench, hearing a petition filed by Kumar Sanyam also ordered the commission to give details of category wise seats by way of an affidavit before the court.

The bench was informed that no details of reservation were published in the advertisement published for conducting the preliminary examination by the Commission.

Advocate Amritansh Vats while arguing the case claimed that the government does not have any policy of reservation for candidates appearing in the preliminary examinations.

He further said that there were 114 seats in the general category and as per the norms, the results should have been 15 times the allotted seats.

As many as 1,710 candidates should have been selected but only 768 candidates have been declared successful.

This proves that reservation has been granted to candidates in the preliminary exams, Vats claimed.

Opposition Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state has been demanding a CBI inquiry alleging irregularities in the state civil services examinations.

Chief Minister Hemant Soren last month reacting to the controversy over the Jharkhand Commission (JPSC) examination, had said that the BJP was creating a hue and cry as 3,000 of the 4,000 selected candidates were from reserved categories.

Stormy scenes were witnessed during the winter session of the assembly from December 16 to 22, with the BJP alleging irregularities in the state civil services examinations.

Soren had alleged that those with a "Manuwadi mindset" were not able to accept the success of SC, ST and OBC candidates. He dismissed charges of corruption, stating that the examination was conducted by JPSC without any government intervention, and alleged that appointments were made to deputy superintendent of police posts sans any tests during the BJP rule, for which CBI inquiry is underway.

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The 30th anniversary of India- diplomatic ties is a good opportunity to look ahead and shape the next 30 years of relations, the Israeli envoy here said on Monday and exuded confidence that the close cooperation between the two countries in different fields will only grow further in the coming years.

envoy to Naor Gilon made the remarks at an event to launch a commemorative logo to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The logo features the Star of David and the Ashoka Chakra -- the two symbols that adorn the national flags of both countries -- and forms the numeral 30 depicting the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations



This special logo symbolises the strong friendship, love and admiration that exists between the people of and the people of India, a statement issued by the Israel Embassy here said.

It also depicts the growing strategic partnership between the two sides.

On this special occasion, Ambassador Gilon said, We are very happy to launch a special logo to celebrate the 30 years of the close friendship between the people of our two ancient civilizations. This is an important occasion to reflect on our mutual successes as well as a good opportunity to look ahead and shape the next 30 years of our relations."



"I am sure that our close existing cooperation in different fields will only continue to grow and flourish in the coming years," he said.

India's Ambassador to Israel Sanjeev Singla said, We are proud to mark the 30th anniversary of our bilateral relations and look forward to using the special logo throughout the year to celebrate this special milestone."



and Israel are two ancient people, proud of their cultural heritage, and two vibrant democracies, eager to grasp the future, he said.

"Together we can shape a better future for India, Israel, and the world," Singla said.

To create the 30th-anniversary logo, both countries launched a logo design contest last year for students of prominent design colleges in Israel and .

Entries were invited from Holon Institute of Technology, Israel and National Institute of Design, India. Many Israeli and Indian students participated in this contest.

The winning design created by an Indian student, Nikhil Kumar Rai, was chosen through a joint decision of the Embassies and Consulates from both countries.

It has been selected as the official logo for the 30th anniversary of Israel-India diplomatic relations.

Israel and India established diplomatic relations on January 29, 1992. Since then, the bilateral relations between both countries have developed into a multifaceted strategic partnership.

Israel and India share an intimately close and special relationship, which encompasses virtually every field of human endeavour -- health and innovation, agriculture and water, trade and economic activities, science and technology, research and development, defence and homeland security, art and culture, tourism and space, the statement said.

The 30th anniversary of relations between Israel and India will be marked throughout the year with an elaborate array of cultural events, it said.

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The COVID-19 tally in reached 9,04,744 on Monday after the detection of 10,585 new cases, while the toll increased to 10,576 with six patients succumbing to the infection in the last 24 hours, an official said.

The positivity rate reduced to 13.0 per cent on Monday from 13.4 per cent on Sunday, he pointed out.

The recovery count stood at 8,24,275 after 7,822 people were discharged from hospitals during the day, leaving the state with 69,893 active cases, he said.

Indore and Bhopal, the two worst coronavirus-hit cities of Madhya Pradesh, registered 2,665 and 2,128 cases, respectively, in the last 24 hours, he said.

With 80,967 samples examined during the day, the number of tests in MP went up to 2,53,94,972, the official added.

A government release said 10,87,44,479 COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered so far in the state, including 1,27,907 on Monday.

figures in MP are as follows: Total cases 9,04,744, new cases 10,585, death toll 10576, recoveries 8,24,275, active cases 69,893, number of tests so far 2,53,94,972.

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International Limited Chairman Dr Krishna Ella on Monday said today's neglected infectious diseases could be tomorrow's global pandemic and stressed the need to have a coherent strategy to fight them.

He said this during an event organised as part of the 38 foundation day celebrations by CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH), Chandigarh.

Bharat Biotech's Covaxin is credited to be India's first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine to be approved and administered to a sizeable population across the globe.

Delivering this year's foundation day lecture virtually on Innovation and Leadership in Pandemic, Ella highlighted how today's neglected infectious diseases could be tomorrow's global pandemic and stressed the need to have a coherent strategy to fight infectious diseases, according to an CSIR-IMTECH statement.

During his lecture, Dr Ella highlighted how innovative technology in vaccine development is essential to solve public healthcare problems caused by infectious diseases.

He said Indian pharmaceutical companies need to innovate beyond generic vaccines to be a global player in the vaccine market.

He stressed the need for scientists to examine the unknowns that could be the future cause of pandemic through zoonotic and unknown viruses.

A serial entrepreneur with a passion for innovative ideas, has also ventured into veterinary vaccines, food processing, and developing biotechnology infrastructure in the country.

Dr Ella is also involved in shaping India's science education and policy through his association with several committees, said the statement.

Dr Shekhar C Mande, Secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research & Director General CSIR, asked scientists to focus on microbiome therapies, which could be future game changer for treating diseases.

Dr Sanjeev Khosla, Director, CSIR-IMTECH, lauded efforts of scientists and researchers for the work carried out to fight the pandemic during the challenging times of COVID-19.

The CSIR-IMTECH is a national centre for excellence in microbial sciences and was established in 1984.

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The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is driving a huge spike in fresh infections in Bangladesh, a senior official has said.

Nazmul Islam, a Spokesman for the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), on Sunday told the media , "A huge spike in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which is gradually replacing Delta in the country."

In a health bulletin on Sunday afternoon about the symptoms of the Omicron variant, he said that 73 per cent of people here detected with the Omicron variant have runny nose, 68 per cent have headache, 64 per cent have fatigue and 60 per cent have sneezing.

He added that 60 per cent of the patients have sore throat and 44 per cent have cough, Xinhua news agency reported.

"If we don't follow well hygiene rules, the upward trend in fresh Omicron cases won't stop," he said.

Bangladesh's new Covid-19 cases soared by 10,906 in the past 24 hours by 8 a.m. local time Sunday, taking the total cases to 1,685,136, according to the latest government data.

--IANS

int/khz/

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Twenty Indian arrested by for allegedly entering into the country's territorial waters were handed over to India through the border on Monday.

They crossed over to India through the land transit route of Attari border on Monday evening, said officials at the Attari border.

They entered India on the basis of 'Emergency Travel Certificate' issued by the Indian High commission at Islamabad.

All of the twenty were released from Landhi district Jail of Malir, Karachi on completion of their sentences. They were escorted to Lahore by road by Pakistan-based NGO Edhi Foundation.

The moment the crossed over to India, they knelt and kissed the ground. All were medically examined, including for COVID-19, said the officials.

They will stay for a night here in Amritsar, they said, adding that the fishermen will proceed back home to their native place in Gujarat on Tuesday.

Some of them had undergone around four years of jail term in after their arrest by the Pakistani Coast Guards.

They were arrested when their boats slipped into through territorial waters in the Arabian Sea.

The fishermen thanked Edhi Foundation which helped them to return home.

Pakistan and India regularly arrest rival fishermen for violating the maritime boundary which is poorly marked at some points.

According to the lists of prisoners exchanged by India and Pakistan at the start of this year, at least 628 Indian prisoners were held in Pakistan, including 51 civilians and 577 fishermen.

India also shared the list of 355 Pakistani prisoners in India, including 282 civilians and 73 fishermen.

Fishermen from Pakistan and India usually end up in jails after they are arrested for fishing illegally in each other's territorial waters.

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A strong performance in the October-December quarter of FY22, improving outlook across verticals, and marginal upward revision of estimates are expected to support the stock price of . More on that story in our top headlines this morning. Govt firms asked to declare market value of land, other real estate assets

In a bid to boost investors' interest in PSU stocks, the government has asked public sector undertakings (PSUs) to declare the market value of their land and other real estate assets. Read more

Q3 report card: Mid-cap IT services companies outdo large peers

Growth momentum for mid-cap IT services companies seems to have got a boost with large and mega deals going off the table for now and more mid-to-small deals becoming the norm. These players have not only outdone the large companies on revenue growth in the December quarter but also have managed the supply-side constraints, which otherwise have impacted the margin performance of tier-1 firms. Read more

T V Somanathan to Debashish Panda: Meet FM's A-team behind

In a week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the much-awaited 2022-23 Union Budget.

While there has been strong recovery in some sectors, touch services like hospitality, tourism and leisure continue to suffer after two Covid-19 waves. Read more

Netflix needs its 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' lest it lose the India plot

Five years after its entry, stands at an estimated 5 million paying subscribers, against 46 million for Disney+ Hotstar and 19 million for Amazon Prime Video, reveals the Media Partners Asia data. These figures are for December 2021 - a year when 102 million Indians subscribed to streaming video services. It has got to a point where every time the $67-billion Disney has an earnings call, the pressure on Netflixs India performance goes up. Read more

may reverse feeble stock showing on strong outlook

A strong performance in the October-December quarter (third quarter, or Q3) of 2021-22 (FY22), improving outlook across verticals, and marginal upward revision of estimates are expected to support the stock price of (RIL). The countrys most valued company beat Street estimates on the operating profit front, aided by retail, oil-to-chemicals (O2C), and upstream segments in Q3. Read more
The government on Monday named an under-bridge in after General to honour the country's first Chief of Defence Staff who died in a chopper crash in December.

Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel inaugurated the under-bridge located in Laxmi Nagar area virtually.

'In recent times, the head of all three wings of the armed forces, CDS General Bipin Rawat, lost his life in a tragedy. This bridge should be named CDS General Bridge, Patel said.

Earlier, Mayor Pradeep Dav had asked the CM to suggest a name for the structure, which was built at a cost of Rs 48 crore.

Patel said his government was committed to spending money to build infrastructure in the state, and listed various development work undertaken in .

General Rawat died on December 8 when his military helicopter crashed near Coonoor in Nilgiris district in Tamil Nadu. All 14 on board, including the general's wife, perished in the incident.

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is likely to be handed over to the by the end of this week, senior government officials said on Monday.

After a competitive bidding process, the government had on October 8 last year sold to Talace Private Limited -- a subsidiary of the Tata group's holding company -- for Rs 18,000 crore.

Following that, on October 11, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to the confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 percent stake in the airline. On October 25, the Centre signed the share purchase agreement (SPA) for this deal.

Officials told PTI on Monday that the remaining formalities regarding this deal are expected to be completed in the next few days and the airline will be handed over to the by the end of this week.

As a part of the deal, the Tata group will also be handed over Express and a 50 percent stake in ground handling arm Air India SATS.

Tatas had on October 8 beat the Rs 15,100-crore offer by a consortium led by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh and the reserve price of Rs 12,906 crore set by the government for the sale of its 100 percent stake in the loss-making carrier.

Air India disinvestment has been decided to take place on Jan 27th 2022. Closing balance sheet on Jan 20 is to be provided today, Jan 24 so that it can be reviewed by Tata & any changes can be made on Wednesday: Vinod Hejmadi, Director Finance, Air India in an email to employees  ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2022

While this will be the first privatisation since 2003-04, Air India will be the third airline brand in the Tatas' stable it holds a majority interest in AirAsia India and Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines Ltd.

"The disinvestment of Air India is now decided to be on the January 27, 2022. The closing balance sheet as on January 20 has to be provided today Jan 24 so that it can be reviewed by Tatas and any changes can be effected on Wednesday," Vinod Hejmadi, Director Finance, Air India, said in an email to employees.

"We have done an excellent job till now in providing all support for the disinvestment exercise. The next three days will be hectic for our department and I request all of you to give your best in these last three four days before we get divested," Hejmadi said.

Seeking cooperation of the employees, Hejmadi said, "We may have to work late in the night to complete the task given to us. I seek the cooperation of one and all."

Talking to ANI a senior Air India official said, "If due to some reason the time of 27 January is postponed then divestment process has to be done till the end of the month."

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The has issued notices to the Centre and the over a petition that seeks to declare as unconstitutional, a provision in the laws which empowers the authorities to block (ITC) on works contract services in the real estate.

The petitioner, which is engaged in the business of renting and leasing out movable and immovable properties, challenged the section 17(5)(c) of the Central (CGST) Act and the same section in the Maharashtra Act. The section prohibits to the works contract service for construction of an immovable property other than the plant and machinery except where it is an input service for further supply of works contract.

Works contract is essentially a contract of service which may also involve supply of goods in the execution of the contract.

The petitioner entered into a master rental agreement with a company to provide it furnished premises on lease. The petitioner procured works contract services to make the premises.

By virtue of the section cited above, ITC on works contract services used by the petitioner stands denied.

Abhishek Rastogi, a counsel for the petitioner and partner Khaitan & Co., argued that the section fails to recognise that these services are used by the petitioner in furtherance of its business.

The petitioner argued that since the leasing services provided by it are taxable, blockage of ITC resulted in breaking of the credit chain which goes against the ethos of the GST principles. GST was envisaged to do away with the cascading effect of taxes, it said.

"The objective of the GST system is to remove the cascading effect of tax on tax and ensure the flow of credits. As a corollary, any blocked credit will have to pass several tests of reasonability, public interest and above all constitutionality," Rastogi said.
Exports of goods rose 54 per cent to USD 81.8 billion during April-December 2021-22 as compared to the same period of the previous year, the commerce ministry said on Monday.

In the corresponding nine-month period of 2020-21, exports stood at USD 52.9 billion.

The sector accounted for over 27 per cent in India's total exports basket during the period.

In entire 2020-21, exports from the sector was USD 76.62 billion.

"With the sector already logging USD 81.8 billion in the first three quarters of 2021-22, the sector is set to scale further record highs despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in January, 2020," it said.

India's top five export destinations for goods include the US, China, the UAE, Italy and Germany.

The ministry said the zero duty Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme has helped in pushing up the exports, it added.

The scheme allows import of capital goods for pre-production, production and post-production (including completely knocked down/ semi knocked down thereof as well as computer software systems) at zero customs duty, subject to an export obligation equivalent to six times of duty saved on capital goods imported under the scheme, to be fulfilled in six years reckoned from authorization issue-date.

The goods sector comprises metal products, industrial machinery and equipment, automobiles and its components, transport equipment, bicycles, medical devices and renewable equipment.

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Microblogging platform on Monday said it has released a multi-lingual guide on Voter Rights and Responsibilities as part of efforts to empower first-time voters to make informed decisions during the upcoming legislative .

The Voters Guide focuses on the basic rights of the Indian voter as enshrined in the Constitution of India, and enumerates the responsibilities voters need to consider before and after casting their votes, a statement said.

It reflects the App's efforts - as a transparent, unbiased and reliable intermediary - in enhancing voter awareness, and in building greater trust in the electoral process, it added.

in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa will be held between February 10 and March 7 in seven phases with the counting of votes on March 10. In all, will be held for 690 assembly seats, and 18.3 crore people, including 8.5 crore women, will be eligible to cast their votes in the five states.

The Voters Guide - available in Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, and English - reiterates the importance of voting as the central pillar of democracy, and the need to augment voter education for free and fair elections.

Koo CEO and co-founder Aprameya Radhakrishna said the Guide has been released in four languages to enrich the knowledge of every voter, and to build greater confidence in the electoral process.

National Voters Day is observed on January 25 every year to mark the foundation of the Election Commission of India, which was established in 1950. First initiated in 2011, National Voters' Day is aimed at encouraging and maximising the enrolment of new voters.

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The Samajwadi Party's alliance seems to be running into rough weather over the issue of seat allotment.

While the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), an ally of the (SP) in west Uttar Pradesh, is facing trouble over seat allotment in at least eight Assembly segments, another ally has now queered the pitch for the SP.

A day after SP president Akhilesh Yadav named Rita Singh as the party candidate from the Sandila Assembly constituency in Hardoi for the UP polls, his alliance partner Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) has now announced its own candidate for the same seat.

In a press statement, the SBSP named its UP president 'Sunil Arkvanshi as the Samajwadi Party-SBSP candidate on the Sandila seat in Hardoi for the UP polls'.

state spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary said, "I am not aware of the seat declaration by the SBSP or if there is any confusion, we will work it out."

However, SBSP national spokesperson Piyush Mishra said, "There cannot be any confusion. The SP had allotted the Sandila seat to the SBSP. In fact, Akhilesh even did a rally for us in this constituency on November 27."

Akhilesh Yadav, on Saturday, had announced the induction of Rita Singh, the wife of former MLA from Sandila, into the party.

Rita Singh, the wife of the late Raja Mahavir Singh who won the Sandila seat on the SP ticket in 2012, is from the famous Bhargava family of Lucknow.

She is the daughter of the late Rani Ramkumar Bhargava, a freedom fighter and Congress leader. Rita Singh's brother Luv Bhargava was earlier the state general secretary of the Samajwadi Party. Luv Bhargava had contested on the Lucknow East seat in the 1993 UP Assembly polls as an SP candidate.

--IANS

amita/dpb

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Punjab Congress chief on Monday dubbed AAP's survey to select its CM face for the state a "scam" and "a deceptive scheme" and said his party has lodged a complaint with the against it.

Sidhu also launched a scathing attack against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal, calling him a "trickster and hypocrite".

Addressing reporters at a press conference here, Sidhu urged the to register a criminal case against for running a "fake campaign".

had announced its Punjab unit chief Bhagwant Mann as its CM face last week following the results of a survey in which people were asked to call on a phone number to give their preference.

Kejriwal had claimed that they had received over 21.59 lakh responses from January 13 to 17 under the "Janta Chunegi Apna CM" campaign and 93.3 per cent people had given Bhagwant Mann's name.

Punjab Congress chief got 3.6 per cent votes, the Delhi chief minister had added.

The Congress leader said this many calls can't be received on a private number over a few days.

"If we try to fit this data into mathematical calculations, then it does not make sense at all. Usually, such calls take at least 15 seconds, then only 5,760 calls can be attended in one day and that shall add up to 23,040 calls in four days," he said.

"It is a deceptive scam to trick people. This is exactly what he (Kejriwal) has done," he said.

"This mechanism of deceit to create an illusion and propaganda of fake news is a complete violation of the model code of conduct and the of India should take strict notice of it," Sidhu said.

He said the Congress has complained to the election panel as to how Kejriwal is trying to "befool" people of Punjab through "dirty tricks".

Sidhu said the AAP's drive was "nothing but a deceptive scheme and a trick to fool people of Punjab".

Kejriwal is a "trickster and a hypocrite," said Sidhu.

"I will expose this hypocrite, he is a habitual liar. This was an avoidable lie. Why would you create all this nonsense and propaganda to do something like this? But if he has done this, it is not the first time. We have seen earlier how he went on an apology-tendering spree, including Bikram Singh Majithia," said Sidhu.

In the complaint to the Election Commission, Sidhu has written that received around 7 lakh WhatsApp messages, 2.50 lakh voice messages and approximately 8 lakh voice calls.

Sidhu urged the poll panel to register a criminal case against AAP for running this "fake campaign".

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The BJP's Miranpur candidate for the assembly polls has been booked for allegedly giving an inflammatory speech at an election meeting and violating EC guidelines on physical campaigning, police said on Monday.

Pershant Gujjar and his 40 supporters have also been booked for holding the meeting without permission on Sunday, Kakroli Station House Officer (SHO) Sunil Sharma said.

He said that the meeting took place despite the Election Commission (EC) banning all kinds of physical poll public meetings and rallies in view of the Covid situation.

Gujjar, in a video clip, is heard appealing to people in Chorawala village to support him in the elections as the is of Hindus and the opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) is a Muslims' party.

Sharma said Gujjar and his supporters were booked after investigation of the video, which has gone viral on social media.

The election meeting, which Gujjar is addressing, was organised without the permission of district authorities and in violation of EC guidelines, he said.

Gujjar and his 40 supporters have been charged under Section 125 (promoting enmity between classes in connection with election) of the



the Representation of the People Act, Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act and Section 51 of the Disaster Management Act, Sharma said.

The SHO said that they also face Indian Penal Code sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 269 and 270 which pertain to malignantly, unlawfully or negligently doing any act which is, and which he knows or has reason to believe to be, likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life.

The other IPC sections imposed are 505(2) (whoever commits an offence in any place of worship or in any assembly engaged in the performance of religious worship) and 171 (offence related to not belonging to a certain class of public servants, wears any garb or carries any token resembling any garb or token used by that class of public servants), the Sharma said.

The Miranpur assembly constituency goes to polls on February 10 in the first of the seven-phase elections.

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Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison's Liberal Party lost access to his official social media account months ago, politicians said on Monday, issuing claims of censorship, while the still-active account being run by an unidentified controller now promotes Chinese life in Australia.

Amid growing diplomatic tensions with China, Australia's two major political parties have used the social media platform, owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, to communicate with Australian voters of Chinese ethnicity in tightly fought electorates since 2019.



With a national election due by May, the government would have aimed to use the Morrison account to promote its policies during the Chinese New Year celebrations starting Feb. 1. The prime minister's office has made multiple fruitless requests to to regain access to the account, most recently on Jan 10, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Tencent didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.



Both the Liberals and the main opposition Labor Party set up official accounts for their leaders through outsourced agencies. The account was registered in 2019 using the name of a Chinese citizen in mainland China as its account operator, WeChat records show and a government source confirmed.



Featuring Morrison's photograph, it originally promoted major announcements on the economy or the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, translated into Chinese.



But in January, the account was rebranded 'Australia China New Life', and said it would provide information such about life in Australia, Reuters confirmed by viewing the account. The account registration is now linked to a technology company in Fujian province, Reuters found.



Liberal Senator James Paterson, Chair of Parliament's Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, told media the incident was an example of "censorship" and "foreign interference".



"There's 1.2 million Australians of Chinese descent who overwhelmingly use this service and now can no longer access news and information from their Prime Minister," he said on Australian radio on Monday.



"Yet they can still gain access to critiques of the government, attacks on the government by the (Labor) Opposition Leader," he added.



Fergus Ryan, senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said having the Prime Minister's WeChat account registered under the name of a Chinese citizen was "always risky and ill-advised", and appeared to be a breach of WeChat rules.



"Any account set up in this way can be shut down at a moment's notice," he said.



In December 2020 the WeChat account was temporarily blocked amid a political dispute between Canberra and Beijing over an image of an Australian soldier in Afghanistan.



In the 2020 incident, a note appeared from WeChat saying the content violated regulations, including distorting historical events and confusing the public.

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In todays China, behemoths like Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings are out of favour, but little giants are on the rise.



Thats the designation for a new generation of start-ups that have been selected under an ambitious government program aimed at fostering a technology industry that can compete with Silicon Valley. These often-obscure have demonstrated theyre doing something innovative and unique, and theyre targeting strategically important sectors like robotics, quantum computing and semiconductors.

Wu Gansha won the little giants title for his autonomous driving start-up after a government review of his technology. That gave the Beijing company, Uisee, an extra dose of credibility and financial benefits. Last year, it raised more than 1 billion yuan ($157 million), including money from a state-owned fund. Its also become a unicorn, with a valuation of at least $1 billion.

Its an honor to wear the little giant label, Wu said. The essence of the project is that the must possess some specialty that others dont have.

The programme has been around for more than a decade, but it has taken on new prominence after Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown against leading like Alibaba and Tencent. The little giants label has become a valued measure of government endorsement, a signal for investors and employees that the companies are insulated from regulatory punishment. President Xi Jinping has given his personal blessing to the programme.

This is helpful to startups in many ways: It's a subsidy. It's a grant. It's an honor. It's a stamp of approval, said Lee Kai-Fu, founding managing director of the venture firm Sinovation.

The programme is key to the Communist Partys ambitious strategy to reposition the countrys technology industry. For two decades, largely followed the Silicon Valley model, allowing entrepreneurs to pursue their ambitions with little government oversight. That led to enormous successes, including e-commerce pioneer Alibaba, social media giant Tencent and ByteDance, creator of the hit TikTok short-video app.

But in a series of regulatory moves over the past year, Beijing made clear the technology industry must realign to conform with government priorities. Alibaba and Tencent were quickly forced to eliminate anti-competitive practices, while games companies had to limit minors to three hours of online play per week. More broadly, the government has signaled softer internet services are out of favour.
China on Sunday recorded 57 confirmed COVID-19 cases amid the emergence of the Omicron COVID-19 variant cases in the country.

Of the new local infections, six were reported in Beijing, three each in Hebei and Yunnan, two in Shandong, and one each in Tianjin, Shanxi, Henan and Guangdong, Xinhua reported citing the National Health Commission as saying on Monday.

Sunday also saw reports of 39 imported COVID-19 cases across the mainland, the Chinese media said.

Meanwhile, China is witnessing a rise in COVID-19 cases in its major cities including Beijing.

After reporting the first case of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the strict new COVID-19 restrictions come into force in the city.

This comes ahead of Winter Olympics which is scheduled to be held next month. Beijing will now require travellers to get a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of arrival in the Chinese capital, Taipei Times reported.

The new rule, effective from Saturday to the end of March, is aimed to help with early detection of Omicron, which is surging globally, and the control of epidemic risks, Beijing Daily, a government newspaper, said on social media.

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foreign ministers are aiming to put on a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of on Monday, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border.

All members of the are united. We are showing unprecedented unity about the situation in Ukraine, with the strong coordination with the U.S., EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels.

Asked whether the EU would follow a U.S. move and order the families of European embassy personnel in to leave, Borrell said: We are not going to do the same thing. He said he is keen to hear from Secretary of State Antony Blinken about that decision.

During Monday's meeting, which Blinken will attend virtually, the ministers will restate Europe's condemnation of the Russian military build-up near Ukraine, involving an estimated 100,000 troops, tanks, artillery and heavy equipment, diplomats and officials said ahead of the meeting.

They'll renew calls for dialogue, notably through the European-backed Normandy format, which helped to ease hostilities in 2015, a year after Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Fighting in eastern has killed around 14,000 people and still simmers today.

Should Putin move on Ukraine again, the ministers will warn, would face massive consequences and severe costs. Those costs would be of a financial and political nature. The EU insists that it stands ready to slap hefty sanctions on within days of any attack.

We don't know what the Russians are going to do, but what we are talking about is basically the most important security development in Europe since the end of the Cold War, a senior EU official said. The response of the will be at the level of the challenge.

The official and diplomats briefed reporters on condition of anonymity so that they could speak more freely about the meeting preparations.

Over the weekend, some of the member countries closest to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania confirmed that they plan to send U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by the United States.

But questions have been raised about just how unified the EU is. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. Around 40% of the EU's natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine.

Gas prices have skyrocketed, and the head of the Energy Agency has said that Russian energy giant Gazprom was already reducing its exports to the EU in late 2021 despite high prices. Putin says Gazprom is respecting its contract obligations, not putting the squeeze on Europe.

The EU's two major powers appear most cautious. Germany's Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which is complete but yet to pump gas, has become a bargaining chip. French President Emmanuel Macron has renewed previously rejected calls for an EU summit with Putin.

Late last year, France and Germany initially expressed doubts about U.S. intelligence assessments that Moscow might be preparing to invade.

Late on Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, resigned after coming under fire for saying that Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula, and for suggesting that Putin deserves respect.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plans to meet with Putin next week to discuss a Russian-backed project to expand a Hungarian nuclear power plant.

Still, diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EU's executive branch, the European Commission. But they were reluctant to say what the measures might be or what action by Russia might trigger them.

The aim, they said, is to try to match the doubts Putin has sowed about his intentions for Ukraine with uncertainty about what any retaliatory European action might look like, or when it would come.

One diplomat refused to discuss the matter at all. Another suggested that a layered response might be in preparation, with different levels of retaliation depending on whether a cyberattack, rocket strike, or all-out invasion was launched.

A third was confident there would be no arguments over the trigger point, saying: We'll know it when we see it.

For now, though, the Europeans must wait and see whether Putin is satisfied with progress in talks with the United States, coordinate with Blinken on a response should things go wrong, and bank on the economic deterrent posed by the EU being Russia's biggest trading partner.

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More than 80 faculty members of the California State University (CSU) have opposed a recent announcement of the university to include in its non-discriminatory policy.

In a blistering letter to the CSU Board of Trustees opposing the move, the faculty members have written that the new policy would unfairly target a minority community for policing and disparate treatment. Adding as a specific and separate protected category would apply only to the faculty of Indian and South Asian descent, they said.

"The addition of is a misguided overreach given the existence of comprehensive policies that already protect against various forms of discrimination" said Praveen Sinha, professor of accountancy at CSU, Long Beach.

"We cannot but oppose the unique risk that CSU's move puts on us as they add a category that is only associated with people of Indian descent such as myself and thousands of other faculty and students in the CSU system. It is going to create divisions where they simply do not exist," he added.

The faculty members have written that there are more than 600 CSU faculty of Indian and South Asian origin who would be rendered vulnerable should the collective bargaining agreement be passed as currently written, according to a media release.

"As a faculty member of Indian origin, I am well aware that discrimination is a daily reality for many students of varied backgrounds, and there is a robust mechanism to address all such complaints under the existing laws and the CSU policy," said Sunil Kumar, professor of engineering at the San Diego State University.

"But this policy change has been made in the absence of any scientifically reliable evidence or data. Rather than redressing discrimination, it will actually cause discrimination by unconstitutionally singling out and targeting Hindu faculty of Indian and South Asian descent as members of a suspect class because of deeply entrenched, false stereotypes about Indians, Hindus and caste," he said.

"We are disappointed that the CSU faculty association championed this move without holding discussions with the faculty concerned, even when three professors had alerted them way back in May 2021. In their meeting with these three professors on January 14 this year, some of the CFA leaders admitted that they did not understand the complexity of caste and that they dropped the ball," Kumar said.

Earlier, lawyers at the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Suhag Shukla, Samir Kalra and Nikhil Joshi, also sent a letter to the CSU Board of Trustees, the CSU Office of General Counsel, the CSU chancellor and the president of the California Faculty Association on behalf of the CSU faculty.

"It is simply unfathomable how system-wide leaders and a faculty union, which is contractually obligated to protect and represent all of its members regardless of their background, could negotiate a clause that will discriminate against faculty of a particular background or faith, especially where existing laws and policies already provide redress," Shukla said.

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British Prime Minister has ordered an inquiry into claims by a lawmaker who said she was fired from a ministerial job in the government partly because her Muslim faith was making colleagues uncomfortable.

Nusrat Ghani, 49, who lost her job as a junior transport minister in February 2020, told the Sunday Times that she had been told by a "whip" - an enforcer of parliamentary discipline - that her "Muslimness" had been raised as an issue in her sacking.

"The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP," Downing Street said.

"As he said at the time, the Prime Minister takes these claims very seriously."

The government's chief whip, Mark Spencer, said he was the person at the centre of Ghani's allegations. He said they were completely false and defamatory.

"I have never used those words attributed to me," he said.

Johnson met Ghani to discuss the "extremely serious" claims in July 2020, a spokesperson from the prime minister's office said on Sunday.

Downing Street said that when the allegations were first made, Johnson recommended she make a formal complaint to the Conservative Campaign Headquarters.

"She did not take up this offer," Downing Street said.

Ghani's allegation came after one of her Conservative colleagues said he would meet police to discuss accusations that government whips had attempted to "blackmail" lawmakers suspected of trying to force Johnson from office over lockdown parties.

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Founder was on Monday granted permission from the Supreme Court to appeal against his order to the US.

The 50-year-old is wanted in America over the leak of thousands of classified documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His lawyers argued that he should not be taken to the US because of a real and "oppressive" risk of suicide.

Last month, the US authorities won an appeal against a previous court ruling that he could not be extradited due to concerns over his mental health.

US authorities later provided assurances that the founder would not face the severely restrictive conditions that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

The High Court overturned the lower court's decision in December, noting American solemn undertakings were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely.

Now, Assange has secured the right to seek appeal against that ruling in the Supreme Court based on a point of law that is of "general public importance", which could potentially have a far-reaching impact of setting fresh precedent in cases.

If he had failed to meet the extremely high bar to be allowed the appeal, Assange's case would have gone directly to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel for a final decision on .

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The United States continues to provide Kiev with security assistance and received $200 million on Saturday, a senior US State Department official said.

"We are assisting with new lethal defensive security assistance, including ammunition for the front line defenders of . The first of several shipments for Ukrainian armed forces totalling $200 million arrived in Kyiv January 22, yesterday, and more will arrive in the weeks to come," the official said at a Sunday briefing.

This past Tuesday, a senior US State Department official said that the United States would provide Ukraine with additional defensive aid on top of what is already in the process of being sent should tensions with escalate.

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and Islamabad are in talks to finalize the plan for Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to this year, a media report said on Sunday.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has already extended a formal invitation to Putin, The Express Tribune newspaper said in its report, adding that Imran Khan reiterated the invitation to him during his telephonic conversation this month.

The Pakistani newspaper said Putin's visit was under discussion for the last two years but could not materialize because of several reasons, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the report, also wants that there must be "big-ticket projects" or other initiatives that the Russian president would announce when he finally undertakes the trip to .

Last year, Pakistan and Russia had signed an agreement for the construction of a 1,100 km gas pipeline from Port Qasim in Karachi to Lahore.

The Pakistan media report said that the signing of the Pakistan Steam Gas Pipeline in July last year has brightened the prospects of Putin's visit to Pakistan.

Pakistan is keen that President Putin inaugurates the more than USD 2 billion gas pipeline project and wants Russian companies to lay the pipeline from Karachi to Kasur.

This project, according to the newspaper, is a flagship project that and Islamabad intend to undertake and enter into a new era of bilateral ties. The project not only had economic but strategic significance for Pakistan, the Tribune report added citing officials familiar with the development.

It further said Pakistan wanted to broaden ties with Russia as part of its efforts to diversify its foreign policy options.

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said Monday that it's putting extra forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern as continues its troop build-up near .

It said that it's beefing up its deterrence presence in the Baltic Sea area. A number of members of the 30-country military organization have offered troops and equipment.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania.

Spain is sending ships to join NATO's standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria, said.

will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

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Britain's High Court is set to rule Monday on whether founder can take his fight against US to the UK Supreme Court.

The decision is the latest step in Assange's long battle to avoid being sent to the United States to face espionage charges over WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents more than a decade ago.

Just over a year ago, a district court judge in London rejected a US request on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions.

US authorities later provided assurances that the founder would not face the severely restrictive conditions that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

Last month the High Court overturned the lower court's decision. High Court justices Ian Burnett and Timothy Holroyd said the American promises were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely.

They said the US promises were solemn undertakings, offered by one government to another, which will bind all officials and prosecutors who will deal with the relevant aspects of Mr. Assange's case now and in the future.

Assange's lawyers say those promises can't be trusted, and have sought permission to appeal to Britain's highest court. They argue that the US government's pledge that Assange won't be subjected to extreme conditions is meaningless because it is conditional and could be changed at the discretion of American authorities.

Nick Vamos, a partner at Peters & Peters solicitors in London and a former head of at Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, said it was unlikely that the appeal would be granted. Assange can only take the case to the Supreme Court if the High Court rules that there are matters of general public importance to consider.

Even if the High Court justices reject that argument, the long-running legal saga is unlikely to end immediately. Assange still has other routes of appeal against the extradition decision open to him.

Assange, 50, has been held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London since 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that, he spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador's Embassy in London. Assange sought protection in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

American prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that later published, putting lives at risk.

Lawyers for Assange argue that their client shouldn't have been charged because he was acting as a journalist and is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution that guarantees freedom of the press. They say the documents he published exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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will face severe economic sanctions if it installs a puppet regime in Ukraine, a senior British minister said on Sunday after the UK accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader there.

"There'll be very serious consequences if takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime," British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Sky News.



Britain made the accusation late on Saturday, also saying Russian intelligence officers had been in contact with a number of former Ukrainian politicians as part of plans for an invasion.



The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the British allegation as "disinformation," accusing NATO of "escalating tensions" over . The British claims came after the top U.S. and Russian diplomats failed on Friday to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine, which was sparked when began massing troops near its border with the country.



Officials in Moscow have insisted they have no plans to invade, and both they and their American counterparts have agreed to keep talking. But tension remains high.



In Washington, the U.S. State Department announced it was ordering the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the threat of Russian military action.



U.S. President Joe Biden has begun considering options for boosting America's military assets in the region, senior administration officials said, after meeting top national security aides at his Camp David retreat on Saturday.



The New York Times said Biden was mulling plans to send 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the possibility of increasing the number should tensions flare further.



A senior administration official declined to confirm the numbers on Sunday but said "we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward." With the world watching Moscow's next move closely, the British foreign ministry said it had information the Russian government was considering former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Murayev as a potential candidate to head a pro-Russian leadership.



Murayev himself poured cold water on the notion that Russia wants to install him as Ukraine's leader, in comments to British newspapers and in an interview with Reuters.



"This morning I already read in all the news publications this conspiracy theory: absolutely unproven, absolutely unfounded," Murayev told Reuters in a video call, adding he was considering legal action.



He denied having any contact with Russian intelligence officers and dismissed the idea that he could be in league with the Kremlin as "stupid," given he was placed under Russian sanctions in 2018.



Although he says he wants to be independent from Russia as well as the West, Murayev has promoted some views that align with the Kremlin's narratives on .



The British foreign ministry declined to provide evidence to back its accusations. In a message to Reuters, Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian adviser to the presidential office, said there was doubt among Ukrainians as to whether Murayev was "too ridiculous a figure" to be the Kremlin's pick to lead Ukraine.



But he added that Russia had propped up previously minor figures in leadership positions in annexed Crimea and separatist-held Donbass.



Therefore "one should take this information as seriously as possible," he said.



'DEEPLY CONCERNING'



The United States has described the alleged plotting over Ukraine as deeply concerning, and U.S. officials said they were bracing for Russian action.



The State Department on Sunday also authorised the voluntary departure of U.S. government employees and said all Americans should considering departing immediately.



"The Department of State authorised the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action," it said in a statement.



U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has so far rebuffed calls to immediately impose economic sanctions on Russia, saying on Sunday that doing so would undercut the West's ability to deter potential Russian aggression against Ukraine.



The United States has sent military assistance to Ukraine but held back from sending American personnel.



As U.S. troop deployments were discussed, a separate senior administration official said U.S. economic penalties on Russia would have far-reaching consequences if it invades Ukraine.



The United States would use the Foreign Direct Product Rule to restrict the export to Russia of products incorporating microelectronics based on U.S. equipment, software or technology.



Russia has made a series of demands on the United States, including a halt to NATO's eastward expansion and a pledge that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the Western military alliance.

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Talks between and the west have failed. Moscow has described the situation in as intolerable and a matter of life or death. The US president, Joe Biden, has predicted the Kremlin will move in to .

The impasse was reached when the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, insisted that the armed conflict in eastern looks like genocide, adding massive pressure to his diplomatic demands. Russia insists it is prepared to deploy unspecified but alarming sounding military-technical means to pursue its ends.

The signals are more than clear: after annexing Crimea in 2014 and sponsoring separatist movements in the Donbas, in the countrys east, Moscow is directly threatening a third incursion into Ukraines territorial sovereignty, massing troops on the Ukrainian border and also in Belarus, officially for joint exercises.

Beyond Ukraine, is putting pressure on Nato and the EU, and attempting to change the order with this latest round of power . Is Moscow bluffing  or is an escalated military conflict likely in Ukraine? If so, what are the chances that Kyiv can resist its more powerful neighbour?

Pressure on Kyiv

A concerted campaign of disinformation deployed through Russian-language media aims to foment unrest in Ukraine. But eight years of war have considerably diminished the power of pro-Russian propaganda and Kyiv took further steps last year by banning pro-Russian media outlets.

Ukraines security services have also revealed that several thousand cyberattacks have been conducted from occupied Crimea since 2014. In mid-January, a message calling on Ukrainians to be afraid and expect the worst  purporting to be from Poland, one of Ukraines strongest supporters  was revealed by Ukraines information ministry to have probably been devised by .

Energy security is another important part of this crisis. Moscows plans for Nord Stream 2  a pipeline which is supposed to directly reach Germany through the Baltic Sea  could deny energy to Ukraine, which has already lost control of its coal deposits in the conflicted Donbas. On top of that, Ukraine could lose transit fees equivalent to approximately 4% of its GDP, or US$7 billion (5.1 billion).

But these are covert measures which must fly under the radar. The fear is that Moscow is backing itself into a diplomatic corner where the use of force is its only way to remain credible.

Military scenarios

Russia has built up sufficient military resources to penetrate into Ukrainian territory. But its unlikely to be able to take the whole country and, more importantly, hold it for any significant period, given the prospects of fierce armed resistance from Ukraine. But it has a number of options from which to launch a measured incursion.

East: Russia could easily launch a massive operation from the eastern province of Donbas where it is supporting local militias. The main part of its military build-up is in this area. The problem is that the main cities that Moscow could attempt to seize, Kharkiv and Dnipro, are heavily populated and would be difficult to capture occupy.

South: The Black Sea territories, or Prichernomorie, would be a tempting target for Russian strategists. Seizing this area would cut Ukraine off from its access to the sea and connect Russian forces from Donbas to Transnistria  a Russian-occupied region of Moldova, to the west of Ukraine.

Russia could launch its eastern forces as well as pre-positioned troops in Crimea.

Analysts indicate that the coastal defences to the west of Crimea are quite exposed. But Russia would need to seize the cities of Marioupol, in the east, and Odessa, in the west, where the population would most likely strenuously resist Russian occupation.

North: Kyiv, Ukraines capital, is less than 100km from the border with Belarus, where Russia has troops conducting joint exercises. Belaruss president, Alexander Lukashenko  an autocrat who holds on to power thanks to Moscows support  recently declared that his country wont stand aside if war breaks out.

West: Perhaps the most surprising direction from which a new invasion of Ukraine could come. The Pentagon recently indicated concerns of a Kremlin false-flag operation coming from Transnistria  a Russian-speaking region of Moldova where Moscow has kept troops since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Is Ukraine ready to resist?

For eight years, Kyiv has been fighting in the east of the country, beefing up its military and preparing its population to resist. But military sources are gloomy about the prospect of being able to resist for much longer than a week without the help of western allies.

Air defences are weak, but Ukraine has other assets, such as drones provided by Turkey as well as new anti-tank missiles provided by the US and the UK, with the assistance of trainers. Ukraine has also developed its own missile, which is proving effective in the field.

As well as its regular troops, Ukraine has its national guard, a sort of armed national police force. Backed by significant investments and advanced weaponry, it could act as a rearguard against paratroopers or special forces infiltrations.

Meanwhile, Ukraines defence battalions now span the whole territory, following the National Resistance Act which entered into force this month. These are civilian units, military trained to use guerrilla tactics against occupying forces.

The Ukrainian population has also been mobilizing in support of the troops since the seizure of Crimea and the war in Donbas. And according to a poll taken in December 2021 by the Kyiv Institute of Sociology, 58% of Ukrainian men and almost 13% of women declared that they are ready to take up arms. A further 17% and 25% more said they would resist through other means.

In what would be a classic case of asymmetrical warfare, resistance from Ukraines population could therefore prove a serious thorn in Moscows side.

Julien Theron, Lecturer, Conflict and Security Studies, Sciences Po

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the US Embassy in to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.

The department told the dependents of staffers at the US Embassy in Kyiv that they must leave the country. It also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave at government expense.

The move came amid rising tensions about Russia's military buildup on the border that were not eased during talks on Friday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.

State Department officials stressed the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation. The move had been under consideration for some time and does not reflect an easing of US support for Ukraine, the officials said.

In a statement, the State Department noted recent reports that Russia was planning significant military action against Ukraine. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO countries of escalating tensions around Ukraine with disinformation.

The State Department added: "The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv."



The department's travel advisory, which had warned against travelling to Ukraine because of COVID-19 as well as the tensions over Russia, was changed on Sunday to carry a stronger warning.

"Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk," the department advised.

The travel advisory for Russia was also changed: "Do not travel to Russia due to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine, the potential for harassment against US citizens, the embassy's limited ability to assist US citizens in Russia, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions, terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, and the arbitrary enforcement of local law."



The State Department would not say how many Americans it believes are currently in Ukraine. US citizens are not required to register with embassies when they arrive or plan to stay abroad for extended periods.

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The on Sunday updated its travel advisory for urging American citizens to leave the country and authorizing the departure of some embassy employees.

"On January 23, 2022, the Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of US direct hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action. US citizens in should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options," the State Department said in an advisory on Sunday.

This advisory said is planning significant military action against .

"The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv."

The State Department said that US citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine would severely impact the US Embassy's ability to provide consular services, including assistance to U.S. citizens in departing Ukraine."

The State Department has urged American citizens not to take trips to the country amid "tension" along the border with Ukraine.

"Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk. Read the entire Travel Advisory."

This advisory comes as several countries, led by the US, have accused of amassing troops near the Ukrainian border in alleged preparation for an invasion. Moscow has said that it has no intention of invading Ukraine while stressing that it has the right to move forces within its own territory.

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Shares of Services Ltd fell as much as 8.3% on Monday after India's market regulator directed the non-banking financial company over the weekend to address corporate governance issues before holding any board meeting.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) also asked to file an action-taken report in four weeks, the company said.

The firm was accused of lapses in corporate governance by four independent directors, who resigned last week.

The company's majority owner, PTC India Ltd, last week said it would investigate the matter and formed an internal committee, which would submit a report in 30 days.

PTC India Financial's board meeting was scheduled for Jan. 22, but could not be held. The non-banking financial company said it had filed an application with SEBI, seeking permission for the board meeting for the appointment of independent directors.

PTC India invited bids in 2020 for selling its stake in PTC India Financial, but was not able to get any suitors.

PTC India Financial's shares are down nearly 30% since hitting a multi-year high last week.

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

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Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is quoting at Rs 375.9, down 1.52% on the day as on 13:24 IST on the NSE. The stock tumbled 2.94% in last one year as compared to a 20.8% rally in NIFTY and a 46.36% spurt in the Nifty Energy index.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd dropped for a fifth straight session today. The stock is quoting at Rs 375.9, down 1.52% on the day as on 13:24 IST on the NSE. The benchmark NIFTY is down around 2.37% on the day, quoting at 17200.05. The Sensex is at 57680.91, down 2.3%.Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd has gained around 0.4% in last one month.Meanwhile, Nifty Energy index of which Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd is a constituent, has increased around 8.8% in last one month and is currently quoting at 25055.85, down 2.03% on the day. The volume in the stock stood at 32.51 lakh shares today, compared to the daily average of 44.23 lakh shares in last one month.

The benchmark January futures contract for the stock is quoting at Rs 377, down 1.22% on the day. Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd tumbled 2.94% in last one year as compared to a 20.8% rally in NIFTY and a 46.36% spurt in the Nifty Energy index.

The PE of the stock is 6.17 based on TTM earnings ending September 21.

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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has requested that the Government should encourage industry to deploy CSR funding towards providing precautionary shots to the community. The industry is ready to contribute an additional 1% under the CSR norms to the national vaccination mission, apart from the mandated 2%, and this can be part of the Budget for a period of 12 months only. Besides, ahead of Union Budget 2022-23, CII has urged state governments to lift restrictions on economic activity, given that the occupancy rate of hospital beds due to the Omicron variant of Covid is well within the manageable level. The Budget, coming during the third wave of the pandemic, is expected to focus on measures for strengthening economic recovery. CII has also requested for fast-tracking of imports of all international approved mRNA and protein based vaccines at a price to be determined by the Government. This would open up booster shots to all sections of society. With bounceback in demand, the economy is expected to achieve 9.2% growth rate over 2021-22. However, this pace must continue for full recovery and faster growth in the medium term and to ensure that workers and small enterprises do not suffer. While vaccinations have helped in dampening the impact of Omicron on the lives of people, the present conditions are conducive to opening up the economy completely while keeping large social gatherings to a minimum, CII President noted.

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SGX Nifty:

Trading of Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could slide 145 points at the opening bell.

Build up to the upcoming budget session would be the key event that the market would be looking for in the near future. The Budget session of Parliament is set to commence on January 31 and will conclude on April 8. The government will present the Budget for fiscal 2022-23 on February 1. The Economic Survey is likely to be tabled on January 31 after the president's address, as per reports.

On the political front, developments in the upcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab, and Manipur will be closely watched. Polls in all the five states will be held between February 10 and March 7 in seven phases. The counting of votes and the result will be declared on March 10.

Global markets:

Overseas, Asian stocks traded lower on Monday as investors looked ahead to the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this week. The Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide on the next steps for U.S. monetary policy.

Wall Street's main indexes ended sharply lower on Friday as Netflix shares plunged after a weak earnings report.

Domestic markets:

Back home, the domestic equity benchmarks ended with deep losses on Friday, sliding for the fourth straight session. The barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, tumbled 427.44 points or 0.72% to 59,037.18. The Nifty 50 index fell 139.85 points or 0.79% to 17,617.15.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 3,148.58 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), were net buyers to the tune of Rs 269.36 crore in the Indian equity market on 21 January, provisional data showed.

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The benchmark indices hit intraday low during mid-morning trade as sectoral indices declined across the board. The Nifty continued to trade beneath 17,400 level. The NSE's India VIX, a gauge of market's expectation of volatility over the near term, soared 11.89% to 21.1350.

At 11:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, tumbled 718.86 points or 1.22% at 58,318.32. The Nifty 50 index dropped 233.55 points or 1.33% at 17,383.60.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index skid 2.60% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index lost 3.40%.

The market breadth was weak. On the BSE, 571 shares rose and 2,865 shares fell. A total of 127 shares were unchanged.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs 3,148.58 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs), were net buyers to the tune of Rs 269.36 crore in the Indian equity market on 21 January 2022, provisional data showed.

Upcoming Nifty 50 Result:

Axis Bank (down 0.73%) will announce its quarterly result today.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty IT index declined 2.43% to 35,179. The index lost 9.39% in six trading sessions.

Coforge (down 5.25%), Mphasis (down 5%), MindTree (down 4.73%), L&T Infotech (LTI) (down 4.13%) and Tech Mahindra (down 4.01%) were the top losers in the IT segment.

Earnings in Spotlight:

Bandhan Bank advanced 2.76%. The microfinance bank reported a 35.8% rise in standalone net profit to Rs 858.97 crore on a 6.5% rise in total income to Rs 4,120.95 crore in Q3 FY22 over Q3 FY21. Profit before tax rose 35.4% to Rs 1,144 crore in Q3 FY22 over Q3 FY21. Operating profit before provisions and contingencies rose 1.4% to Rs 1950.14 crore in Q3 FY22 as compared to Rs 1,923.18 crore in Q3 FY21. Net Interest Income (NII) for the quarter grew by 2.6% to Rs 2,124.7 crore as against Rs 2,071.7 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Net interest margin (annualised) for the quarter ended 31 December 2021 stood at 7.8% as against 7.6% in Q2 FY22.

Gland Pharma dropped 4.63%. The company's consolidated net profit increased by 34% to Rs 273 crore in Q3 FY22 from Rs 204.1 crore in Q3 FY21. Revenue from operations during the third quarter of financial year 2022 grew by 24% to Rs 1063.3 crore as compared to corresponding quarter of the previous year. The growth in revenue was on account of launch of new products and volume growth in existing products, the company said. The company's key market, USA, has seen a Y-o-Y revenue growth rate of 23% for the quarter, including the India sales for USA market. Its core markets, US, Canada, Europe, and Australia accounted for 63% of the revenue during Q3 FY22.

Global Markets:

Overseas, Asian stocks traded mixed on Monday as investors looked ahead to the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting this week. The Federal Open Market Committee is due to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday to decide on the next steps for U.S. monetary policy.

Wall Street's main indexes ended sharply lower on Friday as Netflix shares plunged after a weak earnings report.

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For development of EV ancillary project

Wardwizard Innovations & Mobility jointly with its Promoters & Promoters' Group acquired 4 Million sqft of land with possession via MOU & Agreement for Sale in Vadodara for the development of electric vehicle (EV) ancillary project. The investment to shape Indian EV industry is in accordance with the MoU signed with the Government of Gujarat in December 2021.

The project aims to provide a unique solution to localize and strengthen the supply chain of raw materials for EV manufacturing. The development of the EV ancillary cluster will begin from the month of February 2022 in a phased manner. The ancillary will foster the growth of the EV industry with the manufacturing of essential components like, electric-motor, chassis, steel parts, lithium-ion cell manufacturing unit, lithium-ion battery assembly unit, chargers, controllers, R&D centre, production for electronic components, etc. Considering the size of the ancillary, it is expected to generate additional more 6000 jobs in the state.

The land will also be utilized for the production of high-speed electric two-wheelers, electric three-wheelers (passenger segment), and R&D of electric four-wheeler as well as other future projects. The location of ancillary cluster enjoys healthy transport connectivity as it is located on Vadodara-Ahmedabad highway. It will be 02hrs from Ahmedabad; 08hrs from Mumbai; 20 minutes from Vadodara airport.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A saint cannot be a chief minister as after taking the oath of secularism as a constitutional dignitary, he cannot stay "religious", a prominent seer said here on Monday, in an apparent reference to Chief Minister .

The claim was made by Swami Avimukteshwaranand in his reply to a query on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's status as a saint and the mahant of Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur.

No man can abide by two pledges. A saint can be a mahant' but not a chief minister or prime minister. This is possible in the khilafat' system of Islam in which the religious head also happens to be the king, the seer, attending the Magh fair here on the bank of Ganga, said.

The seer also expressed concern over the alleged mismanagement in organising the Magh fair in Prayagraj this year.

The Magh fair has been greatly ignored this year. Some saints have gone to extent of threatening fast and self-immolation too. If the leaders are busy in elections, can't the government officials properly manage the fair? he asked.

On the sudden rise of water level in the Ganga, inconveniencing the saints, Swami Avimukteshwaranand asked, Why the water level is not being controlled when the government has the mechanism to regulate the flow in rivers?



Owing to the sudden rise in the water level, many people had to shift their tents, he said.

On the alleged interference of in religion, the seer accused all political parties of making transgression into religion.

He said all parties have transgressed into and the trend is no longer limited to merely having ties with saints and seers but they are installing their men on key religious positions.

He said political parties are seeking to man the religious positions with their votaries to advance their views.

Some people in the country want religious gurus to speak in their language, he said, adding "that is why the people propagating religion following its 'old books' are irritating them and a policy to remove such people is on work.

On the upcoming assembly polls, he said, The people should elect the right man and right party so that they should not be left repenting after the formation of the government as is being felt these days that many people are lament that they have committed a mistake.

The people must not commit the same error in the elections ahead, he cautioned.

(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.)
A day after Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's comments on Hindutva, senior leader on Monday hit back at former ally Shiv Sena, saying its is merely on paper and doesn't go beyond speeches.

Fadnavis said under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Ram temple is being built in Ayodhya. Modi also developed the Kashi Vishwanath temple corridor, the former CM said addressing a press conference.

On the other hand, the Sena (which is in power in Maharashtra) could not even rename Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar, and Osmanabad as Dharashiv. But, Allahabad was renamed as Prayagraj (under the government in Uttar Pradesh), while the Sena kept merely mincing words, he said.

The has time and again referred to Aurangabad a city built by Mughal ruler Aurangzeb as Sambhajinagar after second Maratha king Chhatrapati Sambhaji (the son of Maratha warrior Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj), and Osmanabad as Dharashiv.

The Sena fell out with the after the 2019 polls and tied-up with the NCP and Congress to form the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.

In his address to Shiv Sainiks on Sunday, which was also the birth anniversary of his father and party founder Bal Thackeray, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the Sena has left the BJP and not .

The CM had also said, I believe that BJP's opportunistic is only for power. The had aligned with the BJP as it wanted power for Hindutva. The Sena never used Hindutva for the sake of power."



Reacting to the comments, Fadnavis on Monday said, "Who all from the Sena participated in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement? We are the ones who took bullets and lathis in the movement. Your (Shiv Sena) Hindutva is merely on paper."



Modi ensured that Ram temple was built in Ayodhya (in Uttar Pradesh), but the Sena could not solve the Durgadi temple issue in Kalyan (town of Maharashtra). What is your Hindutva beyond speeches? You need to live Hindutva. It is not restricted to speeches, the BJP leader said.

Fadnavis also said even before the was born, there was Bhartiya Jana Sangh the erstwhile avatar of the BJP its corporator in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and MLAs in the state.

In 1984, Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi contested the Lok Sabha poll on BJP's ticket, he said.

On Sunday, Uddhav Thackeray had also said that, "The BJP doesn't mean Hindutva. I stand by my comment that the Shiv Sena had wasted 25 years in alliance with the BJP."



To this, Fadnavis claimed that when the Sena was with the BJP, it became the number one party, but, when it not in an alliance with the BJP, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party has now slipped to the fourth position.

He was referring to the recent local body polls where the Sena bagged fourth position.

So with whom did the Sena waste its years? Fadnavis wondered.

(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.)
leader on Monday took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party saying that his party took from the bottom to the top in .

He also reiterated Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's statement and said that only uses Hindutva for power.

Talking with the media, Raut said, "We took from bottom to top in . After Babri, there was a wave in Northern India; if we had fought polls at that time, there would have been our (Shiv Sena) Prime Minister in the country but we left it for them. BJP only uses Hindutva for power."

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik also spoke in favour of Uddhav Thackeray's 'Wasted 25 years with BJP' remark.

"It is a fact that the parties that made an alliance with BJP were gradually destroyed by them. It's good to take pride in one's religion, but it is not right to have hatred towards other religions," he said.

Uddhav Thackeray's remarks came on the 96th birth anniversary of the party founder Bal Thackeray.

"We are the ones who supported them (BJP). We had an alliance for 25 years. BJP used Hindutva for power. We left BJP but will not leave Hindutva. BJP is not Hindutva. Tactics were used against us when we challenged them," he said. He also said that the BJP has used Hindutva for power.

(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.)
Documentary highlights China's historic leap from destitution to moderate prosperity

Xinhua) 08:23, January 24, 2022

BEIJING, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- "Big Country Granary," a documentary film chronicling how the Communist Party of China led its people to make a historic leap from destitution to moderate prosperity, is set for release on March 4, an official source revealed on Sunday.

The production group has interviewed more than 60 people across the country, which include scientists, agricultural experts and ordinary people, said Xiong Yanjiang, director of the documentary, adding that it expounds on the Party's people-centered philosophy.

The film illustrates agricultural science and sci-tech workers' spirit of innovation and their achievements reaching the pinnacle of their careers, represented by Yuan Longping, the late agronomist, known as the "father of hybrid rice."

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
Indian can reach $300 billion worth of and exports by 2025-26 -- nearly four times from the current $67 billion -- if specific product segments with high potential for scale are shortlisted and catered to by way of incentives and policy measures, a new IT Ministry report showed on Monday.

The Vision Document 2.0, prepared by the Ministry of and Information Technology (MeitY) and presented by the India Cellular & Association (ICEA), emphasised that such products segments cover mobile phones, Information Technology hardware (IT hardware), consumer electronics, wearables and hearables, LED lighting, electronic components in electric vehicles (EVs) etc.

"To witness India's top ranking globally in the electronics industry, we need tactical and strategic steps for each product line and supportive directions to our domestic players/Indian champions to meet our Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' vision," ICEA Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said.

The electronics industry had grown from $37.1 billion in 2015-16 to $67.3 billion in 2020-21. However, Covid-19 related disruptions impacted the growth trajectory in 2020-21 and led to a decline in the output to $67.3 billion.

According to the document, there has been a complete shift in strategy which goes beyond the vision of import substitution to "Make in India for the World".

This fresh outlook is aimed at transforming India's manufacturing prowess by focusing on competitiveness, scale and exports.

We've already reached a very good level of electronics manufacturing; today we've around 5.5 lakh crores of electronics manufacturing in country. This was unthinkable a few years back. Now we've taken aim of US$300, which is about 22 lakh crores: Electronics Min Ashwini Vaishnaw pic.twitter.com/uPloGjLOA3  ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2022

Furthermore, continuing on the path of import substitution, India's domestic electronics market is estimated to reach at best $150-180 billion from the current $65 billion over the next 4-5 years.

"Thus, exports of $120-140 billion are critical to reach the $300 billion mark for electronics manufacturing. This, in turn, is key for the $5 trillion economy, $1 trillion digital economy, and the $1 trillion export target envisaged by MeitY and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, respectively," the Vision Document 2.0 read.

The increasing labour costs in China, the geo-political trade and security environment, and the Covid-19 outbreak are compelling many global electronics majors to look at alternative manufacturing destinations and diversifying their supply chains.

"India is one of the leading contenders for alternate solutions for global electronics companies. The electronics sector has the potential to become one of the top exports of India in the next 3-5 years. Electronics exports may account for significant contributions to the Indian economy in terms of foreign exchange earnings and employment generation," said the document.

The National Policy on Electronics (NPE) 2019 had earlier set a target of achieving a turnover of $400 billion by 2025.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic brought with it unforeseen andAunprecedented challenges.

"In light of this, the NPE 2019 targets for electronics production in 2025-26 at $300 billion appears to be more realistic considering the disruption on account of Covid-19 in the past 18 months which has been aggravated with the new variants of the Covid-19 virus such as the Omicron," according to the document.

When it comes to mobile phones, India's domestic mobile sales are in line with industry estimates and likely to grow faster in the coming few years due to increasing digital lifestyle and Covid-related disruptions.

"This report captures all the key points and production projections for the various products that will lead India's transformation into a $300 billion electronics manufacturing powerhouse," said Mohindroo.

(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.)
Ruling in favour of Brazil, Australia and Guatemala which were locked in a dispute with India over its sugar subsidies, the last month said that New Delhis domestic support measures for sugar and sugarcane wre inconsistent with global trade norms.

India has now appealed at the WTOs Appellate Body, claiming that the ruling has made erroneous findings about domestic schemes to support sugarcane producers and exports.

Similarly, 28 members of the US Congress have urged the Joe Biden administration to take India to over its to wheat and rice farmers. Clearly, these countries want level-playing field here. But the US and other western countries are also funnelling to their farmers.

allows up to 5% of the value of production for developed nations and 10% for developing nations. But critics say that the western countries have long been circumventing rules to fund their farmers.

Now, reports suggest that in the upcoming Union Budget, the Indian government will likely earmark Rs 1.4 lakh crore or $18.8 Bn as fertilizer subsidy. This is a slight increase from Rs 1.3 lakh crore as fertilizer subsidy in the fiscal year 2022, ending March this year.

The subsidy is to compensate fertilizer companies for selling their products to farmers at lower than market rates. The increase in fertilizer subsidy is of course being done with an eye on the upcoming state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

But what do we understand by subsidies? And how exactly do they work?

In the context of the Union Budget, a subsidy is a benefit given to an individual, business, institution or to a particular sector. Subsidies are given to alleviate some kind of a monetary burden and are claimed to be in the overall interest of the public.

Subsidies can either be direct, such as cash payments, or indirect, such as tax breaks. The aim is to reduce the price of a particular product in the market, or as in the case of the fertilizer subsidy, to compensate a particular class of producers for selling their products at a price lower than market prices.

Another kind of subsidy is the one extended to producers to incentivise manufacturing in a particular sector. A recent example is the Production Linked Incentive or for semiconductor goods.

Amid the global semiconductor chip shortage that impacted the supply of everything from automobiles to smartphones, the Centre sanctioned Rs 76,000 crore for the for semiconductor goods.

Under the scheme, the Centre will offer financial support or subsidy that will bring down the production costs of companies manufacturing semiconductor chips, and thus encourage them to set up new factories and other facilities.

As with everything else, there are arguments for and against subsidies. Proponents believe that the government can make use of subsidies to incentivise global companies to Make in India and transform India into a manufacturing hub that would ultimately create more jobs.

However, critics say that the burden of subsidies falls on taxpayers, who may complain against rising taxes at a time when the economy isnt doing too well.

Another set of economists believe that while subsidies may help in attracting some companies to set up a manufacturing base in India, the long-term sustainability of such operations would depend more on the ease of doing business here. If a country can provide a conducive business environment for corporations, then perhaps, the need for extending subsidies wouldnt be felt.
Coronado, CA (92118)

Today

Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High 68F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low near 55F. Winds light and variable.
Stop us if you have heard this before, but Amity is the new No. 1 team in the GameTimeCT Top 10 Baseball Poll. The Spartans claim the top spot after previous No. 1 Warde dropped a 2-1 decision to...
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Heavy fire damage is apparent throughout a room in a single-wide trailer at 454 Mason Town Road in Newport after a fire Sunday displaced the family living there. (Tammy Spradlin photo)
The UNC Institute of Marine Sciences is seen in Morehead City right on the main thoroughfare on Arendell Street. (Mike Shutak photo)
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25 ways you could be saving money today 25 WAYS YOU COULD BE SAVING MONEY TODAY | Saving money is crucial. Maybe youre trying to reach a goal of buying a home or moving to a new place. Maybe you have a big purchase in mind, like a car, or want to have extra cash for holiday gifts. Perhaps youre looking toward retirement and aiming to set yourself up for success. For many people, its not that they dont want to save money, but that they dont know where to beginwhich is why The Simple Dollar rounded up 25 simple ways to start saving money right now. When it comes to savings, many experts say that a good rule of thumb is having the equivalent of six to eight months of expenses set aside. That money can help out in a crisis, such as losing your job or encountering an unexpected illness. That cash also accrues some value in an account, thanks to bank interest programs. However, that money only accounts for emergency savings and should be kept in an account from which you can easily and quickly draw money. Once youve met your base savings goals, you can put money into investments, pay off student debt, or earn toward a specific goal. However, as important as savings may be, many Americans simply arent making it happen. One study from GOBankingRates showed that 57% of the 8,000 people it polled had under $1,000 in savings and 39% had nothing saved at all. And, according to the Economic Policy Institute, almost half of American families have nothing in retirement savings. Our money-saving tipsfrom finding discounts to simple changes to your daily habitscan come in handy whether you have a specific savings goal, want to stash away cash for retirement, or just want to pinch pennies. Its never too late to be more financially savvy. Read on to learn more about how you can start saving now. Visit thestacker.com for similar lists and stories. (Pixabay/Pixabay)
Diaz Perez Anna Maria Spain

Ana Maria was born in Brazil to Spanish parents, returning to live in Barcelona when she was five years old. By chance, they moved in just across from the house of the Catalan painter Joan Abello. This artistic neighbour would go on to mark Ana Marias childhood forever. The artist introduced her to painting and became her mentor. Inspired by this man, she turned to an artistic career, starting with ceramics. She joined the School of Fine Arts, specializing in bronze casting. Meanwhile, the university where she studied organized numerous trips, accompanied by Art History teachers. During this period, she continued to paint and study the great masters in museums and private collections. For 10 years Ana Maria taught art to children of all ages, years that were very enriching for her. Later Ana Maria began pursuing other projects and her multidisciplinary background allowed her to express her creativity in public spaces in different countries, which opened up a world of unimagined possibilities to her.

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Photo: The Canadian Press Major-General Dany Fortin arrives to be processed at the Gatineau Police Station in Gatineau, Que., on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

The senior military officer once tasked with overseeing Canada's COVID-19 vaccination drive will be in a Quebec courtroom today to face allegations of sexual misconduct.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin was charged with one count of sexual assault in August 2021, related to an alleged incident in 1988.

Fortin has been fighting for reinstatement to his former role with the Public Health Agency of Canada, or an equivalent position, since he was abruptly removed from his post in May 2021.

His dismissal came five days before military police announced they had referred an investigation of alleged sexual misconduct to Quebecs prosecution service.

Fortin has maintained his innocence and, in challenging his removal in Federal Court, accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior members of the Liberal government of turfing him for purely political reasons.

His lawyer, Natalia Rodriguez, says an appeal concerning his reinstatement is expected to go to a panel hearing in the spring.
Re.: Diplomats unknown illness (Castanet, Jan. 23)

The article Diplomats unknown illness rang a bell with me so I looked it up.

Sure enough, in late 2017 there was a big scare about sonic attacks on diplomats in Cuba. The suggestion was that the Cubans were aiming a weapon, transmitting certain sound frequencies that could physically hurt (people) at the various embassies.

Over time, many diplomats, having been told of the suspected attacks, became sick with the suggested symptoms. Lots was made of it but there was no science behind the claims or evidence to back them up.

Since most of the symptoms could only be confirmed subjectively through questioning, there were no physical ways to prove an actual cause.

When all the facts came in, the conclusion was that the diplomats were suffering from a mass psychogenic illness where groups of people under stress, when told they should feel sick, do start to feel sick.

I suspect this is just a leftover from the sonic scare that somebody warmed up and served again.

I suggest a strong round of placebos for any more diplomats who get sick.

Jay Stewart, Kelowna
Congratulations (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau. Your government is now trying to destroy another private industry under the pretence of Covid prevention.

The transport truck drivers have sustained the supply chain for two years, with risk to their own health. Now your government is saying screw you rather than thank you.

We, the citizens of Canada, will soon be paying $7 for a head for lettuceif we can even get it. Thanks a lot.

M Sebastian
Danville City leaders get ready to breathe new life into the old mill village; Danville leaders ready to weigh proposal to provide real estate tax help to elderly and disabled; Danville native taking his place in Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.
An electric car operated by the city of Middletown charges in a municipal lot near City Hall. Photograph by Mark Mirko | mmirko@courant.com (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

Connecticut is embarking on a broad build-out of electric vehicle charging stations, joined by the states two largest utilities committing more than $90 million.

The state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority on Jan. 1 launched the nine-year program as part of its grid modernization initiative that includes electric storage, metering, affordability and other programs. Chargers are to be installed at homes, apartment and condominium communities, workplaces and destinations such as hotels.

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[ As push for electric vehicles expands, Connecticut charging-station manufacturer JuiceBar wants us to lose the gas-station mentality ]

In a push to reduce and eventually end tailpipe emissions  a leading cause of carbon pollution that may contribute to rising temperatures  Connecticut joined nine other states in 2013 to support 3.3 million electric vehicles by 2025. For Connecticut, the number of electric vehicles is expected to climb to as many as 150,000 by 2025, up from 21,382 now, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Its a nearly nine-fold increase in just three years, but companies moving into the electric vehicle charging business will contribute.

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Rep. David Arconti, House chairman of the legislatures Energy and Technology Committee, said the initiative by Connecticut regulators is intended to support up to half the 150,000 electric vehicles and the other half will be filled by the private sector (ideally).

If Connecticut is unable to reach its goal, the General Assembly could authorize PURA to hire a third party to administer programs, said Arconti, a Danbury Democrat.

Chairwoman Marissa Gillett said PURA is supporting the agreement with the states rather than promoting electric vehicle use.

Its not my role or PURAs role to cause the proliferation of electric vehicles, she said.

Connecticut must get out ahead of increasingly popular electric vehicles and scale up the installation of charging stations to avoid havoc on the grid that could result from wide-scale electrification, Gillett said.

This is about planning, she said.

To ease potential burdens on the grid, PURA developed policies that call for managed charging that provides for different prices for charging electric vehicles at various times of the day.

Eversource Energy has proposed to spend $73.6 million in the first three years of the program, and United Illuminating set an $18 million budget. The money, which the utilities can seek to reclaim in PURA proceedings, would be offered as customer incentives for chargers and managed charging programs.

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The cost to install a charging station varies depending on the charger and the extent of electrical work. Typically, a charger will cost $500 to $700, according to PURA. Installation can cost between $500 and $1,200.

The utilities may offer customers incentives of $500 each for chargers, wiring upgrades and telematics, or the transmission of computerized information. Incentives of $100 also are available.

PURA will evaluate the program every three years.

Reducing and eventually ending carbon emissions from vehicles is a top priority to counter climate change. Transportation accounted for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Connecticut has a spotty record on clean transportation policies. The General Assembly has rejected numerous attempts to allow Tesla and other electric vehicle manufacturers to sell directly to the consumer and bypass dealerships.

And Gov. Ned Lamont and legislative leaders balked last year at approving a regional transportation plan to reduce emissions while raising money for low- or zero-carbon initiatives. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker dropped out of the multistate program days later.

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Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.
The Los Angeles metro area is tied with London when it comes to having museums (broadly defined), with 300 each. But the latter's tend to be respectable places like The Victoria and Albert Museum, specializing in decorative arts, or the British Museum ,with its incomparable historical artifacts. L.A.'s veer into the offbeat, such as Altadena's The Bunny Museum (stuffed rabbits) and Psychiatry: An Industry of Death (sponsored by Scientology) in Hollywood. We do have a lot of respected collections that don't get enough public attention, such as the Martial Arts Museum in Burbank, the Hollywood Heritage Museum where Cecil B.

DeMille had the first studio, and thein Culver City, devoted to the Cold War. Visiting specialty museums is always one of the highlights of our travel to cities anywhere in the world as the best way to learn about other cultures and new subjects. These are some favorites around the broader SoCal region.

Surfing Heritage and Culture Center https://www.shacc.org/ in San Clemente has one of the world's largest collections of objects and archives from the history of the sport and so is a mecca for enthusiasts. But it can also be fascinating even for those who have no plans to brave the waves. Polynesians were surfing 2000 years ago and Hawaiians perfected the art of standing upright on boards. The crew of Captain James Cook witnessed it in Hawaii (where he was killed in 1779) and Jack London wrote about it during a 1907 visit, popularizing the sport around the world (who knew Agatha Christie and George Bernard Shaw were enthusiasts?). It was finally added to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, though competition was postponed until 2021 (winners of gold medals are featured). On display are notable examples of boards that illustrate their evolution, from being made from very long and heavy wood to polyurethane foam and their offshoots, such as snowboards and skateboards.

Icons of Darkness https://www.iconsofdarkness.com/ at the Hollywood Blvd. and Highland mall has the world's largest privately-owned collection of actual on-screen items from 100 years of science fiction, fantasy, and horror films and TV. Director, producer, and actor Rich Correll began collecting 60 years ago, inspired by friends like Alfred Hitchcock, Boris Karloff, and Vincent Price to keep recognition of their work alive. Take the guided tour to get the background on memorabilia from classics such as "Dracula," "Silence of the Lambs," "Iron Man," "Spider-Man," "Game of Thrones," "The Matrix," and "Lord of the Rings." Among its stars are costumes from "Star Wars," props from "Harry Potter," and heads from "Terminator."

Museum of Jurassic Technology https://www.mjt.org/ in West L.A. is a parody of stuffy mainstream institutions (hence the name) and more like the 16th century "cabinets of curiosity" that were the predecessors of natural history museums. The MJT actually has so many unusual exhibits that it has been the subject of two bestselling books, while the founder was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. Among the dozens of offbeat exhibits, there is a study of the culture of trailer parks, one on the pre-scientific beliefs about bees, strange letters written to the Mt. Wilson Observatory, and tiny mosaics made of the scales of butterflies that you need to view through a microscope.

Southwest Museum https://theautry.org/visit/mt-washington-campus has the second-largest collection of Native American artifacts of any museum in the U.S. (250,000 items). It is on Mount Washington, north of downtown L.A., and free to visit, but with limited hours. One current exhibit recounts the expeditions that brought back items from all over the Western Hemisphere (and you can listen to wax cylinder recordings made of Native songs). Another traces the evolution of Pueblo Indian pottery from ancient times to the work of contemporary artisans (the photo is a 13th century pitcher from the Mongollon culture in New Mexico).

California Science Center https://californiasciencecenter.org/ in Exposition Park at Figueroa St. downtown does a brilliant job of showcasing a wide variety of science issues in a way that is fun and easily understood for kids and adults. There are interactive and hands-on exhibits with live animals on all the different types of environments, from deserts to the arctic (it has a wonderful little aquarium). The giant chart on climate change shows how shockingly warm the planet is compared with the last 800,000 years. There is a model of the Wright Brothers' first plane and the actual Endeavour space shuttle (with a history of the shuttles and their achievements visually laid out around it). The most mind-blowing experience there, though, is always in its 3-D IMAX theater, no matter the topic.

Bowers https://bowers.org/ in Santa Ana has a follow-up to the landmark "Inside the Walt Disney Archives: 50 Years of preserving the Magic," which we reviewed. Until June 19, the Walt Disney Archives, in conjunction with the Bowers, has curated "All That Glitters: The Crown Jewels," wearable accessories that supported the storyline about the characters. These include items from classic films like "Treasure Island" and those released in 2021, such as "Cruella." On display are, for example, Rami Malek's Freddie Mercury costume from "Bohemian Rhapsody," Kate Winslet's necklace in "Titanic," and the Genie's Lamp from 2019's "Aladdin" (photo courtesy of the Walt Disney Archives). Until August 28, there is also a special exhibit on early attempts to climb Mt. Everest, as well as ongoing exhibitions on everything from the state's early missions and rancheros to the art of Pacific headhunters.

Once these are off your SoCal bucket list, there just a few hundred more to go.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is sending humanitarian aid to Tonga in the aftermath of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcanic eruption.

Officials said, "Scientists believe the explosion was bigger than any nuclear detonation ever conducted.



"There are about 16.6 million members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across the globe and Tonga has the highest percentage (63 percent) of members than any country in the world. More than 4,000 Latter-day Saints live in the greater Chattanooga area. They are joining with people of all faiths in praying for those in Tonga who are in need of heavens blessings.



"The Church, in coordination with the Tonga and New Zealand governments and other aid organizations, has begun the process of sending food, fuel, water, masks and other necessities.

The Church is organizing air cargo shipments and has sent tanks of water from Church schools on the main island to the outer islands."BBC News has reported on Church emergency efforts. Like its response in other parts of the world when disaster strikes, the Church draws on its Humanitarian Aid Fund where 100% of funds are used to help the poor and needy  regardless of race, religion or ethnic origin. Tonga is just one example of Church humanitarian efforts."Last year, according to officials, the Church contributed to 155 projects in 50 countries."The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has also sent a letter to members of the Church in Tonga expressing their love and assuring them that 'people of faith and goodwill around the world are praying for you' and promising that 'we will stand with you over the coming months to assist you as you recover.' The letter was signed by President Russell M. Nelson, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring.

"The Church has 116 meetinghouses in Tonga. None were structurally damaged. The Church also runs six schools, including the Liahona High School, which is being used as a place of gathering.



"In response to the difficulties of life and circumstances beyond our control, President Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has taught we should 'make time for The Lord. The Lord knows you and loves you. He is your Savior and your RedeemerHe will lead and guide you in your personal life if you will make time for Him in your life  each and every day' (Nelson, Oct. 2021, Make Time for the Lord)."

"With the Lords help, onward and forward we go, said Elder Ian S. Ardern, Pacific Area president of the Church, who is directly involved in Tongan support efforts.
A Chattanooga man who was shot on I-75 northbound on July 7, 2020, has been sentenced to serve five years in federal prison.

Logan Odom, 25, appeared before Judge Travis McDonough.

The time is consecutive to a sentence given Odom in Hamilton County Criminal Court on a revocation there.

He had pleaded guilty earlier to use of a firearm in a drug crime.

East Ridge Police officers were dispatched to the freeway shooting on reports that an SUV had wrecked in the median and individual(s) in a gray car had fired at the SUV.

No one was in the SUV when officers arrived. The SUV had several bullet holes in it and there was blood on the driver's side door and center console.

A bag of marijuana was found near the driver's seat.

A construction worker who witnessed the incident said the driver of the SUV appeared to have been shot near his right arm. He was picked up by a white BMW. A short time later police were advised that a man who had been shot in the right arm had been dropped off at the hospital by a white BMW. The man who was shot was identified as Odom.

Just over two weeks later, members of the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team (FAST) captured Odom after a short pursuit ending in the 3800 block of Central Avenue.

A precision immobilization technique was used to make the stop. A female occupant complained of an injury and was treated at the scene by Hamilton County EMS.

Odom was arrested on outstanding charges of aggravated domestic violence and violation of conditions of release.

Odom was on pre-trial release and monitored by Hamilton County Community Corrections utilizing a GPS tracker at the time.
Prosecutors said the "shot-caller" in a drug case in Chattanooga Federal Court was a state prison inmate serving a life prison sentence for first-degree murder.

Jordan McGee-Sims, was given a two-year federal prison term for his part in a conspiracy selling heroin and fentanyl. He appeared before Judge Travis McDonough.

Prosecutors said the role of McGee-Sims was to buy heroin from co-conspirators and resell it.

They said McGee-Sims and an unindicted co-conspirator routinely obtained heroin from unknown sources, sold it and brought the money back to Paul W. Fletcher, who arranged to send the money to the prison inmate or to another individual at the inmate's direction.
The Tennessee State Review Board will meet to examine proposed nominations to the National Register of Historic Places this Wednesday. Beginning at 9 a.m. (CST), the meeting will be held at the Tennessee Historical Commission, 2941 Lebanon Road in Nashville, as well as virtually. The public is invited to attend the meeting.



Copies of draft nominations to be examined at the meeting and instructions for attending virtually can be found on the THC National Register webpage.



The Board will vote on four nominations from across the state. Those nominations that are found to

meet the criteria will be sent for final approval to the National Register of Historic Places at the U.S.

Department of the Interior. The nominations are:



 Benevolent Cemetery, Rutherford County;

 Emory Place Historic District (Boundary Increase and Additional Documentation), Knox

County'

 Georgetown Road (Trail of Tears Segment), Meigs County; and

 Howell Nurseries, Knox County.



Other business at the meeting will be the review and re-assessment of the The Hibbettage, Davidson

County, Newton Copeland Richards House, Shelby County and Sevierville Masonic Lodge, Sevier

County for potential removal from the National Register.



The State Review Board is composed of 13 people with backgrounds in American history, architecture, archaeology or related fields. It also includes members representing the public. The National Register program was authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Tennessee Historical Commission administers the program in Tennessee. Learn more about THC at

http://tnhistoricalcommission.org and for more information about the National Register meeting,

contact Rebecca Schmitt at Rebecca.schmitt@tn.gov.
The cast of 1883 brought together big-name celebrities including Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Sam Elliott, and Billy Bob Thornton. However, it is young Isabel Mays character Elsa Dutton who narrates the Yellowstone prequel. At only 21-years-old May might not be quite as recognizable as some of her fellow cast members. However, her co-star Eric Nelsen had good things to say about May and high hopes for her future.

Isabel May | Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Isabel May plays Elsa Dutton in 1883

1883 stars Isabel May as Elsa Dutton, the free-spirited young daughter of James Dutton traveling with her family from Texas to Montana. Elsa narrates her journey with her family and the death and violent scene around her. Yet until Ennis death, she also maintains a sense of wonder and hopefulness.

Much of Elsas carefree spirit is shattered in episode 5. Elsas new lover Ennis is killed during a conflict with bandits, and a heartbroken Elsa kills Ennis murderer in revenge. Ennis actor Eric Nelsen spent quite a bit of time with May on the set of 1883, and the actor sang her praises in an interview.

Isabel May as Elsa and Eric Nelsen as Ennis in 1883 episode 5 | Emerson Miller/Paramount+  2022 MTV Entertainment Studios

Eric Nelson called Isabel May one of the smartest people Ive ever talked to

Mays role in 1883 certainly isnt her first time on television. The actor has appeared in shows such as Young Sheldon and Alexa & Katie. However, at only 21-years-old, May doesnt quite have the notoriety as some of her fellow cast members. She is also one of the youngest actors playing a major character on the show, with the exception of the six-year-old John Dutton actor Audie Rick.

Nelsen discussed working with May in an interview with Decider. At just 21, shes one of the smartest people Ive ever talked to in my entire life, Nelsen told the outlet. Shes such a special individual and a real intellect. It seems like shes read every single book on the planet 10 times, so she taught me a lot.

Eric Nelsen as Ennis in 1883 episode 5 | Emerson Miller/Paramount+  2022 MTV Entertainment Studios

Nelsen and May also had a shared interest. The one thing we really bonded over was music. Wed find certain songs that would kind of go with certain scenes to get us emotionally ready. Were both really attentive to lyrics so that also helped us on our journey together.

Whats next for Isabel May?

Filming for 1883 recently reached its conclusion, though only the first five episodes are currently available on Paramount+. Nelsen sees good things in Mays future now that the Yellowstone prequel has concluded. Im so privileged to have worked with her, and God, is she talented, he said of May to Decider. Im so excited to see her career take off from here.

May already has a few other projects in the works. She will appear in the upcoming romantic comedy film I Want You Back, which is scheduled to release in February 2022. She is also set to star in a comedy film titled The Moon & Back, about a high school senior attempting to bring her deceased fathers space opera screenplay to life, according to IMDb.

New episodes of 1883 release Sundays on Paramount+.

RELATED: 1883 Opening Scene Explained and What It Means for the Dutton Family
In 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days Season 5 Episode 6, audiences watched as Ella received disappointing news from Johnny. Because at this time, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Johnny has to quarantine in a country other than China. The initial plans included Johnny quarantining in Singapore before traveling to the United States. However, in the Jan. 16, 2022 episode, Johnny told Ella his visa had been denied. In episode 7, fans cringed at Ellas reaction to Johnnys delay.

Ella and Johnny | TLC

Before the 90 Days Season 5 star Ella became annoyed with Johnnys trip delay

Navigating an international relationship during a global pandemic cant be easy. When Before the 90 Days Season 5 couple Johnny and Ella planned to meet, cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus started to rise. When Johnnys Singapore visa got denied, the couple made plans for Johnny to travel and quarantine in Dubai. However, after taking to think, Johnny became hesitant about traveling.

Ella felt like his delay had a deeper meaning, and she started to wonder if Johnny wanted to meet in person at all. She met with friends to talk about the situation and told them, This morning he told me he wants to delay the trip. Hes worried because of the virus  about the new Delta virus [sic]. I feel like thats a stupid excuse. You can be safe and travel. Everyones doing it already.

When Ella confronted Johnny with her fears, Johnny tried to explain his reasoning. Johnny helps his parents, who help take care of his son, and he feared getting stuck in the United States. Plus, he was worried about the potential medical bills he would accrue in the States instead of China.

Ella found the man of her dreams! The only problem is he lives on the other side of the world #90DayFiance pic.twitter.com/YrTYGuMwf3  90DayFiance (@90DayFiance) December 25, 2021

RELATED: Before the 90 Days Season 5: Heres the Sexy Anime Character Ella Dressed Up as for Johnny  Naruto

Fans think Ella reacted selfishly by demanding Johnny visit her in Idaho despite his fears

Ella wanted Johnny to visit regardless, and overall, fans sided with Johnny in the situation. Several viewers took to Reddit to express their thoughts.

One user posted, I cant believe how ignorant shes being regarding Johnnys hesitation about flying to the US at the height of the Delta variant outbreak! bUt OtHeR pEoPlE aRe TrAvElLiNg JoHnNy! Waaaaah! The dude has parents and a son to support in China and not only will he not know when hes going to see them again if he comes over, what if he gets infected and ends up with a serious case of Covid that could put his life in danger? But no, its all about what Ella needs and her whiny petulant demands for her Asian prince to come over so she can have her sexual needs satisfied.

Another Redditor felt similarly, She literally could not care less about johnny. she just wants her Asian prince so she can show him off to all of her other white friends who also weirdly have Asian SOs. Im convinced Johnny could tell her Stoneys sick which is why he cant come and she would just tell him to pawn him off on his parents.

Will Johnny and Ella meet in person on Before the 90 Days Season 5?

Some fans believe that Johnny and Ella wont meet in person this season. No teasers show the couple together. However, this season still has several episodes left to air. Tune in on Sunday nights on TLC to watch new episodes of Before the 90 Days Season 5. The series also streams on discovery+.

RELATED: 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days Season 5: Ella Responds to Fans Calling Her Out About Her Asian Fetishism in the Most Lackluster Way
Chuck Lorres CBS sitcom Bob Hearts Abishola has brought several actors to viewers attention, such as Tori Danner, who plays Morenike, and Edy Ganem, who plays bus driver Olivia. Edy Ganem has played one of the hot models in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a leading part on Lifetimes Devious Maids with Rebecca Wisocky, and several other roles. However, In Other Words reunited the actor with director Patrick Perez Vidauri and writer Cristina Nava, who she says helped push her career.

Edy Ganem | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Who does Edy Ganem play in Bob Hearts Abishola and In Other Words?

In Bob Hearts Abishola Season 3, Matt Jones Douglas runs into a difficult financial situation. He takes the public bus with his sister Christina (Maribeth Monroe) and mom, Dottie (Christine Ebersole).

He stepped away to the front of the bus, where he met the driver, Olivia, played by actor Edy Ganem. They chatted, and Jones and Ganems characters even got flirty.

They hit it off, but already had something to work through in Bob Hearts Abishola Season 3, Episode 11. Douglas lied to hide the wealth he inherited from the family business MaxDot. However, bus driver Olivia gave him another chance, and fans are excited to see where the romance heads.

In Other Words cast Edy Ganem as Karina Salas in another romantic comedy that takes the characters to the hot country of Mexico.

When tech geek True Andrews (Bryan McClure) lands an investor for his matchmaking app, it matches him with a beautiful girl who doesnt speak English. So he travels to Mexico to prove his algorithm isnt screwy, IMDb states. And Ganems Karina helps with all the translation issues.

Bob Hearts Abishola and In Other Words actor Edy Ganem stayed in touch with the writer and director since she first started acting

Before she grabbed her role on Bob Hearts Abishola as Bobs (Billy Gardell) brothers love interest, one of Edy Ganems first movie roles was Patrick Perez Vidauris Lolas Love Shack. And she mentioned how that film kept her in contact with the director and writer, Cristina Nava.

I got to work before with Cristina and Patrick, the writer and the director [of In Other Words]. Ive known them since I first moved, Ganem told LRM Online. I literally hadnt done anything, and they gave me one of my first opportunities in a movie they were doing at the time.

And I had such a blast doing that movie. I stayed in touch with them, Ganem continued. Ive done other things ever since, smaller projects. And then Cristina and Patrick approached me and they said were writing this new movie. Its a romantic comedy. I love romantic comedies, of course.

It seems fitting that Edy Ganem loves romantic comedies, since a few months after In Other Words came out, CBS renewed Bob Hearts Abishola for season three. Ganem debuted as bus driver Olivia in Bob Hearts Abishola Season 3, Episode 6.

The Devious Maids and CBS actor found the script hilarious and super cute

With actor Edy Ganem starring in roles as a love interest in several projects, it seems fitting that just before joining the Bob Hearts Abishola cast, she starred in a film she found hilarious and super cute.

[Cristina] sent me the script and I read it, Ganem said. I thought it was hilarious and super cute, unexpected. It has a great twist including the language and all that. So, I really enjoyed reading it, and the rest is history.

Ganem has come a long way from Lolas Love Shack, but the connections she made helped her push her career even further.

Fans can catch Edy Ganem on Bob Hearts Abishola Monday nights at 8:30 pm EST. You can also watch it on streaming services like Paramount+.

RELATED:
Little People, Big World has delighted TLC fans for over 15 years. Family patriarch Matt Roloff has navigated life on their Oregon pumpkin farm while facing obstacles that come with the territory living with dwarfism. Like every other family, there have been ups and downs for the Roloff clan  and recently, Matt Roloff shared about a scary fire that broke out at Roloff Farms.

Roloff Farms has been a central part of Little People, Big World

When viewers were introduced to the Roloff clan, Amy and Matts four children were merely kids. The family worked, lived, and rejoiced on their beloved family farm. A lot has changed over the years, including Matt and Amys divorce. After the divorce, Amy also decided to sell her half of the farm to Matt.

While Amy no longer lives or claims ownership of the Roloff Farms, the land is still an important part of her life. In 2021, she remarried on the family farm, giving fans a reason to celebrate. Of course, Amys wedding was only one in a line of family weddings on their property. All four of their children also celebrated their big day on the Roloff Farm.

If you arent family but want to celebrate your wedding on the Roloff Farms, the family rents the venue for weddings and other private events. Having a wedding at Roloff Farms is reportedly $2,500, according to ThePricer.org, and various locations on the farm are available.

Matt Roloff recently detailed a scary fire at Roloff Farms

Amy Roloff and Matt Roloff appear on NBC News Today show | Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC NewsWire

In addition to celebrations, Roloff Farms involves a lot of work and upkeep  and part of the farm life involves dealing with unexpected obstacles. According to Us Magazine, One such obstacle took the form of a fire in the chicken barn on Jan. 4, 2022.

Roloff took to Instagram to recount the story of the fire to his followers, saying, I had gotten home to the farm late the night before from AZ. Its [sic] was 3:45 am before I crawled into bed, then [a] few hours of sleep later, Roloff explained.

He continued, I hear the commotion in the chicken barn outside my window [and] flames are 6 ft high and spread along one of the interior walls. Between all the hands on the farm and the quick response of our local fire department, the barn is saved. Only some interior damage. Fire was caused by a light falling to the floor. Likely happened when all the chickens rush to get out their automatic door in the morning. No chickens were injured in the event.

Roloff emphasized to his fans that the 110-year-old building was saved with the help of up-to-date fire extinguishers and the speedy action taken by a farm hand, Jason.

Zach and Tori will not be taking over the farm

As Matt Roloff grows older, fans are curious to know who will eventually take over Roloff Farms. Matt has expressed a desire for his twin sons, Zach and Jeremy, to run the farm together.

Both twins have expressed an interest in owning the pumpkin farm in the past, and Jeremy has said that owning Roloff Farms could be an option. Further explaining his position, Jeremy wrote via Instagram, Growing up on a farm, the passion for land has never left me. Auj and I have been working very hard to be able to acquire one someday and visiting the Mona farm was a big encouragement in our efforts.

Unfortunately, it appears Zach and Tori have no plans to take over the family farm. The couple recently moved to Washington, and in an Instagram story, Tori responded to a fan asking if they would return to the Roloff Farm by sharing: Nope. Were loving this little slice of heaven. The desire to buy the farm] definitely didnt [disappear]. Some things just dont go according to plan. But it all worked out for us.

Not to fear, however, Tori reassured fans that although they no longer live in Oregon, they are still taking part in filming LPBW.

RELATED: Little People, Big World: Amy Roloff and Chris Marek Confess What They Would Have Done Differently at Their Wedding
Linsday Hubbard from Summer House still hasnt spoken to Austen Kroll from Southern Charm about the Watch What Happens Live shade he threw her way. But she said they will eventually talk because they have both moved on.

Hubbard recently shared that she is in a relationship with Carl Radke. Whatever romantic feelings she had about Kroll from last winter have all but vanished. But they were friends before they hooked up. So Krolls comments about choosing Ciara Miller over Hubbard on WWHL, while she sat in the audience, were humiliating. She blocked Kroll and was especially frustrated when he said she tried to make the day about herself.

Lindsay Hubbard and Austen Kroll havent spoken about WWHL  but they will

Hubbard said she was in Charleston, SC recently and saw Kroll, but they didnt really talk. You know, we still havent really had a chance to fully dedicate time to talking through our feelings with each other, she said on the Behind the Velvet Rope with David Yontef podcast.

Lindsay Hubbard and Austen Kroll |Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

I did go to Charleston I want to say about a month ago with the Loverboy team, she remarked. Actually, no, it was like less than a month ago. It was the week before Christmas. I did see him. But we were in a very big group setting. [And] the Southern Charm crew was also filming and they were filming their finale and end of their season. So, you know, I didnt want to interrupt that.

I also had my priorities with the Loverboy gang, she added. So, you know, we didnt really have a chance to talk. But Im sure that we will eventually when the timing is right and we can slow down enough to like focus on that kind of conversation and then go from there. But Im not really worried. Im sure itll come.

Lindsay Hubbard has moved on and into Carl Radkes arms

Hubbard said the romantic feelings she had for Kroll last year are gone. Well, I mean all I had to say about it back then, and I think a lot of time and space. Like you heal and you move on and Ive moved on, she said. And I think so as he. And you know, the only thing thats really left to do is just like have that conversation about it and thatll happen when it happens.

RELATED: Ciara From Winter House Says Austen Kroll Doesnt Really Want Lindsay Hubbard  but Will They Sleep Together Again?

Meanwhile, she said shes very happily dating Radke. I mean, its a great thing, she said about the relationship. Theres nothing better in life than to develop such an incredible foundation of friendship. And then, you know, seemingly and successfully transitioned that into a new dynamic. That includes romance. I mean, that is like kind of the ultimate goal when youre looking for a partner. So yes, its a good thing. And were both excited and were both really happy.

But Summer House viewers are in for a messy season

And while Hubbard said the relationship with Kroll is in the past, Summer House viewers will still see how it plays out this season. I mean, youll see theres a lot of things that are intertwined and become intertwined between Winter House and Summer House, Hubbard said.

There was a lot of unfinished business from Vermont that, you know, kind of bled over into the summer when we were all back together again, she added. And as far as you know, any of that involving Austen, Austen, and I, again, weve been friends and weve always had a very close relationship and maybe not as much in Vermont, but we got back to having that close friendship after Vermont and before the summer.

So he came out for my birthday. And you know, of course, when feelings are involved, you know, in any which direction for people, you know, things are bound to get a little messy, Hubbard teased.

RELATED: Winter Houses Lindsay Hubbard Never Wanted to Go on WWHL With Austen Kroll  Andy Cohen Insisted She Sit in the Audience
Kevin Graney, president of Electric Boat, spoke at the Groton shipyard in November 2020 marking the start of construction of the Columbia-class submarine.

Submarine manufacturer Electric Boat said Monday it plans to hire more than 3,000 workers this year, a 20% increase over 2021 as U.S. military strategy faces rising threats from China and Russia.

Our need to hire is persistent and it will continue as far as the eye can see, Kevin Graney, president of Electric Boat, a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corp., said at the manufacturers annual legislative briefing.

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[ Electric Boat faces a new challenge in making submarines: Competing for welders as federal money is readied for infrastructure work. Part of the answer might be hiring more women. ]

EB, with shipyards in Groton and Quonset Point, Rhode Island, has been on a hiring spree for years in what Graney called a once in a generation expansion building Virginia-class attack submarines and ramping up construction of the next-generation ballistic submarine, the Columbia.

The demand for submarines from my perspective has never been greater, he said. I want to make sure the audience understands and spreads the word: Electric Boat is hiring.

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With nearly 18,000 employees, EB is the largest private employer in Connecticut and Rhode Island. About 62% are Connecticut residents and 32% live in Rhode Island.

EB has delivered 19 Virginia-class submarine, accounting for 62% of sales. Nineteen more submarines are in backlog, Graney said. The Columbia-class submarine accounts for 28% of sales that will rise in the next decade to equal sales from Virginia-class ships.

By the end of the decade revenue at EB will double to about $15 billion.

News @3 Daily Catch up on the days top headlines sent directly to your inbox weekdays at 3 p.m >

Rep. Joe Courtney, whose district includes EBs Groton shipyard, said Congress and President Joe Biden have authorized $13.4 billion this year in submarine-related production, maintenance and research and development.

U.S. military strategy seeks to overwhelm adversaries in an asymmetric advantage with nuclear-powered submarines equipped with nuclear-tipped missiles.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the U.S. presence in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean is very, very meaningful as Russian leader Vladimir Putin threatens military action against Ukraine.

Undersea warfare, because were talking about the Mediterranean and about the Black Sea as potential areas of tension and conflict, is very much in play even though it isnt directly involved in the confrontation in eastern Ukraine, he said.

Courtney, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said Russia is staging military exercises at the site of its northern fleet that includes its submarines.

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Theres no question that our undersea fleet is going to be very busy at this very tense moment and is definitely going to play a big role in terms of making sure that whatever possible conflict may emerge that it does not escalate into something more serious, he said.

Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.
Garrett Hedlund has been arrested for public intoxication following his split from his girlfriend of three years, Emma Roberts. Besides the public intoxication arrest, the Triple Frontier star is also facing a personal injury lawsuit stemming from a 2020 alcohol-related car crash. Here are all the details we know so far.

Garrett Hedlund | Noam Galai/Getty Images

Garrett Hedlund was arrested for public intoxication just after breaking up with Emma Roberts

On Jan. 22, 2022, Garrett Hedlund was arrested for public intoxication in Tennessee. TMZ reported that Hedlund was released after posting a $2,100 bond, and he will have to return to court in March.

The Troy star is being charged with a misdemeanor offense. The public intoxication arrest occurred while Hedlund was on a three-year probation period after an alcohol-related incident from 2020, so his new arrest could be even more problematic.

Hedlunds arrest took place just after media outlets confirmed he and Emma Roberts, star of American Horror Story, broke up after three years together.

Emma Roberts Is Pregnant and Expecting a Baby Boy with Garrett Hedlund https://t.co/IC7FfA3fcH  Cosmopolitan (@Cosmopolitan) August 31, 2020

Garrett Hedlund and Emma Roberts broke up one year after having their first child together

The same day as Hedlunds public intoxication arrest, ET had reported that Emma Roberts and Garrett Hedlund broke up and are no longer living together.

A source revealed, Their relationship has been rocky for a long time  and the situation is really sad right now. The source also said the acting couple grew apart while Hedlund was away for work, but they still plan to co-parent their one-year-old son, Rhodes.

On Dec. 27, 2021, the Scream Queens star posted photos on Instagram from her sons rodeo-themed first birthday party. Happy Birthday Rodeo! Roberts captioned the pictures. Frosting in my hair and @thebeatbuds stuck in my head. Loved every second of it  I love you Rhodes . The first photo shows a man who appears to be Hedlund with his back to the camera.

On Dec. 28, Roberts posted one more photo from the party, a picture of just her and Rhodes, who is facing away from the camera. I cant believe youre #1   , she captioned the image.

Garrett Hedlund | Pablo Cuadra/WireImage)

The Friday Night Lights actor is also facing a personal injury lawsuit

Besides his split with Emma Roberts and public intoxication arrest, Garrett Hedlund is also facing a personal injury lawsuit. On Jan. 21, Marina Venegas and her daughter, Jennifer Castillo, sued the actor for negligence after he allegedly caused a car crash nearly two years ago.

In court documents obtained by E! News, the two women claimed that on Jan. 24, 2020, Hedlund passed out behind the wheel of his vehicle and ran a solid red-light at a high rate of speed. He crashed into a vehicle containing Venegas, Castillo, and two minor children. The documents said that all of the passengers in the car Hedlund hit sustained severe and permanent injuries.

Castillo and Venegas also claimed that the actor knew he was drinking to the point of severe intoxication before getting behind the wheel of his Jeep.

They said that Hedlund attempted to leave the scene of the accident without rendering aid to Plaintiffs, but he was so intoxicated he could not get away.

RELATED: Is Emma Roberts the Reason Why This Former Star Wars Actor Ended His Relationship?
Actor Valerie Bertinelli played sweet young Barbara Cooper on the 1970s and 80s sitcom One Day at a Time. Prior to joining the show, she recently shared in her new memoir Enough Already, she learned from her parents of the death of an older brother under tragic circumstances.

Actor and Food Network personality Valerie Bertinelli | D Dipasupil/Getty Images for Extra

Valerie Bertinellis older brother died after accidentally swallowing poison

The actor opened up in her recent book about a tragic time in her familys life that she only learned about as a young teen.

While my mother was pregnant with me, my older brother Mark died after wandering unwatched into a friends barn and drinking poison out of a soda bottle. He was 17 months old, she wrote, adding that she herself was born just months after his death.

I was literally born into grief, she said. My young parents were still trying to get through that horrendous experience. I believe that I absorbed their sense of loss and sadness.

While her parents didnt hide their sons death from Bertinelli or her three other brothers, they didnt talk about it, either. It was too painful for them. I didnt learn about it until I was in my early teens.

The actor didnt visit her brothers gravesite until she was a mother herself

It was when her grandmother had died and Bertinelli traveled to Delaware for her funeral that she did finally see Marks grave. The two were buried near each other.

In her arms was her then-toddler son, Wolfgang, whom she affectionately refers to as Wolfie. As a young mother, she was able to relate to the intense pain her parents endured at the death of their son, much more than she had been able to as a teenager.

At the time, Wolfie was about the same age as Mark when he died, she recalled. I have always said that I couldnt imagine the pain my parents went through after losing their child. However, I could imagine it. And I did. I remember tightening my grip on Wolfie as tears washed down my face. It was the first time that I grieved for my brother, and I began to understand my parents a little better.

Bertinelli said her brothers death influenced the role she played in her family

Being born so closely after such an awful moment in a familys life, Bertinelli writes, placed her in the familial role as what she describes as pleaser to everyone. And its a revelation shes only now understanding.

Writing that she was aware of her parents deep love for her she added that, still, before I was even born, there was a message sent to me that my role was to please others and bring enough happiness to fill a gaping hole.

It was a job, she sees now, that could never be completed and that also missed the real point  I assumed a role that was never mine to fill  It took me until I was nearly 60 years old, but I finally understood that this feeling of trying to make up for my parents loss was as impossible as finding happiness in a number on the scale.

Enough Already is available now wherever books are sold.

RELATED: Valerie Bertinelli Said the Pandemic Made Her See the Fissures in Her Marriage, According to New Memoir
The main cast of Netflixs Singles Inferno has come to face their fair share of scrutiny since their time on the show. Song Ji-a gained an immense following from Singles Inferno, but after controversy over her wearing fake designer items, she landed in hot water. The scandal pushed The Manager to edit out her segment on the variety show while Knowing Bros gave the public their reasoning for why they aired Ji-as guest appearance.

Song Ji-a from Singles Inferno with Cha Hyun-seung | via Netflix

Why did Song Ji-a issue a public apology?

On Singles Inferno, Youtuber Ji-a impressed the contestants and audiences with her looks and fashion sense. Compared to the other contestants, Ji-a often wore designer items and accessories. Recently, she came under fire when fans noticed a majority of the items she wore in the show were fake. One item was her pink knit Chanel sweater.

Fans also noticed other fake designer items posted on her Instagram. After the scandal broke, Ji-a posted a hand-written letter to fans apologizing and admitting to having counterfeit items. She also explained she had taken down any social media posts, including the fake items. There was another issue Ji-a would face concerning the scandal.

Her rise in popularity landed her guest appearances on two Korean variety shows. The Manager and Knowing Bros had to decide whether to edit Ji-a out of the segments.

Producers of Knowing Bros explains why they aired Song Ji-as segment

RELATED: Singles Inferno: Fans Learn of Kang So-yeons Shocking Past in the K-Pop Industry

On Jan.20, a representative of MBCs The Manager variety show announced their decision not to air Ji-as segment where she guest-starred alongside actor Kang Ye-won. JTBCs Knowing Bros or Ask Us Anything originally reported they would air Ji-as segment despite the scandal.

The producers of Knowing Bros explain why they aired the episodes with Ji-a on Jan.24. According to Soompi, the decision was partially based on the episodes other guest star.

The controversy regarding Song Ji A blew up right before the broadcast, and so it was unavoidable that we had to air [her footage]. We didnt want to edit out our footage of Lee Young-ji, who appeared together with her as a guest, or cause [Lee Young Ji] any damage, said the producers of Knowing Bros.

The producers also felt it was nearly impossible to edit Ji-a out of the episode without fully canceling the broadcast. Instead, they edited as much of the footage as we could without breaking the flow of the program itself.

Why is the fake designer items scandal involving Song Ji-a a big deal?

RELATED: Singles Inferno: An Yea-won and Cha Hyun-seung Shed Light on What Really Happened on the Dating Show

Counterfeit designer items are not new and have been circulating in many parts of the world for years. What makes Ji-as involvement so detrimental? The production, selling, and purchasing of counterfeit items have grave consequences in South Korea.

According to The Korea Herald, there is a law where selling and importing counterfeit goods are illegal. The consequences of the offense are also tied to individuals who plan to use the items to produce duplicates. But there is a loophole. A buyer who is unaware of the fake items is saved from perjury.

Netizens have commented that Ji-a admitted that she was aware some of her items were fake in her letter. Some also believe the situation worsened when she actively wore some of the items on Singles Inferno. But some fans side with Ji-a and believe it was a naive mistake that she took responsibility for.

Since the scandal, Ji-a has erased all posts from her Instagram account with the exception of the apology letter.
Watcher is a slow-burn horror film overflowing with tension, but it sticks a bit too close to the typical horror tropes. Writer/director Chloe Okuno and co-writer Zack Ford tap into Hitchcockian influences to deliver an eerie feature with a feminist message woven in. Watcher does plenty right, but it had the opportunity to abandon the old genre rule book.

Watcher introduces voyeurism in a foreign land

Maika Monroe as Julia | Sundance Institute

Julia (Maika Monroe) moves with her husband, Francis (Karl Glusman), to his native Romania for a new job. She has no current career prospects so she spends her days bored and trying to learn the language. However, Julia witnesses a figure in the window of a neighboring building staring into their apartment at night.

A serial killer called The Spider is currently on the loose targeting young women. Julia explores the city but constantly has the feeling that someone is watching and following her. She begins to question whether her creepy neighbor could be the serial killer but becomes increasingly scared that she could be the next target.

Chloe Okuno brings a Hitchcockian tale

Watcher explores the relatable premise of an American caught in a foreign country. Julia has difficulty communicating with people without Francis help with translations. She quit smoking and left her acting career behind to make the move. Theres constant self-doubt that hides behind nearly all of Julias behaviors.

However, Watcher doesnt quite go to the foreigner-violent extremes of Hostel. Rather, Okuno and Fords screenplay takes on a Hitchcockian tone, pulling inspiration from hits such as Rear Window. The mysterious figure watching her from across the street and the looming presence of The Spider constantly instills a sense of paranoia and tension in both Julia and the audience.

The happily married couple begins to crack under the pressure. Francis tries to rationalize every situation in a way that places Julia as the overwhelmed woman who is imagining the whole thing. Shes forced to take the situation into her own hands, becoming a watcher herself. Julia spends much of her time alone, except for when she occasionally sees her neighbor, Irina (Madalina Anea).

Watcher is unsettling, but wary of taking risks

L-R: Chloe Okuno, Maika Monroe, and Karl Glusman | Sundance Institute

Okuno has an exceptional sense of style in the director role. Watcher immediately draws its audience in from its very first shot. Benjamin Kirk Nielsens cinematography tells a visual story that builds with the films slow-burn quality to perfection. Watcher manages to twist grocery store aisles into a claustrophobic maze, often taking the most mundane locations and making them terrifying.

Watcher is a slow burn that plants its seed of uneasiness from Julia and Francis initial arrival. It continues to grow through the first two acts in curious ways. Okuno has a strong understanding of how to orchestrate a constant sense of tension. Watcher is all about voyeurism, making the audience a watcher in the process. Okuno frames the film to always make it appear as if the audience is looking in at something they shouldnt be seeing. However, the plot developments are a bit too familiar.

Monroe delivers a believable performance that elevates Okunos tension. However, Watcher falls victim to horror tropes, including the husband that doesnt believe his own wife. Theres no narrative reason for why he suddenly doesnt believe her. It establishes commentary on the ways women arent taken seriously, but its an overused horror trope that gets too much screen time. Watcher establishes two acts of highly-effective slow burn that lead to an anti-climactic finale that takes no risks.

RELATED: Speak No Evil Movie Review [Sundance 2022]: Politeness Makes for Disturbing Horror Fare
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Strategic investors join INERATEC to scale up the production capacities of synthetic fuels made from CO 2 and green hydrogen towards the megaton scale. With the new shareholders from the energy, aviation and shipping sector, INERATEC is extending the setup that enables significant company growth.

In 2021, INERATEC has already opened the to date worlds largest pilot plant for the production of sustainable e-kerosene in the Emsland region, Lower-Saxony. Now, the company plans an industrial pioneer plant close to Frankfurt Airport for the production of sustainable synthetic fuels starting in 2022. Up to 4.6 million liters of INERATEC e-fuels can be produced annually from up to 10,000 tons of biogenic CO 2 and renewable electricity. The company will reinforce its leading status in the Power-to-Liquid sector.

INERATEC contributes to achieving the Paris Climate Goals by providing a sustainable solution for the aviation, shipping, automotive and chemical industry. With sustainable e-fuels, those hard to abate sectors can be defossilized. In order to turn this vision into reality, the production capacities for carbon-neutral fuels and chemicals must be scaled up fast.

United by the mission to reach the climate targets

With Engie, Safran and MPC, INERATEC welcomes strategic partners from the industry to its existing investor portfolio consisting of Extantia, Planet A, High-Tech Grunderfonds, FO Holding and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. All partners are united by the mission to reach the climate targets.

"This is a massive boost for our company. We will provide sustainable, affordable e-fuels and materials for everyone", Managing Director and INERATEC founder Dr.-Ing. Tim Boeltken.

"Safran is laser-focused on this vital area to make aviation carbon-neutral by 2050. INERATECs leading-edge technologies will bolster the technical expertise needed to develop a certified process for aviation", Eric Dalbies, Safran Senior Executive Vice President, R&T and Innovation.

"Were proud to be investing in a startup that combines innovation with the ambition of speeding the transition to net-zero carbon. Hydrogen and e-fuels will play a key role in decarbonizing heavy mobility such as maritime, railway or in the longer-term air transport. This investment is going to support Engies ambitious strategy of being able to produce 4 GW of green hydrogen by 2030", Olivier Sala, Engie Vice-President, Research and Innovation.

"The existing investors are delighted to further invest in and to support INERATEC on its way to defossilize important industries. The new investors bring the needed expertise and international structures into INERATEC in order to build a truly global player for sustainable e-fuels", Jan Christoph Gras, partner at Planet A Ventures.
An illustration of the jet of liquid solvent, the sample particles, and the beam of the accelerator capturing diffraction data in a process that takes just a few femtoseconds  that is quadrillionths of a second, or, one millionth of one billionth of a second.

Francis Crick, who famously co-discovered the shape of DNA, once said: If you want to understand function, study structure. Many decades later, this remains a tenet of biology, chemistry, and materials science.

A key breakthrough in the quest for DNAs structure came from X-ray crystallography, a technique that maps the density of electrons in a molecule based on how beams of X-ray radiation diffract through the spaces between atoms in the sample. The diffraction patterns generated by crystallography can then be used to deduce the overall molecular structure. Thanks to a steady stream of advances over the decades, X-ray crystallography is now exponentially more powerful than it was in Cricks time, and can even reveal the placement of individual atoms.

Yet the process is not easy. As the name implies, it requires crystals  specifically, purified samples of the molecule of interest, coaxed into a crystal form. And not all molecules form picture-ready crystals.

X-ray crystallography is most straightforward when the material can be grown into a large single crystal, said Nicholas Sauter, a computer senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) division. However, most substances instead form powders composed of small granules, whose X-ray diffraction patterns are harder to disentangle.

Sauter is co-leading a team working to provide a better way for scientists to study the structures of the many materials that dont form tidy single crystals, such as solar absorbers and metal-organic frameworks: two diverse material groups with huge potential for combatting climate change and producing renewable energy.

Their new technique, called small-molecule serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography, or smSFX, supercharges traditional crystallography with the addition of custom-built image processing algorithms and an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL). The XFEL, built from a fusion of particle accelerator and laser-based physics, can point X-ray beams that are much more powerful, focused, and speedy than other X-ray sources for crystallography. The entire process, from X-ray pulse to diffraction image, is completed in a few quadrillionths of a second.

Its diffraction before destruction, said Daniel Paley, an MBIB project scientist and author on the teams new paper, published in Nature. The idea is that the crystal is going to explode instantly when it's hit by this beam of photons, but with a femtosecond pulse, you collect all the diffraction data before the damage occurs. It's really cool.

Paley and co-leader Aaron Brewster, a research scientist in MBIB, developed the algorithms needed to convert XFEL data into high-quality diffraction patterns that can be analyzed to reveal the unit cell  the basic unit of a crystal that is repeated over and over in three dimensions  of each tiny crystalline grain within the sample.

When you have a true powder, Paley explained, its like having a million crystals that are all jumbled together, full of imperfections, and scrambled in every possible orientation. Rather than diffracting the whole jumble together and getting a muddied readout of electron densities, like existing powder diffraction techniques, smSFX is so precise that it can diffract individual granules, one at a time. This gives it a special sharpening effect, he said. So that is actually the kind of secret sauce of this whole method. Normally you shoot all million at once, but now you shoot 10,000 all in sequence.

The cherry on top is that smSFX is performed without freezing the sample or exposing it to a vacuum  another benefit for the delicate materials studied by materials scientists. "No fancy vacuum chamber required," said Sauter.

In the new study, the team demonstrated proof-of-principle for smSFX, then went one step further. They reported the previously unknown structures of two metal-organic materials known as chacogenolates. Nathan Hohman, a chemist physicist at University of Connecticut and the projects third co-leader, studies chacogenolates for their semiconducting and light-interaction properties, which could make them ideal for next-generation transistors, photovoltaics (solar cells and panels), energy storage devices, and sensors.

Every single one of these is a special snowflake  growing them is really difficult, said Hohman. With smSFX, he and graduate student Elyse Schriber were able to successfully diffract powder chacogenolates and examine the structures to learn why some of the silver-based materials glow bright blue under UV light, a phenomenon that the scientists affectionately compare to Frodos sword in The Lord of the Rings.

There is a huge array of fascinating physical and even chemical dynamics that occur at ultrafast timescales, and our experiment could help to connect the dots between a material's structure and its function, said Schriber, a Berkeley Lab affiliate and researcher in Hohmans lab. After further improvements are made to streamline the smSFX process, we can imagine programs to offer this technique to other researchers. These types of programs are integral for increasing access to light source facilities, especially for smaller universities and colleges.
Chickasha, OK (73018)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado with some storms. High 68F. Winds ESE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely. A few storms may be severe. Low 58F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
Connecticut's construction industry posted employment gains since the start of the pandemic, reporting 1,400 more jobs in December than in February 2020 before COVID-19 began its spread in the state. Pictured here, a worker takes a measurement while working at a residential building construction site in Stamford in May 2020. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (Mary Altaffer/AP)

Hiring slowed in December as Connecticut employers added just 600 jobs, but employment rose each month last year as the labor force struggled to emerge from the damage of COVID-19, the state Department of Labor reported Monday.

The unemployment rate dropped to 5.8% from 6% in November. In contrast, the U.S. jobless rate in December was 3.9%.

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Job growth slowed at the end of 2021 but continued to add to the very strong gains from earlier in the year, said Patrick Flaherty, the Department of Labors research director.

On average, Connecticut employers added 4,267 jobs a month, for a total of 51,200 jobs added last year. Connecticut has now recovered 74.6% , or 218,100 jobs of the 292,400 that vanished in March and April 2020 as business lockdowns were ordered by the Lamont administration.

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Chris DiPentima, president of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, said the addition last year of 51,000 jobs is welcome news, but said Connecticuts anemic jobs recovery has underperformed other states.

Connecticuts financial services sector posted fewer jobs in December than at the end of 2020. The construction industry added jobs since the start of the pandemic, posting 60,700 jobs in December, 1,400 more than in February 2020.

The leisure and hospitality industry, which was hit hard by the pandemic, gained nearly 16,000 jobs from December 2020 to the end of last year, a strong 13.4% increase. Still, jobs were off by nearly 23,000 since before the pandemic.

Connecticuts labor force of 1,570,800 is down 7.5% from a peak of 1,698,500 in November 2019, four months before COVID-19 began spreading through the state. It hit bottom with 1,403,900 in April 2020 as Gov. Ned Lamont and his public health advisers ordered businesses shut to slow the spread of the virus.

What industries posted the biggest job increases last year over 2020?

Leisure and hospitality, up 15,900, 13.4%

Construction, up 4,000, 7.1%

Educational and health services, up 11,300, 3.5%

Manufacturing, up 3,300, 2.2%

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What industries posted job losses last year?

Information, down 1,200 jobs, a drop of 4.1%

Financial activities, down 1,300 jobs, a drop of 1.1%

How many workers were hired in Connecticuts cities?

New Haven, up 11,200, 4%

Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, up 11,100, 3%

Hartford up 7,900, 1.4%

Danbury, up 2,700, 3.8%

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Norwich-New London-Westerly, R.I., up 2,700, 2.4%

Waterbury, up 1,500, 2.3%

How did Connecticuts unemployment rate change during 2021?

Connecticut began the year with an 8.1% unemployment rate in January

It peaked at 8.5% in February.

By June it had fallen to 7.7%

It declined in every month that followed.

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Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.
God gives us the gift of peace. Before his death, resurrection and ascension, Jesus made a sacred promise to his disciples: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14:27). Just as nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord, no one can take away our peace. We can access Gods peace in any season, circumstance or trial (Rom. 8:38-39). As people who live with the gift of peace, we are called to share that peace with everyone, including those we interact with online.

When we engage in the ministry of peacemaking, we demonstrate that we are Gods children, led by Gods Spirit (Matt. 5:9; Rom. 8:14). When we reject the ministry of peacemaking, we harm our witness and lose our authority to proclaim the good news of Jesus. Unfortunately, many Christians damage the integrity of their witness through divisive and polarizing online activity. Instead of gifting others with peace, they exaggerate destructive attitudes and behaviors. Instead of tearing down the dividing walls of hostility, they foment and fortify the most destructive divides in our world. Why are people behaving this way?

Technology Forms and Divides Us

Technological theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote that the medium is the message. In this bold proclamation he argued that every medium radically changes how we communicate and what we communicate. The form of each medium forms us into different people. The all-pervasive medium of internet communication radically works against the ministry of peacemaking. The disembodied, non-incarnate realities of social media dehumanize our interactions. Our unlimited access to countless networks of individuals cheapens the value of sustaining and maintaining relationships through conflicts or disagreements. Our propensity to use social media for self-gratification turns people into commodities we accept or reject based on how much they agree or disagree with us. Sadly, we have normalized many of the impersonal, anonymous, divisive foundations of social media as acceptable online abiding.

If we are to be peacemakers online, we must grow in our understanding of how online technology works against the ministry of peacemaking. We must thoughtfully and intentionally develop strategic ways to bring peace into devouring rooms.

The following are a few practical ways we can engage in online peacemaking:

Settle Your Motivation

Only God knows the motivation of our hearts. Others may judge the worthiness or intention of our online communication. Regardless of the accuracy of their observations, we must settle in our hearts the motivation behind our communication.

Our goal is not to avoid conflict, but to be ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation.

Whether were writing with a gentle, welcoming voice or a strong, prophetic correction, the motivation of our ministry must be peacemaking. In other words, we proclaim truth to break down the dividing walls of hostility existing between us and our God. Our goal is not to avoid conflict, but to be ambassadors of the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). We communicate not to be right, but to reconcile, not to win the argument, but to win people to Christ. We turn over tables or serve the afflicted so that every person can find their way to Christ. Every interaction, every post, must be rooted in the ministry of peacemaking.

Make it Personal

When the world dehumanizes, we humanize. Were not called to build followings, but we do have the sacred responsibility to build loving relationships. Every conflict is an opportunity to love, to humanize, to listen and to bless. Jesus calls us to bless and to pray for those who mistreat us, whether in person or online (Luke 6:28). As a general practice, I try to communicate about any individual online as if they are in the room with me. I ask myself if I would feel comfortable writing or saying these things if the person was physically present with me. How would I speak to them or about them if they were visiting the church I serve? The more I see, value and respect each individual online, the more I am able to find Gods heart for every person.

Where is Jesus?

Before I respond in anger to a tweet or post, I try to ask myself, Where is Jesus? Jesus has been working in the lives of every person Ive met online, long before I met them. There is no online interaction where Jesus is not present. I can either acknowledge Christs presence and follow his lead, or I can go it alone. When I acknowledge Jesus, the goal of my communication shifts. Im frequently reminded of when Jesus washed his disciples feet and called them to do likewise (John 13:3-17). In this example, Jesus reveals an important truth: we serve because Jesus served us first. His grace, love and acceptance are all profound offerings of service. Jesus washes our feet every single day in that he extends to us the fullness of his kingdom, even when we have rejected his leading. Where is Jesus at this very moment? He is serving me and he is serving you. I dont need to look up into the heavens to find Jesus, I can look down and see Jesus washing my feet. When I see where Jesus is, I join him and try my best to serve others.

Online peacemaking is an expression of serving others the way Jesus daily serves us. Social media communication can be extremely challenging. Even so, its our honor and privilege to confront every divisive interaction with a strategy of peace. You are not alone. Do not let your hearts be troubled. We have been given the gift of peace and the ability to share that peace with every person God has entrusted to our care, especially online.

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Douglas S. Bursch is copastor of Evergreen Foursquare Church in Auburn, Washington and author of Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It. He earned a DMin. from George Fox Evangelical Seminary with his dissertation research focusing on social media. A former newspaper columnist and talk radio host, Doug has produced and hosted over 1,200 Christian radio broadcasts. He is the producer and host of the Fairly Spiritual Show radio program and podcast.
We live in a world full of public trauma and tragedy. Most mornings, we wake up to discover newsfeeds and social media accounts churning with fear, anger, guilt, and shame rooted in a long list of persistent social problems. In this age of ubiquitous information, our heads and hearts are quickly flooded by the rising waters of evil and injustice.

A decade ago, I began to record every time I heard the statement The church is so silent about X. My anecdotal list is now very long. That phrase has been used repeatedly to introduce discussions about sexual abuse and harassment, racism, creation care and environmental justice, religious persecution, and more.

To be sure, there are lots of Christians talking about these things in lots of different settings. And yet, complaints about the churchs complicit silence often ring true simply because these issues arent always showing up in public worship.

Painfully, in the worship of far too many churches, there is barely even a mention of the worlds horrors. Instead of lamenting, confessing, and interceding with specificity and honesty, these churches tend to avoid, deny, or minimize the public trauma that is all around them. The understandable desire for a respite from trauma ends up perpetuating a pattern of disengagement from society.

There are many interrelated reasons for this liturgical silence. First, some churches operate with a thin, individualistic view of the gospel, focusing nearly all their liturgical attention on individual conversion and comfort. Second, some churches are conflict avoidant and eager to stay away from public controversy during worship. A third, perhaps underappreciated, reason is a pronounced decline in public intercessory ...

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In the halls of the academy as well as on the street, there is no more controversial aspect of the Bible than its accounts of miracles. Skepticism about supernatural intervention in human affairsrooted in the Enlightenment, especially the writings of philosopher David Humehas become mainstream in the modern mind. At the same time, however, there is a growing body of documented evidence, as well as compelling stories by credible witnesses, of miracles taking place.

Ten years ago, prominent New Testament scholar Craig Keener assembled a large collection of this evidence in his two-volume work Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, and he returns to the topic in his latest publication, Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World. Freelance writer and editor of The Worldview Bulletin Christopher Reese spoke with Keener about the reasons for widespread skepticism of miracles and about some of the amazing stories his new book recounts.

You wrote a two-volume book on miracles in 2011, a topic you revisit in this current book. Why has this been an important subject for you to write about?

My regular job is as a New Testament scholar, and one of my interests is historical study about Jesus and his first followers. Sometimes critics have dismissed miracle stories in the Gospels and Acts simply because they recount miracles. (They often do make exceptions for potentially psychosomatic cures, but normally not for instant healings of blindness, raisings from the dead, or stilling storms.) The idea is that such reports must be legends that couldnt really go back to eyewitnesses.

Yet I always found that approach problematic, since I know of many eyewitness reports like this in my own circle and have witnessed some events like this myself. In my two-volume book, I was seeking to challenge the prejudice against eyewitness claims to miracle events of this sort.

Unfortunately, that book is 1,100 pages long, so most people never had time to read it. For that reason, it seemed important to revisit the subject with a much shorter, more readable book. To make it more accessible, I condensed the philosophic and other material and elaborated specific accounts (which I tried to keep short, like many New Testament accounts!). Among these, I favored especially those with multiple witnesses, with special appreciation for when doctors were witnesses.

What is your definition of a miracle?

There is no universally agreed-on definition (our term does not correspond exactly to biblical terminology), but probably the most useful one, with abundant historic warrant, is special divine actionalthough that definition may require some defining itself.

Believers recognize Gods activity in all creation; existence, life, and DNA are all larger expressions of divine action than most miracle accounts I report. These are so pervasive and happen with such regularity that people consider them ordinary. In the Bible, though, God also acts in special or extraordinary ways in history and peoples lives to reveal himself and get peoples attention.

We may not always be able to clearly define the boundaries between general and special divine action, since even in special events (such as the parting of the sea in Exodus) God may use ordinary causes in extraordinary ways. (Exodus says God blew back the sea with a strong wind.) But plenty of events are extraordinary enough that virtually any observer would consider them special or extraordinary. When God uses such events to draw attention to his message, we usually call them miracles.

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Why do you think contemporary Westerners are so skeptical that miracles happen or are even possible?

The roots go back to the radical Enlightenment, but the idea was popularized especially by David Humes essay against miracles, which took over some deist arguments of the day. Many people today take for granted the assumptions he published without always realizing the historic source of their assumptions.

Humes essay falls into two parts. In the first, according to what I think is the most straightforward reading, he defines miracles as violations of natural law. He also defines natural law as something that cant be violated. Therefore, his very definitions effectively define miracles out of existence. His idea of natural law borrows from Isaac Newton and early proponents of Newtonian science. They, however, believed not only that God established natures laws but also that he transcended them and could act within nature as he pleased.

The second half of Humes essay essentially argues that uniform human experience should predispose us to doubt all claims about miracles. This argument begs the question, however, of how uniform human experience is. Even in his own day, Hume cites the medically documented healing of Blaise Pascals niece in front of many witnesses. How does he respond to it? Basically, he simply remarks that its unbelievable and moves on.

Humes access to knowledge of human experience was far more limitedthough sometimes self-limitedthan what we have available today. I dont think that even Hume would have attempted to argue his case from uniform human experience today. Pew and other surveys show that hundreds of millions of people in the world today claim to have witnessed miracles. Other sources indicate millions of people converted at great social cost from different ancestral traditions because they believed they witnessed or experienced extraordinary miracles, beyond their indigenous healing traditions, in the name of Jesus.

How do biblical scholars in the mainstream academy tend to treat the miracle accounts in the New Testament?

With respect to belief in actual miracles, that depends on the scholar. Biblical scholars today span a spectrum of theological and philosophic beliefs, and their personal approach to the reality of special divine action varies no less. Because divine action is considered a theological or philosophic claim, our polite discussions of New Testament history often leave it off the table.

But the question of divine action differs from the historical question of ancient experience and interpretation. Many mainstream scholars accept a core of historical tradition in many New Testament miracle accounts. In fact, a strong majority of New Testament scholars, regardless of their personal theological convictions, affirm that Jesus was experienced by his contemporaries as a healer and an exorcist.

Jesus healing activity appears in every stratum of gospel tradition, is acknowledged by his ancient detractors, is attested by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, and is consistent with reports of his followers activity in Acts and over the next few centuries. Paul speaks of signs and wonders following wherever he was breaking new ground for the kingdom (Rom. 15:19) and appeals to his own audiences eyewitness testimony of them (2 Cor. 12:12). By every criterion of historical investigation, Jesus appears as a healer and exorcist. Whether scholars attribute this only to something like psychosomatic experiences or whether they are willing to consider special divine activity depends on the particular scholars and their approach.

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You mentioned witnessing the miraculous firsthand. Can you share the details?

I have witnessed some events firsthand that, I think, most people would consider miraculous. When I was a young Christian helping at a nursing-home Bible study, one wheelchair-bound woman complained every week how she couldnt walk. One day the Bible study leader, someone from Fuller Theological Seminary, took her by one hand and commanded her in Jesus name to rise and walk. To both her astonishment and mine, he led her around the room. From then on she happily walked to the Bible study.

When I was a new seminary professor, the campus ministry scheduled an outreach on the attached undergraduate campus. On the scheduled day, however, it was pouring down rain, and the forecast said it was going to pour down rain all day. A sophomore biology major led us in prayer for the rain to stop, and just after we said Amen, it stopped. Then the sun came out for the rest of the day.

So I have accounts like that. But they pale in comparison with many other accounts in the book, especially in the chapters dealing with medical documentation, instant healings of blindness, raisings from the dead, and so forth.

You relate accounts in the book of many modern-day miracles. Which one stands out to you as the most remarkable?

That is always a hard question for me, because there are so many that are remarkable in different ways. One of the first in the book is that of a young woman on her deathbed, almost completely paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. She heard Jesus voice calling her to rise and walk, and she was instantly healed so thoroughly that she didnt even have to contend with atrophied muscles. All three of her doctors have confirmed the account in writing, laying their own reputations on the line. She lived for 40 more years with no recurrence, passing away only recently from COVID-19, much to the sorrow of those of us who knew her.

Another story is of a woman blind for 12 years, instantly healed during prayer, a fully documented case now written up in a medical journal. There are some others so remarkable that I initially hesitated to include them in the book, lest someone disinclined to believe them would discount all the others.

One account that I almost always share is the one that some years ago began shifting my own perspective. Theres no medical documentation, because it happened in a place where no doctors were available, which was probably partly why a miracle was needed. I had heard the story before, but it was when I interviewed Antoinette Malombe in Congo that I learned the details. Malombes two-year-old daughter Therese cried out that a snake bit her; Malombe found her not breathing, and she ran for about three hours with the toddler on her back to where a family friend was doing ministry. He prayed, and Therese began breathing again; the next day she was fine. Even though irreparable brain damage starts after just six minutes without oxygen, Therese had no brain damage; she later achieved a masters degree and just recently retired from ministry.

This is far from the most dramatic case, but it got my attention because Antoinette Malombe was my mother-in-law, and Therese is my sister-in-law. Not to doubt ones mother-in-law, but we confirmed the story with the family friend who prayed for her.

Most of the miracles you recount in the book are healings of various kinds. Have you discerned any pattern as to why healing does or does not take place?

In terms of patterns, most healings and other miracles recounted in the book appear in the context of people praying for them to happen. It shouldnt surprise anyone that they happen more often among people who trust God enough to ask, recognizing that he is able to act. Also, the most dramatic miracles happen most often (though not by any means exclusively) on the cutting edge of evangelizing unevangelized areas, a setting similar to the one in the Gospels and Acts. They also happen where they are most needednot to entertain us, not to get us to neglect other resources God has provided, but because of the Lords compassion for our need.

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As in the Gospels, healing also often follows persistent or desperate faith. But also as in the Gospels, initial or deepened faith sometimes follows Gods special divine action. And there are cases today where people have to show their great faith by trusting God despite not experiencing healing right away or even in this life at all. Indeed, Gods power is displayed especially in weaknessmost visibly in what for a time seemed the triumph of evil at Jesus cross. Some of the people who have witnessed the most miracles prayed for them for months or years before they began to see themmaybe so they would learn persistent faith or perhaps so they would learn that it is Gods grace, not who we are, that makes them happen.

But these observations are not a model for prediction in a given case. God remains sovereign. When my friend Leo Bawa was doing research in a Nigerian village, people there asked him to pray for their dead child; after a couple hours of prayer, he handed the child back to the parents alive. But the only other time Leo prayed for someone who died, it was his best friend, and the friend stayed dead.

When cardiologist Chauncey Crandall prayed for and shocked Jeff Markin, who had been flatlined for 40 minutes, Markin was restored. But when Crandalls own son Chad earlier died of leukemia, Crandall had to determine that he would trust in God no matter what.

The greatest 19th-century heroes of faith like Hudson Taylor are no longer with us; sickness and death remain. My wife and I experienced many miscarriages. Before our marriage, she spent 18 months as a refugee. God has been good to us, but we are also keenly aware of the reality of suffering in this world, and suffering will continue until Christs return to put all the world right. Miracles get our attention, but they are not a panacea for all the worlds problems.

Skeptics often insist that if they could witness a miracle themselves, they would embrace religious belief. Is this how skeptics who were personally involved in the stories you cite have typically respondedby embracing faith?

Its all across the board. When I was an atheist a few decades ago, witnessing a miracle probably wouldnt have converted me instantly, but it sure would have gotten my attention and turned me into an inquirer. Some sources for the book were converted through witnessing miracles, such as the healing of their paralysis or the raising of their child many hours after he was pronounced dead. Some friendly skeptics who have not been converted by their anomalous experiences have admitted that this has made them more open-minded about possibilities. But I also have a couple skeptical friends who have told me that they wouldnt believe even if somebody were raised from the dead in front of them.

This spectrum fits pretty much what we see in the Bible. When Jesus raised Lazarus, some people believed, but others ran and warned Jesus enemies what had just happened. Jesus enemies already had their minds made up not to believe him. Despite seeing the pillar of fire and the sea parted for the Israelites, Pharaohs army pursued them into the sea. Pharaoh still expected his own gods to be stronger than Israels God. We might say that he and Moses had different theological presuppositions.

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Although Johns gospel reports that Thomas got to see the risen Lord, it goes on to explain that it offers testimony for the sake of those who didnt get to see him (John 20:2831). God has provided evidence already, and Jesus warns that those resistant to faith will not be converted even if someone returns to them from the dead (Luke 16:31). Nevertheless, for those who are open-minded, miracles can get their attention.

Not everybody experiences physical healing in this life, but when God does any miracle, its a gift to every one of us. That is because its a confirmation to us of Gods promise of a world made newof the day when he will wipe away our tears and when death and suffering will be no more. Until then, as people of his kingdom, we keep working for peoples health and security in every way available to us, through medicine, through food, and, sometimes, through prayers for miracles that God hears and answers.
Defeat the Mandates protesters: We're not 'anti-vaxxers,' this is about coercion

WASHINGTON  Thousands of demonstrators gathered in the nation's capital Sunday to protest what they consider extreme COVID-19 vaccine mandates, specifically objecting to government and employer mandates.

At stake are fundamental liberties outlined in the U.S. Constitution, according to several who spoke with The Christian Post, and the right to determine what's best for their health in accordance with the dictates of their conscience.

The Defeat the Mandates rally, which featured critics of both COVID-19 vaccines and the mandatory measures being implemented across the country, began with a procession from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

Among the long line-up of speakers were several figures who've been outspoken critics of certain COVID-19 policies in both the private and public sectors. They included Robert F. Kennedy Jr., author of The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health; Dr. Peter McCullough, a Dallas-based cardiologist; Dr. Robert Malone, a virologist and co-inventor of mRNA vaccine technology; and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist who believes natural immunity should be recognized and was summarily fired from his professorship at UC-Irvine.

While considerable attention was given to those who've suffered health complications and injuries from COVID-19 injections, speakers also detailed the ways in which people's rights are being abrogated by public health authorities.

"The minute they hand you that vaccine passport, every right that you have is transformed into a privilege contingent on your obedience to arbitrary government dictates. It will make you a slave," Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared while speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Several demonstrators who spoke with CP expressed their frustration with how they were being portrayed by corporate media, which frequently referred to attendees as "anti-vaxxers."

When asked by this reporter if she was an anti-vaxxer, Sherry Walker, a Houston-based captain for United Airlines and the co-founder of Airline Employees for Health Freedom, said: "No way."

"In fact, my mom got the [COVID-19] vaccine. We believe in choice, that which is between you and your doctor and you and your God," she said.

Walker added that both she and her now 16-year-old son have received immunizations for various diseases. But she felt obligated to counter company mandates on their employees. Walker said she also objects to the use of fetal cell lines in the development and production of the various COVID-19 shots.

"This is not an anti-vax rally," she maintained. "This is a rally to tell our government that we're going to hold them accountable to illegal mandates, and in our specific case with Title VII with our employer."

Walker went on to explain that United Airlines initially started incentivizing their employees to get the vaccine by offering extra pay and other benefits. When management didn't receive the response they'd hoped for last summer, they imposed a mandate. Objecting to this, Walker and a cadre of employees who held religious objections or had medically-based reasons for not getting the jab felt that Title VII granted them reasonable accommodations and started applying for them.

But as the process unfolded, "it became apparent that they were going to terminate us no matter what," Walker said.

United employees summarily filed a lawsuit against the airline and are asking the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for a preliminary injunction.

"We believe that our powers emanate from God, not man," she said, noting the sincere faith of many of their members. "And the problem we have right now with this mandate is that we give an inch, what's next?

"In 10 years when my 16 year old looks at me and says: 'Mom, I don't have the right to do, fill in the blank, why didn't you stand up when you had a chance?' That's what we're standing up for  our faith and our bodily autonomy. If we acquiesce now, the woke media and mainstream would just as soon erase our faithfulness."

Danielle Runyan, an attorney who's one of the co-founders of the group and whose husband is a pilot for the commercial airline, said that even though the Supreme Court struck down the Occupational Safety and Health Administration mandate requiring COVID-19 shots for certain private companies, in practice, both private and government employers have not honored employees' religious and medical exemptions. In the court's 6-3 ruling last week, it concluded that Congress gave OSHA the power to regulate workplace dangers but not healthcare.

Provisions and processes within the Americans with Disabilities Act and in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act related to religious and medical exemptions have been largely ignored on this issue, she said.

"It's a process of coercion to get jabs in people's arms, which then ultimately leads to firing people, which is just further coercion," she told CP.

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge James C. Ho, a Trump appointee, held in his dissenting opinion in the United Airlines case that this was the ultimate "crisis of conscience" and the quintessential irreparable harm and was thus worthy of an injunction.

"People have bought into the narrative that has come from the leadership at the federal level on down," Runyan said, noting that the prevailing narrative has been "if you don't do this, you don't respect your fellow American citizens."

Runyan insists that is not true and recounted that she recently got a flu shot and that many in her group, who are mostly in their 30s and 40s, have all likely received many vaccines as children. But after she did some of her own research and identified a potential harm in the COVID-19 shot, she decided not to take the risk.

"And as a Christian, my body is my temple," she added, referencing 1 Corinthians 6:19, "and I'm not willing to harm that."

On Friday, a federal judge in Texas blocked the Biden administrations vaccine mandate for federal workers.

One group that has obtained the kind of injunction the airline health freedom group is seeking is Feds for Medical Freedom, a group of federal government employees and contractors resisting the mandates. The group's website states that they believe the government "should not fire workers because of their health conditions or medically-informed health care decisions."

"Many of our members in our group are fully vaccinated with the COVID vaccine. But they believe that this is a private matter for them in their medical providers and that their employer has no role in it and certainly that it shouldn't be a condition of employment for them to disclose that information or to make that private medical decision," Marcus Thornton, the group's founder and president, told CP.

"We're going to stay in the fight until we win it," he said. "The DOJ already appealed that decision and so we'll have to see how this process plays out. But I'm confident that justice will prevail," he added, noting that he believes it's fundamentally "a question of bodily autonomy and human rights and each person should have the right to decide what to put in their body or not."

Reggie Littlejohn, a longtime activist who has been exposing the horrors of forced abortions in China with her organization Women's Rights Without Frontiers, is co-chairing the Stop Vaccine Passports Task Force. Littlejohn told CP that what many don't realize is that the digital technology being employed to administer the COVID-19 vax passports is a precursor to a much more nefarious endgame.

"Getting everybody to be really afraid of the virus, and then mandating that everybody get the vaccine is what gives the excuse for the institution of these digital passports that are on people's smartphones. And these can incorporate the same functionality as China's social credit system," Littlejohn explained.

"And the goal of the social credit system is mass surveillance and totalitarian control."

In China, the health pass turns green if a person is vaccinated and healthy, yellow if they have COVID symptoms, and red if not vaccinated or not healthy. This is how dissidents are controlled, she said. If a health passport turns from green to yellow, freedom of movement is severely impeded. The Chinese health passes are also being used to track other information such as social media posts, financial history, and online searches.

"I am not an anti-vaxxer. I have traveled twice around the world. My vaccination card is as long as my arm. Many of the people speaking at this march are vaccinated for not just anything, but for COVID [too]. We have very specifically said that this is not an anti-vax march. This an anti-coercion, an anti-vaccine passport march," she emphasized.

"It's one thing to say that you think the vaccine could be good for certain demographics, say if you're elderly or immuno-compromised," Littlejohn added. "You can be in favor of the vaccine in those circumstances and be absolutely opposed to mandating it for children and everybody else who is healthy."

Standing up publicly against the vax passports is important in light of alarming polarization, Littlejohn continued, pointing to recent Rasmussen polling data showing that 59% of Democratic voters want unvaccinated people to be confined at home, 45% want the unvaccinated in designated facilities, and 48% desiring fines or imprisonment for anyone who questions vaccine efficacy.

Aaron Lewis, a pastor from Connecticut who serves as a spiritual liaison for Children's Health Defense, believes the federal government has usurped its authority to the point that it has confused millions of people in the United States, and hundreds of millions more across the world, as to who God is.

"We are at the point now that if someone doesn't turn the ship around, millions of people of faith will be giving their total allegiance and reliance to the government and abandoning everything that has to do with the true and living God," he told CP.

"I believe that a lot of people who appear to be very good-hearted and loving ... have been deceived. Why? Because we have gone through a system and a cycle and a process of giving attention and more of our heart to government and not God."

Lewis, who is African American, believes it's problematic that the pharmaceutical industry is immune from legal liability in cases of vaccine injury and spurns the use of the term anti-vaxxer, saying it amounts to "a new N-word" and is wielded to divide people and segregate society.

"Not only have people had a lot of immunizations, some people take the position that 'I don't want it for me and my family but if you do it for you, I respect that.' But the agenda says that if you don't 100 percent accept it for you, your family, all your friends, or anyone you meet, then you're an 'anti-vaxxer.' That's a derogatory term," he said.
South Dakota House committee rejects Gov. Noems bill to 'restore protections for prayer in schools'

A Republican-controlled South Dakota House committee rejected Republican Gov. Kristi Noems bill that would require public schools to set aside time for students to pray every morning if they so choose, reportedly due to pressure from education groups.

The bill, introduced in December, would require a moment of silence in schools to begin the school day. But it was rejected by the House Education Committee on Friday after education groups argued that voluntary prayer is already allowed in schools and the proposed legislation could imply an unclear mandate, The Associated Press reports.

The legislation would mandate that no school employee may dictate the action to be taken by students or teachers during the moment of silence and that no student may interfere with another students engagement in the moment of silence.

It also clarified that the language in the bill shouldnt be construed to permit schools to conduct the moment of silence as a religious exercise.

But Rep. Will Mortenson, a Republican, contends that the language in the bill is vague.

Maybe its me, but I view prayer as something that is personal and not performative, he was quoted as saying.

The governors office had reportedly not consulted groups representing schools and the teachers union on the proposal, but Noems office argued that 15 other states had similar measures.

Allen Cambon, the governors policy advisor, told the House committee that the bill would serve as a valuable learning opportunity and a chance to establish a sense of calm and decorum before students and teachers begin their busy day.

A press statement from Noems office when the bill was introduced in December characterized the bill as an effort to restore protections for prayer in the classroom.

The separation of church and state advocacy groups raised concerns with similar bills introduced or passed in other states.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which advocates for a strict separation of church and state, wrote a letter to the Ohio Senate last month criticizing Senate Bill 248 as an unconstitutional promotion of religion. The bill was introduced in October and would also mandate a daily moment of silence in schools.

The Wisconsin-based advocacy group expressed particular opposition to the language of the bill calling on each public school district to provide for a moment of silence each school day for prayer, reflection, or meditation upon a moral, philosophical, or patriotic theme.

Similar to the Alabama law at issue in [the Supreme Court ruling] Wallace v. Jaffree, Ohios moment of silence law states that the moment of silence is for prayer, reflection, or meditation upon a moral, philosophical or patriotic theme, the letter reads. The only

difference is that Ohios law suggests prayer first rather than second, making the

endorsement even more clear. This runs squarely into Supreme Court precedent.

In the 1985 decision, the nations high court ruled that Alabama could not require teachers to conduct prayer and religious activities during the school day.

In a December statement, Noem shared her belief that every student deserves the opportunity to begin their day with a calm, silent moment.

I hope students will take this opportunity to say a quick prayer or reflect on their upcoming day, she said. However they choose to take advantage of this time, it will be beneficial to students and teachers alike.

Last June, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law that would give students a daily opportunity to reflect and be able to pray as they see fit.

DeSantis described the moment-of-silence bill as legislation that counters attempts to push God out of every institution.

In 2019, Noem signed a law that mandates that all public schools display the national motto In God We Trust.
Indian bishops urged to take a stand as violence against Christians continues to rise

A group of Catholic clergy and laity in India has said that the complete silence of Indias bishops despite a rise in attacks on Christians and other minorities is shocking and urged the Catholic Bishops Conference of India to speak out.

The Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace wrote a letter to CBCI President Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai calling for Indian bishops to do more to advocate for religious minorities facing a rising trend of persecution in India at the hands of Hindu extremism, Crux reports.

In the year 2021, there were 486 incidents of violence against the Christian community in India, according to the United Christian Front. What shocks us is the complete silence on the part of the official Church, the CBCI, the letter reads.

The letter specifically cited seven "well-planned attacks on Christian institutions" between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2021.

The letter was sent weeks after a United Christian Front report that showed 2021 was the most violent year for Christians in the countrys history.

The violent acts against the Christian community and Muslim community or any other minority group are in complete violation of the law of the land and the Indian Constitution, the letter states. If we do not respond to such acts, the secular fabric of India will be lost causing irreparable damage to the people of India, and an inclusive, democratic and pluralistic India as envisioned in the preamble of the Indian Constitution could be lost forever.

In its report, the United Christian Front noted that in nearly all cases reported nationwide, vigilante mobs composed of religious extremists have been seen to either barge into a prayer gathering or round up individuals that they believe are involved in forcible religious conversions.

The organization attributed the high incidence of Christian persecution to impunity, saying such mobs criminally threaten, physically assault people in prayer, before handing them over to the police on allegations of forcible conversions.

The Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace contends that Catholic leaders cannot remain silent spectators when the drama of violent attacks against the minorities is unfolding before us. The forum argues that Indias Catholic leaders need to act and fulfill our prophetic role before it is too late.

The forum calls on the bishops conference to send a letter to President Narendra Modi, urging him to call on governments in states where such attacks are occurring to prevent attacks in the future and hold those responsible accountable. The forum also wants the national bishops' conference to urge regional conferences to send memorandums to government leaders in their states urging them to protect Christians from attacks and open cases against perpetrators.

Additionally, CBCI is urged to respond quickly after attacks on Christian institutions and individuals by state actors or Hindu nationalist groups and provide legal assistance to help victims seek justice in the courts.

Sister Dorothy Fernandes told Crux that the forum was motivated to send the letter because of "well-planned actions that took place around Christmas. She said she is often asked why Catholic leadership is silent and wants the leadership of our Church to wake up.

We have also suggested a number of doable actions which is inclusive and will sustain the secular fabric of our beautiful nation," she was quoted as saying. "We would believe that our inclusiveness will reach out to the Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, Tribals, women and children. This is our prophetic calling, and we can no longer afford to sit on the fence and wait till they come for us."

Christians make up just over 2% of Indias population and Hindus comprise nearly 80%, while Muslims account for just over 15%, according to the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project.

Rights groups have warned there has been an increase in Hindu radical mob attacks on Christians and other religious minorities since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power with the election of Modi in 2014.

In recent years, Christian groups and leaders have been accused by Hindu nationalists of violating laws barring forcible conversion and detained.

Several Indian states have enacted anti-conversion laws barring the use of financial benefits or other forms of allurement to encourage Hindus to convert to Christianity. Hindu nationalist groups often abuse these laws and make false charges against religious minorities.

Earlier this month, a mob of some 200 Hindu nationalists attacked a house church during its worship service in the Odagoan village of Kondagaon District in Indias eastern state of Chhattisgarh, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. The pastor was reportedly injured along with two other Christians, and a Christian woman was allegedly converted to Hinduism.

This month, police in Madhya Pradesh reportedly arrested nine Christians, including pastors, in the villages of Padalya and Bisoli located in the Jhabua district on accusations of illegal conversions.

Open Doors USA, which monitors persecution in over 60 countries, again ranked India as the 10th worst country in the world when it comes to Christian persecution on its 2022 World Watch List, which was released last week.

The group warns that Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences.

The persecution of Christians in India is intensifying as Hindu extremists aim to cleanse the country of their presence and influence, Open Doors stated in a factsheet on India.

The driving force behind this is Hindutva, an ideology that disregards Indian Christians and other religious minorities as true Indians because they have allegiances that lie outside India, and asserts the country should be purified of their presence.

ICC warns that the pace of Christian persecution only seems to be accelerating with the arrival of 2022, and adds, Whether 2022 will be as violent of a year as 2021 is yet to be seen.
A 52-unit apartment complex at Talcott and New Park Avenue in West Hartford is under construction, one of a series of large residential developments across Greater Hartford that are proposed or under construction. (Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant)

Few forecasters anticipated a wave of large-scale apartment and condo projects when the pandemic started, but across central Connecticut developers are building thousands of new housing units.

Along with the uncertainty of the COVID-19 era are supply-chain breakdowns and a rough labor market, but none of that has been enough to stop a building bonanza in the region.

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In a lot of towns, theres been no new inventory for so long. In Berlin, were going from such a small inventory to potentially 400 apartments in the next 24 months, said Chris Edge, economic development director of Berlin.

A lot of pieces are coming together: Young people are getting married later and having kids later. They have school debt, so theyre not looking to buy a house, Edge said. And then you have people looking to downsize but stay in town. Right now theres demand from millennials, from empty-nesters, both ends of the spectrum.

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Developer Tony Valenti of Newport Realty, who is building apartments in Berlin and age-restricted condos in Plainville this year, said demand for new residential projects is intense.

At the start of the pandemic, a lot of things were on pause. As soon as that pause let up, a lot of pent-up demand came out, Valenti said. And the cost of money was still cheap.

Developer Avner Krohn, who has more than 700 new apartments across the region in planning or under construction, suggested that people who are spending more time at home now want more comfortable and stylish accommodations.

Many builders in the region credit municipalities greater willingness to offer tax breaks on new construction, and those near the CTRail or CTfastrak lines report that access to mass transit is helping to drive demand there.

The overwhelming majority of communities around Greater Hartford have large-scale projects in the works, and some have several apiece. Among them are these eight:

Avon

20 Security Drive in Avon, a largely empty office building that Beacon Communities wants to convert into apartments. (Don Stacom)

Boston-based Beacon Communities plans 176 one- and two-bedroom apartments in the Avon Park South office park. It will remodel the former headquarters of Security Connecticut Life Insurance into 76, and construct a four-story building next door for the other 100. The company anticipates that 140 will be affordably priced, with the rest at market rate.

Berlin

The first stage of the Steele Center mixed-development project in Berlin is on track to open by mid-year. (Courtesy of Tony Valenti)

Newport Realty has just installed windows on the first stage of the five-building, mixed-use Steele Center, which will add 76 apartments in town. The $18 million project is alongside the Amtrak and Hartford Line station, and developers Tony Valenti and Mark Lovley along with state officials describe it as a prime example of transit-oriented development. The one- and two-bedroom apartments will be leased at market rates.

East Hartford

Illustrations of a planned apartment complex on the site of the former Showcase Cinemas on Silver Lane. (Town of East Hartford)

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Development partners Brian Zelman and Avner Krohn of Jasko Development plan 360 studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments on the site of the long-closed Showcase Cinemas along Silver Lane near I-84. Rents havent been established yet. Contractors this fall began the $80 million project by demolishing the old multiplex theater.

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Farmington

Developers are converting the former Hartford Marriott Farmington into 224 apartments. (Mark Mirko/Mark Mirko)

The former Hartford Marriott Farmington is being turned into 224 studios and one- and two-bedroom market rate apartments. A development cooperative led by 15 Farm Springs LP paid $21.5 million for the property in October. Part of the locations appeal is that its near an I-84 exit as well as Route 6.

New Britain

Developer Avner Krohn on the site of The Brit, a $19 million mixed-use project he's building in downtown New Britain. (Don Stacom)

Developer Avner Krohn of Jasko Development broke ground last year on The Brit, planned as a stylish six-story, 107-unit apartment building in the heart of downtown. Earlier this month, he announced hell tear down the aging Amatos Toy and Hobby building next door to become the site for a twin project. In total, that will add nearly 220 market-rate one- and two-bedroom apartments.

Newington

A vacant site, formerly industrial, in Newington will be redeveloped for more than 200 apartments. (Mark Mirko)

Texas-based Anthony Properties plans 238 apartments near the CTfastrak Cedar Street station. The four-story building will have studios and one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Rents have not been announced. The companys proposal includes a 310-car garage, a swimming pool for tenants and a sidewalk directly to the CTfastrak station.

Plainville

Along Route 177 at the Farmington-Plainville line is the site of Willow Brook Estates, a planned 61-unit condo complex for residents 55 and older. (Don Stacom)

Before construction, Newport Realty reports it has already sold the first three phases of its four-phase condo development on the Plainville-Farmington line. Willow Brook Estates will be a 55-and-over complex of detached, single-story homes ranging from 1,444 to 1,610 square feet. Prices start at $370,000.

West Hartford

A rendering shows the northwest corner of the One Park development at the corner of Park Road and Prospect Street in West Hartford. (Amenta Emma Architects)

Lexington Partners LLC has started work on the 292-unit One Park apartment complex at Park Road and Prospect Avenue. Developers plan studios as well as one, two- and three-bedroom units at the former Sisters of St. Joseph convent. About 10 percent will be designated as affordable, with 90 percent at market rates. Amenities will include a fitness center, an outdoor pool and electric car charging stations.

Don Stacom can be reached at dstacom@courant.com.
Supreme Court to review affirmative action admissions policies at Harvard, UNC

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a pair of cases that may result in the striking down of race-based affirmative action programs in higher education.

In an orders list released Monday morning, the high court agreed to hear Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, consolidating the two cases.

The advocacy group contends that Harvard and UNC's admissions system is discriminatory to Asian American and white students.

However, those challenges were struck down in lower courts, which have ruled that the schools policies are based on government interests to promote diversity.

A federal court in Boston ruled in favor of Harvard in 2018, a decision that was affirmed by the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in November 2020. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court last February.

After a federal court ruled against the groups UNC lawsuit last year, the SFFA petitioned the Supreme Court in November for both cases to be heard together.

We are grateful the Supreme Court accepted these important cases for review, SFFA President Edward Blum said in a statement. It is our hope that the justices will end the use of race as an admissions factor at Harvard, UNC and all colleges and universities.

Both cases center on whether to overturn the 2003 Supreme Court ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld an affirmative action policy at the University of Michigan Law School.

In the 2003 case, a white Michigan resident sued the university after being rejected, claiming that the law school policy violated the federal Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

A majority of the Supreme Court justices concluded at the time that the Michigan policy was not unlawful, as the racial preference was only one of many parameters for acceptance to the school.

Justice Sandra Day OConnor, a Reagan appointee, authored the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens and David Souter.

When race-based action is necessary to further a compelling governmental interest, such action does not violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection so long as the narrow-tailoring requirement is also satisfied, wrote OConnor.

Universities can  consider race or ethnicity more flexibly as a plus factor in the context of individualized consideration of each and every applicant.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a fellow Reagan nominee, authored a dissenting opinion to the 2003 ruling. He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

We have said that when it comes to the use of race, the connection between the ends and the means used to attain them must be precise, wrote Rehnquist.

But here the flaw is deeper than that; it is not merely a question of fit between ends and means. Here the means actually used are forbidden by the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.

In 2016, the high court issued a 4-3 decision upholding the right of the University of Texas to have a program that included race as a factor for admissions, with Justice Anthony Kennedy authoring the majority opinion.

In a July 2021 piece for Forbes, political science professor Evan Gerstmann argued that, given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, race-based affirmative action may be labeled unlawful.

The court has a 6-3 conservative majority with the recent confirmations of Trump nominees Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Its decisions have not been uniformly conservative so far, but even the more centrist Justices, such as Chief Justice Roberts, have expressed a lot of doubt about the use of race in university admissions, wrote Gerstmann.

Furthermore, in 2003, the majority of the Supreme Court signed on to a decision stating the Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary. That clock has almost run down.
A year of Bidens foreign policy: Blunders, chaos and human suffering

President Joe Biden assumed office exactly one year ago, and although he declared at a press conference yesterday that he probably outperformed what anyone thought would happen in his first year, Americans are frustrated  and rightfully so.

When it comes to foreign policy alone, one cant help but think that American interests are less secure and our allies more frustrated with us than last year.

No Biden-era disaster is more prominent or caused more human suffering than the mishandling of the U.S. militarys withdrawal from Afghanistan. The quick rise of the Taliban led to an economic collapse in a country where most people already lived below the poverty line. Now, desperate and mournful Afghan parents are selling their daughters into child marriages just to feed the rest of their family for a few more months and survive the winter.

Although the Taliban promised to respect human rights, women are feeling the brunt of that lie. Afghan women who served in the military or police are in hiding, as are female athletes. Afghan girls and female university students have been kept at home and out of school, maybe forever. The United States spent 20 years investing in womens rights efforts in Afghanistan. After one year of Bidens leadership, all of that progress is down the drain.

Vulnerable Afghan religious minorities might have the most to lose with the rise of the Taliban. This years World Watch List from Open Doors named Afghanistan the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian. Yet, religious minorities were not included among the Afghan groups who received Priority 2 status from the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

Meanwhile, our adversaries feel confident testing the president, and Bidens weakness on the world stage has given them every reason to do so.

Certain Biden gaffes have left policy wonks wondering if the president even knows what hes talking about. He seemed to abandon a long-term policy of strategic ambiguity about how the United States would respond if China invaded Taiwan, forcing the White House to backtrack and say the policy hadnt changed. When a military conflict is at stake, Bidens gaffes are not endearing  theyre potentially deadly. Biden should be taking practical steps to support Taiwan, including selling it necessary defense weapons and welcoming Taiwanese leaders in international forums as the islands legitimate government.

Ukraine also has reason to feel uncertain of the United States support. Earlier this week, Biden indicated that a minor incursion of Russian forces into Ukraine might not be met with much pushback. Its an abominable thing to say when Ukraine is vulnerable and Russian troops have amassed along its border. European allies were flustered that the president would make such a statement openly.

U.S. relations with some American allies are more strained than before. When the Biden administration negotiated a deal in secret to sell submarines to Australia, it effectively canceled an earlier agreement between France and Australia, one that was critical for Frances defense industry. To the French, it was a slap in the face. France responded by recalling its ambassador to the United States, a move reflecting heightened tensions between the two countries.

This month, the Biden administration withdrew its support for a proposed natural-gas pipeline from Israel to Europe, a decision with negative economic ramifications for Israel and Europe. This reversal from the Trump administrations position is frustrating our friends and pleasing Russia and Turkey. Biden sold himself as someone who would repair our alliances and engage with the world once again. Sadly, some American allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East might not think that goal is being achieved.

Of course, U.S. promotion of religious freedom abroad  championed by former Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  is waning. Although Rashad Hussain took the reigns as the new ambassador-at-large this month, the momentum on international religious freedom has drastically diminished under Bidens leadership.

In November, the Biden administration removed Nigeria from the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) on religious freedom, despite increased violence against Christians in rural Nigerian communities throughout the year. The move gives Nigerian leaders who failed to protect religious communities from violence a free pass.

President Biden neglected to host a Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, an annual gathering of foreign diplomats and world leaders to strategize promoting religious freedom around the world. The Trump administration held two such gatherings in Washington that were widely deemed successful. Its time to bring the Ministerial back. The problem of religious persecution hasnt subsided, and neither should U.S. government attention on the issue.

Bidens first year in office has been full of foreign policy challenges, many of his own making. A clear Biden Doctrine might not yet have come into view, but a year of foreign policy marked with blunders, chaos, and human suffering is a shame  not merely for the American people who entrusted Biden with our foreign policy, but for people around the world. The Biden administrations actions will have countless ramifications for years to come.

Originally published at the Family Research Council.
Indiana pastor, elders accused of covering up child sex abuse resign amid investigation

An Indiana church is on the lookout for new leadership following the resignation of three of its elders and its pastor, who are under investigation after being accused of failing to appropriately address reports that the pastors underaged family member had sexually abused up to 15 children.

Pastor Jared Olivetti and ex-elders Keith Magill, Ben Larson and David Carr of West Lafayettes Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church have issued their resignations following allegations of mishandling reports of abuse, the congregation was told during Sundays service.

Ken de Jong, who serves as Immanuels provisional moderator, made the announcement.

We want to make sure everyone here knows what transpired this week, especially yesterday, de Jong said.

At the congregational meeting yesterday, elders Keith Magill, Ben Larson and David Carr resigned, and the session received this resignation, and its effective tomorrow, so theyre still elders today. Pastor Jared Olivetti has also submitted his resignation, which will be processed through the presbytery over the next couple of weeks.

He added that the four issued their resignations very reluctantly.

They have done so specifically to encourage the growth and development of this congregation, he said.

Thank you, men for your service, and we pray that God would use this in the life of this congregation and the lives of these men. They are not going anywhere  thank the Lord, de Jong added. Give an earnest prayer for the congregation on Friday, when the church will seek to find the Lords leading with respect to those who will step in and fill the roles these men have given up for the sake of the Lords Gospel and His church.

The resignations came after the Reformed Presbyterian Church placed Olivetti on leave earlier this month as it investigated the accusations.

It had been disclosed that Olivettis teenage relative had been harassing children and committing sexual offenses against minors, as well as engaging in other unlawful acts. According to internal church documents acquired by The Indianapolis Star, church leadership, including Olivetti, allegedly did not act with any urgency.

Olivetti and the session leaders were alleged to have tried to hide the allegations from church members and denominational leaders for roughly four months.

Although there are no criminal charges filed against the pastor and three elders, ecclesiastical charges are pending against them amid regional and national investigations within the denomination, according to the Indy Star.

The newspapers December investigation revealed that the abuse happened at the Immanuel church location, and abuse also occurred away from the church grounds from spring 2019 to March 2020.

Eight victims from different families reported over- and under-clothes touching, oral-genital contact and penetration committed by a boy at church.

An order entered in Tippecanoe County juvenile court indicates that investigators identified up to 15 children who suffered abuse at the hands of the boy in question, according to The Indianapolis Star. The newspaper adds that a judge found the juvenile to be delinquent on multiple felony charges of child molestation, and the child was sent to a residential facility.

The Christian Post reached out to Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church to comment on the allegations. A response was not received by press time.

Magill took to the podium in front of the church to deliver a final prayer during the service.

As with great confidence, we affirm what we heard this morning in that the King of a Christ will stand, he began. Nothing will defeat Jesus, until the end of time and all things are consummated, when He returns and we live in that hope day in and day out and that knowledge deeply planted in our hearts today.

We want to respond, Lord, by just saying again: We belong to you and we want to do your will, he continued. We want to follow you with a whole heart and we want to serve the good King with joy day in and day out.

Magill thanked the Lord and referred to the book of Matthew where Jesus said He would build His Church and the gates of Hell should not prevail against it.

And we are in the middle of seeing that here now at Immanuel, he said.

Youre building Your church. Sometimes its a little strange how You do it, but we know youre doing it. And so, we trust You, Magill said to the Lord. We give You thanks for doing it. And thank You for letting us be a part of it, which is no small thing. Were just very grateful this morning for these truths that drive us and motivate us. And keep us on track.

Magill prayed for the Lord to help the church amid the ongoing challenges.

With it being his final church service as an elder, Magill redirected his prayer to focus on the elder elections to replace the leaders who resigned.

We ask Lord that You would raise up another set of men who are willing to take on this challenging, difficult situation here but can do it with hope, with determination, with humility, and with a desire to see Your will accomplished, he asked.

Magill prayed that the Lord would give them the ability to look forward to what lies ahead in the future.

I pray that it would just be so clear where Your Hand is upon this process and guide us, we ask in the work of Your Spirit, he said. And bless those men that are elected as they go through the examination process, as they figure out what their job is going to be, how to work it out.

As his prayer came to a conclusion, Magill prayed for mercy for him and the other leaders who resigned.

We also pray Lord for the judicial commission of senate. They now have some big decisions to make regarding us, based on whats been done this week, he added.

I just pray that Youll give them a merciful spirit, he said, choking up on his words. I pray that Youd give them kindness and love and that You would help them to bring this whole thing to a just conclusion. And we pray Lord that if they do otherwise, that You, Lord, would give a great deal of wisdom in how to respond, what to say, what to do, what not to say, what not to do, that we might see these troubles come to some kind of a resolution in facing.
United Methodist seminary ordered to sell campus to local consortium amid financial woes

A California-based seminary affiliated with the United Methodist Church dealing with financial woes was recently ordered by a court to sell its campus to a local consortium of higher education institutions although it hoped to merge with another college with ties to Methodism.

The Los Angeles Superior Court issued a ruling earlier this month ordering Claremont School of Theology to provide an offer to Claremont Colleges, Inc., a consortium of local schools, to buy the campus.

In a statement released on Jan. 6, CST said that while it is considering an appeal to the decision, the school aims to make sure that it receives a fair price for the property.

Our number one priority is ensuring our current and prospective students maintain access to the world-class education they want and deserve from Claremont School of Theology, said CST President Rev. Jeffrey Kuan in the statement.

We hope to collaborate in good faith with The Claremont Colleges Inc. to identify a mutually beneficial and fair resolution to this matter that will allow CST to continue to operate on our present property, perhaps on a smaller footprint, while also supporting the future fiscal stability of our institution.

In 2015, due to financial struggles, CST had expressed an interest in merging with Willamette University of Salem, Oregon, which has historic ties to the Methodist Mission.

However, citing a 1957 agreement, Claremont Colleges argued that it has the right of the first offer on the CST property and could purchase the property well below what CST was asking.

We are pleased with the Courts rulings, a Claremont Colleges statement reads. As invested members of the Claremont community for 135 years and firmly committed to our home, The Claremont Colleges are duty bound to protect the property entrusted to us for the benefit of our students, faculty and staff as well as the community.

Claremont Colleges includes seven other member institutions: Claremont Graduate University, Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, Keck Graduate Institute, Pitzer College, Pomona College and Scripps College.

CST purchased the land from TCC, at a negotiated price, to begin operations in Claremont in 1957, the consortium explained in its statement.As part of the parties original agreement, TCC retained a right to repurchase the property according to an agreed purchase-price formula if CST ever desired to sell or transfer the property or left Claremont.

CST agreed to the repurchase right in 1957, that right was documented in their 1957 agreement, and that right has been recorded in the propertys chain of title ever since.

The consortium has stated that it has several potential plans for the property, which include the creation of new student housing, additional classroom spaces while other institutions renovate older facilities and new academic programs.
Christian romance film Redeeming Love to show what real love looks like': Author Francine Rivers

The bestselling book Redeeming Love has been adapted into a film and Francine Rivers, the creator of the popular romance novel, said she hopes it will show the world what real love looks like.

Redeeming Love has remained on multiple fiction bestseller lists for over 15 years, sold over 3 million copies, and has been published in more than 30 languages. Bringing her classic book to life on the big screen has been a long journey! Rivers told The Christian Post in a recent interview. Despite several offers to adapt Redeeming Love into a movie, the author felt the scripts were never reflective of the primary message.

They didnt capture Michaels Christlike character, and I couldnt give approval, she said of the main character in her book, who is supposed to serve as an example of the pursuing love that God shows to His people. Thats always been the most important thing for me: to make sure the movie shows what Gods love is like  passionate, patient, persistent  ever-lasting.

Not finding any script to be quite right, Rivers decided to start reading books on scriptwriting and write her own sample script depicting what she wanted to see on screen.

The film is now being directed by DJ Caruso and produced by Roma Downey (The Bible) and Cindy Bond (I Can Only Imagine).

I didnt expect them to want my effort, but they did, Rivers said of her script. When D.J. Caruso came onboard as director, he restructured the script and worked with me to strengthen scenes. The collaboration is what makes the film different from, but true to the book.

The novel is based on the Old Testament book Hosea and is filled with scripture verses from beginning to end. Like the novel, the film is set in the backdrop of the California Gold Rush of 1850. Although referenced throughout the movie, the religious elements are not seen as much in the cinematic feature.

I want people to see that no matter whats been done to us or the sins we commit, God loves us and offers us new life through Jesus," Rivers told CP, reflecting on what she wants viewers to learn from the film.

"Michaels obedience to God and patient courtship of his wife softens her heart. She falls in love with him, but its really God who will free her. We all have to make a choice. Surrendering to Jesus is the one decision that changes us from the inside out and sets us free to love as God loves us. I wanted viewers to see the difference between what the world says love is and what real love looks like. Hopefully, they will want to experience that kind of love for themselves, available only through Jesus Christ, The New York Times bestselling author added.

The story centers on Angel (Abigail Cowen of 'I Still Believe') who was sold into prostitution as a child. She has survived through hatred and self-loathing until she meets Michael Hosea (Tom Lewis of 'Gentlemen Jack') and discovers there is no brokenness that love cant heal. The story reflects the redemptive power of unconditional and sacrificial love with characters and circumstances relevant to the contemporary world, the film synopsis reads.

In the Hollywood telling of the romance novel, both of the main characters tap into prayer at different points in the film.

Prayer is communication with God," Rivers continued. "The inner thoughts of the two characters cant fully be seen on screen, but are clear in the book. Angel hears and believes Satans lies. Michael listens to God. He knows he is in the middle of a spiritual battle over Angel. Watching his obedience as he lives a life of faith is what begins to change Angel from the inside out.

"But the ultimate step to freedom involves her making a choice. When she cries out to God in prayer, He hears and answers, and her life is changed forever. The same is true for all of us. Every human being on the planet has a choice to make. Choosing to believe Jesus Christ brings freedom and a right and everlasting love relationship with our Creator.

Although not overly preachy, the movie made an impact on some people on set.

I remember one young woman on the crew who said she had never been religious or a believer, but seeing the story come to life made her want to believe, Rivers told CP. Thats what Im hoping will happen. The story of Michael and Angel will create a hunger and thirst for Gods love. Its available to all.

Also, one of the stars said the set had a very different (peaceful, communal) feel from all others hed been on. So many involved in the film had one goal: to glorify God, she added.

The harrowing story exposes the evil of human trafficking and child exploitation. When Rivers wrote the novel over 30 years ago, she had no idea people worldwide were still being bought, sold and trafficked into all forms of slavery.

The story is based on the book of Hosea in the Bible, a book that had a tremendous impact on my own faith journey, she continued. It was letters from readers who shared their devastating stories of abuse and shame and how Redeeming Love gave them hope that opened my eyes to Gods love for them. Its important to see the harsh reality of life. We cant stop trafficking unless we acknowledge it is happening. Then we can stand with survivors and fight to stop it.

An unexpected blessing that has come out of adapting Redeeming Love into a movie is the formation of the Redeeming Love Sanctuary Foundation, headed by Holly Caruso, wife of D.J. Caruso.

She and I talked at length, and I shared with her how Rick and I have always seen Redeeming Love as my first fruits as a Christian writer. It has always belonged to God, including the proceeds (minus taxes) which have gone to charity work. Whatever Rick and I make from the movie will go into this foundation, Rivers explained. Our mission is to aid in preventing sex trafficking and abuse by funding survivor support services, education and recovery programs in the United States and abroad.

After all the books success, Rivers shared what she is most thankful to God for doing.

I am most thankful for how God can use anything, even a work of fiction, to reach into the hearts of His beloved children, River testified.

When someone is deeply touched by the story of Michael and Angel, its God holding out His arms to that person. He loves us so much. All He wants is for us to love Him back, she added.

Rivers ended the interview by saying that her big dream for the film is that people would leave the theaters understanding how long-suffering, passionate and wonderful Gods love is for each of us.

Redeeming Love hits theaters on Jan 21.
DC archbishop compares Catholics for Choice's Basilica protest to Judas, cites John 13:30

The cardinal of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is condemning the move by a Catholic pro-choice organization to display a pro-abortion message on the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, likening the activity to the infamous Judas Iscariot.

On Thursday, the night before the annual March for Life, the group Catholics for Choice held a light show outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the home of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

The group displayed a message on the building that read, pro-abortion Catholics, you are not alone. In a tweet, the group elaborated on the rationale for its actions.

FACT: 68% of Catholics want #RoevWade to remain the law of the land, the group asserted. The #MarchforLife & @usccb want folks to think they speak for Catholics, but nothing could be further from the truth. Pro-choice Catholics: you are not alone! #LiberateAbortion #AbortionIsEssential.

FACT: 68% of Catholics want #RoeVWade to remain the law of the land. The #MarchForLife & @usccb want folks to think they speak for Catholics, but nothing could be further from the truth.



Pro-choice Catholics: you are not alone!#LiberateAbortion#AbortionIsEssentialpic.twitter.com/qr5RFMX69Z  Catholics for Choice (@Catholic4Choice) January 20, 2022

A video shared on social media revealed additional messages displayed on the Basilica, which included a proclamation that 1 in 4 abortion patients is Catholic as well as a call to stop stigmatizing and start listening.

Cardinal Wilton Gregory, the archbishop of the archdiocese, reacted to the light show with a statement.

The true voice of the Church was only to be found within The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception last evening, he said.

There, people prayed and offered the Eucharist asking God to restore a true reverence for all human life. Those whose antics projected words on the outside of the church building demonstrated by those pranks that they really are external to the Church and they did so at night  John 13:30.

The Bible passage Gregory spoke of recounts the events of the Last Supper, where Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus by turning him over to the Romans.

Jesus was crucified shortly after on Good Friday. The passage reads: As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread, he went out. It was night.

Catholics for Choice President Jamie Manson responded to Gregorys statement by declaring on Twitter that the idea that support for abortion is external to the church is a tragic denial of reality.

We went to the Basilica to draw attention to the fact that women in the church have abortions, Manson wrote. Those are likely the women who serve as his lectors and Eucharistic ministers; who sew his vestments and wash his dishes. To ignore them is to betray them.

The pro-life movement calls them murders without ever hearing their stories, Manson continued. They push for a political cause w/out regard for the disproportionate suffering it will inflict on women, poor families & people of color.

Describing Catholics for Choice as a part of this church who are asking to be heard, Manson cited the Bible passage Romans 8:38-39 as justification for Catholic support for abortion.

Apostle Paul writes, I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which contains all the churchs teachings, affirms the moral evil of every procured abortion and condemns the policy as gravely contrary to moral law.

Additionally, the catechism asserts that formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense punishable by the canonical penalty of excommunication.

J.D. Long-Garcia, the senior editor at America Magazine, a Jesuit publication, wrote in an op-ed that Catholics for Choices actions could be considered sacrilege.

Even if we do not consider the sacrilege, this prank is childish and rude, he wrote. Imagine going to the movies only to discover someone projecting messages on the lead characters forehead. Or imagine someone projecting Trump 2024 on the garage of the Democrat next door.

It undercuts their own cause by potentially alienating pro-choice Catholics who see this stunt for what it is, he continued. I imagine such Catholics would feel similar to my conservative family and friends who bemoan the prominence of the QAnon movement in the media. And while I am a Christian, I never want to be associated with the Westboro Baptist Church and their hateful actions against the L.G.B.T. community. Not all Christians are like that.

In 2004, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, sent a letter to Gregory and other top church leaders in the U.S. He contended that the grave sin of abortion, when a persons formal cooperation becomes manifest ..., his pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Churchs teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself to Holy Communion until he brings an end to the objective situation of sin.

The debate on whether pro-choice Catholic politicians can participate fully in the church has intensified in the past year after President Joe Biden, a Catholic Democrat, took office.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops debated implementing a national policy instructing priests to withhold communion from Catholic politicians who advocate for permissive abortion laws that directly contradict the denominations teachings.

Gregory was among the Catholic leaders who indicated that he would not deny Biden communion if he presented himself for the Eucharist at his church.

The USCCB approved the drafting of a formal statement on the meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church at its General Assembly earlier this year. Following criticism and allegations that it was designed to rebuke pro-abortion Catholics, the body of bishops insisted that the document being drafted is not meant to be disciplinary in nature and that the question of whether or not to deny any individual or groups Holy Communion was not on the ballot.
Ontario school board punishes teacher for raising concerns over trans books in libraries

An Ontario teacher was placed on leave after being accused of using transphobic language for voicing concern during a board meeting last Monday about the presence of books that celebrate medical gender transition in school libraries.

The teacher, Carolyn Burjoski, claims she is being bullied, slandered and abused for arguing that some books in libraries were inappropriate for children.

The Waterloo Region District School Board Chair Scott Piatkowski cut short Burjoskis presentation after she said the school libraries have books that make the medical transition seem "simple" and cool" available to kindergartners through sixth-grade students, The National Post reported.

The board, which oversees over 100 schools in the region, voted 5-4 to back up the chairs decision.

In a video posted on Twitter, Burjoski said that she was informed the following morning by human resources that she was immediately assigned to home, pending a formal investigation and banned from contacting my colleagues and students.

This was particularly upsetting to me because I love my students, and I have not seen them since December, she said. When my students excitedly returned to school on Tuesday  the first day of in-class learning after yet another lockdown  their teacher was not there, and they did not know why. I have been silenced and punished.

My response to the events that transpired this week regarding my presentation to the school board. You can read more about the story here:https://t.co/VdLwhejXGZ#WRDSB#wrdsbmtgpic.twitter.com/Y5cX3684zX  Carolyn Burjoski (@carolynburjoski) January 21, 2022

During her presentation, the teacher started reading from the book Rick by Alex Gina, in which the protagonist discovers that he is asexual.

While reading this book, I was thinking: Maybe Rick doesnt have sexual feelings yet because he is a child, she said in the meeting, according to CTV News. It concerns me that it leaves young boys wondering if there is something wrong with them if they arent thinking about naked girls all the time. What message does this send to girls in Grade 3 or 4? They are children. Let them grow up in their own time and stop pressuring them to be sexual so soon.

The teacher contends that she is not a transphobic person.

Its crazy that just because you ask a question, the first thing people do is call you that, she told The National Post.

In her social media video, Burjoski said that board members have taken to radio, television, social media to grossly misrepresent my remarks.

I feel bullied, slandered and abused, she said. The school board has removed the video of the meeting from their YouTube channel, so people are not able to hear what I actually said.

Most of the video is me reading excerpts from two books available to any young child who is able to read, she continued. My few comments expressed concern about age-inappropriate sexual content. I did not and do not question the rights of trans persons to exist in any way. I fully support the human rights of transgender people.

She argues that cancel culture needs to stop.

We need to recover our ability to listen to each other and speak with one another with open mind. Respectful dialogue is the core of democracy.

Piatkowski was quoted as saying that it was unfortunate that it was necessary, but it was necessary.

Im hearing from school board chairs and other boards that they would not have allowed that either. Im hearing from past chairs of this board.

Burjoskis case comes as parents in the United States have raised concerns about the content that their children are being exposed to in their school districts.

Last November, Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, the largest school district in the U.S., said it was reinstating two books  Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison and Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe  to its high school libraries after a review into concerns raised by a mother that they contain pornography with graphic descriptions of sex acts between men and boys.

At a school board meeting in September, Stacy Langton, a parent of a student at Fairfax High School, said, both of these books include pedophilia, [and] sex between men and boys.

Both books describe different acts. One book describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male, she said. The other book has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys, masturbation and violent nudity.

Last August, the highest court in Virginia rejected a request by the Loudoun County School Board to uphold the suspension of a Christian teacher, Byron Tanner Cross, who was punished for criticizing a proposed policy requiring teachers to use trans students preferred names and pronouns. A lower court had struck down the school districts suspension of the teacher.

Looking to federal precedent as persuasive, it is settled law that the government may not take adverse employment actions against its employees in reprisal for their exercising their right to speak on matters of public concern, read the order in part.
Supreme Court declines request to speed up Texas abortion law challenge

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected abortion providers request to accelerate the ongoing challenge to Texas' heartbeat abortion ban by ordering a federal appeals court to return the case to a federal judge. The case will now go to the Texas Supreme Court.

The court offered no explanation for its Thursday action, days after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit sent the challenge to the Texas Supreme Court, CBS News reported.

The Texas Heartbeat Act, which took effect last September, bans most abortions after a baby's heartbeat can be detected. It also allows private citizens to take civil action against anyone who performs and induces an abortion or knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion, including paying for or reimbursing the costs of abortion through insurance or otherwise.

In the Supreme Court's decision, which will likely allow the abortion law to remain in effect for months before a ruling is handed down, three progressive justices dissented.

Writing her dissent to the majority's decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, Today, for the fourth time, this Court declines to protect pregnant Texans from egregious violations of their constitutional rights.

She added, This case is a disaster for the rule of law and a grave disservice to women in Texas, who have a right to control their own bodies. I will not stand by silently as a State continues to nullify this constitutional guarantee.

In the ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit last Monday, Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones, a Reagan appointee, authored the majority opinion stating that the federal courts are bound by an authoritative determination of state law by the states highest court.

Here, there is a possibility that federal courts could declare S.B. 8 constitutionally infirm even though our conclusions might be based entirely on a faulty understanding of Texas law, continued Jones. To avert creating needless friction with a coequal sovereign in our federal system, this court reasonably seeks the Texas Supreme Courts final word on the matter.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a pro-abortion advocacy organization, said in a statement at the time that the panel had defied a Supreme Court ruling and delayed a reckoning on S.B. 8.

As a result, Texans will continue to have to travel hundreds of miles to access abortion care, and those without means to do so will be forced to continue their pregnancies, said Northup. There is now no end in sight for this injustice that has been allowed to go on for almost five months.

However, the pro-life group Texas Right to Life, which supports the law, celebrated last Mondays panel decision, calling the decision great news.

This is great news for Texas because such action is more likely to ensure a just and favorable ruling, compared to that which could be expected from a pro-abortion federal district judge, to whom the abortion industry asked to send the case, stated the group.

Beyond this, sending the lawsuit to the Supreme Court of Texas is appropriate because the only defendants left in the case are state agencies. Most exciting of all is that the Texas Heartbeat Act has withstood another court decision and is continuing to save an estimated 100 preborn lives every day.
3 things to know about Democrats voting rights bill

UPDATE: 12:15 a.m. ET Jan. 20: Late Wednesday night, Senate Democrats failed to change a filibuster rule in an attempt to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that would have federalized elections, giving the federal government the power to upend state laws banning ballot harvesting and requirements to show a photo ID to vote. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, Ariz., voted along with Republicans to not change the filibuster rule. The vote was 52-48.

Original report:

Democrats are pushing for the passage of the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021 this week, painting the measure as a necessary step to preserve civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.s legacy.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named in honor of the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis, also known simply as the voting rights bill, is the latest effort by congressional Democrats to pass a bill that would increase federal oversight of elections in the United States, which has historically granted the powers of election supervision to the states. The For the People Act, another bill designed to increase the federal governments role in overseeing elections, failed to pass.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act passed the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in a party-line vote last year, with all Democrats voting in favor of it and all Republicans voting against it. It faces an uphill battle for passage in the evenly divided Senate. While one Republican Senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has indicated that she supports the bill, her support is not enough to enable it to cross the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation to pass the Senate.

President Joe Biden has encouraged Senate Democrats to abolish the filibuster, the official name of the 60-vote rule, in order to pass the legislation. Two Senate Democrats, Krysten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, have indicated that they have no intention of supporting such an effort.

Sen. Raphael Warnock, R-Ga., urged his colleagues to stand up for voting rights at a Monday celebration of Kings Life at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. King preached there during his lifetime and Warnock continues to serve as the pastor there today. Warnocks remarks came ahead of the Senates planned debate on the bill.

Democrats argue bills like the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act are necessary to curb election laws passed in states like Georgia and Texas, which they portray as voter suppression. Republicans describe the bill as an attempt to secure Democratic Party rule and an unconstitutional takeover of state elections.

If passed now or in the future, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would significantly impact the way the U.S. conducts elections. Here are three things to know about the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

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The Fairfield Police Department arrested a local man accused of yelling and throwing things at employees of Robeks after his son was hospitalized for an allergic reaction to a drink purchased there.

The police charged James Iannazzo, 48, of Fairfield with intimidation based on bigotry or bias, breach of peace and criminal trespass after employees of the smoothie franchise on 2061 Black Rock Turnpike complained on Saturday afternoon that he was throwing things, yelling at them and refusing to leave.

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A video of the incident was posted on YouTube and TikTok.

A police spokesman said the department investigation showed that Iannazzo bought a smoothie at about 1 p.m. and left without incident. About a half hour later, Ianazzo called 911 and reported that a child at his home was suffering an allergic reaction. The child, Iannuzzos son, was taken to an area hospital by ambulance, police said.

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A short time later, Iannazzo returned to Robeks and confronted employees, yelling at them and demanding to know who had made the smoothie that contained peanuts, causing his childs allergic reaction, a statement from police said. When employees could not provide Iannazzo with the answer, he became irate, yelling at the employees using a number of expletives.

Police said Iannazzo threw a drink at one employee, hitting the employee in the right shoulder. The police said the employee reported that she was not injured. Iannuzzo also made comments toward an employee referencing their immigration status, the police said.

Iannazzo was told to leave repeatedly but ignored the instructions, remaining inside the restaurant and continuing to yell insults, the police said. Police said he also tried to open a locked door to an employees only area.

Five Things You Need To Know Daily We're providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning. >

Police said Iannuzzo left the restaurant before they arrived, but they were able to quickly identify him. Police said he turned himself in. He told the police he was upset about his son having a severe allergic reaction and went back to the store as a result.

During the investigation, employees reported that Iannazzo never told them about the peanut allergy but had only requested that there be no peanut butter in his drink, police said.

Iannazzos attorney, Frank J. Riccio Jr., said Iannazzo wholeheartedly regrets the incident. Riccio said Iannuzzo feared for his sons life. After attempts to treat the son at home failed, Riccio said Iannuzzo called the ambulance to rush him to a hospital.

When faced with a dire situation for his son, Mr. Iannazzos parental instinct kicked in and he acted out of anger and fear, Riccio said. He is not a racist individual and deeply regrets his statements and actions during a moment of extreme emotional stress.

Iannuzzo, a Merrill Lynch financial advisor, was fired after the incident.

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Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind, said Bill Halldin, a spokesman for Bank of America, which owns Merrill Lynch. We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm.

Iannuzzo was ordered to appear in Superior Court in Bridgeport on Feb. 7.
7 Reasons We Believe The Church Can Change The World

Across the globe, extreme poverty, natural disasters and mass displacement are on the rise, aggravated by a changing climate and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Were currently facing the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time.

And yet, there is hope.

At World Relief, we believe God has a plan to heal our broken world, and it begins with his church and his people. Thats people like you, moving together to create the lasting change God designed us to create. We believe that when the church is mobilized to achieve its full potential, it has the power to change our world. We believe this because:

The local church is Gods plan to reveal his mercy, compassion and truth to people around the world. The local church is the largest social network on the planet and has the ability, authority and permanency to do far more than any government institution or non-profit organization could. The local church is led by local, trusted community leaders  those with an inside voice and understanding that no outside organization can bring. The local church has the influence and moral authority to shape behaviors rooted in biblical values of love, compassion and justice. The local church offers the greatest hope of reconciliation between classes, tribes, ethnicities and political parties, unifying people under a common identity in Christ. The local church can restore dignity and bring hope to the suffering, forgotten and marginalized by reaching out to the most vulnerable in its community and answering Gods call to love. The local church is empowered by the Holy Spirit to do more than human wisdom and efforts could ever possibly accomplish alone.

Time and time again, weve witnessed the transformative impact that the church can have when it moves together. And its happening in communities all across the globe. Women, men and children, empowered by Gods Spirit, are rising up to meet the needs of the most vulnerable among them.

In places like Rwanda, widows like Antoinette are rising out of poverty, starting businesses and installing running water into their homes (something thats almost unheard of in her remote village) thanks to the support of a savings group run by her local church.

Its true! I have tap water! Antoinette said. I used to be a person who couldnt speak in public. Ive become confident because of being part of a [savings] group and being among people.

In the U.S., women like Buthainia, who had to flee her home country due to war, have found the support and encouragement they need to build a thriving life in the U.S., thanks to churches who are partnering with World Relief to welcome refugees.

You made us feel seen and you made us feel like were humans and we have an equal chance, Buthainia said. Because of that, we were able to believe in ourselves.

And in Turkana, Kenya  a community that has been devastated by drought  women like Akiru are receiving the gift of sustenance and paying it forward to combat hunger and malnutrition for others in their community.

This is where our joy is today. Together, we are creating holistic, sustainable solutions that are transforming and uprooting communities from poverty and creating welcoming communities for refugees in the U.S.

As we face the ongoing and emerging challenges of 2022, we are reminded that no one of us can carry the worlds burdens on our own. But when we move together, anything is possible. Will you join us?
11 children among 29 killed by stampede at Liberian worship crusade

At least 29 people, including 11 children, have been pronounced dead after a stampede at a church gathering in Liberia's capital, Monrovia, Wednesday night.

Hundreds were in attendance at an all-night Christian crusade, which took place at an open-air Pentecostal church on the outskirts of the capital in the New Kru Town neighborhood when the incident happened, Deputy Information Minister Jalawah Tonpo told state radio Thursday.

"The doctors said 29 persons died and some are on the critical list," Tonpo said while visiting a local hospital. "This is a sad day for the country."

According to police officials who spoke with BBC, the stampede occurred after a street gang entered the revival area after a monetary collection was taken at the end of the event.

The worship event was organized by a well-known pastor known as Apostle Abraham Kromah, a radio host who pastors the World of Life Outreach International, the news outlet reports.

Kromah is believed by his followers to have the ability to heal people through prayers.

An attendee named Exodus Morias told Reuters that the stampede began after a group of armed men tried to stage the robbery.

"We saw a group of men with cutlasses and other weapons coming toward the crowd," Morias said. "While running, some people dropped and others fell on the ground and walked over them."

Gang violence is not uncommon in the Liberian streets.

Armed gangs known as Zogos commit robberies armed with small weapons.

National police spokesman Moses Carter told AFP that the death toll could rise, as 29 is a provisional count. Many in attendance were in critical condition. Children also died, he said. Carter had told BBC that Kromah was questioned to assist in the investigation.

Carter said the dead bodies were taken to Redemption Hospital.

A three-day period of mourning was declared nationally by President George Weah, according to his office.

The Liberian Red Cross and Disaster Management Agency has been called to assist victims of the tragedy.

This is not the first time that a deadly stampede has resulted in the loss of lives in Liberia. The Associated Press reports that a stampede at a similar event last November resulted in the deaths of two infants while several others were hospitalized.
Bank of America ousted a financial adviser after police arrested him for a racially charged tirade at a smoothie shop in Connecticut that was caught on video and viewed millions of times on social media over the weekend.

The incident at a Robeks outlet Saturday began when James Iannazzo ordered a drink without peanut butter for his son, who has a peanut allergy, according to a statement from the Fairfield Police Department. He left the store, but returned to confront employees after his son had an allergic reaction that sent him to the hospital, police said.

A video shot from behind the counter shows a man shouting and using expletives, and throwing a drink at an employee. "I want to speak to the f---ing person who made this drink," the man can be heard saying in copies of the video on TikTok and Twitter that were widely cited in media reports. "You stupid f---ing idiot," he said, later adding "You f---ing immigrant loser."

An attorney for Iannazzo said his client "wholeheartedly regrets the incident that took place" and isn't a racist. By Sunday, Bank of America said Iannazzo, 48, was no longer at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, where regulatory records show he's worked since at least the mid-1990s.

"Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind," company spokesman William Halldin said in a statement. "We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm."

Iannazzo's lawyer, Frank J. Riccio, wrote on Twitter that his client had "stressed to the staff that the product must not contain peanuts," and that his receipt showed it shouldn't have peanut butter. Riccio said the son had a "severe allergic reaction" and was taken to the hospital by ambulance.

"When faced with a dire situation for his son, Mr. Iannazzo's parental instinct kicked in and he acted out of anger and fear," the lawyer wrote. "He is not a racist individual and deeply regrets his statements and actions during a moment of extreme emotional stress."

Riccio declined to comment on his client's departure from Merrill.

According to the police report, Iannazzo asked that the drink be made without peanut butter, but never told the shop's workers about his son's allergy. Employees repeatedly told Iannazzo to leave, but he stayed and continued yelling insults, according to the police. He also tried to open a locked door to a staff-only area. He left before officers arrived and later turned himself in.

He was charged with intimidation based on bigotry or bias, trespassing and breaching the peace, according to the police. A court appearance was set for Feb. 7.
TJ's Burritos partner Tricia Martin said at a National Restaurant Association news conference Monday the restaurant has struggled under the omicron surge. (Brad Horrigan)

The omicron variant has had a devastating impact on the dining industry, especially restaurants passed over last year by the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, the National Restaurant Association (NRA) reports.

In a Zoom news conference on Monday, the NRA announced that a poll of U.S. restaurateurs found that almost half that didnt get RRF funding in 2021 say they likely wont survive unless the fund is replenished. This could result in the loss of 1.6 million jobs nationwide, NRA spokesman Sean Kennedy said.

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The Restaurant Revitalization Fund has been a critical lifeline for so many but far more remain on the sidelines, said Kennedy. Omicron definitely has had a negative impact on restaurant operations. Effectively, the restaurant recovery continues to move in reverse.

The poll, completed by 4,200 restaurateurs from across the nation between Jan. 16 to 18, found 88% of restaurants saw a decline in indoor dining due to the omicron variant; 76% report business is worse now than it was three months ago, and 74% report their restaurant is less profitable now than pre-pandemic. Also, 94% said a grant would let them retain or hire back employees.

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Connecticut-specific statistics were not available Monday.

Kennedy said the RRF funding last year saved more than 900,000 jobs nationwide and helped 96 percent of grant recipients stay in business.

Kennedy cited the industrys average 3 to 5% percent profit margin, and the fact that before the pandemic, the average restaurant had just 16 days cash on hand in case of emergency. The needs of the restaurant industry have never been more dire and never been more clear right now, he said.

At the news conference, Kennedy said NRA wrote to Congress to encourage the replenishment of the fund. The timing of this is critical. Congress is facing a Feb. 18 deadline to pass a government spending bill, he said.

Hudson Riehle, a research specialist with the NRA, stressed that the dining industry is the nations second-largest private-sector employer, after health care.

There are too many restaurants that are jeopardized right now.  Too many jobs on the line. Failure is truly not an option, Riehle said. Every light for our industry is blinking red.

Kennedy and Riehle were joined by two restaurant owners, including Tricia Martin of TJs Burritos in East Granby and a pancake-house proprietor from Plano, Texas.

Five Things You Need To Know Daily We're providing the latest coronavirus coverage in Connecticut each weekday morning. >

Martins restaurant was not qualified for a PPP loan because it opened in 2021 and was passed over for a RRF grant. She said TJs is not any better off now than we were three months ago.

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The timing of the omicron surge was a blow, she said.

When we had outdoor dining, and they eased up on the restrictions on seating capacity, all of a sudden the summer was great, she said. Then omicron hit when it got cold and we lost the whole patio at the same time. We were able to keep everyone on, but we had to reduce hours.

Martin said consumer confidence took a hit, too. Our town didnt have an indoor mask mandate but other towns did and that made people scared, not comfortable. Our foot traffic decreased, she said.

Martin described TJs earnings as flat, due to increases in food, supplies and the cost of wages. She said the restaurant hopes to add more seating this year, and is hoping for an RRF grant to help them.

The $28.6 billion RRF was part of the American Rescue Plan. Nationwide, 278,304 restaurants applied for a total of $72,233,280,031, and 101,004 were granted a total of $28,574,979,472, according to the Small Business Administration. In Connecticut, 3,369 Connecticut restaurants applied for a total of $790,818,094 in grants from the federal fund. A total of 1,303 received funding, totaling $301,164,069.

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.
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BETHEL  Local homeowners have the opportunity to cut energy costs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions as part of a new initiative called HeatSmart Bethel.

The town partnered with Peoples Action for Clean Energy, a Simsbury-based nonprofit, to develop the yearlong outreach program designed to assist residents with accessing the programs and incentives available through EnergizeCT.

First Selectman Matt Knickerbocker is encouraging residents to take advantage of the program, which kicked off Jan. 10, and will actively continue through the end of the year.

Bethel has already made significant strides towards energy efficiency and the transition to renewable energy through various projects of the Energy Conservation Committee, he said. HeatSmart Bethel is another valuable step in the journey, one that will provide great benefits to our town.

Bethel is the fifth Connecticut town and the first in Fairfield County to participate in the HeatSmart Connecticut Program. The other four towns running HeatSmart campaigns are West Hartford, Guilford, Middletown and Branford.

According to its website, HeatSmart Connecticut is a community-based outreach and education program that provides municipalities a way to work with heat pump contractors and conduct campaigns that promote energy efficient technology through a group purchasing model.

HeatSmart not only streamlines the home weatherization process by scheduling affordable energy evaluations for participants, but provides educational presentations to better inform people about heating and cooling choices.

Bethels HeatSmart campaign is also working to familiarize people with heat pump technology  both air source and geothermal  which uses significantly less energy to heat and cool homes than traditional combustion methods and emits fewer greenhouse gasses into the environment.

Residents interested in heat pumps have the option of working with HeatSmart Bethels energy consultation service provided by New Haven-based nonprofit I Heart My Home.

For more information on HeatSmart Bethel, visit HeatSmartCT.org/Bethel or call 203-292-8088.
On Saturday night, one of the candidates on the Republican ticket running for the Texas Land Commissioner position visited the Gateway City to talk with voters and share his ideals.

Former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigation special agent and author Victor Avila visited Laredos Mi Tierra Cafe Bar and Grill by Calton Road to discuss his ideas and platforms with voters. The candidate also shared details about the attack he suffered in 2011.

I have been born and raised on the border, and I spent most of my career working on the border  on both sides of the border in Texas and Mexico, Avila said. And since last year when this crisis and chaos began on the border, I have been coming on my own since last March visiting the border ... and the last time I was (in Laredo in November), I was briefed personally by the sector chief of Laredo Border Patrol and got a lot of information about what is going on and what we are seeing in trends.

Avila said his visit was not just for people to hear what he had to say but also the concerns of the people to allow them to vent about what they want the state to do. He says his experience fighting transborder crime  a crime involving more than one country  such as fighting cartels directly, is what made him want jump into the political spotlight.

Avila is a survivor an attack by a Mexican cartel on Feb. 11, 2011. His partner, special agent Jaime Zapata, was killed in the incident. Jaime Zapata Memorial Highway stands as a tribute for his death in the City of Laredo, joining Bob Bullock Loop 20 and U.S. 83.

The above attack was the inspiration for the Jaime Zapata and Victor Avila Federal Officers and Employees Protection Act which passed near the end of 2021  ensuring that individuals who harm or attempt to harm U.S. Federal officers and employees serving abroad can be brought to justice and prosecuted in the United States.

According to Rep. Henry Cuellar last year following its passage, (Zapatas) murderer will not be brought to justice because of a loophole in our current law and the bipartisan legislation in the House was to close that loophole and ensure the safety of all federal employees serving our nation abroad.

Avila later wrote a book Agent Under Fire: A Murder and a Manifesto describing the incident where he states he was almost killed after an ambush by the Zetas Cartel.

On Feb. 15, 2011, special agent Jaime Zapata and I were driving back from the Monterrey area back to Mexico City from assignment, as you know it was a botched assignment, and we knew the intelligence of the Zetas Cartel controlling the area from the San Luis Potosi area, Avila said. We were ambushed by two SUVs full of armed men, and obviously at the time we had no clue that they were Zetas Cartel members, but we were forced off the road and after they shot at us over 100 rounds. And I got shot three times: one in my chest and twice in my leg.

I still have one bullet in my leg as a reminder of that, and tragically Jaime Zapata lost his life. I am here by the grace of God, as God didnt want to take me that day.

Zapata is running for Texas Land Commissioner. The position is currently held by Republican George P. Bush, who is running for Texas governor.

There are 12 candidates running for Texas Land Commissioner including eight from the Republican party. They include Avila, Ben Armenta, Dawn Buckingham, Rufus Lopez, Weston Martinez, Don Minton, Jon Spiers and Tim Westley. The four Democrats running are Jay Kleberg, Michael Lange, Sandragrace Martinez and Jinny Suh.

Avila says as land commissioner he wants to protect the state  especially the border  from criminal activity. He says school systems and public education funds as areas he views as going wrong, including issues of critical race theory. He also wants to use his crisis management experience when it comes to natural disasters and look at which investing countries want to come into the state.

Avila states he believes China is supplying products that help drug cartels in Mexico develop methamphetamine and other narcotics.

I want (Laredoans) to know that I am a person who has been there and done that, and I am a person of integrity, and what you see is what you get with me as I am very transparent, and you will get a person that will think outside the box, Avila said. I have applied for many jobs in my career, and I just feel that this is just another job that I am applying for. The difference is that the voters are the ones that are going to make the decision instead of a government agency or panel.

jorge.vela@lmtonline.com
South Africa: Motshekga expresses shock, sadness at brutal murder of Tembisa teacher

Basic Education Minister, Angie Motshekga, has expressed shock and sadness at the murder of a teacher and Deputy Principal at Phomolong High School in Tembisa, Gauteng.

The 50-year-old female teacher was shot and killed in the driveway of the school in broad day light on Friday afternoon.

According to information at Gauteng Education departments disposal, three gunmen suddenly appeared and allegedly shot her three times through the passenger window.

Subsequently, she got off the car trying to evade the hailstorm of bullets but she fell just beside the car. One of the gunmen allegedly shot her twice while she was on the ground and they fled the scene without taking anything from her.

Minister Motshekga said that the incident shocked her to the core, that criminals dare to shoot and kill a teacher inside school premises.

Schools are supposed to be safe places of learning and teaching and it is quite alarming that armed individuals can stroll into a school to commit such a barbaric act. I wish to express my sincerely condolences to the family of the deceased teacher, Phomolong High School staff and learners, including those who allegedly witnessed this traumatic incident, Motshekga said.

The Minister said that police should leave no stone unturned and act as speedily as possible to arrest the criminals involved.

She also urged members of the community to come forward and assist law enforcement with information they may have.

Safety in our schools remains a top priority of the Department of Basic Education as we focus on providing a conducive environment for learning and teaching. We will continue to work with the police, sister departments, our social partners and communities at large to strive for zero incidents of crime in our schools, she said.

Meanwhile, Gauteng Education MEC, Panyaza Lesufi is today expected to visit Phomolong Secondary school and subsequently proceed to the family of the late deputy principal to convey his condolences.

In a statement on Saturday, Lesufi said the teacher was hardworking, dedicated, committed and loved by many at the school and community.

We sincerely wish to convey our deepest condolences to the family and the entire school community. Indeed, the motive of this level of cruelty is unknown but Im comforted that this case has been taken over by the Provincial SAPS and as such we are adamant that the perpetrators will be brought to justice, Lesufi said.

Gauteng police have since launched a manhunt for the three gunmen who shot the deputy principal three times.

Police are further investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal incident.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
Interview: Innovative cooperation becomes highlight, booster of China-Israel relations: Chinese ambassador

Xinhua) 08:41, January 24, 2022

JERUSALEM, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1992, China and Israel have achieved fruitful cooperation in various fields, and innovative cooperation has become a highlight and booster of the China-Israel relations, Chinese Ambassador to Israel Cai Run has said.

For the past 30 years, "political mutual trust has been continuously enhanced, the leaders of both sides have been in close communication, and friendly exchanges at all levels have become increasingly frequent," Cai told Xinhua in a recent interview ahead of the 30th anniversary of the China-Israel diplomatic ties that falls on Monday.

China and Israel have built key mechanisms for bilateral cooperation, including the China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation and The Intergovernmental Mechanism of Economic and Technological Cooperation. In 2017, the two countries announced the establishment of an innovative comprehensive partnership to take the bilateral ties to a new level, the Chinese ambassador noted.

China has become Israel's largest trading partner in Asia and the third-largest in the world, Cai said, noting that the trade volume, which was only 50 million U.S. dollars at the beginning of the diplomatic ties, expanded to 22.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2021.

The bilateral trade has continued to grow against the headwind of the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting the resilience and potential of the China-Israel economic and trade cooperation, he said.

The two sides also have seen active two-way investment in fields such as science and technology, agriculture, and medicine and health, said the ambassador.

"Chinese companies have participated in the infrastructure construction in Israel, and many innovative Israeli companies operate in China. The two sides have cooperated to build landmark projects such as the new Haifa Port, the Red Line of the Tel Aviv light rail project, the China-Israel Changzhou Innovation Park, and the Shanghai Innovation Park," he added.

The people-to-people exchanges between the two countries are increasingly active, Cai said.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries issued 10-year multiple-entry visas reciprocally to each other's citizens, and there were direct flights to Tel Aviv from major Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hong Kong.

In 2019, about 170,000 Chinese citizens visited Israel, while some 100,000 Israelis visited China. A total of 24 pairs of sister cities have been formed between the two countries. Many colleges and universities in China offer Hebrew majors, and Israel has included Chinese in the curricula of its universities, middle and primary schools.

Cai mentioned that at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in China in early 2020, Israeli leaders and many Israelis voiced empathy with and support for China, with the Tel Aviv City Hall lit up with "China Red" to express blessings. Later on, China helped Israel in buying and transporting medical equipment and medicines for fighting the pandemic.

Over the past 30 years, the China-Israel ties have withstood the challenges of the ever-changing international landscape and advanced in a positive direction of friendly cooperation, mutual respect and benefit, and win-win outcomes, he said.

Cai said that these achievements should be primarily attributed to the two countries' leaderships which have been guiding the bilateral ties forward through top-level planning from a strategic perspective.

These achievements were also made possible by the two sides' adherence to the spirit of mutual respect and seeking common ground while reserving differences. China and Israel have respected each other's development path, and abided by the basic norms of international relations such as mutual respect for sovereignty and non-interference in each other's internal affairs, the Chinese envoy explained.

"A friendship that spans thousands of years is an important bond," Cai said, noting that the long history of the friendly exchanges between the Chinese nation and the Jewish nation has laid a solid foundation for the China-Israel relations.

Cai also highlighted the great potential and broad prospects for advancing the China-Israel cooperation in future.

"China will take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations as an opportunity to work with Israel to implement the important agreements reached by the leaders of the two countries, firmly grasp the right direction of the development of bilateral ties, and continuously enhance strategic mutual trust and friendship between the two peoples," he said.

"Cooperation in various fields will promote the steady and long-term development of China-Israel innovative comprehensive partnership to better benefit the two peoples," the ambassador concluded.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
Lincoln, NE (68508)

Today

Cloudy early, then off and on rain showers for the afternoon. High 56F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Rain. Low 49F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 70%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.
A Houston officer was shot and killed by a motorist during a routine traffic stop early Sunday morning, police say, leaving a department in mourning as the shooter remains at large.

The Houston Police Department is vowing to find the person who killed 12-year veteran Cpl. Charles Galloway, 47, who was shot about 12:45 a.m. local time Sunday after he stopped a newer model white, four-door Toyota Avalon, Police Chief Troy Finner said at a Sunday news conference.

The gunman "got out of his vehicle and immediately fired upon the deputy multiple times, striking him and then drove off," Finner said.

Witnesses described the shooter as a Hispanic man who used an assault-type gun, Finner said.

At least one witness was present at the time of the shooting, said Jodi Silva, a spokesperson for the Houston Police Department.

Galloway's death is another example of crime running rampant in the city, Harris County Precinct 5 Constable Ted Heap said.

The number of violent crimes rose in 2020, according to Houston Public Media. In 2021, 473 homicides were reported in the city, a 71% increase from 2019, local news station KHOU reported on Dec. 30.

"When somebody decides to engage and take the life of a police officer, then I believe we have a breakdown in how society is supposed to be," Heap said.

Of the 96 state, local or school law enforcement officers in Texas who died last year, eight were killed by gunfire, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. The site attributed 84 officer deaths to covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Galloway was willing to help anyone and would do everything he could for his job, his sister Jeannie Johnson said.

"He did overtime all the time," she said. "He believed in the department. He would do it again tomorrow if he could. He never stopped believing in it."

He is survived by his daughter and sisters, Heap said.

In Texas, Galloway had worked different aspects of patrol divisions over the years, but he recently switched to the night shift so he could become a field training officer, according to Heap.

"There's a lot of very broken-up officers who he meant a lot to in their lives because he was the one that was sitting in the front seat with them," Heap said. "He was the one that was teaching them what to do and how to get home safely to their families, and here we are this evening with the roles reversed."

Houston police will oversee the investigation, Finner said.

He had a message for the suspect: "The best thing you can do is turn yourself in peacefully."
January is our back-to-basics month each year. This week, we discuss the importance of local media in building a vibrant transformative community. Dont confuse local media with national media, they are different in their mission and scope. Local media can be vital in a communitys transformation and vibrancy.

It was recently asked, What happens when a community loses their local newspaper? A follow-up question was also asked, How would that community then get their news?

As might be expected, answers varied from things such as radio, social media, word of mouth, friends, neighbors, to answers such as other regional outlets and so forth. All of which are accurate to a degree, but regardless, it was agreed the community would suffer from lack of accurate information.

Yes, communities would still figure out when businesses closed, violent crimes tend to blanket social media and word of mouth, the not so pleasant news and information tends to reach far and wide on social media, radio, friends, neighbors etc. And yes, they would get a bit of regional coverage for any high-profile crimes and business closings. They might even get unlucky and have a major news outlet like the New York Times or Washington Post swoop into town doing a feature story on another dying rural American town.

But who is consistently going to be the community voice sharing the communitys feel-good stories, business openings, and convey the great things happening locally to the outside world? Aside from a local media company sharing the great happenings in your community, lets carry reality one step further.

When potential new businesses are looking to relocate to a community, they first tend to Google all the prospective communities or locations. Without a voice sharing the great things going on, what they will see besides the business closings, crime stories, obituaries, and yes, that NY Times piece, will appear at the top of their search.

Without that voice conveying the good things, they are left with only the impressions of the less desirable things. What conclusions do you think they will make? While I wish this was only a what if situation, unfortunately, nearly 2,000 communities across the country experience this scenario today.

Local newspapers can be the eyes into the soul of your community. They should be the communitys ambassador to the outside world. If the local newspaper cant convey your communitys positive message to the outside world, who then will be able to convey that message in a consistent and accurate fashion?

If your local newspaper isnt doing this, demand them to do so. Newspapers should be the communitys proverbial communication town square. In todays world of media fragmentation and information sources, providing this role is more critical than ever. Local communities need every bit of help they can muster, having a local media presence fulfilling the above roles is critical to the overall success and vitality of the community.

A recent Notre Dame study indicated a community that loses their newspaper could expect the cost of local government to increase by 30% within five years. This doesnt mean government is bad, but without the media oversight, they tend to spend more than they otherwise might.

Regardless of the political leanings of the local newspaper, that simple act of oversight saves a community hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

Another recent poll shows most residents believe their local newspaper is doing fine financially. While many newspapers are okay, it is safe to say most local media outlets are facing challenging and potentially crippling economic headwinds. Importantly, it is often the case communities are facing many of these same economic challenges.

The media company and the community must work together, finding synergies that can be created to mold a strong community foundation from which to build. For both to succeed, they need each other more than ever before.

When a community loses its newspaper, part of that community dies. In addition to less civil engagement, these communities may lose their identity.

A quote by Portland States Lee Shaker was recently shared with me.

He said in a Nieman Lab report, If a community loses its newspaper, it stops being its own place. It becomes a satellite of something else, rather than having its own core identity.

A community without a newspaper becomes a rudderless ship adrift in the treacherous economic currents of life.

John A. Newby, of Pineville, MO. is the author of Building Main Street, not Wall Street a weekly column appearing in over communities. He is Founder of Truly-Local, LLC and dedicated to assisting communities create excitement, energy and combining synergies with their local media to become more vibrant and competitive. His email is: info@Truly-Localllc.com.
Amid mounting public pressure and pending litigation, the Texas Secretary of State office provided the Houston chapter of the League of Women Voters of Texas 10,000 voter registration forms over the weekend.

After initially being promised only 50 voter registration forms and eventually receiving 1,000 forms last week, the League sent a letter Friday to Texas Secretary of State John Scott threatening to sue if the state did not provide the needed registration forms to the League and other voter registration organizations ahead of the March 1 primary. Not doing so would be a violation of the National Voter Registration Act, the League wrote.

The National Voter Registration Act requires states to make mail voter registration applications available for distribution through governmental and private entities, in particular groups that organize voter registration programs. Texas is one of 11 states that does not offer online voter registration and the deadline to register to vote in the primaries is Jan. 31.

"It is crucial that the Secretary of State's office act swiftly to provide the necessary voter registration forms for the people of Texas," wrote Grace Chimene, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas, in the letter. "Voter registration services from organizations like the League of Women Voters are a vital component of a fair and accessible democracy. We call on the Secretary Scott's office to do whatever it takes to meet the demand in voter registration for Texans."

With its 10,000 newly acquired forms, the league now has enough to last the first quarter of 2022 and "fulfill its obligation for the naturalization ceremonies," Chimene wrote in an emailed statement. A lawsuit, however, remains on the table if other voter organizations do not also receive their fair share of forms.

"We will continue to monitor the situation to see if this continues and will ask other organizations if they are getting their SOS voting applications," Chimene wrote. "Thankfully there are not a lot of conventions, rock concerts, events, etc where those forms are necessary."

Annie Benifield, president of the League of Women Voters of Houston, said the organization is pleased by the Secretary of State Office's change of heart but notes her organization still had to print its own forms before it received the shipment from the Secretary of State office.

"We also ordered 10,000 forms from a local printer which will cost us almost $1,300 which was not part of our budget as a nonpartisan nonprofit civic organization," Benifield wrote in an emailed statement. "Unfortunately, LWV-H incurred an unnecessary expense but wanted to ensure our naturalization efforts were not impeded due to supply change issues/paper shortages the SOS's office encountered."

The League said it has provided at least 3,500 voter registration applications monthly in prior years. However, in September the League requested 16,000 voter registration forms from the Secretary of State Office and was told it would only receive 50 voter registration forms. Last Tuesday, the League announced it had received 1,000 forms from the office.

Sam Taylor, spokesman for the Texas secretary of state, revealed in an interview with KUT last week that the office would have to limit voter registration forms to between 1,000 to 2,000 documents per request due to supply chain issues, drawing ire from Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Criticism soon spread to the national level, including catching the attention of "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert.

"OK, then print it on something that Texas does have: guns or giant toast," Colbert said in a Wednesday night segment. Colbert also slammed a statement by the Texas secretary of state's office stating that it has offered a print ready PDF for the organization to print its own copies. "So, a charity is responsible for providing a basic governmental function? Well, this is Texas where the highway signs say 'Road ends. B.Y.O. bridge.'"

Turner in a statement shared Monday weighed in on the sudden profusion of voter registration forms offered by the Secretary of State's Office. "It seems together we have solved the paper shortage in Texas," the mayor said.

However, Turner still called for Texas to join 42 other states in offering the option to register to vote online, which he says is the most convenient, secure and cost-effective method to register voters. "Online platforms are used for everything from banking and on-demand car services to food delivery," Turner argued. "It is 2022, and we are still mandating a 19th-century data collection system. Again, we cannot accept shortages in our democracy. We must demand that state leaders act to improve and not limit voting access.

Taylor in an emailed statement Monday said the office is "treating all requestors the same" and is aiming to provide 75 percent of each request for voter registration forms by distributing all the forms they received in their first shipment earlier this month.

"This includes providing registration application forms to all of the various LWV chapters across Texas that have requested them, as well as other community organizations that have requested large orders of applications," Taylor said in an emailed statement. "We have a new shipment of voter registration forms arriving this week, and will be able to fulfill additional requests once we receive that shipment."
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Anunt de angajare: Expert/a pentru elaborarea raportului de evaluare a necesitatilor antreprenoriale ale tinerilor din regiunea Centru si a mediului de afaceri regional in cadrul proiectului Youth4Entrepreneurship 
In 2013, Jonathan Cohn published The Hell of American Daycare, a feature for The New Republic about how US childcare centers are largely unregulated both for safety and educational quality standards. Cohns report featured the harrowing story of a woman whose child died in a fire at a childcare center in Houston. It was, he says, one of the hardest stories to write and the closest hed ever come to crying during an interview, listening to the grieving mother recount her loss. The Hell of American Daycare won the Hillman Prize for magazine journalism and, for a time, brought national attention to the problem of poorly regulated daycare.

As he worked, Cohn knew he was onto a big story. Still, he says, compared with other policy topics that hed reported on, there was relatively little contemporary research or other reporting on childcare. I was reading a lot of history books and translating academic books and reading original histories.

In the years since Cohns story was published, childcare as a public-policy issue remained largely out of the media spotlight. What stories did appear were typically confined to a parenting section or else scratched the surface of the business section, and often lacked context for why the problem being reported on exists in the first place. The body of reported literature on childcare remained relatively small; Elliot Haspel, whose Crawling Behind: Americas Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It arrived in 2019, says that, at the time his book was published, there were very few books on childcare.

During the past two years, however, reporting on childcare changed radicallyin quantity, if not necessarily in quality. In 2020, when covid-19 shut down schools, workplaces, and daycares, news coverage of childcare surged. During those early months of the pandemic, the number of news stories about the childcare industry increased by 90 percent compared to the same period a year earlier, according to data from the First Five Years Fund. President Joe Bidens Build Back Better infrastructure packagewhich includes $400 billion to support childcare and early education, with stipulations for raising the wages of childcare workers, increasing subsidies to families, shoring up struggling childcare centers, and expanding eligibilityestablished childcares place among our national economic priorities. It also sent reporters and news outlets scrambling to cover a complicated subject that spans beats and topicsfrom business to healthcare to education to child developmentas well as regulatory systems and funding mechanisms, state and federal.

Rather than selectively engage childcare as an add-on or afterthought to those legacy beats, the time has come to make childcare its own beat. Complexity and urgency dont pair well; its unrealistic to expect a reporter new to covering childcare to churn out a nuanced story on a tight deadline. Over time, however, a dedicated beat reporter can develop expertise in the nuances, policy implications, and people who shape a subject as complex as childcareall while, hopefully, building public interest and rewarding it with new understanding.

Parenting magazines and verticals are selling us things but not talking about hard or structural issues, and not delving into the policy conversations.

The usual complications of covering policy questions in a federalist system like the United Stateswhere individual states approach and implement standards and licensing requirements in a myriad of waysare compounded in childcare. (For example, in a state such as Massachusetts, anyone watching a single, non-relative child in their own home requires a childcare license. In South Dakota, a caregiver can watch up to twelve children without requiring a license.) What constitutes childcare also varies widely, and includes everything from licensed for-profit centers to informal friend, family, and neighbor care. In our research mapping childcare solutions at the Better Life Lab at New America, weve found that the childcare delivery system, funding, and quality metrics vary widely.

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Haspelwho has written about childcare for the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Early Learning Nation, a nonprofit magazine about educationbelieves that the absence of a strong national infrastructure makes it harder for people, including reporters, to understand what makes childcare so complicated. People do not fundamentally understand why its expensive for parents, why educators make so little, and why its hard to find spots, he says. Its complicated and takes a couple of minutes to explain. Local news outlets, which might have an easier time focusing on discrete local conditions, may struggle to reallocate modest resources, or hire new staff, for new beats. Still, those that have managed have been busy: Savannah Tryens-Fernandes, a Report for America corps member assigned to AL.coms Alabama Education Lab, has published numerous stories at the intersections of childcare access, provider support, education, and public health. On the national level, The 19th, which has a dedicated caregiving beat, has also delved into the childcare and caregiving provisions of Build Back Better, detailing whom these provisions affect and why they matter.

Absent a policy lens, childcare stories frequently take an individualistic approachfocusing on the circumstances of just one parent or family, for instanceor emphasize consumer products with affiliate links or listicles of what to buy. Parenting magazines and verticals are selling us things but not talking about hard or structural issues, and not delving into the policy conversations, says Kimberly Seals Allers, who wrote about childcare for the New York Times and Forbes before creating Irth, a maternal-health app for women of color. People are looking for that silver-bullet solution, says Allers of the childcare crisis, and there isnt one.

When Bryce Covertwho has written extensively about childcare, including for the New York Times as a contributing writerbegan her freelance career, in 2010, she saw an emerging cohort of feminist bloggers writing about the repercussions of expensive childcare and a lack of paid leave, while a second cohort of wonk bloggers, mostly men, dissected the policies the US could consider to remedy growing economic inequalities. Covert, who saw little overlap between the two groups, has frequently worked in the space between them, publishing articles about the history of childcare in the US and arguing for massive public investment to correct the damage done by decades of reliance on the market economy. You cant report on just one aspect of childcare without showing readers how it connects to othershow quality and licensing procedures impact availability, how high costs for parents translate to low wages for providers, Covert says. As with any new beat, covering childcare with nuance may present reporters with a steep learning curve; still, Covert says, journalists shouldnt be intimidated. (Its complicated, she says, but it isnt rocket science.)

Childcare is a key aspect of economic outcomes as well as social ones. During the past decade, an explosion of research has shown that a range of childcare factorsfrom how kids spend their days to the quality of their care providers and teachershave a significant impact on personal development and future educational and economic outcomes. In the US, 60 percent of children ages five and under and not yet in kindergarten spend at least one day each week in the care of someone who is not their parent. In or out of a pandemic, childcare is inextricably linked to our political and economic past, present, and future. That should be reflected, in all its complexity, in daily news.

THE KICKER: Why do politicians fight back when teachers want to feel safe?

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Haley Swenson and Rebecca Gale are the authors. Swenson is the Deputy Director at the Better Life Lab at New America. Gale is a reporting fellow at Better Life Lab at New America. Both have written extensively on child care for a variety of news outlets.
Rankings reflect sales for the week ending Saturday, Jan. 15, which were reported on a confidential basis by vendors offering a wide range of general interest titles. Picture Book rankings include hardcover sales only. Series rankings include all print and e-book sales.

Every week, thousands of diverse selling locations report their actual sales on hundreds of thousands of individual titles. The panel of reporting retailers is comprehensive and reflects sales in stores of all sizes and demographics across the United States. An asterisk (*) indicates that a books sales were barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A (b) indicates that some bookstores reported receiving bulk orders.

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The New York Times Best Sellers are compiled and archived by The Best-Seller Lists Desk of The New York Times News Department, and are separate from the Culture, Advertising and Business sides of The New York Times Co. More information on rankings and methodology: www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/methodology.

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PICTURE

1. LITTLE BLUE TRUCKS VALENTINE, by Alice Schertle. Illustrated by Jill McElmurry. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Little Blue Truck delivers Valentines Day cards to all his farm animal friends. (Ages 4 and up)

2. STACEYS EXTRAORDINARY WORDS, by Stacey Abrams. Illustrated by Kitt Thomas. (Balzer and Bray) Stacey is entered into a spelling bee by her teacher. (Ages 4 to 8)

3. CHANGE SINGS, by Amanda Gorman. Illustrated by Loren Long. (Viking) A childrens anthem for change. (Ages 4 to 8)

4. WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?, by Bakari Sellers. Illustrated by Reggie Brown. (Quill Tree) Children reflect on who they are and where their ancestors came from. (Ages 4 to 8)

5. STRONG MAMA, by Robin Arzon. Illustrated by Addy Rivera Sonda. (Little, Brown) An expectant mom works out for herself and her unborn child. (Ages 4 to 8)

6. THE ABCS OF BLACK HISTORY, by Rio Cortez. Illustrated by Lauren Semmer. (Workman) An informative ode to Black history. (Ages 5 and up)

7. LOVE FROM THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR, by Eric Carle. (Grosset & Dunlap) A ravenous insect returns with its appetite intact. (Ages 3 to 5)

8. THE WONDERFUL THINGS YOU WILL BE, by Emily Winfield Martin. (Random House) A celebration of future possibilities. (Ages 3 to 7)

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9. THE 1619 PROJECT: BORN ON THE WATER, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson. Illustrated by Nikkolas Smith. (Kokila) A young Black girl traces her ancestry for a school assignment. (Ages 7 to 10)

10. THE YEAR WE LEARNED TO FLY, by Jacqueline Woodson. Illustrated by Rafael Lopez. (Nancy Paulsen) Two siblings relieve their boredom with their imaginations. (Ages 5 to 8)

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MIDDLE GRADE HARDCOVER

1. REFUGEE, by Alan Gratz. (Scholastic) Three children in three different conflicts look for safe haven. (Ages 9 to 12)

2. WONDER, by R.J. Palacio. (Knopf) A boy with a facial deformity starts school. (Ages 8 to 12)

3. NORTHWIND, by Gary Paulsen. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Leif heads north in a canoe and faces the challenges of nature. (Ages 10 to 14)

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4. DAUGHTER OF THE DEEP, by Rick Riordan. (Disney-Hyperion) Ana Dakkar faces the weekend trials at the Harding-Pencroft Academy. (Ages 9 to 12)

5. OUT OF MY HEART, by Sharon M. Draper. (Atheneum) In this sequel to Out of My Mind, Melody goes to summer camp. (Ages 10 and up)

6. LITTLE LEGENDS: EXCEPTIONAL MEN IN BLACK HISTORY, by Vashti Harrison with Kwesi Johnson. (Little, Brown) Biographies of trailblazing Black men. (Ages 8 to 12)

7. LITTLE LEADERS, by Vashti Harrison. (Little, Brown) The biographies of 40 African American women who made a difference. (Ages 8 to 12)

8. PONY, by R.J. Palacio. (Knopf) A young boy sets out on a perilous journey across America to rescue his father. (Ages 10 and up)

9. STUNTBOY, IN THE MEANTIME, by Jason Reynolds. Illustrated by Raul the Third. (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy) As a coping mechanism for his frets, a young boy creates a superhero alter ego. (Ages 7 to 12)

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10. PAX, JOURNEY HOME, by Sara Pennypacker. Illustrated by Jon Klassen. (Balzer and Bray) A boy and his pet fox reunite after a year of separation. (Ages 8 to 12)

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YOUNG ADULT HARDCOVER

1. ONE OF US IS LYING, by Karen M. McManus. (Delacorte) For five students, a detour into detention ends in murder. (Ages 14 and up)

2. AINT BURNED ALL THE BRIGHT, by Jason Reynolds. Illustrated by Jason Griffin. (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy) An emotional look into the life of a Black family living through 2020. (Ages 12 to 18)

3. THE HATE U GIVE, by Angie Thomas. (Balzer and Bray) A 16-year-old girl sees a police officer kill her friend. (Ages 14 and up)

4. YOUVE REACHED SAM, by Dustin Thao. (Wednesday) After the death of her boyfriend, Sam, Julie can still reach him via cellphone. (Ages 12 to 18)

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5. HERES TO US, by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera. (Quill Tree) Two lovers reconnect in this sequel to What If Its Us.(Ages 14 and up)

6. YOULL BE THE DEATH OF ME, by Karen M. McManus. (Delacorte) Three friends skip school together and become involved in a murder. (Ages 14 to 17)

7. THESE VIOLENT DELIGHTS, by Chloe Gong. (Margaret K. McElderry) A re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai. (Ages 14 to 18)

8. IRON WIDOW, by Xiran Jay Zhao. (Penguin Teen) Zetian becomes a Chrysalises pilot to battle the Hunduns, but has an ulterior motive. (Ages 14 to 17)

9. STAMPED, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. (Little, Brown) An exploration of racism and anti-racism in America. (Ages 13 to 17)

10. THE HAWTHORNE LEGACY, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. (Little, Brown) Avery and the four Hawthorne grandsons have a new family puzzle to solve. (Ages 12 to 18)

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SERIES

1. HARRY POTTER, by J.K. Rowling. (Scholastic) A wizard hones his conjuring skills in the service of fighting evil. (Ages 10 and up)

2. DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, written and illustrated by Jeff Kinney. (Amulet) The travails and challenges of adolescence. (Ages 9 to 12)

3. A GOOD GIRLS GUIDE TO MURDER, by Holly Jackson. (Delacorte) Pippa Fitz-Amobi solves murderous crimes. (Ages 14 and up)

Daywatch Weekdays Start your morning with today's local news >

4. PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS, by Rick Riordan. (Disney-Hyperion) A boy battles mythological monsters. (Ages 9 to 12)

5. FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDYS: FAZBEAR FRIGHTS, by Scott Cawthon. (Scholastic) Short stories from the twisted, sinister world of Five Nights at Freddys. (Ages 12 to 18)

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6. THRONE OF GLASS, by Sarah J. Maas. (Bloomsbury) Celaena must battle evil forces threatening her realm. (Ages 14 and up)

7. WINGS OF FIRE, by Tui T. Sutherland. (Scholastic) Only the five dragonets of destiny can unite the seven warring dragon tribes. (Ages 9 to 12)

8. SHADOW AND BONE TRILOGY, by Leigh Bardugo. (Square Fish) The basis of the Netflix series; previously titled The Grisha Trilogy.(Ages 12 to 18)

9. FOLK OF THE AIR, by Holly Black. (Little, Brown) Judes quest to become the first mortal queen of the High Court of Faerie. (Ages 14 to 17)

10. WHO WAS/IS ...?, by Jim Gigliotti and others; various illustrators. (Penguin Workshop) Biographies unlock legendary lives. (Ages 8 to 11)
HOUMA, La. (AP)A levee system that protects Terrebonne and parts of Lafourche from Gulf of Mexico hurricanes will receive $379 million in federal money from the infrastructure bill passed by Congress, officials said Wednesday.

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said the money is part of a $643.4 million allocation the Army Corps of Engineers will use for 21 coastal, waterway and flood-protection projects in Louisiana.

The money is by far the largest federal allocation for a project three decades in the making. So far, roughly $600 million in state and local tax money has been spent to build the 98-mile system of levees, locks and floodgates.

Louisiana communities have waited years, sometimes decades, to see progress on Army Corps projects, Cassidy, a lead author of the bipartisan bill, said in a news release. This funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Package is crucial to protect our state against future hurricanes and floods. (Im) looking forward to the additional ways the bipartisan infrastructure bill will benefit our state.

Among other Louisiana projects in the infrastructure bill:

$125 million for hurricane-protection work in southwest Louisiana.

$53 million for flood-protection work in the Atchafalaya Basin, including dredging the river and some of its tributaries to improve navigation and drainage.

In addition, the corps will allocate more than $2 billion in hurricane-protection and related work in Louisiana as part of a supplemental government funding bill Congress passed in September. The money was intended to repair damage from recent hurricanes, including Ida, and upgrade storm protection across south Louisiana.

Among projects in that bill:

$783 million for the New Orleans-to-Venice hurricane-protection system in Plaquemines Parish.

$450 million for Lake Pontchartrain levee improvements.

$162.6 million for the Atchafalaya Basin.

$125 million for the Comite Diversion Canal near Baton Rouge, which the Army Corps said will be completed by the end of this year.

This disaster aid is critical in our effort to rebuild after Hurricane Ida and prevent damage from future storms, Cassidy said. There is more to do. I will continue to work for additional resources to help communities fully recover.

U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, said in an interview Wednesday that the allocations are welcome but the news is bittersweet.

Graves said he had helped get $500 million included in the supplemental hurricane bill last fall for Morganza. But the Biden administrations Office of Management and Budget moved that money to other projects, including some Graves said are unrelated to the hurricane-protection work Congress intended the measure to address.

Instead, the Morganza money is now coming through the infrastructure bill, signed into law by President Joe Biden in November. Among Louisianas six members of Congress, only Cassidy and Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, supported the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. The others, including Graves and Houma-Thibodauxs other congressman, Steve Scalise, R-Metairie, voted with most Republicans against.

Among criticisms, Louisiana GOP representatives argued the bill failed to dedicate enough money to traditional infrastructure like roads and bridges.

Graves said Wednesday that he would triple down on his opposition to the Biden-backed bill, adding that the measure shortchanged Louisiana, with less than 2% of its total spending going to the state.

The more than $500 million allocation for Morganza that had been included in the supplmental bill, he said, would not have required matching money from state and local agencies. But the infrastructure bill allocation requires a 35% combined match.

Graves said the final list of projects in the supplemental bill also raises concerns.

While it is exciting to see some of these projects funded, it is also important to note some gaping holes, Graves said in a news release. The Baton Rouge area flood-control project failed to receive the additional funds needed. There is no question that $378 million for the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project is substantial, but it is far short of what Congress intended. Dredging funds for the Houma Navigation Canal, Bayou Lafourche and others are left out.

This appears to confirm our fears about how the Biden administration indicated in budget documents they would discriminate against energy-producing areas. This is just wrong and we will continue to oppose these uninformed policies and fight for what is right.

However, in a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Cassidy noted that he is continuing to push for more money for Louisiana projects.

There are still other opportunities and other pots of money we can expect to receive funding from for projects listed today and for others, Cassidy said.

For instance, he said, the corps disaster relief plan includes $410 million for work that has not yet been announced. Some of that money could be used for dredging projects throughout south Louisiana.

And the infrastructure bill includes an additional $2.2 billion for corps coastal protection projects to be available in future years.

So, its a great start, Cassidy said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP)Another fire at a troubled Augusta apartment complex is focusing attention on the citys efforts to improve conditions for residents.

The latest fire at Azalea Park Apartments on Tuesday displaced seven families, news outlets reported. It was the fourth fire at the complex since 2020, and came came after two deadlines had passed for the owner to remedy code violations.

A Dec. 8 fire at the same complex displaced 15 people.

An inspection in December showed exposed wiring needed to be repaired in the building where a fire was found inside a wall on Tuesday. That inspection also called for the owners to install working smoke detectors in the building.

Augusta-Richmond Countys code enforcement unit inspected in October and December, finding dozens of violations that filled 159 pages. The inspection found existing fire damage, raw sewage, extensive flooding and water damage, exposed wires, missing fixtures, rodent and insect infestation. Some buildings in the complex were condemned.

Local officials originally gave Atlanta-based Dunross Capital and Azalea Sureste Partners a November deadline to make repairs. The complex failed to complete them but the Augusta Commission voted against revoking its business license because it would have displaced 70 residents. The complex then got an extension until the end of December.

Augusta Commissioner Dennis Williams said commissioners are supposed to be updated on the complex soon.

They have made some improvements, Williams said. Its still not up to par.

Current and former tenants say the complex began to decline after it was purchased by the current owners.

When I first moved here, it was a little rough, said Debbie Demmons, who lives at Azalea Park. But, they tried to get us some security. Theyve tried everything they can.

Calls to the complexs leasing office were not returned.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Gail Marsha Malitz, age 83, of Beachwood, was born June 11, 1938, in Cleveland, and passed away on May 2, 2022.

Arrangements under the direction of Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel.
As tensions between the U.S. and Russia rise, the Norfolk-based USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group has joined a NATO exercise in the eastern Mediterranean that began Monday.

The exercise began as a Russian amphibious group approaches from the west, planning to join Russian Pacific warships for an exercise in the region.

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The NATO exercise, called Neptune Strike 2022, is the latest phase in NATOs Project Neptune, which focuses on linking command and control of a carrier strike group to NATO. This effort began in 2020.

The exercise involves a long-planned handover of command and control of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group from Navys Sixth Fleet to Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO,

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The capability of SIXTHFLT and STRIKFORNATO combined staffs to enable a handover of the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group demonstrates the power and cohesiveness of our maritime forces and the NATO Alliance, said Vice Adm. Gene Black, commander of Sixth Fleet and the NATOs striking and support forces.

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The Truman strike group, which deployed last month and has since been mostly operating in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, includes the Truman itself, nine squadrons of Naval Air Station Oceana-based Carrier Air Wing 1, the Norfolk-based cruiser USS San Jacinto, Norfolk-based destroyers USS Bainbridge, USS Cole, USS Gravely and Mayport, Fla.-based USS Jason Dunham. The Royal Norwegian Navy frigate HNoMS Fridtjof Nansen has been operating with group since last fall, participating in the groups Composite Training Unit Exercise, or COMPTUEX and then deploying with it from Norfolk.

Last year, destroyers attached to the Norfolk-based USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike operated in the Black Sea, which lies between Ukraine and Turkey, while the Eisenhower itself provided air support to NATO campaigns against ISIS enclaves in Syria, while operating in the Mediterranean waters south of Turkey and roughly 1,000 miles south of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, six Russian amphibious ships from the Baltic and Northern Fleets, are heading towards the Mediterranean. After rounding the coast of Spain, and transiting the Strait of Gibraltar, theyll be approaching the NATO ships from the west.

They are to join a Russian Pacific Fleet group also headed for the area from the east, where it has been operating with Iran and China, for wide ranging exercises that will eventually involve 140 ships and more than 10,000 troopers in several areas, according to published reports.

Tension have climbed since Russia deployed more than 100,000 troops on the northern and eastern borders of Ukraine border. U.S. and NATO allies fear Russia is planning military action against its neighbor and former fellow republic of the defunct Soviet Union.

We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, said in a statement Monday.

Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com
Alice Stuedemann, 89 of Camanche, formerly of Clinton, passed away April 30th at Mercy One Hospital. Visitation and services are being planned for Monday, May 9th at St. John Lutheran Church. Pape Funeral Home is assisting the family.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Millions of pesos worth of fake COVID-19 test kits, medicines, face masks, and other branded goods were seized in Manila on Friday, the Bureau of Customs said.

In a statement on Monday, the bureau said it raided a warehouse in Carlos Palanca, San Miguel, which was owned by a Chinese national it did not identify.

Some 150 million worth of fake antigen test kits, Lianhua Chinese herbal medicines, and N95 face masks were found in the storage facility.

The BOC said it also seized intellectual property rights-infringed items, including apparel from Nike, Fila, Converse, and Adidas, as well as Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags, wallets, and phone accessories, among others.

The raiding team has arrested the Chinese warehouse owner, who will face various charges, particularly for violating the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act and Food and Drug Administration rules and regulations.

"Definitely, the owner of the warehouse will face the brunt of the law," Customs Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence Raniel Ramiro said. "This is not the first and last time we will see these groups operating on our shores. Our job here is to make sure these don't get into the local markets and to stop any future attempts at selling counterfeit goods to our kababayans [fellowmen]."

The warehouse was temporarily padlocked and sealed to secure the imported products until the BOC completes its inventory, it said. The bureau added that it "will further strengthen its border control capacities to stop the entry of illegal goods."
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Presidential aspirant Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos on Monday maintained he has never hired an army of social media trolls and that all support for his election bid are organic.

I have never had a troll farm. I have never had a click army. I never boosted. Everything's organic, and I never bought ads (on Facebook), he said in an interview with One PH on Monday.

This was his response to former National Economic and Development Authority chief Ernesto Pernia, who said Marcos has been leading presidential surveys "due to his huge troll farms.

Pernia alleged these organized groups have been spreading misinformation that the country saw its golden years during the late former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.'s dictatorial rule.

But the younger Marcos, who said deploying a troll army would be an insult to Filipino intelligence," challenged critics to show evidence proving the allegation.

Sa palagay niyo ba yung mga bata, kapag troll farm ang naglalabas ng fake news hindi nila alam? Alam nila yan. Huli kaagad yan, he added.

[Translation: Do you think the young people wouldnt know if a troll farm disseminates fake news? They do. They spot that immediately.]

The ex-senator also denied his camp is behind the hundreds of suspended Twitter accounts supporting his presidential run. Earlier, Twitter took down over 300 such accounts, citing violations of the platform's rules, such as on manipulation and spam.

These are just friends and supporters who are trying to help and [are] expressing their opinion...Hindi namin palakad yan, yung ginagawa nila [Were not behind what they are doing]," Marcos said.

The fact of the matter is they have not proven these are Marcos accounts, he added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Presidential aspirant Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos does not plan to release his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) to the public if he is elected to the countrys top post.

The former senator on Monday said he believes government officials deserve a certain amount of protection, arguing the wealth report can be weaponized by political rivals. "Kung talagang may problema, may reklamo eh ipadaan natin sa authorities, sila ang magtingin. [If there really are problems, authorities should be the ones to scrutinize it.]," he said in an interview with selected media, including CNN Philippines. "Maybe if there's a case filed, perhaps thats the time that it can be given but not to the public. Certainly to agents of the court or the court itself, whatever that court might be. That might be a workable solution."

He was responding to a question on whether he would make his SALN public should he win the presidential race.

He cited the case of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, who was impeached due to discrepancies between his bank accounts and SALN.

Lahat ng pulitiko may kalaban eh. Gagawan ng issue yan kahit walang issue. Prime example is Corona, walang issue gumawa sila tinanggal siya, he added in his first meeting with journalists after skipping GMA News' presidential interviews.

[Translation: All politicians have enemies. They can make an issue even if there is none. The prime example is Corona, wherein they made an issue that left him impeached.]

The presidential bet changed his stance on the document's release after saying in an interview with One PH back in October 2021 that he was willing to publicize his SALN for the sake of transparency and accountability.

Marcos, the son and namesake of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos whose family is accused of amassing ill-gotten wealth, believes publicizing SALNs will only create unnecessary problems that will distract from a public officials work.

RELATED: Robredo dares other presidentiables to bare SALNs

Instead of making the SALN public or available to the media, Marcos said the document can be examined, for example, by the Anti-Money Laundering Council if the official is facing a case or complaint.

We have to be more protective. The SALN shows exactly what your economic activity has been all your life," the presidential aspirant added.

During the GMA News presidential interviews, Marcos' top opponents Leni Robredo, Ping Lacson, Manny Pacquiao, and Isko Moreno all said they were in favor of publicizing a public official's SALN.

Ombudsman Samuel Martires, who was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte, earlier imposed restrictions on public access to government officials SALN, including that of the Presidents.

The last time Duterte publicly released his SALN was in 2018. Journalists have been tossed back and forth between the Office of the President and the Office of the Ombudsman to request for a copy of Duterte's 2018, 2019, and 2020 SALN.

However, when Marcos was earlier asked the same question about SALN, he had a different answer.

In his interview with One News PH's "Sa Totoo Lang," he was asked if he will copy what Duterte is doing to gatekeep his SALN.

Marcos responded, "I am perfectly willing to show my SALN."

In DZRH's "Presidential Job Interview" on Tuesday, Marcos also said if he becomes president, he believes the Cabinet officials he will appoint should likewise show their SALNs.

"I can speak for myself, and of course, if I'm elected, then I can speak to those who I have brought into the government," he added.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin visits Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital and speaks with reporters after signing an executive order regarding healthcare workers Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, in Roanoke. (SCOTT P. YATES, The Roanoke Times/AP)

Hampton  Hamptons school division joined six others in a lawsuit against Gov. Glenn Youngkin, seeking to overturn his controversial executive order against school mask mandates.

In a motion filed Monday, the boards asked the court to issue a temporary injunction to restore the status quo for the remaining school year. The lawsuit maintains that Youngkins order violates school boards authority as stated in the Virginia Constitution.

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Without todays action, school boards are placed in a legally untenable position  faced with an executive order that is in conflict with the constitution and state law, the school boards said in a joint statement, adding that the decision was not politically driven.

Those in opposition to Youngkins order have repeatedly cited current state law requiring schools to remain open five days a week should they follow mitigations strategies to the maximum extent practicable. The policy is set to expire in August.

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Alexandria City Public Schools, Arlington County Public School, Richmond Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, Falls Church City Public Schools and Prince William County Public Schools are the initial school boards to take legal action. The seven districts filed the lawsuit Monday in Arlington Circuit Court.

The question for this Court is whether, by executive order, a governor can override both the Constitution of Virginia and a law enacted by the General Assembly, the lawsuit said. The School Boards respectfully submit that the answer to this question is no.

We are disappointed that these school boards are ignoring parents rights. The governor and attorney general are in coordination and are committed to aggressively defending parents fundamental right to make decisions with regard to their childs upbringing, education and care, as the legal process plays out, Youngkins spokesperson, Macaulay Porter, told The Washington Post.

The suit is the second against Youngkins order  a group of Chesapeake parents filed a petition last week in the state supreme court. On Monday, the districts union, Chesapeake Education Association, encouraged teachers to wear black and only work during contract hours. Multiple teacher unions in the region have said teachers are often asked to fill in for other classes during their planning period because of staffing issues and they often spend time after hours catching up on work.

Because Youngkins order says parents can still opt out of a districts mandate, some parents in Newport News organized to send their children to school without a mask and the order in hand as permission.

The lawsuit, led by Fairfax County, the largest school division in the commonwealth, says Youngkins order would negate decisions each district made based on the virus impact on its community and recommendations from public health officials. The school divisions that filed the complaint represent over 350,000 of the approximately 1.3 million children in Virginia public schools.

Hampton was one of six Hampton Roads school divisions to keep its mask mandate after multiple boards scrambled to finalize their decision before the order took effect Monday.

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During a regular meeting Wednesday, Hampton board members unanimously passed a vote to go forward with an action briefed by the school board attorney in closed session and continue to ratify the districts health mitigation plan. But the board did not have any discussion around the vote and it is unclear what legal action was advised.

When the governor issued Executive Order 2 on January 15, 2022, our Board had concerns as to local control and who has the authority to make policy and decisions for local school divisions, Hampton Board Chair Richard Mason said in a statement released by the school division. Due to this, and the importance of creating and maintaining healthy learning environments, our Board has joined six other school divisions to file a Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief. This legal action will determine whether locally-elected school boards will maintain the authority and responsibility conferred upon them by the Constitution of Virginia over supervision of the public schools in their respective communities.

Hampton board members declined to speak with a reporter, citing pending litigation.

Despite taking legal action, the seven boards said in the statement each would be willing to work with Youngkin to ensure the safety and welfare of all students.

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Sierra Jenkins, 229-462-8896, sierra.jenkins@virginiamedia.com
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  The COVID-19 surge driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant has peaked in Metro Manila, according to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III.

In a media briefing on Monday, Duque said the number of new infections in the capital region has started to fall.

"Lumalabas nag-peak na. Nakikita nating ilang araw nang sunod-sunod na bumababa ang kaso ng NCR at lumiliit ang porsyentong inaambag nito sa ating total caseload," he added.

[Translation: It shows that it has peaked. We see that cases in the NCR have been decreasing for the past few days. It is accounting for a smaller percentage of the total cases.]

Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire also noticed a similar trend, but she was careful to make declarations since cases could be underreported as more Filipinos opt not to get tested.

"(It) looks like we have reached the highest number of cases in Metro Manila and slowly cases are going down. But as I have said, we have to be cautious because we do not have the complete picture here because we have not seen those using the antigen and those individuals that are having symptoms or have been exposed but did not have any tests at all," she told CNN Philippines' The Source.

OCTA Research fellow Guido David said Metro Manila's COVID-19 situation started to improve in mid-January, with cases going from 18,000 to around 5,000 per day.

He added the capital region is on track to meet OCTA's projection of recording only 1,000 cases per day by Valentine's Day.

He also said provinces near Metro Manila, namely Cavite, Bulacan and Rizal, are also seeing lower daily new cases.

Is NCR ready for Alert Level 2?

The DOH said government officials need to assess the metrics, including healthcare utilization rate, to decide if Metro Manila can deescalate to Alert Level 2 by February.

Vergeire said the average daily attack rate and two-week growth rate remain high, while the hospital bed use is still at moderate risk.

"Based on these different parameters that we use, I think it is still very early for us to say that we can deescalate NCR as of this time," she added.

OCTA's David personally believes Metro Manila is not yet ready to shift to more relaxed restrictions by Feb. 1. He said it could be eased by mid-February to ensure the announcement is not premature.

Metro Manila is under Alert Level 3 until Jan. 31.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Monday assured all bidding activities of the agency are aboveboard after a complaint was lodged regarding the procurement of pneumonia vaccines.

The United Filipino Consumers and Commuters (UFCC) filed a complaint before the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) last week to look into a suspected monopoly in the government's purchase of pneumococcal vaccines.

The group's national consultant and former congressman Jonathan dela Cruz said the Duterte administration may be "unknowingly" losing billions of pesos because it is being overcharged by a single pharmaceutical company in the procurement of the said doses.

He said the government has been using the more expensive shots from Pfizer since 2014 despite the availability of two other vaccines. Dela Cruz claimed that when the government opened the bidding in 2020  opening it to more competition, Pfizer suddenly reduced its price from P5.5 billion annually to just P2.6 billion in the new bidding.

Duque admitted he has not yet seen the complaint, but he said DOH's legal team is already looking into the allegations "with a sense of urgency."

He added they will fully cooperate with the investigation.

"Makakaasa kayo na ang ating bids and awards committee sumusunod iyan, nirerespeto ang proseso," he said during a media briefing. "Kung merong problema, titignan natin iyan, we will cooperate, we will give all the info needed by PCC."

[Translation: We assure you that our bids and awards committee follows the law and respects the process. If there is an issue, we will look into it.]

UFCC also asked the independent anti-monopoly regulatory body to issue a cease-and-desist order and temporarily suspend the procurement of the pneumococcal vaccines while the investigation is ongoing.

DOH and the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) were grilled in the Senate last year for the government's supposed anomalous deal with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation to buy face masks, face shields, and other personal protective equipment for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Presidential aspirant Senator Panfilo Lacson believes that President Rodrigo Duterte failed to succeed on his three advocacies, which explains why he made the sayang remarks during 'The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews' on GMA7 over the weekend.

Lacson said that the Duterte administration was unsuccessful in its war on drugs, fight against corruption, and assertion of sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea.

Yung tatlong malalaking puntong yun na advocacy niya, sana nag-succeed tayo. Kaya sabi ko sayang, kung na-capitalize lang ang kanyang overwhelming mandate, ang kanyang immense popularity sa ating mga kababayan, at saka ang kanyang magandang intension, sana sa tatlong punto man lang yun, nagsa-succeed na tayo, said Lacson in an interview on Monday over Bombo Radyo.

[Translation: I hope he succeeded on those three advocacies. Thats why I remarked, sayang. He could have capitalized on his overwhelming mandate, on his popularity among the masses, and on his good intentions. We could have succeeded on those three.]

Lacson, who was also a former Philippine National Police chief, said the President could have succeeded in the campaign against illegal drugs without the police resorting to extrajudicial means.

He further explained in another radio interview that the Duterte administrations war on drugs focused on the enforcement aspect and has set aside the prevention and rehabilitation facets of the campaign against illegal drugs.

Hindi na sana siya nagkakaroon ng pag-aalala na pwede siyang ma-held to court ika nga, worse doon sa ICC [International Criminal Court], Lacson said.

[Translation: He will not be worrying right now that he could be held accountable in the court, which they say is worse than the ICC.]

On the anti-corruption drive, the Partido Reporma standard bearer said Duterte practices double standard on running after corrupt officials in the government.

Along the way sa kanyang implementasyon, nakita natin na hindi lang isa ang standard. Kapag mga kaalyado, mga kaibigan, iba ang treatment, he explained.

[Translation: During the implementation, we can see that there is no single standard. There is a different treatment among his allies and friends.]

Meanwhile, on the West Philippine Sea issue, Lacson said President Duterte has compromised the welfare of Filipino fishermen over his friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

As a supposed ally of the Philippines, he questioned why China is harassing Filipino fishermen in our exclusive economic zone.

He added the country is losing billions of pesos because Filipino fishermen are now afraid to fish in the West Philippine Sea.

Bakit naman ang ating mga fishermen, walang kalaban-laban, wina-water cannon at saka nira-ram? Naku - Bakit naman hindi tayo makapasok sa ating exclusive economic zone. Naku  Dahil nanalo na tayo sa arbitral ruling, bakit hindi natin mapatupad? Lacson said.

[Translation: Im very curious why our fishermen are helpless? They were being attacked with water cannon and their boats were rammed. Why cant they enter our own exlcusive economic zone? Why cant we impose the arbitral ruling?]

Build, Build, Build

To solve traffic problems in the metropolis, Lacson said he will continue the Duterte administrations Build, Build, Build program should he be elected as president.

Apart from infrastructure solutions, he said enforcement of traffic rules and policies must also be looked into.

Paano titino ang enforcement, yung mga traffic enforcers, lalo na yung mga ine-employ ng local government units, subukan mo magpahuli. Hindi alam maniket, hindi alam ang violation e. Kasi nandon sa kanto, nag-aabang, kikikilan ka lang, Lacson said.

[Translation: How do you expect our traffic enforcement to improve? Just look at those employed by the local government units, they dont know how to issue a ticket, they are not aware of the violation. They are are just waiting in the corner to mulct you.]
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  It may take a few more months before the Omicron surge in the country tapers off despite declining cases in the Metro Manila, an independent research group said on Monday, citing developments in the regions.

"Medyo matatagalan ang Omicron wave. Kahit medyo bumababa na sa NCR (National Capital Region) at Cavite, Rizal, pataas pa lang sa ibang lugar at may ibang lugar na hindi pa nagkakaroon ng pagtaas. Medyo matatagalan ito. Ang 1,000 cases or less per day ay medyo matatagalan din," OCTA Research fellow Guido David said in a media briefing.

[Translation: The Omicron wave will continue. Even if cases are going down in NCR, Cavite, and Rizal, it is only starting in other areas. The increase hasn't even started in other parts of the country. It will take a while. It will take us a while to gown down to less than 1,000 cases again.]

Related: Omicron surge has peaked in Metro Manila, DOH chief says

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the agency is monitoring the rising healthcare utilization rate in the regions, in particular the Cordillera Administrative Region and Eastern Visayas.

"We can see that all regions of the country have this increasing number of cases. Its just the NCR because we started earlier, but right now, all regions, we have about 13 areas at critical risk classification and there are only 4 areas with high risk classification in the country. We are closely monitoring specific areas because their healthcare utilization is really increasing," she told CNN Philippines' The Source.

David said arriving at daily cases only by the hundres similar to December 2020 may be achieved if the Omicron surge ends in March or April.

OCTA said Metro Manila's COVID-19 situation in terms of new cases began to improve in mid-January, with a substantial decline in cases from 18,000 to around 5,000 per day. He added that the capital region is on track to meet OCTA's projection of only 1,000 infections per day by Valentine's Day.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Malacanang on Monday clarified that a circulating video clip of President Rodrigo Duterte discouraging the public from getting their COVID-19 booster shots was an old one recorded at a time when the priority was to increase the number of fully vaccinate Filipinos.

At that point, 21 million of our countrymen were fully vaccinated, and our priority was to increase this number, which is why the provision of booster shots had yet to be approved, acting presidential spokesperson Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles said in a statement.

The video clip that resurfaced was from Dutertes weekly public address on Sept. 30 last year, in which he told the public not to get more than two vaccine doses as it could pose health risks and also deprive others who have yet to receive their first dose.

The situation today is now vastly different. Last November, upon the recommendation of our health experts, the government approved the use of booster doses for all fully vaccinated individuals as we had ample supplies of vaccines and a substantial percentage of our population was already fully vaccinated, Nograles added.

To further encourage the public to get their booster shots, the President in his December 21, 2021 address enjoined the public to take advantage of the countrys sufficient supply of vaccines against COVID-19 and get their booster shots to control the spread of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant.

The government earlier allowed fully vaccinated adults to get their booster shot three months after their second dose.

Pharmacies and private clinics were also tapped to assist the government in providing booster shots to the public.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  The president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry said they were looking forward for the return of the National Capital Region to Alert Level 2, following data that showed COVID-19 numbers in the region were going down.

"Hopefully, tuloy yung bumaba, by next week they can decide pwede ba ibaba natin ng (Alert) Level 2...We look forward na sana by next week...they would declare either Monday or February, (Alert) Level 2. But let's wait for the data," PCCI president George Barcelon told CNN Philippines on Monday.

[Translation: Hopefully, the decline will continue and by next week they can decide if we can go down to Level 2...We look forward to it happening next week...they would declare either Monday or February, Level 2. But let's wait for the data.]

Earlier, OCTA Research Fellow Guido David said the COVID-19 situation in Metro Manila was improving, with a substantial decline in new cases from 18,000 to around 5,000 per day.

However, the number of cases outside NCR are still increasing.

Barcelon said areas where cases were lower could benefit from an eased Alert Level.

"Ang stance namin is granularity. Kung may mga lugar na mataas pa talaga yung positivity, of course we will, I think the government and the private sector will agree we'll hold on to (Alert) Level 3. But for the other areas that have shown improvement, and then we are following all health protocol, it would be helpful," he said.

[Translation: Our stance is granularity. if there are areas where positivity is high, of course we will, I think the government and the private sector will agree we'll hold on to Level 3. But for the other areas that have shown improvement, and then we are following all health protocol, it would be helpful.]

Barcelon said they remain hopeful that come February or March there would be a strong recovery among businesses.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  The "stealth Omicron" sub-variant BA.2 which was reported in some parts of the world has not yet been detected in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

"Hanggang sa ngayon pa naman po wala pa tayong nadedetect na BA.2 dito sa ating bansa (Until now, we have not yet detected any BA.2 subvariant here in the country)," Health Undersecretary and spokesperson Rosario Vergeire told CNN Philippines' The Source.

Vergeire said the Philippine Genome Center has the capability to detect "all possible lineages that are present in every sample" under the genome sequencing process. But according to some news reports citing health experts across the globe, the stealth Omicron cannot be easily distinguished from other COVID-19 variants through RT-PCR tests.

The sub-lineage of the highly transmissible variant was already detected in countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, France, Canada, Australia, and India to date. Vergeire said they have yet to get information from the World Health Organization whether it should be classified as a variant of interest or concern.

The UK Health Security Agency has so far classified BA.2 as a "variant under investigation," one level below a variant of concern, after a significant rise in COVID-19 cases the past days.

"When Omicron was being reported already, after mga one week lumabas na po yan, yang report na yan na there is another sublineage of this Omicron variant and they call it BA.2," Vergeire explained. "This came out in some of the areas in Europe kung saan sinasabi nila na its overtaking the detections of Omicron at ito na yung kanilang subvariant na nakikita."

[Translation: When Omicron was being reported already, a week after, there is a report claiming that another sublineage of this Omicron variant has emerged and they call it BA.2. This came out in some of the areas in Europe where they say that it's overtaking the detections of Omicron and this is the subvariant that they are seeing.]

Vergeire said WHO and other experts across the globe are still studying the stealth Omicron, but initial findings have shown that patients who were detected with this subvariant experienced symptoms that are similar to those who had the Omicron variant.

There seems to be no difference when it comes to the severity of illness, but more studies have yet to be made to bring out more information on its transmissibility, she added.

In a public briefing, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III called on the public to remain vigilant, get their vaccine doses, and continue following the minimum health standards amid pending update from WHO.

"Ang bakuna (COVID-19 vaccine) continues to be effective against severe, critical cases, therefore preventing hospitalizations and deaths," he said.

"Ang minimum public health standards, iyon pa rin ang ating stratehiya na napatunayang epektibo..Huwag tayong tutulad sa ibang bansa na nagdeklara na wala nang mask mandate, pwede nang magbukas," Duque added.

[Translation: Compliance with minimum public health standards is part of our strategy that has proven to be effective...let us not follow the other countries which got rid of their mask mandate and further eased restrictions.]

The country recorded over 29,000 new infections last Sunday, with total cases hitting 3,417,216. Over 36,000 people have reportedly recovered as of the same day, raising the survivor count to 3,090,164.

COVID-19 watchdog OCTA Research said Metro Manila may have reached its peak in cases last week, but other provinces continue to experience a surge in infections, amid the spread of Omicron in the country.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 25)  President Rodrigo Duterte said some communities in Mindanao are resisting COVID-19 vaccination.

I think the Muslim community dito sa Pilipinas, mukhang ang karamihan, is of the belief that it (vaccination) is not allowed by their, I dont know, is it religion? he said during his weekly address aired Monday night.

[Translation: I think the Muslim community here in the Philippines, and the majority, is of the belief that vaccination is not allowed by their, I dont know, is it religion?]

I might be mistaken but it could be that or something else sa culture nila (in their culture) even the Tausug, he added.

Duterte commented on the issue after watching a report that several passengers going to Zamboanga City were stranded at the Manila North Harbor due to the governments no vaccination, no ride policy.

The President also said he already talked with Sulu Governor Sakur Tan, a Tausug, about the matter.

Among the countrys regions, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao currently has the lowest vaccination rate. Only 25% of its population or 769,604 individuals are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade said the stranded passengers at the Manila North Harbor were already allowed to travel back home on Monday after they tested negative for COVID-19.

To prevent a similar incident from happening, the Department of Transportation will put up vaccination sites in transportation hubs to inoculate more Filipinos, Tugade added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 25)  The government's program to administer booster shots in pharmacies will be expanded to Baguio City and other areas, presidential adviser for COVID-19 response Vince Dizon said on Monday.

During President Rodrigo Dutere's Talk to the People, Dizon said the success of the initial rollout of the program in Metro Manila showed that it was "the way forward," as pharmacies were closer to the public and therefore more accessible.

"In the next few days and weeks, this will be expanded substantially all over the country... Sa Wednesday po, kami nila (Health) Sec. (Francisco) Duque and Sec. Charlie (Galvez) ay pupunta sa Baguio, tutulungan natin ang City of Baguio," he said.

[Translation: In the next few days and weeks, this will be expanded substantially all over the country...On Wednesday, Sec. Duque, Sec. Charlie and I will go to Baguio to help there.]

Dizon explained that expanding the program to two pharmacies in the city would be a way to help. He added that the project would eventualy include other parts of the country, although no particulars were given.

During the briefing, Senator Bong Go suggested giving incentives to pharmacies joining the vaccination drive so that even those in far-flung areas could be encouraged to take part.

"Para mas maengganyo pa yung mga, lahat ng may-ari ng pharmacies natin sa pinakamalalayong lugar...(at) mas ma-attain natin ang target natin ngayong taon, Go said.

[Translation: So that we can encourage owners of pharmacies in far-flung areas...and to reach our target this year.]

Seven pharmacies in Metro Manila were part of the pilot program that began last week.

Dizon said they would be studying Go's suggestion, together with the Department of Health and the National Vaccination Operations Center.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson said the Duterte administration failed in how it handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an interview with Boy Abunda on Monday, Lacson, who is running for president in the May polls, mentioned several instances where the government could have made different choices to stem the spread of the virus.

"Categorically, are you trying to say Senator, that the COVID handling of this government is a failure?" asked Abunda.

Lacson replied, "Yes. Kita naman natin resulta, e [It's obvious in the results]."

Lacson cited the Senate hearing following the case of a couple who traveled by plane from Cebu to Manila.

"Alam ng DOH, alam ng authorities ito na silang dalawa afflicted ng COVID-19. Tinanong namin sa aming Senate hearing, 'Nagawa niyo na ba yung contract tracing? Kilala naman niyo yung mga pasahero...kayang kontakin.' Alam mo yung sagot sa amin? Seventeen percent lamang yung kanilang na-contact. Dun nagsimula 'yung COVID." he said.

[Translation: The DOH and the authorities knew that these two were afflicted with COVID-19. In the Senate hearing we asked if they had done contact tracing because they knew who the passengers were. You know what they said? They had only contacted 17%. That's how COVID started.]

Being proactive and having foresight could have changed things, Lacson said.

"Anong sumunod? Di ba hindi natin pinagbawalan yung mga turista galing Tsina kasi kaibigan daw natin ang Tsina. Yun ang pagkakamali natin nung una pa," he added.

[Translation: What happened next? We allowed tourists from China in because we were told they were our friends. That was our mistake right from the start.]

He also said allowing private businesses and local government units to purchase vaccines could have helped.

"Alam ko ito kasi kausap ko yung mga business sector. Yung mga malalaking negosyo nag-offer sila, 'kami na ang bibili para sa aming mga empleyado.' Anong ginawa ng gobyerno? Over regulation. Sa halip na maging friendly, sa halip na i-encourage, pinapahirapan," he said.

[Translation: I know this because I talked with the business sector. The big businesses offered to buy vaccines for their employees. What did the government do? Overregulation. Instead of being friendly and encouraging them, they made things more difficult.]

Had these been allowed, Lacson said, the rise in cases could have been avoided.

Lacson added that putting the right people in government posts is also crucial, citing PhilHealth as an example.

"PhilHealth, bakit NBI director ang naandiyan? Bakit retired military? Sa akin kung hindi man may background sa health sector, kailangan finance man ang nandiyan. Health insurance 'yan e," he said.

[Translation: Why is an NBI director in PhilHealth? Why a retired military person? For me, if not somebody with a background in the health sector, it should be a finance man because that's health insurance.]

Lacson's comments come after an earlier interview where he said President Rodrigo Duterte failed to make good on three advocacies: the war on drugs, the fight against corruption, and the assertion of sovereignty our over the West Philippine Sea.

These points, Lacson said, explain his "sayang" remark during The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews on GMA-7 over the weekend.
Hyderabad: Ministers and TRS MLAs are said to be facing an uphill task in selecting 100 beneficiaries for Dalit Bandhu in their constituencies within the next 10 days.

Each constituency has 15,000 Dalit families on an average and there is a huge rush to figure in the list of 100 beneficiaries. The list has to be finalised on February 5 for the beneficiaries to receive Rs 10 lakh each by March 31.

The state has nearly 17 lakh Dalit families of whom only 11,800 will get the benefit now. The pressure is more on the TRS which has 103 MLAs in a house of 119, while the AIMIM has seven, the Congress six and the BJP three MLAs.

In the 16 non-TRS constituencies, TRS leaders are trying to secure Dalit Bandhu for their supporters with the help of district in-charge ministers.

With this, local TRS leaders are queuing up before the houses and camp offices of MLAs and ministers in their constituencies. The pressure on ministers and MLAs is so huge that all of them have confined to their respective constituencies for the last two days. A significant number of ministers and MLAs stay in Hyderabad during the week and go to their constituencies over the weekend.

Party sources said ministers and TRS MLAs are also facing a real test in selection of beneficiaries as they fear they would face a baclkash from those who do not make the list now. They have to convince the remaining 14,000 to 15,000 Dalit families in their constituencies to wait for their turn in the next phase, on which there is no clarity.

They also fear it would spur demand from other sections such as Back-ward Classes, Scheduled Tribes, minorities etc for similar schemes, as was witnessed during the Huzurabad bypoll, where Dalit Bandhu was launched in August last.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 25)  Presidential aspirant Vice President Leni Robredo said it would better for her rival, former Senator Bongbong Marcos, to join debates and attend interviews to set the record straight on all the allegations being hurled against him.

While its Marcos' choice, Robredo pointed out that they would serve as an opportunity for him to confront issues.

"Nilu-look forward ko na i-confront ako doon sa mga issues na binabato sa akin. Kasi pagkakataon 'yun for me, so I hope ganoon din ang tingin niya. Pero siyempre, choice niya 'yun," Robredo said in an interview in Zamboanga Sibugay on Monday.

[Translation: I look forward to being confronted with issues thrown at me. Because I look at it as an opportunity, so I hope that's also his view. But of course, that's his choice.]

Of the invited top five presidential bets, only Marcos failed to show up during GMA's The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews, accusing the multi-awarded journalist of bias. #MarcosDuwag trended because of his no-show.

The vice president explained that candidates must not be afraid to face questions and criticisms, pointing out it is the public servants' responsibility to the country to convey their plans "to the best of their ability."

"Pero, para kasi sa akin, mahalaga na kung kami ay naghahangad ng suporta ng taumbayan, kailangan handa kaming harapin kahit 'yung mahihirap na katanungan kasi dine-deserve ng taumbayan malaman kung ano 'yung katotohanan sa mga bagay na ibinabato sa amin o ano 'yung mga bagay na naririnig tungkol sa amin. Pinakamabisang paraan na harapin naman 'yun," Robredo said.

[Translation: For me, it's important for us who are asking for the public's support, we need to be prepared to face tough questions because the people deserve to know the truth on issues being linked to us. That's the most effective way for us to deal with controversies.]

I have nothing to hide

Robredo's name also trended Sunday night with #LeniDuwag when reports came out that she supposedly declined DZRH's one-on-one interview.

The presidential aspirant debunked this, explaining it was a scheduling problem. She confirmed that the interview would push through on Feb. 2, even with a vocal critic as a panel member. Robredo said there's nothing to fear because she has nothing to hide.

"Kung hindi magiging professional 'yung pag-conduct, hindi naman 'yun kabawasan sa akin. If at all, mas mabuti ngang ma-confront sa akin 'yung mga sinasabi nila sa akin para meron akong platform na magpaliwanag," Robredo said.

[Translation: If they won't be professional in their conduct, that won't affect me. If at all, it's better if they confront me with things they say about me, so I can have a platform to explain.]
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Community can be one of the most important aspects of a students life at Penn State  especially within residence halls. And, Ally House is expanding its special living option community beyond the residence hall to support transgender students across the university.

As a special living option for the LGBTQ community at Penn State, Ally House hosted a grand opening drag show event for its subsidiary, Ally House Jr., from 4:30-8:30 p.m. this past Saturday at 3 Dots Downtown.

According to the President of Ally House Necla Kara, Ally House Jr. will eventually be an art gallery in the form of a tiny rainbow house, which will be open for anyone to purchase prints of artwork made by queer Penn State artists.

Though the original plan of building a tiny rainbow house on campus remains a goal for Kara, Kara said the university isnt allowing it at the moment and instead, the art gallery will rotate through the commons of Penn State housing spaces.

All of the proceeds will go toward a gender dysphoria relief fund, which will help fund gender-affirming causes such as name changes, surgeries and other expenses for transgender and nonbinary students at Penn State, according to Kara (sophomore-molecular biology and Spanish).

Currently, the fund is being held in an Ally House account, but Kara said hes working on making a fund with Student Care and Advocacy at Penn State.

Until the fund is set up, there is a PayPal option for buying artwork from queer artists at Penn State.

So far, the fund has given $500 to a transgender student at Penn State for top surgery help, according to Kara.

Kara said insurance is difficult to work with, and Ally House Jr. can be a way to help transgender students out with these expenses.

A lot of times, money is a big barrier for people, and I want to get rid of that, Kara said.

The grand opening included drag queen performances by Hexxa, Nebula Nova, Chemicole, Alonya Chest, Pryzm and Leone DeFleur from Opulence. It also featured artwork that will be displayed in the rotating art gallery.

Kara, the founder of Ally House Jr., also made his drag debut at the event.

Natasha Kara, Neclas mom and first-time performer in the event, said shes proud and pleased the project is finally coming to life.

To help individuals who are in need and not able to get things that they need to be happy and successful and feel comfortable with themselves I think its always helpful, Natasha said.

Cole Thomas, also known as Chemicole on stage, said the grand opening event was his first drag show performance.

Thomas (junior-chemical engineering) said he started experimenting with drag and makeup about a year and a half ago, and said he saw the event as a wonderful way to raise money, show support for the transgender community and to have fun.

I have one best friend who came out to me as trans about two years ago, and they were terrified of transitioning, Thomas said. And so, I think organizations like this that raise money for anything trans people might need in their journey to find themselves is a really good idea.

By creating Ally House Jr., Necla hopes to advertise Ally House as a special living option. Necla added he wants to expose the local community to queer culture and encourage students to treat queer artists fairly.

Its important to me to show them that their work and energy is worth money, Necla said.

A friend of Neclas, Aster Phillips said they believe Ally House Jr. is inspiring and a great opportunity to educate the Penn State and State College communities.

Along with providing rotating artwork exhibits, Aster (sophomore-anthropology) said they performed as a drag queen during the grand opening.

I want to support the people who need the money to get top surgery because I know what it's like, Phillips said. I want to get top surgery myself.

Phillips said they first became interested in art in sixth grade, with their inspiration stemming from wanting to draw Sharkboy and Lavagirl.

Some of their paintings sold at the art galleries in Penn States housing commons areas will include a picnic scene and a mushroom forest with weeping willow trees, Phillips said.

I want to share my art, and I want people to look at it [and say], This is really cute. I really like it, Phillips said.

Penn State student Camilla McCrary said she heard about the grand opening event through her LGBTQ club and was excited to attend the event because shes never been to a drag show.

To McCrary (senior-computer engineering), art is really important, and she said she believes it affects everyday life through fashion.

Similar to McCrary, Tori Kovalchick said she heard about the event from the president of the Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schreyer organization and has been wanting to be more involved in the club and be a better ally of the LGBTQ community.

I thinky [Ally House Jr.] is a really great way to help people feel more comfortable on campus, Kovalchick (sophomore-economics) said. Its definitely a good cause [It helps] people who might not be familiar with the community to become more educated and inclusive of all groups on campus.

Another attendee of the event, Percy Rose, said hes really proud of everyones efforts in creating Ally House Jr. and cant wait to see the project grow.

[Getting surgeries] should be a basic human right, and it sucks that it costs such an exorbitant amount of money if you dont have the correct insurance, Rose (junior-digital arts and media design) said.

Working with Necla, students Noah Robertson and Ryan Loscalzo collaborated to create a resolution in Penn States University Park Undergraduate Association for Ally House Jr.

The resolution was written to amplify the cause of Ally House Jr., and on Jan. 20, 2021, UPUA unanimously voted in favor of the creation of supporting the art galleries  and the creation of a transgender dysphoria relief fund from its profits.

Robertson (junior-philosophy and communication arts and sciences) is currently a member of the University Park Student Fee Board as a UPUA-appointee and said he believes the dysphoria fund will be an incredible resource for Penn State.

I think it is a really great display of support for LGBTQ or other gender nonconforming students at this campus, Robertson said.

Loscalzo (junior-applied data sciences), current chair of the Facilities Committee in UPUA and UPUA representative for the Penn State Student Lion Pride Roundtable for Inclusion, Diversity and Equity, had similar sentiments.

There are a lot of barriers for trans students here and trans students everywhere. It costs a lot of money for them to become their true selves, Loscalzo said. I think Ally House Jr. will be able

to provide students with this resource I think this project will make the lives of Penn State students so much better because of it.

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For Gabrielle Davis, being a first-generation student at Penn State means breaking boundaries for her family and being limitless and optimistic.

As the first individual from her family to pursue higher education, Davis (sophomore-biology) said the journey hasnt been easy.

When I first came here, I was really scared, and I was nervous, Davis said. Its been an adventure.

Davis began her first semester at Penn State at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, taking almost exclusively online courses. Due to this, she didnt get involved in many extracurriculars and found it hard to network with others.

A first-generation student is defined as one whose parents didnt complete a four-year college degree, according to the Center for First-Generation Student Success.

Other first-generation students said they shared those difficulties when adjusting to college life  even those who didnt have to deal with a global pandemic during their studies.

Shana Clarke, assistant director for diversity, equity and inclusion in the division of undergraduate studies at Penn State, attended Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, where she graduated in 2009 with dual degrees in sociology and anthropology and gender and womens sexuality studies as a first-generation student.

As a Black, Jamaican immigrant from Brooklyn, New York, Clarke said the transition from diverse, big-city life to the homogeneous, rural community of Gustavus Adolphus College was really jarring and confusing.

It was a predominantly white school, Clarke said. It wasnt uncommon to engage with people who had never encountered, in real life, a person of color.

Clarke said her peers threw all of the stereotypes of Black women at her, an experience she said was a bit of a challenge to learn the context behind the comments.

As a first-generation college student, it can feel very much like youre in a new world, Clarke said. The worlds [my peers and I] were living in were really, really different.

According to Clarke, most of her peers came from upper- or middle-class families, which she said influenced their perspective[s] and what they were able to do compared to her financially.

She said she would often see her peers taking trips and vacations over breaks from school while she worked and earned money to pay for her education.

There were a lot of subliminal things that communicated very firmly, You dont belong here, from socioeconomic status to race to academics, Clarke said.

Clarke said fitting in was also difficult because of an expectation that she should know everything about the college experience from the start  including terms like syllabus and concepts like a bursars office and office hours.

There are some things that just dont make sense or that you dont have a context for, Clarke said. The thing about higher education is sometimes we pretend or act as if those students should come in knowing these things.

Patty Klug, director of the Chaiken Center for Student Success in the College of the Liberal Arts at Penn State, also graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College as a first-generation student, earning an English degree in 1992.

Throughout her tenure at the school, Klug said she felt like an outsider but wasnt able to place why until much later in her life once she realized it was because of her status as a first-generation student.

There was really no knowledge or anyone recognizing that thats the experience that I was having, Klug said.

Throughout her college experience, Klug said she felt her peers deserved better opportunities than she did despite having similar GPAs  which caused her not to strive for bigger and better experiences.

Klug also said her mentors at Gustavus Adolphus were more focused on her coursework and grades than they were on her future plans and job search.

There werent really mentoring systems set up for that, there was no one to put their hand on my shoulder, Klug said. I felt like I had to do it all on my own.

Gustavus Adolphus College established the First Forward Network in 2017, which aims to provide sustained and intentional support to first-generation students, according to its website.

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As part of the First Forward Network, there is an email notification list for first-generation student news and resources and several programs, such as Gusties Attaining Interpersonal Networks, a STEPS online guide, a November Gustavus First-Generation Celebration, J-Term opportunities, a First Forward Month and several links to national first-generation student resources like IM FIRST and First in the Family.

According to JJ Akin, director of media relations and internal communications at Gustavus Adolphus, the college offered a series of supports for first-generation students before 2017 and the First Forward Network  but these supports were scattered across the colleges offices, including its admissions office, financial aid office and diversity center.

Akin said small events and networking were led by its diversity center, while the offices of admissions and financial aid provided information to first-generation students about their various financial aid and awards.

When the First Forward Network was established, Akin said it allowed Gustavus Adolphus to centralize first-generation student programs and support. The programs, Akin said, are now in one home.

Similar to Clarke, Klug said her financial situation forced her to work over breaks and during the semester while her friends took vacations and had fun in their free time.

Klug said financial aid the federal government offered to struggling students has decreased, making it more difficult to afford education.

Kendall Mainzer, director of engagement for the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State, was a first-generation student at the University of California Davis.

Mainzer, like Clarke and Klug, said she had to navigate the college experience on her own.

My friends all had a lot more detailed expectations and involved parents, Mainzer said. Going without being able to check with anyone that I was on the right path was really hard.

But, current student Gigi Lin said she doesnt believe her college experience as a first-generation student at Penn State differs much from that of her non-first-generation peers.

For Lin (senior-integrative arts), the college experience is what you choose to have it be.

Lin said she took the time to educate herself about aspects she didnt understand when she got to Penn State and became involved as much as she could in campus life.

Just because you dont have your parents to tell you about their experiences doesnt mean you wont be able to have a good experience, Lin said.

Lin said her parents set a high value on education for Lin and her brother because of their lack of privilege as Chinese immigrants. No matter what path Lin chose, her parents said she had to obtain a college degree first, so she would always have a career option to fall back on.

However, both Lin and Davis said they feel Penn States first-generation student population is overlooked.

When applying to Penn State, Lin and Davis said they were asked whether they were first-generation students and marked that they were.

Four years into her Penn State degree, Lin said she hasnt heard of any resources offered to first-generation students  nor has she met another first-generation student like herself.

Penn State student organization First-Gen Advocates aims to promote awareness, advocacy and mentorship in order to further support first-generation college students, according to its website.

The Penn State Student Success Center also offers resources for first-generation students, including links to orientation videos from New Student Orientation and a list of resources first-generation students may not be familiar with, its website said.

The university observed the National First-Generation College Celebration on Nov. 8, 2021, with stories shared and posted on Penn State News and the universitys homepage detailing the personal experiences of first-generation students.

This fall, for the second consecutive year, the Student Success Center supplemented the National First-Generation College Celebration with keynote speakers, prizes and giveaways, panels and a trivia night.

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Having resources readily available for first-generation students can help to offset the lack of advice their parents can provide, Lin said.

Its always good to let the student body know whats available because we are paying to be here, and sometimes, it feels like there are an overwhelming amount of opportunities that are available, Lin said.

Davis also said she hadnt heard of resources for first-generation students when she began as a freshman  something she partly attributes to the pandemic.

This past fall, however, Davis said she was able to get involved with the Multicultural Resource Center and take advantage of campus opportunities  which allowed her to connect with other first-generation students.

Davis also said she was able to meet and connect with other first-generation peers through Facebook groups.

These peers, Davis said, helped her manage the rollercoaster that was her freshman year at Penn State.

Clarke, Klug and Mainzer said they work closely with first-generation students in their various administrative roles at the university.

When Clarke was a student, she said one of the greatest aids to her college experience was doing as Davis did and interacting with other first-generation students she found through Gustavus Adolphus diversity center. She also said she formed relationships with the colleges gatekeepers  those invested in making changes to the colleges culture through their ability to control admissions and other administrative functions.

These relationships, Clarke said, were instrumental to her adjusting to the college experience and being able to make it through relatively unscathed.

Clarke said she dedicates a large portion of her role as assistant director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Penn States division of undergraduate studies to helping students overcome the difficulties associated with their identities and to the professional development of those students.

Many students who Clarke works with tend to overprepare and overachieve because they feel they arent doing enough, Clarke said  which she attributes to a desire these students have to represent their cultures and identities well to others who have less experience interacting with them.

She said a mentor of hers at Gustavus Adolphus helped her overcome her own difficulties related to her identity as a Black woman  which helped prepare her for the life of a college student and for the racism she faced as a Black woman in a primarily white institution during her studies.

Having someone be honest and real with me from the beginning was helpful because when I encountered [racism], I didnt feel like I had done something wrong, Clarke said. It was something that was expected. It was something that was recognized.

Clarke said she hopes to prepare her own students the same way her mentor did when she was beginning her college career through preparation beginning with empathy.

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You dont have to have the exact experiences to be empathetic, and yet because Ive had some similar experiences, I think that helps me to be even more empathetic and to feel more real, Clarke said.

Empathy is a tactic Mainzer said she also employs when attempting to help her students in Penn States College of Arts and Architecture.

Mainzer said she experienced imposter syndrome in college  feeling like one doesnt belong, isnt deserving of achievements and isnt as competent or intelligent as their peers, according to Psychology Today  and she said she uses her experiences to help her students.

We all feel like we dont belong sometimes, Mainzer said. I try to use my own experience to try to create genuine, relatable empathy with my students.

However, Mainzer said empathy can be empty sometimes.

Its one thing to say you have empathy, but its another thing to try to demonstrate it in a way thats genuine and trustworthy, Mainzer said.

In her role as director of student engagement, Mainzer said she connects students to resources, leads programming and attempts to address student needs.

The most important part of her line of work, Mainzer said, is to allow students to find their own paths by pushing them in the right directions.

In her work as director of the Chaiken Center for Student Success in the College of the Liberal Arts, Klug helps her students realize they arent alone in their experience and ensures they arent guessing their way through college.

Klug said she derives purpose from helping others with similar experiences.

Her department, Klug said, created pins one time for faculty to wear that identified them as first-generation students. The pins made a great impact on students, Klug said, as they could see themselves in faculty and staff.

Clarke said students can help their first-generation peers by avoiding acronyms in conversation and normalizing financial literacy and all experiences of college students. This will allow first-generation students to go from surviving to thriving, Clarke said.

Mainzer said helping others can have a ripple effect, and she aims to help as many students as possible  so they might help others.

If I help one person, I feel like its enough of a difference, Mainzer said. But what if we can help [47,788] more, regardless of their experience?

But for Davis, the most important thing a first-generation student can do is have pride in their status despite a fear of the unknown.

Its OK to be scared. Its OK to be afraid, Davis said. You might be a little confused at times, but never doubt yourself.

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As the third week of the spring semester begins, Penn Staters have a range of activity options to take part in virtually or in person.

Monday, Jan. 24

11 a.m.  Penn States university-wide recruitment event, Spring Career Days, will take place at the HUB-Robeson Center and is open to students of any academic year or major. The event will bring employers to campus to connect with students.

7 p.m.  As part of the 27th annual Mark Luchinsky Memorial Lecture Series, the Schreyer Honors College will host John Quinones  an author, journalist and motivational speaker  as he presents A 20/20 Vision for Our World: Building Bridges, Not Walls.

The event will take place at The State Theatre, and registration is required. The link to view registration information along with health and safety protocols for the event can be found here.

8 p.m.  The Center for Spiritual and Ethical Development will offer a Labyrinth Walk by candlelight at the Eisenhower Chapel until 9 p.m. The labyrinth will remain until 1 p.m. on Tuesday.

Tuesday, Jan. 25

Noon  Anne Grybowski, an outreach coordinator for the Penn State Office of Student Aid, will hold a student loans webinar offered by the Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center as part of the centers monthly Webinar Series.

The webinar is part of a series of financial literacy events throughout the 2022-23 year, which will take place on Zoom.

5:30 p.m.  The Student Farm at Penn State, the Indigenous Peoples Student Association and The Lions Pantry will hold a free soup and bread dinner at Abba Java Coffeehouse for all University Park students.

Using ingredients grown on the Student Farm, the clubs soup will be made from Indigenous and butternut squash.

6 p.m.  Organized by the Paul Robeson Cultural Center, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson will present a talk called It has been a long time coming: Is Racial Change Here at the Freeman Auditorium in the HUB.

Wednesday, Jan. 26

6 p.m.  Robin Brockelsby will deliver the 2022 Stalking Awareness Month keynote speech at the Freeman Auditorium in the HUB.

The event, which is hosted by Penn States Gender Equity Center, is free, and it will be livestreamed. Pre-registration is required here.

Thursday, Jan. 27

5 p.m.  As part of Stalking Awareness Month, Penn States Gender Equity Center will host a screening of season 3 of the Netflix original series You.

A discussion will follow the screening related to stalking and similar themes represented in the original series. The event will take place via Zoom, and registration can be found here.

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Harish Rao conducted a review meeting with the officials in Sangareddy and enquired about the implementation of Dalit Bandhu scheme. (DC)

HYDERABAD: Demanding that the National Democratic Alliance-led BJP government at the Centre provide reservations to BCs, SCs and STs in the private sector, health minister T. Harish Rao on Sunday said the Telangana government would implement the prestigious Dalit Bandhu scheme in all districts by March 31.

The minister alleged that the Central government was trying to privatise all public sector companies such as LIC, Air India and others, posing a major threat of losing job opportunities in the government sector. Therefore, the Central government must consider providing reservations to BCs, SCs, and STs in the private sector, Harish Rao demanded.

"Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao directed the officials to take measures to implement the Dalit Bandhu scheme in all districts by March 31 for the benefit of Dalit communities. As per the scheme, the Dalits will get financial benefit from the government," the health minister said.

Harish Rao conducted a review meeting with the officials in Sangareddy and enquired about the implementation of Dalit Bandhu scheme. He said at least 100 beneficiaries obtained financial assistance in each constituency in the district and funds were deposited to the collector's account.

MLAs along with the district in-charge ministers would discuss implementation of the scheme and select one or two villages in each constituency and refer the village names to district officials for implementation of the scheme, Harish Rao said.

The district officials, who receive the beneficiaries details, would visit the villages and select the eligible candidates for the scheme. The proposals need to be sent to the government for sanction of funds. Harish Rao directed the officials to speed up work for identifying the eligible candidates and take measures to keep a tab on regular financial activities of beneficiaries, who were already utilising the scheme.

Stating that the government would allocate huge funds for implementation of the Dalit Bandhu scheme in ensuing Budget, the minister said the district officials would select eligible candidates without any bias for providing financial assistance to Dalit communities.
Colorado Politics: The last time we saw you in the context of a legislative session was when Rep. Ron Hanks called a no-confidence vote in you. The vote tally showed that you pretty easily beat back that challenge, but six months ago, eight House Republicans said they didn't believe in your leadership. Heading into this session, where do you feel that caucus dynamic is?

Rep. Hugh McKean, R-Loveland: Well, I actually think that the vote of no confidence is one of the weirdest things in the world because what you really ended up having were people who don't know how to count votes and then completely misrepresented the influence that they thought they had. That ends up being kind of a function of a lot of things that happened in this building. I mean, it's a bunch of type A personalities.

I think our caucus is actually way more together today than it ever has been in the six years that I've been here and part of that is because we weather the storms. I weathered that storm by saying, "Take the vote." I think the people who didn't like that form of leadership don't like anybody's leadership that's not theirs. Well, tough nuts. That's just not the way it works.

CP: If that vote was held again today, where do you think it would be? Would it be 16-8 again, or 15-8 since you didn't vote?

McKean: That was weird that they didn't give a ballot to the person they were voting on who is a member of the caucus. But how do I think that vote would turn out? It would probably be less members on the losing side of that than there were last time. And partly because of exactly what I just said: As we weather these storms, I think number one, it builds confidence ... we have legitimately the best staff that we've ever had, the best staff in the capital. That's a function of leadership and making those decisions about what's the best path forward for the caucus. People see that they understand it.

CP: You've made it quite clear that you think Democrats are ripping off your agenda. I'm curious about what that means practically. Does that spell trouble for getting your own caucus' bills onto the governor desk? I foresee a situation where there are two bills on the same issue and the majority says: "We think our bills are better, so your bills are gonna die and our bills are gonna move forward." Doubly so in an election year. Am I off base with any of that?

McKean: I think that what you see is a Republican response to the legitimate concerns of people in our state. The cost of living is way too high. And I won't go deeply into all of them, but when you take things that make people uneasy, number one is, can I pay the bills? Number two is am I safe and is my family safe? And number three is do my kids have a future that we can really count on? And when those things are in question, as we have been seeing, then you've got some concerns.

The political side of this is, I think now you're gonna see whether or not the Democrats mean what they say, which is not just to put forward Democrat ideas in a strictly partisan way. I think that's a huge risk to the state as a whole that they take an election year and just ramp it up on steroids. What you should see ostensibly is a cooperative effort. We released 44 bills [on the opening day of session] and we will happily have the conversation about how can we make these bipartisan bills. How can we take these ideas and really help the people of Colorado.

Here's the deal: It's not just putting fees off into the future. It's not just getting rid of the license driver's license fee for a year. It's get rid of these fees and taxes on the backs of Coloradans.

CP: I don't think you're a naive man by any means, but it strikes me as naive to think that we're gonna get a bunch of bipartisanship in an election year when the issues that you've been calling them out on are all of a sudden the ones in the spotlight. With that in mind, what does success look like for you this year, legislatively?

McKean: Success looks like exactly the way you described. It's either getting the work done with help from our Democrat majority in the state House. Success is also being able to show that that the reason why they had that list of empty boxes is because their priorities are a disingenuous attempt to try to get to the hearts of the voters, which they haven't been paying attention to for the last six years.

So success is both directions. I'm not naive to think that they might just say, "No" in an election year and let these things run their course, which is usually a course of being defeated if they're Republican bills in this kind of an environment. I think that tells the voters of Colorado a lot  that here are the priorities, but we only want them to be successes for the Democrats. That's wrong and that's the partisanship that Coloradans hate.

CP: Do you view what's going to happen in November, the election results, as an extension of approval or disapproval of your work here in the legislature?

McKean: I think that November is gonna be a function of a few things. I think, number one, it's gonna be the degree to which Democrats in this state have aligned themselves with a president who is at a loss for how to lead this country. And so the more that Democrats here in the last year and then the year upcoming align themselves with President Biden, who has historically low approval ratings because he sucks at his job  and so the fact is that Democrats keep saying, "Oh, we're doing these great things." No, they're gonna own that and they should because the more you support failure, that failure begins to be your own.

The other thing is I think that truly the ability for Coloradans to figure out who means what they say is not just in the moment, Colorado voters are very smart and not just that, but they remember the things we've been talking about. Republicans have been talking about exactly these ideas for years. This is not some fresh poll that just came out. This is what we've been talking to our constituents about for decades. That means that Coloradans can trust the direction that we're going, because we've been going that direction for a long time. The Democrats are sort of making a U-turn on a lot of their things where [they] imposed taxes and fees and restrictions, business license problems. All of these other things that have been imposed again and again, and now suddenly they're like, "Oh, we're on your side."

CP: When we spoke a year ago, you talked about the historic opportunity that this election cycle could present. Now at that point, the national political environment wasn't quite what it is at this point in terms of favoring your party. We also didn't have the maps set by the nonpartisan commissions. So one year later, is there anything that's changed? Do you feel more strongly?

McKean: I feel more strongly. I think that even more than then, we now have maps that were as fair as possible. And could we have gotten better maps? Yeah, but politically it wasn't possible to get some of those through. Were these the best maps? No, but they're much better than they would've been had it been left to a partisan divide and the courts.

I think this is probably the most remarkable opportunity we've had in a very long time. And the great thing is that as I go around the state, I almost exclusively fixate it on making sure that we have rational, reasonable, common-sense Republicans who are running for office to help the people of their districts. That's it. It's kind of a simple thing, but what it does is it says that we're more focused on legislators who are bringing those solutions rather than just politics.

CP: I did want to put it in front of you what's been reverberating in the political sphere, which is some of the language you chose to use in your radio interview with Jimmy Sengenberger. When talking about Democrats imposing fees, you describe that in part as "raping people of Colorado." Do you think it's appropriate for political leaders to use that type of language to describe what is essentially a fiscal policy decision, and then compared it to a violent crime?

McKean: So, number one, I think you need to define that. So, other people have attempted to put words in my mouth on that. And especially state Senate Faith Winter said that, as a victim of sexual assault, she really started ginning that up. First of all, there are several meanings to that word and one meaning is a sexual assault, not meant by me whatsoever.

But Miriam Webster, which I think is good to refer to, actually has as one of their definitions the exact definition I meant: An act or instance of robbing or despoiling, or carrying away a person by force. An act or instance of robbing a person by force. That's exactly the right word for what we're talking about, which is the people of Colorado have had the state government putting their hands in their pockets, taking money out of their children's education future, taking out of their retirement, all of these other things for years.

And the challenge that we really have is that we get sort of funneled down into these little discussions that truly could have been solved by Sen. Winter picking up the phone and saying, "Is that what you meant? No? That's not the meaning that you attributed to it? It is a valid meaning that's there."

And I think that's what we need to do with each other is have a conversation. Is it a strong word? Absolutely. Do the people of Colorado feel like their government has been taking their money from them, robbing them of their ability to get ahead? 100%.

CP: I understand what you're saying but that doesn't seem to be the way that a majority of society understands the word rape. And it seems like when you say Sen. Winter could have picked up the phone and called you and resolved it  at the same time, you could have also used a different strong word to describe what clearly is an issue here.

McKean: I don't disagree that there are other words I could use. However, I think that this is really the challenge we face when we're trying to talk about some of these pretty big issues  it's how to form them and form our arguments in a way that describes exactly what we're trying to say. And so, I've been asked that, could I have used different words? Yes, I could. However, I also think that we have run the risk in the last several years of allowing the colloquialisms and and the meanings attributed to them to simply run roughshod over our use of our language. The reason why I cite Miriam Webster is really important because if you are using the word for the purpose that you desire, then I think that we should be attributed that grace of, "That's what you meant, which is an act of robbing."

I think that that's really important. And in fact, that was one of the common meanings of this word for a very long time. And so does our language change? Yes. Do we always attribute everything to what the most popular definition of that word is? Not necessarily. And I just ask that  that Sen. Winter and other people say, "No, actually this is the appropriate use of that word."

Could I used something different? Yes. But a lot of times we say what we are intending as the meaning. This is robbing, this is taking money from the people of the state of Colorado by force.

CP: I'm not sure if you knew this, but Rep. Matt Gray on opening day walked out of the chamber in protest of your radio comments. I'd also note that you and the speaker embraced after your speech. In light of where things were today  I don't think I've heard the speaker yell like that before  where do you think things stand between the two caucuses in terms of interaction right now?

(Editor's note: This interview was conducted on Jan. 18, shortly after a testy day on the House floor as lawmakers considered a voting rights resolution.)

McKean: I think that this debate today and especially the introduction to this resolution, which again is not something we engage in normally, this was very much out of our normal course of business for the people of Colorado. This is calling on the legislature of Colorado to support a bill in the United States Congress and in the United States Senate that would have a federal intervention in state law. We don't ask for that. So, the debate around this did include a partisan divide.

Can we work together on a lot of stuff? Yes. But the challenge is always gonna be, especially when you come from being in the minority as long as I've been, is that there are times when we go exactly down that path: The majority has their way, the minority has their say. A lot of times it's really important to get the say on the record because the Democrats in Colorado can do what they want. They have the House, the Senate and the governor's office and that means that so much policy ends up as a very partisan divide. So, yeah, there were some arguments today.

Matt Gray and Faith Winter are apparently dear, dear, dear friends. And therefore, I think Matt had certain thoughts, but you know, the fact is that a lot of what we do here is the work that we have to do for the people of Colorado. We do a lot of it in a bipartisan fashion, especially with a current list of what both caucuses want to achieve. It's a matter of how do we get there? How do we do those things?

FAST FACTS

Age? 54

Family? Two kids. Hannah, 23, and Aiden, 21.

Any new year's resolutions? I don't do new year's resolutions. But I do have a word for the year: bold.

One thing about you that most people don't know? I built furniture, but most people know that already.

Favorite cuisine? I live too close to Weld County. Good steak and potatoes. The best thing you can possibly have.

Favorite restaurants? John Elway's or Carmine's on Penn.
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As the Cubs were beating the Braves 6-3 Wednesday night Steve left to see the game with his mom and dad, Reva and Harold, brother Ron and baby niece Elizabeth Henney. He left behind to run the store his wife Kathleen (Knight), Amelia (27), Nathan (24) and his beloved cat Lewis Black. His sis
The global shift over the past two years to remote work has led to something unexpected: an uptick in the adoption of a four-day workweek, raising hopes that a tipping point could come soon.

In a number of industries, calls for a change to the standard five-day, 40-hour week grew after many companies began to rethink how work is done in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has given organizations the confidence they need to consider adopting flexible work arrangements such as the four-day week, said Raul Castanon, senior analyst at 451 Research, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

There are a variety of recent examples of companies trying out a four-day week or moving toward one permanently. Bolt, a fintech startup, recently committed to a four-day week long term, as did social media software firm Buffer last year. Crowd-funding company Kickstarter is due to start a trial this year, Unilever ran a pilot for staffers in New Zealand last year, Panasonic pledged last month to give workers a four-day-week option, and real estate management firm JLL hinted at similar intentions.

Demand for a four-day workweek is growing, said David Spencer, professor of economics and political economy at the UKs University of Leeds.

For workers, the idea is that an additional day off will increase autonomy, improve well-being and reduce stress. There are advantages for employers, too: those that have moved to a shorter week have indicated employees are just as productive when well-rested and focused, and companies can cut down on sick leave.

This suggests that a five-day workweek may be relatively inefficient, said Spencer.

And with the battle to recruit and retain staff already under way, a shorter week is seen as yet another way businesses can attract and retain the best workers.

The long road to a short week

The five-day workweek has been the standard for US workers since the start of the 20th century, following decades of labor reforms. By 1926, workers at Fords auto manufacturing plants were offered a five-day, 40-hour week, as a shorter week and reduced hours reached mainstream acceptance.

Two years later, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted a 15-hour workweek within a century. (That didnt pan out, of course.) And despite innovations in the ensuing decades that improved worker output  and continued calls for a reduction in hours  the four-day workweek has remained largely out of reach. Recent Gallup poll data indicates that 5% of US employees now work four days a week; twice as many (11%) put in six days, with the overwhelming majority (84%) toiling away for five.

Technology may have secured us the ability to produce more stuff, but it has not yet won us the freedom to work less, said Spencer.

But the concept never fades completely. State-backed trials in several countries have surfaced some positive effects of a shorter week and offer a glimpse of how it could be implemented.

A widely noted pilot scheme in Iceland  carried out between 2015 and 2019, with findings published last year  saw hours for 2,500 workers reduced from 40 a week to 35, resulting in a range of employee well-being benefits and improved productivity. Similar results came from a trial in Sweden, published in 2017, where healthcare workers switched to six-hour days, though both projects led to increased costs of staff recruitment.

In the private sector, various companies have tested the idea. Microsoft tried a four-day week with staff in Japan on a temporary basis in 2019, for example, noting a lift in both staff well-being and productivity.

Remote work opens door to new patterns

The renewed interest in idea ow stems from the willingness of companies to experiment with new ways of working. The shift to remote work loosened ties with the standard 9-to-5 office routine, with many seeking flexible schedules to look after children or care for parents while working from home. In essence, if staffers are available for meetings when necessary  and output remains the same  its less important where, or when, an employee actually works.

It's no surprise that some of the most visible proponents of the four-day workweek are companies that have been doing fully remote work for some time, because they're essentially saying, We don't need to do this for five days arbitrarily. As long as we're getting the job done, take whatever time you want, said James McQuivey, vice president and research director at analyst firm Forrester.

[The four-day week] is really facilitated by the shift in thinking of, How many hours is someone working? versus How much value are they creating? he said.

A four-day week has also been touted as a way to reduce stress for remote workers. Despite initial concerns about workers ability to remain productive at home, early indications are that the opposite is true: burnout is more an issue as employees work additional hours at home and struggle to switch off outside of the traditional 9-to-5 day.

COVID showed us that you can send workers home and theyll end up working just as hard, if not harder, said Grace Lordan, associate professor at the London School of Economics and founding director of The Inclusion Initiative at the UK university.

You have a population of workers who have been on call for a long time, so its not surprising theyre burnt out. Demands [for a four-day week] are coming from the fact that people realize this is unsustainable.

A four-day week in practice

At security software company DNSFilter, employees reported less stress, higher productivity levels, and increased job satisfaction since the start of a four-day week pilot project last year, said Laura Durfee, director of talent acquisition at DNSFilter.

DNSFilter offers a four-day week on rotation, with two groups of employees alternately taking a Friday off, with the same pay and benefits as before. The initiative was deemed a success, and the arrangement has since been made permanent.

A two-day weekend isn't enough time for many people to fully recharge, said Durfee  especially in the new normal, where work and personal lives are blurred and the average workday has been informally extended. With a three-day weekend, employees have more time to devote to personal matters and appointments, she said, meaning they tend to accomplish much more in the four days they are actually at work.

Another motivator has been attracting and retaining talent, said Durfee. As a high-growth startup, we are competing against many major players to hire the best employees, and four-day workweeks are a huge differentiator.

At New Zealand recruitment firm Talent Army, the move to a four-day week also boosted productivity levels. Talent Armys plan involved giving all employees the option of taking Friday off, with one person designated to be on-call on a rotating basis each week to answer urgent inquiries. We found people were able to get their work done in the four days with very minimal work being done on our day off, said Troy Hammond, founder of Talent Army.

Working in the service business meant it was critical for Talent Army to communicate the change to customers to smooth the transition, said Hammond. We had to educate our clients to know that we would not be online one day a week, he said. And while it was a challenge at first, clients were supportive and feedback was positive.

How to organize a four-day week without disruption

There are numerous ways to set up a four-day week. For many, it simply means all staff get a set day off each week with no change in remuneration. (At some companies, a four-day week is optional, with pay reduced accordingly.)

Other strategies include condensing a full 40-hour week into four 10-hour days, with no net reduction in working time; switching from five eight-hour days to five six-hour days; a four-day week implemented biweekly, with a day off every other week; and a four-day week introduced seasonally, with employees given a day off each week during quieter summer months. Some organizations offer flexible or agile Fridays, where employees are still expected to be on call if needed.

Not all businesses find it easy to strike the right balance. Wellcome Trust, a UK health research foundation, ended its four-day week experiment in 2019, for example, claiming it was too operationally complex to implement permanently.

The challenges involved shouldnt be underestimated, said McQuivey, particularly for organizations with more complicated workforce structures.

Very large companies would be cautioned against jumping into this too aggressively, because the larger the company, the more varied the departments and divisions are, and the more varied the work requirements, said McQuivey.

Judging employees more on output and less on hours worked is also easier said than done.

The first question is, How are you going to measure whether someone is doing their job? That's harder than it looks, he said. There are a lot of people in software development where their job really can be measured by the amount of code that they manage in a week and projects that they deliver in a month. But even in those circumstances, there are still softer measures such as, Is someone contributing to the training of their peers, the team spirit, the culture of the organization? and so on.

Clarity on how performance is evaluated is critical so employees dont wind up working more than intended just to please their boss, said McQuivey. If you advertise a four-day workweek and you end up delivering a four-and-a-half-day workweek, thats only going to undermine work culture and relationships, he said.

What comes next?

Despite the challenges, four-day week initiatives appear to be on the upswing. Nonprofit organization 4 Day Week Global has coordinated several pilot schemes globally, with 30 companies in the UK recently committing to trials. Similar initiatives have been run in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia.

Governments have also taken note; Ireland, Scotland, and Spain all have committed to provide support for companies to experiment with a four-day week.

In the US, Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) proposed a bill last year that would see the equivalent of a four-day week implemented for all workers by reducing the standard workweek to 32 hours, another sign of potential mainstream acceptance.

Lordan thinks a four-day week is likely, at least for those in roles suited to flexible schedules. But she expects a transition phase could continue for some time. Just as some workers will gravitate to companies that offer hybrid remote work, some employers will cater to employees that prioritize well-being and work-life balance over increased pay. Thats a growing trend, she said, particularly among younger workers. Other people may choose organizations where they have less autonomy but better pay.

McQuivey said that, anecdotally at least, theres increased interest in a four-day week among Forresters business clients. But other future-of-work topics, such as adapting to hybrid work  a key challenge for many  are higher up the list of business priorities.

Were not seeing people come to us specifically to say, Were ready to consider [a four-day week] and we want to know how to do how to go about it. Its on a list of things that companies are considering, he said.

Smaller firms such as software companies with specialized workforces (and a small number of roles) may be best-suited for a four-day week at first, said McQuivey.

The spotlight will be on early adopters to see how they fare, with successful long-term initiatives likely building momentum for a wider uptake.

The question is, do those companies do it effectively enough that it becomes an advantage for them? said McQuivey.
01/24/2022

Photo (c) digicomphoto - Getty Images Coronavirus (COVID-19) tally as compiled by Johns Hopkins University. (Previous numbers in parentheses.)

Total U.S. confirmed cases: 70,716,716 (69,495,875)

Total U.S. deaths: 866,621 (865,969)

Total global cases: 352,266,210 (349,507,365)

Total global deaths: 5,598,651 (5,592,934)

FDA expands use of treatment drug

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken two actions to expand the use of the antiviral drug remdesivir for some adults and pediatric patients for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19. The agency said it acted to reduce the risk of hospitalization.

"On the heels of the FDA's recent authorization of two oral antiviral drugs, today's actions bolster the arsenal of therapeutics to treat COVID-19 and respond to the surge of the omicron variant," said Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

The FDA said remdesivir, one of the first treatments approved in the early days of the pandemic, is not a substitute for vaccination. Officials repeated their pleas for people to get a vaccination and booster shot.

Pandemic is affecting food shipments

Empty spaces on grocery store shelves have appeared once again, and economists say the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is to blame. Employee illnesses at production centers, transportation companies, and supermarkets have reduced the workforce.

In Arizona, the Wall Street Journal reports that one in 10 processing plant and distribution workers at a major produce company were off the job because of illness in recent days. In Massachusetts, supermarkets and restaurants have fewer fish because of illnesses in that supply chain.

Unlike shortages early in the pandemic that were mostly caused by hoarding, economists say empty shelves now are the result of not enough workers. They say the situation is likely to continue for a while.

Nurses say they are facing burnout

Food industry workers are not the only ones feeling the stress from COVID-19. In hospitals across America, nurses on the front lines of the pandemic say they are facing burnout and need their employers to do more to help them cope.

Erin Williams is among 39 respiratory therapists at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh. She told the Wall Street Journal her team had about 64 workers before the pandemic. The smaller team, she says, is dealing with double its normal case load.

Its an overwhelmed, heartbreak feeling, Williams told the newspaper. You know that youre not able to give all the time that you want to and that just eats away at you as a caregiver.

Around the nation
01/24/2022

Photo (c) fstop123 - Getty Images The 2008 financial crisis was marked by a tidal wave of home foreclosures that devastated the housing market for years.

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 hammered the economy and cost millions of jobs, but foreclosures remained surprisingly low. In fact, Black Knight, a housing data firm, reports that 2021 ended with a record low number of home foreclosures.

The company reports that just 0.24% of mortgage loans were in active foreclosure in December. Economists looking for a reason for the drop in foreclosures usually point to mortgage forbearance programs that the government put in place at the start of the pandemic. Those forbearance programs ended months ago, yet foreclosures keep falling.

Unlike during the financial crisis, mortgage companies appear to be taking proactive steps to help their customers avoid losing their homes. Barbara, of Kaneohe, Hawaii, tells us her mortgage company, PHH, helped her family obtain a mortgage modification and get out of foreclosure.

We have been able to stay current with our mortgage payments since then, Barbara wrote in a ConsumerAffairs review. "The agents we worked with were very helpful in guiding us through this process."

Helpful mortgage agent

Diane, of Firestone, Colo., works for a builder who took steps to help a resident who was critically ill. This allowed the homeowner to sell his home before it fell into foreclosure. She credits the lender, 21st Mortgage Corp., and one of its employees with saving the mans home.

I was working with Shavronna and I want to let you know she went above and beyond to help get this deal through! Diane told ConsumerAffairs. I could not have helped this resident without her help on 21st' end.

In the future, more help may be required from lenders. Black Knight reports that over half a million serious delinquencies remain on the books. The number of borrowers who are 90 or more days past due on their mortgages, including those in active forbearance, is more than twice as high when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Louisiana is the state with the highest percentage of non-current home loans, at more than 7%. Mississippi is second at 6.91%, and West Virginia is third at 5.37%.
Moldesmodelitus.com.br 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

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Pupukgdm.com scored 51 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 2.5/5.0 Stars by Social Team

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PAGE TITLE Pupuk Organik Cair GDM | Dijamin Paling Murah Dengan Kualitas Yang Tidak Murahan BUKTIKAN !! DESCRIPTION KEYWORDS OTHER KEYWORDS tanaman, lebih, bakteri, pupuk, dalam, penyakit, organik



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Bengaluru: With pressure mounting on him to expand or rejig his cabinet, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday indicated that he is waiting for the BJP leadership's consent on going ahead with the exercise, and was also trying to bring it to their notice.

As his government completes six months in office on January 28, the Chief Minister said, he will hold a press conference and bring out a booklet, listing out the achievements of his administration.

"Four (ministerial) berths are vacant, so naturally there will be aspirations. There is nothing wrong with it. Party leadership is aware of when and how to do it, I'm also bringing it to leadership's notice. Whenever the leadership calls me for discussion, I will give them all the details," Bommai said in response to a question regarding cabinet expansion on reshuffle.

Speaking to reporters in response to a question on appointments to boards and corporations, he said, it has to be discussed in the party and any action in this regard will be based on what transpires there.

"It depends on the party, the party will sit and decide on the basis of which further action will be taken, there is no such proposal regarding appointments for board and corporations before me as the Chief Minister for now. Party is looking at it, after deliberations they will give a report, based on which we will see...." he said.

Ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls, there is pressure mounting on the Chief Minister to expand or reshuffle his cabinet soon to make room for fresh faces, and also to fill up the vacant posts of heads for for various boards and corporations, by appointing party legislators and office-bearers to it.

There are currently 30 Ministers in the State Cabinet, including the Chief Minister, against the sanctioned strength of 34.

However, there are talks in party circles that the expansion or reshuffle of the cabinet is likely, only after the Assembly elections in five states.

Recently some legislators have even been advocating Gujarat-like overhaul of the Karnataka Cabinet soon, to make way for new faces, and have noted that if it is done in March, it will be too late for ministers to make any mark, even in their own constituencies.

In September, the BJP completely overhauled the Gujarat's Council of Ministers by selecting new faces for the Bhupendra Patel government, with no Minister from the previous Vijay Rupani-led Ministry being inducted.

Senior BJP legislators Basanagouda Patil Yatnal and M P Renukacharya on Thursday had held closed-door discussions, there are also reports about similar meeting in Belagavi involving Minister Umesh Katti, former Deputy CM Laxman Savadi and other legislators from the region.

Asked about a "secret meeting" between some BJP legislators, the Chief Minister brushed it aside, terming it as a casual meeting between leaders of the party.

"I don't know.....you (media) yourself are calling it a secret meeting....there is no confusion....leaders casually meet at several instances, you depicting it as something else, is not right. Congress leaders meet casually at different places, similarly BJP leaders also meet, there is nothing in it," he said.

He also clarified that the meetings scheduled at the BJP office from tomorrow are regarding Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike elections.

The Chief Minister said any further decision regarding COVID related curbs will be taken after observing and studying the virus spread and the rate of hospitalisation and related factors.

"Regarding COVID we have already taken certain decisions and have lifted week-end curfew, we will have to see how the infection spreads in the days to come and the condition of those infected. We will observe everything and decide on the future course of action," he said.

To a question regarding the budget preparations, Bommai said he has been holding internal meetings with the Finance Department since December, also with revenue generating departments, and have given directions to take steps to reach the targets.

"Now because of COVID since December-end, I will have one more round of meeting on January 25 with the Finance department, and thereafter we will have discussions regarding proposals by various departments and prepare a budget," he added.
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While this is par for the course of an annoying younger TV brother, what makes Mikes comments so cutting are the details he includes. When you pay attention to Mikes jokes, its clear he tracks the insecurities of each family member to best wield it against them. Mike isnt surprised when his parents fail Sam by forgetting her birthday, because hes been closely watching them fumble through parenthood and using their blind spots to his advantage. He makes this abundantly clear when his mom tries to pull him into comforting Sam.

When he manages to insult Sam by telling their mom she only eats carrots to increase her breast size, its because he (creepily) tracks Sams motives and obsessions to hurt her. In one of his first moments on-screen, Mike baffles his dad by commenting about Blanche getting her period and how it will affect her honeymoon, all before his Dad has even pieced together the reason Blanche is distressed. Mike is able to gather intel fast and do the math on whats bothering people, only instead of using it for empathy and connection he uses it as a weapon.

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3 Louis From Even Stevens

Louis Stevens (Shia LaBeouf) is the ultimate clown of a younger brother. Everything from his closet full of Hawaiian shirts to his penchant for get-rich-quick-schemes feels like a live-action cartoon. While his non-stop scheming affects everyone around him, the bulk of it sullies the life of his perfectionist older sister Ren (Christy Carlson Romano). Unlike many TV younger brothers, Louis isnt annoying for the sole sake of getting a reaction, hes annoying because his imagination and obsessions know no bounds.

Disney Channel And unlike many younger brothers, Shia LaBeouf would only become more punchable when he grew up.

In the episode Sibling Rivalry Louis ruins Rens plans by taping floss all over the bathroom so he can flossercize and accidentally breaks her phone when he uses it in the shower. When their older brother Donny (Nick Spano) signs them up for a talk show to work out their issues, Louis immediately goes into detective mode to uncover embarrassing facts about Ren. However, when Louis in-depth detective work turns up the fact that Rens boyfriend Bobby (Brandon Davis) is cheating, his heart goes soft and he decides to tell her off-air.

Louis is destructive in an often hapless way, but it stems out of his bizarre charm and ability to recruit people into his half-baked plans. In Stevens Manor Louis turns the house into a bed and breakfast while the parents are away, and employs his neighbor Beans (Steven Anthony Lawrence) as a masseuse. Unsurprisingly, it ends very badly.

The episode My Best Friends Girlfriend shows Louis convincing his best friend Twitty to surprise his girlfriend with a date to a dumpster full of foam. Louis is sure the special activity, dubbed Foam Hunk Dumpster Diving will scare away Twittys girlfriend so he can have more time with Twitty, and sure enough, it works. His detective skills are pulled out in Secrets and Spies when he suspects Ren has a secret life, and goes full spy mode (he Houdinis himself into a mailbox) until he discovers she moonlights as a karaoke star.

The list of Louis Stevens shenanigans is endless, and the destruction and awkwardness he causes Ren and his entire family are too massive to map. But Louis ability to dream up business concepts and games, embody alter egos, and get to the bottom of an obsession shows massive creativity. If Louis Stevens wanted to start a pyramid scheme that doubles as a cult (Herbalife with more foam pits), hed have no problem recruiting members.

2 Harry From Freaky Friday

When the 2003 body-swap classic Freaky Friday isnt giving us teen pop-punk drama, Lindsay Lohans chunky streaks, and deeply confusing magic (fortune cookies cause the body swap?!), its a movie centered on a mother-daughter relationship. As we all know, behind every mother-daughter relationships, there is a younger brother waiting in the wings to enact terror

Harry Coleman (Ryan Malgarini) is no exception to this rule. From the start, its clear hes hell-bent on pissing off Anna (Lindsay Lohan). He wakes her up with an air horn, jumps on her bed, and eventually invites friends into her room to try on her bras and read her diary.

Harry constantly provokes Anna, and before the body swap, his mom Tess (Jamie Lee Curtis) often defends him. While Harry has all the predictable traits of an annoying on-screen brother, his true motives are later revealed during a parent-teacher conference. In the meeting, Harrys English teacher gives Anna (in Tess body) a paper he wrote about how much he loves his sister.

The paper, titled Why My Big Sisters The Greatest reads: I think my sister is the best sister in the world. Anna plays the guitar and sings in a band. She is as good as any rock star you see on TV. If she made a CD she would sell about ten million copies. She doesn't like me very much and she teases me a lot but if I ever get in trouble she would help me out.

Harry is adamant that he doesnt want Anna to know about the paper, because they have too much fun fighting. While its safe to say that annoying a sibling to get their attention might isnt rare, the fact that Harry can articulate this dynamic at seven years old is impressive. Hes aware theres potential for rejection in telling Anna how much he looks up to her, so he contents himself with the role of annoying younger brother, provoking fights in lieu of quality time. Hopefully, when he reaches the famed double digits, he channels this self-awareness into clear communication instead of emotional terrorism.
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Since The Simpsons first hit the small screen as a part of The Tracey Ullman Show in 1989, Matt Groening and his apparently clairvoyant team of animators, actors, and showrunners have been famously heralded for their alleged psychic powers. Over the show's 30 odd seasons, The Simpsons has been credited with predicting several global events, but can the beloved cartoon actually foresee the future? Or does life merely keep imitating Matt Groening's art, a question that has been applied to Donald Trump's presidency, the Capitol insurrection, and as of recently, certified good guy Tom Hanks.

Last week, the actor took a break from his busy schedule of existing as a national treasure and doing his damndest to keep tabs on the absolute force of chaos that is his son Chet Hanks, to appear in a video commemorating Joe Biden's first year as President of the United States.
Sue B. Donnelly, 87, of Crossville, passed away at her home on April 26, 2022. She was born on May 18, 1934, in Crossville, Tennessee, daughter of the late James T. Brandon and Clara (Hamby) Brandon. Sue was the owner of Boats and Harbors and of the Baptist Faith. She is survived by her chil
Pakistan was conceived as a geographical entity with an Islamic identity. Its founding leaders were helped by the fact that the departing British and their American cousins understood early the strategic significance of Pakistans geographical location. Located southeast of the Soviet Union, southwest of China, west of India, east of Iran and the Arab states and at the head of the Arabian Sea, West Pakistan was geo-strategically blessed throughout the Cold War era. It first became a military ally of the United States and then enjoyed the benefits of a menage-a-trois during Americas honeymoon with China.

The loss of the eastern flank in 1971 coincided with the increased importance of the western flanks geo-strategic importance during the US-China entente cordiale and the subsequent US War on Terror. Little wonder then that the recently published National Security Policy of Pakistan 2022-2026 (NSPP) repeatedly uses the term geo-strategic, to underline the continued relevance of Pakistan to its region and to the world.

The world, however, is rapidly changing. The Americans retreat from Afghanistan, the Russia-China condominium in Eurasia, the emerging new equations in West Asia and Indias own rise, even if it has faltered more recently, have combined to reduce Pakistans geopolitical relevance to the Big Powers. The influence recently acquired in Afghanistan is a mixed blessing for Pakistan. Indeed, the return of the Taliban to power next door could exacerbate Pakistans internal security threats arising out of Islamic radicalism, terrorism and violent sub-nationalisms, as the NSPP states.

So, how does Pakistan reinvent the relevance of its geography and boost its national security given the emerging multipolar balance of power system? In the words of Moeed Yusuf, Pakistans national security adviser, the NSPP offers a geo-economic paradigm that supplements its geo-strategic approach. The essence of this geo-economic paradigm consists in positioning Pakistan as an economic link between Eurasia and maritime Asia (West Asia and Southeast Asia), Africa and Europe.

Our geo-economically pivotal location, the NSPP declares, in an economically and strategically relevant region affords Pakistan the ability to offer itself as a melting pot of regional and global economic interests through connectivity initiatives. Elsewhere, the document says: Pakistans location at the crossroads of historic confluence provides unique opportunities amidst regional and global competition, especially as a hub for connecting important economic and resource-rich regions.

If during the Cold War era and during the War on Terror Pakistan had used its geography as a military ally of the Big Powers, in the emerging multipolar world it seeks to deploy its geography as an economic hub. Pakistans geo-economic pivot, says the NSPP is focused on enhancing trade and economic ties through connectivity that links Central Asia to our warm waters. The authors of the NSPP want Pakistan to take advantage of its geo-economically pivotal location to operate as a production, trade and investment and connectivity hub for our wider region to strengthen our economic security.

However, to be able to make use of this geo-economic opportunity, says the NSPP, Pakistan has to modernise its economy and invest in the education and welfare of its people. Many are unaware today that till the 1980s Pakistans economy had outperformed Indias. Indias economic rise really began in the 1980s, while Pakistan consistently fell behind over the next two decades. While it saw an improvement in its economic fortunes during the years that Gen. Pervez Musharraf was in power, there has been a downward slide since then.

For this reason, the NSPP states clearly that Pakistans vital national security interests are best served by placing economic security as the core element of national security. The document seeks an improvement in Pakistans external economic balances and a reduction on both inter-class and inter-regional inequalities within the country. The policy focus is on offering Pakistan as a base for foreign investment, presumably by China, the West Asian states, European Union nations and other capital surplus economies.

Fiscal reform, the ease of doing business and investments in the skilling of the local population aimed at increasing inward remittances through the export of skilled labour figure prominently in the NSPPs to-do list. The NSPP has several other policy recommendations in the areas of economic and defence policy, information technology, space and cyber capability, the blue economy, shipbuilding and so on.

While the NSPP makes all the expected statements about India that would naturally irritate Indian readers, it should be clear to both the documents authors and its readers that Pakistan cannot operationalise its proposed geo-economic pivot without establishing stable and good relations with India. For this reason, the NSPP could be viewed as an indication of new thinking in Pakistan on relations with India, and not dismissed as old wine in new bottles, as some have done.

The document is candid in its admission of the internal security challenges facing Pakistan. Indeed, they are no different from Indias own internal security challenges, shaped by poor governance, lack of economic opportunities, threats ranging from sectarianism, violent sub-nationalism, extremism, narcotics and organised crime and terrorism. While India points fingers at Pakistan over cross-border terrorism, with some solid evidence, the NSPP does a tit-for-tat without evidence.

Interestingly, while the NSPP has received much attention in India, with several policy analysts commenting on it, in Pakistan itself there have been many critics. The highly regarded Pakistani journalist Najam Sethi has dismissed the document as an under-graduates term paper.

Whatever the merits and drawbacks, the Imran Khan government should be complimented for producing a medium-term vision for the country that is focused on national economic development as a route to enhanced national security. The government has made the summary document public, perhaps partly to please creditor nations and institutions to whom Pakistan is at present heavily indebted.

It wants them to know that their dollars, riyal and yuan will be put to good use.

Indias National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) had also produced a national security strategy paper as early as in 2000. This columnist wrote its chapter on economic security. Alas, successive governments have kept it and subsequent papers of the NSAB under wraps. India too deserves an informed debate on what policies would enhance national security and what are in fact harming it.
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In the arsenal of cybersecurity defenses is the exercise that goes by the name of red team/blue team simulated attack. These simulations are designed to closely mimic real-world conditions. For example, one red team member might take on the role of an employee clicking on a phishing link that deposits malware on the network. The defending team members must then find this malware before it spreads across their network and infects web servers and other applications. To make things more realistic, the simulation replays real network traffic to obscure the attacks, just like in the real world.

Lets talk about the red and blue designations. Red team members usually play the role of attackers and try to overcome security protocols. They use the same tools and techniques that attackers use, similar to how penetration testers operate but on a much broader scale.

Red teams dont just test for vulnerabilities, but do so using the tools, tips and techniques of their likely threat actors, and in campaigns that run continuously for an extended period of time, wrote Daniel Miessler, a security consultant who has witnessed numerous red/blue exercises, in a blog post. A great red team can be an early warning system to find common origins of attacks and to track an adversarys techniques.

John, a retired IBM architect who has worked in large IT shops, tells CSO that threats are going to emerge that red teams will never test for. There are threats that can overwhelm blue teams and possibly put companies out of business.

According to Cris Thomas, global lead of strategy for IBM X-Force Red consulting organization, Some companies just think about red teams in terms of a physical security break-in.

The blue team is composed of the defenders, modeled after internal security teams that are now found in numerous IT shops. What makes for a great blue team is their mental state, having a proactive mindset, endless curiosity and continuous improvement in terms of detection and response, wrote Miessler.

The red/blue dichotomy is somewhat misleading. To really conduct one of these simulations, two more teams should be involved:

A white team is composed of the network owners, the IT administrators who run the equipment and create the scripts for performing the simulations. Some exercises come with pre-built scripts while others build their own.

A gold team has the subject matter experts who are consultants to the exercises and could involve security vendor representatives, legal advisors and perform specialized tasks such as digital forensics.

A note about purple teams

Lets also talk about the color purple. This carries several different meanings, depending on how this team is constructed. The color gives you the idea that this is a combination of both red and blue teams, so that both can collaborate and improve their skills. This combination could mean that there are representatives from both sides working together on the exercise, or even as part of their jobs.

That may not be as effective as having the same people having both mindsets. Miessler likened this to waiters who dont deliver food at restaurants because it isnt their job. He has seen organizations where the red team thinks itself too elite to share information with the blue team, or they arent designed to interact with each other, or that IT doesnt see both teams as part of the same effort.

Last summer, I attended the annual National Guard CyberShield event in Utah, where over the course of two weeks it conducts a simulated attack that is coordinated across 40 local Guard units. The units are split into red and blue teams with more than 800 members spread around the country. The Guard purposely schedules a purple day where both red and blue teams mingle with each other and collaborate to share tips and techniques.

We know that the threat actors are collaborating way better than we are, and this gives us a chance for us to work closely with our partners and in realistic scenarios and build trust and deeper relationships, says Lt. Col. Brad Rhodes, the officer in charge of the event. This building of trust is important because you want teams to learn from each other, rather than depend on a single analyst who may or may not be on duty or leave the Guard when an actual threat occurs. Rhodes has led six CyberShield exercises and works full time as head of IT security for Zvelo.

Walmart has both full-time internal blue and red team members. We also periodically bring in outside blue and red team information security professionals to consult and we are starting to use a purple team approach to share our experiences. The two meet several times per month to help drive constant improvement for both teams, and we have seen fantastic collaboration between the two as they recognize they can drive more value to the organization, says Jason ODell, vice president of security operations at Walmart.

Steps to design red team/blue team exercises

Here are some things to consider when designing your own exercise:

Decide what you will do in-house and what you will hire out. Do you need a specialized red team vendor? Do you already have full-time infosec staff that can act as a blue team? Can you use a pre-built cyber range that has everything set up a certain way?

Part of this decision is understanding the required skill sets for all team members. A crucial skill for both teams is the desire to learn and be continuously curious, says Walmarts ODell.

Retired architect John agrees: The ability to act quickly and effectively to any vulnerability is an absolute requirement these days. He has never seen a company with a true red team. Most of the time, this is outsourced to a consulting firm. Doing it in-house is hard, because of the difficulty in finding people with the exceptional skill levels needed for the job and then retaining them. If the red team is really effective, I can see them having a hard time growing their careers in the firm.

Pick your simulation tools. Another way to phrase this is to decide on how realistic you want your exercise to be. Most of the time, these exercises wont be done against production systems, so figure out what you will simulate or if you will use a cyber range (and usually not an exact replica of your running systems).

For the Guards CyberShield, they used the Persistent Cyber Training Exercise (PCTE) cloud-based simulation environment that was developed for the Defense Department. The CyberShield event is the largest operation conducted across this network, consuming more than 3,000 virtual machines and a petabyte of storage.

Formulate your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? Find weak spots? Shore up your defenses? Improve IT/end user collaboration? Identify working and failed security controls? The goal of these exercises is that more realism the better prepared everyone can be for the real attack, which gets back to the previous issue.

At the 2020 CyberShield, the red team built a piece of malware that eventually was posted on VirusTotal, according to one Guard participant I interviewed. It was real enough when it then got picked up by Russian hackers which used it in the wild. Fortunately, its creator had placed a kill switch to neutralize it.

Goals are critical, as Peter Kaloroumakis of MITRE, told me. We see cases where red teams are able to successfully achieve their technical objectives but miss opportunities to have broader impact. Red or purple teams discover new information. It is essential they also engage infrastructure and architecture teams who develop strategic plans to improve security posture. It is easy to focus on specific configuration changes, but sometimes there are architectural changes which might address root cause issues.

Decide how you will collect the data from the exercise and how you will conduct your post-mortem analysis. A big part of that is reporting on the level of communication amongst your teams. Architect John says, The biggest problem I've seen here is language/communications and poor teamwork. In the era of outsourcing teams can be from different locations, speak different languages and so forth. If people cannot understand each other, that is a big problem during and after the exercise.

Pick your time frame. The timing of your exercise varies tremendously. IBMs Thomas says, Some companies buy a subscription service from IBM and do constant retesting of a mobile app as they are developing it, through either nightly builds or a regular milestone.

The Guard needs two weeks every year because it is also conducting training exercises, so that participants can take COMPTIA and other certification classes in addition to running the CyberShield simulations. We conduct multiple tabletop and threat simulation exercises each year. In addition, our Red Team runs numerous full adversarial engagements every year. Sometimes these engagements will blend together, says Walmarts ODell. The ideal situation is to continuously probe your systems, but certainly stick to a schedule and just dont react to a failed security audit.

Designing the most effective red/blue exercise means being clear on a lot of non-technical points, as you can see. Make sure you pay equal attention to both the technical and non-technical issues.
The crackdown on members of the REvil ransomware gang by agents of the Kremlin's domestic security force January 14 is sending a wave of distress and dread through the Russian hacker underground, according to researchers at Trustwave's SpiderLabs.

"What our researchers found was a great deal of anxiety and consternation from those who participate in these Dark Web forums regarding the FSB arrests and how those actions will impact them in the future," Trustwave noted Friday in a company blog post.

"The comments mentioned a general fear of being arrested, the possibility that their homeland is no longer a safe haven, and that cooperation with the United States and Russia will be a problem for their operations going forward," the blog added.

It cited one forum member declaring: This is a big change. I have no desire to go to jail.

Russia acting on ransomware is rare

After nearly a week of monitoring chatter on Russian hacker forums, we noticed a huge change from the past in tone among the members of the online meeting sites, says SpiderLabs vice president of security research Ziv Mador.

"In the past, cybercriminals felt very safe in Russia," he says. "As long as they didn't attack local targets, they felt they'd be fine. Russian cybercriminals had been arrested traveling outside the country, but this time they were arrested in Russian cities," he continues. "That was a shocking moment for them."

Russia acting on any cybercrime report, especially ransomware, is especially rare," adds John Bambenek, principle threat hunter at Netenrich, an IT and digital security operations company. "Unless it involves child exploitation or Chechens, cooperation with the FSB just doesnt happen."

Was the Russian raid a show for international consumption?

There were some skeptics of the significance of the REvil raid in the forums monitored by SpiderLabs. One forum member raised the possibility that the FSB operation was, in fact, faked or was only a show for international consumption, Trustwave noted. This thought allowed them to hold out hope that the FSBs move would not end with serious punishments for the arrestees.

"It is doubtful that this represents a major change in Russias stance to criminal activity within its bordersunless they target Russian citizensand more that their diplomatic position is untenable, and they needed to sacrifice a few expendables to stall more serious geopolitical pressure," Bambenek maintains.

"In three months, if there isnt another major arrest, it's safe to assume no real change has happened with Russias approach," Bambenek said. "Nevertheless, its a big arrest and will have significant short-term impact to reduce ransomware."

REvil had been inactive for months

The fact that the FSB targeted REvil, which had not been publicly active in conducting attacks since October 2021, is also significant, adds Chris Morgan, a senior cyber threat intelligence analyst with Digital Shadows, provider of digital risk protection solutions. "It's possible that the FSB raided REvil knowing that the group was high on the priority list for the U.S., while considering that their removal would have a small impact on the current ransomware landscape," he says.

Dirk Schrader, global vice president at New Net Technologies, a provider of IT security and compliance software, adds that only time will tell if the REvil raid will decrease ransomware attacks. "It is too early to say whether such a level of international cooperation will turn into systemic efforts to put an end to widespread ransomware attacks," he says. "Only consistent, united efforts to deprive the attackers of any safe harbor can ensure long term results."
The UK governments Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has announced a new partnership with Australia to strengthen global technology supply chains and tackle actors who disrupt cyberspace. The partnership comes following vital defence and security talks between the two nations and highlights the ongoing significance of supply chain cyberthreats.

UK-Australia partnership reflects shared security standards

The UKs foreign secretary, Liz Truss, and Australias foreign minister, Marise Payne, agreed the Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership during the Australia UK Foreign and Defence Ministerial meetings (AUKMIN) in Sydney last week. The partnership includes provisions to build greater resilience to ransomware amongst Indo-Pacific nations and sharpen legal sanctions against cyber attackers. It will also deepen practical co-operation to ensure technology standards reflect the shared values of the UK and Australia, support the development of a network that will deter cyberattacks, and call out actors who perpetrate such acts.

As champions of freedom and democracy, the UK and Australia are hard-headed in defending our values and challenging unfair practices and malign acts, commented Truss. In the battlegrounds of the future, cutting edge technologies will be crucial in the fight against malign cyber actors who threaten our peace and security. The UK and Australia have agreed a new cyber and technology partnership to ensure that liberal democracies shape the technology rules of tomorrow, she added.

Supply chain cyberthreats continue to plague organisations

The partnership is an indicator of the ongoing cybersecurity risks posed by supply chains, a trend cited in the UK National Cyber Security Centres (NCSC) 2021 Annual Review, published last November. In the report, the NCSC named the SolarWinds compromise and the exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Servers  both the result of supply chain attacks  as significant markers of the cyberthreats faced by businesses. These sophisticated attacks, which saw actors target less-secure elements  such as managed service providers or commercial software platforms  in the supply chain of economic, government, and national security institutions were two of the most serious cyber intrusions ever observed by the NCSC, the review read. Supply chain incidents highlight the viability, effectiveness, and global reach of supply chain operations as a means of compromising comparatively well-defended targets, the NCSC added. Further such operations are almost certain over the next 12 months, it warned.

The review also outlined the work the NCSC did throughout 2021 to protect the UK from supply chain risks, particularly those surrounding the COVID-19 health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic created new areas of vulnerability, in creating a new requirement to protect and secure vaccine and health sector supply chains, it said.

The scope of the NCSCs work to protect the UKs response to COVID-19 went beyond traditional healthcare and supported sectors not previously seen as critical parts of the infrastructure, such as manufacturers of ventilators and PPE, care homes, and supermarkets and their respective supply chains. In total, the NCSC engaged with approximately 5,000 organisations providing an essential service during the pandemic. The NCSC liaised with manufacturers and other associated companies within overseas supply chains, assessing their cybersecurity, and offering protective advice, it said. This included leveraging a network of international partners to work with 13 countries, as well as directly engaging companies and organisations including the World Health Organisation. It also shared threat information where possible, to raise awareness of the risks to supply chains, and worked closely with the UKs Vaccines Task Force.
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BRIDGEPORT  Talk of bonuses for public employees who worked during the pandemic has left as many questions as answers.

Ongoing union calls to give city workers premium or hero pay have been expanded to teachers. The bonuses could come from federal pandemic aid, though whos eligible, for how much and from which bucket  the citys or school boards  remains unclear.

The mayors office and City Council have signaled theyre on board with the bonuses, while the Board of Education has only recently taken up the mantle. But teachers tell Hearst Connecticut Media they deserve to be in the mix.

We kept the community going, said Ana Batista, president of the Bridgeport Education Association, the local teachers union. We came in there and worked, and we deserve the premium pay.

Batista was among the Bridgeport educators who reported to classrooms throughout the spring of 2020. She said others were there too, and many distributed computers, delivered materials to student homes and gave out masks and books at local events.

More teachers returned to in-person classes last school year, she said, before they became vaccine-eligible in March. And some teachers still have concerns about contracting the virus or bringing it home to their families.

Were still in this pandemic, Batista said. Look at how high the numbers have been, and our teachers have been going in recognizing the best quality education we can give is in person.

As of Friday, 195 staff and 788 students had reported positive COVID-19 cases since the start of the school year, according to district data. More than 150 and 650 of those infections have been since mid-November, when cases started to creep up statewide.

The Bridgeport Board of Education took up the topic of extra pay at a public meeting recently.

I think theres still some questions that need to be answered, and also some questions as to what that would look like, and what that means  the impact on children, Superintendent Michael Testani said.

Board members shared concerns that funds for the bonuses could otherwise be spent on students, and suggested the subject first be tackled by the boards finance committee.

This issue is going to become one of emotions, said Joe Sokolovic, who heads that committee. While our staff is deserving of compensation, the matter is not could we, the matter is should we because every dollar has to come from somewhere.

Sokolovic told Hearst Connecticut hed wait until after the finance meeting this week to comment further.

I think about possible objections that could be brought forward with something like this, said Joseph Lombard, the board secretary. Something like this thats meant to be a positive thing could be complicated by such questions as what to do about retired employees or those who left the district.

Testani had additional questions at the meeting about what time frame would render a teacher eligible, and who was in school buildings or coming into direct contact with others. He told Hearst Connecticut that the schools could benefit from more time to ask questions and digest it.

I think theres full support of recognizing what folks did during the pandemic for students and families, Testani said.

The superintendent was only aware of one other Board of Education in the state that had approved of bonuses  Stamford, where teachers were awarded $500 each from COVID funds. New Canaan, too, agreed to give district teachers up to $1,000 in bonuses out of the towns general fund.

We think a lot of towns  leaning more toward urban centers and older suburbs  are considering it, said Kevin Maloney, spokesperson for the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. Bridgeport may be further along the lines of doing it.

Maloney added that essential workers and premium pay are under the eligible categories for COVID-relief funds, and the organization of municipal leaders was aware of unions pushing for it.

The City Council first pushed the Ganim administration to issue the bonuses over the summer. Later, some members joined with local unions representing personnel from the Board of Education, public facilities, the police and fire departments, and other agencies at a rally in November.

Councilman Scott Burns, a budget committee co-chair who has been closely involved in deciding how to spend pandemic aid, noted there are generally still decisions to be made about how to best distribute the bonuses.

Were kind of treading water, unfortunately, right now, Burns said.

City officials have been exploring how to award the pay, which like the school board also has its complications.

This is an employee-by-employee analysis to determine how much somebody worked (during the height of the pandemic), and what the risk was, said mayoral aid Tom Gaudett.

The city has been trying to come up with bonuses in the $1,000 to $2,000 range, Gaudett said, for those who worked a year starting in March 2020, including part-timers. There would likely be a process for those who worked some of that period but have since left the payroll, he said. Theyre also ironing out where those funds will come from.

Because we have union crossover  where there are employees that are part of the same union, but many work for the Board of Education, many work for the city  it makes sense the Board of Education and city cooperate together and come up with a plan thats consistent, so all employees are treated equally and fairly, Gaudett said.

The Bridgeport Union Coalition declined to address specific questions asked about bonus amounts or eligibility  out of respect for the diligent discussions our coalition is having with city and Board of Education representatives.

What we can say is that we started this campaign for pandemic hero pay as one and we will finish it together as one, said Larry Dorman, a spokesperson for AFSCME.

Sherrie Weller, president of the AFSCME Local 1522, whose members include public school employees, has previously said the bonuses would honor Eleanor DeShields, a paraprofessional at Wilbur Cross High School who died after her colleagues said she contracted the virus at work.

Conversations are ongoing and appear unlikely to conclude soon. The school board moved the matter to its finance committee, which meets on Wednesday. After that, final decisions are expected to return to the full board, where the larger group could vote on Feb. 15.
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FAIRFIELD  A man arrested after a now viral tirade in which he reportedly berated teenage employees of a local smoothie shop has been fired from his role at Merrill Lynch.

James Iannazzo, 48, is no longer employed at the investment management firm, according to a statement Monday from its spokesperson. According to his LinkedIn profile, Iannazzo was a wealth management advisor and managing director and had been with the company for 26 years.

Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind, the company said in its statement. We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm.

Iannazzo is now facing multiple charges including criminal trespass and breach of peace for his alleged actions at the Robeks on Black Rock Turnpike, police said.

A video of the altercation has been viewed millions of times on social media. In a statement Sunday, Iannazzos attorney, Frank J. Riccio Jr., said Iannazzo wholeheartedly regrets the incident.

In a new statement Monday, Iannazzo said his actions at the smoothie shop were wrong, and again said he regrets them.

They do not reflect my values or my character, he said in the statement. I feel terrible that I lost my composure so completely.

Iannazzo said he returned to the Robeks to find out what ingredients were used in the smoothie. He said he made the regrettable comments because his 17-year-old son was taken to the hospital suffering with life-threatening anaphylactic shock.

Iannazzo said his son collapsed on the ground after drinking a smoothie from Robeks, which he alleged contained some sort of nut product, adding he had advised the staff of his sons nut allergy when he had ordered.

After he started to drink his smoothie, my son lost the capacity to breathe properly; his lips and face swelled up, and he required an EpiPen shot, but it did not offer him relief. I called 911, Iannazzo said in the statement. My son then went to the bathroom, threw up and fell unconscious to the floor. He threw up again. My wife gave him another EpiPen while I called 911 again.

Iannazzo said his son is doing okay now, later adding the medical situation was the worst nightmare of every parent whose child has a similar allergy.

I was out of my mind with fear for him when I returned to Robeks, and I wish I had not done so. I also wish they had been more careful preparing my sons beverage, he said in the statement. I will be extending my apologies personally to the Robeks organization, particularly the staff that was working there that night.

Fairfield Police said they received numerous calls around 2:30 p.m. from employees of Robeks, who reported that an irate customer was throwing things, yelling at employees and refusing to leave.

Police said a subsequent investigation showed that Iannazzo had made a purchase at the store an hour earlier. At approximately 1:39 p.m., police said Iannazzo called 911 to request emergency medical attention to his home for a child suffering from an allergic reaction.

The child was later transported to a hospital, police said.

Police said Iannazzo then returned to the store and confronted employees, demanding to know who had made the smoothie.

Employees could not respond and Iannazzo became increasingly angry, using expletives and throwing a drink at an employee that hit their right shoulder. Iannazzo also made comments toward an employee referencing their immigration status, police said.

Employees told Iannazzo to leave multiple times, but he remained inside and continued to yell insults, police said.

He then attempted to open a locked door to access the Employees Only area, according to police.

Though Iannazzo left the store before police arrived, he was identified shortly after, they said. Iannazzo turned himself in without incident and told police he was upset about his son having a severe allergic reaction, police said.

Employees told police that Iannazzo had not told them about the peanut allergy, only requesting that no peanut butter was put in his drink.

In a statement on Monday, Robeks Spokesperson Barbara Caruso said the companys priority is to protect both store team members and guests.

The company and its franchisees have a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior, and we are thankful that the franchisees team members were not physically hurt, she said. We appreciate the swift action by law enforcement and the judicial system in pursuing criminal charges for this unacceptable behavior.

Iannazzo was arrested and charged with second-degree breach of peace, first degree criminal trespass, and intimidation based on bigotry or bias.

He is set to appear in Bridgeport Superior Court on Feb. 7.

Riccio Jr. said in his statement that Iannazzos parental instinct kicked in during the incident, adding he acted out of anger and fear.

He is not a racist individual and deeply regrets his statements and actions during a moment of extreme emotional stress, he said.

joshua.labella@hearstmediact.com
Brian A. Pounds / Hearst Connecticut Media

SHELTON  A Derby man remains in the hospital after a shooting over the weekend that remains under investigation, according to police officials.

Lt. Robert Kozlowsky said on Monday that the 28-year-old victim continues to receive treatment at the hospital.
American public schools average over $12,000 a year per student spent on K-12 funding  the fifth-highest total among the 38 generally affluent nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD. However, compared to most industrialized nations, U.S. public-school funding is one of the most inequitable.

Many Americans appear troubled about this issue. For nearly two decades, when answering an open-ended survey question about the most significant problem their local schools encounter, Americans cited insufficient funding. A century ago, that was hardly the case.

Schooling for us and them

In the 1920s, political leaders believed it was necessary that whites remain residentially separate from poor, racial and ethnic groups. Support for this policy was particularly apparent in a city like Chicago, where following the Great Migration of southern Blacks, there were many incidents of racial violence that frightened white inhabitants.

The Chicago Real Estate Board responded by advocating racially restrictive covenants among homeowners, forbidding racial/ethnic minorities from moving into their areas. The agreements became a source of civil pride. A local newspaper triumphantly declared that the covenants stretched like a marvelously woven chain of armor from the northern gates of Hyde Park  [to] all the far-flung white communities of the South Side. Since the U.S., unlike most other affluent nations, determines childrens access to public schools based on where they live, racial/ethnic segregation of schooling in these locales was assured.

Then in the 1930s, the federal government took a decisive step that further solidified racial/ethnic school segregation. A practice called redlining involves marking in red on maps the residential areas believed too risky for government-backed home loans. Officials used race, income and other demographic factors to designate redlined areas.

Throughout the U.S., bankers accepted the recommendations, further restricting racial/ethnic minorities access to home loans allowing them to move into more affluent school districts. Those disadvantages persist. Recent research has revealed the stark fact that across the nation school districts where most students are people of color receive $23 billion less than those where the majority are white. That means the average nonwhite student receives about $2,200 less school funding than a white counterpart. Minority students living in wealthy states usually arent better off. In Connecticut, for example, the difference in school funding for districts where 75 percent of the students are people of color compared to those that are 75 percent white is $2,300 per child.

A frontal attack

Using Connecticut as an example, two urban educators have cited measures to compensate for reduced school funding. First, because of historic discrimination, Black children in Connecticut live in families with considerably less taxable income than whites, restricting the states contribution to their school funding. The researchers concluded that promoting equality involves making up the difference  nearly $1,600 per child.

Second, Black-owned homes in the state are worth on average $250,000 compared to over $420,000 for whites. Local districts in Connecticut perversely compensate for racial/ethnic minorities lower property-tax payments by assessing them at a higher rate. The researchers indicate that these homeowners should receive a rebate for what they label the discriminatory Black Tax  slightly over $1,800 for a residence valued at $250,000.

Like American public school funding overall, the Black Tax materialized with little publicity in a political system that affluent whites controlled. To reform this destructive system requires the opposite  an aroused, even furious public presence. As Paul F. Cummins, an activist educator/writer, has said, money cant eliminate all educational inequities, but very few  can be solved without increased dollars.

Following the lead of other affluent nations, the U.S. sorely needs what Cummins called a new trinity for educational support, establishing a financial priority that is fair, national and committed to the long haul. He proposed a sharply accelerated $40,000 per year allotted per student and asserted that diverse citizen groups must become deeply involved, demanding that various foundations, bipartisan Congressional committees, unions, corporate leaders and think-tank scholars  accept this funding goal. It would be a promising start.

Chris Doob is an emeritus professor of sociology at Southern Connecticut State University and the author of a variety of books involving sociology and sports. He can be reached at doobc1@southernct.edu.
China-aided food supplies transported to Afghan provinces: official

Xinhua) 08:50, January 24, 2022

Workers load China-aided humanitarian food supplies onto a truck in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jan. 22, 2022. Afghanistan's caretaker government began to deliver the China-aided humanitarian food supplies on Saturday to at least 10 provinces of the country's 34 provinces, an official said Saturday.

The supplies including 440 tons of rice will be shipped by 20 trucks to 10 most vulnerable provinces, Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, told Xinhua here.

China has recently sent batches of humanitarian assistance including foodstuff, COVID-19 vaccines and winter clothes to the Central Asian country. (Photo by Saifurahman Safi/Xinhua)

KABUL, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's caretaker government began to deliver the China-aided humanitarian food supplies on Saturday to at least 10 provinces of the country's 34 provinces, an official said Saturday.

The supplies including 440 tons of rice will be shipped by 20 trucks to 10 most vulnerable provinces, Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation, told Xinhua here.

He also said that other shipments of the China-aided humanitarian food supplies will be transported to other provinces in the coming days.

Haqqani said that Afghanistan had received several batches of humanitarian supplies donated by China, and that the ministry was sending the material aid to the vulnerable people in the country's 34 provinces. He expressed gratitude to China for the humanitarian assistance.

Recently, thousands of needy people in several Afghan provinces received China-aided relief items. In Faryab province, 1,100 destitute people who were surveyed and registered by officials from the provincial directorate of refugees and repatriation received the assistance packages in Maimana, the capital of northern Faryab province, on Jan. 10, head of the directorate Saifuddin Jahadi told Xinhua.

The non-food packages included blankets, winter jackets and washing soaps, he said.

"I appreciate China's help so much. The winter assistance has solved a lot of our problems in these cold and difficult days. The Chinese people has been a good neighbor and friend for long," local resident Attiqullah told Xinhua after receiving a package.

In Kunduz province, about 300 people received similar assistance packages on Jan. 10, according to Matihullah Rohani, head of the provincial directorate of culture and information.

Since Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, the impoverished country has suffered economic woes.

China has recently sent batches of humanitarian assistance including foodstuff, COVID-19 vaccines and winter clothes to the Central Asian country.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
From the Baileys

During the event, a statement from Sydney and the Bailey family was shared with the crowd.

"We would like to first express our sincere condolences to the family of Marlene Rittmanic. May her beautiful light continue to shine in the lives of every single she impacted and she loved.

"We would also like to thank Melissa Curtis, Lauren Duffield and Melany Jacobson for planning, hard work and dedication and love that theyve put into this event.

"They are true inspiration that friendship and family, it knows no bounds. This wouldnt be happening without this power trio and the help of our family and friends.

"We would also like to thank Tom Spellman, [co-owner of Hoppy Pig, sponsor of the event] all of the fundraising efforts on his part, and the unwavering support for Tyler and our family, constantly.

"Wed like to take a moment to recognize the people who have helped us day in and day out. Wed like every single first responder to raise your hand.

"Wed like to especially thank each and every one of you for your daily sacrifice.

"We would like to thank the community and the overwhelming support of every single person that is here today, and to those who couldnt be here today as well. The gratitude that we feel towards each and every one of you is immeasurable.

"We are happy to announce that Tyler is no longer considered critical and hes out of the ICU. He is no longer fighting for his life, but he is fighting for his life back. We expect a vigorous rehab in his near future and an extremely long road to, what we hope to be, a full recovery.

"From the bottom of our hearts, thank you to everyone here tonight. It means that absolute world to us and more."
Janessa Voyce, a freshman at the University of Oregon studying music composition, sat in her History 203 class learning about how Americas early labor movements went down in history. Little did her classmates know, she was making history herself at the local Starbucks where she works.

Employees of the Starbucks at East 29th and Willamette in Eugene began discussing unionizing after a store in Buffalo, New York became the first Starbucks store to unionize in December 2021. Voyce, a barista at the 29th and Willamette Starbucks, said unionizing did not seem like an option until she heard the Buffalo stores success story.

If triumphant, Voyces store would be the first Starbucks to unionize in Oregon. Our main goal is to really make sure we have a voice that can be heard by the company through unionism, she said.

It only took three days to get 23 out of the stores 25 employees to sign a petition to become unionized, Ky Fireside, a barista at the East 29th and Willamette Starbucks, said. The two employees that did not sign were out of town and on a leave of absence, Fireside said.

Concerns over Starbucks COVID-19 policies and low pay motivated the stores employees to attempt unionizing, Fireside said.

Jake LaMourie, a barista at the East 29th and Willamette Starbucks, said he left his previous Starbucks store in Portland due to its unsafe COVID-19 practices and filed for unemployment benefits, which is allowed under federal law. However, Starbucks threatened to take him to court for doing so, he said.

LaMourie and Fireside said baristas cannot advocate for higher pay without organizing.

There's just no way for us to talk to them, Fireside said of Starbucks corporate powers. The union would provide that for us  it would provide some kind of seat at the table.

Starbucks union-busting efforts in Buffalo also drove its stores unionization, Fireside said.

I've watched the company go downhill in seven years, Fireside said. We watched what was happening in Buffalo, and I think if they had just been allowed to unionize  if Starbucks would have voluntarily recognized their union  I would have looked at it and went, Oh, that's cool. That's nice. But instead, Starbucks put up this huge fight, and it pissed me off.

Starbucks Executive Vice President Rossann Williams released a statement about the Buffalo store on Dec. 20, 2021.

From the beginning, weve been clear in our belief that we do not want a union between us as partners, and that conviction has not changed, Williams said. However, we have also said that we respect the legal process. This means we will bargain in good faith with the union that represents partners in the one Buffalo store that voted in favor of union representation.

LaMourie said he has been interested in unionizing at other stores hes worked at for years, but he felt the conditions were not right for such an effort until he entered the supportive environment of the East 29th and Willamette Starbucks.

Our manager is awesome, Fireside said. And because of that, we have a bunch of really seasoned people at our stores. We don't have high turnover. It's not just a bunch of really young kids. We have people that have made a career out of Starbucks. We have three partners that have been there over 15 years.

The baristas said the response from customers has been overwhelmingly positive. It's been five to 10 people a day, from unions, just customers, regulars and people who've seen us in media, just like, I'm so excited to see you doing this. Congratulations. Let me know if there's anything you need, which has been awesome, LaMourie said.

Voyce said her history class has helped her learn more about the unionization process her Starbucks is undertaking.

I've been getting involved behind the scenes of organizing and want to do more community outreach, Voyce said. So I find that it's something that I really care about, and something that really does help level the playing field between us, the workers and the real higher-ups  the corporate up there.

Voyce said she thinks more people her age should be thinking about unionizing at their workplace, even if they are not in long-term careers yet.

Before the store can vote on joining the labor union Workers United, the employees will undergo a legal hearing on Jan. 28 at 9 a.m. They will hold a rally in support of their unionization on Jan. 27 at 11 a.m. at their store, located at 2830 Willamette Street in Eugene.
STREET STYLE

Four fashion forward students prove why they are the faces of UOs student fashion scene.

(From left to right): Tevon Phomphakdy, Gabe Lopez, Sydney Chen and Kennedy Hjelte pose for a group photo in front of a green backdrop in the studio. (Sammie Claire // The Daily Emerald)

Just a casual stroll down East 13th Avenue through the center of the UO campus will expose you to the many walks of life that make up our student life. This strip of campus can seem like a runway, brimming with fashionable students who strut the streets and make a statement with their unique styles and trendy outfits. The Emerald profiled four students who embody what it means to bring style and flair to UO. Gaining inspiration from social media and expressing their identity through fashion, these students use their style as a way to show the world who they are.

Tevon Phomphakdy: swagger

Freshman studying human physiology

Tevon Phomphakdy says these jeans (left picture) are actually two pairs of denim jeans with different washes sewn together. (Sammie Claire // The Daily Emerald)

A vintage outerwear jacket, simple tee, cargo pants and a flashy pair of Nike Dunks. This trendy and eye-catching streetwear vintage style is the true language of Tevon Phomphakdy. Thrifted items and hand-me-down pieces are the main ingredients in his look.

Emerald: When did you first become interested in fashion and more conscious of your style?

Phomphakdy: I think it would definitely have to be my junior year of high school, when COVID-19 first started off. I started going on TikTok a lot and got a lot of inspiration from there. I just wanted to have a better appearance since in middle school and the first part of high school I just wore shorts and a T-shirt  it was really bad.

E: How would you describe your fashion sense?

TP: I would describe my style as streetwear based, mainly vintage street style. I usually go thrifting, and I dont try to go for pieces that are too expensive  I try to keep it low budget, but I still have some items that are up in price. Most of the time I wear Blazers, Dunks and Jordan 1s.

E: When buying new clothing and constructing outfits, where do you find inspiration for your style?

TP: Honestly, TikTok. I see all these other people wearing different style clothing, and I try to piece it together in my own head and see if I can replicate that, but in my own sense of style. Some styles wont work on me like others  theres a lot of trial and error.

E: What advice would you give to students who are trying to get into fashion?

TP: If you want to get into it, maybe first follow trends. Thats usually the easiest thing to do, and people will compliment you on it. Then as you go, you can implement your own style and what you want to do. Thats what I did going with vintage wear. My parents had a lot of vintage wear from the 80s, so I made that into my own style.

Kennedy Hjelte: glamorous

Sophomore studying sociology

Kennedy Hjelte's purple pants are her favorite pants. She got them from Zara and loves the crazy colorful vibe. She says they really fit her personal style. Her green shirt is from Shein. (Sammie Claire // The Daily Emerald)

Kennedy Hjelte is hard to miss. As someone heavily inspired by color and pop, she uses fashion as a way to make herself stand out from the crowd. Hjelte experienced a history of being restricted with her fashion choices, so college has allowed her to blossom into her own form.

Emerald: When did you first become interested in fashion and more conscious of your style?

Hjelte: Ive been doing pageantry for a really long time, and I think within those organizations they tell you to dress a certain way, so I never had my own style. I also think going to a private Catholic high school also altered the way that I dress, so Id say freshman year, a year ago.

E: How would you describe your fashion sense?

KH: I love color. I used to own a lot of black so I needed to get away from that. If I see a piece Ill be like thats super cute, and it doesnt always have to match each other, but it does to me. I think it looks cute and unique, so thats why I do it, to stand out.

E: When buying new clothing and constructing outfits, where do you find inspiration for your style?

KH: I follow a lot of models on Instagram, a lot of male models which is really interesting. Theres Ian Jeffrey  hes really cool. He just doesnt care what other people think.

E: What advice would you give to students who are trying to get into fashion?

KH: Honestly just to not care. I think thats really hard because people are going to look at you especially if youre wearing something out of your comfort zone. I just think not to care about what other people think and do what makes you happy.

Gabe Lopez: confident

Freshman studying business

Gabe wore a collection of jewelry to complement his outfit and add a sort of grunge vibe to his otherwise Earthy color choices. (Sammie Claire // The Daily Emerald)

A man who carries himself with confidence yet humbleness, Gabe Lopez has a natural flavor to his fashion sense, and its easy to see the pride he takes in his style. Lopez blends a vintage look with his skate-inspired roots, curating a palette of subtle tones with an on-the-go look. He advises students to express their identity through fashion.

Emerald: When did you first become interested in fashion and more conscious of your style?

Lopez: For me it definitely would have started in high school but not really until sophomore year. I really got into it just from growing up in Portland and having so many thrift spots around. I really got to have a great time finding these amazing pieces from the past that just got me so interested in it.

E: How would you describe your fashion sense?

GL: I define my style as definitely a vintage style. I feel like whenever Im wearing my clothes, usually I have a piece thats at least 20 years old on. Id say vintage and a mix of skate-wear, too. I grew up skating, so my first sense of style was a skate style, and that transitioned with vintage as well.

E: When buying new clothing and constructing outfits, where do you find inspiration for your style?

GL: Ill wake up and pick my outfit depending on what mood Im in. I always base my colors off of the mood Im in, but I never do too many bright colors.

E: What advice would you give to students who are trying to get into fashion?

GL: Definitely wear stuff that makes you happy and use it as a way to express your emotions. It can always bring out the true you and the true person you are in the clothes that youre wearing. Dont try to copy someone elses style because you think its cool  take inspiration but always do your own thing.

Sydney Chen: reborn

Sophomore studying human physiology

The necklaces Sydney is wearing in her photos were thrifted. (Sammie Claire // The Daily Emerald)

College was a major turning point for Sydney Chen. After realizing her true fashion identity and the real potential she had to up her style, she completely reinvented herself and never looked back. Today, she draws inspiration from Japanese fashion culture and encourages others to express themselves openly.

Emerald: When did you first become interested in fashion and more conscious of your style?

Chen: Pretty much all of high school, all I wore was sweatpants and hoodies because I had a boyfriend who really didnt want me dressing up. For all of high school I just convinced myself that I was like a tomboy who didnt care, but once I got out of that and got into college, I started realizing that I was actually the complete opposite. I really like dressing super girly and cute.

E: How would you describe your fashion sense?

SC: I feel like it varies, but the one Im in right now and like the most is very lightly inspired, cutesy, Japanese lolita. I wouldnt say kawaii, but like girly lolita-ish.

E: When buying new clothing and constructing outfits, where do you find inspiration for your style?

SC: I definitely use Instagram a lot. Its a platform where people usually go to post their outfits, so theres a lot of stuff on there. I follow a lot of people and a lot of magazine accounts that post that type of stuff, so I usually scroll through my feed and save things and use it for when Im shopping later.

E: What advice would you give to students who are trying to get into fashion?

SC: When I first switched from just PJs in high school to actually going all out in college, I felt so insecure. I felt like people were staring at me because I would try to be extra. But honestly, if it makes you happy, why does it matter? If people dress the way they feel and want to express and present themselves, you already know more about that person before you even say hello.
David Camerons new year began rather like the last one left off  with a new business headache.

The former PM, who spent much of 2021 defending his lobbying on behalf of the now-defunct finance company Greensill Capital, had to resolve a tricky problem with his own company.

Humiliatingly, Cameron, who as Prime Minister was also First Lord of the Treasury, was hit with a compulsory strike off order from Companies House for The Office of David Cameron.

The order was published on the Companies House website after Cameron, the sole shareholder, failed to provide the proper paperwork on time.

The former PM, who spent much of 2021 defending his lobbying on behalf of the now-defunct finance company Greensill Capital, had to resolve a tricky problem with his own company.

It was only after the documents, which show ownership details, were lodged with Companies House that the threat was removed.

Cameron held more than 873,000 equity in the company, according to the last accounts, which were posted in 2019.

Last year he moved to make the limited company unlimited, which means he will no longer have to publish detailed annual accounts.

As he reportedly earned around 7.2 million from lobbying ministers and civil servants for Greensill, its no wonder hed rather keep his earnings under wraps.

Overheard in the House of Commons: Boris cant possibly go. Who else could live with the hideous new decor in the Downing Street flat?

If Boris Johnson is toppled from power today, he will have clocked up two years and 184 days in No 10.

He will be only the 38th longest-serving prime minister of the 55 who have occupied the post since 1721, when Robert Walpole, regarded as the first de facto PM, took office.

Boris is currently directly behind Spencer Perceval, which is not a good look.

Perceval, who lasted two years and seven months, had an unhappy end. He was shot dead in the Commons lobby in 1812.

One Tory MP whos unlikely to have ever been moved by whips threats is current Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng

Tall order to scare Kwarteng

Government whips were accused of nefarious tactics by their backbenchers last week.

But one Tory MP whos unlikely to have ever been moved by whips threats is current Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.

Generally, my whips were a lot shorter than me, he says.

So Im not sure how the physical intimidation or other forms of intimidation would be effective.

Hes 6 ft 5 in.

Of course, whips have always been masters of the dark arts, even off duty. Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport, a booming-voiced junior whip from 1948 to 1951, once boarded a train at Crewe only to find there were no seats free. So he marched along the corridor calling All change!. When a carriage was clear, he took his seat.

His whipping career ended abruptly when he was ordered to stop MPs sneaking off during a vital vote. Seeing one apparently escaping, he called out and, when this had no effect, kicked his colleague firmly up the backside. Unfortunately it wasnt an MP  it was the Belgian ambassador.

I-Spy: in Parliament last week Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, sporting a badge bearing the initials TL. There was speculation that it stood for Tory leader. Zahawi is quick to deny it, however, stating that TL is for the T-Levels, the Governments new technical qualifications. He is being talked about as a possible PM candidate, albeit at 40-1 odds.

You beauty! How Helen beat Nicola

The Exchequer Secretary Helen Whately cheered Tories north of the border when she attended a Burns Night bash arranged by the London branch of the Scottish Conservatives, at the Cavalry and Guards Club last week.

As they tucked into their haggis, she revealed that she had once chalked up a notable victory over Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

When I got the invitation to speak, I did wonder if word had reached you about a shock poll result last year, she said. Anyone here who is an avid reader of the Doncaster Free Press will know that I was voted Britains fourth sexiest female politician.

That was an honour in itself, but what I was particularly pleased about is I beat Nicola Sturgeon. So if anyone wants to talk about strategies to defeat the SNP, I can give you some tips.

Sturgeon came fifth.
As revelations broke of yet another lockdown gathering in No 10 last night, the mood in Downing Street was one of frustration bordering on anger  with a dash of despair thrown in.

While allies of Boris Johnson furiously disputed the details of a so-called birthday bash thrown for the Prime Minister by No 10 staff during lockdown, they acknowledged that the public is not in listening mode on the issue.

Try as they might, they cannot seem to get out of this mess. Even lifting Plan B Covid restrictions, making the UK the freest country in Europe, has failed to shift the mood at Westminster.

David Cameron has privately described Mr Johnson as the greased piglet for his ability to slip out of apparently impossible situations.

David Cameron has privately described Mr Johnson as the greased piglet for his ability to slip out of apparently impossible situations

Many former admirers believe that the grease has been scrubbed off by two gruelling years of dealing with the pandemic that has forced him to act against his natural political instincts.

Can he really escape again?

Certainly, the outlook is ominous.

Downing Street insiders insist that they have no real idea what Whitehall ethics chief Sue Gray will conclude about the party culture that seems to have taken hold at the heart of government during lockdown.

But the auspices are not great  she is, after all, the official whose report into the conduct of Damian Green led to his resignation at a time when he was deputy prime minister. One insider last night predicted the final report would be warts and all.

Whats more, his nemesis Dominic Cummings is gleefully telling anyone who will listen that there is more evidence of illicit parties to come once the report is published  including photographs that could dispel any notion that the gatherings involved were work events as the PM insists.

At the same time, Westminster is awash with confident speculation that the publication of Miss Grays report will trigger a flood of letters of no confidence from Tory MPs, sparking a formal confidence vote in the PMs future. The botched Pork Pie Plot launched by a group of newly elected MPs last week was easy to dismiss. Ringleaders had unwisely boasted that the threshold of 54 letters would be breached by 5pm last Wednesday  only for the deadline to come and go.

But discontent with the PM runs much deeper and wider.

Certainly a group of 2019 MPs can see their narrow majorities disappearing, and believe they could save their skins by installing a new leader  notwithstanding the fact it was Boris Johnson who won them their seats just two years ago.

But pockets of unhappiness exist right across the parliamentary party, including Brexiteers unhappy with the deal struck with the EU, Remainers who were never reconciled to the PM, sacked ministers and members of the Tory Right alarmed by manifesto-busting tax rises.

Ominously, the PM also appears to have lost the confidence of the 1922 Committee  the so-called men in grey suits whose role has traditionally included telling Tory leaders when their time is up.

Members of the committees executive, including chairman Sir Graham Brady, met for a shoot last week at which the PMs future was discussed.

The outcome was a proposed change in the leadership rules to allow two challenges a year, an idea that looks set to be rubber-stamped by the wider committee tomorrow.

Downing Street has, belatedly, woken up to the scale of the threat.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has been drafted in to reprise the spreadsheet of Tory MPs views which formed the bedrock of Mr Johnsons successful 2019 leadership bid.

A core team of loyalists has been put in place to help the PM and senior ministers such as Nadine Dorries cajole and, perish the thought, pressurise wavering MPs back into line.

One old hand says it is time to get the gongs out and use the PMs immense powers of patronage to help bolster support.

He is also being urged to spell out more clearly the dangers of a destabilising leadership challenge at this stage.

The country is still finding its way out of the pandemic, with almost 90,000 new Covid cases reported yesterday.

Families are facing a cost of living crisis which could become a catastrophe without Government intervention.

Many former admirers believe that the grease has been scrubbed off by two gruelling years of dealing with the pandemic that has forced him to act against his natural political instincts

And British intelligence agencies believe Europe is on the brink of war, with Russia poised to invade Ukraine, possibly within days.

One Whitehall source last night warned that Mr Johnsons critics were playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian president would be laughing his head off at the farcical events threatening to bring down one of his most outspoken critics.

Even inside No 10, allies fear that the rebels may succeed in gathering the 54 names needed to force a vote of no confidence.

But Mr Johnsons future does not have to end there.

Insiders say he is up for the fight, telling friends: Bring it on.

Under the Tory leadership rules, a sitting leader has to win a simple majority in a secret ballot of Conservative MPs.

Even the most bullish rebels concede they may not be able to persuade 180 of their colleagues to vote down a leader who took them to a landslide victory just two years ago.

If he can survive the contest, preferably with the number voting against him kept down to double figures, then he has the chance to fight on with a new team.

If he can then contain the damage at Mays local elections, he will have the chance to put Partygate in the rear-view mirror.

But he faces the political fight of his life to get there.
A woman who donated a kidney to a man she was dating, has gone viral on social media after claiming he ended their relationship just months after his operation.

Colleen Le, 30, who lives in America, explained that her boyfriend at the time needed a kidney transplant because he was struggling to live with chronic kidney disease that left him needing dialysis at just age 17.

She volunteered to donate one of her kidneys after a test proved that they were a match, however less than a year after the operation he cheated and then broke up with her a few months later.

The TikTok star has racked up over 2 million likes on her clips sharing the devastating sequence of events, with many praising her for saving her ex-boyfriend's life and commenting that he didn't deserve her.

Colleen Le (pictured), who lives in America, has gone viral on TikTok for a series of clips claiming she was dumped less than a year after donating a kidney to her then boyfriend

In one of her first videos, Colleen revealed that her ex-boyfriend told her his kidney functioned at less than five per cent.

Colleen said: 'I decided to get tested to see if we were a match because I didn't want to watch him die. I was so nervous'.

On finding out she was a match, Colleen went ahead with the donation and both couple made a full recovery after the successful transplant. However, in a follow-up video she explained that their relationship was soon under strain.

Seven months after the procedure her boyfriend claimed he was going to a bachelor party in Vegas with his church group for the weekend.

Colleen said she didn't have any concerns about the trip because he was a devoted Christian and chose to focus on studying for her finals.

Colleen (pictured) said she decided to test if she would be a match for a kidney transplant because she didn't want to watch her then boyfriend die

The TikTok star was left speechless when her boyfriend returned home and revealed that he had cheated during his time away.

Colleen said: 'A lot of arguments later... I eventually forgave him and gave him a second chance.'

Colleen explained that just three months later he ended the relationship saying 'If we are meant for each other, God will bring us back together in the end'.

He went on to block her on all social media platforms.

She has since shared her heartbreak in a series of clips, including one in which she claims her ex-boyfriend accused her of donating a kidney to 'look good'.

Colleen (pictured) said her then boyfriend ended their relationship just three months after she forgave him for cheating

The clips have gained millions of views with many blasting the behaviour of Colleen's boyfriend following the kidney transplant.

One person commented: 'I wonder if he understands the seriousness of donating a kidney. You literally sacrificed your life for someone. You are a beautiful soul'

'Don't worry girl, he literally cannot live without you and he has to deal with that for the rest of his life,' another wrote.

A third said: 'He didn't deserve you nor did he deserve the gift you gave him'

Another added: 'You should still be proud of yourself, knowing you saved someone's life is the biggest flex'
Luxuriating in a large hot tub in my swimsuit on a frosty day, I understand why sales of private spa baths rose by more than 1,000 per cent in lockdown. This puts you in holiday mode.

Whatever else is going on, its hard to stay stressed in a hot tub.

I feel ridiculously relaxed in mine, even though its in a corner of the showroom of Hot Tubs Oxfordshire, near Bicester Village. (Ideally, it would be in the manicured grounds of my country home, beside my infinity pool.)

Whats more, the manufacturer of this spa bath makes special claims: not only do its jets massage away your aches and niggles, it can apparently also improve the health of your skin. Wallow in a private hot tub and look years younger? Dont mind if I do.

TV presenter Amanda Holden, 50, in her hot tub, is perhaps the most famous fan of the microbubble magic. She bought her Marquis MicroSilk hot tub more than a year ago and is forever posting fabulous photos of herself enjoying it on Instagram

The secret of this alleged fountain of youth is the microbubble option  or as U.S. firm Marquis has branded it, MicroSilk  available on its finest tubs for an extra 2,000.

A microbubble, as the name suggests, is a bubble 50 to 100 times smaller than your typical hot tub bubble. Theyre relatively stable in water  that is, they dont instantly rise to the surface and burst.

When they do collapse, they transfer their oxygen to the water, making it oxygen-rich and transporting the oxygen to the skin.

UK-based columnist Anna Maxted testing a Micro Bubble Hot Tub at Hot Tubs Oxfordshire, which compares the luxurious home-spa to 'an oxygen facial but all over your body'

Kenny Massey, of Hot Tubs Oxfordshire, compares it to an oxygen facial but all over your body. (Oxygen facials deliver a stream of high-pressurised oxygen to the skin surface, which in theory improves circulation and promotes the production of collagen, resulting in younger-looking skin.)

The Marquis brochure goes even further: Microscopic bubbles penetrate pores and sebaceous glands to oxygenate your skin, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, and promote collagen restoration as you soak, it declares.

These tiny, negatively charged bubbles also help eliminate free radicals in the body, which are known to cause cellular damage. This helps to slow the degenerative process which leads to premature ageing.

After that fanfare, Id hope to emerge from the tub looking like a teenager.

TV presenter Amanda Holden, who does indeed look far younger than her 50 years, is perhaps the most famous fan of the microbubble magic.

She bought her Marquis MicroSilk hot tub more than a year ago and is forever posting fabulous photos of herself enjoying it on Instagram.

But, sorry Amanda, Im wallowing in the very latest model, The Epic, which starts at 17,995 and is part of The Crown Collection, no less. It arrived only last week from America, according to Carla, Kennys wife and business partner.

The secret of this alleged fountain of youth is the microbubble option  or as U.S. firm Marquis has branded it, MicroSilk  available on its finest tubs for an extra 2,000. Anna pictured before she jumps in to the Micro Bubble Hot Tub at Hot Tubs Oxfordshire

Anna said that the water quickly turns milky-white - the effect is caused by clouds of teeny-tiny bubbles, so small they look like specks

I spend a little time amusing myself with the tubs normal-sized bubble features, and then, at the touch of a button on the tubs ledge, the microbubble pump is activated.

The MicroSilk pump has impellers within it that grind the water, creating tiny, tiny oxygen bubbles, explains Carla. Theres no chemical solution; its pure oxygen.

The water quickly turns milky-white. I peer closely and see this effect is caused by clouds of teeny-tiny bubbles, so small they look like specks.

The water feels still, even though its moving, and when I touch my leg I can feel the bubbles clinging to the skin. If I press my hand to my calf, theres the odd sensation of crushing minute bubble wrap.

After 15 minutes of wafting around in the water (the tub is roomy enough for me to float like a hippo), I feel fantastic. All tension has gone. It certainly feels rejuvenating. But will it really benefit my skin?

Anna said: 'After 15 minutes of wafting around in the water (the tub is roomy enough for me to float like a hippo), I feel fantastic. All tension has gone. It certainly feels rejuvenating. But will it really benefit my skin?'

Anna enjoying a glass of bubbly in the micro bubble bath - anecdotal evidence so far has suggested that the hot tub is especially effective on psoriasis or eczema

At first it doesnt seem to (my skin is normal if prone to dryness, and doesnt feel especially hydrated after my dip), but the next day I rub my arm and it is smooth and conditioned.

Anecdotal evidence suggests its especially effective on psoriasis or eczema. But Dr Adil Sheraz, consultant dermatologist and British Skin Foundation spokesperson, says there are no robust studies to prove these particular claims.

Although it may make your skin feel softer, it cannot be recommended as a treatment for dermatological conditions, says Dr Sheraz.

And yet, its not a made-up concept created by the wellness industry. Microbubble and nanobubble technology (a nanobubble is 2,500 times smaller than a grain of salt) is now used for environmental purposes, because the unique properties of these bubbles mean they can improve water quality without chemicals.

For me, the jury on skin softening is out. But dont let that put you off the gloriousness of the hot tub itself. Too long dismissed as naff, its the perfect form of relaxation for the midlife woman. Like us, it doesnt take itself too seriously and is enormous fun.

hottubsoxfordshire.co.uk
Tucked away in a Blue Mountains rainforest lies a number of stunning waterfalls.

The Leura Cascades walking track, near Katoomba just an hour and half from Sydney, follows the rapids of Leura Falls Creek through the lush rainforest to two spectacular waterfalls.

Leura Cascades and Bridal Veil Falls are the standout features on this short, scenic trail with dozens of adventure-seekers across the country flooding social media with images of the dreamy destination.

Travellers have been flocking to these two incredible waterfalls tucked away in the Blue Mountains rainforest

The Leura Cascades walking track, near Katoomba just an hour and half from Sydney, follows the rapids of Leura Falls Creek through the lush rainforest to two spectacular waterfalls

Leura Cascades and Bridal Veil Falls are the standout features on this short, scenic trail with dozens of adventure-seekers across flooding social media with images of the dreamy destination

Starting at the Leura Cascades picnic area, hikers can venture down the path past the magnificent Leura waterfalls to the towering Bridal Veil Falls.

The trail ascends to the top of Bridal Falls where there is a lookout for visitors to take in the breath-taking views of the Jamison Valley.

Leura and Bridal Veil falls are best visited after rainy weather when water levels are high and you can see the falls flowing in all their glory.

Starting at the Leura Cascades picnic area, hikers can venture down the path past the magnificent Leura waterfalls to the towering Bridal Veil Falls

Leura and Bridal Veil falls are best visited after rainy weather when water levels are high and you can see the falls flowing in all their glory

Leura Cascades walking trail has become a hugely popular spot for travel-starved Aussies with visitors to the area have calling it 'a joy to visit'

The magical Leura Cascades, surrounded by fern trees and eucalyptus, is a top spot for bird watchers and home to lots of native fauna.

Leura Cascades walking trail has become a hugely popular spot for travel-starved Aussies with visitors to the area have calling it 'a joy to visit'.

'I guess the Blue Mountains is pretty spectacular whenever you go, but the cascades are still something special,' one woman wrote.
A finance guru with a combined net worth of half a million dollars has revealed how to save $7,000 in 12 months.

Queenie Tan, from Sydney, detailed eight different ways to save money that requires little effort to do.

In a pie chart shared online, the 25-year-old recommended making work lunches at home, selling things you don't need, using credit card reward programs and switching out from an 'underperforming super fund'.

Queenie Tan, from Sydney, (pictured) detailed eight different ways to save up to $7000 a year that requires little effort to do

In a pie chart image shared online (pictured), the 25-year-old recommended making work lunches at home, selling things you don't need, using credit card reward programs and switching from an 'underperforming super fund'

By making your own work lunch rather than buying out or ordering from food delivery platforms, you can save at least $2400 a year - based on a meal costing $10.

Switching super funds can also possibly save you $1500 and changing electricity, phone and internet providers could help you save up to $900.

Queenie raves about using credit card rewards programs, such as frequent flyer cards, to save money you would have otherwise spent on flights.

Some programs allow you to save as much as $900 depending on how often you use the credit card.

But before signing up, it's important to check the fine print, as some credit cards have an annual fee of up to $400.

Queenie and her boyfriend Pablo (pictured, right) earn $10,000 a year and quit their jobs last year to focus on their YouTube channel

By making your own work lunch rather than buying out or ordering from food delivery platforms, you can save at least $2400 a year - assuming the meal costs $10 (stock image)

Queenie also recommended using Cashback apps to save $100 and keeping your savings in a high-interest bank account.

Using energy-saving appliances, such as lights and kitchen devices, can help reduce your electricity bill by $200.

'What are some of your favourite ways to save money?' she asked her Instagram following of 31,000 people.

'I'm definitely a big fan of the credit card reward points since it's basically free money for spending what you were going to spend anyway,' one person wrote.

'Making your own lunch and own coffee is the biggest!' another added.

A third wrote: 'Switching from an underperforming fund can most definitely save you $1500 in annual fees if not more.'
Angela Rayner showcased her bold sense of fashion as she was snapped stepping out of her London home alongside married MP Sam Tarry last week.

Labour's deputy leader, 41, was spotted emerging from her 30,000-a-year taxpayer-funded property with shadow minister Sam, 39, in tow one morning last week.

Opting for a vibrant look, Angela, who is known for her unique taste in clothes, mixed the unusual combination of blue leather, leopard print and fake fur for the outing.

She donned a ribbed top with a matching 249 Pure Collection pencil skirt, with a clashing pair of her trademark 95 vegan leopard print boots from Office.

The MP added a touch of glamour by wearing a 65 Beaverbrooks pendant with a bee charm. The worker bee is known to be the symbol of the city having been added to Manchester's coat of arms in the mid 19th century and represents the industrial heritage of the region.

Angela wrapped up against the cold in a vintage faux fur jacket and could be seen clutching her face mask, as well as a 180 black Fossil backpack.

Meanwhile Ilford South MP Sam attempted to keep a low profile in a grey wool baker boy cap for the outing, which appears to cost 40 from Savile Row Company.

Leaving his pink shirt unbuttoned, he appeared to coordinate with Angela in a vibrant blue three-piece suit, over which he wore a black overcoat.

It marked the first time the pair have been captured on camera together for the first time together in public away from the office, after rumours of their deepening friendship ran rife in Westminster.

Angela Rayner showcased her bold sense of fashion as she was snapped stepping out of her London home alongside married MP Sam Tarry last week

Angela Rayner and fellow Labour MP Sam Tarry were spotted leaving her London home together

It's not the first time that Angela has been snapped showing off her bold fashion choices, with the MP regularly stepping out in clashing colorful outfits, striking punk patterns, and unusual shoes.

Angela, who once described herself as a 'gobby northern ginger lass, has ditched the usual politician's wardrobe of stuffy grey suits or simple shift dresses, for a bolder style, with clashing colours, bright pink ankle socks and tartan skirts.

And as her profile has risen at Westminster, she has been unafraid to tone down her outfit choices.

Angela, now the most powerful woman in the Labour Party, was first reported to have grown close to Corbynite Sam, her former campaign manager when she was running for the party's deputy leadership in 2020, three months after splitting from her husband of ten years, trade union official Mark Rayner.

Shadow transport minister Sam, who was married in 2016 to Brighton-based paediatrician Julia Fozard, with whom he has two children, is now believed to have split from his wife, according to The Sun on Sunday.

Following in Theresa May's footsteps? Angela Rayner is known for her love of unusual and VERY bold shoes The politician appears to have a love of bold and unusual shoes, regularly stepping out wearing 'flatforms and creepers, which tend to be popular with goth and punks. She has pairs in many different styles, including a black pair featuring a leopard print upper which she wore in April 2021 for a visit to Hartlepool College of Further Education. Meanwhile she donned a similar pair of flatform shoes, which wouldn't have looked out of place in the 90s, during a visit to Manchester with Sir Keir Starmer last year. The MP also owns a selection of Dr Marten boots, including a tartan pair which she wore in January with a vibrant red coat and white shirt. In 2015, Angela caused controversy after she became so incensed at missing out on a limited edition pair of Star Wars shoes she complained on Commons headed notepaper (pictured, Angela's choice of shoe) In 2015, Angela caused controversy after she became so incensed at missing out on a limited edition pair of Star Wars shoes she complained on Commons headed notepaper. She believed her name had been on a pre-order list for the Irregular Choice shoe, but wasn't notified when the shoes went on sale, so she wrote a letter of complaint to the head office on House of Commons notepaper. In the letter, which was later leaked, Angela wrote: 'I have only ever brought your shoes and I am loathed to do so again [sic]. 'I am writing to let you know that treating customers in that way will only cost you more in the long term.' Angela's aides were said to have 'hit the roof ' when they heard about the comment from MP McMahon, but kept it from her to avoid fuelling the problems even further. Advertisement

Both Angela, who famously once called a rival Tory MP 'scum', and Sam have so far declined to confirm or deny any rumours that they are anything more than close colleagues.

Last night, Sam's wife Julia also declined to comment on the status of their marriage.

Angela's husband, Mark, was not at the family home the couple still share with their two sons in Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester.

One of the most powerful figures in the Labour Party, she holds four titles including deputy leader, shadow first secretary of state, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow secretary of state for the future of work.

In May last year, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer's closest parliamentary aide, Carolyn Harris MP, resigned after facing allegations that she spread 'baseless' rumours about Angela's private life.

'My personal life is my personal life,' Mrs Rayner said in an interview at the time.

'I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to be doing that. It's not good for any of us if we start putting ourselves in that gutter arena. It's gutter politics.'

She has spoken openly in the past about her rise to power within the Labour Party  that begins with a troubled childhood, growing up on a council estate in Greater Manchester.

She has told interviewers about how she became a carer for her mother, who could not read or write and suffered from bipolar disorder.

She recalled how her mum once came back from the shops with dog food, thinking it was stewing steak, because she couldn't read the label.

A teenager when her parents divorced, she talked of having suffered years of dysfunctional home life marred by her father's affairs and her parents' 'explosive' relationship. She described her childhood existence as 'feral'.

By the age of 13 she was clubbing in Manchester, looking for 'the wrong sort of affection from the wrong sort of people', and was pregnant at 16. The birth of her son Ryan, however, proved a turning point.

Determined to provide for her son and become a role model to him rather than conform to the single teenage parent on benefits stereotype, Mrs Rayner trained as a Samaritan, then became a carer.

Through her work, she discovered the trade union movement, becoming a rep, which gave her the introduction to politics.

It was also through the trade union movement that she met her husband Mark, a Unison official. They married in 2010 and have two sons, one of whom is registered blind and has special educational needs.

She has spoken movingly about how their eldest, Charlie, was born prematurely at 23 weeks, weighing less than one pound, and wasn't expected to survive.

In a 2018 interview, she praised Mark for helping her through the ordeal, when all she wanted to do was 'curl up in a ball', saying: 'I'm normally the one who wears the trousers, but he took over.

The pair have been quiet about their relationship, they may have to open up about it in future if Ms Rayner decides to run for the Labour leadership

He said, 'We'll do what we have to do. I'll give up work if I have to, we'll do whatever it takes'.'

Elected to parliament in 2015, Angela became the first woman to represent the constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne and since then her rise within the party has been  despite a few bumps in the road, such as the 'scum' comment that saw her forced to apologise  meteoric. She is often tipped to be a future Labour leader.

The Commons' youngest granny  she was 37 when Ryan had his first child  her appeal to Labour voters is centred on her no-nonsense, outspoken persona, quick to hold others to account; someone who takes no prisoners.

Elected to the Commons in 2019, Sam Tarry  described in various news reports as a 'golden boy of the hard left' and a bit of a 'hipster'  is apparently no stranger to controversy.

Ms Rayner, who was elected to Parliament as the Labour MP for Ashton-under-Lyne in 2015, married Unison official Mark Rayner (pictured together) in 2010

She separated from her husband Mark in 2020 and Mr Tarry, a father of two, is also understood to have now parted from his wife.

Best known as Jeremy Corbyn's leadership campaign director, in 2016, he hit back at allegations of electoral fraud after The Sunday Times claimed he was really living in Brighton with his wife when he was serving as a councillor in Barking, east London.

To serve on a council, a councillor must sign an official declaration that they live or work in the area.

The newspaper also reported that a trade union official, named Elly Baker, lived at the Barking flat owned by Mr Tarry and his wife. His lawyers said she was his lodger.

'This allegation is categorically untrue,' Mr Tarry said in response to the claims.

Shadow transport minister Mr Tarry (left with Julia Fozard and right) was married in 2016 to Brighton-based paediatrician Julia Fozard

Shadow transport minister Mr Tarry (left) had two children with his wife (right

'The evidence irrefutably demonstrates I meet all residency requirements set out in electoral law to be a councillor in Barking and Dagenham.

'My wife, whom I married in June this year, lives in Brighton and works as a junior doctor. Like many people these days we try to strike a balance between our careers and our personal lives.

'Unfortunately this means we cannot live together as a husband and wife every day as we one day hope to do.

One of the most powerful figures in the Labour Party, she holds four titles including deputy leader, shadow first secretary of state, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow secretary of state for the future of work

The plain-talking Mancunian said it would be 'an absolute honour' to enter Downing Street as a former single mum from a council estate

'When you serve people in the NHS or as a local councillor that's a choice that sometimes has to be made.

'Those promoting this story for political reasons tried to use the same false allegations against me before, and I was completely cleared by the police.'

Similar questions about Mr Tarry's residency were raised in 2014, when he was first elected to the council, when it was claimed he had given inaccurate details on his nomination papers. Police later dropped the investigation.

When Mr Tarry was elected to the House of Commons he had the backing of Corbynite grassroots group Momentum, after the previous Labour MP for Ilford South, Mike Gapes, defected to Change UK.

The following year he became Mrs Rayner's deputy leader campaign director.

At the time, he tweeted saying how proud he was to be working with her and posed photos of the pair of them together  with beaming smiles and red rosettes  on the campaign trail.
A woman with 13 cats in a two-bed bungalow has divided opinion online after appearing on This Morning today.

Carol Walker, from Preston, joined ITV hosts Phillip Schofield and Rochelle Humes to discuss how many cats is too many for one owner.

She lives in a two-bed bungalow, with two reception rooms and houses 13 cats - claiming she has the time and financial setup to care for them all.

However, This Morning's vet Dr Scott Miller said 13 was too many felines under one roof - suggesting the felines were solitary creatures and wouldn't appreciate living with that many other pets.

Viewers were divided over the segment, with some saying Carol's cats all seemed to be cared for and happy, while others insisted she wouldn't have enough time to give them the individual attention they'd need.

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Carol Walker (pictured left), from Preston, joined ITV hosts Phillip Schofield and Rochelle Humes to discuss how many cats is too many for one owner

She lives in a two-bed bungalow, with two reception rooms and houses 13 cats (pictured are some of her pets) - claiming she has the time and financial setup to care for them all

However, This Morning's vet Dr Scott Miller (pictured) said 13 was too many felines under one roof - suggesting the felines were solitary creatures and wouldn't appreciate living with that many other pets

Speaking on the programme, Carol said: I've got a reasonable size two-bedroom, two-reception room bungalow, I've got an outside area where they've got numerous climbers, they've got free access to that in the day.

'There's at least two or three beds throughout the house per cat, I've got the time and the finances to look after them.'

Explaining how she ended up with 13 cats, she added: I think it stems back from years back doing a little bit of rescue and some come in and you end up adopting them.

'One leads to another sometimes. Everybody has a limit. I think the question of how many is too many is very individual.

At my age now, I wouldn't get anymore, I've got to look at the youngest who's two, and expected lifespan, I mean I think I've failed If I don't get them to at least 16.

When asked if the cats all get along with one another, she replied: There's occasionally the odd spat but you can get that with two cats, it's usually only very minor.

Reaction: Viewers were divided over the segment, with some saying Carol's cats all seemed to be cared for and happy, while others insisted she wouldn't have enough time to give them the individual attention they'd need

She was then asked if they help with her mental health, to which she said: Certainly, especially in the first part of lockdown... they were a lifesaver.

However, Dr Scott said Carol has too many cats for one person to look after.

He said: Being able to focus on one individual and their needs, means that 13 going up to 18 cats, that is a huge amount of time that you need to focus on individual attention.

Also taking into account that cats by nature are solitary animals and actually don't really enjoy social contact that much, so to have 13 or 18 cats crammed into a two-bed house, for me personally and professionally is way too many.

Viewers were divided over the issue, with one person writing: 'Dr Scott talking sense. He's a vet, he knows what he's talking about. 13 in a two bedroom house, wrong.'

Another said: 'You can't possibly look after 13 of anything properly. You can't keep a proper check on them or make sure they're all getting the amount of attention they need and deserve.'

Viewers were divided over the issue. One person said: 'Anybody who knows cats can see these are in very good condition - none of this guy's business unless the cats are neglected'

However, a third added: 'Anybody who knows cats can see these are in very good condition - none of this guy's business unless the cats are neglected.'

Carol was on the show following news that a chief executive of the UKs largest cat charity has stepped down after it emerged its chairman was allegedly keeping 18 cats in her three-bedroom house.

The number of cats Linda Upson was looking after had reportedly left other staff despairing, fearful about how the charity might be viewed and nervous about using her as a spokesperson.

Interim chief executive Charles Darley, who has left just three months into a 12-month contract, claimed Miss Upson had said she didnt think it was a problem when confronted with the concerns, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The charity  Cats Protection  had itself done research into multi-cat households contained in too-little space in the past, finding the confinement could cause the animals considerable stress.

Carol (pictured top right) was on the show following news that a chief executive of the UKs largest cat charity has stepped down after it emerged its chairman was allegedly keeping 18 cats in her three-bedroom house

Mr Darley said he decided to step down after an internal investigation concluded Miss Upson should keep her position  only asking her to assure them she would not house any more of the pets.

Cats Protection  which has its national adoption centre in Haywards Heath, West Sussex  reportedly consulted five other animal welfare charities and a cats home charity to ascertain whether she was in breach of official guidance from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

These guidelines advise that cats must have enough space so that they can get away from one another if they want to.

All those consulted said they would be unable to defend keeping such a large number of cats in a three-bedroom house but the investigations decision to let Miss Upson retain her role was made before the responses were received, according to Mr Darley.

Ive been in and out of more than a dozen charities, and Ive never encountered a position like this before, he told The Daily Telegraph.

Many of the [trustees] are passionate cat lovers, so they may see this behaviour through a different lens from people who love cats but dont love them in quite the same way.

A spokesman for Cats Protection said the chairman of trustees was a volunteer fosterer for the charity and had undergone regular training.

They said all six foster cats in her care were kept in a clean and separate area from her pets and there were no welfare issues of concern.

All were happy, healthy and had sufficient resources for them to express their natural behaviour, they added.
Emporia, KS (66801)

Today

Thunderstorms this morning, overcast during the afternoon with occasional rain. High 58F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

A steady rain this evening. Showers with perhaps a rumble of thunder developing overnight. Low 53F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall possibly over one inch.
A 'creepy' Currys driver who harassed a customer with flirty texts has claimed his victim was 'begging for it' after being caught doing it again - but his antics have got him sacked and in the doghouse with his own girlfriend.

The delivery man, identified only as Jordan, was caught out messaging mother-to-be Kacey Wheeler, 21, after delivering her washing machine in Bradford earlier this month when her fiance Ryan Sagar, 22, pretended to be her as a prank.

However since Ryan's prank went viral, single mother Jessica Hickling, from Newsome, has revealed she's also been targeted by Jordan after he 'took a liking to her' upon delivering a fridge freezer just two weeks earlier.

The 31-year-old was unsettled when he 'kept smiling at her' and asked 'if she lived alone', before sending messages after leaving asking if she liked her new fridge and if he could keep her number.

However, Jordan has since bemoaned he was 'set up' by Kacey and said she was 'begging for it' by 'flaunting her legs and t**ts out' - and claimed the messages have 'destroyed his relationship' after his girlfriend found out what happened.

Jordan said: 'I've got a bird. My relationship's been destroyed over this. I've lost everything overnight.'

Currys say their investigation into the incident confirmed Jordan breached their code of conduct and he's been sacked by their delivery partner.

Single mother Jessica Hickling has revealed she has also been targeted by a creepy Curry's driver after he 'took a liking to her' upon delivering a fridge freezer (pictured)

The 31-year-old was unsettled when he 'kept smiling at her' and asked 'if she lived alone', before sending messages after leaving asking if she liked her new fridge and if he could keep her number (pictured)

Kacey's 22-year-old boyfriend Ryan made headlines last week when his texts posing as Kacey to request a threesome and discuss bedroom kinks went viral.

In the messages Jordan bragged about earning 36,000 and claimed he could be Kacey's sugar daddy, before Ryan revealed himself and complained to Currys.

Jessica, who lives alone with her three-year-old son Oscar Hussain, has now backed up Kacey's experience, claiming Jordan appeared to go 'above and beyond' to help her before dropping her 'strange' texts too.

She says it's tough to fit her fridge next to a kitchen unit, so after his colleague returned to the van Jordan offered to take one of their side panels off with a screwdriver to help.

The delivery man, identified only as Jordan, was caught out messaging expectant mother Kacey Wheeler after delivering her washing machine in Bradford earlier this month when her fiance Ryan Sagar pretended to be her as a prank (pictured, Kacey and Ryan)

After hearing of Kacey's run-in with Jordan, Jessica claimed he appears to have been 'using Currys like Tinder' and is worried the self-professed 'jail boy' knows her phone number and address.

The engineering installation coordinator recognised Jordan had breached data protection regulations with his texts after the visit and that made her worry what else he'd be willing to do to catch her attention.

THE EXCHANGE BETWEEN JORDAN AND JESSICA Jordan said: 'Hey, hope you enjoy your new fridge??' He then sent a reply almost two hours later containing only a question mark. Jessica replied: 'Who's this?' Jordan said: 'It's me, Jordan. Was just saying, I hope you enjoy your new fridge haha.' Jessica politely responded, saying: 'Ohh thank you [smiley face emoji].' Jordan replied: 'Haha your [sic], welcome.' Five hours later he added: 'Shall I get rid of this number or can I keep it haha ffs.' Advertisement

She claimed Jordan should be sacked by Currys for his conduct.

Jessica said: 'It's like he's using Currys like Tinder. I thought he was helpful but after I got the message I thought it was a bit creepy he went out of his way to help me.

'I got the vibe that he took a liking to me. When they brought the fridge in, he was just smiling at me and ignoring his co-worker.

'He asked if I live here on my own and I thought that was a weird thing to ask. I told him, "no, with my son, but he's at his dad's". It was strange.

'They put it in place and told me about it then the other guy left. It wouldn't fit right because the side panel was on the cupboard, so he asked for a screwdriver and said he'd take the panel off.

'I didn't think too much of it but when I saw the text message, it creeped me out because he's been in my house and knows where I live. He's now got my number and knows I live on my own as well.

'When I got the text, straight away I thought nobody else knew I'd had the fridge delivered so it had to be him sending the message.

'The way he messages is strange, with all the question marks.

'I don't really like ignoring people and being rude, so I didn't reply and I just ignored it. I didn't block his number but I probably will now.

'When you think about how many deliveries he must do in a day, he probably moved on to [trying to speak to] the next woman he delivered for.

'It's worrying because there's a possibility he could come back. I'd like to think he wouldn't, but after seeing Kacey's story and that he's been in prison, I thought "oh s**t".

After hearing of Kacey's run-in with Jordan, single mother Jessica claimed he appears to have been 'using Currys like Tinder' and is worried the self-professed 'jail boy' knows her phone number and address (pictured with her son three-year-old Oscar Hussain)

Single mother Jessica said when the delivery workers brought her fridge in, Jordan was just smiling at her and ignoring his co-worker before asking if she lived alone

'The other guy was a bit older and I could tell at times he was getting a bit annoyed with him because he wasn't listening to him. He should spend more time trying to do his job properly.

'He came across like the type of guy that, no matter if you had a partner or not, he wouldn't care. He'd still try his luck. I don't think having a partner would matter.'

Pregnant Kacey was home alone in Bradford when two delivery men arrived to drop off a washing machine and dryer.

She claims Jordan, 'couldn't stop staring at her' and made excuses to stay back and chat to her after his colleague returned to the van.

Jessica confessed she felt concerned that the delivery driver knew where she lived, and said she was 'worried' at the possibility he might come back to her house

Twenty minutes after he left, Jordan text fiance Ryan's mobile phone number, believing it was Kacey's. The number had been entered into the Currys system so the couple could receive updates on the delivery.

He wrote: 'Hi It's Jordan from currys haha... Haha I took your number I hope you don't mind, you made me laugh wanting washer there???? xxx.'

Ryan, an electrician, decided to embarrass Jordan by replying and posing as Kacey over text, leading the delivery driver into a flirty six-hour exchange that was later shared on Facebook.

However, Jordan has since bemoaned he was 'set up' by Kacey and whined that his saucy messages to the customer have 'destroyed his relationship' after his girlfriend found out what happened.

Jordan has since bemoaned he was 'set up' by Kacey and said she was 'begging for it' by 'flaunting her legs and t**ts out' - and claimed the messages have 'destroyed his relationship' after his girlfriend found out what happened

The messages went viral last week after being exposed by the couple (pictured, the driver text Ryan's mobile phone number, which had been entered into the Currys system for updates about the delivery, believing it was Kacey's)

He says six-months-pregnant Kacey asked if he'd return to fit the washer and dryer after he'd finished work - boasting she was 'begging for it' by 'flaunting with her legs and t**ts out'.

Jordan said: 'I've been set up. I've gone to this young girl's house in Bradford and obviously she's wanted it. She's been flaunting it.

'We put two items in her house and she asked if we were down for installation and I said no, then she asked if I could come back after work and install it, but I said 'no, not really'.

'I got in the van and I told my mate what she said, and he told me to message her this and that. So I started messaging her and we made up the name [Jordan]. She definitely wanted me to get in touch.

Kacey's fiance Ryan, 22, an electrician, decided to embarrass Jordan by replying and posing as Kacey over text, leading the delivery driver into a flirty six-hour exchange that was later shared on Facebook. Pictured, Kacey and Ryan

When Jordan messaged the following day to continue the conversation, Ryan put an end to the exchange and revealed he had been behind the flirtatious texts the entire time. Kacey said she is now afraid to accept deliveries if Ryan isn't home. Pictured, Kacey (left) and with Ryan

'She wanted it. She was begging for it. How did she expect me to come back after work if I didn't have the number to contact her?

'If you'd have seen that bird, with her t*ts out, legs out, the lot, and she says to you 'can you come back after work?', you'd do it.

'My girlfriend's seen it and obviously it's not good. I said it was a laugh with the lads in the van, but she's not forgiven me yet.

'If she wasn't flaunting it like that, I wouldn't need to [text her].

Posing as Casey, Ryan led the delivery driver into an X-rated exchange about his fantasies

When asked about his texts to Jessica, Jordan said: 'I worked with someone different then. It was me messaging but it was a laugh. We were just messing about in the van as lads do.

'Nobody's saying that it's alright. It is what it is. I wouldn't do it again. I wasn't trying to make them uncomfortable.'

Meanwhile Kacey was shocked to hear Jordan's accusations and rubbished them as 'something he must be telling his girlfriend to win her back'.

Kacey has branded his excuse 'not true and disgusting' and explained Ryan's dad is a plumber so could fit the appliances for free, and she was wearing a modest jumper and leggings when they met.

Ryan pretended Kasey had a Captain America fantasy and the driver revealed he earns 36,000 a year

Kacey said: 'That's insane. Oh my god. Obviously that's not true.

'Ryan's father is a plumber and he's renovated the house from as old as it can be to brand new, so I wouldn't need him to do it.

'I can't believe it. He's disgusting, that guy. I can't believe he's got the cheek to sit and say that. Maybe this is what he's said to his girlfriend to win her back. I feel sorry for her.

'I literally had a beige jumper on and leggings, so I couldn't have been more dressed if I'd have tried. He's obviously a creep. I couldn't care less what he says.

Ryan pretended to invite the driver to a threesome before revealing his real identity

'The fact he's gone into another girl's house and done the same thing, that just says it all.'

Currys have confirmed Jordan was working for a delivery partner contracted to drop off their products and they've sought to reassure customers drivers will face the sack if they breach their conduct rules.

A Currys spokesperson said: 'We were very concerned to learn of the experiences of Ms Wheeler and Ms Hickling. We're directly in contact with them and our immediate priority is to ensure their concerns are addressed.

Ryan, pictured with Kasey, said he wanted to embarrass the delivery driver with the texts

'We recognise the privilege and responsibility that comes with delivering to our customers' homes and we expect all delivery crews, including our delivery partners, to treat our customers with the utmost respect.

'We launched an immediate investigation into the matter and can confirm the individual involved is no longer delivering for Currys or working for our delivery partner.

'We're reinforcing our robust procedures with delivery partners to ensure the highest standards of conduct we expect are always met.'
A New York woman welcomed a baby at the age of 50 after going through IVF treatment.

Sharon Kollmar, of Long Island, desperate to extend her family and have a baby with her fiance, Gus, 60, gave birth last year.

Kollmar already had an 11-year-old son, Aiden, from a previous relationship, but wanted more kids. After almost a decade, Kollmar was still single and started to look into sperm donors.

Sharon Kollmar and her fiance, Gus, decided to have a baby through IVF at the age of 50 and 60, after trying naturally

Sharon gave birth to Bayleigh via C-section after doctors assumed she would be too big, but she was born weighing a normal 7lbs 13oz

After explaining to her lifelong friend, Gus, who is now her fiance, he suggested that the pair strike up a relationship and try for a baby together.

They ended up having to spend $34,000 on an egg donor and IVF, but welcomed their daughter, Bayleigh Emerson, in September.

'I so desperately wanted more kids. People thought I was crazy for wanting to start all over again,' said Kollmar.

'I'd been to see fertility doctors who were dismissive because of my age and told me that although I still had eggs, the chances of me falling pregnant were slim.'

Sharon's partner Gus with their daughter Bayleigh. Long term friend, Gus, decided to offer Sharon help while she was looking for a sperm donor, and the pair ended up getting together

'I was also still single. I was talking to my male friend about everything and out of the blue he said, "What about me?"

'I'd never even thought about it before but it seemed like a great idea. He had always been in mine and my son's life.

'So we started dating, and because I was around 46 and he was 56, we started trying to conceive straight away.'

When big brother, Aiden, saw baby Bayleigh for the first time, his eyes filled with tears and he told her that he had been waiting for her his entire life

Before having her daughter, Sharon received negative concerns from those around her with people saying it wasn't fair to bring a child into the world at her age

'We were trying for two years and hadn't fallen pregnant, so we looked into donor embryos but the cut off age was 45.'

'So we turned to donor eggs and found someone who matched my colorings and had fresh eggs, rather than frozen.

The process cost $34,000 and Kollmar underwent intensive physical testing and preparation.

In January 2021, when Kollmar was 49, she had an embryo transfer, which was successful on the first attempt.

When she received the call from her doctor to tell her that she was pregnant, she couldn't believe it.

She said that it was the moment she had been waiting for for over a decade.

'My pregnancy was pretty textbook, although the baby was bigger this time around, so I felt it a little more.'

'But I love being pregnant.'

Sharon with son Aiden during her pregnancy. Despite already having a son from another marriage, Sharon had always wanted to extend her family

'People couldn't understand why we would want another baby at the age of 50 and 60.'

'My friends' kids were graduating college and getting married. Some of my friends were even grandparents.'

'Gus is even a grandfather and his daughter is 39. His grandkids are 10, 12 and 15.'

'So people had a hard time getting their head around it, but it meant the world to us.'

Sharon's partner Gus with their daughter Bayleigh. Gus, while a new father, is also already a grandfather to three

'On September 28, my waters broke and I gave birth to our baby girl via C-section, at the age of 50, because the doctors wrongly estimated that she was going to be almost 10lbs, there was meconium in my fluids and she flipped over out of the ideal delivery position.'

The C-section was considered safer, though the infant was much smaller than anticipated at 7lbs 13oz.

'Holding her in my arms was incredible. I love having a newborn. It is just as rewarding and satisfying as the first time,' Kollmar said.

'I think people thought I would regret it, but I would not change it for the world.'

Sharon showing off her baby bump. Sharon's pregnancy was 'textbook' although the baby was bigger than Aiden had been, so Sharon felt morre during the pregnancy

'When we brought her home and I placed her in my son's arms, his eyes filled with tears and he told her that he had been waiting for her his entire life.'

'It was so special.'

The couple still have four frozen embryos and she loves the idea of just one more baby in the near future. Kollmar said that it is a big transition to go from one child to two, but she is happier than ever.

Sharon added: 'I want to give hope to people who thought their chance at parenthood was over.'

'You need to have faith and live your own life, and not what your family and friends expect you to do.'

'Just because you are a bit older, it doesn't mean the door is shut.'

'People said was that it wasn't fair to bring a child into the world at our age because we likely wouldn't be alive to see them into adulthood or that we'd be an embarrassment as old parents.'

'But it's better to be born to old parents than not at all, and there is no guarantee that a 25 year old that has a baby will see that child into adulthood as illnesses and accidents happen all the time.'

'I always knew that I was going to have more children, even though I wasn't sure how but I just knew that somehow it would all piece together and it has.'

'I couldn't be happier.'
A former police lieutenant-turned-OnlyFans star has claimed she was paid $30,000 to leave the force after her colleagues found out about her saucy online career - which she says is now earning her thousands of dollars a month.

Melissa Williams, 46, from Colorado, first launched her OnlyFans account in May 2020, sharing photos of herself with her husband, who has not been named for privacy reasons, in an attempt to spice up the couple's sex life.

The mom-of-two, who had worked in the police service for 28 years, was also using her OnlyFans work as a creative outlet to destress from her high-pressure and often dangerous job.

But when her colleagues and boss discovered her racy snaps, Melissa claimed they shamed her, spread them around her entire office, and ultimately pushed her out of her role.

Now, she has left her job as a police officer and is working full-time as an OnlyFans model - making $4,000 a month - and says she is so much happier.

A former police lieutenant-turned-OnlyFans star has claimed she was paid $30,000 to leave the force after her colleagues found out about her saucy career

Melissa Williams, 46, from Colorado, first launched her OnlyFans account in May 2020, sharing photos of herself with her husband, who has not been named for privacy reasons

The mom-of-two, who had worked in the police service for 28 years, used her side gig as a creative outlet to destress from her high-pressure and often dangerous job

'Being a police officer was my lifes dream from the age of 14,' the model, who has 4,000 followers on Instagram, told Jam Press.

'I had to prove myself 10 times over what the men did and I was a really good cop. I was well-respected and liked by my colleagues.

'My personal sex life was entirely separate and never affected my ability to do my job.'

Melissa and her husband had been making a healthy living on OnlyFans for 18 months - sharing images under the alias Lexi Bella, a 'MILF and wife-next-door.'

But in August 2021, the cat was let out of the bag when her boss received an anonymous tip about her extra-curricular activities.

Soon after, Melissa claimed she was sent an official complaint via email - which left her 'shocked and panicked' about the 'two parts of her life colliding.'

She then discovered that several of her colleagues had signed up to her page so that they could 'investigate her conduct,' and they shared her images around the entire local force and jail staff.

The former officer said: 'The complaint came totally out of the blue, I was in shock and panicking because I never wanted these two parts of my life to collide.

'Then I was angry and embarrassed because the notice went on to say how five colleagues of mine - all in lower and higher ranks than me - had obtained access to my paid account to access my private content so they could investigate my conduct.

'I didnt feel that was professional or necessary. It felt like they all just wanted to see me naked.

Exposed: But when her colleagues and boss discovered her racy snaps, Melissa claimed they shamed her, spread them around her entire office, and ultimately pushed her out of her role

Now, she has left her job as a police officer and is working full-time as an OnlyFans model - making $4,000 a month - and she said she is so much happier

Melissa and her husband (pictured together) had been making a healthy living on OnlyFans for 18 months, when her boss received an anonymous tip about the account

Soon after, Melissa claimed she was sent an official complaint via email - which left her 'shocked and panicked' about the 'two parts of her life colliding'

'After their "investigation" my images were shared widely around our local force and the jail staff.

'It was all being treated like hot gossip. Thats when I had to take time off with stress because I wasnt sleeping, I couldnt eat, it was so frustrating and upsetting.

'I didnt consider my OnlyFans page to be a work matter. A lot of the material my husband and I shared is stuff wed taken in our private sex life over the years.

'I was working up to 60-hour weeks so mostly my husband ran the page and shared my pictures and then sometimes wed have fun dressing me up and taking photos especially to share.

'It was a fun way to relax and be creative together after a stressful week in a stressful job.

'I was never in uniform in any of my images. I used a fake persona  most of my fans think Im a stay-at-home mom. It felt like my bosses were policing my bedroom.'

The situation wreaked havoc on Melissa's mental health, and she was signed off with stress and anxiety on August 23, 2021, for 12 weeks by a doctor who then recommended that she not return to her old job.

She then discovered that a bunch of her colleagues had signed up to her page so that they could 'investigate her conduct,' and they shared her images around the entire local force

She said the stress from the situation forced her to stop eating and sleeping, and eventually, she decided to take off time at work - taking a 12-week leave of absence

She was eventually signed off with stress and anxiety on August 23, 2021, by a doctor who recommended that she not return to her old job

Moving on: Although she is upset about how her colleagues treated her, Melissa believes what happened is for the best  as she now loves her now life as an OnlyFans model

During this time, a severance package of $30,000 was put together by her lawyer and the local force.

Melissa explained: 'Being a police officer was fulfilling, exciting work. I loved my job  but how could I go back to work in an environment like that?

'It was hard being a woman in the force. People have always been jealous of me because I am successful, attractive and confident.'

DailyMail.com has reached out to the local sheriff's office for comment.

Although she is upset about how her colleagues treated her and the lack of support they have shown her, Melissa believes what happened is for the best  as she now loves her now life as an OnlyFans model.

However, she hopes to become a team leader or manager in a security or corporate training role in the future.

She added: 'I didnt want my career to end this way but it was also a blessing in disguise.

'I can sleep at night now and I feel 10 years younger without the stresses of police work.

In the end, she was given a severance package of $30,000. And she now earns $4,000 a month as an OnlyFans model

Planning ahead: She hopes to become a team leader or manager in a security or corporate training role in the future

She said: 'I didnt want my career to end this way but it was also a blessing in disguise. I can sleep at night now and I feel 10 years younger without the stresses of police work'

'My family are glad they dont have to worry about me not coming home. I love teaching and developing people and building a rapport with my team.

'I used my communication skills to de-escalate situations. I talked more people into handcuffs than I fought with.'

In the meantime, she is making about $4,000 a month on OnlyFans - which is less than her policing wage - but she hopes her page will take off now she can spend more time on it.

Thankfully the model's family members have also been very understanding about the new direction her career has taken.

Her kids, who are 15 and 12, dont know about her modeling work, but Melissa says if they were to find out then shed be open with them and hopes theyd be supportive too.

'Starting the page was never about money for me. It was always about sharing an intimate part of my marriage because thats what my husband and I like to do,' said Melissa.

'My fans like that I am real and chat to them authentically about who we enjoy their compliments and attention.

'I used to post online without showing my face but as time went on my confidence grew.

'Now that my community knows about my secret life I am ready to own it. Thankfully my family have been fine about it  my cousin was even cheering me on, telling me to "Get it girl."

'My mom was shocked but she is understanding. I feel like I can hold my head high.

'Im still the same mom, the same neighbor and person that I always was. I was a good cop too but unfortunately my private life appeared to have offended my bosses.

'If you ask me, all of this could have been handled with a professional conversation. Instead I felt I was a really good police officer and felt pushed out of a really good career because of prudishness.'
Evan Rachel Wood has shared more details of the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of ex-boyfriend Marilyn Manson, revealing how he 'essentially raped' her during a music video shoot, urged her to carve his initial into her pelvis, and decorated their home with Nazi propaganda knowing that she is Jewish.

Wood, 34, began her tumultuous relationship with 53-year-old Manson, real name Brian Warner, when she was just 18  and she has since accused her of grooming her and abusing her.

The actress goes into more depth about the experience in Amy Berg's new documentary 'Phoenix Rising  Part I: Don't Fall,' which premiered on Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival and will air on HBO in March.

In the documentary, she says that during their four-and-a-half-year on-and-off relationship, Manson emotionally abused her, threatened her life, sexually assaulted her, separated her from her friends and family, and bombarded her with antisemitic symbols and messages.

Evan Rachel Wood has shared more horrific details of the abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of ex-boyfriend Marilyn Manson (pictured together in 2007)

Wood (pictured in March 2020), now 34, began her tumultuous relationship with 53-year-old Manson, real name Brian Warner, when she was just 18

In the film, Wood describes growing up near Raleigh, North Carolina and being raised to push through things even when she was uncomfortable, according to USA Today.

In once case, that meant that when she was 14, she kissed a 23-year-old man on set for the 2003 film 'Thirteen' while a room full of people looked on.

'I remember not wanting to do it, but I knew that the character needed to and so it didnt matter what Evan wanted. It just had to be done,' she says in the doc.

She continued to be a lost and insecure teenager, which she says made her a prime target for someone like Manson.

'I didnt know where to go, so I was the perfect candidate for somebody to pop up and say, "Come with me,"' she says.

The pair met in 2006 when she was just 18 and he 37. At the time, Manson was married to Dita von Teese, and Wood had a boyfriend  but Manson struck up a conversation with her and shared an interest in working with her.

It was under the guise of this professional relationship  Manson told Wood he wanted her to be in a film he was working on  that she went to his house one night and they drank absinthe.

The actress goes into more depth about the experience in Amy Berg's new documentary 'Phoenix Rising - Part I: Don't Fall,' which premiered on Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival

She says that at one point, he carved her initial into his skin and she carved his 'right next to my vagina to show him that I belonged to him'

She recalls how he suddenly kissed her, that he 'stuck his tongue down my throat... Everything went white and I just didnt know how to respond.'

Things escalated, and 'it ended with him on top of me and then it was over and I felt really weird and very icky. I wasnt even really attracted to him.'

But the two did end up dating, and she describes how he would give her odd compliments attached to insults and threats of violence, like 'youre so important to me I want to kick you.'

He's say other odd things, like 'I'm your vampire,' 'You are the blood in my heart' and 'I want to stay with you forever.'

Over time, she says, he isolated her from her friends and family.

'He has studied this,' says Woods mother, Sara Lynn Moore, according to the Daily Beast. 'He's studied how to manipulate people. He's a predator  he's a predator.'

The abuse escalated, and at one point, Wood says they each carved the other's initials into themselves.

'Scarification and branding was part of it,' she says. 'He carved an E [into his skin] and I carved an M  as a way to show ownership and loyalty. And I carved it right next to my vagina to show him that I belonged to him.'

Manson also began showing an interested in Nazis  knowing full well that Wood herself is Jewish.

She says he also decorated their home with Nazi propaganda, knowing she is Jewish (pictured in 2007)

Wood previously spoke out about the tattoo he got during their relationship, which has four Ms in the shape of a swastika (seen)

'At one point, over the side of the bed where I slept, he wrote "kill all the Jews" on our bedroom wall,' she said

On Instagram, she talked about 'humiliation' and 'blackmail' and how she was given 'large amounts of drugs and alcohol' when she was under 21

She says he would paint and fill his work with swastikas and other Nazi propaganda, which he also put around their home.

'At one point, over the side of the bed where I slept, he wrote "kill all the Jews" on our bedroom wall,' she said.

He also told her that Hitler was 'the first rock star because Hitler was stylish, he was well spoken, and he knew how to manipulate the masses.'

She says he made fun of her for being Jewish, and also made fun of her when she got upset about his antisemitism.

Wood has spoken a bit about this before, and wrote on Instagram early last year how the 'he would draw swastikas over my bedside table when he was mad at me.'

'Because [my mom] converted and wasn't of Jewish decent [sic] he would say things like, "thats better" because I wasn't "blood Jewish,"' she said at the time.

She also revealed that during the course of their relationship, he got new tattoos, including a swastika on his chest and a skull and bones on his arm that looks like a Totenkopf, another Nazi symbol.

In the new documentary, Woods also reveals that when she was 19, Manson allegedly raped her on camera in front of other people.

She had agreed to be in his music video for 'Heart-Shaped Glasses,' but things did not go as expected.

Woods also reveals that when she was 19, Manson allegedly raped her on camera in front of other people while making the 2007 music video 'Heart-Shaped Glasses'

'Thats when the first crime was committed against me and I was essentially raped on camera,' she says (pictured together in 2007)

'We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real. I had never agreed to that,' she says, according to Pitchfork.

'Im a professional actress, I have been doing this my whole life, Id never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day. It was complete chaos, and I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me.

'It was a really traumatizing experience filming the video. I didnt know how to advocate for myself or know how to say no because I had been conditioned and trained to never talk back  to just soldier through.

'I felt disgusting and like I had done something shameful, and I could tell that the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do. I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses.

'Thats when the first crime was committed against me and I was essentially raped on camera,' she continues, adding that it was 'just the beginning of the violence that would keep escalating over the course of the relationship.'

Woods kept the abuse to herself until 2016, when she publicly spoke about it for the first time  though she did not name her abuser.

Still, other women seemed to know exactly whom she was talking about and reached out with similar stories

'It was like finding out that you had dated a serial killer,' she says.

Woods first discussed abused in 2016 but didn't name her alleged abuser until last year with this statement

She publicly named him as her abused for the first time in February 2021, after she began filming this documentary in 2020.

'I dont remember what it feels like to not be scared. I will never be the same,' she says.

'I'm still terrified to name Brian publicly. I want to name him, it's all I want to do. I have received a number of threatening messages saying to shut my mouth, people know where I live.

'Brian also made it clear that if I ever said anything, he would come after me. He once told me he would f*** up my whole family from the bottom up and he would start with my dad. I have a child and its really scary.'

She adds: 'This isnt about revenge, or, "Hes a monster and he needs to be punished and destroyed." Hes already destroyed. That man is not a man anymore; he is gone.'

Since Wood first spoke out, multiple allegations have gone out against Manson, resulting in criminal investigations. He has also been dropped by his agents and record label.

In response to the film, Manson's lawyers say he 'vehemently denies any and all claims of sexual assault or abuse of anyone.'

'These lurid claims against my client have three things in common  they are all false, alleged to have taken place more than a decade ago and part of a coordinated attack by former partners and associates of Mr. Warner who have weaponized the otherwise mundane details of his personal life and their consensual relationships into fabricated horror stories,' reads the statement, which was issued in November.

Manson has yet to release a statement in the wake of the documentary's premiere.

In her statement naming Manson last year, Wood said: 'The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson. He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.

'I was brainwashed and manipulated into submission. I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives.

'I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.'

She also posted screenshots of tweets written by Dan Cleary, Manson's former assistant in December 2020, who said that he knew Wood when she was with Manson and that by the end of their relationship, he had 'broken' her.

Around the same time that she came forward, four other women  Ashley Walters, Sarah McNeilly, Ashley Lindsay Morgan and a woman who gave her name only as Gabriella  posted similar statements on Instagram.

In their statements, they detailed 'harrowing experiences that they claim included sexual assault, psychological abuse, and/or various forms of coercion, violence, and intimidation.'

The number of accusers continued to grow. Game of Thrones star Esme Bianco said he would tell her he wanted to 'murder other women' and 'sneak down to the room where I was sleeping and rape me' in text messages,' among other allegations.
Paris Hilton has admitted that it was 'traumatic and painful' for her to discuss the horrific abuse that she faced at school with her mom, Kathy, but says the mother-daughter pair have since 'healed' by going to therapy together.

The reality star, 40, first opened up about the physical and psychological abuse that she endured while at boarding school in her 2020 YouTube documentary, This is Paris.

She attended Provo Canyon School in Utah for 11 months when she was 17 years old, and later accused the staff of 'screaming in her face' and 'bullying her.'

She claimed that she faced 'continuous torture' at the school, and alleged that the employees would 'hit and strangle' the students.

Now, she has explained how those shocking admissions affected her relationship with her mom - who was unaware of the abuse before the documentary came out.

Paris Hilton admitted that it was 'traumatic' for her to discuss the horrific abuse that she faced at school with her mom, Kathy, but revealed they have 'healed' by going to therapy together

Speaking out: Paris first opened up about the physical and psychological abuse she endured while at school in her 2020 documentary, This is Paris. She is pictured during the documentary

She attended Provo Canyon School in Utah for 11 months when she was 17, and later accused the staff of 'screaming in her face' and 'bullying her.' She is pictured at age 12

Paris (pictured last year while protesting the school) claimed that she faced 'continuous torture' at the school, and alleged that the employees would 'hit and strangle' the students

She said that although it was hard for them to speak about it at first, it made their relationship stronger in the end - and lifted a major weight off of her shoulders.

'It was definitely hard to talk to my mom about everything that I went through, because it felt traumatic and painful to speak about. So, we had never talked about it,' she told The Post in a recent interview.

Last year, Paris dropped a brand new Peacock docuseries, called Paris in Love, which captured her and her husband, Carter Reum, 40, as they prepared to tie the knot.

And according to the former Simple Life star, she and her mom began getting therapy together during the taping of the show.

'During the show was when we started going to therapy together. I know that she had no idea what was happening, just like every other parent who sends their children to these types of schools,' she explained.

'It was really healing for both of us to finally talk about that, and lift that weight off my shoulders before I got married and moved on to the next phase of my life.

'What I went through affected my entire life and the way that I am. Now, Ive learned to trust and open up my heart.

'Letting someone in, with Carter, has been the most incredible experience of my life. Ive never felt happier.

Now, she has explained how those shocking admissions effected her relationship with her mom - who was unaware of the abuse before the documentary came out

Stronger: She said that although it was hard for them to speak about it at first, it made their relationship stronger in the end - and lifted a major weight off of her shoulders

Paris said she 'finally knows who she is' now - thanks to the documentary, which taught her so much about herself.

'After my [2020 documentary This is Paris] I learned so much about myself and started talking about all of the traumatic experiences Ive been through,' she continued.

'Its just been such a healing experience. I finally know who I am. I had an amazing time shooting the show [Paris In Love] with my mom, and spending time with her and my sister.'

In her 2020 documentary, the now-40-year-old alleged that staff members at Provo Canyon would attempt to 'break her down' by making her 'feel bad about herself.'

She recalled: 'From the moment I woke up until I went to bed, it was all day screaming in my face, yelling at me, continuous torture.

'The staff would say terrible things. They were constantly making me feel bad about myself and bully me. I think it was their goal to break us down.

'And they were physically abusive, hitting and strangling us. They wanted to instill fear in the kids so wed be too scared to disobey them.'

Paris said she was even placed in solitary confinement for up to 20 hours a day.

'I was having panic attacks and crying every single day. I was just so miserable. I felt like a prisoner and I hated life,' she continued.

Paris previously alleged that staff members at the school would attempt to 'break her down' by making her 'feel bad about herself.' She is pictured speaking about the abuse in 2020

Paris said she would have 'panic attacks and cry ever single day,' and that she 'felt like a prisoner and hated life.' She is pictured speaking about it in her 2020 documentary

At the time, she said she never told her parents because they were 'cut off from the outside world.' She is seen in April 2021, while advocating for a new law against teen-abuse

'I buried my truth for so long. But Im proud of the strong woman Ive become,' she told People Magazine right after the documentary came out.

'People might assume everything in my life came easy to me, but I want to show the world who I truly am.'

At the time, the socialite and businesswomen revealed why she never told her parents about the abuse, explaining, 'I didnt really get to speak to my family, maybe once every two or three months.

'We were cut off from the outside world. And when I tried to tell them once, I got in so much trouble I was scared to say it again.

'They would grab the phone or rip up letters I wrote telling me, "No one is going to believe you."

'And the staff would tell the parents that the kids were lying. So my parents had no idea what was going on.'

Three of Paris' former classmates from Provo Canyon also appeared in the documentary, making similar allegations - including the use of restraints and being force-fed medication.

After the model left, she recalled: 'I was so grateful to be out of there, I didnt even want to bring it up again. It was just something I was ashamed of and I didnt want to speak of it.'

Earlier this month, Kathy opened up about her initial reaction to hearing about Paris' abuse while chatting with Andy Cohen via Zoom, and she admitted that it took her a long time to be able to watch the documentary.

Heartbreaking: Earlier this month, Kathy opened up about her initial reaction to hearing about Paris' abuse while chatting with Andy Cohen via Zoom. She is pictured during the interview

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum admitted it was hard for her to watch the documentary, but explained that when she finally did watch, she felt Paris' 'relief' immediately

'It put me in such a depression,' Kathy said. 'It really was so devastating, for her to keep that in for 20 years.'

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum explained that when she finally did watch it, she felt Paris' 'relief' immediately.

'We held hands for an hour watching this thing, and just the energy that I was feeling from her and how relieved and happy that she was that I was watching,' she shared.

She told the talk show host that she only sent Paris to the boarding school so that her daughter would stop sneaking off to clubs in the middle of the night.

'A lot of people understood that [me and my husband, Rick Hilton, were] trying to help our daughter. We were trying to save Paris. I'm not that strict  we were worried,' she explained.

'She was living in New York. She was sneaking out and sometimes didn't come back home for three days, not going to school.

'So we put her in this boarding school, in this one, in this one. Gotta keep her away from the city and all these predators and people that wanted her to model.'

After Paris - who is pictured protesting the school in 2021 - made her allegations, Provo Canyon responded in a statement and said they 'do not condone or promote any form of abuse'

The school (pictured) said it is 'committed to providing high-quality care to youth with special, and often complex, emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric needs'

After Paris - who testified against the school in court in February 2021 - initially made her allegations, Provo Canyon responded in a statement.

'Originally opened in 1971, Provo Canyon School was sold by its previous ownership in August 2000,' it wrote.

'We therefore cannot comment on the operations or patient experience prior to this time.'

In a second statement, it later added, 'We do not condone or promote any form of abuse.

'Any and all alleged/suspected abuse is reported immediately to our state regulatory authorities, law enforcement and Child Protective Services, as required.

'We are committed to providing high-quality care to youth with special, and often complex, emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric needs.'
Paris Fashion Week is truly underway - and Schiaparelli ensured it stood out from the crowd by opting for a striking and almost menacing display.

The Italian brand turned heads when presenting its Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2022 show at Petit Palais in musee des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Parison on Monday.

A captivated audience - made up of A-listers such as Kanye West and girlfriend Julia Fox - watched as models showcased daring designs - which included elaborate golden structures and an eerie nose piece.

Paris Fashion Week is truly underway - and Schiaparelli ensured it stood out from the crowd by opting for a striking and almost menacing display (pictured)

Forgotten something? One daring look featured a plunging black dress with a sheer mesh overlay on the bust that left nothing to the imagination

The models took to the runway in an array of striking black and gold ensembles boasting extravagant head pieces.

One daring look featured a plunging black dress with a sheer mesh overlay on the bust that left nothing to the imagination.

Titled An Age of Discipline, the show was created by Daniel Roseberry, who took up the position of Artistic Director for the brand in 2019.

He limited his colour palette for the collection to just black, white and gold - making the pieces even more striking.

The Italian brand turned heads when presenting its Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2022 show at Petit Palais in musee des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Parison on Monday (pictured)

Turning heads: It wasn't just elaborate headpieces ruling the runway, but quirky full body ensembles

A captivated audience - made up of A-listers such as Kanye West and girlfriend Julia Fox - watched as models showcased daring designs (pictured) - which included elaborate golden structures and an eerie nose piece

Titled An Age of Discipline, the show (pictured) was created by Daniel Roseberry, who took up the position of Artistic Director for the brand in 2019

The collection was filled with simple, tailored silhouettes which featured elaborate golden structures.

Commenting on the show, Vogue said it was 'Emo with an haute twist', adding: 'There were two standout beauty moments; jewel-encrusted tears dripping down a models face, and a sinister gold nose piece.

'Elsewhere, the hair was slicked back and minimal, which kept things modern. It was also the perfect canvas for Roseberrys giant halo-like hair accessories.'

Celebrity guests at the show included Kanye West and girlfriend Julia Fox, who continued to stay sartorially in sync as they attended the event together.

Golden girls: The models took to the runway in an array of striking black and gold pieces boasting extravagant head pieces

The collection (pictured) was filled with simple, tailored silhouettes which featured elaborate golden structures

The rapper, 44, joined his new actress love, 31, as they posed for pictures while clad in leather ensembles that looked to have been inspired by The Matrix film series.

Kanye sported another facial covering - a favourite look of late - that concealed his entire visage bar small eye holes.

The FourFiveSeconds hitmaker added to the look with a leather jacket and trousers paired with chunky knee high boots and gloves.

Also at the Schiaparelli show was Pixie Lott, who wowed in a black blazer adorned with a glittering gold padlock design that she paired with tapered trousers.
A woman who became an alcoholic at 16 years old has shared the harrowing realities of binge-drinking, and revealed how she finally gave up booze for good after needing hospital treatment 15 times.

Audra Hanson, 25, who is originally from Fargo, North Dakota, but now lives in Los Angeles, California, picked up her first drink when she was just a teen.

Audra - who suffered from anxiety and panic attacks - said she became an alcoholic right away, describing liquor as the 'answer to all of her problems.'

It got so bad that Audra began skipping classes and going to school drunk - leading to her failing numerous classes - and by the time she was age 18, she was blacking out on a regular basis.

Over the years, she ended up in the hospital more than a dozen times due to her excessive drinking.

A woman who became an alcoholic at age 16 has shared the harrowing realities of binge-drinking, and revealed how she finally gave up booze after needing hospital treatment 15 times

Audra Hanson, 25, who is originally from Fargo, North Dakota, but now lives in Los Angeles, California, picked up her first drink when she was just a teen

Speaking out: Audra - who suffered from anxiety and panic attacks - said she became an alcoholic right away, describing liquor as the 'answer to all of her problems'

Eventually, her body began 'rejecting the alcohol' and she would wake up after a night of drinking with shakes, cold-sweats, blurred-vision, vomiting, wheezing, and more.

Her mental health was also suffering - and she said she began to 'hate' herself and who she was becoming.

Finally, when Audra was 22, she decided to give up drinking for good, after she realized that it was going to 'kill her' if she didn't make a change.

'My problems with alcohol began [at age 16]  and they never ended, I was an alcoholic from day one,' Audra told Jam Press.

'It was the answer to all of my problems, I had no more anxiety, I felt happy and I felt free.'

Audra had previously done well in high school, but as her drinking increased, it started to take a toll on her schoolwork.

She continued: 'I started to drink, I began to skip classes and didn't take any of it seriously anymore. My senior year I went to school drunk a few times.

It got so bad that Audra began skipping classes and going to school drunk, and by the time she was age 18, she was blacking out on a regular basis

Eventually, her body began 'rejecting the alcohol' and she would wake up after a night of drinking with shakes, cold-sweats, blurred-vision, vomiting, wheezing, and more

Her mental health was also suffering - and she said she began to 'hate' herself and who she was becoming

'After the age of 18, I was regularly blacking out. I have no idea how many drinks that would be, I could easily finish bottles of wine to myself.

'By 20, I was blacking out virtually every time I drank, I had months where I would drink almost every day.'

Audra said she began to feel the physical and mental effects of excessive drinking, leaving her at one of the 'lowest points' she had ever been at.

'I didn't start to get bad hangovers until I was 20 and then at 21, they became terrible,' she recalled.

'My body was completely rejecting the alcohol and I felt like it was shutting down.

'The hangovers also started lasting for several days including shakes, cold-sweats, blurred-vision, vomiting, wheezing, and fatigue. I was at one of the lowest points Id ever been.'

At the time, she was taking college classes, but ended up failing and withdrawing from a lot of them.

Having suffered from anxiety and depression for a long time, Audra used alcohol to numb her feelings, but in the end, she found it only made the situation worse.

She added: 'Once the drinking began to intensify, so did those feelings. I started to notice that drinking wasnt as fun as it used to be and that I didnt feel the same from it anymore.

Audra said she began to feel the physical and mental effects of excessive drinking, leaving her at one of the 'lowest points' she had ever been at

Having suffered from anxiety and depression for a long time, Audra used alcohol to numb her feelings, but in the end, she found it only made the situation worse

Finally, when Audra was 22, she decided to give up drinking for good, after she realized that it was going to 'kill her' if she didn't make a change

'Eventually, drinking led to terrible panic attacks and emptiness.'

Audras friends and family tried to help her over the years but it would be a long time before she accepted that she had a problem.

'My parents tried to get me to quit using at 16/17 when I was in high school and sent me to an outpatient treatment facility in hopes that I would quit,' said Audra.

'Then, from around 18- 20, I had questioned my relationship with alcohol many times but I always assumed that it would self-correct and I would grow out of it.'

In September 2018, when Audra was 21, she came home from a trip to Las Vegas and noticed she had strep throat so went to see a doctor.

'The doctor looked at my chart and saw that I had been in the emergency room several times that summer for my drinking and told me that I really needed to stop and that this was a serious problem,' she shared.

'It's what I needed to hear that day and at that point, I came to terms with my alcoholism, but I didn't quit right that day.

'It was the day after my 22nd birthday when I had a huge spiritual disturbance, I knew that if I kept living my life this way that alcohol was going to kill me.

'I had already come to the understanding that I was an alcoholic, but now I was faced with an even bigger problem - I didn't know how to stop.'

Audra got in contact with Hazelden, an addiction treatment center, and spent six months in an outpatient program there, calling the 'best thing' she could've done for herself

Audra went through two relapses after that - one after 14 months of sobriety, and one in May 2020. Since the second relapse, she has stayed sober, but admits it hasn't been easy.

'The biggest change for me has been mentally. I have learned to love myself for who I am and understand that turning to alcohol is not the solution,' she gushed

Audra got in contact with Hazelden, an addiction treatment center, and enrolled in an outpatient treatment for the following week.

She said: 'I spent six months there and it was the best thing I couldve done for myself. I finally understood my addiction and I was not alone in my disease.'

Audra went through two relapses, one at 23 - after 14 months of sobriety - and one month-long relapse in May of 2020.

Since the second relapse, Audra has stayed sober, but admits it hasn't been easy.

'I consider alcohol to be my first love, I was really mourning the loss of a relationship when I gave up alcohol,' she explained.

'The biggest change for me has been mentally. I have learned to love myself for who I am and understand that turning to alcohol is not the solution.

'My relationships have felt more fulfilling and I am able to show up for the people I love.'

In November 2021, she started sharing her story on TikTok, and she now has over 20,000 likes.

In November 2021, she started sharing her story on TikTok, and she now has over 20,000 likes

Audra gushed: 'The community on my Tiktok page is absolutely incredible. People are so supportive and have also expressed their own journeys with sobriety'

'I am very passionate about destigmatizing addiction and mental health issues, so if I can help people by sharing my journey through sobriety, that's all I care about,' she added

Since opening up about her journey online, Audra has received an outcry of supportive messages and responses.

Audra, who now works on the business development team at Oceanrock addiction treatment facility, said: 'The community on my Tiktok page is absolutely incredible. People are so supportive and have also expressed their own journeys with sobriety.

'I am very passionate about destigmatizing addiction and mental health issues, so if I can help people by sharing my own journey through sobriety on social media, that's all I care about.'

Since opening up about her journey online, Audra has received an outcry of supportive messages and responses.

One person commented: 'Im so sorry babe we are a sad generation w happy pictures. Sending you lots of love thank you for sharing this.'

Another added: 'Im super rooting for you - alcohol is used by many to fill holes and ends up drowning us.'

'Sobriety is hard. Nine years and counting. It's really amazing how much more there is once you actually start living. Keep Going,' someone else said.

Another wrote: 'I gave up four years ago. I was drinking daily constantly sick and foggy. You've got this you can beat this youre incredible.'

A different user commented: 'Girl Im right there right now. Happy healing my love.'
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Joe Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden has given a behind-the-scenes look at a dinner party celebrating her engagement to her fiance Peter Neal that was attended by their friends and family, including her younger sisters Maisy and Finnegan.

The 28-year-old, who is the daughter of Biden's son Hunter and his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle, took to Instagram to share photos from the 'Friendsgiving'-turned-engagement party on Sunday  two months after the gathering took place.

Naomi channeled former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in an elegant pink skirt suit at the soiree in November. In the new set of snapshots, she is seen sitting with her hands clasped and her legs crossed next to Neal, who is holding a martini.

Naomi Biden, 28, took to Instagram on Sunday to share behind-the-scenes photos of the intimate dinner party celebrating her engagement to her fiance Peter Neal (pictured)

One snapshot shows Naomi's younger sister Finnegan, 23, (right) at the dinner table with her future brother-in-law

In another, her youngest sister Maisy, 21, is holding a glass of wine and leaning back into a friend who has his arm wrapped around her neck

The Columbia Law graduate looked elegant in her short-sleeved, cropped pink jacket and matching high-waisted skirt, which she paired with white heels.

Naomi's sisters Finnegan, 23, and Maisy, 21, were also dressed to the nines for the party while joined by their mother Kathleen.

Finnegan, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, wore a preppy beige plaid blazer, a white collared shirt, and tan leather pants. She topped off the look with open-toe heels.

Maisy, who is also a student at the University of Pennsylvania, stuck to her signature casual style, opting for a speckled blazer layered over a green and blue dress shirt and navy sweater that was paired with cuffed navy pants and sneakers.

Among the other guests was Eunice Kennedy Shriver's granddaughter Kathleen Shriver, 27, who was photographed wearing a cream turtleneck sweater dress

Naomi cuddled up close to her pals Marco Piol (center) and Alexandra Tigre (right) while posing for a photo

Mia Seder (left) and Aliza Reisner (right) were photographed standing, presumably while giving a speech

Among the other guests was Eunice Kennedy Shriver's granddaughter Kathleen Shriver, 27, who was photographed wearing a cream turtleneck sweater dress that was cinched with a black belt.

Aliza Reisner, Mia Seder, Asha-Kai Grant, Marco Piol, Alexandra Tigre, Alex Tritsch, Jamie Plancher Babin, and Allison Strumeyer were also tagged in the throwback snapshots posted by Naomi.

One photo shows Maisy holding a glass of wine and leaning back into a friend who has his arm wrapped around her neck. In another, Finnigan is pictured sitting next to her future brother-in-law Peter.

There are also snapshots of people standing up, presumably making speeches, and friends hugging each other around the dinner table. Naomi also captured a close-up shot of her friend Asha-Kai smiling brightly while holding a glass of wine.

The dinner party was held in November, nearly two months after Naomi and Peter had announced their engagement

Alex Tritsch (left) and Jamie Plancher Babin (right) were all smiles as they posed for a picture together while seated at the dinner table

Asha-Kai, who was photographed holding her class of wine, paid tribute to the happy couple after the party. In the comments, Naomi noted that the special occasion was meant to be a 'Friendsgiving' celebration and not an engagement party

Allison Strumeyer, who looked chic in a plaid blazer, was captured posing with a martini glass

Asha-Kai previously paid tribute to Naomi and Peter on Instagram while sharing photos of them together at the party.

'This past weekend we celebrated my two favorite people,' she wrote. 'These two fell in love after meeting each other for two days and have been falling more in love ever since. Cant wait to celebrate you all forever.'

In the comments, Naomi noted that the special occasion was never meant to be an engagement celebration.

'We were supposed to be celebrating FRIENDSGIVING smh but love you for always celebrating me @ashakaigrant,' she wrote.

Naomi first shared photos from the celebration on November 15, a few days after they party

Naomi was joined by her sisters Finnegan (left) and Maisy (right), as well as their mother Kathleen Buhle (center) for the intimate gathering

Both Maisy and Finnegan opted to wear pants for the party while Naomi channeled former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in a pink skirt suit

While sharing several photos from the get together on her Instagram, Naomi wrote that she had a 'full heart'

Naomi's father Hunter Biden, 51, appeared to be missing from the gathering. He spent the weekend before with his second wife Melissa Cohen and their son Beau New York City

Naomi's father Hunter, 51, appeared to be missing from the gathering. He spent the weekend before with his second wife Melissa Cohen and their son Beau New York City, where he was exhibiting a collection of his paintings that were being sold for as much as $500,000 apiece.

Naomi and Peter have been together since 2018, and they announced their engagement in September over Labor Day weekend.

Peter is the son of orthopedic surgeons based in Wyoming, who graduated from Penn Law, according to The List.

Naomi received her bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and graduated from Columbia Law last year. She is now working for an international law firm based in Washington D.C.

Peter and Naomi first announced their engagement over Labor Day weekend, when the bride-to-be shared a sneak peek at her dazzling engagement ring

Naomi and Peter, who have been dating since 2018, posed for a photo with President Biden's dog, Major, in the background over the summer

Naomi has a strong bond with her grandparents and was seen returning to the White House with them in October after attending the wedding of Biden's nephew Cuffe Owens

President Biden had three children with his late wife Neilia and a daughter with his second wife, First Lady Jill Biden. He has a total of six grandchildren, including Naomi

She demonstrated an early interest in international affairs while her grandfather was vice president to then-President Barack Obama, often accompanying him on international trips to New Zealand, Turkey, and China.

Naomi now uses her platform to defend her grandfather from his critics while also promoting progressive ideals on her Twitter page.

In 2020, she and her husband-to-be coded their own website, Coronavirus Aid and Relief Guide, to help those that were financially hurt by the coronavirus lockdowns.

Naomi is named after President Biden's late daughter, who died in a car accident along with his first wife Neilia in 1972, shortly after he was first elected to serve in the United States Senate.

Biden had three children with Neilia: Beau, Hunter, and Naomi. Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. He also has a daughter Ashley with his second wife, First Lady Jill Biden.
Doctors put down the headaches to work stress and sent him on his way

Andi Peel's vision began to deteriorate in October 2021 and he is now completely blind

A 29-year-old shop manager has been left completely blind after bungling doctors twice misdiagnosed his incurable brain tumour as 'work stress'.

Andi Peel, from Leicester, began suffering from severe headaches while running a Carphone Warehouse mobile phone store in August 2019.

He visited his GP after the pain continued only to be told he was probably suffering from migraines as a result of the pressure of his job.

Mr Peel was referred to Leicester Royal Infirmary after suffering a panic attack that left him in a state of confusion with a loss of memory.

But once again, doctors put down the headaches to work stress and sent him on his way.

His tumour was eventually diagnosed in January 2020 after Mr Peel went to see his doctor again after he was forced to pull over his car because he was in so much pain.

Mr Peel was told he had a glioblastoma multiforme  a fast-growing tumour that usually starts within the brain.

The tumour has continued to grow and, despite radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment, he has now been left totally blind.

Andi Peel (pictured), from Leicester, began suffering from severe headaches while running a Carphone Warehouse mobile phone store in August 2019.

Mr Peel visited his GP after the pain continued only to be told he was probably suffering from migraines as a result of the pressure of his job. But once again, doctors put down the headaches to work stress and sent him on his way. Mr Peel received the devastating news that he had glioblastoma multiforme - a fast growing tumour that starts within the brain. The tumour has continued to grow and despite radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment he has now been left totally blind

Mr Peel's aunt, Deb Peel, 48, from Groby in Leicester, said: 'Andi went to his GP, who said he had migraines but then he had an episode of confusion and a panic attack and he couldn't remember anything.

'He went to Leicester Royal Infirmary, but they said it was just stress.

'I was in total shock. Andi is like my third son, so I was in utter disbelief at the thought of losing someone so important to me.

'When we got confirmation that it was a GBM, it was like a death sentence.

'Andi didn't want to know how long he had to live, but Google will tell you it's 12 to18 months.'

Mr Peel had the tumour removed at Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

His aunt added: 'Since then, he has had some seizures, one of which resulted in him dislocating both of his shoulders.

'Since December 2020, Andi hasn't had a stable scan. The tumour has grown, and we've been told there is no longer any treatment available for him.

'His vision started to deteriorate in October 2021 and he is now totally blind.'

Mother-of-two Ms Peel, a teacher, will now walk 10,000 steps every day in February to raise money for Brain Tumour Research.

She said: 'The inspiration comes from Andi who is so amazing. He's an absolute warrior who has never given up or felt sorry for himself.

'Until you have to face this sort of reality, you don't understand how stark the facts are.

Matthew Price, community development manager at Brain Tumour Research said: 'We're really grateful to Deb for taking on this challenge for us.

'It's only with the support of people like her that we're able to progress our research into brain tumours and improve the outcome for patients like Andi who are forced to fight this awful disease.'

Mother-of-two Deb Peel, Mr Peel's (pictured in fundraising T-shirt) aunt, will now walk 10,000 steps every day in February to raise money for Brain Tumour Research

Ms Peel said said: 'The inspiration comes from Andi (pictured left, with his cousins) who is so amazing. He's an absolute warrior who has never given up or felt sorry for himself'

Glioblastoma is considered the most aggressive tumor that can form in the brain. Senator John McCain was diagnosed with one in July 2017.

Patients have a 10 per cent chance of surviving five years after their diagnosis, according to figures. The average lifespan is between 14 and 16 months.

Three adults per every 100,000 will be struck down with a glioblastoma, says The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS). Patients typically complain of symptoms such as confused vision, trouble with memory, dizziness and headaches.

The symptoms are somewhat nonspecific, and vary from person to person, and may not persist.

Some patients suffer from blindness if the tumour compresses their optic nerve, which connects the retina to the brain, resulting in vision loss.
While many officials are hopeful that the Omicron variant could be the final Covid strain of its pandemic phase, leaders at the World Health Organization (WHO) are not totally convinced.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO, warned Monday that Covid can mutate once again, and the rampant spread of Omicron open the door for another - even more infectious - variant to eventually arise.

Every time the virus jumps from one host to another, it begins to replicate in the person's body. The more replication that occurs, the most opportunities arise for the virus to mutate.

Ghebreyesus warns that, although Omicron has proved to be more mild than other strains of the virus.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (pictured), Director-General of the WHO, warned Monday that vaccines alone will not transition Covid from pandemic to endemic, and health leaders and pharmaceutical companies should also invest in therapeutics

'It is dangerous to assume that omicron will be the last variant or that we're in the endgame,' Ghebreyesus said.

'On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge. To change the course of the pandemic, we must change the conditions that are driving it.'

He also noted that it has been near impossible to predict the course of the pandemic so far - many thought Delta would potentially be its final stand - so it is hard to believe that current predictions will hold.

Ghebreyesus also warned that it is impossible to vaccinate to end the pandemic. He is also calling for pharmaceutical companies and governments around the world to better distribute therapeutics and other potentially life saving resources.

'Vaccines alone will not end the pandemic,' he said.

'Many countries need diagnostics, lifesaving therapeutics  including oxygen and support for vaccine rollout.'

More and more effective Covid treatments are becoming available, and there has been an effort to distribute them to developed nations along with their wealthier peers.

Merck's molnupiravir was the first antiviral Covid pill to earn headlines, after early studies showed it could significantly cut down a person's risk of hospitalization or death from the virus if taken upon infection.

The drug recently received authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S., along with other regulators around the world.

The Kenilworth, New Jersey, based company has also partnered with a United Nations health group, the Medicines Patent Pool, to mass produce the drug at little cost and distribute it around the world.

Pfizer's Paxlovid is considered to be the gold standard for antiviral Covid pills, and similar to molnupiravir, the drug is also a drug a person can take at home upon infection that will help stop the development of serious symptoms.

The drug is believed to be more effective than molnupiravir, and Pfizer has also partnered with the Medicines Patent Pool to distribute the drug abroad.

Supply issues have made getting hands of the drug hard for some, though Pfizer has moved to increase production in recent weeks.

Despite his grim warning, Ghebreyesus is still hopeful that the COVID-19 pandemic can end this year.

'If countries use all of [the] strategies and tools in a comprehensive way, we can end the acute phase of the pandemic this year  we can end COVID-19 as a global health emergency, and we can do it this year,' he said.

Many health experts are starting to say that Covid could reach an endemic phase by the end of t2022.

Last week, former FDA Chief Dr Scott Gottlieb said that the recent spread of Omicron, combined with a sharp decline of cases being seen across the east coast, means the next phase of the virus's life is around the corner.

I think the base case is that this signals the end of the pandemic phase of this virus,' Gottlieb said on CNBC's The Squawk Box last week.

If the virus becomes endemic, then life will still be able to exist around it. While it will still infect people, with regular Covid shots it can be limited and deaths will be minimal - similar to how people live with the flu.
Altering the trajectory: Is all that blood just "water under the bridge"? By Charlotte B. Cerminaro

web posted January 24, 2022 Last September, two top members of the FDA's advisory panel abruptly resigned their posts: Dr. Marion Gruber, director of the FDA's office of Vaccines Research and Review (for 32 years) and her deputy, Dr. Philip Krause. Both submitted resignation notices in early September stating the reason behind their decision was partly the Biden Administration's handling of the vaccine booster shots, recommending them to the public prior to their approval. Increasingly divisive hypocrisy was a known factor, citing Patrizia Cavazzoni's appointment as head of CDER by Biden's team (having worked for the FDA a mere 2 years) as an unequivocal "reward" for her public attacks on Trump and his appointees. Less than two years before, three top advisory panelists resigned over the FDA's approval of a new Alzheimer's treatment when executives overruled their own advisors and rushed to approve Biogen pharmaceutical's questionable drug. These recent events are of great concern given the scope and responsibilities of this organization. The FDA has gone from an entirely taxpayer-funded entity to one increasingly funded by "user fees", paid by the very pharmaceutical manufacturers that are being regulated. Recent FDA FY reports show that a full 65% of its human pharmaceutical budget comes from these user fees that companies pay when they apply for approval of a medical device or drug. In the late 1950's, an FDA that was driven by scientific data, not corporate funding, refused to approve thalidomide for the treatment of morning sickness on the grounds that the studies were insufficient to demonstrate safety. Devastating birth defects arose across Europe and elsewhere in the 1960's; President John F. Kennedy heralded the FDA for its stance in trying to prevent a major tragedy. The FDA continued its fully taxpayer funded work for many years until this model was upended by a new infectious disease: HIV-induced AIDS. This is where the water becomes cloudy and complicated. Opposing forces and ideologies were at work: There was a perceived threat, and there was reality. That these two variables weren't somewhat aligned created far-reaching consequences, such that our nation and its government are no longer recognizable to the objective observer. To make this point, a small digression is necessary. Beginning with the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, political lobbying, hysteria, lies, racial bias and government profiteering have been catalysts for unimaginable changes not backed by any scientific or criminal data. Legislative acts with their suffocating restrictions necessitated the exponential growth of centralized government. They were also a formal declaration of war on the very citizens whose taxes funded its growth. Offensive racial slogans like "Reefer Madness" were used to stoke irrational fear--claiming that even small amounts of psychoactive substances had a disproportionately violent effect on black people--and therefore must be banned. Thus began the dismal failure of the never-ending "War on Drugs." The FDA has been instrumental in categorizing every banned and controlled substance; being heavily influenced now by pharmaceutical companies it can no longer be considered an independent watchdog. Bringing us up to the early 1980's as the AIDS epidemic was primarily hitting homosexual men and IV drug users, there were occasional but uncommon cases spread through heterosexual contact. Actual statistics and circumstances surrounding the spread of the HIV virus were not readily available and were rarely cited for educational or informational purposes. Panic was stoked by outright lies; false statistics were promoted and then distributed through influential media giants. The infamous statement that, "By 1986, one out of every five heterosexual people will have contracted HIV" was Dr. Anthony Fauci's harbinger of doom. Entirely preventable fatalities from infected blood transfusions only added more fuel to the fire, rather than a cautionary statement on requisite testing for blood donors. In a rare coincidence, Anthony Fauci was at the heart of the AIDS epidemic as a strong influential force--against the use of possible life-saving drugs for the terminally ill. Dr. Fauci's purported reason for this stance was that, although the new anti-retroviral drugs showed great promise, he firmly stated that these drugs were not yet proven effective and the FDA should not grant emergency use to the terminally ill. An odd stance to take for one of the primary sources of baseless fear-mongering. AIDS researchers and lobbyists eventually found a way through Project BioShield and the EUA program, but this was after many years of foot-dragging and a profound refusal to "Follow the science." The forces in place to allow EUA were, unfortunately, what also allowed the wealthiest pharmaceutical companies to contribute ever larger "user fees" to hurry their approval, and this has had unthinkable repercussions, beneficial and catastrophic. Politics, money and fear made their entrance at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before any research findings, the prophets of panic and gloom were announcing widespread business lockdowns, personal isolation, and making phrases like "social distancing" household words even before the nature of this virus was known. Even though effective treatments were discovered quite early, there was heavy political pressure to replace the simple combination of corticosteroids and clot-busters for expensive but ineffective antivirals like Remdesivir. This new drug was rushed through FDA approval with billions of dollars and it's been a resounding failure. For almost 70 years traditional Salk vaccines (made from the weakened or killed virus) have preserved our way of life through epidemics and pandemics, yet the FDA and federal government have politicized the COVID-19 pandemic and made it a "testing ground" for an entirely new, unproven technology. Given that mRNA technology has only existed for 18 months, general statements about its long-term safety are just whistling in a graveyard. Updated influenza vaccines are distributed annually but mRNA boosters are needed every few months. They have usurped their possible role as a helpful adjunct to Salk vaccines; they are heavily funded, under-researched, and as the sole source of COVID-19 global inoculation, tantamount to a monopoly on medicine and research. During recent senate hearings, Dr. Fauci's vociferous and unscientific attacks on the latest virology and epidemiology research out of Stanford, Harvard and Cambridge, were on view for the public. We can't "follow the science" because there's been no science to follow. Eighty years ago Adolph Hitler said, "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it becomes the truth." Fear-mongering tactics have proven effective in the past, but their undue influence and tragic consequences these past two years isn't entirely irrevocable. Recent large-scale statistics from the CDC on hospitalization rates in the previously infected and the vaccinated, is unambiguous evidence that natural immunity is several times more potent than vaccines in preventing serious illness. As with all communicable diseases, previous infection confers long-term immunity. Proof of vaccination is still the only accepted "protection", with blatant disregard for proven antibody titer tests; but the hard science cannot stay hidden forever. Despite having the highest percentage of fully vaccinated people and double-mask mandates, Israelis are seeing a monumental spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Their top medical advisors have reached the heavily protracted conclusion that this virus will become endemic. All mandates have been inconsequential in preventing viral spread, the vast resources largely wasted. This has been a huge wake-up call. With striking similarities to the never-ending "War on drugs", the hysterical and unconstitutional legislative acts in response to COVID-19 must be exposed to the light of reason and the full weight of unhindered truth. Charlotte B. Cerminaro is a Juilliard-trained classical musician and recording artist. In her free time she enjoys writing and regularly contributes to the Enter Stage Right journal and she attained a Bachelor's Degree in Molecular Biology. Home
The boss of Legal & General has criticised the Government's levelling up efforts as data showed the UK had taken 'a step back' in some areas of life.

L&G's Rebuilding Britain Index, which tracks quality of life, showed that in 12 months there had been declines in healthcare and housing access, but less unemployment.

Criticism: L&G's Rebuilding Britain Index showed that in 12 months there had been declines in healthcare and housing access, but less unemployment

The index highlighted that the UK had 'yet to show significant signs of rebuilding'.

L&G chief executive Nigel Wilson said 'more local' focus was needed.

'Levelling up is too often talked about as London, the wider regions and devolved nations. Arguably, this doesn't go far enough.'
An activist hedge fund has taken a stake in Unilever as speculation swirls that it is becoming a takeover target.

New York-based Trian Partners, run by billionaire Nelson Peltz, has reportedly built up a position in the consumer goods giant, which makes Dove soap and Hellmann's mayonnaise.

However, the size of the stake has not been disclosed. Speculation sent Unilever shares jumping 7.3 per cent to 38.43 on Monday, making it the top riser on the FTSE 100.

Takeover target?: New York-based Trian Partners, run by billionaire Nelson Peltz, has reportedly built up a position in Unilever

Trian has a reputation for demanding strategic and governance changes from companies it is involved in.

It also has experience in the consumer goods sector, having targeted Cadbury's owner Mondelez and Proctor & Gamble.

Trian's arrival will ratchet up pressure on Unilever boss Alan Jope, who was criticised following an abortive attempt to buy the consumer healthcare arm of pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Revelations of the 50billion bid triggered a sharp drop in Unilever's share price, which fell nearly 7 per cent last week, forcing Unilever to effectively abandon its pursuit.

Shareholder criticism continued to pile up and UK stock-picker Terry Smith  whose Fundsmith fund owns 0.8 per cent of Unilever  said he was 'thankful' that the bid was 'dead'.

The fund manager added that the saga was a 'near-death' experience and raised questions over the quality of Unilever's management.

Meanwhile, Bert Flossbach, the owner of investment group Flossbach von Storch, which holds a 1 per cent stake in Unilever, urged Jope to stick to improving performance rather than chasing costly deals. The speculation that Unilever itself could become a takeover target is providing an ironic twist to the saga.

Cranley McFarlane, of EF Tellsons Endeavour Fund, said: 'What does it say about Unilever's current outlook that management felt they needed such a large, transformative acquisition to improve it?'

He noted that it was not unusual for the firm to be a takeover target, with Unilever having fought off a private-equity backed bid by KraftHeinz in 2017.

'After this episode, they could well become one again,' McFarlane added.

Unilever's leadership could also be in doubt following the flopped GSK bid, with Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne having questioned whether the incident would trigger a change in management.
Serial tech entrepreneur Vin Murria has sweetened her offer for M&C Saatchi amid an ongoing battle over the future of the advertising agency.

Murria, who is the company's deputy chairman and its largest shareholder with a 12.5 per cent stake, is attempting to take it private through a tie-up with investment firm AdvancedAdvT (AdvT).

AdvT is 13 per cent-owned by Murria, 60, and is also backed by private equity group Marwyn. AdvT itself owns 9.8 per cent of M&C Saatchi.

Serial tech entrepreneur: Vin Murria is M&C Saatchi's deputy chairman and its largest shareholder with a 12.5 per cent stake

The group initially offered investors 1.86 shares in AdvT for each share in the company in an approach earlier this month that was rebuffed by the ad agency's management.

However, Sky News reported that a new offer was tabled last week that included around 40p per share in cash.

AdvT previously said a merger with M&C Saatchi would allow the group to 'build a data, analytics and digitally focused creative marketing business'.

The takeover tussle piles fresh pressure on the ad agency after regulators closed an investigation into an accounting scandal at the group earlier this month.
Battery start-up Britishvolt has confirmed a new agreement with a government-backed research facility to develop battery cells with high nickel content and more energy-dense materials that should extend the ranges of electric vehicles (EV) for the future.

The news on Monday comes just days after it announced 1.7billion in funding for its gigafactory in Blyth, Northumberland, which will become one of the biggest battery-producing facilities in Europe and the fourth largest building in the whole of the UK.

The new deal with the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) will take advantage of a growing demand for nickel over the next decade as EVs become mainstream ahead of the 2030 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars.

Britishvolt will develop battery cells with high nickel content and more energy-dense materials that should extend the ranges of electric vehicles for the future

The auto industry is scrambling to boost EV ranges with large investments in research into more energy-dense batteries.

Britishvolt said it has reached a two-year, multi-million pound agreement with UKBIC to develop and assemble its next generation of 'sample' battery cells for mass production and commercialisation.

The higher nickel content in lithium-ion batteries should not only mean longer driving ranges between charges but also better performance.

UKBIC is a government-funded facility based in Coventry that was formed to help the British car industry bring new battery technologies to market.

It was officially opened by Boris Johnson in July 2021 and welcomes manufacturers, entrepreneurs, researchers and educators as part of efforts to bring green jobs to the UK.

At its opening, the Prime Minister described it as 'a beacon of innovation and ingenuity'.

Britishvolt's Graham Hoare (right), President Global Operations, and Richard LeCain (Left) Head of Cell and Process Development, outside the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry

Britishvolt's gigafactory (pictured: impression picture of the plant) will create 8,000 jobs in the North East in a boost for Government pledges to 'level up' the regions

The gigafactory is due to open by early 2024, having gained planning permission last year

Graham Hoare, president of global operations at Britishvolt said UKBIC is 'an essential ingredient in Britishvolts accelerated roadmap to market' and will signal the end of 'off the peg' batteries for vehicle makers.

Jeff Pratt, managing director at UKBIC, added in an official statement: 'The manufacture of low carbon battery cells are vital for a successful energy transition to Net Zero.

'We are here to support UK companies scaling up their battery production and up skilling their workforce, and we welcome the opportunity to support Britishvolt on their journey.'

The Britishvolt gigafactory will be one of the biggest in Europe and - once completed - the fourth largest building in the whole of the UK

It follows confirmation on Friday that two of the City's biggest companies have thrown their weight behind Britishvolt's gigafactory with 1.7billion of funding.

Financial giant Abrdn and warehouse group Tritax backed the Britishvolt project, which is expected to open in 2024, after it clinched a Government grant of 100million.

Britishvolt's facility is set to be constructed in Blyth, Northumberland, on the expansive 235-acre (95 hectare) grounds of the former power station and will create 3,000 UK jobs at the site and a total of around 8,000 in the supply chain.

It will produce the fuel cells needed for 300,000 electric vehicle batteries when it hits peak capacity and is seen as a key driving force for the supply of new EVs with the ban on sales of new cars and vans with internal combustion engines from the end of the decade.
The Government is cracking down on second home owners who claim their properties are holiday lets for tax purposes.

Communities secretary Michael Gove is set to close a tax loophole which has allowed second home owners to avoid thousands of pounds per year in taxes, without proving that the property was ever rented out.

The new rules will target those who register their holiday lets as small businesses, meaning they are eligible for business rates instead of council tax.

But the majority pay no business rates at all under the system, because they have 'rateable values' of under 12,000 based on the property's rents, size and usage.

Crackdown: Those registering second homes as businesses could fall foul of new rules

A second home can be registered as a small business if it will be available as a holiday let for 140 days or more in the coming year.

However, there is currently no requirement to provide evidence that a property has actually been let out, leaving the system open to abuse.

This has caused anger in areas that have lots of second homes, such as Devon, Cornwall and the Lake District, as some locals believe property owners are not paying their fair share towards council services.

According to Ray Boulger of mortgage broker John Charcol: 'Some 97 per cent of the 65,000 holiday let properties in England have rateable values of under 12,000, which means they qualify for small business rates relief and pay no rates at all.'

The new rules aim to change this by ensuring that only those properties which are actually rented out for 70 days per year, and available to rent for 140 days, get the tax break.

Kurt Jansen, director of the Tourism Alliance said: 'It makes a very important distinction between commercial self-catering businesses that provide revenue and employment for local communities, and holiday homes which lie vacant for most of the year.'

This is Money explains how the new system will work, and how second home and holiday let owners can make sure they are following the rules.

Locals in UK holiday spots have expressed anger at second home owners, who they say are not contributing their fair share to the community and services via council tax payments

What do the new rules say?

The rules are based on the amount of days a property is rented out in each tax year.

To qualify for business rates instead of council tax, the new legislation will require second home owners to prove their property will be available for 'commercial short term, self-catering rentals' for at least 140 days in the coming year.

They will also need to prove that, in the previous year, it was available for letting for 140 days and actually rented out for at least 70 days.

This is designed to prevent second home owners from registering their properties as small businesses, and then not actually renting them out.

'We will not stand by and allow people in privileged positions to abuse the system by unfairly claiming tax relief and leaving local people counting the cost,' said Gove when he announced the policy.

'The action we are taking will create a fairer system, ensuring that second homeowners are contributing their share to the local services they benefit from.'

Anger among locals has increased since the start of the pandemic, as wealthy people snapped up UK holiday lets when travelling abroad was not allowed.

Exempt: As they are assessed differently to bricks and mortar properties, caravans being used as holiday lets will not come under the government's new second home tax rules

What counts as a holiday let?

The business rates rules for holiday lets only apply to buildings, or self-contained parts of buildings, that would otherwise be assessed for council tax.

Caravans will not generally be subject to the rules, as they are usually assessed for business rates under a different system to bricks and mortar buildings.

When it comes to counting the days that a property was rented out, the government says that only days where the property was occupied at the end of the day should be included.

So if a property was let out from Friday evening to Sunday morning, it would have been let for two days for the purposes of meeting the holiday lets criteria.

Is this definitely going ahead, and when will the rules come into force?

The government has concluded its consultation on the new policy, which started before the pandemic in 2018. It plans to implement the changes from 1 April 2023.

However, the legislation needed to do so has not yet been passed in parliament.

While the government has made clear its intention to enshrine the new rules in law, they are not set in stone just yet.

How much would I pay under each system?

Small businesses can find their rateable value on the Government website.

Those with a rateable value of below 12,000 are not eligible for business rates, while those with a value of up to 15,000 pay special tapered rates.

For those with a rateable value of between 15,000 and 51,000, they will need to multiply that value by 49.9p to find out their rateable value. They can then subtract any discounts that they may be entitled to, which the government details here.

Those with a rateable value of more than 51,000 will follow the same calculation, but with a higher multiple of 51.2p.

As for council tax, second homes are charged at the same rate as main residences.

Individual councils may decide to give a discount for second homes, or on homes that have been empty for two years. Owners should contact their council to find out if this is available.

Under the new rules, the government has said there will be no rate or council tax discount for those with lots of properties.

What if I have a new holiday let with no proof of lettings for last year?

Those acquiring a new holiday let and wanting to register for business rates will not be able to prove that their property was available to let for 140 days and actually let for 70 days in the past year, as required by the new rules.

Until the owner can provide that proof, they will be subject to council tax - meaning most will need to pay that for at least the first year of their ownership.

After that, they can ask the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) for a business rates assessment.

This is the government body that handles everything to do with business rates, and it will be responsible for policing the new rules once they come in to force.

Don't lie low: Property owners who don't think their property meets the new letting rules, but who are paying business rates, are advised to inform the VOA as soon as possible

I don't think my property will meet the criteria for last year. What should I do?

Some holiday let or second home owners will not be able to prove that their property was available to let for 140 days and actually let for 70 days in the past year.

The government says people in this position 'should notify the VOA as soon as possible, so that their property can be assessed as domestic and revert accordingly to (or be given) a council tax valuation.'

It adds that failure to do so could result in a large, backdated council tax bill.

How will it be policed?

When seeking a new business rates valuation after April 2023, second home owners will need to provide evidence that their property was let or available to let for the required periods.

The government has said will communicate the exact method for collecting evidence before the new rules come into effect.

However, this is expected to include things like the property being listed on rental websites, and evidence of payments from guests.

'Evidence of lettings will be required, such as at least one website or brochure used to advertise the property and letting details and receipts,' says Boulger.

Those already paying business rates on their holiday let or second home, and who meet the letting requirements, do not need to submit anything.

However, they should ensure that they have evidence of the last year's lettings by April 2023, as the VOA may ask for them at any time.

'The only impact the new rules will have on genuine holiday let properties might be the need to provide the evidence outlined above, but this information should be readily available for the owner's tax return,' says Boulger.

What if the property is used by family and friends?

Those who regularly allow family and friends to use their properties for free could find they are no longer eligible to register as a small business under the new rules.

The government says lettings counted in the 70-day period must be on a 'commercial basis' at 'market rates' and that 'lettings to friends or relatives at zero or nominal rents will not be covered.'

No more mates rates? Money will need to change hands when the property is let, or it will not be counted as a holiday letting under the government's new 70-day rule

Of course, if there are 70 days of commercial lettings on top of discounted ones to friends and family, this will not be a problem.

Boulger says owners should still be able to rent to people they know at a small discount as part of the 70 days, for example if they are deducting the fees that a listings website would normally charge for a letting via their platform.

'It should not prevent the owner offering a reasonable discount to family on friends if, for example, they can avoid the normal commission otherwise payable to the sites advertising their property,' he says.

What are the rules outside of England?

Wales has already had similar rules for holiday lets in place since 2010, and the new legislation will bring England in line with those.

The Scottish government is also set to introduce a requirement that holiday lets are rented for 70 days and available for 140 days in a given year, following a consultation called the Barclay Review.

These rules are set to come into force from 1 April 2022.
Anthony Albanese needs a net gain of eight seats to win a Labor majority at this year's election - but he will face strong resistance from Scott Morrison who wants to cling on to the electorates he has while trying to expand his ranks.

The Liberal-National Coalition has 76 seats, the exact amount needed for a majority government, while Labor has 68.

The Liberals will lose the Perth seat of Stirling, which is being wiped off the map due to population change, but they will almost certainly reclaim the Sydney seat of Hughes from Craig Kelly who defected to the United Australia Party.

A new seat of Hawke to the north-west of Melbourne will likely fall to Labor, meaning Mr Albanese will need seven more to form a government in his own right.

Alternatively, he could win five and govern in minority with support from Greens member Adam Bandt and left-leaning independent Andrew Wilkie.

The scenarios will play out as May firms as the likely month for the election and a new Resolve Strategic poll commissioned for Nine-Fairfax newspapers showed the percentage of voters intending to give their primary vote to Labor has increased from 32 to 35 per cent since November.

Those intending to put their No.1 vote to a Coalition candidate has, by contrast, dropped from 39 per cent to 34 per cent, reflecting a growing dissatisfaction with the performance of Mr Morrison and his team.

Also worrying for Mr Morrison is that his former double-digit lead over Labor leader Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister has been dramatically cut. He is now seen as preferred for the top job by 38 per cent of respondents, while Mr Albanese is at 31 per cent.

So, with pundits predicting a knife-edge election, which seats is Labor targeting and what's the Coalition's strategy to hold on to power?

This map shows some of the key marginal seats held by Labor (in red) and the Coalition (in blue) with the percentage margin. There are other seats in contention, with a fuller list below

Which seats are Labor hoping to win?

Labor will be targeting Western Australia and Queensland, where it performed well below expectations in 2019.

Perhaps its best chance to pick up seats is in Western Australia, where uber-popular Labor premier Mark McGowan almost completely wiped out the Liberal Opposition at the state election last year on the back of his tough Covid border policies.

Insiders have told Daily Mail Australia the party will have strong campaigns in the Perth seats of Swan, Hasluck and Pearce, where ex attorney general Christian Porter is retiring after denying a historical rape allegation.

Mr Porter's 7.5 per cent margin has been reduced to 5.2 per cent by a redistribution and internal polling shows he was at risk of losing his seat before he stepped down.

The inner Perth seat of Swan is one of the Liberals' most marginal (2.7 per cent) and Steve Irons, who has held it since 2007, is also retiring in a major boost for Labor.

The neighbouring seat of Hasluck to the west may be harder to take as it's been held since 2010 by Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt who sits on a 5.4 per cent margin - but that won't stop Labor throwing the kitchen sink at it.

You can bet your bottom dollar Mr Albanese will appear on Perth podiums alongside Mr McGowan and criticise the Prime Minister for initially supporting Clive Palmer's failed High Court challenge to the Covid state border closure.

Labor will be targeting Western Australia (pictured is the map of Perth after the 2019 election, with the Coalition seats in blue and the Labor seats in red) and Queensland where it performed well below expectations in 2019. Labor will have strong campaigns in the Perth seats of Swan, Hasluck and Pearce

The ALP also believes it can win seats back in Queensland after it lost Herbert and Longman to the Liberal National Party at the last election where it suffered a four per cent swing against it in the Sunshine State.

The result left the Coalition on a high-water mark in Queensland, holding 23 out of 30 electorates.

The most marginal LNP seat is Longman which covers the Moreton Bay region north of Brisbane. Former businessman Terry Young holds the seat on the 3.3 per cent margin and Labor candidate Rebecca Fanning, a former public servant in the Queensland state government, will be eager to steal it from him.

Labor is also targeting the central Queensland seat of Flynn where sitting MP Ken O'Dowd, who increased his margin from one to eight per cent in 2019, is retiring. The ALP has selected popular Gladstone mayor Matt Burnett and believes he can deliver the goods.

Labor will also campaign strongly in Capricornia which Michelle Laundry has held since 2013. The margin is a large 12 per cent but Labor is hopeful that Queenslanders are volatile and when the vote swings, it can swing big.

Anthony Albanese needs to win eight seats to be the next Prime Minister with a majority government

The seat of Leichardt in the state's far north is a possibility but pundits tip popular 71-year-old local Warren Entsch to hold on to his 4.1 per cent margin.

The outer Brisbane seats of Petrie (8 per cent) and Bowman (10 per cent) are also on Labor's wish list as well as Peter Dutton's seat of Dickson, which the Defence Minister holds on a 4.6 per cent margin.

However, Dickson has been Liberal since 2001 and it would require enormous campaign spending to unseat such a high profile minister.

South of the border, Mr Albanese has at least four NSW seats in his sights.

Top of the list is the historically Labor seat of Reid in western Sydney, which the Liberals won for the first time in 2013 and hold on a slim 3.2 per cent margin.

Labor's candidate Sally Sitou, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, made headlines in early December when she revealed she had received racist messages from voters on social media and released a statement saying: 'My loyalties have only ever been to Australia'.

Banks in south-west Sydney is another target, held by Mental Health Minister David Coleman since 2013 on a margin of 6.2 per cent.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has already been campaigning in both seats, aware they are at risk of slipping out of his grasp.

Labor will also campaign strongly in Robertson on the Central Coast, which the Liberals have held since 2013 with a margin of 4.2 per cent.

The bellwether seat of Lindsay in Sydney's western outskirts will also be targeted, after Melissa McIntosh stole it from Labor in 2019 with a 5.5 per cent margin.

In Victoria, Labor needs to hold Corangamite and Dunkley, the two outer urban electorates it took from the Liberals in 2019 and wants to add to its tally by targeting Chisolm and possibly Higgins.

Chisolm MP Gladys Liu holds her seat on 0.6 per cent margin after winning by just 1,090 votes in 2019.

The historically Liberal seat of Higgins, held by Katie Allen on a 3.2 per cent margin, will be harder to overturn.

Labor's campaign got off to a bad start when candidate Dr Ananda-Rajah undermined the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and in October she was forced to delete a Twitter post blaming Scott Morrison for junior doctor suicides.

Labor needs to hold its seats in Victoria after picking up Corangamite and Dunkley in 2019. Pictured: A map of Melbourne

Bass and Braddon in northern Tasmania are both in play, especially Bass where Liberal Bridget Archer has a slender 0.4 per cent margin, making it the Coalition's most marginal seat.

Labor insiders fear their brand is damaged after state Opposition leader David O'Byrne resigned following allegations he sexually harassed a junior employee in 2007.

But popular Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie has declared she will run lower house candidates and direct her supporters to preference Labor for the first time, a source of great hope to the ALP faithful.

The only seat in play in South Australia is Boothby where high profile Liberal Nicole Flint is stepping down on a 1.4 per cent margin. Both sides see this electorate as a must win.

Which seats is Labor targeting at the election? QLD Longman: Held by former businessman Terry Young since 2019 on a 3.3 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is Rebecca Fanning, a former public servant in the Queensland state government. Longman is held by LNP MP Terry Young (left). Labor's candidate is Rebecca Fanning (right) Flynn: Held by retiring MP Ken O'Dowd since 2010 on an 8 per cent margin. State MP for Callide Colin Boyce will run for the LNP. The ALP has selected popular Gladstone mayor Matt Burnett. Flynn: The LNP's candidate is Colin Boyce (left). Labor's candidate is Matt Burnett (right) Capricornia: Held by Michelle Laundry since 2013 on a margin of 12 per cent. Labor's candidate is coal miner Russell Robertson who also contested in 2019. Capricornia is held by LNP MP Michelle Laundry (left). Labor's candidate is coal miner Russell Robertson (right) Leichardt: Held by Warren Entsch since 2010 on a 4.1 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is former Centrelink worker and union organiser Elida Faith. Leichardt is held by LNP MP Warren Entsch (left). Labor's candidate is Elida Faith (right) Petrie: Held by Luke Howarth since 2013 on an 8 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is oil refinery worker Mick Denton. Petrie is held by LNP MP Luke Howarth (left). Labor's candidate is Mick Denton (right) Bowman: Held by retiring MP Andrew Lamming since 2004 on a 10 per cent margin. The LNP's candidate is PR man Henry Pike. Labor's candidate is indigenous health worker Donisha Duff. Bowman: The LNP candidate is Henry Pike (left). Labor's candidate is Donisha Duff (right) Dickson: Held by Peter Dutton on a 4.6 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is communications manager Ali France who also contested 2019. Dickson: Held by LNP MP Peter Dutton (left). Labor's candidate is Ali France (right) Brisbane: Liberal since 2010, held by Trevor Evans since 2016 on a 5 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is businesswoman Madonna Jarrett. Brisbane: Held by Liberal MP Trevor Evans. Labor's candidate is Madonna Jarrett VIC Chisolm: Liberal since 2016. Held by Gladys Liu on a 0.6 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is academic Carina Garland. Chisolm: Held by Liberal MP Gladys Liu (left). Labor's candidate is Carina Garland (right) Higgins: Liberal since 1949. Held by Katie Allen on a 4 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is doctor Michelle Ananda-Rajah. Higgins: Liberal MP Katie Allen (left) and Labor candidate Michelle Ananda-Rajah NSW Reid: Liberal since 2013, held by Fiona Martin since 2019 with a 3.2 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is researcher Sally Sitou. Reid: Liberal MP Fiona Reid (left) is against Labor candidate Sally Sitou (right) Banks: Held by Mental Health Minister David Coleman since 2013 on a margin of 6.2 per cent. Labor's candidate is former diplomat Zhi Soon. Banks: Held by Liberal MP David Coleman (left). Labor's candidate is Zhi Soon (right) Robertson: Held by Lucy Wicks since 2013 with a margin of 4.2 per cent. Labor's candidate is doctor Gordon Reid. Robertson: Held by Liberal MP Lucy Wicks (left). Labor's candidate is Gordon Reid (right) Lindsay: Held by Melissa McIntosh since 2019 with a 5.5 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is fireman Trevor Ross. Lindsay: Held by Liberal MP Melissa McIntosh. Labor's candidate is Trevor Ross WA Swan: Held by retiring MP Steve Irons since 2007 on a 2.7 per cent margin. Sky News commentator and former Tony Abbott advisor Kristy McSweeney will run for the Liberals against engineer Zaneta Mascarenhas for Labor. Swan: The Liberal candidate is Kristy McSweeney (left). Labor's is Zaneta Mascarenhas (right) Hasluck: Held by Indigenous Affairs Minister Ken Wyatt since 2010 on a 5.4 per cent margin. He'll be challenged by former Woodside Energy manager and state government policy advisor Tania Lawrence. Hasluck: Held by Liberal MP Ken Wyatt (left). Labor's candidate is Tania Lawrence (right) Pearce: Held by retiring MP Christian Porter on a notional margin of 5.2 per cent (which takes into account a redistribution). City of Wanneroo Mayor Tracey Roberts is Labor's candidate. TAS Bass: Held by Bridget Archer since 2019 on a 0.4 per cent margin. Labor's candidate is former MP and lawyer Ross Hart. Bass: Held by Liberal MP Bridget Archer (left). Labor's candidate is Ross Hart (right) Braddon: Held by Gavin Pearce since 2019. Labor's candidate is youth worker Chris Lynch. Braddon: Held by Liberal MP Gavin Pearce (left). Labor's candidate is Chris Lynch (right) SA Boothby: Liberal since 1949. Held by retiring MP Nicolle Flint since 2016 with a margin of 1.4 per cent. The Liberal candidate is doctor Rachel Swift. Labor's candidate is charity boss Louise Frost. Boothby: The Liberal candidate is Rachel Swift (left). Labor's is Louise Frost (right) Advertisement

Which seats is the Coalition hoping to win?

The Coalition is aiming to defend seats in Queensland and Western Australia while picking up more in New South Wales.

The Government knows it would be a significant achievement to hold all 23 Queensland seats but believes it can do it.

'There's always one or two seats which catch you by surprise but I think the Government has a pretty good standing in Queensland,' said one source.

The Liberal-National Party may even add to its tally as it targets the north Brisbane seat of Lilley, held by Anika Wells on a 0.6 per cent margin.

It may be harder to hold ground in Western Australia but a source said although Premier McGowan is popular, 'voters know the difference between state and federal politics.'

Mr Morrison has already been on radio in Perth reminding voters the contest is between him and Mr Albanese not Mr McGowan.

The Labor seat of Cowan in Perth's north is the only obvious WA target for the Liberals, held by Anne Aly on a margin of 0.8 per cent.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison throws a netball while campaigning in the Sydney seat of Banks, in NSW, on December 8

In terms of offensive strategy, the Coalition is hopeful of picking up electorates in the Prime Minister's home state of New South Wales where Labor holds six seats on margins less than three per cent.

In 2019 Labor held Macquarie in Sydney's Blue Mountains by just 371 votes, making it the most marginal seat in the country. The Liberals held the seat from 2010 to 2016 and want it back.

The Liberal Party also wants Eden-Monaro covering rural NSW near Canberra after narrowly missing out in a by election in 2020 when it reduced Labor's margin from 0.8 per cent to 0.3 per cent.

Dobell on the Central Coast with its 1.5 per cent margin is another target and the Liberals have high hopes of winning back Gilmore on the NSW south coast with popular state MP Andrew Constance.

Meanwhile Hunter has been Labor since 1910 but the Nationals will be campaigning to steal the coalmining seat as long-serving MP Joel Fitzgibbon retires after his margin was slashed to just three per cent in 2019.

The neighbouring seat of Paterson is also on the cards, held by Meryl Swanson since 2016 on a five per cent margin.

The Government also wants Warringah on Sydney's lower north shore back from independent Zali Steggall who has a 7.2 per cent margin but faces a tough battle after Gladys Berejiklian ruled herself out of the running.

The Coalition is aiming to defend seats in Queensland and Western Australia while picking up more in New South Wales. The Liberals will face a strong challenge in Reid and Lindsay. Pictured: A map of Sydney after the 2019 election

The Liberals also want Lyons in Tasmania which they lost in 2016 to Brian Mitchell who holds the seat with a five per cent margin.

One strategist said Liberal premier Peter Gutwein's popularity may help shore up Tasmanian seats in what he called 'the opposite of the McGowan effect'.

In Victoria, the Coalition believes it has a chance of winning back Corangamite and Dunkley, the two marginal seats it lost in the state in 2019. Independent Helen Haines, who holds the regional seat of Indi on a 1.4 per cent margin will also be targeted by the Liberals.

The biggest wildcard in this election will be the seat of Lingiari which covers all of the Northern Territory except an area around Darwin.

Labor's Warren Snowdon has held the seat since it was created in 2001 but he's retiring and the County Liberal Party have preselected Alice Springs mayor Damien Ryan in hopes of overturning the 5.5 per cent margin.

When he became Deputy Prime Minister in June 2020, Barnaby Joyce (right on November 23) noted the importance of Lingiari when he said the election is 'going to be won in three places: the Hunter Valley, central Queensland and in and around Darwin'

Due to its vast size and sporadic population, Lingiari is near impossible to poll meaning it could throw up a surprise on election night.

Concern about losing the seat was one of the reasons Labor was so against the Government's dumped voter ID laws amid fears they would disenfranchise Aboriginal Labor-leaning voters who didn't have driving licenses.

When he became Deputy Prime Minister for the second time in June, Barnaby Joyce noted the importance of Lingiari when he said the election is 'going to be won in three places, the Hunter Valley, central Queensland and in and around Darwin.'
The Brazilian municipalities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo will postpone Carnival festivities set for the end of February as the country faces another surge with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes and his Sao Paulo counterpart Ricardo Nunes announced on Friday plans to delay the start of their respective Carnival parades until April 21.

The world-famous festivities originally were scheduled for February 25 before the number of positive cases spiked last week.

'The decision was made with respect to the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and the need, at this time, to preserve lives and join forces to drive vaccination throughout the country,' the cities of Rio and Sao Paulo said in a joint statement.

Although the raucous street festivities surrounding the annual Carnival celebration have been canceled in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulos, samba schools in both locales will be able to hold their parades this year after the world famous festivities were canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both cities agreed to postpone this year's celebration, moving them from February to April as the country faces another pandemic surge

Brazilian Maracatu dancers perform during the traditional Galo da Madrugada Carnival parade along the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 2020. The government of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo agreed Friday to postponed this year's parades to late April as Brazil faces another surge in the COVID-19 pandemic

Paes and Nunes met virtually with health secretaries and each city's league of samba schools that put on the parade, according to the statement.

Both cities announced weeks ago that street parties, some of which draw hundreds of thousands of revelers, would change.

But Paes agreed that samba schools' parades through the Marques de Sapucai Sambadrome would proceed as planned, because it would be relatively easy to check vaccination statuses and negative test results upon entry.

The parade through the Sambadrome is a major tourist draw for Rio and the central fixture of the city's pre-Lenten party.

The Rio de Janeiro Carnival dates back to the 1700s and draws tens of thousands of spectators in its bleachers and tens of millions watch from home.

A health work tests a Rio de Janeiro resident for the coronavirus on January 19. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center, Brazil registered at least 1,038,782 positive cases from January 19 to January 23, an average of 148,397 per day

A performer from the Beija Flor samba school parades during Carnival celebrations at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2020. The 2022 Carnival festivities in Rio will be held in late April rather than the final weekend of February, as the number of coronavirus cases in Brazil spikes and the omicron variant spreads across the country

Revelers of the Vila Maria samba school perform during the second night of Carnival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at the city's Sambadrome in the early hours of February 23, 2020. The city will require everyone attending April's celebrations to show proof of at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccination

Rio de Janeiro Health Secretary Daniel Soranz told reporters Friday that the state was not prepared to hold the festivities and maintain 'sanitary conditions' at the same time.

The Sao Paulo government will require revelers to have at least two doses of the COVID-19 vaccination in order to attend the parades. Prior to the parade, participating samba schools must submit a list showing vaccinations of those involved. Visitors and those parading would have to wear faces masks at all times with seating set at 70 percent capacity.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center, Brazil registered at least 1,038,782 positive cases from last Monday until Sunday, an average of 148,397 per day.

Data showed the country reported a single-day, pandemic record-high 195,541 cases Wednesday.

Brazil, the epicenter of the pandemic in the Latin America region, has reported the third most cases - 24,054,405 - behind the United States and India, as of Monday.

The South American nation's 623,370 confirmed deaths are second to the U.S.
A little girl who had recently emigrated to US from Mexico was killed in a gang-related shooting while walking down the street, in the middle of the day, near her Chicago home.

Melissa Ortega, whose family moved to Chicago from Mexico in August, was killed when she was hit in the head at 2:30 pm on Saturday by a stray bullet during a shooting that targeted a 26-year-old gang member.

The alleged shooter was dropped off by a vehicle before getting out of the car, when he began firing, ABC7 reported Chicago police as saying.

The shooting occurred as homicides in the city soared last year to 800, a figure not seen since 798 were slain in 1996, while homicides soared by 60 percent in two years, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Police Superintendent David Brown said the department 'will not rest until the perpetrators' are brought to justice.

'The tragic and senseless murder of 8-year-old Melissa has shaken our city,' he tweeted Sunday.

Melissa Ortega, pictured, whose family moved to Chicago from Mexico in August, was identified as the victim, the Cook County medical examiner's office revealed on Sunday

'There are no words of comfort when a child's life is cut short. There are no words that can describe the grief of a family.'

'The Chicago Police Department stands with the Little Village community in the wake of this unthinkable tragedy and wont stop working until we find justice for this precious child and her family,' Superintendent Brown added in a follow up tweet.

Police said Ortega was walking on the street with mother on Saturday afternoon when someone shot at the gang member who was leaving a nearby store.

The young girl and her mother attempted to sprint to a nearby bank, the Fifth Third Bank in the 4000 block area of West 26th Street, for safety, however it was too late and Ortega had been fatally shot as the two ran for their lives.

Chicago police investigate the scene after an 8-year-old girl and a man in his 20s were struck by gunfire at approximately 2:45 pm on Saturday, leaving the girl dead

Police officers cordon off the crime scene on Saturday after the fatal shooting of Melissa Ortega

Ortega, who was shot in the head, was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Police say the male victim, who has not been identified, has an extensive criminal record, was the intended target.

He was shot in the back and is currently hospitalized in critical condition. Authorities did not have an update on his condition Sunday.

The attacker got away and had not been arrested or identified as of Sunday.

The young girl and her mother attempted to sprint to a nearby bank, pictured, for safety, however it was too late and Ortega had been fatally shot as the two ran for their lives

The entrance to the Fifth Third Bank in the 4000 block of West 26th Street, where Melissa and her mother tried to flee to safety as gunshots ran out on Saturday afternoon

Police investigate the fatal shooting of an 8-year-old girl in Chicago on Saturday

The shooting happened amid a spike in homicides in Chicago. Last year was the city's deadliest in a quarter century, with roughly 800 homicides.

Melissa was a third grade student at Emiliano Zapata Academy, an elementary school in the city's heavily-Mexican Little Village neighborhood, according to the Chicago Teachers Union.

A GoFundMe organized in an online effort to pay for funeral services, which are expected to be held in Mexico, has already raised nearly $30,000 out of a $20,000 goal.

'Fear and violence, guns and gangs have no place in this city, and it will take all of us working together to stop it' Brown tweeted on Sunday.

'If you have any information about this senseless crime, please call our anonymous tip line: 833-408-0069. Eligible tips can receive a reward of up to $15,000.'
Charlise Mutten's mother sent a series of Facebook messages saying she had found love with her fiance before he allegedly murdered the nine-year-old schoolgirl.

Kallista Mutten boasted to her friends online that she had fallen head over heels in love with 31-year-old Justin Stein.

'He's amazing and treats me so good,' she told one friend, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

'He's completely loyal and I have no worries, I know his heart is with me.'

Police allege Stein murdered Charlise at his family's Wildenstein estate in the Blue Mountains and then dumped the child's remains, encased in a barrel, in bushland by the Colo River where they were found on Tuesday.

Ms Mutten also mentioned her daughter in several of the Facebook messages with one revealing her excitement to see the nine-year-old at her fiance's family property in remote Mount Wilson for Christmas.

Charlise Mutten's mother sent a series of Facebook messages saying she had found love with her fiance before he allegedly murdered the nine-year-old schoolgirl

Kallista Mutten boasted to her friends online that she had fallen head over heels in love with 31-year-old Justin Stein

A mock-up of the Facebook message Ms Mutten sent to a friend boasting about her love for her fiance Justin Stein

'My daughter comes on the 21st, so I'm looking forward to that,' she wrote on December 5, the Herald reported.

Ms Mutten met Stein while she was serving a three-year-prison sentence after getting behind the wheel while high on ice and causing a car crash that killed her passenger in 2017.

The couple exchanged letters until Ms Mutten was released from prison and the pair became engaged shortly afterwards. They had been making plans to move to Far North Queensland to start their lives together.

Kallista Mutten stayed at a $20,000 a month Sydney Clinic at Bronte Beach last November where she boasted to fellow patients of having sex with Stein during an access visit.

Ms Mutten was housed in the Clinic's level two substance abuse unit and was visited by Stein, a fellow patient revealed exclusively to Daily Mail Australia.

The patient said Kallista was 'over the top' and 'very attention seeking' and repeatedly mentioned she had a 'rich fiance' who was 'very wealthy'.

She talked about her forthcoming wedding to Stein in 2022, which Ms Mutten has previously said could take place at the Mount Wilson Anglican Church, just minutes from where Charlise was allegedly murdered.

Kallista Mutten may have mentioned her daughter Charlise once 'in passing' but chatted often with other patients about marrying her rich fiance Justin Stein in Mt Wilson this year

At the Sydney Clinic, which treats celebrities, Kallista Mutten boasted of her 'very wealthy' fiance Stein and proudly described how they would be getting married this year

A patient room inside the $20,000 a month Sydney Clinic where Kallista Mutten stayed and was visited by Justin Stein who has now been charged with Charlise Mutten's alleged murder

Kallista Mutten was housed on level two of the Sydney Clinic where inpatients are treated for substance abuse and was visited by Justin Stein her 'wealthy' fiance

Inpatients at the Sydney Clinic - which has treated TV reality star Suzi Taylor, actress Jessica Marais, game show host Andrew O'Keefe and AFL player Ben Cousins - are allowed up to four hours of daily leave outside for walks or visits.

The fellow patient said Ms Mutten animatedly chattered about Stein visiting her, and after one visit she claimed 'they had sex in the back of the ute' and seemed 'excited and high' after the encounter.

She related that her fiance had driven 'a long distance... from the mountains to visit her' and was 'hyper' about the visit.

Ms Mutten would chat with other patients on permitted 10-minute cigarette breaks in the clinic grounds and would be 'talking too loudly, over-talking and laughing loudly' as she rolled her own cigarettes and smoked them.

She traded 'rollie' cigarettes for cans of Coke other patients bought from the drinks machine.

While Ms Mutten talked at length about Stein, she 'may have mentioned once in passing' that she had a young daughter.

In the clinic, which has comfortable well-furnished rooms and 'amazing food', Ms Mutten sometimes 'gave the impression she was nuts' to doctors and nurses.

In rehab last November, Kallista Mutten had the same pink streaked hair she is seen wearing (above) after she was pictured while having a medical episode after calling police to report Charlise missing

She was very curious about how one other patient, who had attention deficit disorder, obtained a prescription of Dexamphetamine or 'Dexies' and engaged in intense discussions about urine tests.

Patients at the 50-bed Sydney Clinic are breath-tested on return from a visit and if clinicians or nurses believe a patient may have engaged in drug-taking while outside the premises, they can be subjected to urine tests.

Sydney Clinic's inpatient substance dependence program holds three-step group therapy sessions, but the fellow patients said Ms Mutten seemed uninterested in participating.

Ms Mutten has been in drug rehab previously for treatment for a methamphetamine addiction.

She served more than two years in prison for killing her 53-year-old friend Karen 'Kaz' Bunch after driving off road and into the Tweed River while high on ice.

She was convicted at Lismore Court on November 24, 2017 of dangerous driving occasioning death and driving with an illicit substance in her system.

Justin Stein drove from the mountains to visit his fiancee Kallista Mutten at the Sydney Clinic and after one visit she boasted they'd had sex in the back of his ute

Kallista discussed with other patients her forthcoming wedding to Justin Stein possibly in the Mt Wilson St George Anglican Church above, just minutes from where Charlise vanished
Paul Keating has lashed out at the Australian and British governments over their attempts to contain the rise of China.

Few were spared in the famously caustic former Australian prime minister's spray that branded leaders 'demented', 'disreputable', and 'deluded'.

Mr Keating was particularly hard on British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for claiming China could use Russia's aggression in Ukraine to launch its own attacks in Asia.

'[Her comments] are nothing short of demented. Not simply irrational, demented,' he wrote in an opinion piece, calling her words 'nonsense'.

Paul Keating has lashed out at the Australian and British governments over their attempts to contain the rise of China

Ms Truss has been in Australia for high level meetings in recent days and said China taking advantage of the Ukraine situation 'couldn't be ruled out'.

'Russia is working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in concert and I think it's incumbent on countries like ours to work together,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Mr Keating, who while PM in 1991 to 1996 turned Australian foreign policy towards Asia, is a frequent apologist for China.

He heaped scorn on the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the US, and the UK and ridiculed Britain's ability to be a force in the Asia-Pacific at the National Press Club last year.

This weekend he took another shot at Britain's 'delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation' in thinking it could make a dent in China's influence.

'The reality is Britain does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to East Asia. Britain took its main battle fleet out of East Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its 'East of Suez' policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back,' he wrote.

Former Australian prime minister Paul Keating has slammed the British foreign secretary Liz Truss (pictured) as 'demented'

The Australian government hosted Ms Truss and British defence secretary Ben Wallace in Sydney last week to discuss China's influence in the Indo-Pacific.

She said Australia and the UK are 'facing global challenges with multiple aggressors We are seeing the alignment of authoritarian regimes around the world.'

This further enraged Mr Keating, who also took the opportunity to take a shot at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ongoing problems.

'Truss would do us all a favour by hightailing it back to her collapsing, disreputable government, leaving Australia to find its own way in Asia,' he wrote.

Mr Keating also struck out at the Australian Government, referring to foreign minister Marise Payne as a 'non minister', and calling defence minister Peter Dutton 'increasingly strident' in his anti-China rhetoric.

He said that Ms Truss, who is tipped by many to be the UK's next prime minister, is 'looking wistfully for Britain's lost worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries'.

Mr Keating also took aim at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper for how it interpreted and reported on Ms Truss' comments.

'It is a measure of how far the Herald has sunk in accommodating (journalist Peter) Hartcher's extreme and unworldly positions  especially as they relate to China,' he said.

'The irresponsibility of the story, and Hartcher's writing of it, is breathtaking.'

Paul Keating has said that Boris Johnson (pictured) leads a 'disreputable' government

Last month, Mr Keating blasted Scott Morrison as a 'pass through' PM and said Australia had 'lost its way' and surrendered its authority to the US.

On the 30th anniversary of becoming PM in 1991, the still-outspoken 77-year-old said Australia's leaders lacked vision and treated politics as 'a game within a bubble'.

Mr Keating has been a vocal critic of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal and he lashed out at Mr Morrison over the 'secret' alliance with the UK and US, which infuriated China.

'Scott Morrison, a pass-through prime minister of no policy account, wilfully and secretly alienated the sovereignty of his own country to that of another state, the US, a country his limited strategic vision cannot see beyond,' he said.
Stop saying men are more responsible for domestic violence than women By Rachel Alexander

web posted January 24, 2022



Contrary to years of alarming reports by the media focused only on domestic violence by men, women actually commit more domestic violence incidents than men. But the UN ran a global campaign this winter titled, Orange the World: End Violence Against Women Now! The description of the drive made frequent references to violence against women and girls, but did not include any mention of violence against men and boys. Multiple studies of domestic violence have found that slightly more men than women report being a victim of domestic violence within the past year, 19.8% to 18.8%. Last year, the Coalition to End Domestic Violence issued a report entitled Thirty-Years of Domestic Violence Half-Truths, Falsehoods and Lies which revealed massive amounts of bias in this area. Much of the perception that domestic violence is mainly perpetuated by men against women developed in the 1990s, when then-Sen. Joe Biden drafted the Violence Against Women Act. Despite all the taxpayer money thrown at the program, there is little or no evidence that VAWA-funded programs have succeeded in reducing rates of domestic violence. And according to commentator Christina Villegas, protecting persons from partner abuse has never been the primary intention of VAWA. Instead, the domestic violence campaign has been a political movement that seeks to change social norms and redistribute resources, power, and control to women, with the long-term aim of a genderless, socialist society. Another stereotype that persists also began in the 1990s: More women are victims of domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day of the year. Even the left-wing Snopes fact-checking site labeled that false . Snopes explained, The claim that Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest day of the year for violence against women is a case study of how easily an idea congruous with what people want to believe can be implanted in the public consciousness and anointed as fact even when there is little or no supporting evidence behind it. Longtime leading feminist Gloria Steinem once declared, The most dangerous situation for a woman is  a husband or lover in the isolation of their home. This is false. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the leading causes of injury deaths for women are falls, followed by poisonings and then traffic accidents. The left-wing dominated legal system is responsible for much of the misinformation. The website of the DOJ Office of Violence Against Women was found to contain massive misinformation. It was so bad that all of the inaccurate fact sheets were removed by 2021. However, some false data remains on another DOJ website, the Office for Victims of Crime, in a document entitled  Facts About Domestic Violence . Based on on findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey, it incorrectly relates the same inaccurately compiled, tired old statistics. The International Association of Chiefs of Police mostly ignores the fact that domestic violence is perpetrated against men too. The National District Attorneys Association is almost as bad . National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges issued a pamphlet entitled Bringing the Greenbook to Life: A Resource Guide for Communities, which contains the words battered mothers and battered women 27 times, but not a single instance of battered fathers or battered men. The American Bar Association issued a two-page flyer , 10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them. The Coalition to End Domestic Violence found , Overall, the great majority of assertions and conclusions in the CODV flyer were found to be unsupported, misleading, or wrong. Not surprisingly, the ABA took the paper down; but not before it was posted on the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence website. Perhaps the reason this myth is perpetuated is because of the outdated perception that women are helpless to defend themselves from men. Times have changed. Women can call 911, own guns, learn martial arts to defend themselves, and use the deterrent threat of shaming on social media and through the regular media. Of course there are exceptions to all of that where a woman may be unable to utilize any of those  but there are also situations where a man may be unable to defend himself from a woman, such as situations where she is stronger or has a weapon and he doesnt. The bias is a problem because it promotes harmful stereotypes of men. Instead of being the protectors of women, they are viewed as abusers and predators. It makes women unnecessarily scared to have relationships with men, and puts men on eggshells dating women. It also makes men less likely to contact law enforcement for help with domestic violence  which then perpetuates the myth that they arent  a vicious cycle. The numbers of men who contact services for help are drastically smaller than women  as much as 99 to 1 in areas such as legal assistance, sexual assault services and transitional living services. Contrary to a popular stereotype, black men are more likely than black women to be victims of domestic violence. Mandatory domestic violence arrest policies likely result in disproportionate arrest rates among black men. Women are also more likely than men to be involved in abuse of their children. They commit 53% of child abuse incidents, and mothers are responsible for 71% of child homicides committed by a parent. Unfortunately, researchers who attempt to refute the misleading claims are targeted by activists. The late Professor Suzanne Steinmetz published a book showing that men and women commit domestic violence at approximately equal rates. For this, a letter writing campaign was launched to deny her promotion and tenure at the University of Delaware, and her daughters wedding received a bomb threat. Finally, during the COVID-19 epidemic there were wild claims that being stuck at home has increased domestic violence. But four different studies found this was not true. What is it going to take to stop this hurtful stereotype from being perpetuated? People daring to speak up and say enough, especially leaders and men who have been hurt. Rachel Alexander and her brother Andrew are co-Editors of Intellectual Conservative . She has been published in the American Spectator, Townhall.com, Fox News, NewsMax, Accuracy in Media, The Americano, ParcBench, Enter Stage Right and other publications. Home
China sent 39 warplanes - mostly fighter jets - into Taiwan's air defense zone on Sunday, the island's government said, in the second-largest daily incursion on record.

Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which sees the self-ruled, democratic island as part of its territory to eventually be reclaimed, by force if necessary.

The final quarter of 2021 saw a massive spike of incursions from China into Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), with the biggest single day coming on October 4, when 56 Chinese warplanes entered the zone.

The island's defense ministry said late Sunday it saw 39 warplanes from China enter Taiwan's ADIZ - the second-largest number of incursions on record, which is shared with October 2 last year.

Chinese military personnel stand near a Chinese military's J-10C airplane. China flew 39 warplanes including J-10 fighter jets toward Taiwan in its largest such sortie of the new year, continuing a pattern that the island has answered by scrambling its own jets in response

Ten US Navy ships, including aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, participated in exercises with Japan from January 17-22 'for effective deterrence and response', Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force tweeted Monday, pictured this weekend

It added that it scrambled its own aircraft to broadcast warnings on Sunday and deployed air defense missile systems to track the jets that entered its zone.

The warplanes included 24 J-16 fighters, which experts say are among China's favorite jets for testing Taiwan's air defenses, 10 J-10 fighters and one nuclear-capable H-6 bomber.

It remains unclear why China launched such a large single-day mission.

But the incursions come on the heels of the United States and Japan carrying out naval exercises in the Philippine Sea, an area that includes waters just east of Taiwan.

Ten US Navy ships, including aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, participated in exercises with Japan from January 17-22 'for effective deterrence and response', Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force tweeted Monday.

Taiwan only started regularly publicizing its data on air incursions in September 2020.

October remains the busiest month on record, with 196 incursions, 149 of which were made over just four days as Beijing marked its annual National Day.

The defense zone is not the same as Taiwan's territorial airspace but includes a far greater area that overlaps with part of China's own ADIZ.

The activity has generally been in the air space southwest of Taiwan and falls into what Taiwan's military calls the air defense identification zone

Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen, pictured, was elected president in 2016, as she considers the island a sovereign nation and not part of 'one China'

Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since Tsai Ing-wen was elected president in 2016, as she considers the island a sovereign nation and not part of 'one China'.

Last year, Taiwan recorded 969 incursions by Chinese warplanes into its ADIZ, according to a database compiled by AFP -- more than double the roughly 380 carried out in 2020.

Taiwan's air force has suffered a string of fatal accidents in recent years as its ageing fleet is kept under constant pressure by China.

The air force temporarily grounded all F-16 fighters earlier this month after one of its most advanced F-16V jets crashed into the sea during a routine training mission, killing one pilot.
A young Australian man who owns seven properties worth $4 million says it all started with saving up while working part-time at KFC.

Marcus Horwood began putting money aside aged 14, and 17 years later owns homes in NSW, Western Australia, Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland.

To amass his property portfolio, Mr Horwood avoided 'blue chip' big city properties to instead take a punt on an unfashionable but cheaper areas.

One example was a Hobart bungalow that reeked of cat pee when he bought it but tripled in value over time.

A young Australian man managed to buy seven properties, and it all started with saving up while working part-time at a fast food restaurant (pictured, Marcus Horwood's first buy, a one bedroom unit at Neutral Bay in Sydney)

One of his strategies was to buy in different states, to take advantage of differing land tax thresholds and think ahead more than 30 years and view his property portfolio as a retirement investment, he told news.com.au.

Mr Horwood also targeted properties he could cover the mortgage repayments with the rent and didn't need negative gearing.

His careful plan that saved him thousands in land tax compared to buying all in the same state, and increased his equity so he could buy again.

Mr Horwood, now a PhD student at Deakin University, began saving as a 14-year-old while working at KFC in Sydney, where he earned $6 an hour.

His first buy was a one-bedroom unit in Neutral Bay in 2012 for $420,000 when he was 21, now worth about $700,000.

To amass his property portfolio, Mr Horwood has ignored expert advice steering him towards 'blue chip' big city properties, a strategy that saw him take a punt on an unfashionable regional areas (pictured, Mr Horwood, right)

He managed to save the $100,000 deposit for the unit from his part-time KFC job, plus wages from working in community support and as a tax consultant for Ernst & Young.

Mr Horwood says he made sacrifices to afford his first home including giving up the chance to travel overseas, as his friends did.

Some of his former colleagues criticised his property investment strategy claiming it affected the affordability of housing for others.

'When people say it's the reason we can't afford to buy a place, I have to bite my tongue rather than say 'how's that round the world trip you just spent $50,000 on?' he said.

Instead of travelling and having fun, Mr Horwood knuckled down to save and also found the time to finish an accountancy degree.

Mr Horwood believes property investment is not beyond ordinary people if they aim for a modest first buy.

'Once you've got that, got a property under your belt, it will pay for itself and adds to your income and you can slowly grow,' he said.

'I was definitely not on a good salary until recently but having low income doesn't affect your ability to buy, it might make it more challenging, but it's absolutely doable.'

He also admitted his parents were 'avid investors' and he learned from them.

After his first buy in 2012, he didn't manage to buy again for another four years, when a Sydney property boom meant he had enough equity in his first home to get back into the market.

Mr Horwood managed to buy three more homes within a year, including a three-bedroom fibro home in Geraldton for $150,000 he said was now worth $210,000.

Mr Horwood's most recent purchase is a three bedroom home for $177,000 in the Townsville suburbs of Heatley, Queensland, which he says has appreciated $300,000 in value since he bought it in 2020

He rented that out for $200 a week and has never set foot in the house.

Then he bought a three-bedroom home in the Hobart suburb of Gagewood for $135,000. The previous owner had 10 cats, so the property stank of cat urine.

He spent $10,000 disposing of carpets, sanding and polishing floorboards, and managed to rent it out for $365 a week.

One of his most astute buys, he estimates it is now worth $400,000.

He also took a gamble on a three bedroom home at Coonamble, buying for $107,500, but now sees it was his 'dud' purchase.

Local crime and an unreliable tenant led him to sell and he managed just $110,000 in a depressed local market.

The home was broken into, and $10,000 worth of damage was caused, but Mr Horwood had insurance.

He couldn't get finance again while he was studying, but when he took on project work in 2018, he was able to get approval to buy again.

This time he went for a three bedroom house in Adelaide's north, for $210,000, which he rents out for $270 a week.

He estimates it is now worth between $300,000 and $350,000.

Having 'squirrelled away' some savings, Mr Horwood and his partner decided to buy a home together in 2019, at Marayong in Sydney's north-west.

Until then they were renting but became sick of constantly moving and of landlords not fixing needed repairs.

They recently decided to knock it down to rebuild on the same site. Once built his new five bedroom, three-bathroom home will be worth $2 million.

A year later, in 2020, Mr Horwood bought in regional Australia again.

This time he went for a three bedroom home for $177,000 in the Townsville suburbs of Heatley, Queensland that In less than two years has gone up $300,000 in value.

In all, the six homes Mr Horwood has bought as investments were valued at just under $2 million, after spending around $1.2 million on them.

Including the $610,000 property he's building his own home on, he spent about $1.8 million and could see the total value of his portfolio climb to just under $4 million.
A 14-year-old girl is allegedly dragged by the hair while a friend screams 'she's just a little kid' in a disturbing video of a vicious brawl between carnival workers and high schoolers.

The family carnival at Banner Park in Brunswick Heads, in the Byron Shire, turned ugly before 9.30 on Friday night when staff at the fair allegedly pounced on teens for throwing water bombs - which staff claim were filled with urine.

In the clip, piercing screams could be heard as two fully-grown men allegedly threw a series of punches at a group of about ten youths.

A man is accused of dragging a teenage girl across the grass by her hair at a carnival (pictured left)

One girl, who locals say was only 14, was allegedly pulled to the ground by one of the men and dragged across the grass by her ponytail.

As the girl kicked helplessly, a young female voice repeatedly bellowed: 'Don't f***ing touch her - she's just a little kid!'

A distressed teenage boy yelled, 'get off my girl!' and jumped into the fray to avenge his girlfriend.

Others allegedly continued to attack the 14-year-old and pull at her dress as she flailed on the ground, before her partner allegedly punched one of the men in the head.

Locals say the brawl broke out because teenagers were throwing water bombs at carnival staff

About ten teenagers and at least two carnival workers could be seen throwing punched (pictured)

'What the f***?' horrified onlookers shouted, while others screamed in fear.

Carnival owners told Daily Mail Australia they would not comment during the police investigation.

Locals said on social media that the fair has been running in the area for more than 65 years, and were horrified by the violent display.

One woman claimed her daughter tried to save the 14-year-old, but was punched in the face.

Another said: 'I live close by, and was terrified by what I could hear, to afraid to step out of the gate to see what was happening.'

One male teenager jumped into the fray (pictured) to avenge his girlfriend, who was dragged by her hair

The carnival has been running in the area for more than 65 years. Some locals said they had been attending since they were children

Some blamed the melee on the teenagers and said workers never would have reacted if water bombs weren't thrown in the first place, but others disagreed.

'Regards to what the children did or didnt do, the behaviour from these adults is absolutely disgusting,' one man wrote.

'They are grown adults throwing punches at children even females and dragging them by the hair.'

Someone else wrote: 'Yes the kids were out of order, and overstepped the mark to the point they needed a bit of a wake up, but hitting a kid is never justified - let alone a young girl.'

One woman pointed out that it would have been difficult for the youths to fill water bombs with urine because the balloon heads are 'too tiny'.

She also dismissed the claim because there were balloon remnants on a tap near the brawl, but others thought it was plausible.

'Some people are very creative,' a man replied.

Pictured: The family carnival in Brusnwick Heads, in the Byron Shire. A fight broke out at the event on Friday night

NSW Police told Daily Mail Australia officers were called to the scene following reports of a large brawl.

'Police have been told that a group of young persons at the carnival in Banner Park had been engaging in anti-social behaviour before carnival employees approached the group,' a police spokeswoman said.

'Upon police arrival, the groups had dispersed.'

'A verbal altercation then occurred between both parties before the groups engaged in a physical affray.'

The incident is still under investigation.
Major cities across the US have observed carjackings spike by up to 510 per cent in a 'disturbing' trend some are attributing to lax punishment and a shift in driving habits.

In line with an overall rise in violent crime across the nation, cities such as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and New Orleans are experiencing a jump in violent vehicle takeovers as critics slam criminal reform systems.

Others say changes that have come about during the pandemic - including curbside pickup and an increased demand for delivery service - are contributing to the jump.

In Chicago, 1,849 carjackings were reported last year - a 510 per cent increase from the 303 vehicular hijackings in 2014, according to city data. Last year's figure represents a 30 per cent increase from the 1,413 cases reported in 2020.

City Alderman Ray Lopez weighed in on the matter, telling CNN: 'It's like the perfect storm, where all these soft on crime policies have come to a head during this pandemic.'

Meantime, New York City has seen carjacking rising by more than 350 per cent in the past three years, to 510 in 2021. Comparatively, there were 328 cases in 2020, 132 in 2019, and 112 cases in 2018, CNN reported.

An NYPD opined to the New York Post: 'New York has become carjack city, Between the guns and the low-risk of stealing cars, weve seen this explosion in carjackings.'

Other cities experiencing a surge in cases include Philadelphia, which reported 750 carjackings last year, a 34 per cent year-over-year increase, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said in an online statement.

'The onslaught of violence happening in Philadelphia is entirely unacceptable and we remain committed to stemming these trends,' Outlaw said.

'One of the more disturbing trends that we have seen in Philadelphia is the startling increase in the number of carjackings  the taking of a vehicle by force or fear - that have been experienced over the past two years.'

She said it's possible the trend relates to the pandemic.

'The COVID-19 Pandemic has normalized mask wearing, and this has provided additional opportunity for offenders to avoid catching their victims attention, as well as making it more difficult to identify perpetrators,' she said.

A rise in carjackings prompted Philadelphia's top cop to put out a warning to residents

Pictured: A New York City cop investigates a suspected carjacking on January 12, 2022

Illinois State Senator Kimberly Lightford

The situation in Philly made headlines after Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon, 62, a progressive Democrat, was robbed at gunpoint.

She was not injured by the gunman, who made off with her purse, wallet and phone.

Less than a day later, Illinois State Senator Kimberly Lightford revealed she was as carjacked at gunpoint.

Lightford, 53, a Democrat who has been slammed by as being 'soft on crime' for seeking to defund police departments in Illinois, was not physically harmed during the incident, a portion of which was caught on a Ring camera in suburban Chicago on Tuesday.

Last June, the University of Chicago's Urban Labs department released a report that showed police made arrests in just 11 per cent of car jackings in 2020; it made arrests in 20 per cent of 2019's cases.

Minneapolis Police Chief Jefferey Norman told CNN that the justice system caused 'revolving door' of criminals who felt 'emboldened to be repeat offenders.

'We saw this on a higher level in 2020 and 2021,' he said.

New Orleans, Louisiana has record 36 carjackings so far this year - an 1,100 percent year-over-year increase from this time last year

The numbers are also moving in the wrong direction in New Orleans, which saw its most marked jump when cases hit 278 in 2020, a 104 per cent increase from 2019, NOLA.com reported.

There were 288 carjackings in the city last year.

So far this year, 36 carjackings have been reported - an 1,100 percent increase since this time last year, according to Metro Crime, which tracks the city's policing trends.

Last week, the Louisiana city's crime rise led to a quarrel between New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson and District Attorney Jason Williams, the outlet reported.

While Ferguson pointed the finger at a soft-on-crime justice system, Williams called police out on their low clearance rate.

Ferguson is blaming the rest of the criminal justice system for failing to hold offenders accountable, while Williams is bemoaning what he calls a low NOPD clearance rate.

'The people of this city are rightly frustrated,' Williams told reporters during a recent press conference. 'What we need is for the chief to understand that their role in the criminal legal system does not end in simply arrest. You gotta have evidence in court.'
The two Marines who were killed after their tactical vehicle flipped over in North Carolina last Wednesday have been identified by the U.S. military's 2nd Marine Logistics Group, to which they were both assigned.

Lance Corporal Jonathan Gierke, 19, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, and Private First Class Zachary Riffle, 18, of Kingwood, West Virginia, were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash, which injured 17 other service members riding in the military truck,

The crash took place around 1pm at the intersection of US 17 and Highway 210 between Verona and Holly Ridge, about five miles from Camp Lejeune.

Louis Barrera was behind the wheel of the seven-ton truck carrying 19 fellow Marines, when he made a right turn onto US 17, lost control and overturned, causing the soldiers to be ejected.

Jonathan Gierke, 19, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, and Zachary Riffle, 18, of Kingwood, West Virginia, were identified as the two Marines killed when their military truck crashed in North Carolina

Another military vehicle behind the truck then hit one of the Marines as it could not stop in time.

Three injured Marines remain hospitalized and in stable condition, one at the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, and another at the Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, according to a press release from the 2nd Marine Logistics Group

The 14 other injured Marines have since been discharged from medical care and have returned to their base.

Gierke and Riffle were both landing support specialists assigned to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group, based at Camp Lejeune, the second largest Marine base in the country behind California's Camp Pendleton.

The two entered active duty in March 2021 and were both past recipients of the National Defense and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol investigated last Wednesday's fatal crash after a seven-ton truck military truck flipped over, killing two and injuring 17 US Marines

A US Marine pictured as police investigate the fatal crash on Wednesday, after a military vehicle driven by Louis Barrera, 19, crashed and killed two fellow Marines

Three injured Marines remain hospitalized and in stable condition following the tragedy in North Carolina, while 14 others have been discharged. Gierke (center) and Riffle (right) were above at their recruit training graduation last May at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in South Carolina

'My sincerest heartfelt condolences are extended to the family, friends, and colleagues of the Marines who lost their lives or were injured in Wednesday's vehicle mishap,' Brigadier General Forrest C. Poole III, commanding general of 2nd Marine Logistics Group, said in a press release.

'Our commanders, chaplains, and medical providers are diligently supporting our Marines and Sailors during this time,' he added. 'We deeply appreciate all of the thoughtful community messages we have received over the past several days.'

Gierke and Riffle's passing's have spurred an outpouring of support for the two from their respective communities in Georgia and West Virginia.

'He was probably one of the best mentors I had. He was the light in the dark for almost everybody in our group,' Sabrina Arnett, a classmate of Gierke's at Collins Hill High School, told Fox 5. Arnett said that Gierke mentored her when the two were a part of the school's ROTC program.

'He was my training officer, in my first year in the program,' she said. 'He taught me everything I really needed to know to be where I was when I graduated. Overall, he was an amazing person. He always made me smile even if I was upset.'

Pictured: the two military vehicles involved in Wednesday's crash, which left two Marines dead and another 17 injured

Governor Brian Kemp, of Georgia, also showed support for Gierke on Twitter. 'Marty, the girls, & I are saddened by the tragic loss of LCpl Gierke,' he wrote in a post on Saturday.

'His desire to serve & protect this country, especially at such a young age, represents the best of us. He & his family are in our hearts & prayers as we join in mourning his passing,' Kemp added.

Barrera, 19, of Springfield, Tennessee, was charged with one count of exceeding a safe speed and two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle, according to WCTI-12.

Sergeant Devin Rich, pictured, with the Highway Patrol said that the speed the vehicle was going at the time was still undetermined as of Wednesday night

Sergeant Devin Rich with the Highway Patrol said Barrera's exact speed at the time was still undetermined as of Sunday night. The speed limit for US Highway 17 is 60mph.

'We're conducting a thorough investigation involving our reconstruction unit along with our district troopers,' Rich said.

'They're in the process of doing the measurements needed to obtain a speed or approximate speed they were traveling.

'We do know it was a little too fast for the right turn they were attempting to make.'

Two Marines were airlifted by a medical helicopter from the scene near in Jacksonville, NC.

The other 15 Marines were taken to Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune and were stable.

'We are aware of a vehicle rollover in Jacksonville, North Carolina, involving service members with 2nd MLG,' they tweeted on Wednesday.

The driver of that truck, Louis Barrera, 19, was charged with one count of exceeding a safe speed and two counts of misdemeanor death by motor vehicle

The truck had made a right turn onto US 17 before it lost control and overturned

The military truck crashed at the intersection of US 17 and Highway 210 between Verona and Holly Ridge at around 1pm on Wednesday

'We are working closely with @camp_lejeune and Onslow County officials to gather details regarding this incident. We will release more information as it becomes available.'

They later tweeted: 'We can confirm multiple casualties as a result of this incident.'

Meanwhile, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper expressed his condolences on social media shortly after the fatal crash.

'I send our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the US Marines who lost their lives in a tragic accident today in Onslow County,' Cooper posted on Facebook Wednesday.

'We are so proud of our military heroes at Camp Lejeune and across North Carolina. Our prayers go out to them.'

Camp Lejeune confirmed that fire and emergency services and ambulances from surrounding Pender and Jones counties were also at the scene.

Traffic on US 17 reopened about four hours after the crash occurred.

DailyMail.com reached out to the 2nd Marine Logistics Group for comment.

Multiple first responders were called to the scene with some coming from surrounding counties

The soldiers had been assigned to the 2nd Marines Logistics Group, which is based at Camp Lejeune
Kerry Chant has confirmed the Omicron wave is slowing and eased concerns of parents who are 'anxious' about sending their kids to school.

The NSW chief health officer said the situation appeared to be stabilising as the state recorded 15,091 new infections, down 26 per cent in a day, and 24 deaths.

'It is pleasing that when we look at a range of measures, our assessment indicates that the spread of coronavirus is slowing, our situation is stabilising,' she said at Monday's Covid briefing.

'While we expect to see an uptick in transmissions associated with schools going back, this could be mitigated by the actions of you as individuals.

'Getting those boosters will help us. They will also help us have some effect on transmission by preventing you acquiring infection and passing it on.'

Dr Chant warned fewer people got tested on weekends and that 'caution' should be taken when examining the latest daily figures.

The high number of cases has raised concerns among parents as they prepare to send their children back to the classroom from February 1.

Dr Chant urged parents not to send kids to school if they have symptoms, even if they test negative

An extra two million rapid antigen COVID-19 will be delivered to NSW schools before lessons resume for 2022 with the government promising classrooms will stay open even if students test positive

President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia Trent Twomey says there will be enough tests over the course of the program, which begins on Monday, but supply is constrained at the moment

Premier Dominic Perrottet eased concerns saying plenty of protective measures would be in place to keep children safe from the virus.

'I know many parents across the sate are anxious about the return to school,' he said.

'We have put everything in place to ensure that we can have our schools open in a safe way.'

The premier stood by his decisions to only send students home if they have tested positive, keep classrooms open, and shift focus away from contact tracing.

'This is the right approach for the circumstances that we are in today,' he said.

'We know in the main that Omicron is less severe, we have seen that, it is more transmissible but less severe.

'We have a highly vaccinated population, and yes, as a parent as well I know that many parents across the state are anxious about sending it back to school, many teachers are anxious.'

An extra two million rapid antigen Covid-19 will be delivered to NSW schools before lessons resume for 2022 - adding to the five million that have already been distributed.

Two test kits per week will be issued to pupils and staff across 3,000 primary and secondary schools throughout February. Early education and childcare centres are also included in the scheme.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said schools wouldn't be closed even when there was a Covid case.

'We've really shifted from that approach,' she told Sunrise on Monday.

Instead parents will be notified if there's a positive case in their child's year and any child who tests positive will be required to isolate at home.

'We'll ask you to monitor for symptoms and... use those rapid antigen tests just to check that your child continues to test negative,' Ms Mitchell said.

The government has again defended their rollout of the concessional scheme, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg saying every country is suffering from supply chain issues with regards to the tests

As part of NSW's long awaited back-to-school plan, teachers and pupils will get two of the tests per week when they return to classrooms

Covid cases are expected to rise after children return to school, but only by a modest amount given the booster rollout.

'There may well be a spike, but the alternative is to keep schools closed and we don't want to do that,' she said.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said it is the right decision for students to return to face-to-face learning amid the Omicron wave.

'I know many parents are anxious but ultimately we know kids do better in the classroom,' he told reporters on Sunday.

'It is what is best for mental health and social outcomes.'

Four million RAT kits have already been issued to school communities and another two million are expected to land by Tuesday evening, ahead of the February 1 term start.

Dr Chant urged parents not to send kids to school if they have symptoms, even if they test negative.

About 20,000 air purifiers will be issued to schools and principals provided with specific advice on how to maximise natural ventilation.

Masks are mandatory for high school teachers and students and recommended for pupils in Year 3 and above.

Premier Dominic Perrottet eased concerns saying plenty of protective measures would be in place to keep children safe from the virus

Visitors to schools will be limited and Covid-safe plans implemented for excursions.

There are also extensive contingency plans to cover staff absences from a pool of 1,000 student and retired teachers as well as hundreds of trained departmental officers and school administrators.

The NSW Teachers Federation said it will closely monitor the effectiveness of the measures.

'Omicron has taught us that nowhere is safe,' president Angelo Gavrielatos said on Sunday.

The opposition said the return to school plan left little time for principals, teachers and parents to get ready for the start of term.

Education spokeswoman Prue Car asked what happens once the current supply of rapid antigen kits is exhausted.

'It's not like Omicron is really going anywhere, anytime soon,' she said.
Wales could recruit NHS workers from England who lose their jobs because they refuse to be jabbed.

Labours Welsh First Minister, Mark Drakeford, said he would not rule out hiring unvaccinated workers from across the border.

Vaccines are not compulsory for NHS staff in Wales because a vast majority of workers have taken up the protections that vaccination offers, he said.

When asked if he would take on NHS staff from England, Mr Drakeford told the BBC: I dont expect us to go looking for people who have not been vaccinated but, if people apply, then they would be interviewed the normal way.

Wed look to see what lay behind their decision. We wouldnt rule them out but we certainly wouldnt go out there looking for them.

All front-line workers are required to have had two vaccines by April 1 but more than 80,000  6 per cent of the workforce  are not fully vaccinated. Staff on a hospital ward are pictured above

There is no jabs mandate for NHS staff in Scotland either, raising the prospect that staff who can no longer work in the NHS in England because they do not meet the vaccination requirements could simply head north to secure a job.

Mr Drakefords comments followed claims that Englands mandatory jab deadline could be delayed by six months to avoid a sudden exodus of staff.

All front-line workers are required to have had two vaccines by April 1 but more than 80,000  6 per cent of the workforce  are not fully vaccinated.

Those who do not comply risk losing their jobs or being moved to non-patient-facing roles.

Ministers are considering last-minute plans to push the deadline back by half a year, in a bid to avoid mass staff shortages, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

While some health bodies have welcomed news of a possible delay, others say it is not the answer.

Martin Marshall, the chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said mandatory vaccination for NHS workers in England was not the right way forward and barring tens of thousands of staff from the workplace could have massive consequences for the health service.

The Royal College of Midwives also called for a delay to mandatory vaccination plans over fears of a catastrophic impact on maternity services

Mr Marshall said a delay to the April deadline would allow time for booster jabs and a sensible conversation about whether vaccines should be compulsory.

Pat Cullen, general secretary and chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, echoed the concerns, saying: Nothing matters more to a nurse than caring for their patients safely.

Right now, our members are telling me they cant always do that.

We are calling on the Government to recognise this risk and delay a move which by its own calculations looks to backfire.

To dismiss valued nursing staff during this crisis would be an act of self-sabotage.

The Royal College of Midwives also called for a delay to mandatory vaccination plans over fears of a catastrophic impact on maternity services.

But NHS Providers  which represents all NHS trusts in England  said trust leaders had backed the mandatory jabs policy.

Deputy chief executive Saffron Cordery said: Some organisations are calling for a delay in the implementation of this policy but we dont think that is the answer.

Our survey of trust leaders found that while there was a range of views towards a policy of mandatory vaccinations, a majority backed this policy as a means of protecting colleagues, patients, and visitors from cross infection by unvaccinated staff.

On Saturday, NHS workers joined anti-vaxxers across the country as they protested against mandatory jab rules. In London, dozens of health workers were seen throwing their scrubs at police outside Downing Street, while others laid down their uniforms in Trafalgar Square. Government sources said there was currently no change in position on the jab deadline date.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: Health and social care workers look after the most vulnerable people in society, who could face serious health consequences if exposed to the virus.

Ensuring staff are vaccinated is the right thing to do to protect patients and those in care. The vast majority of NHS staff have had the vaccine which is our best defence against Covid-19.
A group of Greens-led councils have cancelled Australia Day events after Melbourne scrapped its annual parade.

Melbourne's Yarra City and Darabin councils continue to be banned from organising citizenship ceremonies by the federal government after refusing to hold them on January 26.

Other councils also cancelled their January 26 events including Fremantle in Perth which previously caused a stir when it moved celebrations to January 28 because of 'cultural sensitivities'.

Inner West Council in Sydney and Moreland in Melbourne also scrapped their Australia Day events while Byron Bay Council moved its citizenship ceremony to January 25.

Federal Immigration Minister Alex Hawke (pictured) said Australia Day shouldn't be for politcal protest but for unity

Australia Day is celebrated across the country with barbecues, beach trips, and Triple J parties (pictured)

Poll Should the date of Australia Day be changed from January 26? Yes No Should the date of Australia Day be changed from January 26? Yes 65 votes

No 463 votes Now share your opinion





Australia Day has become a polarising issue among Australians with Invasion Day protests a regular occurrence amid calls to 'change the date'.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke said the national day should be one of unity, not division, and shouldn't be politicised.

'There remains a small handful of Greens-dominated councils from which we continue to withhold authority to oversee citizenship ceremonies because of their blatant politicisation of Australia Day,' he told The Australian.

'It is also very sad to see some councils continue to politicise Australia Day this year, in a range of increasingly ridiculous ways, totally out of step with an overwhelming majority of people and the Australian community generally,' he said.

Victoria's annual Australia Day parade was cancelled for the second year in a row but the Andrews Government claimed the decision was not based of any political protest but because of the 'overwhelming support of stakeholders'.

January 26 is polarising as the day commemorates the landing of the First Fleet in Australia

The Victorian government has said the decision to cancel Melbourne's Australia Day parade was not political but because of the 'overwhelming support of stakeholders' (pictured: Premier Dan Andrews)

Many other local governments across the country are also cancelling, postponing or down-sizing their events because of Covid restrictions.

Celebrations in Sydney and Canberra significantly will be subdued and Perth's massive Skyworks fireworks festival was called off despite very few cases.

An Invasion Day rally was to go ahead in Melbourne but was called off on Friday with organisers Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance saying it would 'be careless to hold the event at the height of a pandemic'.

Greens leader Adam Bandt tweeted on Monday that Australia Day commemorated the founding of Australia through 'violence and dispossession of First Nations people'.

'A treaty would be a powerful moment of unity, the only path to a shared and united future,' he said.

The day has become known for Invasion Day rallies which are held in major cities protesting for recognition of First Nations people (pictured: a 2021 Invasion day rally)

Both major parties are against changing the date from January 26 - which commemorates the date of the First Fleet of settlers landing in Australia.

Labor's Indigenous Affairs spokeswoman Linda Burney instead advocated for 'different way to spend the day'.

She said she would attend citizenship ceremonies for new Australians and events which pay respect to First Nations culture.

A poll by international market research firm Ipsos in the lead-up to last year's Australia Day found only 28 per cent of Australians wanted to change the date from January 26.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced 10,212 new Covid infections and 13 deaths in the state as the chief health officer said the Omicron peak may have been reached on the Gold Coast.

All of the deaths were people over 70 years of age, including four people in their 70s, seven in their 80s and two people in their 90s.

Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard said the Gold Coast, where the major hospital now had nine wards devoted to Coid-19 patients, may be close or have even passed the peak of the current outbreak.

'Gold Coast numbers have declined slightly every day for the past four days, it would appear the Gold Coast is close to or past the current peak,' Dr Gerrard said.

Dr Gerrard said 878 people were in Queensland public hospitals with Covid, a slight rise on yesterday's figure of 863.

'The number of people in hospital appears to be significantly lower than we had expected at this stage,' Dr Gerrard said.

'This we believe has to do with people's changing behaviour in avoiding getting infection.

'We won't know for another week or so when we hit the general peak for Queensland and particularly for south-east Queensland - exactly how high that peak of hospitalisations would be.

'But we were certainly anticipating, certainly, several thousand people in hospital.'

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced 10,212 new Covid infections and 13 deaths in the state

Yesterday he said falls in hospitalisations over consecutive days would be a signal the current Omicron outbreak has reached its peak.

'Im thinking two, three or four days  thats the sort of number we should be looking for,' he said on Sunday.

'In reality, were not going to be able to tell when we reach the peak until it has passed.

'The real proof will be when the numbers of patients start to fall and so that will be a number of days after the actual true peak...'

Dr Gerrard said the state's Covid hospitalisations and deaths were getting harder to accurately record as authorities revealed that private hospital virus patients haven't been included in its figures.

Another 10 people died and 11,947 new cases were recorded on Sunday, with the number of active cases hitting 85,112.

There were 863 patients being treated for Covid in Queensland public hospitals and another 47 in intensive care and 17 people on ventilators.

Dr Gerrard said it was becoming more difficult to distinguish which patients were in hospital because of Covid and which patients had been admitted to hospital for other reasons but tested positive for the virus.

He admitted that almost everyone who died after testing positive was being recorded as a virus death.

'Unless it's very clear, very, very clear that someone has died from a completely unrelated cause,' he said.

'The number of people in hospital appears to be significantly lower than we had expected at this stage,' Queensland Chief Health Office Dr Gerrard said

From today, anyone in Queensland who had their second dose of a Covid vaccine in October or earlier will become eligible for a third jab. Pictured: Masked residents seen in Brisbane CBD

A Covid-19 testing centre at the Gold Coast University Hospital in Queensland - hospitalisations in the city had fallen the past four days, chief health officer Dr John Gerrard said on Monday

Dr Gerrard said hospitalisations will rise in coming days as authorities add the data from private hospitals to the daily figures for the first time.

He said more patients in private facilities were testing positive and public hospitals had started transferring some stable Covid patients to private hospitals.

Yesterday Health Minister Yvette D'Ath ruled out rapid antigen testing school students twice a week after the NSW government announced a plan to do so.

She said there was no national health advice to do so, it was 'not a comfortable test at the best of times' and rapid test supplies were limited in Queensland.

'We believe that those tests are best focused in the areas where we need them the most, such as ...being able to get hold of them for critical essential workers, aged Care, health,' the minister said.

Ms Palaszczuk said the government will release its back-to-schools plan this week.

She and Ms D'Ath again urged Queensland parents to get five to 11-year-old children vaccinated in the two weeks before the state's schools resume on February 7, but also urged teenagers to lift their rate of vaccination.

'I am concerned that of our 12- to 15-year-olds, only 74.65 per cent have had one dose and 66.61 per cent double dose, ' Ms Paaszczuk said.

'These teenagers will be going back to school face-to-face in a couple of weeks and we're really concerned that those numbers are lower than what our adult vaccination rates are. They should be at the same rate now.'

Fully vaccinated international travellers were allowed back into Queensland last Saturday without having to quarantine. Unvaccinated travellers must still quarantine for 14 days after arrival

Dr Gerrard warned that the virus will spread in schools once students return.

'The vast majority of children who acquire this virus, they have a mild illness,' he said.

'But because we know there will be very large numbers of cases in children, there will be a small number who will get a significant complication from this virus because of the sheer numbers involved.

'My impression is most young people are not afraid of of this virus which is probably legitimate but we want them to vaccinated because there can be complications.'

It was announced yesterday that 65.3 per cent of eligible Queenslanders had now received a booster jab.

From today, anyone in Queensland who had their second dose of a Covid vaccine in October or earlier will become eligible for a third jab.

The state is on the cusp of passing 90 per cent of Queenslanders 16 years and over having received two doses of a Covid vaccine.

On Saturday, fully vaccinated international travellers were allowed back into the state without having to quarantine. Unvaccinated travellers must still quarantine for 14 days after arrival.
Ministers are under pressure to stop taxpayers cash going to two pro-China groups following the scandal of a spy infiltrating Parliament on behalf of Beijing.

The Great Britain-China Centre (GBCC) quango receives 500,000 a year from the Foreign Office and gives Communist Party officials easy access to UK establishment figures.

And a private firm, the China-Britain Business Council (CBBC), which criticised the UK ban on controversial tech firm Huawei from 5G networks, helps run a 4.5million export service for the Department for International Trade.

There are now growing calls for the Government to cease funding for the two organisations to reduce risk of espionage or interference.

Miss Lee, who has given 670,000 to Labour and claimed to have successfully lobbied ministers over immigration laws, was mentioned by the Chinese ambassador at a 2012 London film premiere in the same breath as GBCC chairman Sir Martin Davidson

Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China co-chairman and leading Beijing critic, said last night: Its time to cut the funding and make it clear that Chinas appalling behaviour can no longer be tolerated.

It comes after MI5 accused British lawyer Christine Lee, 58, of covertly targeting politicians for the Chinese Communist Party.

She has attended several Chinese embassy events alongside GBCC and CBBC figures. Miss Lee, who has given 670,000 to Labour and claimed to have successfully lobbied ministers over immigration laws, was mentioned by the Chinese ambassador at a 2012 London film premiere in the same breath as GBCC chairman Sir Martin Davidson.

Last year she was listed among attendees of three online receptions with senior politicians and civil servants. Miss Lee took part in a Chinese New Year event with CBBC chairman Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, senior Foreign Office mandarin Victoria Busby and Boris Johnsons father Stanley. In July she welcomed the new Chinese ambassador while CBBC president Lord Sassoon spoke on the call. GBCC president Lord Mandelson was also present.

University donors on spot Universities could be forced to declare all overseas donations in a crackdown on foreign powers buying influence. An amendment proposed to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill would force universities to disclose the names of any foreign donors giving more than 50,000. The Office for Students watchdog would publish the names on an annual register. The aim is to restore public trust and shine a light on potential conflicts of interest. Ministers last year launched a probe into whether academics at universities receiving money from China were passing sensitive information to Beijing. This included British technology that could be used to aid the repression of minorities. Many universities rely on money from Chinese students. Some have previously refused to name foreign donors because of contractual deals and commercial sensitivity. Advertisement

A business associate of Miss Lee also has links to Westminster and the CBBC. Miss Lee, founder of the British Chinese Project community group, runs education firm UK-China Culture and Education Cooperation Promotion Centre Ltd with former Conservative MP Neil Carmichael.

His Facebook page says he started work for her law firm in 2018, a year after leaving Parliament. He also works for lobbying firm PLMR, a GBCC member.

Mr Carmichael said last night: I was completely surprised by the announcement about Christine Lee, and, indeed, the timing of it. I did not have any concerns about her activities and of course, my focus was on education.

A CBBC spokesman said: Its possible that senior people from CBBC have been at meetings where she may have been present. I can confirm that we have no relationship with her, and that her company is not a member of CBBC. I can state categorically that we have absolutely no relationship with or knowledge of the British Chinese Project.

The CBBC has received more than 25million in public money in the past decade. Its main contract ended in 2020. It is now receiving 700,000 a year as sub-contractor in the deal to help UK firms export to China. The Department for International Trade said it had no current contracts with the CBBC.

In its most recent annual report, the GBCC, whose directors include Boris Johnsons ex-wife Marina Wheeler QC, boasts of having strengthened and expanded relationships with key Chinese partners in policy-making, legal, judicial and academic sectors in the interest of UK-China relations. It says it works with Chinas Communist Party central committee and youth league.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: The Great Britain-China Centre provides opportunities for the UK to work with China to tackle global challenges such as climate change and to hold China to account on issues of concern.
The global warming question that can change peoples minds By Selwyn Duke

web posted January 24, 2022 Late last year, I got into a discussion with a fellow who was quite sold on the idea that mans activities were warming the Earth. While not a hardcore ideologue, it was apparent the gentleman had accepted the climate change narrative presented by mainstream media and believed we truly were imperiling the planet. I didnt say much to him initially, as we were engaged in some recreation, but later on I resurrected the topic and told him I just wanted to pose one question. What is the ideal average temperature of the Earth? I asked. It was clear he was without an answer, so I explained my rationale. If we dont know what the Earths ideal average temperature is, I stated, how can we know if a given type of climate change  whether naturally occurring or induced by man  is good or bad? After all, we cant then know whether its bringing us closer to or moving us further away from that ideal temperature. It was as if a little light bulb had lit up in his head, and he said, You know, thats a good question! I havent seen the man since, as we were just two ships passing in the night, and I dont know how his thinking has evolved (or regressed) between then and now. I do know, however, that someone whod seemed so confident and perhaps even unbending in his position had his mind opened with one simple question and a 20-second explanation. Of course, part of the questions beauty is that no one can answer it. There is no ideal average Earth temperature, only a range within which it must remain for life as we know it to exist. At the spectrums lower end, polar creatures proliferate; at its higher end, tropical animals do (though warmer temperatures do breed more life, which is why the tropics boast 10 times as many species as does the Arctic. Moreover, crop yields increase when CO2 levels are higher). This brings us to another important point: Apocalyptic warmist dogma is buttressed by the virtually unchallenged assumption that if man changes something natural, it is by definition bad. But this is prejudice. Most of us certainly dont believe this, for instance, when humans cure disease and use science to preserve and extend human life (or that of our pets). As for climate, there have been at least five major ice ages, and the most recent one began approximately 3 million years ago and continues today (yes, we live in an ice age!), informs the Utah Geological Survey. Then there was the Cryogenian period, during which the Earth was completely, or almost completely, covered with snow and ice. If man had existed during that time, would it have been bad if his activities had raised the temperature a couple of degrees? Within ice ages are shorter term cycles known as glacials (colder periods) and interglacials (warmer ones); glacials last approximately 100,000 years while interglacials last about 10,000 to 30,000 years. Were currently in an interglacial called the Holocene Epoch, which began 11,500 to 12,000 years ago. This means that we could, conceivably, be poised to soon enter another more frigid glacial period. Now, again, were this mitigated by a couple of degrees via mans activities, would this be a bad thing? In point of fact, warmists suggest that such mitigation is a reality. For example, citing research, science news magazine Eos wrote in 2016 that our Holocene Epoch may last much longer because of the increased levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases resulting from human activity. Once more, would this be bad? Why? Whats that ideal average Earth temperature that this climate change would supposedly be moving us further away from? If youre a member of one of the vast majority of Earths species, those prospering in (relative) warmth, it sounds like good news. The question in question wont cut any ice (pun intended) with those emotionally invested in the doom-and-gloom global warming thesis. After all, You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into, to paraphrase Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. But with the more open-minded majority, the question can turn down the heat on the fear. Contact Selwyn Duke , follow him on MeWe or Parler , or log on to SelwynDuke.com . Home
Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Milwaukee on Monday for the second part of a trip to promote the administration's infrastructure package - as the White House says it plans to do more to trumpet its achievements amid dire polling and legislative deadlock.

She visited a nonprofit to meet workers replacing lead pipes, one of the initiatives she has championed.

'It is because of the work that you all are doing... that makes us all so excited....' she told two plumbers who demonstrated how they removed lead pipes.

'We just got a law passed and part of that law is to invest billions of dollars in lead removal.'

It is the second part of a trip that included announcing $1.3 billion in funding to prevent and restore damage from wildfires on Friday - before her team was disrupted by a positive COVID test.

It means several of her aides will have to travel back separately, missing the trip to Wisconsin.

A White House official said up to 10 million households still connect to water through lead pipes; 400,000 schools and childcare facilities are at risk of exposure to lead; and 24 million housing units have lead in their paint.

'Because of inequitable infrastructure development and disinvestment, low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately exposed to these risks,' said the official.

'President Biden and Vice President Harris believe this is unacceptable and must change.'

'This is an issue that we should as a nation commit to ending,' said Vice President Kamala Harris as she laid out the dangers of lead in drinking water during a visit to Milwaukee

Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff arrived in Milwaukee on Monday for the second leg of their trip after spending the weekend at home in Los Angeles

Harris and Emhoff wrapped up warm against the 19F Wisconsin weather

On Friday in San Bernardino, California, she talked about how the administration's $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill would help tackle wildfires. On Monday it was work to replace lead pipes as the White House trumpets its achievements amid poor polling and deadlock on Capitol Hill

Harris spent Friday in San Bernardino with Gov. Gavin Newsom (left), meeting Forest Service staff and being briefed on wildfires, before heading to her Los Angeles home for the weekend

She heard from Deanna Branch who described how her young son suffered behavioral issues and ended up in hospital where doctors discovered dangerously high levels of lead in his blood.

'So many moms are going through the same thing that I went through. So many little boys and girls are going through what Aidan went through,' she said, her voice choking with emotion.

The vice president comforted her before beginning her own speech.

She said half of under-sixes were at risk.

'Our children are going to school where they are potentially drinking lead-infused poisonous water,' she said

'What does this mean? It means that our children are sleeping in bedrooms that are coated with lead paint.'

She was joined on the visit by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and Rep. Gwen Moore.

It comes as Harris and Biden are expected to hit the road more. On Thursday, Harris will fly to Honduras to attend the inauguration of the country's new president Xiomara Castro.

After being cloistered in Washington negotiating their doomed $2.2 trillion Build Back Better plan, officials have signaled that the administration has to do a better job promoting their successes, such as the bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Both Harris and Biden have endured weeks of poor poll numbers.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll found only 39 percent of respondents gave Harris a favorable rating, compared with 54 percent who said she was not doing a good job.

It follows weeks of stories about dysfunction in her office and high-profile departures.

However, the new approach hit a COVID snag at the weekend.

Kamala Harris has endured terrible poll numbers as the Biden-Harris administration grapples with crises and amid reports of dysfunction in the vice president's office

The vice president's office has been hit by a string of resignations. Chief spokesperson Symone Sanders (l) left at the end of the year, part of an exodus that included communications chief Ashley Etienne and other officials in charge of crafting her image

Several of her aides were forced to abandon the trip after a member of the advance team tested positive for COVID-19.

Harris had arrived in California on Friday and spent the weekend at her home in Los Angeles.

But a White House official told DailyMail.com that members of the vice president's staff traveled from Los Angeles International Airport to their hotel with a member of the advance team - which co-ordinates travel arrangements on the ground and includes volunteers. who subsequently tested positive.

The advance team co-ordinates travel arrangements on the ground and includes volunteers.

'No members of the media were close contacts with this individual and the vice president was not a close contact with this individual,' said the official.

'The staff members will not travel with the vice president on Monday.

'So her trip is still going forward but those staff members who were close contacts are not going to travel with her.'

On Friday, she visited San Bernardino, where she was given an aerial tour of areas affected by wildfires and unveiled 1.3 billion in funding for the US forest service.

Harris spelled out how infrastructure spending had helped deliver cash for protecting forests and property from wildfires.

'So the work that president and I are doing is about meeting this moment, understanding that the climate crisis has almost everything to do with what we are seeing in terms of the crisis of wildfires,' she said during a speech at the US Forest Service Del Rosa Fire Station.

'It is about recognising that we cannot as a government or as a society, or people who care only respond in reaction to a moment of harm or danger.'

The money she said would help with preparedness and forecasting, as well as emergency responses.

White House aides chafe at the idea of a reset after high-profile departures in the vice president's office or that the trip is part of selling Harris, rather than talking about an important issue.

'As climate change increasingly fuels hotter, drier, and longer wildfire seasons, and development continues to expand in the wildland urban Interface, the proactive and preventative measures that are taken while fires are not burning become even more essential,' said a White House official.
Britain could be forced to contend with record-breaking prices for gas and petrol if the fear of a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes a reality, ministers have been told.

Government officials are concerned that Russia will restrict its provision of gas to European countries in the face of Western sanctions should an invasion of Ukraine take place.

Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine.

Although Britain gets its gas from other sources, it would still be confronted with sky-high prices if Russia decided to restrict the flow of gas to Europe as the wholesale price of the resource would balloon.

'Unlike some countries the UK hardly imports any Russian gas, but like all countries we are exposed to rising wholesale prices, which would be a significant issue if Russia further restricted supply,' one senior official told The Times.

It comes as British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion.

Raab's promise came after top U.S. and Russian diplomats failed on Friday to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine.

'There'll be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime,' British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Sky News.

Britain was self-sufficient for natural less than 20 years ago - but now imports more than half of it from Europe including some from Russia

Russia has linked easing Europe's gas crisis with approving the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which when built with make land in Germany, which is heavily reliant on Russia for its energy needs

Map showing points of origin and destination of the Nord Stream pipe (solid line) and Nord Stream 2 pipeline (dotted line) between Russia and Germany. Putin hoped Nord Stream 2 would be finished two years ago, allowing Russia to bypass Ukraine in the south, which carries 50% of gas from Russia out via Poland

An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion

An Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman, looks on in a dugout on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near Gorlivka, Donetsk region on January 23, 2022

British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion of neighbouring Ukraine (pictured)

Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine (building of Nord Stream pipeline north-west of St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 9, 2010)

Ukrainian politician mocks 'stupid' UK claims he could lead Kremlin puppet government Former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Murayev derided British allegations that he could be installed as leader of a Kremlin puppet government in Kyiv, and told Reuters in an interview that he was considering legal action. Britain's foreign ministry said on Sunday that Moscow was considering Murayev as a potential candidate to lead Ukraine if Russia launched an invasion, and said Russian intelligence officers were in contact with several other former Ukrainian politicians about planning an attack. Russia blasted the allegations as 'disinformation' while a Ukrainian official said it should be looked at seriously. 'This morning I already read in all the news publications this conspiracy theory: absolutely unproven, absolutely unfounded,' Murayev said on a video call. He denied having any contact with Russian intelligence officers and dismissed the idea that he could be in league with the Kremlin as 'stupid', given he was placed under Russian sanctions in 2018. Advertisement

Europe's gas markets are linked by a network of interconnecting pipelines, and while some countries have cut their reliance on Russian gas over the years, many would be unable to satisfy demand should Russia decide to slash their supply.

'It would be difficult for Europe to stomach sanctions which effectively cut off Russian gas supply, or at least a large portion of these flows, given the regions dependency on Russian gas and the ongoing energy crisis,' said analysts at ING.

About half of British gas supplies come from the North Sea and a third through pipelines from Norway, with the remaining supply of LNG (liquified natural gas) imported via sea.

Other European countries are not so lucky - Germany relies on Russia for up to 40 per cent of its gas imports, and Nordic countries Finland and Sweden even more dependent.

And if Russia should decide to restrict supply to its European dependents in the face of harsh economic sanctions over an invasion of Ukraine, the countries would struggle to find an alternative option.

Norway, the second largest supplier of gas to Europe, is delivering natural gas to Europe at maximum capacity and that can't replace any missing supplies from Russia, its prime minister said this week.

A rise in gas and petrol prices in the UK as a result of a Russian decision to restrict gas provisions to Europe would only exacerbate Britain's ongoing energy crisis.

Ovo CEO Stephen Fitzpatrick said the impact of soaring wholesale gas prices will be 'an enormous crisis for 2022', saying families could be hit with 2,000 bills.

Fears of runaway household bills in the new year have been mounting since rising gas prices began bankrupting suppliers in September.

Since then, they have rocketed from 54p per therm of gas to a staggering 4.50.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is preparing for crunch talks with energy bosses today to try to solve the spiralling crisis.

It comes as British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss released documents which accused Russia of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, and said Russian intelligence officers had been in contact with a number of former Ukrainian politicians as part of plans for an invasion.

The British foreign ministry declined to provide evidence to back its accusations, which came at a time of high tensions between Russia and the West over Russia's massing of troops near its border with Ukraine.

An Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman, watches through spyglass in a dugout on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near Gorlivka, Donetsk region on January 23, 2022

The release of the documents led Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab to issue a warning to Vladimir Putin yesterday in which he promised harsh consequences should an invasion of Ukraine take place.

Appearing on Sky News, he said: 'We are standing shoulder to shoulder [with European countries, Nato and the US], saying there will be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade and also install a puppet regime.

'We wouldn't telegraph all of the measures we would take, but it is important that this very clear message, not just from the UK but from all NATO and other interested countries around the world who want to uphold the rule of law, that there will be very serious, severe economic consequences.

'It will obviously involve a range of financial and economic sanctions. We wouldn't telegraph those in advance, but you can rest assured that the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary will be liaising with all of our partners and engaging, as we have done for many months, to make sure the response is robust and concerted.'

The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the British allegation as 'disinformation,' accusing NATO of 'escalating tensions' over Ukraine and insisted that Moscow have insisted they have no plans to invade.

Meanwhile in Washington, the U.S. State Department announced it was ordering the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the threat of Russian military action.

U.S. President Joe Biden has begun considering options for boosting America's military assets in the region, senior administration officials said, after meeting top national security aides at his Camp David retreat on Saturday.

The New York Times said Biden was mulling plans to send 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the possibility of increasing the number should tensions flare further.

A senior administration official declined to confirm the numbers on Sunday but said 'we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward.'
A Liberal Democrat councillor who claimed he served in the Falklands and Northern Ireland is being investigated after an online vigilante group posted evidence he had made up his service record.

Peter Jackson, 65, who was the mayor of Otley in West Yorkshire and currently serves as a town councillor, wore a Queen's Gallantry Medal and dressed as an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel while marching in a Remembrance Day Parade in 2021.

Jackson claimed on his LinkedIn page to have been an ex Royal Military Police soldier in the Special Investigation Branch and an Honorary Lt Colonel - as well as having graduated from Sandhurst with a Bachelor of Law degree.

However, online vigilante group The Walter Mitty Hunters Club, which exposes military imposters, posted a 1,700-word blogpost on January 20 going through discrepancies in Jackson's claims, triggering Otley Town Council to launch an investigation into the allegations.

The investigators found that, although Jackson claimed to have been awarded an MID in the Falklands, his name was not even mentioned on the list of those who had served.

Peter Jackson, 65, is pictured wearing a Queen's Gallantry Medal and dressed as an Honorary Lieutenant Colonel while marching in a Remembrance Day Parade in 2021

The former mayor of Otley, 65, has stepped down from his position as a councillor following the accusations, saying his reputation has been 'irreversibly' damaged

Despite Jackson's claim to have received an MID in the Falklands, investigators could not find him mentioned on a list of those who had served in the conflict with Argentina

In addition, photos show his medals wrongly positioned, and investigators joked his uniform 'looked like a bag of potatoes' that had 'never been near an iron'.

The Royal Military Police Association told The Sun they could not substantiate any of Jackson's claims.

Jackson has quit as a Lib Dem councillor, and he is currently on holiday in Jamaica.

He told The Sun: 'No matter what I say or prove the damage already done is irreversible.'

Jackson says he took the post of Honorary Lieutenant Colonel in 2019 after becoming the Mayor of Otley.
A Merrill Lynch financier arrested and fired after branding a smoothie shop worker a 'f**king immigrant loser' said he lost his temper after warning staff his son was allergic to nuts - only for them to prepare the drink with one, triggering a severe reaction.

James Iannazzo, 48, was arrested on charges of intimidation based on bias, breach of peace and criminal trespass Saturday after his fit of rage at Robeks in Fairfield, Connecticut, was caught in video. Iannazzo, whose tirade was peppered with furious f-words, was also filmed hurling the drink at a high schooler named Gianna Miranda who works at the drinks shop part-time.

Merrill Lynch - where Iannazzo had worked since 1995, most recently as a vice president of wealth management - terminated him after the clip was widely-shared online.

Fairfield Police say Iannazzo, who lives in a $2.64m five-bed, five-bath colonial-style mansion in South Pier, Connecticut, purchased the smoothie at the store around 1pm and left without incident.

Less than an hour later, things took a turn for the worse and Iannazzo was on the phone with 911 for his 17-year-old son who was suffering from life-threatening anaphylactic shock after drinking the smoothie. He said it was the stress of that medical emergency that tipped him over the edge.

Robeks haven't admitted to prepping the drink with a nut product, but Iannazzo is adamant that the drink triggered the reaction.

In a statement shared with DailyMail.com he said: 'I had returned to Robeks to determine what ingredients were in the smoothie that I had previously ordered. I made my regrettable comments because my 17-year-old son was taken to the hospital suffering from life threatening anaphylactic shock.

'He collapsed at our home while drinking the smoothie from Robeks, which contained some sort of nut product, after I had advised them of his nut allergy when I ordered his drink.'

He added: 'My son lost the capacity to breathe properly; his lips and face swelled up, and he required an EpiPen shot, but it did not offer him relief.

'I called 911. My son then went to the bathroom, threw up and fell unconscious to the floor. He threw up again. My wife gave him another EpiPen while I called 911 again. Thank God, he is doing okay.'

Iannazzo then returned to Robeks and confronted employees, demanding to know the ingredients of the smoothie and who made it.

James Iannazzo, 48, was arrested on charges of intimidation based on bias, breach of peace and criminal trespass after his racist tirade at a Robeks was caught in video

According to his LinkedIn profile and public records, Iannazzo is married and lives with his wife and three children in an estimated $2.64million home in the Southport section of Fairfield

He was caught on camera roaring: 'I want to speak to the person who made this f**king drink. Is that you?

You dont know who made it? Stupid f**king ignorant high school kids. I want to speak to the f**king manager. Get the f**k out of here you f**king bitch. Give it to me now.'

At that point, he hurled the drink, which hit Miranda and spilled all over her, before staff told him to leave while calling the police.

Iannazzo continued: ' F**k you, you f**king bitch. I want the telephone, right now. Shut the f**k up, you f**king stupid (inaudible). I want the f**king phone. Shut up.

You f**king immigrant loser. I want the f**king telephone.

'I was out of my mind with fear for him when I returned to Robeks, and I wish I had not done so,' Iannazzo said afterwards. 'I also wish they had been more careful preparing my son's beverage. I will be extending my apologies personally to the Robeks organization, particularly the staff that was working there that night.'

Iannazzo then returned to Robeks and confronted employees, demanding to know the ingredients of the smoothie and who made it

Full rant of dad arrested and fired over smoothie shop meltdown 'I want to speak to the person who made this f**king drink. Is that you? You dont know who made it? Stupid f**king ignorant high school kids. I want to speak to the f**king manager. Get the f**k out of here you f**king bitch. Give it to me now.' (Hurls drink which strikes worker, prompting screams from staff and order to leave from female worker) F**k you, you f**king bitch. I want the telephone, right now. Shut the f**k up, you f**king stupid (inaudible). I want the f**king phone. Shut up. You f**king immigrant loser. I want the f**king telephone. Advertisement

He has instructed a lawyer, although has yet to say if he'll sue over the peanut incident, but also conceded that his behavior went too far.

Iannazzo added: 'My actions at Robeks were wrong, and I deeply regret them. They do not reflect my values or my character. I feel terrible that I lost my composure so completely.

The Robeks employees said that Iannazzo had asked for no peanut butter in the smoothie, but never mentioned an allergy. A Robeks spokesman has issued a condemnation of Iannazzo's behavior, but has yet to confirm that staffers had added peanut butter to the drink.

The footage, posted on TikTok by user @cjjbreezy, was recorded by one of the young girls working at the store, after Iannazzo stormed inside demanding to know who was responsible for adding peanut butter to his smoothie order.

The video had more than 16 million views before it was removed on Sunday.

'Shut the f*** up! Stupid f****** idiot. You're a f***** idiot. I want the f***** number. Shut up,' a furious Iannazzo said, demanding to know the number of the corporate office.

'You're a f***** immigrant loser,' he then says to one of the employees, prompting the rest of the staff to yell at him to leave the store. 'Get the f*** out of here, you f****** b***.'

The enraged man eventually attempted to breach the employee-only entrance to the back of the store as the young workers struggled to keep the door closed.

Speaking to WFSB afterwards, Miranda - the worker struck with the drink - said: 'It was kind of scary, Im not going to lie because Im like "I dont know his intention or what he was going to do."'

Iannazzo left the store before police arrived but turned himself to authorities later on Saturday, police said. He was released and is scheduled for a court hearing early February.

He has since been fired from his position as wealth advisor and director at Merrill Lynch Management, where he had been working since 1995.

'Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind. We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm,' the company said in a statement after the video became viral.

The footage, which was posted on TikTok by @cjjbreezy, was recorded by one of the young girls working at the store, after Iannazzo stormed inside demanding to know who was responsible for adding peanut butter to his smoothie order

'You're a f***** immigrant loser,' Iannazzo says to one of the girls, just moments after he hurled the smoothie at her, hitting her with it on the shoulder

Iannazzo cursed at the young employees before hurling the smoothie at one of them. The employee was not seriously injured, police said

The incident happened at the 2061 Black Rock Turnpike store in Fairfield, Connecticut

During his more than two-decade career at Merrill Lynch, Iannazzo had become well-known as one of the top financial advisors in the area.

In 2021, he was ranked the 24th best wealth advisor in Connecticut by Forbes, Blaze media reported.

Iannazzo was charged with one felony and two misdemeanors and was released pending his court appearance.

If convicted for those charges, he could face a sentence of up to six years in prison and $6,000 in fines.

Iannazzo is scheduled to appear in court on February 7 at Bridgeport Superior Court.

Attorney Frank Riccio, who is representing Iannazzo, said his client was not racist but his 'paternal instinct' had kicked in

Iannazzo has since been fired from his position as wealth advisor and director at Merrill Lynch Management, where he had been working since 1995

Exposure to peanuts can kill allergy sufferers in minutes Peanut allergies are one of the best-known types of food intolerance. An allergic person who is exposed to peanuts can develop anaphylaxis, which can cause potentially-deadly symptoms including swelling in the throat, a sudden drop in blood pressure, fainting and dizziness. Anaphylaxis is usually treated initially with a shot of adrenaline administered by an EpiPen. An estimated 2.5 per cent of American children are believed to suffer from a peanut allergy. (Source: ACAAI) Advertisement

In the cellphone footage, which has since gone viral, Ianazzo is seen shouting at the employees.

'F***** stupid, f****** ignorant high school kids,' Ianazzo yelled as one of the employees filmed him on their cellphone.

'I wanna speak to the f****** who made this drink, is that you?' Iannazzo demanded after walking inside the store.

'There's four of us here, so we honestly don't know,' an employee answers.

'F***** stupid, f****** ignorant high school kids,' he says. 'I want to speak to the manager.'

'Ok, bye. You can call corporate, whatever you want,' another worker, wearing a blue hoodie, yelled back while a coworker held her by the hoodie to stop her from going toward Iannazzo's direction.

When she walked to the front of the store, Iannazzo threw a smoothie at her, prompting her coworkers to make calls to police.

'You shut up. Get out...You're not going to tell me to shut up, the f****? Who are you? Who are you?' the girl in the blue hoodie says to Iannazzo.

'You're a f***** immigrant loser,' Iannazzo replied.

The employee who was hit on the shoulder by the smoothie that Iannazzo hurled at her was not seriously injured, police said.

She said in a video update to the incident that Iannazzo hadn't been charged with assault because nobody had been hurt, but that she would be pressing charges.

Attorney Frank Riccio, who is representing Iannazzo, said his client was not racist but his 'paternal instinct' had kicked in.

A statement from Riccio on Twitter said: 'Upon drinking the Robeks smoothie, his son had a severe allergic reaction which required transport via ambulance to the hospital.'

'When faced with a dire situation for his son, Mr. Iannazzo's parental instinct kicked in and he acted out of anger and fear.'

'He is not a racist individual and deeply regrets his statements and actions during a moment of extreme emotional stress.'

According to his LinkedIn profile and public records, Iannazzo is married and lives with his wife and three children in a $1.3million home in the Southport section of Fairfield.

The enraged man eventually attempted to breach the employee-only entrance as the young workers struggled to keep the door closed . No one was injured
Of all the claims paid out by an insurance company over the years, one for a sheep jumping through a shop window has to be among the most bizarre.

In 1960, a payout was made to a shop owner after the misguided animal took a flying leap through the plate glass window of a showroom, breaking it before fleeing.

And in a case dating from 1878, a hotel keeper in London suffered a blow to the eye from the cork of a champagne bottle he was opening.

In 1960, a payout was made to a shop owner after a sheep took a flying leap through the plate glass window of a showroom, breaking it before fleeing (file photo used)

He successfully claimed 25 and ten shillings  or 20,120 in today's money.

Insurance company Aviva has revealed a list of unusual but valid claims it has dealt with as it marks 325 years in business.

Other quirky claims paid out include one from 1961, from an unlucky dentist who was kicked out of a window by a patient coming round from an anaesthetic.

The company has also paid out over some of the most notorious and tragic episodes in Britain's history.

It insured some of the banknotes stolen in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, when a gang of thieves including Ronnie Biggs robbed a Royal Mail train which was en route to London. Aviva paid out 1,091,340 and ten shillings  or 59million in today's money.

And in 1984, a claim was paid over the delay caused to a fishmonger's van which was caught up in the siege at the Libyan embassy in London following the fatal shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher.

The Mail Train which was en route to London in August, 1963. It was stopped on a bridge during 'The Great Train Robbery'

The van was parked nearby and could not be moved until the 11-day siege ended  by which time the fish had rotted.

Among the offbeat claims was a payout for a young apprentice's clothes that were 'ruined' while he was working with a group of farm workers who were carrying sheets of corrugated iron during high winds.

A gust lifted the small employee and his sheet, carrying him across the yard, only to drop him in a liquid manure storage tank.

In 1906, there was a 1,000 claim over a fire in the warehouse of whisky merchant James Watson & Co in Dundee. Rivers of burning whisky reportedly flowed through the city.

In 1975 another whisky firm put in a claim for missing alcohol  which it later emerged was being syphoned off by an electrician.

Nick Major of Aviva said: 'We've seen the strangest and most unusual claims, which goes to show that planning for the unexpected is good business practice.'
The State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.

The department told the dependents of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv that they must leave the country. It also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at government expense.

The move came amid rising tensions about Russia's military buildup on the Ukraine border that were not eased during talks Friday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.

U.S. said it was ordering the departure of eligible family members of staff from its embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, pictured here in 2017

Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion

Russia has denied it is planning an invasion, but Vladimir Putin has issued demands to the West which he says concern Russias security, including not allowing Ukraine to join Nato

State Department officials stressed the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation.

The move had been under consideration for some time and does not reflect an easing of U.S. support for Ukraine, the officials said.

In a statement, the State Department noted recent reports that Russia was planning significant military action against Ukraine. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO countries of escalating tensions around Ukraine with disinformation.

The State Department added: 'The security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.

State Department officials stressed the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation (file photo from 2017)

People rallying in patriotic support of Ukraine hold a 500 meter long ribbon in the colours of the Ukrainian flag on Unity Day (January 22)

Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit train in a forest on Saturday, with thousands of civilians receiving basic combat training

Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv.'

The department's travel advisory, which had warned against traveling to Ukraine because of COVID-19 as well as the tensions over Russia, was changed Sunday to carry a stronger warning.

'Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk,' the department advised.

People with Ukrainian flags attend a patriotic rally at Sophia Square on Unity Day. Speakers at the rally demanded Ukrainian membership in the European Union and the NATO military alliance and derided Russian President Vladimir Putin

A Russian rocket launcher fires during military drills near Orenburg in the Urals, Russia, last month

On Sunday night it was also revealed how President Biden is considering deploying several thousand American troops together with warships and aircraft, to NATO ally countries located in the Baltics and Eastern Europe.

Such a move would be a change of tact for the Biden administration which up to now has been restrained over the situation in Ukraine, partly to avoid provoking Russia into invading the country.

After Friday's talks appear to have failed, Russian President Vladimir Putin now appeared to be ratcheting up threatening actions towards Ukraine.

In doing so, the U.S. is now moving away from its previous stance of not wanting to provoke the Russian administration sources told the New York Times.

During a meeting in Camp David over the weekend, Pentagon officials outlined various options to President Biden, many of which would see American military might move a step closer to the Russian border.

Among the strategies being considered, between 1,000 to 5,000 troops could be relocated to countries in Eastern Europe with a potential to increase to 50,000 should the need arise.

The talks that ended in Geneva last week produced no breakthroughs, though American and Russian diplomats vowed to keep a dialogue up, averting the worst-case scenario.

Lavrov said Moscow was still waiting for a written response to its demands for security guarantees, something which Blinken said he would not provide.

He also called two of Russia's key demands aimed at curbing NATO expansion 'non-starters.'

Blinken made a slew of Sunday news program appearances after returning from diplomatic talks in Europe over the crisis

On Sunday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken admitted on NBC's Meet The Press that Moscow could still invade the smaller former Soviet state despite the efforts of Western governments.

The US's chief diplomat also would not rule out possible American military involvement in the worsening conflict, during a separate interview on CNN's State of the Union Sunday.

'It is certainly possible that the diplomacy the Russians are engaged in is simply going through the motions and it won't affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene, or not in Ukraine,' Blinken told NBC host Chuck Todd.

'But, we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for as, as far and as long as we can go because it's the more responsible way to bring this to a closure.'

Members of the Ukrainian army inspect the vehicles entering and leaving the city at the points they strengthen with concrete blocks, on Sunday in Kostiantynivka, Ukraine

A Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman, looks on in a dugout on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near Gorlivka, Donetsk region on Sunday

A Ukrainian Serviceman of the 30th Army Brigade are seen outside of Svitlodarsk, Ukraine on Sunday

Blinken did not indicate when he thought a possible invasion would occur -- but also would not give a straight answer when asked if Kyiv 'appears safe, at least in the near term.'

'This is something again that were tracking intensely, hour by hour and certainly day by day,' he said.

Blinken ratcheted up his warnings to Moscow during his interview on CNN, claiming it could take a single soldier crossing the border to trigger a global reaction.

'If a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way, as I said, that would trigger a swift, a severe and a united response from us and from Europe,' he told host Dana Bash.

Vladimir Putin has placed more than 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border, and last week Blinken warned that Russia had the capability to double that number in short order. Moscow has said it has no plans to invade Ukraine.
The Liverpool suicide bomber's bogus asylum claim was dismissed as 'not credible' almost seven years before he tried to blow up a maternity hospital on Remembrance Sunday, newly obtained court documents revealed today.

Emad Al Swealmeen lied repeatedly to try to stay in Britain but his case quickly fell apart by the spring of 2015, raising more damaging questions about why he was never deported in the following six years.

The judge who rejected his first asylum case suggested he could have been thrown out of Britain immediately - but he remained in Liverpool where he built a bomb factory in his flat and then blew himself up on November 14 last year.

His asylum application was rejected in November 2014 and his appeal failed in April 2015. There were then at least two years when he had no active appeals at all, yet no order to remove him from the country was sought by the Government.

The 32-year-old's web of lies began as soon as he arrived in Britain in April 2014 from the UAE, claiming to be Syrian and in fear of his life.

But expert language analysis of his Arabic by the Home Office quickly found that he was 'almost certainly' Iraqi. He also had no documents to support his claim to be Syrian, no connections with that country whatsoever and couldn't answer basic questions about its geography or where his family lived.

Moreover, he had travelled into the UK on a genuine Jordanian passport - that he later claimed was fake - and failed to explain away why he came to Britain from the much safer UAE, where he had lived for more than a decade.

In 2017 he even put in an application under his alias Enzo Almeni but it was not sifted out despite the authorities having his fingerprints. He was also arrested after threatening people with a knife in a Liverpool underpass, but was still allowed to remain in the UK and even got a job as a pizza chef.

The failed asylum seeker, who converted to Christianity to improve his chances of a successful appeal but remained a practising Muslim, died from the blast and subsequent fire after his homemade bomb detonated in a taxi outside Liverpool Women's Hospital.

Emad Al Swealmeen, an asylum seeker who had converted to Christianity, arrived in the UK from the Middle East in 2014 and had an application for asylum rejected the following year and remained in the country despite a judge saying he could be deported immediately

Al Swealmeen died when he detonated an explosive device in the back of a taxi outside the Liverpool Women's Hospital just before 11am on November 14. Taxi driver David Perry managed to escape with injuries

His inquest revealed he bought 2,000 ball bearings and rented a 'bomb-making factory' to manufacture a device with 'murderous intent' that went off shortly before 11am on November 14 last year.

How was he still in Britain? Bomber was able to stay in the UK using lies, converting to Christianity and the Home Office's failure to deport him October 1989: Born in Baghdad December 2013: Applied for a visitor's visa and is fingerprinted before flying to the UK from the UAE April 2014: Arrived in Britain legally and then claimed asylum six days later, claiming to be Syrian. November 2014: His first claim is rejected as the Home Office and a judge don't believe he is Syrian, because he speaks Iraqi Arabic and can't answer basic questions about Syria April 2015: Lost appeal having not even turned up to the hearing August 2015: Lost challenge to that appeal - but the Home Office then fails to deport him 2017: Applied again under his alias Enzo Almeni 2020: That application is throw out January 2021: He launches yet another appeal November 2021: Blows himself up using a homemade bomb outside Liverpool's Women's Hospital Advertisement

Despite his paltry asylum case being rejected in November 2014 - he appealed to the First-tier Tribunal but his case was rejected in April 2015. Later that year he turned up at Liverpools Anglican Cathedral in 2015 saying he wanted to convert. He was then Baptised and confirmed in May 2017.

The Iraqi-born 32-year-old falsely claimed to be of Syrian heritage in asylum applications.

He came to the UK in May 2014 legally, with a Jordanian passport and UK visa but his asylum claim was rejected, a coroner's court heard last month.

He challenged the Home Office decision by lodging an appeal with the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) but this was dismissed in 2015, a copy of the ruling obtained following requests from the BBC  supported by the PA news agency  and The Times show.

The decision dated April 16 of that year, after a hearing in Manchester three days earlier, detailed how Al Swealmeen had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Home Office officials decided he had not established a 'well-founded fear of persecution so that he did not qualify for asylum' and had not demonstrated 'substantial grounds' to qualify for humanitarian protection. He had been informed of the 'decision to remove him from the United Kingdom', the court papers said.

The judge noted there were 'a number of problems' with his evidence and, considering Al Swealmeen's credibility, said: 'I find that the appellant has attempted to give an account to put himself in the best light  In view of all the evidence, I reject his account of events in Syria and his fears on his return in their entirety, and dismiss his asylum appeal.'

Al Swealmeen did not attend the hearing. The solicitors initially representing him had withdrawn from the case and asked to be removed from the record.

Born in Baghdad, he had been in prison in the Middle East for a serious assault, as well as being convicted previously in Liverpool of possession of an offensive weapon. Al Swealmeen was still a practising Muslim despite converting to Christianity once in the UK, the coroner's court was told.

Emad Al Swealmeen, who was baptised and confirmed at the city's Anglican cathedral in 2017 (left) after being taken in by lay pastor Malcolm Hitchcott (together right), and went on to work as a pizza chef having made repeated asylum applications and appeals, including one under a new identity

Mr Perry foiled the attack by stopping his cab - he is said to have spotted his passenger acting strangely and vibrating

He lived at Home Office-provided accommodation in Sutcliffe Street, in the Kensington area of Liverpool, but since April had rented a self-contained flat in Rutland Avenue, the inquest heard.

Officials confirmed that in January last year Al Swealmeen launched another first-tier tribunal appeal which was still outstanding at the time of the attack, suggesting he had recently submitted a fresh asylum claim to the Home Office which had also been rejected.

The department has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the case or explain why Al Swealmeen was not removed from the UK once his asylum claim, and subsequent appeal, was rejected.

When contacted by PA, the Home Office said it was 'fixing the broken asylum system' and that the 'New Plan for Immigration will require people to raise all protection-related issues up front to tackle the practice of making multiple and sequential claims and enable the removal of those with no right to be in our country more quickly'.

A spokesman would not comment on whether the Home Office was conducting carrying out an internal inquiry, or conducting any investigations, into how the case was handled.

Decisions made by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) are not normally reported. But, after requests for the records were made by the press, the tribunal's president Judge Michael Clements accepted that in this instance the 'public interest element is such that this outweighs the usual practice'.
Universities could be forced to declare all overseas donations in a crackdown on foreign powers buying influence.

An amendment proposed to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill would force universities to disclose the names of any foreign donors giving more than 50,000.

The Office for Students watchdog would publish the names on an annual register. The aim is to restore public trust and shine a light on potential conflicts of interest.

Ministers last year launched a probe into whether academics at universities receiving money from China were passing sensitive information to Beijing.

This included British technology that could be used to aid the repression of minorities.

Linacre College will become Thao College following a multi-million pound donation by Vietnamese billionaire Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, who made her money through budget airlines. The college was founded in 1962 and named after Thomas Linacre, a renowned 15th century English scholar, humanist and physician

An amendment proposed to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill would force universities to disclose the names of any foreign donors giving more than 50,000. The amendment to the bill, which is currently going through Parliament, was tabled by Tory MP Jesse Norman (pictured)

Many universities rely on money from Chinese students. Some have previously refused to name foreign donors because of contractual deals and commercial sensitivity.

The amendment to the bill, which is currently going through Parliament, was tabled by Tory MP Jesse Norman.

The motion is seconded by MPs Sir Robert Buckland, Damian Green and Robert Halfon, the chairman of the Commons Education Select Committee.

Mr Norman said: This is not a clause that in my mind is aimed at any specific individual or country or identifiable potential source of undue influence.

It is designed to improve the functioning and improve the reputation of British higher education, which after all is one of the jewels of the UKs international reputation.

Mr Halfon added: Universities have been embroiled in controversial donations from Chinese firms, and from the Middle East over the past few years.

I am pleased to support this amendment which will ensure that proper scrutiny and transparency is applied and I hope that the Government will consider this amendment sympathetically.

A spokesman for Universities UK, which represents vice chancellors, said: UK universities are global institutions and will continue to welcome students from around the world.

As autonomous institutions they will are already responsible for developing policies and practices to manage and mitigate any associated risks.

These will be developed with reference to available advice, information and other guidance and Universities UK has worked with Government on a range of initiatives, including the Managing risks in Internationalisation guidelines to make sure that decision makers at universities have access to information they need to make informed choices.

It emerged in November that Oxford University's Linacre college will be renamed in honour of Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao - Vietnam's first self-made female billionaire - who donated 155million

A Russell Group spokesman said: Nobody disagrees with the importance of a transparent system of funding that has the confidence of the public.

Universities work hard to comply with the extensive transparency requirements that are already in place, including the recently enacted National Security and Investment Act.

The proposed amendment seems to require the collection and reporting of data on everything from the personal financial circumstances of individual overseas students who are being supported by family members, to historic contractual data relating to major research partnerships, and everything in between.

This would put a significant reporting burden on universities, risk overwhelming the OfS with a huge volume of returns from the sector and potentially deter inward investment from international businesses without adding meaningfully to the way we work to protect free speech.

We are ready to work with Government and parliamentarians to respond to their concerns, but we dont believe the proposed amendment is the right approach.
As millions of rapid antigen tests are being bought by Aussie households one charity has sent out an urgent warning to pet owners.

The Animal Poisons Helpline revealed one of the ingredients in the self-test kits is extremely poisonous to dogs - specifically a chemical in the test buffer solution.

The helpline said they had noticed an uptick in calls from frantic pet owners who said their pets had ingested the solution.

The Animal Poisons Helpline revealed one of the ingredients in rapid antigen tests is extremely poisonous to dogs - specifically the test buffer solution (stock image of an Australian kelpie)

The urgent warning was issued through a post to the charity's Facebook page that asked the message be spread to owners in both Australia and New Zealand.

'As millions of these tests are now being dispersed, we anticipate that calls to the Helpline regarding pets ingesting them will continue to rise,' the post read.

The helpline explained the buffer solution contained a small amount of a chemical called sodium azide, added as a preservative.

As the amount is very low, the ingestion of the solution is unlikely to cause a significant risk of illness in majority of canines.

The helpline explained the buffer solution contained a small amount of a chemical called sodium azide, added as a preservative (pictured, a RAT test)

'The actual risk of poisoning in any individual case will depend on the amount of sodium azide ingested and the weight of the animal involved,' the post stated.

'Very small animals, or those animals that ingest a number of vials of buffer solution could possibly be at risk of poisoning.'

The charity encouraged pet owners who suspected their dog had ingested something they should not have to call the helpline.

'We can assess your pets exposure and determine if they will be at risk of poisoning and if they require urgent veterinary assessment,' they said.

The Animals Poisons Helpline can be reached at 1300 869 738.
The Queen's grandson Peter Phillips has introduced his girlfriend to his grandmother, according to reports.

The father-of-two reportedly introduced his new partner Lindsay Wallace to Her Majesty following a shooting party which was held at Windsor.

It comes just months after a spokesman for Mr Phillips confirmed Ms Wallace had accompanied him to the joint christening of Zara and Mike Tindall's son, Lucas, and Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank's son, last August.

The Queen's grandson Peter Phillips has introduced his girlfriend Lindsay Wallace to Her Majesty

The Queen's grandson reportedly introduced his new partner to the Queen following a shooting party which was held at Windsor

A source told The Sun: 'It was a very warm meeting and the Queen was clearly delighted to meet someone who makes Peter so happy.'

They added: 'It may still be early days but Peter wanted his grandmother to see he was happy.

'It is a clear sign that Lindsay has now been fimly welcomed into The Firm and a major first step if they were to ever choose to get married.'

Last year a spokesman for Mr Phillips confirmed Ms Wallace had accompanied the royal to the joint christening of Zara and Mike Tindall's son.

The service, held at the Royal Chapel of All Saints, in the grounds of the Royal Lodge, was attended by senior royals including the Queen, who it was initially feared would miss the occasion due to health reasons.

Oil tycoon's daughter Ms Wallace, a mother of two, knows Mr Phillips and his sister, Zara Tindall, from their school days at 40,000-a-year Gordonstoun.

Last year a spokesman for Mr Phillips confirmed Ms Wallace had accompanied him to the joint christening of Zara and Mike Tindall's son

It is understood Ms Wallace and Mr Phillips grew close after spending time together following the breakdown of both of their marriages.

Peter announced the end of his marriage to his former wife Autumn in February 2020 and finalised their divorce in June.

The couple share daughters Savannah and Isla and continue to live on Princess Anne's Gatcombe Park estate, in Gloucestershire.

Ms Wallace, who has also split from her husband, was in the same year as Zara at Gordonstoun, the respected Scottish school also attended by Prince Charles.

She was among the guests at the royal's 2011 wedding to rugby star Mike Tindall.

Speaking in March, a source said the pair have been 'keeping things under wraps' and 'only the inner circle knew about this friendship'.
The UN descent to its deepest depths of hostility against Israel By Amb. Alan Baker

web posted January 24, 2022 The inherent, long-existing political hostility against the State of Israel within the UN, in general, and the UNs Human Rights Council, in particular, comes as no surprise to anyone. However, the recent unprecedented decision to establish and finance an ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry to function as a permanent inquisition or kangaroo court aimed solely against one state  Israel  to the exception of all other countries in the world, raises the fearful specter, reminiscent of times gone-by, of unjustifiable persecution and discrimination. This action is taken by the very UN body established as the one UN body intended to protect against such phenomena  the UN Human Rights Council  a body that, by definition, clearly should not allow itself to be tainted by such a negative and regrettable stain. The establishment of this inquiry commission would appear to be driving the UN down to the deepest depths of hypocrisy and double standards, even to the point of undermining its own principles and purposes as well as its own financial and administrative mechanisms. Discredited Human Rights Council The Human Rights Council, having been politicized, manipulated, and abused since its establishment by one group of irresponsible states with a single political agenda targeting Israel and bearing little relation to human rights, has acquired notoriety in its ongoing illogical and unbalanced fixation against Israel. Even former UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan strongly criticized the bias of the UN Human Rights Council in November 2006, not long after its creation. He stressed its anti-Israel emphasis: Since the beginning of their work, they have focused almost entirely on Israel, and there are other crisis situations, like Sudan, where they have not been able to say a word. When the UN Human Rights Council set up its 2009 Fact Finding Mission to investigate Israeli military operations in Gaza, its chairman, Justice Richard Goldstone, ultimately distanced himself from the biased and error-filled Goldstone Report. He wrote an op-ed, Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and War Crimes, in the Washington Post on April 1, 2011: If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document. As such, the UN Human Rights Council is discredited and has lost any professional credibility as a genuine, bona fide human rights body capable and willing to substantively function in accordance with the principles and purposes for which it was established. In establishing the ongoing, independent inquiry commission, the Council is abusing the bona fides of member states of the UN and misleading them by misusing their contributions to the UNs budget by manipulating and abusing funds to finance what is an illegitimate body. Establishment of the Inquiry Commission The Human Rights Councils resolution of May 27, 2021, created the ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry with the sweeping mandate: to investigate in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since April 13, 2021, and all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability, and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity. As is evident from its title and mandate, the resolution chooses to single-out only Israel, alleging violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by Israel, as well as systematic discrimination and repression prior to and during the 2021 hostilities between Israel and Hamas. The inquiry commissions mandate ignores that it was the Hamas terror organization ruling the Gaza Strip that initiated the wave of hostilities for which the commission was established. Hamas launched thousands of rockets aimed at Israels civilian population and committed numerous war crimes including the abuse of its own Palestinian civilian population, their homes, hospitals, business premises, and schools by turning them into human and civilian shields. The unique one-sidedness and permanence of this independent inquiry commission is inherent in the fact that it ignores the terror organization Hamas, whose basic and declared purpose is to destroy Israel and terrorize its population. Violation of Founding Ethics and Principles of the UN The one-sidedness of the resolution is all the more evident since it undermines the universal responsibility of the UN Human Rights Council for the promotion and protection of all human rights around the globe, as stated on its own website. The UN Human Rights Council was established in March 2006 by its founding instrument, UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251, with the basic aim that all human rights must be treated in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis. The resolution stressed the importance of ensuring universality, objectivity and non-selectivity in the consideration of human rights issues, and the elimination of double standards and politicization. Similarly, it determined that: the promotion and protection of human rights should be based on the principles of cooperation and genuine dialogue and aimed at strengthening the capacity of Member States to comply with their human rights obligations for the benefit of all human beings. In this founding resolution, the General Assembly established a work ethic for the Council: the work of the Council shall be guided by the principles of universality, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive international dialogue, and cooperation, with a view to enhancing the promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development and: members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights. In view of the above founding principles and work ethics that were intended to guide the functioning of the Human Rights Council, the Councils recent resolution establishing the ongoing, independent, international commission of inquiry with such a blatantly biased, politicized, and discriminatory mandate is clearly ultra vires both the founding purposes and principles of the Human Rights Council as well as those of the United Nations itself. The financing of the permanent inquiry commission was approved by the UN General Assemblys 5th (Budget and Administration) Committee on January 6, 2022, including the addition of 29 new posts required to enable those activities mandated by the Human Rights Council in its resolution. Interestingly, this financial approval appears to have been well- concealed as the tenth chapter of the 24-page, 24-chapter resolution submitted four months afterwards to the 5th Committee, entitled Special subjects relating to the proposed programme budget for 2022. This was subsequently approved en-bloc by the UN General Assembly. It is therefore highly unlikely that states that voted to approve the report were aware of the well-concealed financial ramifications of this unprecedented ongoing inquiry commission and of the fact that they had been manipulated into approving it. Clearly, the UN General Assemblys endorsement and financing of this one-sided and discriminatory inquiry commission further undermines and violates the UNs own founding purposes and principles, including Art. 2(1) of the UN Charter which determines that The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members. Partisan Political Motivation In addition to its inherent illegality by undermining the founding principles of both the UN itself and the UNs Human Rights Council, the establishment of the independent and ongoing inquiry commission would also appear to be blatantly lacking in bona fides inasmuch as it emanates from a politically-generated resolution, sponsored by members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and led by paragons of humanitarian virtue such as Pakistan and the State of Palestine, as part of an ongoing campaign of delegitimization against one member state of the UN  Israel. The motivation behind those states that sponsored and supported the resolution has absolutely nothing to do with advancing global human rights. The inherently partisan title and content of the resolution dictate in advance the expected outcome, since it alleges and assumes that Israel, and only Israel, violates international human rights law and international humanitarian law and indulges in systematic discrimination and repression. The Bias of Members of the Commission In addition to the openly anti-Israel tenor of the resolution and the mandate and plan of action of what is intended to be an independent inquiry commission, the element of independence as such is, in and of itself, undermined from the start by the fact that the members of the commission appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council are known, from their own publications, pronouncements, and personal history, as possessing a clear anti-Israel bias. As such, any claim that the inquiry commission would function as a bona fide and independent commission cannot be maintained. Conclusion With the establishment of this ongoing international commission of inquiry, both the UN Human Rights Council, as well as the UN organization itself, have permitted themselves to be abused and manipulated by states that have absolutely nothing to do with any genuine concern for promoting and protecting human rights. To the contrary, they are intent on nothing more than seeking the vilification and delegitimization of Israel. Oft-quoted and internationally-sanctioned human rights buzzwords and related expressions used in the resolution establishing the commission are nothing more than a transparent and unsubtle cover intended to deceive states and to attract maximal support for the ultimate purpose of the commission to vilify the State of Israel. Many of the states promoting and supporting the establishment of the commission are among the most ardent and prevailing human rights violators in the international community. The sanction given by states in supporting the establishment of the commission, the wide-open budgetary carte-blanche to which they have subscribed, and the commissions clearly one-sided nature undermine and violate the very purposes and principles of the United Nations, including the principle of sovereign equality. The commission is nothing more than a cynical vehicle, using the pretext of respectability offered by the UN, for a number of states to manipulate member states, to abuse their bona fides, and to manipulate the administrative and financial mechanism of the UN in order to sanction and finance a harsh, wildly partisan agenda intent on seeking to harm one state member of the UN  the State of Israel. Member states who will be called upon to support the continued functioning of this ongoing independent, international commission of enquiry and to approve budgetary allocations for this purpose should not allow themselves to be so manipulated, and are urged to act to prevent the UN from allowing itself to be harmed from within. To this end, those states that provide the bulk (70 percent) of the UNs budget (including the U.S., China, Japan, UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Republic of Korea, Australia, Canada, and others) are called upon to oppose the continued financing and functioning of this commission, and to quantitively and qualitatively withhold their individual state funding in the proportion of the UN budget devoted to the inquiry commission. States are called upon to open their eyes to this abuse of their sincerity and act immediately and before the commission commences its work to prevent the misuse of their funding. Amb. Alan Baker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center and the head of the Global Law Forum. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, as well as agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. He served as legal adviser and deputy director-general of Israels Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Israels ambassador to Canada. Home
After two years of being royally bossed about by scientists, I for one have had enough, especially as they are coming after the drinking man now.

A slug or 12 of the hard stuff has been one of the few joys to be had during lockdown.

Figures are coming in that show boozing among my peer group  the over-45s  has skyrocketed off the scale and into Outer Space in recent times.

Writing of his alcohol free years, Roger Lewis said: 'Hitler was a teetotal vegetarian, incidentally, which I always point out to teetotallers and vegetarians'

Everyone is popping more and more corks earlier and earlier in the day, and the boffins aren't happy.

The World Heart Federation says even 'moderate drinkers' are putting themselves in danger, as their risk of suffering a stroke is 1.14 times greater than teetotallers.

'No amount of consumption can be considered good for heart health,' said a spokesman alliteratively.

Even the less hardcore physicians suggest that we quaff no more than three glasses of red wine a week, and one study I read advised only three glasses a fortnight.

At this rate you'd drink more than they recommend if you confined yourself to wine at communion.

Then there are the lists of what's in store for the unfortunates who ignore these doom-laden warnings.

The chief executive of the Institute of Alcohol Studies  a body I didn't know existed; would they like me to lend them a hand?  having delivered the grim news that booze-related deaths were up 19 per cent in 2020, says: 'Alcoholic liver disease in particular is a national emergency.'

Apparently the incidence of it is up by 400 per cent since 1970  I was only ten at the time. Give me a chance.

Figures are coming in that show boozing the over-45s has skyrocketed in recent years (file photo)

All this fear-mongering could prove counterproductive, as when Tommy Cooper poured drink on his breakfast cereal because 'milk is full of cholesterol'.

But that won't stop the busy-body medics. A professor at Imperial College London is categorical that 'one single drink can damage the liver.

We can see that the next day by measuring enzymes in the blood'. (Microscopes are getting too sophisticated, is my view.)

'Over a few weeks' overconsumption,' continues the professor, 'you can see the liver becoming fatty, thanks both to inflammatory damage and to calories in alcohol.'

Of COURSE, I take it all very personally, as one day about a decade ago, my pancreas went bang.

I well remember my diabetes nurse saying to me: 'Your liver is fatty' and, having given this a moment to sink in, I replied: 'Well, if it comes to that, Nurse Twelvetrees, you're ugly.'

Hardly Noel Coward, but the best I could manage under the circumstances, and we both laughed  until I crashed to the ground, that is.

I woke up in the Poldark Ward (yes, really) of Truro hospital to be told that, thanks to the pancreatitis, the glucose level in my blood was so high they wanted to write up my case history in The Lancet.

I'd made the mistake, I freely confess, of believing the actor Richard Burton's notion that 'Welsh livers and kidneys seem to be made of some metallic alloy quite unlike the rest of the human race'. (I am Welsh.)

And Burton, who died at 58, was an epic boozer. Not drinking for him meant only one bottle of vodka a day.

I wasn't quite on Burton's level but I once ran up a bar bill of 700 on margaritas during a transatlantic crossing aboard the QE2 liner  and I was on my own.

I spent seven years between 2011 and 2018 on the dry, and I have to say nearly dropped dead of the boredom. Parties became pointless.

It was like standing on the shore watching everyone else float away having a nice time, laughing and embracing.

I became an antisocial recluse, as anyone would if they went to press receptions, premieres and launch parties, which start off in a civilised fashion but after a while, as the trays of drinks circulate, everyone seems to go a bit bonkers.

Drunks repeat themselves, grab the sleeve of your jacket and get either tearful or aggressive. Non-smokers start smoking.

To the teetotaller, it is as if after the fourth glass they are all suddenly talking in a foreign language.

The only benefit was financial  all those cases of wine not purchased, cheaper restaurant bills, a slimmed-down overdraft.

Also, my liver stopped being fatty after a few months of abstinence, though other things dropped off.

Put it this way. Urology. It's my future. And the diabetes hasn't gone away either.

I think of that long teetotal era as my Wilderness Years.

I wrote no books. I lost my mojo. I have absolutely nothing to show for all that clear-eyed wholesomeness, except I watched a lot of old black-and-white films.

I began to realise I should have taken to heart what Humphrey Bogart meant when he said: 'I once gave up booze. It was the most miserable afternoon of my life.'

Or the profundity of Tommy Cooper's quip: 'I bet a man 20 I could cure my drinking problem. Now I've got a gambling problem as well.'

I fell off the water-wagon when I had a combination of prostatitis and sciatica in January 2018. Prescribed temazepam for insomnia, I thought: if it's a relaxant I need, pass me that corkscrew.

Some people who resume drinking after a prolonged period of sobriety find they're under the table after a couple of glasses but I was soon back up to roly-poly concert pitch, as the Majestic Wine bills testified.

'Red wine is my tipple. I can't stand white wine or beer, as these are high in carbs and calories, though my concern is taste, not health,' Mr Lewis said (file photo used)

The important thing is to keep everything in moderation. I never touch the stuff during the day or when working.

I don't have anything until gone eight o'clock  at night that is. And I restrict myself to a bottle a day.

Red wine is my tipple. I can't stand white wine or beer, as these are high in carbs and calories, though my concern is taste, not health.

At 61, I'm jollier than I have been in ages. With a good dinner accompanied by red wine a daily prospect, I am glad to report I have nearly finished a new book, my biography of Richard Burton, which is only about 11 years overdue at the publishers  when I began, Elizabeth Taylor was still alive.

As the great man once said: 'There are few pleasures to match tipsiness in this murderous world, especially if, like me, you believe in your bones the world is not going to last much longer.'

This reflects the apocalyptic mood of lockdown, when sales of champagne rose by 32 per cent, adding 5 billion to the French economy.

Churchill had the right idea. As the bombs fell during World War II, he drank Pol Roger non-stop, observing of his brimming glass: 'The nerves are braced, the imagination is agreeably stirred, the wits become more nimble.'

Hitler was a teetotal vegetarian, incidentally, which I always point out to teetotallers and vegetarians.

Though news is already reaching me of woke vegan developments to convert us all to non-alcoholic horrors such as hibiscus and sea lettuce flake infusions, cherry juice with a hint of carrots, vintage green tea with aniseed from the Yunnan Province of China, grilled shallot water and smoked milk, I'm currently busy laying down supplies of fine claret for when it kicks off in Ukraine and World War III starts.

What will be the point of stone-cold sobriety then? At any time, though, life without a few restorative sips has neither elegance nor exuberance, take it from me.
Prince Charles invited the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to stay with him when they visit the UK amid fears his son's tell-all memoir will criticise the Duchess of Cornwall.

The Prince of Wales reportedly invited Prince Harry and his family to stay with him at his home in the hope of meeting his granddaughter Lilibet for the first time after she was born in California in June last year.

The offer, which would be the first time the family have come together since Duke and Duchess of Sussex quit as working royals, was made amid their ongoing security concerns ahead of the Queen's Jubilee, according to reports.

It also comes amid claims that Prince Charles fears his son's memoir will slam the Duchess of Cornwall and her relationship with the Prince of Wales during Prince Harry's childhood.

A source told The Sun: 'Harry is fiercely loyal and protective of his late mother and her legacy, and didn't approve of Camilla sweeping in as the great love of his father's life.

Prince Charles (pictured with the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in Westminster Abbey) invited Prince Harry and his family to stay with him when they visit the UK

The invite comes amid claims Prince Charles fears his son's memoir will slam the Duchess of Cornwall and her relationship with the Prince of Wales. Pictured: Prince Harry with Princess Diana and Prince William in 1992

'Understandably he found those early years incredibly difficult, and he might publicly blame Camilla for much of what he believes went wrong in his childhood, and the trauma the whole situation caused.

'Charles is deeply protective of Camilla. The last thing he needs  especially in a year of celebration that should be all about the Queen  is an excoriating takedown of Camilla at a time when people have finally taken her to their hearts.'

The Duke of Sussex, 37, who lives in in Montecito, California, with his wife Meghan Markle, 40, and their children were expected to come to the UK for the Duke of Edinburgh's memorial service in the spring and the Queen's Jubilee in the summer.

However, a recent row over the Metropolitan Police providing their security has called their return into doubt.

In recent months, Prince Charles and his son have communicated via a series of 'good natured' calls, sources told The Mirror.

One said: 'The Prince of Wales has been saddened that he hasn't had the opportunity to spend time with his grandchildren, which he really does miss.

'He is a fantastic grandfather and loves playing the role immensely and it's certainly fair to say he feels there is something missing from his life without the ability to get to know Harry's children.

'This is something he is hoping to remedy which is why he made the gesture for Harry, Meghan and the children to stay with him if they wanted to, whenever they may come home for a period of time.'

It comes as reports emerged Prince Harry was seeking a judicial review of the decision to strip him of his UK police protection team, claiming it is too dangerous to visit the UK without Scotland Yard bodyguards.

This month former head of royal protection Dai Davies said that members of the royal family received protection only if security agencies considered them to be at risk.

A source claimed that Prince Harry (pictured with his mother Princess Diana and Prince William in 1987) 'might publicly blame Camilla for much of what he believes went wrong in his childhood'

Claims have emerged that Prince Charles fears his son's memoir will slam the Duchess of Cornwall

The source claimed that Prince Charles is 'deeply protective' of the Duchess of Cornwall

He told Good Morning Britain: 'Princess Anne doesn't get full-time protection we're told now and yet in 1974 she was nearly kidnapped and/or murdered.

'There has never been a precedent where somebody pays for their security in this country. If it's required, it will be provided.'

Mr Davies, who was Operational Unit Commander for the Royals from 1995, added: 'He chose to go to America, that's his prerogative.

'And it's our prerogative to ensure when we look at any aspect of protection, any member of the Royal Family that we actually look and assess it through various security agencies. That's the crux.

'And it's been decided in this level, one they won't supply him with protection because the risk at this stage is deemed low.

'However should there be a risk when he comes then clearly the Metropolitan Police would be duty bound.'

The ongoing row comes as Prince Harry prepares to release his $20million tell-all memoir.

Last year Publisher Random House released a statement saying: 'Prince Harry will share, for the very first time, the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses and life lessons that have helped shape him.

'Covering his lifetime in the public eye, from childhood to the present day, Prince Harry will offer an honest and captivating personal portrait, one that shows readers that behind everything they think they know lies an inspiring, courageous and uplifting human story.'

In a statement Prince Harry also said: 'I'm writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have become'

'I've worn many hats over the years, both literally and figuratively, and my hope is that in telling my story - the highs and lows, the mistakes, the lessons learned - I can help show that no matter where we come from, we have more in common than we think.

'I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to share what I've learned over the course of my life so far and excited for people to read a first hand account of my life that's accurate and wholly truthful.'

Last year royal expert and author Angela Levin, who wrote Harry: Biography of a Prince, took to Twitter to write: 'I've been told by a well-informed source that Harry's memoir will focus heavily on the death of his mother Princess Diana, and who he blames.'

During his interview with Oprah Winfrey last year, Prince Harry said he felt 'very let down' by his father Prince Charles, accusing him of refusing to take his calls and then 'cutting him off' financially when he and his wife emigrated.

Asked about his relationship with Prince Charles, Harry said they were now speaking again, adding: 'There's a lot to work through there, you know? I feel really let down, because he's been through something similar.

'He knows what pain feels like, and Archie's his grandson. I will always love him, but there's a lot of hurt that's happened. And I will continue to make it one of my priorities to try and heal that relationship'.

When asked about if he remains close to Prince William he replied: 'I love William to bits. He's my brother. We've been through hell together. I mean, we have a shared experience. But we're on different paths'.
Historic post boxes are vanishing in rural areas, prompting fears that thieves are stealing them for collectors.

Nine Royal Mail boxes have disappeared from villages in Suffolk and Norfolk since January 7.

The first was in Rickinghall, Suffolk, with eight others then taken over a ten-day period.

Historic post boxes are vanishing in rural areas, prompting fears that thieves are stealing them for collectors (file photo used)

Detectives say the thieves are targeting heritage-style post boxes, which are often sold at auction for thousands of pounds.

Sgt Brian Calver, of Suffolk Police, said: 'We know that these are quite valuable and attractive for their antique/collectable resale value, but...they could be going for their scrap metal value as well.'

Norfolk Police said their stolen boxes have the Royal Cypher 'GR' on them, indicating they were installed during the reign of King George V or George VI.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said it was 'working hard to replace the missing boxes'.

Sgt Calver added: 'Such thefts are a big loss of heritage and identity to the village from where they are stolen from.

'There is also the personal disruption such a theft could cause to individuals who have posted important letters and documents and, that as a consequence, are then sadly lost.

Detectives have linked the latest thefts to the disappearance of the postbox in Ructon Holme, Norfolk, on December 21 last year.

Antique dealer Patrick Cowell said there was 'a large international market' for Royal Mail postboxes.

Norfolk Police said their stolen boxes have the Royal Cypher 'GR' on them, indicating they were installed during the reign of King George V or George VI (file photo)

He told the BBC: 'I was surprised to look online and find some for sale at up to four figure sums and one or two going into five figures, which seemed pretty crazy to me.'

A Royal Mail spokesman said: 'We are aware that there has been a number of thefts of postboxes in parts of Suffolk and Norfolk. Royal Mail has over 115,000 postboxes across the UK and the theft of postboxes is relatively rare.

'However, Royal Mail takes the issue very seriously, and works closely with law enforcement agencies to prevent the unlawful removal of postboxes.

'We also deploy preventative measures and technologies to deter theft. These measures include forensic tags, permanent metal marking systems and electronic tracking.

'In the event that a crime is committed, these features can help our investigators to identify and trace stolen property as well as potential offenders.'

The roadside post box was introduced in Britain following the 1840 postal reform which provided for affordable postage.

Today at least 98 per cent of the population lives within half a mile of one.
An Aboriginal model has urged Aussies to refrain from posting photos of Australia Day celebrations on social media as it is 'insensitive' to the plight of First Nations people.

Millions of Australians flock to beaches, backyard BBQs, and pubs on January 26 with flags draped over their sun-soaked shoulders to mark the national public holiday.

But for the country's first inhabitants, the date represents the beginning of the painful and devastating impact of colonisation on their culture since the first British fleet sailed into Sydney Cove in 1788.

Fallon Gregory, a proud Kija/Bardi and Nyul-Nyul woman from Western Australia, says that if people partake in prideful, open Australia Day celebrations, they should not post photos on social media.

'It shows support and lack of sensitivity,' she told news.com.au.

The mother-of-two said Aussies could show their support for Aboriginal people by instead sharing information on social media about why people shouldn't celebrate Australia Day on that date, and by attending invasion day rallies.

'If you're wanting to show true pressure and support then showing up [at marches] to provide numbers, posting and going live from the marches and rallies is key,' she said.

Fallon Gregory, a proud Kija/Bardi and Nyul-Nyul woman from Western Australia (pictured), is sharing information about how Australians can support First Nations people on January 26

She says Australians should not post pictures celebrating Australia Day on social media

Ms Gregory, who has a following of 27,000, has long been advocating changing the date to create a national day that can be inclusive of all Australians.

The movement has gained momentum in recent years, with thousands of protesters hitting the streets across the country on January 26 - renamed 'Invasion Day' by advocates - in support of the calendar shift.

Ms Gregory said she is passionate about educating Australians about how to be mindful and respectful about Aboriginal culture - but it is 'tiring'.

Ms Gregory said sharing photos of Australia Day events and parties on social media is culturally insensitive towards First Nations people. Pictured: January 26 celebrations in Sydney in 2021

'Ive always spoken about my experiences as an Indigenous woman and the good and bad that comes with that,' she told STM.

'I knew I had this voice, and a following, and I needed to use that to bring attention and awareness to these kinds of matters.'

'(But) personally, its very tiring to continuously, every year, have to come out and educate people on why we shouldnt be celebrating Australia Day.'

The activist and influencer said she has been told be some people to 'be grateful' or 'get over it'.

'Its very invalidating of our position and our voices, and our experience with colonisation, to say things like that,' she said

'To celebrate a day that isnt inclusive of all Australians and call it Australia Day, is morally incorrect.'

Australia Day, held on the date British Royal Navy vessels raised a Union Jack at Sydney Cove, called Warrane by the Aboriginal people who fished and lived there, remains divisive among young and older generations.

Two women celebrate the national holiday on the back of a boat in the Gold Coast in January 2021

Australians celebrate the national holiday at Wave Break Island, on the Gold Coast, last year

A recent survey by Core Data found 'a generational and gender divide among Australians over the significance of the day and its position in the calendar'.

The research consultancy asked whether people planned to celebrate, whether they supported moving the holiday to another date and how their opinions had changed in recent years.

Overall, 54 per cent of respondents said they planned to mark the occasion, with 30 per cent saying they would be celebrating the history and achievements of Australia and 15 per cent 'just because it was a public holiday'.

More than two-thirds of respondents aged 26 and under say they won't be celebrating on January 26, with just over 30 per cent saying they will.

But more than 80 per cent of them support moving the date for the sake of improving relations with the Indigenous population, as do more than 70 per cent of those aged 27 to 41.

Support for change dropped among older respondents, with just over 30 per cent of those 56 to 75 and 25 per cent of those older supporting a change in date.

People carry placards as thousands of people attend an Australia Day protest in Melbourne in January 26, 2021

Opinions were more evenly split among 42- to 55-year-olds but the majority still supported keeping the holiday on its current date.

There were also less significant discrepancies in gender.

Ms Gregory said she is passionate about educating Australians about how to be mindful and respectful about Aboriginal culture

Men were less likely to support changing the date or having a holiday to reflect on Australian and Aboriginal history than women and were more likely to celebrate Australia Day.

CoreData says 'the political overtones' attached to the day and its meaning have 'given younger Australians pause to think'.

About 40 per cent of the youngest surveyed group and 30 per cent of the next oldest category said their opinions had changed in recent years 'due to their perceptions of the political meaning of the day'.

In contrast, fewer than 10 per cent of the two oldest categories have adjusted their view.

Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance, described as 'a collective of young Aboriginal people committed to the cause of decolonisation' announced on Friday it would not be organising a protest on the day it marks as Invasion Day due to the pandemic.

It will be the first time since 2015 the group hasn't organised the protest march in Melbourne.

'We want to be on the street fighting for our people but the time isn't now,' the organisation said, directing people to an online event instead.
Barnaby Joyce says the government is not responsible for the shortage of Rapid Antigen Tests in Australia, saying the public is to blame for 'hoarding' them.

The Deputy Prime Minister made the assertion on ABC's RN Breakfast program on Monday when he asked to guarantee that pensioners could get access to the home test kits.

'They've been hoarded, as you know,' he said.

Barnaby Joyce has defended the government over the shortage of Rapid Antigen Tests in Australia, claiming the public and employers are hoarding them

Mr Joyce said both the public and businesses are stockpiling the instant home tests, which have been hard to find since becoming part of the states' strategies to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

'It is not as if the tests aren't there. The problems that Australia is experiencing are being experienced around the world,' he said.

'We don't manufacture RATs like other countries do, such as China  You can't, years ago, predict RATs are going to be the things that you need.

'But what we are doing is making sure we deal with issues as they come along. That is what a competent government does.'

Mr Joyce said the government was not responsible for the behaviour of the public and employers in buying up RATs.

Mr Joyce said both the public and businesses are stockpiling the instant home tests, which have been hard to find since becoming part of the states' strategies to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (pictured, people queuing to buy rapid tests in Sydney)

The Deputy Prime Minister made the assertion Australians are not dying on the ABC, which he retracted and apologised for (pictured, Mr Joyce with partner Vikki Campion and sons Sebastian and Thomas)

'People have been buying not what they require, but more than they need ... even corporations and businesses who buy up more than they require.

'It's part and parcel of what you'd expect, it's like saying you're not producing enough toilet paper because people are swiping it off the shelves.

'I don't know why they do it, but they do ... so next week, next week, we've got 16 million coming in, then we've got more than 33 million after that.'

Six million Australians are officially eligible to receive free rapid antigen tests, however pharmacies are concerned over whether there will be any to give out.

Concession card holders will be able to claim up to 10 of the free self-test kits over a three-month period starting from Monday.

In NSW, people who test positive for Covid-19 are required to register a negative RAT result before re-entering the community.

Mr Joyce defended the government's performance on RATs, listing the huge numbers of tests due to arrive in coming weeks.

In Australia over 3,103 people have died from Covid-19 since March 2020, with fatalities dramatically increasing this month due to the Omicron surge.

''We've got 16 million will be turning up in the next week, by the end of the month, and we've got another 33 million turning up after that, we've 70 million on order and the States are bringing in 130 million, so it's not as if the tests aren't there.'

Pensioners, veterans and low-income earners will be able to access RATs for free and can claim a maximum of five tests per month.

Mr Joyce said he could not promise that 'pensioners' who needed RATs would be able to find them, but said 'we are giving our best endeavours to make sure that does not occur.'

Mr Joyce also apologised for a mistakenly claiming 'people aren't dying' of Covid in Australia.

He retracted the claim when challenged on it and apologised.

In NSW, people who test positive for Covid-19 are required to register a negative RAT result before re-entering the community

Mr Joyce said the government had ordered enough Rapid Antigen Tests and accused the public and businesses of 'hoarding' them

'Well, people aren't dying,' he told the show's host, Patricia Karvelas, when she pointed out that Australia was now designated a Covid danger zone by the European Union.

'People are dying. People are dying every day,' Ms Karvelas corrected him.

'Sorry, sorry sorry. Yes, you're correct, I shouldn't have said that,' Mr Joyce quickly responded.

In Australia over 3,103 people have died from Covid-19 since March 2020, with fatalities dramatically increasing this month due to the Omicron surge.

The Deputy Prime Minister clarified that he meant 'the fatality rate of Omicron is remarkably low'.

The fast spread of the highly-contagious Omicron variant initially caused long queues for official PCR testing stations around Christmas and into early January 2022.
Daniel Andrews has taken a crack at fellow Labor Premier Mark McGowan after Western Australia sealed the border to the rest of Australia indefinitely.

The Victorian Premier was asked on Monday about comments by WA's Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson justifying the state's harsh border restrictions.

During a media conference on Sunday, Ms Sanderson claimed 'we have, in all but name, lockdowns over east'.

Mr Andrews said the West Australian MP was incorrect before smirking and joking: 'I can get our ambassador to talk to theirs', if you like.'

Mr McGowan (pictured with wife Sarah) has kept WA's border closed to the rest of the country and was voted back into office in a landslide in April 2021

Western Australia reported 24 new cases of the virus on Sunday - its highest number ever.

Despite shutting the border, officials admitted the state won't be able to eliminate the variant, but will continue to suppress it.

Victoria is currently hosting the Australian Open with tens of thousands of guests each day.

The state's latest wave of cases appear to have begun a downward curve, with authorities recording 13,091 infections on Sunday and 11,695 on Monday.

On Thursday Mark McGowan broke his promise to reopen the Western Australian border on February 5, claiming it would be 'reckless and irresponsible' given the breakout of the Omicron strain across the country.

He said a new reopening date, which was initially scheduled to align with WA's 90 per cent double-dose vaccination target, will not even be considered until well into February.

WA's Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson claimed there was a 'lockdown in all but name over east' (pictured)

Mr McGowan has relied on a policy of shutting his state off from the rest of the country over the course of the Covid pandemic - a tactic which seems to have worked with his Labor party being voted back into office in early 2021 by a landslide.

Despite recent backlash over widespread vaccine mandates, WA has remained largely unaffected by restrictions or significant case numbers while the rest of the country has endured intermittent lockdowns.

The WA Health Minister's claims of another current eastern seaboard lockdown are wildly exaggerated, however.

Western Australia has avoided lockdowns over the last two years but have been cut off from the rest of the country (Pictured: People wearing face masks in Perth in December)

While Victoria requires face masks indoors, all retail, hospitality, gyms, live music venues, and even casinos are open for the fully-vaccinated and there are no travel restrictions or limits on gatherings.

NSW and Queensland are under similar rules and borders are open between all three states.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet on Monday slapped down the claims saying: 'NSW is open, there's no doubt'.

'You go out on the weekend, the shops are open, the pubs are open, the restaurants, the bars,' he said.

He said the announcement to delay WA's border opening indefinitely was a sad day for many people who were separated from family and friends in the state and that 'many tears were shed'.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews (pictured) said he would speak to WA's 'ambassador' referencing how the state has been closed off to the rest of Australia for two years

Australia's former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth said pushing back the opening of WA's border was not only illogical but risked a winter surge in flu cases.

'Delay WA border opening until 80% boosted, which will occur sometime around May, to coincide with the start of the winter flu season, which may well be worse this year due to lack of, you guessed it, immunity from recent infection,' Dr Coatsworth tweeted.

'Courageous indeed,' he sarcastically mused.

'There's a gamble being made here with the health of West Australians,' he said.

Dr Coatsworth said February 5 was a reasonable open date and would have been 'as safe as it possibly can be'.

He said reaching Covid-zero was 'impossible' and that that Omicron was both very mild - less than one per cent of current active cases are in hospital - and had been in decline in eastern states for over a week.
A mother who walked free from prison early after being convicted of killing her four-year-old son is pregnant with another child, as she fights for life in hospital.

Heidi Strbak, 38, was jailed for nine years for the manslaughter of little Tyrell Cobb but was let out on appeal after serving just over three years of the original sentence.

On Saturday, emergency crews were called to a property at Upper Coomera on the Gold Coast at about 7:30am after reports a woman had been 'seriously injured'.

Queensland Police told Daily Mail Australia they discovered a woman at the Cassia Drive address at the bottom of a flight of stairs.

Heidi Strbak, 38, was jailed for nine years for the manslaughter of little Tyrell Cobb (pictured together) but was let out on appeal after serving just over three years of the original sentence

Heidi Strbak was rushed to hospital on Saturday with severe head injuries which triggered a cardiac arrest. She was also reportedly pregnant

The Nine Network has since reported that Ms Strbak was pregnant at the time of the fall.

Investigators established a crime scene with detectives spending the afternoon scouring the home and removing bags of evidence for forensic testing as they try to piece together what happened.

'She was transported to hospital where she remains in a serious condition,' police said on Monday.

'Initial investigations suggest the woman's fall is not suspicious, however investigations are ongoing.'

The apparent fall caused severe head injuries that saw her go into cardiac arrest. Ambulance crews were able to stabilise her condition and she is still believed to be fighting for life at Gold Coast University Hospital.

Ms Strbak also had another child, it was revealed during bail proceedings in the Brisbane Supreme Court in 2015. That child is believed to live with the biological father.

Queensland Police told Daily Mail Australia they discovered a woman at the Cassia Drive address at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Pictured: Heidi Strbak

'You know my name, not my story. You've heard what I've allegedly done, but not what I've been through,' Strbak wrote on her Facebook profile.

Strbak was freed after her jail term was reduced after successfully appealing the nine-year sentence in the High Court.

Brisbane Supreme Court Justice David Boddice, who oversaw a four-day contested sentence hearing in October 2020, immediately suspended the sentence after taking into account the 1,148 days she had already spent in custody.

Strbak wiped her eyes as the judge handed down his sentence and slammed her for failing to protect her own son.

'You failed dismally, with the consequence that he lost his life,' the judge told Strbak.

'Your conduct involved serious criminal behaviour to your own child, who relied and depended on you to protect him.'

Tyrell Cobb (pictured), four, suffered two separate blows to his abdomen that caused internal bleeding and the leaking of his stomach contents which led to his death on May 24, 2009

Tyrell died on the Gold Coast in May 2009 after Strbak and her then de facto husband Matthew Scown failed to seek timely medical treatment for the sick boy.

He had been vomiting following a blow to his abdomen, which tore open his small intestine.

Tyrell was unresponsive and never regained consciousness by the time paramedics were called,

An autopsy revealed 70 bruises and abrasions, as well as a cigarette lighter burn on his ankle.

Justice Boddice found the blunt force trauma that caused the boy's death could have been inflicted by his mother of her former de facto partner, Matthew Scown (pictured)

Strbak received a nine-year jail term in 2017 for the crime, but that sentence was set aside in March after a High Court appeal.

She pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge on the basis she did not seek medical treatment.

Justice Boddice found the blunt force trauma that caused the boy's death could have been inflicted by his mother or Scown.

The Supreme Court judge said Scown and Strbak were the only people who had the opportunity to inflict two deliberate blows that caused Tyrell's death.

He also said the Crown had failed to establish that either of them inflicted the traumatic injuries to the boy.

Tyrell (pictured) vomited bile for two days following a blow to his abdomen, which tore open his small intestine

Scown was sentenced to four years behind bars in 2017 for Tyrell's manslaughter but was immediately released as he had served more than two years in custody.

He was sentenced for being criminally negligent and failing to seek medical treatment for the boy.

Justice Boddice told the court there had been evidence Scown had been violent with Tyrell.

'There is a real and reasonable likelihood that Tyrell's traumatic injuries were occasioned by the deliberate infliction of violence by Scown to Tyrell,' the judge said.

The Supreme Court judge found Tyrell's death was caused by deliberate infliction of blunt trauma to his abdomen with force on two occasions.

The judge said Tyrell's father Jason Cobb (pictured), who was in the court during sentencing, have also been grieving the boy's death

Justice Boddice said Strbak had been a loving mother to Tyrell and had no evidence of past abuse or neglect of Tyrrell

He said the injuries were inflicted by either Strbak or Scown.

Justice Boddice said Strbak had been a loving mother to Tyrell and had no evidence of past abuse or neglect of Tyrrell.

He said she is at low risk of reoffending, with good prospects to rehabilitate, showing co-operation and remorse by giving a guilty plea.

The judge told the court Strbak's response to Tyrell's health may have been because she did not understand the severity of the situation.

'I do not doubt that you grieve every day for your lost son,' he said.

He said Tyrell's father Jason Cobb, who was in the court during sentencing, had also been grieving the boy's death.

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A young labourer who was sacked after running over his boss's beloved family parrot has won an unfair dismissal claim after the court found he deserved no more than a written warning over the tragic accident.

Crackers the galah was crushed by Queenslander Blake OKeeffe after he unsuccessfully tried to chase him away from his truck.

Mr O'Keeffe had worked for Gregg Dunshea's small fencing business for most of his life and when he finished school scored a job as a labourer for the Bundaberg business - about 360kms north of Brisbane.

An unfair dismissal battle hit the Fairwork Commission after a beloved galah named Crackers was killed. Gregg Dunshea (pictured with Crackers) believes the commission got it wrong

Blake O'Keeffe won his unfair dismissal case after taking it to the Fairwork Commission. He had been sacked after running over his boss's beloved pet galah Crackers

Crackers was killed when a truck was reversed over him. Gregg Dunshea sacked Blake OKeeffe for failing to move the beloved galah out of his way before reversing

He was booted on-the-spot after his boss reviewed CCTV footage of the incident and realised his young worker had been aware Crackers had been loitering about just before he was killed.

On Monday, Mr Dunshea told Daily Mail Australia he was considering appealing the Fairwork Commission decision, which could see him forced to pay Mr O'Keeffe up to 26 weeks in lost wages.

'That's more money that I don't have and have to come up with just because someone is not willing to take responsibility for themselves,' he said.

'This person only lost his job, he can get another job ... and the commission says I should have given him a warning. But I'm the one at the loss. I'm the employer and personally I've lost something that can't be fixed. He didn't break a tool, he didn't cut something at the wrong length, he's destroyed an animal.

'What kind of warning can I give? '

In Mr O'Keeffe taking the matter to the commission, Deputy President Nicholas Lake heard the young employee had tried to move Crackers on by using an old mop and then a broom.

It had been a Friday afternoon and Mr O'Keeffe was nearly finished for the day when he had a run-in with the cheeky bird.

All he had left to do was to reverse a truck and drive it into another shed.

He was about to do so when he noticed Crackers sitting on the ground.

The commission heard it had been common practice to move the bird  or any other of the Dunsheas pets that may be around the work site  when necessary to keep them safe while work was being performed.

Crackers was killed when a truck reversed over him. The driver was sacked, but the Fairwork Commission ruled he ought not have been

Crackers (centre) had been a beloved family member of the Dunshea family. His tragic death saw his killer sacked amid accusations he had been told to look out for the bird

'He did not want to pick him up because when he had tried to do so previously, Crackers would bite him,' the commission heard.

When Crackers failed to jump onto the aluminium mop handle, Mr O'Keeffe attempted to use a wooden broom handle

'He figured that Crackers had a wooden perch in his cage and so may be more amenable to hopping on the broom,' the commission heard.

Instead, Crackers ran under another truck that was parked nearby.

Attempts to coax Crackers out only saw the bird move further under the vehicle.

Fed-up, Mr O'Keeffe jumped back into the truck, carefully checked his mirrors and rear camera, and reversed it out.

When he exited the truck he saw Crackers' crumpled body.

'I'm sorry', he told his distraught boss, who initially told him not to worry about it.

His tune changed upon review of the CCTV footage.

'Youve turned into someone I despise, youre the worst kind of person, a person who doesnt think about how their actions will affect other people,' Mr Dunshea said.

A fencing truck had been driven over Crackers the galah. His owner claimed the driver had known not to move vehicles about when the bird was walking about

Direct Fencing boss Gregg Dunshea claims his employee ought have taken his dismissal on the chin and found another job

His boss told the commission he had specifically warned Mr O'Keeffe not to reverse out while Crackers was about.

Mr O'Keeffe denied such a rule was ever set in stone.

'Mr Dunshea would sometimes say, Watch out for Crackers but there were no rules that he could not be on the ground nor instructions about how to move the bird,' he told the commission.

In deciding the matter in Brisbane last week, Mr Lake found Mr O'Keeffe ought have been given a warning before his marching orders.

Mr Dunshea had argued his employee's behaviour had warranted instant dismissal.

'(He) contends that it was (Mr O'Keeffes) negligence and lack of care and attention that caused Crackers death and that this outcome was preventable and foreseeable by (him) and a reasonable person in his position,' Mr Lake noted.

In making his decision, Mr Lake concluded Crackers' death was a tragic accident.

'While I have sympathy for Mr Dunshea and his family who obviously cared deeply for this bird, the Applicants conduct was not malicious or deliberate,' he said.

'It did not constitute valid reason for his dismissal. At its highest the actions of the young Applicant may have warranted a written warning, but no more.'

A decision over a suitable compensation figure owed to Mr O'Keeffe is yet to be determined.
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President Joe Biden said on Monday that he and European leaders had 'total unanimity' about the situation in the Ukraine - although he declined to provide more details on what they agreed upon.

'I had a very, very, very good meeting. Total unanimity with all the European leaders. We'll talk about it later,' Biden told reporters at the White House during a meeting with his Cabinet on inflation. He refused to talk further, complaining if he did the press wouldn't 'report on why I've called the meeting' about inflation.

Leaders from the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom were also on the call, which lasted about 90 minutes. Biden spoke from the White House Situation Room. It was closed to press but the White House posted a photo from it to its social media accounts.

The group discussed 'their joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine, including preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATO's eastern flank,' the White House said in a readout on the virtual call.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the leaders agreed there would be 'severe costs' to Russia if Moscow invaded Ukraine.

'We agree that any further aggression by #Russia against #Ukraine will have severe costs,' he wrote on Twitter.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said that 'should a further Russian incursion into Ukraine happen, allies must enact swift retributive responses including an unprecedented package of sanctions' and that the leaders 'resolved to continue co-ordinating closely on any such response.'

She added: 'The leaders agreed on the importance of international unity in the face of growing Russian hostility. The Prime Minister underlined the real human cost of any Russian aggression and the need to take all steps within our power to prevent that outcome.

'The leaders stressed that diplomatic discussions with Russia remain the first priority, and welcomed talks that have already taken place between Russia and Nato allies.

'They also agreed that the international community should not tolerate any action which undermines Ukrainian sovereignty. The Prime Minister outlined the steps the UK has taken to increase Ukraine's defensive capacity. He emphasised the need to support Ukraine's defences against the full spectrum of malign Russian activity.'

French President Emmanuel Macron will be speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in the coming days, the French said.

'President Macron expressed his deep concern over the situation on the Ukrainian border and the need to work collectively to de-escalate it quickly. This de-escalation must involve strong, credible warnings to Russia, requiring constant coordination among European partners and allies, as well as a stepped-up dialogue with Russia, which we are in the process of conducting,' said the read out of the call from Elysee Palace.

President Joe Biden said on Monday that he and European leaders had 'total unanimity' abou the situation in the Ukraine but didn't offer more details

Participants in the call included U.S. President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Andrzej Duda of Poland, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom

White House readout of call between Biden and European leaders President Biden held a secure video call with European leaders today. They reiterated their continued concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraines borders and expressed their support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity. The leaders underscored their shared desire for a diplomatic resolution to the current tensions and reviewed recent engagements with Russia in multiple formats. The leaders also discussed their joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine, including preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATOs eastern flank. They committed to continued close consultation with transatlantic Allies and partners, including working with and through the EU, NATO, and the OSCE. Participants in the call included European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Andrzej Duda of Poland, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom Advertisement

The call came after the Pentagon announced Monday that Biden administration is ordering 8,500 U.S.-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe.

'This is really about getting folks ready to go,' Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press conferenceHe said the majority of those troops would be ground forces.

He said they would stand ready in case NATO activates the NATO Response Force (NRF) or in the event of a 'deteriorating security environment.'

'Theres not a mission per se, this is about [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] wanting to get ahead of the potential activation and making sure these units have time to prepare,' Kirby told reporters.

The NATO Response Force is comprised of some 40,000 international troops across land, air, maritime and Special Operations Forces (SOF) components.

Kirby said the move was 'sending a strong message that we're committed to NATO and we're committed to ensuring that our allies have the capabilities they need in case they need to defend themselves.'

He stressed the troops are currently on 'heightened alert' posture and have no plans to deploy at this time.

The 'bulk of them' would be dedicated to the NRF to be activated if called upon by the Western defensive coalition but added that Austin wants the 8,500 troops to be postured for 'any other contingencies as well.'

A vast majority of those standby troops will be active duty service members, though Kirby did not rule out the possibility of getting reserve forces assembled as well.

Austin ordered the troops to stand ready to deploy at the direction of President Joe Biden.

Kirby said the units that would be flagged for possible deployment to Eastern Europe would be notified and announced in the near future.

'Its very clear the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating,' the Pentagon official said.

He did not say whether all of the troops would be under NATO's direct control but that they would all ultimately be under the command of NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe General Tod D. Wolters.

'They would all be reporting up underneath him, but what the exact chain of command would be -- it's difficult for me to say when they haven't even been activated,' Kirby said.

The Pentagon official also side-stepped a question on whether he could definitively rule out sending troops directly to Ukraine.

There are already thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Europe, but the recent activity at the Russia-Ukraine border could cause relocation to the Baltic region. Russia has 100,000 troops stationed along the border it shares with Ukraine

'That is -- I think the president has already spoken to that. As you know... we already do have advisors and some trainers in Ukraine, they are still there at their work,' Kirby responded.

He later added that those US troops training Ukrainian forces are not subject to the evacuation order the US State Department issued to some embassy personnel and staff's families, and that there are no plans to remove them at this time.

But Russia's attempts to destabilize Ukraine don't appear to be limited to military intimidation. Also on Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki warned Moscow against engineering a coup to overthrow the former Soviet state's leadership -- after the British foreign office warned such plotting was underway.

Psaki said it would be a 'severe escalation' after British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss released an unusual statement citing UK intelligence of such an effort, without providing specific details.

'Well, I'm not going to get into intelligence matters, of course,' Psaki said when asked about the alleged coup plot by DailyMail.com.

'We've been warning about Russian tactics like this for weeks. Reports of this kind of planning are deeply concerning, if acted upon would constitute a severe escalation  and certainly there would be consequences.'

Truss said in a statement released by the foreign office that 'We have information that indicates the Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine. The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate,' she said, mentioning a former member of the pro-Moscow Party of Regions.

Murayev ridiculed the idea, and posted a picture of himself made to look like James Bond.

Psaki said reports the U.S. would send troops to bolster the force presence on Russia's eastern flank did not signal an expectation of imminent military action.

'We've never actually ruled out providing additional support additional support assistance to eastern flank countries in advance of any occasion, and those discussions with them have been ongoing. And certainly that's been part of our contingency planning,' said Psaki.

'While we can't get into the mind of President Putin, we are seeing the preparations that they're making at the border. We have been very clear and the President has been direct that military action by Russia could come at any one at any time,' Psaki said.

'And we have a sacred obligation to support the security of our eastern flank countries,' Psaki said of NATO allies, asked if dispatching forces could increase tensions. 'I think it's important to remember who the aggressor is here. It is not the United States. It is not these eastern flank countries. It is Russia, who has tens of thousands of troops on the border of Ukraine. They have the power to de escalate. We would certainly welcome that,' she said.

It comes after reports that Biden is finalizing his plans to deploy U.S. forces as Russia poises itself to invade Ukraine, a new report revealed as the president faces backlash from Ukraine for pulling embassy personnel and considers deploying up to 50,000 American troops.

CNN reported Monday that several U.S. officials claim the administration is in the final stages of identifying which military units to send to Eastern Europe to deter Russia and is preparing orders should they decide to deploy troops.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to give details on what units would make up the 8,500 troops Biden is ordering to stand ready in case of a possible deployment to Eastern Europe

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko blasted President Biden on Monday for pulling U.S. embassy personnel and relatives of staff out of Kiev.

'We have taken note of [the State Department]'s decision re departure of family members of [US Embassy in Kiev] staff,' Nikolenko wrote on Twitter in the early hours of Monday morning.

'While we respect right (sic) of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution.'

On Sunday, the United States ordered the families of its diplomats in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to leave the country 'due to the continued threat' of a Russian invasion, the State Department said.

Nikolenko noted that the EU is not telling its staff to leave. Biden is still smarting from failing to act swiftly enough in evacuating US citizens from Afghanistan.

The Biden administration has already warned American citizens in Ukraine to leave on their own, claiming the U.S. government will not be able to evacuate citizens should Russia invade.

'Given that the President has said military action by Russia could come at any time, the US government will not be in a position to evacuate US citizens,' officials said during a State Department call over the weekend.

'So US citizens, currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly,' they added, suggesting people arrange commercial flights.

Biden is considering deploying up to 50,000 US troops as well as aircraft and warships to eastern Europe to counter a Russian military build-up that has sparked fears Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine.

The plan would see between 1,000 and 5,000 soldiers sent to NATO nations such as Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which border Russian territory.

President Biden is considering deploying up to 500,000 American troops together with warships and aircraft, to NATO ally countries located in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. He is pictured at Camp David on Saturday, January 22 holding a meeting with his national security team on the Russia-Ukraine crisis

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko on Monday blasted Biden for pulling U.S. embassy personnel and relatives of staff out of Kiev. '[W]e believe such a step to be premature one & an instance of excessive caution,' he wrote on Twitter

Troop numbers could then be increased up to 50,000 if the security situation deteriorates, backed up by fresh deployments of ships and aircraft.

Pentagon officials presented the plan to Biden during a summit at Camp David over the weekend, convened to discuss military options to deter an attack by Russia after the threat of sanctions largely fell on deaf ears.

The plan would not involve American troops deployed directly to Ukraine, with Biden thought to be loathe to enter another conflict following his disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, The New York Times reports.

An NBC News report notes that other options presented to Biden ahead of an invasion were sending bomber flights over the region, ship visits into the Black Sea and moving troops and equipment from other parts of Europe into Poland, Romania and other countries that neighbor Ukraine.

Biden is due to make a call on military measures as soon as this week, the Times detailed, even as high-level talks between Washington and Moscow continue - with the U.S. due to submit a written response to Russian security demands.

The Times claims this presents a change in Biden's strategy, claiming 'the administration is now moving away from its do-not-provoke [Russia] strategy.'

But the White House is questioning whether the New York Times report presents any new information considering Biden said at last week's press conference: 'We're going to actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, etc., if in fact he moves.'

'The president has publicly said that he'd deploy troops to Eastern Europe if the Russians invade so I don't really get how the NYT story advances that?' a senior White House official told Politico's Monday morning Playbook edition.

The U.S. is also already operating surveillance flights to track the Russian build-up and movement of Kremlin troops as Biden considers keeping special forces in the Ukraine in the event of a full-scale invasion.

Since late December, the Air Force has been regularly flying RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic-eavesdropping planes over Ukraine in order to listen in on Russian ground commanders' communications, the Times reported. The Air Force is also operating ground-surveillance flights withE-8 JSTARS to track Russian troop buildup at Ukraine's border.

The spy plane mission is meant to find any indications that Russia is considering deploying nuclear weapons to the border with Ukraine, a potential of which Russian officials already warned.

Poland's defense ministry notes there are currently around 4,000 U.S. troops stationed in Poland.

There are also currently more than 150 U.S. military advisers in Ukraine who have operated at a training ground near Lviv for years. It includes Special Operations forces, mostly Army Green Berets, and National Guard trainers from Florida's 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team.

While the U.S. intends to move its military trainers out of Ukraine swiftly should a full-scale Russian invasion occur, it's also possible some American forces could stay to advise Kyiv officials and provide frontline support, a U.S. official told the Times.

Russia is planning to hold live-fire naval drills off the Irish coast next month, with Dublin saying the ships are 'not welcome' (file image, Russian ships near Saint Petersburg last year)

Moscow announced new live-fire sea drills that will take place off the coast of Ireland in February. They are part of wider drills involving up to 140 ships across four seas including Pacific and Atlantic.

The Irish government revealed Sunday that it has been warned of drills that will take place within its 'exclusive economic zone' but outside of its territorial waters - around 150 miles off its southwest coast. It said the drills are 'not welcome'.

Amid warnings from the Pentagon that an invasion is 'imminent', families of US diplomats stationed in Ukraine were ordered to leave the country.

Non-essential embassy staff were also offered a route out of the country due to 'increased threats of Russian military action'.

The UK has also started withdrawing diplomats and their families from Ukraine.

Half of diplomatic staff and their families stationed at the UK's outpost in Kiev will now leave the country, sources told the BBC.

The move is not due to any specific threat against Britons in the country, the sources said, but is due to the growing risk of a Russian attack.

But the EU on Monday warned against 'dramatizing' the situation and said it has no plans to withdraw its own diplomats.

Josep Borrell, the EU's top diplomat, said he is not aware of any 'specific reasons' to withdraw diplomatic staff and added that negotiations are ongoing.

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted on Sunday night that the government had received a second shipment of weapons from the United States

A cargo plane was pictured in Ukraine after supposedly delivering 80 tons of weapons

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also tweeted on Sunday a picture of a dog sitting on crates of what is presumably equipment being sent to Ukraine from the US

US spy planes surveilling Ukraine and its borders: Green Berets could stay to help forces if Russia invades, official reveals The U.S. is operating surveillance flights over Ukraine to track the Russian build-up and movement of troops at its borders. President Joe Biden is also considers keeping select special forces in the Eastern European country in the event of a full-scale invasion. Since late December, the Air Force has been regularly flying RC-135 Rivet Joint electronic-eavesdropping planes over Ukraine in order to listen in on Russian ground commanders' communications, The New York Times reported Sunday. The article notes the Air Force is also operating ground-surveillance flights with E-8 JSTARS to track Russian troop buildup at Ukraine's border and movements of Kremlin forces. Biden specifically is interested in using spy planes to find indications on whether Russia is considering or has already deploying nuclear weapons to the border with Ukraine. Russian officials have warned of this potential. In conjunction with sending more troops  which the Times says Biden is considering deploying up to 50,000  the president is also looking at approving sending more aircraft to the region. Poland's defense ministry notes there are currently around 4,000 U.S. troops stationed in Poland. There are also currently more than 150 U.S. military advisers in Ukraine who have operated at a training ground near Lviv for years. It includes Special Operations forces, mostly Army Green Berets, and National Guard trainers from Florida's 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. While the U.S. intends to move its military trainers out of Ukraine swiftly should a full-scale Russian invasion occur, it's also possible some American forces could stay to advise Kyiv officials and provide frontline support, a U.S. official told the Times. Advertisement

It comes after the UK alleged at the weekend that Moscow has been making preparations to install a puppet government to take control of Ukraine in the wake of any invasion.

The Foreign Office even went so far as to name former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate.

Meanwhile, NATO allies have put forces on standby and sent ships and fighter jets to bolster Europe's eastern defenses, the alliance said Monday.

'NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment,' NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

The Western alliance pointed to decisions in recent days by Denmark to send a frigate and warplanes to the Baltic states, Spain bolstering naval deployments and the Netherlands putting a 'ship and land-based units on standby' for its rapid response force.

The statement also highlighted a recent offer from France to send troops to Romania and said 'the United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence'.

A senior Biden administration official declined to confirm specific troop numbers on Sunday but said 'we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward.'

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley both attended the meetings virtually.

None of the military options being looked at would see the deployment of additional American troops to Ukraine itself with the president keen to avoid entering another conflict.

Biden is expected to make a decision as early as this week but it appears weaponry is already on the move.

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted on Sunday night that the government had received a second shipment of weapons from the United States.

'The second bird in Kyiv! More than 80 tons of weapons to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities from our friends in the USA! And this is not the end,' Reznikov tweeted, together with photos of the incendiary cargo.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and counselor to the President Steve Ricchetti joined Biden in person at Camp David as part of the meetings.

The briefing saw Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, left, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley both attending virtually

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are pictured meeting in June 2021

'President Biden was briefed on the current state of Russian military operations on Ukraine's borders and discussed both our ongoing efforts to de-escalate the situation with diplomacy and our range of deterrence measures that are being coordinated closely with our Allies and partners, including ongoing deliveries of security assistance to Ukraine.

'President Biden again affirmed that should Russia further invade Ukraine, the United States will impose swift and severe consequences on Russia with our Allies and partners,' a readout of the briefing said.

The goal military reinforcement in eastern Europe would essentially be to provide deterrence and reassurance to allies.

The options include the 'movement of assets and forces already in Europe and also assets and forces available outside of Europe.'

The Biden administration is also looking at using a 'novel export control' that could damage certain Russian industries, such artificial intelligence, quantum computing and aerospace, if any invasion occurs.

According to the Washington Post, it would involve the U.S. deliberately stopping the flow of components such as microchips, that are crucial for Russian industries including civil aviation, maritime and high technology.

The administration could also act in a far broader manner stopping the importing of smartphones, tablets and video game consoles into Russia from the U.S.

U.S. said it was ordering the departure of eligible family members of staff from its embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, pictured here in 2017

Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion

If the U.S. does decide to send more troops to the region, such a move would be a change of tact for the Biden administration which up to now has been restrained over the situation in Ukraine, partly to avoid provoking Russia into invading the country.

If Biden approves the deployment, some of the troops would be American while others would be drafted from other countries in Europe.

Commanders have suggested that more air defense, engineering, logistics and artillery forces would be required.

Besides the troops, Biden could also approve additional aircraft being sent to the region.

After Friday's talks between the U.S. and Russia, appear to have failed, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to be ratcheting up the tension, threatening actions towards Ukraine.

In doing so, the U.S. is now moving away from its previous stance of not wanting to provoke a Russian administration sources told the Times.

During a meeting in Camp David over the weekend, Pentagon officials outlined various options to President Biden, many of which would see American military might move a step closer to the Russian border.

Sources say that there is the potential to send up to 50,000 should the need arise.

Last week, Biden said he warned Putin that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would see more U.S. troops sent to the region.

'We're going to actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, et cetera, if in fact he moves,' Biden said. 'They are part of NATO.'

A Russian rocket launcher fires during military drills near Orenburg in the Urals, Russia in December. With tens of thousands of Russian troops positioned near Ukraine, the Kremlin has kept the U.S. and its allies guessing about its next moves in the worst Russia-West security crisis since the Cold War

Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion

American and NATO flags are seen at a Stand With Ukraine rally in Union Square, New York. Members of the Russian-speaking diaspora and Ukrainian activists demonstrated amid threat of Russian invasion of the Ukraine

The talks that ended in Geneva last week produced no breakthroughs, though American and Russian diplomats vowed to keep a dialogue up, averting the worst-case scenario.

Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow was still waiting for a written response to its demands for security guarantees, something which Blinken said he would not provide.

He also called two of Russia's key demands aimed at curbing NATO expansion 'non-starters.'

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it's possible Kremlin officials are just 'going through the motions' of diplomacy after a week of intense international talks aimed at de-escalating Russian aggression on Ukraine's border.

Blinken made a slew of Sunday news program appearances after returning from diplomatic talks in Europe over the crisis

Even after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva on Friday, Blinken admitted on NBC's Meet The Press that Moscow could still invade the smaller former Soviet state despite the efforts of Western governments.

The US's chief diplomat also would not rule out possible American military involvement in the worsening conflict, during a separate interview on CNN's State of the Union Sunday.

'It is certainly possible that the diplomacy the Russians are engaged in is simply going through the motions and it won't affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene, or not in Ukraine,' Blinken told NBC host Chuck Todd.

'But, we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for as, as far and as long as we can go because it's the more responsible way to bring this to a closure.'

Blinken did not indicate when he thought a possible invasion would occur -- but also would not give a straight answer when asked if Kyiv 'appears safe, at least in the near term.'

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the US embassy in Kyiv on January 19, 2022

'This is something again that we're tracking intensely, hour by hour and certainly day by day,' he said.

Blinken ratcheted up his warnings to Moscow during his interview on CNN, claiming it could take a single soldier crossing the border to trigger a global reaction.

'If a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way, as I said, that would trigger a swift, a severe and a united response from us and from Europe,' he told host Dana Bash.

Vladimir Putin has placed more than 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border, and last week Blinken warned that Russia had the capability to double that number in short order. Moscow has said it has no plans to invade Ukraine.
A lockdown to battle Omicron in New South Wales would simply have delayed the surge of Covid cases that have ripped through the state in recent weeks, according to one of Australia's most eminent disease experts.

Resisting calls from doomsayers who demanded millions be locked in their homes yet again may even have paid off, with global health chiefs saying it's now 'endgame' for the pandemic as case rates and hospital numbers stabilise.

The state recorded 15,091 cases on Monday, its lowest tally recorded so far in 2022, and a 48.9 per cent drop since the same time last week - all without closing businesses and ruining the summer holidays.

Experts say Victoria, the ACT and South Australia have also passed their peak while daily infections in Queensland continue to drop, again without locking down.

As the World Health Organisation declared Europe is moving towards 'a kind of pandemic endgame,' a host of infectious disease experts believe the worst of the outbreak in Australia is also nearly over.

Even NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant, known for being cautious and fighting for tougher restrictions, says she is 'incredibly optimistic' about the future, exactly two years after the first Covid case was confirmed in Australia.

The promising news comes despite Premier Dominic Perrottet coming under fire for refusing to re-introduce punishing restrictions on Sydney residents after the less severe variant made landfall in Australia in December.

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Dominic Perrottet has earned the nickname 'Domicron' for easing restrictions ahead of Omicron making landfall on Australian shores - but an expert has told Daily Mail Australia there was no need for a draconian lockdown

Critics such as broadcaster Ray Hadley have slammed Mr Perrottet as 'arrogant' for easing restrictions such as scrapping mask mandates on December 15, which was soon brought back in, and leading the charge to abolish restrictions and hotel quarantine.

But 'Domicron', as his harshest critics call him, may not have had much of a choice.

Professor Catherine Bennett, the chair of epidemiology at Deaking University, told Daily Mail Australia the Omicron strain was so virulent it would spread regardless of whether authorities used a heavy lockdown or lighter restrictions.

And even the Premier's widely slammed move to briefly scrap mask rules just before Christmas may not have had a major impact on virus transmission, Prof. Bennett said.

International students wear face masks at Sydney Airport as the state opened up to foreign travellers in December. Premier Dominic Perrottet has pursued what many see as an aggressive approach to opening up from the pandemic

Mr Perrottet has been dubbed 'Domicron' for the virus' recent spread and relaxing social distancing rules, and has been accused of privately called Ray Hadley (right) a bedwetter

COVID CASES IN AUSTRALIA ON MONDAY COMPARED TO A WEEK AGO NSW: 15,091 (down from 29,504 a week ago) VIC: 11,695 (down from 22,429 a week ago) QLD: 10,212 (down from 15,122 a week ago) SA: 2,009 (down from 3,829 a week ago) ACT: 756 (down from 1,601 a week ago) TAS: 619 (down from 1,310 a week ago) NT: 286 (up slightly from 284 a week ago) WA: 13 (up from 1 a week ago) Source: State health statistics Advertisement

Professor Bennett told Daily Mail Australia: 'What is interesting is where countries have used full restrictions overseas, the lockdown stops Omicron for a short while and then it starts spreading again.

'It's harder to stop than previous variants because of the speed with which it moves through the community.'

Transmission in Australia's most populated state appears to have passed its peak - with case numbers hitting 91,715 cases in one day on January 13, shortly after rapid antigen tests were counted.

Cases have since plummeted to 15,091 on Monday.

Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University: 'Getting rid of restrictions is not good but neither is going into a full lockdown'

By comparison, Western Australia - which recorded 13 cases on Monday - is still closed to interstate and overseas travellers.

But Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson admitted over the weekend the state had no plans to eliminate the virus.

Professor Bennett said most Australians in the eastern states were now going out and living their lives in spite of the virus, and that the correct approach must be about managing Covid 'in a safe way'.

'Getting rid of restrictions is not good but neither is going into a full lockdown', she said.

A mural featuring NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet - nicknamed 'Domicron' for allegedly 'letting it rip' - by street artist Scott Marsh is seen in Redfern in Sydney's inner-west

Poll Was Dom right to not order a lockdown? Yes - he kept people in work No - it was dangerous Was Dom right to not order a lockdown? Yes - he kept people in work 278 votes

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The expert said there were limits to letting the virus move freely, but by and large NSW had reeled in freedoms that posed a high risk of transmission.

'People now are managing the virus so they can do all the things they want to do - you can go to a restaurant but there's a lot more space,' Prof. Bennett said.

'It's not about shutting social life down completely but thinning it out.

'There were places like nightclubs that were thumping with young people moving from one venue to another multiple nights a week [such as the Newcastle nightclub outbreak in December].'

'It was important to pull that back a notch.'

Critics partly blamed the spike on Mr Perrottet dropping indoor mask-wearing rules and capacity limits in restaurants and bars only to then reimpose them.

Professor Bennett said most Australians in the eastern states were now going out and living their lives in spite of the virus, and that the correct approach must be about managing Covid 'in a safe way' (pictured, a Sydney shopper)

A drive-through Covid testing clinic in Ryde, north-west Sydney on Monday. Transmission in Australia's most populated state reached 91,715 cases in one day on January 13 at the height of the Omicron wave before dropping to 15,091 on Monday

Professor Bennett said that decision may have caused a slight bump in cases, but would not have dramatically altered the number of infections NSW has recorded.

The Premier eventually softened his position by re-imposing mask rules in indoor settings to tackle the growing strain.

'Everyone is better off with hindsight,' she said.

'When you look at the seven-day rolling average in Victoria [at start of the Omicron wave] they actually had a higher case rate per 100,000 than NSW.'

Other leading experts share Prof Bennett's optimism.

NSW Covid chief Dr Chant said the Omicron outbreak was 'stabilising' and it's now time for people to learn to live with the virus.

An extra two million rapid antigen Covid-19 will be delivered to NSW schools before lessons resume for 2022 with the government promising classrooms will stay open even if students test positive

The promising news comes despite Premier Dominic Perrottet (pictured on Saturday) coming under fire for refusing to re-introduce punishing restrictions on Sydney residents after the less severe variant made landfall in Australia in December

'I think we need to have a sense of optimism, I'm incredibly optimistic,' she said on Monday.

'It is pleasing that when we look at a range of measures, our assessment indicates that the spread of coronavirus is slowing, our situation is stabilising.

'Obviously, Omicron has had an impact because of the sheer numbers of the disease and it has been severe for some, mild for most.

'But we are going to need to live with this virus. It is not going to disappear and what we need to do is just calibrate our response.'

She also tried to calm worried parents who are 'anxious' about sending their kids to school.

Students in Victoria and NSW will all be going back to school at the end of January.

Masks are compulsory for Year 3 students and above in Victoria - which had a peak of 51,084 cases on January 8 - and 'highly recommended' in NSW.

Covid rates are starting to drop in NSW, with testing centres under significantly less strain than over the Christmas period (pictured, a nearly empty drive-through testing clinic at Bondi Beach on Monday)

'We know in the main that Omicron is less severe, we have seen that, it is more transmissible but less severe,' the premier said (pictured, a Sydney shopper)

'It is pleasing that when we look at a range of measures, our assessment indicates that the spread of coronavirus is slowing, our situation is stabilising,' Dr Chant explained.

'While we expect to see an uptick in transmissions associated with schools going back, this could be mitigated by the actions of you as individuals.

'Getting those boosters will help us. They will also help us have some effect on transmission by preventing you acquiring infection and passing it on.'

Dr Chant warned fewer people got tested on weekends and that 'caution' should be taken when examining the latest daily figures.

Federal health minister Greg Hunt said infection and hospitalisation figures in several states and territories were showing promising signs.

An extra two million rapid antigen Covid-19 will be delivered to NSW schools before lessons resume for 2022 - adding to the five million that have already been distributed (pictured, Premier Perrottet with Health Minister Brad Hazzard on Monday)

7-DAY COVID INFECTION RATES Israel: 663 new infections per 100,000 residents Denmark: 657 new infections per 100,000 residents France: 538 new infections per 100,000 residents Slovenia: 479 new infections per 100,000 residents Portugal: 469 new infections per 100,000 residents Italy: 288 new infections per 100,000 residents Spain: 268 new infections per 100,000 residents Sweden: 311 new infections per 100,000 residents Australia: 250 new infections per 100,000 residents USA: 209 new infections per 100,000 residents UK: 137 new infections per 100,000 residents Germany: 129 new infections per 100,000 residents Advertisement

'We've seen a decrease in case numbers significantly and we've seen a decrease in hospitalisation numbers of over 100 in Victoria and NSW,' he told reporters in Melbourne.

'That will flow through to ICU numbers and ventilation, so it's an important moment where we are seeing now clear signs this Omicron wave ... has peaked.'

Premier Perrottet has also sought to ease concerns, saying plenty of protective measures would be in place to keep children safe from the virus as schools open.

'I know many parents across the sate are anxious about the return to school,' he said.

'We have put everything in place to ensure that we can have our schools open in a safe way.'

The premier stood by his decisions to only send students home if they have tested positive, keep classrooms open, and shift focus away from contact tracing.

'This is the right approach for the circumstances that we are in today,' he said.

'We know in the main that Omicron is less severe, we have seen that, it is more transmissible but less severe.

'We have a highly vaccinated population, and yes, as a parent as well I know that many parents across the state are anxious about sending it back to school, many teachers are anxious.'

An extra two million rapid antigen Covid-19 will be delivered to NSW schools before lessons resume for 2022 - adding to the five million that have already been distributed.

The move towards living a new 'Covid-normal' comes as World Health Organisation Europe director Hans Kluge said he believes worldwide immunity will take hold once the Omicron surge across the continent subsides - 'saying the world was moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame'.

NSW Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant on Monday said the Omicron outbreak was 'stabilising' and she was 'optimistic' about the coming months

He said the variant could likely infect 60 per cent of Europeans by March.

'There will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality,' he said.

Cases are also coming down 'rather sharply' in some parts of the US, according to the country's infectious diseases guru Dr Anthony Fauci.

'Things are looking good,' he told a ABC News talk show on Sunday.

'I believe that you will start to see a turnaround throughout the entire country.

'There may be a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalisations in those areas of the country that have not been fully vaccinated or have not gotten boosters.'
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South Australia has reported another fall in Covid-19 infections providing further evidence the Omicron outbreak may have peaked.

SA reported 2,009 new cases on Monday, down from 2,062 on Sunday and 2,193 on Saturday.

The state has 294 people in hospital, including 29 in intensive care where six are on ventilators.

There were also two more deaths, a woman in her 40s and a man in his 70s, taking SA's toll since the start of the pandemic to 69.

South Australia has reported another fall in Covid-19 infections providing further evidence the Omicron outbreak may have peaked (pictured, a woman is vaccinated in Adelaide)

Premier Steven Marshall said Monday's number was the lowest for some time and came as 3,509 people were considered to have recovered from the virus in the past 24 hours.

That left SA with 27,991 active infections.

Mr Marshall said the fall in cases could be impacted over the coming days by the gradual lifting of the work from home advice and the return of some students to school next week.

From Thursday, offices have been told they can welcome back up to 25 per cent of their workforce.

SA reported 2,009 new cases on Monday, down from 2,062 on Sunday and 2,193 on Saturday (pictured, health workers test residents in Adelaide)

The first students return for face-to-face classes from February 2.

Mr Marshall said those two changes would be factored into the latest modelling on the trajectory of the current outbreak.

That model would also consider what impact relaxing other restrictions could have.

'The reality is that people want a clear pathway for where we're going from here,' the premier said.

'The really pleasing stat is that we now have a very much reducing daily positive rate.

'I genuinely feel South Australia is heading in the right direction.'
Terence Darrell Kelly has pleaded guilty to abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith - bringing the child snatching case against him to a swift conclusion.

Kelly, 36, entered a guilty plea to a single charge of taking Cleo from her family's tent at the remote Blowholes campsite near Carnarvon, Western Australia last October.

He faced a magistrate via videolink from custody on Monday with an additional charge of assaulting a public officer the day after his arrest.

The case will now be adjourned to the Perth District Court on March 20, where he will eventually be sentenced but ultimately avoid a criminal trial.

Kelly is yet to enter a plea to other charges.

Terence Darrell Kelly has pleaded guilty to abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith (pictured) in a shock development

Kelly, 36, entered a guilty plea to a single charge of taking Cleo (pictured with her mother Ellie Smith) from her family's tent at the remote Blowholes campsite near Carnarvon last year

Kelly today appeared virtually before magistrate Ben White in Carnarvon, simply uttering 'guilty' when his lawyer said her client was ready to plea to the single charge.

The admission means what was expected to be a drawn-out legal process for Kelly will be considerably curtailed - despite months of preparation by detectives.

The 36-year-old was provided with a statement of alleged facts just before Christmas which is understood to have influenced his plea.

His lawyer Kate Turtley-Chappel said it was important her client plead guilty to the single kidnapping charge as soon as possible.

A sentence mention hearing will be held to determine when Kelly will be sentenced, with details of his activities in relation to the crime to be heard on this date.

Cleo was found alive and well in early November, 18 days after she went missing from the campsite and sparked over two weeks of international interest.

She had woken about 1.30am and asked for water but when her parents got up at 6am the little girl was gone with a land, air and sea search failing to find any trace.

Five days after the four-year-old went missing police announced they believed Cleo had been abducted and offered a $1million reward.

Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, who allegedly kept Cleo in a Carnarvon home for 18 days, was charged in November with forcibly taking a child under the age of 16 - he will appear in court later this month

Cleo's mother Ellie Smith and stepfather Jake Gliddon appeal for information during her disappearance. Cleo was found alive and well in early November, 18 days after she went missing from the campsite

The impact of the 18-day stint in Kelly's home on not only Cleo but her immediate family will be considered during his sentencing.

He will remain in custody inside a secure cell at Casuarina Prison in Perth and will return on Monday as one of the jail's most high-profile inmates.

Cleo was rescued from a locked property just minutes from her family home on Tonkin Street in the nearby town of Carnarvon, almost 1000km north of Perth.

On November 3, police forced entry to the home and found the little girl alone in a room, physically unharmed and playing with toys.

Kelly was arrested on a nearby street around the same time. He is alleged to have acted alone with police stating he had no connection to Cleo's family.

He was shackled and accompanied by armed riot squad guards on a charter flight from Carnarvon to Perth after his first court appearance.

Cleo (pictured with her mother Ellie Smith) was rescued from a property just minutes from her family home on Tonkin Street in the nearby town of Carnarvon, almost 1000km north of Perth

The extra security was put in place after Kelly was twice hospitalised with self-inflicted injuries while in custody.

His guilty plea comes as its revealed Cleo's parents reportedly signed a $2million deal with Channel Nine just weeks after the little girl's abduction.

Her mother Ellie Smith and stepfather Jake Gliddon have agreed to the lucrative deal, which is believed to be an Australian television record.

Reportedly organised by high profile talent agent Max Markson, the deal is expected to include a tell-all interview with 60 Minutes and Nine-owned publication stories.

There is also speculation of a six-part special for its streaming service, Stan and that young Cleo herself may feature in the interviews, The Australian reported.

Kelly's guilty plea comes as its revealed Cleo's parents reportedly signed a $2million deal with Channel Nine just weeks after the little girl's abduction

Nine beat Channel Seven's Spotlight program to secure the deal, despite Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes' personal interest' in the story.

'Nine was scared at the end of the year after they lost their No 1 position  this seems a desperate attempt to regain the mantle  and it won't work,' an inside source told the publication.

Some staff at the network are reportedly horrified by the deal.

'What are the possible consequences of asking this young girl to talk about what happened to her, when we don't know what she went through?' one journalist asked.

'And what are the optics of it as far as the viewing public is concerned?'

The report follows revelations to Daily Mail Australia that Cleo's parents were considering changing her name to stop unwanted attention.

The couple have been seeking advice from other parents whose children have been unwittingly thrust into the spotlight after suffering comparable ordeals.

Police forced entry to the home and found Cleo alone in a well lit room, physically unharmed and playing with toys

Forensics visit the crime scene where Cleo was kept for 18-days after being forcibly removed from her family's tent at the Blowholes campsite

They are asking how young victims of high-profile crimes recovered psychologically, including whether they underwent professional counselling and if their parents considered that process worthwhile.

They are concerned about how their daughter will cope with years of such intense attention, having already been the focus of worldwide publicity in early childhood.

'They're worried about the repercussions of the media and so forth down the track,' a source told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Smith has even raised with friends the possibility of changing Cleo's first and last names in an effort to protect her daughter's identity as she grows into adulthood.

'They're worried about people making the connection later on down the line,' the source said.

Daily Mail Australia understands Western Australian police have encouraged Ms Smith to talk about Cleo's future with the parents of other children who have experienced traumatic events.

'As with all matters such as these, WA Police Force provides ongoing support to families,' a spokeswoman said.

Ms Smith has even raised with friends the possibility of changing Cleo's first and last names in an effort to protect her daughter's identity as she grows into adulthood

Forensic psychologist Tim Watson-Munro told Daily Mail Australia he believed it could be beneficial for Cleo's parents to talk to other families.

'I think it's a great thing as long as people are willing to speak with them,' he said. 'It's like any sort of therapy.

'Those who've been through trauma are often best-placed to speak to others about their experiences and they seem to identify more with it that way.

'They don't have people coming in just from a clinical, academic perspective. They're coming from real-life experiences and it seems to work for people.

'I think it's a great thing that they're doing it, frankly, if it's assisting people.'
The NYPD 'super rookie' who shot the man accused of killing 22-year-old Jason Rivera and seriously injuring 27-year-old Wilbert Mora, is still struggling to cope with the events of Friday's shootout.

Officer Sumit Sulan, 27, was with Rivera and Mora as they visited a Harlem address to investigate a domestic-violence call on Friday.

Rivera and Mora went to confront convicted felon Lashawn McNeil, 47, in his bedroom, while Sulan stayed behind with McNeil's mother.

McNeil is said to have ran from the bedroom and opened fire, before Sulan returned fire back and wounded him as he tried to flee.

Since the events, Sulan cannot get what happened out of his head, his mother told the New York Post. 'His brain is stuck on the situation,' Dalvir Sulan, 60, said of her son, who emigrated from the family's home in India about 15 years ago.

Officer Sumit Sulan, 27, shot and wounded the man accused of killing 22-year-old Jason Rivera and seriously injuring 27-year-old Wilbert Mora in Harlem on Friday

Officer Jason Rivera was killed in the shooting, while Wilbert Mora, 27, is still 'fighting for his life' in NYU Langone Medical Center

The three cops visited a Harlem address to investigate a domestic-violence call on Friday, before convicted felon Lashawn McNeil, 47, ambushed them. Above, traffic stood still as the remains of Rivera were brought to a funeral home on Sunday

After McNeil shot his two partners, Sulan returned fire. He is still struggling to cope with the events, his mom told the New York Post. Above, New York City police officers and firemen stood at attention as they awaited the procession

Sulan is a 'super rookie' who has only been on the job since April and at Harlem's 32nd Precinct for two months, a law enforcement source told the Post. Above, officers patiently stood in the cold as the hearse carrying Officer Rivera's body made its way from Midtown to uptown

McNeil was out on probation at the time of the shooting on a 2003 felony narcotics charge in New York City and had four arrests in other states

'I'm proud. Everyone say he did good,' she added. 'I feel bad for the other [officer]. He died. We really feel bad. We're sorry. We're hurt. The other guy is critical, and we're hurt.'

Sulan is a 'super rookie' who has only been on the job since April and at Harlem's 32nd Precinct for two months, a law enforcement source told the Post.

'He did a great job. We're proud of him, but we're sorry for both of [the other officers],' she said. Asked by the Post about McNeil, Dalvir Sulan shook her head. 'That person, he's not really good,' she said.

Mora was transferred on Sunday night from Harlem Hospital to NYU Langone Medical Center, where he continues to fight for his life in life-threatening condition, reported ABC 7.

He had already undergone two surgeries to remove a bullet that had become stuck in his brain.

Earlier Sunday, hundreds of uniformed officers in Manhattan stood silent as Rivera's body was transferred from the Medical Examiner's Office to a funeral home. Burial rites are scheduled for Friday with a service scheduled for Thursday at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Tears are shed for slain NYPD Officer Jason Rivera as a procession was held on January 23, 2022 in New York City

Tears were shed for slain NYPD Officer Jason Rivera as a procession took place on Sunday for him to be moved to a funeral home

Police officers are pictured as they make their way from the police precinct over to Harlem hospital

Police officers, firefighters and EMS members lined the streets from the office on 30th Street in Manhattan and up along First Avenue just after 12:30pm. Hundreds stood in silence before saluting while a hearse transported his body uptown.

The moving sight came as his grieving widow posted a moving tribute to her husband on Instagram on Sunday.

'Fly high my beautiful angel,' she wrote, together with a picture of Rivera's locker that she took at the NYPD's 32nd Precinct in central Harlem. The pair had been married for just over three months.

'Yesterday I visited the locker room where you used to FaceTime me at during your meal time or right before you had to go downstairs to the muster room for roll call at 15:00.

'Last night was suppose to be your day 5 & you were RDO [off] for the next three days. We both waited for your RDO's to spend them together. But now your soul will spend the rest of my days with me, through me, right beside me.

'I love you till the end of time,' Rivera's grieving widow wrote.

Her Instagram profile also includes photos of the newly married couple out in Liberty State Park in Jersey City.

Rivera's body was sent to a funeral home Sunday with a service planned for Thursday and a burial set for Friday

Rivera's widow posted an emotional tribute to him online. 'Fly high my beautiful angel,' she wrote, together with a picture of Rivera's locker

Jason Rivera is pictured together with his wife whom he had married last October

The couple were married on October 9, 2021 and had some pictures taken in New Jersey

'I love you till the end of time,' Rivera's grieving widow, pictured, wrote

In one posting, she describes her husband as 'my soulmate, best friend and lover from now until the end of time.'

Relatives, together with hundreds of NYPD officers and Mayor Eric Adams paid tribute to Rivera as his body was moved to a Manhattan funeral home.

Meanwhile, during a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Mayor Eric Adams stressed the urgency 'to deal with the underlying issues that are impacting crime in our city and has become a stain on the inner cities across our country.'

Adams said his police force would revamp a plainclothes anti-crime unit aimed at getting guns off the streets. The unit had been disbanded in 2020 over concerns it accounted for a disproportionate number of shootings and complaints.

'The symbol of that soiled coat with red blood is really what we're talking about here in not only New York City, but across America. It just really has impacted our entire city, if not the entire country. And this is coming after having five officers shot, the 11-month baby shot in Brooklyn,' the mayor said.

The shooting is the latest in a string of crimes that have unnerved the nation's most populated city and the country's largest police force, with 36,000 officers.

In the three weeks since Adams took office, a 19-year-old cashier was shot to death as she worked a late-night shift at a Burger King, a woman was pushed to her death in a subway station, and a baby was critically injured by a stray bullet while in a parked car with her mother. With the Harlem shooting Friday night, four police officers had been shot in as many days.

Details about what led to the deadly confrontation were still emerging.

Officials said a woman who made an emergency call Friday said she was ill and that her son who had come up to take care of her had become 'problematic.' Adams said the woman did not specify the problem.

Authorities said three officers went to the apartment after the call came in. The officers spoke with the woman and another son, but there was no mention of a weapon, police said.

NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora is transported by ambulance. Fellow Officer Jason Rivera was killed in the attack while responding to a domestic violence call between a woman and her adult son

NYPD Officer Wilbert Mora is transported by ambulance to NYU Langone from Harlem Hospital, where he had been since being wounded in a shooting last Friday

Police bikes could be seen leading the way as the journey was made from Harlem to NYU Langone on Manhattan's east side

After Rivera and Mora walked from the front of the apartment down a narrow hallway to check on McNeil, he swung open a bedroom door and began shooting, police said.

Both officers were gunned down before they could pull their weapons and defend themselves, police said.

As McNeil tried to flee, Sulan, who had stayed with McNeil's mother in the front of the apartment, shot at McNeil and wounded him in the head and arm, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.

McNeil had a 2003 drug conviction in New York City. He also had several out-of-state arrests. In 1998, he was arrested in South Carolina on suspicion of unlawfully carrying a pistol, but records show the matter was later dismissed.

In 2002, he was arrested in Pennsylvania on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, Essig said.

McNeil had been married but the couple separated nearly two decades ago, according to Theresa Noa, who is married to his ex-wife's brother. She said McNeil had four children from that marriage.

Police said the gun used in Friday's shooting, a .45-caliber Glock pistol with a high-capacity drum magazine capable of holding up to 40 extra rounds, had been stolen in Baltimore in 2017.

On Sunday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that a multistate task force would meet Wednesday to begin work to stanch the flow of illegal guns, which she and Adams blame for gun-related violence.

A makeshift memorial is seen outside the NYPD 32nd precinct near the scene of the shooting

A man placed a candle at a makeshift memorial outside the NYPD 32nd precinct in Harlem

Growing up in Manhattans Inwood neighborhood, Jason Rivera said he noticed tensions with police, according to a brief essay titled 'Why I Became a Police Officer'

Sources told the Post that she had told McNeil not to come home with firearms while helping out his disabled brother, and that she did not believe he was carrying a weapon when she called police on Friday night.

The incident had started out as 'a normal verbal family dispute with no injuries or anything out of the ordinary', police sources added.

The drum magazine McNeil had equipped to his Glock allows it to hold an additional 40 rounds to the gun's ten, giving the shooter a total of 50 rounds to fire.

New York prohibits the use of magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Police said the gun had also been stolen in Baltimore in 2017.

On Sunday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that a multistate task force would meet Wednesday to begin work to stanch the flow of illegal guns, which she and Adams blame for gun-related violence.

'Too many lives have been lost because of illegal firearms that should never have been on our streets,' she said.

More than 50 agencies from nine Northeastern states are taking part, she said.

Hochul cited NYPD data tracing nearly 4,500 illegal guns as coming from out of state, most from southern states that generally have laxer gun laws.

Adams, a former NYPD captain, joined the governor in calling on the federal government to do more to round up stolen guns like the one used in Friday's shooting.

Rivera joined the force in November 2020.

Growing up in Manhattans Inwood neighborhood, he noticed tensions with police, according to a brief essay titled 'Why I Became a Police Officer.'

In that essay, Rivera wrote about how he was bothered by witnessing his brother being stopped and frisked, but his attitudes changed when he also saw how the department was trying to improve relationships with communities.

'I realized how impactful my role as a police officer would go in this chaotic city,' he wrote.
NSW Premier wanted Hillsong fined over the event, but police ruled it out

Hillsong apologised after footage emerged of the event at Newcastle

She posted a scathing message on Instagram slamming the media's 'lies'

The daughter of Hillsong founder Brian Houston has attacked media outlets and urged followers to 'turn off the news' after the religious group's wild youth party caused outrage across Australia.

Laura Toggs, one of Houston's two children, is a pastor of Hillsong's 'youth ministry' with her husband, Peter.

She and her husband are believed to be key organisers of the recent youth camp at Newcastle, NSW where hundreds of attendees were captured on video singing and dancing without wearing masks inside a large tent while a band performed onstage.

The vision sparked a huge national backlash, the camp taking place days after changes to public health orders took effect which banned singing and dancing at music festivals and forcing the cancellation of other outdoor music events.

Hillsong Church later apologised for 'the 'perception that we were not playing our part to keep NSW safe ... we sincerely apologise to the community at large.'

Laura Toggs (left) pictured with her father, Hillsong found Brian Houston (right)

Ms Toggs with her mother Bobbi. She has accused the NSW government of changing Covid rules for the Hillsong youth camp after 'media pressure'

However, Ms Toggs took to Instagram to slam the media in the wake of the controversy.

'I have watched the media willingly disregard any fairness for the sake of click-bait and to suit whatever profit they make off their agendas,' she wrote.

She labelled media coverage as 'disgusting', 'horrible', 'immoral' and 'low'.

'It's destroying peoples' lives one cheap headline at a time,' she claimed.

'And it's heartbreaking to watch people believe the lies.'

Ms Toggs told followers that if they wanted to fill their minds with junk 'then go ahead and buy into whatever s*** they spoon feed you'.

'But if you want truth to frame your heart and soul and mind, let the Bible be your source of wisdom and truth and guidance.'

Hillsong Youth shared a series of videos showing its teenage followers partying to religious-themed pop music at a youth summer camp on January 12

Ms Toggs also posted a video addressing the camp party incident, telling followers she was 'mad'.

'I'm mad at the media reports that made our youth camps not only a national disgrace but an international new story.'

Ms Toggs accused journalists of trespassing 'on our private property' to surreptitiously film teenagers at the Hillsong camp and that they had 'shamed' children on national prime-time news broadcasts.

She also said the government had changed the rules on the organisation due to 'media pressure'.

'There is a clear agenda to drag Hillsong through the mud and to destroy our name,' Ms Toggs claimed.

Laura Toggs posted an Instagram story in Monday in which she said she was unaware the NSW government had changed Covid rules for singing and dancing while she organised the Hillsong summer youth camp which drew headlines for breaching the public health rules

The Instagram post by Ms Toggs attacking media coverage of the summer camp controversy

She said she was unaware the rules for festivals had changed due to the fact she was organising the camp at the time and would have been more sensitive to ' the singing' had she known.

'I hope that the music industry can rally their strength together to rally government - rather than bash churchgoers,' Ms Toggs said.

On January 14 it was announced Hillsong would escape a fine for the camp party, even after NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said the organisers of the camp should face the consequences.

'Following discussions with organisers and after consultation with NSW Health, no infringement will be issued,' said Acting Assistant Commissioner Peter Glynn.

'Event organisers are aware of their obligations under the public health orders, and NSW Police will continue to ensure ongoing compliance'.

A Hillsong spokesperson tried to highlight the difference between its camp events and music festivals by nothing that they are alcohol-free, held outdoors, and the students attending each camp - about 200 - are part of the same social network.

'Over a three day duration the percentage of time spent singing is minor,' they said.

The new public health orders had forced the cancellation of music events like the Tamworth Country Music Festival and the Grapevine Gathering in the Hunter Valley.

In a statement on January 13, NSW Health said it had demanded Hillsong immediately stop singing and dancing at the event.

Dominic Perrottet said on Friday that he expected a fine would be issued

'While the order does not apply to religious services, it does apply to major recreation facilities and this event is clearly in breach of both the spirit and intent of the order,' Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

Singing and dancing at large events presents a high risk of COVID-19 transmission, Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant said, amidst an outbreak which has seen the state record tens of thousands of cases a day.

On January 14, Mr Perrottet said the health minister had been advised by his legal team that Hillsong had broken the rules.

'If the legal teams believe that it was in breach of the public health order, then my expectation would be that a fine would be issued,' he said.

The premier joined a chorus of Australian music acts in saying he was shocked and outraged to see the footage.

'I echoed the frustration and anger other people right across the state felt,' he said.

'Even if technically it was within the rules, it certainly wasn't in the spirit of the rules.

'If we have to tighten loopholes, we will.'

In a statement, Hillsong said the summer camp involved primarily outdoor recreational activities, with outdoor Christian services only a 'small part' of the program and singing an even smaller part of each service.

'A video circulating on social media reflects a few minutes of this part of the program,' it said.

'We follow strict COVID procedures and adhere to government guidelines.'

Hillsong Youth shared a series of videos showing its teenage followers partying to religious-themed pop music on Wednesday night

Hillsong's Grammy award winning band performed at the youth camp

But Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp accused organisers of 'pure arrogance', the ABC reported.

'This is the exact behaviour that health experts have deemed too risky at the moment, yet the organisers of this event seem to feel it's absolutely fine for them to do so,' he said.

'This is an absolute slap in the face to the people that have lost work as a result of the current rules.'

That's a sentiment echoed by artists on social media.

'There are rules in place that just aren't right,' Sydney pop rock duo Lime Cordiale wrote on social media.

'Festivals, clubs and pubs are closed whilst Hillsong are getting close and sweaty... confusing?'

Australian acts including Jack River, Illy and Odette also criticised the event as demonstrating a double standard, with Brisbane band Ball Park Music describing it as 'just heartbreaking for everyone in our industry'.
Three former Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd's civil rights ignored their extensive training and did nothing to save his life as fellow Officer Derek Chauvin pinned his neck under his knee, a prosecutor told jurors Monday as the federal trial began.

J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are on trial for depriving the 46-year-old black man's civil rights while acting under government authority on May 25, 2020.

Derek Chauvin, 45, was sentenced in June last year to 22 and a half years in prison for murdering Floyd. He is awaiting a separate trial for violating Floyd's civil rights.

'For second after second, minute after minute, these three CPR-trained defendants stood or knelt next to officer Chauvin as he slowly killed George Floyd right in front of them,' prosecutor Samantha Trepel said during opening statements.

'They chose not to protect George Floyd, the man they had handcuffed and placed in their custody.'

Floyd died after Chauvin pressed him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for nine-and-a-half minutes while he was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air.

Kueng knelt on Floyd's back and Lane held down his legs. Thao kept bystanders from intervening in the videotaped killing that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing.

'They used force, rather than stopping force ... they just left Mr. Floyd under the weight of their knees' Trepel said of the officers.

'We will ask you to hold these men accountable for choosing to do nothing and watch a man die,' she said.

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This combination of photos provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office in Minnesota on June 3, 2020, shows, from left, former Minneapolis police officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao. A state court trial for three former Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd has been rescheduled for June 13, 2022, after both the defense and prosecutors requested a postponement

This image from video shows Minneapolis police Officers Thomas Lane, left and J. Alexander Kueng, right, escorting George Floyd, center, to a police vehicle outside Cup Foods in Minneapolis, on May 25, 2020

In this image from surveillance video, Minneapolis police Officers from left, Tou Thao, Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane are seen attempting to take George Floyd into custody in Minneapolis, Minn on May 25, 2020

George Floyd was seen in a video pleading that he couldn't breathe as white officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against his neck

Floyd died after Chauvin (second from left) pressed him to the ground with his knee on Floyd's neck for nine-and-a-half minutes while he was facedown, handcuffed and gasping for air. Kueng (second from right) knelt on Floyd's back and Lane (far right) held down his legs. Thao (far left) kept bystanders from intervening in the videotaped killing that triggered worldwide protests, violence and a reexamination of racism and policing

Chauvin was captured on video kneeling on the neck of the 46-year-old Floyd (pictured) - suspected of using a counterfeit bill - for more than nine minutes until he passed out and died on May 25, 2020, while ignoring the victim's pleas for air and help

Kueng, who is black; Lane, who is white; and Thao, who is Hmong American, are all charged for failing to provide Floyd with medical care. Thao and Kueng face an additional count for failing to stop Chauvin, who was convicted of murder and manslaughter in state court last year. Both counts allege the officers' actions resulted in Floyds death.

Legal experts say prosecutors must prove Kueng, Lane and Thao willfully violated Floyds constitutional rights, while defense attorneys are likely to blame Chauvin for Floyd's murder.

Trepel said videos will show Thao stood directly next to Chauvin, but instead of intervening, he taunted Floyd for using drugs, telling bystanders, 'This is why you don't' use drugs.

She said Kueng 'never once' told Chauvin to get off Floyd, even after Floyd stopped struggling and even after Kueng twice could not find a pulse. Instead, she said, Keung remained kneeling on Floyd.

Lane asked if they should roll Floyd onto his side - something all of the officers were trained to do - but Kueng shot down Lanes question and said, 'No, just leave him,' and Chauvin agreed, Trepel said.

But one defense attorney countered that Chauvin called 'all of the shots' as the senior officer at the scene, and criticized the Minneapolis Police Department for doing too little to train officers to intervene when a colleague should be stopped.

Tom Plunkett, the attorney for Kueng, highlighted the rookie status of his client and Lane, and said both men deferred to Chauvin and called him 'sir.'

'For second after second, minute after minute, these three CPR-trained defendants stood or knelt next to officer Chauvin as he slowly killed George Floyd right in front of them,' prosecutor Samantha Trepel said during opening statements. 'They chose not to protect George Floyd, the man they had handcuffed and placed in their custody.

Thao's attorney, Robert Paule, said Floyds death was a tragedy, 'however, a tragedy is not a crime.' He also said a widely watched bystander video of the arrest does not show everything that happened before, including Floyd struggling with officers who were trying to put him in a police vehicle

'Youll see and hear officer Chauvin call all of the shots,' said Plunkett, who also hammered at what he called the Minneapolis Police Department's lack of training, including on intervention against the unreasonable use of force.

Plunkett noted that Chauvin was Kuengs field training officer, and as such had 'considerable sway' over his future. He also said that Kueng and Lane were not trained in the department's policy on neck restraint.

He also said that under department policy, Lane actually should have been in charge, because he was the most senior officer in the first car to arrive on the scene. Lane and Kueng were responding to a 911 call accusing Floyd of using a counterfeit $20 bill for a pack of cigarettes at a corner market. Thao and Chauvin responded as backup.

George Floyd's brother Philonise (left) and his newphew Brandon Williams (right) arrive at the civil rights trial on Monday

Protesters stand outside the Warren E. Burger Federal Building and US Courthouse ahead of opening arguments on Monday

Earlier, Thao's attorney, Robert Paule, said Floyds death was a tragedy, 'however, a tragedy is not a crime.' He also said a widely watched bystander video of the arrest does not show everything that happened before, including Floyd struggling with officers who were trying to put him in a police vehicle.

Kueng, who is Black; Lane, who is white; and Thao, who is Hmong American, are all charged for failing to provide Floyd with medical care. Thao and Kueng face an additional count for failing to stop Chauvin, who is white. Both counts allege the officers actions resulted in Floyds death.

'We will ask you to hold these men accountable for choosing to do nothing and watch a man die,' Trepel said.

Attorneys for both Kueng and Thao noted that prosecutors must prove Kueng, Lane and Thao willfully violated Floyds constitutional rights.

It's a high legal standard; essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

Derek Chauvin, 45, was sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison in June for the murder of George Floyd

Last week, 18 people were swiftly chosen for the jury; 12 will deliberate and six will be alternates. Two of the jurors - one expected to deliberate and one alternate - appear to be of Asian descent. The rest appear to be white. The jurors include people from the Twin Cities area, the suburbs and southern Minnesota. The court declined to provide demographic information.

Federal prosecutions of officers involved in on-duty killings are rare. Prosecutors face a high legal standard to show that an officer willfully deprived someone of their constitutional rights. Essentially, prosecutors must prove that the officers knew what they were doing was wrong, but did it anyway.

U.S. District Judge Magnuson told jurors that the trial could last four weeks. Its not known whether any of the three officers will testify. Its also not clear whether Chauvin will testify, though many experts who spoke to The Associated Press believe he won't.

Lane, Kueng and Thao also face a separate state trial in June on charges they aided and abetted both murder and manslaughter.
Western Australia has reported 13 new local Covid-19 cases and two infections linked to travellers.

Of the locally acquired infections, 10 are linked to an outbreak in the southern Perth suburb of Coolbellup.

This includes eight household contacts and two close contacts.

A household contact from the Safety Bay cluster also tested positive and a person became infected after visiting the Willagee IGA supermarket.

Western Australia has reported 13 new local Covid-19 cases and two infections linked to travellers (pictured, a woman wears a face mask in Perth)

Of the locally acquired infections, 10 are linked to an outbreak in the southern Perth suburb of Coolbellup (pictured, members of the public wear masks in Perth)

An infection was also found in the Greater Bunbury region, about two hours south of Perth, and remains under investigation.

It is believed this case was infectious in the community and contact tracers are working to identify potential exposure sites.

All 15 cases are now in quarantine and health workers will continue to monitor them.

About 5000 people were tested for Covid-19 on Sunday.

Meanwhile, WA Health is monitoring two vessels off the WA coast after both reported that they were likely to have Covid cases on board.

All positive crew members are isolating in their cabins.
A young Australian crypto fraudster revealed his 'sugar baby addiction' led to the unravelling of his $123million ponzi scheme, which landed him a seven-and-a-half year jail sentence.

Canberra-born Stefan He Qin, 24, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in December after pleading guilty to securities fraud in New York.

Qin cheated more than 100 investors and used their money to bankroll extravagant parties and pay for a $35,000-a-month penthouse in Lower Manhattan.

In a revealing interview with EST Media days before he was locked up, Qin said he was corrupted by the money and temptations that were so foreign to his humble upbringing.

'Long story short because my co-founders left now I was the one who was 100 per cent in control of the entire company and if you're 21 years old and you're the only one with access to all these bank accounts that's a recipe for disaster and that's essentially what happened,' he said.

Young Australian crypto fraudster Stefan He Qin revealed his 'sugar baby addiction' led to the unravelling of his $123million ponzi scheme

Qin revealed he was suffering from depression and suicidal tendencies throughout school due to bullying, something he believes fuelled his criminal behaviour.

He said there is an underlying 'insecurity' with Asian Australian culture to become as successful as possible 'at all costs', a trait he kept in the back of his mind throughout his lucrative, criminal career.

The Canberran took a job on a Crypto exchange after 'falling apart' in his first year at the University of NSW in 2015, taking a job with OKCoin, which was the largest trading platform for the currency at the time.

Qin quickly became extremely successful trading Bitcoin across American and Asian markets, buying the coin when it was lower on one continent and selling when higher on another.

His system was then purchased by a hedge fund, Virgil Sigma, the company he was working for while commiting securities fraud.

'I'd be doing the wrong thing but in the back of my mind I thought: 'f**k you, I'm more successful than you',' he said.

He moved into a three-bedroom Lower-Manhattan penthouse that costs $34,000 per month, admitting he only got an apartment with extra bedrooms to accommodate sugar babies.

Canberra-born Qin, 24, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in December after pleading guilty to securities fraud in New York

Qin said his girlfriend with whom he lost his virginity cheated on him with someone who earned more money, which led to years of trust and commitment issues.

'I lost my virginity in 2017 and I was madly in love, but she cheated on me with some guy who was richer than I was,' he told EST Media.

'You have this beautiful girl you think you're going to spend the rest of your life with and you're not rich enough for her.

The 24-year-old said he then turned to paying women for companionship, pouring much of his stolen money into the practice.

'Honestly, this is so f**ked up to say but the only reason I had a three-bedroom place was because I had three sugar babies at any given point of time and that's my biggest regret because that's what I spent the money on,' he said.

'Because if it was material stuff, if it was stuff like cars  at least the (US Securities and Exchange Commission) can take that and sell that. How can they get money back from sugar babies?'

Three days after the interview Qin was taken to Fort Dix Prison where he will spend the next seven-and-a-half years.

Qin said his girlfriend with whom he lost his virginity cheated on him, which led to years of trust and commitment issues

His lawyers Kaplan Hecker & Fink claimed during his trial their client had made the mistakes because of a traumatic childhood that had led to sexual and video game addiction.

Qin told US district judge Valerie Caproni he believed he was the main character of a game.

Authorities said the fraud occurred from 2017 to 2020 as Qin operated the fund, called Virgil Sigma.

During this time, he was invited by CNBC to appear on their program 'Fast Money' and give advice on investing in cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

Caproni noted that there was a charm to Qin, but she also said that a victim of his Ponzi scheme had warned her not to be taken in by his charm. She said that if his contrition were sincere, he'd never be in a courtroom again.

'But if he's charming me the way he charmed his victims; he's a real danger because he thinks his needs are more important than everyone else's,' she added.

She said he deserved a measure of leniency, though, because he had cooperated with authorities as they tried to identify where money from investors went.

Qin cheated more than 100 investors and used their money to bankroll extravagant parties and pay for a $35,000-a-month penthouse in Lower Manhattan

U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said Qin promised his investors safety, but 'investors soon discovered that his strategies weren't much more than a disguised means for him to embezzle and make unauthorized investments with client funds'

She said in a release that he doubled down on his scheme when he was faced with redemption requests.

'Qin's brazen and wide-ranging scheme left his beleaguered investors in the lurch for over US$54 million, and he has now been handed the appropriately lengthy sentence of over seven years in federal prison,' she said.

Qin pleaded guilty in February, admitting he carried out the fraud when he owned and controlled two Manhattan-based cryptocurrency investment funds, Virgil Sigma and VQR.

Qin, who was ordered to forfeit US$54.7 million, told Caproni that he had learned through his crime that success, money and fame were not what was important in life.

'I know now that the world is not a video game,' he said. 'I deserve the punishment that I'm going to receive today. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the pain I've caused. I am so, so, so sorry.'
Five shocked clubbers were left bleeding from their mouths after downing tequila with cleaning chemicals instead of salt.

The group, of four women and a man, were left vomiting after downing drinks from glasses lined with caustic soda.

The shocking incident, believed to have been sparked by a staff mishap, took place at a Tiger Tiger club in central London last month.

So serious was the incident, clubbers feared it was a terror attack.

Speaking about the incident, one insider told The Sun: 'A group of four women and a man necked the tequilas and used salt and lemon to soften the taste, then began to retch.

'There was panic. People thought it was some kind of terrorist incident.'

The shocking incident, believed to have been sparked by a staff mishap, took place at a Tiger Tiger club in central London last month

The group, of four women and a man, were left vomiting after downing drinks from tequila glasses (pictured: Library image) lined with caustic soda rather than salt

What is caustic soda? Caustic Soda - perhaps better known as sodium hydroxide - is a white solid chemical compound often used in cleaning. The chemical, which is corrosive, is used in the manufacture of sodium salts. Because it decomposes proteins, it is also used to dissolve animals - particularly roadkill. It can cause chemical burns and permanent blindness if it gets into a person's eye. Those whose skin comes into contact with caustic soda are recommended to wash their skin in water for at least ten to fifteen minutes. Because of this, caustic soda should be stored properly in marked air tight containers. Advertisement

Police reportedly refused to let anyone out of the club at the Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus, following the incident, on December 7.

Emergency vehicles, including an air ambulance, are also said to have raced to the scene.

According to the Sun, the incident is believed to have been the result of bungling staff filling salt pots with caustic soda - a corrosive substance that causes chemical burns when it touches skin.

The source said: 'It took a long time to establish what happened. Apparently, the club kept salt and caustic soda in similar containers and there had been an honest accident.'

One person is reportedly still requiring hospital treatment more than a month after the incident.

Police are not treating the incident as suspicious and say the the Health and Safety Executive has been informed.

A Met Police spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We were called at approximately 10.50pm on Tuesday, 7 December following reports of four people who had suffered burns after coming into contact with a substance, believed to be a strong alkali, at a venue in Haymarket, W1.

'The four people  all female  received treatment at the scene before being taken to hospital; none of their conditions are life-threatening.

Police reportedly refused to let anyone out of the club at the Haymarket, near Piccadilly Circus, following the incident, on December 7

According to the Sun, the incident is believed to have been the result of bungling staff filling salt pots with caustic soda (pictured: Library image) - a corrosive substance that causes chemical burns when it touches skin

'A fifth, person  a male  also came into contact with the substance but has declined hospital treatment.

'The venue was closed as a precaution. The incident is not being treated as suspicious and there have been no arrests.

'The Health and Safety Executive has been informed.'

Tiger Tiger is understood to be facing legal action. MailOnline has contacted the club for a comment.

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Executive told MailOnline the incident was a matter for the local authority's health and safety team.
Ghani v Spencer: Tories pick sides in 'Muslimness' row Team Ghani Nadhim Zahawi: 'There is no place for islamophobia or any form of racism in our Conservative party. Nusrat Ghani is a friend, a colleague & a brilliant parliamentarian. This has to be investigated properly & racism routed out.' Sajid Javid: 'This is a very serious matter which needs a proper investigation. I would strongly support her in making a formal complaint - she must be heard.' Caroline Nokes: 'I was very proud when Nus was the first female Muslim minister to speak at the despatch box and I thought it was evidence of how far our parliament and my party had come and to hear of the challenges that she has subsequently faced, is horrific.' Steve Baker: 'That Nus could be treated like this is completely intolerable. I value (her) as a great colleague and I'm appalled. We must get to the bottom of it.' Team Spencer Mark Spencer: 'These accusations are completely false and I consider them to be defamatory. I have never used those words attributed to me.' Dominic Raab: 'If there are any claims like this they should result in a formal complaint which allows a formal investigation to take place. As the chief whip has pointed out, Nus hasn't made a formal complaint. She was asked to do so. In the absence of doing so there will be no specific investigation into this.' Downing Street: 'After being made aware of these extremely serious claims, the Prime Minister met with Nusrat Ghani to discuss them. He then wrote to her expressing his serious concern and inviting her to begin a formal complaint process. She did not subsequently do so.' Advertisement

Boris Johnson today insisted he is taking allegations an ex-minister was sacked over 'Muslimness' 'extremely seriously' as he ordered a formal Cabinet Office investigation into the claims.

The Prime Minister has instructed the civil service to carry out a probe after the extraordinary claims from Tory MP Nusrat Ghani.

The move came after Cabinet ministers Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid joined calls for a 'proper' inquiry - with others suggesting it should be fully independent.

Mr Johnson told reporters on a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital this morning: We take these allegations extremely seriously. I took them very seriously when they were raised with me 18 months ago.

Very glad theres an investigation taking place now, cant say more really about it.

Downing Street announced the probe this morning, with a Number 10 spokeswoman saying: 'The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP.

'At the time these allegations were first made, the Prime Minister recommended to her that she make a formal complain to CCHQ. She did not take up this offer.

'The Prime Minister has now asked officials to establish the facts about what happened.

'As he said at the time, the Prime Minister takes these claims very seriously.'

Ms Ghani alleged that chief whip Mark Spencer said her faith was partly responsible for her getting the boot in 2020 - something he flatly denies.

Mr Johnson was asked this morning if Mr Spencer will remain in his role while the investigation is carried out and he replied: Just to get back to the key point, this is something I take personally extremely seriously. I took it very seriously 18 months ago. We must wait and see what the investigation produces.

Ms Ghani has contradicted No10's version of events, saying the PM refused to get involved and tried to fob her off.

After the announcement, Ms Ghani insisted the terms of reference for the probe must including 'all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip'.

Ms Ghani said: 'As I said to the Prime Minister last night all I want is for this to be taken seriously and for him to investigate.

'I welcome his decision to do that now.

'The terms of reference of the inquiry must include all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip.

'I look forward to seeing the terms of reference.'

In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Zahawi welcomed the news, but stressed he did not think the allegations had been taken lightly before.

He said he personally had never 'experienced any form of racism' in the Conservative Party.

The Education Secretary told Sky News: 'She has made a very serious allegation, the Prime Minister spoke to her last night and said the Cabinet Office will investigate this and look at the detail of this.

'She put out a statement last night saying actually, to be fair to her, this could be people who weren't even members of the Conservative Party, which is why we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly.

'And of course the Chief Whip (Mark Spencer) has come out and named himself as the individual and I work with both colleagues, and I think it is important that someone like a Cabinet Office senior civil servant should look at this properly, because the Chief Whip has also categorically denied this.'

A thinktank has called on the Government to bring in the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to investigate the claims.

The Runnymede Trust, a race equality thinktank, says the issue is too important to be left to a civil servant-led inquiry.

Chief executive Dr Halima Begum told the Guardian: 'This is an incredibly serious situation. At a bare minimum, the allegation that a minister of the crown was fired for her so-called 'Muslimness' would represent a flagrant challenge to our equalities and labour laws.

'The facts and questions about the legality of what has happened here must be urgently investigated by the very highest authority. This cannot simply be left for another civil service inquiry. If the allegations are proven to be true, Nusrat would have been subjected to grossly discriminatory behaviour.

'[Her] distress will be felt by every one of the 3 million Muslims in the country, as well as every member of our religious minority communities. All of the political parties need to do more to demonstrate zero tolerance for discrimination, and to prove that religious minorities in this country are respected regardless of their faith.'

Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons women and equalities committee, described the treatment of Ms Ghani as 'appalling'.

She also backed calls for the EHRC to launch an investigation and told the Telegraph: 'Her faith has never made me (or any other colleague) 'uncomfortable'.

'At the very least EHRC should have a look at this.'

An EHRC spokesman stated the Commission is still examining the Conservative Party's handling of the Singh inquiry into Islamophobia complaints last year and suggested a full investigation may take place.

The spokesman added: 'If we are not satisfied with progress we will review our decision [not to begin an immediate review] and do not rule out the use of our legal powers.'

Nusrat Ghani (pictured), the Tory MP for Wealden in East Sussex, has alleged her 'Muslimness' was raised when she was sacked as transport minister in February 2020

In a round of interviews this morning, Nadhim Zahawi welcomed news that a Cabinet Office investigation will be held

The PM (pictured left running this morning) has instructed the civil service to carry out a probe after the extraordinary claims from Ms Ghani. Mark Spencer (right) has outed himself as the whip concerned, and branded Ms Ghani's comments 'false' and 'defamatory'

After the announcement, Ms Ghani insisted the terms of reference for the probe must including 'all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip'

Who is Nusrat Ghani? Kashmir born trailblazer was a surprise sacking in PM's 2020 reshuffle Nusrat Ghani - known as Nus - was long seen as a rising star in Tory circles. And it came as a surprise to many when she was axed as a minister in 2020. The 49-year-old was born in Kashmir to Pakistani parents and grew up in Birmingham. She worked in an investment bank, charities and the BBC World Service before entering politics. Ms Ghani is married to Sky executive David Wheeldon, with whom she has one child. She stood in the 2010 general election for the seat of Birmingham Ladywood and lost, but was elected as MP for Wealden in East Sussex in 2015. She was the first female to win the seat and the first Muslim woman elected as a Tory MP. After her victory, Ms Ghani said: 'As the nation wakes up the Conservatives look to be on the brink of returning to government.' 'We have helped put our country back on track. Our party has taken bold steps and you have put your trust in us to finish the job.' In 2015, Ms Ghani was appointed a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee. A Brexiteer, Ms Ghani in 2016 told the BBC: 'Britain has a chance to vote for a bold, positive future as an independent country in control of its own destiny. 'We have the chance to liberate our economy from a declining corner of the world and spread our wings to the whole globe.' Ms Ghani was appointed assistant whip and transport minister in 2018 under Theresa May. She was the first female Muslim to speak from the Commons dispatch box. At the time, then-Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the BBC her promotion showed the Conservatives 'were a party of opportunity'. 'We're the party to provide the first Muslim woman minister to speak from the government dispatch box  the member for Wealden,' he said.' Ms Ghani wrote on her website: 'A century after women got the vote for the first time, I hope that today young people can see that regardless of their background, faith, race, gender or sexuality, there will be a warm welcome on the green benches, and no matter where you are from you can achieve your dreams and ambitions.' In 2020, when Ms Ghani was removed from the role, she was replaced by Kelly Tolhurst. Ms Ghani has said that she was surprised at the demotion, and the shuffle was reported in that light given she had been tipped to oversee HS2 progress. Ms Ghani is a steering committee member of the backbench Covid Recovery Group which opposed the December 2020 lockdown and has voted against other Covid restrictions. Advertisement

Elsewhere, a Tory MP sparked anger after he said Ms Ghani was 'hardly someone who is obviously a Muslim'.

Michael Fabricant said the timing of the former transport minister's claim was 'very suspicious', and suggested it was linked to moves to get rid of Boris Johnson over the Downing Street lockdown parties scandal.

Yesterday, Labour described Mr Fabricant's comments as 'shameful' and called for the Conservative whip to be withdrawn.

Speaking on LBC, Mr Fabricant said: 'The timing is interesting. I think all this is because it's open season on Boris Johnson, putting pressure on him from the party trying to get him to resign.

'I think the whole thing actually stinks, the accusation being made by Nus Ghani.

'She's hardly someone who is obviously a Muslim. I had no idea what religion she is. It does seem rather a lame excuse to me that she was sacked because of that.'

In response, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy tweeted: 'What an appalling, disgraceful thing to say.

'If the Tories wanted to show they were serious about tackling Islamophobia, they could start by removing the whip from Michael Fabricant.'

Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds said the response of the the Tories to Ms Ghani's claims had been shameful.

'For a Conservative MP, Michael Fabricant, to go on the radio and make comments that reflect exactly the sort of unacceptable behaviour Nusrat has raised shows just how deep the problem in the Conservative Party goes,' she said.

Ms Ghani has received the backing of Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Education Nadhim Zahawi, the two most senior Muslims in the Cabinet.

Both took to Twitter to support her and demand a full investigation into her claims against Mr Spencer.

He has outed himself as the whip concerned, and branded Ms Ghani's comments 'false' and 'defamatory'.

Justice secretary Dominic Raab also lined up to defend the party, claiming she had decided not to call for an investigation at the time.

But Mr Javid said Ms Ghani was 'a credit to the Conservative Party', adding: 'This is a very serious matter which needs a proper investigation. I would strongly support her in making a formal complaint - she must be heard.'

His intervention claim after Mr Zahawi tweeted: 'There is no place for islamophobia or any form of racism in our Conservative party. Nusrat Ghani is a friend, a colleague & a brilliant parliamentarian. This has to be investigated properly & racism routed out. #standwithNus' .

Ms Ghani, who was the first Muslim woman to be elected as a Tory MP in 2015, told the Sunday Times she was told by a party whip she was being axed in February 2020 because her status as a Muslim woman and a minister was 'making colleagues feel uncomfortable'.

She also claimed she was warned that if she continued to raise the issue then her 'career and reputation would be destroyed'.

But yesterday morning Downing Street revealed that Ms Ghani had complained directly to the PM in 2020. A spokeswoman said: 'After being made aware of these extremely serious claims, the Prime Minister met with Nusrat Ghani to discuss them.

'He then wrote to her expressing his serious concern and inviting her to begin a formal complaint process. She did not subsequently do so.'

After that statement was released, Ms Ghani said: 'When I told the Prime Minister in June 2020 what had been said to me in the Government Whips' Office I urged him to take it seriously as a Government matter and instigate an inquiry.

'He wrote to me that he could not get involved and suggested I use the internal Conservative Party complaint process.

'This, as I had already pointed out, was very clearly not appropriate for something that happened on Government business - I do not even know if the words that were conveyed to me about what was said in reshuffle meetings at Downing Street were by members of the Conservative Party.'

And Justice Secretary Dominic Raab rowed in behind him yesterday, saying that Ms Ghani would have to make a formal complaint to trigger a 'specific investigation'.

Ms Ghani alleged the chief whip Mark Spencer said her faith got her the boot in 2020
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Commuters headed back into the office today on the first Monday morning since working from home guidance was lifted after Boris Johnson told government departments to prepare staff for a return to the workplace.

Photographs showed the Jubilee line on the London Underground looking busy as the morning rush hour got underway at 7am, with passengers also packing platforms waiting for Overground trains at Canada Water station.

London Victoria and London Bridge also looked busy this morning - although this was a contrast to the empty streets of Westminster at a similar time which suggested many civil servants are continuing to work from home.

Transport for London said there were 1.06million entry and exits on the Underground up to 10am this morning - a rise of 6 per cent compared to last Monday and 45 per cent of normal pre-pandemic levels. On buses up to 10am, there were 1.17million boarding taps - up 1 per cent compared to last Monday and 69 per cent of normal levels.

At Tube stations with close links to the City of London, such as Mansion House, Aldgate, Canary Wharf and Holborn, there were 95,400 entries and exits this morning, which represents only 31 per cent of normal demand.

And at shopping-related Underground stations such as Stratford, Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Circus, there were 102,400 entries and exits this morning, which represents 46 per cent of normal demand.

Across the whole of last Friday, 2.12million Tube journeys were made, which is just above 50 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and up around 11 per cent week-on-week. On the buses last Friday, 4.53million journeys were made, which is 73 per cent of pre-pandemic levels and up around 2 per cent week-on-week.

At weekends, Tube and bus ridership is closer to pre-pandemic levels with the Tube reaching 1.92million journeys on Saturday - 64 per cent per cent of pre-pandemic levels - and some specific times of the day reaching close to 75 per cent. Some 3.5million bus journeys made on Saturday  around three quarters of pre-pandemic levels.

But road congestion data today showed the level during the Monday morning rush hour in London was actually down on the same time last week, at 68 per cent for 8am to 9am today compared to 69 per cent last Monday.

The TomTom figures also showed today was the second quietest day on London's roads in the past six weekdays, but it was roughly in line with the 69 per cent on December 6  the last Monday before WFH guidance came in.

Birmingham was also quieter today from 8am to 9am compared to last Monday  at 56 per cent today, down from 67 per cent. Congestion was, however, up week-on-week in Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle.

The figures for the 8am to 9am slot in London were in contrast to the 7am and 8am period which was at 46 per cent today, up from 44 per cent at the same time last week and the highest on a Monday since December 6.

It comes amid fresh attempts to end the working-from-home culture in Whitehall by ordering employees to get back to their desks after the Prime Minister ended the working from home guidance last Wednesday.

Union leaders have branded the proposals 'reckless', and senior officials vowed to keep a large number of their staff working from home permanently with only a tiny minority of civil servants at their desks.

The final Plan B restrictions of Covid passports for larger venues and face masks in indoor areas will both be lifted on Thursday  but the latter will remain in place on Transport for London trains as a 'condition of carriage'.

It means Tube passengers can no longer be fined for not wearing a mask, but can be denied entry. London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted: 'Just a reminder to those travelling back into the office todayit's still mandatory to wear a mask on all TfL services unless you're exempt. If you're using public transport, respect the rules. Wear your mask.'

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph revealed concerns that the return to the office could be held up by reduced train services with 21 of the UK's 28 rail operators on an 'amended timetable' or having halted their trains altogether.

Some 13 networks including Avanti West Coast, South Western Railway, CrossCounty and Great Western Railway are running reduced services 'until further notice' while the Gatwick Express is completely suspended.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT union, told of a 'serious danger that temporary arrangements to cope with the pandemic are going to become 'baked in and institutionalised' if operators continue to cut services.

Also this morning, there was disruption on London Overground services due a fault on a train at Highbury and Islington station, while a points failure at Wimbledon was causing disruption to journeys in South London.

Elsewhere, services in Wales were affected by a points failure between Cardiff Central and Radyr via Ninian Park, while commuters in the West Midlands were delayed by an object caught on the electric wires at Tame Bridge Parkway. In Scotland, a fault with the signalling system at Inverness was resulting in delays of up to 30 minutes.

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters wait to board a London Overground at Canada Water station in South East London at about 7am today

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

A nearly-empty Parliament Street in Westminster at about 9am this morning, suggesting many civil servants are still WFH

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Great George Street in Westminster at about 9am today as people still work from home despite guidance being dropped

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Victoria Street in Westminster appears to be quiet at about 9am this morning despite WFH guidance being dropped

Commuters walk down an escalator on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

A quiet Whitehall in Westminster at about 9am this morning as many people continue to work from home

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Clive Watson, chairman of the City Pub Company, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that sales at his pubs were 'almost non-existent' at the start of January but had been building back to normal levels over the past ten days.

Speaking about more people returning to the office, Mr Watson said: 'I think we've got to remember about people going back to the office, it's not just to help the hospitality industry, it's to help everyone in the office.

'Every junior staff needs a mentor, every junior staff needs to be able to go to someone in the office to help with their roles, and they can't really do that from home. I think it builds up that culture within a business as well.

'I think you can bring in a bit of flexibility to the office-work life, but it's very important for office workers' mental wellbeing as well to be back in the office and working alongside their colleagues.'

But Paul Novak, deputy general secretary at the Trades Union Congress, said the 'language' surrounding the return to work from the Government had been 'unhelpful'.

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

The Treasury building on Horse Guards Parade in Westminster at about 9am today as only a handful of people walk outside

Commuters wait to board a London Overground at Canada Water station in South East London at about 7am today

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

King Charles Street in Westminster is pictured at about 9am today as people continue to work from home

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters wait to board a London Overground at Canada Water station in South East London at about 7am today

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters wait to board a London Overground at Canada Water station in South East London at about 7am today

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

He told BBC Radio 4: 'It is important to remember that millions of people have been working in the workplaces as normal during the pandemic, if you work in a supermarket, or a care home or in a factory.

Omicron restrictions are eased in Scotland The final restrictions put in place in response to the Omicron variant sweeping across Scotland were eased from today. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced last week nightclubs would be able to reopen, while the caps on indoor events, table service requirements for venues selling alcohol and social distancing will also be removed. The measures were put in place in December - along with a maximum capacity in outdoor events of 500, which was eased last Monday as the new variant caused a spike in cases - eventually peaking at more than 20,000 in the first days of 2022. However, infections started to dip faster than expected, never reaching the worst case scenario the Scottish Government envisaged as possible - with projections suggesting 50,000 people could be infected daily with the new variant at the peak of the wave. But the requirements for face coverings and self-isolation will remain for the foreseeable future. Advertisement

'But there will be significant numbers of people starting to return to the office from this week, and I think what's really important actually is rather than blanket mandates or unhelpful language about shirkers getting back to the office, employers have sensible conversations with their staff about how that return will happen, over what timescale, people's preferred patterns of working and crucially what can employers do to give people confidence that their workplace is Covid secure and is as safe as possible.'

The return to work comes after it emerged civil servants claimed hundreds of thousands of pounds for home office equipment after the remote working guidance was scrapped last year.

Taxpayers paid out almost 730,000 in expenses between July 19 and early December  when ministers were no longer asking staff to avoid the office.

Now figures released under freedom of information laws lay bare the extent of home working last year when curbs had been relaxed.

HMRC spent more than 540,000 on 7,566 home office equipment expenses claims, while the Cabinet Office paid out more than 100,000.

And the Department of Health spent 50,000 while the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs paid 23,000.

Others refused to reveal how much they had spent on office equipment expenses claims, citing cost grounds.

The total of those that provided figures was around 729,000.

Ministers removed the guidance to work from home on July 19 last year but reinstated it on December 8 to tackle the spread of Omicron.

A government spokesman said: 'Departments have the flexibility to make their own decisions on individual working arrangements in order to meet their staff requirements.'

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters wait to board a London Overground at Canada Water station in South East London at about 7am today

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

Commuters travel on the Jubilee line on the London Underground network at about 7am this morning

Commuters wait to board a London Overground at Canada Water station in South East London at about 7am today

Rail commuters return to the office at London Victoria train station just before 8am this morning

HMRC said it would make 'no apology for ensuring that our colleagues have the equipment which they need to deliver for the UK and our customers'.

Airline bosses call for end to Covid travel rules The chief executives of the UK's largest airlines have written to the Government to demand an end to coronavirus-related travel restrictions. In the letter, they ask that restriction-free travel is restored 'at the very least' for those who are fully vaccinated. They say that Omicron is in retreat and evidence shows that travel restrictions have a 'limited effect' in preventing the spread of Covid-19. The UK Government was already due to review travel requirements for England next week. The letter is signed by the heads of Ryanair, Easyjet, Loganair, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, and Jet2, as well as the chief executives of holiday travel group Tui and trade body Airlines UK. It contains three key demands: Restriction free travel for all travellers or at the very least those who are fully vaccinated;

The targeted and transparent use of red lists without universal testing or hotel quarantines;

That the Government rules out the use of border closures and flight bans in response to future variants of concern. Advertisement

Meanwhile, Nadhim Zahawi said today that it was the 'right decision' to remove the guideline for pupils in England to wear face coverings in classrooms.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, the Education Secretary said: 'I trust headteachers to do the right thing, I work very closely with them and I'm proud of that - I work very closely with directors of public health.

'Headteachers and teachers will agree that wearing masks in classrooms actually causes a communication challenge and a learning challenge, which is why I didn't want them to be in the classroom a day longer than necessary.

'When the scientists told us that the peak had been reached on Omicron - and we are seeing a plateauing and a real reduction, for example, in ICU numbers - then it is the right decision we made to take that guideline away.'

Asked whether there would be any sanctions for headteachers who continue to mandate mask-wearing in classrooms, he replied: 'No, I will work with headteachers to support them where we can.'

Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab urged NHS staff in England who have not had their mandatory Covid-19 vaccines to do so amid calls for the deadline to be delayed.

Mr Raab played down suggestions the April 1 deadline could be postponed while NHS representatives have warned the policy could force thousands of frontline workers to leave their roles at a time when patient demand is high.

Frontline staff in England must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 with two jabs by April 1 - meaning they must have had their first dose by February 3.

Mr Raab argued that the deadline does not need postponing because the NHS recruitment drive since 2020 has improved the service's 'resilience'.

And Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said he would not 'rule out' recruiting workers who lose their jobs in England.

The Department for Health and Social Care's (DHSC's) impact assessment warns 73,000 NHS staff in England could be lost.
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Russia will hold live-fire naval drills off the coast of Ireland next month, Moscow has announced amid rapidly escalating tensions with the West.

Battleships will take part in sea drills around 150 miles off Ireland's southwest coast, within the country's 'exclusive economic zone' but outside its territorial waters.

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney revealed on Monday that Russia informed Ireland about the drills at the weekend, saying the warships are 'not welcome' but his country 'doesn't have the power to stop this from happening'.

Under UN conventions governing the oceans, military drills are allowed within the economic zones of other states provided they do not stray into territorial waters.

The drill will form part of much broader Russian naval exercises involving 140 ships and 10,000 troops from all of its naval fleets that will take place in the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, North Sea and Sea of Okhotsk from January until February.

It comes against the backdrop of Russia's troop build-up on the border of Ukraine, which has sparked fears of a war in Europe and a standoff between East and West.

Amid fears that an invasion is imminent, the UK began withdrawing diplomats from its mission in Kiev today - following a similar US move at the weekend.

Elsewhere today...

Joe Biden was considering plans to deploy up to 5,000 US troops to the Baltic region which could ramp up to 50,000 along with warships and aircraft

NATO deployed additional ships, troops and warplanes to the Baltics, following a call from Latvia's foreign minister for 'countermeasures' against Russia

The Kremlin condemned NATO's deployments, accusing the West of spreading 'hysteria' over a war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than even due to weapons shipments to the region

Boris Johnson warned Putin that invading Ukraine would be a 'disastrous step' and a 'painful, violent and bloody business'

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to put on united front against Russia, saying 'never-before-seen' sanctions await if it invades Ukraine

Ursula von der Leyen, EU commission president, said 1billion euro aid package is being prepared for Ukraine

US said families of its diplomatic staff in Ukraine have been ordered to leave, and non-essential employees have been offered flights home

Australia began withdrawing families of diplomats based in Kiev, told its citizens to leave, and opened talks with Ukraine about defending against cyber attacks

Russia is planning to hold live-fire naval drills off the Irish coast next month, with Dublin saying the ships are 'not welcome' (file image, Russian ships near Saint Petersburg last year)

The drills will take place 150 miles from Ireland's south west coast, and comes amid the build-up of troops near the border with Ukraine amid fears of a war in Europe

Ukrainian territorial volunteers take part in military training near Kiev at the weekend amid fears Russia could invade

Civilian volunteers who are part of the Ukrainian territorial army take part in training near Kiev at the weekend

Britain will face even higher gas and petrol prices if Russia invades Ukraine Britain could be forced to contend with record-breaking prices for gas and petrol if the fear of a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes a reality, ministers have been told. Government officials are concerned that Russia will restrict its provision of gas to European countries in the face of Western sanctions should an invasion of Ukraine take place. Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine. Although Britain gets its gas from other sources, it would still be confronted with sky-high prices if Russia decided to restrict the flow of gas to Europe as the wholesale price of the resource would balloon. 'Unlike some countries the UK hardly imports any Russian gas, but like all countries we are exposed to rising wholesale prices, which would be a significant issue if Russia further restricted supply,' one senior official told The Times. It comes as British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion. Raab's promise came after top U.S. and Russian diplomats failed on Friday to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine. 'There'll be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime,' Mr Raab said. Advertisement

Half of the UK's diplomatic mission and their families will leave the country, after the US ordered families of its staff to go and offered non-essential embassy staff space on flights back home.

Having already threatened 'swift and severe' economic sanctions if Ukraine is attacked, President Biden was today considering whether to deploy additional troops to the region to counter Russia's build-up.

Plans presented to the US president at the weekend included sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Baltic states neighbouring Russia - with the option of ramping up to 50,000 troops backed by warplanes and ships if the security situation deteriorates.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenburg confirmed today that the alliance will be beefing up its own presence in the region, with additional ships and fighter jets deployed.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania.

Spain is sending ships to join NATO's standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria.

Stoltenberg said NATO will 'take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies.'

He added: 'We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.'

Meanwhile Russia dispatched two corvettes from the Baltic Sea on a 'long distance voyage' with an unspecified destination.

The Stoykiy and Soobrazitelny left Russia's port at Baltiysk on the mission, which the defence ministry said would include 'communication, air and anti-submarine defence exercises and a number of combat drills.'

The statement was issued by the Western military district which is playing the lead role in massing forces on Europe's doorstep, raising fears the corvettes could be heading for the Black Sea near Ukraine.

It comes after Russia last week sailed six landing craft out of the Baltics - leading many to suspect they were also heading for the Black Sea to form part of what many fear is an invading force.

NATO announced the deployment of more troops after Latvia's foreign minister called for 'countermeasures' to Russia's build-up.

'We are reaching the point where a continuous Russian and Belarusian military buildup in Europe needs to be addressed by appropriate NATO countermeasures,' he wrote on Facebook.

'It is time to increase allied forces' presence on the alliance's eastern flank both as measures of defence and deterrence,' he added.

The Kremlin denounced NATO's movements, accusing the West of ramping up tensions by spreading 'hysteria' about war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than ever due to arms shipments to the region.

Peskov said the probability of military conflict in eastern Ukraine being initiated by the Ukrainian side was higher than ever.

Ukraine has deployed a large number of troops near the borders of breakaway regions controlled by pro-Russian separatists, which Peskov said suggests Kiev is preparing an attack. Ukraine has repeatedly denied this.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also repeated warnings to Putin not to attack Ukraine, saying invasion would be a 'disastrous step' and a 'painful, violent and bloody business'.

Meanwhile Australia had instructed security officials in Ukraine to open up talks with the government about providing help to defend against cyber attacks.

The country has already been targeted once by hackers in recent weeks - which it blamed on Moscow - and there are fears such an attack could be used to knock out infrastructure and sow chaos ahead of a ground invasion, or else be used as a way of punishing Ukraine short of putting boots on the ground.

Australia also began evacuating the families of diplomatic staff in Ukraine, and ordered citizens to leave the country due to the risk of a Russian attack.

Speaking about the Russian drills near Ireland at the weekend, politician and former soldier Cathal Berry told The Journal that Russian exercises in the region are 'unusual' though not unprecedented.

'The exercise is posturing and is about messaging directly with European powers,' he said.

'The location is not an accident... They could be doing this off the coast of Murmansk but have chosen the Atlantic instead. There has been an increased number of incursions in to this area and near to Irish airspace.'

Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Coveney said: 'I have made it clear to the Russian Ambassador in Ireland that it's not welcome.

'This is not a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what is happening with and in Ukraine at the moment.

'Russia, under international law, can take military exercises in international waters, but the fact they are choosing to do it on the west borders of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that is in our view not welcome and not wanted right now, particularly in the coming weeks.'

The UK has ordered some of its embassy staff out of Ukraine (pictured, the embassy in Kiev) due to fears that Russia could launch an attack

Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney (left) raised concerns about the drills as he arrived in Brussels for talks where states are expected to present a common front against Moscow

Spanish firgate Blas de Lezo leaves port on Sunday to begin a fresh NATO deployment, as the military alliance moves forces closer to Russia's border in response to Putin's troop build-up

Boris Johnson warned Putin that invading Ukraine would be a 'disastrous step' and a 'painful, violent and bloody business'

US could ban export of key tech components to Russia if it attacks Ukraine The United States has threatened to impose a novel export control to deprive Russia of key tech components that would damage AI and aerospace industries if Russia were to invade Ukraine. The Biden Administration may also opt to apply the control more widely, potentially restricting Russia's access to semiconductors, and therefore Russian citizens of smartphones, games consoles and tablets, government officials said. Such export controls that expand US sanctions beyond financial targets have only been deployed once before - to nearly bring down Chinese tech giant Huawei. The measure, known as the foreign direct product rule, contributed to Huawei experiencing its first-even annual revenue drop that fell almost 30 percent last year. Huawei's supply of essential microchips was strangled. While they are made outside the US, they require US software or tools. The US and the EU already have sanctions on Russia's energy, financial and defence sectors, with tensions between Moscow and Western powers raising the prospect of new economic sanctions being imposed if Russia attacks neighbouring Ukraine. The White House is also floating the idea of curbs on Russia's biggest banks and has previously mooted measures targeting Moscow's ability to convert roubles into dollars and other currencies. Washington could also target the state-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund. Similar restrictions on technology were deployed during the Cold War, when the United States and other Western nations maintained severe technology sanctions on the Soviet Union, keeping it technologically backward and crimping growth. Advertisement

Mr Coveney is in Brussels on Monday for a scheduled meeting with other EU foreign ministers at which the ongoing tensions on the Russia/Ukraine border are being discussed.

'This is an important day today for EU foreign ministers to reinforce a message of unity from the European Union in relation to Russian/Ukraine tension,' Mr Coveney added.

'There are two very clear messages that EU foreign ministers will want to get across today.

'First of all, a clear message and ask of Russia to defuse tension in the context of their activities on the borders of Ukraine and give reassurance to the rest of the world in terms of their intentions.

'Secondly, a strong message of unity from the EU that should Russia decide to invade Ukraine militarily, that there would be very severe consequences of that action from an EU perspective in terms of sanction and restrictions that would follow very quickly, that I think would be the most comprehensive that the EU has put together in many decades.

'A message and appeal to use diplomatic means to defuse tension, but also a very strong and clear and unified message that the EU respond collectively and in a unified manner in a way that would introduce very significant measures in response to Russian military action in Ukraine.'

Elsewhere, European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today with the aim of putting on a united front against Moscow.

'All members of the European Union are united. We are showing unprecedented unity about the situation in Ukraine, with the strong coordination with the U.S.,' EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels.

Asked whether the EU would withdraw its own diplomats from Ukraine, Borrell he would not follow suit and warned against 'dramatising' the situation.

He added that he is not aware of any specific threat against European embassy staff, and would like to speak more with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the US decision to pull his staff out.

During Monday's meeting, which Blinken will attend virtually, the ministers will restate Europes condemnation of the Russian military build-up near Ukraine, involving an estimated 100,000 troops, tanks, artillery and heavy equipment, diplomats and officials said ahead of the meeting.

Theyll renew calls for dialogue, notably through the European-backed 'Normandy format,' which helped to ease hostilities in 2015, a year after Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula. Fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed around 14,000 people and still simmers today.

Should Putin move on Ukraine again, the ministers will warn, Russia would face 'massive consequences and severe costs.' Those costs would be of a financial and political nature. The EU insists that it stands ready to slap hefty sanctions on Russia within days of any attack.

'We dont know what the Russians are going to do, but what we are talking about is basically the most important security development in Europe since the end of the Cold War,' a senior EU official said. 'The response of the European Union will be at the level of the challenge.'

Hungary's foreign minister warned on Monday of the threat of a new Cold War, amid tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

'We don't want a new Cold War. The Cold War period had tragic consequences in Central Eastern Europe, we wasted several decades,' Peter Szijjarto said, adding that Hungary supported all diplomatic efforts and talks to resolve the standoff.

The official and diplomats briefed reporters on condition of anonymity so that they could speak more freely about the meeting preparations.

Over the weekend, some of the member countries closest to Russia - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - confirmed that they plan to send U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by the United States.

A Ukrainian soldier patrols through a trench in the east of the country, close to where fighting is taking place with Russian-backed rebel groups

A Ukrainian military instructor drills civilian volunteers in woodlands near Kiev on Saturday

Ukrainian Servicemen of the 30th Army Brigade are seen in trenches outside of Svitlodarsk, in the east of the country, on Sunday

But questions have been raised about just how unified the EU is. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. Around 40% of the EUs natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine.

Gas prices have skyrocketed, and the head of the International Energy Agency has said that Russian energy giant Gazprom was already reducing its exports to the EU in late 2021 despite high prices. Putin says Gazprom is respecting its contract obligations, not putting the squeeze on Europe.

The EUs two major powers appear most cautious. Germanys Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which is complete but yet to pump gas, has become a bargaining chip. French President Emmanuel Macron has renewed previously rejected calls for an EU summit with Putin.

Late last year, France and Germany initially expressed doubts about U.S. intelligence assessments that Moscow might be preparing to invade.

Late on Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, resigned after coming under fire for saying that Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula, and for suggesting that Putin deserves 'respect.'

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plans to meet with Putin next week to discuss a Russian-backed project to expand a Hungarian nuclear power plant.

Still, diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EUs executive branch, the European Commission. But they were reluctant to say what the measures might be or what action by Russia might trigger them.

The aim, they said, is to try to match the doubts Putin has sowed about his intentions for Ukraine with uncertainty about what any retaliatory European action might look like, or when it would come.

One diplomat refused to discuss the matter at all. Another suggested that a layered response might be in preparation, with different levels of retaliation depending on whether a cyberattack, rocket strike, or all-out invasion was launched.

A third was confident there would be no arguments over the trigger point, saying: 'Well know it when we see it.'

For now, though, the Europeans must wait and see whether Putin is satisfied with progress in talks with the United States, coordinate with Blinken on a response should things go wrong, and bank on the economic deterrent posed by the EU being Russias biggest trading partner.

A US soldier prepares a pallet of anti-tank weapons for transport to Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on Friday
Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy is returning to Britain exactly 100 years after a curator at The Royal Academy scrawled 'au revoir' on the back as it set sale for the US.

Gainsborough's 1770 oil on canvas will go on display at the National Gallery from tomorrow, marking an 'unprecedented' loan from the US.

The painting, which shows a boy in a blue jacket and pantaloons, was originally unveiled at London's Royal Academy in 1770.

However, it has been on display at the Huntington Art Gallery in California, for the past century.

Gainsborough's 1770 oil on canvas will go on display at the National Gallery from tomorrow, marking an 'unprecedented' loan from the US

Buttall owned the portrait among other artists before it was sold to dealer Joseph Duveen in 1921.

The National Gallery's then director Charles Holmes wrote 'au revoir' on the painting's reverse, in the hope that the painting would return one day.

And the painting will return, in his own private room near the grand entrance of the building, occupying an entire wall.

It will be displayed alongside four similar works from Gainsborough and Van Dyck for just 16 weeks.

Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery, described the portrait as a 'masterpiece of British art' and said its return to the London gallery is 'truly exceptional' and a 'unique opportunity for visitors to see Gainsborough at his dazzling best'.

The painting, which shows a boy in a blue jacket and pantaloons, was originally unveiled at London's Royal Academy in 1770. Pictured: The Blue Boy on show at the London gallery on January 25, 1922

The National Gallery's then director Charles Holmes wrote 'au revoir' on the painting's reverse, in the hope that the painting would return one day. Pictured: Thomas Gainsborough

He added: 'Rich in historical resonances, a painting of supreme poise and elegance, The Blue Boy is without doubt a masterpiece of British art.'

Karen R. Lawrence, Huntington president, said: 'This masterpiece has made an indelible mark on both art history and popular culture, capturing the imaginations of a wide range of audiences.

'Given The Blue Boy's iconic status at The Huntington, this is an unprecedented loan, one which we considered very carefully.

Film director Quentin Tarantino was so taken by this look after his costume designer slipped a picture of The Blue Boy into his research book, he modelled a costume for his title character in Django Unchained on Gainsboroughs distinctive subject

Because The Blue Boy is on show in California, it has notched up an impressive number of appearances in Hollywood movies, too, Pictured: Joaquin Phoenix in Joker (2019)

'We hope that this partnership with the National Gallery will spark new conversations, appreciation and research on both sides of the Atlantic.'

The Blue Boy will be part of a free exhibition in Room 46 which will also include a 'select group of paintings that demonstrate the profound influence of Van Dyck on Gainsborough's practice and identity'.

It will be available to view from January 25 until May 25 at the National Gallery.
A tradesman has been ordered to pay a top Barclays banker more than 50,000 after he arranged for his multimillion-pound French Riviera villa to be burgled over an unpaid 8,000 bill.

Ivan Ritossa and his lawyer wife Marina said Bruce Pearce had arranged for their sprawling holiday villa in the Cote d'Azur to be broken into 'as an act of spite' in November 2019.

The couple, whose main home is a 10million Chelsea mansion, claimed the Sidcup-based CCTV installer felt he had been 'shafted' over his bill after putting in a security system at their holiday home.

Central London County Court heard that after being hired to install the security system at their villa in exclusive celebrity hangout St Jean Cap Ferrat, Mr Pearce organised or carried out a burglary himself, having developed an 'irrational animosity' towards Mrs Ritossa.

The couple sued Mr Pearce and his company Elegant Integration Ltd for 58,592.43 in damages, plus lawyers' costs of over 145,000.

Mr Pearce denied the 'outlandish and speculative' claim and countersued for payment of his 7,820.16 final invoice.

Judge David Saunders has now awarded Mr Pearce just over 3,000 in relation to his unpaid bills, but ordered him to pay his clients over 50,000 in damages - plus their lawyer costs - after finding on the balance of probabilities that he was behind the burglary.

A former senior executive at Barclays, Mr Ritossa carved out a career as one of the world's top bankers and has been credited with transforming and modernising Barclays' foreign exchange arm.

The couple, who live in a 10m London townhouse in exclusive Carlyle Square, once owned one of Australia's most expensive houses, a beachside mansion in Sydney valued at $45m a decade ago.

Ivan Ritossa, who is one of the world's top bankers and his lawyer wife Marina (pictured together) claimed Mr Pearce had arranged for their sprawling holiday villa in the Cote d'Azur in France to be broken into 'as an act of spite' on November 30, 2019

Sidcup-based CCTV installer Bruce Pearce (pictured) felt he had been 'shafted' over his bill after fitting a security system

Central London County Court heard that after being hired to install the security system at their villa in exclusive celebrity hangout St Jean Cap Ferrat (pictured), Mr Pearce organised or carried out a burglary himself, having developed an 'irrational animosity' towards Mrs Ritossa following clashes over his bills

The couple's barrister, James Wibberley, told Judge David Saunders that the row centred on their holiday home, L'Aniram du Cap, in St Jean Cap Ferrat, France.

The property on the Cote d'Azur boasts extensive grounds, a pool, a main house and separate cottage, where the family are looked after by three members of staff when they visit, Mrs Ritossa told the court.

Mr Wibberley told the court that there was 'a break-in at the claimants' property in France over the weekend of 30 November 2019 where the security system and other items supplied and/or installed by the defendants were damaged and/or stolen.'

'The claimants believe that the break-in was perpetrated by - or on behalf of - the defendants as an act of spite following Mrs Ritossa's refusal to pay Mr Pearce's final invoices,' he explained.

He told the judge that, after hiring Mr Pearce in 2018 to install the security system, relations 'deteriorated', with Mrs Ritossa complaining the work had not been completed and the system did not function correctly.

Mr Pearce for his part refused to carry out any more work until he had been paid up front.

In November 2019, the break-in occurred and Mr Pearce emailed the couple shortly afterwards, saying he would not be doing any more work for them.

The barrister told the judge that the burglary involved 'the disabling and removal of the security system, door entry system and Sonance speakers supplied and/or installed by the defendants'.

'Nothing was taken except items installed by Mr Pearce,' he said.

'The intruder was also able to remotely access, disable and delete the library of CCTV recordings.

'The claimants believe that the break-in was committed by Mr Pearce and/or a person or persons acting under his direction.

The couple live in a 10million London townhouse in exclusive Carlyle Square in Chelsea, London (pictured)

'It is the claimants' case that Mr Pearce was the only person capable of erasing the direct evidence of the perpetrator committing the break in.'

Rowan Pennington-Benton, representing Mr Pearce, denied the claim, saying that there was no direct evidence to suggest Mr Pearce was behind the raid.

'Mr Pearce vehemently and wholeheartedly denies this and views this claim as an unmeritorious, intimidatory tactic by wealthy property owners who have wrongly formed the view that he has broken into their property,' he said.

'He understands they are angry but maintains that they are simply wrong and should not have pursued him in this way. Mr Pearce is a hard-working trader of modest means.

'It is incredible and implausible that Mr Pearce engineered a complicated intrusion and burglary in a foreign country over an unpaid invoice,' he said.

But ruling in favour of the couple, Judge Saunders said: 'In the usual course of events, and indeed specifically in relation to this case, the claimants have an uphill task in discharging the burden that is upon them in circumstances where, as they accept, there is no direct evidence of the defendants' involvement in the burglary.'

Ivan Ritossa and his wife once owned one of Australia's most expensive houses, a beachside mansion in Sydney, valued at $45m a decade ago. Mr Ritossa lived next door to David Coe's Coolong Road home (pictured)

But he went on to say that the evidence showed 'that the equipment stolen and damaged at the property was solely that installed by the defendants, nothing else was taken, and that the wires linking the cameras were neatly cut,' suggesting 'this was carried out by someone upset with the Ritossas rather than being a straightforward burglary'.

When he was informed what had happened, 'despite being made aware of a significant problem involving a major customer, Mr Pearce did not actively participate in trying to resolve the problem, simply saying 'OMG, that's s**t'.

'He did not make any enquiry as to what exactly had happened or seek to contact Mrs Ritossa immediately or in any way to offer help. In short, he did nothing.'

Mr Pearce's 'surprising lack of interest' in the break in showed an attitude which the judge said 'is consistent with the claimants' theory that he was, by this time, fully aware of the break in and was keeping out of sight.'

'I am also surprised that the defendants have not produced any evidence - apart from that of Mr Pearce himself - to rebut any suggestion that he was capable of carrying out or instructing a burglary during the weekend of the 30th November 2019.

'For example, he could have obtained witness statements from neighbours, friends, or anyone he was in contact with during that weekend to show that he was otherwise engaged. There is nothing.

The court heard that when Mr Pearce was informed what had happened 'he did not make any enquiry as to what exactly had happened or seek to contact Marina Ritossa (pictured) immediately or in any way to offer help. In short, he did nothing'

'No one has been able to answer the all-encompassing question of why only the CCTV and related equipment was stolen and nothing else. In that respect, it is also notable that a significant and expensive wine store, which I accept was unlocked, as described by Mrs Ritossa, was left untouched together with a large set of binoculars looking out to sea. No one entered the property itself.

'It is, of course, a possibility that these were intruders who were disturbed and that they fled the scene in fear of being discovered, but in my view that is a less likely scenario for the reasons set out above.

'The defendants started this trial in a relatively strong position in that there is no direct evidence that they, or anyone instructed by them, carried out the burglary.

'I can, in the usual course of events, accept that sometimes events happen by coincidence.

'However, in this case, there is more than one coincidence. In fact, there are several and they are all appear to be linked.

'The evidence leads me to conclude that, in so far as the events of the burglary are concerned, it is more probable than not that this was carried out by Mr Pearce or someone acting in accordance with his instructions,' he concluded, ordering Mr Pearce and his company to pay 47,866.94 in damages, plus 3254.00 in respect of a small claim relating to work on the couple's the London property.

He also ordered him to pay the couple's legal costs, which were said to be about 145,000 during the trial.

He awarded Mr Pearce 3,002.39 for an unpaid invoice to be offset against the damages he must pay.
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Police are scouring Katie Price's phone to see if she breached a restraining order with her family and friends fearing her future 'looks bleak' - as she avoided being jailed today after paying 7,350 driving fines at the last minute.

The reality TV star and ex-glamour model, 43, was arrested on Friday on suspicion of breaching her restraining order after she allegedly branded her ex-husband Kieran Hayler's fiancee Michelle Penticost a 'gutter sl*g' in 'abusive messages'.

She was released after a 12-hour interrogation, though not before officers confiscated her phone, which they are now examining for evidence.

Price, who was handed a five-year restraining order forbidding her from contacting Ms Penticost directly or indirectly in 2019 after hurling a 'tirade of abuse' at her, could now face up to five years in prison if she is charged and found guilty.

She also dodged a potential jail term today after 7,300 fines she owed for driving offences were paid. Price had been listed to appear at Crawley Magistrates' Court on Monday over non-payment of 7,358 in fines dating back to January 2019.

However, on Monday morning court staff confirmed the fines had been paid and Price was no longer expected in court. She had been issued with a court summons after magistrates heard she had failed to pay back a single penny of her fines.

The Loose Women star was even facing a possible jail sentence for non-payment before paying the fines in full. Price has been banned from driving seven times in the last 10 years for speeding, drink driving and driving while disqualified.

At her last court hearing the mother-of-five was warned she faced an immediate prison sentence if she stepped out of line. District Judge Amanda Kelly said: 'If you put a foot wrong in the weeks and months ahead then you will certainly go to prison.'

At the hearing her solicitor, Joe Harrington, Price's finances were so 'disorganised and chaotic' that a 7.50 toll for using the Dart Crossing had escalated into a 1,400 debt due to her failure to deal with it.

A source close to her family told The Sun their fears about the reality star's future and said that they wanted her to go back into rehab: 'Katie's been having a tough time recently and her behaviour in the past couple of weeks has become slightly erratic.

'She has been lashing out on social media and even had a pop at Peter Andre's wife Emily MacDonagh and claimed she'd stopped her daughter from visiting her in rehab.

'Her family wanted her to go back into the Priory for a while to get past her demons as she's done so well previously when she had been there. However this isn't something Katie wanted to do.

'They know how lucky she was that she didn't go to prison. Her family is distraught. They want to do everything they can to help and protect Katie. But this time if the accusations are correct, she really hasn't helped herself and the situation is looking bleak.'

Ex-glamour model Katie Price has been pictured today being driven around by fiance Carl Woods after her arrest on Friday

The 43-year-old was arrested on suspicion of breaching her restraining order after she allegedly branded her ex-husband Kieran Hayler's fiancee Michelle Penticost (pictured together) a 'gutter sl*g' in 'abusive messages', MailOnline revealed yesterday

The reality star posted a defiant message on Instagram yesterday, saying she 'still has her sparkle and drive' after she was released on bail from Worthing police station.

In her Instagram post, Price wrote: 'I still have my sparkle and drive, looking forward to this week big announcement coming so excited.'

Sussex Police said a woman in her 40s was arrested at a property in Partridge Green, West Sussex at around 12.15am on Friday night. She has been released under investigation.

Katie Price's legal history October 2003 Escaped a speeding charge on a technicality after cops failed to arrest her within 12 weeks. Her Range Rover was allegedly clocked at 70mph in a 40mph zone. Also in October, charges against Price, for an alleged assault in a nightclub, were dropped when police failed to arrest her within 12 weeks. June 5, 2008 Given three penalty points, fined 200 and ordered to pay 80 costs at Feltham magistrates' court for talking on her mobile phone while driving on April 18. January 7, 2009 Let off on a legal technicality by Brighton magistrates after allegedly breaking a 30mph limit and not providing the identity of the driver to police. July 7, 2010 Convicted in her absence by Crawley magistrates after cameras caught her speeding at 99 mph on September 16, 2009. Her lawyer argued she was only speeding because she was being hounded by the paparazzi, but police said there were no other speeding vehicles around. She was fined 250, ordered to pay 500 prosecution costs and given four points on her licence. September 28, 2010 Convicted at Mid-Sussex Magistrates' Court for failing to be in proper control of her 7.5-ton lurid pink horsebox after veering into another lane in Sussex on February 19. She was fined 1,000, ordered to pay 650 court costs and a 15 victim surcharge and given three points on her licence, taking her tally to 10. December 1, 2010 Banned from driving ban for six months after she was caught on speed camera travelling at 83mph in a 70mph zone on the A23 in Pyecombe, West Sussex on 10 December 2009. Ms Price, who did not attend the hearing, pleaded guilty to the charge. In her absence, she was fined 1,000 and given three penalty points on her license (taking her total at that time to 13 points). This took her over the 12-point limit and brought an automatic six-month driving ban and so she was disqualified from driving for six months. August 31, 2012 Barred from driving on the roads for 12 months, after failing to respond to two speeding tickets. She had been caught speeding in London on September 5 and September 6 2011. The glamour model argued that all of her post was dealt with by her mother and she had never seen the prosecution warnings. Ms Price, who already had six points on her licence at the time, was given six more and banned for 12 months. She was also fined 400. February 16, 2018 Banned from driving for six months after doing 60mph on the 50mph A24. She already had points on her license. Following the incident in Dial Post, West Sussex in 2017, Ms Price failed to tell police when the speeding ticket arrived and was charged with failing to provide details about the person driving. She failed to show up at magistrates' court and was given a six-month ban and a 750 fine. July 28, 2018 In July she was was questioned by police after photographs emerged of her getting behind the wheel of her car while still banned from the road. Pictures revealed Ms Price driving her grey Ford Fiesta home from Gatwick with her youngest kids Jett, aged four, and Bunny, aged three. She handed herself into police and took to Instagram to insist that she thought the ban was over - but as soon as she realised it wasn't, confessed her wrongdoing to authorities to avoid a 'guilty conscience.' September 26, 2018 Crashed her 63,000 Ranger Rover on September 26, while allegedly on her mobile phone. The crash was reported to the police. Marketing executive Katie Pugh, 23, told MailOnline that the troubled star rear-ended her Mercedes as they were stuck in traffic on the A3 in Roehampton, Surrey. Pugh said she looked up into her rear-view mirror and noticed Ms Price appearing to be looking at her phone moments before the collision at around 5.30PM on September 26. October 10, 2018 Arrested on suspicion of drink-driving in the earlier hours of the morning on October 10, after being found by police in her garish pink Range Rover in Woolwich, East London. Ms Price had allegedly been partying with ex-boyfriend Kris Boyson helping him celebrate his 30th birthday when her car ended up hitting a parked car. She took a roadside breath test and was taken to Plumstead Police station where she was released after a night in the cells. Ms Price was then photographed driving her car without wearing her seatbelt, just 36 hours after her drink driving arrest - an infraction that carries a 100 fine. December 2018 Charged by postal requisition over her drink-driving charge January 2019 Caught driving while disqualified, and was given another three months. February 2019 Served a further three month ban after being convicted of drink-driving in October 2018. June 2019 Price is fined after shouting abuse at ex-Hayler's girlfriend Michelle Penticost in a school playground, in Shipley, West Sussex. Price was issued with a five-year restraining order against her and ordered to pay 606 in fines and court costs. Autumn 2019 Issued with her sixth ban - a two-year disqualification - which she appealed. It was reduced to 18 months. March 2021 Gets behind the wheel of boyfriend Carl Wood's Range Rover weeks before her 18-month ban is lifted. Questioned by police over the matter September 28 : Ms Price is allegedly hospitalised and arrested for drink-driving after being involved in an early hours crash. : Ms Price is allegedly hospitalised and arrested for drink-driving after being involved in an early hours crash. Advertisement

A spokesman added a report had been made at 5.45pm on Friday in relation to an alleged breach of a restraining order.

Later on Saturday, Katie Price was seen being driven out of Worthing Police station by her fiance Carl Woods and has been pictured being driven around again today.

She was seen on the back seat of a Mercedes, with her hand on the headrest, as her fiance drove the vehicle.

Price, who lives in 'Mucky Mansion', is banned from contacting Mr Hayler's girlfriend Michelle Penticost either directly or indirectly under the terms of a five-year restraining order imposed in 2019 after she verbally abused her in a primary school playground.

Price admitted in 2019 to verbally abusing Ms Penticost and her friend Andrea Quigley after young children and a teacher witnessed her hurling a 'tirade of abuse' including shouting 'f****** c***' multiple times at both women.

According to the Sentencing Council the maximum sentence for breaching the protective order is five years in prison.

Miss Penticost is understood to have contacted Sussex Police on Friday to complain that Price had sent Mr Hayler 'abusive' messages aimed at her.

Sources claimed the messages branded Miss Penticost a 'gutter sl*g' and a 'c***ing we piece of s***', according to The Sun.

They added: 'The words were absolutely vile.'

Mr Hayler and his fiancee were understood to have been interviewed by police in their home before Price was taken into custody. She has been released under investigation.

Miss Penticost, 39, was said to have been left 'devastated and threatened' following the alleged messages.

A spokeswoman for Mr Hayler told The Sun: 'We can confirm that an incident took place on Friday after which Michelle was left distressed by a tirade of abusive insults and threats.'

Ex-glamour model Price, 43, has accused her estranged husband, 34, of sexually assaulting a person.

Mr Hayler, a former stripper, has angrily denied the 'false' allegations' and vowed to co-operate with police.

'At 5.45pm on Friday (21 January) police responded to a report that a suspect had breached their restraining order,' a force spokesman said.

'Officers arrested a woman in her 40s who has been released under investigation while inquiries continue.'

MailOnline has approached representatives for Price and Mr Hayler for comment.

Mr Hayler's fiancee Miss Penticost, 39, shared a cryptic message on Instagram which read: 'Normal people don't go around destroying other human beings.' She also shared the hashtag 'restrainingorder'.

Price claims that she went to police before the divorce  but suggests that the alleged victim has now come forward herself.

Sussex Police says Mr Hayler has not been arrested and described the alleged victim as a 'girl', who was under the age of 16 in 2016.

The force confirmed that they had received allegations of a sexual assault which they are investigating.

'No arrest has been made at present. The girl is receiving support from specially trained officers'.

Mr Hayler's spokesman previously told the Mirror: 'Kieran is absolutely devastated by these untrue allegations and has requested to meet the investigating officer as soon as possible to clear his name.

'He is certain that these allegations are false and have been fabricated by a third party in an act of revenge.

'He will fight to clear his name and moreover for those responsible to be brought to justice.'

A source close to Mr Hayler added to The Sun: 'Police have been in touch with Kieran regarding an allegation from 2016, which is believed to have been made by Katie. It relates to someone they knew while they were married.

'Kieran is co-operating and insists he has done nothing wrong  but he's happy to speak to the cops about it.

'He just wants to move on from his marriage to Katie.'

Earlier this month, Katie Price claimed that 'traumatic' events led to her driving while drunk, banned and high on cocaine and she feels 'ashamed' of herself after narrowly avoiding jail last month.

The former glamour model, 43, was handed a 16-week suspended sentence and two-year driving ban for flipping her uninsured BMW X5 into a hedge while disqualified and under the influence on a country lane near her home in West Sussex on September 28.

Speaking on Tuesday's Good Morning Britain in her first TV appearance since her sentencing, the mother-of-five insisted that 2022 was going to be a 'year of no dramas' and revealed she's currently doing Dry January (staying sober for the month) to kickstart the year, as she's 'not a big drinker anyway'.

Appearing via video link alongside son Harvey, 19, she was probed about nearly ending up in jail for her latest arrest, to which she said: 'The events were really traumatic.

'It's been traumatic after, so I'm not ready to talk about it yet. But what I will say is that I went to the Priory and I've made the decision finally to see a therapist every week, forever, to deal with the traumatic events that led me to getting into that car.

In her Instagram post, Price wrote: 'I still have my sparkle and drive, looking forward to this week big announcement coming so excited'

Price (pictured on Sunsday) was arrested on Friday after allegedly breaching a restraining order by texting her ex-husband's fiancee

Price was released from a police station in Worthing on Saturday while inquiries into an alleged breach are ongoing. Pictured: Price was seen inside a car at a petrol station on Sunday

Carl Woods is seen driving Katie Price around Sussex this morning for the first time since she was arrested for allegedly breaking a restraining order

Messages were alleged to have called her vile names, as seen in mocked-up picture above

'I'm very good at hiding things but when I'm ready to talk about it then I will come on to talk. There's reasons why I got in that car and my mental state but when I'm ready I will.

'I feel ashamed about it all. There are reasons that I am still dealing with now. It's a new year but I'm still dealing with it, people shouldn't judge people, there's always reasons for things.'

Katie escaped with a suspended prison sentence because she complied with a requirement to attend the 6,800-a-week rehab centre - despite going out shopping while staying at the facility.

The former glamour model was told by a judge that she deserved to spend Christmas behind bars after committing her ninth motoring offence.

Following her court appearance, Katie released a statement saying she is 'incredibly sorry' and 'sincerely grateful nobody was hurt'.

Drink-driving campaigners said they were 'gobsmacked' by the 'unbelievable' sentence, but the judge said Katie would avoid going to jail because she completed a stint at celebrity rehab clinic The Priory and stayed out of trouble.

Yet Katie has vowed to move on with her life, and looking ahead to the rest of the year, Katie said on GMB: '2022 is my year, 22 is my lucky number. My birthday. The main box on Deal or No Deal. This has to be my year of no dramas.'

Katie shares Harvey with Dwight Yorke, Junior, 16, and Princess, 14, with Peter Andre and Jett, eight, and Bunny, seven with Kieran Hayler, yet wants to expand her family.

She added: 'Babies, marriage, this year I want it all. I've definitely found the one in Carl [Woods, her fiance] and we will get married.

'It will be in England, because of the family, my mum is terminally ill and can't travel. So I'd never get married unless my mum was there.'

Katie's mother Amy was diagnosed with Idopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis in 2017. The condition scars the lungs and makes it difficult to breathe - there is currently no cure.

Katie Price (pictured in December) was arrested after she allegedly branded Kieran Hayler's fiancee a 'gutter sl*g'

Price's ex Kieran Hayler pictured for the first time since allegations that he assaulted a woman on three occasions in 2016

Pictured: Katie Price seen leaving Worthing police station today

Police are to question Price's ex-husband Mr Hayler over historic sexual assault allegations relating to another woman they both knew

The TV personality also took time out to discuss her new book Harvey And Me, about her eldest child, who has been diagnosed with septo-optic dysplasia, diabetes insipidus, ADHD and autism.

Speaking about his recent move to a residential college, Katie explained: 'A massive change is him being separated. A lot of people in my situation understand the anxiety of being parted. And he's three hours away now. So I can't just pop in and see him.

'But how he's coped without me - I'm still seeing him every weekend - but it's a new place, new people and how he fits in with that. It's challenging, but they're getting to know Harvey very well. He's not easy with his complex needs and behaviour.

'It's still challenging and we're still getting used to it.

Asking Harvey his thoughts on college, the teenager responded: 'It's really great and fantastic mummy.'

Katie concluded: 'There's so much we haven't covered; I'd love to come in and chat more. But just to let everyone know I am in a good headspace.'

Katie's interview was her first since receiving her suspended prison sentence last month.

The crash happened on September 28, with police arresting Katie on the scene before taking her to hospital.

Tests showed the television personality had 66 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath - nearly double the legal limit of 35mcg.

She also tested positive for cocaine on a wipe. An image shared by police from the scene showed a car flipped on its side, and after the crash her family expressed concern for her wellbeing.
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An iconic British Airways 747 jet which was retired due to the pandemic was then bought for 1 and converted into a posh 'party plane' which is available to hire for 1,000 an hour.

Bosses at Cotswolds Airport spent 500,000 converting the huge jet into an events space where people can host their weddings, product launches and work functions at the privately owned airport in Gloucestershire with a couple already booked in to get married at the venue in the springtime.

The company has preserved the majority of the plane as a museum piece and will host tours for members of the public as well as educational visits for local schools.

The BA Negus was removed from the company's fleet after completing its last flight in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the travel industry.

The aircraft is now being preserved at the site near Cirencester and was bought for just 1. Its new owners said the extensive work to convert the plane has since been a labour of love as it nears completion and is soon to be ready for the public.

Airport chief executive Suzannah Harvey said: 'I paid a pound for her, and we have a certain obligation to maintain it as is practical for public use.

An iconic British Airways 747 jet (pictured) which was retired due to the pandemic was then bought for 1 by airport bosses and converted into a posh 'party plane' which is available to hire for 1,000 an hour at Cotswolds Airport in Gloucestershire

The company removed much of the economy class seating and luggage storage areas to create a unique events space

Inside the plane: The former galley has been converted into a bar and there is also a large dance floor with specialised lighting

'The company has had to spend nearly 500,000 getting her prepped and ready here, but I think it's money well spent and it preserves her for future generations.'

Most of the original structure has stayed the same but the transformation has included stripping out the economy section to create the events space and turning the galley has been changed into a bar.

A full rewiring with custom lighting has been done while it also took one man a whole week and a half to give it a good clean inside and out.

Suzannah added: 'It's been a long old slog. She came into us in October 2020, and at the time I rather naively thought we'd have her up and running by the following Easter.

'We've had such tremendous support from everybody. All the contractors, all the people that have volunteered who are current BA 747 engineers - and here we are finally. She's ready and she's good to go.'

Airport bosses spent more than 500,000 converting the iconic plane which was retired due to the impact of the pandemic

The company said it is hoping to open the plane to the public for tours and visits in early March and will also host local schools

The Negus entered the British Airways fleet on 15 February 1994, operating 13,398 flights - flying for 118,445 hours over nearly 60 million miles.

Its last passenger flight was from Miami to Heathrow on 6 April, 2020.

Anyone now wanting to host a party onboard will have to pay more than 1,000 an hour but Suzannah said they had been inundated with enquiries - including from Netflix.

Suzannah added: 'The vision has finally come to fruition, with overwhelming support from volunteers including current BA engineers and half a million pounds of investment later, Negus 747 is finally ready.

'Preserved for many years to come and future generations, Negus is the only bespoke events 747 in the world.'

Cotswold Airport is family owned and operated and is the largest privately owned airport in Europe having a runway only 2m shorter than Bristol International.

Suzannah said an app will soon be launched to enable the general public to book tours of the aircraft.
A career criminal who torched his getaway car after a police chase was recognised on CCTV - thanks to his 'distinctive' bald patch.

Malcolm Jones, 61, sparked a pursuit at 12pm on April 7 last year after he was seen dropping off a known addict outside her home - in a vehicle which police believed had been used to supply drugs.

He dodged authorities by driving at up to 50mph past a funeral procession but lost control and ploughed into a parked Mercedes before setting fire to his VW T-Roc 4x4 in Wigan, Greater Manchester, to avoid detection.

But officers who played back footage of the arson instantly realised the culprit was Jones due to his 'distinctive hairline,' Bolton Crown Court heard.

The incriminating film showed him putting on a hooded jacket in a bid to disguise himself but police had already spotted his tell-tale shiny pate.

They discovered Jones was also on licence from prison after being freed early from a four year stretch for firearms offences.

Jones admitted arson and dangerous driving and was jailed for two years. He was also banned from driving for a year which will start when he is released from prison.

Malcolm Jones admitted arson and dangerous driving and was jailed for two years. He was also banned from driving for a year which will start when he is released from prison

Sentencing Judge Tom Gilbart told him: 'Driving in the way you did was selfish and you posed a risk to others in an attempt to evade detection. The car was burnt out by the fire and setting it was a nakedly dangerous and stupid thing to do.'

Jennifer Devans-Tamakloe, prosecuting, had said: 'The officers had previously stopped the vehicle and the driver was the defendant and they did this as they believed it was being used to supply drugs in the area.

'They followed the VW and pulled up behind it but the vehicle drove away leaving the woman at the roadside. Police activated the sirens but the defendant accelerated past the access to a shopping precinct, mounted a kerb and squeezed past another vehicle.

'The car was being driven at speed of up to 50mph and eventually he lost control on a bend and ploughed into a parked Mercedes causing damage to the wheel arch of the VW.

'He drove on and contravened a red light but at that time a funeral cortege was present with 80 mourners and a horse drawn carriage. Some of the mourners scattered as the the defendant sped around the bend and as a result officers called off the pursuit.

'Five minutes later, the officers received information the VW was on fire in a nearby street. Officers located CCTV from a nearby business premises and and identified the defendant setting the vehicle on fire and walking away.

'They could see him because he was recognisable by his hairline which can be seen clearly in the images.'

Malcolm Jones, 61, sparked a pursuit at 12pm on April 7 last year after he was seen dropping off a known addict outside her home - in a vehicle which police believed had been used to supply drugs. He dodged authorities by driving at up to 50mph past a funeral procession but lost control and ploughed into a parked Mercedes before setting fire to his VW T-Roc 4x4 in Wigan, Greater Manchester, to avoid detection

Jones later attended a police station and his home was searched and clothing he was wearing at the time including as blue jumper and a dark coat with hood was seized.

Inquiries revealed he had been loaned the VW by a friend. The car worth around 30,000 pounds was gutted in the incident and insurers are expected not to pay out as it was insured in Jones' name.

Jones had 27 offences on his record including robbery and supplying heroin and cocaine. In 2018 he was jailed for four years and seven months for stored a shotgun in his home which was later used in a farmhouse robbery.

His lawyer Miss Suzanne Payne said in mitigation: 'This was an offence committed on impulse after he was chased by police. He has since reflected on it and says he doesn't know why he set fire to that vehicle. He did not intend to cause serious damage.

'He was released on licence from his previous offence but it was just prior to the country going into lockdown. He had just come out of an enclosed environment and was only free for a short time when he again found himself in an enclosed space due to the lockdown.

'He has struggled with his mental health during that period and at the time of this offence he was at an all time low. When he saw the police he panicked but cannot offer any further explanation for what he did. No one was hurt but he accepts what he did was dangerous and unforgiveable.'
Teenagers are being questioned about their sexuality when they apply for free bus passes in the latest 'intrusive' SNP scheme.

Youngsters aged over 16 are being asked if they are gay, straight or bisexual in a survey  with the chance of winning up to 250 of shopping vouchers.

They are also quizzed about their gender, with an option to state that they are 'non-binary' as part of a detailed questionnaire.

The 132million scheme offers free travel to all people in Scotland aged 22 or under in a bid to encourage them to use public transport.

Youngsters aged over 16 are being asked if they are gay, straight or bisexual in a survey to get a Scottish bus pass. Pictured: Nicola Sturgeon on the BBC's Sunday Morning programme

The disclosure comes amid a row over a schools survey that asked S4 to S6 pupils about their sexual experiences in a 'census' of their health and wellbeing.

The Transport Scotland survey has sparked a backlash from parents and campaigners.

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute, which has almost 10,000 members in Scotland, said: 'The Scottish Government seems obsessed with asking intrusive questions and collecting sensitive personal information.

'Rather than hoovering up sensitive personal data and appealing to some special interest groups while ignoring others, surely they should just focus on ensuring everybody gets better public services?'

SNP ministers hope the scheme will prevent youngsters from having to turn down potential job opportunities or college places because of where they live.

Youngsters who complete the 'short travel survey' have 'a chance to win' up to 250 in shopping vouchers. The sexuality question asks: 'Which of the following best describes your sexual orientation?' Answers include: straight/heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual, other (please specify), or prefer not to say'.

On gender, recipients are asked: 'What gender are you?' The possible answers are: male, female, trans, non-binary, other, or 'prefer not to say'.

The survey has been sent out by local authorities to people who applied for the bus pass. A link to it has also been widely distributed online, including on the website of youth organisation Young Scot.

In some cases, the email has been sent to parents who applied on behalf of their children.

A parent in Argyll and Bute, who forwarded the email to the Mail, said: 'Why on earth are they interested in such intimate details  it's just a bus pass. It is very sinister.'

The email says: 'We would be grateful if parents/guardians of younger children (ie those aged five-15), or young people aged 12-21 themselves, could complete this short travel survey.'

Wellside Research and consultancy Stantec have been commissioned to conduct the survey.

The email states that 'all data will be treated confidentially and anonymously'.

It adds: 'To allow for changes to be identified, Transport Scotland may also share anonymised data with other research partners in the future.'

The row comes as schoolchildren are quizzed about their sexual habits under a separate scheme One of the school survey questions  aimed at pupils in S4 and S6  asks: 'People have varying degrees of sexual experience. How much, if any, sexual experience have you had?'

Commenting on the bus pass survey, Dr Stuart Waiton, a sociology lecturer at Abertay University in Dundee, said there was currently 'a strange, almost fetish-like concern' with LGBT issues within government.

A Catholic Church spokesman said: 'It is surely time for the Government and its agencies to stop obsessing over young people's sexuality.'

A Transport Scotland spokesman said: 'The question on sexual orientation applies only to young people aged 16 and over and there is an option not to answer.

'We want to understand if there are any barriers for young people from protected characteristics accessing public transport.

'Our initial research identified LGBTQ+ young people might be less inclined to use the bus for fear of homophobic and transphobic harassment.'

Why DOES the SNP seem so obsessed with the sex lives of our teenagers?

Commentary by JO BISSET, parents' campaigner

After the two years Scottish children have endured, you would think the SNP-Green Government might want to think about making things better for them.

That could involve a cast-iron guarantee that schools will never close again, the lifting of face mask rules in class or fresh investment in sport and arts facilities.

If our leaders were feeling ambitious, they could even aspire to restoring Scotland's reputation as a world leader in education, an accolade that has been allowed to slip shamefully far in recent decades.

Instead, the issue this Government appears to want to be defined by is the grilling of children about their sexual preferences and experiences.

The deceptively dubbed 'health and wellbeing' survey has rightly been panned by parents and politicians across the board.

Even SNP-run local authorities are refusing to issue it to children in their area, in clear defiance of their national masters.

Now we learn that a seemingly innocuous survey on teenagers' use of bus passes is being used to probe the private lives of our young people.

Parents are wondering why the Scottish Government has become so obsessed about this topic. They think it is sinister, unnecessary and haven't been given anything resembling a reasonable explanation for why it is happening.

Having led a parents' group during a period where Scotland's children have been treated appallingly at the altar of corona-virus restrictions, I have seen a fair few upset and desperate families at the very end of their tether.

I didn't think anything could match the anger which was caused by the cancellation of exams for two consecutive years, the sporadic and catastrophic closure of schools for months on end, or the treatment of disabled and deaf children for whom a compulsory face mask was humiliating and exclusionary.

But these needless sex-based quizzes have come pretty close. It's not a political issue either  parents on every side of Scotland's constitutional and political divide share equal levels of disdain for this peculiar development.

The official line that gay and lesbian young people may be put off using public transport seems insincere and unconvincing.

And as we're seeing all too often with politicians through this pandemic, it's clearly a 'one rule for us, another one for everyone else' approach.

After all, when challenged in a Freedom of Information request, senior government figures declined to answer the very questions being posed to youngsters.

Too sensitive for them, but seemingly fair game for schoolboys and girls across the country. The latest revelations merely mirror a wider trend which is troubling mums and dads across Scotland.

Even parents of children in the early stages of primary school have raised concerns that there is too much sexual education being injected into the curriculum at too young an age  although no one is saying there's not a place for such lessons in the curriculum full stop.

Recently, the Scottish Government finally admitted that the closure of the country's schools did more harm than good to young people.

Ministers conceded that the wider educational, developmental and social harms caused 'are becoming more of a concern than the immediate health harms, particularly for children and young people'. Thousands of parents across Scotland could have told them this 18 months ago. We did, and were branded 'cranks' in the process.

Don't be surprised if Scottish Government ministers belatedly reach the same conclusion about these intrusive and utterly unwanted sex surveys.

They should do us all a favour by withdrawing them right now and focusing instead on actual topics of education such as literacy, numeracy, sciences and languages. That's an agenda we could all get behind, and one which will actually support our young people when they need and deserve it the most.

n Jo Bisset is an organiser for parents' group UFT Scotland
A senior engineer in the Royal Navy has been locked up after he sparked a drunken punch up in a Chinese takeaway when a fellow sailor mocked his choice of noodles.

Petty Officer Kris Cullerton hit colleague Zeek Bowen inside the takeaway after he was told his choice of a 7 vermicelli was 'a bit heavy after a night out', a court martial heard.

The Air Engineering Technician (AET) told a military court he ended up with a bloody nose and swollen lip after his superior became 'aggressive' towards him and his colleague Shaun Bush.

AET Bowen said PO Cullerton called him a 'smart a**e' and hit him, leaving his lip swollen and the facemask he was wearing 'drenched' in blood.

The 33-year-old denied any physical contact had taken place, but he was found guilty of one count of battery.

PO Cullerton now faces 90 days in military custody where a judge said he must address his 'easy resort to violence' and 'relationship with alcohol'.

Petty Officer Kris Cullerton (pictured) faces 90 days in military custody after he hit his colleague Zeek Bowen, who told him his choice of a 7 vermicelli was 'a bit heavy after a night out', a court martial heard

Bulford Military Court, Wiltshire, heard he has five previous convictions, two of ABH and three of battery - one of which included pushing a bouncer in a nightclub in 2018.

Although he retains his rank of Petty Officer, the judge warned it acts as an 'incentive' to 'prove that he can live up to his rank' and he faces a 'severe reprimand' if he comes before the court again.

The trial had heard that on October 2 last year, the sailors had gone to the Dolphin Inn and the Bull pub in Ilchester, Somerset, while stationed at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, also known as HMS Heron.

The court was told PO Cullerton - a Senior Air Engineering Technician - drank up to eight pints of beer and admitted he was 'drunk' when he went to the nearby Chinese takeaway, the Peking Chef.

AET Bowen and AET Bush were already there waiting for their order.

A military court heard AET Bowen made a comment about PO Cullerton's choice of food at Peking Chef (pictured), in Ilchester, before PO Cullerton 'whacked' him in the face

After AET Bowen made the comment about PO Cullerton's choice of food, the senior sailor began 'screaming in his face' and 'whacked' his friend in the face, the court was told.

AET Bush told the court: 'He was mumbling to himself and uneasy on his feet. He started screaming in my face but I could not work out what he was saying. I was just in shock.

'It looked like an open hand whack to the face.'

The court heard PO Cullerton, a married man and father from Sunderland, was then locked outside the takeaway before he left, noodles in hand.

After returning to base, the young engineers made a complaint to the Royal Navy's police force and PO Cullerton was interviewed and he claimed only a verbal disagreement had happened in the takeaway.

The court martial heard claims PO Cullerton, whose career spans more than 14 years, had then accosted the sailors in the street. However, he was found not guilty of three charges of battery relating to those allegations.

At Bulford Military Court, PO Cullerton was handed 90 days in military custody which he will spend in the military corrective training centre and he must pay AET Bowen 250.

Sentencing him, Judge Jane England said: 'You heard one of them make a comment which you took great exception to and you overreacted.

'You shouted and swore and then struck him hard enough to cause a nose bleed and a fat lip.

'You must learn: if it makes you lose your temper, you need to modify your drinking as it is not the first time it has got you in trouble.

'In 2018, you were given a 28 day suspended sentence for nine months but that has not had an affect on you because you are here again.'

Judge England told PO Cullerton it was significant that AET Bowen was struck by someone 'senior' who he should 'look up to'.

PO Cullerton was handed 90 days in military custody which he will spend in the military corrective training centre and he must pay AET Bowen 250.
A kidnapper has admitted to abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith from an Australian outback campsite and imprisoning her for 18 days.

Terence Darrell Kelly, 36, pleaded guilty to a single charge of taking Cleo from her family's tent at the remote Blowholes campsite near Carnarvon, Western Australia last October.

Police found Cleo alone in a house in Carnarvon 18 days after she went missing. The search for her had captivated the world, and the police who found her wept with relief when she told them, 'My name is Cleo,' when they asked her identity.

Kelly admitted to the abduction during a brief court appearance in Carnarvon in a video link from a Perth prison, 900 kilometer (560 miles) to the south.

He faces a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison on a conviction of forcibly taking a child aged under 16. He will next appear in a Western Australian state District Court in Perth on March 20, where he will eventually be sentenced but ultimately avoid a criminal trial.

Kelly has not entered a plea to other criminal charges he faces, including assaulting a public officer the day after his arrest. Those charges have been adjourned to a later date.

Terence Darrell Kelly (right) has pleaded guilty to abducting four-year-old Cleo Smith (left) in a shock development

Kelly, 36, entered a guilty plea to a single charge of taking Cleo (pictured with her mother Ellie Smith) from her family's tent at the remote Blowholes campsite near Carnarvon last year

Kelly today appeared virtually before magistrate Ben White in Carnarvon, simply uttering 'guilty' when his lawyer said her client was ready to plea to the single charge.

The admission means what was expected to be a drawn-out legal process for Kelly will be considerably curtailed - despite months of preparation by detectives.

The 36-year-old was provided with a statement of alleged facts just before Christmas which is understood to have influenced his plea.

His lawyer Kate Turtley-Chappel said it was important her client plead guilty to the single kidnapping charge as soon as possible.

A sentence mention hearing will be held to determine when Kelly will be sentenced, with details of his activities in relation to the crime to be heard on this date.

Cleo was found alive and well in early November, 18 days after she went missing from the campsite and sparked over two weeks of international interest.

She had woken about 1.30am and asked for water but when her parents got up at 6am the little girl was gone with a land, air and sea search failing to find any trace.

Five days after the four-year-old went missing police announced they believed Cleo had been abducted and offered a $1million (737,000) reward.

Cleo's mother Ellie Smith and stepfather Jake Gliddon appeal for information during her disappearance. Cleo was found alive and well in early November, 18 days after she went missing from the campsite

The impact of the 18-day stint in Kelly's home on not only Cleo but her immediate family will be considered during his sentencing.

He will remain in custody inside a secure cell at Casuarina Prison in Perth and will return on Monday as one of the jail's most high-profile inmates.

Cleo was rescued from a locked property just minutes from her family home on Tonkin Street in the nearby town of Carnarvon, almost 500 miles (895km) north of Perth.

On November 3, police forced entry to the home and found the little girl alone in a room, physically unharmed and playing with toys.

Kelly was arrested on a nearby street around the same time. He is alleged to have acted alone with police stating he had no connection to Cleo's family.

He was shackled and accompanied by armed riot squad guards on a charter flight from Carnarvon to Perth after his first court appearance.

Cleo (pictured with her mother Ellie Smith) was rescued from a property just minutes from her family home on Tonkin Street in the nearby town of Carnarvon, almost 1000km north of Perth

The extra security was put in place after Kelly was twice hospitalised with self-inflicted injuries while in custody.

His guilty plea comes as its revealed Cleo's parents reportedly signed a $2million deal with Channel Nine just weeks after the little girl's abduction.

Her mother Ellie Smith and stepfather Jake Gliddon have agreed to the lucrative deal, which is believed to be an Australian television record.

Reportedly organised by high profile talent agent Max Markson, the deal is expected to include a tell-all interview with 60 Minutes and Nine-owned publication stories.

There is also speculation of a six-part special for its streaming service, Stan and that young Cleo herself may feature in the interviews, The Australian reported.

Kelly's guilty plea comes as its revealed Cleo's parents reportedly signed a $2million deal with Channel Nine just weeks after the little girl's abduction

Nine beat Channel Seven's Spotlight program to secure the deal, despite Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes' personal interest' in the story.

'Nine was scared at the end of the year after they lost their No 1 position  this seems a desperate attempt to regain the mantle  and it won't work,' an inside source told the publication.

Some staff at the network are reportedly horrified by the deal.

'What are the possible consequences of asking this young girl to talk about what happened to her, when we don't know what she went through?' one journalist asked.

'And what are the optics of it as far as the viewing public is concerned?'

The report follows revelations to Daily Mail Australia that Cleo's parents were considering changing her name to stop unwanted attention.

The couple have been seeking advice from other parents whose children have been unwittingly thrust into the spotlight after suffering comparable ordeals.

Police forced entry to the home and found Cleo alone in a well lit room, physically unharmed and playing with toys

Forensics visit the crime scene where Cleo was kept for 18-days after being forcibly removed from her family's tent at the Blowholes campsite

They are asking how young victims of high-profile crimes recovered psychologically, including whether they underwent professional counselling and if their parents considered that process worthwhile.

They are concerned about how their daughter will cope with years of such intense attention, having already been the focus of worldwide publicity in early childhood.

'They're worried about the repercussions of the media and so forth down the track,' a source told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Smith has even raised with friends the possibility of changing Cleo's first and last names in an effort to protect her daughter's identity as she grows into adulthood.

'They're worried about people making the connection later on down the line,' the source said.

Daily Mail Australia understands Western Australian police have encouraged Ms Smith to talk about Cleo's future with the parents of other children who have experienced traumatic events.

'As with all matters such as these, WA Police Force provides ongoing support to families,' a spokeswoman said.

Ms Smith has even raised with friends the possibility of changing Cleo's first and last names in an effort to protect her daughter's identity as she grows into adulthood

Forensic psychologist Tim Watson-Munro told Daily Mail Australia he believed it could be beneficial for Cleo's parents to talk to other families.

'I think it's a great thing as long as people are willing to speak with them,' he said. 'It's like any sort of therapy.

'Those who've been through trauma are often best-placed to speak to others about their experiences and they seem to identify more with it that way.

'They don't have people coming in just from a clinical, academic perspective. They're coming from real-life experiences and it seems to work for people.

'I think it's a great thing that they're doing it, frankly, if it's assisting people.'
Julian Assange today won the first stage of his fight to persuade the U.K. supreme court to consider an appeal against extradition to the US, where he faces a 175-year prison term if found guilty of hacking.

The High Court in London ruled Assange had one arguable point of law that the supreme court may want to consider.

The judges gave the WikiLeaks founder, 50, permission to ask that court to consider an appeal relating to this issue, but said it was up to the justices to decide whether they would hear the case.

The Wikileaks founder is wanted in the US for allegedly conspiring to hack a classified Pentagon computer network to obtain hundreds of thousands of secret files relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

In December, the High Court accepted a US bid to overturn a ban on extraditing Assange. The ban was due to a real and 'oppressive' risk of suicide, but American officials promised not to keep him in punishing isolation at a Supermax prison.

In an attempt to keep him in the UK, Assange's lawyers argued judges had been wrong to accept these assurances when they had not been made at his first extradition hearing in 2019.

Today, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and Lord Justice Holroyde agreed this could be considered by the UK supreme court, and gave Assange's lawyers 14 days to make an application.

Assange's fiancee and the mother of two of his children, Stella Moris, 38, hailed the ruling as a victory, but said Assange was still 'far from achieving justice'.

Assange, 50, is wanted in America in a conspiracy following WikiLeaks' publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents

Speaking outside court today, Assange's fiancee Stella Moris - who has vowed to marry him behind bars - said: 'Our fight goes on, and we'll fight this until Julian is freed'

What did the High Court decide today and does it mean Assange will stay in the UK? What did judges decide today? In December, the High Court accepted a US bid to overturn a ruling that Assange should not be extradited due to a real and 'oppressive' risk of suicide, after American officials promised not to keep him in punishing isolation at a supermax prison. In an attempt to keep him in the UK, Assange's lawyers argued judges had been wrong to accept these assurances when they had not been made at his first extradition hearing in 2019. Today, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and Lord Justice Holroyde agreed this could indeed be a matter worthy of further consideration at the Supreme Court, and gave Assange's lawyers 14 days to make an application. The judges ruled two other points of law put forward by Assange's team were not worthy of further consideration. What does it mean for Assange? He will now be given 14 days to ask the Supreme Court to consider his case, meaning he cannot be extradited to the US while this process takes place. Whether he will be successful or not is another matter, but it means there is still a prospect of him successfully avoiding extradition through the UK court system. Advertisement

Burnett and Holroyde said US assurances about how Assange would be held was now a 'legal question'.

'Assurances [over treatment] are at the heart of many extradition proceedings,' he said.

Burnett said the High Court refused permission to appeal, but the issue whether the case needed to be heard in the Supreme Court 'is a matter appropriately for its decision'.

In a statement after the ruling, Moris, a South African-born lawyer, said: 'What happened in court today is precisely what we wanted to happen.

'The High Court certified that we had raised a point of law of general public importance and that the Supreme Court has good grounds to hear this appeal. The situation now is that the Supreme Court has to decide whether it will hear the appeal but make no mistake, we won today in court.

'But let's not forget that every time we win, as long as this case isn't dropped, as long as Julian isn't freed, Julian continues to suffer.

'For almost three years he has been in Belmarsh prison and he is suffering profoundly, day after day, week after week, year after year. Julian has to be freed and we hope that this will soon end.

'But we are far from achieving justice in this case because Julian has been incarcerated for so long and he should not have spent a single day in prison. If there had been justice, the officials who plotted, who conspired to murder Julian, would be in the courtroom right now.'

She added: 'Our fight goes on and we will fight this until Julian is free.'

Explaining the significance of the ruling, Thomas Garner, an extradition lawyer, told MailOnline: 'Assange may yet have the dubious honor of being the first extradition defendant to secure permission to appeal to the Supreme Court twice.

'When he lost his first challenge  then to a European arrest warrant from Sweden  he sought refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy. There will be no such option this time as he remains in custody.

'The High Court have certified that Assange's case involved a point of law of general public importance, but declined to grant permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

'Assange must now renew his application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court directly and they may still refuse to hear the case, but today's decision keeps his hopes of challenging his extradition to the USA alive.'

Assange has been held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London since 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle.

Ms Moris - who met with campaigners outside the High Court this morning - has announced that she plans to wed Assange behind bars

Assange lawyer Stella Moris is seen with WikiLeaks Editor in Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson (right) by the Royal Courts of Justice today

Before that, he spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador's Embassy in London, after seeking diplomatic protection in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

American prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.

Lawyers for Assange argue that their client shouldn't have been charged because he was acting as a journalist and is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution that guarantees freedom of the press.

They say the documents he published exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Speaking earlier this month, Moris said she working on tying the knot with Assange in the 'difficult setting' at Belmarsh.

'It has been something we have been wanting to do and the ideal circumstances, we don't know if and when they will happen, so we want to be married,' she told The Mirror.

'His young children, ages two and four, have no memory of their father outside the highest security prison of the UK.'
It was reported on Sunday that Joe Biden is eager to defend his Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, in media interviews after he was chastised for pushing the president to the left.

In light of his dearth of press interviews and record-low number of press conferences in his first year in office, it's remarkable that Biden has promised to defend his top aide in interviews with the media.

Ron Klain under pressure as Joe Biden struggles

Biden only held nine news conferences in his first year, compared to five for his immediate predecessors. He only gave the media 22 interviews in his first year as president, compared to six of his immediate predecessors. As Biden's popularity continues to sink as Democrats struggle to enact the president's massive social safety net legislation as well as new voter rights laws, Klain, 60, has recently come under pressure.

Klain, a veteran Democratic insider, has been accused of 'micromanaging' the West Wing, being overly submissive to the party's left-wing, and paying too much attention to television news and social media. This week, two pieces on Klain's work were published, both of which coincided with Biden's first year in office.

The bulk of them come from unnamed sources, most likely because they concern someone in the White House's key chief of staff position. Most of them originate from undisclosed sources. Bret Stephens, a columnist for the New York Times, has also advocated for his dismissal.

On the heels of their on-air appearances in support of Biden and his agenda, a number of Democratic senators have stated they have received surprise phone calls from Biden praising them. According to Politico, moderate Democrats believe that Klain offers too much respect to his liberal colleagues and ought to be removed.

Read Also: Arizona Files Lawsuit Against Joe Biden Administration To Keep School Anti-Mask Rules as Policy Sparks Political Games

Biden refuses to fire chief of staff

There will be no changes in Biden's White House staff, which is an insular group of Democrats that dates back to Biden's time as vice president and/or Biden's time in the Senate.

Biden's 2020 presidential campaign didn't officially begin until Klain had won the nomination. But the two have a long history: when Biden was a senator, Klain was a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and when Biden was vice president, Klain was Biden's chief of staff, according to Mail Online.

A "guaranteed-to-fail vote" on nuking the filibuster was pushed by Sen. Ben Sasse, who said it was only a political tactic to please progressives, and he demanded that President Biden resign his chief of staff, Ron Klain.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised that if Republicans reject the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, the Senate will vote on whether to defy the Senate's 60-vote filibuster, which is anticipated to happen.

Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., also voted against any attempt to abolish the filibuster, which requires a 60-vote majority to pass legislation. "We are going to vote. We are all going to be on the record," Schumer said earlier Tuesday, warning Republicans and Democrats who support the filibuster ahead of impending votes.

Biden's $1.75 trillion package of social safety net programs are being criticized. Build Back Better is being held up by the Senate. It encompasses projects in the areas of child care, health care, and the environment. In addition, Biden's approval rating has plummeted. According to new NBC News and AP-NORC polls, it was just 43% after his first year.

Klain reached out to the party's progressive wing, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal and prominent liberal Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, during Biden's fight to pass his legislative agenda, which included the successful American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure deal, Fox News reported.

Related Article: Joe Biden Praises Kamala Harris on Voting Rights, Commits to Her as Runningmate in 2024 Election Despite Americans' Dissatisfaction with VP

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Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer used the name 'George Fox' during a 2016 hospital visit to a Russian prostitute he was accused of choking at the Plaza Hotel.

Spitzer donned an all-black outfit and a hat when visiting Svetlana Travis-Zakharova in an undisclosed hospital following his alleged attack on the sex worker in the $1,000-a-night room, the New York Post reported.

Security footage reviewed by detectives shows he arrived at 11 p.m. on February 13, 2016 - hours after the alleged choking incident that Travis-Zakharova went on to accuse him of. She later recanted the assault claim.

He also used the 'George Fox' alias when frequenting prostitutes in 2008, according to newly-unearthed court documents obtained by The Post.

Spitzer's trip to see Travis-Zakharova came after the encounter at the tony Manhattan hotel, which culminated in the prostitute slashing her wrists. Court documents show that Spitzer claimed the blood found in the room was because she was on her period, and that he name-dropped former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton to cops probing what had happened in the Plaza room.

Afterwards, the then-25-year-old threatened she would 'make it worse than 2008' for Spitzer, when he resigned as governor over patronizing another prostitute - according to a text exchange between the pair.

Travis-Zakharova, who is said to have charged clients $5,000-a-night for her services, later recanted the charge. Spitzer claimed she was trying to extort him.

Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer (pictured in 2006 with his ex-wife Silda Wall Spitzer) used an alias at a hospital when he went to check on the Russian escort he was accused of choking

Spitzer met Travis-Zakharova 'for a drink' at her $1,000-a-night Plaza Hotel suite on the afternoon of February 13, 2016, according to the preliminary investigation worksheet filed by Sergeant Michael Giuffre on Match 15, 2016.

The Russian escort told Spitzer that she was flying back to Russia the following day, where she would live permanently.

Spitzer left the hotel an hour later, but called her 30 times over the next three hours, with the sergeant writing the former governor was 'threatening her and attempting to prevent her from returning to Russia.'

At 7pm, Spitzer returned to her room where he 'grabbed her by her wrists and threw her back on the bed. While standing over her, the perpetrator placed his [sic] onto her neck/throat and put pressure causing her not to be able to breathe for at least three (3) seconds,' the report said.

Travis-Zakharova, in an effort to 'scare' Spitzer, took a wine glass, broke it and lightly cut herself on her wrist, she told police officers.

The report says that shortly after 8pm, a call to 911 was placed and she was taken to the undisclosed hospital.

Spitzer told detectives who saw blood on the door and wall of the room: 'She is on her period. I just came to help.'

'Thanks for coming. She is fine now. We don't need you anymore,' he said, adding 'Do I need to call Bill?,' reportedly a reference to then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton.

At 11pm, he entered the hospital wearing all-black, a hat, and identified himself as George Fox - the name of a friend who he later apologized to.

He visited again two hours later, again using the same fake name.

When visiting Svetlana Travis-Zakharova (pictured) in an undisclosed hospital, Spitzer wore all-black and a hat and identified himself as George, according to investigative documents obtained by the New York Post

Spitzer met Travis-Zakharova (pictured) 'for a drink' at her $1,000-a-night Plaza Hotel suite on the afternoon of February 13, 2016, according to the preliminary investigation worksheet filed by Sergeant Michael Giuffre on Match 15, 2016

A text message chain between the pair has also been revealed in the documents, showing that tensions between them remained high. She told Spitzer that she was at a police station and was ready to disclose their relationship.

'I make sure your daughters and everyone you are dealing with know who you are,' Travis-Zakharova texted to Spitzer.

'Can we discuss this \ like we have in the past?,' Spitzer - whose name was saved as 'Elliot My Love' in Travis-Zakharova's phone, the screenshots show - replied.

She texted him back: 'It's going to be much worse than 2008,' and again: 'AHAHAHAHAHAH let's discuss how you will kill my mother and my dog? How about that'

Why are u doing this? Let's talk  we had things worked out so nicely,' Spitzer pleaded with her.

'You can buy any lawyer and fking thing I'm not your friend anymore you messed every little thing, you just want me to die, it would be better if I died in California, yes? You wouldn't have to deal with this now,' she responded.

'Have now idea what U mean  I have been taking good care of U and I am going to continue  why disturb this?,' the ex-governor asked Travis-Zakharova.

He had been seeing the Russian national for years, according to The Post.

Pictured: Eliot Spitzer speaks during the Democratic Victory Celebration at the Sheraton Hotel on November 7, 2006 in New York City

Spitzer is requesting a dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Travis-Zakharova, who accused him of choking her during a sex session in 2016.

Spitzer's attorney wrote a letter to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Paul Goetz in December requesting the suit from Travis-Zakharova be thrown out because the 'claim cannot be sustained' and is a 'complete fabrication.'

'[Zakharova] launched this action as part of her effort to extract revenge against Mr. Spitzer, his family and anyone remotely close to him after she was prosecuted and jailed for her extortive scheme against Mr. Spitzer and another victim,' attorney Adam Kaufmann wrote in the letter, which was only made public this week.

'There is nothing new in these allegations. They have been investigated by law enforcement and dismissed as complete fabrications.'

He continued: 'Plaintiff's own filings to the court demonstrate that her single remaining claim cannot be sustained.'

Goetz dismissed all of Zakharova's allegations against Spitzer in October, except for the one in which she accused him of choking her and threatening her life at a suite in The Plaza hotel on February 13, 2016.

The former governor, who was run out of office over his own sex scandal years before sex-pest Andrew Cuomo resigned, has now requested the remaining charge be dismissed.

The plaintiff's attorney, Joseph Murray, denounced the request for dismissal Tuesday saying: 'It is quite distasteful that I am repeatedly compelled to refute the false and defamatory information about my client being parroted by defense counsel in every writing.'

'To be clear, Eliot Spitzer is not now, nor has he ever been the victim of anything but the consequences of his own criminal acts.

'Those acts include his disgusting efforts to deceive, coerce, and forcibly compel a beautiful young lady, against her will, into doing whatever he wanted. This also includes, among other things, Spitzer's intimidation, coercion and extortion of plaintiff to help cover up his criminal acts.'

Zakharova previously said, in 2018, she and Spitzer began their relationship in 2010, when he came into the massage parlor where she worked and asked for oral sex.

She said they began seeing each other four times a week for sex, which would sometimes even include leading the former governor around on a leash in the bedroom.

During an interview in 2018, Zakharova said Spitzer paid her up to $5,000 a night for sex but was inconsistent with his payments, sometimes writing checks for $10,000 and other times paying only $300 at a time.

She alleged Spitzer was a 'control freak' throughout their relationship and would call her 20 times a day and become angry if she dated anyone else.

She also said he broke his now ex-wife's 'family only' rule for their upstate farm, and would take her to the property, making her omelettes or potatoes that he cooked in the microwave.

The presumed escort soon found herself in trouble with the law after she allegedly tried to extort Spitzer for $400,000.

In 2019, Spitzer announced his engagement to real estate tycoon Roxana Girand (pictured together in 2017). The pair cancelled their lavish New York City wedding in early 2020 due to the coronavirus, promising to reschedule

Zakharova accepted a plea deal in October 2017, pleading guilty to petit larceny for stealing money from another ex-lover to pay her rent.

The deal meant that she would not have to serve time for extorting Spitzer but it also stopped her from being able to speak publicly about it.

She then filed her own suit against Spitzer in 2020. It was just made partially public last year.

Spitzer became governor of New York in January 2007. However, his promising political career went off the rails when he was forced to resign in March 2008 after it was reported that he had at least seven meetings with high-end prostitutes over a six-month period and had wired $10,000 to an escort service.

His wife of 26 years, Silda Wall, stood by him until 2013, when his affair with political consultant Liz Smith, then a spokeswoman for Bill de Blasio, was made public. The couple divorced in 2014.

After the divorce Spitzer moved in with Smith, but their relationship ended in 2016 when Spitzer told her he was being extorted by Zakharova.

In 2019, Spitzer announced his engagement to real estate tycoon Roxana Girand. The pair cancelled their lavish New York City wedding in early 2020 due to the coronavirus, promising to reschedule.
Brexit talks between Liz Truss and her EU counterpart today failed to deliver a major breakthrough on improving Northern Ireland border rules - but Brussels said a deal is possible 'if political good will is maintained'.

The Foreign Secretary travelled to Brussels for crunch talks with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic - their second meeting since Ms Truss took over responsibility for negotiations following the resignation of the Brexit minister Lord Frost.

But the face-to-face meeting finished without significant progress being made.

However, the atmosphere around the discussions appears to be more positive than it was last year, with Mr Sefcovic telling reporters a 'timely agreement' could soon be hammered out.

Meanwhile, Ms Truss said an agreement needs to be struck 'in short order' and 'we believe there is a deal to be done'.

Ms Truss and Mr Sefcovic have agreed to meet next week when they will 'take stock' of any progress made by officials.

A joint statement issued by Ms Truss and Mr Sefcovic said today's meeting was 'constructive'.

Ms Truss had urged Brussels ahead of the meeting to stop 're-running past arguments' and to agree 'practical solutions' to fix problems caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The EU and the UK have reportedly set an unofficial deadline of the end of February to reach an agreement on the border checks issue.

They want the deal to be done long before the Northern Ireland Assembly elections take place in May.

Liz Truss has urged the EU to stop 're-running past arguments' and to agree 'practical solutions' to fix problems caused by post-Brexit border rules in Northern Ireland

The Foreign Secretary is travelling to Brussels today for her second meeting with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic since taking over responsibility for the talks following the resignation of the Brexit minister Lord Frost

The protocol was negotiated as part of the Brexit deal to avoid a hard border with Ireland, by effectively keeping Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods.

But unionists have been pressuring for it to be scrapped because of the trade barriers it has created on products crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain.

The UK and EU remain locked in talks as they try to agree solutions to smooth the operation of the protocol but a breakthrough remains elusive.

The UK has repeatedly threatened to trigger Article 16 of the protocol to unilaterally tear up the border rules if the two sides cannot strike an agreement.

Following their first encounter at the Foreign Secretary's country residence at Chevening in Kent earlier this month, the two sides agreed officials would enter into 'intensified talks' in preparation for today's meeting.

Ms Truss and Mr Sefcovic held a 'closed' session this morning, with just the two principals present before then opening up the discussions to include senior UK and EU officials.

Speaking after the meeting, Mr Sefcovic told reporters: 'As you know, in the areas like customs and the movement of sanitary and phytosanitary goods the EU has proposed an extensive reduction of formalities, unmatched for any other third country.

'So if political good will is maintained our discussions could lead to a timely agreement on durable solutions that would immediately and significantly help operators on the ground.

'At the same time, I have remained clear that we need safeguards to protect the EU single market.'

Mr Sefcovic said he is 'not in the business of setting artificial deadlines but I will act with a sense of urgency'.

'With Liz Truss, we will take stock at our level by the end of next week and we have also agreed the EU-UK Joint Committee on Withdrawal Agreement will take place in the course of the next months,' he said.

'In a couple of days, two years will pass since Brexit and I continue to believe that it is in our shared interest to rebuild trust and work in close partnership, especially in a world where democracy increasingly finds itself under pressure from many sides. For my part, I will do my utmost.'

Ms Truss told reporters: There has been progress. We have had constructive discussions and I am absolutely determined to protect political stability and peace in Northern Ireland.

I want to work constructively with the EU to be able to achieve that and we need to do it in short order. We have agreed to have more intensive talks.

Ill be catching up with Maros Sefcovic next week and we want to make progress. We believe there is a deal to be done.

A joint statement from the pair said: 'The meeting took place in a constructive atmosphere with the aim to advance the talks.'

The pair 'reaffirmed their shared desire for a positive EU-UK relationship underpinned by our shared belief in freedom and democracy, and co-operation on common global challenges'.

Ms Truss said in a statement before the meeting that 'fundamentally this is about peace and stability in Northern Ireland'.

'Whether you voted Leave or Remain, represent the UK or EU, the focus must be on protecting the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and fixing the protocol,' she said.

'Rather than re-running past arguments, we need to focus on delivering for the people of Northern Ireland, finding practical solutions to problems on the ground and maintaining the integrity of the United Kingdom.'

The Government is seeking substantial changes to the protocol, arguing that it is hampering the free movement of goods between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK and damaging community relations.
Liz Truss has been branded 'demented' for taking a hardline stance on China in an astonishing outburst by a former Australian prime minister.

Paul Keating, who was a Labor PM in the early 1990s, lashed out at the Foreign Secretary after she used a visit Down Under to hit out at Beijing's economic bullying and military threat.

Keating, 77, who has previously been seen as an apologist for the communist regime, also lashed out at Boris Johnson's government in general, branding it 'disreputable' in an astonishing tirade in a little-known Australian newspaper.

'[Her comments] are nothing short of demented. Not simply irrational, demented,' he wrote in an opinion piece, calling her words 'nonsense'.

Ms Truss has been in Australia for high level meetings in recent days and said China taking advantage of the Ukraine situation 'couldn't be ruled out'.

'Russia is working more closely with China than it ever has. Aggressors are working in concert and I think it's incumbent on countries like ours to work together,' she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

Paul Keating, who was a Labor PM in the early 1990s, lashed out at the Foreign Secretary after she used a visit Down Under to hit out at Beijing's economic bullying and military threat.

Ms Truss has been in Australia for high level meetings in recent days and said China taking advantage of the Ukraine situation 'couldn't be ruled out'.

Ms Truss with Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne at Admiralty House in Sydney last week, when she attacked China over its economic and defence policies.

Mr Keating, who while PM in 1991 to 1996 turned Australian foreign policy towards Asia, is a frequent apologist for China.

He has heaped scorn on the AUKUS alliance between Australia, the US, and the UK and ridiculed Britain's ability to be a force in the Asia-Pacific at the National Press Club last year, likening the UK to 'an old theme park sliding into the Atlantic'.

This weekend he took another shot at Britain's 'delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation' in thinking it could make a dent in China's influence.

'The reality is Britain does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to East Asia. Britain took its main battle fleet out of East Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its 'East of Suez' policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back,' he wrote.

Ms Truss blasted China over its 'economic coercion' of Australia last week, saying Beijing's bullying was a 'wake-up call' to other countries.

China - which had been Australia's top trading partner - introduced tariffs and other trade actions against the country on barley, wine, beef, seafood and coal exports when the relationship between the two nations soured in 2020.

Speaking in Sydney, Ms Truss said the UK and Australia were determined to act together in 'calling out China' when it blocks products from Lithuania or imposes 'punitive tariffs on Australian barley and wine'.

'The situation with Australia - the economic coercion we saw - was one of the wake-up calls as to exactly what China was doing and the way it was using its economic might to try to exert control over over other countries,' she said.

She said Australia and the UK are 'facing global challenges with multiple aggressors We are seeing the alignment of authoritarian regimes around the world.'

This further enraged Mr Keating, who also took the opportunity to take a shot at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's ongoing problems.

'Truss would do us all a favour by hightailing it back to her collapsing, disreputable government, leaving Australia to find its own way in Asia,' he wrote.

He said that Ms Truss, who is tipped by many to be the UK's next prime minister, is 'looking wistfully for Britain's lost worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries'.
A metal detectorist who found England's 'first ever gold coin' is celebrating after it sold for a world record 648,000.

Michael Leigh-Mallory unearthed the coin on his first metal detecting outing in 10 years on farmland in Hemyock, Devon, last September.

The King Henry III penny, struck in about 1257 by William of Gloucester with gold imported from North Africa, measures just under an inch in diameter.

There are just eight of the coins in existence - with most of them in museums - and this one is thought to be the first to be found in 260 years.

The discoverer was completely unaware of the coin's incredible rarity until he posted a picture of it on Facebook and it was spotted by a specialist at Spink auctioneers, London.

Michael Leigh-Mallory unearthed the coin on his first metal detecting outing in 10 years on farmland in Hemyock, Devon, last September

Mr Leigh-Mallory (pictured with his wife and two children) dedicated his magnificent discovery to his history-mad children Harry, 10, and 13-year-old Emily, who wants to study archaeology at university

The coin was found in a field in Hemyock, Devon, a medieval settlement famed for its castle (pictured)

The Henry III penny has been said by numismatists (coin specialists) to show the first 'true' portrait of an English King upon his throne since the time of William the Conqueror.

There are just eight of the coins known to exist, with almost all of them in museums.

It achieved a hammer price of 540,000, with extra fees taking the final figure paid by a private British buyer in the room to 648,000.

The finder will split the proceeds 50/50 with the landowner. It is believed that he will spend his fortune towards his children's future.

The winning bidder intends to loan the coin to a museum or institution.

It is a world record for a Henry III coin, and also the most valuable Medieval English coin ever sold at auction.

The King Henry III penny, struck in about 1257 by William of Gloucester with gold imported from North Africa, measures just under an inch in diameter

Gregory Edmund, specialist at Spink & Son, said: 'Not only does this now stand as the most valuable single coin find in British history, but also the most valuable Medieval English coin ever sold at auction.

'Unsurprisingly therefore it eclipsed our old house record to fall for an incredible 540,000 (648,000 including costs) to a private room buyer.

'It was bought by an anonymous private buyer resident in the United Kingdom who intends to place the coin on loan to a public institution or museum.

'The vendor and landowner were both in awe of the result.'

The coin, which is 21mm in diameter, displays the portrait of the bearded and crowned Henry III upon his thrown on the Great Pavement in Westminster Abbey.

There are just eight of the coins in existence - with most of them in museums - and this one is thought to be the first to be found in 260 years

There is a long cross, roses and pellets on the reverse.

Some 52,000 of the coins were minted at twice the weight of a silver penny and valued at 20 pence, which equates to 60 in today's money.

But it became apparent that they were financially unviable because the value of the coin was worth less than its weight in gold.

Who was King Henry III? England's spendthrift monarch The gilt-bronze tomb effigy of King Henry III in Westminster Abbey King Henry III (1207-1272) was the son of King John and reigned as king of England from 1216 to 1272 - one of the longest reigns in English history. As a child king, power was in the hands of 13 nobles appointed by his father - but this soon erupted into the Barons' War which ended in 1217. King Henry was known for his religious piety and lavish spending, including a rebuild of Westminster Palace and a huge overhaul of Windsor Castle. The king faced further barons' revolts as a result of his expensive foreign policy and failed wars. Simon de Montfort led the Second Barons' War and seized power in 1264, but he was later defeated by the king's son and heir Prince Edward the following year and executed. Happily married to Eleanor of Provence with whom he had five children, King Henry III was succeeded by his son Edward I 'The Longshanks' in 1272. Advertisement

As a result virtually all of them were melted down after they fell out of circulation following Henry III's death.

The other surviving examples are in the British Museum in London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and private collections.

The finder, who works as an ecologist, said ahead of the sale: 'The coin was found in an unappealing field and could quite easily have never been recovered. Now it is protected for future generations to enjoy and it is truly humbling that I was its finder.

'My wish that day came true and I just happened to be the fortunate one. I feel I have to apologise to all those other detectorists who search and dream.'

Henry III was king of England from 1216 until his death in 1272.

In the 1240s and 50s he demanded that all payments be made in gold to build up treasures for major overseas projects.

It was the first time that the economy had not relied on silver coins since the dark ages.

Following Henry's death, his coins were smelted and replaced with correctly weighed pennies in 1257.

Mr Edmund said of the coin's origins and significance: 'As an economic experiment, Henry's gold penny has long been regarded as the abject failure of a weakened and even bankrupt king.

'This would however completely disregard the context of the coinage in British history.

'Not only was the advent of a brand new gold coinage seismic in the domestic medieval landscape, but also shows the direct influence on daily life of the international trade routes from the gold and spice rich Middle East and North Africa.

'Artistically it shows a groundbreaking shift from the depictions of a king restrained by the stipulations of Magna Carta, to his own personification as England's original patron Saint Edward the Confessor.

'It is no coincidence that a King who idolised the Confessor and actively restored his famous Abbey at Westminster would wish to be seen in the same high regard.

'Most significantly the coin depicts the enthroned king sitting atop a cross-hatched pavement, conceivably a very early allusion to the world-famous Cosmati Great Pavement at Westminster Abbey conceived in 1259 and laid in 1268.

'In essence this coin depicts an enthroned king at the seat of all royal coronations for the first time since William the Conqueror.'

WHEN IS A FIND CLASSED AS TREASURE? The following are Treasure by law in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, according to the British Museum: Any metallic object, other than a coin, that at least 10 per cent by weight of metal is precious metal and that it is at least 300 years old when found. If the object is of prehistoric date it will be Treasure provided any part of it is precious metal. Any group of two or more metallic objects of any composition of prehistoric date from the same find. Two or more coins from the same find provided they are at least 300 years old when found and contain 10 per cent gold or silver If the coins contain less than 10 per cent of gold or silver there must be at least ten of them. Only the following groups of coins will normally be regarded as coming from the same find: Hoards that have been deliberately hidden

Smaller groups of coins, such as the contents of purses, that may been dropped or lost

Votive or ritual deposits Any object, whatever it is made of, that is found in the same place as, or had previously been together with, another object that is Treasure. Any object that would previously have been treasure trove, but does not fall within the specific categories above. Only objects that are less than 300 years old, that are made substantially of gold or silver, that have been deliberately hidden with the intention of recovery and whose owners or heirs are unknown. SOURCE: British Museum Advertisement

Mr Leigh-Mallory dedicated his magnificent discovery to his history-mad children Harry, 10, and 13-year-old Emily, who wants to study archaeology at university.

He visited London today to 'say thank you' to Henry III at his tomb in Westminster Abbey.

He said: 'It is quite surreal really. I'm just a normal guy who lives in Devon with his family so this really is a life changing sum of money which will go towards their futures.

'But it's not all about the money - for me it's about the history. I'm very passionate about British history. It's an honour to be connected to this find and I will remember this day for the rest of my life.

'I have just been to Westminster Abbey to say thank you to Henry - if he had never have minted this coin then I would never have found it.

'I am so pleased that the coin will stay in the UK because the collector is loaning it to a museum.

'My children, Emily and Harry, are very much a part of this story. I used to be a keen metal detectorist but once I had a family the detector ended up getting buried in a cupboard.

'One day my wife said to me, 'you realise you promised you'd take the kids metal detecting.'

'So, I said, 'right kids - we're going detecting'. We found an Elizabethan coin which they were so excited by. It really ignited my passion so I invested in a new detector.

'The day after it arrived I went out into this field it was a bright, sunny day and within 15 minutes I found the coin. I knew it was gold but I had no idea how important it was.

'Both of my kids are very passionate about history. Emily has joined a local archaeology society and may study it at university so the money could go towards that.'

The coin displays the portrait of the bearded and crowned monarch on his throne on the Great Pavement in Westminster Abbey, and has a long cross, roses and pellets on the reverse side.

The find has created much interest in Hemyock village.

Pub landlord Geoff Taylor, of The Catherine Wheel inn, said: 'It's a rare coin and worth a lot of money.'

Village Post Office and stores boss Thuwararagia Kumar said: 'It's really exciting to hear that this gold coin was found in Hemyock, it has put Hemyock on the map.'
Australian actor Vince Colosimo faces a possible stint behind bars after he was allegedly caught drug driving for a second time.

The Underbelly star, who will soon star on the upcoming series of Celebrity Apprentice Australia, will face court in February over the alleged offence in the trendy Melbourne suburb of St Kilda last April, which resulted in his car being impounded.

He was previously warned by a magistrate he faced possible jail time if he ever returned to court charged with alleged driving offences.

The latest saga comes after Daily Mail Australia revealed Colosimo was the alleged victim of an opportunistic conwoman who threatened to ruin his career if he didn't hand over $50,000.

Vince Colosimo (pictured at the Australian Open on January 20) will appear in a Melbourne court on February 14 after he was allegedly caught drug driving and behind the wheel unlicensed

Victoria Police confirmed an Elwood man, 55, was charged with unlicensed and drug driving.

'Prahran Highway Patrol members intercepted a car on St Kilda Road, St Kilda about 2.30pm on Saturday 3 April, 2021, the statement read.

'It's alleged the man was driving unlicensed. He also underwent a drug test which returned a positive result.

'His car was impounded and he will appear before Melbourne Magistrates' Court on February 14.'

It's understood Channel Nine was not aware of Colosimos legal dramas while he was filming the sixth season of Celebrity Apprentice Australia, the Herald Sun reported.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel Nine and Colosimo's management RGM for comment.

Colosimo's previous brushes with the law over his driving record began in 2014, when he was fined $1,000 without conviction after he was busted driving on a suspended licence.

Vince Colosimo (pictured at a 2018 Melbourne Cup event) had his car impounded after he allegedly pulled over by police in St Kilda last April

Two years later in 2016, he was pulled over with a small amount of the drug ice in his car.

Later that year, the actor was handed a $3,500 fine for driving under the influence of the same drug while on a suspended licence. He was threatened with jail time by a magistrate who warned, 'If youre back here for a fourth time, it wont be pretty.'

Colosimo had been at an all-time low at the time, with his lawyer telling the court the actor had been cleaning building sites in between acting roles to make ends meet.

Colosimo was all smiles for the camera last Thursday at the Australian Open, just days after Daily Mail Australia revealed he had become the victim of an opportunistic conwoman who threatened to ruin his career if he didn't hand over $50,000.

He was allegedly targeted by the woman in October after being announced as a contestant on the reality hit Celebrity Apprentice Australia.

Sources have told Daily Mail Australia the woman made the alleged threat to Colosimo's former long-time partner Sabella Sugar, who was told to hand over the cash or face the consequences.

Moving on: Vince Colosimo sipped on champagne at the Australian Open in Melbourne last Thursday after Daily Mail Australia revealed he was the alleged victim of an opportunistic conwoman who threatened to ruin his career if he didn't hand over $50,000

Targetted: Sources have told Daily Mail Australia Colosimo's former partner Sabella Sugar, pictured above, was bombarded with messages from the stalker

Sugar appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court last week where she was granted an intervention order against the woman lasting two years.

Sources have confirmed police were notified about the alleged extortion attempt but did not carry out an investigation under request by those within the Colosimo camp.

It was his appearance in a Melbourne newspaper that seemingly prompted the woman to approach Sugar.

Daily Mail Australia has been told the woman sent Sugar dozens of text messages from numerous phones over the following months.

Sugar was allegedly told if the couple did not cough-up $50,000 she would go to media outlets with a tale alleging Colosimo had been unfaithful to her.

Vince Colosimo (pictured leaving court in 2017) was previously told by a magistrate 'it wont be pretty' if he returned to court on alleged driving charges

A source told Daily Mail Australia that Sugar was concerned the threat to derail Colosimo's career was serious enough to contact police.

Regarded as one of Australias most recognised actors, Colosimo starred alongside Hollywood heavyweight Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2008 movie Body of Lies before hitting hard times.

Colosimo fought hard to rebuild his career over the following years with recent roles in the 2018 film The Second and the hugely popular drama Doctor, Doctor.

Colosimo had been fresh off the set from filming a new chapter in The Wog Boys film franchise and shooting the movie The Girl In The Window, which is due for a big screen worldwide release this year.

He will hit television screens again later this year alongside Lord Alan Sugar, the billionaire boss and business magnate, in Celebrity Apprentice Australia.
Two US aircraft carrier groups have entered the disputed South China Sea as Chinese Air Force planes continue to fly near Taiwan, which China also claims.

The US Navy says two carrier strike groups, led by the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln, began operations in the South China Sea on Saturday.

The aircraft carriers were pictured on the Philippine Sea, east of Taiwan and west of the US territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. They were joined by two US amphibious assault ships and a Japanese helicopter destroyer.

On Monday, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense said 13 Chinese planes flew into the country's Air Defense Identification Zone. Taiwan reported 39 Chinese Air Force planes in the protected air space on Sunday.

The South China Sea and self-governing Taiwan are two of China's most sensitive territorial issues and both are frequent areas of tension between the United States and China.

The US's show of force in the South China Sea comes as the Biden administration orders 8,500 US-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe as fears mount that Russian President Vladimir Putin may try to invade Ukraine soon.

Two US aircraft carrier groups entered the disputed South China Sea over the weekend as China continues to fly war planes near Taiwan, which it also claims

The US Navy says its exercises in the South China Sea are being led by the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln. Above, Navy ships in the South China Sea on Saturday

The aircraft carriers were in the Philippine Sea, which lays east (to the right) of Taiwan and west of the US territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

On Monday, Taiwan, which has its own government but is claimed by China, said 13 Chinese planes flew into its Air Defense Identification Zone. Above, a graphic with their flight path

Russia's interest in Ukraine and China's interest in Taiwan could provide an opportunity for the two countries to move in lockstep against US interests, according to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Seth Cropsey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former deputy undersecretary of the Navy.

'Although separated by geography, Ukraine and Taiwan occupy similar positions in the Russian and Chinese strategic experience and historical imagination. Capturing each is essential to all other strategic objectives.

'For Russia, taking Ukraine would secure its hold on the Black Sea and open other pressure points against vulnerable NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. For the Chinese Communist Party, seizing Taiwan would allow the country to break out of the First Island Chain and conduct offensive operations against Japan, the Philippines and even US territories in the Central Pacific,' Ropsey wrote.

US Navy ships routinely sail close to Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea to challenge Chinese sovereignty claims, as well as through the Taiwan Strait, to Beijing's anger.

The carrier groups currently in the area will carry out exercises including anti-submarine warfare operations, air warfare operations and maritime interdiction operations to strengthen combat readiness, it said in a statement.

Some security have raised concern that China, led by President Xi Jinping, will try to further push its claims on Taiwan as the US deals with Russia's possible invasion of Ukraine

The US's show of force comes as the Biden administration orders 8,500 US-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe as fears mount that Russian President Vladimir Putin may try to invade Ukraine soon. Above, Biden at the White House on Monday

The training will be conducted in accordance with international law in international waters, the Department of Defense added, without giving details.

'Operations like these allow us to improve our combat credible capability, reassure our allies and partners, and demonstrate our resolve as a Navy to ensure regional stability and counter malign influence,' it quoted Rear Admiral J.T. Anderson, commander of the strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, as saying.

Both carrier groups were reported on Sunday by the US Navy to have been exercising with Japan's navy in the Philippine Sea, an area that includes waters to the east of Taiwan.

The news of the US operations coincided with Taiwan reporting the latest mass incursion by China's air force into its air defense identification zone - 39 aircraft - in an area close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the northern reaches of the South China Sea.

Taiwan on Monday reported a further 13 Chinese aircraft in the zone, with one, an anti-submarine Y-8, flying through the Bashi Channel which separates Taiwan from the Philippines and connects the Pacific to the South China Sea, according to a map provided by Taiwan's Defense Ministry.

China flew 39 warplanes into Taiwanese air space on Sunday, including J-16 fighter jets, seen above

US beefs up military presence near Taiwan after Chinese buzzes air space Taiwan said 13 Chinese planes flew into the country's air space and it reported 39 Chinese air force planes in the space Sunday. The South China Sea and Taiwan are sources of tension between the United States and China. The US Navy began operations with an increased presence in the South China Sea on Saturday. Carl Vinson strike group: Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson Carrier Air Wing 2 Cruiser USS Lake Champlain Destroyer USS Stockdale Destroyer USS Chafee Replenishment ship USNS Yukon Dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS Washington Chambers Abraham Lincoln strike group: Aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln Carrier Air Wing 9 Cruiser USS Mobile Bay Destroyer USS Fitzgerald Destroyer USS Gridley Destroyer USS Sampson (now heading to Tonga to assist in relief efforts following the underwater volcano eruption) Destroyer USS Spruance Two US amphibious assault ships

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The ministry added that two Chinese J-16Ds took part in the mission, though kept close to China's coast, a new electronic attack version of the J-16 fighter designed to target anti-aircraft defenses of the sort Taiwan would rely on to fend off an attack.

China has yet to comment, but has previously said such missions are aimed at protecting its sovereignty and to prevent external interference in its sovereignty claims over democratically-governed Taiwan.

Taiwan is a democratically governed island about 100 miles off the coast of mainland China.

The modern island nation was formed in 1949, after the Community Party kicked China's governing KMT party out of the mainland in the Chinese Civil War.

Taiwan, officially named the Republic of China, is not part of the United Nations. Only 13 countries recognize it as an independent state, according to the New York Times. The United States is not one of them, but the two countries have consular relations, and the US government has committed to protecting Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.

Security sources have previously told Reuters that China's flights into Taiwan's defense zone are also likely a response to foreign military activity, especially by US forces, near the island, to warn that Beijing is watching and has the capability to handle any Taiwan contingencies.

Taiwan calls China's repeated nearby military activities 'grey zone' warfare, designed to both wear out Taiwan's forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test Taiwan's responses.

The South China Sea, crossed by vital shipping lanes and also containing gas fields and rich fishing grounds, is also claimed by Taiwan, while Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines claim parts.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is ordering 8,500 US-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe as fears mount that Russia may try to invade Ukraine, the Pentagon announced on Monday.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby declined to give details on what units would make up the 8,500 troops Biden is ordering to stand ready in case of a possible deployment to Eastern Europe

There are already thousands of US troops stationed in Europe, but the recent activity at the Russia-Ukraine border could cause relocation to the Baltic region. Russia has 100,000 troops stationed along the border it shares with Ukraine

'This is really about getting folks ready to go,' Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press conference this afternoon. He said the majority of those troops would be ground forces.

He said they would stand ready in case NATO activates the NATO Response Force (NRF) or a 'deteriorating security environment.'

'Theres not a mission per se, this is about [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] wanting to get ahead of the potential activation and making sure these units have time to prepare,' Kirby told reporters.

The NATO Response Force is comprised of some 40,000 international troops across land, air, maritime and Special Operations Forces (SOF) components.

Kirby said the move was 'sending a strong message that we're committed to NATO and we're committed to ensuring that our allies have the capabilities they need in case they need to defend themselves.'

He stressed the troops are currently on 'heightened alert' posture and have no plans to deploy at this time.

The 'bulk of them' would be dedicated to the NRF to be activated if called upon by the Western defensive coalition but added that Austin wants the 8,500 troops to be postured for 'any other contingencies as well.'

A vast majority of those standby troops will be active duty service members, though Kirby did not rule out the possibility of getting reserve forces assembled as well.

The Pentagon official also side-stepped a question on whether he could definitively rule out sending troops directly to Ukraine.
Former pope Benedict XVI on Monday admitted providing incorrect information to a German inquiry about his presence at a 1980 meeting discussing a paedophile priest, blaming an editing 'oversight'.

'He is very sorry for this mistake and asks to be excused,' Benedict's personal secretary Georg Ganswein said in a statement cited by the KNA news agency and republished by Vatican News.

But the statement insisted no decision was made at the meeting about reassigning the priest to pastoral duties.

An independent report last week found that Benedict XVI, who stood down in 2013, knowingly failed to stop four priests accused of child sex abuse in the 1980s.

A bombshell report has accused former Pope Benedict (pictured during a weekly audience in the Vatican when he was the pontiff) of misconduct over his handling of four cases of sexual abuse by priests while he was an archbishop in Germany

The report by law firm Westpfahl Spilker Wastl (WSW) was commissioned by the archdiocese of Munich and Freising to examine how abuse cases were dealt with between 1945 and 2019.

Ex-pope Benedict - whose civilian name is Joseph Ratzinger - was the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.

In one case, a now notorious paedophile priest named Peter Hullermann was transferred to Munich from Essen in western Germany where he had been accused of abusing an 11-year-old boy.

The law firm, which was commissioned to draw up the report by the Munich archdiocese, said that Benedict - whose civilian name is Josef Ratzinger (pictured in the Vatican after being elected Pope in April 2005) - strongly denies any wrongdoing

Hullermann was reassigned to pastoral duties despite his history and continued to reoffend for many years.

The lawyers said that 'to our surprise', Benedict had denied attending the meeting in 1980 at which the decision was made to admit Hullermann to the diocese, despite being quoted directly in the minutes of the meeting.

The statement from the emeritus pope said: 'He would like to make it clear now that, contrary to what was stated at the hearing, he did attend the Ordinariate meeting on January 15, 1980.

'The statement to the contrary was therefore objectively incorrect,' it added, while insisting this was 'not done out of bad faith, but was the result of an oversight in the editing of his statement'.

'Objectively correct, however, remains the statement, documented by the files, that in his meeting no decision was made about a pastoral assignment of the priest in question,' it said.

Benedict, (pictured in 1980) who served as the archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982, also approved the transfer of a suspected paedophile priest to the archdiocese to undergo therapy in 1980

'Rather, only the request to provide him with accommodation during his therapeutic treatment in Munich was granted.'

The statement said further explanations would follow but the 94-year-old pope, who is said to be in shaky health, is still reading the inquiry report.

'At present, he is carefully reading the statements set down there, which fill him with shame and pain about the suffering inflicted on the victims,' it said.
Former Tory cabinet minister David Davis has warned that libel action by Russian oligarchs and the super-rich is having a 'chilling effect' on press freedom in the UK.

Mr Davis, 73, made the comments under Parliamentary privilege in a debate on 'lawfare' - a term used to describe wealthy foreign businessmen using British courts to pursue their critics.

The Tory MP cited the example of ex-Financial Times journalist Catherine Belton who was left with a 1.5 million bill after Russian oligarchs brought libel actions against her for her book Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Turned on the West.

Several wealthy individuals, including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, brought the action against Belton and publisher HarperCollins over her book Putin's People. As well as apologies and amendments to the book, Ms Belton was left with a huge legal fee, according to Mr Davis.

Ms Belton's book includes claims that in the early 2000s Abramovich bought Chelsea for 150million in 2003 on the personal orders of the Russian president.

The former Financial Times journalist's publication quotes exiled oligarch Sergei Pugachev - once dubbed 'Putin's Banker' - as the source of the Chelsea FC claims, but Abramovich maintained the allegations were untrue and damaging both to him and the club.

Mr Davis said: 'We are rightly proud of our legal system in this country. However, what is attractive to legitimate businessmen is also attractive to those with nefarious intentions: there are those with exceptionally deep pockets and exceptionally questionable ethics.

'These people use our justice system to threaten, intimidate and put the fear of God into British journalists, citizens, officials and media organisations.

'What results is injustice, intimidation, suppression of free speech, the crushing of a free press, bullying and bankruptcy. It results in protection from investigation and gives encouragement to fraudsters, crooks and money launderers.

'It has turned London into the global capital of dirty money. In extreme cases, it can undermine the security of the state by allowing people to act as extensions of foreign powers.'

David Davis, 73, made the comments under Parliamentary privilege in a debate on 'lawfare' - a term used to describe wealthy foreign businessmen using British courts to pursue their critics

Author Catherine Belton's (pictured) book Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Turned on the West saw oligarchs bring libel action against her

Several wealthy individuals, including Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich, brought the action against Belton and publisher HarperCollins over her book Putin's People. As well as apologies and amendments to the book, Ms Belton was left with a huge legal fee

Liam Byrne, a former Labour minister, added: 'For nearly a thousand years our courts have been sanctuaries of justice, now they are becoming arenas of silence, places in which the truth is killed.'

Ms Belton's case, and others, have left journalists afraid of strategic litigation against public participation, or SLAPP, Mr Davis added.

He called on the government to follow the example of 31 American states and introduce a ban on rich individuals using 'strategic litigation' to curb free speech.

He noted that some of the US laws allow 'journalists and media organisations to file motions to dismiss suits at an early stage on the grounds that the case involves protected speech on a matter of public interest'.

He said: 'It is not wrong to sue journalists - sometimes they make serious mistakes or behave maliciously - but billionaires and multimillionaires should not be able to use the law to shut down legitimate criticism.

'Even if someone defends their case successfully, in this day and age they face material costs so huge that they will further deter others from following a story, and they can even destroy lives.'

Mr Byrne suggested judges should be able to dismiss a SLAPP case.

Catherine Belton's book Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and then Turned on the West

He said: '"Follow the money" is the oldest and wisest advice given to journalists who are pursuing the corrupt, yet this dictum, which has served us so well since Watergate, is now being smothered, suffocated and strangled in courts by allies, associates and friends of President Putin, who is pursuing a hybrid war against the west and against us.

'What totalitarians, autocrats and kleptocrats fear most is the truth, so what they are seeking to do is to murder the truth, and we are letting them do it in English courts.'

Mr Davis also raised concerns about reporters facing 'reputational and financial ruin' in defending themselves.

Tom Burgis, Investigations correspondent for the Financial Times, is currently being sued by the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation over his book Kleptopia: How Dirty Money is Conquering the World.

Meanwhile, the debate saw a Tory tycoon and a senior Conservative adviser accused of trying to 'bully' former MP Charlotte Leslie.

The comments came during an explosive Commons debate regarding her treatment.

MPs across the parliamentary divide criticised prominent Conservative adviser Carl Hunter and multi-millionaire Tory donor Mohamed Amersi.

Ex-Bristol North West Tory MP Miss Leslie fell out with Mr Amersi last year after she claimed he tried to use his wealth to take over a Tory group run by her which aims to boost UK-Middle East relations.

Mr Amersi, who then launched his own Tory Middle East group, Comena, to rival Miss Leslie's Conservative Middle East Council, fiercely denies any wrongdoing.

It follows Wednesday's disclosure by the Daily Mail of shocking leaked phone calls between Mr Hunter and Miss Leslie.

In the calls, Mr Hunter told her she needed to 'consider being able to walk the dog at night' if she refused to apologise to Mr Amersi. Miss Leslie complained to the police about the 'sinister' calls.

There is no suggestion Mr Amersi was aware of the nature of Mr Hunter's conversations with Miss Leslie or instructed him to speak to her in the way he did. During yesterday's debate, ex-Tory Cabinet minister David Davis said Mr Hunter 'engaged in bullying and egregious behaviour' towards Miss Leslie when he 'tried to broker peace' between her and Mr Amersi.

And Labour MP Liam Byrne said: 'What on earth is going on in this country when people like this are able to issue threats to anyone  never mind former MPs?'

Last night Mr Amersi denied trying to 'intimidate' Miss Leslie and accused her of 'trying to portray herself as the victim when the reverse is true'.

He claimed Mr Davis and Mr Byrne had 'hidden behind Parliamentary privilege to recycle false allegations' against him in a dossier compiled by Miss Leslie.

He hoped to meet the two MPs to 'explain the truth' about his 'business dealings and relationships in Russia so they can retract their remarks'. Mr Hunter declined to comment.

Ex-Bristol North West Tory MP Miss Leslie (pictured) fell out with Mr Amersi last year after she claimed he tried to use his wealth to take over a Tory group run by her which aims to boost UK-Middle East relations

There is no suggestion Mr Amersi was aware of the nature of Mr Hunter's conversations with Miss Leslie or instructed him to speak to her in the way he did. Pictured: Mr Amersi pictured with Prince Charles.

Mr Davis told MPs that Mr Amersi 'tried to force his way to becoming CMEC chair  'because he saw it as his route to a knighthood' and had 'used his wealth and influence to try to bully Miss Leslie into silence.'

He continued: 'Mr Amersi is used to getting his way. He throws money at a problem in an attempt to make it go away. Ms Leslie has been subject to this legal harassment for a year now.'

Sir Bob Neill, chairman of the Commons Justice Committee, told the debate she had been subjected to 'utterly disgraceful intimidation.'

Labour MP Liam Byrne said Mr Hunter told Miss Leslie that if she did not apologise to Mr Amersi her legal dispute with him had 'all possibility of going further to a really gruesome stage.'

Mr Byrne said: 'What on earth is going on in this country when people like this are able to issue threats to anyone - never mind former MPs?'

The remarks by the MPs were made under Parliamentary privilege in a debate on so called 'lawfare'  whereby wealthy foreign businessmen are accused of using British courts to pursue their critics and undermine press freedom.
The grieving widow of the slain 22-year-old NYPD officer Jason Rivera yesterday posted a moving tribute to her husband, who she married just three months ago.

Rivera was shot dead on Friday night during an ambush as he and his partner, Officer Wilbert Mora, responded to a Harlem address to investigate a domestic-violence call.

The pair were allegedly shot by convicted felon Lashawn McNeil, 47.

'Fly high my beautiful angel,' Rivera's widow wrote on Instagram, together with a picture of his locker that she took at the NYPD's 32nd Precinct in central Harlem.

'Yesterday I visited the locker room where you used to FaceTime me at during your meal time or right before you had to go downstairs to the muster room for roll call at 15:00,' she said.

The widow of NYPD Officer Jason Rivera, 22, posted an emotional tribute to him online. 'Fly high my beautiful angel,' she wrote, together with a picture of Rivera's locker

The couple were married on October 9, 2021 and had some pictures taken in New Jersey

Jason Rivera, 22, right, was allegedly killed by convicted felon Lashawn McNeil, 47, left, as he visited a Harlem address to investigate a domestic-violence call

'Last night was suppose to be your day 5 & you were RDO [off] for the next three days. We both waited for your RDO's to spend them together. But now your soul will spend the rest of my days with me, through me, right beside me.

'I love you till the end of time,' the grieving widow - who has not been named - wrote.

Her Instagram profile also includes photos of the newly married couple out in Liberty State Park in Jersey City. In one posting, she describes her husband as 'my soulmate, best friend and lover from now until the end of time.'

Relatives, together with hundreds of NYPD officers and Mayor Eric Adams paid tribute to Rivera as his body was moved to a Manhattan funeral home on Sunday.

Officers Rivera and Mora were shot while answering a call about an argument between a woman and her adult son. After the two entered, McNeil ran from a back bedroom in the Harlem apartment and opened fire.

Rivera died while Mora, 27, still is fighting for his life and was transferred from Harlem Hospital to NYU Langone, having undergone two surgeries to remove a bullet that had become stuck in his brain.

Funeral services for officer Rivera were being finalized, as fellow cops mourned his loss. The officer previously wrote how he joined the force to make a difference in what he had described as a 'chaotic city.'

Jason Rivera is pictured with his wife whom he had married last October

'I love you till the end of time,' Rivera's grieving widow, pictured, wrote

A solemn scene unfolded Sunday with a column of uniformed police officers, as well as a line of firefighters, flanking the streets as a hearse carrying the fallen officer left the medical examiner's office for a funeral home.

A wake has been planned for Thursday with a funeral service scheduled for Friday at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The medical examiner ruled Riveras death a homicide after an autopsy found he died from gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

Mora, who has been with the NYPD for four years, remained in life-threatening condition, Adams said Sunday. Police said he would be transferred from Harlem Hospital to NYU Langone Medical Center.

'It just really has impacted our entire city, if not the entire country. And this is coming after having five officers shot, the 11-month baby shot in Brooklyn,' the mayor said.

The shooting is the latest in a string of crimes that has unnerved the nation's most populated city and the country's largest police force, with 36,000 officers.

In the three weeks since Adams took office, a 19-year-old cashier was shot to death as she worked a late-night shift at a Burger King, a woman was pushed to her death in a subway station, and a baby was critically injured by a stray bullet while in a parked car with her mother. With the Harlem shooting Friday night, four police officers had been shot in as many days.

Details about what led to the deadly confrontation were still emerging.

New York City police officers and firemen stand at attention as they await the remains of police Officer Jason Rivera to be brought to a funeral home on Sunday in New York City

Rivera's hearse was taken from the Medical Examiner's Officer to a funeral home in Riverdale

Tears are shed for slain NYPD Officer Jason Rivera as a procession was held on January 23, 2022 in New York City

Officers embrace one another following a procession for Officer Rivera on Sunday

A procession for the remains of NYPD Officer Jason Rivera makes its way to a funeral home on Sunday

Traffic stood still as the procession made its way uptown with an American flag hanging in the middle of the street

Officer Rivera's widow posted a picture of her husband with information about his wake and funeral later this week

According to officials, a woman who made an emergency call Friday said she was ill and that her son who had come up to take care of her had become 'problematic.' Adams said the woman did not specify the problem.

Authorities said three officers went to the apartment after the call came in. The officers spoke with the woman and another son, but there was no mention of a weapon, police said.

As Rivera and Mora walked from the front of the apartment down a narrow hallway to check on McNeil, he swung open a bedroom door and began shooting, police said.

Both officers were gunned down before they could pull their weapons and defend themselves, police said.

As McNeil tried to flee, a third officer who had stayed with McNeil's mother in the front of the apartment shot at McNeil and wounded him in the head and arm, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.

McNeil remains critical in Harlem Hospital.

McNeil has a 2003 drug conviction in New York City. He also has several out-of-state arrests. In 1998, he was arrested in South Carolina on suspicion of unlawfully carrying a pistol, but records show the matter was later dismissed.

In 2002, he was arrested in Pennsylvania on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, Essig said.

McNeil had been married, but the couple separated nearly two decades ago, according to Theresa Noa, who is married to his ex-wife's brother. She said McNeil had four children from that marriage.
A group of migrants including small children have been intercepted this morning after dozens crossed the Channel by boat on Sunday - taking the tally for the year so far over 1,000.

Onlookers estimate Border Force intercepted or rescued around 90 people from at least three boats yesterday afternoon with photos also showing another large group brought in this morning.

The numbers rescued in the past 24 hours are expected to take the total for January so far to more than 1,000 - fives times the 223 who arrived in the same month last year.

So far this year, official figures show that 965 migrants have crossed the Channel in 33 boats but the Home Office is yet to confirm how many arrived yesterday.

More have made the perilous journey today with one boat intercepted as of 10am.

Deteriorating weather conditions mean it is expected to be a quieter day than Sunday which saw huge catamaran Hurricane and large cutter Searcher monitoring the 21-mile Dover Strait all day.

Pictured: A group of migrants including small children have been intercepted this morning after dozens crossed the Channel on Sunday - taking the tally for the year so far over 1,000

Border Force officers were pictured bringing the group of about a dozen migrants to safety

Pictured: The group of migrants rescued this morning included a number of small children

The number of migrants to have arrived so far this year is estimated to be more than 1,000

Yesterday, a coastguard spotter plane flying over the Channel reported a sighting of several migrants in severe distress around midday.

The pilots reported seeing migrants desperately trying to evacuate water and blow air back into their doomed dinghy which had sprung a leak.

One group of migrants was saved by the UK Border Force vessel 'Hurricane' after air began to escape from the small inflatable boat they were using to make the perilous journey.

The last group of migrants was brought into harbour packed onto the back of the RNLIs Dover Lifeboat around 8pm last night.

One man appeared emotional as he carried his young son, aged around three wearing a red all-in-one, on his shoulders to dry land.

Another little boy wearing a woolly hat and draped in a blanket was carried in his fathers arms to safety.

They are the first migrants to arrive since 24 people made the treacherous trip in one boat last Wednesday.

Due to adverse conditions, it is not expected many will brave the perilous journey today

Pictured: The group of migrants in Border Force vessel Speedwell being brought to safety

During the early hours of Sunday, French Navy public service patrol boat (PSP) Pluvier rescued a boat of 10 migrants in difficulty off Dunkirk and returned them to Calais, according to the Maritime Prefecture of the Channel and the North Sea.

The Home Office is yet to release official figures for today or Sunday.

In total, an estimated 28,381 people crossed the Channel in 2021, more than treble the 8,400 that arrived in 2020.

It comes after it was reported that Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave Home Secretary Priti Patel the green light to develop new powers that would allow male asylum seekers crossing the Narrow Sea to be held in immigration removal centres.

The Government meanwhile was accused of 'cowardice' earlier this week after it was revealed that the Home Office plans to publish a running total of migrant crossings just four time a year, rather than on a daily basis.

At least 28,381 migrants arrived in England after crossing the Channel in 2021 - treble the number that made the journey in 2020, despite considerable investment from both UK and French authorities to prevent crossings.

The number of migrants that have arrived this month has already eclipsed last year's total

UK authorities have intercepted more than 1,000 migrants so far this year  more than three times the 223 in January 2021. Last year 28,381 people were intercepted in the Channel in total

The Prime Minister is said to be clamping down on the number of migrants crossing into the UK via the Channel, after it was reported yesterday he had encouraged Priti Patel to proceed with a policy of detaining all male migrants.

Though the Home Office has not published a breakdown of Channel migrants by age or gender, Miss Patel claims that seven in ten of all people who cross the Narrow Sea are single men under 40.

Mr Johnsons new gung-ho attitude to border security is part of a series of populist policies which are intended to shore up his tottering premiership as the embattled Tory leader faces calls to quit over the Partygate lockdown scandal enveloping Westminster.

Miss Patel is working closely with Attorney-General Suella Braverman to establish what current laws would allow on detention and what new powers would be needed to be approved by MPs, according to The Times.

Currently only migrants who land on the UK coast are breaking the law and can be detained, rather than those intercepted in the Channel.

An announcement is due next month as part of wider plans for the Royal Navy to takeover operational control of Channel crossings.

Pictured: The RNLI were among those helping to bring migrants to safety yesterday evening

It is estimated more than 90 were rescued yesterday although the Home Office is yet to confirm the official figure. Pictured: a man carries a toddler off the Border Force boat last night

What happens when someone arrives in the UK after crossing the Channel? By Rory Tingle The vast majority of people crossing the Channel in small boats claim asylum, according to the Refugee Council. At this point the process for what happens varies depending on whether they are an adult, unaccompanied minor or a family unit. ADULT 1 - Immediately transferred to a short-term holding facility dotted around the country, generally in southern England. Fingerprints are taken and they have a screening interview where they provide their name, date of birth and nationality. This registers them into the asylum system. 2 - One or two days later the asylum seekers would usually be sent to a hostel run by the Home Office, but in the last few years these have become full so officials are using hotels. 3 - Two to three weeks later they are dispersed to a town or city anywhere in the UK into 'housing in the community' - although these time scales have stretched recent years. In addition, dispersal accommodation has often been full so the Home Office has relied on rented accomodation from three private providers. The asylum seekers receive housing and 39.63 a week as a cash allowance. 4 - The asylum seekers are issued with a form called a preliminary information questionnaire (PIC) where they are asked why they have a fear of persecution. At some point they are invited to the Home Office for substantive interview where they will be asked questions based on information from their screening interview and PIC form. 4 - If the initial decision is a refusal, the applicant can appeal to an independent tribunal. Their accommodation and support would continue. 5 - If they get an initial refusal and they don't appeal or their appeal is refused they become what's known in official jargon as 'appeal rights exhausted'. The Home Office will send them a letter saying they will be evicted and the weekly support will stop. 6 - They have the option of signing up to the Voluntary Return Scheme, under which the Home Office will pay for their flights. If they don't sign up they are liable to being picked up and detained by immigration officers and perhaps forcibly removed. But they are not enough detention spaces for people in that situation so they often become homeless and destitute, the Refugee Council said. CHILD Children (under 18) are sent to a short term holding facility for a much shorter amount of time and then transferred into the care of a local authority. They are allocated a social worker and accomodation. The Home Office cannot remove minors if they have been separated from their parents. However, if their asylum claim is unsuccessful they could be given a form of leave to remain until they are 17 and a half. FAMILY The only slight difference is that if a family become an 'appeal rights exhausted' case the Home Office wouldn't evict them from the accommodation or stop their financial support. Advertisement

These plans would be accompanied with powers to remove Channel migrants from the UK, including proposals to outsource asylum claims to third countries.

A Home Office spokesperson said: The British public have had enough of seeing people die in the Channel while ruthless criminal gangs profit from their misery and our New Plan for Immigration will fix the broken system which encourages migrants to make this lethal journey.

UK authorities have intercepted more than 800 migrants so far this year  more than three times the 223 who sailed across the Narrow Sea in January 2021.

Last year, 28,381 people were intercepted in the Channel, compared to just 8,410 in 2020.

Home Office officials have warned Miss Patel that 65,000 migrants could cross the Channel this year  more than double last year's 28,300 record number.

It comes after the Government was accused of trying to 'cover up' the migrant crisis after it was reported that the Home Office will soon stop issuing daily totals of migrant crossings in favour of announcing a running total at three-month intervals.

The Home Office currently issues the data after arrivals have been processed by the UK Border Force, typically on the following day, but this could stop when the Ministry of Defence (MoD) takes over operations to intercept migrants.

The move has drawn criticism from Tory MPs - with one saying it 'seems more like burying bad news than being transparent about crossings.

Another anonymous Conservative said: 'It just looks like covering up, and no doubt journalists will come up with their own figures based on people arriving at Tughaven [the migrant processing centre in Dover] and Freedom of Information requests.'

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK which campaigns for tougher border controls, added: This is a cowardly act. It just shows the Government is running scared.

Im very surprised at Priti Patel, and the British people deserve better from her.

Do they really think they can hide the figures from the electorate when all this takes place in the open on our beaches and at our ports?

The Home Office cant simply pretend this problem is not happening, and hope it will go away.

Internal Home Office documents show officials are planning for a worst case scenario of up to 65,000 arrivals this year.

Dovers Conservative MP Natalie Elphicke said: We need to continue with daily updates.

'To start reporting them on any other basis I dont think will be acceptable, particularly for such an important and immediate issue.

Not having accurate daily figures risks misinformation being spread about the number of arrivals, and that would be highly damaging to the attempts to try to solve this long-standing crisis.

Philip Hollobone, another Tory backbencher who is MP for Kettering, said: Any attempt to hide the scale of the problem will raise alarm bells among everyone who is concerned about this.

'Maximum transparency is demanded here. The public wants to know the daily arrivals figures.

Until the daily figure goes down to zero, they will not be satisfied.

Trying to cover up the scale of the problem is helping no-one but the Government.

Mr Hollobone said he would raise his concerns formally with the Home Office.

Its strategy to stop people trafficking across the Channel isnt working. Until we can take people back to France the numbers will keep on going up, he added.
Taiwan reports 89 new COVID-19 cases

Xinhua) 09:07, January 24, 2022

TAIPEI, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan on Sunday reported 89 new COVID-19 cases, consisting of 52 local and 37 imported cases, the island's disease-monitoring agency said at a press briefing.

Of the new local cases, 15 were recorded in Kaohsiung City, and 30 others emerged at a free trade zone in Taoyuan City, bringing the total infections at the trade zone to 100, the agency added.

Taiwan is currently at a Level-2 alert for COVID-19, which will have to be raised to Level 3 if widespread outbreaks happen in communities, the agency said earlier.

To date, Taiwan has confirmed 18,325 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began in early 2020, of which 14,903 were local infections.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
House Select Committee chairman Rep. Bennett Thompson said that the panel has already spoken to former attorney general William P. Barr related to its investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill insurrection.

The chairman said Sunday that the panel has already had conversations with the former attorney general as well as individuals from the Department of Defense. The situation further suggests that several former Trump administration officials have begun cooperating with the committee despite many others still fighting to compel their testimony.

House Select Committee

The committee has been issuing subpoenas and talking with various officials that worked under the Trump administration to acquire information related to the Capitol Hill siege. At the time, former United States President Donald Trump and his allies attempted to block the certification of Joe Biden's presidential win and spread claims of voter fraud in the 2020 elections.

The unprecedented incident resulted in the deaths of one police officer and four other individuals and the injury of roughly 140 members of law enforcement. While it was unclear what the committee and Barr talked about, the former attorney general has been closely tied with the former president through most of his tenure at the Department of Justice, The Washington Post reported.

The committee spoke to Barr about one possible issue regarding the recently released documents that showed the Trump administration tried to seize voting machines. The issue was discovered after officials found an unreleased executive order that the Trump administration planned to use to order the Department of Defense to investigate voter fraud.

Read Also: Former Donald Trump Ally Boris Epshteyn Admits To Spreading Alternate Electors To Support Ex-POTUS, Denies Election Fraud Claims

Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said that if a person was using the military to potentially seize voting machines, the public needed to know even if they were only discussions. The lawmaker's remarks were an answer to a question related to the draft executive order.

Barr resigned in December 2020 after working as a staunch defender of Trump during his time with the department. He worked to push the Republican businessman's agenda of "law and order." But later on, he rebuked the former president's false claims about widespread election fraud, CNN reported.

Seizing Voting Machines

Several news outlets already published the draft executive order of the Trump administration last week. The House Select Committee obtained the document after the Supreme Court rejected the former president's attempts to block the process of issuance from the National Archives.

While it remained unclear who wrote the draft executive order, it was dated Dec. 16, 2020, and would have authorized the secretary of defense to "seize, collect, retain, and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records required for retention" under a federal law that governed the retention and preservation of election records.

The committee's chairman said that the panel was unaware of whether or not there was any individual within the Pentagon who worked on seizing voting machines. However, Thompson said that the draft executive order was already "reason enough to believe that it was being proposed" by officials working under former President Trump, CBS News reported.

Related Article: Sinema Criticized For Opposing Voting Rights Legislation, Could Face Gallego Over Senate Seat

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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To hear European leaders sell their Net Zero climate visions, you wouldn't know there was a downside: 'Green industrial revolutions' have been promised that will bring billions of dollars in investment, create thousands of high-paid jobs, and end the continent's reliance on planet-killing fossil fuels.

But, in a paradoxical twist, those very green policies have driven up the continent's reliance on foreign supplies of fossil fuels, sacrificing the continent's energy security and handing Vladimir Putin a bargaining chip that experts warn he will now use to hold the continent to ransom over Ukraine.

If he chooses to do so, it will also send UK prices soaring. Britain used to supply 100 per cent of its own gas from the North Sea, but dwindling government investment driven in part by environmental fears mean we now get just 43 per cent from our own supply, with 44 per cent from Europe. Shortages over there will mean price hikes here.

Russian exports made up 30 per cent of Europe's total gas supplies in 2010, but in the first half of 2021 made up more than 45 per cent according to data gathered by Statista - with the main customers being Germany, Italy, France and Austria.

Despite that, Germany is pressing ahead with plans to mothball its nuclear plants this year - viewing them as damaging to the environment - despite multiple studies warning similar moves in the past have increased the country's reliance on fossil fuels. It is perhaps unsurprising to find Germany is taking the softest of stances with Putin, accused of wholesale 'betrayal' by Kiev mayor and former boxer Vitali Klitschko today.

The Netherlands, one of the continent's main domestic suppliers of gas, also plans to shut down its largest gas field this year after a series of tremors, while Norway's government - Europe's largest domestic supplier - is under pressure from environmentalists to cut down its own gas exploration.

All of which comes as supplies run dangerously low due to a colder-than-expected winter later year, not enough wind to drive wind farms, and Russian pipes running dry amid accusations that Putin is already turning the screw. Goldman Sachs today warned the continent is at risk of blackouts if temperatures fall much below average.

Clive Moffatt, an energy market analyst and former chairman of the UK Economic Security Group, told MailOnline that the growing reliance on foreign gas has been a 'disaster' for Britain and its consumers that has been 'made worse' by a drive towards Net Zero.

Russia has linked easing Europe's gas crisis with approving the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which when built with make land in Germany, which is heavily reliant on Russia for its energy needs

Map showing points of origin and destination of the Nord Stream pipe (solid line) and Nord Stream 2 pipeline (dotted line) between Russia and Germany. Putin hoped Nord Stream 2 would be finished two years ago, allowing Russia to bypass Ukraine in the south, which carries 50% of gas from Russia out via Poland

Britain was self-sufficient for natural gas less than 20 years ago - but now imports more than half of it from Europe including some from Russia

Production in the North Sea has dwindled because older gas fields have become too expensive to run, and new ones have taken a long time to come on stream

Why is Britain reliant on Europe and Russia for gas? And how can it be self-sufficient again? Where does Britain get its gas from now? The UK largely sources its gas from fields in the North Sea and Irish sea, which along with other reserves in British waters provide around 50 percent of the country's supply. Another significant portion is made up of European imports, with a pipeline across the North Sea from Norway to the UK being by far the largest source - 20 percent - from the continent, with both The Netherlands and Belgium also supplying the UK with some of its gas. Further afield, another 20 percent comes from Qatar and the wider Middle East. The US also supplies the UK with some Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). By contrast, gas imports from Russia make up only around five percent of the UK's total usage. But Moscow has a grip on Europe's gas supplies. What's happened to our North Sea supplies? Production in the North Sea has dwindled because older gas fields have become too expensive to run, and new ones have taken a long time to come on stream. Last year about 48 per cent of UK gas came from the North Sea, down from 100 per cent in 2004, and this is projected to keep falling. If the Government does not subsidise investment, then by 2025 domestic gas will only meet around one third of UK demand, making the country even more reliant on global markets. Wayne Bryan, director of European Gas Research at Refinitiv, said: 'There are untapped gas fields in the North Sea, but more investment is needed. There are three or four new gas fields starting early next year, but we've seen falling investment in the last 18 months.' What's happened to fracking? The Government halted fracking in England at the end of November 2019 after a series of confrontations between shale gas companies and local communities. Supporters claim there is enough shale gas in the UK to support the country's needs for decades. Fracking has boomed in the US, making the country a powerhouse in global oil and gas production and securing its energy security. The technique, also known as hydraulic fracturing, involves pumping water and sand underground at high pressure to fracture the rock and release trapped oil and gas. An active fracking site near Blackpool caused several earthquakes up to a magnitude of 2.9, which left houses in the local area shaking. Opponents of fracking also complain that sites require significant infrastructure and sand and water have to be transported to and fro in large trucks leading to traffic, noise and disruption. The Government took its decision after a scientific study found there would be 'unacceptable' consequences for those living near fracking sites. But it said it could agree to new sites if there was 'compelling new evidence' that fracking was safe. Does the UK have enough gas storage? The UK has around 18 times less gas storage than European nations such as Italy, Germany and France, making the country extremely vulnerable to volatile prices. A focus on renewables and developing better connectivity with neighbours such as Norway, to enable the UK to import gas effectively, meant little new storage has been built. In fact the Rough storage facility off the Yorkshire coast, which accounted for two-thirds of our gas capacity, was retired in 2017. Experts said politicians believed that there was no need to spend vast sums on new storage plants because prices had been stable between the summer and winter for many years. What about Shetland's oil fields? The UK could look to new oil fields  at the risk of being accused of climate hypocrisy. The area to the west of the Shetland Islands has been named as 'the place to be' by energy experts advising firms on growing Britain's oil output. Siccar Point Energy, backed by Shell, is preparing to start drilling in the Cambo oil field, situated 75 miles to the west of the Shetlands. It is thought to contain 800 million barrels of oil, which will be released over the next 25 years. The boss of SPE, Jonathan Roger, said: 'The Cambo development supports the country's energy transition, maintaining secure UK supply.' His words appear prophetic against this week's wild swings in gas prices, but more licences to drill oil will enrage environmental campaigners. It could also be against the law as the Government has created legislation committing the country to a 78 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2035, and a 100 per cent reduction by 2050. Advertisement

Mr Moffatt told MailOnline: 'We need to reset energy policy in this country' and put our 'national security first', adding that the answer would be to build more gas storage in the UK and give the 'green light' to the dozen or so gas projects waiting for approval in the North Sea.

He added: 'It's been criminal that successive governments have failed to plan for gas security and hand this to foreign powers when we depend on this fuel and will for many years'.

'The reliance on gas from abroad is now a matter of grave national security. If Russia puts troops over the border into Ukraine then it is inevitable that gas prices will go up and it will be the consumer that once again will be paying'.

Meanwhile analysts at investment bank Goldman Sachs said that Europe has enough gas stored up to get through winter, but if temperatures were to drop, leading to an increase in demand, storage could fall below the record lows seen in 2018.

If this happens 'electricity blackouts (are) likely,' the bank's analysts said.

It also warned that even if Russia ramps up its supplies to the region, north west Europe is likely to see gas prices at around double their normal levels.

This is before taking into account any potential conflict in Eastern Europe.

Should the supplies run out, Europe could be forced to turn to Russia - at exactly the moment America is hoping it will present a united front against Putin.

The Russian strongman has already named his price for increasing supplied to the continent: Approval of his Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Europe, bypassing Ukraine and depriving it of transportation revenues.

Aleksandr Novak, Russia's energy minister, said during a call with Putin last year that granting approval for Nord Stream 2 'as fast as possible' would give 'a positive signal' and allow the current gas crisis to 'cool down'.

Sergei Pikin, a Russian energy analyst, was even more blunt in his assessment. Speaking to the New York Times in October, he said: 'Do we have an obligation to deliver additional new volumes of gas? No.

'Where should Europeans be getting new volumes of gas from? Nord Stream 2.'

The US is strongly opposed to the pipeline being opened, fearing it will increase Europe's reliance on Russia still-further and give Mr Putin an outsized influence over the region's politics.

Mike Bradshaw, Professor of Global Energy at Warwick Business School, has said Russia has a tight grip on Europe's energy market.

He said: 'Europe is dependent on imports of Russian oil and gas, but Europe is also Russia's most important market for those exports that are a critical source of income for the Russian Government. However, the Russian Government has been building up a 'war chest' in terms of financial reserves.

'Yes, Europeand the UKwould suffer even higher prices and potential physical shortages if supplies of Russian oil and gas were constrained, either because of actions by the Kremlin or western sanctions. We do have strategic stockpiles of crude oil that could be used, but gas is more of a problem as storage is already low.

'The UK does not directly import significant volumes of gas from Russia, and most of what it does import is as Liquid Natural Gas. However, even after Brexit, the UK's gas market is connected, both physically and financially. Shortages in continental Europe mean higher prices and we could have to compete against them to secure gas'.

Britain could be forced to contend with record-breaking prices for gas and petrol if the fear of a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes a reality, ministers have been told.

Government officials are concerned that Russia will restrict its provision of gas to European countries in the face of Western sanctions should an invasion of Ukraine take place.

Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine.

Although Britain gets its gas from other sources, it would still be confronted with sky-high prices if Russia decided to restrict the flow of gas to Europe as the wholesale price of the resource would balloon.

'Unlike some countries the UK hardly imports any Russian gas, but like all countries we are exposed to rising wholesale prices, which would be a significant issue if Russia further restricted supply,' one senior official told The Times.

It comes as British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion.

Raab's promise came after top U.S. and Russian diplomats failed on Friday to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine.

'There'll be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime,' British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab told Sky News.

Europe's gas markets are linked by a network of interconnecting pipelines, and while some countries have cut their reliance on Russian gas over the years, many would be unable to satisfy demand should Russia decide to slash their supply.

'It would be difficult for Europe to stomach sanctions which effectively cut off Russian gas supply, or at least a large portion of these flows, given the regions dependency on Russian gas and the ongoing energy crisis,' said analysts at ING.

About half of British gas supplies come from the North Sea and a third through pipelines from Norway, with the remaining supply of LNG (liquified natural gas) imported via sea.

Other European countries are not so lucky - Germany relies on Russia for up to 40 per cent of its gas imports, and Nordic countries Finland and Sweden even more dependent.

And if Russia should decide to restrict supply to its European dependents in the face of harsh economic sanctions over an invasion of Ukraine, the countries would struggle to find an alternative option.

Norway, the second largest supplier of gas to Europe, is delivering natural gas to Europe at maximum capacity and that can't replace any missing supplies from Russia, its prime minister said this week.

A rise in gas and petrol prices in the UK as a result of a Russian decision to restrict gas provisions to Europe would only exacerbate Britain's ongoing energy crisis.

Ovo CEO Stephen Fitzpatrick said the impact of soaring wholesale gas prices will be 'an enormous crisis for 2022', saying families could be hit with 2,000 bills.

Fears of runaway household bills in the new year have been mounting since rising gas prices began bankrupting suppliers in September.

Since then, they have rocketed from 54p per therm of gas to a staggering 4.50.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is preparing for crunch talks with energy bosses to try to solve the spiralling crisis.

An Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman, looks on in a dugout on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near Gorlivka, Donetsk region on January 23, 2022 as the country is on a war footing

British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion of neighbouring Ukraine (pictured)

Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine (building of Nord Stream pipeline north-west of St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, April 9, 2010)

It comes as British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss released documents which accused Russia of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine, and said Russian intelligence officers had been in contact with a number of former Ukrainian politicians as part of plans for an invasion.

The British foreign ministry declined to provide evidence to back its accusations, which came at a time of high tensions between Russia and the West over Russia's massing of troops near its border with Ukraine.

The release of the documents led Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab to issue a warning to Vladimir Putin yesterday in which he promised harsh consequences should an invasion of Ukraine take place.

Appearing on Sky News, he said: 'We are standing shoulder to shoulder [with European countries, Nato and the US], saying there will be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade and also install a puppet regime.

'We wouldn't telegraph all of the measures we would take, but it is important that this very clear message, not just from the UK but from all NATO and other interested countries around the world who want to uphold the rule of law, that there will be very serious, severe economic consequences.

'It will obviously involve a range of financial and economic sanctions. We wouldn't telegraph those in advance, but you can rest assured that the Foreign Secretary and the Defence Secretary will be liaising with all of our partners and engaging, as we have done for many months, to make sure the response is robust and concerted.'

The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the British allegation as 'disinformation,' accusing NATO of 'escalating tensions' over Ukraine and insisted that Moscow have insisted they have no plans to invade.

Meanwhile in Washington, the U.S. State Department announced it was ordering the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the threat of Russian military action.

U.S. President Joe Biden has begun considering options for boosting America's military assets in the region, senior administration officials said, after meeting top national security aides at his Camp David retreat on Saturday.

The New York Times said Biden was mulling plans to send 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the possibility of increasing the number should tensions flare further.

A senior administration official declined to confirm the numbers on Sunday but said 'we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward.'

Countdown to war? Boris warns Putin invading Ukraine would be 'painful, violent and bloody' as UK pulls Kiev embassy staff - but brazen Russia announces military exercises off Irish coast

Boris Johnson today warned Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine will be a 'painful, violent and bloody business' as the UK pulled staff from its embassy in Keiv.

The PM delivered the stark message as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.

Russia has stirred the pot by announcing live-fire naval drills off the coast of Ireland next month, amid rapidly escalating tensions with the West. There are concerns that any escalation of the stand-off will send gas prices spiralling again, with threats of punitive sanctions against Moscow.

Speaking on a visit to a hospital in Milton Keynes, Mr Johnson said the Kremlin must realise that Ukraine could be a 'new Chechnya'.

'The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see,' he said.

'We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step.'

Mr Johnson said Britain is 'leading on creating a package of economic sanctions' against Russia and he would be speaking to international allies later on Monday.

'We also need to get a message that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business,' he said.

'I think it's very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya.'

Battleships will take part in sea drills around 150 miles off Ireland's southwest coast, within the country's 'exclusive economic zone' but outside its territorial waters.

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney revealed on Monday that Russia informed Ireland about the drills at the weekend, saying the warships are 'not welcome' but his country 'doesn't have the power to stop this from happening'.

Under UN conventions governing the oceans, military drills are allowed within the economic zones of other states provided they do not stray into territorial waters.

The drill will form part of much broader Russian naval exercises involving 140 ships and 10,000 troops from all of its naval fleets that will take place in the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, North Sea and Sea of Okhotsk from January until February.

It comes against the backdrop of Russia's troop build-up on the border of Ukraine, which has sparked fears of a war in Europe and a standoff between East and West.

Amid fears that an invasion is imminent, the UK began withdrawing diplomats from its mission in Kiev today - following a similar US move at the weekend.

Elsewhere today...

Joe Biden was considering plans to deploy up to 5,000 US troops to the Baltic region which could ramp up to 50,000 along with warships and aircraft

NATO deployed additional ships, troops and warplanes to the Baltics, following a call from Latvia's foreign minister for 'countermeasures' against Russia

The Kremlin condemned NATO's deployments, accusing the West of spreading 'hysteria' over a war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than even due to weapons shipments to the region

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to put on united front against Russia, saying 'never-before-seen' sanctions await if it invades Ukraine

Ursula von der Leyen, EU commission president, said 1billion euro aid package is being prepared for Ukraine

US said families of its diplomatic staff in Ukraine have been ordered to leave, and non-essential employees have been offered flights home

Australia began withdrawing families of diplomats based in Kiev, told its citizens to leave, and opened talks with Ukraine about defending against cyber attacks

Russia is planning to hold live-fire naval drills off the Irish coast next month, with Dublin saying the ships are 'not welcome' (file image, Russian ships near Saint Petersburg last year)

Boris Johnson (right) has delivered a stark message to Vladimir Putin (left at the Kremlin today) as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.

The drills will take place 150 miles from Irelands' south west coast, outside of its territorial waters but within its exclusive economic zone - which is permitted under international law

Ukrainian territorial volunteers take part in military training near Kiev at the weekend amid fears Russia could invade

Civilian volunteers who are part of the Ukrainian territorial army take part in training near Kiev at the weekend

Britain will face even higher gas and petrol prices if Russia invades Ukraine Britain could be forced to contend with record-breaking prices for gas and petrol if the fear of a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes a reality, ministers have been told. Government officials are concerned that Russia will restrict its provision of gas to European countries in the face of Western sanctions should an invasion of Ukraine take place. Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine. Although Britain gets its gas from other sources, it would still be confronted with sky-high prices if Russia decided to restrict the flow of gas to Europe as the wholesale price of the resource would balloon. 'Unlike some countries the UK hardly imports any Russian gas, but like all countries we are exposed to rising wholesale prices, which would be a significant issue if Russia further restricted supply,' one senior official told The Times. It comes as British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion. Raab's promise came after top U.S. and Russian diplomats failed on Friday to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine. 'There'll be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime,' Mr Raab said. Advertisement

Half of the UK's diplomatic mission and their families will leave the country, after the US ordered families of its staff to go and offered non-essential embassy staff space on flights back home.

Having already threatened 'swift and severe' economic sanctions if Ukraine is attacked, President Biden was today considering whether to deploy additional troops to the region to counter Russia's build-up.

Plans presented to the US president at the weekend included sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Baltic states neighbouring Russia - with the option of ramping up to 50,000 troops backed by warplanes and ships if the security situation deteriorates.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenburg confirmed today that the alliance will be beefing up its own presence in the region, with additional ships and fighter jets deployed.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania.

Spain is sending ships to join NATO's standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria.

Stoltenberg said NATO will 'take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies.'

He added: 'We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.'

Meanwhile Russia dispatched two corvettes from the Baltic Sea on a 'long distance voyage' with an unspecified destination.

The Stoykiy and Soobrazitelny left Russia's port at Baltiysk on the mission, which the defence ministry said would include 'communication, air and anti-submarine defence exercises and a number of combat drills.'

The statement was issued by the Western military district which is playing the lead role in massing forces on Europe's doorstep, raising fears the corvettes could be heading for the Black Sea near Ukraine.

It comes after Russia last week sailed six landing craft out of the Baltics - leading many to suspect they were also heading for the Black Sea to form part of what many fear is an invading force.

NATO announced the deployment of more troops after Latvia's foreign minister called for 'countermeasures' to Russia's build-up.

'We are reaching the point where a continuous Russian and Belarusian military buildup in Europe needs to be addressed by appropriate NATO countermeasures,' he wrote on Facebook.

'It is time to increase allied forces' presence on the alliance's eastern flank both as measures of defence and deterrence,' he added.

The Kremlin denounced NATO's movements, accusing the West of ramping up tensions by spreading 'hysteria' about war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than ever due to arms shipments to the region.

Peskov said the probability of military conflict in eastern Ukraine being initiated by the Ukrainian side was higher than ever.

Ukraine has deployed a large number of troops near the borders of breakaway regions controlled by pro-Russian separatists, which Peskov said suggests Kiev is preparing an attack. Ukraine has repeatedly denied this.

Meanwhile Australia had instructed security officials in Ukraine to open up talks with the government about providing help to defend against cyber attacks.

The country has already been targeted once by hackers in recent weeks - which it blamed on Moscow - and there are fears such an attack could be used to knock out infrastructure and sow chaos ahead of a ground invasion, or else be used as a way of punishing Ukraine short of putting boots on the ground.

Australia also began evacuating the families of diplomatic staff in Ukraine, and ordered citizens to leave the country due to the risk of a Russian attack.

Speaking about the Russian drills near Ireland at the weekend, politician and former soldier Cathal Berry told The Journal that Russian exercises in the region are 'unusual' though not unprecedented.

'The exercise is posturing and is about messaging directly with European powers,' he said.

'The location is not an accident... They could be doing this off the coast of Murmansk but have chosen the Atlantic instead. There has been an increased number of incursions in to this area and near to Irish airspace.'

Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Coveney said: 'I have made it clear to the Russian Ambassador in Ireland that it's not welcome.

'This is not a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what is happening with and in Ukraine at the moment.

'Russia, under international law, can take military exercises in international waters, but the fact they are choosing to do it on the west borders of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that is in our view not welcome and not wanted right now, particularly in the coming weeks.'

The UK has ordered some of its embassy staff out of Ukraine (pictured, the embassy in Kiev) due to fears that Russia could launch an attack

Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney (left) raised concerns about the drills as he arrived in Brussels for talks where states are expected to present a common front against Moscow

Spanish firgate Blas de Lezo leaves port on Sunday to begin a fresh NATO deployment, as the military alliance moves forces closer to Russia's border in response to Putin's troop build-up

A Ukrainian soldier patrols through a trench in the east of the country, close to where fighting is taking place with Russian-backed rebel groups

US could ban export of key tech components to Russia if it attacks Ukraine The United States has threatened to impose a novel export control to deprive Russia of key tech components that would damage AI and aerospace industries if Russia were to invade Ukraine. The Biden Administration may also opt to apply the control more widely, potentially restricting Russia's access to semiconductors, and therefore Russian citizens of smartphones, games consoles and tablets, government officials said. Such export controls that expand US sanctions beyond financial targets have only been deployed once before - to nearly bring down Chinese tech giant Huawei. The measure, known as the foreign direct product rule, contributed to Huawei experiencing its first-even annual revenue drop that fell almost 30 percent last year. Huawei's supply of essential microchips was strangled. While they are made outside the US, they require US software or tools. The US and the EU already have sanctions on Russia's energy, financial and defence sectors, with tensions between Moscow and Western powers raising the prospect of new economic sanctions being imposed if Russia attacks neighbouring Ukraine. The White House is also floating the idea of curbs on Russia's biggest banks and has previously mooted measures targeting Moscow's ability to convert roubles into dollars and other currencies. Washington could also target the state-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund. Similar restrictions on technology were deployed during the Cold War, when the United States and other Western nations maintained severe technology sanctions on the Soviet Union, keeping it technologically backward and crimping growth. Advertisement

Mr Coveney is in Brussels on Monday for a scheduled meeting with other EU foreign ministers at which the ongoing tensions on the Russia/Ukraine border are being discussed.

'This is an important day today for EU foreign ministers to reinforce a message of unity from the European Union in relation to Russian/Ukraine tension,' Mr Coveney added.

'There are two very clear messages that EU foreign ministers will want to get across today.

'First of all, a clear message and ask of Russia to defuse tension in the context of their activities on the borders of Ukraine and give reassurance to the rest of the world in terms of their intentions.

'Secondly, a strong message of unity from the EU that should Russia decide to invade Ukraine militarily, that there would be very severe consequences of that action from an EU perspective in terms of sanction and restrictions that would follow very quickly, that I think would be the most comprehensive that the EU has put together in many decades.

'A message and appeal to use diplomatic means to defuse tension, but also a very strong and clear and unified message that the EU respond collectively and in a unified manner in a way that would introduce very significant measures in response to Russian military action in Ukraine.'

Elsewhere, European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today with the aim of putting on a united front against Moscow.

'All members of the European Union are united. We are showing unprecedented unity about the situation in Ukraine, with the strong coordination with the U.S.,' EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels.

Asked whether the EU would withdraw its own diplomats from Ukraine, Borrell he would not follow suit and warned against 'dramatising' the situation.

He added that he is not aware of any specific threat against European embassy staff, and would like to speak more with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the US decision to pull his staff out.

During Monday's meeting, which Blinken will attend virtually, the ministers will restate Europes condemnation of the Russian military build-up near Ukraine, involving an estimated 100,000 troops, tanks, artillery and heavy equipment, diplomats and officials said ahead of the meeting.

Theyll renew calls for dialogue, notably through the European-backed 'Normandy format,' which helped to ease hostilities in 2015, a year after Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula. Fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed around 14,000 people and still simmers today.

Should Putin move on Ukraine again, the ministers will warn, Russia would face 'massive consequences and severe costs.' Those costs would be of a financial and political nature. The EU insists that it stands ready to slap hefty sanctions on Russia within days of any attack.

'We dont know what the Russians are going to do, but what we are talking about is basically the most important security development in Europe since the end of the Cold War,' a senior EU official said. 'The response of the European Union will be at the level of the challenge.'

Hungary's foreign minister warned on Monday of the threat of a new Cold War, amid tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

'We don't want a new Cold War. The Cold War period had tragic consequences in Central Eastern Europe, we wasted several decades,' Peter Szijjarto said, adding that Hungary supported all diplomatic efforts and talks to resolve the standoff.

The official and diplomats briefed reporters on condition of anonymity so that they could speak more freely about the meeting preparations.

Over the weekend, some of the member countries closest to Russia - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - confirmed that they plan to send U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by the United States.

A Ukrainian military instructor drills civilian volunteers in woodlands near Kiev on Saturday

Ukrainian Servicemen of the 30th Army Brigade are seen in trenches outside of Svitlodarsk, in the east of the country, on Sunday

A Ukrainian soldier is pictured in trenches near Svitlodarsk, eastern Ukraine, on Sunday

A US soldier prepares a pallet of anti-tank weapons for transport to Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on Friday

America has also begun withdrawing its staff, with families of diplomats ordered home and non-essential staff offered a route out of the country

But questions have been raised about just how unified the EU is. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. Around 40% of the EUs natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine.

Gas prices have skyrocketed, and the head of the International Energy Agency has said that Russian energy giant Gazprom was already reducing its exports to the EU in late 2021 despite high prices. Putin says Gazprom is respecting its contract obligations, not putting the squeeze on Europe.

The EUs two major powers appear most cautious. Germanys Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which is complete but yet to pump gas, has become a bargaining chip. French President Emmanuel Macron has renewed previously rejected calls for an EU summit with Putin.

Late last year, France and Germany initially expressed doubts about U.S. intelligence assessments that Moscow might be preparing to invade.

Late on Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, resigned after coming under fire for saying that Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula, and for suggesting that Putin deserves 'respect.'

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plans to meet with Putin next week to discuss a Russian-backed project to expand a Hungarian nuclear power plant.

Still, diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EUs executive branch, the European Commission. But they were reluctant to say what the measures might be or what action by Russia might trigger them.

The aim, they said, is to try to match the doubts Putin has sowed about his intentions for Ukraine with uncertainty about what any retaliatory European action might look like, or when it would come.

One diplomat refused to discuss the matter at all. Another suggested that a layered response might be in preparation, with different levels of retaliation depending on whether a cyberattack, rocket strike, or all-out invasion was launched.

A third was confident there would be no arguments over the trigger point, saying: 'Well know it when we see it.'

For now, though, the Europeans must wait and see whether Putin is satisfied with progress in talks with the United States, coordinate with Blinken on a response should things go wrong, and bank on the economic deterrent posed by the EU being Russias biggest trading partner.
A statue of Spanish colonizer Juan Ponce de Leon was toppled from its base in the pre-dawn hours of Monday hours ahead of a visit of King Felipe VI to the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.

Authorities say the statue was knocked off its base where it has stood since the 19th century in the San Juan historic district of Old San Juan.

Officers patrolling the cobblestone streets around San Jose Plaza heard a loud bang at 4:30 a.m. They found the bronze statue of the explorer split in half and lying on the ground.

'It sounded like an explosion,' said San Juan police commissioner Col. Jose Juan Garcia.

Local media reported that a group known as the Boriken Libertarian Forces has claimed responsibility.

"Faced with the... visit of the King of Spain, Felipe VI, to Puerto Rico and the escalation of 'gringo' invaders taking over our lands, we want to send a clear message: Neither kings nor 'gringo' invaders," the group wrote in a statement.

The Juan Ponce de Leon statue stood in the San Juan historic district of Old San Juan dating back to the 19th century. The bronze statue was toppled Monday by a group of protesters who are against the visit that Spain's King Felipe VI will make to San Juan on Monday as part of celebrations that will mark the 500th anniversary of the city's founding

A monument of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon is in pieces at San Jose Plaza in San Juan, Puerto Rico, after it was knocked off its base by protesters

San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero told reporters that the statue would be repaired and back in its original place Monday afternoon

The gringo reference is to non-native Puerto Ricans who go to the area for business opportunities. Juan Ponce de Leon is viewed by the group as a colonizer who oppressed those who lived on the island at the time.

The Juan Ponce de Leon statue was created in 1882 in New York with bronze obtained from British cannons captured after a failed attack on the Spanish in Puerto Rico in 1797.

It featured the Spanish explorer facing south with his left hand on his hip and right finger pointed toward Caparra, the first settlement he founded in 1508. Ruins still mark the spot of the island's first Spanish capital and are a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

The statue also pointed in the direction of the nearby San Juan Bautista Cathedral, a popular tourist spot that holds Ponce de Leon's remains.

Crews struggled to remove the heavy statue hours after the incident. San Juan Mayor Miguel Romero vowed that it would be repaired by Monday afternoon and returned to its original place.

Spanish King Felipe VI will be in Puerto Rico Monday to meet with Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi and other officials to celebrate the 500th anniversary of San Juan's founding.

'We are facing an attack against the artistic and cultural heritage of the people of Puerto Rico,' Romero told Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia

'They (Boriken Libertarian Forces) are against the visit. I believe that opinions are respected and protected, and we can differ,' Romero said. 'What there is no room for is the commission of crime and much less for the destruction of public property.'

Governor Pedro Pierluisi viewed King Felipe VI's visit as the perfect timing to strengthen relations with Spain and its business developers.

"Spanish tourism has great potential for growth in Puerto Rico, particularly as a result of the new direct flights to Spain," Pierluisi said. 'Likewise, we have several Spanish companies doing business in Puerto Rico and we want to increase that commercial presence, as well as promote the export of Puerto Rican goods and services to Spain. I am sure that the visit will be of great benefit to Puerto Rico.'

Puerto Rican Independence Party Secretary General Juan Dalmau Ramirez was among those who opposed Felipe VI's three-day trip, calling it an act of colonization.

King Felipe VI is scheduled to bestow upon Romero and Pierluisi the Order of Isabella the Catholic on behalf of the Spanish government. The order acknowledges extraordinary services to the homeland, or the promotion of international relations and cooperation with other nations.

'In the case of Puerto Rico, which has been prevented from exercising its right to self-determination, it is an insult for the King of Spain to appear as spokesman for the Spanish government to award an award or an honor to those who deny our identity, our nationality and of our inalienable right to self-determination and independence," Dalmau Ramirez said.

Authorities secure the site where a statue of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon was toppled from the base of its monument

A statue of Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon lays in a truck as municipal workers recover its pieces

Two years ago, activists marched through the streets of Old San Juan as they joined a nationwide movement to eradicate symbols of oppression and demanded that Spain's legacy in Puerto Rico be erased. While some statues have been defaced with graffiti, police said this is the first time such a statue was toppled.

It is near the second oldest surviving Spanish church in the Americas, whose construction began in 1532 on land donated by Ponce de Leon and whose base was erected atop an Indigenous settlement.

Christopher Columbus landed in Puerto Rico in 1493 accompanied by Ponce de Leon, who became the island's first governor and quelled an uprising by the native Tainos, a subgroup of the Arawak Indians.

Puerto Rico remained a Spanish colony until 1898, when Spain transferred the island to the United States at the end of the Spanish-American war.
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A 26-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after allegedly running over a knifeman and the woman he was stabbing in an apparent attempt to stop the frenzied assault before both died from their injuries.

The driver mowed down a 41-year-old man in Maida Vale, west London, at around 9am today while the victim, 43, also became stuck under the car after her coat was trapped in one of the wheels, according to a witness.

Horror had unfolded after the woman was stabbed multiple times by an attacker - who police said she knew - on Chippenham Road in front of onlookers desperately trying to intervene to save her.

Raad Jiyad, 52, who lives locally, told how he and another passer-by confronted the attacker while he was stabbing the woman during the 'horrific' incident, but he waved his knife at the pair and ordered them to 'get back'.

He said: '[The attacker] was shouting "Please. Please help me". The woman was also stuck under the car because her coat was under one of the wheels. I was trying to help the woman. There was blood everywhere.'

The attack only ended when a passing motorist drove into the man who ended up pinned under a blue Renault Clio, with dozens of children attending the nearby secondary school heard screaming at what they had seen.

Mr Jiyad said the driver got out of his car and tried to chase the knifeman away, saying 'I want to stop him' before getting back into his car and running him over.

One bystander said the incident was 'something one sees in movies, not in real life'. Police were firstly dispatched to reports of a stabbing, but when they got to the scene they also found the man who had been hit by a car.

Paramedic teams from the London Ambulance Service were called as well as crews from London Fire Brigade, who freed the man as he was trapped under the vehicle, but both were declared dead at the scene.

Mr Jiyad told MailOnline today how he ran into the street after being alerted by the victim's desperate screams, saying: 'It was horrific. He was repeatedly plunging the knife into her. It was a 10cm (4in) long kitchen knife.

'The woman was screaming for help but he did not stop. He was stabbing her in the neck and the side and the stomach as she was lying on the floor. She had her hands up trying to protect herself.

'I ran towards him and we pleaded with him to stop. He then turned on us and raised the knife up and was threatening to stab us. He was saying 'Get back. Get back.' We couldn't get near him.

'We couldn't do anything to stop him. He was waving the knife at us then kept turning to stab the woman again. She must have been stabbed ten times. I tried to distract him but he wouldn't stop.

'He was only stopped when the driver ran his car over him. He drove fast enough that the attacker went beneath the car and was pinned under the wheels. He was asking people to get him out but we couldn't lift up the car.'

Metropolitan Police officers investigate at the scene in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon following the double death

Police officers and emergency services cordon off the scene in Maida Vale, West London, today. Police were firstly dispatched to reports of a stabbing, but when they got to the scene they also found the man who had been hit by a car

A Metropolitan Police officer in a forensic suit at the scene on Chippenham Road in Maida Vale this afternoon. The attack only ended when a passing motorist drove into the man who ended up pinned under the wheels of the driver's blue Renault Clio

Forensics officers in Maida Vale today after a woman was stabbed to death and a man was killed after being hit by a car

Forensic officers carry out investigations after a woman and man died in Maida Vale, West London, this morning

He added: 'I got blood all over my hands as I tried to stop her bleeding. She was breathing very heavily. In the end there was nothing we could do to save her. The driver was a young man. He was in a state of shock.

'I told him it was the only (way) to stop him. The police came and lifted the car up on a jack and took him from under the vehicle then put the attacker into an ambulance. He had been under the vehicle for about 15 minutes and he did not survive. This all happened before 9am as people were taking their children to school.'

Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood, of the Met's Specialist Crime Command, said: 'This was a terrible incident that occurred in broad daylight on a busy London street. It also appears that a number of members of the public bravely tried to intervene to stop the attack.

'A man has been arrested in relation to the case; we are not aware of any links between this man and the two deceased. I can also confirm that we are not currently looking for anyone else in connection to this incident.

'A team of detectives are working to establish the circumstances of the incident and I would ask the public to avoid speculating on what may have happened while these initial enquiries take place.

'A number of people have already come forward, but we are still asking for anyone to make contact with us. Any information could be vital in helping us understand why this dreadful incident happened.'

Mr Jiyad said the two men were not known to each other but he believed both dead victims did know each other. He said: 'The man who arrived in the blue car, which was a Renault, was scared about what happened.

'We spoke to each other and he tried to stop the guy with the knife. I don't think either of the men knew each other already but I think the man with the knife and the woman knew each other.

'The man in the car was white and he looked around 26 to 29. No one else was trying to stop the man with the knife and he tried to chase him away. He only did this for a very short time. I saw him when he arrived and he looked scared. I told him 'wait until the police come' and tried to calm him down.

'But after that he just shouted 'I want to stop him, I want to stop him' and he ran the man with the knife over with his car. He knew exactly what he had done and was later taken into a police van. Police asked a lot of people in the road what had happened but they took the man away. There were about eight to ten other witnesses at the scene.

'I have a son who is 16 and he saw what happened as I was about to take him to school. I have another son who is 10 but he didn't see anything as his mother took him away. My 16-year-old has been left in shock and is scared.

'This is a very quiet area. No one else I know saw anything. It didn't look like there were any friends or relatives of either the man or the woman present during the attack.'

Police said the families of the man and woman who died have been informed and that post-mortem examinations will be arranged in due course.

In a statement, the force said: 'Enquiries are under way to establish the full circumstances, but at this early stage it is believed the two deceased were known to each other.'

Forensic tents at the scene in Maida Vale today after the incident which caused five bus routes to go on diversion

Forensic officers carry out investigations after a woman and man died in Maida Vale, West London, this morning

Detectives investigate this afternoon following the double death which happened in Maida Vale, West London

Forensics officers in Maida Vale today after a woman was stabbed to death and a man was killed after being hit by a car

Forensic officers carry out investigations after a woman and man died in Maida Vale, West London, this morning

Photographs taken at the scene this afternoon showed forensic teams investigating and taking photographs amid a huge police presence with a large cordon in place that was causing five bus routes to go on diversion.

Two vehicles - a Vauxhall and the Renault Clio- were in the cordoned area alongside two London buses and a lorry. Three forensic tents were set up inside the cordon as detectives in forensic gear searched for clues.

Witnesses told how residents who live within the cordon were not allowed to enter, and local MP Karen Buck said what happened was 'horrific' and 'devastating' for both relatives of those killed and the surrounding community.

Mulugeta Asseratte, who saw the attack, said: 'It is a very terrible incident. I was coming up from the bakery to Chippenham Road and suddenly heard shouts of 'stop it, stop it' and it was a girl being attacked by a gentleman.

'In any case, I'm a father of four daughters, such things do happen, and I tried to look and even say 'stop it' and it would not.

'All of a sudden it moved to the street and no sooner than they reached the street than a driver came and hit both of them. We were all shocked and shouting and my heart goes out to the families of this fatal incident. This is something one sees in movies, not in real life.'

Another local resident said he heard 'awful screams coming from kids' attending a nearby secondary school.

The incident happened on Chippenham Road which has an average house price of 497,000 and features a row of traditional townhouse terraces mostly now converted into flats as well as a park including a children's playground.

Local roads were closed with buses 31, 36, 228 and 328 all on diversion. Westminster North Labour MP Ms Buck, whose constituency address is just 200 yards away, tweeted today: 'Horrific events this morning in Elgin Avenue, which will be devastating for family and friends of those killed and also for the local community.'

Metropolitan Police officers on the scene this afternoon following the double death in Maida Vale, West London

Forensic officers look at a blue Renault as they carry out investigations in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon

Forensics officers in Maida Vale today after a woman was stabbed to death and a man was killed after being hit by a car

Forensic officers stand near a blue Renault as they carry out investigations in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon

Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Neil Smithson earlier said: 'This morning an incredibly serious incident has unfolded in the Westminster area which has seen two people pronounced dead. Our officers are on scene and are working to establish exactly what has happened. As soon as we have more information will keep the public updated but for now we must avoid speculation and allow investigators to do their work.

'What I can say at this time is that the incident is contained and we do not believe there to be any wider threat to the community. We have spoken to a number of people already but anyone else who witnessed the incident, or who has information that could help us, is urged to make contact immediately.'

Councillor Tim Roca, who represents the Harrow Road ward on Westminster City Council, tweeted: 'Just hearing about the tragic events on Chippenham road this morning. Absolutely awful news and fair to say the community is in shock.'

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'An urgent investigation has been launched following the deaths of a woman and a man in Maida Vale.

'Police were called at 9.01am on Monday, January 24 to reports of a stabbing in Chippenham Road, W9. Officers, London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade attended the scene.

'A woman was found at the scene with stab injuries. Officers also found a man at the location who had been struck by a vehicle. Both the man and the woman were pronounced dead at the scene.'

Detectives investigate this afternoon after the double death happened in Maida Vale, West London

Forensic officers look at a blue Renault as they carry out investigations in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon

Metropolitan Police officers in forensic suits at the scene today on Chippenham Road in Maida Vale, West London

Emergency services at the scene today on Chippenham Road following the incident in Maida Vale, West London

A London Ambulance Service spokesman said: 'We were called at 9.02am today to reports of an incident on Chippenham Road, W9.

'We sent a number of resources to the scene, including two ambulance crews, two clinical team leaders, an advanced paramedic, two tactical response units, a medic in a car, an incident response officer, and members of our hazardous area response team. We also dispatched by road London's Air Ambulance. Despite our medics' efforts, two people died at the scene.'

A London Fire Brigade spokesman said: 'Firefighters were called to a road traffic collision on Chippenham Road in Maida Vale this morning. One car had been in collision with a pedestrian and a man was trapped under the vehicle.

'Crews released him from under the car but he was sadly pronounced dead at the scene. Another woman was also sadly pronounced dead at the scene.

'The Brigade was called at 9.10am and the incident was over for firefighters by 9.47am. Two fire engines from North Kensington and Paddington fire stations and a fire rescue unit from Paddington fire station were at the scene.'

The incident happened on the junction of Chippenham Road and Elgin Avenue which is located four roads away from the BBC's famous Maida Vale studios.

Police said witnesses can call them on 101 quoting the reference 1496/24jan, or to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online
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The Bien administration is ordering 8,500 US-based troops to stand ready for Eastern European deployment as Boris Johnson today warned Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine will be a 'painful, violent and bloody business' as the UK pulled staff from its embassy in Kiev.

The PM delivered the stark message as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.

'This is really about getting folks ready to go,' US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press conference this afternoon. He added the majority of those troops would be ground forces.

Mr Kirby also said they would stand ready in case NATO activates the NATO Response Force or a 'deteriorating security environment.'

He told reporters: 'Theres not a mission per se, this is about [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] wanting to get ahead of the potential activation and making sure these units have time to prepare.'

Mr Kirby said the move was 'sending a strong message that we're committed to NATO and we're committed to ensuring that our allies have the capabilities they need in case they need to defend themselves.'

However he stressed the troops are currently on 'heightened alert' posture and have no plans to deploy at this time.

It comes after reports that Biden is finalising his plans to deploy US forces as Russia poises itself to invade Ukraine, a new report revealed as the US president faces backlash from Ukraine for pulling embassy personnel and considers deploying up to 50,000 American troops.

Biden will speak with Transatlantic Allies and partners, including Mr Johnson, this afternoon to discuss his plan regarding the Ukraine-Russia conflict, according to the White House's updated version of the US president's daily schedule.

The secure video call with European leaders will be held in the Situation Room and will also include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Andrzej Duda of Poland.

Russia has stirred the pot by announcing live-fire naval drills off the coast of Ireland next month, amid rapidly escalating tensions with the West. There are concerns that any escalation of the stand-off will send gas prices spiralling again, with threats of punitive sanctions against Moscow.

Speaking on a visit to a hospital in Milton Keynes as NATO ministers held crisis talks in Brussels, Mr Johnson said the Kremlin must realise that Ukraine could be a 'new Chechnya'.

'The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see,' he said.

'We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step.'

The government has ruled out sending combat troops, but Mr Johnson said Britain is 'leading on creating a package of economic sanctions' against Russia and he would be speaking to international allies later.

'We also need to get a message that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business,' he said.

'I think it's very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya.'

Battleships will take part in sea drills around 150 miles off Ireland's southwest coast, within the country's 'exclusive economic zone' but outside its territorial waters.

Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said NATO's 'increased activities near our borders cannot be ignored by our military, which is responsible for the security of our country'.

Foreign Minister Simon Coveney revealed that Russia informed Ireland about the drills at the weekend, saying the warships are 'not welcome' but his country 'doesn't have the power to stop this from happening'.

Under UN conventions governing the oceans, military drills are allowed within the economic zones of other states provided they do not stray into territorial waters.

The drill will form part of much broader Russian naval exercises involving 140 ships and 10,000 troops from all of its naval fleets that will take place in the Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, North Sea and Sea of Okhotsk from January until February.

It comes against the backdrop of Russia's troop build-up on the border of Ukraine, which has sparked fears of a war in Europe and a standoff between East and West.

Amid fears that an invasion is imminent, the UK began withdrawing diplomats from its mission in Kiev today - following a similar US move at the weekend.

As the stakes were dramatically raised in the standoff today:

Mr Johnson will have a call with allies including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Olaf Scholz, Poland's Andrzej Duda and Italy's Mario Draghi tonight;

Mr Biden is considering plans to deploy up to 5,000 US troops to the Baltic region which could ramp up to 50,000 along with warships and aircraft;

A former UK national security adviser has complained that Mr Johnson has been 'invisible' on the Ukraine tensions because he is 'mired in his domestic woes';

NATO deployed additional ships, troops and warplanes to the Baltics, following a call from Latvia's foreign minister for 'countermeasures' against Russia;

The Kremlin condemned NATO's deployments, accusing the West of spreading 'hysteria' over a war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than even due to weapons shipments to the region;

EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to put on united front against Russia, saying 'never-before-seen' sanctions await if it invades Ukraine;

Ursula von der Leyen, EU commission president, said 1billion euro aid package is being prepared for Ukraine;

Norway has urged against all-but essential travel to Ukraine as the situation threatens to spiral.

Boris Johnson (right) has delivered a stark message to Vladimir Putin (left at the Kremlin today) as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.

Civilians training to resist any Russian invasion of Ukraine over the weekend. Left is 21-year-old Tatania, a veterinary medicine student

Russia is planning to hold live-fire naval drills off the Irish coast next month, with Dublin saying the ships are 'not welcome' (file image, Russian ships near Saint Petersburg last year)

Ukrainian territorial volunteers take part in military training near Kiev at the weekend amid fears Russia could invade

Civilian volunteers who are part of the Ukrainian territorial army take part in training near Kiev at the weekend

The drills will take place 150 miles from Irelands' south west coast, outside of its territorial waters but within its exclusive economic zone - which is permitted under international law

Britain will face even higher gas and petrol prices if Russia invades Ukraine Britain could be forced to contend with record-breaking prices for gas and petrol if the fear of a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes a reality, ministers have been told. Government officials are concerned that Russia will restrict its provision of gas to European countries in the face of Western sanctions should an invasion of Ukraine take place. Europe relies on Russia for around 35 per cent of its natural gas, the bulk of which comes through pipelines including Yamal, which crosses Belarus and Poland to Germany, Nord Stream 1, which goes directly to Germany, and routes through Ukraine. Although Britain gets its gas from other sources, it would still be confronted with sky-high prices if Russia decided to restrict the flow of gas to Europe as the wholesale price of the resource would balloon. 'Unlike some countries the UK hardly imports any Russian gas, but like all countries we are exposed to rising wholesale prices, which would be a significant issue if Russia further restricted supply,' one senior official told The Times. It comes as British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab yesterday promised Britain would impose harsh sanctions on Russia should President Vladimir Putin authorise an invasion. Raab's promise came after top US and Russian diplomats failed on Friday to make a major breakthrough in talks to resolve the crisis over Ukraine. 'There'll be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade but also install a puppet regime,' Mr Raab said. Advertisement

Half of the UK's diplomatic mission and their families will leave the country, after the US ordered families of its staff to go and offered non-essential embassy staff space on flights back home.

Just 30 British diplomats  including the ambassador  will remain in Ukraine.

Over the weekend, the State Department also recalled US embassy personnel from Ukraine over fears of invasion and warned private American citizens that they should immediately find their own way out of the country.

'Given that the President has said military action by Russia could come at any time, the US government will not be in a position to evacuate US citizens,' officials said during a State Department call on Sunday.

'So US citizens, currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly,' they added, suggesting people arrange commercial flights.

Arizona pro-Trump Representative Andy Biggs tweeted: 'Americans are still stranded in Afghanistan, and thanks to Biden, we can't evacuate Americans from Ukraine.'

'Biden is not only the America Last president, but the president who leaves Americans behind,' he added.

He added in another tweet: 'If you listen real close, you can hear Putin laughing from Russia'

It was in response to a February 2020 from then-candidate Joe Biden who wrote at the time: 'Vladimir Putin doesn't want me to be President. He doesn't want me to be our nominee. If you're wondering why  it's because I'm the only person in this field who's ever gone toe-to-toe with him.'

Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee wrote on Twitter: 'Just four days ago, Biden stood in front of the world and essentially gave Russia the green light to invade. Now, the State Department has ordered the families of US diplomats to evacuate Ukraine.'

Having already threatened 'swift and severe' economic sanctions if Ukraine is attacked, President Biden was today considering whether to deploy additional troops to the region to counter Russia's build-up.

Both Democrats and Republicans are publicly pressuring the US president to apply sanctions on the Kremlin now instead of waiting to act until Russia invades Ukraine.

'What's happening with Russia and Ukraine would never have happened under the Trump Administration. Not even a possibility!' former President Donald Trump sent in a statement today.

Democrat Representative Frank Pallone tweeted on Sunday: 'Putin should know that if Russia invades Ukraine, the House will quickly pass legislation to impose sanctions on Russia. The United States and our allies will stand with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.'

He was referencing Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee introducing last week a companion bill to the Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022 that would impose sanctions on Russia as it inches closer to invading Ukraine.

Republican Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan also tweeted today, saying: 'President Biden is enabling Russia to invade Ukraine by being all talk and no action.

'It's time to stop making America look weak and start showing leadership.'

Plans presented to the US president at the weekend included sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Baltic states neighbouring Russia - with the option of ramping up to 50,000 troops backed by warplanes and ships if the security situation deteriorates.

Yesterday Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan asked Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Michael McCaul: 'You heard the secretary say that if he uses the leverage of sanctions now, he gives up an important bit of deterrence. Do you disagree?'

'I completely disagree,' the Texas Republican replied. 'I think this has been a passive deterrence, right? I don't. I don't see Putin changing his course of action. It's getting very aggressive.'

'The noose is tightening around Ukraine. President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, as you mentioned, said he wants the sanctions now,' McCaul continued on Sunday. 'We can always remove the sanctions if it deters Putin's bad behaviour, but if you reward that and there are no consequences, it's going to continue. And I think all along, there are so many things we can be doing to provide deterrence if we don't do this.'

Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone said the US is ready to impose sanctions should Russia invade  but Biden is considering much more severe action as he considers deploying as many as 50,000 US troops to the Baltic region and Eastern European countries that border Ukraine

'The plan of action that I've seen in the classified space, as well as very specific, very aggressive, is timetable. If we don't do something strong right now, I'm afraid that he's going to invade Ukraine, which will have, as the secretary talked about, he's right and I think you and I did. It will have global ramifications here.'

Republican Representative Pat Fallon from Texas, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said Biden should have already imposed sanctions on Russia.

'We should be sanctioning Russia yesterday  not tomorrow, not next week, but right now!' he tweeted on Sunday.

Germany has 'betrayed' Ukraine by banning weapon exports and supporting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with Russia, Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko declares Former world heavyweight boxing champion and Mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko has accused Germany of 'betraying' Ukraine over its support of a Russian gas pipeline and refusal to export arms to his country. The ex-heavyweight champ today contributed a piece to German daily Bild in which he slated the German authorities for their 'failure to provide assistance and betrayal of friends' as tensions reach boiling point amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Klitschko's scalding of the German government comes on the same day as NATO announced it was putting forces on standby and reinforcing eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets to prepare for a potential invasion. Former world heavyweight boxing champion and Mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko 'There is huge disappointment in Ukraine that the federal government is sticking to Nord Stream 2 and that it does not want to supply defence weapons,' Klitschko wrote in Bild. 'This is failure to provide assistance and betrayal of friends in a dramatic situation in which our country is threatened by Russian troops from several borders.' Advertisement

Last week Biden suggested during his press briefing that if Russia made a 'minor incursion' there may be more debate over what to do next, saying: 'I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades.

'And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do.'

But today representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 ranking Republican in the House, tweeted: 'There is no such thing as a minor incursion  any attempt to encroach on a sovereign nation is an invasion. Russia must accept Ukraine's sovereignty and de-escalate immediately.'

The White House had to do clean up duty on those comments after it immediately raised alarms domestically and overseas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted there was no such thing as 'minor incursions.'

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut claimed while the US 'can and should do more' to help Ukraine, he also said 'no country has done more to help Ukraine defend itself than the US'

NATO chief Jens Stoltenburg confirmed today that the alliance will be beefing up its own presence in the region, with additional ships and fighter jets deployed.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania.

Spain is sending ships to join NATO's standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria.

Downing Street said there were 'further signs of Russian aggression' on the country's border and that 'the West is  we are  ready to act if needed'.

But the PM's spokesman said there were 'no plans to send UK combat troops' to the region but sanctions were on the table if Russia proceeded.

Stoltenberg said NATO will 'take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies.'

He added: 'We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.'

Meanwhile Russia dispatched two corvettes from the Baltic Sea on a 'long distance voyage' with an unspecified destination.

The Stoykiy and Soobrazitelny left Russia's port at Baltiysk on the mission, which the defence ministry said would include 'communication, air and anti-submarine defence exercises and a number of combat drills.'

The statement was issued by the Western military district which is playing the lead role in massing forces on Europe's doorstep, raising fears the corvettes could be heading for the Black Sea near Ukraine.

It comes after Russia last week sailed six landing craft out of the Baltics - leading many to suspect they were also heading for the Black Sea to form part of what many fear is an invading force.

NATO announced the deployment of more troops after Latvia's foreign minister called for 'countermeasures' to Russia's build-up.

'We are reaching the point where a continuous Russian and Belarusian military buildup in Europe needs to be addressed by appropriate NATO countermeasures,' he wrote on Facebook.

'It is time to increase allied forces' presence on the alliance's eastern flank both as measures of defence and deterrence,' he added.

The Kremlin denounced NATO's movements, accusing the West of ramping up tensions by spreading 'hysteria' about war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than ever due to arms shipments to the region.

Peskov said the probability of military conflict in eastern Ukraine being initiated by the Ukrainian side was higher than ever.

Ukraine has deployed a large number of troops near the borders of breakaway regions controlled by pro-Russian separatists, which Peskov said suggests Kiev is preparing an attack. Ukraine has repeatedly denied this.

Meanwhile Australia had instructed security officials in Ukraine to open up talks with the government about providing help to defend against cyber attacks.

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy claimed while the US'can and should do more' to help Ukraine, he also said 'no country has done more to help Ukraine defend itself than the US'

Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn said Biden's comments 'gave Russia the green light to invade'

The country has already been targeted once by hackers in recent weeks - which it blamed on Moscow - and there are fears such an attack could be used to knock out infrastructure and sow chaos ahead of a ground invasion, or else be used as a way of punishing Ukraine short of putting boots on the ground.

Australia also began evacuating the families of diplomatic staff in Ukraine, and ordered citizens to leave the country due to the risk of a Russian attack.

Lord Ricketts, former UK National Security Adviser, told Times Radio that Mr Johnson had been so distracted by the Partygate scandal that he had neglected the Ukraine situation.

'it feels to me like the Prime Minister has been completely invisible on the Ukrainian crisis apart from putting out one or two press releases from No10,' the peer said.

'He hasn't been part of the action between the heads of state and government. Liz Truss is now active at foreign minister level, (Defence Secretary) Ben Wallace has been making sure Britain has played a prominent role in military support to Ukraine.

'And I applaud that, but this all needs to be brought together. And I think we do need more energy and activity from the Prime Minister himself. This is a very serious crisis and heads of government ought to be involved in handling it.'

Speaking about the Russian drills near Ireland at the weekend, politician and former soldier Cathal Berry told The Journal that Russian exercises in the region are 'unusual' though not unprecedented.

'The exercise is posturing and is about messaging directly with European powers,' he said.

'The location is not an accident... They could be doing this off the coast of Murmansk but have chosen the Atlantic instead. There has been an increased number of incursions in to this area and near to Irish airspace.'

Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Coveney said: 'I have made it clear to the Russian Ambassador in Ireland that it's not welcome.

'This is not a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what is happening with and in Ukraine at the moment.

'Russia, under international law, can take military exercises in international waters, but the fact they are choosing to do it on the west borders of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that is in our view not welcome and not wanted right now, particularly in the coming weeks.'

The UK has ordered some of its embassy staff out of Ukraine (pictured, the embassy in Kiev) due to fears that Russia could launch an attack

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was in Brussels for talks with NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg (right) and her fellow ministers today

Ursula von der Leyen, EU commission president, said 1billion euro aid package is being prepared for Ukraine

Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney (left) raised concerns about the drills as he arrived in Brussels for talks where states are expected to present a common front against Moscow

Spanish firgate Blas de Lezo leaves port on Sunday to begin a fresh NATO deployment, as the military alliance moves forces closer to Russia's border in response to Putin's troop build-up

A Ukrainian soldier patrols through a trench in the east of the country, close to where fighting is taking place with Russian-backed rebel groups

US could ban export of key tech components to Russia if it attacks Ukraine The United States has threatened to impose a novel export control to deprive Russia of key tech components that would damage AI and aerospace industries if Russia were to invade Ukraine. The Biden Administration may also opt to apply the control more widely, potentially restricting Russia's access to semiconductors, and therefore Russian citizens of smartphones, games consoles and tablets, government officials said. Such export controls that expand US sanctions beyond financial targets have only been deployed once before - to nearly bring down Chinese tech giant Huawei. The measure, known as the foreign direct product rule, contributed to Huawei experiencing its first-even annual revenue drop that fell almost 30 percent last year. Huawei's supply of essential microchips was strangled. While they are made outside the US, they require US software or tools. The US and the EU already have sanctions on Russia's energy, financial and defence sectors, with tensions between Moscow and Western powers raising the prospect of new economic sanctions being imposed if Russia attacks neighbouring Ukraine. The White House is also floating the idea of curbs on Russia's biggest banks and has previously mooted measures targeting Moscow's ability to convert roubles into dollars and other currencies. Washington could also target the state-backed Russian Direct Investment Fund. Similar restrictions on technology were deployed during the Cold War, when the United States and other Western nations maintained severe technology sanctions on the Soviet Union, keeping it technologically backward and crimping growth. Advertisement

Mr Coveney is in Brussels on Monday for a scheduled meeting with other EU foreign ministers at which the ongoing tensions on the Russia/Ukraine border are being discussed.

'This is an important day today for EU foreign ministers to reinforce a message of unity from the European Union in relation to Russian/Ukraine tension,' Mr Coveney added.

'There are two very clear messages that EU foreign ministers will want to get across today.

'First of all, a clear message and ask of Russia to defuse tension in the context of their activities on the borders of Ukraine and give reassurance to the rest of the world in terms of their intentions.

'Secondly, a strong message of unity from the EU that should Russia decide to invade Ukraine militarily, that there would be very severe consequences of that action from an EU perspective in terms of sanction and restrictions that would follow very quickly, that I think would be the most comprehensive that the EU has put together in many decades.

'A message and appeal to use diplomatic means to defuse tension, but also a very strong and clear and unified message that the EU respond collectively and in a unified manner in a way that would introduce very significant measures in response to Russian military action in Ukraine.'

Elsewhere, European foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels today with the aim of putting on a united front against Moscow.

'All members of the European Union are united. We are showing unprecedented unity about the situation in Ukraine, with the strong coordination with the US,' EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels.

Asked whether the EU would withdraw its own diplomats from Ukraine, Borrell he would not follow suit and warned against 'dramatising' the situation.

He added that he is not aware of any specific threat against European embassy staff, and would like to speak more with Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the US decision to pull his staff out.

During Monday's meeting, which Blinken will attend virtually, the ministers will restate Europes condemnation of the Russian military build-up near Ukraine, involving an estimated 100,000 troops, tanks, artillery and heavy equipment, diplomats and officials said ahead of the meeting.

Theyll renew calls for dialogue, notably through the European-backed 'Normandy format,' which helped to ease hostilities in 2015, a year after Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula. Fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed around 14,000 people and still simmers today.

Should Putin move on Ukraine again, the ministers will warn, Russia would face 'massive consequences and severe costs.' Those costs would be of a financial and political nature. The EU insists that it stands ready to slap hefty sanctions on Russia within days of any attack.

'We dont know what the Russians are going to do, but what we are talking about is basically the most important security development in Europe since the end of the Cold War,' a senior EU official said. 'The response of the European Union will be at the level of the challenge.'

Hungary's foreign minister warned on Monday of the threat of a new Cold War, amid tension between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

'We don't want a new Cold War. The Cold War period had tragic consequences in Central Eastern Europe, we wasted several decades,' Peter Szijjarto said, adding that Hungary supported all diplomatic efforts and talks to resolve the standoff.

The official and diplomats briefed reporters on condition of anonymity so that they could speak more freely about the meeting preparations.

Over the weekend, some of the member countries closest to Russia - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - confirmed that they plan to send US-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by the United States.

A Ukrainian military instructor drills civilian volunteers in woodlands near Kiev on Saturday

Ukrainian Servicemen of the 30th Army Brigade are seen in trenches outside of Svitlodarsk, in the east of the country, on Sunday

A Ukrainian soldier is pictured in trenches near Svitlodarsk, eastern Ukraine, on Sunday

But questions have been raised about just how unified the EU is. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. Around 40% of the EUs natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine.

Gas prices have skyrocketed, and the head of the International Energy Agency has said that Russian energy giant Gazprom was already reducing its exports to the EU in late 2021 despite high prices. Putin says Gazprom is respecting its contract obligations, not putting the squeeze on Europe.

The EUs two major powers appear most cautious. Germanys Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which is complete but yet to pump gas, has become a bargaining chip. French President Emmanuel Macron has renewed previously rejected calls for an EU summit with Putin.

Late last year, France and Germany initially expressed doubts about US intelligence assessments that Moscow might be preparing to invade.

Late on Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, resigned after coming under fire for saying that Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula, and for suggesting that Putin deserves 'respect.'

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plans to meet with Putin next week to discuss a Russian-backed project to expand a Hungarian nuclear power plant.

Still, diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EUs executive branch, the European Commission. But they were reluctant to say what the measures might be or what action by Russia might trigger them.

The aim, they said, is to try to match the doubts Putin has sowed about his intentions for Ukraine with uncertainty about what any retaliatory European action might look like, or when it would come.

One diplomat refused to discuss the matter at all. Another suggested that a layered response might be in preparation, with different levels of retaliation depending on whether a cyberattack, rocket strike, or all-out invasion was launched.

A third was confident there would be no arguments over the trigger point, saying: 'Well know it when we see it.'

For now, though, the Europeans must wait and see whether Putin is satisfied with progress in talks with the United States, coordinate with Blinken on a response should things go wrong, and bank on the economic deterrent posed by the EU being Russias biggest trading partner.

A US soldier prepares a pallet of anti-tank weapons for transport to Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on Friday
Nurse Lucy Letby has appeared in court ahead of a trial in which she will stand accused of murdering eight baby girls and boys and the attempted murder of a further 10 infants during an alleged year-long killing spree.

The nurse, 32, worked in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital when the alleged offences are said to have taken place between June 2015 and June 2016.

The Chester University graduate was once the face of a 3million fundraising campaign at the hospital.

She appeared at Chester Crown Court via video link from HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey, today.

Letby spoke only to confirm her identity during the 50-minute hearing.

Around a dozen family members of the victims appeared to be listening to the hearing, with Judge Mr Justice Goss also appearing via video link from Nottingham Crown Court.

Letby, of Hereford, is accused of the murder of five baby boys and three baby girls.

She is also charged with the attempted murder of a further five baby boys and five baby girls.

The estimated length of Letby's trial, to be held at Manchester Crown Court later this year, is six months

The nurse is also accused of the attempted murder of five boys and five girls, all alleged offences committed between June 2015 and June 2016

A court order has prohibited reporting of the identities of the surviving and deceased children allegedly attacked by Letby, and also prohibits identification of parents and witnesses.

The hearing today dealt with arrangements ahead of Letby's trial at Manchester Crown Court, which is listed to begin on October 4 later this year with a time estimate of six months.

Two further pre-trial hearings have been set for April and either June or July.

Mr Justice Goss remanded Letby into custody until the next hearing.

Letby had first been detained by Cheshire Police back in 2018 after a spike in the number of deaths at her neonatal unit.

She is alleged to have murdered five boys and three girls while working at the neonatal unit of Countess of Chester Hospital (pictured)

The nurse appeared at Chester Crown Court on Monday via video link from HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey

She was re-arrested over the same alleged offences in 2019 and again last year.

Police launched an investigation after the hospital raised concerns at the high number of deaths between March 2015 and July 2016 - which were said to be 10 per cent above average.

An internal inquiry was undertaken when medics found premature babies had died following heart and lung failure, but were unusually impossible to resuscitate.

Letby has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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The State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country from today amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.

The department told the dependents of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv that they must leave the country. It also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at the government's expense due to 'increased threats of Russian military action'.

It comes as the UK also started withdrawing diplomats and their families from Ukraine for the same reason. Half of the UK's diplomatic staff and their families stationed at the UK's outpost in Kiev will leave the country.

But the EU said today that it has no plans to withdraw its own diplomatic staff, with top diplomat Josep Borrell saying there is no need to 'dramatise' the situation.

Meanwhile, NATO allies have put forces on standby and sent ships and fighter jets to bolster Europe's eastern defences, the alliance said Monday.

'NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment,' NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

The Western alliance pointed to decisions in recent days by Denmark to send a frigate and warplanes to the Baltic states, Spain bolstering naval deployments and the Netherlands putting a 'ship and land-based units on standby' for its rapid response force.

The statement also highlighted a recent offer from France to send troops to Romania and said 'the United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence'.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson today warned Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine will be a 'painful, violent and bloody business' as the UK pulled staff from its embassy in Kiev. Mr Johnson delivered the stark message as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.

Tensions are mounting as the West accuses Moscow of threatening to invade Ukraine by massing over 100,000 troops on its border, which Russia denies. NATO's eastern members have been calling for reinforcements.

Moscow announced new live-fire sea drills that will take place off the coast of Ireland in February. They are part of wider drills involving up to 140 ships across four seas including Pacific and Atlantic.

The Irish government revealed Sunday that it has been warned of drills that will take place within its 'exclusive economic zone' but outside of its territorial waters - around 150 miles off its southwest coast. It said the drills are 'not welcome'.

While massing 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border, Moscow has also issued a list of security demands to the US and its NATO allies.

The alliance has described most of the list - including a ban on Ukraine joining and the withdrawal of troops from ex-Soviet states - as 'non-starters', though high-level talks are ongoing with the US due to provide written responses this week.

The State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion (pictured, a member of Ukraine's defence force)

The State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine (pictured on Monday) to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion

Ukrainian defence forces are pictured training at the weekend, amid fears that 100,000 Russian troops massed on the border could soon march into the country

Russia is planning to hold live-fire naval drills off the Irish coast next month, with Dublin saying the ships are 'not welcome' (file image, Russian ships near Saint Petersburg last year)

The drills will take place 150 miles from Ireland's south west coast, and comes amid the build-up of troops near the border with Ukraine amid fears of a war in Europe

State Department officials stressed the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation. The move had been under consideration for some time and does not reflect an easing of U.S. support for Ukraine, the officials said.

In a statement, the State Department noted recent reports that Russia was planning significant military action against Ukraine. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO countries of escalating tensions around Ukraine with disinformation.

The State Department added: "The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv."

The department's travel advisory, which had warned against traveling to Ukraine because of COVID-19 as well as the tensions over Russia, was changed Sunday to carry a stronger warning.

"Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk," the department advised.

The travel advisory for Russia was also changed: "Do not travel to Russia due to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine, the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens, the embassy's limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions, terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, and the arbitrary enforcement of local law."

The State Department would not say how many Americans it believes are currently in Ukraine. U.S. citizens are not required to register with embassies when they arrive or plan to stay abroad for extended periods.

America has warned Russia of a 'swift and severe' response if it invades Ukraine, which would include a dramatic escalation of sanctions against the country.

The US is also thought to be considering military options to deter Putin, short of a direct confrontation between Russian and American troops.

Pentagon officials presented one plan to Joe Biden during a summit at the weekend, which would see between 1,000 and 5,000 US troops deployed to Baltic states Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which border Russian territory.

Troop numbers could then be increased up to 50,000 if the security situation deteriorates, backed up by fresh deployments of ships and aircraft.

The plan would not involve American troops deployed directly to Ukraine, with Biden thought to be loathe to enter another conflict following his disastrous withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last year, the New York Times reports.

Biden could make a call on military measures as soon as this week.

Meanwhile Russia dispatched two corvettes from the Baltic Sea on a 'long distance voyage' with an unspecified destination.

The Stoykiy and Soobrazitelny left Russia's port at Baltiysk on the mission, which the defence ministry said would include 'communication, air and anti-submarine defence exercises and a number of combat drills.'

The statement was issued by the Western military district which is playing the lead role in massing forces on Europe's doorstep, raising fears the corvettes could be heading for the Black Sea near Ukraine.

It comes after Russia last week sailed six landing craft out of the Baltics - leading many to suspect they were also heading for the Black Sea to form part of what many fear is an invading force.

NATO announced the deployment of more troops after Latvia's foreign minister called for 'countermeasures' to Russia's build-up.

'We are reaching the point where a continuous Russian and Belarusian military buildup in Europe needs to be addressed by appropriate NATO countermeasures,' he wrote on Facebook.

'It is time to increase allied forces' presence on the alliance's eastern flank both as measures of defence and deterrence,' he added.

The Kremlin denounced NATO's movements, accusing the West of ramping up tensions by spreading 'hysteria' about war in Ukraine - which he said is now more likely than ever due to arms shipments to the region.

Peskov said the probability of military conflict in eastern Ukraine being initiated by the Ukrainian side was higher than ever.

Ukraine has deployed a large number of troops near the borders of breakaway regions controlled by pro-Russian separatists, which Peskov said suggests Kiev is preparing an attack. Ukraine has repeatedly denied this.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson also repeated warnings to Putin not to attack Ukraine, saying invasion would be a 'disastrous step' and a 'painful, violent and bloody business'.

Meanwhile Australia had instructed security officials in Ukraine to open up talks with the government about providing help to defend against cyber attacks.

The country has already been targeted once by hackers in recent weeks - which it blamed on Moscow - and there are fears such an attack could be used to knock out infrastructure and sow chaos ahead of a ground invasion, or else be used as a way of punishing Ukraine short of putting boots on the ground.

Australia also began evacuating the families of diplomatic staff in Ukraine, and ordered citizens to leave the country due to the risk of a Russian attack.

Ukrainian civilians who are part of volunteer defence units take part in training at the weekend, amid fears that Russia could invade

Ukrainian soldiers stand on a check-point close to the line of separation from pro-Russian rebels, Mariupol, Donetsk region

The UK also started withdrawing diplomats and their families from Ukraine for the same reason. Half of the UK's diplomatic staff and their families stationed at the UK's outpost in Kiev will leave the country

It comes after the UK alleged at the weekend that Moscow has been making preparations to install a puppet government to take control of Ukraine in the wake of any invasion.

The Foreign Office even went so far as to name former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate.

A senior Biden administration official declined to confirm specific troop numbers on Sunday but said 'we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward.'

America is also providing military aid to Ukraine, including weapons to help defend against Russian tanks and warplanes.

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted on Sunday night that the government had received a second shipment of weapons from the United States.

'The second bird in Kyiv! More than 80 tons of weapons to strengthen Ukraine's defense capabilities from our friends in the USA! And this is not the end,' Reznikov tweeted, together with photos of the cargo.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan and counselor to the President Steve Ricchetti joined Biden in person at Camp David as part of the meetings.

'President Biden was briefed on the current state of Russian military operations on Ukraine's borders and discussed both our ongoing efforts to de-escalate the situation with diplomacy and our range of deterrence measures that are being coordinated closely with our Allies and partners, including ongoing deliveries of security assistance to Ukraine.

'President Biden again affirmed that should Russia further invade Ukraine, the United States will impose swift and severe consequences on Russia with our Allies and partners,' a readout of the briefing said.

Elsewhere on Monday, European Union foreign ministers aimed to put on a fresh display of resolve and unity as they met in Brussels to discuss security issues.

'All members of the European Union are united. We are showing unprecedented unity about the situation in Ukraine, with the strong coordination with the US,' EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

During Monday's meeting, which Blinken will attend virtually, the ministers will restate Europe's condemnation of the Russian military build-up near Ukraine.

They'll renew calls for dialogue, notably through the European-backed 'Normandy format,' which helped to ease hostilities in 2015, a year after Putin ordered the annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

Fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed around 14,000 people and still simmers today.

Should Putin move on Ukraine again, the ministers will warn, Russia would face 'massive consequences and severe costs.'

Those costs would be of a financial and political nature. The EU insists that it stands ready to slap hefty sanctions on Russia within days of any attack.

'We don't know what the Russians are going to do, but what we are talking about is basically the most important security development in Europe since the end of the Cold War,' a senior EU official said.

'The response of the European Union will be at the level of the challenge.'

The official and diplomats briefed reporters on condition of anonymity so that they could speak more freely about the meeting preparations.

Over the weekend, some of the member countries closest to Russia - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - confirmed that they plan to send US-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by the United States.

But questions have been raised about just how unified the EU is. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow.

A Ukrainian soldier mans a trench close to the front line where the army has been locked into a years-long battle with Russian separatist groups

A Ukrainian soldier uses a periscope to examine the position of Russian separatist groups on the frontlines in the country's east

Around 40 per cent of the EU's natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine.

Gas prices have skyrocketed, and the head of the International Energy Agency has said that Russian energy giant Gazprom was already reducing its exports to the EU in late 2021 despite high prices.

Putin says Gazprom is respecting its contract obligations, not putting the squeeze on Europe. He has suggested that opening a new Russia pipeline into Europe - Nord Stream 2, which runs direct to Germany - could help ease the issue.

The EU's two major powers appear most cautious. The Nord Stream 2 pipe has become a bargaining chip.

French President Emmanuel Macron has renewed previously rejected calls for an EU summit with Putin.

Late last year, France and Germany initially expressed doubts about U.S. intelligence assessments that Moscow might be preparing to invade.

Late on Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, resigned after coming under fire for saying that Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula, and for suggesting that Putin deserves 'respect.'

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plans to meet with Putin next week to discuss a Russian-backed project to expand a Hungarian nuclear power plant.

Still, diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EU's executive branch, the European Commission. But they were reluctant to say what the measures might be or what action by Russia might trigger them.

The aim, they said, is to try to match the doubts Putin has sowed about his intentions for Ukraine with uncertainty about what any retaliatory European action might look like, or when it would come.

One diplomat refused to discuss the matter at all. Another suggested that a layered response might be in preparation, with different levels of retaliation depending on whether a cyberattack, rocket strike, or all-out invasion was launched.

A third was confident there would be no arguments over the trigger point, saying: 'We'll know it when we see it.'

For now, though, the Europeans must wait and see whether Putin is satisfied with progress in talks with the United States, coordinate with Blinken on a response should things go wrong, and bank on the economic deterrent posed by the EU being Russia's biggest trading partner.

A US soldier prepares a pallet of anti-tank weapons for transport to Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on Friday

Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion

A Ukrainian soldier of the 30th Army Brigade mans a trench near Svitlodarsk, Ukraine

Talks between top-level Russian and American diplomats are also continuing this week, though a summit between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov broke up without agreement.

Mr Lavrov said Moscow was still waiting for a written response to its demands for security guarantees, something which Blinken said he would provide.

He also called two of Russia's key demands aimed at curbing NATO expansion 'non-starters.'

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it's possible Kremlin officials are just 'going through the motions' of diplomacy after a week of intense international talks aimed at de-escalating Russian aggression on Ukraine's border.

Even after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva on Friday, Blinken admitted on NBC's Meet The Press that Moscow could still invade the smaller former Soviet state despite the efforts of Western governments.

The US's chief diplomat also would not rule out possible American military involvement in the worsening conflict, during a separate interview on CNN's State of the Union Sunday.

'It is certainly possible that the diplomacy the Russians are engaged in is simply going through the motions and it won't affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene, or not in Ukraine,' Blinken told NBC host Chuck Todd.

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are pictured meeting in June 2021

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tweeted on Sunday night that the government had received a second shipment of weapons from the United States

'But, we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for as, as far and as long as we can go because it's the more responsible way to bring this to a closure.'

Blinken did not indicate when he thought a possible invasion would occur -- but also would not give a straight answer when asked if Kyiv 'appears safe, at least in the near term.'

'This is something again that we're tracking intensely, hour by hour and certainly day by day,' he said.

Blinken ratcheted up his warnings to Moscow during his interview on CNN, claiming it could take a single soldier crossing the border to trigger a global reaction.

'If a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way, as I said, that would trigger a swift, a severe and a united response from us and from Europe,' he told host Dana Bash.

Vladimir Putin has placed more than 100,000 troops at the Ukrainian border, and last week Blinken warned that Russia had the capability to double that number in short order. Moscow has said it has no plans to invade Ukraine.

On Sunday, the United States has ordered the families of its diplomats in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to leave the country 'due to the continued threat' of a Russian invasion, the State Department said.

Washington has also authorized the 'voluntary' departure of its non-essential embassy staff and urged US citizens in the Eastern European country to 'consider departing now,' saying it will not be in a position to evacuate them after any possible incursion by Moscow.
Australia's brutal Omicron wave has 'definitely peaked' with Covid-19 soon to be treated 'like a bad flu', according to health experts.

New South Wales recorded 15,091 cases on Monday, its lowest tally recorded so far in 2022, and a 48.9 per cent drop since the same time last week.

Experts say Victoria, the ACT and South Australia have also passed their peak while daily infections in Queensland also continue to drop.

As the World Health Organisation declared Europe is moving towards 'a kind of pandemic endgame,' a host of infectious disease experts believe the worst of the outbreak in Australia is also nearly over.

Even NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant, known for being cautious and fighting for tougher restrictions, says she is 'incredibly optimistic' about the future, exactly two years after the first Covid case was confirmed in Australia.

There's growing optimism from experts that Australia has passed the peak of the pandemic wave and will soon treat Covid like a bad flu (pictured, Sydneysiders in Chinatown)

COVID CASES IN AUSTRALIA ON MONDAY COMPARED TO A WEEK AGO NSW: 15,091 (down from 29,504 a week ago) VIC: 11,695 (down from 22,429 a week ago) QLD: 10,212 (down from 15,122 a week ago) SA: 2,009 (down from 3,829 a week ago) ACT: 756 (down from 1,601 a week ago) TAS: 619 (down from 1,310 a week ago) NT: 286 (up slightly from 284 a week ago) WA: 13 (up from 1 a week ago) Source: State health statistics Advertisement

Former deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth said the virus has 'definitely peaked' and believes Australia is one step closer to treating Covid like a cold or influenza.

'It's not the end of the pandemic, but it is definitely the beginning of the end,' Dr Coatsworth told The Daily Telegraph.

'While we would need to do deeper serological studies to determine the actual numbers, it looks at this point like in a highly vaccinated population the fatality rate would be more like a bad seasonal flu.'

ANU professor and infectious diseases specialist Dr Peter Collignon agreed but warned Australians must remain on guard this winter.

'For a highly vaccinated population the consequences are becoming closer to flu,' he added.

In NSW, there's been less demand for intensive care beds than during last year's Delta outbreak, despite cases surging to record levels during the Omicron wave.

The highest number of patients in ICU during the latest outbreak was 217 a week ago, compared to a top of 236 during the Delta wave from a significantly smaller case load - meaning the proportion ending up in hospital is much lower.

Dr Chant said it's now time for people to learn to live with the virus.

'I think we need to have a sense of optimism, I'm incredibly optimistic,' she said on Monday.

NSW recorded 15,091 cases on Monday, its lowest daily tally of infections in 2022 so far (pictured, a Covid testing site in Sydney)

'It is pleasing that when we look at a range of measures, our assessment indicates that the spread of coronavirus is slowing, our situation is stabilising.

'Obviously, Omicron has had an impact because of the sheer numbers of the disease and it has been severe for some, mild for most.

'But we are going to need to live with this virus. It is not going to disappear and what we need to do is just calibrate our response.'

Other leading epidemiologists share Dr Chant's optimism.

'We hopefully are seeing through the other side of the climb of cases, so at least we know what we're working with,' Deakin University chair of epidemiology at Deakin Professor Catherine Bennett told The Australian.

But she warned there will likely be a 'saddle curve' of cases in the coming weeks as students return to the classroom for the first time in 2022.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant( said the Covid situation in NSW is stablising

Federal health minister Greg Hunt said infection and hospitalisation figures in several states and territories were showing promising signs.

'We've seen a decrease in case numbers significantly and we've seen a decrease in hospitalisation numbers of over 100 in Victoria and NSW,' he told reporters in Melbourne.

'That will flow through to ICU numbers and ventilation, so it's an important moment where we are seeing now clear signs this Omicron wave ... has peaked.'

He announced that Novavax, the fourth Covid vaccine to be approved in Australia will be rolled out from February 21.

'A new vaccine; the commencement of additional arrangements to support pensioners... and clear signs of the virus having reached a peak in at least four jurisdictions, and a vaccine program which is operating at record levels,' Mr Hunt said.

Leading health experts say an endgame of the two year worldwide pandemic is in sight

On the other side of the world, World Health Organisation Europe director Hans Kluge believes worldwide immunity will take hold once the Omicron surge across the continent subsides - 'saying the world was moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame'.

He said Omicron could likely infect 60 per cent of Europeans by March.

'There will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality,' he said.

Cases are also coming down 'rather sharply' in some parts of the US, according to the country's infectious diseases guru Dr Anthony Fauci.

'Things are looking good,' he told a ABC News talk show on Sunday.

'I believe that you will start to see a turnaround throughout the entire country.

'There may be a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalisations in those areas of the country that have not been fully vaccinated or have not gotten boosters.'
New York City Mayor Eric Adams vowed on Sunday to reinstate a controversial plain-clothes anti-gun unit to the city's streets, after NYPD officer Jason Rivera was murdered and his partner shot in the head in a suspected ambush in Harlem.

During a Sunday morning appearance on CNN following the shooting, Mayor Adams stressed the urgency 'to deal with the underlying issues that are impacting crime in our city and has become a stain on the inner cities across our country.'

He said his police force would revamp the plainclothes anti-crime unit, with its focus turning to getting guns off the streets and to illegal gang activity.

Previous iterations of the unit were disbanded in 2020 over concerns they accounted for a disproportionate number of shootings and complaints.

Adams said NYC is going to restore a 'newer version' of the plainclothes unit, when asked by co-anchor Dana Bash on CNN's 'State of the Union' about what steps he was taking to improve safety in the city.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams vowed on Sunday to reinstate a controversial plain-clothes anti-gun unit to the city's streets, after NYPD officer Jason Rivera was murdered in a suspected ambush in Harlem. Pictured: Adams speaks after two officers were shot in Harlem on Saturday

'I talked about this on the campaign trail. Our team has done the proper analysis. And now we're going to deploy that,' he told CNN.

The unit dissolved after coming under criticism over its use of force against Black and Latino individuals, according to The New York Times.

Such anti-crime units have been denounced by members of progressive organisations, including leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement such as Hawk Newsome, who clashed with Adams over the issue in November last year.

In December, Adams warned that he was not going to 'surrender' to people who threatened to 'burn down' New York City.

Adams - who took over the role of mayor on January 1 from Bill de Blasio - also said mental health professionals would be stationed in New York City's subway system as another strategy to reduce crime.

The city will 'flood our system with mental health professionals and law enforcement working as a team to move out the disorder that's clearly in the subway system in our city,' he said of the plans.

'We should not wait for someone to carry out a dangerous action, when we know they are on this station in the first place,' he added.

Such anti-crime units have been denounced by members of progressive organisations, including leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement such as Hawk Newsome

'Immediately, when you see a dangerous person there, mental health professionals will be deployed, and that person will receive the proper care and removed from our subway system.'

Adams, who was formerly a police captain, was at times an outspoken critic of the department from the inside, according to The New York Times.

He even helped lead the backlash against plainclothes units after officers killed Amadou Diallo - an unarmed Black man - on his porch in 1999.

But Adams and the new police commissioner Keechant Sewell have now said they will re-brand the team as an 'anti-gun unit' that wears body cameras and targets illegal firearms and gun activity.

'I know how to do it right because I fought against what was being done wrong,' Mayor Adams said on Sunday at a news conference.

'I'm responding to what I promised New Yorkers, and I have a police commissioner that understands how to do this correctly.'

The mayor's vow came as New York City, reeling from a recent spate of violence, prepared to lay to rest a rookie police officer being hailed as an inspiration to his immigrant community, as investigators sought to make sense of a domestic dispute that left another officer 'fighting for his life.'

Crime is up 35 percent since Eric Adams took over as mayor of New York City

Overall crime is up 35 percent in the Big Apple

New York City police officers and firemen stand at attention as they await the remains of Police Officer Jason Rivera to be brought to a funeral home on Sunday in New York City

Jason Rivera, 22, right, was killed shot by convicted felon Lashawn McNeil, 47, left, as he visited a Harlem address to investigate a domestic-violence call

Funeral services for New York City Police Officer Jason Rivera were being finalized, as his comrades in blue mourned the loss of the 22-year-old who joined the force to make a difference in what he had described as a 'chaotic city.'

A solemn scene unfolded Sunday with a column of uniformed police officers, as well as a line of firefighters, flanking the streets as a hearse carrying the fallen officer left the medical examiner's office.

Plainclothes police units in America In New York City and other cities in America, police departments have deployed plainclothes units in attempt to confront illegal guns and drugs. New York was the first to experiment with plainclothes officers decades ago. However, the anti-crime units that operated out of the NYPD's 77 precings and nine housing commands were disbanded in 2020. Dermot F. Shea, the commissioner at the time, said they had become obsolete, and pitted police officers against the people that they serve. The units have often come under fire over their conduct. In 2017, Baltimore's police commissioner dissolved its plainclothes teams after members of a gun task force were accused of both extorting civilians and stealing their belongings. Advertisement

Burial rites were scheduled for Friday, city officials said, with services Thursday at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Rivera and Officer Wilbert Mora were shot Friday night while answering a call about an argument between a woman and her adult son. Mora, 27, suffered a serious head wound, police said.

The medical examiner ruled Rivera's death a homicide after an autopsy found he died from gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

Mora, who has been with the NYPD for four years, remained in life-threatening condition, Adams said Sunday. Police said he would be transferred from Harlem Hospital to NYU Langone Medical Center.

'It just really has impacted our entire city, if not the entire country. And this is coming after having five officers shot, the 11-month baby shot in Brooklyn,' the mayor said.

The shooting is the latest in a string of crimes that have unnerved the nation's most populous city and the country's largest police force, with 36,000 officers.

In the three weeks since Adams took office, a 19-year-old cashier was shot to death as she worked a late-night shift at a Burger King, a woman was pushed to her death in a subway station, and a baby was critically injured by a stray bullet while in a parked car with her mother.

With the Harlem shooting Friday night, four police officers had been shot in as many days.

The man police say opened fire Friday, Lashawn J. McNeil, 47, was also critically wounded and hospitalized.
A student today opened fire during a lecture at Heidelberg university in Germany, killing a woman and injuring three other people, before shooting himself dead.

The 18-year-old gunman was a biology student at the university, said Siegfried Kollmar, the regional chief of police.

The suspect, a German citizen with no known police record, sent a phone message to his father shortly before the shooting which mentioned that 'people will be punished', Mr Kollmar told reporters.

The precise motive for the attack was still being investigated, but the suspect was known to have suffered from a psychological illness in the past, he added.

The unidentified teen is believed to have been carrying several rifles in a backpack when he went on the rampage inside a lecture hall at the university in southwestern Germany.

Police vehicles are parked on the grounds of Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany, on Monday following the shooting

Pictures showed police examining a shotgun at the scene with another weapon on the ground in front of them

Specialist SEK commando units and police officers swarmed Neuenheimer Feld, an area of the Heidelberg which consists mostly of university buildings.

Pictures showed police examining a shotgun at the scene with a backpack and another weapon on the ground in front of them.

Mr Kollmar said the shooter's body was found outside by officers along with two firearms he had recently acquired abroad and about 100 rounds of ammunition.

Police identified the woman who was killed as a 23-year-old German. Those who suffered minor wounds were two German women and a German-Italian man.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed dismay over the shooting and offered his condolences to relatives, victims and students.

'It's been reported that one student has died of her injuries,' he said. 'It tears my heart apart to learn of such news.'

Members of the SEK stand by a vehicle on the campus of Heidelberg University in Heidelberg on Monday

Police officers secure traces on the grounds of the Heidelberg University on Monday

The university's natural science facilities and parts of the university hospital are mainly located at Neuenheimer Feld.

In a statement, Mannheim Police Department said: 'Four people, some seriously injured, currently there is no longer any danger, the perpetrator is dead - it is assumed that the perpetrator was a lone wolf.'

'The perpetrator himself is dead. Colleagues are still on site with strong forces - we will provide further information here!'

The police urged drivers to bypass Neuenheimer Feld so that rescue workers and emergency services could travel freely and respond to the shooting.

'We are incredibly shocked. This is a catastrophe that eludes everything conceivable between lectures, exams and university life,' Peter Abelmann, chairman of the student body at the university told Bild.

A man, armed with a long-barrelled gun, shot multiple people at the university in the town of Heidelberg, southwestern Germany , police said

A bullett is pictured at the crime scene on the campus of the University in Heidelberg

An armoured police vehicle is parked next to a police car at the University of Heidelberg campus after the attack

A member of the SEK stands by a vehicle on the campus of Heidelberg University in Heidelberg on Monday

The University of Heidelberg's press office declined to give any details on the incident and referred all queries to police.

Germany's Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said his thoughts were with the victims, as he thanked emergency services for their deployment.

A history of Heidelberg University Heidelberg University - also known as Ruperto Carola - was founded in 1386, making it Germany's oldest university and one of the country's best-known. In 1386, Ruprecht I, Elector Palatine, received the Pope's permission to establish the university in his residential city of Heidelberg. During the 17th and 18th centuries, in a period of religious and political upheaval in Germany, the university suffered a decline in prestige. But in the early 19th century, Heidelberg University was able to win favour again and was widely celebrated not only for its high level of research but also for its commitment to democratic ideals and liberality. Heidelberg University supported Adolf Hitler when he came to power in 1933, as did the other universities in Germany, and dismissed many of its staff and students for racial and political reasons. Following WWII, the university underwent a shift in its views. In the mid-1960s, Heidelberg became a mass university which saw its student population triple by 2021. Its reputation has since become world-renowned, with 33 Nobel Prize winners coming from the university. Advertisement

Heidelberg is a picturesque university town in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg and home to a population of around 160,000 people.

Heidelberg University, founded in 1386, is Germany's oldest university and one of the most prestigious in Europe.

The university's Neuenheimer Feld campus, on the northern bank of the Neckar river, hosts natural sciences departments and part of the university clinic as well as a botanical garden.

Students were told to keep away from the campus in an email from the university as news of the shooting broke, local broadcaster SWR reported.

The university only resumed in-person classes in October after months of distance learning because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Students have to show they are vaccinated against Covid, recovered or in possession of a recent negative test if they want to enter university buildings.

Germany has been hit in recent years by a spate of attacks, mostly perpetrated by jihadists or far-right militants.

School shootings however are relatively rare in Germany, a country with some of the strictest gun laws in Europe.

In 2009, a former pupil killed nine students, three teachers and three passers-by in a school shooting at Winnenden, also in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The gunman then killed himself.

In 2002, a 19-year-old former student, apparently in revenge for having been expelled, gunned down 16 people including 12 teachers and two students at a school in the central German city of Erfurt. He too then killed himself.

Both massacres were carried out with legal weapons and spurred Germany to tighten its gun laws.

The country currently requires anyone younger than 25 to pass a psychiatric exam before applying for a gun licence.

In another incident in 2016, nine people were killed when gunman David Ali Sonboly went on a rampage in a shopping centre in Munich.

The shooting sparked renewed debate about whether Germany should place further curbs on gun ownership.
The hosts of The Project have ripped into nations implementing 'ridiculous' bans on travelling Australians, pointing out their own Covid rates are much higher.

The European Council has listed Australia, Canada and Argentina as high risk 'Covid danger zone' countries, recommending to nations including France, Italy and Spain - who all have worst infection rates - not to let Aussies in.

Steve Price said the mandate was hypocritical coming from areas with a poor history in managing the virus and accused the EU of hypocrisy.

'Fancy these (people) over there callings us dirty, filthy, Aussie Covid carriers,' the progam's co-host said.

Despite a surge in infections in Australia since Christmas, the nation's outbreak is beginning to stabilise, with more cases per 100,000 people now seen daily in Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, France, Denmark, Switzerland, Italy and Portugal.

The hosts of The Project have ripped into the countries implementing bans on travelling Australians, saying their respective Covid rates remain higher

7-DAY COVID INFECTION RATES Israel: 663 new infections per 100,000 residents Denmark: 657 new infections per 100,000 residents France: 538 new infections per 100,000 residents Slovenia: 479 new infections per 100,000 residents Portugal: 469 new infections per 100,000 residents Italy: 288 new infections per 100,000 residents Spain: 268 new infections per 100,000 residents Sweden: 311 new infections per 100,000 residents Australia: 250 new infections per 100,000 residents USA: 209 new infections per 100,000 residents UK: 137 new infections per 100,000 residents Germany: 129 new infections per 100,000 residents Advertisement

The European Council removed Australia from its 'white list', a non-binding recommendation system that encourages member countries not to allow in people from countries with more than 75 cases per 100,000 people.

Australia's seven-day average last week sat at 274 per 100,000 - a 20 per cent decrease from the previous week.

As of Monday, it has dropped again to 250 per 100,000.

Despite the calls from the EU, Italy, Greece and Cyprus will not impose any bans on travelling Aussies.

The USA also hit Australia with new red tape, labelling it a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' classification.

The Project host Peter van Onselen said there was no consistency in the messaging from the countries.

'On the numbers, it's ridiculous,' he said.

'Not only in overall terms for the size of the population have they had been two and three times as many cases but even on current daily cases related to population size, European countries like France, Spain and Italy all are having more cases per day than we are.

'So are they advising their citizens to don't go to Australia, and are they also saying leave Europe, leave your own country.'

Despite the advice, travel experts say it will do little to deter Aussies travelling to Europe ahead of the region's summer.

'Each EU country has their own protocols and if you are vaccinated most do not require pre-departure testing and isolation at arrival,' Flight Centre CEO Graham Turner told The Guardian.

'I believe the indications are that within three to six weeks Australians will be able to fly to North America and UK/Europe without pre-departure tests and tourists will be able to fly here under the same conditions.'

The USA also hit Australia with new red tape, labelling it a Level 4 'Do Not Travel' classification (pictured, passengers are screened at Sydney Airport)

The European Council has listed Australia, Canada and Argentina as high risk 'Covid danger zone' countries - recommending to nations including France and Spain not to let Aussies in (pictured, a woman in Paris)

Western Australia's continued border closures due to high Omicron cases have seen major airlines slash operations in the state, with Qantas CEO Alan Joyce describing Mark McGowan's decision as 'deeply concerning'.

'Tens of thousands of people booked travel on that basis and we brought a lot of our people back to work on that basis,' he said.

'Removing that certainty with no new timeline for when the border will reopen is a real blow not just for travel but for Australia as a whole.'

Mr Joyce said while the majority of Australia were learning to live and operate under the constraints of the virus, WA were keeping the country in the past.

'Other states have forged ahead despite the challenges that Omicron presented because they know this virus isn't going away,' he said.

'The rest of the country is focused on getting through this but WA is still playing for time, despite people doing the right thing and getting vaccinated.

'The question is what it will take for them to open. It's very hard, as a business, to deal with this level of uncertainty.'
The Taliban insurrection group has sent a delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday to Oslo, Norway, for three days of talks with Western officials and Afghan civil society representatives in an attempt to legitimize the Afghan government.

The situation comes as Afghan residents continue to struggle under a deteriorating humanitarian situation in their home country. The closed-door meeting was taking place at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains just above the Norwegian capital. The discussions are the first time since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August that their representatives have held official meetings in Europe.

Closed-Door Discussions

But the announcement of the talks has drawn criticism over the debate of whether Western officials plan to legitimize the Taliban government. Furthermore, the situation comes as the talks were being held in Norway, which is a NATO country that was involved in Afghanistan from 2001 until the insurrection group took over last summer.

Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azzam spoke at the end of the first day of talks and said that the meetings with Western officials were a "step to legitimize [the] Afghan government. The official added that the meetings were the type of invitation and communication that will help the European community, the U.S., or many other countries to erase the wrong impression of the Afghan government, the Associated Press reported.

The talks will include officials pushing on the Taliban delegation related to their promises of upholding human rights in Afghanistan. The situation comes as the insurrection group requests the return for access to billions of dollars in frozen humanitarian aid.

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It was discovered that the West had leverage over the Taliban that was worth nearly $10 billion in Afghan money that was held predominantly in the United States. It is believed that Muttaqi will try to use some of the money to pay civil servants' salaries to ensure that there is enough food across the nation.

Another issue that could be talked about in the discussions is the promises of the Taliban related to women's rights, girls' education, and civil liberties. These issues are things that the insurrection group has yet to deliver, Aljazeera reported.

Afghan Government

Just before the beginning of the talks in Norway, the Taliban's deputy minister of culture and information posted a voice message on Twitter. The official said that the recording was from Muttaqi and was where he expressed his hopes of a "good trip full of achievements."

The official also expressed his gratitude to Norway, which he called a country that will hopefully become a "gateway for a positive relationship with Europe." The United Nations has successfully managed to provide for some liquidity and allowed the new administration to pay for imports, such as electricity.

However, the UN warned that there were as many as one million Afghan children that were at risk of dying from starvation. Officials added that the majority of Afghanistan's 38 million residents were living below the poverty line. In a statement, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry said that the Taliban delegation was also scheduled to meet with Afghans in Norway, Politico reported.



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Fresh, the new horror film to be shown on Disney-owned streaming platform Hulu, has been panned by critics who were stunned by the film's unexpectedly gory plot: a serial killer cannibal who carves women up after seducing them and sells their body parts to rich people to eat.

The movie premiered virtually through the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday.

It was produced by Legendary and picked up by Searchlight, one of Disney's subsidiary studios. It will become available on Hulu on March 4.

While some critics are embracing it as an edgy new take on the likes of American Psycho, others say it's downright 'disgusting' and gratuitously gory.

Some are stunned by the fact that Disney, which is known for its family-friendly content, is branching out so extremely with the R-rated, blood-and-guts thriller.

The film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, who played Marianne in the miniseries Normal People, and Sebastian Stan of Captain America.

Fresh stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, who played Marianne in the miniseries Normal People, and Sebastian Stan of Captain America. He is a handsome neurosurgeon who seduces women then takes them to his country house to be cut up and eaten

Edgar-Jones plays Noah, who is sick of online dating apps and meets Steve in the grocery store

Stan's character Steve plays a handsome and charming neurosurgeon who meets Noah (Edgar-Jones) in the grocery store.

Noah, sick of online dating, jumps at the relationship and after only a few dates, agrees to go to his house in the country.

That is where he carves her up to feed her body parts to his customers, as he has done with other women, some of whom remain imprisoned at the house.

Even Lecter might be repulsed at what goes on here Deadline critic Pete Hammond

The sickest part is that he not only eats them himself, but sells their limbs and organs as meals to other cannibals for a fee.

The film was praised by some because of its female director, Mimi Cave.

They praised her by eking out themes like consumption of the female body and the horrors of modern dating.

But most couldn't get past the shocking and unavoidable gore involved.

Deadline critic Pete Hammond quipped: 'Even Lecter might be repulsed at what goes on here, not just for Steve's kinky pleasure, but as a business he runs where the customers will clearly set the image of men back a few hundred years.'

'You'd be forgiven for assuming that a movie co-starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (the star of the sex-scene heavy 'Normal People') and Sebastian Stan (a man who doesn't own a shirt) would be a hot-blooded romance.

'But Fresh will more likely make you hurl than send you racing for a cold shower,' wrote New York Post film critic Johnny Oleksinski.

'I went into #Fresh without knowing the plot. I thought this was a rom-com about dating a vampire (it said unusual appetite). Baby.

'This was a mind-f*** of a movie. The less you know the better,' tweeted a reviewer for the African American Film Critics Association.

Others expressed shock that Disney had taken it on.

'This is a horror movie that is pretty disgusting, not terribly clever, but one that Disney- yes, Disney will release this year,' wrote Showbiz 411's Roger Friedman.

Reviewer Josh Encinias said he was 'disturbed' by the movie albeit in a 'good way'

'The less you know the better' was the observation of this film critic after viewing the movie at Sundance's virtual festival on Thursday

The pair are shown filming in Vancouver last year. The movie will become available on Hulu on March 4

Edgar-Jones is best known for her role as Marianne in the miniseries Normal People

In the production notes for the film, director Mimi Cave - who until now has been best known for making music videos - said: 'Some of the bigger themes that I chose to explore in are consumption, commodification of the female body and the power dynamics of love relationships.'

'There's a lot of tropes in this film that are there for a reason  and hopefully we're challenging them. We're twisting them in a different way,' she told Variety recently.

Representatives for Searchlight did not immediately respond to requests about the film on Monday morning.

The movie was filmed in Vancouver last year.

Edgar-Jones, in the Variety interview ahead of its debut last week, said: '[The film] is sort of exposing this level of fear of threats that we do live with without ever discussing or interrogating.

'What's so wonderful is being able to explore that whilst also creating something that is really entertaining. There is a lot of dark humor throughout this script, and I love that.'

Stan, who has also had roles in Gossip Girl, said: 'Fresh was very complex and sort of surprising. [It] kind of pulls the rug from underneath your feet. As actors, it's a nice challenge.'

Watch the hit series Normal People, exclusive on Stan in Australia.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich elicited a scathing response from Capitol riot committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday after the retired Republican lawmaker suggested she and other members of the January 6 panel could face jail time if the GOP becomes the majority party after the 2022 midterm elections.

'A former Speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6 attack on our Capitol and our Constitution,' the Wyoming Republican on the Democrat-led committee said.

'This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels.'

Gingrich, who led the House through Bill Clinton's impeachment trial, spoke with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning where he accused Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Capitol riot panel of 'running amok' and 'breaking the rules.'

He compared the committee to a 'lynch mob' before stunningly suggesting without evidence that the members of Congress on the panel could be incarcerated in the new Congressional term on January 4, 2023 -- after an election that multiple polls have suggested may be a red wave.

'I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down, and the wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep. And they're the ones who are, in fact, going to, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kind of laws they're breaking,' Gingrich said.

It's not clear what crime the committee, which has been fairly transparent with its investigation, has committed.

Cheney, the highest-ranked Republican on the Democrat-led Capitol riot committee, took aim at the retired GOP House Speaker who once served in Congress with her father

But Gingrich said the panel is 'running over peoples' civil liberties' and indicated that a new GOP-dominated Congress would turn the tables against the investigators themselves.

'All these people who have been so tough and so mean and so nasty are gonna be delivered subpoenas for every document, every conversation, every tweet, every e-mail,' the former Georgia lawmaker threatened.

'Because I think it's clear that these are people who are literally just running over the law, pursuing innocent people, causing them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for no justification, and it's basically a lynch mob.'

He added: 'And, unfortunately, the attorney general of the United States has joined that lynch mob and is totally misusing the FBI.'

Gingrich's time in Congress had overlapped with that of Cheney's father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who held her seat as Wyoming's lone representative from 1979 to 1989.

Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, Cheney's fellow January 6 committee member, said Gingrich's penal threat was 'just bizarre' in an interview with CNN later on Sunday.

'I think Newt has really lost it. You know, it leaves me speechless,' Lofgren told CNN host Jim Acosta.

She added, 'and he looks terrible.'

Gingrich's opinion may be some indication of where the GOP is headed as midterm season looms.

Multiple members of the committee (pictured: Cheney testifying to the House Rules Committee alongside Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson on December 14, 2021) have criticized Gingrich's stunning threat

Gingrich said on Fox News this past Sunday: 'I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down, and the wolves are going to find out that they're now sheep. And they're the ones who are, in fact, going to, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kind of laws they're breaking.'

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who would likely become Speaker if his party took the majority, has reportedly turned to his GOP predecessor for advice on what policies their party should champion going into the heated races.

Gingrich is known for leading the party to a sweeping victory in the 1994 midterm elections with his Contract With America, which laid out for voters specific policy goals and plans the Republican Party would seek to implement if they won the majority.

Some of the agenda items McCarthy and Gingrich are discussing include 'oversight' over the Biden administration, education policies capitalizing on parents' anger over their public schools' curriculum, and deterring competition from China, according to the Washington Post.

McCarthy and a number of other House Republicans have signaled they are already looking into the January 6 Capitol riot themselves, but rather than focusing on Donald Trump's role in the incident they're looking at security failures that led to violent demonstrators overwhelming police and shattering glass to break into the federal building.

The House Minority Leader has accused the Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of withholding information about security issues that led to the riot and 'playing politics' with the committee.
A long-time Nike employee was fired after refusing to supply his COVID-19 vaccination records to a third-party verification service used by the sportswear giant.

Dex Briggs, 53, claims he was terminated from his marketing manager position at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon earlier this month after a 26-year run with the company - despite being fully-vaccinated against the virus and offering to show bosses his vaccination card.

Briggs, who is married with a son, says he found the company's vaccination verification process too worrying to comply with. It sees vaccination records uploaded to software created by unidentified third-party firm.

That firm then has permission to share the information with others in an effort to confirm the vaccination, which Briggs - who has previously fallen victim to identity theft - found too great a breach of his privacy to endure.

'I have my vaccination card. I'm quite willing to show you that. But I'm not willing to give my personal information to this (outside) company, and any other company they want to share it with, without even telling me who they are,' Briggs told The Oregonian.

Nike, which has approximately 14,000 workers assigned to its headquarters near Beaverton, did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.

Dex Briggs, 53, says he was fired from his role at Nike following a 26-year run with the company after he refused to upload his COVID vaccination records to a third-party verification platform. He is fully-vaccinated against the virus

Nike announced its vaccine mandate to employees in September. Although the Biden Administration's mandate ordering private firms with 100 or more workers - such as Nike - to order staff to get vaccinated has been struck down, companies can still choose to enact such a mandate themselves.

While it hasn't publicly addressed the policy, internal memos obtained by the newspaper revealed the policy is aimed at getting workers back onto its Beaverton campus.

They had been due to return from earlier this month, although the recent surge of the COVID Omicron variant has pushed the return date back indefinitely.

The state of Oregon is currently working on its own proof of vaccination card, similar to the widely-used Excelsior Pass operated by New York state. It can be downloaded as an app or in paper form, and provides a QR code which can be scanned to verify that a person has had the shot.

Vaccinated Americans are also given a paper card issued by the CDC after each shot, but it is vulnerable to forgery, with many businesses demanding to see a more secure electronic alternative.

In the meantime, firms such as Nike have turned to third-party vaccine verifiers in a bid to offer digital verification of workers' status. It is unclear which firm is providing Nike with the service, although companies including GoGetDoc and Clear To Go offer similar types of software.

Briggs said when he learned of the mandate, he wasn't initially alarmed, having already received a vaccine.

'I'm already vaccinated, so that doesn't really matter,' he thought at the time, accepting that as a private company it is Nike's right to set its own vaccine policy.

However, he was frustrated when the company moved forward with the verification process without providing details about the platform that would have access to his information.

Briggs, who said both he and his wife have previously been victims of identity theft, also claims Nike wasn't willing to accept his vaccination card as proof.

'What are they trying to accomplish with this policy? That should be all that matters,' he questioned. 'Why is the policy so, I don't know, so restrictive?'

He also said he is sympathetic to his colleagues who declined the vaccines due to concerns of long-term health implications or religious objections. Nike did allow employees to apply for exemptions to the mandate however it is unclear how many were approved.

Briggs took to social media, accusing the company of 'playing political games with the lives of its employees.' He also said, in an interview with a local newspaper, he doesn't understand why the policy has to be so 'restrictive'

Briggs updated his Facebook profile on January 15, indicating he had left the company. The post came about a month after he accused the company of 'playing political games' with people's lives.

'My employer is playing these political games with the lives of its employees which is why I chose not to comply with the inflexible vaccination verification policy that goes into effect today,' he wrote on December 17.

'As a result, my employment will be terminated as of midnight tonight after 26 years of loyal service. Their loss.'

While it is unclear when the termination began, the Oregonian reported on January 12 that several employees had received the following email notice earlier in the month:

'You failed to complete the verification process and our records show that you do not have an approved (exemption). As a result, you are not in compliance with the Policy and your employment is scheduled to be terminated on Saturday, January 15, 2022.'

Some employees claim the company delayed notifying them of their job status until after the termination date had passed, leaving them 'in limbo' as the waiting for details about the status of their employment.

Others who reportedly sought exemptions from the mandate argue it wasn't clear why Nike approved so requests and denied others. Remote workers told the newspaper they couldn't understand why the policy applied to them as they weren't in the office.

Nike announced its vaccine mandate to employees in September. While it hasn't publicly addressed the policy, internal memos obtained by the newspaper revealed the policy is aimed at getting workers back onto its Beaverton campus (pictured)

Attorney Kyle Abraham, who is also president of the Portland Human Resource Management Association, believes the employees' experience demonstrates how implementing vaccine mandates can be a complicated and stressful process.

'You have to know and have thought out and prepared what your policy is going to be, and then communicate to your employees what your policy is going to be and set up time to answer their questions,' said Abraham, adding that when done effectively, vaccine policies make the company's rationale clear to employees and allow them to ask questions or seek accommodations for their individual situation.

'Meet employees where they are,' he argued. 'Everybody has a different life experience that shapes what they feel about the vaccine.'

'Help me understand where you're coming from. And once I understand where you're coming from, I might be able to craft an accommodation that can work. It can take time to go through this process, but it's worth it at the end.'

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to block President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for private companies.

The high court did however allow a vaccine mandate for employees at health care facilities receiving federal dollars to go into effect. Twenty-seven states had petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a stay on the rule while it is battled out in the judicial system.

Biden has since urged businesses to bring in vaccine mandates on their own and pushed states to 'do the right thing' in effort to prevent further spread of COVID.

So far, 75.9 per cent of Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, 63.5 per cent are fully-vaccinated, and 25.1 per cent have had a booster shot.
A Tennessee boy who wrote a letter to the governor expressing concern about the state's new gun law, which lets most adults conceal or open carry without a permit, was shot and killed by a stray bullet on Christmas morning.

Artemis Rayford was at home playing with a new video game - one of his gifts - when he was randomly shot in the chest and killed in the Orange Mound neighborhood of Memphis. No arrests have been made in his death.

Just before winter break, he wrote a letter to Gov. Bill Lee about a new gun law that went into effect July 1 last year. It allows people 21 and over to carry a gun, openly or not, without a permit or safety training.

'I am a 6th grader at Sherwood Middle School and it is my opinion that this new law will be bad and people will be murdered and I think that people should not have a gun,' Artemis wrote, according to a letter sent to his family by his teacher and published by Memphis station WREG.

Memphis reached a record 346 homicides in 2021. Thirty-one of them were kids. Last year's killings beat the previous record of 325 in 2020.

Artemis Rayford, 12, was at home playing with a video game he got for Christmas when he was shot in the chest and killed by a stray bullet December 25

Before winter break, he had written a letter to Tennessee's governor about a new gun law that lets most adults open or conceal carry a gun without a permit or safety training

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, 62, had to defend the law as Memphis breaks homicide records. Last year, a mass shooting at a grocery store killed one woman and injured 13 others

Artemis wrote the letter before school broke for winter break, according to the Washington Post. It is unclear what the assignment was or if Lee, a Republican, ever received the letter.

'How did this child [who wrote] this letter about guns end up losing his life over a gun?' asked his grandmother Joyce Newson, 65. 'What kind of coincidence is that? That's powerful to me.'

In it, Artemis said he was part of the Memphis Police Department's Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, meant to discourage gang activity and violence among kids.

He talked about his state's new gun law, which increases penalties for those who commit a range of gun crimes, even as it allows for adults 21 and over - and military members over the age of 18 - to open or concealed carry a gun without a permit.

'Some of [these] people get gun to kill people so people that [are] 21 and up should not have gun so they [should] learn how to use a gun to help you,' Artemis wrote.

'How did this child [who wrote] this letter about guns end up losing his life over a gun?' asked his grandmother Joyce Newson, 65. 'What kind of coincidence is that? That's powerful to me'

Relatives remember Artemis Rayford as an energetic and sweet young boy who loved to dance

The governor supported the law amid pushback from law enforcement agencies who said it could limit their ability to question or arrest people.

'A person just walking down the street is not a call we can answer, because we can't even question that person about the weapon, according to this new law,' said Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, who oversees the Memphis area.

'We can protect law enforcement; we can protect our citizens and we can protect the Second Amendment all at the same time,' Lee said last year.

Newson said her large family had gathered at her oldest daughter's home on Christmas Eve wearing pajamas. She got the call that her grandson died at 2.38am. She remembers him as a lively young boy who she called by the nickname, Shun.

'The last thing I said to Shun was, "Shun, stop running in this girl's house,"' she told the Post.

'I have a lot of grandkids but Shun was the pack of the party. He made the party,' she added in an interview with WREG.

Later that night, bullets pierced the home and changed the family forever.

'When he got shot, the only thing he could do was run to his mama,' Newson told WREG. 'It took her two days to wash the blood off her hands.'

'I am a 6th grader at Sherwood Middle School and it is my opinion that this new law will be bad and people will be murdered and I think that people should not have a gun,' Artemis wrote in his letter. Above, the boy pictured with his teacher

Artemis' sister, Donesha Eddings, remembered him as 'a kind, sweet and innocent little boy, and he loved dancing. I never saw him mad or angry. He was just full of joy, full of life,' according to WREG.

'When he got up he said "momma," and once he said momma, he just fell and collapsed. And she grabbed him, she caught him,' Eddings said.

No arrests have been made in the case. Lee's office did not respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.

The governor has had to defend the state's new gun law in the midst of a wave of gun crime.

On September 23, a female customer was killed and 14 others were injured in a mass shooting at a Kroger grocery store in the Memphis suburbs.

'[The] constitutional carry bill applies to law-abiding citizens,' Lee said at the time. 'What happened yesterday was criminal activity, violent criminal gun activity, and those are separate issues.'

Memphis reached a record 346 homicides in 2021, compared to 325 in 2020. The city is far past the 2016 record of 230 homicides, according to LocalMemphis.com.
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An ecclesiastical court will hear a dispute next month over whether a memorial to a 17th century benefactor who invested in slave-trading companies can be moved from the chapel of a Cambridge University college.

Tobias Rustat, who was a major investor in the Royal African Company and had been a servant to King Charles II, became one of Jesus College's largest benefactors before the 20th century.

The college, which is worth 344million, last year submitted an application to the Diocese of Ely to relocate a memorial to Rustat from its chapel to a permanent exhibition space in the college.

A consistory court case, starting on February 2, is due to help decide the fate of the monument to Rustat who donated 2,000, the equivalent to 450,000 today, to fund scholarships for the children of Anglican priests.

Prominent historical figures with alleged slavery links were re-examined after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 which saw the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol - a contemporary of Rustat.

Cambridge University's Jesus College proposes removing the memorial to 17th benefactor Tobias Rustat from the chapel

Tobias Rustat (pictured) was a major investor in the Royal African Company and had been a servant to King Charles II

College archivist Robert Athol said last year that the plan to move the monument to an exhibition setting will 'allow for restoration and study of the monument'.

He added that it 'will enable people to engage with it as an artistic piece and as a vehicle for discussion about the history and legacy of enslavement'.

University benefactor and slave trade investor: Life of Tobias Rustat - and his links to Edward Colston Tobias Rustat was born in 1606 Tobias Rustat was a 17th century benefactor of the University of Cambridge, as well as a servant to King Charles II. He created the first fund for the purchase of books at the Cambridge University Library. Born circa 1606, he trained as an apprentice to a barber-surgeon in his youth before becoming a servant - first to the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and later to the monarch. He accumulated his wealth during his career as a courtier - but also invested in several trading companies, including the Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa - commonly known as the Royal African Company (RAC). The Company had complete control of Britain's slave trade, as well as its gold and Ivory business, with Africa and the forts on the coast of west Africa. Later in life, Rustat became a benefactor to the university, focusing mainly on Jesus College, where his father had been a student. He died in 1694. A contemporary of Rustat was Edward Colston, who became Deputy Governor of the Royal African Company. During Colston's tenure, his ships transported around 80,000 slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and America. Around 20,000 of them, including around 3,000 or more children, died during the journeys. Colston's brother Thomas supplied the glass beads that were used to buy the slaves. Colston used a lot of his wealth, accrued from his extensive slave trading, to build schools and almshouses in his home city. A statue was erected in his honour as well as other buildings named after him, including Colston Hall. But after years of protests by campaigners and boycotts by artists the venue recently agreed to remove all reference of the trader. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 sparked by the death of George Floyd in the US, the statue of Colston overlooking the harbour in Bristol was torn down. Advertisement

The marble memorial is on a wall within the college's chapel and was commissioned by Rustat during his lifetime when he was already a major College donor.

Following recommendations made by the College's Legacy of Slavery Working Party in 2019 and 2020, the college took the view that the memorial represents a celebration of Rustat which is 'incompatible with the chapel as an inclusive community and a place of collective wellbeing'.

The Master of Jesus College, Sonita Alleyne, said that the college's proposal to relocate the monument to an educational exhibition space was 'part of a process of critical self-reflection on the long-term legacies of enslavement and colonial violence'.

'The chapel should offer a welcoming space accessible to every member of our community,' she said last year. 'This is the right solution for our college.'

A number of college alumni have objected to the proposal to move the memorial.

A Jesus College spokesman said today: 'It comes down to whether it's in the best interests of our current and future students and fellows for this celebratory memorial to be in our Chapel, a place of worship at the heart of our diverse community.'

'The college is not seeking to cancel Rustat or erase him from the record - it is applying to have his memorial moved from a place of worship to a more suitable - but still prominent - place in the college.

'In addition to religious events, the chapel plays a central role in college life and hosts many historic and ceremonial occasions as well as concerts and recitals, welfare activities and student arts festivals.

'The memorial is an obstacle to some members of our community participating in all these college events.'

In February last year, the descendants of Rustat criticised the plans to move the memorial. Stephen Hemsted and his three brothers, Rustat's tenth great nephews, lodged a complaint with the college and argued that the Royal African Company was not the source of money he gave to the institution.

The family told The Times that they regarded Rustat as a 'distinguished ancestor' and added there was 'no justification' for removing the memorial.

Mr Hemsted said of Rustat: 'It's clear that the bulk of his wealth came from things [that were] nothing to do with slavery, so the money that was given to Jesus College clearly has nothing to do with slavery.'

He added: 'We think it's a mistake to try to link his investment in the Royal African Company to this memorial and the bequest he made to Jesus College. There seems to be no justification on slavery grounds for removing the memorial.'

Mr Hemsted had proposed to Ms Alleyne that a notice be put in the chapel explaining both Rustat's generous donations and his links to the slaving company.

He said the college's plan was to remove the memorial entirely and instead have a plaque at the entrance warning people they were stepping into 'a place where Tobias Rustat had put money'.

Rustat's memorial was commissioned by the man himself, and it is prominently displayed in Jesus College's chapel.

However, the college needs the permission of the Church of England to move the memorial because it sits in a Grade I-listed religious building.

Jesus College set up a Legacy of Slavery Working Party, which recommended Rustat should not be celebrated by the college

The Master of Jesus College, Sonita Alleyne, said that the proposal to relocate the monument to an educational exhibition space was 'part of a process of critical self-reflection on the long-term legacies of enslavement and colonial violence'

Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 which saw the toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol

Rustat's name appears on the charter for the Royal African Company and he donated 400 into the company - the equivalent of almost 100,000 today.

Historian William Pettigrew previously said the Royal African Company 'shipped more enslaved African women, men and children to the Americas than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade'.

Investors were said to have been fully aware of the company's activities and how they made their profits.

The memorial to him says he served 'King Charles the Second' with 'all duty and faithfullness [sic]'.

It adds that he 'disposed in his lifetime in workes of charity and found the more he bestowed upon churches, hospitalls, universities and colleges and upon poor widows and orphans of orthodox ministers, the more he had at the year's end.'

Rustat died in 1693 at the age of 87. In May 2019, Jesus College set up a Legacy of Slavery Working Party (LSWP), which recommended that Rustat should not be celebrated by the college.

The College Council decided the memorial represents a celebration of Rustat, 'which is incompatible with the chapel as an inclusive community and place of collective wellbeing.'
There are 'no plans' to scrap or delay the NHS Covid vaccination mandate in England despite a huge outcry over the move, Downing Street said today.

The Government has been warned the April 1 deadline for frontline medics to get two jabs could leave 80,000 vacancies and 'paralyse' the health service.

But the Prime Minister's official spokesman doubled down on the move today, claiming that it was still 'the right approach'.

They said it was medics' duty to be vaccinated because they 'look after the most vulnerable in society who face serious health consequences if exposed' to Covid.

Thousands marched through central London on Sunday against the move and so-called 'freedom rallies' have also been held in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds.

The Royal College of GPs has warned that a sudden exodus of unvaccinated staff could have 'massive consequences' on the NHS, and it has called for a delay to the deadline.

But the PM's spokesman said: 'There are no plans to change the implementation date for this policy.

'Health and social care workers look after the most vulnerable people in society who face serious health consequences if exposed to the virus.

The Government has been warned the April 1 deadline for frontline medics to get two jabs could leave 80,000 vacancies and 'paralyse' the health service. Source: NHS England data going up until January 20

A woman holds a placard promoting NHS 100k, a group of anti-vaxx ambulance workers who 'stand united in favour of freedom of choice, bodily autonomy and informed consent'

'Obviously having a vaccination is also a way to ensure fewer staff absences, so it's a way to further tackle some of the backlog that has been caused by staff absences when vaccinations were not available.'

There are concerns that un-jabbed NHS workers will simply be recruited by health services in other parts of the UK, where there are no plans for the mandates.

Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford has already said he would 'not rule out' hiring unvaccinated workers from across the border.

Backlash at BBC for giving platform to anti-vaxxers The BBC has been blasted for planning to air 'dangerous nonsense' after calling for anti-vaxxers to appear on Question Time. The Corporation was slammed for asking people who have not been jabbed to sit in the audience when the show visits London. Presenter Fiona Bruce appealed for them to get in touch during the show from St Andrews last week. She said a 'relatively high proportion' of Londoners were not vaccinated and 'we want to explore' some of the reasons why. But social media users quickly condemned her and the BBC for planning to air 'irresponsible' views. One user wrote: 'This is dangerous nonsense. I can remember when the BBC would not have been so irresponsible, so populist or so overtly political. 'I knew two people who died from Covid and 10 others who have had it. Two of them had it twice.' Another tweeted: 'Putting anti-vaxxers on a 'debate' programme implicitly suggests they have a legitimate point of view - even if everyone else disagrees with them. 'You have a massive duty to properly frame the boundaries of acceptable public debate and you're still massively failing.' One man posted: 'This makes little sense. Unless you are going to correct any anti vaccine comments with the facts and include a proportionate number of the vaccinated in the audience then this stunt should be reconsidered @BBCPolitics you are sinking lower and lower.' And another added on his Twitter page: 'This is why Question Time is past its sell by date. Advertisement

All front-line NHS workers in England are required to have had one jab by February 3, in order to get two vaccines by April 1.

But roughly 80,000  5 per cent of the workforce  are not double-vaccinated, figures to January 20 show.

Asked if the PM was concerned at estimated number of layoffs, the spokesman added: 'We don't want to see a single member of NHS staff lost because they weren't willing to get the vaccination that has proven to be safe around the world.

'We know that nine in 10 NHS staff have already been vaccinated, we know that since this policy was announced tens of thousands more NHS staff have come forward and we are confident more will continue to do so.

'It's NHS staff working in ICUs that are seeing how those most in need of treatment are predominantly the unvaccinated. It's them that are having to deal with the consequences of people choosing not to get vaccinations and it is those working in the NHS who are caring for our most vulnerable and it is only right that we put this requirement on them.'

Despite taking a broadly tougher stance on Covid restrictions during the pandemic, Scotland and Wales have no plans to introduce vaccine mandates in the NHS. A consultation is being launched in Northern Ireland.

Mr Drakeford told the BBC that Wales is not looking at compulsory jabs because the 'vast majority' of staff are already vaccinated.

When asked if he would take on NHS staff from England, Mr Drakeford added: 'I don't expect us to go looking for people who have not been vaccinated but, if people apply, then they would be interviewed the normal way.

'We'd look to see what lay behind their decision. We wouldn't rule them out but we certainly wouldn't go out there looking for them.'

NHS England managers have been advised they can move unvaccinated medics from the frontline into roles which do not involve direct patient contact.

Bosses won't have to help staff find 'suitable alternative employment' and redundancy payments will not be made to those who are dismissed.

The move will also affect live-in NHS carers who look after disabled or elderly patients in their homes.

Between 15 and 20 per cent of domiciliary staff are thought to be unvaccinated.

The Homecare Association said the mandate will cause 'further serious harm' to the already facing 'paralysing' demand.

It said the Government has 'seriously misjudged' the balance between the mitigated risk of infection and the risk of people going without vital care.

And it is concerned that the safety and wellbeing of older and disabled people will be 'dangerously compromised'.

The membership body is calling for the Government to withdraw the regulations now  before employers start serving notice on unvaccinated employees.

Chief executive Dr Jane Townson said: 'All along, we have strongly supported vaccination against Covid-19, as there is clear evidence it helps to save lives.

'At the same time, we have consistently argued that persuasion would likely be more successful than compulsion in achieving high vaccine uptake, especially among those with genuine fears.

'And we have repeatedly stressed the need to balance the mitigated risk of infection with the risk of older and disabled people going without vital care at home.

'In pressing ahead with regulations requiring vaccination as a condition of deployment in CQC-regulated wider care settings, including homecare, we believe the Government has seriously misjudged this balance of risk.'

Two vaccine doses for care home staff in England have been mandatory as a condition of deployment since November.

The new policy affects frontline NHS and wider social care staff working in regulated settings in England.
A quick-thinking grandmother from Long Island turned the tables on a suspected elder scammer after he called her up last week and pretended to be her grandson in desperate need of bail money following a DUI arrest.

The woman, who identified herself as Jean, from Seaford, New York, saw right through the ruse.

'He starts calling me "grandma," and then Im like, I dont have a grandson that drives, so I knew it was a scam,' Jean told CBS New York.

Instead of hanging up on the conman, Jean, a retired 911 operator who described herself as a 'bored grandma,' decided to play along and lure him into a trap.

Jean, 73, a grandmother-of-seven retired 911 operator from Long Island, last week helped the police catch a suspected elder scammer by luring him to her home

A Ring camera at Jean's home in Seaford captured the suspect arriving to collect $8,000 in cash towards her bogus grandson's bail

This image shows the suspect walking away with a yellow envelope containing paper towels instead of cash

Police officers were lying in wait and arrested the suspect on the spot

Video recorded by a doorbell camera captured the dramatic outcome of Jean's ploy, showing two Nassau County police officers tackling the suspected swindler to the ground as he turned to leave, carrying an envelope stuffed with cut-up paper towels instead of $8,000 in bail money.

The Nassau County Police Department has identified the suspect as Joshua Estrella Gomez, 28, from Mineola, who was arrested on Thursday on a charge of attempted grand larceny.

Gomez was released on an appearance ticket and is due back in court on February 3.

According to the authorities, the incident began unfolding on Thursday morning, when the would-be victim, Jean, received a call from a man claiming to be her grandson.

The conman was tackled to the ground on Jean's lawn as she coolly looked on

The caller told his 'grandmother' that he was driving while intoxicated and was involved in an accident in which a woman was hurt, resulting in his arrest, reported News 12.

But all of Jean's seven grandchildren are either in elementary or middle school, and none of them drives, according to Newsday.

A short time later, the 73-year-old grandmother got a second call from another man claiming to be her grandson's lawyer, Matt Levine, and asking her for $8,000 towards her jailed grandson's bail.

Joshua Estrella Gomez, 28, from Mineola, who was arrested on Thursday on a charge of attempted grand larceny

Then, a third call came in from yet another man identifying himself as Jean's grandson's bail bondman, who informed the woman that he was in the area of her home in Seaford to collect the bail money.

'I told him I had the money in the house, and I figured, hes not going to fall for that. Well, he fell for that hook, line and sinker,' Jean told CBS New York with a laugh.

Jean quickly contacted the police and reported the scam.

By the time Gomez arrived at the woman's home to pick up the bail money, two officers were waiting for him inside.

Ring video shows Gomez, dressed in a tan coat, a beanie hat and a facemask, show up on Jean's doorstep, where she hands him a yellow envelope stuffed with paper towels.

The unsuspecting swindler turns around to leave with his loot, at which point a pair of uniformed officers emerge from their hiding place, tackle him to the ground and pin him down on Jean's lawn, with the homeowner coolly looking on from her porch.

In retrospect, Jean said she does not know what prompted her to engage with the scammer and invite him over to her house, instead of hanging up the phone like she has done many times before.

'Bored grandma 1, bad guy 0,' Jean told NBC New York with a chuckle.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder praised Jean during a press conference on Friday, quipping that she should be deputized as a commissioner.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder praised Jean during a press conference on Friday, joking that she should be deputized as a commissioner

'These individuals sit at home and have nothing better to do than to think of ways to take advantage of our elderly,' Ryder said of criminal preying on the elderly.

Jean's son said he is proud of his mother for helping take down a criminal, although he would have preferred if she hung up, instead of going through with her subterfuge.

'I was playing a game, it was entertaining,' Jean said. 'I didn't think it was really going to happen. I thought the guy would catch me in a lie. Obviously, I was pretty good because he believed me.'
A man has appeared in court after a woman was left in a critical condition when a car fell from a bridge and landed in the middle of a busy motorway.

Hugh Raymond Holmes, 32, from Spennymoor, County Durham, had a dressing on his forehead when he arrived at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates Court today following the serious collision on the A1(M) at Bowburn on Friday.

He has been charged with aggravated vehicle taking, causing serious injury by dangerous driving, causing serious injury whilst disqualified from driving, driving without insurance, and failing to provide a specimen of breath.

No pleas were entered at the brief hearing.

Chairman of the bench, Lorraine Overton remanded him in custody and Holmes will next appear before Durham Crown Court on February 21.

Hugh Raymond Holmes, 32, of Spennymoor, County Durham, appeared in court today after a car fell from a bridge and landed in the middle of Bowburn interchange on the A1(M)

He has been charged with aggravated vehicle taking, causing serious injury by dangerous driving, causing serious injury whilst disqualified from driving, driving without insurance, and failing to provide a specimen of breath

Police said the incident involved a vehicle which was driving on the A177 flyover when it left the carriageway and landed on its roof in the central reservation below at 10.35am on Friday.

The driver of the car freed themselves from the wreckage but the passenger, a woman in her mid-40s, had to be cut free and was then flown to hospital for treatment for 'serious injuries'.

On Sunday, police said she remained in a critical condition.

A vehicle driving on the A177 flyover left the carriageway and landed on its roof in the central reservation below

The North East Ambulance Service said it requested help from the Great North Air Ambulance, and two patients were taken to hospital for further treatment.

Detective Constable Natalie Horner, of Durham Constabulary, said: 'We would like to thank the public for their support and patience whilst we dealt with this incident.'

The site was close to the scene of a horrific fireball crash which killed three people in July and saw lorry driver Ion Onut, 41, from Galashiels, Scotland, jailed earlier this month for three counts of causing death by dangerous driving.
A man who dragged his uncle's corpse to a post office to collect his pension has insisted he 'didn't know he was dead' and was 'not an eejit' who was trying to rob him.

Declan Haughney, 40, claimed he was not trying to rob Peadar Doyle, 66, after he and his friend Gareth Coakley propped the pensioner up.

They were on a five-minute walk between Mr Doyle's home and Hosey's post office in Carlow, Ireland, 50 miles south of Dublin, when the pensioner 'went a bit slumpy'.

Former drug addict Mr Haughney admitted he previously stole from his aunt.

He said people in his hometown were alleging he had murdered his uncle and tried to rob him because 'I [have] done it before'.

Declan Haughney, 40, said he was 'not an eejit' and claimed he was not trying to rob his uncle Peadar Doyle, 66. He was 'attacked' and left with a black eye after the strange incident. Mr Haughney said people thought he had robbed his uncle because he was previously jailed for stealing from his aunt

Pictured: Gardai take the body of the man, named locally as Peadar Doyle, from Hosey's shop in County Carlow, Ireland after 'fraudsters' allegedly tried to claim his pension on Friday morning, putting a jumper over his face and a hat on his head

The men had told staff that the pensioner was having a heart attack when questioned about his wellbeing and placed the body on the ground. Pictured: Gardai outside the shop in County Carlow yesterday

However, Mr Haughney protested his innocence and said he was 'not an eejit'.

'Am I cuckoo? Am I cuckoo? I'm not,' he told the Irish Mirror.

He said: 'Why would I want to rob my uncle? I'm 40 years of age yeah, I'm not a child, I'm not a young fella.

'I'm not an eejit to walk into Hoseys with a dead man and collect his money.'

Mr Haughney said 15 years ago he stole his aunt's bank card and pin when it came by post and served two years in jail for fraud.

However, he said he has been drug-free for three years and had nothing to do with his uncle's death.

Declan Haughney (left) and Gareth Coakley (right) dragged Mr Doyle to Hosey's post office in Carlow to claim the 66-year-old's pension

'I'm off the gear three years and doing well,' he added.

Mr Haughney said he accepted Mr Doyle might have already died before they reached the post office.

He said: 'We were grand then all of a sudden he started going all slumpy.'

The 40-year-old also claimed he was attacked and suffered a black eye following the incident at the post office last Friday.

He and his friend Mr Coakley were called fraudsters after they carried Mr Doyle's corpse to a post office in an alleged bid to claim his pension, in scenes reminiscent of the 1989 film Weekend At Bernie's.

In the dark comedy movie, a pair of insurance salesmen lug around the body of their murdered boss - pretending he's still alive - and lose and recover his corpse, which is clothed and wearing tinted glasses, several times.

Irish police were investigating whether the elderly man may have been dead for up to two days when the grim incident took place.

The 'fraudsters' had put a jumper over Mr Doyle's face and a hat on his head.

The fraudsters' actions had echoes of the 1989 film Weekend At Bernie's. In the dark comedy movie, a pair of insurance salesmen lug around the body of their murdered boss - pretending he's still alive - and lose and recover his corpse, which is clothed and wearing tinted glasses, several times. (Above, the film, starring Andrew McCarthy, right, and Jonathan Silverman

Sound familiar? Weekend At Bernie's Weekend At Bernie's is a dark US comedy released in 1989, starring Andrew McCarthy ('Larry') and Jonathan Silverman ('Richard') as low-level insurance salesmen. While going over some records at the New York firm where they work, the pair unearth fraudulent paperwork - but are unaware that their boss, Bernie, is the perpetrator. After they tell him, Bernie invites them to spend a weekend at his beach house in the Hamptons - unaware that he has ordered the Mob to kill them. Before the pair arrive at the beach house, Bernie himself ends up getting 'whacked' as he'd been sleeping with the mobster's girlfriend. When Larry and Richard turn up, they find the corpse... just as guests start arriving for a party. Fearing being implicated in Bernie's death, and wanting to have a good time at the luxury house, they pretend he is still alive - putting sunglasses on him to hide his lifeless body. Subsequent hi-jinks see them losing and recovering the corpse several times, including a scene where Bernie falls off a boat into water. Advertisement

Both men had previously gone into the post office and tried to get the money but staff told them they needed Mr Doyle there himself or his next of kin there.

Afterwards, it is alleged they went to Mr Doyle's home and carried him along a public footpath before they again tried to claim his pension.

His appearance led an employee at Hosey's post office in County Carlow to become concerned about his wellbeing and she asked if he was unwell.

The men are said to have told her that Mr Doyle was having a heart attack and placed his body on the ground.

Gardai and an ambulance were called as events yesterday unfolded and the men stayed at the post office, making no attempt to escape, according to the Sunday World.

One woman said her daughter saw the two men carry a man into the post office.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, she said that the man looked unwell and that his feet were 'dragging the ground.'

There was a queue outside of the post office at the time and people had initially thought the man was having a heart attack.

She said: 'I feel awful for the staff. I've a 12-year-old daughter and I'm trying to explain to her what happened and sure where do you start? It's awful.'

It is understood that the men told Gardai Mr Doyle was alive when he was brought into the post office.

No arrests have been made so far but both men were interviewed by the Guards and have given statements.

Gardai are investigating if Mr Doyle died at a nearby property of natural causes.

Residents and neighbours of Mr Doyle said they were sad and shocked after his death.

He was described as a 'lovely man and neighbour' by one and another said it had been a 'sad night' and a 'shock.'

Mayor of Carlow, Ken Murnane, said: 'I was absolutely shocked to hear about what happened.

'I cannot believe anyone would do something like that. It beggars belief, I'm just shocked.'

A Garda spokesperson said Gardai are investigating all the circumstances surrounding the unexplained death of an elderly male in the Carlow area on Friday morning.

Officers think Mr Doyle may have passed away around three hours before his appearance at the post office.
A British hacker accused of being involved in a 35million cryptocurrency heist will not be extradited to the US because of his Asperger's and mental health, a judge ruled today.

Corey De Rose is wanted in the US for allegedly using a technique called 'Sim Swapping' or 'Sim Hijacking' when he was a teenager to steal the identities and cryptocurrency wallets of American citizens.

The 22-year-old, of Earls Court, was wanted for taking part in the hacking of Reggie Middleton, CEO of financial technology company Veritaseum, who claimed he lost 6.5m after his phone was hacked.

He said his mobile phone provider, T-Mobile, agreed to a SIM swap without his knowledge - which led to the thefts.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, defending, told Westminster Magistrates' Court that De Rose has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and has a history of self-harm and attempted suicide.

Judge Griffiths accepted he would be at high risk of suicide in the US if he was to be detained awaiting trial, especially if the prison were to be locked down in the event of a Covid-19 outbreak.

Corey De Rose, 22, (pictured) is wanted in the US for allegedly using a technique called 'Sim Swapping' or 'Sim Hijacking' when he was a teenager to steal the identities and cryptocurrency wallets of American citizens.

'Sim Hijacking' is a hacking technique that involves capturing a person's identity through their mobile phone provider, giving the hacker control of the phone for them to steal bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The US can appeal the decision and a hearing has been set for February 7 for them to set out their intentions. De Rose remains on bail.

One of the previous conditions of bail were that he had to carry a mobile phone at all times so that his movements could be traced. Mr Fitzgerald said the condition has now been removed as it was giving him too much anxiety.

District Judge Sarah-Jane Griffiths described the extradition request as 'unjust', 'oppressive' and 'disproportionate' given the state of Dr Rose's mental health and the lack of available treatment in a US prison.

De Rose almost jumped off Wandsworth bridge but was talked down by police officers after his arrest in February 2019.

'This is a very exceptional case,' Mr Fitzgerald said. 'There is evidence of a serious and longstanding mental disorder, and a high risk of suicide.

'The prosecution should take place here and not in the United States.'

De Rose is wanted in the US, along with other members of the hacker group 'The Community'.

The group allegedly researched targets they suspected of having large amounts of cryptocurrency, using news articles, social media, corporate announcements and symposia on cryptocurrency.

Mr Fitzgerald said his client was 18 at the time he was said to have stolen the money and that the sum of $8.6 million was based on Mr Middleton's representations, adding: 'He's not entitled to a ha'penny back.'

De Rose wept tears of relief as the judgment was handed down.

Richard Cannon, Partner at Stokoe Partnership Solicitors, who led the defence team said after the ruling: 'The Judgment shows the UK Court is willing and able to protect the rights of vulnerable individuals in the UK when their extradition is sought in the US.'

De Rose is under a curfew, which will be temporarily lifted if he needs to attend hospital to accompany his partner, who is heavily pregnant and could go into labour at any minute, the court heard.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, defending, told Westminster Magistrates' Court (pictured) that De Rose has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome and has a history of self-harm and attempted suicide

Judge Griffiths added: 'My findings and conclusions...do not mean that it would be unjust and/or oppressive to prosecute the RP in the UK for these offences, should the decision be taken to do this.

'Indeed, it seems to me, that the RP would be able to face a criminal prosecution in the UK for these offences, with the support of his family. The decision whether to prosecute the RP in the UK is not a matter for me. I simply make this observation so that there is no misunderstanding as to my decision.'

Peter Caldwell, for the US government, earlier said Mr Middleton's alleged activities' did not entitle Mr De Rose to act as Robin Hood and use the assets as he wished.

'We're concerned with a very extensive fraud which involves the taking over of victims' identity information in order to assume control of their wallets.'

He added: 'His role was to obtain the underlying identity information which permitted access to a wallet.'

De Rose denies conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and theft.

Mr Fitzgerald is also acting for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in his battle against extradition to the US on espionage charges.
Russia's intelligence operatives have been in communication with a number of former Ukrainian leaders as part of plans for an invasion, Britain claimed on Saturday, accusing the Kremlin of attempting to establish a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine.

The West and Russia are at odds over Russia's massing of soldiers along its border with Ukraine, and the British foreign ministry has refused to give proof to back up its charges. Moscow has said that it has no intention of invading the country.

UK accuses Moscow of replacing Ukraine leadership with pro-Russia leader

Yevhen Murayev, a former Ukrainian lawmaker and a prospective contender to lead a pro-Russian leadership, is being considered by the Russian government, according to information provided by the British ministry. Ex-Ukrainian politician Yevhen Murayev, according to the British ministry, is being considered by the Russian government to lead a pro-Russian leadership.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the statements are "disinformation," and the UK and NATO are "escalating tensions" over Ukraine. Following the failure of senior US and Russian officials to reach a big breakthrough in discussions over Ukraine, the British assertion came a day after they decided to continue talking. NATO's eastward expansion has been curtailed and Ukraine will never be permitted to join the Western military alliance; Russia has made security demands of the US, as per Business World.

Ex-MP Yevhen Murayev has been named as a possible Kremlin candidate to take over in Kiev by the United Kingdom yesterday night, which is rare. President Putin's intelligence officers have also been linked to four additional Ukrainian supporters, according to the Foreign Office. It occurred as Western allies issued further cautions that any incursion by the 100,000 troops gathered on the border would cost Russia dearly.

This week, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will put further pressure on Russia, urging Europe and the United States to ratchet up their reaction. Following the delivery of deadly supplies to Ukraine, including 2,000 missiles and a professional team of military trainers, he will dispatch Cabinet ministers around the continent, according to The Sun.

Read Also: US Military Support Starts Arriving in Ukraine To Boost Defense Amid Tension With Russia; UK Accuses Kremlin Of Trying To Install Pro-Russian Leader In Kyiv

UK warns Russia will face severe sanctions

The 45-year-old Murayev has propagated several ideas that are in line with the Kremlin's narratives about Ukraine even though he says he wants Ukraine to be independent of both Russia and the West. The British Foreign Office has refused to offer proof to back up its claims. According to a ministry source, sharing intelligence is not a common procedure, and the specifics were only disclosed after careful review in order to prevent Russian hostility.

Podolyak, a spokesman for Ukraine, told Reuters that there was a sense among Ukrainians that Murayev was "too absurd a character" to be the Kremlin's candidate to lead Ukraine. However, he went on to say that Russia had bolstered previously small people in leadership positions in the seized Crimea and separatist-held Donbass.

According to him, "One should take this information as seriously as possible." In a poll done by Razumkov's Centre think tank in December 2021, Murayev was ranked seventh among presidential aspirants with 6.3 percent support.

A stop to NATO's eastward expansion and the promise that Ukraine would never be permitted to join the Western military alliance have been offered by Russia to the US as security demands.

Emily Horne, a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, stated, "This sort of planning is really concerning." "We stand with our democratically elected partners in Ukraine, who have the sovereign right to choose their own fate."

Russian intelligence agencies were keeping contacts with various former Ukrainian politicians, including top officials with links to ex-President Viktor Yanukovich, according to Britain, which this week provided Ukraine with 2,000 missiles and a team of military trainers, Reuters reported.

Related Article: Britain Sides With Ukraine Amid Ongoing Tensions With Russia, Says Pro-Moscow Administration Could Replace Government

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The witnesses have described seeing six-year-old Rikki Neave with his alleged killer on the day he was murdered 27 years ago.

School cleaner Sylvia Clary said she saw Rikki with then 13-year-old James Watson before he was strangled near his Peterborough home on November 28, 1994.

The boy's naked body was found posed in a star shape in woods off the Welland Estate the following day, the Old Bailey has heard.

Rikki's mother Ruth Neave, who had reported him missing, was originally accused of his murder but acquitted after a trial.

Following a cold case review in 2015, Watson's DNA was found on Rikki's clothes, which had been dumped in a nearby wheelie bin, jurors have heard, and he now stands trial accused of murder.

On Monday, Ms Clary, now 90, was called to give evidence at Watson's murder trial by video link from Nottingham.

She told jurors she still remembers the sighting outside her house on the estate between 8.30-8.45am which she told police about at the time.

James Watson, 40, is on trial for the murder of six-year-old Rikki Neave at the Old Bailey in London. He denies killing the youngster and dumping his body in woods near the victim's home in Peterborough in November 1994

Rikki was murdered near his home in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire on December 5, 1994 and his body was dumped in some nearby woods, circled

She was looking out of her kitchen window when she saw Rikki in his school uniform and anorak, she said.

John Price QC, prosecuting, asked: 'When you saw him, was he alone or was he with someone else?'

The prosecutor went on: 'Who was the person that he was with?'

The witness replied: 'Jamie Watson.'

Asked how she knew him, Ms Clary said: 'He lived at the back of our house and his father had put my patio in.'

She told jurors Watson, who was not in school uniform, had looked at her and waved.

Cross-examining, Jennifer Dempster QC, for Watson, said: 'If I suggested to you that was not James you saw with Rikki, what would you say?'

Ms Clary replied: 'No, it was.'

Another neighbour saw Rikki and Watson together on the morning the six-year-old went missing.

Evelyn Pollard, who lived in Rotherby Grove on the Welland Estate, said she saw the two schoolboys between 10:30 and 11am on the morning of Monday, November 28, 1994.

The jacket Rikki was wearing when he was killed was recovered from a wheelie bin close to where his body was found

The muddy trousers recovered from the scene after being dumped into a wheelie bin a short distance from Rikki's body

Prosecutors claim Watson, pictured, saw an episode of Crimewatch featuring the investigation which revealed the existence of 'scientific evidence'

Rikki's mother Ruth Neave, pictured right with her husband Gary Rogers was initially charged with her son's murder but was later acquitted

Prosecutors claim Watson's assertion that he had lifted up Rikki to peer over a fence was incorrect as there was no fence at the location in November 1994

Jurors were previously told the killer remained with the victim's body for an hour and made no attempt to conceal it.

Rikki's mother Ruth Neave was wrongly accused of his murder and cleared by a jury in 1996.

Jurors have heard sophisticated DNA testing, used on Rikki's clothes in a 'cold case review' in 2015, found a 'definitive match' with Watson.

Now aged 40, Watson denies murdering Rikki, between November 28 and 29, 1994.

Watson, now 40, of no fixed address, denies murder.

The trial continues.
The conservative-dominated Supreme Court could put an end to the practice of factoring race into college admissions, after agreeing to take up a pair of court challenges claiming affirmative action is unfair to white and Asian American students on Monday.

The high court said it will take up lawsuits claiming that Harvard University, a private institution, and the University of North Carolina, a state school, discriminate against Asian American applicants.

The suits claim that affirmative action gives an edge to African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans over Asian students.

A decision against the schools could mean the end of affirmative action in college admissions.

The Supreme Court is adding affirmative action to a slate of cases that's already politically charged with issues concerning abortion, guns, religion and COVID-19 also on the docket.

Its decision to take up the case was praised by Republicans in Congress but criticized by others who say abolishing affirmative action is removing a guardrail against inequality.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment on the specific cases when asked to at her daily press briefing on Monday, but said: 'We strongly believe, this administration, in the benefits of diversity in higher education and we take very seriously our commitment to advancing equity and equal opportunity for historically underserved populations.'

Lower courts had previously rejected the challenges to admissions practices, citing more than 40 years of Supreme Court rulings that allow colleges and universities to consider race in admissions decisions. But the colleges and universities must do so in a narrowly tailored way to promote diversity.

The Supreme Court is adding affirmative action to an already politically-charged docket of cases including decisions regarding abortion, guns and religion

The last time the issue came before the court was in 2016, when justices ruled in favor of the University of Texas and its admissions program in a 4-3 decision. That case had been brought by a white woman.

Anti-affirmative action group accuses Harvard of having an 'Asian penalty' in its admissions process The case against the Massachusetts Ivy League school's admissions practices was brought in 2014 by Students For Fair Admissions (SFFA) President Richard Blum. Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College was filed on behalf of a group of anonymous Asian American students who had been rejected from the institution. They accused Harvard of engaging in 'racial balancing' that unfairly limits the number of Asian American students admitted, citing an alleged increase in applications from that group while the proportion admitted remained the same. Plaintiffs argued that Asian Americans were held to a higher standard in admissions, amounting to an 'Asian penalty,' while the school gave preference to black and Hispanic students with poorer grades. They claim it goes against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans racial discrimination at institutions and programs receiving federal dollars. Edward Blum, who founded the anti-affirmative action group Students for Fair Admissions, lost his bid to overturn UNC's admissions policy after losing a similar case brought against Harvard University. But multiple Supreme Court decisions have allowed colleges to consider race as long as it is 'narrowly tailored' to promote diversity and is past of a holistic approach. Racial quotas are unconstitutional, the high court has ruled. A 2013 internal report at Harvard found that if the school weighed applicants on academics alone, 43 per ent of the admitted class would be Asian American, while in reality, it was 19 percent. But Harvard said the report was only meant to be 'exploratory' and was based on incomplete data. It's denied any discrimination and said in close calls between students, some underrepresented students may get a 'tip' in their favor, but their race is never counted against them. The school also dismissed SFFA as political group with no interest in helping Asian Americans. In November 2020, a US Appeals Court in Boston agreed with Harvard that its policies are in-line with past precedent allowing race as one of many factors that would bolster but not detract from a student. Circuit Judge Sandra Lynch said Harvard's use of race was not 'impermissibly extensive' but rather 'meaningful,' because it prevented losses in diversity. 'Harvard's race-conscious admissions program ensures that Harvard can retain the benefits of diversity it has already achieved,' she said. Advertisement

But the court has undergone a massive shake-up since then that's seen three conservative justices appointed to the bench by Donald Trump.

Two members of 2016's four-justice majority are gone from the court: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, and Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018.

The three dissenters in the case, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, remain on the court.

Roberts, who's been known to side with the liberal justices on occasion as a moderating influence on the court, has also criticized using race as a major factor in public programs.

'It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race,' he once wrote.

GOP Senator Tom Cotton called on the high court to end what he calls Ivy Leagues' 'discrimination' against Asian American students.

'Schools like Yale and Harvard use affirmative action to systemically discriminate against Asian American applicants. The Court should strike down these unconstitutional policies,' Cotton wrote on Twitter Monday.

His fellow Republican lawmaker, Rep. Michelle Steel of California, praised the justices for deciding to take up the case.

'This is big news! We need to protect the #AAPI community from discrimination in the halls of our schools and universities,' Steel also posted on the platform.

But the decision wasn't universally lauded by the GOP. Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, said getting rid of affirmative action would worsen inequality at America's top institutions.

'If the Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in private universities without dealing with the faculty brat problem and rich alumni who lobby their kids in, we might was well just call the universities restricted country clubs (which they already are for most part anyway),' Painter wrote on Twitter.

The court already has heard arguments in cases that could expand gun rights and religious rights and also roll back abortion rights in a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973.

Earlier this month, the justices weighed in for the first time on President Joe Biden's vaccine policies, halting a rule requiring a vaccine or testing at businesses with more than 100 workers while allowing a vaccine mandate for most of the nation's health care workers.

The affirmative action case probably will be argued in the fall.

Both suits were filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a Virginia-based group run by Edward Blum. He has worked for years to rid college admissions of racial considerations, and the court's new lineup breathed new life into his project.

The group is calling on the court to overturn its 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan's law school admissions program.

The Biden administration had urged the justices to stay away from the issue, writing in the Harvard case that the challenges 'cannot justify that extraordinary step' of overruling the 2003 decision.

Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said that the Ivy League institution does not discriminate and vowed to continue defending its admissions plan.

'Considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions produces a more diverse student body which strengthens the learning environment for all,' Bacow said in a statement.

Blum voiced hope that the high court will order an end to taking account of race in college admissions.

'Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas,' Blum said in a statement.

Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton called affirmative action 'unconstitutional' on Monday

GOP Rep. Michelle Steel, who is Korean American, lauded the court's decision to take up the case

But former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter was concerned that removing the barriers of affirmative action would let inequality at America's top institutions spiral out of control

The University of North Carolina did not discriminate against white and Asian-American applicants by using its 'holistic approach' to race-based admissions, a federal judge ruled in October

The Supreme Court has weighed in on college admissions several times over more than 40 years. The current dispute harks back to its first big affirmative action case in 1978, when Justice Lewis Powell set out the rationale for taking account of race even as the court barred the use of racial quotas in admissions.

In the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Powell approvingly cited Harvard as 'an illuminating example' of a college that takes 'race into account in achieving the educational diversity valued by the First Amendment.'

Twenty-five years later, Justice Sandra Day OConnor likewise invoked the Harvard plan in her opinion in the Michigan law school case.

Now the Harvard program is under fire from opponents of race-based affirmative action.

Harvard flatly denies that it discriminates against Asian American applicants and says its consideration of race is limited, pointing out that lower courts agreed with the university.

Harvard, whose freshman class is roughly one-quarter Asian American, 16 percent black and 13 percent Hispanic, denies having discriminatory admissions practices

In 2020, the federal appeals court in Boston ruled that Harvard looked at race in a limited way in line with Supreme Court precedents.

Harvard's freshman class is roughly one-quarter Asian American, 16 percent black and 13 percent Hispanic, Harvard says on its website.

'If Harvard were to abandon race-conscious admissions, African-American and Hispanic representation would decline by nearly half,' the school told the court in urging it to stay out of the case.

The Trump administration had backed Blum's case against Harvard and filed its own lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian American and white people at Yale University. The Biden administration dropped the Yale suit.

North Carolina's flagship public university prevailed in a federal district court in October. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs ruled that the school's program was intended to produce a diverse student body and had shown the benefits of doing so.

Demonstrators against Harvard University's admission process hold signs and American flags while gathering during a protest at Copley Square in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018

Biggs said in her decision that UNC did not discriminate against white and Asian American students with its 'holistic' admissions process.

Ignoring race as a factor, Biggs said, 'misses important context to include obscuring racial barriers and obstacles that have been faced, overcome and are yet to be overcome.'

The court accepted the North Carolina case for review even though it has not been heard by a federal appeals court. Blum filed a Supreme Court appeal with the hope that it would be bundled with the Harvard case so that the justices could rule on public and private colleges at the same time.

In the case at Harvard, the plaintiffs argued that Asian Americans were held to a higher standard in admissions at the Ivy League, amounting to an 'Asian penalty.'

The claimed the school gave preference to black and Hispanic students with poorer grades.

A 2013 internal report at Harvard found that if the school weighed applicants on academics alone, 43 percent of the admitted class would be Asian American, while in reality, it was 19 percent.

But Harvard said the report was only meant to be 'exploratory' and was based on incomplete data.
A Tennessee sheriff's deputy was found dead with a gunshot wound inside her burning home over the weekend, with a man linked to her death arrested on Monday following a stand-off with police.

Deputy Savanna Puckett, 22, failed to show up for work Sunday evening. A colleague went to check on her and found her home in flames, the Robertson County Sheriff's Office said.

Firefighters found Puckett's body inside - she had been shot and was pronounced dead at the scene, the sheriff's office said.

Robertson County Sheriff's Deputy Savanna Puckett, 22, was found shot dead inside her burning Tennessee home on Sunday

Puckett's colleague found her home (pictured) engulfed in flames after going over there to check on her when she failed to show up for work

Less than 24 hours later, police in Smyrna arrested a man in connection with Puckett's death.

Officials have yet to release any information on the suspect, including his name, or details of any relationship with Puckett.

They have also yet to comment on a possible motive for the murder.

Puckett had worked with the sheriff's office for four years, officials said.

'Words cannot express the sadness and grief that Savanna's family and her Sheriff's Office family are facing right now,' Sheriff Michael Van Dyke said in a statement. 'This is a tragedy that we are processing minute by minute.'

When Puckett did not report to her assigned shift at 5pm on Sunday, a fellow deputy was sent to her home on Highway 41N in Springfield to perform a welfare check, and discovered the residence engulfed in flames, the sheriff's office said in a press release.

The deputy attempted to enter the burning home, but was unable to because the fire was too extensive.

Late Monday morning, police in Smyrna, Tennessee, arrested a male suspect in connection with Puckett's death

The unnamed man was apprehended after an hours-long standoff with police

When firefighters responded to the scene, they entered the home and found Puckett's body, Fox 17 reported.

On Monday morning, officers with the Smyrna Police Department arrived at an address on Odom Street to execute a search warrant, and an hours-long standoff followed.

Neighbors told The Tennessean they heard police using loudspeakers to coax the suspect out of his home.

At around 11.30am, the impasse came to an end when police arrested the man.

Despite her young age, Puckett was described by her co-workers as a 'mother hen' who looked after her co-workers.

Puckett had worked with the sheriff's office for four years, beginning as a corrections officer in 2018. She graduated from Walter State Law Enforcement Academy in September 2020

Puckett joined the sheriff's office as a corrections officer in 2017, when she was just 18 years old, and transferred to the patrol division in May 2020. In September of that year, she graduated from Walter State Law Enforcement Academy.

'Savanna was the one who always showed up early to her shift with a smile on her face,' the sheriff's statement read. 'She was a mother hen to us all, and frequently cooked meals and baked goodies for her shift. She was tough, courageous, kind, compassionate and had an infectious personality that will always be remembered.'
Her funeral followed protests in village of Domna in Russia's Transbaikal region

She was only child of air force pilot Major Anton Kanorsky who was honoured by Vladimir Putin for bravery in Syria

The seven-year-old daughter of a military pilot decorated by Vladimir Putin was mauled to death by stray dogs as she walked home from a music lesson.

Margarita Kanorskaya was ambushed on a narrow lane in Russia's eastern Transbaikal region and had no way to escape.

The animals tore off one of her legs and left her face mutilated in the fatal attack.

Police had to drive away the dogs to get close to her body which had been dragged onto wasteland.

Margarita Kanorskaya (pictured) was brutally killed by a pack of stray dogs while walking home from a music lesson in the eastern Transbaikal region of Russia

The girl had one of her legs torn off by the animals who also mutilated her face. Police had to drive away the dogs to get close to her body which had been dragged onto wasteland

The seven-year-old was ambushed on a narrow lane in Russia's eastern Transbaikal region and had no way to escape

The girl was the only child of decorated air force pilot Major Anton Kanorsky who was personally honoured by Vladimir Putin for bravery in Syria. Pictured: Major Kanorsky with President Putin at the 2016 ceremony

Images taken the next morning show items of girl's clothing including a red glove lying in the snow.

The tragic girl's funeral - which was attended by her classmates - followed angry protests by residents of village Domna, some 20 miles southwest of regional capital Chita over safety fears.

The girl was the only child of decorated air force pilot Major Anton Kanorsky who was personally honoured by Vladimir Putin for bravery in Syria.

His wife, a teacher, was rushed to hospital from shock after the horrific attack on the child.

The village the family call home has a population of 6,300 and is also has a military base.

As anger erupted in the village over the alleged failure by officials to heed warnings about violent packs of dogs, regional governor Alexander Osipov rushed to Domna to try and pacify locals.

The village the family call home has a population of 6,300 and is also has a military base. Pictured: Investigators at the scene of the tragedy

Images taken the next morning show items of girl's clothing including a red glove lying in the snow

The girl's mother Zhenya Kanorskaya, a teacher, was rushed to hospital from shock after the horrific attack on the child

The region's governor Alexander Osipov warned that Russian laws do not allow local officials to destroy or remove stray dogs from communities

'It is impossible to put our pain and grief into words,' he said.

'On behalf of the whole region I express our support to all the child's family.

'We will thoroughly investigate the tragedy.'

He warned that Russian laws do not allow local officials to destroy or remove stray dogs from communities.

Locals have responded with vigilante groups sent out to shoot the strays, say reports.

The tragic girl's funeral - which was attended by her classmates - followed angry protests by residents of village Domna, some 20 miles southwest of regional capital Chita over safety fears

Locals have responded with vigilante groups sent out to shoot the strays, say reports

A shrine was made at the school where Margarita studied, and her mother is a teacher.

A local woman in tears said: 'What's the difference now? Even if we take guns, or sticks, it won't bring this child back.

'She was their only daughter.'

Another local teacher said: 'I've been crying all night long.

'I was myself attacked by several dogs. I was mauled, and luckily they didn't touch the children walking back from school just beside me.'
John Lewis has said all of its staff will receive full sick pay for Covid absences - even if they are unvaxxed.

John Lewis's operations director Andrew Murphy said he 'cast no judgement' and that it would not be 'right' to give the unvaccinated less pay.

It comes after Morrisons, Ikea, Ocado and Next all revealed they would only give unjabbed staff 96.35 a week if they have to isolate with Covid - the legal minimum.

Mr Murphy said in a Linkedin post: 'We're conscious that some businesses have changed their sick pay policy with regard to unvaccinated employees in some Covid-related absence scenarios.

'[But] we just don't believe it's right to create a link between a partner's vaccination status and the pay they receive.

'When life increasingly seems to present opportunities to create division - and with hopes rising that the pandemic phase of Covid may be coming to an end - we're confident that this is the right approach for us.'

John Lewis's operations director Andrew Murphy said unvaccinated workers will be given full sick pay

Sainsbury's, Tesco and Asda all say they pay unvaccinated workers full company sick pay when they are isolating.

Next, which employs around 44,000 people, said earlier this month that all employees who test positive for Covid-19 - regardless of whether they are vaccinated - will be paid in full.

However, unvaccinated staff who are required to isolate because they have been identified as a close contact of someone with the virus will only receive statutory sick pay unless there are mitigating circumstances.

The policy, comes after employees witnessed a jump in absences in recent weeks due to the rapid spread of the Omicron strain of the virus.

YOUR RIGHTS: STATUTORY SICK PAY Employees can get 96.35 per week Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if they are too ill to work. This is the minimum, but some employers choose to offer more than this amount. To qualify for SSP, workers must be classed as an employee and have done 'some work' for their employer; earn an average of at least 120 per week; and have been ill or self-isolating for at least four days in a row, including non-working days. Agency workers are entitled to Statutory Sick Pay. SSP could be lost if workers do not tell their employers that they are unable to work before the deadline they set - or within seven days if they have not set one. The maximum allowance for SSP is 28 weeks, and those who are getting Statutory Maternity Pay do not qualify. The legal position of employers treating vaccinated and unvaccinated staff differently is untested. Richard Fox, of law firm Kingsley Napley, said: 'With the Government telling everybody to get the vaccine and care workers forced to get it, it could be difficult for an employee to mount a claim.' Advertisement

Next currently pays store sales staff and stock assistants between 6.55 and 9.21 an hour and warehouse operatives between 9.30 and 11.26 an hour.

However, unvaccinated staff who have not tested positive but are self-isolating could receive as little at 96.35 per week, the national minimum for statutory sick pay.

In September Morrisons announced plans to cut sick pay for unvaccinated employees - in an effort to convince more people to get the jab.

Chief executive of the Bradford-based group, David Potts, said pay changes were part of a strategy to mitigate cost rises from shortages of HGV drivers, supply chain disruption, and growing wholesale prices.

Retail giant Ikea said its policy had to change along with the circumstances as it cut sick pay for unvaccinated staff who had to self-isolate due to being exposed to Covid.

Self-isolation guidance for the vaccinated was relaxed last month, but there was no change to guidance for unjabbed people who come into contact with positive cases.

The move means unvaccinated workers, who are required by the Government to isolate for 10 days after close contact, could receive as little as 96.35 a week under Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) obligations, a legal minimum.

That compares with the average pay for Ikea shopfloor staff of 10.10 an hour outside London and 11.30 in the capital  the equivalent of 404 and 452 for an average working week.

Ikea, which has 21 large stores and more than 10,000 staff in the UK, said 'mitigating circumstances' would be taken into consideration.

'We appreciate that this is an emotive topic and all circumstances will be considered on a case by case basis, therefore anyone in doubt or concerned about their situation is encouraged to speak to their manager,' said a spokeswoman.

The retailer is among a string of companies such as Santander and Asda which encouraged employees to receive a coronavirus jab, offering paid time off for vaccinations.
Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke said he's not interested in President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris' help in his bid to be the Lone Star state's next governor as the pair continues to grapple with plummeting poll numbers.

O'Rourke broadly rejected getting help from any 'national politician' during a press conference on Friday where he was asked whether he'd want the president to campaign for him ahead of November's gubernatorial election.

'Im not interested in any national politician -- anyone outside of Texas -- coming into this state to help decide the outcome of this,' the former US Representative said according to the Dallas Morning News.

'I think we all want to make sure that were working with, listening to and voting with one another here in Texas.'

The military veteran, who previously launched unsuccessful bids for US Senate in 2018 and president in 2020, is campaigning to unseat incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott.

While he side-stepped naming Biden or any other national Democrat, O'Rourke did take a veiled shot at his party's failure to pass federal voting legislation last week.

'No one in Washington DC right now can help us with the challenges that we have. This one is on all of us,' he said.

He vowed to take on the fight over US elections himself, pledging his campaign would contact 2 million Texas voters during the month of February to discuss how the state's new election security bill affects their ballot.

O'Rourke made the comments during a press conference on Friday after he was asked if he'd accept Biden's help in his bid to unseat Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott

O'Rourke's rejection comes as both Biden and Harris began the new year with the same ailing approval ratings that have plagued much of their first year leading the country.

According to FiveThirtyEight's daily Biden popularity tracker, an average of 42.3 percent of voters across multiple surveys approve of his job in office.

His average disapproval, above 50 percent since October, is 53.4 percent.

Harris is faring even worse in terms of approval, with an NBC News poll released on Sunday having 32 percent of respondents viewing her somewhat or very positively.

However she does appear to have fewer detractors than her boss, with just 49 percent viewing Harris somewhat or very negatively.

A Fox News survey released on Sunday shows 60 percent of voters would back someone other than Biden if the next presidential election was held today.

It's emblematic of Democrats' concerns that Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's low approval numbers could have a negative impact on the party as a whole

Biden's unpopularity is already threatening to dampen Democrats' chances of retaining or expanding their slim majority in Congress in November. Multiple polls point to Republicans taking back control of both chambers for the last two years of Biden's term.

O'Rourke likely wants to avoid a similar path to left-wing powerhouse Terry McAuliffe, who had Biden and Harris help his bid for a second term as Virginia governor in the last leg of the race.

The last time Biden and Harris waded into a state election saw McAuliffe lose to political newcomer Republican Glenn Youngkin in November 2021.

McAuliffe, who was initially seen as the likely victor before Youngkin surged ahead in the polls in the final months of the race, had appeared on stage with the president and vice president after they won Virginia by 10 points in 2020.

But even then he had privately tried to distance himself from the White House, telling supporters in an October video call: 'We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington, as you know. The President is unpopular today unfortunately here in Virginia, so we got to plow through.'

O'Rourke appears to be trying to avoid taking a similar path to former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe (left), who lost his bid for a second term to political newcomer Glenn Youngkin despite getting help from Biden and Harris

McAuliffe had hitched his hopes on the White House passing the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which Biden signed into law less than two weeks after McAuliffe lost

He had placed a lot of weight on Democrats passing Biden's bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which was being held up by progressives who wanted to tie it to their bid to pass the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill.

Biden signed the bill into law less than two weeks after McAuliffe's stunning loss.

O'Rourke appears hesitant to repeat a similar outcome by publicly distancing his own voter turnout efforts to Washington's failure to pass federal election reform.

Texas' new law has been linked to hundreds of mail-in ballot applications being rejected recently. The state's deadline to register to vote by mail in the upcoming election is February 18.

Among other changes, it forces voters to provide either a Texas State ID number or part of their social security numbers on the application. It also makes sending out unsolicited mail-in ballots a felony, and does not allow residents to request them for anyone but themselves.
Police are becoming 'increasingly concerned' for the welfare of a missing 13-year-old girl.

Nellie Smith was last seen by her grandmother on January 20 at 7pm in Horsham, West Sussex and officers have issued an urgent appeal on social media to try and find the missing schoolgirl.

Police say there is a possibility she could be in Edgware, north London, after potentially visiting her mum.

Nellie, 13, is described to have long, mousy brown hair and was wearing a white jacket.

Nellie Smith (pictured) was last seen in Horsham, West Sussex and officers have issued an urgent appeal on social media to try and find the missing schoolgirl

She was last seen by her grandmother January 20 at 7pm and police say there is a possibility the teenager could be in Edgware, north London, after potentially visiting her mum

Sussex Police shared information on Twitter regarding Nellie's disappearance and asked the public to retweet their message to spread the appeal on January 23.

Sussex Police wrote: 'We are becoming increasingly concerned for the welfare of missing Nellie Smith, 13, from West Sussex.

'There is a very strong possibility Nellie is currently in the #Edgware area.

'Please could we ask anyone in that area to retweet this post to help safely locate Nellie.'

Sussex Police also added: '13 year old, Nellie Smith, from Horsham remains missing.

Sussex police shared information on Twitter regarding Nellie's disappearance and asked the public to retweet their message to spread the appeal on January 23

'Nellie was last seen at her grandmother's on Thursday (20 Jan) at 7pm but may have travelled to London to visit her mum.

'She has long, mousy brown hair and was wearing a white jacket. Do get in touch if you've seen her.'

Anyone who has seen Nellie or has any information that could help to find her has been urged to dial 999.
In the event of a potential invasion by Russia, these youngsters will be part of the country's civil resistance that will carry on the fight against Russian soldiers if the Ukrainian military is overwhelmed

They are among thousands of Ukrainian civilians who are receiving basic combat skills as they prepare for a possible conflict with Moscow

Young men and women, some as young as 21, have been taking part in Kyiv Territorial Defence unit training

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Thousands of young civilians, from veterinary medical students to architects, have been drafted into Ukraine's army reserves and trained for war, as fears mount over a potential invasion by Russia.

Young men and women, some as young as 21, have been taking part in Kyiv Territorial Defence unit training over the weekend in a snow-covered forest in the capital, as they prepare for a possible conflict with Moscow.

Scores of civilians across the country have signed up to similar training programs to receive basic combat skills.

In the event of a potential invasion by Russia, these youngsters will be part of the country's civil resistance that will carry on the fight against Russian soldiers if the Ukrainian military is overwhelmed.

The region has been on a knife-edge since the end of last year when Moscow moved as many as 100,000 troops, as well as tanks and missiles, close to its border with Ukraine, but tensions have ramped up in recent days after a surge in equipment and troop movements, among them military police, from the extreme east of Russia.

Amid fears that an invasion is imminent, the UK began withdrawing diplomats from its mission in Kiev today - following a similar US move at the weekend.

Young men and women, some as young as 21, have been taking part in Kyiv Territorial Defence unit training over the weekend in a snow-covered forest in the capital, as they prepare for a possible conflict with Moscow

Among the Ukrainian civilians who have been training with Ukrainian soldiers is 21-year-old Tatiana, a university veterinary medicine student (pictured)

Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit train on Saturday in a snow-covered forest in Kyiv

Mariana, 52, a marketing researcher who for the past two years has been a volunteer in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit, trains on Saturday in a forest in Kyiv

In the event of a potential invasion by Russia, these youngsters will be part of the country's civil resistance that will carry on the fight against Russian soldiers if the Ukrainian military is overwhelmed. Pictured: A group of young men observe the military training on Saturday

A civilian participant in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit waits to fend off a mock attack by Russian soldiers while training in Kyiv on Saturday

Among the Ukrainian civilians who have been training with Ukrainian soldiers is 21-year-old Tatiana, a university veterinary medicine student.

Tatiana, who is enrolled in a military reserve program, joined hundreds of other young Ukrainians in a Kyiv Territorial Defence Unit training exercise on Saturday in a snow-covered forest in Kyiv.

Among them was Anton, 32, a journalist, who was seen carrying a plastic gun during the exercise where they staged a mock Russian attack.

If Russia does invade Ukraine, a move that Putin has denied, they will be under direct command of the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine's army, which totals 215,000 soldiers, has been battling a Moscow-backed insurgency in two breakaway regions since 2014 in a long-simmering conflict that has claimed over 13,000 lives.

While Ukrainian officials have acknowledged the country has little chance to fend off a full Russian invasion, Russian occupation troops would likely face a deep-rooted, decentralised and prolonged insurgency.

'I believe that every person in this country should know what to do... if the enemy invades their country,' Daniil Larin, a 19-year-old university student who took part in a training exercise in Kyiv last month said.

Larin had joined about 50 Ukrainian civilians in December who drove from Kiev to an abandoned Soviet-era asphalt plant to train for how to defend their country in the event of a Russian invasion.

Mariana, 52, a marketing researcher who for the past two years has been a volunteer in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit, trains on Saturday in Kyiv

If Russia does invade Ukraine, a move that Putin has denied, the civilians will be under direct command of the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine's army, which totals 215,000 soldiers, has been battling a Moscow-backed insurgency in two breakaway regions since 2014 in a long-simmering conflict that has claimed over 13,000 lives. Pictured: Ukrainian civilians participate in training exercise on Saturday

Civilians form a line as they take part in a mock Russian invasion a forest in Kyiv on Saturday

Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit, including university students also enrolled in a military reserve program, train on Saturday in Kyiv

While Ukrainian officials have acknowledged the country has little chance to fend off a full Russian invasion, Russian occupation troops would likely face a deep-rooted, decentralised and prolonged insurgency

Civilians, many of whom are youngsters, form a long line as they take part in a military exercise on Saturday

The Ukrainian reservists, who have ballooned to about 100,000 members, have been learning 'how to handle weapons, how to behave in a battle environment, how to defend cities,' Larin said.

Living with war Marta Yuzkiv, a 51-year-old doctor, believes that the Russian army is 'far superior' to Ukraine's and the risk of a full-scale invasion is 'high enough' to have joined the reserves.

'Only if everyone is ready to defend our land, then there will be a chance,' she said.

One battalion commander, Vadym Ozirny, said that after mobilising at a rendezvous point, the reservists will get to work protecting administrative buildings and critical infrastructure as well as helping residents evacuate.

'These people must arrive, receive weapons and carry out command assignments, defend their home,' Ozirny said.

Ukraine used civilian defence in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists attacked eastern Ukraine and Crimea.

Amid rising tensions between Russia and the West, Moscow announced new live-fire sea drills that will take place off the coast of Ireland in February. They are part of wider drills involving up to 140 ships across four seas including Pacific and Atlantic.

The Irish government revealed Sunday that it has been warned of drills that will take place within its 'exclusive economic zone' but outside of its territorial waters - around 150 miles off its southwest coast. It said the drills are 'not welcome'.

Russia has massed 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and issued a list of security demands to the US and its NATO allies.

The alliance has described most of the list - including a ban on Ukraine joining and the withdrawal of troops from ex-Soviet states - as 'non-starters', though high-level talks are ongoing with the US due to provide written responses this week.

Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train in a forest in Kyiv

Members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, run through a forest during the exercise

A customer inspects a camouflage backpack in the military surplus shop of Andriy Stovbyha on January 24, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Stovbyha, who sells military surplus boots, clothing, sleeping bags, backpacks and other accessories, says he has seen a sharp increase in the number of customers at his shop since Russian troops began massing at Ukraine's borders in December

A sales assistant tends to a customer at the Militarist military clothing and accessories store on January 24 in Kyiv

Boris Johnson today warned Putin that invading Ukraine will be a 'painful, violent and bloody business' as the UK pulled staff from its embassy in Kiev.

The PM delivered the stark message as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.

Mr Johnson said: 'The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine, the plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see.

'We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step.'

The UK government has ruled out sending combat troops, but Mr Johnson said Britain is 'leading on creating a package of economic sanctions' against Russia and he would be speaking to international allies later.

'We also need to get a message that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business,' he said.

'I think it's very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya.'

A Ukrainian Military Forces serviceman walks on a trench on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists near Luganske village on January 11

If Russia does invade, Ukraine must fight against their well-trained troops. Pictured: Soldiers of assault engineer and recovery-and-salvage units of the Russian Army 1st Guards Engineer Brigade are seen during tactical and special training in the city of Murom on January 18

Russian soldiers take part in a tactical and special training in the city of Murom on January 18

A Ukrainian soldier mans a trench close to the front line where the army has been locked into a years-long battle with Russian separatist groups

A Ukrainian soldier uses a periscope to examine the position of Russian separatist groups on the frontlines in the country's east

America has warned Russia of a 'swift and severe' response if it invades Ukraine, which would include a dramatic escalation of sanctions against the country.

The US is also thought to be considering military options to deter Putin, short of a direct confrontation between Russian and American troops.

Pentagon officials presented one plan to Joe Biden during a summit at the weekend, which would see between 1,000 and 5,000 US troops deployed to Baltic states Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which border Russian territory.

Troop numbers could then be increased up to 50,000 if the security situation deteriorates, backed up by fresh deployments of ships and aircraft.

The plan would not involve American troops deployed directly to Ukraine, with Biden thought to be loathe to enter another conflict following his disastrous withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last year, the New York Times reports.

Biden could make a call on military measures as soon as this week.

A US soldier prepares a pallet of anti-tank weapons for transport to Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on Friday

A Ukrainian soldier of the 30th Army Brigade mans a trench near Svitlodarsk, Ukraine

Amid warnings from the Pentagon that an invasion is 'imminent', families of US diplomats stationed in Ukraine were ordered to leave the country.

Non-essential embassy staff were also offered a route out of the country due to 'increased threats of Russian military action'.

It comes after the UK alleged at the weekend that Moscow has been making preparations to install a puppet government to take control of Ukraine in the wake of any invasion.

The Foreign Office even went so far as to name former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential Kremlin candidate.

A senior Biden administration official declined to confirm specific troop numbers on Sunday but said 'we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward.'

America is also providing military aid to Ukraine, including weapons to help defend against Russian tanks and warplanes.
An anti-vaxxer has died of Covid-19 after tearing off his oxygen mask and insisting he did not have the disease, while being treated at a hospital in Italy.

The man, named as Luigi Cossellu by local media and who was admitted on January 16, reportedly denied the existence of Covid-19 and had refused to get the vaccine.

Doctors immediately recognised the severity of the 28-year-old's condition upon his arrival at the Santa Maria Goretti Hospital in Latina, found south of Rome.

The man, named as Luigi Cossellu (pictured) by local media and who was admitted on January 16, reportedly denied the existence of Covid-19 and had refused to get the vaccine

They diagnosed him with acute respiratory failure due to coronavirus, and transferred him to an intensive care ward on his second day at the facility.

However, Cossellu refused treatment, and tore off his oxygen mask.

Doctors were able to persuade the man to put the mask back on, the general manager of Latina's ASL (Local Health Unit) Silvia Cavalli told Italy24news.

But his cooperation was too late. His condition deteriorated, and he succumbed to the disease on his fifth day in hospital.

Cossellu's 55-year-old father - who is also an anti-vaxxer - is also in hospital currently in a serious condition on a ventilator, according to Italian news agency Ansa.

This was also confirmed by Silvia Cavalli, who reported the man's father is also being treated in the same hospital.

According to Italy24news, both men refused to get their Covid-19 vaccinations.

Mr Cossellu was from nearby Terracina and was engaged, according to his Facebook page.

Doctors diagnosed the Italian with acute respiratory failure due to coronavirus, and transferred him to an intensive care ward on his second day at the facility

Alessio D'Amato, the councillor for health of the Lazio Region, urged young people to get vaccinated, pointing to the 28-year-old's death. 'Covid also hits young people hard. vaccination is important,' he told the news outlet.

Italy24news also reported that a 28-year-old pregnant anti-vaxxer died overnight between Thursday and Friday in Rome.

She was reportedly in her 31st week of pregnancy, but was not vaccinated.

The news outlet reported that she had symptoms for 10 days, and was having difficulty breathing, and within a week her condition had dramatically dropped off, forcing doctors to perform a Caesarean section to deliver the baby.

But despite their best efforts, they were unable to save the woman, who later died.

A number of Italian anti-vaxxers have hit the news throughout the pandemic, particularly since the government introduced a vaccination mandate for over-50s that will come into power from February 1.

At the end of last year, a fervent Italian anti-vaxxer who gained a cult following after his regular phone-ins to a popular radio show was killed by Covid-19.

Maurizio Buratti, 61, known to his fans as Mauro from Mantua, had boasted of being a 'plague spreader' after deliberately going to a Carrefour supermarket without a mask while feeling ill and having a temperature of 38 degrees, just days before his hospitalisation.

Maurizio Buratti (pictured), a fervent Italian anti-vaxxer who gained a cult following after his regular phone-ins to a popular radio show, has died from Covid

He said he was 'defending the constitution' by ignoring public health advice, and refused to get tested because he believed the swabs caused the virus.

The frequent caller to the Zanzara radio station - who also promoted anti-Semtitic conspiracy theories - was eventually intubated and later died.

In another instance last week, Italian police thwarted a gang behind a huge anti-vax scam that helped people sign up to get the vaccine only to have it thrown away and not injected - in a ploy to get a vaccine passport.

According to the investigation, a network of dozens of people involved bringing people from all over Italy to the vaccination centre in Ancona where they paid up to 400 (330) for a fake jab.

The nurse who was supposed to inject them would squirt the dose into the rubbish bin before she would put a plaster on the patient and give them a 'green pass', which shows proof of vaccination.

A vaccine mandate in Italy requires anyone over the age of 50 to be vaccinated from February 1. The unvaccinated risk paying a large fine or losing their jobs.

Police in Italy arrested a nurse (pictured) who took bribes to give people fake proof of vaccination

Under the mandate, the only alternative to getting the vaccine is to recover from Covid-19, due to the body's development of antibodies during an infection.

This has also prompted people to host 'infection' parties, where people would pay to be in close proximity to those infected with Covid-19, in the hope they would catch the virus, go on to recover, and thus become eligible for the exception.

The news of the man's death comes Italy appears to have reached a peak in the number of Omicron infections, with cases of the highly contagious variant now on the decline, the country's Covid Emergency chief said Monday.

'There is good news: it seems that we have reached the plateau of the curve for what concerns Omicron and it is going downhill,' commissioner Francesco Paolo Figliuolo told journalists in Milan.

Italy was the first European nation to be hit by the pandemic in early 2020 and remains one of the worst affected, with the EU's highest reported death toll, with nearly 144,000 victims.

A large proportion of the deaths have been in wealthy Lombardy in the north, which recorded the first case.

'In the past two days, even in Lombardy the number of admissions to the hospital is lower than the number of discharged. This bodes well,' Figliuolo said.

Italy - which has adopted strict measures to curb the virus's spread, including obligatory vaccination for the over 50s - reported 138,860 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, and 227 deaths.

The slowdown comes as the World Health Organization said the the planet can end the Covid-19 emergency this year by ensuring equitable access to vaccines and keeping restrictions in place.

The Omicron variant, which is very contagious but generally leads to less severe infection among vaccinated people, is now the dominant variant in Europe.
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Boris Johnson suffered another body blow today as a Treasury minister dramatically quit, branding the government's Covid anti-fraud measures 'indolent, arrogant and ignorant'.

Lord Agnew announced he was resigning at the despatch box in the Upper House - drawing gasps from peers as he took aim at 'schoolboy errors' in tackling abuse of support schemes.

The bombshell came as he was updating peers about the 4.3billion of Covid loans written off by the Treasury  which Labour said has gone to 'fraudsters'.

Lord Agnew said he had been 'arguing' with Treasury and BEIS officials for nearly two years to 'get them to lift their game' over issues such as duplicate loans and monitoring the performance of lenders, adding: 'I have been mostly unsuccessful.'

'Given that I am the minister for counter fraud, it would be somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly,' he said.

'It is for this reason that I have sadly decided to tender my resignation as a minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate affect.'

After finishing his speech raging at a 'combination of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance' that is costing the equivalent of a penny on income tax, the Treasury minister said 'thank you and goodbye' and strode out of the Lords chamber to applause from his fellow peers.

Although Lord Agnew insisted there was no connection to Mr Johnson's other woes, the move will intensify pressure on the already-embattled premier.

Mr Johnson is facing another week from hell as the top civil servant finalises her inquiry into alleged lockdown breaches in Whitehall, while furious Tories prepare for another coup bid.

Dominic Cummings today revealed he is only giving written evidence to the Partygate inquiry to avoid Mr Johnson 'inventing nonsense' about what he said.

Lord Agnew announced he was resigning at the despatch box in the Upper House - drawing gasps from peers

Boris Johnson visited Milton Keynes Hospital today as he awaits the results of the Sue Gray inquiry into Partygate

Downing Street is fighting multiple battles - but will Boris survive? The Prime Minister is currently fighting wars on several fronts as he attempts to maintain his premiership. Though Sue Gray's inquiry into 'partygate' is believed to have dug up some extremely damning evidence, here are some of the other challenges facing Downing Street which could prove deadly to Boris' leadership. Allegations of Islamophobia Nusrat Ghani, the first Muslim woman to be elected as a Tory MP in 2015, said she was told by a party whip she was being axed in Feb 2020 because her status as a Muslim woman was 'making colleagues feel uncomfortable'. She also claimed she was told by the whip that she had been fired for saying to Boris Johnson that they had a 'women problem', in attracting female voters. Ms Ghani claimed she raised the issue through official party channels but said she was warned that if she continued to do so, she would be 'ostracised' by her colleagues and her 'career and reputation would be destroyed'. William Wragg's allegations of MP blackmail William Wragg, a backbencher who accused Downing Street of trying to blackmail rebel MPs, said yesterday he would meet police to discuss his allegations. Downing Street said it had not seen any proof of the behaviour he alleges, but Chris Bryant, chairman of the Commons Committee on Standards, said about a dozen Tory MPs alleged whips threatened to withdraw funding for their constituencies should they not show support for Johnson. Whips have also been accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives. 1922 Committee William Wragg and Nusrat Ghani are joint vice-chairmen of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. The committee's executive secretary Gary Sambrook has also expressed his desire for a new Tory leader, while treasurer Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown voiced frustration with the PM last year. If Johnson were to win a party confidence vote, he would be immune to another leadership challenge for a year - but the committee is considering cutting this immunity period to six months. Defectors Former Tory MP Christian Wakeford crossed the floor and joined the Labour party last week. Though defections are rare in Parliament, there are rumours that more Tory MPs may soon follow suit. Advertisement

Lord Agnew told the House: 'The oversight by both BEIS and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful.

'They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society.'

He told the Lords that BEIS had 'two counter-fraud staff' at the start of the pandemic who would not 'engage constructively' with his counter-fraud team in the Cabinet Office.

He added: 'Schoolboy errors were made, for example allowing over a thousand companies to receive bounceback loans that were not even trading when Covid struck.'



Lord Agnew tried to distance himself from the growing calls to oust the PM.

'It is worth saying that none of this related to far more dramatic political events being played out across Westminster. This is not an attack on the Prime Minister and I am sorry for the inconvenience it will cause,' he said.

'I hope that as a virtually unknown minister beyond this place, it might prompt others more important beyond me to get behind this and sort it out.

'It matters for all the obvious reasons but there is a penny of income tax waiting to be claimed here if we just woke up.

'Total fraud loss across Government is estimated at 29billion a year, of course not all can be stopped but a combination of arrogance indolence and ignorance freezes the Government machine.'

Lord Agnew told peers that early estimates of fraudulent Covid loan claims was likely to be 26 per cent of the total paid out so far.

He said: 'We have already paid out nearly 1 billion to banks claiming the state guarantee. The percentage of these losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failures is 26%. I accept this is only an early approximate but a very worrying one.'

As he resigned, Lord Agnew said he had 'four differences of opinion with Treasury officials' and proceeded to read out what he would do differently.

These were: '1. An urgent improvement in lender performance data, including a common definition of fraud.

'2. Far greater challenge of lender banks when we uncover inconsistency.

'3. Educating Treasury officials on why reliance on audit is far too reactive.

'4. A failure by Treasury or BEIS to understand the disjunction between the level of criminality  probably hundreds of thousands  and enforcement capability.

Lord Agnew's resignation as a Treasury minister came after a question from his Labour shadow, Lord Tunnicliffe.

Lord Tunnicliffe asked: 'Last week the Government objected to the 4.3billion figure quoted in various news reports.

'In many senses we would be delighted if the extent of fraud arising from the Government's coronavirus support scheme was smaller than first thought. Is the noble lord the minister able to provide a more accurate figure today?'

He also asked 'why the Government expects working people to cancel out these losses', adding: 'That would be bad enough in normal times but is surely worse when families face an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.'

Former cowboy and brothel cleaner who became successful businessman despite failing 11-plus Lord Theodore Agnew became a millionaire businessman despite failing his 11-plus and and enduring a stint as a brothel cleaner. Born and raised in Norfolk of farming stock the now 61 year old attended the prestigious Rugby School but by his own admission he was not particularly academic. But his exam experience led him to be a staunch opponent of the grammar school system he says fails students who learn at different speeds. After school he left dour 1970s Britain for Australia, via Canada. Down Under he worked as a jackaroo - the Aussie equivalent of a cowboy - before buying a cleaning company in Sydney. In 2013 he told the Eastern Daily Press: 'Most of the time it was cleaning flats in King's Cross that had been used as brothels. The squalor and filth was indescribable.' After a decade in Australia he returned to Britain and founded the insurance claims firm Town & Country Assistance. He sold the business on in 2002 after building it to a company employing 150 people. His experience as a pioneer of outsourcing - to cheaper and more numerate staff in India sparked an interest in raising UK education standards. He was made a Tory peer in 2017 as Baron Agnew of Oulton and became a schools minister under Theresa May. In 2020 he was moved by Boris Johnson to become minister for efficiency and transformation. Advertisement

After the resignation Labour leader in the Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon said: 'I think we have just witnessed one of the most dramatic moments we have ever seen in the House from a minister who felt his integrity could no longer ensure he remained a member of the Government.'

No10 insisted the Government had been clear fraud was 'unacceptable'.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'We are grateful to Lord Agnew for the significant contribution he has made to Government.

'On the wider issues that he's raised, we introduced our unprecedented Covid support schemes at speed to protect jobs and livelihoods, helping millions of people across the UK, including nearly 12million on the furlough scheme alone.

'We've always been clear fraud is unacceptable and are taking action against those abusing the system, with 150,000 ineligible claims blocked, 500 million recovered last year and the HMRC tax protection taskforce is expected to recover an additional 1 billion of taxpayers' money.'

It is not the first time a minister has resigned at the despatch box in the House of Lords.

Back in 2018, Lord Bates stunned peers when he announced he would quit as he was 'ashamed' for failing to turn up on time in the upper chamber.

However, the international development minister's offer of resignation was rejected by the then prime minister Theresa May.

He subsequently left the Government the following year to walk from Belfast to Brussels in search of 'common ground', amid the fractious Brexit debate.

Meanwhile, former No10 chief Mr Cummings said he is not speaking to Sue Gray directly as he claimed staff are not handing crucial material to the top civil servant due to fears Boris Johnson will see it.

Another minister quit at the despatch box in 2018... but was talked around by Theresa May It is not the first time a minister has resigned at the despatch box in the House of Lords. Back in 2018, Lord Bates stunned peers when he announced he would quit as he was 'ashamed' for failing to turn up on time in the upper chamber. However, the international development minister's offer of resignation was rejected by the then prime minister Theresa May. He subsequently left the Government the following year to walk from Belfast to Brussels in search of 'common ground', amid the fractious Brexit debate. Advertisement

The comments came amid rumours Downing Street police have supplied 'extremely damning' testimony to Ms Gray, with storm clouds seemingly gathering around Mr Johnson.

But the PM's spokesman pointedly refused to say that Ms Gray's whole report will be published - saying it will be down to the premier how much is released.

Mr Cummings has already revealed he is ready to swear on oath that Mr Johnson was warned that a 'BYOB' bash in May 2020 would break the rules.

In a blog post this afternoon, the ex-aide wrote: 'When SG asked to speak to me I emailed to the effect: if we speak the PM will invent nonsense and spin it to the media and you and I will both have problems, let's keep everything in writing, therefore he cannot invent things I've supposedly said to you, there is only a written record, this makes both our lives easier.

'She agreed. So I have answered questions in writing and will answer further questions in writing if she wants. But I will not speak and therefore provide the PM with more chances to lie and confuse everybody.

'I know others are very worried about handing things to the Cabinet Office because they know the PM will see everything SG collects. This inevitably means that evidence, including photos, is not given to her and instead will keep leaking after her report.'

He stressed that his caution was a 'consequence of beliefs about the PM's integrity, not SG's'.

Officers from the Scotland Yard's Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command who were guardian No10 are said to have been 'only too willing' to provide accounts to the investigation.

However, the premier has signalled defiance, and has reportedly reunited a team of allies who helped secure him the leadership to shore up support among MPs. Wags have nicknamed the group - including ministers Conor Burns, Nigel Adams, and Chris Pincher the 'Avengers'.

He is expected to push Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to let him respond to Ms Gray's findings within hours of them being released, so he can take charge of the 'narrative'.

Mr Cummings, pictured outside his London home today, has levelled a series of allegations at the PM over Partygate

Lord Agnew's resignation statement to peers in full 'I am here to defend the government's record on the deployment of counter-fraud measures over the last two years or so. But I will only be able to do that in part, 'The assertion made by the economic secretary of the treasury in the Commons debate last week that the priority was speed of distribution of funds is absolutely correct. But what has followed has been nothing less than desperately inadequate. 'Given the time available I will focus on one or two emblematic failures, but these ussues run far wider. 'The oversight by both BEIS and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful. 'They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society.' 'Much store has been given to the extra money allocated to HMRC. But it took a year to happen and this department is already the most competent and well-funded in this discipline. 'Whereas at the beginning of Covid BEIS has the grand total of two counter-fraud officials on its staff neither of whom were experienced in the subject. They refused to engage constructively with the counter-fraud function that sits in the Cabinet Office, has considerable exp[ertise and reports directly to me. 'Schoolboy errors were made, for example allowing over a thousand companies to receive bounceback loans that were not even trading when Covid struck.' 'They simply failed to understand that company formation agents hold in stock companies with earlier creation dates. 'I have been arguing with Treasury and BEIS officials for nearly two years to get them to lift their game. I have been mostly unsuccessful.' 'We move now to a new and dangerous phase, banks' ability to claim on the 100 per cent state guarantee for non-payment. 'We do this without implementing a standard bar of quality assurance on what we expect as counterfraud measures. We know we have had serious discrepancies. 'For example, three out of the seven main lenders account for 87 per cent of loans paid out of companies already dissolved. Why is the ratio so skewed? 'Two of the seven account for 81 per cent of cases where loans were paid out to companies incorporated post-Covid, as I referred to a moment ago. 'One of the seven accounted for 38 per cent of the duplicate BBL application checks that were not carried out after the requirement was in force. 'Bizarrely it took six weeks to get the duplicate check into place during which time 900,000 loans or 60 per cent in total were paid out. Bear in mind some 47billion has been paid out. 'If only BEIS and the British Business Bank will wake up there is still time to demand data and action on duplicate loans. Why won't they do it? 'Despite pressing BEIS and BBB for over a year there is still no single dashboard of management data to scrutinise lender performance. It is inexcusable. 'We have already paid out nearly 1billion to banks claiming the state guarantee. The percentage of these losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failures is 26 per cent. I accept this is only an early approximate but a very worrying one.' I will place into Hansard a copy of my letter to the chairman of the BBB snet on the 16th December addressing some of these points. I still have not received an answer. 'I have at least four differences of opinion with Treasury officials. 'Urgent improvements in lender performance data. I simply want the bar to be set at what the best of the panel bank can deliver. '2) Far greater challenge of lender banks when we uncover inconsistency in data. '3) Educating Treasury officials on why reliance on audit is far too reactive and generally happening well after the whole horse has bolted. '4) A failure by Treasury or BEIS officials to understand the complete disjunction between the level of criminality  probably hundreds of thousands  and enforcement capability. For example NATIS, the specialist agency can handle around 200 cases a year. Local police forces might double that.' 'My lords, you can see that it is my deeply-held conviction that the current state of affairs is not acceptable. 'Given that I am the minister for counter-fraud, it seems somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly, let alone defending our track record. 'It is for that reason that I have sadly decided to tender my resignation as a minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate effect.' 'I would be grateful if my noble Lord would pass this letter on to the PM at his earliest convenience. 'It is worth saying that none of this related to far more dramatic political events being played out across Westminster. This is not an attack on the Prime Minister and I am sorry for the inconvenience it will cause. 'Indeed I think any PM should be able to reasonably expect that the levers of government were actually connected to delivering services for our citizens. 'I hope that as a virtually unknown minister beyond this place, it might prompt others more important beyond me to get behind this and sort it out. 'It matters for all the obvious reasons but there is a penny of income tax waiting to be claimed here if we just woke up. Total fraud loss across Government is estimated at 29 billion a year, of course not all can be stopped but a combination of arrogance indolence and ignorance freezes the Government machine. 'Action taken today will give this government a sporting chance of cutting income tax before a likely May 2024 election. If my removal helps that to happen it will have been worth it. It leaves me only to thank the noble Lord Lord Tunnicliffe for his courteous but attentive role as my shadow minister of my portfolio and to tank noble friends, many of whom I know will carry on their scrutiny of this important area. 'Thank you and goodbye.' Advertisement

How much business coronavirus support cash has been lost to fraud and error? Figures released by HM Revenue and Customs suggested that some 5.8billion has been criminally siphoned off from furlough and other business relief schemes since coronavirus struck. A taskforce was set up by the Treasury to get the money back and so far it has managed to get its hands on approximately 500million. It is projected to have clawed back a further 1billion by the end of 2023. However, that leaves some 4.3billion - almost three quarters of the total - with reports suggesting the cash could just be written off. Here is a breakdown of the Covid business support schemes and how fraud and error has impacted them. Bounce Back Loans The BBL scheme was set up by the Government in April 2020 to enable smaller businesses to rapidly access financial assistance during the Covid crisis. The scheme allowed small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between 2,000 and up to 25 per cent of their turnover, with a maximum loan of 50,000. Some 1.5million loans were issued at a total value of 47billion. The Government has estimated that 17billion of that total could be lost from loans that will not be repaid. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's best guess, as of the end of March 2021, was that there were 4.9billion of fraudulent loans in the system. Lord Agnew today claimed that 'schoolboy errors' were made with the scheme which allowed 'over a thousand companies to receive bounce back loans that were not even trading when Covid struck'. Furlough The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was rolled out in April 2020 and up to March 31 2021 it had supported 11.5million jobs. HMRC estimates show that just over 60billion was paid out in furlough in 2020 to 2021. At the highest point of demand the scheme was supporting 8.9million jobs at once. HMRC has calculated that combined error and fraud relating to furlough payments was about 8.7 per cent - so just over 5billion. Self-Employment Income Support Scheme The SEISS initiative was rolled out at the end of March 2020. It enabled self-employed people who had been impacted by coronavirus to access grants. A total of 28.1billion had been paid out in SEISS grants up to October 2021, according to official Government data. HMRC estimated that 2.5 per cent of grants in the 2020/21 financial year, covering the first three award rounds, were awarded in error or because of fraud. Eat Out to Help Out Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme was rolled out in August 2020 and was designed to entice people to return to restaurants. It enabled people to receive discounts on their meals, with restaurants then claiming the discounted cash back from the Government. The discounts were applied on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, from August 3 to August 31. The claims service was then open from August until the end of September, with a total of 840million paid out by the Government. HMRC has estimated that the error and fraud rate relating to Eat Out to Help Out was 8.5 per cent - approximately 71million. Advertisement

Boris Johnson insists he is taking ex-minister Nusrat Ghani's claim she was sacked in reshuffle over 'Muslimness' 'extremely seriously' as he launches a civil service probe following calls from Cabinet members for a 'proper investigation'

Boris Johnson today insisted he is taking allegations an ex-minister was sacked over 'Muslimness' 'extremely seriously' as he ordered a formal Cabinet Office investigation into the claims.

The Prime Minister has instructed the civil service to carry out a probe after the extraordinary claims from Tory MP Nusrat Ghani.

The move came after Cabinet ministers Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid joined calls for a 'proper' inquiry - with others suggesting it should be fully independent.

Mr Johnson told reporters on a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital this morning: 'We take these allegations extremely seriously. I took them very seriously when they were raised with me 18 months ago.

'Very glad there's an investigation taking place now, can't say more really about it.'

Downing Street announced the probe this morning, with a Number 10 spokeswoman saying: 'The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP.

'At the time these allegations were first made, the Prime Minister recommended to her that she make a formal complain to CCHQ. She did not take up this offer.

'The Prime Minister has now asked officials to establish the facts about what happened.

'As he said at the time, the Prime Minister takes these claims very seriously.'

Nusrat Ghani (pictured), the Tory MP for Wealden in East Sussex, has alleged her 'Muslimness' was raised when she was sacked as transport minister in February 2020

Ms Ghani alleged that chief whip Mark Spencer said her faith was partly responsible for her getting the boot in 2020 - something he flatly denies.

Mr Johnson was asked this morning if Mr Spencer will remain in his role while the investigation is carried out and he replied: 'Just to get back to the key point, this is something I take personally extremely seriously. I took it very seriously 18 months ago. We must wait and see what the investigation produces.'

Ms Ghani has contradicted No10's version of events, saying the PM refused to get involved and tried to fob her off.

After the announcement, Ms Ghani insisted the terms of reference for the probe must including 'all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip'.

Ms Ghani said: 'As I said to the Prime Minister last night all I want is for this to be taken seriously and for him to investigate.

'I welcome his decision to do that now.

'The terms of reference of the inquiry must include all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip.

'I look forward to seeing the terms of reference.'

In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Zahawi welcomed the news, but stressed he did not think the allegations had been taken lightly before.

He said he personally had never 'experienced any form of racism' in the Conservative Party.

The Education Secretary told Sky News: 'She has made a very serious allegation, the Prime Minister spoke to her last night and said the Cabinet Office will investigate this and look at the detail of this.

'She put out a statement last night saying actually, to be fair to her, this could be people who weren't even members of the Conservative Party, which is why we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly.

'And of course the Chief Whip (Mark Spencer) has come out and named himself as the individual and I work with both colleagues, and I think it is important that someone like a Cabinet Office senior civil servant should look at this properly, because the Chief Whip has also categorically denied this.'

A thinktank has called on the Government to bring in the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to investigate the claims.

The Runnymede Trust, a race equality thinktank, says the issue is too important to be left to a civil servant-led inquiry.

Chief executive Dr Halima Begum told the Guardian: 'This is an incredibly serious situation. At a bare minimum, the allegation that a minister of the crown was fired for her so-called 'Muslimness' would represent a flagrant challenge to our equalities and labour laws.

'The facts and questions about the legality of what has happened here must be urgently investigated by the very highest authority. This cannot simply be left for another civil service inquiry. If the allegations are proven to be true, Nusrat would have been subjected to grossly discriminatory behaviour.

'[Her] distress will be felt by every one of the 3 million Muslims in the country, as well as every member of our religious minority communities. All of the political parties need to do more to demonstrate zero tolerance for discrimination, and to prove that religious minorities in this country are respected regardless of their faith.'

Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons women and equalities committee, described the treatment of Ms Ghani as 'appalling'.

She also backed calls for the EHRC to launch an investigation and told the Telegraph: 'Her faith has never made me (or any other colleague) 'uncomfortable'.

'At the very least EHRC should have a look at this.'

An EHRC spokesman stated the Commission is still examining the Conservative Party's handling of the Singh inquiry into Islamophobia complaints last year and suggested a full investigation may take place.

The spokesman added: 'If we are not satisfied with progress we will review our decision [not to begin an immediate review] and do not rule out the use of our legal powers.'

In a round of interviews this morning, Nadhim Zahawi welcomed news that a Cabinet Office investigation will be held

The PM (pictured left running this morning) has instructed the civil service to carry out a probe after the extraordinary claims from Ms Ghani. Mark Spencer (right) has outed himself as the whip concerned, and branded Ms Ghani's comments 'false' and 'defamatory'

After the announcement, Ms Ghani insisted the terms of reference for the probe must including 'all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip'

Who is Nusrat Ghani? Kashmir born trailblazer was a surprise sacking in PM's 2020 reshuffle Nusrat Ghani - known as Nus - was long seen as a rising star in Tory circles. And it came as a surprise to many when she was axed as a minister in 2020. The 49-year-old was born in Kashmir to Pakistani parents and grew up in Birmingham. She worked in an investment bank, charities and the BBC World Service before entering politics. Ms Ghani is married to Sky executive David Wheeldon, with whom she has one child. She stood in the 2010 general election for the seat of Birmingham Ladywood and lost, but was elected as MP for Wealden in East Sussex in 2015. She was the first female to win the seat and the first Muslim woman elected as a Tory MP. After her victory, Ms Ghani said: 'As the nation wakes up the Conservatives look to be on the brink of returning to government.' 'We have helped put our country back on track. Our party has taken bold steps and you have put your trust in us to finish the job.' In 2015, Ms Ghani was appointed a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee. A Brexiteer, Ms Ghani in 2016 told the BBC: 'Britain has a chance to vote for a bold, positive future as an independent country in control of its own destiny. 'We have the chance to liberate our economy from a declining corner of the world and spread our wings to the whole globe.' Ms Ghani was appointed assistant whip and transport minister in 2018 under Theresa May. She was the first female Muslim to speak from the Commons dispatch box. At the time, then-Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the BBC her promotion showed the Conservatives 'were a party of opportunity'. 'We're the party to provide the first Muslim woman minister to speak from the government dispatch box  the member for Wealden,' he said.' Ms Ghani wrote on her website: 'A century after women got the vote for the first time, I hope that today young people can see that regardless of their background, faith, race, gender or sexuality, there will be a warm welcome on the green benches, and no matter where you are from you can achieve your dreams and ambitions.' In 2020, when Ms Ghani was removed from the role, she was replaced by Kelly Tolhurst. Ms Ghani has said that she was surprised at the demotion, and the shuffle was reported in that light given she had been tipped to oversee HS2 progress. Ms Ghani is a steering committee member of the backbench Covid Recovery Group which opposed the December 2020 lockdown and has voted against other Covid restrictions. Advertisement

Elsewhere, a Tory MP sparked anger after he said Ms Ghani was 'hardly someone who is obviously a Muslim'.

Michael Fabricant said the timing of the former transport minister's claim was 'very suspicious', and suggested it was linked to moves to get rid of Boris Johnson over the Downing Street lockdown parties scandal.

Yesterday, Labour described Mr Fabricant's comments as 'shameful' and called for the Conservative whip to be withdrawn.

Speaking on LBC, Mr Fabricant said: 'The timing is interesting. I think all this is because it's open season on Boris Johnson, putting pressure on him from the party trying to get him to resign.

'I think the whole thing actually stinks, the accusation being made by Nus Ghani.

'She's hardly someone who is obviously a Muslim. I had no idea what religion she is. It does seem rather a lame excuse to me that she was sacked because of that.'

In response, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy tweeted: 'What an appalling, disgraceful thing to say.

'If the Tories wanted to show they were serious about tackling Islamophobia, they could start by removing the whip from Michael Fabricant.'

Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds said the response of the the Tories to Ms Ghani's claims had been shameful.

'For a Conservative MP, Michael Fabricant, to go on the radio and make comments that reflect exactly the sort of unacceptable behaviour Nusrat has raised shows just how deep the problem in the Conservative Party goes,' she said.

Ms Ghani has received the backing of Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Education Nadhim Zahawi, the two most senior Muslims in the Cabinet.

Both took to Twitter to support her and demand a full investigation into her claims against Mr Spencer.

He has outed himself as the whip concerned, and branded Ms Ghani's comments 'false' and 'defamatory'.

Justice secretary Dominic Raab also lined up to defend the party, claiming she had decided not to call for an investigation at the time.

But Mr Javid said Ms Ghani was 'a credit to the Conservative Party', adding: 'This is a very serious matter which needs a proper investigation. I would strongly support her in making a formal complaint - she must be heard.'

His intervention claim after Mr Zahawi tweeted: 'There is no place for islamophobia or any form of racism in our Conservative party. Nusrat Ghani is a friend, a colleague & a brilliant parliamentarian. This has to be investigated properly & racism routed out. #standwithNus' .

Ms Ghani, who was the first Muslim woman to be elected as a Tory MP in 2015, told the Sunday Times she was told by a party whip she was being axed in February 2020 because her status as a Muslim woman and a minister was 'making colleagues feel uncomfortable'.

She also claimed she was warned that if she continued to raise the issue then her 'career and reputation would be destroyed'.

But yesterday morning Downing Street revealed that Ms Ghani had complained directly to the PM in 2020. A spokeswoman said: 'After being made aware of these extremely serious claims, the Prime Minister met with Nusrat Ghani to discuss them.

'He then wrote to her expressing his serious concern and inviting her to begin a formal complaint process. She did not subsequently do so.'

After that statement was released, Ms Ghani said: 'When I told the Prime Minister in June 2020 what had been said to me in the Government Whips' Office I urged him to take it seriously as a Government matter and instigate an inquiry.

'He wrote to me that he could not get involved and suggested I use the internal Conservative Party complaint process.

'This, as I had already pointed out, was very clearly not appropriate for something that happened on Government business - I do not even know if the words that were conveyed to me about what was said in reshuffle meetings at Downing Street were by members of the Conservative Party.'
Michael Cohen, former United States President Donald Trump's former lawyer, and fixer claimed that the Republican businessman told him that if his kids had to go to prison over their family business and to make sure that it was Donald Jr., and not Ivanka.

Speaking in an interview on Saturday, Cohen said that the former president gave him the instruction of his children were on the verge of being indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney's office in 2012. Cohen recalled the details of the case where the district attorney was investigating Donald Jr., and Ivanka after the two allegedly lied about the number of units that had been sold.

Trump in Prison

The Republican businessman's former lawyer said that Trump told him about the arrangement directly and chose Donald Jr., over Ivanka because his son would be able to "handle it." Cohen talked about the increasing pressure on the Trump family due to the ongoing investigations into the Trump Organization's financial dealings and the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot.

Previously, New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her investigations of the Trump family's business have already uncovered "significant evidence" of fraudulent and misleading asset valuations. She has taken legal action to enforce subpoenas issued to Trump and his children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka due to their close work in the transactions, Business Insider reported.

Cohen said that Trump made the remarks years before he became the president of the United States. The situation comes as the House Select Committee is investigating the details of the events leading up to the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. The panel has also requested the voluntary cooperation of Ivanka in the case.

Read Also: Joe Biden Reportedly Offers Interviews To Defend Embattled Chief of Staff Ron Klain

The Republican businessman's former lawyer said that he believed there was no chance the former president would step in to protect either of his children from the investigations. Cohen said that the only person that Trump cared about was himself.

The lawyer said that there was nearly no chance that either Donald Jr. or Ivanka will be cooperating with the investigations. Cohen previously worked as the former president's personal lawyer and fixer for more than 10 years before becoming involved in a federal investigation into hush-money payments to women who claimed they had affairs with Trump in the 2000s, Independent reported.

Ongoing Investigations

In a separate investigation involving the Trump Organization, Eric Trump and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg invoked their Fifth Amendment rights. The two have done the process more than 500 times after being questioned by the New York attorney general's office related to its investigation into the company's finances.

Furthermore, the House Select Committee's request of Ivanka involves talking about her reported pleas to the former president to do something about the Capitol Hill riot. Cohen added that, similar to her father, Ivanka would most likely not shield her father amid the investigations, citing that she cared more about herself.

While Ivanka has not yet publicly responded to the panel's request for her voluntary cooperation, a spokesperson has noted that she appealed to Trump supporters on Jan. 6 to end the violence. However, she also initially referred to rioters in a Twitter post as "American patriots" before quickly deleting the message, HuffPost reported.



Related Article: Joe Biden Sucks According to Twitter User Due to Dismissive Attitude to Brexit While He Favors Brussels

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A alleged 'killer' accused of murdering his girlfriend's two-year-old son told police 'it was like he was having a nightmare' before he died, a court heard.

Phylesia Shirley, 24, and her boyfriend Kemar Brown, 28, are accused of murdering Kyrell Matthews at her one-bedroom flat in Thornton Heath, south London.

Shirley dialled 111 for advice when her son's body 'was going floppy' instead of 999 on 20 October 2019, the Old Bailey in London heard.

Paramedics rushed Kyrell to Croydon University Hospital while police followed and talked to Brown about what had happened before the emergency services arrived.

In footage from the body-worn camera of one of the police officers, Brown said: 'It was like he was having nightmares.

'We didn't know what was going on, we were watching as he was like, laying down

Brown told the officers he and Shirley tried to 'feed Kyrell cornflakes, juice, and sweets to help wake him up' as he lay unconscious - but he refused.

He said: 'At first we got him cornflakes to see if he would eat at all.'

The toddler - who was non-verbal - had 41 rib fractures by the time he died on October 20, 2019, as well as internal bleeding and a 1.6in (4cm) cut to his liver. His death was caused by very forceful squeezing or blows, jurors have heard.

The pair both deny murder. While Shirley has admitted allowing the death and serious physical harm to a child, Brown, who is not the child's father, has repeatedly denied both charges.

Phylesia Shirley, 24, and her boyfriend Kemar Brown, 28, are accused of murdering Kyrell Matthews (pictured) at her one-bedroom flat in Thornton Heath, south London

A court sketch of Phylesia Shirley, and her partner, Kemar Brown, at the Old Bailey in London

After Kyrell refused to eat, Brown told the officers Shirley then decided to call 111.

'As she was on the phone I saw his eyes are rolling back. When he was born, he had problems breathing, I don't really know.

'It's crazy, it's crazy, it's crazy. He was just lying down, we thought he was tired, sleeping, lazy really,

'They said to do CPS, do mouth to mouth and then the next minute...'

Jurors were told that the ambulance arrived 12 minutes after the initial call and continued efforts to try and save the toddler's life, but they were unable to maintain his heartbeat.

Prosecutor Edward Brown QC, earlier told jurors: 'Kyrell was rushed to Croydon University Hospital and despite extensive efforts by medical staff to revive him, they could not do so and life was pronounced extinct at 16:15.

'As you have heard, at no time were they able to restore any heart beat. He had died at the flat.'

Shirley and Brown both deny murder and are on trial at the Old Bailey in London (pictured)

As he made his way to the hospital, Brown claimed he had gone to the shops and found Kyrell sleeping when he returned, the court heard.

Brown said the toddler began to twitch and became limp as the couple tried to wake him, at which point the couple decided to call emergency services.

While Shirley was 'distressed' when emergency services arrived and became 'hysterical' when Kyrell was declared dead, Brown was calm and disengaged throughout.

Shirley, of Bensam Manor Road, Thonton Heath, south London, denies murder but has admitted allowing the death of a child and allowing serious physical harm to a child.

Brown, of Grange Park Road, Thornton Heath, south London, denies murder, causing or allowing the death of a child and causing or allowing serious physical harm to a child.

The trial continues.
An Atlanta sheriff's deputy shot and killed a burglar after his Ring doorbell notified him that his home had been broken into and tools stolen from inside.

The shooting took place in Fulton County early Saturday morning, with the off-duty deputy returning home, and following the burglar in his car as the thief walked away from the property on foot.

An altercation in a wooded area ensued, with the deputy shooting the burglar dead. Neither has been identified, with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation now probing the killing.

The home invasion and deadly shooting come amid rising crime rates in Atlanta, where 140 burglaries and 58 robberies were reported in December 2021, as well as nine murders and 11 rapes for the same time period.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that the Fulton County deputy, who has not been named as of Monday, arrived home on Springside Drive after midnight on Saturday to find the burglar walking away carrying tools and other items, the GBI said.

A Fulton County Sheriff's deputy shot and killed a man who allegedly broke into his home on Springside Drive in Atlanta (pictured) early Saturday morning

The unnamed deputy was returning home after a shift when he got a notification from his security system that someone was breaking into his house

The deputy, was was wearing a uniform, followed until the suspect stepped off an unpaved gravel road into some woods.

The agency says the officer left his personal car and followed the man into the woods, where the two got into a fight and the deputy shot the suspect, reported CBS46.

It is unclear at this time whether the suspect was armed.

Atlanta Police Department officers responding to a 911 call came upon the deputy performing CPR on the mortally wounded burglary suspect.

The shooting victim was then transported to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he later died.

The GBI, which is investigation the officer-involved shooting, says the deputy suffered a minor ankle injury during his altercation with the intruder.

The backdoor of the deputys home had been kicked in and the items found in the woods had been taken from his home.

The uniformed officer got home in time to find the burglar walking away with stolen goods and followed the man into the woods

The deputy and suspect got into a fight and the officer fatally shot the man. The incident is now being investigated by GBI

According to crime statistics released earlier this month by the Atlanta police, in December alone there were 51 shooting incidents in the city, up 13 per cent compared to the month before.

Just over 24 hours after the deputy-involved killing, a British doctor visiting his girlfriend in Atlanta was fatally shot in the head by a stray bullet.

Police said Dr Matthew Willson, a 31-year-old astrophysicist, was killed as a result of someone recklessly discharging a firearm outside his girlfriend's home in the high-end Brookhaven section of Atlanta.
Republicans are demanding Russia de-escalate as both parties push for sanctions and try to avoid sending U.S. forces to Ukraine following reports President Biden is considering deploying up to 50,000 troops to the Baltic region.

'What's happening with Russia and Ukraine would never have happened under the Trump Administration. Not even a possibility!' former President Donald Trump sent in a statement Monday.

Both Democrats and Republicans are publicly pressuring Biden to apply sanctions on the Kremlin now instead of waiting to act until Russia invades Ukraine.

Democrat Representative Frank Pallone tweeted on Sunday: 'Putin should know that if Russia invades Ukraine, the House will quickly pass legislation to impose sanctions on Russia. The United States and our allies will stand with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.'

He was referencing Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee introducing last week a companion bill to the Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022 that would impose sanctions on Russia as it inches closer to invading Ukraine.

Republican Representative Lisa McClain of Michigan tweeted on Monday: 'President Biden is enabling Russia to invade Ukraine by being all talk and no action.'

Republicans and Democrats alike have come out in a lukewarm fashion against Joe Biden strategy with Russia as it comes closer to invading Ukraine. The president returns to the White House Monday morning after spending the weekend at Camp David in Maryland

Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone said the U.S. is ready to impose sanctions should Russia invade  but Biden is considering much more severe action as he considers deploying as many as 50,000 U.S. troops to the Baltic region and Eastern European countries that border Ukraine

Republican Pat Fallon demanded the administration immediately impose sanctions

Former President Donald Trump insisted the situation with Russia 'would never have happened' under his administration

'It's time to stop making America look weak and start showing leadership.'

On Sunday, Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan asked Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Michael McCaul: 'You heard the secretary say that if he uses the leverage of sanctions now, he gives up an important bit of deterrence. Do you disagree?'

'I completely disagree,' the Texas Republican replied. 'I think this has been a passive deterrence, right? I don't. I don't see Putin changing his course of action. It's getting very aggressive.'

'The noose is tightening around Ukraine. President [Volodymyr] Zelensky, as you mentioned, said he wants the sanctions now,' McCaul continued on Sunday. 'We can always remove the sanctions if it deters Putin's bad behavior, but if you reward that and there are no consequences, it's going to continue. And I think all along, there are so many things we can be doing to provide deterrence if we don't do this.'

'The plan of action that I've seen in the classified space, as well as very specific, very aggressive, is timetable. If we don't do something strong right now, I'm afraid that he's going to invade Ukraine, which will have, as the secretary talked about, he's right and I think you and I did. It will have global ramifications here.'

Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 ranking Republican in the House, blasted Biden for suggesting there would be less severe action if Russia engaged in a 'minor incursion' in Ukraine. She tweeted Monday: 'There is no such thing as a minor incursion  any attempt to encroach on a sovereign nation is an invasion'

Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn said Biden's comments 'gave Russia the green light to invade'

Republican Representative Pat Fallon from Texas, who serves on the Armed Services Committee, said Biden should have already imposed sanctions on Russia.

'We should be sanctioning Russia yesterday  not tomorrow, not next week, but right now!' he tweeted on Sunday.

The lukewarm tweets towards Biden's strategy on Russia comes after a report emerged over the weekend that the president is considering deploying up to 50,000 troops to the Eastern Europe and Baltic countries.

Representative Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 ranking Republican in the House, tweeted Monday: 'There is no such thing as a minor incursion  any attempt to encroach on a sovereign nation is an invasion. Russia must accept Ukraine's sovereignty and de-escalate immediately.'

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy claimed while the U.S. 'can and should do more' to help Ukraine, he also said 'no country has done more to help Ukraine defend itself than the U.S.'

A cargo plane was pictured in Ukraine after supposedly delivering 80 tons of weapons

Ukraine's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also tweeted on Sunday a picture of a dog sitting on crates of what is presumably equipment being sent to Ukraine from the US

Biden suggested during his press briefing last week that if Russia made a 'minor incursion' there may be more debate over what to do next.

'I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades,' Biden said at the lengthy press conference  only the 10th of his presidency. 'And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do.'

The White House had to do clean up duty on those comments after it immediately raised alarms domestically and overseas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted there was no such thing as 'minor incursions.'

Democrat Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut claimed while the U.S. 'can and should do more' to help Ukraine, he also said 'no country has done more to help Ukraine defend itself than the U.S.'

Over the weekend, the State Department recalled U.S. embassy personnel from Ukraine over fears of invasion and warned private American citizens that they should immediately find their own way out of the country.

'Given that the President has said military action by Russia could come at any time, the US government will not be in a position to evacuate US citizens,' officials said during a State Department call on Sunday.

'So US citizens, currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly,' they added, suggesting people arrange commercial flights.

Arizona pro-Trump Representative Andy Biggs tweeted: 'Americans are still stranded in Afghanistan, and thanks to Biden, we can't evacuate Americans from Ukraine.'

'Biden is not only the America Last president, but the president who leaves Americans behind,' he added.

He added in another tweet: 'If you listen real close, you can hear Putin laughing from Russia'

It was in response to a February 2020 from then-candidate Joe Biden who wrote at the time: 'Vladimir Putin doesn't want me to be President. He doesn't want me to be our nominee. If you're wondering why  it's because I'm the only person in this field who's ever gone toe-to-toe with him.'

Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee wrote on Twitter: 'Just four days ago, Biden stood in front of the world and essentially gave Russia the green light to invade. Now, the State Department has ordered the families of US diplomats to evacuate Ukraine.'
Came as Afghan women's rights activists criticised formation of interim Cabinet that is all-male and all-Taliban

Group's representatives will push demand for $10 billion in assets to be unfrozen

The Taliban will push to have $10billion in assets unfrozen by the US as they begin their first official talks with western diplomats since they took control of Afghanistan last year.

Three days of closed-door meetings started Sunday at a hotel in the mountains above the Norwegian capital Oslo.

Today's meeting involved representatives of the EU, the US, Britain, France, Italy and hosts Norway meeting with the Taliban delegation led by its Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Taliban representatives will be certain to press their demand that nearly $10 billion frozen by the United States and other Western countries be released as Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation.

The Taliban will push to have $10billion in assets unfrozen by the US as they begin their first official talks with western diplomats since they taking control of Afghanistan last year. Pictured: Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi at the talks

'We are requesting them to unfreeze Afghan assets and not punish ordinary Afghans because of the political discourse,' said Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam on Sunday night.

'Because of the starvation, because of the deadly winter, I think it's time for the international community to support Afghans, not punish them because of their political disputes.'

Muttaqi told reporters Monday that the the that the meeting took place as a success in its own right.

'Norway providing us this opportunity is an achievement in itself because we shared the stage with the world,' he said.

Three days of closed-door meetings started Sunday at a hotel in the mountains above the Norwegian capital Oslo

'From these meetings we are sure of getting support for Afghanistan's humanitarian, health and education sectors.'

Ahead of the talks, western diplomats met with Afghan women's rights activists and human rights defenders to about their demands and assessment of the current situation on the ground.

Standing silent as attendees gathered, women's rights activist Heda Khamoush, who lives in Kabul, held up the photos of Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parwana Ibrahimkhel, two women arrested by the Taliban last week following an anti-Taliban protest against the compulsory Islamic headscarf, or hijab, for women. They haven't been seen since.

Rejecting the accusation the Taliban had abducted them, Azam said he was 'not aware of that' and suggested activists may be using this event to seek asylum.

The three-day talks opened on Sunday with direct meetings between the Taliban and civil society representatives.

Ahead of the talks, western diplomats met with Afghan women's rights activists and human rights defenders to about their demands and assessment of the current situation on the ground. Pictured: Activist Heda Khamoush held up the photos of Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parwana Ibrahimkhel, two women arrested by the Taliban last week

On Monday the Taliban's acting foreign minister spoke to reporters, saying meetings with Afghanistan's civil society were not a negotiation, but rather a constructive exchange.

The country's new rulers have been sharply criticized for their heavy-handed approach to security, dispersing women protesters with pepper spray and firing in the air, intimidating and and beating journalists and coming in the night to arrest anti-government demonstrators.

The Taliban have been criticized for establishing an interim Cabinet that is all-male and all-Taliban. Most are ethnic Pashtuns.

Successive Afghan organizations as well as the international community have urged the Taliban to open the government to non-Taliban, as well as a strong showing of ethnic and religious minorities and women.

Muttaqi said most of the civil servants who have returned to work are from the previous government and about 15,000 women are working in the health and education sectors. There has been no decision yet he said on more women in the government work force.

The country's new rulers have been sharply criticized for their heavy-handed approach to security, dispersing women protesters with pepper spray and firing in the air, intimidating and and beating journalists and coming in the night to arrest anti-government demonstrators. Pictured: A detainee looks at Taliban fighters from inside a cell in Kabul, Afghanistan

'We have not dismissed anyone,' he said. 'This is progress, but of course it is not enough.'

Talks with European and U.S. representatives were expected to cover everything from education to humanitarian aid to greater inclusivity.

Muttaqi said he had a message to Afghans and the international community:

'Our message is that after 40 years of war Afghans are in peace. War is ended and now is the time for progress and economic activity... We want Afghans to be happy after all those years of suffering.

'We want good relations with the world, with our neighboring countries, with the European countries... We have had good results and progress in our meetings.'

Women's rights activist Mahbouba Seraj acknowledged the progress made. 'Yes, they were listening. I should say that,' she said Monday morning.

'We gave them a paper. We asked them what we wanted. They took it. They were very, very cordial about it.'

The talks come at a crucial time for Afghanistan as freezing temperatures are compounding misery from the downward spiral that has come with the fall of the U.S.-backed government and the Taliban takeover.

Aid groups and international agencies estimate about 23 million people, more than half the country, face severe hunger and nearly 9 million are on the brink of starvation.

People have resorted to selling possessions to buy food, burning furniture for warmth and even selling their children. The United Nations has managed to provide some liquidity and allowed the Taliban administration to pay for imports, including electricity.

Faced with the Taliban's request for funds, Western powers are likely to put the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan high on their agenda, along with the West's recurring demand for the Taliban administration to share power with Afghanistan's minority ethnic and religious groups.

Since sweeping to power in mid-August, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women.

Women have been banned from many jobs outside the health and education fields, their access to education has been restricted beyond sixth grade and they have been ordered to wear the hijab.

The Taliban have, however, stopped short of imposing the burqa, which was compulsory when they previously ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The Taliban have increasingly targeted Afghanistan's beleaguered rights groups, as well as journalists, detaining and sometimes beating television crews covering demonstrations.

In a tweet Monday the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West welcomed talks between Taliban and the country's civil society representatives and said 'we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan.'
Boris Johnson's dream of a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland may not be dead after all, according to the expert who appeared to have killed it off.

Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy said a link between Ulster and Britain could be possible in future when new technology like driverless cars is introduced.

Mr Johnson's support for what was branded the 'stupidest bridge in history' was criticised after Sir John's review in November warned that the full route across the Irish Sea could cost as much as 335billion for a bridge crossing and 209billion for a tunnel.

However, addressing MPs today, Sir Peter said the PM's request that such a link be investigated was 'reasonable', and that future tech might mean it could be done.

Appearing in front of the Scottish Affairs Committee he was invited by its Scottish National Party chairman Pete Wishart to criticise the 'quite honestly ridiculous proposal'.

It was recently revealed that two feasibility reports had cost the taxpayer almost 1million.

But Sir Peter replied: 'I have written what I really think about it. It's possible to do it, it is not in excess of modern technology, its probably near the edge of modern technology.

'But you notice that I said it out to be reviewed in the future because one of the issues surrounding it, if you look at both or either a bridge or a tunnel, is that the approach gradients are limited by the technology that we have now in respect of railway gradients and the ability of drivers to traverse long-distance roads.

'That may change with autonomous vehicles and it ought to be reviewed at some stage. I think the proposition that such a link might be built is not improbable.

Network Rail chairman Sir Peter Hendy said a link between Ulster and Britain could be possible in future when new technology like driverless cars is introduced.

Appearing in front of the Scottish Affairs Committee he was invited by its Scottish National Party chairman Pete Wishart to criticise the 'quite honestly ridiculous proposal'.

The proposed bridge or tunnel would have potentially run between Portpatrick in Scotland and Larne in County Antrim

The review concluded that said the the full route could be as much as 335billion for a bridge crossing and 209billion for a tunnel crossing - many times higher than the figures that had previously been mooted

'There are tunnels of that sort of length in the rest of the world as there is in the tunnel under the channel. You will recall, or at least people will recall that that was derided before it was successfully completed 30 years ago

'So I think it was a reasonable question to ask and my conclusion is factual, which is that it is possible to do it but the sums of money involved and the time it would take are not credible at the moment. If it were revisited with the advent of future technology that situation might change.'

'The Prime Minister had enthusiastically promoted the scheme, which he insisted could help strengthen the Union after the divisions caused by the Brexit and Scottish independence referendums of recent years.

However, Conservative MPs joked that the trains would be 'pulled by unicorns'. Critics had also pointed out that building it could require clearing out a huge undersea munitions dump.

The figures cited for the cost are many times higher than those originally mooted, with Treasury officials estimating a price tag of tens  not hundreds  of billions. Sir Peter's 335billion price tag is also twice the annual budget of the NHS, and more than three times the 100billion cost of the controversial HS2 rail-link estimated by an independent review.

In a damning assessment of the project in November, Sir Peter said building a bridge or tunnel is 'technically feasible' but said it is 'unlikely that new transport links would be commissioned, constructed and opened for at least 25 to 30 years' and 'would not be without significant challenges'.

He also warned that the final price tag 'would be impossible to justify, given the Government's already very significant commitment to long-term transport infrastructure improvement for levelling up'.

'The benefits could not possibly outweigh the costs to the public purse,' Sir Peter added.
A vicar involved in a bitter feud with the choir at her historic church has accused her Bishop of conducting an 'unethical, immoral and self-serving' campaign against her.

The rev Catherine Relf-Pennington, 64, alleged that the Bishop of Norwich the Right Rev Graham Usher had taken the side of 'a small circle of white, wealthy, strongly interconnected men' rather than supporting his own clergy.

In an extraordinary attack, she accused him of hypocrisy by stating that he had 'hounded' her just after he had publicly attacked 'the dark forces of cruelty' who targeted TV personality Caroline Flack before she took her own life.

The bust-up began after Ms Relf-Pennington faced a string of complaints about her supposed 'authoritarian style' in 2017, soon after she was appointed as vicar of 12th century Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk.

They included claims that she assaulted a chorister after banning her from the choir and reversed her truck into a parked car in the Abbey car park, causing a 'six-inch-long gash', before driving away.

Ms Relf-Pennington in turn claimed to have been bullied and subjected to false accusations by choristers who were 'anti-woman priests'.

She has also alleged that she has received poison pen letters and had the tyres of her truck slashed.

The rev Catherine Pennington who has been fiercely criticised by some of her choristers at 12th century Wymondham Abbey

The Rt Rev Usher attempted to defuse the row by publishing 'directions' last November including an order for her to apologise 'without reservation' to those who had complained 'to bring about reconciliation'.

His seven page report also called for moves to improve the running of the parish and tackle concerns about the Abbey's finances, caused in part by its dwindling congregation.

The Bishop drew up his report after sending three Commissaries including former Bishop Graeme Knowles who is a retired Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, to investigate issues in the parish.

Ms Relf-Pennington, the first woman priest in the Abbey's 900 year history, did not respond to the report last November, but has now published her own 12 page statement on the Abbey website.

Former High Court judge Sir Mark Hedley was brought in by the Church of England in 2019 to investigate ill-feeling at the Abbey

It said that she and her parochial church council and church wardens as well as the 'worshipping community' had been surprised and disappointed by the actions of the Rt Rev Usher and other Diocese officials 'in relation to their behaviour'.

The vicar said: 'There have been false allegations, delays and threats and unremitting criticism of a church community doing it's best in very difficult times and widely appreciated by other groups.

'We have been harassed. For three years the pressure here has been unrelenting. We believe the intention has been to break the vicar, break the PCC people and to break the worshipping community'.

Ms Relf-Pennington also criticised the Bishop of Thetford, the Right Rev Alan Winton, saying he had been wrongly given the Abbey's vicarage to live in, meaning that she was offered other accommodation.

She said: 'Bishop Alan Winton and Bishop Graham Usher's behaviour in relation to Wymondham Abbey is unethical, immoral and self-serving.

'They have caused a huge amount of damage to the Church of England's reputation, to people in Wymondham and in particular to the members of the church council, worshipers, vicar and Wardens

'Throughout all these processes the Diocese has listened much more to some individuals - in particular a small circle of white, wealthy, strongly interconnected men, all hostile to the vicar, who have a huge influence over the matters at Wymondham Abbey and in the leadership of the Diocese.

'It is time to call this to account and ask for the Church of England to make their position on Freemasons within the church open and transparent.'

Ms Relf-Pennington described the Bishop's report as 'the most recent of a long line of abusive Church of England processes used by the Bishops against the Vicar and Wardens.

The bust-up began after Ms Relf-Pennington faced a string of complaints about her supposed 'authoritarian style' in 2017, soon after she was appointed as vicar of 12th century Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk

She added: 'These include an extensive and protracted Clergy Discipline Measure process, humiliation of the vicar in the national press, an episcopal visitation, publishing inaccurate and disingenuous directions, and a spurious safeguarding assessment.

'These are abuses of power. It is not new for the Church of England to pursue priests who fall foul of Bishops agenda's even to death.

'The Bishop of Norwich has revealed the same unkindness that he decried in others when Caroline Flack took her own life - his comment on twitter 'May this light illuminate and change the dark forces of cruelty that hound people and make their life a misery. More caring, less judging.'

'And yet he has hounded the vicar and this parish relentlessly and publicly by misusing his position of power to silence voices asking difficult questions.'

Ms Relf-Pennington described the claims against her as 'petty allegations and complaints'

She added: 'The 'complainants' were people opposed to women's ministry, disgruntled past employees and people vehemently opposed to changes which opened up the church to the wider community and modern ways of thinking.

Built by Henry I's master butler: A history of Wymondham Abbey Wymondham Abbey was founded in 1107 and built as a Benedictine priory by William d'Aubigny, a notable Norfolk landowner and Master Butler of Henry I. During the 15th Century, Pope Nicholas V granted Wymondham Priory the right to become an abbey. The monastery was partly demolished in the 16th century during Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, but much of the main building survived as a parish church. The abbey was extended in 2015 with the building of a new refectory and chapel. Wymondham Abbey was founded in 1107 and built as a Benedictine priory by William d'Aubigny, a notable Norfolk landowner and Master Butler of Henry I Advertisement

'Complainants included people who wrote poison pen letters and made death threats and someone with stalking behaviour which required police involvement.

She described the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) process which started against her three-years-ago as being 'not fit for purpose', saying it was a 'deliberately and deeply humiliating process and insurmountable stress for the vicar as well as all those at the Abbey'.

Ms Relf-Pennington added: 'It has been a malicious and vexatious process'.

She claimed that she and her supporters had compiled nearly 1000 pages of documentation to defend themselves, but the 'disingenuous directions' issued by the Rt Rev Usher suggest 'these have not been fully read or have been ignored'.

Her report went on: 'For the Bishop to order the vicar to apologise unreservedly to all complainants - including those whose complaints did not meet the bar- is not acceptable.

'To offer an apology implies that there is reason to apologise, and this in itself incriminates the vicar. It is yet another attempt to humiliate the vicar who had in fact done nothing wrong. This is a misuse of Bishop Graham Usher's position of power.'

The Rt Rev Usher stated in his report that his visitation team, had 'met a number of people who cried in front of them'. He added: 'These matters have monopolised a huge amount of my time since becoming Bishop of Norwich.'

He criticised Ms Relf-Pennington for her 'refusal to admit that she has contributed in any way to the pastoral breakdown in the benefice' or 'accept any error in the way she has interacted with people'.

A total of 37 complaints were initially made against her after she was appointed associate vicar at the Abbey in 2013, and promoted to become vicar in 2017. They were reduced to 19 complaints including 13 from choristers

One witness accused the vicar of shouting at a woman who had turned up to sing in the choir after being told she was not permitted to attend.

The witness claimed that the woman was 'visibly distraught' and the vicar assaulted her by grabbing her arm 'forcibly'.

Ms Relf-Pennington who was born in Australia and worked as a research scientist in artificial intelligence before joining the priesthood, denied the allegation 'in the strongest possible terms', saying her actions 'did not even come close' to assault.

She said: 'At no point did I raise my voice, even in the face of a very emotional outburst from (her)...I did at one point place my open, relaxed hand, gentle near her upper arm* I was attempting to guide her to a seat and offering her tea.

'I do not shout and I cannot imagine ever being described as ferocious, abusive.'

The Bishop said no further action would be taken other than a claim the vicar damaged a parishioner's car which should be referred to a church tribunal.

But she claimed it was 'highly improbable' her truck had been involved in the collision in the car park as it showed no signs of damage.

The Rt Revd Usher also revealed that the parish had not paid its dues to Diocese funds for 2020 and initially in 2021, saying it had 'may suggest that the financial position of the parish has fallen into a state of disarray'.

But Ms Relf-Pennington alleged that the church accounts had been left 'in a disorganised and confused state' before she took over and the Abbey's reserves had been drained in previous years by being used to make payments to the Diocese.

The Bishop's report described Ms Relf-Pennington's insistence on wanting to stay in the old vicarage as 'irrational and unsupported by legal opinion'.

Former High Court judge Sir Mark Hedley was brought in by the Church of England in 2019 to investigate ill-feeling at the Abbey.

Sir Mark urged both sides to settle their differences to avoid a public tribunal hearing and described the ongoing issues in his report as 'a disgrace to a Christian community'.

The Diocese of Norwich said in a statement today that the vicar had a legal duty to comply with the Bishop's directions and failure to do so could lead to disciplinary action for misconduct.

It said: 'The Bishop of Norwich notes the response from the vicar and churchwardens of Wymondham to his directions published in November, following the formal visitation to the parish during 2021.

'The visitation itself was commissioned because of a number of concerns relating to the ministry of Wymondham Abbey.

'As yet, a number of the Bishop's directions remain to be complied with, and he will be working to ensure that these matters are properly addressed. The Bishop is very keen to resolve matters in Wymondham for the benefit of the whole community.'
House Republicans are demanding the Biden administration share what it knows about an apparent Russian overture to Iran about a proposed 'interim' nuclear deal amid a standoff between Tehran and major powers.

The U.S. is 'aware' of the proposal, NBC reported, amid administration efforts to try to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Such an interim deal would involve a lifting of some sanctions on Tehran in exchange for additional restrictions on its nuclear program  the same kind of trade-offs that make up the 2015 deal negotiated during the Obama administration that President Donald Trump scrapped.

Amid the limited information about potential strides, House Republicans with national security backgrounds are demanding the administration share what it knows.

The Biden administration is 'aware' of a Russian nuclear proposal to Iran, according to a weekend report. House GOP lawmakers are demanding to see it

'Russia sent a secret agreement to Iran. Russia is trying to take the lead now in the negotiations with Iran. This is a secret agreement. We havent seen it,' complained Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in comments to the Washington Free Beacon.

Adding to the concern is ongoing tension with Russia amid fears of another Russian invasion of Ukraine. The standoff has President Biden considering dispatching U.S. forces to shore-up allies in the Balkans, and threatening to impose massive economic sanctions on Russia.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who serves on the Armed Services Committee, called reports the administration is 'working with the Russians' on the issue 'doubly concerning.'

'First, they create a conflict of interest with Russia as we are trying to prevent an invasion of Ukraine. Second, preemptive sanctions relief, and failure to transmit an interim agreement to Congress, would violate the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. The administration needs to end their simultaneous surrender to Russia and Iran before it's too late,' he told the publication.

'This is a secret agreement. We havent seen it,' complained Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas)

Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shake hands before their meeting on January 21, 2022, in Geneva, Switzerland. Blinken said there was a closing window to revive the deal

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech during a session of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, in Moscow, Russia January 20, 2022

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (R) meets Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) in Moscow, Russia on January 19, 2022

The administration is keeping distance from the proposal.

A senior Biden administration told NBC an interim arrangement isn't under serious discussion.

'Though we cannot speak for any discussions that may have taken place between Russia and Iran, at this stage we are certain that no such interim arrangement is being seriously discussed,' said the official. 'Regarding an interim deal, we will not negotiate in the press or comment on specific claims about the negotiations. Our timeline is based on a technical assessment of Irans nuclear progress rather than a temporal clock.'

One draft that Russia pitched would have Tehran stop enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity and get rid of its stockpile, while unlocking billions in frozen oil revenue.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran Nuclear Deal Review Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2015 amid congressional concerns about the deal, requires the administration to provide Congress with any final agreement for review.

Iran at present is refusing to hold direct talks with U.S. negotiators.

The report on the Russian proposal comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva amid Ukraine tensions and warned there was a closing window of time on Iran.



'The talks with Iran about a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA have reached a decisive moment,' Blinken said, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

'If a deal is not reached in the next few weeks, Iran's ongoing nuclear advances will make it impossible to return to the JCPOA. But right now, there's still a window, a brief one, to bring those talks to a successful conclusion and address the remaining concerns of all sides,' Blinken said.
An MP has called for an inquiry into how the Poppy Day suicide bomber was allowed to stay in the UK despite having his application for asylum rejected nearly seven years ago.

Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, lied repeatedly to try to stay in Britain but his case quickly fell apart by the spring of 2015, raising more damaging questions about why he was never deported in the following six years.

The judge who rejected his first asylum case back in 2014 suggested he could have been thrown out of Britain immediately - but he remained in Liverpool where he built a bomb factory in his flat and then blew himself up on November 14 last year outside a maternity hospital.

Now, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael has called for an inquiry into how the Liverpool bomber was allowed to stay in the UK for more than six years after his asylum claim was dismissed.

'The Home Office has serious questions to answer over how this case was handled. Why was this man still in the UK years after his appeal was rejected, allowing him to commit this appalling terrorist attack?' asked Carmichael.

'No wonder public confidence in the asylum system is so low. Despite all the tough rhetoric, the Government is failing to remove people who have no right to be here.

'It's time for Priti Patel to get a grip. She should hold an inquiry into what went wrong in this case and fix the system so it cannot happen again.'

A spokesman would not comment on whether the Home Office was conducting carrying out an internal inquiry, or conducting any investigations, into how the case was handled.

It comes as the Government was last week accused of trying to 'cover up' the numbers of migrants crossing The Channel after it emerged the Home Office will soon publish numbers just four times a year, rather than on a daily basis.

Emad Al Swealmeen, an asylum seeker who had converted to Christianity, arrived in the UK from the Middle East in 2014 and had an application for asylum rejected the following year. He somehow remained in the country despite a judge saying he could be deported immediately

Al Swealmeen died when he detonated an explosive device in the back of a taxi outside the Liverpool Women's Hospital just before 11am on November 14. Taxi driver David Perry managed to escape with injuries

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael has called for an inquiry into how the Liverpool bomber was allowed to stay in the UK for more than six years after his asylum claim was dismissed

32-year-old Al Swealmeen's web of lies began as soon as he arrived in Britain in April 2014 from the UAE, claiming to be Syrian and in fear of his life.

But expert language analysis of his Arabic by the Home Office quickly found that he was 'almost certainly' Iraqi.

He also had no documents to support his claim to be Syrian, no connections with that country whatsoever and couldn't answer basic questions about its geography or where his family lived.

His asylum application was rejected in November 2014 and his appeal failed in April 2015, giving the Home Office the right to deport him.

Moreover, he had travelled into the UK on a genuine Jordanian passport - that he later claimed was fake - and failed to explain away why he came to Britain from the much safer UAE, where he had lived for more than a decade.

In 2017 he even put in an application under his alias Enzo Almeni but it was not sifted out despite the authorities having his fingerprints. He was also arrested after threatening people with a knife in a Liverpool underpass, but was still allowed to remain in the UK and even got a job as a pizza chef.

Yet despite several opportunities to deport the failed asylum seeker, who converted to Christianity to improve his chances of a successful appeal but remained a practising Muslim, the Home Office did not act.

His inquest revealed he bought 2,000 ball bearings and rented a 'bomb-making factory' to manufacture a device with 'murderous intent' that went off shortly before 11am on November 14 last year.

How was he still in Britain? Bomber was able to stay in the UK using lies, converting to Christianity and the Home Office's failure to deport him October 1989: Born in Baghdad December 2013: Applied for a visitor's visa and is fingerprinted before flying to the UK from the UAE April 2014: Arrived in Britain legally and then claimed asylum six days later, claiming to be Syrian. November 2014: His first claim is rejected as the Home Office and a judge don't believe he is Syrian, because he speaks Iraqi Arabic and can't answer basic questions about Syria April 2015: Lost appeal having not even turned up to the hearing August 2015: Lost challenge to that appeal - but the Home Office then fails to deport him 2017: Applied again under his alias Enzo Almeni 2020: That application is throw out January 2021: He launches yet another appeal November 2021: Blows himself up using a homemade bomb outside Liverpool's Women's Hospital Advertisement

Despite his paltry asylum case being rejected in November 2014 - he appealed to the First-tier Tribunal but his case was rejected in April 2015. Later that year he turned up at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral in 2015 saying he wanted to convert. He was then Baptised and confirmed in May 2017.

The Iraqi-born 32-year-old falsely claimed to be of Syrian heritage in asylum applications.

He came to the UK in May 2014 legally, with a Jordanian passport and UK visa but his asylum claim was rejected, a coroner's court heard last month.

He challenged the Home Office decision by lodging an appeal with the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) but this was dismissed in 2015, a copy of the ruling obtained following requests from the BBC  supported by the PA news agency  and The Times show.

The decision dated April 16 of that year, after a hearing in Manchester three days earlier, detailed how Al Swealmeen had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Home Office officials decided he had not established a 'well-founded fear of persecution so that he did not qualify for asylum' and had not demonstrated 'substantial grounds' to qualify for humanitarian protection. He had been informed of the 'decision to remove him from the United Kingdom', the court papers said.

The judge noted there were 'a number of problems' with his evidence and, considering Al Swealmeen's credibility, said: 'I find that the appellant has attempted to give an account to put himself in the best light  In view of all the evidence, I reject his account of events in Syria and his fears on his return in their entirety, and dismiss his asylum appeal.'

Al Swealmeen did not attend the hearing. The solicitors initially representing him had withdrawn from the case and asked to be removed from the record.

Born in Baghdad, he had been in prison in the Middle East for a serious assault, as well as being convicted previously in Liverpool of possession of an offensive weapon. Al Swealmeen was still a practising Muslim despite converting to Christianity once in the UK, the coroner's court was told.

Emad Al Swealmeen, who was baptised and confirmed at the city's Anglican cathedral in 2017 (left) after being taken in by lay pastor Malcolm Hitchcott (together right), and went on to work as a pizza chef having made repeated asylum applications and appeals, including one under a new identity

Mr Perry foiled the attack by stopping his cab - he is said to have spotted his passenger acting strangely and vibrating

He lived at Home Office-provided accommodation in Sutcliffe Street, in the Kensington area of Liverpool, but since April had rented a self-contained flat in Rutland Avenue, the inquest heard.

Officials confirmed that in January last year Al Swealmeen launched another first-tier tribunal appeal which was still outstanding at the time of the attack, suggesting he had recently submitted a fresh asylum claim to the Home Office which had also been rejected.

The department has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the case or explain why Al Swealmeen was not removed from the UK once his asylum claim, and subsequent appeal, was rejected.

When contacted by PA, the Home Office said it was 'fixing the broken asylum system' and that the 'New Plan for Immigration will require people to raise all protection-related issues up front to tackle the practice of making multiple and sequential claims and enable the removal of those with no right to be in our country more quickly'.

Decisions made by the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) are not normally reported. But, after requests for the records were made by the press, the tribunal's president Judge Michael Clements accepted that in this instance the 'public interest element is such that this outweighs the usual practice'.

The news that Al Swealmeen was refused asylum almost seven years ago but was still not deported raises fresh questions of the Home Office, which is currently under fire for 'cowardice' after it emerged that figures of migrants crossing The Channel will soon no longer be published on a daily basis.

At least 28,381 migrants arrived in England via The Channel alone in 2021 - treble the number that made the journey in 2020, despite considerable investment from both UK and French authorities to prevent crossings.

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK which campaigns for tougher border controls, added: 'This is a cowardly act. It just shows the Government is running scared.

'I'm very surprised at Priti Patel, and the British people deserve better from her.

'Do they really think they can hide the figures from the electorate when all this takes place in the open on our beaches and at our ports?

'The Home Office can't simply pretend this problem is not happening, and hope it will go away.'

Nearly 100 migrants were brought into the UK from The Channel yesterday alone

Official figures show more than three times as many migrants have arrived in Britain so far this month than in the whole of January last year. UK authorities have intercepted more than 950 migrants so far this year  more than three times the 223 in January 2021. Last year, 28,381 people were intercepted in the Channel, compared to just 8,410 in 2020

Priti Patel has been accused of 'burying bad news' after it emerged the Government plans to scrap the publication of daily Channel migrant figures. Though the Home Office has not published a breakdown of Channel migrants by age or gender, Patel claims that seven in ten of all people who cross the Narrow Sea are single men under 40

Home Office officials have warned Home Secretary Priti Patel that 65,000 migrants could cross the Channel this year  more than double last year's 28,300 record number.

In response, Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly gave the Home Secretary the green light over the weekend to develop new powers that would allow male asylum seekers crossing the Narrow Sea to be held in immigration removal centres.

The move would be part of an 'overhaul' of the asylum system in Britain which Patel described in November as a 'complete merry-go-round exploited by a whole professional legal services industry at the expense of the taxpayers.'
The mother of a 13-year-old boy who drowned in a river has lost a High Court bid to overturn a decision not to charge the teenager who allegedly pushed him.

A 14-year-old boy was accused of shoving Christopher Kapessa into the River Cynon in Rhondda Cynon Taff, Wales, in July 2019, a hearing was told.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided that a prosecution was not in the public interest.

Christopher's mother Alina Joseph, who is from the Cynon Valley, took High Court action against the Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill, who heads the CPS.

Two judges ruled against her on Monday.

Christopher Kapessa (pictured with his mother Alina Joseph), 13, was allegedly pushed into the River Cynon in Rhondda Cynon Taff by a 14-year-old boy in July 2019, a hearing was told

Christopher's mother Alina Joseph, who is from the Cynon Valley, took High Court action against the Director of Public Prosecutions Max Hill, who heads the CPS (Christopher pictured)

Lord Justice Popplewell and Mr Justice Dove had considered argument at a hearing in London earlier this month.

Barrister Michael Mansfield QC, who led Ms Joseph's legal team, argued the decision not to prosecute the 'suspect', who is now 17, was 'unreasonable or irrational'.

Lawyers representing the CPS had argued that Ms Joseph's challenge should be dismissed.

Lord Justice Popplewell said in a written ruling that principal policy guidance for prosecutorial decisions was contained in a Code For Crown Prosecutors issued by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

He also said 'Homicide Guidance' provided that the 'public interest' in prosecuting homicide cases was high as the harm caused would 'inevitably be of the utmost seriousness....'

Mr Mansfield had said his 'main submission' was that there had been a 'failure to have regard to and apply the Homicide Guidance'.

Lord Justice Popplewell disagreed and suggested that Mr Mansfield's argument misconstrued policy guidance.

He said the 'Homicide Guidance' was addressed to 'homicides generally'. But he added the CPS also had to have regard to 'Youth Offender Guidance'.

Barrister Michael Mansfield QC, who led Ms Joseph's legal team, said the 'suspect' had 'pushed' Christopher 'deliberately' and Christopher (pictured) had been killed as a result

He said 'Youth Offender Guidance' involved 'important factors' which weighed against a prosecution of young persons.

Mr Mansfield had argued that the CPS decision was 'unlawful'.

Ms Joseph wanted to 'understand fully what had happened to her son' and to 'see justice done according to that truth', he said.

Judges heard that a number of youngsters were at the scene and were told that Christopher had expressed concern about his lack of swimming ability.

Mr Mansfield said the 'suspect' had 'pushed' Christopher 'deliberately' and Christopher had been killed as a result.

Judges heard that a number of youngsters were at the scene and were told that Christopher had expressed concern about his lack of swimming ability (River Cynon pictured above)

He said Christopher and his family had been 'relatively new' to the area and were a black family living in a predominantly white community.

Duncan Penny QC, who led the CPS legal team, had told judges that the decision at the centre of the case had been taken by Moira MacDaid, a specialist prosecutor.

Ms MacDaid had concluded, after a review, that the original decision not to charge the suspect with manslaughter was correct, he said.

Mr Penny said Ms MacDaid had considered all relevant evidence with 'scrupulous fairness'.

He said her decision that a public interest test 'was not met' was neither irrational nor 'undermined by any error of law'.
A female trailblazer who was the first British woman to swim the English Channel will be honoured with a blue plaque outside her Brighton home.

Mercedes Gleitze became the first Brighton woman to swim the English Channel on her eighth attempt in 1927.

In the same year she went on to become the first person to swim the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles and all around the Isle of Man.

By the time of her retirement in 1932 her record for endurance swimming was 46 hours.

Mercedes Gleitze became the first Brighton woman to swim the English Channel on her eighth attempt in 1927

After her triumph in 1927, calls of a hoax forced her to attempt a 'vindication swim' months later that had to be abandoned because of extreme cold

A blue plaque dedicated to Ms Gleitze has been unveiled outside her former home in Brighton

Members of the cast of Vindication Swim, a film based on her life, were there to see the unveiling of the plaque

Actress Kirsten Callaghan (centre) who plays Mercedes in the film visited the unveiling along side Director Elliot Hasler (left) and actor John Locke (right)

Mercedes Gleitze (centre) with Lord Riddell (to her right) at Charing Cross railway station, London, after her successful swim across the English Channel

Ms Gleitze's legacy is experiencing a surge of interest with a new film about her exploits in the works.

Members of the cast and crew of Vindication Swim attended the blue plaque unveiling in Brighton today.

Attending the ceremony were actor Kirsten Callaghan, who portrays Mercedes in the film, and actor John Locke, who has started in The Darkest Hour and the Favourite.

A spokesman for filmmakers, Relash productions, said: 'Celebrity icon of the 1920s, the name Mercedes Gleitze has faded from public consciousness, but it is hoped that the blue plaque, along with the upcoming feature-length biopic depicting the events surrounding her 1927 swim, will rejuvenate her status as a female sporting trailblazer.'

After her retirement she raised three children and died aged 80 in February 1981 in a hospital in London.

Mercedes Gleitze (centre) with her husband Patrick Carey, at St Paul's Church, Dover after their wedding, 9th August 1930

Mercedes Gleitze on her way to Gibraltar in 1927 where she would complete her attempt to cross the Channel

Ms Gleitze kept her exploits a secret from her children after her retirement from swimming

She even kept her glittering sporting career a secret from her own children and grandchildren.

Ms Gleitze was a pioneer in female sport carrying out feats of strength and stamina thought to be the preserve of men.

In 1927, on her eighth attempt, she became the first Brighton woman to swim the English Channel in a gruelling 15 hours and 15 minutes.
The U.S. State Department on Sunday urged all family members of embassy employees and all U.S. citizens in Ukraine to depart the country immediately amid the threat of Russia's incursion due to Moscow's buildup of troops on the border.

During a call with reporters on Sunday, a senior State Department official said that the department's official recommendation to U.S. citizens who were currently in Ukraine was to consider leaving the country using commercial or privately available transportation options.

Fleeing Ukraine

The West has, for months, observed an extraordinary deployment and buildup of Russian troops and equipment to its border with Ukraine. The situation has evoked Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, which is a peninsula located on the Black Sea. It has sparked international criticism and resulted in a series of sanctions against Moscow.

The seizure of Crimea also resulted in Russia's removal from the Group of 8, commonly called G-8, which is a collective of the eight major global economies. The State Department official who announced the recommendation to leave Ukraine added that the security conditions, especially along Ukraine's border and in Russian-occupied Crimea and eastern Ukraine, were unpredictable and could quickly deteriorate with little to no notice, CNBC reported.

American authorities said that Russian military forces' move anywhere in Ukraine could severely impact the embassy's ability to provide consular services, which include assisting U.S. citizens in departing the country. The State Department made the decision for the recommendation in preparation for the worst-case scenario.

Furthermore, the State Department did not have data on the exact number of Americans currently in Ukraine, arguing that no one was required to register with the embassy while they were there.

Read Also: Joe Biden Reportedly Offers Interviews To Defend Embattled Chief of Staff Ron Klain

The situation comes as Russia has amassed more than 100,000 on Ukraine's border. While the U.S. government is not aware of any intent from Moscow to move, there is sufficient military capability to invade Ukraine at any point in time, CBS News reported.

Russia's Aggression

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday rebuffed calls to immediately impose economic sanctions on Russia. The official argued that the sanctions could undercut the West's ability to deter any potential Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Blinken said that, when it came to talks about sanctions, their purpose was to deter Russia's aggression; and if they were imposed early, the U.S. would lose its deterrent capability. The official added that if a single additional Russian force enters Ukraine in an aggressive manner, it will be enough to trigger the sanctions.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he supported the imposition of the sanctions immediately, a view that was endorsed by Republican legislators on Sunday. "We need to act now. When it comes to pushing back against Russia, we need to show strength and not be in a position of appeasement," said Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Aljazeera reported.

On the other hand, Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, an ally of U.S. President Joe Biden, argued for passing bipartisan U.S. legislation. The official, however, said that it was best to keep the strongest sanctions in reserve to deter Moscow.



Related Article: Donald Trump Net Worth 2022: Did Trump Get Richer Since Leaving the US Presidency?

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The gunman who killed 17 at a Florida high school four years ago had no expectation of privacy when he posted disturbing photographs to a public Instagram account before his rampage and prosecutors can use them in his upcoming penalty trial, a judge ruled during a Monday hearing.

Nikolas Cruz wanted others to see photographs he posted without restrictions of himself with guns and the jurors who will decide whether he is executed for the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland can see them, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ruled.

She rejected the argument of Nawal Bashimam, one of Cruz's public defenders, who said Cruz was not required to make his Instagram account private to have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

'If you make your account public, how can you possibly have a reasonable expectation of privacy when the entire world can see it?' Scherer responded.

Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 murders and 17 attempted murders, but a jury will decide whether he is executed or receives a life sentence without parole.

The gunman who killed 17 at a Florida high school four years ago had no expectation of privacy when he posted disturbing photographs to a public Instagram account before his rampage and prosecutors can use them in his upcoming penalty trial, a judge ruled during a Monday hearing

Nikolas Cruz wanted others to see photographs he posted without restrictions of himself with guns and the jurors who will decide whether he is executed for the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland can see them, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ruled

Nikolas Cruz posted a photograph of a cache of weapons on Instagram

Cruz also posted an image holding a box of 150 military-grade bullets

Jury selection is scheduled to begin February 21 and all 12 jurors must agree for the former Stoneman Douglas student to receive a death sentence. The trial is expected to last at least two months.

Bashimam and Scherer got into a heated dispute during testimony by Broward County sheriff's detective Michael Joo, an internet crimes investigator, over misstatements lead investigators made in search warrant applications. Joo and several other assisting detectives copied those errors into their own warrant applications. Joo successfully sought access to Cruz's online social media postings.

In those applications, investigators identified Cruz's brother as a victim's brother and misstated the date Cruz's mother died. They also wrongly said a school security guard instantly recognized Cruz by name when he spotted him on campus just before the shooting and called a code red, an alert to lock down the school.

Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 murders and 17 attempted murders, but a jury will decide whether he is executed or receives a life sentence without parole. Pictured: Students are evacuated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas HIgh School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018

Scherer has previously ruled the errors were unintentional and had no affect on another judge's decision to issue the warrants.

Scherer blocked Bashimam from asking Joo most questions about those mistakes, saying her earlier decision was final. Bashimam said Scherer was blocking 10 minutes of questioning aimed at protecting Cruz's constitutional rights.

The hearing on evidence will resume Monday afternoon.
Police in Virginia have arrested a homeless man who is suspected of stealing six prized newborn Husky puppies from a pet grooming salon after he was caught on video ransacking the business.

Three of the six puppies have been found and reunited with their mother, but the other three dogs are still missing, their owner Bandi Murdock said.

She has warned that the pups are too young to survive without their mom, or constant, specialized care.

The partial retrieval comes as Hampton police announced on Saturday that they apprehended 50-year-old Rodney Jackson and charged him with breaking into Critter Cleaners, six counts animal larceny for stealing the puppies -- each about 2 weeks old -- grand larceny and grand larceny with intent to sell.

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Surveillance video from inside Critter Cleaners, a pet salon in Hampton, Virginia, shows a burglary suspect ransacking the business in search of valuables on Friday. This man is accused of stealing six newborn Husky puppies

Nala the Husky is pictured with her latest litter of six puppies before their abduction

Here's surveillance photo of the puppy theft suspect.



Read more: https://t.co/RFbaqQYiCJ pic.twitter.com/mX1tq9CzPS  WAVY TV 10 (@WAVY_News) January 21, 2022

Rodney Jackson, 50, has been charged with breaking and entering, animal larceny, grand larceny and grand larceny with intent to sell

Officers and the business owner, Bandi Murdock, said someone entered through a window at the salon located in the 5100 block of West Mercury Boulevard after 1.30am on Friday, and took the puppies and an unspecified amount of money.

Murdock added that before making his escape, the intruder took a shower and watched TV.

The burglary was reported to the police after 7.30am, when an employee arrived and found the salon in disarray and the puppies gone.

There was surveillance video obtained by WAVY that showed the intruder, later identified by the police as Jackson, apparently scouring the business in search of valuables to steal.

Purebred Husky puppies typically sell for about $1,200 each.

Police on Saturday found two of the puppies, and a third was returned by a woman who said she paid $100 for it. Dog owner Bandi Murdock is pictured with the three recovered pups

Murdock said three puppies are still missing, and she is concerned for their well-being because they must feed every 2 to 4 hours

Officers later recovered two of the stolen puppies in a home where an acquaintance of the suspect lives, said Murdock.

The third pup was returned by a woman who told Murdock she paid $100 it. Murdock said she reimbursed the woman.

'Were just so thrilled to have them back,' Murdock told The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk. 'But were also very worried about the ones that are still missing.'

Video posted by Murdock on Facebook over the weekend showed the recovered puppies being reunited with their mother named Nala, who was said to have been in distressed without her furry offspring.

The puppies' mother, Nala, is seen being reunited with her recovered puppies over the weekend

Purebred Husky puppies typically sell for about $1,200 each

A reward is being offered for information leading to the three missing puppies

Murdock said she kept the puppies and Nala at the pet grooming business because people are there up to 14 hours per day, allowing the pups to become socialized.

This was Nala's third litter, according to Murdock, who said she waits until theyre 8 to 10 weeks old before selling them. They start weaning from their mother at 4 to 6 weeks.

Murdock expressed concern for the well-being of the three missing puppies, saying that they cannot survive without their mother for long because they have to feed every 2 to 4 hours.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 7577276111 or the Crime Line at 1888-LOCK-U-UP or to send anonymous tips to P3Tips.com, police said.
Babes in the Wood child killer Russell Bishop tested positive for Covid-19 before he died of brain cancer.

The murderer, 55, had the virus when he died in hospital on January 20 after being rushed from jail.

Prison chiefs at HMP Frankland, Co Durham, are investigating whether he caught it in prison.

His death is the fifth high profile inmate to die at the maximum security jail since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Others include Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, 74, who died in November 2020 and Camden Ripper Anthony Hardy, 69, who died last year.

Babes in the Wood killer Russell Bishop tested positive for Covid-19 before dying of brain cancer on January 20. The murderer, 55, passed away in hospital after being rushed there from the top security HMP Frankland, in County Durham

A source said: 'Bishop tested positive for the virus when he was being treated in hospital.

'He died soon afterwards, so it is hard to say what impact Covid had on his underlying health.

'The prison is trying to find out if he contracted it in Frankland, as there is a fear it could spread to the wider prison population.'

Bishop had been rushed to hospital suffering from breathing difficulties.

He died alone, watched over by two prison officers.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: 'HMP Frankland prisoner Russell Bishop died in hospital on January 20.

Bishop brutally killed Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in 1986 when they were both just nine

Bishop pictured after his initial arrest for the 1986 Babes in the Wood murders

'The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed.'

Bishop had escaped justice for 32 years after murdering nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway in 1986.

He was prosecuted for the notorious attack, but walked free from court in 1987 thanks to a catalogue of blunders.

DNA evidence finally saw him caged in 2018, but last year it was revealed he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer.

The disease quickly spread despite surgery, and by October he was being given palliative care.

Reacting to the monster's death, Karen's mother Michelle Johnson (pictured left in 2018 with Nicola's mother Susan Eismann), said: 'May you rot in hell for all eternity you evil wicked monster and I hope your family suffer in the same way as you made me and my family suffer for so long when you took the life of my beautiful nine-year-old daughter'

She added: 'He put us through decades of pain and grief due to his evil actions. The suffering we have had to endure has been unimaginable'. Above: Ms Johnson (left) with Karen's mother Ms Eismann and father Barrie Fellowes

Double killer David Cook, 74, died on Christmas Eve last year after testing positive for coronavirus at the jail.

He was serving a life sentence after murdering his neighbour and a Sunday school teacher.

Sutcliffe, Hardy and Cook were all whole-life prisoners. They had all tested positive for Covid-19.

George Naylor, 77, who murdered two women 11 years apart, died after a stroke in December 2021.
A major Tory donor behind a 1.2 billion cross-Channel power cable project blocked by the Government is threatening to take legal action.

Alexander Temerko said he plans to bring a judicial review against Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng's decision against Aquind's proposed electricity link between Portsmouth and Normandy.

And Mr Temerko said he would bring unspecified legal action against trade minister Penny Mordaunt personally, describing her as the 'biggest threat to security' after she successfully campaigned against the project.

Ms Mordaunt, a former defence secretary, had warned the Aquind link was a threat to Britain's 'energy security' as she urged ministers to prevent the plans going ahead.

Alexander Temerko has accused trade minister Penny Mordaunt of being the 'biggest threat to security' after she campaigned against the Aquind power cable project

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng decided to dismiss Aquind's plans (pictured) to provide a new electricity link between Portsmouth and Normandy in France

Aquind Limited is part-owned by Russian-born former oil tycoon Victor Fedotov and has donated at least 430,000 to the Conservative Party and its MPs.

Mr Temerko, a British citizen who was born in the former Soviet Union and is a director of the company, has given more than 730,000.

In an interview with the PA news agency, Mr Temerko expressed anger at the Conservative MP's intervention as he struck out at Mr Kwarteng's 'unusual decision' last week.

'We are preparing a judicial review and we are considering action against Penny Mordaunt because there's something in her statement that was absolutely wrong,' the donor said.

Tory donor Alexander Temerko, who has given more than 730,000 to the Conservative Party and its MPs, pictured with former Prime Minister David Cameron

Mr Temerko also said he was considering writing a 'letter to the Prime Minister,' with whom he describes being 'political friends for many years', over Ms Mordaunt's role in Government.

'She must be silent if she is a minister, if she wants to be an active politician she should resign,' Mr Temerko said.

On Thursday, a letter published on the Planning Inspectorate website showed Mr Kwarteng decided to 'refuse development consent' having considered his obligations under the energy National Policy Statement.

Mr Kwarteng was said not to be satisfied that 'appropriate alternatives to the proposed route' had been sufficiently considered, raising particular concerns of 'the proposed landfall in an urban location'.

Ahead of his decision, Ms Mordaunt said that Aquind's plans would make Britain more reliant on France, allowing Paris to 'use future energy supply as a bargaining chip'.

Mr Temerko claimed her comments made her a 'warmonger', adding: 'It's absolutely dreadful if you want to just punish my business, and at the same time she tried to punish all business of interconnectors with France and Europe.

'It's very unprofessional, she is a threat to security. Penny Mordaunt is the biggest threat to security for our country.'

Mordaunt opposed plans by Aquind, co-owned by Alexander Temerko, to construct the interconnector under the Channel between Normandy and Portsmouth (the city where she is an MP). In response, Mr Temerko said she was an 'absolutely uncontrollable woman'

Aquind's website said the cabe 'will make energy markets more efficient, improve security of supply and enable greater flexibility as power grids evolve'

He argued that his interconnector would bring down energy prices after its completion and hit out at local campaigners against his plans.

'Of course, they want ... a cheaper price of electricity, but 'not in my village', you know,' he said.

Asked if he was not prolonging the pain for Portsmouth residents by bringing legal action, he insisted that 'there will be disruption, but a small disruption'.

Mr Temerko insisted there was nothing wrong with giving large donations to the ruling party while pressing the Government to approve his project.

'I don't see there's a conflict of interest,' Mr Temerko said, adding that 'of course' he will continue to donate to the Conservatives.

'I support many, many MPs, it's my friends, it's not my donations because I want to receive something,' he added.

Mr Temerko said he has six weeks to bring the judicial review against the Government, and would not state what kind of action he would bring against Ms Mordaunt, who has been contacted with a request for comment.
A stowaway who remarkably survived a brutal journey on a plane traveling from South Africa to the Netherlands has been identified as a 22-year-old Kenyan man.

He is expected to apply for asylum in the Netherlands, and is currently receiving medical treatment at a hospital.

The man is conscious and able to communicate after yesterday being discovered squeezed into the wheel section under the fuselage of a Cargolux Boeing 747 freight plane at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport.

A stowaway who was discovered squeezed into the wheel section under the fuselage of a Cargolux Boeing 747 freight plane has been identified (file photo used)

Robert Van Kapel, a spokesman for the Dutch military police, told MailOnline that the man is from Nairobi and it is likely that he boarded the plane from Kenya, where the plane had made a stop at.

He added the investigation is looking into possibilities of human trafficking and illegal border crossings and that police are in touch with contacts in Kenya.

Mr Van Kapel said: 'At this moment we know his identity, we know that he asked for asylum in Holland, so now he has been handed over to the immigration service who will handle his asylum procedure.'

A Dutch military spokesperson also told the BBC: 'His medical treatment is the priority at the moment.'

A flight from South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg, to Amsterdam is around 11 hours. The plane also made a stop in Nairobi, Kenya.

The journey from Nairobi to the Dutch capital takes around eight and a half hours by plane.

A spokeswoman for the Dutch police yesterday said it was 'remarkable' that the stowaway had survived the perilous conditions.

'Our first concern of course was for his health,' said Joanna Helmonds.

'This is definitely very unusual that someone was able to survive the cold at such a height - very, very unusual.'

'It is quite remarkable that he is still alive.'

According to Schiphol airport's website, a Boeing 747 cruises at an altitude of just over 35,000ft and a speed of over 550mph.

The stowaway would have endured extremely hostile conditions, as the standard ambient temperature at 35,000ft is around -54C, with around 25 per cent less oxygen in the air than at sea level.

A flight from South Africa's largest city, Johannesburg, to Amsterdam is around 11 hours. The plane also made a stop in Nairobi, Kenya

These would typically result in hypoxia, frostbite, hypothermia and a host of other ailments.

People attempting to cling onto the undercarriages of planes also risk being crushed by the landing gear as it is retracted following take-off; or falling to their deaths when the landing gear is deployed.

Stowaways on flights to the Netherlands are rare, Helmonds had added, noting that previous attempts had involved would-be migrants from Nigeria and Kenya.

Last year, the body of a Nigerian man was found in the landing gear of a plane arriving at Schiphol airport.

In November, US border officials in Miami apprehended a 26-year-old man who had stowed away in the landing gear of a plane arriving from Guatemala.

Several people attempted to stowaway on US aircraft during the military withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, with many falling to their deaths as the planes took off from Kabul airport.
Omicron could have jumped into humans from mice, scientists say.

The mysterious origin of the heavily-mutated Covid variant that triggered global panic only a month ago continues to puzzle experts.

But Chinese scientists now say they may have unearthed evidence linking the mutant strain to mice  in its DNA.

Analysis showed the variant carries mutations that make it better at infecting the animal group  which previous research has shown can catch Covid from humans.

And that it has many more mutations than any other mutant strains, which the scientists held up as yet more proof it did not emerge in humans.

This is not the first time experts have raised the prospect that the variant first appeared in rodents before jumping back into humans.

But most scientists agree that Omicron likely emerged after a prolonged infection in an immunocompromised person, such as an HIV patient.

Some scientists argue that Omicron evolved in mice before jumping back into humans (stock picture). Others say, however, that it likely emerged in an immunocompromised patient

In the study, researchers compared the DNA of Omicron to the original Wuhan virus and other variants including Alpha and Delta which sparked last summer's wave.

They found it had a much higher average number of mutations (53.3) than other mutant strains (28.4 to 35.4).

And that its closest relative was the Gamma variant  which emerged in Brazil  although the two split into separate groups in mid-2020.

Scientist claim 'weird' mutations suggest Omicron jumped back and forth between animals and people Professor Kristian Andersen, an immunologist at the Scripps Research Institute in California, has theorised that the virus that would become Omicron may have evolved in rodents - known to be carriers of the coronavirus - after an infected human passed the virus to them. Professor Andersen based the theory on the fact that while Omicron diverged from other Covid variants in the middle of last year, genomic sampling suggested it only started circulating in people sometime in October this year. What happened in between these two periods is the mystery behind what has made Omicron so different. While adding that this is only theoretical Professor Andersen said in a Twitter post he favoured a zoonic, animal-based, origin for Omicron as 'the lineage is old and undetected circulation in immunocompromised patient(s) for this long seems unlikely' and that Covid has been shown to jump between species previously. Secondly, is that several of Omicron's mutations have also been in rodent species such as mice and hamsters. Advertisement

This 'long branch', the scientists said, suggested it 'may have evolved in a non-human animal species'.

They also compared Omicron to mutations in 13 little-known Covid strains that had previously been found to infect mice.

Results showed it shared five mutations with this group, which the scientists claimed was further evidence it had emerged in mice.

The mutations include K417 and E484, which makes it easier for Omicron to escape antibody protection, N501, which is linked with increased infectivity.

Omicron also includes mutations Q493 and Q498, which the researchers said makes it better suited to infect mice.

Professor Jianguo Xu, from China's National Institute for Communicable Diseases, said Omicron's mutation profile 'shows that the virus has adapted to infect the cells of mice'.

He added: 'We believe that Covid slowly accumulated mutations over time in mice, before it was transmitted back to humans by reverse zoonotic.

'These findings suggest that researchers should focus on SARS-CoV-2 variants isolated from wild animals, especially rodents.

'If Omicron is determined to have been derived from mice, the implications of it circulating among non-human hosts will pose new challenges in the prevention and control of the epidemic.'

Some scientists  including Professor Kristian Andersen at the US-based Scripps Research Institute  have suggested that Omicron may have emerged in mice.

They argue this could explain why it carries so many mutations that are radically different from other variants.

But the argument is yet to gain much traction among scientists.

Many still argue it likely emerged either in an immunocompromised patient or in an area where Covid surveillance is very poor.

The study was published in the Journal of Biosafety and Biosecurity.
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Boris Johnson was facing a new Partygate crisis tonight after it was revealed he attended an event with 30 guests in a Downing Street stateroom to celebrate his birthday in 2020 while such gatherings were banned under Covid rules.

In another huge blow to the Prime Minister's authority, ITV claims he attended a gathering organised by his wife Carrie in the Cabinet Room in No10 on June 19, 2020, to celebrate turning 56.

They are said to have celebrated his birthday after his return from a visit to a school in Hertfordshire, where he had posed with his arms outstretched with children to show the importance of social distancing.

The broadcaster claims guests included the interior designer Lulu Lytle, who was responsible for a six-figure revamp of the PM's official flat, who joined in with a chorus of happy birthday as the PM was presented with a Union Jack cake.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is thought to have attended for a short period of time, but sources insisted that he 'had not been invited', reports The Times.

/ITV News said that picnic food from M&S was eaten during the afternoon gathering lasting for up to 30 minutes, Martin Reynolds, Mr Johnson's under-fire principal private secretary, was also said to have attended.

Other guests are reported to have included Jack Doyle, the director of communications, and Shelley Williams-Walker, his head of operations.

A spokesman told ITV that the afternoon event was a surprise and he stayed for only 10 minutes. The broadcaster also claimed that there was a separate event later on in the PM's personal quarters - something denied by No10.

Human rights barrister Adam Wagner said Downing Street's statement 'appears a clear admission of an illegal gathering' and indicated it would have to be probed by the police because it 'ties the Met's hands'.

He also noted that it is the first time that No10 'has admitted that the PM was at an, to me, obviously illegal gathering with no real prospect of a reasonable excuse'.

The bombshell comes as Mr Johnson awaits the results of the investigation by Cabinet Office mandarin Sue Gray that could make or break his premiership.

It is understood she was already aware of the birthday party allegations and therefore their emergence will not further delay the publication of her investigation, which is still expected this week.

Labour leader Keir Starmer said Mr Johnson should resign 'for the good of the country', adding: 'This is yet more evidence that we have got a Prime Minister who believes that the rules that he made don't apply to him.

'And so we have got a Prime Minister and a government who spend their whole time mopping up sleaze and deceit. Meanwhile millions of people are struggling to pay their bills. We cannot afford to go on with this chaotic, rudderless government.'

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood also condemned the 'latest twist in which has been quite a horrible series of events', telling Nigel Farage's show on GB News: 'Very sad to read these latest headlines. The nation is rightly very angry by whats happened. Were almost in a holding pattern as we wait for Sue Grays report.

'Im curious as to whether this was allowed to leak out in the build up to that report or whether shes going to have to require an extension indeed to include the study of this latest event. This is all a massive distraction from where we should be focusing.

'There are both domestic issues, huge challenges nationally, but also internationally that require attention. So its very sad to see this latest twist in which has been quite horrible series of events rolling out for the last three or four months.'

Months before the party, Mr Johnson had praised a schoolgirl who cancelled her birthday celebration because of the lockdown. He tweeted: 'Josephine sets a great example to us all by postponing her birthday party until we have sent coronavirus packing.'

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries attempted to defend the PM tonight, tweeting: 'So, when people in an office buy a cake in the middle of the afternoon for someone else they are working in the office with and stop for 10 minutes to sing happy birthday and then go back to their desks, this is now called a party?'

And Environment Secretary George Eustice described the latest allegations as not 'serious', saying 'at the end of the day a small group of staff brought in a birthday cake'.

He told Sky News: 'My understanding is the prime minister had a small number of family, close family members, with him outdoors in the garden to celebrate his birthday.'

Mr Eustice continued: 'I do think that in this saga there have been some quite serious allegations made - those have been investigated.

'I don't think that these latest allegations that have been made fit into that category. I think they have gone slightly over the top.'

A No 10 spokeswoman said: 'A group of staff working in No 10 that day gathered briefly in the Cabinet Room after a meeting to wish the Prime Minister a happy birthday. He was there for less than 10 minutes.'

Regarding allegations of a later event in the No11 flat she added: 'This is totally untrue. In line with the rules at the time the Prime Minister hosted a small number of family members outside that evening.'

Boris Johnson visited Milton Keynes Hospital today as he awaits the results of the Sue Gray inquiry into Partygate

In another potential blow to the Prime Minister's authority, ITV News claims he hosted a gathering partly organised by his wife Carrie in the Cabinet Room in No10 (pictured) on June 19, 2020, to celebrate turning 56

The broadcaster claims guests included the interior designer Lulu Lytle (pictured), who was responsible for a six-figure revamp of the PM's official flat, who joined in with a chorus of happy birthday as the PM was presented with a cake

They are said to have celebrated his birthday after his return from a visit to Bovingdon Primary Academy in Hemel Hempstead (pictured)

Downing Street is fighting multiple battles - but will Boris survive? The Prime Minister is currently fighting wars on several fronts as he attempts to maintain his premiership. Though Sue Gray's inquiry into 'partygate' is believed to have dug up some extremely damning evidence, here are some of the other challenges facing Downing Street which could prove deadly to Boris' leadership. Allegations of Islamophobia Nusrat Ghani, the first Muslim woman to be elected as a Tory MP in 2015, said she was told by a party whip she was being axed in Feb 2020 because her status as a Muslim woman was 'making colleagues feel uncomfortable'. She also claimed she was told by the whip that she had been fired for saying to Boris Johnson that they had a 'women problem', in attracting female voters. Ms Ghani claimed she raised the issue through official party channels but said she was warned that if she continued to do so, she would be 'ostracised' by her colleagues and her 'career and reputation would be destroyed'. William Wragg's allegations of MP blackmail William Wragg, a backbencher who accused Downing Street of trying to blackmail rebel MPs, said yesterday he would meet police to discuss his allegations. Downing Street said it had not seen any proof of the behaviour he alleges, but Chris Bryant, chairman of the Commons Committee on Standards, said about a dozen Tory MPs alleged whips threatened to withdraw funding for their constituencies should they not show support for Johnson. Whips have also been accused of heavy-handed attempts to intimidate the rebels with the threat of revealing allegations about their sex lives. 1922 Committee William Wragg and Nusrat Ghani are joint vice-chairmen of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers. The committee's executive secretary Gary Sambrook has also expressed his desire for a new Tory leader, while treasurer Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown voiced frustration with the PM last year. If Johnson were to win a party confidence vote, he would be immune to another leadership challenge for a year - but the committee is considering cutting this immunity period to six months. Defectors Former Tory MP Christian Wakeford crossed the floor and joined the Labour party last week. Though defections are rare in Parliament, there are rumours that more Tory MPs may soon follow suit. Advertisement

A spokesman for Lulu Lytle confirmed she was in Downing Street, saying: 'Lulu was present in Downing Street on 19 June working on the refurbishment.

'Lulu was not invited to any birthday celebrations for the prime minister as a guest. Lulu entered the Cabinet Room briefly as requested, while waiting to speak with the Prime Minister.'

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, co-chair of the Conservative Party, told Channel 4 News: During lockdown when so many of us could not go on to do the things that we wanted to do with our families, including birthdays - I had a 50th in the middle of Covid and we had a Zoom Party, my husband had his 50th and we spoke to our children over the telephone those of us in public life were making decision that erred on the side of caution because we were people who were involved in making sure that legislation for Covid went through both houses.

'Therefore it was right that we interpreted that in the strictest way possible because we needed to be seen to be following the rules that we were making.

Anybody who was at a party where rules were broken, whether thats a Prime Minister, ministers, special advisers, or civil servants, [they] should resign. If you are in a place which makes the rules and you are seen not to be following those rules then you should fall on your sword, you should say I got this wrong and therefore, the way to deal with it is through a resignation.

'And therefore, thats not just talking about the Prime Minister, thats talking about anybody who was present when those rules were broken.'

The latest claims of alleged rule-breaking at Downing Street was described as 'completely sickening' by a group representing those bereaved in the pandemic.

Jo Goodman, co-founder of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said 'Like thousands of others, I remember June 19th vividly.

'It was the day before what would have been my dad's 73rd birthday, shortly after he had passed away from Covid-19. It was a horrible time for my family, but we stuck to the rules, not even being able to hug to comfort each other.

'It's completely sickening that the Prime Minister spent the evening sharing cake with 30 friends indoors and though we're not even surprised any more, it still brings fresh pain. Whilst dozens sang happy birthday to him, families couldn't even sing in memory at their loved ones funerals.

'Regardless of any report, the Prime Minister clearly needs to resign. He's lost all credibility.

'Every day and every fresh scandal pours salt on the wounds of the hundreds of thousands who have lost loved ones. If he had any decency he would do what we and the country is calling for him to do and go.'

Labour (Co-op) MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport Luke Pollard tweeted two pictures of his 'lockdown birthday' in 2020, questioning the Prime Minister.

One picture shows a card which read 'April 2020 - Definitely the most s**t birthday you have ever had'.

'For my lockdown birthday in 2020 I had a wonderful day with my lovely boyfriend at home,' he tweeted.

'No parties. No rules broken. If I could do it, why couldn't the Prime Minister?'

Scottish National Party MP John Nicolson recalled his late mother's final birthday, celebrated over FaceTime, after an allegation of a birthday party in Downing Street for Boris Johnson.

The MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, tweeted: 'In June of 2020 my mum died shortly after her birthday which we 'celebrated' over FaceTime.

'I hadn't been able to see her for many weeks. She was very lonely. But we agreed we should follow the rules.

'I can't express how much I despise this cruel charlatan and his acolytes.'

Lord Agnew announced he was resigning at the despatch box in the Upper House - drawing gasps from peers

Former cowboy and brothel cleaner who became successful businessman despite failing 11-plus Lord Theodore Agnew became a millionaire businessman despite failing his 11-plus and and enduring a stint as a brothel cleaner. Born and raised in Norfolk of farming stock the now 61 year old attended the prestigious Rugby School but by his own admission he was not particularly academic. But his exam experience led him to be a staunch opponent of the grammar school system he says fails students who learn at different speeds. After school he left dour 1970s Britain for Australia, via Canada. Down Under he worked as a jackaroo - the Aussie equivalent of a cowboy - before buying a cleaning company in Sydney. In 2013 he told the Eastern Daily Press: 'Most of the time it was cleaning flats in King's Cross that had been used as brothels. The squalor and filth was indescribable.' After a decade in Australia he returned to Britain and founded the insurance claims firm Town & Country Assistance. He sold the business on in 2002 after building it to a company employing 150 people. His experience as a pioneer of outsourcing - to cheaper and more numerate staff in India sparked an interest in raising UK education standards. He was made a Tory peer in 2017 as Baron Agnew of Oulton and became a schools minister under Theresa May. In 2020 he was moved by Boris Johnson to become minister for efficiency and transformation. Advertisement

Mr Johnson is facing another week from hell as the top civil servant finalises her inquiry into alleged lockdown breaches in Whitehall, while furious Tories prepare for another coup bid.

Dominic Cummings today revealed he is only giving written evidence to the Partygate inquiry to avoid Mr Johnson 'inventing nonsense' about what he said.

The former No10 chief said he is not speaking to Sue Gray directly as he claimed staff are not handing crucial material to the top civil servant due to fears Boris Johnson will see it.

The comments came amid rumours Downing Street police have supplied 'extremely damning' testimony to Ms Gray, with storm clouds seemingly gathering around Mr Johnson.

But the PM's spokesman pointedly refused to say that Ms Gray's whole report will be published - saying it will be down to the premier how much is released.

Mr Cummings has already revealed he is ready to swear on oath that Mr Johnson was warned that a 'BYOB' bash in May 2020 would break the rules.

In a blog post this afternoon, the ex-aide wrote: 'When SG asked to speak to me I emailed to the effect: if we speak the PM will invent nonsense and spin it to the media and you and I will both have problems, let's keep everything in writing, therefore he cannot invent things I've supposedly said to you, there is only a written record, this makes both our lives easier.

'She agreed. So I have answered questions in writing and will answer further questions in writing if she wants. But I will not speak and therefore provide the PM with more chances to lie and confuse everybody.

'I know others are very worried about handing things to the Cabinet Office because they know the PM will see everything SG collects. This inevitably means that evidence, including photos, is not given to her and instead will keep leaking after her report.'

He stressed that his caution was a 'consequence of beliefs about the PM's integrity, not SG's'.

Officers from the Scotland Yard's Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command who were guardian No10 are said to have been 'only too willing' to provide accounts to the investigation.

However, the premier has signalled defiance, and has reportedly reunited a team of allies who helped secure him the leadership to shore up support among MPs. Wags have nicknamed the group - including ministers Conor Burns, Nigel Adams, and Chris Pincher the 'Avengers'.

He is expected to push Speaker Lindsay Hoyle to let him respond to Ms Gray's findings within hours of them being released, so he can take charge of the 'narrative'.

Mr Johnson suffered another body blow as a Treasury minister dramatically quit, branding the government's Covid anti-fraud measures 'indolent, arrogant and ignorant'.

Lord Agnew announced he was resigning at the despatch box in the Upper House - drawing gasps from peers as he took aim at 'schoolboy errors' in tackling abuse of support schemes.

The bombshell came as he was updating peers about the 4.3billion of Covid loans written off by the Treasury  which Labour said has gone to 'fraudsters'.

Lord Agnew said he had been 'arguing' with Treasury and BEIS officials for nearly two years to 'get them to lift their game' over issues such as duplicate loans and monitoring the performance of lenders, adding: 'I have been mostly unsuccessful.'

'Given that I am the minister for counter fraud, it would be somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly,' he said.

'It is for this reason that I have sadly decided to tender my resignation as a minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate affect.'

After finishing his speech raging at a 'combination of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance' that is costing the equivalent of a penny on income tax, the Treasury minister said 'thank you and goodbye' and strode out of the Lords chamber to applause from his fellow peers.

Although Lord Agnew insisted there was no connection to Mr Johnson's other woes, the move will intensify pressure on the already-embattled premier.

Lord Agnew told the House: 'The oversight by both BEIS and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful.

'They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society.'

He told the Lords that BEIS had 'two counter-fraud staff' at the start of the pandemic who would not 'engage constructively' with his counter-fraud team in the Cabinet Office.

He added: 'Schoolboy errors were made, for example allowing over a thousand companies to receive bounceback loans that were not even trading when Covid struck.'



Lord Agnew tried to distance himself from the growing calls to oust the PM.

'It is worth saying that none of this related to far more dramatic political events being played out across Westminster. This is not an attack on the Prime Minister and I am sorry for the inconvenience it will cause,' he said.

'I hope that as a virtually unknown minister beyond this place, it might prompt others more important beyond me to get behind this and sort it out.

'It matters for all the obvious reasons but there is a penny of income tax waiting to be claimed here if we just woke up.

'Total fraud loss across Government is estimated at 29billion a year, of course not all can be stopped but a combination of arrogance indolence and ignorance freezes the Government machine.'

Lord Agnew told peers that early estimates of fraudulent Covid loan claims was likely to be 26 per cent of the total paid out so far.

He said: 'We have already paid out nearly 1 billion to banks claiming the state guarantee. The percentage of these losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failures is 26%. I accept this is only an early approximate but a very worrying one.'

As he resigned, Lord Agnew said he had 'four differences of opinion with Treasury officials' and proceeded to read out what he would do differently.

These were: '1. An urgent improvement in lender performance data, including a common definition of fraud.

'2. Far greater challenge of lender banks when we uncover inconsistency.

'3. Educating Treasury officials on why reliance on audit is far too reactive.

'4. A failure by Treasury or BEIS to understand the disjunction between the level of criminality  probably hundreds of thousands  and enforcement capability.

Mr Cummings, pictured outside his London home today, has levelled a series of allegations at the PM over Partygate

Another minister quit at the despatch box in 2018... but was talked around by Theresa May It is not the first time a minister has resigned at the despatch box in the House of Lords. Back in 2018, Lord Bates stunned peers when he announced he would quit as he was 'ashamed' for failing to turn up on time in the upper chamber. However, the international development minister's offer of resignation was rejected by the then prime minister Theresa May. He subsequently left the Government the following year to walk from Belfast to Brussels in search of 'common ground', amid the fractious Brexit debate. Advertisement

Lord Agnew's resignation as a Treasury minister came after a question from his Labour shadow, Lord Tunnicliffe.

Lord Tunnicliffe asked: 'Last week the Government objected to the 4.3billion figure quoted in various news reports.

'In many senses we would be delighted if the extent of fraud arising from the Government's coronavirus support scheme was smaller than first thought. Is the noble lord the minister able to provide a more accurate figure today?'

He also asked 'why the Government expects working people to cancel out these losses', adding: 'That would be bad enough in normal times but is surely worse when families face an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.'

After the resignation Labour leader in the Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon said: 'I think we have just witnessed one of the most dramatic moments we have ever seen in the House from a minister who felt his integrity could no longer ensure he remained a member of the Government.'

No10 insisted the Government had been clear fraud was 'unacceptable'.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'We are grateful to Lord Agnew for the significant contribution he has made to Government.

'On the wider issues that he's raised, we introduced our unprecedented Covid support schemes at speed to protect jobs and livelihoods, helping millions of people across the UK, including nearly 12million on the furlough scheme alone.

'We've always been clear fraud is unacceptable and are taking action against those abusing the system, with 150,000 ineligible claims blocked, 500 million recovered last year and the HMRC tax protection taskforce is expected to recover an additional 1 billion of taxpayers' money.'

It is not the first time a minister has resigned at the despatch box in the House of Lords.

Back in 2018, Lord Bates stunned peers when he announced he would quit as he was 'ashamed' for failing to turn up on time in the upper chamber.

However, the international development minister's offer of resignation was rejected by the then prime minister Theresa May.

He subsequently left the Government the following year to walk from Belfast to Brussels in search of 'common ground', amid the fractious Brexit debate.

Lord Agnew's resignation statement to peers in full 'I am here to defend the government's record on the deployment of counter-fraud measures over the last two years or so. But I will only be able to do that in part, 'The assertion made by the economic secretary of the treasury in the Commons debate last week that the priority was speed of distribution of funds is absolutely correct. But what has followed has been nothing less than desperately inadequate. 'Given the time available I will focus on one or two emblematic failures, but these ussues run far wider. 'The oversight by both BEIS and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of BBLs has been nothing less than woeful. 'They have been assisted by the Treasury, who appear to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society.' 'Much store has been given to the extra money allocated to HMRC. But it took a year to happen and this department is already the most competent and well-funded in this discipline. 'Whereas at the beginning of Covid BEIS has the grand total of two counter-fraud officials on its staff neither of whom were experienced in the subject. They refused to engage constructively with the counter-fraud function that sits in the Cabinet Office, has considerable exp[ertise and reports directly to me. 'Schoolboy errors were made, for example allowing over a thousand companies to receive bounceback loans that were not even trading when Covid struck.' 'They simply failed to understand that company formation agents hold in stock companies with earlier creation dates. 'I have been arguing with Treasury and BEIS officials for nearly two years to get them to lift their game. I have been mostly unsuccessful.' 'We move now to a new and dangerous phase, banks' ability to claim on the 100 per cent state guarantee for non-payment. 'We do this without implementing a standard bar of quality assurance on what we expect as counterfraud measures. We know we have had serious discrepancies. 'For example, three out of the seven main lenders account for 87 per cent of loans paid out of companies already dissolved. Why is the ratio so skewed? 'Two of the seven account for 81 per cent of cases where loans were paid out to companies incorporated post-Covid, as I referred to a moment ago. 'One of the seven accounted for 38 per cent of the duplicate BBL application checks that were not carried out after the requirement was in force. 'Bizarrely it took six weeks to get the duplicate check into place during which time 900,000 loans or 60 per cent in total were paid out. Bear in mind some 47billion has been paid out. 'If only BEIS and the British Business Bank will wake up there is still time to demand data and action on duplicate loans. Why won't they do it? 'Despite pressing BEIS and BBB for over a year there is still no single dashboard of management data to scrutinise lender performance. It is inexcusable. 'We have already paid out nearly 1billion to banks claiming the state guarantee. The percentage of these losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failures is 26 per cent. I accept this is only an early approximate but a very worrying one.' I will place into Hansard a copy of my letter to the chairman of the BBB snet on the 16th December addressing some of these points. I still have not received an answer. 'I have at least four differences of opinion with Treasury officials. 'Urgent improvements in lender performance data. I simply want the bar to be set at what the best of the panel bank can deliver. '2) Far greater challenge of lender banks when we uncover inconsistency in data. '3) Educating Treasury officials on why reliance on audit is far too reactive and generally happening well after the whole horse has bolted. '4) A failure by Treasury or BEIS officials to understand the complete disjunction between the level of criminality  probably hundreds of thousands  and enforcement capability. For example NATIS, the specialist agency can handle around 200 cases a year. Local police forces might double that.' 'My lords, you can see that it is my deeply-held conviction that the current state of affairs is not acceptable. 'Given that I am the minister for counter-fraud, it seems somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly, let alone defending our track record. 'It is for that reason that I have sadly decided to tender my resignation as a minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate effect.' 'I would be grateful if my noble Lord would pass this letter on to the PM at his earliest convenience. 'It is worth saying that none of this related to far more dramatic political events being played out across Westminster. This is not an attack on the Prime Minister and I am sorry for the inconvenience it will cause. 'Indeed I think any PM should be able to reasonably expect that the levers of government were actually connected to delivering services for our citizens. 'I hope that as a virtually unknown minister beyond this place, it might prompt others more important beyond me to get behind this and sort it out. 'It matters for all the obvious reasons but there is a penny of income tax waiting to be claimed here if we just woke up. Total fraud loss across Government is estimated at 29 billion a year, of course not all can be stopped but a combination of arrogance indolence and ignorance freezes the Government machine. 'Action taken today will give this government a sporting chance of cutting income tax before a likely May 2024 election. If my removal helps that to happen it will have been worth it. It leaves me only to thank the noble Lord Lord Tunnicliffe for his courteous but attentive role as my shadow minister of my portfolio and to tank noble friends, many of whom I know will carry on their scrutiny of this important area. 'Thank you and goodbye.' Advertisement

How much business coronavirus support cash has been lost to fraud and error? Figures released by HM Revenue and Customs suggested that some 5.8billion has been criminally siphoned off from furlough and other business relief schemes since coronavirus struck. A taskforce was set up by the Treasury to get the money back and so far it has managed to get its hands on approximately 500million. It is projected to have clawed back a further 1billion by the end of 2023. However, that leaves some 4.3billion - almost three quarters of the total - with reports suggesting the cash could just be written off. Here is a breakdown of the Covid business support schemes and how fraud and error has impacted them. Bounce Back Loans The BBL scheme was set up by the Government in April 2020 to enable smaller businesses to rapidly access financial assistance during the Covid crisis. The scheme allowed small and medium-sized businesses to borrow between 2,000 and up to 25 per cent of their turnover, with a maximum loan of 50,000. Some 1.5million loans were issued at a total value of 47billion. The Government has estimated that 17billion of that total could be lost from loans that will not be repaid. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's best guess, as of the end of March 2021, was that there were 4.9billion of fraudulent loans in the system. Lord Agnew today claimed that 'schoolboy errors' were made with the scheme which allowed 'over a thousand companies to receive bounce back loans that were not even trading when Covid struck'. Furlough The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was rolled out in April 2020 and up to March 31 2021 it had supported 11.5million jobs. HMRC estimates show that just over 60billion was paid out in furlough in 2020 to 2021. At the highest point of demand the scheme was supporting 8.9million jobs at once. HMRC has calculated that combined error and fraud relating to furlough payments was about 8.7 per cent - so just over 5billion. Self-Employment Income Support Scheme The SEISS initiative was rolled out at the end of March 2020. It enabled self-employed people who had been impacted by coronavirus to access grants. A total of 28.1billion had been paid out in SEISS grants up to October 2021, according to official Government data. HMRC estimated that 2.5 per cent of grants in the 2020/21 financial year, covering the first three award rounds, were awarded in error or because of fraud. Eat Out to Help Out Rishi Sunak's Eat Out to Help Out scheme was rolled out in August 2020 and was designed to entice people to return to restaurants. It enabled people to receive discounts on their meals, with restaurants then claiming the discounted cash back from the Government. The discounts were applied on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, from August 3 to August 31. The claims service was then open from August until the end of September, with a total of 840million paid out by the Government. HMRC has estimated that the error and fraud rate relating to Eat Out to Help Out was 8.5 per cent - approximately 71million. Advertisement

Boris Johnson insists he is taking ex-minister Nusrat Ghani's claim she was sacked in reshuffle over 'Muslimness' 'extremely seriously' as he launches a civil service probe following calls from Cabinet members for a 'proper investigation'

Boris Johnson today insisted he is taking allegations an ex-minister was sacked over 'Muslimness' 'extremely seriously' as he ordered a formal Cabinet Office investigation into the claims.

The Prime Minister has instructed the civil service to carry out a probe after the extraordinary claims from Tory MP Nusrat Ghani.

The move came after Cabinet ministers Nadhim Zahawi and Sajid Javid joined calls for a 'proper' inquiry - with others suggesting it should be fully independent.

Mr Johnson told reporters on a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital this morning: 'We take these allegations extremely seriously. I took them very seriously when they were raised with me 18 months ago.

'Very glad there's an investigation taking place now, can't say more really about it.'

Downing Street announced the probe this morning, with a Number 10 spokeswoman saying: 'The Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP.

'At the time these allegations were first made, the Prime Minister recommended to her that she make a formal complain to CCHQ. She did not take up this offer.

'The Prime Minister has now asked officials to establish the facts about what happened.

'As he said at the time, the Prime Minister takes these claims very seriously.'

Nusrat Ghani (pictured), the Tory MP for Wealden in East Sussex, has alleged her 'Muslimness' was raised when she was sacked as transport minister in February 2020

Ms Ghani alleged that chief whip Mark Spencer said her faith was partly responsible for her getting the boot in 2020 - something he flatly denies.

Mr Johnson was asked this morning if Mr Spencer will remain in his role while the investigation is carried out and he replied: 'Just to get back to the key point, this is something I take personally extremely seriously. I took it very seriously 18 months ago. We must wait and see what the investigation produces.'

Ms Ghani has contradicted No10's version of events, saying the PM refused to get involved and tried to fob her off.

After the announcement, Ms Ghani insisted the terms of reference for the probe must including 'all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip'.

Ms Ghani said: 'As I said to the Prime Minister last night all I want is for this to be taken seriously and for him to investigate.

'I welcome his decision to do that now.

'The terms of reference of the inquiry must include all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip.

'I look forward to seeing the terms of reference.'

In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Zahawi welcomed the news, but stressed he did not think the allegations had been taken lightly before.

He said he personally had never 'experienced any form of racism' in the Conservative Party.

The Education Secretary told Sky News: 'She has made a very serious allegation, the Prime Minister spoke to her last night and said the Cabinet Office will investigate this and look at the detail of this.

'She put out a statement last night saying actually, to be fair to her, this could be people who weren't even members of the Conservative Party, which is why we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly.

'And of course the Chief Whip (Mark Spencer) has come out and named himself as the individual and I work with both colleagues, and I think it is important that someone like a Cabinet Office senior civil servant should look at this properly, because the Chief Whip has also categorically denied this.'

A thinktank has called on the Government to bring in the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to investigate the claims.

The Runnymede Trust, a race equality thinktank, says the issue is too important to be left to a civil servant-led inquiry.

Chief executive Dr Halima Begum told the Guardian: 'This is an incredibly serious situation. At a bare minimum, the allegation that a minister of the crown was fired for her so-called 'Muslimness' would represent a flagrant challenge to our equalities and labour laws.

'The facts and questions about the legality of what has happened here must be urgently investigated by the very highest authority. This cannot simply be left for another civil service inquiry. If the allegations are proven to be true, Nusrat would have been subjected to grossly discriminatory behaviour.

'[Her] distress will be felt by every one of the 3 million Muslims in the country, as well as every member of our religious minority communities. All of the political parties need to do more to demonstrate zero tolerance for discrimination, and to prove that religious minorities in this country are respected regardless of their faith.'

Caroline Nokes, chair of the Commons women and equalities committee, described the treatment of Ms Ghani as 'appalling'.

She also backed calls for the EHRC to launch an investigation and told the Telegraph: 'Her faith has never made me (or any other colleague) 'uncomfortable'.

'At the very least EHRC should have a look at this.'

An EHRC spokesman stated the Commission is still examining the Conservative Party's handling of the Singh inquiry into Islamophobia complaints last year and suggested a full investigation may take place.

The spokesman added: 'If we are not satisfied with progress we will review our decision [not to begin an immediate review] and do not rule out the use of our legal powers.'

In a round of interviews this morning, Nadhim Zahawi welcomed news that a Cabinet Office investigation will be held

The PM (pictured left running this morning) has instructed the civil service to carry out a probe after the extraordinary claims from Ms Ghani. Mark Spencer (right) has outed himself as the whip concerned, and branded Ms Ghani's comments 'false' and 'defamatory'

After the announcement, Ms Ghani insisted the terms of reference for the probe must including 'all that was said in Downing Street and by the Whip'

Who is Nusrat Ghani? Kashmir born trailblazer was a surprise sacking in PM's 2020 reshuffle Nusrat Ghani - known as Nus - was long seen as a rising star in Tory circles. And it came as a surprise to many when she was axed as a minister in 2020. The 49-year-old was born in Kashmir to Pakistani parents and grew up in Birmingham. She worked in an investment bank, charities and the BBC World Service before entering politics. Ms Ghani is married to Sky executive David Wheeldon, with whom she has one child. She stood in the 2010 general election for the seat of Birmingham Ladywood and lost, but was elected as MP for Wealden in East Sussex in 2015. She was the first female to win the seat and the first Muslim woman elected as a Tory MP. After her victory, Ms Ghani said: 'As the nation wakes up the Conservatives look to be on the brink of returning to government.' 'We have helped put our country back on track. Our party has taken bold steps and you have put your trust in us to finish the job.' In 2015, Ms Ghani was appointed a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee. A Brexiteer, Ms Ghani in 2016 told the BBC: 'Britain has a chance to vote for a bold, positive future as an independent country in control of its own destiny. 'We have the chance to liberate our economy from a declining corner of the world and spread our wings to the whole globe.' Ms Ghani was appointed assistant whip and transport minister in 2018 under Theresa May. She was the first female Muslim to speak from the Commons dispatch box. At the time, then-Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the BBC her promotion showed the Conservatives 'were a party of opportunity'. 'We're the party to provide the first Muslim woman minister to speak from the government dispatch box  the member for Wealden,' he said.' Ms Ghani wrote on her website: 'A century after women got the vote for the first time, I hope that today young people can see that regardless of their background, faith, race, gender or sexuality, there will be a warm welcome on the green benches, and no matter where you are from you can achieve your dreams and ambitions.' In 2020, when Ms Ghani was removed from the role, she was replaced by Kelly Tolhurst. Ms Ghani has said that she was surprised at the demotion, and the shuffle was reported in that light given she had been tipped to oversee HS2 progress. Ms Ghani is a steering committee member of the backbench Covid Recovery Group which opposed the December 2020 lockdown and has voted against other Covid restrictions. Advertisement

Elsewhere, a Tory MP sparked anger after he said Ms Ghani was 'hardly someone who is obviously a Muslim'.

Michael Fabricant said the timing of the former transport minister's claim was 'very suspicious', and suggested it was linked to moves to get rid of Boris Johnson over the Downing Street lockdown parties scandal.

Yesterday, Labour described Mr Fabricant's comments as 'shameful' and called for the Conservative whip to be withdrawn.

Speaking on LBC, Mr Fabricant said: 'The timing is interesting. I think all this is because it's open season on Boris Johnson, putting pressure on him from the party trying to get him to resign.

'I think the whole thing actually stinks, the accusation being made by Nus Ghani.

'She's hardly someone who is obviously a Muslim. I had no idea what religion she is. It does seem rather a lame excuse to me that she was sacked because of that.'

In response, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy tweeted: 'What an appalling, disgraceful thing to say.

'If the Tories wanted to show they were serious about tackling Islamophobia, they could start by removing the whip from Michael Fabricant.'

Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds said the response of the the Tories to Ms Ghani's claims had been shameful.

'For a Conservative MP, Michael Fabricant, to go on the radio and make comments that reflect exactly the sort of unacceptable behaviour Nusrat has raised shows just how deep the problem in the Conservative Party goes,' she said.

Ms Ghani has received the backing of Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Education Nadhim Zahawi, the two most senior Muslims in the Cabinet.

Both took to Twitter to support her and demand a full investigation into her claims against Mr Spencer.

He has outed himself as the whip concerned, and branded Ms Ghani's comments 'false' and 'defamatory'.

Justice secretary Dominic Raab also lined up to defend the party, claiming she had decided not to call for an investigation at the time.

But Mr Javid said Ms Ghani was 'a credit to the Conservative Party', adding: 'This is a very serious matter which needs a proper investigation. I would strongly support her in making a formal complaint - she must be heard.'

His intervention claim after Mr Zahawi tweeted: 'There is no place for islamophobia or any form of racism in our Conservative party. Nusrat Ghani is a friend, a colleague & a brilliant parliamentarian. This has to be investigated properly & racism routed out. #standwithNus' .

Ms Ghani, who was the first Muslim woman to be elected as a Tory MP in 2015, told the Sunday Times she was told by a party whip she was being axed in February 2020 because her status as a Muslim woman and a minister was 'making colleagues feel uncomfortable'.

She also claimed she was warned that if she continued to raise the issue then her 'career and reputation would be destroyed'.

But yesterday morning Downing Street revealed that Ms Ghani had complained directly to the PM in 2020. A spokeswoman said: 'After being made aware of these extremely serious claims, the Prime Minister met with Nusrat Ghani to discuss them.

'He then wrote to her expressing his serious concern and inviting her to begin a formal complaint process. She did not subsequently do so.'

After that statement was released, Ms Ghani said: 'When I told the Prime Minister in June 2020 what had been said to me in the Government Whips' Office I urged him to take it seriously as a Government matter and instigate an inquiry.

'He wrote to me that he could not get involved and suggested I use the internal Conservative Party complaint process.

'This, as I had already pointed out, was very clearly not appropriate for something that happened on Government business - I do not even know if the words that were conveyed to me about what was said in reshuffle meetings at Downing Street were by members of the Conservative Party.'
A Missouri university is hosting an online forum that will explore whether the term 'professionalism' is racist - and according to the event's synopsis, it is.

The February 1 presentation at Washington University's St. Louis campus centers around a term defined by Merriam-Webster as 'the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person.'

An explainer for the upcoming virtual event reads: 'The term professionalism has at times been used to silence and marginalize people of color, when attributes of appearance, language or interactions that have nothing to do with job knowledge or constructive collegial relationships are labeled as unprofessional.

'In this context, so-called professionalism is coded language, a construct that upholds institutional racist policies and excluding practices.'

As of Monday, 13 people expressed interest in the event, which is being hosted by assistant dean of community partnerships Cynthia Williams and Jewel Stafford, director of the field education office's racial equity fellowship program.

Employees at Washington University's St. Louis campus are posing the question: 'Is professionalism a racist construct?' They'll lead a discussion on the topic during an hourlong forum slated for February 1

The event will be hosted by assistant dean of community partnerships Cynthia Williams (left) and Jewel Stafford, director of the field education office's racial equity fellowship program (right)

The event hosts did not respond to a DailyMail.com query, but Stafford's research is focused on 'examining racial/ethnic health disparities among medically underserved communities, specifically black populations,' according to her online university bio.

The site says Williams is 'a skilled and highly motivated professional with 37 years of experience in academia.'

During the hourlong discussion that will kick off Black History Month, the conversation also will touch on bringing down 'white supremacy.'

'This presentation will explore dismantling white supremacy and privilege in varied contexts while upholding social justice and advancing effective workplaces in which all contributors can bring their full selves to the job site,' the event description says.

Social media users opened fire at the university after learning of the upcoming forum, which coincides with the start of Black History Month

The forum was widely mocked on social media.

'This should be a joke,' Ben Thompson said on Facebook. 'Instead its actually garbage being taught. Proper English, a solid work ethic, knowledge, etc are racist. Professionalism is racist. This country is a laughing stock.

'No other country on this planet is destroying itself like this one is. This is utterly insane.'

Others turned to Twitter to express their dismay.

'Washington University pushing racism courses,' @PatriciaNIzzo1 tweeted. 'These Administrators need to be fired now! Where are the Parents who are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars tuition?'

Added @hcaito46: 'Can you get any more STUPID than this! If I were an alumnus, I would never give this woke factory another penny or even think about sending my kid there!'
Australians in Ukraine are being urged to leave immediately as the threat of Russian military action against the country increases.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Monday night raised its advice to 'Do Not Travel'.

'Australians in Ukraine should leave now by commercial means, where safe to do so, noting that flight availability could change or be suspended at short notice,' it said in a statement.

Australians in Ukraine are being urged to leave immediately as the threat of Russian military action against the country increases (pictured, a convoy of Russian vehicles on January 18)

A build-up of Russian troops, the West says is in preparation for a war to prevent Ukraine joining NATO (pictured, a map outlining where Russian and US troops are stationed)

'Australians who decide to remain in Ukraine should review their personal security plans, be prepared to shelter in place if required, maintain heightened security awareness and register with DFAT.'

Tensions in Ukraine have been increasing for months after the Kremlin massed about 100,000 troops near Ukraine's borders, to apply pressure against any move to admit Ukraine to the NATO military alliance.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied planning to invade, but thus far NATO has failed to give assurances that it was considering inviting Ukraine into its fold.

DFAT's advice comes as family members of Australian diplomats prepare to depart Kyiv. It follows similar moves by the United States and the United Kingdom.

Australian security officials are also negotiating ways to help Ukraine defend itself against cyber attacks, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne has asked Australia's critical technology ambassador, Tobias Feakin, to lead the talks on the best way to deter attacks on the critical systems, the Herald says.
Australian TV host Lisa Wilkinson has been slammed for calling Australia's policy response to the latest Covid-19 outbreak a 'bin fire'.

On Sunday, Wilkinson said Australia's 'bin fire' handling of the Omicron crisis is what prompted Jacinda Ardern to plunge all of New Zealand into Covid 'red alert' and postpone her own wedding over a handful of cases.

Among the new rules in NZ is that household contacts of Covid cases now must isolate for 24 days - one of the toughest Covid restrictions in the world.

Australia meanwhile has eased many restrictions despite an alarming initial rise in Covid cases from the Omicron strain but had since seen case numbers consistently fall.

Wilkinson said: 'If that doesn't give you an indication that Jacinda Ardern has looked across the 'ditch' at our bin fire and gone, 'Not doing that!' Wow.'

Wilkinson said on Sunday night: 'If that doesn't give you an indication that Jacinda Ardern has looked across the 'ditch' at our bin fire and gone, 'Not doing that!' Wow'

However many called out Wilkinson over her assessment, including ex-deputy chief health officer Nick Coatsworth.

He retweeted four Twitter messages that slammed the TV host.

One of them said: 'Lisa Wilkinson praising NZ for putting close contacts in 24 days of isolation just shows her inner city, multimillionaire, guaranteed wage privilege. I wonder what she'd say if Ardern was PM of Australia and Morrison was PM of New Zealand.'

'Lisa Wilkinson is more than welcome to isolate herself - I would suggest no outside contact so no media appearances - for 24 days. Indeed 24 days is not safe enough - make it 24 months,' was another message Dr Coatsworth retweeted from David Southwell.

Ex-deputy chief health officer Nick Coatsworth (left) shared a series of messages slamming Wilkinson (right) after she labelled Australia's Omicron response as a 'bin fire' on Sunday

Other Australians were also quick to call out the TV host on Twitter.

'Of course Lisa Wilkinson is cheering on 24 day quarantine,' one user wrote.

Another said: 'I wish she would take a moment to imagine what is must be like for people who need to earn their wages every day.'

However, other users defended Wilkinson's controversial comparison and agreed more should be done in Australia to curtail Omicron cases.

'So Lisa Wilkinson on the Project described our approach to Omicron as a bin fire, its not that I disagree its more like a bloody flame thrower,' one tweeted.

'State leaders have much to answer for. It is simply convenient to lay it on federal shoulders when state leaders stuff up... And boy have they stuffed up,' another said.

Wilkinson's comments come after the New Zealand Prime Minister revealed on Sunday she would postpone her upcoming nuptials to television host Clarke Gayford because she 'was no different to other New Zealanders'.

Ms Ardern was planning to wed her television host fiance this summer in Gisborne on the North Island before a spate of Covid-19 threw plans into chaos, almost three years after he popped the question.

Her comments come after Jacinda Ardern introduced even tougher Covid restrictions in New Zealand and revealed her nuptials to Clarke Gayford (right) would be postponed

'I am no different to  dare I say it  thousands of other New Zealanders who have had much more devastating impacts felt by the pandemic,' Ms Ardern (pictured) said on Sunday

She originally planned to walk down the aisle earlier but has been set back by a series of tragedies including the Christchurch terror attack, the White Island volcano eruption in 2019 and the coronavirus pandemic for the last 21 months.

Such is life,' Ms Ardern said when asked about the delay on Sunday.

'I am no different to  dare I say it  thousands of other New Zealanders who have had much more devastating impacts felt by the pandemic.

'The most gutting of which is the inability to be with a loved one sometimes when they're gravely ill. That will far, far outstrip any sadness I experience.

'My wedding will not be going ahead, but I just join many other New Zealanders who have had an experience like that as a result of the pandemic.'

'And to anyone caught up in that scenario, I'm so sorry.'

The wedding has been set back by a series of tragedies including the Christchurch terror attack, the White Island volcano eruption in 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic (pictured, Ms Ardern and her partner Clarke Gayford in December 2018)

New Zealand has ruled anyone infected with Covid is now required to isolate for 14 days, up from 10 days under the new interim rules (pictured, punters enjoy drinks in Auckland)

New Zealand has ruled anyone infected with Covid is now required to isolate for 14 days, up from 10 days under the new interim rules.

Household contacts must then stay in quarantine for a further 10 days, stretching the time alone out to three and a half weeks.

Ms Ardern raised New Zealand's Covid alert to red after the discovery of nine Omicron cases in the community with no link to the border.

'Red is not lockdown. At Red businesses stay open and you can do most of things that you normally do, including visiting family and friends and travelling around the country,' Ms Ardern reiterated.

'One of the most important things that people can do is to make sure you and your family have a buddy  like a neighbour or a friend - who can help you out by delivering things that you need if you do become unwell.'

Ms Ardern(pictured with her partner Clarke Gaygord) raised New Zealand's Covid alert to red after the discovery of nine Omicron cases in the community with no link to the border

New Zealand reported 25 community cases and 50 new cases identified at the border on Monday with 10 people in hospital and none in ICU (pictured, Auckland residents enjoy lunch)

New Zealand reported 25 community cases and 50 new cases identified at the border on Monday with 10 people in hospital and none in ICU.

At the red setting of New Zealand's traffic light system residents are still able to do most things, including travel and visit other households.

Masks are now required in hospitality and retail, schools, airports, public transport, and public buildings.

Hospitality can stay open, but a 100 customer limit will apply, with patrons needing to show their vaccine passport and stay seated.

Capacity limits also apply for retail and public buildings, while offices are encouraged but not required to bring in work from home.

A cap of 100 vaccinated attendees and 25 non-vaccinated will also apply for public and private gatherings for 'some weeks' in NZ (pictured, guests enjoy drinks in Auckland on December 3)

New Zealand's vaccine passport, dubbed My Vaccine Pass, will be required by law to enter many venues.

A cap of 100 vaccinated attendees and 25 non-vaccinated will also apply for public and private gatherings.

There is no change to the start of the 2022 academic year, however, all students and staff above Year 4 need to wear masks indoors.

Ms Ardern said there were no changes to the international border re-opening which is scheduled for February 28.

She said both the North and South Islands would be under the red setting for 'some weeks' as the country enters the start of a new Covid wave.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday supported the Arizona Democratic Party's censure of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema after she opposed a recent effort by officials to change Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation.

The senator was asked whether or not the rebuke on Saturday from Arizona's party's executive board was appropriate. In a simple response, Sanders confirmed his support of the move and said that it was "absolutely" appropriate.

Sanders vs. Sinema

Sinema was one of only two members of the Democratic party to vote against the changing of the Senate filibuster to create a carve-out to its supermajority requirement for voting rights bills. The other lawmaker was Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the two have voted alongside all Senate Republicans who oppose the proposal.

In a statement, Sanders said that the two Democrats were effectively allowing the GOP to restrict voting access in a number of states across the country. The Vermont senator said that it was crucial for lawmakers to protect American democracy. He argued that Sinema and Manchin undermined that effort and called what the Arizona party decided on the right choice, Politico reported.

Sanders argued that there were 19 Republican states in the United States that were undermining the foundations of American democracy. The senator said that they were hindering people of color, young people, and people with disabilities from voting and exercising their right to democracy.

In his interview with Dana Bash on "State of the Union," Sanders said that the country needed to stand up against the big lie of former United States President Donald Trump. The Republican businessman and his allies have repeatedly claimed that he won the 2020 presidential elections against Democrat Joe Biden despite no proof being presented.

Read Also: Joe Biden Reportedly Offers Interviews To Defend Embattled Chief of Staff Ron Klain

In recent months, Democrats have become increasingly frustrated with Sinema and Manchin who have both continued to vote against the wishes of party leaders. The situation comes as Democrats hold only a slim majority in Congress, an advantage that they could potentially lose in the upcoming 2022 midterms, CNN reported.

Voting Rights Legislation

Sanders even went as far as accusing Sinema and Manchin of trying to "sabotage" Biden's Build Back Better and the voting rights legislation. The Vermont senator said that, on the other hand, the Republican party was "laughing all the way to election day."

The 80-year-old senator said that there were 50 Republican lawmakers who wanted to do nothing except criticize the Democratic president. He also said that Sinema and Manchin chose to work with the GOP instead of assisting the United States President.

During the same interview, Sanders said that Democratic infighting gave way to Republicans getting a headstart in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. The situation comes as the GOP is already poised to potentially regain control of the House and Senate.

"What has bothered me very much is the Republicans are laughing all the way to election day. They have not had to cast one bloody vote, which shows us where they're at. And we have got to change that," said Sanders, Rolling Stone reported.



Related Article: Donald Trump Net Worth 2022: Did Trump Get Richer Since Leaving the US Presidency?

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The creator of coronation chicken said she worked on the recipe every day for a month before creating the dish for the Queen's Coronation Day banquet in 1953.

Angela Wood, 88, was a cookery student at Cordon Bleu when she helped create the recipe which became a staple of the Queen's coronation festivities.

She told BBC News: 'For a month or more, I was cooking a chicken a day and we had to alter the balance of the spices in the sauce to get it right.

The sauce that Ms Wood created at the age of 19 included freshly-ground spices, finely chopped onion, red wine, apricot puree, mayonnaise and cream.

Angela Wood pictured today (left) as she looked at 19 when she helped create the dish (right)

Coronation chicken was created to be served at the Queen's Coronation Day banquet in 1953

Ms Wood, from Kimbolton, Cambridgeshire, has also suggested that she could help create the competition-winning dessert which will be served at the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in June.

Ms Wood was in her final year as a cookery student at Winkfield Place college, near Windsor, Berkshire, when she helped create the now-iconic dish.

The brief was to create a tasty dish that was flavourful 'but not too flavourful' so as to satisfy foreign dignitaries' palates at the Coronation banquet.

Founders of the dish Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume decided a cold chicken dish coated in a curried creamy sauce would be 'really easy to serve', according to Ms Wood.

Angela has offered her help to the Queen in choosing the dessert to be made especially for the Platinum Jubilee this summer

The flavour was created by ingredients that were readily-available in Britain with post-war rationing only recently having ended - meaning imported good were still hard to come by.

Constance Spry published the recipe for the first time as part of her cookbook

Mrs Wood, who had just turned 19, said: 'For a month or more, I was cooking a chicken a day and we had to alter the balance of the spices in the sauce to get it right.'

The recipe they eventually came up with was cooked and served by Cordon Bleu staff and students a few months later at the banquet.

The competition to create a new pudding to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee runs until 4 February.
In a rare bipartisan move, even progressive 'squad' member Rashida Tlaib and pro-Trump Representative Matt Gaetz saw eye-to-eye in sending a letter demanding House floor action on legislation that would ban lawmakers from trading stocks.

The letter, sent Monday, was signed by a bipartisan group of 27 lawmakers and addressed to both Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. It urges the leaders to 'swiftly' bring a vote to the floor on either the Ban Conflicted Trading Act or the TRUST in Congress Act.

The push for regulation comes in the midst of heightened concerns over insider trading, especially after lawmakers' stock activity following a congressional briefing on COVID-19 before the true threat was public knowledge.

'There is no reason that members of Congress need to be allowed to trade stocks when we should be focused on doing our jobs and serving our constituents,' the letter reads.

'Perhaps this means some of our colleagues will miss out on lucrative investment opportunities,' it continues. 'We don't care. We came to Congress to serve our country, not turn a quick buck.'

The letter was drafted by Democratic Representative Jared Golden from Maine.

The idea of banning or limiting lawmakers for trading stocks while in public office has such widespread support that lawmakers with a litany of backgrounds and political affiliations joined in on signing the Monday letter.

Rashida Tlaib from Michigan is part of the progressive so-called 'squad' of lawmakers that often blast super pro-Trump members like Matt Gaetz fro Florida. But on Monday, they both signed the same letter calling for regulations on members of Congress and their family's stock buying, trading and selling activity.

The lawmakers claim: 'This common-sense, bipartisan legislation is unfortunately necessary in light of recent misconduct, and is supported by Americans across the political spectrum. Both of you have recently addressed this issue in public comments, but this glaring problem will not go away until it is fixed and Congress should not delay when we have the power to fix it.'

Pelosi has voiced her opposition to such regulation on lawmakers, claiming she 'trusts' her members.

A group of 27 bipartisan lawmakers signed a letter to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (left) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (right) demanding they bring legislation to the floor to ban or limit members of Congress in their stock trading activity

The letter, penned by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden from Maine, reads: 'Perhaps this means some of our colleagues will miss out on lucrative investment opportunities. We don't care. We came to Congress to serve our country, not turn a quick buck'

The idea has such widespread support that even progressive 'squad' member Rashida Tlaib and pro-Trump GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz see eye-to-eye on the issue

But many claim her support for allowing lawmakers to trade stocks is because of the millions her husband has made in the stock market during her decades in Congress  and specifically the money Paul Pelosi made in days following his powerful wife's public opposition to regulations on such activity.

'I do come down always in favor of trusting our members,' the House Speaker said during her weekly briefing last Thursday.

She also said that it's the Justice Department's responsibility to come down on insider trading issues.

'If the impression that is given by some that somebody's doing insider trading  that's a Justice Department issue,' Pelosi said Thursday. 'And that has no place in any of this.'

'But to give a blanket attitude of we can't do this and we can't do that because we can't be trusted. I just don't buy into that. But if members want to do that, I'm OK with that,' she said in suggesting that she would be open to some form of regulation if members of her caucus pushed for it.

More prorgressive wings of the Democratic Party are in favor of limiting the ability for lawmakers to abuse their power and make money off their time in office.

Paul Pelosi, 81, purchased and traded millions last month.

The Democratic House leader, however, claimed that her opposition on bans and limitations is because she errs on the side of trusting members of Congress  specifically those within her Democratic caucus.

'Here's the thing  I say to my members on a regular basis when we gather in caucus I've said to them: 'Under this roof  figuratively or actually  is the greatest collection of intellect, integrity and imagination for doing the right thing for the American people.' I have great confidence in the integrity of my members  they are remarkable,' Pelosi said when asked about members of her own party and their various levels of trading activity.

'So when people talk about, 'Well somebody might do this and somebody may do ' well, I trust my members,' she continued.

Just days after Pelosi (left) came out against stock trading regulations last month, it was revealed that her husband Paul (right) traded millions of dollars in tech stocks. The Pelosi's pose outside Downing Street in London on September 16, 2021 during a trip there to meet with Boris Johnson

Pelosi's periodic transaction report reveals her family is making millions of dollars while she's in Congress

'If, in fact, we should have severe penalties for delay in reporting on stock, then do that,' Pelosi said. 'I've said to the House Administration Committee, review all the bills that are coming in and see which ones  where the support is in our caucus.'

Some members of Congress have prepared legislative proposals that would limit stock activity of not only lawmakers, but their spouses and family members.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has signaled he is considering limiting or fully banning lawmakers' from engaging in the markets should Republicans take back a majority in the 2022 midterms.

The push for a ban on trading and holding stocks has escalated in recent months after concerns came up regarding a slew of market activity from lawmakers following an early 2020 briefing on the threat of COVID-19 before the public was privy to that information.

The accusations prompted Justice Department investigations into the financial activity of Senators Dianne Feinstein, James Inhofe and Richard Burr, as well as former Senator Kelly Loeffler. All four probes have since been closed and none of the lawmakers who engaged in stock activity following that briefing have been charged with any wrongdoing.

Currently under the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act) lawmakers and their aides are prohibited from using non-public information for private profit, including trade and holding stock. It also requires them to publicly disclose stock and bond transactions within 45 days.

Otherwise, there are few guardrails in place on Congress' private dollars.

The new proposals would further restrict trading and holding individual stocks, especially as representatives and senators often hear sensitive or confidential information regarding U.S. policy that could impact the markets.

One proposal Republicans are considering, according to McCarthy, include banning lawmakers from holding stock in companies or industries in which their respective committees oversee.

Some lawmakers have also pushed for mandatory blind trusts for all members' holdings rather than giving them free reign in the markets.

Freshman Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, 34, is also reportedly looking into proposals that would ban members and their families from participating in the stock market for the duration of their congressional term.

A similar bill to Ossoff's was introduced in the Senate in March, the Ban Conflicted Trading Act. However, its trading ban only extends to members of Congress and their staff, excluding Ossoff's limits on spouses and other family members.

Ossoff, the youngest sitting member of the Senate, is likely to face powerful opposition within his own party, especially after Pelosi spoke out against the measure. His bill would also specifically affect her husband's prolific trading activity.

Many lawmakers have already voiced their support of some sort of limit on trading while a member of Congress. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is considering legislation that would limit or ban lawmakers' stock activity if Republicans retake the majority in the 2022 midterms and Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff (pictured) supports banning individual trading of lawmakers and their families during a congressional term

Just as Pelosi pushed back on the idea that lawmakers should not be able to make individual stock trades while in office last month, her husband bought shares in Google's parent company Alphabet, Disney and Salesforce worth millions.

'We're a free market economy,' Pelosi told reporters during a news conference on December 15, 2021. 'They [lawmakers] should be able to participate in that.'

Two days later, Paul Pelosi bought stock in Alphabet worth between $500,001 and $1 million. He also bought shares in Disney worth between $100,001 and $250,000.

Three days after that on Dec. 20, he made two separate purchases in Salesforce - one worth between $100,001 and $250,000 and another between $500,001 and $1 million, and one purchase of Roblox worth between $250,001 and $500,000.

On December 21, he purchased stock in Micron Technology worth between $250,001 and $500,000 and on Dec. 22, there was a purchase of Reoff XX worth $50,001-$100,000.

Over the course of five days, Paul Pelosi purchased stock worth anywhere between $1,750,007 and $3,600,000.

Paul Pelosi has proven himself a prolific stock trader, so much so that social investing app Iris allows users to track their trades and be notified every time he makes a purchase so that they can do the same.
Becki Falwell, the wife of disgraced former Liberty University leader Jerry Falwell Jr., revealed in a tell-all interview released Monday that she used to make sex tapes with her much younger pool boy ex-lover, Giancarlo Granda.

'I had a big Canon camera. A couple of times I put it on the dresser and Giancarlo agreed to it,' Becki, 54, told Vanity Fair, alleging her husband did not know she and Granda, 30, had filmed them.

Jerry's time as president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, came to an end last year after Granda's revelations about the years-long affair emerged.

Granda claimed that Jerry enjoyed watching him have sex with Becki after they first met in Miami in 2012, when Granda was 21. He even claimed that they formed a 'throuple' - a polyamorous couple who invite a third person to join their relationship.

Jerry, 57, denied that - but did admit to Vanity Fair that he'd once walked in on Becki and Granda in bed, and claimed to have been 'traumatized' by the sight of another man having sex with his spouse.

Becki also claimed that in 2017 Granda, a former Miami pool boy, pressured her into having sex in her 25 year-old daughter's Caroline's bed long, after the relationship had ended.

'He said he wanted to have sex and I said, "No, no, no." I kept saying no. I didnt want to do it,' Becki said.

'But I was scared to death of him too, because he was still holding everything over me, so we had sex. He left and I went into the room and just cried.'

Jerry and Becki, pictured, met Granda at the Fontainebleau hotel pool in Miami Beach in March 2012

Becki Falwell (circled second from right), the wife of disgraced former Liberty University leader Jerry Falwell Jr., (right, circled) revealed in a tell-all interview released Monday that she used to make sex dates with her ex-lover, Giancarlo Granda (circled second from left)

Granda is pictured with Becki and Jerry and their family on trip to DC in September 2018

The Falwells met Giancarlo Granda, pictured in 2020, in 2012 when he was a 21 year-old pool boy. Jerry denies claims he enjoyed watching his wife have sex with the younger man - but has now claimed he once walked in on them together, and was 'traumatized' by what he saw

She said it took her months to tell her husband, Jerry Falwell Jr., and two lawyers about the 'traumatic experience,' which she now believes could have been a form of assault.

'I said no. Just because we had sex before does not mean he has a free ticket to my body,' she told the magazine.

Granda declined Vanity Fair's request for comment on the allegation, but issued a succinct statement denying Becki's claims.

He said he wanted to have sex and I said, "No, no, no." I kept saying no. I didnt want to do it,' Becki said. 'But I was scared to death of him too, because he was still holding everything over me, so we had sex. He left and I went into the room and just cried.

He said his version of events would become clear in an upcoming book and Hulu series about his time with the couple.

Granda however, allege that Jerry often enjoyed watching him have sex with his wife, an accusation the fallen televangelist denies. Although, Jerry did recently admit to having walked in on the pair.

'It was traumatizing,' he said, recalling how he caught them together in a Miami hotel room in autumn of 2013.

Granda also accused the Falwells of 'grooming him' and alleged the three of them were a 'throuple' - an assertion the married couple has denied. Furthermore, Granda insists that Jerry watched him and Becki the first time they had intercourse, which occurred in March 2012.

They entered into a business agreement which saw the Falwells support Granda's hospitality venture. Asked by Vanity Fair why they'd continued to bankroll to the tune of $1.8 million it long after the personal relationship had allegedly soured, Jerry claimed it had been too good a business opportunity to miss.

Jerry, one of the most influential right-wing Christian leaders in the United States, went public about his wife's infidelity in 2020.

The Falwells first met Granda at Miami's famous Fontainbleu Hotel, pictured, in 2012, with Becki beginning a sexual relationship with him shortly afterwards

Becki claimed that in 2017 Granda, pressured her into having sex in her daughter's Caroline's bed despite the affair having ended (Pictured: Becki, Jerry and Caroline in Aug. 2018)

He said the couple had chosen to make the affair public as he alleged the pool boy had been blackmailing them for years about keeping the secret.

'Jerry would wake up every morning and worry that my affair would come out. Both of us did,' Becki recalled. 'Its just horrible to have that over you.'

The Falwells met Granda at the Fontainebleau hotel pool in Miami Beach in March 2012 and were reportedly so impressed with him that they invested in a gay hostel that he and their son ran as managers.

Granda and Becki's affair allegedly began shortly afterwards and ended in 2014. Becki told the magazine she called things off because Granda had started a serious relationship with a girlfriend.

'I felt guilty about it. I didnt want to keep it up,' she said.

Jerry claims Granda then devised an extortion plot and demanded $2million to keep the affair secret.

When he took the affair public two years ago, Jerry claimed that the 'threatening behavior' left him with 'trauma' and had greatly affected him as he tried to run Liberty University.

'It was like living on a roller coaster,' Jerry said at the time. 'While completely dedicating ourselves to Liberty, we were also suffering in silence during our personal time together, while simultaneously trying to manage and deal with this increasingly threatening behavior, which only worsened over time.

'We were doing our best to respectfully unravel this "fatal attraction" type situation to protect our family and the university.'

He claimed the relationship began when at a time when he was dedicating too much time to the university after being appointed its president following the death of his father in 2007. He said he was not not spending enough time with Becki during that period in his life.

'Becki had an inappropriate personal relationship with this person, something in which I was not involved,' he insisted in 2020, 'it was nonetheless very upsetting to learn about.'

Now, Becki claims that two have worked through the hardships caused by the affair and are both very grateful to have their marriage.

'Were together more than any couple you will ever meet in your life,' she told Vanity Fair. 'He forgave me, and thats what Jesus teaches, forgiveness.'

Jerry agreed to step down from his role as Liberty University president in late August 2020, shortly after the affair had come public.

He had been on indefinite leave since August 7 amid a furor over an Instagram picture that showed him with his pants unzipped, drink in hand, and arm around a woman.

Falwell stood down as president of Liberty University days after this photo of him emerged. He said he'd been attending a party on a yacht where the theme was the TV show Trailer Park Boys

Falwell also sparked fury over a tweet opposing mask mandates including a tweet showing a figure in a KKK hood stood next to a man wearing blackface

The Falwells were also big supporters of President Trump, and were credited with helping drive important support among Evangelical Christians

In wake of the photo, and other sordid reports about his sex life, Jerry agreed to resign. His father, Jerry Falwell Sr. had founded the university.

Jerry Sr, who died in 2003 aged 73, reportedly only became a pastor because of his wife, Macel, who was a devout Baptist. Jerry said his father adopted 'militant stands against drinking and homosexuality' to prove to Macel that he could be a 'conservative Christian'.

He also realized there was money to be made in preaching.

'My dad became a Christian because his mom pushed him in that direction,' Jerry Jr said. 'My mother was the only reason my dad became puritanical. He became a different person to build a church and a school.'

Jerry Jr said his dad's firebrand image was only for show, and that he was much calmer and more relaxed in private.

The two men grew apart during Jerry's youth, but became close again in the mid-1990s when Jerry helped save Liberty University from bankruptcy by offering distance learning, with cash pouring in to its coffers as a result.

Strict conservative views were enforced at Liberty University, which is based in Lynchburg, Virginia. The school has a 'strict code of conduct' where students are prohibited from having sexual relations outside of 'biblically ordained' marriage and are also banned from engaging with media that contains lewd lyrics, sexual content and nudity. They can also be fined $250 if they're caught drinking alcohol.

Jerry Jr and Becki have both been now banned from its campus in the wake of the scandals which led to Jerry's departure, even though Jerry Sr is buried on its grounds.

Jerry is also being sued by Liberty University for $10m after he failed to notify bosses of Granda's alleged extortion plot when negotiating a new contract with them.

Shortly before the Granda scandal emerged, Jerry shared a snap of him at a party in jeans with his fly undone, and with his hand around a pregnant colleague's waist.

He said they'd dressed up for a Trailer Park Boys-themed event on a yacht.

Jerry also faced widespread condemnation after tweeting his opposition to mask mandates using a photo of a mask showing a person in KKK robes next to another person wearing blackface.

The former university leader was also one of the first evangelical Christian leaders to endorse former President Donald Trump, who appeared on the campus twice before his 2016 election victory.

Ted Cruz had reportedly been the leading evangelical candidate in the 2016 Republican primary, but five days before the Iowa caucuses Jerry endorsed Trump, which some analysts allege 'dealt a terminal blow' to Cruz's campaign.

Becki also served on the Women for Trump advisory board.
Ukraine has sent troops to guard against any Russian incursion on the Chernobyl exclusion zone, with the highly radioactive site believed to be a potential entry point for Kremlin aggressors.

Despite the site in northern Ukraine still being radioactive and mainly harbouring ghost towns and fallow fields, the Chernobyl exclusion zone is believed to be at risk of being conquered, reports The New York Times.

This is because the shortest path from Russia to Kiev would take Putin's troops through the isolated zone.

In preparation for a potential Russian incursion into the exclusion zone, which was established after a reactor meltdown in 1986, Ukrainian troops are currently patrolling the snowy forests and abandoned streets of Chernobyl, equipped with Kalashnikov rifles - as well as equipment to detect radiation exposure.

Lt. Col. Yuri Shakhraichuk of the Ukrainian border guard service told The New York Times: 'It doesn't matter if it is contaminated or nobody lives here.

It is feared the Kremlin could send troops into Ukraine entering from the north - which would take them past the irradiated area on the way to Ukrainian capital city Kiev

Additional Ukrainian troops were scrambled to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone two months ago, after Kremlin soldiers were moved to Belarus, which has a border only five miles from the exploded reactor

'It is our territory, our country, and we must defend it.'

Ukrainian forces patrolling the exclusion area must wear devices on a lanyard around their necks to check for radiation, with protocols stating they must be taken off duty immediately in the event they wander into a highly irradiated area.

None of the troops have suffered exposure to high doses so far, Colonel Shakhraichuk told The New York Times.

With a limited number of Ukrainian forces in the area, their mission is not to repel a Russian invasion but to register any warning signs.

Colonel Shakhraichuk said: 'We collect information about the situation along the border.'

Additional Ukrainian troops were scrambled to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone two months ago, after Kremlin soldiers were moved to Belarus, which has a border only five miles from the exploded reactor.

Signs of Russian hostility towards the area have ignited emotional reactions from those who recall the joint-response launched by Russian and Ukrainian emergency workers in 1986.

Ivan Kovalchuk, a Ukrainian firefighter who battled to control the fire at the plant in the wake of the disaster, said: 'How can this be?'

The Izumrudniy (Emerald) Holiday Camp, near Chernobyl: Once a popular spot for summer holiday breaks, these rustic wooden chalets, painted with characters from cartoons and fairy tales, were completely destroyed by forest fires in April 2020

'We liquidated the accident together.

'For them to do this to us now just makes me feel sorry for people' in Ukraine, he said.

The Chernobyl zone, which is about 1,000 square miles, is the shortest route from the Belarusian border to Kiev.

However, due to its swampy land and thick forests, the invasion route from the north could be viewed less favourably by the Kremlin, despite it being shorter as the crow flies.

Chernobyl still plays homes to workers who complete rotations in the area, maintaining safety apparatus in place - such as a containment structure, which envelopes the reactor.

The Ferris Wheel, Pripyat: Though the city was evacuated before its official May Day opening ceremony, the wheel saw occasional use before the disaster, contrary to popular belief

One worker, Oleksei Prishepa, told The New York Times: 'We dont know what will kill us first, the virus, radiation or war.'

At the same time, Mr. Prishepa expressed his indifference in the face of losing the contaminated land to the Kremlin.

'It's wasteland', he said. 'No crop will ever grow here.'

The exclusion zone had been largely unguarded, until a number of events in the region led Ukraine to cluster soldiers there - first, the build up of Russian troops, followed by a migrant crisis in Belarus in November, which threatened to spill over into Ukraine and ignite unrest.

Ukraine responded by sending 7,500 extra guards to the Belarusian border at the time.

Joint military exercises between Russia and Belarus are planned in February, giving Moscow a reason to send more troops and equipment to the Kremlin ally - and ratcheting up still higher fears of an incursion into Ukraine.
Newlywed cop Jason Rivera, 22, was shot and killed in the ambush, and Wilbert Mora, 27, was critically injured

The 47-year-old convicted gunman and career criminal who ambushed two NYPD officers last Friday night in Harlem, killing one and wounding the other, before a third 'hero' cop shot him, has died from his injuries.

He lost his life three days after newlywed cop Jason Rivera, 22, was shot and killed in the ambush, and Wilbert Mora, 27, was critically injured.

Lashawn McNeil, who has been in critical condition since the deadly shooting, died Monday afternoon at Harlem Hospital. His mom Shirley Sourzes spoke to the New York Post hours before her son's death, saying: 'I am deeply sorry.'

Sourzes made the call to cops to report her son's domestic abuse on the night the killing took place.

She now says: 'If I knew, I never would have made the phone call. I would never have called.'

'I would like to say to Mr and Mrs (Rivera) that I am deeply sorry. I know that there is not words that I can express. Your pain. Your sorrow.

McNeil, 47, a convicted gunman and career criminal, who ambushed two NYPD officers last Friday night in Harlem, killing one and wounding the other, before a third 'hero' cop shot him, died from his injuries Monday

'Me and my family are not proud of my son taking of life. There is nothing I can say to heal your sorrow, but God is a comforter.  And I know that he sent your son to do his will. I dont understand it. Its not fair. My heart goes out to you and your family.'

The career criminal was shot in the head and right arm by Officer Sumit Sulan moments after McNeil ambushed two officers who were responding to a domestic dispute call from McNeil's mother at her Harlem apartment.

Sources told the New York Daily News that McNeil argued with his mother, Sourzes, about his veganism. NYPD senior officials told NBC that McNeil had moved in with his Sourzes at her Harlem apartment in November 2021 and had tried to convert his family to share his beliefs.

McNeil's mother Shirley Sourzes spoke to the New York Post on Monday just hours before her son died, and said she wishes she never made the 911 call that led to the deadly ambush.

'If I knew, I never would have made the phone call,' said the mom, who said he son was mentally unstable. 'I would never have called!'

NYPD Officer Jason Rivera, 22, was shot to death while out on a call in Harlem on Friday. On his NYPD application form, he wrote: 'Coming from an immigrant family, I will be the first to say that I am a member of the NYPD - the greatest police force in the world'

Wilbert Mora, 27, who was critically injured in the ambush, has undergone two surgeries to remove a bullet that had become stuck in his brain. He was was transferred on Sunday night from Harlem Hospital to NYU Langone Medical Center, where he continues to fight for his life

'I would like to say to Mr. and Mrs. [Rivera] that I am deeply sorry,' she added through tears. 'I know that there is not words that I can express. Your pain. Your sorrow.

'Me and my family are not proud of my son taking of life.

'There is nothing I can say to heal your sorrow, but God is a comforter.  And I know that he sent your son to do his will,' she said, addressing Rivera's parents. 'I don't understand it. It's not fair. My heart goes out to you and your family.'

Officer Sumit Sulan, 27, shot Lashawn McNeil, the man accused of killing 22-year-old Jason Rivera and seriously injuring 27-year-old Wilbert Mora in Harlem on Friday. McNeil, who has been in critical condition since the incident, died Monday afternoon at Harlem Hospital

The scene in Harlem where a rookie cop was shot dead while responding to a domestic violence callout that night

NYPD call logs painted a harrowing picture of the final moments of the rookie cop was shot dead while responding to a domestic violence callout in Harlem that night.

When Rivera, Mora and the third officer arrived at the McNeil house, the mother was in a front room with another son. She said that her threatening son was in the back room, and so Rivera and Mora approached the room along a narrow 30-foot hallway.

The third officer remained with the mother and her other son.

LASHAWN J. MCNEIL'S CRIMINAL RAP SHEET Lashawn McNeil, 47, was well known to NYPD officers, who were called to his family's New York City house on a domestic violence claim in August The felon has had five arrests in three different states between 1998 and 2003 1998: McNeil was arrested for unlawful possession of a weapon in South Carolina Records show that the matter was dismissed 2002: He was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he had a registered address 2003: He was also arrested twice on a felony drug charge and a misdemeanor narcotics charge in Pennsylvania That same year, he was arrested and convicted of a felony narcotics charge in New York City, which he was still serving probation for Advertisement

After Rivera and Mora walked from the front of the apartment down a narrow hallway to check on McNeil, he swung open a bedroom door and began shooting, police said.

Both officers were gunned down before they could pull their weapons and defend themselves, police said.

As McNeil tried to flee, a third officer who had stayed with McNeils mother in the front of the apartment shot at McNeil and wounded him in the head and arm, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig said.

McNeil was well known to officers, who were last called to the house on a domestic violence call in August, had previously been arrested in New York in 2003 on felony narcotic charges and was out on probation. He also had four other arrests in two different states.

Sources told the New York Daily News that McNeil argued with his mother, Sourzes, about his veganism. NYPD senior officials told NBC that McNeil had moved in with his Sourzes at her Harlem apartment in November 2021 and had tried to convert his family to share his beliefs.

He had shared a controversial music video in 2014 depicting officers getting gunned down and footage of police brutality against black men as two rappers appear holding guns to the head of a stoic white officer as they sing, 'Time to start kill these coppers.'

The music video, 'Hands Up' by Uncle Murda & Maino, was posted as a tribute to Eric Garner, a black man who was choked to death by a white NYPD officer and whose cry, 'I can't breathe,' became a rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Along with the video, McNeil shared a slew of conspiracy theory posts and videos on his Facebook page, which warned of a coming race war, that McDonalds conducted blood sacrifices, that black people were aliens, and that the UN had established a global army to bring about a new world order. He stopped sharing the conspiracy posts by early 2015.

Since the events, the hero cop who shot McNeil cannot get what happened out of his head, his mother told the New York Post. 'His brain is stuck on the situation,' Dalvir Sulan, 60, said of her son, who emigrated from the family's home in India about 15 years ago.

Sulan is a 'super rookie' who has only been on the job since April and at Harlem's 32nd Precinct for two months, a law enforcement source told the Post.

'He did a great job. We're proud of him, but we're sorry for both of [the other officers],' she said. Asked by the Post about McNeil, Dalvir Sulan shook her head. 'That person, he's not really good,' she said.

Mora was transferred on Sunday night from Harlem Hospital to NYU Langone Medical Center, where he continues to fight for his life in life-threatening condition, reported ABC 7.

He had already undergone two surgeries to remove a bullet that had become stuck in his brain.

Earlier Sunday, hundreds of uniformed officers in Manhattan stood silent as Rivera's body was transferred from the Medical Examiner's Office to a funeral home

Tears were shed for slain NYPD Officer Jason Rivera as a procession took place on Sunday for him to be moved to a funeral home

Rivera's body was sent to a funeral home Sunday. Burial rites are scheduled for Friday with a service scheduled for Thursday at St. Patrick's Cathedral

Earlier Sunday, hundreds of uniformed officers in Manhattan stood silent as Rivera's body was transferred from the Medical Examiner's Office to a funeral home. Burial rites are scheduled for Friday with a service scheduled for Thursday at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The shooting was the third incident in less than 72 hours involving NYPD officers getting shot in the line of duty, following an incident in the Bronx late on Tuesday night and another officer shot early Thursday morning on Staten Island.

Eric Adams, the mayor of New York - an ex NYPD officer, who only took office three weeks ago - angrily declared at the hospital that the violence must stop.

'It is our city against the killers,' he said.

'This is not just an attack on three brave officers. This was an attack on the city of New York.'

Rivera, who grew up in the Inwood district of Manhattan - five miles from where he was shot and killed - said he wanted to join the New York Police Department to improve community relations, and help people. He is pictured with his wife whom he had married last October

The couple were married on October 9, 2021 and had some pictures taken in New Jersey

The officers' deaths are the first under Adams, who was elected in part to combat the city's surging crime, and the first shooting deaths of an NYPD officer since July 2017.

They are the fourth and fifth officers shot so far this year - by comparison, last year, a total of 10 police officers were shot in the entire state of New York.

Felony assaults are up 7 percent for this year so far, compared to the same period in 2021, with 895 crimes reported this year versus 831 for the same period in 2021.

Transit crimes are assaults are up 65 percent this year, compared to the same period in 2021, with 96 crimes reported this year versus 58 for the same period in 2021.

Patrick Lynch, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, the largest municipal police union in the world representing 50,000 active and retired officers, excoriated the city's leaders for not doing enough.

Lynch has been highly critical of the new Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who announced on taking office at the beginning of the month that he would not prosecute certain crimes.

Lynch said on January 4 that he had 'serious concerns about the message these types of policies send to both police officers and criminals on the street.'

Lynch on January 4 said that he was worried about the new Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, and his 'soft on crime' policies

A makeshift memorial is seen outside the NYPD 32nd precinct near the scene of the shooting

On Friday night, he was furious, and pointed the finger firmly at Bragg and his policies.

'Our hearts are broken, we're in shock, our knees are buckling,' he said.

'And we're angry, because we've been here before.

'We're angry, because we saw it coming.

'We're angry, because we said it would happen - and it happened again.'

Rivera, who grew up in the Inwood district of Manhattan - five miles from where he was shot and killed - said he wanted to join the New York Police Department to improve community relations, and help people.

'Coming from an immigrant family, I will be the first to say that I am a member of the NYPD - the greatest police force in the world,' he wrote on his application form.

'Growing up in New York City, I knew how impactful my role as a police officer would go in this chaotic city of about 10 million people.

'I know that something as small as helping a tourist with directions, or helping a couple resolve an issue, would put a smile on someone's face.'

He also said that, as a child, he saw that 'the community's relationship between the police and the community was not great'.

He said his brother was pulled over and searched, and he was confused and upset as to why they were targeted.

He then saw the NYPD trying to reform, and he wanted to be part of the change.

'This is when I realized that I wanted to be part of the men in blue; better the relationship between the community and the police.'
Missing New Hampshire girl Harmony Montgomery was homeless and living out of a car with her family in the days before her disappearance, investigators say.

Harmony vanished between November 28 and December 10 of 2019 at age 5, the New Hampshire's Attorney General's Office said Monday in a statement.

Her dad, Adam Montgomery, and stepmom Kayla Montgomery, were evicted from their Manchester home November 27, along with their two shared kids and Harmony, investigators said.

'Multiple individuals have reported seeing Harmony with Adam and Kayla in the following days; however, by approximately December 610, 2019, Adam and Kayla apparently had only their two common children, and Harmony was no longer with them,' the statement said.

'This information leads police to believe that it was sometime during this window of approximately November 28December 10, 2019, that Harmony Montgomery disappeared.'

Police in Manchester, New Hampshire have been searching for seven-year-old Harmony Montgomery, who is blind in one eye, after learning she hasn't been seen since 2019

In the days before her disappearance, Harmony was living in a car with her dad. She was either living in a silver 2010 Chrysler Sebring, or a dark blue 2006 Audi S4

During that time, Harmony's family was either living out of a silver 2010 Chrysler Sebring, or a dark blue 2006 Audi S4.

The attorney general's office shared stock photos of the vehicles, but said the actual condition of the cars in 2019 was worse than depicted in these photos.

Adam Montgomery was arrested earlier this month on multiple counts related to her disappearance, including assault and child endangerment. He pleaded not guilty and has been jailed in New Hampshire without bail.

It was revealed last week that he is also considered a suspect in the February 2008 killing of Darlin Guzman, a 28 year-old computer repairman who was fatally shot in the parking lot of a convenience store in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Police believe Harmony disappeared between November 28 and December 10, 2019

Meantime, Harmony's 31-year-old stepmom pleaded not guilty to a felony count of welfare fraud after being accused of collecting $1,500 worth of food stamps in the child's name for a year after her disappearance.

In an interview with police on New Year's Eve, Kayla - who shares three children with her husband, ages 4, 2 and 1 - said she last saw Harmony in November or December 2019.

She said her husband was driving Harmony to the child's mother in Massachusetts. She said she believed Harmony had been returned to the mother, and never saw or heard about Harmony after that day, according to the police document.

She also told police she hadn't seen Adam since October and had not spoken to him since November.

Adam Montgomery, 31, father of missing Harmony Montgomery, and his wife, Kayla Montgomery, 31, face multiple charges related to her the girl's disappearance

Harmony's stepmom told police she hadn't seen Adam since October and had not spoken to him since November

Crystal Sorey (pictured) said she last saw her daughter Harmony during FaceTime call in 2019

A 'Bring Harmony Home' poster was seen at a candlelight vigil held for the seven-year-old in January

Crystal Sorey, Harmony's mom, said she lost custody of her daughter in July 2018 because she was a drug addict, and she said that her ex also had struggled with substance abuse problems.

She claims she repeatedly has tried to track her little girl down since then but in court filings obtained by DailyMail.com the Manchester Police Department said it was not contacted until November 18 of last year.

Despite no leads in the search for Harmony, Sorey said she still believes her daughter is safe.

'I don't feel like she's gone. I just don't feel that in my heart,' Sorey told NBC Boston. 'Like, I don't feel like I lost her. And a mother knows, a mother knows if your baby's here or not. I know she's here.'

Police are still requesting help from the public in locating Harmony.

Call 603-203-6060 with tips.
A young woman is fighting for life after being struck by a car in Sydney's west during the early hours of the morning.

Emergency services were called to Parramatta Road near Good Street, in Granville, just before 5am on Tuesday to reports a pedestrian had been struck by a vehicle.

A 21-year-old woman with serious injuries was treated at the scene by paramedics before she was rushed to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition.

The driver - a 53-year-old man- was uninjured and was taken to hospital for mandatory testing.

A woman is fighting for life after being struck by a car on Parramatta Road in Granville (pictured) around 5am on Tuesday

Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash.

A crime scene has been established, which will be examined by specialist forensic police.

The incident has caused traffic delays, with two of three eastbound and one of the two westbound lanes closed on Parramatta Road.

Police have urged motorists to avoid the area or allow extra travel time.

Anyone with dashcam or CCTV from the area is urged to contact Granville Police Station on (02) 9897 4199 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Disgraced former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has died in federal prison in Massachusetts, where he was serving a sentence on a fraud conviction. He was 77.

Silver, a Democrat from Manhattan, was once among the most powerful state officials in New York.

Throughout his nearly 40-year political career, he was a one-time proponent of capital punishment, championed a minimum wage hike, and helped lead criminal reform efforts.

He led the state Assembly for more than two decades before his abrupt ouster in 2015 after corruption allegations emerged against him.

The disgraced politician, who had cancer and kidney disease, died in a federal prison in Middlesex, Massachusetts. He is survived by four adult children, numerous grandchildren, and wife Rosa.

Silver, who told a judge he prayed he would not die in prison, had been serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence stemming from a bribery scheme.

During his time in power, Silver supported legislation that benefited real estate developers he knew. In return, they referred tax business to a law firm that employed Silver, which then paid him fees totaling $4million, prosecutors argued.

Former New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, pictured at a 2018 court hearing, has died in a federal prison in Middlesex, Massachusetts, while serving more than six years on a bribery conviction

Silver, who told a judge he prayed he would not die in prison, had been serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence stemming from a bribery scheme. He is seen exiting a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan on May 3, 2016

Silver is pictured leaving the US District Court in Manhattan with wife Rosa on July 20, 2020

Appeals kept Silver out of prison for years. His initial 2015 conviction was overturned on appeal before he was convicted again in 2018.

Part of that conviction was then tossed out on another appeal, leading to yet another sentencing in July 2020.

Silver began serving his sentence in August 2020.

In May of last year, he was briefly released on furlough while he awaited potential placement to home confinement, but a judge denied his request to serve the rest of his sentence under house arrest.

Silver's supporters have said he was in failing health and suffering from multiple medical conditions that make him more susceptible to contracting coronavirus.

The disgraced politician, who had been battling cancer and kidney disease, died in a federal prison in Middlesex, Massachusetts. He is pictured on July 25, 2004 greeting then-senator Hillary Clinton at a Boston hotel

The son of Russian immigrants, Silver graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1968 and was passed the state bar the following year. He is pictured (left) with Cuomo (center) and Seklos (right) in Albany on March 30, 2012.

New York state Representative Richard Gottfried was among those to pay tribute to Silver, telling The New York Times: 'I was always struck by how strong his personal beliefs in progressive causes were.

'Its a tragedy that those achievements have been overshadowed by his criminal record. I dont think anyone in Albany had any inkling of the things that came out in his criminal case.'

Democratic Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine said Silver's legacy would center around helping rebuild the city following the 9/11 attacks, and pushing for fair housing and education policies.

'He some wonderful things for our state,' he told the Times, adding that he also 'brought shame on our state and on his name.'

Silver and wife Rosa have four grown children and grandchildren, but his personal life was rocked by scandal when court documents revealed he allegedly cheated on his longtime partner

Silver's personal life was also mired by scandal; he was accused in court documents of having affairs with two women while in power, including a motorcycle-loving beauty queen.

One of his purported mistresses was Janele Hyer-Spencer, a blonde beauty who allegedly got two state jobs thanks to Silver.

He also reportedly embarked on an affair with powerful lobbyist Patricia Lynch, who went on to launch her own PR film and whose clients included Madison Square garden.

Court documents claimed that one of the women 'lobbied the defendant on a regular basis on behalf of clients who had business before the State' and that Silver 'used his official position to recommend a job with the State' for the other woman.

The son of Russian immigrants, Silver graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1968 and was passed the state bar the following year, kicking off a successful career as a personal injury attorney.

He was disbarred in 2016 following his fraud conviction.

His convictions also ended a nearly four-decade career in the Assembly. He first won a seat representing Manhattan's Lower East Side in 1976.

He for years supported the death penalty and supported its reinstatement in 1995, but tempered his stance before it was ruled unconstitutional in 2004.

Silver was joined by then-first lady Hillary Clinton in April 2000 as he successfully pushed for a hate crime law in New York.

'I don't know what's sadder, that New York is not a leader but a laggard in the fight against hate or the frightening argument some opponents of this law offer that hate happens, get over it,' Silver said at the time.

Silver was seen being wheeled out of his apartment building on a stretcher in May 2021 on his way back to prison after a two-day furlough after authorities denied his home confinement

Silver, pictured in July 2020, was once among the most powerful politicians in New York

'How many houses of worship must be defaced? How many New Yorkers attacked because of their race, their gender, their religion, their sexual orientation? How many times must we hear, "A crime's a crime and current penalties are sufficient?"'

During the final years of his political career, he lobbied for higher minimum wage in New York, demanding in late 2013 for it to be raised from $8 to $9 by the following year.

He in a statement called it 'a manner of dignity'. Despite his efforts, $9 minimum wage only took effect in 2015.

Though he cut a low-key figure in the halls of the state Capitol, carefully parsing out comments in a baritone mumble, he was a consummate practitioner of Albany's inside game.

He was elected Assembly speaker in 1994, a powerful position that put him on equal footing with the governor and state Senate leader when it came to making key decisions about annual budgets or major legislation.

In all, Silver served as speaker during the tenure of five New York governors, from Mario Cuomo to Andrew Cuomo.

He became known as an inscrutable and stubborn negotiator, blocking proposals so often he was sometimes called 'Dr. No.'

Some of his obstructionist reputation had to do with being the lone Democrat at the negotiating table during Republican Gov. George Pataki's three terms, during which time the GOP also controlled the state Senate. But not all of it.

During his time in power, Silver supported legislation that benefited real estate developers he knew in exchange for bribes (he is pictured in 2008)

He helped scuttle former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg's plan to locate a football stadium on Manhattan's West Side.

And he took the brunt of the blame for the collapse in 2008 of Bloomberg's congestion-pricing plan for Manhattan, which would have charged electronic tolls for driving through the borough's most highly trafficked neighborhoods.

The exasperated mayor put out a press release saying it 'takes a special kind of cowardice' not to have lawmakers vote on the plan. Silver said he didn't have the votes.

He survived an early tenure coup attempt and became adept at horse-trading to secure education funding, tenants rights legislation and other policies favored by Assembly Democrats.

An Orthodox Jew, Silver was known to observe Sabbath even during the marathon negotiation sessions that preceded annual budget deadlines and the end of legislative sessions.

Over time, he became a symbol of Albany's much-maligned opaque style of governance and, ultimately, a target of federal prosecutors.
The Department of Homeland Security warned that Russia could launch a cyber attack on the United States in retaliation for any defensive moves of Ukraine.

'We assess that Russia would consider initiating a cyber attack against the Homeland if it perceived a US or NATO response to a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine threatened its long-term national security,' a DHS Intelligence and Analysis bulletin sent to law enforcement agencies around the country, obtained by ABC News, said on Sunday.

Russia has a 'range of offensive cyber tools that it could employ against US networks,' DHS said in its message, and the attacks could range from a low level denial of service attack to 'destructive' attacks targeting critical infrastructure.

'We assess that Russia's threshold for conducting disruptive or destructive cyber attacks in the Homeland probably remains very high and we have not observed Moscow directly employ these types of cyber attacks against US critical infrastructurenotwithstanding cyber espionage and potential prepositioning operations in the past,' the bulletin said.

The Department of Homeland Security warned that Russia could launch a cyber attack on the United States in retaliation for any defensive moves of Ukraine

Ukraine is making preparations (above) as thousands of Russian troops amass on its border

The warning came as President Joe Biden's administration ordered 8,500 U.S.-based troops to stand ready to deploy to Eastern Europe. The Pentagon announced the 'heightened' awareness for U.S. troops on Monday.

'This is really about getting folks ready to go,' Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said during a press conference. He said the majority of those troops would be ground forces.

He said they would stand ready in case NATO activates the NATO Response Force (NRF) or a 'deteriorating security environment.'

NATO said on Monday it was putting forces on standby and reinforcing Eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets. The alliance, of which the U.S. is a member, could also send additional troops to its south-east flank in case Russian invades Ukraine.

Russia denounced as an escalation of tensions over Ukraine and has said it has no plans to invade its neighboring country.

Cyber attackers based in Russia were response for the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May 2021 and for the SolarWinds breach in late 2020.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters last week that the United States is on a 'heightened alert' for cyberattacks given 'geopolitical landscape.'

Civilian participants in a Kyiv Territorial Defence unit train on a Saturday; across Ukraine thousands of civilians are participating in such groups to receive basic combat training and in time of war would be under direct command of the Ukrainian military

There are already thousands of U.S. troops stationed in Europe, but the recent activity at the Russia-Ukraine border could cause relocation to the Baltic region. Russia has 100,000 troops stationed along the border it shares with Ukraine

Tensions are rising between Moscow and members of the NATO alliance as the West braces for Russia to attack Ukraine after massing an estimated 100,000 troops in reach of its neighbour's border.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO would take 'all necessary measures.'

'We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence,' Stoltenberg said in a statement.

Meanwhile, CNN reported Monday that several U.S. officials claim the administration is in the final stages of identifying which military units to send to Eastern Europe to deter Russia and is preparing orders should they decide to deploy troops.

Biden will speak with Transatlantic Allies and partners on Monday afternoon to discuss his plan regarding the Ukraine-Russia conflict, according to the White House's updated version of the president's daily schedule.

The secure video call with European leaders will be held in the Situation Room and will include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, President Andrzej Duda of Poland, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom.
NSW and Victoria both appear to be on the downward curve of Omicron wave

Experts agree it's now 'endgame' for the pandemic as Omicron reaches its peak

Victoria recorded 14,836 new cases and 29 deaths as ICU rates are steady

Cases have jumped in NSW and Victoria while ICU numbers have plunged as experts agree the Omicron outbreak has reached its peak and cases will fall.

NSW recorded 18,512 new Covid-19 on Tuesday, marking a 22.7 per cent increase from the 15,091 cases reported on Monday, and another 29 deaths.

Victoria detected 14,836 new infections, a 27 per cent increase from the 11,695 cases the day previous, and also reported 29 deaths.

NSW hospitalisation rates have increased to a record 2,943, up from 2,816 on Monday - as Victoria's hospital numbers rise from 998 to 1,057.

ICU rates in NSW fell from 196 to 183 patients - but stayed the same in Victoria for a consecutive day at 119 - down from 120 on Sunday.

Of the 9,090 positive rapid antigen tests recorded since 8pm on Monday, 8,242 are from tests taken in the last seven days or a double-up of the same persons PCR test, NSW Health said.

Global health chiefs agree it's 'endgame' for the Covid pandemic in Australia as case rates and hospital patients plateau.

New South Wales has recorded 18,512 local Covid cases and 29 deaths on Tuesday as Victoria hits 14,836 new infections (pictured, shoppers in Melbourne)

NSW detected 15,091 new cases on Monday, marking a 26 per cent dip on the 20,324 reported on Sunday, and another 24 deaths (pictured, a sign notifying customers RAT kits are sold out

Victoria reported 11,695 new infections on Monday, a 10.6 per cent drop on the previous 13,091, and 17 deaths.

NSW chief health officer Kerry Chant, known for being cautious and fighting for tougher restrictions, says she is 'incredibly optimistic' about the future, exactly two years after the first Covid case was confirmed in Australia.

Experts said Victoria, the ACT and South Australia have also passed their peak while daily infections in Queensland continue to drop, again without locking down.

Mr Perrottet came under fire for refusing to reimpose harsh restrictions on Sydney residents after Omicron entered the state in December.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant (pictured) said she feels 'incredibly optimistic' about the future exactly two years after Omicron entered the state in December

THE COVID RULES ALL NSW RESIDENTS MUST FOLLOW UNTIL FEBRUARY 28 Hospitality venues, including pubs, clubs, restaurants and cafes, and nightclubs must follow the one person per two square metre rule indoors Masks are required in all indoor settings (except residences). Masks are strongly encouraged where you cannot maintain a safe distance from others QR code check-ins are compulsory at certain premises, including hospitality venues and retail shops Singing and dancing is not permitted in hospitality venues, entertainment facilities, nightclubs, indoor music festivals and indoor major recreation facilities (except for weddings, performers, instructors and students) Source: NSW Government Advertisement

Critics such as 2GB's Ray Hadley slammed the premier for being 'arrogant' in removing mask mandates on December 15 before quickly returning them.

He also critiqued the state leader's decision to axe hotel quarantine requirements for travellers and doing away with restrictions introduced by his predecessor.

However, the premier on Tuesday announced indoor mask mandates and the ban on singing and dancing would be extended for another month to curb caseloads.

Masks will be compulsory indoors until February 28 while hospitality venues must still operate under the one person per two square metre rule and QR code check-ins will stay mandatory.

Mr Perrottet said the extension marked 'a safe and measured approach' as NSW moves into the next stage of the pandemic.

Density limits and mask rules were reintroduced before Christmas to pump the brakes on Omicron's spread and originally set to expire on January 27.

One of Australia's most eminent experts also claimed Mr Perrottet was right not to plunge the state into a lockdown.

Professor Catherine Bennett, the chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, told Daily Mail Australia the Omicron strain was so virulent it would spread regardless of whether authorities used a heavy lockdown or lighter restrictions.

Professor Bennett also said the premier's move to briefly scrap mask rules would not have had a major impact on community transmission of the highly-contagious strain.

'What is interesting is where countries have used full restrictions overseas, the lockdown stops Omicron for a short while and then it starts spreading again,' she said.

'It's harder to stop than previous variants because of the speed with which it moves through the community.'

The expert said there were limits to letting the virus move freely, but by and large NSW had reeled in freedoms that posed a high risk of transmission.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet (pictured) has come under fire for refusing to reimpose harsh restrictions on Sydney residents after Omicron entered the state in December

Professor Catherine Bennett, the chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, said the Omicron variant would spread regardless of a lockdown (pictured, people are tested in Sydney)

She said in countries where a lockdown had been imposed Omicron would stop spreading for a short while before transmission started again (pictured, shoppers in Melbourne)

'People now are managing the virus so they can do all the things they want to do - you can go to a restaurant but there's a lot more space,' Prof. Bennett said.

'It's not about shutting social life down completely but thinning it out.'

Dr Chant said the Omicron outbreak was 'stabilising' and it's now time for people to learn to live with the virus.

'I think we need to have a sense of optimism, I'm incredibly optimistic,' she told reporters on Monday.

'It is pleasing that when we look at a range of measures, our assessment indicates that the spread of coronavirus is slowing, our situation is stabilising.'

She also tried to calm worried parents who are 'anxious' about sending their kids to school with students in Victoria and NSW returning at the end of January.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has announced 6.6million RATs will be delivered to schools and early childhood centres across the state before students resume class on January 31

Principal Glenn Butler opens a box of RAT at Mount View Primary School in Melbourne on Monday before students return to campus on January 31

Federal health minister Greg Hunt said infection and hospitalisation figures in several states and territories were showing promising signs (pictured, a Covid-19 testing clinic in Sydney)

Masks are compulsory for Year 3 students and above in Victoria - which had a peak of 51,084 cases on January 8 - and 'highly recommended' in NSW.

An extra two million rapid antigen Covid-19 will be delivered to NSW schools before lessons resume for 2022 - adding to the five million already distributed.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced a similar strategy, saying 6.6 million RATs will be delivered to schools and early childhood centres across the state before primary and secondary students resume classes on January 31.

However, pharmacists have warned RAT availability will become stretched after two tests are issued to staff and students across 3000 primary and secondary schools.

Pharmacists have warned RAT availability will become stretched after two tests are issued to staff and students across 3000 primary and secondary schools

Mr Perrottet has sought to ease concerns about the return to school, saying plenty of protective measures would be in place (pictured, people queue to get tested in Melbourne)

Mr Perrottet has also sought to ease concerns, saying plenty of protective measures would be in place to keep children safe from the virus as schools open.

'I know many parents across the sate are anxious about the return to school,' the premier said.

'We have put everything in place to ensure that we can have our schools open in a safe way.'

The premier stood by his decisions to only send students home if they have tested positive, keep classrooms open, and shift focus away from contact tracing.

Federal health minister Greg Hunt said infection and hospitalisation figures in several states and territories were showing promising signs.
New Jersey has seen a decrease in COVID-19 cases, but the daily and weekly reported figures are still alarming for most residents.

According to reports, 8,816 new COVID-19 cases were reported on Sunday, which is down 51 percent compared to last week's almost 10,000 reported cases.

Prior to last month, New Jersey never reported cases over 7,000 daily, and the highest single-day for positive tests was 33,459 on Jan. 7.

The number of deaths is also relatively lower compared to the previous weeks, with just 13 people. During the first 23 days of the month, there were 19 recorded COVID-19 deaths in the state.

New Jersey vaccination status, hospitalization rates kept private

According to NJ.com, New Jersey doesn't usually disclose the number of daily vaccines administered and those hospitalized. But for the first time in two years, they provided this information.

The 3.86 million residents of New Jersey have only received an initial vaccine course which is either one dose of Johnson & Johnson or two doses of Pfizer or Moderna.

New Jersey study shows effectiveness of vaccines, boosters

Last week, New Jersey data revealed that individuals who got COVID-19 boosters are less likely to get breakthrough infections.

Of the roughly 2.3 million residents who have received a booster dose, 19,360 reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 between Dec. 6 to Jan. 2. These figures were compared to 113,775 breakthrough cases among the nearly 3.9 million people who received only their first dose.

Read Also: New Jersey Man Sentenced to Over 3 Years in Prison for Assaulting an Officer at the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot

"The rates of infection and hospitalization for those with boosters is more than three times lower than for those who have only a primary vaccination," Gov. Phil Murphy said via Philly Voice.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said that breakthrough infections are expected since vaccines cannot provide 100 percent protection.

But vaccinated individuals are less likely to experience adverse effects. And those who already received their booster are less likely to develop severe illness compared to those who only received their first dose.

School mask mandates may be removed by June

New Jersey still has a mask mandate in school as of press writing. But Gov. Murphy said they could drop the mask mandate this year if the number of Omicron cases continues to decline.

Murphy said that the school year typically ends in June, so there's a huge possibility for mask mandates to be lifted by then. The governor added that it seems like they're in the early days of turning the corner, but it looks like there's a real shot at removing the mandate, according to ABC 7 NY.

Murphy also responded to questions about why he required all healthcare workers to get vaccinated and boosted, dropping the testing options available for others.

HPAE President Debbie White said she doesn't understand why there's a need to test less when it should be more critical for others to have more testing grounds in New Jersey.

Last week, the University Hospital in Newark also rolled out a welcome mat for 23 Army medics so that the frontline nurses and staff could get some rest.

Related Article: New Jersey Gov. Declares State of Emergency on 5 Counties Due to Snowstorm, Not COVID-19

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NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has revealed the resumption of elective surgeries is imminent as he promises businesses reeling from the effects of the Omicron wave of Covid will get fresh support within a week.

The state Labor opposition says a business support package is urgently needed to lift small and medium-sized businesses out of the summer's 'shadow lockdown' as the rampant virus keeps workers and customers at home.

Mr Perrottet says Treasurer Matt Kean is working with stakeholder groups and industry 'to make sure the support that we provide ... during his period has impact'.

'It will be within a week,' the premier told Sydney radio 2GB on Tuesday.

'Our focus ... has always been to put businesses and workers before the budget ... and we will continue to do that.'

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has announced electives surgeries will resume as soon as possible. Pictured: Health workers arrive at RPA Hospital in Camperdown

He also promised non-urgent elective surgery would resume as soon as possible after an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report found the median wait time for procedures blew out to 48 days in the 2020/21 financial year, an increase of nine days compared to the previous year.

Mr Perrottet said the government would commit funding to clear the surgery backlog when the pressure had eased on NSW public hospitals.

'As soon as we ... get advice from our medical teams that we can bring that non-urgent elective surgery back we will do so,' he said.

'It's a key focus of ours ... that we would get that back on track as quickly as possible.'

He also welcomed news from the World Health Organisation that the global health Covid health emergency could end this year if 70 per cent of the world's population gets vaccinated.

Mr Perrottet says about 40 per cent of the eligible population in NSW has received a booster shot and Covid infections are plateauing, while hospitalisations are also stabilising.

'There's a long way to go but I think that there's no doubt that these signs ... that are coming out of the WHO and global evidence is incredibly pleasing,' he said.

The NSW Premier has promised a new support package for small and medium businesses reeling from the Omicron wave

Mr Perrottet said the state's Covid infections are plateauing - despite a 3241 jump in cases overnight

There were 18,512 new Covid cases recorded on Tuesday and a further 29 deaths - a jump of 3241 from the daily infections on Monday.

NSW hospitalisation figures rising to a record 2,943 up from 2,816, while the state's ICU rates have fallen from 196 to 183.

Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said the spread of the virus appeared to be slowing and 'our situation is stabilising'.

But staying up to date with vaccinations and taking precautions, such as wearing masks, remained important.

'My clear view is boosters are essential,' Dr Chant said.

Two in three NSW adults are yet to have a third dose while 52.2 per cent of children aged five to 15 are unvaccinated.

One in 35 NSW residents is considered an active Covid case, down from one in 24 a week ago.

The state recorded 24 Covid deaths on Monday.
For years, living like royalty has been the phrase by which ordinary people have focused their hopes and dreams.

But with the Queens decision to spend the next two weeks away from the splendour of Windsor Castle, in the modest surroundings of Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, that aspiration may not seem quite so inviting.

From the simply furnished sitting room where she likes to put a log on the fire, to the kitchen where she can often be found doing the washing up, this is the most unlikely of royal residences.

But it is just the way the Queen likes it.

From the simply furnished sitting room where she likes to put a log on the fire, to the kitchen where she can often be found doing the washing up, this is the most unlikely of royal residences

Every time she walks through the front door of Wood Farm, it is said that she feels as though she is coming home.

It has been that way since the late 1960s, when she and Prince Philip had the idea of turning what had been the home of the Sandringham resident doctor into a weekend bolthole for Prince Charles while he was a student at Cambridge University.

When Charles moved on, the Queen and Philip moved in, beginning a tradition that would continue for decades.

Whenever the royal couple wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of palace life, it was usually to the unassuming Wood Farm that they escaped.

Stripped of the kind of suffocating formality of the Queens other homes, there are far fewer of the rituals that usually govern her life. For example, the handful of staff who accompanied them were permitted to wear ordinary country clothes rather than the scarlet-and-navy royal livery familiar from Buckingham Palace.

Whenever the royal couple wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of palace life, it was usually to the unassuming Wood Farm that they escaped

More than anything, it was the place where they could escape the pressures of monarchy and the unceasing spotlight for a life that would not seem much different to that enjoyed by the majority of the Queens subjects.

And when the Duke of Edinburgh stood down from public duties in 2017, it was where he chose to spend his retirement  until the Covid-19 pandemic saw him reunite with his wife at Windsor, where he died last April.

So there is something especially poignant about the Queens decision to return to the house for the first time since Philips death. It is filled with some of her happiest memories. Each year she and Philip liked to spend a week there around Halloween, sometimes with friends but often it was just the two of them.

They adored the simplicity of what Wood Farm represented, says a courtier. For the Duke, it was the light which he thought was perfect to paint by, and the proximity to the sea only a couple of miles away.

The Queen likes the unfussiness  the sense of getting away from it all and being able to slip out for a walk with the dogs whenever she likes.

The Queen had longed to return to Sandringham over Christmas last year for her traditional winter break, but decided to remain at Windsor because of the surge in Omicron cases.

The Queen likes the unfussiness  the sense of getting away from it all and being able to slip out for a walk with the dogs whenever she likes

It was the second year running that the pandemic had forced her to cancel her festive trip.

This came after shed suffered a bout of ill health in the autumn, causing her to pull out of a number of official events, including the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph.

But after spending a night in hospital and resting, she was later able to resume light duties.

Now, with coronavirus restrictions relaxed, the Queen immediately began making plans for a trip to Norfolk. One reason was a wish to give the staff who bubbled with her at Windsor a break.

Another is more significant. She will remain on the estate until after February 6, accession day, which marks the 70th anniversary of the death of her father, George VI, who passed away in his sleep while at Sandringham.

The date also heralds the start of Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which will culminate in a bank holiday extravaganza in June.

The break at Wood Farm, where many of Philips possessions are just as they were, will help prepare her for these coming events.

At 95, she is not alone. Theres her page, Paul Whybrew, her dresser, Angela Kelly, a footman to help with her dogs  two corgis and a dorgi (a dachshund-corgi cross)  two chefs and a housekeeper to look after her.

A chauffeur and police bodyguards are also close by.

So things can get a little crowded. The front door leads on to a hall with the staff dining area and kitchen, which was modernised five years ago, off to one side.

She will remain on the estate until after February 6, accession day, which marks the 70th anniversary of the death of her father, George VI

Beyond is the Queens intimate dining room, and her sitting room with its welcoming fire, where she often likes to put her feet up in the afternoons.

At the back of the property is a large saloon, often used for shooting lunches for up to 20 people.

Upstairs is the Queens bedroom, and another four guest rooms. Adjoining the property are around eight staff bedrooms.

Its the one place where you get to see Her Majesty really up close, says a former aide.

Theres no waiting on ceremony, though  her hands are as likely to be in the kitchen sink as the housekeepers.

She is likely to spend her morning catching up on her government red boxes of official papers  and the afternoons taking her dogs for gentle walks or visiting the Sandringham stud to check on the progress of her racehorses.

In the old days, she and Philip liked to invite friends for the weekend. With great age inevitably comes great loss, especially of companions, but it is unlikely the Queen will be lonely.

Even if none of her children is able to join her, some of her grandchildren are certain to. For all its simplicity, Wood Farm has always been a favourite destination for every royal generation.

It was where Prince William first entertained his then girlfriend Kate Middleton at a shooting party when both were students at St Andrews; and it is where Prince Edward enjoyed discreet weekends with Sophie Rhys-Jones before their marriage.

Tucked away at the end of a long drive and invisible from the road, it is easy to see its appeal for courting couples.

As a bachelor, Prince Charles used Wood Farm for entertaining friends, girls and hosting shooting parties.

After her separation from Prince Andrew, the Duchess of York was allowed to stay at the house for Christmas when an invitation to Sandringham was out of the question.

Decades earlier it had been the secret home of the so-called lost prince. This was Prince John, the uncle whom the Queen never knew.

The Queen cancelled her festive trip to Sandringham for the second year running because of the pandemic

Prince John, who was born in 1905, suffered from epilepsy and when his condition worsened at the age of 11, his parents, George V and Queen Mary, decided to keep their son out of the public eye.

They sent him to live with a nurse at Wood Farm, where he played with local children and kept a menagerie of farmyard animals.

The nurse took him for walks, helped him with his lessons, and kissed him good night when she tucked him up in bed.

She saw it as her duty to give Johnny the affection his parents denied him. As far as the Royal Family was concerned, however, her real job was to ensure that he was kept out of public sight.

The young prince died after a seizure at the age 13 and is buried in St Mary Magdalene church on the Sandringham estate, where the Queen usually worships on Christmas Day, and where Princess Diana  who was born nearby  was baptised.

For several years the farmhouse was home to the Queens physician, Dr James Ansell, before it was renovated for the student Prince of Wales.

The Queen herself first stayed there in 1968  beginning a love affair with the property that is still going strong more than half a century later.
If one town ought to be crowned tourism capital of Cornwall, St Ives is probably it. The west Cornwall seaside town has been a popular tourist destination since the St Ives Bay Line opened in 1877. St Ives' popularity as the quintessential Cornish seaside town has never waned since and the number of visitors has kept going up. So much so that visiting St Ives in the summer can be a hellish experience. The small streets are rammed, finding a parking space is an art form in its own right and battling through crowds of tourists doesn't make visiting the harbour town the most enjoyable experience. Yet it is easy to see why it's is so popular with holidaymakers, as well as visitors from across Cornwall. Fishermens' cottages recognisable for their moss-covered roofs crowd around a quaint little harbour where brightly painted boats rest on the sand at low tide. The light so prized by artists the world over is beautiful, and turquoise waters shimmer gloriously and invitingly, while sandy beaches, museums and galleries, famous arts schools and a varied and well-established foodie scene all contribute to make it the tourists' magnet it is today. And that's where the problem lies. St Ives relies on tourism to such an extent that it's become an addiction. The town has the second highest visitor-related spend in the UK, with tourists spending 85million per year. Around 540,000 day trippers and more than 220,000 staying tourists visit St Ives every year, with the tourism industry accounting for around 2,800 jobs in the area - that's almost one in four people who live there. In turns this has created its own set of problems. Over the past two years it has all come to a head and locals, priced out of their own town so the little housing stock there is left can make way for holiday lets and second homes, have had enough.
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A motorist who tried to save a woman from a knife maniac by driving at him turned to a witness and said 'what have I done?' after both victim and attacker were left dead.

The hero driver was arrested on suspicion of murder last night after children and parents on the school run witnessed the horrific double killing.

Bystanders had tried to stop the knifeman after he pounced on his 43-year-old victim, stabbing her more than ten times. But the savage attack was only halted when the passing motorist ran over the 41-year-old attacker on the pavement. He also hit the woman victim.

Video footage obtained by the Daily Mail shows paramedics and police battling to save the attacker and the woman. Both died at the scene.

A man who claimed to have seen the attack in Maida Vale, north-west London, said: 'The driver said to me "what have I done?". I told him "you had to do that".'

The man, who did not want to give his name, added: 'The driver had both of them under his car  the guy and the girl.

'Me and two geezers had to lift the car up and drag her body out. We were giving her CPR but she had stab wounds everywhere. We couldn't stop the blood.'

Raad Jiyad, who also witnessed the bloodbath, said: 'I woke up to drive my child to school and I heard some noise, someone saying "Please help me, please help me".

'I opened the door and saw a girl in the street on the floor and a guy with a knife.'

The 52-year-old father of two ran out to try to distract the attacker who he said was brandishing a 4in kitchen blade. Another onlooker who tried to intervene was chased off by the knifeman.

Mr Jiyad said the man sat on his victim, shouting 'take it' and 'nobody come to me' as he stabbed her repeatedly.

'I heard her screaming in pain,' he added. 'I wanted to try to make him come towards me instead to buy her some time. We tried to save her. He had this big knife so no one wanted to go near. Then this car came through and ran him over. It was all over so quickly. He went completely under the car.

'I think the driver was just trying to buy time to distract him.'

Witnesses said the attacker was left pinned under the vehicle and the woman was also hit, with her coat trapped under a wheel.

Metropolitan Police officers investigate at the scene in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon following the double death

Police officers and emergency services cordon off the scene in Maida Vale, West London, today. Bystanders had tried to stop the knifeman after he pounced on his 43-year-old victim, stabbing her more than ten times

A Metropolitan Police officer in a forensic suit at the scene on Chippenham Road in Maida Vale this afternoon. The attack was only halted when the passing motorist ran over the 41-year-old attacker on the pavement. He also hit the woman victim

Witnesses said the attacker was left pinned under the car and the woman was also hit, with her coat trapped under a wheel

Forensic officers carry out investigations after a woman and man died in Maida Vale, West London, on Monday morning

Mr Jiyad said the driver's actions were heroic and described how he himself tried to save the woman: 'I tried to speak to her as she was bleeding and held her as she took her last breath. I have blood on my hand from it.'

His wife, who asked not be named, added: 'The driver wasn't driving very fast but nothing could take the guy from the lady. The driver was the only one who could do anything.'

Another witness, Mulugeta Asseratte, said: 'I was coming up from the bakery to Chippenham Road and suddenly heard shouts of 'stop it, stop it' and it was a girl being attacked by a gentleman.

'All of a sudden it moved to the street and no sooner than they reached the street than a driver came and hit both of them. We were all shocked and shouting.'

Police arrived within minutes and were seen leading the driver into the back of a police van.

Officers said a 26-year-old man was being questioned on suspicion of murder. Detective Chief Inspector Jim Eastwood said: 'This was a terrible incident that occurred in broad daylight on a busy London street. It also appears that a number of members of the public bravely tried to intervene to stop the attack.

'A man has been arrested in relation to the case; we are not aware of any links between this man and the two deceased.

'I can also confirm we are not currently looking for anyone else in connection to this incident.' It is thought the attacker and victim were known to each other.

Police said the families of the man and woman who died have been informed and that post-mortem examinations will be arranged in due course.

In a statement, the force said: 'Enquiries are under way to establish the full circumstances, but at this early stage it is believed the two deceased were known to each other.'

Forensic tents at the scene in Maida Vale today after the incident which caused five bus routes to go on diversion

Forensic officers carry out investigations after a woman and man died in Maida Vale, West London, this morning

Detectives investigate this afternoon following the double death which happened in Maida Vale, West London

Forensics officers in Maida Vale today after a woman was stabbed to death and a man was killed after being hit by a car

Forensic officers carry out investigations after a woman and man died in Maida Vale, West London, this morning

Photographs taken at the scene this afternoon showed forensic teams investigating and taking photographs amid a huge police presence with a large cordon in place that was causing five bus routes to go on diversion.

Two vehicles - a Vauxhall and the Renault Clio- were in the cordoned area alongside two London buses and a lorry. Three forensic tents were set up inside the cordon as detectives in forensic gear searched for clues.

Local MP Karen Buck said what happened was 'horrific' and 'devastating' for both relatives of those killed and the surrounding community.

A resident said he heard 'awful screams coming from kids' attending a nearby secondary school.

The incident happened on Chippenham Road which has an average house price of 497,000 and features a row of traditional townhouse terraces mostly now converted into flats as well as a park including a children's playground.

Local roads were closed with buses 31, 36, 228 and 328 all on diversion. Westminster North Labour MP Ms Buck, whose constituency address is just 200 yards away, tweeted today: 'Horrific events this morning in Elgin Avenue, which will be devastating for family and friends of those killed and also for the local community.'

Metropolitan Police officers on the scene this afternoon following the double death in Maida Vale, West London

Forensic officers look at a blue Renault as they carry out investigations in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon

Forensics officers in Maida Vale today after a woman was stabbed to death and a man was killed after being hit by a car

Forensic officers stand near a blue Renault as they carry out investigations in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon

Metropolitan Police Detective Chief Inspector Neil Smithson earlier said: 'This morning an incredibly serious incident has unfolded in the Westminster area which has seen two people pronounced dead. Our officers are on scene and are working to establish exactly what has happened. As soon as we have more information will keep the public updated but for now we must avoid speculation and allow investigators to do their work.

'What I can say at this time is that the incident is contained and we do not believe there to be any wider threat to the community. We have spoken to a number of people already but anyone else who witnessed the incident, or who has information that could help us, is urged to make contact immediately.'

Councillor Tim Roca, who represents the Harrow Road ward on Westminster City Council, tweeted: 'Just hearing about the tragic events on Chippenham road this morning.

'Absolutely awful news and fair to say the community is in shock.'

A London Ambulance Service spokesman said: 'We were called at 9.02am today to reports of an incident on Chippenham Road, W9.

Detectives investigate this afternoon after the double death happened in Maida Vale, West London

Forensic officers look at a blue Renault as they carry out investigations in Maida Vale, West London, this afternoon

Metropolitan Police officers in forensic suits at the scene today on Chippenham Road in Maida Vale, West London

Emergency services at the scene today on Chippenham Road following the incident in Maida Vale, West London

'We sent a number of resources to the scene, including two ambulance crews, two clinical team leaders, an advanced paramedic, two tactical response units, a medic in a car, an incident response officer, and members of our hazardous area response team. We also dispatched by road London's Air Ambulance. Despite our medics' efforts, two people died at the scene.'

A London Fire Brigade spokesman said: 'Firefighters were called to a road traffic collision on Chippenham Road in Maida Vale this morning. One car had been in collision with a pedestrian and a man was trapped under the vehicle.

'Crews released him from under the car but he was sadly pronounced dead at the scene. Another woman was also sadly pronounced dead at the scene.

'The Brigade was called at 9.10am and the incident was over for firefighters by 9.47am. Two fire engines from North Kensington and Paddington fire stations and a fire rescue unit from Paddington fire station were at the scene.'

The incident happened on the junction of Chippenham Road and Elgin Avenue which is located four roads away from the BBC's famous Maida Vale studios.

Police said witnesses can call them on 101 quoting the reference 1496/24jan, or to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555111 or online
Tonga's volcanic eruption unleashed explosive forces equivalent to up to 30 million tonnes of TNT  hundreds of times more than Hiroshima's atomic bomb, NASA says.

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, an underwater volcano in the South Pacific, spewed debris as high as 25 miles into the atmosphere when it erupted on January 15.

It triggered a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, sending tsunami waves crashing into the island, leaving it covered in ash and cut off from outside help.

It also released somewhere between 5 to 30 megatons (5 million to 30 million tonnes) of TNT equivalent, according to NASA Earth Observatory.

As a comparison, the US atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945 was estimated to be about 15 kilotons (15,000 tonnes) of TNT.

Radar surveys before and after this month's eruption show only small parts remain of two Tongan islands above the volcano  Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai.

Satellite image shows showed the rapid expansion of a volcanic cloud following an explosive eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga that blasted into the stratosphere and sent a pressure wave rippling around the globe on Jan 15, 2022. The eruption blanketed the island kingdom of about 100,000 in a layer of toxic ash - and released hundreds of times the equivalent mechanical energy of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion

It triggered a 7.4 magnitude earthquake, sending tsunami waves crashing into the island, leaving it covered in ash and cut off from outside help

Photo of Hiroshima bomb explosion taken in Kure, Japan, August 6, 1945. The US atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945 was estimated to be about 15 kilotons (15,000 tonnes) of TNT

TONGA VS HIROSHIMA Tonga underwater volcanic eruption: 5 to 30 megatons (5 million to 30 million tonnes) of TNT Hiroshima nuclear explosion: 15 kilotons (15,000 tonnes) of TNT (There are 1,000 kilotons in a megaton) Source: NASA Earth Observatory Advertisement

'This is a preliminary estimate, but we think amount of energy released by the eruption was equivalent to somewhere between 5 to 30 megatons of TNT,' said Garvin, chief scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

'That number is based on how much was removed, how resistant the rock was, and how high the eruption cloud was blown into the atmosphere at a range of velocities.'

For comparison, scientists estimate Mount St. Helens exploded in 1980 with 24 megatons and Krakatoa burst in 1883 with 200 megatons of energy.

Digital elevation maps from the NASA Earth Observatory also show the dramatic changes at Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai, the uppermost part of a large underwater volcano.

Prior to the explosion earlier this month, the twin uninhabited islands Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai were merged by a volcanic cone to form one landmass.

Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai are themselves remnants of the northern and western rim of the volcano's caldera  the hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber.

 Slide me  Radar surveys before and after the eruption show that only small parts remain of two uninhabited Tongan islands above the volcano  Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai

Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai formed into one single landmass after an undersea eruption that began in December 2014 in the Tongan archipelago (pictured here in 2019)

ASH FROM TONGA ERUPTION IS SEEN FROM SPACE Ash sent spewing into the air from the massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga was photographed by International Space Station astronauts. NASA shared the remarkable pictures taken out of the ISS Cupola windows, showing a blanket of ash from plumes spewing thousands of feet into the atmosphere. The event was so striking that satellites captured the moment of the eruption, with astronauts on the ISS taking images of plumes and blankets of ash over the region. Read more: Ash from the volcanic eruption in Tonga is seen from SPACE Advertisement

Now, all of the new land is gone, along with large chunks of the two older islands, NASA imagery shows.

NASA said the eruption 'obliterated' the volcanic island about 41 miles (65km) north of the Tongan capital Nuku'alofa, on the island of Tongatapu (Tonga's main island).

It blanketed the island kingdom of about 100,000 in a layer of toxic ash, poisoning drinking water, destroying crops and completely wiping out at least two villages.

It also claimed at least three lives in Tonga and resulted in the drowning deaths of two beachgoers in Peru after freak waves hit the South American country.

Peruvian authorities have declared an environmental disaster after the waves hit an oil tanker offloading near Lima, creating a huge slick along the coast.

In Tonga, the scale of destruction remains unclear after communications to remote islands were knocked out.

Nuku'alofa-based journalist Mary Lyn Fonua said locals were still coming to terms with the scale of the disaster.

'It's so beyond what anyone here has ever experienced,' she told AFP.

'The shockwave from the eruption just messed up our brains, we're just starting to return to normal now.'

NASA image shows the atmospheric plume of ash after the January 15 underwater volcano eruption in the Pacific nation of Tonga, pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 269 miles (432 km) above the Pacific Ocean northwest of New Zealand

The massive volcano erupted on January 15, creating a 'massive explosion' that happens once in every thousand years, and is large enough to be visible from space

Wrecked framework of the Museum of Science and Industry in Hiroshima, Japan. This is how it appeared shortly after the dropping of the first atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945

Fonua said the coating of fine grey grime covering everything was proving difficult to live with and raising concerns about long-term health issues.

'It gets everywhere,' she said. 'It irritates your eyes, you get sores in the corner of your mouth, everyone has blackened fingernails  we look like a grubby lot.

'We need a good tropical deluge to wash everything away.'

Japanese, New Zealand and Australian defence forces have started delivering urgent relief supplies, particularly water, while maintaining strict Covid-19 protocols to preserve Tonga's virus-free status.

Professor Shane Cronin, from the University of Auckland, is an expert in Tonga eruptions.

A general view shows damaged buildings and landscape covered with ash following volcanic eruption and tsunami in Kanokupolu, Tonga, January 23,2022

This photo taken on January 16, 2022 shows a search and rescue team looking for missing British woman Angela Glover through tsunami damage in Haatafu on the western coast of Tonga's main island Tongatapu following the January 15 eruption of the nearby Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai underwater volcano

'This is one of the massive explosions the volcano is capable of producing roughly every thousand years,' he wrote in The Conversation.

'We could be in for several weeks or even years of major volcanic unrest from the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcano.'

Ash stirred up from the blast was sent as much as 24 miles above the Earth's surface, easily visible from space, including from the International Space Station (ISS).

An astronaut aboard the space station managed to snap a photo taken out of its domed 'Cupola' windows.
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A foetus found within the abdomen of an Egyptian mummy last year was preserved for more than 2,000 years because it was 'pickled' like an egg by the acidification of the woman's body as she decomposed.

This is the conclusion of the team of researchers led from the University of Warsaw who revealed the presence of the unborn child's remains using a combination of CT and X-ray scans back in the April of last year.

The mummy is believed to be the first embalmed specimen known to contain a foetus, and was taken out of Egypt by Jan WezykRudzki, who donated the specimen to the University of Warsaw in the December of 1826.

A great deal of uncertainty surrounds the adult mummy  dubbed the 'Mysterious Lady'  with experts presently unsure who she was and exactly what caused her death in her twenties back in the 1st century BCE.

Even the location of her tomb has been lost to history, with some records suggesting she was found in the 'royal tombs in Thebes'  at a time when none were known from that location  and others in Giza's Pyramid of Cheops.

The researchers were able to determine that, based on the position of the foetus and how the birth canal was closed, the Mysterious Lady did not die in childbirth.

Previous studies concluded that the mummy was between 2630 weeks into her pregnancy when she died.

According to the team, it is quite possible that other pregnant mummies may be 'hiding' in museums collections waiting to be identified through similar careful analyses of their soft tissues.

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A foetus found within the abdomen of an Egyptian mummy (pictured) last year was preserved for more than 2,000 years because it was 'pickled' like an egg by the acidification of the woman's body as she decomposed

This is the conclusion of the team of researchers led from the University of Warsaw who revealed the presence of the unborn child's remains using a combination of CT and X-ray scans back in the April of last year

The mummy  believed to be the first embalmed specimen known to contain a foetus  was taken out of Egypt by one Jan WezykRudzki, who donated the specimen to the University of Warsaw in the December of 1826. Pictured: the Mysterious Lady's coffin (left) cartonnage case (centre) and mummy (right, shown in photograph and X-ray)

The researchers were able to determine that, based on the position of the foetus and how the birth canal was closed, the Mysterious Lady did not die in childbirth. Previous studies concluded that the mummy was between 2630 weeks into her pregnancy when she died. Pictured: the earliest-known depictions of the Mysterious Lady  with the mummy (top), the coffin (bottom left) and the cartonnage case (bottom right)  published in the Polish kids' magazine 'Przyjaciel dziecka' in 1862

What is natron and how did it help preserve the foetus? Natron is a naturally occurring salt mixture found in dried-out lake beds in some arid environments. It was used by ancient Egyptians to both dry out and disinfected corpses during the embalming process. It is primarily composed of sodium carbonate decahydrate, with around 17 per cent sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and small quantities of sodium chloride (regular salt) and sodium sulphate. Advertisement

The study of the 'Mysterious Lady' and her unborn child was undertaken by archaeologist and palaeopathologist Marzena Ozarek-Szilke of Poland's University of Warsaw and her colleagues.

'The foetus remained in the untouched uterus and began to, let's say, "pickle". It is not the most aesthetic comparison, but it conveys the idea!' the researchers explained in a blog post.

'Blood pH in corpses, including content of the uterus, falls significantly, becoming more acidic, and the concentrations of ammonia and formic acid increase with time.

'The placement and filling of the body with natron significantly limited the access of air and oxygen.

'The end result is an almost hermetically sealed uterus containing the foetus.

'The foetus was in an environment comparable to the one which preserves ancient bodies to our time in swamps.'

The researchers explained how the unborn child would have been preserved over the millennia after radiologist Sahar Saleem of Egypt's Cairo University published a response to the team's original paper in which she questioned the identification of the foetus, given the absence of its bones in the scans.

'Recognizing foetal anatomy in mummy pelvic mass is a prerequisite to consider it a foetus,' Professor Saleem wrote in her paper.

According to Dr Ozarek-Szilke and her colleagues, however, foetal bones are very poorly mineralised during the course of the first two trimesters of pregnancy, meaning they are difficult to detect in the first place after having gone through preservation processes.

And on top of this, they added, the acidification of the Mysterious Lady's corpse as she decomposed would have demineralised the foetus' bones, making them even harder to detect, even as its soft tissues were preserved.

'Picture putting an egg into a pot filled with an acid,' the researchers said to explain how this works.

'The eggshell dissolves, leaving only the inside of the egg  albumen and yolk  and the minerals from the eggshell dissolved in the acid.'

The team explained that, in the mummy, the minerals leached from the foetal bones would have been deposited into both the tissues of the unborn child and the surrounding uterus, giving both a higher radiodensity and thus a different appearance in the CT scans.

'The foetus remained in the untouched uterus and began to, let's say, 'pickle'. It is not the most aesthetic comparison, but it conveys the idea!' palaeopathologist Marzena Ozarek-Szilke of Poland's University of Warsaw and her colleagues explained in a blog post. Pictured: two volumetric renderings of the foetus from the CT data. Labels on the right-hand image represent the head (A), right hand (B), left hand (C) and right leg (D)

'Blood pH in corpses, including content of the uterus, falls significantly, becoming more acidic, and the concentrations of ammonia and formic acid increase with time,' the team said. 'The placement and filling of the body with natron significantly limited the access of air and oxygen. The end result is an almost hermetically sealed uterus containing the foetus. The foetus was in an environment comparable to the one which preserves ancient bodies to our time in swamps'

A great deal of uncertainty surrounds the adult mummy specimen  dubbed the 'Mysterious Lady'  with experts presently unsure who she was and exactly what caused her death in her twenties back in the 1st century BCE. Pictured: a CT scan of the Mysterious Lady's pelvic area. The foetus' head is labelled as 'A', while its hand is labelled as 'B'

With the initial studies of the mummy and her unborn child complete, the researchers are now working to determine why her embalmers left the foetus in the uterus, when the woman's internal organs were removed during the mummification procedure.

'Maybe it had something to do with beliefs and rebirth in the afterlife,' Dr Ozarek-Szilke told Science in Poland.

'It is still difficult to draw any conclusions, as we do not know if this is the only pregnant mummy. For now, it is definitely the only known pregnant Egyptian mummy.'

The team are keen to stress that, although the pair of mummies are scientifically 'fascinating', they also still represent a very real human tragedy.

'The Mysterious Lady died together with the unborn child, and by examining her, we restore their memory,' the researchers said.

'We remember that it was a long-lived person who had her dreams, probably loved ones and was loved. Now she reveals to us the secrets she took with her to the grave,' they concluded.

The full findings of the study were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

'The Mysterious Lady died together with the unborn child, and by examining her, we restore their memory,' the researchers said. 'We remember that it was a long-lived person who had her dreams, probably loved ones and was loved. Now she reveals to us the secrets she took with her to the grave,' they concluded. Pictured: a scan of the Mysterious Lady's abdominal area, showing both amulets representing the Four Sons of Horus above the navel area and textile wrappings

Even the location of the Mysterious Lady's tomb has been lost to history, with some records suggesting she was found in the 'royal tombs in Thebes'  at a time when none were known from that location  and others in Giza's Pyramid of Cheops
Hope of finding liquid water on Mars has dried up, according to scientists who predict what was thought to be a vast lake under the south pole is likely nothing more than a dusty mirage.

In 2018 scientists thought they were looking at liquid water on Mars, after seeing bright radar reflections under the polar ice cap, but a new study disputes that.

Re-examining the reflections in the radar images, planetary scientists from the University of Texas determined they were actually showing volcanic rock.

The NASA-funded study found that the reflections, seen shining through the ice, matched those of volcanic plains found all over the red planet's surface.

This is a 'more plausible explanation' for the 2018 discovery than the Red Planet holding a vast lake, the authors said, adding that Mars is unlikely to have the conditions required to keep water in a liquid state at its cold, arid south pole.

The same team are now working on a proposed new mission to use radar to search for water on Mars, which could serve as a crucial a resource for future human landings.

Hope of finding a vast lake under the south pole on Mars has dried up, according to scientists, who predict that it is likely nothing more than a dusty mirage

MARS: THE BASICS Mars is the fourth planet from the sun, with a 'near-dead' dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. Mars is also a dynamic planet with seasons, polar ice caps, canyons, extinct volcanoes, and evidence that it was even more active in the past. It is one of the most explored planets in the solar system and the only planet humans have sent rovers to explore. One day on Mars takes a little over 24 hours and a year is 687 Earth days. Facts and Figures Orbital period: 687 days Surface area: 144.8 million km Distance from Sun: 227.9 million km Gravity: 3.721 m/s Radius: 3,389.5 km Moons: Phobos, Deimos Advertisement

The south polar mirage, as the team have dubbed the phenomenon, was debunked when study author Cyril Grima added an imaginary global ice sheet across a radar map of Mars to see what could be seen in areas where the surface is visible.

'For water to be sustained this close to the surface, you need both a very salty environment and a strong, locally generated heat source, but that doesn't match what we know of this region,' said Grima.

The imaginary ice sheet he placed over the planet showed how Mars' terrains would appear when looked at through a mile of ice.

Doing so allowed them to compare features across the entire planet with those under the polar cap, and see if it matched any other region.

Grima noticed multiple reflections, like those at the south pole, but scattered across all latitudes of the Martian landscape, matching the locations of volcanic plains.

Iron-rich lava flows found on Earth can leave behind rock formations that reflect in radar images in a similar way to these plains on Mars, explained Grima.

He says this adds to the evidence that these volcanic formations sit under the Martian ice cap - not a liquid water lake.

Other possibilities include mineral deposits in dried riverbeds, and while not liquid water, figuring out the answer will 'answer important questions about Mars' history.'

The Red Planet is thought to have pockets of water ice, including at the thick polar ice caps, hinting at a wet past, and potentially providing support for future human habitation of the dead world.

Grima's map is based on three years of data from MARSIS, a radar instrument launched in 2005 aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express that has accumulated tremendous amounts of information about Mars.

Isaac Smith, a Mars geophysicist at York University wasn't involved in the study, but said the findings present 'precise places' to look for water ice.

He believes the bright radar signatures are a kind of clay made when rock erodes in water, inspired by Earth-based clay that reflect radar in a similar way.

'I think the beauty of Grima's finding is that while it knocks down the idea there might be liquid water under the planet's south pole today,' Smith explained.

The Red Planet is thought to have pockets of water ice, including at the thick polar ice caps, hinting at a wet past, and potentially providing support for future human habitation of the dead world

He added it 'gives us really precise places to go look for evidence of ancient lakes and riverbeds and test hypotheses about the wider drying out of Mars' climate over billions of years.'

He says the study is a sobering lesson on the scientific process, showing that it is as relevant to studying Earth as it is to Mars, adding it 'isn't foolproof on the first try.'

'That's especially true in planetary science where we're looking at places no one's ever visited and relying on instruments that sense everything remotely,' he added.

Grima and Smith are working together on a mission to find water on Mars with radar, both as a resource for future human landing sites and to search for signs of past life.

The findings have been published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
When it comes to streaming movies and games  or even working from home  there's nothing more frustrating than a slow or dodgy broadband connection.

That is not so much of a problem in Hull, Luton and Portsmouth, however, as people living in these areas enjoy access to some of the best internet speeds across the UK, according to new research.

But sadly the same cannot be said for those in major cities in Scotland  particularly Aberdeen and Glasgow  and much of the north of England.

Residents living there have the worst internet speeds in Britain, according to a study by the insurance company Protect Your Bubble, and in some cases access to ultrafast broadband is almost a third of the UK average.

People in Hull, Luton and Portsmouth enjoy access to some of the best internet speeds across the UK, according to new research. But those in Aberdeen and Sheffield have the worst access

TOP 10 UK TOWNS OR CITIES FOR ULTRAFAST BROADBAND ACCESS Rank Area % premises with access to ultrafast broadband 1 Hull 97.5 2 Luton 94.5 3 Portsmouth 93.8 4 Nottingham 91.8 5 Belfast 90.9 6 Wolverhampton 90.8 7 Leicester 90.8 8 Middlesbrough 90.6 9 Slough 90.1 10 Birmingham 90

Unsurprisingly Hull, Britain's first full fibre city, came out on top in the research, with 97.5 per cent of the premises in the city having access to ultrafast broadband.

That is well clear of the UK average of 82.5 per cent.

Luton placed second, with ultrafast broadband reaching 94.5 per cent of residential and business properties, thanks in part to the local council's 180,000 investment in recent years to enable superfast broadband to the area.

Portsmouth followed in third with almost 94 per cent of its premises boasting access to ultrafast broadband.

Nottingham and Belfast complete the top five areas with the highest accessibility of ultrafast broadband with 91.8 and 90.9 per cent, respectively.

More than one million hard to reach homes and businesses will have next generation gigabit broadband built to them in the first phase of a 5 billion government infrastructure project, according to Boris Johnson's government

BOTTOM 10 TOWNS OR CITIES FOR ULTRAFAST BROADBAND ACCESS Rank Area % premises with access to ultrafast broadband 1 Aberdeen 49 2 Sheffield 50.1 3 Sunderland 63.6 4 Glasgow 69.4 5 Newcastle 70.5 6 Blackpool 70.5 7 Warrington 71.2 8 Manchester 71.8 9 Southend-on-Sea 73.6 10 York 75.5

Surprisingly, London ranks just above the UK average, with 80.3 percent of its residents and businesses being able to access these speeds.

Aberdeen was bottom of the list with 49 per cent, while Glasgow did not fare much better on 69.4 per cent.

However, there is some good news for residents in Aberdeen, as the city is one of the areas set to benefit from an 8 million cash injection to boost broadband speeds across Scotland.

Sheffield follows closely as the second worst area for accessibility with just 50.1 per cent premises having access to ultrafast broadband.

Sunderland (63.6 per cent) and Newcastle (70.5 per cent) complete the bottom five areas in the UK.

James Brown, director at Protect your bubble, said: 'The pandemic has proven just how vital good quality connectivity is to everyday life and this is only set to grow.

'With portable devices playing a key part in people's connectivity, the public must ensure their device is well-covered should it ever get lost or damaged to minimise any disruption.'

In July 2019, Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged he would deliver full-fibre to 'every home in the land' by 2025.

However, the government quietly downgraded the target to reach 85 per cent of the UK, according to an infrastructure report in November.

The report said: 'The government is working with industry to target a minimum of 85 per cent gigabit capable coverage by 2025, but will seek to accelerate roll-out further to get as close to 100 per cent as possible.

'The government will continue to implement an ambitious programme of work to remove barriers to broadband deployment and maximise coverage in the hardest to reach areas of the country.'

The full data set can be accessed here.
Antonio Conte angrily branded the decision to disallow Harry Kanes first-half goal as incredible following Tottenhams loss to Chelsea.

Kane saw his goal - that would have put Spurs 1-0 up - chalked off by referee Paul Tierney for a push on Thiago Silva, a decision VAR backed up.

But replays showed there to be minimal contact with the decision infuriating Conte and Tottenham, which the Italian highlighted in his post-match interview.

Antonio Conte branded the decision to rule out Harry Kane's first-half strike as 'incredible'

Conte said: The referee disallowed a goal and I was very clear with him because I think it's best sometimes it's best to tell the referee in a polite way, to see this type of goal disallowed in England is incredible.

Maybe in Italy 50-50, but in England it was incredible.

Even Chelsea boss Thomas Tuchel revealed his shock at the goal being ruled out, saying: I didn't see it - live I thought it was a goal and was surprised.

Harry Kane's strike was ruled out despite replays showing minimal contact on Thiago Silva

Spurs have lost three times in 18 days to Chelsea. Throw in the 3-0 home defeat in the reverse fixture in September and it is four with eight goals conceded and none scored.

Meanwhile, Conte insisted it is up to the club to decide the futures if Giovani Lo Celso, Dele Alli and Tanguy Ndombele, after all three were absent from the travelling squad.

Lo Celso took to social media yesterday to explain he is fully fit, an indication that his non-selection was purely down to Conte.

Dele Alli failed to make the matchday squad with midfielder rumoured to leave this month

On Le Celso, Conte said: I selected the players for this game and for this question is one for the club to answer.

Dele Alli has been out of favour in recent weeks and has become available for transfer with Newcastle and Everton said to be interested.

When asked about Alli's future, Conte said: 'I don't want to comment on single players.

There is the club to make the best decision. There is a sporting director and chairman and they take the last decision.
Sevilla are finalising terms with Manchester United over a season loan deal for Anthony Martial after further talks on Monday.

The Spanish side are understood to have offered a 5million loan fee while Martial was willing to take a pay cut to make the deal happen.

Once United rubber-stamp the agreement, France international Martial expects to fly to Sevilla on Tuesday with agent Philippe Lamboley to undergo a medical, however, there is no option to buy in the deal.

Anthony Martial has started just two Premier League games for Manchester United this season

The 26-year-old had told United he wanted to leave with Sevilla his first choice. There were tentative approaches from other clubs such as Newcastle and Tottenham but Martial was keen to go abroad. Juventus and Barcelona were also interested but did not want to take on his salary.

Sevilla are challenging Real Madrid for the Spanish title with 16 games left and Martial is excited by the prospect of a new start after growing stale and frustrated at United.

Sportsmail revealed last month that Martial, who joined from Monaco for 36m in 2015, had held face to face talks with Ralf Rangnick about how he wanted a change of scenery.

That view has not been altered even though Martial featured for the first time since interim United boss Rangnick took charge when he came on as a substitute in Saturday's 1-0 win against West Ham.

Ralf Rangnick claimed that Martial refused to be in the matchday squad earlier this month

Martial has made 11 United appearances this season, scoring a single goal, against Everton on October 2.

United will make a decision this week on whether to allow Jesse Lingard to leave amid interest from Newcastle United. Lingard is currently in Dubai but Newcastle have been pushing for a response on his future with West Ham monitoring developments.

Meanwhile, Sevilla are asking 40m from Newcastle United for defender Diego Carlos with around 32m on the table.

Sevilla are currently second in La Liga and are aiming to win their first title in 75 years

Newcastle have also asked about Liverpool defender Nat Phillips.

Liverpool are reluctant to let him out on oan but would be willing to sell for around 15million. They have already rejected a 7m offer from Watford while PSV Eindhoven also made an enquiry for the 24-year-old centre-back but only wanted a loan.

Newcastle are working through a raft of targets as they try to add new signings before the window closes next week.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing a string of issues amid reports that some of his party members want him to resign from his post.

Just recently, Johnson is being asked to explain why his attendance at some gatherings at Downing Street while the rest of the United Kingdom was on lockdown.

The British prime minister's ever-changing response to the allegations is not also sitting well with his critics. After all, he previously said that he didn't attend a party at Downing Street. But when his videos emerged at the gathering, he said that he didn't know that it was a party.

Metropolitan Police testified against Boris Johnson

According to Daily Mail, police officers from the Metropolitan Police's Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command who guarded Downing Street when the parties were held already gave their testimonies to Sue Gray, the second permanent secretary at the Department for Leveling Up, Housing, and Communities.

A source said officers were not compelled to speak to Ms. Gray, but they were willing to give their testimonies.

But Johnson's ally said that the prime minister is standing by his explanation regarding the parties. Johnson reportedly believes that he didn't break any rules.

Boris Johnson's approval ratings dropped

Following the incident, Johnson's approval ratings dropped considerably. And there are also claims that his Conservative Party is becoming a liability. At least two-thirds of voters also want him to resign.

Johnson was also slammed for attending another party the night before Prince Philip's funeral. He was forced to apologize to the queen, who mourned her husband's death alone at Windsor Castle because of the strict lockdown at the time.

Read Also: United Kingdom Records 50,000 More COVID-19 Cases Compared to Country's Highest Figure; No Lockdown Announced Ahead of New Year

The prime minister's former senior adviser, Dominic Cummings, said that he doesn't have a problem swearing under oath about Johnson's attendance at the parties. Cummings also claimed that he personally warned his former boss, but Johnson denied ever getting a warning from anyone.

Boris Johnson accused of bullying, blackmailing lawmakers

Other than Johnson's controversial parties, the British PM is also accused of bullying and blackmailing lawmakers who refuse to support him.

Conservative MP William Wragg said that a number of parliament members had faced intimidation and pressure from the government because they refused to support Johnson.

However, the prime minister denied the claims saying that there's no evidence to support the accusations.

According to CNN, the Conservative Party rules state that if MPs want to get rid of their leader, they need to submit a confidential letter airing their grievances to the chair of the 1922 Committee. The letters are then kept secret from the public.

According to the BBC, there is also an ongoing investigation into the claims made by Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani, who claimed that one of the reasons why she was fired from her job two years ago was because she's a Muslim.

However, Conservative Chief Mark Spencer denied the claims. Still, Johnson ordered a Cabinet Office inquiry into Ms. Ghani's claims. But this could reportedly affect his future as prime minister because not everyone approved of his decision to get involved.

Related Article: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson Resists Another Lockdown Despite Daily COVID-19 Cases Reaching 200,000

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Her disgraced ex-boyfriend Salim Mehajer is serving at least two years in the clink.

But Melissa 'Missy' Tysoe is living her best life - and wants the world to know it.

The model and finance graduate, 32, showcased her jaw-dropping figure over the weekend while teasing her fans on Instagram.

Sexy: Melissa 'Missy' Tysoe, the ex-girlfriend of disgraced property developer Salim Mehajer, showcased her jaw-dropping figure over the weekend while teasing her fans on Instagram

Tysoe displayed her ample cleavage in a plunging black bikini, which she teamed with barely there G-string bottoms.

She pulled the bottoms high onto her hips while kneeling on the floor to further highlight her hourglass shape.

'Make his pockets hurt,' she captioned the Boomerang clip, quoting rap lyrics.

The blonde bombshell followed this up with another selfie video which she filmed while preening in her shower.

Daring: The model and finance graduate, 32, displayed her ample cleavage in a plunging black bikini, which she teamed with barely there G-string bottoms

Sizzling: The blonde bombshell followed this up with another selfie video which she filmed while preening in her shower

Mehajer's 'chaotic existence' did not inspire confidence in the judge who jailed him in April for at least two years and three months for lying to the court.

The disgraced former Auburn deputy mayor, 35, was sentenced by NSW District Court Judge Peter Zahra to a total term of three years and six months for trying to secure bail conditions under false pretences to further his business interests.

Mehajer had pleaded not guilty for two counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of making a false statement under oath, but Judge Zahra found he falsified documents and claims.

The property developer will be eligible for parole on January 18, 2023.

Doomed romance: Tysoe and Mehajer (left) met at a New Year's Eve party in Vaucluse, Sydney, in 2017 - sparking a tumultuous relationship that lasted almost three years

Judge Zahra dismissed medical expert evidence that suggested he may have been influenced by his mental health conditions namely bipolar, saying Mehajer's behaviour was carefully planned.

The charges arose while Mehajer was seeking to change his bail conditions between 2017 and 2018 for domestic violence related offences.

He argued his curfew needed to be lifted in order to conduct his work as a building manager on a property in its final stages of development.

But Judge Zahra found he did not hold this position and was trying to wrest it back from liquidators and appear to investors that he was still in control of the towers.

He was concerned that his conditions of bail might frustrate his attempts to negotiate and settle financial dispute, and affect his reputation towards future investment opportunities, he said.

Jailed: Mehajer's 'chaotic existence' did not inspire confidence in the judge who jailed him in April for at least two years and three months for lying to the court. Pictured on July 9, 2020

Mehajer wrote a letter to the court expressing his deep regret for his actions caused by immense pressure after administrators were brought in to control his development site.

He is serving his sentence at Cooma Correctional Centre.

Tysoe and Mehajer met at a New Year's Eve party in Vaucluse, in Sydney's eastern suburbs, in 2017 - sparking a tumultuous relationship that lasted almost three years.
Emily Ratajkowski stunned on Sunday afternoon as she pushed her son, Sylvester, to lunch in New York City.

The 30-year-old new mom shimmered in a bright orange coat with denim jeans and white sneakers as the two headed to the popular spot The Odeon in Tribeca.

The model paired her stylish coat with a a cream-colored cropped turtleneck sweater that exposed the top of her toned tummy.

The stylish new mom: Emily Ratajkowski stunned on Sunday afternoon in an orange coat as she pushed her son, Sylvester, to lunch in New York City at The Odeon

Emily wore her dark brown hair down in a middle part as she pushed her stroller and held her son's navy blue patterned coat.

She and her husband, film producer and occasional actor Sebastian Bear-McClard, married in 2018 and welcomed their first child together in 2021.

Just a few days ago, Emily revealed to Harper's Bazaar that, despite her successful modeling career, there have been many times when she 'felt like a failure.'

She explained: 'There are so many times when I felt like a failure. I am very hard on myself in general. Early on that would be not getting an audition or getting close to booking a job and missing it and it felt like everything was collapsing.'

In Tribeca: Emily paired her stylish coat with a a cream-colored cropped turtleneck sweater that exposed the top of her toned tummy

Leading the way: The model wore her dark brown hair down in a middle part as she pushed her stroller and held her son's coat to Oden restaurant in Tribeca

The San Diego native began her career at just 14, shooting catalogue campaigns for Kohl's and Nordstrom as well as having small acting roles.

After appearing on the cover of erotic magazine treats! in 2012, she went on to bag a part in two high-profile music videos, most notably Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, which catapulted her to worldwide fame.

The My Body author had moments where she wanted to leave modeling entirely and take up a career in art. The model attended UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture in 2009 for only one year before dropping out to focus on modeling.

Before lunch: The 30-year-old new mom wore her dark brown hair down in a middle part and had on denim jeans with white sneakers

'There have been so many times in my career where I have thought about changing career paths or giving up,' she shared with Harper's Bazaar.

'I stopped totally modeling when I went to college and I thought I was going to become an artist and then I left and started modeling full time and then I sort of dabbled in acting.'

Emily recently became an author of her New York Time's best seller, My Body, which was published last October.
They are still in the honeymoon stage of their marriage, having only tied-the-knot about three months ago.

But on Sunday Meadow Walker, daughter of the late Fast & Furious star Paul Walker, took to her Instagram page to share how much she longs to reunite with husband Louis Thornton-Allan.

'I miss you my love,' she wrote in the caption of a photo showing the newlyweds sharing a loving hug together.

'I miss you': Meadow Walker shared how she's missing her husband, Louis Thornton-Allan, in an Instagram photo on Sunday showing the newlyweds hugging

In the photo, Walker could be seen with her arms wrapped around her husband, with her face visible as they cuddle up cheek-to-cheek.

She held a glass of white wine in her right hand as she appeared to whisper sweet nothings into his ear.

The pair appeared to be standing by the ocean based on the number of docked boats off in the distance.

The couple have been separated for about a week, ever since Walker made her way to France to work the catwalks of Paris.

City of Light: Earlier on Sunday, Walker posted a series of snaps that were taken while she worked as a model in Paris, France

Working it: The daughter of late Fast & Furious actor Paul Walker also gave her 3.6 million Instagram fans and followers a glimpse of her strutting her stuff in some of the latest fashions

Movie history: Walker took time out from her busy schedule to track down the red entrance doors to a building showcased in the action-flick Taken, which starred Liam Neeson

Family troubles: Neeson's onscreen daughter Kim Mills (played by Maggie Grace) was kidnapped at the home in the opening scenes of the film; still from Taken (2008)

Earlier on Sunday, she posted a series of snaps showcasing some of her time in the City Of Light, including a couple of images of her strutting her stuff in some of the latest fashions and getting prepped for the catwalk.

She also took some time out from her busy schedule to snap a photo of one of the location spots seen in the Liam Neeson action-flick Taken (2008).

'Found the door from Taken,' she wrote alongside the photo of the two large red doors of the building where Neeson's onscreen daughter was kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers in the opening scenes of the film.

From France: The series of seven photos in Walker's post on Sunday also included a shot of a wall that she appeared to sign her first name

Dinnertime: She snapped a photo of drinks at dinner, as well as a cigarette in an ashtray

Images from France: The 23-year-old runway model posted a photo of a toy trinket, which may have been a chocolate treat

Lovely: Walker also gave posted a picture of a bouquet of stately orchids and other flowers

The series of photos in Walker's post also included a shot of a wall that she appeared to sign her first name, the top of a dinner table full of glasses, a toy trinket, which could be a chocolate treat, and a bouquet of flowers.

Walker and Thornton-Allan, who's an aspiring actor enrolled at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City, exchanged their vows in a ceremony held in the Dominican Republic on October 22, 2021.

E! News reported that her father's Fast & Furious co-star Vin Diesel, who's Walker's godfather, walked her down the aisle.

Newlyweds: Walker and Thornton-Allan, who's an aspiring actor enrolled at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City, exchanged their vows in a ceremony held in the Dominican Republic on October 22, 2021
Georgia Fowler and her partner Nathan Dalah have added to their already growing brood.

The Victoria's Secret model introduced her fans to the couple's new cat 'Pocket' over the weekend.

She shared a gorgeous photo of the grey feline resting on a fluffy rug and one of the adorable kitten sitting below Dylan's cot.

Welcome Pocket! Georgia Fowler and her partner Nathan Dalah have added to their already growing family

So cute! The Victoria's Secret stunner introduced her fans to the couple's new cat 'Pocket' over the weekend

Georgia and Nathan just recently enjoyed a family getaway with their baby daughter Dylan.

The 29-year-old stunner posted two photos from the holiday and showed off her incredible post-pregnancy figure in a bikini.

The stunning two-piece featured a high waist and padded bra, which emphasised her ripped stomach and ample assets to perfection.

Vacation time: Georgia and Nathan just recently enjoyed a family getaway. The 29-year-old stunner posted two photos from the holiday and showed off her incredible post-pregnancy figure in a bikini

She teamed her look with a pair of oversized sunglasses, and pulled her hair into a tight bun.

Georgia captioned the image: 'Hitting refresh into Twenty twenty two. (Nearly wrote 2020- what a vortex!)

'The festive season felt- well anything but festive, so it was so special to have a family getaway and a real retreat before we begin the year with more focus and (slightly) more rest.

Gorgeous: The stunning two-piece featured a high waist and padded bra, which emphasised her ripped stomach and ample assets to perfection

'Setting my intentions as I venture into the first year with a little sidekick in tow. Wishing you all health and happiness and go get those dreams.'

Last month, Georgia shared a photo of herself breastfeeding her daughter and said feeding a newborn was 'a full-time job'.

'Those early weeks of engorgement, the worry about your supply, the leaks through your tops, and, well, everywhere else - it's a messy time,' she wrote.

Promoting a range of eco-friendly baby products, Georgia offered a few encouraging words of support to fellow new mums: 'Go mamas, you got this.'

Georgia welcomed Dylan with her businessman boyfriend Nathan on September 17.

Candid: Last month, Georgia shared a photo of herself breastfeeding her daughter and said feeding a newborn was 'a full-time job'

Motherhood: 'Those early weeks of engorgement, the worry about your supply, the leaks through your tops, and, well, everywhere else - it's a messy time,' she wrote in the post

The New Zealand-born beauty announced she was expecting her first child with the Fishbowl co-founder in April.

In November, Georgia paid tribute to her little girl on her two-month birthday, revealing her sweet nickname.

'Two months of Diddy. Thanks for being the coolest, most serene, and now the smiliest bub out. (And for sleeping six-hour stints). We love you more than life itself,' she wrote on Instagram.
Zach Davis, the fiance of Teen Mom OG star Cheyenne Floyd, was reportedly arrested on January 3 as the couple flew into LAX airport in Los Angeles.

Davis, 31, was taken into custody after customs officials found multiple outstanding warrants, law enforcement sources told TMZ on Sunday.

Floyd, 29, and her fiance were returning to the United States following a vacation to Mexico when he was arrested.

Legal trouble: Teen Mom OG star Cheyenne Floyd's fiance Zach Davis (R) was arrested on January 3 after the couple flew into Los Angeles' LAX airport from Mexico after a vacation, TMZ reported on Sunday

Sources said that Davis' warrants had been issued because he allegedly violated his probation on cases involving theft and driving under the influence.

His arrest appears to have been brief, as law enforcement said he was booked and released shortly afterward.

Neither Floyd nor Davis appear to have referenced his arrest on social media, and neither has commented on the situation.

The couple continued to post vacation photos and videos featuring themselves and their children up through January 3, and they have subsequently shared more throwback photos without any mention of the legal trouble that followed.

Out of bounds: Law enforcement sources said Davis was arrested at customs for outstanding warrants. He had allegedly violated his parole for theft and DUI charges, leading to the warrants; seen with Floy and daughter Ryder, four

In and out: His arrest appears to have been brief, as law enforcement said he was booked and released shortly afterward. The two made no mention of the arrest while sharing vacation photos to Instagram

Floyd and Davis share her youngest son, Ace, who was born May 27, 2021.

She also shares an older daughter, four-year-old Ryder, with her ex Cory Wharton, who starred with her on Teen Mom OG.

Floyd got engaged to Davis after he popped the question to her during her baby shower for Ace in April of 2021.

The two have had a tumultuous relationship, including a major breakup brought on by Davis accusing her of prioritizing Ryder's father over him.

Growing family: Floyd and Davis share her youngest son, Ace, who was born May 27, 2021

Blended family: She shares her older daughter Ryder (R) with her ex Cory Wharton, who starred with her on Teen Mom OG

Unlike many of her Teen Mom costars, Floyd's reality TV career began prior to her stint on the series.

She was first featured on the MTV dating series Are You The One? in 2015, and she later appeared in the competition series The Challenge, where she met Wharton.

He was also featured on season 29 of The Real World.
Jesinta Franklin, the model wife of Aboriginal AFL star Buddy Franklin, has spoken out about the mistreatment of Indigenous people in custody.

She criticised the Australian justice system in a post on Instagram after watching a hard-hitting documentary about racial injustice called Unheard.

'Tonight we started watching Unheard on Amazon Prime... The justice system in this country is broken,' she wrote.

Speaking out: Jesinta Franklin, the model wife of Aboriginal AFL star Buddy Franklin, has spoken out about the mistreatment of Indigenous people in custody. Pictured on December 1

'This series is a must watch. It will make you uncomfortable and break your heart. It may even open your eyes to the racism that people face in this country,' she added.

Jesinta explained: 'The first two episodes are based on Indigenous Australians. It also covers stories from Muslim women, asylum seekers, refugees and the last episode explores the story of two Australians of African decent. This is essential viewing.'

Five hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody in Australia in the 30 years since the 1991 royal commission, reports The Guardian.

Important: She criticised the Australian justice system in a post on Instagram after watching a hard-hitting documentary about racial injustice called Unheard

'The justice system in this country is broken': Five hundred Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have died in custody in the 30 years since the 1991 royal commission

It comes after the mother of two penned a column for Stellar magazine in 2020 explaining why she refused to celebrate Australia Day on January 26.

'I have seen my husband well up when talking about his mum [Ursula] and how she used to have to run away with her siblings when they knew the government trucks were coming to take them away from their parents,' she wrote in reference to the Stolen Generations.

The Stolen Generations saw Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families and communities due to racist government policies.

It was hearing painful stories from her husband's family that made Jesinta realise the importance of changing the date from January 26 - the day in 1788 when Arthur Phillip raised the Union Jack at Sydney Cove.

Protest: It comes after the mother of two penned a column for Stellar magazine in 2020 explaining why she refused to celebrate Australia Day on January 26. Pictured in 2018

'While I had read and learnt about the horrors of Australia's past, it wasn't until I listened to the pain endured from someone close to me that I began to deeply feel the importance of changing the date,' she wrote.

She added that Buddy's sisters had shared stories of their grandparents, who were 'born into a world that considered them flora and fauna'.

Jesinta said the date needed to be moved to one that celebrates 'all Aussies' and 'doesn't hold so much hurt for so many people'.
The movie world and the horse racing world is in mourning after a beloved actor horse, Popcorn Deelites, who played Seabiscuit in the 2003 film, passed away.

The horse passed from complications from colic at 24 years of age, it was announced by the Old Friends Farm on Twitter and in a press release.

'We are deeply saddened to report that Seabiscuit movie star POPCORN DEELITES (24) died this morning,' the farm said on Thursday.

R.I.P.: The movie world and the horse racing world is in mourning after a beloved actor horse, Popcorn Deelites, who played Seabiscuit in the 2003 film, passed away

Twitter: The horse passed from complications from colic at 24 years of age, it was announced by the Old Friends Farm on Twitter and in a press release

'A 17-year OF resident, his paddock-mate for all of those years, Special Ring, is devastated, as are we. Pops will always be a shining star in our hearts,' they added.

Popcorn Deelites appeared in numerous scenes in the Seabiscuit film, which starred Tobey Maguire as jockey Red Pollard.

He most prominently appeared in the thrilling race scenes between Seabiscuit and Triple Crown winner War Admiral.

Tobey: Popcorn Deelites appeared in numerous scenes in the Seabiscuit film, which starred Tobey Maguire as jockey Red Pollard

Race: He most prominently appeared in the thrilling race scenes between Seabiscuit and Triple Crown winner War Admiral

After filming Seabiscuit, Popcorn Deelites returned to the racing world for owner David Hoffman and conditioner Pricilla Leon.

He won 11 of 58 races with career earnings totaling $56,880, before retiring and moving to the Old Friends Farm, a 'thoroughbred retirement farm' in Georgetown, Kentucky, where he's been since 2005, where he was pensioned next to his sire, Afternoon Deelites.

Seabiscuit star and legendary Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, who played George Woolf in the film, remembered the horse fondly in a statement.

Racing: After filming Seabiscuit, Popcorn Deelites returned to the racing world for owner David Hoffman and conditioner Pricilla Leon

Sire: He won 11 of 58 races with career earnings totaling $56,880, before retiring and moving to the Old Friends Farm, a 'thoroughbred retirement farm' in Georgetown, Kentucky, where he's been since 2005, where he was pensioned next to his sire, Afternoon Deelites

'Popcorn Deelites was a star in Seabiscuit. He was my go-to guy in all the big scenes,' said Stevens, who now works as a racing analyst for Fox News.

'He not only won real races multiple times, but he won the famous match race playing Seabiscuit,' Stevens added.

'He was kind, fast, and a great friend that lived out his life at Old Friends in the paddock next to my other buddy, Silver Charm,' Stevens added, referring to the horse he piloted to a win in the 1997 Kentucky Derby, who is also an Old Friends retiree. 'RIP, Popcorn.'

Go-to: 'Popcorn Deelites was a star in Seabiscuit. He was my go-to guy in all the big scenes,' said Stevens, who now works as a racing analyst for Fox News

Winner: 'He not only won real races multiple times, but he won the famous match race playing Seabiscuit,' Stevens added

Michael Blowen, Old Friends' founder and president, added, 'Pops Hollywood history made him an enormous fan favorite, of course.'

'But what really won people over was his warm personality and friendly demeanor. Fans adored him and he adored the fans. He will be sorely missed here on the farm,' Blowen continued. B

Blowen concluded by stating that, 'Im sure that his old pal and paddock mate, Special Ring, will miss him the most.'

Fan favorite: Michael Blowen, Old Friends' founder and president, added, 'Pops Hollywood history made him an enormous fan favorite, of course.
Glee alum Lea Michele shared the first picture of her 17-month-old son Ever Leo's face in honor of her husband Zandy Reich's 39th birthday on Sunday.

In it, Reich beamed on a rocky beach while holding their then-baby boy, whose nose and mouth were visible beneath a beanie and sunglasses.

'Greatest man, father, husband, and friend,' the Bronx-born 35-year-old - who boasts 12.5M social media followers - gushed.

Only seen the back of his head: Glee alum Lea Michele shared the first picture of her 17-month-old son Ever Leo's face in honor of her husband Zandy Reich's 39th birthday on Sunday (pictured December 25)

'I wake up every day so thankful that you are ours Z. Happy birthday! Ever and I love you so much.'

Lea also Instastoried a video of Zach holding hands with little Ever as they strolled down a Manhattan sidewalk.

Michele (born Sarfati) was bundled up in a grey winter coat over a black turtleneck sweater and large shades.

The Forever songstress treated Reich to a 'birthday bagel brunch' at Sadelle's on Sunday, thanking owner Mario Carbone and his publicist girlfriend Cait Bailey 'for another epic meal.'

'Greatest man, father, husband, and friend': In it, Reich beamed on a rocky beach while holding their then-baby boy, whose nose and mouth were visible beneath a beanie and sunglasses

The Bronx-born 35-year-old - who boasts 12.5M social media followers - gushed: 'I wake up every day so thankful that you are ours Z. Happy birthday! Ever and I love you so much'

'My boys!' Lea also Instastoried a video of Zach holding hands with little Ever as they strolled down a Manhattan sidewalk

Lea and the Philly-born Wharton grad began dating in July 2017 after being in the same bridal party at a wedding, and they'll celebrate their third wedding anniversary on March 9.

'I'm going to have like a billion [children]!' Michele previously told British Glamour back in 2014.

'But mainly because I always hated being an only child, I always wished I had more siblings!'

'Sunday in the city': Michele (born Sarfati) was bundled up in a grey winter coat over a black turtleneck sweater and large shades

Lots of lox! The Forever songstress treated Reich to a 'birthday bagel brunch' at Major Food Group restaurant Sadelle's on Sunday, thanking owner Mario Carbone and his publicist girlfriend Cait Bailey 'for another epic meal'

'I'm going to have like a billion [children]!' Lea and the Philly-born Wharton grad began dating in July 2017 after being in the same bridal party at a wedding, and they'll celebrate their third wedding anniversary on March 9 (pictured January 16)

The SAG Award winner was 'thrilled' to reprise her Broadway breakout role of Wendla Bergmann in the 15th anniversary performance of Spring Awakening at the Imperial Theatre on November 15.

Michael John Warren directed a RadicalMedia documentary of the SA reunion concert benefitting The Actors Fund, which will stream on HBO later this year.

'Bringing this show to life again has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life,' Lea gushed.

'One of the most incredible experiences of my life': Michele was 'thrilled' to reprise her Broadway breakout role of Wendla Bergmann in the 15th anniversary performance of Spring Awakening at the Imperial Theatre on November 15

'It's true!' Michael John Warren directed a RadicalMedia documentary of the SA reunion concert benefitting The Actors Fund, which will stream on HBO later this year

Michele has come a long way since apologizing for being 'hurtful, privileged, and difficult' following a flurry of resurfaced allegations from former co-stars like Samantha Ware in 2020.

'I apologize for my behavior and for any pain which I have caused,' the Emmy and Grammy nominee wrote on June 8.

'We all can grow and change and I have definitely used these past several months to reflect on my own shortcomings.'
Simon Blackburn was dumped from the upcoming season of Married At First Sight after producers discovered his misogynistic, racist and homophobic TikTok videos.

And months after his abrupt dismissal, the disgraced groom has publicly lashed out at his on-screen 'wife' Jessica Seracino - who Daily Mail Australia revealed in November was the first person to alert the show's producers to his sick past.

Without a hint of irony, Blackburn told Confidential Seracino was a 'nightmare', adding: 'She completely lost it, and should never have been on the show.'

Look who's talking! Simon Blackburn (pictured) has lashed out against his on-screen 'wife' Jessica Seracino, months after he was booted off Married At First Sight when producers discovered his misogynistic, racist and homophobic TikTok videos

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Channel Nine for further comment.

Blackburn, who is in his thirties, had already filmed his wedding and honeymoon with Seracino when she discovered the offensive videos in October after noticing 'red flags' about him within just 24 hours of tying the knot.

'Jessica was extremely uncomfortable with him,' an insider told Daily Mail Australia.

After waking up on their honeymoon, Seracino asked her friends to do some research on Blackburn, and a quick Google search revealed his unsavoury online footprint, including hateful videos and tweets.

'There were a series of homophobic and misogynistic tweets and TikTok videos. Something was not right,' the source added.

Sure, mate: Without a hint of irony, Blackburn said his 'wife' Jessica Seracino (pictured) was a 'nightmare', adding: 'She completely lost it, and should never have been on the show'

'Jessica was in disbelief and that's when she alerted producers, who were just as surprised.'

Blackburn was then 'immediately asked to leave' and Seracino was sent to another hotel until producers matched her with a new groom.

Blackburn featured in an untelevised trailer for MAFS, but a Nine spokesperson confirmed he had been edited out of the program after the network was made aware of his behaviour.

'When unacceptable social media content was discovered in relation to Simon Blackburn we immediately took steps to remove him from the program,' a Nine representative told Daily Mail Australia.

'We won't be making further comment.'

Gone: Blackburn was 'immediately asked to leave' MAFS once his sick videos were discovered and Seracino was sent to another hotel until producers matched her with a new groom

One shameful TikTok video showed Blackburn making misogynistic comments about a woman he previously dated.

He claimed she would 'sit on YouTube all day' instead of making money and called her the C-word repeatedly.

Another video saw him discussing how he matched with a woman on dating app Hinge, who later texted him to say she didn't think she was his type.

He then boasted of not dating women 'over 60 kilos'.

Blackburn did not respond to Daily Mail Australia's request for comment at the time, but appeared to address his exit from the show by sharing a post on his private Instagram profile that was captioned: 'Leave the past in the past.'

He also asked people to stop messaging him about the videos because he was suffering from Covid-19.

Exit: Blackburn featured in an untelevised trailer for MAFS, but a Nine spokesperson confirmed he had been edited out of the program after the network was made aware of his behaviour

He said: 'To clarify, I haven't posted on TikTok in six months and all videos of me are reposts or screenshots of lives from last year! Not my current thoughts or mindset!

'No further comment will be given! I've got Covid, let me rest!'

Blackburn later apologised for a horrific video in which he described gay people as 'disgusting and filthy', telling his followers he'd 'lost the plot' after having ten beers.

He explained: 'Every man and his dog was saying, "Simo, you're not a man until you've been with a man. Simo, would you ever be with a man?" This went on for about a 10-minute period. I lost the plot.

'I basically said, "Why would you ever want to be with a man? Jump in a box, whatever." I got off the live and that was the end of it.

'I've never publicly come on to a social media platform and said I do not like gays. I can openly tell you right now that I absolutely love lesbians. I love them, mate.'

Response: Blackburn did not respond to our request for comment, but appeared to address his exit from the show by sharing this post on his private Instagram profile. The father of two also asked people to stop messaging him about the videos because he had Covid-19

He continued: 'I watch them three times a week and I have nothing against the LGBT community as long as you're not hurting animals.'

Blackburn also addressed his exit from MAFS, slamming claims he is 'dangerous' and denying his on-screen wife, Seracino, felt 'uncomfortable' around him.

'I'll tell you something about dangerous. I don't make moves on women, they make moves on me. I'm the prize, not them. So let's just clear that up,' he said.

'All these people saying my MAFS bride was in fear. I've never been more nice to my MAFS wife in my life, holding her dress, making sure it wasn't near the candles.

'My MAFS wife told me, "You're too nice. I'm not used to a guy like you." You know what else she said? "Do you think we'll have an argument?" I said, "Why would I argue?"'
Alessandra Ambrosio showed off her fit figure in a bikini while playing beach volleyball on Sunday in Santa Monica, California.

The 40-year-old Brazilian model worked on her beach volleyball skills in a multi-colored top and matching bottom from San Lorenzo Bikinis, which showcased her flat stomach and long legs.

The former Victoria's Secret model had her dark hair pulled back while playing and accessorized with mirrored sunglasses and small dangling earrings.

Alessandra later shared a kiss with her boyfriend Richard Lee.

Beach babe: Alessandra Ambrosio showed off her fit figure in a two-piece bathing suit from San Lorenzo Bikinis while playing beach volleyball on Sunday in Santa Monica, California

Alessandra displayed a nice even tan after recently returning to Los Angeles after spending the holidays in her native Brazil.

She was joined on the sand by friends and her model boyfriend Richard Lee.

Richard spent some time over the holidays with Alessandra in Brazil and they reunited after not seeing each other for more than a week when she returned earlier this month.

Alessandra and Richard will soon be celebrating their one-year anniversary together.

Nice form: The 40-year-old Brazilian model worked on her beach volleyball skills in a multi-colored top and matching bottom that showcased her flat stomach and long legs

Model boyfriend: Alessandra was joined on the sand by friends and her model boyfriend Richard Lee

Cute moment: Alessandra later shared a kiss with her boyfriend Richard Lee

They reportedly started dating back in late February 2020, which included a dinner date near the beach.

Alessandra has look-alike daughter Anja, 13, and nine-year-old son Noah with her ex-fiance Jamie Mazur.

The Brazilian beauty serves as the host of the HBO Max show The Cut.

Going strong: Richard and Alessandra, shown earlier this month on Instagram, will soon be celebrating their one-year anniversary together

The competition centers on 12 of the best hairdressers in Brazil as they compete to be named the best hairstylist in the country.

The Cut debuted on November 25 on HBO Max.

Alessandra also started her own swimwear brand GAL Floripa in 2019 in partnership with her sister, Aline Ambrosio, and her childhood friend, Gisele Coria.
The US State Department issued a directive asking families of its staffers at the US Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country due to the heightened risk of a Russian invasion.

US Staff Pulled Out From Ukraine Embassy

All the dependents of the personnel and non-essential embassy crew were ordered to leave Ukraine. According to the Associated Press report, all the travel expenses will be shouldered by the US government.

"Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk," the department advised in a statement, which was updated on Sunday.

State Department, however, clarified that the US embassy in Kyiv will continue its operation. The decision is not an evacuation and easing US support for Ukraine, which recently started receiving military support from the US and NATO to boost its defensive capabilities.

The statement of the State Department was issued in response to recent reports that Russia was plotting major military operations against Ukraine. On the other hand, the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO countries of using disinformation to escalate the conflict around Ukraine.

Meanwhile, According to Al Jazeera, the British Embassy in Ukraine has announced on Monday the pulling out of its staff and their dependents from Kyiv due to increasing fears of a Russian invasion.

"The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work," it said on Twitter.

Read Also: Joe Biden Predicts Russia Will Attack Ukraine Anytime But Vladimir Putin Will Face Stiff Price; Volodymyr Zelensky Rebukes Gaffe

Russia, Ukrainian Politician Rejects UK Claim of Attempts To Oust Leader

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry rejected the British allegations that Kremlin attempted to install a pro-Moscow leadership in Ukraine.

British Foreign Office earlier alleged that Russian intelligence officials were in contact with Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev and former government officials, including Mykola Azarov, a former prime minister under Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president ousted in 2014, and Yanukovych's ex-chief of staff, Andriy Kluyev.

The Foreign Office added that the personalities are presently involved "in the planning for an attack on Ukraine."

Ridiculous Claims

Murayev dismissed the allegation of having contact with any Russian intelligence officer. He said that the Britsh claim is "ridiculous and funny" since he has been banned from Russia since 2018 as Moscow considers him a security threat.

He claimed the sanctions were imposed on him by Kremlin as a result of a disagreement with Viktor Medvedchuk, Ukraine's most known pro-Russia politician and a good friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Murayev believes that Ukraine should be neutral, and its desire to join NATO could further continue the years of conflict between the Ukrainian military and Russia-backed separatists that resulted in the death of 14,000 people.

Murayev served in the legislature from 2014 until 2019. He began his political career with the Opposition Bloc faction, which was established from the remnants of Yanukovich's Party of Regions. He created his political party, For Life, in June 2016, and another, Nashi, in 2018, as per Reuters.

Seemingly mocking the British allegations, Murayev had uploaded a picture of himself transformed to look like the fictitious British secret agent James Bond on Facebook.

Related Article: Ukraine Government Websites Hit by Cyberattack That Warns To "Expect The Worst" as Russia Moves More Troops

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
She's reinvigorated her style with a bevy of edgy all-black ensembles since she began dating her fiance Travis Barker after they began dating early last year.

And Kourtney Kardashian continued the trend on Sunday with a figure-hugging black ensemble that showcased all of her enviable curves.

The 42-year-old Keeping Up With The Kardashians star stunned in a black tube top while posing suggestively in a new Instagram post.

Curves ahead: Kourtney Kardashian, 42, stunned in a busty black tube top while highlighting her pert derriere in photos posted to Instagram on Sunday

In her first photo, Kourtney stood in profile to highlight her trim figure while playfully leaning forward to emphasize her pert derriere.

She put on a busty display in her black tube top, which she paired with black leggings tucked into towering black platform boots.

The reality star was crouched down and facing the camera in a second photo while showing off her perfect pout for the camera.

She covered up some more with a black trench coat while steadying herself on the railing on the edge of the balcony.

Back in black: She added a black trench coat atop her ensemble while crouching down in a follow-up snap

Family connection: The KUWTK star reposted her first image in a lightened version while tagging sister Kim Kardashian's Skims

Kourtney completed her look with modest gold necklaces, and she wore her raven tresses in a chic upturned bob with a center part.

She let the photos do the talking and simply captioned the post with a bat emoji.

Later, the Poosh founder posted a lightened version of her first snap to her Instagram Stories while again posting the bat emoji and tagging her sister Kim Kardashian's shapewear brand Skims.

Kourtney's edgy look was more modest than her outfits in vacation throwbacks that she posted to Instagram on Saturday.

The dark-haired beauty highlighted her cleavage and tummy in a stunning mirror selfie in which she wore a monokini with thick straps coiled around her midriff.

Her tattooed fiance Travis Barker also made an appearance from behind in another mirror selfie in which she flaunted her trim figure in a green bikini.

That's amore! Kourtney's edgy look was more modest than her outfits in vacation throwbacks that she posted to Instagram on Saturday from her trip to Italy in August

Romantic getaway: The reality star stunned in a wraparound black monokini and a green bikini while enjoying the sites with her fiance Travis Barker

Little has been revealed about the KardashianJenner family's upcoming new reality series for Hulu, which takes up where KUWTK left off, but Kourtney hinted that her engagement last year may play a major part earlier in the new series.

On Thursday, she posted a photo of her laptop playing a segment of The Kardashians that appeared to include footsteps on a sandy beach.

The image was likely from the filming of Travis' seaside proposal to Kourtney in Montecito, California, in October.

The Blink-182 drummer had arranged an enormous heart-shaped display of red roses that was decorated with tall white candles, which the love birds stepped into as Travis proposed.

Special day: On Thursday, she posted a photo of her laptop playing a segment of The Kardashians that appeared to include footsteps on a sandy beach, possibly from Travis' proposal in October

What a moment: The Blink-182 drummer had arranged a heart-shaped display of red roses and candles for his proposal in Montecito, California

Although things seem to be going as well as ever with Kourtney and Travis in their public posts, an insider claimed to The Sun on Friday that she was 'furious' with her famous family members for overshadowing her impending nuptials.

'For her, the wedding is the biggest deal of her life and she just felt that for once it should be all about her,' they said.

'But typically, everyone else's drama is overshadowing it. All the planning was supposed to be covered as part of the Hulu show  but now it's back to the Kim storyline as it always is.'

In the shadows: On Friday, an insider claimed to The Sun that Kourtney was 'furious' that Kim's relationship with Pete Davidson, Khloe's split from Tristan Thompson and Kylie's pregnancy were overshadowing her impending nuptials; seen with Travis in September 2021 in Brooklyn

They added that Kourtney had pushed her wedding back into the spring so as not to overlap with the birth of her youngest sister Kylie Jenner's second child, but Kim's romance with Saturday Night Live star Pete Davidson and Khloe's heartbreak over her ex Tristan Thompson's alleged cheating have taken the spotlight.

'It's a nightmare for Kourt  she just for once wants something to be about her. She's waited this long to get married and she wants it to be special,' the source continued.

'Right now, no one in the family is even that interested in her wedding plans  as her sisters seem to be preoccupied.'
She recently welcomed some adorable puppies into her family.

But Jessica Alba had to leave the tiny pooches behind on Sunday when she went grocery shopping with her 10-year-old daughter Haven and four-year-old son Hayes.

The 40-year-old Fantastic Four actress looked effortlessly cool in a casual ensemble with a gray jacket as the trio headed into the Italian restaurant and grocery store Eataly in Los Angeles.

Too cool for school: Jessica Alba looked cool and relaxed in a baggy gray jacket with black high-top Converse sneakers as she went grocery shopping at Eataly in LA on Sunday with daughter Haven, 10, and son Hayes, four

Jessica had on a plain white top under her baggy jacket, which she contrasted with charcoal jeans cut off above her ankles.

The shorter length highlighted her classic black Converse high-top sneakers, which complemented her black alligator-print handbag.

The Dark Angel actress added some flash to her look with silver bracelets and large silver hoop earrings which peaked out from her chic brunette bob.

Haven was also dressed casually with a white 'Compassion' sweatshirt and black pants, while Hayes looked cute in an unbuttoned plaid shirt with gray pants.

No fuss: Jessica paired her jacket with a plain white top and cropped charcoal jeans while carrying a thick black alligator print handbag

Casual: The L.A.'s Finest star wore a floral mask and styled her brunette tresses in a bob parted down the middle that highlighted her silver hoop earrings

All three family members wore masks to help slow the spread of the coronavirus and in accordance with California's indoor mask mandate.

Jessica and Hayes both had on floral-print cloth masks, while Haven opted for a black cloth covering.

Although Eataly is noted for its restaurant, it also features a market area fully stocked with supplies to craft an Italian meal.

The L.A.'s Finest star let her son push their shopping cart  which was crammed full of paper shopping bags  as she pulled from the front on their way out to their vehicle in the parking garage.

'Fur babies': Earlier this month, Jessica and her family lit up as they revealed the two new fluffy puppies that had invited into their family seen with (LR) Hayes, Honor, husband Cash Warren and Haven

'Obsessed': On Thursday, she showed how her 'whole fam is obsessed' with the 'new fur babies' as she and Hayes played with them in a video posted to Instagram

Giving it a try: Her son even playfully crawled into one of the dogs' crates

Earlier this month, Jessica and her family lit up as they revealed the two new fluffy puppies that had invited into their family.

The whole clan, including her eldest daughter Honor, 13, and husband Cash Warren, 43, beamed as they posed outside while carrying the pups.

On Thursday, she showed how her 'whole fam is obsessed' with the 'new fur babies' as she and Hayes played with them in a video posted to Instagram.

Her son even playfully crawled into one of the dogs' crates.

Dark days: Though Jessica was focusing on the present, her former Dark Angel costar Jensen Ackles recently recounted how the two would bicker on set for Michael Rosenbaum's podcast Inside Of You

Though Jessica was focusing on the present, her former Dark Angel costar Jensen Ackles recently dredged up some unpleasant memories from his time working on set with her.

During his recent appearance on Inside Of You With Michael Rosenbaum, the Supernatural actor claimed that Jessica could be 'horrible' to him on set, though he blamed her attitude on 'a relationship that caused her undue stress' and noted that she was warm and kind at other times.

He added that Jessica  who played his on-screens sibling  could be dismissive of him, calling their conflict 'the worst kind of bickering a brother and sister could do.'

At the time, she was engaged to her costar Michael Weatherly, who was 31 years old, while she was only 19.

Ackles said the two eventually found a place of 'mutual respect' after he fought 'fire with fire.'

He added, 'I love Jess, which I know kind of contradicts what I just said,' and recalled how she comforted him one day while he grieved the death of his grandfather.
Heath Ledger's daughter Matilda could be returning to Australia, 14 years after her father's death.

Matilda, 16, is currently living in New York with her mother Michelle Williams, stepdad Thomas Kail and a one-year-old sibling.

According to Woman's Day, the teenager wants to travel to Perth to visit her late dad's family.

Heath Ledger's teenage daughter Matilda 'wants to return to Australia to spend time with her dad's family - 14 years after his untimely death. Pictured Matilda and mother Michelle Williams

'Michelle is extremely protective of Matilda and has tried so hard to shelter her from public life, but she has accepted Matilda's wishes,' an insider allegedly told the publication.

'She knows how Heath died, and how much he loved her. Not to mention how much his family loves her and that she always has a home with them,' the source added.

Travel plans: According to Woman's Day, the teenager has told her mother that she wants to travel to Perth to visit Heath's (pictured) family

Apart from her physical resemblance to her late dad, Heath's father Kim previously revealed Matilda is also carrying on his legacy with her personality.

'She's got an enormous number of his mannerisms. She's very inquisitive, she's got his energy, because Heath never slept from when he was two and Matilda's like that,' Kim previously told The Project.

'I mean, she's just got this ball of energy and she radiates this little aura. Heath was kind of like that. So it's fabulous really.'

In March last year, an insider claimed Matilda had also recently sparked an interest in one of Heath's old hobbies: chess.

'Heath was obsessed with chess, and now Matilda is getting quite good at it. She even has her dad's old chess board,' the source told New Idea.

'Matilda has the skills to become a Grandmaster. Michelle [Williams] thinks this is a great thing and will prevent her from getting up to no good.'

Michelle was in a relationship with Heath from 2004 until late 2007.

The couple welcomed Matilda, their only child, in October 2005.

Heath died in a New York City apartment on January 22, 2008, after accidentally overdosing following months of physical and mental exhaustion.

'Michelle is extremely protective of Matilda and has tried so hard to shelter her from public life, but she has accepted Matilda's wishes,' an insider said

Reportedly a drug user on and off for years, things came to a head when he was juggling too many films - including his last role The Dark Knight - on very little sleep and he started relying on various cocktails of prescriptions to shut his mind off.

'I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going,' he told the New York Times in an interview in November - just two months before he died at the age of 28.

He was found to have taken a lethal combination of six drugs: two types of narcotics, two types of anti-anxiety medicine and two types of sleep medicine.

At his celebrity-studded funeral in Perth, mourners including Williams, Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne jumped into the ocean while fully dressed to honour Ledger's adventurous spirit.
Hugh Jackman began the New Year in isolation after testing positive to Covid-19.

And the actor kept a low profile on Sunday as he stepped out in New York City ahead of a matinee performance of his Broadway show The Music Man.

The 53-year-old wore black drawstring pants and a grey sweater, and kept himself warm during the winter chill with a navy windbreaker.

Going incognito: Hugh Jackman kept a low profile on Sunday as he stepped out in New York City ahead of a matinee performance of his Broadway show The Music Man

The Wolverine star went incognito in a black mask and matching beanie.

Hugh's sighting comes after he was sidelined for more than a week after testing positive for Covid-19 last year.

Upon his return to the show, he shared a positive message with fans on Instagram.

'All right, I cant tell you how good this moment feels - yes, were back, were back,' said Hugh, who plays the role of Harold Hill in the famed musical.

Cold weather: The 53-year-old wore black drawstring pants and a grey sweater, and kept himself warm during the winter chill with a navy windbreaker

Optimistic outlook: Hugh's sighting comes after he was sidelined for more than a week after testing positive for Covid-19 last year. Upon his return to the show, he shared a positive message with fans on Instagram (pictured)

'It is Thursday, January 6th and we are back, going to work,' he added.

The Aussie, who tested positive for Covid-19 on December 28, apologised to fans who had tickets to see the show when he was sidelined.

'To all those people who had tickets for the last 10 days Im so sorry, I hope and pray that you have a chance to reschedule,' he said

'Im so excited to be back and to bring the show - which is pure joy and full of hope and belief and faith - back to Broadway.'

Apologies: The Aussie, who tested positive for Covid-19 on December 28, apologised to fans who had tickets to see the show when he was sidelined

The Greatest Showman actor also had kind words for his colleagues as the Broadway community suffers during the Omicron wave.

He said: 'To all the shows on Broadway, Im thinking of you all, and everybody stay safe, be kind to each other and Im looking forward to seeing you soon.'

The Music Man was among the shows that had to cancel performances due to the spike in Covid-19 cases as previews kicked off December 20.
The Adelaide Strikers have moved to within one win of the BBL decider after defeating the Sydney Thunder by six runs in a pulsating Knockout final at the MCG.

After posting 6-184 on Sunday night, the Strikers made it six straight wins and set up a date with the Sydney Sixers in the Challenger on Wednesday night after the Thunder replied with 6-178.

With nine runs required off three deliveries, Alex Ross succumbed when Henry Thornton somehow held a stunning outfield catch despite colliding with Alex Carey.

Harry Conway (2-33) had Ben Cutting caught on the boundary the next ball to seal the victory before narrowly missing a hat-trick when Jon Wells spilled a tough outfield chance.

Jason Sangha (61) and Ross (56) turned the tide the Thunder's way with an enterprising 90-run stand after captain Usman Khawaja was controversially sent packing in the seventh over.

Khawaja stood his ground after slicing Matt Short to short third man where Fawad Ahmed lunged forward and claimed a catch.

Umpire Donovan Koch's soft signal was out, which television umpire Ben Treloar agreed with, despite replays appearing to show the ball brushing the turf as it went into Fawad's right hand.

'No, I didn't (think it was out),' Khawaja told the Seven Network.

'I thought at the end of the day the soft signal cost me.

'It looked like a blade of glass 100 per cent touched the ball.

'I don't agree with it, but I have to accept it.'

Strikers captain Peter Siddle claimed two wickets in the 17th over, including Sangha, as the Thunder took the power surge, before Conway held his nerve at the death.

'When they were in that position (Thunder 2-146 in the 17th), it was going to be hard work,' Siddle said.

'We were going to have to execute and get the job done with the ball.

'It was nice to get a couple in that over and Harry Conway from the other end, what a superb finish from him.'

Earlier, England import Ian Cockbain (65) continued his rich run of form since arriving in Australia 11 days ago after Short (39) and Carey (23) got the Strikers off to a flyer.

Daniel Sams endured a nightmare early, conceding 19 runs in the third over and dropping Short on 13 with an uncharacteristic piece of misjudgement in the outfield.

Sams redeemed himself the following over when he launched himself high to take a screamer and dismiss Carey.

But Cockbain, after a sedate start, took apart the Thunder attack who, apart from legspinner Tanveer Sangha (2-15), were off the boil.
Karl Stefanovic has made no secret of the fact he's a proud Queenslander.

But the 47-year-old Today co-host surprised many over the weekend when he was spotted lugging a case of Chinese-owned Tsingtao lager out of his 4WD.

Adding to the confusion was the fact that Karl's vehicle was adorned with stickers for Queenland's favourite local lager, XXXX.

Shocker! Karl Stefanovic (pictured) has made no secret of the fact he's a proud Queenslander. But the Today co-host surprised many over the weekend when he was spotted lugging a case of Chinese-owned Tsingtao lager

The TV personality wore a black T-shirt and bright orange shorts with sneakers for his booze run.

He also carried what appeared to be a box of wine and two bags of ice.

Karl appeared to be chatting on his phone as he ran the liquor into the house.

Qingdao - that's in Queensland! Adding to the confusion was the fact that Karl's vehicle was adorned with stickers for Queenland's favourite local lager, XXXX

Bright on: The TV personality wore a black T-shirt and bright orange shorts with sneakers for his booze run

Pulling out the stoppers: He also carried what appeared to be a box of wine and two bags of ice

Despite being born in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst, Stefanovic was raised and educated in Queensland.

After attending St. Augustine's College in Cairns and Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane, Karl graduated from Queensland University of Technology with a degree in journalism in 1994.

In 1995 he met his now-former wife Cassandra Thorburn at a party in Rockhampton.

Making moves: Karl appeared to be chatting on his phone as he ran the liquor into the house

Queenslander: Despite being born in the Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst, Stefanovic was raised and educated in Queensland

The couple went on to have three children together, before they divorced in 2017.

Karl is now married to another Queenslander, his second wife Jasmine Yarbrough, with who he shares one daughter.

Karl's boozy day comes after the TV host confirmed reports he, his wife Jasmine, and 18-month-old daughter Harper caught the virus while on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

Local boy: After attending St. Augustine's College in Cairns and Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane, Karl graduated from Queensland University of Technology with a degree in journalism in 1994

Take two: Karl is now married to another Queenslander, his second wife Jasmine Yarbrough, with who he shares one daughter.

Last week he described the physical and mental toll the virus took on him and how he was just three days away from getting the booster shot when he tested positive.

'I am a little croaky. The last couple of weeks, going back to January 3 or 4, the whole family tested positive,' Stefanovic told viewers.

'The whole family went down with Covid-19. It was a bit awful to tell you the truth at times, but we're all clear now.

Recovery: Karl's boozy day comes after the TV host confirmed reports he, his wife Jasmine, and 18-month-old daughter Harper caught the virus while on Queensland's Sunshine Coast

Unlucky: Last week he described the physical and mental toll the virus took on him and how he was just three days away from getting the booster shot when he tested positive

'We got through the whole thing, and look, they say it's mild, but it's pretty intense in parts.'

He said he had been given the all-clear to return to work after undergoing rapid antigen tests.

'We're all clear and thankfully for you, I'm back,' he told viewers.
Alec Baldwin kept a low profile in an all-black ensemble as he was spotted cleaning out his car over the weekend.

The 63-year-old actor was seen organizing and cleaning out his black Cadillac Escalade with a vacuum.

The father-of-seven - who is currently under investigation after shooting and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, on the set of his film Rust in October 2021 - then proceeded to take out one of his children's car seats from the back.

Cleaning: Alec Baldwin, 63, kept a low profile in an all-black ensemble as he was spotted cleaning out his car with a vacuum over the weekend

He kept warm in the New York chill with a fitted black jacket, grey slacks, and black loafers.

The It's Complicated star also accessorized his outfit with a silver watch.

Baldwin recently handed over his phone to police in order to help with their investigation into the tragic shooting.

Organizing: The father-of-seven then proceeded to take out one of his children's car seats from the back of the black Cadillac Escalade

The actor has not been charged in relation to Halyna's death, though the investigation continues and lawsuits have been filed.

Santa Fe County Sheriff's Department first issued a warrant for his phone on December 16.

District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies said that investigators wanted to 'obtain any materials' from Baldwin's phone that could help uncover what led to the shooting.

Deadly accident: The actor recently handed over his phone to sheriff's deputies investigating his accidental killing of Rust cinematographer Halyna Hutchins; He is pictured weeping while using his phone in the aftermath of the October 2021 shooting

Alec's lawyer Aaron Dyer confirmed his cell phone had been handed over to authorities in Suffolk County, New York, close to where he lives.

Dyer told Deadline: 'Alec voluntarily provided his phone to the authorities this morning so they can finish their investigation.'

He want on to say, 'But this matter isnt about his phone, and there are no answers on his phone. Alec did nothing wrong. It is clear that he was told it was a cold gun, and was following instructions when this tragic accident occurred.'

Dyer then added, 'The real question that needs to be answered is how live rounds got on the set in the first place.'

The Rust set: Production of the Western was stopped after the shooting, with allegations of cost-cutting and poor safety practices made against its crew

Hutchins was a married mother of one. Director Joel Souza, 48, was also shot during the accident, but recovered from his injuries.

During an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in December, Baldwin said the shooting happened when he was working with Hutchins on how to position a gun for a scene they were about to shoot.

He said he pulled back the hammer and released it, prompting the gun to fire. Production of the Western was stopped after the shooting, with allegations of cost-cutting and poor safety practices made against its crew.

Authorities still do not know how a live round ended up in the prop firearm.

Tragic: Hutchins was a married mother of one; Pictured on the set of Rust

Baldwin also was sued last week for defamation by the sisters and girlfriend of US Marine Rylee McCollum, 20, who was killed during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.

The actor sent McCollum's sister, Roice, a check for $5,000 for her to pass onto Jiennah Crayton, McCollum's widow, and the couple's newborn baby as a 'tribute to a fallen soldier.'

But Baldwin's tone quickly changed after Roice posted a photo on Instagram earlier this month showing her at the Washington Monument on January 6, 2021 - the day of the Capitol riot - with the caption 'Throwback.'

Afghanistan withdrawal: Baldwin also was sued last week for defamation by the sisters and girlfriend of US Marine Rylee McCollum, 20, who was killed during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021

'Are you the same woman I sent the $ for your sister's husband who was killed during the Afghanistan exit?' Baldwin wrote on Roice's Instagram post from his own account, according to a complaint filed Monday in federal court.

'When I sent the $ for your late brother, out of real respect for his service to this country, I didn't know you were a January 6th rioter,' the '30 Rock' star wrote.

Roice McCollum pushed back, saying she was not involved in the riots and was never accused of any crimes during the mayhem. She said she'd been interviewed by the FBI who cleared her of any involvement.

The McCollumn sisters and Jiennah Crayton are seeking $25million in damages for defamation, invasion of privacy, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Roman Kemp turned heads on Tuesday as he took to social media to showcase a glitxzy new beauty look.

The radio host, 28, posed up a storm on Instagram in a series of snaps donning purple glitter lipstick.

Roman explained to his I.4 million followers that he 'filmed something very silly, very fun and very sexy.'

Pose: Roman Kemp turned heads on Tuesday as he took to Instagram donning purple glitter lipstick to film something 'silly, very fun and very sexy'

Giving the camera a silly pout and the a peace sign the star seemed in a jovial mood.In another snap, Roman larked about as he blew a kiss for the camera.

He opted for comfort in a laid back jumper and he sported a black headband.

It comes after the TV personality reflected on his time on 2019's I'm a Celebrity.

Work it! In another snap, Roman larked about as he blew a kiss for the camera

New project: Roman explained to his I. 4 million followers that he 'filmed something very silly, very fun and very sexy'

Roman, who came third in the show, spoke exclusively to MailOnline at the Capital Jingle Bell Ball with Barclaycard in December.

He joked that being campmates with Caitlyn Jenner, 72, put him in a closer social position to her supermodel daughter, Kendall, 26.

He said: 'With Caitlyn being in there we knew the second the show finished, she's wheels up on the private jet, she doesn't want to hear from us ever again.

He added: 'I got a call from her about three days ago and I get voicemails every now and again being like, "Roman, how's London?" [does impression] One degree of separation away from Kendall Jenner.'

Red carpet: Roman, who came third in the show, spoke exclusively to MailOnline at the Capital Jingle Bell Ball with Barclaycard in December

Also joining Roman on the red carpet was Breakfast Show co-stars Sian Welby, 35 and Sonny Jay, 28.

The trio spoke about being late to their early morning presenting job as Roman admitted that he was 'the worst'.

Sian said that Roman comes in at one minute to six every morning as she detailed: 'We get a text saying we're in the lift and sometimes we think, 'No you're not, you're still on the roundabout. He's still on his way in.'

As Roman hit back: 'Listen, you can't do that show and it not happen. All that it is, if you are late you've got to shout out the cab driver who didn't pick you up and bring you here. It's the worst feeling in the world.'

Stunning: Also joining Roman on the red carpet was Breakfast Show co-stars Sian Welby, 35 and Sonny Jay, 28

Sian continued: 'The best one was when sonny had won Dancing On Ice and he came in still in his outfit, still with his glitter on and he was so p****d.'

Sonny explained his behaviour as he said: 'We couldn't go out but we just had drinks at the dressing room.'

Sian added: 'He had the trophy of course.'

Roman said that it was the drunkest that he had ever seen his co-star before Sonny added: 'I'd literally just got in.'

Ronan joked that he hated Sian and Sunny when he first met them at the Breakfast Show.

Sian detailed: 'We've known each other for quite a long time. We used to do the same time in the evening when I worked for Heart so we finished at 10 o'clock.'

Roman added: 'Instantly I knew if I had met them at school we would have been sat next to each other at school.'
Melissa McCarthy cut a stylish figure as she stepped out in Los Angeles on Sunday for a shopping spree at interiors chain, HomeGoods.

The actress, 51, looked ever-chic in a brown floral midi dress, which she teamed up with a trendy brown leather handbag and an oversized pair of brown sunglasses.

Donning black leather slides, she accessorised her look with a pair of hoop earrings, along with a black-and-white scarf headband and a collection of silver rings.

Emerging: Melissa McCarthy cut a stylish figure in a brown floral midi dress as she stepped out in Los Angeles on Sunday for a shopping spree at interiors chain, HomeGoods

She wore a black face mask amid the ongoing coronavirus pandmic and appeared to be in high spirits as she strolled through the store's car park.

Her walnut locks had been tied into a messy up-do and she sported a pair of bracelets for the outing.

Last month, the Hollywood star and her cousin Jenna Perusich began shooting their own Discovery+ series The Great Giveback, produced by the Scott Brothers, which streams in 'late spring 2022.'

She wrote on her Instagram in November: 'I can absolutely guarantee I will cry in every episode.

Looking good: Donning black leather slides, she accessorised her look with a pair of hoop earrings, along with a black-and-white scarf headband and a collection of silver rings

'These people are incredible and their stories are inspiring. Thank you @hgtv @discoveryplus and @scottbrothers for trusting @jenna_perusich and I with plans + power tools.'

Melissa and Jenna will combine their desire to help others and their love of renovation and design to surprise amazing people with beautiful home transformations.

Jonathan Scott was especially starstruck over McCarthy, whom he enlisted to appear in his Bridesmaids-themed TikTok on December 10.

The two-time Emmy winner will next portray the actor version of the Asgardian goddess of death Hela (Cate Blanchett) opposite Matt Damon and Liam Hemsworth in Taika Waititi's sequel Thor: Love and Thunder, which hits US/UK theaters July 8.

The star-studded ensemble also includes Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Karen Gillan, Christian Bale, Chris Pratt, Tessa Thompson, Russell Crowe, and Sam Neill.

Next year, the Nine Perfect Strangers producer will also play Amily Luck in her 48-year-old husband's eight-episode series God's Favourite Idiot about a tech-support employee becoming the unwitting messenger of god.
Lisa Snowden looked on cloud nine as she enjoyed a romantic trip to Iceland with her fiance George Smart to celebrate her 50th birthday.

The TV star showcased her incredible figure in a black bikini as she and her partner, 41, went for a dip at the Sky Lagoon Iceland thermal spa.

The former Britain's Next Top Model host enjoyed a beer with George as they soaked up the breathtaking views on their trip.

Birthday girl: Lisa Snowden looked on cloud nine as she enjoyed a romantic trip to Iceland with her fiance George Smart to celebrate her 50th birthday

Styling her brunette locks into an updo, Lisa sported a gold necklace and matching earrings for the outing.

Alongside the post, Lisa wrote: 'And just like that.. I am 50!! What a way to celebrate here in Iceland at the @skylagooniceland!

'As far as the best places we have ever had a beer, this has to top the list! (we might have had a few!) -8 degrees, snow storm, 40mph winds, the most exhilarating experience of our lives!!

'Before the drinking began Sky Lagoon's 7 step ritual took us on the most relaxing skin smoothing session.

Couple: The TV star showcased her incredible figure in a black bikini as she and her partner, 41, went for a dip at the Sky Lagoon Iceland thermal spa

Radiant: The former Britain's Next Top Model soaked up the breathtaking views on her trip

'Lagoon bathing, cold plunging, the most stunning sauna I have ever seen with the biggest window looking out at the North Atlantic Ocean- cool mist, body scrubs with sea salt & oil, steam room, showers and back into the lagoon.

'This day will forever be engrained in our memories, Iceland we love you!'

Lisa was inundated with birthday messages from her celebrity pals including Ruth Langsford who wrote: 'Happy Birthday gorgeous! 50 years young.enjoy!'

Alexandra Burke added: 'Happy birthday my darling xx sending you so much love! ' while Lisa Faulkner said: 'This looks amazing happy happy happy birthday'.

Cheers: Styling her brunette locks into an updo, Lisa sported a gold necklace and matching earrings for the outing

Lisa wrote: 'As far as the best places we have ever had a beer, this has to top the list! (we might have had a few!) -8 degrees, snow storm, 40mph winds, the most exhilarating experience of our lives!!'

Well wishes: Lisa was inundated with birthday messages from her celebrity pals including Ruth Langsford who wrote: 'Happy Birthday gorgeous! 50 years young.enjoy!'

It comes after Lisa recently revealed her fiance George has been a rock while she goes through the menopause and they are happy to not have kids.

The star candidly said in an interview that 'kids are amazing and enrich your life, but let's be honest, there are enough kids in the world.'

She also explained that George was 'patient and kind' to her during the menopause when she would have 'crazy rages' and fly 'off the handle'.

Speaking to The Sun, Lisa revealed that hormone replacement therapy and the support of her partner allowed her to be 'the happiest' she has ever been.

She continued: 'Some days I couldn't get out of bed because of debilitating bleeding during my monthly cycle but George would just hold me, and tell me everything would be OK.

'There were periods when my clothes didn't fit me and I felt really down. When you're in the thick of it you think it will never end. Why am I angry, over-emotional  you just don't know what is going on. George was there for me every step of the way  I've really lucked out with him.'
Joe Biden and several other world leaders are expected to unite against Russia to ensure that the country won't attack Ukraine.

According to reports, Biden could send a few thousand troops to Eastern Europe and the Baltic States as part of a broader NATO effort to bolster NATO allies that border the two feuding countries.

The POTUS's advisors presented him with options on responding to Russia's aggressive stance. If Vladimir Putin doesn't live up to his promise of not attacking Ukraine, the United States and other NATO countries could contribute their troops to battle Russia.

Biden may also deploy naval vessels to make port visits to NATO allies who feel threatened. Some of the equipment and the troops would come from Europe.

Russia plans to install puppets in Ukraine

But UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office claimed that they have information suggesting that Russia will install a Russian puppet in Ukraine.

"We have information that indicates the Russian Government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine," a source said via Fox News.

Republicans urge Joe Biden to stand up to Putin

According to CNN, several Republicans are not impressed with how Biden dealt with Putin during their conversation about the possible attack. Some of them think that the POTUS showed weakness by appeasing the Russian president.

On Sunday, the State Department said that it was authorizing the departure of non-essential staff and family members from its embassy in Kyiv and warned that its capacity to help Americans in the country would be limited.

And Secretary of State Antony Blinken also warned that if a single Russian unit entered Ukraine, it would trigger a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and Europe.

Read Also: Kamala Harris Weighs in on Russia-Ukraine Tensions, Says the United States Won't Back Down Against Vladimir Putin

US, UK, Germany's different response to Russia-Ukraine tensions

Helima Croft, the head of global commodity strategy and the Middle East and North Africa research at RBC Capital Markets, said there seems to be some division among Western allies while Russia continues to send additional troops to Ukraine.

Even though the United States and the United Kingdom have gone far in pledging economic sanctions, the same cannot be said about their German allies.

The German naval chief was forced to resign after saying that Putin deserves some respect and for suggesting that Berlin should join forces with Moscow against Beijing, according to CNBC.

But it is also important to note that Russia has vehemently denied its alleged plans to launch an invasion into Ukraine even though 100,000 troops have been stationed on the border.

Russia also said that they have the right to move equipment and military personnel anywhere they like.

The country also wants a legal assurance from Ukraine that they won't join the US and European military alliance NATO, but they have not received any.

As of late, it's still unclear what will happen between the two countries. Sources are convinced that it could go either way, depending on who will make the first bold move.

Related Article: Britain Sides With Ukraine Amid Ongoing Tensions With Russia, Says Pro-Moscow Administration Could Replace Government

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EastEnders star Sid Owen has announced he is a first-time dad at the age of 49 after his fiancee gave birth on Sunday.

Sid revealed the happy news with an Instagram post as he thanked his partner Victoria Shores, 42, for 'our baby.'

The arrival of their baby comes a year after the couple suffered a 'heartbreaking' miscarriage.

Happy news: EastEnders star Sid Owen has announced he is a first-time dad at the age of 49 after his fiancee gave birth on Sunday

Saring a picture of himself in scrubs, kissing Victoria, Sid wrote: 'Been a long a day. But. Can I say. I love you Victoria. Thank you for our baby.'

The post was flooded with comments from Sid's EastEnders co-stars, with Patsy Palmer, who played his on-screen partner Bianca, writing 'Congratulations to you all.'

Dean Gaffney, who played Robbie Jackson, commented: 'Congrats brother.'

While Danniella Westbrook added: 'Congratulations daddy  and well done Victoria .'

Love: The post was flooded with comments from Sid's EastEnders co-stars, with Patsy Palmer, who played his on-screen partner Bianca, writing 'Congratulations to you all'

Family of three: The couple fell pregnant for a second time after their devastating miscarriage in early 2021

In December the couple appeared on Loose Women where the waitress revealed their baby was due on Valentine's Day, before speaking about their devastating miscarriage.

Victoria, who claimed she was in a 'state of shock', said: 'For me, it's about the support after. You feel very low. I found it difficult to concentrate on anything.'

'I'm a bit older and it wasn't my first experience but it was Sid's. When you're in your 40s you've coped with things in life.'

Her other-half added: 'It was really difficult. When it happened during Covid we went to hospital and I wasn't allowed in. I was on the phone checking up. I knew what had happened but I didn't want to believe it.'

Loss: In December the couple appeared on Loose Women where the waitress revealed their baby was due on Valentine's Day, before speaking about their devastating miscarriage

The actor went on to outline how the pair lay down afterwards holding hands as Victoria wept.

He said: 'You just want to be strong for a partner. I can't even imagine what it's like for a woman internally.

'It was the first time I'd got someone pregnant. It was all that excitement. For years all of my brothers were telling me I was a Jaffar.'

Victoria, who has two children, shared the 'miracle' news that she'd fallen pregnant again, after originally planning to try IVF in their quest to start a family.

Happiness: Sid reconnected with restaurant worker Victoria and fell in love, having previously met 23 years ago

Emotional: The actor went on to outline how the pair lay down afterwards holding hands as Victoria wept

Sid reconnected with restaurant worker Victoria and fell in love, having previously met 23 years ago.

The soap star has previously been engaged twice. First to dancer Carty Hubbard, 41, in 2000, then to TV host Polly Parsons, 37.

Sid first announced his baby news back in September in an interview with the Sunday Mirror.

He told the publication at the time: 'I never ever dreamt I would have kids. The older you get the more distant that idea seems.

'You give up hope sometimes, so it is a miracle it has happened. We'd spoken about it when we talked about marriage but I just didn't think it was going to happen. I was completely shocked and over the moon.'

Expecting: Victoria, who has two children, shared the 'miracle' news that she'd fallen pregnant again, after originally planning to try IVF in their quest to start a family

He later took to Instagram to share a picture from the sonogram.

He has promised to try and keep his child grounded, after he revealed in his memoir From Rags To Riches that he had grown up in severe poverty after his father went to prison and his mother died when he was eight-years-old.

Speaking about his relationship with Victoria last year, Sid revealed he nearly gave up on love after a freak golfing accident left him with a broken jaw and several missing teeth.

The star had to pay 10,000 for reconstructive surgery after a ball hit him in the face while playing gold in Thailand.

Sid was single for six years and acknowledged that his loneliness caused him to experience depression.

Victoria has helped Sid find happiness since they rekindled their former romance and started chatting on Facebook.

Moving forward: SSid first announced his baby news back in September in an interview with the Sunday Mirror . He told the publication at the time: 'I never ever dreamt I would have kids

The couple first started dating in 1998 when they met at Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood's party, which was also attended by Kate Moss, John Galliano, Noel Gallagher, Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger.

They started flirting over a glass of wine in the kitchen and it wasn't long before Sid had wooed Victoria with his charm.

The pair then jetted off to see the Rolling Stones play in Amsterdam and subsequently dated for a year.

However, their romance eventually dwindled and Victoria moved on, married and had two children while Sid remained single.

Sid proposed to Victoria in the bridal suite of Eastwell Manor spa in Kent, and have now booked the manor's picturesque grounds for their wedding venue.

If you have been affected by the subject of this story please call the Miscarriage Association Helpline on 01924 200799.
Married At First Sight Australia's Jess Power has been caught packing on the PDA with British hunk, Connor Thompson.

The 30-year-old blonde bombshell, who will next be seen on Celebs Go Dating in the UK, was seen holding hands and kissing the podcaster.

Jess and Connor looked to only have eyes for each other as they took a stroll in Manchester before sitting down for a coffee together.

Couple? Jess Power, 30, was caught packing on the PDA with hunky podcaster Connor Thompson (both pictured) on Saturday as they stepped out for a coffee in Manchester

Jess happily gazed at the strapping hunky who sat across from her at the cafe.

He clearly only had eyes for her as they leaned in for a kiss in the chilly English city.

Jess looked stylish wearing a longline striped blue and white shirt which she wore over a pair of tight leather-look leggings.

It's love? Jess happily gazed at the strapping hunky who sat across from her at the cafe

Smooch: He clearly only had eyes for her as they leaned in for a kiss in the chilly English city

Close: Jess and Connor stopped by a cafe for a warm beverage - and a quick smooch

She topped the outfit with a black coat and finished the ensemble with a pair of pricey Louis Vuitton boots.

Meanwhile, Connor also bundled up wearing a long black overcoat along with a pair of black jeans and a grey scarf.

He finished his look with a cap and a pair of joggers.

Bundled-up: Jess looked stylish wearing a longline striped blue and white shirt which she wore over a pair of tight leather-look leggings

Pricey: The reality star topped the outfit with a black coat and finished the ensemble with a pair of pricey Louis Vuitton boots

Style: Meanwhile, Connor also bundled up wearing a long black overcoat along with a pair of black jeans and a grey scarf. He finished his look with joggers and a cap

Connor is regularly seen on Jess' Instagram account with the pair spending a lot of time together lately.

On Sunday, the pair visited Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London.

Jess was first linked to Connor back in October when she first arrived in the UK.

Match? Connor is regularly seen on Jess' Instagram account with the pair spending a lot of time together lately

Jessika reportedly struck up a romance with Connor last year, when her season of Married At First Sight aired in the UK.

She has made multiple guest appearances on Connor's podcast Erasing the Bar, where the pair shared several flirty exchanges.

Jessika sent tongues wagging that same month when she announced: 'I am going to go to the UK, and there's someone there that's amazing waiting for me.'

Connection: Jessika reportedly struck up a romance with Connor last year, when her season of Married At First Sight aired in the UK

Special guest: She has made multiple guest appearances on Connor's podcast Erasing the Bar, where the pair shared several flirty exchanges

The pair fell in love online, a source told gossip website The Wash.

'Since then they've spoken every day, developed serious feelings for each other and are essentially in a long distance relationship  despite never meeting,' they said.

'Jess has been hesitant to talk about it publicly in case the media surrounding her love life ruins things. It's sweet how protective she is after enduring so many public romances.'

Jessika sent tongues wagging last October when she announced: 'I am going to go to the UK, and there's someone there that's amazing waiting for me'

Private: 'Since then they've spoken every day, developed serious feelings for each other and are essentially in a long distance relationship  despite never meeting,' a source told The Wash last year

Staying: 'Jess has lined up quite a lot of work over there as there's more opportunities in England. As of right now she has zero plans to return to Australia,' the source said

Jessika, who has had several offers from UK reality shows and expressed an interest in pursuing a career there, plans to pick up some gigs even if the romance doesn't work out.

'Jess has lined up quite a lot of work over there as there's more opportunities in England. As of right now she has zero plans to return to Australia,' they said.

She has some previous experience on the British celebrity circuit, having enjoyed a romance with Geordie Shore's Scott Timlin, better known as Scotty T.

Cases of the ex: Jess has some previous experience on the British celebrity circuit, having enjoyed a romance with Geordie Shore's Scott Timlin, better known as Scotty T

She has also received flirty messages from Celebrity Big Brother star Stephen Bear.

Jessika split from ex-boyfriend Filip Poznanovic in April, just three months after the pair went public.

She 'wed' Mick Gould on Married At First Sight in 2019, but ditched him to pursue a romance with her co-star Dan Webb, which ended up being short-lived.
Anna Wintour was seen for the first time since Andre Leon Talley's tragic death last week as she attended the Paco Rabanne Paris Fashion Week Show on Sunday.

The Vogue editor-in-chief, 72, who recently paid tribute to her 'complicated relationship' with Andre following his death from a heart attack last Tuesday, cut a somber figure as she arrived at the show.

She wore a black leather coat and berry knee-high boots, teamed with a scarlet scarf as she attended the star-studded show.

Sighting: Anna Wintour was seen for the first time since Andre Leon Talley's tragic death last week as she attended the Paco Rabanne Paris Fashion Week Show on Sunday

Last week Anna paid tribute to Vogue editor-at-large Andre, branding him a 'magnificent' friend - amid increasing pressure and criticism over her silence and after many took to social media to condemn her for her treatment of Talley

Talley, a fashion icon, died from a heart attack at a White Plains, New York hospital on Tuesday.

A source close to Wintour told DailyMail.com she felt she couldn't rush because she needed time 'to craft a statement that reflected the loss of someone who had been one of her closest friends and confidants for decades.'

Friends: The Vogue editor-in-chief, 72, who paid tribute to her 'complicated relationship' with Andre aged 73 following his death from a heart attack last Tuesday, cut a sombre figure as she arrived at the show (pictured together in 1999)

In the statement, Wintour said the loss of Talley is 'immeasurable,' and that she will miss him despite their 'complicated past.'

The pair's long-time friendship came to an abrupt end when she apparently froze him out for being 'too old, too overweight, too uncool', he claimed. In his 2020 memoir, he wrote that he was left with 'huge emotional and psychological scars' after Wintour made remarks about his weight and in one scorching passage, he wrote: 'She is immune to anyone other than the powerful and famous people who populate the pages of Vogue . I am no longer of value to her.

But on Wednesday morning Wintour's tribute to Talley said: 'The loss of Andre is felt by so many of us today: the designers he enthusiastically cheered on every season, and who loved him for it; the generations he inspired to work in the industry, seeing a figure who broke boundaries while never forgetting where he started from; those who knew fashion, and Vogue, simply because of him; and, not forgetting, the multitude of colleagues over the years who were consistently buoyed by every new discovery of Andres, which he would discuss loudly, and volublyno one could make people more excited about the most seemingly insignificant fashion details than him.

Then: He worked alongside Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour for several years, developing a close friendship with the notoriously icy editor, until she froze him for being 'too old, too overweight, too uncool' (pictured in 2020)

'Even his stream of colorful faxes and emails were a highly anticipated event, something we all looked forward to,' she said.

'Yet its the loss of Andre as my colleague and friend that I think of now; its immeasurable.

'He was magnificent and erudite and wickedly funnymercurial, too. Like many decades-long relationships, there were complicated moments, but all I want to remember today, all I care about, is the brilliant and compassionate man who was a generous and loving friend to me and to my family for many, many years, and who we will all miss so much.'

Duo: Talley had apparently reconnected with Wintour, seen together here in 2014, in recent months

Vogue confirmed Talley died of a heart attack on Tuesday at the age of 73. But a friend of Talley's for 45 years, Texas anesthesiologist Dr. Yvonne Cormier told the Houston Chronicle that he had passed away from complications from coronavirus. She added he had underlying health issues related to his weight.

COVID has been known to cause lasting heart conditions in patients, and small blood clots can form in the heart, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Talley is remembered as a driving force in Vogue's success, serving as the magazine's long-acclaimed creative director and American editor-at-large through the 1980s and '90s.
Ben Affleck was a man on a mission on Sunday as he embarked on a location scout for a new project.

The 49-year-old actor kept things casual in a plaid shirt, grey tee and jeans as he met with an eager group at Van Nuys Airport, Los Angeles.

The Hollywood film star made sure safety was paramount as he sported a face mask, while the crowd accompanying him followed suit.

Man on a mission: Ben Affleck cut a casual figure in a plaid shirt and jeans as he embarked on a location scout for a new project in Los Angeles on Sunday

In one photograph, the Gone Girl star walked closely to a masked-up, grey-haired man who appeared to be assisting him with his latest venture.

As well as being an accoladed actor, Ben also boasts filmmaking expertise, with his directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, dating back to 2007.

Other films Ben has been the director mastermind behind include Argo, Live By Night and The Town.

Intriguing: In one photograph, the Gone Girl star, 49, walked closely to a masked-up, grey-haired man who appeared to be assisting him with his latest venture

Exciting: The actor kept things casual in a plaid shirt, grey tee and jeans as he met with an eager group at Van Nuys Airport

Earlier this month, Ben opened up about the now-iconic video of him sadly staring off into space during a press junket interview for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

In a new interview, the California native admitted that though he thought the memes sparked by the video were funny, he is now more concerned about the affects it had on his children.

The six-year-old video - featuring a melancholy soundtrack - shows Ben alongside co-star Henry Cavill as they are told that the movie is getting mixed reviews.

Sad: Earlier this month, Ben opened up about the now-iconic video of him sadly staring off into space during a press junket interview for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

And while Henry launches into a professional response, Ben turns his gaze down with a look of utter dismay.

The video - which went viral overnight - was quickly turned into a parody, as YouTuber Sabconth added in a collage of negative headlines from review articles, as well as Simon and Garfunkel's song The Sound of Silence.

The actor opened up about the meme and his public perception to the Los Angeles Times, saying, 'I got to a place where [the public perception] was so different from who I am that I just stopped reading and stopped caring.'

He went on to say he was concerned about his kids - Violet, 17, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, nine - being affected by it. 'But then, as my kids got older and started seeing the internet themselves, thats the difficult part. Even the Sad Affleck meme - that was funny to me. I mean, theres nobody who hasnt felt that way at a junket,' he stated.

'But then my kids see it and I think, Oh, are they going to think their dad is fundamentally sad or they have to worry about me? Thats really tough,' the star added.
Joey Essex left his campmates wondering how he survived after taking a dramatic tumble on the Australian I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!

The 31-year-old TOWIE star shocked viewers as he was seen falling headfirst from his top bunkbed spot after reaching for his trousers in the darkness.

Yet despite the shocking scenes, Joey was unharmed and able to laugh at the incident, sharing a clip of the pre-recorded footage on Instagram.

'Why isn't he dead?!': Joey Essex shocked his campmates as he took a dramatic headfirst tumble out of his bunk bed on I'm A Celeb Australia

In the footage, Joey was seen rummaging around the side of the bed before tumbling off and landing on the bed of fellow campmate Dylan Lewis.

Joey remarked: 'I woke up, I was trying to get my trousers and the next minute - I just went flying down the hill!'

Dylan exclaimed: 'Sticks breaking, plants being ripped out... why isn't he dead?!'

Joey's love interest Maria Thattil added: 'Waking up and seeing him in the bushes was so funny, and then to top it off, he was still in his sleeping bag!' while Joey admitted: 'I'm still trying to work out what actually happened.'

Oops: The 31-year-old TOWIE star shocked viewers as he was seen falling headfirst from his top bunkbed spot after reaching for his trousers in the darkness

Oh dear: In the footage, Joey was seen rummaging around the side of the bed before tumbling off and landing on the bed of fellow campmate Dylan Lewis

During his time on the show - which was filmed in September - Joey enjoyed a brief romance with Miss Universe Australia Maria - but she later ruled out any chance of it being long-term.

Speaking on Monday's The Kyle and Jackie O Show, Maria said nothing but nice things about the British reality star but admitted it most certainly wouldn't be a long-term romance.

'Look, I'll say this much - Joey was absolutely delightful, and when you're in there you're a little bit bored, I'm not going to lie,' she said.

'You know that saying where it's like - you're smart, but when it comes to matters of the heart and the people you find attractive, we can do some silly things.'

Dylan exclaimed: 'Sticks breaking, plants being ripped out... why isn't he dead?!' as he recalled the dramatic middle of the night incident

Joey's love interest Maria Thattil added: 'Waking up and seeing him in the bushes was so funny, and then to top it off, he was still in his sleeping bag!'

'He's not hard on the eyes!' Kyle replied, to which Maria said: 'We all know Joey is gorgeous.

'I'll tell you this - like most relationships in life, not everything has to be a long-term thing. He doesn't have to be my husband, I can just have a nice time in there, that's fine!'

Maria was seen being evicted from the series on Sunday night.

Prior to her departure, things were heating up between herself and Joey for days, with the pair even sharing a steamy kiss under the covers.

Cute: During his time on the show - which was filmed in September - Joey enjoyed a brief romance with Miss Universe Australia Maria

During her exit interview, Maria didn't seem too convinced it would materialise into anything more in future.

She told Dr Chris Brown: 'Joey and I are friends, were friends.

'Were flirty friends, and we agreed that the jungle under the microscope, it was just pushing things a little bit.

'You never know, you never know. So well just wait and see.'
David Walliams shocked the Britain's Got Talent auditions as he pole-danced on stage before flashing his nipple at Simon Cowell on Friday.

The Little Britain star and judge, 50, who 'has been given a talking to' by show bosses after making crude jokes and behaving mischievously, took to the stage for an impromptu pole-dancing performance as crowds cheered.

Hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly pretended to vomit as they watched on, with David joking and chuckling as he swung himself around at the London Palladium.

Oh wow: David Walliams shocked the Britain's Got Talent auditions as he pole-danced on stage before flashing his nipple at Simon Cowell on Friday

After spinning around, the star made his way off stage and back to the judging panel where head judge Simon asked him something.

David responded: 'What'?' before pulling his shirt open to reveal his nipple as the audience cheered.

This comes amid claims David undid his shirt before playing with his nipples and sticking his finger through the fly of his trousers to make out he was exposing himself next to judge Simon during auditions this week.

Oh my: David was seen flashing his nipple at Simon during the auditions at the London Palladium

Wow: Hosts Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly pretended to vomit as they watched on, with David joking and chuckling as he swung himself around at the London Palladium

Showman: The star was seen gracing the pole for the audience

Strut: The star shrugged off his jacket after his lively performance

It is claimed David got a 'ticking off' after acting 'like a schoolboy' within the same week that music mogul Simon berated the comic for a cheeky comment in reference to a contestant.

A TV insider told The Sun: 'Because BGT has been off our screens for some time, David is like a schoolboy in his first week back in class after the summer holidays.

'He cant resist showing off in front of the crowd, which people expect from the funnyman. But sometimes he can take things too far, and thats just whats happened this week.

'Simon obviously loves his outrageous behaviour and the fact they take the mickey out of one another, but even he seemed unimpressed with his latest joke.'

Banter: The star smiled as he chatted with his pal Simon on the panel

Cheeky chap: This comes amid claims David undid his shirt before playing with his nipples and sticking his finger through the fly of his trousers to make out he was exposing himself next to judge Simon during auditions this week

Back again: David is currently filming auditions alongside Alesha Dixon, 43, Amanda Holden, 50, and Simon, 62

They added that David was spoken to about his humour after the first day of auditions but he appears to have taken it as a 'challenge' to be even naughtier.

MailOnline has contacted representatives for David and Britain's Got Talent for comment.

It comes after Simon reportedly 'exploded' at David during filming for the BGT auditions after he made a lewd joke.

Naughty? It's claimed David got a 'ticking off' after acting 'like a schoolboy' in the same week that music mogul Simon berated the comic for a cheeky comment in reference to a contestant

Cheeky: A TV insider told The Sun: 'Because BGT has been off our screens for some time, David is like a schoolboy in his first week back in class after the summer holidays'

Sources claim the music mogul berated the comic for his cheeky comment in reference to a contestant, noting the programme is supposed to be 'a family show.'

According to The Sun, contestant handsome Tim Jones took to the stage dressed in police uniform for his audition, leading David to joke: 'Arrest me now!'

As Tim began to explain his talent the cheeky judge interrupted: 'Is it getting your c*** out?'

Funny? It comes after Simon reportedly 'exploded' at David during filming for the BGT auditions after he made a lewd joke

Simon was quick to interject as he ordered David to apologise which only fueled David who then added: 'Do you swing it around?'

Furious Simon exclaimed 'Get out, get out, this is supposed to be a family show!'

Turning to address the audience the BGT creator added: 'When we have a break well make him sit on his own for ten minutes.'

An audience member told the publication: 'It was clear that David was sailing close to the wind with his jibes. Then he went too far. Simon was visibly angry with him and exploded.'

The guest explained that David had been making jibes at Simon all day before he pushed it too far with the gag.

Inside info: A guest explained that David had been making jibes at Simon all day before he pushed it too far with the gag

Stars: Beaming Britain's Got Talent presenters Ant and Dec looked in great spirits as they headed to the London Palladium for series 15 auditions on Thursday
She announced in October that she's expecting her third child, a baby boy, with husband Spencer Matthews.

And braless Vogue Williams was glowing as she soaked up the winter sun in a revealing silver chain-link dress which showed off her growing bump.

The Irish beauty, 36, took to Instagram on Monday and shared more snaps from her post New Year family break in the Maldives.

Sun-soaked: Vogue Williams, 36, was glowing as she showed off her growing baby bump in a silver chain-link dress on Monday

Cute!: Former Made In Chelsea star Spencer Matthews and daughter Gigi beamed for the camera

She looked sensational in her latest holiday pictures, with her blonde tresses wet as she finished off the look with some black cat-eye sunglasses.

Vogue also made an Instagram post which showed her husband Spencer Matthews and daughter Gigi beaming as they posed for the camera.

She captioned it: 'The cutest smiles in the world'

Vogue shared a close-up of the dress on her Stories

Instagram: Vogue took to Instagram and shared snaps of her family on their holiday in the Maldives

The bronzed beauty was pictured in a previous Instagram post wearing a white plunging beach dress. She accessorised with gold jewellery and shades.

Vogue explained that she's been enjoying dressing in summer clothes, as it's much easier than winter clothes with a bump.

In the caption she also mentioned that they will only be in the Maldives for a few more days before heading home to London.

She said: ' last few days in paradise then home, I always look forward to getting home too, this place is great but its no Howth'

Stunning: The 36-year-old looked previously looked chic in a plunging white beach dress as she posed in front of the ocean

Instagram: The Irish born TV personality has been updating her followers daily and announced they only have a few days left on holiday

Vogue jetted to the Maldives earlier this month for a winter break with her husband, former Made In Chelsea star Spencer, 33, and their children.

The television personality has been keeping her followers up to date on the family's sunshine stint, with plenty of adorable pictures and videos posted to her Instagram account.

Theodore and Gigi seem to have been having the time of their lives, playing in the sand, swimming and eating ice cream during the fun-filled holiday.

Mother and daughter: Both Gigi (pictured) and Theodore have enjoyed their time in the sun

Vogue and Spencer announced they were expecting their third child in October and have since confirmed the sex of their baby, due in the spring.

Speaking to Hello! magazine, the couple announced: 'We're having a little boy!'

Announcing her pregnancy, Vogue told Hello!: 'Baby number three on the way!!! This has been a lot harder to hide third time around, I feel like I've had a bump since the first month.'

Relationship goals: Vogue and Spencer announced they were expecting their third child in October

Alcohol-free drinks entrepreneur Spencer shared a sweet snap of the couple on his social media accounts and wrote: 'WE'RE HAVING A THIRD BABY!!!

'If you'd have told me a few years ago that by the age of 33 I'd have three beautiful children with the woman of my dreams I WOULD have believed you because that was always the plan.'
Adam Thomas, Angela Griffin and Katie Griffiths will return to the Waterloo Road reboot, almost seven years after it was axed by the BBC.

The former Emmerdale star, 33, will get back into character as ex pupil Donte Charles, with Katie, 32, playing his wife Chlo Grainger.

Once the head of pastoral, Kim Campbell has now moved up the workplace ladder to become the namesake school's headteacher, played by Angela, 45.

'We're going back to school!' Adam Thomas, Angela Griffin (right) and Katie Griffiths (centre) have revealed they will reprise their roles in Waterloo Road reboot... seven years after it was axed by the BBC

Taking to Instagram to share the exciting news, Adam shared a warm embrace with Katie in an adorable reunion snap.

In his caption, he wrote: 'The news is finally out!!! Donte and Chloe are back!! @kaytgriff  @waterlooroad coming soon @bbc @bbciplayer #waterlooroad.'

The Leeds native also shared a photo of the three-piece reading from their scripts while beaming from ear-to-ear, adding that new faces are 'to be revealed'.

She wrote: Big news! I'm going back to school! I'm so so excited to be returning to @waterlooroad reunited with @adamthomas21 and @theangelagriffin and loads of new faces yet to be revealed. Coming to @bbciplayer later this year. #waterlooroad.'

Pals: The former Emmerdale star, 33, will get back into character as ex pupil Donte Charles, with Katie, 32, playing Chlo Grainger

In his element: In his caption, he wrote: 'The news is finally out!!! Donte and Chloe are back!! @kaytgriff  @waterlooroad coming soon @bbc @bbciplayer #waterlooroad'

Posting the same images, Angela chimed in: 'Here it is!!! My big news! I'm going back to school! I'm ridiculously excited to be returning to @waterlooroad as Kim Campbell. But this time, she's the HEAD.

'I'm reunited with the brilliant @adamthomas21 and Katie Griffiths @kaytgriff (Donte and Chlo all grown up) and loads of new faces yet to be revealed. Coming to @bbciplayer later this year!

'#waterlooroad #series11 #kimcampbell #newhead #newschool #newchallenge #manchester #theoriginals #actress #actresslife #bts #onset @kaytgriff.'

The secondary school-set show first aired in 2006 and won legions of fans by tackling numerous tough issues over its 200-episode run and now its coming back and will tackle the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on school kids.

Happy: The Leeds native also shared a photo of the pair reading from their scripts while beaming from ear-to-ear, adding that new faces are 'to be revealed'

Wow! Once the head of pastoral, Kim Campbell has now moved up the workplace ladder to become the namesake school's headteacher, played by Angela, 45

Piers Wenger, Director of BBC Drama, said: 'Waterloo Road is the perfect lens through which to explore post-COVID Britain, from the perspective of those who have arguably been affected most young people in education.'

The gritty show - which was written by the creators of ITV prison drama Bad Girls - was originally set in Rochdale but later series saw a relocation to Greenock, Scotland.

It has been confirmed that the new episodes will be set once again in Greater Manchester.

Thrilled: She wrote: Big news! I'm going back to school! I'm so so excited to be returning to @waterlooroad reunited with @adamthomas21 and @theangelagriffin and loads of new faces yet to be revealed. Coming to @bbciplayer later this year. #waterlooroad'

Buzzing: Posting the same images, Angela chimed in: 'Here it is!!! My big news! I'm going back to school! I'm ridiculously excited to be returning to @waterlooroad as Kim Campbell. But this time, she's the HEAD'

Executive producer Cameron Roach said: 'Waterloo Road will continue its reputation for kickstarting, supporting and enabling careers both in front of and behind the camera, in a truly inclusive way, from our base in Greater Manchester.'

The first run of the series featured a slew of familiar faces, such as Loose Women panellist Denise Welch as hapless French teacher Steph Haydock and Hollyoaks actress Chelsee Healey, 33, as ditsy but lovable pupil-turned-secretary Janeece Bryant.

Former Coronation Street actress Angela Griffin, 45, played pastoral care teacher Kim Campbell who smuggled a Rwandan baby into the country.

What a pair! Donte and Chlo got married in series three, which aired in 2007 (Adam and Katie pictured in-character)

It launched the careers of The Capture star Holliday Grainger, 33, and Jenna Coleman, who went on to win awards for her role as companion Clara Oswald in Doctor Who and as Queen Victoria in Victoria.

The series - of which all ten series were released on BBC iPlayer prior to lockdown - tackled issues such as teenage pregnancy, alcohol, and drug addiction, and cancer.

Sensational storylines saw headteacher Rachel Mason (Eva Pope) being exposed as a former prostitute, an explosion rip through the canteen, and pupil Maxine Barlow being shot to death by boyfriend Earl Kelly.

Popular: Kim was known by fans as the no-nonsense pastoral teacher, who also acted as a friend to many of the students (Angela pictured in-character circa 2006)

Wegner added: 'We are thrilled to be returning to this brilliant format  its thrills and spills, unmissable characters and high drama  at a time when audiences across Britain need it most, and to be collaborating with the brilliant Cameron Roach and Wall To Wall on its return.'

The programme ended in 2014 with BBC1 controller Charlotte Moore saying at the time it was 'important to make room for new dramas'.

The news was announced by BBC1's Twitter account, which wrote: 'Series 10 of #WaterlooRoad will be the final series. We're incredibly proud of the show but believe it has reached the end of its lifecycle. (sic)'.

Drama: The secondary school-set show first aired in 2006 and won legions of fans by tackling numerous tough issues over its 200-episode run (L-R: Lucien Laviscount, Linzey Cocker, Jack McMullen, Darcy Isa, William Rush, Rebecca Ryan, Ben Ryan Davies pictured in 2010)

Ms Moore said the BBC was 'incredibly proud' of the show but went on: 'We believe it has reached the end of its life cycle and won't be returning after series 10 finishes in 2015.

'On BBC1 it's important to make room for new drama and we are committed to commissioning new drama series for 8pm. There are some really exciting ideas currently in development but nothing to confirm yet.'

The final episode of the show aired on March 9 2015.

Waterloo Road will return to BBC One and BBC iPlayer later in 2022.
Amy Childs was seen exiting a clinic on Monday after revealing she had undergone chin liposuction.

The TOWIE star, 31, opened up on her stories saying 'it really gets her down' when she watches herself on TV.

Sitting in a blue paper gown from Dr. Saleena's clinic in Leeds the beauty revealed she was 'very nervous but excited.'

Low key exit: Amy Childs was seen exiting a clinic on Monday after revealing she had undergone chin liposuction

The reality TV star spoke candidly about her decision saying 'today I am going to be having liposuction under my chin.'

'It's something that I wanted for so long, I have tried so many treatments and this really bothers me.'

She continued: 'When I watch myself on TV, honestly it really gets me down, so I booked a consultation with Seleena and I am also having my treatment done today as well so I am going to show you some before and afters.'

News: The TOWIE star, 31, opened up on her stories saying 'it really gets her down' when she watches herself on TV

Exit: The star wrapped up as she left the clinic after undergoing the treatment

Support: The star's boyfriend Billy Delbosq was seen following her out of the clinic

Before: The star showed off medical markings on her jaw ahead of the procedure

Feeling positive: The reality TV star spoke candidly about her decision saying 'today I am going to be having liposuction under my chin'

In a snap posted to her stories Amy had blue markings on her chin and face as she posed for a side angle snap.

She wrote: 'Little bit nervous but always wanted to have this done. Can't wait to show you my results in the next following weeks.'

A few hours later, the star shared another snap with her chin strapped up in bandages.

She wrote: 'All done, look like a chipmunk but can't wait to show you my end results.'

All done: A few hours later, the star shared another snap with her chin strapped up in bandages

It comes after Amy confirmed she had a new romance with gym owner and First Dates star Billy Delbosq in October.

MailOnline revealed Amy was dating Billy in September, after the reality star was spotted enjoying champagne-filled dates with the businessman and attending fitness classes at his gym.

Billy is a successful businessman and owns two companies, Box Gym Fitness in Brentwood and LVT which specialises in domestic flooring.

New romance: Amy confirmed she had a new romance with gym owner and First Dates star Billy Delbosq in October. (pictured in November 2021)

According to his Instagram bio, he is also a director of carpet and flooring shop Delbosq Ltd.

In 2018, he also appeared on reality dating show First Dates.

In late September the mother-of-two was spotted with Billy in London, which was the first time the couple have been seen out together in public.

During The TOWIE Afterparty show host Bobby Norris, 35, asked Amy how her love life was following the breakdown of her relationship with ex-boyfriend Tim.

Amy cheekily revealed that had been spending time with someone new and that she was now 'happy again'.

She replied: 'Do you know what, Bob? I do rush into relationships, you know me. I rush in, but do you know what? I'm happy.'
Aled Jones' actress daughter Emilia has discussed her nine-month journey learning sign language for her turn in critically-acclaimed film, CODA.

The star, 19, who plays Ruby Rossi, the only hearing member of a deaf family who dreams of going to Berkley in the film, spoke about her desire to represent the deaf community during an appearance on Monday's This Morning.

She said: 'The sign language and the singing I had to work the most on, I trained for nine months. It was a lot of hard work but it was so rewarding when I finished.

Committed: Aled Jones' actress daughter Emilia has discussed her nine-month journey learning sign language for her turn in critically-acclaimed film, CODA

'Our director wanted everything to be authentic. I went away and worked on the sign and thought it was really moving. I showed my American Sign Language director and she burst out laughing and she said, "youve just told me you had indigestion."

'CODA stands for child of deaf adults and my character Ruby is a CODA. I spoke to a lot of CODAs in preparation because Im representing a community I dont belong to so I wanted to do it accurately.

'To be deaf is so much more than sign language, its an experience no hearing person can understand.'

Her efforts paid off, after she recently won the Verified Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Onscreen performance.

Acclaimed: The star, 19, who plays Ruby Rossi, the only hearing member of a deaf family who dreams of going to Berkley in the film, spoke about her desire to represent the deaf community during an appearance on Monday's This Morning

The film has also received a plethora of award show nods, including a Critics Choice Award nomination for Emilia in the Best Young Performer category.

Vogue has hailed the actress as '2022s Breakout Star to Watch'. Her father Aled found fame as a gifted boy soprano and later as a TV presenter, recording artist and concert performer.

Aled, from Llandegfan, Anglesey, was 16 when he ended his four-year career as a boy soprano, during which he sold six million records, gave a private performance for Charles and Diana and sang at the Vatican.

A stint at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School followed and by the age of 25, he was back on stage as the lead in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Despite standing ovations every night he could not escape the feeling that something was missing.

It was then he met his wife Claire, and the two married in 2001, welcoming two children: Emilia and Lucas.

Rewarding: he said: 'The sign language and the singing I had to work the most on, I trained for nine months. It was a lot of hard work but it was so rewarding when I finished'

Chic: The actress wore a black mini dress for her appearance on the show

Emilia's acting career began when she was just eight-years-old when she won small parts in the film One Day and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

She was later praised for her small performance in an episode of Doctor Who.

The same year she made her theatrical debut after playing the princess Young Fiona in the original cast of Shrek the Musical in London.

At the time her father was blown away by her performance, saying: 'Shes a little rocket. Shes not scared of anything.

'Its what she wants to do, who am I to stop her? I just worry because I dont want her to get a job  or not get a job  because of me.

She would later appear in Rebecca Lenkiewicz's stage adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw.

In December 2018, she landed her big break when it was announced that she was cast as Kinsey Locke, one of the main characters in the Netflix fantasy drama series Locke & Key.
Pakistani medical expert contributes to advancing China-Pakistan medical cooperation

People's Daily Online) 13:30, January 24, 2022

Muhammad Shahbaz, a Pakistani who graduated from Chinas Shandong University as a PhD in surgical sciences, has been living and studying in east Chinas Shandong Province for 14 years.

Muhammad Shahbaz (1st from right) attending a face masks distribution ceremony. (Photo/Global People)

He always moved back and forth between China and Pakistan in the previous years to promote cooperation between medical institutions of the two countries.

The Pakistani said he is on the same wavelength with the local people in Shandong who are hospitable, unsophisticated and kind. He believes the value of life is in love and dedication, further saying that success is not about the cold, hard digits in ones bank accounts, but about how much positive impacts one can bring to others.

Shahbazs connection with Shandong dates back to 2006 upon graduating from high school when his father suggested that he pursue a degree in Chinas Shandong University. His father told him that China is the best friend of their country, and it was trendy at that time to go to study medical sciences in China.

After arriving at Shandong University, Shahbaz dug into the Chinese language, and just half a year later, he could communicate with others in the language.

Soon, he and his schoolmates launched a charity program in education. On weekends, they taught English to students in remote areas in Shandong, and would also donate books to the students.

Shahbaz said that through the lessons he taught, he helped the students find a way to realize their dreams, and he hopes that all of them can be admitted to renowned universities one day.

After the program ended, the students taught him to play the drums and the traditional Chinese game of Jianzi, which was described by the Pakistani as an unforgettable experience.

With the medical knowledge he learned, Shahbaz once saved a Chinese girl on a flight from Beijing to Paris. According to him, the girl was trembling and vomiting seriously at that time. Her temperature and blood pressure had also fallen to a very low level. As a result, he gave her an oxygen mask to make it easier for her to breathe and warmed her palms and forehead with bottles containing hot water wrapped in towels. He kept monitoring her temperature, blood pressure and pulse. After his professional rescue, the girl gradually recovered. The crew on the flight thanked him with warm applause. Shahbaz considers it the best day of his life, saying hes proud of saving the life of the girl.

Since a child, Shahbaz has had a dream, which is to make a difference for those living in remote areas who cannot afford expensive medical costs.

His research supervisor Prof. Niu Jun encouraged him to keep studying, and assured him that everything will fall into place.

It was the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in the fall of 2013 that inspired Shahbaz, who was a postgraduate student of Shandong University then, giving him an idea to build a health corridor for Belt and Road countries, especially for China and Pakistan, which consists of hospitals, medical universities, research centers of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Chinese herbal medicine, pharmacies, care-giving organizations and medical teams.

In his vision, the health corridor is connected by telemedicine, big data and artificial intelligence technologies, and shares developments in medical sciences among the Belt and Road countries.

As an active promoter of exchanges between Chinese and Pakistani medical institutions, Shahbaz also heads a Chinese-Pakistan vocational education program. Thanks to his efforts, 20 representatives from the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan (CPSP) attended the inauguration ceremony for the Belt and Road International Medical Education Alliance (BRIMEA) held in China. He accompanied the Pakistani side to sign a memorandum of cooperation at Fuwai Hospital in Beijing.

The CPSP also established a training center in Jinan, capital of Shandong, and signed a memorandum of cooperation on the building of a laparoscopic surgery training center with Weifang Peoples Hospital.

He led a delegation from China Medical University to visit Pakistan, and set the stage for the Chinese university and the King Edward Medical University of Pakistan to be declared as sister universities.

Besides, the Pakistani is also active at international academic conferences. In the speeches he delivered on these occasions, he often called on Belt and Road countries to launch medical cooperation.

He once received wide recognition from renowned professionals in the medical world for his thoughts on the health corridor concept he shared in a speech he delivered at a global meeting held at the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong in December 2017.

At present, the health corridor concept proposed by Shahbaz is well under way. Many universities and organizations have established preliminary cooperative arrangements under the framework.

Formed and established at the China Medical University in Shenyang, northeast Chinas Liaoning Province, with the support of Shahbaz, the BRIMEA has since seen some 49 international organizations from 25 countries join the initiative so far.

In September 2019, the Sino-Pak International Joint Lab for Drug Safety was inaugurated at Xian Jiaotong University, northwest Chinas Shaanxi Province. In the same year, Shahbaz attended the annual conference of the Belt and Road Tropical Medical Alliance, where he made proposals for meeting the challenges facing the health corridor.

While promoting China-Pakistan medical exchanges and cooperation, Shahbaz has left his footprints on a number of places in China and witnessed drastic changes happening to the Chinese people, which has been a source of inspiration for his writing. He often publishes articles on Pakistani and Chinese media to share what he sees and learns in China.

After the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, Shahbaz, who was in Pakistan at the time, hailed Chinas epidemic response in an article he published on China Daily. China has proved that it's a responsible and dedicated nation. It's a role model for countries around the world to learn that nothing is impossible in this world, he wrote.

Besides, he has also actively joined online meetings held by the BRIMEA and the China-Pakistan Trade Hotline Cloud Salon Joint Contribution to Health Corridor, while helping Pakistani students to participate in Belt and Road TCM online training for better TCM development in Pakistan. To date, the two countries have already kicked off formal cooperation on TCM and herbal medicine.

He introduced that nearly 20,000 Pakistani students have obtained bachelors degree in medical sciences in China since 2001. They are excited by China-Pakistan medical cooperation programs and look forward to more of these programs, especially those about the health corridor.

Shahbaz said he hopes to establish a China-Pakistan doctor alliance that can help build advanced Belt and Road hospitals in Pakistans impoverished regions and that are connected to the health corridor through the means of mobile hospitals and telemedicine.

Ahmed Farooq, Minister of the Embassy of Pakistan in China, believes that the health corridor would make communication and exchanges between China and Pakistan in the medical sector closer. He said it generates positive impacts and frontier viewpoints, sets an example for medical and health development in other countries and regions, and is an infinite resource that makes everything possible in the future.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
Beijing rebuked the United States and Japan for "baselessly" maligning China during the first formal meeting between US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, according to a spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry.

According to a White House statement, Biden and Kishida had a productive virtual meeting on Friday that covered in-depth discussions on various concerns, including China's military aggression on its neighboring countries. Kishida also expressed concern about Beijing's reportedly development of nuclear weapons.

In a media briefing on Monday, Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson at the Chinese foreign ministry, claimed that Biden and Kishida had "baselessly smeared and attacked" China and interfered with its "domestic affairs."

Zhao added that the US and Japan are exhibiting "Cold-War mentalities and inciting ideological antagonism," per US News.

Read Also: Biden, Kishida Agree To Boost US-Japan Security, Economic Cooperation Amid Rising Concerns on North Korea, China, and Russia

US and Japan Team Up To Counter China's Military Aggression

In recent months, Beijing has increased military exercises near Taiwan as China claims the independent country as its territory, and it intends to take over by force if necessary, which concerns both US and Japan, per Al Jazeera.

Kishida is particularly concerned about China's expanding military presence in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, where Beijing claims a collection of uninhabited islets that Tokyo administers.

In response to the circumstances, the United States and Japan have re-evaluated their security strategy, with Tokyo substantially raising defense spending this year. The US has also stated its commitment to defend its allies in the Indo-Pacific region.

US Military Makes Its Presence in the South China Sea

On Monday, the US Department of Defense announced the entering of its two aircraft carrier groups in the disputed South China Sea, one of many areas of tension between the United States and China.

The carrier groups will conduct exercises to enhance readiness in battles such as anti-submarine warfare operations, air warfare operations, and maritime interdiction operations. The training will be conducted following international law in international waters, the US Department of Defense said.

The department said that the two U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Groups began operations in the South China Sea on Sunday, led by their flagships, the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln.

According to Rear Admiral J.T. Anderson, commander of the strike group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln, such drills allow the US Navy to improve combat capability and serves as reassurance to allies of the US in the region, as well as exhibit "resolve as a Navy to ensure regional stability and counter malign influence."

The US Navy reported on Sunday that both carrier groups have been exercising with Japan's navy in the Philippine Sea, an area that includes waters to the east of Taiwan, per Reuters.

U.S. Navy ships routinely sail close to these islands to challenge the sovereignty assertions of China, which had built artificial islands in the contested waters.

China has yet to comment on the matter.

Related Article: Japan to Install Anti-Aircraft Missile Units in Ishigaki to Deter Chinese Incursions

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She's one of the stars of The CW's Archie Comics series Riverdale.

And Madelaine Petsch, 27, looked flawless as she arrived in Paris on Monday for the Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2022 runway.

The actress made a stylish entrance in a green blazer mini dress with black and white detail layered over a white shirt.

Looking good! Riverdale's Madelaine Petsch, 27, stands out in green blazer mini dress at the Dior fashion show for Paris Fashion Week on Monday

The American beauty paired the outfit with a pair of red heels to match her nails.

She accessorised with a white Dior handbag with gold detail to go with her dainty gold jewellery.

Madelaine wore her auburn locks slicked back and went for a nude makeup look.

Sleek and unique: Madelaine wore her auburn locks slicked back and went for a nude makeup look

Superstar: The actress has shot to global fame while starring as the feisty Cheryl Blossom in CW hit Riverdale

A-list celebrities have been seen arriving at the Dior event on Monday afternoon as part of Paris Fashion Week.

The show is one of 16 live runways taking place during the week. Only eight runway shows took place last season due to COVID severely limiting which fashion houses could stage a public event.

Another seven houses will stage physical and video presentations for editors and clients this year; and a further six will be purely digital displays.

Gorgeous duo: Claire Foy (left) and Rosamund Pike (right) both looked chic as they posed for photos on Monday

Fashion: Model and actress Cara Delevingne made a statement in an oversized black jacket and a pair of classic loafers

Runway: The stars had VIP seats for the Dior Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2022 runway

The models took to the runway on Monday afternoon where the stars had VIP seats.

All attendees have been pulling off high fashion looks for the French brand's anticipated runway show.

But elsewhere, Kanye West and girlfriend Julia Fox have been the talk of Paris Fashion Week after stepping out in an array of couples outfits.

The rapper, 44, joined his new actress love, 31, as they posed for pictures while clad in leather ensembles that looked to have been inspired by The Matrix film series.

They attended the Schiaparelli Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2022 show at Petit Palais in musee des Beaux-arts de Ville de Parison on Monday.
Joan Collins was every inch the proud charity vice-president on Sunday evening as she was joined by fellow Shooting Star Children's Hospices advocate - and Simon Cowell's fiancee - Lauren Silverman for a celebratory event.

The 88-year-old actress, who hosted the special evening alongside husband Percy, 57, looked glamorous as ever as she shared the beaming group photo with her Instagram followers.

Newly-engaged Lauren, 44, looked classy in black and curled her dark tresses for the evening.

Celebration: Joan Collins shared a proud group photograph at a charity event on Sunday - where she was joined by Simon Cowell's fiancee and fellow patron Lauren Silverman (From L-R: Percy Gibson, guest, Alison Papworth, Karen Sugarman, Lauren, guest, Joan, bottom L: Penny and husband Stephen Less)

The clan, also made up of Alison Papworth and Stephen Less and his wife Penny, gathered to celebrate the charity's executive vice-president Karen Sugarman's investiture.

Last November, Karen received her MBE from HRH The Princess Royal at a ceremony in Windsor Castle for her services to life-limited children and young people.

Golden Globe Award winner Joan praised the leader for her efforts, writing: 'Lovely #celebration in honour of @sschospices leader Karen Sugarmans investiture! @hugo.1229 @kazsugarman with #laurensilverman and @alisonpapworth'.

'Lovely celebration': The 88-year-old actress, who hosted the special evening alongside husband Percy, 57, looked glamorous as ever as she shared the beaming group photo with her Instagram followers

The appreciation was reciprocated, as Karen took to social media to hail Joan for her tireless work.

'Thank you so much to you and Percy for hosting such a very special evening. And all your tireless work for @SSChospices and beyond. [heart emoji]' the tweet read.

Karen shared an additional message on the microblogging site, offering her congratulations to music mogul Simon and Lauren on their engagement.

'As ever, its always so fantastic to see @SimonCowell - Incredible VP who works tirelessly for @SSChospices - Congratulations to Simon and his amazing Fiance Lauren, Patron of our charity, on their engagement. Beyond thrilled. [Red heart]'.

Grateful: Last November, Shooting Star Children's Hospices Executive Vice-President Karen Sugarman received her MBE from HRH The Princess Royal at a ceremony in Windsor Castle for her services to life-limited children and young people

Sweet: Karen shared an additional message on Twitter, offering her congratulations to music mogul Simon and Lauren on their engagement (the pair pictured November 2021)

Shooting Star Children's Hospices is a London and Surrey based charity which aims to care for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions, and their families.

Alongside Joan and Simon, Tony Hadley, Tim Oliver, Michael and Sarah More-Molyneux, Julia Lever and Kate Turner have also taken on the role of vice-president.

Meanwhile names such as Michael Ball, Sir Cliff Richard and Phillip Schofield are on board as patrons.
She's a doting mum to two young girls.

And on Monday, Amanda Holden took to Instagram where she shared a rare photograph of her lookalike daughter Hollie to celebrate her 10th birthday.

The Britain's Got Talent judge, 50, posted the sweet snap of her youngest child wearing her blonde tresses in a half-up 'do and smiling contentedly.

Happy Birthday! On Monday, Amanda Holden, 50, took to Instagram where she shared a rare photograph of her lookalike daughter Hollie to celebrate her 10th birthday

Amanda captioned the stunning shot: 'Our little Hollie Rose Hughes goes double digits today! 10!!! Sassy, fearless , kind and EXTRA! we love you soooo much.'

It comes after it was revealed that Amanda's eldest daughter Alexa, 15, is set to pursue a career in modelling as top agencies are understood to have shown interest in her.

Her actress mother is understood to have insisted that Alexa, known as Lexi, finish her studies first.

A source told The Sun: 'Amanda was adamant she complete her studies first. The family is excited and proud.'

Proud mum: The Britain's Got Talent judge posted the sweet snap of her youngest child and excitedly gushed that her youngest child is now in 'double digits'

Mother's footsteps: It's been reported that Amanda's eldest daughter Alexa, 15, is set to pursue a career in modelling as top agencies are understood to have shown interest in her

The actress shares her girls with her record producer husband Chris Hughes, who she married in 2008.

Amanda and Chris tied the knot at Babington House, Somerset, two years after welcoming their first child.

The BGT judge also has a genetically blessed sister named Deborah, 48, who is a driving instructor and lives in Thailand.

The sisters bare a striking resemblance to one another and are now best friends, despite living in different countries.

Family: The actress shares her girls with her record producer husband Chris Hughes, who she married in 2008 (L-R Hollie, Amanda, Lexi, Chris)

Wow! The BGT judge also has a genetically blessed sister named Deborah, 48, who is a driving instructor and lives in Thailand (pictured in 2017)

Amanda has become especially close with her sister in adulthood, after living through a strained relationship with their father Frank as children.

She has previously spoken about their relationship with her estranged father, who 'was hardly ever there'.

Frank split from their mother Judith in 1976 on the grounds of his alcohol-fuelled behaviour.

Live on air in 2016, Amanda was visibly moved when it was revealed Debbie had been caught up in an aftershock while stranded on Mount Everest.

She spoke to her sibling on ITV's This Morning, after the earthquake killed some 5,500 people and left 11,000 injured.
Sheridan Smith has spoken out about the guilt she feels having to leave her son Billy while at work.

The actress, 40, welcomed her first child in May 2020 with ex-fiance Jamie Horn, and the pair are believed to be co-parenting.

Yet while she tries to take her son 'everywhere' with her, Sheridan confessed that her gruelling work schedule and unusual hours as an actress means they sometimes have to be separated.

'I'm doing it for him': Sheridan Smith detailed her working mum guilt after being forced to spend six weeks apart from son Billy, 20 months, while filming

Detailing filming for her new Channel 5 thriller The Teacher, she explained it took place in Budapest for six weeks during the lockdown.

'I missed Billy like mad,' she admitted to OK! magazine. 'We FaceTimed every day.'

Sheridan added: 'I try to take him everywhere with me, he's like my little shadow. We're like two peas in a pod, he's the best thing that's ever happened to me. So long as I keep working and have my little boy with me then I'm happy. '

Asked about mum guilt, she reasoned: 'When Billy gets to a certain age he'll know that mummy is doing it for him. I'm home now for a few months and I haven't left his side which is amazing.'

Making the best of it: While she tries to take her son 'everywhere', Sheridan confessed that her gruelling work schedule as an actress means they sometimes have to be separated

Sheridan's six-week stint filming looks set to pay off, with buzz surrounding her new role as a school educator battling to save her career in The Teacher.

She plays popular teacher Jenna Garvey who is accused of having a drunken encounter with student Kyle Hope, 15, during a night out - with the accusations having devastating consequences for her.

And in a preview clip released last week, Sheridan's character is seen breaking down in tears and is pushed to breaking point as she fights to uncover the truth about the fateful night that she doesn't even remember.

Tense: Sheridan stars as a school educator battling to save her career in the gripping new trailer for upcoming Channel 5 thriller The Teacher

The clip starts with Jenna standing in front of her class telling them: 'One bad word and your reputation could crumble', with a cheeky student quipping back: 'Miss, what about your reputation?'

The trailer then leads into a series of nail-biting scenes showing Jenna drinking on a night out before waking up naked with her character seemingly having no recollection of the previous evening.

The following scene then shows the head teacher sternly telling a visibly shocked Jenna that 'there's been a report of inappropriate behaviour between yourself and a pupil... I need you to stay away from the school.'

Shock: The actress plays popular teacher Jenna Garvey who is accused of having a drunken encounter with student Kyle Hope, 15, during a night out - with the accusations having devastating consequences for her

Other clips see Sheridan's character being led away in a police car as other teachers and pupils watch on.

While she also faces tough interrogation from detectives as she questioned over engaging in a sexual act with a minor.

The tense new trailer then portrays Jenna being berated by angry parents and having her car vandalised as she battles to prove her innocence.

Teasers of what's to come show an angry student telling her: 'You're so creepy, always trying to be friends with the kids.'

Powerful: In a preview clip ahead of its release, Sheridan's character is seen breaking down in tears and is pushed to breaking point as she fights to uncover the truth about the fateful night that she doesn't even remember

Scenes: The trailer then leads into a series of nail-biting scenes showing Jenna drinking on a night out before waking up naked with her character seemingly having no recollection of the previous evening

With a desperate Jenna also seen appealing to her colleagues for help with Sheridan's voiceover heard saying: 'What if I didn't do it? I am not a bad person, I've done nothing wrong!'

The four-part drama also features Emmerdale's Kelvin Fletcher, Small Axe's Cecilia Noble and My Mad Fat Diary's Sharon Rooney as fellow teachers.

Samuel Bottomley also stars as the pupil at the centre of the sexual encounter drama, David Fleeshman plays Jenna's father, while former Coronation Street actor Ian Puleston-Davies also appears.

Under pressure: Sheridan's character faces tough interrogation from detectives as she questioned over engaging in a sexual act with a minor

Difficult time: a desperate Jenna also seen appealing to her colleagues for help with Sheridan's voiceover heard saying: 'What if I didn't do it? I am not a bad person, I've done nothing wrong!'

Co-star: The four-part drama also features Emmerdale's Kelvin Fletcher (pictured), Small Axe's Cecilia Noble and My Mad Fat Diary's Sharon Rooney as fellow teachers.

Channel 5 released a synopsis of the upcoming show last year, writing: 'With no memory of the night in question, Jenna's only hope of redemption lies in uncovering the truth about a dark event in her past that returns to haunt her.'

Meanwhile, series creator, Mike Benson, stated: 'When we first developed Teacher, we had Sheridan in mind as someone who could bring empathy and complexity to the character of Jenna. So the fact she has agreed to come on board is hugely exciting.

'With eOne now attached we also have a partner who shares both ours and Channel 5s ambition for Teacher  to explore the challenging and provocative themes thrown up by these types of cases.'

The Teacher airs on Monday January 31 at 9pm on Channel 5. Episodes can be streamed across the week on My5.

Watch My Mad Fat Diary exclusively on Stan in Australia.
Emily Ratajkowski was heating up her timeline on Monday morning.

The 30-year-old model posted a picture to her nearly 29million Instagram followers in bright orange bikini from her own brand, Inamorata.

The I Feel Pretty actress wore her brown hair down and showed off her tan, toned body.

Stunning in orange: Emily Ratajkowski is heating up her timeline on Monday morning. The 30-year-old model posted a picture to her nearly 29 million Instagram followers in her own brand's, Inamorata, bright orange bikini

Emily also posted a mirror selfie to her story, wearing an Inamorata cropped t-shirt and grey sweatpants.

She rolled the waistband of the sweats down, which showed off her insanely toned tummy.

This series of selfies comes shortly after the Inamorata founder was seen taking her ten-month-old son, Sylvester, to lunch at the Odeon in New York City on Sunday.

The model's toned tummy: Emily also posted a mirror selfie to her story, wearing an Inamorata cropped t-shirt and grey sweatpants. She rolled the waistband of the sweats down, which showed off her insanely toned tummy

The new mom shimmered in a bright orange coat with denim jeans and white sneakers as the two headed to the popular spot The Odeon in Tribeca.

The model paired her stylish coat with a a cream-colored cropped turtleneck sweater that exposed the top of her toned tummy.

Emily wore her dark brown hair down in a middle part as she pushed her stroller and held her son's navy blue patterned coat.

Shimmering in orange: This series of selfies comes shortly after the Inamorata founder was seen taking her ten-month-old son, Sylvester, to lunch at the Odeon in New York City on Sunday

She and her husband, film producer and occasional actor Sebastian Bear-McClard, married in 2018 and welcomed their first child together in 2021.

The San Diego native began her career at just 14, shooting catalogue campaigns for Kohl's and Nordstrom as well as having small acting roles.

After appearing on the cover of erotic magazine treats! in 2012, she went on to bag a part in two high-profile music videos, most notably Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, which catapulted her to worldwide fame.
Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn didn't let the weekend go by without posting a new slideshow to Instagram.

On Sunday the real estate guru, 33, appeared on the photo-sharing app to share a carousel of glamorous photos.

The mom-of-one entertained her 2.5 million followers with several snapshots in a black bodysuit and matching pants.

Social media star: Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn posted a new slideshow of glam shots to Instagram

Sexy! She teamed her cargo pants with a high-cut black bodysuit that exposed her skin on the sides and her ample cleavage at the front

The Dallas, Texas native caught fans' attention with a shot of her gazing at herself in a mirror that was paneled onto her purse.

Her stunning blue eyes popped in the capture as the sunlight his her face highlighting a Gucci chain around her neck.

The reality TV personality rocked a glassy, curled blonde bob and full face of makeup complete with a nude gloss on her plump pout.

In the background of the photo there were large homes sitting atop the West Hollywood hills.

Fun style: The mom-of-one entertained her 2.5 million followers with several snapshots in a black bodysuit and matching pants

Mirror mirror: The star posed in a Gucci necklace as she held up a mirror

The bombshell captioned the images, 'Let them say, you do your way,' sandwiched in between two mirror emojis.

Christine used the concrete wall of a building as the backdrop for her simplistic photo shoot.

The minimalism of her surroundings kept her fashionable look at the center of attention.

Message: The bombshell captioned the images, 'Let them say, you do your way,' sandwiched in between two mirror emojis

Details: Quinn, who's married to tech entrepreneur Christian Richard, modeled punk-rock skater glam in a pair of cargo jogger pants with silver hardware

Quinn, who's married to tech entrepreneur Christian Richard, modeled punk-rock skater glam in a pair of cargo jogger pants with silver hardware.

The trousers boasted a black chain, silver zippers, and a white graphic print on the pockets.

She teamed them with a high-cut black bodysuit that exposed her skin on the sides and her ample cleavage at the front.

The scoop neck number was accented by an intersecting white line design that weaved through the front.

Less is more: Christine used the concrete wall of a building as the backdrop for her simplistic photo shoot

The Netflix sensation spared no detail as she decorated her sparkling, almond-shaped manicured hands in multiple flashy rings.

She also adorned her wrists in eye-catching high-end bracelets.

They corresponded well with her black slingback pumps, which were adorned in fringed stones.

Mrs. Richard let her beauty do the talking as she hit multiple poses, crouching down into a squat for some striking angles.

Jewelry game: The Netflix sensation spared no detail as she decorated her sparkling, almond-shaped manicured hands in multiple flashy rings

Variety: Mrs. Richard let her beauty do the talking as she hit multiple poses, crouching down into a squat for some striking angles

The stunner threw her head back and smiled for some outtakes, and poked her hips out with fierce attitude in others.

The How to be a Boss B---h author's runway-worthy looks earned her over 68,000 likes from her legion of admirers.

Her celebrity pals joined in the comments to sing her praises as they commented things like, 'You absolutely slayed this!' and 'So beautiful queen!' and dropped plenty of heart eye emojis.
He's still sporting the tan he obtained during his new year getaway to Barbados, when he proposed to Lauren Silverman.

And, Simon Cowell kept things casual as he arrived at Britain's Got Talent auditions at the London Palladium on Monday.

The newly-engaged music mogul, 62, opted for a low-key ensemble, wearing a zip-up jacket and aviator shades.

Low-key: Simon Cowell, 62, kept things casual as he arrived at Britain's Got Talent auditions at the London Palladium on Monday

Beneath his jacket, the X Factor boss had on a plain white T-shirt which aided in showing off his tanned skin.

Simon's lower half was smarter, with the TV star stepping out in tailored black trousers and a shiney pair of pointed shoes.

The recently-engaged media entrepreneur proposed to how now-fiancee Lauren, 44, with an impressive $3.4million (2.5m) diamond ring.

The music mogul popped the question to Lauren on the couple's Barbados getaway over the new year in front of their son Eric, seven, and Lauren's son Adam, 16, who she shares with her ex-husband Andrew Silverman.

Casual: The newly-engaged music mogul opted for a low-key ensemble, wearing a zip-up jacket with tailored black trousers and a shiney pair of pointed shoes

Star quality: Simon shielded his eyes with a classic pair of aviator shades

Simon is also making other changes, as he recently revealed that he bought an electric car after his son Eric taught him about climate change.

The music mogul, who is known for his penchant for gas-guzzling Rolls-Royce Phantoms, added that he bought the vehicle from luxury manufacturer, Tesla, since the seven-year-old is 'obsessed' with global warming.

His jaw-dropping car collection is also thought to consist of a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, a Jaguar Eagle Speedster, a Bugatti Veyron as well as a Mini.

Judging at the recent Britain's Got Talent auditions at the London Palladium, he told the audience, according to The Mirror: 'My son is obsessed with climate change, he's taught me a lot recently.

Doting father: Out with the old: Simon Cowell has revealed he bought an electric car after his son Eric taught him about climate change (pictured in 2018)

'He goes down on the beaches and cleans them up. I think it's something we should all take seriously now. I've just bought a Tesla.'

Speaking after a dance act put on a climate change-themed performance featuring a voiceover from Sir David Attenborough, he gushed about the recital in his feedback.

The Syco boss said: 'My son is going to love this, that's how you make an impression on a show like this.'

Hilariously jibing at his co-star, David Walliams pointed out that Simon is a big fan of fuel-guzzling private jets, adding: 'You just use Elton's, don't you?'
Peaky Blinders actor Paul Anderson has shared a throwback snap of himself alongside his co-star Cillian Murphy showing them as gangsters Arthur Shelby Jr and Tommy Shelby when the show first started nearly 10 years ago.

In the black and white image, the pair could be seen holding their guns up to the camera with Paul, 43, who plays Arthur, wearing a bow tie, and Cillian, 45, who portrays Tommy, wearing a black jacket and white shirt.

Paul captioned the photo: 'This is the first ever image of Tommy and Arthur. We picked these guns up for the first time 10 years ago, and next month we put them down for the last time! Coming soon... PEAKY BLINDERS SEASON 6.

Throwback: Peaky Blinders' Paul Anderson shared a snap of himself with Cillian Murphy on Monday showing them as gangsters Arthur Shelby Jr and Tommy Shelby 10 years ago

'Thank you to our amazing fans for waiting and for the incredible love over the last decade.'

While a release date is yet to be announced, it is understood the sixth and final series of Peaky Blinders will air next month.

New cast member Conrad Khan told Radio Times he was informed the new season will come to screens in February, which comes after the new trailer was released earlier this month.

All stars: The black and white image showed Paul, who plays Arthur (left) and Cillian, who portrays Tommy (right)

He said last year that the show 'comes out, from what I last heard  I mean, these things change so quickly  I think that will come out next February'.

Meanwhile, Cillian has teased a dark tone for the final season, telling Rolling Stone: 'I think it's going to be very intense.

'The word we keep using is "gothic". Yeah, it's going to be heavy!'

Coming soon: The sixth and final season of Peaky Blinders will likely premiere in February, with show star Cillian promising a 'gothic' tone

Peaky Blinders' much-anticipated trailer for its final season left fans on the edge of their seats as Tommy opened fire in intense scenes.

The 90-second teaser trailer kicks off with Tommy dramatically walking across a shadowy field before firing a machine gun into the air while shouting.

'One last deal to be done, then we Peaky Blinders rest,' Tommy says.

Tone: Cillian has teased a dark tone for the final season, telling Rolling Stone: 'I think it's going to be very intense'

Interview: New cast member Conrad Khan told Radio Times he was told the new season will come to screens in February, which comes after the new trailer was released earlier this month

The trailer was jam-packed with nail-biting stand-offs, intense fight scenes and a devastating fire, leaving fans wondering what plot twists the final series would bring.

Tense scenes also featured appearances from Joe Cole's John Shelby, Anya Taylor-Joy's Gina Gray and fascist leader Oswald Mosley, played by Sam Claflin.

Stephen Graham, known for his roles in This Is England and Line of Duty, has also joined the cast for the final series of the Birmingham crime drama.

Dfama: Peaky Blinders' much-anticipated trailer for its final series left fans on the edge of their seats as Tommy Shelby opened fire

It was previously revealed that Tom Hardy's Alfie Solomons will return for the sixth and final series, after many fans believed he was dead after being shot by Tommy.

It is the first series since former star Helen McCrory, who played Polly, passed away from cancer aged 52.

Tension: The trailer was jam-packed with nail-biting stand-offs, intense fight scenes and a devastating fire, leaving fans wondering what plot twists the final series would bring

Cillian previously said that filming the sixth season of Peaky Blinders without his late co-star had been 'desperately sad'.

Paying tribute to Helen, the Irish actor revealed: 'She was like the matriarch of Peaky Blinders, and I think my closest colleague on the show.'

He added: 'She was without doubt one of the best actors I've ever had the pleasure of working with.'

Fan favourites: Tense scenes also featured appearances from Joe Cole's John Shelby, Anya Taylor-Joy's Gina Gray and fascist leader Oswald Mosley, played by Sam Claflin

Newbie: Stephen Graham, known for his roles in This Is England and Line of Duty, has also joined the cast for the final series of the Birmingham crime drama

Speaking to Today FM, Cillian went on: 'But on top of that just an extraordinary human being. So it's really, really sad. And we're all still dealing with it like everybody else, and we really miss her.'

Cillian also said that scenes shot alongside Helen were always 'his favourite'.

Peaky Blinders centres around its eponymous gang which is run by the ruthless Tommy and his family, and sees them build their power and influence over Birmingham and beyond.

Tragic: It is the first series since former star Helen McCrory (pictured with Cillian), who played Polly, passed away from cancer aged 52

It has been more than two years since season five aired its last episode, while the sixth series will pick up where the fifth series left off on 7 December 1929, the morning after a rally led by Oswald.

The fifth season ended on a cliffhanger, with Tommy seeing visions of his late wife Grace (Annabelle Wallis) and turning a gun on himself following his botched assassination attempt of the British Union of Fascists leader.

The sixth season of Peaky Blinders resumed filming in January after the show was forced to shut down set last March due to the coronavirus crisis.

The BBC show has been running for eight years and has enjoyed huge popularity but the sixth season has been confirmed as the final one, with creator Steven Knight confirming the story will return 'in another form'.

Creator Steven Knight recently hinted Peaky Blinders could continue without Cillian's pivotal character, telling Birmingham Live: 'There may be worlds that are part of the Peaky world that are about someone else.'
Lisa Barlow claimed she is 'done with' BFF-turned-enemy Meredith Marks in a preview for Sunday's episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.

After watching their decade-long friendship deteriorate over the past year on season two of their reality show, the multi-hyphenate entrepreneur, 47, succumbed to name-calling as she spoke about the jewelry designer, 49.

'I f**king hate her!' the VIDA tequila founder said of the mom-of-three, who is married to Seth Marks. 'Shes a whore. She's f**ked half of New York!'

Angry: Lisa Barlow (R) says she is 'done with' BFF-turned-enemy Meredith Marks (L) in a preview for Sundays episode of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City

The scathing words come after Barlow teased she went on a rant that she is 'not proud of' on the show during a recent appearance of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen.

When asked what spurred the outburst, the reality star explained she 'hit' her 'boiling point.'

Their costar Jen Shah, who was charged with conspiring to commit wire fraud and money laundering last year, also described Marks as 'fraudulent' on the latest episode of RHOSLC during a heated argument.

Mad: After watching their decade-long friendship deteriorate over the past year on season two of their hit Bravo show, the multi-hyphenate entrepreneur, 47, succumbed to name-calling as she spoke about jewelry designer, 49

'I f**king hate her!' the VIDA tequila founder said of the mom-of-three, who is married to Seth Marks. 'Shes a whore. Shes f**ked half of New York!'

Earlier this month, in another episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, Shah accused Marks of having an affair and '10 motherf**king boyfriends!'

Marks and her husband Seth, who married in 1996, reconciled their relationship late last year, after agreeing to see a marriage counselor, according to People.

The couple, who briefly spilt after hitting 'a dark place' in their marriage, realized their love is worth fighting for and 'decided to try and start over.'

Lashing out: The scathing words come after Barlow teased she went on a rant that she is 'not proud of' on the show during a recent appearance of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen

Cheating allegations: Earlier this month, Jen Shah accused Marks of having an affair and '10 motherf**king boyfriends!'

"While we have had many other separations in the past and at times dated other people, last winter during filming we were not dating other people and we very focused to see if we could repair our relationship,' she clarified.

After an unspecified time in therapy, the reality star added that the couple felt, 'very strong, very united' and were, 'feeling very positive' about their future.

Meredith admitted during the show that it was difficult opening up about her relationship on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, but said the show ended up saving her marriage.

Family: The couple have three kids who are all in college - Reid, Chloe and Brooks - with Meredith's official bio on Bravo stating the couple hit, 'a rough patch' as Meredith, 'is faced with being an empty nester for the first time in her life'

'It sounds crazy, but Real Housewives of Salt Lake City saved my marriage. The show really forces you to be very introspective and really think about the things you say and how they impact other people,' she said.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit while filming was under way for the inaugural season of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which debuted in November 2020, and that only helped bring them closer together.

'We were really quarantined and together, and reevaluating what's important, what you care about,' Meredith said.
Sister Wives star Christine Brown has packed up her husband Kody's belongings after the family patriarch told her that he no longer wanted 'an intimate marriage anymore.'

Christine, 49, said that polygamist Kody told her that he wanted a sexless marriage as he did not 'like her behavior' and they would have to see if she could 'be a good sister wife'.

'It's over. The intimate part of our marriage is over,' she revealed on Sunday night's episode of the TLC reality series.

Had enough: Sister Wives star Christine Brown has packed up her husband Kody's belongings after the family patriarch told her that he no longer wanted 'an intimate marriage anymore'

The television personality, who has been married to Kody for 27 years, continued, 'And to be honest, I'm not okay with that. I'm not okay with staying in a marriage where there's no intimacy.

'That's not a real marriage. I'm not interested in a half marriage or a partial marriage or whatever we have.'

Christine isn't the first wife Kody, 53, has tried to end intimacy with. He is married to three other women: Janelle, 52, Meri, 51, and Robyn, 43.

Difficult: Christine, 49, said that polygamist Kody told her that he wanted a sexless marriage as he did not 'like her behavior' and they would have to see if she could 'be a good sister wife'. (LR) Janelle, Christine, Kody, Meri and Robyn seen in 2015 in Las Vegas

Recurring pattern: Christine isn't the first wife Kody has tried to end intimacy with. He is married to three other women, and no longer has an intimate marriage with one of them

The reality star is no longer intimate with Meri, though he continues to have a physical relationship with Janelle and Robyn.

'I'm heartbroken,' Christine went on to say. 'My heart's shattered, to be honest with you.'

Christine also revealed that this latest impasse wasn't the first strike against their marriage. She claimed that Kody previously told her he didn't find her attractive anymore.

Kody later told the cameras that he felt as if Christine had 'dropped a bomb' on him, though he admitted that the couple had experienced 'serious troubles' in their marriage for 12 years.

The Wyoming native also said that Christine told him that he was no longer welcome in her bedroom.

Troubled: Kody later told the cameras that he felt as if Christine had 'dropped a bomb' on him, though he admitted that the couple had experienced 'serious troubles' in their marriage for 12 years

He recounted, ''She said, 'I don't want you to stay in my room anymore.' '

''She's like, 'My room is a special place to me and nothing special happens there for us.' I'm like, 'Okay. I know a lot of people have marriages that are like this  romance-free marriage.'

She says, 'Not for me. So, I don't want you in my room. Go ahead and go on out. You can come visit the kids, but don't plan on staying in my room.' '

Kody went on to ponder the two's future and wondered 'if this is a phase or if this is just an awakening.'

He claimed that she 'murdered our intimacy with betrayal' and explained that the betrayal stemmed from Christine 'telling wives and adult children that she wants to leave me for years.'

Uncertain: Kody went on to ponder the two's future and wondered 'if this is a phase or if this is just an awakening'

Meanwhile, Christine said she had come to a decision of her own. 'I don't want to stay in Flagstaff anymore and I want to go,' she asserted.

'I got to thinking about what it would look like if he came back to pack up all of his stuff. So that would mean that every time he's over at my house, what, he's going to be packing and not spending time with the girls? So I just decided to pack up his stuff and I put it all in the garage.  I don't know what to tell my kids.'

While packing up Kody's belongings, Christine began crying and asked, 'What did I do so wrong?

'I always wanted romantic marriage and it's been so hard for so long. I feel like I don't have a choice but to throw his stuff out because I can't  it's too heartbreaking to be around his stuff and it's too heartbreaking to be around him and watch him with Robyn and Janelle and the kids.'

Kody was stunned upon coming home to find all of his personal items packed into boxes.

Moving on: Meanwhile, Christine said she had come to a decision of her own. 'I don't want to stay in Flagstaff anymore and I want to go,' she asserted. Seen in 2012

He said, 'I guess I've been moved out of the house. Personally, I don't know what to think about this.

'This is not something we discussed. I'm having a hard time not being a little frustrated by this.'

Kody later said that he did not want to take the boxes out of the garage since he 'honestly didn't know she was this serious.'

The patriarch then wondered if Christine might be playing 'a game' but added, 'I almost don't care.'

For her part, Christine explained that moving Kody out would allow her to get some clarity.

'I feel like I can take a breath and get myself grounded and get my head in a good place and just rest for a bit and just settle for a bit here,' she said. '[Be] independent.'

The pair announced their separation last year. Christine wrote a statement announcing the news which she posted to Instagram.

'We will continue to be a strong presence in each other's lives as we parent our beautiful children and support our wonderful family,' she wrote. 'At this time, we ask for your grace and kindness as we navigate through this stage within our family.'

Strained: Janelle Brown, who married Kody in 1993, said on Sunday night's show that her relationship with her husband is 'pretty strained'; still from Sister Wives season 16

Questioning everything: Janelle admitted she has been reflecting on whether or not she still wants to be in a polygamist relationship now that her kids are grown up; still from Sister Wives

Kody's wife Janelle Brown, who married him in 1993, said on Sunday night's show that her relationship with her husband is also 'pretty strained.'

'I've caught myself in the last few weeks really reflecting and being like, 'Okay, look: Do I still choose plural marriage?'' she admitted. 'Yeah, I still choose it, but I've had to have that conscious decision with myself.'

Janelle said such questions rose to her mind because Kody implemented COVID-19 protocol rules that prevented any of his other wives from going with Janelle to her mother's funeral.

Janelle said the Brown family had 'lost sight that we're all in this together' amid the changing times, and that she wasn't sure the plural marriage was the best option for her with her children getting older.

'I've had to really think,' Janelle told Robyn Brown, who Cody married in 2014. 'My children are almost grown and there's not a huge necessity anymore to stay. It was a wonderful way to raise children.'

Kody shares six kids with Janelle, one with Meri, six with Christine and two biological children with Robyn. He also legally adopted three of Robyn's children from a previous relationship.
The United Arab Emirates on Monday had successfully blocked another missile attack by the Iran-backed Houthis that aimed at the region's tourism and commercial hub, following the drone attacks on the Gulf State last week.

The defense ministry of the UAE reported that it intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles, which remnants fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi. There were reported casualties in the incident as the ministry imposes protective measures against strikes by the rebel group from Yemen, per Reuters.

The Houthis have attacked Saudi Arabia with cross-border missile and drone attacks on several occasions, and on January 17, they launched an unprecedented attack on the United Arab Emirates.

The Houthi claimed that they fired Zulfiqar ballistic missiles at al-Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi, used by the United States military, along with other "sensitive" target areas. He added that the rebels launched drones to attack Dubai.

General Yahya Sarea, the military spokesman for the Houthi rebels, told foreign investors in the UAE to leave the country for "it has become unsafe." Sarea added that he prepared his group to face escalation.

Read Also: At Least 70 People Dead, More Than 100 Injured After Saudi-Led Airstrikes at Yemen Prison Amid 7-Year War

Conflict Continues To Escalate

The UAE is a member of a Saudi-led military coalition that has backed Yemen's government in its seven-year conflict against the Houthis. According to the United Nations, the war has slain tens of thousands, dislocated millions, and spawned the world's greatest humanitarian crisis.

The coalition had previously stated that it was deploying drones to pursue aggressive action by Houthi rebels while taking precautions to protect civilians in compliance with international humanitarian law, per Al Jazeera.

On Friday, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia led an airstrike at Yemen, the region's poorest country, that killed and wounded more than 100 detainees in prison run by the Houthi rebels. The attack was aimed at disabling the group's capabilities, per the NPR report.

The airstrike came after the Houthis attack on an oil facility in Abu Dhabi that killed three persons and sparked a fire near the international airport in the capital.

According to James Swanston of Capital Economics, if the rebels' attacks continue, the UAE tourism industry will suffer, and the Gulf country's GDP growth may see a decline.

Saudi Arabia Attacked After Leading An Airstrike At Yemen

Meanwhile, the state media of Saudi Arabia reported on Sunday that a Houthi ballistic missile crashed in the southern part of the kingdom, which resulted in two injuries. The wounded individuals were identified as Bangladeshi and Sudanese. The missile also damaged shops and vehicles in an industrial area.

The coalition said in a statement that they were able to intercept and destroy a separate missile over Dhahram al-Janub.

In a televised statement, Sarea said that the Houthis targeted the Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi and vital areas in Dubai. He also claimed that the attack "achieved its objectives with high accuracy."

"We are ready to expand the operation during the next phase and confront escalation with escalation," Sarea warned.

However, UAE authorities issued no report regarding an attack on Dubai.

In a rare security advisory, the US Embassy in UAE on Monday urged its citizens to "maintain a high level of security awareness," with instructions on coping with a missile attack situation.

Related Article: Possible Drone Attack in Abu Dhabi Kills 3; Iran-Backed Rebel Group Houthis Claims Responsibility

@ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
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Things are going from strength to strength for Zendaya and Tom Holland after the actress spent the weekend with her boyfriend's family last week.

Zendaya, 25, and Tom, also 25, took a chauffeur-driven car to the Palace Theatre in London's West End to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Saturday night with Tom's mother Nikki and his brothers Harry, Paddy and Sam.

American star Zendaya arrived with Brit actor Tom at his family home laden with Jo Malone gift bags where the couple stayed for about 45 minutes before setting off to the theatre.

Loved-up: Things are going from strength to strength for Zendaya and Tom Holland, both 25, after the actress spend the weekend with her boyfriend's family last week.

The world famous couple had security guards with them for the duration of their visit, with the couple arriving in Tom's lavish 90,000 electric Porsche Taycan sports car.

Zendaya cut a casual figure for her visit wearing a beige fleece with a grey pocket and comfortable navy blue tracksuit bottoms.

She opted for a pair of maroon and white Nike trainers and rested her hand on Tom's waist as they walked outside his family's property.

Happy couple: American star Zendaya arrived with Brit actor Tom at his family home in Tom's lavish 90,000 electric Porsche Taycan sports car

Bearing gifts: The pair brought Jo Malone presents with them for Tom's family before heading into central London for an evening out together

Meeting the family: Zendaya was seen carrying Jo Malone gift bags before entering Tom's family property while Tom waited outside with a security guard

Afternoon date: the pair headed inside with their gifts for their date with Tom's family ahead of their evening at the theatre in the centre of London

Tom wore a pink jumper and blue denim jeans which he teamed with a pair of orange and grey Nike trainers.

He wore a blue beanie hat in a bid to keep warm from the cool January weather after getting out of his expensive car.

Zendaya was spotted wearing a black face covering as she protected herself and others from coronavirus.

Keeping it casual: Tom wore a pink jumper and blue denim jeans which he teamed with a pair of orange and grey Nike trainers at the weekend

Safety first: Zendaya was spotted wearing a black face covering as she protected herself and others from coronavirus before heading into the property

Looking back: The couple met in 2016 while filming Spider-Man: Homecoming, the second Spider-Man film reboot and the first starring Holland as Peter Parker

Next step? During a recent interview with People , Tom said he wanted 'to take a break and focus on starting a family and figuring out what I want to do outside of this world'

The couple were later seen in London's Piccadilly as they headed to the theatre, with Zendaya looking stylish in a long charcoal winter coat.

Tom could be seen putting on a navy blue jacket with a plush brown collar after climbing out the vehicle with his family.

The group were all dressed in smart casual attire before heading off to watch the Harry Potter West End production.

Family: Tom pictured left with his mother Nicola Elizabeth Frost and his brothers Sam and Harry at the Spider-Man: Homecoming film premiere in 2017 and pictured right with his father Dominic in 2014

Stepping out: The couple were later seen in London's Piccadilly as they headed to the theatre, with Zendaya looking stylish in a long charcoal winter coat

Family affair: Tom could be seen putting on a navy blue jacket with a plush brown collar after climbing out the vehicle with his family

Ready to roll: The group were all dressed in smart casual attire before heading off to watch the Harry Potter West End production

Career move? Screen star Tom recently said he is ready to join girlfriend Zendaya on the set of her hit HBO series Euphoria after she filmed the second series

The couple met in 2016 while filming Spider-Man: Homecoming, the second Spider-Man film reboot and the first starring Holland as Peter Parker.

During a recent interview with People, Tom said he wanted 'to take a break and focus on starting a family and figuring out what I want to do outside of this world'.

He mentioned that he'd committed a large chunk of his life to acting and was now hoping to move at a more relaxed pace in the future after 'being so focused on my career.'

Cameo: While answering fan questions for an IMDb interview with Zendaya, the Spider-Man: No Way Home star admitted that he would like to make an appearance on his love's TV show

Hollywood couple: If Tom gets his wish for a cameo, it wouldn't be the first time the couple would star in a screen project together

Speaking out: He said in December: 'Listen, I have been petitioning for this for a long time and it has not happened yet and I'm very disappointed'

Happy: Zendaya playfully laughed and responded to her boyfriend's Euphoria pleas by saying: 'I know we should have tried to Easter egg. Get you in there!'

The screen star also said he is ready to join girlfriend Zendaya on the set of her hit HBO series Euphoria.

While answering fan questions for an IMDb interview with Zendaya, the Spider-Man: No Way Home star admitted that he would like to make an appearance on his love's TV show.

He said in December: 'Listen, I have been petitioning for this for a long time and it has not happened yet and I'm very disappointed.'

Making plans? The 25-year-old actress replied jokingly saying: 'I know! Let me talk to some people. HBO! Let's get them on the phone'

Born to perform: The second season of Euphoria  the teen drama created and written by Sam Levinson and starring Zendaya  debuted January 9 this year

He added, 'I must have come to visit Euphoria 30 times this season.'

Zendaya playfully laughed and responded to her boyfriend's pleas by saying: 'I know we should have tried to Easter egg. Get you in there!'

In order to make his wishes clear, Tom once more stated: 'I want to be in Euphoria!'

Fame game: Tom is able to splash out on vehicles such as his lavish 90,000 electric Porsche Taycan sports car after breaking into movies following an education at the famous BRIT School in Croydon, South London

Great costars: Tom and Zendaya most recently took on the roles of Peter Parker and MJ in Spider-Man: No Way Home; seen together at the Los Angeles Premiere on December 13

Major achievement: The superhero flick has since become the 4th-highest grossing film at the US domestic box office after its release

One to watch: The third outing for Tom's Spider-Man has proved a hit with critics as early reviews branded it his 'best work yet' following the film's premiere

The 25-year-old actress replied jokingly saying: 'I know! Let me talk to some people. HBO! Let's get them on the phone.'

The second season of Euphoria  the teen drama created and written by Sam Levinson  debuted January 9 this year.

Zendaya plays 17-year-old Rue Bennett, a high schooler struggling with drug addiction while trying to figure out her future.

If Tom gets his wish for a cameo, it wouldn't be the first time the couple would star in a project together.

Tom and Zendaya most recently took on the roles of Peter Parker and MJ in Spider-Man: No Way Home.
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Khloe Kardashian and Kendall Jenner may have subtly revealed the gender of their expectant younger sister Kylie's baby, who is due any day now.

While the 24-year-old cosmetics mogul's siblings went shopping at a baby store in Sherman Oaks as cameras rolled for their new Hulu series, the pair eyed a number of items designed for baby girls on Sunday afternoon.

As she browsed baby toys, strollers and cribs, the Good American founder, 37, Facetimed her mom, Kris Jenner, while holding up an adorable doll in a box covered with pink and blue polka-dots.

Proud aunts: Khloe Kardashian and Kendall Jenner may have subtly revealed the gender of their expectant younger sister Kylie's baby, who is due any day now

Kendall, who rocked and orange and beige cardigan, a white tank top and black jeans, looked engaged as she purchased presents for her latest niece or nephew.

The supermodel, who is already an aunt to 20 at just 25, left the Juvenile Shop with two shoppings bags.

Khloe exited the building right behind her, rocking a skintight beige long sleeve, matching pants and a stunning pair of thigh-high Gucci boots.

Another girl? While the 24-year-old cosmetics mogul's siblings went baby shopping in Sherman Oaks as cameras rolled for their new Hulu series, the pair eyed a number of items designed for baby girlies on Sunday

Shopping away: The sisters purchased presents for their soon-to-be niece or nephew, whose gender has yet to be publicly revealed

Chic: Khloe exited the building right behind her, rocking a skintight beige long sleeve, matching pants and a stunning pair of thigh-high Gucci boots

All for show? The famous siblings were flanked by camera crews for their new Hulu reality series

The mom-of-one, whose baby daddy Tristan Thompson confirmed he fathered a child - a boy- with Maralee Nichols earlier this month while they were still together, styled her blonde hair in loose waves.

The past few weeks, Khloe has reportedly been leaning on her mother and family for support.

For their outing, both Kendall and Khloe wore KN95 face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic as coronavirus cases recently surged in California due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Filming: The supermodel, who is already an aunt to 20 to her nine siblings' little ones at just 25, left the Juvenile Shop with two shoppings bags

Pushing through: The mom-of-one, whose baby daddy Tristan Thompson confirmed he fathered a child - a boy- with Maralee Nichols earlier this month while they were still together, styled her blonde hair in loose waves

Staying safe: For their outing, both Kendall and Khloe wore KN95 face masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic as coronavirus cases recently surged in California due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant

Documenting the day: The women also took pictures of multiple items and chatted as they discussed what they were going to end up buying

Keeping everyone in the loop: Khloe could be seen Facetiming with her mom most of the time

The women also took pictures of multiple items and chatted with each other as they discussed what they were going to end up buying.

After making their way back to the car, Kendall got behind the wheel of her Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen Cabriolet, which starts at $130,900 for the base model.

Kylie and her boyfriend Travis Scott confirmed in September that they were having a sibling for three-year-old daughter Stormi.

Retail therapy: The past few weeks, Khloe has reportedly been leaning on her mom Kris Jenner, 66, for support

Famous curves: Khloe's ensemble showcased her backside in curve-clinging beige pants

Helping hand: After purchasing three bags worth of presents for her sister, she handed them to her bodyguard to put in their car

The businesswoman and reality star has been laying low since her baby daddy Travis Scott's Astroworld concert in Houston on November 5 led to the death of ten attendees.

She has been slowly returning to social media, after sharing a baby bump snap on New Years Day to Instagram as she reflected on the 'blessings' and 'heartache' of 2021.

In the accompanying caption, she wrote: 'As 2022 is approaching I've been reflecting on this last year and the blessings that it brought but also the many heartaches it held.

Flawless: Khloe completed her chic look with a pair of classic aviator sunglasses, which she tucked into the front of her shirt

Towering boots: Khloe's shoes made her nearly as tall as her five-foot-ten supermodel sister Kendall, who wore a pair of sleek black loafers

Walking out: Kendall matched her face mask to her orange sweater

Playing chauffeur: After making their way back to the car, Kendall got got behind the wheel of her Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen Cabriolet, which starts at $130,900 for the base model.

'I will never forget this year and all the significant changes it made to my life. I pray this new year is filled with a lot of love for all of you and i hope everyone stays safe and healthy during this time.'

On the same day as her reflective post, Travis returned to social media since the tragedy, marking his return to the spotlight.

Alongside a black and white profile picture of himself on Instagram, he simply wrote: 'Always [heart emoji}.'

Baby on board: She has been slowly returning to social media, after sharing a baby bump snap on New Years Day to Instagram as she reflected on the 'blessings' and 'heartache' of 2021; (Kylie Jenner pictured)
More information about what allegedly transpired prior to Garrett Hedlund's arrest for public intoxication has come to light.

Hedlund has been accused of attempting to jump out of a car by the man who called the cops on him, according to new legal documents obtained by TMZ.

The man, whose phone call led to his arrest on Saturday, alleged Hedlund, 37, attempted the act earlier that same day.

The individual also alleged Hedlund had kicked him and swung on him. However, police say the man did not want to press criminal charges.

Mug shot: Garrett Hedlund accused of attempting to jump out of a car and kicking and swinging on man prior to his arrest for public intoxication... as he splits from Emma Roberts

Hedlund, 37, was arrested in Franklin County, Tennessee on Saturday night and later released from custody on a $2,100 bond.

Police say they received a call around 10:30PM for a disturbance with a man alleging Hedlund was banging on the back door of a building, according to the documents obtained by TMZ.

Hedlund appeared intoxicated, reeked of alcohol, had slurred speech and did not follow commands made by officers, according to cops.

Hedlund allegedly told police he was trying to retrieve items he left inside the building.

Matters of the heart: The arrest comes just days after it was revealed that he has now split with girlfriend Emma Roberts, with whom he shares a child, one-year-old son Rhodes; pictured 2019

An investigation conducted by police led them to believe Hedlund was intoxicated and a danger to himself and others.

They placed him under arrest for public intoxication and stated he had caused 'unreasonable annoyance' in their report.

Hedlund is currently on three years probation over his previous DUI case, meaning his recent arrest for being intoxicated could pose a problem for the star.

The arrest comes just days after it was revealed that he has now split with girlfriend Emma Roberts, with whom he shares a child, one-year-old son Rhodes.

Arrest: Hedlund, 37, was arrested in Franklin County, Tennessee on Saturday night and later released from custody on a $2,100 bond; pictured 2019

It's also days after it was reported that Hedlund is being sued for a car crash that took place on the night of his 2020 DUI arrest.

Hedlund is being accused of crashing into another car - containing a woman and three children - passed out drunk behind the wheel of his Jeep and running a red light.

The family claims that Hedlund - whose blood alcohol on the night in question was twice the legal limit of .08 - attempted to flee the scene without calling an ambulance.

In court documents obtained by PEOPLE, the actor's conduct is deemed as 'despicable.'

Negligent: The family claims that Hedlund - whose blood alcohol on the night in question was twice the legal limit of .08 - attempted to flee the scene without calling an ambulance. The family is suing Garrett for damages; Pictured in 2021

'Hedlund's conduct was despicable in that he knew and was educated in the dangers presented to Plaintiffs and the public when he operated a vehicle while intoxicated,' the complaint read.

The complaint also described the strong odor of alcohol coming from the The Tron: Legacy actor.

'There was a very strong odor of hard liquor emitting from Hedlund's breath, body, and the cab of the Jeep despite the windows being open/broken,' it read.

The complaint went on to say that the star attempted to get rid of 'open bottles of alcoholic beverages' present in the vehicle before the police arrived.

The injured family also claims that he attempted to flee the scene and had to have his car keys removed to ensure that he wouldn't leave.

Sad: The arrest came as the actor was expecting his first child with actress Emma, 30. She went on to give birth to their son Rhodes Robert at the end of 2020

The actor refused a DUI test at the scene of the accident. When he was tested at the station two hours later, his blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.

The family is suing Garrett for damages.

Hedlund was arrested on two DUI offenses in February, 2020. Following the arrest, the actor was arraigned later that month and able to bail out on $100k bond.

The Tron: Legacy actor served a 36-months of probation, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court documents obtained by Page Six.

Hedlund was subsequently assigned three days of community service for one of the counts. The second charge was dismissed.

Additionally he was required to enroll in a nine-month first-offender alcohol and other drug education and counseling program.

Hard times: 'It's sad, and they are trying their best to co-parent. It's been hard,' an insider told PEOPLE of their post-breakup dynamic

His team says that Hedlund didn't resist seeking intervention for his substance abuse, according to Page Six. 'When the incident occurred, Garrett immediately sought treatment which was successful. Today, he is in a solid and great place,' reps told the outlet.

The arrest came as the actor was expecting his first child with actress Emma Roberts, 30. She went on to give birth to their son Rhodes at the end of 2020.

It was recently revealed they had split after nearly three-years of dating.

The pair welcomed their first child together, son Rhodes Robert Hedlund, in December 2020, which they happily shared to Instagram weeks after his arrival.

Baby in the mix: The pair welcomed their first child together, son Rhodes Robert Hedlund, in December 2020, which they happily shared to Instagram weeks after his arrival; Emma and Rhodes pictured in December

'It's sad, and they are trying their best to co-parent. It's been hard,' an insider told PEOPLE of their post-breakup dynamic.

DailyMail.com has reached out to representatives for Roberts and Hedlund for comment.

'Their relationship has been rocky for a long time,' a source told ET Online, 'and the situation is really sad right now.'

According to the insider, the couple 'grew apart when Garrett was away working' however they 'are still coparenting, and still doing things as a family.'

Last month, Emma and Garrett celebrated their baby son's first birthday by hosting rodeo-themed party.

'Loved every second of it. I love you Rhodes,' gushed Roberts, who shared several adorable shots from the shindig with her Instagram following.

Emma and Garrett first began dating back in March 2019 and, over a year later, would reveal that they were expecting a child.

Emma gave birth in December 2020 but waited to reveal the birth and the name of their baby until January 2021.
Gabrielle Epstein isn't exactly known for her subtlety when it comes to fashion.

And the LA-based Aussie model, 27, looked like a bona fide sex kitten on Tuesday when she poured her curves into a very revealing cocktail dress.

The OnlyFans star put on an eye-popping display in the slinky black number from PrettyLittleThing, which featured daring cut-outs across the chest.

Would you wear this on a date night? Gabrielle Epstein looked like a bona fide sex kitten on Tuesday when she poured her curves into a very revealing cocktail dress

In addition to showing off plenty of underboob, she also flashed a glimpse of thigh courtesy of the frock's perilously high leg split.

She went underwear-free for the occasion, putting herself at the risk of a wardrobe malfunction, and accessorised with a racy pair of evening gloves.

Gabrielle was censored by Instagram last week for posting a nude photo that violated the website's rules on 'sexual solicitation'.

Dare to bare: The OnlyFans star put on an eye-popping display in the slinky black number from PrettyLittleThing, which featured daring cut-outs across the chest

Risque: In addition to showing off plenty of underboob, she also flashed a glimpse of thigh courtesy of the frock's perilously high leg split

Exposure: She went underwear-free for the occasion, putting herself at the risk of a wardrobe malfunction, and accessorised with a racy pair of evening gloves

Working overtime: The flimsy fabric struggled to contain Gabby's surgically enhanced assets

She responded to the strike by sharing a series of defiant snaps in which she flaunted her jaw-dropping figure in a sparkly navy bikini.

The titillating images were taken in a luxury pool area, and drew attention to Gabrielle's ample cleavage and slim waist.

She didn't caption the pictures, instead letting her incredible body do the talking.

Stunning: Gabrielle was censored by Instagram last week for posting a nude photo that violated the website's rules on 'sexual solicitation'. She responded to the strike by sharing a series of defiant snaps in which she flaunted her jaw-dropping figure in a sparkly navy bikini

Bottoms up: The blonde held a bottle of liquor while posing next to an ornate hot tub

It came a day after she had her raunchy post deleted by the Facebook-owned platform for violating the its community guidelines.

Gabrielle shared a screenshot of the automated alert she'd received from Instagram telling her the photo had been removed.

Instagram broadly defines 'adult sexual solicitation' as any content that allows users to 'facilitate, encourage or coordinate sexual activity'.

This includes pornography, 'erotic messages', offering or asking for sex or nude images, use of 'sexualised slang' and 'language that describes sex or arousal'.

She laughed off the slap on the wrist by writing 'LOL' next to the screenshot.

Censored: Gabrielle was accused of 'sexual solicitation' after posting a fully nude photo

Alert: She shared this screenshot of the automated alert she'd received from Instagram telling her the photo had been removed. Instagram broadly defines 'adult sexual solicitation' as any content that allows users to 'facilitate, encourage or coordinate sexual activity'

The socialite's 'less is more' approach to fashion often gets her in trouble with Instagram's anti-nudity police.

She was censored by the social media giant yet again earlier this month after sharing a photo of herself that was apparently 'too naked'.

She told her followers an image she'd posted to her back-up account - which features more racy content than her main account - was removed because it supposedly violated Instagram's community guidelines.

She posted a comparatively tame gallery of photos of herself in a white lace bra and sweatpants, and wrote in the caption: 'Hi, Instagram removed my pic this morning because I was too naked (what's new?) so here is this instead.'

While it's unclear why Instagram took steps to remove Gabrielle's post, the image may have been reported by a user or alternatively it could have been flagged by an algorithm that detects nudity.

Removed: It comes after the blonde bombshell was censored by Instagram yet again earlier this month after sharing a photo of herself that was apparently 'too naked'

'What's new?' She said an image she'd posted to her back-up account was removed because it supposedly violated Instagram's community guidelines

Instagram's community guidelines state: 'For a variety of reasons, we don't allow nudity on Instagram. This includes photos, videos and some digitally created content that show sexual intercourse, genitals and close-ups of fully nude buttocks.

'It also includes some photos of female nipples, but photos in the context of breastfeeding, birth giving and after-birth moments, health-related situations (for example, post-mastectomy, breast cancer awareness or gender confirmation surgery) or an act of protest are allowed.

'Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is okay, too.'

Drenched: Gabrielle isn't exactly known for her subtlety when it comes to fashion

In November, Gabrielle fired back at critics who said her photos were 'too explicit'.

Speaking to Maxim, she called out the 'toxic double standard' between how men and women are treated differently on Instagram.

'There are plenty of photos of men without their shirts on showing their nipples but the fact that mine can be covered and a photo still gets removed creates a very toxic double standard,' she said.

'We are all human, we are all born with bodies and we should not be taught to be ashamed of how they look in a natural state.'

Defiant: In November, Gabrielle fired back at critics who said her photos were 'too explicit'

She said she'd turned to OnlyFans to get around Instagram's censorship.

'I also feel like I can be more of myself on OnlyFans,' she explained.

'To me showing my body isnt about me being objectified; its about me feeling confident, powerful and beautiful in my own skin.'

Prior to finding fame as an adult model, Gabrielle was a competitive swimmer and ambassador for fitness brands.
He may be a huge Hollywood star, but Zac Efron is one of the friendliest A-listers around.

Wentworth star Susie Porter has revealed what the American actor was really like while filming their new Stan Original Film Gold in South Australia's vast outback last year.

'He was so down down-to-earth and really easy to work with,' Susie, 51, said in an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Australia this week.

Kind, hard working and professional: Australian actress Susie Porter, 51, has spilled the beans on what it was like working with Hollywood heavyweight Zac Efron on their new Stan Original Film Gold

'Zac's such a hard worker, he never once complained he was in the (outback) heat. You often think because someone's like a famous movie star ... but he was so cool.'

Susie said she was so impressed with the 34-year-old actor's dedication to the film, despite working under rigorous conditions.

'We would drive in the middle of nowhere in 46 degree heat (114.8F), there were flies and dust storms and he never once complained that he was in the heat,' she said.

Praise: 'He was so down down-to-earth and really easy to work with,' Susie, 51, said in an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Australia

Professional: 'He was filming all day, every day with the most full-on makeup on and never complained once,' she said. Zac pictured in the film

'He was filming all day, every day with the most full-on makeup on and never complained once.

'I think when someone is as good looking as he is people often assume that they can't act  weird. But he does such a brilliant job in the structure, professional attitude and really lovely to work with. I can't speak highly enough of him.'

Susie added that she was most impressed with the fact that Zac would begin his 16-hour long filming shoots by spending a few hours working out.

'Zac would work out before he shot, so to go and train for a couple of hours before a 16-hour day was pretty impressive,' she recalled.

'I was most impressed with him. And as I said, he never once got angry, you know, he was amazing.'

Impressive: Susie added she was most impressed with the fact that Zac would begin his 16-hour long filming shoots by spending a few hours working out. Pictured in 2016

In the film, Zac plays a man, who alongside his companion, finds an oversized nugget of gold and battles the harsh desert wilderness in his quest to keep their find safe.

He starts to experience paranoia as he protects the gold and runs into a mysterious woman, played by Porter.

In a trailer for the movie, Zac can be seen with scruffy hair, a bushy beard and incredible makeup, including fake cuts, bruises, fake blood and blistered skin.

He can also be seen covered in dirt after battling the elements.

Gold was filmed in South Australia in the Flinders Rangers and Leigh Creek and began filming in late 2020.

Zac spent over a year in Australia escaping Covid-ravaged America.

While Down Under, he was based in the celebrity hot spot Byron Bay and dated local influencer and model Vanessa Valladares, 26, but they have since split.

They are believed to have first met in June 2020, when Vanessa was waiting tables at the Byron Bay General Store cafe.

He also shot scenes for his Netflix docuseries Down to Earth in Australia.

Gold streams on Stan from Wednesday, January 26
She is holidaying in Mexico with her boyfriend Josh Moss after they jetted out of Sydney at the end of 2021.

And on Monday, Love Island star Amelia Marni slipped into another bikini for an impromptu poolside photoshoot.

The brunette beauty showed off her ample cleavage and toned tummy in an affordable two-piece by Glassons, which she promoted in the caption by telling her fans that the brand had a special on '2 for $35'.

Yee-haw! Love Island's Amelia Marni showed off her ample cleavage in a $17 bikini as she posed poolside in a cowboy hat during her trip to Mexico with boyfriend Josh Moss on Monday

She accessorised with a cowboy hat and wore barely any makeup on her flawless complexion.

Amelia has been promoting the various clothing and swimwear brands she is partnered with during her overseas jaunt with Josh.

Earlier this month, the 25-year-old influencer flaunted her trim figure and pert derriere in a high-cut white one-piece.

Golden hour: Amelia has been promoting the various clothing and swimwear brands she is partnered with during her overseas jaunt with Josh

She turned around to show off her perky backside as the sun radiated a golden light.

Her swimsuit featured a plunging neckline that accentuated her ample assets and slender physique.

She wrote in the caption, 'Never leaving,' along with an emoji of the Mexican flag.

Earlier this month, Amelia and Josh announced to they had made it to Los Angeles.

Flawless: Earlier this month, the 25-year-old influencer flaunted her trim figure and pert derriere in a high-cut white one-piece

Derriere: She turned around to show off her perky backside as the sun radiated a golden light

Josh, 28, said: 'It still doesn't feel real we're here.'

While some fans were worried about the pair catching Covid in the U.S., Amelia assured them they were both double vaccinated and taking precautions.

'I guess it's the risk we take leaving Australia,' she said.

'Where I live in Sydney has just come out of intense lockdowns, which has caused the virus to spread like crazy.'

Still going strong: Amelia and boyfriend Josh Moss, 28, announced to their followers that they had made it to Los Angeles after jetting out of Sydney for a holiday

They made it! While some fans were worried about the pair catching Covid in the U.S., Amelia assured them they were both double vaccinated and taking precautions. 'I guess it's the risk we take leaving Australia'

She continued: 'Josh and I knew from the moment we left our house we were at risk of getting it.

'We are both double vaxxed and have been so incredibly lucky to not have caught it in Australia, too.'

After arriving in LA, the couple have shared photos of themselves at their Airbnb rental and dining at trendy vegan eateries.

No worries: She continued: 'Josh and I knew from the moment we left our house we were at risk of getting it. 'We are both double vaxxed and have been so incredibly lucky to not have caught it in Australia, too'

Their overseas adventure comes months after the couple announced they had finally moved in together, three years after they met on the Nine dating show.

'We're moving in together! Finally. After three long years,' Amelia said in a YouTube vlog on July 19.

'We're so happy in our new home. It's so nice to have your own space together. Like, I love living with friends, but obviously we've been together for a while, so we just felt like it was the right time.'

'We're moving in together!' Their overseas adventure comes six months after the couple announced they had finally moved in together, three years after they met on Love Island

Amelia confessed she'd been wanting to move in with Josh 'for a long time', but he had been hesitant to take the next step.

'I'm more about the waiting game. I don't want to rush into things. I want to take things nice and slow,' he explained.

The genetically blessed couple met on the first season of Love Island Australia, which was filmed in Spain and aired in 2018.
Reliance seems to be directing its energy towards a new industry that has recently caught its fancy! Yes, it is going the green energy way and is giving this energy movement a big push with its plans to create new industries, produce equipments that support green energy and create green energy itself.

Reliance has also been getting together with many international companies who are into the green energy segment, to bring the technology to India. With fuel prices going through the roof and countries seeing drastic climate change, the company looks to be setting a trend by moving to green energy at a time when it is needed more than ever.

Mukesh Ambani. Photo: Getty Images

RELIANCE'S BIG GREEN MOVES IN 2021

In June 2021, Reliance announced a Rs 75,000 crore investment in green energy, which it split into two parts.

The first part, Rs 60,000 crore would be invested in creating 4 giga factories to create Solar PV models, fuel cells, electrolytes and batteries. The balance Rs 15,000 crore would be invested to create infrastructure and add to the value chain and technology to support the green energy.

But first, what are fuel cells? Watch this:

Reliance has thrown a big stone into the pond by deciding to invest not only in solar energy itself, but also by investing in creating the equipment for solar energy. Its big targets for 2030 include:

To create 100 gigaWatt solar energy by 2030 To create large-scale grid batteries to store power To use fuel giga factories to convert hydrogen into stationary power To use electrolyser factories to produce green hydrogen

Its big targets are set to create ripple effects in the solar industry as manufacturing solar PV panels and storage production units will help them create and store the solar energy by themselves, and manage the supply chain well. Producing fuel cells that help in creating hydrogen, instead of outsourcing it to another entity, will also be beneficial for Reliance.

Photo : Getty Images

RECENT ACQUISITIONS AND INVESTMENTS

Reliance New Energy Solar, Reliance's solar business company, has made big moves in 2021 in line with Reliance's vision of going green. Each deal has given Reliance a strategic foothold in the renewable energy manufacturing story.

1. Reliance invested $50 million in Ambri Inc, a battery development company to explore alternatives to lithium ion. It plans to produce these batteries in India

2. It acquired REC Solar for $771 million from China National Bluestar in October 2021. Solar REC manufactures polysilicon PV cells and solar modules. This is what it looks like:

3. Reliance went on to acquire a 40% stake in Sterling and Wilson Solar, a company into operations and solar maintenance.

4. It then invested 25 million Euros in Germany-based NexWafe, which produces low-cost solar wafers, and is into product and tech development.

5. Reliance then entered into an MOU with Denmark-based Stiesdal to develop and manufacture hydrogen electrolysers.

Reliance New Energy Solar Limited & Denmarks Stiesdal A/S to collaborate on tech development & manufacturing of HydroGen Electrolyzers. Innovative electrolyzer technology capable of producing hydrogen at a significantly lower cost https://t.co/sfZLUBhVu7#GreenEnergy 1/ pic.twitter.com/w9RgGQAOrv  Rohit Bansal ?? (@theRohitBansal) October 12, 2021

6. Last but not the least, it acquired 100% stake in Faradion, a sodium ion battery producing company. Reliance will use this technology in their giga factories.

As solar manufacturing production and distribution in the Indian industry is highly fragmented, Reliance's moves are making a big disruption.

WHY FARADION?

Sodium Ion battery. Photo: Wikipedia

Faradion uses sodium, which is abundantly present in Earth's crust than lithium ions, to produce sodium ion batteries.

Also, as demand for electric vehicles and their components is huge right now with consumers and manufacturers, the raw materials are bound to get scarce with an increase in cost. As companies are currently using lithium ion cells, the price for it is expected to rise by 5 times. In comparison, investing in sodium-ion batteries makes more sense in the long term perspective for Reliance given its abundant supply.

Internationally, China is the largest producer of all solar panel items and Reliance's move will help it compete with China's manufacturers later on.

China produces 98% solar wafers and 78% of solar panels in the world. All top 5 of solar energy companies are Chinese. pic.twitter.com/hdb5GkjNal  Viceroy (@SolBrahmin) November 11, 2021

Sodium-ion batteries are an attractive alternative to lithium-ion batteries because they are safer and about 30% cheaper. Their major disadvantage is that their energy density is substantially lower than that of the latest lithium-ion batteries. Irrespective of this fact, Reliance sees potential in renewable power storage as well as vehicles.

PM Narendra Modi has vowed to meet 50% of the countrys energy needs from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2030. For this, the government has to arrange the production, storage and transportation of this energy.

Photo : Faradion

Lithium-ion batteries can cause fire hazards, whereas sodium-ion cells are less likely to explode in transit. As Reliance usually takes advantage of government policies and leads the way through change in Indian economy, Reliance can benefit tremendously with this move. Acquisition of Ambri and Faradions patent also gives Reliance an advantage as Ambri has a similar aim of developing expertise for safe, economical storage of large-scale renewable power.

THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Tesla has been wanting to invest in India but has been held back because of government regulations. The Telangana state government is already extending support to invite Tesla into the country. So, it is important for Reliance to make this move before India sees external competitors making a foothold in the solar industry business.

Hey Elon, I am the Industry & Commerce Minister of Telangana state in IndiaWill be happy to partner Tesla in working through the challenges to set shop in India/TelanganaOur state is a champion in sustainability initiatives & a top notch business destination in India https://t.co/hVpMZyjEIr  KTR (@KTRTRS) January 14, 2022

This gives Reliance time and space to make the first move. Also given that the demand will be quick to rise, it is essential to have supply in place so that India does not end up spending foreign currency to import essential renewable energy resources.

I just love this car. Words cant adjust. Total satisfaction: Tesla S Plaid is a banging car. @elonmusk Elon, you just made my last 7 months. pic.twitter.com/d1w5crzc16  Eva McMillan (@evamcmillan333) January 23, 2022

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has imposed basic customs duty of 25% on import of solar PV cells and 40% on modules from April 2022. There is also a production-linked incentive scheme to the extent of Rs 4,500 crore for domestic and global players to produce high efficiency solar modules and build large scale PV capacities here.

What do you think of Reliance's big move?
Yemen has been at the centre of one of the world's worst humanitarian crises for the past seven years. The recent strikes by Saudi Arabia have just worsened it. In the airstrikes carried out by Saudi Arabia last week; January 21, 2022, on a detention centre in Yemen, more than 70 people lost their lives and 130 were injured. Another airstrike came the same day, and struck the telecommunications buildings in the port city of Hodeidah. It left more than 3 children dead and the entire country struggling with a blackout.

People searching their dear ones through the piles bodies massacred by the Saudi/UAE strikes. #YemenUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/oTeMVUgMhe  k. (@kabir_writes) January 24, 2022

These attacks on Yemen are in retaliation of the recent drone attacks at three oil facilities in the capital city of UAE, Abu Dhabi, on January 17, 2022, allegedly by Houthi rebels of Yemen. The attack left two Indian nationals and a Pakistani dead, and six other injured.

Saudi Arabia, along with eight Sunni Muslim countries, has been fighting the Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2015.

First, who are the Houthi rebels?

Houthi rebels are a Shia minority group that allegedly gets backing from the Shia-ruled Iran. Saudi Arabia, with the aid of US-made weapons, is conducting airstrikes in Yemen, in its effort to dislodge the Iran-backed Houthi rebels from the country.

But why is Saudi Arabia attacking Yemen?

1. THE TUMULT OF 2015

Yemen is a strategically important country that sits on the strait linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden through which many of the world's important oil shipments pass through.

The country came to a boil in early 2015, when the Houthi Rebels sensed the weakness of the Hadi government, who had failed to address mass issues of the country like poverty, hunger crisis and corruption.

In 2015, the rebels intensified the fight against the forces of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and captured the capital city of Sanaa. The Houthi rebels captured the northern Saada province and neighbouring provinces. The group also had the backing of former President Abdullah Saleh, who was later killed by the Houthi rebels in 2017 following the conflict over the control of Sana'a's biggest mosque.

President Hadi fled abroad and settled in Saudi Arabia. He then ran the government from there.

2. SAUDI ARABIA IN ACTION

A building destroyed after an airstrike by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. Photo: Getty Images

Mohammad Bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, was quick to launch a retaliation attack as the Kingdom and the West too felt that the developments in Yemen were designed and executed by Iran through Houthis.

Saudi Arabia, along with eight Muslim countries, launched airstrikes against the Houthi rebels. The Saudi coalition also received logistical and intelligence support from the UK, France and US. Coalition troops of Saudi Arabia landed in the southern port city of Aden in August 2015, and drove out Houthis and their allies in the next few months. The Houthi rebels, however still held the capital city of Sanaa and North-Western Yemen. Since then, Saudi Arabia has been fighting the Houthi rebels.

Initially, Saudi Arabia had said that the war would end in a few months; but it has now been more than seven years with an end nowhere in sight.

3. BIDEN DOUBLE TALK ON YEMEN WAR

US President Joe Biden. Photo: Getty Images

In 2021, US president Joe Biden had revoked the delegating of the Houthi group as a terrorist organisation, done so by former US President Donald Trump. Biden had also called for ending the war in Yemen, and termed the action of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen as offensive operations.

But then, Bidens administration recently approved USD 650 million in arms sales through Congress to Saudi Arabia under the pretext of supplying weapons for defence purposes. At a press conference, when Biden was asked about his previous claim of ending the Yemen war, he said, "Ending the war in Yemen takes the two parties involved to do it. And it's going to be very difficult.

In a way, the conflict in Yemen also served as an opportunistic one for the US as it helped the country ramp up its sale of arms to Saudi Arabia to bolster the military-industrial complex of US imperialism.

4. YEMEN IS CRYING

Debris of destroyed building after an airstrike. Photo: Getty Images

Though Saudi Arabia might justify the airstrikes under the garb of retaliatory measures, the brunt of the war is being faced by the people of Yemen. According to estimates by the United Nations, more than 3,77,000 people have lost their lives till the end of 2021. 60 percent of these deaths were due to indirect causes like famine and other preventable diseases. The rest were caused by air raids and live combat.

Also, as per UN estimates, more than 70 per cent children have died in the crisis.

5. NOT THE FIRST TIME INDIANS ARE KILLED

Two Indians, Hardev Singh (35) and Hardeep Singh (28) from Punjab, who died in the drone attack in Dubai arent the first ones to die in Yemen war-related attacks. In September 2015, airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition in Western Yemen had killed 7 Indian nationals.

The strike was targeted at Western Yemen on two boats at Al-Khokha, a small port near Hodeidah, which was used by Indians to smuggle badly needed fuel supplies into the country. The airstrikes and attacks by troops had caused a blockade on sea and land routes, preventing the supplies from other parts of the world.
Think you are a successful risk taker? This man is going to leave you shook. A stowaway was found ALIVE in the wheel section under the front of a Boeing 747 freight plane that arrived at Amsterdams Schiphol airport from Johannesburg, South Africa on January 23.

For context, flights from Johannesburg are known take about 11 hours to reach Amsterdam; and this cargo plane made one stop, in Nairobi, Kenya. Stowaways generally do not end up surviving due to the cold and low oxygen at high altitudes.

A Boeing 747 flies at an altitude of just over 35,000 ft and a speed of over 550 mph.The standard ambient temperature at 35,000 ft is around -54C, with around 25 per cent less oxygen in the air than at sea level.

Such atmospheric conditions would typically result in hypoxia, frostbite, hypothermia and a host of other conditions... but this stowaway managed to arrive in Amsterdam with no such problem.

Photo: Getty Images

Calling it very unusual, a Dutch police spokesperson confirmed that the nationality and age of the stowaway has yet not been determined. The man has been taken to a hospital in stable condition.

As per the Dutch broadcaster NOS, the stowaway's body temperature was 'raised at the scene' and by the time an ambulance arrived, he was able to answer basic questions.

A spokesperson for the freight carrier Cargolux has confirmed in an email that the stowaway was on a flight operated by Cargolux Italia. The email read, "We are not in a position to make any further comment until the authorities and the airline have completed their investigtion."
"Flurona" is a term coined to describe the condition of being infected with COVID-19 and the flu simultaneously, which alarms many people as COVID-19 cases continue to surge due to the Omicron variant.

On the other hand, medical professionals point out that flurona is neither a new disease nor a new COVID-19 variant. The flu virus and the COVID-19 virus belong to two separate virus families. Scientists are unconcerned that the two viruses may combine and form a new virus, per ABC.

According to Dr. Ellen Foxman, an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine said, the term "flurona" is not popular with scientists. She even calls the term misleading because there is a scientifically correct term for it: "coinfection."

"The contractions like 'flurona,' I think they're very misleading to people. It presents the idea two viruses have somehow merged into one, which is not at all the case, Somebody got a coinfection. People get coinfections all the time," she said.

What Will Happen If You Get Two Viruses?

According to researchers, when someone gets coinfection, there are three possible outcomes.

One possibility is the interaction will have little or no effect. The other option is that the viruses could attack at the same time, causing severe damage, according to Dr. Guy Boivin, a clinical virologist at Laval University in Quebec City,

According to Foxman's findings, a recent common cold infection caused by rhinoviruses could block the virus that causes COVID-19 from replicating. Common rhinoviruses are generally harmless to most individuals and cause an almost quick interferon response, per NBC.

Interferon is "a protein released by animal cells, usually in response to the entry of a virus, which has the property of inhibiting virus replication," according to the Oxford Dictionary.

But Foxman advised that one should not deliberately get a cold infection to avoid getting COVID-19.

Learning more about viral interference, according to the researchers, could help prepare for future pandemics and can assist public health experts in determining when preventive measures should be implemented.

Read Also: Omicron Puts Kids at High Risk, Causing Unusual Complications

Keep Ourselves Protected

In an interview with CNN, Nadav Davidovitch, Director of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, there is the possibility that an individual will be infected with both influenza and COVID-19 since both virus now is highly active.

Davidovitch, a member of the Israeli National Advisory Committee on COVID-19, cautions that cases are expected to surge as society opens up.

According to the World Health Organization, both influenza and COVID-19 are respiratory diseases that exhibit similar symptoms like runny nose, cough, sore throat, headache, fatigue, and fever. They are also spread via aerosol and droplets when infected people sneeze, breathe, speak, or cough.

Dr. Adrian Burrowes, a family medicine physician and assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Central Florida, warned the public that having COVID-19 and the flu simultaneously could damage the immune system severely. He said that having coinfection of the coronavirus and influenza could result in a "higher rate of mortality."

He believes that more people need to get vaccinated to help protect healthcare systems, such as implementing other precautions to secure high-risk individuals, the elderly, and those with chronic conditions.

The WHO recommends the public to practice proven-effective protective measures against COVID-19 and the flu: regular washing of hands, social distancing regularly, isolating, and opening windows and doors for proper ventilation.

Related Article: New Jersey Reports Over 8,000 New COVID-19 Cases, 13 Deaths Following a Surge in Omicron Cases; Majority of Residents Remain Unvaccinated

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The 51st Annual Spring Powwow, organized by First Nations @ UW in April, marked the events post-pandemic return. Drawing both Indigenous people and nonnatives from across the country, the powwow is one of the largest student-run events on campus and has been an important event for Pacific N
Since numerous rumors about Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra have been circulating around the internet, it is being compared with the current Google Pixel 6 Pro.

Amusingly, several reports showed that the Samsung device might be better than the Google phone.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Specs

For those curious to know more about the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra specs, Tom's Guide reported that the anticipated device will have a 6.8-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate.

Moreover, the Galaxy S22 Ultra device is expected to employ Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor in the United States and China variants.

The said chip features a new Kryo CPU that is 20% quicker than the Snapdragon 888 and consumes 30% less power.

While on the GPU part, Qualcomm claims that the Adreno processor would be 30% faster and 25% more efficient than its predecessor.

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom and other regions, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is expected to come with the recently announced Exynos 2200 processor.

In early Geekbench 5 findings of WCCFTech, the Exynos 2200 surpassed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in multi-core performance, despite being regarded weaker than their Snapdragon counterparts in third-party testing.

Amusingly, the Exynos 2200 processor is based on AMD's RDNA 2 GPU architecture, which is used in the PS5 and Xbox Series X GPUs.

In terms of its camera functionality, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is rumored to equip a 108-megapixel main camera, two 10-megapixel telephoto sensors with 3x and 10-magnification optical zoom, and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera.

Additionally, these cameras are expected to have enhanced sensors and abilities, including an AI enhancement option for the 108MP camera, which could result in more detail and brightness in its photos.

Meanwile for the selfie camera, reports stated that it would have 40 megapixels.

The battery life is also one of the specs that people must watch out for since several leaks reported that it would have 5,000 mAh.

Read Also: iPhone 15 Leak Hints Powerful 5X Periscope Camera! [Release Date, Specs]

Google Pixel 6 Pro Specs

Since its release last October, Google Pixel 6 devices are one of the best smartphones in the market.

To further emphasize its specs, CNET explained that the device includes Google's new Tensor system-on-chip, a camera bar that runs along the back of the phone, camera sensors that capture 150 percent more light than the Pixel 5's, and an ultrawide lens.

The Tensor chip provides extra power and capabilities to the Pixel without losing battery life.

Through this, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have capabilities like real-time language translations, highly accurate voice transcription, and new camera functions including the ability to unblur the face of a person in motion thanks to Google's own in-house chip.

The new features arrive as Google promises a battery life of 24 to 48 hours for the Pixel 6 series.

Despite these exciting features, the latest Google phone only has 50 megapixels camera, a 12MP ultrawide, and a 48MP 4x optical telephoto. Its front camera only has 11 megapixels.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Vs. Google Pixel 6 Pro: Should You Upgrade?

From the front, the Pixel 6 Pro appears to be comparable to the Galaxy S22 Ultra renders and dummy, per another Tom's Guide report.

This is because it has a 6.71-inch display with a selfie camera located at the topmost part of the device.

The Google Pixel 6 Pro also offers a 120Hz refresh rate that can be reduced to 10Hz when a high refresh rate isn't required, conserving battery life.

The Pixel 6 Pro's screen and overall form are anticipated to be slightly curvier than the Galaxy S22 Ultra's. The Pixel 6 Pro appears to be losing out to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, with a max tested brightness of 842 nits.

On the other hand, it is important to note that upgrading a device may vary depending on the users' needs and preferences.

Even though the Samsung device appears to compete with the Google Pixel 6 Pro, the South Korean-based technology company is yet to confirm the rumored details for the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Related Article: Worried About Your Samsung Galaxy S21 Battery Draining Fast? Major Reasons, How to Fix It
DARIEN  A town intersection was closed for utility pole repairs after a crash Monday afternoon, according to police.

Christie Hill Road was closed at Greenleaf Avenue around 1:15 p.m. Police said the closure was due to a utility pole that was knocked down in a crash.
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As a part of the deal, the Tata group will also be handed over Air India Express also. (Photo: PTI/File)

New Delhi: Air India is likely to be handed over to the Tata group by the end of this week, senior government officials said on Monday.

After a competitive bidding process, the government had on October 8 last year sold Air India to Talace Private Limited -- a subsidiary of the Tata group's holding company -- for Rs 18,000 crore.

Following that, on October 11, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to the Tata group confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 percent stake in the airline. On October 25, the Centre signed the share purchase agreement (SPA) for this deal.

Officials said on Monday that the remaining formalities regarding this deal are expected to be completed in the next few days and the airline will be handed over to the Tata group by the end of this week.

As a part of the deal, the Tata group will also be handed over Air India Express and a 50 percent stake in ground handling arm Air India SATS.

Tatas had on October 8 beat the Rs 15,100-crore offer by a consortium led by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh and the reserve price of Rs 12,906 crore set by the government for the sale of its 100 percent stake in the loss-making carrier.

While this will be the first privatisation since 2003-04, Air India will be the third airline brand in the Tatas' stable  it holds a majority interest in AirAsia India and Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines Ltd.
Hyderabad: In the wake of growing number of complaints over harassment by police officials, all station house officers (SHOs) have been directed to comply with the standard operating procedure (SOP) in dealing with cases.

Senior police officers including district superintendents of police (SPs) were instructed to monitor investigation officers (IOs) dealing with various cases.

Keeping in mind the recent incidents of police harassment that took place in districts impacting badly on the image of the department, the police conducted a review meeting with the senior officers and deliberated ways and means to streamline the policing system.

As some of the victims approached the court of law, seeking action on investigation officers, the officials also decided to conduct review meetings in all districts. The SPs would conduct review meetings with the staff on weekly basis physically or virtually for monitoring the cases and their investigations.

The Jogulamba-Gadwal district police conducted a meeting with all police officers in the district and analysed the crime and law and order issues in the district. SP Ranjan Ratan gave instructions to clear all pending investigations and file charge sheets before the court of law.

Police officers must follow SOP while dealing with cases. If anyone violates the

rules, the authorities will not hesitate to take action, the SP warned. Similarly, the SPs of several districts convened virtual meetings with the staff and asked them to take measures to prevent Covid-19 spread and follow SOP.
Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other senior officials are likely to visit India this year as the two countries celebrate 30 years of diplomatic relations, Israel's Ambassador to India Naor Gilon said on Monday.

In a Webinar held for the virtual launch of a special logo to set in motion the year-long celebrations to commemorate the occasion, Gilon said he feels very lucky to be Israel's Ambassador in India when "relations are exceptional" and "beyond regular", one of "partnership between ancient civilisations".

To further deepen bilateral cooperation in diverse areas, Gilon said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and other officials are likely to visit India as the two countries celebrate 30 years of establishment of diplomatic ties.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had extended an invitation to Bennett from Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Israel last year.

"This is an important occasion to reflect on our mutual successes as well as a good opportunity to look ahead and shape the next 30 years of our relations. I am sure that our close existing cooperation in different fields will only continue to grow and flourish in the coming years, Gilon stressed.

Gilon launched the logo virtually along with his Indian counterpart in Tel Aviv, Ambassador Sanjeev Singla.

The logo features the Star of David and the Ashoka Chakra, the two symbols that adorn the national flags of both countries, and forms the numeral 30 depicting the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations.

The Israeli envoy in his speech highlighted ties going back thousands of years with no trace of anti-semitism in India, unlike in Europe and other parts of the world.

Recalling the visit of Jaishankar, Gilon mentioned India's role in shaping the region with Indian soldiers participating in the World Wars and buried in different parts of Israel.

Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion saw India and Israel's national movement as "sister liberation movements", he said, pointing out the deep respect the Israeli leader had for Mahatma Gandhi whose picture he had on the wall of his bedroom.

Singla in his address said 2022 also marks five years of bilateral strategic partnership which was established during the historic visit of Prime Minister Modi to Israel in 2017.

The year, therefore, provides an opportunity to not only look back and take account of the bilateral achievements of the past thirty years but also the past five years when the relationship was put on a "qualitatively higher trajectory", he said.

As the two countries celebrate this milestone, it is also an opportunity to appreciate the efforts of our leaders, diplomats, thinkers, strategists and all the people who have led our partnership and continue to nurture this important relationship, Singla said.

"Our two peoples are connected by civilisational bonds that go beyond trade and economic ties. The Jewish people have thrived in India for centuries and, in fact, enriched the composite culture of India," he said.

As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches on January 27, the Indian envoy narrated how Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar not only saved lives of several Jewish children but providing them shelter during World War II but also took care of them as long as they chose to be under his guardianship.

Addressing the Indian Jewish community in Israel, Singla said they "form the organic link, a bridge" which "continues to grow with shared traditions, cultural practices, mutual trust and friendship".

"For the last five years our thrust has been on tapping our strengths as two knowledge economies", he asserted, highlighting deeper collaboration in research and development, innovation, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

To create the 30th-anniversary logo, both countries launched a contest last year for students of prominent design colleges in Israel and India.

Entries were invited from Israel Holon Institute of Technology and India's National Institute of Design (NIT). NIT's Nikhil Kumar Rai's design was unanimously selected as the commemorative logo for the celebrations.

Nikhil, hailing from Varanasi, is a final year student at NIT Ahmedabad and has also studied in the Faculty of Visual Arts at Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

"I wanted my design to be simple and bold that connects audiences from both the countries", Nikhil said during the Webinar to launch the logo.

"It should depict the rich history of the two countries and also be forward-looking," he added.

The event's moderator, Dr Oshrit Birvadker, said the special logo symbolises the strong friendship, love and admiration that exists between the people of Israel and the people of India.

"It also depicts the growing strategic partnership between the two sides," Birvadker said.
People wait in a long que to get tested for covid at the Fever Hospital in Hyderabad (Deepak Deshpande/DC)

HYDERABAD: Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao is expected to review on Covid situation in the state on Tuesday. He is likely to take a call on conducting online and offline classes in schools and colleges from February first week and giving a choice to students to attend either online or offline classes.

Official sources said senior officials from the education and health departments were called for the meeting including education minister Sabitha Indra Reddy and health minister T. Harish Rao. Harish Rao will submit a report to the Chief Minister on the status of Covid cases in the state at present and projections for the future.

It may be recalled that on January 3, the Chief Minister ordered the closure of all educational institutions in the state from January 8 to 16 in the wake of increasing Covid cases. Subsequently, holidays were extended until January 30. Although private schools and colleges in the state are continuing online classes after Sankranti vacation, students in government schools and colleges are hit with no offline or online classes since January 10.

However, the state government started telecasting online classes for students of Classes VIII, IX and X in government schools through T-SAT education channel from Monday from 10 am to 5 pm. These classes will be continued until January 30.

The health department is of the view that schools and colleges could be permitted from February first week as Covid situation is under control and the third wave is expected to end in another two weeks.

It is also of the view that SSC, Inter public exams and common entrance tests like Eamcet, Icet etc should be held as scheduled.

Against this backdrop, the Chief Minister is expected to take a call on the academic calendar for schools and colleges for the remaining three months of this current academic year 2021-22.
The court directed the registry to post the matter for hearing at an appropriate bench, treating it as a public interest litigation (PIL) as the issue would affect a large number of employees. (Representational Image/ DC File)

Vijayawada: The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Monday heard a petition challenging the issue of GO-1 to implement the revised scales of pay as per the 11th PRC to state government employees. The petitioners claimed that the GO was unacceptable.

The court directed the registry to post the matter for hearing at an appropriate bench, treating it as a public interest litigation (PIL) as the issue would affect a large number of employees.

A division bench comprising justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah and BS Bhanumathi said the prayer in the petition appeared to be pertaining to service-related issues of an employee on one end and at the same time is having public interest as government employees were involved in it.

Hence, the petition should not have come up before us as per roster and instead it should be sent to an appropriate bench, the bench said and directed the registry to place the file before Chief Justice Prashant Mishra to take a decision.

AP gazetted officers' joint action committee chairman Krishnaiah filed the petition

challenging the GO1 on Jan. 17. Petitioners counsel Ravi Teja argued that the

GO issued for implementation of revised scales of pay as per 11th PRC

recommendations would cut down, and not raise, the wages of the employees.

He said the state government did not release the report of the 11th PRC headed by Ashutosh Mishra set up in 2018 and said that they were not knowing the basis for issuing the GO on the revised scales of pay. As per section 78(1) of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, employees from Hyderabad working in AP were having their interests protected while the service conditions, HRA benefits and others were being implemented from July 1, 2018.

The court asked whether the wages of employees were increased or decreased and noted that the Pay Revision Commission could only make a recommendation to the state government while it is the government that will take a decision.

The court said that if the wages were to be paid extra, they could be recovered and also if they were paid less, the government could pay the balance.

The court opined that the state government was having the authority to reduce wages if its financial condition was not good. In that case, an employee could raise the issue but it would be inappropriate to say that the state government was not having the authority to do so.

Advocate general S Sriram submitted that the interim relief was subject to the final PRC implementation as mentioned in the GO and opined that no vested right would arise for an employee for a particular fitment based on IR or based on an ad hoc fixation of HRA, pending the PRC finalisation.

He said that the states income was Rs 62,000 crore in 2018-19 and due to Covid19, the income had come down drastically in the last three years. Though the state was to earn Rs 75,000 crore in 2021, it got only Rs 60,000 crore. An amount of Rs 67,000 crore is to be spent for employees wages and, as a result, the state was borrowing money to implement welfare and developmental works.

He said that the implementation of PRC would cause an additional burden of Rs 10,685 crore during the Covid times.

The AG said that unless the employees got the wage bills, they would not know how much they could earn as per PRC. The policy decisions of the state government were not for adjudication at a time when there existed the brinkmanship of a strike as was threatened by the government employees, he said.
The Hubble Telescope has taken yet another spectacular photo of space on Friday. This is the galaxy NGC 3318, a swirling image located inside the Vela constellation.

Many space fans are probably familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope, referred to as "Hubble" for short. This gigantic space observatory is a project between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA).

Hubble regularly gifts its fans with amazing space photos from distant galaxies. Its most recent update features a celestial body that might be linked to Greek mythology.

NASA Hubble Photos: The Galaxy NGC 3318

Hubble tweeted its newest photo with a description to "raise your cosmic sails!" The team behind the space telescope described the galaxy as a "part of the constellation Vela...which was originally part of a much larger constellation known as Argo Navis after the ship Argo from Greek mythology!"

Raise your cosmic sails 



This #HubbleFriday image shows the galaxy NGC 3318, which is part of the constellation Velawhich was originally part of a much larger constellation known as Argo Navis after the ship Argo from Greek mythology!



Read more: https://t.co/XcXphx94J9 pic.twitter.com/R1sR0xJsSg  Hubble (@NASAHubble) January 21, 2022



NASA further explained that NGC 3318 is "lazily draped" across the photo, which "almost resembles a ship's sails billowing in a gentle breeze." The image features a lot of colorful stars between white, gold, and red, which are all encompassed inside a silvery dust cloud. Its core can be seen on the center glowing bright yellow.

The spiral galaxy is estimated to be 115 million light-years away from Earth. For reference, a single light-year is around 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers.

NASA Hubble Telescope

Digitrends pointed out that Hubble is over 30 years old now, having been launched in 1990. But despite its age, it remains as one of the most critical tools for astronomy and research. A lot of fans also enjoy its awesome gallery of photos, which is shared with the general public.

It is worth noting that the telescope recently passed a milestone for "having been operational for one billion seconds." During this period, Hubble created many discoveries and uncovered vital information about the distant universe.

Read Also: Space Force Tracking Satellites Rocket Launch: Watch Incredible Atlas V Liftoff Here!

Meteor Sighting 2022: Giant Fireballs Spotted

In another space-related event, space fans might be interested in the meteor shower that happened earlier this week. The American Meteoroids Society reported that over 130 people witnessed an impressive fireball on the skies of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and more.

According to astrologists, the celestial show was also visible in Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, and Nebraska. One fan shared a YouTube video of the fireball.



For reference, fireballs are exceptionally bright meteors that fall from the sky. They usually have a visual magnitude of -3 or brighter at the observer's zenith. These are the most noticeable shooting stars in the sky with a long flaming tail.

Note that this recent meteor shower is only one of the many celestial events which are expected to drop later this year.

Fans interested in watching more space images and events are recommended to bookmark Hubble and NASA's Twitter page. Hopefully, more updates might be available later this week.

Related Article: NASA Mars Rover Solves Problematic Pebble Issue; Hubble Camera Snaps 'Sails of Stars'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a programme to unveil a hologram statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and confer Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskars for 2019 to 2022, in New Delhi. (PTI)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a hologram statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during a special event at India Gate on Sunday to mark the occasion of Netajis 125th birth anniversary.

The 28 feet-by-6 feet hologram statue is powered by a 30,000 lumens 4KW projector. The light is thrown on a high-grain, 90 per cent transparent holographic screen that is not visible to visitors. The 3D image of Netaji is projected on it to create the effect of a hologram, which is a photographic recording of a light field instead of the traditional image formed by a lens. The hologram statue will remain under the canopy at India Gate, where the statue of British monarch King George V once stood, till the time the actual statue made of granite is ready. The statue, when installed, will be visible from Raisina Hill.

"The role of our heroes, whose memories were being erased post-Independence are now being revivedIt is unfortunate that after Independence, along with the culture and rites of the country, work was done to erase the contribution of many great personalities," Prime Minister said at the inauguration event.

Union home minister Mr Amit Shah said this was not just an ordinary granite statue but also a befitting tribute to legendary Netaji, who gave everything for Indias freedom.

Netaji used to say Never lose faith in the dream of independent India, there is no power in the world that can shake India. Today we have a goal to fulfil the dreams of an independent India. We have a target to build a new India before the 100th year of independence, 2047. We have laid emphasis on reform as well as an emphasis on Relief, Rescue and Rehabilitation. We modernised the NDRF, expanded it across the country. Space technology and other best possible practices have been adopted for planning and management, PM Modi added.

The PM also conferred the Subhas Chandra Bose Aapda Prabandhan Puraskars, for the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 at the event. The Union government has instituted this annual award to recognise the contribution and service rendered by individuals and organisations in India in the field of disaster management.

Meanwhile, former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe was on Sunday conferred with the Netaji Award 2022 by the Netaji Research Bureau. Consul general of Japan in Kolkata, Nakamura Yutaka, received the honour on behalf of Abe at a function organised by the bureau at the Elgin Road residence here of the national icon.

Mr Abe expressed his gratitude in a message read out by the consul general.

As former Prime Minister of Japan and in my capacity as a member of the House of Representatives, I am determined to do my utmost to continue contributing to the development of bilateral relations, he said.
The meeting was called to discuss the taking over of projects on the Godavari, following the Centre's gazette notification issued in July last year. (Representational Image/ DC)

Hyderabad: The Telangana state government on Monday strongly told the Godavari River Management Board (GRMB) that there was no necessity for the boards sub-committee to discuss the jurisdiction of any project on the river other than the Peddavagu project which serves both TS and AP.

It would not be prudent for the GRMB Secretariat to move the TS government on this issue time and again, it said.

The government told the board that all the other projects and components on the Godavari mentioned in Schedule-2 of the Centres gazette notification exclusively serve Telangana and must be removed from the list.

The government said that the visit of GRMB officials to project sites and the preparation of handing-over notes must be done only with prior approval of the board or the sub-committee.

The state government made its arguments at the GRMB sub-committee meeting with officials of the two Telugu states. The meeting was called to discuss the taking over of projects on the Godavari, following the Centre's gazette notification issued in July last year.

The TS government refuted the demand of its Andhra Pradesh counterpart on taking over jurisdiction of Telangana projects in the Godavari basin, especially those that facilitate conveying waters to unserved areas of the Krishna basin,

Telangana was diverting water from the dependable share entitled to it, and it was within the ambit of the Godavari Waters Disputes Tribunal (GWDT) Award. It does not attract provisions of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT) Award by any stretch of imagination. It called the demand of the AP government irrelevant and uncalled for.

The TS government said that the Krishna River Management Board had been involving members of the sub-committee in site visits as well preparation of handing over notes. GRMB cannot take a contrary stand in this aspect, the TS argued.

Even with respect to the Peddavagu project, after consensus to hand over the first phase, the sub-committee had held detailed discussions and finalised the handing over notes. Similar such practice needs to be followed.
Visakhapatnam: Fourteen students of Ravindra Bharati School, Sujatha Nagar branch here will take part in a global symposium organised by The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The programme is scheduled to be held from May 27 to 29 at Arlington in Virginia.

Students studying Class VI to IX will present their projects with themes - Gaia, Estella and Nadine at the symposium, said the School chairperson MS Mani.

In 2019, a project of their school students was selected, she added.
Cuddalore: Sunday may have witnessed a Covid-induced lockdown in Tamil Nadu but that did not deter over 90 couples from entering wedlock at a reverred Vaishnavite shrine near here on January 23 with the roads outside the Tiruvanthipuram Sri Devanathaswamy Temple playing host to the individuals who tied the knot during the ongoing auspicious Tamil month 'Thai'.

As many as 91 weddings were solemnised by priests on roads in front of the popular temple in this northern coastal district on Sunday, temple Executive Officer A Veerabathiran and the priests' association secretary Rathina Sabapathy, told PTI on Monday. The shrine was closed on Sunday as part of the lockdown restrictions.

Places of worship, among others, are closed in the state on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in view of COVID related curbs and a shutdown was observed on January 23 as well to tackle the virus spread.

On Sunday, a total of 91 marriages were solemnised on roads abutting the temple, as it was an auspicious 'Muhurtha naal.' A total of 110 registrations were made for conducting weddings at the temple in this small town, located about 12 km from the district headquarters. It is a much sought after temple for conducting marriages, mainly from people in and around Cuddalore as well as other parts of the state.

The weddings were held between 4.30 AM and 11 AM on Sunday in adherence to 'muhurtham' (auspicious time), with the early morning fixtures being known as 'Brahma Muhurtham.'

Traditionally, conducting weddings in this shrine, dedicated to Lord Vishnu is considered by people as auspicious.

Authorities said the temple, one among the 108 'Divya Desams' dedicated to Lord Vishnu, has a hall inside its premises where 40 weddings can be performed at a time and as such there was no bar on holding marriages on days the shrine is open.

According to the official website of the Cuddalore district administration, "constructed in the Dravidian style of architecture, the temple is glorified in the Divya Prabandha, the early medieval Tamil canon of the Azhwar saints from the 6th9th centuries AD. It is one of the 108 Divyadesam(s) dedicated to Vishnu, who is worshipped as Devanathaswamy and his consort Lakshmi as Hemabhujavalli."

On January 23, Tamil Nadu reported 30,580 fresh COVID cases.

Night curfew from 10 PM to 5 AM continues to be implemented in Tamil Nadu. On Sunday, January 9, a complete one-day shutdown was enforced in the state which was the first in 2022 and also during the third wave of the COVID pandemic.
Secretariat employees union president Venkatarmi Reddy said they will not attend the talks as long as the government did not cancel the GOs for implementation of 11th PRC.  DC Image

VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh government began efforts to resolve issues related to the 11th PRC by inviting leaders of government employee associations and unions for fresh consultations.

Minister for municipal administration and urban development Botsa Satyanarayana and minister for transport Perni Venkataramaiah telephoned leaders of the PRC Sadhana Samithi and proposed fresh talks. The leaders seeking cancellation of GOs on pay revision and related orders before resuming the talks.

Earlier, the government set up a new committee to conduct further consultations and appointed ministers Buggana Rajendranath, Botsa and Perni, government adviser Sajjala Ramakrishna and CS Sameer Sharma for the talks. The Sadhana Samithi (struggle committee) held a meeting in Vijayawada on Sunday and decided to continue with the protests and serve strike notice to CS on Monday.

Employees association president Suryanarayana said the government did not issue any official orders about appointing the new committee. There is no clarity on the committee and hence we will not go for talks with the panel. He said the government should immediately stop implementation of the PRC. Principal secretary Sasibhushan invited them for the committee meeting on Monday.

Secretariat employees union president Venkatarmi Reddy said they will not attend the talks as long as the government did not cancel the GOs for implementation of 11th PRC. APJAC Amaravati chairman Bopparaju Venkateswarlu opposed the campaign by YSRC against the government employees. He also opposed the registration of cases against government employees.

He recalled that chief minister Jagan had announced only fitment during the meeting and asked them to talk and resolve other issues with the officials. But the government issued orders without such talks.

The steering committee leaders said they informed principal secretary Sashibhushan to release the report of the Ashutosh Misra commission, put all GOs in abeyance, stop paying of salaries under 11th PRC and continue paying salaries under the old system.
New Delhi: Asserting that security issue in the border state of Punjab is the main priority of the BJP and its allies  former chief minister Captain Amrinder Singhs Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) and former Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsas SAD (Sanyukt)  the three alliance partners on Monday announced their seat-sharing formula for the upcoming Assembly polls in the state. The BJP will contest on 65 Assembly seats, the PLC on 37 seats and the SAD (Sanyukt) will contest on 17 Assembly seats.

BJP president J.P. Nadda, who announced the seat sharing formula along with Capt. Singh and Mr Dhindsa during a press conference at the BJP headquarters, claimed that the state needs special attention, needs a double engine government and better coordination between the Centre and the state. Capt. Singh said that the three parties joined hands for the sake of national security and welfare of the state, while holding neighbouring country Pakistan for trying to create unrest in Punjab by smuggling drugs and arms and ammunition in the state.

Noting how Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a special affection for Punjab, Mr Nadda also pointed out the steps taken by the Modi government for Punjab and Sikhs, including the recent decision to observe December 26 as Veer Bal Diwas, dedicating the day to the martyrdom of tenth guru Guru Gobind Singhs sons. Mr Nadda also said that Punjab is a border state and security is a very important issue as far as Assembly elections are concerned.

Capt. Singh, who does not share a good rapport with Punjabs PCC chief and his one- time cabinet colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu claimed that he had got a message from Pakistans Prime Minister Imran Khan to reinstate Navjot Singh Sidhu in his government because he was an old friend of their Prime Minister.

After I dropped Navjot Sidhu from my government, I got a message from Pakistan that he is an old friend of their prime minister and he would be grateful if you can keep him in the government. If he (Sidhu) doesnt work, then you can remove him, said Capt. Singh also attacked the PCC over the sand mafia in the state.
Union leaders came onto the platform of PRC Sadhana Samithi and threatened to issue a strike notice on Monday. (C. Narayana Rao/DC)

VIJAYAWADA: Unions of government employees have intensified their protests against the 11th PRC, as JACs conducted "round table" meetings across districts on Sunday.

Union leaders came onto the platform of PRC Sadhana Samithi and threatened to issue a strike notice on Monday. Leaders of employees, teachers and pensioners associations participated in the roundtable meetings. However, the state government is firm and refuses to bend under pressure.

MLC Lakshamana Rao urged the government to cancel the 11th PRC as it would decrease the salaries instead of effecting a salary hike. APNGOs association district president Vidyasagar sought cancellation of all related GOs. Injustice was done to employees with the reduction in HRA, cancellation of CCA, decrease in fitment to 23 per cent from an interim relief of 27 per cent, change in PRC once every ten years against present practice of once in five years, he alleged.

He said a rally will be held in Vijayawada on Tuesday and a Chalo Vijayawada rally on February 3 in which government employees from all over the state would participate. He said the employees will start a strike from February 7.

Meetings against the PRC were held in Kadapa, Kurnool, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, Guntur, Prakasam, Nellore and other districts.
Is it safe for women to be alone on Indias roads and do they feel constantly threatened and fearful of their safety? To know the answer to this, I put this question to 50 men, who assured me that women felt safe and that there was no problem. Of course, the men had no idea whether this was actually the case or not, because they had never faced the same situation themselves. So, who should we ask if women feel safe? The women, of course.

The world is concerned today that India is encouraging calls for genocide. The Economist, possibly the worlds most respected English language news publication, carried a report in its January 15, 2022 edition headlined: Playing with fire: Indias government is ignoring, and sometimes even encouraging, hatred of minorities. The same day CNN ran a story headlined: Indias Hindu extremists are calling for genocide against Muslims. Why is little being done to stop them?

A few days before that the New York Times had carried the headline: As Hindu Extremists Call for Killing of Muslims, Indias Leaders Keep Silent. In London, the Times headline was: Lawyers write to Indias chief judge over Hindu hate speech against Muslims. Time magazine has carried an article: Is India Headed for an Anti-Muslim Genocide?

I could go on and on, but this much is perhaps sufficient to know that this is what the world is saying about this country. The reports are not mere opinion pieces. They refer to events in our country and the attacks on Indias Christians and Muslims in recent weeks and the inaction of the Central government. After the world voiced its alarm, an FIR was filed against those who openly called for the mass murder of Muslims at a Hindu function in Haridwar. And even after it was filed, arrests were slow in coming and only after external pressure was mounted.

The government has brushed aside the allegation that it is encouraging violence and does not accept that India has become less safe for Muslims under Hindutva and the BJP. The question is whether that is true and to know the answer to that, we have to ask those who feel threatened and insecure. Not those who, according to the rest of the world, are issuing and encouraging the threats. To know if Muslims feel concerned and afraid, we have to ask the Muslims. And since I have, I can tell you that they do feel concerned and afraid about what we have done and are doing to our country. And they have reason to feel worried because we have given them that reason.

The most obscene things can be said about them today in public with no fear of shame or punishment. The lack of fear of punishment comes from a ruling party which does not pretend to conceal what it thinks about the minorities. The lack of shame emanates from the fact that we have desensitised Indian society. Our demonisation and dehumanisation of the minorities, and especially Muslims, is so complete that calls for the abduction of and sexual violence against Muslim girls now appears to be acceptable in our society today and can be made in public spaces.

The damage we have done to India internally and externally will be lasting. This is because the world will not stop talking about it merely because we have denied it, and what is happening will continue because the ruling party sees it as being in its political interest.

The attorney-general of India has given his sanction for a Hindu priest to be tried for contempt of court. I find that the statement made by Yati Narsinghanand that those who believe in this system, in these politicians, in the Supreme Court and in the Army, will all die the death of a dog is a direct attempt to lower the authority of the Supreme Court in the minds of the general public. This is what the attorney-general has said after an activist sent him a letter seeking his sanction, which is required under the law. Why is this not something the government itself did? The answer lies in reflecting on what the outside world is saying about us. That the Union government and the ruling party are simply unconcerned about such calls being made in public. I have been writing for three decades but have not seen a time as this when there is a loss of control over what is said in the public domain. I have also seen, as many of us have, the results of what happens on the streets of our cities when such violence against entire communities is encouraged.

We are on dangerous ground here and the world is worried for us. It will be wise if we listened to what they are saying and step back from the precipice on which we find ourselves. It is not safe to be dismissive about words like genocide, but unfortunately, that is what India is doing today.
Rhode Island: Ever since rocks were brought back from the Moon to the Earth, during NASA's Apollo program from 1968 to 1972, an enduring mystery continued to baffle scientists: the Moon's magnetic field - one that rivalled Earth's in strength. Now, research led by a Brown University geoscientist proposes a new explanation for the Moon's magnetic mystery.

It wasn't clear how a Moon-sized body could have generated a magnetic field that strong. But now, the study, published in 'Nature Astronomy', has shown that giant rock formations sinking through the Moon's mantle could have produced the kind of interior convection that generates strong magnetic fields.

The processes could have produced intermittently strong magnetic fields for the first billion years of the Moon's history, the researchers said.

"Everything that we've thought about how magnetic fields are generated by planetary cores tells us that a body of the Moon's size should not be able to generate a field that's as strong as Earth's," said Alexander Evans, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown and co-author of the study with Sonia Tikoo from Stanford University. "But instead of thinking about how to power a strong magnetic field continuously over billions of years, maybe there's a way to get a high-intensity field intermittently. Our model shows how that can happen, and it's consistent with what we know about the Moon's interior."

Planetary bodies are known to produce magnetic fields through what's known as a core dynamo. Slowly dissipating heat caused convection of molten metals in a planet's core. The constant churning of electrically conductive material was what produces a magnetic field. That's how Earth's magnetic field -- which protected the surface from the sun's most dangerous radiation -- was formed.

The Moon lacked a magnetic field and models of its core suggested that it was probably too small and lacked the convective force to have ever produced a continuously strong magnetic field. In order for a core to have a strong convective churn, it needed to dissipate a lot of heat. In the case of the early Moon, Evans said, the mantle surrounding the core wasn't much cooler than the core itself. Because the core's heat didn't have anywhere to go, there wasn't much convection in the core. But this new study showed how sinking rocks could have provided intermittent convective boosts.

The story of these sinking stones started a few million years after the Moon's formation. Very early in its history, the Moon is thought to have been covered by an ocean of molten rock. As the vast magma ocean began to cool and solidify, minerals like olivine and pyroxene that were denser than the liquid magma sank to the bottom, while less dense minerals like anorthosite floated to form the crust.

The remaining liquid magma was rich in titanium as well as heat-producing elements like thorium, uranium and potassium, so it took a bit longer to solidify. When this titanium layer finally crystallized just beneath the crust, it was denser than the earlier-solidifying minerals below it. Over time, the titanium formations sank through the less-dense mantle rock underneath, a process known as gravitational overturn.

For this new study, Evans and Tikoo modelled the dynamics of how those titanium formations would have sunk, as well as the effect they might have when they eventually reached the Moon's core. The analysis, which was based on the Moon's current composition and the estimated mantle viscosity, showed that the formations would likely break into blobs as small as 60 kilometres and diameter, and sink intermittently over the course of about a billion years.

When each of these blobs eventually hit bottom, they would have given a major jolt to the Moon's core dynamo, the researchers found. Having been perched just below the Moon's crust, the titanium formations would have been relatively cool in temperature -- far cooler than the core's estimated temperature of somewhere between 2,600 and 3,800 degrees Fahrenheit. When the cool blobs came in contact with the hot core after sinking, the temperature mismatch would have driven an increased core convection -- enough to drive a magnetic field at the Moon's surface as strong or even stronger than Earth's.

"You can think of it a little bit like a drop of water hitting a hot skillet," Evans said. "You have something really cold that touches the core, and suddenly a lot of heat can flux out. That causes churning in the core to increase, which gives you these intermittently strong magnetic fields."

There could have been as many as 100 of these downwelling events over the Moon's first billion years of existence, the researchers say, and each one could have produced a strong magnetic field lasting a century or so.

Evans said the intermittent magnetic model not only accounts for the strength of the magnetic signature found in the Apollo rock samples, but also for the fact that magnetic signatures vary widely in the Apollo collection -- with some having strong magnetic signatures while others don't.

"This model is able to explain both the intensity and the variability we see in the Apollo samples -- something that no other model has been able to do," Evans said. "It also gives us some time constraints on the foundering of this titanium material, which gives us a better picture of the Moon's early evolution."

The idea is also quite testable, Evans said. It implies that there should have been a weak magnetic background on the Moon that was punctuated by these high-strength events. That should be evident in the Apollo collection. While the strong magnetic signatures in the Apollo samples stuck out like a sore thumb, no one has ever really looked for weaker signatures, Evans said.

The presence of those weak signatures along with the strong ones would give this new idea a big boost, which could finally put the Moon's magnetic mystery to rest.

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OnePlus earlier in the year launched the premium OnePlus 10 Pro in China and followed it up with the OnePlus 9RT in India. Now, reports are coming that the company has plans to bring two new models in the coming months.

OnePlus is slated to bring standard OnePlus 10 and the affordable OnePlus 10R in the second quarter (April-June). The latter is expected to feature MediaTek 9000, reported Android Central citing reliable company insiders.

Initially, the company had plans to announce OnePlus 10R along with the 10 Pro in January, but the delayed launch of the OnePlus 9RT pusher the formers release to Q2. The latter was supposed to make its debut in October but got deferred due to glitches in the Android 12-based OxygenOS software.

With the delayed launch of the 10R series, the OnePlus 9RT will get enough time on the store shelf.

As far as the 10R is concerned, it will feature an AMOLED screen with support for a 120Hz display refresh rate and come with Android 12 OS, 8GB RAM, and 128GB storage.

The standard OnePlus 10 is said to feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, but the variant details are yet to be ascertained. The report said the Snapdragon chipset will support 5G modems that are optimized better for the US regions telecommunication infrastructure.

Whereas for the OnePlus 10R, the company has decided to stick with MediaTek 9000 series, as it is most likely to be limited to India, China, and a few select markets.

Get the latest news on new launches, gadget reviews, apps, cybersecurity, and more on personal technology only on DH Tech.
Just like any other social media website, TikTok users tend to monitor their fans' likes, comments, and reactions. There are online tools available that can help users check their TikTok profiles.

There is also a rumor that the "who viewed your profile" function is coming back on the popular platform.

When TikTok first launched on the internet, it had a feature that allowed users to monitor who viewed their profile.

However, the system was promptly removed due to user discretion.

Instead, TikTok optimized its systems to show how many times a video has been viewed on the internet.

TikTok Profile Settings: How to Check User Engagement

Keep in mind that all these stats are set anonymously. This means users can't monitor who viewed their profile.

However, stats for the view counts, comments, likes, duets, and stitches can be seen on the user's "Activity" tab.

According to Business Insider, users can navigate this by opening their TikTok app and selecting the "Me" icon. Here, users can view the people they are following, the number of their followers, and the total number of likes.

Scrolling down, users will see all the content they posted on their profile.

The view count per clip is indicated by the number on the lower-left corner of the post. Note that this TikTok counter works real-time, so the numbers should periodically climb if it's trending.

Users can also monitor the number of likes or reposts on their TikTok by opening their "Inbox" tab. All the information available will be filtered according to likes, comments, Q&A, mentions, and followers.

Users are recommended to turn on their notifications per tab to monitor the number of views.

Lastly, users can also limit viewer engagement in their accounts. They can do this by opening the "Me," "Settings and Privacy," and opening "Privacy."

By setting up a private account, users gain complete control to approve or deny their followers to view or message the account.

Read Also: Cryptocurrency Price Boom 2022: Crypto Billionaire Names 2 Ethereum Killers to Invest In

TikTok Rumor Brings Back 'Who Viewed Your Profile'

Against all odds, there is a new rumor teasing the return of "who viewed your profile." This rumor said TikTok is working on improving transparency, but with added features.

According to Matt Navarra, the feature will let users monitor who visited their TikTok profile in the last 30 days.

The data miner included a photo of this feature.

TikTok is working on a LinkedIn-like Profile Views feature



The feature will let you view who visited your TikTok profile in the past 30 days.



h/t @adrianokev1 pic.twitter.com/eMnYtgyUq0  Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) January 23, 2022

He emphasized that the TikTok counter will include a toggle function, so users can turn off the feature if they don't want it.

Navarra acknowledged this feature existed in the old version and said, "it got removed but it may be making a return."

TikTok did have a profile views feature in old versions of the app (see screenshot)



It got removed but it may be making a return pic.twitter.com/NMdWPkNOAb  Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) January 23, 2022

Social Media Today criticized the rumor, saying it will only increase anxiety for the users.

TikTok had already acknowledged this issue when it first removed the feature, so it is counterproductive to add it back.

TikTok has yet to acknowledge or deny this rumor.

For now, fans are recommended to watch out for more updates later this year.



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According to an Oxfam report, the income of 84 per cent of households in the country declined in 2021, but at the same time, the number of Indian billionaires grew from 102 to 142.

Nobel laureate Abhijit V Banerjee said, Given the amount of inequality now, wealth tax is completely sensible and more redistribution is required.

The Finance Minister is likely to reintroduce the erstwhile Inheritance Tax or Wealth Tax or both this Budget. Before that, lets understand what these taxes are:

Inheritance Tax

Inheritance Tax is levied on the value of assets passed on to legal heirs through inheritance. After independence, the Central Government introduced its first-ever inheritance or estate duty under the Estate Duty Act, 1953, and continued till 1986. Like Income Tax, Inheritance Tax was levied on a slab basis ranging from 7.5 per cent to 85 per cent of the principal value of the assets or estates whose value in those times exceeded Rs 20 lakh.

Benefits of inheritance tax

1) To mobilise funds for free Covid vaccinations, advanced healthcare facilities and other applications in public infrastructure; 2) To set off the revenue loss due to the abolition of the wealth tax; and 3) Most importantly, this will bring an economic equilibrium, to some extent, and reduce wealth concentration.

Oxfams Inequality Kills Report that was published in January 2022, said that in 2021 the collective wealth of Indias 100 richest people stood at a record high of Rs 57.3 lakh crore compared to the bottom 50 per cent of the population in national wealth at 6 per cent.

With this, India now has the third-highest number of billionaires in the world, after China and the US, and more billionaires than France, Sweden and Switzerland combined.

In November 2017, the Central Government has constituted a Task Force to review and draft a new Direct Tax Law in consonance with the economic needs of the country.

On August 18, 2019, under the head the Task Force Akhilesh Ranjan, it submitted its report to the Finance Minister. However, the Report has not yet been made public.

Inheritance Tax - In other Countries

Few developed countries like the UK and the US have an inheritance tax system. The US has three types of taxes on estates or assets being passed on to the next generation, they are Gift Tax, Estate Tax, and Inheritance Tax. The rate of Estate Tax stands at 40 per cent.

Whereas the UK has a unified regime of Inheritances Tax System with the standard tax rate at 40 per cent, which is charged on the estate with a specified threshold, currently 325,000.

If the estate is given to the children or grandchildren, the said threshold will be 4,25,000. However, like India, many other countries such as China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the Gulf countries have repealed their inheritance taxes over a period of time.

Wealth Tax

Wealth tax was being levied on individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUF) and companies in India since independence by the Central Government under the erstwhile Wealth Tax Act, 1957 on certain benefits derived from ownership. Arun Jaitley, then Finance Minister while presenting the Union Budget for 2015-16, abolished the tax quoting low yield and administrative issues.

He replaced it with an additional surcharge of 2 per cent on those with a taxable income of over Rs 1 crore.

Further, in 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting her maiden Budget for 2019-20, increased the surcharge on those earning Rs 2.5 crores to 3 per cent and those earning above Rs. 5 crores to 7 per cent.

Taxability  Under which head?

The Finance Minister is likely to bring an exclusive Chapter to the Finance Bill / Act 2022 titled Equalisation Levy or amend the Head Capital Gains and to levy Inheritance Tax between 25 per cent to 40 per cent.

Wealth Tax - In other Countries

Prior to the 2020 United States presidential elections, Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren proposed to levy wealth tax at varied rates between 1 to 8 per cent.

More than a dozen European countries used to have wealth taxes earlier. However, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Sweden repealed their wealth taxes later.

Currently, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland continue to levy the tax.

Conclusion

In the interest of revenue and other benefits they promise, the Finance Minister should consider reintroducing the Inheritance Tax and Wealth Tax, at least for a limited period of five to ten financial years starting from April 2022, if not perpetually. We will have to wait till February 1, 2022, to see what happens.

(The writer is the Founder CEO of Shree Tax Chambers, a tax advisory firm)

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Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday questioned the timing of the recent Enforcement Directorate raids and called them as political vendetta but asserted that he was not giving an clean chit to anyone.

Sidhu further said his party will win at least 70 seats of the 117-assembly seats in the coming state assembly elections if a clear agenda for the state is incorporated in the poll manifesto.

Replying to a question on the Enforcement Directorate raids at many places including at the premises of Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's nephew, Sidhu slammed the BJP-led Centre over the raids and said the ED took action after nearly four years of the registration of the case.

He said they were sleeping for four years and when the state assembly elections came near, the raids were conducted by the Enforcement Directorate.

Also read: Amit Shah rakes up 'hindu exodus' issue again ahead of UP polls

When asked whether he was giving a clean chit by questioning the timing of the ED raids, Sidhu said, I am not giving any clean chit. Please do not misunderstand me. I am not giving anyone a clean chit. Let the law take its course.

If you can prove a link then I will be the first one to criticize. But if you are doing political vendetta then I am not with you. Because I know the ED, the CBI and agencies have been used politically. That is the fact. If they can prove a link then I will say what I have to say. But today it is clear that it is a political vendetta, Sidhu said in a select media interaction here.

The ED on Wednesday had said it seized cash amounting to over Rs 10 crore, including about Rs 8 crore from a relative of Channi, during raids conducted in an anti-money laundering case investigation against illegal sand-mining operations in the poll-bound state.

The action was initiated after taking cognisance of the 2018 FIR of the Nawanshahr (Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district) Police and some other such police complaints against some companies and individuals alleged to be involved in the business of illegal sand mining in the state.

Replying to a question on how many seats he was anticipating in the coming elections, Sidhu said, if a clear agenda is incorporated in the (poll) manifesto then (we will win) 70 seats.

He said he will meet Congress leader and manifesto committee chairman Partap Singh Bajwa regarding the poll manifesto and said it will be released in coming days.

Notably, Navjot Sidhu has been batting for his 'Punjab Model', a roadmap for the state to be implemented after the party returns to power after the February 20 state assembly polls.

Replying to a question, Sidhu said people will not waste their votes on spent cartridges as he targeted former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and other rival leaders.

Asked how he sees the 111-day-long Charanjit Singh Channi-led Punjab government, Sidhu said, It is just a trailer. A film will be run.

To another question, Sidhu said only one ticket per family for the coming assembly polls will be given, stating that this is the rule of the party high command.

Notably, Rana Gurjeet Singh's son Inder Partap Singh has announced to contest as an independent from Sultanpur Lodhi seat from where sitting legislator Navtej Singh Cheema has been given the party ticket.

Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's brother Manohar Singh had also announced to contest as an independent from Bassi Pathana seat.

To a question on declaring him as the chief ministerial candidate, Sidhu said he was not there for any post.

There are no aspirations and the only aspiration is this agenda (Punjab model). If this agenda is there, I am there. If a roadmap to resurrect Punjab is there, I am there. I am not there for any post, he said.

Yes, if a post allows me to take decisions and the high command empowers me, I will do justice to that post, be it a minister, be it PPCC chief, be it anything. But it has to give me the power to take decisions and I am happy with it, he added.

He said he was taking the 'Punjab Model' of the Congress, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to the people of the state.

Sidhu further said, We are fighting 117 elections. There is an election on every seat and when we fight 117 elections, there are challenges on every seat.

Voting for Punjab's 117 assembly seats will be held on February 20 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10.

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Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday dubbed AAP's survey to select its CM face for the state Assembly polls a "scam" and "deceptive scheme" and said his party has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission against it.

Sidhu also launched a scathing attack against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal, calling him a "trickster and hypocrite".

Addressing reporters at a press conference here, Sidhu urged the Election Commission to register criminal cases against AAP for running a "fake campaign".

Also Read: Pakistan wanted Sidhu reinstated as Punjab minister: Amarinder Singh

AAP had announced its Punjab unit chief Bhagwant Mann as its CM face last week following a survey in which people were asked to call on a phone number to give their preference.

Kejriwal had claimed that they had received over 21.59 lakh responses from January 13 to 17 under the "Janta Chunegi Apna CM" campaign and 93.3 per cent people had given Bhagwant Mann's name.

Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu got 3.6 per cent votes, the Delhi chief minister had added.

The Congress leader said this many calls can't be received on a private number over a few days.

"If we try to fit this data into mathematical calculations, then it does not make sense at all. Usually, such calls take at least 15 seconds, then only 5,760 calls can be attended in one day and that shall add up to 23,040 calls in four days," he said.

"It is a deceptive scam to trick people. This is exactly what he (Kejriwal) has done," he said.

"This mechanism of deceit to create an illusion and propaganda of fake news is a complete violation of the model code of conduct and the Election Commission of India should take strict notice of it," Sidhu said.

He said the Congress has complained to the election panel as to how Kejriwal is trying to "befool" people of Punjab through "dirty tricks".

Also Read: Navjot Sidhu calls ED raids 'political vendetta' but also says no clean chit to anyone

Kejriwal is a "trickster and a hypocrite," said Sidhu.

"I will expose this hypocrite, he is a habitual liar. This was an avoidable lie. Why would you create all this nonsense and propaganda to do something like this? But if he has done this, it is not the first time. We have seen earlier how he went on an apology-tendering spree, including Bikram Singh Majithia," said Sidhu.

In the complaint to the Election Commission, Sidhu has written that AAP received around 7 lakh WhatsApp messages, 2.50 lakh voice messages and approximately 8 lakh voice calls.

Sidhu urged the poll panel to register criminal cases against AAP.

"Due an inquiry be conducted and in case, this campaign is found to be fake, in such an instance, the Election Commission is requested to register criminal cases against the Aam Aadmi Party through its national president Arvind Kejriwal under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code," wrote Sidhu in a letter to the Chief Election Commissioner.

Reacting to the charge, AAP leader Raghav Chadha said Sidhu's pain is that he only over 3 per cent votes in the AAP's campaign.

"His own party does not take him seriously, then why should we take him seriously."

Chadha said "Sidhu is the drama queen of Punjab politics".

"Sidhu used unparliamentary language against AAP and our leader Arvind Kejriwal, we condemn it. He is frustrated that he was not made the CM when Amarinder Singh was removed."

"His party has not declared him CM face so far and no other party is willing to take him, so all his frustrations are coming out," he said.

The AAP leader further said, "Sidhu's mission is to divert the real issue, which is illegal mining racket, the leader said.

"After the Enforcement Directorate raids, entire Punjab is seeking answer from the Congress and the chief minister," he said.

"When AAP carried out a raid in December and exposed how illegal sand mining was going on at Jindapur village in Chief Minister Channi's Chamkaur Sahib constituency, Sidhu had maintained complete silence. Sidhu who keeps speaking about cable mafia, drug mafia, other mafia, did not utter a word when we exposed the illegal activity," said Chadha

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Dharmendra Pratap Singh, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Pratapgarh district, who claims to be the tallest man in the country at 8 feet and one inch, joined the Samajwadi Party (SP).

Singh, who joined the SP in the presence of party president Akhilesh Yadav on Saturday, said that he would campaign for the SP in different parts of the state.

"I joined the SP after being inspired by the policies and programs of the SP. I think that Akhilesh Yadav will take the state on the path of progress and development," he added.

Though Singh was 46 years old he was yet to get a job and was still unmarried. "I did not get a suitable match despite every effort by the relatives and friends," he added.

A postgraduate in Hindi, Singh becomes a centre of attraction wherever he goes and is surrounded by the people. The people vie with each other to get a selfie with him whenever he sets foot outside.

Hoping to dwarf the opponents of the SP in the forthcoming assembly polls, Singh said that he would apprise the people about the faulty policies of the BJP which had hurt every section of the society.

SP state unit president Naresh Uttam said that the party would use Singh in the election campaign. "The party will be strengthened with his induction," Uttam said.

It remains to be seen if the tallest man in the country is able to make the SP 'tallest' in the electoral battlefield in the state.

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Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjees two visits to Uttar Pradesh to campaign for Samajwadi Party (SP) will boost the morale of political workers, says senior SP leader Kiranmoy Nanda.

While Mamatas first UP visit is scheduled for February 8th, the date of her second visit planned for Varanasi will be decided when she visits the election-bound state. Mamata is expected to hold a virtual sabha and a press conference jointly with Akhilesh Yadav.

Talking to DH, Kiranmoy said, we think in this election Samajwadi Party will win with a thumping majority. Mamata Banerjee also wants to campaign to defeat the BJP. She is not only the chief minister of West Bengal, she is also a face against the BJP after she defeated the party in the state elections. Her visits will be a morale booster for (SP) workers and people who are anti-BJP.

Read | Opinion polls predict BJP's return, a stronger SP in UP

Kiranmoy said that Mamatas visit is a reciprocal gesture too - like the Samajwadi Party didnt contest in Bengal and instead supported her, similarly, in UP Mamata will campaign for Samajwadi Party. Trinamool is not contesting in UP elections.

The SP leader added that though the sabha is virtual given the current Covid situation, a lot of people will be attending the same when Mamata and Akhilesh will share the dais. On being asked if shes also scheduled to meet Mulayam Singh, Kiranmoy said its yet not decided.

In political circles, the visit is being seen as an indication of things to come before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The message is embedded in this invitation. Immediately after West Bengal elections concluded and the BJP lost, Mamata gave a call for all regional parties to unitedly fight the BJP and come to power in states, and then at the Centre in 2024, Shikha Mukerjee, political analyst told DH.

Shikha adds that such an effort of joint-campaign is also a signal that the BJP is not undefeatable by a regional party, and Mamatas presence in UP underscores that.

Having defeated the BJP, this opportunity also gives the Trinamool chief in appearing as a strong Modi competitor for the 2024 elections. Simultaneously, this move also lays emphasis on the fact that the Congress is not an alternative nor the principal challenger to the BJP in UP. There is a strong presence of Bengalis in several constituencies. Agra, Meerut, Kanpur, and towns in western UP have substantial Bengali populations. Her visit can consolidate these votes too, Shikha added.

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The Apna Dal (S) has fielded Haider Ali Khan from Suar Assembly seat in Rampur, the pocket borough of Samajwadi Party (SP) heavyweight and jailed MP Azam Khan.

Haider is from Rampur's royal family and the grandson of Begum Noor Bano, veteran Congress leader and former MP of Rampur, whose rivalry with Azam is well known in political circles.

Congress had declared Haider its candidate on January 13, but he severed ties with his party to join Apna Dal (S).

This is the first time that the BJP ally has fielded a Muslim candidate since 2014.

Also Read | Whose seat is it anyway? SP, allies face trouble over seat allotment

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the Apna Dal had fielded 11 candidates -- all non-Muslims -- and won nine seats. This time, the party expects to get at least 15 seats.

Haider, a 32-year-old graduate from Essex University, is the son of Nawab Kazim Ali Khan, a four-time MLA from Suar and Bilaspur (now extinct).

Kazim had contested the 2017 elections from Suar on a BSP ticket but lost to SP candidate and Azam Khan's son Abdullah Azam by a margin of nearly 65,000 votes in 2017.

Kazim Ali Khan stood third behind the BJP's Laxmi Saini who bagged 26 per cent of the vote share.

In December 2019, Abdullah lost his Uttar Pradesh Assembly membership on charges of discrepancies in his election affidavit.

Read | 2022 polls: BJP faces its Achilles' heel

The complainant in the case was Kazim Ali. In February 2020, Abdullah, along with his father Azam Khan and mother Tazeen Fatima were sent to jail in connection with several criminal cases lodged against them.

The BJP has already fielded Akash Saxena, son of former BJP MLA from Suar Shiv Bahadur Saxena, from Rampur. He pursued cases of alleged land-grabbing against Azam Khan.

Haider's candidature as BJP's ally candidate comes even as Abdullah Azam is preparing to contest again from Suar.

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The electoral battle in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh is heating up as the ruling BJP aims to return to power riding on its Hindutva agenda, facing an insistent Samajwadi Party and a somewhat muted Mayawati-led Bahujan Samajwadi Party.

Opinion polls see the saffron party coming back to power in the Hindi-speaking state with a comfortable majority, with around 230 seats, well over the 202 seats it requires in the 403-seat assembly. This, however, is much lower than the resounding victory the party saw in 2014 winning 312 seats and a 40 per cent vote share.

Samajwadi Party had trailed in second place with a mere 42 seats while BSP managed to win 19 seats.

Read | Whose seat is it anyway? SP, allies face trouble over seat allotment











BJP+ SP+ BSP INC ABP NEWS-C VOTER 223-235 145-157 8-16 3-7 INDIA TV 230-235 160-165 2-5 3-7 REPUBLIC-P MARQ 252-272 111-131 8-16 3-9 NEWSX-POLSTRAT 235-245 120-130 13-16 4-5 TIMES NOW-VETO 227-254 136-151 8-14 6-11 ZEE-DESIGNBOXED 245-267 125-148 5-9 3-7

Essentially a three-cornered contest, the UP polls are key for the BJP as the state sends the most number of MPs to Lok Sabha, elections to which are only a couple of years away.

While Narendra Modis appeal among other factors catapulted BJP to power in 2014, smashing all electoral records, and brought it back to the Centre with an even bigger mandate in 2019, the saffron party has often struggled in state elections. The farmers uprising in parts of UP and the states substandard handling of the Covid-19 pandemic has further undermined the confidence of the party.

The opinion polls paint a much brighter picture for the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party this election, with all predicting close to 150 seats for the party. This can be attributed to an anti-incumbency wave in the state against CM Yogi Adityanath. Akhilesh has also reached out to the non-Yadav OBC voter base which has voted for the BJP since 2014. SP also inducted many influential members of BJP, Congress and BSP for the polls including Swami Prasad Maurya and Imran Masood, which are sure to help the partys prospects.

The polls do not see Congress breaking ground in the northern state, with some predicting even fewer seats than the 7 it won in the previous election. Despite an expansive campaign being run by the grand old party headed by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, especially focussing on women and farmers, opinion polls predict around 3-5 seats for Congress in the UP assembly.

Also Read | Ahead of elections, Mayawati's intriguing silence has confused Dalits in Uttar Pradesh

Bahujan Samaj Party has been watching a heated battle between the BJP and the SP from the sidelines this campaign season, something which has concerned party supremo Mayawatis Dalit voter base as well. The party is predicted to secure between 8 and 16 seats.

Though Mayawati has been meeting party leaders and those in charge of booths from across the state at her residence, she has not addressed any public meeting before it was banned by the Election Commission (EC), or any virtual meeting in the past four months.

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The Omicron variant has moved the Covid-19 pandemic into a new phase and could bring it to an end in Europe, the WHO Europe director said Sunday.

"It's plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame," Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview, adding that Omicron could infect 60 per cent of Europeans by March.

Once the current surge of Omicron currently sweeping across Europe subsides, "there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality".

"We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before Covid-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back," Kluge said.

Also Read | Indias R value shrinks despite Omicrons spread into community

Top US scientist Anthony Fauci expressed similar optimism on Sunday.

He told ABC News talk show "This Week" that with Covid-19 cases coming down "rather sharply" in parts of the United States, "things are looking good".

While cautioning against overconfidence, he said that if the recent fall in case numbers in areas like the US's northeast continues "I believe that you will start to see a turnaround throughout the entire country".

The WHO regional office for Africa also said last week that cases of Covid had plummeted in that region and deaths were declining for the first time since the Omicron-dominated fourth wave of the virus reached its peak.

The Omicron variant, which studies have shown is more contagious than Delta but generally leads to less severe infection among vaccinated people, has raised long-awaited hopes that Covid-19 is starting to shift from a pandemic to a more manageable endemic illness like seasonal flu.

But Kluge cautioned that it was still too early to consider Covid-19 endemic.

Also Read | Why antibodies become ineffective against Omicron

"There is a lot of talk about endemic but endemic means ... that it is possible to predict what's going to happen. This virus has surprised (us) more than once so we have to be very careful," Kluge said.

With Omicron spreading so widely, other variants could still emerge, he warned.

The European Commissioner for Internal Markets, Thierry Breton, whose brief includes vaccine production, said Sunday that it will be possible to adapt existing vaccines to any new variants that may emerge.

"We will be able to better resist, including to new variants", he told French television LCI.

"We will be ready to adapt the vaccines, especially the mRNA ones, if necessary to adapt them to more virulent variants".

In the WHO Europe region, which comprises 53 countries including several in Central Asia, Omicron represented 15 per cent of new cases as of January 18, compared to 6.3 per cent a week earlier, the health body said.

Omicron is now the dominant variant in the European Union and the European Economic Area (EEA, or Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), the EU health agency ECDC said last week.

Because of the very fast spread of the variant across Europe, Kluge said emphasis ought to be on "minimising disruption of hospitals, schools and the economy, and putting huge efforts on protecting the vulnerable", rather than measures to stop transmission.

He meanwhile urged people to exercise personal responsibility.

"If you don't feel well, stay home, take a self-test. If you're positive, isolate", he said.

Kluge said the priority was to stabilise the situation in Europe, where vaccination levels range across countries from 25 to 95 per cent of the population, leading to varying degrees of strain on hospitals and the healthcare system.

"Stabilising means that the health system is no longer overwhelmed due to Covid-19 and can continue with the essential health services, which have unfortunately been really disrupted for cancer, cardiovascular disease, and routine immunisation".

Asked whether fourth doses would be necessary to bring an end to the pandemic, Kluge was cautious, saying only that "we know that that immunity jumps up after each shot of the vaccine".

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The Kremlin on Monday accused the United States and NATO of ramping up tensions after the US-led military bloc said it was bolstering Europe's eastern defences amid the Ukraine crisis.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Washington and NATO were escalating tensions through "information hysteria" and "concrete actions," adding that the risk of an offensive by Ukrainian troops against Moscow-backed separatists was "very high."

"We live in an aggressive environment," Peskov told reporters during a conference call, adding that President Vladimir Putin was taking "necessary measures" to protect the country.

NATO said earlier Monday it had put forces on standby and sent ships and fighter jets to bolster Europe's eastern defences as tensions soar over Russia's military buildup around Ukraine.

The West accuses Moscow of threatening to invade Ukraine by massing over 100,000 troops on its border. Russia denies it is planning an incursion and accuses NATO of advancing towards its borders.

Peskov said Monday that Ukraine was preparing an offensive in the east of the country where Kyiv troops have been fighting pro-Russia separatists since 2014.

"The Ukrainian authorities are concentrating a huge amount of forces and means on the border with the self-proclaimed republics," he said.

"The nature of this concentration speaks of preparations for an offensive," he said, adding the risk of such an operation now "is very high, higher than before."

Several rounds of talks between Russia and the West have so far failed to ease tensions.

The alliance is now preparing a proposal for further talks with Russia after the Kremlin issued a raft of demands that would see NATO stop Ukraine and Georgia joining and roll back its forces in eastern Europe.

NATO insists it will not negotiate over its "core principles" including defending all allies and allowing partners to chose their own path.

Peskov said Moscow was waiting to receive the written response from Washington and would decide on its further course of action after that.

He did not rule out further talks including new talks between Putin and US President Joe Biden.

"Nothing can be excluded if such a need arises," he said.

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The US State Department on Sunday said US citizens should not travel to Russia due "to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine", further warning on the conflict with Kyiv as Moscow amasses troops near its neighbor.

The State Department reissued its travel advisory that says Americans should not travel to Russia, adding: "US citizens are strongly advised against traveling by land from Russia to Ukraine through this region."

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A scene from the documentary film, "Candlelight Revolution" / Courtesy of JUGIJA Co.LLC.



By Kwak Yeon-soo



"Candlelight Revolution," a documentary about the mass protests that played a major role in toppling former President Park Geun-hye, will premiere on Feb. 10, just a month before the March 9 presidential election.



The controversial timing of the release of the documentary has raised eyebrows among conservative politicians for being potentially political. However, the directors  freelance journalist Joo Jin-woo and actor Kim Eui-sung, though liberals who regularly discuss their views on social media  deny that claim, emphasizing the film's purpose of educating the importance of choosing good leadership.



"One day in the summer of 2018, I was listening to the radio and I heard Rep. Woo Sang-ho (of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea) telling behind-the-scenes stories of the politics surrounding the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye. They were so intriguing that I suggested that Joo make a film based on these unknown stories," Kim said during an interview with The Korea Times via Google Meet, Monday.



Kim and Joo initially suggested to several professional filmmakers to direct the documentary, but they all declined, leaving the two with no other option but to direct it themselves.



"Since the beginning, our primary purpose was to highlight the power of ordinary citizens who participated in candlelit protests and brought about significant change. We filmed the documentary in 2019 and were scheduled to release it in theaters in spring 2020. However, it got postponed due to the pandemic. We never intended to unveil it around the time of the presidential election," Joo said.





"Candlelight Revolution" directors Joo Jin-woo, left, and Kim Eui-sung / Courtesy of JUGIJA Co.LLC.
US President Joe Biden was set to hold talks on Monday with European leaders over the Ukraine crisis, as the EU urged allies to avoid a "nervous breakdown" in the face of fears Russia could stage a full-scale invasion.

Tensions have soared over Moscow's deployment of some 100,000 troops and heavy armour at its neighbour's borders, despite the Kremlin's insistence it is not planning a new incursion almost eight years after it seized Crimea.

NATO said it was sending jets and ships to bolster its eastern European flank, as US media reported Washington was weighing deploying up to 5,000 troops to central and eastern European allies.

Fears of an attack by Moscow helped send global stocks sharply downwards  with Russia's main market plunging and the central bank suspending foreign currency purchasing after the ruble slumped.

Britain and Australia followed the US in ordering diplomats' families to leave Kyiv, while France told citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Ukraine.

But both Kyiv and the EU said any withdrawal of personnel was premature, amid doubts over how imminent any attack could be.

"You have to stay calm doing what you have to do, and avoid a nervous breakdown," EU foreign policy Josep Borrell said after talks with US top diplomat Antony Blinken.

Blinken briefed EU foreign ministers on his talks last week with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov as the US gears up to give a formal response to Moscow's raft of sweeping security demands.

Borrell said there was nothing in the latest discussion to increase fears that there would be an "immediate attack".

The US is trying to marshal allies to prepare an unprecedented package of sanctions on Moscow if it sends in forces  and EU officials insist they could hit the Kremlin with "massive consequences" within days if needed.

Biden was set to hold a secure video call with the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Poland, the EU and NATO.

The White House said the talks were "part of our close consultation and coordination with our transatlantic allies and partners in response to Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's borders".

Moscow is demanding a guarantee that the former Soviet republic never be allowed to join NATO, as well as other concessions by the United States in return for a decrease in tension.

The US-led NATO alliance said its members were placing troops "on standby" and sending ships and jets to bolster eastern Europe's defences in response to the Russian buildup, pointing to recent decisions by Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands to mobilise forces.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg insisted the alliance "will continue to take all necessary measures to protect" members and was considering deploying fresh battle groups to eastern allies.

The Kremlin accused NATO of ramping up tensions through "information hysteria" and "concrete actions", claiming the risk of an offensive by Ukrainian troops fighting Russian-backed separatists in the east of the country was "very high".

The EU  in consultation with the US and other allies  is pushing to put together a package of sanctions against Moscow that it hopes will help deter Russia from any military action.

"There's no doubt we are ready to react forcefully with comprehensive sanctions  never seen before," Danish Foreign Minister Denmark FM Jeppe Kofod said.

The 27-nation bloc faces a complex task compiling its raft of measures as members have starkly differing approaches and ties to Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged his western partners to "preserve the unity of all EU member states in protecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state".

The new government in EU economic powerhouse Germany has faced criticism from Kyiv over its refusal to send arms to Ukraine and hesitation over calls to cut Moscow out of the global SWIFT payment system.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock insisted any further aggression from Moscow would get a "clear response" from Europe and talked up the economic support Berlin gives Kyiv.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc was preparing a 1.2-billion-euro emergency financial aid package for Ukraine.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned Russia an invasion could prove to be a "new Chechnya"  referring to Moscow's bloody conflict in the 1990s over the territory.

Non-NATO member Ireland meanwhile sounded the alarm over upcoming Russian military exercises off its southwest coast in the international waters of the Atlantic.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was on Monday given permission to appeal against a decision to extradite him to the United States.

Washington wants to put the 50-year-old Australian on trial in connection with WikiLeaks' publication of 500,000 secret military files relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The High Court in London in December overturned a lower court's ruling not to send him to the United States on the grounds he would be a suicide risk.

Lawyers for Assange then challenged the decision, arguing that the country's highest court should rule on "points of law of general public importance".

"The respondent's application to certify a point of law is granted," said judges Ian Burnett and Timothy Holroyde in a written ruling.

The judges said that they themselves were not granting him a right of appeal at the Supreme Court.

But Assange had the right to pursue the point of law in the highest court, which can decide whether to take the case.

"Julian won," Stella Morris, his fiancee and the mother of his two young children, wrote on Twitter.

"It is now for the Supreme Court to decide whether it will hear Julian's appeal."

Crowds gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London and welcomed the decision.

"I'm relieved beyond words," said Sue Barnett, 61, from Nottingham, central England, holding a placard stating: "10 years enough. Free Assange now."

"We were all fearing the worst."

Assange's lawyers challenged US assurances that he would not be held in punishing isolation at a federal supermax prison, and would receive appropriate care.

His supporters have long argued that his physical and mental health has been affected by being held on remand at a high-security prison in southeast London.

He has been behind bars because he is seen as a flight risk, having previously skipped bail in 2012 over claims he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

He spent seven years at Ecuador's embassy in London.

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NATO said Monday that it's putting extra forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe as Russia continues its troop build-up near Ukraine.

It said that it's beefing up its deterrence presence in the Baltic Sea area. A number of members of the 30-country military organization have offered troops and equipment.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying F-16 war planes to Lithuania.

Also Read: Ukraine says US move to withdraw diplomats' families 'premature'

Spain is sending ships to join NATO's standing maritime force and considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France stands ready to send troops to Bulgaria, NATO said.

NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

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Pakistan and Russia are in talks to finalise the plan for Russian President Vladimir Putin's first visit to the country this year, according to a media report.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has already extended a formal invitation to President Putin. He reiterated the invitation to Putin during his recent telephonic conversation with the Russian president.

The two leaders are also expected to meet in Beijing next month on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

Also Read: Russia toughens its posture amid Ukraine tensions

The visit of the Russian president was being discussed by the two sides for the last two years but could not materialise because of a variety of reasons including the Covid-19 pandemic, officials familiar with the development told The Express Tribune on Sunday.

The likely visit of President Putin will be the culmination of years of efforts by two sides to open a new chapter in their ties that were marred by the Cold War rivalry.

Moscow also wants that there must be big ticket projects or other initiatives that the Russian president would announce when he finally undertakes the trip to Pakistan, the report said.

However, diplomatic sources said Putin wanted to undertake the visit when he had something big to sell.

With the signing of the Pakistan Steam Gas Pipeline agreement, the prospects of Putin visiting Pakistan have brightened significantly.

Pakistan is keen that President Putin inaugurates the groundbreaking of the multibillion-dollar gas pipeline project, which might kick off later this year. Pakistan wants Russian companies to lay the pipeline from Karachi in Sindh province to Kasur in Punjab province.

Also Read: Why Russia might invade Ukraine  and how the US is involved

The North-South Gas Pipeline, which has now been renamed as Pakistan Steam Gas Pipeline, is a flagship project that the two countries intend to undertake ever since they decided to bury their Cold War rivalry and enter into a new era of bilateral ties.

The agreement was originally signed in 2015 but because of possible US sanctions on the Russian companies and other issues, the work on the 1,122km-long pipeline could not be started.

However, the two sides finally crossed those obstacles and signed an amended agreement that would now give 74 per cent stakes in the pipeline to Pakistan. Earlier, the pipeline was to be constructed completely by Russia under the built, operate and transfer model.

The project will cost around $2.25 billion. Once complete, the pipeline will help address the shortage of gas in Punjab. The LNG that Pakistan now imports will be re-gasified through this proposed pipeline.

Officials familiar with the development said the project not only had economic but strategic significance for Pakistan. They said Pakistan wanted to broaden ties with Russia as part of its efforts to diversify its foreign policy options.

In April last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Islamabad after a gap of almost nine years. During the visit, he conveyed a message to Pakistani leadership on behalf of President Putin that Moscow was willing to extend all possible help to Islamabad.

The two countries are not just exploring options to deepen economic ties, but Russia is also keen to sell arms to Pakistan, something it avoided in the past because of Indias opposition.

The two countries have already been holding regular joint military exercises since 2016 in another sign of deepening ties between Moscow and Islamabad. Besides, the two countries also share the same view on key regional and international issues including Afghanistan, according to the Express Tribune.

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A Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday started three days of talks in Oslo with Western officials and Afghan civil society representatives amid a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

The closed-door meetings were taking place at a hotel in the snow-capped mountains above the Norwegian capital and are the first time since the Taliban took over in August that their representatives have held official meetings in Europe.

The talks were not without controversy, however, reigniting the debate over whether they legitimise the Taliban government, especially since they were being held in Norway, a NATO country involved in Afghanistan from 2001 until the Taliban takeover last summer.

Speaking at the end of the first day of talks, Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam told The Associated Press that the meetings with Western officials were "a step to legitimise (the) Afghan government," adding that "this type of invitation and communication will help (the) European community, (the) US or many other countries to erase the wrong picture of the Afghan government".

That statement may irk the Taliban's Norwegian hosts. Earlier, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed that the talks were "not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban".

On Sunday, 200 protesters gathered on an icy square in front of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry in Oslo to condemn the meetings with the Taliban, which has not received diplomatic recognition from any foreign government.

"The Taliban has not changed as some in the international community like to say," said Ahman Yasir, a Norwegian Afghan living in Norway for around two decades. "They are as brutal as they were in 2001 and before."

Taliban leaders met with some women's rights and human rights activists on Sunday, but there was no official word about those talks.

Starting Monday, Taliban representatives will meet with delegations from Western nations and will be certain to press their demand that nearly USD 10 billion frozen by the United States and other Western countries be released as Afghanistan faces a precarious humanitarian situation.

"We are requesting them to unfreeze Afghan assets and not punish ordinary Afghans because of the political discourse," said Shafiullah Azam. "Because of the starvation, because of the deadly winter, I think it's time for the international community to support Afghans, not punish them because of their political disputes."

The United Nations has managed to provide some liquidity and allowed the Taliban administration to pay for imports, including electricity. But the UN has warned that as many as 1 million (10 lakh) Afghan children are in danger of starving and most of the country's 38 million (3.8 crore) people are living below the poverty line.

Faced with the Taliban's request for funds, Western powers are likely to put the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan high on their agenda, along with the West's recurring demand for the Taliban administration to share power with Afghanistan's minority ethnic and religious groups.

Since sweeping to power in mid-August, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women. Women have been banned from many jobs outside the health and education fields, their access to education has been restricted beyond the sixth grade and they have been ordered to wear the hijab.

The Taliban have, however, stopped short of imposing the burqa, which was compulsory when they previously ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s.

The Taliban have increasingly targeted Afghanistan's beleaguered rights groups, as well as journalists, detaining and sometimes beating television crews covering demonstrations.

A US delegation, led by Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West, plans to discuss "the formation of a representative political system; responses to the urgent humanitarian and economic crises; security and counterterrorism concerns; and human rights, especially education for girls and women," according to a statement released by the US State Department.

The Scandinavian country, home to the Nobel Peace Prize, is no stranger to diplomacy. It has been involved in peace efforts in a number of countries, including Mozambique, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Colombia, the Philippines, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Syria, Myanmar, Somalia, Sri Lanka and South Sudan.

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By Tatsiana Kulakevich for The Conversation

US President Joe Biden said on Jan. 19, 2022, that he thinks Russia will invade Ukraine, and cautioned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he will regret having done it, following months of building tension.

Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine over the past several months.

In mid-January, Russia began moving troops into Belarus, a country bordering both Russia and Ukraine, in preparation for joint military exercises in February.

Putin has issued various security demands to the US before he draws his military forces back. Putins list includes a ban on Ukraine from entering NATO, and agreement that NATO will remove troops and weapons across much of Eastern Europe.

Read | From cyberattack to invasion: What's Russia's Ukraine plan?

Theres precedent for taking the threat seriously: Putin already annexed the Crimea portion of Ukraine in 2014.

Ukraines layered history offers a window into the complex nation it is today  and why it is continuously under threat. As an Eastern Europe expert, I highlight five key points to keep in mind.

What should we know about Ukrainians relationship with Russia?

Ukraine gained independence 30 years ago, after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has since struggled to combat corruption and bridge deep internal divisions.

Ukraines western region generally supported integration with Western Europe. The countrys eastern side, meanwhile, favoured closer ties with Russia.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine peaked in February 2014, when violent protesters ousted Ukraines pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in what is now known as the Revolution of Dignity.

Also read: 'Minor incursion' by Russia could complicate West's response

Around the same time, Russia forcibly annexed Crimea. Ukraine was in a vulnerable position for self-defence, with a temporary government and unprepared military.

Putin immediately moved to strike in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The armed conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed over 14,000 people.

Unlike its response to Crimea, Russia continues to officially deny its involvement in the Donbas conflict.

What do Ukrainians want?

Russias military aggression in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea have galvanised public support for Ukraines Western leanings.

Ukraines government has said it will apply for European Union membership in 2024, and also has ambitions to join NATO.

Also Read | Where Ukraine's sunflowers once sprouted, fears now grow

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who came to power in 2019, campaigned on a platform of anti-corruption, economic renewal and peace in the Donbas region.

In September 2021, 81 per cent of Ukrainians said they have a negative attitude about Putin, according to the Ukrainian news site RBC-Ukraine. Just 15 per cent of surveyed Ukrainians reported a positive attitude towards the Russian leader.

Why is Putin threatening to invade Ukraine?

Putins decision to engage in a military buildup along Ukraine is connected to a sense of impunity. Putin also has experience dealing with Western politicians who champion Russian interests and become engaged with Russian companies once they leave office.

Western countries have imposed mostly symbolic sanctions against Russia over interference in the 2020 US presidential elections and a huge cyberattack against about 18,000 people who work for companies and the US government, among other transgressions.

Without repercussions, Putin has backed Belarus President Alexander Lukashenkos brutal crackdown on mass protests in the capital city, Minsk.

In several instances, Putin has seen that some leading Western politicians align with Russia. These alliances can prevent Western countries from forging a unified front to Putin.

Also Read  US President Biden issues fresh warning to Russia against invading Ukraine

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, for example, advocated for strategic cooperation between Europe and Russia while he was in office. He later joined Russian oil company Rosneft as chairman in 2017.

Other senior European politicians promoting a soft position toward Russia while in office include former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl. Both joined the boards of Russian state-owned companies after leaving office.

What is Putins end game?

Putin views Ukraine as part of Russias sphere of influence  a territory, rather than an independent state. This sense of ownership has driven the Kremlin to try to block Ukraine from joining the EU and NATO.

In January 2021, Russia experienced one of its largest anti-government demonstrations in years. Tens of thousands of Russians protested in support of political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, following his detention in Russia. Navalny had recently returned from Germany, where he was treated for being poisoned by the Russian government.

Putin is also using Ukraine as leverage for Western powers lifting their sanctions. Currently, the US has various political and financial sanctions in place against Russia, as well as potential allies and business partners to Russia.

Read | UK warns Russia against Ukraine 'puppet regime'

A Russian attack on Ukraine could prompt more diplomatic conversations that could lead to concessions on these sanctions.

The costs to Russia of attacking Ukraine would significantly outweigh the benefits.

While a full scale invasion of Ukraine is unlikely, Putin might renew fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Why would the US want to get involved in this conflict?

With its annexation of Crimea and support for the Donbas conflict, Russia has violated the Budapest Memorandum Security Assurances for Ukraine, a 1994 agreement between the US, United Kingdom and Russia that aims to protect Ukraines sovereignty in exchange for its commitment to give up its nuclear arsenal.

Also Read  Cold War flashbacks in Russia-US talks in Geneva

Putins threats against Ukraine occur as he is moving Russian forces into Belarus, which also raises questions about the Kremlins plans for invading other neighboring countries.

Military support for Ukraine and political and economic sanctions are ways the US can make clear to Moscow that there will be consequences for its encroachment on an independent country. The risk, otherwise, is that the Kremlin might undertake other military and political actions that would further threaten European security and stability.

(The writer is from University of South Florida)

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The Assam government on Monday issued an order tightening restrictions to contain spread of Covid-19 in the state and banning entry of non-vaccinated people to public places, except hospitals.

It also directed authorities to shut schools for up to class 8 students.

The government asked citizens to carry proof of vaccination while going to public places.

Also Read: Nagaland, Assam ready for out-of-court settlement of border dispute: Rio

These restrictions will come into effect from 6 am of January 25, the order said.

"The status of Covid-19 in the state has again been reviewed and it has been observed that the number of Covid-19 cases has been gradually increasing over the last few days thereby increasing the positivity rate," Officiating Chief Secretary PK Borthakur said in the order.

Accordingly, Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) issued a new set of guidelines, which are to be followed to arrest the spread of Covid-19, and it will remain in force until further order.

Physical classes in "all schools up to class 8 in all districts shall be suspended and all such educational institutions shall migrate to virtual options until further orders", it said.

Classes in schools have been allowed "on alternate days for class IX and above" in all districts.

"All educational institutions including schools/colleges/universities shall continue to provide quality virtual options," the new order said.

The ASDMA said non-vaccinated people will not be allowed to enter public places, except hospitals.

"All people are required to carry proof of being fully vaccinated while visiting public places/spaces.

The owners of public/private establishments shall be responsible for ensuring that only those entrants who are fully vaccinated are allowed inside and this has to be done scrupulously by checking their vaccination status. "Failure to do so shall attract penal action," the government order added.

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The Assam Police has deferred written examination for over 9,000 constable posts, first advertised nearly four years ago, as the number of candidates called for the test had fallen below the ratio of 1:5 against each post, an official statement said.

The written examination was scheduled for January 30, which has now been postponed until further notice, it added.

The State Level Police Recruitment Board (SLPRB), headed by the Director General of Police, is conducting the recruitment process.

A press statement issued by the Assam Police said the results declared for the 9,171 posts of constable were reviewed by the SLPRB and it was found that the actual number of people called for the written exam has fallen much below the ratio of 1:5 as announced in the original advertisement.

It said many candidates had cleared the cut off in more than one category of posts, indicating that it was the reason for the ratio falling below the announced ratio.

The SLPRB has reviewed the matter and decided to call an additional number of candidates for the written exam at the ratio 1:5, the statement said.

It added that a new merit list will be declared shortly.

The first advertisement for the posts had appeared on April 25, 2018, with an addendum on December 19, 2019, and advertisements again appearing on various dates later also.

The SLPRB on January 19 this year issued a notice announcing the results of Physical Standard Test (PST) and Physical Efficiency Test (PET) and asked the candidates to check their status on the website and asked the qualified candidates to apply online for the Common Written Test by January 30 on their website.

Following the announcement of the qualifying list, a group of youths who failed to make the cut had staged a protest in front of the police forces headquarter here on January 21, alleging that the system was not transparent.

They had also alleged that only two candidates have been allowed against one post for the written test, while the norm is to call five candidates for one post.

DGP Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta had claimed that the entire PST and PET was conducted in a very "clear and transparent" manner.

Regarding calling candidates five times of the posts, Mahanta said they followed the practice by inviting candidates from different categories like General, OBC, SC, ST, former militants and special police officers.

The total number of candidates may not look like five times due to many reasons like many cleared the cut-off in both armed and unarmed stream, many reserved category applicants got more marks than unreserved (UR) category and got absorbed in UR category and lack of sufficient number of qualifiers in some categories, he added.

A total of 1,80,622 candidates had applied for 9,171 posts of various types of constables such as armed, unarmed, home guards, former militants, radio communications and fire and emergency services.

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The governments of Nagaland and Assam are ready for an out-of-court settlement of the long-pending inter-state boundary dispute between the two northeastern neighbours, Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said here on Monday.

Rio said that Nagaland and Assam delegations are likely to meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah in February to discuss and formulate how to go about the settlement.

The Nagaland Assembly's select committee to examine the border issue held an hour-and-a-half closed-door meeting, a day after Rio, his deputy Y Patton and NPF legislature party leader T R Zeilang met Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma at Guwahati on Sunday.

"We had gone to Guwahati and had fruitful discussions on the border issue with Sarma. Nagaland and Assam had jointly taken up the matter with Union Home Minister Amit Shah on December 23, 2020. "Both the state governments are in favour of an out-of-court settlement, and maybe our teams will meet Shah in the first part of February to discuss and formulate how to go about it," Rio told reporters here.

The issue of royalty on petroleum and natural gas along the Assam-Nagaland border was also discussed.

"If we resolve the border dispute and the issue of royalty, it will be good for both sides as we are going to remain neighbours," Rio added.

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Amid restlessness among students and parents with schools closed for a long time, the West Bengal government is introducing Paray Shikhaloy, a scheme under which open-air schools will be operated in neighbourhoods.

Bengals education minister Bratya Basu made a formal announcement on Monday. The closure of schools has affected school-going children, despite several attempts made at imparting education. The effect has been substantial on children at the primary level.

In this scenario, the governments school education department intends to have neighbourhood schools in place, in open spaces available in the localities, as chances of infections surging are relatively lower in such places. Such schools will be functional following Covid norms.

The project, expected to commence on February 7, is expected to be of help to over 60 lakh students in the age group of 5 to 10 in the pre-primary and primary levels. The initiative aims at helping students with basic academic skills - writing, reading, calculating numbers, cultural activities - dance, singing, and games - indoor and outdoor.

The project is expected to involve around 1.84 lakh primary school teachers, 21,000 para-teachers, and 38,000 helpers.

While its not clear when schools will finally open up in the state, the situation is being closely watched by the government. The schools may be opened in phases, depending on the situation.

Meanwhile, a few students bodies, with political affiliations, have demanded that schools be opened. Most school students, except for ones of the senior classes who were permitted for a short time to attend classes, have remained at home for weeks, ever since the schools closed as the infections crept in.

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By Park Han-sol







Rising artist Kim Sun-woo's scenes of mountains punctuated by thick forests and water roaring through deep ravines are, in a way, reminiscent of traditional Korean landscape paintings. But there's one alien element that remains prominent in his dreamlike vistas  the dodo.







His latest series of 21 paintings will be on display at the Gana Art Center's upcoming exhibition, "Paradise," in central Seoul, from Jan. 27 to Feb. 27.







Often referred to as "the artist of dodo," Kim has, for years, featured the extinct flightless bird in his works as a visual substitute for modern humans.







Once native to the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean with no apparent predators, these animals gradually lost the ability to fly as an adaptation to escape.







"As people of today settle for the reality they mistake as paradise and start plucking out their feathers of freedom one by one, they come to resemble the dodo," he stated.







But in Kim's paintings, the birds become more than just a somber reproduction of present-day reality. Some of them are marching toward an unknown destination against all odds, while others are riding the violent blue wave like the one depicted in the famed Katsushika Hokusai's woodblock print, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa."







It's a message of hope and freedom told in an oddly endearing way.







The 34-year-old artist has recently made his name known as his paintings, both in physical formats and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), have begun to gain traction among younger collectors in local auctions.


The 30th anniversary of India-Israel diplomatic ties is a good opportunity to look ahead and shape the next 30 years of relations, the Israeli envoy here said on Monday and exuded confidence that the close cooperation between the two countries in different fields will only grow further in the coming years.

Israel envoy to India Naor Gilon made the remarks at an event to launch a commemorative logo to mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The logo features the Star of David and the Ashoka Chakra -- the two symbols that adorn the national flags of both countries -- and forms the numeral 30 depicting the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations

This special logo symbolises the strong friendship, love and admiration that exists between the people of Israel and the people of India, a statement issued by the Israel Embassy here said.

It also depicts the growing strategic partnership between the two sides.

On this special occasion, Ambassador Gilon said, We are very happy to launch a special logo to celebrate the 30 years of the close friendship between the people of our two ancient civilizations. This is an important occasion to reflect on our mutual successes as well as a good opportunity to look ahead and shape the next 30 years of our relations."

"I am sure that our close existing cooperation in different fields will only continue to grow and flourish in the coming years," he said.

India's Ambassador to Israel Sanjeev Singla said, We are proud to mark the 30th anniversary of our bilateral relations and look forward to using the special logo throughout the year to celebrate this special milestone."

India and Israel are two ancient people, proud of their cultural heritage, and two vibrant democracies, eager to grasp the future, he said.

"Together we can shape a better future for India, Israel, and the world," Singla said.

To create the 30th-anniversary logo, both countries launched a logo design contest last year for students of prominent design colleges in Israel and India.

Entries were invited from Holon Institute of Technology, Israel and National Institute of Design, India. Many Israeli and Indian students participated in this contest.

The winning design created by an Indian student, Nikhil Kumar Rai, was chosen through a joint decision of the Embassies and Consulates from both countries.

It has been selected as the official logo for the 30th anniversary of Israel-India diplomatic relations.

Israel and India established diplomatic relations on January 29, 1992. Since then, the bilateral relations between both countries have developed into a multifaceted strategic partnership.

Israel and India share an intimately close and special relationship, which encompasses virtually every field of human endeavour -- health and innovation, agriculture and water, trade and economic activities, science and technology, research and development, defence and homeland security, art and culture, tourism and space, the statement said.

The 30th anniversary of relations between Israel and India will be marked throughout the year with an elaborate array of cultural events, it said. PTI ASK RCJ RCJ

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Parliament will return to the shift system during the first phase of Budget Session owing to the third wave of Covid-19, with Rajya Sabha conducting proceedings during the morning hours and Lok Sabha during evening hours.

The first day of Budget Session on January 31 will start with the address of President Ram Nath Kovind to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs.

For the first time, the MPs will be listening to the President not just from Central Hall as the social distancing norms have prompted the authorities to make arrangements to attend the customary address from the chambers and galleries of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

On the first day, the Lok Sabha convenes half an hour after the conclusion of the Presidents address to table the Economic Survey. Rajya Sabha will sit at 2:30 pm to table the President's speech.

On February 1, Lok Sabha will sit at 11 am for the presentation of the Budget. Rajya Sabha will sit after the Lok Sabha session to table the Budget.

From February 2, Rajya Sabha will sit between 10 am and 3 PM while Lok Sabha will sit from 4 pm to 9 pm. During sittings, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha Chambers and their galleries will be used for sitting of MPs.

Officials said this arrangement has been decided only for the first leg while a decision on the second leg starting from March 14 will be taken later after considering the situation then.

The Budget Session is conducted at a time when the country is in the grip of a third wave of Covid-19.

According to data available till January 20, 875 officers and staff in Parliament House, including allied services, have tested positive for Covid-19 this month alone. Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu has also tested positive for Covid-19 on Sunday and presently under home quarantine in Hyderabad.

With the third wave rising, the Parliament House complex had reimposed restrictions on attendance of officials and staff.

The 2020 Monsoon Session was the first session held under Covid-19 protocol with Rajya sabha meeting in the first half of the day and Lok Sabha during second half. This was followed for the first part of the Budget Session 2021 while Parliament returned to normal sitting hours from the second leg of Budget Session last year.

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A day after Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray said that BJP does not mean Hindutva and his party has wasted 25 years with the saffron party, leader of opposition Devendra Fadnavis lashed out at his political friend-turned-foe saying that his party has walked the talk.

Fadnavis also accused the Shiv Sena and its leaders of having selective memory.

It is we faced lathis and bullets while you were only giving speeches during the demolition of Babri masjid. Now the grand Ram Mandir at Ayodhya is being builtthe Kashi Vishwanath(prime minister) Narendra Modi has done it, Fadnavis told reporters in Mumbai.

Allahabad has been renamed Prayagraj, whereas you have failed in renaming Aurangabad as Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad as Dharashiv, Fadnavis said.

Read | Wasted 25 years in alliance with BJP: Uddhav Thackeray

You have said Shiv Sena has wasted 25 years with is. Now you have allied with Congress and NCP. Did (Congress president) Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi post even one tweet on Balasaheb Thackeray (96th anniversary)?, he said.

Criticising Maha Vikas Aghadi, the former chief minister said: This is powerlessness. When you garland their photos and they feel ashamed to tweet about the birth anniversary of Balasaheb Thackeray, you still sit with them for the sake of power".

On Shiv Senas plans to contest elections outside Maharashtra, Fadnavis, reeled out facts and figures. In the 1993 polls (after demolition of Babri masjid), the Shiv Sena had fielded 180 candidates in Uttar Pradesh when their wave was prevalent. Out of which, 179 lost their deposits. In 1996, they fielded 24 candidates out of which 23 lost their deposits. In 2002, 49 candidates were fielded and all of them lost their deposits. So, you did fight the polls but people rejected you. Because people knew that karsevaks and RSS took part in the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign."

O want to remind them that their party (Shiv Sena) was not even born when BJP already had a corporator in Mumbai. Till the time they were with us, they used to be the number 1 or No. 2 party but now they are at number 4, he said.

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A 17-year-old boy, who was allegedly beaten mercilessly by his uncle and three cops inside a police outpost on suspicion of mobile theft, died at a hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Lakhimpur Kheri.

Three policemen, including an office in charge of the outpost, have been suspended.

The boy's family alleged that cops were "directly involved in the assault".

Lakhimpur Kheri SSP Sanjeev Suman said: "We are investigating the complaint against the policemen and no one will be spared if found guilty."

A video, now viral on social media, has the boy's family showing external injuries on his body to a senior policeman.

Palia Circle Officer (CO), Sanjay Nath Tiwari said: "The post-mortem will be conducted on Monday and the report will help us to ascertain the reason of death.

"The boy's family has filed two complaints and we have registered an FIR under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of IPC against his uncle Ram Bahadur and neighbour Rajveer Singh. The second complaint is against a sub-inspector and two constables. We are probing the case in detail and will take action against the cops in question, accordingly."

The boy's elder sister alleged that her brother, a day before his death, told her that he was thrashed by cops for a "confession".

Narrating the sequence of events, she said: "The cops came to our house for my brother. My mother accompanied him to a nearby police outpost and she was sent back home. After a few hours, we received a call to take my brother. But when my parents reached there, they found him badly beaten and crying in pain. He said he was beaten mercilessly by cops and my uncle. They brought him home and when his condition deteriorated, he was admitted to a hospital in Palia town where he succumbed during treatment."

The boy was the only son of farmer Laxmi Ram and youngest amongst four siblings. On January 17, the mobile phone of his cousin went "missing" and his uncle Ram Bahadur lodged a police complaint and the cops reached the house on January 19 and took him to Khajuriya police outpost where the incident took place.

The incident comes three months after another alleged custodial death in Kasganj where Mohammad Altaf, 22, who was held by police for "kidnapping" a minor Hindu girl, was later found "hanging" from a tap inside a washroom in the lockup.

The missing girl turned out to be an adult and later told police that she was never kidnapped.

In another such incident, a sanitation worker, Arun Valmiki, who was held by police for allegedly stealing Rs 25 lakh from the strong room of Jagdishpura police station, had died in police custody.

His family had alleged that he died in police custody due to "torture".

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Ahead of Republic Day and in view of emerging militant threats, multi-layer security arrangements coupled with ground and aerial surveys have been put in place across Kashmir to foil any possible attacks to disrupt the ceremonies.

Besides Srinagar city, reports said, security forces have also intensified frisking operations in other areas of Kashmir, especially on various points on Srinagar-Jammu and Srinagar-Baramulla national highway. Armed personnel and cops in civvies have been deployed around the Republic Day ceremony venue to keep an eye on any suspicious persons.

In Jammu, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha will preside over the main Republic Day event to be held at M A Stadium while the DDC chairpersons will be the chief guests at the events in their respective districts.

Also Read | Over 27k police personnel deployed for R-Day security: Delhi Police chief

There is ground surveillance and there will be aerial surveillance. So both human and technical means will be used to ensure an incident free Republic-Day. Militancy is there but we'll thwart all their plans aimed at disrupting R-Day functions, a senior security official said, adding that the area from where the chief guest will address the gathering has been sanitised.

Besides, he said, all high-rise buildings around the main venue of the Republic Day event in Srinagar have been occupied by sharpshooters of the police and paramilitary CRPF to prevent any untoward incident.

Commuters travelling on roads and highways in and around Srinagar were being thoroughly frisked and their identities checked.

In city center Lal Chowk and some areas of Srinagar, police on Sunday carried out security drills by surprise checks. The pedestrians and vehicles were also being searched thoroughly in Srinagar.

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After his counterparts in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and other states, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing his strong protest against the proposed changes to the All India Services (Cadres) rules 1954.

Rao stated that the proposed amendments militate against the federal structure of our constitution, both in letter and spirit".

Considering the criticality of the functions discharged by AIS officers in the states, the present rule position and practice provides for concurrence of state governments in matters of deputation of officers to the central government. The proposed amendments seek to unilaterally disturb the above position, with the central government assuming the power to take officers on deputation without the concurrence of the officers or the state government concerned, Rao said in his letter to Modi on Monday.

If the proposals are effected, the state governments would be reduced to insignificant entities, Rao said.

Chief ministers of West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand had also earlier urged Modi to drop the proposals, which run contrary to the country's federal structure".

Also read: Drop proposed amendments to IAS (Cadre) Rules: M K Stalin to PM Modi

Rao further said that the proposal is clearly a move to exercise indirect control by the Centre on officers working in the states".

It amounts to interfering in the functioning of state governments, targeted harassment of officers and their demoralization, besides impacting accountability of officers of state governments. It would also render state governments as helpless entities in the matters of AIS officers.

Parliament of India had enacted the All India Services Act, 1951 under the provisions of Article 312 of the Constitution and the AIS rules were formulated under the act.

Rao called the rule amendments coloured exercise of powers vested with the central government to the detriment of state's interests and watering down the federal polity of the country".

Instead of such backdoor methods, Rao asked Modi to muster the courage to amend the provisions by Parliament".

The proposals show scant regard to the states' administrative exigencies, requirements, threaten the spirit of mutual adjustment and accommodation between Centre and state governments in the matter of AIS and will further strain the centre-state relationship.

Observing that the present AIS cadre rule provisions are adequate to ensure harmonious, balanced deployment of officers, Rao in his missive has demanded PM Modi to cease and desist from the proposed amendments in the interest of administrative fairness and federal polity of the constitution".

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The Tamil Nadu government on Monday urged bankers to ensure that Tamil Language is used in all public interfaces including ATMs.

This was conveyed by state Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan at a Special State Level Bankers' Committee meeting convened by him, where incidentally, "for the first time," consultation was held and suggestions sought from bankers for the upcoming state budget, an official release here said.

The minister "urged all bankers to ensure that Tamil Language is used in all public interfaces such as ATMs, bank forms,etc. He stressed the need for bank officials who are deployed in frontline desks and helpline desks in banks to be conversant in Tamil," the release said.

"For the first time, consultation was held and suggestions sought from bankers for the upcoming budget FY 2022-23 of the Government of Tamil Nadu," the release added. The minister also reviewed the progress made in the implementation of various Government schemes and urged the banks to expedite the implementation of all priority sector lending schemes and particularly, to extend education loans to the students from the poorer sections of the society, it said.

He also urged the banks to ensure banking solutions in unbanked remote areas, particularly forested and tribal habitations.

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Social activist Anna Hazare has written to Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah demanding a probe by a retired Supreme Court judge into the alleged Rs 25,000 crore "scam" in the selling of cooperative sugar mills in Maharashtra and their purchase at "throwaway prices".

In his letter to Shah, Hazare requested that a high-power committee be set up under a retired judge of the Supreme Court to probe the alleged scam. "We have been agitating against the sale of sugar mills in connivance with politicians at the negligible value since 2009 and against irregularities in cooperative financial institutions. In 2017, we had filed a complaint in Mumbai, and one DIG-rank officer was appointed to investigate the complaint," Hazare wrote.

He added that after two years, a closure report was submitted saying no irregularities were detected.

"If the Maharashtra government is not ready to act against a scam worth Rs 25,000 crore, then who will take the action ?" the veteran anti-corruption activist questioned.

He said the Centre had set up the ministry of cooperation for the welfare of farmers and to improve the cooperative sector.

"We are of the view that it would be a good example if the Centre probes the sale of sugar mills in Maharashtra by setting up a high-level committee," he said. Hazare didn't mention the names of any cooperative sugar mills in his letter.

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The Congress on Monday appealed to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to stop the upcoming telecast of the movie Why I killed Gandhi on January 30, saying it will strengthen racist tendencies.

NCP MP and actor Amol Kolhe is playing the lead role of Mahatma's assassin Nathuram Godse in this movie, to be released on January 30, the death anniversary of the Father of the Nation.

In a letter to CM Thackeray, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said that the movie Why I killed Gandhi will be released in theatres and OTT platforms on January 30, the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, which is observed as the National Unity Day, for (upholding) communal harmony world over.

Also Read: Devendra Fadnavis slams Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray on Hindutva

On one hand, Gandhiji's death anniversary is observed for non-violence and peace. On the other hand, Why I killed Gandhi is being released. This will give strength to racist tendencies.

The Indian culture has always opposed inhuman acts. This is why this movie should not be released in state's theatres and OTT platforms, Patole stated in his letter.

The Congress is one of the constituents of the Shiv Sena-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government apart from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Recently, NCP MP and actor Amol Kolhe received flak for portraying Nathuram Godse in Why I Killed Gandhi.

However, NCP chief Sharad Pawar had supported Kolhe, saying the latter's decision to act in that movie should be seen as an artist's choice. "If he played that role, it doesn't mean he subscribes to Godse's ideology or views," Pawar had told reporters on Friday.

Patole also hit out at the BJP-led Central government for dropping Mahatma Gandhi's favourite hymn Abide With Me from this year's Beating Retreat ceremony on January 29. Abide With Me, written by Scottish Anglican poet and hymnologist Henry Francis Lyte in 1847, has been part of the Beating Retreat ceremony since 1950.

For this year's ceremony, the hymn has been replaced by the popular patriotic song Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon, which was written by Kavi Pradeep to commemorate the supreme sacrifice made by Indian soldiers during the 1962 Indo-China war.

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The Osstem Implant logo is seen at its headquarters in Seoul. Yonhap





By Lee Min-hyung







The Korea Exchange said Monday it will delay making a decision on whether to uphold a trading suspension of Osstem Implant shares, after the firm was struck by a massive embezzlement scandal.







Starting from the beginning of 2022, shares of the scandal-tainted dental equipment manufacturer have been suspended from trading, after one of its employees allegedly embezzled 220 billion won ($184 million), the single largest embezzlement incident ever seen in Korea.







The exchange will announce its decision by Feb. 17 after reviewing the case further.







Depending on the exchange operator's upcoming decision, Osstem may have to submit its specific plans on how to improve its internal monitoring system within the next 15 trading days. The exchange will then send these plans to its corporate screening committee, which will make the final decision on whether to resume the trading of Osstem shares. In the worst-case scenario, Osstem Implant could be delisted from the secondary Kosdaq.







Although the situation depends on the upcoming decisions by the corporate screening committee and the KOSDAQ market committee, chances are that Osstem shares will be suspended from trading for more than two years.







This suspension will drive around 20,000 retail investors into frustration. As of the end of 2020, the number of Osstem's minority shareholders came in at 19,856, and they were holding more than 55 percent of the firm's shares.







Even if Osstem shares resume trading, its price will inevitably plunge in the aftermath of the embezzlement case. Early this month, police arrested the employee identified by his surname Lee on charges of embezzling corporate funds. As the police investigation is still underway, it will take more time for the exchange to make its final decision.







Police also said Monday that about 140 billion won out of the total amount of embezzled capital can be retrieved.







Last week, the exchange decided to delist drugmaker SillaJen from the secondary stock market, as its shares have been suspended from trading since May 2020, when its top management was indicted on charges of embezzling corporate funds and making undue profits.







Some argue that Osstem may end up following in the footsteps of SillaJen after being given a maximum of two years to improve its internal system. The exchange will then carry out a screening of the firm once again to determine whether to delist it from the local stock market.


A massive fire broke out at a chemical plant in Kolhapur district of western Maharashtra on Monday morning, but there was no report of any casualty, fire brigade officials said.

The blaze erupted in the unit located in a textile industrial estate on the outskirts of Ichalkaranji city in Kolhapur district, about 250 km from Pune .

"Four fire tankers were rushed to the spot by 7.30 am and the blaze was doused by 11 am," an official from Ichalkaranji fire station said.

The cause of the fire was yet to be ascertained, he added.

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A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that Shiv Sena has wasted 25 years with BJP, the NCP, which is an alliance partner in the state, has welcomed him to the national secular front and said he would be helpful in fighting the BJP.

"If Maharashtra CM believes 'Hindutva' as a way of life where there is no religious discrimination and does not agree with what Dharam sansad proclaims, he would be welcome in secular confederation to fight BJP at national level," NCP leader Majeed Memon said.

The MVA, which runs the government in Maharashtra has been critical to the BJP, and party leader Nawab Malik too echoed the sentiment and alleged that the BJP wants to finish parties which allies with it. 'It's good to have pride in their own religion but should not have hatred towards others," he said.

Also Read | Shiv Sena wasted 25 years in alliance with BJP: Uddhav Thackeray

The MVA has Shiv Sena, Congress and the NCP in the government but the alliance could not be repeated in Goa despite efforts from Sena and NCP as Congress did not agree with the alliance call. However, NCP's acknowledgement of Shiv Sena outside Maharashtra could be a bigger political move to hit BJP on hindutva. But the Congress will have to rethink its strategy as it may be difficult for the grand old party to clarify Shiv Sena's past work and ideology.

On the occasion of the birth anniversary of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said he would step out and go across the state and showcase the power of his party. He said that Sena nurtured the BJP for 25 years but in turn the saffron party it tried to finish it.

He also said that the Shiv Sena has not left Hindutva and that the BJP's idea of Hindutva is hollow. He also said that BJP was opposed to the emergency but is now creating a very similar situation.

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The ongoing exclusion of the eight Muslim girls in Udupi from their classroom for wearing hijab reminds me of my research eight years back. In January of 2013, while doing fieldwork in Assam's Nagaon district, I met a school teacher at a government school with a significant number of Muslim students. During lunchtime, I watched the school's courtyard fill up with vibrant young women wrapped in colourful cardigans and shawls queuing up to buy chanachur on the gate of their school.

Talking to me over sips of hot sugary tea, the school teacher told me: "I have found Miyah (Muslims of Bengal origin) girls to be somewhat different from the rest of the girls, I mean from 'our' Assamese girls." According to her, the most visible difference is that they cover their head. "This can be seen as a kind of difference. It appears as if they have to show their religious identity publicly also. Hindu girls, too, are religious, but they do not publicly show it," she said.

The teacher added that covering the head also violated the school uniform. "Attire like that is not a part of 'our' culture. Personally, I don't have a problem with what the girls wear or not, but other students, parents, and teachers may take offence to that," she maintained.

Various versions of this basic 'us' (Assamese and Hindu) vs 'them' (Bengali and Muslim) imagery came up throughout my fieldwork in the schools. But all those versions shared this common critical gaze towards veiling as a Muslim cultural practice. One of the teachers in another government school amusingly reported how some of the Muslim girls in his ninth-grade distracted their classmates when they put their dupattas (scarves) on their heads on hearing the afternoon azaan (call for prayers) from the nearby mosques.

In all the cases where Muslim girls' clothing practices were problematised, teachers failed to offer an educational or academic explanation for their problem. Instead, there was just one key concern the public display of Muslimness/Muslim identity that was seen to be disruptive of the perceived secular public space of the school.

In other words, it challenges the banal Hindu majoritarian nationalism inscribed in India's schools through the imageries of Bharat Mata (Mother India) and the need to protect her from outsiders, including outsiders within such as Muslims. It must be noted that this deep-rooted Islamophobia towards Muslim women is not unique to schooling contexts or to India. Even in my diasporic friend circles, many 'liberal' Hindus in the UK casually refer to burqa-clad Muslim women as 'chhatri' (umbrella).

Viewed in this way, the ongoing exclusion of the eight Muslim girls in Udupi from their classroom on account of their hijab is about portraying Muslims as a community fracturing a universal identity - whether Kannadiga or Assamese. These girls have been denied entry into the classroom since the beginning of the year when face to face learning resumed for the first time this year. As reported in the media, the girls had been attending lectures online until that point.

It is interesting to note that preservation of school uniform masquerading as a 'uniform identity' is given greater priority over the girls' educational needs leading to the violation of their religious and educational rights. There are many inclusive uniform examples that the college authorities in Udupi could learn from to enable the girls to access their educational and religious rights. This includes hijabi female Muslim officers and turbans for Sikh officers in the UK, New Zeeland, etc.

However, the Udupi impasse is not merely about preserving a 'uniform' identity. It is also about preserving Hindu supremacist imagination held together by the figure of the 'Muslim woman' as a victim of her menfolk or a victim of her religion. This trope has been a staple of the Hindu-majoritarian imagination and its rationale for Muslim inferiority. Scholars of nationalism call this femonationalist rhetoric wherein a majority community frame women from a minority group as solely the victims of their community's internal patriarchal structures and in need of saving by the majority community.

This trope has also enabled saffron demographic assertions around Muslim women's mythical fertility, researched by Roger and Patricia Jaffrey in the early 2000s. However, this imagination does not know how to deal with Muslim girls in education or those fighting for an education. In the same way, it didn't know how to deal with the vocal, visible, articulate young Muslim women like Safoora Zargar protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019. If the trope of the victimised Muslim women does not hold, then the entire edifice of Hindu supremacy falls, which makes visible and vocal Muslim women and girls so dangerous. As we saw with the recent Bulli Bai controversy, Muslim identifying women with a semblance of public profile and a voice were targeted for intimidation by an online army of Hindutva's foot soldiers.

In short, the message to Muslim women is loud and clear - you are not included in educational spaces. Despite that, if you somehow become a visible, vocal person speaking truth to power, we will intimidate you using Bullibai and Sulli deals app.

(Dr. Saba Hussain is an Assistant Professor of Education Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK and author of "Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India: A Study of Social Justice, Identity and Agency in Assam")

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.
An ancient Jain pedestal inscription and three Nishadi (Jain memorial) inscriptions have been discovered at Kudrigi village in Honnavar taluk of the district.

While the pedestal inscription is found on the pedestal of an idol, a Nishadi inscription is installed in memory of devoted Jains who give up their lives following the Sallekhana practice, which involves not eating food and devoting oneself fully to worship.

Kudrigi is located about seven kilometres away from Gerusoppe. These inscriptions are believed to have been engraved during the 13th century. Gerusoppe, about 27 kilometres away from Honnavar town, was an ancient Jain heritage centre. Ruled by the Saluva kings, Gerusoppe was the capital city of the Nagire dynasty.

The inscriptions were discovered near ruins of a Didambar Jain temple in farmland during a field visit by Nitin HP (the founder and the executive director of jainheritagecentres.com), a Wipro staffer in Bengaluru.

The 2.5 feet tall Teerthankara idol is in paryankasana (in Sanskrit, Paryanka means couch or bed and Asana posture) posture and has a pedestal. The head, the Chamadharis flanking the Teerthankara and the Mukkode (three umbrellas, a sign of emperorship) above the Teerthankaras head are missing, Nitin said.

He added, Curly hair dropping from the head are seen on either side of the Teerthankaras shoulders. It indicates that it could be an idol of the Teerthankaras Adinath I, the first the Teerthankara of Jainism. The inscription states that the younger sister of the disciple of Samayacharana Guru belonging to Sri Mulasangha Deshiya got the inscription engraved and built the Narana Jina Chaityalaya.

The four inscriptions indicated that the Jainism flourished in the region in those days, he added.

Ravikumar, an epigraphist from Harihar, supported by Bhojaraj Jain from Siddapur, has analysed the content.

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Almost six months into his government coming to office, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday allocated districts among the Ministers of his Cabinet, of which they will be in-charge, while keeping the key Bengaluru urban district with himself.

Effecting a complete change to the previous BS Yediyurappa-led BJP government, the Chief Minister has not assigned any minister their home districts under which their Assembly constituency comes.

While at least two senior ministers- Revenue Minister R Ashoka and Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister JC Madhuswamy have not been assigned any districts; three Ministers- BC Patil, K Gopalaiah and Shankar B Patil Munenakoppa have been allocated two districts each.

Also Read: Karnataka Cabinet expansion: Bommai points to BJP high command

This is the first time after the Bommai government coming to power, each district has got an in-charge Minister as earlier Ministers were assigned districts only for Covid-19 management and for flag-hoisting at headquarters on Independence Day.

As indicated recently, the Chief Minister, who will complete six months in office on January 28, will continue to remain Minister in-charge for Bengaluru development.

This even as senior Minister V Somanna, currently holding the Housing portfolio, had openly expressed his desire to be made in-charge of Bengaluru amid reports that some city legislators and Ministers were expressing their reservation internally about a move to give the post to Revenue Minister R Ashoka, considered close to Bommai.

With the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike elections due to take place, it was earlier widely expected that the responsibility of Bengaluru development would be allocated to a senior Minister from the city, but the Chief Minister has retained it like his predecessor BS Yediyurappa did, keeping in view the number of aspirants for it.

Interestingly, B Sriramulu who represents Molakalmooru Assembly segment in Chitradurga has got his home district of Ballari; while CN Ashwath Narayana continues as Ramanagra district in-charge, where he seems to be in a turf war with Congress' "D K brothers" (KPCC chief D K Shivakumar and Bangalore Rural MP D K Suresh), Ministers and districts allocated to them are- Govind Karjol (Belagavi), KS Eshwarappa (Chikkamagaluru), V Somanna (Chamarajnagara), Umesh Katti (Vijayapura), S Angara (Udupi), Araga Jnanendra (Tumakuru), C C Patil (Bagalkote), Anand Singh (Koppal), Kota Shrinivas Poojari (Uttara Kannada), Prabhu Chauhan (Yadgir), Murugesh Nirani (Kalaburagi).

Also, Shivaram Hebbar (Haveri), S T Somashekar (Mysuru), B C Patil (Chitradurga and Gadag), B A Basavaraj (Davangere), K Sudhakar (Bengaluru Rural), K Gopalaiah (Hassan and Mandya), Shashikala Jolle (Vijayanagara), MTB Nagaraj (Chikkaballapura), K C Narayana Gowda (Shivamogga), B C Nagesh (Kodagu), Sunil Kumar (Dakshina Kannada), Halappa Achar (Dharwad), Shankar B Patil Munenakoppa (Raichur and Bidar), and Munirathna (Kolar).

According to party sources, despite demand from several Ministers to be made in-charge of their home districts, the Chief Minister has decided against it while making appointments. Interestingly, the appointment of district in-charge Ministers has come at a time when Bommai is under pressure from party legislators to expand or rejig his Cabinet.

However, there are talks in party circles that the expansion or reshuffle of the Cabinet is likely, only after the Assembly elections in five States. There are currently 30 Ministers in the State Cabinet, including the Chief Minister, against the sanctioned strength of 34.

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There has been widespread condemnation over flags of the British Paratrooper Regiment being hoisted in parts of Derry.

Flags of the Regiment were seen flying from lampposts in the Drumahoe and Newbuildings areas of the city.

The Paratrooper Regiment was responsible for the killing of 14 civilians on January 30, 1972  an event that is known the world over as Bloody Sunday.

These flags, put up in areas that have a predominantly Loyalist/Unionist majority, have been viewed as a deliberate move to antagonise the Catholics and Nationalists in Derry who this week are marking Bloody Sunday's 50th anniversary.

Foyle MP and SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood, stated that the flags were a blatant attempt to upset people in the city and called on unionist politicians to show leadership to have the flags removed.

He said: The erection of more parachute regiment flags in parts of Derry ahead of this weeks 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday has caused real hurt and anger throughout our city.

Foyle MLA and SDLP leader, Colum Eastwood

This is a time where we should be supporting the Bloody Sunday families and reflecting on the terrible events of 50 years ago, not being distracted by the actions of a tiny minority who are determined to try and raise tensions in our city.

The people who erected these flags speak for and represent nobody. Thankfully Derry is a city where people live side by side in peace and harmony and any right-thinking person will be appalled at the emergence of more of these flags in the lead up to such an important event in our shared history.

These flags must be removed at once, they are an insult to the survivors of Bloody Sunday and the victims families.

I would urge unionist politicians and community leaders in the areas where these flags have been erected to intervene and facilitate their removal.

The anniversary of Bloody Sunday should be a moment for people in Derry and across this island to come together and reflect on the loss of 14 innocent lives.

This attempt at cheap point scoring is shameful and should be condemned by everyone.

Mr Eastwood's sentiments were echoed by Sinn Fein Foyle MLA, Ciara Ferguson, who said the erection of British army Parachute regiment flags in areas of the city was a deliberate attempt to cause hurt to the Bloody Sunday families ahead of the 50th anniversary.

She said: There is huge upset in the city after British army Parachute regiment flags were erected in Newbuildings and Drumahoe over recent days.

Given this British regiment's brutal history in Derry, this is a deliberate attempt to stir up tensions and hurt families ahead of the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the murder of 14 civilians by the British Army in Derry.

I have stood with those families in recent days, they are steadfast, courageous and determined in their campaign for truth and justice for their loved ones.

I am calling on all political parties and community leaders to condemn the erecting of these flags and to use their influence to have them removed immediately.

Alliance Party Councillor, Rachel Ferguson  who represents the Faughan ward  also called for the flags to be removed.

She said: These flags are hurtful to the Bloody Sunday families, as well as many others in the city, and this act is purely designed to intimidate and create a chill factor for those who live, work or visit here.

I dont doubt for one second the vast majority of people who live in these areas didnt back the erection of these flags and political representatives from all quarters should condemn this. The lengths to which a small minority of people will go to raise tensions is deeply disappointing.

I call on those who erected these flags to remove them immediately. All public space is shared space. But this is not culture or tradition, its a deliberate attempt to cause division and hurt in a city which is shared, welcoming and open to all, and its wrong.

Cllr Shaun Harkin of People Before Profit also voiced his condemnation. He said: The flying of parachute regiment flags on the eve of the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday can only be described as hateful and disgraceful.

We share the anger and disgust of families, of victims and everyone who is outraged and sickened.

The flags are there only to upset, provoke and intimidate. They should come down immediately. Those putting up the flags represent a minority intent on encouraging the dead-end of communal division and sectarian violence. The vast majority of people from all communities and backgrounds want no part in this.

The parachute regiment killed innocent people in Ballymurphy, in Derry and on the Shankill Road. The British state sent a vicious element of its military machine into Derry on January 30, 1972 to kill civil rights marchers.

The British state unleashes its military machine to protect the interests of a ruling elite who are not interested one bit about the concerns of any working class communities here. The savage murders of innocent people carried out by the parachute regiment on the Shankill Road is evidence enough of this.

It has only been the relentless campaigning of families and supporters that has exposed the truth about Bloody Sunday and forced the British government to acknowledge the innocence of those it gunned down and then lied about.

The struggle for justice and accountability continues. We commemorate Bloody Sunday to remember the victims, to stand in solidarity with the families, to demand those responsible, especially top government officials and military brass, are held accountable and to demand no more Bloody Sunday's anywhere.

The Mayor of Derry City & Strabane Council, Graham Warke, said that he would speak to the relevant community organisations for a resolution.

A spokesperson for the Mayor's Office said: Mayor Alderman Graham Warke said he is aware of the ongoing issue with flags and emblems at a number of locations across the city and district and has been in conversation with a number of key partners in relation to this in an effort to address the concerns of all communities on this sensitive issue.

Mayor Warke said he would continue over the coming days to speak with political representatives and community organisations to de-escalate tensions and work collectively in an attempt to seek a resolution to the issue.

Ulster Unionist leader, Doug Beattie  himself a former British Army Captain  posted on the social media site, Twitter, his revulsion at the flags being put up.

He tweeted: I have said this many times. The flying of the parachute regiment flag on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday it wrong. It does nothing but hurt the victims who still grieve to this day and shows a total lack of respect and compassion. Please take them down.

The official Twitter account of the Parachute Regiment replied directly to Mr Beattie by stating their own opposition to the flags being flown.

They tweeted: 100 per cent agreed. Totally unacceptable and disrespectful behaviour.

DUP Foyle MLA, Gary Middleton, also made clear on his own Twitter page that the flags should be removed.

He tweeted: I share the position of the @TheParachuteReg  these actions are unacceptable and disrespectful. It is unnecessary and designed to be offensive. I am proud of our Armed Forces however the erection of these flags are not designed to mark any of those things. They should be removed.

Meanwhile the PSNI have said they would encourage 'community resolution' on the matter with efforts being focused on inclusivity and respect.

Area Commander Chief Superintendent Ryan Henderson said: We have received reports regarding the erection of Parachute Regiment flags in the Drumahoe and Newbuildings areas and we fully understand the difficulties the flying of these flags can cause.

The flying of any flag or banner should be carried out with the consent of the person or organisation who owns the street furniture or property on which the item is flown or displayed. We will act to support the removal of flags or banners by those who have responsibility for a structure on which the item is displayed.

The most effective solution to this issue is community resolution and we would strongly encourage any and all efforts that focus on inclusivity and respect.
A new video documents the experiences of Derry women living with interfaces and the impact it has had on their lives.

The Bogside and Brandywell Initiative (BBI), a Peace Barriers Programme funded by the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), launched the video, entitled Women, Words and Walls, at an event in the Gasyard Centre with participants, partners and statutory agencies coming together to hear first-hand experi- ences from across the community.

The video, which was produced by Jason Dunne, includes contributions from women across the Bogside, Brandywell, Creggan, Fountain and Bishop Street areas talking about their experiences growing up beside interfaces and how it shaped their outlook and perceptions.

As the only community-led initiative currently focused on inter-community relationship building and tackling barriers to peace within the Fountain/Bishop Street area, the video is a culmination of work carried out by Bogside and Brandywell Initiative (BBI) which included enabling stronger relationships with residents from both communities.

Donna McCloskey, manager at Bogside and Brandywell Initiative (BBI), said many of the women who contributed to the video had never done anything like it before.

The Bishop Street-Fountain Street interface.

She added: It was completely out of their comfort zone to not only talk about their experience living close to interfaces but to talk about it in such an open and public way.

This shows how far they have come as a group; their confidence has grown, and they are willing to discuss their experiences to allow for a deeper understanding of the impact it has had and continues to have. It has also provided them with a platform to highlight what the community needs in way of support for any future barrier removals whilst gaining an understanding of the impact the barriers have had on communities close to them.
There is not too much information regarding the Redmi Note 11S but we should find out more, soon enough.

It looks like the Redmi Note 11S is coming soon. In a Twitter post, the company announced the launch of the device, scheduled to take place on February 9. The tweet did not provide any additional information regarding the device and its specifications. Although, we do expect the phone to come with an AMOLED display as well as a quad rear camera setup. There is no word on whether the Redmi Note 11S will come with 5G support either. We should find out more in the coming week as the company has also sent out media invites.

The Redmi Note 11S is expected to come with a 108-megapixel Samsung ISOCELL HM2 primary sensor. It could also come with an 8MP Sony IMX355 sensor along with a 2MP macro camera and a 2MP depth sensor. It seems that the lack of 5G branding would suggest that the drive will come with 4G connectivity. This could be an issue in the future as the country moves towards 5G connectivity.

In fact, just a month or so ago, the Redmi Note 11T 5G launched in India. So, maybe Redmi could price the phone under the sub 15k bracket which eventually led to the excursion of 5G. Well, well find out in a couple of days as the phone is set to hit the market on February 9.
Subscriber content preview

Photo by Bush, Roed & Hitchings [enlarge] The California REIT now owns over two dozen buildings in the area.





Continuing its major push into the Bothell, Alexandria Real Estate Equities last week paid $72.5 million for the offices at 22213-22309 30th Drive S.E. Alexandria used an LLC in the deal, which Snohomish County recorded on Thursday.





. . .
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SHORELINE  An apartment building at 1530 N.E. 146th St. recently sold for $6.1 million, according to King County records.

The buyer was CP Nelson Properties LLC, associated with Banchero Disability Partners, which provides services including supportive, affordable housing for adults with developmental disabilities.





. . .




South Korea's minister in charge of inter-Korean relations will brief foreign ambassadors and international organizations on the government's policy direction on North Korea later this week, a ministry official said Monday.







Unification Minister Lee In-young plans to share his assessment of the recent security situation on the peninsula during the Tuesday session to be attended by ambassadors and charge d'affaires of 31 countries and Seoul office representatives of eight international organizations, including the World Food Programme, ministry spokesperson Lee Jong-joo told reporters.







U.S. and European Union officials are scheduled to participate in it. But China, Russia and Japan have notified the ministry they are not sending representatives to the session due to "other schedules," according to a source.







"The Ministry of Unification has been working closely with related ministries and countries concerned for the peaceful and stable management of the situation on the Korean Peninsula," the spokesperson said. "We will continue to make consistent efforts, going forward as well, to move forward peace on the Korean Peninsula and the development of inter-Korean relations in this direction." (Yonhap)


Duncan, OK (73533)

Today

Variable clouds with strong thunderstorms. Damaging winds, large hail and possibly a tornado with some storms. High 71F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 62F. Winds SE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall near an inch.
Claremont, NH (03743)

Today

Periods of rain. High 51F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..

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Rain showers this evening with mostly cloudy conditions overnight. Low 43F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
Shanghai home to 831 regional multinational headquarters

Xinhua) 13:51, January 24, 2022

People visit the Bund in east China's Shanghai, Oct. 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Ying)

SHANGHAI, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai recorded 60 new regional headquarters of multinationals in 2021, bringing the total number of such regional headquarters to 831, said Gong Zheng, the mayor of Shanghai, at a press conference Sunday.

The number of foreign-invested research centers in Shanghai reached 506, with a rise of 25 in 2021. "The city remains a hot destination for foreign investment to expand their industrial chains and beef up innovation," said Gong.

Statistics showed the actual use of foreign capital in Shanghai reached 22.55 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 11.5 percent year on year, a record high despite COVID-19.

(Web editor: Peng Yukai, Liang Jun)
Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum asks the public to stay home during the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays, during a press conference at Government Complex in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap





By Ko Dong-hwan, Nam Hyun-woo







The Korean government will soon shift to a new response system to deal with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant.







President Moon Jae-in called for swift action Monday to fend off the highly-transmissible variant, according to health authorities, Monday. The President also asked the public to refrain from visiting their families and relatives during the Lunar New Year holidays, warning that Omicron has become the dominant COVID-19 strain in the country as of last week.







Senior Presidential Secretary for Public Communication Park Soo-hyun quoted Moon as saying that the Omicron variant became the dominant strain and an explosive increase in confirmed cases could be possible.







"President Moon demanded the government swiftly take responsive measures," Park said. "Also, he asked the public to join the government's efforts by getting vaccinated, wearing face masks and refraining from having gatherings during the upcoming Lunar New Year holidays," Park added.







This year's Lunar New Year holidays begins on Jan. 31 and lasts until Feb. 2.







Moon made the remarks as the country saw a surge in Omicron variant infections. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said Monday the Omicron variant accounted for 50.3 percent of all coronavirus infections detected in Korea as of last week. This is the first time that the variant accounted for more than 50 percent of COVID-19 infections in the country.







Korea saw 4,830 more Omicron cases over the past week, putting the total at 9,860, the KDCA said.







Following the soaring Omicron caseloads, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum urged the public to stay home during the holidays, citing the risks of an explosive increase in the number of confirmed cases after family gathering and travels during the holidays.







"While spending holidays in the past two years with the coronavirus, we have experienced how nationwide travel and gatherings can aggravate the COVID-19 situation," Kim said. "With sincere apologies, the government again asks the public to refrain from visiting their families who live in other parts of the country during the holidays."







He said the number of confirmed cases exploded in other countries after the rate of Omicron variant infections surpassed 60 percent, and family gathering and travels during the holidays will only worsen the COVID-19 situation in Korea.







"We remember the number of cases skyrocketed by 38 percent after spending the Chuseok holidays last autumn," Kim said. "Even though the Omicron variant has lower health risks, an exponential increase in the number of cases will overload the medical workforce," he added.







Kim asked people who have to travel during the holidays to receive their booster shots and to get tested before and after their trips.







The Minister of the Interior and Safety Jeon Hae-cheol speaks during a central COVID-19 control meeting at Government Complex Seoul, Jan. 24. Newsis





According to Minister of Interior and Safety Jeon Hae-cheol, the average daily number of confirmed COVID-19 patients hit 5,962 last week, which jumped 50 percent from the previous week, and it was due largely to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant which infected people mostly in Gyeonggi and Jeolla provinces.







Following the President and Prime Minister's remarks, the KDCA said it will speed up implementing a new medical response system at general medical institutions nationwide to improve the way it deals with the spread of the virus. The number of medical institutions that are affected by the new response system stands at 369 as of Sunday, but will be expanded to 400 by the end of this month, according to Jeon.







To streamline the testing and subsequent treatment processes, the new system will enable people to get tested for the virus and receive treatments at the same medical institution. Those quarantined at home can also receive remote care from a local medical institution under the new system.







Omicron seen through an electronic microscope / Homepage of Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases





The new system focuses on early virus detection and treatment for high-risk groups, including elderly people and those with underlying medical conditions. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests will be carried out on high-risk groups, while those in low-risk groups will undergo rapid antigen tests at testing stations. The self-quarantine period for patients will also be shortened to seven days from the current 10.







The new system will be adopted first in parts Jeolla and Gyeonggi Provinces, where the Omicron variant has shown the highest infection rates. Health authorities said they will conduct antigen tests at early COVID-19 testing sites for residents in Gwangju and rest of the South Jeolla region and the cities of Pyeongtaek and Anseong in Gyeonggi Province where Omicron's detection rates were higher than other regions of the country.







"We have confirmed that getting a booster vaccine jab increases by 29 times the amount of antibodies that can kill the Omicron strain," Jeon said, advising people to get booster shots as soon as possible.







As of Monday, 43.8 million people, or 85.4 percent of the country's 52 million population, had been fully vaccinated, and 25.24 million, or 49.2 percent, had received booster shots, according to health authorities.







Korea's daily coronavirus cases stayed above 7,000 for the third-straight day Monday. The country added 7,513 new COVID-19 infections, Monday, including 7,159 local infections, raising the total caseload to 741,413. Monday's tally is down from 7,630 reported the previous day, which was the second-largest number since the pandemic began two year ago. The record high is 7,848 infections reported on Dec. 15.







The country reported 25 more COVID-19 deaths, putting the cumulative death toll at 6,565. The fatality rate stood at 0.89 percent. The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients stood at 418, down by 13 from Sunday.


Mexican Ambassador Bruno Figueroa speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the Embassy of Mexico in central Seoul, Jan. 5. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



Mexican music concert, archaeological exhibition set to be held



By Kwon Mee-yoo



Korea and Mexico will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties on Jan. 26. Mexico is considered Korea's gateway to Latin America, being Korea's largest trading partner in Latin America.



Mexico Ambassador to the Republic of Korea Bruno Figueroa described the relations between the two countries as "exceptional."



"I do not exaggerate, firstly, because of the extraordinary growth of our economic relationship. Today, Korea is Mexico's fourth-largest trade partner, only after the U.S., China and Germany. Korea also is the seventh-largest investor in Mexico," Figueroa said during an interview with The Korea Times, Jan. 5.



"On the other side, it's exceptional because of the speed in which we have strengthened our relationship in only 30 years. Thirty years ago, our contacts were very, very low and our trade and investments were also very, very low. So this is an exceptional success story of a bilateral relationship (built) so strong and so fast."



The ambassador emphasized many similarities between Mexico and Korea, which propelled the two countries quickly to become key partners.



"(Mexico and Korea have) many similarities even though we are so far away. Currently, both countries are middle powers and, in the past, we have suffered from our (geographical) closeness to great powers. In a way, I would say that we are 'dolphins among whales'  no longer 'shrimp,'" he said.



"I would say that Koreans are the 'Latinos of East Asia.' We are passionate, we love our families, we care about each other. There are many cultural characteristics that resonate very easily with the other country. Even our food and the way we eat our food is very similar."





The Angel of Independence, which commemorates Mexico's independence from Spain, is located in downtown Mexico City. Courtesy of the Embassy of Mexico in Korea



Biggest partner in Latin America



Mexico is an important trading partner for Korea and the ambassador sees more room to grow for bilateral and multilateral trade.



"Mexico and Korea are part of the global value chains and both are some of the largest manufacturers in the world. Since Mexico is a hub for especially large Korean global chain manufacturers, there is a very high volume of trade between both countries. So Korea exports not only final products such as cell phones, but also electronic components and semiconductors that are used for production in Mexico," Figueroa explained.



"At the same time, there has been an evolution in Mexico's exports to Korea, where oil and mineral products are a lower percentage of our exports to Korea, and we see more electronics, optical components and auto parts produced in Mexico that are exported to Korea."



Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, some countries have adopted nationalistic trade policies. And the tensions between the U.S. and China have been mounting. Many global companies are turning to produce in closer, safer countries to prevent possible disruptions in production. For Korean companies targeting the North American market, Mexico has a great advantage for nearshoring, as it is part of the United StatesMexicoCanada Agreement (USMCA).



"Mexico is benefiting from that trend and we will see in the coming years more Korean  as well as from other countries  investments in our country. Mexico is already a large market, but it is part of the North American market, which is the largest market in the world," the ambassador said.



"We want to focus more on new industries such as new mobility: electric vehicles, hydrogen powered vehicles and all the manufacturer chains around those new vehicles, in particular, electric batteries. We produce lithium in Mexico so we are pretty much interested in building the entire production chain from lithium to batteries."



Another area of great potential for cooperation is Mexico's export of agricultural and food products, such as beef and pork as well as coffee, bananas, avocados and limes. The increasing popularity of Mexican food in Korea also opens up more possibilities for Mexican produce to hit the Korean market.



"You find tacos, you find enchiladas, you find burritos, but it's difficult to find more dishes. Mexico is very rich in many senses, and when tourists arrive in Mexico, they are immediately amazed to see the huge, wide variety of the Mexican cuisine," he said.



"Definitely there is still too much Korean Tex Mex in Korea. So I am supporting having traditional ingredients and dishes that are more Mexican, and it's happening little by little."



Figueroa also hopes to resume free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations between the two countries.



"We know that there is a huge potential in increasing our trade if we have a free trade agreement. So we look forward to initiating negotiations soon  COVID has stopped what was started a few years ago. So we really look forward to keeping our conversations going with that goal," he said.





The Mexican Embassy in Korea hosts a gala concert commemorating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries at the Seoul Arts Center on Feb. 6. Courtesy of the Embassy of Mexico in Korea.
Just after his first week of official practice, new transfer Jesse Miritello persuaded sever
WAY back when Mark Kelly experienced mental health issues, he found opening up to others, sharing and talking, was part of the solution.

Now Mark, who is a youth worker originally from Derry, living in Wilton, has started a community interest project, Dudes and Dogs, a weekly walking group where a group of men walk and talk together and form a connection.

But you dont have to have a dog to take part.

It is optional! says Mark, who is 40 this year.

Mark Kelly who suffered with poor mental healthy previously set up the Dudes and Dogs branch in Cork, to support others. Picture: Larry Cummins

I dont have a dog but I walk my friends boxer/ red setter. We both enjoy the walk and I enjoy chatting with other men about lots of things. Making new friends is great too, says Mark.

Dudes and Dogs is a mens well-being group set up with one single premise; to show men everywhere that is not just OK to talk, it is vitally important.

We do this by getting men into the fresh air with other dog dudes to walk and talk.

To know you are not alone is a powerful ally in the battle against mental health.

I lived with depression most of my life, says Mark.

My parents split up when I was very young and I lived with my grandparents who were very supportive and encouraging. When I was school age I had a feeling of sadness and melancholy.

Starting secondary school, I put on a lot of weight and I was bullied throughout my school years. When it was time to go to college, I spent that time running away to the UK. I had a lot of problems.

Mark took a road to nowhere.

I tried to deal with my problems by drinking and using recreational drugs, he says.

I lived in Kent, where I went to study. I had the idea of becoming a film-maker. They were strange days, I came out of my shell a bit and made friends but there were still a lot of things I couldnt get a handle on and I experienced emotional difficulties.

Mark opted out.

Not finishing my education hung over me for a long time.

I had feelings of being an imposter, of worthlessness and self-doubt.

Marks mental health came to a head.

In 2009, I had a complete mental breakdown. I was working for a language school in Derry. All of a sudden I had doubt and insecurity. I was second-guessing myself, looking over my shoulder. I felt like I was bluffing everyone and that Id get found out. It came to a head and I couldnt cope anymore.

Mark Kelly with dog George walking down the Marina. Pictures: Larry Cummins

He sought medical advice.

I went to the doctor and I was diagnosed with stress and anxiety, says Mark.

I was prescribed medication, but it didnt really work for me. It was five or six years later that I started to get well.

He started the conversation. I reached out to Aware in Derry, says Mark.

He didnt go the distance.

I went to one meeting and I didnt go back until 2014. I found then that the weekly support group helped me and talking helped me.

But then he lost a family member to suicide in early 2015, which set him back.

It was devastating, he recalls.

Mark was forced to look at his own situation and his own mental health.

Something snapped into focus for me and I took a long look at myself and I acknowledged that I was living with mental health issues, says Mark.

I knew that Id have to move forward and get help. I had to properly engage and do something to recover. I was only going through the motions before. I never acknowledged the serious issue.

Mark got help when he started talking to local voluntary organisations.

And I switched doctors, he says.

I took a pro-active role in my own well-being. Through the right medications and a doctor who listened to me and understood me, I made progress.

He continued the conversation.

I started going to Aware support meetings regularly. It was there I got the idea to go back to education. I decided to become involved in a helping profession.

He came to Leeside to study.

I decided to go back to university, says Mark.

I came to Cork, to UCC. I had a cousin living in Cork that I was close to. When I visited him I fell in love with the place. My degree is in community work. My placement was in Ballincollig at the Family Resource Centre.

Marks new beginnings heralded another new beginning.

A community referral worker heard about Dudes and Dogs in the UK, started up by Rob Osmond, says Mark.

Its his baby. After the first lockdown, I thought it was a good idea to start our own group of Dudes and Dogs in Cork. Six guys came along, four had dogs, two didnt have dogs. Dogs can be an engagement tool but its not necessary to bring a dog on the walk.

The men got talking and became comfortable in each others company.

Making a connection through an activity is good therapy. The original group started in Ballincollig are not official, so I reached out to Rob in the UK to establish Dudes and Dogs officially in Ireland. The plan next year is to establish the brand in Ireland.

Mark said the group is open to anyone, even if you don't have a dog. Picture: Larry Cummins

Dudes and Dogs Cork meet at the Atlantic Pond on Sundays at 11am and walk for an hour, taking different routes each week.

We do talk, says Mark.

It is a pretty open forum and friendships are forged as result. We often finish a walk with a coffee at the Marina Market. When restrictions are lifted, well probably go out socially for a meal or a drink.

Marks mental health is in a good place now.

My mental health is a lot better now. I have a really strong support network. My under-grad thesis was on the group and I hope to do my Masters in Psychology.

Getting this organisation set up gave me confidence and stability. I feel I can look forward to a more positive future.

Dudes and Dogs helped me settle in and establish a good group of friends. Im hoping that the group will help even one other guy and that will be of great value, and it is great that it is something I am involved in.

He has a message for guys.

It is good therapy to talk. That is my message to them, says Mark.

The aim is to lift the stigma around mental health and to challenge the traditional use of masculinity.

The goal is to reduce male suicide and recognise they are an at-risk group.

If you dont want to talk, just come and walk and get out into the fresh air.

Theyll meet George too.

My friends dog is great, and so friendly!

Mark wants to spread the word about Dudes and Dogs and he wants to get men walking and talking.

It is so simple, says Mark.

He is enthusiastic about walking and talking.

If no-one shows up, Im still going! says Mark.

I want to encourage men to get out and talk and walk.

Anyone can come along and come and go as they please. Men from all walks of life are welcome. And its free.

There is one condition.

You have to be a guy! says Mark, laughing.

He hopes Dudes and Dogs will take off country-wide. Were hoping to get Dudes and Dogs established and were going after funding to roll it out as a project in the UK and Ireland and get walks set up all over the country. Well never charge money.

There is no pressure, no agenda, no stigma, no expectations.

There is food for thought though.

Being involved in Dudes and Dogs has made me want to get a dog again! says Mark.

We have started small, but I have big ambitions for the group. It is such a simple idea to get guys talking and making friends; that is a bonus.

Mark says that sharing his own story is important to him.

I am very active in mental health advocacy, he say.

For more see www.dudesndogs.co.uk

Or find them at:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dudesndogs

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dudes_anddogs/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/DudesnDogs

MORE ABOUT THE INITIATIVE

Dudes and Dogs a (CIC), is an initiative that supports mens mental health. It began in the Bristol area and due to success, has opened up across the UK and now internationally.

The vision is for men in every corner of the world to know its not just OK to talk; its vitally important.

Men in particular are not great at sharing their feelings, and this can lead to unresolved issues building. In the UK and Ireland, suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45.

The premise is a simple one; getting men out into the open air, accompanied by a dog or two, to walk and talk.

Trained Dog Dudes host walks, accompanied by a dog or two.

The Dog Dudes are also internationally accredited Mental Health First Aiders.

From January 30, walks will take place at 11am every Sunday at the Atlantic Pond, Cork city.

Anyone wanting to join must book a slot using the D&D website: https//dudesndogs.co.uk/pages/walks.

Walks are limited to a maximum of six guys to help manage walks in a Covid-safe way. You dont need to bring a dog but you are welcome to.

SUPPORT NUMBERS

Samaritans 116 123

Aware Helpline: 1890 303 302

GROW 1890 474 474

Pieta House 1800 247 247
The Cost and Benefits of Solar in Columbus For many people, the decision of which solar installer to choose depends on how much it'll cost. There are a few factors you should consider when determining costs and your potential savings, including: How much you spend on energy: The typical household in Columbus spends around $1,300 a year on electricity alone, so you could be looking at that much in savings.

The typical household in Columbus spends around $1,300 a year on electricity alone, so you could be looking at that much in savings. Incentives: Tax-paying citizens who purchase and install a solar energy system this year can save 26% of their installation costs by using the federal solar investment tax credit. You can also save about $16,000 on your utility bills over 20 years excluding incentives.

Tax-paying citizens who purchase and install a solar energy system this year can save 26% of their installation costs by using the federal solar investment tax credit. You can also save about $16,000 on your utility bills over 20 years excluding incentives. The amount of sunlight your roof gets: If your roof gets limited direct sunlight, your solar panel system won't be able to make as much energy, which will leave you with lower savings on power bills than a roof that gets a lot of sunlight.

If your roof gets limited direct sunlight, your solar panel system won't be able to make as much energy, which will leave you with lower savings on power bills than a roof that gets a lot of sunlight. Energy consumption: Installing a solar system may be a high-cost investment for families that don't use too much energy each month. There are lots of wonderful benefits of solar despite the upfront cost of installation. It can help the Earth and your wallet. Plus, it can raise the value of your home, giving you even more benefits if you decide to sell your home later.

Solar Savings Calculator for {{ solarcalc.name }} Adopting green energy can significantly impact both the environment and your bills. To see how much, try out the calculator below. You can also view our solar panel cost guide for Columbus, OH. Impact of switching to solar in {{ solarcalc.name }} {{ solarcalc.time_period|number:0 }} -year savings {{ solarcalc.total_savings()|currency }} Estimated cost {{ solarcalc.array_cost() | currency }} Estimated incentives {{ solarcalc.incentive_savings() | currency }} Payback period {{ solarcalc.payback_period()|number:1 }} years CO2 emissions prevented {{ solarcalc.CO2_total()|number:0 }} lbs Miles driven equivalent {{ solarcalc.CO2_total()/0.78|number:0 }} mi Why leave {{ solarcalc.total_savings()|currency }} on the table? Help the environment and your wallet by switching to solar. SAVE NOW *additional details below Click to customize your {{ solarcalc.name }} solar calculator Electricity rate: {{ solarcalc.elec_cost/10 }}  Shade: {{ solarcalc.shade }} % Time period: {{ solarcalc.time_period }} years System size: {{ solarcalc.system_size }} kW Additional Incentives: {{ solarcalc.additional_incentives|currency }} Switching to solar in {{ solarcalc.name }} can save you {{ solarcalc.total_savings() | currency }} over the course of {{ solarcalc.time_period|number:0 }} years. This means that with an average cost of {{ solarcalc.array_cost() | currency }}, it would take {{ solarcalc.payback_period()|number:1 }} years to recover the cost of of your solar array. In addition to the financial savings, hiring a solar company in {{ solarcalc.name }} will have a significant, and positive, impact on the environment. Over {{ solarcalc.time_period|number:0 }} years, a {{ solarcalc.system_size }} kW solar array would prevent {{ solarcalc.CO2_savings()|number:0 }} lbs of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. This is equivalent to driving {{ solarcalc.CO2_total()*0.78|number:0 }} miles in an average car.

Solar Incentives in Columbus In an effort to increase solar panel installation and usage, federal and local governments  and even some utility companies  offer incentives to help make switching to solar power more financially viable and accessible. On top of the federal tax credit incentive, there are also some state- and city-level benefits, which in most cases, can be claimed in addition to the federal incentive, so you can save even more. The table below tells you about the incentives you can find in Columbus.

Energy Conservation for Ohioans (ECO-Link) Program Name Energy Conservation for Ohioans (ECO-Link) Program Website Visit here More Info Click here ITC Name ITC Type Tax Incentive Incentive Amount 26% of installation cost Website Visit here Local Option - Special Energy Improvement Districts Name Local Option - Special Energy Improvement Districts Website Visit here More Info Click here Solar Renewable Energy Certificates Program (SRECs) Name Solar Renewable Energy Certificates Program (SRECs) Incentive Amount SREC prices vary based on market conditions Website Visit here More Info Click here

Environmental Impact of Switching to Solar in Columbus There are many reasons to switch to solar energy, like saving some money on electricity bills and helping to reduce your carbon footprint. Something many might be wondering about is how much can they really help preserve the environment by going solar anyway? The more power your house uses, the the more the environment will benefit when you switch to solar as you won't need to rely on traditional energy sources as much. In Columbus, the average resident can lower their carbon footprint by 90 pounds a year after going solar. As you can see, going solar has so many other benefits besides saving money. One of the major ones is that you can help save the planet too.

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EcoWatch's Columbus, OH Solar Company Rankings FAQs

What is the top solar panel installation company in Columbus? The top local solar company in Columbus is Solar Is Freedom, with a rating of 4.93 stars.

What is the negative environmental impact of solar panels? Manufacturing solar panels needs to use chemicals and produces toxic waste that can be dangerous for the environment, which is the main negative thing about solar panels.

How long does it take to see a return on your investment after installing solar panels? The average payback period for solar panel installation is about 11.0 years, but the exact period depends on the cost of electricity where you are, incentives and net metering programs.

How much solar panel capacity do I need for my house? Solar panel capacity is the amount of energy the panels can create under ideal conditions (a sunny day around noon). The average household needs between 20 and 35 panels to account for how much energy they need.

Our goal is to reach as many people as we can with sensible solutions like solar energy. Our team of full-time local researchers collects solar price and installation data for every city in America then compiles it to create these digestible city guides. If you want to read our solar experts opinion on the top solar companies featured here, follow this link.

Company research was conducted by Melissa Smith and Karsten Neumeister. Local data analysis was conducted by James Savino. See something we missed or could do better? Email the editor.
Botswana, home to one third of Africas elephants, announced Wednesday that it was lifting its ban on the hunting of the large mammals.

The Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism wishes to inform the public that following extensive consultations with all stakeholders, the Government of Botswana has taken a decision to lift the hunting suspension, the government announced in a press release shared on social media.

Botswana had banned elephant hunting in 2014 under the leadership of conservation-minded President Ian Khama, who opposed trophy hunting and also introduced a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers, The New York Times reported. But his successor, President Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi, convened a committee to reassess the ban after winning election in 2018.

The announcement prompted an outcry from conservationists and wildlife lovers around the world.

The whole world is turning away from hunting. It is increasingly seen as an archaic practice. This is very, very damaging to the image of Botswana as a global leader in elephant conservation, Kenyan-based expert and activist Dr. Paula Kahumbu said, as The Guardian reported.

Celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres and Kristin Davis also spoke out against lifting the ban, according to The New York Times.

President Masisi, for every person who wants to kill elephants, there are millions who want them protected. Were watching. #BeKindToElephants @OfficialMasisi https://t.co/iTSAYXvrfM  Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) May 22, 2019

The government said the decision was based on a series of consultations with stakeholders including conservationists, impacted communities, tourism businesses, non-governmental organizations and researchers. The process had revealed the following arguments in favor of lifting the ban, the government said:

There had been an increase in conflicts between humans and elephants. There had been an increase in the number of predators, who then killed livestock. The ban had harmed those who made a living from hunting before the ban was put in place. The Department of Wildlife and National Parks lacked the capacity to respond in a timely manner when animals did become dangerous.

Some have argued that hunting could also help conservation, the government said, because it would allow communities to benefit financially from the tourism it would attract.

Botswana-based wildlife veterinarian Erik Verreynne agreed with this assessment.

Rural communities endure the cost of human-wildlife conflict yet are largely excluded from the income generated by tourist industries, he said. Reinstating hunting would help these communities to see value from protecting the elephants.

But Kahumbu disagreed that allowing hunting would help with the problems faced by rural Botswanans. She said that trophy hunters were unlikely to travel to smaller villages, and that the threat of being hunted would actually make elephants more dangerous.

Hunting elephants in Botswana will not reduce human elephant conflict. First, no hunter wants to go after elephants in a village, they want only the big Tuskers. Hunting causes serious stress making elephants far more dangerous.  Dr. Paula Kahumbu (@paulakahumbu) May 23, 2019

Others saw the ban in more cynical terms, arguing it was an attempt by Masisi to appeal to voters ahead of an election later in the year.

The party is losing votes rapidly and wants to increase its votes in the rural areas by allowing the hunting of elephants, Last Elephant author Don Pinnock told The New York Times. He said the elephants were collateral damage.

The government did not release details of its plan but said that hunting would be introduced in an orderly and ethical manner.

But Kahumbu found fault with the premise.

Theres no such thing as Ethical hunting. Its an oxymoron, she tweeted.

Theres no such thing as Ethical hunting. Its an oxymoron #Botswana  Dr. Paula Kahumbu (@paulakahumbu) May 23, 2019

African elephants are considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Natures (IUCN) Red List. There were once as many as 20 million elephants in Africa before European colonization, scientists estimate. But their numbers had fallen to 1.3 million by 1979, CNN reported. There are now about 415,000 on the continent, and more than 135,000 of them live in Botswana, The Guardian reported. In the past decade, their numbers in Africa have fallen by around 111,000 due to poaching for ivory.

Correction: This post has been revised to clarify that celebrities including Ellen DeGeneres and Kristin Davis spoke out against lifting the ban.
Anyone who has ever spent a cozy afternoon in the presence of a beloved grandparent knows that the wisdom of age can have a calming influence. It turns out that this is true for elephants as well.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in December found that male elephants are more aggressive when there are fewer older elephants around, and this may have important conservation implications.

These findings add to an increasing concern regarding potential wider social disruptions to elephants that may occur if trophy hunting of older male elephants continues to be a permitted activity, study lead author Connie Allen of Exeters Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour told EcoWatch in an email.

Age-Old Wisdom

The research, led by the University of Exeter and the organization Elephants for Africa, focused on a group of 281 male African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) who live in an all-male area of Botswanas Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, the University of Exeter explained.

Males in many large mammal species spend a considerable portion of their lives in all-male groups segregated from females, the study authors explained. In long-lived species, these all-male groups may contain individuals of vastly different ages, providing the possibility that behaviours such as aggression vary with the age demographic of the social environment, as well as an individuals own age.

The scientists spent three years filming the behavior of male elephants along the Boteli River and divided them into four age groups:

Adolescents aged 10 to 15 Adolescents aged 16 to 20 Adults aged 21 to 25 Adults 26 or older

They conducted something known as focal sampling, Allen explained, which means they followed individual elephants and noted every instance of fearful or aggressive behavior, whether it was directed against elephants or non-elephants and the age makeup of the other elephants present during the aggression. The observations led to two major discoveries.

The first was that all adolescent elephants demonstrated less aggressive behaviors towards non-elephant targets when they were in the presence of adults. For adult elephants, however, the presence of other males did not influence their aggression.

This suggests that adolescents experience large reductions to their anxiety and perception of their current risk level when grouped with other males  and social buffering against risks such as predatory threats may be a key benefit afforded to younger males in associating with other males, Allen told EcoWatch.

Another possibility is that older adults are more experienced and therefore have a more accurate understanding of threats. Trophy hunting was not practiced in Botswana at the time of the study, and older adults who were more familiar with the area may have felt more secure in their safety.

Secondly, in what Allen said was the most important result, male elephants were more aggressive towards non-elephant targets like livestock, vehicles and other animals when there were fewer of the oldest elephants around.

It appears the presence of more knowledgeable, older elephants in groups may play a key role in keeping the younger, less experienced males calm and lowering their perception of their current threat level, which means theres less risk of aggression towards humans and other species, Allen said. Alternatively, older bulls may police other males aggression directed toward non-elephant targets.

This means that removing elephants 26 years and older from a male group could make the remaining elephants more dangerous to people.

A Violent Feedback Loop

Understanding aggression in elephants is important for both elephants themselves and the humans they live alongside. When the government of Botswana lifted an elephant hunting ban in 2019, it argued that one reason for the change was an uptick in human-elephant conflict. However, past research has indicated that hunting will only make such conflict more likely.

We already know from past work in other study areas that physiologically stressed elephants are more prone to aggressive encounters with people, and we know that elephants that experience psychological trauma at the hands of people (e.g. experience culling of other elephants) can have behavioural abnormalities for life  such as hyper aggression, Allen said.

She pointed to a 2007 study that documented altered behavior in African elephants whose lives had been disrupted by human activity.

The new findings lend support to the idea that hunting and poaching will only increase elephant aggression towards humans.

Old male bull elephants are often thought of as redundant and are targeted for trophy hunting, study co-author and University of Exeter professor Darren Croft said in a statement emailed to EcoWatch.

That means that the findings can help with conservation best practices.

These findings provide an important message for wildlife managers and suggest that the removal of old male elephants from populations could lead to an increase in human-wildlife conflict, Croft added.

Elephants on the Brink

The research comes as the population of African savanna elephants has declined by 60 percent in the last 50 years, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. They are considered endangered by the IUCN, and the main threats to their survival are poaching for ivory and habitat loss.

The research from Allen and her team underscores how understanding the social dynamics of elephants is important for finding ways to save them.

Animal behaviour research is crucial for guiding appropriate ways to interact with the environment and wild species, Allen told EcoWatch. Mis-management of wild populations can have severe knock-on effects and can exacerbate existing conflicts.

Allen said that there is relatively little research on the interactions between unrelated males in all-male, non-breeding groups of animals, and this gap is something she hopes to continue to fill with her research. One idea would be to replicate studies on how elephants perceive and respond to risks in family groups with all-male groups. Previous studies have played lion recordings for family elephant groups and observed how the animals close ranks around the matriarch. Would the younger male elephants bunch around their elders or follow them away from the threat?

In general, I would like to further pursue research on the importance of older males elephants in bull society, Allen said. My other research has looked at how older males lead younger males in the landscape in locating critical resources  and I would like to further study exactly how it is that social and ecological information is obtained by younger males undergoing independence.
The San Diego Zoo Safari Park announced a difficult loss last week.

A newborn Masai giraffe had to be euthanized just two days after his birth.

It is with heavy hearts that we report the passing of a 2-day-old male Masai giraffe calf born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park this week, the park wrote in a Facebook post.

It is with heavy hearts that we report the passing of a 2-day-old male Masai giraffe calf born at the San Diego Zoo Posted by San Diego Zoo Safari Park on Thursday, January 20, 2022

The calf, who was never named, was born to a mother giraffe named Zindzhi on January 17. Sadly, however, the newborn did not thrive. He had trouble standing and was unable to nurse. Wildlife health workers gave him 24-hour support at the Safari Parks Harter Veterinary Medical Center, but it was not enough.

Unfortunately, despite all efforts, his condition continued to worsen, and the team made the compassionate decision to euthanize the calf, the zoo said.

Giraffes as a whole are considered a Vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. However, there are several subspecies of giraffes that face a range of threats.

Of the nine giraffe subspecies, two are Critically Endangered, one is Endangered, two are Vulnerable, and one is Near Threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, the San Diego Zoo wrote on its website.

Massai giraffes are a giraffe subspecies native to Kenya that have oak-leaf-like patterns on their skin. They were first classified as endangered in 2019, and this is a concern because, at 35,000 adults, they are one of the largest giraffe subspecies in the wild. Their population is still decreasing, according to the IUCN.

The most important contemporary threats to the Masai Giraffe are illegal hunting and land use change, the IUCN wrote. Masai Giraffes are poached for meat and products such as hide, bones and tail hairs.

The giraffes are not even safe in protected areas. Poaching contributed to the decline in Massai giraffes in Serengeti National Park between the 1970s and 2000s and takes out an estimated two to 10 percent of the park population each year.

Back in San Diego, the park is taking steps to ensure the rest of its giraffe population is doing well after the tragedy.

Zindzhi and the other members of the giraffe herd are being monitored closely for any unusual behavior after the calfs passing, the park wrote on Facebook. Please take a moment to offer your condolences to all who are feeling this difficult loss. We thank you for your support.
Nara Kim, a campaign manager at Humane Society International, holds Russell at the cargo area of Incheon International Airport, Jan. 18. Russell was one of the 110 dogs that traveled to the United States and Canada between Jan. 14 and 18, in search of an adoptive family, after being rescued from local dog meat farms in 2021. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Lee Hyo-jin



INCHEON  Russell the dog was once destined to be food, as he was locked up in a dirty wire cage on a dog meat farm in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. But his fate changed after being rescued last October, and he was put on a flight bound for Toronto in search of a new family three months later.



Russell is among the 110 canines that were rescued from dog meat farms across the country last year by the Korean office of the Humane Society International (HSI), a U.S.-based animal rights group.



The rescued dogs flew to the United States and Canada for overseas adoption between Jan. 14 and 18.



Boarding the last flight scheduled for Jan. 18 were 18 dogs rescued together from a dog meat farm in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. They arrived in the quarantine area at Incheon International Airport in a truck.



Whining and trembling, with their ears flattened and tails tucked between their hind legs, the dogs went through quarantine, after which they were transferred to the cargo area.





Dogs rescued from a local dog meat farm go through quarantine at Incheon International Airport, Jan. 18, ahead of their flight bound for Toronto, Canada. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



Nara Kim, a campaign manager at the HSI, scribbled with a marker on the crates, "sweet," "lovely," "shy," "gentle," "scared" and "I might need a bit of time," describing each dog's personality, for her colleagues who would be greeting them in Toronto.



She then cleaned their crates one by one and packed them with food and water in preparation for the hours-long journey.



"The dogs departing today are all so sweet and none of them are aggressive. And thankfully, they are all in stable condition for the flight. After landing in Toronto, they will travel by bus to an HSI-affiliated shelter in Montreal," said Kim.



After bidding farewell to the local activists, the dogs began a long voyage for a new life, leaving Korea's dog meat industry behind them.





A local animal rights activist holds a dog at the cargo area of Incheon International Airport, while HSI employees and volunteers prepare the dogs for their flight to Toronto, Jan. 18. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



But they won't be available for adoption as soon as they arrive in Canada, said Kim, since the dogs will need some time to adapt to the new environment.



"They will be ready for adoption after receiving necessary veterinary care, rehabilitation and behavioral evaluation at the shelter. Depending on each dog's personality and health condition, the process might take several weeks to months," she explained. "But I'm sure that eventually, all of them will be able to find a permanent family."



Kim, who has been to over 20 dog meat farms in Korea, says the dogs come in all sizes and breeds.



"Unfortunately, big ones have near-zero chances of finding a new owner in Korea, as people here prefer smaller breeds. And sending them to overcrowded local shelters is not an option. So for them, we have been arranging overseas adoptions in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom."



Since 2015, the organization has sent about 2,500 dogs abroad, among which, 95 percent have found new families, she said.



Offering new careers for dog meat farm owners



As the dog meat industry is declining steadily in Korea, local dog meat farmers are increasingly seeking to leave the industry for a more profitable and sustainable future.



By supporting these farmers since 2015 through the "Models for change" campaign, the HSI Korea office has been able to shut down 17 dog meat farms, as well as Gupo Livestock Market in Busan, the city's largest dog meat market.



Through individual contracts with farm owners, in return for closing down the facilities and giving up the dogs for adoption, the NGO offers financial support to farm owners to help them transition into a new profession.





HSI employees and volunteers carry dogs out of a farm in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, Sept. 25, 2019. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



Kim said, "The farm owners themselves know very well that the dog meat industry is fading. They're pretty desperate for an exit strategy, but they just don't know how to start a new career at their ages."



About 17 farm owners who have participated in the campaign so far have left for other sectors such as delivery, truck driving, construction and vegetable farming. Kim added that the contract specifically bars them from reentering the animal industry.



The HSI views that such a campaign model, if it were expanded to the government-led level, could be a feasible solution to addressing the controversial issue of ending the practice of consuming dog meat in Korea.



Despite the continuous rescue efforts of animal rights organizations, an estimated 1 million to 2 million dogs are still kept on over 3,000 farms across the country, spending their entire life locked up in small, dirty cages without proper food or care, watching helplessly as other dogs die.



"As a nonprofit organization, we cannot offer sufficient financial support to every individual who chooses to give up their dog meat farm. So we plan to actively propose our program to be reflected in the government's plan for phasing out the dog meat industry, which must include providing necessary support to farm owners," said Kim.



Korea 'slowly' begins to discuss ban on dog meat consumption



Following a decades-long debate over a ban on dog meat consumption, discussions have gained momentum, after the launch of a joint taskforce set up by the government last month.



The taskforce, consisting of officials from related ministries  the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety  plans to collect data on current practices of dog meat consumption, involving research on dog meat farms, slaughterhouses, markets and restaurants.





A dog is in a cage while HSI prepares the dogs for a flight at Incheon International Airport, Jan. 18. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



"It is highly encouraging that the administration has launched a pan-government taskforce. We view this as a big step forward," Kim said. But at the same time, she pointed out that the authorities should come up with a detailed roadmap.



Kang Dong-yoon, an official at the agriculture ministry who heads the taskforce, said it aims to make meaningful progress within the first half of the year.



"We are currently conducting site inspections in cooperation with local governments. Officials are visiting dog meat farms, markets and eateries. We will also conduct a nationwide survey soon, in order to gather opinions from the public," he told The Korea Times.



He also added that a government-led committee consisting of experts and representatives from both the dog meat industry and animal rights groups are holding meetings on a regular basis.




Another subspecies of giraffe is now officially endangered, conservation scientists announced Thursday.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) concluded that Masai giraffes, which live primarily in Kenya and Tanzania, are endangered largely due to poaching and habitat loss.This was the first time the subspecies had been evaluated on its own, National Geographic reported.

This was devastating newsIt really sounds the alarm bell, Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) International Legal Director Tanya Sanerib told National Geographic. It really indicates that we need to be doing more for giraffes internationally and with whatever tools are available.

Giraffes as a whole are classified as vulnerable, one step further away from extinction. Of the nine subspecies, two are critically endangered. One other, the Reticulated, is also considered endangered, according to Smithsonian.com . The listing of the Masai is significant because, at an estimated population of 35,000, its one of the largest subspecies left.

BREAKING: Scientists have issued an alarming assessment of giraffes in Kenya and Tanzania, calling this key population endangered. It's time for the international community to control the troubling trade in giraffe parts. Read: https://t.co/2HCaINZdaw pic.twitter.com/gKQUWICgCP  Center for Bio Div (@CenterForBioDiv) July 11, 2019

CBD is one of four environmental groups that has sued the Trump administration to add giraffes as a whole to the U.S. endangered species list in order to better regulate trophy hunting and fund conservation efforts. U.S. officials said this spring that giraffes may qualify for protection.

Overall, the population of Masai giraffes has fallen 49 to 51 percent in 30 years, while the population of giraffes as a whole has fallen by as much as 40 percent in the same time, according to a CBD statement.

Masai giraffes have long had a robust wild population. An endangered assessment is an eye opener that signals the critical need for giraffe protections, Humane Society International Wildlife Programs and Operations Manager Adam Peyman said in the statement.

While it is illegal to hunt Masai giraffes in both Kenya and Tanzania, poaching has increased due to political instability and a growing demand for items like jewelry from giraffe-tail hair and bone carvings, according to National Geographic. Two to 10 percent of their population in Serengeti National Park in Tanzania is hunted illegally each year. As human population expands into giraffe habitat, the animals have increasingly been struck by vehicles.

Despite their growing vulnerability, giraffes have received less attention than other iconic African mammals. Still, there are now fewer giraffes than elephants remaining on the continent.

Theyre the forgotten megafauna, so to speak, Giraffe Conservation Foundation co-director and co-founder Julian Fennessy told National Geographic. Theyve sort of slipped away, sadly, while more attention has been given to elephant, rhino, lion, and other species.
Considering going solar with Vivint Solar? Many consider Vivint to be one of the industrys top solar companies due to its massive growth, but what do Vivint Solar reviews have to say about the companys customer service as it expands?

As it turns out, all that glitters is not gold. In this article, well walk through the pros and cons of Vivint and help you decide whether this is the best company for your solar installation.

Vivint Solar Fast Facts Year Started 2011 Service Areas 22 states, including AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, HI, IL, MD, MA, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VT, VA Service Types Solar panels, backup batteries, energy efficiency packages, electric vehicle chargers Types of Panels Sold Black-on-black monocrystalline LG solar panels Backup Battery Options Yes, LG Chem and Tesla Powerwall Certifications North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP) technicians Better Business Bureau (BBB) Rating B+ with no accreditation

When selecting a solar installer, you can save thousands of dollars by shopping around and comparing prices from multiple companies. To start getting free quotes from solar companies in your area  including Vivint  fill out the form below.

Get Free Quotes From EcoWatch Approved Solar Installers

Vivint Solar Overview

Vivint Solar is a full-service solar provider offering consultations, custom designs and residential solar installations. Founded in 2011, Vivints mission is to provide homeowners with simple and affordable clean energy. The company made an early splash in the industry with its modern approach to solar, bringing systems to a whopping 500,000 homes across the country in less than a decade. Its growth attracted the attention of Sunrun, which acquired Vivint in October of 2020.

Vivints swift success was mainly due to its commission-based direct-to-home sales network, which is able to recruit large numbers of salespeople that go door to door throughout Vivints service area of 22 states. But how did this method live up to the companys mission of simple and affordable solar energy? Not so well.

Vivints loose sales structure allowed salespeople to advertise misleading concepts like free solar panels, and many unassuming customers signed contracts unaware they were locking into a 20-year lease with hefty cancellation fees. To make a long story short, the company is facing some lawsuits for its misleading sales practices, and there are thousands of scathing Vivint Solar reviews online.

Though Vivints sales practices have been troubling, this review will cover all of what makes Vivint Solar unique. For some, Vivint has been a good choice. Our point remains, however, that if youre considering solar with Vivint, be sure to do your research and understand what youre buying into.

Interested in going Solar? Get a free, no obligation quote from multiple solar installers below.

Vivint Solar Services and Installation

Vivint Solar provides exclusively residential solar panel services including solar panels, backup solar batteries, EV chargers and energy efficiency packages. Vivints full spectrum of services allows for a highly customized experience with some of the finest solar equipment on the market.

Vivint Solar Equipment

Vivint exclusively offers monocrystalline PV solar panels with passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) solar cells, as it believes these are the most efficient solar panels on the market. PERC panels are typically the best type of solar panel for any residential installation, especially when roof space is more limited.

Vivints biggest brand partner is LG, which is known for manufacturing quality, high-efficiency solar panels and the LG Chem battery  one of the best on the market. Vivint also provides Tesla Powerwalls for some customers. These devices are all compatible with Vivints solar and SmartHome options, which can put you in full control of your homes energy.

Solar Panel Warranty

Vivint offers a fairly standard warranty when compared to similar solar providers. The warranty is broken down as follows:



10-year workmanship warranty covering any damages to your home or solar system resulting from improper installation

covering any damages to your home or solar system resulting from improper installation 25-year linear performance warranty ensuring your panels and solar equipment are generating or retaining power at or above a specified degradation rate

Basically, the linear performance warranty is a production guarantee that factors the decline in output that all solar panels experience over time.

All other warranties (such as panels, batteries and inverters) are product-specific but are guaranteed to be at least 10 years.

Vivint Solar Costs and Financing

As we like to mention in our solar articles, bigger companies do not always offer more affordable systems. Vivint is known for its above-average costs due to the customization, technology and quality of products offered. If the low-seeming cost of a solar lease appeals to you, we encourage you to look into

financing options for purchasing panels through a local solar provider instead.

Financing Options Through Vivint Solar

As a provider focused only on residential solar installations, Vivints financing options revolve more around solar leases and purchase power agreements (PPAs). Its still possible to purchase a system through Vivint, but most of its salespeople are known to encourage PPAs. Here is the full spectrum of financing options available through Vivint.

Cash Purchase Solar Loan Solar Lease Solar PPA System ownership You own system You own system Vivint owns system Vivint owns system Maintenance included No No Yes Yes Upfront cost Yes No No No Added property value Yes Yes No No Eligible for tax credit Yes Yes No No Payment due to None Third-party loan vender Vivint Solar Vivint Solar

It is important to remember that when you get your solar through a lease or PPA, you will have two monthly energy bills  one from your utility company and one from Vivint Solar. Most companies issuing solar leases have a guarantee written into the contract that your total monthly energy payments will be below what they were previous to installing solar. Vivint does not offer this same guarantee.

Interested in going Solar? Get a free, no obligation quote from multiple solar installers below.

Vivint Solar Reviews

Now that weve covered the basics of Vivint Solars services and products, lets get into Vivints customer experience. This is where Vivint has run into some trouble. Due to its commission-based, remote sales structure, many salespeople focus only on securing the sale before moving on to the next potential client. They arent incentivized to deal with any issues post-sale. Though this has allowed Vivint to grow rapidly, most of this growth resulted from unrealistic expectations set by salespeople.

In the worst Vivint Solar reviews, customers claim to have been tricked into signing a contract after being advertised free solar panels on their homes. Sadly, thousands of Vivint customers have experienced either deceptive sales or increases in their energy bills after signing a lease or PPA with Vivint. Whats worse, canceling a Vivint contract early can cost over $20,000. Many innocent customers were, and are still, trapped in bad contracts laid out by unethical sales tactics.

Lets look at both sides of the coin:

Negative Vivint Reviews

Negative Vivint reviews (of which there are many) typically mention customers feeling they were deceived, locked into bad contracts or that the product installed did not perform as expected. Here are a few that we found particularly revealing.

It took Vivint Solar five months before my system was installed. System was not up and running, and it has failed inspection twice. I then found out the system was not producing. I have called different reps in the company only to get the runaround. I have not received a single call back. I wish I had never signed with this company. They are unreliable and not trustworthy.  Juan via BBB

Vivint is by far the worst company of any kind I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. They installed panels on my roof in no time and cashed their check quickly. Six months later, I still have ZERO electricity generated and no timetable for when I might possibly have my system online. It is impossible to talk to anyone who knows anything about anything. They are a scam, not a company.  Terry via Trustpilot

Positive Vivint Reviews

This is not to say that all Vivint customers have had bad experiences. Some who have done their research, opted to purchase systems and customized their systems found exactly what they were looking for.

We couldnt help but chuckle at this customer who felt they needed to add that they werent lied to:

We have solar in our house in Maryland with Vivint and we have the home security system, too. We [love] it. Our rep was great and never lied about anything to me! Happy Vivint customer.  Julia via Yelp

Final Thoughts on Vivint Solar

Wed like to tell you that after having class-action lawsuits filed against it, Vivint has changed its ways and instilled the importance of proper education and realistic expectations into the solar sales process, but we like to let customers speak for themselves. Vivint Solar has well over 2,000 customer complaints filed against it through the BBB.

Vivint has helped the solar industry make strides in modernization, customization and overall volume of solar installed, but we cannot in good conscience recommend Vivint Solar to our readers. Deceptive sales practices can give the entire solar industry a bad reputation for being a money grab or a method to take advantage of customers burdened by high energy costs.

Vivint Solar Pros Vivint Solar Cons Virtual consultations, design studios Poor reputation Wide range of services Customer service Customizable Leases, PPA offered

In our research, we found the most frequently asked questions about Vivint Solar to revolve around whether the company is a scam or a pyramid scheme. This is revealing about the overall sentiment among prospective solar customers.

However, if you are still interested in Vivint Solar, we encourage you to read your contract closely and specifically ask what happens if your solar system doesnt produce as promised. We also recommend

talking to a few other solar companies whose customers have better things to report.

Interested in going Solar? Get a free, no obligation quote from multiple solar installers below.

Solar Energy Provider Comparison

To put all this in context, lets line Vivint Solar up with some of its main competitors.

Vivint Solar SunPower Sunpro Solar Year Started 2011 1985 2008 Services Offered Solar panel installation, battery installation, monitoring Solar panel installation, battery installation, monitoring Solar panel installation, battery installation, monitoring Service Areas AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, HI, IL, MA, MD, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, PA, RI, SC, TX, UT, VA, VT All 50 States AZ, AR, CA, FL, GA, IL, IA, KS, LA, MS, MO, NE, NV, NM, NC, OH, OK, SC, TN, TX, VA BBB Rating B+ A+ A Payment Options Cash, loan, lease, PPA Cash, loan, lease Cash, loan Learn More Get Quote SunPower Review Sunpro Solar Review

To start getting free quotes from solar companies in your area  including Vivint  fill out the form below.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my Vivint Solar bill so high?

If your electricity bill or Vivint bill is higher than expected, the first thing you should do is consider how much energy youre using at home. Since so many homes now serve as remote offices, many customers are using considerably more energy than they have in the past.

That being said, Vivint Solar does

not offer a guarantee that your system will produce as first estimated by the representative who sold you your contract. Many customers have run into trouble with poor system performance with Vivint, resulting in higher energy bills than before going solar.

Is Vivint Solar a pyramid scheme?

This is a misconception, but the salespeople of Vivint Solar have been known to advertise free solar panels or services that sound too good to be true. Usually, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Vivint Solar has been faced with charges of deceptive marketing, so its good to do your research.

Can I get out of my Vivint Solar PPA contract?

It is possible to get out of a lease or PPA agreement with Vivint Solar, but there is typically a very high fee associated with this. Vivint Solar has faced issues with unhappy customers who feel trapped in contracts. Be sure to read your contract closely if you plan to go solar with Vivint.

How does Vivint Solar make money?

Vivint Solar is a legitimate solar company that makes its money through sales, installations, maintenance and service. We believe this question may be coming from the fact that Vivint Solars salespeople make money strictly on commissions from sales. Though this is somewhat common in the solar industry, the scale at which Vivint Solar operates has led to some deceptive sales processes.

Where is Vivint Solars service area?

Vivint Solar offers installation services in 22 states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.
The Taliban says it has been creating a 'safe system' for girl students by only allowing female teachers to teach them | Pic: Pixnio

Afghanistan's Taliban-led government has announced that high schools for girls, which have remained closed since the August 2021 takeover of the country, will reopen in March, according to media reports.

In Afghanistan, the new academic year begins from March which also marks the first month of the new solar year, reported Khaama Press. In a statement on Sunday, January 23, spokesman of the Ministry of Education Aziz Ahmad Reyan said the Taliban is committed to reopening schools for girls and that it is working in this regard "seriously and tirelessly".

Reyan claimed the reason behind not allowing girls to attend classes in high schools was because the Taliban was creating a safe system for girls. "The Taliban has no issue with girls' education that is why we have paid the salaries of female teachers. We will hire more female teachers for girls," Khaama Press quoted the spokesman as saying.

READ ALSO : Afghanistan: Students, teachers demand reopening of schools for girls in Kunar province

The spokesman further said that they were working on capacity building of female teachers and wanted to increase the number of these teachers so that only women teach girls. If female teachers were not available in some areas, then only elderly male teachers will be allowed to educate girl students, he added.

Girls were only allowed to attend classes up to six since the Taliban gained power on August 15 last year, which drew strong criticism at home and abroad.

The spokesman's remarks come after the US special representative to Afghanistan Thomas West told BBC Pashto over the weekend that Washington and the international community intend to pay the salaries of schoolteachers if the Taliban permits schools for girls to reopen, reported TOLO News.

"Regardless of whether the international community and the US pay the salaries of teachers, we, as the government, will open schools in the spring and this decision does not link with the demands of the US and international community," said Reyan.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government and distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
Washington, MO (63090)

Today

Overcast. High 67F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy with occasional rain late. Low around 55F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.
Google, no stranger to lawsuits about its practices these days, is facing a fresh legal broadside from Washington DC Attorney General Karl Racine. Racine (pictured) has launched an action claiming that Google has violated the Consumer Protection Procedures act in the state, specifically about location tracking. Essentially, Racine believes that while Google says its users can opt-out of having their whereabouts identified, such tracking remains in place. Racine's claim is being mirrored by similar AG-led lawsuits in Texas, Washington State and Indiana.

BREAKING: My office is suing Google for deceiving users and invading their privacy.



Google claims that changing your device and account settings protects your data. The truth is, since 2014, Google has systematically surveilled users no matter what settings they choose.  AG Karl A. Racine (@AGKarlRacine) January 24, 2022

Much of this controversy was first publicized back in 2018 when an Associated Press report identified that location tracking remained active regardless of the users choice. The claim says that between 2014 and 2019, despite these promises, tracking data was stored in a Web and App Activity database. As our deep dive on the subject explained, Google did enable users to go in and erase their location from this file, but the process was slow and laborious.

We're leading a bipartisan group of AGs from Texas, Indiana, & Washington, each suing in state court to hold Google accountable.



We're seeking to stop Googles illegal use of dark patterns & claw back profits made from location data. Read the complaint:https://t.co/KQCPiZSYxA  AG Karl A. Racine (@AGKarlRacine) January 24, 2022

Google leads consumers to believe that consumers are in control of whether Google collects and retains information about their location and how that information is used, says the complaint. In reality, consumers who use Google products cannot prevent Google from collecting, storing and profiting from their location. It added that the use of dark patterns to nudge a user to consenting to data collection is harmful to consumers.

This case follows a landmark action in Arizona, brought in 2020, where AG Mark Brnovich wanted the company to pay back ad money to users who though they had turned tracking off, but did not. In 2021, documents from that case emerged claiming that Google had further sought to obscure the settings that would enable a user to disable location tracking.

Update Jan 24th, 11:28am ET: Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda has issued the following statement, saying that "the Attorneys General are bringing a case based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings. We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We will vigorously defend ourselves and set the record straight.
Cheating is rife across many gaming platforms, but the biggest cheaters are usually found around PC gaming  despite games companies banning thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of the scamps. Valve's Steam Deck, its upcoming handheld, should make it harder to bend the rules.

Steam

The company announced titles that depend on Epics Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) software can now run on the portable. Valve said adding Steam Deck support to titles that use EAC is a simple process. Developers wont need to update their SDK version or make other time-consuming changes. It joins BattlEye support, meaning, as Valve notes: The two largest anti-cheat services are now easily supported on Proton and Steam Deck.

However, its still unclear whether some of the most popular multiplayer games on Steam that use BattlEye and EAC, including titles like Rainbow Six Siege and PUBG, will work on day one.

 Mat Smith

Must be a hard workout.

Billions

Peloton didnt need more bad news. The premiere episode of Billions season six includes a scene that, like the Sex and the City follow-up And Just Like That, points a finger at Peloton's Bike for causing a heart attack for Mike "Wags" Wagner (played by David Costabile). Unlike And Just Like That, however, Wagner survives  he even references the AJLT scene, telling staff that he's "not going out" like that character.

Continue reading.

And less memory for the highest-specced model

Evan Blass

According to WinFutures Roland Quandt, European pricing for the Galaxy S22 series will start at 849 (roughly $1,018), with the base models of the Galaxy S22 Plus and Ultra slated to cost 1,049 ($1,188) and 1,249 ($1,414). If accurate, this should mean the 2022 Samsungs Galaxy S lineup will cost just as much as it did in 2021. In Europe at least, the Galaxy S22 Ultra will ship with 8GB of RAM, while the S21 Ultra packs 12GB of RAM.

And if you thought that was pricey, a separate leak from Android Police earlier this month suggested the company could charge an extra $100 stateside for every model in the Galaxy S22 lineup. We should know more very soon.

Continue reading.

The move may be temporary.

Earlier this week, Apple began requiring students and teachers in the US to verify their identity through authentication service UNiDAYS before they could take advantage of the companys discounted education pricing. However, thats since disappeared. You can once again buy discounted Macs, iPads and other Apple products from the companys US education website without needing to verify youre currently a student or a teacher.

Continue reading.

The company appealed to Australia's High Court to overturn a defamation case.

Google has asked the High Court of Australia to overturn a 2020 ruling it warns could have a devastating effect on the wider internet. Google claims it will be forced to act as censor if the countrys highest court doesnt overturn a decision that awarded a lawyer $40,000 in defamation damages for an article the company had linked to through its search engine.

In 2016, George Defteros, a Victoria state lawyer, contacted Google to ask the company to remove a 2004 article from The Age. The piece featured reporting on murder charges prosecutors filed against Defteros related to the death of three men. Those charges were later dropped in 2005. The company refused to remove the article from its search results as it viewed the publication as a reputable source.

Continue reading.

The biggest news stories you might have missed



Sony will release a movie made using the PlayStation game-builder 'Dreams'

'We Met in Virtual Reality' finds love in the metaverse

PlatinumGames' long-awaited shoot 'em-up arrives February 22nd

What we bought: A rice cooker whose greatest trick isn't actually rice

The latest 'Star Trek: Picard' season two trailer teases a time-traveling adventure
Disney seems to have learned not to mess with a good recipe when they find one.

Coming off of decades where sequels were only an afterthought, relegated to an animation studio full of trainees and released straight to video, Disney has since done a major pivot on how they view sequel or spinoff materials for their movies. Now, any extension to the canon of their best offerings are treated with the utmost care.

Such is the case with the new Moana spinoff series currently in development at Disney+. Moana was an incredibly successful film for the animation studio, and their first partnership with legendary Broadway composer Lin-Manuel Miranda. The show is one of a handful that was announced in December of 2020, as part of Disney's Investor Day program. The studio has chosen one of the film's original sources of inspiratoin, storyboard artist David G. Derrick Jr., to direct the project.

Derrick is overjoyed to be directing the sequel series to Moana, noting that working on the film "deepened his connection with his family's Samoan roots," according to a Walt Disney Animation Studios announcement on Twitter.

Just announced: David G. Derrick Jr. will direct Walt Disney Animation Studios Moana series for @DisneyPlus. Derrick first joined Disney Animation to work on 2016's Moana, which deepened his connection with his familys Samoan roots. pic.twitter.com/0MslhBs9OD  Disney Animation (@DisneyAnimation) January 21, 2022

In the official statement, Derrick said:

"Working on Moana was a gift, personally and professionally. The film Moana caught and shared the spirit of Polynesia with the world. I am honored to continue her story and to celebrate the rich and beautiful cultures of the Pacific Islands."

Focus on the realism and basis in actual Samoan and Pacific Islander culture seems to be front and center among Disney's focuses for the series, as they made clear in their original description of the show:

"Moana, The Series, coming to Disney+ in 2023, is a new long-form musical series that follows spirited voyager Moana as she ventures far beyond the reef. The studio is once again connecting with storytellers from the Pacific Islands to help tell the stories of wayfinding and other traditions brought to life for generations through oral storytelling."

It is not yet known whether actor Dwayne Johnson will return to voice his character Maui in the series, but given his good relationship with Disney and his activity in the industry lately - not to mention his well-documented love for the film - indicate that there is a good chance that he will.

This isn't the only spinoff series Disney has announced in recent days; in fact they seem to be animating up a storm when it comes to spinoffs. Since 2020, Disney has announced continuations of Big Hero 6 (in addition to the series already in production on Disney Channel), The Princess and the Frog, and Zootopia. And as of recently, they may soon be adding a continuation of their new hit film Encanto, just released in November, to the list.

We can't wait to see what Disney has in store for Moana and her people next - the Moana spinoff series is due to hit Disney+ sometime in 2024.
Economic and commercial relationships with Africa are set to play an ever-greater role in determining countries and blocs place in the global economic order. By 2025, Africa will have over 100 cities with more than one million inhabitants  more than three times the number in the European Union. By 2030, 42% of the worlds young people will live in Africa, making the continent home to the largest supply of affordable labour on the planet in the coming decades. And, with an extremely extensive supply of inexpensive and available land, Africa is already attracting international businesses looking for affordable manufacturing sites. Moreover, Africa is the fastest-growing end market for a widening range of products. This means it is increasingly not just a place that makes things to export, but is also home to important consumer markets that are underserved and set to rapidly expand. This trend will accelerate with the full implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area, which launched in January 2021.

Much of this growth is being powered by the green energy innovation ecosystems that are emerging in sub-Saharan Africa; they are already defining the future trajectory of economic growth on the continent. These innovation ecosystems thrive by combining cutting-edge digital technologies and telecommunications with renewable energy technologies. They respond to Africas unique market needs  which include significant consumer demand for better digital connectivity  and they make use of the considerable green energy potential of the continent. These ecosystems are, by definition, a cross-industry phenomenon in which growth in one sector supports growth in another. Solar energy, electric vehicles, and telecommunications and information and communications technology (ICT) are all intimately interconnected. They synergize with one another to create a virtuous cycle of market expansion for each sector.

Africa has seen growth in these sectors thanks to their interconnectedness. For example, the expansion of digital financing platforms operating over mobile networks has enabled consumers to purchase off-grid solar power systems. The components needed for these systems are supplied by local solar panel manufacturing sectors. Access to affordable power has enabled the development of new commercial markets for other goods and services.

However, it is far from assured that Europe will play a primary role in the new commercial architecture emerging in Africa. Indeed, Europes global economic competitiveness is at risk. Now and in the coming years, international actors will be racing to establish new manufacturing value chains  a process that is shaping Africas economy and boosting those actors positions in the global economic order. Indeed, in the last decade, China overtook the EU to become Africas top trading partner, and India became the continents second-largest such partner. Turkeys rate of growth in African trade surpassed the EUs by a factor of five, while the Gulf Arab states similarly expanded their trade and investment relationships with Africa. Even prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, European, Gulf Arab, and Asian states showed a growing interest in near-shoring  shortening supply chains to bring them closer to intended end markets. This interest has only increased in the time since.

European companies in Africa are forced to compete with Chinese counterparts that have the advantage of formidable state backing. But, when it comes to successful investment partnerships in Africa, bigger does not always mean better. Chinese investments across the continent have not brought about a China-style economic boom in any African country. Europe could fill this gap by investing in the creation of large-scale, value-added production in sub-Saharan Africa. To do so, Europe needs to deploy its resources in a coordinated, strategic manner. The EU urgently needs to combine the foreign policy aspect of its European Green Deal with its nascent Global Gateway program, which is its answer to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Form should follow function. And the function needed is a unity of action among Europeans. Though this is a perennial challenge, European policymakers should acknowledge that a Europe that fails to be a whole greater than the sum of its parts will inevitably be eclipsed by China and other competitors. Sub-Saharan Africas economy is changing rapidly. Europeans have an opportunity to be part of this, and to help promote economic growth while strengthening geopolitical ties with governments and businesses across the continent. But, to achieve this, they will need to provide investment and other support that makes a real difference to Africas growth trajectory.

There is no shortage of ways in which the EU can better engage with this key agenda. For example, although the European Green Deals inward focus predominates, its EU as a Global Leader chapter contains many of the provisions needed for investment-driven engagement with green energy innovation ecosystems. Similarly, the EUs Towards a Comprehensive Strategy with Africa may predate the European Green Deal, but it provides a sufficiently broad framework for the more specific programs and financing to flourish. Three of the strategys five partnerships are relevant: the green transition and energy access; digital transformation; and sustainable growth and jobs. In addition, the Global Gateway promises to focus on infrastructure investments and make use of the European Fund for Sustainable Development Plus  the financial arm of the EUs External Investment Plan, which was approved in March 2021 to mobilize financing in Africa to the tune of 29.18 billion.

As it is difficult to secure extra EU public funds for such purposes, European policymakers should promote public-private partnerships in Africa as an important source of funding. Public-private partnerships have at times been dismissed in European civil society circles as government subsidies to the private sector that contravene free-market principles. But they are key to leveraging Europes full potential. Indeed, the European private sectors investment in, and partnership with, African businesses will be a force multiplier for Europe. Public funds provided by EU member states and the EU will not be of the scale needed to transform Africas economies. European private sector actors can fill this gap. The EU should play a coordinating role to enable them to work together. European policymakers should consider the following points in these key areas of activity: Firstly, foster Europe-wide cooperation on investment in Africa; secondly, promote solar power; thirdly, participate in telecommunications upgrades; fourthly, promote electric vehicles; fifthly, provide support for data centers.

By developing a diversity of supply chains for key products, and by building stronger economic and political relationships with businesses and governments in sub-Saharan Africa, Europeans would achieve greater resilience in the emerging geopolitical competition with China. This would also reduce the benefits China could gain in its pursuit of similar goals.

A reformed European Green Deal can accelerate green energy development in sub-Saharan Africa. EU policymakers should consider merging the European Green Deal with the Global Gateway, and establishing new coordination mechanisms to drive investment. This revised approach can support investment in the expansion and upgrade of cellular networks, solar panel manufacturing, local electric vehicle production, and other new products and services driven by green energy innovation.

Some EU member states institutional interventions have excelled at enabling effective African-European partnerships. They have fostered cross-industry initiatives that use telecoms to develop new products and services. These initiatives should serve as models for EU-level engagement with European firms across national boundaries. Accompanied by a message that Europeans will lead the world in supporting sub-Saharan African economies as they move towards a greener future, the EU can help achieve the vital goals of decarbonizing the global economy while holding its own geopolitically vis-a-vis major powers such as China.

Gateway to Growth: How the European Green Deal Can Strengthen Africas and Europes Economies  Policy Brief by Michael Tanchum  European Council on Foreign Relations / ECFR.

The Policy Brief can be downloaded here
Wolseong 1 nuclear reactor in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province. Korea Times file



Gov't eager to shut down nuclear plants, while seeking to build many abroad



By Lee Kyung-min



The Moon Jae-in administration has been under constant criticism for its double standards on nuclear energy, as it shows completely different attitudes toward nuclear power plants at home and abroad, according to economists and energy analysts, Monday.



While abroad, Moon has been touting Korea's nuclear plants as the world's safest and most efficiently run, urging foreign governments to adopt the country's nuclear reactors. But here at home, the Moon administration has been eager to shut down local plants, calling nuclear energy an environmentally harmful and outdated energy source, and instead stressed the use of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources.



This is a clear failure of the Moon administration's energy policies, they said, highlighted further by a rapid overall decline in industrial productivity brought on by higher energy import costs.



Further complicating the issue is the ongoing criminal trials of energy ministry officials who were indicted for destroying evidence showing that the ministry sought to delegitimize the economic feasibility of its existing nuclear policy, in an orchestrated move to toe the line of the Moon administration.



The experts urged the Moon administration to promptly renounce the previous drives and make a course correction to better outline the country's energy policies to limit economic fallout before it is too late.



"The government policy is exhibiting clear signs of faltering," Seoul National University economist Lee In-ho said.



Nuclear energy is a stable, effective and efficient energy source and the government knows it, in Lee's view. Yet, the only reason Moon and top policymakers are unable to reverse their policy is for fear of enormous political blowback, an unwanted development that could tank the legitimacy of a government grappling with an already considerably waning level of public support.



"Backpedaling at this late stage means essentially forgoing all power," he added.



Moon promoting the country's nuclear policies overseas is an indication of government incompetence and policy inconsistency, Lee said.



The scathing opinion is backed by comments made by Moon on his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, where he said Korea's nuclear policy is "unmatched by its global peers in economic feasibility and safety." Similar comments were made during summits with his Slovak, Polish and Czech counterparts last year.



Korea University professor of Resources and Energy Economics Park Ho-jeong said the government has failed to factor in how economical nuclear energy is compared to renewables.



"The current nuclear technology can supply energy in a stable manner at a price lower than what's needed for renewables, a major competitive edge over solar and wind energies prone to extreme volatility in production volume due to weather conditions or hours  let alone the lingering controversy over whether renewable energy is green at all," the Korean Resource Economics Association president said.



Korea is feared to miss the rare opportunity to take the upper hand in the future energy market, both Lee and Park added, since it will take years for renewables to fully replace the much-lambasted nuclear technology as a stable source of energy.



"Europe, a group of countries known to not mind taking years or decades to deliberate on a contentious issue, is seeking to embrace nuclear energy as part of its green investments. The move is not without opposition, but it speaks volumes as to how rash and unprepared Korea was to outright abandon nuclear energy without long-term, viable alternatives in place," Lee said.


Monday, January 24, 2022

Commentary From Crisis Management Expert Edward Segal, Author of the Award- Winning Book Crisis Ahead: 101 Ways to Prepare for and Bounce Back from Disasters, Scandals, and Other Emergencies (Nicholas Brealey)

In a crisis, timing is everything. As the unfolding situation at interactive gaming company Activision Blizzard shows, any delays in reporting or responding to situations can appear to make things worse, extend the crisis or further damage a company or organization.

In November, I wrote about a Wall Street Journal story about how Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick handled allegations of sexual misconduct at Activision Blizzard. In response to the newspaper's story, that afternoon 100 employees staged a walk-out and called for Kotick's resignation.

The Washington Post reported at the time that, "In an internal video message ahead of the walkout Tuesday morning, Kotick responded to the news. "There's an article today that paints an inaccurate and misleading view of our company, of me personally, and my leadership," Kotick said in the video.

He added that, "Anyone who doubts my conviction to be the most welcoming, inclusive workplace doesn't really appreciate how important this is to me."

A transcript of Kotick's remarks was posted on the newsroom page of the Activision website in which he said, "As I have made clear, we are moving forward with a new zero tolerance policy for inappropriate behavior  and zero means zero. Any reprehensible conduct is simply unacceptable."

On January 18, it was announced that Microsoft will purchase Activision Blizzard for $67.8 billion. Forbes noted that, "Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, maker of Call Of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, may help the video-game giant refocus on growing those popular titles while working to move beyond sexual misconduct allegations that have dogged the company, analysts said."

Quiet Until Now

Although the company responded quickly to the situation in November, they have not discussed any actions they took to address the crisis.

Until now.

Fast forward to today, when the Wall Street Journal reported that," Activision Blizzard Inc. has fired or pushed out more than three dozen employees and disciplined about 40 others since July as part of efforts to address allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct at the videogame giant according to people familiar with the situation."

But Kotick was not eager to discuss the company's actions.

According to the newspaper, "A summary of those personnel actions was scheduled to be released by Activision before the winter holidays, but Chief Executive Bobby Kotick held it back, telling some people it could make the company's workplace problems seem bigger than is already known, the people familiar with the situation said."

Forced To Report

The company finally relented, but only after it was forced to do so.

"Activision's moves follow sustained pressure from shareholders, staff and business partners for more accountability over its handling of misconduct issues," the Wall Street Journal said.

Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to a request to comment for this story.

'Against All Logic And PR Best Practices'

John Forberger of Forberger Communications observed that, "Activision's lack of response is not only an error in judgment, but it goes against all logic and PR best practices. Their public relations crisis is well-deserved because they did not sincerely and quickly address the allegations of widespread sexual harassment. The video game publisher allowed anyone and everyone to write the narrative."

Advice For Business Leaders

Don't Wait

Don't wait to report or respond to a crisis. Being forced by others to divulge information or actions about the situations could imply that you are trying to hide or delay details about the matter.

The longer you wait to disclose information about the crisis, the worse it will look.

Don't wait to tell people what you have done about the crisis, when you did it and why you did it.

Have A Plan

Forberger said that, "What other businesses can learn [from Activision] is to have a crisis communications plan in hand before a negative story appears."

'Get Ahead Of Any Negative Story'

He noted that, "you're never too big to fail. Activision Blizzard destroyed their reputation by not announcing the steps it'd take to look into the very serious allegations.

'Companies must get ahead of any negative story, and crisis communications plans help everyone in an organization know what comes next including which executives get involved and who issues a holding statement to the media," Forberger counseled.

###
A month after it launched, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is set to arrive Monday at its destination nearly 1 million miles from Earth.

NASA ground teams plan to fire the telescopes thrusters at 1 p.m. Central Standard Time to insert the space telescope into an orbit that keeps the Earth, sun and moon to one side.

From its orbit around whats known as L2, or the second Lagrange point, it will use infrared light to study the origins of the universe. Its orbit will also ensure the sun is never eclipsed by Earth  a position necessary for its thermal and power generation.

Once the Webb is in its orbit, scientists and engineers will begin aligning its 18 primary mirror segments to work together as a single 21.3-foot-wide mirror. The alignment will make it a fully-functioning telescope set to start producing images this summer.

Back on Earth, Chris Packham, an astrophysics professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has been waiting on images after being selected as one of the academics able to gather data about black holes from the telescope.

On ExpressNews.com: Weve been waiting for this moment for more than 20 years; UTSA astrophysicist eager for James Webb telescopes black hole data

From the telescopes vantage point, he and a team of UTSA graduate students eventually will observe the Sagittarius A* (the asterisk is astronomy shorthand for star), the Milky Ways supermassive black hole about 26,000 light-years from Earth. The black hole has the mass of 400 million suns.

We want to understand from start to finish whats going on in the centers of these supermassive black holes, Packham said at the time of the Webbs launch in December. Why are they so bright? What is the process of the material falling into the black hole? The effect the black hole has on the host galaxy?

If all goes well, the Webb will use a high-frequency radio transmitter to feed data to the NASA Deep Space Network. NASA will forward the data to the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which will send a trove of information to Packham.

Packham expects to receive the data between the summers of 2022 and 2023. A handful of UTSA graduate students will help him operate the Arc, the schools high-performance computing system, to analyze it. Then they will share the information with a crew of astronomers from the Galactic Activity, Torus and Outflow Survey (GATOS), a research collaborative and work toward writing research papers for publication.

Findings could provide significant insights into the evolution of stars and galaxies.

This allows us to understand how the galaxies are formed and how they evolved, he said. If we want to understand Earth, we have to go back to those supermassive black holes. This is all part of our origin story.

eric.killelea@express-news.net
The San Antonio River Authority agreed to pay a former employee $210,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged he was subjected to various incidents of racial discrimination while on the job.

Ralph Bolado, a Hispanic maintenance technician who had been employed by SARA for almost 20 years, said he was retaliated against for lodging complaints about the alleged discrimination  which ranged from being hit by a pipe thrown by a supervisor to a colleague hanging a noose on his office door.

In the settlement document, SARA strongly denied the allegations and disputed any liability. The parties desired to resolve the dispute at the minimum of costs and disruption.

SARA manages and maintains rivers and creeks in Bexar, Wilson, Karnes and Goliad counties.

The settlement said Bolado would receive $83,375 in wages before taxes and $41,000 in compensatory damages for mental anguish and emotional distress. SARA also agreed to pay six months of health insurance, up to $9,200, for Bolado and his family.

On ExpressNews.com: Employee sues San Antonio River Authority for racial discrimination, retaliation

Bolado submitted his written resignation to SARA on Aug. 27, less than three weeks before he and his wife signed the settlement document.

SARA also agreed to pay Bolados lawyers $85,625 in attorneys fees and expenses.

The settlement bounds Bolado to strict confidentiality, barring him from even disclosing that he entered into a settlement or revealing how much he received.

The San Antonio Express-News obtained the settlement document after submitting a public records request in October. SARA said if it received a such a request, it would seek a ruling from the Texas attorney generals office on whether it had to release the document.

The office responded in a letter earlier this month, stating a settlement agreement to which a governmental body is a party to is generally considered public information.

Attorneys for both sides issued a joint statement after the settlement was reached.

SARA and Mr. Bolado resolved the litigation with terms to their mutual agreement, the lawyers said. The parties have no further comment.

Bolado had sought damages ranging from $200,000 to $1 million in the suit, filed in June 2020 in state District Court in San Antonio.

According to the suit, Bolado and a Black female employee were subjected to racist comments by his supervisor  Alfred Rakowitz  and other managers while attending a meeting in 2017 in SARAs Converse maintenance shop.

Bolado later complained to SARAs human resources department, his suit said. Afterward, tensions developed between Bolado and Rakowitz. Bolado said he was assigned menial tasks, including picking up trash and pulling weeds.

Bolado also alleged a SARA supervisor denied him a raise in 2018.

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On Nov. 12, 2018, the suit said, Rakowitz called Bolado by an obscenity. Bolado responded by saying, My name is Ralph.

Rakowitz then threw a 4-foot-3-inch PVC pipe at Bolado, breaking his nose, the suit said. The injury required surgery to repair. That followed another incident where Rakowitz allegedly hit Bolado.

Bolado later complained to Bruce Knott, SARAs human resources director, that Rakowitzs act was racially motivated. At a Nov. 12 meeting, the suit said, Knott admonished Bolado and told him he was throwing everybody under the bus.

SARA took no action against Rakowitz, the suit said. But he resigned in lieu of termination the following month after SARA found he had violated its workplace violence policy.

Two other employees subsequently were fired, and an executive resigned for failing to report the incident with the noose.

In late 2018, SARA began a series of training sessions to address concerns about racism and other inappropriate behavior occurring within the agency.

A Bexar County grand jury indicted Rakowitz on a felony aggravated assault charge in March 2019. The case was dismissed in late 2019 after he completed a pretrial diversion program, KSAT reported.

Bolado has a pending negligence suit against Rakowitz in Bexar County Court. Bolado seeks damages ranging from more than $100,000 to $200,000. Rakowitz has denied the allegations. The court docket shows there havent been any developments in the case in more than a year.

pdanner@express-news.net
A lavish waterfront home nestled on 3 acres at Canyon Lake has hit the market for $2.5 million.

Built in 2009, the 5,000-square-foot home has four-bedrooms, 4  bathrooms and spectacular views of Canyon Lake and Texas Hill Country, according to the listing on the San Antonio Board of Realtors website.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonios housing market shattered records in 2021, will stay hot in 22

The resort-style home has an owners retreat with large windows, a private patio door and a spa-style bathroom with heated floors and oversized shower with a steam sauna.

The homes split floor plan has a guest suite on the main level with its own private bathroom. The second level offers a separate living area, two bedrooms with private bathrooms and walk-in closets.

Theres also a grand entry, an open living area and a newly remodeled gourmet-style kitchen.

On ExpressNews.com: Secluded $3.5 million ranchette hits the market in west San Antonio

Upstairs is an upper balcony that overlooks Canyon Lake and Hill Country. In the backyard is an infinity-edge swimming pool with a hot tub, an outdoor kitchen, a serving bar and a lounge area with a fireplace.

The property is appraised at $894,660, according to Comal County property records. Records also show that the home is owned by Matthew Gilbert.

Gilbert is willing to entertain offers for furnishings, boats, personal watercraft and other recreational vehicles, according to the listing on the San Antonio Board of Realtors website.

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

San Antonio Board of Realtors

Timothy.Fanning@express-news.net
Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Classical music: Pianist Gabriela Martinez will perform a program featuring works by several contemporary composers, including Missy Mazzoli and Adam Schoenberg, as well as the likes of Heitor Villa-Lobos and Sergei Rachmaninoff, in her recital for the Tuesday Musical Clubs Artist Series. 2 p.m. Tuesday, Laurel Heights United Methodist Church, 227 W. Woodlawn Ave. $25 (students free), satmc.org.

Concert: Classic rock tribute bands are nothing new at Sams Burger Joint, but this is something else. Longtime Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre is bringing his own band to town to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of Aqualung. Hell be playing the album, which includes the rock radio hits Cross-Eyed Mary and Locomotive Breath, as well as the title track, in full along with more Tull favorites. 8 p.m. Wednesday, Sams Burger Joint, 330 E. Grayson St. $35, samsburgerjoint.com.
After 41 years in education and eight years leading the Alamo Colleges Districts second-largest campus, Northwest Vista College President Ric Baser announced he will retire effective June 1.

In a letter to students, faculty and staff, Baser called the opportunity to lead Northwest Vista a rare privilege.

I have loved Northwest Vista College more than any other institution for which I have worked, and I have loved being your president more than any other job I have ever held, Baser wrote.

Baser was hired to lead Northwest Vista in 2014, after the departure of former President Jacqueline Claunch. At the time the college had an enrollment of 15,797, but by 2020 it had reached 18,542 in 2020, according to the colleges announcement.

/Courtesy photo

In that time, the colleges graduation numbers grew by more than 90 percent, full time faculty grew by 36 percent and grant-funded support for faculty and student research grew to $50 million last year, from less than $500,000 in 2014, the announcement states.

Under Dr. Basers leadership, NVC gained local, regional and national recognition and was invited to compete three times for the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, the nations highest recognition in community college education, said Mike Flores, chancellor of the Alamo Colleges District, according to the announcement.

Flores highlighted Northwest Vistas role in the districts 2019 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. The district last year saw its largest component, San Antonio College, win the Aspen Prize.

Baser has a doctorate in higher education administration from Oklahoma State University, and degrees in speech and drama. Before coming to San Antonio, he was the vice president and chief academic officer at Tulsa Community College. Baser said he would remain an active supporter of Northwest Vista and the Alamo Colleges, as he plans to live here with his wife of nearly 40 years, Kari, and their granddaughter, Kennedy.

A national search is expected to fill Basers role by the fall semester.

We are in the best position ever to attract top talent in higher education in the nation, Baser said. I will leave the college in superbly competent hands to continue its mission to provide opportunities for success.

danya.perez@express-news.net | @DanyaPH
Bexar County Sheriff

An off-duty Bexar County Sheriffs Deputy was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated after being stopped early Sunday morning by the San Antonio Police Department.

Rolando A. Garza, a four-year veteran with the sheriff's office was stopped around 2:05 a.m., according to a news release. Garza, 27, has been placed on administrative leave.
Comal County in January has smashed its single-day record for new COVID-19 cases, which had stood since August.

The previous record was 270 cases, said Jennifer Whidon, a communications specialist for the Comal County Public Health Department.

The past two weeks, the county reported between 270 and 315 new cases every day. And Monday, it reported 404.

A rise in cases was expected due to the Christmas holiday, but I think we were surprised at how fast the numbers grew daily, Whidon said.

The spike in cases has been steep and sudden. About a month ago, Dec. 20, Comal reported just 22 new cases of COVID-19. On Jan. 20, it reported 266 new cases, and on Jan. 21, 303 new cases.

On ExpressNews.com: A fish without gills? Interesting choice: the endangered residents of the San Marcos

If theres any good news, Whidon said, its that the cases are mostly attributed to the omicron variant, which is more contagious than other variants but not associated with as many serious or deadly symptoms.

Its not as alarming as if we were having hospitalizations at a high rate, and everyone was ending up in the ICU again, she said. We would be really overly concerned if hospitals were at max capacity with their hospital beds.

The case this time, Whidon said, is that hospitals are woefully understaffed as medical providers come down with the virus and have to quarantine.

Late last week, there were 63 people hospitalized with COVID in Comal County, according to the Comal County Health Department. Seventy-three percent of those patients were unvaccinated.

About 62 percent of Comal residents are vaccinated, and Whidon said the health department is continuing its outreach efforts to get more people to take the vaccine.

On ExpressNews.com: Pig out, hunters: feral hog bounties in Hays, Caldwell counties

Over the next several weeks, Whidon said she hopes to see the case numbers start to go down, but she suspects they will remain steady with school back in session and people back to their daily routines.

She said she cant rule out the possibility that another COVID variant will come along once omicron dies down.

Its one of those things where its inevitable that a new variant will emerge, she said. You dont know how or when, or if it will be worse, or easier. Its unpredictable.

Comal County Judge Sherman Krause said the countys spike in cases is similar to spikes in other counties and across the state of Texas. The state health department reported more than 55,000 new cases Friday.

Krause said the countys messaging to its citizens hasnt changed with this fourth spike: Theyre encouraging people to get vaccinated, to social-distance and to monitor their health.

Were ready to get past COVID just like everybody else, he said.

Annie Blanks writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. annie.blanks@express-news.net.
Seven kilograms of crystal meth were found inside a car on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2002, which led to the arrest of Cristhian Lazo Galindo. (Bexar County Sheriff)

Seven kilograms of crystal meth were found inside a car on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2002, which led to the arrest of Cristhian Lazo Galindo. (Bexar County Sheriff)




A court will make its decision this week on an injunction request filed by minor party presidential candidate Ahn Cheol-soo to stop TV stations from hosting a televised debate exclusively between the two top mainstream rivals, officials said Monday.







Ahn of the People's Party filed for the injunction with the Seoul Western District Court last week to stop the country's three major broadcasters  MBC, KBS and SBS  from airing a two-way debate between ruling party candidate Lee Jae-myung and his main opposition rival Yoon Suk-yeol.







Lee's Democratic Party and Yoon's People Power Party have been in talks with the broadcasters to set up a TV debate only between the two sometime between Jan. 30 and 31.







On Monday, the court held a hearing and said it will make its decision no later than Wednesday.







"It's not a complex or difficult issue, but there are many points to consider, because it could influence the presidential election," the court said, making the announcement.







Ahn has vilified the envisioned exclusive TV debate as unfair and monopolistic and called it "a villainous act" by the two giant parties.







In the latest poll by Realmeter, Yoon was leading Lee 42 percent to 36.8 percent. Ahn was running third with 10 percent. (Yonhap)


A five-year collective bargaining agreement recently approved by members of the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Bexar County will raise deputies pay  by more than 15 percent over the agreements term  and replace arbitration with a new mechanism to dispute disciplinary measures issued by the sheriff.

These developments come as the city of San Antonio and the San Antonio Police Officers Association continue to spar over similar issues, including the definitions of officer discipline, health benefits and proposed pay increases.

County commissioners are expected to ratify the new collective bargaining agreement Feb. 8.

If commissioners do so, deputies will receive two 5 percent and two 2.5 percent pay increases through 2025, as well as a lump sum payment of $2,000 per deputy on the first pay period under the agreement. The successive increases would yield a roughly 15.8 percent increase over the life of the collective bargaining agreement.

The sheriffs office budget  which is about $222 million, according to the county 2021-22 fiscal year budget  includes $5.1 million to fund an anticipated 5 percent pay raise for uniformed deputies.

Monica Ramos, a county spokeswoman, said the majority of the money for the raise will come from the American Rescue Plan Act, though a final figure is still being calculated and will likely be discussed when the agreement reaches the Commissioners Court for ratification.

Thats huge, Sheriff Javier Salazar said, adding that he will be shouting that one from the rooftops for recruitment purposes.

The raise applies to all sworn uniformed staff, which includes patrol officers and those working in the jail and courthouse. The sheriff said that at full strength, the department has about 1,500 deputies. There are currently 227 vacancies among detention deputies, the sheriffs office said.

The previous collective bargaining agreement expired in September after the Deputy Sheriffs Association voted against a proposed agreement presented by county officials in July, opting instead to return to the negotiating table in October.

After about three months of negotiating, members of the Deputy Sheriffs Association on Friday voted 500 to 51 to accept the new agreement.

We are pleased to provide a fair contract to the Deputy Sheriffs Association and are so pleased that they accepted it, County Judge Nelson Wolff said in a statement.

On ExpressNews.com: Were pretty close: San Antonio, police union near deal on officer discipline in contract talks

Last summer, the court laid out priorities for a new collective bargaining agreement, specifically for higher pay and to involve our community in protecting public safety for all. Im happy to see that these have been embraced, Precinct 2 Commissioner Justin Rodriguez said in a statement.

The new agreement establishes a Citizens Advisory Board, or CAB, to provide an objective administrative review of complaints against deputies, officials said, adding that it has been long sought by the Commissioners Court. The CAB will consist of 10 county residents  two appointed by each member of the Commissioners Court  and one nonvoting member appointed by the Deputy Sheriffs Association, according to the agreement.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Tommy Calvert said in a statement that we have a historic increase in civilian oversight with this agreement. We turned the page on the antagonistic relationship that once existed with the court and increased wages to respect the tremendous job our men and women in uniform carry out.

Salazar said he is familiar with how an advisory board works, as the San Antonio Police Department  where he was a sergeant before being elected sheriff  has operated with one for about 30 years. He called the CAB an extra set of eyes that can provide insight from residents, such as doctors, educators and lawyers, to weigh in on cases prior to discipline.

The advisory board will provide opinions on disciplinary action to the sheriff, who will consider it when deciding what measures to impose.

Ultimately, its my decision, Salazar said.

The CAB will not weigh in on every case, Salazar said, adding that he, the respondent deputy or the complainant in a case can bring it to the board. He said severe complaints that go through internal affairs will be brought to the board, including use of force incidents such as deputy-involved shootings.

The new collective bargaining agreement also eliminates arbitration as a process for appealing disciplinary decisions and replaces it with an enhanced Civil Service Commission.

The commission will expand to seven members: a chairman appointed by the sheriff, one member appointed by the district attorney, one appointed by the county judge and one appointed by each county commissioner. These appointments are to be effective 30 days after appointment of the new civil service commissioner but no later than July 1.

Salazar said this means that local residents will be voting on whether to overrule discipline handed down by the sheriff, rather than an arbitrator who is often from outside the state.

He said specifics about the transparency of the boards proceedings are being worked out, such as whether deliberations will be recorded and open to the public.

Were going to make as much public as we possibly can without violating privacy rules, the sheriff said.

The sheriff said its safe to say the new CAB and enhanced commission will revolutionize the way disciplinary cases are handled in the sheriffs office.

The stakeholders calling the shots live here, Salazar said. They will be familiar with our customs, the language, the geography, and obviously, theyve got to live with the consequences of keeping someone in our profession.

Salazar also announced that the sheriffs office has removed the requirement for deputies to work in the jail for two years before they can apply to join the law enforcement side of the agency, in hopes of bolstering recruitment. He said people who work in the jail can receive up to three preference points, one for each year they have spent working in the jail.

The time youre putting into the jail is still helping you, Salazar said.

He said staffing issues that the jail is facing are caused by a large number of people retiring and COVID-19, which has resulted in nearly 200 deputies being out with the virus or waiting on negative test results to return to work after exposure.

On Jan. 18, the city and its police union met briefly to concur on tentative agreements on articles 11 and 14, regarding changes to promotions and off-duty employment, respectively. Collective bargaining began last February and appears to be on track to continue through February of this year.

In the latest meeting, city officials recited their counterproposal for officer pay, which includes a 13 percent total pay increase, with an 8 percent increase annually, and a 5 percent lump sum payment. The union has asked for a 16 percent wage increase over five years. The union also briefly touched on language defining the punishable actions of officers.

Both sides agreed to another 15-day extension to provide counterproposals for wages, miscellaneous duties and health benefits. They will meet next Monday. The latest extension pushes the deadline to reach a new agreement to Feb. 6, and there are several articles that remain unresolved.

jbeltran@express-news.net
Christine Arredondos love for the olive extract comes from her abuelita, who used it to cure all ills. It was a salve applied to cuts, used as drops for earaches and rubbed on childrens bellies for stomach aches.

Arredondo, a retired Marine gunnery sergeant, found olive oil all around her in her travels. She began researching the product, understanding the difference between bad oil and good oil. Arredondo, 53, learned there was a chemistry to the olive oils she pours fresh every day.

Arredondo opened San Antonios Gourmet Olive Oils in 2014  on her birthday  in the neighborhood where she grew up.

At the shop, she offers guests a healthy option in the city where the rich liquid first seeped into her life.

On ExpressNews.com: The sky is no longer the limit, only your beginning: Aviation execs flight poverty to opportunity

Across from the counter, a section of wall bears framed photos of Arredondo when she served in the Iraq War. Ribbons and medals adorn a shadow box alongside plaques etched with thanks for hard work and dedicated service.

William Luther /Staff photographer

She was born and raised on the South Side. She attended Adams Elementary School, Harlandale High School and South San Antonio High School, from which she graduated.

Arredondo studied at Palo Alto College before she enlisted in the Marines Corps  paying tuition was a struggle, and she could receive college benefits while serving her country.

She earned a bachelors in psychology from the University of the Incarnate Word and a masters in mental health counseling from St. Marys University.

Arredondo planned to serve four years, but then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and she reenlisted to help prevent that from ever happening again.

She served before, during and after the war in Iraq, which she said was life-changing.

William Luther /Staff photographer

You dont know anything about your life until that first bomb hits, Arredondo said. Its about the people to your left and to your right. Your job is trying to help keep them alive and support one another.

When she returned to San Antonio, that philosophy inspired her to open her shop in the community where she grew up.

A mural of melon-sized olives bookends wooden doors of the white one-story building at 1913 S. Hackberry St., across from the Little Red Barn Steakhouse. The wall-to-wall tasting room is painted in shades of olive green. Wooden shelves hold gleaming stainless steel dispensers called fusti that are filled with more than 80 different balsamic vinegars and infused olive oils. The dispensers protect the liquid from oxygen and sunlight that could cause the oils to go sour.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio window washer working to provide better days for family

Opening a spigot, Arredondo fills small tasting cups with oils from around the world  including Spain, Greece, Australia, Africa and Portugal. There are also sea salts that customers can use for seasoning.

When you sip the aged Italian balsamic, you can taste notes of oak and fruit. But Arredondo doesnt want guests to take her word  she encourages them to taste the selections because everyones palates are so different.

My goal is to bring something of quality, she said, that people could come back for and feel a part of.

William Luther /Staff photographer

In the future, shed like to raise awareness as a mental health counselor and build a private practice on her commercial lot.

If we can get to the root of the problem and incorporate counseling, its a win-win for everyone, she said. Unless we do something, its going to get worse, and we can do better.

But like other businesses, hers was brought back to square one by COVID. The shelter-in-place edict caused a drop in sales, which Arredondo said were on the rise before the coronavirus.

It was like we had barely opened again, she said. I want to build the business back up, and I plan on staying open.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio community lifts spirits of former Santa Claus of Fredericksburg Road

Lisa Norwood, one of Arredondos faithful patrons, hasnt let the coronavirus stop her frequent visits. She uses olive oil and balsamic vinegar only from the gourmet olive oil shop when cooking in her kitchen. Norwoods favorite is the raspberry balsamic vinaigrette, but theres a chocolate-infused balsamic vinegar she said was a very welcome surprise. On her next stop, she planned to buy a blood-orange olive oil she liked during a recent taste-testing visit.

About the author A 22-year veteran of the Air Force, Vincent T. Davis embarked on a second career as a journalist and found his calling. Observing and listening across San Antonio, he finds intriguing tales to tell about everyday people. He shares his stories with Express-News subscribers every Monday morning. See More Collapse

The three-year shop patron said she goes row to row, where there are so many choices, it makes it easy to forget that youre eating healthier.

Its like a little gem, said Norwood, 51. The selections are delicious, but just as importantly, youre supporting a locally owned business and a local family engaged in a healthy dining journey.

Norwood said there were two more pluses about Arredondos shop, which bears a logo of olives and a sprig of leaves: It gives back to the community, and she gets to hang out with Olive, the tasting-room cat.

San Antonios Gourmet Olive Oils is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Customers can shop inside or call for curbside pickup. Arredondo also offers customers a perk: They can bring in used bottles for refills or credit.

vtdavis@express-news.net
Metro Health on Sunday reported more than 8,700 new cases of COVID-19 as the spread of the virus continued accelerating over the weekend.

The city reported 4,814 new cases Saturday and 3,893 on Sunday.

No new COVID-related deaths were reported.

Sam Owens /San Antonio Express-News

The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 edged up on Sunday to 1,259. The number of patients in San Antonio hospitals has quadrupled since the start of the year. Thirty-six children were hospitalized with the virus, one more than on Friday.

On ExpressNews.com: With no light visible at end of S.A. omicron tunnel, critical stage might be next, officials say

Just over two-thirds of hospitalized patients were unvaccinated, according to Metro Health.

Sam Owens /San Antonio Express-News

COVID patients in intensive-care increased to 263 on Sunday, rising from 237 a week earlier. There were 125 patients on ventilators, up from 96 a week ago.

The city reported just 13 percent of staffed hospital beds were available. There were 131 new COVID-related hospital admissions on Sunday and 137 new admissions on Saturday.

There were 42,000 active COVID-19 cases across the city on Sunday.

On ExpressNews.com: As 10 more COVID-19 deaths are reported, San Antonio and Bexar County take action

Metro Health officials said Friday its not clear when San Antonio will begin to see a decline in cases. Amid the explosion of new cases here, states struck earlier by the Omicron variant of the virus appear to have seen the number of new cases peak.

Sam Owens /San Antonio Express-News

Average case counts in New York state have fallen by more than half since peaking earlier this month. Florida has similarly seen the number of new cases decline since the average new cases hit a peak on Jan. 10.

In all, more than 451,000 San Antonio residents have tested positive for the virus since the beginning of the pandemic. The citywide death toll stands at 5,044.

diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net
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One of the Alamo Citys biggest tourist attractions is due for a makeover.

Sections of the San Antonio River bordering the River Walk will be drained and dredged for the first time since January 2020 in an extensive cleanup effort spearheaded by the San Antonio River Authority and the San Antonio Public Works and Center City Development and Operations Department.

The biannual undertaking ensures the river, which is vital to the health of the local economy, remains clean and navigable.

Millions of people come to San Antonio because of the River Walk. Its just iconic, said Darlene Dorsey, senior public information officer for the Public Works Department. And we just do our due diligence to make sure we do as much as possible to keep it clean and make sure it remains an attraction to the world.

Jerry Lara /Staff photographer

Maintenance began Sunday and ends Sunday, Jan. 30. The eight-day period will see the river loop and river extension completely drained and the main channel partially drained, enabling crews to remove debris. Crews will station a crane at the corner of East Commerce and South Alamo Streets, near the famous Torch of Friendship statue to remove items.

On ExpressNews.com: San Antonio River draining targets invasive snail, uncovers weird trash

Jerry Lara /Staff photographer

Draining typically takes about 12 hours, Dorsey said, and refilling can take up to four times as long.

Historically, such debris often includes chairs from parades, said Paul Berry, the Public Works Department chief communications officer.

Other common finds include pocket change, cell phones, beaded necklaces and silverware sourced from the restaurants that line the river walk, Dorsey said. Two years ago, crews even recovered a laptop.

Historically, workers also have come across wedding rings and centuries- or millennia-old weapons and tools embedded in the rivers silty bottom.

caroline.tien@hearst.com
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is providing $75 million for an ecosystem restoration project that local leaders believe will help revitalize San Antonios West Side.

Advocates say the funding is a victory for the Westside Ecosystem Restoration Project, which has been in the planning stages for 14 years. It will transform 11 miles of the Alazan, Apache, Martinez and San Pedro creeks, restoring natural bird and aquatic habitats that were paved over for flood-control projects during the 1950s and 60s.

The Army Corps included the $75 million in its federal work plan. That bit of bureaucratic process is a tremendous win for the West Side creeks, said Jim Campbell, chairman of the board of the San Antonio River Authority.

The agency will hold a series of public meetings later this year, in collaboration with the Army Corps, on the design and construction of the project.

On ExpressNews.com: West Side residents hope creek restoration will revitalize community

A construction timeline will be developed in the next several months, once a contract is signed between the corps and the river authority, the projects local sponsor.

Bexar County and the city are local partners on the project, which is expected to improve water quality in the creeks, as well as downstream sections of the river that flow through the South Side, and provide natural beauty and recreation. It will include an outdoor living classroom and complement about 13 miles of hike-and-bike trails built as part of the local greenway system.

Kin Man Hui /Staff photographer

In a news release, Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said the project builds on the fantastic success of the Mission Reach, which demonstrated how urban ecosystem restoration on the river could benefit the South Side. The county and river authority have since made Westside Creeks a key funding priority.

With the creek project, were moving those environmental and recreational opportunities into the heart of the West Side, Wolff said.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the project will help advance environmental equity and justice. Councilwoman Teri Castillo, who represents the area, said the project will help right the wrongs of the past regarding environmental justice.

Billy Calzada, Staff / Staff Photographer

On ExpressNews.com: The Link seeks to connect River Walk, San Pedro Creek downtown

Our community deserves safe and healthy waterways and ecosystems, and this funding will go a long way toward this effort, Castillo said.

The funding also was hailed by Bexar Countys congressional delegation. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro said it will boost the quality of life for our community by transforming these historic creeks  into recreational treasures that West Side residents deserve.

The Westside Creeks Restoration Oversight Committee, which includes representatives of 20 local community organizations, will hold its next quarterly meeting at 6 p.m. Feb. 15. A location has not been announced. Visit westsidecreeks.com for more information.

shuddleston@express-news.net
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In the 2020 Democratic primary, Jessica Cisneros, a young progressive immigration attorney, challenged U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, the longtime incumbent in the 28th Congressional District.

After meeting with them in separate candidate meetings two years ago, our initial inclination was to recommend Cisneros. We believed she was a fresh and talented candidate who reflected the change needed for the district, which stretches from Laredo to San Antonio.

But after further deliberation, we recommended Cuellar because we didnt have a compelling reason to go against a congressman who leveraged his seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and had a track record of working with both major parties. Cisneros came within 3.6 points of defeating Cuellar, who went on to easily win a ninth term.

There should be no 10th term for Cuellar.

In the 2022 Democratic primary, we recommend Jessica Cisneros for Congressional District 28.

We met with Cuellar, Cisneros and another challenger, Tannya Benavides, on Jan. 18. We decided to recommend Cisneros because she offers a fresh and compelling vision for the district, although she needs to study up on military issues. We appreciate her expertise in immigration law and the potential for her to give voice to border and immigration issues.

We are also troubled by Cuellars measured support of the Remain in Mexico policy, which he said could continue with the presence of the United Nations. We also wonder how well Cuellar works with other border lawmakers.

The next afternoon, Cuellars Laredo home and campaign headquarters were the targets of a court-authorized raid by the FBI. ABC News has reported that its connected to a federal investigation involving Azerbaijan and U.S. businessmen. Cuellars role in this is unclear, and he has not been charged.

Voters will weigh this news accordingly, but, again, we had made our decision to recommend Cisneros before news of the FBI probe broke.

Its time for a new, engaged and energized voice, one best able to speak for and to the needs of the districts constituents. And, we can now say, one who wont be distracted by an FBI investigation.

In the Republican primary for the 28th Congressional District, we recommend Willie Vasquez Ng, who is far and away the superior candidate.

He is a former San Antonio Police Department officer whose roles ranged from patrol officer to detective to working with the U.S. Secret Service. Hes also the CEO of Blue Armor Security Services. In 2020, we endorsed him in his unsuccessful race for the Republican nomination for sheriff.

Vasquez Ng is a conservative with an interest in quality-of-life issues, including housing affordability and the districts high poverty rate. Hed be a strong and intriguing candidate in the general election.
The claim: More COVID deaths under President Biden than President Trump.  U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin.

Williams linked this increased level of deaths to Biden and credited the vaccine development to former president Trumps Operation Warp Speed, a federal agency partnership to accelerate the development and distribution of the vaccine.

PolitiFact rating: True. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows there were over 60,000 more deaths in 2021 compared to 2020. Johns Hopkins data, used by Williams and many national news outlets, also reported more deaths in 2021.

Discussion

National outlets including USA Today, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes all reported in late November that the number of deaths in 2021 exceeded those in 2020. They used Johns Hopkins data as an up-to-date marker of 2021 deaths and compared that to the CDCs official count of 2020 death certificates.

The outlets used the dashboard data instead of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on COVID-19 deaths since CDC data is less frequently updated. Data must be received and processed by the National Center for Health Statistics.

CDC data indicates there were 385,443 U.S. deaths attributing COVID-19 as an underlying or contributing cause on death certificates in 2020.

By contrast, there were 446,197 U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19 on death certificates in 2021, as of Jan. 12.

A CDC spokesperson wrote in a Jan. 5 email the CDC wont have the final 2021 data for nearly a year, but the death toll will climb as more data comes in for 2021. The spokesperson said it is safe to say the 2021 death toll will remain higher than in 2020.

The CDC numbers show there were over 60,000 more deaths in 2021 compared to 2020.

So, indeed, the number of COVID-19 deaths in 2021 as reported by the CDC exceeds the number of deaths reported in 2020.

For Texas, the CDC counted 47,669 deaths involving COVID-19 in 2021 as of Jan. 12 and 33,542 deaths involving COVID-19 in 2020.

Williams has voted against a mask mandate in the U.S. House and criticized Bidens vaccine mandate for employers.

The Biden administration has been advocating for vaccination as the linchpin in a strategy to combat the virus. Scientists call vaccination the single biggest protection against falling ill and dying from COVID-19. A September CDC report found that after the delta variant became the most common variant, people who were not fully vaccinated had a 10-times-higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people.

A study supported by the National Institutes of Health published in August estimated the vaccines prevented up to 140,000 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. during the first five months they were available.

Despite the vaccine, why are there more deaths this year?

Spencer Fox, associate director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, said the first thing to consider when it comes to looking at 2020 and 2021 pandemic statistics is that 2020 is a ten-month period while 2021 is a full pandemic year. Many of the COVID-19 deaths happened March 2020 and onward; only 26 deaths involving COVID-19 were recorded for January and February 2020.

Additionally, the U.S. experienced a surge in cases starting winter 2020 near the end of that year, Fox said. Many people died from those 2020 infections in early 2021, and that was well before vaccines were widely available. So while many of the infections in that wave happened in 2020, they were part of the 2021 mortality statistics.

There was also a delta variant surge in summer 2021, after vaccines had become widely available to the public.

What weve seen basically since that surge is really just continued spread, Fox said, noting that the delta and omicron variants surprised a lot of people.

The delta variant was more infectious and had increased transmissibility, according to the CDC.

But I think even though vaccines were widely available, I think a lot of the mortality that happened over the summer  during that major delta surge  was happening on unvaccinated individuals, Fox said.

Fox noted that even though many people were vaccinated, vaccination rates were low. There was plenty kind of fuel for the COVID virus to spread on, Fox said.

Timothy Bray, University of Texas at Dallas professor and director of the Institute for Urban Policy Research, noted there was not clear guidance at the beginning of the pandemic on how to record a death that was COVID-19-related. The institute runs the North Texas COVID Data Viewer and works with local governments on COVID-19 reporting.

So while there have been more COVID-19 deaths counted in 2021, its also important to note that individual medical professionals and local hospitals have gotten better at tracking deaths. And all that data on the local level rolls up to become the national-level data.


Air Serbia is planning to restore some flights to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and is considering adding new destinations as part of its summer expansion plans. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the carrier served Tel Aviv, Cairo and Beirut in the region, although the latter was terminated just prior to the global health emergency as a result of Lebanons economic crisis, which has since worsened. As its replacement, the Serbian carrier planned to launch a new service to the Jordanian capital of Amman, however, those were also shelved due to Covid-19. Almost two years later, the airline is yet to make a comeback with scheduled flights to the region and is currently maintaining charters to Dubai and Egyptian holiday resort towns. Air Serbia is planning to restore some flights to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and is considering adding new destinations as part of its summer expansion plans. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the carrier served Tel Aviv, Cairo and Beirut in the region, although the latter was terminated just prior to the global health emergency as a result of Lebanons economic crisis, which has since worsened. As its replacement, the Serbian carrier planned to launch a new service to the Jordanian capital of Amman, however, those were also shelved due to Covid-19. Almost two years later, the airline is yet to make a comeback with scheduled flights to the region and is currently maintaining charters to Dubai and Egyptian holiday resort towns.





The Egyptian Ambassador to Serbia, Amr Aljowaily, recently held talks with the national airline over its return to Cairo. We are in constant contact with Air Serbia, so we can look into overcoming the challenges of the pandemic and restore nonstop flights. I have conducted and facilitated numerous meetings in the aviation sector, with the aim of further expanding the network of flights and routes between the two countries. I look forward to positive results in this regard, Mr Aljowaily said. Air Serbia ran up to eight daily rotations to Hurghada last summer and also maintained charters to Sharm el Sheikh. Egypt is again expected to be a major drawcard for Serbian holidaymakers this coming summer season.





Tunisia has also emerged as a potential market for Air Serbia in the North Africa region. Tunisair has maintained year-round operations from Tunis to Belgrade for over a decade, however, it suspended flights between the two cities at the end of the 2021 summer season. Facing significant financial issues, it is unlikely to restore the route this year. Last summer, Air Serbia restored charter operations to Monastir in Tunisias southeast after several years. The route was previously served by the airlines predecessor Jat Airways on a scheduled seasonal summer basis. During last year, Tunisias Nouvelle Air also began serving the Serbian capital through summer charters.





Air Serbia has so far announced six new routes out of Belgrade for the 2022 summer season, with more new destinations to be announced in the coming weeks.




Defra has been urged to uphold the results of the ballots on statutory levies for horticulture and potatoes as its consultation on reforming the AHDB Order 2008 comes to an end.

Ministers say that the consultation, which closed on 10 January, is necessary to allow them to proceed with the proposed changes to the statutory instrument.

The Order currently imposes a levy on agriculture and horticulture, but has proposed to remove the levy on horticulture and potatoes following votes to end them.

However, campaigners against the levy have raised concerns that the consultation could be used to overturn the result of the previous statutory vote to abolish the levies, the results of which were announced last year.

Lincolnshire grower John Bratley, one of three farmers who helped trigger the formal ballots, said they had returned a 'clear majority' against the continuation of the levy.

The last time Defra conducted its own consultation on AHDB in 2018 it obtained only a 0.5% response from the industry," Mr Bratley noted.

"This latest consultation exercise has been equally badly organised and poorly promoted, and so there is a danger that a vocal minority of growers who support some form of compulsory levy could influence the result.

"It is therefore crucial that Defra respects the result of the ballot, which was organised under the existing statutory instrument, and scrap the statutory levy for horticulture and potatoes.

Another campaigner, Lincolnshire vegetable farmer Peter Thorold, went further: More than 480 horticultural growers and more than 790 potato levy payers voted to abolish the statutory levy.

Based on previous experience, the Defra consultation is unlikely to attract more than handful of responses, and so it is crucial that these are not allowed to overturn such a clear mandate to abolish the levy.

Despite the concerns, the three growers, known as the 'AHDB Petitioners', have welcomed the overall process and the chance to reform horticultural R&D in the UK.

Flower grower Simon Redden added: As predicted, R&D is already continuing without funding from AHDB, and this is a chance for horticultural research to be as dynamic and fast-moving as the industry that is funding it.

"We also agree with other groups that the government should do more to invest in this area."
By Choe Chong-dae





I am always awestruck by the many ancient tombs of Gyeongju, the ancient capital of Silla Kingdom (B.C. 57-A.D. 935). They radiate an aura of mystery and fascination. There's also the little rocky islet, called Daewang-am (Great King's Rock), approximately 200 meters off the coast at Bonggil-ri, a fishing village that is regarded as the Underwater Tomb of King Munmu (A.D. 661-681) in Munmudaewang-myeon. King Munmu was the greatest monarch of the Silla Kingdom who unified the Three Kingdoms (Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla) in 668.



After the king was cremated at an unknown site on the slopes of Mount Nang in Gyeongju, he desired that his ashes be brought to Daewang-am islet and buried on a big rock on the coast of the East Sea in order to defend Korea from foreign powers, even after death.



On account of its unique cultural value, the township Yangbuk, where the Underwater Tomb of King Munmu is enshrined, was renamed Munmudaewang-myeon last year.



I first visited the Underwater Tomb of King Munmu with members of the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Korea, when I was a high school student in Gyeongju in 1968. It was a beautiful spring day. Tourists were not allowed to land on Daewang-am due to safety concerns at that time. They could only view the islet from the beach of Ponggil-ri fishing village.



Aware of the RAS Korea members' serious interest in Silla culture, a special authorization to the Gyeongju Police Station was given on the recommendation of my father who was a pioneer of Korean archeology. As a result, we were able to visit the mysterious rocky islet on a small fishing boat. We embarked from the coast of Ponggil-ri, escorted by a police officer.



I was excited to make the trip with the RAS tour group. The group was a mix of diplomats, scholars, journalists, artists, businessmen and missionary clergymen.



Although my command of English was limited then, I was still able to converse with a few foreign members of the society including the long-term American resident of Korea John Nowell. It has been over a half century since we first met on the Gyeongju trip, and we remain good friends.



I have a very fond memory of James Hoyt (then cultural attache of the U.S. Embassy in Korea and Chairman of the Board of the Korean American Educational Commission, who later served as RAS Korea president in 1981 and 1982). Hoyt's publications include a translation of "Songs of the Dragons," the Korean national epic that was published by RAS Korea in 1979.



He returned to the United States in 1982. With Hoyt's enthusiastic love for Korean culture and history, he served as senior professor at the Academy of Korean Studies from 2000 to 2001. Coincidently, Hoyt was an alumnus of U.C., Berkeley with Buddhist scholar Frank Tedesco (UCB 1971), a close associate of mine, who also taught at the academy.



Hoyt gave a lecture on Korean history at an RAS meeting then. He also wrote "Soaring Phoenixes and Prancing Dragons," a historical survey of Korean classical literature, Korean Studies Series 20. I cherish the autographed volumes he gave me.



RAS Korea has made remarkable contributions to Korean studies as a serious discipline. The organization was specifically created decades ago to advance research of Korea as a distinctive civilization in terms of religion, history, culture, language, arts, music and literature. I appeal to the Republic of Korea to support RAS Korea and give it due credit. It pioneered Korea's globalization years before industrialization and international trade.





Choe Chong-dae (choecd@naver.com) is a guest columnist of The Korea Times. He is president of Dae-kwang International Co., and director of the Korean-Swedish Association.


Warrenton, VA (20186)

Today

Rain showers this morning with mostly cloudy conditions during the afternoon hours. High 79F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

A few passing clouds. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
The Darvaza Gas Crater, aka the infamous Gates of Hell in Turkmenistan, might now finally be closing

They came into being through a fiery accident and went on, bizarrely, to become one of the countrys greatest draws. Fifty years ago, Soviet scientists working in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan created what went on to become one of the nations most popular attractions for visitors. The scientists were looking for oil, and, as they drilled, they inadvertently hit a massive cavern filled with natural gas. The ground collapsed, and the rig fell into the giant hole. The scientists, hoping that the dangerous methane gas in the pit would quickly burn off, went on to set fire to it. Wrong move, it turns out  because, 50 years later, the flaming crater, now long called the Gates of Hell, is still burning vigorously.

Sited near the village of Darvaza (population: 350), the Gates of Hell (officially the Darvaza Gas Crater) is a 230-foot-wide, 65-foot-deep flaming crater, and it was almost a given that going to marvel at its fiery glow would be on your itinerary when you visited Turkmenistan. Apart from visiting to see the site in its blazing glory, people also liked to try wild camping around it.









That opportunity might soon be lost if President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has anything to do with it. Back in August 2019, he was filmed doing donuts in a rally car next to the crater he had renamed the Shining of Karakum in 2018. Early this month, however, something clearly changed. He has ordered the government of Turkmenistan to begin research into how the fire can be put out. Making an announcement on television on January 8, Berdimuhamedow cited his concern for the environment, the health of people living in the craters vicinity, and the loss of economic opportunity as the reason why he was asking for the extinguishing of the inferno. As per a report from Associated Press, he said, We are losing valuable natural resources for which we could get significant profits and use them for improving the well-being of our people.

Putting out the fire might take a while, but you might still find it difficult to rush there and see it before it goes out; getting a visa to Turkmenistan is now quite a task.The country is now being termed the new North Korea of travel.

Images: Shutterstock

Also see: Put mystical Malabar on your travel bucket list


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BEIJING, Jan. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CGTN's Liu Xin reached out to Tonga's Legislative Assembly Speaker Lord Fatafehi Fakafanua after volcanic eruptions and tsunami pounded the Pacific Island nation, for an update on the situation. CGTN was among the first Asian media outlets to speak to him. In her live interview, Liu Xin focused on the humanitarian aspect of the crisis and what was needed urgently to mitigate it.

"The shockwaves went right through the body"

Fakafanua was traveling to New Zealand when the undersea Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano was smoldering. He was in New Zealand when it erupted and so, was able to communicate with the rest of the world.

His wife Krystal, who was in Tonga, told him how shockwaves vibrated the entire building where they live. It was a different feeling from an earthquake. The shockwaves went right through the body.

While saddened by the loss of life -- three deaths had been confirmed by Jan 23 -- Fakafanua told Liu Xin the authorities were relieved that the toll wasn't higher. He also shared some good news. Hopefully, schools would reopen soon, probably on January 31.

A long road to recovery

However, communication in Tonga was still far from being back to normal. While voice calls and texts were possible, emails were intermittent.

The politician felt the damage to infrastructure and the effects of the volcanic ash and the tsunami would probably be felt for years to come.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization echoed him, saying in a statement on January 21 that the ashfall could have detrimental effects on crops and livestock. Around 86 percent of Tongans are engaged in some form of agriculture - either farming or raising livestock or fishing.

COVID major concern in relief efforts

Fakafanua said the international community had responded swiftly in providing aid. However, "We need water, we need food."

Anti-COVID-19 efforts will also add to the difficulties in receiving external assistance. Tonga, which has reported just one case of COVID-19 so far, is receiving foreign relief assistance in a contact-less form to ensure there are no new infections. All international humanitarian supplies are being dropped off without the crew coming in contact with the islanders. China rushed cash assistance and emergency supplies on January 20.

The Point with Liu Xin, CGTN's flagship Talk show program, is a 30-minute commentary on global news through Liu Xin's unique perspective. (387 words)

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-01-22/How-did-people-in-Tonga-feel-Liu-Xin-spoke-to-its-parliament-speaker-172hqLbzJ2o/index.html

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJDdKjFHyv0

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1731914/How_Tonga_coping_battered_a_volcanic_eruption_ensuing_tsunami.jpg
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Japan will on Monday see January results for the manufacturing, services and composite PMIs from Jibun Bank, setting the pace for a modest day in Asia-Pacific economic activity. In December, their scores were 54.3, 52.1 and 52.5, respectively. Australia will see January results for the manufacturing, services and composite PMIs from Markit Economics; in December, their scores were 57.7, 55.1 and 54.9, respectively. Singapore will release December figures for consumer prices, with forecasts suggesting an annual increase of 3.75 percent overall and 1.7 percent for core CPI. That follows the 3.8 percent overall increase and the 1.6 percent gain for core CPI in November. Taiwan will provide December data for industrial production and retail sales; in November, they were up an annual 12.19 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved 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.
SINGAPORE, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Azentio Software ("Azentio"), a global information technology company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Aliza Knox as a Non-Executive Director to the Board.

Aliza brings to Azentio a wealth of knowledge and expertise with over three decades of broad international marketing and management experience. She is most recognized for building and operating successful businesses in complex and emerging sectors including financial services, consulting, mobile, SaaS, while covering markets across Asia, Latin America, and Europe.

Aliza has held several leadership roles in relationship development, sales and operations, as well as strategic partnering. Most recently, Aliza was Head of APAC for Cloudflare and previously was Chief Operating Officer at Unlockd. In an earlier role, she held the position of Head of APAC for Twitter, having joined the digital enterprise after Google, where she was Managing Director of Online Sales & Operations in APAC. Aliza has extensive financial services experience at eminent companies like Visa International and Charles Schwab Corporation. She was the Vice President and Director - Asian Financial Services at Boston Consulting Group.

Aliza has served on the boards of listed companies in Australia, Singapore, Germany and UK. She was an advisor to the ANZ Bank Board Technology Committee. As a Non-Executive Board Director and advisor, she is dedicated to empowering the next generation of leaders, to build successful global businesses. As one way to do this, she has written the forthcoming book 'Don't Quit Your Day Job' (Wiley; April 2022).

Commenting on Aliza's appointment, Tony Kinnear, Chief Executive Officer, Azentio Software, said, "We welcome Aliza to our Board. Her extensive operational experience as a senior executive in marquee global firms and her knowledge and insights in customer-driven technology businesses will add depth to the Board's competencies as we continue to execute on our ambitious growth plans and drive value for our clients."

"I am honoured to be joining Azentio at such a challenging and exciting time," stated Aliza Knox. "As someone who is passionate about technology, I am confident and excited about the direction that Azentio is taking. I look forward to working with the Board and the talented leadership team on accelerating our core business initiatives and shaping a robust, sustainable growth path for Azentio," she said.

About Azentio Software Private Ltd

Azentio Software provides mission critical, core and vertical-specific software products for clients in banking, financial and insurance services primarily across the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and India. The company's flagship products include Premia Astra and Beyontec Suite (Core Insurance Software), Kastle (Universal Banking Solution), iMAL (Islamic Core Banking Platform), AMLOCK (Financial Crime Detection and Management Solution), MFund Plus (Wealth & Asset Management Solution) and Orion (Enterprise Resource Planning Solution). More details can be found here azentio.com/

Media Contact:

Danielle Karam

danielle.karam@azentio.com

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1731440/Aliza_Knox.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1712686/Azentio_Software_Logo.jpg
By Suh Jeong-in





During the closing ceremony of the Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato on Oct. 31, 2021, an announcement was made that Korea would be a guest country of the festival next year  the largest cultural event in Mexico. This was praised with big applause by all those who were present.



On that same day, in the Day of the Dead parade, an annual tradition taking place in Mexico City's emblematic Reforma Avenue, hundreds of young Mexicans impressively showed up wearing costumes featuring red overalls and black masks from the Netflix Korean series "Squid Game."



Most notably, "Korean Day" is celebrated annually on May 4, on the Republic of Korea Avenue of Merida, Yucatan, where in the year 1905, the first 1,033 Koreans settled in Mexico.



Despite the Pacific Ocean's extensive vastness  which separates Korea and Mexico  both countries have built a very close relationship that has lasted throughout time.



Today, the annual trade volume between our countries is around $20 billion, which makes Korea Mexico's fourth largest trading partner. Mexico is Korea's most important trading partner in Latin America.



Likewise, our bilateral relationship has intensified as a result of several historical milestones, including the 2005 announcement of a Strategic Partnership between Korea and Mexico. The inauguration of a direct flight between Korea and Mexico in 2017 made Mexico a gate between East Asia and Latin America.



The establishment of diplomatic relations took place on Jan. 26, 1962, and in 2022, we will celebrate the 60th year anniversary. On this occasion, the Korean embassy will carry out different activities and events, including the exchange of congratulatory messages between our presidents, and the publication of a commemorative book.



A series of cultural events will also be held throughout Mexico to promote Korea-Mexico bilateral exchanges: Korea's participation in the 2022 Cervantino Festival, and the first Aztec civilization exhibition in Korea that will take place in the Korean National Museum in Seoul.



What path will the bilateral relationship take in the next 60 years? Taking advantage of opportunities from the U.S.-China economic rivalry and the global COVID-19 pandemic, and overcoming the geographical distance between Korea and Mexico, I want to share three prospective paths that will strengthen our already excellent bilateral relationship.First one is deepening bilateral cooperation through the institutionalization of bilateral economic cooperation, such as a Free Trade Agreement between Korea and Mexico. Once I took office as ambassador to Mexico, I carried out various outreach activities to reaffirm the importance and the need for the bilateral FTA agreement between the two countries. I have highlighted its advantages to authorities of Mexico's federal government, to legislative bodies, to state governments, and to its business sector.



In December 2021, my Embassy hosted a Korea-Mexico Economic Forum, in which participants sympathized with the importance of consummating our bilateral relationship through a trade agreement. This institutional framework will maximize the potentials of bilateral cooperation and will contribute to the international trade system. Just as Acapulco, Mexico was a connection point with Manila, the Philippines in the past, Korea and Mexico can become connectors between Asia and Latin America.



Secondly, we need to explore post-pandemic cooperation, and the health sector could be a starting point. In 2020, Korean companies provided thousands of COVID-19 test kits and medicines for child cancer to Mexico and they will be able to broaden their activities based on previous cooperation. In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, we must further promote cooperation in high-tech industries in areas such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, as well as data processing.



Finally, in response to glocalization  whereby local governments, the business sector, and sub regional organizations have become more important in their interaction with nation states  there is room for further Korea-Mexico cooperation at different levels. Taking note of ??promoting relations with local governments, the Korean Embassy in Mexico will publish reports on the commercial and investment environment in each of Mexico's 32 states.



In addition, we want to contribute to strategic issues within the Latin American region by developing cooperation projects with the Latin America Office of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) in Mexico and establishing a cooperation framework for the use of funds from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Central American Development Bank (CABEI).





Suh Jeong-in is Korea's ambassador to Mexico.
LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Trian Fund Management LP, the activist hedge fund run by Nelson Peltz, has acquired a stake in Unilever Plc. (UN, ULVR.L, UL), adding pressure on the Dove soap maker, after Unilever's failed bid to buy a Consumer Healthcare business from GlaxoSmithKline Plc. (GSK.L, GSK), according to several reports citing people familiar with the matter. But the size of the stake couldn't be learned, the reports said. On 19th January, Unilever said it would not increase its offer for GSK Consumer Healthcare business above 50 billion pounds. The U.K healthcare giant GlaxoSmithKline had already rejected three offers from Unilever, saying that the offers fundamentally undervalued the Consumer Healthcare business and its future prospects. The Consumer Healthcare business is a joint venture between GSK and Pfizer, with GSK holding a majority controlling interest of 68% and Pfizer 32%. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved 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.
GENEVA, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Svenja Schulze, announced today 200 million (US$228.3 million) in new funding for Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

With this new multi-year contribution, Germany becomes ECW's top donor, with over 318.8 million (US$362.7 million) in total contributions to the Fund.

ECW also reaches the milestone of over US$1 billion mobilized from public and private donors in just 5 years of operations, making it one of the fastest growing initiatives in the UN.

Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif joined Minister Schulze in Geneva for the announcement on the International Day of Education.

"Education is the key that enables millions of girls and boys to break through the cycle of poverty and lead a dignified life. The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to wipe out the educational successes of recent decades. There are also millions of displaced children who cannot go to school. The poorest people suffer the most, especially girls and children with disabilities. We have a shared responsibility not to lose this generation," said Federal Minister Svenja Schulze.

"These crucial contributions are essential in achieving our goals to provide every crisis-affected girl and boy with the hope and opportunity that a quality education provides. We call on all governments and private sector partners to follow Germany's lead and support Education Cannot Wait's mission with US$1 billion in urgent funding," said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education.

"We warmly thank the people of Germany and the German Government for this generous, ground-breaking contribution. ECW is committed to ensuring no child is left behind as we race to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 4: inclusive, equitable, quality education, and work to build a more peaceful, more prosperous world for generations to come," said Sherif.

The funding will help ECW reach more of the 128 million children caught in humanitariann crises with education. It is estimated that between 11 million and 20 million girls will never return to school after COVID, threatening decades of progress made toward gender equality.

Without education, these children face risks of child marriage, early pregnancy, sexual exploitation, child labor, trafficking, and recruitment into armed groups.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1656121/Education_Cannot_Wait_Logo.jpg
Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

Idorsia appoints Guy Braunstein to Chief Medical Officer and Alberto Gimona to Head of Global Clinical Development

Guy Braunstein, currently Head of Global Clinical Development, to assume newly created role of Chief Medical Officer and remain a member of the Idorsia Executive Committee

Alberto Gimona, currently Head of Therapeutic Area Units, to succeed Guy Braunstein and join the Idorsia Executive Committee

Allschwil, Switzerland - January24, 2022

Idorsia Ltd (SIX: IDIA) today announced the appointment of Guy Braunstein, who has served as Head, Global Clinical Development since the creation of Idorsia and before, since 2009 at Actelion, to a newly created role - Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and affirms that Guy will continue to serve as a member of the Idorsia Executive Committee (IEC) in this new position. Alberto Gimona, who has served as the Head of Therapeutic Area Units since February 2019 within Global Clinical Development, will succeed Guy as Head of Global Clinical Development and join the IEC. Both roles are effective immediately.

The CMO role will ensure that Idorsia's approach to medical governance and its policies and procedures are globally aligned and consistent across Drug Discovery, Clinical Development, Pharmaceutical Development and Global and Local Medical Affairs.

Jean-Paul Clozel, M.D. and Chief Executive Officer of Idorsia commented:

"Guy has been integral to rapidly advancing Idorsia's clinical pipeline and the approval of our first product, less than 5 years after the company's inception. As Idorsia enters a new phase, becoming a fully-fledged biopharmaceutical company with marketed products, we can benefit from a dedicated focus on medical governance. The CMO office will unify the company's quality and governance standards to confirm an uncompromisingly ethical and scientifically rigorous approach along the lifecycle of all products in Idorsia's pipeline, ensuring appropriate and safe use of Idorsia's medicinal products and medical ethics in engagement with various stakeholders."

Jean-Paul continued:

"As such, the Board and I have agreed to create the role of Chief Medical Officer, reporting directly to me. With his wealth of experience and his deep knowledge of the Idorsia pipeline, Guy is in the perfect position to take on this new role, and as a member of the IEC, he will continue to help steer the future of Idorsia."

Guy Braunstein, MD and Chief Medical Officer of Idorsia, commented:

"I am incredibly proud to have worked alongside such a patient-focused team and for what we have achieved in such a short time. As the CMO, I will continue to work with Clinical Development as well as with other colleagues across Idorsia as we unify the company's approach to medical governance. I very much look forward to continuing to foster a patient's centered culture that keeps a medical and scientific innovation mindset at the heart of the company."



Jean-Paul Clozel added:

"I have worked with Alberto for quite some time, during our days at Actelion. Alberto was instrumental for the regulatory approval of the key products of Actelion. I was very pleased when Alberto joined the Idorsia team. His broad clinical and medical expertise, intimate knowledge of our pipeline and therapeutic areas, as well as his mentorship management style will ensure Idorsia's global clinical development function will continue to thrive, and our pipeline will rapidly advance. I have every confidence in a smooth transition and look forward to working more closely with both Alberto and Guy as members of the IEC."

Alberto Gimona, MD and Head of Global Clinical Development of Idorsia, commented:

"I am very proud to carry forth the baton of the clinical development organization leadership from Guy and happy that we will continue to work together in our new roles. I have known the Global Clinical Development organization since 2011 when I joined Actelion, and I was pleasantly surprised when I moved to Idorsia in 2019, to discover how the organization had evolved, becoming even more versatile and diverse, managing multiple complex studies in different therapeutic areas. I know how dedicated, enthusiastic, committed, and highly professional people in this organization are. I look forward to continue working with all the teams in clinical development in this new role, as we advance our innovative pipeline."

Notes to the editor

About Idorsia

Idorsia Ltd is reaching out for more - We have more ideas, we see more opportunities and we want to help more patients. In order to achieve this, we will develop Idorsia into a leading biopharmaceutical company, with a strong scientific core.

Headquartered near Basel, Switzerland - a European biotech-hub - Idorsia is specialized in the discovery, development and commercialization of small molecules to transform the horizon of therapeutic options. Idorsia has a broad portfolio of innovative drugs in the pipeline, an experienced team of professionals covering all disciplines from bench to bedside, state-of-the-art facilities, and a strong balance sheet - the ideal constellation to translate R&D efforts into business success.

Idorsia was listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (ticker symbol: IDIA) in June 2017 and has over 900 highly qualified specialists dedicated to realizing our ambitious targets.

For further information, please contact

Andrew C. Weiss

Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications

Idorsia Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Hegenheimermattweg 91, CH-4123 Allschwil

+41 58 844 10 10

investor.relations@idorsia.com (mailto:investor.relations@idorsia.com)

media.relations@idorsia.com (mailto:media.relations@idorsia.com)

www.idorsia.com (http://www.idorsia.com)

The above information contains certain "forward-looking statements", relating to the company's business, which can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "estimates", "believes", "expects", "may", "are expected to", "will", "will continue", "should", "would be", "seeks", "pending" or "anticipates" or similar expressions, or by discussions of strategy, plans or intentions. Such statements include descriptions of the company's investment and research and development programs and anticipated expenditures in connection therewith, descriptions of new products expected to be introduced by the company and anticipated customer demand for such products and products in the company's existing portfolio. Such statements reflect the current views of the company with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performances or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as anticipated, believed, estimated or expected.

Attachment
Riga, Latvia, 2022-01-24 07:30 CET -- "Capitalica Asset Management", the SBA Group company developing the Verde business centre in Riga, has entered into one of the largest lease agreements in the Latvian office market recently with Swisscom, the largest telecommunications company in Switzerland. According to the agreement, Swisscom will move into Verde owned by Capitalica Baltic Real Estate Fund I this summer and till 2024 will increase the leasable area from 1500 to almost 4,000 sqm. The need for sustainability and functionality "The arrival of a prominent international tenant focused on employee welfare and sustainability justifies our strategic direction to offer the highest class and greenest offices in the city to the high potential Riga market. Swisscom's recognition will undoubtedly catalyse the arrival of other tenants, and we are currently in extensive negotiations with companies looking to settle in Verde. We expect successful results soon," says Andrius Barstys, CEO of Capitalica Asset Management. Swisscom is not only the largest telecommunications service provider but also one of the leading IT companies in Switzerland. As early as the end of 2020, it announced a plan to set up a second DevOps centre outside Switzerland in Riga by 2025, with an investment of up to EUR 20 million. The company has set itself the ambitious goal of creating one of Europe's leading technology development centres in Riga. Swisscom is already present in Riga, renting 440 sqm of office space, and the Verde location will increase the international company's rental space by almost 10-fold. "The choice in favor of VERDE office complex is logical and natural. Firstly, because we can grow together with VERDE. According to our growth strategy 2025, we make annual plans for the size of our team. Our team will increase from 40 to 120 employees this year, to 200 employees in 2023 and to 280 employees by the end of 2024. Here, we will be able to gradually grow along with the development of the office complex. Secondly, sustainability is one of Swisscom's strategic priorities, with another challenging goal to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2025. In that respect, our values correspond with VERDE's values, and we see that together we will be able to attain that goal. And thirdly, the location and infrastructure of VERDE perfectly meet our needs as a company and employees," says Elina Branta, Swisscom DevOps Center Latvia Product Manager. In addition to the office space, Verde is also renting a 200 sqm terrace for employees. "Although the Covid-19 pandemic has significantly affected our habits and work arrangements, the world's leading IT, financial and other companies see their future development largely in connection with the creation of an attractive, flexible and cooperation-oriented work environment for their employees. We will provide amenities exactly of this type in combination with a private 200 m2 terrace to one of the fastest-growing IT companies in Latvia - Swisscom," comments VERDE Commercial Director Iveta Lace. Investors have discovered Riga Eriks Bergmans, partner and head of Colliers Baltics, says that the office market is gaining strong momentum both in Riga and in other Baltic capitals. Companies have already changed their strategies regarding work organisation and changes in office functionality have become more important than ever. For tenants, it is now particularly important that the space can be adapted to mixed working principles - both in the office and working from home. Mr Bergmans also notes that tenants are becoming more demanding in terms of quality, sustainability, and offices' internal climate. Financial, IT, start-up and global service companies entering the market are increasingly looking at opportunities to expand their business in Riga For these reasons, the modern and green office centre Verde is a strong example of how to design future offices that can adapt to business needs. The two Verde buildings will have a leasable area of 30,000 sqm and a total area of 45,000 sqm, including an underground car park that is already built. The two 11-storey buildings will feature a landscaped 600 sqm terrace with outdoor workplaces and other amenities that will improve the employees' productivity and well-being. The first building will be the first and only class A office building, due to open in Riga in June this year. The second building, for which construction has already started, is scheduled to open in May 2023. The Verde business centre is being developed by Capitalica Asset Management, an SBA Group company, and. Notus Developers, another group's company manages the construction process. The general contractor is Latvian construction company Velve. The investment in Verde is expected to amount to more than EUR 65 million. In addition to Verde, Capitalica Baltic Real Estate Fund I also owns the business centres Kauno Dokas and Z135 in Vilnius and the shopping centre Luize in Klaipeda. For more information: Andrius Barstys CEO of Capitalica Asset Management Andrius.Barstys@capitalica.lt +370 612 30260
The Authority pledges to scale even greater heights in 2022

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Saudi Ports Authority (MAWANI) has been instrumental in strengthening the Kingdom's maritime sector in 2021, helping the nation make its mark on the global shipping and freight landscape. 2021 represented a banner year in the Kingdom's drive to become a global logistics hub that connects three continents.

Thanks to the Authority's relentless efforts to meet its ambitious goals for the sector, the Kingdom ranked 16th in the 2021 edition of Lloyd's List One Hundred Ports in terms of volume handled. Three of the country's prominent ports featured in the annual rankings, namely the Jeddah Islamic Port (37th position), King Abdullah Port (84th position), and King Abdulaziz Port (93rd position).

As a testament to the stature and competitive appeal of Saudi ports, the Kingdom was declared the world's fifth-fastest country in container ship handling by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) annual index report for 2020, thus marking the country's first-ever entry in the world's top 10 seaports list. The Kingdom also moved up on the Liner Shipping Connectivity Index during Q3 2021to lead the region with 70.68 points.

In parallel with the launch of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy, MAWANI announced its blueprint for a prosperous and sustainable maritime sector that includes initiatives to develop the national economy and transform Saudi ports into investment magnets.

In its bid to bolster the Kingdom's competitive edge, MAWANI had inked a deal with Maersk to invest SAR500 million for setting up a fully integrated logistics zone at Jeddah Islamic Port, which is set to be the largest in the Middle East. Work also commenced on the development of Phase 1 of the SAR3 billion South Container Terminal at Jeddah Islamic Port by DP World.

To further strengthen the Kingdom's trade ties and global partnerships, MAWANI added four maritime shipping services out of Jeddah Islamic Port and King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam in 2021, connecting them with ports in the Indian Ocean, Northern Europe, Djibouti, China, and Bahrain. The Authority also signed an agreement with Hapag-Lloyd to increase container throughput across Saudi ports.

In keeping with its strategic objective of maximizing and fully leveraging the increased capacity of Saudi ports, MAWANI executed 32 infrastructure projects that involved the construction of new berths, renovation and expansion of existing berths, and dredging of turning basins. The Authority also opened up investment opportunities to develop and operate multi-purpose terminals at eight Saudi ports.

In its mission to enhance customer experience, MAWANI developed seven new online systems, granted 16 operations licenses to national and foreign shipping agents, and brought online a new trucking appointment booking system. Recognizing the critical role that the ports and logistics sector plays in various industries, from manufacturing to food security, MAWANI had signed a deal to build the Middle East's largest grain and animal feed import and processing terminal. With 120 silos, this terminal will be able to handle a whopping eight million tons of bulk grain per year.

To support national efforts to enable the tourism sector with world-class facilities, the Saudi Ports Authority inaugurated the Kingdom's first cruise ship terminal at Jeddah Islamic Port, which saw off the cruise ship MSC Bellissima's maiden voyage. MAWANI also signed agreements with Cruise Saudi and Globe Group to build and develop cruise ship terminals and berths at King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam and Yanbu Commercial Port.

Commenting on 2021's achievements, H.E. Omar Hariri, President of the Saudi PortsAuthority, said: "Thanks to the support of our Leadership and coinciding with the launch of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy, the Kingdom has established a clear roadmap to transform the maritime sector and raise its ports to world-class levels. We intend to invest more in our port infrastructure for seamless integration with other modes of transport across the country. We further aim to achieve an annual capacity that exceeds 40 million TEUs through greater ties with international shipping routes."

His Excellency added: "MAWANI's achievements come on the back of the support of H.E. Eng. Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, the Minister of Transport and Logistics, the Saudi Ports Authority's Board of Directors, and the effective collaboration between government agencies to integrate the national transport system and execute our strategy. Working closely with our partners has been and will remain a key to success in turning Saudi ports into significant value contributors to the national economy."

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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 24, 2022 / Core Assets Corp., ("Core Assets" or the "Company") (CSE:CC)(FSE:5RJ)(WKN:A2QCCU)(OTCQB:CCOOF) is pleased to announce that it has appointed Ms. Monica Barrington as Vice President of Exploration, Mr. Joel Faltinsky as Director, and Mr. David Gower as a Technical Advisor to the Company. The Company also announces the resignation of Mr. Scott Rose as a Director of the Company.

Ms. Barrington is an Atlin-based exploration geologist. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Honors) Degree in Earth Sciences from Memorial University of Newfoundland and holds a combined 9 years of experience in research and mineral exploration in Eastern Canada, as well as the Golden Triangle and Atlin Mining Camp of northwest British Columbia. Prior to joining the Core Assets team, Ms. Barrington was employed as Senior Project Geologist with Brixton Metals Corporation where her work focused on the advancement of their porphyry-epithermal and orogenic gold targets in British Columbia. During this time, she was responsible for the planning and management of regional exploration programs, logistics, permitting, and mine compliance for their "Thorn" and "Atlin Goldfields" projects.

Mr. Faltinsky holds a Bachelor of Engineering, Electrical & Electronics from James Cook University in Australia and has over 8 years experience working in the mining and resources sector. He has experience in operations, engineering, project management, and investor relations in Australia and Canada, with companies including BHP Billiton, BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), Anglo American, Glencore and Peabody. Notably, Mr. Faltinsky worked on-site at South32's Cannington Mine (then BHP Billiton) which is a leading producer of lead, zinc and silver. Recently, he has served as the Investor Relations Manager for Voltaic Minerals Corporation, a publicly traded company on the TSX Venture Exchange, and is currently Vice President of First Phase Media, a private digital media agency servicing public companies across Canada including mining & exploration, cannabis, tech and healthcare.

Mr. Gower holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia and a Master of Science degree in Earth Sciences from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has been active in the mineral industry for over 30 years, including positions with Noranda Inc. (now Glencore Canada Corporation) as Manager of Atlantic Canada Exploration, and at Falconbridge Ltd. At Falconbridge Ltd., Mr. Gower served as General Manager of Global Nickel and Platinum Group Metal (PGM) Exploration and as a member of the senior operating team that approved capital budgets for new mining projects. Mr. Gower has been involved in numerous discoveries and mine development projects including at Raglan, Mattagami and Sudbury, Canada, as well as greenfield discoveries in Brazil and Tanzania. He currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Emerita Resources Corporation and as a director of Alamos Gold and Exploits Discovery Corporation.

Core Assets' President and CEO Nick Rodway comments, "Core Assets' discovery story has been growing rapidly and as a result of this we are continuing to grow our team with young, energetic management backed by an experienced advisory board. We are excited to continue the advancement of the Blue Property in 2022, and to present the remaining results from the 2021 exploration program. We thank Mr. Scott Rose for his help in the initial listing of the Company and his continued support of Core Assets Corp. moving forward."

Promotional activity

Core Assets has engaged CEO Views to author and publish an overview of the Company and its business and properties. The article is expected to be published in mid-2022 and will be available solely on CEO Views' website. CEO Views will be paid a cash fee of $9,105.27 for its services. CEO Views is independent to Core Assets.

CEO Views

39304, Geneva Drive, Farmington Hills, MI, 48331.

Phone: +1 (248) 579-8058

E-mail: contact@theceoviews.com

About Core Assets Corp.

Core Assets is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of mineral projects in British Columbia, Canada. The company currently holds 100% title ownership in the Blue Property, which covers a land area of ~108,337 Ha (~1,083 km). The project lies within the Atlin Mining District, a well-known gold mining camp locate in the unceded territory of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation. The Blue Property hosts a structural feature known as The Llewellyn Fault Zone ("LFZ"). This structure is approximately 140km in length and runs from the Tally-Ho Shear Zone in the Yukon, south through the property to the Alaskan Panhandle Juneau Ice Sheet in the United States. Core Assets believes that the south Atlin Lake area and the LFZ has been neglected since the last major exploration campaigns in the 1980's. The LFZ plays an important role in mineralization of near surface metal occurrences across the property. The past 50 years have seen substantial advancements in the understanding of porphyry, skarn, and carbonate replacement type deposits both globally and in BC's Golden Triangle. The Company has leveraged this information at the Blue Property to tailor an already proven exploration model and believes this could facilitate a discovery. Core Assets is excited to become one of the Atlin Mining District's premier explorers, where its team believes there are substantial opportunities for new discoveries and development in the area.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

CORE ASSETS CORP.

"Nicholas Rodway"

President & CEO

Tel: 604.681.1568

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

Statements in this news release which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations, or intentions regarding the future. Forward looking statements in this news release include that CEO Views will author and publish an overview about the Company, its business and properties as well as its future exploration goals; that the LFZ structural feature on the Blue Property plays an important role in mineralization of near surface metal occurrences across the property; and that the Blue Property has substantial opportunities for a discovery and development. It is important to note that the Company's actual business outcomes and exploration results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties include that the mineral claims may prove to be unworthy of further expenditure; there may not be an economic mineral resource; methods we thought would be effective may not prove to be in practice or on our claims; economic, competitive, governmental, environmental and technological factors may affect the Company's operations, markets, products and prices; our specific plans and timing drilling, field work and other plans may change; we may not have access to or be able to develop any minerals because of cost factors, type of terrain, or availability of equipment and technology; and we may also not raise sufficient funds to carry out our plans. The novel strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, also poses new risks that are currently indescribable and immeasurable. Additional risk factors are discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for its recently completed fiscal period, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com . The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

SOURCE: Core Assets Corp.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/685011/Core-Assets-Announces-Changes-to-Management-and-Advisory-Board
 IT OPENS A NEW LOGISTICS WAREHOUSE IN POLAND IN ORDER TO GUARANTEE SUPPLY WITHIN EUROPE IN 24-48 HOURS

 IT'S THE INDEPENDENT COMPANY WHICH MANUFACTURES AND DISTRIBUTES AUTO PARTS

MADRID, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The auto parts industry is looking for companies in Europe which can manufacture and distribute, offering total guarantee and quality but not dependent on the Chinese market. SEINSA Corporation, based in Navarra - North of Spain- and with manufacturing plants both in Spain and India, controls the whole cycle of product manufacturing, from raw materials to the distribution, and it has multiplied its exports in America and Europe. In order to guarantee supply chain agility and the fastest possible service, the company opens in Poland the biggest supply and storage centre in the auto parts industry.

The Spanish group, SEINSA Corporation, opens in 2022 a brand-new warehouse based in Poland for product distribution in central Europe. This new storage centre adds value and commercial opportunities for the two manufacturing plants that the company has in Navarra (Spain) and in Chennai (India): "It's a total revolution for the supply of auto parts", explains Mikel Azcarate, head of the Spanish firm founded fifty years ago in Navarra.

Spanish industry holds fourth place in the European ranking of auto parts manufacturers, and SEINSA Corporation is already a world reference with its efficient and fully automated production plants. The company exports 98% of its products to 85 brands in 85 countries. The industry sector asks for "an innovative product, made locally, reaching the client in the fastest possible time, but maintaining the quality standards", explains Mikel Azcarate.

The opening of this new logistics centre in Poland entails a competitive advantage and allows SEINSA to become the fastest supplier as the servicing time gets shortened: from an average 7 days wait to a 24h-48h product delivery. Shortening delivery time means there's an increase in the business volume and in sales, but it also means that the clients improve their profitability, so "we all win".

Despite the industry sector's forecast, SEINSA has managed to triple exports to the US and Mexico, closing the year 2021 with a figure of over 32 million euros and with the aim of reaching 40 million in 2022.
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.
- The Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market Size, Growth driven by rising focus toward phasing out nuclear facilities is demanding decommissioning service and rising number of reactors being phased-out is attracting a significant number of the nuclear decommissioning services market players. Europe led the global market in 2018 and 2019 and is expected to continue its dominance during 2020-2027.

NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report " Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Reactor Type (Pressurized Water Reactor, Boiling Water Reactor, Gas Cooled Reactor); Strategy (Immediate Dismantling, Deferred Dismantling, Entombment); Application (Commercial Power Reactor, Research Power Reactor, Prototype); Capacity (Below 100 MW, 100 - 1,000 MW, Above 1,000 MW)", published by The Insight Partners, the global nuclear decommissioning services market was valued at US$ 5.82 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 9.43 billion by 2027; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.3% from 2020 to 2027.

Get Exclusive Sample Pages of Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market Size - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis with Strategic Insights at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00010053/

Report Coverage Details Market Size Value in US$ 5.82 Billion in 2019 Market Size Value by US$ 9.43 Billion by 2027 Growth rate CAGR of 6.3% from 2020-2027 Forecast Period 2020-2027 Base Year 2020 No. of Pages 169 No. Tables 67 No. of Charts & Figures 63 Historical data available Yes Segments covered Reactor Type; Strategy; Application; Capacity Regional scope North America; Europe; Asia Pacific; Latin America; MEA Country scope US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina Report coverage Revenue forecast, company ranking, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends

Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market: Competitive Landscape and Key Developments

AECOM, Ansaldo Energia, Babcock International Group Plc., Betchel Corporation, EnergySolutions, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, Onet SA, Orano, Studsvik AB, Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Sogin S.p.A, Fluor Corporation, Nuvia Limited, Northstar Group Services, Inc., Atkins, PreussenElektra GmbH, NUKEM Technologies, GNS Gesellschaft fur Nuklear-Service GmbH, Manafort Brothers Incorporated, and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power are among the key players in the global nuclear decommissioning services market.

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The leading companies are focusing on the expansion and diversification of their market presence, and acquisition of new customer base, thereby tapping prevailing business opportunities.

In 2020, Ansaldo Nucleare won 10 million Euro Framework Contract from the European Commission. Under this contract, Ansaldo Nucleare aims at an assessment of the nuclear fusion power plant physics and technology system architecture, overall configuration and system engineering processes.

In 2020, KHNP signed a nuclear decommissioning support contract with a Canadian company. According to the contract, five nuclear decommissioning experts-four from KHNP and one from Kinectrics (its partner firm)-are expected to manage the decommissioning services at heavy water reactor decontamination sites at Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, Bruce Nuclear Power Plant, and Darlington Nuclear Power Plant in Canada for one year. This agreement is anticipated to help KHNP and Kinectrics to upgrade their decommissioning capacities for heavy water reactors, further laying the groundwork for entering into the global decommissioning market.

The global nuclear decommissioning services market is poised to surge during the forecast period. The projected growth is attributed to the presence of a large number of decommissioning service providers, coupled with the rising number of nuclear power plants reaching the end of the operational lifecycle. The rise in health concerns due to the emission of radioactive substances from the aged nuclear power plants and government initiatives to increase decommissioning services are driving the nuclear decommissioning services market. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), ~200 commercial nuclear reactors are planned to be shut down and decommissioned during 2020-2040. Such plans would continue to bolster the demand for nuclear decommissioning services in the coming years.

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The COVID-19 pandemic across the world has adversely affected various activities across different industries. The energy and power generation industries are also hit hard by the outbreak due to limited availability of manpower and disruptions in component supply chains. The nuclear decommissioning services market players also had to operate with restricted manpower in various countries, whereas, in several countries nuclear decommissioning activities have been put on hold owing to the imposition of containment measures by respective governments.

Emphasis on Decommissioning of Old Nuclear Power Plants in Europe:

Europe has the highest number of nuclear power plants across the world; a large number of these plants are located in Germany, France, the UK, and Russia. The global nuclear power plant industry is highly consolidated one. The rate of nuclear power plant decommissioning is also high in the region. The governments of the abovementioned countries are encouraging the phasing out of the nuclear power facilities whose operating licenses are about to end. The majority of the European countries have announced their plans to shut down and decommission the complete set up of nuclear power facilities by the 2030s. A few plants to enter the decommissioning phase over in the next two years include Fessenheim Nuclear Power Plant (France - 2020), Gundremmingen Nuclear Plant (Germany - 2021), Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant (Germany - 2021), and Emsland Nuclear Power Plant (Germany - 2022).

Buy Premium Copy of Nuclear Decommissioning Services MarketSize, Share, Revenue, Strategic Insights and Forecasts 2020-2027 Research Report at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00010053/

Nuclear Decommissioning Services Market: Pulse Duration

The global nuclear decommissioning services market, based on reactor type, is segmented into pressurized water reactor, boiling water reactor, and gas cooled reactor. The pressurized water reactor segment held the largest market share in 2019. A pressurized water reactor (PWR) utilizes pressurized water in the primary coolant loop that carries heat to the steam generator. The pressurized water reactors are among the most demanded nuclear reactors across the world, which eventually reflects in the higher construction and decommissioning of these reactors than other reactors.

Browse Adjoining Reports:

Nuclear Power Plant and Equipment Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Reactor Type (High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR), Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR), Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR), Others); Equipment Type (Island Equipment, Auxiliary Equipment) and Geography

Shunt Reactor Market Forecast to 2028 - Covid-19 Impact and Global Analysis - by Type (Air Core Shunt Reactors, Oil Immersed Shunt Reactors); Voltage (Up to 200 kV, 200 to 400 kV, Above 400 kV); Phase (Single Phase, Three Phase) and Geography

Line Reactor Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Type (AC Line Reactor, DC Line Reactor); Application (Oil and Gas Pumps, Irrigation Fields, Water Treatment, HVAC, Others) and Geography

Nuclear Waste Management System Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Waste Type (Low-Level Waste, High Level Waste, Intermediate Level Waste, and Others), Reactor Type (Pressurized Water Reactor, Boiling Water Reactor, and Gas Cooled Reactor), and Disposal Options (Near Surface Disposal and Deep Geological Disposal)

Perfusion Systems Market to 2027- Global Analysis and Forecasts by Type (Microfluidic Perfusion Systems, Small-Mammal Organ Perfusion Systems, Bioreactor Perfusion Systems, gravity or Pressure-Driven Perfusion Systems); Component (Perfusion Pumps, Oxygenators, Herat-Lung Machines, Monitoring Systems, Cannulas and Others) and Geography

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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 24, 2022) - Bam Bam Resources Corp. (CSE: BBR) (OTC Pink: NPEZF) (FSE: 4NPB) ("Bam Bam" or the "Company") would like to provide an update for the ongoing analysis of the samples from the 2021 core and reverse-circulation ("RC") drill program at the Majuba Hill Project in Pershing County Nevada.

Bam Bam drilled 4,539.5 meters (14,893.5 feet) in sixteen holes. The drill program was designed to complete in-fill, stepout, and new exploration holes for three areas.

Majuba Known Copper Oxide (In-fill and Stepout)

DeSoto Copper Oxide Target (Stepout)

Copper-Gold Target (New Exploration)





Figure 1

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/6332/111271_3efd48ccb4fb4bf8_001full.jpg.

A total of 3,167 samples were submitted to the ALS USA Inc. sample Prep Facilities in Reno and Elko, Nevada. Bam Bam has an active tracking program and the sample status information provided by ALS indicates all assays should be complete by early February. Assay results will be reported as soon as the results are integrated into the database and the QA/QC analyses are complete.

David Greenway, President and CEO, commented: "I am very pleased with the progress made on the Majuba Hill District in 2021 and we eagerly await the results from the latest round of drilling. We know that the high grade is present at Majuba, as seen with previous intersects like 43 ft of 4% Cu with MBH-2.

With the visual reports made on the newly discovered diorite, we expect the core assays to show us the importance of what we have discovered. This will help us to plan for to expanding the mineralization in this significant Copper-Gold Porphyry deposit."

Hole Target Type Azimuth Angle Length (m) Length (ft) MHB-10 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 257.6 845 MHB-11 Known Oxide RC 0 -70 152.4 500 MHB-12 Known Oxide RC 0 -45 213.4 700 MHB-13 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 208.8 685 MHB-14 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 356.6 1170 MHB-15 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 304.8 1000 MHB-16 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 196.3 644 MHB-17 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 243.8 800 MHB-18 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 243.8 800 MHB-19 Known Oxide RC 110 -45 54.9 180 MHB-20 Copper-Gold Core 10 -70 310.0 1017 MHB-21 Known Oxide RC 252 -80 454.2 1490 MHB-22 Copper-Gold Core 140 -60 549.4 1802.5 MHB-23 Known Oxide RC 0 -90 304.8 1000 MHB-24 Known Oxide RC 90 -45 243.8 800 MHB-25 DeSoto RC 0 -90 140.2 460 MHB-26 DeSoto RC 0 -90 304.8 1000





Quality Assurance/Quality Control ("QA/QC") Measures, Chain of Custody

The Company has implemented a QA/QC program using best industry practices at the Majuba Hill Project. The samples are transported from the BBR secure warehouse or directly from the project to the ALS Sample Prep Facility in Reno or Elko, Nevada. ALS then transports the prepared pulps to their analytical lab in Reno, Nevada or Vancouver, B.C. Soil and rock chip samples are transported by the company directly to Elko or Reno, Nevada.

Drill core samples are sawn in half lengthwise and one half is placed in labeled cloth sample bags. All samples are analyzed for copper, gold, silver, and 33 other elements. Gold is determined by ALS method Au-AA23 which is a fire assay with an AAS finish on a 30 gram split. Copper, silver and the remaining 31 elements are determined by ALS method ME-ICP61 which is a four acid digestion and ICP-AES assay. Approximately 5% of the submitted samples are drill duplicates and copper-gold-porphyry commercial standard reference material pulps.

Qualified Person

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed by E.L. "Buster" Hunsaker III, CPG 8137, a non-independent consulting geologist who is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43- 101").

About Bam Bam Resources Corp.

Bam Bam Resources Corp. (CSE: BBR) (OTC Pink: NPEZF) (FSE: 4NPB) is engaged in the identification, review and acquisition of latter stage copper and copper/silver/gold assets. This is in direct response to the growing worldwide demand and lack of supply for precious metals fueled by the Green New Deal in the US and most other developed nations with similar programs aimed at addressing climate change. Such programs are heavily reliant on silver, gold and especially copper to produce Electric Vehicles and other renewable power sources, as well as building infrastructure to provide clean and affordable electricity.

The flagship project is the Majuba Hill copper, silver and gold District located 156 miles outside Reno, Nevada, USA. Management has been mandated to focus on safe, mining friendly jurisdictions where government regulations are supportive of mining operations.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

On Behalf of the Board of Bam Bam Resources Corp.

"David Greenway"

David C. Greenway

President & CEO

For further information, please contact:

Joel Warawa

VP of Corporate Communications

E: jw@bambamresources.com

P: 1 (855) 475-0745

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "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 Bam Bam Resources Corp. 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 forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Bam Bam Resources Corp. management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Bam Bam Resources Corp. undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

###

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111271
Time to overhaul blockchain-related laws and institutions



Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are expected to be included in the government's household wealth statistics beginning this year. The inclusion will be made through the addition of virtual assets to the household finance and welfare survey by creating a new item. This marks the first time that digital assets, which have become a hotbed of speculation, will be recognized as part of the wealth of households.



The survey is conducted every year by Statistics Korea in cooperation with the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service to identify households' assets, incomes and expenditures. The statistics office's inclusion of virtual assets in the survey is in line with the nation's plan to impose capital gains taxes on virtual assets. The taxation, which was supposed to be introduced this year, has been postponed to next year  but the inclusion will proceed on schedule.



It's encouraging that the government has begun to look at cryptocurrencies from a new perspective, given that countries around the world are putting a renewed focus on the changes that blockchain technology could bring. Blockchain  the underlying technology behind cryptocurrency  is still in its early stages, but experts predict that it will be as revolutionary as the adoption of the internet.



The internet upended how people share information. Likewise, blockchain has the potential to change how we verify transactions and transfer ownership. This is why the government should acknowledge the virtual assets industry and overhaul related laws and institutions.



What is needed first is to clearly define digital assets and focus on nurturing crypto-related industries and creating a blockchain ecosystem from a long-term perspective. Of course, digital coins have their own problems  wildly unpredictable price fluctuations and the role they play in money laundering. In particular, cryptocurrencies are often criticized as a typical means of speculation. However, that idea is certainly outdated, considering that many industrialized countries have already recognized the existence of digital assets and are preparing to issue their own digital currencies. Certainly, it's time to remove cumbersome regulations that prevent the creation of a crypto ecosystem.




WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Walker & Dunlop, Inc. (WD) announced Monday that it has moved into a newly constructed office to upgrade and expand its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. The firm will occupy three stories in The Wilson, a mixed-use, 295-foot tower completed in 2021 and developed by Carr Properties.



The 59,000 square-foot suite, custom-designed by global architecture firm Gensler, promotes Walker & Dunlop's unique brand, collaborative company culture, and its focus on. The space also fosters a sense of home for the nearly 250 Bethesda-based employees.



The space is designed for flexibility and collaboration, offering dedicated spaces to gather and brainstorm with colleagues, 'work from anywhere' communal areas, focus rooms, and a wellness room on each of the three floors.



The new space has Covid design considerations include advanced MEP and HVAC design, glass dividers, more than six feet of workspace, touchless technology, and an overall focus on mental wellness and wellbeing.



The Wilson's building amenities also include an indoor penthouse and outdoor terrace on the rooftop overlooking downtown Bethesda, a fully equipped, 6,900 square foot fitness center, a secure bike room, a parking garage, and proximity to the Capital Crescent Trail. Other tenants in the building include news station FOX 5 DC, as well as Tatte Bakery & Cafe on the ground level.







Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

WALKER & DUNLOP-Aktie komplett kostenlos handeln - auf Smartbroker.de
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 24, 2022 / Naturally Splendid Enterprises Ltd. ("Naturally Splendid", "NSE" or "the Company") (FRANKFURT:50N)(TSXV:NSP)(OTC PINK:NSPDF) is pleased to announce that Mr. George Ragogna has been appointed Chief Financial Officer (CFO), replacing current Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mr. Bryan Carson.

Mr. Ragogna has over 30 years of experience in the Canadian financial services industry with over 20 years in a progressive leadership role specializing in; strategic planning, corporate sales, workforce optimization and regulatory compliance for the Co-operators Group Limited, a leading Canadian multi-line insurance and financial services co-operative with $56.4 billion in assets under management.

Prior to accepting the position of CFO for Naturally Splendid, Mr. Ragogna successfully managed the sales and service call center of over 550 employees for Co-operators Group Limited, ensuring new and existing staff were trained and knowledgeable in the financial services industry and compliance processes. Mr. Ragogna brings a unique business acumen and strong technical skills that will strengthen Naturally Splendid as the Company focuses on their core business.

Mr. Ragogna states, "I'm excited for the opportunity to support the organization in this next chapter as we transition ourselves into manufacturing our plant-based food entrees. This is a most exciting time as the plant-based protein product industry continues to grow. As a manufacturer, we will deploy innovative strategies to penetrate this expanding market as efficiently as possible and I look forward to implementing these strategies."



Mr. Carson, a co-founder of Naturally Splendid, will retain his position of Vice President as well as his position as a Director of the Company. Mr. Ragogna remains a Director of the Company and Chairman of the Board as well as the position of CFO but will no longer be Chairman of the Audit Committee. The Chairman of the Audit Committee will be assigned to existing Director Mr. Larry Gilmour.

Mr. Gilmour has been appointed Audit Committee Chairman. He has extensive sales and marketing expertise with internationally recognized brands such as: Libby's (Libby, McNeil and Libby); Playtex Corp.; and Black and Decker. Mr. Gilmour has also owned and operated chain grocery outlets including owner/operator of a Super Valu grocery store as well as owner/operator of an IGA grocery store, both of which were located in the Greater Vancouver Area of B.C.

Naturally Splendid CEO Mr. J. Craig Goodwin states, "Company co-founder Bryan Carson and I would like to welcome George to the Company as CFO. We have had the privilege of working with George in his role as Chairman of the Board. Having George step into the CFO role, with his 30 years of experience in the financial sector, is sure to be an asset for the Company. We look forward to supporting George in his new position".

About Naturally Splendid Enterprises Ltd.

Founded in 2010, NSE operates a food manufacturing facility just outside Vancouver, BC in Canada. The Company has established numerous healthy, functional foods under recognized brands such as Natera Sport, Natera Hemp Foods, CHII, Elevate Me and Woods Wild Bar, and most recently Natera Plant Based Foods, a line of delicious plant-based meat alternatives for the rapidly growing plant-based market segment. The Company has a myriad of new products and line extensions under development that are approaching launch. NSE, through an arrangement with Plasm Pharmaceutical, has been approved for conducting a phase 2 clinical trial approved by Health Canada for treatment of COVID-19. NSE has also developed proprietary technologies for the extraction of high-demand, healthy omega 3 and 6 oils from hemp.

NSE contract manufacturers for healthy, functional food products and ingredients focusing on plant-based ingredients. The Company provides contract manufacturing services for many healthy food companies, private labeling a wide variety of nutritional food products destined for global healthy food markets.

For more information e-mail info@naturallysplendid.com or call Investor Relations at 604-465-0548 (ext. 105)

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Mr. J. Craig Goodwin CEO, Director

Contact Information

Naturally Splendid Enterprises Ltd.

(NSP - TSX Venture; NSPDF - OTCQB; 50N - Frankfurt)

#108-19100 Airport Way

Pitt Meadows, BC, V3Y 0E2

Office: (604) 465-0548

Fax: (604) 465-1128

E-mail: info@naturallysplendid.com

Website: www.naturallysplendid.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Information set forth in this news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of the date of this news release. These statements reflect management's current estimates, beliefs, intentions, and expectations. They are not guarantees of future performance. Naturally Splendid cautions that all forward looking statements are inherently uncertain and that actual performance may be affected by a number of material factors, many of which are beyond Naturally Splendid's control including, Naturally Splendid's ability to compete with large food and beverage companies; sales of any potential products developed will be profitable; sales of shelled hemp seed will continue at existing rates or increase; the ability to complete the sales of all bulk hemp seed purchase orders; and the risk that any of the potential applications may not receive all required regulatory or legal approval. Accordingly, actual and future events, conditions and results may differ materially from the estimates, beliefs, intentions and expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking information. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, Naturally Splendid undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking information.

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: Naturally Splendid Enterprises Ltd.

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/685153/George-Ragogna-Appointed-CFO
Fujian, China--(Newsfile Corp. - January 24, 2022) - The "China Brand Story" seeks to depict the beating pulse of Chinese brand development by focusing on stellar brands. Recently, Helius joined this coveted list by being featured as an innovative and technologically advanced company that aids the healthy development of children through its shoes. Through a series of interviews held at the Helius Headquarters in Quanzhou, Fujian, the review team of CCTV's "China Brand Story" set about exploring and understanding what goes behind the production of this unique shoe brand.

Figure 1

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

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Helius applies innovative technology that aids healthy development while protecting the feet of children. The detailed interview conducted, highlights three major aspects of Helius. The first being the brand concept. The brand design has its roots in Greek mythology and is derived from the sun god. Just as the sun illuminates the world with its light, the Helius technology aims at making it available to children so that they may benefit from it. This technology will assist the healthy growth and development of children's feet. A symbolic sunny and healthy childhood is implied in this concept. This aspect is integral to the core values of Helius that believes in promoting the good health and wellbeing of children.

The second aspect that the review team focused on was the production of the children's shoes. During the product development process Helius focuses on scientific and technological foot care, and in its brand development the focus is on health care. Through the application of black technology military protective materials in its manufacturing process, lightweight, high quality and durable shoes are produced for children.

The third aspect that was covered was the sales concept which showed that Helius has emerged as a responsible, comprehensive service brand for high quality, fashionable and durable shoes and apparel for children.

Media Contact

Company name: HELIS HOLDING LIMITED

Company address: No. 618, Jinxin Middle Road, Jinjiang City, Fujian Province

Contact person: He Jianle

E-mail: 1107175317@qq.com

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111297
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 24, 2022) - LeanLife Health Inc. (CSE: LLP) (FSE: LL1) (the "Company" or "LeanLife"), is pleased to announce that it has closed a first tranche of a Non-Brokered private placement up to $1,000,000 (the "Offering") issuing a total of 7,300,000 Units at a price of $0.05 per Unit for aggregate proceeds of $365,000.

Each Unit is comprised of one common share (a "Share") and one-half a transferrable Share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") of the Company. Each Full Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase an additional Share at a price of $0.075 per for a 2-year period after the Closing Date. All the securities issued are subject to a four month and a day hold period from the date of issuance (the "Warrant Expiry Date").

Following the expiry of the resale restrictions on the Units, If the daily volume weighted average price of the Company's Shares on the Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") is C$0.20 per share or greater for any 10 consecutive trading days during the period where the Warrants are outstanding, the Company may, by written notice to the holder or by issuing a news release, accelerate the Warrant Expiry Date of the Warrants to be 30 days following the date of such notice or news release.

In connection with the closing of the first tranche of the Offering, the Company will pay finder's fees totalling $27,000 in cash, and will issue 540,000 finders warrants. Each Finders Warrant shall be exercisable for a Common share at a price of Cdn$0.075 for a period of two years from the issue date and will be subject to an accelerated expiry provision.

This news release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. The securities being offered have not been, nor will they be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and such securities may not be offered or sold within the United States absent U.S. registration or an applicable exemption from U.S. registration requirements.

The Company intends to use the proceeds raised from the Offering for General capital purposes & towards the Licensing agreement/product purchase orders with Foodcare for Mike Tyson Endorsed Iron Energy Drinks.

About LeanLife Health Inc.

We are excited to be rolling out the Mike Tyson endorsed Iron Energy Drinks into the soft drink market across the United States in 2022.

Our team is working diligently to launch Amazon and convenience store sales of Iron Energy Drinks (endorsed by Mike Tyson) across the UniPlacements.

New initiatives have driven our team to incorporate more products to diversify our offerings and enrich shareholder value.

The Company also has engaged a team with global expertise in Omega-3 science and production, energy drink sales, and direct-to-consumer marketing. Our professionals are working to ensure our Omega-3 flaxseed oil is the healthiest, most stable, and the most convenient available today.

LeanLife Health Inc. was born from a desire to offer high-quality Omega-3 plant-based oils to the world. Evidence of over 50 years supports the numerous health benefits of flaxseed Omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid. LeanLife Health recognized that over 50% of North Americans do not consume enough Omega-3 fats and eat far too many Omega-6 fats. Our Omega-3 flaxseed formulation is stable for 2 years which will allow more food companies to add the oil to their products and more consumers to meet their nutritional needs. Proprietary methods initially developed at a Polish University in 2007 have been continuously improved upon to result in the most nutritionally stable plant-based Omega-3 oils that are on the market today.

For more information, visit our website at https://www.leanlifehealth.com/

or contact:

Anis Barakat, CEO

(416) 669-4303

anis@leanlifehealth.com

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains certain "forward looking statements" and certain "forward-looking information" as defined under applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking statements and information can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "upon" "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans" or similar terminology. Forward-looking statements and information include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the gross proceeds anticipated to be received under the First Tranche Private Placement; the future exercise of any Warrants issued under the First Tranche Private Placement; the future price of the Company's common shares on the CSE; the future exercise by the Company of its right to accelerate the Warrant Expiry Date; the approval of the CSE of the First Tranche Private Placement.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111287
WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Department store chain Kohl's Corp. (KSS) confirmed on Monday that it has received letters expressing interest in acquiring the Company. Kohl's said its Board of Directors will determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders. The board advised shareholders not to take any action at this time. Kohl's added that it does not intend to further comment publicly on these matters unless it determines it is in the best interests of shareholders to do so. Copyright(c) 2022 RTTNews.com. All Rights Reserved 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.
Global debut of the range of products that guarantee to safeguard digital life showcased at the Swiss Pavilion

The Swiss technology company FERRONATO KGS GROUP, which specialises in industrial metallised fabrics, forayed into the lifestyle domain with the global launch of a new smart accessories brand FERRONATO at the Swiss Pavilion, Expo 2020 Dubai.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220124005556/en/

Sandro Giovanni Ferronato, CEO, FERRONATO KGS GROUP Alessia Ferronato, Partner, Ferronato (Photo: AETOSWire)

"We have always been acknowledged for its focus on innovation tech and the new personal lifestyle accessories brand, Ferronato, is yet another milestone in our journey," said Sandro Giovanni Ferronato, CEO, FERRONATO KGS GROUP LTD.

FERRONATO KGS GROUP was established in 1906 in Lugano, Switzerland. World-renowned for its precision tools, abrasives and metallised fabrics, KGS is now helmed by a 3rd generation, led by Sandro Giovanni Ferronato.

He added, "Ferronato is a lifestyle brand borne out of a sense of immediacy that creates bespoke, high-end accessories that aim to protect your privacy."

The Ferronato smart accessories showcased at the Swiss Pavilion include a range of personal products powered by KGS metallised fabrics, including laptop sleeves, phone pouches, totes, and briefcases that ensure the protection of privacy and personal information.

The company said the smart accessories made of metallised fabrics fit in well as an antidote to invasive surveillance threats people face at every step of their personal life.

"These smart accessories, made for our digital life, safeguard from several potential digital threats. This includes from stopping tracking of our location, remote activation of our phone to eavesdropping on our conversations to steal critical information and personal data," said Alessia Ferronato, Partner, Ferronato.

KGS said that these accessories will curb hacking, tracking, potential cybercrimes, data theft, digital infiltration and system breeches without the consent of an individual or individuals.

As the world's leading manufacturer of flexible diamond abrasives and electrolytically metallised fabrics, KGS' industrial products are used across many industry verticals. This includes aerospace, aeronautical, defence, automotive, medical equipment, construction, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

The company, with offices in 16 countries, has been supplying products in over 100 countries from its six manufacturing sites in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Hungary, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, China and India.

For more information, please visit https://www.kgs.swiss/ and https://www.ferronato.swiss/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ferronato.swiss/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ferronato.swiss

*Source: AETOSWire

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220124005556/en/

Contacts:

Saad Aqueel, +971588911959

saad@the3floor.ae
Regulatory News:

IMPLANET (Paris:ALIMP) (Euronext Growth: ALIMP, FR0013470168, eligible for PEA-PME equity savings plans), a medical technology company specialized in vertebral implants, today announces its schedule for the publication of financial information for 2022Etats-Unis de son expansion commerciale aux Etats-Unis,.

Event Dates* 2021 Full-Year Results March 15, 2022 2022 First-Quarter Revenue April 19, 2022 Annual General Meeting April 26, 2022 2022 First-Half Revenue July 11, 2022 2022 First-Half Results September 20, 2022 2022 Third-Quarter Revenue October 18, 2022

(*): These dates can be subject to modifications. Press releases will be published after market close.

Upcoming financial event:

- 2021 Full-Year Results, on March 15, 2022 after market close.

About IMPLANET

Founded in 2007, IMPLANET is a medical technology company that manufactures high-quality implants for orthopedic surgery. Its activity revolves around a comprehensive innovative solution for improving the treatment of spinal pathologies (JAZZ) complemented by the product range offered by Orthopaedic Spine Development (OSD), acquired in May 2021 (thoraco-lumbar screws, cages and cervical plates). Implanet's tried-and-tested orthopedic platform is based on the traceability of its products. Protected by four families of international patents, JAZZ has obtained 510(k) regulatory clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States, the CE mark in Europe and ANVISA approval in Brazil. IMPLANET employs 29 staff and recorded a consolidated revenue of 6.1 million in 2021. Based near Bordeaux in France, IMPLANET opened a US subsidiary in Boston in 2013. IMPLANET is listed on the Euronext Growth market in Paris. For further information, please visit www.implanet.com.

The Company would like to remind readers that the table for monitoring the equity line (OCA, BSA) and the number of shares outstanding is available on its website: http://www.implanet-invest.com/suivi-des-actions-80

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220124005550/en/

Contacts:

IMPLANET

Ludovic Lastennet, CEO

David Dieumegard, CFO

Tel.: +33 (0)5 57 99 55 55

investors@Implanet.com

NewCap

Investor Relations

Mathilde Bohin

Nicolas Fossiez

Tel.: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94

implanet@newcap.eu

NewCap

Media Relations

Nicolas Merigeau

Tel.: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 94

implanet@newcap.eu
Finsbury Growth & Income Trust Plc - Transaction in Own Shares

For immediate release

24 January 2022

FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC

(the "Company")

MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES

The Company announces that it has today purchased 36,881 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 868.92p per Ordinary Share. Such shares will be held in treasury by the Company.

The transaction was made pursuant to the authority granted at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on 17 February 2021.

Following this transaction, the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury is 971,949; the total number of Ordinary Shares that the Company has in issue, less the total number of Ordinary Shares held by the Company in treasury following such purchase, and therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 224,019,354.

The figure of 224,019,354 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for calculations of interests in the Company's voting rights in accordance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

For and on behalf of

Frostrow Capital LLP

Company Secretary

For further information, please contact:

Victoria Hale

Frostrow Capital LLP

Tel: 020 3 170 8732
MONTREAL, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bombardier today announced strategic changes to its international sales leadership team. The changes, which take effect immediately, are designed to further optimize Bombardier's worldwide sales experience and capitalize on robust demand for its market-leading, smooth-flying business jets.



Following his decision to leave the company to pursue personal opportunities, Christophe Degoumois, Vice President, Sales, International has transitioned leadership to multiple Sales team members. An accomplished sales leader, Christophe leaves behind a solid foundation on which Bombardier has built its customer-centric values.

"We are grateful for Christophe's 17 years of dedicated service at Bombardier, as well as the team he has built, now ready to take on broader responsibilities," said Peter Likoray, Senior Vice President, Sales, New Aircraft. "Christophe played an important role in creating a positive experience for our customers and instilling a sales culture where customers' needs are central to what we do. We thank him for his stellar leadership and wish him all the best in his new venture."

Ensuring a smooth transition, Emmanuel Bornand will take on the role of Vice President, Sales, Europe, Russia, CIS, Middle East and Africa. Since joining Bombardier in 2008, Emmanuel has established a strong track record. From his base in Europe, he will continue to leverage his extensive experience in different leadership roles to further strengthen relationships with clients and expand Bombardier's activity in the region.

Stephane Leroy will take over responsibility for sales in Asia Pacific and China in addition to his current role of Vice President, Sales, Specialized Aircraft. A 20-year veteran with Bombardier, Stephane's knowledge and industry expertise will allow him to continue to deliver strong results in his new expanded mandate. Stephane has spent eight years in Asia and cumulates over 30 years of experience in government-related sales activities.

Michael Anckner will add responsibility for sales in Latin America to his current responsibilities of fleet and corporate sales in his new role as Vice President, Sales, US Corporate Fleets, Specialized Aircraft & Latin America. Michael, who has been with Bombardier for 11 years and was previously a sales director in Latin America, will continue to leverage his extensive fleet experience and knowledge of the region to further grow sales in Latin America and expand customer relationships worldwide.

About Bombardier

Bombardier is a global leader in aviation, creating innovative and game-changing planes. Our products and services provide world-class experiences that set new standards in passenger comfort, energy efficiency, reliability and safety.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier is present in more than 12 countries including its production/engineering sites and its customer support network. The Corporation supports a worldwide fleet of over 4,900 aircraft in service with a wide variety of multinational corporations, charter and fractional ownership providers, governments and private individuals.

News and information is available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier .

Visit the Bombardier Business Aircraft website for more information on our industry-leading products and services.

Bombardier is a registered trademark of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Gurit Holding AG / Key word(s): Personnel

Gurit nominates Andreas Evertz as candidate for its Board of Directors



24-Jan-2022 / 18:16 CET/CEST

Release of an ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





Zurich, January 24, 2022 - Ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

Gurit (SIX Swiss Exchange: GUR) has today announced that Andreas Evertz will be proposed for election as Member of the Board of Directors at the Annual General Meeting on 20 April 2022.

Andreas Evertz is a German citizen and has been the CEO of the wind turbine systems supplier Flender since 2020, with previous roles as CEO and President in global industrial companies such as Schenck Process Holding GmbH, Sandvik Machining Solutions and Walter AG. Born in 1969, he holds a mechanical engineering degree from the University of the German Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg.

It is proposed that Andreas Evertz will join the Board of Directors following the departure of Peter Leupp, current Chairman of the Board. In line with the long-term succession plan announced on 23 April 2020, current Board Member Rudolf Hadorn will stand for election as Chairman of the Board of Directors. The number of Board Members will remain unchanged at six.

'With his track record in globally active industrial companies, Andreas Evertz would be a welcome addition to and perfect fit for the Board,' says Gurit's Chairman of the Board, Peter Leupp. 'His professional and academic achievements align well with our strategic direction. His experience and knowledge in the wind industry will strengthen our current wind market position.'

About Gurit

The subsidiaries of Gurit Holding AG, Wattwil/Switzerland, (SIX Swiss Exchange: GUR) are specialized on the development and manufacture of advanced composite materials, composite tooling equipment and core kitting services. The product range comprises structural core materials, fibre reinforced prepregs, formulated products such as adhesives, resins as well as structural composite engineering. Gurit supplies global growth markets such as the wind turbine industry, aerospace, marine, rail and many more. Gurit operates production sites and offices in Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

www.gurit.com

All trademarks used or mentioned in this release are protected by law.

Forward-looking statements:

To the extent that this announcement contains forward-looking statements, such statements are based on assumptions, planning and forecasts at the time of publication of this announcement. Forward-looking statements always involve uncertainties. Business and economic risks and developments, the conduct of competitors, political decisions and other factors may cause the actual results to be materially different from the assumptions, planning and forecasts at the time of publication of this announcement. Therefore, Gurit Holding AG does not assume any responsibility relating to forward-looking statements contained in this announcement.
Tokyo hit for trying to raise territorial issue



The Japanese Embassy in Seoul has touched off controversy over its refusal to accept a New Year's gift sent by President Moon Jae-in because it was wrapped in paper showing an image of Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo. The presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae sent gifts of traditional liquor and other farm items to some 15,000 people in diverse sectors of society, including foreign envoys, last Tuesday.



Japanese Ambassador to Korea Koichi Aiboshi returned the gift Friday, lodging a protest against the image and renewing Japan's territorial claim to the islets, according to Japanese news reports Saturday. There is nothing wrong with the presidential office using the image of Dokdo, which is a part of Korea's territory that has been under effective control by Seoul.



It is inappropriate for the Japanese Embassy to raise the territorial issue with the gift. Lodging a protest in such a way will only worsen already soured relations between Seoul and Tokyo. Cheong Wa Dae has remained calm apparently to avoid a diplomatic row and to prevent Japan from highlighting Dokdo as a disputed area.



Korea and Japan need to jointly cope with the rapidly changing global and regional geopolitical situation as seen in the heightening tensions in many places around the world. Yet bilateral relations have remained at the lowest point since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1965. Regrettably, the two sides have failed to hold a summit for a long time to discuss pending issues.



Japan has come under criticism for refusing to engage in dialogue with Korea over historical issues such as forced labor and sex slavery during World War II. It has yet to lift its export curbs on key industrial materials necessary for Korean firms to manufacture semiconductors and display panels. Despite the need for mutual efforts to improve ties, Japan has been taking steps only to aggravate its relations with Korea.



For instance, it invited criticism by seeking to register Sado mines, where Koreans were conscripted to engage in forced labor, as a UNESCO world cultural heritage site. Although Japan later decided to put the plan on hold, it took flak by failing to admit its misdeeds of mobilizing Korean workers during the war.



Should Japan maintain such a "narrow-minded" attitude in dealing with the highly sensitive territorial issue, Seoul-Tokyo relations will face another setback, which will have a far-flung negative impact on both sides. Politicians in both countries need to refrain from exploiting nationalistic sentiment for political gain.



It is high time for the two countries to double down on efforts to resume dialogue and find a solution to the thorny historical issues. Sending back the New Year's gift for political purposes is no less than a diplomatic discourtesy that should not happen again for whatever reason.


MPCA to conduct "Maui" test

St. Paul, Minnesota--(Newsfile Corp. - January 24, 2022) - The Minnesota Court of Appeals today affirmed nearly all aspects of the water discharge permit for the NorthMet Project, overruling six of the seven challenges to the permit made by mining opponents, according to Poly Met Mining, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of PolyMet Mining Corp. (TSX: POM) (NYSE American: PLM) (together "PolyMet" or the "company").

The Court of Appeals affirmed virtually every aspect of PolyMet's permit at issue. In particular, the court endorsed the district court's factual findings regarding the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's (MPCA) and the Environmental Protection Agency's interactions during the permitting process; agreed with MPCA's application of state law governing groundwater discharges; upheld the agency's conclusion that PolyMet's project has no reasonable potential to violate water quality standards; agreed with MPCA's finding that PolyMet's project will not violate the Fond du Lac Band's water quality standards; and affirmed the agency's denial of mining opponents' requests for a contested case hearing.

In its decision the panel concluded that the MPCA should still consider whether "any discharges to groundwater will be the functional equivalent of a discharge to navigable waters, and thus, whether the Clean Water Act applies to those discharges." The Court remanded the permit to the MPCA to conduct this functional-equivalence analysis, which the U.S. Supreme Court established in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, a new precedent set more than a year after PolyMet's permit was issued.

"We are pleased that we have prevailed on the majority of the issues and the court has narrowed the case to just this single issue regarding Maui, where considerable scientific data already exists," said Jon Cherry, chairman, president and CEO. "MPCA has already determined there is not a permittable discharge to groundwater and we are optimistic the agency will reach the same conclusion from the Maui test. This will mean a little more process, but it gives us a clear roadmap to the reactivation of this permit," Cherry said.

The NorthMet mine will feed the mineral supply chain to meet the growing global demand for copper, nickel, cobalt and other metals needed for the U.S. and global transition to clean energy technologies such as solar and wind farms, battery storage and electric mobility, Cherry said. Most of the known resources of nickel and cobalt in the U.S. are found in Minnesota according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

* * * * *

About PolyMet

PolyMet is a mine development company that owns 100% of the NorthMet Project, the first large-scale project to have received permits within the Duluth Complex in northeastern Minnesota, one of the world's major, undeveloped mining regions. NorthMet has significant proven and probable reserves of copper, nickel and palladium - metals vital to infrastructure improvements and global carbon reduction efforts - in addition to marketable reserves of cobalt, platinum and gold. When operational, NorthMet will become one of the leading producers of nickel, palladium and cobalt in the U.S., providing a much needed, responsibly mined source of these critical and essential metals.

Located in the Mesabi Iron Range, the project will provide economic diversity while leveraging the region's established supplier network and skilled workforce and generate a level of activity that will have a significant effect in the local economy. For more information: www.polymetmining.com.

For further information, please contact:

Media

Bruce Richardson, Corporate Communications

Tel: +1 (651) 389-4111

brichardson@polymetmining.com

Investor Relations

Tony Gikas, Investor Relations

Tel: +1 (651) 389-4110

investorrelations@polymetmining.com

PolyMet Disclosures

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning anticipated developments in PolyMet's operations in the future. Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always, identified by words such as "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "intends," "estimates," "potential," "possible," "projects," "plans," and similar expressions, or statements that events, conditions or results "will," "may," "could," or "should" occur or be achieved or their negatives or other comparable words. These forward-looking statements may include statements regarding the ability to receive environmental and operating permits, job creation, and the effect on the local economy, or other statements that are not a statement of fact. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements due to risks facing PolyMet or due to actual facts differing from the assumptions underlying its predictions.

PolyMet's forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, expectations and opinions of management on the date the statements are made, and PolyMet does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations and opinions should change.

Specific reference is made to risk factors and other considerations underlying forward-looking statements discussed in PolyMet's most recent Annual Report on Form 40-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, and in our other filings with Canadian securities authorities and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Annual Report on Form 40-F also contains the company's mineral resource and other data as required under National Instrument 43-101.

No regulatory authority has reviewed or accepted 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/111376
Mattson to lead "the great recruitment" as B2B fintech organization scales

Tradeshift, a leader in e-invoicing and accounts payable automation, today announced the appointment of Marissa Mattson as Chief People Officer to lead the global people organization including culture and engagement, talent management, talent acquisition and Total Rewards. She will oversee people strategy to optimize the employee experience and build scalable talent programs that will continue to cultivate our culture through our next phase of growth.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220124005696/en/

Marissa Mattson joins Tradeshift as Chief People Officer. (Photo: Business Wire)

"The global workforce is seeing change like never before. While the narrative has centered around resignation, as an HR leader, I see this as an opportunity for Tradeshift to attract exceptional talent that may not have previously been available," said Mattson. "I'm thrilled to join Tradeshift and be part of a progressive organization innovating at the intersection of SaaS and fintech. I look forward to building a more connected world and inclusive workplace alongside the talented Tradeshifters across the globe."

Mattson joins Tradeshift from Amazon Web Services, where she was a global head of HR, infrastructure and customer support steering the human resources function for a rapidly scaling organization of 30,000 employees across 50 countries. She brings expertise in driving organization effectiveness, change management, succession planning, talent identification and leadership development, and diversity inclusion. She played an integral role in building and scaling talent pipeline and mentorship programs that focused on increasing underrepresented talent in tech and leadership roles globally.

"This is a transformative time for our organization," said Christian Lanng, Chief Executive Officer, Tradeshift. "The pandemic brought us a new way of working, while simultaneously offering proof of concept that Tradeshift's network model is tailor-made for post-COVID world trade. Marissa's leadership will drive the talent recruitment and retention our organization needs to scale, and help us create a best-in-class global workplace that delivers flexibility, inclusion and ways of working that actually work for our teams."

About Tradeshift

Tradeshift is a market leader in e-invoicing and accounts payable automation and an innovator in B2B marketplaces and providing access to supplier financing. Its cloud-based platform helps buyers and suppliers digitize invoice processing, automate accounts payable workflows and scale quickly. Headquartered in San Francisco, Tradeshift's vision is to connect every company in the world, creating economic opportunity for all. Today, the Tradeshift Network is home to a rapidly growing community of buyers and sellers operating in more than 190 countries. Find out more at: Tradeshift.com

Forward-looking statements

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Tradeshift undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations.

 2022 Tradeshift Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.

Tradeshift products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Tradeshift Holdings Inc. in the US and other countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220124005696/en/

Contacts:

Harry Ronaldson

Harry.ronaldson@tradeshift.com
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / January 24, 2022 / The Power Play by The Market Herald has announced the release of a new interviews with Algernon Pharmaceuticals, Newrange Gold, and Fokus Mining discussing their latest press releases.

The Power Play by The Market Herald provides investors with a quick snapshot of what they need to know about the company's latest press release through exclusive insights and interviews with company executives.

Algernon Pharmaceuticals (CSE:AGN) discloses novel salt patent strategy

Algernon Pharmaceuticals (AGN) has included novel salt forms of DMT in its intellectual property patent applications for AP-188 ("N,N-dimethyltryptamine" or "DMT"). A novel salt form of a drug is a new and separate structure from the original compound and is considered a new composition of matter. CEO Chris Moreau sat down with Dave Jackson to discuss the news.

For the full interview with Chris Moreau and to learn more about Algernon Pharmaceuticals salt patent strategy, click here.

Newrange Gold (TSXV:NRG) outlines winter drilling program for Red Lake projects

Newrange (NRG) has provided details on the upcoming drill programs on its 100 per cent owned North Birch and Argosy Gold Mine Projects. Five holes are planned along approximately three kilometres of strike on the main target horizon. Newrange's winter drill program on its North Birch and Argosy Gold Mine Projects will be among the largest in the Birch-Uchi Belt this year Robert Archer, Newrange's President & CEO, sat down with Dave Jackson to discuss the program.

For the full interview with Robert Archer and to learn more about Newrange Gold's winter drilling program, click here.

Fokus Mining (TSXV:FKM) reports drill results on its Galloway project

Fokus Mining Corporation (FKM) has announced drill results on its Galloway project located near Rouyn-Noranda in the Abitibi region in Quebec. The company is progressing towards a NI43-101 resource estimate. Jean Rainville, President, and CEO of Focus sat down with Dave Jackson to discuss the results.

For the full interview with Jean Rainville and to learn more about Fokus Mining's Galloway project, click here.

Interviews for The Power Play by The Market Herald are released daily. To learn more about the companies featured in The Power Play or to explore our other interviews visit The Power Play by The Market Herald.

About The Market Herald

The Market Herald Canada is the leading source of authoritative breaking stock market news for self-directed investors. Our team of Canadian markets reporters, editors and technologists covers the entire listed company universe in Canada. We cover over 3,985 businesses, their people, their investors, and their customers. We write the stories that move the Canadian capital markets.

DISCLAIMER: Report Card Canada Media Ltd. ("Report Card") is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Market Herald Limited, an Australian company ("Market Herald"). Report Card is not an advisory service, and does not offer, buy, sell, or provide any other rating, analysis or opinion on the securities we discuss. We are retained and compensated by the companies that we provide information on to assist them with making information available to the public. All information available on themarketherald.ca and/or this press release should be considered as commercial advertisement and not an endorsement, offer or recommendation to buy or sell securities. Report Card is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority in any province or territory of Canada, will not be performing any registerable activity as defined by the applicable regulatory bodies and do not provide nor claim to provide investment advice or recommendations to any visitor of this site or readers of any content on or originating from themarketherald.ca. Market Herald and/or its affiliates and/or their respective officers, directors or employees may from time to time acquire, hold or sell securities and/or commodities and/or commodity futures contracts in certain underlying companies mentioned in this site and which may also be clients of Market Herald's affiliates. In such instances, Market Herald and/or its affiliates and/or their respective officers, directors or employees will use all reasonable efforts to avoid engaging in activities that would lead to conflicts of interest and Market Herald and/or its affiliates will use all reasonable efforts to comply with conflicts of interest disclosures and regulations to minimize any conflict. All the information on this document and/or the website - themarketherald.ca - is published in good faith and for general information purpose only. Report Card does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability, and accuracy of this information. Any action you take upon the information you find on this document and/or website (themarketherald.ca) is strictly at your own risk. Report Card will not be liable for any losses and/or damages in connection with the use of our website. From our website, you can visit other websites by following hyperlinks to such external sites. While we strive to provide only quality links to useful and ethical websites, we have no control over the content and nature of these sites. These links to other websites do not imply a recommendation for all the content found on these sites. Site owners and content may change without notice and may occur before we have the opportunity to remove a link which may have gone 'bad'. Please be also aware that when you leave our website, other sites may have different privacy policies and terms which are beyond our control. Please be sure to check the Privacy Policies of these sites as well as their "Terms of Service" before engaging in any business or uploading any information.

CONTACT:

The Market Herald

Brianna Anthony

brianna.anthony@themarketherald.ca

themarketherald.ca

SOURCE: The Market Herald

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/685232/The-Power-Play-by-The-Market-Herald-Releases-Interviews-with-Algernon-Pharmaceuticals-Newrange-Gold-and-Fokus-Mining
Oslo (Norway), 24 January 2022 - PCI Biotech (OSE: PCIB), a cancer focused biopharmaceutical company, today announced that the company has decided to stop the RELEASE study and focus their drug development efforts on the promising immunotherapy opportunities with both fimaVacc and fimaNAc assets.



The decision to stop the RELEASE study is based on recent randomised Phase III clinical trial results presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium (ASCO GI, January 20-22, 2022) from the TOPAZ-1 study, demonstrating that a combination of immune checkpoint inhibition with gemcitabine and cisplatin provides a significant survival benefit to patients with advanced biliary tract cancer compared with placebo plus gemcitabine and cisplatin. These results are expected to rapidly change the first line standard treatment for patients with unresectable perihilar or distal bile duct cancer, which is the intended patient population of the RELEASE trial. Such a change in the standard of care treatment will render the RELEASE trial challenging to complete and potentially inadequate for approval and will significantly diminish the opportunity for PCI Biotech's treatment approach in this patient population.

The impact on the RELEASE trial of the recent clinical trial results presented at ASCO GI has been discussed with key opinion leaders, confirming an expected rapid change and early adoption of immunotherapy plus chemotherapy as the new standard of care treatment for the RELEASE trial's target population.

Per Walday, CEO of PCI Biotech said: "The significant survival benefit from the combination of immunotherapy with chemotherapy is great news for patients. Previous results from studies withimmunotherapy in extrahepatic bile duct cancer have not been compelling, and therefore a significantbenefit on overall survival in this population was not expected. Stopping RELEASE was a hard decision to make, but it is necessary to act decisively when the competitive landscape shifts.The RELEASE trial has been a tremendous effort, not least by the enrolled patients, the clinical sites,and our investors, willing to contribute tothe benefit of future patients and their relatives.

PCI Biotech's cash position at year-end 2021 is around NOK 115 million, and we will now focus on a cost-efficientclosing process of RELEASE and bringing our promisingfimaVaccvaccination technology forward as lead asset, and further developfimaNAc in the emerging field of nucleic acid therapy".

The RELEASE trial enrolled a total of 41 patients, of which around 30% will continue to receive the study treatments for a duration of up to six months. This should enable a swift wind-down of RELEASE, allowing PCI Biotech to reallocate resources to the other drug development programmes. The company will analyse the results of RELEASE and evaluate how these can be utilised for fimaChem going forward.

PCI Biotech will in due course communicate more information on the next steps for the promising fimaVacc and fimaNAc assets. The fimaVacc technology with a peptide-based vaccine is planned to enter a Phase II proof-of-concept development stage in cancer patients, following the encouraging immune response results in Phase I. Detailed plans for the further development of the fimaNAc asset have been prepared, supported by strong preclinical results in the emerging field of nucleic acid therapeutics.

***

PCI Biotech will host a webcast at 14:00 CET.

There will be a Q&A session at the end of the webcast and written questions can be posted to post@pcibiotech.comprior to the event or via the webcast console during the event. For those who intend to ask verbal questions please see the dial-in details below.

Norway +47 2195 6342 / Sweden +46 (0)40682 0620 / Denmark +45 7876 8490 / United Kingdom +44 2037 696 819 / United States +1 646 787 0157. If your country is not listed, we recommend that you use the dial-in details for UK.

When prompted, provide the confirmation code or event title.

Confirmation Code: 436187

Event title: PCI Biotech conference call

If you plan to use this facility, please join the event 5-10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time using the dial-in numbers. A line mediator will provide information on how to ask questions.

For further information, please contact:

Per Walday, CEO

Email: pw@pcibiotech.no

Mobile: +47 917 93 429

Forward-looking statements

This announcement may contain forward-looking statements, which as such are not historical facts, but are based upon various assumptions, many of which are based, in turn, upon further assumptions. These assumptions are inherently subject to significant known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors. Such risks, uncertainties, contingencies and other important factors could cause actual events to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied in this announcement by such forward-looking statements. PCI Biotech disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

This information is considered to be inside information pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation and is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. This stock exchange announcement was published by Ronny Skuggedal, CFO, PCI Biotech Holding ASA, on 24 January 2022.
Folks Finance, a Milan, Italy-based company advancing a protocol for borrowing and lending built on the top of Algorand blockchain, raised $3M in Seed funding.

The round was led by Borderless Capital with participation from Jump Crypto, ParaFi Capital, Coinbase Ventures, OKX Blockdream Ventures, Genesis Capital, Youbi Capital, Algorand Foundation, Meld Ventures, Eterna Capital, 0x Ventures, Polymorphic Capital, Valhalla Capital, ZBS Capital, and Gains Associates. Crypto veteran angel investors supporting Folks Finance include David Garcia, CEO of Borderless Capital, and Calvin Liu, former Strategy Lead at Compound, as well as several of the leading DeFi and Financial protocols of the Algorand Ecosystem including Algomint, Tinyman, StakerDAO, MyAlgo, Venue One, xBacked, Prismatic, among others.

The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and accelerate growth.



Led by CEO Benedetto Biondi, Folks Finance provides a protocol for lending and borrowing built and operated on top of the Algorand blockchain. Through the lending operations, Folks users can deposit liquidity and start earning a continuous economic return instantly. Through the borrowing operation, users can request crypto loans by locking deposited funds as collateral.

The company is currently in its smart contract security verification phase, after completing a protocol design review, and early this year is planning the official launch for Folks Finance on the Algorand TestNet, along with the release of Folksy Guys, the official NFT collection dedicated to the Folks Finance community. The team will officially publish the research paper for the protocol economic model soon, and it is already working to establish the milestones of version 2.0.

Folks Finance is the result of extensive research and engineering conducted by Blockchain Italia, a blockchain software house strongly focused on Algorand.

FinSMEs

24/01/2022
Monq Lab SIA, a Riga, Latvia-based provider of a self-hosted topology-based AIOps incident control and automation platform for the enterprise, raised $1.5M in Seed funding.

The round was led by Ratmir Timashev, former CEO and co-founder of Veeam, and other investors.

The company intends to use the funds for the expansion of marketing and sales operations in North America and EMEA.

Led by Nikolay Ganyushkin, CEO and founder, Monq provides an AIOps topology-based automation platform that analyzes data from different monitoring systems, automatically discovers topology, controls application and infrastructure health, provides rapid root cause analysis and starts incident remediation processes built on a low-code engine  while doing  all this with security at the forefront.

The product has a flexible, open and extensible architecture. All connectors and plugins can be easily customized. Customers can build their own integration or use an existing one. Take business processes and services health data from Dynatrace, Instana, AppDynamics or use synthetic tests. Users can discover the topology in less than three (3) minutes from VMware vCenter or Kubernetes, and instantly link it to a modern infrastructure monitoring tool such as Zabbix, Prometheus, DataDog, or other.

The company also provides the Monq Free Community Edition, the free version of its flagship product.

FinSMEs

24/01/2022
Optina, a Montreal, Canada-based diagnostics company focused on retinal imaging, brain health and systemic disease detection, closed an up to US$2.1M funding round.

The Alzheimers Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) made the investment through the ADDFs Diagnostics Accelerator, a collaborative research initiative supported by ADDFs Co-Founder Leonard A. Lauder, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, the Dolby family, and the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, among others. This funding follows the closing of a Series-A round led by DigitalDx Ventures including Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Desjardins, Zoic Capital as well as other investors.

This new funding will support Optinas pivotal study for the FDA regulatory submission of the awAIrTM cerebral amyloid status test for Alzheimers disease detection, aligning Optinas platform with novel therapeutic approvals. Specifically, this new financing will enable the company to expand its pivotal studys cohort size. The clinical study will take place across 5 sites in USA, Canada and Europe

Led by David Lapointe, CEO, Optina Diagnostics is advancing the Retinal Deep PhenotypingTM platform which obtained the FDA Breakthrough Device Designation status in 2019 for its first indication, a non-invasive and more accessible test to improve diagnosis accuracy and the management of patients undergoing evaluation for Alzheimers disease (AD) and received 501(k) clearance for its hyper-spectral Optina-4CTM camera in 2020.

FinSMEs

24/01/2022
Spectrum Labs, a Miami, Florida-based AI-based content moderation platform, raised $32m in Series B funding.

The round was led by Intel Capital with participation from Munich Re Ventures, Gaingels, Harris Barton, and existing investors Wing Venture Capital, Greycroft, Ridge Ventures, Super{set}, and Global Founders Capital. Intel Capital investment director, Divya Sudhakar, will join the companys board in conjunction with the funding.

The company intends to use the funds to scale the adoption of its AI-powered content moderation platform for online communities into new areas of the enterprise, developing applications for human resources, sales, customer service, and brand safety teams.

Led by Justin Davis, CEO and Co-Founder, Spectrum Labs leverages data, AI, and community to provide a platform that identifies 40+ toxic behaviors across all languages, text, and voice, enabling Trust & Safety teams to curb content moderation costs and increase detection of brand-destroying behaviors. The companys products apply Natural Language Understanding technology to analyze user-generated content to deliver behavioral classification. The platform is able to recognize 40+ distinct toxic behaviors such as hate speech, violent extremism and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) across 30+ languages, powered by its patented technology to support moderation in any language.

Today, Spectrum Labs partners with more than 20 companies across dating, gaming, marketplaces, and social networks including The Meet Group, Grindr, Peanut, Minerva, Fandom, Wildlife Studios, and Riot Games.

FinSMEs

24/01/2022
Synalogik, a London, UK-based provider of a data automation platform allows organizations to aggregate data, identify risk and create reports, raised more than 3m in a Series A funding round.

The round was led by Bill Currie, founder of retail, ecommerce and tech investment fund, the William Currie Group and Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco.

The company intends to use the funds to scale its Scout solution across different markets and territories and to expedite the launch of additional solutions that have been in development over the past 18 months. These solutions will widen the application of its data aggregation, risk identification and decision intelligence capabilities.

Led by Gareth Mussell, CEO, Synalogik delivers innovative solutions that automate intelligence and investigation processes to improve the way criminality, fraud & risk is identified, investigated and detected, providing a financial and strategic advantage to its global client base.

Scout is a platform that enables organisations to automate data aggregation from multiple disparate sources, identify risk and report findings in seconds. It supports users with regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering and fraud investigation.

The company is currently providing SaaS platforms and consultancy services into the following sectors: law enforcement, banking, gambling, insurance and legal, among others.

The company, whose clients range across gambling, insurance, banking, legal and the public sector include Entain, Betway, Vitality and NatWest, will also invest in its people, research and development with plans to double the size of its engineering team and enhance its dedicated customer support department over the coming months.

FinSMEs

24/01/2022
By John Burton





As he marks his first year in office, President Joe Biden's North Korea policy is failing for a number of reasons. His administration, after conducting a policy review on North Korea, had promised a "careful, calibrated approach" toward persuading Pyongyang ultimately to give up its nuclear program.



However, nothing has happened. Washington and Pyongyang are not talking with each other despite the Biden administration's repeated statements that it sought "serious and sustained diplomacy" with North Korea and is willing to meet its representatives "anytime, anywhere, [and] without preconditions."



Indeed, there are signs of deterioration as North Korea hints that it could soon resume nuclear and long-range missile tests that it suspended in 2018 after former President Donald Trump began engaging with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.



There are several reasons given for the stalemate. One is that North Korea has been distracted by its own draconian response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen it close the country to the outside world due to strict quarantine measures. This situation may be one reason for Pyongyang's non-responsiveness to the diplomatic overtures from Washington and Seoul.



Nonetheless, another explanation is that the Biden Administration has been unwilling to ease sanctions on North Korea until it takes concrete steps to abandon its nuclear weapons program. As a result, the White House has shown little urgency on engaging with Pyongyang. North Korea on the other hand, appears reluctant to resume negotiations unless Washington first makes a goodwill gesture on the sanctions issue or supports other efforts to reduce tensions such as publicly backing President Moon Jae-in's push for an "end of war" declaration.



Possible developments now threaten to create a vicious circle that could harden positions on both sides. North Korea's recent short-range missile launches suggest that Kim Jung-un might be willing to revive a policy of brinkmanship to grab Biden's attention and gain concessions as Pyongyang struggles to recover from its self-imposed quarantine.



If that is Kim's strategy, it appears to have backfired. The Biden administration is already threatening to expand sanctions on North Korea in response to the short-range missile tests. A more interesting question is what Washington's response would be if North Korea decided to conduct a nuclear test while the U.S. is preoccupied with the possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.



Such a dire situation underscores the need for more imaginative thinking in Washington. For all his faults, Trump did try such a different approach when he met Kim in Singapore in 2018. Their Singapore Declaration offered the promise of a resolution of North Korea's nuclear issue. Any deal, however, was derailed at a later meeting in Hanoi by Trump's "neo-con" advisers, such as National Security Adviser John Bolton, who pushed for an "all or nothing" bargain after Kim asked for major sanctions relief in return for partial denuclearization measures.



A hardline approach on North Korea is the default setting within Washington's foreign policy establishment despite a track record showing that such a strategy has achieved little. Their prescription of more sanctions and increased military pressure has only resulted in providing a rationale for Pyongyang to bolster its nuclear and missile arsenal.



Their justification for favoring a hawkish position is that it has been difficult to create sustained trust and dialogue since Pyongyang has sometimes broken its promises, although the same criticism has also been leveled at the United States. "No one wants to be seen as having been 'played' by the North Koreans," one former senior U.S. negotiator on North Korea told me.



Since the 1990s, the U.S. has sought a quid-pro-quo process in dealing with North Korea, but American officials have often been reluctant to compromise too much due to fears of being accused of being weak. Officials who buck the consensus run the risk of being ostracized from the Washington establishment.



The Korean policy establishment in Washington is rather small and is confined to those who are regarded as experts because of their prior government experience. Yet membership also depends on staying within the bounds of prevailing mainstream policy ideas even when earlier positions they might have pushed turned out to be wrong.



There is a very narrow range of acceptable opinion on North Korea among the foreign policy elite, which is set in part by the military-industrial complex that helps finance the leading national security think tanks in Washington. Some Korea experts, such as those associated with the libertarian think tanks Cato Institute and Quincy Institute, have challenged the conventional wisdom. However, their voices are often ignored by decision makers because they fail to adhere fully to the foundational cornerstones of postwar U.S. policy on Korea.



Washington suffers from a lack of diverse viewpoints on North Korea that could otherwise stimulate fresh thinking that might break the current deadlock.





John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.


On January 24, 2022, President Xi Jinping exchanged congratulatory messages with Israeli President Isaac Herzog to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries.



Xi Jinping pointed out, since the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Israel, the friendship between the two peoples has been deepened day by day and bilateral relations have made significant progress. Since the establishment of the innovative comprehensive partnership between the two countries in 2017, exchanges and cooperation in various fields have been fruitful, bringing tangible benefits to the two peoples. I attach great importance to the development of China-Israel relations, and stand ready to work with President Herzog to take the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust, deepen win-win cooperation, expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and promote the stable development of China-Israel innovative comprehensive partnership to the benefit of the two countries and two peoples.

Herzog said, since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, the exchanges between the two countries have become increasingly close and bilateral relations have been constantly deepened. The cooperation between the two sides in fields such as economy, agriculture, health, tourism and culture has yielded fruitful results, benefiting the two peoples. I attach great importance to the Israel-China innovative comprehensive partnership, and look forward to further promoting the development of Israel-China relations during my term of office.

On the same day, Premier Li Keqiang exchanged congratulatory messages with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Li Keqiang said, in recent years, China and Israel have carried out fruitful innovation cooperation and achieved win-win outcomes. China is willing to work with Israel to uphold the spirit of win-win cooperation, enhance political mutual trust, further enhance the level of pragmatic cooperation between the two countries in various fields, and promote greater development of China-Israel relations.

Bennett said, since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, especially since the establishment of the innovative comprehensive partnership between the two countries five years ago, bilateral cooperation has enjoyed all-round development. I'm convinced that Israel-China cooperation will continue to deepen in the future to create more benefits for the two peoples.
On January 6, 2022 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs Raychelle Awuor Omamo jointly met the press in Mombasa. A reporter asked how China viewed the current situation in the Horn of Africa.

Wang Yi said, the Horn of Africa enjoys a unique strategic position and great development potential. However, in recent years, hotspot issues have intensified and sometimes erupted into conflicts and confrontations, which are totally against the interests of people of the countries in the Horn of Africa and should not continue any longer. To support the Horn of Africa in realizing lasting stability, peace and prosperity, China is willing to put forward the "Initiative of Peaceful Development in the Horn of Africa" and support regional countries in addressing the triple challenges of security, development and governance.

First, strengthen intra-regional dialogue to overcome security challenges. Countries and people in the Horn of Africa should get rid of the geographical competition among major countries and firmly pursue a path of unity and self-improvement. The countries should take the region's destiny into their own hands through equal-footed consultation. China suggests that regional countries hold a conference on the peace in the Horn of Africa to conduct in-depth discussions on this issue, reach political consensus and coordinate common actions. China is willing to appoint a Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide necessary support for this process.

Second, accelerate regional revitalization to overcome development challenges. The two principal axes, the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, should be enlarged and enhanced with the aim of expanding to neighboring countries at an opportune moment. Meanwhile, the development of the Red Sea coast and East Africa coast should be accelerated, so as to form a development framework of "two axes plus two coasts", speed up the construction of industrial belt and economic belt, create more employment and growth, improve independent development capacity and catch up with the pace of the times.

Third, explore effective approaches to overcome governance challenges. China supports regional countries in exploring development paths suited to their own national conditions and in strengthening exchanges in governance and administration of state affairs to share useful experience and overcome governance bottlenecks. Various ethnic, religious and regional disputes should be properly handled in an African way, so as to create a united, stable and harmonious development environment in the Horn of Africa.

Wang Yi emphasized, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a sincere partner of Africa, China will seek greater synergy between the Belt and Road Initiative and Africa's development strategies, solidly promote the "nine programs" of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, and make unremitting efforts and play a constructive role in peace and development in the Horn of Africa.
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Strong cultural bonds form foundation of China-Pakistan friendship

15:25, January 24, 2022 By Zamir Ahmed Awan ( People's Daily Online

Only a few days remain before celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, and yet, a festival atmosphere can also be seen in Pakistan too these days. There are so many Chinese restaurants, shops, supermarkets, etc., all decorated in a traditional Chinese style, offering special offers, big discounts, and attracting both Chinese and Pakistani customers alike.

There exists a huge community of Chinese, many of whom are engaged in projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), who are also preparing for the festival. Usually, Chinese companies will organize cultural performances and food to celebrate the festival in addition to inviting Pakistani colleagues and officials to join in the fun. Although due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, large gatherings are to be avoided this year, though smaller-scale activities will still be able to play an enhanced role during the festive season, following the implementation of the proper Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) for prevention.

China will be celebrating the Chinese New Year, a public holiday generally known in the country as Spring Festival, on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022. It is based on the lunar calendar and usually falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20 every year. It is one of the most important and biggest festivals in traditional Chinese culture, and one of the longest public holidays, lasting up to seven days.

The Chinese New Year is celebrated in China as well as in neighboring countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, and all around the world where there are Chinese communities. In Pakistan, there are up to 90,000 Chinese who have lived there for various periods of time. They will also be celebrating the festival in its full cultural and traditional spirit.

Many similarities exist between the Chinese New Year and Pakistans traditional Eid festival. Both are based on the lunar calendar and are among the most important and biggest festivals in each society. Both are family-centric festivals, which serve as a time when everyone will spend time with their loved ones. Many will seek to travel home for reunions with elderly family members, even if this means travelling long distances. Every year, both countries witness large migrations during the festival season. People may face difficulties booking tickets for trains, flights, or long-distance buses, and have to battle through heavy traffic, but will still nonetheless make the journey back to their hometowns.

In China, the most exciting part of the festival is Chinese New Years Eve, when people stay up late at night and set off fireworks. In Pakistan, people try to finish their shopping for Eid and stay up late at night as well, busying themselves with eating and shopping and other fun things.

Another thing the two festivals have in common is the giving out of cash envelopes. In China, it is very common for older people to put money in red envelopes and then gift the packets to youngsters. In Pakistan, this practice is called Eidi, and kids will then spend this money however they want.

Family meals are another common feature, with the whole family enjoying a big sumptuous meal specially prepared for the festival and which usually contains a very rich and traditional variety of foods. Even poor families will also try to cook their best food on this occasion. The family dinner is a sign of unity and love between family members. It is also a symbol of respect for the elderly and affection for young people.

In both cultures, it is an opportunity to visit and spend time with relatives and friends. People are usually busy trying to make a living and dont have the chance to spend time with other family members, but the festival gives them a chance to strengthen family bonds and friendships. This tradition is again common in both cultures.

Those who have passed away are also remembered during this period. In both cultures, ancestors receive a lot of respect, and they are not ignored on such an important occasion.

Chinese people finish cleaning and decorating their houses ahead of the festival. Before the Eid festival in Pakistan, people also thoroughly clean everything, buy new furniture and decorate their homes.

Wearing new clothes is another common features of both cultures. Women and children in particular will adorn themselves with new clothes and new jewelry to mark the festival.

There is also a common emerging trend among the youth in the two cultures, in which they use the long holidays to travel for picnics, honeymoons and pleasure trips. Based on our strong cultural bonds, the China-Pakistan friendship is continuing to grow in all dimensions, and strong collaboration and cooperation continue to persist. The history of interactions between China and Pakistan goes back to several thousands of years. Ancient Chinese traders used to travel to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe by bypassing Pakistan and have had a large amount of interactions with locals, imparting a deep cultural influence on local people in Pakistan. Chinas famous monks, like Fa Xian and Xuan Zang, lived in Pakistan for long periods of time and developed in-depth interactions with locals. The cultural bonds existing between the two nations is strong enough to support our everlasting friendship. This relationship will expand into all domains of Pakistani life and grow further with the passing of each day.

Availing this opportunity, I wish all my Chinese brothers and sisters a Happy New Year, good health, a long life, happiness in life and prosperity.

Zamir Ahmed Awan is a non-resident fellow with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and a sinologist at the National University of Sciences and Technology in Pakistan. E-mail: [email protected]

This article does not necessarily reflect the views of People's Daily Online.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
By Steven L. Shields





Pope Francis declared, "It is not necessary to believe in God to be a good person. In a way, the traditional notion of God is outdated. One can be spiritual, but not religious. It is not necessary to go to church and give money. For many, nature can be a church. Some of the best people in history did not believe in God, while some of the worst deeds were done in his name."



A fan of my column argues that I have been deceived because I choose to see the world in the way expressed by the pope (and many, many other religious leaders). My fan will contend that since Pope Francis is a Catholic, he is not a Christian. In Korea, somehow, the Protestants co-opted the term "Christian" to apply only to themselves. I've discussed this in previous columns.



During the now two years of the pandemic, society worldwide has gone through changes. In Korea, Protestants overall have seen attendance decline by about 25 percent during times of social distancing. Even with online worship, many people in my congregation have chosen to spend their free time engaging as families. Life is short; life is uncertain. With all the stress we've experienced, family time has become more precious.



During the end-of-year celebrations, vocal Christians (Protestant and Catholic) persuaded some government officials to use public funds to play Christmas carols in stores and restaurants. The vocal Christian minority also persuaded the Seoul City government to once again in 2021 (as in 2020) put a cross on top of the Christmas tree, contravening the separation of church and state.



Furthermore, the cross as a symbol of Christ's death and resurrection has no place on a Christmas tree. No, either an angel or the star of Bethlehem is correct. To place the cross on the tree is heretical. (Not to mention the idea that a Christmas tree may not be the best symbol of Jesus' birth for believers).



Some people are leaving Christianity not because they have stopped believing in the teachings of Jesus. They are leaving because they believe in the teachings of Jesus so much, they can't stomach being part of an institution that does not practice what it teaches. Instead, the offerings given by people are used to support lavish lifestyles for some pastors.



Instead of helping the poor, most of the money supports the colossal church buildings built by and for the believers. Pastor-adoration is a problem, too. The meager social work done by most churches is less than 10 percent of their total budget. They can, and should, do so much more.



In the United States, Jesus has been transformed by some Christians (and most Trumpists) from a humble servant of the poor to a symbol of gun "rights," prosperity theology and anti-science. Such so-called Christians want a limited government that neglects the destitute.



A prominent member of the United States Senate stated recently he was opposed to giving parents the Biden-proposed anti-poverty payments because most of his constituents would spend the money on drugs. And, he's a Democrat (though maybe a party switch for him is in the offing). I'm not sure whether this says more about the senator's low opinion of the people of his state or whether the people in his state are low-lives. All the while, this senator is so wealthy he drives a Maserati and keeps a yacht nearby for his pleasure.



The recent census information of 2020 shows that more than 50 percent of Koreans now declare no religion at all. Christians are below 30 percent and Buddhists lower than that. What does this say about society and the role of organized religion?



How did religion get "organized" in the first place? The paths of the major world religions (Christianity in all its expressions, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and perhaps Hinduism) are similar. What began as venerating a deity (or other mysterious forces in the world)  God, Allah  and in Hinduism, the various gods. Buddhism venerates not a supreme being but rather attaining inner light (similar to venerating a deity but using different nuanced terminology).



The early sacred places set up by individuals, families or villagers grew and developed into something more than just an altar or a tree beneath which they placed offerings. Even Jesus did not organize a church.



Social organizations can have a valuable role for both their members and others they try to help. Pooling resources to help the poor or sick, for example, is a great model. Feeding the hungry, such as Jesus did. Healing the sick or providing education. All are great.



But when an organization exists only to feed itself by recruiting new members, then the value of their role needs to be reexamined. For most, organized religion has moved from pursuing the lofty goals of Jesus, to existing mainly to enlarge itself  as if numbers somehow make the organization valuable or more worthy or true. A shameful state, indeed.





Steven L. Shields (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s. He served as copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. He is a retired clergyman and president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea.


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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.
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Visitors arrive at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) fair in Barcelona, Spain, June 28, 2021. AFP-Yonhap



By Baek Byung-yeul



SK Telecom and KT are agonizing over the size of their participation in the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world's largest mobile communication trade show, due to the increasing spread of the Omicron variant.



Officials from the mobile carriers said Monday that they were set to attend the tech show, but it is still undecided how many employees they will dispatch and whether any C-level executives will attend. Many participants in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held earlier this month in Las Vegas tested positive for COVID-19. And the average number of daily new infections in Spain, the host country of the exhibition, exceeds 100,000.



The MWC will be held in Barcelona, Spain, for four days from Feb. 28 to March 3. The event is one of the largest tech shows in the world along with the CES and the IFA in Germany. In 2020, the event was canceled for the first time due to COVID-19 and it was held online and offline at the end of June 2021, about four months later than usual.



The organizer said it has not changed its plans to hold the event in person as scheduled. They said this year's event will feature over 1,500 exhibitors from around 150 countries. Given the exhibition is a place to show the global trends of the mobile industry, SK Telecom and KT have enjoyed the spotlight among Korean companies taking part in the event. LG Uplus, the other major Korean mobile carrier, said it has not participated in the event since last year when LG Electronics withdrew from the mobile device manufacturing market.



A KT official said the company will establish a promotional booth at the exhibition, but whether its CEO Ku Hyeon-mo will join the event is not decided yet. "It is expected that the company will come out with a more detailed plan after the Lunar New Year holiday," the official said.



SK Telecom said it is planning to set up a booth, but added it is cautious after people who attended the CES tested positive for the virus. "What we can officially say is that everything related with the event is under consideration. At a time when Omicron cases are increasing in Europe, we are keeping an eye on the changing situation there," the official said.



An LG Uplus official said the company has no plans to exhibit at MWC this year. "Every year, we send executives and employees to the event to see the changing trends of the industry but it also has not been decided whether to send a spectator group for this year's event."



Not only local companies but also government officials are pondering whether to risk attending the event. The ICT ministry has attended the annual event to catch up with recent trends in the mobile industry, but it is considering skipping the show this year due to the increasing variant cases.


Pune, India, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global soybean oil market size was USD 46.72 billion in 2020. The market is projected to grow from USD 48.16 billion in 2021 to USD 60.08 billion by 2028, exhibiting a CAGR of 3.21% during the forecast period of 2021-2028.

This information is published by Fortune Business Insights, in its report, titled, Soybean Oil Market, 2021-2028.

According to our researchers, the rising utilization of soybean oil by food processors and foodservice outlets for baked as well as fried food products or to trade as cooking oil in packed bottles drives the market growth.





List of Key Players Mentioned in the Soybean Oil Market Report:

Archer Daniels Midland Company (Illinois, U.S.)

Associated British Foods, plc (London, U.K.)

Bunge (Missouri, U.S.)

Cargill, Inc. (Minnesota, U.S.)

Louis Dreyfus Company (Rotterdam, Netherlands)

Wilmar International Limited (Singapore)

DuPont (Delaware, U.S.)

Unilever plc (London, U.K.)

AMAGGI Group (Cuiaba, Brazil)

SunOpta, Inc. (Brampton, Canada)





Get a Sample PDF Brochure:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/request-sample-pdf/soybean-oil-market-106282

COVID-19 Impacts:

Disorder in Supply Chain of Product to Impede Market Growth during COVID-19 Pandemic

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and global lockdown procedures have resulted in a minor influence on soybeans. Nevertheless, soy oil, one of the prime by-products of soybean processing, has fronted a reduced ingestion, primarily owing to the effect of the pandemic on foodservice sector, which is a most extensive user of vegetables. Similarly, as the fuel demand compacted, biodiesel usage and other soybean oil products also deteriorated.





Major Segmentation:

On the basis of application, the market is segregated into:

Cooking & Frying

Margarine & Shortening

Salad Dressings & Mayonnaise

Bakery Products

Non-Food Applications.

Geographically, the market is classified into:

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

South America

Middle East & Africa.





Browse Detailed Summary of Research Report with TOC:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/soybean-oil-market-106282





Report Coverage:

Our reports are processed with a comprehensive analysis approach that primly accentuates on supplying specific material. Our scholars have employed a data evaluation approach, which further aids us to offer dependable assessments and test the overall market dynamics precisely. Further, our experts have received admittance to several international as well as locally sponsored records for providing up-to-date information in order for the stakeholders and





Drivers and Restraints:

Extending Food Usage of Soybean Oil to Foster Market Growth

Oils and fats sector is perceiving ensuring growth throughout the world accredited to their growing usage in food manufacturing and processing. As per the USDA, this type of oil is the second-biggest ingested vegetable oil in the globe. It is expansively used for frying, cooking, shortenings, and margarines. Soybean oil utilization has also amplified across bakery sector, which substantially drives the soybean oil market growth.

However, the market is hugely impacted by the obtainability of several other oilseeds that can be utilized as a substitute or an alternative for this oil. Moreover, the rising consciousness concerning nutritional and healthy oils such as olive oil among users has substantially impacted the utilization of soy oil across retail passages.





Inquire Before Buying This Research Report:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/queries/soybean-oil-market-106282





Regional Insights:

Speedily surging markets in Asia Pacific such as China and India have considerably augmented soy oil ingestion over the last few years. The amplified buying power of Chinese and Indian users has contributed to striking rises in usage as they can afford to buy extensive amount of oil. Asia Pacific held the largest soybean oil market shares in 2020.

This market is observing encouraging growth in North America. The U.S. is the principal consumer of soy oil owing to the quickest developing and escalating food processing industry.

South America is undergoing substantial growth in this market as Brazil and Argentina are prominent producers and exporters of soy oil.





Detailed Table of Content:

Introduction Research Scope Market Segmentation Research Methodology Definitions and Assumptions

Executive Summary

Market Dynamics Market Drivers Market Restraints Market Opportunities Emerging Trends

Key Insights Overview of the Parent/Related Markets Industry SWOT Analysis Supply Chain Analysis Recent Industry Developments - Policies, Partnerships, New Product Launches, and Mergers & Acquisitions Impact of COVID-19 on the Vegetable Oils Market

Global Soybean Oil Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Size Estimates and Forecast By Application Traditional Retailers Supermarkets/Hypermarkets Online Retail Others By Region North America Europe Asia Pacific South America Middle East & Africa

North America Soybean Oil Market Analysis, Insights and Forecast, 2017-2028 Key Findings / Summary Market Size Estimates and Forecast By Application Cooking & Frying Margarine & Shortening Salad Dressing & Mayonnaise Bakery Products Non-food Applications (Animal Feed, Biodiesel)



TOC Continued!

Speak to Our Expert:

https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/enquiry/speak-to-analyst/soybean-oil-market-106282





Competitive Landscape:

Acquisitions and Mergers to Assist Vital Players Foster in Market

Important players in the market employ effective tactics along with the guidance from their expert advisors to regulate majority shares in the market and institute a brand name for their company. One such approach to commercialize their brand name is to acquire other corporations to receive additional fiscal achievements.





Key Industry Developments:

April 2021: Cargill, Inc. delared to capitalize USD 25 million to extend its actions of soybean crush factory based in Fayetteville to augment soybean oil manufacturing.





About Us:

Fortune Business Insights delivers accurate data and innovative corporate analysis, helping organizations of all sizes make appropriate decisions. We tailor novel solutions for our clients, assisting them to address various challenges distinct to their businesses. Our aim is to empower them with holistic market intelligence, providing a granular overview of the market they are operating in.

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Toronto, Canada, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BenchSci, a global leader in machine learning applications for novel medicine development, today announced a $63 million Series C (US $50 Million) funding round led by Inovia Capital and TCV, with participation from existing investors.

Bringing total investment to $123 million (US $97 million), the funding allows BenchSci to expedite the expansion of its transformative AI-powered software platform that accelerates research in 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide.

Leveraging over 100 proprietary machine learning models, BenchSci's platform empowers 49,000 scientists globally to optimize their experiment designs and hence research productivity. Building on the success of applications that help scientists select reagents and model systems, BenchSci is evolving its technology to provide a comprehensive platform with capabilities that help leading pharmaceutical companies solve their biggest R&D challenges.

"This funding demonstrates trust in our ability to build and deliver a next-generation AI solution that helps global pharmaceutical companies develop novel medicines faster,  says Liran Belenzon, CEO, BenchSci. We're using breakthrough machine learning technology to shape the future of how life science companies conduct research, from identifying targets, to planning experiments, to determining clinical trial risks. The confidence demonstrated by global pharmaceutical companies who are early adopters of our new solutions was enough to convince Inovia Capital to fund another round and prompt TCV to back our meteoric hypergrowth."

In previous funding rounds, BenchSci raised $60 million (US $47 million) from tier one investors including F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Googles AI fund), and Inovia Capital. In 2021, BenchSci doubled its team and industry user base and is poised to double again in 2022.

"We strongly believe that the preclinical R&D market remains largely untapped and that BenchSci can become a category-defining leader to bring life-saving drugs to market faster," says Dennis Kavelman, Partner at Inovia. "Doubling down on a company that we believe in is part of our commitment to being a long-term partner to build global sustainable tech companies."

BenchScis proprietary machine learning modelstrained to understand experiments like a Ph.D. scientistextract critical insights from published scientific data sources and pharmaceutical organizations' internal databases. The models understand the biomedical significance of extracted data and establish relationships between biological entities. This technology is the foundation of all of BenchScis applications, which surface the appropriate information and insights to assist scientists at top global pharmaceutical companies in various stages of R&D.

The preclinical research market is in dire need of software to drive efficiencies in the discovery through development process, says Matt Brennan, General Partner at TCV. BenchSci is well-positioned to be the category-defining technology platform for the industry, and we look forward to working with Liran and his team to transform this industry.

Founded in 2015, BenchSci has rapidly grown its customer base since launching commercially in 2017. As a Deloitte Tech Fast 50 company, it is one of the fastest-growing companies in the country.

For more BenchSci updates, visit our news page.

About Inovia Capital

Inovia Capital is a venture firm that partners up with audacious founders ready to build enduring global technology companies. We are known to roll up our sleeves and serve founders with dedicated, long-term mentorship, a global talent network and strategic support for global scale. Inovia Capital manages over US$1.9B across early and growth-stage funds and holds offices in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, San Francisco and London.

About TCV

Founded in 1995, TCV was established with a clear vision: to capture opportunities in the technology market through a specialized and consistent focus on investing in high-growth companies. Since inception, the firm has built a track record of successfully backing public and private businesses that have developed into dominant industry players across internet, software, FinTech, and enterprise IT. TCV has invested over $16 billion to date and has helped guide CEOs through more than 145 IPOs and strategic acquisitions. TCV has invested in cutting edge technology companies including Airbnb, Believe, Brex, Dream Sports, FarEye, Mollie, Nubank, Razorpay, RELEX Solutions, Revolut, RMS, Sportradar, Spotify, Trade Republic, The Pracuj Group, and Zepz. TCV has successfully executed over 350 investments of varying structures, including mid-stage, late stage, and public company investments, and has offices in Menlo Park, New York, and London. For more information about TCV, including a complete list of TCV investments, visit https://www.tcv.com/.

About BenchSci

BenchScis vision is to bring novel medicine to patients 50% faster by 2025. Were achieving it by empowering scientists with the worlds most advanced biomedical artificial intelligence. Backed by top-tier investors including Inovia Capital, TCV, F-Prime, Gradient Ventures (Googles AI fund), and Golden Ventures, our platform accelerates science at 16 top-20 pharmaceutical companies and over 4,500 leading research centers worldwide. Were a remote-first Deloitte Tech Fast 50 and CIX Top 10 Growth company, certified Great Place to Work, and top-ranked company on Glassdoor. Learn more at www.benchsci.com.

For more information, please contact Marie Cook at mcook@benchsci.com.

Attachment
Pune, India, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global Biomass market size was valued at USD 53.5 Billion in 2021 and is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 6.3% during the forecast period, according to a recent market study by Quince Market Insights. Biomass is a renewable organic material that comes from animals and plants. It can be converted to renewable liquid and gaseous fuels or burned directly for the heating process.

Biomass serves as a sustainable and low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels. New developments are aiming at using more biomass fuels which are set to drive the global biomass market growth. Also, rising needs to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) are also a factor rising the demands for global biomass market.

Get Sample Copy of This Report @ https://www.quincemarketinsights.com/request-sample-89217

However, inadequate biomass management, rise in feedstock costs, and lack of knowledge for utilizing biomass for producing energy among emerging economies are restraining the growth of global biomass market.

The demand is increasing for an environment-friendly renewable source of energy due to improve public health as well as reduce global warming are introductory new opportunities for the key market players operating in the global biomass market.

Mainly, biomass fuels were burned on inefficient open traditional stoves or fires. For some cases, the demand for biomass fuels far offsets sustainable supply which can make land degradation, desertification, or deforestation. These factors are liming the global biomass market in their growth.

Impact of COVID-19 on Global Biomass Market

The global pandemic has had a significant impact across the globe. The spread of the infectious virus has led governments across the world to impose strict measures to control the spread by doing regional and national restrictions, lockdowns on international travel as well as practicing social distance.

The continuous lockdown had a major impact on the energy sector and biomass energy is one of them which had faced a reduction in their demand. As most of the biomass energy arises from the forestry sector which brings residues from processing and harvesting.

Further, the stoppage in the supply chain sector all the activities for biomass energy market stopped during the pandemic situation. But by the opening of activities with the government guidelines, the market will be going to raise its demand during the forecast period.

Global Biomass Market, by Application

Based on application, the market is bifurcated into cooking, space heating/cooling, heat processing, electricity generation, and others. Among these, the heat processing segment is one of the largest markets for global biomass in 2021 and is expected to remain the largest market during the coming forecasted period.

Factors attributing to the growth of the heat processing segment is because mostly biomass is used for heating. In a direct burning system, biomass is burned to create hot gas, which can either be fed into a boiler for generating hot water/stream or be used directly to provide heat or. These factors are driving the global biomass market growth by heat processing segment.

Global Biomass Market, by Source

Based on source, the global biomass market is segmented into wood pellets, crop residue, energy crops, municipal solid waste (MSW), and others (peat, sawdust). Wood pellets capture the largest market share for global biomass in 2021 and are expected to remain the largest during the forecast period.

Factors contributing to the growth of wood pallets are because wood pallets are cost-effective as they are economically competitive with electric heat and home fossil fuel options. Wood pellets are a sustainable source of fuel, and burning wood pellets is carbon-neutral. These advantage factors are driving the wood pellets segment for global biomass market.

Global Biomass Market, by Technology

Based on technology, the global biomass market is segmented into combustion, anaerobic digestion, gasification, co-firing & CHP, and landfill gas (LFG). The combustion segment is one of the largest markets for global biomass in 2021 and is expected to remain largest during the forecast period.

Factors attributing the growth of combustion segment is due to biomass combustion offers a relatively cheap fuel source, provides self-sufficiency even during blackouts, and also cuts dependence on fossil fuels. These advantages are boosting the combustion segment for global biomass market.

Global Biomass Market, by End User

Based on end user, the global biomass market is segmented into industrial, institutional, and domestic. Industrial segment is one of the largest markets for global biomass in 2021 for global biomass and is anticipated to remain largest during the forecast period also due to various uses.

Such as the industrial sector use biomass for space heating, electricity generation, hot water heating, and construction of timber are uplifting the industrial segment for global biomass market.

Enquiry Before Buying This Report @ https://www.quincemarketinsights.com/enquiry-before-buying/enquiry-before-buying-89217

Global Biomass Market, by Region

Based on region, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and South America. Europe is one of the largest markets for global biomass in 2021 for global biomass and is expected to remain the largest market till the forecast period 2030.

Factors attributing the growth of the European market for biomass because the production of energy from solid biomass has improved remarkably over the past two decades and peaked in 2017. Germany is the largest producer of biomass energy with France is the only other country with having an output in excess of ten million tons of oil equivalent. These applications are boosting the global biomass market.

Recent Developments in the Global Biomass Market

September 2021  According to the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) Biomass to energy (BTE) can help Malaysia in meeting green energy goals. The project organized by the EMOG Strategic Group and MIGHT using the method can reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) and meet sustainable development goals (SDG), as well as to provide job opportunities to university graduates.

September 2021  The Drax Group decided to become the primary big European power company to combine biomass power with carbon storage and capture in its quest to be carbon negative by 2030. University of British Columbia conveys that the provinces recent wildfires presses, the need for dead wood and debris to be removed from forest, to potentially converted into wood pellets.

Some Key Findings of the Global Biomass Market Report Include:

The analysis includes a global biomass market study, expansions, and forecasts, along with a country-specific analysis.

An in-depth analysis of the global biomass market comprises segment application, source, technology, end user, and regions with an analysis of trend-based insights and factors.

Product offering details on competitive benchmarking and evolution approach adopted by the industry players, along with their investments in the last five years in the global market have been provided in the report.

The market research includes a study of the provinces, boundaries, drivers, prospects, guidelines, challenges, and procedures that are propelling the global biomass market.

The study also offers complex measures of potential market effect during the forecast period and an in-depth overview of the leading companies operating in the global market.

External as well as internal variables that are expected to have a positive or negative effect on companies have been evaluated, which will offer the decision-makers a strong futuristic view of the industry.

The research also helps understand the dynamics of the biomass market structure by analyzing market segments and by projecting the size of the market.

The report helps to understand the effects of COVID-19 pandemic on biomass market.

Some major industry players functional in the global biomass market are: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., Suez, Xcel Energy Inc., Ramboll Group A/S, Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc., Ameresco, Veolia, Vattenfall AB, and rsted A/S.

For more information on this topic please visit our website report titled,  Biomass Market , by Application (Space Heating/Cooling, Cooking, Heat Processing, Electricity Generation, and Others), Source (Wood Pellets, Crop Residue, Energy Crop, Municipal Sol), Technology (Combustion, Anaerobic Digestion, Gasification, Co-firing & CHP, and Landfill Gas {LFG}), End User (Industrial, Institutional, and Domestic), and Region (North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, South America)  in-depth analysis along with the table of contents (ToC).

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NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via InvestorWire  Sugarmade, Inc. (OTC Pink: SGMD) ("Sugarmade", "SGMD" or the "Company") an emerging leader in the licensed cannabis sector, is pleased to announce the signing of a binding Letter of Intent (the LOI) with GenCann, Inc. (GenCann), the exclusive licensor for a set of cannabis chemovars particularly rich in the cannabinoid Tetrahydrocannabivarin (THC-V) (the GenCann Chemovars).

Under the terms outlined in the LOI, Sugarmade and its licensed cannabis cultivator partners will be granted a 5-year license to cultivate what the Company believes to be some of the highest THC-V-containing strains in existence. Sugarmade and GenCann plan to begin clone production immediately upon the signing of the final agreement with a cultivation program beginning in Lake County, California, this spring.

While THC-V is sometimes referred to as a rare cannabinoid, we believe the term no longer applies relative to our planned cultivation effort using GenCanns Chemovars, commented Jimmy Chan, CEO of Sugarmade. The test results from certified California laboratories of these chemovars are certainly impressive, with THC-V yields in flower of up to 8%. We think the GenCann Chemovars are a game-changer in the cannabinoid space. Sugarmade plans to make a substantial commitment to bring products based on THC-V to the California market and perhaps to other states in the future. Stay tuned for our upcoming product plan announcements.

The GenCann Chemovars are covered by multiple issued U.S. patents, including patent numbers PP33212 for the plant called V1, patent number PP33211 for the plant called V2 and patent number PP33210 for the plant called V3. All three of these chemovars contain abundant THC-V, with the V1 variety being especially distinguished by producing more THC-V than THC by percent weight. The V3 strain, also known as Skelator, will be the predominant strain utilized for spring cultivation due to its early finishing characteristics and its higher THC-V content, although the V1 and V2 varieties are also planned for Sugarmades cultivation effort.

Sugarmade plans to utilize the THC-V rich biomass in a series of products it plans to introduce to the licensed California marketplace. The first of these will be THC-V-rich smokeable flower and THC-V-rich gummy candies. In the future, Sugarmade plans to also produce distillate and isolate products based on its cultivated biomass.

Chan continued, The THC-V smoking and edibles consumption experience is very different compared to traditional cannabis. Where legacy cannabis strains often produce a sedating effect, consumption of THC-V rich products produces a pleasant and uplifting effect. Its a remarkable experience and we believe consumers will gravitate to it.

In addition to seeking to supply the mainstream cannabis marketplace with THC-V products, Sugarmade also plans to seek pharmaceutical and nutraceutical partners for supply agreements as many of these companies are already stating their intentions to conduct trials or to produce products containing rare cannabinoids.

The cultivated THC-V cannabinoids from the GenCann Chemovars differ significantly from the current generation of THC-V products presently available in the marketplace, most of which are converted via a chemical process from hemp-based isolates. This generation of products is also very expensive, often priced in the $50 per gram range, and is typically not tested by certified laboratories. Additionally, the cannabinoids produced by the GenCann Chemovars differ from planned offerings by other companies that utilize genetically modified organisms, such as bacteria or yeast, to create cannabinoids outside of the cannabis plant varieties. All of the cannabinoids to be generated via the GenCann Chemovars and Sugarmades cultivation will be produced from real cannabis plants that have been specifically bred for this purpose and grown in an outdoor setting.

Sugarmade and GenCann believe outdoor cultivation of THC-V-rich strains will yield higher desirable cannabinoid content due to optimal ultraviolet light levels inherent in natural sunlight.

About THC-V

THC is found in the form of Tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA) that is converted to THC during drying or under high heat. Similarly, THC-V in live plants is in the form of tetrahydrocannabivarin carboxylic acid (THCVA). THC and THC-V both bind to the cannabinoid receptors 1 (CB1) and 2 (CB2) although the exact effects of binding are not fully understood. Binding of CB1 by its endogenous ligands, anandamide or 2-arachidonoylglycerol, stimulates food intake (Silvestri, C., Di Marzo, V. 17 Cell Metabolism 475-490 (2013)). THC acts as an agonist of CB1 and stimulates appetite. THC-V has been shown to be a mild antagonist of CB1 and lessens sensations of hunger (Pertwee, R G. 153 British Journal of Pharmacology 199-215 (2008)). The ability of THC-V to act as an antagonist of CB1 has led to investigation of using THC-V to treat metabolic syndrome and obesity (Riedel, G., et al., 156 British Journal of Pharmacology 1154-1166 (2009)). Selection of a variety producing increased amounts of THC-V allows optimized isolation of THC-V which may be used in the treatment of metabolic syndrome.

About Sugarmade

Sugarmade, Inc. (OTC Pink: SGMD) is a product and branding marketing company investing in operations and technologies with disruptive potential. Our Brand portfolio includes CarryOutsupplies.com, SugarRush, NUG Avenue, Lemon Glow and Budcars. Sugarmade is also the first licensee of the unique and patented GenCann, Inc. THC-V rich chemovars.

For more information, please visit www.Sugarmade.com .

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements also may be included in other publicly available documents issued by the Company and in oral statements made by our officers and representatives from time to time. These forward-looking statements are intended to provide management's current expectations or plans for our future operating and financial performance, based on assumptions currently believed to be valid. They can be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "intend," "plan," "goal," "seek," "believe," "project," "estimate," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," "may," "should," "would," "could," "will" and other words of similar meaning in connection with a discussion of future operating or financial performance. Examples of forward-looking statements include, among others, statements relating to future sales, earnings, cash flows, results of operations, uses of cash and other measures of financial performance.

Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Company's actual results and financial condition to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among others, such as but not limited to; economic conditions, changes in the laws or regulations, demand for products and services of the company, the effects of competition, uncontrollable forces of nature and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or represented in the forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking information provided in this release should be considered with these factors in mind. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this report.

Corporate Contact:

Jimmy Chan

+1-(888)-982-1628

info@Sugarmade.com

Investor Relations Contact:

EDM Media, LLC

https://edm.media
SEATTLE, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Explora BioLabs, the national provider of industry-leading preclinical vivarium research space and management services headquartered in San Diego, recently announced its entry into the Seattle market.

Its first Seattle vivarium, conveniently located in the East Lake Union neighborhood, will open in May 2022. A second facility will open in 36 months in the South Lake Union neighborhood. The new facilities will provide Seattle biotechnology companies with easily accessible vivaria and research space for their mission-critical preclinical in vivo programs.

The first location is an approximately 20-minute drive from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and a 10-minute drive from downtown Seattle Center. It is within walking distance of the South Lake Union light rail trolley transit station and the amenity-rich East Lake Union biotech cluster.

The East Lake Union location will provide biotechnology companies with immediate access to more than 10,000 square feet of fully-managed outsourced vivarium and research space (known as OnDemand services). The facility allows researchers to focus on their science while Explora's staff handles the preclinical in vivo study management, husbandry, logistics and compliance requirements. All Explora facilities feature state-of-the-art equipment and operations, validated through AAALAC accreditation, NIH/OLAW assurance and best-in-class health monitoring. The East Lake Union facility's services will include quarantine, necroscopy and IVIS imaging.

Explora's OnSite services will also launch shortly after the first facility opens.

"We're excited to expand our services into the Seattle market," said Sandy Paige, Explora's CEO. "So much world-class innovation comes out of Seattle's biotech community, and we can't wait to integrate our offerings into the needs of these emerging biotech powerhouses as they scale for impact. We have been seeking the right location in Seattle for a number of years and are delighted to have finally found the perfect landing spots. Our customers are already eager and ready to go with this flexible, capital efficient, high quality preclinical in vivo solution."

Other facilities in Explora's national network are distributed throughout California (San Francisco and San Diego) and Boston, MA. This network supports the growth of the entire biotech ecosystem in each city, allowing researchers to rapidly engage in their research and have the flexibility to relocate or co-locate knowing they will have reliable, high-quality facilities nearby.

Customer Quotes

"Explora BioLabs is an invaluable part of our preclinical research program," said Keith A., director, in vivo at Mammoth Biosciences. "By providing the vivarium space and the oversight of animal welfare and use protocols, Explora has enabled my team to focus on the execution of in vivo studies and, most importantly, allowed us to control our schedules. Should our team need additional support, it is also very comforting to know their OnDemand services with trained technicians are available to ensure the successful execution of the studies."

"As a small biotech company discovering and developing translational inhibitors in oncology, we needed a vivarium management solution that was more than just a landlord," said Jocelyn S., a former associate director of R&D at eFFECTOR Therapeutics, an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company located in San Diego. "Explora BioLabs provided the professional infrastructure we were seeking, as well as animal husbandry, a compliance backbone, and scientific experienceeverything we need to support our work and set us up for pharmacological success."

About Explora BioLabs

For nearly two decades, Explora has provided services to companies ranging from early stage biotechs to large pharma. Explora's entire service portfolio is backed by Ph.D.-level scientists with experience in the preclinical in vivo workflow. The national vivarium network Explora BioLabs operates gives biotechnology clients with on- and off-site vivarium services, including vivarium management, facility design, rodent housing and equipment, supply chain management, regulatory oversight and veterinary/husbandry staffing. For clients whose research programs or internal expertise is at capacity, Explora can run preclinical contract research studies including comprehensive, full-solution and/or a-la-carte in vivo services. Explora's CRO services include the design and execution of preclinical studies for oncology and IVIS imaging, metabolism, pharmacokinetics, non-GLP toxicology and a variety of other common therapeutic areas.

For more information, visit explorabiolabs.com.

Media Contact:

Krystina Feucht, Marketing Manager

Explora BioLabs

kfeucht@explorabiolabs.com

858-768-2100

Related Images











Image 1: Explora BioLabs Launches Turnkey Preclinical Vivariums in Seattle





The new facilities will provide Seattle biotechnology companies with easily accessible vivaria and research space for their mission-critical preclinical in vivo programs.









This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com.

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The James Webb Space Telescope Mirror is seen during a media unveiling at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center at Greenbelt, Maryland, in this Nov. 2, 2016, file photo. Reuters-Yonhap



NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, designed to give the world an unprecedented glimpse into the earliest stages of the universe, neared its gravitational parking space on Monday in orbit around the sun, almost 1 million miles from Earth.



With a final course-correcting maneuver by on-board rocket thrusters set for 2 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT), Webb is expected to reach its destination at a position of orbital stability between the Earth and sun known as Lagrange Point Two, or L2, arriving one month after launch.



The thrusters will be activated by mission control engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and the ground team will use radio signals to confirm when Webb has been successfully "inserted" into orbit, said Eric Smith, NASA's program scientist for Webb.



From its vantage point in space, Webb will follow a special path in constant alignment with Earth, as the planet and telescope circle the sun in tandem, enabling uninterrupted radio contact.



By comparison, Webb's 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, orbits the Earth from 340 miles (547 km) away, passing in and out of the planet's shadow every 90 minutes.



The combined pull of the sun and Earth at L2 can hold the telescope firmly in place so it takes little additional rocket thrust to keep Webb from drifting.



Utilized by several other deep space satellites over the years, an L2 position allows a "minimum amount of fuel to stay in orbit," Smith said.



The operations center has also begun fine-tuning the telescope's primary mirror - an array of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal measuring 21 feet, 4 inches (6.5 meters) across - far larger than Hubble's main mirror.



Its size and design to operate mainly in the infrared spectrum will allow Webb to peer through clouds of gas and dust and observe objects at greater distances, thus farther back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.



These features are expected to usher in a revolution in astronomy, giving a first view of infant galaxies dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set the expansion of the known universe in motion an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.



Webb's instruments also make it ideal to search for signs of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented exoplanets - celestial bodies orbiting distant stars - and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn's icy moon Titan.



Next steps



It will take several more months of work to prepare Webb for its astronomical debut.



The 18 segments of its principal mirror, which had been folded together to fit inside the cargo bay of the rocket that carried the telescope to space, were unfurled with the rest of its structural components during a two-week period following Webb's launch on Dec. 25.



Those segments were recently detached from fasteners that held them in place for the launch and slowly moved forward half an inch from their original configuration, allowing them to be adjusted into a single, unbroken, light-collecting surface.



The 18 segments now need to be aligned to achieve the mirror's proper focus, a process that will take three months to complete.



As the alignment progresses, ground teams will start activating the observatory's spectrograph, camera and other instruments. This will be followed by two months calibrating the instruments themselves, Smith said.



If all goes smoothly, Webb should be ready to begin making observations by early summer, with initial images used to demonstrate the instruments function properly.



But Smith said Webb's most ambitious work, including plans to train its mirror on objects farthest from Earth, will take longer to conduct so it will be a while till the world gets a look at such images.



The telescope is an international collaboration led by NASA in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies. Northrop Grumman Corp was the primary contractor. (Reuters)


Beverly Hills, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- With numerous funding options now available, startups have more flexibility than ever when it comes to raising capital for their company. While the traditional financing routes like venture capital are more active than ever, there is an emergence of more alternative financing options as well.

In this episode of The BARE Ventures Podcast, Samir Vig Interviewed Nick Dolik, Senior Vice President, Venture Banking Group at Signature Bank. Here to introduce what Signature Bank has to offer and details on the alternative financing landscape, Dolik is passionate about being a part of startups.



Listen to the discussion between Host Samir Vig and Nick Dolik here



How Nick Dolik Got Started



Introduced to business at a young age, Nick Dolik comes from a line of entrepreneurs. I watched my father grow a tech company out of our basement, he shares. This fueled the leader in him. Upon leaving Michigan to pursue finance, his move to New York opened doors to the offices of Goldman Sachs, one of the top five banks in the country. Transitioning to venture debt and startups, Dolik now lives for providing capital for leaders with startups.

I want to be helping start-ups with capital for the rest of my life, Dolik tells The BARE Ventures Podcast.

The Venture Banking Group at Signature Bank



Dolik describes that Signature Bank prioritizes a relationship between themselves and the startup. As a helpful partner in the ecosystem that continuously oversees progress, Dolik emphasized the key difference between them and other providers.

We actually manage our portfolios, Dolik says.

Although selective, the quality portfolio of startups Dolik states they consider are ones that are VC backed businesses. It is, in fact, key for eligibility.



Were not trying to replace VC, were actually closely aligned with VC, Dolik explains. We compliment them.

Alternative Financing Options for Startups

There are great alternatives to term loans and lines of credit. However, it is important to factor in the structure and operation of a startup, as one option may be a better fit than another. To elaborate, certain startups may just be ineligible for specific financing options, such as factoring, based on the way they operate.

Outside of venture capital, Dolik goes over alternative forms of funding including: senior secure lending, revenue based financing, and non-dilutive capital.

Dolik introduces unique points describing what Signature Bank provides startups that are attractive. Signature offers one of the cheapest forms of debt and is very competitive in the market.

The Future of Funding

Entrepreneurs now realize that they can raise money without giving up 20% of their company every time they raise money, Dolik emphasizes to begin.

Vig proposes the topic of the horizon of funding, where were headed and invites Dolik to give his insight and judgement. Similar to other experts, Dolik is optimistic that the markets growth will advance, in addition to technology as a whole.

Covid has really pulled a lot of things forward that were backing and were seeing VC dollars going into a lot of these markets, Dolik says.



What to Keep in Mind

Recognizing the pros and cons of each alternative financing decision is crucial. While pondering over options, consider the cheapest forms of debt first, as giving a portion of a company away is no longer the only route to take.

There is no one size fits all states Vig.

Ultimately, the goal is to sufficiently provide capital through a manageable, realistic plan.

About

Bringing together founder, operator and investor experience, BARE Ventures as a firm strives for a well-balanced approach to fund management. With an institutional investment background, BARE Ventures focuses on proven traditional methodologies combined with emerging learnings in the ever-changing venture capital landscape.

Learn more at https://www.barevc.com/.

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Imports of beer to Korea hit a five-year low in 2021 in the wake of a nationwide boycott of Japanese products, data showed Monday.







The value of beer imports came to $223.1 million last year, down 1.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Korea Customs Service and industry sources.







The amount represents the lowest annual tally since the $181.6 million recorded in 2016.







Imports from Japan stood at $6.9 million last year, up 21.3 percent from the previous year. But it represented a whopping 91.2 percent decline from 2018, a year before the start of the "anti-Japan" campaign.







In summer 2019, South Korean consumers kicked off a boycott of Japanese products to protest Tokyo's export regulations on some key industrial materials crucial to the production of semiconductors and displays.







The Netherlands was the largest exporter of beer to South Korea last year, followed by China, Belgium, Poland, the United States, Ireland and Germany.







Last year, South Korea's beer exports dropped 12.5 percent year-on-year to $59.98 million, the lowest figure since 2010. The country posted a record deficit of $163.1 million in the beer trade. (Yonhap)


Hyosung TNC's factory in Ulsan is on fire, Sunday. Courtesy of Ulsan Fire Department



By Park Jae-hyuk



Hyosung TNC's stock price plummeted 6.83 percent to 443,000 won, Monday, following a fire that gutted two buildings at its manufacturing facility in Ulsan.



Investors dumped their shares in fear of a potential setback to its production, despite the expectation of the fiber manufacturer's operating profit for last year to hit a record high of 1.4 trillion won ($1.17 billion).



The forthcoming going into effect of the Serious Accident Punishment Act this week has been viewed as another unfavorable factor affecting the investor sentiment, because the new law states that the owner or chief manager of a business can face a jail term if a fatal industrial accident occurs when that business' workplace does not take the required safety measures.



According to firefighters, the blaze is presumed to have broken out on Sunday evening from the factory building's air conditioning room and spread to a nearby warehouse storing nylon yarn.



The firefighters are investigating the cause of the fire and the amount of damage. As of Monday afternoon, no deaths were reported, although two of the factory workers were hospitalized after inhaling smoke, while trying to extinguish the fire in the early stages.



Hyosung TNC said it will cope with the recent accident in accordance with its contingency plan.



"It is difficult to completely deny setbacks in our production, but our other production lines in Ulsan, Gumi and Vietnam will offset the losses," a company spokesperson said. "Those production lines are capable of producing nylon yarn of fine quality."



Securities analysts expect the fire to have a limited impact on Hyosung TNC's earnings.



"The fire broke out at a factory producing nylon yarn, so it will not affect the production of the company's flagship products  spandex and polyester," Kiwoom Securities analyst, Lee Dong-wook, said.



Hanwha Investment & Securities analyst Chun Woo-jae expected insurers to compensate Hyosung TNC for its losses, as they did two years ago following a fire at Lotte Chemical's factory in Seosan, North Chungcheong Province.



The analyst, however, warned about growing concerns among investors over the company's preparedness for the Serious Accident Punishment Act.


A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Jan. 18. AP-Yonhap



The State Department on Sunday ordered the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.



The department told the dependents of staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv that they must leave the country. It also said that non-essential embassy staff could leave Ukraine at government expense.



The move came amid rising tensions about Russia's military buildup on the Ukraine border that were not eased during talks Friday between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva.



State Department officials stressed the Kyiv embassy will remain open and that the announcement does not constitute an evacuation. The move had been under consideration for some time and does not reflect an easing of U.S. support for Ukraine, the officials said.



In a statement, the State Department noted recent reports that Russia was planning significant military action against Ukraine. However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO countries of escalating tensions around Ukraine with disinformation.



The State Department added: ''The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv.''



The department's travel advisory, which had warned against traveling to Ukraine because of COVID-19 as well as the tensions over Russia, was changed Sunday to carry a stronger warning.



''Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk,'' the department advised.



The travel advisory for Russia was also changed: ''Do not travel to Russia due to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine, the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens, the embassy's limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions, terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, and the arbitrary enforcement of local law.''



The State Department would not say how many Americans it believes are currently in Ukraine. U.S. citizens are not required to register with embassies when they arrive or plan to stay abroad for extended periods. (AP)


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BRIDGEPORT  A day after the family of Lauren Smith-Fields called out Mayor Joe Ganim at a march calling for answers in the case of the Bridgeport woman found dead last month, the mayor promised for a full and fair investigation and pledged to make any appropriate changes.

I offer my support in bringing closure to the family during this terrible tragedy, Ganims statement said.

Smith-Fields family did not immediately respond to Ganims statement Monday afternoon.

The family has been raising questions about the December death of the 23-year-old Smith-Fields and about how police handled the case.

According to the police report, a man she met through the dating app Bumble called police just after 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 12 when he reported waking up and finding her on the floor and not breathing with dried blood around her nose.

Medical personnel pronounced Smith-Fields dead at 6:49 a.m.

On Monday the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death to be acute intoxication due to the combined effects of fentanyl, promethazine, hydroxyzine, and alcohol, and the manner to be accidental.

Promethazine and hydroxyzine are antihistamines, while fentanyl is an opioid.

First, I would like to restate the citys condolences to the family and friends of Lauren Smith-Fields, and to the many caring individuals who have reached out seeking answers for Lauren, Ganims statement began. I recognize that the family and the community is experiencing a lot of pain because of the loss of a young woman in addition to unanswered questions and concerns about the way the matter has been handled.

On Sunday, hundreds of people joined Smith-Fields' family on a march from the police department to Margaret Morton Government Center where they called for justice  and called out Ganims silence on the issue.

On Friday, their lawyer, Darnell Crosland, filed notice that the family would be suing the city.

They said they were never notified of Smith-Fields death by police, and only found out about it after becoming concerned and finding a note on the door of her apartment directing them to call her landlord, who informed them of her death.

First, sensitivity and care is of utmost importance when working with the family of a victim, Ganims statement said. There is no tolerance for anything less than respect and sensitivity for family members and their loss. To that end, this matter has been referred to the Office of Internal Affairs to conduct a full and fair investigation.

The family had demanded a transparent internal investigation. In his statement, the mayor stopped short of supporting another demand  an independent probe by the state police and/or attorney general.

The mayor said he did share concerns echoed by many about the amount of time and manner a family is informed of a loss.

Death notifications should be done in a manner that illustrates dignity for the deceased and respect and compassion for the family, Ganims statement said.

He said he would work with Acting Police Chief Rebeca Garcia on appropriate changes in Bridgeport on its policies about notifying family of a death.

I support and add my voice to the family, community, and elected officials who are calling for state legislation on this issue, Ganim said.

The mayor also said he has contacted the medical examiner to request assistance in expediting this matter so that the investigation can proceed and detectives may provide a comprehensive report to the family and parents of Lauren Smith-Fields.
Women wearing face masks to curb the spread of coronavirus walk past traditional red phone boxes on Parliament Street, London, Jan. 21. AP-Yonhap



The Omicron variant has moved the COVID-19 pandemic into a new phase and could bring it to an end in Europe, the WHO Europe director said Sunday.



"It's plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame," Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview, adding that Omicron could infect 60 percent of Europeans by March.



Once the current surge of Omicron sweeping across Europe subsides, "there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality."



"We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before COVID-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back," Kluge said.



Top U.S. scientist Anthony Fauci expressed similar optimism Sunday, telling ABC News talk show "This Week" that with COVID-19 cases coming down "rather sharply" in parts of the United States, "things are looking good."



While cautioning against overconfidence, he said that if the recent fall in case numbers in areas like the U.S. northeast continued, "I believe that you will start to see a turnaround throughout the entire country."



The WHO regional office for Africa also said last week that cases of COVID had plummeted in that region and deaths were declining for the first time since the Omicron-dominated fourth wave of the virus reached its peak.





World Health Organization European director Hans Kluge, speaks during a joint press conference on the Danish handling of coronavirus in Eigtved's Pakhus, Copenhagen, in this March 27, 2020, file photo. AFP-Yonhap



The Omicron variant, which studies have shown is more contagious than Delta but generally leads to less severe infection among vaccinated people, has raised long-awaited hopes that COVID-19 is starting to shift from a pandemic to a more manageable endemic illness like seasonal flu.



But Kluge cautioned that it was still too early to consider COVID-19 endemic.



"There is a lot of talk about endemic but endemic means ... that it is possible to predict what's going to happen. This virus has surprised (us) more than once so we have to be very careful," Kluge said.



With Omicron spreading so widely, other variants could still emerge, he warned.



European Commissioner for Internal Markets Thierry Breton, whose brief includes vaccine production, said Sunday that it will be possible to adapt existing vaccines to any new variants that may emerge.



"We will be able to better resist, including to new variants," he told French television LCI.



"We will be ready to adapt the vaccines, especially the mRNA ones, if necessary to adapt them to more virulent variants."



In the WHO Europe region, which comprises 53 countries including several in Central Asia, Omicron represented 15 percent of new cases as of January 18, compared to 6.3 percent a week earlier, the health body said.





A woman wearing a protective face mask walks near the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees Avenue in Paris amid the COVID-19 pandemic in France, Jan. 21. Reuters-Yonhap
GREENWICH  New regulations on short-term rentals, and the use of short stays in a residence facilitated by online marketplaces such as Airbnb, have been adopted in town.

The towns zoning enforcement office receives regular complaints from local residents, about one every two months, about Airbnb or other short-term renters in residential areas, so the town Planning & Zoning Commission determined it was time for a set of regulations. Previously, there were no provisions on the books regarding short-term rentals of houses or apartments.

The new regulations approved last week limit the number of days a renter can occupy a residence to 30 consecutive days at a time, and any bedroom involved in a rental must have a clear emergency escape. Receptions, weddings, filming, photo shoots, corporate retreats and fundraisers are prohibited.

A homeowner who already has a boarder or roomer in residence, which is permissible under the town code, cannot arrange for a short-term rental, as well. Accessory units such as garages or pool houses are prohibited from use as rentals. Any residence that is up for rent must have sufficient parking space for visitors.

Chairwoman Margarita Alba said she was satisfied that the new regulations struck the right balance. Some flexibility, but its not unlimited, she said at the Thursday meeting. We dont want to throw open the barn door to increasing density. ... Were being careful about this.

Wynn McDaniel, chair of District 7 in the Representative Town Meeting in the north-center part of Greenwich, who has been studying the issue, said, Lets get something in place, see how it works and go from there.

Alban agreed and said the zoning regulations could be modified if necessary. We can tweak it, she said.

Airbnb offers rentals in Greenwich that range from a two-bedroom apartment for $105 a night, to more luxurious seaside homes that have been listed for $1,000 a day in summer months.

The town planning staff, in researching the issue, found that the complaints about short-term rentals involved parking problems, use of improper structures and noise.

The town planning department looked at regulations adopted in other communities in Connecticut  some lenient, some strict  in developing the new guidelines for Greenwich.

The Planning & Zoning Commission said the Greenwich Association of Realtors will be contacted, to raise awareness of the new regulations. The RTM and First Selectman Fred Camillos office will also be contacted to spread the word.

The Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously approved the new regulations in a vote.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
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GREENWICH  The town administration is seeking to implement a bike-sharing operation this spring.

Greenwich is asking for bids on an operator for a bike-sharing network at little or not cost to the town. The program would establish bike stations around town and provide about 30 bikes for public use as short-term rentals.

The town will let the bike-share company take the lead in determining where the bike stations would be located. The operator would implement a highly successful and financially selfsustaining automated ondemand bike share system, according to the request.

The town is seeking to provide alternative means, other than personal vehicles, for the general public to travel throughout Greenwich, according to the request.

The goal is to launch the program in the spring, according to the town.

The bike-share concept is part of a larger strategy for the communitys future, First Selectman Fred Camillo said.

Weve been talking about promoting an active lifestyle, being healthy, getting out there, he said, as well as creating alternatives to driving.

The towns roads, like most communities in the Northeast, were not designed for bikes, Camillo said.

Its a challenge, due to the width of the roads, he said. Safety, he said, would be a priority.

Camillo said he believed a bike-sharing program would offer a good potential for success.

People have been talking about doing this for years. Right now, we have a can-do spirit in Greenwich. We want to take advantage of that and see if we can put points on the board, he said.

The project would start small: Well take it one step at a time, Camillo said.

The town Department of Public Works will put up road markings and signs to raise awareness about sharing the roads with bikes, he said.

Theres a lot of thought going into it, and a lot of groups working together on this, Camillo said.

The town currently has a bike task force working on alternative transportation initiatives; it was organized in 2021.

An advocacy group, Pedal Greenwich, is also promoting bike-friendly measures for the town. The group recently put out a call to improve bicycle access to Greenwich High School, and is looking to make bike-safety education for young people more widely available and systematic.

Pedal Greenwich is also looking to make infrastructure improvements to complete bike friendly connections in the east end of town, the group said.

The most prominent bike-sharing operation in the nation began in 2013 in New York City with Citi Bike. Other cities followed, with bike-sharing popping up Washington, D.C.; Miami; Boston; Minneapolis; Chicago and other metropolitan regions around the country in the past decade. But the concept has been slow to grow in suburban communities.

Locally, Bridgeport began a bike-sharing program in 2020, as well as offering electric scooters. In 2018, bike-sharing began operating in New Haven until it was indefinitely suspended in 2020 because of the instability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The city of Hartford also has a bike-sharing operation in effect.

There are a number of bike-sharing companies operating in the U.S., some with deep financial resources. The ride-sharing company Uber entered the bike-sharing industry in 2018 when it acquired Jump. Another bike-sharing company, Motivate, acquired by Lyft, is described in the industry press as the largest in the field.

rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
Guam has three potential contenders for office of delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives as of Monday, with 16 potential candidates looking to make a bid for the 37th Guam Legislature.

Currently, no one has officially stepped onto the field to challenge Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Lt. Gov. Joshua Tenorio as they vie for re-election.

Attorney Peter Santos picked up a candidate packet for the delegate office but said that he was still considering a potential run and declined further comment. He works for the Alternate Public Defender and is listed as a Republican by the candidate packet sign-out sheet.

Democrat minority leader Sen. Telena Nelson picked up packets for both the Legislature and Congress. According to her office, Nelson hasnt made any decision as of Monday but wanted to know what the requirements were to run for delegate. A staffer for Sen. James Moylan picked up a candidate packet for him, but Moylan said hes certainly still considering making a run for delegate if Del. Mike San Nicolas decides to run for governor.

Del. Mike San Nicolas has hinted at a possible run for the governors office, but did not respond on Monday to a request from the PDN on whether hed made a decision yet. The delegate hasnt picked up a packet for either office, but Michael San Nicolas for Congress has filed an organizational report with the Guam Election Commission and can begin fundraising.

Senatorial candidates

Besides Moylan and Nelson, Sen. Joe San Agustin was the only other incumbent senator to pick up a candidate packet.

Former senator Jesse A. Lujan is set to run for a Republican seat in the 37th Guam Legislature, his campaign manager Vic Gaza confirmed. Lujan previously served on the 27th and 28th Guam Legislature. He is listed as a Republican on the candidate packet sign-out sheet.

Based on Election Commission data, as of Jan. 24, the following people picked up candidate packets for the 2022 races.

For senator:

Vincent Borja, Republican

Ken Leon Guerrero, Republican

Roy A. B. Quinata, Democrat

Don A. A. Edquilane, Republican

Sandra Reyes Seau, Republican

Dwayne San Nicolas, Democrat

Roy L. Gamboa, Democrat

Diamantino Conceicao, party undecided

Muchanah Udui, Democrat

Alejandro Gay, Democrat

Ian D. Cathling, party undecided

Dave Duenas, Democrat

Consolidated Commission on Utilities:

Nonito Blas, nonpartisan

Seats for governor, lieutenant governor, delegate, senators, attorney general, Consolidated Commission on Utilities Commissioner and the Guam Education Board are up for grabs this election year.

You can pick up a candidate packet at the Guam Election Commission Office at the Oka Building in Tamuning or online at: gec.guam.gov/candidates

Candidate packets can be filed from April 19 to June 28. The primary election is scheduled for Aug. 27, and the general election is on Nov. 8.
A measure intended to cancel unneeded primary elections advanced at the Legislature on Monday, but it wont affect the 2022 election if it becomes law.

As amended on the floor, Bill 173 would cancel the primary for an office if equal or less than the maximum number of candidates could advance to a general election. It wont, however, cancel primaries for only one party. For example, if there are less than the maximum of 15 candidates for the Legislature running as Republicans in one year, but 18 candidates are running as Democrats, both parties will still hold a primary.

The measure also applies to candidates running as independents.

Offices that would have their primary canceled are the Legislature, governor, delegate, mayors and vice mayors. The bill was amended by Sens. Telo Taitague and Joe San Agustin to also include the Office of the Public Auditor and Office of the Attorney General.

The bill, as introduced by Sen. James Moylan would have taken effect for election 2022, but Taitague wanted it amended to Jan. 1, 2023. She said the primary was used by some to improve their popularity, and canceling on short notice would make it harder for new candidates.

Speaker Therese Terlaje agreed by saying, I think we need candidates and I think the people who come always need a wider representation from the population of Guam, and the more the better.

Moylan objected, saying that the deadline to file election packets had not passed, there was no roster for the upcoming election and that the bill may not even take effect.

Taitagues amendment passed.

Speaker Therese Terlaje succeeded in striking from the bill a section that would remove the requirement for the Election Commission to count write-in votes unless they would result in a change to who received the most votes for an office. This keeps tabs on write-ins that are especially important for close races like mayoral elections, she said.

If signed into law, Bill 173 would also empower the Election Commission to enforce a ban on electioneering within 100 feet of a polling station, which is already in the law. The GEC would be responsible for setting electioneering boundaries and could call the Guam Police Department to enforce them. The bill would also call for a special election, should the office of the Washington delegate becomes vacant.

Bill 173 was moved to the third reading file without objection and will be up for vote at the close of the January session.

War claims

Lawmakers also brought Bill 230 onto the floor on Monday, a measure that would authorize Adelups plan to rollout war claims to World War II survivors who missed a previous filing deadline. While the plan itself lapsed into law on Jan. 7 and is already being implemented, the governor will need the Legislatures approval to appropriate the $10 million in General Fund money that is needed to pay the plan, Department of Administration Director Ed Birn told lawmakers.

The bill, as amended, would expand the window to file claims from three months to 12 months.
A man was charged in connection with swinging an axe at a man after he refused a beer.

On Sunday, a man walking by a bank in Dededo said he identified Greg Samuel, as a man who he met before, according to a magistrates complaint filed at the Superior Court of Guam.

The man said Samuel offered him a beer but when he refused Samuel approached the man with his hand under his shirt before pulling out a small axe and swung it at him, the complaint stated.

Samuel then chased the man who tried to run and began to fight him, according to the complaint.

A witness was able to see the events from his car and was able to take the axe away from Samuel during the struggle, the complaint stated.

Samuel was charged with aggravated assault as a third-degree felony and assault as a misdemeanor.
The Department of Public Health and Social Services will begin rationing COVID-19 tests on Wednesday at testing centers in Tiyan and the Northern and Southern Region Community Health Centers, officials announced during a Monday press conference.

Tests will only be provided to symptomatic patients and high-risk close-contacts who are either, unvaccinated, over the age of 65, or have multiple co-morbidities such as diabetes, heart disease, or hypertension, said Public Health incident commander for COVID-19 response Fernando Esteves. Rationing will also extend to clinics and pharmacies that receive the tests free of charge from Public Health.

Workers at the Public Health community centers will screen for people who meet the high-risk criteria as they come in, Esteves said.

For now, because the supplies are not there, were just going to focus on our primary effort, which is preventing the overwhelming of our hospitals, Esteves said, emphasizing that only symptomatic patients become severely ill and require hospitalization.

The decision to ration tests comes as Public Healths testing centers have had to administer record-breaking numbers of daily tests during the January surge, which officials suspect is driven by the highly-infectious omicron variant. The agency performed 35,677 tests since Jan. 3, at an average of 1,870 per day, said Vince Campo with Public Health surveillance. About 20% of the tests since Jan. 3 have come back positive, he said.

Esteves said that Public Health had a supply of 66,000 tests prior to the start of the latest surge, but was down to 33,000 as of Monday.

Fully vaccinated and boosted people who are exposed to the virus do not have to get tested or quarantine, under current Public Health guidelines. Those who are unvaccinated but exposed are still subject to a 10-day quarantine.

Monoclonal antibody treatment suspended

With COVID-19 fighting monoclonal antibodies, primarily Regen-COV, in short supply, the monoclonal antibody clinic in Mangilao temporarily shut down and the Guam Memorial Hospital suspended monoclonal antibody treatments, the Joint Information Center reported.

Guam received about 80 courses of the COVID-19 antiviral pill Paxlovid, which will be given to GMH to administer to patients, Public Health acting chief medical officer Dr. Bob Leon Guerrero said Monday. Demand for the antibodies had more than doubled in previous weeks, Leon Guerrero said.

Last, I think Saturday or Friday we were past 40 (daily doses). So thats one of the reasons why we ran out, he said.

The island placed an order for more antibodies about three weeks ago and is expecting a supply sometime this week, along with 120 courses of Sotrovimab, which is more effective at treating omicron than other antibodies. An order for another recently approved COVID-19 antiviral pill, Molnupiravir, was also placed. Supply of COVID-19 treatments is expected to stabilize around mid-February, Esteves said.
Some 3,000 sets of human skeletal remains under the stewardship of the Guam State Historic Preservation Office, some unearthed around 100 years ago, are still awaiting a final resting place.

The bulk of the ancestral remains come from the Hornbostel Collection, found by Hans Hornbostel and J.C. Thompson during archaeological excavations on Guam in the 1920s, said State Historic Preservation Officer Patrick Lujan. Much of the rest were unearthed during construction, largely around Tumon Bay, he said. Prior to becoming the Preservation offices responsibility in 1992, many of the remains were held by the Guam Public Library, which received them from local residents and business owners who unearthed them, Legislature records show.

According to Lujan, most of the collection has been stored with the Guam Museum over the years, but the museum hasnt always had a fixed location.

Its been a struggle because of the museum moving from one location to another. So air conditioning is a huge thing, when they moved from the Micronesia Mall to the (DNA) Building, he said.

The remains, stored in boxes, will soon be making another move to the Guam Cultural Repository, which is being constructed at the University of Guam Campus, Lujan said. The move is being coordinated with the Department of Chamorro Affairs, which is handling the repository alongside UOG.

Lujan said Chamorro Affairs understands the importance of the remains, but that the repository is not necessarily meant to hold remains, its meant to hold artifacts.

Construction of a final destination for the remains, the CHamoru National Shrine, or Naftan Manaina-ta Shrine, was authorized by the same law that made the Preservation office responsible for the collection in 1992. But a plot of land for the shrine wasnt designated until 2016. The shrine will go up at Ypao Point overlooking Tumon Bay. Its a fitting location, Lujan said, because many of the remains were unearthed during the construction of the tourist spot before local laws required remains to be re-buried as close as possible to where they were found.

The design is completed. Now its the funding part for the construction itself, Lujan said.

Funding is also needed for the Preservation Office to complete the inventory of the remains. A baseline catalog of where many of the remains were found, and whether they were from the Latte, Pre-Latte or Spanish era was still needed, along with a final count. A phased approach is planned for the shrine, Lujan said, and cataloged remains will go in before remains that arent accounted for.

In December, Lujan said about $300,000 was needed to hire additional staff, which he was working with Sen. Joe San Agustins office to secure.

San Agustins Bill 187, which would provide $3.5 million to the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Preservation Office, received a public hearing last month. The measure is banking on Guam getting federal reimbursement for money that was set aside in 2020 for the Earned Income Tax Program, which GovGuam had to pay for prior to calendar year 2021.

The Naftan shrine is one of several projects that seek to use the EITC money, but there was no update on the reimbursement as of Friday, according to San Agustins office. In the event the money from the EITC doesnt come through, money from the General Fund may be considered for some of the projects, the office stated.

Director Dafne Mansapit Shimizu of the Department of Revenue and taxation said there was no word on the funds as of Friday.

We expect to have a final implementation plan for EITC very soon, she said.

If the funds should fall through, federal grants could be sought, Lujan said.

We can always go out and get outside funding, ... but this is our, this is the CHamoru peoples shrine. Personally, I want us to pay for it. I want GovGuam to pay for it. This is our people going in there, Lujan said.

Its been a long journey for these remains, he said.

The Hornbostel Collection in particular was in the custody of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii up until about 10 years ago, despite the attempts by various administrations to have the remains returned.

Its very critical that we once and for all give them the proper rites and respects to re-inter them.
Taiwanese pilots of F-5 fighter jets walk in a hangar ahead of a visit by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to a military base in Taitung, Taiwan, Jan. 21. EPA-Yonhap



Taiwan reported Sunday the largest incursion into its air defense zone by China's air force since October, with the island's defense ministry saying Taiwanese fighters scrambled to warn away 39 aircraft in the latest uptick in tensions.



The country, which China claims as its own territory, has complained for more than a year of repeated missions by Chinese aircraft near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defense identification zone, or ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands.



Taiwan calls China's repeated nearby military activities "grey zone" warfare, designed to both wear out Taiwan's forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test Taiwan's responses.



The latest Chinese mission included 34 fighters plus four electronic warfare aircraft and a single bomber, the ministry said.



The aircraft flew in an area to the northeast of the Pratas, according to a map the ministry provided.



Taiwan sent combat aircraft to warn away the Chinese aircraft, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them, the ministry said.



There was no immediate comment from China, which has in the past said such moves were exercises aimed at protecting the country's sovereignty.



While it was not clear what might have prompted China to carry out such a large-scale mission, U.S. and Japanese naval forces have been carrying out exercises in the Philippine Sea, a vast area that includes waters to the east of Taiwan.



The U.S. Pacific Fleet said Sunday those drills included two carrier strike groups which were "conducting training to preserve and protect a free and open Indo Pacific."



China has stepped up pressure on Taiwan to accept its sovereignty claims. Taiwan's government says it wants peace but will defend itself if attacked.



Taiwan reported 148 Chinese air force planes in the southern and southwestern part of its AIDZ over a four-day period beginning Oct. 1, the same day China marked a key patriotic holiday, National Day.



Taiwan has reported almost daily Chinese air force forays into the same air space since then, but the number of planes on Sunday was the largest on a single day since the October incursions.



No shots have been fired and the Chinese aircraft have not been flying in Taiwan's air space, but in its ADIZ, a broader area Taiwan monitors and patrols that acts to give it more time to respond to any threats. (Reuters)






Haiti - Politic : Haitian student visas in the Dominican Republic





The Dominican Republic between 2010 and November 2021, granted 4,201 student visas to Haitian citizens, of which 65% (2,749) were issued by the Dominican Consulate in Port-au-Prince.



Special program :

In May 2021 a special visa program was created to provide a visa to Haitian university students who obtain the fewest student visas, despite being the majority of foreign students in Dominican public educational institutions https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33662-haiti-flash-a-special-visa-for-haitian-university-students-in-the-dominican-republic.html



Between May and October 2021, the Dominican Republic received through the consulates located in Port-au-Prince, Ounaminthe and Cap-Haitien, 1,767 visa applications for the special program of which 93.7% (1,656) were approved and 1,370 were issued.



However, after granting the first visas to Haitian students https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33683-haiti-flash-visa-applications-for-haitian-students-approved-by-the-dominican-authorities.html , the program was suspended indefinitely on November 1st, 2021 by President Luis Abinader due to fraud and trafficking of visas granted to ineligible persons https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35246-icihaiti-dominican-republic-traffic-of-student-visas.html



The Dominican Ministry of Foreign Affairs has clarified that the indefinite suspension of the special program does not include requests received by Dominican consulates in Haiti and the Dominican Chancellery has clarified several aspects of this measure https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35153-haiti-flash-suspension-of-haitian-student-visas-in-the-dominican-rep-clarification.html



On the sidelines of the Summit of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Buenos Aires (Argentina) which ended on January 7, 2022, Jean Victor Geneus the Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs after having met in Argentina his Dominican counterpart Roberto Alvarez reports that the Dominican Chancellor "promised" to him to find an "immediate solution" to the problem of visa suspensions for Haitian students https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35679-icihaiti-celac-harvest-of-diplomatic-promises.html . However, nothing has been announced by the Dominican Government so far...



Read on the same topic :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35679-icihaiti-celac-harvest-of-diplomatic-promises.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35153-haiti-flash-suspension-of-haitian-student-visas-in-the-dominican-rep-clarification.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35277-icihaiti-diplomacy-dr-will-reconsider-the-haitian-student-visa-program.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35246-icihaiti-dominican-republic-traffic-of-student-visas.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35153-haiti-flash-suspension-of-haitian-student-visas-in-the-dominican-rep-clarification.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-34458-haiti-flash-200-first-dominican-visas-issued-to-haitian-students.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33683-haiti-flash-visa-applications-for-haitian-students-approved-by-the-dominican-authorities.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33662-haiti-flash-a-special-visa-for-haitian-university-students-in-the-dominican-republic.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33269-haiti-flash-towards-a-visa-for-more-than-2-800-university-students-in-dr.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14488-haiti-education-more-than-12-000-haitian-students-in-dominican-universities.html



SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - International community : First millions of support announced for Haiti





Following the virtual meeting of Friday, January 21, 2022 https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35754-haiti-politic-meeting-of-the-international-community-on-haiti.html during which the international community reaffirmed its solidarity with Haiti, several countries have already confirmed their commitments



Canada announced aid of 50.4 million Canadian dollars https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35773-haiti-politic-canada-announces-$504-million-in-aid-for-haiti.html



The United States has pledged $15 million to support the National Police of Haiti (PNH). In addition, 16 experts will be sent to Haiti in support of Swat units and members of the border police (PoliFront); 60 vehicles and protective equipment to PNH as well as aid of 100 million dollars via the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) without further details.



France has announced a strengthening of its cooperation with the PNH in the field of security.



Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Japan have also promised their aid to the PNH without specifying the form.



But this could only be the beginning, according to the voice of America the UN is planning a meeting of donor countries (donors) next February in favor of Haiti.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35773-haiti-politic-canada-announces-$504-million-in-aid-for-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35772-haiti-politic-interventions-of-the-pm-at-the-international-visionconference-on-the-haitian-crisis.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35754-haiti-politic-meeting-of-the-international-community-on-haiti.html



TB/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Insecurity : Cuba confirms the release of Dr. Daymara Helen Perez Alabedra





The Cuban Government via its Embassy in Haiti, has confirmed that the Cuban Dr. Daymara Helen Perez Alabedra, kidnapped and sequestered since January 13 in Martissant by armed men, was released on the morning of Sunday January 23, 2022. The Embassy indicates that she was in good health and had spoken with her relatives in Cuba in particular her mother and her 12 year old son "They released my daughter, she is already at home. They did not harm her physically," assured Maria Alabedra, the mother of Daymara Helen Perez.



Let's recall that Dr. Perez had carried out a medical mission for the Cuban Government for three years and then returned to Cuba. Subsequently she obtained a private contract with the Notre Dame de Petit-Goave Hospital in Haiti, where she works as an anesthesiologist.



According to her mother, Dr. Jasmin Fred Director of Notre Dame Hospital, was in charge of negotiations with the kidnappers who demanded an initial ransom of 100,000 US dollars.



According to our correspondent in Petit-Goave Mathieu Guyto, a ransom was paid to the kidnappers against the release of the hostage. Recalling that the kidnapping of Dr. Perez had provoked a vast protest movement in Petit-Goave https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35761-haiti-news-zapping.html . Members of the population, in particular young people from the "Bo Lopital" base, condemned this kidnapping and expressed their solidarity with the Cuban doctors present on the national territory who provide invaluable assistance to the Haitian people.



S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : 2 earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5 (Provisional report Update 3:48 pm)





This morning two earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 5 on the Richter scale occurred in the Nippes department...



This Monday, January 24, 2022, at 8:16 and 23 seconds in the morning, an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3 on the Richter scale was recorded 3 km South South-West of Anse-a-Veau (Dept. Nippes )



The epicenter was located at 18.468 North latitude and 73.335 West longitude at a depth of 10 kilometers, 26 km northwest of Miragoane (Dept. Nippes), 50km west of Petit-Goave (Dept. Where is). This earthquake was felt in the metropolitan area.



The second earthquake of "lower" intensity occurred at 9:06 a.m. and 43 seconds in the morning, with a magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale, was recorded 4 km West South-West of Petite Riviere de Nippes (Dept. Nippes).



The epicenter was located at 18.465 north latitude and 73.274 west longitude at a depth of 9.7 kilometers 8.5 km south-east of Anse-a-Veau (Dept. Nippes), 20 km east of Miragoane (Dept. Nippes). This earthquake was also felt in the metropolitan area.



Update 11:18am :

First partial assessment Nippes earthquake January 24, 2022 : one dead in Fonds-des-Negres, 3 injured in the city center of Petite-Riviere as well as some damaged houses, according to the departmental delegate.



The DPC of Nippes informs that houses are damaged in Fond des Lianes. The road is cracked near St Sauveur and the Pont de Teinturier at Petite Riviere de Nippes.



Volunteers are deployed to ask the population not to stay under concrete roofs.



Update 1:46 pm

2 dead (1 in Anse-a-Veau, 1 in Fond des Negres)

Minor injuries were recorded in Miragoane and Fonds des Begres.

35 houses damaged in Anse-a-Veau

The road is damaged in St-Sauveur and Petite-Riviere-de-Nippes...the Teinturier bridge is also damaged.



According to the geological engineer Claude Prepetit, the earthquake of this Monday felt in several departments, including the West, the Nippes and the North, is of magnitude 5.6 and is located in the Nippes region in Anse-a-Veau. "These are the aftershocks of August 14," he said.



UPDATE 3:48 p.m.

The Directorate of Civil Protection (DPC) has just provided a new provisional report:



- 2 dead



Details : A man died in Fond des Negres following the sliding of a piece of sand in a quarry in Pemerle.

A lady died following the collapse of a wall in the locality of Colico.



- 52 wounded

- 191 houses destroyed

- 591 houses damaged

- 834 affected families



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35786-haiti-flash-earthquake-30-km-west-of-mole-saint-nicolas.html



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - News : Zapping...





No armed operation in Martissant

The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Bertho Dorce, confirmed that the government had chosen to avoid an armed operation against the Martissant gangs because of the civilian collateral damage that such a confrontation would cause.



CSPJ : Judge Garry Orelien under investigation

The Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSPJ) has decided to order the opening of an investigation following the allegations of corruption brought against the investigating judge Garry Orelien by the National Network for the Defense of Human Rights (RNDDH) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35770-haiti-justice-accused-of-corruption-judge-orelien-gives-notice-to-pierre-esperance-to-prove-his-accusations.html



The PM discusses with the diapsora

Sunday, January 23, the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, met several representatives of organizations of the diaspora, in order to discuss the general situation of the country, and in the perspective of their participation in the formation of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and the National Constituent Assembly...



Fuel : False Rumor

Ricardin Saint Jean, the Minister of Commerce denies the rumors suggesting a scarcity of fuel, arguing as proof that on Saturday January 22, 80 tank trucks were filled at the Varreux oil terminal (243.964 gallons of diesel, 208.685 gallons of gasoline and 6.501 gallons of kerosene).



Passing away of "Alcibiades" condolences from PM

"I learned with sadness of the death of comedian Nicolas Pierre Rolin, known as 'Alcibiade'. I salute the memory of this illustrious actor who depicted, with a spirit full of vivacity, and an inexhaustible and satirical verve, the mores of our society. His radio sketches and his major shows will mark several generations that he has made laugh and think. On behalf of my Government, I offer my sincere condolences to the artist's family, to his stage comrades and to his Caribbean radio collaborators" Prime Minister ai Ariel Henry See also : https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35788-icihaiti-obituaries-death-of-the-comedian-alcibiade.html



DR : arrest of 20 Haitians living in an abandoned bus

Agents of the Specialized Body for the Security of Land Borders (CESFRONT), arrested in Dajabon, 20 Haitians in an irregular migratory situation who lived hidden inside an abandoned bus.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















By William Schwartz | Published on 2022/01/23

MBC recently announced that it would be airing a special episode of the historical drama "The Red Sleeve" to coincide with the Lunar New Year holiday. "The Red Sleeve" stars Lee Junho as a young king Jeongjo in the Joseon period, with a special focus on his relationship with a royal concubine played by Lee Se-young. The episode will feature all the principle actors discussing their roles alongside new behind-the-scenes footage.

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Such special episodes are are infrequently made for popular dramas. Other such television shows to have had such special episodes include "The Penthouse" and "Hospital Playlist" although both of these were multi-season dramas. There are no plans to give "The Red Sleeve" a sequel series. "The Red Sleeve" special episode will air on January 31st at 11:10 PM Korean time on MBC.

Written by William Schwartz
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Some of the best years of my life  I miss those people.

Good times and memories, but I have moved on.

Not my best days, but I have made peace with them.

Glad to be away from those people  I dont miss the high school experience.

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Published on 2022/01/24 | Source

Actors Park Shin-hye and Choi Tae-joon, who tied the knot on the 22nd, expressed their feelings about their marriage.

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Choi Tae-joon posted on his Instagram on the 23rd, "I sincerely thank you for your support and blessings".

Park Shin-hye also released a wedding photo on her Instagram dressed in an elegant hanbok, "Thank you everyone for all the blessings and congratulatory messages".

The church wedding was held in Gangdong-go in Seoul. The couple started dating in 2017 as seniors and juniors in the Department of Theater and Film at Chung-Ang University.

In November last year, the news of the couple's marriage and Park Shin-hye's pregnancy was publicly announced. Top stars such as actors Lee Seo-jin, Lee Min-ho, Yoo Yeon-seok, and Ryu Jun-yeol attended as guests.
INDIANAPOLIS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Indiana University's Public Policy Institute (PPI) estimates that Bloomington, Indiana based Cook Medical's medical device manufacturing facility nearing completion at 38th & Sheridan in Indianapolis will have an estimated economic impact of $25.9 million annually for Marion County.

The $15 million, 40,000 sq. foot facility, which plans to begin production in the first quarter of this year, was constructed using 100% local, diverse (minority, women, disability and veteran-owned) vendors and strives to hire its 100 employees from the surrounding neighborhood.

Cook and its partners engaged the IU Public Policy Institute to model the immediate and future economic impacts of the 38th and Sheridan project, provide a set of recommendations on instruments and metrics that will provide feedback on the project's community impact and employment outcomes over time, and enable a long-term evaluation of this important and innovative project. An overview of their findings can be found here, with deeper dives into redevelopment without displacement here, dynamic system partnerships here, and reimaging economic development investment here.

"The community has been very clear that they wanted us to build with them, not on them. Every step of this project has been designed with that in mind," said Pete Yonkman, president of Cook Medical and Cook Group. "We hope that the PPI study offers a roadmap for other businesses to follow. Our communities desperately need the resources, expertise and skills that industry can bring to the table."

Cook Medical, Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana, The Indianapolis Foundation, and the United Northeast Community Development Corporation are project partners. Employees, who will manufacture medical devices such as sheaths and drainage catheters, will be employees of Goodwill Commercial Services. In addition to long-term employment and skills development, the facility will also offer holistic employee services such as mental and physical health support, substance use disorder support, soft skills training, housing stabilization, and other services necessary to remove barriers to socioeconomic progress. Investing in employees through education is one of the best ways to help them achieve personal and career goals.

In its report, PPI dubs the relationship between Cook and the neighborhood partners as "unique," calling out Cook's interest not only in the success of the facility but in the success of the residents, with an emphasis on improving quality of life.

Yonkman, who regularly attends neighborhood meetings, credits the strong collaboration of project partners in driving it toward success.

"Unfortunately, the challenges we face as a society can't be solved with high level policies alone. If they could, they would have already been fixed," Yonkman said. "Real solutions come from open, honest, on-the-ground collaboration between government, not for profits, communities, industry, and neighbors. If any one of those stakeholders aren't at the table, we limit our chances of success."

"It is expected that this intentional effort will provide improved economic stability and result in personal and professional growth opportunities and an enhanced quality of life for employees and members of their households. Additionally, the hope is that, by hiring neighborhood residents, those employees and their households will contribute to a higher quality of life in the neighborhood."  PPI Report on "Understanding and tracking impacts of the 38th Street and Sheridan Avenue community collaboration"

Additional results of the in-depth study found:

One-time estimated construction-related economic contributions of $24 million (construction, design, wages)

(construction, design, wages) Estimated annual wages of $3.1 million for the facility's 100 full-time employees, which does not include benefits

for the facility's 100 full-time employees, which does not include benefits When the manufacturing facility reaches 100 full-time workers, it is expected to add $25.9 million per year to the Marion County economy from direct, indirect and induced spending. Indirect spending is purchase of supplies and services used by the manufacturing facility and induced spending is the effect of spending by employees.

per year to the economy from direct, indirect and induced spending. Indirect spending is purchase of supplies and services used by the manufacturing facility and induced spending is the effect of spending by employees. Purchases of supplies, services plus employee spending are expected to generate an additional 52 full-time jobs in the local economy and initially, $4.1 million in additional wages and benefits for each year of operation.

Yonkman noted this was not merely an exercise in philanthropy. "Philanthropy is important but insufficient to tackle the challenges we face. As business leaders we should understand that our core business opportunities can also be catalysts of community improvement. It is possible to do good business and good in the community at the same time.

About Cook Medical

Since 1963, Cook Medical has worked closely with physicians to develop technologies that eliminate the need for open surgery. Today we invent, manufacture, and deliver a unique portfolio of medical devices to the healthcare systems of the world. Serving patients is a privilege and we demand the highest standards of quality ethics, and service. We have remained family owned so that we have the freedom to focus on what we care about: our patients, our employees, and our communities.

We believe that it's possible to do good business while doing good in our communities. We're proud to work in collaboration with partners on a community development effort by building both a manufacturing site and a grocery store in Indianapolis. Located at the northwest corner of 38th Street and Sheridan Avenue, the project will help people and communities reach their full potential. Find out more: www.38thandsheridan.com.

Find out more at CookMedical.com, and for the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

Marsha Lovejoy

Global Manager, External Corporate Communications, Cook Medical

812.320.6903 (mobile)

marsha.lovejoy@cookmedical.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/economic-impact-of-cook-medicals-new-indy-manufacturing-site-estimated-at-25-9-million-301466255.html

SOURCE Cook Medical
While the omicron variant-driven surge may be subsiding in some parts of the United States where it surged the earliest, cases are still high in this part of Montana.

Blaine County Health Department reported Friday that it was notified of 35 new cases that day with transmission very high.

"Blaine County has seen a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases since last week," the department said in a release Friday, adding that the county is also seeing other viral activity to include influenza and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. Influenza vaccine is still available at the Blaine County Health Department, the release said, telling people to call for an appointment.

The release also asked Blaine County residents to be vigilant.

"Wash your hands, cover your cough and sneeze, stay away from sick people, stay home when you're sick," it said. "All of these mitigation efforts will help control the spread of illness."

Hill County Health Department reported 50 new cases Friday.

The total number of active cases in Hill County is 267 while Blaine County has 207 active cases, although health officials are saying that, with the higher transmission and often less-severe symptoms of the omicron variant, the more important number is hospitalizations and deaths.

Officials in other states where the new case numbers seem to be dropping are warning that hospitalizations and deaths generally lag behind the new case reports.

Hill County had two new hospitalizations last week which were quickly released and reported one active hospitalization Friday.

Numbers on the state level and for Chouteau and Liberty counties were not available by printing deadline today.

The Blaine County release also listed vaccination opportunities - officials say the best protection against the omicron variant, as with all variants of the virus that causes COVID, is vaccination and booster shots - listing what is available including boosters for 12 to 17 year olds five months past their second dose of Pfizer vaccine.

The Hill County Health Department release asked people to be understanding with delays in their contacting reported cases.

"Due to the recent increase in cases, please know that we are working as quickly as we can to get through all of the positive tests, however we are not able to reach everyone in one day," the release said. "If you are showing symptoms and have been tested and not yet heard from us regarding your results, please stay home until you get a call from us or you have been symptom free for 48 hours."

Officials are urging people to take every step they can to protect themselves and slow the spread of the virus, with the most crucial getting vaccinated or a vaccine booster if they have not done so yet.

The vaccines for COVID-19 have remained effective at preventing hospitalization and death through out the pandemic and the rollout of boosters for the vaccines provide an extra layer of protection that drastically reduces the chances of people getting seriously ill.

Aside from vaccination, much of the same procedures are still recommended to slow the spread of the virus, including omicron. Wearing masks while in public areas is still a key way to slow the spread of - and reduce the chance of contracting - the virus, with recommended masks still effective at reducing the spread of the variants of the virus, including omicron.

Avoiding being in large groups of people outside of a person's household when possible also will reduce the chance of contracting the virus, as will regular handwashing and people covering their coughs and sneezes with a tissue or their elbow.

In Hill County, vaccinations and booster shots are available through Bullhook Community Health Center, 406-395-4305; the Hill County Health Department, 406-400-2415; Northern Montana Health Care's Specialty Medical Center at 406-265-7831 or its Family Medical Center at 406-265-5408; Western Drug Pharmacy, 406-265-9601; Gary & Leo's Pharmacy, which takes walk-ins; Walmart; and the Rocky Boy Health Center 406-395-4486.

Blaine County Health Department said it continues to offer first and second dose and booster dose walk-in COVID-19 vaccinations Thursdays from 8:30 - 11:30 a.m. and 1 - 4:30 p.m. at the health department at 420A Ohio Street in Chinook. Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccines available including pediatric COVID-19 vaccine for 5 to 11 year olds.

People can call the Fort Belknap Health Center, public health nurse at 406-353-3250 and pharmacy at 406-353-3104, to schedule vaccinations and booster shots.

Vaccine is available in Chouteau County at the Chouteau County Health Department, 406-622-3771, and Big Sandy Pharmacy at 406-378-5588.

People can call Liberty County Health Department at 406-759-5517 to schedule a vaccination.
On Monday, the Syrian Democratic Council issued a written statement to the public opinion, where it clarified that the Turkish occupation state, through launching attacks on NE Syria, seeks to distract SDF's attention to pave the way for a major escape operation of mercenaries from Al-Sina`a prison in the city of Hasaka, as happened in Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison.

The statement read:

"Task of detaining huge numbers of ISIS terrorist elements was not an easy thing, but it is a work that major countries are unable to do, however they gave up to bear their responsibilities, so the Syrian Democratic Forces carried the duty along with some countries of the coalition forces. And the Internal Security Forces in the Autonomous Administration.

Many of these countries, including Turkey, did not cut off its support for ISIS, as it armed and deployed them in the occupied areas as mercenaries, to devour Autonomous Administration's body by planting terrorist cells to strike and blow up its national project. It became clear that the operation Al- Sina'a prison was planned in the city of Serekaniye and Tal Abyad, with the support of groups coming from the Iraqi borders. This is clear evidence that these areas are controlled by ISIS not anti-Regime groups.

At a time when our forces are facing the fiercest battles against those fleeing ISIS, the Turkish state is targeting villages of Ain Issa with artillery to distract public opinion from battles of Al- Sina'a prison and our forces in order to pave the way for the big escape operation as happened in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Some parties in the failed opposition and Damascus authority are trying to describe what is happening as racial discrimination and war crimes against humanity, whereas these descriptions apply to these parties, where Damascus authority killed and more than half a million Syrians with its weapons, missiles and barrels, and in its prisons, and displaced more than ten million people with its oppression, oppression, siege and targeting of civilians in Cities and villages, in hospitals, bakeries and markets.

With this, the Syrian Democratic Council confirms to the whole world that ISIS threats has not ended in NE Syria, but its danger is increasing day by day, therefore this needs international cooperation more than before, this region must be exempted from sanctions and supported economically, and providing infrastructures, Job opportunities for people and to keep them away from the takfiri ideology.

We call on the United Nations to end the siege on northern and eastern Syria, by opening an official crossing to deliver humanitarian aid to the region.

We also call on NATO countries, Russia and the United Nations to put an end to the Turkish violations on NE Syria, we call on the International Community to support us in getting rid of these groups in the occupied areas. We also appeal the Syrian people, who yearn for freedom and dignity, and urge them to persevere, as they did at all stages.

The eyes of cowards did not sleep, long live to our forces that protect us, mercy for the martyrs, healing for the wounded, and victory for our great people.

A.K
MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Schools should stock the opioid overdose antidote naloxone and train staff and students how to respond to an overdose, experts say after the apparent fentanyl overdose death of seventh grader at a school in Hartford, Conn.

Naloxone should be available in all schools, and there should be education on signs and symptoms of overdose and how to use this, Dr. Craig Allen, vice president of addiction services for Hartford HealthCares Behavioral Health Network, told the Associated Press. Unfortunately, a horrible incident like this happens and suddenly everyones vision is 20/20.

The 13-year-old student was hospitalized Jan. 13 after falling ill at a Hartford school where no naloxone was available. Since the student was so young, an opioid overdose did not come to mind when the school nurse and first responders, who did have naloxone, treated him, said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin.

In response to the incident, city officials pledged to ensure that all city schools are stocked with naloxone (Narcan) as part of an overall drug use and overdose prevention program that would also include educating staff, students and community members in substance use awareness and prevention, the AP reported.

Fentanyl has been showing up in marijuana, illicit pills and other substances accessible to school-age children, experts told the AP. Fatal overdoses in this country are at record levels, fueled by fentanyl, and have been increasing among younger people, national data shows.

Since 2015, the National Association of School Nurses has urged that naloxone be in all schools and for school nurses to help improve community awareness about the signs and symptoms of substance abuse.

Its a very unfortunate outcome, association president Linda Mendonca told the AP about the Hartford students death. It brings us back to school preparedness and response plans. Having those in place is really critical.

The association offers school nurses a "tool kit" with information on administering naloxone, which can be given as a nasal spray or an injection, and educating the community about opioid abuse. The group noted that the kit has been downloaded from its website more than 49,000 times.

More information

Visit the National Institute of Drug Abuse for more on opioids.

SOURCE: Associated Press
On Jan. 13, the Food and Faith Coalition, along with the Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge, met for a virtual Food and Faith Summit to reflect on the work done in 2021 and look ahead to their plans for the coming year.

Anthony Ritchie, project director for the Healthiest Cities and Counties Challenge: Perry County, said the project is a two-year project financially backed to improve the health of the community. For the project, 10 counties were chosen to participate. During its time, a lot of progress has been made, said Ritchie.

For the last year with the Food and Faith Coalition weve been looking at food insecurity in Perry County, said Ritchie. Weve seen this big shift in Perry County looking at food insecurity, looking at the way that the affect of nutrition has on health and the power of the food system to positively affect health outcomes and economic sustainability in the area. That shift in focus is in large part to the coalition, Ritchie said.

The coalition, said Ritchie, has been vital in gaining information for the project.

The coalition that we have built is maybe the most valuable resource that we have developed and fostered, and that is the big change Ive noticed in Perry County and in the region at large in the last year, Ritchie said, stating they opened the lines of communication with several organizations, businesses and public figures.

This team is determined to make a difference. It has been wonderful to see, said Ritchie. I think that is maybe one of the lessons weve learned over the last year is changing our perspective on things, he said. With the pandemic weve had to measure our expectations as the landscape continually changed. Id say overall our project has been largely successful.

Among the information collected in the project, the organization studied root cause analysis, gaining a collection of qualitative data around the perceptions people have in regards to the food system and towards food insecurity. During this part of the project, Ritchie said they asked people what they feel the solutions are to the problems the area faces.

Frances Hardin-Fanning, one of the group members, said one of the largest focuses of the project was the stigma against people on assistance.

One of the things that we found was that it was the usual causes that you would assume  the poverty, little opportunity for employment  those types of things. Another thing that kept coming up was the stigma associated with people reaching out for assistance, said Fanning. When you look at all the research thats been done in the past there are lots of reasons people feel an assault to their pride, they feel they are lower on the hierarchy, they feel embarrassment, they worry about anonymity in a small town  about confidentiality.

Many people, she said, have trouble asking for help because of the stigma. A lot of people have a problem with reaching out for help, said Fanning.

The organization, she said, wanted to find interventions and ways to combat the stigma and make it feel more acceptable to seek help. Fanning said she is glad the coalition was able to work with community partners to find ways to help more people.

Im so happy we were able to have that conversation and able to come up with something thats going to be able to help people all across the nation, said Fanning.

Another participant of the meeting, Dee Parker, said he also was thankful that the coalition and project will be helping more people.

We noticed a grave need not just in our area but in Kentucky as a whole so if we can get things going here we can pretty much set the model for the rest of the state, said Parker. Thats our end goal  to make sure that we get help to people that are in need.

The project, said Ritchie, runs through August.
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All products picked below are evaluated by our objective standards of quality and scored accordingly. Health Canal is part of an affiliate program of brands where we earn a small commission from your purchase choice.

If youre looking for the best kratom for anxiety, then you might want to know more about kratom first, the various strains that it has, its health benefits, and the possible risks youll be exposing yourself to when youre taking the product.

5 Best Kratom For Anxiety & Depression (May. 2022) Golden Monk  Editors choice

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 Best Strains Variety Kratom Crazy  Best For Bulk Orders Mitragyna speciosa[1] or better known as kratom is a plant indigenous to Southeast Asia. The plant has analgesic and opioid-like effects. Because of this, kratom is used as a way to deal with pain, boost energy levels as a stimulant, and even has sedative effects as well. Having opioid-like effects can be addictive so be careful not to take this carelessly.

Kratom for Anxiety & Depression Kratom is a plant that many people in the US have been taking for its health benefits. They also take the plant in numerous forms whether it be in powder form, capsule form, or even as raw leaves! But if all of this is true, are there scientific studies that back this up? According to a study[2] published by the Louisiana Department of Health, a lot of people take kratom since they believe that it can help treat their anxiety and depression. The presence of mitragynine and 7-hydroxy mitragynine also enable it to activate the opioid receptors helping people deal with pain as well as lightening their mood.

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Golden Monk Red Bali Kratom Why is it better? Good reputation

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The Lineup At A Glance

Top 5 Best Kratom For Anxiety & Depression (May. 2022)

Golden Monk Red Bali Kratom

Golden Monk is one of the most popular kratom sellers in the world. Their Kratom is grown by reputable farmers in Indonesia and expect to get high-quality kratom strains for the treatment of anxiety..

Good value

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Tons of health benefits Not locally grown

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If you ask someone about which kratom company or brand to buy, then youll probably hear a lot of people mention Red Bali kratom of Golden Monk. The reason for this is because this product is one of the most reputable kratom sellers in the world.

Originated in Thailand, Red Vein Bali is a hybrid of Sumantra and Borneo kratom, 2 red vein kratom strains. It is most widely used and affordable when compared to various red strain types in the market. Red vein Bali is reported to give relaxation, mood swing and also help with pains. Containing over 40 different alkaloids, they might work effectively as a type of morphine. You can use it for a period of time to see the better results in pain relief

Golden Monk products are GMP certified and they are imported from Indonesia where one of the best kratom strains is being grown. The only downside to the product is that its not locally grown in the USA so youre probably not supporting the local economy with this.

But aside from this, Golden Monk is simply exceptional at what it does. You barely see any negative comments and reviews on this brand which is amazing as well. Their product variety is also amazing as they sell various kratom strains ranging from kratom strains for anxiety to kratom capsules and kratom leaves.

Additionally, the prices for their products are fairly reasonable considering that the strains of kratom are taken from southeast Asia, or indo kratom to be more precise. Their customer support team usually answers within 24 hours and they can answer most questions regarding kratom like the best strains, the doses you should take throughout the day, how kratom affects sleeping patterns and anxiety relief, and so much more!

Kats Botanicals White Borneo Kratom

If youre interested in buying other health products, then Kats Botanicals is a good option for your orders. They dont just sell kratom for stress relief but other products like CBD as well.

Sells other health products

Very transparent Very expensive

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Kratom Spot might have a lot of strains of kratom like Malay kratom, and red, green, and white veins but Kats Botanicals beats it when it comes to White Borneo kratom.

Here we get, another effective strain that can relieve depression and anxiety. Borneo kratom is mostly available in the form of White veins, which is rare in nature, so be careful with the red borneo kratom. Borneo kratom contains a high dose of 7-Hydroxyatrazine and low in Mitragynine, which makes it best for both energy boosts. The best time to use it to calm down is in early morning, and the best time to get rid of all the tiredness and pain is in the evening.

Kats Botanicals is a renowned seller of health products and its generally well-received by the public. It sells CBD products to help with the symptoms of anxiety as well as other products with sedative effects as well.

They also sell Kratom and they have decent strain varieties and vein varieties as well like green vein kratom, red vein kratom, maeng da kratom, green Malay kratom, red Borneo kratom and so much more! So youll be able to easily find the best kratom for social anxiety with their product lineup.

Sadly being one of the more well-known brands on this list, Kats Botanicals might have a price tag thats a little higher than the other brands. After all, it doesnt just sell kratom for dealing with anxiety and depression but it also sells CBD products as well which is known to have multiple health benefits ranging from pain relief and helping[3] with depression and anxiety disorders.

Overall, Kats Botanical is a brand worth trying out especially if you want to deal with problems like depression and anxiety thanks to its other help products that might supplement using kratom like CBD.

Kratom Spot Maeng Da Kratom

If youre interested in sampling out the various kratom strains kratom powder, and kratom products for depression and anxiety, then Kratom Spot might just hit the spot for you.

Free shipping

GMP Certified

Gives a good energy boost Can be pricey

Doesnt accept Paypal

See Full Review Of Kratom Spot

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If youre looking for kratom for anxiety and depression as well as for other purposes like pain relief, increasing productivity levels, and even for dealing with anxiety disorders; then Maeng Da is probably the best option.

Maeng Da can be widely found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. This kratom features a large variety in terms of its strain of kratom with kratom veins like red, green, and white kratom strain. It is popular due to its consistent effect on anxiety. Maeng Da can give you a stable energy boost throughout a day, help improve well-being that is most suitable for people with depression.

Aside from the Maeng Da strain, Kratom Spot features a large variety of kratom products as well as making it one of the best brands if you plan on using kratom for a variety of reasons. So expect to see kratom power, different kratom products, kratom products with a sedative effect, kratom to help deal with anxiety effects and other mental health issues, and many more!

Overall if youre looking for the best kratom strain for anxiety; Maeng Da kratom products from Kratom Spot might be the best choice for you since they have the best strains from all over southeast Asia and they vary from one another so youll have plenty of choices to choose from.

Kraken Kratom Green Vein Malay

Kraken Kratom is one of the best brands to count on if you want to kratom on your doorstep as fast as possible. Not only do they offer free shipping but they offer same-day shipping as well.

Same Day Shipping

Potent strains for depression

Good Value Only available on their website

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The best kratom strains are something to look forward to if you want to deal with an anxiety disorder however it wont be much of help if you have to wait a long time to get it since anxiety and depression might get worse in the meantime.

We can tell this kratom type comes from Malaysia based on its name. The green vein kratom belongs to a coffee plant family, and quickly spreads to neighboring countries. The green kratom is sensitive to UV lights, thats why most of them are grown indoors to remain the powerful shade of green. Green vein strain is said to have a milder effect than other strain types, it focuses on improving general well-being if you have a daily dosage.

Luckily for you, Kraken Kratom is one of the fastest shippers on this list as they can offer same-day shipping on all of their orders. Of course, the shipping is also free, which helps you save a lot of money in the long run.

Speaking of saving money, the brand also offers various discounts as well as rewards for long-time buyers which gives their products a lot of value. Of course, their kratom products are of good quality as well and their strain varieties are also something to look forward to with their green vein kratom powder, red vein maeng da, and many more. They also sell kratom leaves and other kratom products to help you with stress and anxiety relief.

One of the few downsides of this brand is that you can only buy their products on their website which severely limits their customer but it does encourage more loyal customers out of them. Overall, Kraken Kratom is a viable option especially if you want to experience the effects of kratom leaves and ingredients right away!

Kratom Crazy Indo Kratom

Kratom Crazy features one of the best kratom strains on the market with amazing effects even at low doses. What makes them truly shine is that they encourage bulk orders on their service.

Free shipping

Reasonable prices

Good kratom strains Early closing times

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Indo kratom comes in various colors, red, green and white strains. It works effectively in the morning, increasing energy level enough for an entire working day. Thats why it is the best for people who suffer from anxiety. It is also effective on reducing chronic pain at a higher dose,

Kratom Crazy provides amazing product and strain varieties with positive effects. This means youll have access to the best kratom strains for both depression and anxiety. You also dont have to worry about side effects as all of their products are tested by a third-party lab as well.

However, what truly makes Kratom Crazy stand out is their bulk orders. With this service, youll be able to order kratom strains and other kratom products in large numbers. They even have an option of bulk weight reaching up to 1000 grams!

Overall, Kratom Crazy offers the best kratom strains and offers them at reasonable prices especially when you order them en masse.

How does kratom work?

Kratom can have similar effects[4] as a stimulant and an opioid thanks to two compounds present on its leaves. These two substances interact with your opioid receptors resulting in reduced pain, sedation, and even pleasurable feelings as well.

Sadly this also makes kratom very addictive as well as have psychoactive properties. So we recommend that you keep this in mind when purchasing and trying the product out. Of course, the benefits and risks of kratom dont stop here and well be covering more of their health benefits, the risk, and the different studies that back them up.

Benefits of kratom

Analgesic effect

Kratom contains[5] 7 hydroxymitragynine which is known for its analgesic effect. Because of this, kratom is widely used either for short-term and long-term pain relief. As an analgesic, it can be used to help deal with headaches, muscle strains, arthritis, and even chronic pain.

Depression and Anxiety Relief

Although there arent any clinical trials and studies to back this up. A study[6] about kratom shows us that people have been using it to deal with pain but most importantly to treat mood disorders like anxiety and depression.

The study reports that 66% of self-reported kratom users mention that they use the product to help with emotional and mental health. Things like anxiety and depression fall under this category.

Energy Booster and Sedative

According to a study[7] that explores the biochemical benefits of kratom and its risks show that kratom can also be used as a stimulant as well boosting the overall energy levels of the user. Additionally, the ingredient can also be used as a sedative which can be useful in lowering anxiety levels.

Potential Side Effects

The same study[8] mentioned above also focused on the potential risks of the drug. The FDA[9] (Food and drug administration) are wary about kratom and advise people to avoid using the product since it might expose the users to possible risks like addiction and dependence.

With this in mind, the possible side effects of kratom involve according[10] to the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the links mentioned above are:

Addiction

Hepatic Injury

Neurological Injury

Abnormal heart rate

Dry Mouth

Constipation

Nausea

Hallucinations

Itching

How to use kratom for anxiety?

Despite its risks and many side-effects, its still very popular. Many people have found different ways to use it to deal with anxiety and other health problems.

The most popular way of taking kratom is via powder in which you can either take directly and drink it down with a beverage or mix it with a drink like juice or coffee. Some people even chew directly on kratom leaves to give themselves the raw and unprocessed version of the plant.

There are also kratom capsules and kratom tea if you think the methods mentioned above would be too much.

Kratom Dosage for Anxiety

Kratom is a controversial plant that is not approved by the FDA. Because of this, there arent a lot of clinical trials regarding it or studies about the proper dosage There are a lot of recommended dosages  found online but we cant rely on them since they arent from credible sources.

With this in mind, there is no reliable medical and scientific reference that we could use to determine the appropriate dosing for the product. We recommend consulting your doctor as well as a professional pharmacist for their opinions.

We advise that you pick a low dose for your kratom products since it is an addictive substance and it might cause you to be dependent on the product if you take too much.

How to choose the best kratom vendors

Usually, we recommend that you check out the pricing first since kratom can be very dangerous and problematic to use. We highly recommend that you focus on reputable kratom vendors with third-party tested products.

This will ensure that the kratom you are taking is of high quality and that it doesnt contain other ingredients that might cause complications for you. This is why we highly recommend Golden Monk as a kratom vendor thanks to their reputation and reliability.

After this, you can evaluate the price of the products as well as other things that increase its value like quality customer service, money-back guarantee, free shipping, and other notable features of the brand.

Conclusion  Should we try it?

Kratom is a risky product to take thanks to its addictive properties and numerous side effects. However, its health benefits cant be ignored either which makes it a high risk but high reward kind of product. If you decide that the benefits outweigh the risks, then you can easily find the best kratom for anxiety online and reap its numerous health benefits.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Kratom legal? Kratoms legality depends on the state you are in. So make sure to check your states laws before purchasing any kratom products.

Is Kratom addictive? Yes. According to the FDA[11], Kratom has addictive properties.

Can it cure opium addiction? Yes. In fact, thats one of the many reasons[12] why people take kratom in the first place. How long will it take before I see the results? It depends on the product and how you take it. But they usually work within an hour.
Cooper, Stein step into redistricting battle

Gov. Roy Cooper and N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein want the state Supreme Court to throw out new statewide election maps. They've outlined a plan that would help the court draw new maps without legislative input.



In a motion and friend-of-the-court brief they filed late Friday, Cooper and Stein urged the N.C. Supreme Court to accept their input when settling a legal fight over congressional and legislative election maps.

"Our constitution is premised on the principle that all political power is 'derived from the people' and 'founded upon their will only,' said the brief submitted by N.C. Solicitor General Ryan Park for Cooper and Stein. "When districts are drawn to further the interests of one party, however, power does not derive from the people, but rather from incumbent legislators who need not be responsive to the will of the people."

Cooper and Stein are both Democrats. They are asking the state Supreme Court to invalidate the work of a General Assembly led by Republicans. The high court has a 4-3 Democratic majority.

"The Governor and the Attorney General respectfully ask this Court to confirm that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, invalidate the districting plans enacted by the General Assembly, and ensure that our State has fair and competitive elections that are responsive to the popular will," the brief added.

Among the most interesting elements of the document is an omission. Not once in 73 pages do Cooper and Stein use the word "extreme."

The plaintiffs officially challenging election maps argue that Republican lawmakers engaged in "extreme" partisanship when drawing maps for North Carolina's 120 state House seats, 50 state Senate seats, and 14 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. State courts always have permitted some partisan considerations in the mapmaking process, also known as redistricting. But "extreme" partisan bias ensures that the challenged maps violate the N.C. Constitution, according to plaintiffs.

Cooper and Stein ignore that distinction. In their brief, any degree of "partisan gerrymandering" runs afoul of constitutional safeguards.

"Partisan gerrymandering ... violates many of the protections in our declaration of rights," Cooper and Stein argue. "When elections are impervious to democratic sentiment, they are not 'free.' When certain voters are systematically discriminated against by self-serving legislators, they are not 'equal.' And when districts burden voters based on their political expression, they violate the peoples freedoms of speech and assembly."

Cooper and Stein "urge the Court to clarify that the North Carolina Constitution bars the legislature from drawing districts that unduly favor one political party except when the burden can be justified by nonpartisan districting criteria."

The governor and attorney general suggest that the Supreme Court could devise a test that would identify unconstitutionally partisan election maps.

"[A]dvances in computer modeling make it possible to easily compare enacted districting plans with other alternative plans, to assess how much the enacted plans deviate from median neutral plans that were drawn based on nonpartisan redistricting criteria," Cooper and Stein argued.

"Thanks to those advances, this Court could adopt a rule that is similar to the one the U.S. Supreme Court has developed to govern allowable population deviations," they added. "Under that rule, an enacted plan would be subject to strict scrutiny unless the plan stays within 5% of the median outcome, measured by seat count, at a statewide level across a range of electoral circumstances."

Cooper and Stein call on the Supreme Court to reject the challenged maps, then "oversee remedial proceedings directly." They offer six suggestions for the process.

First, consider delaying primary elections beyond May 17 if necessary. Second, announce a decision in the case before releasing final written opinions.

"Third, this Court could manage the remedial process itself," according to the brief. That means the Supreme Court would cut out the three-judge trial panel that oversaw a four-day trial on the election maps. That unanimous bipartisan panel upheld the challenged maps as constitutional.

Fourth. the Supreme Court could give legislators an opportunity to redraw maps. "In such a decree, this Court should provide clear guidance to the General Assembly on how to draw districts that comply with the constitution," the brief explained. "For example, the Court could direct the legislature to draw districts within 5% of the median outcome expected from nonpartisan redistricting criteria, at a statewide level, across a range of electoral circumstances."

Fifth, the court could appoint an outside "special master." That expert could review legislative maps and prepare maps of his own. "If the General Assembly fails to comply with the constitutions bar on partisan gerrymandering a second time, this Court could order the State to use one of the median plans created by the special master."

Sixth, the governor and attorney general urge the Supreme Court to flout an existing provision in state redistricting law. Current law says that if the General Assembly fails to fix defects in its election maps within a prescribed time, "the court may impose an interim districting plan for use in the next general election only."

"That provision purports to limit this Courts authority to remedy constitutional violations," according to Cooper and Stein's brief. "The General Assembly, however, lacks authority to place limits on this Courts power to remedy constitutional violations."

In other words, Cooper and Stein argue that the Supreme Court could order that its maps will remain in place beyond a single election cycle. In the case of legislative elections, state constitutional provisions could prevent the General Assembly from drawing any new maps until 2031.

"[T]he Governor and the Attorney General respectfully urge this Court to hold that partisan gerrymandering violates our constitution," the brief concluded. "This Court is the peoples only hope. The people of our State need this Court to uphold their right to self-government through free elections and to remedy these constitutional violations because the people have no other means to make sure that the General Assembly truly represents them."

Cooper and Stein submitted their brief as election map challengers faced a deadline Friday to file briefs at the state Supreme Court. The maps' defenders face a similar deadline next Friday, Jan. 28.

The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case on Feb. 2.
League to present program on voter suppression

The Henderson County League of Women Voters will present a Zoom program on voter suppression from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 8.

The presenter will be Dr. Ashley Moraguez, an associate professor in political science at UNCA. Her expertise lies in American politics, particularly Congress and the presidency. The program will focus on an overview of the kinds of activities usually identified as voter suppression, including the justification for and against voting measures and the evidence on the effects of implementing recently adopted voting measures. To register for the program, go to www.lwvhcnc.org.
A FARMER has claimed someone is trying to sabotage his business.

Simon Marsden, who runs River Farm in Willow Lane, Wargrave, made the claim in a letter to Wokingham Borough Council, the planning authority.

He has applied for planning permission for a new access track that he says would allow the growing of animal feed to be more efficient.

This comes more than two years after he was refused permission to build a storage barn with a 300m access track.

Mr Marsden said the two-storey building would be used to protect boats and equipment as the existing barn was already full of equipment.

He said that boats that were used for maintenance of the riverbank had to be kept out in the open, making them vulnerable to weather damage, theft and vandalism.

But neighbours in Willow Lane objected, saying the black-stained wooden building would be out of keeping with the area.

Charles Bennett said: The building described is completely inappropriate for an area of outstanding natural beauty.

Stanley Fosbury said: The commercialisation of this site will have a considerable impact on the environment.

Mr Marsden, who bought the farm in 2015, argued the new barn should be allowed under permitted development rights, which effectively grant automatic planning permission for certain types of building, but the council rejected this.

In the letter with his latest application, he says: The council has been purposely misinformed of the residential occupation of the barn at River Farm. I would like to state it is 100 per cent not being used as a residential unit.

This is another attempt to stop me from being able to install the correct infrastructure to use the land as I intend. Wasting council time should be a crime. Mr Marsden, who lives in Wokingham, says he has also had a problem with trespassers and that he had been forced to sell farming equipment that had been vandalised.

He added: My life savings are in this farm and someone is underhandedly sabotaging my business.

The application says the track would be used to access land at the northern edge of the farm which becomes very boggy due to its close proximity to the River Thames.

It would extend an existing driveway, winding around the perimeter of the site. It would cover more than one hectare and be made from 50mm gravel on top of 200mm of crushed cement.

Mr Marsden said: The access track will be essential to our agricultural work.

We produce silage here and the hay we produce goes to feed the animals at Hurleyford Farm in Hurley where they keep sheep and cattle. Animal feed is so important, especially in the UK, as we import so much of it.

The northern section is very boggy and we cannot use it unless it is drained. More than 30 years ago this land used to be drained regularly but this ceased.

Subsequently the river fluctuates in height and has made this package of land very marshy.

I hope that the additional

infrastructure is permitted so that we can continue with viable arable

production.

Michael Ruddock, principal planner at the Pegasus Group, says: The private way will support both agriculture and forestry.

It will be used to access farmland in the northern part of the farm, the riverbank to the west and the woodland to the north and is essential to ensure good husbandry and proper maintenance of the farm as a whole.

It is also necessary to enable the farmer to transport his workboat for riverbank maintenance by trailer from the existing barn to the riverbank to ensure that it can be regularly and effectively maintained.

The amount of land lost from agricultural use will be minimal.

Public consultation on the application ended on Wednesday.
SUPPORTERS of plans to house a collection of vintage boats in Henley are angry at a decision to reject it.

Businessman Adam Toop bought a boatyard off Wargrave Road from Hobbs of Henley more than a year ago and wants to use it to keep almost 40 restored Thames craft in the Rose Toop Collection.

He applied for permission to extend the ground and first floor and raise the roof but Wokingham Borough Council, the planning authority, refused planning consent, saying the development would be inappropriate due to the boatyards location in the green belt.

More than 100 people registered their support for the application and are now urging Mr Toop to make a fresh application.

Art Themen and Monnik Vleugels, of Wharfe Lane, Henley, said: We were both dismayed and disappointed to hear that Wokingham council had turned down Mr Toops application.

His proposal is driven by altruism and not by financial gain, as evidenced by his commitment to the Thames Traditional Boat Festival.

Although Wokingham is somewhat remote geographically from Henley, the council cannot be unaware of the international status of Henley in terms of river activities.

It is self-evident that the creation of a comprehensive site for traditional boats can only enhance this reputation.

The collection and improvements to the site would not only benefit the boating fraternity but also the whole of Henley.

In his application, Mr Toop demonstrates he aims to use wooden cladding and glass to transform an essentially utilitarian industrial building, used to store boats, into a visually appealing structure that would enhance the views from the river and the riverbank. One of the reasons given for the rejection was an alleged change of use.

In his clear submission, Mr Toop made quite plain that the site was previously used to store boats for more than a century and would again be used to store boats.

It is probably the most extensive and valuable collection of traditional boats in the UK and access to it would be an enormous benefit to Henley.

Paul Brownjohn, of P A Brownjohn boatbuilders, who is based at the boatyard, said: I feel the plans would unquestionably represent meaningful improvements.

It would be taking the yard away from the agricultural-looking farm buildings and back to a wooden-clad building more in keeping with the local surroundings.

The modified middle barn would also make a superb home for the hugely important traditional boat collection and leave a lasting legacy for Henley and the surrounding areas that have been historically central to traditional wooden river craft.

The plans and investment would secure the future of the site as a vibrant, viable boatyard. They ensure it would continue to be a centre for marine services that include maintenance, restoration and storage  activities that have been carried out on this site for more than a century.

My grandfather, father, uncle and I have all worked on wooden boats at this site. I feel I can speak for them all when I observe that to upgrade and visually smarten the yard and to return buildings to a more historical traditional-looking boatyard can only be positive.

When one includes a nationally significant boat collection and improved facilities for various user groups, the benefits become only more compelling.

Caroline Bleackley, of Wharfe Lane, Henley, said: It was bitterly disappointing that these carefully thought-out plans were refused.

The whole concept to house and display such a unique collection of traditional river craft could be such an asset both to Henley and to all those involved in the Thames Traditional Boat Festival.

We are indeed fortunate Mr Toop has the vision and I support him.

Actor Jeremy Irons, of Hill Road, Watlington, said: I am disappointed that the council has turned down Mr Toops plans to build such a magnificent shelter for the Rose Toop collection in a part of the old Hobbs boatyard upriver from the bridge.

In my view, the residents of Henley and its surrounding area should welcome such an initiative.

This is a magnificent collection in need of a permanent home and one that can do nothing but enhance the towns reputation as perhaps the centre of traditional boating on the River Thames.

The proposed use of this land beside the river is a perfect continuum to its previous use as a boatyard  such sites are hard to find.

Its proposed design is, to my eye, very harmonious with what stands around and, though modern, is in good proportion with its surroundings.

Such a collection needs to be housed beside the river upon which its occupants once plied. To be able to do so on a site on the edge of town, where it can be enjoyed by residents and visitors alike on appointment, seems ideal.

It seems to me that such a magnanimous gesture to enrich Henleys heritage, as has been offered, at no expense to the ratepayers, should be welcomed with gratefully open arms.

Henley town councillor and boat owner Will Hamilton said: I do think that the community definitely wants this boatyard and that it will have a huge benefit for Henley.

He said the application was refused on a technicality, adding: I hope the planning officers can cross the Ts and dot the Is.

Henley Mayor Sarah Miller said: Im incredibly disappointed that it was refused. It would be such a fantastic feature for Wokingham and Henley and that view from the other side of the river would be amazing.

Daniel Bausor, chairman of the Make Henley Shine group, said: Personally, I was saddened to see refusal of this application, which is visionary in sharing and educating on Henleys traditional boating history.

This site has been used for boating since time immemorial so it is not a change of use.

We should be welcoming this application. which would improve accessibility for different groups in the community as well as visitors. Above all, it would enhance the riverside.

David Worthington, who chairs the trustees of the River & Rowing Museum, said: I was hugely disappointed that the application was rejected, especially as it was so strongly supported by the residents and organisations of Henley  for the museum it is an opportunity potentially lost.

The Rose Toop Collection is genuinely world class  that it has a permanent home in a carefully adjusted, operational boatyard is important.

We remain 100 per cent supportive of the application, notably on its conservation merits.

Other supporters include Lady McAlpine, from Fawley Hill, who is Mr Toops co-chairman of the Thames Traditional Boat Festival, David Barber, the Queens swan marker, who lives in Henley, and Henley Royal Regatta chairman Sir Steve Redgrave.
A TRADITIONAL Slovenian hayrack is to be installed at Gillotts Corner Field in Henley.

This is to mark the towns twinning relationship with Bled more than eight years ago. A hay rack is a cultural symbol in Slovenia, where it is known as a kozolec.

The Henley hay rack used to be the University of Oxfords Harcourt Arboretum. The British-Slovene Society suggested gifting it and it will be the gathering place for the societys annual picnic for the Slovenian community in Britain which usually attracts 40 to 60 people.

There is only one other Slovenian hay rack in the UK which is in Gloucestershire and owned by the Prince of Wales after being donated in 1991 when the country gained independence.
Pact to add more resilience to regional industrial, supply chains, experts say The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is set to accelerate regional economic integration, inject more growth impetus into the world's economic recovery and shore up multilateralism and free trade, experts said on Sunday. They made the remarks at the RCEP Media & Think Tank Roundtable Forum with the theme of "The RCEP comes into effect: New prospects for regional cooperation and development". The forum was jointly organized by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Hainan Provincial Committee, China Daily, the Hainan-based China Institute for Reform and Development and the Hainan Institute for Free Trade Port Studies. The agreement came into force on Jan 1 in 10 of the 15 RCEP member states. The world's biggest trade pact, it covers one third of the global population and domestic gross product and will add more resilience to regional industrial and supply chains, the experts said. While speaking at the opening ceremony of the event, Zhou Shuchun, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily, said a unified regional market will unleash the huge potential of trade growth in the region. It will also vigorously promote regional economic integration of a higher quality and at a deeper level, and strengthen the presence of the Asia-Pacific region in the global economic and trade arena, he added. The trade pact's implementation is a testimony to true multilateralism and free trade, which also indicates a future of mutually beneficial cooperation with opening-up practices and win-win outcomes, Zhou said. "Removing wall-like barriers instead of building more is the trend of history, and it is in line with interests of people in the world to firmly support a multilateral trading system," he said. The free trade agreement was signed by 15 Asia-Pacific countries, including all 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in November 2020. It came into effect in China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and six ASEAN statesBrunei, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnamat the start of the year and will be implemented in South Korea on Feb 1. With provisions on liberalization and facilitation in both trade and investment, it is widely expected the pact will provide an all-around boost to regional economic growth and global free trade. Hong Nanwei, general manager of Fujian Chuangxing Ocean Sci-Tech Co, a frozen seafood processor and exporter in Quanzhou, Fujian province, said thanks to reductions and removals of tariffs in the pact, the company is more confident of better growth in overseas markets. Chi Fulin, president of the China Institute for Reform and Development, said tariffs on about 90 percent of goods traded within the region will eventually be eliminated and significantly reduce trade costs and product prices. The cumulative rules of origin, which allow products to have just 40 percent of their value added within the region to enjoy tariff reduction or elimination, will encourage enterprises to source from the region. That will then promote the formation of a closer, more stable and more competitive regional industrial cooperation system, according to Chi, who is also president of the Hainan Institute for Free Trade Port Studies. Chen Geng, chairman of Fashion Flying Group, a large-scale outdoor garment manufacturer based in Fuzhou, Fujian province, said the RCEP agreement will help the company tap the potential of Southeast Asian markets. Citing a study by the Asian Development Bank, Bert Hofman, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said the pact will increase member economies' income by over half a percent by 2030, adding some $245 billion in annual income and 2.8 million jobs in regional employment. "It is important for mankind to work together and to benefit from globalization and to benefit from high standards in trade," Hofman said. Chi suggested member economies strengthen efforts to accelerate alignment of market regulations and share and recognize customs clearance information to accelerate the formation of a united regional market. Efforts are also needed to advance the construction of integrated markets in key areas such as agricultural products, services and the digital economy, he said. Ong Tee Keat, president of the Center for New Inclusive Asia in Malaysia, and also Malaysia's former minister of transport, said the regional free trade deal can serve as a building block for multilateralism in the future.


Greenville, TX (75401)

Today

Foggy early, then thunderstorms developing this afternoon. High near 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Thunderstorms likely this evening. Then a chance of scattered thunderstorms overnight. Low 67F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, we've all known individuals who have done more than their share to help their neighbors and communities with food, comfort, care, companionship and dozens of other needs. If you know of such a person, you can nominate them to be featured in our upcoming H
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

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The life of Allentown police Detective James Stanko, who died last week, was celebrated in a memorial service at the church near where he and his brother grew up in New Jersey on Monday morning.

Stanko, 51, the community liaison officer, died from undisclosed medical issues last week after being hospitalized for more than two weeks.

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The service was held at Evangel Chapel in Bridgewater, New Jersey and was livestreamed on the churchs YouTube channel. You can watch a replay below:

Graveside services are private.

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A second celebration of life service will be held in Allentown on Thursday, the department announced on social media, with details to be announced.

[ The kindest and most generous: Allentown police detective James Stanko remembered as youth mentor dedicated to community outreach ]

[ Allentown police detective James Stanko honored on U.S. House floor by Susan Wild: His legacy lives on ]
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is planning a visit Tuesday to the Lehigh Valley, according to his official Twitter account.

Cruz will visit Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays in Coplay for a rally with Republican U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick.

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Join me and @DaveMcCormickPA for a campaign rally on January 25th at Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays in Coplay, Pennsylvania!



Register here:https://t.co/cpz9CeIEQ0 pic.twitter.com/8xhCgDTgwM  Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 22, 2022

The rally is scheduled for 4 p.m., Cruzs tweet said, and includes a registration link through EventBrite. Doors open at 3:30 p.m.

McCormick, a former hedge fund manager, announced his intentions last week to run for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Pat Toomey, who isnt seeking reelection.

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[ Ex-hedge fund CEO enters GOP primary for Pennsylvania Senate seat held by Pat Toomey, with backing of some key Trump allies ]

McCormick, 56, recently left his job as CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the worlds largest hedge funds, based in Westport, Connecticut. To run in Pennsylvania, he moved from Connecticut and bought a house in Pittsburgh, the Associated Press reported.

The Republican primary field is crowded, and also includes Mehmet Oz, the heart surgeon and host of daytime TVs The Dr. Oz Show.

The primary is May 17.
CapitaLand Investment Limited's (CLI) wholly owned lodging business unit, The Ascott Limited (Ascott) has launched lyf one-north Singapore, its first coliving property in one-north, Singapore's research and innovation hub. The 324-unit lyf one-north Singapore will be an integral part of one-north, meeting the hospitality and coliving needs of many innovative start-ups, research and development firms as well as high-tech and media enterprises located nearby, while injecting more vibrancy into the district through its experiential programme and placemaking activities.

Comprising two towers connected via a link bridge, the seven-storey coliving property is designed by award-winning local architecture firm, WOHA, with features aimed to promote bonding, wellness, and community-building through its thoughtful and biophilic designs. Debuting a range of vibrant social spaces and facilities, guests can look forward to new venues to forge connections with each other. Through #lyfgoeslocal and #lyfxart, guests at lyf one-north Singapore will also be able to plug into one-north's community via curated experiences and in-house programmes.

Conveniently located, guests can enjoy easy access to a variety of recreational, retail and dining options near lyf one-north Singapore. The coliving property is a two-minute walk from the one-north MRT station, connecting guests islandwide via Singapore's comprehensive public transport system. The central business district is also a 15-minute drive away.

lyf one-north Singapore is the second lyf-branded coliving property in Singapore, following the successful opening of lyf Funan Singapore in 2019. It is also the first of two lyf-branded coliving properties to open in Singapore this year; with lyf Farrer Park Singapore slated to receive guests in February 2022. Globally, Ascott has 18 lyf properties with over 3,300 units in 14 cities across nine countries. This includes six lyf properties that are scheduled to open in Bangkok, Cebu, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne, Shanghai and Xi'an in 2022.

New social spaces to debut at lyf one-north Singapore

Embodying the collaborative spirit of lyf, a new range of vibrant and green social spaces both indoors and outdoors, will make their debut at lyf one-north Singapore. At 'Meet', an outdoor amphitheatre, guests can gather for live performances. They can break a sweat in an exercise class at 'To-Gather', a flexible outdoor activity area, or take a 'Dip' at the 25-metre outdoor lap pool complete with a BBQ pit for an intimate get-together among guests and friends. Guests can also attend events and market fairs at 'Hangout', the property's rooftop social clubhouse and terrace to unwind, or enjoy an outdoor movie screening under the stars. Indoors, at 'Huddle & Collab', the property's new convertible function rooms are also suitable for hosting a variety of events - from mini brainstorm sessions to larger-scale business functions.

Alongside these new social spaces, lyf one-north Singapore will feature the brand's signature communal spaces that guests have come to know and love. There are 'Connect' social zones for coworking and collaboration, as well as a 'Bond' social kitchen for guests to prepare and share home-cooked meals. Guests can also squeeze in a quick workout at the 'Burn' social gymnasium and get to know their fellow guests better at the 'Wash & Hang' laundromat.

Ideal for expatriates as well as business and leisure travellers, lyf one-north Singapore offers 'One of a Kind' studios with an ensuite bathroom for solo travellers or couples. There are also 'Level Up' lofts that accommodate up to two guests, providing a more spacious apartment to work, play and live.

Guests who are members of Ascott's loyalty programme, Ascott Star Rewards (ASR), can use the Discover ASR mobile app to customise their stay by sharing their pre-arrival and in-stay requests, perform self check-in and check-out, access their apartments, make contactless payments, manage their ASR points, interact with other guests via the in-app social wall and communicate with lyf Guards. Guests can also earn additional ASR points if they opt out of housekeeping service as part of Ascott's Go Green initiative. With #lyfperks, guests simply need to flash their mobile key at participating F&B outlets to enjoy exclusive discounts.

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Anglo American Hotel Florence, Curio Collection by Hilton expected to welcome its first guests in 2022.

Hilton (NYSE: HLT) has announced plans to open Anglo American Hotel Florence, Curio Collection by Hilton in autumn 2022, following an agreement with Westmont Hospitality Group and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. ("Oaktree"). The 115-room hotel, which will undergo a full renovation prior to opening, is located in the historic centre of Florence, symbol of the Renaissance and renowned UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Hilton joins a strong consortium including US-based fund, Oaktree; Westmont Hospitality Group, a strategic investment partner and operator and Unicredit S.p.A., the project's senior lending bank. The project is held by a newly established real estate investment fund managed by Milan-based Castello SGR, one of Italy's premier real estate management companies. The renovation will follow the parties' commitment to ESG investment, with a particular focus on sustainability. The main emphasis will be on the restoration of the property in keeping with its architecture and history; the restoration of original finishes and utilisation of existing materials will make up a key part of the sustainability strategy.

The hotel will feature distinctly local offerings in a stunning setting, exemplifying the Curio Collection flair for authentic, curated experiences. Situated in the historic city centre, two blocks from the famous Arno River in a tranquil neighbourhood of central Florence, the elegant hotel reflects the history and the charm of the city with romantic Tuscan shutters and a sun-drenched interior courtyard typical of classic Italian villas.

Anglo American Hotel Florence, Curio Collection by Hilton is less than 15 minutes by foot to renowned palaces, churches, and museums  all replete with Renaissance art, including the works of the great masters such as Giotto, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, and Michelangelo, and the beautiful architecture that Florence is famed for. Top nearby attractions include the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Piazza Duomo, the Uffizi Palace and Gallery, the Accademia Gallery, and the Ponte Vecchio, the beautiful bridge spanning the Arno river.

After enjoying a delicious breakfast at the hotel and a day exploring all that Florence has to offer, guests may relax and enjoy a drink in the hotel's outdoor courtyard, and dine at the hotel's elegant restaurant, with Tuscan menus inspired by local flavours, traditions and seasonal ingredients. The hotel is also equipped with a bar, gym, and three meeting rooms able to accommodate up to 90 people.

The Florence train station is within walking distance from the hotel and connects the city through high-speed trains to Bologna, Rome, and Milan. The hotel is also located close to foreign consulates including the U.S., the Polimoda Fashion School and numerous corporate firms.

Anglo American Hotel Florence, Curio Collection by Hilton will join the award-winning Hilton Honors guest loyalty programme, allowing more than 123 million members who book directly with Hilton to earn Points for hotel stays and experiences. In addition, instant benefits include Digital Key, enabling Hilton Honors members to use their smartphone to book their stay, select their room, check in, and unlock their door.

Hotel website
TFE Hotels has welcomed Liam Schutz as General Manager at Adina Apartment Hotel Sydney Chippendale, after a short secondment as Hotel Manager at Adina Wollongong. Liam first joined TFE Hotels in 2013 as a Front Office Receptionist at Rendezvous Hotel Sydney Central, later moving into the role of Duty Manager before being promoted to Assistant Hotel Manager at Rendezvous Hotel The Rocks. In 2019, Liam completed a secondment with the Systems and Database team at Head Office, where he played a key role in the O365 implementation and migration at TFE Hotels.
Siyam World, Maldives is pleased to welcome seasoned Chef Adam Lockwood to the team as Director of Culinary. In his new role, Chef Lockwood will be responsible for overseeing the food and beverage development across the resort's 14 restaurants and bars, as well as crafting innovative menus for the resort's 24-hour WOW! Premium All-Inclusive dining experiences.

Chef Lockwood brings over 25 years of experience in the international hospitality industry to Siyam World. Graduating from The University of Huddersfield, England, Lockwood went on to work as Executive Chef onboard for Norwegian Cruise Lines, Carnival Australia, Costa Crociere, Sea Chefs, MSC Cruises, Holland America Line and culinary manager for The Apollo Group overseeing the culinary operations across three vessels. Chef Lockwood brings a creative flair to his dishes and unique interpretations of local and international recipes.
Esther Lee, President Bethlehem NAACP addresses the crowd Saturday, at Payrow Plaza in Bethlehem during a vigil for George Floyd. Local NAACP branches held a vigil for Floyd, an unarmed black man who died May 25 after being pinned for more than eight minutes with a white officers knee on his neck in Minnesota. (Rick Kintzel/The Morning Call)

Bethlehem has never had an African American city council member, but the Bethlehem NAACP is hoping that changes.

When J. William Reynolds won his mayoral bid in November, his former council seat opened up. City Council accepted applications for the vacant seat until noon Tuesday and will vote to appoint a new member Feb. 1. While the names of applicants hadnt been made public Tuesday, the Bethlehem NAACP is calling on council to appoint Wandalyn Enix, a retired Broughal Middle School teacher and education professor at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

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As an African American, I find that you really cant retire, Enix said. We have so many issues in our society so theres no room for retirement.

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Bethlehem NAACP President Esther Lee was the first Black person elected to the Bethlehem Area School Board in 1971. A longtime activist in the area, Lee began protesting racism when her children were discriminated against in Bethlehem schools in the mid-1960s.

[ Black History Month spotlight: Preservation project spells out the story of Esther Lees political life, from the PTA to the NAACP ]

But although Lee has sought a seat on City Council six times, most recently in 2003, shes never been successful.

Lee is not the only Black council candidate to have run and lost, though none has run in recent elections. R. Wakefield Roberts, the pastor at St. Johns A.M.E. Zion church, ran for a Democratic nomination in 1967 and lost by about 95 votes according to Morning Call archives.

What is there about African American people that causes the hesitancy? Lee asked. Why cant they just look at us as a people? We are no longer slaves.

Around 8% of the citys population of just over 75,000 residents is Black, according to census data.

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Enix was born in Bethlehem and raised on the South Side. Her grandfather migrated to Bethlehem from South Carolina in the 1920s, and her father worked for Bethlehem Steel.

Constance Roberts, who became Bethlehem Area School Districts first Black teacher in 1963, had Enix as a student. Roberts inspired Enix to pursue a career in education too.

I said, if she could do it, I could do it, Enix said.

After getting her degree at Howard University, Enix spent 11 years teaching in Bethlehem schools. She received her doctorate from Temple University in 1983 and spent another 30 years as an education professor at Montclair State University before retiring in 2012 and moving back to Bethlehem.

Now, Enix wants to be the role model that Roberts was to her for Black Americans who may consider a run for office. If appointed, she said, her priority on council would be addressing affordable housing.

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Bethlehem City Council President Michael Colon has spoken with Lee about the NAACPs call to appoint Enix, but Colon said the decision will come down to council members. To be appointed to the seat, an applicant would need at least three votes from members.

He encouraged anyone interested in serving on council to consider running in the 2023 election. Colon vied for an appointment to City Council twice before he was elected in 2016.

I know what it feels like to leave that room disappointed, Colon said.

Both Lee and Colon said Bethlehem City Council has become more diverse over the years. Colon and former Council member Olga Negron were the first two Latinos elected to City Council in 2016, and 2022 marked the first year that women held the majority of City Council seats.

Still, Lee said that having a Black city council member in Bethlehem is long overdue.

We think its time that the climate in Bethlehem becomes as residents are, Lee said. We are a community of all people, and we think that all people should be able to serve on our City Council.

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Morning Call reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at 610-820-6681 and liweber@mcall.com.
King & Rye, known for seasonal slow food, genuine southern hospitality and fine whiskeys, announces today the appointment of Tomas Chavarria as Executive Chef. Located on King Street just steps from the waterfront in the heart of Old Town Alexandria, King & Rye is the reflection of the longstanding culinary heritage and bounty of the mid-Atlantic and Southern regions of the U.S.

Originally from Costa Rica, Chef Chavarria boasts an impressive culinary career since starting out at age 16, spanning large culinary operations in the U.S., Mexico, Philippines and Central America, as well as in the kitchens of Michelin-starred chefs including Charlie Palmer and Quentin Villers. His menu at King & Rye incorporates seasonal, intentional ingredients sourced through real relationships with regional farmers, makers and butchers. Bringing his Latin American heritage to King & Rye's Southern offerings, Chef Chavarria ensures that every dish tells an authentic story, respects its ingredients, and satisfies guests with a constantly evolving menu. From spongy Anson Mills Cornbread with Spicy Honey Butter to in-house dry-aged Seven Hills Ribeye with Roasted Rainbow Carrots, Green Salsa and Carrot Sage Puree, Chef Chavarria applies worldly, refined techniques to allow each high-quality, local ingredient to shine in its purest form.

Prior to joining King & Rye in late 2021, Chef Chavarria most recently served as the Head Chef of Crimson Resort and Spa Boracay in the Philippines, earning accolades as one of the 20 best restaurants in the country. He has overseen the opening and operations of multiple restaurants and outlets during his time with properties including Marriott Cancun Resort, JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa and Le Meridien Mexico City, among others. Boasting a culinary career that spans more than a decade, Chef Chavarria is passionate about leading and motivating kitchen teams with a hands-on approach and exceeding guest expectations with high-quality, creative menus.
Driftwood Capital, a vertically integrated commercial real estate investment, development and lending platform specializing in hospitality, is pleased to announce the appointment of Martin Pinsker to the role of Vice President - Acquisitions. In this role, Pinsker will help shape and execute on the firm's long-term investment strategy through the selective acquisition of full-service, cash-flowing hotels in U.S. markets with strong underlying fundamentals. His specific duties will include deal sourcing, underwriting, due diligence, and a variety of investment-related activities.

Pinsker joins Driftwood Capital after serving nearly a decade as Senior Director, Investments with Vancouver, B.C.-based American Hotel Income Properties. During his time there he executed on more than 25 single-asset and portfolio acquisitions with a total value exceeding $1.4 billion dollars. Prior to that, he served as a Financial Analyst at O'Neill Hotels & Resorts Ltd., also in Vancouver for two years, and as an Associate on the Hospitality Asset Management team at Trimont Real Estate Advisors in Atlanta, GA.

Pinsker holds a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University's SC Johnson College of Business, School of Hotel Administration.
London, UK - The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company are delighted to announce the Sustainability and Investment Summit, which will take place on 14 June in the city of San Juan.

Announced at FITUR, the international tourism fair held in Madrid, Julia Simpson, WTTC President & CEO said:

This one day event will demonstrate WTTCs and the wide Travel & Tourism sectors commitment to preserving the planet, reducing the effects of climate change and, above all, increasing its resilience to ensure its continued sustainable growth."

From the very beginning of this pandemic, the Government of Puerto Rico through the Puerto Rico Tourism Company have implemented enhanced health and safety protocols to preserve the health of travellers and kept its tourist services open and enhance its recovery.

Carlos Mercado, General Director of the Puerto Rican Tourism Board, said: The Sustainability and Investment Summit represents a great opportunity to recognise Puerto Rico as a safe destination, with advanced sanitary protocols, tourist attractions, and ample opportunities for investment and long term sustainable development."

We thank WTTC for working together with us to hold this event on the island. We are ready to welcome the global tourism leaders who will be participating in this Summit, which will serve as a platform to discuss the present and the future of sustainable tourism.

Further details of the Sustainability and Investment Summit including speakers will be announced shortly.

About WTTC

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) represents the global travel & tourism private sector. Members include 200 CEOs, Chairs and Presidents of the world's leading travel & tourism companies from all geographies covering all industries. For more than 30 years, WTTC has been committed to raising the awareness of governments and the public of the economic and social significance of the travel & tourism sector.

According to WTTC's 2021 Economic Impact Report, during 2020, a year in which it was devasted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Travel & Tourism made a 5.5% contribution to global GDP and was responsible for 272 million jobs.

WTTC Press Office

WTTC

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The hotel industry will continue moving toward recovery in 2022, but the path will be uneven and potentially volatile, and full recovery is still several years away, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA)s 2022 State of the Hotel Industry Report. The report, which reveals shifts in consumer and business sentiment, was created in collaboration with AHLA Silver Partner Accenture and is based on data and forecasts from Oxford Economics and AHLA Platinum Partner STR.

The top findings of the report include:

Hotel occupancy rates and room revenue are projected to approach 2019 levels in 2022

The outlook for ancillary revenue, which includes food & beverage and meeting space, is less optimistic

Hotels lost a collective $111.8 billion in room revenue alone during 2020 and 2021

Leisure travelers will continue to drive recovery: in 2019, business travelers made up 52.5% of industry room revenue; in 2022, it is projected to represent just 43.6%

Business travel is expected to remain down more than 20% for much of the year, while just 58% of meetings and events are expected to return; the full effects of Omicron are not yet known

Changing traveler segments, including the rapid rise of bleisure travelersthose who blend business and leisure travelare impacting how hotels operate. In fact, one study of global business travelers found 89% wanted to add a private holiday to their business trips in the next twelve months

In this new environment, technology will be even more critical to a propertys success, according to AHLA Platinum Partner Oracle Hospitalitywith hotels investing in technology to meet the needs of both guests and employees today and in the future

Hotels have faced enormous challenges over the past two years, and we are still a long way from full recovery. The uncertainty about the Omicron variant suggests just how difficult it will be to predict travel readiness in 2022, adding to the challenges hotels are already facing, said Chip Rogers, president and CEO of AHLA. The slow return of business travel and fewer meetings and events continue to have a significant negative impact on our industry. The growth of leisure and bleisure travel represents a shift for our industry, and hotels will continue evolving to meet the needs of these new travelers.

Travel and hospitality brands still face an uncertain marketplace, but all these changes also herald a new era of opportunity to drive long-term customer loyalty. They should flex with demand and respond to the added complexities and volatility in travel by delivering a travel partner mentality to their leisure and business customers, said Liselotte De Maar, managing director in Accentures travel industry. Travelers are now not only focused on price and quality of a location, but also on cleanliness and sustainability values and impact, and expect a clearer, more digital service. Companies will need to continue to digitally transform, reinvent their loyalty model, as well as rethink the employee proposition, if they wish to thrive.

Like other industries, hotels have been dealing with a major workforce shortage which could impact recovery. The AHLA Foundation is launching a new, national, multichannel ad campaign to help fill the hundreds of thousands of open jobs in the hotel industry. The pandemic wiped out 10 years of job growth. This multi-year effort, The Hotel Industry: A Place to Stay, aims to help job seekers discover the 200+ career pathways and many perks that the industry offers, including competitive wages, benefits, flexible schedules, and travel opportunities. Ads will begin running in Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Miami, and Phoenix on Facebook, Google, and Youtube in both English and Spanish.

Download the report here.

About the American Hotel & Lodging Association

The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) is the sole national association representing all segments of the U.S. lodging industry. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AHLA focuses on strategic advocacy, communications support and workforce development programs to move the industry forward. In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the hospitality was the first industry impacted and it will be among the last to recover. That is why AHLA is committed to promoting safe travel while also creating a standardized safety experience nationwide through the Safe Stay initiative. With an enhanced set of health and safety protocols designed to provide a safe and clean environment for all hotel guests and employees, hotels across America are ready to welcome back travelers when they are ready to travel. Learn more at www.ahla.com.
Saudi Aramco said demand for oil is nearing pre-COVID levels and reiterated that producers globally are investing too little in supply.

We are getting very close to pre-pandemic levels, Chief Executive Officer Amin Nasser told reporters on Monday in Dhahran, where the worlds biggest oil company is based. We continue to see healthy demand in the future.

Consumption of crude crashed from around 100 million barrels a day in early 2020 as the coronavirus pandemic spread, shutting down factories and triggering mass lockdowns. The International Energy Agency, which advises rich countries, said it was back to almost 98 million barrels daily as of September.

Oil prices have surged 13% this year to more than $85 a barrel as demand continues to recover and the omicron variant of the virus proves less damaging economically than many traders first feared. At the same time, spare supply capacity is dwindling as several major producers struggle to boost output.

Theres no sign yet that rising prices are causing consumers to cut back on oil, Nasser said.

He and Saudi Arabian officials have previously warned that crude could climb even more if Western governments and energy companies pull back from fossil fuels too quickly.

Persian Gulf countries are among the few still spending billions of dollars to increase their output. Saudi Arabia plans to raise its daily crude-production capacity to 13 million barrels from 12 million by 2027.

Nasser also said Aramco will continue to look at asset sales regardless of the price of oil. The company accelerated plans to divest some non-core assets when crude crashed with the onset of the virus. Last year, it sold stakes in its oil and natural-gas pipelines to investors including BlackRock Inc. for around $28 billion.
An investor in Houston-based Tellurian Investments has sued Charif Souki claiming that the co-founder and chairman of the LNG company reneged on a promise to repay the investor tens of millions of dollars in losses after Tellurians stock value plummeted.

The lawsuit, filed by investor Christopher Parker and his company, Red Mango Enterprises, alleges Souki breached a contract with Parker to indemnify him for his losses and fraudulently induced Parker to keep his shares in order to prevent Tellurian stock, which had fallen victim to a short-selling campaign, from dropping even further.

Souki was lying, and never planned to fulfill his promise, says the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Colorado federal court. Among other things, Souki never even told his bank  from which he had taken out loans including loans secured by Soukis own Tellurian stock and/or options  that Souki had any liability outstanding to Parker and Red Mango.

Tellurian and lawyers for Souki, who resides in Aspen, Colo., did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit is significant, and significant to our client, because the executive chairman of a public company made promises to our client about the stock of his company, which had a substantial financial impact on our client, Boies Schiller Flexner partner Matthew Schwartz, the plaintiffs lead lawyer, told The Texas Lawbook. Charif Souki broke those promises, and in retrospect it appears he never intended to honor them. Because Souki refuses to voluntarily follow through on his commitment, todays lawsuit asks the court to order him to make good on it.

Houston law firm Yetter Coleman has defended Souki in previous litigation matters. In 2020, the firm represented Souki in a high-stakes lawsuit involving Souki, his former company, Cheniere Energy and other parties in a complex dispute in which Tellurians Driftwood LNG project and Carl Icahn were central to the facts. The parties struck a deal on the eve of trial, which was set to take place in Harris County District Court.

FROM THE TOP: Tellurians Charif Souki on LNG, going green and the nuclear option

According to the lawsuit, Parker and Red Mango began investing in Tellurian in early 2017. Over the course of a few years, Parker built his holding in Tellurian, ultimately owning 2 percent of the outstanding common stock of company  personally and through Red Mango.

Tellurians share price in early 2017 was $20.47 per share. But by August 2019, it had dropped to about $5 per share, which led Parker to become concerned about his investment, the lawsuit says. When he told Souki he intended to sell his shares, Souki first sought to persuade Parker to keep his shares by blaming the drop in value on an aggressive short-selling campaign, and when that didnt work, Souki then induced Parker to delay selling his shares by agreeing to indemnify Parker and Red Mango against any losses through the end of 2020, according to the lawsuit.

Tellurians stock value dropped again in early 2020, falling to under $1 per share in mid-March, the lawsuit says, forcing Souki himself to liquidate around 21.99 million shares. A March 5, 2020, SEC disclosure explained that it was part of an involuntary sale that Souki had to make in order to meet loan requirements in connection with a trust owned by Souki that had pledged 26 million shares of Tellurian stock.

By the end of 2020, the stock price had not recovered, and Parker asked Souki to uphold his end of the agreement to indemnify him and Red Mango, the lawsuit says. Souki asked Parker to hold off selling his shares for another year, and after a February 2021 meeting in Aspen, Parker agreed on the condition that Souki pay interest for the additional period.

CONFIDENCE REMAINS: Tellurian extends contracts for top executives

At the meeting, Parker presented a written agreement, and while Souki agreed to the terms, he refused to sign the agreement, explaining that he could not sign a written agreement since he had not disclosed to his bank his liability to Parker and Red Mango, the lawsuit says.

Parker accepted based on the two having a long history and on Parkers continued faith in Tellurians core business model, according to the lawsuit.

In October 2021, Parker texted Souki to set up a firm date to close out on the guarantee, the lawsuit says, but while Souki confirmed that he and Parker had talked in Aspen, he did not commit to paying Parker or fulfilling his obligation.

Since that date, Parker, on behalf of himself and Red Mango, has demanded that Souki made the payments required of him under the contract, the lawsuit says. However, Souki has failed to do so in breach of his agreement.
Cirque Italia is bringing an alternative, mature show to the Houston-area, with the gritty Cirque Alcatraz coming to Houston Premium Outlets on Feb. 3.

Cirque Alcatraz is a prison-themed circus, focusing on the history of Alcatraz and its intimidating, dangerous reputation. The story follows two protagonists framed for murder, placed in Alcatraz with the goal of surviving.
A sergeant with the Harris County Sheriff's Office was fatally struck by a driver early Monday while escorting heavy machinery along Sam Houston Parkway in northeast Harris County, officials said.

Sgt. Ramon Gutierrez, 45, was transported via LifeFlight to a Memorial Hermann Health System hospital where he died, according to Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

"Our thoughts & prayers go out to his wife, three children, his extended family, colleagues & friends," Gonzalez tweeted.

Gutierrez, a 20-year veteran who served in the vehicular crimes division for the sheriff's office for 13 years, was working an extra off-duty job when he was killed.

On HoustonChronicle.com: 'These are brutal, brutal murders': Harris County Precinct 5 deputy constable shot to death during traffic stop in west Houston

The fatality follows a Sunday encounter in which a Precinct 5 deputy constable was shot to death during a traffic stop in west Houston.

The fatal crash happened shortly before 12:30 a.m. on the 8900 block of East Sam Houston Parkway North near Tidwell Road, according to the sheriff's office.

Gutierrez was off duty and working with a number of other Harris County peace officers to escort a large load down the freeway when he stopped to block an exit ramp, said Lt. Simon Cheng of the sheriff's office vehicular crimes division.

Gutierrez was standing next to his motorbike when the driver of a Hundai Elantra exited the freeway and collided with the officer, Cheng said.

Another peace officer followed the 40-year-old driver as she sped away from the crash scene. Investigators believe the woman was intoxicated.

Authorities arrested Lavillia Spry and prosecutors have charged her intoxication manslaughter, failure to stop and render aid and evading.

REPORT: More drivers die outside disabled vehicles in Texas than anywhere else in the country

Sean Teare, chief of the Harris County District Attorney's Office vehicular crimes division, said he knew the sergeant personally for many years.

"It's unacceptable," he said. "It's so beyond any rational thought that it's hard for people to understand how something like this could happen."

Condolences and tributes to the sergeant filled social media on Monday morning.

"Ramon was so witty & fun to work with," Major Susan Cotter tweeted. "We lost a true hero & great family man."
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Authorities have charged a 51-year-old man in connection with the Sunday shooting death of a Precinct 5 deputy constable, sparking a massive manhunt for the alleged killer.

Houston Police Chief Troy Finner announced during a Monday afternoon news conference that authorities have identified the suspect as Oscar Rosales, less than two days after he allegedly gunned down Cpl. Charles Galloway of the Precinct 5 constables office.

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Finner said the department obtained video footage that shows Rosales stepped out of a white Toyota Avalon with an assault rifle and sprayed Galloways squad car after Galloway pulled him over about 12:45 a.m. Sunday in the 9100 block of Beechnut Street.

Galloway was shot multiple times and died at the scene. Rosales has been charged with capital murder, according to Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, and is still at large. A manhunt involving federal, state and local authorities is underway.

The Toyota Avalon has since been recovered, Finner said. Rosales wife, Reina Marquez, and brother, Henry Marquez, have both been charged with tampering with evidence in connection with that vehicle.

A $60,000 reward is being offered for information leading to Rosales arrest.

We have video evidence of him shooting our constable, and I want everybody to get into the fight of finding him, Finner said. We need the eyes and ears of all our citizens to bring this suspect into custody.

HOUSTON CRIME: Harris County sergeant fatally struck during freeway escort

Police released a photo of Rosales on Monday, saying that Rosales may not be his legal name. His nationality and criminal history remain unclear, officials said, and it's possible he may change his appearance.

Ogg said prosecutors will ask for Rosales to be held without bail upon his arrest.

"He is a bold and incredibly dangerous fugitive," she said. "He is on the run and somebody out there knows where he is."

Anyone who sees the suspect should call Houston police, Crime Stoppers or local authorities and be aware that he may be armed and dangerous.

Constable Ted Heap of Precinct 5 said he has spent time this week with Galloway's mourning family. The slain lawman leaves behind an 11-year-old daughter.

You can only imagine the trauma this family is going through, but because of [law enforcements] efforts and sleepless nights, we [in Precinct 5] have been able to concentrate on letting them know that they are in the loving arms of the family we call the blue family, and its important to me to be able to express that, Heap said.

Galloway joined Precinct 5 in 2009, according to the department. Hed left a quiet neighborhood patrol shift to work as a field training officer in the departments Toll Road Division.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Just 15 minutes after deputy was killed, another man was arrested for shooting at deputies in east Harris County

Cpl. Galloway was very much loved by the men and women he served with, Heap said. Theres a lot of broken up officers who he meant a lot to in their lives.

Galloway's death was the first of two that rocked the Houston community this week. A sergeant with the Harris County Sheriff's Office was struck by a driver early Monday as he blocked an exit ramp while escorting a heavy load on the Sam Houston Parkway, officials said. The longtime lawman, 45-year-old Sgt. Ramon Gutierrez, died at a hospital.

In that case, authorities arrested and charged a woman with intoxication manslaughter, failure to stop and render aid and evading.

Galloway is the 10th Texas lawman to die during a traffic stop since 2016, according to information from the Officer Down Memorial Page, a nonprofit that tracks law enforcement fatalities across the United States.

In Harris County, Galloways death follows the September 2019 shooting death of Sheriffs Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal, who was gunned down during a traffic stop in north Harris County, and the killing, months after, of Nassau Bay Police Sgt. Kaila Marie Sullivan.
A man died Saturday night after his sport utility vehicle crashed into a tree in Upper Mount Bethel Township, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

The 42-year-old man, who was an Upper Mount Bethel Township resident, crashed along River Road near Pine Tree Lane. No one else was in the SUV, according to state police.

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The crash was called in at 8:59 p.m. and state police responded, as did the Upper Mount Bethel Township Fire Department and the Northampton County coroner. State police were unable to confirm Sunday whether the man died at the scene of the crash or later that night.

The crash was still under investigation by the state police at Belfast as of late Sunday morning.
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As reports of an armed hostage takeover at a North Texas synagogue unfolded last weekend, Rabbi Oren Hayon and his colleagues followed the news with fear and sadness, anxiety and trepidation.

But Hayon, a senior rabbi at Congregation Emanu El located near Houstons Texas Medical Center, said he felt no surprise.

This is something that we have sadly come to prepare for  hopefully not something we have to expect ever again  but it has become a part of the reality of the lived experience of being Jewish in America, he said.

On HoustonChronicle.com: Patrols increased outside Houston-area synagogues amid hostage situation in North Texas

Hayon spoke Monday at a gathering organized by the Harris County District Attorneys Office during which local faith leaders and law enforcement officials decried the recent act of terrorism, pledged to stand alongside the Jewish community and announced local measures they will take to prevent and address hate crimes.

There is no place for hate or hate crimes in this community, said District Attorney Kim Ogg. When a person is targeted simply because theyre part of a group or an ethnicity or a gender or an age group, its a symbolic violence that is intended to instill fear in the rest of that group.

An armed man held four people hostage on Jan. 15 at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, near Fort Worth. One hostage was released and three escaped from the assailant as authorities entered the building. The gunman was killed.

In the wake of that incident, members of the Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriffs Office, FBI, Harris County precinct constables offices and more law enforcement agencies stood alongside rabbis, priests, pastors and non-profit leaders in a show of solidarity and support.

Constable Alan Rosen of Precinct 1 said he is working with the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that fights anti-Semitism, to create safety and security plans for the community.

Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

People should feel at peace when they worship, he said.

'GREATER ISSUES OF HATE': Terror of synagogue standoff is no isolated incident to Texas Jewish leaders

They shouldnt be worried about someone coming in and shooting up their religious facility, Rosen said.

Chief Josh Bruegger of the Pasadena Police Department said he has increased patrols near his citys synagogue and other places of worship. He encouraged people to report any suspicious activity to local authorities.

Renee Wizig-Barrios, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, said her organization is hiring a full-time local security director who will implement a strategic approach to keeping Houstons Jewish community safe and secure.

The director will coordinate active shooter and hostage trainings and communicate with law enforcement agencies, among other things. A rabbi taken hostage in Colleyville said security training helped him survive and escape the traumatic ordeal.

An anonymous donor supplied the first three years of funding and the Jewish Federation expects to hire a security director within months, Wizig-Barrios said.

The federation has also connected Jewish institutions with funding from Homeland Security grants, she said.

Our synagogues, day schools, community centers, religious schools and other Jewish institutions are the foundation upon which Jewish life is built, Wizig-Barrios said. While we are proud of the strength and the resilience of our community, we know that we are not immune from outside threats and acts of terrorism and that these inflict not just physical harm but emotional trauma on our community.

On HoustonChronicle.com: As anti-Semitism rises, Houston faith leaders seek resolution through unity

Mark Toubin, director of the Anti-Defamation League southwest region, said anti-Semitism is driven by dangerous conspiracy theories that Jewish people control the world or are all-powerful. The gunman who held people hostage at the Colleyville synagogue, for example, voiced similar beliefs during the assault, according to media reports.

Karen Warren, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

There were roughly 60 incidents of anti-Semitism in Texas in the last two years, according to the organization.

There is in our current environment a comfort level for people to express hate, and particularly anti-Semitism, he said. Its also incumbent upon everyone to ensure that we lower the rhetoric, we lower the talk of conspiracy, we lower the information that dispels hate and conspiracy theories.

anna.bauman@chron.com
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Adrian Turner just wanted to get home.

He was driving there from a Christmas party early one December morning, less than two weeks before the holiday, then hit a guardrail on a service road around 4:30 a.m. in northeast Harris County. He called his mother.

Kimberly Turner said she didnt know if hed been sleepy or what had happened, but he couldnt move his vehicle. She told him to make sure he had his hazards on, see if the vehicle was moveable or to try calling for a tow. Her son, who loved his car and had goals to customize it, had been upset, she said.

PAPER CHASE: Police on the lookout for fake temporary tags along Harris County toll roads

He was like, you know, I just wanted to come home, said Turner, a 43-year-old Humble resident. And unfortunately it didnt work out that way.

Her 24-year-old son was standing behind his Volkswagen Jetta when he was fatally struck by a vehicle that swerved to avoid a collision on a service road in the 11500 block of the N. Sam Houston Parkway East in the Dyersdale community, authorities said. An initial vehicle swerved trying not to hit the Jetta, and when the driver of another vehicle saw that, they also swerved  striking Adrian Turner, authorities said.

Adrian Turner was standing behind his car when he was struck and killed by a vehicle in Houston. (Photos: Courtesy) Photos: Courtesy

He would become among the latest victims of such a tragedy, killed after their car becomes disabled, be it from a crash, a breakdown or other incident.

Texas ranks first in the nation among these deaths, according to a report from AAA. From 2015 to 2019, 263 people died on Texas roads after their vehicle became disabled. Data cited in that report found California had the second-highest total with 248. The report, released in December 2021, gathered the most recent data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

Each situation that leads to a disabled car is different and could require a different response, but drivers should be prepared, experts said.

For drivers who find themselves in a similar situation as her son, Kimberly Turner said they should think about their circumstances and surroundings, and whether it was safer to stay in the vehicle or get out and get completely out of the way of other vehicles. They could call someone for help, or have emergency assistance numbers saved to their phone, she said.

Authorities or other people involved with programs that help people in such incidents shared some similar advice. David Fink is a transportation manager with the Tow and Go program, which offers free tows to people in their service area with stalled vehicles or those with mechanical failure, including Houston. He said people should stay in their vehicles and call them, and depending on where they are, a tow truck would be dispatched to remove their vehicle.

Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

But unless theyre in a location where they can safely exit the vehicle  they should stay inside the vehicle and actually have their seatbelt on, he said.

For those involved in a minor crash, Fink advised drivers to go to the nearest exit and find a safe area, such as a parking lot, or to get the vehicle over to the shoulder of the road.

Do not get out and have a meeting in the middle of a freeway with cars flying by at, you know, sometimes 50 to 70 miles an hour, Fink said.

Theres also a misconception that insurance companies want drivers to stay put after a crash until law enforcement arrives, said Lt. Cedrick Collier of the Harris County Sheriffs Office, who works over the agencys Motorist Assistance Program. The program helps stranded motorists, clear freeways of minor incidents and assist stalled vehicles.

OUT OF CONTROL: Houstons roads, drivers are countrys most deadly

Thats not the case, he said. They cant supersede law  law states that you have the right to steer and clear.

A TranStar document advised that  in situations where no one is injured and the vehicle can be driven  state law mandates that drivers move their vehicles. Then, once theyre off the freeway in a safe spot, drivers should photograph the damage and exchange information, per the document.

Joshua Shideler, a Houston TranStar spokesperson, also noted the importance of having proper vehicle maintenance, including making sure tires and vehicle fluids are in check, to avoid a vehicle breakdown that could leave a driver stuck on a busy freeway.

Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Regardless of how prepared a driver tries to be, though, crashes can still occur  and a fast-moving situation can unfold, requiring an immediate response.

In Turners case, his mother said she doesnt know how quickly it all happened.

The retirement planning counselor remembered her oldest son as calm, kind, conscientious and hardworking  a person who loved his family and had a lot of friends.

A recent goal of his was to become a bartender at Pluckers Wing Bar, and she recalled how he would study for it on his days off to meet the requirements. When her son believed in a place or company, she said, he would put in that effort. And he accomplished that goal.

I always told him, be happy with what youre doing, she said. You know, and I believe that thats what he was.
University of Houston, University of Houston, Photograp / Courtesy University of Houston

The University of Houston is launching an initiative to combat health inequity that will launch new programs and courses to reach each of the universitys 16 colleges and schools.

The UH Population Health initiative will focus on the 70 percent of factors other than genetics and healthcare that influence health for groups of people  including food, behavior and the environment. The approach was in the planning stages at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which drove home the need for more health-related efforts outside of medicine, UH officials said.
Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban is giving traditional pharmacies a run for their money.

The billionaire's drug company, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, recently launched its online pharmacy aimed at making medications more affordable for millions of consumers.

The online pharmacy hit the market just days ago and it's already praised by consumers on social media for its significant savings on a number of common, life-saving medications used to manage and treat conditions like diabetes, heart health, asthma, mental health and gastrointestinal conditions.

The pharmacy touts that as a registered pharmaceutical wholesaler it can "bypass the middlemen" and all the markups of a normal pharmacy to offer several significantly low-priced prescription drugs reportedly at more than half the cost of the next most affordable option.

Unlike traditional pharmacies, MCCPDC does not pay spread prices to third-party pharmacy benefit managers in order to be allowed to process insurance claims. Instead, it works directly with drug manufacturers and pharmacies for rebates and discounts. The online pharmacy only takes cash, selling drugs for less than what it would cost to use insurance, according to a release.

Cuban said in the company's mission statement that he started this company to disrupt the drug industry and end ridiculous drug prices for those insured and uninsured.

"If you dont have insurance or have a high deductible plan, you know that even the most basic medications can cost a fortune. Many people are spending crazy amounts of money each month just to stay healthy. No American should have to suffer or worse - because they cant afford basic prescription medications."

The online pharmacy has an initial inventory of 100 generic drugs including imatinib, the generic drug version of Gleevec that treats leukemia. A 30-count supply of 400-milligram imatinib typically retails for roughly $9,657 per month, and the lowest price with a voucher is roughly $120 per month, according to the release. Through MCCPDC, that price jumps down to $47 a month.

"Oh my lord, I cannot believe this! Im completely overwhelmed," wrote a supporter on Twitter. "My husband has been on imatinib for almost 20 years and even with insurance this medication costs us over ($8,000) a year. This is like a dream, I cant thank you enough! You are a hero!"

But not everyone was pleased, with some people criticizing the company for only offering generic drugs.

"The problem with your program is that you offer no brand name drugs that are not generic available," wrote a user on Twitter. "You are cherry picking in that you are only filling prescriptions for low cost higher profit meds. Who will fill the needed brand name meds?"

How does it price its drugs?

The online pharmacy negotiates with drug companies for a low price, then marks up the price to make a profit. The pharmacy's prices reflect actual manufacturer prices plus a flat 15 percent margin and $3 pharmacist fee, according to a release. The only other fees include shipping, which varies depending on the carriers and location.

The company aims to complete the construction of an $11 million pharmaceutical factory in Dallas that will span roughly 22,000 square feet by the end of this year, according to the Dallas Morning News.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 24 percent of respondents have difficulty affording their prescription medicines. Almost 60 percent of people in the U.S. take one prescription, and one in four are taking four or more drugs. Around three in ten Americans taking four or more prescription drugs said they have skipped their prescription because of cost.

"There are numerous bad actors in the pharmaceutical supply chain preventing patients from getting affordable medicines," said Alex Oshmyansky, CEO of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug. "The only way to ensure affordable prices get through is to vertically integrate."

"We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients," he said in a statement. "The markup on potentially lifesaving drugs that people depend on is a problem that can't be ignored. It is imperative that we take action and help expand access to these medications for those who need them most."
The Texas Railroad Commissions mission statement can seem contradictory at first glance. It commits the agency to being good stewards of Texas natural resources, and its environment. Its pledged to promote the oil and gas industry, and economic vitality it brings to Texas, and protect the safety of those of us who live here.

For too long, the agency has focused on growing the industry, and left it to the industry to all but regulate itself. The bare-minimum standards adopted by the commission in the aftermath of Februarys devastating Winter Storm Uri, which killed more than 200 people and cost billions, are only the latest and most egregious example.

Its time for a change on the commission, and the only people authorized by the Texas Constitution to make that change are the voters. We heartily recommend they take the opportunity the 2022 mid-term elections provide and replace the one commissioner whose term expires this year, Chairman Wayne Christian.

Christian, 71, faces four Republican opponents in the March 1 primary, and two of them would be a clear improvement for the party and for Texas. We recommend Dawayne Tipton, 41, a longtime oil and gas worker who has climbed the industry ladder from roughneck to upper management. He has hands-on experience and a firm grasp of the science and technology that will shape the oil and gas industrys future.

Tipton, 41, speaks persuasively about how grateful he is for the opportunities hes had in the industry. But it is his focus on holding oil and gas operators accountable that is so sorely needed at an agency that too often ignores industry malfeasance. Tipton intends to overhaul the commissions inspections department and improve safety regulations. Most importantly, Tipton committed to holding repeat violators accountable, particularly on areas such as weatherizing and forcing operators to pay out of pocket to cap abandoned wells that leak contaminants into the air and groundwater.

Tipton was most impressive in proposing a better way for the commission to prepare for freezing weather in the future: creating an inspection task force to ensure that gas operators are weatherized, and if not, administer consequences. It comes back to two central themes: action to resolve problems and accountability when measures aren't followed, Tipton told the editorial board.

By contrast, the current leadership at the RRC at first attempted to eschew responsibility for the grids near-collapse during last years storm. In particular, Christian was one of the first public officials to peddle the lie that renewable energy sources caused power outages during last years winter storm. Even after this claim was proven wrong by federal regulators, Christian refused to apologize, instead doubling down on his comments. Its part of the reason we called on him to resign in November.

Another candidate, attorney Sarah Stogner, 37, clearly has the passion and knowledge for the job. But one of her clients is landowner Ashley Williams Watt, who has raised a stink about the commission ignoring well blowouts on her land. Stogner also lives on Watts land, and together these factors raised a whiff of conflict and made us wonder whether the ordeal played too heavily in Stogners decision to run. For these reasons, we felt strongly that Tipton was more likely to provide truly disinterested oversight.

Candidate Marvin Sarge Summers, 69, would bring experience to the job as an oil and gas entrepreneur, but he failed to articulate how hed approach the job any differently than Christian has. Candidate Tom Slocum, 38, is stressing the importance of blockchain technology and the rise of cryptocurrency, on one hand, and on the other, vowing to secure Texas energy resources by completing a border wall. Neither priority strikes us as the right focus for the RRC.

Tipton is our choice in the Republican primary because of his commitment to fight for the industrys future, but not at the expense of clean air and water, and the reliable electric grid that Texans depend on.

Updated 9:45 a.m., Jan. 24: This editorial has been corrected to make clear Sarah Stogner is self-financing her campaign.
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The lack of Latinos on the City Council undermines the legitimacy of Houstons government, experts say, and is something that a prominent Hispanic organization is pushing to change with a lawsuit and ballot proposition.

The League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the largest Hispanic civil rights organizations in the country, is tackling what they characterize as a gross underrepresentation of Latinos in one of the most diverse cities in the U.S. by proposing that the five at-large positions on council elected citywide be replaced with four seats in heavily Hispanic districts.

Currently, just one Hispanic  Robert Gallegos  holds a seat on the 16-member body. By contrast, 45 percent of Houston residents are Hispanic.

HOUSTON PROUD: 10 Houston Latinos who are making a difference

The most serious threat to the legitimacy of Houston city government is this idea that you can have half of the population of the city represented by 6 percent of the council, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University. Imagine if we flipped things around and there's only one African American on the Houston City Council, or there's only one Anglo, or there's only one woman  It would be seen as a national travesty of democracy; it would be the subject of constant outcry.

The city is expected to look at redistricting prior to its 2023 election, and could redraw the 11 districts if they are deemed unbalanced at that point. But LULAC said replacing at-large seats with more single-district seats would reduce barriers that undercut Latino representation.

If we had parity, half of this council would be Latino, said local LULAC leader Sergio Lira, co-chair of a new Houston taskforce created under the direction of the organizations national President, Domingo Garcia, who launched the effort in a meeting with local leaders last week.

Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer Sergio Lira talks about Latino representation on Houston City Council during a LULAC meeting as Domingo Garcia, LULACs national president, listens Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2022, at Garcias law office in Houston. Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Garcia, a lawyer with offices statewide, said the effort includes a push to bring a charter amendment with the proposition to citizens to vote on and to file a lawsuit against the city.

Houston has the worst Hispanic representation in city councils among all Texas cities with populations over 500,000, all of which have eliminated at-large positions in their governments, according to census and government data.

Houston is the outlier in Texas when it comes to Latino representation and is the only large city with at-large seats, Garcia said.

Those cities  San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, and El Paso all have councils that look much more similar to their cities Hispanic populations. Dallas, which is 42 percent Hispanic, has the next-lowest Hispanic representation on council with 29 percent Hispanics.

Houston Chronicle

Its tough to get elected to Houstons at-large seats, Garcia said.

They are very difficult for Latinos to win because of the amount of money, coalitions and logistics it takes to win, he said. Its like running for mayor.

Mayor Sylvester Turner should put LULACs proposition for a charter amendment to a vote in the City Council. It would need to be approved by two-thirds of the members to be put on the ballot, Garcia and other said.

PLAN AHEAD: Early voting starts Monday in City Council District G special election. Heres who is running.

But we are not under any illusion that this will happen, said Lira, noting that it would require the support of at least 10 councilmembers, including some elected at-large who are unlikely to approve a measure that would eliminate their power. At a recent meeting with Turner, we didnt get the impression that he would put it on the agenda, Lira said.

Turners office confirmed the meeting with LULAC took place but said at this time, Mayor Turner has no additional information to provide.

Pulling the trigger

Knowing it is a long shot, LULAC decided to initiate a drive to collect 20,000 signatures in February in favor of their proposition, as the early voting for the state primaries begins. The number is the minimum needed to force the inclusion of a charter amendment in the ballot, bypassing the approval of City Council, which would only decide when it should be put for a citizens vote.

LULAC is simultaneously preparing a lawsuit it plans to file in court by March to eliminate all at-large positions in favor of single districts.

Supporters of at-large positions argue that they represent the interest of the city as a whole and dont require boundary redrawing in redistricting processes. But the use of this structure is limited at the federal and state levels since the passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It is also decreasing at the city or municipal level in general.

The Houston City Council used to have all at-large positions and was reshaped to the current five-to-11 mix in 1980. Several court cases have successfully challenged at-large positions under the Voting Rights Act in Texas and elsewhere, including Williams vs the City of Dallas, which eliminated all remaining such positions in the council in the 90s. More recently, in Patino v. Pasadena, a federal court revoked the creation of new at-large positions by the city in 2017, concluding that it dilute(d) the votes of its Latino citizens.

Historically and statistically, it has been shown to be true that single district (positions) elect more racial and ethnic minorities than at-large seats, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. Single districts facilitate the concentration of political power for disadvantaged communities nested in certain neighborhoods, providing a numerical advantage that is harder to overcome in at-large elections, he said.

More from Olivia P. Tallet: LULAC drops use of 'Latinx' as term for Hispanics, considering it 'non-inclusive'

To have only one Latino member in the (Houston) council is pretty glaring, Rottinghaus said.

Rather than having to prove discriminatory intent in challenging the at-large districts under the Voting Rights Act, plaintiffs such as LULAC would need only to show that a particular voting practice produces a discriminatory result, as shown in Patino v. Pasadena quoting a 1982 Congressional amendment of the act.

The proof is in the pudding that since 2001, there have been 45 straight at-large elections, (and) zero Latino victories, said Jones, who is also a Baker Institute fellow who wrote an op-ed about the Latino underrepresentation in the City Council in the Houston Chronicle in 2020. At-large districts benefit dominant populations and hurt populations that are weaker politically.

Houston and its leaders need to realize that having only one Latino in the council is a problem.

It fosters a sentiment of political alienation among some Hispanics in Houston who wish to see more leadership in their communities, participants at the LULAC meeting said.

We have to get our voices out and be aggressive, not just like begging the boss with the hat in our hands to give us something, said Garcia in Spanish.

olivia.tallet@chron.com

Twitter.com/oliviaptallet
A watchdog group is calling for the ouster of an adviser to the Texas State Board of Education because he has echoed a racist conspiracy theory and has described Democrat Joe Bidens win in the 2020 election as a literal coup.

So damn the COVID, the president must now lead his followers into Americas streets and squares, the adviser, Stephen Balch, former director of The Institute for the Study of Western Civilization at Texas Tech University, wrote in November 2020.

Balch was appointed to the unpaid advisory position by two Republican members of the education board to help guide a rewrite of the states curriculum for civics, history and government classes  the new curriculum will be the first written since the enactment of a new state law banning so-called critical race theory, which will reshape how systemic racism and slavery are portrayed in class.

He wrote in August that the federal government seeks to promote unchecked immigration to destroy traditional America by whatever means are deemed necessary and expedient, describing this as top-down sedition.

Members of the Texas Freedom Network, a nonprofit that studies the State Board of Education and monitors right-wing extremism in the state, say it is a reference to what is known as the Great Replacement Theory, which some state leaders have espoused. The theory has been promoted by white supremacists and far-right nationalists in the U.S. and Europe for a century. Its basic tenet is that nonwhite people are attempting to take power from whites, with the ultimate goal of domination or extermination of the white race.

RELATED: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick calls Haitian migrant surge an invasion, echoing conspiracy theory

Of late, its expression has predominantly been political, according to the Anti-Defamation League, such as a suggestion Democrats are attempting to seize political power by importing nonwhite voters through immigration.

We live in an extremely diverse state with kids whose parents are immigrants or who are immigrants themselves, said Carisa Lopez, the political director for the Texas Freedom Network, pointing particularly to Balchs essay from last August saying immigrants could destroy traditional America.

Can you imagine being an immigrant, a child, and having to read that? Lopez asked.

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.

Balch was appointed by State Board of Education members Tom Maynard, R-Florience, and Jay Johnson, R-Pampa.

Balch was appointed by State Board of Education members Tom Maynard, R-Florience, and Jay Johnson, R-Pampa. Both said they were unaware of controversial content in Balchs writings, noting that he is a respected academic, and Maynard said he would not consider calling for Balchs resignation or removal.

In an email responding to a reporters questions, Balch wrote: I think that at this very early stage of the review process all Id like to say is that its not about the political issues of the day but ensuring that the students of Texas are exposed to serious, balanced, and rich history and civics content in a manner that lends itself to clear assessment and prepares them for informed citizenship and more advanced education. I see my content advisor role as furthering those ends.

This process should be guided by experts

Each time it comes up, revising the social studies standards is a hard-fought process. But this year is expected to be particularly fraught due to political rancor that in school boards around the state and the new critical race theory law that places restrictions on how the history of race in the United States can be taught in Texas.

Over the last few years, weve seen conspiracy theories take hold. Weve seen attacks on public schools, attacks on teachers. Weve seen attempts to censor what students are learning. And we see that at the local level, you can see it happening at school board meetings, we saw it happen at the Legislature, and now we anticipate theyre going to attempt to do it at the State Board of Education, said Carisa Lopez, the political director for the group.

This appointment of Balch, it does not bode well. Its clear theyre going to continue to politicize this process, Lopez said, saying he should resign or be removed from the boards group of advisers because we believe this process should be guided by experts, not anti-immigrant extremists.

Marisa Perez-Diaz, a Democratic member of the education board from Converse, said shell be speaking with other members and with the boards staff about taking steps to remove Balch from the advisory group.

Conservative or liberal political views should never be a disqualifier for someone serving on this panel, but he is echoing conservative theories and inflammatory rhetoric that not only demeans a huge swath of our Texas population, but also its just extreme views that quite frankly speak out against Democracy, she said.

Most of the other members of the advisory group are college professors and all are education professionals. Lopez said the Freedom Network has no objections to any other advisers.

We just really want to make sure that whatever standards we put in front of our students are not fundamental betrayals of American values, Perez-Diaz said.

Balch honored by George W. Bush

Balch is a well-known academic and founder of the conservative education advocacy group the National Association of Scholars, which he led from its inception in 1987 to 2009. He received the National Humanities Medal from former President George W. Bush in 2007. His writings that the Texas Freedom Network has spoken out against are from within the last 7 years.

He could not be reached for comment.

There are nine content advisers to the SBOE in total, and last week they each published suggestions for revisions to the states current social studies curriculum.

Balchs suggestions include: replacing the term people of Mexican heritage with undocumented Mexican nationals in the United States in a curriculum item on deportations and repatriations of immigrants during the Great Depression; asking students to argue for and against open border and immigration restriction policies; and replacing the term mass incarceration with high incarceration rates because he said the former presupposes that nonwhite people are targeted for imprisonment at higher rates.

Nonwhite people are far, far more likely to be incarcerated than white people, government data shows. One in 106 white men are imprisoned, for instance, while for Black men the rate is one in 15.

Balch advocated for eliminating high school sociology and psychology courses entirely and replacing them with a course called Genocide and Mass Murder, which would review the twentieth century occurrence of these all-too-common crimes, particularly examining their ideological and political causes. Instances would include the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward and Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Rape of Nanking, the Cambodian mass murders, and the Armenian Genocide.

And he also defended the current education standards against a critical report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank that rated Texas as mediocre in its U.S. history curriculum compared to other states.

Fordham faulted Texas for not sufficiently centering slavery as the cause of the Civil War for eighth graders. The report notes that antebellum tariff policies are emphasized as a cause of the Civil War before slavery is mentioned, and congressional conflicts and compromises prior to the Civil War are not themselves linked to slavery the way they should be.

Balch disagreed, writing: I dont think the TEKS overstate the importance of states rights in analyzing the origins of the Civil War.

edward.mckinley@chron.com
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HARRISBURG  Pennsylvanias alcohol sales system on Monday was attacked as an anti-consumer relic born out of one mans disdain for the consumption of alcohol and moments later was defended as a strong profit generator.

The clashing views of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board system came at a legislative hearing on a new attempt to privatize liquor sales.

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The privatization proposal from Republican state Rep. Natalie Mihalek of Allegheny County differs from previous ones by its use of a constitutional amendment, allowing state voters to make the final decision.

Mihaleks one man reference was to former Pennsylvania Gov. Gifford Pinchot, whom Mihalek said detested alcohol and was in office when the LCB was created in 1933 as a state monopoly.

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Most states now have open, nongovernment alcohol sales systems. Testifiers at the hearing said 17 states have some level of government control.

David Wojnar, senior vice president of the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S., testified that of those, only a handful  including Pennsylvania  control retail sales of liquor.

Mihaleks proposal would add to the Constitution the sentence, The Commonwealth shall not manufacture or sell, at wholesale or retail, liquor, and it would be effective 18 months after voter approval.

Proposed constitutional amendments must be approved by the Legislature in two sessions, then be approved by state voters.

Wendell Young IV, a longtime privatization opponent and president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776, said voters would get no choice at all since the bill says nothing about what would replace the state-run system. The UFCW represents LCB workers.

Young argued privatization would diminish tax revenue to the state, send alcohol prices higher, decrease choices for consumers and leave thousands without jobs. He said it was a waste of time to talk about Pinchot because the LCB system has changed greatly in 80-plus years.

Young said the LCB doesnt cost taxpayers any money and generated pure profit of $265 million in its most recent year.

While Walmart stores in other states sell alcohol at a 3% profit margin and Target stores at up to 4.2%, the PLCB consistently sells at a profit margin of 10% or more, according to Young.

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He attributed the higher margins to the efficiency of having one entity running both the retail and wholesale system.

Heated discussion

The hearing was contentious from the start.

Democrats claimed it wasnt properly advertised; Republican Committee Chair Rep. Carl Metzgar of Somerset County rejected those claims.

Democratic Rep. Mary Isaacson of Philadelphia said past privatization proposals involved thousands of pages of information, contrasting that with the two-page bill presented to lawmakers at the hearing. Her motion to postpone the hearing for two weeks was defeated.

Metzgar blamed what he described as the Democratic Wolf administrations unwillingness to work with the Legislature for Republicans use of the constitutional amendment process.

Mihalek had several pointed exchanges with Young.

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When she asked Young how much he spent on political ads in the last five years, Young said he would get back to her. He said any ad he ran saying Mihaleks bill was terrible was a representational charge.

Mihalek responded, OK, as far as representational charges are concerned, how much do you plan to spend against me in political ads for introducing this initiative?

Young said, Everything we can.

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Members of the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association strongly support privatization, Director of Government Affairs Zak Pyzik testified.

In Pennsylvania, he said, restaurants pay some of the highest costs in the country for wine and spirits and think the system is inconvenient, limited and unreliable.

Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry President and CEO Gene Barr said he was not convinced there would be a dropoff in tax revenue.

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LCB alcohol sales increased by 13.7% in the year ended June 30 to $2.3 billion. The system operates about 600 stores, where it provides about 5,800 jobs in addition to 850 administrative jobs.

Wojnar said spirits manufacturers think Pennsylvania is woefully underserved with a ratio of liquor stores to population about one-third of what other states have.

Rep. Manuel Guzman of Berks County and other Democrats asked for more hearings on what Guzman called a very complex issue.

Morning Call Capitol correspondent Ford Turner can be reached at fturner@mcall.com.
Elderly and drifting towards homeless  Hit songwriters plight illustrates devastating economics of songwriting in 2022

Chris Castle shares the plight of Hugh Prestwood whose songwriting income was destroyed by the massive change in the economics of songwriting that split apart the album format with no commensurate increase in songwriter royalties and the inspiring GoFund me campaign to save them.

UPDATE: While far from solving the underlying problem, the GoFundMe campaign to help Hugh Prestwood and his wife has raised $102,706 to date including significant donations from hit Nashville songwriters Dallas Davidson, Craig Wiseman, Kylly Lovelace and Luke Laird and country star Randy Travis who had a #1 hit with Prestwoods Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart.

Read Prestwoods impressive songwriting credits below.

By Chris Castle from Artist Rights Watch

If you ever thought we were too aggressive in our campaign to end the 15 year freeze on statutory royalties for physical, consider the situation of songwriter Hugh Prestwood and his wife, photojournalist Judy Ahrens. Songwriters and photographers are two occupations that are devastated by the digital blight that has visited apocalyptic devastation on creators.

As Hugh says in their GoFundMe page, his songwriting income was destroyed by the massive change in the economics of songwriting that split apart the album format with no commensurate increase in songwriter royalties. Songs became a major driver of wealth for hardware manufacturers and Internet providers (remember dancing cows chanting rip, mix, burn?) in the 2000s, and streaming drives wealth for catalogs and platforms. The doubling effect of Moores Law imposes a halving effect on creator royalties. Hugh and Judy are living proof of what happens to an aging population of creators who could not have possibly planned around the digital blightother than learning to code, I guess.

Of course we want to encourage readers to contribute what you can to Hugh and Judys GoFundMe, but we also want to make a larger point.

The Copyright Royalty Judges need to understand that there are real consequences to real people when they freeze mechanical royalties. While the Judges are not responsible for all the harms that accrue to songwriters in the rigged statutory licensing and royalty scheme, they do play a part and they can make a difference. Songwriters may not expect the Judges to fix their problems, but they do expect them not to make it worse. Freezing rates for 15 years makes it worse.

The Judges should also understand that they have an opportunity to do something to add fairness back into the system that the Judges effectively control. Creators like Hugh and Judy will never appear in their courtroom alongside the well-heeled lobbyists and lawyers who make millions off of the rate proceedings and the black box in what has become a laughingstock.

Congress, too, needs to listen up. It is well past time for a songwriter advocate to be a permanent part of the Copyright Royalty Board proceedings for mechanical royalty rate settings. A songwriter advocate would speak for people like Hugh and Judy. As Linda said of Willie Lohman in Death of a Salesman, Attention must be paid. Im not asking that songwriters should be able to overrule the lobbyists, although thats not a bad idea.

But at least hear them out before theyre all gone.

Hugh Prestwoods bio and songwriting credits

(Wikipedia) Hugh Loring Prestwood (born April 2, 1942) is a Hall of Fame American songwriter, whose work is primarily in country music.[1] He was discovered by Judy Collins, who gave him his first hit Hard Time for Lovers, which was recorded in 1978. Prestwood has written number one songs for Randy Travis Hard Rock Bottom of Your Heart, which won BMIs Robert J. Burton award for Country Song of the Year.[2] Prestwoods song, The Song Remembers When, recorded by Trisha Yearwood, was picked as the Nashville Songwriters Associations Song of the Year and also won a Prime Time Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Music and Lyrics.

Other artists who have recorded his material include Shenandoah and Alison Krauss (Ghost in This House), Highway 101 (Bing Bang Boom), Barbara Mandrell (Where are the Pieces of My Heart), John Conlee, Tanya Tucker, Don Williams, The Judds, James Taylor and Jerry Douglas.[3] Michael Johnson has recorded or performed over a dozen Prestwood-penned songs; his recordings Thats That, Michael Johnson, and Departure each feature multiple Prestwood songs.[4] Prestwood is also known for his song Asking Us to Dance, which originally appeared on Kathy Matteas album Time Passes By. Jimmy Buffett recorded Savannah Fare You Well, on his Far Side of the World album.

Three of Prestwoods songs have been nominated for Grammys in the Best Performance category:

Sound Of Goodbye performed by Crystal Gayle. Hard Rock Bottom Of Your Heart performed by Randy Travis. Ghost In This House performed by Shenandoah.

In 2006, along with Jimmy Buffett and Jim Weatherly, Prestwood was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

For over 20 years he taught Advanced Songwriting at Manhattans New School.

Most recently, the English recording artist Rumer released her album, Nashville Tears  The Songs of Hugh Prestwood (2020). All 15 tracks of this album were written by Prestwood.[5]

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BRPC, 1Berkshire to Release Regional Housing Strategy

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and 1Berkshire are preparing to release a regional housing strategy to address one of the county's greatest struggles.

The effort began almost two years ago when the entities partnered to address the countywide housing crisis they were hearing about from businesses and communities. A practitioners group consisting of local planners, realtors, bankers, developers, and nonprofit employees was assembled and got to work.



Because a majority of the region's homes are either too old, too expensive, or too scarce, it was clear that housing is a problem.



"So what we came up with is that, in fact, we are in a housing crisis in Berkshire County, I don't think this is a surprise to this group, we've been talking about it for several meetings," BRPC Executive Director Thomas Matuszko said to the commission on Thursday.



He explained that it is affecting economic growth, the ability to attract new people to the area, personal health and wellbeing, and communities as a whole.



"I don't know if that's the type of community that we all want, but I think we're heading in that direction if we don't take some action on the housing crisis," Matuszko added.



The regional housing strategy will be soon released to the public but Matuszko gave BRPC a sneak peek of it.



The group first highlighted key issues within the crisis: a shortage of all types of housing, a non-welcoming framework for housing development, lack of large developers, old housing stock, and housing insecurity.



Matuszko reported that there was some neighborhood opposition for developments in the county, particularly with affordable housing. On top of that, the group conquered that the county has limited advocacy from the state for housing development projects.



Though Pittsfield has the majority of housing insecure people, homelessness was identified as a countywide issue.



"I think that we identified that homelessness is a countywide issue, it seems that Pittsfield is the location that has to deal with homelessness, but that shouldn't be the case, that all communities need to get engaged in the homelessness issue," Matuszko said.



"And this has only been made worse with the impact of COVID-19 and the unemployment situation, the evictions, and even the reduced income of landlords, which is going to really contribute to further disinvestment in the properties."



The regional housing strategy includes educating the region about housing needs and opportunities, building a supportive environment for housing development, and advocating for housing programs that meet the needs of The Berkshires.



Matuszko said a regional housing rehab program is "desperately" needed in Berkshire County to address older housing stock. He also identified a need for additional state and federal resources for rural areas.
SVHC Schedules Kids' COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic

BENNINGTON, Vt.  Southwestern Vermont Health Care (SVHC) will host a special children's COVID-19 vaccination clinic for 5 to 11 year olds 1  5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 28 at its COVID Resource Center.

The COVID Resource Center is in the the gymnasium on the former Southern Vermont College campus at 982 Mansion Drive in Bennington.

No appointment is needed and walk-ins are welcome.

"Vaccination rates for kids in Bennington County are not as high as in other parts of the state, and that puts our kids at a disadvantage," said Trey Dobson, MD, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center's (SVMC) chief medical officer. "Vaccinating our children protects them as well as their older loved ones."

The clinic will administer first doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine to children between the ages of 5  11. A pediatrician will be on site to address questions from parents and children. In addition, pediatric nurses, who are especially skilled at vaccinating children, will also be working at the clinic.

The clinic is open to everyone, regardless of where they live. Masks are required.

"The vaccination protects kids from severe illness," said Meghan Gunn, MD, of SVMC Pediatrics. "When we all get vaccinated, we limit disruptions to school, work, and sports."

Families who are unable to attend this clinic are encouraged to visit the COVID Resource Center whenever it is open. Check svhealthcare.org/COVID-Resource-Center for the most up-to-date hours.
1Berkshire GoFundU Crowdfunding Essentials Series

PITTSFIELD, Mass. 1Berkshire, in partnership with the Berkshire Innovation Center, and with the financial support of Pittsfield Economic Revitalization Corporation (PERC) and Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation (MGCC), announced the launch of a brand new workshop series, GoFundU.

GoFundU is a free, 5-week intensive series of 2 hours per week, focused on providing the background, information, and guidance needed for participants to start, grow, or create resilience for their small business through the use of crowdfunding opportunities.

"This is an exciting new offering that helps familiarize new and existing businesses with the growing potential of crowdfunding, while also providing the direct tangible assistance to bring their aspirations to reality," Ben Lamb, 1Berkshire Director of Economic Development said.

This series aims to pair well with emergent funding options like the Biz-M-Power program launched by MGCC in 2021, while also offering general guidance and technical assistance to support efforts across multiple crowdfunding platforms.

Participants in the series who attend at least 3 out of the 5 weeks of workshops may be eligible for up to two hours of free one-on-one technical assistance support (a $350 value) to help them develop, build, and/or launch their own crowdfunding campaigns.

Registration for each session is required. Sessions are planned to be held in a hybrid format, and attendees may choose between in-person attendance happening at the Berkshire Innovation Center, and remote participation via Zoom.
A week ago Martin Luther King Jr. Day was celebrated with speeches, TV programs and thousands of gatherings across the nation. Often overlooked in those celebrations of Kings profound moral courage and humanitarian justice was his opposition to war and nuclear weapons.

In 1957, in Ebony Magazine, King said: I definitely feel that the development and use of nuclear weapons of war should be banned. It cannot be disputed that a full scale nuclear war would be utterly catastrophic.

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Hundreds and millions of people would be killed outright by the blast and heat, and by the ionizing radiation produced at the instant of the explosion.

The first resolution of the United Nations General Assembly in 1945 proposed the elimination of nuclear weapons. The U.S. claimed that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki won the war.

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The U.S. kept much of the effects of bombings secret, especially the widespread radiation sickness.

Monica McAghon (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)

This image taken with a slow shutter speed on Oct. 2, 2019, and provided by the U.S. Air Force shows an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile test launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (J.T. Armstrong /AP)

Sensing the worldwide condemnation of the atomic bombings, the U.S. under President Eisenhower pivoted to a policy of Atoms for Peace, a euphemism for developing nuclear power energy, yet continued to develop, manufacture and stockpile nuclear weapons.

Sixty-seven atomic bombs were tested in the Marshall Islands. Nearly 1,000 bombs were tested in Nevada, mostly underground.

In 1958, Dr. King was contacted by SANE, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. Dr. King signed the organizations petition to halt nuclear bomb tests.

In 1959, Dr. King spoke of the dangers of nuclear weapons at the War Resisters Leagues 36th annual dinner. Not only in the South, but throughout the nation and the world, we live in an age of conflicts, an age of biological weapons, chemical warfare, atomic fallout and nuclear bombs  Every man, woman, and child lives, not knowing if they shall see tomorrows sunrise.

In 1963, the U.S. and Russia agreed to a Limited Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Meanwhile, Dr. King, who had became one of the most well known leaders for the civil rights struggle, continued to speak of a broader view of social justice and world peace.

These two issues, King said in 1968, are tied together in many, many ways. It is a wonderful thing to work to integrate lunch counters, public accommodations, and schools. But it would be rather absurd to work to get schools and lunch counters integrated and not be concerned with the survival of a world in which to integrate.

And I am convinced that these two issues are tied inextricably together and I feel that people who are working for civil rights are working for peace; I feel that the people working for peace are working for civil rights and justice.

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the only binding agreement among five nations with nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States. Other states that developed nuclear weapons  India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, have not signed the treaty.

The UN scheduled hearings on the 10th review of the treaty but postponed them due to COVID. Now is the time to raise public awareness about the humanitarian and environmental dangers of nuclear weapons, before the UN review of the treaty, tentatively set for August.

The U.S. will spend $634 billion over the next decade to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Why?

Having more nuclear bombs and missiles does not deter or make us safer. We must pivot to protect the rights of people and the planet, because nuclear war combined with climate change will deliver disasters of epic proportions.

In his speech at New York Citys Riverside Church in 1967, King said, A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

The non-nuclear nations at the UN organized and in January 2021, ratified the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, declaring all nuclear weapons illegal. The U.S. and other nuclear states did not sign.

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Why? The US claimed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was enough and now the two treaties must be aligned.

Dr. Kings values still apply to civil rights, and we must apply them to abolish nuclear weapons.

Monica McAghon, an Easton resident, is a member of LEPOCO Peace Center.
Since the start of the semester, the Student Advocacy Resource Center has received five times as many reports of roofies, or drug-facilitated assaults, than usual. The druggings happened at four different bars, and beg an important question: what should I do if a friend or I get roofied wh
On both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, the last decade has seen poverty increase - in particular, food poverty. Charities seeking to feed those that cannot afford a basic meal are using data analytics as the key ingredient to putting food on the tables of the most needy in the USA and UK.

Research by Imperial University found that the austerity regime introduced by the current British government in 2010 has created food poverty and insecurity through a lack of money and resources. A total of six studies have concluded that welfare policy changes introduced since 2010 have led to an increased usage of food banks. During the first two years of this decade and the early stages of the Coronavirus pandemic, charity The Trussell Trust, which aims to end the use of food banks, reports the number of families needing food bank support increased by 11%. It has been reported that 21.1% of the UKs population are now living in poverty. In the USA, the US Census Bureau data revealed that 19.3 million households didnt get enough food in May of last year, up from 8.5 million in 2019.

Data has become even more important in our pandemic response, says Stephanie Zidek, Director of Data and Analytics at Feeding America, the largest food charity in the USA. Feeding America partnered with data analytics provider Tableau to optimise and improve visualisation at the nationwide charity. Whilst in the UK, City Harvest has been working with Tibco to improve data analytics and, therefore, operations. City Harvest is a solution and sits in the middle of two big issues - food waste and food poverty, says the CEO of the charity, David Carter. Based in London, City Harvest delivers surplus food to 350 charities in the capital. Take the bakers dozen, the excess is baked into the system, and there is an impact on the environment, but then there are people not having enough food. The charities we work with go and do something with that food in a homeless centre, a food bank or an after school club. Carter says City Harvest wants to become part of the supply chain, built into the retail and hospitality sector strategies to reduce the high levels of food that end up in landfill.

Improving the staple

We realised the need for more frequent and readily available data in order to be able to respond in real-time to what is going on and to provide support to our neighbours in need, Zidek says with great clarity of the role of data, but also the situation.
The sentencing of two police officers for the assault of Indonesian journalist Nurhadi has set an important precedent for the protection of journalists but concerns remain that the penalty is too lenient to arrest the decline in press freedom in Indonesia, writes Jim Nolan.

In early January, Indonesian Journalists enjoyed a significant and unprecedented victory with the conviction of two police officers for assaulting a journalist in Surabaya.

On Wednesday, January 12, 2022, Chief Brigadier Purwanto and Brigadier Muhammad Firman Subkhi were sentenced to 10 months in prison and ordered to make restitution of Rp. 13,813,000 (approx. USD 965) to Nurhadi. The sentences were lower than the prosecutor's request for 18 months in prison for each.

This was a significant decision in a trial that had been closely and anxiously monitored by press freedom groups. So intense was the interest that the delivery of the verdict was attended by the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers) Ade Wahyudin, members of the Indonesian Press Council, representatives of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), Amnesty International Indonesia, and other press freedom organisations.

While welcome, the sentences handed down to the two police officers were, nonetheless, criticised by press freedom groups as inadequate. They argued that the assault on Nurhadi and the wilful destruction of his personal property should have merited separate criminal prosecution, such crimes being in addition to the offences of obstruction of journalistic work, persecution,intimidation, and confinement of journalists who are carrying out press functions, functions which are supposed to enjoy additional protection under the Indonesian Press Law.

Notwithstanding these criticisms, press freedom groups regard the decision as setting an important precedent in support of the campaign to protect journalists who become victims of violence, especially when those acts are carried out by law enforcement officers. Based on data collected by LBH Pers and other human rights NGOs, in recent years perpetrators of violence against journalists have very often been law enforcement officers.

Police officers were the perpetrators in 12 attacks against journalists in the last year. Perpetrators were unknown in 10 cases, government officials in eight cases, residents in four cases, and professional workers in three cases. Corporations, the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), prosecutors, and mass organisations were each responsible for one case.

Legal, academic and expert adviser to AJI, Herlambang Wiratraman, has welcomed the use of the legal framework under Article 18(1) of the Press Law, which has rarely been used in the law enforcement process for cases of violence against journalists. According to Herlambang, the Surabaya District Court is to be commended in utilising this legal framework.

AJI Indonesia stated that from 2020 to 2021, there were 90 cases of violence against journalists, an increase from the previous periods 57 cases.

The two officers were found guilty of committing a criminal act of obstruction of journalistic activity under Article 18(1) of the Press Law. LBH Pers states that this decision highlights that investigative journalism, not just news reporting, is protected by Indonesian law. Although not technically creating a binding precedent, the judge's decision will contribute to developing jurisprudence in similar cases.

The prosecutor of Nurhadi's case has appealed the verdict sentencing the two police. The convicted police have also appealed the verdict.

The use of Article 18(1) of the Press Law, in this case, is also an important reminder that the penalties under the Press Law can be applied to cases related to the obstruction of journalistic activities.

LBH Pers has expressed a number of criticisms of the judges approach.

First, although the panel of judges identified several criminal acts under the criminal code, such as intimidation, assault, and being forced to delete the report, the judge restricted the convictions to breaches of the press law and sentenced them using the Press Law only.

LBH Pers also pointed out that both the Public Prosecutor and the judge ignored factors that should have aggravated the penalties against the two officers who occupied a special position as law enforcement officers, whose prime function is to protect and serve the community.

Finally, the judge did not order the detention of the defendants and Nurhadi was under the protection of the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (Lembaga Perlindungan Saksi dan Korban LPSK) while the trial progressed. Since the case commenced, LPSK provided special protection for Nurhadi by placing him in an LPSK safe house. During those 10 months in the safe house, Nurhadi's activities were, necessarily, very limited. This, arguably, placed him under additional psychological stress because the officers remained at large.

While LBH Pers regarded the decision as setting an important practical precedent for the protection of journalists, it emphasised that whereas interference with journalistic activities is prohibited, violence against journalists is a separate issue. LBH Pers stated that the Judges in Nurhadis case failed to take advantage of the momentum presented by the case to protect press freedom to punish the defendants to the fullest extent of the law. LBH Pers urged the Public Prosecutor to immediately appeal against this decision to request harsher penalties.

While the Nurhadi verdict is to be welcomed, it stands in marked contrast to the otherwise steady decline in press freedom and democratic norms generally in Indonesia. In December 2021, the Committee for the Safety of Journalists (KKJ) published an important review of the recent state of press freedom in Indonesia.

The KKJ consists of ten press organisations, press associations and civil society organisations, most notably the Indonesian Press Legal Aid Institute (LBH Pers), Amnesty International Indonesia, and IFJ affiliate the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI). The KKJ was formed in April 2019 following concerns about increasing violence against Journalists in Indonesia, the deteriorating climate for press freedom in Indonesia and to act as a coalition to advocate for Press Freedom.

Prosecutions have recently been launched under the now-notorious Law no. 11 of 2008, the Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE) law. AJI, and numerous other press freedom organisations, had campaigned against this law since its introduction, but the government was adamant that the law was a pragmatic response to the regulation of e-commerce, a suggestion ridiculed at the time by journalist groups and their legal advisers.

Early fears were soon vindicated by the prosecution of a suburban mother who had the temerity to make a complaint in an email discussion with her friends about her treatment at a private hospital near Jakarta. This was a prosecution that became an international embarrassment and a portent of the predicted threat to press freedom.

The Press Council has constantly repeated its strong view that Press complaints/disputes should be dealt with under the Press Law and not as criminal offences, especially under the ITE law.

The KKJs December 2021 report highlighted three important recent cases which raise issues about the existence, and utilisation of, the ITE law.

The first concerns Moh Saldi Saleh, a senior journalist of Buton, South East Sulawesi, who was prosecuted under the ITE law for an article he wrote which criticised the planning policies of the Regent of Central Buton. Saldi was convicted by the Pasarwajo District Court and sentenced to two years in prison for violating Article 45(2) and (3) of the ITE Law. After serving eighteen months, he was finally released on March 17, 2021. This case is a textbook example of the law being used as a weapon against investigative journalism, redolent of the celebrated 2004 case against Tempo magazine chief editor Bambang Harymurti.

The second case concerns Diananta Putra Sumedi, Chief Editor of Banjarhits/Kumparan.com, who was found guilty by the Kotabaru District Court, South Kalimantan, of violating Article 28 of the ITE law for broadcasting a news item entitled "Land confiscated by Jhonlin, Dayak complain to the South Kalimantan Police. Diananta was sentenced to three months and 15 days in prison.

Critics condemned this decision as a serious threat to press freedom because Diananta was carrying out legitimate journalistic functions protected by the Press Law. Also, contrary to claims, it was not found that the article had an impact upon public order, with no evidence it incited ethnic conflict.

Once again, this case concerns a matter of significant public interest, dealing, as it does, with development and environmental issues.

The third case was the subject of a decision on 23 November 2021, when a panel of judges at the Palopo District Court, South Sulawesi, decided that news journalist Muhamad Asrul was guilty of violating Article 45 of the ITE Law. Asrul was sentenced to three months in prison, although the Public Prosecutor had asked for a one-year prison sentence. Asruls article concerned possible political corruption involving well connected local political actors.

The judge emphasised that Asruls articlehad complied with the relevant standards regulated by the Press Law, and he rejected the prosecutor's indictment, accepting that the article written by Asrul was a journalistic product. He accepted Asrul's status as a journalist. This should have been sufficient for the charges to be dismissed and the matter referred to the Press Council if there remained a legitimate complaint against the publication. Notwithstanding the judges findings, Asrul was still, somewhat puzzlingly, found guilty. However, the judge did not order Asrul to be detained. The decision is being appealed.

Based on these recent cases of violence against, and criminalisation of, journalists, the KKJ stated that these trends demonstrate a continuing threat to the work of journalists. KKJ recommended that President Joko Widodo order all officials, especially law enforcement officers, to respect and protect journalistic activity and to set an example to the community by using the press law where there are disputes about journalism. They ask that the government crackdown on the use of violence and intimidation against journalists and the labelling of legitimate journalistic works as hoaxes. All public officials should use the disputes mechanism under the Press Law, and not the ITE law, if there are journalistic works about which they have complaints.

KKJ argued that President Joko Widodo should immediately undertake the revision and abolition of the anti-democratic provisions in the ITE Law. Also, the conduct of police who refrain to act against perpetrators of violence against journalists should be urgently reviewed.

Jim Nolan is the International Federation of Journalists pro-bono legal counsel for the Asia-Pacific and a regular legal observer on key cases in the region.
Today's judgement certified the Wikileaks founders right to apply to the Supreme Court to rule on the late introduction of assurances by the United States government. The ruling means that Assange has 14 days to lodge his case. The International Federation of journalists and its affiliate the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the UK and Ireland welcome the decision and demand Assange's release.

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hold a placard during a protest against his extradition to the US outside the High Court in London on January 24, 2022. Assange was given permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against a decision to extradite him to the United States. The High Court in London approved a bid by the publisher's lawyers to take the case to the country's highest court on "points of law of general public importance". Daniel LEAL / AFP

Todays ruling called on the Supreme Court to expedite consideration  the likely timescale, however, is unknown.

Assange, who has now spent nearly three years in Belmarsh Prison, is fighting an application to extradite him lodged from the United States. This seeks his prosecution on 18 charges, most arising from the Espionage Act, and relating to Wikileaks publication of the Iran and Afghan war logs in 2010.

The ruling, delivered in the Royal Courts of Justice by Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice, and Lord Justice Holroyd, dismissed Assanges application for a direct appeal to the Supreme Court.

The issue on which the Supreme Court will be invited to rule is the late introduction of assurances by the United States in respect of Assanges treatment in the event of his conviction. During the extradition hearing, several days focussed on the penal conditions in which Assange might be held. These included potential incarceration in ADX Florence Colorado, where prisoners such as El Chapo, and Abu Hamza are held, solitary confinement, and restricted access to family and lawyers. These conditions were the subject of several days consideration at the original hearings.

After Judge Baraitser ruled that Assange could not be extradited in January 2021, the US government provided fresh assurances that he would not be subject to a system of solitary confinement and would be allowed to serve his sentence in his native Australia.That these assurances have not been subject to testing in court is likely to be among the reasons behind todays judgment.

Speaking outside the Royal Courts, Assanges fiancee, Stella Moris said: We have no idea how long this case is going to take. Julian is in terrible pain, and this is torturing our family.

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said: " This decision is an important step for Assange and his defense team. There is clear evidence that extraditing Assange to the United States would put his life is grave danger and we will fight relentlessly to prevent it. He should be released immediately and be provided all the necessary care his medical situation requires."

NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: "Welcome as this decision is, this case is damaging media freedom every day that it drags on. The US is seeking Assange on charges that relate to the very business of gathering and processing news. For so long as this is treated as a potentially indictable offense, reporters, doing important work, will be looking over their shoulders."
It's been a remarkable two years for Bridget Hunter-Jones: Among other achievements, the MIT-educated engineer-turned-CEO launched her first company, obtained two provisional patents, and raised $6.5 million over two rounds of funding. She also gave birth to her first child.

Hunter-Jones's next big milestone comes in May, when the first product made by her company, Impact Biosystems, is slated to begin shipping out to customers. It's a percussive muscle-massager, the Pact Pulse, which, when paired with a handheld scanner called the Pact Sense, delivers massages catered to its users' muscles.

Hunter-Jones's father, Ian Hunter--also an MIT-affiliated engineer, as well as the chief inventor of Impact Biosystems--began developing the technology behind the two devices in 2017, in the basement lab and on-site barn offices of his home. Meanwhile Bridget was climbing from mechanical engineer to product-creation leader at Sonos, the speaker and audio system maker.

"At Sonos I got a really full sense of bringing a product all the way from incubation to mass production, and was heavily involved on the operations side as well," Hunter-Jones says. She was with the company from its startup phase through its initial public offering, and managed up to 15 projects at a time.

So when Hunter-Jones got the chance to work with her father, and to build a new brand and manage a product's development and design, she jumped. She also wanted to take the opportunity to build a company that was both innovative and diverse. She joined in early 2020 as chief executive, and hired a majority-female engineering team. Most of the company's 18 employees are based in Boston.

The pandemic had just set in, and the convenience of working with her dad became even more fortuitous. The startup's small Boston-based staff couldn't be entirely virtual, as they were building hardware. So several employees moved their operations to Ian Hunter's home and workshop. Bridget began working just above the inventors' paradise of a basement where she used to tinker as a kid.

Hunter-Jones implemented a strategy of raising investor funding to fuel the company's growth and first product launch, as well as a launch strategy using Indiegogo to sell pre-ordered products to customers. Impact Biosystems rolled out the campaign for the Pact Sense and Pulse in November, exceeded its goal in January, and expects to begin shipping out the first of roughly 1,000 products in May. The Indiegogo page boasts that Pact is lighter, quieter, and less expensive ($279) than competing products such as Theragun ($299 to $599).

The process wasn't without some missteps. Hunter-Jones says she originally envisioned being able to pitch investors by noting the company had, say, eight provisional patents, which may have been overaggressive. "For a small startup, where you're really conscious of how you spend your funds, it's actually a lot more important to have quality patents rather than a quantity of patents," she says. Armed with just two provisional patents for the muscle-scanner, the company was able to raise $2 million in seed funding in April 2020, and another $4.5 million in 2021, just days before Hunter-Jones gave birth.
A selection of fresh produce and grocery items that can be added to a Misfits Market order. Courtesy company

Abhi Ramesh had expected to return with only fresh fruit the first time he went apple-picking with his future wife in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. But he also brought home a business idea.

"There were apples all over the ground," says Ramesh, a serial entrepreneur who had earlier founded a coding school and an e-commerce startup. "I saw just firsthand how much food goes to waste at the farm level. I was shocked at the time."

As a longtime Philadelphia resident, he had been increasingly interested in the issue of food deserts--areas where groceries, particularly fresh produce, are not widely available for purchase. Ramesh began visiting nearby farms and thinking about how food waste could be saved. In 2018, he launched his Delanco, New Jersey-based company, Misfits Market, a discounted grocery-delivery subscription service that mails customers boxes of "unwanted" produce.

From the Ground Up

Most produce doesn't make it from farms to grocery-store shelves because of logistics. Apples, for example, may be discarded simply because they're too small or too big to meet standard measurements. That means that a lot of perfectly good food is thrown out.

But rescuing it from the landfill wasn't quite so simple, as Ramesh quickly learned.

"This is a low-cost, low-margin, highly perishable industry that involves very sophisticated operations and logistics, and you have to build that supply chain from scratch," he says. "Then, all the existing forces in the grocery space push you in the direction of standardization, which is what drove the inefficiency in the first place."

To solve the problem, the company would have to develop warehouse, inventory, and logistical management systems from the ground up.

"It took the better part of the past three years and a lot of capital," he says. Misfits Market has raised $526.5 million, including $225 million in a September round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company is valued at $2 billion.

The temptation to expand into other product categories led to some backtracking in the company's early days.

"We had to master produce first," Ramesh says.

This is how Misfits Markets works: Customers select organic, non-GMO produce and add-on items from such brands as Bob's Red Mill, Kashi, and Amy's to reach a $30 order minimum. They also choose a preferred delivery day and a weekly or every-other-week subscription. Customers save an average of $25.17 per week over shopping at a regular grocery store, according to the company.

Misfits Market isn't alone in its niche. Imperfect Foods, launched in 2015, isn't subscription-based and allows shoppers to select items, including but not limited to organics. Shipping for both companies costs around $5 per box. Hungry Harvest, launched in 2014 and offering variety-style produce boxes without customization, is a formidable competitor. It made the 2021 Inc. 5000 ranking of the fastest-growing U.S. private companies, coming in at No. 1,683 with a three-year growth rate of 272 percent.

What sets Misfits Market apart is its value, Ramesh says, citing costs per item. "We're always the better deal," he says. "We're not cheaper because we're lower quality. Our products are always equal or even higher quality."

Rapid Expansion

The pandemic offered both risk and opportunity to Misfits Market. In 2020, the company grew by five times in active customers and order volume, as more people started to embrace online grocery delivery. At the same time, Misfits Market had to figure out how to meet that demand logistically--and how to ensure that its warehouse workers stayed safe amid the spread of Covid.

Until it could grow its staff, Misfits Market wasn't equipped to meet the unprecedented demand. So it didn't meet it: During the first wave of the pandemic, the company shut down its website checkout page so that new customers couldn't sign up. In a massive six-month recruitment drive, it grew to nearly 1,000 employees from about 175 employees at the start of the pandemic.

"We had to build a [customer] waitlist, and for a while, it was a manual file that we'd have to export into our database," Ramesh says. "It was chaotic on the demand side."

The operational side of things wasn't any less challenging. For about three to four months, Ramesh held daily all-hands meetings for the company's warehouse workers. Signing on for every shift, 6 a.m., 3 p.m., and midnight, Ramesh checked in and gave Covid safety updates.

The rollout of vaccines in 2021 eased some of the operational hardships, but challenges linger. Packaging prices are up, and warehouse space is near impossible to come by. And then there's the big question: With vaccines widely available, will customers still want to order their groceries online?

Ramesh thinks so. The company buys its inventory at a discount from farmers and sells to customers with price cuts up to 40 percent less than what they'd pay at a traditional grocery store.

Since the company has expanded beyond produce, it's also seen a dramatic increase in the amount customers spend per order, as they add more items to their carts.

"It costs us the same amount to ship a box to you no matter what's in it," Ramesh says. "So that's when the flywheel really starts to work." In 2021, Misfits Market expanded into bakery, dairy, seafood, meat, and other categories. In the next six months, the company expects to double its product offerings.

To attract new customers, the company is investing in influencer partnerships. For example, one with chef Bobby Flay began in 2020. Misfits Market regularly brings on new partners, often connecting with them through trade shows.

Paying It Forward

Misfits Market has made a lot of lemonade from unwanted lemons. According to the company, it diverted 128 million pounds of food from the trash heap in 2021 alone. Since its start, that amount is more than 228 million pounds. In less than three years, the company has provided a revenue stream of more than $155 million to the 60 farms it works with around the U.S.

While the company's business model is focused on getting that food to paying customers, Ramesh is also dedicated to addressing systemic issues of food access and affordability.

Unlike many food banks, the company has sophisticated networks and logistics that help it easily deliver food to charitable foundations. According to the company, in 2021 it donated more than 120,000 pounds of fresh food to communities in need through partnerships with food banks and community fridges.
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SYDNEY, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Australia's state of New South Wales (NSW) announced on Sunday a COVID-19-smart plan which aims to minimize the risk of infection after returning to school amid an uphill battle against the current wave of the pandemic.

As part of the new measures, every student and teacher in NSW government and non-government schools will be able to receive rapid antigen test (RAT) kits before school returns on Feb. 1.

Surveillance testing will be conducted twice a week for primary and high school students, school staff, and early childhood staff. Surveillance testing will be undertaken for the first four weeks of term, with two weeks of supply distributed before term starts.

Face masks are mandatory for all staff and high school students and are encouraged for children in primary schools.

There will be limited interaction between different year groups, and schools have to limit visitors. A number of staffing contingencies are also in place including utilizing retired and studying teachers in case there are disruptions to the workforce.

There are heated debates as to the most suitable time to reopen classrooms as NSW remains the epicenter of Australia's current wave of COVID-19 pandemic.

The state recorded 20,324 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday. Despite the relatively flat epidemic growth curve in this week, the number of hospitalization and deaths remain high, with 2,712 hospitalization and 34 deaths recorded on the same day.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said supporting students to return safely to the classroom is vital after two years of disruption to their education.

"Students learn best at school, some students have spent a quarter of their schooling at home. We're committed to bringing students back safely," he said.

The government is distributing more than 12 million RATs to over 3,150 government, non-government schools, and early childhood centers to assist with surveillance testing of staff and students, Perrottet said.

The state has started vaccination for five to 11 years old children. The latest figure shows that 26.5 percent of eligible children in NSW have received their first doses. 
The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ASSOCHAM), the apex industry association of the country, held an interactive session on 'Expectation and Wishlist for Truly Atmanirbhar Bharat' ahead of the Union Budget 2022. During the webinar, eminent key speakers shared their insights on how the budget will help COVID-hit sectors recover.



Dr. Arvind Virmani, Chief Guest, and Former Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India, discussed how the government is implementing second-generation reforms for liberalisation and the fulfillment of a comprehensive approach to digitalization. He added, The GDP (gross domestic product) is projected to recover from pre-pandemic levels by upto 1.6% in Q4 and projected GDP growth FY22 will be 9.2% to 9.5% while the average GDP growth from FY21 to FY30 will be 7.5% +/-0.5%. He further raised questions about what has worked in other countries and concentrated on two main points- rationalization in tax rates and simplification in the GST process.



The session moderator, Dr. Charan Singh, Chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council for Banking, outlined that This is an important year for Budget making. The global and domestic economy would now begin to normalise, with the third wave getting over. The Budget should make effort to provide a roadmap on the role of the Banking Sector, including NBFCs in attaining a US$5 Trillion economy, role of MSMEs in sterilisation of the Economy, and enhancing the role of India in the global economy.



Dr. Charan Singh also stressed that Govt will have to continue supporting the banking system as stress levels would continue. Government should pursue privatisation of banks and may also consider placing a few banks under asset monetisation program.



Sharing his observation on the agri budget, Shri Ashok Vishandass, Professor, Indian Institute of Public Administration, said, Agriculture has an immense potential to support $5 trillion economy. He added, There is a need for awareness on how the budget for agriculture sector will turbocharge the economy and why is it necessary to invest more in mobility to transfer the supply agriculture to demand agriculture areas.



Among the panelist who participated in the session was Shri Sameer Narang, Head, Economics Research Group, ICICI Bank, shared, Exports, which played a major role and is a key driver of growth, are expected to be 11.1% above FY20 level in FY22.



Shri Shachindra Nath, Executive Chairman & MD, U GRO Capital expressed his viewpoints on the credit model and co-lending of MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) and NBFCs (Non-Banking Financial Company) that requires a policy push. In addition, MSME formalisation and digitization has progressed to the point of consumer finance. "This year, there will be around 30,000 cr-50,000 cr of gross disbursement to MSME through co-lending," he said.



Shri Rajkumar Muthukumar, CRO, Orange Retail Finance Pvt. Ltd., also opined on how the co-lending model is now serving as a good boom for smaller NBFCs to prosper in business.



Other esteemed panelists in the session were Shri Basudev Mukherjee, Assistant Secretary General, ASSOCHAM; Dr. Rattan Chand, Consultant, World Bank; Shri Amit Tewary, Co-Founder & CEO, 4Fin; Shri Indranil Pan, Chief Economist, Yes Bank Ltd.; Col. M. P. Singh, Director, EGROW Foundation and Shri Suman Bery, Former Director General, National Council of Applied Economic Research. The session was concluded by Shri S. C. Aggarwal, CMD, SMC Group.



The views and opinions expressed are not of IIFL Securities, indiainfoline.com
Existing investor Venture Catalysts has also participated in the current round.The funds raised will be used for expanding geographically to reach $900 mn in GMV, serving 1.5 million subscribers & patients to get quality medical & cosmetic treatments across the world.The startup has already served over 22000 patients from 38 countries get medical advice, teleconsults and surgical treatments across over a hundred hospitals in its network. Its health benefits membership, called Hospals Assured, enables subscribers from Africa/Asia to get unlimited doctor teleconsults and free surgical treatments upto $15,000 across Indian hospitals.says, Healthcare expenses which include treatment costs and travelling expenditure can be daunting for a family. Having a guided advisory from companies like Hospals can ease of the stress as their model is connect you with the best doctors and surgeons in their respective disciplines. They also provide translation & residential assistance close to the hospitals. Hospals sits at the crossroads where it is helping patients and medical professionals. Healthcare as a market opportunity is booming and with growth in insuretech, we are very bullish on Hospals and healthcare in general., said, India is one of the largest and fastest growing market for medical tourism on the back of affordability and accessibility of high-quality healthcare treatments. Hospals has been at the centre of expanding this market. We at Venture Catalysts are happy to have been its early backer and are now reinvesting in its growth story along with our commitments from 9Unicorns. Hospals has reinvented itself to cater to the rising demand from this sector by facilitating end to end services including providing medical loans to the patients. We are optimistic that Hospals would emerge as the most significant player in the crossborder healthcare segment."Hospals was founded by Danish Ahmed. Obaidullah and Suneel Kapur. Suneel had earlier worked as the Group Sales head for Fortis Hospitals and Chief Marketing Officer at Radiant Group, recently acquired by Max Healthcare. Through his career he was instrumental in serving over a million patients from 120 countries for cancer, transplants, cardiac and other diseases.Hospals uses its proprietary recommendation engine to find the best surgeons & cosmetic clinics for patients depending on their location, treatment & budget. Its network of over 400 Hospals Health Consultants across 30 countries provides local counselling and support to ensure a seamless experience for the patient.Hospals started with a single vision to provide Universal Health Coverage. Through Hospals Assured, International Telehealth and our concierge travel services, Hospals is enabling people across Asia & Africa to access world class healthcare. Were rapidly expanding our network of hospitals and collecting data points across the spectrum to help patients find the best surgeons and clinics across Asia. Were solving problems in accommodation, remittances and medicine delivery across the border. Well soon launch fintech services like medical loans & crowdfunding to help patients finance their treatments beyond insurance coverage, so that each human has access to the best healthcare globally saysafter quitting his role as Vice President at Paytm Danish had earlier founded Yebhi.com (sold to Flipkart) and Shopsity (acquired by Paytm) before launching Hospals. The company had raised 10 crores in earlier investments from Venture Catalysts, Spiral Ventures and Innoven.is a $78 billion industry globally and was growing at 25% CAGR before covid brought international travel to a halt. With millions of patients waiting for surgeries since the past 2 years and thousands of medical travel companies shutting operations during Covid, Hospals is rapidly scaling its operations to service this backlog.
Most of the fans of Game Of Thrones would agree that Khaleesi was let down in the end. Even Emilia Clarke who portrayed the role admits that she was annoyed with the ending of the show.

Clarke might not have got her due in GoT, but fans cannot wait to see her in the Marvel web series Secret Invasion.

Twitter

The project marks Emilia Clarke's Marvel debut. The actress is busy shooting for the show in the UK, and now some pictures revealing her first look from Secret Invasion have leaked.

She can be seen donning a long coat, trousers, and boots, carrying a red duffel bag walking across the street.

Emilia Clarke shooting more scenes for #SecretInvasion. pic.twitter.com/u2b7iokp0X  Secret Invasion News (@SInvasionNews) January 23, 2022

Speculations are rife that Samuel L Jackson, who essays the role of Nick Fury in the franchise, is also shooting with Emilia.

Samuel L. Jackson and Emilia Clarke filming for Marvels SECRET INVASION series. pic.twitter.com/wlFjDaLJwk  Secret Invasion News (@SInvasionNews) January 23, 2022

Secret Invasion is being produced by Marvel Studios for Disney+. Also starring Samuel L Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and Cobie Smulders, the series is based on the Marvel Comics series of the same name. The plot revolves around invasion of Earth by a group of alien shapeshifters called Skrulls, who have secretly replaced many superheroes in the Marvel universe.

Samuel L Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn filming SECRET INVASION as Nick Fury and Talos.



(Source: https://t.co/O2PjqURpE2) pic.twitter.com/ru7EF9qJAv  Secret Invasion News (@SInvasionNews) January 24, 2022

The six-episode series will premiere in late 2022.

(For more news and updates from the world of celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment, and let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments below.)


The possibility of extraterrestrial life has always piqued our interest. Any out of the ordinary sightings attract considerable attention and spark numerous debates. This is what happened in this case.

In Turkey, an eerie 'alien tractor beam' appeared over mountains for three hours, leaving locals baffled.

CEN

The strange sight unfolded at the Zigana Pass in the Pontic Mountains in the province of Gumushane Province, close to the border with Trabzon Province in north-eastern Turkey, Daily Star reported.



The rare phenomenon was captured from the facilities of the Zigana Gumuskayak ski centre at an altitude of 2,100 metres from sea level.

Representational Image/iStock

Those who captured the eerie sight claimed that the huge golden light shone on the slopes of the Zigana Pass from a single point for around three hours.



A spokesperson for the areas' ski centre, Abdullah Eroglu said they have seen a wide range of stunning vistas across the site before, but never like this.

Representational Image/iStock

"We always recommend that our visitors watch the unique views of Zigana. They were lucky to see the most stunning scene today. That beam of light hit the slopes of Zigana for a really long time," Eroglu was quoted as saying by Daily Star.



"We also filmed the scene with our mobile phones. It was like something from a sci-fi movie. Some people also compared it to a vertical rainbow. The guests at our centre were very surprised they saw the scene and immediately reached for their phones to immortalise the moment," he added.



For more from trending, click here.
In the battle against Poland's high levels of smog, scientists are testing out a new "cannon" that uses soundwaves to push toxic particles higher into the atmosphere to allow residents to breathe.

Installed on top of a metal container, the experimental device consists of a large upside-down cone that makes a loud sound every six seconds.

AFP

The aim is to chase the smog from Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, which like many Polish towns and cities faces high levels of pollution every winter when residents fire up their heating systems.

When the sun goes down, a heavy smog descends on the town as chimneys belch out thick smoke.



Residents are broadly in favour of the idea despite the sound.

The smog is very heavy here. We can't even air out the flats because it stinks so much! So, if it can help, let them do the tests because it is very annoying," said Jolanta Wolkowicz, one of the town's residents.

"We can barely hear the sound -- it's like fireworks going off," she added.

AFP

Poland is one of the most polluted countries in Europe, breaching EU norms by hundreds of percentage points at the worst times of the year.

By creating soundwaves, researchers say that the "cannon" helps reduce the concentration of harmful PM2.5 and PM10 particles in the town's air.

"Here we use a shock wave which is created by burning a mixture of acetylene and air. This vertical wave mixes and throws the polluted air upwards," explained Dominik Grybos, a scientist at the Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow.

The toxic particles are sent up several hundred metres high, making them harmless for residents.

"We have found that if we use the cannon for between half an hour and an hour, the pollution is reduced by 15-30% within a perimeter of two-three kilometres from the cannon," Grybos went on, adding that the effects last for "between one and three hours".

AFP

Researchers are trying to work out the required frequency of the blasts, as well as the duration and the time needed for the entire procedure.

The price is estimated at 1,000-1,500 zloty (220-330) for one hour of use.

Grybos said he hopes the invention could find a commercial use, particularly in Poland.

For more trending stories, click here.
Cryptocurrency. This term has taken the world by storm in the past couple of years or so, hasn't it?



From the rollercoaster ride of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu etc, to the NFT fever gripping the entire world, crypto news has been amongst the headlines every now and then.

But neither the journey has been easy nor the future looks any less uncertain for the crypto industry globally.

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While the past year 2021 saw El Salvador become the first country to legalize Bitcoin and two more nations are expected to do so in 2022, many countries are still skeptical towards cryptocurrency, whereas some have either put some restrictions on it or even banned it in totality.

Eager to know who they are? Read on as we bring to you the list of countries that have banned cryptocurrency.

Also Read: Missed Out On Shiba Inu Or Dogecoin In 2021? These Coins Could Be The Next Big Crypto In 2022

1. China

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China has completely banned cryptocurrencies. China's central bank had announced in September 2021 that all transactions of crypto-currencies are illegal and outrightly banned, hence effectively banning digital tokens such as Bitcoin.



Chinese officials had previously too, repeatedly issued warnings against crypto, signalling its citizens to stay clear of the digital asset market. China has clamped down hard on crypto mining as well as currency exchanges in China and overseas.

Earlier, on August 27th 2021, the Deputy Director of the Financial Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), Yin Youping, referred to cryptos as speculative assets and warned people to protect their pockets.

All the actions taken to pull down cryptocurrency have been seen as efforts by the Chinese authorities to float their own e-currency.

Even the PBoC is looking to be one of the worlds first major central banks to launch its own digital currency, in order to closely monitor the transactions of its people.

Also Read: China To Create Its Own 'NFT Industry', But Not Related to Cryptocurrency

2. Bangladesh

Besides China, another neighbouring nation of India has put in place a complete ban on cryptocurrencies. It's Bangladesh.

The central bank of Bangladesh does not allow crypto-trading. Way back in September 2014, it had stated that anybody caught using Bitcoin could be jailed under the country's strict anti-money laundering laws.

And recently in 2021, the Central Bank of Bangladesh stated that Ownership, keeping or transaction of virtual currency cryptocurrency has been declared illegal by Bangladesh Bank. Therefore, to avoid financial and legal risks, the central bank has warned against providing transactions or assistance in virtual currencies including bitcoin and refraining from promoting it.

The Central Bank had clarified in its statement that No virtual currency or cryptocurrency is approved by Bangladesh Bank, In order to avoid potential financial and legal risks, the central bank is again instructing all individuals and entities to refrain from conducting transactions in any form of cryptocurrency or virtual currency (such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, etc.) or to assist in such activities.

Also Read: Tesla CEO's Top Tweets Of 2021 That Sent The Crypto Market Crazy

3. Russia

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Although Russia has not yet outrightly banned cryptocurrency yet, it's aiming to do it soon.



Even the past couple of years have been quite eventful in Russia.

The countrys central bank had given digital currencies legal status in 2020, but it prohibited using them as a means of payment. Whereas in July 2020, Russia for the first time designated cryptocurrency as property liable to taxation.

Russia also has a law, which came into force in January 2021, which bans Russian civil servants from owning any crypto assets.

Even Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly linked cryptocurrency with criminal activity, calling for closer attention to cross-border crypto transactions in particular.

And most recently, in December 2021, Russias central bank is reportedly seeking to ban cryptocurrency investments. This in itself is an escalation of the financial authoritys long-standing scepticism towards Bitcoin and other digital tokens.

If it comes into force, the ban is expected to prevent future transactions in crypto, but would not force current holders to divest their portfolios.

Also Read: India's First Marvel-based NFTs Ready To Launch

4. Egypt

In 2020, The Egyptian Parliament enacted Article 206 of the Central Bank and Banking System Law promulgated by Law No. 194, which prohibits the issuance of cryptocurrencies, trading in them, promoting them, establishing or operating platforms for their trading or implementing activities related to them.

Even in March 2021, CBE indicated in a statement that there is a high risk involved in dealing in these currencies which are dominated by instability and extreme volatility in the value of its prices.

This is a result of the uncontrolled global speculation that takes place on it, which makes investing in it risky and portends the possibility of a sudden loss of its value as a result of not issuing it from any central bank or any official central issuing authority.

Also Read: World's First NFT Restaurant To Open In New York In 2023

5. Morocco

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In November 2017, Morocco banned crypto trading. The government explicitly banned all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin. The countrys currency regulator Ofice des Changes, which works as a division of the Ministry of Finance, issued a statement saying that transactions via virtual currencies will result in penalties and fines.



But despite the ban, Morocco has turned out to be the top nation for bitcoin trading in North Africa. Estimates from Triple A, a Singaporean cryptocurrency provider and aggregator, state that 0.9 million people, or roughly 2.4% of Moroccos total population, currently own cryptocurrency.

Even as per data from Useful Tulips, a platform that tracks peer-to-peer BTC trading across the globe, this trend is confirmed.

But unfortunately for Moroccos crypto enthusiasts, there has been no change in crypto laws in recent years. According to Moroccos Foreign Exchange Office, it will not support a hidden payment system that is not backed by any financial institution.

Also Read: From Working At McDonald's To Becoming A Crypto Pioneer: Meet World's Richest Crypto Billionaire

6. Nigeria

In February 2021, Nigeria announced the imposition of a crypto ban. Although Nigeria doesnt have a law that governs cryptocurrency yet, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had released a statement in February 2021 that appeared to be a ban on the use of bitcoin as well as other digital assets in the country.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had issued a communique prohibiting financial institutions from dealing with local cryptocurrency exchanges and even ordering the shutdown of crypto traders accounts.

But later in multiple instances over the past year 2021, it was noticed that the adoption of cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin, has been growing day by day despite CBNs warnings. But how? It's largely due to P2P (peer to peer) exchanges.

After the February 2021 ban, Nigerians reportedly turned to P2P exchanges for their cryptocurrency transactions. No financial institution is needed to facilitate the transactions on P2P platforms. That's why P2P trades are difficult for the regulatory bodies to trace and it will be hard to fish out and shut down the associated accounts.

Also Read: This Crypto Coin's Price Soared Over 500% in Just 24 Hours Amid Bitcoin Downfall Last Week

7. Bolivia

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In June 2014, Bolivia's central bank outrightly banned all currencies or coins that were neither issued by nor regulated through the government. Although the central bank had specifically mentioned Bitcoin, Quark, Peercoin, Namecoin, Primecoin and Feathercoin in the announcement, the statement seemed to have included all cryptocurrencies.



At that time, this directive by Bolivia was the first of its kind from a South American nation. Even to date, the ban remains in force.

8. Qatar

Although Qatar had been warning banks against trading in cryptocurrencies since 2018, the middle east country banned cryptocurrency trading reportedly in January 2020.

According to a statement shared with The Block by the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Regulatory Authority, virtual asset services may not be conducted in or from the QFC at this time.

As per the statement, the services include fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto trading, custody, and financial services related to virtual assets.

It further specifically stated that the ban includes "anything of value that acts as a substitute for currency, that can be digitally traded or transferred and can be used for payment or investment purposes."

Also Read: Big Four Ask Employees To Disclose This Year's Crypto Investments

9. Turkey

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In April 2021, the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey had issued a regulation banning the use of cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, directly or indirectly, for all payments. The central bank cited irreparable possible damages and significant risks in such transactions.



As per the Official Gazette published, the Central Bank of Turkey stated that cryptocurrencies and other such digital assets based on distributed ledger technology could not be used as an instrument of payment, whether directly or indirectly.

But even as the world has witnessed the Turkish currency Liras crisis and how it plummeted massively in value over the past year or so, the crisis has surprisingly been a gain for Turkeys crypto industry. Click here to know more about it.

10. Algeria

Another country that has banned crypto, is Algeria. In the year 2018, Algeria announced the banning of cryptocurrency.

It passed a financial law that prohibits the use of cryptocurrency and made it illegal to buy, sell, use or hold virtual currencies. To date, the law remains enforced in the country.

Also Read: Kim Kardashian Among Three Celebrities Sued Over Crypto That Crashed After They Promoted It

11. Iraq

In 2017, the Iraqi Central Bank issued a statement clearly prohibiting the use of cryptocurrencies. This stance remains unchanged to date.

Even earlier in 2021, the Ministry of Interior of the Kurdistan Regional Government reportedly issued a statement warning all foreign exchange and money transfer offices to stop brokering cryptocurrencies or they will face legal action.

Besides these countries, North Macedonia, too, has reportedly officially banned cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Etherum etc, thus being the only European country to do so yet.

Also, there seem to be more than 40 nations that have either been contemplating a total ban on crypto, have partially banned it, or have expressed opposition towards it but might have not officially put forth any ban or restrictions on it.

Also Read: A Millennials Guide To (Crypto)Currency

What About Indias Crypto Industry?

As far as India is concerned, the future of the cryptocurrency industry still remains cloudy.

The Central Bank RBI has been vocal about its concerns over crypto. But the much anticipated and awaited bill is something all crypto investors are looking forward to, as that is what can offer a ray of hope and clarity on whether cryptocurrency will be banned or regulated in India.

Also Read: Crypto-assets Can Increase Financial Inclusion, Says Infosys' Nandan Nilekani

For more of such interesting financial content and the latest news, click here.



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Outside the insurance industry, few people likely noticed that Lloyds of London will no longer cover the fallout of cyberattacks exchanged between nation-states. It would be easy to overlook, except that Lloyds is a major global insurer; its actions will have a ripple effect. Its already the case that ransomware attacks across the globe have prompted Lloyds syndicate members to charge higher premiums while pulling back coverage for rank-and-file enterprises by nearly 50%.

Nor does it stop with insurance. A decade ago, then U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned that cyberterrorism was a national security threat. It could be a direct threat to infrastructure like dams or electrical grids, or it could be used to fund bad actors. By one estimate, North Korea pilfered nearly $400 million from crypto exchanges last year. Much of this hacking is made easier by the gaping holes we leave in security infrastructure due to poorly patched open source software.

Were living in a time when everything can and will get hacked, at significant cost to those immediately and indirectly involved. What can we do?

Stay in the cloud

Kleiner Perkins investor Bucky Moore suggests that the clouds will be disintermediated by serverless providers like Vercel, nudging cloud providers to focus more on improving core primitives like compute, storage, etc. Perhaps. Thats something that former Better.com CTO Erik Bernhardsson recently posited as well, and it seems a reasonable analysis.

Even if we scrap the first part of Moores argument, its a safe bet that the clouds will keep investing in better services, including security. True, you dont have to scroll back too far on tech news pages to find the last outage at Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. The AWS outage in December 2021 that took down a big slice of the Internet was caused by a network device issue. In 2017 another outage was caused by an employees error. Its very possible that some outages at AWS or other clouds are caused by bad actors who act with increasing sophistication.

The cloud providers are still a safer bet than trying to manage and secure all your own hardware and software infrastructure. Yes, youre good. No, youre not that good.

Nor is it time to try to achieve application resilience through multiple cloud providers. Multicloud is a great idea for your personal career; its not necessarily a great strategy for a company that probably struggles to master one cloud, much less three. Regardless, the point is that the clouds remain a good source of relative security in a world that is anything but secure.

Take responsibility for your dependencies

As Moore writes, many of the biggest security problems of the past year, including Solarwinds, CodeCov, and Log4j, were commonly rooted in highly sophisticated actors using zero-day exploits to insert malicious code into their software, which was ultimately used to infiltrate the environments of end-users of that software. Theres not much you can do to inspect Solarwinds code to ensure its all fine (frankly, no one really has the time and few have the capability to do so), but there is much we can do to ensure were working with trusted code.

One key way is to employ a zero-trust approach to security, as Kong CTO Marco Palladino has outlined. Zero trust is particularly critical as enterprises move to microservices-based architectures. It assumes there is no safe inside the perimeter zone and constantly checks the identity and rights of people, devices, and services. By defining security at the artifact level and not the repository (like in GitHub), we can digitally sign at the source and have the user of that artifact authenticate it.

Thats just part of the solution.

Given how prevalent open source has become in all software (proprietary, open source, etc.), another key aspect of security is to take ownership of this part of your software supply chain. No, this doesnt translate to email the maintainers of the open source software you depend on and make demands of them, as a multibillion dollar company did recently to noted open source developer Daniel Stenberg. Thats bad form. Its also not likely to get you what you want.

A much better way is to invest in the people who build and maintain the software upon which you depend. Sometimes that means paying the maintainers of those projects in some way, though not always. It turns out the motivations of the people who build open source software are diverse.

Another suggestion is to get involved. For developer Diego Elio Petteno, this means if Im using a [open source] library and something is broken, its my problem to solve it, not insist on someone else to. Not everyone can do this, of course, because not everyone will have the time or aptitude. But its irresponsible to depend on free software without taking steps to ensure the security of that software, which at a minimum involves keeping it updated and patched, and more broadly could (and should) involve finding ways to support those who create and maintain it.

In sum, security isnt something that magically happens. Yes, building on relatively secure cloud platforms is a start, but its just thata start. To truly achieve software security, organizations need to look to new security models like zero trust, even as we get more involved in the open source communities that create so much of the software upon which our companies are built.
As the hype around Web3 reaches fever pitch, there is a growing divide between engineers who see an exciting new paradigm for web development and those who only see efforts to make a quick buck, wrapped in plenty of techno-vapor.

As Web3 is currently defined, it is a vision for the public internet where data and content are registered on blockchains, tokenized, or managed and accessed on peer-to-peer distributed networks. It is the decentralized internet that currently supports cryptocurrencies, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and new types of decentralized applications (called dapps) underpinned by a distributed ledger.

This new model for building software on distributed blockchains is certainly a major departure from traditional three-tier architectures and, depending on your perspective, is a major opportunity for developers who want to jump on the latest tech trend.

According to analysis by crypto-focused venture capital firm Electric Capital, the Web3 developer community is small, with 18,000 active developers working on open source Web3 and crypto projects today, but growing at a 75% clip since the start of 2021.

Dave Walters, CTO of tech hiring platform Hired, told InfoWorld that activity for Web3 candidates has been seeing growth on Hireds platform as of late. Relative demand for Web3 candidates has increased around 67% since the start of 2021.

What is Web3 development, anyway?

The founder of Web3 developer tools company Decentology, Nik Kalyani, sees Web3 as an opportunity to dramatically simplify software development, by more clearly defining and distinguishing between front-end and back-end skills. From a developer standpoint, there is a clear demarcation of where your skill set can be and where to excel, he said.

On the back end, you pick a blockchain, work with a single language, and once you figure out the change in architecture you can start to think more deeply about efficiency, optimizing for storageall of those things that enable you to be a really good smart contract developer, he says. Then front-end developers or designers can take their existing skills and apply them directly to Web3 applications.

How to start with Web3

Former Amazon Web Services (AWS) senior developer advocate Nader Dabit made the transition to Web3 full-time last year when he joined Edge & Node, a company focused on the Graph indexing protocol for blockchain data. Naturally, he is bullish on the transferability of traditional Web 2.0 development skills into the Web3 arena.

The best place to start, Dabit said, is the Ethereum and Solidity documentation. Reading them will provide the fundamentals of understanding the most popular blockchain ecosystem and how to write a smart contract.

The learning curve for Solidity shouldnt be too steep for most developers, as it is similar to C++ and Java. Developers are starting to write smart contracts in the more general-purpose Rust programming language as well.

You also need to get comfortable with a new development environment like Remix, and learn how to deploy to the Ethereum Virtual Machine or a similar execution mechanism for the blockchain of your choosing. Then you need to get to grips with the mechanism for signing transactions to the blockchain, with MetaMask emerging as an early industry-standard tool for this process.

In short, to build or use most Web3 applications today, you will need to come to terms with a whole new world of terminology, set up a crypto wallet, and pay the volatile gas fees required to perform actions on the Ethereum blockchainall of which can be off-putting for new entrants to the space. What scares people, once they get into Ethereum in particular, is the gas costs, Kalyani said. This means many developers tend to stay at the tinkering phase and arent yet ready for deployment.

But that is already changing, as other blockchain platforms like Cosmos, Solana, and Cardano grow in popularity thanks to their promise of lower gas fees. There is also a growing set of testnets available, letting developers test their smart contracts without paying gas fees.

The state of the Web3 stack

Even at this high level, the Web3 developer stack is clearly immature, somewhat opaque, and fragmented. But that may be changing. If all of this is making your head spin, youre not alone. Cobbling together all of these tools is complex and can lead to a painful developer experience, wrote ex-Coinbase developer Preethi Kasireddy in a blog post.

Developer frameworks like Hardhat are already trying to make it easier to build, deploy, and test smart contracts on Ethereum, and frameworks like Polygon promise developers one-click deployment to blockchain networks. And the number of Web3 frameworks and SDKs is sure to grow as interest and investment in this space heats up.

We are at the tipping point where enough components are sufficient for any developer to make the switch [from Web 2.0 to Web3], Onur Akpolat, a software developer at the Interchain Foundation, told InfoWorld.

Its important as technologists to stay up-to-date with the trends, from virtualization to the cloud, and now to Web3, Luke Youngblood, a senior staff engineer at crypto exchange Coinbase and a former solutions architect at AWS, told InfoWorld.

Fortunately, there is a fast-growing range of Web3 tutorials and developer communities emerging as interest in the ecosystem grows, including courses popping up on Udemy and Coursera, and through growing online learning communities like Web3 University, ETHGlobal, and Buildspace.

Like many engineers, Youngblood started his journey into Web3 by mining Bitcoin. It wasnt until 2017 that he started to learn Ethereum and smart contract programming in his spare time, while mired in blockchain and distributed systems design in his day job at AWS. But before long, he saw Web3 as a potential career path. What was revelatory for me was the idea of owning our content and it not being owned in a centralized database by Facebook or Google, he said.

Why Web3? Follow the money

Even after you learn the fundamentals, shifting from tinkering with Web3 on the weekends to committing significant time and energy to the space is a major leap.

But getting in on the ground floor of Web3 also has a major draw: money. Full-time Web3 developer salaries tend to start in six-figure territory, as companies scramble to get into this new space. Web3 candidates already earn an average base salary of $160,000 in the United States, according to Hired.

And thats before you consider the additional benefits of Web3 development being rewarded with new token issues, which can dramatically rise in value if the project takes off. This element of the Web3 ecosystem attracts some people who are in it only for the money, Edge & Nodes Dabit admitted.

A basic premise of Web3 is that every product is simultaneously an investment opportunity ... Its as if being an early user of Facebook or Uber also automatically made you a shareholder of Facebook or Uber, and when those services got huge you got rich, wrote Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine.

Take the example offered by Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike, who wrote about his experience building a prototype dapp called Autonomous Art in a now-viral blog post titled My first impressions of Web3.

The Autonmous Art dapp lets users mint a new token for an NFT when they contribute to a communal piece of art. The cost of making a visual contribution increases over time, and the funds a contributor pays to mint are distributed to all previous artists (visualizing this financial structure would resemble something similar to a pyramid shape), he wrote. The people at the end of the line who are flipping NFTs do not fundamentally care about distributed trust models or payment mechanics, but they care about where the money is.

Madhavan Malolan is the cofounder of Questbook, a startup that aims to help developers earn money by contributing to Web3 projects. He sees Web3 development as similar to contributing to an open source project, but with the key difference that you are materially rewarded for your contributions. That is a huge difference, because developers will still build open source, but there are a lot of people that will jump the fence to get access to these financial rewards, which are an amplifier, he told InfoWorld.

For others, building or contributing to Web3 projects purely for financial gain is problematic. Maybe that is better, but the old guy in me thinks you lose something beautiful when you lose the commons element and the idea of doing something better for each other, Chef cofounder Adam Jacob told InfoWorld. Replacing that incentive with money? That feels like it cheapens it.

Or, as Tim OReilly opined in a recent blog post: The easy money to be made speculating on crypto assets seems to have distracted developers and investors from the hard work of building useful real-world services.

All of this leads the novelist and hobbyist developer Robin Sloan to ask: Would you still be curious about Web3 if those currencies were worthless, in dollar terms? For some people, the answer is yes, absolutely, because they would still find the foundational puzzles compelling. For others, if theyre honest, the answer is nnnot reallyyy.

Web3: Its a brave new world of technical challenges

That doesnt mean that Web3 doesnt present an interesting set of technical challenges for engineers to contend withit just raises the legitimate question of what motivates them.

For Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, its not just about the money but the opportunity to build something truly different. Many developers really do genuinely care about decentralization and trustlessness, he argued on Reddit in response to Marlinspikes blog post.

Despite his well-documented skepticism, even Marlinspike admits that he can easily see why so many people find the Web3 ecosystem so neat, especially on the nerd leveland that creates a space for creativity/exploration that is somewhat reminiscent of early internet days.

For software engineer and vocal Web3 critic Stephen Diehl, Web3 does promise to help solve some compelling computer science problems. However, from an engineering perspective, where you have to actually apply that technology, I am struggling to see useful applications in the business world, he told InfoWorld.

Even in the face of this sort of skepticism, there are plenty of developers who will be excited to get their teeth into something genuinely new. People feel the possibility to create something that is a breakthrough with Web3. They feel like they could create the next unicorn on Web3. This is why there are lots of indie projects in this domain, because of that pioneering feeling, Web3 advocate and developer Vittorio Rivabella told InfoWorld.

This is still a relatively small community with the space for people to create anything, and there is lots of investment happening, Ashley Ashnichrist Christenson, a senior community manager at NFT marketplace SuperRare, told InfoWorld. That feeling was something I was looking out for. It felt like my dot-com moment.

Is Web3 here to stay?

Being part of Generation Zs dot-com moment can be a compelling proposition, but it should also act as a warning against overcommitting to something that has the potential to burst in a major way.

For several engineers who have delved into the world of Web3, such as Hubspot software developer Molly White, some key tenets of the underlying technologynamely decentralization and immutabilitysimply dont stand up to scrutiny.

An enormous amount of trust is being placed in the relatively few platforms through which blockchain data is being funneled, nullifying many of the supposed benefits of the decentralization of blockchains in the first place, she wrote in a blog post.

She uses the example of recent thefts of the highly-sought-after Bored Apes NFTs to highlight how, in a truly immutable, decentralized world, where code is law and no centralized authority can intervene, a transfer of an asset would be final regardless of whether it was achieved through the proper means.

However, the centralized exchangein this case, the OpenSea marketplacecan and has stepped in to freeze the asset, making it essentially worthless to a thief. Blockchain technologies have somehow managed to land in the worst of both worldsdecentralized but not really, immutable but not really, she concluded.

Similarly, Marlinspike has concluded that much of what Web3 promises for developers still closely resembles the reliance on certain central platforms that has defined the Web 2.0 era. To make these technologies usable, the space is consolidating around  platforms. Again, he wrote, citing Infura, Alchemy, and MetaMask as already-established developer bottlenecks.

UC Berkeley computer science lecturer Nicholas Weaver is even more fiercely critical. The technical underpinnings are so terrible that it is clear they exist only to hype the underlying cryptocurrencies, he wrote in a Usenix blog post. The actual utility of these decentralized systems is already available in modern distributed systems in ways that are several orders of magnitude more efficient and more capable.
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By Leng Shumei and Yu Xi

Zhao Lijian Photo: VCG

Chinese Foreign Ministry on Friday slammed the US' recent "missile proliferation" sanctions on three Chinese military enterprises, saying it is a typical "bullying behavior" aimed to contain Chinese enterprises out of political motives, and reflects US double standards.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian urged the US to revoke the sanctions and stop suppressing and smearing China and Chinese enterprises, noting that China will reserve the right to take further action.

A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday that China firmly opposes US' sanctions on Chinese companies, which are totally groundless, and urged the US to correct its wrongdoings.

"The US arbitrarily suppressing and sanctioning Chinese companies has seriously damaged the interests of companies on both sides, disrupted the normal international economic and trade order, and threatened the security and stability of the global industrial chain and supply chain. It's not conducive to the recovery and development of the world economy," the spokesperson said.

China will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, the spokesperson added.

The remarks came as Federal Register, the daily journal of the US government, announced Friday that the US government determined that the three Chinese enterprises and their sub-units and successors had engaged in missile technology proliferation activities that require the imposition of the sanctions pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act.

The three enterprises are China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation First Academy, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Fourth Academy, and Poly Technologies Incorporated.

Sanctions, including denial of all US government contracts with them and a ban on the importation into the US of their products, are being imposed for two years, according to the announcement.

Zhao noted that China always opposes the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and carriers of these weapons, and has strict regulations on the export of missile technologies.

China's cooperation with some countries is in accordance with international laws and does not engage in any missile proliferation, Zhao said.

However, the US always holds double standards on the issue of nonproliferation, as it not only supports allies to develop missile technologies, but also sells Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometers and capable of carrying nuclear warheads to Australia, Zhao said.

The US should reflect on itself rather than make irresponsible remarks on other countries' normal military trade, Zhao said.

The US government's actions obstruct normal bilateral communications, which indicates its psychological imbalance as the US government has politicized all issues related to China or Chinese companies, Li Haidong, a professor at the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Friday.

US enterprises and the US government have a close relationship. However, the US government doesn't care whether the actions would damage enterprises doing business in China, Li said, noting that the US government has the hegemonic mentality.

The US government has become a source of disorderly relations between China and the US, and also a stumbling block to the development of US enterprises in China, Li said, noting that it's still important for the world, including China, to strengthen communication with US enterprises to let the US government recover from a sick status and not to trigger further crises.
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- China has decided to provide three more batches of emergency assistance to Tonga in the wake of the recent volcanic eruptions and tsunami there, said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian Monday.

Zhao told a daily press briefing in response to a related query that China has been paying close attention to the situation in Tonga and is providing assistance to the country through multiple channels.

The three batches of emergency aid include emergency supplies worth 20 million yuan (3.16 million U.S. dollars), emergency humanitarian aid in cash, and 1 million yuan worth of aid materials raised through the Chinese Embassy in Fiji, which is close to Tonga.

China will spare no effort and overcome all difficulties to deliver the 20 million yuan worth of supplies to Tonga as soon as possible, said Zhao.

The supplies raised through the Chinese Embassy in Fiji, including drinking water, emergency food, generators, water pumps, and chainsaws, were on their way to Tonga, he added.

The first batch of emergency supplies arrived in Tonga on Jan. 19.

"China will continue to provide relief and post-disaster reconstruction assistance to the best of its ability in light of the disaster situation and the needs of Tonga," said the spokesperson. 
Create the Mood with Yummy Food that Brings Romance to Your Table
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Beijing Municipality has swung into action, adopting swift and targeted measures to contain the spread of infections after a local resurgence in COVID-19 cases was reported recently.

On Sunday, Fengtai, a district of about 2 million people, conducted district-wide nucleic acid testing to mitigate the risk of community transmission after a cluster infection was detected.

Authorities in Fengtai set up over 1,000 sampling sites -- mostly in residential areas -- and dispatched over 13,000 medical and service support workers to ensure smooth and efficient testing. Besides, 10 other districts in the Chinese capital sent 4,600 medical personnel to Fengtai to help with the anti-epidemic work.

"Early in the morning, workers set up the sampling site in our residential compound and started knocking on doors to remind residents to undergo testing," said a woman surnamed Xu in Shouwei residential area on Sunday.

Authorities in other districts of Beijing have encouraged residents to undergo nucleic acid testing to identify potential infections and thwart the spread of the coronavirus.

"I have been tested and it was very fast. I plan to do it again in a few days," said a woman surnamed Zhang in Xicheng district. "Given the latest resurgence, undergoing the testing offers us assurance."

Beijing reported nine locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, including five confirmed cases and four asymptomatic carriers from 4 p.m. Saturday to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Since Jan. 15, the city has reported a total of 43 local COVID-19 cases, with six attributable to the Omicron variant and 37 to the Delta variant, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the municipal disease prevention and control center.

Currently, the Omicron variant outbreak has stabilized, with new cases coming from areas already under epidemic control and the risk of community spread is limited, Pang added.

Li Ang, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission, said the clinical symptoms of patients infected with the Omicron variant are milder than those with Delta, but Omicron is more infectious.

Chen Xiaoyou, deputy director of the designated Ditan Hospital, believes that it is precisely the mild symptoms of the Omicron cases that pose difficulties to contain the epidemic in megacities.

"Many patients with mild or no symptoms will not go to medical institutions for testing. They can only be detected during routine screening," Chen said. "A longer period of hidden transmission will lead to an increase in the number of community infections." 
A judge has dismissed Ocean City from a federal lawsuit over a beach umbrella getting caught in the wind and impaling a woman.

The lawsuit filed in June 2021 claimed that negligence on the part of the town and the rental company that owned the umbrella led to Jill Mendygrals injuries, The Daily Times reported.

A judge granted a motion to dismiss the claim against Ocean City on Jan. 13 but extended the chance for the plaintiff to file an updated complaint with more details.

Facts shared in the judges opinion show that Mendygral, of Pennsylvania, was on the beach in 2018 when a wind advisory was in effect. An umbrella became dislodged from the sand and (flew) into the air, violently stabbing Plaintiff in her chest, according to the document.

She was taken to a hospital for emergency surgery, and the lawsuit claimed she was left with severe and permanent injuries.

The lawsuit argued that Ocean City was aware of the risks related to open beach umbrellas amid heavy wind but didnt warn beachgoers.

A judge sided with the town, which said it was protected by governmental immunity and owed no duty of care to plaintiff under a provision that limits liability for landowners who make their property available for recreational use by the public.

While Ocean City cant be sued directly in this instance, the judges opinion says a claim can be brought against an individual worker because Mendygral alleges vicarious liability on the part of Ocean City for the acts of its employees.

The judge has given the plaintiff 21 days to amend the complaint by either naming an individual or John Doe defendant.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Legislation Claims
Italys top insurer Generali on Friday said it would press on with a list of candidates for its new board in line with regulatory guidelines, as a battle among its leading shareholders rages on.

Italian market watchdog Consob on Friday published final remarks in response to a query over whether a companys outgoing board could legitimately propose new board candidates.

Generalis Boardroom Battle Escalates With Resignation of No. 2 Investor Update: Generalis CEO Bets on Buyback, Dividend Hike, Bold Profit Goals to Keep Job

Such a practice, which is common for U.S. or British companies with a wide shareholder base, is more rare in Italy, where leading shareholders normally pick board nominees.

Deeming it a legitimate practice, Consob said 52 Italian companies at the end of 2020 had introduced in their by-laws the possibility for the outgoing board to select candidates to be put to a shareholder vote.

Only 11 companies, including Generali following changes to its by-laws in 2020, actually make use of it, Consob said.

Generali welcomes the guidance, a spokesman for the insurer said. The company confirms that preparation for the board list continues in accordance with Consob guidelines.

Europes third-largest insurer is caught in a war involving its top three shareholders  investment bank Mediobanca and Italian tycoons Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone and Leonardo Del Vecchio.

Caltagirone and a representative for Del Vecchio this month quit Generalis board as the two billionaires prepare to draw up their own slate of nominees for the board, including their own candidate for the chief executive officer job.

With Mediobancas backing, Generalis board has proposed naming current CEO Philippe Donnet for a third mandate at an annual general meeting in April.

Generalis board this week started examining other possible board candidates helped by leadership advisory firm Russell Reynolds.

Two people with knowledge of the matter said former Ray-Ban owner Luxottica CEO Andrea Guerra had been proposed, but he had declined the offer.

Guerra, now a top executive at luxury goods group LVMH , led Luxottica for a decade before falling out with Del Vecchio, the eyewear groups founder.

(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro and Valentina Za; editing by Paul Simao)

Topics Generali Life Assurance (Thailand) Plc.
The operator of Japans crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant has found that a coolant solution, used to create an ice wall halting the seepage of groundwater into reactor buildings, has leaked from two storage tanks.

The leakage has had no impact on the wall or environment, said Tokyo Electric Power Co Holdings Inc (Tepco).

Fukushima Plant Officials Admit Faulure to Probe Cause of Faulty Filters Atomic Energy Agency Seeks Japan Transparency on Release of Fukushima Water

Still, it underscores the unpredictable challenges in the clean-up of the site, nearly 11 years after an earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japans northeastern coast, causing the worlds worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986.

Only last year, Japans government approved the release of over 1 million tonnes of irradiated water from the site after treatment, starting around spring 2023. Tepco last month said it would build a tunnel reaching into the sea for the operation.

On Sunday, Tepco spokesperson Tsuyoshi Shiraishi said about four tonnes of a calcium chloride solution used to maintain the ice wall had leaked in what was the eighth such leakage.

Were now confirming the reason, he said.

The last leak in December 2019 saw 16 tonnes spilled, likely due to metal fatigue resulting from vibrations caused by construction vehicles, Shiraishi said.

There was no immediate impact on the walls function as it takes several months for the wall to thaw in the absence of coolant, he said.

Separately, a group of six men and women is set to file on Jan. 27 a lawsuit against Tepco claiming they developed thyroid cancer due to exposure to radiation from the Fukushima disaster, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

The plaintiffs, who were minors living in Fukushima prefecture at the time of the 2011 disaster, are seeking 616 million yen ($5.42 million) in compensation from the electricity provider, the Mainichi said.

If the complaint was served, Tepco would respond in good faith after hearing the contents of the claims and arguments in detail, the firm said in a statement.

($1 = 113.6800 yen) (Reporting by Daniel Leussink; editing by Christopher Cushing)

Photograph: In this Saturday, Feb. 27, 2021, file photo, nuclear reactors of No. 5, center left, and No. 6 look over tanks storing water that was treated but still radioactive, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, northeastern Japan. Photo credit: AP Photo/Hiro Komae, file.
Volkswagen AG agreed to a $3.5 million settlement with Ohio over claims the German automaker violated state laws by manipulating vehicle computer software in its vehicles to mask carbon dioxide emissions, the state attorney general said.

In November, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Volkswagens bid to avoid lawsuits filed by officials in three states including Ohio.

Volkswagens U.S. subsidiary argued that under the Clean Air Act, the landmark U.S. environmental law, only the federal government can pursue emissions claims. VW noted it had already reached a settlement of more than $20 billion with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and owners.

This agreement fully resolves Ohios legacy claims and puts this matter behind the company as we focus on building a future of sustainable mobility, VW said Friday.

Texas and two counties in Utah and Florida have pending lawsuits.

The settlement is a fraction of what Ohio had previously sought. VW said in prior court papers that Ohios claims could have totaled $350 million per day, or more than $127 billion per year, over a multi-year period.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said the damage to the environment and consumer trust required us to hold Volkswagen accountable and this settlement does that.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the attorneys general office will split the award settling the 2016 lawsuit.

In 2015, Volkswagen disclosed it had used sophisticated software to evade emissions requirements in nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide. It also misled the EPA, which started asking questions in 2014.

In addition to equipping vehicles with defeat devices before they were sold, VW also installed software updates after sale, which was the conduct at issue before the Supreme Court and in the Ohio lawsuit.

Ohios lawsuit said VW software updates allowed the vehicle to be put into test mode which suspended normal driving operations and reduced emissions only during testing. (Reporting by David Shepardson and Nate Raymond; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Topics Claims Ohio
Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests urged Nebraska lawmakers on Friday to pass a law that would let people who were abused decades ago file lawsuits against the church or other organizations that were negligent.

The proposal comes on the heels of a Nebraska attorney general report that identified 258 victims who made credible abuse allegations against church officials, dating back decades. None of those cases, however, are expected to result in prosecutions or legal judgments because the statutes of limitation for both criminal charges and civil lawsuits have expired.

Members of the Legislatures Judiciary Committee are now reviewing a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for lawsuits. The sponsor, Republican Sen. Rich Pahls, of Omaha, said the measure is a start of a multiyear push to bring justice for victims of abuse.

Pahls said the attorney generals report shows the need to bring more accountability to institutions such as the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts of America, or USA Gymnastics, which have all been rocked by child sex abuse scandals. He pointed to his own experience as a former principal at Millard Public Schools, where educators are governed by mandatory reporting laws.

If we knew there was abuse going on and didnt report it, wed get in trouble, he said.

If it passes, Nebraska would become the 18th state to abolish statutes of limitations for such civil actions in child sex abuse cases, said Kathryn Robb, the executive director of Child USAdvocacy.

Another 27 states have passed revival laws, which expand statutes of limitation and let victims file lawsuits if their claim had expired under the previous time window. In Nebraska, child sex abuse victims can file lawsuits until they turn 33.

Robb, a child sex abuse survivor, said many children suffer devastating, long-term consequences after theyre abused and may go for decades without telling anyone what happened to them. The trauma may manifest itself years later as post-traumatic stress, eating disorders, substance abuse or running afoul of the law.

Why should perpetrators and other bad actors be protected by the passage of time while the victims suffer in perpetuity? she said.

Stacy Naiman, who said she was groomed and molested in 1999 by an ONeill priest who was also her religion teacher, said the priest was never charged and cant be sued under current state law. Naiman said she suffered from severe depression and anxiety after the abuse and attempted suicide.

I was devastated, defeated and lost all hope for justice, she said. The pending bill will force (the church) to confront their inaction.

The bill drew opposition from Nebraskas Catholic Church and the states insurance industry, which would likely have to make large payouts for decadesold abuse cases if the measure were to pass.

Tom Venzor, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, said the church is profoundly sorrowful for the pain inflicted on victims, but he argued that statutes of limitation are designed to ensure that institutions dont face decades-old lawsuits involving people who are no longer alive and memories that may be unreliable.

Statutes of limitation are an attempt to balance the interests of plaintiffs and defendants, he said.

Korby Gilbertson, a lobbyist for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, said the bill could lead to lawsuits against organizations under new leadership that wasnt involved with previous offenses. She also noted that civil cases have a lower standard of proof than criminal matters in which prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The owner of that business may not be the same owner, may not have any knowledge of the crime that was committed, she said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation Nebraska
Brown & Brown Names Batta, Raveling, Kusserelis to Key Posts

Brown & Brown, a national insurance brokerage firm, has elevated three people to senior leadership positions, the company announced.

Anurag Batta, who previously was chief operating officer at Zurich North America, is now COO with B&Bs wholesale brokerage section. Batta has more than 20 years in the insurance business.

Mary Raveling, who joined B&B in 2018, is now president of Property/Casualty for the retail segment, based in Minneapolis.

Tom Kusserelis is the chief operating officer for the National Programs division. He has been with the firm since 2015, overseeing a number of areas, including branding and innovation.

Brown & Brown, based in Daytona Beach, Florida, has 11,000 people in 300 sites around the country.

The Hartford Names Vaughn Head Of Global Specialty Distribution

The Hartford has promoted Richard Vaughn to head of Global Specialty Distribution. In his new role, Vaughn will drive distribution and sales across The Hartfords set of products and channels in Global Specialty.

Prior to joining Global Specialty, Vaughn served as vice president of Distribution Management for The Hartfords Enterprise Sales & Distribution function. In this capacity, he led The Hartfords Enterprise National Client Practices group, VIP Program and Sales & Distribution Marketing, Events and Communication disciplines. With a career that spans 20 years at The Hartford, Vaughn has held numerous roles of increasing responsibility across underwriting, sales, management, and executive leadership spanning multiple business units and disciplines.

He will report to The Hartfords Head of Global Specialty Adrien Robinson.

Chubb Names Spitzer Treasurer, Harkin CFO for North America

Chubb Limited announced that Drew Spitzer has been appointed treasurer of the company. Currently, Spitzer serves as chief financial officer for North America Insurance. In his new role, he will be responsible for all treasury-related functions of the company globally.

Kevin Harkin is succeeding Spitzer as chief financial officer for North America Insurance. Currently, Harkin serves as senior vice president, North America Financial Operations.

Both appointments are effective March 1.

Spitzer will report to Peter Enns, executive vice president, Chubb Group and chief financial officer, and succeeds Mark Hammond, who is leaving the company. Hammond will remain with Chubb until March 1 to ensure a smooth transition.

Harkin will report to John Lupica, vice chairman, Chubb Group and president, North America Insurance and to Enns.

Spitzer has been with Chubb for 18 years and has more than 25 years of experience in finance, accounting and insurance. Prior to serving as CFO of Chubbs North American operations, he was CFO of Combined Insurance, a Chubb affiliate that sells personal accident and supplemental health insurance coverages. Spitzer joined the company, then named ACE, in 2006 as senior vice president and deputy chief accounting officer. Prior to Chubb, Spitzer was a partner at Fecteau & Co., an accounting firm, and a vice president at Rockledge Financial Group. He began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Harkin has more than 20 years of experience in corporate finance and accounting. As senior vice president, North America Financial Operations, he provided finance support for field operations and distribution management in the region, including overseeing the strategic use of technology and data in finance integration initiatives. He joined the company, then named ACE, in 2007 and has held finance roles in corporate financial planning and analysis, expense management, close functions and statutory reporting. He began his career in public accounting at Arthur Andersen and, later, EY.

Topics Chubb
Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, has spent 4-1/2 years battling the New York Times over an editorial she said falsely linked her to a deadly Arizona mass shooting that left a U.S. congresswoman seriously wounded.

On Monday, Palin is poised to try to begin convincing jurors in a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that the newspaper and its former editorial page editor James Bennet defamed her.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff marks a rare instance of a major media company defending its editorial practices before an American jury. Opening statements could take place as soon as Monday, following jury selection.

Breaking News: Sarah Palins Positive COVID Test Delays New York Times Defamation Trial

Palin bears the high burden of showing by clear and convincing evidence that there was actual malice involved in the newspapers editorial writing process.

This is a lawsuit over an editorial, essentially an opinion. This is a potentially dangerous area, said Roy Gutterman, a Syracuse University law and communications professor. If we give public officials a green light to litigate on editorials they disagree with, wheres the end?

Palin, 57, has accused the Times of defaming her in a June 14, 2017, editorial linking her political action committee (PAC) to the 2011 mass shooting in an Arizona parking lot that left six people dead and then-U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords wounded. Palin is seeking unspecified damages, but according to court papers has estimated $421,000 in damage to her reputation.

The editorial said the link to political incitement was clear in the 2011 shooting, and that the incident came after Palins PAC circulated a map putting 20 Democrats including Giffords under stylized cross hairs.

It was published after a shooting in Alexandria, Virginia in which U.S. Representative Steve Scalise, a member of the House of Representatives Republican leadership, was wounded.

Palin objected to language that Bennet had added to a draft prepared by a Times colleague. She said the added material fit Bennets preconceived narrative, and as an experienced editor he knew and understood the meaning of his words.

The Times quickly corrected the editorial to disclaim any connection between political rhetoric and the Arizona shooting, and Bennet has said he did not intend to blame Palin.

Bennets immediate sort of emergency mode or panic mode upon learning what happened strongly suggests he had been unaware of any mistake, said Benjamin Zipursky, a Fordham University law professor.

Negligence or carelessness  even gross negligence  is clearly not good enough for Palin to win, Zipursky said.

SUPREME COURT PRECEDENT

It has been 58 years since the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the actual malice standard in the landmark decision called New York Times v. Sullivan, which made it difficult for public figures to win libel lawsuits.

Two current justices, conservatives Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, have suggested revisiting that standard.

Palin has signaled in court papers she would challenge the Sullivan case precedent on appeal if she loses at trial.

Don Herzog, a University of Michigan law professor, said Palin would have trouble showing that the Times subjectively doubted or disbelieved the truth of what it presented as fact.

In context, and given the kind of publication it was, this is a matter of opinion and so simply not actionable in defamation, Herzog said.

While the trial could spotlight office politics at the Times, the newspaper could argue that mistakes do happen under deadline pressure.

It has said that despite Palins efforts to demonstrate its liberal bias and views on gun control, the editorial was never about her and did not undermine her reputation.

Gov. Palin already was viewed as a controversial figure with a complicated history and reputation, and in the time since the editorial was published, Gov. Palin has prospered, the Times said in a Jan. 17 court filing.

The trial is expected to last five days.

Gutterman said he expects the Times to prevail.

Its unfortunate that this happened at one of the most prominent newspapers in the county, on deadline, but even a mistake does not rise to actual malice, Gutterman said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Helen Coster in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder)

Topics New York
A lawsuit alleging racial discrimination at Tulane Universitys School of Medicine has been settled.

Dr. Princess Dennar, a former director of the schools residency program, filed the lawsuit in 2020. It alleged a decade of discrimination, unfair rotations for doctors in training in her program and unsafe conditions for patients. It was quietly dismissed on Dec. 30.

Neither party commented on the specifics of the suit or the terms of the settlement. Tulane spokesperson Michael Strecker told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate only that the claims have been resolved.

Dennar told the newspaper she will continue working at University Medical Center, where she specializes in internal medicine. And while she is no longer affiliated with Tulane, she plans to continue to be a mentor after having cultivated Tulanes first all-female, all-person-of-color cohort of medical residents.

I want to bring attention to racism in medicine on a national level, so that not just physicians but also patients have a voice, she told the newspaper, without commenting on the settlement.

Dennar filed the suit four months before she was dismissed as program director of the internal medicine pediatrics specialty, by the vote of a panel of 15 program directors and other doctors.

After that, dozens of residents called for the resignation of the schools dean and, alleging in a letter that there was deeply entrenched structural racism and bias throughout the medical school.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which regulates graduate medical programs, placed the residency program on probation in July. An ACGME statement at the time said the organization became aware of public reports of racial bias at Tulanes GME program last February.

Strecker told the newspaper that the medical school is working to address the councils concerns.

Our goal is not just to have the probation status lifted but to make lasting, systemic change that will position us as a national leader among medical schools in graduate medical education, Strecker said.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits K-12
The head of one of the larger property insurance companies in Florida said Friday that without a doubling of some of its rates, it will be forced to seek more capital from investment firms, a prospect that may not be sustainable in the long run.

At a rate hearing held by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, the deputy commissioner of property and casualty, Susanne Murphy, asked Southern Fidelity Insurance officials if the troubled company could survive.

Is it accurate to say that without increases of the sort that you are seeking approval of today, that Southern Fidelity Insurance Co. would not be a going concern? Murphy asked.

Bryon Wells, the co-CEO of Clearwater-based Southern Fidelity, which is seeking increases of 85% and 111%, answered this way: This rate increase is vital to the financial stability of this company as we move forward. Without these increases we would have to have substantial amounts of capital.

The company, with almost 99,000 policyholders in Florida, has received several rate increases in the last two years, but now needs some of the largest ones ever, thanks to what insurers have called continuing losses and claims litigation costs in Florida.

Fridays rate hearings, which also examined smaller rate requests from Cypress Property & Casualty and from Centauri Specialty Insurance, gave some insight into the financial problems facing some Florida-admitted carriers. The meetings also highlighted what the insurance industry has said is a vital need  more legislation that could help curb claims litigation and prevent more companies from becoming insolvent.

Southern Fidelitys chief actuary, Missy Shelley, said that 2019 and 2021 legislative reform efforts have had only modest impacts on litigation costs. The frequency, severity and cost of represented claims more than tripled from 2017 to 2021, and did not slow down after the 2019 assignment-of-benefits legislation. The trendline for non-represented claims, though, has stayed almost flat, data from the carrier show.

But with little movement on insurance bills in the Florida Legislature this year, there is growing concern that further reform measures wont get done.

While several insurance bills have been introduced, an omnibus bill drafted by the chairman of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee has been touted as the best bet to curb solicitation by roofers, limit more roof-damage claims to actual cash value, and help put the brakes on the growth of the state-run Citizens Property Insurance and its under-priced polices.

But two weeks into the 2022 session, Sen. Jim Boyds Senate Bill 1728 has not made it to a committee hearing, sparking anguish from industry leaders. Although a Boyd staff member said that because the bill was filed just before the Jan. 11 deadline, it did not make it on the committees Jan. 18 agenda. But the measure also is missing from the committee meeting agenda for Tuesday, Jan. 25.

Hes chairman of the committee. If the chairman isnt putting his own bill on the agenda, it may not see any movement this year, said Michael Carlson, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of Florida. Thats disheartening.

State Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, a frequent proponent for more reforms, said Friday that he, too, is concerned about the lack of action on the Senate bill.

I truly hope theres a grand plan with the House, said Brandes, a member of the Banking and Insurance Committee.

Brandes has crafted his own bill, SB 186, that would help offset any future deficits that Citizens incurs by placing a surcharge on premiums. The measure also could help curtail Citizens growth by limiting policyholders ability to say no to take-out offers, and would allow more surplus lines carriers to participate in the Citizens take-out program.

That piece of legislation is scheduled to be discussed at Tuesdays Senate Banking and Insurance Committee meeting.

But insurance industry advocates have said more is needed, and some are beginning to wonder why lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis arent doing more to address the problems still facing Floridas property insurance market.

Its been a comedy of apathy, trial bar influence and legislative malpractice that has led Florida to these 30% annual rate increases, said Brandes, who is term-limited and will be out of the Legislature after this session.

Now, he added, its a five-alarm fire but no ones coming to the rescue.

Some Florida Democrats have also taken notice of DeSantis apparent absence on the simmering property insurance issue. An outspoken former state representative, Sean Shaw, tweeted last week: Manatees dying, insurance rates soaring, and no affordable housingand you wonder why all the Gov talks about is race and the press, according to FloridaPolitics.com.

A few legislators have said that lawmakers, facing redistricting, abortion and COVID issues, may have little appetite this year for more insurance reforms. SB 76, approved last spring, made needed changes but may take a while to show results, they have said.

But Brandes pointed out that the Legislature wont meet again until March 2023, meaning that any legislation that gets passed then wont take effect until summer of that year or January 2024.

Many companies will not be able to survive until then, he said.

Southern Fidelity could well be one of those companies, if regulators dont approve the requested rate increases. The carrier, now part of Gulf & Atlantic Insurance Companies, shows in its third quarter financial report that its direct losses in the preceding 12 months were double those for the previous 12 months.

The company posted a $116 million net loss, preceded by a $119 million net loss in 2020. Southern maintained a statutory surplus of $45 million at the end of the quarter. But the company also has received more than $200 million in capital investment, much of it from HSCM Bermuda, part of Hudson Structure Capital Management, which took a majority stake in Gulf & Atlantic in 2020.

Its not clear if Hudson will continue to support Southern Fidelity. Hudsons founder and managing partner, Michael Millette, could not be reached for comment Friday.

Its also uncertain when regulators will make a decision on the rate request. A spokesperson for the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation said the agency has no timeframe, but that the decision would come after the written comments period closes Feb. 4.

Topics Florida Politics
The West Virginia Senate has passed a bill that would create a mutual insurance company dedicated to coal mine reclamation costs.

Senate Bill 1, backed by Senate President Craig Blair, would help the state avoid what Blair has called a financial tsunami from the reclamation of vast areas that have been spoiled by years of mining. A recent state audit found that West Virginia could be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in mine reclamation costs if companies holding bonds continue to go defunct, according to news reports.

The Senate approved the bill on Jan. 26. Its now in the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee.

West Virginia for years has had a Special Reclamation Fund, funded through a tax on coal, but the concern is that it could be overwhelmed in coming years. The state also allows mining companies to post bonds of as much as $5,000 per acre, but a state environmental agency has said that would cover only a fraction of the reclamation costs, and a number of coal companies have gone bankrupt in recent years, news outlets have reported.

Federal law requires states to keep enough funding available to reclaim areas where permit holders have defaulted, and a recent study projected that costs could reach almost $500 million over the next 20 years. The Sierra Club environmental group last year filed a lawsuit aimed at pressuring the federal government to intervene in the cost of the mine cleanup.

Supporters of the West Virginia bill acknowledged that the full liabilities of such a mutual insurance company are not yet known, but the bill calls for an initial investment of $50 million from the state. That would come from the state Department of Environmental Protection but would be repaid, without interest, to the department once the reclamation work is finished, the bill explains.

The bill also would authorize the mutual company to issue performance bonds to mine operators.

Topics Carriers Virginia Mining
SUVA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Samoa extended on Monday its nationwide lockdown by 72 hours after five new COVID-19 positive cases were reported in the Pacific island country.

According to a report by the newspaper Samoa Observer, Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa announced the five new cases in a national address, saying the infections were detected in the frontline workers who were monitoring 10 air passengers testing positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday last week.

The 10 people earlier found to be infected were among 73 returning residents on board a charter flight arriving from Brisbane, Australia.

The extended lockdown in Samoa will run from 6 p.m. on Monday to 6 p.m. local time on Thursday.

To enable the public in the island nation to replenish their daily life supplies, shops, money transfer services as well as markets will be opened on Tuesday and Thursday during the allocated hours from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time.

Last Saturday, the Samoan prime minister announced a 48-hour national lockdown.

Currently, Samoa continues its Alert Level 3 in response to COVID-19 since last Saturday.

The country reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 in February last year. 
A federal judge in Tampa has ordered a roofing contractor to revise its lawsuit complaint, which alleges racketeering law violations against United Property & Casualty Co., after the original complaint failed to meet federal court rules.

Upon review, the Court finds this complaint constitutes an impermissible shotgun pleading, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle wrote this month.

Specifically, the judge said, SFR Services alleges that United violated multiple laws but the contractor failed to separate the allegations into individual counts. Worse still, Count IV speculates that United Property violated other unnamed provisions of Florida law, which patently fails to satisfy the pleading requirements

Such a vague complaint does not give the defense adequate notice of the grounds for the claims, Mizelle noted. SFR Services, represented by Coral Gables attorney Robert Pelier and others, has until Wednesday, Jan. 26 to refile the lawsuit.

The case has gained attention across the state, and may be one of the first to allege violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as the RICO Act, by a property insurer. The initial complaint charged that United worked with its desk adjusters to revise field adjusters reports and to discount or deny many assignment-of-benefits claims.

United, which has not yet filed an answer to the complaint, also pressured field adjuster firms to avoid reporting some roof damage altogether after Hurricane Irma in 2017, the original lawsuit charges.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation Property Casualty
Woodies 70% off home furniture sale

In need of a home refresh? Drop in to your local Woodies this week for their whopping 70% off home furniture sale with big savings on cabinets, wardrobes, office desks, bookshelves and dining tables. The Alaska 3 Door 2 Drawer Oak & White Gloss Wardrobe is a steal at 210 (originally 700).

Peggy 3 Shelf Bookcase in white, was 90, now 27.00 at Woodie's

We also love the Peggy 3 Shelf Bookcase in white, was 90, now 27.00 and the Compact Desk in White & Grey, was 130, now 39. And while youre there, the DIY giant is also currently running a 2 for 38 offer on any Dulux 2.5L Standard Coloured Emulsion.

Beautiful beverages

Are you in dire need of a new kettle, or have you been pining over an expresso machine since your local coffee truck rode off into the sunset? Lidl is the place to be this week, with Silvercrest kettles going for 14.99 and a Silvercrest espresso machine for just 69.99. The latter is available in gorgeous shades of blue, pink or anthracite, comes with a 3-year warranty, a 2-in-1 high-pressure steam nozzle: hot water dispenser and milk frother and 2 filter inserts for 1 or 2 cups.

Silvercrest espresso machine, 69.99, Lidl

Over in Supervalu, the Homemaid Nutrient Blender is one of two flash deals this week going for 30 instead of its RRP of 45.

Pink to make the boys wink

Hype Heart Womens Maxi Tea Dress, 21.99 on justhype.com.

It might be a bit early to be talking about Valentines Day, but we just want January to be over and out already, so well keep pressing forward. With this in mind, were eyeing the Hype Heart Womens Maxi Tea Dress from justhype.com. Available in sizes 4 through to 20, its currently on sale for just 21.99. Over in Dunnes Stores, theres lots of love in the Savida section. The Savida Collar Heart Print Blouse would look adorable with a red mini and is going for 25.

Myleene Klass Kids Heart Print Pyjamas, 28 - 31, Next

Where cosies are concerned, Pennys have just released some of their Valentines Day stock including an adorable heart print romper for 14. Over in Next, Myleene Klass Kids Heart Print Pyjamas (28 - 31) are just too cute.

Reduce your carbon pawprint

IMAC Zeus 50 Recycled Plastic Kennel reduced to 44.99 in Petmania

We all know our daily behaviours have an impact on the planet, with the smallest of changes making a big impact over time. But did you know there are ways you can help your pet reduced their carbon pawprint? Petmania, the Irish-owned pet care specialists, currently have up to 25% off a range of eco friendly products on the site including 20% off a range of HOWND natural shampoos. Other products in the eco-friendly range include dog collars, beds and kennels made from recycled plastic like the IMAC Zeus 50 Recycled Plastic Kennel reduced to 44.99 (originally 59.99).

Lip love

Estee Lauder Decadent Lipstick Collection Set, 35.11, feelunique.com

There are lots of bits on offer at feelunique.com right now, including some lovely offers on lip products. The KVD Beauty Epic Kisses Gift Set, reduced to 13.34 and valued at 50.16 is just too good to resist, while we reckon the Estee Lauder Decadent Lipstick Collection Set reduced to 35.11 (RRP 61.84) is a good bet for Valentine's Day.

Blissful baths

Lots of Love giftset, Lush, 60

There's nothing more relaxing than finishing the day off with a luxurious, steaming hot bath. Stock up on blissful bathing essentials at Boots with 25% off Radox Mineral Therapy Bath Salts. For a real treat, check out Lush's new ROI website which ships within Ireland (for free if you spend 50+). The bath-lovers brand, who have stores on Oliver Plunkett Street in Cork alongside Grafton Street and Henry Street in Dublin, have also just dropped their Valentine's Day collection. We'll be dropping hints about the Lots of Love set which contains the Temptation shower gel (100g), New Rose soap (100g), Ro's Argan body conditioner (45g), 3 bath boms (Groovy, Sex Bomb and Tisty Tosty) and A French Kiss bubble bar. The set is retailing at 60.
6.15am

The alarm goes off. My day starts with Mass, followed by breakfast at home with my family. I check work emails to see what has come in overnight before dropping the children to school.

9am

I have a meeting with the director of the CRF-C, Professor Joe Eustace, to review our priorities for the day and discuss any emerging issues.

9.30am

I have a brief call with the operations quality director at United Drug Distribution (UDD) in Dublin about new shipments of medicines that have arrived for the WHO Solidarity Ireland Clinical Trial. This is a Department of Health-sponsored trial investigating novel therapies for treatment of Covid-19.

11am

Time for the weekly operations team meeting. We review our metrics dashboard performance of all the active studies and identify any areas where interventions are required. In addition, potential new studies are assessed, and formal go/no-go governance decision is made on whether to progress to study set up.

The CRF-C team of research nurses and research assistants are currently supporting studies across Cork University Hospital, Mercy University Hospital, University Hospital Waterford, and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital.

2pm

Meeting with UCC legal and Research Support Services team to review contracts for new academic clinical trials. The support the CRF-C gets from university colleagues in legal, data protection, research support services and research finance, as well as our colleagues in the College of Medicine and Health, is key.

3.30pm

I meet with the head of information and communications technology (ICT) for health programmes at Tyndall National Institute (TNI) and discuss and review a number of projects in the pipeline involving clinical research elements. CRF-C act as the clinical arm of TNI.

4.30pm

Up next is a video conference with the Department of Health, the Health Research Board and colleagues from UCC, where we review Irelands engagement in critical international clinical trials for Covid-19 treatments.

5.30pm

I respond to any emails that have come in and review my diary for the next few days. Shortly after six, the family are all home again, and we have dinner together and chat about the day.

Then the drop-offs and collections to music classes, GAA training, swimming etc begin.
The killing of 23-year-old schoolteacher Ashling Murphy on January 12 in Tullamore sparked an unprecedented reaction from the public.

Many were simply left numb. The vast majority felt the resonance, a relatability to the victim. They were shocked and saddened. Women were sickened. Many men were stung, and wanted to help.

A number of competing narratives began to emerge in the hours and days after the killing as the Garda investigation unfolded, from the utterly understandable to the nefarious.

For those campaigning for the safety of women from male violence for years and decades, Ashling Murphy's death had to mean a turning point. Things could not be the same from here on. That point has broken through into the popular consciousness, and the Government hasnt missed it, with the Minister for Justice Helen McEntees vaunted new gender-based violence strategy receiving intense scrutiny in the past week.

There is always resistance when we raise issues of violence against women

The other, less savoury reactionary narrative was that of the far right in Ireland. Some of it was directed at the women who had stood in the spotlight in the days following the brutal killing, calling for change and focused anger.

There is always resistance when we raise issues of violence against women, Orla OConnor, director of the National Womens Council of Ireland, said. There is always a reaction.

We got so many positive things from men, but in the past number of days weve heard that the NWCI has been accused of certain things on far right accounts. And in the past two days weve been getting a lot more abusive phone calls accusing us of being anti-men, and that would make me wonder, is it to do with whats going on on social media.

She said it is really important that people see the connections in terms of what the far right is saying.

All the men getting in touch with us to help, and then to twist this that its anti-man, its horrendous.

The mobilisation of Irelands far right activists in the wake of the killing was far from unpredictable, not least due to the nationality of the initial suspect becoming common knowledge within hours.

"We got so many positive things from men, but in the past number of days weve heard that the NWCI has been accused of certain things on far right accounts. And in the past two days weve been getting a lot more abusive phone calls accusing us of being anti-men, and that would make me wonder, is it to do with whats going on on social media," says Orla O'Connor.

The fact the (since completely exonerated) arrested man was Romanian led to a spike in far right activity, notably among the followers and members of the National Party and in the darker corners of encrypted messaging app Telegram, as those involved mobilised to claim the narrative for themselves.

It wasnt a surprise, but the way some of them did it was pure bile, especially the attempts to whip up general anti-migrant hate on Telegram, a spokesperson for the civil society grouping the Far Right Observatory told the Irish Examiner.

One of the most noteworthy initial examples of that drive was a petition set up on the website of Donegal man Niall McConnell, Siol na hEireann, calling for the deportation of Ashling Murphys Romanian murderer.

The site claimed to have amassed 37,000 signatures, although closer inspection revealed this figure to be closer to 100. Once details were filed on the site, the visitor was instead linked to a sales page for a book promoting resistance to the Great Reset immigration conspiracy theory.

The playbook is known at this stage, and misogyny is rooted right through what the far right is about, the spokesperson says, citing the assault carried out on activist Izzy Kamikaze at a Covid protest in Dublin in 2020 by a member of the National Party (who was subsequently jailed for two years) as an example of the contradictions inherent in representatives of the far right arguing that they are operating in defence of women.

After Ashling Murphy's death, "the Irish Freedom Party said that the Womens Council had blood on its hands," they said.

"It doesnt make sense, but it does make sense in that its a provocation, a really violent kind of trolling, and its all part of a vile attack against womens advocates, they added.

The sheer scale of anti-immigrant rhetoric emanating from the far right over the past two weeks was not dampened in any way by the fact the initial suspect was released without charge, with the gardai stressing to media outlets upon his release that in no shape or form did he remain under suspicion.

It doesnt make sense, but it does make sense in that its a provocation, a really violent kind of trolling, and its all part of a vile attack against womens advocates

Rather, the focus moved to the next target, a man who at the time was in hospital in Dublin. A whatsapp voice message was soon spreading around the country suggesting the new suspect was Syrian, living in a hostel, had been arrested, and had been brought to Dublin by gardai, none of which was factual. That voicenote again sparked a far from common Garda response: in a release the force called for people to STOP sharing these messages.

Not only are they misinformed, inaccurate and dangerous, they are unhelpful to the criminal investigation, it stated.

It is far from beyond the realms of possibility that the fact the suspect, who has now been charged with murder, is also eastern European could be seized upon by the far right to further its own narrative. The irony of decrying the State and media for peddling false narratives while at the same time spreading misinformation at a rate of knots would appear to be lost on the movements supporters.

When something like this incident happens, youd be watching the press reports, and when you see nationality you know its a red flag, says Ciaran OConnor of the UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which specialises in analysing misinformation. Mr OConnor says that the exact same playbook was used in the case of George Nkencho, a 27-year-old killed by a member of the Armed Response Unit in December 2020, with rumours of a criminal past leading to the gardai at the time publicly stating that the man had no convictions prior to his shooting.

These groups push an ethno-nationalist white Irish perspective, where its the native Irish versus the foreigner, Mr OConnor says.

Theres definitely legitimate criticism to be made of how all this was handled. The media has to present the facts. What the public can do is not share unconfirmed reports, he says.

He argues that, for the public, the way to handle the far right is not to engage in any way.

What about Telegram, consistently seen as something akin to the Wild West in terms of the extremist content it hosts?

Thats a good question, Mr OConnor says. Theyve taken down Isis content in the past, and child pornography, so we know they can. But it needs political pressure, and thankfully some of that is starting to ramp up. Because its the platform to which this kind of extremism gravitates. And its so, so potentially dangerous.

*Correction: In an earlier version of this article, we mistakenly said a member of the Irish Freedom Party was jailed for an assault on activist Izzy Kamikaze at a Covid protest in Dublin in 2020. Michael Quinn was named in anInstitute for Strategic Dialogue paperas a member of the National Party at the time, not the Irish Freedom Party. We are happy to correct the record.
The Data Protection Commissions (DPC) landmark penalty for Limerick County Council over its use of CCTV in public places should serve as a wake up call for other local authorities and State bodies.

That is the key message of the man who delivered the investigation into Limerick  deputy commissioner and head of regulatory activity at the DPC Tony Delaney.

The council was given a 110,000 fine and reprimand, together with a requirement that all of its surveillance be either brought into compliance with data protection law or turned off entirely.

The implications for how the public sector uses surveillance technology should be stark, according to Mr Delaney.

Limericks 48 infringements covered 20 separate articles of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The key points were: No precision in terms of their cameras;, no joint controller agreements with the gardai; no legal basis for ANPR [Automatic number-plate recognition]; no legal basis for monitoring of private dwellings, housing estates, and halting sites  the last in particular is quite worrying as it shows a serious flaw in decision-making, Mr Delaney says.

This will have knock-on effects. Those councils using cameras say for traffic management, and most of them dont but some do, will have to pay attention, he says.

And there are other bodies, if the local authorities have failed, who could be made to feel very uncomfortable by this, who have to consider what legal basis they have for their use of cameras."

Because for agencies other than the gardai, the legislation simply isnt there.

Agencies working under the aegis of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) are one example he cites, with the example of estimated motorway travel times.

Every time you see such a sign, its calculated by the car registration in front of you that has already done the journey. These cameras are measuring distance, Mr Delaney says.

This is an example of ANPR, one of the key technologies which Limerick council was deemed to have gone totally overboard with.

ANPR is generally used by law enforcement to search for a certain passage of CCTV footage for the prosecution of criminal offences.

It is an invasive technology in terms of personal data, as it can be used to track peoples movements.

In the Limerick decision, the council was found to have no legal basis for its use of ANPR in 14 towns under its Smart CCTV Pilot Project.

Some, although not all, of those cameras were in fact authorised by the Garda Commissioner. Crucially, the ANPR was not. Nor is it likely to be in retrospect, according to Mr Delaney.

It would be very hard for the Garda Commissioner to justify its usage in towns and villages in Ireland.

There may well be a need in city locations in terms of crime. But there has to be justification for such an intrusive system," Mr Delaney said.

"I looked at the cameras, I looked at the Limerick villages, these were not areas which were notorious in terms of criminality.

Limericks big issue for the deputy commissioner was the fact it wasnt using its 401 cameras as a retrospective evidence-gathering function.

It was monitoring them in real time via a third party; thats real-time surveillance.

It was also both monitoring some cameras at the request of the gardai, and even allowing them remote access to its control room.

The big issue was the level and extent of real time monitoring."

It was never the idea that this would become the norm, its quite shocking that this is what they thought was the natural thing to do.

He stresses the council was at all times cooperative with the probe. The issue is one of ignorance of the law.

To date Limerick has only commented on the findings once, saying it is currently examining the decision and reviewing its implications.

How did they get it so wrong?

You would have to ask them, Mr Delaney says. But theyve been well aware since we began investigating in September 2018. I would have been very clear  something is seriously wrong here.
A Dublin man who shared his recent experience in a Cambodian Covid camp says he does not regret speaking out and exposing the camps dire conditions.

In order to leave the camp, the man was forced by Cambodian authorities to make a formal apology to the Cambodian government for embarrassing them by documenting the conditions.

Karl Mohan, 26, spent a week in one of several Covid quarantine camps in Siem Reap after receiving a false positive on a PCR test when trying to fly to Sri Lanka with his girlfriend on January 16.

The camps, known locally as care centres, have been widely criticised for their prison-like conditions and have since been shut down in recent days by the Cambodian government.

On January 21, just two days before Mr Mohan was allowed to leave the camp, the Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen announced the relaxation of mandatory state quarantine, allowing natives and foreigners to quarantine at home or in hotels.

Mr Mohan believes this was due to his documentation of his stay at the camp going viral on social media, telling the Irish Examiner this week it was the best part of his experience.

Seeing people be reunited with their families after weeks of being in there, it gave the whole ordeal a purpose for me, he said.

Mr Mohan and his girlfriend have been globe-trotting since September 2021, having already spent several months in Africa and Thailand.

The young couple spent a month in Cambodia, purchasing special Covid travel insurance that they were later told doesnt cover quarantine or isolation due to positive results on a PCR test.

We did our research, but it was never mentioned that if you catch Covid that youd be sent to a camp, he explained.

The pair were told they required a PCR test in order to leave the country and fly on to Sri Lanka, and managed to source a testing centre where they paid $130 per test.

We thought that was a bit weird considering the average Cambodian lives on less than a dollar a day, wed paid $60 to $80 elsewhere for PCRs, he added.

Karl Mohan said he took the experience 'with a pinch of salt'.

They returned to their hotel before being told to come back the following day to receive their results, with Mr Mohan being told he had tested positive.

They headed back to their hotel and the next morning they were told to head back to the testing centre, where Mr Mohan was told he needed to go to hospital.

The hospital was the start of the end, he said. It was falling apart and most of the clinical work was being done outside. An X-ray was performed on Mr Mohan, all while he pleaded for another PCR test to prove hed been given false result.

Next thing, an ambulance pulls up and people in hazmat suits get out and point at me to get in. Mr Mohan and his girlfriend were dropped at the Covid camp, and the bewildered couple tried to make sense of what was happening.

We thought it was a joke, it was only for another tourist who explained the situation to us. She said I had to stay for the first seven days, and after that Id be tested every two days and once I had two negative results I could leave.

He said there were people in the camp who had been there for several weeks who had long-Covid and couldnt leave.

Mr Mohan began sharing footage of the camp on social media, with the videos of the wooden beds, dirty toilets and poor sanitation systems going viral in mere days.

There were rabid dogs coming into the camp, and there were thousands of huge poisonous spiders everywhere and snakes  it was absolutely mental.

He tried to convince doctors to test him again, adamant he would not be staying overnight in the camp, but said nurses and doctors ran away from him.

In a moment of panic, Mr Mohan and his girlfriend fled the camp and returned to their hotel, only to find the local police waiting.

I demanded another test, and after a four-hour stand-off they agreed but they set me up  they took me straight back to the camp.

Thats when I realised there was no getting out of there and I just had to play the long game.

Thankfully, Mr Mohans girlfriend was able to freely visit the camp, as there were no restrictions on visits from friends or family  despite the facility being set up to isolate Covid patients.

Mr Mohan had received another negative PCR result two days into his stay, but was still unable to leave the camp as he needed another negative result two days later.

His posts on a local Cambodia travel page had been viewed by thousands and had even been picked up by local media, and refusing to delete his posts, cleaners were brought into the camp for the first time.

'I had the craic with it, it was by far the craziest thing thats ever happened to me,' Mr Mohan said.

Mr Mohans girlfriend started bringing clean clothes and food to members of the camp who were mostly locals, which he said raised morale, along with the camp being cleaned.

He also negotiated with those running the camp to provide the people staying there with bedding to sleep on.

At night-time, Mr Mohan said the camp was locked from the outside, with no medical staff present.

The cleaners removed a poisonous snake, what if one of us had been bitten in the night? Who would have helped us? he said.

While in the camp, he was told there was word of a threat being put on his life for documenting the camp.

In Asia, there's a big big thing about publicly shaming someone. Especially if you publicly shame the government, you go to prison.

I didnt know this, so I was sharing away and getting hundreds of messages from people who had family stuck in these camps telling me to keep doing what I was doing.

I was kind of the fall man for the team, I knew if something was going to happen that itd happen to me.

Mr Mohan said it became apparent very quickly that what he was doing was spreading fast, with a friend living in Cambodias capital Phnom Penh telling him that truck drivers across the city were warned not to pick him up.

The closest Irish embassy, in Vietnam, was made aware of the couples situation and assured the couple they would remove Mr Mohan from the camp.

Mr Mohan made a makeshift hut to sleep in while inside the camp.

There was back and forth between us for a couple of days and then it was just radio silence. We told them there was a threat on my life and our message was seen but never replied to until I was actually out of the camp.

Finally, he got another negative PCR test result on day seven and his name was called out over the intercom system to pack his bags and leave.

After bidding farewell to the locals and fellow tourists, Mr Mohan walked to the doctors to get his medical certificate, which would allow him to leave.

As he did, he said he was dragged into a room by about 15 police officers, joined by government officials.

They explained to him that the government were embarrassed by his actions and worried about tourism.

They demanded he write a letter to the Cambodian government apologising for his actions, and to delete his social media posts, threatening to send him to prison if he did not comply.

I still dont know what they were making me apologise for, I wasnt lying, I did nothing wrong, he told the Irish Examiner.

Finally free, Mr Mohan then fled to the country's capital with his girlfriend, both of whom were inundated with calls from the police demanding they return.

We have no idea how they got our numbers, we didnt share them with anyone. We turned our phones on airplane mode until we left the country.

The couple are now continuing their travels in Asia, with no plans to return to Cambodia any time soon.

Mr Mohan was sent videos from his former campmates as they were reunited with their families after the prime minister put an end to the camps.

All the effort resulted in something and its just because someone spoke up, he said.

I took the whole thing quite lightly, he laughed. I was in the army, so sleeping outside and all of that didnt bother me too much.

What did affect me was how nobody felt safe to speak up, we were told not to speak up because wed go missing.

But I had the craic with it, it was by far the craziest thing thats ever happened to me.

The Department of Foreign Affairs told the Irish Examiner it was aware of the case and has provided consular assistance.

We would continue to encourage those considering travelling to Cambodia to consider the departments travel advice before making plans, it added.
Burma China Tells Myanmars Civilian Govt to Spare Projects From Attack

Anti-coup protesters stage a demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy in Yangon in February 2021. / The Irrawaddy

China has urged Myanmars parallel National Unity Government (NUG) to ensure its resistance movement does not harm Chinese investments in the Southeast Asian nation, NUG Defense Minister U Yee Mon told The Irrawaddy.

The Chinese Embassy in Yangon contacted the NUG following a local resistance groups attack on electricity pylons supplying the China-backed Tagaung Taung nickel-processing plant in Sagaings Tigyaing on Jan. 7.

The Tigyaing Township Peoples Defense Force (PDF) blew up three pylons, forcing the plant to halt production.

With an investment of US$800 million and annual output of 85,000 tonnes of ferronickel, the project is the largest nickel production site in Myanmar. It is a joint venture between the No. 1 Mining Enterprise of Myanmar and Chinas state-owned China Nonferrous Metal Mining (CNMC).

U Yee Mon said: We dont have a policy to attack the investments of neighboring countries.

The NUG defense minister said in the case of Tagaung Taung nickel mining project, the local resistance group carried out the attack on its own initiative because in some cases, junta troops are using factory compounds of companies from neighboring countries as bases from which to commit violence against civilians.

U Yee Mon assured the Chinese mission that the NUG would make sure similar incidents do not happen in the future, but also stressed that foreign businesses should distance themselves from the military regime.

The military regime has been providing security for Chinese investments in Myanmar at the request of Beijing. It has planted landmines near a control center for the China-backed oil and gas pipeline at the border of Hsipaw and Kyaukme townships in northern Shan State, to deter attacks by resistance groups.

The oil and gas pipelines link Rakhines Kyaukphyu with Chinas Yunnan Province, passing through Magwe and Mandalay regions and Shan State.

Anti-Chinese sentiment swelled in Myanmar following the military coup last February, with many believing Beijing had a hand in the takeover. Along with calls for a boycott of Chinese products, there were calls to blow up the pipelines if China refused to condemn the regime.

China then urged the regime to increase pipeline security, according to documents leaked on social media in March last year.



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Burma Junta Insider Wins Myanmar Migrant Contract in Thailand

Service centers to issue certificates of identity opened in Samut Sakhon, Samut Prakan, Chiang Mai, Chonburi and Ranong provinces in Thailand on Jan. 10. / Myawady

A company owned by a distant relative of Myanmars junta leader has won the contract to issue certificates of identity (CIs) to undocumented workers from Myanmar in Thailand, according to sources.

The service centers to issue CI booklets opened on Jan. 10 in Samut Sakhon, Samut Prakan, Chiang Mai, Chonburi and Ranong provinces. The CI is a document for migrants from Myanmar proving their citizenship.

The CIs were issued to undocumented migrant workers in 2017 and 2018 and are valid for four years. CI holders are required to renew their documents.

Six companies applied to the junta-controlled Labor Ministry to issue CIs in Thailand and United KMK made the winning bid to operate the five CI centers in Thailand, according to sources.

The companys managing director U Khin Maung Kyaw is a former military officer. His wife is a relative of Daw Kyu Kyu Hla, the wife of junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.

U Khin Maung Kyaw reportedly has close ties with the junta-appointed deputy labor minister, U Win Shein.

The company brews Mandalay Beer and has interests in fish farming and cold processing businesses in Myeik, Tanintharyi Region. It was awarded a distinguished business award under U Thein Seins quasi-civilian government before the National League for Democracy took office.

The official rate fixed by Myanmars government is 300 baht (16,000 kyats) for CI renewal but agents are involved and migrants have to pay between 1,000 and 2,000 baht when they cannot travel to the CI service centers.

The official service fee is 300 baht. It is often a days wage for migrant workers and many can afford it. But the process is lengthy and not transparent and they have to spend as much as 2,000 baht, which is far less affordable, said U Aung Kyaw, the chairman of the Migrant Workers Rights Network, a Bangkok-based rights group for migrants from Myanmar.

Some migrants have chosen not to renew their CIs because of the illegitimacy of the military regime.

A migrant worker said: Because of injustice in Myanmar, many migrant workers like me have decided to boycott the services of the illegal regime. But some are nervous and they renew their CIs.

U Aung Kyaw said his organization had unsuccessfully lobbied for a simplification of the CI process. The life of migrant workers is tough and filled with hardship. They are being exploited by being forced to pay high amounts to get CIs.

Myanmar labor attache in Ranong said: Only a few migrants are renewing their CIs at the moment. There have been around 70 renewals since January 10. The service is charged at the official, fixed rates.

The CI renewal service will be provided until August 1. Around 1.5 million migrants from Myanmar are working in Thailand legally with around a million more undocumented workers.



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Myanmar Resistance Raids Two Sagaing Police Outposts

China Tells Myanmars Civilian Govt to Spare Projects From Attack

Myanmar Junta Sentences Lawmaker From Suu Kyis Party to Death
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The schedule of the second phase of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) in China is likely to be affected by the COVID-19, said the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Monday.

The meeting, formerly set to be held in southwest China's Kunming in April this year, is supposed to see the completion of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

The first phase of COP15 was held in Kunming last October both online and offline, and a follow-up offline meeting slated for January 2022 in Geneva has been postponed as a result of the pandemic.

Liu Youbin, the ministry's spokesperson, said China is keeping close contact with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and relevant parties.

They will take into account the UN meeting agenda throughout the year, time span of the discussions of the framework and preparations of related documents, and the pandemic situation to confirm the date, organization formats as well as epidemic-prevention measures of the second phase of COP15, Liu said. 
Burma Myanmar Junta's New Cyber Law to Jail Anyone Using VPN

The regime is taking steps to permanently undermine internet freedom in the country. / The Irrawaddy

Myanmars military regime is seeking to adopt a new cybersecurity law to jail anyone accessing banned sites like Facebook via virtual private networks (VPNs).

The regime banned social media following last years coup, including Twitter, Instagram and Facebook  the main gateways to the internet in Myanmar  but people access the sites using VPNs, which allow internet users to bypass blocks.

The move to outlaw VPNs is seen as a further attempt to curb digital freedoms, including stifling online fund-raising for resistance groups, internet criticism and the flow of reliable information. Last month the regime doubled mobile internet data taxes.

According to a letter leaked online, the regimes Ministry of Transport and Communications distributed a revised bill, which it first proposed within a week of the February coup, to 13 other ministries, chambers of commerce, banks, financial services, telecommunications operators and internet service providers and asked for comments by Jan. 28.

The draft law would grant the regime unlimited power to access user data, ban content it dislikes, restrict internet providers and intercept data, and imprison those criticizing the regime online and employees of non-compliant companies.

In the letter, the ministry stated that the decision to enact the law had been made.

An earlier proposal for the cybersecurity law was shelved amid opposition from both domestic and international business groups and IT communities as it would enable the junta to intrude into companies internal management.

Rights groups have widely condemned the proposed law as a violation of digital rights, privacy, human rights and freedom of expression.

A former Yangon regional lawmaker from the ousted National League for Democracy, Nay Phone Latt, said the bill is further evidence of the juntas intent to permanently undermine internet freedom and proof of the success of the anti-regime digital strike.

Sentencing VPN users would be similar to jailing the whole country, he said.

It is totally unacceptable. Only a parliament of elected representatives should have the power to draft legislation. The terrorist regime has no authority to draft laws, he said. Nay Phone Latt said unless people follow the law, it will just be a written document.

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Myanmar Resistance Raids Two Sagaing Police Outposts
Burma Myanmar Resistance Raids Two Sagaing Police Outposts

Paungbyin in Sagaing. The region is one of the hotspots for Myanmars resistance. / CJ

Two Myanmar junta police outposts were seized and burned down and at least eight police officers, including a captain, were captured by the Peoples Defense Force in Paungbyin Township, Sagaing Region, on Saturday, according to the civilian National Unity Government (NUG).

At around 3am on Saturday, 42 resistance fighters in Paungbyin attacked the Maingchaung outpost, the NUGs shadow defense ministry said on the Public Voice Television (PVTV) website.

During an hours fighting, eight police officers retreated and two were captured by the resistance forces. No PDF casualties were reported.

Three firearms were seized and the PDF burned down the police outpost, the civilian ministry said.

Later 35 Paungbyin PDF members raided another outpost in the township, capturing six police officers, including a captain, seven firearms, ammunition and motorbikes, the PVTV reported.

Two policemen escaped and a resistance fighter suffered minor injuries, the ministry said.

The Irrawaddy could not independently verify any of the reports.

A junta-controlled newspaper reported that two Paungbyin police outposts had been abandoned after attacks by large numbers of terrorists.

The junta media said a police officer was injured and others were missing along with weapons.

The regime faces regular attacks from PDFs and ethnic armed groups across the country, except in Rakhine State, which is largely under the control of the Arakan Army.



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Burma Myanmars Most Powerful Ethnic Armed Group Ready to Fight Rival

The UWSA holds a military parade to mark the 30th anniversary of its ceasefire with the government in April 2019. / The Irrawaddy

The United Wa State Army (UWSA), the most powerful ethnic armed group in Myanmar, is deploying troops in Khaing Lone, a town in southern Shan State, announced the UWSA-run Wa State TV on Saturday.

The deployment follows widespread rumors on social media that the UWSA is preparing for a possible attack by rival ethnic armed group the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS), whose headquarters Loi Tai Leng is adjacent to Khaing Lone.

Hundreds of UWSA soldiers including the elite commando unit along with artillery have been deployed in Khaing Lone, which is part of the territory of UWSA military region 171, according to the Chinese-language news broadcast aired by Wa State TV.

The report said that the UWSA would not launch an assault, but will decisively repulse any incursions into military region 171.

The RCSS has alleged that the UWSA is assisting its rival, the Shan State Progress Party, the political wing of the Shan State Army-North (SSA-N).

Both SSPP/SSA-N, and the RCSS and its armed wing the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S) were formed to seek autonomy for Shan State. The RCSS is active in southern Shan State, while the SSPP is based in the north. However, the SSA-S also operates in northern Shan State and has been fighting the SSA-N for years over territorial disputes.

The Taang National Liberation Army (TNLA) is also fighting alongside the SSPP/SSA-N.

The RCSS reportedly sent a letter to the UWSA recently, warning that it would attack the ethnic Wa groups military region 171 if it continued to back up the SSPP/SSA-N and the TNLA.

The Irrawaddy was unable to reach the UWSAs Lashio liaison officer Nyi Rang for a comment.

RCSS Secretary 2 Major Kham San told The Irrawaddy that there are no military tensions between the two sides on the ground.

Major Kham San said: I dont know exactly about the letter. But, as you know, there has been a lot of misinformation on [social] media, claiming that there were clashes here and there. So things are sensitive.

He also denied local news reports that the RCSS and the junta had held talks in Thailand, in which the ethnic armed group agreed to transport aviation fuel for the military regime.

A political analyst who asked for anonymity also dismissed the warning letter as fake news and said that it is unlikely that the two sides will clash.

The UWSA has deployed troops because of the misinformation. I heard that the RCSS has told the UWSA that it was misinformation, and that they will not attack them, he said.

The UWSAs military region oversees Mong Hsat District in southern Shan State with a population of some 80,000 Wa people. Five UWSA brigades are based there.

The RCSS and the UWSA engaged in fierce fighting to the east of the Salween River in southern Shan State between 2002 and 2005. Since then, the two groups have observed an unofficial ceasefire.

The RCSS, which signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with U Thein Seins quasi-civilian government in 2015, has attempted to increase its presence in northern Shan State since last years coup. The UWSA reportedly dispatched hundreds of its troops to assist the SSPP/SSA-N and the TNLA in the subsequent clashes.

The RCSS has reportedly lost a number of its strongholds in northern Shan State, areas where China-backed investment is planned to be implemented.



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Guest Column Myanmars Civil Disobedience Movement Carries On in Face of Increasing Junta Repression

Railway workers join an anti-regime protest in Mandalay in February 2021. / The Irrawaddy

A week following the Feb. 1, 2021 coup in Myanmar, the whole nation erupted with protests in many forms, involving people from many walks of life, including, but not limited to, Generation Z youth, students, doctors, teachers, engineers and even laborers.

While the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) did not come into effect immediately, the leadership of youths and increasing protest efforts against the military dictatorship soon gave birth to perhaps the longest running CDM in the world.

The movement

Two weeks into nationwide protests, the CDM movements roots were in the public healthcare sector, with doctors through to local public health administrators taking part.

I dont want to do my duty under military dictators. Under them, even professionals must kowtow to people who dont know anything about the things they are supposed to be in charge of, said a doctor from the Yangon General Hospital who has been part of the CDM since its inception.

Similar to the doctor, there were many that were unhappy with the coup and had refused to continue going to work.

After the coup, I stopped going to work and I continued to participate in the protests. From there, I saw people shot down in front of my eyes. That consolidated my decision to stop working under this coup government, said a public servant from the education sector.

Due to the nonviolent but highly effective CDM, many aspects of governance were put in difficult situations.

According to a press conference held by the military council, nearly 30 percent of public servants are taking part in the CDM, a figure many members of the public and CDM participants believe to be lower than the actual percentage involved.

Over half of the teachers participated in CDM in my school. If we add in all of the technical universities, I think it will be around 50 percent or 55 percent for the education sector, said a lecturer from a technical university in Ayeyarwady Region.

As time has gone on, the military government has put the screws on CDM participants through myriad means, ranging from encouraging a return to work for higher salaries and/or promotions.

There are also continuing attempts by the military government to conduct surprise checks on private businesses related to the CDM, such as those in healthcare, to ensure that no people from the CDM are employed.

Despite such efforts, the CDM carries on.

During April, letters were sent out in attempts to call us back to work. None of us did. They tried again in May, threatening legal action and asking us to pay back any loans. Some, over time, broke and re-joined the workforce because of their financial situation, but I believe that it is still around half who are refusing to go back, said the lecturer.

Soldiers have also been participating in the CDM, starting from around April, two months after the coup. Since then, over 2,000 soldiers have taken part and, according to Nyi Thuta, a CDM soldier, the numbers are still far too low.

In any organization, a higher rank means more responsibility. Its nearly a year now. Privates are doing CDM and officials ranking higher should have been quicker than them. Cities and villages are being bombed and mass slaughters are happening. It should not take people this long to oppose the military council doing this, said Nyi Thuta.

As of this moment, most of the ranks involved in the CDM are privates, sergeants, and some majors.

How is it surviving?

Needless to say, CDM participants are facing hardships, but those that remain, despite being nearly a year in, are holding on however they can.

There are many things. We had to move out of our allotted apartments because, if we do not want to, we have to go back to work. It isnt a problem, but the resulting problem of putting food on the table is. I have to do whatever work I can find every month, said a railway worker CDM participant.

Like him, public service technicians, office staff, and more have transformed into carpenters, vendors, taxi drivers and more.

Of course, I miss my old life, but kids gave and continue to risk their lives in battle. While that is happening, I dont want to hold the title of teacher. What respect will they have for me? The trade is my honor for my old job. I will not do that trade, said the lecturer from a technical university.

There are private businesses, hospitals amongst them, which discreetly hire CDM participants or regularly donate to CDM participants, but their efforts are not enough to cater to everyone.

I hook CDM participants up with jobs with businesses that are willing to hire them, but there are still too many out there that I cannot help, said a recruitment broker who is trying to help the CDM.

The National Unity Government (NUG), a parallel government formed by exiled lawmakers and other political figures, have also been providing support, but it is reportedly insufficient. The NUGs myriad attempts at fundraising, while they could be called successful, only manage to support around 4 percent of CDM participants who have officially registered for support from the NUG.

Apart from the financial hardships, CDM participants also have to be wary of arrest by the military. According to them, if anybody is reported as participating in the CDM, it is highly likely that they would have to escape immediately or be arrested in the next few days.

When will the long march end?

It is nearly the first anniversary of the coup and the CDM that was born as a result.

Despite the ongoing hardships and likelihood that there will be even more down the road, those who have remained staunch participants in the CDM vow that they will continue until the dictatorship is removed.

Myanmars CDM has been recognized as a nominee for the 2022 Nobel Peace prize and has been listed as one of the longest-running CDMs in the world.

We will remain strong. It has been a year of many hardships. It couldnt get any worse than this, so we will march on until the dictators are removed, said the lecturer.

This article was first published by Thai PBS World.

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A Chinese patrol boat on the Mekong River, only a few kilometers north of the confluence of the Ram Ruak and Mekong rivers (the so-called Golden Triangle) in 2019. / Nam Ruak river

No one doubts that the American community in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, which consists mostly of NGO workers, missionaries and retirees, needs consular services. But could that be the only reason why a massive, new United States (US) Consulate General is under construction at a cost of US$300 million? Due to be opened in 2023, the buildings of the diplomatic mission will sprawl over no less than 6.6 acres, or 26,709 square meters, of land in a business park on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. In a colorful, online brochure, the US Consul General in Chiang Mai describes the project as a concrete sign of our long-term commitment to the people of northern Thailand and the future of our partnership and the text goes on to state that the US Consulate General is dedicated to serving the local American community or those wishing to travel to the United States.

While all of that may be accurate, Michael Vatikiotis, a Singapore-based British analyst, argues in an op-ed piece for Nikkei Asia on January 7 that Beijing sees the construction of a such a huge diplomatic complex only 500 kilometers from the Chinese border and even closer to Myanmar and Laos as an attempt to reinforce existing US intelligence gathering capacity in northern Thailand.

Covert US activity of that kind would fit into the broader picture of geostrategic rivalries in the region. The rise of China as an economic and political superpower in Asia has been met by the formation of new alliances in the region. The first was the Quad, or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which was set up in 2007 and brings the US together with Japan, India and Australia. Then, on September 15 last year, the formation of AUKUS, or the Australia-United Kingdom-United States pact, was announced with the specific purpose of coordinating activities in the spheres of cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and additional underwater capabilities. Under the terms of the pact, the US and the UK will help Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines.

Both pacts are widely seen as efforts to counter Chinas influence in the contested South China Sea and the Chinese navys increasingly frequent forays into the Indian Ocean. That was not lost on Beijing, who especially condemned the establishment of AUKUS. Only two days after the announcement of the pact, Chinas foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the alliance risked severely damaging regional peace and intensifying the arms race. He also criticised what he called the obsolete Cold War mentality of the pacts members and warned them that they were hurting their own interests.

In an editorial published in the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Global Times on September 30, the rhetoric was even blunter and more vitriolic: The three countries, drawing lines based on ideology, have built a new military bloc that will heighten geopolitical tensions. The international community rejects the Cold War and its divisions, but the US blatantly violates its political claims of not engaging in any new Cold War and gangs up with others to create a small Anglo-Saxon clique, putting geopolitical self-interest above international solidarity. This is a typical Cold War mentality.

The editorial also warned of the danger of an escalating arms race: The move will spur regional countries to accelerate the development of military capabilities, and even seek to break the nuclear threshold and increase the risk of military conflict. The US, on the one hand, hands out sanctions and suppresses some countries to pressure them not to develop nuclear capabilities, while on the other hand flagrantly transferring nuclear technologies to non-nuclear states. This is a typical double standard.

The Global Times editorial did not expand on the reference to the possibility of nuclear proliferation, and Australia will certainly not become a nuclear power just because it is about to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. But the harsh rhetoric shows how concerned Chinas government is, and that the battlelines in the new Cold War are becoming clearer. China is seen as the enemy of a range of countries which consider themselves guardians of democratic values. Needless to say, there are also competing economic interests between China and its adversaries. An increasingly affluent Asia is a huge market for consumer goods and the region is rich in natural and mineral resources which many countries are eager to exploit.

That competition can be seen also on land and its no coincidence that Chiang Mai has been chosen as a strategic listening post in the region. And in that regard, it appears that old ghosts have come alive again. The Americans first set up a diplomatic mission in Chiang Mai in 1950, and it was then mainly an intelligence station that coordinated support for nationalist Chinese, Kuomintang, forces that had retreated into Shan State in eastern Myanmar after their defeat in the Chinese Civil War. A string of bases was established just across the border in Shan State and, to the north, along the Chinese border. The tiny airstrip at Mong Hsat opposite Thailands Chiang Rai province was transformed into a formidable air base capable of receiving C-46 and C-47 transport planes, which brought in arms, ammunition, and medical supplies. This dramatic build-up was a joint venture between the Republic of Chinas Kuomintang government, which still controlled the island of Taiwan, and the US security authorities to encircle and try to reconquer the Chinese mainland. But the effort failed miserably. The Shan State-based secret Kuomintang army attempted on no less than seven occasions in the early 1950s to invade neighboring Yunnan Province in China, but was repeatedly driven back across the border.

Then came the wars in Indochina, and the US consulate in Chiang Mai oversaw the gathering of human as well as signals intelligence in the region. Local agents were sent across the border and the Americans together with the Thais had an extensive network of listening posts in northern Thailand. The main such facility was located at Ramasun, 20 kilometers south of Udon Thani in northeastern Thailand. That base was first established in 1966 but then as an outpost for the main facility in Bangkok. In 1970, it was upgraded to an AN/FLR-9 Circular Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) station, a large, circular array of Wullenweber antennas commonly referred to by the nickname Elephant Cage because its shape resembled an elephant kraal. The Ramasun facility picked up radio traffic from Laos, southern China and North Vietnam and monitored Chinese military movements in the region. Most importantly, it served as a military intelligence terminal for communications between the US and its various intelligence sites in Southeast and East Asia.

A similar signals intelligence facility was established near Lampang, 108 kilometers south of Chiang Mai, for the specific purpose of monitoring radio traffic in northern Myanmar and Yunnan. American Chinese language experts translated intercepted messages into English, and Burmese-speaking Shans translated messages in Burmese into Thai and English. A major target at that time was the China-supported Communist Party of Burma (CPB). There was always the possibility of a linkup between the CPB and the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT), which would open a direct route for arms flowing down from China and into Southeast Asia. Chinas plan at the time was to use Myanmar as a springboard to reach not only the CPT but, at least until the 1960s, communist movements in Malaya (now Malaysia) and Indonesia.

The Elephant Cage at Ramasun was officially dismantled in 1976, a year after the end of the Indochina wars and, in 1975, Thailand also switched recognition to the Peoples Republic of China from the Republic of China (Taiwan). The Americans withdrew and the Thais took over operation of the Ramasun and Lampang facilities. Over the years, the Elephant Cages became obsolete and, in May 1986, the very last of them, in Alaska, was decommissioned. Today, there are more advanced and sophisticated ways of monitoring movements in cyberspace, as well as on the ground.

The current US mission in Chiang Mai is located in old buildings overlooking the banks of the Ping River. Some of them were built over a hundred years ago and then called the Chedi Ngam Palace, or the Beautiful Pagoda Palace. The compound once served as the residence of the last ruler of northern Thailand, Chao Kaew Nawarat, who died in 1939. After that it became government property and, eleven years later, the Americans moved in and turned it into a consulate. But it is important to remember that it remained a consulate until 1986 and only then became a Consulate General, or a proper foreign service mission. Before 1986, it was effectively an intelligence station, although it also provided consular services.

It is anybodys guess what roles the new US Consulate General will play when it opens its doors next year. Apart from the obvious  that people will go there to get visas, for cultural events and to visit its libraries  intelligence gathering will most certainly be a top priority. Myanmar-watching will remain one of the consulate generals main tasks, albeit in a different context as China no longer exports revolution. But Beijings expanding economic empire requires political protection and therefore also influence in its neighboring countries. Myanmar is right there, between Thailand and China, and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor is Chinas only direct access to the Indian Ocean.

Already in 2017, Chinas then Consul General in Chiang Mai, Ren Yisheng, talked about Beijings multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, at the citys university. Two years later, Ren attended a similar conference in Chiang Rai with the emphasis on development in the so-called Greater Mekong Sub-region, which includes parts of southern China, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam. Even China appears to have made Chiang Mai and their Consulate General there a base for their plans for the region.

Chinese boats with armed police, seen by this correspondent, are also now for the first time in history venturing down the Mekong River, almost as far as the riverine junction where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet. That may not be perceived as a major threat to the region, but it is nevertheless a new development that Chinas adversaries would be keen to monitor. And while the US has strongly condemned last years February 1 coup in Myanmar, China is cozying up to the generals. In August, China transferred US$6 million to Myanmar to be used for projects and programs within Beijings Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Framework, seemingly a tiny gesture but important in the broader scheme of things. Then there are the insurgencies inside Myanmar where China maintains close links with the United Wa State Army while its rival, the Restoration Council of Shan State, receives most of its supplies from Thailand.

The new Cold War may not yet be as hot as the previous one sometimes was, but it is clear that the Americans and their Quad and AUKUS allies are building a bulwark against China and that the construction of a new US Consulate General in Chiang Mai is part of that strategy. But we can only wait and see what that means for the region  and especially for troubled and vulnerable Myanmar. Theres still a long way to go before we could see a return to the open confrontations of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. But, once again, Myanmar may well find itself in the midst of a geopolitical storm.



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Brian Groen: "We have a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 across our campuses globally. "

US-based Vantage Data Centres, which focuses on multinational corporations like Microsoft and Cisco, is building a campus in Melbourne with three data centres that will total about 270,000 square feet (25,083 square metres) when complete, the company says.

The centres will include 48MW of critical IT load and will be located on a seven-acre plot.

Asked where exactly the campus would be, APAC president Brian Groen said he could not disclose this right now as "our clients typically express confidentiality requirements to our precise data centre locations".

Groen, who has about 40 years' experience in data centres, public cloud, storage and managed services, told iTWire in response to queries that Vantage would not be immediately trying to gain the certification needed to handle government data.

"At this stage, our focus is on supporting the needs of our hyperscale clients with a priority on their mechanical, electrical and operational requirements," he said.

"The DTA [Digital Transformation Agency] Hosting Certification Framework is a compliance framework that we would work with our cloud service provider clients to gain if that is a requirement from them.

The Tsuen Wan West Data Centre in Hong Kong which is owned by Vantage. Supplied

"Together with our clients, we have obtained government secure certifications to service government clients in other jurisdictions, and we have experience in the area of secure government cloud provision."

Groen said any any provider catering to hyperscale clients could be classified as a competitor to Vantage.

"In APAC this can be local providers, such as the national telcos in some markets; we also see competition from the western and larger APAC-based co-location providers," he added.

Asked about measures taken to curtail heating, given the current debate around climate change, Groen said the company had committed to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 across our campuses globally.

"This will initially be at our new build locations and then cascade through our established sites as we roll through the program of electricity reduction, fuel conversion and energy offsets," he said.

"We are also working with clients to reduce their footprints from simple measures such as temperature and humidity control to onsite renewable energy generation."

Asked about the number of jobs that would be created during the Melbourne construction, Groen said: "During the construction of the campus, there will be hundreds of workers onsite.

"Once the campus is operational, Vantage will have operations/maintenance, facility and security staff running the facilities. Our customers generally have employees onsite as well."

Vantage, which has a number of data centres in the US, recently acquired facilities in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur from PCCW, a household brand in Hong Kong.
Global edge cloud network provider Fastly appoints Alan Chan as the companys first head of channel and partnerships for Australia and New Zealand.

Based in Sydney, Chan will develop the Fastly channel in line with the companys growth strategies in Australia and New Zealand.

He will also grow mutual relationship between Fastly and its network alliance partners, managed service providers, and systems integrators to help them sell, deploy and service Fastlys global edge cloud network which enables customers create digital experiences.

Chan has more than 20 years of experience working in the enterprise IT and cybersecurity industry across business development, client account management, sales engineering, and technical support.

At Trustwave, a Singtel Optus subsidiary, Chan contributed to the organisations double digit revenue growth annually during his four-year tenure. He closed some of its largest managed security and consulting services deals and was responsible for securing the largest product deal in the companys history.

Chan previously worked at Unisys as director of business development  security where he grew the cybersecurity business from ground up, defining and executing the go to market strategy.

He has also held enterprise account management roles at FireEye, Symantec, Websense, and McAfee.

Chans skillset and experience of working with leading cybersecurity vendors and their large multinationals customers will be invaluable as we drive our channel growth and continue to enable Australian and New Zealand businesses to secure digital experiences across a range of vertical markets. In addition, Chans market knowledge of working with organisations of all sizes within Australias cybersecurity industry will be a compelling asset as we continue to scale strategic partnerships and both develop and augment our channel programs in the years ahead, comments Fastly area vice president Australia and New Zealand Derek Rast.

Im looking forward to growing Fastlys partner ecosystem and helping customers take advantage of our global edge cloud network and security solutions, along with complementary partner integrations and services, Chan concludes.
From the SolarWinds attacks throughout last year to the influx of Apache Log4j vulnerability exploitations, the 2022 Security Report conducted by Check Point Research reveals the key attack vectors and techniques in 2021.

In 2021, organisations experienced 50% more weekly cyber-attacks than in 2020.

The education/research sector led with 1,605 weekly attacks (75% increase), followed by government/military with 1,136 weekly attacks (47%), and communications with 1,079 weekly attacks (51% increase).

The research revealed that software vendors experienced the biggest year-on-year-growth (146%), complementing the ever-increasing trend of software supply chain attacks observed in 2021.

Last year, Check Point Research saw evolving attacks on mobile devices, increase in cloud services vulnerabilities, and the return of the Emotet botnet.

Highlights from the 2022 Security Report include:

 Supply chain attacks: the infamous SolarWinds attack laid the foundations for a supply chain attack frenzy. Last year saw numerous sophisticated attacks such as Codecov in April and Kaseya in July, concluding with the Log4j vulnerability that was exposed in December. The striking impact achieved by this one vulnerability in an open-source library demonstrates the immense inherent risk in software supply chains.

 Cyberattacks disrupting everyday life: Last year saw a large of number attacks targeting critical infrastructure which led to huge disruption to individuals day-to-day lives, and in some cases even threatened their sense of physical security.

 Cloud services under attack: Cloud provider vulnerabilities became much more alarming in 2021. The vulnerabilities exposed have allowed attackers, for varying timeframes, to execute arbitrary code, escalate to root privileges, access mass amounts of private content, and even cross between different environments.

 Developments in the mobile landscape: Throughout the year, threat actors have increasingly used smishing (SMS phishing) for malware distribution and have invested substantial efforts in hacking social media accounts to obtain access to mobile devices. The continued digitisation of the banking sector in 2021 led to the introduction of various apps designed to limit face-to-face interactions, and those in turn have led to the distribution of new threats.

 Cracks in the ransomware ecosystem: Governments and law enforcement agencies changed their stance on organised ransomware groups in 2021, making proactive offensive operations against the ransomware operators, their funds, and supporting infrastructure. The major shift happened following the Colonial Pipeline incident in May which made the Biden administration realise they had to step up efforts to combat this threat.

 Return of Emotet: One of the most dangerous and infamous botnets in history, is back. Since Emotets November return, CPR found the malwares activity to be at least 50% of the level seen in January 2021, shortly before its initial takedown. This rising trend continued throughout December with several end-of-year campaigns, and is expected to continue in 2022, at least until the next takedown attempt.

In a year that began with the fallout from one of the most devastating supply chain attacks in history, weve seen threat actors grow in confidence and sophistication, comments Check Point Software vice president research Maya Horowitz.

This culminated in the Log4j vulnerability exploit which, yet again, caught the security community off-guard and brought to the fore the sheer level of risk inherent in software supply chains. In the months between, we saw cloud services under attack, threat actors increasing their focus on mobile devices, the Colonial Pipeline held to ransom, and the resurgence of one of the most dangerous botnets in history.

But its not all doom and gloom. We also saw cracks in the ransomware ecosystem widen in 2021, as governments and law enforcement agencies around the world resolved to take a tougher stance on ransomware groups in particular, Horowitz says.

Instead of relying on reactive and remedial action, some shocking events woke governments up to the fact that they needed to take a more proactive approach to dealing with cyber risk. That same philosophy extends to businesses too, who can no longer afford to take a disjointed, siloed, reactionary approach to dealing with threats. They need 360-degree visibility, real-time threat intelligence, and a security infrastructure that can be mobilised in an effective, joined-up manner, Horowitz concludes.
HAIKOU, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- South China's Hainan Province will promote high-quality development in tourism consumption, industrial investment and business environment, according to the annual session of the provincial people's congress which concluded on Monday.

Aiming to be an international tourism and consumption destination, Hainan will boost high-end tourism consumption, cultivate new consumption growth areas featuring cruises, yachts, tourism and sports, and promote the international competitiveness of duty-free shopping, according to the provincial government work report.

Hainan eyes a total sales of 100 billion yuan (about 15.8 billion U.S. dollars) in duty-free shopping this year, according to the report delivered at the annual session of the provincial people's congress.

Wang Xuan, deputy general manager of the China Tourism Group Duty Free Corporation Ltd., said two duty-free shops in Sanya will be expanded and the duty-free shop in Haikou Meilan International Airport will be improved to bring in more international brands.

He also noted that this year the provincial capital Haikou will see the opening of a new international duty-free shopping mall, which will be the largest duty-free shopping complex in the world.

The second China International Consumer Products Expo will be held in Haikou in April.

"This year's expo will be larger and more international, focusing more on exquisite and new products," said Han Shengjian, director of the Hainan bureau of international economic development.

The province's duty-free shops raked in around 60.2 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 84 percent year on year. Bo'ao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone received 127,300 tourists, up 90.6 percent year on year. Lingshui Li'an International Education Innovation Pilot Zone inked agreements with 22 renowned colleges and universities from home and abroad.

Hainan has made great progress in bringing back overseas consumption, and strengthened its role in connecting Chinese and international markets, said Wang Lei, an official with Hainan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.

The provincial government work report this year pointed out Hainan will focus on the tourism industry, modern service industry, high-tech industry and tropical agricultural industry, and intensify innovation and development of industrial clusters.

"We must stimulate the impetus of the cities, counties and industrial parks, and guide more industries to settle in the parks and step up the upgrading of projects," said Gu Gang, director of Hainan provincial development and reform commission.

As one of the 11 key industrial parks of Hainan free trade port, Wenchang International Aerospace City has made substantial progress.

"We will invite investment in rocket, satellite and data chains, attract more key projects home and abroad to settle in the park, and build a world-renowned park with aerospace high-tech industries," said Liu Chong, mayor of Wenchang. 
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan co-chairs the fifth meeting of China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation (JCIC) with Yair Lapid, Israel's alternate prime minister and foreign minister, via video link in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 24, 2022. (Xinhua/Liu Bin)

BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan co-chaired the fifth meeting of China-Israel Joint Committee on Innovation Cooperation (JCIC) with Yair Lapid, Israel's alternate prime minister and foreign minister, on Monday via video link, with the two sides pledging to promote cooperation on innovation.

Wang said that, since the implementation of the China-Israel Innovation Cooperation Action Plan (2018-2021), the two sides have strengthened innovation guidance and institutional guarantees, deepened pragmatic cooperation and promoted personnel exchanges.

Hailing the continuous deepening of bilateral relations and cooperation, and the fact that the China-Israel innovative comprehensive partnership has entered a new stage, Wang called on the two sides to follow the instructions of the two heads of state and view the important role of the China-Israel JCIC from a strategic perspective, while taking the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust and expand people-to-people and cultural exchanges.

He also expressed hopes that the two sides will promote the implementation of important consensuses and major projects, conclude the free-trade negotiations within the year, synergize innovation ideas and resources, and strengthen cooperation in such areas as vaccine and drug research and development, so that China-Israel innovation cooperation in various fields can flourish and play a greater role in promoting the economic and social development of the two countries while enhancing people's well-being.

For his part, Lapid said that Israel is willing to work closely with China to give full play to the role of the JCIC and promote innovation cooperation between Israel and China to better benefit the two peoples.

Wang and Lapid jointly signed the China-Israel Innovation Cooperation Action Plan (2022-2024), and witnessed the signing of seven cooperation agreements in the fields of science and technology, health, culture, environmental protection, clean energy and intellectual property rights. 
George Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers responsible for the Star Wars franchise and Indiana Jones, he has been nominated for four Academy Awards for his work. The multi billionaire, visionary, film director, producer, screenwriter, and entrepreneur turns  Click for more.
Jacksonville, TX (75766)

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Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

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Mainly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 70F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.




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Joplin, MO (64801)

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Heavy thunderstorms during the morning will give way to steady rain this afternoon. High near 60F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near an inch..

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Volunteers register for residents waiting for nucleic acid test at a COVID-19 testing site in Fengtai District in Beijing, capital of China, Jan. 23, 2022. (Xinhua/Tang Rufeng)

BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Beijing Municipality has swung into action, adopting swift and targeted measures to contain the spread of infections after a local resurgence in COVID-19 cases was reported recently.

On Sunday, Fengtai, a district of about 2 million people, conducted district-wide nucleic acid testing to mitigate the risk of community transmission after a cluster infection was detected.

Authorities in Fengtai set up over 1,000 sampling sites -- mostly in residential areas -- and dispatched over 13,000 medical and service support workers to ensure smooth and efficient testing. Besides, 10 other districts in the Chinese capital sent 4,600 medical personnel to Fengtai to help with the anti-epidemic work.

"Early in the morning, workers set up the sampling site in our residential compound and started knocking on doors to remind residents to undergo testing," said a woman surnamed Xu in Shouwei residential area on Sunday.

Beijing reported nine locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, including five confirmed cases and four asymptomatic carriers from 4 p.m. Saturday to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Since Jan. 15, the city has reported a total of 43 local COVID-19 cases, with six attributable to the Omicron variant and 37 to the Delta variant, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy head of the municipal disease prevention and control center.

Currently, the Omicron variant outbreak has stabilized, with new cases coming from areas already under epidemic control and the risk of community spread is limited, Pang added. 
Pictured above are Washington High Key Club Advisor Kina White, Boys and Girls Club of the Eastern Panhandle Unit Director for Jefferson County Keleigh Taylor, Wright Denny KKids President Isabella Jackson, KKid Eva Burns, Charles Town Middle Builders Club Treasurer Niyathi Moorthy, Builders President Ava Brenneke, Key Club President Virginia Slover, former Key Club President Georgia Brenneke, Boys and Girls Club Executive Director Stacie Rohn, KKids Ryan Burns, KKids Historian Estella Indomenico, KKids Vice President Harper Valesek, KKids Kiwanis Liaison Karli Dancer and KKids Third Grade Representative Tatum Valesek. The KFamily presented a check of more than $900 to the Boys and Girls Club on Saturday from funds raised from working at the Cheer Booth this holiday season.
SHANGHAI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Some of Shanghai's universities are expected to have their walls and fences dismantled, making campus resources more accessible to the public.

"We plan to remove the wall and open the campus to the public," said Xu Xu, secretary of the Communist Party of China committee of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who is also a political advisor in Shanghai.

Xu made the remarks at the annual meeting of the municipal committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference that concluded on Saturday.

The school campus is located in Fenyang Road in the city's downtown area. There are six historical buildings on the campus, including the former Jewish club and the former Belgian Consulate in Shanghai. These old buildings shaded by green trees attract many music and history lovers.

Xu said that the purpose of demolishing the wall is to allow artistic resources to better serve the society.

The school is not alone in making the transition. A number of higher education institutions in the city have initiated similar moves or planned to tear down their walls to share campus resources with the public.

Huang Changyong, president of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, said the school would make its theater more accessible to neighborhood communities, and it plans to build an art gallery and a drama space on the Huashan Road outside the campus to turn the street into an "avenue themed on drama and art."

The school's Pudong campus, which opened in 2019, is already a fenceless one situated on the bank of Huangpu River, integrating the campus with a riverfront park and a nearby community.

"Going fenceless has become a new trend for universities," said Ding Xiaodong, president of the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, at the meeting.

Ding also pointed out that universities open and share their resources with the public on the premise of comprehensive institutional guarantee, as school roads are transformed into public roads. Traffic safety and school security need to be clarified in terms of management responsibilities.

He said the school is discussing these campus-opening arrangements with city and district authorities. 
FIRING

WHO: Somers Building Official John Collins.

WHY: Former and current officials found Collins worked for Windsor Locks during hours he was supposed to be serving Somers; made mistakes on permits; and did not follow directions as to his expected hours on the job.

NOW: Selectmen named Stafford Building Inspector Glenn T. Setzler as the interim building inspector for Somers per a memorandum of understanding with Stafford.
01/23/2022



The criminal justice major from Monroeville, Ala., will compete in Miss Alabama on June 29-July 2. Photo by Matt Reynolds.

by Buffy Lockette

Kaylee Knight - a criminal justice major from Monroeville, Ala. - was crowned Miss JSU 2022 at Leone Cole Auditorium on Jan. 21. She will now advance to the Miss Alabama pageant, to be held in Birmingham on June 29-July 2. First runner-up went to Morgan Carroll, a business management major from Moulton, Ala.

Nine JSU students competed in the annual pageant, vying for a two-semester scholarship and the opportunity to represent the university on the Miss Alabama stage. The pageant was hosted by reigning Miss Alabama Lauren Bradford, who was named first runner-up in the Miss America pageant in December.

Candidates were scored by expert judges in the following categories: Private Interview with Judges, 35 percent; Talent, 35 percent; Evening Wear and Social Impact Initiative, 15 percent; On-Stage Question, 15 percent.

First runner-up Morgan Carroll won the talent portion of the competition for her musical dance routine to I Gotcha. Miss JSU Kaylee Knight was awarded the inaugural Darby Angle Acts of Kindness Scholarship, a new award established by Miss JSU 2019 Darby Angle. Much like a Miss Congeniality award, the recipient is selected by the contestants themselves as the participant who displayed true kindness and grace throughout the week of competition.

The Miss JSU pageant is organized by the Dean of Students Office, under the direction of Cody Beck, assistant dean of students. The production was choreographed by Noelle Stovall, Marching Ballerinas coordinator and associate director of admissions, with support from graduate assistant Peytan Dill. Lauren Findley, director of admissions, chaired the pageants selection committee. Further support was provided by Josh Robinson, Megan Phillips, Abbie Beatty, Sydney Jones-Wright, Presley Cox and the SGA Executive Officers.

Tickets for the Miss Alabama competition go on sale in March. For more information, please visit the Miss Alabama website.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrisons WeChat account has disappeared, prompting accusations of Chinese interference from senior members of his government Monday.

But Tencent, the Chinese tech giant that owns WeChat, has denied that the prime ministers account was hacked or removed from its platform.

Based on our information, this appears to be a dispute over account ownership  the account in question was originally registered by a PRC individual and was subsequently transferred to its current operator, a technology services company, a Tencent spokesman said.

Morrisons account on the Chinese social media app, which was launched in February 2019, appears to have been replaced with one titled Australian Chinese new life.

The name was registered by Fuzhou 985 Technology Co., Ltd. on October 28, 2021.

However the account has posts dating back to February 1, 2019, including Morrisons first, which reads: Im very happy to open my official WeChat account.

Its understood the Australian prime minister had a Weixin account, which needs to be registered by someone in mainland China, rather than a WeChat account, which can be accessed by overseas users.

Fuzhuo 985s legal representative Huang Aipeng told SBS on Monday that the purchase of the account was legal.

There was no immediate comment from Morrison but a senator from his ruling centre-right Liberal Party accused Beijing of being behind the change.

What the Chinese government has done by shutting down the prime ministers account is effectively foreign interference in our democracy, James Paterson told 2GB radio on Monday.

Paterson called on Australian politicians to boycott WeChat in response.

Immigration Minister Alex Hawke and Coalition MP Gladys Liu have joined the boycott.

Morrison first launched his WeChat account to communicate with Australias sizable Chinese-Australian community ahead of the countrys last federal election in 2019.

That year, Morrison was asked by reporters whether there was a risk his account could be censored by the Chinese Communist Party.

We havent experienced any such censorship, he said.

In December 2020, WeChat removed a post from Morrison that defended Australias investigation into allegations of war crimes perpetrated by Australian soldiers.

The post also criticised Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who had tweeted a fake image of an Australian soldier holding a knife.

The last post on the Australian Chinese new life account is from July 9, 2021.

The Daily Telegraph reported Morrison has been locked out of his account since then.

All of the posts on the Australian Chinese new life account relate to Australian government announcements or messages from Morrison.

Tencent said the company will continue to look into this matter.

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With more than 70 truth commissions established worldwide to date, these bodies are proving to be one of the most popular transitional justice mechanisms. While their mandates and objectives have varied widely, the production of a publicly available report documenting the causes, patterns and impacts of past large-scale human rights abuses is considered essential to their impact. The length and structure of reports have also varied, but recommendations based on findings are a key unifying feature.

The Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP) was a trendsetter in a number of ways. Not only is it the first truth commission on record to publicly release a report, in September 1984, but the single-volume titled Nunca Mas prompted important shifts in transitional justice practice. The report, which became an instant bestseller, was used by the Argentine judiciary to support the prosecution of several junta members. Given that they were not strictly speaking part of the mandate of the CONADEP, the four recommendations included in the report were its most important innovation. Focusing primarily on reparations and criminal prosecutions, the commissioners argued that the primary purpose of these recommendations was to prevent, repair and, finally, to avoid the repetition of the curtailment of human rights in [their] country.

Thus, recommendations emerged organically from the human rights abuses investigated and were positioned by the commissioners as a bridge between the past and the future. On the one hand, the recommendations sought to respond to the victims rights of truth, justice, and reparations. On the other, the commissioners aimed for the recommendations to support social and political transformations to stave off similar violations in the future.

The Argentine writer Ernesto Sabato, president of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (Conadep), submitted his final report to President Raul Alfonsin on 20 September 1984. It was published as a book, Nunca Mas (Never Again).

In Latin America, a majority of recommendations acted upon

From this point on, recommendations are considered so important by the creators of truth commissions that these bodies are explicitly tasked with including them in reports. Some countries, notably El Salvador and Liberia, even made their implementation mandatory.

Although the implementation record of recommendations has been generally assumed to be poor, the systematic review carried out by the Beyond Words project on 13 Latin American truth commissions shows that we should be more optimistic about the truth commissions impacts for three reasons. First, even if only partially so, the majority of all recommendations have been acted upon regardless of their type. Second, and perhaps more importantly, three quarters of all recommendations are considered systemic, that is they aim to strengthen institutional and legal frameworks, rather than respond to the harms suffered by victims. Thus, given the higher-than-expected rate of implementation, truth commissions are in a good position to achieve social, political, and political transformations that go beyond producing a narrative about the violent past and are constitutive of guarantees of non-repetitions, along the lines of what the CONADEP envisioned in 1984.

What future for the Colombian CVR report?

By comparison to many countries that adopted similar mechanisms, the Colombian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC, also known as Commission for Clarification of Truth, Coexistence, and Non-Repetition, or CEV)  whose main functions in relation to the armed conflict are truth clarification, recognition of victims and responsibilities, and promotion of peaceful coexistence  finds itself in a unique situation likely to affect its report.

First, the TRC is embedded in a complex four-pronged system of reparations, justice, truth and non-repetition whose remaining mechanisms are going to continue operating well into the 2030s. Thus, while, unlike the case of the CONADEP, testimonies collected by the TRC may not be used for prosecutorial purposes, the final report is likely to provide an important element of context to other ordinary and transitional justice mechanisms.

Second, the TRC came into existence after a number of truth-seeking mechanisms investigated specific conflict-related harms, events and actors. The most important of these bodies, the National Centre for Historic Memory (CNMH), released the first global report on the internal armed conflict in 2013. Relations with the human rights movement and the transitional justice mechanisms of the Peace Agreement have soured in light of the leadership change at the CNMH, raising questions about whether the legacy of the TRC could be advanced by this body as planned. The CNMH is now unlikely to complete the construction of the Museum of Memory, which is supposed to house the TRC report.

Third, the establishment of the TRC did not come at the end of an armed conflict, being part of a piecemeal peace agreement with one specific non-state armed group. While the majority of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ex-combatants remain committed to the transitional justice project of the Peace Agreement, security problems persist around the country and are likely to affect dissemination of the report, including the implementation of recommendations.

Innovations for recommendations

The Beyond Words project put forward a typology of truth commissions recommendations that is composed of eight categories. The fact that the nearly 1,000 recommendations included in the analysis fall into at least one of these categories allows us to draw solid inferences about what the TRC recommendations might include. Truth commissions reports to date have contained recommendations on institutional reform, legal reform, reparations, non-repetition measures, constitutional reform, criminal prosecutions, and follow-up mechanisms. The majority of recommendations analysed fall into the first five categories, and relatively fewer considered constitutional reform and criminal prosecutions.

Since the Colombian TRC began operations in 2018, it added the commitment to lay the groundwork for guarantees of non-repetition as a fourth objective of its work. The recommendations that will be included in the report originate from three sources: reports submitted by victims and human rights organizations, an analysis of reports by previous truth-seeking bodies, findings relating to the armed conflict, and insights collected from participants to the TRC activities.

In Colombia, three innovations will likely be introduced by the TRC with respect to recommendations. First, progress made with respect to the recognition of constitutionally protected vulnerable groups, known locally as differential focus, will impact how recommendations capture the harms and impacts of the armed conflict on ethnic groups, women, members of the LGBTIQ+ community and other socio-economically marginalized individuals and groups. Second, the TRC has considered new types of harms and rights abuses, including environmental damage and reproductive violence. Third, new actors, particularly the business sector, but also non-state armed actors that demobilized in the early 1990s and had not participated in truth-seeking processes of this magnitude, were included in this conversation. The business sector has had a significant participation in Dialogues for Non-Repetition, the predilect methodology for collecting recommendations to be included in the report.

Finally, the TRC rollout of 24 so-called Houses of Truth in areas most affected by the conflict provides the commissioners with the opportunity to consider both the formulation and implementation of the recommendations through a local lens.

Recommendations: a duty of the Colombian state

The extension granted by the Constitutional Court allowed the release of the report of the TRC to avoid the ongoing electoral race.

Nevertheless, as was the case with the implementation of the Peace Agreement, the change in national government and local authorities due in the second semester of 2022 may have serious implications for the implementation of its recommendations. For coordinated and sustained action on implementation to take place, the transitional justice project of the Peace Agreement, of which the TRC is part, has to be taken on as a state duty. This means that all branches of government and both national and local levels should commit themselves to acting on the recommendations as soon as possible after the release of the report. It also means that the recommendations of the TRC have a higher chance of being implemented if and where they overlap with the letter and the spirit of the Peace Agreement.

The extension granted by the Constitutional Court to the TRC also awards it an extra two-month period for report dissemination and outreach. While its statutes recognize the need to establish a Follow-Up Committee responsible for monitoring the implementation of its recommendations, its duration or composition remain unclear. The commissioners are tasked with formulating the mandate and rules of procedure of this body and its design is still unknown. Part of their task is now also to specify the outreach functions in the extension. Based on the case studies included in the Beyond Words project, solid dissemination efforts and strong follow-up committees improve the chances that recommendations will be implemented by providing civil society with the tools to hold authorities to account. It remains to be seen whether this will be the case in Colombia.
In their first visit to Europe since returning to power, the Taliban began landmark talks with Western diplomats in Oslo on Monday to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

The international community has however insisted the Taliban must respect human rights before aid can resume to the country.

The Taliban delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, began talks just after 0930 GMT with representatives of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway.

The closed-door discussions, facilitated by Norway, are being held at the Soria Moria Hotel, on a snowy hilltop outside Oslo.

Afghanistans humanitarian situation has deteriorated drastically since last August when the fundamentalists stormed back to power 20 years after being toppled.

International aid came to a halt, worsening the plight of millions of people already suffering from hunger after several severe droughts.

Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, tweeted on Sunday: As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief orgs, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan.

No country has yet recognised the Taliban government.

Norway has stressed that the talks, which have been criticised by some experts and members of the Afghan diaspora, would not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban.

But we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country. We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed last week.

Meanwhile, the Taliban hope the talks will help transform the atmosphere of war into a peaceful situation, government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP on Saturday.

Since August, international aid, which financed around 80 percent of the Afghan budget, has been suspended and the United States has frozen $9.5 billion in assets in the Afghan central bank.

Unemployment has skyrocketed and civil servants salaries have not been paid for months in the country, already ravaged by several severe droughts.

Hunger now threatens 23 million Afghans, or 55 percent of the population, according to the United Nations, which says it needs $4.4 billion from donor countries this year to address the humanitarian crisis.

 Icebreaker 

The international community is waiting to see how the Taliban intend to govern after being accused of trampling on human rights during their first stint in power between 1996 and 2001.

While the Islamists claim to have modernised, women are still largely excluded from public-sector employment and most secondary schools for girls remain closed.

Two women activists disappeared this week in Kabul.

On Sunday, during the first day of the three-day visit to Oslo, the Taliban met with Afghan civil society members, including women activists and journalists, for talks on human rights.

One of those attending the meetings, womens rights activist Jamila Afghani, told AFP it was a positive icebreaking meeting.

The Taliban displayed goodwill. Lets see what their actions will be, based on their words, she said.

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a tweet: All Afghans need to work together for better political, economic and security outcomes.

The participants recognised that understanding and joint cooperation are the only solutions.

The 15 members of the all-male delegation arrived on Saturday aboard a plane chartered by the Norwegian government.

Among them was Anas Haqqani, a leader of the most feared and violent faction of the Taliban movement  the Haqqani network, responsible for some of the most devastating attacks in Afghanistan.

His participation has been heavily criticised on social media.

According to Norwegian media, a Norwegian-Afghan has filed a police complaint in Oslo against Haqqani for war crimes.

This hurts. Its as if Anders Behring Breivik (the Norwegian rightwing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011) came to a country as a delegate, Zahir Athari told public broadcaster NRK.
In their first visit to Europe since returning to power, the Taliban held landmark talks with Western diplomats in Oslo on Monday about the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where millions are suffering from hunger.

The international community has however insisted the Taliban must respect human rights before aid can resume to the country.

Having accepted a controversial invitation from Norway, the Taliban began talks just after 0930 GMT with representatives of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway.

The closed-door discussions are being held at the Soria Moria Hotel, on a snowy hilltop outside Oslo, with the Taliban delegation led by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Afghanistans humanitarian situation has deteriorated drastically since last August when the fundamentalists stormed back to power 20 years after being toppled.

International aid came to a sudden halt, worsening the plight of millions of people already suffering from hunger after several severe droughts.

Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, tweeted on Sunday: As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief orgs, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan.

The Taliban meanwhile hope that meetings of this kind will help legitimise their government.

No country has yet recognised the Taliban regime. Norway has stressed that the talks would not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban.

But we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country. We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster, Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed last week.

Members of the Afghan diaspora have criticised the Norwegian invitation, and several protests have been held outside the foreign ministry in Oslo.

Since August, international aid, which financed around 80 percent of the Afghan budget, has been suspended and the United States has frozen $9.5 billion in assets in the Afghan central bank.

Unemployment has skyrocketed and civil servants salaries have not been paid for months in the country, already ravaged by several severe droughts.

Hunger now threatens 23 million Afghans, or 55 percent of the population, according to the United Nations, which says it needs $4.4 billion from donor countries this year to address the humanitarian crisis.

 Hopes for mutual understanding 

The international community is waiting to see how the Taliban intend to govern after being accused of trampling on human rights during their first stint in power between 1996 and 2001.

While the Islamists claim to have modernised, women are still largely excluded from public-sector employment and most secondary schools for girls remain closed.

Two women activists disappeared last week in Kabul.

Before meeting the Taliban, the Western diplomats held talks early Monday with members of Afghanistans civil society, including women activists and journalists, who had themselves held talks the day before with the hardline Islamists on human rights.

One of those attending the meetings, womens rights activist Jamila Afghani, told AFP it was a positive icebreaking meeting where the Taliban displayed goodwill, but it remained to be seen what their actions will be.

On Monday, another woman activist in Oslo, Mahbouba Seraj, said the Taliban acknowledged us and they heard us.

Im hopeful. Im hoping for some kind of an understanding of each other, she told reporters.

Meanwhile, tweeting what he called a joint statement after the Sunday talks, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the participants recognised that understanding and joint cooperation are the only solutions.

The 15 members of the all-male Taliban delegation arrived in Oslo on Saturday aboard a plane chartered by the Norwegian government.

Among them was Anas Haqqani, a leader of the most feared and violent faction of the Taliban movement  the Haqqani network, responsible for some of the most devastating attacks in Afghanistan.

His participation has been heavily criticised on social media.

According to Norwegian media, a Norwegian-Afghan has filed a police complaint in Oslo against Haqqani for war crimes.

This hurts. Its as if Anders Behring Breivik (the Norwegian rightwing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011) came to a country as a delegate, Zahir Athari told public broadcaster NRK.
On their first visit to Europe since returning to power, the Taliban held landmark talks with Western diplomats in Oslo on Monday over the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where hunger threatens more than half population.

The international community has however insisted the Taliban must respect human rights before aid can be resumed to Afghanistan.

Having accepted a controversial invitation from Norway, the Taliban were holding talks with representatives of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway.

The closed-door discussions were being held at the Soria Moria Hotel, on a snowy hilltop outside Oslo, with the Taliban delegation led by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.

Afghanistans humanitarian situation has deteriorated drastically since last August when the fundamentalists stormed back to power 20 years after being toppled.

International aid came to a sudden halt, worsening the plight of millions of people already suffering from hunger after several severe droughts.

Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, tweeted on Sunday: As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief orgs, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan.

The Taliban meanwhile hope that meetings of this kind will help legitimise their government.

 Criticism against Norway 

No country has yet recognised the Taliban regime.

Norways Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt has stressed the talks would not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban, but because of the humanitarian emergency we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country.

Several experts and members of the Afghan diaspora have criticised the Norwegian invitation to the Taliban, and several protests have been held outside the foreign ministry in the capital.

In Kabul, Wahida Amiri, an activist who has protested regularly in Kabul since the Talibans return, told AFP she was sorry for such a country as Norway for organising this summit, sitting with terrorists, and making deals.

Since August, international aid, which financed around 80 percent of the Afghan budget, has been suspended and the United States has frozen $9.5 billion in assets in the Afghan central bank.

Unemployment has skyrocketed and civil servants salaries have not been paid for months in the country.

Hunger now threatens 23 million Afghans, or 55 percent of the population, according to the United Nations, which says it needs $4.4 billion from donor countries this year to address the crisis.

But the international community is waiting to see how the Taliban intend to govern after being accused of trampling on human rights during their first stint in power between 1996 and 2001.

 They heard us 

While the Islamists claim to have modernised, women are still largely excluded from public-sector employment and most secondary schools for girls remain closed.

Two women activists disappeared last week in Kabul. The Taliban have denied responsibility.

Before meeting with the Taliban, the Western diplomats held talks early Monday with members of Afghanistans civil society, including women activists and journalists, who had themselves held talks the day before with the hardline Islamists on human rights.

One of those in attendance, womens rights activist Jamila Afghani, told AFP it was a positive icebreaking meeting where the Taliban displayed goodwill, but it remained to be seen what their actions will be.

On Monday, another woman activist who took part in Oslo, Mahbouba Seraj, said the Taliban acknowledged us and they heard us.

Im hopeful. Im hoping for some kind of an understanding of each other, she told reporters.

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted after their talks that the participants recognised that understanding and joint cooperation are the only solutions.

Among the 15 members of the all-male Taliban delegation was Anas Haqqani, a leader of the most feared and violent faction of the Taliban movement, the Haqqani network blamed for some of the most devastating attacks in Afghanistan.

His participation has been heavily criticised on social media and local media reported a Norwegian-Afghan has filed a police complaint in Oslo against Haqqani for war crimes.

This hurts. Its as if Anders Behring Breivik (the Norwegian rightwing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011) came to a country as a delegate, Zahir Athari, told public broadcaster NRK.
On their first visit to Europe since returning to power, the Taliban held landmark talks with Western diplomats in Oslo on Monday over the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, a meeting the Islamist regimes delegation called an achievement in itself.

The international community has however insisted the Taliban must respect human rights before aid can be resumed to Afghanistan, where hunger threatens more than half population.

Having accepted a controversial invitation from Norway, the Taliban were holding talks on Monday with representatives of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway.

The closed-door discussions were taking place at the Soria Moria Hotel, on a snowy hilltop outside Oslo, with the Taliban delegation led by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, who hailed the fact that the meeting took place as a success in its own right.

Norway providing us this opportunity is an achievement in itself because we shared the stage with the world, Muttaqi told reporters Monday.

From these meetings we are sure of getting support for Afghanistans humanitarian, health and education sectors, he added.

Afghanistans humanitarian situation has deteriorated drastically since last August when the fundamentalists stormed back to power 20 years after being toppled.

International aid came to a sudden halt, worsening the plight of millions of people already suffering from hunger after several severe droughts.

Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, tweeted on Sunday: As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief orgs, we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan.

 Criticism against Norway 

No country has yet recognised the Taliban regime which hopes that meetings of this kind will help legitimise their government.

Norways Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt has stressed the talks would not represent a legitimisation or recognition of the Taliban, but because of the humanitarian emergency we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country.

Experts and members of the Afghan diaspora have criticised the Norwegian invitation to the Taliban, and protests have been held outside the foreign ministry in the capital.

In Kabul, Wahida Amiri, an activist who has protested regularly in Kabul since the Talibans return, told AFP she was sorry for such a country as Norway for organising this summit, sitting with terrorists, and making deals.

Since August, international aid, which financed around 80 percent of the Afghan budget, has been suspended and the United States has frozen $9.5 billion in assets in the Afghan central bank.

Unemployment has skyrocketed and civil servants salaries have not been paid for months in the country.

Hunger now threatens 23 million Afghans, or 55 percent of the population, according to the United Nations, which says it needs $4.4 billion from donor countries this year to address the crisis.

But the international community is waiting to see how the Taliban intend to govern after being accused of trampling on human rights during their first stint in power between 1996 and 2001.

 They heard us 

While the Islamists claim to have modernised, women are still largely excluded from public-sector employment and most secondary schools for girls remain closed.

Two women activists disappeared last week in Kabul. The Taliban have denied responsibility.

Before meeting with the Taliban, the Western diplomats held talks early Monday with members of Afghanistans civil society, including women activists and journalists, who had themselves held talks the day before with the hardline Islamists on human rights.

One of those in attendance, womens rights activist Jamila Afghani, told AFP it was a positive icebreaking meeting where the Taliban displayed goodwill, but it remained to be seen what their actions will be.

On Monday, another woman activist who took part in Oslo, Mahbouba Seraj, said the Taliban acknowledged us and they heard us.

Im hopeful. Im hoping for some kind of an understanding of each other, she told reporters.

Meanwhile, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted after their talks that the participants recognised that understanding and joint cooperation are the only solutions.

Among the 15 members of the all-male Taliban delegation was Anas Haqqani, a leader of the most feared and violent faction of the Taliban movement, the Haqqani network blamed for some of the most devastating attacks in Afghanistan.

His participation has been heavily criticised on social media and local media reported a Norwegian-Afghan has filed a police complaint in Oslo against Haqqani for war crimes.
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Israel and China have witnessed "substantial" bilateral cooperation since they established diplomatic ties 30 years ago, with political, economic, cultural and people-to-people exchanges booming, Israeli Ambassador to China Irit Ben-Abba has said.

"If I look at what we have achieved in 30 years, it's quite substantial," Ben-Abba told Xinhua in a recent interview on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.

Over the past 30 years, bilateral trade and economic relations have developed at a fast pace, said the ambassador. Data from China Customs showed that bilateral trade volume has grown from 50 million U.S. dollars in 1992 to 22.8 billion dollars in 2021.

Meanwhile, active academic cooperation between universities of the two sides and cultural events held by both countries have largely boosted exchanges and understanding between the two peoples, she added.

In 2017, Israel and China established their innovative comprehensive partnership, which offered a direction for both sides to develop collaboration in sectors including business, technology, health, education, agriculture and environment, the ambassador noted.

Looking to the future, Ben-Abba said such a development momentum in bilateral relations should be maintained and further developed, and people-to-people exchanges be enhanced.

Israel is perceived as a young and innovative country of entrepreneurship, Ben-Abba said, adding that the two countries can work together to develop innovative technologies in such fields as water usage and renewable energy to help confront global challenges like climate change.

Noting that the Jewish nation and the Chinese nation have enjoyed a time-honored friendship, she said, "We should learn more about each other, (about) our histories, our cultures and our traditions, especially for the young generation in both countries. They have to interact more with each other."

Ben-Abba served as the minister of the Israeli embassy in Beijing from 1994 to 1996. The veteran diplomat said she is impressed by China's fast development, especially the infrastructure construction that has built up mobility across the country.

"It is so accessible to everyone. You can get to the most remote places in China in no time, either by a bullet train or an airplane or a very modern bus," she said while recalling her travel experiences in China.

Ben-Abba spoke highly of bilateral cooperation in combating COVID-19, especially information sharing between medical workers and hospitals. She also thanked China for providing assistance when the virus appeared in Israel.

She said she hopes the two countries will join hands to conduct research, work on vaccine and drug development and find appropriate solutions to possible pandemics in the future.

Ben-Abba also wished the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympic Games a success and wished all the Chinese people a Happy Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 1. 
An average of more than 10 anti-Semitic incidents occurred around the world every day last year, a 10-year high, said a report published on Monday.

Nearly half of the incidents took place in Europe, with the United States following at 30 percent, said the report from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Canada and Australia saw a surprising increase in incidents compared to previous years, according to the report, which did not offer further information on the rise.

But while the numbers show that 2021 was the most anti-Semitic year in the last decade, at the same time no Jew in the world has been murdered on anti-Semitic grounds over that period, the report said.

The semi-governmental Jewish Agency is the executive branch of the World Zionist Organization.

Published ahead of the international day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust, on January 27, the report notes that most of the anti-Semitic incidents were vandalism and destruction, graffiti, and desecration of monuments, as well as propaganda.

It added: Incidents of physical and verbal violence accounted for less than a third of all anti-Semitic incidents.

Such episodes and attacks peaked during May, when Jewish and Muslim festivals led to clashes in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and a war with Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, the report said.

In addition, many European countries lifted their pandemic lockdowns that month, which allowed anti-Semitism that spread online to move around the public space again, the report said.

Many demonstrations against the Covid vaccines and restrictions included Holocaust motifs, such as the yellow star, as well as anti-Semitic conspiracy theories accusing Jews as spreaders of the pandemic to control the world, the report said, expressing concern over the trivialisation of the Holocaust.

 Alarm over trivialisation 

The United Nations General Assembly last week adopted an Israeli-German non-binding resolution calling on all member states to fight against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, especially on social media.

The Holocaust saw the genocide of six million European Jews between 1939 and 1945 by the Nazis and their supporters.

A separate report by Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), an umbrella of more than 100 groups, said the use of Holocaust analogies in relation to the coronavirus pandemic allowed for the trivialisation of Nazi crimes.

A social media scan in six languages for the years 2020-2021 found more than 60 million online engagements tying together the Holocaust and Covid-19, the vast majority of them in English, with Hebrew and Spanish following.

The trivialization of Nazi Germanys crimes against humanity fuels Holocaust deniers who seek to downplay Nazi transgressions and allowing it to flourish unchecked has created safe spaces for anti-Semitic conspiracies, outright Holocaust denial, and other extremist ideologies to spread, CAM chief Sacha Roytman Dratwa said.

The memory of the Holocaust is a cornerstone in the fight against anti-Semitism, and I call on top decision makers, internet giants, and all people to take this alarming trend seriously, he said in a statement.
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Two companies experiencing very different supply chain disruptions reported this morning: Computacenter and De La Rue.

In a positive transaction update, computing center said its fourth-quarter results beat expectations. Adjusted pre-tax profit will be slightly above 250m  Computacenters 17th consecutive year of EPS growth. Difficulty getting computer hardware means customers order earlier than usual to avoid delays. Computacenters product order backlog hit an all-time high. But Computacenter said, there are also significant underlying forces in the market.

in the banknote printer from the streetHowever, shortages of chips and other raw materials, as well as rising supply chain costs, will weigh on profits. De La Rue said this years adjusted operating profit would be about the same as last year, at around 36m-40m, instead of the 45m-47m expected by analysts. Employee absences for Omicron and Delta models at its manufacturing plants also hampered its operational output. But the company said the issues represented a delay of about 12 months in its turnaround plan, rather than derailing it.

How long can a company see supply chain issues as an anomaly?tell me your idea [email protected]

briefly

In case you missed it yesterday, Nelson Peltzs activist hedge fund Trian Partners is already on UnileverTheres never been a quiet moment for the consumer goods giant.Our team has full story.

Rolls Royce A competition between the regions of England and Wales to manufacture sites for their small nuclear power plants has been launched. An industry consortium led by the Aerospace Group has written to several regional development agencies in England and the Welsh Government, asking them to advertise the site and pledge up to 200m in investment and up to 200 direct jobs.Correspondent Sylvia Pfeiffer There are more.

Brookfield It is expanding its hedge fund business into Europe, opening an office in London and hiring.hedge fund correspondent Lawrence Fletcher Has details on the relocation of a Canadian investment group known for its real estate, infrastructure and private equity investments.

Gaming operator Our casual journalists are bracing for another round of tough UK regulation Alice Hancock reports. The new rules may include a 2 wagering limit on online slot machines as well as restrictions on customer deposits and affordability checks.

city ??week

The week started off slowly, but Im getting ready for a busy Thursday (if that days newsletter is a few minutes late, youll know why).

bring britain on tuesday public sector borrowing data.bar group Marstons and mitchell and the butler Both companies have annual general meetings, so it is likely that the market will be updated before then.

Airlines third-quarter results on Wednesday Wizz Air, its epidemic is much better than traditional flagship airlines.Transaction Updates from Accounting Software Providers wise man (the first season), CMC Market (all year), retailers pets at home (Q3) and tall oil.

Deal updates from private equity groups on Thursday 3i, retailer dr martin, airline easyJet, mixer manufacturer fever tree, Insurance Company/Cruise Operator Saga and wealth managers St Jamess Square in.Global beverage giant Diageo Announcement of half-year results, online trading platform also released IG Group. and there are monthly house price data from all over the country.

After all, Friday is quiet.Alternative lenders have a deal statement Paragon Bank, but nothing more.

beyond the square mile

Cathay Pacific Investors took notice of a full-year loss of $783 million (HK$6.1 billion) last year due to Hong Kongs strict coronavirus restrictions.Stricter quarantine measures could mean the airline is burning through almost HK$193 a month coming in february.

Google Germanys largest publisher and advertiser faces new resistance over its plans to phase out third-party cookies, Javier Espinoza reports from brusselsAxel Springer, publisher of Bild and Politico, was one of those who argued to the EU competition chief that Googles move violated EU law  a move that could lead to dozens of The latest effort in a formal investigation into the US$100 million euro fine.

Volkswagen Fired a senior employee weeks after they alerted them to an alleged cybersecurity breach in their payments division, Joe Miller reportsThe payments business, which will soon be majority-owned by JPMorgan, is vulnerable to fraud, the manager said. VW said the information provided proved irrelevant and that due to fundamental differences in the way we work together, the employee was fired.

And more evidence venture capital Boom: Venture capital investment in Latin America tripled last years previous record. Investors raced to back fintech, e-commerce and real estate groups amid a $15 billion spending boom.Michael Puller full story from Sao Paulo.

Asked by our Associate Editor Patrick Jenkins which is better: Goldman Sachs, the $116 billion global banking giant, or Allied Irish Bank, one-fifteenth the size of the Irish government, but still majority-owned by the Irish government after a humble bailout 13 years ago? Judging from the stock price performance over the past year, it is AIB. But Patrick noted that both share a common problem: compensation.

thanks for reading. If you have friends or colleagues who might like this newsletter, please forward it to them. register here
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Things take a darker turn as the North Korean spies get caught up in their heist, struggling to escape the country back to safety. Because of this, the hostage-takers would turn their backs on each other one way or another. In addition to that, everyone finds themselves at a crossroads of deterring relationships and salvation.

'Snowdrop' Episode 12: Im Su Ho and Kang Cheong Ya's Strained Relationship Gets Worse

In "Snowdrop" episode 12, Young Ro sees herself at a crossroads of love and blood. While she tries to preserve one thing, the other just crumbles in front of her. The relationship between Su Ho and Cheong Ya becomes even more blurry.

Feeling betrayed, Cheong Ya tries to kill Su Ho with a dagger. The man tries to reason with her, but when she learns that Su Ho is the son of Im Ji Rok (Jeon Moo Sung), who is a huge deal in the North, she aborts her initial plan.

Meanwhile, Su Ho's father phones the dormitory, revealing the plans and secrets of spies in hiding. He also threw his son under the bus by exposing his plans on destroying the presidential campaign alongside Lee Kang Mu (Jang Seung Jo).

Nam Tae Il (Park Sung Woong), who hears the betrayal-filled news, orders to bomb the dormitory. On the other hand, Eun Chang Soo (Heo Jun Ho) insists on sending in a death squad, saving his daughter first before blowing the dormitory down.

Who is the Hidden Spy in Hosoo Women's University Dormitory?

When the news of Su Ho and Kang Mu teaming up together to take down the presidential candidates, Su Ho's instincts become more sensitive, realizing that there had been a spy inside the dormitory even before the hostage crisis took place.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: 'Snowdrop' Episode 11: Jung Hae In and Jisoo Share First Sweet Kiss Amid the Chaos

Boon Ok (Kim Hye Yoon), who is a person of interest, asks Su Ho why he returned to the dormitory when he fled away, heightening the tension and confusion. In addition to that, Im Ji Rok amplifies the tension by instructing Cheong Ya to kill the traitors before finally returning to the North.

The Negotiation Between Young Ro's Beloveds

Meanwhile, Young Ro asks her father to speak with her after she learns that the dormitory has been wrapped with explosives. However, when Chang Soo shouts his daughter's name, the death squad ransacks the dormitory to kill Su Ho.

Young Ro begs her father for mercy-not only for her and Su Ho's lives but also for the other hostages-as they see each other face-to-face. Her father then quickly grabs her, quickly signaling the squad to return to their posts.

After hearing the signal to kill, the firing squad surrounds Su Ho all at once, aiming their guns at the North Korean spy. Before giving the order to shoot, Young Ro's father hears a gunshot that is directly aimed at him.

Young Ro, torn between the most important men in her life, gets stuck in an endless pit of dilemma. As she tries to save the other, the other one just gets in danger, making it hard for her to take sides.

'Snowdrop' Episode 13: The North Korean Spies' Dilemma and Attack

Unbeknownst to everyone, Nam Tae Il ordered the military to eliminate Eun Chang Soo, revealing his true intentions. The South Korean also lied to Ahn Gyung Hee (Lee Hwa Ryung) that Eun Chang Soo was shot by armed spies while trying to negotiate with the North.

Meanwhile, Su Ho and Kang Mu evacuated the hostages to a safer room after the firing squad attacked, who threw tear gas to suppress the hostages. Nam Tae Il ordered the firing squad to kill all spies in exception to Cheong Ya.

However, Su Ho is smart enough to know his plans. Before the attack, Su Ho and Kang Mu made Cheong Ya wear a vest with a dynamite hanging on it. Su Ho then threatens Nam Tae Il, saying that he'll blow up the doctor if they don't withdraw.

The government then released a false report to protect their reputation, saying that the operation had been canceled after the hostages wore suicide bomb vests on their bodies. The North Korean spies create a plan for safety, before the government unlocks the bombs and attack them.

Lee Kang Mu Struggles to Attack Alone

Meanwhile, Kang Mu reveals that Cheong Ya is a fixed spy and Nam Tae Il's weakness, exposing the true nature of their relationship which they can use to stop the shooting. Su Ho, who overhears Kang Mu's conversation over the radio, becomes furious, throwing a fist at Kang Mu.

The two aim a gun at each other, confronting each other. Su Ho and Kang Mu are caught up between escaping, saving a colleague or deterring relationships with comrades.

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Written by Elijah Mully.
The pandemic may have created a nation of problem drinkers -- and many are women
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- China has seen a significant decline in the number of ivory smuggling cases, as authorities continue to stringently crack down on such crimes, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Monday.

The total volume of seized ivory products plunged to 68 kg last year from 9.2 tonnes in 2019 across the country, Ni Yuefeng, head of the GAC, said at a work conference.

China has also seen a sharp decline in the number of illegal waste import cases, winning the Asia Environment Enforcement Awards from the United Nations for the fourth time in 2021, Ni said.

Last year, Chinese customs seized 42,000 tonnes of smuggled foreign waste, down 97.4 percent from the previous year, according to the GAC. 
Annekathrin Fiesinger shows how to use the food sharing app 'Too Good To Go' during an interview with the Associated Press in Berlin, Tuesday, May 21, 2019. Too Good To Go is one of many food rescue apps operating in Canada and is helping to reduce grocery and dining bills, while ensuring food thats due to go off soon but still fit for consumption doesnt go to waste. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigation into straw purchases of firearms in August of 2020 led to three felony charges against a 40-year-old Kenosha man.

Eric W. Gragen, of the 8000 block of 48th Avenue, was ordered held in the Kenosha County Jail on a $25,000 cash bond during his initial appearance earlier this month before Kenosha County Circuit Court Commissioner Larry Keating.

Court records show that Gragen had been wanted on a $100,000 arrest warrant after he failed to make an initial appearance in August. He was returned on that warrant Jan. 10.

Gragen waived his right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday, pleaded not guilty and is due back in court Feb. 25, for a pre-trial conference before Judge Anthony Milisauskas.

Each of the felony counts carries a maximum possible prison sentence of five years, five years extended supervision and a fine of $25,000.

The complaint

According to the criminal complaint, An informant advised ATF agents in August of 2020 that Gragen was straw purchasing firearms for felon gang members in the Kenosha County and Lake County (Ill.) areas.

The informant showed texts with the defendant that discussed firearm sales and stated that Gragen buys firearms from armslist.com, charges between $200 and $400 each and typically meets individuals in store or gas station parking lots.

Agents, along with members of the Kenosha Drug Operations Group and other law enforcement officials, conducted a controlled firearm purchase of a rifle, a rifle magazine, a pistol and three pistol magazines Aug. 12, 2020, for $2,100, the complaint states.

The informant met with the defendant at a store parking lot in Somers, where police observed Gragen pull two boxes from his vehicle and put them in the back seat of the informants vehicle. Police then watched Gragen hand money to the informant.

Law enforcement arranged another controlled purchase Aug. 18, 2020, of a shotgun and three magazines for $1,100 at the same parking lot. Police watched the defendant relocate to a different stores parking lot, where he spoke to an unknown male, who put a firearm in Gragens vehicle. Gragen then returned, put a firearm in the informants vehicle and leave, according to the complaint.

Separate case

In a separate case against Gragen, he is charged with a felony count of unauthorized use of food stamps, which carries a possible maximum prison term of 18 months, two years extended supervision and a fine of $10,000.

Gragen has a pre-trial conference on this case before Milisauskas the same day and time as the other pending case.

According to the criminal complaint, a woman told police Gragen had stolen her electronic benefit transfer food stamp card and made multiple purchases. During a traffic stop, the womans card was found on Gragen.

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Weve heard from all our constituents," Republican Rep. James Tipton said. Its been a shock for many people who are living in tight times. (Kentucky Today/Tom Latek)
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An excerpt from Rheum for Improvement: The Evolution of a Health-Care Advocate.

Their expert witness, Dr. Z, was simply a hired gun willing to do their bidding for a price. He had completed only one year of a rotating internship in family practice in the 1960s. He had not done a residency and had no rheumatology training. He had not seen a patient in 14 years and made his living providing expert testimony. Had this been an actual malpractice lawsuit, he would have been disqualified from testifying based on the Act 13 mandates in Pennsylvania that were passed in 2002. As noted in Chapter 3, this ruling decreed that any expert who testifies must have training in the same area as the defendant and must be in active practice or recently retired. Dr. Z met neither of these criteria. That did not stop the state board of medicine from using him against me.

Dr. Zs review of my chart can only be described as stunning. I had to ask my attorney multiple times if he had actually given my entire chart to Dr. Z, as it was clear that Dr. Z had not read it carefully. He made a number of baseless attacks, such as noting the absence of a history or physical in the chart, when in fact, there was a complete history and physical in the chart. His 16-page report contained at least 25 errors of fact. It is one thing to criticize me on my choice of medications or my medical judgment; it is another to criticize me for not doing something that the chart clearly demonstrates that I did. As an example, he accused me of failing to document fibromyalgia tender points in my initial exam when this was clearly documented. He based his medical opinions on one superficial article on fibromyalgia. I am being generous when I say that his testimony was highly questionable in terms of its accuracy and its validity. Fraudulent would be a more appropriate word. Nonetheless, his errors and the argument that he was not qualified to testify based on Act 13 mandates fell on deaf ears. The state board noted that they were not required to follow Act 13. They simply did not care, as his testimony served their underlying agenda.

The trial was approaching in the summer of 2005 and I was a nervous wreck. My skills, competence, and most importantly, my integrity, were being impugned. I was outraged at Dr. Zs written report. My entire future was at stake against an opponent who was not interested in fairness, justice, or the truth. My wife and I arranged for child care and we traveled to Harrisburg in July for the two-day trial.

At the trial, I finally met Dr. Z in person. He extended his hand to me and without thought, I shook it by default. I immediately regretted it. That single act of civility has haunted me since then. How could I possibly have accepted the hand of someone who was intentionally trying to destroy me without regard for the truth? I sacrificed my self-respect in that instant in the name of good manners. I have not been able to come to terms with that, even after all these years. It was truly a life-changing action for me. I was already 48 years old at the time, but I learned a lot about myself and grew up quite a bit that day. Courtesy and consideration are important but should not be rendered to those who engage in unethical behavior.

The trial then commenced. The hearing examiner allowed Dr. Zs testimony, despite his lack of qualifications. During the trial, Dr. Z continued to make ridiculous assertions that demonstrated his lack of knowledge of the current practice of medicine and more specifically the practice of rheumatology. This was not surprising as he had no rheumatology training, but it was distressing nonetheless. His oral testimony continued to demonstrate that he had not read my chart thoroughly. He repeatedly drew conclusions criticizing my care, which were not substantiated by the facts of the case. He was on the witness stand for a day and a half. It was excruciating to listen to him with the thought that the hearing examiner might find his testimony credible.

My expert witness was board certified in pain management. After he refuted the nonsense spewed by Dr. Z, it was my turn to take the stand. I did so with great apprehension and was visibly shaking as I sat there. The prosecuting attorney grilled me, but I had an answer for every question she posed. My chart was well documented on every challenge that she raised. My testimony must have been very damaging to their case against me, as I was only on the stand for 20 minutes, compared to the day and a half that Dr. Z had testified.

Then it was over. I was numb. I waited nervously for a result and tried to resume normalcy.

I do not hesitate to share what I endured. I recognize that there is a code of silence that must be broken when one is involved in legal action. It is imperative that we speak out to patients, legislators, and other physicians against these types of injustices. The sense of isolation can be overwhelming. I do not want anyone to go through what I have gone through, questioning myself, my skills, and my self-worth. Hopefully sharing our stories will help to give other physicians added strength. I have come to firmly believe that publicity and sharing our experiences are our best tools against legal injustice.

Mark Lopatin is a rheumatologist and author of Rheum for Improvement: The Evolution of a Health-Care Advocate.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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At the beginning of August 2021, during the early stages of opening my practice, I decided to take an opportunity that I would be forever grateful for. The organization International SOS was looking for physicians and other health care providers to join a massive once-in-a-lifetime operation at Fort Lee military base.

At the time, the country was attempting to end the war in Afghanistan quietly. We were told that there would be a few thousand interpreters with the families that would need immigration physicals at the base prior to being resettled in different communities around the country.

The immigration medical exams are required for immigrants and refugees to identify health conditions that may make them inadmissible to enter the U.S.

Typical conditions include communicable diseases and mental disorders associated with harmful behaviors. These exams can only be performed by a physician, which meant that we were urgently for this operation. Within a week of learning about the opportunity, I was on my way to Virginia.

Upon my arrival, I came to realize that I was one of the first three civilian physicians on the mission. The first few days were mostly setting up field tents as our command center and medical area. I met some incredibly hard-working and devoted medical providers, EMTs, pharmacists and nurses. I was impressed by how fast contract workers could set up a new tent, provide Wi-Fi and stock the entire area with supplies.

All of this was done during the hot and muggy summer days in Virginia. The staff was trained on the workflow and the few medical emergencies that we could possibly encounter. COVID complicated things as it usually does, since every refugee needed to receive a COVID vaccine and test on arrival five days after their arrival.

Initially, most visitors (as they were called) stayed only three to four days since their accommodations had already been arranged before their arrival.

After a few weeks of minor chaos and disorganized and under-resourced medical care, we finally achieved a workflow that accomplished the goals set forth by the military.

However, by August 16  things got real.

As everyone in the country would soon find out, this was much more than a small assignment.

Images of evacuations at the airport in Kabul and teenagers falling off military planes stunned the country. Where were all these unplanned refugees going to end up?

The base could hold 2,000 visitors tops at the hotel where they stayed. We were hearing reports of 90,000 refugees stuck at locations across the world. The military kept us in the dark and put much of the mission on hold while they figured out a plan.

Meanwhile, our guests needed medical attention. The initial four-day stay was now indefinite. At one point, it seemed like every visitor had a stomach issue. It was not like they were being provided our finest dining. Our medical tents had over-the-counter medication and a few options for antibiotics.

As providers, we could write a prescription to CVS, but since the refugees barely had identification, let alone health insurance, CVS was not willing to front the bill for their medications. At best, we could get them a generic blood pressure medication. I have worked with Medicaid patients for my entire career, but this was a completely new level of lack of access.

Emergencies were treated as such, and anyone needing life or death attention was transported to a hospital. The language barrier was another challenge since English was not a commonly spoken language, although many of the refugees were Afghan interpreters who did speak English.

When things became chaotic, we saw fewer interpreters. We did hear stories of people worried for their loved ones back home. We would listen to the anxiety in their voices about not knowing what was happening or getting firsthand accounts of what the experience really was like in Kabul. Anxiety was a common complaint, yet without therapists and anxiolytics, what could I really do other than listen and empathize? This helped some but may have been a waste of hours waiting to see a doctor for others.

Meanwhile, we still had the pressures from the military to provide immigration exams. This was a rollercoaster of emotions with long periods of downtime followed by brief intense periods of scrutiny and blame. The actual exam was a basic exam that a first-year medical student could complete without difficulty.

Somehow, we always seemed to do something wrong that caused a stir. We worked alongside the Air Force doctors who had to leave their practices in San Diego at a moments notice to spend an unknown amount of time in Virginia working on this assignment. I was in awe of the life of a military physician.

As my time in Virginia was winding down, I had already made some new friends and reacquainted with an old one. I had convinced my co-resident from residency at the Institute for Family Health in Harlem to join me.

Luckily, Dr. Afari Dwamena had some time in his schedule and was passionate about this work. Anyone who has gone through residency knows that getting to spend a month with a former colleague and friend is rare and special. We went through a difficult experience together which made the time pass effortlessly. At some point, I was starting my practice and would need to return to Tampa.

After a few weeks in Tampa, the locums agency reached out to me again. This time they were requesting that I return to the mission at a different base in New Jersey. The military was constructing a refugee camp at the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst near Trenton. The visitors would have the same urgent care needs along with immigration physicals. This base was much larger than Fort Lee. Fort Lee had about 1,500 visitors.

By the time I arrived in New Jersey, Fort McGuire had 15,000 Afghan people waiting to be relocated to various parts of the country. They were living in a small town of their own. At least half of them were children who did not know what was going on, only that they were now in America and could play all day freely without the threat of any danger.

Although the refugees were stuck without any idea of when they were leaving, they seemed happy. They were surely having more fun than I was. Life still had to go on. Weddings, religious ceremonies and festivals were a common aspect of life on the base. Medical care was still subpar and difficult. There was a high turnover of doctors and nurses and no real way to keep medical records. Medications were in short supply. When in doubt, I had to just give the patients 20 tablets of ibuprofen, Tylenol or Pepcid and hope for the best. Yet every patient was grateful.

I had never been a part of a national news story. Yet, for about a month this summer, the front page of every news outlet had a story connected to the work we were doing. What the Army, Navy and Air Force did in such a short period of time was a minor miracle. Im a better person for having witnessed what can be accomplished when we come together to help a community in need. The temporary job allowed me to keep the lights on at my practice. The permanent experience gave me a sense of purpose in treating people in need of help.

Bamidele Olatunbosun is a family physician.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
EUGENE, Ore.  A Eugene man is facing kidnapping charges after police identified the passenger in Sundays high speed chase as a missing teenager.

Oregon State Police said the chase began at 10:34 a.m. on Sunday in Eugene after the driver was seen allegedly assaulting the girl.

As authorities attempted to pull the car over, police said the driver, Timothy Wayne Emra, 45, sped away, leading them on a chase from Eugene through Springfield and back.

Emra allegedly drove onto the bike path behind the Valley River Center while trying to flee police, putting bicyclists and pedestrians in danger. An Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife officer used a truck to crash into Emras car, causing Emra to lose control, police said. The car came to a stop down an embankment.

Police said Emra was arrested without further incident, and authorities learned his passenger was a missing 17-year old female. She was released to the Department of Human Services.

Emra was taken into custody and is facing multiple charges, which include eluding police, reckless driving, nine counts of reckless endangering, felon in possession of a weapon, kidnapping, coercion, assault in the fourth degree, possession of methamphetamine, DUII, criminal driving while suspended, tampering with physical evidence and interfering.

Oregon State Police are asking for information from anyone who may have been on the bike path during the pursuit. Witnesses can contact Oregon State Police Dispatch at 1-800-442-2068 or *OSP (*677).
By Wang Qi

History justifies China's claim to Zangnan: FM

Same old tricks were played by some Indian media and politicians once again as they hyped that Chinese border soldiers had "kidnapped" a 17-year-old boy in Zangnan, in the southern part of Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region. However, both Chinese experts and Indian netizens questioned the authenticity of such irresponsible claims.

Citing Indian state parliament member Tapir Gao, India's NDTV on Thursday said that an Indian teenager named Miram Taron was "kidnapped" by the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) from Zangnan.

Gao claimed that a friend of Taron named Johny Yaiying, who managed to escape, informed Indian authorities about the case. Both Taron and Yaiying are hunters from the same village, he said.

Gao said in a Twitter post on Wednesday that all the agencies of Indian government are requested to step up for Taron's early release. He also tagged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in his tweet

But some Indian people apparently disagreed with what Gao claimed.

"The boy is safe, stop spreading fake news," an Indian Twitter user replied to Gao. In another news post by ANI saying the boys were rescued by Indian soldiers, the netizen said "China didn't abduct anyone."

"I trust our Armed Forces more than any politician. And when they say not an inch will be lost, I trust them. I hope you do too. Incidentally, this same politician had claimed back in Nov 19 that China intruded 60 km deep! The Army denied that," another Indian Twitter user commented under Gao's post, casting doubt on the facts surrounding the incident.

Analysts said that it is not the first time that some Indian media and politicians have fabricated and hyped up similar issues. In order to attract attention, please voters in their regions, and cater to the anti-China sentiment, some Indian parliament members often talk wildly.

"We need to pay attention to the specifics and attitudes of the Indian government on this issue and not pay too much attention to individual politicians' words," Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, told the Global Times on Thursday.

Qian said that many areas of the China-India border are sparsely populated, and there is no obvious mark. Some border residents on both sides may get lost and stray into the area controlled by the other side and are detained temporarily. However, in accordance with the past practice, when such incidents occur, one side will promptly inform the other after learning the specific situation and repatriate the people.

Indian politicians and media often use the word "kidnap" as if the PLA is deliberately "illegally crossing the border to capture people," Qian said. "This is not only ridiculous, but also a slur against China."

Gao's irresponsible comments on the border incident came about a week after the 14th round of China-India corps commander level meeting, in which the two countries agreed to work for a resolution on the border issue as soon as possible and take effective steps to maintain security and stability on the ground.

Such a nationalistic and hateful narrative by Indian politicians and media poisons the atmosphere for continuous improvement of bilateral relations, Qian said.

In September 2020, Indian media played up that the PLA had "kidnapped" five Indian hunters from Zangnan. But the Global Times later learned that the five people were Indian intelligence agents disguised as hunters, and they were warned, educated and later released by the Chinese side.
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- China will ramp up control measures over imported cold-chain food and farm produce to prevent the spread of COVID-19 through entry points, a customs official said Monday.

Ni Yuefeng, head of the General Administration of Customs (GAC), said the country will "strictly monitor and test imported cold-chain food, agricultural products and high-risk non-cold-chain container goods."

Ni made the remarks when speaking at a meeting mapping out the GAC's work agenda this year. China recently found imported infections related to cold-chain goods or international mail, and the Omicron variant currently dominating the global spread also posed an increasing threat to the country.

Companies involved in cargo that tested positive for COVID-19 will face restrictive measures, including suspension of their import business, Ni said.

The customs found 550 COVID-19-positive specimens through random inspections over cold-chain food and farm produce last year, canceled or suspended import qualification of 884 companies, and supervised preventative disinfection of 1.15 million tonnes of goods.

At Monday's meeting, Ni also stressed disinfection of inbound flights and other high-risk means of transportation, and precise quarantine for related personnel, including air and ship crew. 
Looking to update your home? Watch the KHQ Spring Home Design Guide featuring the areas top home improvement businesses on Sat, May 7 at 4:30pm on KHQ. And click here to win a $500 VISA gift card, courtesy of our presenting partner - VPC Electric!
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Kilgore, TX (75662)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 88F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Considerable cloudiness. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 70F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
FUZHOU, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Trade between east China's Fujian Province and Taiwan rose 26.2 percent year on year to top 100 billion yuan (about 15.77 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021, according to the Fujian provincial government work report.

A total of 1,495 Taiwanese-invested enterprises were newly established in Fujian last year, up 21.2 percent year on year, the report said.

In 2021, Fujian attracted nearly 40,000 young people from Taiwan to come to the province for internships, employment and starting up businesses thanks to a series of equal treatment policies.

Meanwhile, the province also drew 95 teams that consisted of Taiwan's architects or personnel engaging in cultural and creative businesses, while building 12 provincial-level bases for exchanges with Taiwan last year, said Zhao Long, acting governor of Fujian when delivering the report.

In 2022, Fujian will continue to deepen economic and trade cooperation, and strengthen grassroots and youth exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, among other efforts, Zhao noted. 
HANGZHOU, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Li Tianlong, owner of a motor manufacturer in Yongjia, east China's Zhejiang Province, said digital transformation has saved his 60-employee company from bankruptcy.

His company, Zhejiang Shuntian Transmission Technology Co., Ltd., underwent a tough period during which production efficiency was extremely low and employee performance kept slipping.

"I was then in desperate need to find a way out," said Li.

In 2021, Shuntian finally resolved to cooperate with Inclution, a digital service provider founded in Hangzhou, Zhejiang's capital.

However, very little was known about digital transformation among Li's employees at that time. He came under fire by many who strongly opposed digital transformation for fear of uncertainties.

"I just feel lucky that I have overcome many struggles to finally make my company go digital," Li said.

Thanks to the digital transformation, Shuntian saw its annual order delivery hit a record high, with its annual output up 13 percent year on year at the end of 2021.

Li said that now frontline employees only need to operate all-in-one machines, and they can work with zero contact. Beside, the sales, production, warehouse storage, and quality inspection have been coordinated to give instant feedback to staff.

"The workshop director knows the whole picture of workshop production and operation via smartphones or computers. All materials have digital codes in the warehouse, and the warehouse system can improve the inventory turnover rate and greatly reduce the hidden costs resulting from insufficient material preparation and other problems," said Li.

China is speeding up digitalization in the manufacturing sector. Outlined in the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035, China will promote the deep integration of digital technology and the real economy and empower the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries to spur economic growth.

Some enterprises, however, are still ambivalent about whether to go digital due to the lacking of funds, talents, or methods.

"Many companies still don't know how to start businesses in the new digital age," said Wang Kefei, chairman of the Inclution.

"We're working with these companies to search for areas that can be optimized, especially to tackle common problems in production, procurement, inventory, and error-prone piecework," Wang added. 
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Cloudy skies. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 58F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph..

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Showers this evening, becoming a steady rain overnight. Low around 50F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a half an inch.
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The State Department is reducing staff at the US Embassy in Ukraine.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Americans from across the country on Sunday gathered in the nation's capital for a march against vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions, as Americans were frustrated and fatigued by the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and the overall pandemic.

During the march called "Defeat The Mandates: An American Homecoming," protesters walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to decry COVID-19 mandates.

The march was billed as a protest of vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines for children, and other pandemic requirements and restrictions. Among those marching were firefighters, teachers, first responders, anti-vaccine activists and other groups.

"We are gathering together in peace and solidarity for the preservation of personal sovereignty and to STOP medical coercion, discrimination and mandates," organizers of the march said on the event's website.

The march came just a week after Washington D.C.'s vaccine mandate, which requires patrons of indoor businesses to show proof of vaccination, took effect, in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases and the highly infectious Omicron variant.

The march also came after U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month blocked the Biden administration's vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses amid an increasingly heated nationwide debate on anti-pandemic regulations.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative-majority in the high court said the White House overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) rule requiring workers at U.S. businesses with 100 or more employees to either get vaccinated or submit a negative COVID-19 test weekly.

The court's decision came as Americans are becoming intensely divided over coronavirus-related measures, and some are fed up and frustrated by the strain the pandemic has put on daily life.

At a press conference on Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden acknowledged that "there's a lot of frustration and fatigue in this country" due to the pandemic.

"I know that after almost two years of physical, emotional, and psychological weight of this pandemic ... the impact it's had on everyone, for many of us, it's been too much to bear," Biden told reporters.

But Biden insisted that the United States has made great progress in the fight against pandemic, and the administration will stick with vaccination efforts "because vaccinations work."

"The bottom line on COVID-19 is that we're in a better place than we've been and have been thus far, clearly better than a year ago. We're not going back to lockdowns. We're not going back to closing schools," he said.

Nearly a quarter of eligible Americans remain unvaccinated against COVID-19, according to data of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Anthony Fauci, top U.S. infectious disease expert, said on Sunday he is confident that most states in the country will reach a peak of Omicron infection cases by mid-February.

"You never want to be overconfident when you're dealing with this virus," Fauci said in an interview with ABC.

"Things are looking good. We don't want to get overconfident, but they look like they're going in the right direction right now," he said.

The recent COVID-19 surge in the United States driven by the Omicron variant is leading to record high cases, hospitalizations, and critical shortages of healthcare staffs.

The country has recorded over 70 million COVID-19 cases and more than 866,000 deaths as of Sunday afternoon, according to real-time data from Johns Hopkins University. 
Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Korea Ramzi Teymurov gives a presentation about Black January at the country's embassy in Yongsan District, Seoul, Jan. 20. Korea Times photo by Kwon Mee-yoo





By Kwon Mee-yoo







Jan. 20 is an epoch-making day in Azerbaijan's history, as a crackdown on civilians by the Soviet Army in 1990 played an important role in restoring the country's independence, which was proclaimed a year later.







Ramzi Teymurov, ambassador of Azerbaijan to Korea, said the tragedy, also known as Black January, has not yet been evaluated properly even after 32 years, despite the incident seriously violating international law.







"Although 32 years passed since the Jan. 20 event, which was a gross violation of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convention on Civil Rights and other international legal documents and was one of the serious crimes of the 20th century, we have not received an international legal assessment. This is unfortunately the failure of the international legal system of the world," the ambassador said during a commemorative event at the embassy in Seoul, Jan. 20.







A funeral of martyrs was held after Black January, which resulted in 131 causalities, in Azerbaijan's capital Baku in 1990. Courtesy of Embassy of Azerbaijan in Korea





On Jan. 20, 1990, some 26,000 Soviet troops, under orders from the Soviet Union's leadership, invaded Azerbaijan's capital Baku and other cities including Sumgait to prevent the national movement against the Soviet government in Azerbaijan and break the Azerbaijani people's will for independence.







"We were having combat troops inside the capital of the country against the civilians, (so) you can imagine what the scope of devastation of this tragedy was," he said.







As a result of the crackdown, 131 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, 744 were wounded and 841 were illegally arrested just in Baku.







Ambassador Teymurov explained how the country overcame the massacre and paved its way to independence, which eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The ambassador showed a series of photos of people carrying the bodies of victims as well as how the city looked after invasion.







"Here in this picture it shows that the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faith leaders held the public prayer together as a message of our shared values in 1990. If you go to Baku now, you will see similar religious tolerance. This is what makes us unique," he said. "We can gather together for our freedom, for our independence when it is needed, regardless of our faith and ethnicity."







Alley of Martyrs in Baku, Azerbaijan, is seen with the Flame Towers in the background, the tallest skyscrapers in the city. Courtesy of Embassy of Azerbaijan in Korea





The Alley of Martyrs and the "Eternal Flame" Memorial Complex in Baku are examples of how the Azerbaijani people remember the heroism of those who perished in Black January for the sake of freedom and independence.







"According to international law, the events of Jan. 20 must be described as a crime against humanity. And its initial initiators and perpetrators must be brought to justice," the ambassador said.


President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping / Korea Times file





Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a letter congratulating President Moon Jae-in on his 70th birthday, a presidential spokesperson said Monday.







Moon also sent a letter of gratitude to Xi, and they agreed to further develop bilateral ties as this year marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties being established between the two nations, according to the President's spokesperson Park Kyung-mee.







Moon and Xi "agreed to further develop a strategic cooperative partnership between Korea and China," Park said.







Moon, who turned 70 on Monday, is working from home until Tuesday after returning home from an eight-day trip to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Saturday.







Observers said Moon and Xi may hold a virtual summit in the runup to the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Moon visited China in 2017 and 2019, but Xi's agreed-upon reciprocal trip has been postponed due to the pandemic. (Yonhap)


Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential candidate of the main opposition conservative People Power Party, speaks during a press conference on his diplomacy and security policies held at party headquarters in Seoul, Monday. Joint Press Corps



Lee pledges 'transportation revolution' for metropolitan area



By Jung Da-min



Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential candidate of the main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP), vowed, Monday, to "rebuild" Korea's alliance with the U.S. to deal more effectively with both North Korea's nuclear threats and other regional security and economic cooperation issues.



He also said he would expand South Korea's role in U.S.-led multilateral initiatives, including the Quadrilateral Strategic Dialogue, widely known as the "Quad."



"I would focus on bolstering a comprehensive and strategic alliance with the United States based on the shared values and principles of freedom, democracy, the market economy, constitutionalism and human rights," Yoon said during a press conference on his diplomacy and security policy pledges at party headquarters in Seoul.



"I will pursue open cooperation to expand common interests with related countries in the region by participating in working groups for vaccines, climate change and new technology under the Quad, a partnership between the U.S., Japan, Australia and India."



But Yoon said he is currently not seeking to join the Quad formally, instead aiming to expand South Korea's role in the network by participating in more working groups.



The main opposition candidate also criticized the Moon Jae-in government's North Korea policy, calling its peace process on the Korean Peninsula a "failure." Yoon said that President Moon and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) have failed to reassure the people of their safety from potential nuclear attacks from North Korea, while focusing on the issue of realizing an end-of-war declaration.



"North Korea is upgrading its nuclear capabilities and testing what it calls 'hypersonic' missiles. It has blatantly been provocative. The DPK's so-called peace process on the Korean Peninsula has completely failed," Yoon said.



He added he would establish in the military a three-axis air defense system  consisting of the Kill Chain preemptive strike system, the Korean Air and Missile Defense (KAMD) and the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) plan  to counter potential nuclear threats posed by the North better.



However, Yoon said that he will leave the door open for dialogue with the North and provide "full" economic support if the North actively engages in its denuclearization.



As for his objectives for diplomatic relations with the U.S. and China amid their growing rivalry, Yoon said he would focus on the security alliance with the U.S., while seeking economic cooperation with China.



"North Korea and China are virtual allies in terms of security, just like South Korea and the U.S. are. South Korea should be committed to the security alliance with the U.S., and seek to strengthen economic cooperation with China based on the principle of mutual respect," Yoon said.



Asked about whether he would participate in an inter-Korean summit, Yoon said he would not hold a summit for its own sake without making any agreements in advance through working groups.



"When the leaders try to meet, they basically reach a preliminary agreement to improve bilateral relations. But holding a summit first and saying, 'Let's do better in the future,' is nothing but a show. I will not pursue such a show nor use the issue of inter-Korean reunification for domestic politics," Yoon said.





Lee Jae-myung, the presidential candidate of the ruling liberal Democratic Party of Korea, speaks during a press conference on his policy promises for Gyeonggi Province, held at an art hall in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. Joint Press Corps
THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has said it will not stop hiring members of the security services, amid public concerns that the electoral management body was heavily militarised, thus undermining its credibility.

This was said by Zec chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba on Zimbabwe Television Network (ZTN) last Thursday.

There is no evidence that has been brought before me to show that anybody with the so-called militarised background acted contrary to the mandate or interest of the registered voters, she said.

Those retired members of the security services, as long as the retired members of the security services are in Zimbabwe, as long as they respond to the adverts that we flight for vacant posts, and if they qualify for the posts, they will continue serving in Zec. It is unconstitutional to discriminate against them on the basis that they once served in the military.

Show me a country that has a policy that it does not employ people because they were once soldiers. These soldiers are people who die for the country, and Zec does not have a policy that discriminates against them.

Analysts, however, said Zec needed to be demilitarised following the 2017 coup which ousted the late former President Robert Mugabe, replacing him with Emmerson Mnangagwa.

In 2018, Zec went under the spotlight when it appointed Utoile Silaigwana, a former member of the Zimbabwe National Army, as its acting chief elections officer amid reports that he was part of the 2008 Zec secretariat that withheld the March election results for close to a month.

The late Major General Douglas Nyikayaramba also served in the then Electoral Supervisory Commission when he was still in the army. This also raised eyebrows on the credibility of the electoral body.

In 2018, Chigumba revealed that at least 15% of the Zec staff, then over 380, were ex-service personnel.

Members of the security services allegedly killed six civilians during the August 1, 2018 post-election political violence.

Citizens Coalition for Change secretary-general Chalton Hwende said: Zec must not be militarised. It must ensure that it hires professionals that can independently perform their duties to guarantee undisputed elections. What we have been demanding has been pointed out in various reports that have been released by electoral bodies.

Political analyst Eldred Masunungure said: Under Mnangagwas rule, we have the security sector controlling State institutions. Everyone knows the role that the army played in the 2017 coup that ousted Mugabe. Given those circumstances when ex-members constitute a significant number of the electoral management body workforce, members of the public are then forced to ask questions of impartiality and credibility of Zec. In law, for sure Zec cannot bar them, but from the public perception it is problematic.

Constitutional lawyer and National Constitutional Assembly leader Lovemore Madhuku said people should not be demonised because of their previous work background.

As long as they are retired members of the security services, there is no problem in them being recruited at Zec. It, however, becomes questionable when currently serving members are seconded to the electoral body, he said.

Zanu PF spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa said ex-soldiers should not be discriminated against.

In any other country, ex-defence and security personnel are held in high esteem. Such a service is actually a plus credit in job recruitment. Newsday
Jason Bateman says his career suffered because he 'stayed at the party too long'
Rincon Valley Fire responded to a trailer fire on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022 on Interstate 10 Frontage Road, east of Colossal Cave Road in Vail, Ariz.
Have a news tip or would like to report a typo? Email Anthony Victor Reyes at areyes@kvoa.com.
Scott Quiners family did everything to keep him alive in the face of COVID  except prevent it.

The reportedly unvaccinated 55-year-old died Saturday after a court battle during which his wife fought successfully to keep him from being unplugged from a ventilator in Minnesota, and then flew him to Texas for treatment in a Houston hospital.

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Scott Quiner, on right, and Anne Quiner, on left. (Handout)

The father of two adult children and a teen had contracted COVID for a second time in October, according to WCCO-TV, and by Thanksgiving was in Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and intubated.

Earlier this month the hospital said they couldnt do anything more for him and was going to turn off his ventilator on Jan. 12. Anne Quiner, his wife of 35 years, went to court.

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I have advised the doctors that I vehemently disagree with this action and do not want my husbands ventilator turned off, Anne Quiner stated in the court filing, obtained by KSTP-TV.

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Judge Jennifer Stanfield agreed, ordering Mercy Hospital to keep the ventilator on, with a hearing set for Feb. 11.

Anne Quiner then had her husband flown to Texas, where hospital officials in Houston told the familys attorney they found him severely malnourished, KSTP reported.

He lost 30 pounds while on the ventilator, the attorney, Marjorie Holsten, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. That should be proof enough he was not getting adequate nutrition.

Weight loss is a common and known side effect of long-term intubation, according to the medical literature.

Were absolutely devastated, Holsten told the Star Tribune on Saturday. On behalf of the Quiner family, I would like to thank the public for their outpouring of love and support during this difficult ordeal. We ask for privacy for Anne and the children as they grieve the loss of Scott, a wonderful husband and father.

Allina Health, which owns and operates Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Minn., expressed its great confidence in the exceptional care provided to our patients, which is administered according to evidence-based practices by our talented and compassionate medical teams, according to a statement obtained by WCCO. Due to patient privacy, we cannot comment on care provided to specific patients.

We are saddened to hear about the passing of Scott Quiner, and our deepest condolences go out to family, friends and loved ones, Allina Health said in a statement obtained by KMSP-TV. His passing marks yet another very sad moment as collectively we continue to face the devastating effects of the pandemic.
An attorney for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Monday said he provided little guidance to former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman about how to respond to requests for public records related to his ongoing review of the 2020 election.

At a hearing in Dane County Circuit Court Monday, Assembly staff attorney Steve Fawcett also testified he has not received weekly reports from Gableman on the review, which is required under the contract between the former justice and the state Assembly. Assembly Chief Clerk Ted Blazel also testified, but more than two hours of Mondays hearing focused on Fawcett.

Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn noted Fawcett helped negotiate the Assemblys contract with Gableman and is listed as the former justices point of contact for the agreement. Bailey-Rihn again questioned why so few documents have been provided in the case, which was filed last year by liberal watchdog group American Oversight.

Hes supposed to be doing weekly investigative reports, Bailey-Rihn said. Im just having difficulty believing that Mr. Gableman did nothing for three months and received payment.

Fawcett said he has no idea whether Gableman has been compiling the weekly reports.

Gableman was hired last summer by Vos, R-Rochester, to review the election at a cost of $676,000 to taxpayers. His contract expired at the close of December, but Vos has said he hopes to have the review finished by the end of February.

The case stems from one of three ongoing lawsuits filed by American Oversight over public records requests the organization filed last year. Attorneys for American Oversight have asked that Vos be held in contempt for not releasing the records sooner, while attorneys for Vos have said all available records have been provided.

Bailey-Rihn ordered Vos to turn over records last November. She said on Monday she will decide at a future date whether to hold Vos in contempt.

She added on Monday that ultimately the buck stops with Mr. Vos and his office to produce relevant documents.

Fawcett also said he did not try to obtain Gablemans records or ask him to provide documents in response to the initial request from American Oversight. Fawcett later said he notified Gableman of Bailey-Rihns November court order seeking the records; however, he added he could not remember whether he specified what records were requested. He also noted he does not know what parameters Gableman used when searching for records.

Fawcett also said Gableman at times used text messages and a personal Yahoo email account to discuss his ongoing review. He added he does not know whether Gableman uses other means of communication such as Facebook Messenger or encrypted messaging apps such as Signal.

In a separate case, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington on Friday ordered Gablemans office to provide the court with documents responsive to a records request regarding his 2020 election review by Jan. 31. That order will only stand if the court has personal jurisdiction over the case, which the judge will review at a hearing Jan. 27.

A recount and court decisions have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. Similarly, reviews of the election by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found no evidence of widespread fraud but did lead to recommendations on how elections can be improved.
Meet the state star winners who were honored at the Pennsylvania State FFA Mid-Winter convention, which was held during the 2022 Pennsylvania Farm Show.
The grandiosity of The Gilded Age wasnt just about clothes and servants. To scale the show, the production team had to go big.

Set in 1880s New York City, the team on the HBO series that premiers Monday were tasked with recreating a world that barely exists today. Heiress Caroline Astors home was demolished and made way for the Empire State Building. An office building sits in the plot once owned by horsebreeder William K. Vanderbilt. The Bostwick Mansion, built by a founding partner of Standard Oil, is now a luxury apartment building.

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So directors Michael Engler and Salli Richardson-Whitfield went to Newport, R.I., where they filmed at The Breakers, Marble House and Rosecliff. They shot at houses along the Hudson and the Gold Coast of Long Island. For exterior scenes, they filmed in Troy, N.Y., near Albany, where they could shut down streets and town squares. Sometimes they filled in with special effects  like the giant disembodied hand of the Statue of Liberty that sat in Madison Square for six years.

Engler said his mission was clear.

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How do we create for the audience that sense of astonishment? he told the Daily News. Because we take them for granted now.

Carrie Coon and Morgan Spector star in The Gilded Age. (Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO)

The Gilded Age, from Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, is placed at the crossroads of new money and old, of families who came over on the Mayflower and set up mansions on Fifth Avenue and those who earned money the hard way  by working.

The difference plays out not only in the societal snipping but also in the look of the show.

On one side of Fifth Avenue is the home of Agnes Brooks (Christine Baranski) and sister Ada (Cynthia Nixon), a dark, musty place  grandmotherly, Engler called it. On the other is the newly constructed mansion of George (Morgan Spector) and Bertha Russell (Carrie Coon), who amassed a fortune building railroads. Their home is spacious, airy and bright, with ballrooms and dining tables to entertain.

[ New money clashes with old society in Julian Fellowes The Gilded Age ]

You see the scale of the room you have to fill up, Coon, who plays the social-climbing Bertha, told The News.

For Berthas daughter, Gladys, though, the house is overwhelming. Not yet an adult but too old to be treated like a child, no matter how much her mother insists she needs a ladys maid, Gladys feels trapped.

I felt so small, so tiny in this vast mansion, Taissa Farmiga, who plays Gladys, told The News.

I wonder how alone these people feel. Sure, you have your money around you and the decadence and the butlers and the maids, but theres so much open space and it feels like theres a lot of room for loneliness.

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Agnes and Ada Brooks (Cynthia Nixon, pictured) home represents the old world money and mentality. (Photographer: Alison Cohen Rosa)

Across the street, Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), feels the same isolation, suddenly penniless and forced to move in with her aunts, Agnes and Ada, after her father dies. With her comes a surprise friend, Peggy Scott (Denee Benton), a young Black woman trying to find her own place in the world. Both are outsiders, but Marian can blend, with her pretty blond hair and her dresses. Peggy stands out whether she likes it or not.

Both Peggy and Benton embraced what makes them different in The Gilded Age.

It was really exciting to get to see a Black woman in the 1880s in fine silks and radiant colors. Were so used to seeing a downtrodden Black woman barefoot in a black dress, Benton told The News.

I felt really strongly and excited about the opportunity to show her in her radiance and to really get to see Peggy stunting on them in the ways that she would have, in the ways that my grandmothers did for church.
An Environmental Protection Agency official says he plans to be both a helper and a regulator as Pennsylvania hits the home stretch of the Che
Raipur, Jan 24 (PTI) A total of 38 officers and troopers of the Border Security Force (BSF) had attained martyrdom while fighting ultras in Chhattisgarh and Odisha in over the last ten years, a senior BSF officer said on Monday.

Also Read | Uttar Pradesh: Woman Accuses Neighbour of Assault, Sexual Harassment in Lucknow; Case Lodged.

Addressing reporters in Raipur, BSF Additional Director General (ADG), Chhattisgarh-Odisha, Rajwinder Singh Bhatti said that 38 BSF officers and jawans have made the supreme sacrifice while fighting Naxals in Chhattisgarh and Odisha in over the last decade period.

Also Read | Cyber Criminals Transferred Rs 12 Crore From 100 Different Bank Accounts of AP Mahesh Cooperative Urban Bank in Hyderabad.

The force had killed 18 insurgents and arrested nearly 1,650 cadres in the two states, added the officer.

During the same period, the BSF had recovered 1,473 weapons, 958 IEDs and 3,176 kg of explosives, Bhatti said, adding that 15 weapons and 54 IEDs were recovered last year.

At least 14 insurgents had arrested/surrendered last year in Chhattisgarh and Odisha, he added.

The BSF is presently deployed in insurgency-hit Kanker, Narayanpur and Kondagoan districts in Chhattisgarh, and in Malkangiri and Koraput districts in Odisha.

"Starting with 41 Company Operating Bases (COBs)/posts in Chhattisgarh and Odisha in 2009-10, the BSF has expanded to 108 COBs/posts in the interior areas of these two states," the ADG said.

In the last two years, eight COBs had been set up in Chhattisgarh and six in Odisha, he added.

The BSF has supported the installation of 91 mobile phone towers in Chhattisgarh's Kanker and Narayanpur districts, the ADG said.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
New Delhi, Jan 24 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with BJP workers from across the country via NaMo app on Tuesday.

The interaction comes in the run-up to the assembly polls in five states, including Uttar Pradesh, with the Election Commission not allowing physical rallies by political parties due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also Read | Cyber Criminals Transferred Rs 12 Crore From 100 Different Bank Accounts of AP Mahesh Cooperative Urban Bank in Hyderabad.

"Please do join. Hon Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi Ji will interact with BJP Karyakartas from all over the country on Namo App (audio) at 11 AM tomorrow," the office of BJP president J P Nadda tweeted on Monday.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kanye West and Julia Fox made their first red carpet appearance together.According to People Magazine, on Sunday, the couple attended the KENZO fashion show as part of Paris Men's Fashion Week in France. They sported matching denim ensembles with black gloves. West accessorized his outfit with black boots, while Fox wore large gold jewellery and denim boots to complement her Schiaparelli attire. The actress also rocked winged eyeliner and a dark smokey eye as she kept her brunette hair pulled back into a bun. Julia Fox Confirms Romance With Kanye West, Says Everything With Us Has Been So Organic.

Sunday's show also marked Bape founder Nigo's official debut as KENZO's creative director after taking over for Felipe Oliveira Baptista. A source previously told People Magazine that despite West's new relationship with Fox, "he's still telling people that he wants to have (Kim Kardashian) back and he is willing to make appropriate changes to do so." Kardashian filed for divorce last year. Fox's outing with West on Sunday comes about shortly after the actress said she isn't bothered by the chatter surrounding their relationship on Friday's episode of her 'Forbidden Fruits' podcast. Kanye West and Julia Fox Flash PDA As They Dine Out in LA With Madonna and Other Stars (View Pics).

While opening up about how she's evolved from being an "attention seeker" in her younger days, Fox appeared to address headlines over her connection to the Grammy-winning musician. "It's funny cause I'm getting all of this attention, but I really couldn't care," she said.

"People are like 'Oh, you're only in it for the fame, you're in it for the clout, you're in it for the money.' Honey, I've dated billionaires my entire adult life, let's keep it real." Fox noted that she only cares about creating art and "putting things into the world." "Watch my movie, read my book. That is more thrilling to me now than eyes on me. I couldn't care less," she claimed.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
A little-known New York state subsidy for private schools is growing by leaps and bounds  and a handful of the citys wealthiest institutions keep cashing in.

The program, which reimburses private schools for the salaries of math, science and technology teachers, started out with $5 million in state funding in 2017, and is slated to receive $55 million this year under the budget proposal released last week by Gov. Hochul.

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The Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School in Manhattan. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Several well-heeled New York City private schools with tens of millions of dollars in their endowments took advantage of the subsidy, the Daily News reported in 2019. That trend has only increased in the following year, according to a News review of the most recent state data.

The second-largest single recipient of state funds during the 2018-19 school year  the most recent for which data is available  was Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, an Upper West Side stalwart that charges nearly $57,000 a year for tuition, reported more than $40 million in the bank in June 2020, and once counted former President Donald Trumps son Barron as a student. The school collected $333,000 from the state to cover teacher salaries.

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Packer Collegiate, an elite Brooklyn private school with an annual sticker price north of $50,000 and savings that exceeded $26 million in June 2020 according to financial filings, took in $110,000 from the state handout.

The tony schools are two of 400 that applied for reimbursements, data shows.

The Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn. (Mark Lennihan/AP)

That raised red flags for some lawmakers and education watchdogs, who questioned whether subsidizing wealthy private schools is the best use of public funds.

For the State of New York to subsidize these private schools charging $50,000 to $60,000 to go to school, I say no to that, said state Sen. Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan), a longtime education advocate whos fought to increase state funding to public schools. That money could be used better at schools in our city and state where kids need it the most.

Jackson acknowledged, however, that state funding for private schools amounts to not a whole lot of money compared with the more than $31 billion Hochul plans to spend overall on education next year.

Madia Coleman, a Hochul spokeswoman, said the governor is committed to ensuring a quality education for every student, and the vast majority of state education aid goes to public schools. Access to STEM education is integral to the growth of our state and economy, and this grant program has grown, which is why Gov. Hochul is proposing to expand funding to meet the program demand and ensure the state can reach more student.

Representatives from Columbia Prep and Packer Collegiate did not respond to requests for comment.

The private school teacher subsidy started in 2017 with a $5 million allotment in the state budget, propelled by a lobbying effort by the TEACH coalition, a group that pushes for governmental support of Jewish schools.

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Funding for the program has grown rapidly, tripling to $15 million in its second year then growing to $30 million the following year.

The vast majority of the recipients are religious schools, including many with chronic enrollment and financial struggles and scores of students attending on scholarship, said Maury Litwack, the executive director of the TEACH coalition.

For some of the schools receiving the extra cash, the funding has been a godsend, said Jim Cultrara, the director for education at the New York State Catholic Conference.

We have had parents not enroll their kids in Catholic schools because we werent able to offer rigorous program options including those in the STEM [science, technology and mathematics] field, exacerbating long-running enrollment declines at parochial schools, Cultrara said. The state subsidy is keeping our schools open and competitive, he said.

Any private school with educators certified to teach math, science or technology or with a masters degree in those fields can apply for the subsidy, and money is doled out based on the number of eligible teachers and the salary for comparable positions in nearby public schools  which helps explain why New York City schools received among the highest reimbursements.

The money is not supposed to pay for teachers who provide any nonsecular instruction, though schools self-report that information.

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David Bloomfield, a professor of Education Law, Leadership and Policy at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center, said directly supporting a core function of private schools like teacher salaries with state money raises legal questions and blurs the line between public, private and religious education.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

With this kind of assistance, we might as well call private schools public private schools, he said. They control admissions and governance, yet demand siphoning of public funds ... its an inappropriate subsidy.

Cultrara disagrees.

We believe its in not only the governments interest, but in societys interest to support all children regardless of where they go to school, Cultrara said.

He conceded that public dollars flowing to wealthy private schools raises a legitimate question ... about fairness and equity.

Along with Columbia Prep and Packer Collegiate, the Chapin School and Little Red Schoolhouse  both of which charge more than $50,000 a year for tuition  collected $24,000 and $31,000, respectively, from the state program for the 2018-19 school year, records show.

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Chapin and Little Red Schoolhouse did not respond to requests for comment.
WASHINGTON  Ramzi Yousef, inmate No. 03911 at a federal supermax penitentiary, is serving life with no parole plus 240 years in a 7-by-11-foot cell with no bars and one small high window, far from other inmates, prison staff and the world beyond the fortress deep in the Colorado Rockies.

He has been there for 15 years, in nearly 24-hour solitary confinement at the prison they call the Fortress in the Rockies. Even his meals provide little relief, with the food trays shoved by unseen guards through a sally port between two steel doors. The only other inmate within shouting range has killed others in prison.

Yousef, now 44, knows he will never go free. An avowed terrorist convicted in the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing, he killed six people and injured more than 1,000. But in a lawsuit, he is trying to persuade a federal judge to at least release him from solitary confinement. The judge is expected to rule soon whether the suit will go to trial.

Despite his good behavior, Yousef says, he is being kept isolated because he is a convicted terrorist, something he can never change  and that, he argues, is a violation of his due process of law.

I request an immediate end to my solitary confinement and ask to be in a unit in an open prison environment where inmates are allowed outside their cells for no less than 14 hours a day, he wrote the warden, according to confidential government records obtained by The Times. I have been in solitary confinement in the U.S. since Feb. 8, 1995, with no end in sight.... I further ask not to be in handcuffs or leg irons when moved outside my cell.

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The suit says that long-term solitary confinement leaves him no hope or prospect of any remedial condition and that it has led to severe psychological trauma. His lawyer, Bernard V. Kleinman, said in an interview that Yousef already demonstrates a degree of paranoia and a degree of fear that would not be normal or expected if he was in the general population or had more contact with other inmates.

The prison warden maintains that Yousef is still a serious security threat, but some outside experts agree with Yousef that his treatment is unconstitutional.

Colin Dayan, a humanities professor at Vanderbilt University who has studied solitary confinement in Arizona, said many prison administrations use isolation without regard to psychological damage to inmates.

You no longer know whats real, she said. You cant speak to anyone; you cant touch anyone: your senses no longer have any outlet. You have delusions and become psychotic. Your mind deteriorates.

The newly obtained documents show just how brazen Yousef was after he was captured in 1995, and why officials have long been concerned about his potential for still more damage.

Ramzi Yousef is a cold-blooded killer, completely devoid of conscience, said U.S. District Court Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy of New York, in an unusual memo last October in which he agreed the Yousef lawsuit should be heard in Denver rather than New York, the site of the bombing.

He noted that Yousefs uncle is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind. Yousef was close to his relative KSM both in blood and in mental desire to wreak havoc on civilized society, the judge said.

Duffy added that during his trial, Yousef was collecting urea in his cell, a main ingredient in the WTC bomb, and also attempted to obtain the particular type of cheap wristwatch that had been used as the timing device in bombs intended for airplanes.

In addition to the trade center blast, which he masterminded after slipping into the country from Pakistan a month earlier, he was also convicted of trying to kill Pope John Paul II and President Clinton and trying to bomb 11 airliners on their way from Asia to the U.S. His plots were financed by Al Qaeda and his uncle, allegedly the person behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Yes, I am a terrorist, and proud of it, Yousef told Duffy at his January 1998 sentencing. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites.

Duffy has also refused to approve $23,225 in legal fees for Kleinman, who told the appellate court that the judge was trying to tar me, somehow, with my clients actions and those of his relatives.

Warden David Berkebile wrote to Yousef in November, in response to his requests to get out of solitary: You are a violent jihadist, committed to waging war on the United States, with a strong following of supporters and admirers. There is substantial risk that your communications or contacts could result in death or serious bodily injury to others.

Flying back to New York after he was arrested in Pakistan, Yousef had boasted to FBI agents about his bomb-making skills and, according to a 21-page FBI memo, said he was motivated to kill because of U.S. aid to Israel.

His desire, the agents wrote, was to topple one tower into the other, and cause a total of 250,000 civilian deaths.

Yousef said he expected the death penalty, but instead received life.

richard.serrano@latimes.com
Isai Lara Bermudez had just started lunch at a Tijuana barbecue joint when a stranger approached his table.

Watch out, she warned him. Hes after you.

Lara, an investigative reporter, had written a series of stories in February showing evidence that the police chief of a neighboring city had tortured detainees. Now it appeared he was paying the price.

For weeks, Lara didnt leave the house without a private bodyguard. He worried about his young daughters safety, and whether the cars pulling up alongside him in traffic carried gunmen out to kill him.

This is what its like practicing journalism in Mexico.

Journalists bold enough to report on the misdeeds of drug cartels or the government often face threats and retaliation  and increasingly pay for their work with their lives. Mexico has become the third-deadliest country in the world for journalists, leading many publications across the nation to avoid controversial topics, or to shut down entirely.

Isai Lara Bermudez, an investigative reporter for Zeta, covers a homicide in the El Refugio housing development in Tijuana. Lara has been threatened because of stories he wrote. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

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But Lara keeps reporting, along with the rest of the small, tight-knit staff at Zeta, one of Mexicos most respected newspapers. Zeta is also one of the countrys most frequently targeted publications: Over the last three decades, as the Tijuana weekly documented government corruption and Mexicos exploding drug war, two of its editors were killed and a third gravely wounded because of the stories they produced.

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas once said Zetas reporters and editors practice suicide journalism. The newspapers motto, printed on the front page amid murder counts and corruption allegations, is Free like the wind.

Luckily for Lara, the threat communicated at the restaurant by an associate of the police chief never materialized. But that doesnt mean he can relax now. In April, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement intercepted a threat from a drug boss who planned to bomb Zetas headquarters. Now, when Lara goes to work each morning, he nods hello to a team of state police officers guarding the front door with machine guns.

Sometimes I ask myself if its worth it, said Lara, 34. But we have a commitment to our readers. And if youre paralyzed by fear, you cant do anything.

1 / 21 Baja California state police stand guard outside the offices of Tijuanas Zeta newspaper, a weekly investigative publication. Zeta has received recent threats from Mexican drug trafficking cartels for their reporting on crime. There has been a recent increase in homicides in Tijuana because of cartels fighting over the local drug market. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 21 Photographer Magarito Martinez, 44, a freelancer who frequently contributes to Zeta, at the scene of a recent drug cartel homicide in the lower-income Tijuana neighborhood of Camino Verde. A man was found killed with a hand-written note that said, The new ones dont pardon. It was was signed Tijuana New Generation Cartel. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 21 The Mexican Army leaves the scene of a drug cartel homicide in Tijuana in April. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 21 Crime scene investigators look over the body of a man found killed in a lower-income neighborhood of Tijuana. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 21 Jose Feliz, 70, reads Zeta at his El Chino newstand in Tijuana. To protect reporters, hard-hitting stories are often published under the byline Zeta investigations, rather than the writers name. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 6 / 21 Celia Cardenas Ortiz, left, shown with a family member, washes blood from the steps in front of their Tijuana home, where her husband was shot and killed in broad daylight on April 12. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 21 Isai Lara Bermudez, an investigative reporter for Zeta, covers a homicide in the El Refugio housing development in Tijuana. Lara has been threatened because of stories he wrote. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 21 Adela Navarro Bello, general director of Zeta, in her Tijuana office. Zeta is one of Mexicos most respected newspapers  and one of the countrys most frequently targeted publications. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 21 A flier offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of drug cartel members hangs in Adela Navarro Bellos office. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 21 People hold photos of Mexican journalist Miroslava Breach, gunned down while driving her child in the northern state of Chihuahua. In March, four journalists were killed and three others shot and wounded in Mexico. Breachs death prompted the publisher of El Norte, the Juarez newspaper where she worked, to close. (Eduardo Verdugo / Associated Press) 11 / 21 A member of the Early Warning for Journalists National Collective places crosses in front of the attorney general building in Mexico City. Mexico ranks third in the world for the number of journalists killed, after Syria and Afghanistan, according to media rights group Reporters Without Borders. (Yuri Cortez / AFP / Getty Images) 12 / 21 A vendor walks in the red light district of La Zona Centro, in Tijuana, where drug cartel-related deaths have been rising. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 21 The scene where an off-duty police officer was ambushed and shot at outside his home in Tijuana. The officer shot back at his attackers and was not injured. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 21 The scene of a homicide in the El Refugio housing development in Tijuana. A male was shot in front of his home in broad daylight. There has been a recent increase in homicides in Tijuana due to the drug trafficking cartels fighting over the local drug market. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 21 A parked Tijuana Police car was set on fire outside of the La Presa Police Station along Presa Hermosillo Street in the Presa Abelardo L. Rodriguez neighborhood in Tijuana. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 21 Contributing to Semanario Zeta, a weekly investigative publication, freelance photographer Magarito Martinez videos a Tijuana Police car that was set on fire outside of the La Presa Police Station in Tijuana. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 21 Colonia Camino Verde where a recent drug cartel homicide took place in Tijuana. There has been a recent increase in homicides in Tijuana due to the drug trafficking cartels fighting over the local drug market. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 21 A Tijuana Police officer looks for two suspects carrying weapons who were reported near the scene where an off duty Tijuana Police officer was ambushed and shots were fired at him outside of his home in the Colinas De La Presa housing development in Tijuana. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 21 Contributing to Semanario Zeta, a weekly investigative publication, freelance photographer Magarito Martinez leaves the scene of an accident where a car plunged into the Abelardo L. Rodriguez Dam in Tijuana. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 21 Contributing to Semanario Zeta, a weekly investigative publication, freelance photographer Magarito Martinez leaves the scene of an accident where a car plunged into the Abelardo L. Rodriguez Dam in the La Presa neighborhood in Tijuana. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 21 The line of cars leaving Tijuana heading north at the San Ysidro border crossing. There has been 417 executions in Tijuana from Jan. 1 to April 20, 2017 according to Semanario Zeta, a weekly publication covering crime and corruption. T (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Sometimes I ask myself if its worth it. But we have a commitment to our readers. And if youre paralyzed by fear, you cant do anything.  Isai Lara Bermudez

Since 2000, 124 journalists have been killed in Mexico, according to the National Human Rights Commission, the governments independent watchdog. Article 19, a nonprofit that advocates for media protections in Mexico, recorded 426 threats or attacks against the press last year, including beatings and torture.

Only Syria and Afghanistan surpassed Mexico in the number of journalists killed in 2016, according to Reporters Without Borders. Since the beginning of March, four reporters have been killed and three others wounded by gunshots in attacks across the country.

The recent victims include Miroslava Breach, a veteran investigative reporter who died after being sprayed with bullets while driving her child March 23 in Chihuahua. Her death prompted the publisher of El Norte, the Juarez newspaper where she worked, to close down. In a letter to readers, the publisher said he could no longer guarantee the safety of his staff.

There are many places across the country where naming people convicted of drug trafficking or reporting on organized crime is off-limits, where shootouts are not reported, where human rights violations are not reported, said Carlos Lauria, program director at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

In a country where journalists are being silenced, Zeta stands out for its bravery, said Alejandro Hope, a security expert in Mexico City.

They have made it their mission to make narco violence and corruption visible, Hope said. They have gone through hell and back, and somehow have survived.

Along with exposing corruption, Zeta has chronicled a recent dramatic increase in violence in Mexico, which this year is on track to log more homicides than any year previously recorded.

The bloodshed has been particularly bad in Tijuana and the state of Baja California, where, according to federal statistics, 181 people were killed in March, twice as many as in March of last year.

While many Mexicans have grown weary of coverage of the 10-year drug war, Lara said he believes change will only occur if journalists continue to shine a light on the problem.

We cant ignore it, he said. My city is hurting, my country is hurting. Thats why Im here.

We cant ignore it, My city is hurting, my country is hurting. Thats why Im here.  Isai Lara Bermudez

On a recent windy afternoon, photographer Margarito Martinez heard a cackle over the police scanner he keeps attached to his hip.

A man had been killed in Camino Verde, a poor hillside neighborhood crisscrossed with dirt roads and dense with concrete-block shacks. Martinez, a freelancer who frequently contributes to Zeta, sped to the scene in his battered white minivan, his bulletproof vest rattling in the truck.

Martinez starting taking photos as soon as he spotted the body of a man facedown on the ground, blood seeping from a gaping gunshot wound in the back of his head.

Next to the body was a handwritten sign: The new ones dont pardon. It was was signed Tijuana New Generation Cartel.

In recent months, Martinez and his colleagues at Zeta have been documenting the rise of Tijuanas newest criminal group  an alliance formed between members of the Arellano Felix organization, which once held sway in Baja California, and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which is quickly becoming one of Mexicos most powerful drug gangs.

Last fall, the newspaper published the names and photos of several alleged drug lords under the headline The Jalisco Cartels Most Wanted, contradicting police claims that the Jalisco cartel didnt operate in Tijuana. That triggered yet another threat against the paper, this one from a Jalisco member known as Goofy who said he was going to shoot up Zetas headquarters. Once again, the state police were sent to stand guard outside the office.

To protect reporters, hard-hitting stories are often published under the byline Zeta investigations, rather than the writers name. The windows in the newspapers headquarters, in an elegant home in one of Tijuanas nicest residential neighborhoods, are made of bulletproof glass.

When the newspaper receives a threat, it immediately publishes the details, the idea being that the more people who are aware a crime may be committed, the less likely it is to happen. Then they alert the Mechanism to Protect Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a government program established in 2012 that provides emergency evacuations, police protection and in some cases even a panic button that summons authorities.

There are 174 journalists protected under the program, the majority of whom have been threatened by government authorities.

But funding for the program is due to run out in a few months, and Mexicos federal legislators have not earmarked more money to continue it. Human rights advocates complain that public officials dont want to strengthen protections for journalists because a free and transparent press often isnt in their best interest.

There is no political will to tackle this problem because what journalists investigate and report on is uncomfortable for many public functionaries, said Luis Knapp, an attorney at Article 19. Fewer than 1% of crimes against journalists are ever solved, Knapp said. And a federal office formed to prosecute crimes against free speech has convicted suspects in just two cases over the last six years.

It is outrage over that impunity that fuels Adela Navarro, Zetas general director, who on a recent afternoon smoked a cigarette while waiting for her reporters to finish writing ahead of that nights deadline.

Baja California state police stand guard outside the offices of Tijuanas Zeta newspaper, a weekly investigative publication. Zeta has received recent threats from Mexican drug trafficking cartels for their reporting on crime. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Each week, Zeta publishes a full-page editorial featuring a photo of Hector El Gato Felix, a Zeta editor known for his biting criticism of members of Mexicos elites, including Jorge Hank Rhon, the owner of a Tijuana racetrack.

In 1988, a man pulled up next to Felix while he was driving and opened fire, killing him. Two of Rhons bodyguards were convicted of the attack, but Rhon was never prosecuted.

The editorial addresses Rhon, as well as the current and former governors of Baja California: Will your government capture the one who ordered this crime? it asks.

In 1997, Zetas legendary founder, Jesus Blancornelas, was badly wounded and his bodyguard killed in a botched assassination attempt. Afterward, Blancornelas had a brick wall built in front of his home, and employed 14 bodyguards.

Eight years later, Francisco Ortiz Franco, who frequently wrote about drug trafficking for Zeta, was shot and killed while driving his children. In both cases, the culprits were never brought to justice.

This means that one can silence, kill or extort a journalist and never see justice, said Navarro, who won the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award in 2007, like Blancornelas before her.

Navarro is sometimes frustrated that Zetas stories dont have a bigger impact. Corrupt public officials hold on to power. Drug cartels continue their bloody wars.

But she knows her work is doing something. When Zeta publishes the names and faces of cartel members, many flee Tijuana.

Navarro says she runs her newsroom with a mantra coined by Blancornelas, who died in 2006 of complications from stomach cancer.

Be far from the government, he used to say, and close to the people.

To read this article in Spanish, click here.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Twitter: @katelinthicum

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Sixty percent said they would "probably" or "definitely" vote for someone else instead of President Joe Biden if the 2024 presidential election was held now.

According to New York Post, a poll released Sunday said this rate was higher than former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Fox News' survey shows that only 36 percent said they would "definitely" or "probably" re-elect Biden.

Fifty-two percent said they would vote for someone other than Trump if it were February 2020, while 51 percent said they would pick somebody other than Obama if it were August 2011.

At the end of Joe Biden's first year in office, Fox News reported that economic anxiety is higher compared to a year ago, with many feeling that the pandemic is not at all under control.

In addition, the president's job rating has been sinking since October, with 47 percent approving of his performance and 52 percent disapproving. Biden's approval reached as high as 56 percent in June. It then fell in November to as low as 44 percent.

The president's rating on matters of top importance had also plummeted, with 52 percent disapproving of the handling of the pandemic, which increased from 34 percent.

Fifty-four percent also disapprove of his foreign policy, 58 percent on the economy, and 59 percent on border security.

READ NEXT: Ron DeSantis Hints of Not Backing Donald Trump in 2024 Election as More Than 30 Ex-Trump Officials Convene to Stop 45th President's Return

U.S. Direction Under President Joe Biden

A huge number of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, adding that their household income is falling behind the cost of living and thinking that political polarization will only continue.

When Americans were asked to describe where they believe America is today, the top answers were "downhill," "divisive," "negative," "struggling," "lost," and "bad," according to a new NBC News poll.

Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates said that Americans feel that the country is downhill "divided, doubting democracy, and falling behind" as they are heading into 2022.

Horwitt conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. McInturff said there was nothing "but flashing red lights and warning signs" for the Democrats.

According to the poll, seventy-two percent of Americans say the country is heading in the wrong direction. Horwitt noted that when this sustained dark outlook coincided with an election year, it foreshadowed bad news for the party in power.

2024 Presidential Election

Meanwhile, according to another poll, most Americans were found not to be hoping to see a Joe Biden and Donald Trump rematch in the 2024 presidential election.

In a new AP/NORC national survey, only 28 percent of Americans questioned over the past week said they want Biden to seek a second term, with 27 percent of Americans saying they would like Trump to seek a return to the White House in 2024.

Donald Trump has repeatedly implied that he is vying for the presidential seat, saying that he thinks he is "going to make a lot of people happy" when he decides to run.

On the other hand, Joe Biden said he plans on running for reelection in 2024. Last month, the president said he would run if he was in good health.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Mocks Joe Biden at Arizona Rally, Mimics the President's Voice: 'I'm Gonna Get Rid of COVID'

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: NBC News Poll: Biden Job Approval Falls - From NBC News




Thousands of protesters gathered in Washington D.C. on Sunday to rally against President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate.

According to The Daily Mail, most of the protesters were not wearing face masks in defiance of rules imposed by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to combat the spread of the COVID-19. Bowser implemented masks outdoors for people who have not had their COVID vaccine yet.

Washington Examiner reported that the demonstrators gathered around the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial with signs and banners against Biden's embattled vaccine mandates raised by the protesters. The Metropolitan Police Department told The Hill that no arrests had been made as of late Sunday afternoon.

Rally organizers predicted that around 20,000 people would attend the event, but media outlets noted that a smaller crowd of a few thousand only gathered.

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Protesters Gather in Washington D.C.

According to reports, the protesters were composed of pro-vaccine but anti-mandate and others who were both anti-vaccine and anti-mandate. Many elderly and babies in strollers were also spotted in the event.

Public employees, Feds for Medical Freedom, and at least 200 representing the D.C. Firefighters Bodily Autonomy Affirmation Group were also in attendance.

About 10 men wearing the insignia for "Proud Boys," an extremist group involved in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, were also present at the event.

"The goal is to show a unified front of bringing people together - vaccinated, unvaccinated, Democrats, Republicans, all together in solidarity," event organizer Matt Tune said.

The crowd of protesters also appeared to carry flags saying, "Don't tread on me," and creative signs decrying the vaccine passport, mask mandates, and mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for school-age children.

"Freedoms and mandates don't really go hand in hand. We've all seen the pandemic, we can all make the decision that's safe enough for us," protester Stephanie from Maryland said.

Aside from Joe Biden, protesters also blasted top health officials of the Biden administration. A bus with photos of the president, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, with "Wanted" signs above their heads, was recorded.

Bus in DC heading to anti-vaccine rally today. pic.twitter.com/hepaXgcHn2  Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 23, 2022

Hatred for Fauci was also on display as one protester, identified as Nick from West Virginia, held up a large sign that reads "Fire Fauci." On the back of his fire Fauci sign, a list of villains such as Cruella DeVil, Thanos, and Voldemort were written, saying that Fauci is worse than the fictional antagonists.

"I'm not against vaccines. I'm just against mandating them. We have freedom of choice in this country, or at least we should," said Nick, who has been vaccinated.

Joe Biden's Vaccine Mandate

Joe Biden's vaccine mandate was announced last fall, requiring companies with more than 100 or more employees to ensure their workers get a COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly testing. The same goes for the federal workers and contractors.

However, the Supreme Court blocked the said mandate, noting that the vaccine mandate "exceeded" the Biden administration's authority. Following the high court's decision, some employers began walking back their vaccine requirements on their workers.

The protests in Washington D.C. came after the U.S. faced a new wave of COVID-19 cases, exacerbated by the emergence of the Omicron variant.

CDC reported that the U.S. currently has a seven-day average of more than 716,000 new COVID cases.

READ MORE: Ex-Biden Task Force Head Predicts COVID to Become 'Endemic' by 2022 as U.S. Hospitals Record 'Critical Staffing Shortage' Over Omicron Surge

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Written by: Joshua Summers

WATCH: Thousands March on Washington Monument to Protest Mask and Vaccine Mandates - From Global News
The Biden administration ordered the family members of government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine to leave the country amid heightened tensions over Russia's military buildup on the border.

The U.S. State Department authorized the voluntary departure of direct-hire employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and ordered the eligible family members to leave the country amid the growing worries of Russian invasion, The Hill reported.

"U.S. citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options," the department added in its travel advisory.

The State Department further noted that U.S. citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in the country "would severely impact the U.S. Embassy's ability to provide consular services, including assistance to U.S. citizens in departing Ukraine."

Despite ordering the U.S. citizens in Ukraine to leave the country, the State Department did not provide estimates on how many U.S. citizens were in Ukraine because the agency does not have those numbers.

Senior State Department officials said Sunday that the authorized voluntary departure applies to non-emergency U.S. government employees of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv that now have the option to leave the country if they so choose.

READ NEXT: CIA: Mysterious Havana Syndrome Unlikely Caused by Russia or Any Other Foreign Power

Biden Administration Warns Americans Not to Travel to Ukraine

The travel advisory issued by the State Department advised American citizens not to travel to Ukraine since the border situations in Ukraine are "unpredictable."

"There are reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine. The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice," the State Department advisory stated.

On the other hand, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised Americans not to travel to Ukraine due to the high risk of contracting COVID-19.

The State Department issued the no travel warning came as the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine confirmed that the first shipment of the $200 million security support package from the Biden administration arrived in Kyiv.

Despite the confirmation, the embassy did not provide details on what was included in the security package. Washington had approved the package in December.

"The United States will continue providing such assistance to support Ukraine's armed forces in their ongoing effort to defend Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity against Russian aggression," the embassy said on Saturday.

Russia's Presence in Ukraine's Border

The advisories from the Biden administration came after Russia gathered an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine in the past few months.

Russia reportedly started moving troops into Belarus, a country bordering both Russia and Ukraine, in mid-January.

Reports noted that tension between Ukraine and Russia peaked in 2014 when violent protesters ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych. The said demonstration was known as the "Revolution of Dignity."

On Saturday, the U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said that its office had a piece of information about Russia's government plotting to install a pro-Kremlin leader in Ukraine. Reports noted that the Kremlin wants to replace Ukraine's government with a pro-Moscow administration under former Ukrainian legislator Yevheniy Murayev.

However, Muyarev denied the claim, noting that "this conspiracy theory" was "absolutely unproven" and "absolutely unfounded."

READ MORE: 21 People Killed in Mexico in Just 24 Hours Amid Bloody Turf War Between Mexican Drug Cartels

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Written by: Joshua Summers

WATCH: U.S. Reduces Staff at Embassy in Ukraine - From CNN
Dr. Mark Souweidane is a hero to many, saving young lives daily as a pediatric neurosurgeon.

But what puts him a cut above even that level of heroism is his chosen specialty: Seeking a cure for DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), a rare form of brain cancer that is nearly always fatal, killing about 200 kids a year in the U.S.

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Watching these children die of a relatively small tumor is heartrending, Souweidane told the Daily News, especially the parents suffering. I watch it, and I watch their grief, and I listen to their pleas of desperation, and I watch those kids take their last breaths. And it tears at you.

Dr. Mark Souweidane, director of pediatric neurosurgery at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Souweidane, the director of pediatric neurosurgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, is pioneering a technique to deliver chemotherapeutic agents directly to this inoperable brain-stem tumor. He is dedicated to finding a cure for what in most medical circles would be considered an obscure disease, too rare to fund research on.

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Hes an amazing human being, former nightclub owner and promoter John Gungie Rivera, who nominated Souweidane as a Hometown Hero, told The News. Hes an amazing person. Hes very caring and kind and compassionate, and I really believe that what hes doing is eventually going to lead to a cure one day.

The two met when Souweidane treated Riveras son Cristian for DIPG. The fast-growing tumor forms inside the pons region of the brain stem, which controls breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, swallowing, balance and other vital functions. Most diagnoses are in children ages 5 to 9, though any stage of childhood is fair game for the aggressive cancer.

Dr. Mark Souweidane (Barry Williams/for New York Daily News)

Cancers of the brain and spinal cord are the second most common in children after leukemia, according to the American Cancer Society, accounting for one in four childhood tumors. More than 4,000 children and teens receive such a diagnosis each year in the U.S.

DIPG is particularly untreatable because it infiltrates nearby tissues, so its inoperable. Traditional chemotherapy cannot reach it.

Its the tumor from hell, Rivera said.

Cristian Rivera Foundation founder John "Gungie" Rivera and his son, Cristian.

He should know. He lost Cristian 13 years ago this month, at age 6.

Soon after, Rivera started the Cristian Rivera Foundation, which funds research into a cure for DIPG, supports families undergoing treatment and spreads awareness about the disease.

[ Cristian Rivera Foundation that battles deadly childhood cancer DIPG marks 10th annual event with a success story ]

Souweidane is studying ways to bypass the blood-brain barrier by threading hair-thin hollow fibers straight into the affected tissue to deliver the medicine. The technique is known as convection-enhanced delivery (CED), and while still in clinical trials, it has extended lives. But since it involves so few people, research money is hard to come by.

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John 'Gungie' Rivera attends the 11th Annual Cristian Rivera Foundation Celebrity Gala on November 13, 2019 in New York City. (Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Thats one of the challenges for us ... the relative investment of your dollar is much better spent on what benefits most people, said Souweidane. Its understandable, but its frustrating.

But that is exactly what compels him to seek a cure. The doctor is convinced that if this disease got the same funding firepower that other cancers  such as breast or lung  received, it could be cured in a matter of years.

Theres almost a sense of, this thing has been kind of abandoned, he said of research and funding for DIPG. Its just been left by the wayside.

Breaking News As it happens Get updates on the coronavirus pandemic and other news as it happens with our free breaking news email alerts. >

The Cristian Rivera Foundation has given Souweidane about $1.5 million for his research and clinical trials. And its extending lives.

We have a handful of kids who have gone well beyond expected duration of survival, Souweidane said, when normally its universally fatal after about a year, sometimes two years.

After promising results from a yearslong Stage 1 trial, Souweidane is preparing to launch a wider Phase 2 clinical trial.

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I really believe this disease is within our gunsights on a global scale, the determined doctor said. I have a continued degree of optimism and expectation that its going to happen, its just a matter of when and how. ... Failure is not in my playbook.

*****

Do you know a Hometown Hero? Every Monday, The Daily News will run a weekly feature in print and online profiling a Hometown Hero in several categories  first responders (police officers, firefighters, EMTs), health care workers, transit workers, educators and extraordinary everyday citizens  nominated by our readers.

For more information on how to nominate a Daily News Hometown Hero, go to nydailynews.com/new-york/hometown-heroes.
Authorities in Mexico on Saturday said they found a fake ambulance loaded with 28 Nicaraguans, including nine unaccompanied children.

Mexican officials noted that this was one of the many strange schemes they discovered to smuggle Central American migrants to the U.S. border.

Mexico Officials Find Migrants Inside Ambulance with Fake Government Hospital Emblems

According to Mexico's Interior Department, the vehicle has been painted with fake symbols and marks from a government hospital network. The fake ambulance was apprehended in the Pacific coast state of Oaxaca.

The National Migration Institute said the driver was arrested after he attempted to pass himself off as a health care worker. Not unless they are the victims of a crime, migrants found in such circumstances are usually returned to their home countries.

Immigrant traffickers in Mexico usually try to smuggle migrants in buses or freight trucks. To avoid being scrutinized, their vehicles are often painted with the logos of well-known firms.

READ NEXT: 21 People Killed in Mexico in Just 24 Hours Amid Bloody Turf War Between Mexican Drug Cartels

Caravan of 500 Migrants Leaves Southern Mexico Heading to the U.S.

Another caravan, this time with over 500 migrants seeking to reach the United States, left Tapachula, Chiapas on Thursday. The caravan is reportedly the first to leave the southern border city this year.

The group left the premises of the government's National Migration Institute (INM) offices on Thursday evening. Members of the group said they applied for documentation to allow them to legally leave Tapachula and move freely in Mexico.

However, newspaper Milenio reported that they were not given a response to their applications. The caravan comprises Central Americans, with some Haitians, Venezuelans, and Columbians. Reports said there were also Africans who joined them.

Several migrants were told to go to the Mexican Refugee Commission (COMAR) for the necessary paperwork. However, getting an appointment may take up to three months.

The migrants were not permitted to leave the city or work in the meantime. But the group still departed Tapachula on foot with no food or water, hoping that human rights and migrant relief organizations would be able to assist them along the way.

Many of the migrants marched through the city earlier that day to call attention to their plight. The marchers demanded that the federal government provide them with an opportunity to get their immigration status verified or papers that would allow them to move around Mexico legally and without the fear of deportation.

The town of Tapachula, which is near the Guatemala border, has become a focal point of the immigration crisis. Numerous caravans have originated in the city as frustrated migrants march north, some intending to stay in Mexico while others hope to reach the United States.

In December, the INM reported that more than 4,000 migrants were crossing the border daily, and COMAR has been swamped by a surge of asylum requests - more than 130,000 in 2021.

In the 2021 fiscal year, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) took more than 1.7 million undocumented immigrants into custody, an all-time record.

According to INM, officials in Mexico found more than 3,000 migrants in the country illegally over the past 48 hours. That includes the 500 migrants from Tapachula and 28 migrants found inside the fake ambulance.

The INM added that 380 more migrants were found in the western Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, with one group on a tour bus and another group in a trailer.

The administration of President Joe Biden has struggled to address an upsurge of migrants entering the US-Mexico border, mostly from Central America. During Biden's first year in office, immigration agents in the U.S. faced the largest number of illegal border crossings in two decades.

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This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Jess Smith

WATCH: 600 Migrants Traveling in Two Trailers Rescued in Mexico: Authorities - From CTGN
Former President Donald Trump's then-lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, had claimed that Trump told him that if one of his kids had to go to jail due to the family business, make sure it would be Donald Jr. and not Ivanka Trump.

Cohen said Trump gave him the instruction when his children were on the edge of being indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in 2012, according to a Business Insider report.

The 2012 case was a result of lying about the number of units that had been sold.

Cohen added that Trump told him, although not directly, that "if one or the other has to go to prison, make sure that it's Don."

Cohen noted Trump said that Donald Jr. would be able to handle it.

Recently, the former president has slammed the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack for inviting Ivanka to give her testimony.

READ NEXT: Donald Trump's Eldest Children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump Subpoenaed for New York AG's Tax Fraud Probe of Family Company

Donald Trump on His Children

The select committee sent a letter to Ivanka requesting her voluntary interview, who was a White House adviser to Trump during his presidency, according to a Newsweek report.

The panel's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, said that Ivanka was in direct contact with her father during the key events of the January 6 incident.

Trump said it is a "very unfair situation for his children." He added that it is a disgrace, using these things "to try and get people's mind off how incompetently our country is being run," according to The Hill report.

Trump said that the select committee will go after children.

The January 6 panel has also subpoenaed and obtained phone records associated with Trump's son Eric Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who was an ex-adviser to the former president.

Guilfoyle is also Donald Jr.'s fiancee.

Lawsuit Against Donald Trump's Family and Business

New York Attorney General Letitia James said that her investigation into the Trump Organization has found "significant evidence" of fraudulent and misleading asset valuations.

James has filed a legal action to impose the subpoenas issued to Trump and his children Donald Jr. and Ivanka.

The attorney general said that those two Trump children were "closely involved in the transactions in question."

Meanwhile, Cohen noted that there is "not a chance" that the former president would offer to cooperate with the January 6 investigations to protect his daughter from legal troubles.

The ex-Trump lawyer said that Trump only cares about himself, more than he would care "about his children."

Cohen was one of the most trusted members of Trump's inner circle. He was imprisoned in 2019 for three years for lying to Congress and financial crimes relating to "hush money payoffs" related to two women, who claimed that they had affairs with Trump.

He then wrote a memoir in 2020 and turned against his former boss. The book was entitled "Disloyal."

Cohen alleged in his book that Trump is a "racist and conman" who has engaged in tax and financial crimes.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Jr. Begged Mark Meadows to Urge His Father to Stop Capitol Riot, Texts Reveal

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Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: House Select Committee investigating January 6 sends letter to Ivanka Trump - from CBS Mornings






Former UFC and Bellator fighter Maiquel Falcao was found dead after he was stabbed in his hometown in Brazil early Sunday morning.

Falcao was found outside a bar in his hometown Pelotas, Brazil with multiple stab wounds to his abdomen, according to a Cageside Press News report.

He was brought to a hospital for surgery. However, he passed away a short time later. There were also broken bottles found at the scene of the crime.

Meanwhile, authorities are still investigating the events surrounding Falcao's killing. The veteran UFC fighter was 40 years old when he died.

As of now, no other follow-ups to Falco's death have been announced, according to an SB Nation News report.

Falcao is survived by his wife, Natalia, and their son.

Local police have launched an investigation with the municipality's Emergency Police Station.

The case is being investigated by Felix Rafanhim from the Homicide and Protection of Persons Police Station. Rafanhim said that no witnesses have been named and that the authorities still do not have a motive, according to a Mirror report.

He added that shards of glass were found next to the body. Authorities said they believed that Falcao was stabbed.

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Maiquel Falcao's UFC Fighting History

Falcao was featured once for the UFC way back in November 2019. He managed to beat Gerald Harris by unanimous decision at UFC 123, according to another SB Nation report.

The Brazilian fighter competed in several other notable promotions such as Bellator, KSW, and Fight Nights Global, among others.

Falcao had a range of well-known opponents during his career. His foes included UFC veteran Fabio Maldonado, former KSW champ Mamed Khalidov, and former Bellator champion Alexander Shlemenko.

Falcao was known as the "Big Rig" in the fighting industry. He joined Bellator two years later and won a middleweight Grand Prix tournament. He came up short when he fought for a vacant 185-pound title against Shlemenko before being released due to legal issues.

In 2019, he fought in Sochi, Russia, and lost his fourth consecutive fight.

On the other hand, Falcao was reportedly involved in a brawl at a gas station in 2013. He and a friend ended up being brought to a hospital.

The incident happened when Falcao made advances on a pair of females inside the gas station. The acquaintances of two women then retaliated, which resulted in the altercation outside. Falcao was caught with his friend Kaue Mena, who was also an undefeated MMA fighter.

The incident at a gas station was caught on camera, wherein it was shown that Mena was being floored with a length of wood. Mena was left in a coma. However, he later recovered but never fought again.

Falcao and Mena were expelled from their team in light of the incident. Their team at the time was Renovacao Fight Team. However, Mena shouldered little for the fight that occurred in 2013.

Falcao continued to compete regularly across South America, Europe, and Russia.

READ MORE: Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro Says Only God Can Remove Him From Power Amid Rallies, Supreme Court Fight

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Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: Ex lutador de MMA Maiquel Falcao e morto - from Metropolitana Web MG






A Florida man pleaded guilty to federal counts Friday and faces years in prison after threatening to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and prominent district attorney in Illinois, Kim Foxx.

Ocasio-Cortez, Pelosi Receive Threat From Florida Man

Paul Vernon Hoeffer, 60, entered his plea in federal court in Fort Pierce on Friday, according to the US attorney's office for the southern district of Florida. He revealed in a plea agreement that he phoned in the threats to the offices of two high-profile Democratic lawmakers.

In March 2019, Hoeffer admitted calling Nancy Pelosi's Washington office and threatened to "rattle her head with bullets and cut her head off."

During the same year, he also acknowledged making a racist threat to Kim Foxx, the Chicago area's top state prosecutor. He called Foxx and told her that gunshots would "rack her brain."

He phoned the office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most prominent progressive from New York City, in November 2020. He "threatened to 'rip her head off' this time, and told her to sleep with one eye open," said the Department of Justice.

In a statement issued by the US Attorney's Office for Florida's Southern District, Hoeffer pleaded guilty to three counts of interstate transmission of threats to kidnap or injure on Friday.

A formal response from his attorney was not immediately returned Friday evening.

Citing the plea agreement, NBC News reported that in Hoeffer's call to Foxx, he also "warned of 'all-out war' and a 'civilian army'" and made racist statements.

ALSO READ: 21 People Killed in Mexico in Just 24 Hours Amid Bloody Turf War Between Mexican Drug Cartels

Man Sends Threat to Decapitate Prominent Members of Congress

Before the attack on the US Capitol last year, January 6, in which supporters of Donald Trump sought to overturn his election failure, Hoeffer made his calls.

Threats against politicians are on the rise, according to Capitol Police.

According to Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger, there were over 9,600 threats in 2021, up from over 8,000 in 2020, and the agency logged around 3,900 threats in 2017.

He added that while not all of the unsettling statements made through phone calls, emails, social media, or other kinds of communication are crimes, they are investigated.

As prominent Democratic women, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nancy Pelosi are frequent targets for threats, both inside and outside the walls of Congress.

The US Rep. was elected in 2018, as Democrats took control of the House in opposition to Trump.

In a feature published by Time magazine in 2019, she described her Washington office as tense.

Someone knocks on the door of Ocasio-Cortez's office on Capitol Hill every 10 minutes or so, the magazine revealed. Staff members stiffen up as a result of the noise in the workplace.

Assistants say that Ocasio-Cortez's received enough threats to kill her in her first three months in Congress that Capitol police have trained her team to conduct risk assessments of visitors.

"This is the daily reality for America's newest human Rorschach test," the magazine said.

"While on the left is a wonder woman, on the right is a wicked witch."

READ MORE: Mexico Resort Shooting Leaves 2 Canadian Tourists Dead, Another Wounded

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Written by: Jess Smith

WATCH: Man arrested for role in Capitol riot, threatening to assassinate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth


At least four were dead and one was hurt after a shooting erupted at a house party in Los Angeles County, California on Sunday.

According to Los Angeles Times, the shooting occurred at a short-term rental home in the 1300 block of Park Avenue in Inglewood, Los Angeles.

People noted that the shooting happened at around 1:30 a.m. local time.

Authorities said the victims of the shooting were two women and two men, but the officials did not identify the names and ages of the dead victims.

However, some family members who arrived at the scene revealed that the two women were sisters and that the house party was held to celebrate a birthday.

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Los Angeles Shooting

At least three people were pronounced dead at the scene, while another two were brought to a nearby hospital.

The fourth victim of the shooting died while they were transported to the medical facility.

The fifth victim, who was male, is expected to survive to form his injuries. However, authorities did not specify how he was treated.

Sources noted that those who participated in the shooting were related to gangs, saying a survivor of the incident admitted that he was part of a street gang from another city, ABC News reported.

The authorities are still figuring out the motive for the tragic crime.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts told reporters that the shooting was an "ambush," citing that multiple weapons, including rifles and handguns, were involved in the incident.

Butts also noted that the victims appeared to be "targeted."

"This is the largest number of shooting victims that have been injured in this city since the 1990s," Mayor Butts noted.

Butts then urged the suspect to turn themselves in to the law enforcement authorities, pointing out that they will "find and prosecute" the people behind the tragic crime.

Law enforcement authorities are looking for multiple suspects. Los Angeles officers reportedly interviewed witnesses and canvassed the neighborhood for possible security footage that may have recorded the tragedy.

"When I think about this and hear a crime like this anywhere in New York, Los Angeles, in Santa Monica, in Culver City, these are sociopathic killers that have to be sequestered from society," Butts underscored.

Los Angeles and Homicide

Los Angeles, California has experienced a two-year rise in homicides, along with other places in the country.

In 2021 alone, Los Angeles city recorded nearly 400 killings marking the most homicides of any year from 2007. Data shows that Latino and Black men represent most of the victims in the county.

Despite the rise in homicide in L.A., Inglewood was among the city that did not see the increase in killings in the past year. According to data from January to November 2021, Inglewood recorded 13 homicides, just one more than during the same period in 2020.

READ NEXT: Brian Laundrie Admits Killing Gabby Petito in His Notebook: FBI Says

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written By: Joshua Summers

WATCH: 4 killed, 1 Wounded in Inglewood Shooting - From KTLA 5
One Texas woman has reportedly offered as much as $500,000 to buy an infant boy from his mother at a Texas Walmart, which prompted the mom to call the police.

The 49-year-old woman was identified as Rebecca Lanette Taylor. She was alleged to have struck up a conversation with the mother on January 13, according to a Crime Online report.

The mother told the police that she did not know Taylor. She had two children inside a shopping cart when the Texas woman approached them.

Investigators noted that Taylor started commenting about the youngest child and asked the mother if she would sell him for $250,000. The mother of the infant boy declined the offer. However, Taylor then increased her offer to $500,000.

The mother safely removed herself from the situation and contacted authorities to report the incident with Taylor.

Crocket Police Department Lieutenant Ahleea Prince filed an affidavit regarding the incident.

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Texas Walmart Incident

The mother reportedly refused to tell them the name of her infant boy. However, Rebecca Lanette Taylor and the other woman somehow learned the boy's name and started calling out to him, according to an Independent report.

Police said that the mother waited for the two women to leave the store. However, after exiting the premises, she was once again approached while trying to reach her car.

The affidavit said that once in the parking lot, Taylor started screaming at the mother and offering a larger amount of money for the infant boy.

The mother locked herself and her children in her car. Taylor then stood behind a black SUV parked next to hers and repeatedly told the mom that she wanted to buy the child for $500,000. Taylor then left in the SUV.

The mother initially told Taylor when she was offered $250,000 that no amount of money would do for her child, according to a Law and Crime report.

Crocket Police Department's Lt. Ahleea Price responded to the scene and reviewed the surveillance film from inside the store. The lieutenant noted that the footage matched the mother's story.

Police records noted that Taylor started commenting on the woman's son's "blonde hair and blue eyes," according to an Insider report.

Price then obtained a name and address for Taylor and tried to question the Texas woman at her home.

Price reportedly wrote in the affidavit about her visit to Taylor. She said that the woman told her that she does not like thieves and that Price could speak with Taylor's attorney.

Taylor was then taken into custody on Tuesday on one count of participating in the sale or purchase of a child.

The charge is considered a third-degree felony in Texas.

Taylor was reportedly held in custody in the Houston County Jail with a bond worth $50,000. It was reported that she posted that bond on Thursday.

Meanwhile, The Crockett Police Department did not comment on the matter. In addition, it is not yet clear if Taylor has managed to get herself a legal representation.

READ MORE: Gov. Greg Abbott Wants an Investigation on Sexually Explicit Materials Availability in Texas Public Schools

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Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: A Texas woman demanded to buy a child from a mother at a Walmart for $500,000, police say - from Web Educationn






idobi Network, the go-to alternative music platform, has brought its new brand identity to the New York City floor. Twelve billboard windows plus a building topper - dedicated to its premier streaming radio programming - have taken over the Lower East Side, between Delancey and Bowery Streets. The largest billboard also represents the launch of a new corporate identity for idobi Network, created by Jeff Langevin, and a new radio focused idobi.com where fans can explore everything the alternative-rock scene offers.

READ NEXT: How Music Helps People Get Through Difficult Times

Since 1999, idobi has cultivated an international community within the alternative music world. In that time the network has become more than radio: idobi is now a lifestyle - a culture where listeners "alt-rock 'til they drop."

Sharing in the excitement of idobi Network's refreshed face, Sherin Nicole shares:

"We codenamed it 'brand new idobi' but, since we will forever be the sound of the alt-rock scene, this is an expansion with a fan-first focus - where listeners can experience idobi with all five senses. It's more than the music they listen to: idobi is the community they're a part of, it's the soundtrack for their lives. These launches represent their lifestyle, so idobi can better represent for them."

- Sherin Nicole, idobi Chief Creative & Marketing Officer

In celebration of the launch, listeners and residents are invited to participate in a five-day scavenger hunt from January 26th to January 30th involving local businesses around the area. Participants must take a photo of the idobi Network billboard and tag @idobiRadio and their partners for a clue to aid their scavenging journey. The first person who goes to the right business location, based on the given clue, will receive a special prize pack with goods from Schecter Guitars, WhistlePig Whiskey*, Hopeless Records, Topo Chico, Fire Dept Coffee, and more. There will be one prize pack per day at each business location for five total.

The idobi Radio shows spotlighted in the Pep-Punk campaign are: Man of the Hour featuring Seb Lefebvre of Simple Plan, The Nick Major Show, It's News to Us, Nathan Kress of iCarly brings behind-the-scenes stories to RadioActive Dads, The Brett Davern Show, the music industry's leading femmes meet up on Babes Behind the Beats, The Gunz Show, Sara Scoggs explores mental health and well-being with friends for Let's Talk, idobi's inside man Gone Fishkin, Geek Girl Riot, Wesam's World with Wesam Keesh, and the rockers of The Rockstar Dad Show.

Pep-Punk Billboard Suite Credits

Art director, concept: Sherin Nicole

Identity design: Jeff Langevin

Speekerboxx illustration: Jamal Sullivan

Illustrator: Paul Tuller

Designers: Frederic Jerome, Sherin Nicole

Project manager: Alex Bear

* spirits and mature game prizes will require proof of age and prize packs will be sorted accordingly

READ MORE: Mixcloud Founder Nico Perez Talks Music Technology and Branding at Internet Week NY
A prospective art student who was sentenced to four years imprisonment for harassing an innocent husband and wife over a 8,500 drug debt owed by their son has had his jail time reduced on appeal.

Karl Hughes, who has an offer of a place to study at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), had threatened to kill the couples son unless the money was paid.

CCTV cameras situated at the front of the victims house recorded Hughes repeatedly banging on the door and shouting at the couple: I f**king told you I wanted my money.

In another incident, he was clearly seen kicking the familys door and shouting threats towards the house.

The couple felt so intimidated by Hughes actions, which only stopped after they complained to gardai, that they put the house they had lived in for more than 20 years on the market.

Hughes (28), formerly of Castleknock Meadows, Laurel Lodge, Dublin, but now a prisoner of Wheatfield Prison, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to harassment of the Kennedy family at their home in Rathfarnham, Dublin between April and September 2019.

He was sentenced to four years imprisonment by Judge Martin Nolan last May.

Hughes later launched an appeal against the severity of the sentence.

In a judgement delivered by Court President Mr Justice George Birmingham on January 24, sitting with Mr Justice John Edwards and Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh, Hughes behaviour was described as serious offending.

The family targeted by the harassment, Mr Justice Birmingham continued, had been entirely blameless individuals who had been made vulnerable by their sons conduct.

However, the judge said the court had decided to suspend the final year of the four-year term imposed on Hughes to encourage his rehabilitation.

At an earlier hearing (January 21), details of an offer Hughes had received from NCAD were given to the Court of Appeal by defence barrister John Fitzgerald SC as he told the three-judge court that the jail term imposed on his client had been excessive.

Counsel explained his client had been diagnosed with depression and not been taking his medication at the time of the offence, and had also been abusing alcohol.

Hughes, however, was now following medical advice regarding his treatment and there was also an offer of employment as well as a place at NCAD waiting for him, he added.

Mr Fitzgerald said Hughes had mental difficulties, from which he suffered from for some time, and that the sentence imposed by Judge Nolan had been an error when compared with lighter sentences handed down in the past for similar offences.

Mr Fitzgerald also told the court his client has since turned over new leaf and has not came to the attention of the authorities since his arrest.

There has been a change in his behaviour, counsel added.

Kieran Kelly BL, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said the CCTV footage which had been played in court provided a flavour of some of the visits made by Hughes to the property.

The visits, he said were planned, prolonged and effective in their intention to cause maximum fear in the household.

Mr Kelly said the harassment only ended when the family complained to gardai and submitted that the sentencing judge correctly described the offending as very serious misbehaviour and the highest end of the scale which could not be tolerated.

On hearing submissions, Mr Justice Birmingham noted that the victims were so terrified by Hughes actions that they felt compelled to put their home of 24 years on the market.

That is all together a different order of seriousness, he said.

Previous evidence.

Hughes brother Cian (31) was convicted of the same offence and sentenced to two-and-a-half years imprisonment.

At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Garda Peter Finnan told Mr Kelly, prosecuting, that the Kennedy family had previously paid 15,000 to a man after their son Cormac told them his life was in danger if he didnt pay a debt he owed.

The family borrowed the money because they were concerned for the safety of the people in the house including their elderly grandmother who lived with them.

The grandmother died in March 2019 and two weeks after the grandmothers funeral, Karl Hughes called to the house and asked for Cormac, Gda Finnan said.

After that meeting Cormac took a backpack and his passport and left the house. He has not returned to live in the family home since.

Gda Finnan said days later Karl Hughes returned to the house and that was when the harassment began. He said Cormac owed him 8,500. He threatened the family and said he would call again with re-enforcements.

The court heard that Karl called to the Kennedys home on five occasions and his brother Cian was with him on three of those occasions.

It was a tsunami of fear that overwhelmed us constantly. We lived in a suspended existence dominated by the fear of the unknown, Deirdre Kennedy said in her victim impact statement, adding that the family experienced total terror and felt under siege.

The legacy of this crime is a horrific part of our family history of 2019 which will have life lasting consequences for us a family, she said.
Two touching works of art have won Laois primary schools the titles of County Winners in prestigious Someone Like Me national art competition.

Children and teachers in Castlecuffe National School and Newtown National School are celebrating being named Junior and Senior County Winners respectively of the prestigious national art competition, Someone Like Me.

The Junior County Winner Castlecuffe NS is in Clonaslee. Teacher Brigid Dunne got her Junior and Senior Infants working together on a whole class entry. This beautiful art piece represents how we all have different weaknesses and strengths but together we are stronger.

Senior County Winners at Newtown NS Crettyard are 5th and 6th Class, another whole class entry led by teacher Claire Walshe.

They made a beautifully crafted 3D model of the Irish Paralympians, displaying their wonderful achievements and encouraging other people with a disability to also achieve their goals.

They join over 40 other schools to compete for the much sought-after national title at an online national awards ceremony to be held on Thursday February 3.

The judges were particularly impressed with the submissions from pupils and teachers at Castlecuffe National School and Newtown National School, selecting them as County Winners based on their insightful and inspirational responses to the theme.

Congratulating Castlecuffe NS and Newtown NS on being named County Winners, Minister of State with special responsibility for disability, Anne Rabbitte T.D. said that she was hugely encouraged by the growing interest in the competition which is helping to develop a shared understanding of how we should treat others in a caring, sensitive and inclusive way, and promoting a sense of belonging and connectedness.

We are exceptionally pleased with the response to this years competition which took place during challenging times not just in our schools, but right across our communities, due to the ongoing global pandemic, she said.

I am so impressed by the standard of entry and the obvious thought that has gone into each creative submission. Once again, our primary school teachers and pupils have shown their commitment to putting ability under the spotlight helping to build a more inclusive society.

While I know it will be an anxious wait for the pupils and teachers to hear which of the 48 county winners will be awarded the national title, every entry is a winner when it comes to enabling each and every single person in Ireland to feel a valued member of society.

Castlecuffe National School and Newtown National School will now go on to compete with more than 40 other schools from around the country for the overall national Someone Like Me award which will be announced at an online ceremony to be held on Thursday 3rd February 2022.

The competition, which offers a range of prizes up to the value of 750, was open to all primary school pupils from junior infants to sixth class and more than 1,800 entries were received from individual pupils, class groups and whole schools right across Ireland. Entries ranged from posters and collages to large sculptural installations and multi-media pieces.

Someone Like Me, which is organised by the National Disability Authority, attracted more than 1,800 entries from national schools across the length and breadth of the country. The competition has been designed to be a national celebration of the things that unite children of all abilities and, over its six-year history, more than 8,000 children have taken part, creating a tangible contribution to developing more positive attitudes towards persons with disabilities.

During the last school term of 2021 teachers and their pupils right across Ireland worked through special lesson plans which challenged them to respond artistically and creatively to the theme of Someone Like Me, while, at the same time, appreciating and respecting similarities and differences in people.
An Irish writer is one of five people to make the shortlist of a 10,000 UK writing prize.

Novelist Megan Nolan - originally from Co Waterford and now based in London - is nominated for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.

Her darkly funny debut, Acts of Desperation, is a story about a young woman in Dublin as she navigates an obsessive love with a Danish writer and her equally toxic relationship with food and alcohol.

Overall, women dominated the shortlist for the awards.

The nominees for the prize, which celebrates the best emerging talent in the UK and Ireland, this year include one male and four female authors.

A member of the judging panel described the group as risk-takers who through their work are taking chances with style, with perspective, with form.

The winner will secure 10,000 as well as a bespoke 10-week residency with the University of Warwick, with those on the shortlist receiving 1,000.

Cal Flyn, an author and journalist from the Scottish Highlands, also features on the shortlist for an eerie yet ultimately optimistic non-fiction book about ecological diversity, Islands Of Abandonment.

Rachel Long, from London, is nominated for her debut poetry collection, My Darling From The Lions, and British-Ghanian author Caleb Azumah Nelson for Open Water, his south-east London-set debut.

The judging panel features writer and academic Sarah Moss, Scottish novelist Andrew OHagan, author and columnist Tahmima Anam, critic Claire Lowdon and writer Gonzalo C Garcia.

It is chaired by the literary editor of the Sunday Times, Andrew Holgate.

Lowdon said: These writers stand out because they are risk-takers.

Risking vulnerability, risking unlikability. Taking chances with style, with perspective, with form.

Open any one of these books and you will find yourself, thrillingly, in uncharted territory.

Moss said: From a strong longlist, we chose the five books that showed the most inventive and promising writing.

Im confident that these are not only new books and new stories but new voices that will become part of our shared cultural life in the coming years.

The rising generation inherits a shameful mess, but the breadth of genres and themes here attests to the artistic and intellectual energy of new writers.

The award, which is this year sponsored by the Charlotte Aitken Trust, is celebrating its 30th anniversary year.

The winner will be announced in a ceremony at the London Library on February 24.
Countries need to work together to bring the acute phase of the pandemic to an end according to the head of the World Health Organisation, which he said must not be let drag on.

"The Covid-19 pandemic is now entering its third year and we are at a critical juncture," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference.

"We must work together to bring the acute phase of this pandemic to an end. We cannot let it continue to drag on, lurching between panic and neglect," he said.

Dr Tedros also said that Germany had become the agency's largest donor. He was speaking at a press conference alongside Germany's development minister Svenja Schulze, both pictured above.

Historically, the United States has made the biggest financial contribution among member states to the organisation.

He also noted the critical work of the Berlin Hub. Dr Tedros said they had discussed "building structures for preventing future pandemics, including for producing vaccines and other medical tools where they are most needed".

Ms Schulze said that the top priority of Germany, which took over the G7 Presidency, is to end the pandemic worldwide and called for a "massively accelerated, truly global vaccination campaign" in order to do so.

LIVE with @DrTedros: Opening of the 150th session of the WHO Executive Board #EB150 https://t.co/d21nZjLzmO  World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 24, 2022

The event in Geneva begins a week of WHO executive board meetings where key aspects of the UN health agency's future are due to be discussed, including Dr Tedros' bid for a second term.

Dr Tedros also thanked German for its "admirable commitment to health and its support of vaccine equity".
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has said that plans by Russia to hold navy military exercises off the coast of Ireland are not welcome.

However, Minister Simon Coveney has said Ireland does not have the powers to prevent it from happening.

The artillery drills at the start of February will take place in international waters, but within Irish controlled airspace and the countrys exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Minister Coveney said the exercises are to take place 240 kilometres (150 miles) off the Irish south-west coast.

In compliance with legal requirements, Russia informed Irelands aviation authorities of the planned activities in advance.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) insisted there would be no impact to the safety of civil aircraft operations.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Mr Coveney said: I have made it clear to the Russian Ambassador in Ireland (Yury Filatov) that its not welcome.

This is not a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of what is happening with and in Ukraine at the moment.

Its important that I brief my colleagues on those intentions.

Russia, under international law, can take military exercises in international waters, but the fact they are choosing to do it on the west borders of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that is in our view not welcome and not wanted right now, particularly in the coming weeks.

Mr Coveney is in Brussels on Monday for a scheduled meeting with other EU foreign ministers at which the ongoing tensions on the Russia/Ukraine border are being discussed.

This is an important day today for EU foreign ministers to reinforce a message of unity from the European Union in relation to Russian/Ukraine tension, Mr Coveney added.

There are two very clear messages that EU foreign ministers will want to get across today.

First of all, a clear message and ask of Russia to defuse tension in the context of their activities on the borders of Ukraine and give reassurance to the rest of the world in terms of their intentions.

Secondly, a strong message of unity from the EU that should Russia decide to invade Ukraine militarily, that there would be very severe consequences of that action from an EU perspective in terms of sanction and restrictions that would follow very quickly, that I think would be the most comprehensive that the EU has put together in many decades.

A message and appeal to use diplomatic means to defuse tension, but also a very strong and clear and unified message that the EU respond collectively and in a unified manner in a way that would introduce very significant measures in response to Russian military action in Ukraine.
A relaxation of limits on a mortgage to rent scheme for people in arrears will see more individuals and families being able to stay in their homes.

The State scheme has been expanded to allow more people to use it.

Owners of houses worth up to 450,000 in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Louth and Meath can now avail of the scheme, an increase of 55,000.

The Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien said he wants the scheme to help 1,000 households a year.

A real pleasure to meet Dean & Lorna today with @davidhall75 @icarehousing Weve just announced significant improvements to the Mortgage to Rent Scheme making it easier for people to access More info: https://t.co/knDiprCD1w#HousingforAll pic.twitter.com/ffYA5lHYxs  Darragh O'Brien (@DarraghOBrienTD) January 24, 2022

He said that 671 borrowers used the scheme last year, more than three times the amount of borrowers who availed of it in 2019.

Under the terms of the scheme, homeowners at risk of losing their homes will have the chance to surrender the property to a lender, and then become a social housing tenant and remain in the property.

Minister OBrien said it will allow more people into the scheme.

We need to make sure that the upper limits that have increased in the greater Dublin area and Cork, and also the equity amount, that we make more accessible for more people, he added.

There are people who are in some very difficult mortgage arrears situations that arent going to be redeemed.

I want to remove the worry of people losing their home. I want to be doing at least a 1,000 a year.

Housing For All sets out our target of doing 1,000 a year.

I want more people to have certainty that they wont [lose] their homes and thats why we are making these changes that will be effective from February 14.

There are more than 20,000 households in mortgage arrears of more than two years.

The Fianna Fail minister said he needs to grasp the nettle and tackle mortgage arrears.

The mortgage to rent as a concept is a good one, its a solution for some people, not for all, he added.

For those who are long term mortgage arrears and whose income is not going to be able to pay the mortgage that is required or have a restructure done, it is a solution.

To deal with mortgage arrears and sustainability, its not just one thing that is going to change it, but these changes have been welcomed by the sector.
The UKs first national LGBTQ+ museum is due to open in London in spring 2022.

The museum, created by the charity Queer Britain, will be located in Kings Cross in north London, in part of a building owned by Art Fund, the national charity for art.

It will be a fully inclusive space that celebrates the stories, people and places that are so intrinsic to the queer community in the UK, the charity said.

Who wants a sneak peek of our new home? Some of our amazing volunteers and trustees were able to stop by and have a look at the space as it is now. We're looking forward to sharing all of this with you. Opening Spring 2022. pic.twitter.com/eDWlGTkmyy  Queer Britain (@Queer_Britain) January 24, 2022

Queer Britain, established in 2018, plans for the museum to allow visitors to explore and learn about the past, present and future stories of the LGBTQ+ community.

The director and co-founder of Queer Britain, Joseph Galliano, said: Its time the UK had an LGBTQ+ museum for all, and we are delighted to have found our first home in beautiful Granary Square, with Art Fund as our first landlord.

Its a prime location accessible to swathes of the country, and in a part of town with a rich queer heritage.

The new museum will include four galleries, a workshop, an education space, a gift shop, and offices for the Queer Britain team.

The space will be fully accessible with lifts and ramps and will be free to enter, with donations welcome to support its work.

Queer Britains archive is currently housed at the Bishopsgate Institute and is accessible by appointment to the public and researchers.

A trustee of Queer Britain, Lisa Power, said: Im really excited that Queer Britain is finally going to have a space to show what we can do and that were here for all the community, from old lesbian feminist warhorses like me to young queer folk of all genders and ethnicities.

Queer Britain aims to tell our many and diverse histories, and now we have a home to do that from.

The director of Art Fund, Jenny Waldman, said the charity was delighted to welcome Queer Britain as its new tenant.

She added: Their exciting proposal for the first UK museum dedicated to exploring LGBTQ+ histories, people and ideas was warmly supported by our trustees, and were thrilled that our beautiful building in Granary Square will be home for the first phase of the Queer Britain museum.

It promises to be an essential destination.

Queer Britain hopes to open the museums doors in the spring and will announce its plans and programme shortly.
WOSP Outdoor Family Fundraising Day organised by Polish Language School Portlaoise with WOSP Portlaoise at The Rugby Club, Portlaoise on the 30th January 2022, at 1PM.

WOSP is a Polish charity organisation raising money for sick kids and those in hospitals.

Every year in January, Jurek Owsiak runs a Fundraising Days in Poland and around the World. This year Portlaoise will host such a fundraiser.

It is planned to raise money to treat children with eye disorders and eye diseases says one of the organisers, Honorata Puslednik of WOSP Portlaoise and the Polish Language School.

"Its a huge event in Poland and a very important day for our Polish Community living locally here in Portlaoise and the whole Co Laois.

"We are expecting Polish Families with their Irish Friends and neighbours (weather permitted). All people helping us to organise the 30th Grand Finale are connected to the Polish Language School located in the town at 11Lismard Court, Well Road," she said.

Events will run until 5pm and all are welcome.

You can have a look for more information on the WOSP official website https://en.wosp.org.pl/ and on our local Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/WOSP- Portlaoise-101543708377217/

There will be a lot of activities (mostly for kids and families)

- Finger food

- Barbeque

- Bubble wafers

- Homemade cake sale

- Hot drinks

- Face paint

- Slime Factory

- First Aid Training for kids provided by Malta

- Lego exhibition and some Lego competitions organised by ShamrockBricks

- Sport Games& Activities

- WOSP Gadgets Sale

- Auction

- Music

- Karate, Zumba, Tabata show for kids

- Motorcycle Showcase
Embassy Spokespersons Remarks on the Wrong Comment on China in the Joint Statement of the Australia-UK Ministerial Meeting

2022-01-22

Question: On January 21st, the Australia-UK Ministerial Meeting issued a joint statement expressing concerns about China-related issues, including issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea. What is the comment of the Chinese Embassy in the UK?

Embassy Spokesperson: The China-related contents in the joint statement of the Australia-UK Ministerial Meeting distort facts and confuse right and wrong by deliberately discrediting China on issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and the South China Sea. This is a blatant interference in Chinas internal affairs and severe violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations. We express grave concern and strong opposition.

Issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong are purely Chinas internal affairs which no foreign country has the right to interfere in. No one should underestimate the strong determination, will and capability of the Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Currently, the biggest threat to the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is that the Taiwan authorities headed by the Democratic Progressive Party are colluding with external forces and playing a provocation game with Taiwan independence. We urge the relevant countries to uphold the one-China principle and refrain from having official relations of any form with Taiwan, or giving any encouragement to secessionist activities in the name of Taiwan independence.

The so-called Xinjiang-related issues have nothing to do with human rights, ethnic groups or religious affairs, but everything to do with fighting terrorism, separatism and extremism. Xinjiang is now enjoying economic development, social stability and ethnic solidarity. The basic rights of people of all ethnic groups are fully safeguarded. The allegation that there are severe human rights violations in Xinjiang is merely a barefaced lie. We urge the relevant countries to stop fabricating and spreading rumours about Xinjiang.

China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997. The Chinese Government governs the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in accordance with the Constitution of China and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong SAR, not the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The fact that the chaos has given way to order and order has led to prosperity in Hong Kong fully proves that to enforce the Law on Safeguarding National Security, improve the electoral system and implement the principle of patriots governing Hong Kong in the Hong Kong SAR facilitate the implementation of One Country, Two Systems, provide better safeguards for the rights and freedoms of the majority of the local residents, promote the healthy development of the democratic system in Hong Kong, and ensure the citys lasting stability and prosperity.

On the South China Sea, Chinas policies and position are consistent. Chinas sovereignty, rights and interests in the South China Sea, which had been formed in the course of a long history, have abundant historical and legal basis. China remains unwavering in its determination to safeguard its sovereignty, territorial integrity and maritime rights and interests. It also remains committed to addressing the disputes in a peaceful manner together with the relevant countries and working with ASEAN countries to safeguard peace and stability in the region. Certain countries outside the region sent naval vessels and aircrafts to the region to flex military muscle and stir up trouble. This has become the biggest threat to peace and stability in the South China Sea, which the Chinese side strongly opposes. The so-called South China Sea arbitration is illegal, null and void. China does not accept or participate in the arbitration, nor does it accept or recognize the award. Chinas Coast Guard Law and Maritime Traffic Safety Law are important measures to strengthen the rule of law at sea. They are fully consistent with internationally-accepted practice and the legal practice of other countries. Neither the UK nor Australia has the right to make irresponsible remarks on the laws.

It must be pointed out that AUKUS has gravely undermined regional peace and stability, intensified the arms race, and had a severe impact on the international non-proliferation system. Therefore, more and more countries have expressed vigilance and rejection. We urge the relevant countries to stop forming small circles, stop creating divisions or inciting confrontation, and stop their wrong moves that threaten regional peace and stability.
A car dealership in Kildare has said it was saved from "a catastrophic event" thanks to the actions of one security officer on its premises two weeks ago.

Security at Conlans in Newhall is managed by Manguard Plus (MP), Irelands largest privately owned security company.

The dealership definitely got value for its security budget: MP confirmed that the officer (whose identity cannot be disclosed for operational reasons) on duty that fateful night was monitoring the CCTV for the premises.

He wasnt satisfied that all was well, which prompted him to personally investigate the area.

Shortly after, the employee stumbled upon a fire on the site, and called emergency fire services, who managed to contain the blaze.

Nicky Conlan, Head of Business at Conlans, commended the MP worker for his quick-thinking: "There is no doubt that the quick witted action by the MP Control Room Operator saved our company from a catastrophic event."

"If the blaze had taken hold there is no question whatsoever that the damage would have been significant enough to cause us to cease trading for an extended period of time and would have been looking at a rebuild."

Conlan continued: "The sharpness of the security officer was absolutely crucial in preventing a potentially disastrous event for us.

"It is heartening and encouraging to know that there are people who have pride in their jobs and take their responsibilities seriously, there are a true example of all that is good about people and are a credit to their employers.

"I would like to both commend and thank this amazing MP team for their unstinting and diligent service to our company, they are definitely a company who provide security in the true sense of the word," he concluded.

Managing Director of MP, Sean Hall, said that the training MP's security staff undertake, "coupled with huge investments in technology," were crucial in securing a good outcome for Conlans.

"The MP Control Room is one of the most sophisticated and high tech in the country, and so human skill and observation combined with technology secured a good outcome for our client," he explained.

"We are very proud of the hard working staff we employ at MP... it is their sharpness and skill, coupled with a decent work ethic, that ensures our clients are given the absolute best service they want and deserve.

"I am so personally proud of this Officer, he had an inkling that not all was right at the premises and pro actively investigated it."

"Going beyond the call of duty is what we do at MP and this Officer certainly did that," Hall added.
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Kildare artist, Shannon OReilly is one of seven female art graduates who have been invited to exhibit their work as part of a major national exhibition titled Brigit 2022: Dublin City Celebrating Women.

initiated by Lord Mayor of Dublin Alison Gilliland, the exhibition runs from February 1 to 12 at The LAB Gallery in Dublin and is a celebration of the achievements of Irish women, past and present.

I am delighted to be taking part, especially because of the theme and what it means, said Shannon.

The Kildare town native is a recent graduate of NCAD, Dublin. Her work examines buildings and floor plans to create paintings that are an abstraction of modern architecture, using a mixture of visual reference with historical references.

The large scale allows the expression of awe she feels when seeing this architecture.

Her preferred medium is heavy body acrylic, but uses mixed media in her preparatory sketches. Her paint choice allows the display of strong opaque colour.

Her most recent exhibition was NCAD.works in June 2021, which can be found online.

For further information, check out www.dublincityartsoffice.ie/the-lab/exhibitions/new-beginnings
Consumers in Connacht are set to lead the charge in online spending in 2022, according to new Digital Insights research commissioned by Irelands leading representative body for the sector, Digital Business Ireland and the custodians of Irelands national domain registry, .IE.

The research was carried out by Ireland Thinks and is based on a nationally representative sample, collected from a group of over 30,000 panelists.

As part of the survey, respondents were asked to disclose if they intended to increase or decrease their online spending in 2022, or whether they anticipated any change in the level of their expenditure. The findings were then assessed across a range of demographics, with a focus on regional distribution. Collectively, the research offers a fascinating insight into consumer trends and behaviours across Connacht.

Among its key findings, the Digital Insights research showed that, in 2022:

- 43% of consumers in Connacht plan to either moderately or significantly increase their online spending - compared to just 26% in Dublin

- 41% of consumers in the region do not expect to see a change in their online expenditure

- Just 9% of consumers in Connacht intend to either moderately or significantly decrease their online spending

Overall, the research showcases the growing dominance of e-commerce as the preferred shopping experience for people across the counties of Connacht, and is largely indicative of consumer enthusiasm for the security and flexibility offered by shopping online.

In addition, the findings suggest that online ordering and delivery services offer a level of choice and convenience that proves attractive to those living in more rural settings, when compared to those living in high density cities or urban areas. The results of the Digital Insights research will be encouraging to the many businesses across the region who have invested heavily in enhancing their digital functionality over the course of the last two years.



The findings have come as no surprise to Digital Business Ireland, who through working with its network of 6,000 businesses, has witnessed firsthand, the seismic shift in the Irish consumer landscape, as e-commerce continues on its upward trajectory, with little sign of slowing down. Equally, businesses across Connacht have embraced the numerous opportunities offered by pivoting their operations online.



Speaking today, Secretary General of Digital Business Ireland, Lorraine Higgins said: Todays findings mark the first in our Digital Insights series, aimed at gaining valuable information into the prevailing opinions of Irish consumers towards shopping online. Evidently, the exponential growth of e-commerce looks set to continue in 2022, with consumers in Connacht set to increase their online expenditure. The numerous benefits of online shopping are unparalleled, and our research suggests that consumers across the region have truly embraced the flexibility and security that it provides.

Our research shows definitively that people living across the counties in Connacht have a preference for online shopping, compared to those living in Dublin, for example. This is a true testament to the convenient nature of delivery to your doorstep shopping, which is proving increasingly popular among consumers living in regional areas, who may not have access to the amenities available in more urban, high-density cities.

Overall the findings point to the importance of having digital functionality for businesses and retailers throughout Connacht. At Digital Business Ireland, empowering SMEs to unlock the full potential of e-commerce forms the core of our work, and we are delighted to provide these crucial insights to our members in the region, to help them position their sales development strategies for the year ahead.

Oonagh McCutcheon, Corporate Communications Manager at .IE, and National Director at .IE Digital Town Programme said: The pandemic has accelerated many important trends in consumer behaviour, including a shift in retail purchasing preferences from the physical shop to the digital storefront.

These findings tell us that it is not wise for business owners or policymakers to divide Irish consumers along stereotypical lines, such as age or geography. Ireland is a small, connected country, and ideas, attitudes, and best practices are learned and quickly adopted. This connectedness means that nearly all Irish consumers are used to spending online. They have a well-formed idea of what a seamless online experience looks and feels like.

Furthermore, the demographic diversity of online consumers proves that it is no longer possible for businesses, Irish or international, to build a one-size-fits-all e-commerce experience. Digital consumers are all ages and genders, from all over Ireland, and represent the full spectrum of purchasing power.
TWENTY FOUR Limerick schools will receive over 2.5m in funding as part of the Summer Works Scheme.

497 projects across the country will receive a total of 65m as part of the scheme announced by Minister for Education Norma Foley TD.

17 primary schools and seven secondary schools in Limerick will benefit from the funding with an average of over 100,000 allocated to each school.

The Summer Works Scheme is designed to allow schools to carry out small and medium-scale building works that will improve and upgrade existing school buildings.

Limericks allocation of 2.51m is the 7th highest nationally and is 5th highest in terms of the number of schools approved by County.

Schools that will receive funding under the scheme are: Croagh N.S, Templeglantine N.S, Bruree N.S, Monagea N.S, Fedamore N.S, Cloverfierld N.S, Abbeyfeale Boys N.S, Scoil Padraid Naofa Boys, Ahane N.S, Scoil Naomh Iosaf, Scoil Nais Cathair Chinn Lis, Scoil O Curain Boys and Scoil Naomh Iosef.

Other schools that will benefit from the funding include: Scoil Chriost Ri Boys, An Mhodh Scoil, Scoil Dean Cussen, Scoil Mhuire & Ide, Colaiste Mhuire, Desmond College, Hazelwood College, Castletroy College, Colaiste Iosaef and John The Baptist Community School.

Limerick TD, Kieran ODonnell welcomed the announcement from the Minister for Education.

He said: Schools have had to teach and function in extremely difficult circumstances with Covid19, impacting on the staff, pupils and their parents.

"Todays announcement under the summer works scheme is about continuing to support schools and furthermore this allocation includes window improvement/replacement projects in schools which will help in managing ventilation in these schools."

Minister Niall Collins also commented: This is a huge significant investment into Limericks schools both primary and post primary. 2.51 million will make a huge contribution into our local economy and will help sustain and boost local employment.

"As local Minister I am glad to announce this investment and wish all schools well as we exit the Covid-19 pandemic.
CALLS have been made to allow trained members of Limerick Fire and Rescue service to be deployed as first responders to medical emergencies.

The proposal was put forward by Cllr Adam Teskey at the January meeting of Adare/Rathkeale councillors.

Its a matter of life and death, he said, highlighting the current pressures on the National Ambulance Service because of the pandemic and associated staff absences.

I am requesting that Limerick City and County Council would allow for the retained and full-time fire service to go out in response to 999 calls because it could come to any of our doors, at any given time or any given stage, whereby we need to use the 999 service and where we have continued delays in ambulances attending, he said pointing our that local authorities in Kerry and Donegal are considering a similar initiative.

We have (in Limerick) a fully supported retained fire service and a full-time fire service where the personnel have been fully trained in first response and (I am asking) that they would be enacted and brought out to such calls where it could save someones life, he added.

The proposal was seconded by Cllr Bridie Collins and received unanimous support from members who asked that it happen as soon as possible.

Its a well thought-out and good idea, we should all, wherever possible, play our part in any way we can - especially if we have professionalism that can make a contribution then it should be used, said the district cathaoirleach Cllr Kevin Sheahan.

While noting the sentiments of councillors, director of service Caroline Curley said, it might not be straight forward to implement such a policy.

Having been in charge of the fire service for a number of years, I am aware of the various issues  that perhaps Cllr Teskey isnt aware of  that have to be taken into consideration.

However, Ms Curley said she would bring the proposal to the attention of the council CEO to see if it can be acted on.

We have to ensure that we have adequate resources to cover fires and car accidents, Ms Curley continued.

The director of service concluded by stating that members of Limerick Fire and Rescue already attend certain medical emergencies when requested by the HSE.
SINN Fein now has one councillor in County Limerick after former Independent, PJ Carey, joined the party.

Elected at the first time of asking in the Cappamore-Kilmallock Municipal District in 2019, Cllr Carey told the Limerick Leader, "Sinn Fein is the only party I would join".

"I am very pleased to join Sinn Fein, because I firmly believe the party is genuinely committed to delivering the type of change that Ireland needs.

"At the last local elections when the Sinn Fein candidate Jim Hickey was eliminated after a very strong campaign I received more of his transfers than all of the other candidates put together. I would not be a councillor without the transfers from Sinn Fein supporters. That gave me a mandate to represent Sinn Fein voters, said Cllr Carey.

He said there was a "sense of inevitability" about him joining the party.

"If Sinn Fein get into Government it will allow me as a local councillor to get increased investment for the area. It is simply not possible as an Independent politician to get big capital investment projects over the line," said Cllr Carey.

He adds that Sinn Feins local network of a TD, senator, councillors, area reps and supporters will help him better represent the whole of the municipal district.

"Being a member of a political party will not change me in the slightest," stressed Cllr Carey.

"I will continue to speak out without fear or favour and raise the concerns of and issues affecting constituents in the Cappamore-Kilmallock Municipal District.

"That means putting workers and families first, building homes, addressing the crisis in our health service, tackling crime, getting to grips with the increasing cost of living and starting to plan for Irish Unity."

In the last number of weeks, he cited highlighting Limerick City and County Councils charges for call-outs by Limerick Fire and Rescue Service.

"550 per hour for a house fire and 1,100 per hour for a commercial fire seems a bit excessive," said Cllr Carey, after a number of people told him they decided not to call the fire brigade over a chimney fire or a small fire due to the cost.

Separately, he also declared: "When the dogs in Newcastle West and Limerick city are getting more from a Budget and looked after better than the neglected people in the Kilmallock area, you know youre in trouble." Cllr Carey was speaking at a meeting of the Municipal District of Cappamore-Kilmallock regarding the "treacherous" Railway Bridge in Kilmallock.

Cllr Carey said he looked forward to working with Sinn Feins candidate for Limerick County, Joanne Collins; sitting TD Maurice Quinlivan; city councillors Sharon Benson and John Costelloe; Senator Paul Gavan, and all in the partys Limerick network.

Sinn Fein TD for Limerick City, Maurice Quinlivan TD said he has known Cllr Carey for many years and he is a "first class public representative".

"A tireless campaigner on behalf of workers and families in his community and across Limerick, PJ is a fantastic addition to the Sinn Fein team and I look forward to working closely with him in the time ahead," said Deputy Quinlivan.

Cllr Carey concluded by saying: "I very much look forward to working with the party locally and nationally to deliver change locally and nationally."

The number of Independents in the Cappamore-Kilmallock area has now fallen to two - Cllrs Brigid Teefy and Eddie Ryan. The municipal district is now represented by two Fianna Fail, two Fine Gael, one Sinn Fein and the two Independents.
A LIMERICK based lecturers investigation into how to stop young people being roped into organised crime groups will feature on RTE.

Professor Sean Redmond worked in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs for eight years, and since 2016 he has been ULs Adjunct Professor in Youth Justice.

His latest research delves into an investigation system developed at UL to help identify the most vulnerable young people at risk of joining organised crime.

Ive always had an interest in working with young people in child protection, child welfare, juvenile justice as an on the ground practitioner, he told the Limerick Leader.

He stressed that of a pool of 500,000 young people at a particular age, about 1,000 are likely to get involved in organised crime, particularly drug dealing, serious robberies and burglaries.

In the majority of cases, he added, the young people live in estates where there is one road in and one road out and where family members are involved in drugs activity.

All the dice are loaded against you, the Department of Justice Civil Servant added.

His work will feature in episode four of Change Makers, a six-part RTE One television documentary series, which starts tonight (8.30pm) on RTE One television.

Filmed in partnership with the Irish Universities Association, the series looks at the most transformative research led projects in the country.

Professor Redmond highlighted that in the eyes of these coercive, bullying adults involved in organised crime, the children can be seen as pretty expendable.

He disclosed that his on the ground investigations took place in Dublin and one other county, so as not to compromise the integrity of his research.

The aim of this research, he added, was to help local and national law enforcement break up organised crime gangs.

A registered social worker himself, Professor Redmond explained that organised crime gangs lure youngsters by offering them the various materialistic trappings associated with the life.

The minute you get caught with drugs or you fall into debt, then the dynamic shifts from a force of attraction to one of coercion.

If you dont do something, you are in debt to somebody, and bad things will happen, he concluded.
LIMERICK COUPLES wishing to marry at their local registry office this year face a long wait as the office has said they are booked up until August.

Hundreds of couples have had to postpone their nuptials over the last two years and this has led to an increase in demand for Civil Marriage Ceremonies across Ireland.

The Registry Office at St Camillus' Hospital in Limerick hold civil ceremonies every Friday with between four and six couples getting married there each week.

A HSE Mid West Community Healthcare spokesperson confirmed to the Limerick Leader that the office is currently booked up until August as couples wishing to marry at other offices across the country face similar delays.

Couples in Limerick who wish to marry earlier than that date have been told that they may be facilitated at the Nenagh office on Thursdays.

The spokesperson said that some couples who had to postpone their weddings have chosen to still legally marry but hold a celebration at a later date.

They said: "It has been our experience that some couples who had planned for an alternative type of ceremony have decided to change their plans and opt for a smaller Civil Ceremony instead.

"In many cases, we have found that their priority is to be married and to hold a further celebration at a later stage. This is being facilitated in the Registry Office where there is no fee payable for this ceremony."

The spokesperson continued: "All couples who wish to marry within the State must provide three months notice of their intention to do so. Whilst there is no official waiting list, when the couple meet with the Registrar to complete the marriage notification process, couples are being offered the earliest possible date after the completion of this three month notification period."
Sinn Fein remains on course to emerge from Northern Irelands next Assembly election as the largest party, according to a new poll.

On 25%, the republican party is eight points ahead of its main unionist rivals the DUP, the LucidTalk poll commissioned by the Belfast Telegraph shows.

The gap has widened since the last LucidTalk poll in November, with Sinn Fein up one point and the DUP down one.

Of the other main Stormont parties, the poll puts Alliance and the Ulster Unionists in joint third place on 14% (Alliance down one point on November and no change for the UUP), the TUV on 12% (up one) and the SDLP on 11% (down one). The NI Green Party is up one point to 3%. People Before Profit is on 1% support.

While Sinn Feins current deputy First Minister Michelle ONeill looks well-placed to become First Minister after Mays scheduled election, uncertainty remains over whether she would have a unionist partner to govern with in those circumstances.

The DUP and UUP both continue to refuse to confirm whether they would participate in a coalition with a Sinn Fein First Minister. A functioning Executive could not be formed without the participation of the largest unionist party.

The online poll, which is based on the views expressed by a weighted sample of 3,112 voters last weekend, also indicates strong support among unionist voters for the DUP pulling out of the powersharing structures if there is no progress in changing the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol.

The protocol has created post-Brexit economic barriers on Irish Sea trade with Great Britain.

The DUP has repeatedly threatened to collapse the institutions unless the so-called Irish Sea border is removed. The party has paused that threat to await the outcome of the latest round of negotiations between the EU and UK.

According to the poll, 63% of unionist voters think the DUP should be prepared to pull the plug on Stormont over the issue, with 43% believing the party should make the move immediately.

However, the poll indicates significant divergence of opinion between the supporters of the different unionist parties.

Some 98% of TUV voters want the DUP to withdraw its ministers from Stormont over the protocol, 81% of DUP supporters favour that course of action while only 28% of UUP voters are in favour of a Stormont collapse over the protocol.

The poll makes bad reading for DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson in terms of voter opinion on his personal performance.

Some 70% of voters polled rated his performance over the last five months as bad or awful, with only 15% thinking he has done well. The other 15% did not express a view.

For Sinn Feins Stormont leader Ms ONeill, 49% of voters rated her performance as bad or awful, with 29% scoring her as good or great.

The UUPs Doug Beattie was the only leader of the main parties to emerge with a positive personal approval rating, with 43% rating him as good or great compared to 31% bad or awful.

Voters were almost evenly split on Alliances Naomi Long, with 41% disapproving and 38% approving.

It was similar for SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, with 40% scoring him as bad or awful and 36% rating him as good or great.

For TUV leader Jim Allister, 59% viewed his personal performance as bad or awful and 28% thought he was doing a good or great job.

As expected, the approval ratings for unionist and nationalist leaders varied significantly when the results are broken down into an analysis of the views of unionist voters and nationalist voters.

The poll was conducted amid the recent controversy over the prospect of the UK Government introducing a limited form of dual mandates to allow Northern Ireland politicians to serve as both MPs and MLAs.

The move, which critics portrayed as an attempt to ease Sir Jeffreys planned return to the Assembly, was dramatically ditched by the Government during the week in the face of opposition from all the main Stormont parties, with the exception of the DUP.

The LucidTalk poll indicates the concept of double jobbing is not popular with the public, with 76% of voters against it.

The DUP was the only party whose supporters backed the proposal, with 47% in support and 41% opposed.

In terms of overall views on the performance of Stormont since devolution returned in 2020, only 13% of voters think local MLAs are doing a good job, with 57% of voters rating its performance as bad or awful.

Unionist voters are particularly negative about Stormont, with 67% critical of its performance. This compares to 41% of nationalist voters and 48% of Alliance/Green Party backers.

Turning to the UK Government, 88% of voters in Northern Ireland believe Prime Minister Boris Johnston is doing a bad/awful job while 72% think the same of Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis.
It is a vitally important regional connection that runs deep in the DNA of Beckman Coulter Ireland, who research and manufacture clinical diagnostic products in Tulla, Co Clare.

The company is proud to call the Mid-West home, and counts itself fortunate that Limerick, with a highly educated and motivated workforce, is on its doorstep.

We are lucky to be able to draw talent from Limerick, a first-class educational hub that produces great people and which is of great importance to us here at Beckman Coulter, says Orlaith Lawler, Vice President of Operations, Europe.

Beckman Coulter Ireland helps healthcare and laboratory professionals provide better patient care by delivering the accurate diagnostic information they need, when they need it. Its scalable instruments, comprehensive diagnostic tests and business management services are trusted by hospitals, laboratories and other critical care settings around the world.

Having a great team in place means that success often follows - and Beckman is celebrating fresh success having won the Best Workplace Diversity Strategy Award and the Overall Excellence in the HR Leadership and Management Awards 2021.

The company, which employs over 500 people in Ireland, was also shortlisted for the Best Engagement Strategy and Best Health and Wellbeing Strategy at the awards on November 19.

We have a highly engaged workforce, says Karen Kelly, Beckman Coulters Human Resources Director. Every year, we have a significant calendar of events to benefit our employees and we are delighted that they actively participate in these events. Our onsite committees are empowered to identify networking and other opportunities for the site and regularly host events  this is something were very proud of.

The recognition we received through these accolades is a demonstration of how our employees actively engage in supporting HR programs and initiatives to drive the great team culture we have on site.

So, as a place to work, the company has reaped the rewards for a range of initiatives and programmes that promote diversity and inclusion as well as sustainability and climate-friendly environmental best-practice. Its spectacular 85-acre rural working farm has a 5k Nature Walking trail for staff as well as a bee-keeping facility that produces the companys own honey.

In her role as Vice President of Operations, Orlaith Lawler has overall responsibility for the operations strategy of Europe and for Beckman Coulter operations in Clare, Munich, Krefeld and Prague.

Yet, all things Limerick remain in constant focus for Orlaith and her team. Beckman Coulter Ireland is proud to say approximately 20% of their employees (internally known as associates), live in Limerick and include core team members such as operators, scientists, analysts, engineers and support services team members.

The company also boasts a significant number of graduates from UL as well as TUS, to name just two highly regarded educational institutions. Beckman Coulter Ireland in conjunction with the Department of Applied Science at TUS is proud to sponsor the Beckman Coulter Foundation Scholarship Programme. The scholarship is intended to financially assist a graduate of the three year BSc. (Ord.) in Applied Biology degree programme to progress to the one year add on BSc. (Hons.) in Bioanalysis and Biotechnology degree programme. The successful applicant for 2021 is Ms Ludmila Sevjahova, who began her further education studies in Limerick VTOS.

With 2022 now upon us, Beckman has a number of exciting career options for ambitious and suitably qualified those seeking a challenging and rewarding career.

Orlaith says: We currently have over 20 open roles across Materials and Planning, R&D, Quality, Finance, Operations and various Technician roles.

The number of new roles highlight the possibilities now in Ireland due to Clare being a strategic site for Europe. We are continuing to build technical capability and expertise across our departments to meet the growth demands of the organisation.

We are very conscious of building our talent pipeline; one of the programs we are very proud of and could be a wonderful opportunity for Limerick graduates is our Operations Leadership Programme. This is a graduate opportunity with four rotations across materials, engineering, operations and Danaher Business System/Lean and includes an international placement, commencing this June. Recruitment for these sought-after role is currently underway.

It has been an incredibly busy few years for the company. The Mid West site has seen the successful growth for the company of AU Clinical Chemistry, Haematology, Immunoassay and Serology reagent manufacturing in Ireland, delivering significant volume growth. The facility has also seen the introduction of the companys global urine strip manufacturing to Ireland.

Fintan Lahiffe, Beckman Coulter Senior Director Operations and Site Lead, Co Clare, said: Beckman Coulter has a strategic plan to develop and launch innovative technologies and diagnostic markers in the coming years. This requires employees to have a high degree of initiative to actively contribute to the development process and lead in all aspects of their projects.

The organisation also has a broad portfolio of clinical chemistry products which require technical support and may include product improvement projects. Due to the launch of our new urine analysis and blood virus business, with the product now on the market, we are ramping up manufacture to keep up with customer demand.

In 2019, the company won the IDAs annual Invest in Ireland Awards for Excellence in Regional Investment and for Commitment to Sustainability. The company was also named Overall Grand Prix Award winner. In the same year, the Company won the Mid-West American chamber of commerce Mid-West Creafog Award for demonstrated exemplary commitment to sustainability in the region.

The focus is now very firmly on the future and consolidating the companys position as a key employer in the Mid-West region, with the offer of great career progression opportunities.

To see jobs at Beckman, click here: https://jobs.danaher.com/ and enter Ireland

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Indias top metal producers are searching for ways to trim their consumption of coal after sky-rocketing prices of the fuel ate into their profits.

Benchmark thermal coal prices have more than doubled in the past year and could surpass Octobers record high as deliveries from Indonesia are delayed and a global energy squeeze continues. Coking coal, a key raw material in the steelmaking process, has risen by nearly a third in Dalian in the same period.

Indias biggest steelmaker by value, JSW Steel Ltd., missed profit estimates for the previous quarter after expenses surged 77% from a year earlier mainly due to higher power and coal prices. Total spending at billionaire Anil Agarwals Hindustan Zinc Ltd. also jumped 25% from a year earlier during the quarter. Still, the companies expect the higher raw material costs to push up metal prices, softening the blow.

We are of course badly hit by the increased cost of coal but at the same time we also gained by the increased price of the metal," Arun Misra, chief executive officer at Hindustan Zinc, said in an interview.

Reducing Coal Use

The countrys biggest zinc producer is aiming to cut costs by as much $20 a ton from an average production cost of $1,116 in the nine months through December. This depends on how much you can squeeze the lemon. Everyday we sit down to find out more and more areas of improvement."

Hindustan Zinc is looking to minimize the cost of coal through measures including by improving operating efficiencies and reducing consumption of the fuel by modifying its turbines, Misra said.

Coal Soars to $300 a Ton as Asia Scrambles for Power Plant Fuel

Meanwhile, JSW is bracing for a minimum addition of $25 a ton to coal costs as prices surge again this month, according to Seshagiri Rao, joint managing director at the steel producer. At the same time, the higher costs of coal and iron ore will mean steel prices will remain elevated at least in the current quarter, he said.

The Mumbai-based mill expects to commission some power plants at its Maharashtra complex this quarter to reduce power expenses and is exploring blending changes in coal to reduce consumption in the coke oven, he said.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
Effecting a complete change to the previous BS Yediyurappa-led BJP government, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday allocated the districts that ministers in his cabinet will be in-charge of, keeping the key Bengaluru urban district with himself.

This comes even as senior minister V Somanna, currently holding the housing portfolio, had openly expressed his desire to be made in charge of Bengaluru.

According to reports, some city legislators and ministers had also expressed their reservation internally about giving the post to revenue minister R Ashoka, considered close to Bommai.

With the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike elections due to take place, it was earlier widely expected that the responsibility of Bengaluru development would be allocated to a senior minister from the city.

Further, in a strategic move, he has also not assigned any minister their home districts under which their Assembly constituency comes.

While at least two senior ministers  revenue minister R Ashoka and law and parliamentary affairs minister J C Madhuswamy have not been assigned any districts; three ministers- BC Patil, K Gopalaiah and Shankar B Patil Munenakoppa have been allocated two districts each.

Interestingly, B Sriramulu who represents Molakalmooru Assembly segment in Chitradurga has got his home district of Ballari; while C N Ashwath Narayana continues as Ramanagra district in-charge, where he seems to be in a turf war with Congress' "D K brothers" (KPCC chief D K Shivakumar and Bangalore Rural MP D K Suresh), Ministers and districts allocated to them are- Govind Karjol (Belagavi), K S Eshwarappa (Chikkamagaluru), V Somanna (Chamarajnagara), Umesh Katti (Vijayapura), S Angara (Udupi), Araga Jnanendra (Tumakuru), C C Patil (Bagalkote), Anand Singh (Koppal), Kota Shrinivas Poojari (Uttara Kannada), Prabhu Chauhan (Yadgir), Murugesh Nirani (Kalaburagi).

Also, Shivaram Hebbar (Haveri), S T Somashekar (Mysuru), B C Patil (Chitradurga and Gadag), B A Basavaraj (Davangere), K Sudhakar (Bengaluru Rural), K Gopalaiah (Hassan and Mandya), Shashikala Jolle (Vijayanagara), MTB Nagaraj (Chikkaballapura), K C Narayana Gowda (Shivamogga), B C Nagesh (Kodagu), Sunil Kumar (Dakshina Kannada), Halappa Achar (Dharwad), Shankar B Patil Munenakoppa (Raichur and Bidar), and Munirathna (Kolar). According to party sources, despite demand from several Ministers to be made in-charge of their home districts, the Chief Minister has decided against it while making appointments.

This is the first time after the Bommai government came to power that each district has got an in-charge minister. Earlier, ministers were assigned districts only for Covid-19 management and for flag-hoisting at headquarters on Independence Day.

With inputs from agencies.
Fighters backed by American airstrikes struggled to retake control of a prison attacked by Islamic State in northeastern Syria on Sunday, as the militant groups attempt to replenish its ranks with freed prisoners sparked the areas worst sustained fighting in years.

The prison attack, which began last week, was one of the most complex and brazen Islamic State operations in Syria and Iraq in the last three years. It involved sleeper cells, suicide bombers and an insurrection inside the prison, said the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led militia that controls a section of northeastern Syria that is autonomous from the regime in Damascus.

The assault represents an attempt to boost the morale of Islamic State followers by returning to one of its original tactics: freeing members held in prison. Islamic State has struggled to survive as an underground militant group since it lost control of its territorial empire in 2019 following years of Iraqi, Syrian, and American military operations.

The fighting has centered on a prison in the city of Hasakah about 50 miles south of the Turkish border. The Thursday night attack triggered days of street-by-street gunbattles in a poor civilian neighborhood as members of the SDF attempted to retake the area.

The SDF said it had killed 112 Islamic State fighters and prison rioters since the attack began, releasing video footage that it said showed the bodies of gun-wielding militants laid out in the streets next to bullet-ridden cars.

Islamic State said it freed 800 prisoners in the attack but provided no evidence to support the claim. The SDF also denied the assertion.

It is impossible for 800 people to leave the area when we have it under a security cordon," said Matay Hanna, a spokesman for the Syriac Military Council, one of the military units that make up the SDF.

On Sunday, the SDF was still trying to clear out Islamic State militants hiding among civilians, said Mr. Hanna.

Our objective goes beyond killing ISIS, we are trying to arrest them and this is affecting the speed of operations," he said. They are within [civilian] areas and they have killed civilians and are holding others hostage. We are working with our people to pull them out."

Islamic State also released a video showing its militants standing over people it captured inside the prison, identifying them as SDF fighters. The SDF said the captives were prison kitchen staff.

The Pentagon said the U.S. carried out airstrikes in support of the SDFs efforts to reassert control in Hasakah.

The prison break has also become one of the most serious challenges in years to the SDF, which controls northeast Syria with the backing of about 900 U.S. soldiers. An aborted decision by the Trump administration to withdraw American forces from the country in 2019 has raised questions about the future of the U.S. military footprint in the area.

The fact that the SDFs ability to keep a lid on ISIS is directly linked to an unpredictable U.S. presence in Syria is one of the biggest challenges facing the northeast," said Dareen Khalifa, a senior Syria analyst at International Crisis Group.

Prison breaks have been one of Islamic States essential methods of building up its forces, helping the group transform into a potent army after its origins as an insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq following the 2003 invasion.

A large prison break in Iraq in 2013 freed hundreds of inmates, swelling the ranks of what was then known as Islamic State in Iraq, immediately before the groups rise as a major conventional fighting force that swept across Syria and Iraq.

Former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi called for more prison breaks in one of his last public statements before he was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2019. In a recording attributed to him, Baghdadi urged his followers to free soldiers of the caliphate" from prisons.

The SDF runs prisons that hold thousands of suspected Islamic State members and oversees displacement camps for tens of thousands of the militants wives, children and other family. They include numerous foreign nationals from Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Local Syrian officials have warned that the camps have provided a recruiting ground for the extremists and have asked foreign countries to take their citizens back.

The SDF said it had killed Iraqi and Chinese nationals as it battled to retake the prison in Hasakah.

Attacking the detention facility had been a priority for Islamic State for more than a year, the State Department said.

It also underscores the urgent need for countries of origin to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and prosecute, where appropriate, their nationals detained in northeast Syria," said State Department spokesman Ned Price on Saturday.

This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
The evil eye is a human look believed to cause harm to someone or something. The supernatural harm may come in the form of a minor misfortune, or more serious disease, injury  even death. Folklorist Alan Dundes, in his edited volume " The Evil Eye: A Casebook " (University of Wisconsin Press, 1992) notes that "the victim's good fortune, good health, or good looks  or unguarded comments about them  invite or provoke an attack by someone with the evil eye ... Symptoms of illness caused by the evil eye include loss of appetite, excessive yawning, hiccups, vomiting and fever. If the object attacked is a cow, its milk may dry up; if a plant or fruit tree, it may suddenly wither and die."

The evil eye is also said to cause a number of other maladies including insomnia, fatigue, depression and diarrhea, according to Armando R Favazza (" Bodies under Siege ", John Hopkins University 1996). In many places, disease is considered a magical as well as a medical issue, and the reason a given person succumbs to a malady may be attributed to a curse instead of random chance or exposure to a virus. It can even affect objects and buildings, according to Robert Elsie (" A Dictionary of Albanian Culture ", Hurst & Co Ltd, 2001) The evil eye cast upon a vehicle may break down irreparably, while a house so cursed may soon develop a leaky roof or an insect infestation. Just about anything that goes wrong may be blamed on the power of the evil eye.

History of the evil eye

These Maltese boat eyes are fixed onto the front of fishing boats in order to protect the vessels from the evil eye (Image credit: Getty/ Universal Images Group Editorial)

The evil eye is well known throughout history. It is mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman texts, as well as in many famous literary works, including the Bible (such as Proverbs 23:6 : "Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats") the Koran and Shakespeare's plays. Though belief in the evil eye is widespread, it is not universal. A 1976 cross-cultural survey by folklorist John Roberts found that 36 percent of cultures believed in the evil eye, according to Anthony H Galt in his paper " The Evil Eye as Synthetic and its Meanings on the Island of Pantelleria, Italy " (The American Ethnological Society, 1982).

The evil eye is essentially a specific type of magical curse, and has its roots in magical thinking and superstition. Let's say that a person experiences bad luck, ill health, accident, or some unexplained calamity  perhaps a drought or an infectious disease. Before science could explain weather patterns and germ theory, any bad event for which there was not an obvious cause might be blamed on a curse, according to the BBC . Curses, including the evil eye, are an answer to the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people.

Eyes are said to have special powers; they are said to be the gateway to a person's soul. Shifting eyes are said to subtly betray liars, while a steady gaze may be endearing or menacing depending on the circumstances. Eye contact can create an intensely personal connection, whether between lovers or superiors and subordinates. Glaring or intense staring can convey power and authority over another. Of course, actors use their eyes to convey a wide range of emotions, including love, hate, disgust, boredom, scorn, surprise and envy. In fact it is jealousy that underlies the evil eye's cultural association with magic.

Belief in the power of the eyes is so powerful that any eye affliction has come to suggest evil and bad luck. People who are cross-eyed, have uncontrollable eye twitches or spasms (a condition called blepharospasm), or who merely have a prominent squint have been shunned and feared as provoking bad luck, especially among those who work in dangerous occupations such as fishing and mining. Indeed, the " Oxford Handbook of Disability History " (Oxford University Press, 2017) quotes an ancient Greek text on Physiognomy which states: "The blind if obstinate, the one-eyed is frequently unjust and the squint eyed is regularly arrogant". Similarly, those with unusually close-set eyes or eyes of different colors were often suspected of having the evil eye.

Babies and children are said to be especially susceptible to harm from the evil eye, and in many countries, including Greece, Romania, and India, praising a child publicly is sometimes considered taboo, for the compliment will draw the attention of the evil eye. In order to ward off the evil eye, parents of a thoughtlessly praised child may ask the person who gave the compliment to immediately spit in the child's face.

Because the momentarily exalted youngster has been brought down a peg, any harm by the evil eye is unnecessary; this spittle salve is harmless yet insulting enough to negate the compliment, according to GreekCityTimes . According to, Anthony H Galt; "Babies and children are also protected with abitini pinned inside their clothing, which on Pantelleria consist of small bags of red cloth (sometimes heart-shaped) that look like pincushions and contain a figurinu (saint card), a small gold horn, or a crab claw, and a bit of red cloth or a piece of iron".

Who has the evil eye? Maybe you do. Many believe that bad intention is not necessary, and that some people can cast an evil eye without even knowing it. If one person is believed to have the evil eye, other members of their family are often treated with suspicion  and any children are assumed to have the curse as well.

Evil eye protections, cures and amulets

An evil eye amulet hung inside a ship during 2019's Blue Homeland, Turkey's largest naval drill (Image credit: Getty/ Anadolu Agency)

The best way to deal with the evil eye is to avoid it in the first place. The method varies by culture, geographic region, and personal preference. In Latin America the evil eye is known as "mal de ojo," and belief in it is especially widespread in rural areas. In Cuba , for example, newborns are often given a good luck charm called an azabache to protect them from the evil eye, according to Lucky-Charms.org .

Amulets can be worn to deter the evil eye, often using the color blue (symbolizing heaven or godliness) and an eye symbol. According to Town and Country Magazine , Meghan Markle can often be seen wearing one and are often featured in contemporary jewelry designs. Charms, potions and spells can also be prepared; garlic can be used to deter the evil eye, and some believe that just saying the word "garlic" offers protection, according to Robert A Georges in his paper " Matiasma: Living Folk Belief " in Midwest Folklore.

Often those who believe they have been harmed by the evil eye will seek out shamans, witch doctors, psychics or other spiritual healers to remove the curse. There are several ways to cure mal de ojo; one traditional method from Mexico involves the use of a raw egg. The egg, a universal symbol of purity and birth, is said to absorb evil energies as it passes over the forehead and prone body of the victim, in the form of the cross, according to Mary Caroline Montano (" Tradiciones Nuevomexicanas: Hispano Arts and Culture of New Mexico ", University of New Mexico Press, 2001). The egg is then broken over a bowl of water and the resulting forms closely examined for any unusual shapes. An oval or eye shape seen in the yolk or whites is said to indicate that the evil eye's power has been successfully removed from the victim.

It is tempting to view the evil eye as an ancient, discredited belief that plays no role in our 21st-century world. Instead, as folklorist Dundes notes, we "should keep in mind that the evil eye is not some old-fashioned superstitious belief of interest solely to antiquarians. The evil eye continues to be a powerful factor affecting the behavior of countless millions of people throughout the world."

Though belief in the evil eye can be a harmless superstition, it can also be dangerous in some circumstances. Any time one person believes that another has harmed them  whether naturally or supernaturally, intentionally or accidentally  there is the potential for deadly retribution. Like other accused witches and sorcerers over the centuries, many people have been attacked, beaten, and killed for casting an evil eye.

Additional resources

The New York Times traces the origins of the symbol and its connection to the curse, before discussing in depth its proliferation in jewelry. Evil - Eye store meanwhile, provides a range of amulets which can be purchased, should you wish to protect yourself from any potential curse, as well as containing the history of the symbol.
Danny Zaragoza /Laredo Morning Times

Monday will see both a Webb County Commissioners Court meeting and a special called Laredo City Council meeting  the latter discussing the resignation of now former Laredo City Manager Robert Eads and City Attorney Dean J. Roggia.

Firstly, the council meeting will feature a public hearing to discuss, approve and adopt the Redistricting Plan of the City of Laredo; providing for the redistricting of the eight council districts within the City of Laredo; and providing for publication and effective date.
As a result of wrestling with the fact that Laredo has been deemed medically underserved, Laredo City Council approved of hiring an external consultant to review and assess the citys overall health challenges and medically underserved needs this week.

Mayor Pete Saenz brought forth the item, as he believes a consultant could find solutions to the ongoing issues plaguing Laredo and its residents.

This matter has been ongoing for quite some time now. We were kind of working with the county, for whatever reason they had, they decided not to join us, and thats fine, I think, said Saenz as he called on Laredos health staff to answer some questions about the designation.

Before Laredo Health Authority Dr. Victor Trevino spoke, Saenz acknowledged the city needs help and has needed help for years. Bringing in a consultant to review the situation  as well as gathering hospital leaders, the city and the community  would be a start to remedy the situation and create a solution plan.

However, Trevino said through his experience and knowledge, addressing the issue of the lack of medical personnel had a straightforward solution.

In regard to the medically underserved situation and lack of medical personnel, its always been the same thing, Trevino said. We try to identify it, we try to look at different angles, but the main thing is we need to attract more medical personnel here, and one of the best ways to do it is by incentives.

In speaking to some of the doctors that newly came here, I asked them Why did you come here. You are not even from here? And the answer is uniformly about the same: its the money. The incentive was there.

As some doctors deal with monumental student loans, incentives would entice them to move to an area that may not be as convenient or close to their hometown, according to Trevino. He added that in finishing his residency, he would have gone to Alaska if the incentive was right.

Councilmember Vanessa Perez cited the Gateway Community Health Centers residency programs and how they can help bring new doctors to the city.

Trevino added that some of these programs specifically help doctors pay their student debts and be given space for their residency, which he said was an enticing incentive.

At the beginning, we are low on funds when we are starting off, Trevino said. We are looking for places that would create that incentive and paying off the student loans  all of it or part of it. (That) is one of the incentives that I think would work.

Given what was said at the meeting, it would all become a part of the solutions plan once the city hires the consultant, which the council approved unanimously.

Laredo has been deemed medically underserved for decades, a result from numerous issues including the discussed lack of medical staff. Between the high percentage of the uninsured population to the lack of hospital capacity for the citys population, the root cause has been said to be a multitude of factors that have already been discussed amid the pandemic.

According to the Texas Department of State Health Services most recent data from Friday, Laredos total hospital capacity to serve that area is dead last of all hospital regions in Texas at 446 total beds per the 262,491 population. In contrast, Midland-Odessa sits just above Laredo in population at 269,372 people yet has a total hospital capacity of 1,770 beds, and Lubbock is right below Laredo at 258,862 people while having 1,395 beds.

As of Jan. 18, the omicron variant has been the dominant strain of COVID-19 and with its higher transmissibility, reported cases have skyrocketed. According to Trevino, if a small percentage of the total cases become severe, local hospitals could be overwhelmed despite the omicron being a milder strain.

As it stands, the city health leaders have sent state staff requests to help with the increasing number of cases and to ensure that hospital staff does not get overwhelmed.

cocampo@lmtonline.com
Maria Luisa Silva, RN, was selected to receive the Nursing Excellence Award at Laredo Medical Center.

The award was established in 2020 during the Year of the Nurse to recognize the critical role nurses continue to play throughout the COVID pandemic.

Behind this award are hundreds of stories, late nights and hard work. Maria Luisa Silva has lived to not only become a Registered Nurse, but to be recognized by her peers with this award.

Before a great achievement comes a great trajectory of work. Silva didnt start off as a nurse, she actually began working as a waitress. She recalls waitressing for the longest time, however, she wanted to be a different role model for her kids so she decided to go back to school.

My start as a nursing student was tough. I was a single mom of three kids, Silva said. With English as my second language, it was even harder to study, understand and comprehend the topics I was learning.

Nursing itself  even though I have been a nurse for 11 years, every day is a learning experience. It has been very fulfilling in my life, it has given me a lot of great moments. For me, the best thing I can get throughout my day or every time

I work is the blessings I get from my patients.

Silva said it is very rewarding for her when her patients and their families are thankful to her for the work she does. Although some days are stressful, she strives to be the most caring she can be for her patients and advocate for them and their help.

Silva said under her care are not only her patients but all their families as well. She never forgets what her vocation means to herself and how to serve her patients from the heart.

I was very surprised. I was not even aware the magnitude of what receiving this award is, she said.

Silva was nominated for the award by a patient of hers who she remembers fondly, and she admits it was the first patient she got very attached to. This patient of hers, a COVID survivor, spent six months in her care.

Being able to see positive changes in him, for me, was very rewarding, she said. It was a struggle some days, others were happy days.

Silva says it was not only her effort but a group working together to care for this special former patient and his very supportive family as well. She says her patients have impacted her life a lot, especially this patient who taught her so much.

The way he struggled, the way he survived, the way he tried to get better for his family and for himself  were talking about a patient who was walking, doing his usual activities on a daily basis to a patient not being able to get up, not being able to eat, not being able to talk, Silva said.

Silva admits that she cares very much about her patients and works to get the best outcome for them even when her feelings may come into play. Being a nurse in ICU care is a challenging task for her and her colleagues every day, especially in the recent pandemic years.

Our role is very important because we are the ones that see the minimal changes, so absolutely patients do impact our lives on a daily basis a lot, she said.

After receiving this Nursing Excellence Award, Silva said she feels now more responsibility to do better at her work, especially as a bedside nurse. Though she feels qualified to be a charge nurse, she believes she helps her patients more as a bedside nurse.

Silva also plans to get her certification for Critical Care ICU Nurse and also her bachelors degree. As one of her daughters is now at a university at San Antonio, she believes it is a good time to continue her studies and maybe in the future pursue a masters degree.

Sometimes its very hard to do a 12-hour shift here in the hospital for many reasons, especially when the patients are very critically ill. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, she said. Besides the stress that we get and the pain in my feet, I go home with the feeling that I did something positive for my patient, that I did something that is changing my patients outcome.

While preparing other nurses at Laredo Medical Center, Silva always reminds them it is nice to do something out of their scope for their patients, this way they can also help them at a personal level, which will then help patients recover faster.

Its not about just following directions to keep medication then charge whatever you have to charge and go home, she said. Sometimes you need a little bit of extra care and extra touch at a personal level so they can feel like theyre not just in the hospital care, but make them feel a little bit more secure, more comfortable.

Even though this way of caring for her patients may result in Silva working after hours, when she finishes her shifts, she goes home feeling she did something nice for her patients.

cecilia.trevino@lmtonline.com

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Gubernatorial candidate Beto ORourke made a brief visit to Laredo on Sunday and held a press conference along the border in response to the ongoing reports of mistreatment of Texas Guardsmen.

Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Department of Public Safety launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021 to combat the smuggling of people and drugs into the state. The operation sent approximately 10,000 soldiers to the border.

Numerous reports have emerged over the past three months of them have complained of poor planning, pay problems and a lack of basic equipment such as winter gear or body armor. And other reports state there have been hundreds of COVID-19 outbreaks because groups of 20 soldiers being quartered together in small trailers.

Four soldiers have died by suspected suicide over the past four months. Sgt. Jose L. De Hoyos was found dead in Laredo.

Several Democratic members of Congress have called for an investigation by the inspector general. ORourke is one of Abbotts most prominent critics.

There is not a clear mission. Almost every single member that Ive talked to said they feel like theyre playing a part in a political game, ORourke said. They are window dressing, part of a photo opportunity and serving the interests of the Republican primary and not a real emergency.

ORourke said the Texas National Guard wasnt prepared for the activation or deployment.

It is expected to cost the state $2 billion this year, yet many soldiers say they arent getting paid, have had their college benefits halved and dont have adequate resources for physical and mental health.

Theres a real struggle with morale right now and accessing care that literally can save lives. There is punishment for whistleblowers, ORourke said. We are stretching these men and women far too thin.

ORourke decried the chaotic deployment of the Texas National Guard, saying troops were given days of notice instead of the recommended weeks or months.

Defense attorneys argue Abbotts operation usurps federal immigration laws, therefore violating the U.S. Constitution. But the Texas Military Department has publicly pushed back against criticism of the mission.

This mission is a direct response to a state-declared disaster occurring in our own backyard, requiring immediate response, the Texas Military Department said in a statement. The department rapidly surged personnel due to a dramatic influx of migrant caravans.

ORourke said he understands deploying soldiers in gaps where they are needed, but not to the tune of 10,000.

This is not a place that we have to be afraid of, ORourke said. Its actually a beautiful, peaceful part of the country and one were really proud of.

ORourke proposed three major solutions: reserving the guard for emergencies only, providing mental health professionals and protecting whistleblowers. He fears further mistreatment will cause problems in future enlistment.

Finally, he had a personal message for Abbott, stating he is abusing thousands of soldiers to the most egregious extent he has ever seen.

Bring these guard members home. If you are not going to put them to their full and best use ... then let them come back home to their families, homes, careers and communities, ORourke said. That is the least we can do for those who have been willing to put their lives on the line for this country and serve us so honorably.

marcus.trevino@lmtonline.com
OnScene.TV

HOUSTON (AP)  A sheriff's deputy was fatally struck by a vehicle early Monday as he stood by his motorcycle while blocking a Houston highway exit ramp during an off-duty job escorting heavy machinery, authorities said.

Sgt. Ramon Gutierrez of the Harris County sheriff's office died after being taken by air to a hospital, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Twitter. The crash happened just before 12:30 a.m.
Eight Longford schools are celebrating a 2.6m government funding boost this morning under the State's Summer Works programme.

Education Minister Norma Foley issued the seven figure sum in a move which will allow schools to carry out small and medium scale building works, that will improve and upgrade existing school buildings, such as the installation of new windows or structural improvements.

Longford/Westmeath Fianna Fail TD Joe Flaherty said the announcement represented further proof of the Government's commitment to education providers in Co Longford.

School communities have done an exceptional job in adapting to the changes required to operate safely in a Covid-19 environment," he said.

"A key government priority is to continue to support and sustain the operation of schools in this context. I am especially pleased that some of the local projects include window improvement / replacement projects and will assist in managing ventilation in these schools.

Senator Micheal Carrigy also welcomed the announcement by Minister Foley of 2.6 million in funding for schools in Longford under the Summer Works Scheme. "This is a significant investment for repairs at eight schools in the county," he remarked.

The eight schools included in the announcement includes six secondary schools as well as the Sacred Heart NS and Scoil Mhuire NS in Granard and Clondra, respectively, for external environment works.

The six secondary schools are:

- Cnoc Mhuire Granard (Roof Works)

- Ard Schoil Phadraig, Granard (Mechanical Works)

- St Mels College, Longford (Roof Works)

- Templemichael College, Longford (Roof Works)

- Moyne Community School (Roof Works)

- Lanesboro Community College (Mechanical Works)

The funding is part of the overall package of 65m for a total of 497 projects around the country.



Minister Foley said: I am delighted to confirm this significant tranche of funding which will provide further investment for schools in Longford under the Summer Works Scheme.



I am announcing the Summer Works Scheme projects now so that schools have a good lead-in period to plan and deliver the projects in summer 2022.

Todays announcement follows on from the enhanced minor works funding which was delivered to schools a number of weeks ago.




Longford County Council is inviting local stakeholders to join a public information session this week on a feasibility study that is underway in response to Just Transition.

The session will present the study scope, its objectives, and its preliminary findings to date.

The online event, on Wednesday, January 26 from 5-6pm, is the first in a series of public information sessions taking place throughout 2022 on the project.

KPMG Sustainable Futures and technical partners, Ixora Energy and SLR Consulting are conducting the study on behalf of Longford County Council to explore the potential opportunities to sustain the local economy in response to the Just Transition process.

It is funded through the Just Transition Fund and the Carbon Tax Fund by the Government of Ireland.

Longford County Council engaged KPMG in late 2021, to examine how communities, industries and enterprises can develop more sustainable methods and materials in the county, generating a circular economy, in the wake of the closure of peat industrial production and peat fuelled power stations.

The closures created significant challenges for impacted employees and communities across the Midlands. The national Just Transition programme is investigating ways in which alternative enterprises, green energy and a circular economy may contribute to Irelands targets to cut emissions and waste while increasing resource efficiencies and local opportunities.

Eight Longford schools secure 2.6m government funding boost Eight Longford schools are celebrating a 2.6m government funding boost this morning under the State's Summer Works programme.

As part of Longfords response to Just Transition, this study is exploring how the local community, enterprises and farmers may interact with, and benefit from, opportunities arising from Irelands transition to a green economy.

Stakeholders will be invited to offer feedback and help identify how the local circular economy may be shaped across Longford, particularly in those areas most impacted by peat closures.

Longford County Council invites participation from a wide range of people, including members of the local community, as well as farming, energy, environmental and business stakeholders, to get involved and have their say.

To join the webinar, please click on the following Zoom link and register, or copy the link into your browser: https://kpmgireland.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IU1HyVh7QHS9ctHWDfaqBQ

The link to register is also available on LongfordCoCo.ie.
A brand of CBD oils has been removed from shops following the issuing of a recall notice.

According to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), the Hugold products are being recalled due to the presence of an unauthorised novel food.

Eight Longford schools secure 2.6m government funding boost Eight Longford schools are celebrating a 2.6m government funding boost this morning under the State's Summer Works programme.

They are also reportedly unregistered and the products were processed in an establishment where the activity was not notified to the competent authority.

Concentrated CBD is classed as an unauthorised novel food and should not be on the EU market as per Article 6.2 of Regulation EU 2015.

The recall notice applies to all batches of the brand's 15ml and 30ml products, including Hugold 4% CBD oil, Immuno CBD oil, Femmi CBD oil, Sacred oil and White Feather Sacred oil.

Consumers are advised not to consume the products as their safety has not been assessed, and basic food safety, hygiene and traceability procedures are not in place.

All batches of the products have been recalled.
The trial of ex-Irish Defence Forces member Lisa Smith will proceed on Tuesday (January 25) after the Special Criminal Court rejected a legal application to have terror-related charges against her dropped.

The 39-year-old, from Co Louth, is accused of being a member of so-called Islamic State (IS) and financing terrorism.

The defence, led by Michael OHiggins SC, made an application under section 4.e of the Criminal Procedure Act for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that there is not sufficient evidence to convict her on any of the charges.

This was rejected by Mr Justice Tony Hunt at the non-jury court on Monday, who said it was not possible to conclude that there was nothing to see here or that the case against Smith was doomed to fail.

He said the defence had failed to show that there was not sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

The case will begin at 10.30am tomorrow at the Special Criminal Court.

The pre-trial application to have the case against her thrown out was heard at the Special Criminal Court last week.

Sean Gillane SC, for the prosecution, has maintained there is enough evidence to proceed.

The details of today's (January 24) hearing cannot be reported by the media.

The trial is now set to go ahead and is likely to last 12 weeks.

Smith has appeared in court throughout the application, arriving today in a grey coat, blue hijab and white face covering.

The case received widespread attention in 2019 when it emerged that Smith, a former Air Corps soldier who had worked on the Government jet, had been detained in Syria over alleged links to IS.

Smith was arrested at Dublin Airport in 2019 on suspicion of terrorist offences after returning from Turkey in November with her young daughter.

She had travelled to Syria a number of years ago after she converted to Islam.

Smith is charged under Section Six of the Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act 2005 which makes it an offence to join a foreign unlawful organisation.

It is alleged that between October 28 2015 and December 1 2019 at a location outside the State, she was a member of a terrorist group styling itself as the Islamic State.

She has also been accused of financing terrorism by sending 800 euro in assistance by Western Union money transfer to a named individual in 2015.

Smith has denied the charges.
Community, Charity & Cause

By Chris Boyle Published: January 24 2022

May all of the souls who passed away 12 years ago in Haiti rest in peace, Legislator Solages said.

Nassau County Legislator Carrie Solages (D - Lawrence) recently joined Haitian community leaders for Memory Walk 2022, which commemorated the 300,000 lives lost in the earthquake that devastated Haiti and the Haitian diaspora.

The memorial walk stepped off from the Theodore Roosevelt Executive & Legislative Building. Following welcoming remarks, prayer and a moment of silence, participants walked south to the Joysetta & Julius Pearse African American Museum of Nassau County in Hempstead Village, after which they returned on foot to Mineola for additional remarks, remembrances, and the naming of 100 people who perished in the earthquake.

Prior to the event, Legislator Solages and his staff assisted organizers with securing approvals for the event from the Nassau County Police Department and ensuring that adequate police resources were dedicated to the event to keep participants safe as they walked.

May all of the souls who passed away 12 years ago in Haiti rest in peace. May they rest in power. May God comfort their families, their friends and the communities they left behind - and may God continue to provide His grace over our beloved Haiti, Legislator Solages said.
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Fulcrum Utility Services Ltd - Sheffield, England-based utility infrastructure and services - Says Terry Dugdale decided to step down as chief executive officer effective immediately. Dugdale plans to remain in an operational role in the company.

Adds that it appointed Antony Collins as interim chief executive officer, while the company searches for a permanent option. He has "extensive experience" in managerial control and was interim chief executive at Carclo PLC most recently.

"It has been a pleasure leading Fulcrum through the recent challenging times which have seen many changes in the group. I am looking forward to stepping back into the operational side of the business and delivering value through operational excellence," Terry Dugdale comments.

Current stock price: 12.57 pence

12-month change: down 70%

By Abby Amoakuh; abbyamoakuh@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
By Ernest Scheyder

Jan 24 (Reuters) - The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday

ordered state regulators to reconsider a wastewater permit that

was granted to PolyMet Mining Corp to build an open-pit

copper mine, though judges rejected six other challenges to the

permit from environmentalists.

The appeals court ordered the Minnesota Pollution Control

Agency to reconsider whether any groundwater runoff from the

proposed mine would pollute navigable waterways.

The decision does not cancel the permit but it does further

delay the timeline for when construction could begin on the $1

billion project at a time when the United States is trying to

boost production of copper and other metals needed for electric

vehicles.

PolyMet received a state permit to discharge water from its

proposed mine site about 200 miles (322 km) north of Minneapolis

in late 2018. Shortly after that, three environmental groups

sued to challenge the permit. The case wound its way through the

court system before Monday's ruling at the appeals court, which

sits below the state supreme court.

If the agency finds that the mine would pollute the

waterways, it may fall under the jurisdiction of the federal

Clean Water Act, which would impose more regulatory oversight.

There is no timeline for this latest round of review.

The appeals court rejected six other challenges to the water

permit, some of which centered on procedural questions.

Both the company and environmentalists claimed victory after

the ruling. Shares of PolyMet, which is controlled by mining

giant Glencore Plc, were up nearly 7%.

For St. Paul, Minnesota-based PolyMet, the mixed ruling

holds promise a permit could eventually come. "This will mean a

little more process, but it gives us a clear roadmap to the

reactivation of this permit," said Jon Cherry, PolyMet's chief

executive. PolyMet has said it believes it can develop the

project in a way that protects the environment.

For environmentalists, the order to reconsider the permit

showed the court has concerns about PolyMet's ability to the

operate the mine safely.

"We reject PolyMet's argument that we need to destroy the

environment in order to save the environment," said Chris Knopf

of the Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, a nonprofit

conservation group.

Separately, the state's Department of Natural Resources is

reconsidering two other permits needed for the project.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by David Gregorio)
(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Monday and not separately reported by Alliance News:

----------

Mirriad Advertising PLC - London-based in-content advertising technology - Expects total revenue for 2021 of GBP2.0 million. Notes "strong" annual growth in key US market. US revenue rose almost three-fold. "The company is building on its strong momentum and adoption in the US to scale further, with additional investment for the integration of Mirriad into the media buying ecosystem and business development hires now expected throughout 2022," the company adds.

----------

Spectra Systems Corp - Rhode Island-based authentication technology provider - Wins three new deals. Wins additional order for covert materials from largest central bank customer, increasing this year's initial order by 20%. "This increase in order size brings the aggregate order for the current year to 75% of last year's record order size," Spectra says. In addition, same customer renews sensor service contract at "nearly double its historical annual value". Finally, Spectra says it has won a new contract with a US state lottery customer worth at least USD500,000 for ten-year prior. "In total, these three new contracts will generate USD700,000 of additional unforecasted revenue for the 2022 calendar year," Spectra says.

----------

Big Technologies PLC - UK-based remote people monitoring technology - Continuing to win new customers, underpinning revenue forecast for 2021. Tips 2021 revenue of at least GBP36.5 million, up from GBP29.6 million in 2020. Expects adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Result would be "slightly ahead current market expectations" of GBP20.2 million, up from GBP15.7 million in 2020. Big Technologies adds: "As we look forward to 2022 the group expects to deliver year-on-year revenue growth at a similar growth rate to that experienced in 2021 and a further increase in the adjusted Ebitda margin as we continue to penetrate new geographic markets and scale-up our business activities."

----------

MTI Wireless Edge Ltd - Israel-based technology company - Announces partnership with Viridix, which specialises in data analytics for irrigation. "The strategic partnership will bring together the group's expertise in automated irrigation and Viridix's data analytics," MTI says. Viridix's RooTense sensor offering is to integrated with a ICC PRO real-time irrigation monitoring, control and reporting software developed by MTI unit Mottech Water Solutions Ltd. Integration to occur in early second quarter of 2022.

----------

Tirupati Graphite PLC - graphite mining and processing company - Says construction of new primary flake graphite plant at Sahamamy, Madagascar, remains on track. The plant will have 18,000 tonnes per year capacity. Set to be completed by end of second quarter of 2022. It will increase total Madagascar capacity to 30,000 tonnes per year. "Operations at both Sahamamy and Vatomina were restarted smoothly following the Christmas and New Year holiday period and graphite production remains in line with expectations," Tirupati adds.

----------

Bradda Head Lithium Ltd - North America-focused lithium development - Says geophysical results from Zonge Engineering and Terravision Exploration at Eureka asset in Nevada "demonstrate the potential presence of both brine and clay deposits". Eureka is located near a Tesla Inc gigafactory, as well as Albemarle's existing Silver Peak lithium mine, the only US lithium mine in operation currently. Says two drill programmes now planned for 2022.

----------

Creo Medical Group PLC - medical device company focused on surgical endoscopy - Enters non-binding heads of terms with number of parties relating to its SpydrBlade, Cool Plasma and MicroBlate technologies. "The company considers these HoTs, to be a key milestone in achieving its stated goal of licensing its technology to established, multi-national partners and is in line with the strategy set out at the time of its fundraising last year. Negotiations on final legally binding agreements are underway and Creo is mobilising resources to deliver against its obligations," Creo says. Says continuing to receive "considerable interest" in its technology.

----------

Shanta Gold Ltd - New Luika and Singida gold mines in Tanzania and West Kenya project in Kenya - Says exits 2021 in line with revised guidance and eyes production growth in 2022. Says gold output in 2021 totals 55,280 ounces, topping revised 55,000-57,000 oz guidance.

----------

Savannah Energy PLC - Africanafocused energy company - Says financial 2021 revenue rises to USD230.5 million, up 7% on like-for-like basis from 2020. Says figure tops guidance. Says average 2021 Nigeria output rises 14% to 22.3 kilo barrels of oil equivalent per day.

----------

Zenith Energy Ltd - Africa-focused production and development energy company - Says Ezzaouia concession in Tunisia producing at 500 barrels of oil per day. Will perform sidetracks in two non-producing wells "to maximise cost control". Finalises plans to drill Robbana-3 well. "In the event of a successful outcome, ROB-3 is expected to produce approximately 150-200 BOPD," Zenith says. Meanwhile, it suspends work at ROB-1 "because of increasing water influx caused by a possible lack of casing integrity".

----------

Guardian Global Security PLC - developer of system used to visually deter pirates from maritime vessels - Completion of fundraise and admission to Standard Segment of the London Stock Exchange now expected to take place in "early February". "The company and its financial adviser, Novum Securities Ltd have accordingly agreed to extend the long stop date agreed between them," company says.

----------

Unicorn AIM VCT PLC - venture capital trust - Launches offer to raise GBP25 million through subscription of a maximum of 20 million shares.

----------

Conduity Capital PLC - AIM cash shell - Says continuing to make "good progress" with proposed reverse takeover of Smarttech247. For year ended July 2021, Smarttech makes EUR1.2 million pretax profit on EUR7.2 million revenue. RiverFort Global Opportunities PLC notes announcement.

----------

NFT Investments PLC - invests in non-fungible tokens - Enters into non-binding letter of intent to acquire Pluto Digital PLC for GBP96 million. "The acquisition, which is conditional on shareholder approval, will create a significant global metaverse company and advance NFT's investments in the non-fungible tokens sector as the Pluto Ventures division has invested heavily in NFTs and NFT gaming," NFT says. Consideration to be satisfied by issue of 2.4 billion new shares in NFT. NFT says Pluto shareholders will hold 71% of enlarged business on completion. Acquisition counts as reverse takeover. Trading of shares suspended on AQSE Growth Market until deal is sealed. RiverFort notes announcement. RiverFort notes deal implies Pluto shares valued at 11.5p each. RiverFort says it owns 21.7 million shares in Pluto. Pires Investments PLC also notes announcement. It holds 32.5 million Pluto shares.

----------

By Eric Cunha; ericcunha@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
(Alliance News) - Unite Group PLC has acquired a consented 270-bed development site in Nottingham City Centre, it said Monday.

The Bristol, England-based owner, manager and developer of student accommodation expects to spend GBP34 million developing the site, which will open for the 2024-25 academic year. It expects the yield on cost to be 7%.

Unite already has a 1,900-bed portfolio in Nottingham. To this will be added 970 beds in the city centre, as well as 700 beds from a development in Derby road, expected to open next year. The city has seen a 20% growth in demand for accommodation from students, the company noted.

The new site is located close to Nottingham Trent University's planned campus development for final-year and post-graduate students. Unite can now segment its portfolio in the city, creating a more targeted offering for second, third year and postgraduate students, it said.

Nick Hayes, Unite Students Group Property Director, commented: "Through this opportunity we are able to cater for the increased number of students wanting to attend the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University, both located in a growing regional city. This commitment increases our secured pipeline to over GBP800 million, its highest ever level, and we continue to see opportunities to add further schemes in London and prime regional markets at attractive returns".

Unite shares were down 1.1% to 1,028.00 pence each in London on Monday morning.

By Elizabeth Winter; elizabethwinter@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
(Alliance News) - Double-vaccinated travellers will no longer need to take a coronavirus test when arriving in the UK as the policy has "outlived its usefulness", the Transport Secretary has said.

Grant Shapps said post-arrival lateral flow tests will no longer be required as restrictions were "firmly placed in the past".

He told the Commons the move would help the aviation industry to "take back to the skies".

Shapps told MPs that the definition of fully vaccinated as "two doses of an approved vaccination or one dose of a Janssen vaccine" would remain for now.

But that the rules for those who did not count as fully vaccinated would change too.

He said: "We'll go further, the measures for those arriving in the UK who do not qualify as fully vaccinated have not changed since last March, so the time has come to review that position too.

"Today, I can announce that passengers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated will no longer be required to do a day eight test after arrival, or indeed to self-isolate.

"They will still need to fill out a passenger locator form to demonstrate proof of a negative Covid test taken two days before they travel and they must still take a post-arrival PCR test.

"This is a proportionate system that moves us a step closer to normality while maintaining vital public health protections."

He said the government intends to move away from "blanket border measures" to a "more sophisticated and targeted global surveillance system".

Earlier, the prime minister said the rules could be lifted because the country was "moving through the Omicron wave".

Boris Johnson said: "So what we're doing on travel, to show that this country is open for business, open for travellers, you will see changes so that people arriving no longer have to take tests if they have been vaccinated, if they have been double vaccinated."

Shapps said: "We promised we wouldn't keep these measures in place a day longer than was necessary and it's obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has outlived its usefulness, and we're therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people.

"Not only making travel much easier but also, of course, saving about GBP100 per family on visits abroad, providing certainty to passengers, to carriers and (the) vital tourism sector for the spring and the summer seasons."

And he added this would help "ensure that 2022 is the year in which restrictions on travel, on lockdowns and limits on people's lives are firmly placed in the past".

The changes will come into effect from 4am on February 11 a in time for the half-term holiday.

easyJet PLC Chief Executive Johan Lundgren welcomed the news and said: "We believe testing for travel should now firmly become a thing of the past.

"It is clear travel restrictions did not materially slow the spread of Omicron in the UK and so it is important that there are no more knee-jerk reactions to future variants."

Christophe Mathieu, chief executive of Brittany Ferries, said: "As the barriers to travel come down, demand goes up.

"Reservations for spring and summer holidays are roaring ahead, but this latest news means we can expect demand to soar for the February half-term.

"Let us hope we can put the last of the lockdown obstacles behind us and make 2022 a comeback year to remember."

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of airline industry body Airlines UK, said the announcement was "a landmark day for passengers, businesses and UK PLC".

Shapps also confirmed that 12 to 15-year-olds in England will be able to prove their vaccination status via the digital NHS pass for international outbound travel.

Speaking in the Commons, Shapps said: "Under-18s will continue to be treated as eligible fully-vaccinated passengers, which means they will not face any tests at the UK border.

"Today, I am pleased to confirm that from February 3, 12 to 15-year-olds in England will be able to prove their vaccination status via the digital NHS pass for international outbound travel."

Shapps also told MPs the UK is also set to recognise vaccine certificates from 16 further nations.

He said reconnecting to key markets will not only "boost" the UK economy but also help the aviation industry to "take back to the skies".

source: PA

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Weather Alert

...The Flood Warning continues for the following rivers in Louisiana... Mississippi River At Red River Landing affecting West Feliciana, East Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee Parishes. For the Lower Mississippi River...including Red River Landing, Baton Rouge, Donaldsonville, Reserve, New Orleans...Minor flooding is forecast. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Motorists should not attempt to drive around barricades or drive cars through flooded areas. Caution is urged when walking near riverbanks. Additional information is available at www.weather.gov/lix. Click on the Rivers and Lakes menu for forecasts and observations. The next statement will be issued when updates are needed. && ...FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL SATURDAY EVENING... * WHAT...Minor flooding is occurring and minor flooding is forecast. * WHERE...Mississippi River At Red River Landing. * WHEN...Until Saturday evening. * IMPACTS...At 51.0 feet, All river islands along the reach from Red River Landing to Baton Rouge will be inundated. Recreational camps and river bottom farm land will be under water. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 8:00 PM CDT Tuesday the stage was 49.9 feet. - Forecast...The river is expected to fall below flood stage early Saturday, May 7 and continue falling to 38.5 feet Tuesday, May 31. - Flood stage is 48.0 feet. - Flood History...This crest compares to a previous crest of 48.8 feet on 04/22/2014. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood &&
Jefferson, GA (30549)

Today

Locally heavy thunderstorms during the morning will give way to partly cloudy skies this afternoon. High around 85F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low around 60F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
Every day two houses are squatted in the Balearic Islands. Squatting has skyrocketed in the second year of the pandemic. According to statistics from the State Attorney General's Office and the Ministry of the Interior a total of 407 squats were registered in the Balearic Islands up to September 2021, an increase of 73.9% over the same period last year.



This is the highest percentage increase in Spain, where the average has grown by 18%, a figure far removed from the Balearic statistics. For example, in Catalonia the increase was 9 % and in Extremadura, 8 % during the same period.

For reference Catalonia is the community with the highest number of squatted houses. In the last five years, home invasions there grew by 68%, a figure lower than that of the Balearic Islands in a single year.

The only two communities with percentages similar to those of the Balearic Islands are Murcia (69.6%) and Castilla-Leon (62.6%). The increased figures are most probably caused by the Covid pandemic. The healthcare situation brought with it a severe economic crisis during 2020, with a drop in GDP of more than 17 % and with thousands of workers surviving thanks to ERTE.



Most of these squats are in private homes, but public administrations have also had squats in some buildings.

In the case of Ibavi, for example, action has been taken against 120 families who have squatted in many apartments owned by Ibavi. As a result 62 apartments have already been recovered, either by police intervention, by a judge's decision or by abandonment of the dwelling due to the threat of a complaint.

There are still 58 squatted apartments on which there is a lawsuit in the courts. The head of Ibavi, Cristina Ballester has assured that the Government acts against those who abuse their situation. She reiterated that these actions are intended to recover a public property that is squatted by people who, in many cases, are part of squatting mafias. The police have even found marijuana plantations in some of these homes when they were finally able to gain access to the interior. "The families who have real housing problems are looked for a solution with the help of the social services," she insists.



The head of Ibavi said that part of this problem comes from the 2011-2015 legislature, with the arrival of Jose Ramon Bauza to the Government and with Gabriel Company as Minister of Public Works. In the midst of the economic and housing crisis the Government agreed not to carry out any evictions, which according to Ballester could help the disadvantaged but increased the rogue behaviour of others.
Manchester, VT (05254)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. High 53F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Showers early, then cloudy overnight. Low 43F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%.
MANISTEE  The Manistee County Medical Care Facility's "COVID unit" has been empty for nearly two years. However, now it is in use by three residents who recently tested positive for COVID-19.

In a Facebook post over the weekend, the news was announced that the medical care received confirmation of a "COVID positive patient." Administrator Joe Coleman confirmed the news to the News Advocate on Monday, adding that the case count has increased since the initial social media post.

File Photo

"On Saturday morning, just before 1 a.m., we were informed that one of our residents was exhibiting mild symptoms of illness. Out of an abundance of caution, the resident was tested for COVID with a rapid test," Coleman explained in an email to the News Advocate.

He said the test was positive and it was followed up with a PCR molecular test at the hospital which confirmed the positive result.

The resident was moved to the medical care facility's "COVID unit," which Coleman told the News Advocate was first set up at the start of the pandemic in 2020. The goal is to minimize the possibility of COVID spreading through the building. Three residents who have tested positive since Saturday have been moved to this unit.

The second resident was moved to the unit on Sunday after displaying symptoms and testing positive, followed by the third resident today, Coleman said.

"The residents on the COVID Unit have been offered some of the new antiviral medications," Coleman said in an email. "All three are having mild, cold-like symptoms, but are doing well so far."

Further information about the residents, such as their age, sex or vaccination status, could not be released, Coleman said, due to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy rules.

The medical care facility has had 23 staff members who have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

"The last of those twenty was an 'up-to-date' (fully vaccinated and boosted) employee who now had COVID for the second time," Coleman said.

He said, "This was our first clue that omicron may be here. Omicron doesnt seem to know the rules about the effectiveness of masks and vaccines."

Coleman said in an email that four employees have tested positive since Jan. 20 and three out of four of them have received their booster shot.

"This was a very high number of staff positives in a short time," he said. "This is another sign that we are probably dealing with omicron. We now have 23 staff in the last two years who have had COVID. The others had always been so far apart time wise that there was virtually no way that any of them got it here or from a coworker."

The medical care facility administrator said that staff are adjusting work schedules "to assist in providing care to our residents in the COVID unit and on the floor."

Coleman added that staff was stretched thin before opening the COVID unit, but has worked as a team "to get through this very difficult time to the best of their ability. We are all very grateful to them."

Guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services say that visitation can continue. However, the Manistee County Medical Care Facility is discouraging visits at this time.

Coleman said the last time the government updated the visitation guidelines, "it's like a free for all. You can come in, you still have to follow rules. But it's not that strict. I got somebody that's going to visit the COVID unit today."

"We are doing more frequent testing of our residents and monitoring them more closely for signs and symptoms of illness," he said. "Residents are staying in their rooms as much as possible and are wearing masks when they must be out in the hallway. We have discontinued group activities and dining for the time being."

The facility currently has 43 residents and about 88 staff members.
MANISTEE  A new Northwest Michigan Health Services clinic will open on Parkdale Avenue in Manistee sometime this spring.

Gwen Williams chief development officer of Northwest Michigan Health Services, said an exact date has not yet been set.

Despite the fact that the actual building, which is located at 148 Parkdale Ave. is not open yet, Northwest Michigan Health Services is still serving patients in Manistee, according to Williams.

"We are still meeting the medical needs of our patients during this construction time through a portable medical clinic that is set up on-site and through telemedicine visits. We dont have the final word on when we will be open for business in the new building but are hoping for the spring," Williams said.

She noted that there will be six people on staff at any given time when they officially open.

"We have a nurse practitioner, patient registration specialist, medical assistant, community health worker, operational director and behavioral health therapist who will work out of the building," Williams said.

The clinic will offer a full array of services including mental and behavioral health services.

Williams said, "We will offer a full range of primary care services for all ages. Additionally, we support our patients with behavioral health counseling, medication assistance, and patient support services like Medicaid / Medicare enrollment assistance and referrals to outside agencies for assistance with housing, transportation, food, education and other needs."

While Northwest Michigan Health Services has served Manistee for a while it has not had its own building. It was previously located at the Next Generation Learning Center and rented space in the building but noted that patients had difficulty finding the clinic. Williams said that "made it hard to grow our patient base." She also noted that the small space made it hard to serve patients safely during the pandemic.

Williams noted the importance of serving patients in Manistee.

"Our board is 100% committed to helping to serve the needs of the Manistee community. We know that there are many residents in Manistee who would benefit from being able to access comprehensive services in one location, with or without insurance," she said.

She said after the pandemic hit, they decided to start looking for a new location.

"When our previous site was unable to house all the services needed safely through COVID, we immediately began looking at other alternatives. The building at 148 W. Parkdale will have larger exam rooms, larger waiting room, will be more visible to the public and allow for additional patient support services and onsite behavioral health counseling. This clinic is the second major investment that Northwest Michigan Health Services has made here; last year we opened a child and adolescent health center at (Manistee Area Public Schools) also," Williams said.
Mankato, MN (56001)

Today

Some sun this morning with increasing clouds this afternoon. High 62F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies. Low 44F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Weather Alert

...FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT THROUGH THURSDAY AFTERNOON... * WHAT...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues to be possible. * WHERE...Portions of Arkansas and Oklahoma, including the following counties, in Arkansas, Benton, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Madison, Sebastian and Washington AR. In Oklahoma, Adair, Cherokee, Choctaw, Craig, Creek, Delaware, Haskell, Latimer, Le Flore, Mayes, McIntosh, Muskogee, Nowata, Okfuskee, Okmulgee, Osage, Ottawa, Pawnee, Pittsburg, Pushmataha, Rogers, Sequoyah, Tulsa, Wagoner and Washington OK. * WHEN...Through Thursday afternoon. * IMPACTS...Excessive runoff will likely result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations, especially in areas that have already received heavy rainfall over the past few days. Several main-stem rivers could go into flood. A few locations could see significant flash flooding. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - Multiple rounds of thunderstorms are expected today through Thursday afternoon with the potential for very heavy rainfall. Widespread 2 to 3 inches of rain is expected with locally higher amounts of 5 to 6 inches. The heavier rain will begin to shift east of far southeast Oklahoma and northwest Arkansas Thursday afternoon. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... You should monitor later forecasts and be alert for possible Flood Warnings. Those living in areas prone to flooding should be prepared to take action should flooding develop. &&
Priyanka Chopra Jonas is currently on cloud nine as she recently welcomed her first child with hubby Nick Jonas through surrogacy. Taking to social media last week, the new parents surprised everyone by announcing the good news. While the much-in-love couple didn't reveal the gender of their newborn baby, several reports have suggested that Priyanka and Nick have welcomed a baby girl.

Sharing the news of the arrival of their baby on Instagram, the couple wrote, "We are overjoyed to confirm that we have welcomed a baby via surrogate. We respectfully ask for privacy during this special time as we focus on our family. Thank you so much".

While the couple's fans and well-wishers are elated, the makers of PeeCee's upcoming film Jee Le Zara are a little tense. According to the latest buzz, the actress might opt out of the much-hyped female buddy project and has given the makers the option of signing some other actress for her role. Yes, you read that right! According to a Bollywood Hungama report, she wants to be with her newborn baby, for now.

For the unversed, the Dil Dhadakne Do star is supposed to star alongside Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif in Jee Le Zara. "But now with her motherhood, Priyanka wants to devote her time and energy to the baby, at least for now," a source informed the portal.

However, nothing is confirmed as Priyanka as well as the makers are yet to react to the rumours.

Last year, Farhan Akhtar announced his directorial comeback with Jee Le Zara, a road-trip movie. Since then, fans of Priyanka, Katrina, and Alia were excited to see them sharing screen space for the first time onscreen. Recently, there was a buzz that the makers have approached Vicky Kaushal to star opposite Katrina. If things work out, Jee Le Zara might be Vicky-Katrina's first project together after their grand wedding.

Coming back to Priyanka, she had earlier walked out of Salman Khans Bharat at the last moment to get married. Later, Katrina replaced her.

On the career front, PeeCee was last seen in Keanu Reeves' The Matrix Resurrections and also has projects like Text For You and Citadel in her kitty. Talking about Jee Le Zara, we just hope that the makers somehow convince Priyanka to stay back.
Rashmika Mandanna is beaming with joy these days as her pan-India release Pushpa: The Rise, opposite Allu Arjun, broke several records and turned out to be the biggest hit of 2021. The actress, who played the role of Srivalli in Sukumar's directorial venture, was recently papped arriving at the Mumbai airport. Well, the actress got trolled for her outfit as she posed for the shutterbugs at the airport.

Rashmika, who also has a few Bollywood films in her kitty, was seen in a casual, comfortable look with a white hoodie and booty shorts, as well as trendy flip flops and a cap at the Mumbai airport. As soon as Viral Bhayani, a well-known paparazzi, posted Rashmika's airport video on his official Instagram handle, netizens started commenting on the length of her shorts.

Take a look at the video here:

People started to troll her for her airport look and went on to say that she probably forgot to wear pants. A user commented, "Why is it like this? Upar itna Dhaka hua, niche pura Khali...". Another Instagram user wrote, "Srivalli, Pant kahaan hai (with laughing emojis)". A third user commented, "These people are like mad seriously. (laughing emoji) Wearing anything and thinking they made it fashion".

Here are the reactions:

 Instagram

 Instagram

 Instagram

We wonder how Rashmika would react to it.



Trolling culture has taken over social media and celebrities are easy targets for this malpractice. Well, we think this needs to stop now. Tell us your views in the comments below.

For the unversed, Rashmika made her acting debut in 2016 with the Kannada film Kirik Party and went on to be a part of several hits including Anjani Putra (2017), Geetha Govindam (2018), Sarileru Neekevvaru (2020), Bheeshma (2020) among others. On the Bollywood front, she has Mission Majnu opposite Sidharth Malhotra and Goodbye co-starring Amitabh Bachchan in her kitty. The South star will also be seen in Pushpa 2 and Aadavaallu Meeku Johaarlu.
Marvel has a lot of exciting things in offering for its fans, with a range of movies coming out this year.



Spider-Man: No Way Home at the end of 2021 was perfect in setting a proper launchpad for other Marvel movies in 2022.

 Marvel Studios

With a lot of old faces returning and new faces being introduced in the form of superheroes and supervillains, this year's movies will truly excite you.



Here are some of them.

1. Thor: Love And Thunder

 Marvel Studios

Chris Hemsworth's Thor, who remains to be one of the original six Avengers, returns in his fourth standalone film after a while.



Taika Waititi also returns as the director of the film after the very impressive showing in Thor: Ragnarok.

You'll be excited to know that Hollywood superstar Christian Bale will play the antagonist Gott The God Butcher in the film, with Natalie Portman returning as Jane Foster AKA Lady Thor.

2. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

 Marvel Studios

Much has been speculated about Black Panther 2 since Chadwick Boseman's tragic passing away.



However, with Wakanda Forever, director Ryan Coogler will answer some important questions around who will be the next Black Panther.

The movie will see the return of characters like Shuri, M'Baku, and others, and it will be interesting to see how the story will further be incorporated with the rest of the Avengers.

3. Morbius

 Sony Pictures

On the other side of Marvel, where the rights are with Sony Pictures, Jared Leto's Morbius holds the key in what lies ahead in Tom Hardy's Venom universe or the Spider-Man universe.



Yep! Andrew Garfield has already hinted that the worlds of his Amazing Spider-Man and Tom Hardy's Venom may collide in the future.

Morbius will be the story of how a Biochemist tries to cure himself of a rare blood disease, with the failed experiment in turn leading him to inject himself with a sort of vampirism.

4. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

 Sony Pictures

Sony Pictures' first Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse is probably what started the crazy multiverse idea, and boy, was it a wonderful film!



The sequel will see the story of Miles Morales' Spider-Man continue as he explores what else lies in the multiverse where there are so many different Spider-Men or Spider-Women like him.

5. Dr. Strange 2: Multiverse Of Madness

 Marvel Studios

This is clearly one of the most exciting Marvel movies since Spider-Man: No Way Home, as it deals with the aftermath of what happened in Tom Holland's film.



We already know that there will be an evil Dr. Strange, and there are also some exciting rumors of many superheroes like Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, and others.

Most importantly, there are big rumors around Tom Cruise being cast as the new Iron Man.

All in all, the movie is going to be a cinematic spectacle just like Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Meridian, MS (39302)

Today

Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High around 90F. Winds light and variable..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 68F. Winds light and variable.
Based on its fall 2021 registration numbers, Owensboro Community & Technical College reported that it has rebounded from the enrollment deficit caused by COVID-19.

Scott Williams, OCTC president, said the preliminary numbers for spring 2022 enrollment also indicate a 11% increase from spring 2020. He attributes that increase to several things, specifically to the schools plan to meet students where they are.

We knew that the pandemic disrupted everyones life, he said. That disruption can happen on the drop of a dime. In other words, you could be exposed to the virus, or have a sick child at home, and all of a sudden you wouldnt be able to come to class.

OCTC, like many other higher education institutions, upgraded classroom equipment to include technology that would allow for synchronous, or real time, instruction. That instruction can also be recorded, so if a student has to miss a class for any reason, they can access the course remotely.

Bernie Hale, OCTC director of communications and marketing, said the technology has also been helpful for students who need a review for tests.

Jim Hartz, OCTC vice president of information technology, said all of the schools classrooms have some sort of remote learning capabilities. He said OCTC began these efforts in the summer of 2019, but the pandemic expedited the schools efforts.

The federal pandemic relief funds also helped to accelerate the upgrades, he said.

He also said the schools recent work with creating new courses to help meet local industry needs has been instrumental in increasing students on campus. Those programs include the fast-track programming for plumbing, construction and the CDL course.

Hale said the fast-track nursing program that was made available for high school students also has been successful in bringing more students to campus.

In an effort to continue meeting community needs, OCTC is also planning some upcoming career programs for students and adults. Some of the programs include summer camps for middle and high school students that will be in June. The camps will offer hands-on programming to local students, which hopefully will encourage them to study health care or allied health fields and meet the local, increasing need for employees, she said.

Williams said another thing that has been helpful throughout the pandemic, and that has enticed students to study at OCTC, is the Work Ready Kentucky Scholarship program, which has enabled countless students to pursue post-secondary credentials.

Kentucky launched a new campaign for the scholarships late in 2020. The scholarships are for individuals interested in high-demand programs, such as health care, manufacturing, business and information technology, construction, skilled trades and transportation and logistics.

Students have the financial support they need to cover the tuition, and kudos to the state of Kentucky for providing those opportunities, Williams said. Its especially enhanced opportunities, and enrollment, in those high-demand fields.

OCTC has also increased its mental health services for students and staff throughout the pandemic, according to Hale.

The school offers employee support services through the Kentucky Community and Technical College System and access to local providers or online services. OCTC also partners with the Mountain Comprehensive Care Center, a local behavioral health organization.

In all, Williams said he and others at OCTC are pleased students have more access to courses and services. While OCTC did see a dip in the 2020-21 school year, things are bounding back.

In general, we bucked the trend this year on enrollment, he said. Its a testament to all of our work, the states work and the work of our high school partners to get students where they are.

Bobbie Hayse, bhayse@messenger-inquirer.com, 270-691-7315
In 1989, the city opened J.R. Miller Boulevard in an effort to alleviate traffic jams on Frederica Street.

It connected with Southtown Boulevard, which the city built in 1983 as an easy way to get from the west side of Owensboro via Carter Road  and avoid traffic on Frederica.

In September 2002, the eastern leg of the Martin Luther King Jr. Loop  from J.R. Miller Boulevard to Frederica Street just south of Cracker Barrel  opened.

The 1.5-mile road, built at a cost of $2.7 million, was joined in October 2005, by its companion highway, Martin Luther King Jr. Loop West, a 1.23-mile highway built at a cost of $3.6 million.

City officials had hoped that all of those roads would lead to more development near, but not on, Frederica Street, which was running out of developable land.

The Panther Creek floodplain extends almost to Sams Club on the citys south end.

Hundreds of acres of farmland were available in that area.

And much of it was put on the market immediately.

In 2007, 458 acres were listed for sale in the South Frederica area, at prices ranging from $30,000 an acre to $200,000 an acre.

Most of it is still undeveloped.

For a time, it looked like that undeveloped land might lead to more commercial projects.

In 2000, Barry Schnakenburg of Evansville, the man who developed Wildcat Plaza beside Walmart, secured an option to buy the 10 acres beside Lowes at the corner of J.R. Miller and Southtown boulevards.

But he learned that he would need to haul in 100,000 cubic yards of dirt to raise the property out of the floodplain.

And 22 years later, the property is still undeveloped.

Southtown is largely developed now from Miller Boulevard to Burns Elementary and Burns Middle schools.

But west of Goetz Drive, the only commercial development is a gas station at the corner of Todd Bridge Road and Southtown.

In 2007, when Thompson Homes started developing Keeneland Trace, a 423-lot residential development south of Southtown Boulevard, many people thought that would spur more commercial development on Southtown.

Finally, six years later, when Southtown was widened to five lanes at a cost of $13.8 million, Hucks began work on the convenience store/gas station at the corner of Todd Bridge Road.

Jim Whetstone, who was vice president for real estate for the company, said We want to get it open as soon as possible. Theres another convenience store going up down the street.

Caseys General Store  a convenience store chain based in Ankeny, Iowa, near Des Moines  was building its second Kentucky store at Southtown and Backsquare Drive, behind Towne Square Mall.

Theyll get the traffic from the mall, Whetstone said. Hopefully, well get it from the subdivisions and the high school.

Several subdivisions  Keenland Trace, Twin Lakes, Tamarack Park, Hilton Park and Apollo Heights  were near the planned Hucks store.

In 2005, Jim Goetz of Kurtz Auction & Realty, whose family owns land in that area, said, Most of thats in the floodplain and will have to be built up. The (Martin Luther King) loop will be developed. But it may not be in our lifetime.

At the same time that the city was opening up more land in the South Frederica area for development, Kentucky 54 was attracting more and more subdivisions and retail centers.

And that land wasnt in a floodplain.

Thats a big consideration for developers, Blake Hayden of The Blake Hayden Group of Realtors, said last week.

He said, Some of the land out there isnt for sale, some is in the floodplain, and the farther you get away from Frederica, the less interest there is.

Brian Howard, executive director of the Owensboro Metropolitan Planning Commission, said, I dont hear much talk at all about Southtown and Martin Luther King. I dont recall any conversations lately about that area. Much of MLK is in the floodplain, and the property would have to be filled before it could be developed. And Southtown is developed out to the schools, and thats pretty far from Frederica.

Jay Velotta, an Owensboro Realtor, agreed.

A lot of Southtown and MLK are in the floodplai,n and youd have to build the land up to develop it, he said.

And thats expensive  especially when land on Kentucky 54 isnt in the floodplain.

Keith Lawrence, 270-691-7301, klawrence@messenger-inquirer.com
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 24, 2022

Contact: Michael Kroll, krollm2@michigan.gov

Gov. Whitmer Presents Purple Hearts to Michigan National Guard Soldiers

LANSING, Mich. - Gov. Whitmer yesterday presented the Purple Heart to Soldiers of the Michigan National Guard (MING) for injuries sustained January 8, 2020 during an Iranian ballistic missile attack while deployed to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.

The ceremony was held at the Grand Ledge Army Aviation Support Facility. At the time of the attack, the injured soldiers were MEDEVAC personnel within Detachment 1, Company C, 3-238th General Support Aviation Battalion. Three soldiers, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jason Zylstra, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael Goebel and Sgt. Joseph Suchowolec, were present to receive the Purple Heart. Sgt. Andrew Burton, formerly with the MING, Warrant Officer Dalton Hamilton and Sgt. Derrick Bimer were unable to attend. Sgt. 1st Class Leonard Adams who was awarded the Purple Heart on May 5, 2020 in a ceremony at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was also recognized at the ceremony.

"I am honored to recognize these Soldiers whose dedication and commitment to their mission was clearly demonstrated by their actions while deployed in Iraq," said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. "On behalf of the entire state of Michigan, thank you for your service to our state and nation. You are the embodiment of bravery and valor and represent the best of us."

"These Soldiers answered the call to serve and performed admirably while deployed to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Rogers, adjutant general and director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. "We owe them and their families our sincerest appreciation and gratitude for putting themselves in harm's way so that we can continue to enjoy our freedoms."

The Purple Heart is a United States military decoration awarded in the name of the President to those wounded or killed while serving with the U.S. military. Originally established by General George Washington as the Badge of Military Merit, it was revived in 1932 through an executive order with the first Purple Heart awarded to General Douglas MacArthur.

About Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs

The Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMVA) synchronizes strategic, legislative and fiscal initiatives to build and sustain military readiness, care and advocacy for veterans and cultivate purposeful partnerships. Branch operations include Michigan Veteran Homes, Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency, State Operations, Army National Guard and Air National Guard which stand in support of our mission to serve every member. For more information, please visit: https://www.michigan.gov/dmva.

###
South Africa: Science, innovation vital to economic recovery: President Ramaphosa

As the country strives to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Cyril Ramaphosa says science and technology have a key role to play in economic recovery.

Addressing the country in his weekly newsletter, the President said science and innovation are playing a far more prominent role both in efforts to overcome the disease and rebuild the economy.

Last week, the President attended the launch of a state-of-the-art vaccine manufacturing campus in Cape Town.

The facility forms part of a multimillion rand investment by the multinational technology company, NANTWorks, which is headed by South African born scientist, Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong.

The President said South Africa already has advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities in companies like Aspen Pharmacare, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccine, and Biovac Institute, which is a public-private initiative.

These projects will greatly aid South Africa in our quest to become a hub of scientific innovation, research and development, especially in vaccine manufacturing for COVID-19, cancer, tuberculosis and other future pandemics.

Thousands of miles away, in Cape Canaveral in the United States, President Ramaphosa said the aerospace company SpaceXs Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched three SA-made nanosatellites into space. The satellites form part of a project to detect, identify and monitor shipping vessels along our coastline.

These are just some of the projects that demonstrate how science and technology have a key role to play in our economic recovery, in attracting greater levels of investment, and in contributing to skills, knowledge and technology transfer to capacitate our countrys workforce.

We are, therefore, prioritising investment in science, technology and innovation to revitalise and modernise existing industries, as well as to create new sources of growth and stimulate industrialisation. There is huge potential in agriculture, mining, energy and manufacturing, among others, he said.

President Ramaphosa said this is an area where government has been pursuing several collaborative partnerships with the private sector and academia to broaden the frontiers of scientific endeavour.

We have, for example, undertaken projects around hydrogen, energy storage and renewable energy. We have supported emerging farmers through the Agricultural Bio-Innovation Partnership Programme. Government also has funding partnerships with a number of South African universities in the field of nanotechnology development, he said.

We are looking far into space by enhancing the capabilities of the South African Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project and supporting a number of new discoveries using the MeerKAT telescope. At the same time, we are using science to support and guide municipalities to plan for and assess the risks of climate change.

We are looking at how to harness new technologies for development, such as using 3D printing to build houses.

Tech revolution



To build on the countrys successes and forge ahead with transformation to a truly digital economy and society, the President said they rely on a combination of technical skill and intellectual enterprise.

Visiting the Biomedical Research Institute at the University of Stellenbosch last week, [in] which our government has invested R300 million, it was not so much the impressive laboratories that inspired awe, but rather the human skills and capabilities that had enabled such innovative research, he said.

The President said there is a need for solid investment in skills development in these different industries, and a firm commitment to increase the number of students studying science, if SA is to promote scientific excellence and its attendant economic benefits.

He said government will continue to support initiatives such as the Grassroots Innovation Programme of the Department of Science and Innovation, which provides support to local innovators to develop their concepts, create prototypes and commercialise their ideas.

There is also the Imvelisi Enviropreneurs Programme, which has boot camps and business mentoring for innovators in the green economy, and a host of other incubation initiatives being piloted on campuses across the country in areas such as deep learning, artificial intelligence and data science.

As the country strives to harness science, technology and innovation in the cause of economic growth, the President said SA provide all the necessary support to innovators and become a country that nurtures great ideas.

As we have demonstrated during the course of this pandemic, South Africa is more than capable of holding its own in the international scientific community.

Through the combination of our established scientific infrastructure and expertise, new investment in research and development and support to budding innovators, we will and are able to propel our country into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, he said.

Most importantly, President Ramaphosa said the country will be able to more effectively use technology to grow the economy, create jobs and improve peoples lives.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
The peacekeeping helicopter takes off with UNISFA military observers onboard (Photo by Wang Yunsheng)

KHARTOUM, Jan 24. -- The 2nd Chinese peacekeeping helicopter unit to Abyei recently completed its first air patrol mission since deployment. The mission lasted for two hours and they carried out detailed reconnaissance over the designated locations surrounding the mission area with a number of the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) military observers onboard.

According to Sandeep, a UNISFA official, the mission covered areas that ground patrol forces cannot reach, located the local tribes and the detailed locations of unauthorized armed forces around the mission area, and established the situation awareness over the surrounding area. The local population now holds stronger confidence in the UNISFA peacekeeping operations.

"This air patrol has further tempered the Chinese peacekeeping troops ability. We will continue to support the UNISFA in its peace promotion operations," said the pilot Xie Xiangqian.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 24, 2022

Contact: Elyse Walter, waltere@michigan.gov

Gov. Whitmer Awards $5M to Bolster Michigan's Growth in the Electric Vehicle and Mobility Industry

LANSING, Mich. - Gov. Whitmer joined the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) to award a $5 million Michigan Revolution for Electrification of Vehicles Academy (MiREV) grant to Southeast Michigan Community Alliance (SEMCA) to further position the state at the center of the nation's electric vehicle and mobility industry growth by proactively preparing the talent needed.

"Michiganders will play a leading role in building the future of automotive mobility and electrification; preparing them for the jobs that will drive the industry is critical," said Governor Gretchen Whitmer. "This grant will support Michigan workers so they can secure not only the skills needed for these high-demand jobs, but also financial security for their families and communities."

SEMCA will use MiREV funds to sustain and expand employer-led collaboratives designed to develop and initiate academies focused on closing industry-based skills gaps. This will be accomplished through attracting, upskilling and reskilling a mobility workforce across Michigan and through serving historically underserved populations while creating a talent pipeline needed for the electrification of vehicles.

"These future academies will ensure employers are able to address their most critical workforce needs while job seekers have access to better employment outcomes and career pathway opportunities in the mobility and electrification industry," said Stephanie Beckhorn, Director of LEO's Office of Employment and Training. "Moving forward, SEMCA will work closely with employers to make sure Michigan has the right programs and resources to fill both current and future talent needs for in-demand and emerging jobs."

SEMCA will establish and expand employer-led collaboratives that support MiREV functions including developing a sustainability plan, coordinating and performing outreach events and supporting employer champions and industry experts in building, implementing and managing academies.

Employers interested in MiREV employer-led collaboratives or other components of future efforts to support Michigan's vehicle and mobility industry growth, can email the department at LEO-MiREV@michigan.gov.

Career seekers interested in pursuing opportunities in this industry, should reach out to their local Michigan Works! Agency to explore occupations in mobility and electrification. To find their local Michigan Works! Agency, visit Michiganworks.org.

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ONEKAMA TWP.  Onekama Township treasurer Ed Bradford said it was good news when the U.S. Department of Treasury issued the final Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds rule earlier this month.

Bradford said the final rule  which goes into effect April 1  affords local governments more more options when it comes to spending American Rescue Plan Act dollars than the interim final rule indicated.

"The interim guidance made it relatively challenging to spend that money because of the restrictions, but in the final guidance, they basically gave all communities a flat $10 million allowance  kind of like a standard deduction on your 1040 tax return," Bradford said. "If your total amount of money that you're getting is under $10 million, you can basically spend that on any valid government servicee, unless it's been explicitly prohibited by the act."

Michigan was awarded nearly $11 billion in federal stimulus money through the rescue plan that President Joe Biden signed into law in March. The funds included roughly $1.8 billion for metropolitan areas, while another $1.93 billion was made available to Michigan counties.

An additional $644 million was provided to communities under 50,000 individuals, which the U.S. Treasury Department called non-entitlement units of local government.

Manistee County was set to receive $4.7 million, with $94,516 allocated to Onekama Township, according to documents from the Michigan Department of Treasury.

Bradford said during the Onekama Township's January board meeting the restrictions found in the final rule are not applicable to Onekama.

"For the township, we really don't have anything that qualifies," he said. "We don't have unfunded pension liabilities and we're not lowering our taxes, so any money that we get from the American Rescue Plan Act we can spend on any valid government service."

The final rule gives local governments freedom to spend the federal funds to address a wide range of needs.

"You can build a park, you can repave a parking lot, you can put it towards roads, you can buy police or fire cars  whatever that might be," Bradford said. "That gives all communities a tremendous amount of flexibility."

Bradford said with very few municipalities receiving $10 million, the flexibility will be enjoyed by the majority of local governments.

"I think that's a big sigh of relief. I think they said there's 1,700 townships, and there were only a handful of them that were over $10 million," he said. "For townships in particular, they weren't getting a lot of money. Even for the City of Manistee and some of the smaller communities, this is a big, big win in terms of how that money can be spent."

Bradford said Onekama Township may seek input from its residents to determine how best to utilize the funds.

"What it's actually going to be used for is a topic for another day, but I just wanted to update the board on that," he said. "... We may want to set up a process at one of these meetings where we take public input as to what that should be used for, but we basically have tremendous flexibility."
MECOSTA COUNTY  The Mecosta-Osceola Career Center recently purchased a new Hunter Equipment TC39ss center clamp tire machine and a new Hunter Equipment Road Force Elite RFE02 tire balancer.

In 2021, the automotive technology program received a $30,000 grant from the Margaret Dunning Foundation to purchase new tire equipment. The new equipment provided by the grant will be utilized to train Career Center students on the latest types of tire mounting and balancing technology, according to a news release.

Todd Ballard, automotive technology lead instructor at the career center, said the grant will allow the center to help students increase their skill sets.

Our hope is that graduates will learn real-world skills on the same tire equipment local dealerships and independent shops are utilizing, Ballard said in the release. Tire tech careers are in great demand and will offer an opportunity for students to be hired for entry-level auto industrial positions.

Ballard said the new equipment is state-of-the-art technology.

This equipment will give students excellent training in modern low profile and run-flat tire service as well as road force balancing required by many new vehicle manufacturers, Ballard said. The Hunter Road Force balancers and their TC39 rim clamp tire changers are game-changers. This will dramatically help prepare students for the workplace. This type of equipment is used by car manufacturers, car dealerships and most independent shops. Students increase their employability skills through their experience and training on the newly purchased equipment.

Margaret Dunning, a businesswoman and philanthropist from Plymouth, established the Dunning Foundation in 1997 in part to support Automotive education programs primarily in Wayne County and Southeastern Michigan. She loved classic cars and won the Classic Car Club of America trophy at the Pebble Beach Concours dElegance with her 1930 Packard Roadster, the news release states.

Since Dunnings passing in 2015, the board of the foundation has awarded many grants to Michigan automotive education programs. This award to a school outside of southwest Michigan was unusual, but the foundation saw that MOCC students were in need of their help and generously provided the grant.

Mecosta-Osceola Career Center is part of the Mecosta-Osceola Intermediate School District (MOISD) that provides career training in 15 career fields to the students within the ISD local school districts. The Automotive program is one program that is certified by the nationally recognized Automotive Service Excellence Education Foundation (ASE) and provides students the opportunity to achieve student-level ASE technician certification.

For more information on the Career Center and its programming, visit the centers website at www.moisd.org/schools/career-center.
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A group that says its goal is returning power to the states instead of the federal government will be visiting Bad Axe next month to share its ideas.

The non-partisan group Convention of States Action will be hosting a town hall meeting from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Feb. 3 at the Franklin Inn in Bad Axe. The meeting will be sponsored by the We the County group.

We are pleased to bring this educational forum to the people of Huron County to learn more about how they can be part of the change, said We the County President Mike Smith in a statement.

The meeting will feature a presentation by Truman Mast, the district captain for Convention of States Action-Michigan, which will be followed by a question-and-answer session.

The Convention of States Action group calls for an Article V convention, which is one of two to create amendments to the United States Constitution. The group has existed since 2013 and operates nationwide.

Bad Axe is the heart of the Thumb, said Convention of States Action spokesperson Robin Riddell. Were pushing into there to educate and inform people in the area.

Riddell added that the group is active throughout Michigan, hosting town halls, getting petitions signed, and appearing in town parades in the east and center of the state. Mast has previously spoken in town halls in Lapeer and Imlay City about Article V.

An Article V convention allows for 2/3 of state Legislatures, currently 34, to pass a resolution that calls for a convention of all the states for the purpose of considering proposed amendments pertaining to areas specified in the resolution. Congress must set a time and place for the convention of all 50 states to consider amendments. The state Legislature selects the at-will delegates.

Any amendments coming out of the convention must be ratified by 3/4, or 38, of the state Legislatures to become an amendment.

Since calling for a convention is a resolution, it does not have to be signed by the governor nor can they veto it. The U.S. Congress and president cannot block the process either.

A convention like this has never taken place before in United States history, though attempts have occurred based on issues that resulted in the 17th, 21st, 22nd, and 25th amendments that were first proposed by the federal government.

The three main issues the Convention of States Action bases its platform on are term limits for all elected and appointed leaders, fiscal responsibility, and limiting the size and scope of government.

For me personally, this is something that has been growing in my mind and heart, Ridden said, as her unhappiness with the current state of the federal government is not something that having new members of Congress or a new president can fix. We have a solution were going after and going to build up groups of people. The solution is bigger than the problem.

As a district captain, Mast's job is to build a relationship with state legislators to get them onboard with Convention of States' ideas, to get volunteers engaged in the process and to spread the word. He has been involved with Convention of States since early spring of 2021, after he took a class from former Texas Representative Rick Green that brought up the idea of a state convention.

"The founders put this tool in there for times like these," Mast said. "Its never been used before. I can't think of a better time than now to use it."

While Mast says that more than 50% of the people who see him speak are conservative-minded, people from both sides of the aisle do come out.

"It's not about one party or the other," Mast said. "Its about putting power back in the states."

A resolution in the Michigan state Legislature calling for a convention to be held was introduced by Rep. Matt Hall of Marshall. It currently has 25 co-sponsors and requires 56 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate to be passed. The resolution passed the Senate and is currently in committee in the House.

Michigan is one of 17 states currently considering such legislation.

Since 2014, 15 state legislatures have passed resolutions calling for such a convention to take place. They are, in order of approval, Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Utah, and Mississippi.

Nine other state legislatures, New Mexico, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Virginia, West Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and South Carolina have passed similar resolutions in one of their Legislature chambers.
On Monday, the Michigan Supreme Court issued an opinion ruling parts of a 2018 petition law as unconstitutional, specifically a rule that people paying to circulate a petition must register with the state.

A mandate that no more than 15% of signatures gathered come from any one congressional district, believed to be unconstitutional by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, was also struck down in the ruling.

The 2018 petition law was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder as an effort by the Republican-controlled Legislature to make it harder to change Michigan law through petition drives, according to reporting by The Associated Press.

Monday's ruling comes as a win for the League of Women's Voters of Michigan against the secretary of state attempting to change the way people can circulate petitions. But, the court did say it's OK to require circulators to indicate on a petition whether they're being paid.

The League of Women's Voters of Michigan argued that both the geographic cap on signatures and the requirement to submit an affidavit to the state when circulating a petition violate people's right of free speech, association and petition under the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions by "imposing undue burdens on paid petition circulators and failing to serve any compelling state interest," according to the opinion.

"A cap on how many signatures can come from each part of the state would undermine these intentions by making it more difficult and expensive to gather the required number of signatures within the time frame required by Michigans election laws, and the related enforcement provisions would effectively ensure that some voters signatures would be rendered void merely because they were obtained after the 15% cap for that district had been reached," Justice Megan Cavanagh wrote in the majority opinion.

"Such disenfranchisement would weigh most heavily on those residing in more densely populated parts of the state, and it would run directly contrary to the clear intention that nothing more than a minimum number of signatures from the statewide population is necessary to propose changes to Michigans laws," she continued.
MIDDLETOWN  September Johnson, Wesleyan Universitys alcohol and other drug specialist, acknowledges that the colleges move to becoming a tobacco- and vape-free campus will be a big change for the community.

The policy went into effect on Jan. 1. Johnson said that there will be plenty of support measures in place to help.

We, as a community, are here to support each other through this change, Johnson said in a campus all-staff meeting on Nov. 29 where the policy change was announced.

No tobacco products will be allowed anywhere on campus. Tobacco use continues to be a leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States. Hazards of second-hand tobacco smoke are well known, Johnson said in an email.

Tobacco is the only product that, when used as intended, leads to serious illness and premature death. There is no safe form of tobacco or nicotine with the exception of nicotine replacement therapy, Johnson said.

According to information provided by WesWell, almost 5,000 people a year in Connecticut die from smoking. Over 25 percent of the cancers found in the state are related to tobacco use. Each household pays about $850 a year in state and federal taxes toward smoking related government costs.

Tobacco-related deaths are the most common ones we face, including lung cancer, emphysema and cardiovascular deaths. Tobacco can also cause other diseases, including oral and throat cancers, chronic lung conditions, and it can worsen asthma, said Dr. Thomas McLarney, Wesleyans health director.

Johnson said the idea of going tobacco-free has been in discussion for some time. Johnson and her colleagues reached out to campus partners to collaborate on how the policy would be crafted. A grant from the Department of Public Health helped create educational and prevention materials.

However, the rise of COVID-19 hastened Wesleyans decision. Smoking and vaping increase an individuals risk of contracting COVID, and of experiencing worse outcomes, as the second-hand smoke from these products can weaken immune systems, Johnson said.

The overall cultural trend supports Johnsons initiative. She said that while cigarette smoking has decreased among college students over the past couple of decades, rates of vaping among this age group have increased  a habit that studies show could encourage smoking.

To encourage and support individuals who use tobacco and vape products in their efforts to quit, comprehensive cessation resources for faculty, students, and staff are available. For faculty and staff, this includes wellness points, quit kits, nicotine replacement therapy on an as needed basis, individualized information and resources and more. Students have the similar resources as well, Johnson said.

Nicotine is an extremely addictive substance. But with support and medications, including nicotine replacement, overcoming the addiction can be done, McLarney said.

The policy is not intended to be punitive, Johnson said. Her goal is to help foster a community of care around the university.

For information, visit WesWell.
CT State Police / Contributed

COVENTRY  Authorities are urging the public to avoid a local neighborhood as police said they are involved in a standoff with a person inside a home.

Around 11 a.m., Connecticut State Police said troopers and Coventry police were in the area of the 1700 block of South Street with a person who barricaded themselves inside the home.
About 8,500 U.S. troops were put on heightened alert Monday for possible deployment to Europe, ratcheting up tensions as Russia refused to back down from the threat of invading Ukraine.

The alert order was issued by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to units now in the U.S. that would be part of a NATO force if the alliance decides to activate a military response, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said during a press briefing. The move includes Army brigade combat teams as well as logistics, medical, aviation and transportation units.

"We wanted to make sure that we were ready in case that call should come, and that means making sure that units that would contribute to it are as ready as they can be on as short a notice as possible," Kirby said. "Again, no final decision has been made to deploy them."

Read Next: More than 1,000 Guard Troops Got the Wrong Pay on Border Mission

Some of those U.S. forces could also be deployed unilaterally, and the Pentagon said more forces already stationed in Europe could be moved to NATO member countries in the continent's eastern flank.

The preparations come as diplomacy between the West and Moscow has failed to yield a breakthrough, and Russia has continued to add battalion tactical groups along the border of Ukraine and increasing forces in nearby Belarus, according to the Pentagon. The Biden administration has estimated about 100,000 Russian troops are amassed for a potential invasion.

President Joe Biden was set to meet with European leaders via video conference on Monday to discuss the growing security crisis surrounding Ukraine.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Friday with Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an attempt to break the stalemate, and he said talks would continue. Russia has demanded assurances that Ukraine will never join NATO and that the alliance would pull back forces from its eastern edge.

The State Department issued an order Sunday for family members of U.S. embassy staff in Ukraine to leave the country.

The NATO Response Force, or NRF, is a "technologically advanced" multi-national force of about 40,000 land, air, maritime and special operations troops. The U.S. units put on alert would contribute to any NRF effort authorized by the alliance, but the Pentagon said no mission has yet been planned.

"This is about sending a strong message, that we're committed to NATO and we're committed to assuring that our allies have the capabilities they need in case they need to defend themselves," Kirby said.

Russia has shown no intentions to pull back from its buildup around Ukraine, and Kirby said it would be "irresponsible" for the Pentagon not to make preparations for a possible deployment.

-- Travis Tritten can be reached at travis.tritten@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @Travis_Tritten.

Related: US Carrier to Lead NATO Exercise amid Ukraine Invasion Fears
TAIPEI, Taiwan  China flew 39 warplanes toward Taiwan in its largest such sortie of the new year, amid tensions over the self-ruled island's future and as the U.S. pushes to assert its presence in the region.

The Chinese formation Sunday night included 24 J-16 fighter jets and 10 J-10 jets, among other support and electronic warfare aircraft, according to Taiwan's defense ministry.

Taiwan's air force scrambled its own jets and tracked the People's Liberation Army planes on its air defense radar systems, the ministry said.

The Chinese sortie came as the U.S. military said that two of its carrier strike groups were sailing on Sunday in the South China Sea, led by USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln. They engaged in anti-submarine, air and combat readiness operations.

Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on why the PLA had flown such a large sortie on Monday, saying it was not a diplomatic matter.

Taiwan and China split during a civil war in 1949, but China claims the island as its own territory. Beijing has used diplomatic and military means to isolate and intimidate the self-ruled island, but the U.S. has continued to support Taiwan by selling it advanced weapons and fighter planes.

Chinese pilots have been flying towards Taiwan on a near-daily basis in the past year and a half, since Taiwan's government started publishing the data regularly. The largest sortie was 56 warplanes on a single day last October.

The activity has generally been in the air space southwest of the island and falls into a zone that Taiwan's military says it monitors out of national security considerations.

Tensions have been high since Taiwanese citizens elected Tsai Ing-wen as president in 2016, to which Beijing responded by cutting off previously established communications with the island's government. Tsai's predecessor was friendly to China and had endorsed Beijing's claim that the two are part of a single Chinese nation.

The U.S. regularly carries out exercises in the South China Sea in what it calls freedom of navigation operations, in line with international law.

___

Associated Press video producer Liu Zheng in Beijing contributed to this report.
The commander of Special Operations Command, Gen. Richard Clarke, has tested positive for COVID-19, his command announced Monday.

Clarke, who oversees the special operations forces of all the military branches, tested positive Sunday and is working remotely and isolating himself from others, Col. Curt Kellogg, a spokesman for the command, said the statement.

He had very mild symptoms and is able to fully perform all his duties remotely, Kellogg said.

Read Next: US Carrier to Lead NATO Exercise amid Ukraine Invasion Fears

Clarkes positive result makes him the latest top-ranking military official to get COVID-19 in recent months as senior Pentagon leadership has seen a deluge of cases.

Last week, the military announced that both Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. David Berger, had tested positive for the disease. Early in January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced he tested positive for COVID-19 and was experiencing mild symptoms while quarantining at home. Early in December, the top general in charge of the National Guard, Gen. Dan Hokanson, also tested positive for the virus.

In the case of Clarke, who is 61, the SOCOM statement noted that he has not been in the physical presence of senior DoD civilian leadership or members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this month.

The Department of Defense said last week that there are currently no plans to change the restrictions on meetings and access at the Pentagon. Spokeswoman Sue Gough noted last week that senior civilian leaders recently published memos that strongly encouraged continued maximum telework during the spread of the Omicron and Delta variants in the greater Washington, D.C metropolitan area.

-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.

Related: No VA Workers Have Been Fired over Vaccine Mandate, with Less Than 1% Failing to Meet Deadline
At least 1,376 troops in the Texas National Guard have faced pay issues since September, according to internal documents obtained by Military.com. 109 issues still remain for the roughly 6,800 Texas troops assigned to the mission.

The troops are part of the nearly year-old state mission ordered by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that has seen reports of a wave of suicides and self harm on the mission, alcohol abuse, and troops facing severe financial hardship.

National Guard officials have responded to reporting about pay and discipline issues by describing coverage as being built on "nebulous charges."

Read Next: Head of Special Operations Command Tests Positive for COVID-19

Col. Rita Holton, a Texas Guard spokesperson, told Military.com earlier in January that 82 soldiers were facing pay issues, while the document revealing pay issues that was reviewed by Military.com was dated Friday. The Texas National Guard did not respond to a request for comment ahead of this story's publication.

The pay issues range from soldiers being shortchanged, sometimes by thousands of dollars, to minor discrepancies. One Guardsman interviewed by Military.com received a $100 paycheck after two weeks of duty, a period when that Guardsman should have received a minimum of around $2,000. Meanwhile, some troops were overpaid, which can have a domino effect where pay is withheld unexpectedly from future checks.

Of the outstanding pay issues, 19 troops were overpaid and 90 are missing checks. It is unclear how far back the outstanding pay issues go.

Military.com had previously reported that there had been accounts of issues with pay, but the internal National Guard document obtained by the publication is the first to provide specifics on the number of soldiers affected.

While Texas has seemingly made progress on the pay issues, it is unclear why those issues existed to begin with, or why so many soldiers were impacted. Some senior officials interviewed point to troops swiftly being mobilized en masse, sometimes with days' notice.

For troops to deploy under state orders, they have to fill out entirely new W-4 forms, which makes them state employees. Because of that paperwork, Texas effectively hired a thousands-strong labor force with little notice or logistical support.

"I don't know what's going on; our state never had this problem. But imagine this, how in the world did Texas add thousands of employees to the payroll system?" one senior Guard official from another state told Military.com on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. "The scale is not surprising, but it's also heartbreaking."

A key issue, current Texas Guardsmen who were interviewed by Military.com said, was many checks not being itemized. That means that when soldiers are paid it is unclear what days they have been paid for -- making it difficult to track whether they've received the correct amounts.

Some soldiers have faced financial hardship due to state orders earning them significantly less money than their civilian jobs. State orders also do not come with benefits, which are associated with active duty federal orders and typically pay soldiers less.

On Friday, Holton issued a statement that included criticism of media reports, including some from Military.com.

"There have been nebulous charges that service members are not being paid. This is inaccurate. While there have been administrative pay challenges, currently every service member assigned to Operation Lone Star is being paid," Holton said.

Yet, in the same statement, Holton noted that a lot of troops still have unresolved pay issues, many of which have been brewing for months.

"75 percent of pay discrepancies have been resolved, to include, back

pay for those who have been paid inaccurate amounts," Holton's statement added.

-- Steve Beynon can be reached at Steve.Beynon@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.

Related: Texas Denying Most Guard Troops at Border Chance to Help Families Suffering Hardships at Home
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  The United Arab Emirates intercepted two ballistic missiles claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels over the skies of Abu Dhabi early Monday, authorities said, the second attack in a week that targeted the Emirati capital.

The missile fire further escalates tensions across the Persian Gulf, which previously had seen a series of assaults near  but never indisputably on  Emirati soil amid Yemen's yearslong war and the collapse of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers. American troops at Al-Dhafra Air Base in the capital took shelter in bunkers there during the attack.

The attacks threaten the business-friendly, tourism-focused efforts of the Emirates, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula also home to Dubai. For years, the country has marketed itself as a safe corner of an otherwise-dangerous neighborhood.

Videos on social media showed the sky over Abu Dhabi light up before dawn Monday, with what appeared to be interceptor missiles racing into the clouds to target the incoming fire. Two explosions later thundered through the city. The videos corresponded to known features of Abu Dhabi.

The state-run WAM news agency said that missile fragments fell harmlessly over Abu Dhabi.

The Emirates is ready and ready to deal with any threats and that it takes all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks, WAM quoted the UAE Defense Ministry as saying.

The missile fire disrupted traffic into Abu Dhabi International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Etihad, for about an hour after the attack.

Houthi military spokesman Yehia Sarei claimed the attack in a televised statement, saying the rebels targeted several sites in the UAE with both Zulfiqar ballistic missiles and drones, including Al-Dhafra Air Base. He warned the UAE would continue to be a target as long as attacks on the Yemeni people continue.

We warn foreign companies and investors to leave the Emirates! Sarei shouted from a podium. This has become an unsafe country!

The Dubai Financial Market dropped 2% after the attack, with nearly every company trading down. The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange also fell slightly.

At Al-Dhafra, which hosts both American and British forces, U.S. troops took shelter in bunkers during the attack, the U.S. Air Force's Mideast command said. Al-Dhafra is home to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing and has seen armed drones and the F-35 stealth fighters stationed there.

U.S. military forces successfully reacted to multiple inbound threats during an attack near Abu Dhabi, the Air Force said, without elaborating. Videos on social media suggested outgoing interceptor fire came from the base.

The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi later issued a security alert to Americans living in the UAE, warning citizens to maintain a high level of security awareness. The alert included instructions on how to cope with missile attacks, something unheard-of previously in the UAE, a tourist destination home to skyscraper-studded Dubai and its long-haul carrier Emirates.

If these types of attacks end up occurring on a weekly basis as they do in the Saudi Arabia  that will shift the perception of the threat landscape in the UAE, said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst with risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. The concern is now the contagion is going to be broader if we start to see attacks against civilian infrastructure.

The Emirati Defense Ministry later tweeted out a black-and-white video that it said showed an F-16 striking the ballistic missile launcher used in the Abu Dhabi attack. The Defense Ministry identified the site as being near al-Jawaf, a Yemeni province around 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi.

The state-linked newspaper The National in Abu Dhabi identified the F-16 as Emirati, raising the question of how directly involved the UAE now is in the fighting after withdrawing most of its ground forces in 2019. The Emiratis continue to back militias on the ground, including the Giants Brigade, which has made advances against the Houthis in recent weeks.

The Zulfiqar ballistic missile, believed to have a range of 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), is modelled after the Iranian Qiam missile, according to a report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Iran denies directly arming the Houthis, though United Nations experts, Western nations and analysts have linked weapons in the rebels' arsenal back to Tehran.

The attack came a week after Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed an attack on the Emirati capital targeting the airport and an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the Mussafah neighborhood. That attack on the fuel depot killed three people and wounded six others. The Houthis have to yet identify the missiles used in last week's attack.

New, high-resolution satellite photographs obtained by the AP from Planet Labs PBC showed repair work still ongoing at the fuel depot Saturday. Emirati officials have not released images of the attacked sites, nor allowed journalists to see them.

In recent days, a Saudi-led coalition that the UAE backs unleashed punishing airstrikes targeting Yemen, knocking the Arab world's poorest country off the internet and killed over 80 people at a detention center.

The Houthis had threaten to take revenge against the Emirates and Saudi Arabia over those attacks. On Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition said a Houthi-launched ballistic missile landed in an industrial area in Jizan, Saudi Arabia. The missile tore a deep crater in the ground, television footage showed, and slightly wounded two foreigners of Bangladeshi and Sudanese nationality.

The hard-line Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, just Sunday published a front-page article quoting Houthi officials that the UAE would be attacked again with a headline: Evacuate Emirati commercial towers.

The newspaper in 2017 had faced a two-day publication ban after it ran a headline saying Dubai was the next target for the Houthis.

___

Associated Press writers Isabel DeBre, Malak Harb and Lujain Jo in Dubai, Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.
Situated just 20 miles from Seattle, Naval Base Kitsap houses America's most powerful and secret deterrents, a weapon that is the first line of defense for U.S. national security: U.S. Navy dolphins.

Since 1967, the Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions (and probably other marine life) for military applications such as mine clearing, force protection and recovery missions. The U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program deployed military dolphins as early as the Vietnam War and as recently as the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

When protecting harbors and ships from mines, as they do at Naval Base Kitsap, the dolphins use their extraordinary biological sonar to detect hazards beneath the surface, whether tethered to the sea floor or buried beneath sediment.

If a mine or other weapon is detected, the dolphin returns to its handler, who gives the animal a buoy to mark the location of the device on the surface. Passing ships know to avoid these markers while Navy explosives ordnance disposal divers neutralize the threat below.

For protection against enemy divers, dolphins will swim up to the infiltrator, bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb, using their mouth. The buoy then drags the outed diver to the surface for easy capture. When trained sea lions perform the same maneuver, they use a kind of handcuff with their mouths to attach the buoy.

Since Bangor, Washington, now houses the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world, it needs protection from all sides, including the seaward side. That's where the Navy's dolphin pods and sea lions come in. Navy spokesman Chris Haley says the animals have been defending the waters around the stockpile, holding roughly 25% of the United States 9,962 nuclear warheads, since 2010.

(U.S. Navy)

The United States isn't the only country known to train marine animals for these kinds of missions. Its sea mammal mission only became public knowledge in the 1990s, however. The Soviet Union trained dolphins for similar harbor protection.

After the fall of the USSR, the program was said to be in limbo, and the Soviet-trained dolphins are believed to have been sold to Iran in 2000. Russia is said to have been looking to update its training program, and may even have used them in Syria.

Read: Iran May Have a Fleet of Communist Killer Dolphins

Satellite imagery near the North Korea city of Nampo has revealed what look to be dolphinariums in the Taedong River, meaning North Korea may have a dolphin-based anti-infiltration plan of its own.

-- Blake Stilwell can be reached at blake.stilwell@military.com. He can also be found on Twitter @blakestilwell or on Facebook.

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How to use the mindat.org media viewer

Click/touch this help panel to close it.

Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image)

Controls - all media types

Zoom in and out of media using your mousewheel or with a two-finger 'resize' action on a touch device.

Use the mouse or your finger to drag the image or the view area of the image around the screen.

< and > at the left and right hand side of the screen move forwards and backwards for the other images associated with the media you selected. Usually this is used for previous/next photo in a gallery, in an article or in search results. Keyboard shortcuts: use shift + the left and right arrow keys.

< and > in the bottom center are used for switching between the photos of the same specimen. Keyboard shortcuts: use the left and right arrow keys.

> in the bottom center, raises the information box giving details and further options for the media, < at the top of this box then hides it. Keyboard shortcuts: use the up and down arrow keys.

? opens this help window. Keyboard shortcuts: use the H key or the ? key.

Other keyboard shortcuts:

1 Fit image to screen 2 Fill screen with image 5 Display at full resolution < Make background darker > Make background lighter space Hide/dim titles and buttons

Scalebar

If the field of view (FOV) is specified for the photo, the scalebar appears in the left bottom corner of the viewer. The scalebar is draggable and resizeable. Drag the right edge to resize it. Double click will reset the scalebar to it's default size and position. If the scalebar is in default position, double click will make it circular.

Controls - Video

Video files have a standard set of video controls: - Reset to start, - Skip back, - Play, - Pause, - Skip forwards. Keyboard shortcuts: You can stop/start video play with the P key.

Controls - Animation (Spin Rotation)

Animation (usually 360 degree spin rotations) have their own controls: - enable spin mode. Note that while images are loading this option will not be available but will be automatically activated when the animation has loaded. Once active you can spin the image/change the animation by moving your mouse or finger on the image left/right or by pressing the [ or ] keys.

The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types.

The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control.

Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images

If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways:

- without any special equipment using cross-eyed or parallel-eyed method

- with stereoscope

- with anaglyph glasses.

- on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system)

For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D

To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them.

Controls - photo comparison mode

If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu.

Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder.

Summary of all keyboard shortcuts
24.01.2022 LISTEN

Comedian DKB has consoled Ghanaians with the hit song of award-winning UK-based Ghanaian Afro gospel musician, Joseph Matthew also known as JM dubbed 'The Name' after the Black Stars' exit from the ongoing African Cup Of Nations (AFCON) in Cameroon.

'The Name' is a song of reminder to Christians, which suggests that "no matter the challenges we may go through, our victory is assured and also there is power in the name of God."

Ghana Black Stars on Tuesday were knocked out from the AFCON after losing 3:2 to Comoros. This is the first time Ghana has gone out in the group stages since 2006 in Egypt.

However, holders Algeria also exited the ongoing AFCON at the group stage on Thursday after loss to Ivory Coast. The defending champions who needed a win in their final group game to qualify to the next stage from Group E were knocked out of the Africa Cup of Nations after losing 3-1 to Ivory Coast

The 2019 champions were completely outplayed in Douala on Thursday, compounding a miserable tournament in which they failed to win a single game.

Speaking in a video shared on his social media platforms sighted by this portal, DKB blamed the exits of Ghana and Algeria from the AFCON on Nigeria.

According to DKB, "Former AFCON winners Algeria are out of the competition. Algeria's jersey is white and green and the Nigerian flag is green -meaning they are twins...Nigerians are greedy. they had 9 points in the group stage and didn't share two points with Algeria and Ghana.

After blaming Nigeria for the abysmal performances of Algeria and Ghana, DKB then consoled Ghanaians with Joseph Matthew's 'The Name ' hit song.

Watch the video below:
The leader of a Kumasi-based Holiness Believers Church Prophet Francis Kofi Annan has threatened to sue the State should government go ahead with the proposed mandatory covid-19 vaccination.

He said the mandatory vaccination is a violation of the right of the people.

He added that vaccination should be a choice not by force.

At a press conference in Kumasi over the weekend, Prophet Francis Kofi Anan noted that it is not right to compel people to take the covid-19 jab against their will.

According to the man of God, the covid-19 vaccination should not be made mandatory, arguing that many countries have not made the vaccine mandatory.

The Prophet hinted that he will not hesitate to go to court to stop government.
24.01.2022 LISTEN

More than a hundred people from Cameroons Anglophone regions and its main political opposition party, arrested over the past five years for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, are still languishing in jail, where some have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment, Amnesty International said today as it launches a new campaign to release them.

The campaign, Dont shut them up: Free victims of arbitrary detention now, calls on the authorities to immediately release people arrested for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.

The campaign focuses on dozens of individuals from the Northwest and Southwest Anglophone regions, arrested for taking part in peaceful protests, and at least 107 supporters of opposition party Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon (MRC).

Over the past five years, the human rights situation has grown increasingly bleak as people from Anglophone regions, including journalists, human rights defenders, activists and supporters of political opposition, have been arrested and jailed for expressing their opinions or peacefully protesting, said Fabien Offner, Amnesty Internationals Central Africa Researcher.

Most of the jailed individuals were tried before military courts  in violation of international human rights law  and sentenced under the countrys repressive 2014 anti-terror law.

We call on the Cameroonian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those incarcerated for practising their rights to free speech and peaceful protest. They should also rescind the overly broad anti-terror law, which has been used to criminalize protesters for years, said Fabien Offner.

Anglophone detainees tortured

Thousands of people, including lawyers, teachers and human rights defenders, took part in largely peaceful demonstrations in late 2016 that called for greater rights in the two Anglophone regions.

More than 1,000 Anglophone people arrested between 2016 and 2021 in relation to the Anglophone crisis are behind bars in at least 10 prisons across the country, including 650 in Buea, 280 in Yaounde, 181 in Douala and 101 in Bafoussam. Dozens have been arbitrarily detained.

According to testimonies gathered by Amnesty International, many of them were held incommunicado and suffered torture and other ill-treatment, including beatings and lashes, deprivation of food and water for days, mock drownings and forced extraction of fingernails.

On 25 May 2018, the Yaounde military court sentenced eight people to lengthy prison sentences under the anti-terror law, including journalist Tsi Conrad, who was arrested in Bamenda on 8 December 2016 after attending a protest. Conrad was sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorism-related offences. In May 2021, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said Conrads detention was arbitrary and called for his release.

Penn Terence Khan, the vice principal of a high school in Bamenda, was arrested on 17 January 2017 and sentenced on 10 April 2018 to 12 years in prison and fined 15 million CFA francs (23,000 euros) by the Yaounde military court. His charges included complicity in secession, financing of terrorism and complicity with the rebellion, yet the only piece of evidence was a T-shirt with the words Diaspora South Africa Standing behind West Cameroonians 4 a Federal Cameroon and We are Cameroonians, we are not extremists printed on it.

Protest leader Ngalim Felix Safeh, a member of the separatist Southern Cameroon National Council party, was arrested on 29 November 2016 and placed in pre-trial detention on 7 February 2017. He was charged with apology for terrorism, attempted murder, insurrection, group rebellion and degradation of public goods. More than five years after his arrest, he remains in pre-trial detention. His case has seen nearly 90 adjournments before the Yaounde military court.

Mancho Bibixy Tse, a protest leader and radio journalist based in Bamenda, was also tried before a military court and sentenced to 15 years in prison for terrorism-related offences.

The Cameroonian authorities must end their relentless assault on dissenting voices in the Anglophone regions. All others who have been arbitrarily detained with their right to a fair trial violated, must also be freed, said Fabien Offner.

Political opposition and civil society targeted

As of 15 January 2022, 107 supporters and members of the MRC remained in detention after being arrested before, during and after taking part in demonstrations held in September 2020 to denounce the way upcoming regional elections were being organized, especially in relation to the Anglophone crisis.

A group of nearly 50 people were sentenced by military courts on 27 December 2021 for insurrection, rebellion and endangering state security. Olivier Bibou Nissack, the spokesperson for MRC President Maurice Kamto, and Alain Fogue, the MRCs first vice president, were sentenced to seven years in prison for revolution and rebellion and revolution, rebellion and gathering respectively.

The next day, Awasum Mispa Fri, President of the Women of the MRC, was sentenced to seven years in prison for complicity in revolution and rebellion. Other MRC supporters were convicted and then released, having spent over a year in detention.

Numerous detainees are currently being held in prisons in Yaounde, Douala, Bafoussam and Mfou. On 7 December 2021, Dorgelesse Nguessan was sentenced to five years in prison for insurrection, assembly, meetings and public demonstrations by the Douala military tribunal. Before she was transferred to Douala central prison on December 30, she was denied the right to wash in the police station where she was held and suffered an attempted sexual assault by a police officer.

Intifalia Oben, a 29-year-old trader and MRC supporter, was sentenced to five years in prison by the Yaounde military court on 27 December. He was found guilty of complicity in revolution and rebellion. He was subjected to torture, including beatings and mock drownings, while in detention at the Defence Secretary of State (Secretariat dEtat a la Defense, SED).

MRC detainees have reported widespread use of torture and other ill-treatment by security forces, including the SED and the police in Yaounde. On 5 November 2021, detainees at Yaounde prison wrote to the President of the military tribunal to request their release and list the repeated violations of their rights.

A member of the Stand Up for Cameroon movement, Collins Nana, was arrested and after taking part in an MRC protest on 22 September 2020. He remains in detention after being sentenced to 18 months in prison by the Douala military court on 7 December 2021 for insurrection, meetings and public demonstrations.

Four other men from Stand Up for Cameroon Etienne Ntsama, Moussa Bello, Mira Angoung, and Tehle Membou  were also arrested in September 2020 after attending a meeting at their Douala headquarters. They were sentenced to 16 months in prison by a Douala military tribunal on 31 December 2021 for conspiring to revolt, allegedly for having mobilized ahead of the MRCs 22 September marches.

"These frequent attacks on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, coupled with the widespread use of torture and trials of civilians by military courts, reveal the extent to which the Cameroonian authorities are normalizing the repression of critical voices. Their relentless repression must end said Fabien Offner.
Ahmed Agbenyadzi

23.01.2022 LISTEN

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) government led by President Akufo-Addo has been described as poor managers of Ghana's educational sector since independence.

Ahmed Agbenyadzi, Deputy Youth organiser of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) for Akwapim North, has expressed worry at the way the sector is being managed by the former and current ministers of education.

In an interview on Koforidua based Bryt FM on Saturday on the brouhaha surrounding the trimester and semester calendar, Mr. Agbenyadzi indicated that the NPP government has woefully failed in most decisions taken in the educational sector.

The Ministry of Education has reversed to the trimester calendar few days after approving of a semester for all basic schools across the country.

The move was to see pupils going to school for twenty weeks before going on vacation as compared to the past twelve to fifteen weeks in the trimester calendar.

But Ahmed Agbenyadzi speaking to Kwabena Nyarko Abronoma said the back-and-forth policies of the government have adversely affected the country's educational sector since 2017.

He complained about poor implementation of the free SHS policy, introduction of new curriculum as well as improving the wellbeing of teachers which comes with many challenges that could have been prevented.

"You see my brother, President Akufo-Addo and the NPP has failed in all the policies and initiatives in the educational sector. They rushed to introduce the free SHS policy, and the result is there for all of us to see. Students don't even know when to resume school as compared to those days when students are told when to report back to school after break" he stated.

Mr. Agbenyadzi however, urged Ghanaians to have hope in the NDC and bring it back into power come 2024 to redeem the country's falling educational standard.
An Indian drug firm has promised an Omicron-specific vaccine that it says is safe, tolerable and immunogenic. The move comes as the new variant spreads across the country, where millions of people have yet to get their Covid shots.

India reported 317,532 new infections on Thursday, taking the number of cases so far to 38 million, with 487,000 deaths.

Privately-run Gennova Biopharmaceuticals said it has sent the basic data of its Omicron vaccine to the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, a federal regulator.

The Omicron-specific variant of vaccine is under development and will be ready for human clinical trials, subject to regulatory approvals," media quoted a company spokesperson as saying.

Late stage trials of the Omicron vaccine could begin in February after an official clearance expected in the next few days.

Safety assurances

Gennova, based in Maharashtra state, asserted the federal regulator in an initial study certified the two-dose messenger or mRNA vaccine safe, tolerable and immunogenic.

It is a thing of pride that Omicron was declared on 25 November in the world and within one and a half months we are getting this vaccine, said Avinash Bhondwe, former chief of the Maharashtra chapter of Indian Medical Association.

Bhondwe told television the under-trial vaccine was giving more than 80 percent of protection against Omicron.

The firm has started producing the vaccine and would roll out sufficient quantities after the government's green flag, others added.

If approved, it would be India's first mRNA vaccine.

V.K. Paul, the government's top coronavirus adviser, said the Gennova product could prove useful beyond Covid.

The development of this vaccine is a significant achievement for the country, Paul added.

The Omicron-specific vaccine under development is also exciting while the quick-switch platform would come into play as and when mutant strains emerge, the government advisor was quoted as saying.

Pfizer has said a re-crafted vaccine to tackle omicron was likely to be ready for launch in March and that the US-based firm had already begun the production.

Vaccine anniversary

The development came as India marked the first anniversary of its health drive by fully inoculating 70 percent of its 1.3 billion people with Oxford-AstraZeneca shots and a local vaccine.

India has given 1.6 billion doses but a population the size of South Africa's is yet to receive the first shot. The government told courts vaccination was not mandatory even though infections spiked six-fold in the past week.

India however logged only 9,287 Omicron infections by Thursday, giving rise to speculation the real count would be vastly higher as people diagnosed positive at home were not reporting back.

Home testing kits are selling like hot cakes as prescriptions are not needed for the product, said Vinod, a drug store owner in a Delhi suburb who uses one name.

Chest doctor Sushmita Roychowdhury from the Fortis healthcare chain suggested a temporary law to compel people to wear face masks in public.

And only then all this questions will go away because we don't know whether we are treating Delta or Omicron, the Kolkata-based doctor told a public discussion.

Hemant Thacker from a state Covid task force joined the call, seeking stiff action in public interest as new infections in India spiked by 1.63 million in six days to 20 January.

You must ask for the heaviest (of) fines so that the country and the community can be saved, the doctor said as four Supreme Court judges tested positive.

Several cities have ordered on-spot cash penalties for not masking up while policemen in some states depend on their night sticks to enforce public hygiene.
Libya's interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah on Sunday called for a constitution to be established before holding delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.

"Now more than ever we need a constitution that protects the country and its citizens, and that governs the elections," Dbeibah said.

Libya collapsed into years of violence after the 2011 overthrow and killing, during a NATO-backed revolt, of dictator Moamer Kadhafi who scrapped the country's constitution in 1969.

Rival power bases and administrations arose in the country's east and west.

After a landmark ceasefire in 2020, a United Nations-led process saw elections scheduled for December 24 last year, but the polls were postponed after months of tensions, including over divisive candidates and a disputed legal framework.

Libyans "want free elections that respect their will, not the extension of the crisis with a new transition", Dbeibah told a symposium in the capital Tripoli titled: "The constitution first".

"Our problem today is the absence of a constitutional base or of a constitution," he said.

The event brought together high-profile figures from Libya's west including Khaled el-Mechri, who heads the High Council of State -- a Tripoli-based body that is equivalent to Libya's senate and rivals the House of Representatives, based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

"Certain parties have worsened the crisis" with "tailor-made" laws favouring certain candidates over others, Dbeibah charged, referring to House speaker Aguila Saleh's September decision to ratify a contentious electoral law.

Critics said the move bypassed due process and favoured a bid by Saleh's ally, eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Dbeibah, Saleh and Haftar all put their names forward for the presidential vote.

An official from the elected commission in charge of drafting a new constitution, Daou al-Mansouri, told Sunday's symposium that the body had in July 2017 submitted a draft constitution to the House.

The draft was supposed to be put to a referendum, which has never been organised.

Saleh on Tuesday proposed establishing a new commission of Libyan and foreign experts to draw up a new draft constitution.

He also called for a new interim government to be established, and said that by the end of January, a "definitive" date for the postponed polls needed to be set.
The Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly will on Monday inaugurate an 11-member committee to manage all donations for the Appiatse explosion victims.

The committee would ensure the disbursement of relief items and strategize on how the displaced would be catered for throughout the year.

Dr Isaac Dasamani, MCE who made this known in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Sunday said the committee would include; members of the clergy, five community members including; two females, the MCE and members of the security Agencies.

Dr Dasamani noted that a lot of donations had been received from the government, corporate institutions especially from the mining companies as well as other private individuals, which ought to be managed for the benefit of the victims.

He said plans were also underway to enroll students affected by the disaster in schools of neighbouring communities as the Assembly in collaboration with the Education Directorate was arranging a shuttle service to convey the students to the schools.

On Thursday January 20, a truck carrying mining explosives exploded in the Appiatse after colliding with a tricycle.

The explosion spread quickly to the whole community, leaving many deaths and injured.

Dozens of residents have been displaced as a result.

Giving an update of the issue, the MCE said 246 cases had been reported with four of the injured in critical conditions.

He also mentioned that the Assembly was making arrangements to house the displaced.

"The Regional Minister is bringing me 20 tents, Goldfields has brought about 15 that can accommodate 150 people, Red cross has also brought some that can host about 120 people", he said.

"If we are able to create that environment for them, then we can start disbursing some of the food items because then they can cook and do other things in the environment", he added.

Dr Dasamani lauded the response from the Government, corporate institutions and individuals towards the people of Appiatse.

GNA
24.01.2022 LISTEN

Five suspected armed robbers have been busted at Buipe in the Savannah Region following a robbery in Tamale.

The robbery suspects, according to a statement from the Ghana Police Service social media platform, snatched a Toyota Camry salon car from its owner at a residential area in Tamale and bolted.

However, the Police pursued them and succeeded in arresting them at Buipe.

A search on them led to the retrieval of a G3 Riffle and a pistol.

More soon
Shots were heard late Sunday near the home of Burkina Faso's president after soldiers staged mutinies at several barracks to demand the sacking of the country's military top brass and more resources for the battle against Islamist insurgents.

Residents also reported they saw a helicopter above the private residence of President Roch Marc Kabore in the capital Ouagadougou.

It followed gunfire earlier Sunday at several army bases, prompting fears of yet another coup in a volatile West African country prone to military takeovers.

Meanwhile, demonstrators protesting over the government's handling of the jihadist threat set fire to the headquarters of the ruling party.

Protesters set up barricades which they set on fire in the capital Ouagadougou. By OLYMPIA DE MAISMONT AFP

But the government quickly denied rumours of a putsch, and a list of demands presented by the rebellious troops made no mention of trying to oust Kabore, while emphasising the need for a better anti-jihadist strategy.

"We want adequate resources for the battle" against Islamist extremists, a soldier from the Sangoule Lamizana base in Ouagadougou said in a voice recording received by AFP.

The disaffected soldiers also wanted top generals to be "replaced", better care for wounded troops and more support for the families of soldiers killed in battle, the spokesman for the mutinous troops added in the anonymous recording.

The authorities declared an overnight curfew from 8:00 pm (2000 GMT) Sunday "until further notice" and the education ministry said schools would be closed Monday and Tuesday across the poor landlocked country.

The unrest comes a little over a week after 12 people, including a senior army officer, were arrested on suspicion of planning to "destabilise" Burkina's institutions.

It also comes a day after police used tear gas to disperse banned rallies, arresting dozens.

'Localised, limited' incidents

Residents in the Gounghin district, where the Sangoule Lamizana base is situated, reported seeing soldiers firing in the air and sealing off the area around the barracks.

Shots were also heard at the Baby Sy barracks in the south of the capital, as well as at an air base near the airport, which was also surrounded by soldiers wearing balaclavas, witnesses said.

There was also gunfire at bases in the northern towns of Kaya and Ouahigouya, residents there told AFP, and mobile internet services were cut.

The government moved quickly to try to restore control.

Map of Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso. By Jonathan WALTER AFP

"Information on social media would have people believe there was an army takeover," government spokesman Alkassoum Maiga said in a statement.

"The government, while acknowledging that there was gunfire in some barracks, denies this information and calls on the public to remain calm."

Defence Minister General Barthelemy Simpore said on nationwide TV that "none of the republic's institutions has been troubled" by the revolt.

He added that there were "localised, limited" incidents "in a few barracks", and that he was investigating.

Police fired tear gas to break up a rally by around 100 people who gathered at a square in central Ouagadougou to show support for the mutiny, an AFP correspondent reported.

History of coups

Sangoule Lamizana camp houses a military prison where General Gilbert Diendere -- a former right-hand man to deposed president Blaise Compaore -- is serving a 20-year term for an attempted coup in 2015.

He is also on trial for his alleged part in the 1987 assassination of the country's revolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara, during a putsch that brought Compaore to power.

Compaore, overthrown by a popular uprising in 2014, fled to Ivory Coast, and is being tried in absentia for the assassination.

Anger at jihadist toll

The latest turbulence coincides with a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighbouring Mali in 2015, overwhelming Burkina's poorly trained and badly equipped armed forces.

Around 2,000 people have died, according to an AFP tally, while around 1.5 million people are internally displaced, according to the national emergency agency CONASUR.

Anger at Kabore's failure to stem the bloodshed has risen, spilling over into clashes with the security forces.

On November 27, dozens were injured when hundreds turned out to protest.

Among the soldiers arrested this month over the plot to "destabilise institutions" was Lieutenant-Colonel Emmanuel Zoungrana, who had been commanding anti-jihadist operations in the former French colony's badly hit western region.

In a statement, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it was very concerned at the situation and expressed its solidarity with Kabore, the government and its people.
The Minerals Commission has explained that the closure of Maxam Company Limited at Tarkwa is to tackle the source of the problem that led to the tragic explosion at Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Western Region.

The Commission shut down the company on Saturday in compliance with a directive by the Lands and Natural Resources Ministry.

Its Western Regional Manager, Isaac Mwinbelle, gave the explanation in Takwa after shutting down Maxam.

The explosion didnt happen here. But we have to close down this site because this is the source of the material. This is where the explosives were manufactured and transported to the various site. So once it starts from here, we must get to the source, just not stopping it on the highway. This is the reason why we are shutting the company down so that we can complete all investigations into the matter as part of the Minerals and Mining regulations, where we think that, there is further harm, that could be caused as a result of operating any site.

The explosion occurred after a motorcycle went under a truck carrying explosives owned by Maxam Limited.

The explosives were being transported to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross (K.TO).

Speaking after handing over the shutdown documents to the companys Plant Manager, Emerald Takyi, the Western Regional Manager of the Commission, Isaac Mwinbellen said Maxam Limited, cannot be blamed for any wrongdoing until investigations into the incident are completed.

We have not completed investigations, and we cannot say that Maxam has gone wrong in any of this. We are still going through investigations. Remember that the Police are also doing their investigations on the spot.

Till we put all these pieces together and look at the requirements, then we will be able to tell who is culpable and who is not. But at this stage, we cannot tell who is culpable or not. We are still in the process of investigations. Until investigations are completed, we cannot say someone is culpable or not.

To forestall a secondary explosion, the government has deployed a joint team of police and military explosion experts to examine the situation and put in place the requisite measures.

---citinewsroom
Hundreds of militiamen who heeded government calls to lay down their weapons in war-torn eastern DR Congo have become so disillusioned with life in their sordid cantonments, they are returning to the bush.

"Having given up guns for peace, we had expected to be well treated," says Tumaini Bivundi, who fought with the Hutu militia Nyatura.

Scores of armed groups have long roamed the mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a legacy of regional conflicts that flared a quarter century ago.

Today 26-year-old Bivundi is the leader of the 600-odd former rebels known as the "surrendered" at camp Mubambiro.

The small huts that make up the camp also house 200 dependents at the site 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Nord Kivu provincial capital Goma.

Those who surrendered have been promised three meals a day. By Guerchom NDEBO AFP

At the start of the month, the ex-militiamen demonstrated against the harsh living conditions at Mubambiro.

The army dispersed the protesters and one of them, called Faustin, was killed.

He is buried in the cemetery at the back of the camp where at least 13 others have been laid to rest. Most died from water-borne diseases.

"He was my brother," Muhindo Syauswa, also a former militiaman, tells AFP, pointing to the grave marked with a white cross.

Inside the camp, two young wives, are combing their hair under the pale sunlight outside their cabin.

Not far off, men have gathered for a game of checkers.

The surrendered militiamen have demonstrated against the terrible conditions at Mubambiro cantonment camp. By Guerchom NDEBO AFP

"It helps us to forget for a while the life we have here, after the failure of the government to take care of us," says 35-year-old Jimy Mazimpaka, formerly a "mai-mai" community militiaman.

Kavira Furaha Anourite was also in the mai-mai and at the age of 18 has a six-month-old baby with another ex-combatant.

"We don't even have mattresses, we sleep on the sand without any covers," she says. "When it rains it's terrible."

"We are suffering"

The only meal of the day arrives late in the afternoon and consists of beans cooked with maize flour to make a sort of dough called "foufou".

"This is what we have been eating for three years," says Bahati Safari, aged 28.

There are no plates, some use plastic bottles with their tops cut off.

The women are not allowed to eat the official food and have to make do themselves.

"We are suffering, it's high time this was over," one of the women sighs.

Under a military tent, four men are sharing a single cigarette.

Innocent Sibomana is stretched out close by on a makeshift bed.

"I've been sick for three days but I don't have any medicine," he says.

The sole meal of the day arrives late in the afternoon. By Guerchom NDEBO AFP

Cases of cholera have been reported occasionally at the camp, which has just one latrine, with a ground sheet for walls.

Jacques Katembo , who runs the government's militia demobilisation and reinsertion programme in North-Kivu, recently admitted that because of the conditions, more than half the militiamen men who surrendered and joined the camp had since "gone back to the bush".

Several official attempts to demobilise the militias over the years have had only limited success.

North Kivu and neighbouring Ituri province have been under an official "state of siege" since May, in a bid to step up a military offensive against the rebels.

No more war

President Felix Tshisekedi's government launched a new initiative last year dubbed"P-DDRCS" (programme for disarmament, demobilisation, community uplift and stabilisation), but questions about funding remain unanswered.

Women dependents in the camp have to make do. By Guerchom NDEBO AFP

Programme coordinator Tommy Tambwe visited Mubambiro on January 14, and promised a team would be sent within two weeks to carry out identity checks.

Some of the surrendered say they want to enrol in the army, others just want to go back home.

They are waiting for a document attesting to their demobilisation and a small sum of money to help their return home.

Fulgens Ushindi, a Hutu, has had enough of war.

"I've been in several wars, I can't do it any more. I want to go back to my family," he says.

"I have received your requests and I can assure you that you will start eating three meals a day," says Tambwe, also once a militiaman.

David Musema, another ex-rebel, has his doubts.

"We are used to hearing their promises, the president promised the same thing but nothing was done," he notes.

Despite the situation, more militiamen have arrived at Mubambiro in recent days looking to be demobilised.

Roll call at the camp. By Guerchom NDEBO AFP

"If we get a good reception, we will call the others who stayed behind in the bush," says self-styled colonel Claude Amani.

Another camp, similar to Mubambiro, operates at Rumangabo, 30 kilometres further away from Goma.
24.01.2022 LISTEN

The Ghana Police Service has confirmed the arrest of five robbery suspects at Buipe in the Savannah Region.

The five have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the snatching of a Toyota Camry Salon car from its owner in a residential area in Tamale.

Following a complaint from the owner, the Police through investigations have managed to arrest the five suspects.

Five suspected armed robbers have been arrested at Buipe in the Savannah Region following a robbery in Tamale. The five robbery suspects snatched a Toyota Camry salon car from its owner at a residential area in Tamale and bolted.

However, the Police pursued them and succeeded in arresting them at Buipe, a statement issued by the Ghana Police Service via its Facebook page on Sunday, January 23, 2022, said.

The Police further reveal that following a search on the four suspects, it managed to retrieve a G3 Riffle and a pistol.

The Northern Regional Police Command are currently in charge of the case and will in due course provide more details of the arrest of the four suspected car robbers.
Against a background of rising fears of a Russian invasion of former soviet satellite Ukraine, Western officials will meet Monday in a bid to coordinate their response and compile a battery of sanctions against Moscow.

The United States has ordered the families of its diplomats to leave Ukraine.

The move comes as comes as EU foreign ministers will on Monday seek to align their response with the US when Washington's top diplomat Antony Blinken joins a meeting of his EU counterparts by videolink.

Blinken will brief them on his talks last Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, where the two sides agreed to keep working to ease tensions but failed to secure a breakthrough to calm the escalating crisis.

The West accuses Moscow of threatening a further incursion into its pro-Western neighbour by massing over 100,000 troops on its border. The Kremlin insists its forces are not there to invade.

As tensions increased, Washington on Sunday authorised the "voluntary" departure of non-essential embassy staff and urged its citizens in Ukraine to "consider departing now" ahead of any possible Russian military action.

US leading diplomatic push against Putin

The United States has led a diplomatic push to dissuade Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine. Washington has also attempted to marshall its allies to prepare severe economic punishment for Moscow if Putin does act.

Blinken has promised to provide a written response this week to Moscow after Russia laid down a series of security demands that would stop Ukraine joining the Nato military alliance and roll back Washington's influence in eastern Europe.

EU foreign ministers gathering in Brussels will look to sound out the United States over its plans as Europe frets it has been left on the sidelines of discussions about its own security arrangements.

Washington and Europe have threatened Moscow with "massive consequences" if it sends in its forces -- but getting consensus for hard-hitting measures among the bloc's 27 nations is a complex task.

EU officials have been consulting with member states in a bid to draw up a raft of sanctions in case Putin invades.

Meanwhile, Washington issued a travel advisory warning Americans to avoid all travel to Russia due to the situation "along the border with Ukraine," warning they could face "harassment".

Britain's foreign ministry said Monday it was withdrawing some staff and their relatives from its embassy in Ukraine in response to the "growing threat from Russia".
The Chief Executive Officer of Engineers & Planners, Ibrahim Mahama has sent 5,000 bags of rice, 5,000 tins of Mackerel and 1,000 gallons of oil to residents of Appiaste near Bogoso in the Western Region.

The items were sent to Appiatse on Sunday, 23 January 2022.

The town was ravaged on Thursday, 20 January 2022 by the huge explosion.

The explosion occurred when a truck conveying explosives was involved in an accident with a motorcycle and a third vehicle close to an electronic transformer.

Seventeen people have so far been confirmed dead in the huge explosion.

Fifty-nine others were also injured out of the 76 rescued so far.

A statement issued by Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, following the tragedy, said: As of 17:00 hours, a total of seventeen (17) people have, sadly, been confirmed dead, and fifty-nine (59) injured persons had been rescued, bringing to seventy-six (76), the number of persons known, so far, to have been affected by the tragedy.

Out of the fifty-nine (59) injured persons, forty-two (42) are receiving treatment and some in critical condition.

It added: All hospitals within the vicinity are being used to treat injured persons, and an evacuation plan has been activated to move those in critical condition to medical facilities in Accra so they can get the needed assistance.

During a visit to some of the victims receiving treatment at the Aseda Health Centre in Bogoso, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said the government will foot the medical bills of all the injured.

---Classfmonline.com
24.01.2022 LISTEN

A Police woman has sadly died in Bawku after she was shot by unknown assailants on Saturday, January 22, 2022.

Over the weekend, a shooting incident occurred in the conflict-prone zone in the Upper East Region with reports indicating that four persons including a Burkinabe woman lost their lives.

According to the Ghana Police Service, a Police woman, Constable Regina Angenu has also been killed by unknown assailants.

A release from the security agency explain that the deceased officer on Saturday, January 22 around 5:05pm paid a visit to Constable Erasmus Enkson at the Bawku Division of the Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service.

On their way to Const. Enksons barracks, they were attacked by unknown assailants and the police woman was shot in the groin.

Constable Regina Angenu was subsequently rushed to the Presbyterian Mission Hospital for treatment but unfortunately she could not survive.

The body of the deceased has been sent to the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital for preservation and autopsy.

Meanwhile, the Upper East Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has placed a ban on motor riding in Bawku and its immediate environs following the shooting incident over the weekend.

Security has also been beefed up to ensure residents are protected.
The Peoples National Convention (PNC) has said it is awfully saddened by the heart-wrenching disaster that has claimed at least 13 lives and injured scores of people at the community of Appiatse, near Bogosu in the Western Region.

The PNC said it is equally disturbing that the community has been razed as a result of the heavy explosion.

As a Party, our hearts go to the bereaved families and the scores of people who are injured and under-going medical treatments. We also commend government, security agencies, private and voluntary organizations and individuals for their endless show of support and statesmanship to alleviate the pain of our compatriots, the PNC said in a statement signed by its General Secretary Janet Nabla.

Given the depth of the accident and the degree of destruction, the Party stated that it is adding its voice to calls for dispassionate investigations into the incident to unravel the actual cause and extent of damage.

This, the PNC said, should be the main fulcrum to herald implementation of medium to long-term intervention to revive the fortunes of the community.

Governments interventions should focus on re-organising the communitys architectural makeup and create monuments to remind us of the need to keep watch over activities that can easily tip-down our collective existence. As a developing country, we need to continuously examine our safety protocols to bring them up to speed with international best practices. One life lost to a safety breach is one too many but sadly, this is more of the norm than the exception, the statement said.

The PNC noted that the country has grave issues around its safety culture that require urgent attention.

One particular area worth singling-out according to the PNC is the poor safety environment suffered by women in palm-kennel oil production.

According to the party, their exposure to fume and pathogens as a result of poor working environment is worrying adding that there are also countless number of Ghanaians dying or suffering severe injuries on their lines of work as a result of breaches to simple safety protocols.

The PNC is calling on the state to fashion-out a comprehensive safety policy to consolidate our progressive gains on our developmental efforts.

The party further recommended to the government to comprehensively ensure the implementation of existing laws on health and safety of the citizenry and where necessary overhaul the laws as a tribute to the lost souls at Appiatse.

The PNC described as sad that there are countless number of residential facilities including educational facilities, correctional facilities, private houses and markets without the minimum fire and disaster detection systems to initiate early warning signals to save lives and property.

The Party has pledged to support the government to improve upon the countrys safety culture.

---Classfmonline.com
A Security Analyst, Adam Bonaa has said the Director General, Public Affairs Directorate of the Police Service, ACP Kwasi Ofori, rushed in speaking to the media on the explosion at Appiatse near Bogoso in the Western Region on Thursday January 20.

Dr Bonaa said on the Sunrise show on 3FM Monday January 5 with host Alfred Ocansey that the Police jumped ahead of themselves.

The police jumped ahead of themselves and even declared the place a crime scene that has not even been cordoned off. This is the same place we allowed the Vice President to go, it could have been disastrous, he said.

-3news.com
24.01.2022 LISTEN

The Minority in Parliament has described as laughable claims by the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu that the controversial E-levy has been approved at the committee level and the motion for appropriation has begun.

At a capacity-building workshop organized for the Majority Caucus in Parliament and some Ministers of State on Saturday, 22 January 2022, Mr. Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said it is a difficulty for me when people are kicking against the E-levy when you know that in the adoption of the motion to approve the budget, we approved of that.

So, it means that the first step has already been surmounted.

Then the E-levy has been factored into the various estimates that we have approved for all the sectors, he explained.

But Mr. Richard Acheampong, the National Democratic Congress (NDCs) Member of Parliament (MP) for Bia East Constituency in the newly created Western-North Region has rejected Mr. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsus claim.

Speaking on the Ghana Yensom morning show hosted by Kwame Obeng Sarkodie on Accra 100.5FM on Monday, 24 January 2022, he said if you are a politician, you must be consistent in all your actions at all times, adding that if the Majority Leader is asserting that E-levy has been passed, they should go ahead and implement the policy.

Nothing has been approved in relation to the E-levy, the NDC MP stated.

According to the lawmaker, the majority leader is a very confused person who must not be taken seriously.

Mr. Acheampong explained, What happened at the committee level of Parliament was not approval per the standing orders of the house because technically the E-levy was rejected at the committee level.

At the committee level, the E-levy was approved by a majority vote and not by unanimous decision, he revealed.

What transpired at the committee level, was that members took the decision to vote and there was a tie. The Chairman of the Committee had a casting vote so he voted for the numbers to be 13 for the Majority and 12 for the Minority

He added that there was no unanimous decision arrived at the committee level.

He said in principle, the budget may have been passed but as part of the tax law, there must be a tax bill laid before Parliament so the E-levy has not been laid on the floor.

He advised that the E-levy can be approved if the Majority in Parliament eat humble pie by withdrawing the old E-levy and revising it and relay it before Parliament.

---Classfmonline
A 23-year-old graphic designer, Garcia Tray Jackson, has been jailed nine years by a Koforidua Circuit Court A, presided by the judge, Kwame Polley.

The convict was sentenced for defrauding a businessman to the tune of GHC12,800 in an attempt to sell a rented vehicle to him.

The Prosecutor, Chief Inspector Bernard Annor who presented the facts to the court said that on July 24, 2021, at about 7:30 am the convict Garcia Tray Jackson rented a 2019 model of Toyota Corolla vehicle with registration number GN 5690-21 from SUVAD Transport and Tour Limited located at Spintex Road in Accra at the cost of GHC400 for a day.

According to the Prosecutor, on July 29, 2021, the convict went for the vehicle for a return journey to Koforidua.

He continues that the same day, at about 7pm, the convict met the complainant John Agyemang Lambert, 42, who trades in SUVs and resides in Koforidua Effiduase.

The Prosecutor added that they met at a spot near Thomas Hotel in Effiduase but the convict requested the complainant to help him locate the house of his girlfriend but in the process told him the car he was driving was up for sale at the quoted price of GHC45,000 but because the complainant said he was in a hurry they exchanged contacts.

The next day, at 7:30 am the convict called the complainant on phone to request GHC20,000 to urgently sort out an emergency situation, therefore, suggesting they meet to conclude on the final price of the vehicle he offered for sale.

They agreed on GH35,000 as the final price. The convict took the complainant to the DVLA office to make verification of port duties and other documents but the complainant insisted without the documents covering the vehicle he will not proceed on that tangent.

The convict then asked the complainant to make part payment for him to leave the vehicle to him and go for the documents in his house in Tema Community 21.

The complainant John Agyemang Lambert paid $2,000 which was equivalent to about Gh12,000 as part payment to the convict. He delegated his sibling Emmanuel Awuah to accompany the convict to his house in Tema Community 21.

Upon reaching Accra, the convict asked Awuah to let them pass through Circle to purchase iPhone 12 pro-Max valued at Gh6,800.

The convict managed to secure Gh800 from Awuah under the pretense of adding to his money to purchase the phone but he disappeared.

Garcia Tray Jackson went into hiding until December 19, 2021, when he disguised himself and attempted to rent another vehicle from the same rental company at Spintex road for a similar modus operandi when he was arrested.

He was brought to Effiduase Police station where a formal complaint was made by the complainant.

After investigation, he was charged with defrauding by pretense contrary to section 131 of the criminal offenses Act,1960 (Act 29).

He pleaded guilty hence convicted on his plea.

The vehicle has been impounded by Effiduase Police awaiting the rental company to provide the necessary documents before it is released.

---DGN online
Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has said boarding schools remain an important part of Ghanas Senior High School education system.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Dr. Adutwum argued that the boarding school system is serving its intended purpose.

Some critics feel the boarding school system has outlived its usefulness and has also compounded the financial burden of the government which has been worsened by the implementation of the Free Senior High School system.

The Free SHS Policy has led to constraints with the current boarding school system, forcing the government to adopt a double-track system .

Due to poor planning, the Minister said some students would still need boarding schools for more convenient secondary education.

You may think there are so many senior high schools, but you will go to communities where the nearest high school is 30 miles away, he said on the Citi Breakfast Show.

We have not placed senior high schools in locations that are in proximity to communities as compared to other countries, Dr. Adutwum added.

He further argued boarding schools were also key to addressing inequality.

For some students, it would amaze you to know that if they stay in their homes, they don't even have a place to study.

He also said that assessing the relevance of boarding schools should be demand-driven.

Since people have a choice, you make the day schools quality second to none so that someone will say I would rather have my child go to day school.

Greater Accra is so innovative. Aquinas and all these schools are day schools and Aquinas is an excellent school, he noted as an example.

---citinewsroom
The Center for Social Impact Studies (CeSIS) has sent its condolences to families of the deceased in the deadly explosion that occurred at Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality of the Western Region last Thursday.

We commiserate with families of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery, it said in a press release on Sunday, January 23.

CeSIS commended the government's national emergency response mechanism since the incident occurred with personnel from the Ghana Armed Forces, Ghana Police Service, Ghana National Fire Service , National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) among others coordinating efforts to ensure that normalcy is restored to the community.

While investigations are still on-going to unravel the circumstances that led to this tragic incidence, it is becoming obvious that there were some regulatory failures and negligence on the part of the regulatory agencies, it noted in the release signed by Executive Director Robert Ali Tanti.

It recalled the Interior Ministers concerns over the poor safety record of Maxam Explosive Company Limited after a tour of the company in 2017 and subsequent issuance of an 8-week ultimatum to management to fix the issues or lose its permit to manufacture explosives.

The public was not given any feedback after the expiration of the 8-week ultimatum.

We have every cause to believe that if the Inspectorate Division of the Minerals Commission had been up to their task this unfortunate incidence would have been averted.

Already, the license of Maxam has been suspended and the Chief Inspector of Mines has been interdicted.

CeSIS wants other groups and individuals to be held liable as well.

We also believe that mining companies that patronise the services of these service companies do have a responsibility to ensure that these companies adhere strictly to the relevant regulations, in this case, the Minerals and Mining (Explosives) Regulations, 2012, LI 2177. To this end we cannot totally absolve Chirano Gold Mines of any blame.

As a research and advocacy organization in the extractive sector, CeSIS adds its voice to calls for a full-scale independent investigation into the incident with severe punitive sanctions against individuals and institutions found culpable.

While the investigations are on-going, we urge government to work together with the mining companies in the enclave to provide immediate relief to the people, and efforts made to rebuild the community.

We call on state regulatory bodies in the extractive sector to be more proactive in dispensing their duties without fear or favour to forestall a future occurrence of this unfortunate incidence with its attendant casualties.

-3news.com
24.01.2022 LISTEN

The Police in collaboration with the National Investigation Bureau (NIB), yesterday, Sunday, January 23, arrested suspect Farouk Dauda alias Omondi, age 31, who was part of the rioters of the Mamobi-Nima clash.

Dauda was arrested at his hideout in a suburb of Accra based on intelligence, after having been into hiding after the incident which occurred on January 18, 2022.

During interrogation, the Police said he admitted his involvement in the said clash where he was captured in a video footage wielding a machete.

A search conducted on him led to the retrieval of a wrapped substance suspected to be Indian hemp.

He is currently in Police custody assisting with investigations.

Meanwhile, the Police said efforts are being made to arrest all other persons involved in the violent incident.

---Classfmonline.com
24.01.2022 LISTEN

A 41-year-old man has been electrocuted at Hwibaa near Wioso in the Ahafo Ano South West District of the Ashanti Region.

He was loading bags of cocoa beans onto a truck when the incident happened.

Identified as Asiedu Christian, he was reportedly killed instantly after coming into contact with a naked electric wire on Sunday, January 23, 2022.

The deceased according to eye witness was loading bags of cocoa beans onto a long vehicle when he came into contact with the wire which was close to the truck.

An eyewitness who spoke to this reporter disclosed that the deceased after loading heaps of cocoa beans on the truck went on top of the beans to arrange it well.

"The vehicle was right under the electrical cable when they began loading the beans to a point it got closer to the electrical cable.

"We saw him climbing which was few meters away from the electrical cable to ostensibly arrange the beans well.

"The deceased sadly came into direct contact with the wire when he tried to stand up on top of the beans leading to his instant death," he stated.

The deceased was however rushed to Wioso government hospital where he was confirmed dead.
Former National Treasurer for the Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG) Adam Abdul-Fatawu Wunizoya has declared intentions to contest the position of Deputy Communication Director for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) party in the Sagnerigu Constituency.

Fliers and postures seen on both social media and Whatsapp, Mr. Abdul- Fatawu Wunizoya known popularly as the 'Northern Governor' officially announced his interest in the Deputy Communication position, and called for support in the contest.

"After assessing my contribution to the party success at the constituency through the regional to the National, I wish to officially announce my intentions to contest the Deputy Constituency Communication position of our great National Democratic Congress(NDC) party for Sagnerigu," he stated.

The Sagnerigu constituency is among the few constituencies often described as "safe seats" for the opposition NDC in the Northern region.

However, Mr. Abdul- Fatawu Wunizoya indicated that party communication in terms of achievement of the party, against that of the weaknesses of the NPP government over the years has been poor.

To salvage the situation therefore, Mr. Abdul-Fatawu Wunizoya said he decided to contest the Deputy Comms Director position of the party in the constituency to assist anyone who will be elected as constituency communication director.

Though the party is yet to give official communication regarding the date for the branch and that of the constituency internal elections, many party supporters have already shown interest in positions at the branch level to the National level.

Few days after his declaration, several people have already thrown their weight behind him, calling on the constituents to support him.

About Adam Abdul-Fatawu Wunizoya

Mr. Adam Abdul-Fatawu Wunizoya (Northern Governor) is a 30-year-old young man from Kpene, a well-known community in the constituency.

Mr. Abdul-Fatawu had his early education at the Kpene L/A primary school, the Nyerizee Presbyterian Primary School and the Bagabaga Primary School, all in the constituency.

He also attended the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) primary and Junior High School where he had his BECE.

In 2009, he had admission to the Tamale Senior High School (TAMASCO) where he completed and obtained his WASSCE/SSCE in 2013.

In September same year, the 'Northern Governor' as he is passionately called, went to the Divine Media College(DMC) where he obtained a Diploma in Journalism and Public Relations in 2015.

Currently, he is a final year student at the Tamale College of Education (TACE) where is studying a Bachelor's Degree in Education(B. Ed) in English and Ghanaian Language (Dagbani).

Leadership Positions

Some leadership positions occupied by Mr. Adam Abdul-Fatawu Wunizoya include National Treasurer for the Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana(TTAG), SRC General Secretary for the Tamale College of Education(TACE), Chief Advisor for the Tertiary Education Institution Network of the National Democratic Congress (TEIN) at the Tamale College of Education, President for the Young Democrats, an NDC youth group in the Sagnerigu Constituency.

He is also the current Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Ambassadors of NDC, a dedicated youth group of NDC in the Northern Region.

Furthermore, he is the Public Relations Officer for the Kpene Youth Club, a youth organization in Kpene, his hometown.

Again, the "Northern Governor" is an executive of the Dagbon Students Association(DASA) at the Tamale College of Education.

He is also the Education Committee Chairman for the Sagnerigu Youth Parliament, a youth-led organization in the Sagnerigu Municipality.
Burundi is yet to conduct a credible and transparent investigation into a prison fire over a month ago that may have killed or injured hundreds of inmates, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

The rights watchdog accused government authorities of failing to conduct a proper inquiry into the December 7 inferno at Gitega Central Prison that officials said claimed 38 lives and injured 69 others.

"More than a month after the tragedy at Gitega prison, the government has failed to give a full and truthful accounting of what happened and to treat family members of the deceased with dignity," Lewis Mudge, central Africa director at HRW, said in a statement.

"The absence of information about the real number and identities of the victims only adds further pain and distress in the wake of unimaginable loss."

HRW said the authorities must examine the cause of the blaze that ripped through the rundown and overcrowded prison and ask why inmates were not evacuated or properly accounted for after the disaster.

"They should communicate findings transparently -- including the names of the dead and the injured -- and fairly prosecute anyone who may be held responsible, if necessary," it said, adding that compensation and other support should be provided to victims' families.

'Too late'

Many prisoners were still asleep when the massive blaze erupted before dawn.

Vice President Prosper Bazombanza, who visited the scene of the tragedy with several ministers, told reporters that 38 people were killed and 69 seriously hurt.

But HRW, which interviewed survivors and others who have visited the prison since the blaze, estimated "several hundred prisoners may have died or been injured" in the inferno.

Much of the nearly century-old facility in Burundi's political capital Gitega was destroyed in the fire, which broke out around 4am and spread to crowded blocks holding hundreds of inmates.

One prisoner told HRW that many in his block survived but elsewhere "they didn't wake up in time and many died".

"The guards came at 6am, but by then it was too late," the inmate said.

Burundi's interior ministry said at the time that the disaster was caused by an electrical short-circuit.

The same explanation was given for another, less serious fire at the prison in August.

The facility, the third largest in Burundi, housed a number of political prisoners in a high-security compound.

In all, it was home to more than 1,500 inmates at the end of November, according to prison authority figures, far higher than its designed capacity of 400.

Chronic overcrowding is a problem in prisons in Burundi, one of the poorest nations in the world, and inmates often complain about their cramped living conditions and lack of food.
The French army is sending 10 tonnes of humanitarian cargo from New Caledonia to the Tonga Islands, struggling to recover from a powerful volcanic eruption on 15 January, followed by a tsunami.

At the request of Tonga under the FRANZ (France-Australia-New Zealand) cooperation agreement, France will launch the patrol boat La Glorieuse, based in New Caledonia to deliver aid.

Emergency aid from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS), which is managed by the New Caledonian Red Cross will be sent by boat, due to arrive in Nuku'Alofa, the Tongan capital, on Thursday.

On board, some 156 hygiene kits, 100 tents, 50 shelter kits, solar lamps, masks and 2.5 tonnes of drinking water, donated by the New Caledonian government.

"Other missions, this time by plane, are planned in the coming days," said the senior commander of the New Caledonian Armed Forces (FANC), General Valery Putz.

A Falcon Guardian maritime surveillance aircraft will also make a reconnaissance flight over the islands of the archipelago on Tuesday.

"Freight will be transported by cargo plane and "the FANC Guardian will carry out, again at the request of Tonga, a reconnaissance flight over the archipelago, as the situation on all 175 islands is not yet known", he added.

There are no plans to send troops at this stage, as the Kingdom of Tonga is free of Covid and access to the territory is very limited.

Humanitarian aid, including water, flown in by Australian, New Zealand and Japanese military aircraft began arriving in Tonga last week after the archipelago's main airstrip was finally cleared of the thick layer of volcanic ash.

The 15 January eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai caused a tsunami that affected more than 80 percent of the archipelago's estimated 100,000 inhabitants, according to the United Nations.
Police in Ahafo Region are investigating the mysterious death of a 54-year-old farm labourer, whose body was found on a farm at Aboabo, near Yamfo in the Tano North Municipality of the region.

The body of Dominic Adewuah has since been deposited at the Sunyani Regional Hospital for preservation and autopsy.

According to a Police situational report, the incident happened on January 17, around 1050 hours, and the body was found lying in a supine position, with blood clots around the nose.

Mercy Asieduwaa, a 35-year-old farmer, had earlier informed the Police she visited the cottage and discovered the body of her labourer, the deceased on the farm.

No marks of violence were, however, found on the body which was clad in a blue 'T-shirt, over brown trousers, a multi-coloured socks with a pair of brown shoes, and a polythene bag containing some personal belongings.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) David Eklu, the Deputy Ahafo Regional Police Commander who confirmed the story to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Monday, said the Yamfo Police are investigating the incident.

GNA
In this edition some of the topical aviation industry stories between 17th and 22nd January 2022 which are of relevance to Ghanas aviation space are summarized as follows:

Ghana Relaxes Mandatory Vaccination Requirement for Arriving Ghanaians and Resident Foreigners

An updated COVID-19 protocol for arriving Ghanaians and other foreigners resident in Ghana now provides an alternative for unvaccinated or partial vaccinated travellers. Per the changes, travellers will have to take the jab on arrival or undergo a mandatory 7 days quarantine at travellers own cost.

RwandAir Resumes Dubai Passenger Operations

RwandAir has resumed passenger operations to Dubai as of 20th January 2022. However, passengers from selected destinations in its route network which includes Accra, Ghana will be allowed to book flights via its hub in Kigali.

Kenya Airways Offers Discounted Anniversary Sales

As part of its 45th-anniversary celebrations, Kenya Airways is offering its customers up to a 45% discount when they purchase tickets between 21st and 23rd January 2022 to any destination it operates. The offer is valid for travel until November 30, 2022.

South African Airways to Resume Durban Operations

South African Airways has announced a resumption of flight operations on the Johannesburg  Durban route with 3x daily operation starting in 4th March 2022. By this, its passengers across its current operational routes can now make a single ticket booking from their destination to Durban.

EgyptAir Operates Eco-friendly Flight

EgyptAir on 22nd January 2022 operated the first eco-friendly passenger service in Africa from Cairo to Paris. The operation saw the airline replacing some of its plastic products with eco-friendly materials to help create awareness about climate change and also its agenda to embrace an eco-friendly operation by 2030.

PassionAir Releases December 2021 Performance Results

PassionAirs operational data for December 2021 has revealed that the airline operated 697 flights over the period. Delayed flights and on-time flights were 60 and 637 respectively.

KLM Announces Possibility of Passengers Purchasing Air and Train Tickets Together to Amsterdam

KLM says its customers travelling to its hub and hoping to stay in Amsterdam can now book their flights in addition to train service to transport them from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station. The train service which will be operated by NS Dutch Railway can be booked on the Car Trawler booking platform.

5G Rollout and Flight Safety Concerns

Over the week major global airlines operating to/from US airports were forced to cancel their flights due to the rollout of the 5G service by leading telecommunication companies in the US. The general concerns about the rollout had to do with the possible threat the rollout poses to the safety of flight operations.

For Qatar Airways, it announced that it will continue to serve all destinations it operates to the US.

Unlike Qatar, Emirates first announced a suspension of operations to US airports and made a U-turn on the decision after the telecommunication players agreed to limit the rollout around the airports.

A350 Dispute between Qatar Airways and Airbus Takes a Twist

The dispute between Qatar Airways and Airbus over safety concerns of the A350 aircraft has been taken to a new level. Qatar which argues that 21 of such aircraft in its fleet have been grounded, has released video evidence to argue its case.

Airbus also has made a move which many consider as retaliation for the lawsuit by Qatar by cancelling the order placed by the airline for the delivery of 50 A321 Neo aircraft

Authored:

Mark Ofosu || Twitter: M__ofosu
Sudanese security forces fired tear gas Monday at crowds calling for civilian rule and demanding justice for the scores killed in crackdowns since a military coup nearly three months ago.

Thousands of protesters in the capital Khartoum chanting slogans against the army headed toward the presidential palace, an area which security forces had sealed off ahead of the march.

Police forces later fired tear gas to disperse the protesters, according to an AFP correspondent.

Protests were also held in cities including Wad Madani, south of the capital, the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, and the eastern state of Gedaref, according to witnesses.

"No, no to military rule," and "civilian (rule) is the people's choice" protesters shouted in Wad Madani, according to witness Emad Mohamed.

Sudan has been rocked by regular protests since the October 25 military power grab led by general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

The coup derailed a civilian-military power-sharing deal, that had been painstakingly negotiated after the 2019 ouster of autocrat Omar al-Bashir, stalling a planned for transition to civilian rule.

Anti-coup demonstrations have left at least 73 people killed and hundreds wounded, according to medics.

Sudan's authorities have repeatedly denied using live ammunition against demonstrators, and insist scores of security personnel have been wounded during protests.

A police general was stabbed to death during the unrest earlier this month.

Mass arrests

Map of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.. By AFP

On Sunday, Sudan's key Umma party vowed "to remove all traces of the coup".

It however warned that the "coup leadership" will "persist with its brutality and come up with new ways to commit violent massacres and launch mass arrests of revolutionaries."

Hundreds of pro-democracy activists have been arrested in the crackdown on anti-coup activists.

On Saturday, a leading women rights activist Amira Othman was arrested following a raid on her home in Khartoum, according to a statement by the "No to Women's Oppression" initiative which she leads.

UN special representative Volker Perthes slammed Othman's arrest saying the "arrest and pattern of violence against women's rights activists severely risks reducing their political participation."

Other activists from the "resistance committees", informal groups which have been instrumental in organising anti-coup protests, were also arrested late Sunday, according to members who requested anonymity fearing reprisals.

On Friday, Sudanese authorities requested delaying the arrival of UN expert on human rights in Sudan, Adama Dieng, who was appointed in November and had been due to make his first official visit.

Sudanese protesters beat drums and chant slogans in the capital Khartoum, in support of the families of protesters killed since last year's military coup. By - AFP

Last week, senior US diplomats visited Sudan in a bid to bolster UN-led efforts to cajole the military into restoring a transition to full civilian rule.

Perthes earlier this month launched individual talks with various Sudanese factions in a push to resolve the crisis.

The ruling Sovereign Council -- formed by Burhan following the coup with himself as chairman -- has welcomed the UN-led dialogue, as have the United States, Britain, neighbouring Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The Forces for Freedom and Change, Sudan's main civilian bloc, also joined consultations "to restore the democratic transition".
24.01.2022 LISTEN

I used to think that leadership should be the most critical factor in any nation's development, but later reflection has caused me to rethink this thought. From village bye-laws to the constitution, I think that institutional framework is a critical factor paralleling leadership. While good leadership is critical to a nation's development, we know good and bad leaders come and go, but robust, workable, and functional institutions will survive any leader. We know the kind of leadership we have had since the beginning of our Fourth Republic has not served us well. While the international world touts democracy as a significant factor of good governance, they tell us that there is no direct link between democracy and human development in countries where a small elite dominates economic and political decisions, as we see in Ghana.

They write, "For politics and political institutions to promote human development and safeguard the freedom and dignity of all people; democracy must widen and deepen" (UNDP 2002, p. 1)." They add, "The links between democracy and human development are not automatic: when a small elite dominates economic and political decisions, the link between democracy and equity can be broken" (UNDP 2002, p. 3)." In other words, there is no direct relationship between democracy and human development in countries like Ghana, where a small elite dominates economic and political decisions. It, therefore, stands to reason to fix the country because democracy, as it stands now, is not working well for the majority of Ghanaians. The question is, what do we need to fix? Leadership or institution, or both? I want to start with leadership and use as an example one leader who proved how practical, honest, steadfast, and selfless leadership could take a country with only a few resources and turn it into an international business hub. That leader is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore. But before I start talking about Lee Kuan Yew, I will discuss how Plato, the Greek philosopher, and the first political theorist, envisaged a political leader's model character.

What kind of leaders do we need to fix our country? Plato's Republic, a political work concerning the order and character of the just city-state, was the world's most influential philosophy and political theory. Plato did not see a just city or state where rulers are selected based on popular appeal. Instead, it advocates for rulers who will be guardians in the sense of dedicating themselves to what is good for the state instead of for themselves. It is much expedient, according to Plato, to entrust power to carefully educated guardians. He wrote, "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and the political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue their self-interest to the exclusion of others are compelled to stand aside, cities or nations will never have rest from their evils." He referred to those who go into politics to steal as "those commoner natures." One must understand the philosopher-king against the background of philosophy in ancient times: It was concerned mainly with living a morally good life.

The Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, was a perfect example of a philosopher-king. Marcus was a stoic philosopher who wrote about his ideas in "the Meditation." Marcus said, "Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking." Character and smartness are the two most important qualities you need in a president. Recent political science literature refers to these leaders as "Benevolent Dictators." The word "dictator" can be problematic because of its ordinary connotation. However, the word dictator here means leaders who do not allow the Western democracy or legal process to shield evildoers or saboteurs. In recent times, the names that come to mind are Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Paul Kagame of Rwanda.

For example, Yew did not use the so-called western legal system to convict public officers known to have stolen government money. He just used simple mathematics: just a closer look at your income and expenditure. How much is your wealth? How much are you paid? And what is the difference between your income and expenditure? Simple mathematics was enough for him to jail corrupt public servants. He advised public servants who wanted to be rich to go to the private sector.

Yew took a tiny, impoverished nation whose per capita GDP was about $400 a year and grew it to a per capita GDP of about $50,000, well above that of the United States. Describing the state of Singapore after independence in 1965, Devon Zueguel wrote, "Few expected Singapore to survive when it became an independent country in 1965. It was a tiny, impoverished island with a diverse population of recent immigrants. They had little shared history and no natural resources. Singapore had been colonized, occupied, and abused for over a century, and it was surrounded by hostile nations in a region succumbing to pressure by Communist forces." Yew revealed his modus operandi in this statement:

"When I started, the question was how Singapore can make a living against neighbors who have more natural resources, human resources, and bigger space. How did we differentiate ourselves from them? They are not clean systems; we run clean systems. Their rule of law is wonky; we stick to the law. Once we agree or make a decision, we stick to it. We become reliable and credible to investors. World-class infrastructure, world-class supporting staff, all educated in English. Good communications by air, by sea, by cable, by satellite, and now, over the Internet." These are statements from a man with a mission and vision to change the plight of his people and would not let his detractors derail him using a Western legal system designed to protect the powerful.

Ghanaians need leaders that have closely observed the cultural, social, economic, and legal factors that are crippling the country and are willing to put their lives on the line. In other words, such leaders should look at transforming the prevailing system of political, administrative, economic, and bureaucratic management that lay beyond short-termperformance improvements. This transformation will require profound knowledge yet untapped in the present institutions. To couch their dreams or vision for the country, transformational leaders need to foster aspiration, develop reflective dialogues, and understand the complexities of the current institutions. Such leaders must have a clear and stated vision, but that vision must be based on asking the right sets of questions.

After asking the right set of questions about the country, the leaders should do personal/moral diagnostics by asking themselves: What character traits, talents, and skills do we possess to accomplish these tasks? What is important to us as leaders? What are our most cherished values, passions, and motivation? And can we lead with our hearts? What group of people do we need to help us accomplish these tasks? How do we sell our vision to them, so their vision is in sync with ours? They need a fundamental learning unit: a group of people with the same mission who need one another to produce an outcome. Thus there should be core learning capabilities of teams. This group of distributed leaders, including the prominent leader, must have the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening their vision. They need to look at the citizens' and institutions' mental models or mindsets. What deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, and images influence how we see the world as people?

The leaders should have a shared picture of the future they seek to create. It is difficult for any administration to sustain some measure of greatness in the absence of goals, values, and missions deeply shared throughout the administration. Given the entrenched, endemic, and systemic bureaucratic and political corruptions in the country, anyone who intends to transform the country must be a person beyond reproach: he or she does not only have to be a visionary leader, but must be selfless, intelligent, reliable, imaginative, trustworthy, a good communicator, hardworking, insightful, and firm in disciplining his team members.

In a speech at the "Africa Leadership Forum" in Singapore in November 1993, Lee Kuan Yew uttered these words: "Once a political system has been corrupted right from the very top leaders to the lowest rungs of the bureaucracy, the problem is very complicated. The cleansing and disinfecting must start from the top and go downwards thoroughly and systematically. It is a long and laborious process that only a solid group of leaders with the strength and moral authority derived from unquestioned integrity."

In other words, fighting corruption which is the key to any country's economic development, is complicated and has to start from the top to the bottom. It is a long process, time-consuming, frustrating, and risky business, and therefore can only be carried out by a strong group of determined leaders with strength and moral capital derived from unquestioned integrity. Yew's emphasis on "a solid group of leaders" is significant in this transformation business. There has to be a shared, collective and extended leadership practice. The leader needs to have a core group of men and women with impeccable character who have the same vision and are willing to bear the risk of change. These leaders must share the same vision and determination and do the unthinkable and risky things to redeem their society.

The multifaceted problems Ghanaians are facing stem from the apparent decline in the moral sensibility of our national leaders. We as people should have a deep reflection on ethics and politics. We should seek the kind of aura of moral authority that makes leaders so revered: where fundamental goodness and courage to address any moral failure and possession of selfless spirit can prevail over lust for power, glory, greed, division, and obsessive smallness in partisan politics. The "fix the country" people should understand that moral reputation is intrinsically tied to political effectiveness and bureaucratic efficiency. Any man or woman with moral standing or notable dignity and integrity, who proves himself capable and with a high reputation, can move citizens towards trust, respect, allegiance, and loyalty, all of which can be politically tapped to achieve otherwise tricky or impossible things.
24.01.2022 LISTEN

I have been watching and reading with great concern the ongoing back and forth accusatorial narratives of tribal superiority and or, conquest, between the Dormaahene Osagyefo Agyemang Badu II (PhD) and Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II.

Dormaahene posits that the Dormaa people around the 18th Century defeated the inhabitants of Kumasi, consigned them to servitude of hewing trees to serve the firewood needs of the conqueror Dormaa people, using akuma, an Akan language for axe. Hence by Dormaahenes narratives, Kumasi means the abode of the people who wield the axe to split wood for the benefit of the conqueror Dormaa tribe.

However, Asantehene is quick to rebut the distortion of Asante and Dormaa conquest history as narrated live in public under recording camera by Dormaahene Oseagyefo Agyemang Badu II.

I have even placed a publication on the Ghana internet news portal to discount Dormaahenes version of how Kumasi and Kumawu came into being. Kumasi and Kumawu came into existence as a result of the planting of the two Kum trees; one in Kwamang, now Kumasi and the other in Apemso, now Kumawu. Kwamang did not earn its current name Kumasi by the fact the people inhabiting the land had been conquered and reduced to fetching firewood for the Dormaa people who were then living not far from Kwamang.

Whatever transpired in those historic warring days should not be allowed to endanger the peace and harmonious co-existence all the tribes in Ghana are enjoying at the moment. We have moved forward as a nation and a people with a common destiny hence we should not allow for the trivialities of history that will not put bread on the table to cause animosity among us to put us asunder.

Dormaahene is embittered by the fact that at each Asanteman sitting, the Dormaahene is insulted to his face. The Dormaahene and his people are denigrated by the repeated reminding of them of how their chief was beheaded centuries ago with the Dormaa people humiliated when the chief incurred the wrath of then Asantehene.

Nevertheless, the Asantes maintain that the traditional praises they heap on Asantehene when he is in public sitting, have to do with reminding Asantehene how great he is with his Asante Kingdom, now Asanteman. They mention all the great wars and chiefs that the Asante people had executed, defeated and killed. It is not only about that of Dormaa but all the other tribes or then states. Therefore, they see no reason why it is only Dormaahene that has taken offence but not the others.

Be that as it may, should that singing of praises to virtually raise Asantehene to the status of Lord the Saviour, without any practical evidence of its usefulness to the suffering Asante people and their towns and villages, be continued? Is it too difficult for us to consign it to the history books, leave the books to gather dust, only to be revisited to enhance our knowledge but not to repeat them too often in deliberate attempts to insult the once conquered tribes or people?

Is it worth heaping all such praises on a King who presides over a filthy and rodent-infested city that serves as the seat of his monarchy to the detriment of other fellow Ghanaians? Is it worthy of those uttering such praises when they themselves are witnesses to the fact the very current King they are proudly singing his praises, although he personally has no hand in earning the feats that have acquired him the praises, sat nonchalantly when the late Professor Atta Evans Mills NDC government of which he is a member or a sympathiser, introduced the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) capitation in Ashanti region?

The NHIS capitation introduced as a pilot scheme starting in Ashanti region, led to the deaths of many in the region. This is an indisputable fact.

Capitation is a provider payment mechanism in which providers in the payment system are paid, typically in advance, a pre-determined fixed rate to provide a defined set of services for each individual enrolled with the provider for a fixed period of time. The amount paid to the provider is irrespective of whether that person would seek care or not during the designated period.

The money was too little that many healthcare providers were not ready to accept it yet, the government never budged, but allowed what was intended to be a six-month pilot scheme to last for about three years hence many a patient seeking medical care in the region dying.

What is a pilot scheme? It is defined as a small-scale experiment or set of observations undertaken to decide how and whether to launch a full-scale project.

Anyway, let me ask the bloggers, tribalists, sycophants and those who claim to understand much better the Asante or Dormaa history, to do what is needful than to stoke the embers. When the embers get inflamed, it can cause serious damage.

Instead of the bloggers, sycophants and tribalists calling themselves astute historians endeavouring to calm the situation through offer of intelligent advice and suggestions, they are rather taking entrenched positions in support of their camp and fanning the embers.

I am sorry, they will themselves be engulfed by the fire they are knowingly, or unknowingly, helping to create out of their senseless polarization of their ethnic enclaves.

When history glorifying a person or a group of persons has outlived its importance, we had better let it lie low rather than to strive to keep it alive.

Following the racial murder of George Floyd, a black American, in the USA, some actions have been taken both in the United States of America and the United Kingdom to seek to reduce racial tension between the whites and the blacks.

George Floyd had a white police officer kneel on his neck while in handcuffs and put flat on the floor. All his pleas of I cant breathe, I cant breathe were ignored until he gave up the ghost on the scene.

The racial murder of George Floyd sparked worldwide demonstrations of Black Lives Matter.

Subsequently, a grade 2 listed bronze statue of Bristol-born merchant Edward Colston Edward (16361721) was pulled down by irate demonstrators, all principally white youngsters. It was created in 1895 by the Irish sculptor John Cassidy and erected on a plinth of Portland stone in a public park known as "The Centre" in Bristol, England. In 1977, the statue was designated a Grade II listed structure.

Edward Colston, although a philanthropist, was heavily involved in the dehumanising Atlantic slave trade where hundreds of thousands of black people were murdered, sold, mistreated and subjected to all inhumane practices. They were seen by their superior white slave lords as subhuman. This has been the history and glorification of Edward Colston. Nonetheless, the presence of the statue reminding black people of the pain their slave ancestors went through and its aftermath derision and continual viewing of black people as inferior human beings, necessitated its forceful pulling down, although illegal as it may be.

It is a fact the history of selling and maltreating black people had taken place centuries ago. Is it worth keeping conspicuous structures that will always remind and compel black people to relive the pain their ancestors went through, or to give the present day white generations the impetus to look down on black people to desire to maltreat them as and when they like as happened to George Floyd?

When the youngsters who pulled down the Edward Colstons statue were taken to court, they were finally found not guilty, discharged and acquitted by the court, although they pulled down the statue without any right. They simply wanted to obliterate the painful history that continues to cause animosity between blacks and whites so that people will see themselves as human beings that merit to live in peace and harmony regardless of their skin colour.

Confederate monuments and flags in certain American cities have also been pulled down as they are seen by critics as racially offensive. Most defenders of Confederate symbols say they are not meant to memorialise slavery, which the South fought to preserve. But most historians agree it was about slavery. Racial minorities, especially black Americans, feel that their presence in public life is offensive.

Similarly, if just falling on mocking history will cause division and pain among tribes, why not keep such histories in low profile but proudly announce them all the time in the presence of those defeated, in praise of the conquerors?

Let us wise up, those of us taking entrenched positions in the ongoing hullabaloo between Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and Dormaahene Oseagyefo Agyemang Badu II.

We need development of our towns and villages and jobs for the youth but not the adoration and distortions of history that will cause us further pain than to ameliorate our living standard.

The wise, proud and fearless son of Kumawu/Asiampa soil has spoken. Those who crave wisdom, should listen to Rockson Adofo and do as he suggests. That is the only way forward to unite the two feuding chiefs to bring peace and tranquillity between their subjects.

Rockson Adofo

Monday, 24 January 2022
Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has called for consensus building, compromise, and broader consultation among the leaders of parliament as a means of breaking away from the rancor that characterized proceedings in the first session of the 8th Parliament.

According to him, the only way to navigate the difficulties associated with a hung parliament is through the use of dialogue.

Parliament resumes sittings for the second session on Tuesday, January 25, 2022.

Speaking at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Workshop in Accra, the Speaker absolved himself of any blame in relation to the recent chaos in Parliament.

 I am the Speaker, and I do not take part in decisions, but it is my duty to enforce the rules The only way is to get the two sides to dialogue, cooperate with each other and achieve consensus. This is an imperative imposed on us by the people of Ghana. We have no choice, the Speaker said.

He pointed out that although Parliament appears divided over the passage of the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy, members of the House have to take advantage of the situation to right some wrongs

Parliament was compelled to adjourn its sitting to January 25, 2022, without passing the controversial Electronic Transaction Levy of 1.75%.

It came after the house reconvened on December 21, 2021, following the abrupt suspension of sittings by the Second Deputy Speaker, Andrews Asiamah, after a fight broke out during the voting on the levy.

The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, prayed the sit-in Speaker, First Deputy Speaker, Joe Osei Owusu, to adjourn the house for cooler heads to prevail.

Last week, the government said it will re-submit the Bill to Parliament, following the conclusion of extensive consultations on the controversial levy.

Ahead of the resubmission, some members of the Minority have already threatened to kick against the bill, but the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensa-Bonsu, has challenged their threat, insisting that the Bill has already been approved and just needs backing legislation.

---citinewsroom
24.01.2022 LISTEN

Give the man credit where its due. Few could possibly be congratulated for selling the sovereignty of a country in full view of its citizenry, but Peter Dutton, former Queensland copper turned sadistic Home Affairs minister turned Defence Minister, is very capable of it. Australia promises to become a throbbing bordello for the strategic affairs of other states (to a large extent, it already is), awaiting submarine insertions, naval manoeuvres, and more troop rotations.

With the AUKUS arrangements being firmed up, US and UK sailors, personnel and miscellaneous staff are being readied for more time Down Under, ensuring that Australia becomes a staging ground for future forward military operations. Canberra has relinquished much say in this; the song sheets and blueprints are coming from elsewhere.

The UK, reprising its long history of using Australia for its own military adventurism, is keen to massage the recently minted AUKUS agreement. Last week, the UK Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss met Dutton and Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne in Sydney for annual AUKMIN talks. The meeting had a distinctly nostalgic note to it: maternal Britannia, dropping in to see its rather (territorially) large offspring.

The joint media release prior to the meeting was prosaic but had all the signs of greater UK military involvement in the region, though much of it is likely to be modest. Discussions promised to focus on strategic challenges and identify areas in which Australia and the United Kingdom can work to support an open, inclusive and resilient Indo-Pacific region where the sovereignty of all nations is respected. Pity that Australian sovereignty is being whittled away in this transaction.

While plans to place British defence assets in Australia were not inked at the meeting, the idea has received much interest. After ministerial discussions Dutton told reporters that he was not averse to the idea. In terms of basing [assets in Australia], theres no proposal on the table to provide additional basing [but] it could be something that we discuss at the appropriate time if its suitable to both parties.

Payne got into the spirit of shared values between the countries, noting an interest in maintaining the international rule-based order underpinning stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region and globally.

The most commonly used word used in that regard, notably in Australian strategic lingo, is complex. The world has become more complex, as if it was somehow simpler before. The region has also evolved into components of complexity, necessitating more defence expenditure for the next war. And if there was conflict, the countries of the Anglosphere would not be aggressors, nor endorsers of it.

Paynes wittering kept the theme alive. The international environment is becoming more complex and challenging. AUKMIN 2022 will consider ways to strengthen our partnership in order to meet new and emerging threats and seize the many opportunities that this era presents.

Dutton similarly looked forward to discussing how we can work together in support of a safe and secure Indo-Pacific region. This promises greater militarisation. In the words of the statement, the meeting will consider ways to strengthen collaboration in defence capability, cyber security, critical technology, deterrence and sustainable investment in infrastructure.

What could be expected, stated Dutton was a greater regularity of visits [of UK ships and submarines], in training, in people being embedded in both services, and certainly a greater cooperation in exercises.

Showing his usual wooden spoon understanding of history, the defence minister saw parallels in current strategic developments in the Indo-Pacific to the dangerous world of the 1930s and 1940s. We know as a world today that we would be in a very different situation if [] the United Kingdom had not stood up to malign forces and had not represented the values that they adhere to even to this day.

Were these the values of predatory colonisation and understanding of international rules that received such excoriation from Indian Justice Radhabinod Pal? Pal, as a member of the International Military Tribunal of the Far East established by the Allied powers to try Japans leaders for war crimes in 1946, acquitted the high-ranking parties of all charges. In doing so, he trained his judicial mind on Western imperialism, claiming that Japan had been subject to a sham employment of legal process for the satisfaction of a thirst for revenge. The United Kingdom, he noted, had seized Burma and India; the Netherlands, Indonesia; the United States, the Philippines.

You do not have to agree with the entire stretch of Pals dissenting judgment of 1,235 pages to appreciate his puncturing of the canard that has come to be known as the rule-based international order. Behind such neat declarations are not so much legal briefs as guns and gunboats.

After the meeting, Wallace promised that the countries would lay foundations for training between Australian and British forces, stressing that nothing was off the table. The defence secretary had an eye towards the submarine element of the security arrangement. Britain would certainly make sure that submarines, when we have availability or we wish to deploy in conjunction with Australia would do so.

The Australian defence minister was more forthcoming with the details. In terms of additional visits we will see greater rotation, as weve already seen from the strike carrier group and from the nuclear sub visit out of the UK.

As for Australias promised nuclear-powered submarines, which will only see the light of day, if at all, in two decades, Wallace was ceremonial in promise and encouraging to swollen heads in Canberra. What is absolutely clear is that the United States, Britain and Australia are joined at the hip on delivering this program, that the strategic capability that Australia wishes is a step change that will absolutely set them apart as a leader in their field in this part of the world.

This statement is accurate on one level. Australia will certainly be set apart as a leader in the field of poor defence acquisitions of suspect military value and in permitting countries such as the US and UK to treat it as both client state and butler. How richly jarring to then hear that the countries of AUKUS are all very keen to defend the sovereign sanctity of such states as Ukraine.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
Mohammed Mustapha, the alleged military officer

24.01.2022 LISTEN

The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has distanced itself from the alleged military officer who was arrested with four others at Buipe in the Savannah region for allegedly snatching a 2012 Toyota Camry car in Tamale in theNorthern region.

Suspects Ibrahim Issah 27, Mohammed Mustapha 23, Vivor Christopher 27, Benyamin Ajyei, 23, Seyram Addo 29, are currently in the custody of the Northern Regional Police Command assisting with the investigation.

A search conducted on them found 13 mobile phones, one Falcon Foreign Pistol loaded with 9mm ammunition, a wallet containing a bunch of keys together with two handcuffs keys, two Voters ID Cards, Melcom card, Access Bank card, and the sum of GHC21.20p.

Some Military uniforms, Police Ballistic helmets, and police uniforms were also found in the Toyota Camry Spider with registration number GX6923-20.

A statement signed by Andy La-Anyone, Commander Acting Director Public Relations of the Ghana Armed Forces said We wish to state categorically that the suspect is not a soldier of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The GAF is worried about the rising spate of impersonation by civilians, either wearing military uniforms or posting fake pictures of themselves as military officers to defraud unsuspecting Ghanaians.

The statement further noted that the unauthorized sale of military uniforms and military pattern gadgets by some vendors contributes to this state of affairs and is inimical to national security.

The pistol retrieved from the suspects

Commander Andy La-Anyone indicated that the GAF is ready to cooperate with the Police to unravel the source of the military uniform in the particular incident and to stop the unauthorized sale of military uniforms across the country.

Ghanaians should be confident to provide information to the security agencies to nip this trend in the bud.

The Ghana Armed Forces advised the general public to be circumspect in dealing with persons who pose as military personnel.

---DGN online
Senegal's ruling coalition suffered crushing defeats in the capital Dakar and other major cities in Sunday's local elections, local media reported, in a vote seen as a key test for the president.

Provisional results published by local media on Monday showed coalition losses in Dakar, nearby Thies and Guediawaye, as well as the southern city of Ziguinchor, and the largest city in central Senegal, Kaolack.

The vote was the first in the West African country since lethal riots last year, sparked by the arrest of 46-year-old opposition leader Ousmane Sonko.

Analysts view the vote as a litmus test for support for President Macky Sall, 60, whom the opposition suspects is planning a bid for a third presidential term in 2024.

Alioune Tine, director of the think tank Afrikajom Center, told AFP that the election had been a "debacle" for the ruling coalition.

Fierce opponents of Sall's came out as winners. For example, Sonko topped the poll to become mayor of Ziguinchor, according to provisional results reported by local media.

Barthelemy Dias, another staunch Sall opponent, is set to become mayor of Dakar, according to the same provisional results.

In contrast several allies of the president's, including Health Minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, lost their races.

Sunday's vote was to decide the mayors of more than 500 municipalities and the heads of Senegal's 46 departments.

On Sunday evening, the ruling Bennoo Bokk Yaakaar alliance admitted in a statement that it had stumbled in key cities.

"Overall, the national trend shows our coalition winning easily in several regional capitals," it said. "But our bid to take Dakar and Ziguinchor has not been conclusive."

Official election results are expected early this week.

Protest blowback

In March last year, Senegal was rocked by several days of clashes and looting after opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was summoned to court to answer charges of rape in a case that he said was politically motivated.

At least 12 people were killed nationwide, a toll that shocked a country considered a beacon of stability in a volatile region.

Tine, the think tank director, said the surge in support for the opposition last year was now being reflected in the ballot box.

As well as supporting Sonko, protesters in 2021 also took to the streets to demonstrate their opposition to a potential third-term bid by Sall.

Critics fear that the president will seek to exploit constitutional changes approved in 2016 to argue that a two-term limit for presidents does not apply, and run again.

In October 2021, Sall's chief of staff Mahmoud Saleh was quoted by Senegalese media as saying that the elections will be "local in name only".

He added that the results would determine how the parliamentary elections go, and "decide the debate" on Sall's candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.

Sall later characterised the comments as a "major gaffe" in an interview with French broadcaster RFI, and denied any link between the local elections and his political fate.

However, he has never denied that he will seek a third term.

Sall was first elected in 2012 on promises to help the poor in the nation of 17 million people. He won a second term in 2019, beating Sonko, but has come under increasing criticism since then.

Following the local elections he is now expected to appoint a new cabinet -- and will face a revived opposition.

The president is well respected on the international scene, particularly over jihadist violence in the Sahel region, but his critics view him as serving the business interests of Senegal's former colonial power France.
The Bogoso Community on Monday received various food items from business magnate Mr. Ibrahim Mahama following the Apiate explosion that left the town devastated.

The items include 5000 bags of rice, boxes of Mackerel and cooking oil.

The presentation was done on behalf of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama by the General Manager of Engineers & Planners, Tarkwa Mines, Mr. Daniel Tweneboah.

The Chief Executive Officer of Engineers & Planners, dispatched the donation to the victims on Sunday.

The items arrived in Bogosu on Monday morning.

Mr. Ibrahim Mahama pledged to support the rebuilding the Apiate community when the time is due.

Presenting the items on behalf of Mr. Ibrahim Mahama to the NADMO Coordinator, Mr. Daniel Tweneboah said the relief items is to help alleviate the devastating effect of the tragedy on the community.

Receiving the items on behalf of the community, Mr. Francis Abeiku Yankah, the coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) for Prestea Huni-Valley district expressed gratitude to Mr. Ibrahim Mahama for coming to their aide at this crucial time.

The chiefs and the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Prestea-Huni Valley, Dr Isaac Dasmani also thanked Mr. Ibrahim Mahama for coming to the aide of the community.

He said, this will put smiles on the faces of those affected by last Thursday explosion.
The Centre for Climate Change & Food Security (CCCFS) has charged government to commission a full-blown inquiry to ascertain the extent of damage caused to the environment by the explosion at Appiatse.

A truck carrying explosive materials for a mining company was involved in an accident at Appiatse, near Bogoso in the Western Region last Thursday, resulting in an explosion that left several dead and many people injured.

In the midst of government efforts to resettle the displaced residents, CCCFS has issued a statement drawing the attention of the government to a key area it must look at.

According to the organisation, it is important that the government conducts an investigation to understand the damage caused to the environment by the explosion.

we call on government that while at its resettlement efforts, it must commission a full-blown investigations into the extent of the damage caused to the environment and its consequent ecosystem.

This must be an essential part of the entire response of government, i.e. accounting for the environmental and ecological costs of the explosion, a CCCFS statement signed by Director of Research, Sulemana Issifu has said.

Through the investigations, CCCFS wants the government to uncover what kind of chemicals or active ingredients are contained in the explosives and the kind of impacts it has on biological lives.

The organisation notes that it is committed to assisting government in finding the needed answers should it be contacted.

Read the CCCFS statement below:

PRESS RELEASE

24/01/2022

APPEATSE EXPLOSION: GOVERNMENT MUST ASSESS THE FULL ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECOLOGICAL COST

CCCFS uses this opportunity to commiserate with the victims of the unfortunate explosion incident that occurred at Appiatse in the Bogoso district. The incident was tragic and ought not to have happened. We condole with families who have lost loved ones and wish those who sustained injuries a speedy recovery.

CCCFS has carefully monitored the conversations around the incident and has found an important aspect that has been missing so far. As an institution championing issues of environmental protection, we deem it appropriate to introduce the environmental and ecological angles that are missing in the ongoing discussions so far. This, we believe, will help the country to understand the full impact of the explosion.

While human resettlement is the foremost issue to consider in this circumstance, we cannot overlook the environmental and ecological costs of the unfortunate incident. Wellbeing of humans is directly affected by the functioning of the entire ecosystem which could be a sequel of human interactions with the environment and other biological organisms. Therefore, a disruption of the ecosystem as a result of environmental mishaps, could have a grave consequence on humans as well.

It is against this backdrop that we call on government that while at its resettlement efforts, it must commission a full-blown investigations into the extent of the damage caused to the environment and its consequent ecosystem. This must be an essential part of the entire response of government, i.e. accounting for the environmental and ecological costs of the explosion.

We expect such an investigation to assist in resolving the following issues -

a. what kind of chemicals or active ingredients are contained in the explosives?

b. what kind of impact/s do the said chemicals have on biological lives?

c. what is the lifespan of the said chemicals when it escapes into the environment, i.e., soil, water bodies, atmosphere, etc?

d. what is the extent of damage the explosion has caused to ecosystem functioning and biodiversity?

e. are there remedial steps that can be taken to restore the environment - soil and water - if damages are detected?

CCCFS is committed to assisting government in finding answers to these pertinent questions should we be called upon.

May this tragedy never befall us again.

Sulemana Issifu

Director of Research

[email protected]
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin has stressed that he cannot be blamed by the Majority if they fails to secure the needed votes to have the Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy) passed.

The Speaker was largely blamed by some Members of Parliament from the Majority side late last year when the house went on recess without approving the controversial E-Levy.

Speaking at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association workshop, Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin has advised the Majority to focus on engaging the Minority on the levy to reach a consensus that would make it easier for it to be passed.

He noted that if the Majority MPs fail to do so, they should not turn around to blame him.

The only way is to get the two sides to consult and to dialogue with each other, to cooperate, to compromise, to collaborate to achieve consensus, this is an imperative imposed on us political leaders by the people of Ghana, we have no choice.

So when the other side fails to gather their number and a decision doesnt favour them, the Speaker cannot be the causeI am not a member of parliament in Ghana, Speaker Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin said.

On Tuesday, January 25, 2022, Parliament will officially resume sitting after breaking in December for the Christmas festivities.
The First Lady of the Republic, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo on Saturday, January 22, 2022, officially opened and dedicated the newly built ultramodern edifice of the Network of Women in Growth, Ghana NEWIG at Tefle, Volta Region.

Network of Women In Growth (NEWIG) Ghana is a non-profit, skills-development organization that provides vocational and entrepreneurial training, supporting over 8,000 women and children including marginalized, rural women across Ghana.

The newly built ultramodern women empowerment office complex currently houses a sales shop, seminar room, hostel for trainees, offices, technical workshops and equipped with modern facilities such as computers (laptops and desktops), internet facilities, printers, scanner and photocopier.

Speaking at the event, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo reiterated the need for women empowerment and development.

She further admonished NEWIG for the exceptional inputs in empowering women to achieve full self-sustainability.

It is therefore not surprising that over 70% of NEWIG beneficiaries are running their own businesses and are in position to better support their families. Remarkably, it has done so by depending on its internally generated funds and support from the Netherlands entities, she said.

We all know that globally women are at a disadvantage when it comes to education and economic emancipation, this has negatively impacted the development of many countries as women make up a significant percentage of global population. That is why I fully endorse the chosen mission of NEWIG to support women self organisation for full autonomy over their lifes, freedom from violence and for full social economic and political participation empowerment, the first lady Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo added.

She also urged the members, executives and participants of NEWIG as well as beneficiaries to highlight the importance of the brand in order to attract more support and resources from the government.

The Executive Director NEWIG, Mrs. Mawulawoe Anato-Dumelo in an interview with the media emphasised the importance of technical skills empowerment.

She stated that this commitment would boost the countrys economy.

Technical and vocational skills is very vital to the growth of the economy as a country. We cannot just rely on academics, its time we explore the avenue of technical skills and vocational skills. It really boosts the economy and provides employment.

I have noticed that in TVET, they focus on practical aspects seriously and its helps those who have gone through the holistic training really come out topnotch, she stressed.

She, however, urged Ghanaians and the youth to participate in a recognized TVET program to enable them gain more skills.

A representative from the Ministry of Education, African Womens Fund, EMpower foundation, the Netherlands embassy among others also shared their solidarity message.

They indicated that NEWIG has a broad space for women empowerment, skills acquisition and especially economical upliftment and needed to be shaped and supported.

The event also saw some ecognized entities, government agencies and individuals who played vital roles in the development and training of women through NEWIG acknowledged with decorated plaques and citations.
The First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo has disclosed that the Akufo-Addo led government has outlined strategic plans to commence and extend free Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) to all Senior High Schools in the country from March 2022.

According to her, all the necessary implementation has already been carried out to ensure a safe roll out.

She made this known at the official opening and dedication of the newly built ultramodern office complex of Network of Women in Growth (NEWIG) at Tefle, Volta Region on Saturday, 22nd January 2022.

She stated that the reintroduction in the SHSs would yield good results as expected.

This would no doubt produce a world skill workforce for Ghana support organisations like NEWIG, she stated.

Delivering her speech, the Director-General of the Ghana TVET Services, Mrs. Mawusi Nudekor Awity commended the President, Nana Akufo-Addo for revamping the Sector towards achieving a common goal.

She revealed that the government has initiated plans of providing quality tools to aid teaching and learning.

Ghana is going to see three TVET incubators, in the South, the middle belt, and the Northern belt. There is none in West Africa but Ghana is going to experience that, that is the heartbeat of the president. I will make sure that is done, she said.

She added that all necessary materials have been implemented across all sectors.

We have successfully migrated all the 139 new TVET schools into the computer school selection and placement. We have retooled workshops, all the 34 NVTI schools have seen great expansion. New tools and well-equipped Labs and workshops. Now we have busses and our students will ride in busses, she stressed.

Mrs. Mawusi Nudekor Awity, however, encouraged Ghanaians to take advantage of the opportunity.
Sudanese gathered to demand justice Monday for the scores killed in a months-long crackdown since a military coup -- then one more was shot dead, according to medics.

The latest protester to die was killed by security forces during a demonstration in the capital Khartoum by thousands calling for civilian rule, they said.

An October 25 coup led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan derailed a transition to civilian rule that had been painstakingly negotiated after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir.

According to the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors, the protester, who has not yet been identified, was "directly hit by a live bullet to the chest."

The latest death brings to 74 the number of people killed in the crackdown on anti-coup demonstrations, the medics said, despite condemnation by United States officials last week "of disproportionate force against protesters".

As they do routinely, security forces also fired tear gas on Monday at the protesting crowds.

Many people were seen suffering breathing difficulties while others were bleeding after they were hit by tear gas canisters, an AFP correspondent said.

The pro-democracy Doctors' Committee said security forces used "excessive violence" to quell the protests in Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman.

Protests were also held in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan, as well as the eastern state of Gedaref, according to witnesses.

"No, no to military rule," and "civilian (rule) is the people's choice" protesters shouted in Wad Madani, south of the capital, according to witness Emad Mohamed.

Sudan's authorities have repeatedly denied using live ammunition against demonstrators, and insist scores of security personnel have been wounded during protests.

A police general was stabbed to death during the unrest earlier this month.

Mass arrests

Map of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.. By AFP

On Sunday, one of the country's longstanding political parties, Umma, vowed "to remove all traces of the coup".

It, however, warned that the "coup leadership" will "persist with its brutality and come up with new ways to commit violent massacres and launch mass arrests of revolutionaries."

Hundreds of pro-democracy activists have been arrested in the crackdown on anti-coup activists.

On Saturday, a leading women's rights activist Amira Othman was arrested following a raid on her home in Khartoum, according to a statement by the "No to Women's Oppression" initiative which she leads.

UN special representative Volker Perthes said her "arrest and pattern of violence against women's rights activists severely risks reducing their political participation."

Other activists from the "resistance committees", informal groups which have been instrumental in organising anti-coup protests, were also detained late Sunday, according to members who requested anonymity fearing reprisals.

On Friday, Sudanese authorities requested delaying the arrival of the UN expert on human rights in Sudan, Adama Dieng, who was appointed in November and had been due to make his first official visit.

A Sudanese protester carries a placard which reads in Arabic, long live the struggle of women, they alone can break the silence of oppression. By ASHRAF SHAZLY AFP

Last week, senior US diplomats visited Sudan in a bid to bolster UN-led efforts to cajole the military into restoring a transition to full civilian rule.

Perthes earlier this month launched a bid for talks between various Sudanese factions in a push to resolve the crisis.

The ruling Sovereign Council -- formed by Burhan following the coup with himself as chairman -- has welcomed the UN-led dialogue, as have the United States, Britain, neighbouring Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The Forces for Freedom and Change, Sudan's main civilian bloc, has also said it would join consultations "to restore the democratic transition".
A female laboratory Technician who allegedly administered drugs to cause abortion for a 17-year-old girl at Abeka, Accra, has been granted bail.

Susan Owusu, age 36, was granted bail by an Accra Circuit Court in the sum of GHC50,000 with two sureties, one to be justified with a title deed.

This was after Susan had pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy to commit crime to wit abortion and abortion.

Susan's lawyer, Mr Owusu Appiah, prayed the court for bail.

Prosecuting Chief Inspector Kofi Atimbire, earlier, informed the court that the Police had amended the facts and had since filed same before the court.

He, therefore, prayed the court to take the plea of the accused.

Meanwhile, the first accused person, Mallam Mohammed, who is also the boyfriend of the victim, is still at large.

The court presided over by Mrs Patricia Amponsah adjourned the matter to February 22 for Case Management Conference.

The facts as read out in court by Chief Inspector Atimbire is that the complainant Hajiah Rabi is an aunty to the victim aged 17 years.

The victim resides with her grandmother at Kasoa while the complainant resides at Nima.

The prosecution said Susan also resided at Kasoa.

It said Mohammed started dating the victim since the year 2018 and that the victim who got pregnant four months ago, informed Mohammed about the pregnancy.

The prosecution said Mohammed asked the victim to abort the pregnancy.

It said Mohammed bought some medicines for the victim to abort the pregnancy but she refused to take them.

The prosecution said on January 7, this year, at about 5:00pm, Mohammed took the victim to a clinic at Abeka and met Susan, the lab technician operating the facility.

It said Susan injected the victim with some drugs and asked her to take another at dawn.

The prosecution said on January 8, this year, at dawn, the victim took the medication as directed by Susan.

It said the victim after taking medication began bleeding and the fetus dropped.

The prosecution said the complainant was informed by her mother (victim's grandmother) about the victim's plight and report was made to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit at Tesano.

It said a Police Patrol Team was dispatched to arrest Susan and Mohammed, but they were not found.

The prosecution said a Police medical form was issued to the complainant to seek treatment for the victim at a government hospital.

It said on January 10, this year, the complainant returned the medical form endorsed by a medical doctor.

Three days later, the prosecution said, Susan was arrested, and she admitted injecting the victim and administered the drugs.

GNA
Government through the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has established an 'Appiatse Endowment Fund' to solicit support from individuals, corporate bodies, philanthropists, and all well-meaning Ghanaians towards rebuilding and resettling the residents of Appiatse.

The Fund, would be launched on Tuesday, January 25, 2022, to be managed by an independent body with supervision from the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

This was announced by Mr George Mireku Duker, a Deputy Minister of the Ministry in charge of Mines in an interview with the media after a crunch meeting with the leadership of Maxam Ghana Limited, Chirano Gold Mines, and Ghana Chamber of Mines at the Ministry in Accra on Monday.

"Government alone cannot build Appiatse and so we need the support of individuals, corporate organisations, and every Ghanaian to come and support the people of Appiatse to have a place to lay their heads and for the future children," Mr Mireku Duker said.

The meeting, he said, was to enable the Ministry to receive first-hand information from Maxam Ghana Limited, whose vehicle was transporting explosives from its magazine site at Iduamprim to Chirano Gold Mines.

It was also to help the Ministry's investigative committee gather sufficient information on the Appiatse explosion to chart the way forward.

The Deputy Minister said the Ministry was providing leadership and creating the enabling environment for a quick return to normalcy at Appiatse and required the support of all.

On Thursday, January 20, 2022, a truck conveying explosives had a fatal accident along Bogoso-Bawdie road resulting in a huge explosion at Appiatse, killing 14 people, injuring 179, and displacing over 300 residents in the area.

The truck was said to belong to Maxam Ghana Limited.

Vice President Bawumia led a government delegation to Appiatse last Friday to commiserate with bereaved families and the injured persons and on behalf of government provided GH200, 000 for the upkeep of the affected persons.

The emergency response team dispatched to the place has distributed mattresses, cooking oil, and toiletries to the affected persons who are currently housed at the Bogoso Catholic Relief Centre.

Government pledged to work collaboratively with the State Housing Corporation to rebuild temporarily houses for the affected residents.

The Mineral Commission has shut down Maxam Ghana Limited and suspended its registration process with the Commission while investigations into the cause of the explosion is ongoing.

GNA
Mr Matthew Ekow Boison, Assemblyman for Bentsi Electoral Area in Moree, a fishing community in the Central Region, has appealed to the government to include the town in the ongoing sea defence project along the region's coastal stretch.

He told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) Moree in the Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese district needs to be included in the project to salvage it from the rampaging impact of tidal waves threatening the lives and property in the community.

The wall will therefore protect the low-lying coast and coastal hinterland against flooding caused by the combined effect of heavy downpour and extreme rise in tides.

Mr Boison observed that the ongoing sea defence project from Elmina in the Komenda-Edina-Aguafo-Abrem municipality through the Cape Coast metropolis and other parts of the region had increased the rate of tidal erosion along the Moree coastal stretch.

"The sea defence project in Anomabo, Elmina and Cape Coast is wrecking havoc in Moree, destroying houses including a premix fuel station and other property"

"Hundreds of buildings are at risk of imminent collapse as we look on helplessly because no one seems to hear our cry," he said.

Mr Sylvester Asare, a 57-year-old homeowner affected by the sea waves reiterated calls for an urgent sea defence wall saying: "I don't have money to build a new house for my five children".

"My family has stayed in the community for years and never experienced such havoc as the tidal waves are causing a lot of destruction to homes and playgrounds," he noted.

Madam Ernestina Adoba, tenant and a teacher said: Our community is under constant siege by the sea and the government need to come in to save our homes to restore hope by constructing a sea defence to prevent the tidal waves from getting to us.

Mr Elvis Donkoh, the Member of Parliament for the area in an interview with the GNA assured residents that he will relay the information to the appropriate state institutions for immediate attention.

" I will make a formal report to the Ministry for Works and Housing and Ministry of Transport for necessary assessment to know the actual cause of the problem and find a solution to that," he added.

GNA
Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, whose fate was uncertain Monday following an army mutiny, was once seen as embodying hopes for change and development in a West African nation now under siege from jihadists.

The impoverished Sahel state of 21 million people placed its hopes in the affable consensus-building Kabore when voters first elected him in 2015, a year after a popular insurrection toppled strongman Blaise Compaore.

However, it was also in 2015 when armed jihadist groups started to launch attacks in Burkina Faso and have intensified them ever since.

When he was re-elected for a second term in 2020, jihadists were launching attacks virtually daily, and had killed hundreds of people.

The security forces appeared incapable of stopping the violence as whole swathes of the country slipped out of government control.

So Kabore campaigned on the promise that he would make defeating the jihadists his priority.

Casting himself as a father figure promoting national unity, Kabore also promised to foster dialogue and "continuous consultation" over his second five-year term.

Yet the attacks and massacres in the north of the country continue, like those in the village of Solhan in June 2021 when 132 civilians were killed, and in Inata in mid-November when 53 gendarmes and four other people died.

Since then, angry demonstrations in jihadist-hit communities have been multiplying to denounce the "impotence" of the authorities -- demonstrations that are more often than not crushed by the police.

Kabore, a former banker from the majority ethnic Mossi and a devout Roman Catholic in a largely Muslim country, made several changes at the head of the army and government but to no avail.

A poorly trained and equipped army has failed to overcome the threat.

'Armchair' president

Kabore's People's Movement for Progress (MPP) has during his presidency showcased achievements in building roads, improving health and providing access to clean water.

But the ongoing violence, which has forced thousands of schools to close, has overshadowed any gains.

Kabore supporters praise his political experience and organisational prowess.

However, pointing to the scale of the unrest, his detractors say he has lost his grip on the country.

A diplomat in neighbouring Ivory Coast once dubbed him "a kind of diffident king who holds plenty of meetings and listens from his armchair without taking decisions."

Opposition figure Fousseny Ouedraogo said Kabore earned the nickname the "diesel president" for his slow pace, pointing to the time he took to appoint a prime minister and reshuffle the cabinet.

Studied in France

During Compaore's reign Kabore was appointed minister several times, and he was prime minister from 1994-96.

He led the ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) party for more than a decade and was seen as Compaore's likely heir, even joining the group that in 2010 began amending the constitution to keep the strongman in power.

But Kabore abruptly fell out of favour in 2012 and was reduced to a mere "political adviser" -- a move that eventually proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Early in 2014, Kabore broke with the CDP to form the MPP, catapulting him to power in a vote widely seen as sealing the transition to democracy.

As a student in the French city of Dijon, Kabore was a committed leftist, and when Burkina's revered Marxist leader Thomas Sankara took power, he became the director of the International Bank of Burkina before he had even turned 30.

When Sankara was gunned down in 1987, Compaore took over the reins. Kabore moved into politics two years later and rose through the ranks, becoming prime minister in 1994 before becoming a special presidential advisor two years later
Government has suspended the registration of Joycederk Logistics, a company subcontracted by Maxam Ghana Limited to undertake clearing, warehousing, and transportation of explosives on behalf of the former.

The suspension means that the company will be excluded from all mining and mine support services pending the outcome of investigations into the matter.

This was disclosed in a statement signed by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel A. Jinapor.

There have been calls for sanctions against Maxam Limited, following a huge explosion involving the companys truck which was carrying explosives to Chirano Gold Mine.

On Friday the government, January 21, 2022, the government suspended the licence of Maxam Limited and ordered the interdiction of its Chief Inspector of Mines as investigations into the incident continue.

The tragedy has triggered a debate about compliance to safety regulations as provided under the Minerals and Mining (Explosives) Regulations, 2012 (L.I 2177).

Per Regulation 33- (Permit to transport explosives):

1) A person who holds an operating licence under regulations 22 to 27 may apply for a permitted asset out in Form P in the Second Schedule to transport a specific type and amount of explosives

2) A person who transports under a Form P permit shall give notice to the Chief Inspector about the type and amount of explosives to be transported at least forty-eight hours before the explosives are transported.

Preliminary investigations by the Police indicated that a mining explosive vehicle moving from Tarkwa to the Chirano Gold Mines collided with a motorcycle resulting in the explosion at Appiatse, a farming community between Bogoso and Bawdie in the Prestea Huni-Valley Municipality in the Western Region.

A team of investigators from the Criminal Investigative Department of the Ghana Police Service on Sunday, January 23, 2022, interrogated the truck driver and the rider of the motorcycle believed to be involved in the accident.

The team interrogated the two persons at the disaster site as part of measures to unravel the cause of the explosion.

Fourteen people were killed and 179 others injured in the explosion, which occurred on Thursday, January 20, 2022.

The Minerals Commission on Saturday shut down Maxam Ghana Limited, owners of the explosive truck, to pave way for investigations into the accident.

Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia who led a Government delegation to the community on Friday, said Government would collaborate with the State Housing Corporation and mining companies to construct temporary housing facilities for those displaced in the explosion.

citinewsroom
24.01.2022 LISTEN

An accident in Savelugu in the Northern Region has resulted in the death of 10 persons with several others in critical condition after sustaining various degrees of injuries.

The accident occurred on Sunday, January 23, 2022, at about 1PM when the suspect driver of a Kia Rhino truck Abdullai Yakubu with registration number WR 305  12 veered off its lane while carrying 33 mourners from Yulugu to Savelugu.

After coming up a curve, the driver is alleged to have spotted a cyclist doing a phone call.

The cyclist is said to have crossed the path of the truck driver and in an attempt to save the rider, the driver of the Kia Rhino veered off into the bush.

Speaking to Citi News on Monday evening, Acting Northern Regional Police PRO, Superintendent Bernard Baba Ananga disclosed that six of the passengers on board the Kia Rhino truck died on the spot after the accident.

He said four out of the many injured after arriving at the Savlugu Hospital also gave up their last breath.

The Police say investigations are ongoing to get the fact of the story that has resulted in 10 casualties. The driver of the truck has been questioned but efforts are being made to get to the cyclist who fled the scene.
The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Kwame Agyeman-Budu, says the isolation and restoration of power following the Appiatse explosion is likely to cost the company about GH1.1 million.

Kwame Agyeman-Budu said this during a visit to Appiatse.

When we heard of the incident, we quickly mobilized people to ensure that safety prevails. This they did by isolating the network to make sure that the place is safe. After that, we reconnected those places which were affected such as Asankragwa, Enchi, and Akropong to make sure they have light. With a team from the region, we were able to restore power within 48 hoursThe first portion of isolation of power will cost us about GH50,000 to GH100,000 and the rest of the job will cost over GH1 million which we are prepared to foot the bill. We are currently worried about the safety of the people and to make sure the power is on for our people to enjoy, he said.

Mr. Agyeman-Budu who also promised the people of Appiate GH100,000 support from ECG, explained why the company is yet to fully restore power to Appiate.

We are here this morning to solidarize with the community with our support, and we have promised them that as soon as everything is settled, we will connect them back with electricity. We are supposed to continue our work but due to security reasons, NADMO and the security have asked us to stop to ensure that everything is completely safe here. When that is done, we will work 24/7 to ensure a stable power supply. Also, on behalf of the ECG Board and management, we are also contributing GH100,000 to the community to support those displaced and who have sustained injuries, he added.

The Managing Director of ECG further said that besides the transformer that was destroyed, other ECG properties including the low and high voltage poles, conductors among others were affected but said they are currently concerned about the safety of the people.

There was an explosion at Appiate Bogoso in the Western Region last Thursday which killed 13 people, injured several others and destroyed several properties in the area.
24.01.2022 LISTEN

Chief Inspector Samuel Agyarkwa, the investigator in the trial involving the alleged murderers of the late Major Maxwell Mahama, says Mr William Baah, the Assemblyman for the area, mobilised the mob to attack the deceased.

He told an Accra High Court that, Mr Baah was the one, who mobilised the mob from the Area to pursue the late Major Mahama.

But Mr George Bernard Shaw, Counsel for some of the accused persons, disagreed, saying he had asked the mob to accompany him to verify an information he (Baah) had received.

In a cross-examination, the Counsel said, my client only asked them to accompany him and did not instruct them to come with weapons.

The Counsel said at no time did the Assemblyman instruct anyone to kill the late Major.

Mr Agyarkwa, the 14th prosecution witness, said the attack on the late Major started when, the Assemblyman left the scene to report the incident of armed robbery to the Police at Dieso.

Asked, whether he knew the role of Assemblymembers, the witness said he did not know the role of Assemblymember in the community.

The Counsel suggested to the witness that it was because of his role in the Security Council of the Assembly that he mobilised the people to verify any information he received from a snail seller about a man in possession of a gun in the area.

The witness said the Assemblyman was one of the respected persons in the Area and people looked up to him.

Asked whether it was normal for the Assemblyman to report to the Police about the armed man, he said that was in order but that was not what Mr Baah did regarding the case.

The case was adjourned to February 7, 2022, for further continuation.

Fourteen persons are standing trial at an Accra High Court over the killing of Major Mahama, who was an officer of the 5th Infantry Battalion, at Burma Camp.

The late Major was on duty at Denkyira-Obuasi in the Central Region when on May 29, 2017, some residents allegedly mistook him for an armed robber and lynched him.

The mob had allegedly ignored his persistent plea that he was an officer of the Ghana Armed Forces.

The accused persons are: William Baah, the Assemblymember of Denkyira-Obuasi, Bernard Asamoah, alias Daddy, Kofi Nyame, aka Abortion, Akwasi Boah, Kwame Tuffour, Joseph Appiah Kubi, Michael Anim and Bismarck Donkor.

The rest are: John Bosie, Akwasi Baah, Charles Kwaning, Emmanuel Badu, Bismarck Abanga and Kwadwo Anima.

GNA
24.01.2022 LISTEN

The Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin has said the current hung Parliament presents the legislature the unique opportunity to correct some errors in the past.

He said one such opportunity he was pursuing was a process that would ensure that the legislature was strengthened to play its role of an equal partner in the delivery of an open, transparent and accountable government.

Speaker Bagbin made the observation when he addressed the opening of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) Trade and Security workshop at Parliament House in Accra.

The conference, which is on the theme: Trade and Security: Effective Parliaments in times of complexities is being attended by participants from Commonwealth countries including; Rwanda which joined the association in 2009.

He explained that as part of the strategic objective of Ghana's Parliament, enhancing accountability and facilitating the sustenance of Ghana's democracy remains foremost on the agenda of the legislature.

I am a believer of what Lijphart describes as constitutional democracya process of arriving at decisions through the most representative parliamentary coalition possible, he added.

He also urged the two major parties in Parliament to ensure consensus building, compromise, and broader consultation to avoid the chaos that characterized proceedings in the House.

Mr Albert Kan Dapaah, Minister for National Security commenting on the latest political development in Ghana noted that though 2022 marked the 30th year of Ghana's 4th Republican constitution, the current legislature found itself in what could be described as parliamentary crisis unprecedented in the history of the country.

He said near hung nature of the 8th Parliament of the 4th republic where none of the two major parties could claim overwhelming majority introduced a strange phenomenon to Ghana's democracy.

He said earlier days of the unfamiliar journey was rough, tough and turbulent, which occasioned politics of rancour and occasionally fist fights threatening to undo the democratic gains made thus far.

Mr Kan Dapaah however stated that objective diagnosis of the current legislative situation was the first step towards avoiding the pitfalls in relation to the hung Parliament and the tools needed to conduct business in the House are completely different.

He said consensus building and broader consultation among the leaders of the House should be encouraged rather than the confrontational means which he said would not yield desired results.

GNA
Dr Emmanuel Tinkorang, the Ashanti Regional Director of Health Services has stated that it is safe for pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines without any health implications.

At the beginning of the vaccination, we left out pregnant women but now evidence has shown that we can immunize pregnant women, he told the media at a briefing to update the public on the COVID-19 situation in the Region.

He debunked perceptions that the vaccines could endanger the lives of pregnant women and their unborn babies, saying that scientific knowledge gathered since the outbreak of the pandemic did not support the claims.

The pathophysiology of COVID-19 in pregnancy also mimics severe pre-eclampsia and that is one area where if you don't manage very well mortalities are always very high so when you immunize pregnant women it would be of benefit to them, he assured.

He said pregnant women had a higher risk of dying from COVID-19 and stressed the need to prioritise the immunization of pregnant women as a key strategy to reduce mortality.

We are recommending Modena and Pfizer for pregnant women and the first dose would be given as early as possible in pregnancy and the second dose would follow that of the general population, he stated.

The Regional Director said the Directorate was also going to give booster doses to the high risk population, adding that immunity for COVID-19 usually waned after six months.

He said all vaccines approved for use in Ghana could be used for a booster vaccination and that beneficiaries should have completed the primary vaccination between three to six months ago.

On the COVID-19 situation in the Region, Dr. Tinkorang disclosed that there were 22,273 cumulative cases, 21,823 recoveries, and 389 deaths.

He said the region currently had 61 active cases out of which 54 were receiving home based treatment with the remaining seven on admission at treatment centers.

The region, he noted, was seeking to vaccinate 3,835,045 people but had so far vaccinated 2,200,377 with 1,612,802 receiving at least one dose.

He said 637,628, representing 16.6 per cent of the targeted population, had been fully vaccinated and urged the public to visit vaccination centers for their jab.

GNA
Government of Ghana has condemned Yemens Iranian-aligned insurgent group, Houthis terrorist attack on civilian areas and facilities in the United Arab Emirates.

A statement from Ghanas Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the attacks are a violation of international law and threaten efforts aimed at restoring peace and security to the region.

Houthi launched an attack using missiles and drones near the airport of Abu Dhabi, the capital of UAEs commercial and tourism hub.

The attack led to an explosion that claimed the lives of three people.

The Ministry extended its deepest condolences to the government and the people of UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the families of the victims.

Houthi has launched several missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.

The UAE today, Monday, January 24, 2022, said it had foiled a second missile attack by the group.

---citinewsroom
A former Kumasi Mayor Kojo Bonsu has said former President John Dramani Mahama does not stand a chance as far as winning the 2024 general elections is concerned.

His reason is that his opponents in the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have sullied the former President with corruption and womens affair to the extent that he has become unattractive to the floating voter.

Mr Bonsu, who is eying the flagbearer slot of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), told Citi TVs lifestyle show Upside Down in an interview that the biggest opposition party did very little to salvage the name of the 2020 flagbearer, who he described as a fine gentleman  a situation, he noted, that has caused Mr Mahama irreparable damage.

Mr Bonsu first explained why he intends to run in the race.

There is a vacancy and that is why we are all contesting the seat, he said, adding: It is democracy and our party believes in democracy, so, we dont push people to take over. We dont want that.

So, if one is given the chance and he wins it, he will do the job. So, it is fair we all do it, he noted.

One other reason I am contesting is not that I hate President Mahama. No. What has he done to me?, he asked.

The problem is that people have lied a lot in this country about John Mahama. They put corruption on him, Mr Bonsu pointed out.

They have said a lot of things against him that you cant even take it off. NDC has the numbers in terms of votes but NPP has really soiled John Mahama that I feel so sad.

In his view, the NDC, as a party, has not helped the situation.

We should have redeemed him [Mahama] long ago but he doesnt have a chance now, he noted.

Lets bring in a fresh person so that the swing voters wouldnt have anything to say against President Mahama, Mr Bonsu reckoned.

In his view, I stand a better chance than Mahama because I have not been soiled. So, that is where I come in.

Its so sad, he bemoaned, pointing out: He [Mr Mahama] is a great gentleman, speaks very well, very affable but he has been put in the mud so much.

They have tagged him with corruption, womens affairs and we the NDC have not been able to defend it and get him out of it, he complained.

To him, if the party had corrected this, we wouldnt have come to this level.

As far as Mr Bonsu is concerned, Mr Mahamas name and face on the ballot paper will not do the NDC any good in the next election.

If we want to win the 2024 elections, I think lets bring someone like me, he proposed.

I am eligible to do it. Its not an issue of fighting Mahama, insulting the former President or doing anything but the situation we find ourselves in, lets try someone new and see if it will work.

-classfmonline
24.01.2022 LISTEN

A Ghanaian economist based in Canada, Dr. Dennis Nsafoah has said it should not come as a surprise when Akufo-Addo's government runs to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this year.

According to him, targets in the 2022 budget statement and economic policy of the government are overambitious and unrealistic.

Speaking via Zoom to deliver a presentation on Ghanas Economic Outlook for 2022, Dr. Dennis Nsafoah said he foresees government running to IMF before the end of the year.

Thinking about the situation, the most likely outcome that came in my mind was that at the end of the year when they [the government] realise that they will not be able to achieve the revenue target they have set for themselves because it is too high, that is when they will start talking to the IMF, the Economist shared during a dialogue held on Monday, January 24, 2022, by PFM Tax Africa.

Government has set a target to increase revenue by 42% this year as one of the many steps to improve the debt-to-GDP ratio.

Although Dr. Dennis Nsafoah agrees that urgent measures are needed to address the growing debt-to-GDP which currently said to be close to 80%, he recommends that government stop delaying and seek the intervention of the International Monetary Fund.

In the short-term in recommend that the government should contact the IMF and start negotiations for some sort of intervention. In the medium term the government also has to deal with the expenditure problems that we have, the Ghanaian Economist based in Canada proposed.

He notes that from indications and his projections, Ghana could end 2022 with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 83.9%.

Sharing his though on the proposed Electronic Transaction Levy (E-Levy), Dr. Dennis Nsafoah said, in his view, it is not an intervention that will solve the countrys problems.

He said rather, the levy when implemented will be the same as government shooting itself in the foot after making investment in the cashless economy.

In terms of what I think of the E-Levy, personally I dont think its good for an economy which is trying to go cashless to impose such punitive measure in place. I dont think the E-Levy is the best way to generate revenue, Dr. Nsafoah who is an Associate Professor at Niagara University in Canada emphasised.
Rev Opambour Ebenezer Adarkwa Yiadom, the General Overseer of Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre has lambasted an Ashanti Regional Chairman hopeful, Kwabena Owusu Aduomi for disowning President Akufo-Addo.

According to him, Mr Aduomis recent comments about the President and government is a sign of betrayal.

President Akufo-Addo in the heat of the 2016 campaign said on an Accra-based Twi speaking radio station that, y3ti sika su enso ekmi diy3n.' To wit, " we are sitting on a lot of money yet the citizens are hungry."

Mr Aduomi said emphatically that he cannot defend the President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo for certain statements he made during the campaign ahead of the 2016 general elections.

According to him, its only fair that the President defends his own statements.

Speaking on Prophet 1 Television on Sunday, December 23, he explained that President Akufo-Addo campaigned on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party(NPP), adding that every well-meaning party faithful must equally support and defend statements he made on the economy during the 2016 elections.

...I dont understand why Aduomi publicly disowned Akufo-Addo on national television. Its not right. I mean its so wrong. He was the leader of the NPP during the 2016 election. Whatever statement he made was in the interest of the party. For him to have done that is a sign of bad leadership.

Prophet Ebenezer attributed the former Ejisu Member of Parliament(MP) comments to the flagbearership contest between the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Trade Minister Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanteng.

Aduomi has a reason for making those statements. Many people dont know but I know because Im a prophet. It has to do with the partys internal elections,- who succeeds Nana Addo after his term. He belongs to a certain faction. If you listen carefully, he was throwing shades at the other faction. I dont want to delve deep into this but I know people understand what Im driving at. Greetings to Alan Kyeremanteng," he added.

Mr Aduomis comments, where he openly scorned the NPP government, has angered many party faithfuls including a member of NPP Council of Elders in the Manhyia South Constituency, Richard Adjei Mensah Ofori-Atta aka Tomtom who has descended heavily on him, describing his outburst as repulsive.

Watch Rev Opambour's videos below:
The Delhi High Court has asked the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to disclose information about around 450 persons who were allegedly issued fake Aadhaar cards for enrollment in civil defence training, says a report from Bar & Bench

In the order, justice Chandra Dhari Singh says, "The respondent (UIDAI) is hereby directed to provide all relevant information, qua the persons named in annexure P-3 of the petition, as required for the purposes of investigation as per the provisions of the Aadhaar Act. The investigation agency is also directed to investigate the matter upon receiving the requested information, with due regard to the provisions of the statute."

The HC was hearing a case where it was alleged that the district magistrate (DM) of Shahdara gave benefit to around 450 candidates with fake Aadhaar cards who had enrolled for civil defence training.

One Vijender Gupta had filed a complaint before New Delhi's anti-corruption bureau (ACB) alleging that the recruitment of marshals for the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses was illegal. Mr Gupta, in his complaint, had alleged that the DM issued fake certificates to about 450 people from his home state of Rajasthan, showing them as residents of Delhi to make Aadhaar in their names.

Consequently, a first information report (FIR) was registered on 24 January 2020, under Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act read with Section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code by the anti-corruption unit.

"Additional public prosecutor Kusum Dhalla, appearing for the Delhi government, requested the Court to direct UIDAI to disclose information pertaining to the fake Aadhaar cards for the purpose of investigation. It was argued that the disclosure of such information by UIDAI is only for investigative purposes and in no way amounts to an invasion of the right to privacy of the card-holders," the report says.

Advocate Nidhi Raman, appearing for UIDAI, informed the Court that the Authority had no objection to sharing the information being sought, to the extent and in a manner as permissible under the provisions of the 2016 Aadhaar Act.

The HC then asked UIDAI to relevant information as required for the investigation.
On 5 January 2022, when the trading window was closed, there was a purchase of 4,900 shares of ICICI Bank in the account of Rama Bijapurkar, who was an independent director (ID) of the Bank. On 20th January, she submitted her resignation as ID from the Bank. The next day, ICICI Bank imposed a penalty of Rs2 lakh on her for an infraction of the Banks code and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulations. This was after a confirmation from the Banks Audit Committee. A news report says the share purchase by Ms Bijapurkar when the trading window was closed is being probed by the market regulator.

According to the report from the Economic Times, SEBI observed that Ms Bijapurkar bought 4,900 shares of ICICI Bank worth Rs38.60 lakh on 5 January 2022, when the trading window was closed ahead of the Banks December quarter results.

In a regulatory filing, ICICI Bank confirms, We reliably understand from our ID, Ms Bijapurkar, that her independent financial adviser purchased 4,900 equity shares of the Bank in her account without prior intimation to her when the trading window was closed viz., on 5 January 2022. The Audit Committee of the Bank was notified of this incident.

Based on Ms Bijapurkars submission, it is concluded that this was an inadvertent trade made without any intent to violate the Banks Code on Prohibition of Insider Trading (Banks Code) or the SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015 (SEBI Regulations). However, as there was an infraction of the Banks Code and the SEBI Regulations, a penalty of Rs2 lakh has been imposed on the ID upon confirmation by the Audit Committee at its meeting held on 22 January 2022 and the said amount shall be remitted to Investor Protection Education Fund (IPEF) in accordance with the SEBI Regulations, the lender says.

In this case, according to market observers, ICICI Bank has been lax in speedy disclosure of the insider trading violation. It (ICICI Bank) should have brought it out when the resignation was announced. Let us raise all the questions and seek a fair investigation by SEBI. ICICI Bank should publish the internal board evaluation in the interest of transparency, says one of them.

In a letter written on 20 January 2022, Ms Bijapurkar tendered her resignation as ID of ICICI Bank. The next day, ICICI Bank informed the exchanges about the resignation of the market strategy and consumer economy consultant.

In the resignation letter, she says, I have recently been given to understand by management that my teaching activity in the area of the market and business strategy at an educational institution with which I am associated and my research activities on Indias consumer economy at a not for profit research centre with which I am associated, which may require me to occasionally engage with other financial service companies or the investor community, could be in violation of the conflict of interest policy of the Bank and the regulator, even in the event of no direct remuneration being earned.

In order to avoid any possible ambiguity on my position at any future date as a result of these activities, I have decided to step down. The effective date of my resignation is 23 January 2022 and I want to confirm that there is no other material reason for my resignation other than the one mentioned above, Ms Bijapurkar says.

As per SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 2015, designated persons and their immediate relatives cannot trade in securities when the trading window is closed. As per the regulations, all employees who have access to unpublished price sensitive information (UPSI) are identified as designated employees.

We sent an email to ICICI Bank for their comment and would update this article as and when we receive any reply from the lender.

Ms Bijapurkar is also ID of the board of directors of six other companies, including Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd, Nestle India Ltd, VST Industries Ltd, Cummins India Ltd, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd.

She has also served on governing councils of entities like Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BSCBI), Insurance Information Bureau, IIM Ahmedabad, on the eminent person advisory group to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), and has been a fellow of MasterCard Centre for Inclusive Growth and Centre for Emerging Market Economies, Fletcher School.
Geraldine Govaerts

Geraldine Govaerts, who advises each of the more than 400 undergraduate students in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, is the recipient of this years Academic Advising Award. The award includes a $2,000 honorarium.

It is rare to meet an individual that has the patience, organizational skills, and thoughtfulness to be a great academic adviser, but Geraldine Govaerts has all those attributes, Jeff Heys, associate dean of the Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, stated in a support letter. In fact, she has all those attributes at a higher level than anyone else I have met. Her commitment to helping students of all backgrounds succeed is unmatched.

Govaerts is the primary academic adviser for the department programs  chemical engineering, biological engineering and the bioengineering dual degree in partnership with Istanbul Technical University  as well as dual degree students and those seeking a biomedical engineering minor. Each program has its own set of requirements and requires a thorough understanding of the curriculum.

But the curriculum is only the start for Govaerts, who is noted for her unwavering commitment to her students, knowing each by name and constantly seeking ways to support their education and personal development.

Geraldine is the academic adviser that any student hopes to have when coming into college, according to 2020 graduate Sean Laughnan. Having an adviser that goes above and far beyond what a student would expect makes all the difference in the world.

Department head Abigail Richards praised Govaerts for her innovative thinking to connect with students during a pandemic, her ability to provide practical assistance to support student development and her care and understanding.

Geraldine is the best academic adviser I have ever known, Richards wrote in a nominating letter. She works tirelessly on behalf of our students. I cannot imagine a more deserving person for the Academic Advising Excellence Award.
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January 24, 2022 A War In Ukraine Is Tactics - Putin Does Strategy The 'western' media buildup for war in Ukraine was launched 63 days ago on November 22: The U.S. has shared intelligence including maps with European allies that shows a buildup of Russian troops and artillery to prepare for a rapid, large-scale push into Ukraine from multiple locations if President Vladimir Putin decided to invade, according to people familiar with the conversations. That intelligence has been conveyed to some NATO members over the past week to back up U.S. concerns about Putins possible intentions and an increasingly frantic diplomatic effort to deter him from any incursion, with European leaders engaging directly with the Russian president. The diplomacy is informed by an American assessment that Putin could be weighing an invasion early next year as his troops again mass near the border. Nothing has happened since but there has been no letup: The sheer size and scope of the Western information operations right now regarding Ukraine and Russia in my opinion dwarfs what was done in the lead up to the second invasion of Iraq. Even in unimportant Australia, the commercial and public broadcasters feature daily stories about the plucky Ukrainians getting ready for an imminent Russian invasion and the print media feature think-pieces about Putin trying to recreate the glory days of Catherine the Great and a new Russian empire, etc. Then there are the stories of gallant NATO members rushing to assist little Ukraine. I am now completely unnerved by the scope and obvious imbalance of this coverage. The media is totally on board the war train. Most of the propaganda is just crap. Today we hear about a recall of U.S. and British diplomat families from Kiev, additional weapon and money promises to Kiev, the repositioning of NATO forces and so on. None of this would have any effect in the case of war. But everything is done to keep this item at the top of the news. This is without doubt a CIA/MI6 run campaign. There is only one thing missing and that is a Russian interest in invading the Ukraine. Still, former ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar thinks it will happen for strategic reasons: Basically, the US has gained the high ground through sustained efforts through the past three decades since the Bill Clinton administration put into effect a concerted strategy in anticipation of a resurgent Russia in a matter of time. Now that the US has gained the upper hand, it is loathe to give it up. From Washingtons viewpoint, this is a key template of the geopolitical struggle unfolding over the new world order after Chinas rise and the shift in power dynamic from the West to the East. Cutting down Russia to size and to be able to intimidate it is a pre-requisite of the situation before the US tackles China comprehensively. Suffice to say, Ukraine has become a battleground where a titanic test of will is playing out.

...

The ultimate Russian objective will be a federated Ukraine through constitutional reform with the countrys sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity intact while the regions enjoy autonomy. Europe may welcome this as the best way to stabilise the situation and remove the potential for future conflict. Well, maybe. There are several threads on how such an invasion could plausibly proceed. No one doubts that Russia would win militarily. Russia has good reasons to invade the Ukraine but there are also good reasons not to invade it. It could become a millstone around Russia's neck. Russia's aim is to change the aggressive position the U.S. and its NATO proxy are taking towards it. Invading Ukraine would do the opposite. It would increase the number of troops in east European NATO countries and would have negative impacts on Russia's strategic position. Only the western military industrial media complex would profit from it. I believe that the current 'western' media campaign is supposed to give cover for an Ukrainian campaign against the rebelling Donbas provinces. Murad Gazdiev @MuradGazdiev - 12:47 UTC  Jan 24, 2022 President Zelensky speaking to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine: We have learned to contain external threats. It is time we begin offensive actions aimed at securing our national interests. Our citizens are united in wanting their territory returned Embedded video Russia must be pushed to either not intervene in the Ukrainian campaign or alternatively intervene with a huge invasion. Both would fit U.S. desires though the first is preferred. That is why the U.S. is threatening Russia with sanctions. (Sanctions that would drive oil above $100/b? Sanction which would hurt the European NATO countries and the U.S. stock market much more than Russia?) Russia's President Vladimir Putin is a Judoka, not a boxer. Should the Donbas get attacked Russia would certainly intervene but it can and likely would do so without an invasion. Artillery and maybe some air campaign would be sufficient to destroy the Ukrainian attackers. The real picture is much bigger. Russia wants to compel the U.S. to agree to a non-aggressive posture in Europe. That requires a threat to the U.S. itself. Washington will only come to its senses when it feels that it is under a direct threat. A threat that is new and highly visible. That is why I find this news item intriguing: Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the Republic of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez. January 24, 2022 18:10 The leaders had an in-depth exchange of opinions on bilateral cooperation in trade, the economy and investment. The President of Cuba thanked Russia for the humanitarian aid supplied to the republic, including in the context of countering COVID-19. The presidents discussed further coordination of Russias and Cubas actions in the international arena in line with the principles of strategic partnership and the traditions of friendship and mutual understanding. Vladimir Putin and Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening bilateral relations and agreed to intensify contacts at different levels. Four days ago a similar call was held with the president of Venezuela: The leaders reaffirmed their commitment to close coordination in international affairs in keeping with the principles of strategic partnership that underlie bilateral relations. When Russia gave Washington two draft treaties it threatened 'military technical' steps that would follow should the U.S. reject Russia's demands. I believe that is code for the deployment of existing or new weapon systems. During the cold war the stationing of Russian missiles in Cuba compelled the U.S. to pull back its missiles from Turkey and Italy. Nothing else had worked but the missiles on Cuba did it. So why not learn from history and repeat such a step? Posted by b on January 24, 2022 at 18:39 UTC | Permalink Comments next page  next page 
Rusk Elementary students in Avery Pullins sixth-grade class visited Community National Bank in December to learn about all aspects of the banking industry.

Pullins students learn about money by participating in The Stock Market Game, which teaches students about investing by using $100,000 in imaginary funds to invest in simulated training. At CNB, kids learned how to write and deposit checks and find counterfeit bills, they visited the vault and sat in the boardroom to hear a mock loan presentation.
The Pharis Farm is a site for several community and educational events throughout the year. Soon it will be site for a documentary.
The Grand Strand Humane Societys city funding could be in jeopardy because of the organizations purchase of black market drugs to treat a fatal cat disease.

Myrtle Beach City Manager Fox Simons said he recently met with humane society officials about the issue and the city is considering all options, including budget cuts, new stipulations and even terminating the citys contract with the shelter  though Simons stated the last one would be challenging.

Theres a lot of moving parts, he said. There are a lot of animal shelters that are at capacity, some are further away than GSHS. Costs are being evaluated.

At the center of the dispute is a controversial antiviral that has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. GSHS Executive Director Jess Wnuk acquired the drug from a Chinese manufacturer in the fall of 2020.

GSHS President Lindsey Rankin, who was elected by the board in November, said the shelter used the drug to treat seven cases of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), a highly lethal disease in cats.

The medicine is extremely expensive and hard to find because it has not been approved by the FDA, Rankin said. Our executive director found somebody that sold the medicine and we had a pretty public fundraiser for it during Giving Tuesday.

To purchase the antiviral, GS-441523, Wnuk drew $11,000 from the shelters critical care fund and wired it to a manufacturer she met through a Facebook group. She then held a fundraiser, which publicly disclosed the transaction, in November 2020 to cover the cost.

No taxpayer dollars were used.

Ultimately, four of the infected cats died, while the other three survived. Rankin said one of the fatalities resulted from an unrelated heart tumor, but she could not produce documents for confirmation.

Wnuk did not respond to multiple phone calls seeking comment.

Although the latest meeting between the city and the humane society followed a story by myrtlebeachsc.com, a local blog site run by David Hucks, the city first became aware of the purchases last May.
Steve Hembrough has learned a few things during his 40 years of plowing snow in the Jacksonville area.

When you bump into something in a snow plow while you're holding a coffee cup, those spills burn, Hembrough said. I very much know this from experience.

The 64-year-old Hembrough has owned Hembrough Tree & Lawn Care for the past 40 years, and when the lawn care business dies down in the winter, the snow plowing business picks up. Or at least it does during a normal year, and the years lately have been far from normal.

I hate using the term 'climate change,' but as we get older, we see things change. Forty years ago, you could have a snow every week several inches deep, Hembrough said. Today, we are lucky to get a foot of snow in a whole season. There is less business to do and it's very unpredictable.

His business has nine people on staff year-round plus people on call waiting for snow to fall.

Hembrough's father started Hembrough Tree & Lawn Care 68 years ago and for the past four decades, son Steve has mowed and planted most of the year and plowed snow for the rest of it. Many things have changed during those years in business, but plowing has remained essentially the same.

It pretty much involves a truck with a plow on the front of it, Hembrough said. On heavier snows we might use an endloader every now and then. But as a general rule it's just a truck with a plow and a good old-fashioned shovel.

When the snow begins to accumulate, Hembrough and his crews spring into action.



Whenever it snows during the day we try to keep our business customers open, but as a general rule everybody comes in about midnight, Hembrough said. We get everything nice and clean hopefully before everybody wakes up in the morning or comes to work. It makes for some pretty long days.

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When heavy snow falls it's tempting to go as quickly as possible to get all of the customers' plowing needs done, but Hembrough said it's a job that can't be rushed.

You go slow because there are lots of hidden curbs and cracks in parking lots, Hembrough said. You almost need to observe it all in the summer and make notes so you are prepared in the winter for those unseen obstacles that can do a lot of damage.

Hembrough said it helps snow plowing crews if customers put out markers such as flags to note the location of driveways, curbs and parking lots, and to make sure that house numbers are plainly visible at night.

The job of plowing isn't complete until ice melting material is put down, and Hembrough said that is one area where improvements have been made.

There are products out there that don't burn the grass nearly as much, Hembrough said. The old-fashioned rock salt on the driveway and sidewalks caused the edges of the turf to turn brown, whereas you can use a more modern product like calcium chloride that is much safer for the environment.

Hembrough said that people shouldn't wait until it's snowing to call a snow plow operator because most of them already have a full list of customers, so it's best to sign up well in advance. He offered advice for residents and business owners who opt to move their own snow.

A good rule of thumb is every two inches, clean your driveway and clean your sidewalks, Hembrough said. If you are a business, every two inches clean your parking lot. That shows a good intent on your part that you are trying to protect your visitors or customers.

The liability issues are the big thing, Hembrough said. If you plow your driveway but you don't shovel your sidewalk, that makes you kind of liable if somebody slips on the sidewalk.

Hembrough has been proud and happy to call Jacksonville his home, and appreciates the community support he has gotten for his business during all seasons of the year. Still, piloting a snow-plowing truck in the wee hours on a frigidly cold morning isn't always his favorite activity.

Sometimes I'm out at night plowing and think, why am I doing this? Hembrough said. Every job has good things and bad things about it. We just try to keep a positive attitude and move forward.
Parents, students and schools across the state are waiting for a ruling from a circuit court judge on a petition to block masks from being required on children in some Illinois schools.

Illinois is one of 13 states that still require masks on school children. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has had the mandate in place since August.

A case heard Thursday in Sangamon Circuit Court has more than 700 parents suing 145 school districts, the governor and state education officials over the mandates that include excluding students from in-person learning for possibly being exposed to COVID-19.

Pritzker has criticized the parents case, saying they are fighting against freedom from COVID-19.

Thats what were looking to do, to give people their freedom from the virus, Pritzker said. These people are holding us back and theyre going to close schools as a result if they were to win.

Some schools have said their operations could be hindered without the mandate. Other schools have had masks optional all school year with minimal disruptions. Schools that dont mandate masks face non-recognition status from the Illinois State Board of Education, something that could mean loss of state funds and participation with recognized schools in extracurricular activities.

Attorney Thomas DeVore, who represents the parents, argued in court the issue is about individual due process rights laid out in state law.

These children have rights when it comes to these masks, which are a device intended to limit the spread, when it comes to exclusion from school, DeVore said. They all have rights and their rights need to be protected and were asking you to protect their rights.

DeVore argues if public health officials want to quarantine, vaccinate or mask someone out of health concerns, and the person is not willing, they must prove in court the person is a health risk. That largely is not happening with the mask and exclusion mandates.

Sangamon Circuit Court Judge Raylene Grischow said not to expect a ruling before Friday.

Attorney Kathleen Gibbons represents one of the districts and said the potential harm of possibly spreading COVID-19 by not requiring everyone to wear a mask is too great.

These decisions do not affect just these individual students and their parents, they affect all the rest of the children in Valley View, all the teachers, all the staff and all the parents and other family members in those homes, Gibbons said.

But parents' attorney Will Gerber said you cant take a students rights away based on hypothetical situations.

[The mandate] is allowing schools to take healthy children out of school, remove them from public education, without the right to be heard, Gerber said.

Separate petitions found at Change.org have thousands of signatures for and against mask mandates in Illinois schools.
The museum not only exhibits the remains of wooden vessels built 1,000 years ago, but also works to rebuild and reconstruct other Viking boats. The process involves using experimental archaeological methods to gain a deeper, more practical understanding of the Viking Age, such as how quickly the vessels sailed and how many people they carried.

"We can see that the skills of building them, the skills of sailing the boats, the knowledge of people who are sailing it goes down and it disappears," said Sren Nielsen, head of boatyard at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, west of Copenhagen.

Supporters of the successful nomination hope it will safeguard and preserve the boat-building techniques that drove the Viking era for future generations as the number of active clinker craftsmen fades and fishermen and others opt for vessels with cheaper glass fiber hulls.

In December, the UN's culture agency added Nordic "clinker boats" to its list of traditions that represent the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden jointly sought the UNESCO designation. The term "clinker" is thought to refer to the way the boat's wooden boards were fastened together.

For thousands of years, wooden sailboats allowed the peoples of Northern Europe to spread trade, influence and sometimes war across seas and continents.

Nielsen, who oversees the construction and repair of wooden boats built in the clinker tradition, said there are only about 20 practicing clinker boat craftsmen in Denmark, perhaps 200 across all of northern Europe. "We think it's a tradition we have to show off, and we have to tell people this was a part of our background," he told The Associated Press.

Wooden clinker boats are characterized by the use of overlapping longitudinal wooden hull planks that are sewn or riveted together. Builders strengthen the boats internally by additional wooden components, mainly tall oak trees, which constitute the ribs of the vessel. They stuff the gaps in between with tar or tallow mixed with animal hair, wool and moss.

"When you build it with these overlaps within it, you get a hull that's quite flexible but at the same time, incredibly strong," explained Triona Srensen, curator at Roskilde's Viking Ship Museum, which is home to the remains of five 11th-century Viking boats built with clinker methods. Nielsen said there is evidence the clinker technique first appeared thousands of years ago, during the Bronze Age.

But it was during the Viking Age that clinker boats had their zenith, according to Srensen. The era, from 793 to 1066, is when Norsemen, or Vikings, undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest and trading voyages throughout Europe. They also reached North America.

Their light, strong and swift ships were unsurpassed in their time and provided the foundations for kingdoms in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. If "you hadn't had any ships, you wouldn't have had any Viking Age," said Srensen. "It just literally made it possible for them to expand that kind of horizon to become a more global people."

While the clinker boat tradition in Northern Europe remains to this day, the ships are used by hobbyists, for festivities, regattas and sporting events, rather than raiding and conquest seen 1,000 years ago.

The UNESCO nomination was signed by around 200 communities and cultural bearers in the field of construction and traditional clinker boat craftsmanship, including Sami communities.

The inscription on the Intangible Cultural Heritage list obliges the Nordic countries to try to preserve what remains of the fading tradition. "You cannot read how to build a boat in a book, so if you want to be a good boat builder, you have to build a lot of boats," the Viking Ship Museum's Nielsen said. "If you want to keep these skills alive, you have to keep them going."
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I called the bank recently to inquire about a check I had written.

When I asked the person on the phone if he could look it up on his system, he read back the correct amount of the check. But I had several checks written for similar amounts, so I double checked by asking him who the check was made out to.

The young man said he had never been taught to read cursive. So, he couldn't tell me.

I was completely flummoxed.

Ive been writing and reading cursive since I was 8. I thought perhaps this 20-something is just an outlier. Then I inquired of friends and was told that no this is a common predicament.

A friend who teaches high school in LaSalle County said she often has to read aloud her comments written on students papers because they cant read cursive.

My cousin, Steve, took a test at work and had it handed back to him because the millennial administering the test only knew how to read block letters.

In a world increasingly consisting of typed electronic communication, it seems young professionals are seeing fewer loops and curly cues on their letters.

My three daughters, ages 11 to 16, were taught cursive and can read it well. But a school secretary said sometimes other students will bring her lists of spelling words written by a parent and ask for her to translate them into block letters.

I understand language evolves.

But there is something sad about a youngster being unable to read a birthday card from Grandma or the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jeffersons hand.

What kind of school system doesn't teach basic penmanship?

Well, back in 2017, an Illinois state representative by the name of Chris Welch, D-Hillside, successfully sponsored legislation to require Illinois schools to teach cursive. Today, Welch is speaker of the House and even his webpage has his name in script.

There is something evocative about seeing someones handwriting. After all, every signature is distinctive and says a little bit about the person who penned it.

I was thinking about this awhile back when I was opening up a road atlas in my truck and two loose sheets of paper fell out with my fathers handwriting scrawled across them. Dad has been gone seven years now, but seeing his handwriting brought tears to my eyes.

The sheets of paper were just directions he had written on how to get from one place to another. But to me they were a roadmap back in time.

There was nothing pretty or neat about my Dads script. It scrawled across the page without any uniformity. It reflected his personality. Always thinking big, leaving the details to figure out later. (My mother insisted that my father and I had nearly identical handwriting.)

On the other hand, I came across an envelope in my desk drawer with my name written in my mothers hand. The script is precise, flawless. I imagined when she was a nurse, doctors enjoyed reading her charts in her ever-perfect handwriting.

Stuck in the envelope was a $2 bill issued in 1976 on the day the U.S. government allowed the note to first be circulated. I was 11 at the time. I remember my mom getting the $2 bill at the bank and then sticking it in an envelope for safekeeping until I was older and could appreciate it.

Today, I treasure the envelope with my name in her hand, far more than the unique greenback inside.

Some see cursive as an obsolete form of communication. I see it as a language linking the present with the past.

My college professors wrote in cursive on blackboards. I can still picture some of the wisdom they shared in their distinctive handwriting.

I love to thumb through the family Bibles I inherited from my parents and grandparents and see their distinctive handwriting in the margins. Theyre like inadvertent messages to future generations of what deep thoughts they pondered as they read scripture.

So, is there a future for cursive? I really cant tell you. But it seems to be viewed as an anachronism by younger generations.

If nothing else, someday in the distant future in nursing homes well be able to pass notes among ourselves without worrying about the staff having any idea what we are saying. It will be like reading hieroglyphics from another era.
Pacific Gas & Electric has been on federal criminal probation since 2016.

It came after the company was convicted of six felony offenses stemming from an explosion that killed eight people in a San Bruno neighborhood in 2010.

The five-year probation will expire at midnight on Tuesday. It was supposed to be a period for the company to rehabilitate itself.

Instead, the Associated Press reports that US District Judge William Alsup, who has been tasked with the probation oversight, states, In these five years, PG&E has gone on a crime spree and will emerge from probation as a continuing menace to California.

PG&Es equipment has been blamed for several fires over the past five years, most notably the 2018 Camp Fire that leveled the town of Paradise. The company pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter related to the incident.

The US Attorneys Office has stated that it will not seek an extension of the five-year probation, indicating it is a unique situation.

The utility has argued that it is taking new steps to improve its infrastructure. For example, PG&E now says it spends $1.4-billion annually to remove hazard trees near equipment, which is up from $400-million spent in 2017.
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An off-duty Bexar County Sheriffs deputy is facing possible termination after hes accused of driving drunk.

San Antonio Police arrested Deputy Rolando A. Garza, 27, around 2:07 Sunday morning. He is charged with driving while intoxicated which is a Class B misdemeanor.

Garza is a four-year veteran with the BCSO. He is assigned to the Detention Bureau. However, he has been placed on administrative leave pending termination for the arrest in accordance with BCSO policies and procedures with Bexar County Civil Service Rules, officials said in a press release.

A separate administrative investigation is ongoing, pending the outcome of Garzas criminal case, according to BCSO.

A judge set his bond at $8,000. At last check, Garza was still in the Bexar County Jail.

This is a developing story.
Yves here. Andrew Bacevichs well-written piece attempts to put Americas relentless meddling and war-making into a a bigger context. Bacevich pointedly avoids using the world empire except when depicting Afghanistan as a storied graveyard of empires, and mentions imperialism as if an indicator of cray cray (naked imperialism). The reluctance to call something by its proper name is.telling.

And by not correctly focusing on the pathology (imperialism) and looking instead at symptoms, Bachevich get the disease progress wrong. In the 1930s, the US really was domestically focused, with a small armed forces by world standards. My simpleminded guess as to what triggered the change in ambition took place was that our elites all got high on how we were able to, and did, remake Germany and Japan, and had enormous influence over post WWII reconstruction in Europe and new international organizations like the World Bank, IMF, and UN.

So starting with Vietnam is too late. Any proper study needs to include the Korean War, the successful coup against Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, the 1954 United Fruit Guatemalan coup, Sputnik, Eisenhowers military industrial complex leaving office speech (and while we are at it, the coup that removed Australias prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1975). Vietnam was the first big warning of imperial overreach, that the US could not always get what it wanted.

And its hard to understand the superficially unironic reference to the 1619 project..but even if you regard it as a flat note, it does support Bacevichs point that context matters.

By Andrew Bacevich. Originally published at TomDispatch

In the long and storied history of the United States Army, many young officers have served in many war zones. Few, I suspect, were as sublimely ignorant as I was in the summer of 1970 upon my arrival at Cam Ranh Bay in the Republic of Vietnam.

Granted, during the years of schooling that preceded my deployment there, I had amassed all sorts of facts, some of them at least marginally relevant to the matter at hand. Yet despite the earnest efforts of some excellent teachers, I had managed to avoid acquiring anything that could be dignified with the term education. Now, however haltingly, that began to change. A year later, when my tour of duty ended, I carried home from Vietnam the barest inkling of a question: How had this massive cockup occurred and what did it signify?

Since that question implied rendering judgment on a war in which I had (however inconsequentially) participated, it wasnt one that I welcomed. Even so, the question dogged me. During the ensuing decades, while expending considerable effort reflecting on Americas war in Vietnam, I never quite arrived at a fully satisfactory answer. At some level, the entire episode remained incomprehensible to me.

On that score, I suspect that I was hardly alone. No doubt many members of my generation, both those who served and those who protested (or those, like several recent U.S. presidents, who contrived to remain on the sidelines), have long since arrived at fixed conclusions about Vietnam. Yet, for others of us, that war has remained genuinely baffling  a puzzle that defies solution.

Deja Vu All Over Again

In history, context is everything. Revise that context and the entire story changes, with the 1619 Project a timely but by no means unique example of that phenomenon.

For the successive administrations that took the United States to war in Vietnam, beginning with Harry Trumans and culminating with Lyndon Johnsons, the relevant context that justified our involvement in Southeast Asia was self-evident: the Cold War.

From the late 1940s on, the advertised purpose of basic American policy was to contain the spread of global communism. Across the ranks of the political establishment, anticommunism was tantamount to a religious obligation. For years, that alone sufficed to legitimize our military involvement in Vietnam. Whatever the immediate issue  whether supporting France against the communist Viet Minh there after World War II or midwifing an anticommunist Republic of Vietnam following the French defeat in 1954  stopping the Red Menace rated as a national security priority of paramount importance. In Washington, just about everyone who was anyone agreed.

The actual course of events in Vietnam, however, played havoc with this interpretive framework. Once U.S. combat troops arrived in South Vietnam in 1965, while American bombers tried to pound the communist North into submission, the original rationale for the war became increasingly difficult to sustain. True, the enemys peasant army displayed a fondness for red flags and uniform accouterments. But so what? The threat posed to the United States itself was nonexistent.

When President Richard Nixon visited Red China in 1972, the Cold War morphed into something quite different. With the nations most prominent anticommunist taking obvious delight in shaking hands with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, the war effort in Vietnam became utterly inexplicable  and so it has remained ever since.

When the Cold War subsequently ended in what was ostensibly a victory of cosmic proportions, any urge to reckon with Vietnam disappeared entirely. After all, in comparison with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, how much did the fall of Saigon in 1975 matter? In Washington, the answer was clear: not all that much. On an issue that far exceeded the Vietnam War in importance, history had rendered a definitive verdict. Only the churlish would disagree.

Then, quite literally out of the blue, came the events of 9/11. In an instant, the end of history, inaugurated by the passing of the Cold War, itself abruptly ended. Rather than pausing to consider the possibility that they might have again misconstrued the signs of the times, descendants of the political elite that had contrived the Vietnam War  including several who had found ways to sit out that conflict  devised a new framework for basic U.S. policy. The Global War on Terror now became the organizing principle for American statecraft, serving a function comparable to the Cold War during the second half of the prior century.

As had been the case during the early phases of the Cold War, the Manichean mood of that post-9/11 moment favored action over deliberation. So, within weeks of those attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, the United States embarked on a new shooting war in  of all places  landlocked, impoverished Afghanistan, famous for being the graveyard of empires (including the Soviet one) but not much else.

That war was destined to continue for 20 years. By the time it ended, many observers had long since begun to compare it to Vietnam. The similarities were impossible to miss. Both were wars of doubtful strategic necessity. Both dragged on endlessly. Both concluded in mortifying failure. To capture the essence of the war in Afghanistan, it didnt take long for critics to revive a term that had been widely used to describe Vietnam: each was a quagmire. Here was all you needed to know.

So based on outward appearances, the two wars seemed to be siblings. Yet when it came to substance, any relationship between the two rated as incidental. After all, the Vietnam and Afghan Wars occurred in entirely different periods of contemporary history, the one preceding the annus mirabilis of 1989 when that wall in Berlin came down and the other occurring in its wake.

But heres the thing: in reality, the fall of the Berlin Wall didnt change everything. Among the things it left fully intact was a stubborn resistance to learning in Washington that poses a greater threat to the wellbeing of the American people than communism or terrorism ever did. To confirm that assertion, look no further than well, yes, the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Changing the Frame

You can learn a lot by studying the origins, conduct, and consequences of World War I (1914-1918). And you can learn a lot by studying the origins, conduct, and consequences of World War II (1939-1945). But to arrive at some approximation of definitive historical truth when it comes to twentieth-century Europe, you need to think of those two events as the Thirty Years War of 1914-1945. Only then is the connective tissue between the Guns of August and the horrors that were to befall Western civilization three decades later revealed.

Something similar applies to Americas wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan. In ways that may not be easily appreciated, the two are intimately related. Bringing to light their kinship  and, by extension, their true significance  requires situating them in a single historical framework. Classifying Vietnam as an episode in the Cold War and Afghanistan as an unrelated part of the Global War on Terror confers a certain superficial narrative order on the recent past. But doing so is like pretending that World War I and World War II were unrelated events. It overlooks essential connective tissue.

Instead, to identify a historical frame that encompasses both Vietnam and Afghanistan, consider this proposition: however momentous they were for Europeans, the events of 1989-1991, when the Soviet Union imploded, left the American way of life all but untouched. True, the end of the Cold War had enormous implications for Western and Eastern Europe (soon to merge), for the states of the former Soviet Union (cut loose to pursue their own destinies), and for Russia itself (diminished and humiliated, but still a mammoth successor state to the USSR).

While these events unleashed a torrent of self-congratulation in the U.S., the passing of the Cold War did not substantively modify the aspirations or expectations of the American people. For decades, the United States had exerted itself to uphold and enhance the advantageous position it gained in 1945. Its tacit goal was not only to hold the communist world in check but to achieve ideological, economic, political, and military primacy on a global scale, with all but the most cynical American leaders genuinely persuaded that U.S. supremacy served the interests of humankind.

Attach to this outlook whatever label you like: innocence, intractable ignorance, megalomania, naked imperialism, historical myopia, divine will, or destiny. Subsuming them, however, was the concept of American exceptionalism. Whatever your preferred term, here we come to the essence of the American project.

The fall of the Berlin Wall did nothing to dislodge or even modify this strategy. Indeed, the collapse of communism seemingly affirmed the plausibility of pre-existing American aspirations and expectations. So, too, did the events of 9/11. Bizarrely but crucially, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon only imparted to American exceptionalism a renewed sense that here was the very foundation of the nations identity. Beginning with the administration of President George W. Bush but continuing to the present moment, the United States regularly doubled down on its quest for a global primacy that was to be achieved largely, though by no means entirely, through the use or threatened use of military power.

Were now in a position to assess the consequences of such an approach. An essential preliminary step toward doing so is to discard the narrative of contemporary history that centers on the Cold War, succeeded, after a brief but blissful interval, by an unrelated Global War on Terror. Its time to substitute a narrative describing an American military enterprise that began when the first U.S. combat troops came ashore in South Vietnam and persisted until the last American soldier departed Kabul in defeat some 56 years later. While thinking of this conflict as the Fifty-Six Year War may be accurate, it lacks a certain ring to it. So, lets call it the Very Long War (1965-2021), or VLW, instead.

At the outset of the VLW, this countrys global preeminence was, of course, self-evident. At home, the constitutional order, however imperfect, appeared sacrosanct. By the time that Very Long War had reached its climax, however, informed observers were debating the international implications of American decline, while speculating anxiously about whether the domestic political order, as it had existed since at least the end of the Civil War, would even survive.

As the episodes that launched, concluded, and defined the essential character of the VLW, the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan hold the key to understanding its dismal outcome. Whether considered separately or together, they exhibit with unmistakable clarity the grotesque military malpractice that forms the VLWs abiding theme.

Why did the United States fail so ignominiously in Vietnam? Why did it fail again in Afghanistan? The answers to these two questions turn out to be similar.

Begin with the fact that neither the survival of the Republic of Vietnam in the 1960s nor the ouster of the Taliban regime after 9/11 qualified as in any way vital to this countrys national interest. Both were wars of choice undertaken in places of (at best) tangential importance to the United States.

Then, add into the mix a near total absence of competent political oversight; deficient generalship, with senior officers struggling to comprehend the nature of the wars they were charged with waging; unwarranted confidence in the utility of advanced military technology; an excessive reliance on firepower that killed, maimed, and displaced noncombatants in striking numbers, thereby alienating the local population; nation-building efforts that succeeded chiefly in spawning widespread corruption; an inability to inculcate in local militaries the capacity and motivation to defend their country; and not least of all, determined enemies who made up for their material shortcomings by outpacing their adversaries in a willingness to fight and die for the cause.

Each one of these factors informed the way the United States fought in Vietnam. A half-century later, each reappeared in Afghanistan.

In terms of their conduct, the two campaigns differed only in one important respect: the role allotted to the American people. Reliance on conscription to raise the force that fought in Vietnam spurred widespread popular opposition to that war. Reliance on a so-called volunteer military to carry the burden of waging the Afghan War allowed ordinary Americans to ignore what was being done in their name, especially when field commanders devised methods for keeping a lid on U.S. casualties.

Bookends

The Very Long War has, in fact, exacted an immense toll, essentially without benefits. Bookended by Vietnam and Afghanistan, the entire enterprise yielded almost nothing of value and contributed significantly to the rise to power of Donald Trump and the wounding of this countrys political system. Yet even today, too few Americans are willing to confront the disaster that has befallen the United States as a consequence of our serial misuse of military power.

This represents a grievous failure of imagination.

On that score, just consider for a moment if this country had neither intervened in Vietnam nor responded to 9/11 by invading Afghanistan. What would have happened?

Almost certainly, the North Vietnamese would have succeeded in uniting their divided country with much less bloodshed. And Taliban control of Afghanistan would in all likelihood have continued without interruption in the years following 2001, with the Afghan people left to sort out their own destiny. Yet, despite immense sacrifices by U.S. troops, a vast expenditure of treasure, and quite literally millions of dead in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan, thats exactly how things turned out anyway.

Would the United States be worse off had it chosen not to engage in those twin wars of choice? Would the Soviet Union back in the 1960s and the Peoples Republic of China more recently have interpreted such self-restraint as evidence of weakness? Or might this countrys adversaries have seen the avoidance of needless war as an indication of prudence and sound judgment by a powerful country? And had the follies of war in Vietnam and Afghanistan been avoided, might it not have been possible to avert, or at least diminish, the pathologies currently afflicting this country, including Trumpism and our deepening culture wars? Certainly, that possibility should haunt us all.

Of one thing only can we be certain: its past time to be done with the Very Long War and the misguided aspirations to global primacy that inspired it. Only if Americans abandon their fealty to the idea of American Exceptionalism and the militarism that has sustained it, might it be possible to conclude that the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan served some faintly useful purpose.
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans.

At the same time as the Biden administration is handing out more permits to extract fossil fuels from public lands than did Trump, some on the other side of the world are pushing forward with proposals to resettle people displaced by climate change.

Although Bangladesh is one of the worlds poorest countries, its home to individuals and institutions with a strong tradition of designing and implementing innovative policy models  some of which have been exported elsewhere. Perhaps the best-known of these is the Grameen Banks micro-landing initiatives  for which founder Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet the efforts of BRAC NGO, are far less well-known outside Bangladesh, despite being equally if not far more significant. One life-saving BRAC initiative I learned about first-hand slashed the number of children who succumb to diarrhea, as I wrote in this 2019 post, Clean Water: UNICEF Shows More Children Die from Diarrhea than Direct Violence in Conflict Zones.

During a month-long visit in 2009, I learned about the work of BRAC, now the largest non-governmental development organisation in the world (in terms of employees). Sir Fazle Abed established BRAC in 1972 immediately after the 1971 war. Wikipedia reports that BRAC is present in all 64 districts of Bangladesh as well as 13 other countries in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. As I travelled around the country conducting research about its textile traditions, I visited many villages. In these, many people  mostly women  produced handicrafts and textiles, in operations organized and overseen by BRAC and its social enterprise, Aarong. Much more than any details about textiles or their production, whats stuck with me now, a decade later, is how one simple, low-cost initiatives could save so many lives. In the humblest of villages, I saw women with mstrings or simple necklaces hung around their necks,from which dangled a small, two headed spoon  about the size of a teaspoon on one side, and a tablespoon on the other. They were taught that when I child caught diarrhoea, it was necessary to find fresh water, and make homemade Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS), by dissolving roughly one teaspoon salt to one tablespoon of sugar into IIRC a liter or so of water.

Another takeaway: the world faces many seemingly intractable problems and funding alone is neither necessary nor sufficient to solve them. But now, back to the matter at hand.

Resettling Climate Refugees

Withe these initiatives in the back of my mind, I was cheered  and unsurprised  to read in todays Guardian about the efforts of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD), a Bangladesh-based group, to resettled climate refugees, Port in a storm: the trailblazing town welcoming climate refugees in Bangladesh.

Low-lying Bangladesh is on the front-line of the climate catastrophe, and along with India, on the other side of the border, is now even more regularly pummelled by destructive cyclones a subject Ive covered in multiple posts (see, e.g., The Front Lines of Climate Change: Cyclone Yaas and the Sundarbans; Climate Change: Hurricanes Getting Stronger; Cyclone Amphan Pummels Bengal; More Mangroves: Protecting Tropical Coastal Areas from Cyclone Damage; and Climate Change: The Wrath of Cyclone Fani). If these front-line countries were to wait for richer countries to save them  well, lets just say, theyd be waiting a very long-time  and might all very well drown, or starve, first.

In this post, Ill rely largely on The Guardian account. In a future post, I might examine the ICCCADs proposals more closely. Alas, today I was unable to download the groups report from their website. So, for the moment, over to The Guardian:

By the time the rising sun breaks through the morning mist over the Mongla River, the rhythmic chug of motors strapped to wooden canoes is already audible as thousands of workers are hurriedly ferried across the waterway. They jump on to the small landing dock, pick up a potato-stuffed shingarapastry for pennies and rush towards the factories in Monglas export processing zone (EPZ), which has transformed the small town into an employment hub in a part of Bangladesh ravaged by the climate crisis. About 30 miles (50km) inland from the Bay of Bengal, Mongla is the gateway to the Unesco-listed Sundarbans mangrove forest, home to the endangered Bengal tiger. Its port, founded in the 1950s, has been the focus of an ambitious, decade-long project led by one of the worlds leading climate scientists to transform it into a town that actively welcomes climate refugees.

Ive visited the Sunderbans, the worlds largest mangrove forest, many times, drawn by its phenomenal bird life. I wrote about my last tripe to these wetlands for The National, a Dubai-based newspaper. (see India and Bangladeshs mysterious mangroves: The Sundarbans). Yet Ive only visited the Indian side of the Sunderbans, and have never ventured into the Bangladeshi side. And I admit, I shudder a bit about the prospect of exploiting this ecosystem further economically  something already being done, and not just limited to tourism, trawling  on foot  for shrimp, and honey collection.

Per The Guardian account:

In my 30 years here Ive seen so many changes. The roads, the docks, the number of people coming here. It has all changed, says Abdul Jalil, a 52-year-old boatman on the Mongla River. We used to have a lot of problems; after rains the roads would be flooded, we had very little infrastructure around here. He used to row manually but says all the boats have motors now, with each carrying about 700 people a day across the river, on their way to work in the export zone or in Sundarbans tourism. These people crossing, theyre all from other places, from the villages near the Sundarbans. They work here in the EPZ, for tourism in the Sundarbans, instead of going to places like Chittagong. Its safer here, there isnt crime, there are jobs and the living standards are better. Bangladesh is an internal migration pressure cooker. There is nothing new in the countrys rural poor moving to cities in search of work. But catastrophic weather events are speeding up the waves of people flowing into the urban centres.

In particular,

Migration in Bangladesh

Migration is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the departure of the British from India led to partition of the sub-continent, and the panicked migration of many from India to Pakistan and whats now called Bangladesh, and vice versa. Over to The Guardian:

The phenomenon of migration is age old  theres nothing new here  but climate change is causing people to move and we are having to deal with this very, very quickly  that is what made us work on the idea, says Huq. More than a dozen satellite cities and towns, all adjacent to economic hubs such as sea and river ports or export processing zones, have been identified as potential migrant-friendly locations. They are all secondary towns with populations of between a few hundred thousand and half a million which can absorb up to half a million climate migrants each, says Huq.

Monga popped out as a prime destination for many reasons, which the Guardian summarizes:

Among those towns, Mongla stood out for the progress it had already made on climate breakdown mitigation, driven by the towns dynamic mayor, Zulfikar Ali. In his 10 years in office, from 2011 to 2021, an array of infrastructural developments made Mongla a safer, more resilient town. They include a 7-mile raised embankment along newly built Marine Drive designed to protect against flooding; two flood-control gates; an improved drainage system; two 40 hectare (100 acre) reservoirs and a fresh water treatment plant that has increased the proportion of houses with running water from a third to a half. Sheikh Abdur Rahman, who took over from Ali as mayor of Mongla in January 2021, has picked up the baton. At one time the city was regularly flooded by high tides. Now it is being brought under climate-friendly city planning, he says.

One prime attraction of relocating Monga is the availability of jobs  which are not easy to come by for the mass of refugees who otherwise might find themselves in Dhaka. But employment isnt the only obstacle that climate refugees need to overcome after theyre resettled. Per the Guardian:

The towns proximity to the second largest port in Bangladesh and an export processing zone that already employs 8,000 people also made it economically attractive, says Huq. The primary carrot [in luring people to a town] is jobs, he says. But thats the easy part. The challenge, he says, is the softer interventions, the social and cultural changes required to bring about his vision of a network of towns whose existing residents welcome newcomers. Hostility between host and migrant happens everywhere, says Huq. In Bangladesh, we have several big advantages  one is that we look the same so migrants are not distinguishable; second, there is one language  we all speak Bangla; and third, we all have the same religion. What we do have is a class barrier, so the newcomer is a poor person eking out a living  and that is what we are working on, humanising what is initially seen as other. These softer interventions include making sure the children of migrants are well integrated in schools and encouraging them to go on to university to break the cycle of poverty. These may be relatively modest aims on paper but they require buy-in from educational institutions. Huq and his team have spent time talking to schools and universities to gain their support for the concept. Monglas population was below 40,000 in the 2011 census but a decade later three times as many people are thought to be living there. Huqs mission to actively encourage migration to the town is likely to swell that figure by tens, possibly hundreds of thousands more.

Ten-Year Program

These numbers may seem large, so I should provide some context. Low-lying Bangladesh is home to nearly 165 million people. Finding places to resettle those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change is imperative. Now, some might throw up their hands at the magnitude of the challenge Bangladesh faces. I, however, applaud these efforts; lets hope theyre more effective than King Canute commanding the tides not to rise. And at least, no ones approving any fossil fuel exploitation permits  which all concerned understand only exacerbates climate change  rather than mitigate either causes or effects Per The Guardian:

Mongla is the first town to adopt ICCCADs recommendations, but others will follow. This is a 10-year action programme and we are taking it town by town, mayor by mayor, says Huq. Over time, towns will set up outposts in the coastal areas and villages where the majority of climate migrants come from. Huq envisages these outposts as mini embassies that will act as information hubs for migrants, steering them away from Dhaka and towards host towns that are better equipped to cope with an expanding population, and where migrants can be fully fledged, as opposed to second-class, citizens. It is early days in a long-term process that has been hampered by Covid and the UK government cutting the aid which was funding the research, but Huq is confident that Mongla and its sister towns will become models of disaster management, adaptation and resilience.

Jerri-Lynn here. Id like to delve further into this issue, by talking to Bengali contacts on both sides of the border, some of whom I hope might be able to translate accounts of this unitive that might appear in Bengali-language media. More anon.
Our Covid brain trust had a wee discussion of how the dogs are no longer (much) eating the dog food of vaccines as the magic bullet for all problems Covid. Even if the press is hammering away at the story line, were seeing more and more defectionsincluding from those inside the media tent.

Bear in mind that until recently, Kim Iverson was of the let er rip school of thinking. Now shes declaring that the vaccines, even boosts, do perilous little to stop Covid. She tears into the public health establishment for being hyperfocused on the vaccies , and the degree of neglect and misinformation amounts to crimes agains humanity. Mind you, our GM has been giving a more cool-headed version of this argument for over a year.but to see a version of it in the mainstream media?

Further consider: the media is a hothouse. Iverson would not dare take a line like this and risk career damage and being shunned socially unless at least a substantial minority of her peers felt the same way.

Iverson also tears into the officialdom for the lack of any guidance about what to do if you get sick except go hide and hope you dont get so debilitated that you need to call 911. Recall that this isnt just a problem for lowly patients. IM Doc has repeatedly inveighed against the CDC for failing to give advice to cliniciansone of its most important responsibilities in past infectious disease outbreaks. Its completely punted with Covid. The US should be ashamed that third world countries are doing better by sending diagnosis and treatment kits to citizens, with care packs including thermometers, blood oximeters, test kits, zinc, Vitamin C, Vitamin D, OTC meds for fever, and sometimes the I drug.

But Iversons self-described rant hasnt fully abandoned her previous view that getting Covid might not be terrible. She highlights natural immunity (as opposed to Covid-induced immunity) as her #2 topic, and it takes a while for her to work around to her point: If you have gotten Covid, how long are you unlikely to get it again and infect others? She frames it as important to know in terms of being able to care for others. But lets not kid ourselves: the officialdom has been so fixated on vaccines as the one and only approach to Covid that theyve been unwilling to concede that having gotten infected some protection.1

And speaking of treatments, IM Doc, who flagged the Iverson video, in recent weeks sent along a discussion of two cases where he was certain the cause of death was remdesivir. His explanation, using one as an example:

This patient although with a high BMI  had not ever had any kind of renal disease in any way but died of acute tubular necrosis  and this is almost always secondary to drug toxic effects. The patient had a CREAT of >7  (normal being 05.-1.2). Almost assuredly killed by the remdesevir. Another patient earlier this year shared the same fate. Did COVID kill them?  No  as there is no evidence that COVID or any other respiratory virus causes this level of renal failure. And this is especially so in the absence of multiple systemic organ failure  when the heart, lungs, liver and brain appear relatively intact  the chance of COVID or any initial infection being the cause of renal failure in isolation is laughably low. But were they killed by a drug that was being used for COVID?  almost assuredly. And just try to report that to the FDA  they laugh out loud in your face. And remdesevir is known to nuke kidneys. It happens in up to 1/3 of the patients and was the cardinal reason it was suspended in Ebola. Unfortunately  it does absolutely NOTHING  for the patients  there is no benefit that I have ever been able to see  NOT EVEN ON ONE PATIENT. Almost every country on earth has realized this  and no longer use this agent  except the USA.

However, Iverson makes the mistake of treating mild and asymptomatic cases, particularly among the young, as inconsequential. For starters, an estimated 20% of asymptomatic cases end up with long Covid.

And as GM predicted, Omicron, by not being as well suited to attack the lungs and instead going over ACE2 receptors, which are all over the body, is not much reducing lungs to bloody pulp but instead can producewidespread organ damage which takes a while to manifest.2 Martha r sent this example from a full year ago:

An Eagle River family spent 10 days in an intensive care unit, including Christmas Day, while their 6-year-old son battled a syndrome that presents in some children who have had COVID-19. All four members of the Dye family tested positive for COVID-19 in November, parents Jerry Heath Dye and Hailey Dye said. The Dye children, 2-year-old Lucas and 6-year-old Cameron, barely had any symptoms while Heath Dye and Hailey Dye said they were exhausted. The COVID part wasnt all that bad for us. It seemed like we had the most common symptoms that you hear about and stuff like that. It was more four weeks after  when we  when Cameron got sick and things changed drastically, Heath Dye said. In December, Cameron Dye was running a 104.5-degree fever. A large rash started to spread from his ankles up his entire body. The family took him to urgent care, which treated him for strep throat and scarlet fever. The treatment didnt relieve his symptoms, and in a few days, he was admitted to the ICU at the Childrens Hospital at Providence Alaska Medical Center. He had congestive heart failure and fluid in his lungs. The doctors said Cameron Dye had multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a new condition that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says comes with inflammation of the major organs in some children four to eight weeks after a COVID-19 diagnosis.

From Mayos listing multisystem inflammatory syndrome, dated last November:

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a serious condition that appears to be linked to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Most children who become infected with the COVID-19 virus have only a mild illness. But in children who go on to develop MIS-C, some organs and tissues  such as the heart, lungs, blood vessels, kidneys, digestive system, brain, skin or eyes  become severely inflamed. Signs and symptoms depend on which areas of the body are affected. Rarely, some adults develop signs and symptoms similar to MIS-C. This new and serious syndrome, called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in adults (MIS-A), occurs in adults who were previously infected with the COVID-19 virus and many didnt even know it. MIS-A seems to occur weeks after COVID-19 infection, though some people have a current infection.

Note that the Alaska case occurred with the wild type virus, which had neither the brute replication force of Delta or Omicron.

With Omicron being more severe in children and hitting other organs proportionally harder than the lungs than other variants, it looks likely that well see higher levels of multisystem inflammatory syndrome and other long-term ailments than we did in the past.

Returning to the official narrative, GM opined that it still can be spun to serve our putative leaders:

Vaccination has been used to shift the frame of thinking about COVID and that shifting continues. First, it was a way to shut down any discussion of eliminating the virus. We were going to solve this with vaccines alone, and remember that what was actually peddled was that vaccines stop transmission and that once we vaccinate enough people, transmission will stop. That was known to be false by all that were actually paying attention, but the trick was played very cleverly  people are mortally afraid of being called anti-vaxxers, because that threatens their social class status, so the majority of voices calling for actual infection control went quiet once we had vaccines. Saying that the vaccines suck and that they have been oversold was enough for you to be labelled anti-vaxxer. I myself have experienced it on numerous occasions. That has continued ever since but the frame has been gradually shifting  as the vaccines have been eroding it has been still socially unacceptable to say they suck and we cannot rely on them, but meanwhile we moved from saying they stop transmission to saying they are there to prevent you from getting sick, not getting infected, and now to saying that yeah, you can still get sick, but thats OK, as long as you dont die. But as that progression has unfolded, most people were successfully accustomed to the view that getting infected and sick is something normal, and the idea that we can actually stop transmission with public health measures was almost completely forgotten. Also, notice how nobody realizes how quick that has happened  when has previously a vaccine gone from offering insufficient but still pretty good protection to offering very little? Except for flu, but everyone knows flu vaccines sucks, and even if they dont, theyre only good for a few months. This one, however, was advertised as one-and-done, and even when eventually it had to be acknowledged it will be an annual vaccine (false too, its a 3-shots-a-year vaccine right now), that it might suck really bad some years because you cant reliably predict antigenic drift, as with flu, is never ever mentioned. But that wasnt enough, people had to be made happy about getting infected and resistance to corporate pandemic policies had to be completely crushed. Artificially creating the vaxxer/anti-vaxxer opposition helped to do that with up to a third of the population  for those that whether for political reason or due to previously held anti-vaxxer beliefs didnt want the vaccine, if they werent exactly happy about getting COVID annually before, it now became a personal matter of sticking it to their enemies and oppressors. But you still have much of the rest of society. Part of it was taken care of once the mainstream media started the campaign that hybrid immunity is the best immunity. But the vaccine mandates and green passes came into play in order to shift the frame even further. Its a ridiculously inefficient epidemiologically measure, but it has a repressive character to it. So what happens? People rail against these things as they see it as impinging on their freedom and as useless because everyone around them is getting it regardless of vaccination status. And that moves them towards being happy to get infected, because they have never been told what that means in the long term. That effect was also used to sneak in new monstrous policies such as the 5-day isolation  lots of people are genuinely happy about that because apparently few are capable of running the consequences through their heads a few moves ahead and realizing that this does not mean they will be free from restriction but that they will be forced to go to work even when they cant get out of bed and power over their bodily autonomy has been taken away from them and put into the hands of their bosses. And finally it was used to neuter opposition from the supposedly non-mainstream voices, who turned out to be ignorant about the situation both scientifically and socioeconomically, but who are now openly advocating for letting it rip and ending of vaccine mandates, as if the two things are somehow linked. Because the frame of discourse was moved to present those as the only two possible alternatives. So now we have this perverse situation in which infection control is seen by many as corporate-driven oppression, when the reality is that corporate interests sabotaged infection control from the start.

But with the potential to further fray official credibility, any Omicron retreat be followed by a new wave:

Denmark and France both experiencing resurgence of Omicron, presumably BA.2. This will extend epidemic in Europe and soon N America.  Brian Hjelle, virologist (@hjelle_brian) January 21, 2022

So brace yourselves for a wild ride.

_____

1 The reality is Omicron is so different from previous variants that as we have seen, it greatly diminishes the efficacy of vaccines even among the boosted. And we are now flying blind with how much protection having gotten a previous variant (and then charitably assuming one has a good guess as to which variant it was) vs. Omicron.

1 As GM previously said:
By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed publicly in Geneva on Friday, January 21, that he will not negotiate a no-war agreement with the Russians because he cannot. This is already understood by the Russians; by the French and Germans; and by several senior officials of the Biden Administration.

The evidence of Blinkens incapacity is in the words he says.

It was during the last world war, when US policymakers had next to no intelligence on how their German counterparts were thinking and what they were intending, that a group of American sociologists were engaged by the War Department, as the Pentagon was called then, to do what was called content analysis of German propaganda. One of the sociologists, a Russian emigre Nathan Leites, went on to apply the same method to Soviet publications in order to uncover what Leites called the operational code of the Politburo. That was in 1951. It was immediately used by US negotiators during the Korean War armistice negotiations which began in July of that year and ran for two years. By then Leites had produced a sequel, A Study of Bolshevism. Both were paid for and published by RAND, the think-tank created in 1945 by the US Air Force, the Douglas Aircraft Company, and the War Department.

Since then the method has not been used on US Government officials, at least not by RAND nor publicly by any American sociologist.

When the RAND method is used to analyze what Blinken told the US press, following his meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, it is revealed that Blinken has no intention whatever of negotiating a non-aggression pact with the Russians on any terms. According to the scientific method devised by the best and brightest Americans for dealing with their enemies, its now clear from Blinkens own words that he is unable to understand what Russians tell him. In the mind behind the words there is only one compulsive idea  attack, punish, destroy Russia.

The State Department has published the transcript of Blinkens statement and answers to questions at his press conference.

Source: https://www.state.gov/

No posting time has been indicated by the State Department. Watch Blinken read from a written script for the first six and a half minutes of his 29 and a half-minute briefing.

Blinkens meeting with Lavrov lasted for just 90 minutes. The session on January 10 between their deputies, Wendy Sherman and Sergei Ryabkov, had run for almost eight hours. That has been analysed here.

At his parallel press conference in Geneva, Lavrov explained: Punctuality, in principle, cannot be a bad sign. We planned the meeting for an hour and a half. It was pretty clear what we were going to discuss. There was no need to reproduce everything that was said at the Russian-American talks in Geneva on January 10 this year and at the meeting of the Russia-NATO Council on January 12 this year.

We heard the first reaction of the United States (so far verbally) to what was discussed in those two formats at the level of our deputies. As the American side requested when it proposed to hold this meeting, the reaction was preliminary. We were warned about this. It was accompanied by clarifying questions addressed to us, the answers to which will help Washington (A. Blinken told me this on the phone) to prepare a written response to our written drafts of the treaty with the United States and the agreement with NATO. Thats what happened today. Read Lavrovs remarks in full.

The Russian Foreign Ministry transcript was posted at 19:36 Moscow time on January 21. Source: https://mid.ru/

Lavrov spoke extemporaneously; unlike Blinken, he did not read from prepared script or notes.Lavrov said it was premature for him to chew over what Blinkens intentions, or US government plans  Lavrov distinguishes between them  are for war in Europe. I cannot say that we are on the right or wrong path. We will understand this when we get the American reaction on paper to all the points of our proposals.

This was not a negotiation, Blinken declared, but a candid exchange of concerns and ideas. For content analysis, the reporters questions and extraneous editing materials have been removed; Blinkens text runs for 3,359 words. These have been transferred to a document file where conventional text search analyses have been performed.

In Blinkens text, the word exchange appeared only once. When Blinken used the word idea, he meant his own. This word appeared five times  four of them refer to Blinkens ideas, none to Lavrovs. The word concern appeared 23 times, and is one of Blinkens most frequently used substantive terms. He used it 7 times for Russia; 8 times for the US, and 8 times referring neutrally to the mutual or reciprocal concerns on the two sides.

Defining what he meant by concern, Blinken used the term security 15 times  8 times to refer to what he called US security or that of its allies; 5 times neutrally; just twice to Russian security. Actions Blinken used as often  15 mentions. Just twice did Blinken mean US actions, and only once was the term used neutrally. The overwhelming majority of actions, 12 altogether, are Russian in Blinkens vocabulary: they are either military, or destabilizing, escalatory, aggressive, threatening, or challenge or undermine peace and security not only in Ukraine but throughout Europe and, indeed, in the world.

Defense was used 8 times, but only in relation to the US or its allies, principally the Ukraine. Blinken does not acknowledge that Russia has any concern or is taking any action to safeguard its own security, or is engaged in defence of itself. Interests was a term that Blinken applied four times, but exclusively to Russia.

Aggression appeared 15 times in Blinkens briefing of almost 30 minutes; subtracting the time it took the journalists to ask their questions, Blinken used aggression every 1.5 minutes, and applied it only to Russia. In Blinkens mind, there has been no Ukrainian attack on the Donetsk and Lugansk republics in the east of the country; no civil war; no legitimate Ukrainian opposition to the Kiev regime. Beyond the Ukraine, Blinken added, Russia has an extensive playbook of aggression short of military action, including cyber attacks, paramilitary tactics, and other means of advancing their interests aggressively without overtly using military action.

Military (x7) is principally what Blinken attributes to Russia. Invade (x6) and attack  (x2), are exclusively Russian. Response (x5) is solely what the US does, and almost always united (x4).

Source: https://mid.ru/

In Russias draft non-aggression treaty with the US, presented on December 17, the core security interest of Russia is the halt, then pullback of the deployment of US nuclear weapons under NATO cover towards Russias sea and land frontiers. Blinken did not mention the term missile, and the only reference he made to nuclear weapons was to Irans nuclear programme. Even that, Blinken turned into a Russian responsibility. We hope that Russia will use the influence that it has and relationship that it has with Iran to impress upon Iran that sense of urgency, and equally, that if were unable to do that because Iran refuses to undertake the obligations that are necessary, that we will pursue a different path in dealing with the danger posed by Irans renewed nuclear program. This was Blinkens reference to the Israeli plan of attack on Iran; he appears to endorse it.

Blinken has ignored the fundamental point of the Russian proposals in the draft pacts for the US and NATO. He has dismissed Shermans talks with Ryabkov on reducing the threats of nuclear war in Europe and between Russia and the US.

Instead, the words Blinken has chosen mean more war on the Ukraine front. The only terms (x8) he referred to are not those he is ready to negotiate (x1) with Russia, but the terms of the assistance were providing to Ukraine for its defense, in terms of the work were doing at NATO to prepare as necessary to further reinforce the Alliance, and continuing to define and refine massive consequences for Russia with our allies and partners when it comes to financial, economic and other sanctions.

Tested in two hot wars, and during the Cold War, the RAND method for gauging the intention of the adversary predicts this about Blinken  he wants war with Russia; he has no mind for any alternative.
(Natural News) A horrific video clip is circulating the internet of a television show in Quebec, Can., where two young children, obviously propagandized, tell all about how they got vaccinated for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) and want the unvaccinated to go to jail for refusing to join them.

The clip begins with a female host asking two young children, possibly sister and brother, about whether they got their jabs in order to travel.

Speaking of trips, do you guys have your vaccines? the host asks.

Yes! Both of us have a single dose, the young girl responds.

Oh yeah? And do you agree with mandatory vaccination? the host responds, baiting a predetermined answer with this inappropriate question.

Yes! both children respond as the camera pans to show them distanced from one another on the couch, presumably by about six feet.

It looks like Ive drilled them, Julie! interjects an excited obese woman, basically admitting that she groomed the children beforehand to offer up their politically correct answers.

And what should we do with those who refuse to get vaccinated? the first female host then asks.

We should call the police, the young boy responds with a smile on his face.

Oh! Yeah! an adult male host immediately responds in excitement to this answer.

If they dont have their vaccine, it can put a lot of people in danger, the young girl then adds to the young boys response. So, as the government is currently doing, we must restrict them little by little until they get tired of it and get vaccinated.

After the little girl gets done spewing all this, the hosts all start cheering and clapping along with an audience clap-track.

This video is from channel The Willow on Brighteon.com.

Woke cultists want all children confused about their gender and fully injected with Fauci chemicals

The grooming tactics being deployed on children to brainwash them into supporting the persecution of their neighbors and even family members over covid injections are the same ones used at schools to promote the LGBTQ agenda.

Confusing children about which gender they are and which bathroom to use is no different than confusing them about Fauci Flu injections and telling them that everyone is going to die unless everyone gets jabbed.

To use children to further the insanity of the so-called vaccines is perverse and a form of child abuse! expressed a Brighteon user in response to the above video.

This is absolutely pathetic, wrote another. Turning children against adults is a recipe for future disaster.

Another pointed out that this type of thing has been going on for decades. First there was outcome-based education, which turned into woke mob indoctrination, which has now turned into Branch Covidianism disguised as science and education.

Where does it all end? Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an end as long as parents keep on sending their little ones to the government indoctrination centers known as public schools.

Actually, it might BE a good idea for the FBI to arrest and charge all parents with terrorism who have not removed their children from the American education system, suggested a reader at Natural News about an alternative approach to this problem.

It is a matter of fact that sending children to public schools these days is a form of child abuse. Instead of learning reading, writing and arithmetic, many of them are learning about how all White people are evil, and how there is no such thing as male and female.

The latest news about covid child grooming can be found at Pandemic.news.

Sources for this article include:

Brighteon.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) The infamous Tony Fauci appeared the other day on a Zoom call with Bloombergs Francine Lacqua, during which he admitted that the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) is nothing more than his own religious cult.

Lacqua read a question to Fauci from someone who wanted to know if we should all be worried about future Fauci Flu variants emerging, and what Faucis views are about Big Pharma companies taking advantage of this whole situation for profit.

Fauci responded with:

Because there are some inherent non-believers that no matter what you say, they give you a real problem.

In other words, not everyone belongs to Faucis virus cult. And these unbelievers are a problem because in order for his cults message and agenda to permeate and be a success, everyone must believe (watch below):

Its a cult. Fauci today on believers and non-believers pic.twitter.com/msMTs7Od0K  Justin Hart (@justin_hart) January 19, 2022

The strange digital meeting was attended by other covid cult members including Stephane Bancel, a French billionaire and CEO of Moderna, as well as Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor of infectious diseases research at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore.

The logo of the World Economic Forum (WEF) was also stamped in the upper right-hand corner of the meeting. WEF founder Klaus Schwab, by the way, is the one spearheading the push for a great reset in which nobody owns anything and is still happy.

Fauci is on a crusade to force-convert more people into his covid religious cult

It turns out that the online gathering with Fauci was a WEF-launched effort to discuss the challenges the globalists are having in convincing the human herd to continue following along with the plandemic.

Many more people are now awake to the truth compared to in early 2020, and even some religious adherents who were full-fledged Branch Covidians have left the cult and never looked back.

This makes the Schwabs and Faucis of the world very nervous and upset because their religion requires full conversion and obedience, using force if necessary. Many no longer want to obey, and Fauci is now publicly drawing lines in the sand between believers and unbelievers in his religion.

The emergence of the Omicron variant  and the reintroduction of national lockdowns, travel bans and quarantines  has reinforced the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, reads a description about the event.

Join experts and leaders to find out the possible scenarios for COVID in 2022 and beyond.

Some people who were on the fence about Fauci now recognize that he is fully evil, based on his latest statements to the WEF. Hopefully his days in the limelight, and as a free man, are numbered.

Now that we have definitive proof of Fauci lying about illegal gain-of-function coronavirus research, among many other lies he has told, there is simply no more excuse as to why Fauci has not yet been arrested and tried for crimes against humanity.

Oh patron saint of Wooohan, bestow your sanctum upon the unclean, joked one commenter about Fauci and his death cult religion.

Im a believer, wrote another. I believe Fauxi is a lying tyrant whose fifteen minutes of fame were up two years ago.

Another suggested that the believer vs. unbeliever narrative has been true since the very beginning, even if it took tyrant Fauci this long to fess up to it.

Wishing, hoping or believing have nothing to do with the fact that you lied and the vaccine isnt a vaccine, its just a shot and it doesnt work like you said it would and yet you double and triple down on the lies, wrote another to Fauci. That is a big wall of BS which will come crashing down on you.

The latest news about the Fauci cult can be found at Evil.news.

Sources for this article include:

Twitter.com

WEForum.org

NaturalNews.com

CitizenFreePress.com
(Natural News) A report revealed that several federal agencies are monitoring employees who sought religious exemptions for vaccines. These exemptions include that of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine, which the Biden administration mandated for federal employees.

Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation published its report on the matter on Jan. 18. It found that at least 19 federal agencies kept lists of personal religious information on employees objecting to the vaccine mandate on religious grounds. The Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation and the Department of the Treasury were some of the agencies named in the report.

As the nations largest employer, with over four million civilian and military employees, the federal government has received tens of thousands of religious exemption requests. It now appears that an increasing number of federal agencies are keeping and preserving those individuals names, religious information, personally-identifying information and other data stored in lists across multiple government agencies, Heritage Foundation said.

According to the think tank, this tracking of personal religious information began at the little-known Pretrial Services Agency (PSA). The agency assists judicial officers in the District of Columbia by gathering information about newly arrested defendants and preparing the recommendations considered by the court in deciding release options.

Just The News earlier reported that the PSA would create the Employee Religious Request Information System. According to the agency, the database was made in response to religious accommodation requests for religious exception from the federally mandated vaccination requirement in the context of a public health emergency.

Heritage Foundation said the PSAs creation of the database was only the most recent iteration of a disturbing trend. It added: The Biden administration is creating lists that can all communicate with one another on which individuals have sought religious exemptions from the federal employee vaccine mandate or other religious accommodations within the scope of their employment by the government. (Related: 80 Republicans just reportedly voted to fund a federal vaccine database designed to spy on Americans.)

Tracking those with religious exemptions to vaccines an alarming move

A day after Heritage Foundation released its report, the Epoch Times followed up the think tanks discovery with another revelation  after its review of notices at the Federal Register. It found that aside from the 19 agencies named in the Heritage Foundations report, an additional six agencies were tracking employees with religious exemptions to vaccines. This brings the total number of agencies involved in this surveillance to 25.

Furthermore, the Epoch Times also found that the tracking did not only encompass federal employees themselves. Contractors, consultants, interns and volunteers associated with these federal agencies are also included.

The notices in the Federal Register did not explain how long agencies plan on storing this data and why they need to keep it beyond the decision to grant or deny an employees request for religious exemption. The agencies plan to share these lists with other offices, but they did not elaborate on the reason why.

Missouri Attorney General (AG) Eric Schmitt denounced the administrations plan in a public comment addressed to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. The Biden administration must immediately dismantle its Orwellian database. The chilling effect on a citizens exercise of religion due to the creation of this database is alarming, he said.

The Republican AG also pointed out the scope of the data being collected from those seeking vaccine exemptions on religious rounds. The effort to collect such a staggering amount of information on self-identified religious practitioners would be unacceptable. (Related: New bill seeks to ban federal government from creating a vaccine database.)

Schmitt concluded: Much more could be said about this disastrous policy, but perhaps its most insidious feature is an attempt by the Biden administration to justify it on the basis of protecting citizens of this country from a virus  for their own good. We should not forget that tyrants throughout history often justify the taking of liberty under the guise of safety.

Heritage Foundation likewise concluded that Biden may not be winning points for transparency, but hes doing his best to win first place in subjecting Americans with sincerely held religious beliefs to differential treatment.

Watch the video below of Peggy Hall talking about the federal governments plan to establish a database for those seeking religious exemptions for vaccines.

This video is from The Healthy American channel on Brighteon.com.

Visit Surveillance.news for more about the administrations monitoring of those seeking exemptions for vaccines on religious grounds.

Sources include:

JustTheNews.com 1

Heritage.org

PSA.gov

JustTheNews.com 2

TheEpochTimes.com

Regulations.gov
(Natural News) A large number of people left-wing media and others claimed to be medical doctors who signed a petition demanding Spotify drop popular podcaster Joe Rogan over his COVID-19 treatment remarks arent even in the healthcare industry.

As reported by Fox News, earlier this month 270 so-called doctors all co-signed an open letter demanding that Spotify move against Rogan after claiming he spread COVID misinformation. And because the left-wing media hate Rogan, a free thinker who refuses to drink the Kool-aid and who also has a bigger audience than most of them combined, they rushed to publish and circulate the letter, even running headlines declaring the podcast host a menace to public health, as the group claimed.

But on closer examination, the majority of the signatories are either not direct medical providers or are not legally permitted to practice medicine on their own. Nearly 100 of them reportedly hold Ph.D. degrees but do not regularly practice, Fox News noted.

The letter came after an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience featuring virologist and immunologist Dr. Robert Malone went viral, in which he said that mass formation psychosis techniques were being used on Americans and other Western countries to gain compliance for COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic mandates.

Fox News notes:

The Guardian, Forbes, Rolling Stone, Washington Post and others published the story, describing a strong coalition of doctors who asked Spotify to implement a misinformation policy.

Only 87 of the signatories are medical doctors or doctors of osteopathic medicine, though, the conservative news site The Blaze found. Signatories include numerous nurse practitioners, veterinarians, a dentist and close to 100 Ph.D.s and Ph.D. candidates.

In addition, a psychologist, physicians assistants, medical students, an engineer and a podcast host made the list.

The group called on Spotify to take action against mass-misinformation events on its platform, while accusing Rogan of pushing misleading and false claims on his podcast, provoking distrust in science and medicine throughout the pandemic. The group also noted that Malone was suspended from Twitter for allegedly spreading misinformation regarding the pandemic.

Steve Kirsch, director of the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, challenged all 270 signatories in an open letter to a three-hour public debate on whether there was actual disinformation spread on Rogans show featuring Malone.

We challenge every Professor and medical doctor (MD) who signed the Open Letter to a live recorded Zoom debate at 10am PST on January 28, 2021 for 3 hours. The purpose is to identify and expose any misinformation on the Joe Rogan podcast cited in the letter, Kirsch wrote, adding:

We are old fashioned. We think scientific agreements should be settled by open discussion between scientists and not assigned to unknown, unqualified, and unnamed censors who hide deep inside the bowels of high tech companies.

I hope you agree with that and will accept our offer to an old fashioned scientific debate.

The first 12 Spotify letter signatories who are either a Professor or MD to accept the challenge will be the debaters on your side of the table. We will also accept substitutions if you are willing to give up your slot to a signer who later finds out about the debate offer.

Kirsch said his team will include Malone, noted vaccine safety advocate Robert F. Kennedy, and even Rogan if he is available.

Malone, the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, said in a separate interview that in order for mass formation psychosis to happen, a set of preconditions must occur, including authority figures stepping up to take advantage of a situation the way they did with the pandemic.

Everybody gets focused  and then leaders step in [and] seize this moment. When theyre identified  or promoted as leaders  the crowd can see no evil, hear no evil [and] speak no evil. Those leaders can say anything, it does not have to be true, and the crowd will believe it, he said.

Also, anyone who dissents is destroyed.

Anybody who says something that is contrary to the narrative must be attacked, he noted.

Sources include:

FoxNews.com

SteveKirsch.Substack.com

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) You know time is running out on the false reality in which most Americans live when the corporate-owned mainstream media starts to report some of the things that we in the alternative media have been reporting for years.

(Article by Leo Hohmann republished from LeoHohmann.com)

Ive been warning since 2018: America is heading toward civil war. For the last six months or so many of us have been warning about the creaky supply chain.

That chain is getting ready to buckle and break like a water pipe in the dead of winter, when frigid air sneaks in from the north.

It usually happens in the middle of the night, while everyone is sleeping in their warm beds. Under the stress of steadily dropping temperatures, the pipe starts to expand. Now compromised, the pipe starts to drip, then suddenly it pops. Water gushes out and into the house.

At that point, you have a big mess on your hands. If only youd seen the cold weather coming, you would have wrapped your pipes and protected them from the damage.

Thats how I see the U.S. supply chain right now. The pressure is building while the facade of normalcy reigns in the lives of 90 percent of American families. As they sleepwalk through life, they have no idea what kind of pressure is building on those pipes that keep money flowing throughout the global economy.

But when the dishonest mainstream media starts to take notice and give gentle, half-hearted warnings, you know the breaking point is near.

Take, for example, the article that appeared in the Jan. 15 issue of the Detroit News. In a story headlined Michigan faces acute impact from Canadas refusal to let in unvaccinated U.S. truckers, we are given a small glimpse of the truth  the engine that drives the American economy, truckers, are about to be dealt a devastating blow by the socialist government in charge of Canada.

One key word in that headline jumped out at me  impact.

I reported last week on the many dreams and visions being reported from spiritually discerning Christians in diverse areas. They dont know each other, theyre from all different backgrounds, but they all talk of having similar dreams warning believers to brace yourself for impact.

Since hearing of these dreams, Ive been noticing that word, impact, showing up all over the place. And in this Detroit News article were told of a looming acute impact.

If you just go by the headline, you might get the impression that its just Michigan that will suffer the impact of this vaccine mandate on truckers.

Dont be fooled. Statistics show otherwise. More than 50 percent of truckers are unvaxxed and 37 percent in a survey by the American Trucking Associations said they will never get the injection and will quit their jobs if forced to do so by their employers.

You have to read more than halfway into the article before you get to this bombshell quote from Brian Hitchcock, chairman of the Michigan Trucking Association.

Its definitely going to have an impact [theres that word again]. And its going to start as early as tomorrow, and its going to create a supply shortage of everything back and forth.

Soon, shipping will be disrupted in both directions, the article explains.

If this were the only challenge to the U.S. supply chain, we might be able to deal with it.

But its not.

The other big force driving a wedge into the U.S. supply chain is China.

The Chinese are deliberately closing ports that send goods to the U.S., Canada and Europe.

As part of its Covid-zero policy, China is locking down its ports, meaning the many products that America has come to depend on China to supply will not be found on store shelves in the weeks and months ahead.

Thanks to globalization, the U.S. is no longer a self-sustaining country. Many critically important products, such as life-saving antibiotics, are shipped into the U.S. from China. It would take months, perhaps years for the U.S. to gear up industries capable of churning out these items in bulk.

According to Bloomberg, another mainstream publisher, the effects of restrictions in China are starting to hit supply chains in the region. As a result of the slow movement of goods through some of the Chinas busiest and most important ports, shippers are now diverting to Shanghai, causing the types of delays at the worlds biggest container port that led to massive congestion bottlenecks last summer. That eventually translated into a record number of container ships waiting off the coast of California, a glut that hasnt been cleared to this day.

With sailing schedules already facing delays of about a week, freight forwarders warn of the impact on already backlogged gateways in Europe and the U.S. and that is also why economists are warning that the world economy could be headed for the mother of all supply chain shocks if China continues to lock down its ports.

Brace for impact. Acute impact.

We are about to experience severe deprivation like never before. And it wont be just food stores. Auto parts from Canada will make car fixes more difficult. Pharmaceuticals, electronics, apparel and just about everything we buy at Walmart comes from China. Imagine the impact if China makes its long awaited military move on Taiwan, where the vast majority of the worlds computer chips are manufactured.

The mainstream corporate news outlets cant see the bigger picture, or maybe they do but are afraid if they report it the sleeping American populous might get even more rattled and restless than they already are. But when you see articles like the one Saturday in the Detroit News and Friday in Bloomberg, you know even they are getting nervous. They have to be wondering if maybe those conspiracy theorists were right all along. But their controllers in the corporate boardrooms wont let them get to the bottom of the conspiracy, to report the whole truth to their readers.

If they could, they would know that what were looking at with these vaccine mandates and port shutdowns, all blamed on a virus that is 99 percent survivable, is part of a plan for the controlled demolition of America and the West. Its all designed to happen by very powerful entities that operate at a level above our elected political leaders. The decisions that are leading to the collapse are being made by those buying into Klaus Schwabs vision as put forth by the World Economic Forum and allied entities such as the United Nations, the Gates, Rockefeller, Soros and Ford foundations, and the corporate power elites on the interlocking boards of directors at Blackrock, Vanguard, State Street and Fidelity. Those four financial investment houses own a controlling share of almost every one of the worlds largest corporations, including the largest banks. And they have decided its time to blow up the system and start over with something new. Something very different. They call it the Great Reset. I call it technocracy.

They want to reset the global economy and the global social structure  the way we live, work, eat and move about in society. They have a plan for all of this and it wont resemble anything we are used to, anymore than the New Normal under Covid resembled what we were used to.

They want an economy based on a new digital, programmable currency and a social structure based on their Luciferian values.

That means the present capitalist economic system, based on the U.S. dollar, must be trashed before they can build back better with the new money system and a new technocracy based on social credit and a new more equitable form of inclusive capitalism, which has nothing in common with actual capitalism.

This system involves decoupling the middle class from their property. Almost all private property in the new system, if it is successfully implemented, will be owned by the 1 percent of elites and we will rent from them.

Those who dissent from the prevailing government-media narrative will wake up one morning to find that access to their digital money has been shut off. There will be no cash back-up, either, because cash will have been phased out of existence.

Read more at: LeoHohmann.com
(Natural News) Medical professionals and students have condemned mask mandates and other Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) measures in schools. They dubbed these measures as literally ruining lives instead of purportedly protecting people.

Political commentator Sophie Corcoran was among those who denounced such measures. During an appearance on the GB News channel, she proceeded to slam such mandates by British authorities. Corcoran pointed out that the damage [they] have done to my generation has been unbelievable.

The recently graduated student also mentioned that the face masks themselves became impediments to learning. There were teachers that were sitting there, yelling at the poor year-sevens about their face masks more than they would be teaching them. Those shy kids that would sit at the back of the class, that would never speak  it was a massive barrier to them. Year-seven roughly corresponds to the sixth grade in the U.S. and Canada.

Corcoran also touched on communication problems that arose with mask mandates in schools. Most of the time when we were in school, we took them off because we couldnt hear each other. They couldnt hear us, we couldnt hear them. Were in schools to learn.

She concluded: I watched and felt like my entire life was falling apart because of what this government did to young people, and nobody cared. They literally ruined our lives and nobody spoke about it.

Across the pond, an American student denounced these measures in a speech delivered at a school board meeting. The female student employed irony by thanking school board members for teaching mindless obedience to authorities instead of critical thinking.

Thank you for teaching students that our own mental health is much less important than making triple-vaccinated adults feel safe, [and] that even the most minute risk is not worth taking. Thank you for not reaching out to the students to ask what we feel about masks. Because if you did, the majority of students would say that they hate masks, she said.

Medical professionals slam cult of masked schoolchildren

Physician Dr. Vinay Prasad denounced mask mandates for children in a Jan. 20 piece for Tablet magazine. The associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco cited the lack of randomized studies that show the efficacy of masks in school settings.

Prasad also pointed to a January 2021 British government report that claimed masks may have physical side effects and impair face identification, verbal and non-verbal communication between teacher and learner. Thus, the British Department for Education followed this with a recommendation that children aged under 11 years old should be exempt from requirements to wear face coverings in all settings including education  which the physician also mentioned.

According to Prasad, most of the masks children have worn during the pandemic have likely done nothing to alter the way SARS-CoV-2 spreads. The loss to children remains difficult to capture in hard data, but will likely become clear in the years to come, he said. (Related: ODMS: Oxygen Deprivation Mask Syndrome now sweeping across the globe.)

Back in November 2021, speech pathologist Jacklyn Theeck said her speech therapy clinic in North Palm Beach, Florida saw a spike in patient referrals. Weve seen a 364 percent increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers from pediatricians and parents, she said. Theeck added that only five percent of her patients were babies and toddlers pre-pandemic  but this has since soared to 20 percent.

The therapist explained that babies start learning how to speak as young as eight months old by reading other peoples lips. But when masks are on people, some children can have speech delays as they are unable to read what others around them are saying.

Theres no research out there yet saying that this could be causing speech and language delays. But most definitely, Im sure its a factor. Its very important that kids do see your face to learn, so theyre watching your mouth, Theeck said.

Prasad concluded his Jan. 20 article: Because masking policies are largely forms of virtue-signaling and public health performance, its not surprising that they are often blatantly self-contradictory and absurd. When the history books are written, we will not look wise or kind for insisting that kids and toddlers wear masks for hours on end. We will look ignorant, cruel, fearful, and cowardly. (Related: NIH director admits school mask mandates not based on science.)

Watch this video below of Dr. Eric Nepute and Karen Kingston denouncing mask mandates and other Covid measures for children on Real Talk with Dr. Eric Nepute.

This video is from the BrighteonTV channel on Brighteon.com.

MedicalTyranny.com has more about COVID-19 mask mandates for children.

Sources include:

WND.com

Twitter.com 1

Twitter.com 2

TabletMag.com

WPBF.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) It is becoming quite apparent that the primary reason why Nancy Pelosis select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol false flag attack is so certain members can selectively leak certain portions of information obtained by the panel for the sole purpose of convicting former President Donald Trump in the court of public opinion  again.

The most recent leak involves text messages sent between Fox News Sean Hannity and then-White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, who is now, not so ironically, a paid Fox News contributor.

Specifically, Hannity, on Jan. 7, texted a five-point plan to McEnany to control then-President Trumps responses both to the false flag and in terms of continuing to insist that his reelection was stolen (though it clearly was).

Its unclear what three of the five points were, as the committee only selectively leaked the first two.

1- No more stolen election talk, Hannity texted McEnany, who sat down with committee investigators last week after being subpoenaed. Per the letter, he continued, 2- Yes, impeachment and the 25th amendment are real and many people will quit.

She replied, Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce.

Also, Hannity said he believed it was key to keep Trump away from certain people, texting: No more crazy people, leading McEnany to respond: Yes, 100%.

Hannity also wrote in a text to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows:

Guys, we have a clear path to land the plane in 9 days. He cant mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, Im not sure what is left to do or say, and I dont like knowing if its truly understood. Ideas?

The committee has been working on getting all the information it can but only from Trump and his allies and surrogates. For instance, no one on the panel, including the two anti-Trump Republicans  Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the co-chair, and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois  wants to know what role the FBI and deep state played in setting up the obvious false flag that was established ahead of the Capitol assault, as noted in observations published by an expert less than a week later.

J. Michael Waller, who was at the Capitol that day, wrote about what he saw in a piece for The Federalist a week after the breach:

Plainclothes militants . Militant, aggressive men in Donald Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform;

. Militant, aggressive men in Donald Trump and MAGA gear at a front police line at the base of the temporary presidential inaugural platform; Agents-provocateurs . Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving;

. Scattered groups of men exhorting the marchers to gather closely and tightly toward the center of the outside of the Capitol building and prevent them from leaving; Fake Trump protesters . A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and

. A few young men wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards and who did not fit in with the rest of the crowd in terms of their actions and demeanor, whom I presumed to be Antifa or other leftist agitators; and Disciplined, uniformed column of attackers. A column of organized, disciplined men, wearing similar but not identical camouflage uniforms and black gear, some with helmets and GoPro cameras or wearing subdued Punisher skull patches.

You dont go to a political rally to hear the president speak dressed like this. These people were there specifically to stage an attack on the Capitol so that Trump would be blamed  and its very likely the FBI was involved, as Tucker Carlson of Fox News has speculated.

And thats exactly what happened.

For the record, the FBI has already determined that there was no central plot to storm the Capitol by right-wing extremist terrorists, as Reuters reported in August  despite what this bogus panel suggests.

Sources include:

NaturalNews.com

TheFederalist.com
(Natural News) The new prime minister of the Czech Republic threw out his predecessors plan to impose a Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) mandate. Prime Minister Petr Fiala defended his decision to do so by saying that his government did not see the need to mandate the shots.

A former academic, Fiala assumed the premiership in December 2021  taking over his predecessor Andrej Babis. The new leader scrapped Babis plan to make COVID-19 injections mandatory for Czechs aged 60 and up and workers under several key sectors. Health care workers, medical students, firefighters and police officers would be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine by March under Babis order issued in early December 2021.

However, Fiala said on Jan. 19 that his center-right Spolu coalition did not see the vaccine mandate as a necessity. Weve agreed that vaccination against COVID-19 wont be mandatory. This does not change our stance on vaccination: It is still undoubtedly the best way to fight COVID-19. However, we do not want to deepen fissures in society, he told reporters.

The new prime minister also added that about 90 percent of people who would have been covered by Babis decree had already received COVID-19 vaccines. As of writing, 62.9 percent of Czechs have been fully vaccinated. Of the countrys total population of 10.5 million people, about 3.4 million  short of a third  have received a booster dose.

Back in December, Czech Health Minister Adam Vojtech confirmed the COVID-19 vaccine mandate from Babis. He added that the his ministry would issue a decree adding the COVID-19 vaccine to other required shots for certain occupations. Those refusing would be prohibited from working in those professions, Vojtech added.

Other countries are taking this path. It is a trend that will prevail across Europe, the health minister told reporters via a video link. Vojtech added that he would still go ahead with implementing the decree as he was convinced of vaccination being the right path in principle.

This did not happen, however, as Fialas government picked incumbent Deputy Prime Minister Vlastimil Valek to concurrently helm the health ministry.

While other countries require vaccines, Fiala goes against the grain

The Czech Republics prime minister has opted to scrap vaccine mandates in country. However, it appears that Fiala is the only leader in the European Union that went against the grain. Other EU countries opted to impose vaccine mandates and levy fines to those turning down the shot.

Austria announced in December 2021 that unvaccinated individuals in the country would face fines as high as 3,600 ($4,078) every three months. Those yet to receive the COVID-19 vaccine will receive a letter from health authorities reminding them to get injected before a certain deadline. Non-compliance will merit the fines, while presenting proof of vaccination or exemption from the vaccine would signal for all proceedings to be dropped.

Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckstein said: In regular proceedings, the amount of the fine is 3,600 ($4,078). As an alternative, the authorities have the option to impose a [smaller] fine in shorter proceedings immediately after the vaccination deadline. Here, the amount is 600 ($680). (Related: Austrians who refuse COVID vaccines to face MONTHLY fines under new law.)

Greece also announced a similar measure in early January 2022, albeit aimed at older individuals. From Jan. 17 onward, unvaccinated Greeks are set to face fines if they continue to turn down the COVID-19 vaccine. They will be fined 50 ($57) on the first instance, and will be penalized 100 every month moving forward  unless they decide to get vaccinated.

According to Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris, the countrys tax service will be in charge of collecting the fines. These penalties will then be directed to helping state-run hospitals tide over the pandemic. The age factor is important because of its impact on the public health service, Plevris said on Jan. 16. (Related: Unvaccinated elderly Greeks to face FINES for turning down Covid clot shots.)

Watch the video below of Czechs protesting against Babis vaccine mandate  which his successor Fiala scrapped.

This video is from the Russia Truth channel on Brighteon.com.

HealthFreedom.news has more about Fiala and other leaders rescinding vaccine mandates.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Reuters.com

DailyMail.co.uk

APNews.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) A school district in Pennsylvania has apologized for a mask-taping incident at one of its schools. A picture of the incident that went viral on social media showed a teacher attaching a mask to a students face using adhesive tape.

The image first went viral on Facebook after being shared by local group North Penn Stronger Together (NPST), which supported Republican school board candidates. According to the caption, it was taken at the Pennfield Middle School in Hatfield. The post called on the school board and the Democratic-leaning North Penn Neighbors for Progress (NPNP) to address the issue.

Pro-mask or anti-mask, I hope we can all agree that taping masks to childrens faces crosses the line. This was not a joke for the child or the parents, NPSTs post said.

The North Penn School District (NPSD) posted a statement in its website on Jan. 19, saying it was an isolated incident and didnt involve malicious intent. It nevertheless insisted that the actions of the teacher were entirely inappropriate and unacceptable, no matter the context and that the incident does not represent the universal values that [NPSD] strives to instill in both our students and staff.

We understand that the act of taping a mask to a students face is concerning to many, and apologize that it occurred. The matter is serious and it is being addressed with the employee. However, all personnel and student matters are confidential and no further information can be provided. (Related: Horror: Colorado teachers reportedly telling students they must tape masks to their faces so they dont wear them improperly.)

Meanwhile, the two local groups took to social media to exchange barbs at each other. The Democratic NPNP accused its GOP counterpart of exploitation of a child and family on social media. It said: The continued exploitation of any piece of negative news to re-instigate the cynical, partisan rhetoric that fueled your failed campaign is exhausting.

The parents and the child were not okay with that action and were not happy with the administrations handling of the incident. We are parents seeking some kind of leadership that gives us confidence that that faceless child wont be one of ours, the GOP-leaning NPST posted in return.

Mask-taping not an isolated incident

Contrary to what NPSD alleged in its statement, incidences of teachers taping masks to students faces are not isolated. The same has been reported in different school districts  as many are implementing mask mandates in line with Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) health protocols.

In September 2021, a nine-year-old boy in Nevada was humiliated by a substitute teacher who allegedly taped a face mask on him. The incident happened at the Carolyn S. Reedom Elementary School in Las Vegas, after the fourth-grader forgot to put his face covering back after having a drink. However, the female substitute teacher instead pulled him up in front of the classroom and taped the mask across the top of his face.

The boys furious mother called for the resignation of the aforementioned teacher. She demanded that the teacher be held accountable for her actions and no longer be permitted to mold young minds ever again. Corporal punishment in schools should not be happening, she said.

Clark County School District, which has jurisdiction over Reedom Elementary, said in a statement that it is aware of the incident and is dealing with the employee through the proper channels. It added that the principal [of Reedom Elementary] proactively notified the family of the investigation.

In October 2021, another student  this time in Colorado  alleged a teacher forced her to tape a face mask. The mother of the female sixth-grader said the students face mask falling off prompted the teacher to fix it using adhesive tape. The student is from a school located in Colorado Springs, part of Academy School District 20 (ASD 20). (Related: Colorado Springs student forced to have mask TAPED to her face while at school.)

The school district said it started getting reports of similar mask-taping incidents in mid-October. An official for the district called for patience as the investigations over these are rolling. ASD 20 Chief Communications Officer Allison Cortez said: Because of social media, we now have so many other voices in the mix that may not have been involved  and so now, theres misinformation thats mingled in with actual facts.

Watch the video below of Dr. Eric Nepute and Karen Kingston condemning mask mandates and other COVID-19 measures for children on Real Talk with Dr. Eric Nepute.

This video is from the BrighteonTV channel on Brighteon.com.

Visit CampusInsanity.com for more about mask-taping incidents in schools.

Sources include:

TheEpochTimes.com

Facebok.com

NYPost.com

Denver.CBSLocal.com

Brighteon.com
(Natural News) At least 600 law enforcement officers in Austria have written a letter to Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner requesting that proposals for forced Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccination be withdrawn.

This cohort of police officers also wants the Austrian government to stop discriminating against the unvaccinated, who are now being treated like second-class citizens just for refusing to permanently modify their DNA with experimental Big Pharma chemicals.

We do not want to face the population in a threatening manner during what are predominantly peaceful demonstrations which were organized due to the increasing dissatisfaction of the people with politicians, the letter, written on January 10, reads.

The petition was signed by three law enforcement personnel who claim to represent hundreds of other law enforcement officials who oppose the mandates.

Over the weekend, some 20,000 protesters converged on Vienna to protest the governments fascist dictate that all citizens over the age of 18 must get jabbed for the Fauci Flu in order to continue living normal lives like everybody else.

Austrias Ministry of the Interior responded to the letter by claiming that the people who signed [it] can be assigned a clear political orientation.

85% of the 32,000 Austrian police officers have already been vaxxinated, that is a clear statement, the government body added.

In response to these claims, the letters authors reiterated the fact that this is not a political plea, and that those resisting forced injection for the Fauci Flu are not affiliated with any political party.

We are not far-right or far-left extremists, we are not anti-vaxers  we are a group of several hundred police officers from the whole of Austria  united by our concern for the rule of law, freedom of thought, our fundamental rights, as well as our health, they said.

The authors then proceeded to issue a series of demands on Karner, the first of which calls for him to ensure that no vaxxine mandate, either professional or general, or any other form of indirect forced vaxxination, be introduced in Austria.

Police officers in Spain, Romania, and elsewhere throughout Europe stand with the people against government tyranny

A similar uprising led by law enforcement is also occurring in Spain, as well as in Romania and elsewhere.

Even some police officers in the U.K. are joining the fight against the government-led jab crusade, recognizing that they no longer work for We the People if they side with those committing crimes against humanity with their jab mandates.

We promised to protect and serve the people, not the corrupt politicians, explains a letter from Spanish police officers. We feel very proud to be police, but real police, not hitmen of the government.

Our association is in direct contact with members of security forces in Italy, Portugal, France, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, and Holland  Were going to join together all of the police of Europe. Were going to stop this.

The same letter goes on to denounce the new covid passport scheme that was launched in Valencia. It also explains that Senor Marlasca will be held responsible for the two states of emergency he declared, and for trying to use the police and the civil guard to coerce the citizens into complying with covid tyranny.

We dont support that, the Spanish police officers added.

Back in Austria, officers there are pushing to stop all discrimination against the unvaccinated, including their fellow unvaccinated civil servants who are being pushed out of their jobs.

We want to be there for the people, as friend and helper, they wrote in their letter.

The latest news about Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) injection tyranny can be found at Fascism.news.

Sources for this article include:

HumansAreFree.com

NaturalNews.com

HumansAreFree.com
(Natural News) The anti-human globalists knew their depopulation / extermination agenda couldnt hold out forever. Thats why they were in a mad rush to achieve maximum clot shot injections before the awakening gained traction and people began to question the insanity of the entire scheme.

Last weekends rally in Washington D.C. was the turning point on all this. There were similar protests in over 170 countries around the world. The masses are awakening to the plandemic scam  and the vaccine death agenda  and time has run out for the globalists and their spike protein extermination scheme.

Hence, they are now preparing to unleash the next phase of this global war against humanity: World war.

What the demonic globalists have already figured out is that if they kill enough people with nuclear war, nobody will be able to track the vaccine deaths over the next decade. The genocide via needles will be overwhelmed by genocide via radiation (and starvation, disease, etc.).

A lot of the vaccine coercion, after all, was merely designed to kill off as many member of the U.S. military as possible, while gutting Americas health care infrastructure and economic resilience. That phase has now been largely accomplished. So now the push is focused on engineering food scarcity by shutting down trucking and transportation. The ban on non-vaccinated truckers entering the U.S. from Mexico or Canada went into effect two days ago. From here forward, food supplies are going to experience a steady decline, and even oblivious leftists wont be able to maintain their delusions for very long once the store shelves are half empty.

But as youll see here, food scarcity may be the least of Americas problems if the enemies of America (Biden, Obama, etc.) get their way.

Igniting the war machine in Europe

You may recall that had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, efforts were in place to have the US deep state nuke an American city using weapons material sourced from Russia via the Uranium One scheme (which was run by not just Hillary, but also Sen. Harry Reid, Sen. John McCain and others). Never forget that the U.S. deep state carried out 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (100% run by the FBI) and nearly every other mass death event that has taken place in the last 50 years. The FBI has black ops teams that possess nuclear material and are more than willing to nuke U.S. cities if it means furthering their anti-America agenda.

The FBI is a rogue terrorist organization, of course. Everybody sees it now.

There is an accelerating buildup of US and NATO military hardware and personnel taking place in Ukraine. Last week, the CIA mouthpiece Washington Post declared that Russia would carry out a false flag attack in Ukraine in order to justify its own invasion. This was the final proof we needed to know that Americas deep state forces may be planning on detonating a nuclear warhead in Ukraine, using the same Uranium One-sourced weapons grade material theyve possessed since well before 2016.

There are actually multiple such nukes in the possession of the US deep state, and you may recall that Trump was threatened with multiple nukes being detonated in US cities if he didnt back down and allow the 2020 election rigging to go through. The enemies of America were ready to pull the trigger on those nukes in December of 2020, but Trump actively shut down all efforts to correct the stolen election, thereby preventing a nuclear holocaust on US soil.

Unfortunately, as Trump has learned, you should never negotiate with terrorists. Because by failing to correct the rigged 2020 election, those same death cult lunatics (the people running Biden) are now in power, directing the entire US armed forces to carry out even more heinous crimes against humanity, involving potentially tens of millions of Europeans as well as Russians and Americans.

Now, warmongering lunatics like Alexander Vindman  remember him?  are declaring a near-certainty of a large European war. Of course he is. Because its people like him who are going to start it.

I think were basically just on the cusp of war. I think its all but certain in my mind that theres going to be a large European war My concern now is making sure that the U.S. is postured for that outcome The ball is in Putins court  @AVindman w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/QXiGv4B9as  Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 22, 2022

How a US false flag nuke attack in Ukraine ends up starting World War III

Although there are too many variables to know with absolute certainty how this is all going to play out, the signals are pointing in the direction of something as follows:

Step 1: Americas deep state forces detonate a nuke in Ukraine, using Russia-sourced nuclear material to give the radioisotopes a clear fingerprint of Russia origin.

Step 2: The media goes into coordinated mass hysteria, claiming Russia just started World War III. It will be 24/7 news coverage everywhere. When Russia denies responsibility, the western press will declare Putin to be a psychopathic liar more dangerous than Hitler. This will provide the emotional fanaticism to get the gullible US public to support the next steps.

Step 3: Government and media mouthpieces  all run by the same CIA that carried out the bombing of course  call for NATO to strike back at Russia with overwhelming military power. Russia is also cut off from the SWIFT financial system.

 but heres where it all goes off the rails

Step 4: NATO / US forces vastly underestimate the military readiness of Russia, the military technology (hypersonic missiles, hypercavitating torpedoes, etc.) and the moral resolve of Putin, who correctly sees the current rogue leadership of the USA as the true enemy against all humankind, not just Russia or Ukraine.

Step 5: NATO and the US launch escalating attacks against Russia in order to provoke a nuclear retaliatory strike on the USA. This is the goal of Obama / Biden and the globalists. Russia has multiple submarines with nuclear missiles parked off both the west and east coasts. They can rain down nuclear devastation on US military targets within minutes.

Step 6: Taking advantage of the situation, China moves on Taiwan, immediately thrusting America into a two-front war for which it is not prepared.

Step 7: Having accomplished the final wrecking of America, Obiden declares martial law and unleashes death squads to mass murder all conservatives, Christians, gun owners and Trump supporters, all under the emergency of world war, using the language of covid internment camps. (You didnt think they activated all those concentration camps just for covid, did you?)

Step 8: America is invaded by a combination of Chinese and Russian land forces that were merely waiting for a sufficient die-off in order to launch their attack.

Remember, the goal of Obiden is the complete destruction of America and the installation of communism everywhere. Never forget that over half the US congress works for the CCP. We are being run by the communist Chinese right now, and they are vectoring us into a suicide pact with Russia, where Russia has no choice but to start dropping nukes on US military targets.

Ultimately, China doesnt want all the food farmland across North America to be radioactive, because they need to be able to grow food and feed their (starving) masses. Thats why China would prefer that Russia nukes Hawaii, where the radiation cloud is far from mainland America. There are significant military and deep state assets on the Hawaiian islands, by the way, making them a juicy military target for multiple strategic reasons.

The US military will be nullified in a few short weeks

Under the leadership of libtard woke freaks and gay parade generals, the US military is but a shadow of its once great strength. In contrast, Russia trains men to be men, and their soldiers are among the most vigorously trained and prepared in the world.

Similarly, China has banned soy boy fairy feminization across its culture, and its own soldiers are also highly trained, capable and deeply obedient.

Americas military forces, sadly, have been deliberately shaped into weakness by the woketard generals, to the point where obesity is a common problem among the ranks of the active duty. The US military is far more interested in announcing an all-gay helicopter squad than in doing anything meaningful to protect Americas strategic interests.

As a result, the battle to take out the US military wont take long at all.

Dont forget to factor in Chinas exotic drone weapon systems and Russias nuclear-powered hypersonic missile superweapons. In addition, Russia has extremely advanced electronic warfare capabilities that can instantly nullify all the flight controls of Americas most advanced fighter aircraft such as the F-35. (Theres a reason they keep falling out of the sky)

Where the military fails, We the People will need to rise to the defense of America

All this means the defense of America comes down to the people defending their nation from foreign invaders. Once China launches its invasion of North America, the unprepared, pathetic, sedentary masses of pharmacy-addicted TV watchers will last about five minutes. The real defense of America will come down to the brave men and women who were smart enough to reject the vaccines and wise enough to stockpile guns and ammo.

The communist Chinese are going to have a very hard time taking North America. But theyve got a couple hundred million soldiers, if needed, to throw at the problem. This means the American people are going to have to get very good at killing PLA soldiers on US soil, if we hope to survive this at all.

The one x-factor in all this is Americas space force space weapons systems which, Im told, were developed from exotic technology thats a quantum leap ahead of anything you and I have ever seen. Orbiting weapons platforms might be game changers, and if there are still any patriotic Americans remaining in Space Force or the Air Force, we may yet see these weapons unleashed against the CCP to devastating effect (possibly targeting the Three Gorges Dam).

Where do you want to be during all this? As far away as possible from any military base or large city.

You want to be off grid, resilient and fully stocked. Once this begins, theres no going back to the relative normalcy of today. This entire situation can go from calm to world war literally overnight. With one explosion.

If past experience is any lesson, NATO and US forces will probably require another 1-3 months to build up their military forces in Ukraine before they pull the trigger on all this. So use the time wisely, and pray that Biden gets removed from power before this insanity is unleashed on our world.
According to a paper published this week, the Earth is cooling quicker than previously anticipated, which might have severe consequences for life on the planet.

However, given the vast time scale on which Earth exists, any changes brought about by the cooling will take millions of years or more to influence life as we know it.

The article "Radiative thermal conductivity of single-crystal bridgmanite at the core-mantle boundary with implications for Earth's thermal evolution" claims that mantle convection is far more powerful than predicted, as well as faster mantle cooling.

Layers

The planet is made up of numerous layers, one of which is the mantle. According to the USGS, the crust, mantle, and core are the three primary layers of the Earth. "This layered structure can be compared to that of a cooked egg," the USGS notes.

The crust is hard and very thin compared to the other two layers. The crust underneath the seas is relatively thin, reaching just around 5 kilometers. Like the shell of an egg, the Earth's crust is fragile and susceptible to breaking.

"Below the crust is the mantle, a dense, hot layer of semi-solid rock about 2,900 kilometers thick," the USGS continues.

Related Article: Experts Warn of Severe Consequences as Ocean Temperatures Continue to Rise



What's Happening Inside the Earth

Because temperature and pressure inside the Earth increase with depth, the mantle, which contains more iron, magnesium, and calcium than the crust, is hotter and denser. The mantle can be compared to the white of a boiled egg.

Continuing the egg analogy, the USGS says the core is the center of the Earth and is similar to the yolk of an egg. Unlike the yolk of an egg, the Earth's core is made up of two different parts: a 2,200 km-thick liquid outer core and a 1,250 km-thick solid inner core, according to the USGS.

The Earth's interior is critical for life on the surface. The liquid outer core spinning creates the Earth's magnetic field as the Earth rotates. Life would be substantially different if the Earth's magnetic field altered.

Geomagnetic Field

According to NASA, nearly most of Earth's geomagnetic field originates in the fluid outer core. "Convective forces that carry heat from one point to another, generally through air or water, continually churn the molten metals, which also swirl in whirlpools powered by Earth's rotation," NASA adds. As the Earth spins, this churning mass of metal creates electrical currents that are hundreds of miles broad and run at thousands of miles per hour. The geodynamo is the mechanism that keeps the Earth's magnetic field in place."

The magnetic field generates two poles, commonly known as a dipole, at the Earth's surface. The north and south magnetic poles have opposing positive and negative polarities like a bar magnet. The magnetic field's invisible lines flow into Earth at the north and out at the south in a tight, continuous loop.

The Earth's magnetic field shields the globe from dangerous solar radiation and space weather, in addition to assisting a compass in determining the direction it is pointed in.

The magnetosphere shields Earth's atmosphere from solar winds, erosion, and particle radiation from coronal mass ejections (CMEs), as well as cosmic rays from outer space. Radiation would substantially modify, if not eliminate, life on Earth if it did not exist. If solar winds reached Earth unimpeded, electronics, satellites, and most contemporary comforts would be destroyed.

The authors of a new study published this week looked at bridgmanite, a typical conductive mineral found between the Earth's core and mantle. They discovered it to be 1.5 times more conductive than previously anticipated, implying that Earth's cooling process may be faster than previously assumed.

"We discovered that the bulk thermal conductivity at the core-mantle barrier is 1.5 times greater than the widely believed value," the researchers explained. "This enables stronger heat transfer from the core, and hence more robust mantle convection than predicted."

Internal Temperature

"The findings show that the mantle is more effectively cooled, which would diminish numerous tectonic events powered by mantle convection more quickly than traditionally assumed thermal conduction behavior would predict."

The magnetic field may vanish if the Earth's core or mantle cooled to the point of solidification, putting an end to life. Scientists are confident that this will occur since it has already occurred in our solar system, with Mars serving as an excellent example.

The smoking gun of what happened to Mars was just discovered by NASA's Mars Atmospheric and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission: it used to be considerably warmer. It had a thicker, more Earth-like atmosphere.

According to a NASA study, the bulk of the Martian atmosphere was destroyed by the intense solar wind owing to a lack of magnetic field shielding, leaving a desolate, red planet in its wake. When the Earth's magnetic field fails, scientists believe the same thing will happen to the atmosphere.

However, there's no need to panic just yet. While the authors of the research did not provide a time frame for when the Earth's interior cooling would result in the loss of the magnetic field, most scientists believe that such an event would occur millions, if not billions, of years in the future.

Also Read: Long Valley Supervolcano: World's Most Dangerous Volcano Shows Signs of 'Imminent Eruption'

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Pet shops in Hong Kong selling hamsters are asked to shut down due to Covid link, although animal to human transmission was not evidenced.

As a result, nearly 2,000 small animals, including hamsters are being culled in the Chinese city after 11 tested positive for coronavirus at a pet shop. Officials said on Tuesday that pet owners were asked to hand over hamsters they bought in the last four weeks to be euthanized.

According to Bloomberg, the 11 hamsters that tested positive were imported from the Netherlands and sold at Little Boss, a local pet store. It was said that an employee at the shop was infected with the Delta variant of the virus, however, city's health secretary Sophia Chan stressed that there was no evidence of animal to human transmission.

An act of precaution

Nonetheless, authorities have banned the sale and import of all small mammals and ordered to shut down pet shops while testing and cleaning are ongoing as a precautionary measure. In addition, residents who purchased hamsters after 22 December are also subject to mandatory testing and have been prohibited from going out in public until their test results are negative. Otherwise, they will be asked to undergo quarantine.

"Pet owners should keep a good hygiene practice, including washing hands after touching the animals, handling their food or other items, and avoid kissing the animals," agriculture, fisheries and conservation department director Leung Siu-fai Leung said. "If citizens are raising hamsters, they should keep them at home. Do not bring them out."

So far, only hamsters have tested positive among hundreds of samples collected from small animals.

Also read: Wild Leopard Caught COVID-19 Infection, May Have Been Caused by Human Spillover

Humane culling

Due to the current global struggle to contain a local outbreak of the highly-transmissible Omicron variant, city's including Hong Kong had reimposed more strict precautions on flights and gatherings, while thousands of people have been put into makeshift government isolation facilities.

In just three months, Hong Kong has reported over 50 local infections in the community since the end of 2021. To contain the virus, authorities announced on Friday a month-long ban on transit flights from more than 150 countries and territories.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the risk of animals spreading SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, to people is low. However, the virus can spread from people to animals during close contact. Which is why Hong Kong authorities say they are not ruling out transmission between animals and humans, and asked customers who purchased a hamster after 22 December to hand them over for culling.

So far, Mr Leung said that about 2,000 hamsters in 34 pet shops and storage facilities would be put down "humanely".

"We cannot exclude the possibility that the shopkeeper was in fact actually infected from the hamsters," Edwin Tsui added, a controller at the Centre for Health Protection on Tuesday.

Hong Kong's Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it was "shocked and concerned" by the decision to kill the animals, and urged the government not to "take any drastic action before reviewing its approach." However, with the local Omicron outbreak the city is currently grappling with, they cannot remain unguarded.

Also read: Notorious Rhino Poacher from Mozambique Received Sentence of 30 Years in Prison
A vehicle transporting industrial dynamite crashed with a motorbike in western Ghana, triggering an accident that demolished numerous structures and the death of individuals on site.

The disaster occurred at lunchtime in Apiate, at industrial settlement of Bogoso, approximately 300 kilometers west of Accra, the West African regional metropolis.

17 People Killed After Explosive Incident In Ghana

Upon the incident, a big trench was made when a tractor traveling among two treasure troves in the mineral-rich territory collided with a motorbike.

chairman of the Prestea Huni-Valley city council, Isaac Dsamani said that the precise count of victims has still to be established and informed news reporters that authorities had recorded 17 lifeless cadavers thus far.

According to rescue personnel, a minimum of 57 people were hurt and were brought to nearby healthcare institutions.

Dr. Joseph Darko, who works at Apiate facility, informed AFP that five of the victims had been sent there, along with a five-year-old kid who is in a life-threatening state. Senior minister of the State Disaster Control Organization, Saji Amedonu revealed that over 500 structures had been demolished.

News agencies and eyewitnesses uploaded horrific photographs and videos of killed and wounded corpses on the pavement, as well as residences that had been leveled and ruined.

Ghana's leader, Nana Akufo-Addo, called the explosion a genuinely terrible, awful, and terrible tragedy, stressing that it resulted in the loss of innocent life and the devastation of assets.

The magnitude of the devastation and deaths inflicted by the explosion has triggered seismic waves throughout Ghana.

According to medical authorities, recovery operations in the area were ongoing, and the majority of the remaining casualties had been evacuated wherein several of them were stranded in fallen buildings and structures.

"Half of them were in their respective apartments and were then confined," Dsamani explained.

"We were fortunate to save a few of them. Several of them, apparently, but they were already passed when we arrived."

Also read: Notorious Rhino Poacher from Mozambique Received Sentence of 30 Years in Prison

Mining Explosives Destroyed Hundreds of Building

According to observers, after the crash, a motorist engaged in the mishap attempted to advise neighboring neighbors to escape when the motorbike took flames.

"The operator jumped out and told everyone to flee," Dsamani explained.

"Maybe certain folks were attempting to figure out what was going on. Whereas the driver was yelling for everyone to flee."

The entire thing detonated in within 10 minutes. As a result, the persons who sought to get to the location were the ones who suffered the hardest.

"Initial report has indicated that a mining dynamite truck crashed with a motorbike, leading in the blast," authorities claimed in a release.

"The general people has been asked to relocate to adjacent communities for their protection while rescue works are ongoing."

As to city governments, neighboring medical facilities were overwhelmed with casualties and authorities have ordered neighboring communities to offer their churches and schools in case there are any more victims.

Officers noted that backup had been dispatched to the location and urged everyone to show restraint. The vehicle transporting landmines was on its way to the Chirano mining operation, which is operated by Toronto-based Kinross.

A Kinross spokeswoman verified the event, stating that it happened 140 kilometers away from the site.

Also read: Increase of National Parks Will Not be Enough to Halt Nature's Destruction, Scientist Warn Us
Peru declares an environmental emergency after an oil leak threatens rare Humboldt penguins and thousands of birds. A spill produced by unusual waves from a volcano eruption in the south pacific prompted the Peruvian government to declare an environmental emergency on Saturday.

After 6,000 gallons of petroleum spilled off Peru's coast in the aftermath of the Tonga tsunami, a Lima zoo is scrambling to preserve hundreds of seabirds, including endangered penguins.

Saving the Birds

More than 40 species were saved from contaminated beaches and natural areas and transported to the Parque de Las Leyendas zoo, including Humboldt penguins, which are fragile by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

"The birds' prognosis is unknown," Liseth Bermudez, a scientist, told AFP. "We're doing everything we can; it's a rare occurrence, and we're giving it our all."

The birds are being cared for by a team of vets washing them in special detergents to remove the stifling oil.

Related Article: Marine Bacteria Found Capable of Biodegrading Diesel and Oil: Can it Clean Up Oil Spills?

Immediate Treatment

Antifungal and antibacterial medicines, as well as vitamins, were administered to the animals. While ministering to a bird, Bermudez observed, "We have never seen something like this in the history of Peru."

"We didn't expect it to be as big as it turned out to be."

Environmental Emergency

Peru has declared an environmental emergency after a ship was battered by large waves while unloading at a refinery last Saturday, over a million liters (264,000 gallons) of petroleum poured into the water.

The enormous waves were caused by the eruption of an underwater volcano hundreds of kilometers (miles) distant in the archipelago of Tonga.

Contaminated Beaches

The accident near Lima has contaminated beaches and affected the fishing and tourist businesses, and employees have been cleaning up the debris nonstop.

If the oil spreads, more animals will perish, according to Peru's Serfor forestry agency biologist Guillermo Ramos.

"There are species here that feed on polluted crustaceans and fish," he explained.

Since the spill, Serfor personnel have discovered several dead birds and sea otters on beaches, and in nature reserves, he noted.

More than 150 bird species rely on the sea in Peru for food and reproduction. Different varieties of cormorants and six Humboldt penguins were among the birds retrieved alive but needed assistance.

The oil might damage the reproductive ability of some species and cause birth deformities, according to Juan Carlos Riveros, scientific director of the rescue NGO Oceana Peru.

According to the health ministry, sea currents have pushed the spilled oil down the coast more than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the refinery, damaging 21 beaches and warning would-be bathers to stay away.

Complicated by Tonga

The government has filed a claim against Repsol, the Spanish oil corporation that owns the ship.

However, the corporation disputes guilt, claiming that maritime authorities sent no notice of anomalous waves following the Tonga eruption.

Also Read: Environmental Agency Allegedly Told Staff to Ignore Reports on Low-Impact Pollution Due to Budgetary Reasons

For similar news, don't forget to follow Nature World News!
On Friday night and Saturday morning, the Colorado Fire burnt 1,500 acres in California, causing residents of many California communities to flee their homes. Late January is not a common time for wildfires to start, so many locals in the area were taken aback.

Wildfire

The fire started late Friday evening and was initially reported at 7:15 to 7:30 a.m. At 10 p.m., mandatory evacuations on Palo Colorado Road were issued, and evacuation recommendations were in force along Highway 1.

Highway 1 was closed between the entrance to Andrew Molera State Park in Big Sur to Rio Road in Carmel less than an hour later. At the onset of the fire, strong winds were blowing in the region at 25-30 mph.

Cal Fire advised KCRA 3 and the 13 agencies that were continuously fighting the fire that the fire was in a difficult-to-access location and was blazing west toward Highway 1.

The fire continued to burn and spread late Friday night while humidity levels remained in the teens. However, the heat signature on satellite was dropping between 11 and 11:30 p.m., according to the National Weather Service of the Bay Area. Once the offshore winds subsided, Winds had dropped to 20-25 mph at that point, but even the slightest wind gusts may lift embers into the air, spreading the fire and fanning the flames.

@PGE4Me webcam at CTRY CLUB HTS in Carmel Valley pointed toward the fire ongoing along the Big Sur Coast near Rocky Creek and Palo Colorado Canyon. Please avoid Highway 1 south of Carmel. Humidity is in the teens with gusts around 35 mph! #CAwx #CAfire pic.twitter.com/EM8dEy2HKg  NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) January 22, 2022

Read More: Sunnyvale Turns to Lasers and Boomboxes to Curb the Rising Population of Crows

Going Near a Residential Area

As the fire grew dangerously near to the hamlet, the American Red Cross organized a shelter in Carmel Middle School late Friday evening for people who had been ordered to evacuate.

Several surrounding communities in coastal Southern California reported witnessing the fire from their homes.

The fire had burnt over 1,500 acres and was 0 percent controlled by midnight Saturday, as officials went house to door to check that evacuation orders were implemented. The fire was burning in Rocky Creek and Bixby, California, which were both evacuated.

Burning Communities

The flames have proceeded to burn communities along the Pacific Coast Highway, which is still blocked as of Sunday afternoon, with the fire barely 25% controlled.

According to PowerOutage.us, more than 30,000 consumers in California were without power as of Sunday evening. Due to probable damage to the water system infrastructure and loss of pressure due to power outages, the Monterey County Health Department has issued a boil water alert for individuals in the Colorado Fire region until further notice.

This wildfire broke out as Santa Ana winds blew across Southern California, which are high-speed and destructive winds that blow from the mountains to the ocean in Southern California regularly, causing flames to spread quickly.

Power Outage

On Saturday, high wind warnings and advisories from the Sierra Nevada to Southern California were in force, with gusts projected to subside on Sunday.

Below the Santa Ana Mountains and the San Bernardino County mountains, wind gusts exceeding 80 miles per hour were observed. The strongest peak wind gust was 83 mph at Toro Peak.

It's almost 8 p.m. The fire was estimated to be 35 percent controlled and 700 acres on Sunday.

Read More: Tonga Volcanic Explosion Was Strong Enough to Send Gravitational Waves to Atmosphere
Despite the recent focus on Tonga's major volcanic eruption, the USGS continues to monitor volcanoes in the United States.

Presently, four are at an elevated Watch/Orange status because of the activity in all.

Volcanoes Placed at an Elevated Watch/Orange Status

The Great Sitkin volcano, Pavlof, Semisopochnoi, and Kilauea are the four volcanoes exhibiting signs of unrest or activity.

Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano remains at Yellow/Advisory status, while all other volcanoes monitored by USGS are GREEN or unrated, according to Weather Boy.

In the United States, the USGS monitors 161 potentially active volcanoes, most of which are in Alaska. There are more than 130 volcanoes and volcanic areas in Alaska that have been active within the last 2 million years. AVO also investigates the 50 that have been in operation since the mid-1700s.

In Hawaii, Kilauea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai are all active volcanoes, but only Kilauea is now erupting; the other three are considered potential dangers.

Only a small percentage of the world's volcanoes may be found in the United States; the USGS estimates that there are approximately 20 active volcanoes at any given moment.

Globally, there are around 1,500 potentially active volcanoes, according to the USGS, of which 500 have erupted in recent history.

Those in Hawaii are under the watchful eye of the Hawaii Volcano Observatory, while those in Alaska are under the watchful eye of the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO).

An additional four volcano observatories exist in addition to AVO and HVO: the Northern Mariana Islands Volcano Observatory, the Cascades-Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, and the California-HVO.

These additional USGS volcano observatories are monitoring volcanoes in their particular geographic areas. Other observatories have not reported any unusual activity or signs of more than background noise at this point.

Also Read: USGS Raises Yellow Warning on 6 Active Volcanoes in US for 'Elevated Unrest'

Aviation Codes

An Aviation Code is issued by the US Geological Survey and volcanic observatories in the United States. There is a unique aviation code for each color. A volcano is labeled "unassigned" if there isn't enough data on the ground to establish whether or not it is active.

Yellow indicates that a volcano is showing signs of elevated unrest above the known baseline levels of activity, whereas green indicates typical activity associated with a non-eruptive condition.

When a volcano shows signs of heightened or growing instability, its color changes to orange. At any point, the code becomes red, indicating that an eruption is either about to occur or is already taking place with considerable emissions of volcanic ash into the atmosphere.

Volcanic Activity Alert levels can range from normal to advisory, watch, or warning in nature. If there is insufficient data, it is simply designated as "unassigned," as is the case with aviation codes.

At a regular background level of activity, the volcano is considered normal while it is not erupting. If the volcano displays signs of greater disturbance over the baseline level, an advisory will be issued.

A watch or a warning is issued whenever a volcano exhibits indicators of increased or developing instability.

Active Volcanoes Around the United States

Located in the center Aleutian Islands, Great Sitkin Island is home to the Great Sitkin Volcano, a basaltic andesite volcano that dominates the island's northern half. It's 1,192 kilometers away from Anchorage, around 26 miles east of Adak.

According to the American Volcanological Organization (AVO), the volcano consists of an older dissected volcano and a younger parasitic cone with a 1.8 mile-diameter crater at its peak. Great Sitkin may still be erupting lava, according to the AVO.

In Alaska, the Pavlof Volcano is a stratovolcano located a little over 600 miles southwest of Anchorage. The 4.4-mile-diameter volcano has active vents near the top on the north and east flanks.

The USGS estimates that the volcano has erupted more than 40 times in its recorded history, making it one of the Aleutian Arc's most active. Located on the Pacific Rim of Fire, the Aleutian Arc is a volcanic hotspot.

According to AVO, Pavlof's low-level eruptive activity has continued, and satellite photography has shown elevated levels of activity in the last day.

Related Article: Rare Super-Eruption of Volcanoes Can Cause Catastrophic Effects to Global Climate

For more news, updates about volcanoes and similar topics don't forget to follow Nature World News!
During a human preclinical trial in 2021, scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham transplanted kidneys from genetically modified pigs into a brain-dead patient, according to Science Daily.

Genetically Modified Kidneys Transplanted to a Brain-Dead Patient

Recently, UAB surgeons successfully transplanted kidneys from a genetically engineered pig into a brain-dead man, according to Interesting engineering.

NYU Langone Health surgeons linked a genetically engineered pig's kidney to a brain-dead patient on a ventilator in September. The kidney produces urine and creatinine, a waste product, even though it was outside the body.

Genetically engineered kidneys have been widely tested in non-human primate recipients, but evaluating them in humans before clinical trials can also provide crucial information regarding the safety and efficacy of these transplanted organs, as explained by Science Daily.

This particular patient was critically injured during a motorbike race, and his family agreed to allow him to be kept alive on a ventilator for the duration of the treatment, according to an article in New Scientist. Instead of attaching kidneys externally to the body as in earlier procedures, these recipients had their kidneys removed and replaced with pig-derived kidneys.

Four genes that could potentially induce rejection by the human immune system are turned off in these pigs; six genes of human origin are inserted to aid in the transplant process, as has been documented previously.

According to ScienceDaily, the kidneys from the pigs were transplanted into the same anatomical location as human kidneys, connected to the renal artery and vein, as well as the urinary ureter, and given standard immunosuppression medication to the recipient.

Also Read: UK Farmers Could be Forced to Kill Their Pigs Due to Carbon Dioxide Shortage

Experimental Findings

The doctors monitored the transplant for 77 hours and it was successful to start generating urine after 23 minutes of attachment, Jayme Locke, who performed the technique, said in an interview with New Scientist. Creatinine was not removed from the body, which the experts believe is what caused the recipient's problems.

For three days following surgery, the pig kidneys worked as expected, according to the surgical team, though one kidney produced more urine than the other. Even after the patients' own kidneys were removed, the pig organs showed no evidence of rejection.

A modest clinical trial involving real patients, which is expected to begin before the year's end, has been laid out by the team's chief surgeon, Dr. Jayme Locke. Not every operation that has taken place thus far has been a regular trial.

When it comes to kidney transplants, "Our goal is not to have a one-off, but to advance the field to help our patients," said Dr. Locke, who is director of U.A.B. 's Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program. "What a wonderful day it will be when I can walk into clinic and know I have a kidney for everyone waiting to see me"

The experiment's findings were published in the American Journal of Transplantation just recently, according to the authors.

Increase in Chronic Renal Diseases Across United States

Every year, kidney disease claims more lives in the United States than does cancer of the breast or prostate.

In addition, an estimated 240 Americans per day die while on dialysis in anticipation of a kidney transplant, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The researchers determined that genetically engineered kidneys can be utilized to overcome the deficit.

In Alabama, there are 2,348 cases of chronic renal disease per million people. People of color, women, and those with a lower level of education and wealth are more likely to suffer from kidney disease than the general population.

Related Article: Wild Pigs Contribute As Much CO2 Emissions Than 1.1 Million Cars

For more news, updates about pigs and similar topics don't forget to follow Nature World News!
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NEW CANAAN  With warmer weather rapidly approaching and more residents enjoying Bristow Bird Sanctuary and Wildwood Preserve, the Board of Selectmen approved $81,562 to install walkways over wetland areas in the preserve next to Mead Memorial Park.

This is part of a restoration project for the third oldest sanctuary in the country, as it nears its centennial in 2024.

The town plans to replace 230 linear feet of boardwalk Diamond Pier footing to span over wetland areas in the 17-acre park with an entrance from behind the ballfield of Mead Park and another on Old Stamford Road/Route 106.

The brand of piers is an excellent option in wetlands and upland areas given its ability to transfer loads in wetland soils and minimize the soil disturbance area, Maria Coplit told the Hearst Connecticut Media on Thursday, April 22.

The footing is similar to supports of the walkways used for the New Canaan Nature Center boardwalk, Coplit told the selectmen on Tuesday, April 20.

The Board of Selectman voted unanimously to spend $70,923 with a $10,638 contingency, to have Peter Lanni Inc. upgrade the wooden walkways. The town authorized $199,500 in 2020 for the first, and most expensive, phase of the project. Friends of Bristow have raised additional funds and welcome donations.

Pathways have been widened with gravel, the pond was dredged and edged with stone, fences have been restored, gates have been moved and replaced and new signs have been erected.

The first phase of the project is substantially done, according to the engineer.

Also, a variety of birdhouses have been put around the park; an area has been cleared for a meadow and new benches have been added near the pond on a new flagstone sitting area.

More diverse planting is expected, as well as short trails to connect the boardwalks.

The park is expected to become connected to the green link trail which is the walkable connection between New Canaan parks. The green link is an emerald necklace that allows us to tie Waveny Park to Bristow to Mead to the Irwin Park, Conservation Commission Chairman Chris Schipper has said during past presentations on the project.

Sidewalks are being planned to extend to the Old Stamford Road entrance to connect with Park Street. Plans are also being made to create parking that could accommodate three or four cars, or a school bus near that entrance, which is nearest to the pond.

The sanctuary has received national recognition in the last century for its efforts in bird conservation.

The Bristow Bird Sanctuary officially opened in September of 1924, and within a year of the park's opening, 91 species of birds were seen in the sanctuary including common species and less common species such as pheasants and ruffled grouses, according to historical documents on the town website.

The sactuary drew 15,000 visitors in one year and as many as 140 different species of birds were sighted in 1931, Schipper has said while showing a list he found of the birds identified seen at the sanctuary.

The preserve was named after Helen and Alice Bristow in 1987, and is still considered a flyway for birds from north to south and south to north. Helen was secretary and president of the Bird Protective Society and wrote columns in the New Canaan Advertiser titled "Round Robin."

Nearly 80 different bird species were counted recently, according to Schipper.

Bird counts serve as an indicator of the health of natural spaces, and the number of species reflects changes to the environment, according to materials on the town website.


New couple boost team at Christian Retreat House New couple boost team at Christian Retreat House

A couple from New Zealand will be arriving in February to join the team at the Quiet Waters Christian Retreat Centre in Bungay.

Ross and Sue Horton come from Mt Maunganui, New Zealand with experience in many aspects of Christian service including living and working in Christian camping for seven years.



Sue has mainly been involved with family, bringing up four children and now having 12 grandchildren. They have spent the last 25 years in church life where Ross has been pastor in three different Baptist churches and spent seven years as chaplain in the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF).



The couple will be joining current staff members Andy and Debbie Jackman. We look forward to discovering where God takes us as a team, said Debbie.



Quiet Waters is also seeking to recruit more trustees. It is particularly looking for those with skills and experience in:



Finance

Property maintenance

Health and Safety

Human Resources

Legal aspects of running a charity



If you are interested, please contact Paul Dunning, the Chair of Trustees, on mail@quietwaters.org.uk.



Pictured above are Ross and Sue Horton.







Eldred Willey, 24/01/2022


Urgent roof repair funding for Kessingland church

A project to carry out essential urgent repairs on St. Edmund's Church in Kessingland can now go ahead following the award of a 168,000 grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The grant follows a funding application made with the support of the local community, including Waveney M.P. Peter Aldous, Kessingland Parish Council, the village C of E Primary Academy and a diversity of village businesses and community voluntary groups. The project is expected to cost around 220,000 in total, with over 37,000 of this amount already raised by local residents and supporters.



The Grade 1 listed church has a fine flint flushwork tower, which has been a landmark for seafarers since it was built in the mid fifteenth century and has many mementoes of the fishing heritage of the village. However, the seventeenth century thatched roof is in a dilapidated state and with additional water damage to the buttresses the church was officially declared 'at risk' and in danger of closure.



The project also includes the creation of a new heritage area in the church and, with the involvement of Kessingland C of E Primary Academy, new guides to the church and village. In addition, the churchyard will be made more wildlife-friendly and extra church-centred social activities will be developed for the village community. This project will enhance the attractiveness of the church and village to visitors to this small coastal holiday resort.



Revd Mandy Bishop, Rector of Kessingland Benefice, which is part of the Diocese of Norwich, said, We are delighted to receive this funding. It validates the huge local support and effort that has gone into securing the long-term future of this vital building for our community. St Edmunds Parish Church seeks to serve its community from cradle to grave and has, in the past two years, seen a substantial growth in numbers and people wanting to assist us serve our community. Besides providing services of worship, we regularly stage community outreach events and supports local groups who use the church centre.



Now, thanks to all donors and fundraisers, including the National Lottery, the project will restore St Edmunds roof so that the building can continue to serve its community through the twenty first century. We give our heartfelt thanks to the National Lottery players everywhere and our wonderful community who have made this possible. Together we have done it!



For more information, visit the Benefice website .



Photo courtesy of Kessingland Benefice.



Do you have a news story or forthcoming event relating to Christians or a church in East Norfolk?

If so, e-mail tony.rothe@networknorwich.co.uk with details and, if possible a suitable picture.

Tony Rothe, 24/01/2022


Students get taste of tree planting on the Broads Students get taste of tree planting on the Broads

A new Green Team at Notre Dame High School in Norwich has embarked on its first environmental project on the Norfolk Broads.

We need to plant more trees. This was one of the first ideas suggested by a group of students at Notre Dame High School. The newly formed 'Green Team' comprises young people with a passion for environmental issues and social action. Inspired by their keenness to make a difference, Alex Savage, Lay Chaplain sent out a series of emails with pleas for help.



Nick Sanderson, Education Officer at the Broads Authority, had just the solution. The Horstead Activity Centre, which is owned by the Anglican Diocese of Norwich, needed help to plant a new coppice of saplings they had been given as a donation.



Working alongside Broads Authority staff and volunteers, the students planted a coppice of over 200 saplings. The Horstead Team rewarded them for their hard work with a surprise of hot chocolate and marshmallows toasted over a fire.



When asked what they gained from the trip, the students remarked how much they had enjoyed working outdoors, said Alex Savage. After spending time with the Broads Authority staff, one student said that she would now consider a job as an environmentalist.



William Mills, Centre Manager at the Horstead Centre said: We loved having the Green Team here and would welcome them all back in a heartbeat. We look forward to seeing our new trees and shrubs grow.



Inspired by the success of this project, the Green Team have now set their sights on applying for CAFOD's Live Simply Award. To do this they will show evidence of how they are caring for our common home, in school, locally and globally.



Looking back, said Alex, it is amazing to see how all of this has grown from the seed of a single idea.



Pictured above is the Green Team at the Horstead Centre.







Eldred Willey, 24/01/2022
Newburyport, MA (01950)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. High 51F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low 47F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
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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).
To reduce the health impacts following natural disasters, high-quality evacuations shelters are necessary to provide temporary settlements to internally displaced people. Ultimately, evacuation shelters are intended to reduce injury and ensure the health of the population.

Shelter surveillance is necessary to assess the level of hygiene and carry out the assessment of the shelter  as well as assessment of health status of evacuees. Conducting health assessments is necessary due to the increased risk of respiratory, gastrointestinal, and skin infections. The importance of this is underscored by the 2005 Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, where an outbreak of norovirus occurred among shelter evacuees in a large stadium housing displaced people.

As well as physical health, there are mental health concerns to consider among shelter evacuees; this has been recently reported in the literature. Related to this are distresses related to disasters which include effects on the renal, cardiovascular, or metabolic processes.

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Identifying the Barriers to Health in Evacuation Shelters: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

To prevent these health risks from manifesting in evacuation shelters, it is important to ensure that resource supplies and sanitation are adequate. Several humanitarian groups have been established to standardize aid provisions following environmental disasters. These include Sphere Project, Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP), and Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) among others.

It has been suggested, however, that the standards of water supply, sanitation, food provision, and hygiene require investigation to establish a link between humanitarian intervention and health outcomes. Moreover, longer-term impacts on the health of evacuees following disasters remain to be seen.

A recent study examined the impact of resource supply and infrastructure levels in evacuation shelters. A team from Tohoku University determined, in a cross-sectional observational study of evacuation shelter inhabitants from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), that clean tap water supply was a major deficit. #

This deficit was correlated with poor toilet hygiene, which was subsequently associated with the prevalence of gastrointestinal infectious diseases. Collectively, these were determined as being particularly instrumental in preventing the spread of infectious diseases and maintaining health. This was assessed following observations over two time periods (days 1419 and 2025).

Other Inadequacies in Evacuation Shelters that Compromise Health

A systematic literature review conducted in 2021 further investigated the medical concerns encountered in temporary evacuation shelters, with a focus on the assessment of environmental sanitation, food and nutrition, and medication availability. These were conducted in the Japanese context, given the high prevalence of earthquakes such as the GEJE and the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and the Kumamoto Earthquake in 2016.

Findings demonstrated that food aid in evacuation shelters was improperly balanced in composition or distribution among shelters. Moreover, chronically ill inhabitants of shelters suffered medication insecurity; a concern exacerbated by the heightened risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, as well as malnutrition.

These factors heightened the risk of deterioration of chronic disease sufferers. This led the authors to conclude that healthcare professionals should be deployed to evacuation shelters following natural disasters to promote sanitary control, educate evacuees and staff, in addition to addressing space limitations, as well as shortages in food and medication.

Risk of Infectious Disease in Evacuation Shelters

These study findings concur with the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation to adopt systematic measures following natural disasters:

Rapid assessment Infection prevention Surveillance Control of disease outbreak Management Evaluation to prevent the spread of infectious disease

These principles have been difficult to uphold, particularly in disasters where damage is extensive and the medical support staff at hospitals are also at risk of becoming victims of the disaster. The implementation of surveillance occurred 1 month after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and 5 days after the 2018 Kumamoto Earthquake, demonstrating improvements in the deployment of this measure. While instrumental, surveillance requires planning, distribution of reporting procedures, and a burden on evacuation shelter staff.

Literature notes that the development and strengthening of human resources are essential for adopting countermeasures for the control of infectious diseases. This included specialists in healthcare as week as local government workers. To augment this, disaster preparation is essential  particularly cross-organizational information sharing with specialist organizations such as universities, government institutes, and medical facilities before disaster strikes

Three factors determine the epidemiology and pathophysiology of infections; these include pathogens, hosts, and environments. Of these, environmental factors pose the greatest influence on the risk of outbreaks following a disaster. Among these factors, hygiene is considered to be critical as poor conditions increase the risk of transmission of infectious diseases. Therefore, a countermeasure that implements the maintenance of a sanitary environment in evacuation centers is critical.

Image Credit: Jean Faucett/Shutterstock.com

Environmental health in Evacuation Shelters to Optimize Health Outcomes

Through analyses of several natural disasters, environmental hygiene conditions are particularly salient factors in the maintenance of human health. Broadly speaking, assessment of emergency shelters has highlighted the following:

The need for appropriate health plans and actions which document the aims, policies, and procedures for natural disasters that involve multiple agencies

Coordinated responses of international and national agencies

Establishing minimum standards of environmental health, with the set-up of these basic requirements i.e. number of toilets, amount of water supply per person, frequency of food and water quality surveillance

Ensure evacuated shelter set up at all levels  from the community up to governmental level

Develop and improve technology for the maintenance of standards i.e. food hygiene kits, waste management, and floating toilets

Develop surveillance and monitoring systems

Assessing emergency shelters is critical to human health; through the adoption of standardized practices following preparation, and ongoing monitoring via assessments, human health outcomes can be improved. This is particularly important following the COVID-19 pandemic, where regular operations must be adjusted to accommodate COVID-19 guidelines.

References:

Tokumaru O, Fujita M, Nagai S, et al. (2021) Medical Problems and Concerns with Temporary Evacuation Shelters after Great Earthquake Disasters in Japan: A Systematic Review. Disaster Med Public Health Prep. doi:10.1017/dmp.2021.99.

Akaishi T, Morino K, Maruyama Y, et al. (2021) Restoration of clean water supply and toilet hygiene reduces infectious diseases in post-disaster evacuation shelters: A multicenter observational study. Heliyon. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07044.

Further Reading
Over the past several years, there has been an increased research output in the field of language acquisition and its effects on the brain. This is especially true with regards to the effects of bilingualism.

Language acquisition has been shown to impact neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to undergo structural changes in response to stimulus, behavioral experience, or cognitive demands. The link between neuroplasticity and language acquisition has been documented in the literature; evidence suggests that as a product of learning a language and utilizing several languages, changes in brain anatomy are induced. These changes include the pattern of functional neurons and can occur rapidly and at any age.

The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli Play

A study conducted in 2012 measured structural changes in the prefrontal and temporal cortices, particularly looking at changes in grey matter density. Grey matter is comprised of the cell bodies of neurons, and this area is generally associated with intelligence, attention, memory, and language processing. This contrasts with the white matter, which comprises axon bundles carrying nerve impulses between neurons and predominantly serves to connect different regions of grey matter; it consequently determines the speed of information processing and memory recall.

Participants underwent an intensive course of German and were examined at the beginning of the stay and approximately five months later. Researchers demonstrated that participants underwent an increase in the grey matter, which did not correlate with the degree of language proficiency. This indicated that this effect was directly attributable to second language acquisition.

A similar study conducted in 2012 observed that cortical thickness on the volume of the hippocampus was also increased in response to second language exposure. Collectively, these studies concluded that language acquisition could increase the density of grey matter.

In an investigation of the effect of early language exposure on the brain, researchers compared Spanish Catalan bilinguals exposed to two languages throughout that development, and a group cohort matched Spanish monolinguals. The bilingual group works left to have a larger Heschel's gyri relative to monolinguals, an indication of a greater size of the auditory cortex. The researchers concluded that second language learning is a causal factor in the increased size of the auditory cortex.

The Effect of Language Learning on Aging

Recent evidence has suggested that there is a positive impact of bilingualism on cognition - with a later onset of dementia. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh used the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 to address wasn't learning a second language can influence later cognitive performance. Disco halt offered the opportunity to address confounding variables such as ethnic and environmental differences.

The researchers found that bilinguals performed significantly better on tests conducted between 2008 and 2010. The strongest effects were observed on general intelligence and reading. Overall results suggested a positive effect of bilingualism on cognition in older age and this included those who acquired a second language as adults.

The bilingual executive advantage (BEA) hypothesis, that is, the improvement in cognitive functions, specifically executive functions, results from the ability to control more than one language system. This theory is controversial, and a recent systematic review, including 53 studies, does not apply to working memory. There is evidence to support the bilingual effect in relation to cognitive flexibility. However, the inconsistent results found across studies prevent clear conclusions from being drawn; further studies are still needed.

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The Impact of an Additional Language on Working Memory

Working memory is defined as a dedicated, mental workspace for the storage, processing, and manipulation of information. One aspect of working memory includes the holding of information in a speech-based format, called the phonological loop.

Bilinguals have been shown to outperform individuals who can only speak one language in tasks that require working memory. The response rate amongst those who can speak more than one language was more accurate in response to trials, which suggests that bilinguals have an advantage in executive functioning.

Bilingual participants could also outperform monolinguals in tests that required areas of the brain unrelated to the processing of language. This included visual-spatial span, suggesting that language acquisition can improve working memory beyond language processing.

The Impact of an Additional Language on Verbal Intelligence

Peal and Lambert published a paper in 1962 that was considered a hallmark study highlighting the importance of controlling for several variables such as socioeconomic status, sex, and age, as well as underscoring the importance of standardized measures for bilingualism when selecting populations to be studied. In this particular study, in a comparison between bilingual and monolingual participants, bilinguals performed better than monolingual counterparts in both verbal and nonverbal tests, however, the difference was more pronounced in non-verbal testing.

The advantage conferred by bilingualism is thought to be a result of greater mental flexibility and the ability to form concepts.

The Impact of an Additional Language on Nonverbal Intelligence

Non-verbal intelligence is defined as a set of cognitive and problem-solving skills as applied to tasks that don't require the use of language. Examples of nonverbal tasks include reasoning, the recognition of visual sequences, the ability to understand visual information, the ability to conceive abstract ideas, and the ability to recognize visual cues in social contexts i.e., body language.

According to Maria Viorica, the pioneer of the notion of coactivation in those with bilingualism, bilingual spoken language understanding confers the ability to activate inhibitory regulation in the prefrontal cortex. This is because this area of the brain must select between 2 languages that are co-activated, that is, able to be spoken concurrently. As a result, the bilingual brain it's subject to continuous exercise and is, therefore, more capable of executing cognitive tasks as a result of having better control of this area of the brain.

However, a more recent study conducted in 2019 suggests that there are no major differences between bilingual and monolingual matched participants in nonverbal switching and suggests that bilinguals may not have better cognitive control than monolinguals.

The impact of speaking an additional language has several positive cognitive effects, with wide implications on a range of disciplines - including human brain health. Several studies have suggested bilingualism can improve their brain's cognitive function, producing great cognitive control abilities, increased nonverbal and verbal capabilities, increased perceptual sensitivity, and confers some protection against aging, most notably delaying the onset of dementia.

References:

Li P, Jeong H. (2020) The social brain of language: grounding second language learning in social interaction. Nature. doi:10.1038/s41539-020-0068-7.

Friesen DC, Bialystok E. Metalinguistic Ability in Bilingual Children: The Role of Executive Control. (2012) Riv Psicolinguist Appl.

Bak TH, Nissan JJ, Allerhand MM, Deary IJ. (2014) Does bilingualism influence cognitive aging?. Ann Neurol. doi:10.1002/ana.24158.

Martensson J, Eriksson J, Bodammer NC, et al. (2012) Growth of language-related brain areas after foreign language learning. Neuroimage. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.06.043.

Bialystok E, Craik FI, Luk G. (2012) Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain. Trends Cogn Sci. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2012.03.001.

Pliatsikas C, Pereira Soares SM, Voits T, et al. (2021) Bilingualism is a long-term cognitively challenging experience that modulates metabolite concentrations in the healthy brain. Sci doi:10.1038/s41598-021-86443-4

Further Reading
Overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation is considered to be a health risk, causing skin and eye damage, alongside effects on the immune system comment that ultimately compromise health. The primary protection against solar UV radiation is the stratospheric ozone layer.

The ozone layer absorbs high-energy UV rays preventing them from reaching the earth's surface. Catalytic destruction of the ozone layer, therefore, increases the amount of UV radiation act the earth's surface, exacerbating the risk-averse health effects. Therefore, the protection and restoration of the ozone layer are of the utmost importance to human health.

Image Credit: studio23/Shutterstock.com

What is the Ozone Layer?

The ozone layer is a region of the atmosphere located between 15 and 30 kilometers above the earth's surface. Its main function is to provide a barrier to ultraviolet radiation by filtering out these rays from the sunlight, therefore, preventing that travel to the earth's surface, protecting the atmosphere.

It is formed naturally in the topmost of the atmosphere as a consequence of the sun's UV rays. Here, ozone molecules absorb the UV, resulting in an increased temperature of the stratosphere. Vertical mixing of the layers above the atmosphere is prevented; consequently, a stable stratospheric layer is formed. Some UV does reach the ground, however. It is between 290 and 320 nm in length and is known as UV-B. It provides some health benefits, stimulating the formation of vitamin D.

Evidence for Protecting the Ozone Layer

In a seminal paper published in 1974, Molinda and Rowland described efficient catalytic destruction of the ozone as a consequence of human-made chlorofluoromethanes. These chlorofluoromethanes remain in the troposphere, however, released chlorine atoms open reaching the stratosphere; these chlorine atoms catalyze the destruction of the ozone.

In 1985, this concern of catalytic ozone destruction was increased following the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole. Subsequent research over the next decade demonstrated that heterogeneous chlorine chemistry was capable of depleting more ozone relative to gas-phase processes alone as observed following the eruption of mountain Pinatubo.

In the 1980s, health impacts of ozone-depleting substances (ODS)-induced changes in the stratospheric ozone on the US population were studied by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These health effects induced by exposure to ultraviolet radiation predominantly affect the eyes, skin, and immune systems. Differential health effects were observed with different wavelengths in the UV-A (400315nm) and UV-B (315280 nm) ranges

The Effect of UV Radiation on the Skin

The effects of ultraviolet radiation include erythema, also known as sunburn, skin aging, and increased risk of several types of cancer. These cancers include cutaneous malignant melanoma and keratinocyte cancer. Among keratinocyte cancer, the most common forms include squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC). Melanoma is more prevalent in those with reduced pigmentation and thinner skin. There is a correlative relationship between melanoma and exposure to the sun, as well as sunburn history.

The Effect of UV Radiation on the Eyes

UV radiation can cause cataracts to appear in the eyes, SCC to develop in the cornea or conjunctivitis, as well as other damage to the eye surface. Cataracts caused clouding of the eyes clear lens, subsequently leading to vision impairment and blindness.

Cataracts related to age are caused by several potential factors, however, exposure to UV radiation, particularly UV-B is known to play a significant causative role. In addition, the lens of the eye can be damaged by oxidative agents. UV radiation causes the formation of such oxidative species, which can result in damaged cornea and lens.

The Effect of UV Radiation on the Immune System

The body's immunological defenses can be reduced in response to UV radiation overexposure, this can subsequently result in reactivation of latent viral infections, the increased voracity of skin cancers mediated by viruses, and an increased risk of infection. This is also known as immunosuppression.

Immunosuppression Is particularly problematic concerning infections that occur in the skin, for example, leprosy and malaria. The herpes simplex virus can be triggered by sun exposure and exemplifies an infection caused by UV-induced immunosuppression.

However, melanoma is considered to be the most lethal human health effect resulting from sun exposure; melanoma causes over 7100 deaths annually in the United States.

UV radiation can also alter organic molecules in the body, causing the formation of novel antigens; these could serve as potential triggers for the immune system.

Image Credit: Evdokimov Maxim/Shutterstock.com

The Indirect Effects of UV Radiation in the Body

UV-B radiation is known to contribute to the formation of photochemical smog. This subsequently increases the concentration of ozone at the earth's surface, therefore aggravating respiratory illnesses. Moreover, a decrease in food production as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion Is likely to produce indirect health effects on humans as a result of reduced food supply. However, these effects are indirect and difficult to quantify.

International agreements to phase out ozone-depleting substances, to reduce depletion of the ozone have been in play since the Montreal protocol of 1987. Consequently, the thickness of the stratospheric ozone map is projected to reach a minimum. Most recently, a review of the effectiveness of the Montreal Protocol has hailed the protocolbeen hailed as the most successful environmental treaty ever.

In this study, long-term UV index (UVI) data taken from spectroradiometer measurements have demonstrated its success in preventing continuous increases in UV radiation. It is predicted, that in the absence of this agreement, UVI values would have increased by ~20% over the period 1900-today in mid-latitude locations, with subsequent quadrupling by the year 2100.

Due to the protocol, analysis of UVI data has demonstrated that UVI values have remained constant over the past two decades, in all seasons, with a slight decrease in the southern hemisphere (most predominantly in Antarctica where ozone depletion effects were greater).

Consequently, there is some improvement in the ozone damage, suggesting the Monreal protocols relative success. Continuous compliance with international agreements is essential to prevent the degradation of the stratospheric ozone  crucial to protecting human health.

References:

McKenzie R, Bernhard G, Liley B, et al. (2019) Success of Montreal Protocol Demonstrated by Comparing High-Quality UV Measurements with "World Avoided" Calculations from Two Chemistry-Climate Models. Sci Rep. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-48625-z.

de Gruijl FR, van der Leun JC. (2000) Environment and health: 3. Ozone depletion and ultraviolet radiation. CMAJ.

United Nations Environment Programme, Environmental Effects Assessment Panel. Environmental effects of ozone depletion and its interactions with climate change: Progress report, 2016. (2017) Photochem Photobiol Sci. doi:10.1039/c7pp90001e.

Barnes PW, Williamson CE, Lucas RM, et al. (2019) Ozone depletion, ultraviolet radiation, climate change and prospects for a sustainable future. Nat Sustain. doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0314-2.

Bais AF , Lucas RM , Bornman JF, et al. (2018) Environmental effects of ozone depletion, UV radiation and interactions with climate change: UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, update 2017. Photochem Photobiol Sci. doi:10.1039/c7pp90043k.

Further Reading
In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers explore the dynamics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine-induced protection against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants of concern such as the currently dominant circulating Omicron strain.

Vaccines have played a substantial role in mitigating severe COVID-19 and related mortality since their approval for use; however, the efficacy of these vaccines has been found to wane over time. This reduction in protection, along with the emergence of immune-escaping variants of SARS-CoV-2 like the Omicron variant, has raised concerns on how to effectively control the current pandemic.

Study: The value of vaccine booster doses to mitigate the global impact of the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant. Image Credit: Oleksandra Klestova / Shutterstock.com

Study findings

In the current study, the researchers fitted an immunological model to population-level data on vaccine effectiveness and described the association between neutralizing antibody titers (NAT) and protection against mild and severe COVID-19 over time. To this end, they showed that NAT for Omicron decreased by 3.9-fold as compared to the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant.

The researchers also re-parameterized the model to add data on NAT and vaccine efficacy after one vaccine dose from clinical trials. Data on the immunogenicity of booster vaccine doses administered between six and eight months after receiving dose two was also included in this model.

Using this model, the researchers predicted that 90 days after receiving a Pfizer-BioNTech booster vaccine, efficacy against severe COVID-19 or hospitalization declines to 95.9% against the Delta variant and 78.8% against the Omicron variant.

The team applied a multiplicative scaling factor to capture the decline in efficacy against the Omicron variant for all vaccines used in the study. As compared to wild type (WT) strain of SARS-CoV-2, NAT reductions for previous variants were 8.8 and 1.6-fold, respectively, while previous studies have shown a six- and 40-fold NAT reduction for WT and Omicron strains of SARS-CoV-2, respectively.

The researchers integrated this immunological model within a SARS-CoV-2 transmission model and demonstrated that the size of the Omicron-led wave is dependent on the extent of previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 infection across the population. Thus, in countries that have already experienced a large Delta wave, the Omicron wave was relatively small.

Predicted vaccine efficacy over time. Plots show neutralizing antibody titre (NAT) (green), vaccine efficacy against mild disease (purple) and severe disease (grey) for the AZ-PF regimen (panels A-F) and PF-PF regimen (panels FL). The solid black line shows the posterior median estimate, colour bands the 95% range of individual responses and grey lines show 100 individual draws from the variation estimated between individuals in (13) illustrating the impact of variability in immune responses across the population. In panels B, E, H and K, the blue points are estimates of vaccine efficacy against mild disease (i.e. PCR+ tested infections which include asymptomatic infections detected through regular screening in schools and some workplaces) with the Delta and Omicron variants in England from (24, 25). In panels C and I, the black points represent vaccine efficacy against hospitalization with the Delta variant from the same source. Panels AC and GI show NAT and vaccine efficacy against the Delta variant; panels DF and JL show NAT and vaccine efficacy against the Omicron variant.

Global epidemic trajectories based on vaccine access

To study the different epidemic trajectories based on vaccine access, the authors stratified the present epidemiological state of countries into three categories.

In the first setting, countries have experienced significant previous waves of infection, had a high level of infection-induced immunity, and have excellent access to vaccines, with most of the adult population having received two vaccine doses. This category included countries in North America, Central/South America, the Middle East, and most of Europe. In this category, the administration of a booster dose six months after receiving the second vaccine dose to those aged above 60 years substantially reduced hospitalizations and deaths by 32% and 34%, respectively, between January 2021 and the end of 2022 as compared to not providing booster doses and not implementing any NPIs.

Impact of vaccination in a high-income country setting with substantial prior transmission and high vaccine access. (A) Cumulative vaccine doses delivered per person over time. Solid lines represent a 6-month period between dose 2 and the booster dose; dashed lines represent a 3-month period. Vaccine impact is shown for five dose scenarios: no booster doses, booster doses to those aged 60+, booster doses to those aged 40+, booster doses to those aged 20+ and booster doses to those aged 10+. Impact is shown for three epidemiological scenarios: central, with our central estimate of the VFR (3.9), Omicron Rt=3.5 (the same as Delta) and the risk of hospitalization reduced by 50% for Omicron compared to Delta; optimistic with our lower estimate of VFR (2.9), Omicron Rt=3.25 and risk of hospitalization reduced by 70%; and pessimistic with our upper estimate of the VFR (5.5), Rt=3.75 and risk of hospitalization reduced by 40%. All scenarios assume 90% vaccine uptake in each group and the risk of death further reduced by 58% from the risk of hospitalization. (B) Total hospitalizations per million post-vaccine introduction at the beginning of 2021 through to end-2022, for the central, best-case and worst-case scenarios, and assuming a 6-month period between dose 2 and the booster, except where specified. (C) Daily hospital admissions; and (D) Daily deaths per million population for the best-case, central, and worst-case scenarios. (E) Proportion of the population with NAT higher than the titre relative to convalescent required to provide 50% protection from infection, for the central VFR estimate.

The second category included countries with substantial prior transmission and infection-induced immunity, but with limited access to vaccines. In this scenario, prioritizing the limited booster vaccine supply in the elderly higher-risk group had a greater public health impact in reducing hospitalizations and deaths by 8% and 9%, respectively, as compared to using limited booster doses to boost younger age groups in an attempt to reduce viral transmission.

The third category included zero-COVID countries that have had very few prior waves and, as a result, low infection-induced immunity. This category included countries in East Asia and the Pacific.

The researchers found that using booster vaccine doses can considerably contribute to mitigating the epidemic peaks in these countries, although it is possible that healthcare capacity may still be overwhelmed. The epidemic peaks of these countries will therefore be relatively higher than countries that have experienced previous pandemic waves.

Conclusions

The study findings demonstrate the significance of delivering booster vaccine doses as part of the public health response to the emergence of immune-escaping SARS-CoV-2 variants such as the Omicron variant in order to restore vaccine efficacy against these new viral strains. In scenarios where booster vaccine supply is limited, booster administration should be targeted at the high-risk groups rather than younger age groups to ensure that high-risk populations are offered maximum protection considering waning immunity.

In settings where health systems are still challenged, it might be necessary to maintain or reintroduce some NPIs to mitigate the adverse impacts caused by the Omicron variant.

With the Omicron variant rapidly replacing the Delta variant in many countries, emerging data on immunogenicity indicates a substantial reduction in NAT, while estimates of preliminary vaccine efficacy show a substantial decrease in protection from prior infection. Estimates from the present study demonstrate that this will potentially translate to notable reductions in efficacy against severe COVID-19 and related death.

Preliminary estimates of the severity of Omicron infection from South Africa, Canada, and the United Kingdom point to a considerable reduction compared to previous variants such as the Delta variant. However, this impact is likely dependent on the level of vaccination coverage, the population age distribution, and the extent of previous waves of infection.

*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.
A team of scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has developed a predictive computer program that could be used to detect individuals who are at increased risk of depression.

In trials using data from groups of depressed and healthy participants, the program achieved an accuracy of 80 per cent in detecting those individuals with a high risk of depression and those with no risk.

Powered by machine learning, the program, named the Ycogni model, screens for the risk of depression by analysing an individual's physical activity, sleep patterns, and circadian rhythms derived from data from wearable devices that measure his or her steps, heart rate, energy expenditure, and sleep data.

Depression affects 264 million people globally, and is undiagnosed and untreated in half of all cases, according to the World Health Organisation. In Singapore, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased concerns over mental well-being. A new study by Singapore's Institute of Mental Health pointed to a likely increase in mental health issues, including depression related to the pandemic.

Activity trackers are estimated to be worn by nearly a billion people, up from 722 million in 2019.

To develop the Ycogni model, the scientists conducted a study involving 290 working adults in Singapore. Participants wore Fitbit Charge 2 devices for 14 consecutive days and completed two health surveys, which screened for depressive symptoms, at the start and end of the study.

The average age of the participants was 33 years old, with the sample closely mirroring the ethnic population of Singapore. Participants were instructed to wear trackers all the time and to remove them only when taking a shower or when the device needs charging.

Professor Josip Car, Director, Centre for Population Health Sciences at NTU's Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), who co-led the study, said: "Our study successfully showed that we could harness sensor data from wearables to aid in detecting the risk of developing depression in individuals. By tapping on our machine learning program, as well as the increasing popularity of wearable devices, it could one day be used for timely and unobtrusive depression screening."

This is a study that, we hope, can set up the basis for using wearable technology to help individuals, researchers mental health practitioners and policy makers to improve mental well-being. But on a more generic and futuristic application, we believe that such signals could be integrated with Smart Buildings or even Smart Cities initiatives: imagine a hospital or a military unit that could use these signals to identify people-at-risk." Georgios Christopoulos, Study Co-Lead and Associate Professor, Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University

The results of the study were published in the peer-reviewed academic journal JMIR mHealth and uHealth in November.

Vital signs linked to depressive symptoms

Besides being able to accurately determine if individuals had a higher risk of contracting depression, the researchers successfully associated certain patterns in the participants behaviours to depressive symptoms, which include feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, loss of interest in daily activities, and changes in appetite or weight.

From analysing their findings, the scientists found that those who had more varied heart rates between 2 am to 4 am, and between 4 am to 6 am, tended to be prone to more severe depressive symptoms. This observation confirms findings from previous studies, which had stated that changes in heart rate during sleep might be a valid physiological marker of depression.

The study also associated less regular sleeping patterns, such as varying waking times and bedtimes, to a higher tendency to have depressive symptoms.

The scientists explained that although weekday rhythms are mainly determined by work routine, the ability to follow this routine better differentiates between depressed and healthy individuals, where healthy people demonstrated a greater regularity in the timings when they woke up and went to sleep.

Prof Car added: "We look forward to expanding on our research to include other vital signs in the detection of depression risk, such as skin temperature. Fine-tuning our program could help in facilitating early, unobtrusive, continuous, and cost-effective detection of depression in the general population."

Assoc Prof Christopoulos added: "Our team will also be working on expanding to other types of psychological status, such as mental fatigue, which seems to be an alarming problem nowadays. Wearables can also be part of feedback system that could support therapists to better evaluate the psychological status of their patients - for instance improvements in sleep quality."
The rapid transmission of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) led to the development of several vaccines against the virus at unprecedented speeds using both conventional and experimental platforms. Most coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have proven to be of high efficacy in preventing symptomatic or severe disease, thereby reducing the load on healthcare systems and COVID-19-related mortality.

In a new study posted to the preprint server medRxiv*, researchers describe the state of adaptive immunity following vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine.

Study: Real-World Monitoring of BNT162b2 Vaccine-Induced SARS-Cov-2 B And T Cell Immunity in Naive Healthcare Workers: A Prospective Single Center Study. Image Credit: diy13 / Shutterstock.com

Background

The Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine is built on a messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) platform, which encodes the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that contains the receptor-binding domain (RBD). The SARS-CoV-2 RBD is the immunodominant antigen that is neutralized by protective antibodies and T-cells following the generation of an immune response. In advanced clinical trials, BNT162b2 was found to have an efficacy of 95% against symptomatic infection.

The real-world efficacy of BNT162b2 against the SARS-CoV-2 Alpha variant was impressive; however, this efficacy was slightly reduced against the Delta variant. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of BNT162b2 is even lower against the currently dominant SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, which has led to a rapid escalation in case numbers despite the rollout of vaccines on a very large scale in many countries.

The reason for the lower vaccine effectiveness against these variants is due to the presence of mutations in the spike or RBD protein, which enables the virus to escape binding by vaccine-induced neutralizing antibodies that target epitopes within this region. As a result, the durability of vaccine-induced protection is a question facing active discussion.

Most vaccine surveillance studies are based on antibody detection in serum. However, T-cells specific to a pathogen is known to be persistent for decades after infection or vaccination, therefore, play a key role in sustained immunity.

The current study focuses on B- and T-cell immunity in response to vaccination in healthy volunteers. All study participants were Caucasian healthcare workers (HCW) with a mean age of 36 years, all of whom did not have a history of SARS-CoV-2 infection. All study participants were followed up for three months from vaccination.

Study findings

The researchers found that anti-nucleocapsid (N) immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies to the wildtype strain of SARS-CoV-2 were not raised either pre-vaccination or at three months after the second dose.

However, at the second time point, the vaccine-elicited functionally active IgG antibodies to the spike, with a median titer of 27, and all but two had anti-spike IgA response. IgA and IgG antibodies were correlated with each other. All but one of the study participants had three-month anti-RBD IgG titers at a median of 827, though the range was wide.

Circulating B-cells specific to the RBD were also found in about a third of the participants, thereby confirming results from earlier studies. These cells are a proxy marker for resident spike-specific B-cells in the lymphoid tissue, which are key to durable memory B-cell responses. These patients also had high binding and neutralizing antibody titers.

The researchers used T-cell phenotyping as part of the whole blood interferon-gamma release assay (IGRA) to avoid having to isolate peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) or use peptide pools to assess T-cell responses to the virus.

Markers of T-cell activation were present, along with the release of type II interferon, thus confirming the presence of a helper T-cell response to the vaccine. This showed both cytotoxic and helper T-cell subsets to be activated specifically by SARS-CoV-2, which indicates that both MHC class I and II proteins were presenting the viral antigens.

In vaccinated participants, the median SARS-CoV-2-specific T -cell-mediated gamma-interferon (IFN-) release was 1,520 as compared to a median baseline value of 34. At three months, this level rose three-fold or more, with 10,000-fold or higher increases reported in some participants.

The researchers found CD40L expression, which is key to both class switching and B-cell receptor affinity maturation. This suggests that re-exposure to the antigen would activate a rapid and large T-cell-dependent antibody response due to memory B-cell recall responses.

A single patient with breakthrough infection in this study had both anti-S and anti-RBD antibodies, a high neutralizing titer, and RBD-specific B-cells that were induced by vaccination.

Post-vaccination, both B- and T-cells were found to be activated by the vaccine. However, the magnitude of each arm of the adaptive immune response was independent of the other.

Implications

The findings of the current study suggest that IgA anti-spike antibodies wane faster than the corresponding IgG antibodies, which has been reported by other researchers. In every participant but one, neutralizing antibodies were present that produced complete inhibition of RBD-angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) binding, thereby indicating that BNT162b2 is highly effective at three months from the second dose.

The titers of anti-S and anti-RBD IgG antibodies correlated to the functional antibody activity, with high neutralizing efficacy being observed following double vaccination with the BNT162b2 vaccine. However, these findings were with the wild-type virus.

In other words, one might show high antibody titers and functional 484 neutralization to the original virus strain that could prove to be biologically less relevant against 485 the mutated target proteins of the emergent VoC.

RBD-specific B-cells were found in a subset of patients and were linked to the presence of binding, neutralizing, and functional antibodies. The fact that none of these individuals were infected at the time of the second examination suggests that antibody-mediated immunity is still being built up, even at three months from the second dose of vaccine.

The results of this study indicate the possibility of using vaccine recipients as a source of RBD-targeted B-cell clones that can generate strong neutralizing antibodies for therapeutic use. This technique was used earlier with PBMCs isolated from convalescents to yield neutralizing antibodies in late-stage clinical trials or already in clinical use. These include LY-CoV555, REGN10933 and REGN10987, ABBV-2B04, TY027, and 3B8.

Vaccination has also been reported to be associated with specific T-cell responses that result in the release of antiviral IFN- at up to three months post-vaccination. The findings suggest that vaccination leads to a robust increase in antibody titers on re-exposure that are triggered by a rapid T-cell-mediated recall response.

Vaccinated people with breakthrough infections have been reported to experience only mild symptoms of COVID-19, with complete and rapid recovery. The one patient who experienced a breakthrough infection in the current study had a detectable, albeit small, RBD-specific B-cell population that might be due to a recall response to the infection.

However, the small study size precluded any conclusion as to whether one dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine was sufficient to induce a protective immune response in those with a history of natural infection, as all participants were infection-naive at the time of vaccination.

Further neutralization assays must be carried out using the variant RBDs in order to fully predict the breadth of protective immunity induced by the vaccine.

Three months post BNT162b2 mRNA vaccination, previously naive healthcare workers show functional humoral and cellular immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 that do not guarantee protection against the emerging VoC.

Longer periods of follow-up will be necessary to explore the durability of vaccine-induced immunity, especially as the pandemic appears to be slowly transitioning to a situation in which SARS-CoV-2 becomes endemic.

*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.
In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, a team of researchers assess the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Omicron variant of concern (VOC) on symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Study: Omicron-Associated Changes in SARS-CoV-2 Symptoms in The United Kingdom. Image Credit: FamVeld / Shutterstock.com

Introduction

Amid the rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VOC, numerous research projects are investigating the symptoms and severity associated with infection with this variant.

However, due to the community transmission of Omicron coinciding with the transmission of other winter respiratory viruses common in the Northern hemisphere, it has become difficult to isolate SARS-CoV-2 symptoms. The overlap of symptoms of the Omicron VOC and winter respiratory viruses can therefore adversely affect the symptomatology of Omicron, which further impacts clinical and testing policies.

About the study

In the present study, the researchers investigated the symptoms of Omicron infection and their divergence from symptoms caused by other variants of SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers compared the symptoms reported in SARS-CoV-2 infections in a reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-positive and RT-PCR-negative cases from October 2020 to November 2021, which is when the spread of the Omicron VOC was on the rise. The study excluded cases with a high pretest probability of undetected coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and cases with long-COVID-19 symptoms.

A supplementary method involving the analysis of SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests of the nose and throat swabs of patients collected from October 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021, was also used. The study was conducted on patients aged two to ten years after obtaining written informed consent from their parents and on patients aged ten to 15 years with written consent provided by them. Individuals aged 12 years and older self-collected the swabs while parents/caregivers collected the swabs of patients aged less than 12 years to avoid transmission of the virus.

RT-PCR for three SARS-CoV-2 genes of the nucleocapsid (N) protein, spike (S) protein, and ORF1ab was conducted on all collected samples. While the presence of S-gene alone was not considered as a determinant of SARS-CoV-2 infection, the detection of at least a single N-gene and/or ORF1ab was sufficient to consider a sample as SARS-CoV-2-positive.

The researchers defined reinfection as either the first positive test in each RT-PCR-positive infection occurring more than 120 days after the initial positive test with a preceding negative test or the first positive test after four consecutive negative tests. Such cases of reinfection were also included in the study. Each SARS-CoV-2-positive case was classified as wild-type/Delta if a presence of an S-gene with N/ORF1ab/both was detected, while cases with either ORF1ab or N-gene were classified as Alpha-compatible or Omicron-compatible.

Study findings

A total of 53,617 RT-PCR-positive and 4,236,647 RT-PCR-negative episodes were reported between October 2020 and December 2021. Among these, 54% RT-PCR-positive cases and 4% RT-PCR-negative cases reported symptoms. The median age of the PCR-positive population was 40 years and that of the PCR-negative population was 53 years.

Symptoms in those testing positive and negative for SARS-CoV-2 prior to and following the emergence and dominance of Omicron in December 2021 in the UK. Panel A shows the number of PCR-positive infection episodes that were S-gene negative (Alpha-compatible November-2020 to May-2021; Omicron-compatible December-2021) and S-gene positive (Delta-compatible June-2021 onwards). Vertical lines indicate periods when new variants came to dominate: wild type before 17 November 2020, then Alpha before 17 May 2021, then Delta; the first Omicron cases were detected from 29 November 2021. Panels B and C show the probability of reporting symptoms and the number of symptoms (out of the 12 elicited throughout the study period) of all PCR-positive infection episodes and all PCR-negative comparator visits. Panels D-G show the probability of specific symptoms in symptomatic PCR-positive infection episodes (panels D and E) and in symptomatic PCR-negative comparator study visits (panels F and G), after adjustment for age, sex, ethnicity (presented at the reference category age 45, male, white).

Symptoms like sore throat, cough, fever, shortness of breath, nausea, fatigue, myalgia, abdominal pain, diarrhea, loss of taste, loss of smell, and headache were reported in the first seven days of the study. The presence of these symptoms indicated that the patient was symptomatic for COVID-19.

By December 31, 2021, with the emergence of the Omicron VOC, the reported loss of taste/smell declined from about 44% to between 11-13% in RT-PCR-positive patients. The reported loss of taste/smell was uncommon in RT-PCR-negative individuals in the period before and after December 2021.

Percentage of S-gene-negative (Omicron-compatible) and S-gene-positive (Delta-compatible) symptomatic PCR-positives in December 2021 reporting different symptoms by vaccination status.

A significant reduction in RT-PCR-positive symptoms like fatigue, cough, headache, fever, myalgia, and shortness of breath was reported, while no notable change was observed in RT-PCR-negative cases.

Reports of throat soreness increased from 45% to 59% in RT-PCR-positive symptomatic patients and from 41% to 45% in RT-PCR-negative symptomatic patients. Furthermore, an increasing number of RT-PCR-positive symptomatic patients also reported having runny noses. The researchers found no correlation between trends of symptoms and the vaccination status of patients.

Conclusions

Based on the current study findings, the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VOC was observed to cause fewer lower respiratory tract symptoms and a higher number of upper respiratory tract symptoms. Additionally, an increase in sore throat reports in both RT-PCR-positive and RT-PCR-negative patients, as well as a reduction in SARS-CoV-2-specific symptoms like loss of taste and/or smell, has complicated the symptom-based detection of Omicron VOC infections.

*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.
In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers explored the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) booster vaccination necessity among various age groups in Israel.

In this study, the researchers also explored the effect regarding preventing disease outcomes, and the impact of time on initiation of boosters via a mathematically calibrated model based on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) data from Israel.

Background

Israel was one of the first countries that initiated mass COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, and they were also among the countries that first experienced significant breakthroughs due to the waning vaccine-induced immunity that led to a resurgence of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic.

To contain the SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough rate, Israel initiated a booster vaccination campaign, which was demonstrated to be efficient in curtailing the resurgence of the Delta variant by only implementing minimum non-pharmaceutical interventions without a lockdown. However, there is uncertainty regarding the requirement of boosters among various age groups and the appropriate time of initiation.

The study

In the present study, the researchers constructed a discrete-time age-of-infection age-stratified transmission model to accurately determine the individual to population-level data on SARS-CoV-2 Delta surge dynamics in Israel from July 1-November 25, 2021.

The researchers compared the impact of alternative vaccination policies such as vaccinating different age groups and early and extensive booster rollout. Additionally, the model explored direct and indirect protection from different outcomes of COVID-19 imparted by the booster vaccination.

The participants data on age, location of residence, dates of first, second, third COVID-19 vaccination, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, COVID-19-associated hospitalization, and death were collected from the Israel Ministry of Health database. COVID-19 disease severity was defined based on the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 treatment guidelines.

In the mathematical model, the SARS-CoV-2 infection process was modeled using a social contact matrix comprised of social settings such as household, community, work, and school, which determines the number of average daily interactions.

The researchers assumed that the waning effect of vaccine protection from severe SARS-CoV-2 outcomes is equal to the waning vaccine protection from SARS-CoV-2 infection, and this was validated using the relative estimates. Further, they assumed the waning protection of booster from SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe disease was half that associated with the second COVID-19 vaccination.

Findings

The results indicated that without non-pharmaceutical interventions or booster vaccinations, the Delta wave had the potential to cause an increase of approximately 385% in detected infections, 763% in severe disease, and 880% in deaths. However, booster vaccination of nearly 40% of the population was associated with a 70% reduction in the number of SARS-CoV-2 cases.

There was a significant reduction in the number of cases, severe diseases, and mortality when the booster vaccination was restricted to only 40 years or older and 60 years or older age groups. However, the restriction of booster vaccines to certain age groups was less effective in all aspects compared to booster vaccination of more population segments.

The model demonstrated that at least two weeks earlier initiation of booster vaccination might have resulted in an overall decrease in the number of infections to about a factor of three than the actual booster vaccine rollout.

In Israel, those above 60 years of age had a higher number of social contacts during the Delta outbreak than the previous SARS-CoV-2 waves, according to the POLYMOD contact matrix in this age group. The 60 years or older age group was associated with a basic reproduction number of 2% in the POLYMOD contact matrix adapted to Israel whereas the basic reproduction number contributed by the 60 years or older age group varied between 10-11% in the time-varying social contact matrix used in the simulation.

The vaccine uptake rate was lower in the younger age groups, where the uptake is crucial in determining the impact of booster vaccines.

Conclusions

The study demonstrated the impact of COVID-19 booster vaccination from the individual to the population level in Israel using a mathematical calibrated model. The booster rollout was efficient in curtailing the resurgence of the COVID-19 associated with the waning immunity from the vaccines.

The findings highlighted the need of vaccinating younger populations who are not at a higher risk of severe SARS-CoV-2 disease but play a significant role in COVID-19 transmission.

Further, the study indicated that the efficacy of the booster vaccine mainly depends upon the timing of its initiation in controlling the epidemic and hence warrants the importance of a rapid response to reduce the disease burden through the implementation of a booster vaccination.

Overall, in the light of newer SARS-CoV-2 variants such as Omicron, it is of prime importance to adopt new strategies that will help reduce the disease burden of COVID-19.

*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.
Khartoum, Sudan (PANA) - Sudan on Monday expressed the hope that African intelligence and security bodies would contribute to restore stability and calm in the country
Over 5.59 million people have died due to the devastating coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which is still wreaking havoc on worldwide health systems. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causal agent, was discovered in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. During the first months of human circulation, SARS-CoV-2 was genetically and antigenically reasonably stable, but variants that were more transmissible and/or evaded immunity developed in late 2020.

Study: SARS-CoV-2 Omicron efficiently infects human airway, but not alveolar epithelium. Image Credit: mohdizuan/Shutterstock

The Alpha variant (clade B.1.1.7) was the first variant of concern (VOC), and it became the dominant variant internationally in early 2021. The Delta variant (clade B.1.617.2) arose a few months later, and by the summer of 2021, it had outcompeted Alpha in most countries.

According to epidemiological evidence, Alpha spread 35-100% quicker than its ancestral branch and was associated with higher viral loads. On the other hand, Delta was shown to be 55% more transmissible than Alpha and largely evaded neutralization in vitro.

In November 2021, Omicron was discovered in South Africa, Botswana, and an individual traveling from South Africa to Hong Kong. The variant was soon discovered in several European, African, and Asian countries, as well as the United States. In several nations, Omicron appears to be rapidly replacing Delta, indicating that it may transmit more efficiently. Omicron's spike (S) protein has about 30 mutations, whereas the other VOCs have only 9 to 12.

This study examined the shedding, fitness, and pathogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 VOCs using human airway and alveolar organoids. Researchers found that Omicron multiplies efficiently in the human airway but not in the alveoli and that it does not utilize transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) efficiently for entrance.

A preprint version of the study is available on the bioRxiv* server while the article undergoes peer review.

The study

The authors employed a 2D organoid-based air-liquid interface airway model reported earlier to mimic SARS-CoV-2 infection of the human airways accurately. The scientists tested the shedding kinetics of a 614D and 614G ancestral virus, Alpha, Delta, and Omicron for ten days because humans shed infectious SARS-CoV-2 for approximately eight days. Despite Omicron having a 3.5- and 4-fold lower infectivity than 614G and Delta, respectively, infectivity on Calu-3 cells was the least varied between viruses when compared to VeroE6 and VeroE6-TMPRSS2 cells, where Omicron was severely attenuated.

The investigation discovered that the ancestral 614G virus attained its highest titer around day 2-4 in the airway organoid model, following which shedding dropped by 100-fold between days 4 and 10. Despite reaching identical peak titers, the Alpha variant continued to shed large quantities of infectious virus up to day ten after infection. Delta had very similar shedding kinetics, implying that both genotypes had evolved to shed significant quantities of virus for long periods.

Next, the researchers looked into which VOCs had the best fitness in airway cells. They did this by infecting airway organoids with a 1:1 or 5:1 mixture of 614G, Alpha, Delta, or Omicron. The authors took daily samples of the cultures for ten days. They used Sanger sequencing and electropherogram peak analysis to assess the relative frequency of both viruses to compute replicative fitness.

Both the Alpha and Delta variants demonstrated an improved replicative fitness in the human airway, according to these investigations. Furthermore, the investigators discovered that Alpha and Delta had a minor fitness difference, slightly favoring the latter, implying that Delta's antigenic drift had a substantial role in its transmissibility.

Omicron had a higher fitness than Delta during the first five days of the infection, but Delta eventually outcompeted Omicron. This confirms that Omicron replicates more quickly in the early stages of infection and that the two viruses are phenotypically unique. These findings may explain why Omicron has quickly outcompeted Delta in many nations, as sick individuals are most infectious in the first days of illness.

Implications

This data supports preliminary indications that Omicron's hospitalization rates are lower than Delta's. Simultaneously, these findings on Omicron's rapid replication and competitive fitness in the airway back with epidemiological findings suggest Omicron is even more transmissible than Delta. Omicron was shown to be attenuated in both the lower and upper respiratory tracts of hamsters in a recent study. Although this evidence suggests that Omicron is less pathogenic, it does not explain why Omicron is so easily disseminated in humans. These findings suggest that human organoid models are well-suited to studying viral fitness and pathogenicity, particularly when comparing viral variants that adapt to unique human host characteristics.

*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 autoimmune disorder rheumatoid arthritis has been associated with a lower risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in previous studies, with antirheumatic drugs as one possible explanation.

However, most of the disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) were not associated with the risk of PD in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis, a new register-based study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. An exception was the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine which associated with a lower risk of PD. The findings were published online on January 21, 2022, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Risk factors for PD are still unclear. Rheumatoid arthritis has been linked to PD with conflicting findings, and both risk lowering and increasing findings have been reported. The medications used to treat rheumatoid arthritis could be one possible explanation for the potential lower risk of PD in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis but there are only few previous studies.

According to the newly published study, previous use of methotrexate, sulfasalazine, gold preparations or immunosuppressants at least three years before the PD diagnosis was not associated with the risk of PD in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. However, users of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine had a 26% lower relative risk of PD. Different comorbidities, such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, along with age, sex, and duration of rheumatoid arthritis, were controlled for in the study.

Chloroquine and the more commonly used hydroxychloroquine have various effects on the immune system. These medicines have been found to have antiparkinson potential in animal models of PD. According to researchers, the possible protective association of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine should be further investigated.

This study was conducted as part of the FINPARK study, which covers 22,189 community-dwelling Finns with PD and a matched comparison cohort. The study was limited to persons who had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at least three years before PD.
While both patients and clinicians prioritize information transparency, a 21st Century Cures Act requirement for the immediate release of test and lab results is proving more controversial, according to recently published survey results of clinicians and patients.

The study, published recently in The American Journal of Surgery, found that of the clinicians surveyed, nearly 63% agreed that immediately released results would be more confusing than helpful for patients, whereas about 16% of patients surveyed agreed with that statement.

I think for clinicians, the concern has been that it's going to cause stress to patients getting these really complex reports that are not written at a level that's easy for non-medical professionals to understand." Laura Leonard, Study Primary Author, MD, Chief Resident, Quality and Safety, Department of Surgery, University of Colorado

"I've called patients back within 20 minutes of receiving their results and they're already down in the fine print," adds Sarah Tevis, MD, a study co-author and an assistant professor of surgical oncology. "As clinicians, we may have just received the results ourselves, so we're not only going through them for the first time, but trying to help patients know where to focus and to know what these results mean for them."

Studying the impact in real time

The 21st Century Cures Act, which became law in 2016, includes a requirement that went into effect in 2021 requiring health care institutions to release all electronic health information (EHI) to patients immediately.

"We recognized at the time that we had a unique opportunity to study the impact of something as it was happening," Leonard says, adding that UCHealth, whose patients and clinicians were surveyed, was proactive in working with and preparing clinicians for the change beginning in 2020.

Leonard, Tevis, and the research team designed a voluntary cross-sectional survey to administer via e-mail to clinicians at UCHealth in October 2020. Clinicians who regularly work with oncology patients were invited to participate. A corresponding survey was administered to patients recruited from breast cancer and pancreatic cancer multi-disciplinary clinics and breast radiology patient lists. These participants were specifically selected to represent patients who have had significant experience with testing as well as reviewing test results.

Survey results showed that of those surveyed, about 90% of patients and 81% of clinicians agreed that providing patients with access to their health information is necessary in delivering high-quality care. However, providers were more likely to disagree that patients are comfortable reviewing blood work results, radiology results, and pathology reports on their own.

The survey results also showed that about 75% of patients felt their provider should contact them within 24 hours of the release of abnormal results, whereas 9% of clinicians agreed with that timeframe.

Balancing transparency and patient benefit

"For a lot of providers, the concern is that these results can come back at 6 o'clock on a Friday night, at 9 o'clock on Saturday morning," Tevis explains. "I've had patients whose results came in on Thanksgiving Day. So, as providers, one of the concerns is how to provide the best care to patients while also managing time.

"With my patient whose results came in on Thanksgiving, I was going back and forth with, 'Do I call my patient? Do I not call my patient?' I tend to send a message through the electronic medical records system saying, 'This looks good for these reasons and I'll call you tomorrow' or 'I'll call you at an appropriate time'."

When the transition to immediate release of EHI was announced, Leonard says, many providers expressed concern about the impact it would have on their patients, as well as how they could adjust their workflows so they could call or message their patients right away.

UCHealth has been at the forefront of connecting patients with access to their EHI, led in particular by CT Lin, MD, a professor of internal medicine in the CU School of Medicine. The access and transparency benefits and empowers patients in their health care, Leonard says, but an area of concern for providers is how to help patients navigate the complex medical terminology and data generally found in lab and test results.

The survey included a section asking patients to define certain medical terms to get a baseline of their understanding, Leonard says, as well as sections asking for their opinions about receiving results and their experience with online portals for medical records.

Understanding patient comfort level

Results from the survey offer significant insights into areas of differing expectations between patients and providers, Leonard says. They also can inform institutions and providers in creating resources to support patients in receiving and understanding their EHI.

"One of the things that was interesting in the survey is how patients view their comfort with interpreting results compared with how providers view patients' comfort," Leonard says. "In general, patients reported they felt more comfortable interpreting lab results, pathology results, and radiology results than providers felt patients were. So how do we address that disconnect between what providers think patients can do and what patients think patients can do?"

Other areas for further research and resource development include addressing the digital divide and supporting patients with less or no access to devices to view their electronic records, as well as supporting patient populations with lower health literacy, Tevis says.

"Even before the 21st Century Cures Act, it's been a challenge in health care to support patients who might want to immediately turn to Google," Tevis says. "It's really hard for anybody  patients, providers, anybody in health care  to determine what's good information and not good information on the internet. It can be hard to make your way to reliable resources, especially if you're now trying to understand complex lab results."

Creating resources for patients

Leonard recently received a quality improvement grant provided through the CU School of Medicine's Clinical Effectiveness and Patient Safety (CEPS) program to create and pilot educational tools that patients can use while viewing their EHI in the online portal. The goal, Tevis says, is to involve patients in the process of creating these tools.

The survey results also are significant in guiding conversations with providers, Leonard says, who are looking to give patients the best quality of care while also working with them to manage their expectations about when providers contact them about results.

"Based on the survey results, I don't think provider concerns were coming from a place of not wanting patients to have access to data or not wanting to communicate with patients in a timely way," Leonard says. "We saw in the comments we received that people who were concerned about this were worried about patient distress and causing undue harm".

"Nobody felt that patients shouldn't have the information, they were just concerned about the immediacy aspect. They wanted to be able to speak with the patient first or at least have a plan in place for when they would speak to the patient and how they would go through the results together."
A general bias toward negativity-;or the tendency to focus on negative rather than positive information-;may exacerbate the spread of misinformation. Because depression may contribute to such negativity bias, a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) examined whether people who experience depressive symptoms may be more receptive to misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines. Their findings are published in JAMA Network Open.

One of the notable things about depression is that it can cause people to see the world differently-;sort of the opposite of rose-colored glasses. That is, for some depressed people, the world appears as a particularly dark and dangerous place." Roy H. Perlis, Study Lead Author, MD, MSc, Associate Chief of Research, Department of Psychiatry and Director, Center for Quantitative Health, MGH

"We wondered whether people seeing the world this way might also be more susceptible to believing misinformation about vaccines. If you already think the world is a dangerous place, you might be more inclined to believe that vaccines are dangerous-;even though they are not."

To investigate, Perlis and his colleagues examined responses from 15,464 adults from all 50 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., who completed an internet survey between May and July 2021 that included statements related to COVID-19 vaccines after answering a questionnaire that measured depressive symptoms.

The team found that levels of depression are at least three times higher than what they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants with moderate or greater major depressive symptoms on the initial questionnaire were more likely to endorse at least one of four false statements about COVID-19 vaccines on the subsequent survey, and those who endorsed these statements were less likely to be vaccinated. Specifically, the presence of depression was associated with a 2.2-times higher likelihood of endorsing misinformation, and respondents endorsing at least one misinformation statement were half as likely to be vaccinated and 2.7 times more likely to report vaccine resistance.

Perlis and his colleagues also analyzed data from the subset of 2,809 respondents who answered a subsequent survey two months later. Those with depression in the first survey were twice as likely as those without depression to endorse more misinformation than they did in the prior survey.

"While we can't conclude that depression caused this susceptibility, looking at a second wave of data at least told us that the depression came before the misinformation. That is, it wasn't that misinformation was making people more depressed," Perlis notes. Because the study also included questions about social media and news sources, the investigators were also able to exclude the possibility that the effect of depression was a result of getting news from different places. They also found that the effect was not limited to people with particular political beliefs or members of particular demographic groups.

The researchers note that the findings provide an additional motivation to ensure that people have access to treatment for depression and anxiety. "Our result suggests that, by addressing the extremely high levels of depression in this country during COVID, we might decrease people's susceptibility to misinformation," says Perlis. "Of course, we can only show an association-;we can't show that the depression causes the susceptibility, but it's certainly suggestive that it might."

Perlis stresses that the results in no way blame misinformation on people with depression but rather suggest that depression may cause people to be more vulnerable to believing this misinformation.
David Veesler and his lab members aren't getting much sleep these days.

In the final weeks of 2021, he and his team worked around the clock to post four coronavirus papers on the preprint server bioRxiv. All delved into the biology of Omicron, the SARS-CoV-2 variant currently driving the explosive growth of cases worldwide. One paper, on the structure of Omicron's spike protein, came out on New Year's Eve.

"We are very tired," Veesler says with a laugh. "We are 16 people working on coronavirus all the time."

In the two years since SARS-CoV-2 blazed across the globe, Veesler and his team at the University of Washington have been in the lab day and night scrutinizing people's immune responses, designing new vaccines, and sharing their insights with colleagues in the US and abroad.

They and others have been racing to piece together a picture of Omicron, a variant that differs drastically from its predecessors. What they're learning could guide the development of new vaccines that offer protection against future pandemics. In the near-term, such vaccines could provide a fresh supply of shots for those still awaiting their first dose  roughly 40 percent of people on the planet.

"The main question is how are we going to make enough doses for everyone?" says Veesler, who was recently selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His team feels driven to help. They're part of a fiercely motivated group of scientists working relentlessly to find ways to treat or prevent coronavirus infection, and they're not alone. Scientists around the world are teaming up and buckling down to get a grip on the virus. Their efforts are fast-tracking advances and discoveries, Veesler says, and in the process, they're also transforming science.

Never before have human beings come together to get science done the way it has been done for the past two years." David Veesler, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Structural biology at warp speed

Most days of the week, you can find biochemist Lexi Walls in Veesler's lab on the second floor of UW's Health Sciences building. Her desk sits near a window overlooking a small courtyard. Before the pandemic, she could see students and staff hanging out and walking home at night. These days, the building and its surroundings have mostly emptied out, except for Veesler's team and others working on coronavirus. They're hard at it pretty much full time. You might catch a quiet moment at 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday, Walls says, but otherwise, "the lab is constantly buzzing."

She's wearing a black N95 mask, which she'll keep on all day, with short breaks for meals, if she's lucky.

Veesler's team recognizes that they need to eat, sleep, and give their brains a break every now and then to rest, but their pace hasn't always been so dogged.

Walls has been studying coronavirus with Veesler since 2015 when most people had never heard of the microscopic pathogen. Back then, Walls was motivated by a sense of discovery. "At the time, no one else in the world knew much of anything about coronavirus spike proteins."

In 2016, she, Veesler, and their colleagues were the first to image the structure of a coronavirus spike protein, the infection machinery the virus uses to enter cells. When the pandemic began raging in 2020, that published data gave scientists a jumping off point for understanding SARS-CoV-2, which also relies on spike proteins to infect humans.

Four years later  just months after the novel coronavirus emerged in Wuhan  the team described the architecture of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the journal Cell. Last month, Veesler's team continued their structure-solving streak. On New Year's Eve 2021, they reported capturing images of Omicron's spike protein bound to an antibody used in the clinic to treat COVID-19. Called a neutralizing antibody, it blocks the virus's entry into cells and retains activity against Omicron. Around the same time, a handful of other labs also reported efforts to map Omicron's spike structure.

"Structural biology used to move at a slow pace," says Harvard University's Bing Chen, who posted his own team's Omicron work January 12, 2022, on bioRxiv. "Now, it's almost becoming a high-throughput tool." That speed is especially important in a pandemic, he says, because scientists want to generate useful information as quickly as possible.

Scientists already knew that Omicron was strikingly distinct from previous variants. Compared to the original strain, Omicron has dozens of mutations, 37 of which occur in the spike protein. Visualizing where those mutations occur, and how they alter the spike's structure, gives scientists a glimpse of potential weak spots. That could be helpful when designing drugs or antibodies that target the virus, says Matt McCallum, who led the work in Veesler's lab and typed up the manuscript on his flight home from Christmas break.

The team's structural work, McCallum says, also helps explain one of Omicron's hallmarks: an extraordinary ability to sneak past people's immune defenses.

An abysmal drop

Omicron first began its tear around the world late last year. Scientists in South Africa reported the new variant, also known as B.1.1.529, on November 24, 2021. As of January 6, the World Health Organization reports, the highly infectious variant had been detected in 149 countries.

In the United States, Omicron now accounts for more than 99 percent of cases, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This massive surge in infections likely owes to a couple of factors: Omicron is particularly good at latching on to human cells, and it can largely stymie protective antibodies.

After a coronavirus infection, the immune system churns out scads of antibodies to fend off future encounters. These antibodies circulate in the body for weeks and months, some binding directly to the virus to disarm it.

Veesler's team examined immune responses to Omicron using a wide panel of vaccine-elicited neutralizing antibodies as well as monoclonal neutralizing antibodies, possibly the largest panel of its kind, says John Bowen, a research technician in Veesler's lab.

The team looked at antibodies from unvaccinated people and people vaccinated with one of the six major COVID-19 vaccines, and at monoclonal antibody treatments known to target previous coronavirus variants.

Bowen has immersed himself in the latest efforts, like the rest of Veesler's team. Every morning he scans Twitter to catch the latest coronavirus news, eats breakfast, and heads to the lab. Then, it's "work, work, work, take a quick bite to eat, if I can, then back home to bed," he says. The next day, rinse and repeat.

Even on Zoom, the soft-spoken Bowen thrums with excitement. He remembers the day he first observed the different antibody responses to Omicron. It was a Friday afternoon, and he was in constant contact with Veesler by text and phone. "We were on a real time crunch," Veesler says. They were writing a paper on the work with Davide Corti's group at Humabs BioMed, in Switzerland, who had stayed up late to see what Bowen found.

The wait was worth it. Bowen showed that even antibodies from vaccinated people were remarkably ineffective at thwarting Omicron after two doses. People vaccinated with Moderna, Pfizer, or Oxford/AstraZeneca saw a 20- to 40-fold drop in neutralizing antibody activity against Omicron compared to the original viral strain. "That is just abysmal," Veesler says.

Unvaccinated people previously infected with coronavirus  sometimes referred to as "natural infection"  or those vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson/Jansson, Sputnik V, or Sinopharm vaccines fared even worse. Their activity levels dropped to zero  no neutralizing antibody activity could be detected against Omicron at all.

"I was just blown away," Bowen says. The results, reported in the journal Nature on December 23, 2021, echoed findings from other labs reported at the same time and meant that Omicron could dodge the body's usual defenses. "This is a variant that evades antibody-mediated immunity to a level that's unprecedented," Veesler says.

Bowen's experiments also revealed Omicron's talent for catching hold of ACE2, the receptor protein that ushers coronaviruses into cells. Omicron latched onto ACE2 in humans, and, somewhat surprisingly, in mice. That binding promiscuity suggests the variant might be able to hop from animal to animal, an ability that could lead to so-called spillover events between species.

Veesler cautions that antibody activity levels alone cannot entirely predict how well someone might react to Omicron. Still, more activity is better, he says. Bowen's results seemed to paint a grim picture of how people who received only one or two shots might respond to the new variant.

But parallel experiments Walls was performing generated some hope.

The benefits of boosting

Omicron's meteoric rise came on the heels of Delta, a coronavirus variant that just two months ago was the most infectious scientists had seen. Unlike the variants that came before it, Delta was the first to noticeably sidestep the defenses of vaccinated people.

In October, Walls and Veesler began an in-depth study of how such a breakthrough infection affects a person's immune response. The question has also intrigued scientists in other hard-hit nations. Last year, researchers in South Africa reported that antibody activity was "dramatically boosted" in people infected with coronavirus after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Virologist Penny Moore's group at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg posted the work on the pre-print server medRxiv in November.

While Veesler's lab was analyzing its breakthrough infection data, booster shots became readily available in the US, and Omicron began circulating globally. So, the team expanded its investigation in real time, examining antibodies of those who had been boosted.

People who received three doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine had neutralizing antibodies that were both potent and broadly effective, the scientists reported January 19, 2022, in the journal Cell. The antibodies could efficiently target several coronavirus variants, including Omicron. Because booster shots are relatively new, his lab is still tracking how long the immune jolt lasts.

The results are part of a larger pattern the team uncovered, wherein multiple exposures to coronavirus ratchet up neutralizing antibody activity. The bottom line is, the more times a person's immune system encounters SARS-CoV-2, the stronger their antibody response is likely to be, Walls says. "The more exposures you've had, the better you're going to fare against Omicron  that's the biggest takeaway. If you have been vaccinated twice, you should get boosted."

Moore, who was not involved in Veesler's team's work, cautions that vaccinated individuals should not seek out coronavirus exposure. "This is not at all an encouragement for people to go and get infected. We can get very high antibody levels simply by vaccinating people," she says, "and this comes with almost no risk."

Next-generation vaccines

When the mRNA vaccines first became available in 2021, Veesler remembers explaining to his grandmother, who lives in France, why she should get the shot. "She listened to her grandson," he says with a smile.

Now, he's got his eye on designing the next generation of coronavirus vaccines. One of his team's approaches relies on nanoparticles decorated with spike protein snippets, like an ornament rolled in glitter. To trigger a response, current vaccines show the immune system the virus's entire spike protein. Veesler's team's nanoparticle vaccines are different  they showcase just a tiny section. Known as the receptor-binding domain, this section is the spike protein's Achilles' heel, Walls says.

Recent work by Bowen, Walls, and others in Veesler's lab is helping to refine just what portion  and conformation  of the spike to use. Some coronavirus vaccines, for example, include mutations in the spike protein that lock it into a specific shape. These vaccines elicit greater titers of neutralizing antibodies than those without these modifications, the team reported on bioRxiv on December 21, 2021.

Even as current reports indicate that Omicron might be less severe than Delta, and case counts may be peaking in places, other variants could be lurking in the wings. By homing in on the viral section most likely to rev up the immune system, Veesler's team hopes to create vaccines that generate broad, long-lasting protection  so when the next wave of coronavirus or one of its relatives hits, humankind will be ready.

One nanoparticle vaccine candidate Veesler's team developed with UW's Neil King, along with the South Korean vaccine developer SK bioscience, is nearing the end of a Phase 3 clinical trial that will assess the vaccine's efficacy. The work is supported, in part, by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Initiatives, an organization funding several vaccine candidates with an eye toward stopping future epidemics.

The goal is to distribute safe, effective vaccines to countries lacking access. "In the US, we have an excess of vaccine  we can just go to CVS and get a dose," Veesler says. "Elsewhere, they have none." He hopes the coronavirus vaccines his team is working on will ultimately expand global supplies. The team expects to have clinical trial results for their first candidate within the next few months.

It's a time of excitement for Veesler's lab, and unparalleled teamwork. Among academic and industry labs world-wide, Walls says, there's much more willingness to collaborate. Still, the one thing they could all use more of, is time. "Our team has ideas and aspirations that are way bigger than we can address right now," she says. "There are so many things we want to do."

Until then, the lab remains united by a common purpose, Bowen adds. "Every single day we're doing research that directly impacts people's lives.
A new study based on data from a national cancer registry in Taiwan found evidence that lung cancer screening may be leading to overdiagnosis at the population level. Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) has been promoted in Taiwan to people, especially young women, who do not have a history of smoking. Investigators from Brigham and Womens Hospital and collaborators at Taipei Medical University have found that over the last 15 years there has been a 6-fold increase in early-stage cancer diagnoses among women, but there has been no change in incidence of late-stage lung cancer or death from lung cancer, suggesting that screening is leading to overdiagnosis. Results are published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Promotions for lung cancer screening in Taiwan feature images of young women and dramatic language encouraging people to avoid the tragedy of sudden death from terminal lung cancer, said senior author H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, of the Brighams Center for Surgery and Public Health. These campaigns conflate the risk of diagnosis and the risk of death. But what we find is that while increased screening has led to increased early-stage diagnosis among young women, it has not led to a decrease in late-stage cancer or death. This suggests that screening isnt leading to better outcomes  its leading to overdiagnosis.

The United States Preventive Service Task Force recommends lung cancer screening only for individuals who have smoked an average of one pack of cigarettes per day for 20 years and are between the ages of 50 and 80. But in other countries, including Taiwan, lung cancer screening for nonsmokers has become popular, even though it is not covered by Taiwans national health insurance program. Smoking prevalence among women in Taiwan is low  the rate has been less than 5 percent since 1980. Hospitals in Taiwan began to promote screening services in the mid-2000s, around the same time that the number of CT scanners increased dramatically. Health care professionals and some celebrities have publicly called for screening to be covered by the national insurance program.

Welch and colleagues examined data from the Taiwan National Cancer Registry, evaluating rates of early-stage and late-stage lung cancer diagnoses. They found that a total of 57,898 women were diagnosed with lung cancer, out of approximately 12 million women in Taiwan. From 2004 to 2018, the incidence of early-stage lung cancer (stages 0-1) increased 6-fold, from 2.3 to 14.4 cases per 100,000 people. But the incidence of late-stage lung cancer (stages 2-4) was unchanged. The team estimated that somewhere between 7,000 and 12,000 Taiwanese women have been overdiagnosed with lung cancer.

Lung cancer mortality was stable, decreasing just slightly from 17 to 16 deaths per 100,000 people. The five-year survival rate jumped dramatically  a finding that is not surprising when overdiagnosis is at play, according to the researchers.

The Taiwanese experience highlights the misleading feedback that follows cancer screening. Survival rates always go up when there is overdiagnosis because people are getting diagnosed with a disease not destined to cause death. H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, Senior Author, Brighams Center for Surgery and Public Health

Welch and co-authors note that the primary limitation of their study was that they could not directly measure LDCT screening since it is paid for out of pocket and not billed to an insurance program. But data on the increasing number of LDCT scanners at hospitals, direct-to-consumer promotion, and the pattern of increasing early-stage diagnosis and stable late-stage diagnosis all indicate an increase in screening.

Unfortunately, this is a recipe for overdiagnosis, said Welch. Our findings suggest that LDCT should be offered only to heavy smokers, not to lower-risk groups, and only after the benefits have been weighed against the harms, such as a false-positive diagnosis, incidental findings, diagnostic procedures and radiation-induced cancers.
Dhaval Bhatt had been warned about hospital emergency rooms.

"People always told me to avoid the ER in America unless you are really dying," said Bhatt, an immigrant from India who got a Ph.D. in pharmacology in the U.S. and is now a research scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

But when Bhatt's 2-year-old son burned his hand on the kitchen stove on a Wednesday morning in April, the family's pediatrician directed them the next day to the local children's hospital.

Bhatt was traveling. So, his wife, Mansi Bhatt, took their son to the hospital and was sent to the emergency room. A nurse took the toddler's vitals and looked at the wound. She said a surgeon would inspect it more closely.

When the surgeon didn't appear after more than an hour, Bhatt's wife took her son home. The hospital told her to make a follow-up appointment with a doctor, which turned out to be unnecessary because the burn healed quickly.

Then the bill came.

The Patient: Martand Bhatt, a toddler covered by a UnitedHealthcare insurance plan provided by the employer of his father, Dhaval Bhatt.

Medical Service: An emergency room visit for a burn sustained when Martand touched an electric stove.

Total Bill: $1,012. UnitedHealthcare's negotiated rate was $858.92, all of which the Bhatts were responsible for because their plan had a $3,000 deductible.

Service Provider: SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, one of 23 hospitals owned by SSM Health, a Catholic, nonprofit health system with more than $8 billion in annual revenue.

What Gives: Many patients don't understand that they can rack up huge bills almost as soon as they walk through the doors of an ER.

Unlike a restaurant or a mechanic who won't charge if someone gets tired of waiting for a table or an inspection of a rattling engine, hospital emergency rooms almost invariably charge patients as soon as they check in.

And once they register, patients will be billed  often a lot  whether treatment was rendered or not.

Martand Bhatt received almost no medical service. A nurse practitioner looked over the toddler, listened to his heart and stomach, and looked in his nose, mouth and ears, according to provider notes prepared by the hospital and shared with KHN by Bhatt.

The nurse didn't change the dressing on the wound or order any testing.

"My objection to this is that there was no care provided," Bhatt wrote to Bill of the Month.

"My wife did not drive for 45 minutes to get to an ER and wait for an additional 1 hours for someone to tell me that our child's vitals  weight, height, temperature and blood pressure  were OK," Bhatt continued. "We already knew that.  It is absolutely ridiculous and unethical."

When the Bhatts left the emergency room, Martand was "alert, active and well-appearing," according to the notes.

The nurse's assessment of Martand cost $192, which was discounted by UnitedHealthcare to a negotiated rate of $38.92. The bulk of the Bhatts' bill  $820  was something called a facility fee.

Hospital officials defend these fees as necessary to keep the emergency room open 24 hours a day as a community asset.

SSM Health spokesperson Stephanie Zoller Mueller declined to discuss the details of Martand's medical condition even though the Bhatts gave their permission for the hospital to do so.

In an email, Zoller Mueller said the charges were "appropriate" based on the "acuity of condition, discharge instructions, vital sign monitoring, traumatic wound care (and) numerous assessments."

She added: "A patient does not have to receive additional treatment  procedure, labs, x-rays, etc.  to validate an ED [emergency department] level charge."

But some patient advocates say these facility fees are applied much too widely and should be limited to patients who actually receive medical care.

"It's just not appropriate for someone to be charged if they're not provided treatment," said Adam Fox, deputy director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. "Patients aren't availing themselves of a facility if they don't get care."

At the very least, hospitals could communicate more clearly to patients about the fees they may be charged for coming to an emergency room, said Maureen Hensley-Quinn, senior program director at the National Academy for State Health Policy.

"People should know that when they walk in to receive care, there is this fee that they will be assessed," Hensley-Quinn said.

Hospitals could also post at the entrance to the ER standard fees for different levels of emergency care.

Bhatt's fee still could have been lower if the hospital had classified his son's injury as minor. But, again, the hospital billing process worked against the family  and in favor of the hospital's bottom line.

Emergency visits are usually classified for billing on a scale from 1 to 5. Level 1 is minor and routine; Level 5 requires complex care for life-threatening conditions. And hospitals are increasingly using the highest-severity codes to classify emergency visits, research shows.

"There are financial incentives for billing at a higher severity," said Aditi Sen, who directs policy and research at the nonprofit Health Care Cost Institute, which has studied emergency room coding.

Despite the lack of severity of Martand's wound and the absence of medical care, his visit was classified as Level 3, a moderate severity problem.

Resolution: Incensed that he'd been charged so much, Bhatt made numerous attempts to get the hospital to reduce the charges. He also appealed to UnitedHealthcare to review the charges.

His efforts failed. In August, Bhatt received a letter from an SSM Health "patient advocate" informing him that the hospital would not adjust the bill and instructing him to contact patient billing to arrange for payment.

While Bhatt was trying to reach the patient advocate by phone, his bill was sent to Medicredit, a collection agency, which began sending him notices and calling him.

After KHN contacted SSM Health, Bhatt received a call from someone who worked on "patient financial experience" issues at the hospital.

The hospital agreed to forgive the $820 facility fee. Bhatt agreed to pay the remaining $38.92, the professional fee for the ER nurse's work. Bhatt also received a notice from Medicredit that it would take no further action against him.

The Takeaway: The Bhatts did what most parents would do when a pediatrician advises them to take their child to the hospital.

But emergency rooms are among the most expensive places to get care in the U.S. health system.

If you have a relatively low-level issue, think twice before even registering at the front desk, the act that initiates the billing process. If your doctor doesn't have same-day appointments or after-hours service, think about urgent care, which is often much cheaper if the center isn't attached to a hospital.

And remember that if you go to a hospital emergency room with a relatively minor issue, chances are that you'll have to wait, as the Bhatts did. Patients with more serious problems will be seen first.

Once you're taken past the front desk, you will almost certainly be hit with a substantial facility fee even if you don't receive care.

Appealing that fee to the hospital can occasionally be successful, but there are no guarantees. And, as Bhatt learned, don't expect the health insurer to offer much help. Most insurers won't challenge how a medical visit is coded except on extremely expensive medical claims that will cost them money.

In this case, Bhatt was on the hook for the whole fee because he had a high-deductible plan, so the insurer had little incentive to take up his cause.

For now, patients' best hope, many advocates believe, is to publicize the high prices that hospitals charge for their services, inside and outside the emergency room.

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!
California is poised to become the front line of America's vaccination wars.

State lawmakers are drafting the toughest covid-19 vaccine legislation in the country, backed by a new pro-vaccine lobbying force promising to counter anti-vaccine activists who have threatened government officials and shut down public meetings across the state. Legislators want to require most Californians to get the shots  not just schoolchildren and health care workers  and eliminate the exemptions that would allow many people to get out of them.

But vaccine opponents say Democratic-led efforts to adopt stricter vaccine requirements are only helping propel their movement, handing them unparalleled momentum to build their ranks both in California and nationally.

Vaccine opponents are focusing their ire on Democratic state Sen. Richard Pan of Sacramento, a pediatrician and the driving force behind three state vaccination laws passed since 2012. Prompted by outbreaks of pertussis and measles, the laws make it harder for schoolchildren to get out of childhood vaccinations.

"We have to be willing to take a stand," said Pan, who is developing legislation to crack down on covid vaccine exemptions. "We need to be able to respond to this pandemic and future pandemics, but there is this asymmetrical warfare going on right now, and we're seeing the anti-vaccine movement trafficking in misinformation, threats, and violence."

The coming fight in California foreshadows looming vaccine battles across the country. President Joe Biden and Democratic governors are pressing vaccination as the most crucial public health measure for combating the coronavirus pandemic  while some prominent Republican governors cast doubt on the safety and value of vaccines, inciting anti-vaccination activists.

In California, the ultimate decision on toughening state vaccination laws will fall to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing reelection in November after defeating a recall attempt last year.

Newsom has played to both sides recently. He has pushed tough vaccine mandates for groups such as health care workers, children, and teachers. But in nearly every pandemic-related press conference since October and on national TV, he has also reassured the public that they can receive medical, religious, and personal belief exemptions from his mandates.

"He's trying to be comforting and non-confrontational, but it sends a message that if you don't want to get the vaccine, don't get it," said Catherine Flores Martin, executive director of the California Immunization Coalition. "Gov. Newsom struggles with this  he's trying to have it both ways."

Pushing mandates 'aggressively'

Anti-vaccine demonstrations dominated Sacramento during California's last big vaccination fight, in 2019. In weekly rallies outside the Capitol, hundreds of activists railed against lawmakers, toting a portrait of Pan's face splattered in red. They shouted down lawmakers in legislative hearings and at one point hurled menstrual blood at state senators.

The fight that year was over Pan's bill to crack down on bogus medical exemptions for common childhood vaccinations against measles, polio, and other infectious diseases, which are required to attend in-person public and private school in California. Four years earlier, he spearheaded a law to ban personal belief exemptions for childhood vaccines.

But under state law, personal belief exemptions must be allowed for any newly required childhood vaccine unless the legislature passes a new law banning them.

Newsom issued a directive in October 2021 adding covid vaccines to the list of required childhood immunizations  once federal officials fully authorize them for children. But because the legislature has not yet acted, Californians will be able to opt out by claiming the vaccines violate personal beliefs.

Pan and other Democratic lawmakers want to close that loophole this year, and potentially eliminate religious exemptions that health care workers can claim. They're also considering requiring a broad swath of Californians to get covid vaccines to participate in much of daily life.

Lawmakers are still hashing out details but are expected to propose legislation requiring covid vaccines for people to be in workplaces, schools, and public venues like malls, museums, and restaurants  without allowing them to avoid the shots through exemptions. Pan, who is leaving the legislature after this year because of term limits, may also push legislation to hold tech companies more accountable for spreading misinformation on social media platforms.

"Do you have the right to be safe at school? Do people deserve to be safe at work? Are businesses responsible for creating an environment that won't injure or harm you? This has to be part of the conversation," said Pan, who was shoved by a protester near the Capitol in 2019.

Last year, Buffy Wicks, a Democratic Assembly member from Oakland, and Evan Low, a Democratic Assembly member from Campbell, tried but failed to muscle through legislation establishing covid vaccine mandates for workers and businesses. But the ongoing challenges of the pandemic have "reenergized" Democratic lawmakers this year, said state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who is carrying legislation to lower the age at which someone can consent to a vaccine without parental permission from 18 to 12.

"It's important that we continue to push for vaccine mandates the most aggressively we possibly can," said Wicks, who faced death threats over her vaccine legislation last year. "We can't let ourselves be held hostage by these right-wing conspiracy theorists who are perpetrating hate and violence."

'The firestorm is here'

Anti-vaccine activists acknowledge they may not succeed at defeating new legislation but welcome state lawmakers' attempts to impose stricter rules  they argue it helps them build a larger movement in California, on social media, and in other states.

"What they don't realize is the point of these rallies and protests is to bring more people into the fold, from all around the country," said Stefanie Fetzer, a chief organizer of the 2019 anti-vaccination demonstrations at the state Capitol. "Senator Pan galvanized a larger anti-vax movement that wouldn't have happened without him."

Scientists and health officials blame California's stagnating covid vaccination rate largely on the anti-vaccine movement, which is peddling misinformation and lies. The share of Californians who are considered fully vaccinated is 69%, and booster shots are lagging  even though the state and local governments have plowed tens of millions of dollars into vaccination campaigns.

"What you see now is this movement being taken over by Republicans and this libertarian right-wing notion of individual rights and 'get government off my back.' They're believing and spreading this misinformation even though it's disproven," said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "Trying to stop it is like trying to stop Niagara Falls."

Vaccine opponents have also shut down government meetings and lobbed violent threats at officials backing mandates.

The Los Angeles Unified School District delayed its student vaccine mandate after anti-vaccine demonstrations, in an effort to keep unvaccinated students from dropping out. In Stockton and elsewhere, vaccine opponents have shouted down proposed school vaccine mandates.

Joshua Coleman, who organized hundreds of protesters in 2019 under his group V Is for Vaccine, has held rallies in Sacramento this year, again targeting Pan with a 10-foot poster and his image smeared in red.

"There will be constant pressure," Coleman said. "This is happening more and more all over the country, but we are building a movement out of California. Being forced to take a vaccine in order to participate in society is absolutely totalitarian."

Vaccine supporters realize they must fight back and are launching a lobbying campaign, led by political heavyweights from Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to combat vaccine opponents with some of their own tactics.

"The firestorm is here. This is ground warfare that the anti-vax extremists are bringing, and I think we need to be able to match it," said Crystal Strait, the former president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California who is leading the campaign under the group ProtectUS.

Campaign leaders are organizing students, parents, and pro-vaccine activists to counter anti-vaccination demonstrators in cities and counties across California and to debunk misinformation while giving state lawmakers political cover to enact tougher laws.

"We need to draw a really bold, bright line and let these extremists know that we will not be silent," Strait said.

The campaign emerged quietly last year, sponsoring a new law to limit protests outside vaccination clinics  which has since been blocked in court  and will launch ground-game political efforts this year.

"The science is on our side, and there's a silent majority on our side, but we're being drowned out in public forums where these decisions are being made," said Rose Kapolczynski, a longtime political consultant to former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is working on the campaign. "We're going to activate the pro-vaccine majority when policies are being considered at the state and local levels."

Whither Newsom?

Newsom is also wading into the fray.

His administration has plowed $145 million into a campaign to increase covid vaccinations and fight misinformation, in part by monitoring social media posts and flagging vaccine myths to social media companies. The administration is also developing a pro-vaccine counternarrative based on the misinformation.

"We want to be proactive about what the truth is and put it out there while debunking misinformation," said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state's Health and Human Services Agency.

More than half a dozen public health experts interviewed for this story said that vaccine mandates work and that Newsom can boost the state's faltering vaccination rates by eliminating exemptions.

But since Newsom announced the covid vaccine mandate for schoolchildren, he has publicly promoted exemptions.

"The mandate we put in place for the state of California includes personal exemptions," Newsom said during an appearance on "Good Morning America" in December. "There's plenty of latitude for families to make decisions."

Newsom has declined to say whether he would support legislation banning exemptions but said he'd work with lawmakers. "We can discuss the merits and demerits" of allowing exemptions, Newsom said this month. "We did what we felt was appropriate."

Barbara Ferrer, the public health director for Los Angeles County, which has recorded nearly 28,000 covid deaths, more than a third of the state's total, called on Newsom and state lawmakers to adopt mandates without exemptions.

"If you allow that, you may as well not have a vaccine mandate," she said. "If you don't want your child to get vaccinated, then your child doesn't have to go to school. And you don't have to go to a restaurant. I'm not trying to be mean to people. I'm just saying there are some things you shouldn't be able to do if you're not vaccinated."
The poll workers volunteered to help with the local primary elections on Tuesday.
Morton Marcus is an economist. Reach him at mortonjmarcus@yahoo.com. Follow him and John Guy on Who Gets What? wherever podcasts are available or at mortonjohn.libsyn.com
Informal meetings of justice and home affairs ministers

Press invitation

Informal meetings of justice and home affairs ministers in Lille on 3 and 4 february 2022



Press passes before wednesday, 26 january

During the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union, an informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers of the EU Member States will be held in Lille, at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, on 3 and 4 February 2022.

Eric Dupond-Moretti, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, will welcome his European counterparts on Friday 4 February for an informal meeting of justice ministers. Traditionally organised by the Member State holding the presidency of the Council of the European Union, informal ministerial meetings serve to move forward the shared European work and considerations of the ministers invited. At the outset of the Presidency, the informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers will provide the opportunity to address matters of common interest and to discuss the priorities of the Presidency.

Only press pass holders will be able to attend the press sessions for this event. Due to the public health situation, the number of places in the final press conference room on Friday, 4 February 2022, will be limited. The press conference will take place in a hybrid format, remotely or in person: it will be possible for press pass holders to participate either in Lille or via videoconference.

Provisional agenda for Friday, 4 February

8 a.m. Arrival of Eric Dupond-Moretti in the Hall dHonneur of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Grand Lille

Place du Theatre, 59000 Lille

Doorstep upon arrival in front of the press

8:15 a.m. Formal welcome of the justice ministers

Open to the press

9 a.m. Discussions between Member States on the fight against hate

Round table at the beginning of session  Host broadcaster and photo/video pool

11 a.m. Meeting with the digital companies Google, Meta and Twitter on the topic of online hate

Round table at the beginning of session  Host broadcaster and photo/video pool

12:15 p.m. Press briefing with Eric Dupond-Moretti

Open to the press



12:30 p.m. Joint family photo of the justice ministers of the European Union

Open to the press

1 p.m. Working lunch focused on the tools to alert the public in cases of child abduction

Closed to the press





2:45 p.m. Afternoon of discussions on the recognition between Member States of parenthood established within the European Union

Closed to the press

4:45 p.m. Press conference with Eric Dupond-Moretti

All accredited press can attend in-person at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Lille or remotely via videoconference

Accreditation

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Mike Matthews is a retired teacher, counselor and mental health administrator with a mission of creating a healthy and cohesive community. He can be contacted at drstmatt@yahoo.com.
(Newser)  Thousands of people protested vaccine mandates Sunday on the National Mallan island of largely maskless demonstrators in Washington, which has embraced mask and vaccine requirements in its fight against the omicron variant. Demonstrators made their feelings about leaders perceived as enemies cleara parked bus was covered with photos of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates with signs reading, "Arrest or Exile," the Washington Post reports. The protesters began with a march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, per WTOP, then heard speakers.

Dr. Pierre Cory endorsed early treatment instead of vaccinations. "They tell us to vaccinate ourselves endlessly and boost ourselves, even though that single strategy has failed, is failing and will continue to fail," he told the crowd. The organizers had said the idea was to oppose mandates, not vaccines, per the Wall Street Journal. Some protesters identified themselves as Democrats, and speakers included Robert F. Kennedy Jr., long active in the anti-vaccine movement. "The goal is to show a unified front of bringing people togethervaccinated, unvaccinated, Democrats, Republicans, all together in solidarity," said organizer Matt Tune, who's unvaccinated.

Tune said he wants to dispel the image of mandate opponents as "a bunch of weirdos and freaks who dont care about humanity." The messages from speakers included disproven claims such as the cause of autism having been traced to childhood vaccine. Many protesters cast the issue as one of liberty. Suzanne Robertson, 52, who came from New Jersey, said she hasn't been vaccinated against the coronavirus. "I would die first," she said. The organizers' permit was for 20,000 demonstrators, but the crowd Sunday afternoon was only a few thousand, per the Post. (Read more vaccine mandate stories.)
(Newser)  President Biden on Sunday was presented with options for the possibility of sending anywhere between 3,000 and 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe amid tensions between Ukraine and Russia, sources tell Fox News. The troops would go to countries including Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin against invading Ukraine, sources say. Also under consideration is deploying naval vessels to ports in the area, some from the US and some from Europe. Other developments:

US embassy: The US State Department is ordering the departure of some family members from the embassy in Kyiv, out of an "abundance of caution," it says in a statement. It has also authorized certain diplomats to depart voluntarily, and has strongly recommended US citizens in the country get out, Politico reports. It had previously issued the highest-level travel advisory for the country, telling US citizens not to travel there amid the threat of Russian military action.

Weapons shipment: Ukraine on Sunday received a second shipment of weapons from the US to strengthen its defenses, CNN reports.

Ukraine on Sunday received a second shipment of weapons from the US to strengthen its defenses, CNN reports. The word from the US secretary of state: Antony Blinken said Sunday on State of the Union that "if a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way," the US and Europe would initiate "a swift, a severe and a united response," CNN reports.

Antony Blinken said Sunday on State of the Union that "if a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way," the US and Europe would initiate "a swift, a severe and a united response," CNN reports. Sanctions: Blinken also addressed the Biden administration's decision not to impose preemptive sanctions on Russia. "The purpose of those sanctions is to deter Russian aggression," he said. "So if they're triggered now, you lose the deterrent effect." He pointed to other actions being taken to "deter and dissuade them from taking aggressive action, even as we pursue diplomacy at the same time."

Blinken also addressed the Biden administration's decision not to impose preemptive sanctions on Russia. "The purpose of those sanctions is to deter Russian aggression," he said. "So if they're triggered now, you lose the deterrent effect." He pointed to other actions being taken to "deter and dissuade them from taking aggressive action, even as we pursue diplomacy at the same time." More on sanctions: The Washington Post has an explainer on a "novel export control" the US is considering deploying against Russia.

(Read more Ukraine stories.)
(Newser)  Passengers aboard the Crystal Symphony cruise ship were supposed to dock in Miami on Saturday. Instead, they ended up in the Bahamas after the US issued an arrest warrant for the ship, meaning it would be seized upon arrival, WSVN Miami reports. The ship, owned by Crystal Cruises, changed course and sailed to Bimini after a US judge said a US marshal could board the ship and take it over due to a lawsuit over millions of dollars in unpaid fuel. "We all feel we were abducted by luxurious pirates," one passenger posted to Facebook. Another tells Local 10 passengers were "scared" not knowing what was going to happen. They were ultimately ferried to Fort Lauderdale from Bimini on Sunday, a trip that was reportedly not fun due to inclement weather.

Days prior to the diversion, Crystal Cruises' owner, Genting Hong Kong, filed for bankruptcy and the ultra-luxury cruise line suspended all voyages. Peninsula Petroleum says Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises, a sister line, owe it $4.6 million in unpaid fuel bills dating to last year. "Peninsula has not been paid for the maritime necessities provided to the vessel, and therefore proceeds to arrest it," the company says of the Crystal Symphony in its complaint. That ship alone is allegedly responsible for more than $1 million of the costs. Workers aboard the ship say many of them don't know when they'll get off, one of them tells the AP. (Read more cruise ships stories.)
(Newser)  A cargo flight that originated in South Africa had a surprise waiting on board when it finally landed in Amsterdam: a guy hidden in the plane's wheel section, still alive after what may have been 11 hours in the air, per ABC News. "The man was found alive in the nose wheel section of the plane and was taken to hospital in ... stable condition," a Dutch Royal Military Police spokeswoman told AFP, adding it was "remarkable" that he'd lived through the ordeal. The BBC notes it's not common for stowaways to make it through long flights alive due to the cold temps and low oxygen at high altitudes.

CNN reports that the airport crew at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport initially caught sight of the man, believed to be between 16 and 35 years old, on the Cargolux plane and flagged down authorities. When cops and first responders got there, the man was found to be alive but with a low body temperature. Dutch media reports he was revived at the scene and able to respond to simple questions by the time the ambulance arrived to transport him to the hospital.

Although the flight from Johannesburg to Amsterdam typically takes about 11 hours, a police rep says it's not clear if the man stashed himself in the plane while it was on the tarmac in South Africa or during a stopover in Nairobi. The police rep tells CNN that once he's recuperated from his journey, the government will determine if the man was trying to seek asylum. His nationality wasn't reported. (Read more stowaway stories.)
(Newser)  This time, the "grandparent scam" backfired in a big way an on alleged scammer. Police on Long Island say a 73-year-old woman lured a man trying to con her out of $8,000 to her home, where officers arrested him, reports News 12. The case unfolded last week, when the Seaford woman, identified only as Jean, received a call purportedly from her grandson saying he needed $8,000 to get bailed out of jail for drunken driving. That seemed a little fishy to the former 911 dispatcher, especially since none of her grandsons are old enough to drive.

I knew he was a real scammer," she tells CBS New York. "I just knew he wasnt going to scam me." Jean played along in the call and in subsequent phone calls from others who said they were lawyers or court officials. But she also called police, and officers who were sent to her home heard some of the calls for themselves, per Newsday. When Jean told her alleged scammer that she had $8,000 in cash at home, he told her a bail bondsman would stop by to pick it up. In reality, she handed him wrapped-up paper towels, and police tackled him as he left her house.

"She's not afraid of these guys," says Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder. "She knows what she had to do, and God bless her." The man arrested is 28-year-old Joshua Estrella Gomez, who is charged with attempted grand larceny in the third degree. The Washington Post notes that scams targeting senior citizens victimize millions of people a year, and the number of such cases have risen during the pandemic. The FBI estimates that people over 60 lost a combined $1 billion to scams in 2020, a figure that has since tripled. (Some cases are worse than others.)
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(Newser)  A shooter fired "wildly" inside a lecture hall at a university in Germany Monday, killing one student and wounding at least three others, police say. The gunman killed himself after the shooting at Heidelberg University, police say. According to German media, the gunman, identified as an 18-year-old student at the university, had no known political or religious motive and is believed to have acted alone, the BBC reports. Before the attack, the man reportedly sent a WhatsApp message saying people would be "punished."

Police say the gunman entered the lecture hall during a class and opened fire with a double-barreled shotgun, Deutsche Welle reports. Germany has strict gun control laws, with anybody under 25 required to pass a psychological exam before getting a gun license, and investigators believe the man may have acquired the weapon abroad. A backpack full of ammunition was found near the crime scene. Authorities said the woman who was killed was shot in the head and died hours after she was hospitalized. "It tears my heart apart to learn of such news," German Chancelleor Olaf Scholz said, per the AP. (Read more Germany stories.)
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LG Energy Solution and U.S. auto giant General Motors will pour more money into an expansion of their joint electric vehicle business.

The two companies will spend US$2.5 billion to build an EV battery plant in Lansing, Michigan through their joint venture Ultium Cells, Reuters said on Saturday.

The plant will be the third one in the U.S. for Ultium Cells, after those in Ohio and Tennessee.

Additionally, GM plans to invest $4 billion to transform its existing plant in Orion Township, Michigan to produce electric pickup trucks including the Chevrolet Silverado. This week the Michigan state government will discuss the investment plans, which are expected to create around 4,000 jobs.

GM told Reuters it appreciates the support "related to two prospective projects that GM is considering in Orion Town and Lansing. Until these projects receive final approval, we have no comment on potential announcement timing."
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TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani has expressed the governments pride in the performance of large national companies and their contributions to its comprehensive development march.

He pointed out that the governments continued support for all national companies and institutions, especially large companies with high added value to the national economy, has contributed remarkably to enhancing the good reputation of the Kingdom as an incubator and attractive location for megaprojects and global industrial companies.

While meeting yesterday the CEO of Aluminum Bahrain (Alba), Ali Al Baqali, the minister hailed the major role that Alba plays in developing the infrastructure of the national economy and promoting the upward growth movement in this important sector, on which the governments strategies are based.

He congratulated the company on setting an all-time production record of 1.56 million metric tonnes in 2021 while celebrating its Golden Jubilee of Operations.

Al Zayani expressed Bahrains pride in this industry, which has become an incubator for national cadres, stressing the importance of strengthening the existing cooperation and coordination between the government and private sector in supporting the transformation of the industrial sector towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, encouraging investment in technological infrastructure, in addition to increasing the efficiency of supply and importation chains through the integration of GCC industries.

He also valued highly Albas efforts in implementing the concept of a circular carbon economy, and environmental and social governance, which contributes to activating and implementing the industrial sector strategy 2022-2026, which was launched as part of the Economic Recovery Plan.
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TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

An Arab woman has informed the Public Prosecution that her husband had forced her to hide drugs under her clothes to smuggle them into the Kingdom of Bahrain, the High Criminal Court heard.

The pair were captured on the Bahraini side of the King Fahad Causeway attempting to enter Bahrain with 350 grams of hashish hidden with the woman.

Her nervousness exposed her after police officers unsuccessfully searched her husband, although a tip-off was sent to the customs officials that the man will arrive with drugs.

The woman was searched by the police and the drugs were recovered from her. I dont know what was inside the bag. He ordered me to hide it under my clothes. When I refused, he shouted at me, the woman told prosecutors.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

The technical glitch that has been disallowing many students from across to sign in for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) counselling sessions for gaining medical seats at medical colleges in India under the Non-Resident Indian (NRI) quota, has been fixed.

As of now, students from Bahrain and other Gulf countries are being able to sign in for the sessions. Many parents thanked The Daily Tribune for the timely report that was carried in the print and online editions.

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (Undergraduate) or NEET (UG), formerly the All India Pre-Medical Test is a test for students who wish to pursue undergraduate medical, dental and other courses in government and private institutions in India and also for those intending to pursue primary medical qualification abroad.

The exam is conducted by the National Testing Agency, which provides the results to the Directorate General of Health Services under the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain is keen to further advance its partnership with the United Nations to achieve the goals of sustainable development in the Kingdom.

This was pointed out by Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani who noted the strong cooperation between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the UN.

Dr Al Zayani yesterday met at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the President of the current session of the UN General Assembly and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Maldives, Abdullah Shahid, who is on an official visit to the Kingdom.

The minister congratulated his counterpart on assuming the presidency of the current session of the UN General Assembly, praising the efforts of the body in addressing global issues and challenges, and searching for solutions to benefit all humanity.

Dr Al Zayani stressed the important role of the UN General Assembly in promoting security, peace and stability in the region, stressing the need for international cooperation to reach the necessary solutions to end international conflicts.

He also called upon the international community to work to bring about peace in the Middle East and end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict following the two-state solution and the resolutions of international legitimacy.

Shahid praised cooperation between Bahrain and the UN and its offices in the Kingdom to achieve its objectives in various development fields.

He also commended the efforts of the Kingdom in promoting the values of peace, tolerance, peaceful coexistence and freedom of religion.

They discussed several topics, including the efforts to combat COVID-19, climate change, combating terrorism and its funding and protecting human rights.

They also discussed cooperation between Bahrain and Maldives and ways to further enhance coordination in various fields to serve the common interests of both countries and people.

The meeting was attended by the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Political Affairs, Dr Shaikh Abdullah bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, the Director-General of the Mohammed bin Mubarak Al Khalifa Academy, Ambassador Dr Muneera bint Khalifa Al Khalifa, the Chief of Human Rights Affairs, Ambassador Dr Arwa Hassan Al Sayed, the Acting Chief of Organizations, Ambassador Shaikha Aisha bint Ahmed Al Khalifa, and senior officials from the Ministry
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa received at Safriya Palace today President of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Maldives, Abdulla Shahid.

HM the King welcomed him and his accompanying delegation and congratulated him on assuming the presidency of the current session of the UN General Assembly.

He wished him every success in serving issues related to fostering global peace and stability.

His Majesty reviewed cooperation between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the UN in various development fields, stressing Bahrains keenness to strengthen cooperation and build sound partnerships with the international organisation and its agencies.

He also voiced the kingdoms keenness on enhancing friendly relations with the Republic of Maldives.

HM the King pointed out Bahrains development strides and achievements, stressing the remarkable contribution of Bahraini women to the kingdoms development process, political life and their assumption of high-profile posts at the local, regional and international level.

HM the King underscored Bahrains civilizational and historical role and its pioneering initiatives to promote intercultural dialogue and cooperation and peaceful coexistence.

He also pointed out the kingdoms humanitarian efforts to provide relief aid to the needy, praising tolerance and peaceful coexistence characterising the Bahraini society.

HM the King discussed with the UNGA President regional and international developments of common concern.

He affirmed Bahrains support to the pivotal role of the UN to foster peace, security and stability worldwide.

The UNGA President expressed happiness about visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain, extending thanks and gratitude to HM the King for the gracious welcome and hospitality.

He lauded comprehensive development in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the kingdoms efforts to meet the UN goals.

He hailed strong cooperation between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the UN and its agencies, praising solid relations between Bahrain and the Republic of Maldives and wishing the kingdom further growth and prosperity.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Bran Concept Limited is a forward-thinking company started by Trisha Braisby and Doug Bebb in the realm of motorsport, seeking to foster the next generation of young racing talent. The company will expand in the MENA region with a particular focus on Bahrain and the UAE.

BranConcept will be operating at Bahrains race track and will launch the BRAN Racing Academy around Quarter 3 of this year. Trisha Braisby, Director of Bran Concept commented Motor racing is gathering interest from various spectators and participants, with new regulations being introduced that are enhancing the industrys image and popularity.

Ms Braisby added, Our passion and commitment is to develop, train, employ and debut exceptional talent in sustainable motorsport racing. As an academy of motor racing, we are excited to be working alongside exceptional professionals in prestigious facilities in which Bahrain has to offer.

As one of the sponsors of the Royal Investment Summit, held in Dubai on January 22-24, Bran Concept aspires to network with influential bodies within the regions business and sporting arena and liaise with prospective investors.

We will play an important role in the development of motor racing in the region, and represent the Middle East on the world stage. Our model is to build an exceptional team in the elite world of motorsport by enabling racing talent to achieve their goals and investment partners to achieve their business objectives within the racing sector. Ms Braisby commented.

Ms Braisby concluded, Our academy, once launched, will serve as school of excellence being the first and foremost establishment for aspiring racing students.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Export Bahrain yesterday said it had facilitated local exports of over USD 130 Million to more than 57 markets worldwide up to December 2021.

The initiative, Export Bahrain said, reinforced and increased export opportunities for current and potential exporters. Over 23% of exporters entered new markets, and over 10% were first-time exporters. Around 7% represented service exports, and more than 30% of Export Bahrain customers are women business owners.

From January 2021 to December 2021, Bahrain recorded exports of over USD 70 Million, a 70% jump from 2020 targeting various international markets.

Export Bahrain, to date, supported businesses across multiple economic sectors to export more than 56 products and services to 57 markets across the GCC, Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States of America. Facilities offered are:

Export Credit Insurance, Export Shipping & Logistics, International Retail Buyer Initiative, Internationalization & Export Advisory Support, International Tendering & Procurement, Export Facilitation & Deal Support, Export Market Intelligence, E-commerce Facilitation, Startup Exporter Solution, in addition to other support schemes that aim to enable exporters to take on more challenging and high-growth export markets.

Export Bahrain was able to attract global recognition by winning three prestigious global business awards in 2021, being named as:

 Best Export Service Facilitators for SMEs  Bahrain 2021 in the International Finance Awards 2021

 Best International Deal Facilitators for Start-up Exporters in the Global Business Outlook Awards 2021

 Best Company in Accelerating the Growth of Products and Services Made in Bahrain in the Globee Golden Bridge Awards. Zayed R. Alzayani, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and Chairman of Export Bahrain, said: Since its inception in 2018, Export Bahrain has emerged as one of the leading national initiatives aimed at supporting businesses in Bahrain to internationalise and capture a fair share of export markets in the GCC and beyond through its high-impact support to the private sector. Working together, we can ensure that exporting remains a pillar of our economy, benefitting our businesses for years to come.

Safa Sharif Abdulkhaliq, Export Bahrain Acting Chief Executive, said: We are glad to announce that we are eying more positive results, inconsistency with the recently announced new economic growth and fiscal balance plan by the Government of the Kingdom of Bahrain for the post-COVID era, as we are certain that it will have a positive impact on the Kingdoms economic recovery in general and exports in particular.
TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain Steel, a leading producer and global supplier of high-grade iron-ore pellets and a subsidiary of Foulath Holding, yesterday announced reaching a record production of 12 million tons of iron-ore pellets in 2021.

Now operating over the rated production capacity of 11 million tons, Bahrain Steel said it is better positioned than ever to meet growing customer demand and to support global post-pandemic economic recovery.

Increased output also enables the Company to help facilitate the transition towards carbon neutrality, which is heavily dependent on significant increases in the use of pellets for more efficient, clean and sustainable production of steel around the world. This milestone also aligns with Bahrains Economic Vision 2030, Economic Recovery Plan and the Industrial Sector Strategy (2022-26).

The strategies call for an increase in the industrial sectors contribution to GDP, exports and job creation, with Bahrain Steel already contributing more than 4% of GDP and 25% to the countrys non-oil exports as well as employing 260 Bahraini nationals. Record production was achieved by meticulous strategic planning and supported by strong collaborations with the companys supply chain partners.

This included a watershed agreement signed in 2019, when production stood at 8 million tons per annum, with Anglo American Marketing Limited (Anglo American), the global mining giant.

This strategic 20- year agreement secured a majority of Bahrain Steels required pellet feed for full production capacity at 12 million tons, ensuring uninterrupted delivery to its customers which include some of the worlds leading steel producers across the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, North America, Malaysia, South Korea and China, among others.

Commenting, Meshary Al-Judaimi, Chairman of Foulath and Bahrain Steel, said, Were delighted with this milestone, despite the very challenging conditions of last 24 months as a result of the pandemic. We view Foulath and Bahrain Steel as pillars to the development of the regions steel industry.

As the only GCC owned pellet producer and a reliable supplier to all regional steel manufacturers, Bahrain Steels ability to meet the increasing demand for pellets in greener steel production is inextricably linked with sustainable economic growth, both in the region and around the world.

Dilip George, Group CEO of Foulath and Bahrain Steel, added, We have transformed our business model and raised our production by delivering the quality and quantity of pellets demanded by our customers, rather than only trying to sell what we could produce each year.

With this change in strategy, and the strong partnership with Anglo American, we were able to increase production by an impressive 50% compared to 2019, strengthening our position as a leading global supplier of high-quality DR pellets.
Reuters | Riyad

The Daily Tribune  www.newsofbahrain.com

Thailand's prime minister will visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the Saudi foreign ministry said, in what will be the first high-level meeting between the two countries since a diplomatic row over a jewellery theft nearly three decades ago.

Saudi Arabia downgraded its diplomatic relations with Bangkok following the theft in 1989 of around $20 million of jewels by a Thai janitor working in the palace of a Saudi prince, in what became known as the Blue Diamond Affair.

A large number of the gems, including the rare blue diamond, are yet to be recovered.

Thailand's Premier Prayuth Chan-ocha will start a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday at the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

"The visit comes amid consultations that led to bringing views closer on issues of common interest," the ministry said.

The visit is aimed at coordinating on those issues, it said, without elaborating.

The theft of the jewels remains one of Thailands biggest mysteries and was followed by a bloody trail of destruction that saw some of Thailands top police generals implicated.

A year after the theft, three Saudi diplomats in Thailand were killed in three separate assassinations in a single night.

A month later, a Saudi businessman, Mohammad al-Ruwaili, who witnessed one of the shootings, disappeared and later in 2014, a Thai criminal court dismissed a case against five men, including a senior police officer, charged with murdering Ruwaili over the precious stones.

Thailand has been eager to normalise ties with the oil-rich Kingdom after the spat that has cost billions of dollars in two-way trade and tourism revenues and the loss of jobs to tens of thousands of Thai migrant workers.
Hillsborough, NC (27278)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High near 85F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 58F. Winds light and variable.
Incumbent Mayor Toguchi Taketoyo of Nago City, Okinawa Prefecture, supported by ruling parties, has secured his re-election in Sunday's vote.

The mayoral race comes as the central and prefectural governments remain locked in a standoff over the planned relocation of US Marine Corps Futenma Air Station to the city.

Toguchi, supported by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito, garnered 19,524 votes. His rival and newcomer Kishimoto Yohei got 14,439 votes.

Kishimoto, supported by opposition parties and backed by Okinawa Governor Tamaki Denny, called for the cancellation of the relocation plan.

60-year-old Toguchi was born in Nago and was first elected as mayor in 2018, after serving in the city's assembly.

During the campaign, Toguchi did not state whether he was for or against the planned relocation. He instead said he would wait and see how the rift between the central and prefectural governments pans out.

Toguchi also underlined his achievements during his first term, such as realizing free school meals and free medical services for children.

After the election, Toguchi said he thinks his governance over the past four years, including child support measures, have been appreciated by voters.

He noted that there have been lawsuits filed by the central and prefectural governments over the relocation plan, and said he, as mayor, had no choice but to wait and see how things will develop.

The voter turnout was 68.32 percent, down 8.6 points from the previous election, and the lowest-ever.
Japan is considering evacuating its nationals in Ukraine amid fears of an imminent Russian invasion, Japanese government sources said Monday, following such an order by the United States to family members of its embassy staff.

The Foreign Ministry warned against traveling to Ukraine for any purpose. Its second-highest Level 3 advisory, which previously covered parts of the Eastern European country, now applies to the whole of the nation.

About 250 Japanese citizens including family of embassy staff live in Ukraine, according to the ministry.

Japan is also "moving in that direction," a senior ministry official said in reference to the U.S. order issued Sunday, while underscoring that "the situation is changing rapidly" in the Eastern European country.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the government has reminded Japanese residents in Ukraine to prepare for unforeseen circumstances.
Saga and Nagasaki prefectures have asked their schools to review their regulations that require students to wear white underwear, prompting them to make revisions.

Public elementary, junior high and high schools in Kyushu are changing unreasonable school rules, after all seven prefectures in the region and its major cities issued notices and guidelines for public schools to do so.

The city of Kumamoto has made student participation in the establishment and change of school rules compulsory under its school management regulations for municipal elementary, junior high and high schools.

Saga and Nagasaki prefectures have also asked their schools to review their regulations that require students to wear white underwear, prompting them to make the revision. But because school principals have the authority to set school rules, experts say that the board of education should first raise awareness among teachers.

In May, Kumamoto  the only city with such guidelines  also compiled a list of questions and answers about the review, and set forth the following standards for schools:

Establishing a system in which students think and decide for themselves.

Establishing rules that are necessary and reasonable.

Making school rules public.

Some schools in Japan have rules prohibiting students from dying their black hair brown or having a perm, as these are sometimes considered a sign of delinquency. If their hair is naturally brown or curly, for example, such schools require students to show proof by submitting a photo of them from early childhood. Then they would need to gain the schools permission so that they do not have to have their hair dyed black or have it straightened. The city of Kumamoto specifically instructed schools that these rules would have to be changed.

Schools were also urged to revise rules that do not respect gender diversity, such as separate uniform requirements for boys and girls. And the city asked that the school rules be made public on each schools website, so that parents and local residents can keep an eye on them. ...continue reading
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BROOKFIELD  Marc Balanda remembers not taking a science class he was interested in high school because it wasnt offered at the honors level. And he knew that would hurt his rank in his class.

I remember being upset when I realized, Oh, Im not going to be one of those top 10 kids in school, the Brookfield High School principal told the Board of Education during a board meeting last week.

That was back in the 1990s. In Brookfield, the practice, which honors the top 10 highest GPAs in each high school class, has continued to this day.

But thats all changing for the Brookfield High School Class of 2025. Soon, there will be more spots on the podium for students to be recognized for their academic achievements.

Starting with the current freshman class, there will no longer be any class rankings. The district voted to cut the practice and instead implement a Latin honors system, including distinctions like cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude, for all future high schoolers.

Class rank is typically established through a calculation of the sum a students numerical grades, taking into account the difficulty of the classes, as well. Many students are hyper aware of their rank in the class, which school leaders said can affect their stress levels and willingness to expand to new experiences.

As a Brookfield High School senior this year, Alexa Dattner will not experience the change, but voiced her support for the elimination of rank.

I would definitely be happy about it, she said. I kind of wish they did it sooner.

Her class is competitive, particularly about grades.

Its been kind of stressful because its just another thing to worry about.

Balanda used the example of a BC Calculus math class at the high school: if he walked in right now and asked the kids to line up in order of where they assumed they fell in the class rank, the teens be able to do it quickly, easily.

Students start asking for their class ranks as soon as they come out, Balanda said, adding that the questions starts as soon as the first semester of freshman year.

This is something he hopes to solve with the Latin honors system.

Balanda said eliminating class rank will allow Brookfield high schoolers the freedom to explore more courses, take off unnecessary pressure for students and families, and expand the number of students celebrated for their academic achievements.

Eliminating class rank could encourage kids to diversify their classes, taking classes that interest them instead of those they know will count toward a Top 10 calculation.

Dattner has classmates who take non-honors classes like sociology pass/fail so as not to affect their GPA.

If youre passionate about something, and you do well in the class, you shouldnt have to worry about it affecting your rank overall, she said.

The rankings can also feel arbitrary at times when its based on such a rigid calculation.

Weve had thousandths of a point between 10 and 11, Balanda explained.

Student No. 10 makes it on to the list and gets celebrated for their accomplishment. No. 11, not so much. In reality, the difference between the two students is nearly insignificant.

Board Chairman Bob Belden discussed this very issue during the presentation.

As a parent of two children who were number 11 in the class, Im all for this because I like the thought of recognizing more and having broader things, he said, referring to the Latin honors idea.

Dattner added that the ranked numbers can affect students self-worth.

You basically have a number attached to your academic career in high school and it basically, in some degree, ties to how you feel about your academic self-worth, she explained.

Another senior, Maahi Dhote, said kids talked about the news at school this week. She doesnt know where her opinion falls just yet, but doesnt regret having gone through high school with class rank.

There are pros and cons to eliminating class rank, she explained. On the one hand, as 12th in her class, she said she knows how it feels to be right there by the Top 10, but not really. On the other, Dhote understands the disappointment some of her classmates in the Top 10 might experience if that were taken away.

I think just going through high school is an achievement in itself, she said.

Jackson Sharpe, a senior, took the opposite view. He said he thought it might disincentive kids from taking harder courses. Having the top 10 pushed and motivated him to do his best in his classes and get a better ranking, he said.

Weve developed a competitive and collaborative environment, he said.

Making a case for change

In his presentation to the board, Balanda also showed further data from the National Association of College Admissions Counselors suggesting that 28 percent of colleges said class rank was of no importance to them, while another 34 percent said it was of limited importance. Since 2007, colleges have decreasingly thought it was of considerable importance.

The College Board writes on its website that due to the tremendous differences in curricula and grading standards at different high schools, many admission officers (especially at selective private colleges) have begun to discount the accuracy and importance of class rank as a factor in evaluating students.

The more research I did, and looking at other schools, and talking to college admissions officers, he said, it really shows it [class rank] doesnt matter as much.

The board did not vote to eliminate valedictorian and salutatorian  typically the first and second highest ranking students in the class  during the class rank discussion, but Balanda said it would be a continuing discussion.

Vale in Latin means goodbye. Salutations, salutatorian, means hello. It was an arbitrary thing that was created  who talks first, and who talks last, Balanda said, explaining the Latin origins of the words. To me, more importantly, if there was a way to apply and vote and have a committee review, or the kids themselves pick the student who is most representative of their graduating class, that is the way to go, rather than valedictorian and salutatorian.

Belden was not yet sold.

It carries a history in a school, Belden said.

Dropping rank

A 2016 analysis by the National Association of College Admissions Counselors found that less than half of all U.S. high schools still use class rank. In Connecticut, school districts in New Canaan, Wilton, Trumbull, Newtown and Pomperaug, have already dropped the practice, and Brookfield is the latest to join this cohort.

Superintendent John Barile said the discussion about leaving behind class rank has been going on for at least two decades.

The removal of the class ranking system does not change the districts commitment to promote a strong student work ethic, he said in an email to Hearst Connecticut. This change improves our ability to recognize a larger number of students for their academic achievements while also encouraging students to take courses they find personally interesting without the fear of grades negatively affecting their standing.

The details of how these honorifics will eventually be doled out is still up for debate, and something Balanda hopes to figure out soon.

I love the objectivity, the data, everythings great, said board member Michael Murphy during the meeting. Murphy admitted that originally, he thought the idea was crazy, but changed his mind

I think overall the change is in the best interest of all kids, Balanda said. Theres this artificial importance that goes along with it [class rank].
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DANBURY  The public schools enrollment has surpassed 12,000 students  a new high.

The student population was at 12,080, as of the first week back from the holiday break, Superintendent Kevin Walston said. Enrollment as of Oct. 1 had been 11,813.

The district saw sprinkled growth in the elementary level, continued growth at the middle schools and a lot more student at the high school which continues to amaze us the growth at that level, he said. This includes significant increases in the number of ninth graders, he said.

I'm happy to say Danbury continues to be a popular place for families and students, but of course we want to be able to continue to meet that growth with appropriate and suitable school facilities, Walston said.

Danbury plans to build a $99 million career academy for 1,400 middle and high school students that would open in fall 2024.

Folks are getting really excited about the potential of this building, Walston said.

Danbury has hit the highest expected projections from a previous demographic study, he said. The district may seek another demographic study if the school boards Sites and Facilities Committee is interested, he said.

In the near future, he anticipates officials to discuss further the need for additional elementary space.

An addition to Ellsworth Avenue Elementary School is expected to be completed by the fall. The addition includes seven classrooms, with four for kindergartners and three for pre-kindergarten.

Four of the 11 sections of kindergartners at Danbury Primary Center  a former Catholic school building in Brookfield that Danbury is renting this academic year due to space restrictions  would move into the addition, Walson said.

He expects the school board to discuss at its meeting next week whether to rent the building again.

We have some decisions to make, and we have to make them relatively quickly, Walston said.
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Ability Beyond has received a $1,000 charitable contribution from the Walmart retail store on Newtown Road in Danbury.

The donation will support Ability Beyonds 130 group homes and program sites.

Walmarts donation to Abilitys Beyond for its services and programs will also help connect people with disabilities and mental illness to jobs, housing, transportation, clinical resources, social networks, and their personal goals.

Ability Beyond is a nonprofit organization that serves individuals with physical, mental and developmental disabilities throughout the Danbury area.

Ability Beyond is headquartered in Bethel and in Chappaqua, N.Y.

The services include residential programs, day programs, job placement, life skills instruction, and clinical support.

The services extend throughout Connecticut and Westchester County in New York.

Visit abilitybeyond.org for more information.

Danbury

Immaculate to honor two individuals at 17th gala

Immaculate High School in Danbury is going to honor Newtown resident, Anthony Tony W. Cirone Jr., and Monsignor Thomas Powers, of Darien, at the schools Together Again on Broadway, 17th annual Spring Gala Fundraiser event on March 26.

The event will be held from 6 to 11 p.m. at the Amber Room Colonnade catering venue. It is located at 1 Stacey Road in Danbury.

Cirone and Powers will be honored for their support and commitment to the school, Catholic education, and their communities.

Cirone will receive the Nancy K. Dolan Leadership Award, which was established in 2006 in honor of Nancy Dolan, the first chairperson of the Immaculate High School Advisory Board.

Powers will earn the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is presented to individuals who have demonstrated a commitment to the service of others.

Cirone has been an Immaculate High School board member in numerous capacities since 2010 and serves as the vice chairman of the Board of Directors, as well as a member of the Board Finance Committee which he chaired for over six years.

He is the managing partner of CironeFriedberg, LLP, a leading regional certified public accountant firm serving middle-market, privately held and family-owned businesses and individuals with a full range of tax, audit, accounting, and business advisory services with office locations in Bethel, Shelton and Darien.

Cirone is a member of the Boards of Directors of the Western Connecticut State University Foundation, Ancell School of Business at Western CT State University, the Associate Board of Directors, Nuvance Health, and the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce where he serves as treasurer. He is a corporator of Union Savings Bank, as well as an active member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants.

Powers attended Immacuate High School and later earned a bachelor in sacred theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and a licentiate from the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family. He was ordained a priest on May 24, 1997.

After serving as parochial vicar at Saint Theresa Parish in Trumbull from 1998 to 2001 and as the spiritual director of Saint John Fisher Seminary and Chaplain of Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford from 2001 to 2005, Powers was assigned as an official in the Congregation for Bishops in Vatican City from 2005 to 2015. During that time, he lived at and served as a spiritual director at the Pontifical North American College. While in Rome, he was also tapped to be the English-language voice of the Vatican during Christmas Midnight Mass in Saint Peters Basilica. In 2010, Monsignor Powers was named a Chaplain to His Holiness by Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2015, Monsignor Powers returned to the Diocese of Bridgeport to serve as vicar general. Since October 2020, while continuing in the role of vicar general, he has been pastor of Saint John Parish in Darien.

The event will feature dinner, dancing, silent and live auctions, and a $10,000 cash raffle drawing.

Tickets are $175 per person, or $350 per couple.

Sponsorship and advertising opportunities are available.

Visit immaculatehs.org/gala to purchase tickets, sponsorships, or advertising.

For more information, contact Jeannie Demko at jdemko@myimmaculatehs.org, or 203-744-1510, extension 158.

Immaculate High School is located at 73 Southern Blvd., in Danbury.

Ridgefield

Library to present program on underground railroad station

Jack Sanders, who was previously an editor of The Ridgefield Press for 45 years, will give an in-person talk at the Ridgefield Library, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13.

The talk will be about an underground railroad station in Ridgefield that was previously run by an Black couple named Uncle Ned and Aunt Betsey Armstrong.

Sanders has written many articles and columns about Ridgefields history, as well as four books.

Sanders website, ridgefieldhistory.com, has a large collection of his writings on Ridgefields place names and notable residents.

The website also offers a detailed timeline of Ridgefield history over three centuries.

Sanders maintains the Old Ridgefield group on Facebook. The group has 3,000 followers.

Sanders has also previously served as a consultant and a writer for the Ridgefield Historical Society.

Register for the program at ridgefieldlibrary.org, or call 203-438-2282.

The Ridgefield Library is located at 472 Main St. in Ridgefield.

Ridgefield

Library to offer event on parenting

People will be able to learn basics of instilling critical skills in children in a Parenting the Selfie Generation: Resilience for Life: Executive Function Skills: The Building Blocks for Success in Life, virtual event on Zoom at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7.

A panel of child development experts will teach the basics.

The experts will be: Sasco River Center Executive Director Christopher Bogart Ph.D., who is also a licensed clinical psychologist, Occupational Therapist Julia Cipriano, MS, OTR/L, and Executive Functions Specialist David Kuchar, MA.

The presentation will also enable the people to develop a thorough understanding of executive function skills; learn strategies to foster their development; and discover tips to help the sensory ensitive child self-regulate themselves.

Project Resilience, the Ridgefield Library, the Ridgefield Parent Teacher Associations, PTAs, the Ridgefield Public School district, and the Ridgefield Youth Commission are presenting the program.

Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org, to receive the Zoom link for the program, or call 203-438-2282.

Ridgefield

Curator to teach about the discovery of a mysterious artwork

An opportunity for people to learn about the discovery of a mysterious piece of artwork is going to happen at 7 p.m.,on Wednesday, Feb. 2, via Zoom at the Ridgefield Library.

The Curator of Collections for the nonprofit organization, Hartley Dodge Foundation, in Madison, N.J., Mallory Mortillaro, previously uncovered the artwork that had been lost to the art world since the 1930s decade.

The artwork was authenticated as an official artwork by French sculptor, Auguste Rodin, after a previous year of research.

Mortillaro will share the story of how a simple art cataloging project evolved into a search for the artworks provenance, and how the project became one of the biggest art finds in recent history.

Mortillaro is also art historian and a teacher of seventh grade English.

Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org to receive the Zoom link for the program, or call 203-438-2282.

Ridgefield

Library to offer Gordon Parks film screening, discussion

The Ridgefield Library is presenting a special ARTalk series online film screening and discussion of the film, A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6.

Register at ridgefieldlibrary.org to receive the Zoom link for the program, or call 203-438-2282.

The library, the Ridgefield Guild of Artists and The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, are co-sponsoring the series, in partnership with the Kundhart Film Foundation non-profit organization.

The online film screening will be followed by a discussion that will be moderated by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum Exhibitions Director, Richard Klein.

The discussion will feature panelists:

They are:

The films producer, Monica Berra and Kelly Marshall, who is a photographer.

The film chronicles the ways that Parks documented his narrative as a Black artist in the 20th century time in history and beyond.

The film also explores the power of images in advancing racial, economic, and social equality, as they are seen through Parks lens.

Gordon Parks was also previously a photographer, film director, composer, author, and a documentarian of the civil rights and social justice topics.

Parks was previously an artist and a photojournalist, who became the first Black staff photographer for Life Magazine in 1948.

Washington

Snow snake workshop on one date with two times on same day

The Institute for American Indian Studies is having a snow snakes workshop at 11 a.m. and at 2 p.m. on Saturday.

The institute is located at 38 Curtis Road in Washington.

Participants will learn how to make their own snow snake with Institute for American Indian Studies Educator, Susan Scherf.

The workshop includes materials and wood burning kits.

The participants are welcome to bring their own whittling tool, if they have one.

The participants will then use the creation to play a traditional Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) winter game that is still played today.

The workshop is especially meant for people who like to play with the reptiles, snakes.

Snow snakes are handmade from a flattened piece of wood. The material has a notch at one end that makes them easy to throw when someone plays the winter game.

The snakes are made when some sticks are carved in patterns that resemble a snake. The sticks are then coated with wax.

Space per each session of the class is limited.

Pre-registration is required.

The price of participation including materials is $20 for non-members and $10 for members.

For more information call 860-868-0518, email events@iaismuseum.org, or visit eventbrite.com/e/snow-snake-workshop-tickets-239500070157?aff=erelpanelorg, to register for the workshop.

CORRECTION: An original version of this story incorrectly reported what year anniversary the Immaculate High School gala is celebrating. This article was corrected to reflect that this is the 17th annual gala.
Dr. Joelene Huber, a physician, author and on-air medical contributor, received the Courage Award in recognition of her years of leadership as a paediatrician and her public engagement and advocacy efforts for the health of mothers and new-born babies as a volunteer through the ENRICH: 1000 Day Journey grant. The six-year program supported women and children's health and nutrition in some of the highest-needs communities in four African and Asian countries, with the support of the Government of Canada and the partnership of World Vision.

Dr. Huber says her journey to Bangladesh to see the impact of the program will leave a lasting impression  abroad and at home.

"Seeing the program's impact and challenges faced by parents to support the health of their children truly enriched my life, expanded my global awareness, and enhanced my perspective in my care for patients and families in Canada," says Huber.

Sara Hildebrand received the Ruth Roberts Award, in recognition of an individual who has started or contributed to a movement to help improve the lives of children and families. A resident of Stoney Creek, Ontario, Hildebrand is the Founder and Director of Millennium Kids  an ongoing youth movement that, in 2021, was a key partner in the "Love My Neighbour" campaign that encouraged faith communities to donate thousands of COVID vaccines to vulnerable children around the world through UNICEF's GiveAVax program.

The Rev. Dr. Ken McMillan Award, recognizing an individual who has demonstrated Christian faith in action, a heart for leadership and a commitment to the church was awarded to Rev. Dr. Gerald (Gerry) Michalski of Soul Sanctuary in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Michalski has inspired his congregation and community to care for those in need. His church partnered with World Vision on its Global 6k water initiative and was the first church in Canada to launch Chosen, a new way of supporting child sponsorship.

Onome Ako, CEO, Action Against Hunger, received the Voice for Children Award, recognizing an individual who has used their public voice or role to lift and promote the needs of children and families. Action Against Hunger is an international humanitarian organization that fights hunger and its root causes worldwide. With over 15 years of experience in international development, Ako has led initiatives in more than a dozen countries with organizations including World Vision, AfricaRecruit and UNESCO  Regional Bureau for Education in Africa. As chair of the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health, she is a leader in advocating for the critical health needs of children.

The late Evon Hedley received the Power of Generosity Award in recognition of an individual who has been philanthropic with their time, influence and gifts to improve the lives of children and families. As a young man in 1937, Hedley started his career in ministry with Youth for Christ in Brantford, Ontario. He went on to provide key leadership in several faith-based and charitable organizations in Canada, the United States and around the world. Hedley was one of the first leaders of World Vision in Canada, joining in 1963 and helping the organization get its startand inspiring thousands of Canadians to be generous toward programs for children. He actively mentored leaders until he was 100 years old. Hedley died in 2018. Members of his family accepted the award on his behalf.

"At World Vision, we have a heart for children, especially the world's most vulnerable," says Michael Messenger, President and CEO, World Vision Canada. "We are committed to ensuring that every girl and boy has the chance for a full life, each living up to their God-given potential, free of fear and full of opportunity. We are so grateful for and celebrate this year's award winners as our partners, leaders and friends, as heroes who stand with us to fight poverty and injustice and help build a better world for children."

About World Vision

World Vision is a relief, development and advocacy organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Inspired by Christian values, World Vision is dedicated to working with the world's most vulnerable people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. For more information, visit worldvision.ca or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

SOURCE World Vision Canada

For further information: MEDIA CONTACT: Kelly Hayes, Strategic Communications Officer, World Vision Canada, [email protected]; m 250-317-0281
A Mumbai-based propagandist, posing as a liberal and journalist, labelled Saudis bloodthirsty for fighting terror in Yemen on Saturday (January 22).The outspoken journalist had slammed Saudi Arabia for initiating a military campaign against Yemen in a tweet. Saudi netizens have responded by attacking her on Twitter, accusing her of backing terrorism. They further voiced their disgust over Ayyubs deceptive tweet.

Yemen is bleeding, and nobody is stopping the murderous Saudis, Rana Ayyub tweeted on Saturday, adding that she is humiliated as a Muslim that these savages are guards of the holy mosque.

Yemen is bleeding and there is nobody to stop the bloodthirsty Saudis. These are people who call themselves the custodians of Islam. As a Muslim I am ashamed that these savages are guardians of the holy mosque. The world CANNOT stay silent thru this genocide #YemenUnderAttack  Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) January 22, 2022

Her remarks came after Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen targeted a temporary jail administered by the Houthi rebel organization. The operations were stepped up after the Houthis launched a fatal drone attack on the United Arab Emirates, a member of the Saudi-led alliance. In Saudi Arabia, the organization has launched missile and drone strikes. The Houthis hold a considerable area in northern Yemen, and the Saudi-led coalition is fighting the organisation alongside the internationally recognized Yemeni government. Saudi residents were surprised to learn that the Indian journalist was criticizing them for backing the Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi administration in Yemen.

Several Saudi netizens replied to Rana Ayyubs tweet by arguing that their government supports a recognized government, whereas Ayyub supports an Islamist terror group attempting to remove that government. Saudis and Emiratis also remarked on how she had been collecting donations for humanitarian activity but had been utilising them for her own purposes. Personally, Im embarrassed of those who collect donations for great organisations and then fail to use those monies for the reason for which they were raised, said a twitter user, Jeddah Faisal. But thats just my opinion.

Another user alleged Ayyub to be one of the media elite hypocrites that promote terrorist Houthis who utilize child soldiers and are the major source of misery in Yemen. He mentioned that Saudi Arabia is attempting to remove the Houthis dictatorial rule by backing the terrorist organization.

Netizens from India also criticized her move. People have observed that while she is speaking out against the terror groups attack, she was mute when numerous innocent people, including two Indians, were killed in the terror groups drone strike in Abu Dhabi. Ayyub, startled by the response, blamed Prime Minister Modi for the abuse she hadnt anticipated to face from Saudi netizens. Saudi trolls are being cheered on by Modi fans in India, she said in a tweet. You didnt miss anything, she added.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said that sources have apprised that the Enforcement Directorate (ED) will arrest Health Minister Satyender Kumar Jain in the coming days. Speaking at a press conference, the chief minister said the Centre conducted raids twice on the health minister but nothing has been found against him. They are welcome this time too. Our sources have apprised us that in the coming days, ED will arrest Satyendar Jain. Raids by the Centre have been done twice against him but in vain. They are welcome this time too, Kejriwal said.

The chief minister hit out the Central government and said they can send all agencies against Satyendra Jain, Manish Sisodia and Bhagwant Mann. We are not afraid. The Aam Aadmi Party chief further noted, With elections nearing, Central agencies are also becoming active. BJP can send all agencies. Not only, Satyendra Jain but they can also send them to me, Manish Sisodia, Bhagwant Mann. We will welcome them with a smile. We will not cry like Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on ED raids. He is frustrated because he had done wrong We have not done anything wrong so we are not afraid, he added.

Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Partys Punjab co-incharge Raghav Chadha has sought time to meet Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit over the issue of the alleged involvement of Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi in illegal sand mining. According to AAP, Chadha wants to discuss the recent facts that have emerged after the raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate at the residence of CMs relatives in connection with illegal sand mining. The ED on Wednesday seized more than Rs 10 crore cash, gold worth above 21 lakh and a Rolex watch worth Rs 12 lakh from the residential premises of land mafia Bhupinder Singh Honey and others in connection with an alleged illegal sand mining case. Bhupinder Singh Honey is a nephew of the Punjab chief minister.

Assembly elections in Punjab will be held on February 20. The counting of votes will be done on March 10. In the 2017 Punjab Assembly polls, Congress won 77 seats in the 117-member House, whereas Shiromani Akali Dal could win only 18 seats. On the other hand, AAP emerged as the second-largest party with 20 seats.
A Mumbai-based journalist, mostly posing as a liberal, labeled Saudis bloodthirsty for fighting terror in Yemen on Saturday (January 22). The outspoken journalist had slammed Saudi Arabia for initiating a military campaign against Yemen in a tweet. Saudi netizens have responded by attacking her on Twitter, accusing her of backing terrorism. They further voiced their disgust over Ayyubs deceptive tweet.

Yemen is bleeding, and nobody is stopping the murderous Saudis, Rana Ayyub tweeted on Saturday, adding that she is humiliated as a Muslim that these savages are guards of the holy mosque.

Yemen is bleeding and there is nobody to stop the bloodthirsty Saudis. These are people who call themselves the custodians of Islam. As a Muslim I am ashamed that these savages are guardians of the holy mosque. The world CANNOT stay silent thru this genocide #YemenUnderAttack  Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) January 22, 2022

Her remarks came after Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen targeted a temporary jail administered by the Houthi rebel organization. The operations were stepped up after the Houthis launched a fatal drone attack on the United Arab Emirates, a member of the Saudi-led alliance. In Saudi Arabia, the organization has launched missile and drone strikes. The Houthis hold a considerable area in northern Yemen, and the Saudi-led coalition is fighting the organisation alongside the internationally recognized Yemeni government. Saudi residents were surprised to learn that the Indian journalist was criticizing them for backing the Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi administration in Yemen.

Several Saudi netizens replied to Rana Ayyubs tweet by arguing that their government supports a recognized government, whereas Ayyub supports an Islamist terror group attempting to remove that government. Saudis and Emiratis also remarked on how she had been collecting donations for humanitarian activity but had been utilising them for her own purposes. Personally, Im embarrassed of those who collect donations for great organisations and then fail to use those monies for the reason for which they were raised, said a twitter user, Jeddah Faisal. But thats just my opinion.

Another user alleged Ayyub to be one of the media elite hypocrites that promote terrorist Houthis who utilize child soldiers and are the major source of misery in Yemen. He mentioned that Saudi Arabia is attempting to remove the Houthis dictatorial rule by backing the terrorist organization.

Netizens from India also criticized her move. People have observed that while she is speaking out against the terror groups attack, she was mute when numerous innocent people, including two Indians, were killed in the terror groups drone strike in Abu Dhabi. Ayyub, startled by the response, blamed Prime Minister Modi for the abuse she hadnt anticipated to face from Saudi netizens. Saudi trolls are being cheered on by Modi fans in India, she said in a tweet. You didnt miss anything, she added.
NEW HAVEN  The Office of the Inspector General is investigating after a U.S. marshal fired shots while attempting to arrest a man in New Haven, officials announced Monday.

Law enforcement officials saw Marvin Owens, a Bridgeport man with an active felony warrant, drive a white box truck into a parking lot on Wheeler Street around 11:30 a.m. last Thursday, officials with the Division of Criminal Justice said in a release.

Task Force Officers, including, Deputy United States Marshal James Masterson, drove into the parking lot and exited their vehicles. They approached Owens intending to take him into custody on the active warrants. Disregarding the officers commands, Owens got back into the white truck and started driving out of the parking lot. The Task Force Officers pursued on foot for a short distance. It was during this time that Deputy United States Marshal Masterson fired five shots in the direction of the truck. There were no injuries as a result of this gunfire and Owens continued to flee the scene in the truck, officials said.

Owens drove to Bridgeport where he was arrested following a collision with another vehicle, officials noted. He is charged with a outstanding counts including first-degree assault, third-degree assault, unlawful restraint and reckless endangerment.

During a court hearing Friday following his arrest, Owens voiced his concern with how the incident had unfolded.

Beat me like a man, thats all I ask. They came to my work and shot guns at me, he repeatedly shouted.

Inspector Robert J. Devlin has now opened an inquiry into the matter, examining whether the use of force by the Deputy United States Marshal was justified under Connecticut law, officials said.

The incident also is being investigated by the Western District Major Crime Squad of the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, officials said.

Officials said the officers were not wearing body-worn cameras at the time of the incident and none of their vehicles was equipped with dashboard cameras.

Investigators, however, located private security cameras on a building adjacent to the parking lot where the shooting occurred, officials said, which Devlin had approved for public release and can be found on YouTube.

Reporting from Daniel Tepfer is included in this story. william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
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Gov. Ned Lamont can see the end of school mask mandates and other COVID-mitigating strategies in sight. But, he said Monday, weve been here before.

The end isnt calendar-related, its infection-related, Lamont said during a gathering at Bridgeports Blackham School. I thought we were near the end in November. But if the (positivity rate) trend keeps up, I think we could be nearing the end.

Lamont spent about an hour touring the school and speaking with Superintendent Michael Testani, Principal Marcie Julian and numerous classroom teachers. The visit came just days after the school distributed self-test kits to all students and KN-95 masks to staff members.

We distributed 1,085 test kits, two tests per kit, Julian said. Our staff was waiting for the masks. The teachers are feeling more safe with the new masks.

Lamont touted the COVID-19 safety measures, including mask mandates and the air purifiers running in the schools classrooms, with driving down the viruss positivity rate. Currently at 11 percent, Lamont said, the rate is much higher than it was in November, but half what it was two weeks ago.

Testani said he appreciated any state help Lamont could provide.

We all know we face challenges here in Bridgeport, he said. For example, hiring and retaining teachers is an ongoing problem, he said.

We do have plenty of vacancies, he said. We have the greatest kids in the world, but unfortunately, we face many challenges.

For example, compared to neighboring suburban districts, Bridgeports financial constraints mean teachers end up leaving for better-paying jobs in the suburbs, Testani said.

Forty percent of our staff is in their first six years, he said.

Teachers reaching six years on the job typically are at an age where they are considering buying a home and starting a family, and tax credits and mortgage assistance could be tools to encourage they to stay in the city rather than seek jobs in other districts where the pay scale could be easily five figures higher, said Eric Marshall, the Connecticut Education Associations Bridgeport representative.

COVID magnifies the problem, Marshall said.

In an urban district, that just created such a strain with things like social distancing, and when we went full-remote in March of 2020, we had kids that dont have (internet) service. They dont have problems like that in Westport or Darien, he said.

Between pay, working conditions and newer facilities, it was no wonder teachers tend to head for the suburbs after a few years, Marshall said.

Kate Dias, the CEA president, thanked Lamont for the allocations of funds and equipment for Bridgeport schools, and said his visit was a chance to double down on supporting education in the city.

Bridgeport is an exciting, vibrant community that deserves to be celebrated, she said.

For his part, Lamont agreed the state should look at ways to create incentives for teachers to remain in urban school districts. He acknowledged the class sizes at Blackham  at around 28  were too high, but added that the city school was an illustration that students could safely attend schools in person.

The classrooms are crowded, but I love that theyre filled with kids, he said. Were doing everything we can to give people confidence that we can keep schools open safely.

Still, he and Testani both expressed a desire to return to the pre-pandemic schools where students could go unmasked. Lamont said he would be amenable to allowing communities to set their own mask policies if the positivity trends continued to decline.

The (COVID data) will tell us something pretty soon, he said. By early to mid-February, we ought to have a good idea where we stand.
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MERIDEN  The man who chainsawed the historic Door Tree in Hamden was granted a supervised diversionary program Tuesday in Superior Court, enabling him to avoid jail time and have the charges dismissed in two years if he complies with the programs conditions.

Curtis Pardee, 64, of Adeline Street in New Haven, apologized to the people of Hamden during the court session but not to his brother, David, who was known as Mr. Door Tree because of his love for the 200-year-old white oak with a doorway-like arch. Pardee told Regional Water Authority police he destroyed the tree because he hates his brother.

Superior Court Judge Thomas V. OKeefe Jr. noted the tree meant a lot to a lot of people, including the defendants brother. OKeefe also spoke about his own love of trees, including a pine tree and an apple tree that had stood in his front yard.

OKeefe acknowledged some people might be upset with his granting the request by Pardees attorney Frank Riccio that Pardee enter the program rather than serve time in prison. But OKeefe said, Its the right thing to do.

OKeefe noted Pardee has struggled with mental health issues his whole life. This program will be good for him and everybody else. It will help him deal with his illness.

OKeefe ordered Pardee to make a $500 contribution to the Nature Conservancy and contribute up to $750 if the Regional Water Authority decides to put up a commemorative plaque at the site of the fallen tree. It stood on RWA property near 300 New Road.

Pardee had been charged with third-degree criminal mischief and third-degree criminal trespassing.

Supervisory Assistant States Attorney James Dinnan told OKeefe that Pardee was arrested by RWA police last August, about three weeks after the trees destruction was discovered. Dinnan noted police saw that litter had been scattered around the tree fragments, including a letter addressed to Pardee showing his address. Police also discovered a bottle of oil used for chainsaws; they traced it to a department store and to Pardees credit card.

Riccio noted during the court hearing that Pardee has no criminal record. Riccio said Pardee will comply with his counselors instructions.

Riccio also noted the Hamden Historical Society had suggested Pardee give back to the town. Riccio said, Hes willing to do that.

OKeefe then launched into a lengthy statement about the publics love of trees, an affection he said he shares.

This upset a lot of people, OKeefe said of the trees destruction. This was something a lot of people enjoyed. They took their kids to see it. Maybe somebody would have proposed under this arch.

I remember a tree in front of my house, OKeefe added. You could climb up it. This was a pine tree. It stood there until 1986 when Hurricane Gloria took it down. My father and I then planted an apple tree there. It produced tremendous apples. My wife made apple pies with it.

OKeefe cited a famous poem by Joyce Kilmer entitled Trees. It begins: I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.

OKeefe said he had pondered whether to deny Pardees enrollment in the diversionary program because trees mean so much to all of us. But he cited Pardees mental health struggles.

Judges are supposed to do the right thing, OKeefe said, even though they know there will be an article in the paper and letters to the editor.

I dont think this will go unpunished, OKeefe said of Pardees actions. Hell need to comply with the treatment and cooperate with the counselor. OKeefe described the program as intensive.

When OKeefe offered Pardee a chance to make a statement, Pardee hesitated. OKeefe then said: Sorry would be good.

Pardee said: Im sorry to the citizens of Hamden.

If you werent sorry, I wouldnt grant this, OKeefe told him.

OKeefe then read aloud Prayer of the Woods, which is sometimes attributed to Alberto de Veiga Simoes. It begins: I am the heat of your hearth on the cold winter nights, the friendly shade screening you from the summer sun...

The poem concludes: Ye who pass by, listen to my prayer: Harm me not.

OKeefe looked up at Pardee and told him: Think about that when you go to your sessions.

After Pardee left the courtroom, a reporter asked him if he had any comment on the case. Pardee asked: Who are you? Riccio then came over, interceded and walked to a nearby alcove to answer the reporters questions.

I believe this is the appropriate path for Mr. Pardee, given all his personal circumstances, Riccio said. This program will provide not only the mental health treatment that has been recommended, but allow a dismissal of the charges.

Riccio said a supervised diversionary programs is a type of accelerated rehabilitation that can be granted when an applicant has mental health issues.

According to Riccio, the counselor who interviewed Pardee concluded he has a psychological disability which contributed to committing the offense.

When the reporter noted Pardees apology in court had not included apologizing to his brother, Riccio said: Theres a lot of deep anger with his family. He cut down a tree because of his anger with his brother.

Riccio added, But hes remorseful and has accepted responsibility.

Hes more than willing to give back to the people of Hamden, including adding to its beauty, Riccio said.

Asked how Pardee will do this, Riccio said, It may include the planting of trees. He noted Pardee must donate $500 to the Nature Conservancy and up to $750 if a commemorative plaque is mounted where the now-more-famous tree once stood.

David Johnson, Hamdens municipal historian and a member of the Hamden Historical Society, said in a statement at the time of Pardees arrest: The Hamden Historical Society and the RWA are planning to memorialize the Door Trees history so that it can continue to be appreciated by generations to come.

randall.beach@hearstmediact.com
SOUTHINGTON  A Waterbury resident was charged last week in connection with an incident involving a co-worker at a local store in October, according to police.

Wayne Snow, 23, of Newfield Avenue in Waterbury, was charged with disseminating intimate images. His bond was set at $75,000.

Police said the charge stems from a complaint filed Nov. 3, 2021.

Two days prior, the individual noticed several photos were sent from their cellphone to a number they didnt recognize, police said.

Police said the victim told investigating officers that on Oct, 29, 2021, they left their phone charging in an area where it could have been stolen at the Home Depot at 89 Interstate Park Drive.

The victim told police they asked a co-worker to watch the phone while they used the bathroom. When the victim returned, they said their phone was in the co-workers pocket, police said.

Based on the number the images were sent to, investigators learned the phone belonged to the co-worker who watched the phone  identified by police as Snow.

He was interviewed by investigating officers, but wouldnt provide any information and denied investigators requests for an interview, police said.

Snow was taken into custody on an outstanding warrant in connection with the incident on Jan. 18.
Niagara Falls, NY (14301)

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The THC percentages of recreational marijuana are visible on the product packaging sitting on a countertop April 19 in Mamaroneck, N.Y. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)
The second phase of the 'Rail Trail' in the Town of Lockport will go from Murphy Road to the City of Lockport/Town of Lockport line. It's been funded by a state grant of $168,000.
RESEARCH: Among the first studies to demonstrate an association between social media use and biological marker associated with poor physical health.
The leader of the technical committee for the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has solicited support for a one...

The leader of the technical committee for the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign, Chief Raymond Dokpesi, has solicited support for a one-term presidency for Atiku Abubakar.

He said if Atiku is elected for a single term of four years, it will pave way for the South-East to produce the president in 2027.

Dokpesi, who spoke in Umuahia the Abia State capital on Monday, maintained that Atiku, who hails from the North-East Geo-political zone, was the right person to wrestle power from the All Progressive Congress-led Federal Government.

He was at the state Secretariat of the People Democratic Party for consultations with the party leaders in the state.

Dokpesi revealed that the PDP zoning arrangement was not honoured during the 2015 presidential election. Consequently, the party went into the election with a divided house which it lost.

He argued that the PDP has to give the North another chance to complete its fours years in the presidency in order to wrestle power from the APC in 2023.

He assured that the PDP will zone the presidency to the South-East and ensure that the zone produces the president in 2027.

He said, Our party believes in rotation of the office of president between the North and South for two-term of eight years.





That was why former President Olusegun Obasanjo handed over to Late Umaru YaAdua, but after his death, former president Goodluck Jonathan took over and completed his first term.

Jonathan, also ask for another four years which was given to him, but when he started asking for another term in 2015, the North felt it was against the zoning agreement of the party.

So we went into the election with a divided house and we lost. That is why we have reasoned that for us to wrestle power from APC, we need a strong presidential candidate from the North.

Since it is believed that the North-East and South-East are the two geo-political zones that have not produced a president. We felt that Atiku, coming from the North-East, is a strong candidate for the job.

The PDP chairman in the state, Chief Alwell Asiforo, assured the team that the party was open to listening to all those with aspirations who visits the state for consultation.
Justice Daniel Osiagor of a Federal High Court in Lagos has found a comedian, Joshua Sunday a.k.a. De General guilty of drug trafficking. ...

Justice Daniel Osiagor of a Federal High Court in Lagos has found a comedian, Joshua Sunday a.k.a. De General guilty of drug trafficking.

The social media influencer was arraigned by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) alongside Caleb William, a cinematographer.

The judge held that the volume of substance was minimal and would convict and caution the defendants, rather than a sentence.

NAN reports that Justice Osiagor convicted Sunday and William and warned them to go and sin no more.

Charged with three counts of trafficking Tramadol and Cannabis Sativa, they pleaded guilty. Lilian Omotunde was the defence lawyer.

The duo told the court they never tasted drugs and that the substances were props for a skit they were about to shoot before their arrest.

The prosecutor, Jeremiah Aernan, reviewed the facts of the case and tendered evidence through an NDLEA exhibit keeper, Lucky Oghaifu.

These include the defendants statements, drug analysis form, certificate of test analysis, request for scientific aid form and packaging of substance form.

Aernan said agents made the arrest on January 12 in the Lekki area of Lagos due to unlawful possession of 15g of Cannabis and 14 g of tramadol.

The offence contravenes the provision of Section 11(c) of the NDLEA Act, Cap N30, Laws of the Federation, 2004.
Kassim Afegbua has advised Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, not to contest the presidency in 2023. He said the Peoples Democra...

Kassim Afegbua has advised Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, not to contest the presidency in 2023.

He said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must zone its 2023 presidential candidacy to the south, and as such, Atiku should ditch his quest.

Afegbua was the spokesperson of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation during the 2019 elections.

In a statement on Sunday, Afegbua said Atiku should not make himself a perpetual candidate for the presidency.

Atiku has unsuccessfully contested the presidency five times in the last three decades.

Afegbua said it is immoral for such an old man to attempt another round of political contestation.

He said the presidency belongs to the south, adding that the idea of an Atiku candidacy is akin to promoting an expired product.

Having concluded the convention of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with a new leadership that looks promising, the party will have to rise above board to produce a presidential candidate from the southern part of the country to complete the narrative, the statement reads in part.

With the abysmal performance of President Muhammadu Buhari on account of age, incompetence and lack of capacity and political will to take deliberate and sustained action to bail out the country from all manner of challenges, it will be immoral for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to continue to express interest in seeking election in the 2023 presidential election having attained the retirement age.

He cannot assume the role of a perpetual candidate or professional aspirant year in, year out, of the party as though the party was established for him alone. It defeats all sense of logic for such an old man to attempt another round of political contestation at a time the general feeling and mood in the country supports a younger Nigerian from the southern extraction of the country.

For me, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should quit his quest for presidency and support a southern Nigerian candidate in the spirit of fairness, equity and justice, that will assuage the feelings of stakeholders from the southern part of Nigeria. It will be against the run of play and natural justice for any aspirant of Northern extraction to show interest in the 2023 presidential election within the Peoples Democratic Party threshold. It will offend national sentiments, emotions and logic for anyone from the North to show such interest given our diversities and hetereogenous political configurations.

After the 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar abandoned all of us in Nigeria and sought refuge in far away Dubai, thus exposing us to the intimidations, harassment and threats posed by the desperate APCs power oligarchs. It was a case of a general abandoning his troops in the battlefield. Rather than draw strength from his presence, his absence exposed us to all manner of challenges.

Afegbua said the promoters of Atikus aspiration know in their heart of hearts that it is a project that is dead on arrival.
The Kano state police command has arraigned Abdulmalik Tanko, the self-confessed killer of Hanifa Abubakar, a five-year-old girl. Ab...

The Kano state police command has arraigned Abdulmalik Tanko, the self-confessed killer of Hanifa Abubakar, a five-year-old girl.

Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, spokesman of the Kano police command, said the suspect was arraigned before a magistrate court in Kano on Monday.

Tanko(pictured on the right) was paraded by the police after confessing to the murder of the girl. He is the proprietor of Noble Kids Comprehensive College  the school Hanifa attended.

According to the police, the suspect, alongside two others, is being charged with criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and culpable homicide.

Tanko had confessed to the murder while answering questions on his involvement in the crime.

He revealed that he killed Hanifa with rat poison and buried her body in the school premises with the help of a friend.

I lied to Fatima and Isyaku that the girls mother was the one behind the plan to kidnap the girl to extort her father, he had said.

After Hashimu and Fatima failed to kidnap the girl, I decided to carry out the kidnapping myself. I kidnapped her when she was returning from Islamic school and took her to my family house.

She stayed in my family house for about two weeks before I killed her. I killed her after some teachers in my school came to my house.

I became suspicious. I thought they came to investigate me because they said the girl had once mentioned my name. It was after that visit that I gave her rat poison. I then contacted my friend and asked for his help to dig a hole where the girl would be buried.

I demanded the sum of N6 million from the parents. I contacted them through the phone number her parents gave the school.

A mob has since razed the school where the girl is said to have been buried. The school is located in Kwanar Dakata community in Nassarawa LGA of Kano state.

On Sunday, Aisha Buhari, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, said she is in support of capital punishment for the self-confessed killer.
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In this series, Lagniappe presents a different work each week from the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, with commentary from a curator.

Characterized by slit eyes, which appear as convex orbs within concave sockets, pointed angular teeth and facial scarification, Pwo masks were carved to depict an elegant and beautiful face.

In Chokwe culture, the word Pwo means woman, making this mask a representation of the primordial female ancestor. The masks are used in social dances to highlight the beauty, morality and abilities, both natural and supernatural, associated with women.

It appears at ceremonial occasions of the Chokwe people, an ethnic group of about 1.3 million people who live mostly in Angola and Democratic Republic of the Congo. At these venues, primarily male initiation rituals, it is believed that the Pwo brings pride to families hosting the initiation for their boys as they take part in rituals that bring them toward adulthood.

When in performance, the Pwo is treated as an emissary from the spirit world that honors and stands for attributes of womanhood. Even though a male performs as the Pwo, women will commonly dance alongside the character to challenge the performers skills and to make sure that the steps and movements or actions honor them appropriately.

If a dancer has poor dancing skills, they are quickly chased away by women, to the embarrassment of ritual leaders. As the initiation rituals of young boys into adulthood signifies a new beginning, so too, does the Pwo usher in new beginnings for the community, and by extension, the world.

+2 Theater photographer collected the rapid moments in a film and held them still again In this series, Lagniappe presents a different work each week from the collection of the New Orleans Museum of Art, with commentary from a curator.

+2 A photojournalist whose work was successful as art, Weegee traded on access Weegee remains one of the few photographers in history to achieve simultaneous success in both the popular news media and the arts community.
Yago and Giovana are in for one hell of a morning after their one-night stand in Brazilian director Iuli Gerbases The Pink Cloud. They awake to news that toxic pink clouds are filling the skies around the globe, killing people exposed even for short durations. They seek shelter in Giovanas mothers apartment, shut the windows, turn on the news and wait for the crisis to pass.

The story of sheltering in isolation was created before the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, and the film includes a preliminary disclaimer that it was filmed in 2019.

Though sometimes labeled sci-fi, The Pink Cloud actually relies on surrealism to explore a story about people forced into isolation due to a deadly menace that affects the entire world. The film wasnt released until after worldwide shutdowns began, and its hard not to relate pandemic issues and experiences to the story onscreen. The story is not about COVID-19-style safety measures  though surely those who find menace in masks and vaccines will be suspicious of the tube. The film (in Portuguese with English subtitles) opens locally at Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge on Friday, Jan. 28.

The pink clouds sudden arrival forces people to seek the nearest shelter wherever they happen to be, and for some people thats a grocery store or public space. In an unidentified Brazilian city, Yago and Giovana enjoy the relative luxury of a large apartment, where they are alone together. Its an awkward circumstance for the new couple to get to know each other better, and it hits a snag pretty quickly when they realize they only have so much birth control on hand.

Its soon clear the crisis wont blowing over soon, and that affects all aspects of their lives. Giovana is a web designer and can work remotely. Yago is a chiropractor and cant work. His aging father is fortunate to have a nurse attendant stuck with him. Giovana can do little to help her much younger sister, who is entering her teen years.

People become dependent on the internet and a tube installed in their apartment window. Presumably its the government delivering food, and mysterious pink juice, through the tubes. As the crisis transforms from temporary to indefinite, the tube becomes a lifeline and supply chain. People buy whatever they want or need online, and its all delivered via the tube. The internet spreads stories of goofy responses to the cloud, social unrest and rumors of miraculous resolutions to the crisis. Not being able to test the veracity of some of the information they receive keeps them on edge as they negotiate their lives together.

Most of the film takes place in the apartment, allowing Gerbase to focus on the primary story: how two strangers go from casually dating to depending on each other. At first, its a honeymoon of intimacy and camaraderie. But the good faith and polite behavior wear off. As weeks stretch into months and beyond, Yago and Giovana get more blunt with each other, out of necessity and desperation. They both become lonely and are tempted by the slightest chances of meeting others. The sheltering removes many of the distractions they could indulge to hide that their relationship is troubled.

As Giovana and Yago, Renata de Lelis and Eduardo Mendonca are convincing. Neither character is especially likeable, and Gerbase explores how people ultimately get along despite their flaws and imperfections. The cloud presents uncertainty, and also the basic truth that many life-changing events are beyond peoples control. Its both no way to live and the only way to live.
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Twins Jo and Joy Banner were just 10 years old when their family was nearly forced to leave their small St. John the Baptist Parish neighborhood to make room for a Taiwanese company trying to build a rayon plant.

Originally settled by the descendants of those enslaved on a nearby plantation, the Banners cluster of residential homes in Wallace would have been razed and replaced with the corporate offices of that company, Formosa Plastics Group.

"They told my parents we had three months to get out," Jo Banner recalled. "A family of six. In three months, we had to find a home."

Ultimately, the buyouts weren't finalized and the project was canceled in 1992. Three years later, the parish president at that time, Lester Millet, was charged with extortion in connection with the Formosa deal.

Now 43, the Banner sisters have founded a nonprofit that is leading an effort to rid the area of the infamous deal's lingering legacy and overturn decades-old zoning changes that allow heavy industries to locate next to neighborhoods.

"We are the victims of a crime that happened, and here we are, still dealing with this crime," Jo Banner said.

+2 St. John Parish group sues to overturn 1990 zoning change for Formosa Plastics Parish President Lester Millet went to prison, and now a grain elevator is planned for the site

The Descendants Project, the Banners' Wallace-based nonprofit, sued the parish in November over a 1990 zoning law that rezoned hundreds acres of farmland in Wallace from residential to industrial use. The case is still working its way through the courts; a ruling in the sisters favor would effectively block a $400 million grain terminal from being built near the neighborhood.

The group eventually hopes to form working groups of residents who might consider models for collective land ownership, such as community land trusts or land redistribution. Also underway is an effort to map potential burial sites in order to better protect those spaces, said researcher and writer Jordan Brewington, who works with the twins nonprofit, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and other groups.

Though the Banners have become the face of local opposition to Wallaces zoning rules, their nonprofit actually began with a much different goal. Founded in the fall of 2020, the Descendants Project grew out of the desire to enhance the lives of others descended from the enslaved. The twins also wanted to fix the region's plantation tourism industry.

The sisters argue, for example, that marketing the River Parishes area as "Plantation Country" dismisses slave experiences and takes a narrow view of what makes the area special.

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The sole Louisiana plantation to make the experiences of those who were enslaved its chief focus is the Whitney Plantation, where the sisters great-great-grandmother was born into slavery, and where Joy Banner now works as director of communications, the Banners said.

Both women said that tourism jobs are a great alternative to jobs with the petrochemical plants concentrated along the Mississippi River.

"It's a way of protecting the land. It's a greener industry," Joy Banner said. "Our passion for tourism is right alongside the protection of descended communities and preventing environmental racism, or reducing environmental racism as best as we can."

In Louisianas chemical corridor, an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, industrial facilities are frequently built near Black and low-income neighborhoods, said Deep South Center for Environmental Justice founder Beverly Wright, who was involved in Wallaces 1990s battle against Formosa.

"I don't know how to explain the constant insult in the expansion of toxic, noxious, dangerous facilities in the same places over and over again," Wright said. "Once they start, you get zoned for everything that's dangerous. And then the facilities see it as a welcoming spot because they've already got one. They know they can get people to say yes to two, three and four."

Brewington agreed that zoning laws like the ones in Wallace have long harmed vulnerable neighborhoods.

"This is centuries of land-based injustice that really began with settler colonialism and the stealing of this land from indigenous folks, Brewington said. But we see the continuation of that violence through these zoning decisions, and through the lack of community control over how these lands are stewarded."

Wright said the Descendants Projects efforts would be a step beyond past attempts by environmental justice advocates to reduce emissions or to have companies pay to relocate residents in polluted communities.

"They're saying no, we deserve reparations for what has been done to us," she said. "This land belongs to our families, our families were born, our ancestors who have gone on this land, and we will not be moved."

Editor's note: This story was changed Jan. 24 to correct the sequence of events around the rezoning and the indictment of Lester Millet Jr.
Aldi is set to open its first Louisiana store within the next two weeks, and the fast-growing supermarket chain said it will open three locations in metro New Orleans by the end of the year.

The company said it will open stores at 8855 Veterans Memorial Blvd. in Metairie, 137 Northshore Blvd. in Slidell and 31 Holiday Blvd. in Covington. Specific dates were not disclosed.

Aldi has been eyeing the New Orleans area for several years. In April 2019, the company bought a vacant Toys R Us building in Slidell for $2 million. A few months later, plans for a Marrero store in the old Belle Promenade Mall were filed with Jefferson Parish planning officials.

The company has also purchased land in Baton Rouge and Central and, like the Marrero location, posted that it was hiring trainee managers for stores at those locations. But Aldi officials said there was no information to share about when the stores in those cities would open.

An Aldi at 4510 Ambassador Caffery Parkway in Lafayette is set to open Feb. 10. Three more stores are planned for Acadiana: two in Lafayette and one in New Iberia.

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Aldi is building a $100 million regional headquarters and distribution hub in Loxley, Alabama, near Mobile. The warehouse should be completed at the end of the year, and Aldi said it will service up to 100 Gulf Coast locations. This would include stores in the southern parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, along with the Florida Panhandle.

Germany-based Aldi was founded in 1961 and entered the U.S. market in 1976. It has more than 2,100 stores in 37 states and said it is on track to become the nations third-largest grocery retailer in terms of location by the end of the year.

Its stores are popular among millennials and Generation Z. A sign in the store lists over 100 items customers wont find in their store brands  such as MSG and artificial items  and it also carries the LiveGFree brands that feature gluten-free items.

A typical store is about 12,000 square feet, much smaller than traditional supermarkets, and employ fewer than a dozen people.

This story has been changed since it was first published to correct the address of the Covington store, the number of Aldi locations in the U.S. and the size of a typical store.
Kenner police said they suspect drugs and alcohol played a role in a wrong-way crash on Airline Drive Saturday night that left three people dead.

The Jefferson Parish Coroner's Office identified the victims as Tavalyn Session, 45, of St. Rose; Willie Harris Jr., 67, of Terrytown; and Elvin Avila Torres, 39, of Destrehan.

Three dead, one in critical condition after car crash on Airline Highway, Kenner police say Three people died in a car accident in Kenner Saturday night after a car traveling south on Jackson Street was struck by a vehicle that witnes

A fourth victim, 31-year-old Destrehan man, was still in critical condition Monday, according to Lt. Michael Cunningham, a Kenner Police Department spokesperson.

Avila was driving a 2008 Nissan Armada east on Airline Drive about 10 p.m. with the surviving victim, who was his passenger.

At some point, Avila crossed into Airline Drive's oncoming, westbound lanes of traffic. Avila, who was speeding, swerved to avoid crashing head-on into a vehicle, according to Cunningham.

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When he veered to avoid that vehicle, he crashed into the 2007 Dodge Caliber that Harris was driving. Harris was sitting at a stop sign on Webster Street, waiting to cross southbound on Airline (map), Cunningham said. Session was a passenger in Harris' vehicle.

Kenner police had initially reported that the crash occurred at Airline and Jackson Street.

The force of the impact hurled the vehicles into a utility pole at the intersection, cutting power to thousands of residences and businesses in the area, according to authorities.

Avila, Harris and Session were pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are still investigating why Avila crossed into oncoming traffic, but Cunningham said drugs and alcohol are believed to be factors.
Qualifying for Kenner's March 26 political races begins Wednesday, but the rhetoric is already at midcampaign intensity.

The latest issue is disaster pay for employees.

Several city employees received the disaster pay in the days and weeks after Hurricane Ida, as detailed in a pair of reports from WVUE-TV and in one from The Times-Picayune. One employee, Chad Pitfield, a deputy chief administrative officer under Mayor Ben Zahn, who has made more than $80,000 in disaster pay on top of his $140,000 salary, has continued to earn disaster pay into December, according to a Thursday report from WVUE.

The issue exploded across Kenner-focused social media pages Thursday and Friday, where most of the outrage was aimed at Zahn. Zahn faces a stiff challenge in the mayor's race from current Police Chief Michael Glaser, who has the support of several Kenner City Council members.

Those divisions were on full display at Friday's council meeting. The meeting was marked by a lengthy and at-times emotional debate over hastily crafted legislation from at-large council member Tom Willmott that sought to limit the amount of disaster pay that employees can receive.

Because Willmott had not filed the legislation in time to get it on the agenda, it required all seven council members to agree to add it. Wilmott sought to have his ordinance added to agenda for introduction; it would not have been formally voted on until the next meeting Feb. 3.

Willmott's proposal would have limited the number of hours per day that an employee could claim and also limit the duration of disaster pay eligibility to five days unless a longer period was OK'd by the City Council.

"It's very disturbing when somebody gets paid more than $80,000," Wilmott said. "I don't care if it's a storm."

Citing the news coverage, Willmott said it was imperative the council act quickly.

But Zahn administration officials bristled. They disputed the report's implication that the payments went against the city's own policy. The extra pay, which the city expects to recoup from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has the blessing of city finance compliance contractors who are embedded with city officials, Chief Administrative Officer Deborah Foshee said.

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"I'm disturbed that a hit piece last night would be acted upon," Foshee said, adding, "show some respect for these guys, who worked literally around the clock.

Foshee wasn't the only one to criticize the TV report. Zahn also called it a hit piece.

"The alarming thing I see is that some don't want to pay our workers," Zahn said.

Most of the council members agreed with Willmott and wanted to introduce the item. But council member Mike Sigur, a Zahn ally and likely candidate for police chief, said that while he agreed with the intent, he wanted to move more slowly. He asked the city attorney, Zahn appointee Joyce Sallah, if she had seen it. She had not.

"We just have a reactionary piece of words on a paper," Sigur said. "From a story we don't even know if it's truthful."

The City Council should form for a committee to study the policy and make recommendations, Sigur added, allowing that his stance could set him up for political backlash.

"I think this is an issue that needs to be worked out," he said. "I just don't like this document."

Sigur voted against allowing Willmott's legislation to be introduced Friday, meaning it was not introduced. The next opportunity to introduce the legislation will be the Feb. 3 meeting, and it could be up for a vote Feb. 18.

Willmott, who is seeking reelection in March, said he would do exactly that.

"We need this desperately," he said. "It's something that needs to be corrected immediately."
Wind-whipped flames are marching across more of New Mexicos tinder-dry mountainsides, forcing the evacuation of area residents and dozens of patients from the state's psychiatric hospital as firefighters scramble to keep new wildfires from growing. The big blaze burning near the community of Las Vegas has charred more than 217 square miles. Residents in neighborhoods on the edge of Las Vegas were told to be ready to leave their homes. It's the biggest wildfire in the U.S. and is moving quickly through groves of ponderosa pine because of hot, dry and windy conditions that make for extreme wildfire danger. Forecasters are warning of extreme fire danger across New Mexico and in western Texas.
Williamsport, PA (17701)

Today

A steady rain this morning. Showers continuing this afternoon. High 68F. SSE winds shifting to WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 47F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Williamsport, Pa.  An inmate at Allenwood Low Security Correctional Institution pleaded guilty to possessing a cellphone in prison, according to the United States Attorneys Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Geraldo Rodriguez-Diaz, 27, was sentenced to two months imprisonment by U.S. Magistrate Judge William I. Arbuckle at the federal courthouse in Williamsport. His sentence will run consecutively to his current 10-year prison sentence for his involvement in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, according to a press release.

A corrections officer discovered a Samsung cellphone on Rodriguez-Diaz on May 10, 2021, when he was scanning the inmate with a handheld metal detector. Staff then searched Rodriguez-Diaz and found the cellphone hidden in a pocket stitched on the inside of his prison uniform, according to the release.

Federal law prohibits inmates from possessing cellphones due to the institutional security risks posed by their use.

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Education

Floyd County Schools to vote on speed cameras at called meeting Monday

Doug Walker, File RedSpeed traffic cameras are already located on Veterans Memorial Highway near Rome High School.

Floyd County Schools Board of Education will hold a called meeting at 7:30 a.m. Monday to discuss installing RedSpeed cameras near Armuchee Elementary School.

Capt. Ron Hunton of Floyd County Police Department will be giving a presentation on speeding along Martha Berry Highway, which is the second most common place for wrecks in the county.

The police department recommended the school system approve implementation of the speed cameras after seeing the success Rome Police Department had with their RedSpeed cameras along Veterans Memorial Highway near Rome Middle School and Rome High School.

Armuchee Elementary School was chosen over Armuchee High School since theres a traffic light in place already at the high school.

The school zone has a speed limit of 45 miles per hour during school hours, and for an hour before and after. However, multiple speeding surveys were conducted in that zone and found many drivers are going much faster.

With the RedSpeed cameras, anybody traveling 11 miles or more over the speed limit would be clocked and the owner of the vehicle fined. A citation would be mailed out by the company after the photo evidence is vetted by county police.

The initial speeding fine would be $75 after a warning; any subsequent fine would be $125. About 65% of the fines would go to Floyd County police and 35% would go to RedSpeed, the company that provides the cameras.

However, some of the school board members voiced some hesitation at a previous meeting over the cameras, saying they dont want to see the area become a speed trap.

Also at the called meeting, board members will be going into closed session to discuss personnel changes. Any action would have to be in open session.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 a.m. Monday in the superintendents office at 600 Riverside Parkway.
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Almost a month after its launch from Europe's Spaceport at Kourou, in French Guiana, NASA's signature James Webb Space Telescope project will be docking at its final destination in the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2. NASA will be streaming the telescope's parking efforts live on YouTube and take questions from viewers.

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NASA's signature achievement for this decade - the successful launch of its US$10 billion James Webb Space Telescope - will be entering a brand new stage today when the telescope is expected to dock at its final celestial destination and start the preparations to unfurl its mirror to commence sending to Earth imagery that no human eye has ever seen. Situated roughly 930,000 miles (~1.5 million kilometers) from here, the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 parking space has been carefully chosen so that the telescope uses a minimal amount of fuel to orbit it as it will be on an alignment trajectory between the Sun and our blue planet.

How to watch NASA's James Webb Space Telescope destination arrival live stream

NASA will be streaming the James Webb Space Telescope arrival at its final destination live at 3PM Eastern/12PM Pacific time, nearly a month after the star-gazer was launched from the Arianespace ELA-3 launchpad at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. NASA will start broadcasting the Space Telescope's final place in the universe about an hour after it has executed the crucial burn stage and there will be plenty of fan events to be had.

You will be able, for example, to ask question to two NASA representatives - Amber Straughn, the deputy project scientist for Webb communications at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and Scarlin Hernandez, a flight systems engineer from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore - directly. The event will be broadcast on the NASA Science Live website, as well as YouTube and all of the agency's social channels.

You can tune in at 3PM ET on YouTube at the video below as a number of NASA staff involved in the James Webb Space Telescope project will be commenting on the spot, and there will be a press conference an hour after the live stream with the following participants:

Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager, Goddard

Amy Lo, Webb vehicle engineering lead, Northrop Grumman

Keith Parrish, Webb observatory commissioning manager, Goddard

Jane Rigby, Webb operations project scientist, Goddard

Get the "James Webb Space Telescope: Future of Space Astronomy" book on Amazon
NTV News 24 is a service of Nippon Television, Japan's leading broadcasting network. This page provides a selection of today's stories in English.
HAMMOND  Downtown Hammond long bustled with grand department stores, movie palaces, restaurants and hotels.

Streetcars and jitneys used to whiz by back when it was still Northwest Indiana's most prominent shopping destination in the early part of the 20th century. People sometimes lined up down the block to get into Goldblatt's, E.C. Minas and other stores that have long since faded away.

The crowds have thinned out and the sidewalks have long since emptied after commercial activity migrated away, first to the Woodmar and River Oaks malls and then farther outward.

Now more of the downtown's historic landscape, much of which was built in the late 19th or early 20th century, faces demolition.

Two buildings that have lasted as fixtures of downtown Hammond for more than a century are coming down.

The Hammond National Insurance Co. building at 5248 Hohman Ave. is falling down, with chunks falling from upper stories. The city of Hammond has issued an emergency demolition order. And the Enslen, Enslen & Matthews building, formerly the Elks Lodge at 142 Rimbach St., also is fenced off awaiting the wrecking ball after an arson. The buildings could come down in weeks or even days.

The Hammond National Insurance Co. moved out of the three-story brick Hammond National Building a few years ago. The building, which has architectural flourishes like a retro black-and-silver sign on the street-level facade and an arched doorway, had been an anchor of downtown Hammond since the early 20th century.

"They have been in business since 1882 and their building is one of the best-looking structures remaining on Hohman," said Dave Mueller, the owner of the nearby Paul Henry's Art Gallery.

The fourth-generation family-owned firm that sells a variety of insurance products decamped to Schererville.

"After the owners abandoned the building, the roof started coming off," said David Dabertin with Dabertin Law Offices in downtown Hammond. "Now the south wall and the west wall along the alley are falling down."

The 23,000-square-foot building was constructed in 1911, according to the Lake County assessor's office. The brick office mid-rise also was previously occupied by Roff Hardware Co. and survived being gutted by a fire in 1922. Upper floors previously had been home to law offices.

An unsafe building notice has been posted on the door by Hammond city inspectors.

"Notice of emergency action concerning an unsafe premises in violation of the Hammond housing code/municipal code emergency order to demolish, and upon failure, notice of emergency order to demolish thereon requested by the Hammond inspections department," the notice addressed to the Hammond National Realty and Investment Corp. reads.

Hammond has closed off the road at Muenich Court to protect pedestrians and drives from falling debris. Many of the upper-story windows have been boarded up.

"The property was sold at tax sale and neither the tax sale buyers nor the old owners want anything to do with it," Dabertin said. "I understand that the emergency demolition order was issued last week and that it will come down in the next few weeks. What was really interesting is that when the company moved out, they left all of their stuff on their desks. You could look in and see coffee cups, paperwork and even dried-up houseplants that had been left just the way they were on the day they walked out."

It's just the latest in a string of closures to afflict the downtown, where Franciscan Health also plans to radically downsize the former St. Margaret Hospital to about a tenth of the size.

"It is getting really, really lonely in downtown Hammond," Dabertin said. "Between the fires (Jupiter, Enslen, Straube) and the mold (NIPSCO, Basic Business Products) and the just plain lack of interest (Mercantile, Aquavor, LaSalle Hotel), we really won't have much left here soon."

More than a century old, the two-story law firm building on Rimbach Street was long home to an Elks Lodge and later Obies Catering and a few restaurants. After the fire, it's crumbled into a shell of a building with heaps of piled-up bricks and the skeletal steel frame exposed to the elements.

The door to a second-story fire escape eerily flaps open and closed in the wind.

"I might note that when I first moved here in 1983 it was called McGees, a bar/restaurant, though closed when I checked it out on my first day," Hammond Historical Society President Curtis Vosti said. "And later after Club Soda, circa late 1990s, early 2000s, it was a tasty restaurant whose name I cant remember, with live music on occasion."

Hammond's downtown is losing more historical structures. But the city has been working with urban planner Jeff Speck to try to revitalize the former commercial hub, such as by slowing traffic on Hohman Avenue and trying to encourage more pedestrian activity. Three private developers are bringing in housing projects, including by redeveloping the former Bank Calumet building.

The South Shore Line also plans to open a new station downtown as it extends service farther south in Lake County to Munster and Dyer as part of its West Lake extension project.

Much of the revitalization plans rests on the idea of building on downtown Hammond's historic "bones."

Losing the former 100-year-old Elks building that housed a longstanding and eminent Hammond law firm is another setback, but downtown Hammond retains a strong history, a certain dynamic, and is up for the challenge," Vosti said.

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Generations of Region residents clambered to the top of Mount Baldy, a towering vantage point from which they could see miles around.

The sandy mountain in the Indiana Dunes State Park has been closed to the general public since 2013, when it swallowed a young boy and scientists discovered it was riddled with sinkholes from trees it ate that eventually decayed, leaving behind vacant cavities that could turn into quicksand underneath unsuspecting hikers.

Fencing and signs haven't stopped everyone from climbing to the top of the famous sand dune in Michigan City, but the National Parks Service tries to limit access to guided tours park rangers lead throughout the year along paths that have been deemed safe by radar surveys.

The Indiana Dunes National Park will lead a guided winter hike from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 30.

"Even though the dune is closed for general public use, this ranger-led tour will allow visitors to experience the beauty and spectacular views from the tallest dune in the national park," Supervisory Park Ranger Bruce Rowe said. "No reservation is required. We will hold the hike regardless of weather conditions and are hoping for a snowy winter wonderland."

No reservations are required. Anyone interested should just show up before 1 p.m. at the Mount Baldy parking lot just off U.S. Highway 12 west of Michigan City.

It's one of more than two dozen sites at the 15,000-acre National Park, which encompasses beaches, woods, prairies, marshes and more than 1,100 plant species. More than 3 million people a year visit the Indiana Dunes, which stretches across 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline.

For more information, call 219-395-1882, visit nps.gov/indu or go to facebook.com/IndianaDunesNPS.

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CROWN POINT  Attorneys for Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. have filed a motion to strike the appearance of the special prosecutor who oversaw an investigation that led to the sheriff's indictment on felony resisting law enforcement and misdemeanor reckless driving charges.

Special Prosecuting Attorney Stanley Levco was appointed for purposes of the investigation, but he was not authorized to prosecute the charges returned Jan. 6 by a Lake Criminal Court grand jury, defense attorneys Paul Stracci and Michael Woods wrote.

After the indictment was returned, Levco withdrew his appearance in grand jury investigation and entered his appearance in the case against Martinez. The defense said the Lake County prosecutor's office has not petitioned Judge Salvador Vasquez to extend Levco's term extended, nor have any orders been entered.

The defense also argued Levco did not file a report upon completion of his investigation, which is legally required because the target of the investigation  Martinez  is a public servant.

Stracci and Woods also asked Special Judge Jeryl Leach, who presides over Newton Circuit Court, to deny Levco's motion to appoint co-counsel in the case.

Levco has not yet filed a written response to the defense motion. A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday.

Martinez, who was appointed sheriff in 2017 after former Sheriff John Buncich was removed from office following federal bribery and fraud convictions, denied allegations in the indictment and pointed out he's not accused of political corruption.

Martinez said the allegations don't prevent him from holding office, and he characterized the indictment as a "political witch hunt" by a "rival politician."

The late Judge Diane Boswell initially appointed Levco on Sept. 27 in response to a petition from the Lake County prosecutor's office, which stated, "Information has been presented by the Lake County Board of Commissioners requesting an investigation by the Indiana State Police regarding possible criminal charges arising out of the use of a county-owned vehicle." The vehicle was described as a Jeep TrackHawk.

The allegations that led to the indictment stem from events late Sept. 18 in Crown Point and Merrillville.

The indictment alleges Martinez resisted law enforcement by "knowingly or intentionally" fleeing from Crown Point police Sgt. James Poling and Patrolman Dan Lee after they turned on their lights and sirens, "identified themselves and ordered" Martinez to stop.

The reckless driving count, which is a Class C misdemeanor, alleges Martinez recklessly operated "a motor vehicle by driving at such an unreasonably high rate of speed as to endanger the safety or property of others."

Crown Point police said in a news release issued shortly after the incident that officers were on a traffic stop about 11:30 p.m. Sept. 18 in the 9000 block of Taft Street when a driver in a black SUV passed by them at "well above the 45 mph posted limit."

The officers chased the SUV west on U.S. 30, but they disregarded their actions after the driver "activated emergency red and blue lights, giving notice that it was an unmarked car."

Crown Point police did not request any assistance from other agencies at that time, because the identity of the driver and specific nature of any police calls were unknown, the release said.

The investigation was turned over to Indiana State Police at the Fort Wayne post in October, Levco previously said.

Levco requested co-counsel in the case, in part, because "presentation of evidence potentially to a court or jury could be technical and complex," according to court filings.

Stracci and Woods wrote the case stems from alleged driving violations and no part of the "charges on their face is particularly complex, technical or voluminous."

The defense wrote, "The taxpayers of Lake County should not be burdened with paying the hourly equivalent of two full-time prosecutors absent a specific showing that the case is sufficiently voluminous or complex (and) that additional counsel is necessary to effectively try the case."

In a separate legal filing, the defense signaled its intention to serve subpoenas on Paul Goddard and his business, Region News Source; the Crown Point Police Department; the Lake County commissioners; the Sheriff's Department; more than a dozen businesses with security cameras in Crown Point and Merrillville; and more.

Levco has not yet responded to Martinez's notice of third-party subpoenas.

In addition to security footage from Buddy & Pals Place, 1206 E. Summit St. in Crown Point, the defense intends to seek receipts for all of the business's patrons from 9:30 to 11:30 p.m. Sept. 18, the notice shows.

Martinez's attorneys want Goddard to turn over all videos and photographs of Sheriff's Department Jeep TrackHawks taken between June 1 and Jan. 5, along with any and all video recordings made of Martinez or his vehicle Sept. 18.

The defense intends to subpoena the Crown Point Police Department for any documents showing the identity of an anonymous tipster or communications between Poling and the tipster, who directed Poling to Karma Cigar Bar in Merrillville between 11:30 p.m. Sept. 18 and 1:30 a.m. Sept. 19, the notice states.

Defense attorneys also are seeking to review Poling's disciplinary records, copies of Poling's and Lee's radio traffic from midnight Sept. 18 to 1:30 a.m. Sept. 19 and Poling's phone records during that time period.

Martinez's attorneys want county commissioners to produce copies of any correspondent between Commissioner Michael Repay and his agents, including the county attorney, and the Lake County prosecutor's office regarding the use of county vehicles by the Sheriff's Department between Aug. 1 and Jan. 10. The defense also wants to see any correspondence between Repay and Levco regarding the use of county vehicles during the same time period.

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Woburn, MA (01801)

Today

Showers this morning becoming a steady light rain during the afternoon hours. High 54F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low 48F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
After a day of snowfall and snarled traffic Monday, a strong cold front arrived in the evening, ushering in low temperatures ranging from the low single digits in Lake County to around 10 degrees in LaPorte County.

With winds still gusting around 20 mph, "feels like" temperatures will range from zero to minus 10 by early Tuesday morning.

High temperatures Tuesday will only range from 10 to 15 degrees across the Region. Wind gusts will still be around 20 mph, keeping wind chills no higher than 0 degrees.

Late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning will be the worst. During this time, temperatures will range from zero to as cold as minus 10 across the Region. Winds around 15 mph will cause "feels like" temperatures to range from minus 10 to minus 20. With temperatures this cold, extra layers, hats and gloves will be a must if venturing outside.

Wednesday afternoon will see high temperatures reach around 10 degrees in Northwest Indiana, but wind chills will likely remain below zero throughout the day. It's possible some locations won't see "feels like" temperatures above zero again until Thursday when high temperatures will finally be closer to normal for this time of year in the upper 20s.

On Monday, heavy snow caused numerous slide-offs, spin-outs and crashes Monday on Northwest Indiana roads, officials said.

Indiana State Police troopers went "from crash to crash to slide-off" Monday morning, according to the Lowell post.

Indiana Department of Transportation cameras showed multiple traffic issues along Interstate 80/94 in Lake County.

Multiple semitrailers jackknifed on Interstate 65 in Remington, Sgt. Glen Fifield said.

"Several of these crashes and slide-offs could have been easily prevented," police said.

INDOT's Northwest District said its snowplows were out overnight Sunday into Monday clearing state highways, but with morning snow falling the roads remained slick.

Drivers should expect conditions to deteriorate when snow falls, the department said.

All lanes of U.S. 30 between Valparaiso and Wanatah were blocked Monday morning because of an overturned semi, INDOT said.

A semitrailer jackknifed and went into a ditch about 2:30 a.m. on U.S. 30, east of County Road 575 East and west of the LaPorte County line, Porter County sheriff's police said.

Lake, Newton and Jasper counties were under a travel advisory, according to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security.

An advisory "means that routine travel or activities may be restricted in areas because of a hazardous situation, and individuals should use caution or avoid those areas."

While Monday night was dry across Lake, Newton and Jasper counties, lake-effect snow was still expected across northeastern Porter County and LaPorte County. The snow will gradually die down in intensity before exiting the area completely by early afternoon Tuesday. Additional snowfall amounts of 0.5 to 2.5 inches are expected across northeastern Porter and LaPorte counties through Tuesday morning, with the highest totals across northeastern LaPorte County. Based on this, the winter weather advisory has been canceled for most of the Region but continues for LaPorte County until noon Tuesday.

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MERRILLVILLE  The Merrillville Police Department is acquiring more equipment to help address crime.

Like other area communities, the department recently purchased license plate readers, and more could be coming to the community.

We have them at four sites consisting of nine cameras, Police Chief Wiley Luther Cuttino said. Our goal is to have six sites consisting of 16 cameras. We're also going to have two mobile vehicles that are going to be able to move around and detect certain things as well.

The readers collect license plate numbers from vehicles. Police are notified when a plate is located from a car that has been reported stolen or when the plate is associated with other crimes.

Cuttino said the readers can help officers address crimes in a safer manner.

Theres been an uptick on pursuits throughout Northwest Indiana, he said. If you can find a vehicle thats stationary ... and you can seize that vehicle before its mobile, you can probably save a lot of lives (by reducing) those pursuits.

As the department is acquiring the license plate readers, its also starting a new unit.

Cuttino said that the department recently formed the Merrillville Tactical Apprehension Squad and that a vehicle has been ordered for that unit.

That team is up and running, and theyre doing an excellent job, Cuttino said.

Merrillville had been receiving tactical support from the Northwest Regional SWAT team, but that unit is no longer full-time in the town, Cuttino said.

The Northwest Regional SWAT team is made up of officers from multiple local departments and covers several municipalities in Lake County.

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MICHIGAN CITY  Demolition of the old South Shore Line station on 11th Street will mean intermittent closures for westbound traffic, the Board of Public Works and Safety decided.

Dave Merkel, vice president and director of project management for Larson-Danielson Construction, said the closures would be during the week of Jan. 31.

Theres no intention for debris to be falling in the public right of way, he said, but the fence is only 8 feet from the building. He wants to make sure no one is affected if a stray brick or something goes the wrong direction.

Barricades at Pine and 11th streets would be put in place when the road is to be closed, and there would be a Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District flagger on site to communicate with trains.

Mayor Duane Parry said Planning and Inspection Director Skyler York told him the brick behind the terra-cotta facade was unstable. It was held in place by the terra-cotta, so it was boxed in, he said.

Parry asked for an immediate closure.

Merkel said that he had a crew on the scaffolding pushing loose bricks into the building, so he didnt see an immediate need to close the street.

The iconic terra-cotta facade was removed so it can be reused when the new station is built.

City Engineer Jeff Wright said he agrees with the idea of intermittent lane closures for the demolition. Closing a lane doesnt seem to be like a big deal. We close lanes all the time.

However, he wanted more details. I need more than just words and a piece of paper and an application sent to the board. I need a plan.

The board approved the lane closure pending review by Wright.

In other business, the city and the sanitary district will see worker compensation insurance costs jump 11%.

Charlie Keene, of General Insurance Services, said that while the worker compensation program is self-funded, the city will pay $267,222.20 for insurance that protects the city form catastrophic claims and excess claims.

One of the reasons for the increase is that a 2018 claim is ongoing. Another is that there are just two insurance companies who handle this type of insurance for municipalities. Then there are social trends that have contributed to an increase of claims nationally.

Police and fire have a much higher degree of uncertainty in their jobs just because of the elements of their jobs theyre faced with in their day-to-day duties, he said. Underwriters are generally nervous people when it comes to police and fire.

The board reelected Virginia Keating as president and elected new member Michael Vinson as vice president.

Councilman Don Przybylinski, D-at large, brought up four issues: wrong-way drivers on Franklin Street in the arts district, where the road is one-way for northbound traffic; drivers blowing front tires because they cant see the traffic island when theres a snowfall; faint lane markings on Franklin; and a lack of ADA-compliant sidewalk crossings downtown.

Wright said he would ride around with Przybylinski so they could see what needs to be done to address the issues.

Last year, the city installed 151 of the colored plates with truncated domes that alert people with limited vision that theyre about to cross a street, Wright said.

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HAMMOND  U.S. Steel, Chicago and Surfrider Foundation have asked a U.S. District Court judge to lift a stay in their civil lawsuit, but the steelmaker and Chicago and Surfrider disagree on how to proceed.

The legal filings come nearly five months after U.S. District Chief Judge Jon DeGuilio entered a consent decree for the U.S. Steel Midwest plant in Portage stemming from wastewater permit violations.

U.S. Steel asked for permission to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, but attorneys for Surfrider Foundation are seeking leave to file an amended complaint.

Surfrider Foundation and Chicago sued U.S. Steel in January 2018 over an April 2017 hexavalent chromium spill and multiple other Clean Water Act violations, and their civil lawsuits were later consolidated into a single case.

Hexavalent chromium, the chemical featured in the movie "Erin Brockovich," is a carcinogen and can be harmful to the eyes, skin and respiratory system, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

U.S. Steel's Midwest plant spilled 300 pounds of hexavalent chromium  or 584 times the daily maximum limit allowed under state permitting laws  into the Burns Waterway in April 2017. The discharged forced the closure of Indiana American Water's Ogden Dunes intake facility multiple beaches at Indiana Dunes National Park and other locations along the Lake Michigan shore.

Indiana and the U.S. government filed a proposed consent decree in April 2018. A short time later, Surfrider and Chicago agreed to a stay in their civil lawsuit and were granted permission to intervene in the government's consent decree case.

In late August, DeGuilio approved a revised consent decree after finding it to be fair and reasonable and negotiated in good faith. The judge denied Surfrider and Chicago's motions for an evidentiary hearing or oral argument in the government's case.

"The government plaintiffs, with extensive public feedback, created and got U.S. Steel to agree to a consent decree that addresses the root causes of the violations listed in the complaint and has already led the facility back toward compliance with its (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit even without being fully enforceable," the judge wrote.

In their latest legal filing, Surfrider attorneys at the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School wrote that the root causes of U.S. Steel Midwest's wastewater violations have not been fully addressed.

"Evidence of the defendant's continued failure to comply with the (Clean Water Act) is as 'obvious' as the bright rusty stain on Lake Michigan caused by the defendant in late September 2021," the attorneys wrote.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management concluded U.S. Steel Midwest violated its permit Sept. 26 when it discharged wastewater containing elevated levels of iron into the Burns Waterway, about 1,000 feet from Lake Michigan, records show. The steelmaker again violated its permit when it spilled oil from the same outfall Oct. 7, state and federal officials concluded.

In a letter dated Dec. 14, attorneys for U.S. Department of Justice said the federal government and state of Indiana were still considering whether to demand stipulated penalties under the consent decree for the discharges in September and October.

Attorneys for U.S. Steel asked the U.S. District Court judge to grant them leave to file a motion to dismiss the Surfrider and Chicago's lawsuit.

They argued the approval of the consent decree was a final judgment, the plaintiffs did not file an appeal and claims in Surfrider and Chicago's civil lawsuit are now precluded.

Surfrider Foundation attorneys wrote the judge must consider up-to-date evidence, including wastewater violations that occurred after the lodging of the consent decree, when determining whether their claims are precluded.

The foundation's attorneys asked DeGuilio to grant them leave to file an amended complaint, which would include new claims linked to wastewater violations after approval of the consent decree but would forgo other claims litigated as part of the consent decree.

The parties will have an opportunity to respond to each other's filings before DeGuilio issues a decision.

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A report Dr. Criswell published last year with Dr. Xavier Mariette in The New England Journal of Medicine listed possible manifestations of Sjogrens in lymph nodes, lungs, kidneys, muscles, nervous system, skin and brain, as well as various glands and joints. Some patients experience constitutional symptoms like fever, involuntary weight loss or night sweats.

Since dental health requires saliva, Ms. Divinagracia was wisely advised by the rheumatologist to see her dentist, who told her to always brush after eating, floss twice a day, suck on sugar-free lozenges and drink water all day to reduce the risk of rampant dental decay and tooth loss.

For someone as active as she has been for decades, the bouts of fatigue that usually accompany Sjogrens are especially hard to take. I could sleep for eight hours and wake up feeling like I hadnt slept at all, she said. Or sometimes the fatigue will hit in the afternoon when Im supposed to be starting supper for the family.

As life-disrupting as the syndrome can be, its worst possible consequence is the occurrence of B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system that afflicts 5 percent to10 percent of those with primary Sjogrens, a risk 15 to 20 times higher than in the general population. Blood tests every year or two to check for lymphoma are recommended, especially for patients with severe disease, and swollen lymph nodes should be assessed without delay.

Ideally, patients are best managed by a medical team. Dr. R. Hal Scofield, a Sjogrens specialist at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, where patients are seen by a rheumatologist, dentist and eye doctor, runs one of the few multidisciplinary clinics in the country.

Ms. Divinagracia, who knows coordinated treatment can help to minimize symptoms and slow progression, said shed have to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco to get to a Sjogrens clinic. However, she has taken a proactive approach to learn about the disease, reduce expenses and limit distressing side effects of treatment. She also joined a Sjogrens support group through the Sjogrens Syndrome Foundation.

My list of medications is a mile long, and most have to be taken several times a day, she said. One of the drugs prescribed, Restasis, is so expensive she got a prescription for a generic form available in Canada but not in the United States.
It all happened so fast.

Just a few weeks before Taliban militants triumphantly strode into Kabul last month without a fight as the U.S.-backed government collapsed, the capital seemed a world away from the extremist groups severe view of an Islamic society. As the weeks went by, however, there were gathering signs of impending crisis, soon to be etched in the faces of concerned Afghans who ultimately decided they had no choice but to flee.

Tyler Hicks, a New York Times photographer, has captured the arc of the Afghanistan conflict through at least 30 assignments since the American-led invasion in 2001 that routed the Taliban. In July he traveled to the western city of Herat, the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and the capital of Kabul just weeks before the cities fell, when the anxiety about a Taliban takeover was intensifying. Following is his chronicle of those critical weeks.
Anderson modeled Christine on his own mother, Ora Zella Anderson, a woman he lovingly described as a passive-aggressive Midwesterner. His 2018 book, Hey Mom, was about lessons he learned from his mother, but you neednt look further than his Baskets performance to see the impact Ora had on him.

Anderson was a man portraying a woman, but he eschewed some of the more well-trodden tropes of drag. This was not Divine in Hairspray or Polyester, playing a housewife turned up to 11. Andersons performance was earthier and more sensitive, but equally impactful.

Christines wardrobe  a meticulously realistic selection of costume jewelry and dressy casuals that seemed culled from the plus-size offerings of retail chains  is a much subtler form of camp than youll find on RuPauls Drag Race. Anderson told Terry Gross on NPRs Fresh Air that he handpicked his dresses with his mother and sisters in mind.

To be sure, Christine Baskets was ridiculous. When she goes to Denver for the first time, she immediately tells the airport cabby I love Denver! After she buys a rodeo, she proudly puts a nameplate on her desk that reads Ro-de-Owner. She is shocked that a Black stranger isnt as interested in visiting the Reagan Library as she is.

But we laugh with her as much as we laugh at her, and we root for her as much as we cringe. Its the kind of laughter you share with your sibling when your mother does something embarrassing: You love her, but oh my God, are you kidding me?

Christine was the butt of jokes, but she was nobodys fool. In Uncle Dad, an episode from Season 1, Christine gives a tour of Bakersfield to Penelope, a Frenchwoman whose interest in marrying Chip goes only as far as a green card. One stop is Costco, the bulk retailer that was featured prominently in several episodes of Baskets even though it wasnt actually a sponsor.
LONDON  Only days ago, Unilever suffered a big defeat when it was forced to drop its $68 billion bid for GlaxoSmithKlines consumer health business.

Now it must deal with one of Wall Streets most prominent activist investors, Nelson Peltz, who has amassed a stake in the consumer products giant via his investment firm, Trian Fund Management, two people briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

It is unclear how much of a stake Trian owns or what it is calling for, though one of the people said the firm had begun buying shares in Unilever before the companys pursuit of the GlaxoSmithKline business became public.

Representatives for Unilever and Trian declined to comment on the investment, which was first reported by The Financial Times.
In a setback for the Kerala government, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain its plea to extend the time to complete the trial in the actor rape case, involving Malayalam actor Dileep, who is allegedly accused of being the chief conspirator of the crime.

A bench comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravikumar said such a demand can be made only by the trial judge and the judge can also submit a report before the top court seeking extension, if it is felt necessary.

Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, representing the Kerala government, sought 6 months more time, as the existing deadline to complete the trial is February 16. But, the bench made it clear that it will not grant the extension, at the instance of the Kerala government.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Dileep, opposed the Kerala government plea and submitted that the state government is trying to delay the trial. He vehemently argued that the time to complete the trial had already been extended several times.

He argued that after the examination of 200 witnesses, another man came with a fresh set of allegations, when the trial in the matter is about to complete.

The bench orally observed that it will not pass an order at the instance of the state government and disposed of the application. "We leave it at the discretion of the trial court to take an appropriate view in this matter...".

Rohatgi pointed out all the extensions in the trial were on the basis of the request made by the sessions judge and not by any of the parties. He added that the state government is not justified in seeking extension of time and it is for the judge concerned to seek extension of time, if he thinks it is required.

At the end of the hearing, Gupta urged the top court to keep the state government application pending, which was opposed by Rohatgi. The bench noted that if it is kept pending, then it will give a different meaning. Rohatgi said the state government is conducting a media trial against his client.
Employees at an REI store in Manhattan filed for a union election on Friday, making the outdoor equipment and apparel retailer the latest prominent service-industry employer whose workers have sought to unionize.

Amazon employees in Bessemer, Ala., rejected a union in an election last year, though the National Labor Relations Board later threw out the result, citing improprieties on the part of the company, and ordered a new election to begin next month.

In December, workers at two Starbucks stores in Buffalo voted to unionize, making them the only company-owned Starbucks locations in the country with a union. Employees at about 20 other Starbucks have since filed for union elections.

The filing at the REI store in SoHo asked the labor board for an election involving about 115 employees, who are seeking to be represented by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the same union that has overseen the union campaign at the Amazon warehouse in Alabama.
The continued prevalence of incandescent bulbs in the United States is one result of a successful effort during the Trump presidency, by an industry group representing the worlds biggest light-bulb makers, to stall energy efficiency standards in the United States. By contrast, in the European Union, those same companies have adhered to a phaseout of incandescent bulbs.

The delay has enabled manufacturers to prolong profits from an inefficient technology, often at the expense of lower-income households, which end up having to replace the short-lived bulbs more frequently, while also paying more to power them.

For the worlds biggest manufacturers  like Signify, the Dutch multinational that makes Philips light bulbs  that is a lucrative strategy. Signifys financial reports show that profit margins for conventional lighting are significantly higher than for its LED business. In its corporate reports, Signify has called extracting value from its conventional lighting a cash engine for the company.

Thats partly because investment in manufacturing equipment has long been paid off (incandescent bulbs have been around for more than a century) and there is relatively little competition. The LED market, on the other hand, has attracted new manufacturers and has become far more competitive.

Incandescent bulbs were supposed to be phased out in the United States beginning a decade ago. While the older types of incandescent bulbs have mostly disappeared, the halogen-filled types, which are not much better though they are often marketed as environmentally friendly, are still easy to find everywhere from dollar stores to big-box hardware chains.
Already, Mr. Adams has received praise for showing up.

After the mayor led a discussion on gun violence at an elementary school in the Fordham section of the Bronx, Representative Adriano Espaillat said on Saturday that mayors rarely visited that neighborhood.

This neighborhood is in high need of help and the mayor was here yesterday, and hes here today and I was with him last night at Harlem Hospital, he said of the hospital where Officer Rivera was taken.

Questions over policing, homelessness and mental illness were front and center during the competitive Democratic primary for mayor last year. Mr. Adams criticized the defund the police movement and argued that he was the only candidate who could balance public safety and police reform. Other candidates took issue with Mr. Adamss positions on the plainclothes unit and his comments that stop and frisk policing could be a useful tool in some cases.

Tiffany Caban, a left-leaning new City Council member from Queens, said she was worried about the return of the aggressive unit.

Im deeply, deeply concerned that the mayor has expressed interest in bringing back the plainclothes unit, because the unit has done a ton of harm, she said in an interview, adding that it was involved in high profile police killings like Eric Garners in Staten Island in 2014.

But she added that she was also incredibly encouraged to hear the mayor talk about violence interrupters as being a central part of the strategy moving forward.

Camille Rivera, a Democratic strategist, said that some New Yorkers were nervous about the return of the police unit.
The Crystal Symphony left Miami on Jan. 8, as scheduled, on a two-week cruise. On the way back, things took an unexpected turn.

The ship was scheduled to arrive in Miami on Saturday, but mid-trip, a United States federal judge ordered the cruise ship seized over a lawsuit regarding unpaid fuel bills. The ship changed course for Bimini, in the Bahamas, according to a cruise tracker, rather than sail into the clutches of federal authorities.

Those on the cruise were provided with an extra night of accommodations, and on Sunday, the passengers were taken by ferry to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Crystal Cruises said in a statement. The ferry ride, the company added, was uncomfortable due to inclement weather.

This end to the cruise was not the conclusion to our guests vacation we originally planned for, the company said.
The discussions came as the State Department ordered all family members of U.S. embassy personnel in Kyiv to leave Ukraine, citing the threat of Russian military action, and authorized some embassy employees to depart as well, according to senior State Department officials who briefed reporters on Sunday. The officials, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, declined to say how many embassy personnel and family members were in the country. Thinning out staff at American embassies is a common precaution when conflicts or other crises arise that could put American diplomats in harms way.

In his news conference last week, Mr. Biden said he had cautioned Mr. Putin that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would prompt Washington to send more troops to the region.

Were going to actually increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, et cetera, if in fact he moves, Mr. Biden said. They are part of NATO.

During a phone call this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III warned his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoygu, that a Russian incursion into Ukraine would most likely result in the exact troop buildup that Mr. Biden is now considering.

At the time of the phone call  Jan. 6  the Biden administration was still trying to be more restrained in its stance on Ukraine. But after unsuccessful talks between Mr. Blinken and the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on Friday, the administration is eying a more muscular posture, including not only diplomatic options like sanctions, but military options like increasing military support to Ukrainian forces and deploying American troops to the region.

This is clearly in response to the sudden stationing of Russian forces in Belarus, on the border, essentially, with NATO, said Evelyn Farkas, the top Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine during the Obama administration. There is no way that NATO could not reply to such a sudden military move in this political context. The Kremlin needs to understand that they are only escalating the situation with all of these deployments and increasing the danger to all parties, including themselves.

A former top Pentagon official for Europe and NATO policy, Jim Townsend, said the administrations proposal did not go far enough.
In Virginia, the attorney general oversees a range of lawyers across the state, including the top lawyers at the colleges and universities that make up the vast public higher education system. The posts are typically held by career lawyers who are rarely replaced when new attorneys general take over.

In addition to dismissing Mr. Heaphy, Mr. Miyares also had the top lawyer at George Mason University removed.

Mr. Heaphy, a Democrat who has made political donations to Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr., had been the top lawyer at the University of Virginia since 2018. He served as a United States attorney in Virginia during the Obama administration and is married to the daughter of Eric K. Shinseki, the retired chief of staff of the Army who served as President Barack Obamas secretary of veterans affairs. In 2017, on behalf of the City of Charlottesville, he completed a highly critical report of how the police handled the white nationalist rally that turned violent and led to the death of one woman and injured dozens.

In a written statement, the University of Virginia sidestepped the issue of whether his dismissal had been motivated by politics, but made clear that it had no role in it.

University leaders are grateful to Tim for his outstanding service to our community and disappointed to see it come to an end, said Brian Coy, a spokesman for the university. If you have further questions about this matter, I would check with the attorney generals office, as this was their decision to make.
The U.S. Embassy in neighboring Minsk, Belarus, issued a new alert on Sunday night also urging Americans to stay away from public demonstrations and consider leaving the country amid reports of further unusual Russian military activity near Ukraines borders, including the border with Belarus. Last week, State Department officials accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of moving troops, tanks and other equipment into Belarus and positioning them to invade Ukraine under the guise of conducting military exercises.

Britain on Saturday accused Mr. Putin of plotting to replace Ukraines government with pro-Russian leaders, and the State Department has warned that Moscow could be planting false intelligence that could later be used to justify an invasion.

President Biden has been weighing several options that could expand Americas military presence in the region, including the deployment of several thousand U.S. troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe.

William Taylor, a retired veteran diplomat who served twice as ambassador to Ukraine, said in an interview that he was not surprised by the State Departments decision. He said that conversations about a potential evacuation had been taking place for one to two months between the embassy and State Department headquarters in Washington.

I think this is a prudent step, he said. On the Russian side, theres the continued buildup, the continued massing of troops. He pointed out that the Russian military has missiles that can reach across Ukraine and weapons that can lob artillery shells deep into Ukraine.

And tensions could rise in the next week as the Biden administration steps up deterrence measures, said Mr. Taylor, who was most recently ambassador under President Donald J. Trump and testified in the former presidents first impeachment hearing, which was centered on a pressure campaign by Mr. Trump involving Ukraine.

The State Department occasionally thins out staff at American embassies and consulates as a precaution when conflicts or other crises arise that could put U.S. diplomats in harms way.
When Education Secretary Miguel Cardona appeared before Congress in September to promote the Biden administrations stimulus funding for schools, he promised tutoring to help students make up missed learning, as well as an end to instruction through screens.

Not only as an educator, but as a father, I can tell you that learning in front of a computer is no substitute for in-person learning, he said.

The stimulus bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, will send $122 billion to schools over three years, and a sizable portion of that money will go toward tutoring. But because of labor shortages, the high cost of quality tutoring and the influence of a growing ed-tech industry, much of the tutoring will take place through a computer screen  and not always with a human on the other end.

The idea of online tutoring as a fix confounds me, said Laura Vaughan, a parent in Montgomery County, Md., a suburb of Washington that had some of the nations longest school closures. Just watching my son trying to pay attention to virtual anything is hard, she said.
Video The military in Burkina Faso announced a takeover of the West African nation. Soldiers ousted its democratically elected president and suspended the Constitution. Credit Credit... Malin Fezehai for The New York Times

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso  The military announced Monday that it had seized power in Burkina Faso, suspending the Constitution and ousting the countrys democratically elected president hours after mutinous soldiers surrounded his home.

President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, 64, had been leading Burkina Faso, a poor, landlocked country in Western Africa, since 2015. But he faced growing criticism from civilians and the military alike over his governments inability to beat back the Islamist insurgents creating havoc in this nation of 21 million people.

Burkina Faso had remained largely peaceful until 2015. But that year, militant groups launched a violent campaign as part of a broader upheaval in the Sahel, the vast stretch of land just south of the Sahara.

The violence has destabilized large swaths of Burkina Faso, displacing 1.4 million people and causing 2,000 deaths just last year alone. And it led to mounting public frustration with Mr. Kabore, who, younger people, especially, faulted for the governments failure to stem the tide of violence.

Image President Roch Marc Christian Kabore in 2020. Credit... Olympia De Maismont/Agence France-Presse  Getty Images

In the past year, there has been a flurry of coups in Africa, the greatest concentration in years, with takeovers in Guinea, Sudan, Chad and Mali.

The coup in Burkina Faso was announced on state television late Monday afternoon by a junior army officer who said the army had seized power in response to the exasperation of the people. Beside him sat Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, a senior military officer who was introduced to the people of Burkina Faso as their new head of state.

The military said the nations land and air borders would be closed, and a nightly curfew imposed until further notice.

There was no mention of Mr. Kabores whereabouts and no indication that he had agreed to step down. The authorities have been captured without bloodshed and are being kept in a secure place, the soldier said.

The militarys announcement came after a turbulent day in Burkina Faso.

On Sunday, soldiers seized several military bases and the riot police clashed with civilian protesters. In the evening, shots were heard near the presidents home, lasting into the early hours of Monday, setting off hours of uncertainty amid reports that the military was pressuring the president to resign.

In the afternoon, a tweet had appeared on President Kabores account that asked people to stand fast behind their tottering democracy. Our country is going through a difficult time, he wrote, urging mutinying soldiers to lay down their arms.

Image Members of the military announcing the takeover on state television on Monday. Credit... Radio Television Du Burkina, via Agence France-Presse  Getty Images

Public support for the mutiny was driven by a perception that Mr. Kabore was incapable of beating back the Islamist groups that have been spreading mayhem for so long, said Rinaldo Depagne, an expert on Burkina Faso at the International Crisis Group.

Hes not absolutely awful and corrupt, Mr. Depagne said of the deposed leader. But its obvious that people think, rightly or wrongly, that a man in uniform with a big gun is better able to protect them than a democratically elected president.

Image Tires burning in in Ouagadougou on Sunday. Credit... Malin Fezehai for The New York Times

Mr. Damiba blamed the president for his own downfall, saying he failed to unite people against the rising tide of Islamist violence.

The country has been fractured, he said. Instead of uniting people, Roch divided them, which allowed the jihadists to attack us. Its his fault.

Blame has also fallen squarely on the former colonial power, France, which has deployed troops to the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso, in an effort to counter Islamist attacks, although the situation continues to deteriorate.
The French adventurer Jean-Jacques Savin has disappeared while attempting to row solo across the Atlantic, according to a statement on Sunday from the Portuguese Navy, which said his boat was found overturned on Saturday near the Azores.

Mr. Savins support team initially said that he had died and that his lifeless body was found in the boat by Portuguese officials.

But later on Sunday the Portuguese Navy said Mr. Savins boat had been found, but not his body. The search for the man ended at the end of the day yesterday, without it being possible to find the victim, the Navy said in a statement. One of the merchant ships collected a waterproof bag that contained the navigators identification documents.

The Navy also said that a warning remained in effect for ships sailing in the area to be aware of the possibility of sighting the castaway.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for unveiling the hologram statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at the India Gate in the national capital.

Noting that Sunday was Netaji's 125th birthday, Shah said that Modi in 2021 announced celebrating Netaji's birthday as 'Parakram Diwas' (Day of Valour) and also took a historic decision that the Republic Day will be started from January 23 instead of January 24.

Referring to the decision taken by the Prime Minister to install a grand statue of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at India Gate, the Union Home Minister added that this was a part of the celebration of Netaji's 125th birthday.

"Netaji's statue will inspire the coming generations for valour, patriotism and sacrifice for many years and it will be an expression of feeling for Netaji in the minds of crores of people of the country. His journey from Kolkata to Berlin through Japan was a great effort to liberate India and this statue will symbolise that emotion," Shah said.

Today, crores of people of the country will be having peace of mind that the contribution of Netaji in the freedom struggle has been respected by the country after so many years and this statue will remain as its symbol, the Union Home Minister added.

"The slogan of 'Chalo Dilli' still provides consciousness and energy to the youth even today, the stories of Netaji's struggle for independence still connect the youth to reconstruct India and many youth will move ahead with the inspiration from his personality in the days to

come," he said.

Without naming the previous government, Shah added that efforts were made to forget the names of those who showed great valour and contributed to the freedom struggle of the country.

"Today, during the 'Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav', the decision taken to install a statue of Netaji, the whole country is feeling satisfied and excited."

The Prime Minister has taken another major decision to start an award in the name of Netaji in the country, and all the people working in the field of disaster management, the awards associated with the name of Subhash Chandra Bose will always motivate them to work during disaster, Shah said.
In Marvell, Ark., a tiny Mississippi Delta town of 855 residents tucked into a sea of cotton, soy bean and corn fields, Lee Guest is a particularly essential essential worker.

He is the mayor and the assistant fire chief, and his day job is as a rural mail carrier. If the four employees of the local water utility dont show up, he knows enough about the system to keep the water flowing, too.

Theres a handful of us  we can go get stuff taken care of, he said.

So when he was away from work for a week after contracting Covid-19 at the beginning of the year, the worn engine of small town governance and administration in Marvell, about a 90-minute drive southwest from Memphis, sputtered and coughed, but it chugged on.

Out of 13 full-time and 11 part-time employees, six have gotten Covid-19. One, who went to a hospital but wasnt admitted, got sick in 2020. The rest of the cases have tested positive in the last three weeks.
An unvaccinated 55-year-old Minnesota man died at a Texas hospital after a more than two-month battle with Covid-19 that raised questions about who has the right to make life-or-death decisions when patients cannot speak for themselves.

The Minnesota man, Scott Quiner, died on Saturday after his family moved him to the Texas hospital as part of their efforts to keep him on a ventilator, the familys attorney, Marjorie Holsten, told The Associated Press.

Were absolutely devastated, Ms. Holsten told the AP and several other media outlets.

Mr. Quiner became sick with Covid-19 in October. An operations manager at a transportation company, he was unvaccinated. His illness became so severe that, according to court records, he was placed on a ventilator after being admitted in November to Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, just north of Minneapolis. He remained on the ventilator for weeks.
When the soundtrack to Encanto, Disneys latest animated film, came out two months ago, it was by no means a hit, entering the Billboard 200 chart at No. 197.

But the films catchy and eclectic songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda  drawing on salsa, bachata, hip-hop and classic Broadway  became sleeper hits once the film began streaming on Disney+, a month ago. For weeks, the song We Dont Talk About Bruno has been unavoidable on TikTok, with fans making dance and singalong videos, helping make Bruno one of the top tracks on Spotify and Apple Music.

This week, the Encanto soundtrack returns to No. 1 on Billboards album chart, beating out competition from the Weeknd, Gunna and a new release by the Americana band the Lumineers. It is the second time Encanto has topped the chart, after going to No. 1 two weeks ago and then dipping to No. 3.

Encanto had the equivalent of 104,000 sales in the United States, including 125 million streams and 17,000 copies sold of the album as a complete package, according to MRC Data, Billboards tracking arm. Encanto is the first Disney soundtrack to have multiple turns at No. 1 since Frozen, which notched a total of 13 weeks at the top in the first half of 2014. Bruno is No. 2 on Billboards Hot 100 singles chart, behind Adeles Easy on Me, which is at the top for a 10th week.
James Maraniss, a Spanish scholar who wrote the libretto for an opera that was finished in 1978, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2000 but was not fully staged for another decade, died on Jan. 9 at his home in Chesterfield, Mass. He was 76.

The cause was a heart attack, his brother, David, said.

Mr. Maraniss, a professor of Spanish and European studies at Amherst College, had never written a libretto when the composer Lewis Spratlan, a faculty colleague, approached him in 1975 to collaborate on an opera based on Pedro Calderon de la Barcas early 17th-century drama La Vida es sueno (Life Is a Dream). The piece had been commissioned by the New Haven Opera Theater in Connecticut.

Excited at how Calderons vivid writing quickly conjured musical images in his mind, Mr. Spratlan told Mr. Maraniss the news about the commission  not knowing that Mr. Maraniss was an expert on Calderons work.

It was a wonderful happenstance that this was the case, Mr. Spratlan, now retired from Amhersts music department, recalled in a phone interview. The two men, friends and neighbors in adjoining apartments in a campus house, soon started working together and completed the three-act opera in 1978. That year, Mr. Maraniss also published On Calderon, a study of the writers plays, including La Vida es sueno, which is about a prince in conflict with his father, the king.
After the Omicron wave, Covid-19 will return but the pandemic will not, he wrote. The era of extraordinary measures by government and societies to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission will be over.

Yet even as positive signs emerge, the threat is far from over. The U.S. continues to log far more infections than in any prior surge, and some states in the West, South and Great Plains are still seeing sharp increases. Many hospitals are full. And deaths continue to climb, with more than 2,100 announced most days.

There is also a huge unknown. Scientists said it still remained an open question whether Omicron would mark the transition from a pandemic to a less threatening endemic state or whether future surges or variants could introduce fresh tumult.

Its dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the W.H.O., said at a meeting today. On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.

Charting an Omicron infection

Omicron now accounts for more than 99.5 percent of new infections in the U.S., according to the C.D.C. Many questions about the variants infections remain unanswered, but here is a look at some of what scientists have learned so far.
U.S. troops on high alert as West weighs Ukraine defenses

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has put 8,500 American troops on high alert for possible deployment to Eastern Europe, as NATO and the U.S. braced for a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon announced on Monday.

Most of the 8,500 troops would take part in a NATO response force that might soon be activated, said John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman. The remaining personnel would be part of a specific U.S. response, most likely to assure Eastern European allies fearful that Russias plans for Ukraine could extend to the Baltics.

Its very clear the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating, Kirby said at a news conference on Monday. What this is about, though, is reassurance to our NATO allies.

It comes as NATO said Monday that member countries were putting their forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe.
Some energy experts say utilities would not be able to produce or buy enough renewable energy to replace what would be lost from the decline in rooftop solar panels  which supplied 9 percent of the states electricity in 2020, more than nuclear and coal put together. California would need to set aside about a quarter of its land for renewable energy to meet its climate goals without expanding rooftop solar, said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental energy at Stanford. As a result, utilities would have to turn to natural gas and other fossil fuels.

The only thing this is going to do is reduce rooftop solar, Professor Jacobson said. That will mean there will be more natural gas in the system. Every rooftop should have solar on it. You should be encouraging more of it.

People who install solar panels on their roofs or property are still connected to the electrical grid, but they receive credit on their bills for power they produce beyond what they use. Californias proposal would cut the value of those credits, which are roughly equivalent to retail electricity rates, by about 87 percent. In addition, the measure would impose a new monthly fee on solar homeowners  about $56 for the typical rooftop system.

The monthly cost of solar and electricity for homeowners with an average rooftop system who are served by PG&E, the states largest utility, would jump to $215, from $133, according to the California Solar and Storage Association.

An intense campaign is underway to sway regulators. Rooftop solar companies, homeowners and activists on one side and utilities and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the other are lobbying Gov. Gavin Newsom to intervene. While the commission is independent of Mr. Newsom, he wields enormous influence. The governor recently told reporters that the regulators should change their proposal but didnt specify how.

The electrical workers union, which did not respond to requests for comment, is playing a central role. It represents linemen, electricians and other utility employees, who usually earn more than the mostly nonunion workers who install rooftop systems. Many union members, an important constituency for Democrats, fear being left behind in the transition to green energy.

Other states are also targeting rooftop solar. Florida is considering legislation to roll back compensation to homeowners for the excess energy their panels produce, a benefit known as net energy metering.
Between the ribs of a steer and its skin lies a thin, flat, broad muscle. While more familiar beef cuts are more or less the ruby red of uncooked steak, this one is a pale and milky pink, from which it gets one of its names, rose meat. It is also known as the twitch muscle or the fly shaker because, quickly contracted, it will make the cows flank shudder, driving away biting insects if the cow is lucky. In the United States, though, there is almost no market for this cut under any name. Most of it goes into burgers.

The fly shaker gets a warmer reception in Latin America. Colombians call it sobrebarriga  over the belly. Presumably because of its low cost, it is known as matambre, hunger killer, in Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. A favorite Argentine specialty involves baking or grilling a broad expanse of rose meat under a blanket of tomato sauce and cheese  essentially treating the beef as if it were pizza dough.

The word for this cut in Mexico is suadero. The etymology is uncertain, but the enthusiasm for suadero is not, particularly in Mexico City, where in almost every neighborhood someone is patiently stewing suadero in fat and broth before chopping it to bits and folding it into tacos.
Sarah Palin, who is not vaccinated against the coronavirus, dined indoors Saturday night at Elios, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that regularly draws celebrities, despite New York Citys requirement that all indoor guests show proof of vaccination. She tested positive for the virus on Monday.

We just made a mistake, said Luca Guaitolini, a manager for the restaurant, who was not working Saturday night but confirmed Ms. Palins visit. In an interview on Monday, he said that the restaurant checked vaccination cards for all first-time customers but not for regulars who come each week, and that Ms. Palin had dined with a longtime guest, whom he declined to name.

She probably just walked in and strolled over to the table, Mr. Guaitolini said. We are trying to get to the bottom of this.

Ms. Palins lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Guaitolini said that the restaurant was notifying customers that they had been exposed to the coronavirus, and that the staff would be tested this week.
While strolling through Portobello Market in London more than eight years ago, Erica Weiner, who sells antique jewelry online, saw something weird. There was a ring set with stones, but not symmetrically, and not in particularly complementary colors, she said in a phone interview from her home in New Yorks Hudson Valley.

It was an example of acrostic jewelry, a dealer told her, a design that features a kind of puzzle.

As Camille Cuvelier, who sells such antique pieces on her website Galerie Penelope, said: Each piece has a message.

During an interview in her apartment in Paris, Ms. Cuvelier picked up a ring to demonstrate. The first letter of each stone spells something, she said, indicating the line of small gems: ruby, emerald, garnet, amethyst, ruby and diamond  or regard, a popular sentiment from the past.
The Lalitpur police have filed a charge sheet against former district presidents of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj (BSP), among others, in connection with the alleged gangrape of a 17-year-old girl.

The teenager had registered a police complaint in October last year, alleging that she had been sexually assaulted for over four years. Her father, who used to run a transport business, is among 10 family members booked for the alleged crime.

"On the basis of the evidence collected, we filed a charge sheet recently against 19 persons, including the girl's father and local political leaders. Except for two accused, 17 persons are lodged in jail," a senior police officer said.

The police said the teenager came to the police station along with her mother on October 12 to file the complaint.

According to the police, she alleged that her father raped her when she was 14 years old after forcibly showing her pornographic videos.

He then allegedly started taking her to different hotels and fields where multiple people raped her. The girl told the police her father had threatened her to remain mum.
Ivory, the hard white material of elephant tusks, has been prized since ancient times in treasures like the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, one of the oldest known sculptures of the human form, and the scores of ivory bangles that the British shipping heiress Nancy Cunard stacked along both arms in the early 1900s for her portraits by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton.

But as demand for ivory grew and elephant herds were decimated, countries took action, and in 1989 the international ivory trade was banned, although authorities continue to battle poaching and smuggling operations.

The restrictions in France changed Mr. Heckmanns career. I made sculptures for the most part of my life, he said, but a law about five years ago prevented that. Now you can only sell ivory thats been made before 1947. So his work now focuses on repairs, like the damaged crucifix that he was handling one bright, crisp December morning. Christs feet were missing so I have carved new feet, he said, fingering the individual toes of the arched feet that he was attaching to the figure.

To make repairs  and he has boxes filled with ivory pieces waiting for his expert touch  he has dozens of chunks of ivory, pieces left from his grandfathers and his fathers time. Each one is a surprisingly dull beige until it is polished to a gleaming surface that exposes the creamy color underneath.
LUSAKA, Zambia  There are few nurses in the Zambian capital with the skills and experience of Alex Mulumba, who works in the operating room at a critical care hospital. But he has recently learned, through a barrage of social media posts and LinkedIn solicitations, that many faraway places are eager for his expertise, too  and will pay him far more than the $415 per month (including an $8 health risk bonus) he earns now.

Mr. Mulumba, 31, is considering those options, particularly Canada, where friends of his have immigrated and quickly found work. You have to build something with your life, he said.

Canada is among numerous wealthy nations, including the United States and United Kingdom, that are aggressively recruiting medical workers from the developing world to replenish a health care work force drastically depleted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The urgency and strong pull from high-income nations  including countries like Germany and Finland, which had not previously recruited health workers from abroad  has upended migration patterns and raised new questions about the ethics of recruitment from countries with weak health systems during a pandemic.

We have absolutely seen an increase in international migration, said Howard Catton, the chief executive of the International Council of Nurses. But, he added, The high, high risk is that you are recruiting nurses from countries that can least afford to lose their nurses.
This is just another slap in the face leading us to a police state, he said, adding, I think thats what his whole administration is going to be about, fullness for the police and emptiness for the people.

Mr. Adamss plan calls for the city to conduct listening tours in precincts where the teams operate, and the mayor said his administration would avoid the mistakes of the past by making sure officers on the teams receive enhanced training and additional oversight.

Were not looking to be heavy-handed, but were not looking to be dangerous to our city, he told reporters after his speech. And Im going to find and strike that right balance.

Mr. Adams called for harsher prosecution of young people charged with gun possession who were not willing to say where they had obtained the weapons, saying that such defendants should be tried as adults and potentially face stronger penalties.

He also argued that the Raise the Age law that increased the age of criminal responsibility was being used by gang members to make younger children take responsibility for gun crimes. The mayor cited statistics showing that the share of children under 18 arrested on gun charges quadrupled from 2.5 percent in 2019 to 10 percent in 2021. It was not clear if the increase was due to more children being arrested with guns, or fewer children being arrested overall.

The plan includes a list of requests for state and federal officials that shows how many of the challenges Mr. Adams is facing are difficult for the city to tackle on its own.

Mr. Adams has a friendly relationship with Gov. Kathy Hochul and said that he expected she would work him on the changes needed at the state level. He called her an amazing partner and said that she gets it.
In a statement on Sunday on Twitter, Frank J. Riccio II, a lawyer for Mr. Iannazzo, said that his client had emphasized to the stores workers that the smoothie must not contain peanuts  and that the receipt for his sons drink order specified that it should not contain peanut butter.

He said Mr. Iannazzos son had to be taken by ambulance from the familys home to a hospital.

When faced with a dire situation for his son, Mr. Iannazzos parental instinct kicked in and he acted out of anger and fear, Mr. Riccio said. He is not a racist individual and deeply regrets his statements and actions during a moment of extreme emotional stress.

The police confirmed that a 911 call was received at 1:39 p.m. on Saturday from Mr. Iannazzos home, where a young person was experiencing an allergic reaction. About 34 minutes earlier, Mr. Iannazzo had made a purchase at Robeks, according to the police, who did not say whether the smoothie had caused the allergic reaction. Additional information on the sons condition was not immediately available on Monday.

During the investigation, employees reported that Iannazzo never told them about the peanut allergy but had only requested that there be no peanut butter in his drink, the police said.

A spokesman for Bank of America, the parent company of Merrill Lynch, confirmed in an email on Sunday that Mr. Iannazzo no longer worked there.

Our company does not tolerate behavior of this kind, the spokesman, Bill Halldin, said. We immediately investigated and have taken action. This individual is no longer employed at our firm.

A Google listing for Mr. Iannazzos wealth management office, which was based in Stamford, Conn., was flooded with negative reviews after his tirade.
Soft-spoken and inscrutable in his public statements and Capitol-corridor interviews, Mr. Silver nonetheless wielded outsize influence, capable of pushing liberal causes like raising the minimum wage and building affordable housing. At the same time, he was also capable of thwarting priorities of mayors and governors  he served alongside six, from Hugh L. Carey to Andrew M. Cuomo  even killing such flashy proposals as a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan.

That dominance crumbled in early 2015 when Mr. Silver was accused of accepting nearly $4 million in illicit payments in exchange for taking official actions for a cancer researcher at Columbia University and two real estate developers.

Found guilty of federal corruption charges in late 2015, Mr. Silver managed to successfully challenge that conviction, resulting in its being overturned in 2017. A second trial  and a second conviction  followed in 2018. Mr. Silver managed to avoid prison until 2020, when his legal maneuvers finally ground to a halt, leaving him to serve a six-and-a-half-year sentence.

Mr. Silver won a brief reprieve from prison life last spring when he was furloughed because of the coronavirus pandemic. After a public outcry, he was returned to prison two days later.
It all began with the coronavirus outbreak on a Diamond Princess cruise ship back in February 2020.

Nine health care workers and quarantine officers who were responding to the outbreak on the ship in Japan became infected. An official report suggested that they had most likely been infected through contact with infectious droplets and contaminated surfaces. But as an expert investigating respiratory infections, I had my doubts. These were people experienced in infection control and prevention procedures, and it was difficult to believe that not one, not two, but nine of them failed to wash their hands properly. While this was still in the very earliest days of the pandemic, it seemed possible that the coronavirus was spreading in some other way than through large droplets.

Then a report revealed that a traveler from China who visited Germany spread the coronavirus to other people despite not having symptoms at the time. This report confirmed what I and colleagues helping Japans Ministry of Health respond to Covid-19 had speculated: That the coronavirus was being spread by people who were asymptomatic or hadnt developed symptoms yet.

At that point, we had to consider whether aerosols  tiny infectious particles or droplets suspended in the air  were playing a role in how the coronavirus was spreading. This wouldnt be a surprise. In 2017, a World Health Organization report discussed the critical role that aerosol transmission played in the spread of the flu. Why couldnt it be the same for Covid-19, a similar respiratory illness?

Japans unique way of contact tracing also gave us more clues into how the virus spread. While other countries focused on prospective contact tracing, in which contact tracers identify and notify infected peoples contacts after they are infected, we used retrospective contact tracing. This is an approach where tracers identify an infected person and look back to figure out when and where that person was infected and who else might have been infected simultaneously with them.
For weeks, American officials have huddled to make sense of the official documents with Russias demands and the contradictory commentary, pondered how to deter Mr. Putin in Ukraine and scrambled to talk on his timeline.

All the while, Mr. Putin and his proxies have ratcheted up their statements. Kremlin officials have not just challenged the legitimacy of Americas position in Europe, they have raised questions about Americas bases in Japan and its role in the Asia-Pacific region. They have also intimated that they may ship hypersonic missiles to Americas back door in Cuba and Venezuela to revive what the Russians call the Caribbean Crisis of the 1960s.

Mr. Putin is a master of coercive inducement. He manufactures a crisis in such a way that he can win no matter what anyone else does. Threats and promises are essentially one and the same. Mr. Putin can invade Ukraine yet again, or he can leave things where they are and just consolidate the territory Russia effectively controls in Crimea and Donbas. He can stir up trouble in Japan and send hypersonic missiles to Cuba and Venezuela, or not, if things go his way in Europe.

Mr. Putin plays a longer, strategic game and knows how to prevail in the tactical scrum. He has the United States right where he wants it. His posturing and threats have set the agenda in European security debates, and have drawn our full attention. Unlike President Biden, Mr. Putin doesnt have to worry about midterm elections or pushback from his own party or the opposition. Mr. Putin has no concerns about bad press or poor poll ratings. He isnt part of a political party and he has crushed the Russian opposition. The Kremlin has largely silenced the local, independent press. Mr. Putin is up for re-election in 2024, but his only viable opponent, Aleksei Navalny, is locked in a penal colony outside of Moscow.

So Mr. Putin can act as he chooses, when he chooses. Barring ill health, the United States will have to contend with him for years to come. Right now, all signs indicate that Mr. Putin will lock the United States into an endless tactical game, take more chunks out of Ukraine and exploit all the frictions and fractures in NATO and the European Union. Getting out of the current crisis requires acting, not reacting. The United States needs to shape the diplomatic response and engage Russia on the Wests terms, not just Moscows.

To be sure, Russia does have some legitimate security concerns, and European security arrangements could certainly do with fresh thinking and refurbishment after 30 years. There is plenty for Washington and Moscow to discuss on the conventional and nuclear forces as well as in the cyber domain and on other fronts. But a further Russian invasion of Ukraine and Ukraines dismemberment and neutralization cannot be an issue for U.S.-Russian negotiation nor a line item in European security. Ultimately, the United States needs to show Mr. Putin that he will face global resistance and Mr. Putins aggression will put Russias political and economic relationships at risk far beyond Europe.

Contrary to Mr. Putins premise in 2008 that Ukraine is not a real country, Ukraine has been a full-fledged member of the United Nations since 1991. Another Russian assault would challenge the entire U.N. system and imperil the arrangements that have guaranteed member states sovereignty since World War II  akin to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990, but on an even bigger scale. The United States and its allies, and Ukraine itself, should take this issue to the United Nations and put it before the General Assembly as well as the Security Council. Even if Russia blocks a resolution, the future of Ukraine merits a global response. The United States should also raise concerns in other regional institutions. Why is Russia trying to take its disputes in Europe to Asia and the Western Hemisphere? What does Ukraine have to do with Japan, or Cuba and Venezuela?
Public policy, Im thankful to say, is changing in favor of trees, at least in places where elected officials acknowledge climate change. Forests are well-known harbors of biodiversity and well-known carbon sinks, absorbing and sequestering greenhouse gases. In cities, trees cool hot streets, absorb pollution, improve air quality, limit storm water runoff, prevent erosion, enhance the physical and mental health of human beings, and provide desperately needed habitat for wildlife. Trees are a public good. Protecting them in public areas is a no-brainer for municipal leaders.

But how to protect trees on private land is a far greater challenge, and we have been far slower to address it. A great many homeowners share Laurel Hoffmans view that they are entirely within their rights to cut down a tree on their own land. Occasionally theres a brief hue and cry on social media, much like the one that followed a Lexington, Ky., homeowners decision to cut down a rare riparian oak planted by the Kentucky statesman Henry Clay sometime before 1850. But in too many places, its generally understood that when you own a piece of property, you also own every tree on the place.

Sustainability advocates have long recognized the importance of trees on private land and employ various strategies for preserving them. Many cities have ordinances to protect trees of a certain size or belonging to certain species, even on private land. In those places, a permit might be required to cut down a living tree  and replacement trees might need to be planted, with penalties levied for violating those terms  but such progressive laws often raise the ire of development-besotted politicians. In a red state such as Tennessee, laws made by blue cities can be easily overruled for the benefit of donors who fund state lawmakers campaigns.

To truly protect trees, we need to make a profound paradigm shift that transcends politics. We need to stop thinking of trees as objects that belong to us and come to understand them as long-lived ecosystems temporarily under our protection. We have borrowed them from the past, and we owe them to the future.

Its dumbfounding to consider how long native trees can live if they manage to avoid an encounter with a chain saw or an alien microbe. There are living witness trees, as they are called, that stood watch over every important event in post-colonial American history. The doomed black walnut was a sapling in the Ohio woods while Washington was crossing the Delaware. Last month, a white pine fell in upstate New York that had stood since 1675, the year one of the accusers during the Salem witch trials was born. I know this because Susan Orlean just wrote the pine trees obituary for The New Yorker.

Her impulse to eulogize a tree should tell us something about what trees really are. They are living, breathing beings. They created the very air we breathe, and they are creating it still.

Their green leaves belong not to us, but to all the orders of insects who use them as a nursery. Their broad limbs belong not to us, but to the nesting songbirds and raptors. The damp soil beneath them belongs not to us, but to the snakes and turtles and lizards rooting for food, and to the rabbits looking for a safe place to hide their nests. Their flowers and drupes and nuts and berries feed absolutely everybody.
archived recording [CROWD CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

A year and a half into my reporting, in late August, 2020, tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of Berlin 

archived recording [SHOUTING IN GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

 protesting the governments coronavirus lockdown measures. There were anti-vaxxers, QAnon followers, several thousand members of the far-right scene.

archived recording (SHOUTING) [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Some of these groups have been chatting on Telegram, calling for a storm on Berlin and posting images of themselves with their weapons. And as the day went on, a few hundred of them gathered directly in front of Germanys parliament building  the Reichstag.

archived recording [CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

Most of them were white men, many of them from far-right groups. They were waving the old black, white, and red flag of the German empire that once inspired the Nazis, and its now become the flag of choice for neo-Nazis because the swastika is banned. And its that evening, hours into the protest, when a woman got up on stage in front of the Capitol and told the crowd, we are writing history in Berlin here today. There are no more police.

archived recording [SHOUTING IN GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

We have won.

archived recording [CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

The crowd went wild, and just like that, they headed straight for the Reichstag. Shouting things like, [SPEAKING GERMAN] Resistance. And [SPEAKING GERMAN] We are the people. They broke through the police barrier and ran up the main stairs.

archived recording [CHEERING] [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And when they made it to the top in front of the main entrance to parliament, some of them tried to get inside. The only thing stopping them were three police officers, who were able to hold the line until backup arrived. The whole thing only lasted for a few minutes, but it led Germanys president to call it an unbearable attack on the heart of democracy. It all happened four months before rioters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, some with military and police backgrounds. And it all made me think, how my reporting on far-right infiltration had started  with a gun in an airport bathroom and a military officer accused of wanting to bring down the Federal Republic of Germany.

[music]

In many ways, Franco A.s case felt exceptional, but the attempted storming of the Reichstag and everything else Ive seen in my reporting made it clear that its not. And so I wasnt all that surprised when I learned that at the demonstrations in Berlin, there were several police officers, military reservists, and people who fantasized about the day when the democratic order collapses. From The New York Times, Im Katrin Bennhold. This is Day X. When I started my reporting on Franco A., it was clear that the institutions responsible for identifying him, let alone the network his case uncovered, were largely blind to the threat of far-right extremism. Two years later, after everything thats happened, I wanted to see how much thats changed.

kaitlin roberts We want to figure out  katrin bennhold So. Oh there we are. I think thats it.

katrin bennhold

In April 2021, producer Kaitlin Roberts and I go to the military counterintelligence agency.

katrin bennhold Oh. Theyre already waiting for us. Look at that. Theyre going to shut us off immediately. kaitlin roberts OK.

katrin bennhold

Its the smallest of Germanys three federal intelligence agencies, and one of its core missions is to monitor extremism inside the military.

katrin bennhold [SPEAKING GERMAN]

[music]

katrin bennhold

This is the first time theyre speaking to me on the record, and the interview is tightly controlled. Were not allowed to ask about Franco A., because its an ongoing case. We actually had to submit all our questions in advance, and we cant turn our recorder back on 

katrin bennhold Are we rolling? OK.

katrin bennhold

 until were walking up to the conference room 

katrin bennhold Hello. [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Where we meet one of the vice presidents,

katrin bennhold [SPEAKING GERMAN] burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard Even.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Hes a civilian and has only been there for two years. He was brought in as part of a sweeping effort to address the agencys failures in how it handled far-right extremism. And the first question I have for him is the same one I started with two years ago.

katrin bennhold When I first called the Defense Ministry, the guy I spoke to told me the confirmed number of extremists was in single digits and falling. He said there were four. What are the latest numbers? How many cases of extremism are you looking at inside the German military today? burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard tells me that the number of far-right extremists theyve identified in the military has grown significantly. The most recent data they have shows 32 confirmed cases and 843 suspected ones.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And he says about two dozen of those are in the most elite and highly-trained unit, the KSK.

[music]

The unit has become a special focus after a series of scandals. Several soldiers were reported to have flashed Hitler salutes at a party, and at least one of them had stolen military-grade plastic explosives, an AK-47, and collected S.S. memorabilia. They also discovered that nearly 50,000 rounds of ammunition and 137 pounds of explosives had gone missing from their arsenal. It reached the point where the defense minister took the unprecedented step to disband an entire fighting company  one of only four  because it had become so infested with far-right extremism. And of course, the far-right network Franco A. was a part of was started by a KSK soldier, which led me to another question I had for Burkhard.

katrin bennhold Two years ago, I was told by your agency that you did not see a network. But I found in my reporting that there was, in fact, a network of people who knew each other across the country. Do you see a network? burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard tells me that the agency now sees networks. He says that, for a long time, it overwhelmingly treated suspected cases as single cases  [SPEAKING GERMAN] But they now make it a point to systematically study how all these cases are related.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And not only that. He acknowledges that some of these networks stretch beyond the military into other state institutions and also civilian life.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And so theyve started working much more closely with the domestic intelligence agency and law enforcement to avoid extremists slipping through the net.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

As hes telling me this, it sounds to me like the case of Franco A. and the network it uncovered has fundamentally shifted how the agency understands the nature of the threat.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Burkhard says that essentially, their definition of what an extremist is, had been far too narrow.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

It used to be that an extremist was defined as someone who belonged to an extremist organization and was ready to commit violence.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But now, he says, an extremist is anyone whos disloyal to the constitution or doesnt actively stand up for its values. Its a definition that better reflects what the far-right can look like today, the kind of new right who often dont have a formal affiliation with an extremist organization, but have anti constitutional views all the same  people like Franco A. or the people who tried to storm the Reichstag.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN] kaitlin roberts So some newspapers have called this network a shadow army. Are you concerned that there is such a thing as a shadow army? burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

When I ask Burkhard if hes concerned about a shadow army, hes adamant that the networks theyve identified dont rise to that level.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But he says, its still a threat.

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Because there are people who dream of forming one.

[music]

burkhard even [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

The question of a shadow army was something parliament had been looking into, too.

katrin bennhold Here we go. Hes just down there on the left.

katrin bennhold

When I began my reporting, the committee in charge of overseeing the intelligence agencies, including military counterintelligence, had already started their own investigation.

katrin bennhold I think its the next one.

katrin bennhold

So we went to see the deputy chair of that committee.

konstantin von notz Im Konstantin von Notz. And Im since 2009 here in the German Bundestag for the Green Party.

katrin bennhold

Konstantin von Notz.

katrin bennhold And so you launched that report 

katrin bennhold

Konstantins committee had asked a special investigator to look into how serious the infiltration of the military was. And he came to a somewhat different conclusion than what Id heard from Burkhard.

katrin bennhold And what did you find? konstantin von notz One of the headlines after this report was that there was no shadow army that was almost taking over the country. Yeah? But he didnt say that this does not exist.

[music]

katrin bennhold

While the investigator said, theres no evidence of a shadow army ready to stage a coup, he said he couldnt rule one out, either. And his investigation is ongoing.

konstantin von notz You shouldnt be [SPEAKING GERMAN], yeah? katrin bennhold Reassured. konstantin von notz Reassured. You should take serious whats happening. katrin bennhold The word shadow army is very loaded in Germany. Because there was something like a shadow army in the 1920s. There were plots to overthrow the government. There were people hoarding weapons and ammunition. And when you hear the word shadow army as a German, you do kind of get goosebumps. konstantin von notz Oh, you better get goosebumps. Because this is a serious security threat to Germany and to this democratic system. And we have to deal with it.

katrin bennhold

For Konstantin, the infiltration of the military by far right extremists 

konstantin von notz This is one of the patterns 

katrin bennhold

 is a reflection of a much bigger phenomenon.

konstantin von notz Members of the [SPEAKING GERMAN].

katrin bennhold

A couple of floors up from his office are offices of the AfD 

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN]. [CROWD SHOUTING]

katrin bennhold

The first far right party to be elected to the German parliament since the Nazis.

archived recording This is a party that didnt even exist a few years ago.

katrin bennhold

Its only been around for eight years.

archived recording It now has seats 

katrin bennhold

But its now the main opposition party in the German parliament. And its broken every taboo in Germanys post-war playbook.

archived recording And some people say theyre a bunch of racists.

katrin bennhold

Its nationalist 

archived recording Theyve promised to fight an invasion of foreigners.

katrin bennhold

 anti-immigrant.

archived recording It plays on real fears about refugees, wants to close mosques, and stop immigration. It staunchly defends the notion of Germany as a Christian state.

katrin bennhold

It challenges Germanys atonement for the Holocaust.

archived recording They claim Nazi history takes up too much school time and say the culture of remembrance is bad for Germany.

katrin bennhold

And it has close links to extremists. Several members of [SPEAKING GERMAN], the northern branch of the network Franco A. was a part of, were also members of the AfD. And a friend of Franco A., a fellow officer who was initially accused of being one of his accomplices, was later hired to work inside parliament for an AfD lawmaker, himself a soldier. The party actively recruits police officers and soldiers. And its leaders openly march with extremists on the street. [CROWD SHOUTING] In fact, some of them were among the tens of thousands of people in the crowd on the day that group of protesters tried to storm the Reichstag. [CROWD CHANTING IN GERMAN] And Konstantin points to what happened a few months after that, during another mass demonstration, when AfD lawmakers invited a handful of protesters inside the Parliament building.

konstantin von notz People were going everywhere and knocking on offices of the parliamentarians, so a strong violation of the integrity of this building.

katrin bennhold

They walked around, shouted derogatory insults at a minister, and intimidated lawmakers before an important vote.

konstantin von notz And everybody locked their doors so nobody could come in. katrin bennhold So your staff locked these doors that were seeing here. They locked the doors to make sure?

katrin bennhold

Its this attitude toward democratic institutions that worries Konstantin.

konstantin von notz So democracy doesnt prevent that people get elected that are anti-democratic. People use democracy as a train and when theyre in the train station, they step out. katrin bennhold Step out and what would they then  konstantin von notz Step off of the train of democracy and they reach their goal with that. And then they [INAUDIBLE]. katrin bennhold So you use democracy to get into power. And then you get rid of democracy. konstantin von notz Yeah. Its a form of infiltration. And if you look into history, it can be very successful.

katrin bennhold

For Konstantin, all of this comes down to one of the biggest lessons of World War II.

konstantin von notz In the Weimar Republic, the Nazis were in free elections.

katrin bennhold

That Hitlers Nazi party was democratically elected. And it was only once they were in office that they abolished democracy.

konstantin von notz So thats the reason why we have to understand where the infiltration can happen. We should not be naive.

katrin bennhold

On our way out, Konstantin walks us to the elevator. And he tells us that just a few weeks earlier 

konstantin von notz I came in here on my regular way to my office. And there was this swastika.

katrin bennhold

Someone had carved a swastika into its metal doors.

konstantin von notz If you scratch that into a door of the German Parliament, thats a symbolic attack against democracy. Yeah?

katrin bennhold

The perpetrator was never identified. But given the strict security in the building, theres a pretty good chance that whoever did this knew someone or was someone working inside Parliament.

archived recording You have to go one by one. OK.

katrin bennhold

What makes Germanys democracy so unique is that after the war it was rebuilt to be whats called a defensive democracy.

archived recording Weve made it through security.

katrin bennhold

The idea was that because Hitlers Nazi party was elected, and they only got rid of democracy once they were in government, Germany equipped its democracy with the tools to protect itself against threats from the inside.

katrin bennhold Tell me where we are inside the domestic intelligence agency.

katrin bennhold

One of these tools is the domestic intelligence agency. Its actually called the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

katrin bennhold What floor are we going to? archived recording The seventh.

katrin bennhold

Like other domestic intelligence agencies, it monitors domestic threats. But it was also set up as a kind of early warning system for democracy, with the power to put individuals, organizations, and even political parties suspected of being a threat to democracy under surveillance. Basically, this office determines who is crossing the line into extremism.

archived recording Hes here and also  not there.

katrin bennhold

So I went with producers Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison to talk to the man who runs this office.

thomas haldenwang [INAUDIBLE]. katrin bennhold Nice to meet you.

katrin bennhold

His name is Thomas Haldenwang.

thomas haldenwang Pleasure to have you here. But we will do it in German language. katrin bennhold OK. So 

katrin bennhold

Hes worked at the agency for over a decade, but only became president in 2018. Both of his predecessors were caught up in scandals involving far right extremism. The first resigned after the office failed in its handling of the NSU murders. And the second was reassigned after playing down anti-immigrant violence during a neo-Nazi riot. Hes since become a hero of the far right.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And while his predecessors were primarily concerned with Islamist extremism, Thomas has shifted the agencys focus.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He says that far right extremism and far right terrorism are now the biggest threats to democracy.

katrin bennhold Would you say that theres an increase in the far right terrorist threat in Germany right now? thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He mentions recent terrorist attacks, like the murder of Walter Lubcke, a regional politician supported Chancellor Merkels refugee policy and who was shot at close range by a well-known neo-Nazi.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He also talks about the attack on a synagogue in Halle, where a far right extremist killed two people after his plans for a massacre failed. After these attacks, the spotlight turned to the AfD and its nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric, which some people said was empowering extremists to commit violence.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And by the time we meet with Thomas, his office is already looking into the party.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

They placed two of the most extreme factions under surveillance, a group known as The Wing, and the youth organization, the young alternative.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Both factions stood out in the party for their links to extremist groups and for claiming that ethnic and religious differences between people make immigration a threat to Germany, which for Thomas is a violation of the Constitution.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And in particular, its first article, which states, the dignity of human beings is untouchable.

thomas haldenwang [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

And for Thomas, where the dignity of people is questioned, where people are degraded and humiliated as a group, that crosses the line into extremism and has the potential of fomenting violence.

katrin bennhold [SPEAKING GERMAN] thomas haldenwang Thank you so much. [VOICES AND FOOTSTEPS ECHOING]

katrin bennhold

Not long after we talked to Thomas 

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

 there was another far-right terrorist attack.

archived recording I heard a loud shooting.

katrin bennhold

A man walked into two shisha bars in the city of Hanau and shot and killed nine people.

archived recording He shot straight to the head of everyone he saw. He laid down and then he fired at all of us.

katrin bennhold

All of them with migrant backgrounds. Before the gunman returned home and shot both himself and his elderly mother, he published a manifesto filled with the same hatred for migrants that is often heard from the AfD.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN] German leaders are calling out the poison that is hatred and racism.

katrin bennhold

The news of the Hanau attack shook Germany.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

The AfD condemned it. But once again  [INTERPOSING VOICES]

archived recording But the AfD is to blame for creating a basis for exactly the kind of thinking that led to the shootings.

katrin bennhold

Many people said the partys anti-immigrant rhetoric shared the blame.

archived recording [INAUDIBLE] incident under the AfD  They should be under surveillance for some of their language.

katrin bennhold

And some started calling on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to put the entire AfD under surveillance. And then 

archived recording Well, Germanys domestic intelligence agency has placed the countrys largest opposition party, the far right alternative for Germany, under surveillance.

katrin bennhold

In early 2021, Thomas and his office did.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN] This is a big constitutional step to put a whole party under surveillance.

katrin bennhold

It was the first time in its post-war history that Germany put its main opposition party under surveillance. And its probably the most dramatic move by any Western democracy to act against the far right.

archived recording Intelligence services are now formally monitoring the party for having suspected links to right wing extremism.

katrin bennhold

It meant that the agency could tap phones and emails, and monitor the movements of any of the AfDs nearly 32,000 members. And if in the end the agency found enough evidence to classify the party as extremist, it would also mean that party members who work for state institutions, like teachers, court officials, police officers, or soldiers, could potentially lose their jobs. The party could even be banned.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN] [CROWD APPLAUDING]

katrin bennhold

The day after the news breaks 

archived recording (bjorn hocke) [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

 the AfD holds a rally in Offenbach, the same city Franco A. is from.

archived recording (bjorn hocke) [SPEAKING GERMAN] [CROWD CHEERING]

katrin bennhold

And the featured speaker is the partys most notorious figure, Bjorn Hocke. He leads the AFD in the state of Thuringia, the same state where the NSU terrorists grew up. Hes a former history teacher who says that Germany needs a 180-degree change in looking at its past. He calls the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin a monument of shame. A few years ago, a German broadcaster read quotes from Hocke to AFD members and asked them whether Hocke or Hitler said it. Most of them were stumped. Bjorn Hocke is so extreme that one court ruled you can legitimately call him a fascist. He denied my request for an interview.

archived recording (bjorn hocke) [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

But when he addresses the crowd, he says the opposition on the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is spying on the AfD, that it is using wartime methods, and that it wants to destroy the party.

archived recording (bjorn hocke) [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

He says the government is run by politicians who hate Germany and want to destroy the German nation by embracing multiculturalism. So he says the AfD is the only party that loves Germany. This is labor does have a strong Hi

archived recording (bjorn hocke.) [SPEAKING GERMAN] katrin bennhold [SPEAKING GERMAN] The New York Times.

katrin bennhold

When we talk to people at the rally 

archived recording Its a clear danger to free speech and the whole democracy here.

katrin bennhold

 they say the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is wrong to put them under surveillance.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

They say its being used as a political instrument of the left.

archived recording Its against political culture to suspect that people are criminals just because they are a member of a political party. Thats wrong.

katrin bennhold

And that its undermining the Constitution rather than protecting it.

archived recording They tell us, youre living in a democracy. But at the same time, they are trying to influence people to change their opinion, to follow, to be quiet, to be good citizens. And youre only a good citizen if you shut up. [CROWD CHANTING]

katrin bennhold

Some of them question whether theyre living in a democracy at all. And this, in a way, is the central dilemma of Germanys defense of democracy. In trying to draw the line on what constitutes extremism, it will be accused of crossing a line itself.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN]

katrin bennhold

Thats what the AfD is arguing.

archived recording [SPEAKING GERMAN] In the end, the federal constitutional court will indeed have to decide whether or not a position that is fundamentally critical of government policy is permitted in our liberal democracy.

katrin bennhold

When it became public that the party was now officially suspected of far right extremism and could come under surveillance, they immediately filed a legal challenge, claiming that this could interfere with their chances in the upcoming national election, one of the most pivotal elections in years, as Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves office. Soon after, a German court ordered the Office for the Protection of the Constitution to suspend their surveillance of the party, pending the outcome of the case. But a handful of states already have their local chapters of the AfD under surveillance 

archived recording Were talking about up to 1/4 of the population that has a different point of view and that is opposed 

katrin bennhold

 including the eastern state of Thuringia, where the party gets almost one in four votes, twice the national average. Thats the state where Stephan Kramer heads the regional branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

archived recording So voters of the AfD, they dont feel this is a real democracy if it targets the party they vote for. So how do you explain this decision to them? stephan kramer Thats exactly what they are saying. They see the federal democracy as a dictatorship. But what were talking about is a party that promotes hatred, that promotes racism, that promotes the idea of bypassing and overcoming the principles of a democracy, and that is clearly not within the framework of a democratic exchange of even radical opinions. But yeah, youre right. Its hard to explain.

katrin bennhold

Stephan admits that its a tough sell telling voters that defending democracy can involve spying on their party of choice.

katrin bennhold So in many ways, the question is are those tools that this democracy has given itself, are they strong enough? stephan kramer Look, this is one of the most severe tests that we are in right now as a defensive democracy. But state agencies, public agencies are only one part of it.

katrin bennhold

He says that even if Germanys institutions do everything right 

stephan kramer The general defense line are the citizens and people of the democracies who are supposed to participate in elections in an ongoing democratic society.

katrin bennhold

The institutions alone cant protect against what once put the Nazis in power in the first place, the people who voted for them.

stephan kramer If this democracy doesnt find the majority of citizens that is in favor of it, you can have the best laws and the best agencies. But they will not be able to protect democracy.

katrin bennhold

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution remains locked in a legal tug of war with the AfD. And at a time when the memory of the Nazi era is fading into history, its just one of many tests that Germany is facing. The trial of Franco A. is another. Both cases will set a historic precedent and will define the point where people or parties cross the line into extremism and where extremism crosses the line into terrorism. And ultimately, theyll start to answer whether the institutions Germany put in place after the war are working in the way theyre meant to, or if theyll provoke an even stronger backlash against liberal democracy itself.

stephan kramer You look on Germany, if you look on Europe, the house is on fire. This was long before you had your problems with QAnon and the extreme right that is now basically understood as domestic terrorism in the United States of America. And I admit, nobody of us thought the pictures of storming Capitol Hill and everything else, that that could happen in the United States. But Im not surprised anymore. And Im afraid to tell you guys and our guys, this is not the end of the story. Were just in the middle of that fight.

katrin bennhold
Hippopotamuses are some of the most unfriendly creatures in the animal kingdom.

Apart from mosquitoes, they are the most dangerous animal in Africa, the ones that kill the most people, said Nicolas Mathevon, a professor of animal behavior at the University of Saint-Etienne in France. People underestimate them. They swim very fast and dont hesitate to attack boats. They are in the water most of the time, but they can move out of the water very fast. Entering their territory can be quite dangerous.

But you cant say that hippos dont give adequate warnings to strangers.

The large mammals make loud noises, and Dr. Mathevon and his colleagues have worked out some of what they mean. Their results, published Monday in Current Biology, suggest that hippopotamuses can distinguish friends from acquaintances, and acquaintances from strangers, by the way they sound.

Hippos are hard to study. It is almost impossible to identify and mark individual animals, and difficult to find them even when marked. They spend the night feeding on land, and then retreat to the water during the day, gathering in groups with a dominant male guarding a number of females and young animals. Individuals may move from one pod to another  the details of their social organization are poorly understood.

But Dr. Mathevon and colleagues persisted. They studied the animals at the Maputo Special Reserve in Mozambique, where several lakes are inhabited by one or more groups, or pods, of hippos. There, the researchers recorded the calls of hippos in seven pods.
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has announced his resignation, citing the lack of constitutional power for him to solve domestic and foreign policy problems.

In a statement posted on the Presidential website on Sunday, he attributed his resignation to "a paradoxical situation when the President has to be a guarantor of statehood without actually having any real tool."

"Because of the responsibility I assumed as the President of the Republic. I was obliged to do everything in my power to rule out further deepening of the internal division, possible clashes, which could lead to extremely negative consequences. I also sought to use my reputation and connections gained throughout my many years of work, my international political and economic potential to build a strong, stable state," said the President in the statement.

Sarkissian pointed out in the statement that due to the lack of appropriate tools endowed by the Constitution, he failed to influence the political events that led to the current national crisis, Xinhua news agency reported.

The statement added that the President does not have the power to influence important domestic decision-making process which is important for the country.

He stressed that the purpose of his proposal "was not to move from one model of government to another, but to create a state system based on checks and balances."

Sarkissian was sworn in as Armenia's fourth Head of state for a seven-year term on April 9, 2018.

Armenia has been transitioning from a direct presidential system of governance to a parliamentary one after constitutional reforms were approved in a national referendum in December 2015. The Parliament can elect a President with a three-quarters majority.

Under the new constitutional amendments, although recognised as the Head of state, the President will hold a largely ceremonial role with real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister.
The District of Columbia and three states sued Google on Monday, claiming that the tech giant deceived consumers to gain access to their location data.

In separate lawsuits, the attorneys general of the district, Texas, Washington and Indiana claimed that Google misled users of Android phones and of tools like Google Maps and its search engine by continuing to track location information of users who had changed privacy settings to prevent the data collection.

Karl A. Racine, the attorney general for the District of Columbia, led the complaints after a three-year investigation, which was initiated after a report by The Associated Press showed that the company recorded users movements even when told not to. He said investigators had found that since at least 2014, Google made misleading and conflicting claims to consumers about privacy protections offered via its account settings.

The District of Columbia lawsuit alleged that even after users changed the settings in their account or device to stop location tracking, Google collected and stored that information through Google services, Wi-Fi data and marketing partners. The search giant also misled and pressured users to enable more location tracking, for example by claiming products would not function properly if the location services setting was disabled when in fact it was not needed to use the app, according to the suit.
In the fall of 2019, Google told the world it had reached quantum supremacy.

It was a significant scientific milestone that some compared to the first flight at Kitty Hawk. Harnessing the mysterious powers of quantum mechanics, Google had built a computer that needed only three minutes and 20 seconds to perform a calculation that normal computers couldnt complete in 10,000 years.

But more than two years after Googles announcement, the world is still waiting for a quantum computer that actually does something useful. And it will most likely wait much longer. The world is also waiting for self-driving cars, flying cars, advanced artificial intelligence and brain implants that will let you control your computing devices using nothing but your thoughts.

Silicon Valleys hype machine has long been accused of churning ahead of reality. But in recent years, the tech industrys critics have noticed that its biggest promises  the ideas that really could change the world  seem further and further on the horizon. The great wealth generated by the industry in recent years has generally been thanks to ideas, like the iPhone and mobile apps, that arrived years ago.

Have the big thinkers of tech lost their mojo?

The answer, those big thinkers are quick to respond, is absolutely not. But the projects they are tackling are far more difficult than building a new app or disrupting another aging industry. And if you look around, the tools that have helped you cope with almost two years of a pandemic  the home computers, the videoconferencing services and Wi-Fi, even the technology that aided researchers in the development of vaccines  have shown the industry hasnt exactly lost a step.
A fire in January? Californians have, tragically, seen that before.

But a fire in January after months of record-breaking rain? Thats far more unsettling.

A blaze that erupted on the Central Coast over the weekend seemed to stun even those intimately familiar with Californias ongoing drought and its increasingly year-round fire season. The National Weather Services Bay Area office called the fast-moving fire near Big Sur surreal, given the recent storms.

California saw heavy rainfall in the final three months of 2021, leading many to believe that the threat of fire would lessen for at least the next few months. But the latest blaze revealed a harsh reality: The drought has become so severe that even a series of torrential storms wasnt enough to end it.

The land in many parts of the state remains extremely parched and, after an unusually dry January, apparently ready to burn.
Americans have started to receive free coronavirus tests from the U.S. government in the mail after it began accepting orders on Tuesday.

The Biden administration said it would send 500 million rapid tests to Americans this month via the U.S. Postal Service after the Omicron variant strained access to in-person and at-home tests. Each household is eligible for four free rapid tests and can order them at covidtests.gov.

Marcie Taylor, a marketing consultant in Santa Ana, Calif., said she received her tests on Friday after she ordered them on Tuesday at the recommendation of her friend who sent her a link to the website. She said the package, which included two boxes with two tests in each, arrived earlier than the tracking website had estimated.

Ms. Taylor said her husband and two children, a 16-year-old and a 20-year-old, would try to make the tests lasts as long as possible because it only amounted to one test per person.
This is a big scientific finding, said Martha J. Farah, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, who conducted a review of the study for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, where it was published on Monday. Its proof that just giving the families more money, even a modest amount of more money, leads to better brain development.

Image The payments will continue until the children are at least 4 years old, and the researchers plan further tests. Credit... via Lauren Meyer/Baby's First Years

Another researcher, Charles A. Nelson III of Harvard, reacted more cautiously, noting the full effect of the payments  $333 a month  would not be clear until the children took cognitive tests. While the brain patterns documented in the study are often associated with higher cognitive skills, he said, that is not always the case.

Its potentially a groundbreaking study, said Dr. Nelson, who served as a consultant to the study. If I was a policymaker, Id pay attention to this, but it would be premature of me to pass a bill that gives every family $300 a month.

A temporary federal program of near-universal childrens subsidies  up to $300 a month per child through an expanded child tax credit  expired this month after Mr. Biden failed to unite Democrats behind a large social policy bill that would have extended it. Most Republicans oppose the monthly grants, citing the cost and warning that unconditional aid, which they describe as welfare, discourages parents from working.

Sharing some of those concerns, Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, effectively blocked the Biden plan, though he has suggested that he might support payments limited to families of modest means and those with jobs. The payments in the research project, called Babys First Years, were provided regardless of whether the parents worked.
The moves signal a major pivot for the Biden administration, which until recently was taking a restrained stance on Ukraine, out of fear of provoking Russia. But as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has ramped up his threatening actions toward Ukraine, and talks between American and Russian officials have failed to discourage him, the Biden administration is moving away from its previous strategy.

At the same time, the administration continues to insist that the United States has no intention of going to war with Russia over the issue. Since Ukraine is not in NATO, the alliance is not bound by its treaty to come to Ukraines defense. Russias massing of more than 100,000 troops on Ukraines border, and NATOs response, has nonetheless raised the specter of a war that could escalate and widen.

I dont think anybody wants to see another war on the European continent, Mr. Kirby said.

In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would lead to a shift in U.S. military assets much closer to Russias doorstep, administration officials said.

The bulk of the troops being put on higher alert are active-duty ground troops, including combat brigades, and medical, aviation, transportation, intelligence and surveillance forces with their equipment, Mr. Kirby told reporters. He declined to identify the specific units, saying that families were being notified on Monday.

High alert means the troops are now on what Defense Department officials characterized as a tighter leash, in case deployment orders come quickly. In some cases, officials said, units that have been prepared to deploy within 10 days must now be prepared to deploy within five days.
The Supreme Courts decision to hear both cases may have been influenced by the differing legal regimes that apply to the two schools. Harvard, a private entity, must comply with a federal statute that bans race discrimination as a condition of receiving federal money; the University of North Carolina, which is public, must also satisfy the Constitutions equal protection clause.

Damon Hewitt, the president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, which represents students and alumni defending the programs, said they served a vital role.

Selective universities like Harvard and U.N.C.-Chapel Hill have long struggled to admit students of color, who have over time been excluded for access to elite institutions and are historically marginalized, Mr. Hewitt said. Race-conscious admissions policies are a critical tool that ensures students of color are not overlooked in a process that does not typically value their determination, accomplishments and immense talents.

But Kenneth L. Marcus, who served as assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department in the Trump administration, said Harvards treatment of Asian students was reminiscent of its efforts to limit Jewish enrollment.

Just as Harvard in the 1930s thought that Jewish students lacked the character to make them good Harvard men, he said, so today they often view Asian students as lacking the appropriate character.

The case has divided Asian Americans.

Jason Xu, the president of the Silicon Valley Chinese Association Foundation, which filed a brief supporting the challengers in the Harvard case, said many Asian Americans believe that their academically high-performing children were passed over because they were of Asian descent.

But another group, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, took the opposite tack, saying in a statement that affirmative action was necessary because the reality is that race continues to unfairly limit educational opportunities for students of color. The group added that cold numerical indicators like grade point averages and standardized test scores capture and magnify these inequalities.
A judge in Wisconsin on Monday lifted an order that had temporarily blocked seven employees of ThedaCare, a major regional hospital system, from leaving for new jobs with another health care network until it could find people to replace them.

The dismissal of a temporary injunction cleared the way for the workers to begin their new jobs with Ascension Northeast Wisconsin. Last week, ThedaCare sued Ascension, seeking to temporarily keep the workers from leaving and touching off an unusual labor dispute rooted in twin crises roiling the health care industry: a shortage of workers, many of whom are demanding higher wages, and a raging coronavirus pandemic.

Ascension Northeast Wisconsin said in a statement before Mondays hearing that ThedaCare had an opportunity but declined to make competitive counter offers to retain its former employees.

The employees, members of ThedaCares interventional radiology and cardiovascular team, were at-will employees and were not contractually obligated to stay with ThedaCare for a fixed time, according to Ascension, which is part of one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the United States.
Seven school districts in Virginia sued Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Monday, objecting to his executive order overruling their mask policies and making the wearing of masks optional in public schools.

The school districts include the Fairfax County Public Schools, the states largest with more than 178,000 students, as well as the school systems in Prince William County, Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church, Hampton, and Richmond. Together, the districts serve more than 350,000 students.

The school districts said in a statement on Monday that the suit defends the right of school boards to enact policy at the local level, including policies that protect the health and well-being of all students and staff. The lawsuit was filed in the Circuit Court in Arlington County.

The school officials questioned whether an executive order can unilaterally override the authority given to local boards by the state constitution. The suit also disputes whether the governors order can override legislative action taken in 2021 that allowed students to attend classes in person while local school boards follow recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study, in JAMA Internal Medicine, adjusted for age at first diagnosis of cataracts as well as various risk factors for dementia, including few years of education, smoking, a high body mass index and hypertension. The only trait that had a bigger impact on dementia risk than cataract surgery was not carrying a gene called APOE-e4 that is linked to increased risk of Alzheimers disease.

The authors were incredibly thoughtful in how they approached the data and considered other variables, said Dr. Nathaniel A. Chin, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the study. They compared cataract surgery to non-vision-improving surgery  glaucoma surgery  and controlled for many important confounding variables. Dr. Chin is the medical director of the Wisconsin Alzheimers Disease Research Center.

We were astounded by the magnitude of the effect, said the lead author, Dr. Cecilia S. Lee, an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington.

The authors note that this is an observational study that does not prove cause and effect. But they suggest that this may be the best kind of evidence attainable, since a randomized trial in which only some people are allowed to get cataract surgery would be both practically and ethically impossible.

People might say that those who are healthy enough to have surgery are healthier in general, and therefore less likely to develop dementia in any case, Dr. Lee said. But when we see no association in glaucoma surgery, that supports the idea that it isnt just eye surgery, or being healthy enough to undergo surgery, but rather that the effect is specific to cataract surgery.
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The Prime Minister of Sint Maarten Hon. Silveria Jacobs in the House of Parliament on Wednesday addressed the concerns of Members of Parliament (MPs) about the fact that the House is handling the draft 2022 national budget without having the deviation from article 25 granted by the Kingdom Council of Minister (RMR).





Government has a legal obligation to submit the budget. Governmentt has a legal obligation to request deviation based on the deficit as a result of the disasters we have been facing from 2017 up to the present. The Committee of Financial Supervision (CFT) has advised positively and the RMR should have already approved such as per law, however, they are in default. No conditions other than the provision in the Kingdom Act Financial Supervision under the CFT can be added to be able to deviate.





We are in discussions with new Dutch State Secretary for Kingdom Relations to get this handled on February 4. Parliament should do its due diligence, debate and approve the draft 2022 national budget, and Government then has to incorporate all amendments etc. before it can be sent to the governor for ratification. Seeing the current timeline, there should be no challenge to have a ratified budget in place by mid-February to be able to live up to our obligations to the people of Sint Maarten. I have explained this part in my letter of December 23, 2021, to the Honorable MPs via the chair, Prime Minister Jacobs said on Wednesday in the House of Parliament.





Jacobs adds: These are the political and legal realities that we are facing. Despite this we have continued to engage with the Dutch State Secretary for Kingdom Relations to encourage our discussion partners and colleagues to handle the matter a.s.a.p. To that effect an official request was sent to have a meeting with the new Dutch State Secretary of Kingdom Relations to address specifically this item along with other pertinent matters.





Unfortunately, despite our best efforts we could not get the meeting before our debate, today. But I do have a meeting scheduled with the new Secretary of State Van Huffelen on Thursday. In the meantime technical staff have met twice to prepare for this meeting. I will be able to update on this matter once I have spoken to the Van Huffelen.





The Council of Ministers have presented a draft budget to the House of Parliament for deliberation as part of its legal obligation and thereafter the council will take the necessary steps to ensure that its ratified, Prime Minister Jacobs concluded.
Notable data points in the report included Brazil, where 75 percent of second graders in some states are behind in reading, compared with 50 percent prepandemic; and South Africa, where schoolchildren are up to a full year behind where they should be.

In the United States, the report said, states including California, Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia have reported that two-thirds of their third graders scored below grade level in mathematics last year, compared with half in 2019.

Quite simply, we are looking at a nearly insurmountable scale of loss to childrens schooling, Robert Jenkins, the chief of education at UNICEF, said in the report. While the disruptions to learning must end, just reopening schools is not enough. Students need intensive support to recover lost education.

Globally, the report said, disruption to education has meant millions of children have significantly missed out on the academic learning they would have acquired if they had been in the classroom, with younger and more marginalized children facing the greatest loss.

Despite efforts to mitigate the effects of school closures with remote learning, that solution is impractical or impossible where families lack internet access and home computers. And many students in low-income countries are not returning to class even when schools reopen.
KABUL, Afghanistan  On a raw January morning, Khujasta Elham trudged through a snowstorm to sign her name on a government register.

Before the Taliban seized power in August, Ms. Elham was director of womens programs for Afghanistans Civil Service Commission. But she and most other female government workers were prevented from returning to work by the Talibans new Islamic Emirate.

Now Ms. Elham, who says she has not been paid since August, is required to sign in at her old job site once a month  a fiction that allows the Taliban to deny that they have fired female government workers. The grim routine also diminishes any hope for Ms. Elham that she will one day return to work.

The dismissal of female workers is one of many indignities that have prompted small bands of women like Ms. Elham to take to the streets in protest, risking beatings or arrest. Taliban gunmen have pointed weapons at the demonstrators, sprayed them with pepper spray and called them whores and puppets of the West, Human Rights Watch said. Bearing placards and raising their fists, the women have resisted persistent attempts to erase them from public life.
The common denominator is distrust, he said. What unites these two very different groups is an alienation from traditional parties, from science, from media.

Mr. Grande said the high levels of trust in government shown by Germans early in the pandemic, when nine in 10 backed the coronavirus restrictions, began to erode after the first lockdown as weariness with the pandemic set in.

The danger now, Mr. Grande said, is that the weekly contact with the far right on the streets normalizes that group for those who belong to what he calls the distrustful center. Both camps share a belief in conspiracy theories, which have the power to radicalize the movement beyond the fringes.

The vaccine mandate, which will be debated in parliament at the end of the month, is the decisive driver of the protests. The debate about vaccine mandate is oil into the fire of the radicalization, Mr. Grande said.

I fear we have a difficult political phase ahead of us in this pandemic, he said.

Audio produced by Parin Behrooz .
ROME  A joint session of Italian parliament and some regional delegates, known as great electors, began a secret ballot on Monday to elect the next Italian president to replace the current office holder, Sergio Mattarella, as the countrys head of state.

Though always an occasion for intense, behind-the-scenes politicking, the election is also normally a routine affair that happens every seven years. This time, however, it is a focus of special attention because a top contender for the job is the prime minister, Mario Draghi, a titan of Europe who in just a year in power has stabilized Italys politics and initiated long-overdue overhauls.

If elected, Mr. Draghi would be the first prime minister to ascend to the job. His exit as prime minister, where he has his hand on the day-to-day running of the government, in favor of the more ceremonial role of the president, many Italians fear, could return the country to more fractured and chaotic politics, risking all that he has set in motion. But his supporters argue that as president Mr. Draghi could provide an extended, stabilizing influence. Not electing him, they say, is the much greater risk.

Why does it matter?

The Italian president has become increasingly important in Italy in recent decades, as the politics have become more fragmented and chaotic. The president, beyond exercising moral authority, is charged with protecting the Italian Constitution and is imbued with enormous powers during a political crisis.
At a news conference presenting the findings of the report Thursday, a representative of the law firm said Benedict had denied being at one meeting at which the case of a priest who had been sent to Munich from the diocese of Essen to receive treatment had been discussed, even though minutes of the meeting showed he had been present.

Upon reading the findings of the report, the retired pope said he had been present at the meeting in question contrary to what was stated, Archbishop Ganswein said in his statement. He added that Benedicts previous assertion was not made in bad faith but was the result of a mistake in the editing process of an 82-page statement provided to the lawyers.

In Mondays statement, Benedict, 94, apologized for the error but maintained that, while he had been present at that meeting, the pastoral assignment of the priest in question was not decided at this meeting.

In the original statement responding to questions by the lawyers conducting the investigation, Benedict had said he did not know that the priest in question had been accused of sex abuse against minors, and that the documents seeking his transfer to Munich only mentioned health-related issues that required psychotherapy. The priest was described as very gifted, and could have been assigned to different tasks, Benedict said.

The transfer request from Essen mentioned that the priest had been immediately taken out of pastoral care because of a report coming from the parish community, but did not provide further details or mention suspicions of sexual abuse. Benedict added that he had no memory of being informed about what role the new priest was going to take.
LONDON  His leadership already threatened by swirling claims of lockdown-breaking parties, Britains prime minister, Boris Johnson, suffered a fresh blow on Monday when it emerged that a birthday celebration had been held for him while strict coronavirus restrictions were in force.

Downing Street confirmed reports that staff members had gathered to celebrate Mr. Johnsons birthday in June 2020, though it said he had attended the event for less than 10 minutes.

The new revelations come at a moment of acute political peril for Mr. Johnson as he awaits the findings from an investigation, conducted by Sue Gray, the senior civil servant, into allegations about lockdown parties held in Downing Street. Mr. Johnson has been accused of misleading Parliament about what he knew about those events, and if the Gray report finds those accusations to be true, he would find himself under intense pressure to resign.

On Monday, ITV News reported claims that Carrie Johnson, the prime ministers wife, had helped to organize the surprise get-together in the Cabinet Room in Downing Street for him on the afternoon of June 19, 2020, with a birthday cake presented and snacks eaten.
On Monday, NATO and Russia blamed each other for inflaming tensions.

This all leads to tensions rising, the Kremlins spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said in reference to the moves by NATO to strengthen its eastern flank. This is not happening because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is all happening because of what NATO and the United States are doing.

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, said in a statement that NATO would continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. The statement added: We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

The mobilization by the West comes in response to what Western countries say is a buildup of Russian forces larger than any seen since the end of the Cold War. Ukraines military intelligence service calculates that 127,000 troops are massed on the Ukrainian border and thousands more are expected to arrive in Belarus for next months exercises, along with tanks, artillery and fighter planes.

But the buildup near Ukraine is only one part of what increasingly appears to be a global activation of Russian forces.

Last week, the Russian defense ministry announced that more than 140 ships and 10,000 sailors would take part in a series of live-fire naval exercises in February across the world, including off the Irish coast. The goal, according to the ministry, is to protect Russias national interests in the worlds oceans.
The U.S. military intervened on Monday to help the United Arab Emirates thwart a missile attack by rebels in Yemen on an air base where about 2,000 American personnel are stationed, U.S. and Emirati officials said.

The attack marked a sharp escalation in tensions as it was the second in a week aimed at the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been at war with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen for years. Though the Houthis frequently target Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, strikes aimed at the Emirates had been rare until recently, as have American interventions like the one on Monday, and the country has been considered a safe haven in a tumultuous region.

The rebels said that they had targeted Al Dhafra Air Base in the capital, Abu Dhabi, which hosts the U.S. Air Forces 380th Air Expeditionary Wing and has about 2,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel stationed there. The U.S. deployed Patriot missile defenses at the base.

U.S. forces at Al Dhafra Air Base, near Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), engaged two inbound missile threats with multiple Patriot interceptors coincident to efforts by the armed forces of the U.A.E., said Capt. Bill Urban, chief spokesman for the U.S. Central Command. The combined efforts successfully prevented both missiles from impacting the base, it added. American and Emirati officials said there were no casualties.
It felt like a scene from the Cold War, a perilous episode from a bygone era. An unpredictable Russian leader was amassing troops and tanks on a neighbors border. There was fear of a bloody East-West conflagration.

Then the Cold War turned hot: Vladimir V. Putin ordered Russian forces to invade Ukraine. The repercussions were immediate, and far-reaching.

Now, following the launch of Russias full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, the largest mobilization of forces Europe has seen since 1945 is underway. So far, Moscow has been denied the swift victory it anticipated, and has failed to capture major cities across the country, including Kyiv, the capital. It has been weighed down by an ill-prepared military and has faced tenacious resistance from Ukrainian soldiers and civilian resistance fighters. Still, Russia has superior military might, and Mr. Putin has indicated that his ultimate goal is to capture Kyiv, topple Ukraines democratically elected government, and subsume the country into Russias orbit.

The invasion threatens to destabilize the already volatile post-Soviet region, with serious consequences for the security structure that has governed Europe since the 1990s. Mr. Putin has long lamented the loss of Ukraine and other republics when the Soviet Union broke apart. Now, diminishing NATO, the military alliance that helped keep the Soviets in check, appears to be part of his mission. Before invading, Russia made a list of far-reaching demands to reshape that structure  positions NATO and the United States rejected.
Photo illustration by Braulio Amado Talk Temple Grandin Wants Us to Think Differently About Kids Who Think Differently

Dont put me on the McDonalds takeout window, Temple Grandin said over Zoom from her home in Fort Collins, Colo. Not going to do very well there  cant multitask, cannot follow long strings of verbal instruction. Its a little humbling to hear what Grandin says she cant do, considering how insubstantial it is compared with what she can do and has done. The author, scientist and Colorado State University professor is as responsible as anyone for broadening our understanding of autism, through her tireless lecturing and the many books she has written on the subject. (Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, published in 1995, is the classic.) Grandin, who is 74, also helped transform the meat industry through her design of more humane handling systems for livestock. Though she has been so influential on how we think and feel about autism and animal welfare, its the more tangible things that matter most to her. I am interested in my practical projects, Grandin says. Where I can actually do stuff.

During the pandemic, there has been a lot of discussion about whos vaccinated and whos not, and historically, a fear of autism is one of the things that antivaxxers  I will make only one comment: I have two Pfizers and a booster and a flu shot. Thats all Im going to say.

Well, if its OK, I have another couple of questions about vaccines and autism, and you can choose if youll answer or not. Thats a subject where thats pretty much all Im going to say. I am glad that I have my vaccinations. I dont have to worry about going to the hospital. Ill leave it at that.

In the past, youve expressed openness about people who felt skeptical about vaccines because of  No comment.

Is it your understanding that the concern that certain parents have with vaccines is  No comment.

OK, Ill move on for now. Youve written so much about being a visual thinker. How does a thinker like yourself think about moral problems, which often begin as abstractions? I have to convert it to a picture with a specific example. As Ive gotten older and loaded more and more pictures into my mental database, then I can search that database  sort of like Google for images. So when I think about moral things, I see them as little video clips. Now lets explain how I categorized things as a young child. Lets take dogs versus cats: All the dogs in my neighborhood when I was 4 years old were large. I sorted horses, dogs and cats by size. But when a dachshund came into the neighborhood, I could no longer sort dogs by size because it was smaller than the other animals Id sorted as dogs. I had to find other sensory-based features that dachshunds shared with dogs: barking, nose shape, smell. I had to use the different criteria to put the dachshunds in the dog category. Id like to talk now about three kinds of thinking: Theres an object visualizer like me, who thinks in photorealistic pictures; then the other kind of thinker is the visual spatial, pattern thinker; then of course youve got your verbal thinkers. One of the big problems with verbal thinkers is they tend to overgeneralize. Theyll talk about some concept like an inclusive classroom, but theyll have absolutely no idea of How do I implement that?

Temple Grandin in 1993. Laura Wilson

On the idea of moral questions and visual thinking: Youve been asked a million times about the morality of someone like yourself, whos concerned with animal welfare, being part of the meat and poultry industry. Ive done a lot of thinking about that.

I understand how one could visualize something like a more humane slaughterhouse. But how do you visualize the moral aspect of something that might be harder to see, like, say, the negative ecological impacts of the industry? Ive been thinking about that very much. About four years ago, I went to a really important departmental seminar, and we had an older agronomist, a crop person, come talk to all the livestock people in our department, and he told me something that was a game changer on how I thought about things. I learned that the animals made some of the best crop land. If you do grazing wrong, it wrecks land. If you do grazing right, you actually improve the soil health and improve the land, and you can also sequester carbon. Also, theres research on things like seaweed that you can feed cattle to reduce the methane they put out. Now, thats not going to be sustainable  youd strip the oceans of seaweed if you did use that  but we need to find out whats in the seaweed, and then you could probably manufacture that ingredient. The other thing we need to think about on sustainability with some of these plant-based burgers is that they have a whole lot of ingredients  different grains, peas, stuff like that. Each one of those ingredients has a supply chain, and that involves diesel-powered trucks and equipment to harvest that crop, grow that crop. Some of that could get unsustainable.

Do beef manufacturers have enough incentive to change to more sustainable behaviors? I learned a long time ago the importance of economic incentives. Some of the first research I did was on bruising. What I learned from that is if you had the wrong economic incentives, you had more bruises. If you had the right economic incentives, you reduced the bruises. I dont like to  I have a no politics policy, so Im not going to get into specifics, but the United States and other countries have subsidies that motivate practices that are not sustainable. Ill leave it at that.

Im not going to ask you the specifics of your politics  Im not getting into politics.

But given that politics touches everything, what does it mean to have a no politics policy? And why have it? Because politics interferes with the stuff I care about. Right now, at the age of 74, one of the big things I care about is I want to see the kids who think differently having successful careers, successful lives. Im seeing a lot of parents that overprotect their kid. Theyve got a 16-year-old who might be doing well in school, but he has never gone shopping. Youve got to get them out doing things. Thats stuff I care about.

Do you find politics too abstract? One of the things that bothers me is when its all gobbledygook, because theyre not talking about how youre actually going to fix something. Like when they had the power failures in Texas, they just talked gobbledygook. My approach to that  and I know a lot about equipment  is I would visit each of those power plants and find out exactly what froze. I wouldnt be fighting over who owns them, because I only have one goal: I dont want that mess to happen again. But I dont want to talk to suits. Get me alone down in the maintenance shop in that plant, and Ill find a guy who will sing to me. Hell tell me everything. As soon as the suit walks in the room, that guy will clam up because hes afraid hell get in trouble. Ive got to talk to the good technical people. Theyll tell me whats wrong, and they cant tell me much abstract BS.

What about when people talk about issues of race or polarization? Is that abstract? I try to figure out specific ways to solve something. One of the things thats really shocking is the resume studies. You put different names on them, and theyre not called back for interviews. Its disgusting. Ill discuss that because thats hard scientific data that is specific, and I can look those papers up on Google Scholar.

There are specific studies debunking the idea that vaccines have a causal relation to autism, right? No comment. No comment. No comment.

You dont think it could be useful for people to hear your opinion? No comment. No comment.

I got it. You better get it. Because Im not discussing it.

Have you gotten in trouble for talking about this subject before? No comment. Ive had my two Pfizer shots and my booster. If they require a fourth shot, Ill be first in line, thank you.

I was just reading about how nearly 10 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions are the result of the cattle industry. Do you think we should be moving toward a future where we eat less beef? One of the things we need to be doing is reducing food waste. The amount of food that we throw out is absolutely disgusting.

And reducing food waste would be a sufficient counterbalance? Its certainly going to help. Theres simple ways you can reduce it. A lot of university cafeterias got rid of giving you trays, because if you put your food on trays, you take more stuff and waste more stuff. But, you know, theres methane emissions, but there are also carbon emissions, and the power plants and transportation put out the most carbon emissions.

Grandin teaching at Colorado State University in 2010. William A. Cotton/Colorado State University

Do you feel protective of the beef industry? I want to work on improving the beef industry. The work that probably brought about the greatest change was when I worked with McDonalds, Burger King and Wendys on implementing auditing and inspection of plants. I developed a simple scoring system, and the plants had to get acceptable scores on things like electric-prod use, stunning. When you have a big buyer insist on standards, I dont care what industry youre in, that can bring about great change. Thats also something thats a doable project. I avoid the vague things because they interfere with doable projects like my audits that brought about a big change. I dont want talk. I want measurements. Something I can observe with my eyes.

Youve had such success conveying your experience of autism to neurotypical people. Are there aspects of your autism that you feel you havent been able to convey? Thats too vague a question for me to even begin to answer.

In Oliver Sackss New Yorker profile of you, its evident that your search for meaning in life was driven by anxiety and fear. Why those emotions? I think Ive got that simplified now: The meaning of life is if something that you did made something better. Like, I get an email from a parent: Thank you so much. My kid is employed now because I read one of your books. That is a little piece of the meaning of life right there. Thats something that I did. I also think, having spent so many years in heavy commercial construction, its about finishing a project and making it work. I take that same approach to working with some of these autistic kids. If a smart autistic kid ends up on a disability check playing video games all day, thats a failed project compared with, lets say, he could learn a skilled trade and now owns a metal fabrication shop.

A handful of times now, Ive asked you sort of philosophical questions, and each time your answer was about a practical, tangible thing. I understand thats what  Thats what I do.

Thats what you do. But Im interested in knowing whether you see any interrelationship between the philosophical and the practical because  Im going to just talk about the practical.

But isnt the philosophical what helps determine how practicality is put to use? For example, making the philosophical determination that animals should be treated with respect then drives practical decisions about their treatment. Does that make sense to you? All right, Im going to give you an example: I got my brand-new copy of Nature that I like for my breakfast reading. I was looking at a complicated article about superconductors that can be used in computers. Ive read a lot of articles on batteries, and there are issues with mining rare earth metals to make batteries. Now, theres research going on where we could make some of these things out of easy-to-get materials like iron, for example. Im putting something thats more philosophical together with an engineering thing: If you can make batteries out of easy-to-get stuff, then it solves a lot of problems with mining rare earths where its likely to cause social-justice issues.

Do you feel social-justice issues are intrinsically important? Yes, they are important, but I want to avoid the politics. Ill give an example of a social-justice thing I totally believe in: We use DNA testing to prove that a prisoner did not do a crime. Thats a practical application of something that involves social justice.

Might there be impractical applications of social justice? Theres all kinds of theories that dont work. Id rather talk about stuff we know works.

I realize that maybe earlier I should have just asked this question bluntly: Do you believe vaccines can cause autism? Im not discussing that. I will give you one thing about vaccinations: I listened to the news, and a doctor was complaining about having heart-attack patients die because they could not get into the emergency room because the hospital was so full of unvaccinated Covid people. And then I talked to this person that was not vaccinated about, you know, maybe all these people filling up this hospital killed some heart-attack patients. He said, I never thought about that. That I will talk about.

But why not vaccines and autism? I dont want to talk about that.

Im curious about your reluctance. Im not discussing it.

OK. There are certain things I dont talk about because it interferes with stuff I care about. Its that simple.

Going back to that Oliver Sacks profile: You didnt give an answer for why it was fear and anxiety that motivated your search for meaning. When I was young, I was totally driven by anxiety. I found out my amygdala was three times bigger than normal. Ive been on antidepressant medication, an old form called desipramine, since 1980, and it stopped all that anxiety, that frenzied looking for the meaning of life. That made the frenzy go away. I have done some of my best work when it comes to design after I went on that drug. I just visited one of my projects: Its over 35 years old, and Im so pleased. None of the gates are broken off  got the best gate hinges in the industry. Yeah, Im proud of that.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

Opening illustration: Source photograph by Matthew Eisman/Getty Images

David Marchese is a staff writer for the magazine and the columnist for Talk. Recently he interviewed Brian Cox about the filthy rich, Dr. Becky about the ultimate goal of parenting and Tiffany Haddish about Gods sense of humor.
Page Content

On behalf of the Government and the People of St. Maarten, the Honorable Prime Minister Silveria E. Jacobs extended congratulations to newly sworn-in Prime Minister of the Republic of Barbados, the Honorable Mia Mottley following the overwhelming results of the recently held elections.





In a letter sent to Prime Minister Mottley today, January 20, Prime Minister Jacobs stated, As a fellow female leader in the region, your exemplary form of leadership has become a beacon for many of us to follow. Your trailblazing first term has been accentuated with efforts to not only broach Caribbean issues internationally but underscore the importance of regionalism and self-determination as well. In so doing, you strengthened our collective voice and navigated one of the most challenging times in our most recent history.





As you embark on this second term, I wish to emphasize the longstanding and amicable relationship between our two countries and the great good that can be achieved through collaborative efforts in achieving our common agenda. Your people have validated your leadership. Continue to lead and inspire with wisdom and grace, concluded Prime Minister Jacobs.
An 87-year-old Iranian man who has been living on the streets and hasnt taken a bath in almost seven decades recently baffled scientists with his good health.

We first wrote about Amou Haji in 2014, dubbing him the worlds dirtiest man. At the time, he was living in a small village in Southern Irans Fars province, surviving on roadkill and dirty water, and staying as far from bathwater as possible, thinking it would make him sick. He was 80-years-old at the time and appeared to be in good overall health, despite his questionable hygiene and living conditions. Well, apparently not much has changed since then, as a team of doctors recently conducted a series of tests that showed he was in surprisingly good health.

Photos and articles about Amou Haji have been doing the rounds on social media ever since his story originally went viral, over seven years ago. After all, his way of life is pretty incredible, in a time when many of us probably bathe more than we should. We once wrote about an Indian man who hadnt bathed in 38 years, but at 67 years without a bath, Haji most likely holds the world record.

If anything, I was a bit surprised that it took a team of scientists so long to track down the octagenarian and run some tests on him to get some insight into the life of a person who shunned bathing so many decades ago, instead living in what can only be described as thoroughly unhygienic conditions. But, better late than never, I guess.

A team of doctors led by associate professor of parasitology, Dr Gholamreza Molavi, from the School of Public Health in Tehran visited Amou Haji in the village of Dejgah and convinced him to let him run some tests. They included tests for various forms of hepatitis and AIDS as well as parasites.

Dr. Molavi and his team were particularly interested in finding and studying the parasites and bacteria that might have developed in his unwashed body, but were surprised to find no disease-causing bacteria or parasites, except for Trichinosis, an infection that, in his case, appeared to be producing no symptoms.

The discovery was particularly shocking considering that the 87-year-old regularly consumes raw roadkill like porcupines and rabbits, drinks untreated water from puddles using unwashed rusty cans, and reportedly smokes dry animal feces if he doesnt have tobacco for his pipe.

Dr Gholamreza Molavi believes that the only logical explanation for the test results is that Amou Haji has developed an enormously strong immune system over decades of living in extremely harsh conditions.



Despite his good health, 87-year-old Amou Haji routinely has to deal with the meanness of his fellow humans, many of whom taunt him and even physically abuse him, simply because of his lifestyle choices. The local governor recently appealed for people to leave him alone, saying that, despite his appearance, he was a gentle soul that never caused anyone any harm.
CityBlock Health head of communications Cath Anderson says delivering results is a key part of communications success. However, she tells Doug Simon that "behind-the-scenes comms work" also plays a major role in elevating the impact of your message.

Such factors as "building coalitions, bringing people together around an idea and ensuring you have cross-functional support" go "a long way to determining your success as a leader and as somebody who people can get behind."

Expanding your skill set is one aspect of that behind-the-scenes work, and Anderson says that "the commonality across all skill sets is that it's folks that really enjoy writing. They lean into storytelling in their lives, so it's a natural tendency when it comes to their career."

Also important is "the ability to quickly analyze and pull out the most important points amidst a pretty noisy world and noisy news cycle," she says.

Developing these skills, she says, is not a one-and-done affair. "Its not something you take a class on and you know how to do it. You have to just put it into practice day to day."

Anderson stresses the importance of culture building. "I actually think that culture building is everyone's job and that over the past several years, we've all kind of come to understand that it's up to us to come together and to create the community that we want to live in."

She also tells Simon that "success" is a word you have to define for yourself. "I've come to see success as something that is helping to propel me forward and to grow and learn and become a better person. And that it could mean a new company on my resume, or it could mean a new volunteer opportunity."

With a resume that includes stints at Google, Facebook and Apple, Anderson discusses ways that PR can mitigate some of the challenges being faced by the tech industry.

"I think the two biggest ones would be, first to help the business be more strategic around their timeline," she tells Simon. "The second thing I would say is, one of our primary focus areas is to look around corners. So, with mitigating risk, we want to be bringing up the top red flag items, asking tough questions, and poking holes in things."

But one more essential quality for success in a changing marketplace, she says, is leading with vulnerability. "I think vulnerability is kind of the glue that connects us all and actually helps to build trust."

View all of the interviews in the PR's Top Pros Talk series. Subscribe to get notified when new episodes are available.

Interested in taking part? Contact Doug Simon at [email protected]

D S Simon Media helps clients get their stories on television through satellite media tours and by producing and distributing content to the media. The company also produces live social media events.
Moroccos OCP Group has awarded a $180K six-month contract for public affairs services to Cogent Strategies.

The phosphate fertilizer giant, which is 94 percent owned by the Government of Morocco, has been waging a battle with the Commerce Dept. over countervailing duties.

Cogents contract with OCP North America calls for drafting messaging, handling media outreach, writing op-ed pieces and supporting paid media efforts and conducting targeted outreach on Capitol Hill.

OCP has a history with US firms.

In 2020, it signed $300K one-year contracts with FleishmanHillard and Cornerstone Public Affairs.

It also inked a pact with CCO Communications for outreach pegged at a $300 hourly rate.

CCO Communications is the firm set up by Tom Forsythe, who was CCO and VP-global communications at General Mills.
24/01/2022  Progress continues in combatting harmful tax practices and providing greater tax certainty. New outcomes on the review of preferential tax regimes and new peer review reports on Mutual Agreement Procedures have been approved by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS, which groups over 140 countries and jurisdictions on an equal footing for multilateral negotiation of international tax rules.

Preferential regimes (BEPS Action 5)

At its November 2021 meeting, the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (FHTP) agreed new decisions on 9 preferential tax regimes as part of the implementation of the BEPS Action 5 minimum standard, bringing the total number of reviewed regimes since the start of the BEPS Project to 317.

The FHTP concluded on regimes as follows: Two newly introduced regimes were concluded as not harmful (Hong Kong (China) and Lithuania). Two regimes are abolished (Mauritius). In addition, Qatar amended its three preferential regimes to be in line with the standard and therefore, these regimes are not harmful (amended). Costa Rica made a commitment to amend recent legislative changes that were made to its Free trade zone regime and therefore, regime is now in the process of being amended. Finally, one new regime is now under review (Albania).

More information on the BEPS Action 5 on harmful tax practices can be found at https://oe.cd/bepsaction5

Mutual Agreement Procedure (BEPS Action 14)

The Stage 2 peer review monitoring reports of the BEPS Action 14 minimum standard evaluate the progress made by Brunei Darussalam, Curacao, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Monaco, San Marino and Serbia in implementing recommendations resulting from their Stage 1 peer review. They take into account any developments in the period 1 April 2019  31 December 2020 and build on the Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) statistics for 2016-2020. Highlights include:

The Multilateral Instrument was signed by Curacao, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Monaco, San Marino and Serbia. It has already been ratified by all of them, which brings a substantial number of their treaties in line with the Action 14 minimum standard. In addition, there are bilateral negotiations either ongoing or concluded.

Brunei Darussalam, Curacao, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Monaco and San Marino now have a documented bilateral notification/consultation process that they apply in cases where an objection is considered as being not justified by their competent authority.

Curacao, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey and Serbia closed MAP cases within the pursued average time of 24 months, whereas the remaining jurisdictions had no MAP experience.

Brunei Darussalam, Curacao, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Monaco and San Marino ensure that MAP agreements can always be implemented notwithstanding domestic time limits.

All of the concerned jurisdictions have issued or updated their MAP guidance.

The OECD will continue to publish Stage 2 peer review reports in batches in accordance with the Action 14 peer review assessment schedule. In total, 82 Stage 1 peer review reports and 60 Stage 1 and Stage 2 peer monitoring reports have now been published, with the ninth batch of Stage 2 reports to be released in a few months.

More information on the BEPS Action 14 Mutual Agreement Procedure can be found at https://oe.cd/bepsaction14



Media queries should be directed to Pascal Saint-Amans, Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (+33 1 45 24 91 08), or Achim Pross, Head of the International Co-operation and Tax Administration Division (+33 1 45 24 98 92).

Update 25/01/2022: The text has been corrected to say "Albania" (instead of "Armenia") as the one new regime under review.
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The legendary investigative journalist told The Guardian that "for 25, 30, 35 years" the US was mired in "a cold civil war" that Trump ignited.
James Snyder will not be appearing in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway anymore. The actor has been fired from the production, following an independent investigation after a cast members complaints about his conduct off stage. Click inside to read more Variety reports that producers launched a third-party independent investigation after they received [...]
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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:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x55e838828aa8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e838781b30)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x55e838828aa8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e838781b30)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x55e83884c4e0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e838781b30)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e838781b30)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e82e3160b0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x55e8387be240)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x55e8387be240)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
Nusrat Ghani lost her job as a transport minister in February 2020 partly due to her Islamic faith, she has claimed

Hull Daily Mail 22 Jan 2022
The US has ordered the families of all American embassy staff in Kyiv to leave Ukraine amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion.
Deutsche Welle 24 Jan 2022

The US, UK and Australia have told the families of its diplomats in Kyiv to leave Ukraine amid concerns about a potential Russian..
A US official repeated earlier warnings from the White House that an invasion into Ukraine by Russia could come at 'any time'.
The Liverpool terror attacker's asylum claim was dismissed six years before he tried to carry out his strike, court documents show.
New Zealand Herald 25 Jan 2022

Of the many twists and turns in the Cleo Smith saga, a swift guilty plea by the man who abducted her is up there as one of the more..
COVID has still got a "long, long way" to go and is "still very serious" despite some optimism the end is in sight in Europe, the World Health Organisation's special envoy on the virus has told Sky News.
Burkina Faso's President Roch Marc Christian Kabore is being held by mutinous soldiers, two of the rebellious soldiers told The Associated Press by phone early Monday. They did not say where Kabore is being held, but said he is in a safe place.
The US, UK and Australia have told the families of its diplomats in Kyiv to leave Ukraine amid concerns about a potential Russian invasion. Germany said it would also help its citizens leave if they wish.
If Russian troops cross into Ukraine, EU nations will need to resolve their differences of opinion. While some initial actions in the case of an invasion are clear, a longer-term plan remains murky.
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

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:948

/var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/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 125 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 157 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x55e83841eab0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e83845acc8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/2011159162/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x55e83841eab0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1302 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 955 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e83845acc8)') 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 135 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x55e83841f458)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1300 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1292 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 481 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 433 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e83845acc8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e83845acc8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x55e82e314df8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x55e83845c7c0)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x55e83845c7c0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
Former United States President Donald Trump allegedly isntructed to have his son, Donald Jr., be imprisoned over his daughter, Ivanka, if they were indicted in a previous case. The situation comes as the Trump family is under pressure from various investigations of their family business and the Jan. 6 riot.
The U.S. State Department has issued an announcement that urged American citizens in Ukraine to immediately flee the country amid the threat of Russian invasion. The situation comes as Moscow has continued to amass troops in its border with Ukraine despite international criticisms.
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization of Canada is being sued by a former employee who claims he was constructively dismissed because he was "too much on the side of the community."
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Belfast Telegraph 29 Jan 2022

Controversial military exercises by the Russian navy that were due to take place off the Irish coast have been relocated, according..
Tensions are soaring between Russia and the West, with Nato outlining a series of potential troop and ship deployments and Ireland warning that upcoming Russian war games off its coast would not be welcome.
A British couple living in Ukraine while their surrogate-born baby is issued a passport have described their nerve-racking wait amid mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
NATO said Monday that it's putting extra forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe, as Ireland warned that new Russian war games off its coast are not welcome given tensions over whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Ukraine.
Rumble 08 Mar 2022

Stop for a second and think. What would the US do if Russia went back on an agreement and put troops and weapons back in Cuba or..
Newsy 30 Jan 2022

Watch VideoU.N. experts said in a new report that nearly 2,000 children recruited by Yemen's Houthi rebels died on the battlefield..
Radio to the rescue The Georgetown Gazette reports the most recent series of storms shows how amateur radio can play a vital role during power/communications outages



The newspaper says:



As the most recent series of storms showed, power and communications infrastructure can be vulnerable, resulting in extended outages.



Many El Dorado County residents not only lost power during these storms but also vital phone and internet services failed and residents could not reach 911. In areas where heavy snow fell residents were cut off or trapped at home and did not know how or where to obtain vital help or supplies. Even the 24/7 emergency telephone outside the Georgetown Fire Departments Volcanoville fire station went dead due to downed power and telephone lines.



Since 2019 the El Dorado County Amateur Radio Club has implemented neighborhood radio watch programs throughout El Dorado County. Neighborhood radio watch was developed in response to the growing concerns of wildfire destroying communications systems and placing lives at risk. Led by a team of local amateur ham radio operators, the neighborhood radio watch program enables residents to use powerful non-ham emergency radios in the event of wildfires, storms or power shutoffs that disable communications systems. Many county residents now keep these low-cost radios ready at home and in their cars so they can reach their family, friends and first responders when all else fails.



Amateur radio and neighborhood radio watch users became especially active during the Caldor Fire and most recently during the storms that blacked out Camino, Pollock Pines and the Georgetown Divide. To help restore emergency communications in the Georgetown area, 12 volunteers from the El Dorado County Amateur Radio Club and its neighborhood radio watches provided more than 112 hours of onsite radio support at the Georgetown IOOF building and the Quintette and Volcanoville fire stations.



Read the full story at

https://www.gtgazette.com/2022/01/22/radio-club-aids-north-county-residents-when-all-else-fails/
Tensions soared Monday between Russia and the West over concerns that Moscow is planning to invade Ukraine, with Nato outlining potential troop and ship deployments, Britain saying it would withdraw some diplomats from Kyiv, and Ireland...
Anne Burghardt: my aims with the Lutheran Federation



My country, Estonia, is known as one of the most secular countries in the world, so something I will definitely bring is an experience of being able to share the word of God to people in secular societies. I was born in 1975 during the Soviet occupation and I grew up in a secularised family environment. While my grandparents had been active members of the Lutheran church, my grandmother, together with my father and my aunt, were deported to Siberia in 1949. Like many who went through these experiences, my grandparents were cautious about actively involving their children in the life of the church as they were concerned about the consequences it would have had in an aggressively atheistic state.



Invitations and journeys

It was an invitation to a confirmation class from a high school friend that set me on the path to ordination  a path I would have struggled to believe if someone had suggested it to me 30 years ago! My school was one of the few in Estonia at that time which offered religious education classes and the discussions I had with classmates sparked something deep inside me. Everyone was searching for an identity, both on a national level and at a personal level too, and I became more and more interested in religious questions.

Looking back on my own faith journey, I would say that some people experience a path of natural growth in a traditional Christian family. A few have sudden conversions, like the Apostle Paul. Then there is another path where I belong, a path of slow growth through many questions, moving forward step by step, being grounded ever more deeply in the faith. In 2004, ten years on from that high school invitation, I found myself in St. Marys Cathedral in Tallinn being ordained as a pastor, as I sensed I wanted to serve the church with the gifts I had been given.

Ecumenism and education

Nel frattempo avevo studiato teologia presso lantica universita di Tartu, trascorrendo del tempo anche a Berlino e in Baviera, dove avevo preparato il dottorato in studio delle liturgie ortodosse. Avevo svolto la formazione pastorale, insegnando in seguito allIstituto di Teologia a Tallin, che comprende una cattedra di teologia ortodossa, raro esempio di cooperazione ecumenica di alto livello in una istituzione accademica ecclesiastica. Visto il mio interesse per il mondo ortodosso sono diventata membro della prima commissione di dialogo luterano-ortodosso in Estonia e ho fatto parte della Commissione congiunta globale luterano-ortodossa. Poi ho lavorato per cinque anni come segretario per le relazioni ecumeniche presso il quartier generale della Federazione Luterana Mondiale a Ginevra, sovrintendendo al dialogo con gli anglicani e i mennoniti, come anche, in seguito, con i cristiani ortodossi e pentecostali.

In the intervening years, I studied theology at the ancient University of Tartu, spending time also in Berlin and in Bavaria where I prepared my PhD in Orthodox liturgics. I did my pastoral training and then later taught at the Institute of Theology in Tallinn, which includes a chair of Orthodox theology, a rare example of high-level ecumenical cooperation within a church-owned academic institution. [AB1] [AB2] [PH3] [AB4] [AB5] [PH6] [AD7] Due to my interest in the Orthodox world, I became a member of the first Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue commission in Estonia and I also served on the global Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission. After that, I worked for five years as secretary for ecumenical relations at the LWF headquarters in Geneva, overseeing dialogue with Anglicans and Mennonites, as well as later with Orthodox and Pentecostal Christians.

During that same period, I helped to coordinate preparations for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, which saw Pope Francis praying alongside Lutheran leaders in the Swedish city of Lund where the LWF was founded in 1947. Although we are a confessional communion of churches, I believe the LWF has always had a very strong commitment to Christian unity and its formation was profoundly influenced by the broader ecumenical movement of the early 20th century. Just as each Christian communion brings its own special gifts to the global Church, our Lutheran tradition brings its emphasis on the centrality of Gods unconditional grace and the freedom that flows from that.

Another characteristic of the Reformers was their focus on education to share the gospel and to encourage critical thinking, principles that are central to my own understanding of the churchs mission in our contemporary world. A key innovation during my time as director of development at Tallinns Institute of Theology was the setting up of a Masters programme on Studies in Christian Culture. The course was conceived as an academic mission to those working in the secular world but wanting to understand more about their Christian history and traditions.

Critical thinking to combat polarization

That programme has been very successful, building on the legacy of the Theology Institute that stayed open throughout the Soviet era. During those years, the Institute provided an academic education that ensured that pastors were trained to think in differentiated ways, not just in black or white responses. Today, when many societies are facing increased polarisation, it is vital that the church is not supporting a black and white paradigm, but rather reflects a more differentiated way of thinking. One of my goals is to strengthen the LWFs theological education and formation network, making materials widely available for students who lack access to resources and training for critical thinking. In doing this, I hope to share some of my own experience of research and training in diverse fields, including conflict resolution, HIV counselling and community development in rural areas.

Another of my aims is to develop theological discussion around the Lutheran understanding of ordination, to support those Churches that are moving towards including women in the ordained ministry and in leadership positions. As the first woman to lead the LWF, I believe that in many regions and in many of our Churches, there are women who feel encouraged by this example. The first women in Estonia were ordained as pastors more than half a century ago, but I think that my appointment marks a historic moment for our Church and for our region. However, at the same time, I look forward to the day when gender is no longer an issue in the discussion of leadership positions in our Churches or in society.

Theology, mission and justice

Among the key tasks that I will be facing as the new General Secretary is overseeing preparations for our next LWF Assembly to be held in Krakow in September 2023, focusing on the theme One Body, One Spirit, One Hope. Alongside the theological and ecumenical work, this includes setting directions for the churchs aid and development arm, known as LWF World Service. Operating in 27 countries, often in remote and hard-to-reach places, our World Service department is known for its professional humanitarian work linking local communities to international advocacy for justice, peace and human dignity, especially for the most vulnerable. For many years, we have been one of the largest faith-based implementing partners of the UNHCR and we work closely with ecumenical partners, including Caritas Internationalis, as well as with other faith groups like Islamic World Relief. Just as it was a concern for the LWFs founders in the wake of World War II, the plight of refugees continues to be one of our major preoccupations in the work with vulnerable communities. Around the world today, over 80 million people have been internally displaced or forced to flee their countries because of conflict, poverty, persecution or the climate crisis. At the same time, we are seeing the rise of authoritarian regimes, the slow pace of actions taken by states to reduce the impact of climate change and pushback on human rights, particularly the rights of women. Another concern for us is that access to COVID vaccines continues to be very unequal across the world and vaccines themselves are increasingly made into a weapon of a misinformation war, adding to the existing polarisation and conspiracy theories. As the LWF, we remain committed to just and long-term solutions that are consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals, which address the root causes of poverty, so that all people can enjoy their rights and a life with dignity.

Having grown up in an era when rights and dignity were routinely trampled underfoot by the Soviet regime, I believe that our Churches can and must play a vital role in speaking out for these Christian values in the public square. In an increasingly fragmented world, we are called to discern the will of God in complex situations and to be agents of positive change and reconciliation. As Christians, we ourselves must walk the talk, responding to Christs will for unity and healing of our broken world.

By Anne Burghardt



First Woman Secretary General





Reverend Anne Burghardt, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Estonia, is the first woman, as well as the first person from the Central and Eastern European region, to be elected General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation. A theologian and pastor, she began her term in November 2021, succeeding the Rev. Martin Junge, who had led the worldwide fellowship of 148 Lutheran churches since 2010. Burghardt, 46, a wife and mother of two biological children and an adopted Palestinian refugee, reflects on her path to leadership and the special gifts she hopes to bring to her work.
The protection of children against sexual exploitation is a duty of all States, who are called to identify both traffickers and abusers At the same time, it is all the more a duty to denounce and prevent child abuse in the various spheres of society: school, sports, recreational and cultural institutions, religious communities and individualsEven today we see how often in families the first reaction is to cover everything up; a first reaction that is still present in other institutions, and in the Church too. We must fight against this old habit of covering up.

Francis, May 15, 2021, receiving the members of the Meter Association, which is committed against pedophilia, exploitation and for the rights of children

*

Women are being sold; women are being enslaved. Even in the centre of Rome. The fight against trafficking is a daily job. In the Jubilee [of Mercy] I paid a visit to one of the many houses of the Opera di Don Benzi: girls who had been rescued, one with her ear cut because she had not brought in the right [amount of] money, that day; another one, brought from Bratislava in the trunk of a car, a slave, kidnapped. This happens among us, the civilized, human trafficking

Francis, March 8, 2021, on the return flight to Rome from Iraq

*

Abuse of religious women is a serious problem. And not just sexual abuse, but also the abuse of power, abuse of conscience. We have to fight against that.

Francis, May 10, 2019, to the participants of the Plenary Assembly of the International Union of Superiors General

*

A historical situation should be interpreted with the hermeneutics of that time, not our own. For example, in the case of abuse in the Church, covering-up, which is the way that is used  unfortunately  in families, even today, in a large numbers of families, and in neighbourhoods, trying to cover it up. (Today) we say, no, covering up is not the way to go.

Francis, December 6, 2021, on the return flight to Rome from Greece

*



Inviting a woman to speak about the wounds of the Church is to invite the Church to speak about herself, about the wounds she has.

Francis, February 22, Meeting The Protection of Minors in the Church

These citations from Pope Francis were our starting point to tell the story of women struggling with abuse and violence, and gather their testimonies. (WCW)
Ottumwa, IA (52501)

Today

Some sun this morning with increasing clouds this afternoon. High around 60F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy with rain developing after midnight. Low near 50F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch.
The 35th Annual NASWA Winter SWL Festival

March 4-5, 2022, Online using the Zoom webinar platform.



The Winter SWL Fest is a conference of radio hobbyists of all stripes, from DC to daylight. Historically, every year scores of hobbyists have descended on the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania suburbs for a weekend of camaraderie.

The Fest is sponsored by NASWA, the North American Shortwave Association, but it covers much more than just shortwave; mediumwave (AM), scanning, satellite TV, and pirate broadcasting are among the other topics that the Fest covers. Whether youve been to every Fest (all 34, starting with the first year at the fabled Pink & Purple Room of the Fiesta Motor Inn) or this years will be your first, youre sure to find a welcome from your fellow hobbyists, even if its a virtual welcome!.



In 2022, the 35th Annual (!!) Winter SWL Fest will again be going virtual courtesy of the Covid-19 pandemic. All activities will be conducted online via the Zoom webinar platform.



Registration will be $10 per computer screen to defray the Zoom hosting expenses. If you already have a PayPal ID you can simply send $10 from your account to swlfest [at] naswa.net. If you arent a PayPal member you may also register online via PayPal here. Paper registrations will not be processed for 2022.



Your hosts, Richard Cuff and John Figliozzi, work throughout the year to ensure that attendees have a great time over the weekend, and by all accounts, they succeed stunningly. How else could this event have lasted for 35 years (egad)  even with a Pandemic  and draw people from around the world to southeastern Pennsylvania? Wont you join us.



http://www.swlfest.com/
Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - The Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Najla al-Mangouch, has expressed the government's concern to promote the living conditions of migrants and preserve their rights
Photo: (Photo : Getty images )

A proud mom from Florida gave birth to mono-di twins, or monochorionic, diamniotic (MCDA) twins with Down Syndrome, which are believed to happen in one-or-2-million-of-a-kind rare.

Savannah Ackerman, a native of Jacksonville, endured a high-risk, frequently monitored pregnancy after her doctors told her that she had monochorionic, diamniotic twins (MCDA). Six months ago, she gave birth to Kennadi Rue and Mckenli Ackerman, born with Down Syndrome.

The likelihood of having mono-di twins with Down Syndrome at birth is multiplied nearly a thousandfold.

1 or 2-in-a-million-of-a-kind rare

Mono-di twins or the monochorionic, diamniotic (MCDA) twins are from a single fertilized egg (ovum), resulting in genetically identical offspring. The twins share a single placenta, sharing a blood supply, but with separate amniotic sacs. MCDA twins happen at three to four in 1,000 live births.

On the other hand, Down syndrome is a condition in which a child is born with three copies of the 21st chromosome, hence trisomy 21. The chromosomal difference cause disabilities and delays in physical and mental development.

Down Syndrome is likely to occur in about 1 in 700 babies in the United States and is considered the most common genetic disorder.

Meanwhile, twins with Down Syndrome are much rarer. The UK National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register indicates that in 1000 babies with Down Syndrome, 14 or 15 are likely to be twin or triplets.

The likelihood of having non-identical twins with Down Syndrome is estimated to be 14/15 in a million. Meanwhile, according to experts, having identical twins with Down Syndrome happens at a rate of 1 or 2 in a million pregnancies. The Ackerman twins are one-or-two-in-a-million!

Read Also: Teenage Sexting: Parenting Experts Reveal What Parents Should Do

Managing mono-di pregnancy

Savannah successfully endured a high-risk pregnancy, as pregnancies involving mono-di twins are frequently monitored to maximize the chances of ensuring safe delivery. These pregnancies are linked to complications such as pre-term labor, pre-term delivery, and risks related to the shared blood supply.

When the doctors told them that their girls had Down Syndrome, Savannah and her husband overcame mental and emotional challenges. Like every parent that had to deal with the reality that their children may have disabilities, the couple feared what their daughters would encounter when they grow up.

Savannah admitted that her husband "had a breakdown" upon hearing the news.

Down with Ackerman Kids

Yet, when the bundle of joy arrived, Savannah became more open and accepting. She realized that their babies were just like everyone else. "They're making their milestones ... they're a little behind, but they're not far behind," she added.

She started a Tiktok channel of her twins, "Down With The Akerman Twins," which usually showed the pair side by side with matching outfits.

Its most-watched video was viewed 1.6 million times and had a following of 48,400 Tiktok users to date.

Although the mono-di twins with Down Syndrome have many followers, the family also dealt with some negativity. On her Facebook post about a baby, a detractor commented, "I wouldn't want those babies if mine came out like that they would be straight up for adoption."

To which the mom with 1-or-2-in-a-Million of a kind rare twins did a beautiful clap back, "Lol I said good thing they weren't born to you and were born to me. God knew what he was doing by giving these babies to the right parents who would love them regardless."

Related Article: COVID-19 Positive Mom Pumps Green Breastmilk, Insists It's Still Safe and Best for Her Baby
Photo: (Photo : MICHAEL TRAN/AFP via Getty Images)

Paris Hilton hopes that her future daughter won't grow up to become a social media influencer who will spend less time on her phone because the rest of her life is so much fun.

In the documentary "Paris in Love," the former reality TV star said that social media popularity would be the last thing she'd wish for any of her children. She added that while there are good and bad things about being an influencer, it's still a toxic life.

Hilton, who has 17 million Instagram followers, expressed that an influencer's life is centered on perfection, and they also have to deal with the rude comments from the followers. She said she didn't want this kind of experience for her daughter.

"If she does want to do it, she can," Hilton told Insider. "But I would rather her just be a nerd who wants to be a scientist or something."

Read Also: Paris Hilton Pregnancy: Heiress Admits Babies Good To Go After Having IVF Procedure

Paris Hilton's IVF

Hilton married Carter Reum in November 2021 after two years of dating. The couple had planned on having kids before they tied the knot. In the podcast show "The Trend Reporter with Mara," Hilton revealed that she and Reum had started the IVF process so she could have children via surrogacy.

She said her friend, Kim Kardashian, convinced her to try this process after having two children via surrogacy herself. Kardashian also introduced Hilton to her IVF doctor.

The social media star, who is in her 40s, said that going through the IVF process "a couple of times" was tough, but she was happy to have Reum as her supportive partner. She said that her husband always makes an effort to make her feel like a "princess all the time" that the tough times do not seem so bad anymore.

Hilton said she wants to have twins with IVF and can't wait to start with the next chapter of her life with her husband. She professes that having kids will make her life more meaningful and even more so because she has a husband who has the same goals.

In another podcast interview, Hilton said she would pick out "London" as the name for her daughter, but she is still choosing a name for a boy. She insisted that she was not going for theme cities, but the name London feels right for her.

Carter Reum is a Dad

Shortly after their wedding, Page Six reported that Reum has a nine-year-old love child with Laura Bellizi of "Secrets of Aspen." Sources confirmed that he and the girl do not have a traditional dad and daughter relationship, but he has supported her since her birth.

Reum had signed paternity documents acknowledging his daughter when he started dating Hilton. Sources also claimed that since Reum's high-profile relationship with Hilton, his daughter has been "triggered" and "felt left out" of his life, especially after learning that Reum wants to start a family with Hilton.

The girl is at a crucial age of discovering self-identity and is longing for her paternal family's acceptance. The source also stated that the nine-year-old loves her father and his other family. It's unclear if she has met Hilton in person, but the girl lives with her mother in California, where Reum and Hilton are also based.

Related Article: Erin Andrews Reveals She's on Her 7th IVF, 'I Am Not Ashamed'
Photo: (Photo : Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images for National Geographic)

Alec Baldwin is facing a $25 million defamation lawsuit from a military family of a Marine killed in Afghanistan after he allegedly insinuated on social media that one of the family members joined the Capital riots in January 2021.

The actor donated $5,000 to the family of the late Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, who was hit by a suicide bomber while assisting the escape of the refugees at the Kabul airport. McCollum's widow, Jiennah McCollum, was pregnant at that time so friends and family members set up a GoFundMe for her and her soon-to-be-born child.

Baldwin learned of the GoFundMe and gave a check to Roice McCollum, the sister of the corporal. Baldwin also wrote a note on the check, which stated that it was a "tribute to a fallen soldier."

But on Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, Roice allegedly shared a photo of some Washington Monument demonstrators and wrote under the captions that this was in anticipation of the first anniversary of the Washington demonstrations. She also shared a photo of herself on the same spot, from Jan. 6, 2021, with her "Make America Great Again" cap.

Read Also: Alec Baldwin and Family Faulted for Celebrating Halloween With Kids Amid 'Rust' Shooting Controversy

"You're an Insurrectionist"

After reading Roice's posts, Baldwin sent a message to her on Instagram asking if she was the same person who got his cheque for a fallen soldier. When she confirmed it, Baldwin blasted her on Instagram because he had no idea she was "a January 6th rioter."

Roice tried to explain to the actor that she didn't storm the Capitol unlike the rest of the rioters. She was also interviewed and cleared by the FBI and was "never detained, arrested, accused of or charged with any crime," in connection to the Capitol riots.

However, Baldwin allegedly could not accept her explanation and then reposted Roice's photo on his own Instagram account, saying that Trumpsters were wrong to call their protest an "exercise in democracy." Because of his post, Roice received "hundreds of hateful messages" until Baldwin decided to take his re-shared post down.

In his private messages to Roice, Baldwin also acknowledged that the vitriol she got from his followers was wrong. However, he insisted that he only wanted to point out the irony that he was honoring Roice's brother when she's an insurrectionist.

The lawsuit accuses the actor of "defamation by implication" as well the "intentional infliction of emotional distress." It was filed by Roice, her sister, Cheyenne McCollum, and their sister-in-law, Jiennah, the corporal's wife.

Dragging the Corporal's Legacy in Mud

The lawyers for the family said that when Baldwin reshared Roice's photo to his massive social media fanbase, he was also dragging the legacy of the deceased corporal through the mud. The lawyers also described Baldwin's action as "especially deplorable" after he chimed in the comments section of his posts and repeatedly accused the corporal's sister of being an insurrectionist despite explaining that she had no part in the riots.

Worse, Cheyenne and Jiennah also received hurtful messages on their social media accounts even though they didn't join the Washington demonstrations. The lawsuit stated that Baldwin was aware that Roice would get hate and threats when he reposted her photo because he told her "good luck" after declaring that his repost.

Related Article: Capitol Riots: Family Breaks Apart After Teen Son Reports Dad to the FBI for Insurrection
Photo: (Photo : Getty images )

A team of surgical doctors successfully separated ten-month-old conjoined twins Addison (Addy) and Lilianna (Lily) after a ten-hour operation at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia on October 12, 2021.

Addy and Lily are thoraco-omphalopagus twins, a condition where twins share a liver, diaphragm, chest, and abdominal wall.

A special journey

Conjoined twins are rare as it happens once in around 50,000 to 200,000 births. It is risky as well as researchers say that 60% of conjoined twin pregnancies end in stillbirth. Separating the twins is also difficult as only 60% of separated conjoined twins survive after the surgery.

Parents Maggie and Dom Altobelli assumed they had one baby. When they had a prenatal for their 20-week ultrasound appointment, they were surprised to know they had twins and were also attached to the abdomen.

Maggie, the mom, told NBC, "I was trying to find out the gender of one baby I thought we were having, and then it turned out to be a little more complicated."

The couple was referred to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) since the hospital is one of the few hospitals in the US with experience in handling conjoined twins.

Since then, the couple was subjected to extensive prenatal testing to check the possibility of separating the twins after birth.

The doctors discovered that the twins had different, healthy hearts despite sharing a chest, abdominal wall, diaphragm, and liver.

Medical experts at the Children's Hospital determined that the twins were good candidates for separation. They have separate hearts and a liver big enough for them if divided.

Addy and Lily were born on November 118, 2020, and had to spend four months in the Newborn/Infant Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and six months in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

READ: Separate Sleeping Arrangement: Hubby Sleeps in Tent, Wife in Bed, but Still Happily Married

The complex ten-hour-surgery

The surgery team involved more than two dozen specialists, anesthesiologists,general surgeons, cardiothoracic surgeons, radiologists, and plastic surgeons.

To prepare for the surgery, the surgical team met every week to study the ultrasound images to study the blood flow and vasculature. The radiologists designed 3D models put together like Lego pieces so that the surgical team would understand the twins' anatomy and practice for the surgery.

Finally, almost a year since the twins were born, the twins underwent a 10-hour surgery. After the twins were separated, the surgical team was divided into reconstructing the girl's chest and abdominal wall.

When parents Maggie and Dom saw their daughter separated for the first time after the surgery, Maggie said it was terrific. "It was just indescribable," she added.

Home at last

The Altobellis finally flew home to Chicago after spending almost a year in Philadelphia. Before heading home, the twins had to spend two weeks at Lurie Children's Hospital but were discharged in time for Christmas.

The twins still have ventilators and tracheostomy tubes attached to them to aid in their breathing as they will need more time to develop musculature and adjust to their breathing.

According to Dom, although the conjoined twins have separated, they still share a special bond like reaching for each other's face, hands, and breathing tubes when they are close.

RELATED ARTICLE: Woman Finds Biological Son She Never Knew She Had Through DNA Test
Aurrigo to create digital twin of Gerald R Ford Airport airside operations in US first

UK-based autonomous technology developer Aurrigo is embarking on an aviation first in the USA by using its Auto-Sim software platform to create a digital twin of airside operations at Gerald R Ford International Airport in Michigan.

Supported by the Ford Launchpad for Innovative Technologies and Entrepreneurship (FLITE) initiative, which provides pilot-testing opportunities to companies focused on bringing emerging air travel solutions to market, Aurrigo will identify cost savings, enhance customer experience, achieve a host of environmental improvements and lay the foundations for how the airport could implement autonomous operations in the future.

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Utilizing a PlanetM Testing Grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, Aurrigo will build a model of airside operations, covering roadways, intersections, stands and all operational vehicle types and movements. A team of simulation engineers and project management specialists based in the companys engineering center in Coventry, UK, will work with Ford International Airport planning staff to integrate vehicle fleet capacity and flight schedules so they can simulate airside servicing to benchmark current operations and predict future scenarios.

In addition to modeling operations, the Auto-Sim software platform can simulate the effects of staff shortages due to Covid-19, flights delays, the de-icing schedule for departing aircraft and severe weather events including heavy snow and ice.

David Keene, CEO of Aurrigo, said, The worlds airports are all facing the same challenge of providing greater levels of customer service with the most cost-effective use of resources and minimal environmental impact. Its a careful balancing act and one brought into even sharper focus with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Auto-Sim will enable Ford International Airport to be the first in the US to complete a real-world feasibility study of a current airport using digital twin technology. This allows airport planners to model the operational processes, financial implications, customer journey experience and environmental impact of implementing new technology without the risk of expensive mistakes.

We hope it will encourage other airports within the US and around the world to utilize the Auto-Sim platform to streamline operations and reduce their environmental impact, while also providing the optimal customer experience and preparing them for future operations that involve airside automated vehicles.

Aurrigo will work with Ford International Airport and consortium partners Southwest Airlines, Stantec, Seamless and the Michigan Office of Future Mobility & Electrification to complete this project by the end of May 2022.

Auto-Sim can replicate the airports busiest periods, which on any given day could include 112 aircraft movements, requiring upward of 1,000 individual activities to be serviced.

Before the pandemic, Michigans second busiest airport catered for nearly 3.6 million annual passengers and, in 2019, handled 41.4 million kilograms of air freight  all considerations that will be factored into the modeling work.

The technology can also generate detailed energy consumption data for every vehicle modeled in the airside operations, including optimizing current operations and exploring ways to minimize distance traveled to service the flight schedule.

Tory Richardson, president and CEO of Gerald R Ford International Airport Authority, said, FLITE enables us to partner with entrepreneurs and established companies focused on developing innovative new products and services to improve airport operations and the air travel experience for guests. We are proud to welcome Aurrigo to our airport to offer them the opportunity to test their Auto-Sim software platform alongside our airside operations.

Aurrigo previously used its Auto-Sim technology to help Changi Airport in Singapore with development work on a new terminal. The company was founded by brothers David and Graham Keene nearly 30 years ago and has also used its in-house software, technology and engineering expertise to develop the Auto-Dolly, a new autonomous luggage and cargo system that has the potential to deliver 60% carbon savings for airports.

It is anticipated that the digital twin modeling work could prove the business case for these dollies to replace two-thirds of conventional diesel-powered luggage and cargo tractors and trailers.
In this post

Ill offer some dharma gems from Keizan Jokin Zenji (12681325), the fourth generation in the Soto succession in Japan. Keizan is regarded as the second founder of Japanese Soto and is also known as Taiso Josai Daishi. This is part of a series in which Im highlighting some of the background and teaching on the ancestors in the Soto lineage before and after Dogen in order to put his teaching in context.

As for this post, first, just for some background, youll find a biography of Keizan that appears in Thomas Clearys Timeless Spring: A Soto Anthology, a highly recommended resource for all Zen students.

Then the main thing that Im very excited to share here: Answers to Ten Questions from the Emperor by Keizan Jokin Zenji. This is an extraordinary text and culminates with the Emperor asking Keizan for advice for his work with the mu koan. Hes been working on it for just a year and is a bit whiney about not having yet plunged to the depths of the buddhadharma yet. So read through (or scroll) to question 10!

Keizan responds to the Emperor by quoting Dahuis advice for the keyword method. In fact, 3/5s of Keizans response is quoting Dahui  yup, I did the word count. Now, do you suppose you would give advice to the Emperor about something if you didnt feel really competent and confident in what you were recommending? The implications of this and the whole text, really, for our understanding of Soto Zen in the medieval period are profound and far-reaching.

More on that later.

Answers to Ten Questions from the Emperor was translated by Kokyo Henkel, a wonderful American Soto teacher, a successor of Tenshin Anderson Roshi, In addition, Kokyo is an excellent translator and generously shared this translation with Wild Fox Zen. Kokyos work succeeds at staying close to the Chinese characters while at the same time flowing well in English. This is no small thing.

You can read more about Kokyo here.

Kokyos website includes an enormously rich array of dharma resources. Its one of my go-to sites. If you are interested in buddhadharma, check it out and I bet youll find something important for your path. Im grateful for Kokyos years of training that make the resource possible, as well as his generous heart that makes it available.

For example, you can also find a pdf version of Answers to Ten Questions from the Emperor that is included in this post here. Youll also find Yongjias Verse Giving Rise to the Vow (Yongjia Zhenjues Hotsuganmon) also recently translated by Kokyo here. Yongjia is also known as The Overnight Guest due to his receiving transmission from the Sixth Ancestor, Huineng, after spending just one night at his monastery. Yongjia is better known for his Song of Enlightenment. Finally, you can find the Secrets of the Zen Precepts by Manzan Dohaku (16361714) here. Manzan was an important link in the Soto transmission.

None of these gems has been available before in English, as far as I know.

Enjoy!

Keizans Biography from Timeless Spring

The Zen masters initiatory name was Jokin; he was styled Keizan. He was entitled Zen Master with Enlightened Compassion; this was a posthumous title granted by the emperor of the southern court.

He was from Etchu, and his lay surname was Kubara. When he was a child he took master Ejo as his teacher and shaved his head and put on monks clothing. When Zen master Gikai succeeded to the seat to lead the community at Eihei, the master Jokin served as Gikais personal attendant, taking care of his robes and bowl.

One time when he entered Gikais room, Gikai asked him, Can you bring forth the ordinary mind? As Jokin tried to say something, Gikai hit him right on the mouth; Jokin was at a loss, and at this point his feeling of doubt blazed. One night as he was in the hall sitting in concentration, he suddenly heard the wind at the window and had a powerful insight. Gikai deeply approved of him. After a long time Gikai entrusted the teaching to Jokin, who finally succeeded to the seat at Daijo, having had for years the complete ability, transcending the teacher.

When he reopened the Eiko monastery of eternal light and lived there, lords and officials came to him when they heard of him; his influence was greatest in his time. One day he said to his student Meiho, On the spiritual mountain there was a leader of the assembly (Mahakasyapa) who shared the teaching seat (with Shakyamuni Buddha); at Caoqi there were leaders of the assembly who shared the teaching. Here at Eiko today I too am making an assembly leader to take part in the teaching.

Then with a verse he bestowed the robe  The flaming man under the lamp of eternal light  shining through the eons sky, the atmosphere is new. The putting Peak of Brilliance [this refers to Meiho] is hard to conceal; his whole capability turns over, revealing the whole body.

Thereafter the master Jokin never drummed his lips (spoke much) to the assembly; late in life he changed the disciplinary monastery Soji into a zen place and stayed there. After a long time at it, he had had enough of temple business, so he gave the abbacy to Gazan, extending a collateral branch of the teaching. The master Jokin always liked to travel, so when he had retired from his duties he wandered around with a broken rainhat and a skinny cane, meeting people wherever he went, and crowds of people submitted to him.

Answers to Ten Questions from the Emperor

Jush u Chokubun Sotaish u

by Keizan Jokin Zenji



Ten Item Imperial Questions and Reported Answers Collection (1)

Written Questions of Emperor Godaigo, answered by Keizan Jokin in 1320/22

Presented by Houn Fugai Zenji (a.k.a. Azakami Baisen 1825-1901),

recorded by his jisha Taisho Tripitaka Volume 82, number 2588

Translated by Kokyo Henkel, 2021

The Emperor asked: Zen Ancestors thought and [Tendai and Shingon] Teaching Schools thought, are they the same or different?

Teacher Keizan replied: The Zen Ancestors and the Teaching Schools are like water and waves; how could they be different? However, many Teaching School people are bound in the net of the teachings without being able to get free. From ancient times up to the present, when meeting with the Zen Ancestors thought, many people have attained their aim.

Elder Fu of Taiyuan City [in China], having recently become abbot of Guangxiao Temple in Yangzhou City, was lecturing on the Nirvana Sutra. One Zen person, taking shelter from a snowstorm, was staying at the temple, so he went to listen to the lecture. The abbot was teaching on the three causes of buddhanature and the three virtues of the dharma-body. He taught extensively about the dharma-body and its wondrous principle, but the Zen person was laughing during the lecture. After finishing the lecture, the abbot invited the Zen person to tea and said to him, I am a simple person with limited inferior knowledge, so I rely on the text for understanding. I saw that you were laughing at me, but which part of my talk was lacking? I humbly wish to understand the teaching.

The Zen person said, Since you ask, I laughed because you dont know the dharma-body.

The abbot said, My explanation was thus; what was lacking in it?

The Zen person said, Will the abbot please explain again?

The abbot said, The dharma-bodys principle is like great space, pervading the three times and all ten directions, including the eight extremities and two modes, according with conditions and responding without limit.

The Zen person said, I dont say that your lecture was not correct, but you only explain the dharma-bodys measurable qualities. In fact, you dont yet know the dharma-body.

The abbot said, If you say so, Zen person, please explain it to me now.

The Zen person said, Do you not trust me?

The abbot said, How could I dare not trust you?

The Zen person said, If so, practice thus: temporarily stop lecturing. For ten days, stay in a room, practice upright sitting, gather mindfulness, collect the mind (sesshin); good, evil, and all involvements will be cast off at once, and the abbot will be released from relying on the teachings.

The abbot sat from the afternoon [of the tenth day, through the night], and in the early morning during the fifth watch, he heard the sound of the drum and clearly realized enlightenment. [Later he became a disciple of Xuefeng.] (2)

So it is, so it is.

Also, Abbot Liang of West Mountain [in China] met Mazu. Mazu asked, What sutras do you teach?

Liang said, The Heart Sutra.

Mazu asked, How do you teach it?

Liang said, I use the heart to teach.

Mazu said, The heart (mind, chitta) is like a main actor, thought (manas) is like a supporting actor, the six consciousnesses (vijnana) are like assistants [as taught in the Lankavatara Sutra]. How can they understand your teaching of the sutra?

Liang said, If the heart cant teach it, then does empty space teach it?

Mazu said, Empty space teaches it.

Liang shook out his sleeves and began to leave. Mazu called to Liang, Liang turned his head, and Mazu said, What is it?

Liang brightly opened to great awakening.

So it is, so it is.

Also, Great Teacher Yongjia [Tiantai and Chan monk], Guifeng Zongmi [Huayan and Chan monk], Abbot [Shouzhou] Liangsui [disciple of Mayu Baoche], and Changshui [Zhixuan, Tiantai and Chan monk], as well as the two transmitters of the teaching to Japan, Dengyo Daishi [Saicho, founder of Tendai] and Kobo Daishi [Kukai, founder of Shingon], all practiced the Ancestral Teachers Zen and attained the seal of verification. Is this not excellent beyond measure?

The Emperor asked: Bodhidharmas fragrance arrived, as the third son of an Indian king. However, the four great elements and five aggregates make up the body, so how did Bodhidharma travel [across the Yangzi River] on one reed stalk?

Teacher Keizan replied: All buddhas and all ancestors cannot possibly conjecture about such mystical powers and wondrous function. Going beyond ordinary feelings, one may lean towards Buddha-Dharmas spiritual mysticism. Even though Bodhidharmas fragrance arrived as the kings child, this is the precious Avalokiteshvara Mahasattvas transformation body (nirmanakaya). How could there possibly be no mystical powers and wondrous function, even though such things are inferior to the ancestral teachers gate? Also, mystical powers and wondrous functions are not strange or special. As Layman Pang said, Mystical powers and wondrous function: carrying water and chopping wood.

The Emperor asked: The Zen School is said to not rely on words and letters, but is a teaching outside the scriptures, a separate transmission. And yet the whole great sutra storehouse (tripitaka) is all words and letters. The Zen Schools records of sayings are also words and letters. If there were no words and letters, how would the buddhas and ancestors speak and teach? What can we rely on to transmit the teachings in this age of decline?

Teacher Keizan replied: Words and letters are like traps and snares for catching fish and rabbits. Yet traps and snares can be used if one doesnt get confused. Sutra teachings are like a finger pointing at the moon. If one sees the moon, then the finger has no use. Thus, everyone knows that traps and snares do not attain fish and rabbits, and they know that the finger does not see the moon. The ancients speech was not established on words and letters. The World-Honored Ones forty-nine years of vertical expounding and horizontal expounding has been left behind for us; however, the Buddha picked up one flower and showed it to the assembly, and the assembly remained silent. Only Venerable Kashyapas face broke into a smile. This is not established on words and letters; it is a separate transmission outside the teachings. This is the supreme presentation.

The Emperor asked: We have a so-called body of four great elements which deceptively combine; at the end of our lifespan, the earth element returns to earth, the water element to water, the fire element to fire, the wind element to wind. So then, what thing falls into hell?

Teacher Keizan replied: When the lifespan ends, there is the view that the four great elements separate and disperse, and there is not one thing left. Those outside the Way have such a view of emptiness. Actually, cause and effect play out endlessly; understand this view. Depending on this life, good and evil karma are the cause for receiving and depending on a body in the next life: perhaps life in a heaven, perhaps entering a hell realm, hungry ghost realm, or animal life, receiving the seeds of suffering. All sutras say these words clearly. Likewise, a person attaining great liberation is able to speak of no hell and no heaven.

The Emperor asked: Everyone acts to bring benefit to their deceased father and mother. We prepare offerings of tea and hot water for their spirits but, even if there are just a few offerings, they dont vanish. How can we know if they receive our offerings or not?

Teacher Keizan replied: This is like a bee collecting nectar from flowers; it receives only the taste without diminishing the flowers color and fragrance. How could these things vanish? Moreover, it is said in the [Abhidharma]-kosha, in the Chapter on The World, that those in the middle existence [between two lifetimes, antarabhava], take fragrance for food, relying on the food of scents; they are called gandharvas. Thus, those with few blessings receive only the food of bad smells, and those with many blessings receive the food of exquisite scents. So it is, so it is.

The Emperor asked: The World-Honored One practiced in the snow mountains (Himalaya) for six years. When the morning star appeared, he suddenly realized great awakening. He said I, together with the great earth and all sentient and insentient beings, now attain the Way. A realized person clearly attains the Way, but how does a deluded person attain the Way?

Teacher Keizan replied, The [Complete Awakening] Sutra says, Know that sentient beings originally have attained buddha.

So it is, so it is.

Sentient beings already originally have it, but even though they are endowed with buddha-nature, they use it without knowing it. Old Master Shakyamuni attained the Way, completely opening the lively eye of insight. Thus grass, trees, lands, everything, and everyone attained buddha.

The Sixth Ancestor said, awakened, sentient beings are buddha. Deluded, buddha is a sentient being. (4)

Beings and buddhas are originally not separate. Delusion is because of sentient beings. Awakening is because of buddhas. How can sentient beings, if not deluded, be separate from buddhas? In ancient times there was the Buddhas forty-nine years of expounding Dharma, saving deluded sentient beings, causing them to see originally existing buddha-nature.

The Emperor asked: The Diamond Sutra says, All buddhas and the Dharma of anuttara-samyaksambodhi of all buddhas originate from this sutra. [section 8] The Diamond Sutra is Shakyamuni Buddhas teaching, but it is said that all buddhas originate from this sutra. Not knowing this sutra previously, how did all previous buddhas follow it?

Teacher Keizan replied: The sutra teaches with one word, constantly teaching Dharma. This Dharma is itself the principle. This Dharma principle accompanies heaven and earth before any separation. All previous buddhas emerge from this. Clearly passing through, merging with this Dharma principle, is what makes all buddhas. Violating this Dharma principle is what makes ordinary people. Benevolent ones are called benevolent. Knowing ones are called knowing. Anuttara-bodhi (unsurpassed awakening) is also like this!

The Emperor asked: The [Lotus] Sutra says, Great Pervading Wisdom Victor Buddha sat at the site of awakening for ten kalpas, while Buddha-Dharma did not manifest, and he did not attain the Buddha-Way. So it is, so it is. How can present-day people practice zazen for one lifetime and attain the Buddha-Way? (5)

Teacher Keizan replied: Great Pervading Wisdom Victor Buddha sat at the site of awakening for ten kalpas, and even then Buddha-Dharma did not manifest, and he did not attain the Buddha-Way. Within the teaching, one must teach with discerning knowledge. Great Pervading Buddha, because of his great courageous and bold spirit, advanced with power. The sutras ten kalpas is like the time it takes to eat a meal. If present-day people just have the root of great trust, then ten kalpas are not a long time. Thus, within the ancestral teachers gate, it is inferior to separate from this lifetime.

Teacher Linji said, Great Pervading means that one personally arrives at the place of ten-thousand dharmas being without nature and without characteristics. This is called Great Pervading. Wisdom Victor is being without doubt in every place, and not attaining a single dharma. This is called Wisdom Victor. Buddha means the mind of pure radiant light, penetrating and pervading the dharmadhatu. This is called buddha. Ten kalpas sitting at the site of awakening is the ten paramitas. Buddha-Dharma not manifesting is Buddha originally not arising and Dharma originally not ceasing. How could it manifest! Not attaining the Buddha-Way is Buddhas not becoming Buddha again. (6)

So it is, so it is.

Thats how to rely on the sutras words, being released above, and Linjis saying, shifting the meaning below. See this, even though it is difficult to understand!

The Emperor asked: The [Manjushri-Pariprccha, Prajna Paramita in 700 Lines] Sutra says, Pure practitioners do not enter nirvana; monks who break the precepts do not enter hell. However, pure practitioners may enter nirvana; how could they not enter? Monks who break the precepts may enter hell; how could they not enter?

Teacher Keizan replied: There is the view of nirvana and hell remaining as two; in the small vehicle this view is understood. In reality, good and evil are nondual, harmful and upright are one suchness.

Discussing what is purity when breaking precepts, the Complete Awakening Sutra [Chapter 6] says, Sentient beings and worlds have the same one dharma-nature; hells and heavens are both pure lands. All afflictions are complete liberation.

So it is, so it is.

Thus, there is no nirvana to possibly seek, no hells to possibly reject. This is how we can we discuss the purity of breaking precepts.

The Emperor asked: Ive been taking up Zhaozhous No koan for a year but still I have not passed through and penetrated the root. How can I make effort (gongfu) in using the mind?

Teacher Keizan replied: You have come to ask these imperial questions; this is the exceedingly best conduct. In the past, one drew feet on a snake [Chinese idiom: gilded the lily]  in a strong explanation for laying the foundation, Zen Teacher Dahui [in his Letters, section 10.5] said:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, Does a dog have buddha-nature or not? Zhou said No. This one word destroys and eliminates lots of harmful knowing and bad awakening, [being stuck] underneath a bowl. It is not attained by understanding there is or there isnt. It is not attained by understanding through reasoning. It is not attained by using the faculty of thought (manas), thinking, or conjecture. It is not attained by raising the eyebrows and blinking the eyes. It is not attained through the path of [the ancestors] words, or using lively strategies. It is not attained by abiding in non-doing inside a shell. It is not attained by raising it up and abiding in it, inheriting it or taking charge of it. It is not attained by pulling out proof from words and letters. Just, throughout the twelve hours, within the four dignified postures (sitting, standing, walking, reclining), constantly take it up. Constantly raise it up and awaken to: Does a dog have buddha-nature or not? No. Do not separate from this throughout the day. Thus, work hard (gongfu) to investigate. In a month or ten days [Chinese idiom for quickly] you will see and attain it.

So it is, so it is.

Once more, does a dog have buddha-nature or not? Zhou said no. This one word is an easy way to destroy birth and death, a knife to cut through the bottom of the doubting mind. Take hold of this knife handle. Only taking charge of it like this, can one put it in ones own hand. With just the written teachings, a person is separate from it, with an unskilled hand, and doesnt attain it. One must go straight to ones own home; only then can an unskilled hand begin to attain it. Once more, [Dahui, in his Letters, section 58.2] said:

It is not attained by understanding it like the spark from a flint stone, or a flash of lightning. Straightaway attain no more place to use the mind; when the mind has no more place, do not be afraid of falling into emptiness. Here, retreating within is an excellent place. Suddenly the old mouse enters into an ox horn [Chinese idiom: all tricky methods will be cut off]. It will be easy to see, topple over, and cut off.

So it is, so it is.

This is my hidden wish. Under the Emperors throne there are ten-thousand functions, as well as excess leisuretime. Throughout the twelve hours, raise it up. Holding up the keyword (huatou) is the superior way to break through doubt; then a thousand doubts, ten-thousand doubts are broken through at once. At that time, you will penetrate and verify the original ground, wind, and light, and the original face will certainly be seen. Many prayers for happiness, many prayers.
It reflects, albeit partially, the thinking of the sizeable constituency in Pakistan that realises the importance of a stable relationship with India is in its own interest

by Sharat Sabharwal

Pakistan has released the public version of what is billed as its first-ever National Security Policy (NSP). It stipulates, inter alia, economic security as the core of national security, an expansion of the economic pie, supplementing geostrategy with geoeconomics, making Pakistan a trade and connectivity hub, curbing extremism and terrorism, and inculcating a culture of introspection and pragmatism in defining national security interests. An impressive wish list indeed for a national security state. However, the devil will lie in its implementation.

The elephant in the room is Pakistans adversarial posture towards its much bigger and better-endowed neighbour  India. This, together with the primacy of its army, the growing and unaccountable defence expenditure, low resource mobilisation, a crushing debt burden, entrenched economic interests, extremist violence, and ethnic fissures accentuated by Punjabi dominance, largely accounts for Pakistans woes. The country, while counting increasingly on its nuclear arsenal for its defence, retains its obsession to keep up with Indias conventional military capability. The NSP mentions the growing conventional force differential in the region, but is silent on how the increasing defence outlays are to be tamed. One cannot see the Pakistan army giving up its India bogey  the mainstay of its primacy  and its business empire anytime soon.

Expanding the economic pie is an uphill task on account of vested interests draining the national treasury without contributing their due share to it and dampening economic activity by violence and terrorism. Pakistans growth rate remains very low, decent growth having been registered mainly during phases of large external aid inflows.

The NSP expresses the wish to improve relations with India, but places a just and peaceful resolution of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute at the core of the bilateral relationship. This has been in essence the publicly articulated Pakistani position over the years. Given the ground realities, the only feasible peaceful solution to Kashmir will have to be non-territorial. The backchannel (2004-07) deliberations on the issue represented an important step in that direction. However, Pakistan did not show the courage and sagacity to take them to their logical conclusion. This begs the question: Does Pakistan want a mutually acceptable solution to Kashmir or use it as a perennial hostility plank against India? Things have since moved on with the withdrawal of the special status of J&K, Chinas deeper involvement in the illegally occupied territory of Gilgit-Baltistan and its aggressive moves in eastern Ladakh.

Pakistan has pruned down its initial demand of reversing Indias August 5, 2019 move to the restoration of statehood to J&K and no change in the areas demography. The restoration of statehood may come in due course, but no government in India would like it to be seen as a response to a Pakistani demand. There has been no mass influx into J&K to change its demography in a significant manner  something that Pakistan has done to the parts of J&K under its illegal occupation. Unless Pakistan takes a pragmatic approach to Kashmir and relations with India to promote the larger goals mentioned in the NSP, the conclusion that it sees Kashmir as a perpetual stick to beat India with will be inescapable.

Pakistans emphasis on geoeconomics without trade and transit links with India is an empty slogan. The access provided to China to the Makran coast is the only important economic linkage Pakistan provides. Pakistan can become a meaningful transit hub only by providing linkage, together with India, between Central/West Asia and beyond on one side and Southeast Asia and beyond on the other. However, it has continued to deny transit to India and blocked intra-regional connectivity in SAARC. Instead of addressing these issues, the NSP describes Pakistans eastward connectivity as being held hostage to Indias regressive approach.

The withdrawal of the MFN status by India in February 2019 was justifiable only as a retaliatory move. It did not have the potential to influence the calculus of Pakistans security establishment (Pakistans exports to India are less than 2 per cent of its global exports) and raised the cost of imports from the next-door market for the Indian consumer. Pakistan took an even more short-sighted step by suspending trade with India in August 2019 which would hurt its economy more than Indias. A move last year to permit the import of Indian cotton, cotton yarn and sugar was scuttled quickly by the Pakistan government. The Pak daily Express Tribune, quoting an official source, mentioned recently that trade could be normalised if there was progress in dialogue. The term progress is undefined, though I would expect Pakistan to revise its stand on trade at some stage under pressure from its business and industry.

Due to encouragement by politicians and the army for their selfish ends, including the perpetration of terrorism in the region, religious and sectarian extremism and the accompanying violence are deeply entrenched in Pakistan. Repeated attempts to regulate the madrasa education system and counter Pakistans rogue terror groups have come a cropper.

The aforementioned factors rule out any dramatic results of the NSP by way of an enduring change in the internal and external orientation of the Pakistani state. Because of stiff resistance by vested interests, any positive transformation will inevitably be a gradual process. However, we need to take note of the NSP for two reasons: First, it is a sign of Pakistans growing challenges, particularly economic, in continuing with its old policies; and second, because it reflects, albeit partially, the thinking of the sizeable constituency in Pakistan that realises the importance of a stable relationship with India in its own interest. Going forward, these factors should present us with opportunities to improve the relationship beyond the ceasefire restoration of February 2021 by way of resumption of trade and the upgradation of diplomatic representation, especially having senior interlocutors in each others capital. Whatever Pakistans problems, a calmer western front also suits us in focussing on the Chinese challenge.

The writer is former High Commissioner to Pakistan, and is the author of the forthcoming book, Indias Pakistan Conundrum  Managing a Complex Relationship
Have you finally reached the point where you cant do without Windows 11? No problemgetting your hands on Microsofts latest operating system is straightforward.

You can obtain it one of three ways: waiting for Windows 10 to push it to you, triggering the download using an application, or creating installation media. We walk you through each method below.

However, before getting started, we advise first verifying that your PC is compatible with Windows 11. It can save you some time if it turns out youre stuck with Windows 10. Also, if youre starting from scratch (or, ahem, have been running an earlier version of Windows unactivated), you might also want to snag a cheap Windows 10 license. Because upgrades are free, itll allow you full access to Windows 11 features for far less.

Once youve confirmed that your system is ready to go, heres how to download Windows 11.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Eventually, everyone will have Windows 11 pushed to them via Windows Update. You should get a notification when its ready, but if you havent seen one yet, you can check manually. Head to Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Check for updates.

Microsoft recommends this method over the others, so taking the lazy route is perfectly acceptable. Some users can run into hardware and software issues when forcing an upgrade earlier. Overall, waiting can be advantageousWindows 11 continually gets new tweaks and additions as time passes.

Note: This method is the only way to get Windows 11 for PCs with an Arm processor (e.g., Qualcomm Snapdragon chips.)

Windows 11 Installation Assistant

After passing the PC Health Check Apps compatibility check, you should see this screen in the Installation Assistant. PCWorld

Is Windows Update still not coughing up Windows 11? For PCs with an Intel or AMD processor, you can move along the process by using the Windows 11 Installation Assistant. This program has a user-friendly interface that does the work of downloading Windows 11 and then initiating its installation.

To get started, download and run the Installation Assistant. If you havent already run the PC Health Check App as part of verifying your PCs Windows 11 compatibility, youll be prompted to download and install that application. After youre given the green light, you can then proceed onward with Windows 11.

Installation Media

PCWorld

Sometimes you need or want to use a bootable USB or DVD to install Windows 11perhaps the Installation Assistant isnt working for upgrading Windows 10 to Windows 11. Or maybe a clean install is required, because you want to completely wipe Windows 10 or you have a PC that has no operating system yet.

For the files necessary to create that installation media, head to Microsofts Windows 11 download page. Existing Windows users can use Microsofts Media Creation Tool, which handles the download for both USB drives and DVDs. Mac and Linux must grab the ISO file for Windows 11.

Afterward, you may need to undertake some additional steps to create your media. The Media Creation Tool only produces bootable USB drives. You have to burn DVDs yourself after the download finishes. If you grabbed the ISO directly, the process of making a bootable USB drive or DVD is also on you.

Dont forget

After youre done downloading Windows 11, you also have to install it. For smooth sailing, we recommend that before you begin, you check out our Windows 11 upgrade checklist, as well as our guide on how to how to upgrade to Windows 11. If nothing else, back up your PC (as applicable) before you install Windows 11. Even if you plan to keep all of your files and applications, a simple upgrade can on occasion go awry.
Dr Patrick Asuming, an Economist, says, the usage of Ghana card for all financial transactions will help in widening the tax net.



Dr Asuming, who is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana (UG), said the decision would also support the countrys revenue generation efforts for national development.



In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, the Economist said the card could help track economic activities and close the loopholes in the informal sector.



He said the move would give the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) the opportunity to tax and also go after individuals and organizations that evaded tax payment.



It will help have a stronger footing to track the kind of economic activity people are involved in, and be able to tell when people are not paying their taxes and go after them, Dr Asuming said.



Citing the United States of America (USA) where a similar system was in place, he said, each time someone went to rent a house, buy a car, or do a major investment, their social security number was required.



Therefore, at the end of the year, the bank would have the information about all transactions made, together with the interest income earned by the individual and send the same information to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for action to be taken.



In our case, the Ghana card is the tax identification number (TIN). So GRA will have the Ghana card number as our tax ID and every time there are transactions in your bank, GRA will know that TIN is performing this transaction.



"So if at the end of the year they crosscheck their records and realise that even though GHC100,000 million went into your account, theres no record that you filled any tax and paid, then it means that youd be made to go and pay your appropriate tax, he said.



That, he noted would widen the tax net and help generate more revenue.



Mr John Awuah, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Association of Bankers (GAB), said the integration of all cards into the Ghana card would help tax agencies to be able to follow the money.



If everything is tied to one card that gives visibility to the tax authority, it can only be a positive development for tax collection. This will, therefore, help with the Governments revenue mobilisation plan, he said.



He also said there would be sanctity in the banking system because the banks would be able to detect fraudulent activities perpetrated by people who would temper with IDs that did not belong to them.



He, therefore, said the community of banks was ready to work with the stakeholders to ensure that the timelines were met to make customers comfortable.

Source: GNA









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Former Finance Minister, Seth Terkper, has warned Ghanas credit rating will suffer further downgrade following a B- negative outlook rating from Fitch.



In spite of the downgrade from Fitch, which is the worst since the Former President Kufuours administration, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta has insisted that the fundamentals of the economy remain strong.



But Speaking on Morning Starr, Mr. Terkper stated the countrys ballooning debt levels and consequent interest payments will push Ghanas ratings further down thus increasing cost of borrowing.



We should brace ourselves for ratings from Moody, Fitch, S&P because these three agencies always follow each other. They rate Ghana, they rate our sovereign and our reserves and the rest.



Those who are going to give you ordinary loans are looking at the health of your economy and they take ratings on those who have global experience because they cover advanced countries, middle income countries, lower middle income countries like ourselves, he stated.



Mr. Terkper continued So when they rate you and your rating is not good, then the market of those who you would want to borrow have these things and would say things are not going well. They perceive that there is risk to give you money just like your neighbor you go to him two three times, the fourth time he might not give you if you are not paying.



Touching on governments decision to cut 2022 expenditure by 20 million cedis, the former finance minister advised the government to reconsider funding of its free SHS program and payment of allowances for teacher trainees.

Source: starrfmonline.com









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Boris Johnson today warned Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine will be a 'painful, violent and bloody business' as the UK pulled staff from its embassy in Kiev.



The PM delivered the stark message as he admitted that the prospects of averting a confrontation in the area were 'gloomy'.



Russia has stirred the pot by announcing live-fire naval drills off the coast of Ireland next month, amid rapidly escalating tensions with the West. There are concerns that any escalation of the stand-off will send gas prices spiralling again, with threats of punitive sanctions against Moscow.



Speaking on a visit to a hospital in Milton Keynes as NATO ministers held crisis talks in Brussels, Mr Johnson said the Kremlin must realise that Ukraine could be a 'new Chechnya'.



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The United Nations marks every January 24 as International Day of Education to commemorate the role education plays in international peace and development.



This years day, which is the fourth celebration of the day since it was instituted in 2019, is held under the theme Changing Course, Transforming Education.



Ghanas quest to transform and improve education with the introduction of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum in schools appears to be in line with the theme.



STEM is an approach to learning and development that integrates Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and aims at building capacities of students in problem-solving, creativity, critical thinking, and analysis.



Government is using the project to reposition the educational system to equip learners with 21st-century skills to be fit for purpose.



It is also to prepare the critical mass of empowered Ghanaians for socio-economic transformation and become active participants in the 4th Industrial Revolution.



Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, has said the initiative would be a priority in Ghanas education to prepare students for the job market and make them globally competitive.



The Minister said that the countrys education system had outlived its relevance and needed to be reviewed, saying, the review should reflect current trends by focusing more on STEM.



He stressed that the government's agenda to promote STEM education was part of a grand plan to increase the Science - Humanities ratio from the current 40:60 to 60:40 in favour of the Sciences.



This quest by government has necessitated the building of 11 model state-of-the art STEM SHS across the country, which will be equipped with 12 laboratories and a STEM pathway established in some existing Senior High schools (SHS) with four laboratories.



On improving students interest in the programme, government has introduced a one-year pre-engineering course for SHS graduates without a science background.



The programme, the Minister said, would be piloted at the University of Mines and Technology (UMAT) and Pentecost University.



Students will be taught in physics, chemistry, elective mathematics, technical drawing and Information and Communication Technology and when successful, they will be admitted to pursue engineering course of their choice at the universities.



The initiative is to encourage Arts students who have the desire to offer engineering programmes in the universities to do so.







Source: GNA









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Internationally acclaimed Crisis Management Company, LCB Worldwide Ghana Limited in collaboration with the Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), has taken the fumigation of market centres in the country to the Eastern Regional Capital, Koforidua.



Thousands of shops in the city, spanning six market centres namely, Central Market, Juaben Serwaa Market, Adweso Market, Zongo Market, Agartha Market and Beads Market were fumigated on Sunday, January 23, 2022 in efforts to help quell the spread of COVID-19.



This comes on the back of a similar fumigation exercise jointly carried out by GUTA and LCB Worldwide Ghana Limited at the Abossey Okai Spare Parts Market in the Greater Accra Region last Sunday, January 16, 2022, during which more than one thousand shops were fumigated.



Outlining why the company decided to partner GUTA to embark to the Market Centres Fumigation Project, Chief Executive Officer of LCB Worldwide Ghana Limited, Mr. Kareem Abu said as part of the Companys Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it viewed the market centres Covid-19 prone areas due to the crowded nature.



We believe the traders are highly prone to the Covid-19 virus because of the way they are usually crowded in the market. We know that most of them do not adhere to safety protocols, especially the wearing of nose masks. They exchange money with customers and all that. And so naturally these are groups that are prone to catching the virus and it was very easy taking the decision to do the market centres.



According to Mr. Abu the company has decided to intensify the Market Centres Fumigation exercise because of the inception the fourth wave of the virus, explaining that plans are afoot to cover market centres across the country.



As a company we are resolute in our conviction that we must give back to society and we cannot have the expertise, experience and resources and not put them to use for the benefit of the Ghanaian people. They say a rising tide lifts all vessels and so we believe whatever affects the Ghanaian people, affects us as well.



That is why we have resolved to pitch in and give our best shot at this initiative to help government win the fight against the pandemic. The Market Centres Fumigation Project is wholly financed by LCB Worldwide Ghana Limited and comes at no cost to government or the traders. Mr. Abu averred.



The Vice President of GUTA, Mr. Clement Boateng underscored the importance of fumigating the market centres in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.



GUTA is very keen on the welfare of its members and so this partnership with LCB Worldwide comes in handy. We aim to ensure that we reduce drastically, the risk of our members catching the virus and ensure that they operate in a conducive environment he said in an interview with media during the exercise.



He was optimistic that the exercise will yield the right benefits to the trading community and the country at large.

The Municipal Chief Executive for the New Juaben South Municipal Assembly, Hon. Isaac Appau on his part expressed delight at the efforts of LCB Worldwide and GUTA to offer some relief to the traders through the Fumigation exercise.



This could not have come at a better time when government is doing all within its power to win the COVID-19 fight. Im delighted and New Juaben South and Koforidua is grateful to LCB Worldwide and GUTA for this great initiative. It will go a long way to help the traders operate in a safe environment he averred.



Current COVID-19 Figures from the Ghana Health Service indicate that active COVID-19 cases currently stands at 6,224, Confirmed cases 154,891, 277 new cases, 1,357 deaths and 147,310 recoveries.



LCB Worldwide Ghana Limited has been contracted by the Government of Ghana to see to the disinfection of all cargoes leaving or entering the Ports as well as points of entry and exits.



The move is in line with the requirements of the World Health Organizations International Health Regulations.



The company specializes in prevention solutions and disease control at airports, seaports and border crossings. The company applies its proprietary disinfection systems to control and kill infectious pathogens on humans, clothing, surfaces, baggage, cargo, containers, conveyors, goods and postal parcels by direct exposure to chemical or physical agents.



Source: Peacefmonline.com









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The Ministry of Health has justified the collection of a fumigation fee on cement raw materials at the countys Ports of entry.



The Chamber of Cement Manufacturers (COCMAG) recently raised concerns about the fumigation fee.



COCMAG insisted that it was not necessary for cement raw materials to be fumigated and that Government should wave it off since manufacturers cannot be charged for no service done.



The association argued that clinker, limestone and other cement raw materials are dry cargos which most often do not exit through the Port gate, as such not subject to any fumigation exercise.



Reacting to the claims by COCMAG in a statement signed by the Minister of Health, Mr. Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, it said the implementation of the Disinfection Health Service is based on the International Health Regulations (2005) prepared by the World Health Organization and made into international law at the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2007.



IHR has been incorporated into Public Health Act 851 as the 7th Schedule in its entirety and the Government of Ghana is simply upholding its commitment to International and Local Law to protect Ghanaians, the Ministry said.



Disinfection is defined as the procedure whereby health measures are taken to control or kill infectious agents on the exterior of a baggage, cargo, containers, conveyances, goods and postal parcels by direct exposure to chemical or physical agents.



This procedure is implemented in the Biosecurity Zone that has been established around the Points of Entry (Border Crossings). Therefore, any vehicle that comes in or out of the Biosecurity Zone is disinfected without exceptions. If we allow exceptions, the projects integrity will be compromised, the Health Ministry added in the statement.



When contacted, the Executive Secretary of COCMAG, Rev. Dr. George Dawson-Ahmoah disclosed that the Chamber has had discussions with the Ministry of Health and other relevant authorities on the fumigation fee which had been back and forth for some time now and needed the appropriate redress.



The explanation by the honourable Minister is satisfactory because as patriotic citizens and professional business entities our ultimate aim is to protect and promote the economy. We cannot fight the Government, but rather support it to achieve its objective of national development. In this same vein, we would appeal to the Government to heed to our various petitions to ensure fair trade practices in the industry. There are a lot of unfair practices which need to be addressed, he said.









Source: Peacefmonline.com









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Head of the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Prof. Joseph Osafo has sounded a word of caution to the authorities handling the situation at Apiate in the Bogoso district of Wester Region.



Scores of the residents sustained injuries and about fourteen dead when a mining vehicle conveying explosives exploded in the Apiate community.



The Vice President, IGP Dr. George Dampare and a host of dignitaries went to the scene to assess the impact of the devastation and following their visit, the State Housing Company has been charged to restore the community.



Also, various companies and individuals have been making donations towards helping the victims and their families as well as the residents in the community.



Speaking to Nana Yaw Kesseh on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Prof. Joseph Osafo warned the authorities not to exploit the situation.



He noted that people sometimes tend to take advantage of the tragic situations to reap financial benefits, so advised the authorities to use the donations and resources for its intended purposes to benefit the people of Apiate.



''Let nobody exploit the Apiate situation to enrich themselves. People are in need, so when the government and individuals donate something, let no person think this is an opportunity to misuse the donations...Our responsibility in adminstering resouces from people during disaster is also a big issue'', he cautioned.





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









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Reverend Eastwood Anaba, the President of the Eastwood Anaba Ministries, has admonished Christians not to substitute prayer with work if they want their businesses to succeed and live comfortable lives.



There is nothing wrong with prayer, but when prayer becomes a substitute to work, you are going nowhere. Truth is that we pray, but we are lazy. Many times, wherever Christians are, you will find laziness, he said.



Rev. Anaba said this in a sermon at the churchs 31 days restoration programme on the theme; Reposition, being held at the Desert Pastures, a branch of Fountain Gate Chapel in Bolgatanga.



The programme, the maiden event of the Church in 2022, is to help members to reposition themselves for a new experience.



God created man to till the earth, and as soon as He created him (man), He said work. When you read the creation of man, there is no prayer there, Rev. Anaba said.



He said the difference between the secular world and the church was hard work and that most people in the secular world worked hard and lived better lives than some Christians.



God created the world and everything in it and so it is the duty of man to take advantage of the opportunities created to work, think and make his living conditions better.



We must work with thoughtfulness, the most powerful people in this world are people that think. There are many people who work but they dont think. When you go into our public service, civil service, in our churches, in our homes, you can see that many of the people are really working, but they are really not thinking, Rev. Anaba said.



He called on managers of the various ministries, departments and agencies to work hard and properly manage and grow what was handed over to them.



Rev. Anaba prayed that Christians would understand the importance of work and diligently pursue it to earn decent salaries to improve their living conditions.

GNA

Source: GNA









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The cases of men impregnating young girls and denying responsibility are increasing in the Northern Region, leaving the pregnant girls in a state of agony.



In 2021, 52 cases of denial of pregnancies were reported to the Northern Regional office of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ).



In 2020, the total number of cases of denial of pregnancies reported to CHRAJ in the region stood at 41.



Mr Inusah Iddrisu, Senior Public Education Officer and Investigator at the Northern Regional office of CHRAJ, who announced this, attributed the situation to the high numbers of young boys and girls engaging in sex.



He was making a presentation at a forum in Tamale on the trends of abuse in the region and how CHRAJ acted on them.



The forum was organized by Norsaac, a civil society organization (CSO), with support from the Dutch Embassy as part of a three-month project to bring critical stakeholders together to discuss how they responded to human rights issues.



State institutions engaged in promoting human rights, including the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service and the Legal Aid Commission made presentations on their mandate and activities during the forum.



Representatives of some CSOs, youth groups and public institutions in the region attended the meeting.

Mr Iddrisu said CHRAJ acted on the cases, saying, "Some of the cases were handled through mediation; parties came and accepted responsibility and the men accepting to take up the responsibility of the pregnancies until the girls delivered and thereafter maintain the children."



He added, "Others, we are still in court so that the court will provide for interim maintenance so that the men will assume temporary responsibility until the girls deliver and, thereafter, a DNA request will be made to determine the paternity of the children."



Meanwhile, 21 cases of non-maintenance of children were reported to CHRAJ in the region in 2021 as against 26 cases reported in 2020.



Mr Inusah said despite efforts by CHRAJ to resolve the cases, some families always demanded to withdraw such cases for settlement in the home.



Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mr Emmanuel Horlortu, Northern Regional Coordinator of DOVVSU, decried the non-reporting of rape and defilement cases in the region, saying it left the victims without justice.



Mr Horlortu said about 80 percent of such cases were not reported, adding even the few reported cases were sometimes not fully prosecuted because families wanted such cases settled out of courts.



Mr Issah Mahmudu, Northern Regional Director of the Legal Aid Commission, said legal services were very expensive in the country, making it very difficult for many of the citizens to access justice at the courts.



Mr Mahmudu said there were plans to open more offices for the Legal Aid Commission in the Northern, North East and Savannah Regions to ensure improved access to legal services to the citizenry.







Source: GNA









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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You can only have a foreign exchange shortage if you're trying to fix the price of that foreign exchange. A government that doesn't know this  well, perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised that they're also having problems with debt

by Tim Worstall

The government of Sri Lanka is showing an alarming lack of knowledge over how the international economy works. Which seems fair enough since they've recently shown an alarming lack of knowledge of how a domestic economy works too.

For example, they decided that the entire country's farming sector should go organic. Well, okay, that can be done  but then they were astonished at the idea that there was less food being produced. They didn't realise that fertiliser and land are substitutes for each other. For any given amount of food produced you can use more land and less fertiliser or vice versa. If you use less fertiliser and no more land then there will be less food.

They're also complaining about a shortage of foreign exchange  this is not something that can happen. There can be a shortage of foreign exchange at a price, of course, the solution to which is to change the price. Just to make this obvious, there is no shortage of $10,000 an ounce gold; there's a vast surplus of it. There's a desperate shortage of $10 an ounce gold. Which is why the gold price is about $2,000 an ounce. The same is true of foreign exchange. All that needs to happen to have as much foreign exchange as is desired is to change the number of Sri Lankan rupees they're willing to pay for it.

Or as we, who have read our economic textbooks, can point out, you can fix the price of something but not the quantity, or the quantity but not the price. If you try to fix both, then you'll get none at any price.

You can only have a foreign exchange shortage if you're trying to fix the price of that foreign exchange.

A government that doesn't know this  well, perhaps we shouldn't be all that surprised that they're also having problems with debt. They borrowed more than they can pay back and it's not hugely difficult to understand why people aren't willing to lend them even more.

So, we know all of that and the Sri Lankan government seems not to. Which does mean that we are more qualified to run Sri Lanka than that government is, but unfortunately that's not how international affairs work out. Fun as the concept of Bangladesh acquiring a colony is, they don't let us do that sort of thing any more.

However, there is something a little more subtle here too. Sri Lanka is complaining about how the bond and debt ratings companies are making things more difficult. S&P, one of the three major credit rating companies, dropped their estimation to what is effectively junk. It's a great big red warning sign saying: Don't Lend Here. Or at least that's the way that the Sri Lankan government is taking it and that's not really true.

It is true that certain investment funds cannot invest in bonds that are labelled junk. But there are plenty more that can. All this official announcement does is change that technical matter at the margin. There's still plenty of money out there if the price was right.

For the truth is that the ratings agencies don't, in fact, determine who will lend at what price. Their ratings are, in fact, a follow-up to who is lending at what price. Those credit raters are followers of the market, not leaders of it.

So, to use this example, people are not going to stop lending to Sri Lanka because S&P has changed the rating. It's much more true to say that S&P has changed the rating because people will not lend to it. It's exactly the worry that people won't lend more, to pay off the old borrowings, which makes Sri Lanka risky to lend to. S&P is just registering this fact rather than causing it.

The effect of this is important, for it means that it's not the credit rating agencies that are causing Sri Lanka's problems. They are noting the problems, yes, perhaps even broadcasting them, but they're not creating them. The Sri Lankan government is doing that all by itself with its own economic policies.

And let's be honest about this, complaining about someone else noting your mistakes isn't very grown up, is it? But that is what the Sri Lankan government is doing.

Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London
A Mother and her daughter have been arrested by police in Tamale for allegedly producing and selling toffees suspected to be produced from cannabis.



The suspects; Aisha Tahiru, 45, and Amina Mutarla, 27, were arrested at Sakasaka, a suburb of Tamale by the Drug Law Enforcement Unit of the Northern Regional Police Command.



The suspects are said to have been selling the Wee Toffees to pupils in various schools and a section of the general public in the Tamale metropolis.



Confirmation



The Northern Regional Police Crime Officer, Superintendent Bernard Baba Ananga who confirmed the arrest to Graphic Online indicated that the suspects have been charged with possession of narcotics drugs, prohibited business relating to narcotic drugs and the supply of narcotic drugs.



He explained that the suspects were picked up while they were mixing the coconut toffee with substances suspected to be cannabis, adding that 400 pieces of the laced toffee were retrieved after a search was conducted at their shop and rooms.



He said the suspects would be arraigned before the court after investigations.



When we were making the arrest, some school children who were passing said they have been buying the toffees and that it was their favorite but they never knew that it was produced with cannabis," he said.



"So, we are going to investigate to ascertain how they get the cannabis and other substances to produce the toffees Supt. Ananga noted.



Advice



He believed that many people could be involved in the illicit trade, adding that investigations were ongoing to arrest the accomplices.



He, however, advised the public to be careful with the kind of locally made toffees they buy as some could be produced from illegal substances.

Source: graphic.com.gh









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A Police officer has been shot dead amidst the resurgence of violence in Bawku, in the Upper East Region.



According to the Police, Constable Regina Angenu, who was with the Paga Police Station on Sunday, paid a visit to her colleague, Constable Erasmus Enkson of the Bawku Division.



However, the duo was attacked around 5:07 pm by unknown assailants. The deceased was shot in the groin and died at Presbyterian Mission Hospital while undergoing treatment.



The body has been sent to Bolgatanga Regional Hospital for preservation and autopsy.

Meanwhile, sources have disclosed that eight people sustained various degrees of injuries during the tension and were rushed to the Presbyterian Mission Hospital.



Following gunshots in the early hours of Monday, December 27, 2021, which resulted in the loss of lives and the destruction of properties in the township, insecurity has become a significant concern in Bawku.



Thirteen persons were subsequently arrested and airlifted to Accra following the violence.



Since then, government, through the Interior Ministry, has implemented various curfews to reduce the tension.



Also, the Upper East Regional Security Council (REGSEC) has banned the riding of motorbikes in the Bawku Municipality.



The incident also resulted in heavy security deployment to communities within the municipality.





Source: myjoyonline.com









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A Former Constituency Communications Officer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for the Abirem Constituency, Mr George Krobea Asante, has called on members of the party to unite in their pursuit to break the eight-year power cycle.

According to him, the partys disappointing performance in the 2020 general election which culminated in the loss of our parliamentary majority status was ample proof that all is not well with our dear party.



Let's unite to give our party a new direction, a new hope and a new crop of leadership, Mr Asante said.



Survey



He was responding to a publication by a private newspaper on a purported survey undertaken by the Research Bureau at the presidency.



The poll, according to the publication, sought the opinion of some 4,000 party delegates on their preferred candidates for various National Executive portfolios as the party prepares to elect new executives. While acknowledging the interest shown by the aforementioned newspaper on matters of the New Patriotic Party, I wish to put on record that details of the said poll are completely false.



Consultations with the leadership of the Research Directorate at the presidency has uncovered that while the said poll was conducted during the National Delegates Conference held in Kumasi, detailed findings of the survey have not even been concluded and analysed, it said.



Checks



Mr Asante said his checks had further revealed that Dr Isaac Owusu-Mensah, renowned political scientist and Head of Research at the Presidency, was incensed that some individuals would concoct figures to misrepresent the findings of a research that had not even been published.



According to the statement, since the country returned to multiparty democracy in 1992, delegates of the NPP had proven to be independent minded who could not be swayed or deceived by false publications.









Source: graphiconline.com









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The Chief of Shukura, Alhaji Hamidu Ibrahim Dantani, has urged the Majority and Minority caucuses of Parliament to work together in the collective interest of Ghanaians.



He said the chaos that characterised the consideration of the E-Levy Bill in the 2022 Budget was disappointing, and thus called on both sides of the House to develop effective working relationships grounded on consensus building.



The chief said there was the need to protect the sanctity of the law-making house and promote the democratic values in a manner that ensured that the concerns of the people were deliberated devoid of partisan interests.



Consensus



Alhaji Dantani, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the happenings in Parliament before it went on recess were worrying and urged parliamentarians to endeavour to always build consensus, albeit there were bound to be disagreements sometimes.



Parliament will reconvene for the Second Session of the Eighth Parliament on Tuesday, January 25, 2022.



He said on resumption,we want both sides of the House to unite and work for the development of the country.



Speaking on the challenges the community faced, he said the Shukura community was an expanding build-up community with increasing human activities, adding that the community had a poor drainage system, which worsened each time it rained.



Issues



He, therefore, called on the Ablekuma Central Municipality to construct more drainages to prevent environmental health and sanitation issues.



Education, he indicated, was key to national development and thus pleaded with the municipal assembly to prioritise issues of education and construct more public schools to cater for the growing number of children in the community.



The chief expressed concern about the growing youth unemployment in the country and called on the youth to be innovative, while the government provided opportunities and an enabling environment for small businesses to thrive.



Head of Works, Ablekuma Central Municipality, Mr Justice Abdomi, told the GNA that the assembly was working to ensure development across the municipality, adding that the first school constructed at the inception of the assembly in 2019 was the Ayaa Ideen Islamic School at Shukura.







Source: graphiconline.com









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A former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has called on former President John Dramani Mahama to express his condolences on the death of his brother, Emmanuel Adam Mahama.

The Nigerian and African statesman, who handed over the chair of the continental security, body, the Tana High-Level Forum on Security to Mr



Mahama, used the opportunity to also commiserate with the Mahama family.



He also said special prayers for the former President and his family.



Representatives



Representatives of the Ya-Na Abukari II also called on the former President to express the Gbewaa Palaces condolence to the Mahama family on the loss of his brother.





The delegation was led by the Chief of Pishigu and former Managing Director of Stanbic Bank Ghana, Naa Alhassan Andani.



The National Chief Imam, Sheikh Nuhu Sharabutu, and the Imam of the Ahlsunna Wal Jamaa, Sheikh Umar Ibrahim, visited the former President to commiserate with him.



Family



The late Adam Mahama died on the last day of 2021 and has since been buried in his hometown, Bole. The family is holding the 7th day Adua on Thursday at Bole. A book of condolence has also been opened in Accra for three days.



President Mahama, together with his wife, Lordina, and his siblings who received the Chief Imam and Sheikh Umar, thanked them for the courtesy and for their prayers for the Mahama family during this time.



Also at the Mahama residence was a delegation from the Ringway Estates Assemblies of God Church where the former President and his wife worship.



The church delegation expressed their condolences to the bereaved family and also prayed for them.



The final funeral rites will be held on Sunday, January 30, 2022 at Bole in the Savannah Region.









Source: graphiconline.com









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The Chief of Shukura Community in the Ablekuma Central Municipality,Alhaji Hamidu Dantani, has appealed to Majority and Minority caucuses in Parliament in the collective interest of their constituents to build consensus to sustain national cohesion and harmony.



The brawl that characterised the consideration of the Electronic Transaction Levy Bill (e-levy) in the 2022 Budget and Economic Policy was disappointing, unfortunate and both sides of the House need to develop effective and efficient working relationship in the best interest of the nation, he stressed.



Alhaji Dantani said there was the need to protect the sanctity of the law enactment House and promote democratic values and norms in a manner that ensured concerns of the people were deliberated upon devoid of partisan interests and tribal sentiments.



He bemoaned the happenings in Parliament on January 7, 2021 and before recess in December as worrisome, and urged the House to endeavour to always build consensus, albeit there were bound to be disagreements sometimes and on resumption on January 25, 2022 both sides of the House must unite and work for progress, growth and development of the country.



Touching on the challenges the community faced, Alhaji Dantani indicated that the Shukura community was an expanding build-up community with increasing human activities which had poor drainage system worsened each time by downpours and appealed to the assembly to construct more drainages to prevent environmental health and sanitation issues.



Education is key to national development and thus I plead with the municipal assembly to prioritise issues of education to construct more public schools to cater for the growing number of children in the community, he said, but expressed concern aboutgrowing youth unemployment and admonished the young to be innovative, while the government provides opportunities and an enabling environment for businesses to thrive.



Justice Abdomi, Head of Works, Ablekuma Central Municipality, disclosed that the assembly was working to ensure development across the municipality, and the first school constructed at the inception of the Assembly in 2019 were Ayaa Ideen Islamic School in Shukura and Kraft Tape Dispenser Guangdong.



He said through the Coastal Development Authority, some drains had been constructed in the community to improve drainage systems, forestall flooding, and reduce health and environmental risks.

Source: The Ghanaian Times









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The Director General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) and National Organizer of the governing NPP, Mr. Sammi Awuku, has strongly defended the records of the General Secretary of the Party, John Boadu, as well as the National Youth Organizer, Henry Nana Boakye, and the other National Executives of the Party inclusive of himself, claiming they did a fantastic job in delivering on their mandate of securing an emphatic one-touch victory for the Party in the difficult elections of 2020.



Some critics have sought to downplay the achievements of the current national executives of the Party only on the basis of the outcome of the 2020 parliamentary elections results whilst overlooking the presidential results where the Party, which was seeking a second term, made history by winning with over 500,000 votes. One of such critics is the person of Opare Ansah, the former MP for Suhum, who is lacing his boots to contest John Boadu.



In a recent interview he granted to Citi fm, the aspiring General Secretary, Opare Ansah, who admitted that the current national executives were largely the same crop of executives that delivered the unprecedented victory in 2016, nonetheless, went on to submit that they should however not be credited for that [2016] victory. But rather, they should be blamed for the relatively lesser number of seats the Party secured in the 2020 elections.



But speaking to Asempa fms Osei Bonsu on Ekosiisen on Wednesday, 19th January, 2022, the man described as the capo of Ghanas politics, Sammi Awuku, rejected this claim, arguing that, Opare Ansah cannot approbate and reprobate when it suits him. He also rejected Opare Ansahs claim that the current NPP leadership has been poor, and said that, no Report has indicted the national executives for the outcome of the 2020 elections.



Sammi Awuku described Opare Ansahs utterances as a deliberate propaganda which have no basis in facts and called on Party members to reject same. He advised aspirants for the various positions in the Party to campaign on their strengths rather than seeking to rundown others particularly incumbent executives even in the absence of any justifiable basis. He then pledged his support for the current National officers who will be seeking re-election.



The outgoing National Organizer, Sammi Awuku, the capo, also spoke about his possible replacement. In this respect, he showed absolutely no hesitation in applauding the leadership credentials and hard work of the current National Youth Organizer, Lawyer Henry Nana Boakye, who is vying for the National Organizer position.









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Rev Opambour Ebenezer Adarkwa Yiadom, the General Overseer of Ebenezer Miracle Worship Centre has described an Ashanti Regional Chairman hopeful, Kwabena Owusu Aduomi as a traitor.



According to him, Mr Aduomis recent comments about the President and government at large is a sign of betrayal.



Speaking on Prophet 1 Television on Sunday, December 23, he explained that President Akufo-Addo campaigned on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party(NPP), adding that every well-meaning party faithful must equally support statements he made on the economy during the 2016 elections.



...I dont understand why Aduomi publicly disowned Akufo-Addo on national television. Its not right. I mean its so wrong. He was the leader of the NPP during the 2016 election. Whatever statement he made was in the interest of the party. For him to have done that is a sign of bad leadership, the Nation's Prophet as he is affectionately called said.



Mr Owusu Aduomi, a former NPP Member of Parliament (MP) for Ejisu, has been in the news in recent times following a viral video on social media of the beleaguered politician surprisingly disowning his party (NPP), President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his administration.



His comments, where he openly scorned the NPP government, has angered many party faithfuls including a member of NPP Council of Elders in the Manhyia South Constituency, Richard Adjei Mensah Ofori-Atta aka Tomtom who has descended heavily on him, describing his outburst as repulsive.



An aspiring regional chairman, Mr Aduomi stated emphatically that he cannot defend the President, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo for certain statements he made during the campaign ahead of the 2016 general elections.



According to him, its only fair that the president defends his own statements.



On Oyerepa television in Kumasi, the regional chairman hopeful told the host of the morning show:



Youll do me no good by asking me to defend statements and comments I didnt make. Its Akufo-Addo who said Ghanaians are starving in the abundance of money, I didnt say that. And so let him defend that when you meet him,- I cant do that for him. Of course theres enough money in the country but its about how you manage it," he said emphatically.



Prophet Ebenezer attributed the former Ejisu MP's comments to the flagbearership contest between the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Trade Minister Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanteng.



Aduomi has a reason for making those statements. Many people dont know but I know because Im a prophet. It has to do with the partys internal elections,- who succeeds Nana Addo after his term. He belongs to a certain faction. If you listen carefully, he was throwing shades at the other faction. I dont want to delve deep into this but I know people understand what Im driving at. Greetings to Alan Kyeremanteng," he added.







Source: Peacefmonline.com









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French broadcaster, Radio France International, RFI; have reported that Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Kabore has been detained by the military and is being held at a military camp.



The RFI report adds that a "declaration must be read in the next few hours on the airwaves of state broadcaster, Burkinabe radio and television.



The arrest is allied to a mutiny by aggrieved soldiers who started acting against government early Sunday, January 23, 2022. Multiple global news agencies reported of heavy gunfire around the Presidential palace late Sunday.



The Associated Press reported that gunfire rang out late Sunday, January 23, 2022 near the home of President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, "raising the specter that a military coup might still be under way after mutinous soldiers seized a military base earlier in the day."



The government on Sunday morning issued a terse statement assuring the populace that constitutional order was still in force.



Reports indicated the soldiers took over some military bases in the country amid heavy exchange of fire with forces believed to be loyal to the government.



But by days end anti-government protesters supporting the mutineers also had set fire to a building belonging to Kabores party, the AP report added. It is widely held that soldiers behind the mutiny are acting against the failure of government to curb rising insecurity that has seen terrorist activity experience an uptick in parts of the West African nation.



Reports have named one Col. Paul Henri Sandaogo Damiba as leader of the coup.



He was supposedly involved in the 2015 coup and like Guinean coup leader Mamady Doumbouya, was trained in France. He was also recently involved in French military operations, a Twitter user noted.



ECOWAS to deal with another military move?



Chairperson of the regional bloc, ECOWAS, on Sunday issued a press release calling for calm and expressing support for the democratically elected government.



The bloc has in the last year had to deal with three coup d'etats. Two in Mali by Colonel Assimi Goita and last September in Guinea where Alpha Conde was overthrown.



ECOWAS has suspended both Mali and Guinea and continue to pile pressure on the transitional governments to ensure a quick return to constitutional order.







Unconfirmed reports from #BurkinaFaso that a coup has taken place, with the President arrested and replaced by an army colonel



Heavy gunfire has been reported around the presidential palace & a helicopter is said to have been hovering overhead



The details with me on @BBCWorld pic.twitter.com/iBUJSfpNdj

 Gareth Barlow (@GarethBarlow) January 24, 2022









Source: twitter/ghanaweb.com









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Actress Princess Shyngle has revealed her regret after meeting with Hollywood actor, Idris Elba. The curvy Gambian actress shared a photo she took with Idris, who is married.



In the caption, she called him her crush and said his arm on her leg, as seen in the photo, was "so comfortable".



She adds that what she regrets following the meeting is that she didn't grab him with her two arms and refuse to let him go.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Princess Shyngle (@princesshyngle)









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Workers walk over London Bridge towards the City of London financial district during the morning rush hour, in London, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. The British government have asked people to return to working in offices starting Monday as they ease coronavirus restrictions. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)
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A prominent corner in downtown Charleston soon will undergo a big change.

Moe's Southwest Grill at King and Calhoun streets closed Jan. 21 after a settlement was reached recently to resolve a lease dispute.

The high-profile property, where Moe's operated for the past two decades, will become a convenience store, but it won't include a gasoline station like most of Refuel's locations, according to CEO Mark Jordan.

Jordan expects to retrofit the 3,000-square-foot space near the College of Charleston and Marion Square by late summer or early fall, depending on the pace of the permitting process.

"It will have everything we have at other Refuel sites except gas," Jordan said. "That's a great location, and I'm so happy to get it."

Property owner Kenneth Davenport said he and Atlanta-based Moe's franchisee Quality Fresca I LLC reached a resolution Jan. 20. The restaurant known for its custom-made burritos, quesadillas and "Welcome to Moe's" greeting from employees went dark the next day.

Davenport declined to discuss details of the settlement. Moe's must vacate the property by Jan. 31, he said.

"It's nice to put this one to bed," Davenport said Jan. 24.

A representative for Moe's responded Jan. 25 to say the location's lease had expired and pointed diners to patronize the company's seven other Lowcountry locations.

Work crews removed the restaurant's signage Monday while employees packed up wares inside the building.

The tenant had been in litigation with Davenport after a Moe's representative said on Aug. 6, 2020, that the casual dining chain would not exercise its option for a new lease arrangement, according to Charleston County court documents.

The franchisee then said on Sept. 3, 2020, it wanted to renew the lease under new terms, but Davenport had already secured a real estate firm to find a new tenant and rejected the franchisee's offer.

The lease expired Sept. 30, 2020.

In November of that year, the franchisee appealed a magistrate judge's ruling ordering Moe's to vacate the building.

A circuit court judge ruled against the tenant last March and denied a request to reconsider the decision the following month. Moe's took the dispute to the S.C. Court of Appeals, where the case remained until last week's settlement.

Moe's opened on the downtown site in 2002 as the first restaurant in the Charleston area for the Atlanta-based chain.

The Charleston-based company that's taking over the King Street space operates 175 convenience stores in South Carolina, North Carolina, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas. Refuel recently received a $511 million injection of new capital to further expand.

In the Charleston area, the company has two stores each in Mount Pleasant and Goose Creek and one each on Daniel Island, Sullivans Island, West Ashley, Cainhoy and the Summerville area. Several others are in the works.
The Charleston Library Society announced on Jan. 24 that Executive Director Anne Cleveland is retiring, the latest in a string of departures in the community's arts leadership that could foretell a new era in Charleston's cultural scene.

Cleveland, who steps down in January 2023, has been heralded for reviving the historic institution and transforming it into a dynamic hub of contemporary intellectual life in Charleston. Her replacement has already been selected.

During Cleveland's 13 years in the leadership role, she reignited the societys nearly 275-year-old mission to "serve as Charlestons cultural and intellectual living room, by presenting thought leaders and writers across disciplines in regular discussions and lectures.

Dating back to 1748, Charleston Library Society is the oldest cultural organization in the South and the second-oldest circulating library in the United States, with a collection that includes everything from Shakespeares early folios to doodles by Alexander Hamilton on the back of John Paul Jones plan for the first U.S. Navy.

Heading into its 275th anniversary, it commands a high-profile, storied spot on Lower King Street, where its hallowed halls contain a collection spanning the 15th century to the modern-day.

It has also contended with ebbs and flows of vitality over those centuries. When the former educator took the reins in 2009, it was in fairly dire straits in terms of finances and membership.

Cleveland launched initiatives including a speaker series attracting renowned authors from David McCullough to Colson Whitehead, introduced music offerings and added the independent bookseller, Buxton Books, which operates out of the organization's adjacent storefront building at 160 King St.

Jerry Mitchell, who currently serves as president of the organizations Board of Trustees, said in a statement, One cannot overstate the contributions of Anne Cleveland to the Charleston Library Society. Because of her guidance and vision, we have the kind of dedicated and engaged membership that the Library Society enjoyed during its earliest decades.

Cleveland's efforts have been rewarded. The programs were met with enthusiasm from the local cultural community, resulting in regularly packed crowds gathered in the book-steeped, black-and-white parquet-floored main room.

Her contribution was also recognized with the 2018 South Carolina Governor's Award in the Humanities, which honor outstanding achievement in humanities.

The board concurrently announced Clevelands successor, Laura Pelzer, who serves as the organization's chief strategy officer. It did not conduct a national search, electing instead to promote from within.

Before joining the leadership team at Charleston Library Society, Pelzer held creative development roles at Polo Ralph Lauren and The Urban Electric Co.

The announcement follows a series of high-level departures in Charleston's arts and culture sector over the past two years. Those have included the retirement of Spoleto Festival USA General Director Nigel Redden, who was succeeded by Mena Mark Hanna; Charleston Gaillard Center President and CEO Stephen Bedard, with Lissa Frenkel taking the spot; and College of Charleston's Dean of the School of the Arts Valerie Morris, a role now filled by Edward Hart.

While for some leaders, like Redden, the pandemic pause offered a moment of reevaluation that led to his retirement announcement, Cleveland's process was the opposite.

"Actually, COVID is what kept me around for so long," she said. "I am a firm believer that especially with nonprofits, 10 years is a good run, but you really need new eyes and a fresh perspective after 10 years.

In aggregate, the trend ushers in a new era in the Charleston cultural scene, with the promise of a collective refresh in artistic vision. It also offers a new chapter in cross-pollination among this new stable of leaders that has the potential to greatly shape the next chapter of Charleston arts.

Cleveland said she is enthusiastic about the succession plan, and is set to be Pelzer's "biggest cheerleader."

As for Pelzer, she shares Cleveland's vision for the institution, and plans to further that vision by focusing on efforts such as membership expansion and diversification. The institution resonated with her interest in iconic brands she represented in previous business and marketing positions.

"My favorite thing to do is work with heritage brands," she said. "The ability to come in and take the leadership role and help further develop all of the things that are already here is what I'm excited about."

As for her contribution, Cleveland demurs on taking credit.

"I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. All it took was saying 'Come in and see this amazing treasure that has been under a cloud or cloak or fog or whatever for the last 40 years.' "

In January 2023, Cleveland will hand over the keys to Pelzer, entrusting her to keep its storied doors open and preserve its treasured collections.
Well, Dad, so how long do you and Mama think youll stay in this house?

Taking a cue from our friend George Taylor, my wife and I scheduled a business meeting with our sons when all three would be home for the holidays. Our agenda: to go over our finances, insurance, medical advance directives, will, location of documents, all the things they need to know as we get older. Looking after aging parents is no place for uh-oh surprises. The business included talking about our eventually leaving the house for a retirement facility.

We knew it would be a charged topic for them. They grew up in this house, knew every square inch of the place from countless games of hide and seek, celebrated every Christmas at this hearth (except two) for 42, 39 and 35 years. Old houses hold memories like a sponge holds moisture  memories that moisten the soul and help it live and grow. We all have places that are saturated with meaning, holy ground. For many, the house we remember from childhood is at the top of the list.

No emotion was shown, but at that point a solemnity settled on the discussion. As many readers know from your own experience, the transition of disposing of well-used possessions and leaving a house that has become home over many years is one of the tough passages in the boisterous stream of life. It will be for us; it will be for our kids.

After Christmas, my wife and I drove to Birmingham, Ala., where I grew up and still have family. One afternoon, a childhood friend and I ventured back to our old neighborhood and stopped for a look at the house I grew up in. The neighborhood fell on hard times years ago. The house was rundown and looked like it had been vacant for years. Windows were barred up and a No Trespassing sign menaced us from the front door. Overgrown privet blocked the walk to the back yard, but I plowed through, eager to see if my special pecan tree, climbed almost daily, was still there.

On an outward view, the house was empty. But inwardly, where what I was seeing connected with vivid memories of all the love and antics generated there, it was brim-full. I stood on the front porch where the swing used to be and could hear my Mississippi granddaddy singing Steamboat Bill.

Family voices, wrote poet Robert Mazzocco, you can still hear them, ever so dimly The older we get, the more youll hear them, though no one else does.

My grandparents, who built the house around 1915 (and planted the pecan tree), are gone many years now. My parents who lived there, and all their generation, gone. Me and my generation, as the Christmas meeting with our sons had reminded me, going ...

Thomas Wolfe famously reminded us that we cant go home again. Not to the old one, at least: life moves on. Aging teaches that lesson like a strict and uncompromising schoolteacher. Yet, in another, metaphorical sense we are all trying to reach home. Our long, winding journey is punctuated by many adventures but it is essentially a journey of homecoming. Not a nostalgic revisit to a home that sometimes literally no longer exists, and that in any case we have moved beyond  as poet Louise Gluck said, Everything returns, but what returns is not what went away. No, homecoming as we age means something dierent. What then?

Elders who have used the homecoming metaphor tell us that home is not a place but a consciousness: a heartfelt self-possession that is alive with love and creativity, a sense of being settled and filled with service. Self-possession: you have learned over a lifetime how to accept yourself, forgive, respect yourself. Good on you, mate. Shortcuts through dicult stages, easy bargains with life, dont get you there. Coming home, your inner life comes to rest and is at peace in itself.

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Home in this sense is like our North Star in the journey of aging. For me, it was the two house-related jolts during the holidays that woke me up about homecoming  mainly getting real about leaving a house Ive lived in for 49 years. That jolt raised questions that sound like directional promptings along the homecoming path:

How can the act of giving up the house  made into home by the delights and tantrums of children, the friendships celebrated and deepened around the table, the hours of toil invested in the kitchen or writing desk, and especially the intimacy that transforms a house into holy ground  how can the act of letting go the house be an act of generosity rather than necessity, and, for an elder, even an occasion of joy?

How can that act of relinquishing the house deepen my gratitude for having been given the gift of a home  and, by extension, the gift of a human lifetime?

One more question: How can emptying and leaving the house work as a needed dress rehearsal for the ultimate act of moving out, or letting go, when I must leave the house of this body and all its earthly bonds?

Whew! But back to homecoming  ponder again what homecoming really is. Raymond Carver did good work as a writer, either in spite of or because his personal life was a calamity  he struggled with alcohol addiction and lost his home and family. He knew grief. Yet he gave us a tip-o that he experienced a genuine homecoming. Before he died in 1988, he made this short call-and-response poem:

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so? I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

So how long do we think well stay in the house? The brick-and-mortar houses we live in and happily or sadly give up one day dont hold a candle to that kind of homecoming. But if theyve helped, be thankful.
JAMESTOWN  Steve Scott probably didn't know it as a child, but his future held a career in the construction industry.

While living in Minnesota at the age of 5, he spent one summer with a great aunt who had stripped down a house to get ready to build a new one.

Scott saw a pile of boards and decided to start tacking some together.

"I built a table and an outhouse," he remembered with a chuckle. "They were all crooked, but it kept me out of their hair."

Scott later took a course in a junior high school shop class when he built some other items, though not quite as hastily nailed together as the structures from his former years.

He even built a small wooden boat in his parent's basement while in high school.

But even with his love of building things, Scott decided to take a different path than the construction industry for his life's work.

Prodded by his father, an aerospace engineer, Scott attended Hamline and Wake Forest universities and majored in chemistry. He earned a master's at Wake Forest in chemistry and physics before heading to Florida State University to earn a doctorate in chemistry.

He taught chemistry at Penn State for a couple years, then went to work for General Electric in Indiana for about eight years.

Then Raybestos recruited Scott as a technical director and brought him to the former Garco Mill in North Charleston to help develop new products to replace the cancer-causing asbestos the company had made for years.

That's also where Virginia "Ginny" Drews worked. The two met, got married and later had a son.

After moving around quite a bit with job opportunities in several states across the eastern U.S., they moved back to Charleston in the late 1990s when the company Scott worked for was bought and operations were moved to Mexico.

Scott took an interim job with a company in Spartanburg that served as a feeder plant to BMW. The company paid for his weekday accommodations while he was in the Upstate, but Scott knew he wanted to work closer to home.

"I was looking for a permanent job in the Charleston area and found out this operation (the sawmill) was for sale," he said. "I thought my background would fit into it even if it was in a different industry."

Back to building

In 1999, Scott took the plunge and bought Charleston Heart Pine. With construction in his blood, he now owned the sawmill on the edge of the Francis Marion National Forest in the tiny Berkeley County hamlet of Jamestown, about 45 miles north of downtown Charleston.

Frank Parker and Joe Cantley had started the Charleston Heart Pine business in 1984. Five years later, Hurricane Hugo flattened every structure except an old trailer near the front gate. It now serves as the office for the 20-acre business.

The former owners of Heart Pine rebuilt the sawmill, and it thrived for several years after the hurricane, since a ready supply of timber was coming from all the broken trees in the nearby national forest.

After Scott bought the business, nearly three dozen people worked at the sawmill. Then the housing market crashed during the Great Recession.

Exports of materials for doors and window frames to Europe comprised a large part of the company's business, but they evaporated in the deep downturn.

When the economy started to rebound, Europe looked for a less expensive source of materials, and businesses on the continent switched from southern yellow pine to Russian red pine, Scott said.

"It's hard to compete when the price is a lot cheaper, even though the product might not be as good," he said.

The crux of Charleston Heart Pine's business now, where five people are employed including Scott's son, is the flooring and furniture business.

Good heart pine needs to be at least 60 to 70 years old, Scott said as he walked among the business's grounds where piles of massive tree trunks wait to be carved into boards and sheds are stuffed with cut lumber slated to be placed in new homes throughout Charleston, the Palmetto State and other states.

"It's more difficult to get older trees now," he said.

Overharvesting since Colonial times nearly vanquished the older long leaf pines with their bounty of center-hardened wood used for many types of construction materials at one time.

Today, it's not uncommon for companies to use salvaged logs from river bottoms for building materials.

Scott said most of his firm's stock comes from within a 50-mile radius, but the company also works with mills in other states to ship in older logs and lumber.

Business base

While flooring is a company centerpiece, custom-made furniture is a staple as well.

Tables, benches, chairs, mantels and bedframes are among the specialty items.

Of stair treads and handrails, which the company also custom makes, Scott said, "They are very profitable because hardly anyone does it from heart pine."

And not everything is fashioned from heart pine, the sturdy center that hardens over many years to give long-leaf pine trees their strength and support.

Walnut and white oak are popular choices as well. A cypress log was being split into boards for wall paneling during a recent visit.

Almost all of Heart Pine's business is by telephone or online orders, but Scott occasionally gets a walk-in visit from someone passing through the tucked-away town of 82 people, where South Carolina highways 41 and 45 converge with U.S. Highway 17A south of the Santee River.

While most of the company's finished products end up in private homes, a bit of its work is on display at a large software company in Charleston.

When Blackbaud decided to build a new headquarters building on Daniel Island a few years ago, the company wanted to preserve some of the wood at the new construction site.

They reached out to Scott, who transformed some of the pine and oak trees into benches on Blackbaud's grounds.

"With the benches created by Charleston Heart Pine, our employees, customers and visitors can take in the Lowcountry beauty, while sitting on a piece of wood that was grown on that very land," said Otto Orr, senior director of global real estate for Blackbaud.

"Its a beautiful tribute to what makes Charleston a great place to live and work, and were so grateful for Charleston Heart Pines help in bringing our vision to life," Orr said.

Scott, now 79, called the benches a good conservation project and one of the many items he takes satisfaction in building from scratch.

"You can see the results of your efforts," he said. "It's satisfying to be able to make something that's somewhat unique."

To relax, Scott often spends weekends walking on the beach on Sullivan's Island. In a couple of years, he will turn the business over to his son, Taylor, 39, now the company's operations manager.

Taylor, who lives within walking distance of the sawmill, said he will be ready when the time comes.

"It's a big role to fill," he said. "I will have to fill my role as well as his, and I still have a lot to learn, but we plan to move forward and continue the business."
In recent months, the American Red Cross and other blood providers have sounded alarms to communities across the nation in hope of addressing one of the worst blood shortages in over a decade. Families in South Carolina already are feeling the effects.

Dreylan Holmes, 11, a sixth grade student at Blythewood Middle School in northeast Columbia, was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia at 6 weeks old. In November, Holmes was also diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and acute chest syndrome, illnesses that can quickly become dangerous for someone with sickle cell disease.

His mother, Vesha Jamison, said in the past, typical treatments for her son would be routine blood transfusions. But due to the shortage, Dreylan was forced to wait three days to receive a transfusion, the longest he's ever had to wait for relief.

"In those days, Dreylan's hemoglobin and platelet count decreased even more," Jamison said. "It was a scary thing, not knowing when or whether we would get blood before his condition worsened."

Sickle cell disease is an inherited red blood cell disorder in which there aren't enough healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body. It predominantly impacts the Black community. People affected by the disease need blood with specific antigens that aid their red blood cell count.

According to Jamison, over a lifespan, some sickle cell patients may need a minimum of 100 units of blood. This number may vary depending on the severity of the person's condition at any given time.

Jamison also serves as the sickle cell account manager for the Red Cross S.C., where she has worked since August 2021.

"Working for the Red Cross, we hear about the low blood supply, but to be on the receiving end of that is life- changing," Jamison said. "Right now we are in a blood crisis."

The Blood Connection, the largest blood provider for the Medical University of South Carolina, said the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and winter weather cancellations across the country have attributed to the low blood donor turnout.

"The magnitude of this issue is not just a national problem, it's a community problem," the organization said in a recent news release.

The Blood Connection and MUSC hosted a news conference on Jan. 13 to encourage residents and community leaders to host more blood drives to ease the shortage.

Physicians from a variety of specialties at MUSC gathered outside of the horseshoe on Ashley Avenue to express the gravity of the crisis. Many of them expressed how shockingly rare it was to see a shortage of this magnitude in their careers.

"This is the most serious blood supply situation I have seen in 30 years," Dr. Jerry Squires, medical director of transfusion services for the hospital, said. "All we need are donors."

Others affected by the low blood supply include individuals on organ transplant lists, trauma patients and cancer patients.

Dr. Derek DuBay, director of organ transplantation at MUSC said he's already canceled two transplant surgeries  one a heart transplant and the other a liver transplant.

"We've certainly had times where blood is running low," DuBay said. "But they're just wasn't enough blood in the hospital. The shortage of blood during the holidays and COVID has just been a perfect storm."

According to physicians at MUSC, the hospital needs 500 units of blood each week to fulfill all of their surgery needs.

"We have to have blood drives every single day to keep up," said Terri Botti, divisional director for The Blood Connection. "If there's a constant supply of donors, we have a constant supply of blood. It's as simple as that."

Officials from the Red Cross S.C. say their blood donor operations are safe and adhere to all COVID-19 safety protocols including social distancing in waiting and donation areas, mask-wearing by staff and donors at all times, and regularly sanitizing beds.

The organization is also screening all donors for symptoms of COVID-19 and asks that donors who are not feeling well or have experienced any symptoms of COVID-19 to please consider donating at another time.
Kerianne Krause of Beyond Distilling Co. entered college with plans to teach history, but she switched gears to study applied behavior analysis after her first son was born during her sophomore year.

Krause eventually earned a master's degree in the field with an emphasis in autism. Shortly after, her son, now 10, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, which refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication, according to Autism Speaks.

New CDC numbers released in December analyzing 2018 data from 11 states found that, among 8-year-olds, one in 44 had been diagnosed with autism. In South Carolina, 1,216,011 adults are living with a disability, making up one-third of the states population.

Many of these children and adults with mental and physical disabilities can benefit from applied behavior analysis services.

Thats where Krauses 6-year-old health center Building Independence Together factors in.

The 70-person staff serves over 100 clients, helping them gain independence with evidence-based therapy. Once young adults with disabilities turn 21, however, this therapy becomes more difficult to access due to a lack of funding from insurance companies when individuals age out of the services.

Once they finish high school, adults with disabilities enter a competitive workforce in which businesses can apply for certificates to pay disabled employees less than minimum wage, due to a loophole in federal labor law that dates to 1938.

Krause found one of her clients struggling to find employment in 2019; thats when the idea for Beyond Distilling Co. was born.

Equal opportunity employment

Alongside co-owners Tyler LaCorata and Ryan Sadis, Krause debuted her inclusive North Charleston distillery Dec. 17. In addition to serving signature craft spirits, Beyond Distillings mission is to employ people with disabilities.

Zachary Spanos, one of two distillery employees with a diagnosed disability, was present for the ribbon cutting alongside his co-workers. After finishing a training program created by Krause, Spanos, who has autism, became proficient on the bottling line, which he can now complete by himself. Krauses program provides a framework for employees to learn; it also teaches supervisors how to help staff members with disabilities achieve independence.

The important components are the interview process in the beginning, understanding deficits, understanding their goals and what they like to do, Krause said. The harder part of the training is how to teach the managerial person how to help without stepping in and doing all the work.

Krause says infantilizing is common in the workplace for people with disabilities. If the person cant perform a task, the natural tendency is for the manager to step in and complete it for them, rather than explain what theyre doing wrong.

It takes some training to undo that, Krause said. Its breaking down those social constructs that weve all been taught. Were all the same; we just need help in different areas.

According to Krause, the three- to six-month training is task-oriented, allowing employees to contribute as they learn. A positive work environment is key at Beyond Distilling Co., which sells three bottled spirits: Bourbon, tropical gin and coconut rum.

We like to do a relaxed kind of feeling because we know that working at your job is half your life, so we want to make it enjoyable, said Beyond Distilling co-owner and head distiller Tyler LaCorata. Were helping them out and theyre also helping us out.

Stephanie Bridgers, owner of Columbias The Local Buzz, has experience training people with disabilities. Before moving her business to Five Points in February 2020, The Local Buzzs Rosewood cafe partnered with a local high school to train young adults with disabilities. Bridgers, a mother of four sons, two of whom have autism, employed people with disabilities at her new location before the pandemic forced her to significantly scale back operations.

She focuses on takeout, meaning she doesnt employ any full-time staff members, but she plans to hire people with disabilities when her cafe extends its hours of operation.

One of my goals for the cafe was to have somewhere that was welcoming to everybody, Bridgers said. You hire the person thats suited for the job and you pay them what the person whos suited for the job gets.

Subminimum wage

In 2020, South Carolina had the seventh highest unemployment rate in the U.S. for adults with disabilities, according to RespectAbility, a national nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities. According to the Kessler Foundation, between March and April 2020, the number of employed people with a disability dropped by 20 percent. Statistics for 2021 will be released in March.

After finishing high school, many of these young adults end up in sheltered workplaces, or places that employ people with disabilities separately from other employees. Many of these jobs, and other employment opportunities for disabled adults, pay less than minimum wage.

Theres two issues in South Carolina with wages. One, it's fair wages, said Kimberly Tissot, president and CEO of Able SC, a Columbia-based nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities. More than half of Able SCs staff are persons with disabilities.

So people (with disabilities) that are in competitive employment are usually paid lower within the marginalized community. Then, theres also issues with subminimum wage, Tissot said.

An 84-year-old federal law under the Fair Labor Standards Act allows businesses to pay less than minimum wage if it has a 14(c) Certificate, which allows "employers to pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities that impair their productivity for the work they perform, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

A bill to phase out subminimum wage in South Carolina by 2024 passed through the Senate but stalled in the House in May 2021. Originally filed by state Sen. Katrina Shealy, R-Lexington, the bill, S.533, is residing in the House Committee on Labor, Commerce and Industry and would prohibit subminimum wage payments to people with disabilities in 2025 if passed this session.

Currently, subminimum wage is handled differently by each state. So far, Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii have passed legislation to eliminate subminimum wage.

Its just common sense and common decency that everybody that works should make the same. There should be no discrimination, and to me, thats discrimination, Shealy said. If theyre doing the same job, they should be able to make the same wage.

A concurrent bill, H.3244, that passed through the House and is in conference committee in the Senate would enact the Employment First Initiative Act, establishing the integrated employment of individuals with disabilities.

The bill calls for the creation and funding of an oversight commission that would work to ensure people with disabilities maintain employment once subminimum wage is lifted. It also encourages government agencies to hire people with disabilities.

"The most important thing is creating this commission that will keep us on an annual basis," said state Rep. Neal Collins, R-Easley, the bill's lead sponsor in the House. "What I like about it is it will be a consistent reminder to the general assembly about what needs to be done."

"As our state is very high in unemployment, hopefully it will be a great way to get these folks who want to work to work," added Rep. Chip Huggins, R-Columbia.

Collins said the House has reached an agreement with the Senate, meaning both bills could pass this session.

Staffing solution

Adults with disabilities are looking for work as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause staffing shortages statewide, especially in the food and beverage industry.

Yvonne Brown, area supervisor for the S.C. Vocational Rehabilitation Departments Charleston office, is connecting individuals who are eligible for the services with businesses looking to hire up.

Brown said that last year in South Carolina the federal program had 3,880 successful employment outcomes out of 23,606 consumers statewide.

People who have been placed are succeeding in part because of the foundational workplace training offered through the department, which has offices in more than 30 South Carolina towns. Individuals are taught soft skills, such as interview techniques and resume writing, along with job-specific tasks once the persons goals are established.

Brown finds that people with disabilities are fully capable of working in most job capacities, a belief she is trying to share with short-staffed businesses.

We really get a good chance to see what those individuals are going to do, Brown said. The bottom line is: Can the person do the job? I dont think people with disabilities want a handout. They want to be able to get jobs as well.

Not every adult qualifies for vocational therapy, however, one of several problems Krause finds with the current employment climate for people with disabilities.

She hopes to turn her training program thats currently housed on her computer into a physical guide that could help businesses hire and train people with disabilities. So far, one brewery and another distillery have reached out to her for guidance.

While progress has been slow, businesses like Beyond Distilling Co. are proving a shift in employment opportunities for people with disabilities could be imminent.

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Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

Cloudy early with scattered thunderstorms developing this afternoon. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 88F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 66F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
COLUMBIA  Joe Biden's run for the Democratic presidential nomination was all but declared dead as he headed to the South Carolina primary in late February 2020.

He had finished fifth in New Hampshire and fourth in Iowa. Still, Biden advised skeptics to withhold judgment until a state with a large pool of Black voters, the most reliable Democratic constituency, had a chance to weigh in.

Too often your loyalty, your commitment, your support for this party has been taken for granted, he said. I give you my word as a Biden that I never, ever, ever will.

Black voters delivered, recasting the Democratic contest and sending Biden on his way to the White House.

Now, one year into his presidency, Biden is hoping he can maintain the support of Black voters, even as his failure to deliver on voting rights legislation and other issues has left some loyalists dispirited. Of the many challenges he confronts as he enters his second year, few are as important as retaining the strong backing from his party's base.

Just 6 in 10 Black Americans said they approved of Biden in a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, down from about 9 in 10 who approved in polls conducted through the first six months of Bidens presidency.

Im perplexed. At some points, Im angry. Im trying to see if there is anything redeeming, said George Hart, 73, a professor and faculty adviser to the student chapter of the NAACP at Benedict College, a historically Black institution in Columbia. Im just so disillusioned, I dont know what to say.

He let so much happen from the time he became president to the time that he actually introduced the measure, it was lost," said Hart, who supported Biden in South Carolina's primary. "And we are the ones, African Americans, Black voters, who are going to pay the penalties.

Hart's was not a universal view in interviews with Black voters in South Carolina last week, but it is a worrisome sign for a president whose approval ratings are near record lows. Some Black South Carolina voters who long supported Bidens campaign hold out hope for his administration, while those who supported him reluctantly  or not at all  say theyre unimpressed.

Dennis Brothers, who supported Biden from the very beginning, said he felt things were going pretty well, although he is frustrated by Biden not honoring a campaign promise to cancel  not delay  some amounts of student debt.

That has been a disappointment, said Brothers, a 31-year-old media specialist from Calhoun County. I just hope that some of those promises that were made, are kept.

In the next three years, Brothers said the administration should be more transparent about its goals, particularly on issues pertinent to Black voters such as a policing overhaul.

We know that Rome was not built in a day, Brothers said. Im not going to say hes not trying, but I just wish he would try a little bit harder.

Margaret Sumpter, a 64-year-old rural community advocate from Hopkins, blamed the stagnation of voting rights on congressional gridlock, not inaction from Biden, who she said was discovering that the bipartisan successes he had as a longtime senator didnt necessarily translate to the presidency.

I think that he could push a little harder with Republicans like Mitt Romney and some of the other folks to help him to get this passed, said Sumpter, who backed billionaire businessman Tom Steyer during South Carolinas primary but then voted for Biden.

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The same thing that theyre doing to him, they did it to Barack Obama, she said. Why? Do people think Republicans are going to treat him any differently, because hes a white man? No.

Others are less patient.

Travis Lincoln attended Bidens first South Carolina rally in 2019 and even deejayed a later event, but ultimately backed tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang in the primary. Lincoln, who runs a Columbia homeless veterans organization, supported Biden in the general election but said he had been underwhelmed by Biden's presidency.

His campaign sold us on the idea that he was going to support some Black issues, and thats not really happened, said Lincoln, 44. The people that were in his corner thought that was going to be the best move for him. It was more political strategy than anything.

On voting rights, Lincoln said he saw the effort as doomed from the start, due to known Republican opposition. Instead, he argued, Biden should have focused on other issues where progress could have been possible, such as expunging nonviolent drug-related offenses, an issue on which Biden campaigned but has not taken executive action.

Ra Shad Frazier-Gaines cofounded Amplify Action, a nonprofit that focuses on political engagement of Black men, and voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in South Carolinas primary. In Frazier-Gaines' view, Biden has talked far more than delivered.

Black people are the reason Joe Biden is president, and I dont feel ... that there has been one time that hes ever shown us a thank you by way of policy, said Frazier-Gaines. Yes, his administration has given a lot of talented Black people opportunities to serve in different positions. All of that is cute, but thats not doing anything to put food on the tables of Black families across the country.

Still, Biden has retained the support of Rep. Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the U.S. House and a powerful figure in South Carolina, especially among Black voters. Rather than fault Biden about voting rights, Clyburn has focused his criticism on the two Democrats who doomed the legislation, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Bre Maxwell, a Democratic National Committee member, dismissed the criticism that Biden had been anything but authentic with the states Black voters.

I dont think he would have wasted all this time just for it to be lip service, said Maxwell. "I think hes very genuine, and I think he wants to keep everybody happy."

Satisfied that Biden  whom he supported in the primary and worked to get elected  is doing a good job overall, veteran civil rights activist James Felder blamed not the president but almost obstructionists Manchin and Sinema for the voting rights failure.

Its really a setback for the party, and its a setback for the country as well, said Felder, 82. Two votes and two people holding up all the progress that we could make at this point.

To Sumpter, Biden is doing as well as could be expected and has achieved some real change, such as the enhanced child tax credit.

Hes living up to what I expected him to be able to do, Sumpter said. Theres only so much that a person can accomplish in that first year.

Foreman reported from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
COLUMBIA  Debate on legalizing medical marijuana in South Carolina will start on the Senate floor this week, representing a Statehouse first in an eight-year effort.

It's a vote Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, has been fighting for since launching the effort in 2015.

If you pound at the door long enough. If you make your case. If the public is asking for something, the state Senate owes a debate, Davis told The Post and Courier, who wants an up or down vote. "The people of South Carolina deserve to know where their elected officials stand on this issue.

Senators decided unanimously Jan. 20 to put the controversial proposal on priority status, guaranteeing a vote in the chamber. Senators can't move on to other legislation until they either approve or kill the bill dubbed the "Compassionate Care Act," which would enable patients to legally use cannabis.

Last year actually marked the second time the Senate Medical Affairs Committee advanced his bill to the Senate floor. But after getting through the committee process in 2018, opposition blocked a floor debate from ever happening. The 2021 session closed last May with GOP leadership promising Davis he'd get a vote this year.

Davis has spearheaded the effort to allow South Carolinians to use marijuana as medicine since 2014, when legislators passed his bill allowing limited use of CBD, a non-psychoactive oil derived from the plant. The conservative senator took up the cause to help a constituent's then-6-year-old granddaughter, who could suffer hundreds of seizures daily despite medication.

The week ahead

The promised debate, expected to begin Jan. 25 or 26, gives the bill the best shot yet of South Carolina joining the 36 states already allowing marijuana as medicine. U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-Charleston, an advocate of medical marijuana, plans to appear with Davis at the Statehouse on Tuesday the 25th.

Davis is confident a majority of senators agree with him, and that support will only grow as he makes his case at the podium.

He contends he's crafted legislation that would create the most conservative medical marijuana program in the country as a result of continued opposition from law enforcement, most notably State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel, who's highly respected in the Statehouse.

Davis says his bill would not lead to acceptance of recreational use, though Keel still believes it will.

Under Davis' bill, smoking marijuana would remain illegal. Instead, it would permit ingesting or using cannabis through products like ointments, creams, oils, sprays, patches, and vaporizers. Patients could get up to a two-week supply at a time.

A range of "debilitating medical conditions" would allow patients to legally partake, including cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, epilepsy, glaucoma, and any chronic pain for which opioids would otherwise be prescribed. Supporters contend marijuana is a better option than highly addictive opioids.

The bill, Senate 150, requires products to be tested and labeled and for dispensaries to go through a licensing process every two years.

It would also require dispensaries to contract with a state-licensed pharmacist, physician assistant or clinical practice nurse  an olive branch to opponents concerned about a lack of standards from dispensary to dispensary.

In 2019, anonymous mailers ridiculed Davis and accused him of wanting to turn the state "into one big pot party."

But advocates believe popular opinion is on their side. A December poll of 300 registered voters by the Cannabis Alliance for South Carolina found 54 percent of voters support legalizing marijuana, with just 14 percent on the fence. Support for legalizing marijuana increased substantially when voters were informed of the specifics of Davis bill, rising 13 percentage points.

However, opinion was clearly split on party lines. While polling highly among Democrats (55 percent) and independents (68 percent), medical marijuanas favorability remains at just 41 percent among Republicans, though just 38 percent of the voters polled opposed legalization outright.

Many in the mix, the pollsters noted, remained undecided  a sign they could be convinced to support it.

This isnt the go-to-the-mat issue it used to be with South Carolinians, said Logan McVey, an associate with Starboard Communications, which conducted the poll.

Opinion has been softening in the Statehouse in recent years as well. When the bill first passed Medical Affairs in 2018, it did so with the support of former South Carolina Sheriff's Association president Jeff Moore, who said he was swayed by his son's experience with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Former state Rep. Eric Bedingfield led the effort in the House after his eldest son's six-year struggle with opioid addiction ended with an overdose, saying he believed it could help others hem their additions.

Like Davis, state Sen. Stephen Goldfinch, R-Georgetown said he was moved by advocate Jill Swing and her daughter.

"I was vehemently opposed to medical marijuana in South Carolina," he said during a news conference Jan. 19. "I thought, 'This is the slippery slope. This is the avenue to recreational marijuana. This is what every pothead dreams of.'"

But with Swing's daughter, he said, he saw a young patient who immediately stopped convulsing with marijuana, a treatment so effective, Swing was willing to risk getting arrested.

"They've been treated unfairly," Goldfinch said. "And it's time for South Carolina to get righteous and treat them fairly."

No guarantees of success

The legislation still has numerous, prominent opponents.

On Jan. 19, the South Carolina Republican Party shared a statement from South Carolina Sheriffs Association president Kevin Tolson opposing the bill, describing it as a dangerous proposal that could lead to more traffic accidents and increase the potential for financial crimes involving marijuana businesses.

I understand supporters of this bill are seeking to bring comfort and relief to friends and family members who are suffering from debilitating illnesses, Tolson wrote. But I can't endorse or even ignore the attempt to provide relief through illegal methods, especially when those attempts will jeopardize public safety.

Others have pushed for Davis legislation to be considerably pared down.

In a January rally at the Statehouse with several other Christian lobbying groups, Palmetto Family Council president David Wilson  who previously lobbied for Swing's group Compassionate SC  named defeating medical marijuana one of its eight legislative priorities this year.

Wilson, who said his opinion has shifted, said he and the council believe medical marijuana should be available only through cannabis-based medications dispersed through a licensed pharmacist, rather than by creating an industry that could be converted to recreational production.

That medication, he said, should also be FDA-approved, which cannabis is not.

Instead, federal law still puts marijuana at the same level as cocaine and heroin.

You're creating a whole system of growth of farms and dispensaries, Wilson said. It takes one more vote of the state Legislature to flip the switch, and we go from medical marijuana to recreational marijuana. We don't want that in South Carolina.

Even if the bill passes the Senate, its fate in the House is far from certain. Similar bills have never made it to that chamber's floor. Plus, it could face a veto by Gov. Henry McMaster.

Davis said in the news conference he'd received a commitment from House Speaker Jay Lucas that the bill would be allowed to move through the committee process. However, a spokeswoman for Lucas denied the speaker had given any such guarantee.

Sen. Davis doesnt speak for Speaker Lucas, spokeswoman Nicolette Walters said. Speaker Lucas looks forward to watching the Senate next week.
As a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes more and more likely, major European nations behave more and more in character. Britain, in its finest Churchill-Thatcher tradition, is stepping up to the plate. It just delivered anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.

Germany, reverting to its traditional approach of accommodating Russian aggression to further its interests, reportedly refused Britain permission to transport the anti-tank weapons through German airspace. Germany denies doing so, but admits refusing to grant re-export licenses to enable Estonia to send German-origin howitzers to Ukraine.

The Germans cite their policy of refusing to arm parties to a conflict, rooted in guilt over its aggression in World War II. Let me make sure I have this straight. Because Germany blitzed Europe, it cant help prevent or combat a Russian blitz of Ukraine?

Isnt Germanys 1939 alliance with the Russians (then known as the Soviets) in service of territorial expansion  and not for the first time  the more relevant World War II behavior that the Germans should atone for in the current circumstances?

If England is gonna be England and Germany is gonna be Germany, we shouldnt be surprised that France is gonna be France. It has seized on the current crisis to do what France does best  inflate its importance at Americas expense and undermine NATO.

Citing the current crisis, President Macron is advancing Frances ambitions for an EU-led security framework, rather than one led by NATO. He recently urged the EU to launch a separate dialogue with Moscow.

Macron is running for reelection. But even without this incentive for aggrandizing himself, its clear to me that he would be trying to deal the U.S. out and elevate France, which still fancies itself the master of diplomacy, into the lead role. Its what French leaders do.

Meanwhile, Russia is gonna be Russia  a blight on Europe and any other domain into which it can extend its power (Syria comes to mind). Is there even a grain of truth to the claim of Russias American apologists that Putin just wants to protect himself from NATO encroachment on or near Russias borders? If so, that grain is Russian paranoia.

Finally, what about America? Is the U.S. gonna be the U.S.? The question is hard, and maybe even impossible, to answer. With so many different strands to American foreign policy over the decades, who can say what the U.S. really is in matters like these?
In 2017, the New York Times editorial board viciously libeled Sarah Palin by asserting, as a fact, that she incited Jared Loughner to commit multiple murders. The Times editorial was particularly outrageous since the paper itself had already reported in news stories that this claim was untrue.

Palin sued the Times for defamation; I wrote about the case here and embedded her complaint, and again here. I commend those posts to you if you want to know more about the facts.

The trial court dismissed Palins case, applying (or misapplying) the ridiculously high bar that public figures must surmount to get a defamation case to a jury. Paul wrote about that ruling here. But that dismissal was reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and tomorrow the trial of Palins case will begin with jury selection in the federal court in New York City.

The Times has since corrected the editorial, acknowledging both falsely linking Palin to the violence and mischaracterizing an ad Palins political action committee ran, which put certain congressional districts, including Giffords, under crosshairs. Originally, the Times said the ad placed lawmakers themselves beneath the crosshairs.

To me, the Times editorial epitomizes actual malice, which is the legal standard that Palin must meet. They asserted, with zero factual basis, that there was a clear and direct causal relationship between a map published by Palins PAC and Loughlins six murders. In fact, there is no evidence that Loughlin ever saw the map (or, for that matter, that he had ever heard of Sarah Palin), and the Timess own reporting stated that the smear against Palin was false. The editorialists have to be arguing that they dont read their own newspaper.

The biggest question in the case, I think, is whether Palin can get a fair trial in deep-blue Manhattan. I do not understand why her lawyers brought the case in New York rather than Alaska. Perhaps there was some legal or tactical reason that escapes me. But I have a hard time seeing how any unbiased jury could fail to find in Palins favor.

At least two Supreme Court justices have expressed interest in revisiting the absurdly high legal standard that public figures must meet in order to recover for defamation. Sarah Palins case perhaps represents the acid test of whether it can ever be possible to recover under the current standard, and if she loses the effect could be a long overdue impetus for legal reform.
The idea for this episode was born on Twitter. Someone wondered if Charles Murray would be willing to do a podcast with journalist Steve Sailer, who, like Charles, is willing to confront openly the most delicate aspects of race and class in Americaand gets the same treatment from liberals everywhere: complete demonization.

I offered to host, and Charles and Steve, who have never met, agreed.

Well I asked a lot of questions, by mostly just tried to get out of the way and let Charles and Steve talk, and really work through some questions at leisure. We talked so long that this became a two-part episode (with part 2 coming next week).

We start here with some general observations about the great awokening of the last decade, and how the roots of the madness we saw in the aftermath of George Floyds death in 2020 were well under way years before. What were those roots, and how did Obama figure into this story? The consequences of substituting equity for equality are too obvious to need mentioning, but we discuss them anyway.

The second half, next week, will examine some of the more specific aspects of education today, starting with the current attack on meritocracy, which Charles and Steve agree, paradoxically, is not without it merits!

Listen here, or over with our hosts at Ricochet.

P.S. Heres the podcast episode with Charles from four years ago I mention in the introduction, How Charles Murray Became Charles Murray.

JOHN adds: Charles Murray is of course a hero, but I am also glad to see that Steve is talking with Steve Sailer. I havent kept up with Sailers writing systematically, but have found him to be a perceptive and entertaining commentator. I still remember his article in National Review titled Why Lesbians Arent Gay, which I learn from this tweet was his first magazine article:

My first magazine article, 25 years ago in "National Review," was "Why Lesbians Aren't Gay:"https://t.co/WSylnDtkNT I assumed then that once I pointed out the pervasive patterns distinguishing male and female homosexuals, that the world would be less ignorant. I was naive. https://t.co/tHirrTDcWC  Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) July 12, 2019

If you follow the link in the tweet, you can read the NR article at Unz.

Time to sign off now, and listen to the podcast.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admission v. University of North Carolina. These cases allege racial discrimination in college admissions.

The two university defendants, Harvard and UNC, prevailed in the lower courts. But now they must defend their blatant racial discrimination before a conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

We have written pretty extensively about the Harvard case. Some of our entries are here, here, and here. We wrote here about how Harvard ramped up its racial discrimination after prevailing (so far) in this case.

The Washington Post covers the cert grants here. It notes that the Trump administration supported the challenge to race-based admissions policies, but the Biden administration urged the Supreme Court not to hear these cases. It failed to persuade at least four Justices.

As to how the Court might rule, the Post observes that three current Justices dissented from the most recent Supreme Court decision that, in the Posts words, diversity justifies some intrusion on the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection, which generally forbids the government from making decisions based on race. (I take it the Post is oblivious to how absurd and offensive these words are.)

The three Justices are Roberts, Thomas, and Alito. Of the three, only Roberts position may be in doubt. Regarding the Chief Justice, the Post says, while Roberts often plays a moderating role on the court and is reluctant to overturn the courts precedents, he has been a steadfast opponent of [racial preferences].

What about the three Justices appointed by President Trump? All we know for sure is that at least one of them agreed that cert should be granted in these cases. But given the general conservatism of the three, theres a good chance that, at a minimum, each will take a long hard look at the notion that diversity justifies some intrusion on the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection.

The Supreme Court will likely decide the case next term. Thus, it probably wont be handing down potentially epic decisions on abortion and racial preferences in the same term.

I should add, however, that while reversing Roe v. Wade might be unpopular, upholding racial neutrality in admissions would not be. Edward Blum, head of the organization that brought these two suits, points out that both the Pew Research Center and Gallup have released surveys which indicate that nearly 75% of Americans of all races do not believe race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions.

Edward also had this to say:

Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas. Every college applicant should be judged as a unique individual, not as some representative of a racial or ethnic group. The cornerstone of our nations civil rights laws is the principle that an individuals race should not be used to help or harm them in their lifes endeavors. We hope the Supreme Court will use these cases to begin the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that holds together Americans of all races and ethnicities.

Amen.
A Nollywood veteran actor and filmmaker, Emeka Ossai, has said most of his colleagues are off-screen because movies produced by the so-called New Nollywood actors lacked originality.

Ossai said this when members of the Creative Industry Group (CIG) visited the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Lagos Office, and added that a chunk of the movies lacked focus.

Ossai said Nollywood was pulled out of the woods by the efforts of the veterans and ensured it remained afloat.

The veterans started the path called: Nollywood some years back and were able to colonize Africa and the diaspora to love our contents and love Nigeria.

To sustain Nollywood, the kind of story we tell should be original and indigenous. Some people have infiltrated the industry with the colonial business mentality; they want to degrade our culture by bringing in some content outside our cultural identity. People acting and mimicking the whites when they are blacks by speaking through their nostrils and changing the trajectory from contemporary Africa stories should rethink, he said.

Ossai argued that some unwritten values in Nollywood had helped it grow and must be protected.

Some producers of movies have created New Nollywood by bringing in untrained artistes. In our own time, we were trained either formally or informally.

We were trained in the Nollywood through apprenticeship or actual practice overtime before becoming a frontrunner in the business.

Some artists can play the role of a Waka Pass for ten years before getting a lead role. A fresher cannot muscle an old hand in the role within a short time, he said.

Ossai reiterated that the Nollywood industry needed the inputs of the veterans who would provide the leadership for the new entrants to flourish.

He said some of the new films produced by young artistes that go to the cinema should have the inputs of the old hands for it to be recognised.

A film called Lion Heart by Genevieve Nnaji is essentially an old Nollywood film upgraded to the world standard. The result was great because it attracted great endorsements worth millions of dollars.

The younger ones cannot go to the cinemas without the inputs of the older ones and think it will succeed. No, it might fail. The old hands will keep the torch running, while the new entrants will complement, actors that rose to the top started humbly.

We have many examples of them like Omotola Jalade. She joined the industry in secondary school and got a role, probably more than a decade after. So, it will be difficult for a fresher to compete or play a role with such a veteran, Ossai said.

Ossai, who studied Food Technology at the University of Agriculture, Ogun State, won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 2008 AMAAs.
In the last 24 hours, Yoruba movie star Mercy Aigbe and her new husband, Kazim Adeoti, have been in the news since their big announcement.

The actress, who has been keeping her relationship with Mr Adeoti a closely guarded secret, decided to reveal this on Sunday, despite the controversies trailing their relationship.

Since her messy divorce in 2017, this is the first time the 45-year-old actress, who has been romantically linked with several men in the past, would publicly flaunt a man.

However, the occasion was his birthday, but the publicity-loving actress has continued to flaunt him before her over 10 million Instagram followers.

The actress fondly calls him boss and di owner and calls herself Agbeke aya di owner on her Instagram posts.

In the grand unveiling post on Sunday, she wrote: Finally I said Yes to D Owner Thank you, God, of many chances, which suggests that Adeoti was the owner all the while.

There is hardly any film that he produces that Aigbe does not feature.

She often plays lead roles in his movies.

Some movies produced by Adeoti where Aigbe played lead roles include Prima Donna (2021), Raboni (2021), and Traffic (2020), Ayomi.

Aigbes latest movie, J.B.O, a joint venture between herself and her beau, was released on Monday (Mr Adeotis birthday).

Knocks

But, it seems Aigbes decision to make their relationship public appears ill-timed as she is being chastised by some critics for marrying a married man.

A husband-snatching allegation is trailing the Edo-State-born actress and film producer on social media.

Sundays announcement has also seen fans and critics alike shuttle between her Instagram page, gossip blogs, colleagues Instagram page, and her husbands Instagram page for juicy details.

Like Prince Kpokpogri, Tonto Dikehs estranged lover, Mr Adeoti, a hitherto unassuming businessman, has been thrust into the limelight.

Since the affair was made public, his Instagram follower growth rate has tripled.

But unfortunately, he had to repeatedly turn on and put off comments on his Instagram account because of online trolls and vile comments.

On the other hand, Mercy, who is not a stranger to controversies, is reveling in the attention and posting their wedding photos publicly.

Controversial marriage

While this is Aigbes third shot at marriage, it is Adeotis second marriage.

The actress was married to a controversial hotelier and auto dealer, Lanre Gentry. The union crashed in 2017 due to domestic violence and infidelity allegations.

Theirs was a messy and bitter divorce.

Aigbe and Adeoti, who owns a popular online movie streaming service, IbakaTV, have a history.

Their friendship and business partnership date back to over a decade.

While the actress continues to flaunt her newfound love, fans are concerned that Adeotis relationship with the actress threatens his marriage of over two decades.

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Adeoti is a father-of-four while his first wife, Funsho, who lives in Minnesota, U.S., is a notable fashion designer and owner of Asiwaju Couture.

Her upscale store boasts high-profile clientele in the National Assembly and social circles.

Adeoti, on the other hand, was a licensed Mortgage Broker in the U.S. before relocating to Nigeria to float a movie production outfit, Adekaz Production.

Nonetheless, fans say that since Adeoti is a Muslim, he can marry more than one wife.

In 2021, Aigbe flaunted an engagement ring on Instagram, which further fueled rumours that the mother-of-two was betrothed, but at the time, her lovers identity remained a mystery.

READ ALSO: Actress Mercy Aigbe finally confirms romance with popular Yoruba filmmaker

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the couple had an intimate Nikkai in Lagos on New Years eve. There, Aigbe was christened Aminah.

Response

While the lovebirds are yet to issue a statement addressing the allegations, their former partners have made cryptic posts on Instagram.

Gentry posted a throwback photo of himself, Aigbe, Adeoti, and his wife on Instagram. It insinuated that they must have been family friends.

Gentrys caption read, At last I thank God the truth is out this is just one out of many to God be the glory. I dont need anyones comment, please.

On the other hand, inundated by the goodwill and empathy from Nigerians, Funsho made a cryptic post that suggested that all was not well between her and her husband.

It read, Losing someone who doesnt respect or appreciate you is again, not a loss.. Thank you all.
It has been two decades since Mohammed Yusuf founded the group that became known as Boko Haram, and over a decade since its violent attacks reached the scale of an insurgency.

Numerous events during this time have caused the group to evolve, including its split in 2012 and spread throughout the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) region in 2013. These changes have had varying effects on the crisis and the governments ability to find lasting solutions.

Major developments in 2021 modified the conflicts trajectory. These included the death of Abubakar Shekau (leader of Boko Haram faction JAS  Jamaat Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Dawah wal-Jihad), the rise of Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP  another Boko Haram faction), and the resulting desertions of disaffected members. Analysing these trends helps anticipate how they will affect stabilisation efforts in LCB countries.

The death of Shekau, Yusufs successor, in May 2021 should have been a celebrated end to his reign of terror in the region. However, the involvement of the rival ISWAP faction only shifted the course of the insurgency.

ISWAP has since consolidated its presence in the LCB by taking over former JAS-controlled territories and absorbing JAS fighters. ISWAP has a stronger governance structure that includes community engagement and the leverage of local dynamics, with some support from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This makes it more strategic, better resourced, and more resilient than JAS in fulfilling its Islamic Caliphate agenda.

To address the violent and lengthy Boko Haram crisis, stakeholders have had to look at its root causes. This informed the push for stabilisation, which sees state and non-state actors working together to improve livelihoods, education, infrastructure, public services, governance and state-community relations.

ISWAPs anti-state strategy that includes promoting itself as the preferred alternative to existing governments puts it in direct opposition to stabilisation efforts. In 2021 the group targeted state projects, kidnapping staff from the Borno State Ministry of Works who were supervising the construction of the road connecting Chibok and Damboa. They also ramped up attacks on security forces.

Maiduguri, considered one of the most secure cities in the LCB region, faces increasing attacks. Multiple blasts were apparently targeted at the visit of Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari in December 2021. ISWAP has also attacked resettled communities, forcing displaced people to choose between living under the rule of violent extremists or facing secondary displacement.

As ISWAP consolidates its influence in the region and adapts to military responses against it, more attacks will inevitably occur. And although it has been weakened, JAS is trying to survive Shekaus death with the emergence of new leaders.

Another trend triggered by Shekaus death has been the mass exodus of former Boko Haram associates from the group. Managing these large numbers is an ongoing challenge for governments of the region, especially Nigeria and Cameroon. Close to 20 000 have left the group for various reasons, including men, women, children and families.

According to Institute for Security Studies research, rehabilitation facilities have been overwhelmed in some parts of Cameroon, leading to growing crime. LCB countries have inadequate resources and capacity for proper screening, profiling, prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration of former Boko Haram associates. The lack of a standard regional methodology for these activities makes things even harder.

The issue of reintegration raises the dilemma of transitional justice and reconciliation. Despite consensus that lasting peace requires the involvement of communities in the justice and reintegration process, approaches to achieving this differ and must be carefully navigated to achieve stability.

ISWAP uses livelihoods as a crucial bargaining tool with communities  a trend that must be tackled in 2022. Extremists demand taxes from citizens in exchange for safe access to their farmlands and for creating markets to sell their goods. The task of bringing jobs into the region and securing farming, fishing and trading must be urgently attended to by those responsible for stabilisation.

A related question is how the private sector can help, despite the threat that the conflict poses to its operations. Rebuilding the LCB region and its economies is not a task that governments can do on their own. Incentivising the private sector to take a bigger role while finding ways to safeguard their activities are two challenges that must be handled carefully in 2022.

Recent trends also reveal other threats, such as the internationalisation of the LCB conflict. The activities of Islamic State-affiliated groups have increased in Africa, and theres been an obvious push by ISIS to remain and expand on the continent. Solutions will lie in joint regional efforts by affected countries along with the African Union and the Global Coalition Against Daesh. Reports that Boko Haram rival faction Ansaru has reconfirmed its allegiance to al-Qaeda adds to these concerns.

The LCBs rapidly evolving crisis makes it difficult to decide on the best approaches to stabilising the region, measuring progress, and defining the desired end state. What stability will look like seems to get vaguer with each new development. The rise of ISWAP makes better state visibility and state-community relations even more urgent, especially considering the many non-state actors involved.

Despite a potentially tougher security environment in 2022, efforts need to be pragmatic and innovative. Those working to stabilise the region must collaborate, monitor conflict developments to stay ahead of the violent extremists, and adapt their responses as trends change.

Teniola Tayo, Researcher, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Regional Office for West Africa, the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin, Dakar

This article is funded by the United Nations Development Programme and the government of the Netherlands.

(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has called for better support to teachers and increased financing for education, so as to reduce loss of learning and increasing school dropouts worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.

Commemorating the World Education Day, UNESCO, in a statement, said except there are increased efforts, dropout will continue to rise and will ultimately reverse the progresses made towards all the Sustainable Development Goals.

The theme for this year is: Changing Course, Transforming Education.

The global organisation said the objective is to mobilise political will to address inequalities in access and completion of education in line with SDG4, spotlight student and teachers voices on what changes and innovations they want to see to make their education and profession more fit for purpose.

The statement read in part: Transforming the future requires an urgent rebalancing of our relationships with each other, with nature as well as with technology that permeates our lives, bearing breakthrough opportunities while raising serious concerns for equity, inclusion and democratic participation.

Education is key to charting the course towards more justice and sustainability, but it is failing millions of children, youth and adults, increasing their exposure to poverty, violence and exploitation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated a pre-existing education crisis. Reliance on digital technology for learning has deepened exclusion and gender inequalities. Without remedial action, better support to teachers and increased financing, learning losses and school dropout will continue to rise, reversing progress towards all the Sustainable Development Goals and depriving youth of a future of dignity and opportunity.

Nigeria in focus

With over 10 million out-of-school children, Nigeria houses the highest number in Sub Saharan Africa. Violent attacks on schools in the past year have also raised fears that this number would soon be on the increase.

More than 50 per cent of students who took part in the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and qualified for admission in the past year might not secure admission as tertiary institutions lament the backlog of admitted students yet to be admitted from the 2020 UTME.

COVID-19 has stalled a complete academic session leaving institutions struggling to admit more students.

Nigerias allocation for the sector in the 2022 budget is still way below the 15-20% recommended by UNESCO.

Glimpse of hope

However, the federal governments announcement in October last year that teachers in public schools will begin to enjoy a new salary structure and elongated service from 35 to 40 years is a positive development.

The government has also tasked the newly inaugurated governing board for the National Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC) to come up with innovations to regulate and reposition the senior secondary education in Nigeria, including funding.
The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) has said more than 100 of its members left the country in the past 24 months.

The president of the association, Victor Makanjuola, while speaking at a briefing in Abuja on Sunday, said the medical officials left the services of 17 tertiary health institutions in the country.

Mr Makanjuola said the mass exodus of medical and dental consultants to more developed countries has brought significant disruptions to Nigerias health care ecosystem.

About MDCAN

MDCAN is a group of medical specialists in different field of medicines and dentistry with the highest qualifications in medical practices.

Their responsibilities include training medical doctors, offering specialist services to patients and also conducting research in medical fields.

MDCAN has members in government and non-governmental hospitals, tertiary and secondary health facilities across the country.

Reasons for exit

Mr Makanjuola said health workers are leaving in large numbers due to poor welfare and working conditions in the country.

He said the issue of insecurity ravaging major parts of the country is contributing to the daily exit of medical practitioners from the country.

He also noted that many recent policies of government appear to target medical professionals and their practice in Nigeria, which he claimed adversely impact on quality of healthcare delivery in the country.

The level of insecurity in the country has remained worrisome, making it nearly impossible to safely use certain road routes across the country.

This is despite efforts being made by the government to address the challenges.

The persistent attack on Medical and Dental Postgraduate Medical Fellowship and discrimination against our members have also continued unabated, he said.

He explained that the unjustifiable attacks have the potential for disrupting medical training in universities and tertiary hospitals.

These young people will not leave if the economy is good, the older ones will not leave if there are facilities to train with; they will not leave if their pay is reasonable and most importantly they will not leave if they are gainfully employed, he said.

Halting slide

He said the government can improve the conditions of service of those still in the system to halt further brain drain.

Government as a matter of urgency should put polices in place to arrest the mass exodus of highly skilled medical and dental consultants into developed countries.

Such policies must domesticate the pull factors while minimising the push factors that encourage emigration of healthcare professionals, he said.

Hazard allowance

Mr Makanjuola said the amount offered as hazard allowance to health workers is highly discouraging.

He noted that the recently reviewed hazard allowances by the government is grossly inadequate to address the multiple risks faced by an average health worker in the country.

He said the federal governments circular is not in line with the earlier agreement reached during negotiation with representatives of various associations under the health sector.

This further complicates the near-complete erosion of relativity in remuneration that has existed among different health workers, he said.

Hazard allowances

The Nigerian government recently increased the hazard allowances applicable to health workers in federal government-owned healthcare facilities across the country.

The government increased the allowance for doctors from N5,000 to between N32,000 and N40,000, while other health workers are to receive between N15,000 and N34,000.

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Mr Makanjuola, however, said the agreement reached with the government is between the range of N34,000 and N100,000.

Hazard allowance, a wage supplement paid to workers who do dangerous jobs, has been among key negotiation points between health workers and the government for many years.

Before the recent increment, health workers in Nigeria are entitled to only N5,000 as hazard allowances.

Resolutions

Mr Makanjuola said the association reached some resolutions following its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held in Bauchi between January 19 and 23, 2022.

He said its important for the government to intensify efforts at resolving the security challenges in the country once and for all to safeguard the lives and properties of Nigerians.

The government needs to engage critical stakeholders when formulating policies that have direct and indirect impacts on the healthcare system in the country.

That there is need for immediate review of the recently released circular on Hazard Allowance by the Federal Government, which was not in line with the earlier agreement reached during negotiation with our association, with the hope of reflecting the current realities and relativity of remuneration of the healthcare workers.

The persistent attack on Medical and Dental Postgraduate Medical Fellowship and discrimination against our members would no longer be tolerated and any institutions that does such will be blacklisted, he said.

Brain Drain

The mass exodus of health care professionals, especially doctors, pharmacists, and nurses has been a burning issue in the country.

A 2017 survey by the Nigerian Polling organisation (NOIPolls) in partnership with Nigeria Health Watch, revealed that about 88 per cent of medical doctors in Nigeria were seeking work opportunities abroad at the time.

The Saudi Arabia health ministry recently had a recruitment exercise in Nigeria where over 500 medical doctors participated.

The consequences of the continuous exodus include shortage of healthcare workers when compared to the nations needs and the poor ratios of healthcare workers to Nigerian patients.

As of 2020, Nigeria had a doctor-patient ratio of 1:2,753, in sharp contrast to the World Health Organisation (WHO)s minimum recommended ratio of 1:400-600.
Angry youth in the early hours of Monday set ablaze the school where the kidnappers of Hanifa Abubakarb buried the remains of the five-year-old girl in Kano.

The private school, Noble Kids Comprehensive College, is located at Kwanar Dakata in Nassarawa local government area, in Kano metropolis.

Hanifa was abducted on December 2 by her teacher, Abdulmalik Tanko, who is also the proprietor of the private school.

Mr Tanko has been arrested and the school was closed by the state government.

The police spokesperson in Kano, Abbdullahi Kiyawa, on Monday morning said the angry youth set fire to the school in the middle of the night.

He said there was no casualty in the incident, but parts of the schools building were razed.

Mr Kiyawa added that the police are yet to arrest any suspect in the incident.

Last Thursday, Mr Tanko led police officers to the school premises where the remains of Hanifa were found buried in a shallow grave.

The body had been dismembered before being buried. The remains were then exhumed for medical examination ahead of proper burial by her family.

The police spokesperson told PREMIUM TIMES Monday morning that Mr Tanko will be charged to court this week.

Little Hanifas dastardly murder has been greeted by outrage from across Nigeria, with President Muhammadu Buhari also condemning the incident.
The Federal High Court, Abuja, on Monday, issued an arrest warrant against a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, over corruption charges pending against her.

It is the second arrest warrant to be issued against the ex-minister, who is believed to have fled to the United Kingdom since leaving office in 2015.

On December 4, 2018, a judge of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Valentine Ashi (now deceased), ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Nigerian Police Force, the States Security Service (SSS), and all other security agencies to arrest her within 72 hours.

The matter was later taken to the Federal High Court in Abuja where the EFCC filed 13 counts of money laundering against Ms Alison-Madueke in anticipation of her extradition to Nigeria.

On July 24, 2020, Ijeoma Ojukwu, the judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, handling the matter, issued a summons for the former minster to appear to answer to the charges preferred against her.

Ms Alison-Madueke ignored the summons which, anyway, could not be confirmed was served on her.

EFCC subsequently requested the judge to issue a warrant of arrest against the former minister.

But the judge turned down the request, insisting that the summons she issued was sufficient to process her extradition to Nigeria to face her trial, adding that she would not issue another order in vain.

Fresh arrest warrant

The commission was still struggling with the extradition process which largely depends on the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), when it sought a fresh warrant of arrest from the new judge handling the case on Monday.

Bolaji Olajuwon of the Federal High Court in Abuja, who took over the case from Mrs Ojukwu, issued the fresh warrant of arrest against the former minister following an oral application by EFCCs lawyer, Farouk Abdullah.

Mr Abdullah told the court that all efforts by the agency to get the ex-minister extradited proved abortive while the matter was being handled by the former judge.

He said the summons issued by Mrs Ojukwu had not been able to achieve the intended goal of extraditing the defendant.

He explained in his oral application that an arrest warrant is a mandatory requirement needed by the AGF office to process the extradition of the former minster.

The prosecutor added that the arrest warrant needed to be given to the International Police (INTERPOL) which would effect the arrest.

He urged the court to issue an arrest warrant against Alison-Madueke, who is believed to be in the UK to enable all law enforcement agencies and the INTERPOL to arrest her anywhere she is sighted and be brought before the court to answer to the allegation made against her before the court.

Mr Olajuwon then granted the application and adjourned the matter indefinitely pending when Ms Alison-Madueke would be arrested and produced in court.

Previous deadlock

Past proceedings in the case had ended in a deadlock due to Ms Alison-Maduekes unavailability for trial and EFCCs inability to implement the warrants of arrest and summons issued against her.

PREMIUM TIMES reported that earlier on October 28, 2020, Ms Ojukwu refused to grant EFCCs request for the issuance of a warrant of arrest against the former minister.

The judge had said the summons she issued on July 24, 2020, ought to be sufficient for the commission to process her extradition to Nigeria to face her trial.

She then adjourned the matter till December 3 for EFCC to report on its efforts to bring the former minister to Nigeria.

On December 3, EFCCs prosecuting counsel, Farouk Abdullah, appeared before the judge pleading for more time to enable the anti-graft agency to enforce the court summons against Ms Alison-Madueke.

The judge then adjourned till March 3, 2021 for possible arraignment of the defendant.

But neither Ms Alison-Madueke nor the prosecuting counsel was present at the March 3, 2021 proceedings, a development that forced the judge to again adjourn the case.

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Ms Ojukwu adjourned till May 17, 2021 for EFCCs report of compliance.

She also directed the court registrar to issue and serve the hearing notice for the next sitting on the prosecuting counsel.

The judge has since been transferred out of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court prompting the case to be reassigned to the new judge.

Background

EFCC had alleged that the former minister escaped to the UK shortly after the end of her tenure as minister.

It alleged that she fled after she got wind of the plan to charge her with various offences of corruption allegedly perpetrated by her and her allies while she presided over the plum petroleum sector under the former President Goodluck Jonathans administration.

While still struggling to have her extradited to Nigeria to face trial, EFCC had secured several court orders for the forfeiture of assets linked to her.

On November 11, 2018, the commission filed the 13 counts of money laundering against her before Ms Ojukwu.

The former official was accused of, among other charges, unlawfully taking into her possession $39.7 million and N3.32 billion when she reasonably ought to have known that the money formed part of the proceeds of unlawful activities.

Since Ms Alison-Maduekes exit from office in 2015, her name has featured in series of investigations of corruption allegations directly against her or her associates.

Many assets linked to her have also been forfeited to the federal government through the orders of court.
The Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has reshuffled its high-ranking officials in what sources say is to stem the tide of jailbreaks across the country.

The top officials have been asked to vacate their current positions for what is seen as lesser roles due to what insiders say is their failure to prevent jail attacks.

The Deputy Comptroller General of Corrections (DCG) in charge of operations, Ahmed Tukur, and the Deputy Comptroller of Corrections (DCC), Head of Intelligence and Investigations, Nkechi Nwanebo, have been asked to quit their roles and have been redeployed.

According to an internal memo seen by PREMIUM TIMES, the two senior officials will henceforth take up positions of Non-Custodial Measures (NCM) Directorate and the Operations Service (OPS) Directorate respectively.

Also, Aminu Yusuf, who was in charge of the Armed Squad Unit (ASU) of the correctional service, has been moved to the Medium Security Custodial Centre (MSCC), Bauchi, to assume a position that our sources say is less demanding and degrading.

According to the memo, the Controller-General of Corrections, Haliru Nababa, has ordered all affected officers to conclude the processes of handing and taking over before next Friday, urging them to ensure strict compliance.

In May 2021, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, decorated Mr Tukur and Mr Nwanebo after they were both promoted to the position of Deputy Controller General of the correctional service.

Mr Aregbesola, during the decoration, said the officers were installed at a period the country was facing a major national security crisis.

The Ministry of Interior is always on the mouth of commentators and analysts when the security situation in the country is being mentioned. This is to let you know the great expectations people have of you, he told reporters in Abuja. We have been in the throes of bandits, insurgents and other baddies, draining resources and psychic energy. Our agencies must rise to the plate.

He warned the newly decorated correctional officers that criminals will keep getting more sophisticated in order to be ahead of you; but in order to beat them, you have to be ahead of their game at all times.

An Unfortunate Reign of Jailbreaks

Unfortunately, the DCGs came on board at a period criminal elements were massively attacking custodial centres across the country. In September, a few months after their decorations, about 240 inmates were freed when gunmen attacked a detention facility in Kogi State with explosive devices.

Again, in October, over 100 inmates escaped from the Oyo Custodial Centre after gunmen raided the facility for several hours, killing a soldier and a local security agent. The following month, another jailbreak occurred when some criminal elements attacked the Jos Medium Security Prison, releasing over 200 inmates.

Before they were installed as DCGs, however, there had been a series of jailbreaks in the country, especially in the southeast. In April 2021 alone, over 2000 prisoners broke out of jail in Imo State with the Federal Government accusing members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist group, of orchestrating the jailbreaks in the southeast region.

Correctional facilities not structured to resist war-grade violence

The spokesperson of the Nigerian Correctional Service, Francis Enabore, told PREMIUM TIMES that the reshuffle was necessary to prevent future attacks on prison facilities across the country.

Asked what the NCoS authority is doing to curb jailbreaks in the country, he said: The Nigerian Correctional Service since creation was never designed to withstand these levels of high military jail attacks. Otherwise, we would have had trenches of military formations well positioned.

The security architecture was built around preventing jailbreaks  that is inmates breaking out of the prisons  and not people breaking in. But now, we have high military-grade attacks. Were talking about people coming in with explosives and amours. But were gearing up to put up formidable forces against the attackers.

Shoot jailbreakers at sight  Aregbesola

On January 17, Mr Aregbesola ordered prison officials to kill criminal elements attempting to attack any of the correctional centres in the country.

The former Osun Governor said this while inspecting the Agodi Custodial Centre, Ibadan, Oyo State, adding that an attack on any correctional centre would be detrimental to the state.

He said: The most important thing is the security of this facility. Make this facility impregnable. It is a red zone, a dangerous zone. Whoever attempts to breach the security here is already dead. He must not live to tell the story. Other people will tell his or her story.

Any effort to breach our facility is not acceptable. Dont shoot to injure, shoot to kill. Dont shoot to disable, shoot to kill. This is a total embodiment of the state to guarantee the security of the people.
A coup has occurred in Burkina Faso with the army announcing the sack of the government in the West African country.

The army announced in a televised broadcast Monday evening that it has deposed President Roch Kabore, suspended the constitution, dissolved the government and the national assembly, and closed the countrys borders.

The announcement, signed on Monday by Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, a lieutenant colonel, and read by another officer, Sidsore Kader Ouedraogo, on state television, said that the takeover had been carried out without violence and those detained were in a secure location.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that mutinous soldiers detained Mr Kabore following heavy gunfire Sunday night.

The group that executed the coup identified itself as the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (MPSR). It said the presidents inability to tackle security issues and unite Burkinabes led to toppling the government.

In view of the continuing deterioration of the security situation which threatens the very foundations of our country, the manifest inability of the power of Mr Marc Christian Kabore to unite the Burkinabe to deal effectively with the situation, the group said.

READ ALSO: Resurgence of coups in West Africa worries UN

It claimed that the coup brought together all the components of the defence and security forces.

According to the broadcast, deposing the government, is a decision taken with the sole aim of allowing our country to get back on the right track and gather all its forces to fight for its territorial integrity, its role of the CEMA and its sovereignty.

The group also said that arrested persons are being detained in a dignified manner.

It pledged its continued respect for international commitments, including human rights.

The coup in Burkina Faso is the latest in the region with similar coups occuring in Chad, Mali and Guinea.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Sunday described the late former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala of Oyo State as a generous, kindhearted and decent man.

Mr Osinbajo made the remark during a condolence visit to the family of Mr Alao-Akala in Ogbomoso, Oyo State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mr Alao-Akala, also an All Progressives Congress (APC) leader in Oyo State, died on Jan. 12.

The vice president was accompanied by Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde, some National Assembly members and others.

We have profound memories of him, a man who was exceedingly generous.

He was a titan in politics. He was a very generous, kindhearted and decent man, the vice president said.

Mr Osinbajo recalled how he and Alao-Akalas nephew, Prof. Oyelowo Oyewo, used to go to him for pocket money.

Long before I became a Professor of Law, I had known our dear uncle Adebayo Alao- Akala.

Any time I think about him, I smile because he was a very special being.

Prof. Oyelowo Oyewo, the current Commissioner for Justice in Oyo State, was our link to him.

If we needed little pocket money, we found a way of getting to our dear uncle. This was even long before he became Governor of Oyo State, Mr Osinbajo said.

He also recounted how generous Mr Alao-Akala was with advice, time and resources.

According to him, in 2015 when he was nominated as the Vice Presidential Candidate of APC, one of the people he consulted was Mr Alao-Akala.

It was Prof. Oyewo, my friend, who arranged a meeting between us in Ikoyi and he gave me advice.

He said, Professor, the vice-presidents seat is not a childs play.

He was so generous, he gave me much advice and much support, he said.

Mr Osinbajo commiserated with the family, praying that all that Mr Alao-Akala left behind would prosper.

No one can know the extent of your pain and sadness. Only God can comfort you and keep you, he said.

He also prayed that Mr Alao-Akalas children would be greater than he was.

Others in Mr Osinbajos entourage were Senator Abdulfatai Buhari, Segun Odebunmi, some members of Osinbajo Grassroot Organization, and some APC chieftains in Oyo State.

(NAN)
A State High Court in Umuahia, Abia State, last week, ruled that the Nigerian government violated the fundamental human rights of the IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, when Nigerian soldiers invaded his home in the state in September 2017.

The court ordered the government to pay N1 billion as damages to Mr Kanu and also apologise to him publicly for the invasion.

The court, in the ruling, urged the government to show commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Biafra agitation, championed by the proscribed IPOB.

DOWNLOAD a copy of the court judgement HERE.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on Monday, re-arraigned a former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, on an amended 17-count charge of money laundering.

Mr Fani-Kayode is charged alongside a former Minister of State for Finance, Nenandi Usman, before a Federal High Court in Lagos .

Also charged is Yusuf Danjuma, a former chairperson of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and Jointrust Dimentions Nigeria Ltd.

The EFCC had earlier preferred a 17-count charge of N4.6 billion money laundering against the defendants before the former trial judge, Mohammed Aikawa.

The defendants had each pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted bail.

Hearing of the case had begun before Mr Aikawa and witnesses were being led in evidence, before the trial judge was transferred out of the Lagos division.

The case was consequently assigned to a new judge, Daniel Osaigor, and the defendants had to start the case from the beginning.

On Monday, the amended 17-count charge was read over to the defendants and they each pleaded not guilty to the charge

After pleas, the prosecution counsel, Rotimi Oyedepo (SAN), prayed the court for a trial date.

The Defence counsel, Ferdinard Orbih (SAN), however, urged the court to allow the defendants to continue on the existing bail conditions granted by the former trial judge.

In a short ruling, the court allowed the defendants to continue on their existing bail conditions.

He adjourned the case until March 11, for trial.

In the charge, the defendants were alleged to have committed the offences between January and March 2015 in Lagos.

They were alleged to have at various times unlawfully retained over N4.6 billion, which they reasonably ought to have known formed part of the proceeds of unlawful acts of stealing and corruption.

In counts 15 to 17, Mr Fani-Kayode and one Olubode Oke, who is said to be at large, were alleged to have made cash payments of about N30 million to one Paste Poster Co (PPC) of No 125 Lewis St., Lagos.

The said payments were alleged to have been made in excess of amounts allowed by law without going through a financial institution.

All offences were said to have contravened the provisions of sections 15 (3) (4), 16 (2) (b), and 16 (5) of the Money Laundering (prohibition) (Amendment) Act, 2012.

(NAN)
The Kaduna State High Court, on Monday, sentenced a serial fraud convict who is still serving a jail term, to a fresh seven years imprisonment.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said in a statement that Gabriel Chimezie was jailed seven years on each of the four counts of obtaining by false pretense.

The sentences, which are without an option of fine, are to run concurrently, according to the statement signed by EFCCs spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren.

Chimezie had twice been convicted by the Kaduna State High Court on similar charges and is currently serving a term at the Correctional Centre, the statement added.

The commission explained that Mr Chimezie alongside two others, Stephen Olaika and Francis Chukwu (deceased), had defrauded the complainant to the tune of N1, 475,000 on the pretext that they would award him a contract to supply Solar Halogen Indicator.

The convict and his accomplices were said to have been able to convince their victim with the false claim that they knew him from his time at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Read EFCCs full statement:

EFCC Press Release

Serial Fraudster Bags 28 Years Jail Term

The Kano Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, today January 24, 2022 secured the conviction of a serial fraudster, Gabriel Chimezie before Justice M.T.M Aliyu of the Kaduna State High Court on a four count charge of obtaining by false pretense.

Chimezie had twice been convicted by the Kaduna State High Court on similar charges and is currently serving a term at the Correctional Centre.

Chimezie alongside two others, Stephen Olaika and Francis Chukwu (deceased), defrauded the complainant to the tune of N1, 475,000 on the pretext that they would award him contract to supply Solar Halogen Indicator.

The convict and his accomplices were able to convince their victim with the false claim that they knew him from his time at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

Upon arraignment, the convict pleaded not guilty thereby setting the stage of full trial.

During the trial, prosecution counsel Musa Isah called four witnesses and tendered several documents that were admitted in evidence.

Convinced that the prosecution had proved its case, Justice Aliyu today convicted and sentenced Chimezie to seven years imprisonment on each of the four counts without option of fine.

The court ordered that the sentence shall run concurrently.

Wilson Uwujaren

Head, Media & Publicity

24 January, 2022
Nature Kieghe, leader, Ex-agitators in the Niger Delta region, has called for return of investors since peace has returned to the area.

Mr Kieghe said investors left the region because of militancy.

Mr Kieghe made the appeal on Sunday in Yenagoa during a regional peace summit to sensitise people on the need to advance the peace currently enjoyed in the Niger Delta.

He said the transformation and character reorientation they received as part of the amnesty scheme have made them committed as advocates of peace and development.

Mr Kieghe said as ex-agitators, who keyed into the vision of the Interim Administrator, Presidential Amnesty Programme, Milland Dikio, they have resolved to work for a new and better Niger Delta.

It is important to sensitise our people towards a peaceful Niger Delta and create a friendly environment that will attract development, multinational companies and other foreign investors to the region.

We, who once carried guns, are now here to preach the message of peace to our people in the region.

Peace is the only way we can have the developed environment that we dream of. Peace is the only way to attract the multinationals, investors and also be gainfully employed, Mr Kieghe said.

He said: Companies that have left Niger Delta because of insecurity need to return, this is the purpose for this sensitisation.

We are blessed with an environment that is supposed to prosper us, we can only enjoy our natural resources if there is a peaceful environment.

The ex-agitator condemned the proliferation of illegal refineries and lamented its adverse effects on development of the area.

He said beyond hampering the development of the region, illegal refining of petroleum products is life threatening and dangerous to the ecosystem.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that former agitators who are beneficiaries of the Presidential Amnesty offer also called on interventionist agencies to work together to sustain the peace and ensure development of the region.

The sensitisation programme commenced in Bayelsa with 150 Niger Delta youths in attendance and would be held across the nine states of the region.

(NAN)
The new Commissioner of Police in Lagos state, Abiodun Alabi, on Monday assured the residents of the state of visibility policing to keep the state safe from criminals.

Mr Alabi while presenting his policing template and strategy during the handing over ceremony at the Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja said that the presence of police would deter criminals in the society.

Mr Alabi, who took over from Assistant Inspector General of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, added that Lagos State is a familiar turf to him having served in the state for many years in different capacities.

It is with deep sense of responsibility that I welcome everyone here to my media briefing as the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Command.

It has become necessary to bring to the fore my template and policing vision.

Visibility policing and dominance of security space by ensuring the presence of policemen at all times to deter criminals as a preventive measure.

We will ensure that the Rapid Response Squad(RRS) is encouraged and strengthened to respond promptly and effectively to citizens concerns. he said.

The new CP said there would also be respect for fundamental human rights by ensuring that no breach of human rights will be tolerated under his command and watch.

Our mens conduct while discharging their duties must be in conformity with our professional ethics especially with issues of corruption and extra judicial killing and act of incivility to members of the public.

We will strive to build confidence and trust in members of the public particularly with state actors and non-state actors through intelligence led community policing.

Area commanders and Divisional Police Officers will be encouraged to meet regularly with non-state actors to ensure common problems confronting their various areas of responsibilities are collectively addressed. he said.

Mr Alabi, however, added that he would be open to constructive criticisms as it would help improve the policing structure in the state.

I will not be allergic to constructive criticisms but will see it as an information to rejig our security architecture for our policing strategy.

Therefore, I will encourage collaboration with the fourth estate of the realm and appeal that issues concerning our policing policies in the state are brought to my knowledge promptly.

I will also endeavour to hold parleys with journalists where solutions will be tabled and addressed in amicable manners. he said.

The Lagos police boss said there would be dedicated lines to get feedback from the public while new patterns of crime would be monitored and mapped out.

Some dedicated lines will be rolled out to members of the public for accessibility and feedback to members of the public on issues of our common safety and security.

The trends and patterns of crime will continually be monitored to ensure crime mapping of the state to enable us devise appropriate crime preventing strategies. he said.

Mr Alabi further read the riot act to warring factions in the state when he said gang disturbance would be holistically addressed and those found culpable would face the consequences of their actions.

The CP said he would also strengthen interagency collaboration and synergy with a robust and healthy relationship with heads of security agencies in Lagos State in the management of the state.

He commended the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission for considering him fit to be deployed to Lagos State.

Mr Alabi commended the outgoing Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, for his operational dexterity.

He said that he would anchor his programmes on those established by Mr Odumosu, consolidate on them and emplace the necessary strategies at ensuring that Lagos State in no distant time meets our security aspirations and yearnings as a people.

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I promise to work assiduously with all officers and men of the command to make Lagos safer and more secured for investment and habitation. he said.

READ ALSO: Lagos police command gets new spokesperson

The outgoing Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, who is now an Assistant Inspector-General in charge of Federal Operations, further solicited support for the new CP adding that policing is a collective responsibility.

Police job is not a one man job but a collective one. I will attribute my accolades to my officers and the people for their support.

I solicit for same support to be extended to the new CP especially now that we are going into the political clime.

There will be so much challenges so I want your support for him. We cannot see ourselves without the members of the public.

Members of the press, keep on doing your investigative report as it assists us in doing our job  he said.

Mr Odumosu further commended IGP Usman Alkali Baba for giving him the opportunity to serve in the command and the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, for his support.

(NAN)
The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Monday, fixed March 30 for judgement in a suit seeking the enforcement of the National Gender Policy in Nigeria as a means of addressing discrimination of women in politics and governance.

Women in Politics Forum (WIPF) filed the suit against the Nigerian government

The predominant appointment of men to decision-making positions, especially ministerial positions, with the exclusion of women is discriminatory against women and is in violation of sections 147 and 42 of the Nigerian constitution and article 19 of the African charter, Funmi Falana, counsel for the group, argued in her written address filed on September 29, 2021.

But the Nigerian governments legal team led by Terhemba Agbe urged the court to strike out the suit on the grounds that it did not disclose any cause of action.

It said the policy is not a law that can be enforced in court.

The judge, Donatus Okorowo, fixed March 30 for judgement after both parties made their final submissions on Monday.

Plaintiffs argument

Mrs Falana, in her submission, lamented that women were being discriminated against as a result of the belief that women were inferior to men.

She noted that the National Gender Policy (NGP) which provides that women should be allocated 35 per cent of all appointments, is being violated.

Only seven of Nigerias 36 ministers are female. In the eyes of the law, 36 and 7 are not equivalent. Only four of the 37 members of the Federal Character Commission are women. This is ridiculous and insulting, Mrs Falana said.

She cited section 14(3) of the Nigerian Constitution to back her call for the enforcement of the NGP.

She noted that the provision mandates that the composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies, and the conduct of its affairs shall reflect the federal character of Nigeria, promote national unity and also to command national loyalty.

The provision, according to her, also seeks to ensure that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies.

She said the provision is in line with Article 19 of the African Charter, which specifies that no predominance in appointment of any set of people shall exist.

Mrs Falana said the provision provides a basis for female gender inclusion in government, adding that section 42 specifies that no one should be discriminated against because of their gender.

We are, therefore, saying, my lord, that the preponderance of men in ministerial and other decision-making positions is discriminatory, which may be summarised as anything that is disadvantageous to a person, Mrs Falana added.

She added that beyond the constitution, the international universal declaration of human rights 1948, international convention of social economic act and the convention of the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women states that women and men are equal and there shall be no discrimination. She said Nigeria is a signatory to all these convention which means, Nigeria is binding by these laws.

Mrs Falana recalled that the National Gender Policy states that women should be allocated 35 per cent of all appointments.

This, she noted, is a by-product of Nigerias signing of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

She sad the government had refused to follow through on this strategy.

The defendant has argued that the policy is not a law. But the court has ruled that government is bound by their policies and they will be extolled for denying the people of the benefit of such policies, Mrs Falana argued.

She also disputed the defendants claim that the plaintiffs lacked locus standi to suit.

She stated that, with the scope of meaning of locus standi having been broadened in various court decisions, anyone or any non-governmental organisation has the ability to go to court in instances involving public interests.

Defence

The defence lawyer, Terhemba Agbe, in his address, argued that the plaintiffs case did not disclose the cause of action and then urged the court to strike out and or dismiss the case of the plaintiffs.

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He said the policy can be lobbied to be passed into law by the National Assembly, and not by the court.

He added that the Nigerian Constitution in section 147, gave the president a guideline for appointments of ministers, in doing that, the president should ensure there is a minister from every state and not from all sex.

No matter how sentimental the plaintiffs are, ministerial appointment or appointment of any government parastatals is not guided by sex but on qualifications or on who the president thinks can deliver the job. This is guided by the constitution, Mr Agbe said.

Mrs Falana replied the defences argument that when a provision under chapter 2 can be linked to any provision under chapter 4 or any other provision in the constitution, it becomes incidental and justiciable.

The right to health is not justiceable until it is linked to right to life, Mrs Falana added.

The judge, after listening to both sides, adjourned until March 30 for judgement.

WIPF

WIPF is a non-partisan forum for women for addressing womens marginalisation in politics and decision-making. It also recognises the significance of unity.

The forum which was created in 2011 is also working to increase the voice and capabilities of female politicians, groups, and individuals working to influence and advocate womens participation in the political process, in order to achieve a more equitable society and democratic governance for women.
The First Lady, Aisha Buhari, has joined several Nigerians calling for capital punishment for the killer of Hanifa Abubakar, the five-year-old Kano girl that was abducted and murdered by her teacher.

Mrs Buhari shared a short clip of a sermon by an Islamic scholar, Abdallah Gadon Kaya, demanding justice for the late Hanifa.

In the video, Mr Gadon Kaya called on the government and human rights groups to pick up the case of Hanifa and ensure that justice is served immediately.

He said the life of Hanifas alleged killer is not in any way better. Therefore, he should be killed just the way he murdered the little girl. And this should be done openly for everyone to see. Let it serve as a deterrent to others, the cleric said in Hausa.

Along with the video, Mrs Buhari posted a short commentary of her views on her verified Instagram page.

The presidents wife wrote in Hausa Muna Goyon Bayan Hukunchin Malam, meaning we are in support of your judgment/ we are fully behind your position.

Hanifa, a student of Kids Academy, a private school located in Kwanar Dakata in Nassarawa local government area of Kano, was abducted on December 2, 2021, by Abdulmalik Tanko, the proprietor of the school.

Mr Tanko has been arrested and the school closed by the state government.

After kidnapping her and collecting N100, 000 as part of the N6 million ransom he had demanded, Mr Tanko allegedly killed her with rat poison. He was said to have dismembered Hanifas body and buried the remains in the private schools premises at Kwanar Yan Gana, Tudun Murtala Quarters, in Nassarawa local government area of the state.

Last Thursday, Mr Tanko led police officers to the school premises and showed them where he buried the schoolgirls body in a shallow grave.

Her remains were then exhumed for medical examination and a proper burial by her family.

Mr Tanko has not yet been charged as of the time of filing this report.

Speaking in an emotional voice, the girls father, Abubakar Abdussalam, told journalists the family was traumatised. Hanifas mother was admitted to the hospital after she collapsed and fainted, he said.

He demanded justice from the authorities and returned all glory back to God. I am really in sorrow about this incident. I can only thank God because this can happen to anyone, and it is said that everyone who lives today will die someday. So, I leave everything to God, but I will never forget this till I die, he said

Nigeria is grappling with a spate of criminal incidents with kidnapping for ransom very common, mostly by armed bandits who sometimes target schools for mass abductions of students.

The death penalty, as demanded by Mrs Buhari and the Islamic cleric, is still legal in Nigeria for some crimes such as murder. However, many rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have called for its abolition.
The police on Monday arraigned three suspects accused of kidnapping and killing a five-year-old, Hanifa Abubakar.

The suspects were arraigned at the Chief Magistrate Court 12, Gidan Murtala in Kano

The suspects were accused of criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, concealing/keeping in confinement a kidnapped person and culpable homicide.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how Hanifa was kidnapped and subsequently killed allegedly by the principal of her school. Her body parts were also found within the school premises.

This newspaper also reported how a irate mob burned down parts of the school on Monday.

Details later
Two persons have been confirmed dead on Sunday in an accident involving five vehicles at Upper Iweka by Awka-Onitsha Expressway, Anambra State.

Adeoye Irelewuyi, the sector commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Anambra, who confirmed the incident to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Awka, said the accident occurred at about 2p.m.

The FRSC boss said 22 people were involved in the accident which was caused by brake failure.

The crash involved two Daf trucks with registration numbers XC 416 PK and DTF 249 XA, two Toyota Hiace buses with registration numbers FGG 929 ZD and XB 994 GBK and a Lincoln Navigator jeep with registration number RSH 450 BM.

An (eye)witness report indicates that the driver of one of the trucks lost control as a result of brake failure, rammed into vehicles in his front and crashed into a gutter.

The driver of the truck took to his heels after the crash.

A total of 22 persons, including 13 male adults, seven female adults, a male child, and a female child were involved in the crash.

Eleven persons were injured and the victims were rushed to Toronto Hospital, Boromeo, by the FRSC rescue team, where two male adults were confirmed dead by the doctor on duty, he said.

Mr Irelewuyi said the bodies of the victims were deposited at the hospitals mortuary.

While commiserating with the families of the dead victims, he urged motorists to service their vehicles and ensure that their vehicles comply with safety standards.

(NAN)
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced that registration for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination and Direct Entry (UTME/DE) registration will commence on February 12 and lasts until March 19, 2022.

JAMB has also added Computer Studies and Physical and Health Education to the 23 existing UTME subjects, making the number of the new available subjects to be 25.

The examination body said candidates can now choose any other two subjects as part of their four UTME subjects if they so desire or as dictated by their programme preferences.

Rejects NABTEB A Levels

Meanwhile, JAMBs director of admissions, Mohammed Ahmed, has written to vice-chancellors of the universities, asking them to reject A-Level results from the National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB).

Mr Ahmed said relevant government policies do not permit NABTEB to conduct advanced level examinations.

As contained in the Boards latest weekly bulletin released on Monday, Mr Ahmed said: Any A/L GCE Certificate issued by NABTEB is, therefore, not registrable with JAMB and the Board would not process the admission of any candidate with such a result.

Foreign Education

Meanwhile, the JAMB registrar, Ishaq Oloyede, a professor, also added that the examination body has constituted a taskforce to coordinate the admission process of foreign citizens who participated in the 2021 UTME, and are seeking admission into Nigerian tertiary institutions.

Mr Oloyede told the Pro-Chancellor, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Sulyman Kuranga, and the Vice-Chancellor, Charles Esimune, both professors, when they paid him a courtesy visit last week.

He said the boards desire is to grow Nigerias tertiary institutions and reverse the trend of Nigerians trooping out of the country to study in foreign universities and instead seeing foreign students coming to Nigeria in their numbers to take up admission spaces in our tertiary institutions.

He said part of the tasks of the team is to compile the foreign candidates results and forward them to the tertiary institutions for admission consideration.

The members of the team include the director, test administration, Munirat Lawal; director, information technology services, Fabian Okoro; and director, admissions, Mohammed Ahmed.
When Mr. Godwin Emefiele visited Gombe the last time to witness the Rice Festival and unveiling of pyramids only one of the Governors present at the event got a special attention and a remarkable commendation from  the Governor of Money as Emefiele is fondly called. Gombe States Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya was that Governor.

Inuwa Yahaya was singled out by the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Emefiele as a visionary leader who in no time would drive economic values to the state he is presiding over. Emefiele observed that the visions and policies so far espoused by the administration within its short time is a clear attestation of a man with a blueprint of his destination even before the journey commenced.

Emefiele was downright factual! At the end of that fiscal year, through the pragmatic economic policies of the governor, Gombe State emerged as the Best State in the Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria.

The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mr. Yemi Osinbajo personally commended the governors passion and drive for human capital development initiatives which he acknowledged as the factor making economic progress clearly visible in Gombe State.

Inuwa Yahaya came into governance well loaded with brilliant ideas and vision. It is these ideals that are being translated into economic policies and the policies into administrative initiatives which are now yielding fruitful results for all to see in Gombe today.

For instance, land administration is one aspect where the administration has made remarkable achievements. Land as a critical factor of production got Inuwas best attention. He radically digitalised the land system. The digitalisation was done to aid development of Gombe and to forestall incessant land disputes common in other climes which often disrupt the peace and economic stability of such places.

Land disputes will never be allowed by a Governor who has the future advancement of the State well planned out. Inuwa Yahaya strengthened the Gombe State Geographical Information System (GOGIS) through adequate funding, staffing and equipping to enable the agency deliver on its mandate.

For Inuwa Yahaya a just and efficient land administration system is necessary to guarantee ownership and security of tenure, provision of security and property taxation.

He initiated the Gombe Capital Special Development Zone project aimed at providing befitting structures, access roads and other facilities while also ensuring strict compliance with development control regulations in and around the state capital.

It was after the successful completion of the digitalisation of land programme that he automated the human capital system in the state which exposed hundreds of ghost workers and saved the state heavily in salary payments.

Having successfully tackled the land and human capital hitches, Inuwa Yahaya unveiled a 10-Year Development Plan (DEVAGOM) for Gombe State, the first of its kind in the history of the 25 year old state.

The policy thrusts of this development plan caught the attention of many investors and industrialists who are daily trouping into the state popularly called the Jewel in the Savannah. Inuwa Yahaya has made Gombe a true shining jewel thereby making the state the preferred destination of investors, tourists and other people.

Excellence in public appointments is another pivotal policy of Inuwa Yahayas administration. The governor who holds the traditional title of Dan Majen Gombe believes that the best man should man the post. Hence, he abhors mediocrity as a silent killer of political advancement and a retarding factor against economic development.

Inuwa Yahaya has zero tolerance of favouritism because it breeds corruption, underdevelopment, poor planning, low morale and bureaucratic bottlenecks. To avoid anything that could hamper the overall development of the state, all the governors appointments are merit based.

The governors infrastructural development policy implementation is anchored on even distribution of road and other projects in the state. His novel Network Eleven-100 Road Construction Programme is designed to ensure that every local government in the state gets at least a 100-kilometre road. The Network Eleven-100 is a significant means of opening up the rural communities thereby creating access into rural development. Available population statistics indicate that about 80 per cent of the people live in rural communities.

In the agriculture sector, Inuwa Yahayas policies are not just geared toward planting and harvesting but encompass tackling of environmental problems and overseeing the welfare of farmers. Agriculture is well prioritized with definitive policies. Timely provision of fertilizers and other inputs at subsidized rates are some of the high points of the governors incentives to farmers.

Gombe Goes Green project is Inuwa Yahayas answer to climate change where environmental challenges particularly desertification is getting the right attention.

The governors health and medical policies especially with regard to handling of the Covid-19 pandemic have been very exemplary, winning the state accolades and awards from reputable organisations. By instituting the Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) and partnering with international donor/development agencies, there is a deliberate effort to ensure healthcare is accessible to the people through adequate and sustainable funding which in particular serves the greater interest of the vulnerable ones.

Aside this, the introduction of the health insurance scheme in the state has further improved healthcare delivery. Also, the priority status that health enjoys in the current budget tells a fitting story of the Inuwa Yahaya administrations commitment to good governance and wellbeing of the people. Considering the numerous ongoing health projects and programmes as well as the healthcare infrastructure across the nooks and crannies of the state, not leaving out the vigorous and commendable handling of COVID-19 pandemic, it can be boldly stated that Gombe is on a new pedestal in development.

Another vital sector where the governor has excelled is education with properly articulated and well intentioned policies and programmes. Mass accessibility and quality delivery are clearly distinct in Gombes education sector. Inuwa Yahaya declared a state of emergency in this critical sector at inception because of the great importance he attaches to it. It is not surprising that far-reaching strides and transformation have been recorded in the sector. For instance, many out-of-school children, including the almajiris, are now in public schools while girl-child education is adequately handled.

Transportation is another sector that has received a good boost from the governor. The procurement of 50 brand new buses as the first tranche of mass transit injection to the Gombe State Transport Service fleet, known as GOMBE Line, is one example out of several value added initiatives for robust inter and intra states transportation system.

Without stable power generation and supply, economic development will always be in jeopardy. This explains why the state government is liaising with the Federal Government to fast track the completion of Dadin-Kowa Hydro-Power Plant in the state. The power plant which has the capacity to generate 40 megawatts of electricity was put on the priority list from the very first month of Inuwa Yahayas administration.

The plant which was first conceived in 1959 and jettisoned by previous governments came to life with Inuwa Yahayas Midas touch, after 60 years of being moribund.

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With the Dadin-Kowa Hydro-plant coming back to life, it was easy for the governor and his think-tank to contemplate a 1,000-hectre Industrial Park. The park, named after President Muhammadu Buhari, will ultimately create a cluster of industries which will boost the macroeconomic efficiency and a concomitant effect of mass employment of teeming youths of the state.

Inuwa Yahayas passion for developing his darling state sees him travelling to Abuja, the seat of power occasionally to seek strategic cooperation and alliances with like-minded institutions.

Any time the hardworking governor is in Abuja, he seizes the opportunity to visit up to five corporate organisations within the working hours and continue with engagements that bring valuable results for his beloved state till very late in the night.

I have personally tracked his itinerary once and I must confess that I was flummoxed by his charm, character and vigor. I am therefore not surprised at all concerning the positive results he is posting.

Inuwa Yahaya once looked at the ugly state of the federal roads in Gombe and headed straight to Abuja to meet with the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola. Within days of that visit, the Federal Government announced the return to site of contractors and the state is better off today with these roads now receiving attention.

Determined to expand the revenue base of the state, the governor has visited the President, Muhammadu Buhari on several occasions to stridently push for the commencement of oil exploitation in Kolmani area of the state so that Gombe would be listed among the oil producing states in the country.

Peaceful is an adjective fitting for Gombe State at the moment. Strategic alliances and support for security agencies by the Inuwa Yahaya administration has brought relative peace to Gombe. That has made Gombe the safest haven in the midst of turbulence and brigandage ravaging North East Nigeria as well as ensuring that investments and economic growth are unhindered.

It is worthy of commendation that both Muslims and Christians live harmoniously in Gombe State. Indigenes and non-indigenes cohabit harmoniously and happily. Indeed, the peace of Gombe is palpable. The joy of the populace is unfettered as well. The ambience of the state is generally beckoning indeed.

Can anyone then tell me why Inuwa Yahaya should not be the Outstanding Governor of the Year many times over? More so when the awards are coming from very responsible media organisations such as the 39-year old Vanguard Newspaper which itself has been many times Newspaper of the Year. Indeed Inuwa Yahayas compelling signature approach to governance, strategic execution of policies and passion for excellence stand him out among his contemporaries.

As I lend my voice of commendation today in celebrating a man of integrity, character and purpose, permit me to say that the reward for hard work is more work.

Please dont relent on your superlative policies. Continue with your laudable strides, Inuwa Yahaya. One day, the whole of Nigeria will beckon on you for national assignment and Africa will seek you out for service.

*Bola Saliu a media practitioner writes from Abuja.
Life Continental Beer: More Than an Eastern Legacy  Uche Unigwe

The Nigeria Breweries Narrative So Far

Having conquered the beer market in Nigeria, the countrys foremost and largest brewing company, Nigerian Breweries Plc, makers of Life Continental Beer, has recorded tremendous success through its impressive footprint across Nigeria today, endearing its products to the heart of Nigerians nationwide.

With a remarkable and intriguing history in the highly competitive Nigerian alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks market, the Number One brewer, no doubt has scaled a myriad of challenges to emerge and maintain leadership of the market. The various alcoholic and non-alcoholic brands from the stables of Nigerian Breweries are leaders and major players in their various categories.

From Star lager to Gulder, Goldberg, Star Lite, Heineken, Star Radler, Legend Extra Stout; Amstel Malta, Maltina, Fayrouz, Climax, Malta Gold, Ace Passion, Desperados and Life Continental Lager, the Brewery has established a niche of producing high quality and deeply satisfying products. Little wonder why their brands are preferred in the market. The company today has nine breweries that operate daily with distributors, and sales depots across the country which helps them meet the demands of consumers in and outside Nigeria. At every touchpoint, there are professional sales representatives on the frontlines who work to reach all these points of consumption.

Nigerian Breweries Winning Strategy  Exceptional Leadership

The tale of Nigerian Breweries many successes would barely have been told if its only strategy was the production of great beer products. As with other success stories, Nigerian Breweries feats have been birthed through a team of resilient, experienced, innovative, cross-cultural and visionary professionals who do not rest on their oars in the pursuit of excellence. One of such visionary and thoroughbred professionals is its Sales Director, Uche Unigwe.

Since he assumed the role of the Sales Director of Nigerian Breweries in January 2018, Uche Unigwe has through his exemplary leadership spearheaded the exponential sales growth of the companys products particularly, the Life Beer brand in Nigeria which is focused in South-East Nigeria. An experienced leader with an analytical mind and excellent business insight, Unigwe has years of experience in commercial leadership and managing diverse international markets, cultures and teams.

Unigwe joined Nigerian Breweries Plc. in 1989 after bagging a Bachelors Degree in Industrial Chemistry from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. An exemplary leader of Igbo roots, Unigwe has always looked out for opportunities to drive home the narrative of the need to celebrate indigenous brands, especially those that originated from the East and Life Beer was an opportunity he seized to inspire the younger generation to bring back the glory.

I knew Life Continental Beer growing up. Life Continental Beer was one of the beer brands that were birthed in Nigeria which gained significant relevance first in Onitsha. At that point, it was not a stand out brand in the beer market because it was a local beer. However, along the line, the brand began to pull weight as ownership changed hands to Nigerian Breweries Plc. Leveraging the super-efficient technical know-how of the company, Life Continental Beer was refined, reformulated, and premiumized from the local brand that it was, to a mainstream brand that appeals to the majority of the Igbos.

Celebrating the brands success thus far, he noted that: that journey has proven quite successful that within a few years of being considered a local brand, it became the biggest lager brand in this country. It is a remarkable journey and it is not surprising that several campaigns have been designed to announce Life Beers leadership position.

Life Continental Beer  The Mmanya Oganiru of Igboland

From its humble beginnings in Onitsha in 1983, Life Lager has grown to become a dominant beer brand in the country, while maintaining a unique cultural identity that broadly resonates with its devout consumers. Revered for its unique cultural identity, Life Lager was in mid-2021, conferred a distinct title, Mmanya Oganiru of Igboland (meaning beer for progress), by traditional rulers across the South-Eastern States in a ceremony that held at Nri Town Hall, Anambra State.

According to Unigwe, the title of Mmanya Oganiru of Igboland is a recognition of the effort and support that Life Beer has shown to the entrepreneurial spirit of the Igbos. The title Mmanya Oganiru is a validation of our brand purpose which is Progress and an indication that all our efforts and commitment towards the progress of the Igbo community and Nigeria, in general, has not gone unnoticed by the people. And that is why first-class traditional rulers in Igboland came together to crown Life Beer Mmanya Oganiru of Igboland.

Life Continental beer as a brand has elevated itself in the beer market by pushing past its contribution to the bar culture to create a legacy of sustainable development projects. The beer brand has also through its progress booster initiative empowered small-scale business owners across the South-Eastern States.

Unigwe explains that the volume of entrepreneurship support that Life Continental Beer has given to the Igbos in recent times have been huge, which further buttresses the fact that the beer brand is deserving of the accolades it has gotten.

Life Beer has been supporting the Igbo people through various channels; one of which is the Progress Booster. For years, Life Beer has given a significant amount of financial support to the Igbos  we have given out monetary donations to aspiring entrepreneurs as support for their business ventures, ranging from an average of N300,000 to thousands of entrepreneurs and this does not include the money spent on local sponsorships of community events and festivals in the East. Life Beer has always thrown its weight behind all cultural festivals emanating from the East and wont stop now. We also gave financial support to Igbo artists/musicians and gave them the needed leverage for success. We have also signed prominent Igbo music artists as ambassadors of Life Beer, he noted.

Bringing Home The Glory  Turu Ugo Lota

Life Continental Lager has gone from being a regional beer brand to becoming one of the biggest beer brands in Nigeria, while still unapologetically displaying its Igbo roots. Over the years, the brand has actively promoted a tradition of sharing a heritage of progress, with the core brand belief that life is better when shared, and when life is shared, there is progress.

Building on this premise, the beer brand launched an Igbo-centric commercial campaign tagged Turu Ugo Lota, an Igbo adage that encourages sons and daughters of the soil to go out, succeed and Bring Home The Glory. The campaign featured the father-son combo of Nigerian legendary actor, Pete Edochie and his industrious son, Yul Edochie who is also an actor. Major highlights of the commercial include the showcase of iconic locations in the South-East such as the Niger Bridge, to emphasize the rewards of true labour.

The Life Continental Beer brand identified that for the Easterners, it is one thing to be wealthy and an entirely different thing to be progressive, and for them, true progress is the ability to achieve prosperity both individually and collectively against all odds. This is one of the major cultural objectives of the Igbos, and that is why the Turu Ugo Lota campaign deeply resonates with them.

Within the East and wherever the Igbo man resides today, Turu Ugo Lota has been a slogan; it has become the trending language among Igbo people. When they go congregate in the bars or occasions, they no longer say give me Life Continental Beer, they say give me progress. This is because Life Beer is now synonymous with progress. The impact of a campaign can best be measured by the communal connection among people. This campaign has now become a way of life and philosophical relevance amongst the Igbo people. They are aware that there is value in going out there to hustle, conquer and come back home to celebrate. Life Continental Beer recognizes progress and has tapped into that progressive nature of the Igbos  an industrious people who are never in doubt of their heritage and progressive instinct. Unigwe enthused.

Nigeria Breweries Sale Success with Uche Unigwe

A quintessential leader, Pan-African business executive, and a visionary solution provider, Uche Unigwe has year on year channeled his professionalism into his craft and this has helped birth the sales volume success and market leadership that Nigeria Breweries currently enjoys.

Unigwe joined Nigerian Breweries in 1989 as a Brewer. He served in that position till July 2000 when he was appointed Sales Manager-In-Training which served as a foundation builder for his journey into becoming not just a sales expert but also an industry giant. His industriousness did not go unnoticed as in no time, he was made Regional Account Manager in Dec 2001, and that set the pace for his rapid career growth.

Unigwe has since gone on to hold leadership positions as Head of Sales, Regional Business Manager, National Trade Marketing Manager, Commercial Project Manager, CRM Development Manager, Country Manager, and General Manager in Nigeria, Amsterdam, the UK, Tanzania, and Sierra Leone. He is currently the companys Sales Director recording landmark successes since he assumed office about four years ago.

Attributing his successes to team effort, accountability and professionalism, Unigwe acknowledged that he wouldnt have achieved this much success without the active collaboration of innovative minds and self-driven leaders.

I am very happy to say that Nigerian Breweries is blessed with a great team. Over the years, we have nurtured innovative minds, as well as motivated and empowered these industry shakers. Today, we have senior regional sales managers that make important decisions, manage their budgets and take full responsibility for their regions.

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He continued:

We have been able to integrate these great minds as commercial business leaders and they are delivering in their respective regions. As long as we continue to empower and offer necessary support to the regional leadership teams, greater success lies in wait. This model of sales management has increased the volumes of sales across the different regions. On several occasions, we have completely sold out our capacity such that we ran out of stock. Their success stories are very heart-warming and I am so proud of my team. We also propagate our sales team and the result is that most of them are outside the shores of Nigeria continuing the great work of building and marketing great brands. There is also great collaborations between the Sales, Marketing and Trade Marketing departments. There is a seamless working relationship between all departments in Nigerian Breweries and this has yielded innovative products that sol
A former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio has denied that there were state-sponsored killings and kidnappings in the state during his administration

Mr Akpabio was reacting to remarks made by an estate surveyor and politician, James Iniama, who said agents of the state, during Mr Akpabios administration, were after his life immediately after the 2007 governorship election which he (Iniama) contested as a candidate of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria.

Although he did not mention Mr Akpabios name during an interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Iniama said Akpabios era as governor was the most unsafe in the history of the oil-rich state.

Mr Akpabio succeeded Victor Attah as governor in 2007.

He left office in 2015 after completing his two terms and was succeeded by Udom Emmanuel.

From 2007, there is no street in Akwa Ibom State that was safe anymore for residents. There was no business place that was safe for business, the thing that became popular was kidnapping, assassinations, rape. So, that wasnt anymore a society to live in, and for a wise person the best thing to do is get out of that environment.

We have to stay alive. If I didnt stay alive you wouldnt be talking with me today. I can tell you I knew I was branded the first target for whatever evil that was in their mind, he said.

Mr Iniama also said, You know the number of people who were kidnapped, you know how many of our mothers were murdered and stripped on the streets of Akwa Ibom State? It is something of which this state should be ashamed, we should go to God in repentance.

How could you possibly strip my mother? Murder my mother, strip her and leave her on the street? My mother? Dont forget, God had to tell Cain the blood of your brother is crying from the earth for vengeance. We are a Christian people, there are things that should not be heard of us.

Mr Iniama said he had filed a suit against the Akwa Ibom State Government which was finally settled out of court because of the intervention of Mr Akpabios successor.

Mr Iniama has indicated interest to run for the 2023 governorship election in Akwa Ibom under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Akwa Ibom was very safe under my watch  Akpabio

But Mr Akpabio, who is now the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, said Akwa Ibom was a safe place to live and do business when he was the governor.

In those years what Akwa Ibom State was known for was uncommon transformation that was unleashed by Governor Akpabio to turn a once civil service State to a destination of choice in Nigeria as individuals, government organisations and corporate bodies fell over themselves to hold their events in the State, the minister said on Saturday in a statement from his media office.

He said Mr Iniamas claim is political shenanigans taken too far.

It is a known fact that Chief Akpabio as a governorship candidate in 2007, did not enjoy the support of the incumbent Governor at the time whose preference was for somebody else. It was alleged that Mr Iniama was supported and funded by the incumbent Governor at the time.

Mr Iniamas claim that I had to relocate my family before the election because it wasnt safe at all at a time he was supported by the State, exposes his political mischief, Mr Akpabio said.

The minister, who defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress in 2018, said Mr Iniama should leave him alone and focus on his governorship ambition.

There are records on killings, I can unearth them  Journalist

A journalist in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, has, however, faulted Mr Akpabios claims that there were no state-sponsored killings when he was governor.

The journalist, Ofonime Honesty told PREMIUM TIMES, Monday the records are there, I can unearth them.

Mr Honesty mentioned the killing of a governorship aspirant, Iniekong Udonwas mother, the killing of a PDP chieftain, Paul Inyang and the killing of the paramount traditional ruler of the Ibibio, the Oku Ibom Ibibio, James Obot, as some of the unresolved killings that took place during Akpabios era.

When the mother of a governorship aspirant, Iniekong Udonwa was kidnapped, I was with my boss back then, John Elijah who is now a barrister. We were heading to his (Udonwa) residence to interview him, when we received a call from one of Iniekong Udonwas personal assistants that the man was shot and the mother kidnapped.

A couple of days later we heard the man survived and that the mother was taken to an unknown location, she was murdered and abandoned on the street, the journalist said.

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Mr Honesty said he attended a press conference where Mr Akpabio, after he left office as governor, was confronted by reporters on the killings that took place under his watch.

Mr Akpabio, according to the journalist, said the killings were carried out by Niger Delta militants.

The journalist said he too almost became a victim when people he said were agents of the state government came after him because of a critical article he wrote about Mr Akpabios wife, Uloama.

I had to flee Akwa Ibom for a month or so, he said. It was even people inside the Government House who told me I should run for my life.
Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State has ruled out the payment of ransom to secure the release of the Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Federal Otokito.

Mr Otokito was abducted on Thursday at his country home, Otuokpoti in Ogbia Local Government Area of the state.

A statement by the governors spokesperson, Daniel Alabrah, on Monday, urged youths of the state to shun kidnapping.

Mr Diri called for the immediate and unconditional release of the commissioner, vowing that the states laws against kidnapping would be followed to the letter.

He said: I left Yenagoa for Abuja and within the period one of my cabinet members was kidnapped. A lot of people expected me to make statements but I am not a man of too many words.

I advise those who settle scores by kidnapping and criminality that there are laws of Bayelsa State against kidnapping.

Let me call on those that kidnapped my Commissioner of Trade and Investment to immediately release him without any conditions.

I have been on it from the beginning till now and I will ensure that he is released unhurt.

READ ALSO: Abductors of Bayelsa Commissioner demand N40 million

I advise all others involved in that criminal, ungodly and inhumane act to have a change of mind and leave that illegitimate business.

It was gathered that the gunmen who abducted the commissioner demanded the release of the father of their leader who is in police custody as a condition to free Mr Otokito.

They were said to have contacted the paramount ruler of Otuokpoti to demand the swap of the father of their leader with the commissioner.

(NAN)
Plattsburgh, NY (12901)

Today

Periods of rain. High 54F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Considerable clouds this evening. Some decrease in clouds late. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 42F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
- Increase in number of emergency surgeries, surge in number of drug launch and approvals and rise in prevalence of cancer drive the growth of the global Artificial Coma/medically induced coma market.

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Artificial/Medically Induced Coma Market by Drug Type (Propofol and Barbiturate), Application (Status Epilepticus, Stroke, Traumatic Brain Injury, Brain Infections, Drug Overdose, and Others), and Distribution Channel (Hospital Pharmacies, and Drug Stores & Retail Pharmacies): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030". According to the report, the global artificial coma/medically induced coma industry generated $640.17 million in 2020, and is anticipated to generate $868.63 million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 3.1% from 2021 to 2030.

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Prime determinants of growth

Escalating demand for the management of pain from geriatric population, increase in number of emergency surgeries, surge in number of drug launch and approvals and rise in prevalence of cancer drive the growth of the global artificial coma/medically induced coma market. However, side effects associated with anesthetics hinder the market growth. On the other hand, rise in heavy investment in healthcare sector presents new opportunities in the coming years.

Covid-19 Scenario

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a positive impact on the growth of the global artificial coma/medically induced coma market.

At the starting of July 2020 , a few cases were reported which included brain infection of meningitis with COVID-19. Therefore, anesthetics played an important role during treatment, which in turn, augmented the artificial coma/medically induced coma market during the pandemic.

The propofol segment to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period

Based on drug type, the propofol segment held the highest market share in 2020, accounting for around two-third of the global artificial coma/medically induced coma market, and is estimated to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period. Moreover, the same segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 3.2% from 2021 to 2030. This is attributed to rise in usage of induced coma. The report also discusses about barbeturates segment.

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The stroke segment to maintain its lead position during the forecast period

Based on application, the stroke segment accounted for the largest share in 2020, contributing to more than two-fifths of the global artificial coma/medically induced coma market, and is projected to maintain its lead position during the forecast period. However, the status epilepticus segment is expected to portray the largest CAGR of 3.6% from 2021 to 2030, owing to rise in number of status epilepticus cases.

North America to maintain its dominance by 2030

Based on region, North America held the highest market share in terms of revenue 2020, accounting for more than two-fifths of the global Artificial Coma/medically induced coma market. This is attributed to the robust infrastructure provided for research activities and presence of key players across North America. Moreover, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to witness the fastest CAGR of 3.6% during the forecast period, owing to increase in new drug discovery, R & D activities for new product launch and rise in investments in the healthcare sector.

Leading Market Players

Astrazeneca Plc.

B. Braun Melsungen

Baxter Healthcare Corporation

Dr.Reddy's Laboratories

Fresenious SE & CO.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals

Pfizer Inc.

Piramal Healthcare

Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd.

Viatris Inc.

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Pawan Kumar, the CEO of Allied Market Research, is leading the organization toward providing high-quality data and insights. 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. 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.

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GENEVA, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Svenja Schulze, announced today 200 million (US$228.3 million) in new funding for Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

With this new multi-year contribution, Germany becomes ECW's top donor, with over 318.8 million (US$362.7 million) in total contributions to the Fund.

ECW also reaches the milestone of over US$1 billion mobilized from public and private donors in just 5 years of operations, making it one of the fastest growing initiatives in the UN.

Education Cannot Wait Director Yasmine Sherif joined Minister Schulze in Geneva for the announcement on the International Day of Education.

"Education is the key that enables millions of girls and boys to break through the cycle of poverty and lead a dignified life. The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to wipe out the educational successes of recent decades. There are also millions of displaced children who cannot go to school. The poorest people suffer the most, especially girls and children with disabilities. We have a shared responsibility not to lose this generation," said Federal Minister Svenja Schulze.

"These crucial contributions are essential in achieving our goals to provide every crisis-affected girl and boy with the hope and opportunity that a quality education provides. We call on all governments and private sector partners to follow Germany's lead and support Education Cannot Wait's mission with US$1 billion in urgent funding," said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education.

"We warmly thank the people of Germany and the German Government for this generous, ground-breaking contribution. ECW is committed to ensuring no child is left behind as we race to deliver Sustainable Development Goal 4: inclusive, equitable, quality education, and work to build a more peaceful, more prosperous world for generations to come," said Sherif.

The funding will help ECW reach more of the 128 million children caught in humanitariann crises with education. It is estimated that between 11 million and 20 million girls will never return to school after COVID, threatening decades of progress made toward gender equality.

Without education, these children face risks of child marriage, early pregnancy, sexual exploitation, child labor, trafficking, and recruitment into armed groups.

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SOURCE Education Cannot Wait
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- The first in a series of limited-edition whisky bottlings to be sold by Dubai based fine wine and luxury spirits retailer Le Clos

- Only 120 bottles produced of the rare Scottish blend

- This exclusive expression is retailing for only $USD 500
VIENNA, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Last year saw a rebound to pre-pandemic levels of irregular migration to Europe, with almost 200,000 illegal crossings recorded at EU borders, a 57% rise compared to 2020 and 38% rise compared to 2019. The ICMPD Migration Outlook report 2022 charts what drove these spikes and predicts how and why they will continue into 2022.

Events in 2021 caused not only a large spike in irregular migration, but a shift in the routes irregular migrants are choosing to take to Europe. The closure of borders and tightening of controls in Greece continued the earlier trend towards the Central Mediterranean and Western Balkan routes. The first experienced an 84% increase in detections, totalling at 65,000, and the second a 64% increase, totalling at 60,500. With Western Balkan borders overburdened by such high flows, migrant smuggling networks will continue to target the region.

The main drivers behind the spike in overall numbers were conflict and economic imbalances. The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan displaced over 670,000 Afghans, and initial estimates predict a further 500,000 will flee the country. Though a large share of the 73,000 asylum applications submitted by Afghans in the EU during the first ten months of the year were made by Afghans who had at some point resided in EU territory before, the EU and Turkey should expect a significant increase in arrivals in 2022.

Elsewhere in the region, the ongoing conflict in Iraq and Syria continues to drive migration towards Europe. The vast majority of the one million Syrian refugees located outside the region are hosted in Europe and the economic downturn in both Syria and Turkey is expected to significantly increase this number in 2022. Iraq is experiencing similar struggles after COVID-19-related economic contraction and vital resource scarcity that has caused 20% of the population to need humanitarian assistance.

Uneven recovery from the economic and social turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all main regions of origin of migration to Europe. The number of arrivals from North Africa, and from Somalia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, continues to rise. While the global economy is expected to grow by 4.9% in 2022, GDP growth in low-income countries is projected at 5.1%, an increase that is clearly below pre-pandemic forecasts and hardly sufficient to compensate for the adverse economic effects of COVID-19  a factor that will fuel more irregular migration in 2022.

2022 will prove to be a significant year in carving out how Europe responds to increasing levels of migration. Pending parliamentary or presidential elections in Hungary, France, Malta, Italy, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, have already shown that stances on migration will play a significant role in campaigns and future government action.

The position of France, as the holder of the Presidency of the European Council during the first half of 2022 and the second most important destination for migrants in Europe after Germany, will be crucial in this regard. Many candidates have aligned themselves with a tougher stance on immigration and a wish to repatriate power from the EU to the Member States. This somewhat contrasts the new German coalition government's calls for a greater solidarity and responsibility sharing in hosting refugees and asylum seekers.

Michael Spindelegger, Director General of ICMPD says: "While 2021 was quite a remarkable year in terms of increasing flows of irregular migration to Europe, 2022 shows signs that it will perhaps be even more critical in setting the path for years ahead.

Through the crisis in Belarus last year, Europe showed that it will not allow migration to be instrumentalised as a geopolitical pressure tool. The bloc's swift, robust and unified reaction, that included sanctions and extended to cooperation with non-EU partners, laid out a blueprint for future responses."

The ICMPD Migration Outlook 2022 intends to look ahead and to project major developments for the upcoming year at the EU and national level. Although forecasts on migration are difficult to make, the 2022 Migration Outlook identified 12 main migration issues that will shape the migration year in Europe and beyond.

1. The rise in irregular migration to the EU

2. Shifting pressures on the main migration routes

3. The migration effects of the Taliban takeover

4. Growing tensions in Libya

5. The flaring up of the Syrian conflict

6. The reorientation of migration flows from Latin America

7. The continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on migration

8. The EU's response to the instrumentalisation of irregular migrants

9. The presidential elections in France and the French Presidency of the EU

10. New accents in Germany's migration policy

11. Renewed attempts to address secondary movements

12. Labour shortages and the discussion on legal migration channels

To read the full Migration Outlook 2022 report, please contact:

Bernhard Schragl

Spokesperson, Communication and Media Coordinator

ICMPD

Tel: +43 1 504 4677 2444

bernhard.schragl@icmpd.org

The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) is an international organisation with 19 Member States and more than 460 staff members. Active in more than 90 countries worldwide, it takes a regional approach in its work to create efficient cooperation and partnerships along migration routes. Priority regions include Africa, Central and South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Its three-pillar approach to migration management - structurally linking research, migration dialogues and capacity building  contributes to better migration policy development worldwide. The Vienna-based organisation has a mission in Brussels, a regional office in Malta and project offices in several countries. ICMPD receives funding from its Member States, the European Commission, the UN, and other multilateral institutions, as well as bilateral donors. Founded in 1993, ICMPD holds UN observer status and cooperates with more than 700 partners including EU institutions and UN agencies.

For more information about ICMPD visit: www.icmpd.org

Follow ICMPD online:

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SOURCE International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD)
Increase in demand for renewable energy, surge in legislative and financial initiatives, and rise in electricity consumption drive the growth of the global renewable energy market

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research recently published a report, titled, "Renewable Energy Market by Type (Hydroelectric Power, Wind Power, Bioenergy, Solar Energy, and Geothermal Energy) and End Use (Residential, Commercial, Industrial, and Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030". As per the report, the global renewable energy industry was accounted for $881.7 billion in 2020, and is expected to reach $1,977.6 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.4% from 2021 to 2030.

Drivers, restraints, and opportunities

Increase in demand for renewable energy, surge in legislative and financial initiatives, and rise in electricity consumption drive the growth of the global renewable energy market. However, huge investments hinder the market growth. On the contrary, rise in demand for renewable energy from India and China is expected to open new opportunities for the market players in the future.

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Covid-19 scenario:

The Covid-19 pandemic negatively affected the renewable energy market due to disruptions in manufacturing of wind turbine across the globe, especially in China and Germany .

and . The prolonged lockdown disrupted the supply chain and put strain on exports and imports. However, implementation of digitization is expected to help in remote monitoring of projects and limiting labor force.

The hydroelectric power segment held the lion's share

By type, the hydroelectric segment held the largest share in 2020, accounting for more than two-fifths of the global renewable energy market, due to rise in activity across the globe and increase in investment in off-grid energy generation and rural electrification across the developing countries. However, the solar segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of 13.3% during the forecast period, owing to decrease in prices of solar modules and increase in installation of solar energy infrastructure in commercial and residential sectors.

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The industrial segment to manifest the highest CAGR through 2030

By end use, the industrial segment would showcase the highest CAGR of 8.9% from 2021 to 2030, due to increased use of geothermal power plants to produce electricity to curb the carbon footprint. However, the residential segment held the largest share in 2020, contributing to nearly two-fifths of the global renewable energy market, owing to rise in use of geothermal heat pump in residential heating applications.

Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe and North America, to register the highest CAGR by 2030

By region, the market across Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe and North America, is expected to register the highest CAGR of 9.6% during the forecast period, due to rise in industrialization and rise in population. However, the global renewable energy market across Europe held the largest share in 2020, accounting for more than one-third of the market, owing to rise in investments in renewable energy.

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Major market players

ABB

ACCIONA

EDF

Enel Spa

General Electric

Geronimo Energy

Invenergy

Innergex

The Tata Power Company Limited ( Tata Power )

) Xcel Energy Inc.

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Energy as a Service Market is projected to reach $112.7 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 7.6% from 2021 to 2030.

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Solar Energy Market is projected to reach $223.3 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 20.5% from 2019 to 2026.

Wind Energy Market is projected to reach $127.2 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 9.3% from 2020 to 2027.

Waste To Energy Market is projected to reach $50.1 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 4.6% from 2020 to 2027.

Bioenergy Market is expected to reach $217.8 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 7.6% from 2021 to 2030.

Geothermal Power Market was valued at $4.6 billion in 2018, and is projected to reach $6.8 billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 5.0% from 2019 to 2026.

Wave Energy Market is projected to reach $141.1 million by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 17.8% from 2020 to 2027.

Green Hydrogen Market is projected to reach $9.8 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 54.7% from 2021 to 2028.

Waste-Derived Biogas Market is projected to reach $126.2 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.5% from 2021 to 2030.

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About us:

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 domain.

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.

Contact us:

David Correa

5933 NE Win Sivers Drive

#205, Portland, OR 97220

United States

Toll Free: 1-800-792-5285

UK: +44-845-528-1300

Hong Kong: +852-301-84916

India (Pune): +91-20-66346060

Fax: +1-855-550-5975

help@alliedmarketresearch.com

Web: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com

Follow us on: LinkedIn Twitter

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SOURCE Allied Market Research
Rise in number of satellite launches and surge in investment by governments & space agencies propel the growth of the global satellite bus market.

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Allied Market Research published a report, titled, "Satellite Bus Market by Subsystem (Structure & Mechanism, Thermal Control, Electric Power System, Attitude Control System, Propulsion, Telemetry Tracking Command and Flight Software), Application (Earth Observation & Meteorology, Communication, Scientific Research & Exploration, Surveillance & Security, Mapping and Navigation), and Satellite Size (Small, Medium and Large): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030". According to the report, the global Satellite Bus industry generated $11.91 billion in 2020, and is anticipated to generate $20.84 billion by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 5.8% from 2021 to 2030.

Download Report (276 Pages PDF with Insights, Charts, Tables, Figures) at https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/8129

Prime determinants of growth

Surge in number of satellite launches and increase in investment by governments & space agencies drive the growth of the global satellite bus market. However, lack of clarity in government policies and stringent government regulations for implementation & use of satellite hinder the market growth. On the other hand, rise in incorporation of new technologies and advancements in satellite mission technologies present new opportunities in the coming years.

Covid-19 Scenario

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a slight negative impact on the growth of the global satellite bus market.

Numerous development that were supposed to be carried out across space industries were postponed due to the pandemic.

However, the satellite bus market has been able to allay the pandemic's negative effects due to advancements in the increasing satellites missions over time.

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The communication segment to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period

Based on application, the communication segment held the highest market share in 2020, accounting for more than one-fourth of the global satellite bus market, and is estimated to maintain its leadership status throughout the forecast period. Satellite communication plays a vital role in the global communications systems which drives the growth of the satellite bus market. In addition, communication satellites are used for wireless, radio, internet, television, mobile communication applications and military applications which also proves to be a factor supplementing the growth of the segment in the global market. Moreover, the earth observation & meteorology segment is projected to manifest the highest CAGR of 6.9% from 2021 to 2030, owing to its contribution towards understanding of climate change and the global environment.

The large segment to maintain its lead position during the forecast period

Based on satellite size, the large segment accounted for the largest share in 2020, contributing to nearly two-fifths of the global satellite bus market, and is projected to maintain its lead position during the forecast period. This is due to the fact that large satellites can be used to carry numerous components in a single satellite bus which can be used to perform numerous operations. However, the small segment is expected to portray the largest CAGR of 9.8% from 2021 to 2030, owing to less cost needed to develop and launch small vehicles.

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North America to maintain its dominance by 2030

Based on region, North America held the highest market share in terms of revenue 2020, accounting for more than two-fifths of the global satellite bus market. This is attributed to numerous developments carried out by the key companies operating in the satellite & associated components industry. Moreover, the Asia-Pacific region is expected to witness the fastest CAGR of 6.7% during the forecast period, owing to the increased application of satellites in numerous industries such as surveillance, mapping, navigation & others.

Leading Market Players

Airbus S.A.S

Ball Corporation

Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI)

ISRO

Lockheed Martin Corporation

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Sierra Nevada Corporation

Thales Group

The Boeing Corporation

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Similar Reports We Have on Aerospace Industry:

In-Space Manufacturing, Servicing and Transportation Market by Operation (Transportation, Manufacturing and Servicing), and End Use (Military, Government and Commercial): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202030.

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Commercial Aerospace Market by Aircraft Type (Rotorcraft and Fixed-wing Aircraft), Engine Type (Turbofan, Turboshaft, and Turboprop), and Carrier Type (Full Service Carrier and Low-cost Carrier): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030.

Spacecraft Market by Type (Manned Spacecraft and Unmanned Spacecraft) and Application (Commercial, Military & Defense): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030.

Spaceplane Market by End Use (Within Earth's Atmosphere and Beyond Earth's Atmosphere), Orbits (Orbital and Sub-orbital), and Application (Commercial and Military): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030.

Space Transportation Market by Type (Passenger Shuttles, Freight Shuttles, and Deep Space Passenger Ships), Orbit Range (LEO, GEO, and MEO), and Application (Research & Development and Leisure): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20212030.

One-Man Flight Vehicle Market by Type (Destruction and Non-destruction), Application (Spying, Smuggling, and Trespassing), and System (Missile Effectors, Electronic Countermeasure, and Laser System): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 20202027.

About Us

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 domain.

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.

Contact:

David Correa

5933 NE Win Sivers Drive

#205, Portland, OR 97220

United States

USA/Canada (Toll Free):

+1-800-792-5285, +1-503-894-6022

UK: +44-845-528-1300

Hong Kong: +852-301-84916

India (Pune): +91-20-66346060

Fax: +1(855)550-5975

help@alliedmarketresearch.com

Web: www.alliedmarketresearch.com

Allied Market Research Blog: https://blog.alliedmarketresearch.com

Follow Us on | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn |

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SOURCE Allied Market Research
SOFIA, Bulgaria, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SoftGroup, the best-in-class end-to-end traceability technology provider in the CEE region, today declares its commitment to increase sustainable and responsible development by announcing its first edition of the Sustainability report 2020-2021. The company perceives objectives aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, containing sustainable action plans in the economic, environmental, and social fields.

The main areas of focus covered in the report include:

Commitments to improving wellbeing and healthy lives

Gender equality

Promoting productive employment and inclusion

Sustainable industrialization and digitalization

Revitalizing partnerships for sustainable development

Mr. Venelin Dimitrov, CEO of SoftGroup, said: "Growing sensitivity towards the issues of sustainability and understanding the importance of our contributors have led us to undertake a process that shares these guidelines. Concepts like sustainability, responsibility and values are so often heard these days that they are in danger of becoming empty buzzwords. It is, therefore, more than essential to give serious thought to our products and services, and generally in our business approach."

Mr. Iordan Dunkov, Head of Strategic Partnerships, said: "Now, more than ever before, the challenge has become necessary and urgent. For this reason, we consider it vital to involve all our clients and partners working together to amplify every sustainable action. We are glad as we found responsible collaborators such as Romaco Group. We are now even more confident that building sustainable partnerships will empower the entire value chain and deliver broader social and environmental benefits."

Mr. Jorg Pieper - CEO of Romaco Group, shared: "When it comes to sustainability projects, it is essential on one side to be consistent with actions implementation, whilst, on the other side, to continuously assess one's way of working to seek for improvement areas.

We pursue two approaches in implementing our sustainability strategy: on the one hand, Romaco is developing technologies that enable our customers to produce in a more sustainable way; on the other, we're seeking to improve our own carbon footprint step by step. As pharmaceutical machinery manufacturer, we are guided by the principle "avoidance is better than reduction is better than offsetting" in the effort to systematically reduce carbon consumption.

We would like to mention, among the variety of sustainable practices that we as a Company implement, our zero CO2 emission machines manufacturing program, the new Romaco building in Bologna, entirely built with sustainability concepts and features at its core (just to mention a few: solar panels, free drinkable water dispensers instead of plastic bottled water, biolake, and many more), the continuous study, at each of our sites' Laboratory, of new, eco-friendly packaging materials to be used on our machines, and our multiple bee colonies in Germany."

For more information about the sustainability program and route map of SoftGroup, please get in touch with marketing@softgroup.eu

About SoftGroup

SoftGroup is a software company that provides end-to-end traceability technology to the pharmaceutical industry worldwide. Our solutions cover all levels of the Track & Trace process, including aggregation processes in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

SoftGroup is a Certified Gateway Provider and Trusted partner of the European Medicine Verification Organization (EMVO) and Bulgarian Medicine Verification Organization (BgMVO) and a trusted partner of GS1 Healthcare. Additionally, the company is an accredited solution provider and integrator by the Russian Track and Trace system (MDLP) for both local manufacturers and foreign pharma companies.

SOURCE SoftGroup
- Botanical-infused gum halts sugar cravings in just two minutes

RAMAT YISHAI, Israel, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Good news for those who chronically capitulate to sugar seduction: Israeli start-up Sweet Victory, Ltd. created a delicious line of botanical-infused chewing gums that are designed to stop sugary treat cravings in their tracks.

Shimrit Lev and Gitit Lahav

The proprietary chewy composition works within two minutes by blocking the sugar receptors on the tongue, and its effect can last up to two hours. During that time ,sweet foods or beverages that normally excite the senses will taste bland or even sour, and the impulse for a sweets binge can be abated, lasting even longer than the physical effect.

Watch the video here

Taking on Sugar Addiction

According to Innova Market Insights' global Health and Nutrition Survey, in 2021, 37% of global consumers indicated they decreased their sugar intake over the past 12 months. These efforts reflect the widely held view that high sugar consumption is a causative factor for a range of conditions, including dental caries, weight gain, and diabetes. Research has suggested a role for sugar in activating the opiate receptors (the reward centers) in the brain, which could explain its attractive nature. The American Heart Association recommends that women limit added sugar to no more than six teaspoons per day (24 grams), and men limit added sugar to no more than nine teaspoons per day (36 grams).[1]

"Most of us battle with sweet cravings on a daily basis," notes Gitit Lahav, a psychologist who spent almost a decade researching the link between nutrition and psychology. Lahav co-founded Sweet Victory with Shimrit Lev, a professional nutritional instructor. "Even as awareness of the impact of overindulgent sugar consumption on personal wellbeing grows, kicking the sugar 'habit' is a real struggle for most of us. This is what spurred us to seek a solution that would help consumers take better control over their nutritional choices."

Craving-Crusher Botanical

With their background in botanicals, Lahav and Lev turned to the ancient Indian botanical gymnema, (Gymnema sylvestre) known from Ayurvedic tradition for its positive effect on glucose metabolism. In India, it is known as 'gurmar,' Hindi for "'gar destroyer."'It was said to inhibit sugar absorption beyond its effect on the tongue. "The atomic arrangement of bioactive gymnemic acid molecules is actually similar to that of glucose molecules," explains Lev. "These molecules fill the receptor locations on the taste buds and prevent activation by sugar molecules present in the food, thereby curbing the sugar craving."

Sweet Success

In India, gurmar leaves are chewed to elicit the effect. "We were startled by how quickly this works," notes Lev. "We sought a more effective, fun, and convenient delivery method for this herb, and so set out to overcome its characteristic bitter flavor." The duo experimented with homemade chewing gum recipes at first, using home gum-making kits. Then they combined the techniques with their nutritional knowledge to derive an ideal recipe using a few select natural sweeteners. The formula was further perfected with the help of a leading Israeli confectionary manufacturer. Today, following sourcing of organic gymnema leaves in India, the start-up manufactures its plant-based gum in a facility in Italy approved for producing functional supplements and is available in two flavors: peppermint, lemon and ginger.

The gum has undergone a successful pilot study at the Obesity Research Center of the Sheba Medical Center in Israel. One of the participants stated: "I chew the gum twice a day when I get the urge for something sweet, and I feel that the sweet I eat is tasteless. I even tried a chocolate mousse and it tasted sour! Most surprising is that I have no desire to eat."

"The gum works on both a physical and a psychological level," adds Lahav "Most people crave something sweet at certain times of the day, usually after lunch and at night. Over time, it becomes an automatic instinct that makes the habit even harder to break. Chewing Sweet Victory gum at those challenging moments can slowly break bad habits and help build better, healthier habits." Further clinical trials to determine its effect on blood sugar levels in persons with diabetes are in the pipeline.

Sweet Victory is available commercially in Panama, France, and Israel and will shortly make its way to the USA. From there, the start-up will gradually proceed with a global roll-out.

[1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/added-sugar-in-the-diet/

Company Contact Sweet Victory, Ltd. Gitit Lahav Co-founder Email: info@sweetvictory-gum.com Web: www.sweetvictory-gum.com Press Contact NutriPR Liat Simha Tel: +972-9-9742893 E-mail: liat@nutripr.com Web: www.nutripr.com

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaetu-zwHiw

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1728475/Shimrit_Lev_and_Gitit_Lahav.jpg

SOURCE Sweet Victory
JERSEY CITY, N.J., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The newly published report titled "Global Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market By Trends, Industry Competition Analysis, Covid-19 Analysis, Revenue (US$ Billions) and Forecast Till 2028." features in-depth analysis and an extensive study on the market, exploring its significant factors.

According to the market intelligence research report by InsightAce Analytic, the global Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors market size was valued at US$ 3.6 Billion in 2021, and it is expected to reach US$ 11.7 Billion in 2028, recording a promising CAGR of 18% from 2021 to 2028.

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Diabetes is a complex, long-term illness requiring ongoing medical attention and multifaceted risk-reduction methods beyond glucose management. Diabetes is a serious health problem among the elderly; around one-quarter of individuals over 65 have Diabetes, and this number is predicted to rise dramatically in the future decades. According to the American Diabetes Association's data, Diabetes affected 34.2 million Americans in 2018, accounting for 10.5 percent of the population. Type 1 diabetes affects almost 1.6 million Americans, including 187,000 children and adolescents. Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors represents an effective approach in diabetes management for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes a complete picture of their glucose levels at crucial times throughout the day, such as while driving, before and during exercise, taking a test, or exam, and in the middle of the night. The continuous glucose monitoring sensor provides data to either a transmitter or a recorder after measuring glucose levels in the fluid beneath the skin. Invasive (completely implanted), minimally invasive, and noninvasive sensors are the three CGM sensors types available. CGM systems have been demonstrated to assist people in maintaining stable blood glucose levels, reducing periods of low blood glucose (hypoglycemia) and high blood glucose (hyperglycemia), and lowering the risk of diabetes complications.

The market is anticipated to be driven by the factors such as an increase in the prevalence of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, an increase in the penetration of sensor devices, technological advancements in diabetes devices, and increased financing for Diabetes. Patients can use a continuous glucose monitoring system to improve self-management and control of their disease. As a result, a continuous glucose monitoring device can help people with diabetes types 1, and 2 get the care they need. During the projection period, the widespread use of wearable medical devices, and developments in wireless technologies for CGM sensors, are expected to create significant growth prospects during the forecast period. Miniaturization of electrochemical-based implanted CGM devices, the emerging field of micro-and nanofabrication, is projected to offer lucrative growth opportunities during the upcoming years.

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The COVID-19 outbreak substantially impacts Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors. The COVID-19 epidemic has brought a new urgency to the need to investigate the practicality of CGM in the hospital to preserve personal protective equipment (PPE) and reduce health care workers' exposure, according to a research report published in Diabetes Care Journal in November 2020.

The players involved in the Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors industry include:

Medtronics, Abbott, Senseonics, WaveForm Technologies, Inc., Advanced Biosensors-Ohio LLC, Arkal Medical, Inc., Ascensia Diabetes Care Holdings AG, Azurite Technologies, Inc., Biorasis Inc, Biovotion AG, CALISTO MEDICAL, INC., CGM3 Ltd, ConvaTec Group Plc, Cyber Medical Ltd, Debiotech SA, DexCom Inc, DirectSens GmbH, Echo Therapeutics Inc, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, eLutions Integrated Systems, Inc., EyeSense GmbH, Flowsion A/S, Gili Medical Ltd, Globe Medical Tech Inc, GlucoLight Corporation, Glucometrix AG, Glucosense Diagnostics Ltd, GlucoSet AS, Glucovation Inc, GluMetrics Inc, Glusense Ltd, GlySens Inc, Glysure Ltd, G-Sense Ltd., iGlyko, Inc., Indigo Diabetes NV, Innovosens AB, Insulet Corp, Integrated Medical Sensors, Integrity Applications Ltd, Invivosense ASA, I-Sens Inc, iSense Corporation, Keratin Biosciences Inc, Kiffik Biomedical inc., LEMM Technologies, LLC, Mellitor Ltd, Metronom Health Inc, mobiLIFE, Nemaura Medical Inc, Newton Photonics Inc, Orsus Medical Ltd, PKvitality, PositiveID Corp, Prediktor Medical AS, Profusa Inc, Purdue University, San Meditech (Huzhou) Co., Ltd., Senseonics Holdings Inc, SensiVida Medical Technologies, Inc., Senzime AB, Singapore Biomicro Pte Ltd, Socrates Health Solutions, Inc., Tenax Therapeutics Inc, VeriTeQ Corporation, Vytrace, Inc., and Other Prominent Players.

Key Industry Developments from Leading Players:

In May 2021 , Medtronic received CE approval for the extended use of its InPen smart insulin pen for multiple daily injections (MDI) and its Guardian 4 sensor for improved diabetes control

Medtronic received CE approval for the extended use of its InPen smart insulin pen for multiple daily injections (MDI) and its Guardian 4 sensor for improved diabetes control In November 2020 , Abbott announced that the FreeStyle Libre system,continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology, is now available for adults and children (over the age of four) living with diabetes in India , as well as women with gestational diabetes (diabetes during pregnancy), giving them the option to check glucose levels at any time.

Abbott announced that the FreeStyle Libre system,continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology, is now available for adults and children (over the age of four) living with diabetes in , as well as women with gestational diabetes (diabetes during pregnancy), giving them the option to check glucose levels at any time. In November 2019 , WaveForm Technologies Inc.'s Cascade Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) system gained CE Mark (Conformite Europeenne) clearance. The product's commercialization for the European market is expected to begin in a few nations. This revolutionary technology uses a small, disposable sensor that may be worn on the body for up to 14 days to continually monitor glucose levels in interstitial fluid. The sensor and Bluetooth transmitter work together to correctly measure and transmit glucose data to the mobile app every minute, eliminating the need for a separate receiver

Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Regional Analysis:

North America has the highest penetration of CGM sensors on account of the early adoption of emerging technologies in the healthcare sector. The global product demand is also fueled by the rapid increase in product innovation and the growing demand for these CGM systems in diabetic management. Europe and the Asia Pacific also witness significant demand due to the presence of a diverse patient pool, developing economies, and increased collaboration between domestic and international initiatives in these regions, which are driving this industry. Because of the expansion of healthcare infrastructure in Europe and the Asia Pacific, the market for CGM sensors is expected to rise significantly.

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The Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Segments

The Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates (Value US$ Million) & Forecasts and Trend Analyses, 2019 to 2030 based on Products

Noninvasive Sensing

Minimally Invasive Sensing

The Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates (Value US$ Million) & Forecasts and Trend Analyses, 2019 to 2030 based on Sensing Technology

Enzyme Electrode

Optical Fluorescence

Others

The Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates (Value US$ Million) & Forecasts and Trend Analyses, 2019 to 2030 based on End-users

Hospitals and Home care

Specialty Clinics

Ambulatory Settings

Others

The Global Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates (Value US$ Million) & Forecasts and Trend Analyses, 2019 to 2030 based on Patient Population

Children and Teenagers

Adults

The Global Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates (Value US$ Million) & Forecasts and Trend Analyses, 2019 to 2030 based on Sensor Sites

Abdomen

Upper Arm (implanted)

Back of Upper Arm

Other (Abdomen and Buttocks)

The Global Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates (Value US$ Million) & Forecasts and Trend Analyses, 2019 to 2030 based on Region

Europe

North America

Latin America (LATAM)

(LATAM) Asia Pacific (APAC)

(APAC) Middle East & Africa (MEA)

North America Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates Revenue (US$ Million) by Country, 2019 to 2030

U.S.

Canada

Europe Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates Revenue (US$ Million) by Country, 2019 to 2030

Germany

France

Italy

Russia

Spain

Rest of Europe

APAC Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates Revenue (US$ Million) by Country, 2019 to 2030

Japan

India

China

Australia & New Zealand

& South Korea

Rest of Asia Pacific

LATAM Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates Revenue (US$ Million) by Country, 2019 to 2030

Brazil

Mexico

Rest of Latin America

The Middle East & Africa Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Sensors Market Estimates Revenue (US$ Million) by Country, 2019 to 2030

GCC Countries

South Africa

Rest of the Middle East & Africa

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Global Insulin Patch Pump Market

Global Biosimilar/Generic Injectable Pens Market

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Global Drug Infusion Systems Market

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- America First Political Committee announced today the formation of a Congressional Candidate Committee to remove Florida Congressman Carlos Gimenez (FL-26 Congressional District) from Congress. Gimenez has become 'Persona Non Grata' in the 26th Congressional District due to his Socialist voting record.

America First will make a formal endorsement in the near future of a Conservative Republican Candidate to Primary Gimenez in the August 23, 2022 election. Gimenez is NOT supported by America First, Donald Trump or the Republican Party.

RINO Carlos Gimenez (FL-26) Votes Socialist Democrat RINO Carlos Gimenez (FL-26)

Carlos Gimenez has voted with Nancy Pelosi and the radical leftists. Gimenez also defended disgraced Liz Cheney after she voted in favor of the 'Sham Impeachment' against Donald Trump. Gimenez doubled down in defending Cheney after the Republican Caucus censored and removed Liz Cheney from Republican Party Leadership.

Gimenez also voted for the 'January 6' Socialist Democrat witch hunt against American Citizens and Republican voters. Gimenez, like Liz Cheney openly votes and sides with the Socialist Democrats.

Some other notable examples of Gimenez Socialist votes include:

Gimenez openly supported and voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. That alone was grounds for expulsion from the GOP;

Gimenez voted with Nancy Pelosi on H.R. 550, to allow the federal government to create a database, track unvaccinated Americans, who could be targeted, segregated, discriminated against, and forced to comply with vaccination mandates;

Gimenez voted with Nancy Pelosi on Anti-Second Amendment legislation HR-8, making it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase, own, carry, and use a firearm;

Gimenez voted with Nancy Pelosi on H.R. 6 for 'Open Borders and Amnesty' to over 20 million criminal illegal aliens, which would permanently avoid deportation, obtain a pathway to citizenship, and full voting rights;

Gimenez also voted with Nancy Pelosi to strip Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of all Congressional Committee positions.

About America First Political Committee:

Our mission is to protect the integrity of the U.S. Constitution, promote conservative political candidates and policy that puts America First.

America First Contact:

Contact: J. Stephens

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.americafirstpc.org Phone: 202-495-1505

SOURCE America First Political Committee
DETROIT, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Benzinga, a media and data provider bridging the gap between retail and institutional investors, will hold its inaugural Alternative Investments Listmaker Event on January 26, 2022.

This latest event will recognize the most innovative companies working to provide retail investors access to the same alternative assets that have historically been reserved for institutional investors. The day will be filled with market insight from industry insiders, a look at new offerings for 2022 and the opportunity to hear directly from top innovators in the space.

This year's Listmakers have made major contributions to the industry either by introducing new alternative investments to the market or by making these investments more accessible to the everyday investor.

The event will be broadcast live on Benzinga's YouTube channel starting at 10:15 AM EST on Wednesday, January 26, 2022.

"Benzinga was born to level the playing field for individual investors, and the companies in this list are democratizing an asset class which individuals have never had access to. We are proud our editorial voice can help share this story," says Benzinga's Luke Jacobi.

"Congratulations to the companies recognized as Benzinga Listmakers and all the other firms that are truly pushing the needle for individual investors."

This year's official 2022 Benzinga Alternative Investments Listmakers include the following:

CrowdStreet - CrowdStreet is a commercial real estate crowdfunding platform that has been launching some of the most exciting offerings on the market. The company has a steady flow of new deals so investors can find new opportunities almost every week.

Red Swan CRE - The Red Swan CRE Marketplace is bringing blockchain to the world of commercial real estate investing. The platform allows deal sponsors to issue equity in properties as digital tokens, which can later be traded on the platform's secondary market.

Blockchain provides a much simpler, faster and less expensive way for sponsors to raise capital. This means higher potential returns for the investor. In addition to being able to invest with regular USD fiat and stable coins pegged to the USD, the company recently launched two offerings that can be invested in with Dogecoin.

Cadre - Cadre offers investors the option to add commercial real estate to their portfolios through its Direct Access Fund or by selecting individual deals to invest in.

The company also provides a secondary market to provide potential liquidity options to its investors. Eligible assets can be listed during quarterly secondary market windows after holding an investment for a minimum of just six months.

StartEngine - StartEngine built a name for themselves with its equity crowdfunding portal that offers retail investors the ability to invest in a variety of exciting new startups with minimum investments as low as $100. Other assets, too, are available on the platform including fine art and the StartEngine Real Estate REIT.

The company also launched its secondary marketplace, allowing investors to buy and sell shares of certain startups. This is a major innovation for alternative investments because it's providing liquidity in an otherwise highly illiquid asset class.

Masterworks - Masterworks has opened up the world of blue-chip art investing to the masses through its platform that sells shares of contemporary artworks that are expected to appreciate in value. Individuals can invest in new offerings that are regularly added to the platform or buy shares of past offerings on Masterworks' secondary market.

Paintings offered on the platform have included works from artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and several others. This type of art would be quite difficult for most people to invest in since many of the paintings are valued at well over $1 million.

Wefunder - Wefunder is not only one of the largest equity crowdfunding platforms in the world, but the company also helped create the industry as we know it today. The company lobbied Congress to help make crowdfunding available for non-accredited investors.

Wefunder has provided access to startup investments to over 1 million investors who have funded over 1,700 founders. Today, Wefunder is the number one Regulation CF portal with a 42% market share.

Arrived Homes - Arrived Homes has made investing in rental properties extremely simple and affordable. Instead of searching for a property, arranging financing then dealing with the headaches of being a landlord, investors can purchase shares of professionally managed rental properties for as little as $100 within minutes.

The company acquires properties in some of the best rental markets in the country, finds the tenants and deals with all of the property management responsibilities while passive investors simply collect their share of the cash flow each quarter and wait for the property to increase in value over time.

YieldStreet - YieldStreet offers a diverse range of offerings for a variety of alternative investment funds similar to those that only the wealthiest investors have traditionally had access to. Investors can use YieldStreet to diversify across several alternative asset classes with a single platform.

Recent offerings on YieldStreet have included funds for commercial real estate equity, luxury car lease portfolios, structured notes, fine art, litigation finance and several others.

AcreTrader - Farmland is an often overlooked asset class among most retail investors, but it has proven to be one of the most consistent and reliable high-yield investments available.

AcreTrader's crowdfunding platform allows individual investors to buy equity shares in cash-yielding farmland across the globe. Past offerings have included farms that produce avocados, pecans, walnuts, corn, soy, citrus and other cash crops.

Groundfloor - Groundfloor offers an alternative real estate investing option to the typical equity crowdfunding and REIT platforms. The company provides short-term high-interest loans to real estate investors and builders for the renovation or construction of residential properties, then sells portions of those loans with a minimum investment of only $10.

The platform typically has anywhere from 50 to 70 loans available to invest in at any given time with new offerings being added weekly. Since loan terms typically range from six to 12 months, investors are able to realize a return much more quickly than with other real estate investment options.

Republic - Republic is an equity crowdfunding platform that built its reputation by offering investment opportunities in startups, but has been adding new exciting and innovative offerings to its platform.

The company recently launched various real estate city funds, allowing individuals to invest across entire markets in cities like Miami, Dallas and Austin, but has taken real estate investing to the next level with its Realm Metaverse Real Estate offering to invest in a diversified portfolio of digital real estate NFTs across various metaverses.

ALTO IRA - Alto IRA provides self-directed IRAs that allow individuals to add alternative assets to their retirement accounts. Investors can start a new IRA or roll over an existing IRA to invest in over 75 different alternative investment platforms.

Investors can benefit from the tax advantages offered by a self-directed IRA while investing in assets like real estate, startups and artwork through most of the platforms on this list. The company also has a Crypto IRA, which allows investors to add over 100 of the most popular cryptocurrencies to their retirement portfolio.

LEX-Markets - Lex-Markets is one of the newest players in the real estate crowdfunding space and is making commercial real estate available to investors with virtually any budget. The company allows non-accredited investors to directly invest in commercial real estate deals with minimum investments as low as $250.

Investors can also trade their shares of commercial properties through the LEX ATS without minimum holding periods. This is a huge move forward in the commercial real estate industry when holding periods are typically 5 to 10 years.

Modiv - Modiv is a public non-traded REIT with a commercial real estate portfolio worth over $500 million and offers one of the simplest ways for retail investors to add commercial real estate to their portfolios without the price volatility that comes with most publicly-traded REITs.

The REIT offers one of the lowest minimum investments available among non-traded REITs at only $1,000 and pays an attractive monthly dividend while the share prices have been steadily increasing in value each quarter.

Rares - Rares has turned collectable sneakers into an investable asset class by securitizing some of the most rare and valuable sneakers then selling shares for as little as $10. Investors can then hold their shares until Rares determines the best time to sell the shoes and liquidate the asset, or sell their shares on the platform's secondary market.

Many of the sneakers on the platform aren't ones that the average individual can easily get access to. One of the most recent offerings is for the Nike Air Yeezy I Prototype, worn by Kanye West during his performance at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards in 2008, which is now the world's most expensive pair of sneakers.

Vinovest - Vinovest allows investors and wine connoisseurs alike to build portfolios of investment grade wine that's expected to increase in value over time. The company's Master Sommeliers combine their expertise with quantitative investment models to curate wine portfolios that can either be stored in Vinovest's network of storage facilities or sent directly to the investor.

The value of each bottle of wine can be tracked through an investment dashboard and listed for sale at any time, but Vinovest's experts notify investors when the wine has aged to maturity and reached the peak selling point.

Rocket Dollar - Rocket Dollar lets people unlock IRA/401(k) money to invest in alternative and private assets such as real estate, crypto, startups, private equity, venture, and more with no taxes.

About Benzinga

Recognized as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, Benzinga is a holistic solution for high-quality, low-cost, timely content.

The firm's core product portfolio consists of newswires, analytics software, and data services that are easy to consume and help users better act on market intelligence.

In helping investors achieve the next stage of their growth, as well as promote innovation across all spaces, Benzinga also hosts thought leadership, networking, and educational events.

SOURCE Benzinga
CHICAGO, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- It was announced today that Lauren Alexander has been appointed as the new Associate Vice President of Customized & Faculty-Led Programs at IES Abroad, effective immediately. In this role, Alexander will lead all faculty-led programming efforts for IES Abroad, a global, not-for-profit that provides premier study abroad and internship programs around the world.

Lauren Alexander joins IES Abroad as Associate Vice President of Customized & Faculty-Led Programs

"We are excited to welcome Lauren to IES Abroad where her extensive experience, skills and unwavering passion for international education will further position us as a provider of choice for universities seeking academically engaging and culturally immersive customized programs," said Michael Adewumi, PhD, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

Alexander brings a wealth of international education, study abroad, and faculty-led programming experience to IES Abroad. She most recently held the position of Deputy Director of the Office of International Programs at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She also served for more than 11 years at International Studies Abroad (ISA) holding positions of increasing responsibility, including Associate Vice President, Custom Programs, and Associate Vice President, University Partnerships.

"My own study abroad experience had an enormous positive impact on my life and why I've dedicated my career to international education," said Lauren Alexander, Associate Vice President of Customized & Faculty-Led Programs. "I look forward to continuing my professional journey with IES Abroad and working closely with my new colleagues to deliver meaningful experiences to our students through engaging customized and faculty-led programs."

Alexander has served as co-editor of "Education Abroad Operational Management: Strategies, Opportunities and Innovations"; made numerous presentations at NAFSA, the Forum on Education Abroad and Pennsylvania Council for International Education conferences; and serves as an Intercultural Development Inventory qualified administrator and Madrid Chamber of Commerce certified translator.

Alexander received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Rice University in English Literature and Spanish Language and Linguistics and her Master of Arts in Intercultural Communication from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She also spent a full academic year abroad at the Universitat de Barcelona.

About IES Abroad

Founded in 1950, IES Abroad is a global, not-for-profit academic consortium of more than 500 top-tier American colleges and universities. IES Abroad provides premier study abroad and internship programs around the world through IES Abroad, IES Internships, Customized & Faculty-Led Programs, and The Study Abroad Foundation. With more than 400 study abroad programs in 85 locations worldwide, the organization creates authentic global education opportunities for more than 10,000 students annually. IES Abroad has more than 140,000 alumni who have benefited from studying on IES Abroad programs since its inception and offers $6+ million in scholarships and aid. Learn more at www.IESabroad.org.

SOURCE IES Abroad
KASHOBA  A woman and six men have been implicated in the theft of goats at KaShoba community.

The woman, whose identity is known but will not be revealed for now pending investigations, confessed in the presence of over 70 residents who attended a meeting held on Saturday at the KaShoba Fundza Umphakatsi Hall. The ages of the six men range between 20 and 30. During the meeting, a resident asked the woman, *Make Masina to share what she knew about the goats that have been disappearing in the area. This happened after one of the implicated men divulged the womans particulars in his confession. The man, *Vusi told the attendees that Make Masina was their mediator in the whole goat theft syndicate as she would arrange buyers after they had tied up the goats in bushes.

Confided

Vusi also disclosed to the meeting how they hatched their plan of stealing the goats for purposes of selling them to local and South African buyers. She always contacted me when she secured a buyer and told us the number of goats that needed to be stolen. We then arrange how to execute our plan as sometimes we have to know the homes that have goats and where they graze, alleged one of the men. It was gathered that Make Masina confessed to having participated in the theft of the goats due to poverty. It was also gathered that the men told the meeting that they stole the goats because they wanted money to buy alcoholic beverages at a lodge situated within the community. They sold three goats for E1 900 and told the meeting that they wanted to buy booze at the lodge, alleged a resident who attended the meeting. The resident further claimed that the residents assigned members of the community police to continue with their investigations after it was discovered that more people were involved.

Meeting

The meeting was adjourned after the chiefdoms Headman, Zachiaus Motsa, told the residents that he was yet to inform the senior members of the Ndzimandze household and they would be briefed on what steps would be taken regarding the matter. Meanwhile, last month, a Toyota van valued at over E65 000, which was transporting 26 goats, was torched by a mob of 20 men from KaShoba area after suspecting that the goats were stolen. Jobe Ngcamphalala, the car owner from Ncandvweni area under Lubulini Inkhundla, said he had spent E19 200 when buying the goats from different homes around KaShoba. This happened barely a month after a 24-year-old, a Big Bend High School Form V pupil, was assaulted and tied to a tree by a mob of 10 people from the same area after suspecting and accusing him of stealing 23 goats from the same area.

Before that, over 100 residents stormed the Lubulini Police Station to demand answers on what was being done to arrest two police officers implicated in the theft of goats in the area.

The residents claimed that over 2 000 goats had been stolen and smuggled into Durban, South Africa in the past two years. Worth mentioning is that the Minister of Economic Planning and Development, Dr Tambo Gina, also lost nine goats due to stock theft.
SKOKIE, Ill., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Solutions in the Land, sustainable agriculture consultants, undertook a controlled corn trial to evaluate Terreplenish by Feed Earth Now, LLC, a progressive biobased technology company that creates a proprietary blend of living soil microbes which increase crop nitrogen availability.

Terreplenish Living Soil Microbes increases soil water holding capacity and microflora. Corn Trial Summary for Feed Earth Now, Terreplenish 12/21/2021 by Solutions in the Land, LLC

In the study evaluating the effectiveness of Terreplenish, Solutions in the Land verified that the silt loam soil chosen for the Terreplenish Corn Trial 2021 had an excellent fertility level. DeKalb 68-69 corn seed was planted across the plots using the following soil preparation methods (Terreplenish abbreviated at TP):

Plot 1  Conventional practice: Preplant 150lbs 40-60-60, 180 lbs. UAN 32  7 days ahead of planting

Plot 2 - Preplant 150 lbs. 40-60-60, 180 lbs. UAN 32 + 2 gallons TP - 7 days ahead of planting.

Plot 3 - Preplant 150lbs 40-60-60, 180 lbs. UAN 32 + 1 gallon TP  7 days ahead of planting and 1 gallon TP  29 days after planting.

Plot 4 - Preplant 150lbs 40-60-60, 140 lbs. UAN 32 +2 gallons TP - 7 days ahead of planting.

Plot 5 - Preplant 150lbs 40-60-60, 180 lbs. UAN 32 + 2 gallons TP - 7 days ahead of planting.

Plot 6 - Preplant 150lbs 40-45-60, 180 lbs. UAN 32 +2 gallons TP - 7 days ahead of planting.

In a conclusionary statement written by the Solutions in the Land consultants they noted, "Clearly the addition of Terreplenish provides a 45-60 lbs. nitrogen credit. In this corn hybrid, plot 6 had 15 lbs. of reduced phosphorous indicating that the PSB's (phosphorous solubilizing bacteria) in Terreplenish effectively free more than 15 lbs. of P2O5."

"This is our third season using Terreplenish. After 6-months we tested the nitrogen left in the stalks and found that the UAN-32 treated corn had 200 parts per million left, and the Terreplenish treated stalks increased from zero to 600 ppm," noted Roy Winings, Illinois Farmer.

Along with producing verifiable bio-available nitrogen levels, the addition of spring and fall applications of Terreplenish will significantly reduce the high cost of nitrogen fertilizer and provide many other benefits like pathogen control, phosphorous availability, and better emergence scores.

Additional revenue can be generated by participating in the many phosphorous reduction programs and carbon sequestration projects.

Media Contacts: Terreplenish - 1-877-905-7109

Cathy Scratch  [email protected]

SOURCE Feed Earth Now, LLC
SHANGHAI, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) ("Daqo New Energy," the "Company" or "we"), a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry, today announced that its subsidiary, Xinjiang Daqo New Energy ("Xinjiang Daqo"), intends to offer ordinary shares, subject to market conditions and other factors, in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers in compliance with the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board (the "STAR Market") in China for its 100,000 MT polysilicon expansion project.

The gross proceeds of the private offering are expected to be approximately RMB11 billion, the majority of which will be used to fund Xinjiang Daqo's 100,000 MT polysilicon expansion project in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China. The construction of this project is expected to commence in March 2022 and to be completed in the third quarter of 2023.

About Daqo New Energy Corp.

Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) ("Daqo" or the "Company") is a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry. Founded in 2007, the Company manufactures and sells high-purity polysilicon to photovoltaic product manufactures, who further process the polysilicon into ingots, wafers, cells and modules for solar power solutions. The Company has a total polysilicon nameplate capacity of 105,000 metric tons and is one of the world's lowest cost producers of high-purity polysilicon.

For more information, please visit www.dqsolar.com

Daqo New Energy Corp.

Investor Relations

Email: [email protected]

Christensen

In China

Mr. Rene Vanguestaine

Phone: +86 178 1749 0483

[email protected]

In the U.S.



Ms. Linda Bergkamp

Phone: +1-480-614-3004

Email: [email protected]

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar statements. Among other things, Xinjiang Daqo's private offering and project expansion plans contain forward-looking statements. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of which are beyond the Company's control. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: the demand for photovoltaic products and the development of photovoltaic technologies; global supply and demand for polysilicon; alternative technologies in cell manufacturing; the Company's ability to significantly expand its polysilicon production capacity and output; the reduction in or elimination of government subsidies and economic incentives for solar energy applications; the Company's ability to lower its production costs; changes in the political and regulatory environment; and the duration of COVID-19 outbreaks in China and many other countries and the impact of the outbreaks and the quarantines and travel restrictions instituted by relevant governments on economic and market conditions, including potentially weaker global demand for solar PV installations that could adversely affect the Company's business and financial performance. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the reports or documents the Company has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no duty to update such information or any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

SOURCE Daqo New Energy Corp.
NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TytoCare, the global health care industry's first all-in-one modular device and examination platform for AI-powered, on-demand, remote medical exams, announced today its partnership with Al-Futtaim Electronic-Techserve, a group company of Al-Futtaim. The partnership with TytoCare will enable Al-Futtaim to broaden its reach across the healthcare spectrum, covering all touchpoints, from specialists to local clinics.

Al-Futtaim Group is a large conglomerate based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, with businesses across numerous industries including, automotive, financial services, real estate, and retail. Their recently added healthcare vertical offers trusted and specialized care within a holistic environment across pharmacies as well as 12 outpatient clinics throughout Dubai.

Al-Futtaim will be integrating TytoCare's TytoPro solution into its HealthHub clinics. TytoPro will enable Al-Futtaim to turn remote locations such as clinics, employee work sites, pharmacies, schools, home nursing, home care facilities, and urgent care facilities into connected care sites with comprehensive, turnkey telehealth solutions.

Designed for professional-to-professional use, TytoPro enables clinicians to conduct a remote exam to obtain a second opinion or specialist consult. The TytoPro solution includes the TytoCare device with exam camera and thermometer as well as the TytoCare otoscope, stethoscope, tongue depressor adaptor, and earbuds. These are all connected to the TytoCare Clinician Dashboard that can be used for conducting live video telehealth exams, reviewing exams, and communicating with patients. With TytoPro, clinicians can send exam data to the patients' EHR for continuity of care.

"We're excited to announce our partnership with Al-Futtaim Group, which will offer their patients a robust virtual care experience," said Dedi Gilad, CEO and Co-Founder of TytoCare. "TytoCare is providing Al-Futtaim Health with a frictionless, easy-to-use telehealth solution, allowing nurses and other healthcare practitioners to measure vital signs in real-time while seamlessly communicating with other clinicians and specialists remotely. We look forward to supporting Al-Futtaim Health's continued expansion of their digital health offerings across their clinics and pharmacies and corporate customers."

In-clinic telehealth solutions like TytoPro have become a vital tool for the healthcare industry to help bridge the gap in access to care. These solutions extend clinician services to a central location for patients to access quality health care without having to travel long distances or wait long periods to see a specialist. With TytoCare, Al-Futtaim will also extend clinician services to corporate customers and other healthcare clinics across Dubai, enabling employees and patients to get quick and easy specialist consults or second opinions virtually.

"Al-Futtaim Health is committed to expanding our digital health services, providing our patients, clinics, and corporate partners with an enhanced telehealth experience that goes beyond video conferencing. TytoCare enables us to do just that," said Dr. Haider Al Yousuf, Managing Director of Al-Futtaim Health. "Through the partnership, we can now connect patients with more physicians, decrease costs, and transform the virtual care experience we offer. We look forward to working together to provide our clinics and corporate partners with an accessible, flexible, and easy-to-use telehealth solution."

"Our partnership with Tytocare enables Al-Futtaim healthcare providers to transform delivery systems with on-demand medical exams from home, and seamlessly connect patients to clinicians through the TytoPro medical exam kit and full-stack platform," said Mr. Sachin Wadhwa  Managing Director - AL Futtaim Electronic, AF Watches and jewelry. "We are proud to offer the best remote examination and diagnosis solutions to our patients and physicians."

"My warm congratulations to this exceptional cooperation between TytoCare and the Al-Futtaim Group. Creating alliances such as this are the key to deepening and strengthening the strategic cooperation between Israel and the UAE," said Amir Hayek, H.E Ambassador.

About TytoCare

TytoCare is a telehealth company using AI to transform primary care by putting health in the hands of consumers. TytoCare seamlessly connects people to clinicians to provide the best virtual home examination and diagnosis solutions. Its solutions are designed to enable a comprehensive medical exam from any location and include a hand-held, all-in-one tool for examining the heart, lungs, skin, ears, throat, abdomen, and body temperature; a complete telehealth platform for sharing exam data, conducting live video exams, and scheduling visits; a cloud-based data repository with analytics; and built-in guidance technology and machine learning algorithms to ensure accuracy and ease of use for patients and insights for healthcare providers. Co-founded by Dedi Gilad and Ofer Tzadik in 2012, TytoCare has FDA and CE clearances and has partnered with over 170 major health systems, health plans, and strategic partners in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Israel. To watch a demo video, click here.

For more information, please visit https://www.tytocare.com/.

About Al-Futtaim

Established in the 1930s as a trading business, Al-Futtaim Group today is one of the most diversified and progressive, privately held regional businesses headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Structured into five operating divisions; automotive, financial services, real estate, retail, and health; employing more than 33,000 employees in more than 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, we partner with over 200 of the world's most admired and innovative brands.

Al-Futtaim's entrepreneurship and relentless customer focus enables the organization to continue to grow and expand; responding to the changing needs of our customers within the societies in which we operate.

By upholding our values of respect, excellence, collaboration, integrity; Al-Futtaim continues to enrich the lives and aspirations of our customers each and every day. For more information visit: www.alfuttaim.com

About Al-Futtaim HealthHub Clinics

As partners to your well-being, HealthHub Clinics by Al-Futtaim and part of Al-Futtaim Health, ensures that you always have access to the best medical services and facilities. It's a new way of healthcare designed to meet your needs with a complete range of Smart Healthcare solutions.

As a multi-specialty clinic, we offer the best medical expertise in specialized treatments, from Ophthalmology to Endocrinology. What makes HealthHub Clinics different is the right combination of advanced diagnostics, proven medical expertise and specialized services that work together for your well-being.

TytoCare Press Contact

Sarah Schloss

Headline Media

[email protected]

914.506.5105

SOURCE Tyto Care
SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Azorra has signed an agreement with Embraer (B3: EMBR3,NYSE: ERJ) to acquire 20 new E2 family aircraft, plus a further 30 purchase rights. This flexible deal enables Azorra to acquire E190-E2 or E195-E2 aircraft. At list prices, the order is valued at USD 3.9 billion. Azorra is a Florida-based aircraft leasing company specialising in executive, regional and crossover aircraft. Deliveries will begin in 2023, adding a further 20 Embraer aircraft to the 21 already in Azorra's existing and committed portfolio.

"Our team has a long and productive history with Embraer. At Jetscape, we were the first independent lessor to commit to Embraer's E-Jet program in December 2007, which saw E-Jets establish a global customer base of more than 80 operators. Azorra's first new aircraft was a Phenom 300 acquired from Embraer in December 2016. We are excited about this new chapter in our longstanding partnership with Embraer," said John Evans, Azorra's CEO. "This commitment underscores our belief in the E2; a modern aircraft family with superior economics and environmental performance, providing Azorra with a compelling opportunity to build a position of leadership in the markets we serve."

Arjan Meijer, CEO of Embraer Commercial Aviation, said, "We thank Azorra again for their selection of the E2, after recently completing a sale leaseback transaction with Porter Airlines for five new E195-E2 aircraft. Azorra offers an exciting and innovative approach to the market, with a fierce focus on customer needs that align solidly with Embraer's deserved reputation for outstanding customer care. With this order for 20 E2 aircraft, Azorra have further endorsed the exceptional value that the next-generation E2 family brings to the market as the most quiet and fuel-efficient aircraft in the segment."

Follow us on Twitter: @Embraer

About Embraer

Embraer is a global aerospace company headquartered in Brazil. It manufactures aircraft for Commercial and Executive aviation, Defense & Security, and Agricultural customers. The company also provides after-sales services & support through a worldwide network of wholly-owned entities and authorized agents.

Since it was founded in 1969, Embraer has delivered more than 8,000 aircraft. On average, about every 10 seconds an aircraft manufactured by Embraer takes off somewhere in the world, transporting over 145 million passengers a year.

Embraer is the leading manufacturer of commercial jets up to 150 seats and is the main exporter of high value-added goods in Brazil. The company maintains industrial units, offices, service and parts distribution centers across the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Europe.

About Azorra

Azorra is a relationship-driven aircraft lessor providing lease, financing, and asset management solutions with a focus on executive, regional, crossover and small narrowbody aircraft. Azorra's team is led by industry veterans with a shared history of success and has the financial backing of funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management L.P. The company is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and has an office in Dublin, Ireland. For additional information, please visit www.azorra.com or LinkedIn.

SOURCE Embraer S.A.
Intermap's streaming service reduces the cost of data acquisition and management

High demand for elevation data as a service as the aviation industry recovers

DENVER, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Intermap Technologies (TSX: IMP) (OTCQX: ITMSF) ("Intermap" or the "Company"), a global leader in geospatial content development and intelligence solutions, today announced a new contract with a leading European airline to provide elevation data as a service for route planning operations through an online data subscription service.

The European airline has subscribed to Intermap's web services to access high-resolution NEXTMap elevation datasets. This subscription enables the airline to access terrain data on-demand to visualize terrain and perform line-of-sight analyses to model safer and more efficient routes in parallel with other operations and engineering software tools. Access to data through web services increases operational efficiency and reduces the cost of data acquisition and management.

The worldwide airline industry was heavily affected by the pandemic, with market size decreasing from $818 billion in 2019 to $359 billion in 2020. In 2021, the market began to pick up again with an increase in market size of $112 billion and is predicted to increase further to $591 billion in 2022 (Source). As the airline industry recovers from the pandemic and returns to regular operations, it is even more valuable to offer solutions that reduce cost and boost efficiency.

Airline operators and their service providers require high-resolution and high-accuracy data to perform analyses, such as drift down procedures and approach design around airports. With worldwide coverage, NEXTMap web services provides customers with a data streaming service to access high volumes of geographically diverse data to perform analyses without needing to acquire, store and maintain in-house datasets. NEXTMap elevation data is stored in the cloud and continually updated so customers have instant access to the most up-to-date data, further improving results.

NEXTMap web services is one of a suite of products and services Intermap offers to the aviation market. Intermap also provides Lido Surface Data NEXTView (NEXTView), the industry's first and only EASA-certified digital surface model, developed exclusively in partnership with Lufthansa Systems. NEXTView is a critical component for avionics, synthetic vision, terrain awareness and ground proximity warning systems, navigation, simulation, landing site evaluation and drone operations and planning. Integrating NEXTView into UAS and UTM navigation systems enables operators to plan and execute UAV flights based on predetermined flight paths, ensuring safety and efficiency in all environments. Intermap's suite of elevation datasets are also used to support research and development opportunities such as GPS-denied navigation in partnership with the U.S. Air Force and low latency foundation data with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

"Intermap's new airline contract will enable operations teams to visualize and plan safer and more efficient routes for all its service locations around the world," said Patrick A. Blott, Intermap Chairman and CEO. "COVID-19 delayed several aviation projects and we are pleased to see the market and demand for elevation data pick up again. Intermap's globally available and seamless elevation datasets can be integrated into existing workflows to provide airlines with critical data in their flight planning operations."

Learn more about Intermap's aviation and NEXTMap products and solutions.

Intermap Reader Advisory

Certain information provided in this news release constitutes forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate", "expect", "project", "estimate", "forecast", "will be", "will consider", "intends" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Although Intermap believes that these statements are based on information and assumptions which are current, reasonable and complete, these statements are necessarily subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Intermap's forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties pertaining to, among other things, cash available to fund operations, availability of capital, revenue fluctuations, nature of government contracts, economic conditions, loss of key customers, retention and availability of executive talent, competing technologies, common share price volatility, loss of proprietary information, software functionality, internet and system infrastructure functionality, information technology security, breakdown of strategic alliances, and international and political considerations, as well as those risks and uncertainties discussed Intermap's Annual Information Form and other securities filings. While the Company makes these forward-looking statements in good faith, should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expected. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what benefits that the Company will derive therefrom. All subsequent forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, attributable to Intermap or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements made herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities law.

About Intermap Technologies

Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Intermap (TSX: IMP;OTCQX: ITMSF) is a global leader in geospatial intelligence solutions. The Company's proprietary 3D NEXTMap elevation datasets and value-added geospatial collection, processing, analytics, fusion and orthorectification software and solutions are utilized across a range of industries that rely on accurate, high-resolution elevation data. Intermap helps governments build authoritative geospatial datasets and provides solutions for base mapping, transportation, environmental monitoring, topographic mapping, disaster mitigation, smart city integration, public safety and defense. The Company's commercial applications include aviation and UAV flight planning, flood and wildfire insurance, environmental and renewable energy planning, telecommunications, engineering, critical infrastructure monitoring, hydrology, land management, oil and gas and transportation. For more information, please visit www.intermap.com.

SOURCE Intermap Technologies Corporation
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According to the recent market study by Technavio, the logistics market is expected to increase by USD 1546.95 billion from 2020 to 2025, at an accelerated CAGR of 5.08%. The report provides a detailed analysis of drivers & opportunities, top winning strategies, competitive scenario, future market trends, market size & estimations, and major investment pockets.

APAC will register the highest growth rate of 43% among the other regions. China and Japan are the key markets for logistics in APAC. Market growth in APAC will be faster than the growth of the market in other regions.

Download FREE Sample: for more additional information about the key countries in APAC

Vendor Insights-

The logistics market is fragmented, and the vendors are deploying growth strategies such as focusing on product delivery through multiple distribution channels to compete in the market.

C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc. - The company acquired Prime Distribution Services. Key hiring, CEO, and BU heads In September 2020, the company appointed Kermit Crawford as a new Director.

DSV Panalpina A/S - In December 2020, the company acquired Globeflight. In January 2020, the company partnered with Vestas on project transport and general freight.

FedEx Corp - The company joined forces to help transform commerce by combining the global digital and logistics network of FedEx with Microsoft's intelligent cloud.

Find additional highlights on the vendors and their product offerings. Download Free Sample Report

Regional Market Outlook

The logistics market share growth in APAC will be significant during the forecast period. China and India are the key markets for the logistics market in APAC. China and Japan are the key markets for logistics in APAC. Market growth in APAC will be faster than the growth of the market in other regions.

The logistics market in APAC is expected to grow due to the presence of a large consumer base for both food and beverage and healthcare product suppliers. Healthcare spending in this region is increasing at a rapid pace, thanks to rising disposable incomes and an aging population in nations such as Japan and China. As a result, demand for temperature-controlled healthcare supplies such as biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, and clinical trial materials is increasing.

Furthermore, increased demand for organic food products is driving demand for cold chain logistics in the healthcare and food industries, as it helps maintain the shelf life and quality of these products.

Download our FREE sample report for more key highlights on the regional market share of most of the above-mentioned countries.

Latest Drivers & Trends Driving the Market-

Logistics Market Driver:

Increasing cross-border trade:

The sale and acquisition of goods and services across international land borders are known as cross-border trade. Cross-border trade allows businesses to increase their reach geographically and demographically. Export and import of goods result in a rise in tax income, which contributes to a country's gross domestic product (GDP).

Cross-border commerce helps countries develop their economies. As a result, a number of countries have increased their cross-border trade. The number of trade corridors is increasing as cross-border trade grows. The demand for logistics will rise in tandem with the growth of cross-border trade, contributing to market share growth throughout the projection period.

Logistics Market Trend:

Use of blockchain with logistics:

The e-commerce business is fast expanding as the Internet becomes more widely used and smartphones become more widely available. The logistics industry is directly impacted by the rise of the e-commerce sector

Because people are spending less time in stores, the package that is delivered to their door is their first direct engagement with the brand. Because the flow of commodities is so reliant on the transportation and distribution network, logistics plays a crucial role. E-commerce businesses can get logistical services from vendors. Providers are also providing more reverse logistics choices than other vendors. During the projection period, demand for logistics will be driven by the rapid rise of the e-commerce industry.

Find additional information about various other market Drivers & Trends mentioned in our FREE sample report.

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Related Reports:

Last Mile Delivery Market in Brazil by End-user and Service - Forecast and Analysis 2021-2025

Healthcare Logistics Market in Canada by Product and Service - Forecast and Analysis 2021-2025

Logistics Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2025 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 5.08% Market growth 2021-2025 $ 1546.95 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 4.55 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, MEA, and South America Performing market contribution APAC at 43% Key consumer countries US, China, Japan, Germany, France, and UK Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled C.H. Robinson Worldwide Inc., Deutsche Bahn AG, Deutsche Post DHL Group, DSV Panalpina AS, FedEx Corp., J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc., Kenco, Kuehne + Nagel International AG, United Parcel Service Inc., and XPO Logistics Inc. Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period, Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.



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SOURCE Technavio
NATICK, Mass. and PORTLAND, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Luciole Pharmaceuticals and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), announced today a research agreement aimed at accelerating the discovery of small molecule agonists of OGG1 (8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase). OGG1 is the key enzyme in the initiation of base excision repair of oxidative damage in nuclear and mitochondrial genomes. Through this collaboration, Luciole will support research at OHSU to test compounds identified using Cyclica's AI enabled platform directed at OGG1 for the treatment of neurodegenerative and other diseases of aging.

"Luciole aims to be the premier DNA repair company by applying state-of-the-art technology with an efficient, virtual company approach for the development of novel medicines. We are pleased to support continuing research in the Lloyd/McCullough laboratories at OHSU to test OGG1 activity of new compounds arising from our collaboration with Cyclica. Luciole is using Cyclica's first in class polypharmacology and AI enabled platform to efficiently identify new molecules with disease modifying potential. The research program at OHSU will provide important new data and advance our drug discovery program" Dennis I. Goldberg, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer at Luciole Pharmaceuticals.

"We are excited to begin this collaboration with Professors Lloyd and McCullough. The outcome will broaden and diversify our chemical space to fuel the computational engines at Cyclica Inc., and advance this unique chemistry" - William Rumsey, Ph.D, Chief Scientific Officer at Luciole Pharmaceuticals.

"We are pleased to be collaborating with Luciole and Cyclica on the discovery and refinement of small molecule agonists of OGG1. Cyclica's artificial intelligence approach rapidly identifies candidate molecules for further medicinal chemistry workup. Luciole will then deliver compounds to our labs for high-throughput fluorescence-based OGG1 activity assays. We look forward to discovering novel therapeutics in treating age-related degenerative diseases." R. Stephen Lloyd, Ph.D., and Amanda K. McCullough, Ph.D.

Terms of the agreement with OHSU are not disclosed.

About Luciole Pharmaceuticals

Luciole Pharmaceuticals is a startup biotech company that is developing novel therapeutics to repair damaged mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is a critical aspect of the aging process. Mitochondria provide all mammalian cells with energy and healthy mitochondria are essential to healthy tissues and longevity. A natural by-product of this essential function is the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The mitochondrial genome is physically tethered to the primary site of ROS generation. Oxidative damage to mtDNA is an inexorable aspect of human aging that causes mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA breakdown, activation of the innate immune system and ultimately cell death. Luciole is the first company to focus on enhancing the repair of oxidatively damaged mtDNA.

Luciole's technology is based on the cutting-edge work of Dr. Rumsey, Luciole's co-founder, in collaboration with Vilhelm Bohr, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Laboratory on Molecular Gerontology at the National Institute on Aging, and of co-founders, R. Stephen Lloyd and Amanda K. McCullough at OHSU. Luciole was formed as a spinout from OHSU with exclusive, worldwide license to commercialize proprietary small molecule OGG1 activators based on the Lloyd/McCullough discoveries.

For further information, visit www.luciolepharma.com.

SOURCE Luciole Pharmaceuticals
C$ unless otherwise stated

TSX/NYSE/PSE: MFC SEHK: 945



TORONTO, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Manulife Financial Corporation ("Manulife") today announced its intention to redeem all of its outstanding 10,000,000 Non-cumulative Rate Reset Class 1 Shares Series 7 ("Series 7 Preferred Shares") for cash on March 19, 2022. The Series 7 Preferred Shares (TSX: MFC.PR.H) are redeemable at Manulife's option on March 19, 2022, at a redemption price per Series 7 Preferred Share equal to C$25.00 for an aggregate total of C$250 million. Formal notice will be delivered to holders of Series 7 Preferred Shares in accordance with the terms outlined in the share provisions for the Series 7 Preferred Shares.

Separately from the redemption price, the final quarterly dividend of C$0.2695 per Series 7 Preferred Share will be paid in the usual manner on March 19, 2022 to shareholders of record on February 23, 2022 or such other record date determined by the board. After the Series 7 Preferred Shares are redeemed, holders of Series 7 Preferred Shares will cease to be entitled to distributions of dividends and will not be entitled to exercise any rights as holders other than to receive the redemption price.

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we provide financial advice and insurance, operating as Manulife across Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. Through Manulife Investment Management, the global brand for our global wealth and asset management segment, we serve individuals, institutions and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2020, we had more than 37,000 employees, over 118,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 30 million customers. As of September 30, 2021, we had CAD$1.4 trillion (US$1.1 trillion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made CAD$31.6 billion in payments to our customers.

Our principal operations are in Asia and Canada, and the United States, where we have served customers for more than 155 years. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong. Not all offerings are available in all jurisdictions. For additional information, please visit manulife.com

SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation
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Frequently Asked Questions:

What are the major market threats?

The pressure from substitutes and a high level of threat from new entrants has resulted in the moderate bargaining power of suppliers.

The pressure from substitutes and a high level of threat from new entrants has resulted in the moderate bargaining power of suppliers. What is the expected price changes in this market?

The Nanoenabled Packaging Market is expected to have a CAGR of 9.03% during 2020-2024.

The Nanoenabled Packaging Market is expected to have a CAGR of 9.03% during 2020-2024. Who are the top players in the market?

Tetra Pak International SA, Sealed Air Corp., and Sonoco Products Co, are some of the major market participants.

Tetra Pak International SA, Sealed Air Corp., and Sonoco Products Co, are some of the major market participants. What are the pricing models followed by buyers?

Volume based pricing model, and Index based pricing model are the widely adopted pricing models in Nanoenabled Packaging Market.

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Table of Content

Executive Summary

Market Insights

Category Pricing Insights

Cost-saving Opportunities

Best Practices

Category Ecosystem

Category Management Strategy

Category Management Enablers

Suppliers Selection

Suppliers under Coverage

US Market Insights

Category scope

Appendix

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NASA's mission of exploration requires new technologies, software, and research  which show up in daily life. The agency's Spinoff 2022 publication tells the stories of companies, start-ups, and entrepreneurs transforming these innovations into cutting-edge products and services that boost the economy, protect the planet, and save lives.

"The value of NASA is not confined to the cosmos but realized throughout our country  from hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs to world-leading climate science, understanding the universe and our place within it, to technology transfers that make life easier for folks around the world," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. "As we combat the coronavirus pandemic and promote environmental justice and sustainability, NASA technology is essential to address humanity's greatest challenges."

Spinoff 2022 features more than 45 companies using NASA technology to advance manufacturing techniques, detoxify polluted soil, improve weather forecasting, and even clean the air to slow the spread of viruses, including coronavirus.

"NASA's technology portfolio contains many innovations that not only enable exploration but also address challenges and improve life here at home," said Jim Reuter, associate administrator of the agency's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) in Washington. "We've captured these examples of successful commercialization of NASA technology and research, not only to share the benefits of the space program with the public but to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs."

This year in Spinoff, readers will learn more about:

How companies use information from NASA's vertical farm to sustainably grow fresh produce

New ways that technology developed for insulation in space keeps people warm in the great outdoors

How a system created for growing plants in space now helps improve indoor air quality and reduces the spread of airborne viruses like coronavirus

How phase-change materials originally developed to help astronauts wearing spacesuits absorb, hold and release heat help keep race car drivers cool

Other highlights include one of the first robotic commercial lunar landers, developed with NASA mentorship and technology investment, which is slated to deliver NASA science and technology payloads to the Moon in 2022 under the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. The publication also features a grip-strengthening glove based on a robotic astronaut assistant that helps reduce workplace stress injuries, as well as detect-and-avoid systems, flight simulators, and a navigation app that enable remotely piloted aircraft to fill the sky. And it tells the story behind the Space Pen.

"These NASA technologies are not only giving companies and entrepreneurs a competitive edge in their own industries but are also helping to shape budding industries, such as commercial lunar landers," said Daniel Lockney, Technology Transfer program executive at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "NASA is much more than rocket launches and astronauts. We're about improving the quality of life for people all around the world."

The book also features a Spinoffs of Tomorrow section that highlights 20 NASA technologies ripe for commercial application and available for licensing. These include a next-generation biometric identity verification system to unlock phones and computers using heartbeats, a nanomaterial thin-film device that can convert carbon dioxide into fuel, and a self-healing aluminum that can repair cracks and reverse damage in structures such as aircraft, tanks, and fuel lines.

Spinoff is part of the agency's Technology Transfer program within STMD. The program is charged with finding the widest possible applications for NASA technology through partnerships and licensing agreements with industry, ensuring that NASA's investments in its missions and research find additional applications that benefit the nation and the world. The program offers several resources for potential licensees in industry, academia, and beyond, including:

A webinar series featuring NASA inventors that offers an up-close look at their technology and the potential applications

Entrepreneur training through reoccurring NASA Startup Studio events and an accelerator focusing on collaboration with Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Special licensing terms for qualified startups that waive the initial licensing fees

Those interested in licensing NASA technology are encouraged to begin their search by browsing the agency's patent portfolio.

To read or download the digital version of the latest issue of Spinoff, visit:

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/

SOURCE NASA
MANZINI  Stakeholders in the labour sector say government should create jobs that will absorb graduates who will contribute to pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax.

On Saturday, our sister publication, Eswatini News, reported that government presented a plan to create 9 055 jobs this year from new and existing investments to be introduced in the country. Prime Minister (PM) Cleopas Dlamini was quoted as having said that the envisaged jobs would come from a variety of sectors, one of which was the building of factory shells, which would create over 700 jobs during the construction phase and 6 270 upon completion. The various stakeholders were sought for comment on the nature of opportunities that could be brought by these jobs given that the Labour Force Survey of 2021 report stated that the overall unemployment in the kingdom was 33.3 per cent, which was an acute increase from 23.4 per cent recorded in 2016. This report stated that youth employment was at 58.2 per cent. Economics scholar and University of Eswatini Lecturer, Sanele Sibiya, said government was always announcing that jobs would be created.

Opportunities

He said from what had been learnt from the past, the job opportunities that were availed, absorbed a limited number of the educated youth which government funded through scholarships. He said what the country needed, in order to have a sustainable economy, was a creation of employment opportunities that would promote skills transfers. Making an example, he said it did not benefit the country to offer tenders to companies from abroad to engage in work that could be executed by locals. He said for the probase programme, government should look into how other countries had done it in terms of absorbing the skill. If the skills can be transferred, wed have companies within communities that repair such infrastructure. In this way, long-term employment would be created as such companies can also be used by the local governments (municipalities and town councils), Sibiya said.

The economics scholar also said government needed to share the specifics of the nature of jobs that were being brought into the country because low paying jobs like textile factories had a minimal impact. An economist who gave his scholarly opinion on condition of anonymity said government needed a guideline to create quality employment aligned with the curriculum in schools. He said promising jobs that were not in line with the policies set limited the exploitation of the graduates.

Targets

The economist said it was prudent to have short and long-term targets in the nature of developing the jobs that were being created would have in the country. Meanwhile, the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) Secretary General (SG0, Mduduzi Gina, had always insisted that the nature of jobs brought into the country should be decent. Gina said this was born out of their experience from the past, as he claimed that the employment opportunities announced and later delivered before had created a poor working class that which was remunerated far below the cost-of-living.

If the 9 000 jobs announced by government would absorb a minimum of 5 000 graduates, then that would improve the lives of emaSwati as the employed would also employ other people in the informal sector, Gina said. He said their call for the absorption of graduates was to bring trust to the youth that education was a source of employment, unlike now, as most of the unemployed were graduates. The trade unionist said it was also key to ensure that the employment opportunities that were frequently announced by government meant that employees recruited would be within the tax bracket. On the other hand, a questionnaire was sent to the Deputy Government Spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli. She was sought for an input following concerns raised that government in most instances gave figures of people to be employed; however, at close scrutiny, the nature of the jobs brought did not absorb a great percentage of the graduates produced by local tertiary institutions.

However, Mdluli referred the questions to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade. It was sent to the Minister, Manqoba Khumalo. The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo said government was very proud of the efforts on job creation. Khumalo said as reported mid-last year, the ministry had seen many jobs being created across many sectors of the economy - namely Agriculture, Forestry, Manufacturing and Retail.

Cabinet

He said: This coming year we have very specific plans on job creation that will be supported by the budget that Cabinet will propose to Parliament as well as investment promotion efforts led by Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority (EIPA). The minister said they were planning to create over 9 000 direct permanent jobs and a further 3 000 jobs that would support these new ventures across the value and supply chains. Khumalo said about 2 000 of these jobs would be in the mining sector - specifically growth in existing mines coupled with new projects for which licences had been issued.
The 2022 Workplace Belonging Survey, commissioned by Ipsos on behalf Dr. Rumeet Billan , researcher, speaker, and expert on psychological capital, finds that nearly all employed Americans (88%) agree that a sense of belonging at work boosts productivity. It also explores the gaps in what workers believe would lead to a sense of belonging and what they are currently experiencing at their jobs.

Belonging is good for business

"We have recently undergone life-altering challenges as a population, exposing the need for workplace cultures to be transformed," said Dr. Billan. "More than 19 million American workers have quit their jobs since April 2021, disrupting businesses everywhere. Companies cannot afford to continue going through this type of employee turnover. It is important that we take the time to learn why this is happening and our recent findings suggest that workers place a high value on the very human and relational aspects of work."

Employed Americans agree that belonging leads to higher productivity at work. If workers feel like they belong, companies can reap substantial benefits  lower turnover, healthier corporate culture, a more productive workforce, engaged employees, and more.

Nearly all (88%) strongly or somewhat agree that a sense of belonging leads to higher productivity at work, including a majority (54%) that strongly agree.

Three quarters (76%) say having a sense of belonging at work means being treated fairly and respectfully.

Two in three say a sense of belonging at work means having their perspective and/or contributions valued by their colleagues and superiors (64%) and working in an environment where they feel accepted (64%).

The largest disparity between what workers think belonging means and what they currently feel at work is "being treated fairly and respectfully at work" (17 percentage point difference), followed by "having their perspective and/or contributions valued by their colleagues and superiors" and "feeling connected with others at work" (15 percentage point difference for both).

Fairness and respect are critical to employee belonging

Employees cite fairness and respect as the top driver of belonging in the workplace, presenting the greatest opportunity for businesses and employers to create belonging in their organizations.

Inclusion, connection, alignment: opportunities to drive belonging at work

"Belonging is not a program or initiative, it is an experience related to social connectedness, feeling included, and being accepted," said Dr. Billan. "It's not just about inviting everyone to the proverbial table. What happens when they get there? Now, more than ever, companies and employers must take a more human-centered approach to how they support, communicate, and engage with their employees. Well-intentioned quick fixes can come across as transactional or virtue signaling when this is not complemented with the effort to strengthen relational ties."

Only 36% of employed Americans feel they work in an inclusive environment.

Less than half of employed Americans feel connected with others at work (45%).

Less than half of American workers (40%) feel aligned with their organization's mission, vision, and values. This is also true for Millennials, who represent 35% of the total U.S. labor force and are currently the largest working generation. Just over one in three (35%) feel aligned with their organization's mission, vision, and values.

Belonging is a fundamental human motivation, and we are hardwired towards it. Employees are experiencing stress and burnout. They are seeking a renewed sense of purpose in their work and want connection with their colleagues and superiors. Failing to recognize and invest in creating experiences of belonging and failing to meet the demands of a changing workforce will continue to push workers out instead of pulling them in.

Lonely at work

The 2022 Workplace Belonging Study reveals that one in four women feel lonely at work.

The survey asked respondents what they wished their peers and colleagues knew about stressors that were impacting their day-to-day life at work. One survey respondent said, "It's hard being the only woman and person of color in my position."

Another respondent shared, "how hard it is to be a younger female in a predominantly older male community."

Feeling lonely at work is not only problematic for employees, it also poses a great business challenge for companies and employers as well. When employees feel lonely at work, they are more likely to withdraw, take more sick days, and the data suggests that they are more likely to leave.

Psychological safety in the workplace is a concern. Less than half (45%) of employed Americans feel safe sharing their opinions or thoughts without fear of negative consequences. The survey also shows that less than half (47%) of women feel their perspective and/or contributions are valued by their colleagues and superiors.

"Psychological safety is critical to creating a culture that fosters trust, belonging, and resilience," said Dr. Billan. "Without it, organizations can't thrive and will continue to face retention issues."

When it comes to creating experiences of belonging, an immediate change is needed to support women in the workplace.

About Dr. Rumeet Billan

Dr. Rumeet Billan is an award-winning, internationally recognized entrepreneur, researcher, speaker, and expert on psychological capital. Her mission is to transform workplace cultures through research, training, and experiences that enable trust, foster belonging, and build resilience. Dr. Billan completed her PhD at the University of Toronto, and has designed and facilitated programs, courses, and training sessions across industries and sectors. She led the groundbreaking research study on Tall Poppy Syndrome which reveals the impact of the silent systemic syndrome on women in the workplace, and co-led the Canadian Happiness at Work Study.

Dr. Billan has been named Canada's Top 100 Health Leaders in 2021, Canada's Top 10 Power Women, and was twice named one of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women by the Women's Executive Network. She is a regular guest on top radio and television morning shows, and has been featured in Forbes, The Globe and Mail, National Post, and more. She recently authored her first award-winning and bestselling book Who Do I Want To Become ? designed for anyone, of any age, who has been stumped by the question of what they're going to be when they grow up.

Through her work, Dr. Billan provides a platform that encourages others to envision what could be possible. Since 2004, she has contributed to social impact initiatives that improve access to and the quality of education in North America, South America, and Africa. Recently, Dr. Billan made a donation of more than 280,000 brand-new books from various publishers and authors to be distributed to children and youth in need. She continues to support causes and lead initiatives that promote human welfare.

www.rumeetbillan.com | Twitter: @rumeetbillan | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rumeetbillan

About the Study

The 2022 Workplace Belonging Survey was conducted January 7  January 11, 2022 by Ipsos using our KnowledgePanel. This survey is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,054 U.S. employed adults and oversamples in each of the following Designated Market Area (DMA): New York City (n=333), Chicago (n=283), Los Angeles (n=295), and Washington D.C (n=286). There were 2,098 total respondents. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of employed adults.

More information about the study is available on Ipsos' website.

Media Contact

Maricel Joy Dicion

[email protected]

1-213-523-7213

SOURCE Dr. Rumeet Billan
BELOIT, Wis., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Louis Pinkham, Chief Executive Officer of Regal Rexnord Corporation (NYSE: RRX), announced that the Board of Directors, at its regular quarterly meeting held on January 24, 2022, declared a dividend of $0.33 per share. The dividend is payable on April 14, 2022, to shareholders of record at the close of business on March 31, 2022. The company has paid a dividend every quarter since January 1961.

Regal Rexnord Corporation is a global leader in the engineering and manufacturing of industrial powertrain solutions, power transmission components, electric motors and electronic controls, air moving products, and specialty electronics, serving customers throughout the world. Through longstanding technology leadership and an intentional focus on producing the most energy-efficient products and systems, Regal Rexnord helps create a better tomorrow  for its customers and for the planet.

Regal Rexnord is comprised of four operating segments: Motion Control Solutions, Climate Solutions, Commercial Systems and Industrial Systems. Regal Rexnord is headquartered in Beloit, Wisconsin and has manufacturing, sales, and service facilities worldwide. For more information, visit RegalRexnord.com .

SOURCE Regal Rexnord Corporation
TUCSON, Ariz., Jan 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Six Russian navy landing ships from the Baltic fleet have passed through the English Channel, according to the Daily Mail, evidently headed for Ukraine. Additionally, more than 100,000 Russian troops are reportedly amassed along Ukraine's border. "Americans need to ask what this means for them," states Doctors for Disaster Preparedness president Jane Orient, M.D., noting the following events:

Sweden deployed troops as the Russian vessels passed, British anti-tank systems have been supplied to Ukraine, and Canadian commandos are already on the ground. Germany, a partner with Russia in the NordStream Pipeline, has declined to send weapons and blocked Ukraine from receiving military support from Estonia. A $200 million package of U.S. military aid has reportedly been awaiting President Biden's approval for weeks. The U.S. has ordered embassy personnel to leave and warns it will not be able to evacuate Americans in the event of war.

In President Biden's Jan 19 press conference, he conceded that "militarily, [the Russians] have overwhelming superiority and onas it relates to Ukraine." He also said that Putin has "never seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed if he moves."

Biden stated: "The cost of going into Ukraine in terms of physical loss of life for the Russians, they will be able to prevail over time, but it's going to be heavy."

"The possibility of retaliation and spreading conflict is a grave concern," stated Dr. Orient. Biden said: "We're going to actually increase troop presence in Poland or Romania, etc. if, in fact, he [Putin] moves because we have a sacred obligation on Article 5 to defend those countries, they are part of NATO. We don't have that obligation relative to Ukraine."

"In the missile age, war could come to America in minutes," Dr. Orient said. "Our rudimentary ballistic missile defense is designed only for a limited attack by a rogue state such as North Korea, not for an incoming attack by Russia or China." She also noted that our civil defense has been "do it yourself" since the 1990s and earlier.

"Millions of lives could be saved if Americans had minimal knowledge."

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness provides information to help save lives in the event of natural or man-made disasters.

Contact: Jane M. Orient, M.D., (520) 323-3110, [email protected]

SOURCE Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
MENTOR, Ohio, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Rustic Pathways announced today the conclusion of its first Climate Leaders Fellowship, a two-month online program for high school students across the world. The leadership development program targeted students aged 14-18 who are interested in stopping the harmful effects of climate change. The group of international students researched the effects of climate change in their own communities then found ways to combat the problems locally.

"Like-minded students from all over the world learned how to build a local action plan from start to finish, gaining real-world skills and global friendships," said Patrick Ziemnik, Team Leader, Client Experience at Rustic Pathways, and one of the program's facilitators.

This program followed the Global Youth Climate Summit , a collaboration between the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, the Rustic Pathways Foundation and Rustic Pathways .

With the support of facilitators, the program participants contributed over 500 hours of service and launched 17 projects, collecting more than one ton of food and $5,000 in funds from hundreds of donors.

The contributions helped communities hit hard by wildfires, flooding, and other intense climate-related weather events in the United States, Canada, Japan and Thailand.

Participants noted the following program highlights:

Students connected with a global network of like-minded students.

Students researched a local climate-related problem, planned an action strategy, and implemented a project in partnership with local nonprofit organizations.

Students gained leadership, organization, and communication skills.

Founded in 1983, Rustic Pathways started with rugged, off-the-beaten-path trips that took adventurous, pioneering teenaged travelers on eight-week Australian Outback experiences. Over the next four decades, Rustic Pathways built on its legacy by coupling adventure travel with service learning to help young people learn, collaborate and build solutions to change lives and the world. The company's launch of its Climate Leaders Fellowship is part of a long-term strategic growth plan that includes investing in programs that can expand and enhance Rustic Pathways's global impact.

"The Climate Leaders Fellowship is part of Rustic Pathways's long-term plan to enhance the global impact of our programs, support local communities, and develop future leaders," said Ziemnik.

The next Climate Leaders Fellowship will take place February 28 to April 30, 2022. The program is sponsored by Rustic Pathways and offered free of charge to participants. The deadline to apply for the next cohort of the leadership program is February 4.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Rustic Pathways
As the Green Coffee Company looks towards the future, the focus will be on solidifying its position as the #1 largest coffee producer in all of Colombia. The path to a successful exit for the company has become more clear as it has navigated through this capital raise. The GCC used this investment to (1) double its farms to 4,700 acres - becoming the #2 largest coffee producer in Colombia - and (2) to become the most technologically-advanced coffee producer in Colombia and, we believe, globally.

The $3.5 million upsize to the original $9.6 million Series B was funded in just three weeks by the company's accredited investor base. Over the past six months, the company has welcomed dozens of investors and supporters of the business to its farms in Salgar, Colombia in order to see its progress first-hand. The GCC has inaugurated the first of two new world-class coffee processing facilities, with the second expected to come online in Q1 2022 ( watch here ).

The Green Coffee Company is a consolidated coffee farming operation headquartered in the U.S. with operations based in Medellin, Colombia. The company's innovative business model allows for complete control of the supply chain: from cultivation, through processing, to direct trade with end-clients. GCC's holistic approach to the coffee sector and commitment to best environmental practices not only establishes the long-term profitability and sustainability of the business, but also improves the quality of the coffee produced on the farms.

For more information, please contact the company's asset manager, Legacy Group, at [email protected] , or visit their website at https://legacy-group.co/ .

Follow Legacy Group on Linkedin for communications related to the Green Coffee Company and other alternative investment opportunities: at https://www.linkedin.com/company/legacygroup/ .

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1730901/Green_Coffee_Company_Logo.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1730902/Green_Coffee_Company_Farms.jpg

SOURCE Legacy Group
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Students and advocates from around the state will encounter American government in action and imagine the future of education policy at a Tennessee Day on the Hill celebration marking National School Choice Week 2022.

WHAT:

Tennessee Day on the Hill

Celebration of National School Choice Week

WHO:

Several hundred Tennessee students and advocates

WHEN:

Tuesday, Jan. 25 , 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

WHERE:

Cordell Hull State Building

Event planners for the Tennessee Day at the Capitol include TennesseeCAN and American Federation for Children - Tennessee.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
DALLAS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Torres Trade Advisory, LLC[1] ("TTA"), a business advisory firm, and Vazquez Tercero & Zepeda ("VTZ"), Mexico's leading international trade law firm, are joining forces to provide companies in the United States and Mexico with regulatory risk solutions, trade due diligence, operational support, and international trade support on both sides of the border.

TTA and VTZ formed their alliance in response to growing client demand for assistance in highly regulated areas in both the United States and Mexico including customs issues, ethics compliance, and export controls, as well as for political and regulatory guidance and a variety of other international trade compliance matters. In addition, the alliance will allow clients of both firms to draw upon the extensive experience of TTA and VTZ as they explore opportunities to innovate and enhance client service in Mexico and the United States.

"We are thrilled at the opportunity to collaborate with our colleagues at VTZ in Mexico," says TTA's President, Olga Torres. "Right now, we anticipate an era of increased enforcement on both sides of the border just as businesses are expanding compliance programs to respond to an American public that expects companies to improve trade compliance, ethics, increase transparency, and comply with forced-labor laws. This is particularly challenging because those same businesses are struggling to find experienced teams to manage ongoing supply chain issues and reopen post-pandemic. Mexico is the United States' largest trading partner  many of our clients have office locations or business operations there  so we're very pleased that we can provide clients access to VTZ's support on Mexican trade issues."

"With nine offices in Mexico, we felt that entering the United Sates market was critical to assisting our clients," adds Adrian Vazquez, Managing Partner at VTZ. "But doing so was only possible with TTA, whose values and vision align so closely with our own. Businesses in the USMCA market need firms in both Mexico and the United States that are committed to working together and jointly navigating the intricacies of complex international trade operations between the two countries. We share language, culture, and principles with TTA  including a common dedication to professionalism and responsiveness  and together we are now well positioned to provide highly qualified services to companies on both sides of the border."

Torres Trade Advisory is a business advisory firm with offices in Dallas, Texas and Washington D.C. focused on delivering strategic international trade guidance in areas such as customs risks and compliance, economic sanctions and export controls, operational compliance, corporate investigations and due diligence, and cybersecurity.

Vazquez Tercero & Zepeda is a leading Mexican law firm deeply respected for its prowess in anti-dumping investigations and countervailing duties, customs compliance, and verifications of origin, with offices in the main Mexican industrial cities and in the Mexico-United States border.

[1] Torres Trade Advisory, LLC is a business advisory firm and does not provide legal services. For cases where Torres Trade Advisory clients require legal representation or advice with respect to laws in the United States, they will need to seek separate U.S.-based legal counsel.

Photo(s):https://www.prlog.org/12901794

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE Torres Trade Advisory, LLC
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Nicole Cober, Esq., Principal Managing Partner of The CJR Group, brings together 50 Black-female-owned businesses representing $200M in revenue to form The BOW Collective, a groundbreaking organization of Black women business owners who partner together and compete for large-scale contracts in both the public and private sectors.

For years, Black women have not enjoyed equity in entrepreneurship. They have been turned down all too often seeking capital, connections, and contract opportunities to grow our businesses. Black women entrepreneurs have received only 0.3% in investment capital. As a result, just 1% of Black women businesses generate more than $250K in revenue.

To change this disturbing reality, we formed BOW to collaborate and negotiate as a collective to support and scale Black women businesses. We have felt underserved by other organizations focused on supporting women in business. This organization is a measure to close the racial wealth gap in America and create generational wealth for our members and the Black community at large.

Business philanthropist Cober believes that by working together to get financial resources and contracts to these Black women enterprises, it will have a seismic economic impact on the Black community.

Notably, The BOW Collective requires that each of its businesses exceed gross annual revenues of $1 million. Considering that only 4.2% of all women-owned firms have revenues of $1 million or more, these Black women are business leaders within the small business community.

The BOW Collective members average 15 years in business, have more than 1,050 employees, and collectively have more than $200 million in gross annual sales.

A primary strategy of the Collective is to leverage their relationships with Fortune 500 companies and government agencies to broker multi-year contracts. Additionally, The BOW Collective wants stronger banking relationships and investment opportunities for their businesses.

"If you are looking to do business with or invest in Black women businesses, The BOW Collective members are here," Cober says. "If you are not doing business with Black women, your company is not optimizing your results. Our members stand ready to do business."

In fact, the members' existing clients include but are not limited to Amazon, GSA, the Department of Defense, Toyota, and Skanska.

The BOW Collective has the experience and capacity to work with powerhouses like Microsoft, HPE, and Verizon and are lining up meetings with supplier diversity teams to cut through red tape.

"We want to be the business development committee and help corporations find small businesses with capacity who can help these companies make their diversity goals. Conventional wisdom states that Black-owned businesses do not have the bandwidth to do business with large companies. The BOW Collective endeavors to change that perception with data and superior performance," says Fatimah Moody, partner of LinkVisum Consulting Group, Inc., and a The BOW Collective member.

"We want to leverage and improve those relationships and even encourage banks to compete for our collective business needs," says Michelle Taylor, President and CEO of BETAH Associates, and a BOW Collective member.

Edie Fraser, CEO of the Women's Business Collaborative, who serves on the Advocacy Board for the Collective, enthusiastically supports the organization: "It is a joy to congratulate Nicole Cober for establishing The Bow Collective, supporting more business for more women. It takes the village of mutual support and all who can provide capital and contracts to great women-owned businesses. It takes collaboration and sharing the rich resources and capabilities of these businesses and their leaders."

The Bow Collective official launch event is planned for February 2-3, 2022, at the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia. The event includes an awards luncheon that celebrates legendary Black women in business. Cober believes that the organization will grow its chapter to a maximum of 100 members, with the goal of creating additional chapters around the nation starting in 2023.

Contact: Robin Beaman

Phone:312.208.1212

[email protected]

SOURCE The BOW Collective
To understand more about Market Dynamics. Download our FREE sample report

Key Whiskey Market Report Highlights:

Market growth 2020-2025: USD 28.67 billion Growth momentum & CAGR: Accelerate at a CAGR of 5.64% YoY growth (%): 5.00% Performing market contribution: APAC at 51% Key consumer countries: India , US, Thailand , Canada , France , and the UK

Regional Market Analysis

With 51% of the growth originating from APAC, this region will record a fast growth rate during 2021-2025. India and Thailand are the key markets for whiskey in APAC. Market growth in APAC will be faster than the growth of the market in other regions.

The growing demand for whiskey can be attributed to a variety of factors like rising disposable incomes, westernization, and lifestyle changes. Emerging economies have a large population and rising disposable incomes, making this a good market for whiskey.

India held the greatest share of the global whiskey market in 2016, and it is likely to continue to do so over the forecast period. The rise of the whiskey market in APAC is being fueled by rising disposable income, the growing appeal of western culture, and the introduction of novel whiskey tastes.

For Additional Information about the regional market: Request for a free sample report.

Key Vendors and Vendor Strategies

Bacardi Ltd., Beam Suntory Inc., Brown Forman Corp., Constellation Brands Inc., Davide Campari Milano Spa, Diageo Plc, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Pernod Ricard SA, William Grant and Sons Ltd., Allied Blenders, and Distillers Pvt. Ltd. are a few of the key vendors in the whiskey market.

The vendors in the market are constantly focusing on broadening their product portfolio through expanding their product offerings. Additionally, vendors are focusing on expanding their presence in new regions.

For instance:

Allied Blenders and Distillers Pvt. Ltd., the company offers Stering, Officers choice blue and others.

Bacardi Ltd., the company offers Maestros de Ron BACARDI.

Brown Forman Corp., the company offers popular brand Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey .

Download our free sample report to get a brief understanding of various other vendors and the vendor's strategies.

Key Market Drivers

Our analysts have extensively outlined the information on the key market drivers and their impact on the Whiskey Market.

New product launches :

: The increasing number of new product launches by manufacturers is one of the main drivers for the global whiskey market. To meet the wants of the consumers, market participants are introducing new items. The expansion of the industry and the participants is aided by successful new product releases. A successful new product introduction can help a player's income and customer base grow. It also helps the player improve their market share and gives them a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Key Market Trends

Increasing demand for Irish whiskey and American bourbon

Irish whiskey is the world's fastest-growing spirit category, and rising demand for Irish whiskey and American bourbon is likely to boost the whiskey market's growth over the projection period. Despite having a modest market share of the global whiskey market in 2020, demand for Irish whiskey is growing rapidly, and the sector is likely to grow its market share during the forecast period. Some of the reasons that will boost demand for Irish whiskey over the projection period are its sweet and smooth flavor, competitive pricing, investments by big brands, and an increase in demand among the young, first-timers, and female whiskey consumers.

To know about a few other market drivers, trends, and challenges,

Download our free sample report

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Whiskey Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2025 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 5.64% Market growth 2021-2025 $ 28.67 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 5.00 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and MEA Performing market contribution APAC at 51% Key consumer countries India, US, Thailand, Canada, France, and the UK Competitive landscape Leading companies, Competitive strategies, Consumer engagement scope Key companies profiled Bacardi Ltd., Beam Suntory Inc., Brown Forman Corp., Constellation Brands Inc., Davide Campari Milano Spa, Diageo Plc, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, Pernod Ricard SA, William Grant and Sons Ltd., and Allied Blenders and Distillers Pvt. Ltd. Market dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and recovery analysis and future consumer dynamics, Market condition analysis for the forecast period Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

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Ann Arbor, Mich., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The sophisticated shape and surface chemistry of the protein molecules is essential in their interactions with each other that enable the finely tunes physiology of living organisms including the immune response. A recent discovery by international team of scientists from Jiangnan University, University of Michigan, and the University of Sao Carlos showed the biomimetic gold nanoparticles can mimic very complex protein molecules that can selectively interact with proteins on the surfaces of immune cells and drastically enhance the production of antibodies to the H9N2 influenza virus by more than 1200 times.

The protein have shapes with a special property  they are chiral. Although they may look similar, the chiral objects are not identical with their mirror image  just like our hands  and one of these objects is named right and the other one is left. Chirality is a ubiquitous property in living matter that can be found, for instance in the helical shape of DNA. Transfer of signals between cells relies on the lock-and-key interaction of mirror-symmetrical molecules. In the past, Professor Nicholas Kotov from University of Michigan found that chirality of nanoparticles can be imparted from chiral photons with helical shapes. The author of the recent paper in Nature titled Enantiomer-dependent immunological response to chiral nanoparticles , used this technology to create gold nanoparticles with variable degree of chirality. When one illuminates the nanoparticles with left-handed helical light, the particles become left-handed. When the light has a right-handed twist, they become right-handed. They are nearly perfect mirror images of each other as was established by strict mathematical measures and optical parameter called g-factor. The longer one illuminates the particles, the more chiral they become, which is essential for 'tuning' their shape to maximize the interactions with specific receptors on the cells.

The scientists from USA, China, and Brazil, found that the complex chiral shape of the synthesized gold nanoparticles matches very well with the receptors that have long chiral 'tails' on the surface of immature dendritic cells found in bone marrow (Figure 2). When the nanoparticles attach to these tails, the sophisticated machinery inside these cells become activated and in presence of antigens  the pieces of the virus or other infection, they mature into dendritic cells with cells spiky shapes (Figure 3). In other words, the chiral nanoparticles launch the biological program of the immune system to fight the infection. This complex biological process eventually results in the B lymphocyte cells that produce antibodies that neutralize the virus, concurrently, promote cytotoxic CD8+ T cells maturation that kill the infected cells.

The team of Prof. Chuanlai Xu from Jiangnan University injected H9N2 influenza vaccine mixed with nanoparticles into mice  a model organism to test the vaccines. These experiments revealed that the change from normal (that is non-chiral) to complex chiral shape of the nanoparticles dramatically increased influenza-specific antibody titer. Professor Chuanlai Xu says "We observed a large difference in the immune response in mice to nanoparticles of different chirality  more than 1200 times, which is remarkable." This difference reflects the big role of twisted shapes of nanoparticles in mimicking protein-protein interactions and amazing precision of engineering of the biomimetic nanostructures achieved by the authors. Professor Nicholas Kotov highlights "Notwithstanding the known challenges of practical implementation of inorganic nanoparticles in medicine, their nanoscale chirality is a potent tool to modulate the immune response and, perhaps, some other responses at the cellular and organisms levels that we were not aware of so far."

Dr. Alexander Hooftman and Prof. Luke A. J. O'Neill from the Trinity College Dublin who was not involved in the work, points out "This study shows, chirality is a key property of nanoparticles in immune-cell activation  a discovery that will no doubt inform efforts to design nanoparticles with widespread utility". Simple and versatile engineering of chirality in nanoparticles using helical light opened a path to the biomimetic nanoparticle in immunology in many forms. The same mechanisms and similar nanoparticles can be potentially used as vaccine adjuvants to enhance the immune response to many viruses and cancers.

The paper describing this work in details titled Enantiomer-dependent immunological response to chiral nanoparticles is published in the January 19th issue of journal Nature.

About Index of Sciences Ltd

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MBABANE  First it was the police, now it is the ACC.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), has directed incarcerated Member of Parliament (MP) Mduduzi, Bacede Mabuza, to furnish it with detailed information and documents pertaining to the eight officers from His Majestys Correctional Services (HMCS) who have accounts at Baceth Investments. He has also been ordered to dispose to an affidavit detailing among other things how the officers got to have accounts in his business. The commission is reportedly investigating whether there was any element of corruption when the officers opened the accounts.

Mabuza is the owner of Baceth Hardware Stores, which has branches across all regions of the country. Baceth Investments is one of the hardware stores which allows customers to open accounts with them for purposes of purchasing building material. The eight officers are now subject to the investigation that has been instituted by the ACC and the police pertaining the smuggling of two cellphones, which were found in Mabuzas possession. The officers whos accounts details are now subject to investigation are Thokozani Mhlanga, Lucky Dludlu, Lasco Leandry, Johannes Tsabedze, Tom Bongwe, Mangaliso Dlamini, Neliswa Dlamini and Bheki Magagula.

Served

The ACC served the MP with the document directing him to furnish it with the information and documents at the Matsapha Maximum Prison last week. In the correspondence, the commission requested Mabuza to furnish it with certified copies of information detailing opening documents of the customers and/or loan issuance books of the officers, statements of accounts from date that they were opened to current date and/or loan issuance books and the clients know your customer (KYC) documents. Your institution will be required to provide us with affidavits outlining the above information that would be discussed between our investigators and your offices in respect of this investigation, reads part of the document.

The legislator was ordered to furnish the commission with the required information and documents within seven business days from receipt of the letter from the ACC. The three-page letter to the MP was signed by the Commissioner of the ACC, Daniel Dlamini. Mabuza was further informed that the request for the information and documents was made in terms of Section 11 and 12 of the Prevention of Corruption Act 3 of 2006. Section 11 of the Act provides that: In performance of the function of the commission to conduct an inquiry or investigation into alleged suspected offences; can direct an executive officer or any public or private body to furnish within such time as specified by the commissioner, any document or a certified true copy of any document which is in possession or under the control of that person and which the commissioner considers necessary for the conduct of investigations into alleged suspected offence.

The Act further stipulates that, where it appears to the commissioner that an offence under this Act may have been committed by a person, he may for purposes of an investigation of that offence authorise an investigating officer to exercise the following: Investigate and inspect any bank account or other account of whatever description or kind and any bank book of or relating to the person named or otherwise identified in the authority. It also gives the commissioner the power to request from any person production of any accounts, books or company book, relating to a certain person and take original or certified true copies of any accounts, books or documents. Meanwhile, the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) recently obtained an order compelling Mabuza and his company to furnish the police with details of accounts of the eight officers from His Majesty Correctional Services held with Baceth Investments.

The order directing Mabuza to furnish the police with the account details came after the police moved an application in terms of Section 49b (1) of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act of 67/1938. In the application for the order, the court was informed that the documents were needed as part of the criminal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the smuggling of cellphones. On December 10, 2021, Mabuza was found with two cellphones inside the Matsapha Maximum Prison. The legislator was reportedly found with the gadgets during a random search, which was conducted by HMCS officers at the Matsapha Maximum Prison. It is said the officers then confisticated the cellphones and the matter was reported to the management, and this led to the office of the commissioner general appointing a select team to probe how the gadgets got to Mabuza.

Cellphones

The findings of the task team would determine who would be charged for the offence, as cellphones were prohibited within the area designated for inmates. Just after the discovery of the cellphones, there was a brief investigation which was conducted by the Correctional Facility warders, wherein there were allegations that the gadgets were smuggled into the facility allegedly by some of the people who frequently visited Mabuza. There were also suspicions that the MP allegedly received assistance from some of the officers. In a recent statement issued by his legal team, Mabuza confirmed knowledge of the two cellphones that were found in his possession.

In the statement, Mabuza stated that the cellphones belonged to him and he used them for three purposes, mainly to communicate with his suppliers, his employees and family members. He disclosed that the numbers contained therein were of the aforementioned people. He went on to assure his family, his constituency, his colleagues and all emaSwati that the allegations that high ranking officers from HMCS facilitated his getting of the cellphones were not only false but political motivated.
A premium has been placed on the "professionalization" of agency practices. Tweet this

In part 1 of this series, Driving Revenues , Jordan describes how he was able to generate multiples of his salary plus system budget each year through additional revenue generation.

In part 2 of the interview, Reducing Risk , Jordan explains how maintaining strict oversight of an agency's insurer exposures can help it dodge potentially devastating E&O claims, avoid acquisitions that may prove costly due to overconcentration to troubled carriers, and save on internal costs by avoiding duplication of efforts across agency acquisitions.

In the final part of this series, How Do I Build It? , Jordan discusses the logistics of establishing a strong data management system, including the pros and cons of using outsourced services and the potential costs and personnel requirements involved in establishing such a system.

The interviews can be found at http://www.alirtresearch.com/

About i2xSolutions

i2x Solutions is a full-service business and technology consulting organization focusing on the legal and insurance technology sectors. We specialize in integrations, customizations, installations, upgrades, data import/export, report development, and more. Additionally, i2x provides business expertise, consulting, and IT support for regional/local businesses and large insurance receiverships around the nation. Whether you want to improve your business, connect systems, or build an app, we can help.

For additional information, please contact Jordan Riley at [email protected]

About ALIRT Insurance Research

ALIRT Insurance Research models the financial performance trends of life, health, and property & casualty insurers versus their peers and respective insurance industry sectors. This work is used by ALIRT's clients to meet due diligence, competitive intelligence, and sales/marketing needs. With over 20 years of experience, long-time insurance market relationships, and an emphasis on service, ALIRT helps its customers go beyond ratings and financial data to enhance and strengthen their insurance carrier oversight efforts.

For more on ALIRT Research, please contact Andy Felder at [email protected]

SOURCE ALIRT Insurance Research
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A&G Real Estate Partners is auctioning a portfolio of 12 multifamily buildings with a total of 30 units in New Rochellea rare opportunity given the tight supply of residential real estate in Westchester County.

The sealed-bid deadline for the auction is February 23. A&G Realty Brokerage, LLC, is conducting the sale on behalf of a private seller.

This 8,000-square-foot building with seven apartments is the largest of the 12 homes. Sealed bids are due February 16. Terms are flexible: investors can acquire the entire portfolio or individual properties. Located within walking distance of Iona College, the 12 multi-family homes being auctioned by A&G range in size from 1,600 to 8,000 square feet. The portfolio includes 10 two-unit houses, as well as a three-unit building and a seven-unit building. All are 100%-leased through May 2022.

Located within walking distance of Iona College, the 12 assets range in size from 1,600 to 8,000 square feet. They include 10 two-unit houses, as well as a three-unit building and a seven-unit building. Lot sizes range from 3,485 to 12,197 square feet.

"The terms are flexible, so investors can acquire one, several or all of these strong residential assets in the auction," noted Emilio Amendola, Co-President of A&G. "A buyer could easily live in one unit and rent the others, and the close proximity of these 12 assets to one another makes property management more efficient."

The portfolio, which is 100 percent leased through May 2022, has a track record of generating significant revenues, added A&G's Jeff Hubbard, Senior Managing Director, Real Estate Sales. Annual gross income for the portfolio currently totals nearly $1.1 million.

"New Rochelle is the second-largest city in Westchester County and the third-most densely populated. The demand for residential housing in the market is strong, including among renters," Hubbard noted. "The area also benefits from easy access to both public transportation and major arteries like I-95 and the Hutchinson River Parkway. Peak travel time to Manhattan on Metro-North trains is approximately 35 minutes."

Virtual tours of the properties are available upon execution of a confidentiality agreement, which also provides access to an online due diligence room. Property inspections will be given to qualified bidders after the bid deadline. Following the inspections, if an auction is necessary, it will take place on March 8.

For due diligence and other information on the portfolio, visit www.agrep-sales.com/newrochelle or contact Jamie Cote, [email protected]agrep.com or Katie Decoste, [email protected].

About A&G Real Estate Partners

A&G is a team of seasoned commercial real estate professionals and subject matter experts that delivers strategies designed to yield the highest possible value for clients' real estate. Key areas of expertise include real estate sales, occupancy cost reductions, lease terminations, dispositions, real estate due diligence, valuations, acquisitions, and facilitation of growth opportunities. Utilizing its marketing knowledge, reputation and advanced technology, A&G has advised the nation's most prominent retailers and corporations in both healthy and distressed situations. The firm's team has achieved rent-reduction and occupancy-cost savings approaching $8 billion on behalf of clients in every real estate sector, while selling more than $12 billion of non-core properties and leases. Global M&A Network named A&G "Real Estate Restructuring Firm of the Year" for its work in both 2019 and 2020. Founded in 2012, A&G is headquartered in Melville, N.Y. For more information, please visit: http://www.agrep.com/

Press Contacts for A&G: J affe Communications (908-789-0700), Elisa Krantz, [email protected] or Bill Parness, [email protected]

SOURCE A&G Real Estate Partners
NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global airport retailing consumer electronics market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 7.2% from 2022 to 2032, from USD 1,880 million in 2022 to USD 3,780 million by 2032 end.

Travelers benefit from the ease of airport retailing because it is an immediately available choice. During the projected period of 2022-2032, the market valuation will increase by 2.1X due to an increase in the diversity of merchandises available, as well as an increase in the number of low-cost aircraft choices.

Consumer electronics sold in airports have direct application in air travel environments. Furthermore, according to a poll conducted by Airport Council International, a growth of 8% to 10% in global aviation passenger traffic over the last five years is expected to generate profitable prospects for manufacturers. The aforementioned patterns indicate that this market has a good chance of doubling its current market value in the next ten years.

For Critical Insights On This Market, Request For More Info

https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=2218

By the end of 2022, the United Arab Emirates is predicted to contribute 48% of sales in the MEA airport retailing consumer electronics market. With rising air traffic in developing countries, Asia Pacific and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) continue to be popular destinations for airport retailing consumer electronics retailers.

Dufry AG, a Swiss travel retailer and a market leader in airport retailing consumer electronics, has won a new contract with Perth Airport Pty Ltd (PAPL) in Australia to manage a 2,300 m2 with two duty-free outlets. Significant investments in the company's travel retail locations at important airports in these countries, such as Sharjah International Airport, support the company's goal of establishing a stronger footprint in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.

Aero cities are expected to give the highest absolute dollar opportunity among the major store locations linked with airport retailing consumer electronics industry (Pre-security (Landslide), Post-security (Airside), and Aero Cities) during the forecast period of 2022-2032. The current transition pattern followed by the bulk of high-air-passenger-traffic airports such as Seoul Incheon, Singapore Changi, Dubai International, Shanghai Pudong, and Beijing Capital is a factor worth considering.

Report Attribute Details Market Size Value in 2021 USD 1,820 Million Market Value Estimated in 2022 USD 1,880 Million Market Value Forecast in 2032 USD 3,780 Million Global Growth Rate (2022-2032) CAGR 7.2%

Key Takeaways:

Airport retailing consumer electronics market in United Arab Emirates is expected to expand with a growth rate of 8.3% by 2032.

is expected to expand with a growth rate of 8.3% by 2032. Demand for airport retailing consumer electronics in aero cities to reach market value of USD 1,618 Million by 2032.

by 2032. Airport retailing consumer electronics demand grew at a CAGR of 6.1% during the last decade.

Growth Drivers:

Growing trend from normal airports to resembled miniature cities as 'aerotropolis' to spur the revenue of airport retailing consumer electronics.

Airport retailing is an easily accessible option for travelers which is expected to propel the market demand.

Large and busy airports to create lucrative growth opportunities for airport retailing consumer electronics market.

To learn more about Airport Retailing Consumer Electronics Market, you can get in touch with our Analyst at https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=AE&rep_id=2218

Competitive Landscape

The majority of market participants in the airport retailing consumer electronics business have chosen growth-oriented strategies. Furthermore, branding and ongoing technological improvements in the aforementioned technology are at the top of their priority list. These techniques aid global firms in expanding their geographical footprint and capturing maximum market share, resulting in a technical edge.

Durfy, for example, prolonged its relationship in August 2021 by extending the duty and tax-free rental arrangement at Cardiff Airport in Wales .

Key Companies Profiled by Fact.MR are:

Durfy AG

Crystal Media

Royal Capi-Lux ('Capi')

('Capi') InMotion

Dubai Duty Free

Lagardere Travel Retail

Bahrain Duty Free Shop Complex

Regstaer Duty Free

More Valuable Insights on Airport Retailing Consumer Electronics Market

Fact.MR provides an unbiased analysis of airport retailing consumer electronics market, presenting forecast statistics for the period from 2022-2032. The study divulges compelling insights on the global airport retailing consumer electronics market with a detailed segmentation on the basis of:

By Product Type

Electronics Devices



Accessories



Others

By Airport Size

Large



Medium



Small

By Store Location

Pre-security (Landside)



Post-security (Airside)



Aero Cities

By Channel

Hypermarket/Supermarket



Specialty Retail Store



Others

By Regions

North America



Latin America



Europe



East Asia



South Asia



Oceania



Middle East & Africa

Key Questions Covered in Airport Retailing Consumer Electronics Market Report

The report offers insight into the airport retailing consumer electronics market demand outlook for 2022-2032.

The market study also highlights projected sales growth for airport retailing consumer electronics market between 2022 and 2032.

Airport retailing consumer electronics 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.

Airport retailing consumer electronics 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 Technology Domain 

Airport Runway Foreign Object Debris Detection System Market Trends - Resurgence of the civilian aviation sector and rising investments by governments towards air defense infrastructure to spur the airport runway FOD detection systems market through the projection period.

Airport Kiosk Market Forecast - As the demand for more efficient airport administration grows, so will the adoption of kiosk technology at smart airports, creating major potential for leading airport kiosk manufacturers throughout the world.

WiFi Kiosks Market Analysis - A primary factor driving the growth of the WiFi kiosks market is the increasing use of kiosks as a tracking device in numerous hospitals and other organizations to keep track and record of visitors.

Digital Kiosk Market Scope  The adoption of self-service kiosks and the quick development of infrastructure for building connectivity between kiosks and clients are the important trends in the digital kiosk market.

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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 healthcare & 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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SOURCE Fact.MR
MAUMEE, Ohio, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aktion Associates, Inc., national software reseller and IT infrastructure provider focused on the Architectural Engineering & Construction, Distribution and Manufacturing industries, announced today the appointment of Patrick Brennan to the position of Vice President, Supply Chain Division, and Michael Kaufman to the position of Vice President, Technology Division. The appointments were made in response to the retirements of Bob Lindeberg who served as Supply Chain Division vice president from 2018 to 2022, and Steve Rogers who served as Technology Division vice president from 2018 to 2022.

"I'm confident in both Pat and Mike to lead their divisions," said Aktion CEO Scott Irwin. "The Supply Chain and Technology Divisions provide next gen technology solutions and have skilled teams in place to support customers. The foundation is there for Pat and Mike to grow both divisions and continue to support our growing customer base," Scott added.

Brennan will lead a team of sales representatives, application consultants and software engineers in delivering next generation ERP software for the Wholesale Distribution Industry including Infor CloudSuite Distribution ERP. His team is also focused on supporting current customers using heritage Infor software. Brennan is responsible for strategic partnerships with customers and vendors, employee engagement, as well as division sales and service growth. Before being named vice president, Brennan served for three years as Practice Manager, Infor Cloud Suite Distribution in the Supply Chain Division. Brennan graduated from Bryant University and earned a bachelor's of applied science degree in Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services.

- more -

Page 2 - Aktion Associates Appoints Two Vice Presidents

Kaufman will lead a team of IT professionals, system architects, and network engineers to advise companies in the Architecture, Engineering & Construction, Wholesale Distribution and Manufacturing industries. He will be focused on helping companies transform business operations by architecting a modern technology strategy that includes Aktion's industry recognized IT infrastructure, cloud hosting and managed services deliverables. Kaufman is responsible for strategic partnerships with customers and vendors, employee engagement, as well as division sales and service growth. Before being named vice president, Kaufman served for three years managing Aktion's Cloud and Managed Services practices and serving as Sales Manager in the Technology Division. Kaufman graduated from Louisiana State University and earned a bachelor's degree in English Language & Literature.

About Aktion Associates

Aktion Associates is a national ERP software reseller and IT infrastructure provider focused on the Architectural Engineering & Construction, Distribution and Manufacturing industries. Since 1979, more than 5,500 customers have chosen Aktion as their technology advisor. With a workforce of 200 professionals in application consulting, network and software engineering, these teams utilize proprietary lean implementation processes to help customers realize the value of their IT investment. Company-owned data centers provide secure cloud hosting, disaster recovery and backup services, and the Network Operations Center (NOC) monitors managed services clients. Aktion is an IT infrastructure provider for IBM, HP, Lenovo, Cisco, VMware and Microsoft technologies. Other deliverables include network engineering, software engineering, and on-premise IT support. Visit www.aktion.com.

SOURCE Aktion Associates, Inc.
VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - New Pacific Metals Corp. ("New Pacific" or the "Company") (TSX: NUAG) (NYSE American: NEWP) announces that the board of directors (the "Board") has accepted the resignation of Dr. Mark Cruise as Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") and as director of the Board of New Pacific. The Company wishes Dr. Cruise well in his future endeavours.

The Board has appointed Dr. Rui Feng as the CEO. Dr. Feng is the founder of the Company and served as CEO until April 27, 2020. Dr. Feng has stepped down as the Chairman of the Board and Terry Salman has been appointed as the Chairman of the Board.

ABOUT NEW PACIFIC

New Pacific is a Canadian exploration and development company with precious metal projects, including the flagship Silver Sand Project, the Silverstrike Project and the Carangas Project, all of which are located in Bolivia. The Company is focused on progressing the development of the Silver Sand Project, while growing its Mineral Resources through the exploration and acquisition of properties in the Americas.

For further information, please contact:

Stacey Pavlova, CFA

VP, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

New Pacific Metals Corp.

Phone: (604) 633-1368

U.S. & Canada toll-free: 1-877-631-0593

E-mail: [email protected]

www.newpacificmetals.com

To receive company news by e-mail, please register using New Pacific's website at www.newpacificmetals.com.

SOURCE New Pacific Metals Corp.
SINGAPORE, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Blockchain Founders Fund , announced the principal close of BFF II. The $75m fund saw participation from notable investors from across the blockchain and crypto industry as well as many reputable family offices from around the world.

Roger Lim, Founding Partner of NEO Global Capital (NGC) and investor in BFF II said, "BFF is an early investor in many leading companies in the blockchain space and we are excited about co-investment opportunities and building a long-term strategic relationship with the team."

BFF aims to be an early investor to entrepreneurs building promising blockchain, crypto, web3, metaverse startups and provide tailored hands-on support to them through the venture program.

BFF II's investment strategy is a continuation of the success of the venture program model, investing into pre-seed and seed stage projects, and then following on, investing up to $5m into future funding rounds.

Sandeep Nailwal, Founder of Polygon and investor in BFF II said, "We are excited about BFF's hands-on approach in backing and closely working with strong founders."

Some of the notable investors participating in BFF II include NEO Global Capital (NGC), Appworks, Sebastien Borget COO of The Sandbox, GSR, LD Capital, Metavest Capital, TechMeetsTrader, Zipmex, Baksh Capital, Octava, Aria Group, major smart contract audit firms, Blockchain/crypto influencers and many more leading companies and individuals in the blockchain space.

The Blockchain Founders Fund portfolio includes Splinterlands , the #1 ranked blockchain game according to DappRadar , as well as leading companies such as LunarCrush , ASM , and Monkey Ball .

The first investments from BFF II have been made into a handful of exciting companies including FXDX , GRID , RD Land , Rebelbots , Health Hero , The Apocalyptics , FuseFi , Cross the Ages , and Dogami .

Aly Madhavji, Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund said, "We're very excited by the enthusiasm and support from key industry leaders to back entrepreneurs that will shape the Web3 ecosystem."

Discussing near term plans, Mansoor Madhavji, Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund, added, "We've got an incredible team working with us day to day to discover and support great companies and we continue to support our portfolio companies with their talent needs and expand the team with individuals that want to be at the cutting edge of blockchain and VC."

About Blockchain Founders Fund

Blockchain Founders Fund (BFF) is a Singapore based early-stage Venture Capital Fund which invests in top-tier Blockchain startups globally. Their industry leading go-to-market focused Venture Program aids seasoned and first-time entrepreneurs across key business functions to fast track growth. BFF has scaled many of the leading Blockchain startups and is always looking to connect with exceptional founders across the industry including Web3, metaverse, gamefi, DeFi and NFT.

Contact:

Mansoor Madhavji

7782417860

[email protected]

SOURCE Blockchain Founders Fund
DUBLIN, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Chinese Independent OEMs' ADAS and Autonomous Driving Report, 2021" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Chinese brands' ADAS research: Lynk & Co, BYD, Haval and Geely are in the first echelon of L2

In the first eight months of 2021, more than 1.31 million vehicles of Chinese brands were equipped with ADAS, surging by 88.6% on a like-on-like basis, with an installation rate of 25.3%, up 5.7 percentage points compared with the same period of the previous year.

The installations and installation rate of L2 ADAS, a segment in which Chinese brands vied for deployment, increased by 153% and 6 percentage points from the prior-year period, separately. The installations and installation rate of L2.5 ADAS increased by 227% and 0.8 percentage points. In 2021, a breakthrough has been made in mass production of L2+ ADAS for fuel-powered vehicles like WEY Mocha.

L3 ADAS was installed in 17,000 vehicles, with an installation rate of 0.3%. Emerging carmakers such as Xpeng Motors, NIO, Li Auto and ARCFOX were the first ones to equip or demonstrate vehicles with L3 ADAS. The recent five-year plans of Chinese automakers show that the mass production of L4 autonomous vehicles in China may concentrate in 2025.

Lynk & Co and BYD have edged into the first echelon of L2 ADAS

In the L2 ADAS market, Lynk & Co, BYD, Haval and Geely are first-echelon players, of which:

BYD is way ahead of its peers in L2 ADAS installations, which is credited to BYD Han, a model using a sensor solution of 1 front view camera + 3 radars + 4 surround view cameras + 12 ultrasonic radars;

Lynk & Co is among the top few in both installations and installation rate of L2 ADAS, mainly thanks to Lynk & Co 01 and Lynk & Co 03, both using 3R1V sensor solutions.

Changan Auto, GAC Trumpchi, Hongqi and Roewe are in the second echelon, with a bright prospect

For example, by virtue of huge sale volume, UNI Series and AVATR brand as well as related technical strength, Changan Auto is very likely to boast far higher installations of L2.

A breakthrough has made in mass production of L2+ ADAS for WEY Mocha

In the L2.5 ADAS segment, emerging brands like Li Auto and Xpeng Motors go ahead of others.

Among traditional brands, WEY Mocha holds a lead, having packed Highway Assist (HWA) and Navigation on HIPilot (NOH). In 2021, it is about to carry Highway Pilot (HWP) and L3 autonomous driving. What makes more sense for Mocha is its breakthrough in mass production of high-level ADAS for fuel-powered vehicles.

L3 ADAS has been demonstrated on multiple models or mass-produced for them.

In current stage, emerging brands are pacesetters in L3 ADAS, and traditional Chinese brands have completed technology layout:

FAW Hongqi, GAC AION , BAIC ARCFOX, etc. have mass-produced L3 ADAS for their vehicles;

, BAIC ARCFOX, etc. have mass-produced L3 ADAS for their vehicles; Great Wall WEY Mocha is about to carry L3 functions in 2021;

Changan Auto, Geely (ZEEKR), Feifan Auto, IM Motors, etc. have reserved technologies;

JETOUR X Chery JETOUR built on the Kunlun Architecture is projected to pack mass-produced L3 advanced autonomous driving solutions.

One example is ARCFOX a-S HI.

In April 2021, ARCFOX a-S HI (Huawei Inside) co-built by BAIC ARCFOX and Huawei made a debut at the Auto Shanghai. The model carries Huawei's advanced ADS, 3 96-channel LiDARs, 6 radars, 12 cameras, 13 ultrasonic radars, and Huawei chips with computing power of 400TOPS, delivering L3 autonomy and offering capabilities of highway driving assistance, urban advanced driving assistance and valet parking.

The mass production of L4 autonomous vehicles in China may concentrate in 2025.

A number of brands such as SAIC, GAC and Geely have defined SOP of L4:

In June 2021 , SAIC made it clear that it will produce L4 intelligent vehicles in quantities in 2025.

, SAIC made it clear that it will produce L4 intelligent vehicles in quantities in 2025. In July 2021 , GAC announced that GAC AION and Huawei co-developed a mid-to-large-sized intelligent SUV BEV with L4 autonomous driving functions, which is projected to be spawned in 2023.

, GAC announced that and Huawei co-developed a mid-to-large-sized intelligent SUV BEV with L4 autonomous driving functions, which is projected to be spawned in 2023. In October 2021 , Geely specified that it will commercialize L4 autonomous driving in 2025 in the Smart Geely 2025.

Key Topics Covered:



1 Status Quo of Chinese Brands' ADAS Market

1.1 Installations and Installation Rate of ADAS Functions of Chinese Brands

1.2 ADAS Installations and Installation Rate of Chinese Brands: Overall Situation

1.3 L2 ADAS Installations and Installation Rate of Chinese Brands: Overall Situation

1.4 L2 ADAS Installations and Installation Rate of Chinese Brands: By Brand

1.5 L2 ADAS Installations and Installation Rate of Chinese Brands: By Vehicle Model

1.6 L2 ADAS Installations and Installation Rate of Chinese Brands: By Price



2 ADAS and Autonomous Driving Layout of Chinese Brands

2.1 ADAS Development Timelines of Chinese Brands

2.2 Comparison of L2, L2+ and L3 ADAS Solutions

2.3 L2 ADAS Layout: Functions and Solutions

2.4 L2+ ADAS Layout: Functions and Solutions

2.5 L3 ADAS Layout: Functions and Solutions

2.6 L4 ADAS Layout: Functions and Solutions

2.7 ADAS Partner Camps of Chinese Brands



3 Research on ADAS/Autonomous Driving of Chinese Brands

3.1 Changan Auto

3.1.1 ADAS Installation (by Brand/Model), 2021

3.1.2 14th Five-Year Plan

3.1.3 Vehicle Intelligence Strategy

3.1.4 Development Course of Autonomous Driving

3.1.5 Autonomous Driving Roadmap

3.1.6 Core Technologies of ADAS and Autonomous Driving

3.1.7 ADAS/AD Systems

3.1.8 Dynamic Deployments in Autonomous Driving, 2020-2021

3.1.9 Avatar's Resources

3.1.10 Evolution Route of E/E Architecture

3.1.11 Autonomous Driving Tests

3.1.12 ADAS and Autonomous Driving Partners

3.1.13 Dynamic Deployments in Autonomous Driving, 2019-2021

3.2 Great Wall Motor

3.3 BYD

3.4 FAW

3.5 Geely

3.6 GAC

3.7 BAIC

3.8 SAIC

3.9 Chery

3.10 Dongfeng Motor

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/gzmg5

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: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets
CAU School of Business Hosts Supply Chain and Logistics Innovators for Forward Forum Tweet this

The Forward Forum is open to students and members of the Supply Chain/Logistics industry. Students are encouraged to Register Here to attend this webinar event.

The event will be presented in a webinar format and moderated by Chris Crowder, Director, Logistics, The Home Depot. The discussion will also include executive thought leaders from three of the most innovative non-profit/humanitarian organizations in the nation:

Keith T. Parker

President/CEO

Goodwill Industries of North Georgia



President/CEO Goodwill Industries of Charles Redding

President/CEO

MedShare International



President/CEO MedShare International Nicole Armstrong

President/CEO

TechBridge

"Supply Chain and Logistics innovation play a critical role in the success of many non-profit and humanitarian organizations," says Dr. Silvanus J. Udoka, Dean of the Clark Atlanta University School of Business Administration. "The CAU School of Business is proud to introduce our community to the leaders who are on the cutting-edge in this area."

The CAU School of Business is celebrating its 75th Anniversary and plans to host additional Forward Forums throughout the year.

For more information, please visit: www.cau.edu/school-of-business/CAU-SBA-75-Anniversary

About Clark Atlanta University

Established in 1988 by the historic consolidation of Atlanta University (1865) and Clark College (1869). Clark Atlanta University continues a 150-year legacy rooted in African American tradition and focused on the future. Through global innovation, transformative educational experiences, and high-value engagement. CAU cultivates lifted lives that transforms the world. Notable alumni include: James Weldon Johnson; American civil rights activist, poet, and songwriter (Lift Every Voice and Sing "The Black National Anthem"; Ralph David Abernathy Sr., American civil rights activist; Congressman Hank Johnson, Georgia District 4; Kenya Barris, American award-winning television and movie producer; Kenny Leon, Tony Award-winning Broadway Director; Jacque Reid, Emmy Award-winning Television Personality and Journalist; Brandon Thompson, Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion for NASCAR; Valeisha Butterfield Jones, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Recording Academy. To learn more about Clark Atlanta University, visit www.cau.edu.

SOURCE Clark Atlanta University
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The global complementary and alternative medicine for anti aging and longevity market size is expected to reach USD 182.9 billion by 2028, as per a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 22.2% from 2021 to 2028. Growing household income in developed countries, acceptance of herbal and ayurvedic medicine, and increasing age-related diseases have majorly the market for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for anti aging and longevity.

Key Insights & Findings from the report:

By intervention, the traditional alternative medicine/botanicals segment held the largest revenue share in 2020. It is expected to maintain the trend in the forecast period owing to the increasing use of spiritual techniques as well as herbal medicines in disease management across the globe

Based on the customer, high net worth (HNW) individuals held the second-largest revenue share in 2020 owing to high disposable income and better awareness regarding CAM therapies in the space of anti aging and longevity

Europe emerged as the highest revenue-generating region in 2020 owing to high disposable income countries, increasing popularity of CAM modalities, and aging population

MEA is anticipated to expand at the highest CAGR throughout the forecast period. It is anticipated that Kuwait and Qatar are majorly contributing to the regional market growth

In June 2021 , the government of India launched the "mYoga" application, developed by Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga, Ministry of Ayush in partnership with the WHO. The app contains the practice and training audios and videos based on Common Yoga Protocol. The objective is to promote one world, one health

Read 205 page market research report, "Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging & Longevity Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Intervention (Botanicals, Mind Healing), By Customer, By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2021 - 2028", by Grand View Research

In the traditional alternative medicine/botanicals intervention segment, Ayurveda led the market in 2020 as cosmetic market players are involved in the R&D of Ayurveda-based anti-aging cosmeceuticals. The mind healing segment is expected to witness steady growth from 2021 to 2028 due to the rising acceptance of meditation and mindfulness in corporate offices. The sensory healing segment is expected to expand at a considerable CAGR over the forecast period due to the increasing popularity in hospitals and clinics. For instance, in October 2021, Spatial, an audio platform, partnered with HealthTune scientific and Catalyst by Wellstar to use sensory healing to reduce stress and anxiety of frontline healthcare workers.

Ayurveda is acknowledged as a medicine in 16 countries including Brazil, Switzerland, Hungary, Nepal, Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Whilst, some regions such as Romania, Hungary, Ontario, and Turkey regulate ayurvedic practices. In the U.K., it is a part of the National Health Policy. Thus, increasing acceptance of ayurvedic medicine is expected to drive the complementary and alternative medicine market to a major extent. In addition, insurance coverage by public and private players is anticipated to fuel market growth.

COVID-19 has become a catalyst for the implementation of CAM therapies in day-to-day life. Owing to the pandemic, online yoga classes witnessed a 25% increase in enrollment level. Similarly, in the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for yoga equipment accelerated by154%. Key players and governing regulatory bodies are undertaking various strategic initiatives such as regional expansion to develop their presence in the market.

Market Segmentation:

Grand View Research has segmented the global complementary and alternative medicine for anti aging and longevity market on the basis of intervention, customer, and region:

Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging& Longevity Intervention Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

Traditional Alternative Medicine/Botanicals



Ayurveda





Naturopathic Medicine





Traditional Chinese Medicine





Zang Fu Theory





Others



Body Healing



Yoga





Acupuncture & Massage





Chiropractic





Qigong & Tai chi





Kinesiology





Reflexology





Eurythmy





Others



Mind Healing



Meditation & Mindfulness





Relaxation





Others



External Energy Healing



Magnetic & Electromagnetic therapy





Chakra healing





Reiki





Others



Sensory Healing



Aromatherapy





Sound healing

Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging & Longevity Customer Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

High Net Worth (HNW) Individuals



Very High Net Worth (VHNW) Individuals



Ultra-high Net Worth (UHNW) Individuals



Others

Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging & Longevity Regional Outlook (Revenue, USD Million, 2017 - 2028)

North America



U.S.





Canada



Europe



Germany





France





U.K.





Italy





Spain





Switzerland





Austria



Asia Pacific



Japan





China





India



Latin America



Brazil





Mexico





Rest of Latin America



Middle East & Africa

&

UAE





Bahrain





Kuwait





Qatar





Saudi Arabia

List of Key Players of Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging & Longevity Market

Centre Chiropractic De La ColonneVertbrale

Anadolu Medical Center

Sinomedica

Acupuncture Enfants

Ayurveda Kuwait

Maya Reiki School

Maylilacs

Al Zuhair Holistic Medicine Center

Ayurmana By Dharma Ayurveda

Trinicum

Miskawaan Health Group

Therme Wien

Healthpi

Vivamayr

Optimal Spine And Joint Center

First Chiropractic Centre

Lama Polyclinic LLC

Al ManarAyurvedic Center

American Chiropractic Center

Qatar Chiropractic & Physiotherapy Clinic

Satyamani

Elixir Health Center

Acupuncture.Paris (AnabelChantellier)

Transforma Health

Swiss Ayurvedic Medical Academy

Clinic Les Alpes

Paracelsus KlinikLustmhle Ag

Swiss Alternative Medicine

Turnpaugh Health & Wellness

The Center For Natural And Integrative Medicine

Angel Longevity Medical Center

Peaks Of Health Metabolic Medical Center

JscmTcm Clinic

London Hydrotherapy

Ming Chen Clinic

Ukacupuncture Clinic

Bionorica Se

Weg Der Mitte

Pascoe Natural Medicine

Brixsana Private Clinic

Homeopathy Vescovio Center

Sha Wellness Clinic

Sukha Ayurveda

SarriaQuiropractica

Natural Healing Acupuncture Medical Center

Kindcare Medical Center

Cure

Aviv Clinics

Seva Experience

Bahrain Hospital & Health Resort

Intouch Clinic

International Chinese Body Care Houses

Doha Chiropractic Center

Specialized Medical Center Hospital

Fakeeh. Care

Almoyassar Physical Therapy Center

Muroona Clinic & Fitness

Terme Di RioloSrl

Mei Spa

Check out more studies related to complementary & alternative medicine, published by Grand View Research:

Complementary And Alternative Medicine Market  The global complementary and alternative medicine market size was valued at USD 82.27 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.03% from 2021 to 2028. The market is set to gain momentum in the coming years owing to the changing regulatory scenario, coupled with robust government initiatives.

 The global complementary and alternative medicine market size was valued at in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.03% from 2021 to 2028. The market is set to gain momentum in the coming years owing to the changing regulatory scenario, coupled with robust government initiatives. Europe Complementary And Alternative Medicine Market  The Europe complementary and alternative medicine market size was valued at USD 27.44 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.89% from 2021 to 2028. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is considered a traditional treatment and the market is majorly driven by the growing awareness regarding the numerous associated benefits.

 The complementary and alternative medicine market size was valued at in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.89% from 2021 to 2028. Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is considered a traditional treatment and the market is majorly driven by the growing awareness regarding the numerous associated benefits. Middle East Integrative Health Or Complementary And Alternative Medicine Market  The Middle East integrative health or complementary and alternative medicine market size was valued at USD 4.52 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.75% from 2020 to 2027. The market is set to gain momentum in the coming years owing to the increasing use of integrative medicine in the treatment of chronic ailments, such as respiratory diseases and oncology disorders.

Browse through Grand View Research's coverage of the Global Pharmaceuticals Industry.

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:

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Grand View Research, Inc.

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SOURCE Grand View Research, Inc.
SHANGHAI, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) ("Daqo New Energy", the "Company" or "we"), a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry, announced that its subsidiary Xinjiang Daqo New Energy ("Xinjiang Daqo") had provided estimates of its net profit in 2021 to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Xinjiang Daqo estimates that under PRC GAAP, its net profit attributable to Xinjiang Daqo's shareholders in 2021 would be in the range of RMB5.6~5.8 billion, representing a 437%~456% increase as compared to net profit attributable to Xinjiang Daqo's shareholders of RMB1.04 billion in 2020.

Daqo New Energy currently beneficially owns 80.7% of the equity interest in Xinjiang Daqo, and a majority of the Company's revenue and net income are contributed by Xinjiang Daqo. The estimated net profit described in this press release was prepared solely for Xinjiang Daqo in RMB in accordance with PRC GAAP and is subject to change upon completion of Xinjiang Daqo's internal financial closing and reporting processes, which are different from those for the Company's consolidated financial results in U.S. dollars under U.S. GAAP for the year ended December 31, 2021.

The estimated profit described in this press release is based solely on the information currently available to Xinjiang Daqo's management. Its actual results could vary materially from these preliminary estimates. As a result, investors should exercise caution in relying on this information and should not draw any inferences from this information regarding financial or operating data not provided. The estimated net profit should not be viewed as a substitute for full financial statements of Xinjiang Daqo prepared in accordance with PRC GAAP. In addition, the estimated net profit is not necessarily indicative of the results to be achieved by Xinjiang Daqo in any future period.

About Daqo New Energy Corp.

Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) ("Daqo" or the "Company") is a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry. Founded in 2007, the Company manufactures and sells high-purity polysilicon to photovoltaic product manufactures, who further process the polysilicon into ingots, wafers, cells and modules for solar power solutions. The Company has a total polysilicon nameplate capacity of 105,000 metric tons and is one of the world's lowest cost producers of high-purity polysilicon.

For more information, please visit www.dqsolar.com

Daqo New Energy Corp.

Investor Relations

Email: [email protected]

Christensen

In China

Mr. Rene Vanguestaine

Phone: +86 178 1749 0483

[email protected]

In the U.S.

Ms. Linda Bergkamp

Phone: +1-480-614-3004

Email: [email protected]

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "might," "guidance" and similar statements. Among other things, the financial estimate for the full year of 2021 contains forward-looking statements. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict accurately and many of which are beyond the Company's control. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: the demand for photovoltaic products and the development of photovoltaic technologies; global supply and demand for polysilicon; alternative technologies in cell manufacturing; the Company's ability to significantly expand its polysilicon production capacity and output; the reduction in or elimination of government subsidies and economic incentives for solar energy applications; the Company's ability to lower its production costs; changes in the political and regulatory environment; and the duration of COVID-19 outbreaks in China and many other countries and the impact of the outbreaks and the quarantines and travel restrictions instituted by relevant governments on economic and market conditions, including potentially weaker global demand for solar PV installations that could adversely affect the Company's business and financial performance. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the reports or documents the Company has filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no duty to update such information or any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

SOURCE Daqo New Energy Corp.
MBABANE  We do not care about the negative comments from people, but instead we will continue following our prophet.

These were sentiments from some congregants of the Mountain of Salvation Church led by Prophet Vusi Major V Dlamini. The congregants were giving their testimonies, part of which were in response to the backlash the prophet had recently received after the circulation of some videos of him on social media platforms. During the church service which was held yesterday, the prophet addressed the insults and bullying which he was subjected to on his social media platforms. Interestingly, he had been strongly criticised for allegedly using vulgar language, something which social media users deemed as not in line with how men of the cloth were expected to behave.

Criticised

The prophet has also found himself being criticised for openly declaring his stance on the calls for change being pushed by progressives. He stated that although he was aware of what people had been saying about him, he was unbothered because he knew that those who knew him personally were able to differentiate between the lies and truths in the posts. I am aware that they have called me all sorts of names, including calling me ugly, but all these things do not bother me as those who follow me will continue doing so. People who love me will love me more. I will not be fazed by it and be made to choose a side I do not agree with. I belong to the King and will fight for that until the end of time, he said.

While giving their testimonies, some of the congregants stated that the prophet was a good man. They expressed their appreciation on how Major V had changed their lives through the holy juice and oil. Due to the fear of being victimised, the individuals requested not to have their names mentioned. According to a congregant, emaSwati did not have to judge the prophet based on what people said about him on social media platforms, but had to come to the church and experience him first-hand. He said Major V changed his life through the holy oils and juice as it removed all the bad spirits which were following him. I have been in this church since 2014 and my life has changed drastically. I came here having problems at home as people were using witchcraft on my family, but the prophet prophesied me and since then, I have been lucky in everything I do. Everything he has prophesied in my life has happened, he claimed.

Attention

The congregant mentioned that he did not pay attention to the things people were saying about his father, but would continue serving him as he was God in human form. Another congregant said through the assistance she got from a one-on-one session she had with Major V, her business as a vendor had been doing well. She said the prophet was able to pray for her to get more customers. After the session with the prophet, I began seeing more customers. From making E100 or less per day, I began making more than E1 000. He also was able to help me see the people who were working against my success, she said.
LONDON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- David Capital Partners, LLC ("David Capital"), a top-five shareholder in Countryside Properties PLC ("Countryside") with a 5.3% stake, today commends the appointment of Mr. Pete Lee of Browning West, LP ("Browning West") as a Non-Executive Director of Countryside. Mr. Lee officially joined the Countryside Board on January 21.

Adam Patinkin, CFA, the Founder and Managing Partner of David Capital, commented:

"David Capital applauds the appointment of Pete Lee, a talented business leader and investor, to Countryside's Board of Directors.



Mr. Lee and his colleagues at Browning West have a lengthy track record of success in both the US and the UK, including playing an important role in the hugely successful turnaround of Domino's Pizza Group PLC. We are delighted Mr. Lee has agreed to contribute his significant expertise to Countryside's Board.



David Capital welcomes the new strategic direction undertaken by Countryside since the appointment of John Martin as Chairman in April 2021. We strongly support Countryside's transition to a pure-play Partnerships business and the share buyback program launched in July 2021. Countryside's market-leading Partnerships operation is a compelling, high-return-on-capital growth business with an outstanding reputation and a deep and accomplished team.



We look forward to supporting and working constructively with Countryside in the coming months and years to help build long-term value for all stakeholders. Countryside has a bright future and its best days undoubtedly lie ahead."

Media Contact:

Alex Jones and Matthew Goodman, Greenbrook

[email protected]

+44 20 7952 2000

About David Capital Partners, LLC

David Capital is a long-term oriented alternative investment firm. David Capital employs its "value plus a catalyst" investment approach by allocating capital to undervalued businesses with clear event paths for significant value creation. The firm is headquartered in Chicago with offices in London.

SOURCE David Capital Partners, LLC
TSX.V: DME

U.S. OTC: DMEHF

Frankfurt: QM01

VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - The Company is pleased to announce that it has received the permit for the first offset well, (the 1-1) to the McCauley Field discovery well, (1-1). This well is situated on a local structural high, where the porosity and permeability are expected to be highly productive in multiple formations. The Company expects the rig to be mobilized and the well spudded by the end of this week.

"This well will be the second well in the McCauley Field and the Company will be moving the rig over to drill another offset well immediately upon completion," said Robert Rohlfing, Chief Executive Officer. "This second developmental well in the McCauley Field is an important part of bringing our processing plant online later this year. Upon completion of drilling operations on these two wells, the rig will be moved to the Gunnar Dome wildcat prospect."

The 1-1 well is planned to reach a total depth of approximately 4300 feet. This location is situated on a structural high with very specific trapping mechanisms which the Company's geologic team has previously identified and found in the 11-1 well. This well should encounter multiple pay zones in the lower Permian, Pennsylvanian, Mississippian, Devonian, with a total depth in the Precambrian Granite to gather further data for other planned wells outside of the McCauley field.

Completion procedures will begin once the rig is released after the drilling of the Gunnar Dome prospect.

ABOUT DESERT MOUNTAIN ENERGY

Desert Mountain Energy Corp. is a publicly traded resource company primarily focused on exploration, development and production of helium, hydrogen and noble gases. The Company is primarily looking for elements deemed critical to the renewable energy and high technology industries.

We seek safe harbor

"Robert Rohlfing"

Robert Rohlfing

Exec Chairman & CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in polices of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The statements made in this press release may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual events or results may differ from the Company's expectations.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Such forward looking statements and information herein include but are not limited to statements regarding the Company's anticipated performance in the future the planned exploration activities, receipt of positive results from drilling, the completion of further drilling and exploration work, and the timing and results of various activities.

Forward-looking statements or information involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company and its operations to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such statements. Such factors include, among others, changes in national and local governments, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in Canada and the United States; financial risks due to helium prices, operating or technical difficulties in exploration and development activities; risks and hazards and the speculative nature of resource exploration and related development; risks in obtaining necessary licenses and permits, and challenges to the Company's title to properties.

Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to the continued operation of the Company's exploration operations, no material adverse change in the market price of commodities, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or information, there may be other factors that cause results to be materially different from those anticipated, described, estimated, assessed or intended. There can be no assurance that any forward-looking statements or information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. The Company does not intend to, and nor does not assume any obligation to update such forward-looking statements or information, other than as required by applicable law.

SOURCE Desert Mountain Energy Corp.
JACKSON, Miss., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE: EGP) (the "Company", "EastGroup") announced today the income tax treatment of its 2021 distributions as described below. Shareholders are encouraged to consult with their personal tax advisors as to their specific tax treatment of EastGroup distributions.

Common Stock:

Ticker Symbol EGP, CUSIP #277 276 101

Record Dates Payment Dates Total Distributions Per Share (1) Ordinary Dividends Capital Gain Distributions Unrecaptured Sec. 1250 Gain (2) Nondividend Distributions (3) Section 199A Dividends (4) 12/31/20 01/15/21 $0.12827 $0.12827 $0.00000 $0.00000 $0.00000 $0.12827 03/31/21 04/15/21 0.79000 0.79000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.79000 06/30/21 07/15/21 0.79000 0.79000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.79000 09/30/21 10/15/21 0.90000 0.90000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.90000 12/31/21 01/15/22 1.00829 1.00829 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 1.00829

















TOTALS $3.61656 $3.61656 $0.00000 $0.00000 $0.00000 $3.61656 Form 1099-DIV box

1a 2a 2b 3 5





(1) Pursuant to Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, Section 857(b)(9), cash distributions made on January 15, 2022 with a record date of December 31, 2021 are treated as received by shareholders on December 31, 2021 to the extent of 2021 undistributed earnings and profits. (2) Unrecaptured Sec. 1250 Gain (box 2b) is a subset of, and is included in, the Capital Gain Distributions amount reported in box 2a of Form 1099-DIV. (3) Return of Capital (4) Represents qualified REIT dividends that may be eligible for the 20% qualified business income deduction under Section 199A of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, that is available for non-corporate taxpayers and is included in "Ordinary Dividends."

The Company did not incur any foreign taxes in 2021. Of the total distributions during 2021, none are considered qualifying dividends for purposes of the federal 15% income tax rate.

EastGroup Properties, Inc. (NYSE: EGP), an S&P MidCap 400 company, is a self-administered equity real estate investment trust focused on the development, acquisition and operation of industrial properties in major Sunbelt markets throughout the United States with an emphasis in the states of Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and North Carolina. The Company's goal is to maximize shareholder value by being a leading provider in its markets of functional, flexible and quality business distribution space for location sensitive customers (primarily in the 15,000 to 70,000 square foot range). The Company's strategy for growth is based on ownership of premier distribution facilities generally clustered near major transportation features in supply-constrained submarkets. EastGroup's portfolio, including development projects and value-add acquisitions in lease-up and under construction, currently includes approximately 51 million square feet.

EastGroup Properties, Inc. press releases are available at www.eastgroup.net.

SOURCE EastGroup Properties
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Evolent Health, Inc. (NYSE: EVH), a health care company that delivers proven clinical and administrative solutions to payers and providers, today announced that it has partnered with a minority-owned business, PCG Consulting Group (PCG), to launch a new customer contact team in Cook County, Ill., which will support more than 400,000 Medicaid health plan members there. The agreement not only advances certain diversity-related goals of the county and state, but it also furthers Evolent's efforts to foster positive economic impact in the minority communities it serves.

Bringing more than 15 years of experience, PCG will supplement the health plan administrative and clinical support services provided by Evolent. Based in Cook County, PCG reflects the diversity of its community, with 79% of its employees currently coming from local underserved areas.

"We are excited for the opportunity to partner with PCG and to support our members, providers and the broader community," said Evolent Health Services CEO Steve Tutewohl. "This initiative aligns closely with our deep commitment to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion throughout the work we do on behalf of patients and health plan members across the U.S. With most of our members in Cook County identifying as Black or African American, we believe partnering with minority suppliers there will allow for improved experience, quality of care and overall health equity."

PCG staff members began fielding calls from Cook County Medicaid beneficiaries last week, following an extensive training program provided by Evolent customer service leadership and subject matter experts.

"We are honored to have been selected by Evolent to support Medicaid members in our community," said PCG Founder, President and CEO Tom Numbere, Jr. "We share a vision of customer service operations as a member experience center that immediately establishes a tone of service excellence. Our associates will provide a critical link to help Medicaid beneficiaries access the care and services they need in what can feel like an overwhelming, depersonalized and inaccessible health care system, particularly for historically disadvantaged populations."

The relationship with PCG is one of several that Evolent has initiated to support broader health equity goals in Cook County. In April 2021, Evolent partnered with faith-based leaders throughout Cook County to promote COVID-19 vaccine education that was expected to reach up to 1 million Black and Latinx congregants during Easter weekend worship. Additionally, in response to the pandemic, in November 2020 teams across Evolent donated over 10,000 face masks, many of them sewn by employees, for children in Cook County.

"Diversity helps build stronger teams, leads to better care delivery, and opens the door to better problem solving and more perspectives that address the unique challenges of typically underrepresented groups," said Evolent Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Naprisha Taylor. "We are thrilled by this opportunity to partner with PCG, as an experienced and respected minority-owned business, to help support the unique health care needs of communities in Cook County."

Taylor says the model could potentially be expanded to a broad range of health plan partners going forward.

About Evolent Health

Evolent Health (NYSE: EVH) delivers proven clinical and administrative solutions that improve whole-person health while making health care simpler and more affordable. Our solutions encompass total cost of care management, specialty care management, and administrative simplification. Evolent serves a national base of leading payers and providers, is the first company to receive the National Committee for Quality Assurance's Population Health Program Accreditation, and is consistently recognized as a top place to work in health care nationally. Learn more about how Evolent is changing the way health care is delivered by visiting evolenthealth.com.

About PCG Consulting Group

PCG Consulting Group (PCG) was founded by Tom Numbere, Jr., JD, MBA, PMP, in 2004 as a Cook County, Ill.-based, corporation. The company began as an I.T. consulting and services practice and quickly expanded to include contact center and recoupment services, cyber security, and project management and systems integration. PCG is NMSDC Certified and a registered MBE/DBE/BEP Vendor with the City of Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois. Through the efforts of a highly accomplished leadership team, PCG has successfully executed contracts for numerous corporate, city, state and federal entities for over the last 15 years. PCG sustains a high level of integrity, reliability and performance by aligning well-trained team members with clients' needs and company objectives. PCG is committed to helping the community by hiring from the community. To view current PCG projects and opportunities, visit pcgintl.com.

Contacts:

Media Relations

Evolent Health, Inc.

[email protected]

Investor Relations

Seth R. Frank

Vice President, Investor Relations

Evolent Health, Inc.

[email protected]

SOURCE Evolent Health
SHANGHAI, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Four Seasons Education (Cayman) Inc. ("Four Seasons Education" or the "Company") (NYSE: FEDU), a leading Shanghai-based education company, today announced that it has received a letter from the New York Stock Exchange (the "NYSE") dated January 6, 2022, notifying Four Seasons Education that it is below compliance standards due to the trading price of Four Seasons Education's American depositary shares (the "ADSs").

Pursuant to NYSE Rule 802.01C, a company will be considered to be below compliance standards if the average closing price of a security as reported on the consolidated tape is less than $1.00 over a consecutive 30 trading-day period. Once notified, the company must bring its share price and average share price back above $1.00 by six months following the receipt of the notification. The company can regain compliance at any time during the six-month cure period if on the last trading day of any calendar month during the cure period the company has a closing share price of at least $1.00 and an average closing share price of at least $1.00 over the 30 trading-day period ending on the last trading day of that month. In the event that at the expiration of the six-month cure period, both a $1.00 closing share price on the last trading day of the cure period and a $1.00 average closing share price over the 30 trading-day period ending on the last trading day of the cure period are not attained, the NYSE will commence suspension and delisting procedures.

To address this issue, Four Seasons Education intends to monitor the market conditions of its listed securities and is still considering its options.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains statements of a forward-looking nature. These statements, including the statements relating to the Company's future financial and operating results, are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these forward-looking statements by terminology such as "will," "expects," "believes," "anticipates," "intends," "estimates" and similar statements. Among other things, management's quotations and the Business Outlook section contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are based on current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about the Company and the industry. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those relating to its ability to attract new students and improve students' comprehensive performance, PRC regulations and policies relating to the education industry in China, general economic conditions in China, and the Company's ability to meet the standards necessary to maintain listing of its ADSs on the NYSE or other stock exchanges, including its ability to cure any non-compliance with the NYSE's continued listing criteria. All information provided in this press release is as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent occurring events or circumstances, or changes in its expectations, except as may be required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that its expectations will turn out to be correct, and investors are cautioned that actual results may differ materially from the anticipated results. Further information regarding risks and uncertainties faced by the Company is included in the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual reports on Form 20-F.

About Four Seasons Education (Cayman) Inc.

Four Seasons Education (Cayman) Inc. is a leading Shanghai-based education company dedicated to providing comprehensive educational services. The Company's vision is to unlock students' intellectual potential through high quality and effective education that can profoundly benefit students. The Company's proprietary educational service offerings are designed to cultivate students' interests and enhance their cognitive and logical thinking abilities. The Company's faculty is led by a group of experienced senior educators, including recognized scholars and award-winning teachers. Over the years, the quality of the Company's educational services has been demonstrated by its student outstanding performance.

For more information, please visit http://ir.sijiedu.com.

For investor and media inquiries, please contact:

In China:

Four Seasons Education (Cayman) Inc.

Olivia Li

Tel: +86 (21) 6317-6678

E-mail: [email protected]

The Piacente Group, Inc.

Jenny Cai

Tel: +86 (10) 6508-0677

E-mail: [email protected]

In the United States:

The Piacente Group, Inc.

Brandi Piacente

Tel: +1-212-481-2050

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE Four Seasons Education Inc.
NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- When 29-year-old Nyemma Wickham, arrived for a free pap smear at the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone in Brooklyn earlier this month, she expected another routine visit. For the past several years, she had been diligent about receiving annual cancer screenings, which had always come back clear. On this frigid January day, however, Wickham was startled to learn the doctors had identified precancerous cells in her cervix.

Hearing this news, Wickham, who works as a paraprofessional in a Brooklyn middle school, wondered, will she need to schedule more visits and procedures, would her insurance cover the costs, and was she facing a serious health risk? Her concerns quickly were eased because the next step took place right then, in the doctor's office. She had a complete excision of her abnormal cells, with no additional costs or procedural arrangements.

Same-Day Cancer Screening & Preventative Treatment in the Clinic

Cervical cancer screening technology recently introduced at the Women's HealthFamily Health Centers at NYU Langone in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, enables physicians to detect and remove pre-cancerous cells from the surface or canal of the cervix during the patient's same appointment. The Loop Electrosurgical Excision Procedure, known as LEEP, is typically performed with local anesthesia and is similar to a colon screening in which physicians remove any developing polyps in real-time during a colonoscopy. This ease of access to state-of-the-art treatment can help many women in low-income communities stay healthy, while avoiding time-consuming and costly interventions that seem out-of-reach.

"They asked me, would you like to take care of this right now in the office," says Wickham describing her screening visit. "I said, of course! It was so easy." Wickham no longer has any abnormal precancer cells of her cervix, significantly reducing her risk of developing cervical cancer.

Although Wickham regularly received annual pap smears, clinicians at the FHC say many patients are reticent to participate in screenings, especially older women who may not be aware of cervical cancer risks or those who are worried about insurance and documentation.

"The LEEP option is local and free of charge, encouraging women to take that first step and come in for a screening," says Meleen Chuang MD, medical director of women's health at the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone. "And because LEEP can treat high-grade pre-cancer lesions in the office, it's especially helpful for women who find it hard to get away from jobs or family to take care of their own health," explains Dr. Chuang.

Dr. Chuang says her patients are extremely grateful for this treatment option, "One patient even tried to give me cash, through tears, after her procedure."

About Cervical Cancer

The American Cancer Society estimates there were 14,480 new cases of cervical cancer in the United States in 2021, and 4,280 women died from this disease that shows no signs or symptom in its early states. Cervical cancer's stealthy profile makes screenings especially vital.

Death rates remain higher for minority women, in particular, and access to care is a factor, several studies from the National Institutes of Health have shown. From 2014 to 2017, Hispanics accounted for the largest percentage of cases, 9.5 for every 100,000 women. Non-Hispanic Blacks had the highest death rate of 2.5 per 100,000 women, according to the American Cancer Society.

Along with screenings, vaccines are making a difference in reducing cervical cancer rates. The FHC also offers low-cost access to the HPV vaccine, which guards against human papillomavirus, the virus that causes cervical cancer. A series of three vaccines over six months can cost hundreds of dollars elsewhere, Dr. Chuang explains, deterring patients from receiving this important prevention strategy. That same series is only $30 for eligible patients at the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone.

About the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone

Principally located in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, one of the highest Medicaid-concentrated communities in the United States, the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone is a community-based program that provides high-quality primary and preventive outpatient care to adults and children, regardless of their ability to pay or health insurance status. They offer financial assistance for people who cannot pay for their medical care through a sliding scale fee discount program. Additionally, patients at the FHC are connected to important medical and support services, like food, housing assistance, and emergency funding, based on personal need. The program serves approximately 100,000 patients each year throughout Brooklyn and other parts of New York City.

Media Inquiries

Joan Lebow

Phone: 201-207-6261

[email protected]

SOURCE NYU Langone Health
BOSTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Georgia Claire Bowen Foundation announced today the addition of $200 thousand to the original $1 million dollar grant given last year to the Boston Children's Hospital Heart Center.

The grant will expand the Georgia Claire Bowen IMPACT (Imagining More Possibilities in Advanced Cardiac Therapies) Initiative at Boston Children's Hospital to support cutting-edge pediatric cardiac research and care.

The latest initiative focuses on reducing post-transplant complications in young heart patients, improving quality of life, and working towards heart transplant becoming a cure for patients, instead of just a gift of time. One important part of the on-going initiative will be using the latest technology that will allow parents to communicate with their medical teams from home, giving peace of mind and allowing parents to avoid unnecessary trips to the emergency room- especially important in these COVID times.

"We are so grateful to the Bowen family for this grant," said Kevin P. Daly, MD, an attending cardiologist at Boston Children's Hospital. "This grant will support an innovative research program that will change how we care for children after heart transplant. We thank the Bowen family for their philanthropy as we strive to improve the lives of young heart transplant patients. "

The foundation is named after Georgia Claire Bowen, who was born in cardiac arrest in 2018. In an attempt to save her life, doctors at Boston Children's Hospital tried something that had never been done before on any human, especially a newborn, after a heart attack. The doctors took mitochondria from Georgia's neck and infused it into the injured muscle of her heart. The procedure was followed by the placement of the Berlin artificial heart until a living heart was available for transplant.

Funding for the foundation comes from GCB Medical Supply, a company founded by Georgia's mom Kate Bowen. After spending months in the hospital with Georgia, and seeing first-hand how ill-fitting hospital gowns for pediatric patients were inconvenient for patients, doctors and nurses, Kate founded GCB Medical Supply and created the Georgie, a pediatric onesie made to accommodate tubes and machines that is now worn by babies in hospitals across the country. GCB Medical Supply also provides personal protective equipment (PPE) to frontline workers and COVID testing to communities across the country.

"After establishing the Georgia Claire Bowen Foundation, the positive feedback has been incredible. From the parents of heart transplant patients, we have heard that this initiative is giving them strength, hope and support. From the doctors, we have heard that this research can and will change lives and improve the care for the youngest heart transplant patients," said Kate Bowen, President of the Georgia Claire Bowen Foundation and Georgia's mom. "Through this grant with Boston Children's Hospital, we hope to revolutionize pediatric cardiac research for babies like Georgia and so many more."

Learn more about Georgia: read her story in the New York Times and watch her story here.

SOURCE GCB Medical Supply
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM"), a leading national shareholder rights law firm, today announced that it has commenced an investigation on behalf of Clarivate Plc ("Clarivate" or the "Company") (NYSE: CLVT) investors concerning the Company's possible violations of the federal securities laws.

If you suffered a loss on your Clarivate investments or would like to inquire about potentially pursuing claims to recover your loss under the federal securities laws, you can submit your contact information at www.glancylaw.com/cases/clarivate-plc/. You can also contact Charles H. Linehan, of GPM at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, or via email at [email protected] to learn more about your rights.

On December 27, 2021, Clarivate disclosed that previous financial reports "should no longer be relied upon because of an error in such financial statements." The Company specified that the error relates "to the treatment under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles ('GAAP') relating to an equity plan included in the CPA Global business combination, which was consummated on October 1, 2020 ('the CPA Global Transaction'). In the affected financial statements, certain awards made by CPA Global under its equity plan were incorrectly included as part of the acquisition accounting for the CPA Global Transaction."

On this news, Clarivate's stock fell $1.70, or 6.9%, to close at $22.78 per share on December 28, 2021, thereby injuring investors.

Follow us for updates on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.

Whistleblower Notice: Persons with non-public information regarding Clarivate should consider their options to aid the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower Program. Under the 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 Charles H. Linehan at 310-201-9150 or 888-773-9224 or email [email protected].

About GPM

Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP is a premier law firm representing investors and consumers in securities litigation and other complex class action litigation. ISS Securities Class Action Services has consistently ranked GPM in its annual SCAS Top 50 Report. In 2018, GPM was ranked a top five law firm in number of securities class action settlements, and a top six law firm for total dollar size of settlements. With four offices across the country, GPM's nearly 40 attorneys have won groundbreaking rulings and recovered billions of dollars for investors and consumers in securities, antitrust, consumer, and employment class actions. GPM's lawyers have handled cases covering a wide spectrum of corporate misconduct including cases involving financial restatements, internal control weaknesses, earnings management, fraudulent earnings guidance and forward looking statements, auditor misconduct, insider trading, violations of FDA regulations, actions resulting in FDA and DOJ investigations, and many other forms of corporate misconduct. GPM's attorneys have worked on securities cases relating to nearly all industries and sectors in the financial markets, including, energy, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, real estate and REITs, financial, insurance, information technology, health care, biotech, cryptocurrency, medical devices, and many more. GPM's past successes have been widely covered by leading news and industry publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Reuters, the Associated Press, Barron's, Investor's Business Daily, Forbes, and Money.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

SOURCE Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP
DUBLIN, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Digital Twins - Global Market Trajectory & Analytics" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Global Digital Twins Market to Reach US$35.5 Billion by the Year 2026

The global market for Digital Twins estimated at US$5.1 Billion in the year 2020, is projected to reach a revised size of US$35.5 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 36.9% over the analysis period.

Digital twin technology is gaining significant attention due to its ability to expedite product development and support innovations. The market would be primarily driven by the growing applications of digital twin technology in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries spurred by the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing use of digital twins for enabling predictive maintenance, and the accelerated adoption of digital twin solutions for addressing the challenges associated with the pandemic.

Digital twin technology has been witnessing notable progress in its capabilities owing to support from emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), big data, the Internet of Things (IoT) and computing power. The technology is gaining from machine learning that enables the use of data to simulate and predict future conditions and performance of assets.

The increasing adoption of digital twins in the energy industry is expected to expedite transition towards renewable energy and pave way for net-zero emissions. The technology presents significant opportunities for companies in the healthcare and life sciences domains to improve efficiency and gain an edge over competitors.



System, one of the segments analyzed in the report, is projected to grow at a 36.4% CAGR to reach US$23 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 Product segment is readjusted to a revised 38.9% CAGR for the next 7-year period.

This segment currently accounts for a 31.7% share of the global Digital Twins market. Digital twins are expected to transform product development, supply chains and manufacturing. Manufacturing organizations have been leveraging DTs technology to speed-up digital transformation efforts for product development.



Process Segment to Reach $5.6 Billion by 2026

In the global Process segment, USA, Canada, Japan, China and Europe will drive the 35% CAGR estimated for this segment. These regional markets accounting for a combined market size of US$778.5 Million in the year 2020 will reach a projected size of US$6 Billion by the close of the analysis period.

China will remain among the fastest growing in this cluster of regional markets. Led by countries such as Australia, India, and South Korea, the market in Asia-Pacific is forecast to reach US$607.2 Million by the year 2026.

The U.S. Market is Estimated at $2.6 Billion in 2021, While China is Forecast to Reach $6.5 Billion by 2026

The Digital Twins market in the U.S. is estimated at US$2.6 Billion in the year 2020. The country currently accounts for a 39.6% share in the global market. China, the world's second largest economy, is forecast to reach an estimated market size of US$6.5 Billion in the year 2026 trailing a CAGR of 51.4% through the analysis period.

Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 30.9% and 37.6% respectively over the analysis period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 32.3% CAGR while Rest of European market (as defined in the study) will reach US$3.8 Billion by the end of the analysis period.

North America represents the largest regional market for digital twins, attributed to a significant economic growth, massive investments in research and development activities, presence of a large number of digital twin vendors, and significant developments and early adoption of advanced digital technologies, including digital twin, 3D printing, edge analytics, and smart sensors, in the region.

Growth in Asia-Pacific region is attributed to the dense population, rising per capita income with large-scale urbanization and industrialization, and growing adoption of IoT technology, primarily in countries, such as China, India, South Korea, and Japan.



Key Topics Covered:



I. METHODOLOGY



II. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



1. MARKET OVERVIEW

Intriguing Opportunities Ahead for Digital Twin Technology

How Digital Twin Technology Can Help Businesses to Gain a Competitive Edge

Digital Twin Technology Trends Big in Built Environment amid COVID-19

Digital Twin Technology: A Prelude

Interoperabilty: Critical to Widespread Use of the Technology

DTs Aid in Smart Innovation and Help Achieve Sustainability

Outlook

Recent Industry Activity

2. FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS (Total 208 Featured)

ABB Ltd.

Accenture plc

ANSYS, Inc.

AT&T Inc.

AVEVA Group plc

Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bosch.IO GmbH

Cal-Tek Srl

Capgemini SE

Cityzenith

Dassault Systemes SE

General Electric (GE Digital)

Hexagon AB

Honeywell International Inc.

IBM Corporation

Lanner Group Limited

Mevea Ltd.

Microsoft Corporation

Oracle

PTC Inc.

Rescale, Inc.

Rockwell Automation, Inc.

SAP SE

Siemens AG

TIBCO Software Inc.

XenonStack

3. MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

Digital Twins Emerge as an Important Technology for Digital Transformation

Digital Twins: Adding New Dimensions to Product Lifecycle Management

Digital Twins: A Key Trend in Industry 4.0

Review of Key Application Areas

COVID-19 Impact on Industry 4.0

Outlook

Digital Twin Technology Playing an Important Role in Predictive Maintenance

The Age of Analytics Made More Important by COVID-19 Provides the Cornerstone for the Disruptive Growth of Predictive Maintenance

Industry 4.0 Pushes Up the Effectiveness of Predictive Maintenance

Significant Role of Digital Twins in Helping Organizations Embrace Manufacturing Automation

Surge in Adoption of 3D Printing Technology in Manufacturing Industry

Artificial Intelligence Remains Integral Component of Digital Twin Technology

Emphasis on Reducing Project Costs to Drive Uptake of Digital Twin Technology

Focus on Building Crisis Resilient Smart Cities to Drive Demand for Smart City Digital Twin

Growing Role Digital Twin Technology in Curbing Carbon Emissions

Digital Twins Present a Powerful Tool to Simulate & Optimize Retail Supply Chain

Navigating COVID-19 Disruptions with Digital Twins

Increasing Use of Digital Twins in Automotive Industry

Vehicle Electrification Steps up with Digital Twin Technology

Digital Twin Technology to Expedite 5G Implementation

Agriculture Industry Accelerates Advanced Technologies Adoption

Aerospace Industry to Take Off with Transformative Potential of Digital Twins

Digital Twins for Modeling of Real-Life Systems

Impact of COVID-19 on Aerospace Industry

Staged Recovery over Long-Term to Benefit Demand

Specter of Far-Reaching Digital Twin-Related Implications for Life Sciences Arena

Cognitive Computing Enhances Capabilities of Digital Twin Technology

The Current State of Digital Twin Adoption in Civil Infrastructure Sector

Significant Role of DT in the Energy and Utility Sector

Steep Rise Healthcare Spending to Augment Adoption of digital Twins

Digital Twins Set to Go Mainstream in Real-Estate Sector

4. GLOBAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE

III. REGIONAL MARKET ANALYSIS

IV. COMPETITION

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/doq8wy

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: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets
SEATTLE, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Coherent Market Insights, the global opioids market is estimated to be valued at US$ 42,429 million in 2021 and is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 3.2% during the forecast period (2021-2028).

Key Trends and Analysis of the Global Opioids Market:

Key trends in the market include increasing prevalence of chronic diseases such as cancer, increasing product approvals by regulatory authorities, and inorganic activities such as collaborations and agreements.

For instance, according to data findings by the World Health Organization (WHO), in February 2018, cancer was the second-leading cause of death globally, and around 18.1 million new cases and 9.6 million deaths were registered due to cancer globally.

The increasing product approvals by the regulatory authorities is expected to aid in the growth of the global opioids market over the forecast period. For instance, in September 2019, Elite Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company developing abuse-deterrent opioids, received approval form the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for a generic version of Tylenol(R) with Codeine 300mg/15mg, 300mg/30mg, and 300mg/60mg tablets.

Key players in the market are focused on commercializing low risk opioids. For instance, in January 2018, Depomed, Inc., now known as Assertio Therapeutics, Inc., is an American specialty pharmaceutical company, which announced the closing of commercialization agreement with Collegium Pharmaceutical Inc. for the U.S. rights to commercialize both NUCYNTA Extended Release and NUCYNTA Immediate Release for management of short-term (acute) pain in adults.

Request for Sample Copy @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/1017

Key Market Takeaways:

Increasing prevalence of cancer and product launches by market players are expected to drive growth of the global opioids market over the forecast period. For instance, according to the National Cancer Registry Program (NCRP) data of 2018, one woman dies of cervical cancer every eight minutes in India. For every two women newly diagnosed with breast cancer, one woman dies of it in India.

Key players operating in the global opioids market include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Johnson & Johnson, Endo International plc, Lupin Limited, Cadila Healthcare Limited, Purdue Pharma L.P., AbbVie Inc., Fresenius Kabi, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Inc., Rhodes Pharmaceuticals L.P., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, Nesher Pharmaceuticals (USA) LLC, Amneal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Trevena Inc., and Aurobindo Pharma Limited.

Request for Report Customization @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-customization/1017

Detailed Market Segmentation:

Global Opioids Market, By Drug Type:

Codeine

Fentanyl

Morphine

Hydrocodone

Oxycodone

Others

Global Opioids Market, By Application:

Analgesia

Cough Suppression

Diarrhea Suppression

Global Opioids Market, By Route of Administration:

Oral

Topical

Parenteral

Others

Global Opioids Market, By Distribution Channel:

Hospital Pharmacies

Retail Pharmacies

Online Pharmacies

Global Opioids Market, By Region:

North America

By Country:



U.S.





Canada

Europe

By Country:



U.K.





Germany





Italy





France





Spain





Russia





Rest of Europe

Asia Pacific

By Country:



China





India





Japan





ASEAN





Australia





South Korea





Rest of Asia Pacific

Latin America

By Country:



Brazil





Mexico





Argentina





Rest of Latin America

Middle East & Africa

By Country:



GCC Countries





Israel





South Africa





Rest of Middle East & Africa

Buy this Complete Report Now @ https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/buy-now/1017

About Us:

Coherent Market Insights is a global market intelligence and consulting organization focused on assisting our plethora of clients achieve transformational growth by helping them make critical business decisions. We are headquartered in India, having sales office at global financial capital in the U.S. and sales consultants in United Kingdom and Japan. Our client base includes players from across various business verticals in over 57 countries worldwide. We create value for clients through our highly reliable and accurate reports. We are also committed in playing a leading role in offering insights in various sectors post-COVID-19 and continue to deliver measurable, sustainable results for our clients.

Contact Us:

Mr. Shah

Senior Client Partner  Business Development

Coherent Market Insights

Phone:

US: +1-206-701-6702

UK: +44-020-8133-4027

Japan: +81-050-5539-1737

India: +91-848-285-0837

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com

Follow Us: LinkedIn | Twitter

SOURCE Coherent Market Insights
MANZINI  It could be lights off for several entities as the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) is owed millions.

Government, this publication has gathered, is the main culprit. The parastatal has already announced that it will undertake a disconnection exercise and, it has been gathered, is owed about E50 million. In the past, the public was deprived of government services such that in Mankayane, all government establishments were, for a week, without electricity in recent years.

EEC Marketing and Communications Manager Khaya Mavuso confirmed that the electricity provider was owed E50 million when he was sought for comment on how much was owed to the company.

Debtor

Also, Mavuso was requested to expand on previous reports, wherein it emerged that government was the biggest debtor. He was asked how much government owed. Furthermore, the marketing and communications manager was requested to state what would the plan be for entities whereby the law provided that terminating their power was regarded as treason. He said: All I can say is that we are being owed E50 million. I cant disclose details of our customers and their bills. It is worth noting that in most instances, government has been having the highest outstanding balances with EEC. Impeccable sources said if it were not for the many small commercial and domestic customers on the prepaid system, the company would have not been able to keep afloat as most of the money that needed to be reinvested was with government.

Impeccable sources relayed that the failure by government to settle its arrears dating over a decade back was to the disadvantage of the country in terms of investments in renewable energy and improving the infrastructure of EEC. They claimed that there was a possibility of the power sourced from South Africa to be minimised in the next two years when the contract between the countries came to an end. It is on record that Eswatini imports 80 per cent of its electricity from Eskom in South Africa and 10 per cent from Mozambique. Local generation contributes only about 10 per cent, mainly for peak load. Last week, the utility published a notice of disconnection on its social media pages, wherein it stated that it shall be conducting a major disconnection exercise on all overdue accounts. The exercise was expected to commence today (January 24, 2022).

In the notice, EEC stated that customers were requested to pay all their overdue bills to avoid being disconnected. The utility further stated that the disconnection exercise would run until the end of March 2022. The owing customers of EEC were advised that no negotiations would be accepted on overdue accounts. In past reports by this publication, it was reported that the arrears accrued by government were in 2012 in excess of E40 million. This resulted in the company disconnecting power at a number of government departments, which in turn limited service delivery. At the time, this publication reported that it disconnected electricity at the District Commissioners (DC) Offices, which also housed departments from other ministries. The departments which were left without electricity were Immigration Offices, Revenue, Agriculture and Housing ministries. In 2017, the utility, as per its advertisement, switched off power supply to some owing government ministries, departments and parastatals.

Parastatals

At the time, when EEC targeted government ministries and parastatals which owed the utility power provider over E17.2 million, five ministries, namely; Natural Resources and Energy, Public Works and Transport, Health, Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Home Affairs as well as the Treasury Department had their power supply disconnected. These five ministries and the Treasury Department form part of a list of 27 others that owe the utility company. On the other hand, it has become a norm for police residential camps to have their power disconnected by EEC at this time of the year due to outstanding balances.

Meanwhile, when the Deputy Government Spokesperson, Thabile Mdluli, was sought for comment on how much was owed by government and on whether services would be rendered in all ministries, given that the utility would be disconnecting power supply, she referred questions to the Ministry of Finance wherein the Communications Officer, Setsabile Dlamini, said: The utility bills are budgeted for in the respective ministries budget. Meanwhile, an economist has said the constant failure by government to pay its debts reflected poor planning.

Economics Lecturer at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) Sanele Sibiya said the constant power disconnections for government ministries were an embarrassment and a sign of poor planning.

He said this depicted that government either lacked planning or did not know how much to plan for. Sibiya said this needed government to revisit its planning system. Also, he said this could mean that all revenue generated by government through tax collection by Eswatini Revenue Services (ERS) only funded the wage bill. This, he said, meant that when ERS failed to meet its targets, service delivery was bound to suffer. The economics scholar said it was far better not to budget than to give false hope. This results in the reallocations and constant need of loans as we dont know how to plan as a country, Sibiya said.

He said at the moment, governments recurring expenditure was due to government failing to generate more money as tax collections were mostly used to fund the wage bill. This was the same view held by the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA). Secretary General (SG) of TUCOSWA Mduduzi Gina said the annual disconnection of electricity across government ministries and departments was a sign of failure to prioritise. He likened it to the annual failure by government to pay the free primary education (FPE) and also orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs) grants on time. Gina said the school calendar year was always known by government first and expected impeccable delivery from teachers while failing to play its role. In the case of EEC, Gina said the company was expected to play a major role in improving power generation, but was also deprived of the resources to do that.

They need to prioritise their debts and pay them before seeking to invest in infrastructure that will benefit a few people, he said. Gina claimed that from the actions always taken by government, he was convinced that service delivery was the least priority. He said this was because in most instances, services were sought by government; however, it failed to pay the accrued bill. It is worth noting that while government promotes small medium enterprises (SMEs) to improve the economy, many establishments have gone under due to failure by government to settle its arrears.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Groundfloor , the wealthtech platform that allows everyone to build wealth through real estate, is today announcing the launch of a new, local lending company focused specifically on Jacksonville. To mark the occasion, Groundfloor is pledging $50 million in dedicated financing for Jacksonville's home flippers and independent real estate developers through the end of the year. The goal of the pledge is to spur Jacksonville's residential housing boom, while allowing investors across the nation to earn interest in the market's rapid growth.

"Market data shows that the Jacksonville metro area needs more residential housing, especially as its population and job prospects continue to accelerate," said Brian Dally, co-founder and CEO of Groundfloor. "We're doubling down in Jacksonville. Our new lending company will leverage its market expertise and access to Groundfloor's capital to help local real estate developers renovate and build more homes, on the most investor-friendly terms available."

The new local lending company, Groundfloor Jacksonville, is a joint venture with FastHouzz Funding, which was founded by a local real estate entrepreneur, Mike Grandjean. Grandjean, who currently serves as president of JaxREIA, is well known for his lending track record and extensive knowledge of the Jacksonville market.

"With its great climate, affordable cost of living, and strong job opportunities, Jacksonville provides a fantastic quality of life, and people are moving here in droves in search of single-family homes to purchase or rent," said Grandjean. "I've worked with Groundfloor myself for many years and know firsthand that their affordable rates, attractive max leverage, and deferred interest payment terms will help many investors scale the number and value of renovations they can do."

Since its launch in 2013, Groundfloor has loaned more than $577 million in capital to independent real estate entrepreneurs, who are working to improve their communities, while building their own wealth. Some of the advantages to lending with Groundfloor include:

Up to 75% loan to after repair value with up to 100% of purchase, renovation and closing costs rolled into the loan

No appraisal: we complete an internal review of the property value

No payments until a loan repays and all interest is deferred

Loan sizes from $75,000 to $1M

to New investors are welcome  no experience required

6 month terms that may be extended in some circumstances

Quick closings, as we move at the speed of the transaction

Real estate developers may apply for Groundfloor's Loan100 program, which provides financing for up to 100 percent of total project costs, including purchase and renovation (i.e. up to 100 percent Loan-to-Cost). This program allows our clients to borrow funds with 0 percent down.





Real estate developers looking to take advantage of Groundfloor's $50 million financing pledge can start the process by completing an online application at www.groundfloorjax.com.

About Groundfloor

Founded in 2013, Groundfloor is an award-winning wealthtech platform that allows everyone to build wealth through real estate. Groundfloor was the first company qualified by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission to offer direct real estate debt investments via Regulation A for non-accredited and accredited investors alike. Today, it remains the only product offering everyone the ability to build fully customizable real estate debt portfolios for short-term, high-yield returns. Headquartered in Atlanta, Groundfloor has won numerous awards for its rapid growth and innovation including the Inc. 5000 and Deloitte's Technology Fast 500. To date, Groundfloor has raised $30 million in equity capital from a variety of sources, including venture capital and online public equity offerings. As of its most recent round of financing, the company is 30 percent customer-owned.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Hela Sheth

GROUNDFLOOR

[email protected]

SOURCE Groundfloor Finance Inc.
The modularity of AXE LV battery system makes it easy to be installed with internal plugs, requiring no extra cable connections, while with all the external cables integrated onto one plug, its connection to the inverter is much more simplified. In short, this unique design greatly reduces installation difficulty and time.

In terms of safety, it enjoys multi-level protections from the inverter and BMS, such as cell security monitoring and balancing. Meanwhile, as a cobalt-free LFP battery, it stands out for its high-temperature resistance, strong safety and stability as well as better performance of up to 5,000 charge cycles. It also has a longer life span of more than 10 years while traditional lead-acid batteries can only last 2-3 years. Generally, it holds more advantages in terms of the TCO ( total cost of ownership) for customers.

With regard to compatibility, AXE LV battery system can be used with all Growatt's SPF off-grid series inverters. Moreover, it also works perfectly along with the SPH and SPA series storage inverters.

Growatt offers one-stop services to deliver better customer experiences. The company provides technical support upon installation for faster completion. For daily use and maintenance, it provides whole-system warranty including the battery system and storage inverters. Any system issue, if it occurs, can be quickly located and solved more efficiently. Additionally, Growatt allows installers to upgrade the firmware of the battery system remotely, which can help reduce the O&M cost and improve service efficiency.

About Growatt

Established in 2010, Growatt is a global leader in smart energy solutions. According to IHS Markit and Wood Mackenzie, the company is the world's No.1 residential inverter supplier and also ranks among the global top 5 suppliers of commercial inverters. For storage hybrid inverters, Growatt is the second largest supplier in the world according to Wood Mackenzie.

SOURCE Growatt
ST. LOUIS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SpotSee, a Harbour Group company, has acquired the assets of Biosynergy, Inc., Jeff Fox, Harbour Group's chairman and chief executive, announced today. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Biosynergy manufactures and distributes temperature indicators used in the life sciences market, primarily in monitoring temperature on blood bags. Many of Biosynergy's products utilize liquid crystal technology to monitor temperature on various surfaces. Additional products include forehead temperature indicators, heat and freeze surface indicators, and gel packs. The business is headquartered in Elk Grove Village, IL.

Mr. Fox commented, "SpotSee has been focused on bringing new products and capabilities to the life sciences market. The acquisition of Biosynergy represents a great opportunity to do so. Biosynergy has built a great portfolio of products and brings SpotSee additional customer relationships, that through the combination of businesses, will be able to be served more thoroughly."

Tony Fonk, CEO and President of SpotSee, said, "The combination of Biosynergy with SpotSee expands our product offering in the growing life sciences temperature monitoring market. BioSynergy's HemoTemp brand is a market leader and will be a valuable addition to the business. Through this addition, we at SpotSee look forward to further enhancing the product offering we bring our customers."

About SpotSee

SpotSee develops and manufactures temperature, shock, tilt, and other environmental condition-monitoring solutions for in-transit, in-plant, and in-storage applications. SpotSee helps customers "spot" and "see" changing conditions to protect product and ensure supply chain integrity. The company offers a broad portfolio of branded products including indicator devices, RFID, satellite, and cellular connected devices that provide real-time tracking, monitoring, and reporting capabilities. The company's well-known brands include: WarmMark, ColdMark, ShockLog, ShockWatch, ShockWatch RFID, TiltWatch. The company is headquartered in Dallas.

About Harbour Group

Harbour Group is a privately owned operations-focused company based in St. Louis, Missouri. Harbour Group's companies are engaged in manufacturing and distribution across diverse industries, including outdoor living products, stainless-steel hose fittings, remote monitoring solutions, control solutions, LED lighting, flow control, thermal management solutions, boiler systems, professional diagnostic and repair tools, and auxiliary plastic processing equipment. Since its founding in 1976, Harbour Group has acquired 219 companies in 48 different industries.

SOURCE Harbour Group
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Poseidon Water today announced the company has been notified by the California Coastal Commission staff that its application for a Coastal Development Permit (CDP) for the construction of the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Facility ("Facility") has been deemed complete.

Coastal Commission staff have further informed the company that the Facility's CDP will be considered by the Commission during its upcoming March hearing. The Facility is in the final phase of its permitting process and the CDP is the last major discretionary permit needed to build the long-awaited seawater desalination plant.

"Poseidon Water appreciates the thoughtful considering of our Coastal Development Permit application by Commission staff," said Poseidon Director of Communications Jessica Jones. "We have a lengthy 15-year history of working cooperatively with the Coastal Commission on the permitting of the proposed Facility. As California continues to grapple with climate change-induced drought we remain committed to building on the success of our Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination facility by delivering Southern California a second large-scale, environmentally responsible and cost-effective desalination facility in Orange County- bringing a new, reliable water supply to over 400,000 Californians," she said.

On April 29, 2021, the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Facility became the first, new seawater desalination facility permitted under the state's new seawater desalination regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board in 2015. As such, the Facility has been found by the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board to use the best available, site, design, technology and mitigation measures feasible to minimize the intake and mortality of all forms of marine life. The state's penultimate water quality regulatory agency further found the Facility fulfills an identified need for drinking water and complies with the state's Human Right to Water policies.

About Poseidon Water

Poseidon Water is a private company that partners with public agencies to deliver water infrastructure projects. The company's primary focus is developing large-scale reverse osmosis seawater desalination plants implemented through innovative public-private partnerships in which private enterprise assumes the developmental and financial risks. For more information on Poseidon's Carlsbad Desalination Plant, visit the plant website at www.carlsbaddesal.com. For more information on Poseidon's Huntington Beach desalination plant, visit the project website at www.HBfreshwater.com.

Contact: Pasquale Talarico

[email protected]

Cell 714.719.3345

SOURCE Poseidon Water
LONDON, Jan. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Huobi Global, one of the world's leading digital asset exchanges, today announced the official launch of its Lunar New Year campaign, dubbed Prime Fest: Tiger Year.

Lasting until February 14, 2022, this campaign encourages users to explore future possibilities in the metaverse, an expansive network of virtual worlds that may incorporate augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D holographic avatars, video and other means of communication in the future. To promote the development of the metaverse, Huobi is doling out US$100 million in prizes and rewards, including access to new metaverse token listings under Primelist , high-yielding asset management products under PrimeEarn , and special blind box draws under PrimeBox. Huobi will also invite participants to register for DIDs (decentralized identifiers), or personalized virtual identities in the metaverse; these users will be eligible to win unique tiger-themed NFT avatars.

Huobi's DIDs are designed to be users' entry point into the metaverse, providing them with an access point between Web2 and Web3. DIDs are widely considered a prerequisite for anyone looking to enter the metaverse, not only granting user access but also recording and verifying all information and activity on blockchains. DIDs offer users security, ownership, and interoperability. Huobi's NFT platform launched its own DIDs at the end of 2021 to give select users access to exclusive NFT releases, airdrops, and other special benefits.

"Our emphasis on the metaverse reflects our intentions to provide a more fun and unique crypto experience," said Huobi Co-founder Du Jun. "We're not just another spot trading exchange. We pride ourselves on our diverse set of products and services, and the promotions we run are designed to gamify the trading experience and make it more fun."

Huobi has been supporting GameFi and metaverse projects through investments and token listings. In September of 2021, Huobi launched a $10 million fund to invest in emerging GameFi projects. The fund has invested in Zuki Moba, a Vietnam-based community-oriented MOBA Esports Game (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) and Project SEED, a GameFi project utilizing a "Play to Earn" model.

Over the last year, Huobi listed tokens such as Decimated (DIO), a multiplayer online roleplaying game in a dystopian cyberpunk metaverse, and ERTHA, a game that enables players to explore and investigate a virtual world by specializing and increasing the strength of their respective NFTs and countries.

To learn more about Prime Fest: Tiger Year, click here.

About Huobi Group

As a world-leading company in the blockchain industry, Huobi Group was founded in 2013 with a mission to make breakthroughs in core blockchain technology and integration blockchain technology with other industries. Huobi Group has expanded into public blockchains, digital assets trading, wallets, mining pools, proprietary investments, incubation, digital asset research, and more. Huobi Group has established a global digital economy industry ecosystem by investing in over 60 upstream and downstream companies in the blockchain industry.

SOURCE Huobi
ATLANTA, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Insight Global, a national leader in the staffing services industry, announced today the launch of Compass Culture Academy, an offering born from the company's culture consulting arm, Compass. This new offering was formed to create connection, trust and productivity during unprecedented times for companies and organizations amidst the Great Resignation and War for Talent.

With toxic culture being 10.4 times more powerful than compensation in predicting a company's attrition rate, Compass Culture Academy will serve as an immersive learning journey meant to equip leaders with the tools and skills necessary to solve employee retention problems and create meaningful culture change. The three-day workshop can host up to 15 leaders at an organization and is held at Insight Global's headquarters in Atlanta. It focuses on helping organizations discover the art of human connection and why it is critical for driving business growth. Participants go through exercises that form the building blocks of company culture, including how to manage change and unite teams to drive peak performance.

"We know culture is the heart and soul of any company, and while the pandemic has magnified the breakdown in corporate culture, it is something that has long been a predictor of employee retention and productivity," said Steve Wasik, Vice President of Culture and Strategy at Insight Global. "Our new Compass Culture Academy comes at a time when it is needed most. People are leaving their jobs at unprecedented rates, which is why we are thrilled to offer this invaluable opportunity that teaches how to retain the best talent and keep culture king during these challenging times."

In a recent Forbes article on why culture matters to a business and its bottom line, Insight Global CEO Bert Bean said culture is "the connective tissue that binds us all together within a company". Bean added, "If people value taking care of others and personal development, then you'll have a growth mindset culture that's focused on doing good internally and externally. They'll overcome any obstacle together because they believe."

Compass Culture Academy is divided into three learning phases to help organizations and leaders gain an enhanced perspective on workplace culture:

Before: Participants will receive a personalized orientation call to understand goals and unique challenges. A group call is also held to make introductions, cover pre-work, and set the stage for a transformative experience.

Participants will receive a personalized orientation call to understand goals and unique challenges. A group call is also held to make introductions, cover pre-work, and set the stage for a transformative experience. During: Participants will engage in a fully immersive three-day workshop, which includes guided experiential learning across topics that are critical to positively impact culture and performance, using live examples and real-world problems. Participants will translate learning into action with plans to impact their immediate team.

Participants will engage in a fully immersive three-day workshop, which includes guided experiential learning across topics that are critical to positively impact culture and performance, using live examples and real-world problems. Participants will translate learning into action with plans to impact their immediate team. After: Participants will leave with an abundance of carefully curated tools, templates and resources. There will be six months of sharing and learning sessions to keep the community engaged and help overcome obstacles. A final reflection and learning call will take place, and participants will receive a Compass Culture Academy Certification.

In addition to Compass Culture Academy, Insight Global is laser focused on providing additional tools and resources to current and prospective clients to keep culture top of mind. The company recently launched several complementary workshops open to business leaders and executives. Highlights include:

Leadership That Moves Us : This personal leadership workshop is designed to give leaders guidance, time for reflection and an outlet in this challenging time. In this ongoing weekly workshop conducted via Zoom, participants work in teams to understand and apply eight concepts of leadership necessary for success in the face of adversity, uncertainty and virtual work.

: This personal leadership workshop is designed to give leaders guidance, time for reflection and an outlet in this challenging time. In this ongoing weekly workshop conducted via Zoom, participants work in teams to understand and apply eight concepts of leadership necessary for success in the face of adversity, uncertainty and virtual work. Compass Culture Workshop : This interactive workshop is designed to help leaders build stronger, more defined culture and to help them take better care of their people in the wake of the pandemic. In this ongoing weekly workshop conducted via Zoom, participants learn strategies to navigate the world of virtual work, with a focus on creating stronger connections, building positive behaviors and creating opportunity for meaningful work.

This interactive workshop is designed to help leaders build stronger, more defined culture and to help them take better care of their people in the wake of the pandemic. In this ongoing weekly workshop conducted via Zoom, participants learn strategies to navigate the world of virtual work, with a focus on creating stronger connections, building positive behaviors and creating opportunity for meaningful work. Lead Yourself First : This workshop is designed to turn the focus back on leaders so they can bring their best version of themselves to their people every day. Every week via Zoom, leaders will learn the importance of having a relationship with themselves, building routines around personal development, and creating space to solve challenges.

This workshop is designed to turn the focus back on leaders so they can bring their best version of themselves to their people every day. Every week via Zoom, leaders will learn the importance of having a relationship with themselves, building routines around personal development, and creating space to solve challenges. Custom Leadership Workshop: For leaders and teams who want a personalized experience, Compass offers a training for groups of up to 12 employees from any organization interested in seeing how Compass effectively brings change to the workplace. For a limited time, Compass will offer this session free of charge ( $5,000 value) to the first five groups who contact Brittany Tipton and complete a questionnaire.

"It is our sincere hope that people understand that culture isn't just a trend or buzzword. All of our research and time spent curating these programs points to an innate need to help companies with the thing they are struggling with most: keeping people motivated, engaged and most importantly, fulfilled," said Wasik. "Our work has proven successful with clients of all sizes, and we hope that others will take us up on these exciting opportunities to see just how powerful change can be, whether you're virtual or in person."

Learn more about Compass, Insight Global's culture consulting arm, at IGcompass.com.

About Insight Global

Insight Global isn't just a staffing company. We're a company that cares for others. It might sound lofty, but it's the idea that gets us up every day, determined to make it true. Insight Global is a company that people can anchor to in moments of triumph, struggle, and every time in between. Whoever you are and wherever you come from, you matter to us and we have your back. Whether it's finding the right candidate for a job or seamlessly managing a project end to end, our conviction and commitment to our consultants and clients runs deep. With 60+ field offices across the US and Canada, putting to work over 50,000 Consultants annually, we believe together, anything is possible. Learn more at www.insightglobal.com.

SOURCE Insight Global
As red ginseng, the originator of K-food, has established itself as a popular gift in Asia where New Year's holidays are celebrated, demand in overseas markets is also increasing. Growing interest in health worldwide, as well as increasing awareness due to the influence of K-drama, seems to have driven the market due to an increase in the influx of the younger generation. The diversification of sales channels through e-commerce along with product variation also had an impact.

The overseas export performance of KGC, Korea's leading red ginseng manufacturing company, is also remarkable. Compared to the annual sales in '19, before the outbreak of Covid-19, '20 increased by 4.8%, and the accumulated sales in the third quarter of '21 also increased by about 20% compared to '19's annual sales.

<"Tinghao Red Ginseng" top sales by country is mainland China, and the most popular product is 'Korean Red Ginseng Roots'>

Mainland China accounts for the largest share of the overseas red ginseng market. Mainland China has historically referred to red ginseng produced in Korea as 'Koryo Ginseng' and recognized it as a high-end medicinal product.

'Korean Red Ginseng Roots' sold in mainland China has been recognized for its quality, and it has established itself as a preferred brand that consumers purchase for their health and gifts around them.

In mainland China, where the Lunar New Year culture is similar to Korea, sales in January and February account for more than 20% of annual sales. 'Korean Red Ginseng Roots', the top-selling product, also sells more than 20% during the Lunar New Year. There is a culture of filial piety similar to that of Korea, so it is often visited as a gift for the elderly.

In the case of Taiwan region and Hong Kong region, there was a big perception, 'a product for the elderly that has good medicinal effects but is expensive', but it is analyzed that after the launch of a stick-type red ginseng product 'Everytime', the impression of red ginseng in the market has completely changed.

In Taiwan region, 'Everytime' ranked first in sales with a market share of 38%, playing a significant role in transforming the root ginseng-oriented market into a product-oriented market. While maintaining the excellent efficacy of red ginseng, it succeeded in emphasizing portability and convenience of intake, targeting office workers in their 30s. Through these efforts, sales in Taiwan region, in 2020, surged 259% compared to 2017, achieving remarkable growth. The region also shows a high proportion of sales during the Lunar New Year period, accounting for 19-20% of annual sales.

In Hong Kong region, the love of red ginseng is also outstanding. From a long time ago, the Hong Kong region was famous for its ginseng hub, which imported Korean ginseng from Korea and distributed around the world. Awareness and acceptance of traditional medicines in Hong Kong region are high to the extent that a market for traditional Chinese medicine, which is larger than Korea's medicinal market, has been formed.

In Hong Kong region, 'Everytime' ranks first in sales, too. The recognition that it is a hit product in Korea and the convenience of ingestion are well received, and it seems that all age groups purchase it for self-consumption. It is followed by pomegranate sticks and aronia products containing red ginseng.

<The hot Korean wave brings the popularity of Korean red ginseng in Southeast Asia, especially there is a strong growth in Singapore and Vietnam>

Among the countries to which red ginseng is exported, the countries with high growth in recent years are Southeast Asian regions such as Singapore, Vietnam, and Malaysia. As various K-contents are popular due to the Korean wave, Korean red ginseng products are also well received by locals.

In Singapore and Malaysia, Chinese consumers are the main consumers, and they have a basic understanding of ginseng.

Singapore also showed the highest proportion of 'Everytime' sales. Although it is an Asian country, there is no objection to accepting new things as it is a place where various ethnic groups live together and the cultures of East and West intersect. In Malaysia, too, Chinese consumers are the main consumer group, and sales occur most during the new year(January 1st), the biggest holiday. 'Everytime' also took the top spot in local sales. This is because Korean dramas are very popular and interest in 'Everytime', which frequently appeared as a PPL in the work, has increased in the local area.

Vietnam has a high preference for Korean ginseng and considers it the most luxurious and precious healthy gift. In Vietnam, 'Everytime' is selling the most. As the percentage of the young population is high, they prefer products that are easy to carry and eat. During the biggest holiday in Vietnam, TET (the 1st day of the lunar calendar), it was popular with locals as a top-quality healthy gift and ranked first among ginseng products in Vietnam's online market. 'Red Ginseng Tablet', which contains 100% red ginseng concentrate, was popular as a luxury gift and took second place.

Japanese consumers place importance on the quality of products, and after purchasing a small amount for experience, they show a tendency to purchase on a regular basis only when they judge that it is suitable for them.

'Everytime', a stick-type red ginseng product, is also popular in Japan. In the past, red ginseng tablets in the form of pills were sold a lot, but recently, the younger generation, who have often seen eating stick-type red ginseng through Korean dramas, are enjoying this more and more.

<In the US, the largest market outside of Asian countries, 'Red Ginseng Extract' ranks first in the U.S. for its large capacity and excellent efficacy>

Excluding Asian countries, the United States is the world's largest ginseng product market and ginseng exporter. CheongKwanJang is also working hard on the local market by setting up more than 30 stores across the United States.

In September of last year, CheongKwanJang opened the Ginseng Museum Cafe, an experiential store in Manhattan, New York. This is a place where foreigners who are somewhat unfamiliar with red ginseng can experience and explain the history and efficacy of Korean ginseng.

Although the majority of visitors to the store are Asians, non-Asians also keep coming. In particular, the response to the 'Red Ginseng Roots Liquid' made daily at the store is good. The taste is not as bitter as expected, and the fact that it is made in-house is highly appreciated.

The most popular product in the local market is 'Red Ginseng Extract', a red ginseng concentrate. Compared to the vast territory of the United States, there are not many stores, so the consumers prefer products that can be eaten for a long time once purchased. 'Red Ginseng Extract' has a capacity of 240g and can be consumed for about 3 months, and has the rich taste and aroma of red ginseng, so it is also called an essential item for middle-aged Koreans in US.

Australia and Russia, and 'Red Ginseng Extract' in the Middle East>

In Australia, 'Hong Sam Won', a drink-type product, took the top spot in sales. By entering a large distribution store such as Costco, the experience is widened, and the taste is mild, so it is perfect for locals to increase their familiarity with red ginseng. 2nd place was 'Red Ginseng Extract'.

'Hong Sam Won' is the best-selling product in Russia as well. It tastes similar to the traditional Russian drink (kvass) and is said to be good for health, and is popular with locals. It is popular with local women over 40.

The most popular product in the Middle East is 'Red Ginseng Extract' in the form of a concentrate.

<Visible results by diversifying sales channels through product development and e-commerce>

In the 'World Map of Red Ginseng', different countries have different cultures of eating red ginseng, and the types of products they prefer are also various. Although red ginseng has a long history of advancing overseas to be called the progenitor of K-food, it suffered from difficulties due to many regulations on health food by country. Recently, various red ginseng products have been developed, and tangible results are showing as product registration and market development have been steadily carried out.

In particular, as online shopping has become more active after Covid-19, red ginseng sales are increasing significantly, mainly through e-commerce. KGC is also changing all the homepages of its overseas subsidiaries to online shopping malls and expanding sales of CheongKwanJang products to large overseas online commerce sites such as Tmall, Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee.

"Red ginseng is a cultural pride of Korea and a significant legacy passed down by our ancestors," said Kim Nae-soo, a director of Global CIC at KGC. He added, "We will do our best to promote our red ginseng to the world with a sense of duty as a representative."

SOURCE KGC (Korea Ginseng Corp.)
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- makeSEA, a content management and collaboration platform for mixed reality, has become a member of the VR/AR Association (VRARA). The VRARA is an international industry organization for virtual and augmented reality designed to connect member organizations, encourage research and education, help develop industry best practices, and foster collaboration between solution providers and end-users. The VRARA membership currently consists of 4,000 companies, brands, and schools, plus over 60,000 industry professionals.



"makeSEA is excited to be a member of the VR/AR Association," said Chris Stavros, CEO and Founder at makeSEA. "As we see accelerated adoption of the use of VR and AR in all segments of business as well as educational institutions, we feel members of the Association will help foster the generation of new ideas and collaboration in the technology. makeSEA is focused on providing easy and economical cross-platform solutions that provide rapid value and measurable benefits through user experiences tied to client content."



makeSEA developers are currently working on new features for the cross-platform solution. With makeSEA + Catapult you can reduce production and refresh times for mixed reality apps by 10x - 100x as well as reduce implementation time to weeks, providing a publishing and update workflow that has reduced the development and operating costs by more than 80% as compared to traditional production methods.



makeSEA puts the power of sharing and live collaboration in the hands of everyone, any educator, any business. makeSEA is the fastest way to get your content onto your XR device with no programming requirements and real-time updates. The California based company serves multiple educational institutions, a diverse range of business clientele, and individual creators and designers.



Companies, organizations, and individuals seeking to explore how to use AR and VR technology should contact makeSEA to learn how easy and affordable XR content production can be using the makeSEA Content Management & Collaboration Platform.



For more information see https://www.makesea.com/



This press release was issued through 24-7PressRelease.com. For further information, visit http://www.24-7pressrelease.com.
SKANES FAGERHULT, Sweden, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Martin Kunz is a German citizen with a master's degree in mechanical engineering and business administration from Technical University of Kaiserslautern and has a longstanding international experience in leading regional and global businesses as well as commercial organizations in flow control and other OEM industries. Martin has worked out of multiple countries such as Germany, Spain, Mexico, France, the UK and Switzerland and accumulates many years of business experience in the US and Asia. Most recently he was leading the European commercial organization of Xylem Inc., a US based publicly listed company and global leader in water technologies.

"After a thorough global recruitment process, we are very pleased to welcome Martin Kunz to Concentric. His broad leadership skills, proven track record in achieving profitable growth and international perspective make him very suitable to lead the continued transformation of Concentric in terms of both electrification and business growth. The board would also like to thank David Woolley for his great and successful contributions to Concentric during 19 years, of which 10 years as President and CEO. " says Anders Nielsen, Chairman of the Board of Concentric AB.

"I am very happy for the opportunity to lead Concentric into the next development phase. Concentric is a profitable and well-functioning business with great employees and a global footprint. Together with the team, I look forward to taking the organisation to the next level." says Martin Kunz.

This information is of the type that Concentric AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, at 20.00 CET on 24 January, 2022.

For additional information please contact Anders Nielsen, telephone +44-121-445 6545

Concentric AB is an innovator in flow control and fluid power, supplying proprietary systems and components to the world's truck, agricultural machinery, construction equipment and industrial applications end-markets. The company has a global manufacturing presence including in the UK, USA, Germany, Sweden, India and China. Concentric's focus is to develop world class technology with innovative solutions that meet the sustainability needs of our customers. Concentric offers engine products including lubricant, coolant and fuel pumps, hydraulic products encompassing gear pumps and power packs, and finally several key technologies for the fast growing market for electrical and hybrid powertrains. In 2020, The Group had a turnover of circa MSEK 1,500 and circa 700 employees. At the end of October 2021, The Group acquired Engineered Machined Products, Inc. ("EMP"), a leading US producer of electric and mechanical water and oil pumps, electric fans, thermal management systems and precision machined components. EMP has over 400 employees and a turnover of over SEK 1,000 million. Including EMP, Concentric has a combined annual turnover of over SEK 2,500 million and over 1,100 employees.

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/concentric-ab/r/martin-kunz-appointed-new-president-and-ceo-of-concentric,c3491425

The following files are available for download:

https://mb.cision.com/Main/1643/3491425/1524364.pdf Release https://mb.cision.com/Public/1643/3491425/a0274cc55effd1aa.docx Martin Kunz

SOURCE Concentric AB
Thanks to the Authority's relentless efforts to meet its ambitious goals for the sector, the Kingdom ranked 16th in the 2021 edition of Lloyd's List One Hundred Ports in terms of volume handled. Three of the country's prominent ports featured in the annual rankings, namely the Jeddah Islamic Port (37 th position), King Abdullah Port (84 th position), and King Abdulaziz Port (93 rd position).

As a testament to the stature and competitive appeal of Saudi ports, the Kingdom was declared the world's fifth-fastest country in container ship handling by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) annual index report for 2020, thus marking the country's first-ever entry in the world's top 10 seaports list. The Kingdom also moved up on the Liner Shipping Connectivity Index during Q3 2021to lead the region with 70.68 points.

In parallel with the launch of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy, MAWANI announced its blueprint for a prosperous and sustainable maritime sector that includes initiatives to develop the national economy and transform Saudi ports into investment magnets.

In its bid to bolster the Kingdom's competitive edge, MAWANI had inked a deal with Maersk to invest SAR500 million for setting up a fully integrated logistics zone at Jeddah Islamic Port, which is set to be the largest in the Middle East. Work also commenced on the development of Phase 1 of the SAR3 billion South Container Terminal at Jeddah Islamic Port by DP World.

To further strengthen the Kingdom's trade ties and global partnerships, MAWANI added four maritime shipping services out of Jeddah Islamic Port and King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam in 2021, connecting them with ports in the Indian Ocean, Northern Europe, Djibouti, China, and Bahrain. The Authority also signed an agreement with Hapag-Lloyd to increase container throughput across Saudi ports.

In keeping with its strategic objective of maximizing and fully leveraging the increased capacity of Saudi ports, MAWANI executed 32 infrastructure projects that involved the construction of new berths, renovation and expansion of existing berths, and dredging of turning basins. The Authority also opened up investment opportunities to develop and operate multi-purpose terminals at eight Saudi ports.

In its mission to enhance customer experience, MAWANI developed seven new online systems, granted 16 operations licenses to national and foreign shipping agents, and brought online a new trucking appointment booking system. Recognizing the critical role that the ports and logistics sector plays in various industries, from manufacturing to food security, MAWANI had signed a deal to build the Middle East's largest grain and animal feed import and processing terminal. With 120 silos, this terminal will be able to handle a whopping eight million tons of bulk grain per year.

To support national efforts to enable the tourism sector with world-class facilities, the Saudi Ports Authority inaugurated the Kingdom's first cruise ship terminal at Jeddah Islamic Port, which saw off the cruise ship MSC Bellissima's maiden voyage. MAWANI also signed agreements with Cruise Saudi and Globe Group to build and develop cruise ship terminals and berths at King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam and Yanbu Commercial Port.

Commenting on 2021's achievements, H.E. Omar Hariri, President of the Saudi Ports Authority, said: "Thanks to the support of our Leadership and coinciding with the launch of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy, the Kingdom has established a clear roadmap to transform the maritime sector and raise its ports to world-class levels. We intend to invest more in our port infrastructure for seamless integration with other modes of transport across the country. We further aim to achieve an annual capacity that exceeds 40 million TEUs through greater ties with international shipping routes."

His Excellency added: "MAWANI's achievements come on the back of the support of H.E. Eng. Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, the Minister of Transport and Logistics, the Saudi Ports Authority's Board of Directors, and the effective collaboration between government agencies to integrate the national transport system and execute our strategy. Working closely with our partners has been and will remain a key to success in turning Saudi ports into significant value contributors to the national economy."

SOURCE The Saudi Ports Authority (MAWANI)
Investcorp, a leading global alternative investment firm headquartered in Bahrain, announced that its New York-based real estate team participated in nearly $4 billion in deals last year, including both buying and disposition activity.

The group acquired over 200 properties in 2021 valued at approximately $2.5 billion and sold approximately $1.5 billion.

Investcorp narrowed its strategic focus to residential and industrial property types in 2014, which currently represent approximately 95% of the firms US real estate portfolio.

While the Covid-19 pandemic continued to provide a source of uncertainty in real estate markets, it created opportunities in these sectors and helped drive the firms momentum as a highly active buyer and seller.

The key highlights and achievements of Investcorp for 2021 are:

Invested $1 billion of clients capital in US real estate.

Expanded US industrial holdings to approximately $3.5 billion across approximately 32 million square feet, comprised of more than 425 buildings.

Grew US residential assets to nearly $4.1 billion across approximately 18,000 multifamily units and 2,700 student housing beds.

Established a new venture with two leading sovereign wealth funds to acquire industrial real estate assets in the US.

Appointed Michelle Felman and Patrice Derrington in 2021 and Jerry Davis in 2022 as Advisory Directors to the Real Estate group.

On the record sales, Executive Chairman Mohammed Alardhi said: "The record level of activity within our North American real estate business in 2021 has created many opportunities to help drive Investcorps growth and retain its position as a top cross-border real estate buyer and seller in the US."

"Long before the pandemic, we perceived residential and industrial real estate investments to be one of the most recession-proof sectors, and this strategy has proven to be attractive given business and lifestyle changes, many of which were accelerated because of Covid-19. I look forward to seeing the continued growth of our platform in a key market for us," noted Alardhi.

The firms strategy remains targeted towards core-plus and light-value-add real estate investments that it believes can generate strong cash flows with high occupancies in markets underpinned by solid economic fundamentals.

"Weve long recognized the US residential and industrial sectors as some of the most resilient areas of the market, and were pleased to see our conviction continue to generate compelling opportunities for our clients," said Herb Myers, Co-Head of Real Estate, North America.

Michael OBrien, Co-Head of Real Estate, North America, said: "While we entered 2021 acutely aware of the short and long-term changes Covid-19 could have on the real estate market, weve seen strong macroeconomic tailwinds inspiring continued optimism in these sectors."

"We remain bullish heading into 2022 and look forward to continuing to grow our platform," he added.
WATSONVILLE, Calif., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Monterey Bay Herb Co (Monterey Bay) announced today that it has acquired AmeriHerb. Based in Ames, IA, AmeriHerb is a distributor of botanicals, herbs, and spices, selling product primarily through its two e-commerce websites (AmeriHerb.com and Herbalcom.com).

"We are extremely excited to welcome AmeriHerb's customers, suppliers, and team to Monterey Bay Herb Co" said Bob Aiken, Executive Chairman of Monterey Bay Herb Co. Bob further noted, "We look forward to building upon the legacy of customer service and broad assortment that Doug Borud and Tom Doyle have built."

David DeSouza, President of Monterey Bay Herb Co. added, "Helping small businesses succeed is a shared passion at Monterey Bay Herb Co. and AmeriHerb. Combining forces will allow us to offer an even greater selection of dried herbs and teas to the customers of both companies. We'll build upon our industry leading e-commerce platform (www.herbco.com) and reputation for delighting our customers."

Tom Doyle and Doug Borud, co-owners of AmeriHerb commented, "We're excited to work with a team at Monterey Bay Herb Co. who shares our values. We are aligned in our commitment to small businesses and the botanicals industry."

About Monterey Bay Herb Co

Monterey Bay Herb Co is a processor and distributor of botanicals, herbs, teas, and spices. Products are sold online, in bulk and through co-pack agreements into the nutraceutical, food & beverage, pet, and health & beauty end markets. The company's website, herbco.com, has been providing premium botanical ingredients to small businesses for twenty years. Monterey Bay is a Fontenac portfolio company. For more information, please visit www.herbco.com.

About Frontenac

Frontenac is a Chicago-based private equity firm. The firm focuses on investing in lower middle market buyout transactions in the consumer, industrial, and services industries. Frontenac works in partnership with established operating leaders, through an executive-centric approach called CEO1ST, which seeks to identify, acquire, and build market-leading companies through transformational acquisitions and operational excellence. Over the last 50 years, Frontenac has built a leading franchise working with over 275 owners of mid-sized businesses as they address complex transition issues of liquidity, management enhancement, and growth planning. For more information, please visit www.frontenac.com.

Company Contact:

David DeSouza

President, Monterey Bay Herb Co.

(858) 583-5932

[email protected]

SOURCE Monterey Bay
BOSTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- IDTechEx has recently released "Agricultural Robotics Market 2022-2032", a market research report exploring the technical and market factors that are shaping the emerging industry around agricultural robotics. This report is focused on key technologies (e.g., AI, sensors, GPS, imaging systems, etc.) and applications (weeding, harvesting, monitoring, etc.). It analyses recent challenges in the agriculture industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how robotics and technology developments will change the business of agriculture, enabling ultra-precision farming, helping to mitigate the challenges, and maintaining sustainable developments.

Agricultural Robots Market Forecast by Region 2032. Source: IDTechEx  Agricultural Robotics Market 2022-2032 (PRNewsfoto/IDTechEx)

The report develops a detailed roadmap of how these challenges have influenced the agriculture industry, what technologies have been widely applied as of today, what are the typical application areas of agricultural robots, and what makes different application areas have various maturity and technology readiness levels (TRL).

In particular, this report provides:

Agricultural robots' categorization: Based on the technology and applications, the report categorizes agricultural robots into different types. For each type, a detailed chart was made to evaluate the technical difficulty and application value, thereby deciding its stage of development/commercialization.

Based on the technology and applications, the report categorizes agricultural robots into different types. For each type, a detailed chart was made to evaluate the technical difficulty and application value, thereby deciding its stage of development/commercialization. Application assessment: Detailed application assessment covering 8 major application areas including weeding and pest control, robotic seeding, fully autonomous tractors, autonomous implement carriers, and platform robots, harvesting robots, drones, milking robots, and others. For each sector, the report outlines its current stage of development, technology progression, drivers and challenges (both technical and regulatory), and key products from active players in the market. The market size of each application is projected in the forecast chapter.

Detailed application assessment covering 8 major application areas including weeding and pest control, robotic seeding, fully autonomous tractors, autonomous implement carriers, and platform robots, harvesting robots, drones, milking robots, and others. For each sector, the report outlines its current stage of development, technology progression, drivers and challenges (both technical and regulatory), and key products from active players in the market. The market size of each application is projected in the forecast chapter. Technology assessment: Detailed technology assessment covering different products ranging from prototypes at the proof-of-concept phase to robots on a commercially available level. The report analyses the key technologies and components including sensors (e.g., cameras, LiDAR, Radar, etc.), imaging systems (e.g., hyperspectral imaging), end-effectors, AI, precision spraying, and many others. The technology assessment gives a holistic view of what components are more commonly used in different robots, how different components synergize to achieve the functionality, and the technical barriers when they work together.

Detailed technology assessment covering different products ranging from prototypes at the proof-of-concept phase to robots on a commercially available level. The report analyses the key technologies and components including sensors (e.g., cameras, LiDAR, Radar, etc.), imaging systems (e.g., hyperspectral imaging), end-effectors, AI, precision spraying, and many others. The technology assessment gives a holistic view of what components are more commonly used in different robots, how different components synergize to achieve the functionality, and the technical barriers when they work together. Market analysis: Although there has been a wide range of agricultural robots designed for different specializations, they have different levels of maturities due to different business models, target crops, return on investment, and so on. This report analyses several business models and explains investors' commercial challenges and concerns.

Although there has been a wide range of agricultural robots designed for different specializations, they have different levels of maturities due to different business models, target crops, return on investment, and so on. This report analyses several business models and explains investors' commercial challenges and concerns. Company profiles: More than 30 interview-based full company profiles with detailed SWOT analysis, over 40 company profiles without SWOT analysis, and the works of more than 80 companies listed and summarised.

More than 30 interview-based full company profiles with detailed SWOT analysis, over 40 company profiles without SWOT analysis, and the works of more than 80 companies listed and summarised. Market forecasts: Granular 10-year (2022  2032) segmented market forecast for 6 categories including milking robots, weeding and seeding robots, autonomous tractors and implement carrying robots, drones, harvesting robots, and other applications. The report also contains 2 additional forecasts covering the total market size and unit sales for autonomous tractors and implement tractors. The market forecasts are primarily segmented by regions, thereby helping you to understand which territory is expected to have the fastest growth. Meanwhile, some forecasts are segmented based on application areas. All our assumptions and data points are clearly explained in the report and Excel spreadsheet.

The adoption of agbots is determined by both technical difficulty and application value

Although the technologies can vary significantly depending on the tasks, IDTechEx summarizes them into three mainstream categories that are autonomous mobility, direct interaction, and indirect interaction. The report explains how IDTechEx categorizes agricultural robots into these three categories, as well as within each category, the barriers and timeline of development, and what drives the core demand of farmers.

A good example is weeding robots and harvesting robots. One of the fundamental factors causing differences in the popularity of these two robots is the demand. In agriculture, harvesting is typically only needed for a few months, therefore, farmers are less willing to invest too much to get a machine that can only be used for a short period. By contrast, weeding machines are much more popular because weeding is constantly needed throughout the year. For this reason, weeding robot is much more commercialized available than harvesting robots.

Forecast: Global market of agricultural robotics is projected to reach $7.88 billion by 2032

The global market for agricultural robots is forecast to reach $7.88 billion by 2032, with a CAGR of 13.09% compared with 2022. By 2032, Europe remains the largest market, followed by North America, APAC, South America, and MEA. North America and APAC are expected to have the quickest growth in the upcoming decade whereas Europe has the slowest growth.

To find out more about IDTechEx's technical and commercial analysis of the agricultural robotics industry, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/agri. This report falls within the Food & AgTech research portfolio.

Upcoming IDTechEx Webinar:

Solutions to Modern Agriculture Issues - Agricultural Robotics Market Gaining Momentum

Yulin Wang, Technology Analyst at IDTechEx, will be presenting a free-to-attend webinar on the topic on Thursday 3 February 2022 - Solutions to Modern Agriculture Issues - Agricultural Robotics Market Gaining Momentum.

This webinar will include:

A summary of key challenges faced by the agriculture industry

The typical agricultural robotics applications, their level of development, and how IDTechEx categorizes them into three different themes

An overview of how technical difficulty and application value will affect commercialization and adoption

A discussion of key enabling technologies and components

An evaluation of the barriers in the agricultural robotics industry

An explanation of the technical forecasting chart of how IDTechEx sees the industry going in 10 years

Click here to find out more and register your place on one of our three sessions.

About IDTechEx

IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Subscription and Consultancy products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information, contact [email protected] or visit www.IDTechEx.com.

Images download:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bhfcgsyphpsvvfr/AAAmEXoplUCAmHNEWTRnGehpa?dl=0

Media Contact:

Natalie Moreton

Digital Marketing Manager

[email protected]

+44(0)1223 812300

Social Media Links:

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/IDTechEx

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/idtechex/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IDTechExResearch

SOURCE IDTechEx
CHICAGO, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new report from the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), a record number of U.S. physicians and medical specialists are board certified, benefitting patients and their families across the country.

The 2020-2021 ABMS Board Certification Report shows that more than 940,000 physicians are currently certified by an ABMS Member Board, representing an increase of more than 25,000 physicians over the previous year and an overall 10.3 percent increase since 2016.

"Now more than ever, it is critically important that patients have access to high-quality medical care," stated ABMS Senior Vice President, Certification Standards and Programs Greg Ogrinc, MD, MS. "It is rewarding to see so many physicians nationwide reaching for the highest standard of specialty care, which is what board certification by an ABMS Member Board represents."

The board certification process was created more than 100 years ago as a rigorous, independent evaluation of a physician's experience, knowledge, and skills. Today, board certification supports continuous assessment and professional development activities. While doctors are required to be licensed by the state in which they practice, board certification is a higher standard that doctors choose to attain and maintain. To verify that their doctor has taken that extra step to practice at the top of their profession and deliver high-quality and safe care, patients can visit www.CertificationMatters.org.

For more than 45 years, the annual ABMS Board Certification Report has illustrated the continued importance of board certification as a public credential. Several entities use ABMS data as the definitive guide to specialties and board certification in the U.S. For example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services uses ABMS certification data for its popular "Physician Compare" web site.

The 2020-2021 ABMS Board Certification Report offers a variety of information about the 40 specialty and 88 subspecialty certification programs administered by the 24 Member Boards that comprise ABMS. This 63-page report also includes a snapshot of the active certificates held by ABMS Member Board certified physicians.

Report highlights include:

In 2020, the 24 Member Boards awarded 23,694 new specialty certificates and 11,839 new subspecialty certificates.

Colorful charts and infographics that break down important data, such as the distribution of board certified diplomates by ABMS Member Board, state, age, and gender.

Published annually, the ABMS Board Certification Report can be downloaded from the ABMS website. This report reflects information reported by the 24 ABMS Member Boards and data from the ABMS certification database, which contains more than one million records. The database is updated daily with information received from Member Boards and is considered a primary source for professional certification verification. ABMS offers www.CertificationMatters.org, a free online tool that the public can use to verify that their doctors are board certified.

About ABMS

Established in 1933, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is the leading not-for-profit organization responsible for the creation of standards overseeing physician certification in the United States. Dedicated to improving the quality of care to the patients, families, and communities they serve, the 24 ABMS Member Boards' appointed professional leadership and public members develop educational and professional standards and programs of assessment to certify physicians and medical specialists. More than 940,000 physicians and medical specialists are certified by one or more of the ABMS Member Boards in one or more 40 specialties and 88 subspecialties. For more information about ABMS, visit abms.org or call (312) 436-2600.

SOURCE American Board of Medical Specialties
WASHINGTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following is a statement from Jen Judson, President of the National Press Club, and Gil Klein, President of the National Press Club Journalism Institute, on the murder last night of Mexican journalist Lourdes Maldonado in Tijuana.

"We were saddened to hear of the killing of Mexican journalist Lourdes Maldonado. Journalism is a dangerous profession, and it is particularly so in Mexico. The women and men who work in journalism have tremendous courage and passion for their work and for their communities. Like Mexican photojournalist Margarito Martinez, who was murdered just days before her, news reports indicate that Maldonado also requested government protection. This horrific spate of murders suggests the Mexican government is not taking seriously enough threats against journalists and we strongly urge them to immediately remedy the situation before more journalists lose their lives."

Founded in 1908, the National Press Club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists. The Club has 3,000 members representing nearly every major news organization and is a leading voice for press freedom in the United States and around the world.

The National Press Club Journalism Institute, the Club's non-profit affiliate, promotes an engaged global citizenry through an independent and free press and equips journalists with skills and standards to inform the public in ways that inspire civic engagement.

CONTACT:

Bill McCarren for the National Press Club

202-725-7787

SOURCE National Press Club
CHICAGO, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Old Republic International Corporation (NYSE: ORI) subsidiary, Old Republic National Title Insurance Company (Old Republic Title), has acquired the operating assets of Utah-based Mountain View Title & Escrow, Inc., (Mountain View) as of January 21, 2022. The acquisition adds nine office locations and 86 employees to Old Republic Title's existing network of direct operations that includes more than 270 branch and subsidiary office locations nationwide.

Mountain View has been serving Utah since 1979 with company founder and President Michael Hendry at the helm. Skilled leadership, industry expertise and a commitment to excellence are among the principles that have helped build the business into a recognized leader in handling residential and commercial real estate transactions.

"Mountain View's commitment to serving with integrity and a genuine concern for customers in each transaction is an important part of what distinguishes them in the title industry," states Carolyn Monroe, President, Old Republic Title. "The company and its staff have a reputation for exceeding customers' expectations through service excellence and advanced technology. Those priorities align well with the culture and standards of Old Republic Title. We are delighted to welcome Mountain View to the Old Republic family where they will benefit through their alignment with our Title Group's national network of operations, underwriting expertise and financial strength. This significant alignment will not only help Mountain View meet its strategic objectives, but this significant acquisition also accelerates Old Republic Title's growth plans in Utah, where commercial development, population and job growth are contributing to an unprecedented demand for housing."

Hendry, now holding the title of Vice President, Senior Escrow Officer and Manager at Old Republic Title, notes, "Our teams look forward to being part of Old Republic Title's Rocky Mountain Region. We will continue to serve our customers from our existing Utah office locations in Ogden, Layton, Draper, Cedar City, St. George River Road, St. George Boulevard and Riverdale, now under the Old Republic Title name."

About Old Republic

Chicago-based Old Republic International Corporation is one of the nation's 50 largest shareholder-owned insurance businesses. It is a member of the Fortune 500 listing of America's largest companies. The Company is organized as an insurance holding company whose subsidiaries actively market, underwrite, and provide risk management services for a wide variety of coverages mostly in the general and title insurance fields. Old Republic's general insurance business ranks among the nation's 50 largest, while its title insurance operations are the third largest in its industry.

For Old Republic's latest news releases and other corporate documents:

Please visit us at www.oldrepublic.com

Alternatively, please write or call: Investor Relations

Old Republic International Corporation

307 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60601

(312) 346-8100



At Old Republic: At Financial Relations Board:



Craig R. Smiddy, President and CEO Analysts/Investors: Joe Calabrese 212/827-3772

SOURCE Old Republic International Corporation
DUBLIN, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Commercial Seaweeds Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 2021-2026" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global commercial seaweeds market grew at a CAGR of around 8% during 2015-2020. Looking forward, the publisher expects the market to exhibit moderate growth during the next five years. Keeping in mind the uncertainties of COVID-19, we are continuously tracking and evaluating the direct as well as the indirect influence of the pandemic on different end use industries. These insights are included in the report as a major market contributor.

Commercial seaweeds are bioresources or macroalgae attached to hard substrata in lakes, rivers, oceans and other water bodies. They are widely used to produce water-soluble carbohydrates, also known as hydrocolloids, which further find extensive applications in the food and beverage (F&B) industry to increase the viscosity of aqueous solutions. They also aid in improving the skin moisture retention properties of cosmetic products, such as creams and lotions. Moreover, due to the high fiber content, commercial seaweeds act as a soil conditioner and can be applied directly or watered around the root areas.

A global rise in the demand for commercial seaweeds can be attributed to the growing popularity of organic farming and their increasing utilization in the production of natural fertilizers. Moreover, the growing food and beverage (F&B) industry is increasing the adoption of commercial seaweeds to stabilize ice cream and form gels and water-soluble films. They are further utilized in the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products for rheumatism and osteoporosis.

Apart from this, as seaweeds can absorb heavy metal ions like zinc and cadmium from polluted water, they are gaining traction in wastewater treatment across the globe. Furthermore, several ongoing projects are in the process of finding a suitable way to use and ferment large quantities of commercial seaweeds in the ocean and generate methane gas. Besides this, the increasing environmental concerns and stringent fuel and emission standards established by governments of various countries are anticipated to escalate the demand for methane gas as biofuel in the automotive industry.

Competitive Landscape:

The competitive landscape of the industry has also been examined along with the profiles of the key players being Acadian Seaplants Limited, Algaia SA (Maabarot Products Ltd.), Biostadt India Limited, BrandT Consolidated Inc., Cargill Incorporated, COMPO Expert GmbH, CP Kelco U.S. Inc. (J.M. Huber Corporation), DuPont de Nemours Inc., Gelymar S.A., Indigrow Ltd., Lonza Group AG, Seasol International Pty. Ltd. and TBK Manufacturing Corporation.



Key Questions Answered in This Report:

How has the global commercial seaweeds market performed so far and how will it perform in the coming years?

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on the global commercial seaweeds market?

What are the key regional markets?

What is the breakup of the market based on the product?

What is the breakup of the market based on the form?

What is the breakup of the market based on the application?

What are the various stages in the value chain of the industry?

What are the key driving factors and challenges in the industry?

What is the structure of the global commercial seaweeds market and who are the key players?

What is the degree of competition in the industry?

Key Topics Covered:



1 Preface



2 Scope and Methodology



3 Executive Summary



4 Introduction

4.1 Overview

4.2 Key Industry Trends



5 Global Commercial Seaweeds Market

5.1 Market Overview

5.2 Market Performance

5.3 Impact of COVID-19

5.4 Market Forecast



6 Market Breakup by Product

6.1 Brown Seaweeds

6.1.1 Market Trends

6.1.2 Market Forecast

6.2 Red Seaweeds

6.2.1 Market Trends

6.2.2 Market Forecast

6.3 Green Seaweeds

6.3.1 Market Trends

6.3.2 Market Forecast



7 Market Breakup by Form

7.1 Liquid

7.1.1 Market Trends

7.1.2 Market Forecast

7.2 Powdered

7.2.1 Market Trends

7.2.2 Market Forecast

7.3 Flakes

7.3.1 Market Trends

7.3.2 Market Forecast



8 Market Breakup by Application

8.1 Agriculture

8.1.1 Market Trends

8.1.2 Market Forecast

8.2 Animal Feed

8.2.1 Market Trends

8.2.2 Market Forecast

8.3 Human Consumption

8.3.1 Market Trends

8.3.2 Market Forecast

8.4 Others

8.4.1 Market Trends

8.4.2 Market Forecast



9 Market Breakup by Region



10 SWOT Analysis

11 Value Chain Analysis



12 Porters Five Forces Analysis



13 Price Analysis



14 Competitive Landscape

14.1 Market Structure

14.2 Key Players

14.3 Profiles of Key Players

14.3.1 Acadian Seaplants Limited

14.3.1.1 Company Overview

14.3.1.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.2 Algaia SA (Maabarot Products Ltd.)

14.3.2.1 Company Overview

14.3.2.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.3 Biostadt India Limited

14.3.3.1 Company Overview

14.3.3.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.4 BrandT Consolidated Inc.

14.3.4.1 Company Overview

14.3.4.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.5 Cargill Incorporated

14.3.5.1 Company Overview

14.3.5.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.5.3 SWOT Analysis

14.3.6 COMPO Expert GmbH

14.3.6.1 Company Overview

14.3.6.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.6.3 Financials

14.3.7 CP Kelco U.S. Inc (J.M. Huber Corporation)

14.3.7.1 Company Overview

14.3.7.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.8 DuPont de Nemours Inc.

14.3.8.1 Company Overview

14.3.8.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.8.3 Financials

14.3.9 Gelymar S.A.

14.3.9.1 Company Overview

14.3.9.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.10 Indigrow Ltd.

14.3.10.1 Company Overview

14.3.10.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.11 Lonza Group AG

14.3.11.1 Company Overview

14.3.11.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.11.3 Financials

14.3.11.4 SWOT Analysis

14.3.12 Seasol International Pty. Ltd.

14.3.12.1 Company Overview

14.3.12.2 Product Portfolio

14.3.13 TBK Manufacturing Corporation

14.3.13.1 Company Overview

14.3.13.2 Product Portfolio

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/rdgep0

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Research and Markets

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SOURCE Research and Markets
DUSSELDORF, Germany and TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Panaxia Labs Israel Ltd. ("Panaxia Israel"), (TASE: PNAX), a global pharma company which develops, manufactures and markets progressive medical cannabis products in pharmaceutical quality, and Neuraxpharm Group (Neuraxpharm), a leading European specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the central nervous system (CNS), announced today a first export of medical cannabis sublingual tablets from Israel to France.

The export is a part of a program by the French government and the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) to regulate French medical cannabis industry. It follows the issue of the companies' premium oils to patients in France, as part of the ANSM program.

Dr. Dadi Segal, CEO of Panaxia Israel: "We are glad of another significant milestone in the implementation of our strategy. We are proud to be, alongside our partner, Neuraxpharm, part of the spearhead of the world's leading cannabis key-players selected for the ANSM program. In addition, we are the only company in this program to supply medical cannabis sublingual tablets. According to our predictions, the French market is expected to become one of the most advanced medical cannabis markets in the world, which will be a remarkable growth engine for Panaxia".

Dr. Pierre-Herve Brun, General Manager of Neuraxpharm France: "It is a great achievement for us, together with our partner Panaxia, to have been selected as one of the few specialists offering medical cannabis on the French market under the ANSM program. As the only companies in the program providing medical cannabis sublingual tablets, we are able to offer our patients a variety of patient-oriented and more easy-to-use forms of presentation. Going forward, we will continue to work with Panaxia to pursue our strategy in the fast-growing medical cannabis sector and bring more in-demand dosage forms and treatments to market."

The sublingual tablets, manufactured by Panaxia under EU-GMP standard, subject to strict clinical standards with the brand name Naxiva-Panaxir, will be issued to patients participating in the French prescriptions program, in hospitals and pharmacies all over France.

Medical cannabis sublingual tablets enable a higher level of absorption of the active substances into the bloodstream (without initial passage through the liver) and thus, contribute to the effective and rapid relief to the patient. The tablets also enable physicians to adjust a more precise treatment routine to the patients. According to their needs, the level of the dosage as well as the concentration of the active ingredients can be adjusted. In addition, it has been proved that the tablets contribute to a better response to treatment and improved patient satisfaction, mainly due to the effectiveness of the treatment, the simplicity and accuracy of the usage.

The ANSM program, which was launched in March 2021, includes about 3,000 patients, who are receiving medical cannabis in France for the first time. The list of indications compiled by the ANSM includes the following diseases and treatments: Cancer, certain types of Epilepsy, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Palliative Care (treatments to improve the quality of life of patients with incurable diseases), and pain that does not respond to conventional treatment.

The market potential in France is very significant, considering only last year the French government approves the regulatory of the medical cannabis industry. According to the latest estimates, there are currently between 300,000 and 700,000 patients in France, who meet the criteria and may be eligible for a prescription for medical cannabis treatment.

About Panaxia Labs Israel

Panaxia Labs Israel, Ltd., which is traded on the Tel Aviv stock exchange (TASE: PNAX), is a global pharma company, which develops, manufactures and markets advanced medical cannabis-based products of pharmaceutical quality and the largest manufacturer of medical cannabis products in Israel. Panaxia is a pioneer in the medical cannabis market in Israel and the only company in Israel with an EU-GMP European production standard from the EU Health Authority, which is required for the commercial manufacturing and export of medical cannabis and its products to Europe. Panaxia specializes in the development, production and marketing of complex and advanced cannabis plant products, based on clinical information and a broad database of tens of thousands of patients.

Panaxia Israel is a subsidiary of the Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries, which was established in 2010 by Dr. Dadi Segal (PhD), Dr. Eran Goldberg (PhD) and Adv. Assi Rotbart (LL. B), as the cannabis division of Segal Pharma Group, which has been operating for over four decades, manufacturing more than 600 different pharmaceuticals distributed in over 40 countries. The Panaxia Group has over 150 employees.

To learn more about Panaxia, please visit: https://panaxia.co.il.

About the Group Neuraxpharm

Neuraxpharm is a leading European specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of central nervous system disorders (CNS) with a direct presence in 18 countries. Backed by funds advised by Permira, Neuraxpharm has a unique understanding of the CNS market built over 35 years.

With its focus on CNS, Neuraxpharm develops and commercializes value-added medicines, standard generics and Consumer Healthcare products, e.g. probiotics and other nutraceuticals, and is continuously striving to offer a wide range of effective, high quality and affordable CNS treatment options in Europe.

Present with its products in more than 50 countries, Neuraxpharm also manufactures pharmaceutical products and active pharmaceutical ingredients in its own manufacturing sites in Spain, Lesvi and Inke.

To learn more about Neuraxpharm, please visit: https://www.neuraxpharm.com.

For further information, please contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries
CUMBERLAND, Md., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Perineologic, a subsidiary of Corbin Clinical Resources, Inc., today announced the appointment of Jim Fortune as president, who in this role will be responsible for the company's business strategy and operations management. Mr. Fortune joins Perineologic with more than 35 years of experience in the medical device industry. Perineologic also announced the promotion of Matthew J. Allaway, DO, to chief executive officer, who previously served as president. Mr. Fortune will report directly to Dr. Allaway.

Prior to joining Perineologic, Mr. Fortune served as chief operating officer at Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. where he led internal operations of this start-up through later stages as a public company with an early-stage, PMA-approved commercial device and several Phase 2 and Phase 3 drug delivery products. Before that, he served as chief operating officer at AccessClosure (acquired by Cardinal Health, Inc.) and chief operating officer at Incept, LLC, an intellectual property holding partnership that creates and operates medical device start-up companies. At Incept, Mr. Fortune provided operational strategy, organizational direction, and leadership and tactical support to companies including Augmenix, Inc. and Claret Medical, Inc. (both acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation), HotSpur Technologies, Inc. (acquired by Teleflex Incorporated), Maya Medical (acquired by Covidien plc) and Ostial Corporation. Before that, he served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Confluent Surgical (acquired by Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corporation). Earlier in his career, he was a general manager at DePuy Synthes, the Orthopaedics Company of Johnson & Johnson. Mr. Fortune earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He also currently works as an operations management consultant at Fortune Consulting, LLC.

"The overall goal for anyone in the medical device industry is to make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients and improve quality of care. I was attracted to Perineologic because of the significant potential that the PrecisionPoint Transperineal Access System has to positively transform the standard of care in prostate biopsy by providing a more streamlined procedure process for clinicians and important benefits for patients. I am excited to join this innovative team and support widespread adoption of this novel biopsy technique," said Mr. Fortune.

Dr. Allaway is the founder of Perineologic and has been a practicing urologist and managing partner at Urology Associates in Cumberland, Maryland for about 20 years, with a focus on prostate cancer and female urology.

"We are at a significant stage of growth at the company and attracting top talent and further strengthening our leadership team is essential to our success," said Dr. Allaway. "We are pleased to have Jim join our team as his broad industry experience, including supporting the commercialization, manufacturing and ongoing sales strategies of new medical devices, will be valuable as we continue our efforts to expand market adoption of PrecisionPoint. I look forward to working with him closely in my new role."

About Perineologic

Perineologic, a subsidiary of Corbin Clinical Resources, Inc., is a private, self-funded innovative medical device company focused on developing and delivering technology to improve the safety, precision, and efficiency of healthcare options primarily in the field of urology. The company is initially focused on pioneering a new and disruptive approach to cancer detection. Its first product, the PrecisionPoint Transperineal Access System for prostate cancer biopsy, received U.S. FDA clearance in 2016 and is available in 13 other countries. For more information, visit https://perineologic.com/.

Media Contact

Jenna Urban

Berry & Company Public Relations

212-253-8881

[email protected]

SOURCE Perineologic
Jennifer is one of five partners to join Ropes & Gray in the past month. In December, the firm added private equity partner Brandon Howald in Los Angeles. In January, the firm welcomed IP transactions partner Ed Sadtler and M&A partner Suni Sreepada , both in New York, and capital solutions and private credit partner Jennifer Harris in Los Angeles. Ropes & Gray has also hired more than 200 lateral associates and counsel, a record number, during the past 24 months.

"Jennifer is an accomplished and versatile attorney who has established strong relationships with well-known fund sponsors and their investors," said managing partner David Djaha. "She is uniquely qualified to offer our clients leading-edge and seasoned advice."

With a broad practice focusing on the formation, management and operation of both closed-end and open-end private investment funds, Jennifer has advised fund managers on private fund offerings including private equity, credit, hedge, hybrid, co-investment and GP staking funds. She has also represented institutional investors on their investments in funds and separately managed accounts, successfully navigated clients through seed capital transactions and investment management M&A issues, designed strategic partnership and joint venture agreements with complex economics, established and advised on carry and incentive allocation plans and led SEC exam preparations.

"Jennifer strengthens our private funds practice, particularly in New York, where we have been experiencing tremendous growth," said Bryan Chegwidden, head of the firm's asset management group.

"Ropes & Gray has one of the most highly regarded funds practices, with remarkable depth and breadth of coverage in the private funds space," Jennifer said. "I am excited to be joining the leading lawyers in asset management."

About Ropes & Gray's Asset Management Practice

More than 350 Ropes & Gray partners, counsel and associates focus on advising a global client base of asset management firms, including fund sponsors, investors and investment advisers, on all aspects of their business. Our experience across the entire spectrum of private and registered fund structures and vehicles, investment strategies, asset types and industries allows us to identify significant commercial, regulatory and economic issues, understand emerging trends and craft innovative solutions that are unique to the concerns of clients throughout the industry and in jurisdictions around the world. Ropes & Gray's asset management team was recently recognized by Alt Credit US, Law360 and IFLR as one of the world's leading law firms for financial and corporate law.

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is a preeminent global law firm with approximately 1,600 lawyers and legal professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology and government. The firm has offices in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, and has consistently been recognized for its leading practices in many areas, including private equity, M&A, finance, asset management, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity, and business restructuring.

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Media Contact:

Leon Lazaroff

Senior Public Relations Specialist

Office: +1-212-596-9028

[email protected]

SOURCE Ropes & Gray
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Probate litigation law firm RMO LLP announced today that it has elevated two of its attorneys. David Greco, who runs the firm's San Diego office, has been elevated to Partner and named Chair of the firm's Probate Appeals group, and Meghan Glaspy has been elevated to Managing Attorney of its Orange County, California office.

"David and Meghan consistently have demonstrated their leadership at the firm as well as in their legal professional and local communities," said firm Founding and Co-Managing Partner Scott Rahn. "Their promotions serve to acknowledge the confidence we have in their ability to lead from our core values and serve the needs of the firm and the needs of our clients."

Greco helped launch RMO's San Diego office in 2018. He represents beneficiaries, as well as professional and corporate fiduciaries in contested trust and probate estate litigation and contested conservatorship matters, as well as probate appeals and related estate administration issues. Greco's successful probate appeal practice lead the firm also to name him as Chair of the firm's Probate Appeals group.

Greco serves as the Chair of the San Diego County Bar Association's Estate Planning, Trust and Probate Law Section. He is an active member of the Professional Fiduciary Association of California and the Tom Homann Law Association. Greco is also a guest lecturer at the University of San Diego School of Law and the University of San Diego School of Law.

Prior to joining RMO, Greco worked for the California Court of Appeal, the California Attorney General's Office, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of San Diego School of Law, where he was a member of the San Diego Law Review.

Glaspy leads the firm's Orange County, California office. Having previously served as a Deputy District Attorney, she brings extensive trial experience and has worked closely with clients through complex and emotionally charged disputes. Glaspy brings that experience to RMO where she focuses her practice on probate disputes, including will and trust contests, breach of fiduciary duty claims, financial elder abuse protection and contested conservatorships, representing beneficiaries as well as individual, professional and corporate fiduciaries.

Glaspy graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a B.A. in Literature and English. She studied law at Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a published author in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy.

RMO LLP provides personal, cost-effective litigation services to individual and institutional clients. The firm's attorneys focus on litigation of contested trust, estate, probate, and conservatorship matters. RMO has offices in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Ventura, Miami and Kansas City. For more information, please visit https://rmolawyers.com/.

SOURCE RMO LLP
Swiss technology company Ferronato KGS Group has announced the global launch of its new smart accessories brand - Ferronato - at the Expo 2020 Dubai.

The smart accessories being showcased at the Swiss Pavilion include a range of personal products powered by KGS metallised fabrics, including laptop sleeves, phone pouches, totes, and briefcases that ensure the protection of privacy and personal information.

A specialist in industrial metallised fabrics, Ferronato KGS Group, was established in 1906 in Lugano, Switzerland. World-renowned for its precision tools, abrasives and metallised fabrics KGS is now helmed by 3rd generation, led by its CEO Sandro Giovanni Ferronato.

The Swiss firm has forayed into lifestyle domain with the global launch of a new smart accessories brand - Ferronato.

"We have always been acknowledged for its focus on innovation tech and the new personal lifestyle accessories brand, Ferronato, is yet another milestone in our journey," said Sandro Giovanni.

"Ferronato is a lifestyle brand borne out of a sense of immediacy that creates bespoke, high-end accessories that aim to protect your privacy," he added.

The Ferronato smart accessories showcased at the Swiss Pavilion include a range of personal products powered by KGS metallised fabrics, including laptop sleeves, phone pouches, totes, and briefcases that ensure the protection of privacy and personal information.

KGS said the smart accessories made of metallised fabrics fit in well as an antidote to invasive surveillance threats people face at every step of their personal life.

"These smart accessories, made for our digital life, safeguards from several potential digital threats. This includes from stopping tracking of our location, remote activation of our phone to eavesdropping on our conversations to steal critical information and personal data," said its Partner Alessia Ferronato.

KGS said that these accessories will curb hacking, tracking, potential cybercrimes, data theft, digital infiltration and system breeches without the consent of an individual or individuals.

The company, with offices in 16 countries, has been supplying products in over 100 countries from its six manufacturing sites in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Hungary, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, China and India.

As the world's leading manufacturer of flexible diamond abrasives and electrolytically metallised fabrics, KGS industrial products are used across many industry verticals.

This includes aerospace, aeronautical, defence, automotive, medical equipment, construction, telecommunications and consumer electronics.-TradeArabia News Service
RALEIGH, N.C., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- This year, REI Engineers, Inc. (REI) celebrates its 25th year of excellence in the engineering community. Blessed with a talented and energetic team of employee-owners with a passion to excel, REI continues to pursue its founding principles as this milestone is recognized.

"25 years ago, we set out to create a client-centric engineering practice that honored the contributions of each employee," Founder Gary Cattel, PE, said. "It's gratifying to see that concept flourish as REI with its geographic and staff growth. It's been a great journey from a bonus room in north Raleigh to offices in five (5) states and over 90 employees. Can't wait to see where the next quarter century takes us".

REI currently operates under the leadership of Scott Hinesley, PE, RRC, F-IIBEC, President, who joined REI in 1998. "I have been witness to the incredible growth and transformation of the company; none of which would have been possible without our dedicated team of employee owners and clients who continue to place their trust in us", Hinesley said. "Together, we have built a strong foundation on which REI can continue to succeed for the next 25 years and beyond."

REI Engineers, Inc. specializes in the science of roofing, waterproofing, exterior walls, forensics, and pavement engineering services. Additional information on our services can be found at www.reiengineers.com. Engineering solutions for tomorrow

Contact:

Nikole Pastore, Marketing Director, REI Engineers, Inc. 843.300.5864 | [email protected]

SOURCE REI Engineers, Inc.
MINEOLA, N.Y., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- RevBits, a developer of innovative cybersecurity solutions has been accepted into Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives. RevBits award winning and patent fortified Cyber Intelligence Platform (CIP) delivers new levels of security IQ through its many cyber solutions, all available in this fully integrated platform.

RevBits CEO David Schiffer was vetted and selected by a review committee based on the depth and diversity of his experience. Criteria for acceptance include a track record of successfully impacting business growth metrics, as well as personal and professional achievements and honors.

"We are honored to welcome RevBits and Mr. Schiffer into the community," said Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, the collective that includes Forbes Technology Council. "Our mission with Forbes Councils is to bring together proven leaders from every industry, creating a curated, social capital-driven network that helps every member grow professionally and make an even greater impact on the business world."

As an accepted member of the Council, David has access to a variety of exclusive opportunities designed to help him reach peak professional influence. He will connect and collaborate with other respected local leaders in a private forum. David will also be invited to work with a professional editorial team to share his expert insights in original business articles on Forbes.com, and to contribute to published Q&A panels alongside other experts.

Finally, RevBits will benefit from exclusive access to vetted business service partners, membership-branded marketing collateral, and the high-touch support of the Forbes Councils member concierge team.

"I am excited to join Forbes Technology Council, said David Schiffer, CEO at RevBits." The name Forbes means something important in the business community and to be associated with Forbes is an honor." The opportunity to have RevBits, and our innovative suite of cybersecurity solutions, have access to the Forbes Technology Council community is a great thing."

ABOUT FORBES COUNCILS

Forbes Councils is a collective of invitation-only communities created in partnership with Forbes and the expert community builders who founded Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC). In Forbes Councils, exceptional business owners and leaders come together with the people and resources that can help them thrive.

For more information about Forbes Technology Council, visit forbestechcouncil.com . To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com .

About RevBits

RevBits is a cybersecurity innovator delivering new levels of security IQ through context-rich behavioral analysis, artificial intelligence and machine learning. RevBits Cyber Intelligence Platform (CIP) is a unified security platform that automates and integrates a best-in-class suite of Detection and Response (EDR and XDR), Privileged Access Management (PAM), Email Security (ES), Deception Technology (DT), and Zero Trust Networking (ZTN) solutions. We are taking cybersecurity to the next level, innovating new capabilities, with multiple patented technologies to ensure enterprises have a security advantage. For more information, visit RevBits.

Further interest, contact:

Neal Hesterberg

Vice President of Business Development

RevBits

[email protected]

(609) 516-2846

SOURCE RevBits LLC
NINGBO, China, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The 6th Heterojunction Leading Mass Production and Supply Chain Supporting Cooperation International Forum came to a successful close in Wuxi, a city in the center of the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China. Risen Energy, a global leader in high-power module technology, was invited to participate in the event and won two awards, including 2021 Pioneer in the Heterojunction Cell Industry and 2021 Best Supplier of Heterojunction Cell Modules, for its high-efficiency N-type cell technology and integration capabilities.

The annual awards for the heterojunction cell industry aim to recognize industry leaders for their important contributions to innovation in technology, best management practices, and capabilities at mass production. On December 16, 2021, Risen Energy announced that its high-efficiency heterojunction series had been certified by TUV SUD as capable of delivering a maximum power of 721.016W and a module efficiency of 23.65%. This is the third time within a year that the company has set a new world record in the heterojunction sector. Risen Energy, one of the first PV manufacturers to explore opportunities in the realm of N-type heterojunction technology, has taken the lead in facilitating technological transformation, while setting a new benchmark with its competitive N-type technology. The Pioneer Award recognizes the company's capabilities at innovation.

Additionally, Risen Energy works closely with both upstream and downstream providers to build a heterojunction product ecosystem, with the goal of ensuring the large-scale supply of heterojunction cell modules through a significant reduction in production costs while boosting market sentiment. As of the end of the third quarter of 2021, the firm had shipped more than 93MW of heterojunction modules, consolidating its leadership position in the industry. As part of its globalization roadmap, Risen Energy launched a pilot production line with an annual capacity of 500MW at its Jintan facility in Changzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province. To date, output from the production line has been sold to overseas markets, as well as to Chinese industrial and commercial distributed markets.

In 2022, Risen Energy plans to strengthen its research and development efforts in a move to address the growing demand for alternative energy in and outside China, as well as to assist in the pledge to reach peak CO2 emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 (also known as the 3060 goal) by facilitating the environmentally-friendly production of heterojunction cells and modules as well as advancements in affordable technologies, alongside the development of more effective and profitable solutions.

SOURCE Risen Energy Co., Ltd
As an accomplished business leader, Andreas brings over 20 years of senior and C-level experience covering a variety of industries including manufacturing, aviation & aerospace, retail, telecommunications, and supply chain management. His vast experience with building brands, proficiency in driving profitable growth, and passion for strategic and innovative thinking will further advance Rittal as a market leader in industrial and IT enclosures.

"I am very excited to take over the role of CEO USA in addition to my responsibility for North America and look forward to the challenges, the growth and opportunities ahead of us," states Andreas Ruzic, CEO of Rittal USA and EVP of Rittal North America. "I am very much looking forward to continue the trusting and respectful collaboration and teamwork we've built so far guiding us to new possibilities."

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." - Henry Ford

Over the past three years, former Rittal USA CEO, Mike Freund, made significant contributions to Rittal's strategy and growth laying the foundation for Andreas to lead Rittal into an exciting future of continued market expansion. Andreas will concentrate on continuous and sustainable development across the North American region. He is committed to achieving Rittal's goals through the alliance with EPLAN, increased partner collaboration, and enhancing customer relationships. His focus on operational excellence will provide a significant impact as Rittal expands the breadth of their product portfolio, as well as their logistics footprint, to support customer needs in the U.S. market.

Rittal's customer-centric approach combines EPLAN digital software and CAE services to connect engineering, sourcing, manufacturing, and operations with end-to-end transparency and visibility throughout the entire process. The value chain of Rittal and EPLAN combined provides OEMs, panel builders, machine builders, and system integrators the benefits of streamlining workflows and minimizing the time needed to engineer, produce, and install industrial automation systems.

Andreas has a degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Rosenheim, Germany and speaks three languages  English, Croatian, and German. His diverse background and wealth of knowledge is a true asset to the Rittal team which continues to expand automation offerings, production, and warehousing capabilities supported by five distribution centers including the newest in Houston, TX and Atlanta, GA.

For more information, visit https://www.rittal.com or contact us at email: [email protected], phone: 800-477-4000

About Rittal North America, LLC

Rittal North America, LLC is a global provider of system solutions for industrial and IT enclosures, racks, and accessories, including cooling solutions and power management systems for industrial, data center, outdoor, and hybrid applications. Rittal provides innovative, high-quality solutions for practically any industrial or IT infrastructure application, from single enclosures to comprehensive, mission critical systems. Products are tested and certified to the appropriate standards that apply, including UL, CSA, ATEX, NEMA, and more. For more information, visit www.rittal.com.

Media Contact:

Jill Jozwik

Senior Marketing Manager

[email protected]

SOURCE Rittal North America, Inc.
Jennifer is one of five partners to join Ropes & Gray in the past month. In December, the firm added private equity partner Brandon Howald in Los Angeles. In January, the firm has welcomed IP transactions partner Ed Sadtler , asset management partner Jennifer Graff and M&A partner Suni Sreepada all in the firm's 500-lawyer New York office. Ropes & Gray has also hired more than 200 lateral counsel and associates, a record number, during the past 24 months.

With extensive experience in all facets of bespoke financings, Jennifer brings a deep understanding and practical approach to the legal demands of secured lending, distressed financings and workouts of troubled finance transactions. Her work includes advising clients, including credit funds and other investment pools, across aviation, telecom, apparel, broadcasting, shipping, oil and gas, hospitality, gaming, healthcare and sports.

Jennifer will be based in Ropes & Gray's new Los Angeles office, the firm's 12th globally and third in California, which is expected to open in early 2022. Our Los Angeles team includes private equity partners Brandon Howald and Howard Glazer, health care partner Torrey McClary and health care counsel Ranee Adipat and Leslie Thornton, and many associates.

"We are excited to build on our momentum in Los Angeles with Jennifer's arrival," said David Djaha, managing partner. "Already there is a team of seasoned Ropes & Gray transactions attorneys working in Southern California, and Jennifer will strengthen that team."

She also strengthens the firm's growing capital solutions and private credit group, which has added four partners over the past 18 months. The group, working alongside the firm's private equity, asset management and restructuring groups, focuses on strategic and opportunistic financings, equity and debt solutions, and workouts and restructurings across a broad spectrum of industries for both creditors and investors as well as companies and borrowers.

"Private credit, especially in the specialty asset and opportunistic space, is a hot area," said Leonard Klingbaum co-head of the firm's capital solutions and private credit group. "We expect that to extend into 2022. That's why we continue to expand our group around the globe. Jennifer's savvy and experience on lender-side financings and, in particular, those in the distressed space, significantly enhances our talented team."

Jennifer also advises clients on debtor-in-possession financing and exit facilities, second lien structures, multijurisdictional bankruptcy and debt restructuring both in and outside of bankruptcy.

"Ropes & Gray has a deep team helping clients navigate opportunistic investments," said Jennifer. "I am very excited to help grow the firm's new LA office, and to collaborate with the terrific teams worldwide at Ropes & Gray to solve our clients' most complex issues."

In the last 18 months, Ropes & Gray's capital solutions & private credit team has added partners Sam Badawi (New York) and Samuel Norris (London), as well as business restructuring partners Ryan Preston Dahl (Chicago) and Matthew Czyzyk (London). Additionally, two firm attorneys specializing in distressed and special situations, Milap Patel (Boston) and Patrick Dorime (New York), were promoted to partner in October.

The firm continues to expand on the West Coast with its new Los Angeles office. Ropes & Gray has been established in California with offices in San Francisco since 2001 and in Silicon Valley since 1992. The firm already represents leading California-based clients, including TPG Capital, PIMCO, University of Southern California, Oaktree Capital Management LP, DoubleLine Capital LP, Genstar Capital, HP Inc., ICU Medical, Silver Lake Partners and Stanford University.

About Ropes & Gray

Ropes & Gray is a preeminent global law firm with approximately 1,600 lawyers and legal professionals serving clients in major centers of business, finance, technology and government. With offices in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, Ropes & Gray is consistently recognized for its leading practices in private equity, M&A, public companies, ESG, CSR and business and human rights, finance, asset management, real estate, tax, antitrust, life sciences, health care, intellectual property, litigation & enforcement, privacy & cybersecurity and business restructuring.

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Contact:

Leon Lazaroff

Senior Public Relations Specialist

Ropes & Gray LLP

212-596-9028

[email protected]

SOURCE Ropes & Gray
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As the United States continues to evacuate families from Afghanistan, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Governor Mark Dayton are coming together to support the work that Minneapolis-based global humanitarian organization, Alight, and veteran-led disaster response organization, Team Rubicon are doing to help Afghan families resettle throughout the state. The two organizations, along with other key partners including representatives from the Afghan Diaspora in Minnesota, are playing a vital role in helping to establish homes over the next few weeks for approximately 250 families and individuals that were evacuated from Afghanistan, and they're asking Minnesotans to help.

'Many of these individuals have sacrificed so much for our troops and for our country,' said Senator Klobuchar. 'It's not just our obligation to help them in return, it is our privilege and honor to assist them.'

Leveraging Alight's human-centered approach to help displaced people build full, meaningful lives, the partners will work together to create warm and welcoming homes as Afghan families start their new lives in Minnesota. Everything from big ticket items such as furniture to smaller, everyday items like dishes, towels and cleaning supplies need to be in the homes and ready for the families upon their arrival. The Welcome Home program not only ensures these items are in place for families as they arrive, but also leaves them feeling dignified and empowered to begin this next chapter in their lives.

"We want to create the warmest welcome possible for Afghan families arriving in Minnesota and provide an environment where they can thrive," says Alight Afghan Response Project Lead Sonia Anunciacion. "Alight is concerned for refugees and displaced people wherever they may be in the world. We work internationally, but our global support team has been based here in Minnesota for the last 40 years, serving in over 19 countries, providing support to more than 3.5 million displaced people around the world annually. This is work we know how to do."

"Team Rubicon is honored to be assisting Afghan families as they transition into communities across the country," says Caroline Griffith, Task Force Leader for Team Rubicon's Minneapolis operation. "Afghan family resettlement is a deeply personal mission for many of our veteran volunteers and with our partners and the Minneapolis community at-large, we look forward to providing the new families with a warm welcome."

Alight is seeking financial donations from individuals, foundations and the private sector throughout Minnesota and the United States to supplement funding to support furnishing each home. In-kind donation drives for furniture, everyday household products, and culturally relevant items are also underway.

To learn more about this transformative work and to make a donation, please visit the campaign homepage .

ABOUT ALIGHT

Established in 1978 by founder Neal Ball, Alight , formerly known as American Refugee Committee, is an international humanitarian organization, working to create conditions for refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, trafficked and displaced people to build full, meaningful lives. Providing health care, clean water, shelter, protection and economic opportunities to more than 3.5 million people in over 20 countries each year. Alight believes in the incredible creativity, potential and ingenuity of the displaced and works to shine a light on their humanity, the tremendous amount of good that's already happening and the possibilities to do more. In 2020, Alight received the prestigious 4-Star Rating from Charity Navigator for the tenth consecutive year, celebrating a decade of impactful work.

ABOUT TEAM RUBICON

Team Rubicon serves communities by mobilizing veterans to continue their service by leveraging their skills and experience to help people prepare, respond, and recover from disasters and humanitarian crises. Founded following the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the organization has grown to almost 150,000 volunteers across the United States and has launched nearly 1,000 operations both domestically and internationally. Amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, Team Rubicon has not only pivoted to be able to continue to deliver disaster response and rebuild services in core mission areas but has also expanded their scope of missions to meet community needs brought about by COVID.

SOURCE Alight
DALLAS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Smoothie King, the leading global smoothie franchise, announced today the hiring of franchise industry veteran Shawn Caric as Vice President of Franchise Development. With decades of franchise experience, Caric will drive the brand's franchise development efforts by leading a talented team dedicated to recruiting passionate franchisees. These efforts will support the company's aggressive long-term growth plans to attract 70 new franchisees and sign 200 total store commitments in 2022.

No stranger to the restaurant industry, Caric comes to Smoothie King with an understanding of strategic development and vast experience of successful growth. As the Director of Development for Dunkin' and Baskin-Robbins, Caric worked to develop and execute strategic market and expansion strategy plans for both brands throughout the 11-state Midwest region. During his long tenure at Dunkin', Caric's guidance turned the Dunkin' franchising team into industry leaders within the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) segment for new store commitments year after year. Most recently, he was the Vice President of Franchise Development for QDOBA Mexican Eats, where he directed the 740-unit brand's strategic franchise expansion across key markets in the United States and Canada. Prior to working with QDOBA, Caric has also held franchise leadership positions with Hollywood Tans and Red Mango. Additionally, Shawn spent 13 years with Hallmark Cards, serving the Northeast region in training, market development, operations, and regional sales management roles.

"My passion and energy comes from growing brands and helping franchisees to achieve their goals. And Smoothie King provides me the opportunity to do just that," said Caric. "As a franchising professional, nothing gets you more excited than working for a purpose-driven, category leading brand with strong leadership, great unit-level economics and a solid foundation with plenty of room for growth. Smoothie King checked all of these boxes for me and I am excited to begin this journey with the brand."

The focus of the franchise in 2022 is to continue ramping up unit-level economics and system-wide growth through the introduction of new consumer-facing technology, product lines, and tools for franchisee success. All geared towards inspiring guests to live a healthy and active lifestyle. One which, with the help of Smoothie King, will be more convenient and obtainable than ever.

"We wouldn't be the brand we are today without the leadership and dedication of individuals like Shawn  those passionate about our growth and bringing on the right franchisees to help expand our brand and leave our mark on the $2 billion smoothie segment," said Wan Kim, CEO of Smoothie King. "Shawn is highly-skilled with decades of successful franchise experience under his belt, which makes him well-equipped for the responsibilities he is taking on. Highly regarded in his respective field, I have the utmost confidence in his ability to succeed in his new role at Smoothie King."

In addition to representing another iconic American brand, Caric is excited about the unique opportunity for new and existing franchisees of Smoothie King. "Between the low labor operating model, the ability to scale, and the availability for traditional and non-traditional development in many markets across the country, the time is now to join us," added Caric.

As the world's largest smoothie brand with more than 1,300 stores open, Smoothie King has achieved same-store sales growth for the past 9+ years by delivering masterfully crafted blends that support its guests' healthy and active lifestyles. Get started by visiting www.smoothiekingfranchise.com for more information.

ABOUT SMOOTHIE KING FRANCHISES, INC.

Smoothie King Franchises, Inc., the original U.S. smoothie franchise, is a privately-held, Dallas-based franchise company with over 1,300 locations worldwide. Founded in 1973, Smoothie King has evolved into a lifestyle brand inspiring people to live healthy and active lifestyles via nutritious, great-tasting smoothies. The franchise earned No. 13 overall on Entrepreneur's prestigious Franchise 500 list in 2022. The company also debuted on the "Inc. 5000" list in 2018 and ranked as one of Franchise Business Review's Top Franchises of 2022.

Media Contact: Julianne Stevenson, Fishman PR, 224-558-2510 or [email protected]

SOURCE Smoothie King
Vendor Landscape

The market structure is expected to remain fragmented during the forecast period. Vendors are deploying different organic and inorganic growth strategies to compete in the market.

Feng Sushi, FOOD and LIFE COMPANIES Ltd., HAMAZUSHI Co. Ltd., Innovative Dining Group, Kappa Create Co. Ltd., Kura Sushi USA Inc., Maxims Caterers Ltd., Peace Dining Corp., Sakae Holdings Ltd., and Wasabi Sushi among others are some of the few key vendors competing to maintain their market position in the market.

Various players in the market are engaging in strategies such as the launch of differentiated products to up their game in the sushi restaurants market.

View more about the market's vendor landscape highlights with a comprehensive list of vendors and their offerings.

Key Market Segmentation

Segmentation by Product:

RSDR:



The RDSR segment or the regular dine-in sushi restaurant in the global sushi restaurants market involves sushi restaurants that are offering fine dining, fast-casual, quick service, and sushi bars among the others. Moreover, there has been a growing demand globally for the concept of quick-service sushi restaurants after the introduction of new sushi dishes such as sushi rolls and sushi burritos. Furthermore, with the opening of new stores by the Japanese restaurant stores the global sushi restaurants market is expected to boost during the forecast period.



CBSR

Request a FREE Sample of this report for more highlights into the market segments.

Regional Market Outlook

APAC will contribute to 84% of the market growth during the forecast period. The growth of this region can be attributed to the increase in awareness about Japanese cuisine in the neighboring countries and their cultural similarities.

Apart from regions, if we look at the country-wise market growth, Japan, US, China, UK, and France will contribute to the highest market growth.

Download our FREE sample report for more key highlights on the regional market share of most of the above-mentioned countries.

Latest Trends, Driving the Global Sushi Restaurants Market

Market Driver:

Rising marketing campaigns:

The increase in marketing activities is one of the key factors driving the global sushi restaurants market during the forecast period. The restaurant and other food service industries hugely depend on marketing activities such as advertising campaigns and product promotions for boosting their sales. Hence, the vendors in these markets promote their brands using electronic as well as print media. Most of the sushi restaurants are focused on campaigns owing to digitization and related developments. Therefore, vendors also use digital media as a platform for brand marketing. They publish attractive promotional offers and photos of quick-service food to enhance customer engagement.

Market Trend:

Emerging innovative sushi dishes:

The new and innovative sushi dishes such as Nigri sushi is one of the key trends estimated for the growth of the global sushi restaurants market during the forecast period. Moreover, technological advancements in the restaurants and the increasing popularity of Japanese cuisine are also significantly driving the global sushi restaurants market in the coming years.

Find additional information about various other market drivers & trends mentioned in our FREE sample report .

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Sushi Restaurants Market Scope Report Coverage Details Page number 120 Base year 2020 Forecast period 2021-2025 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 2.55% Market growth 2021-2025 $ 2.49 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth (%) 2.55 Regional analysis APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and MEA Performing market contribution APAC at 84% Key consumer countries Japan, US, China, UK, and France Competitive landscape Leading companies, competitive strategies, consumer engagement scope Companies profiled Feng Sushi, FOOD and LIFE COMPANIES Ltd., HAMAZUSHI Co. Ltd., Innovative Dining Group, Kappa Create Co. Ltd., Kura Sushi USA Inc., Maxims Caterers Ltd., Peace Dining Corp., Sakae Holdings Ltd., and Wasabi Sushi Market Dynamics Parent market analysis, Market growth inducers and obstacles, Fast-growing and slow-growing segment analysis, COVID-19 impact and future consumer dynamics, market condition analysis for the forecast period, Customization purview If our report has not included the data that you are looking for, you can reach out to our analysts and get segments customized.

About Us

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focus on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contact

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
"There's been some attention to the laws, but not nearly enough given how they impact homeowners, people renting or sharing homes who may be displaced by redevelopment, and neighborhoods," says Cary Brazeman, author of "The End of Single-Family Zoning in California: How to Protect Yourself and Profit from Permissive New Upzoning Laws."

The book is available for download at https://TheEndofZoning.com/. It is free to download the book.

New California laws SB 9 and SB 10 allow multi-unit and multi-story buildings on single-family lots. SB 9, which overrides local control of zoning, is particularly controversial. A majority of Californians opposed the law, as did hundreds of California cities. The left-leaning Los Angeles City Council also objected. So did right-leaning Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The new book helps homeowners understand the new laws and their potential impacts on people, property values and neighborhoods. Homeowners who read the book will learn:

What developers are now allowed to build in single-family neighborhoods

What can be done to stop them

What local governments can (and cannot) do in response

How homeowners can protect themselves from the redevelopment of neighborhoods

How homeowners can cash in  if they decide to  by selling their houses to investors or redeveloping properties themselves

The book also illuminates how the laws can be exploited to destroy historic resources and produce dense housing in high-risk fire zones. Read the book to learn:

How much density developers can build now on single-family lots

What they can build with no approvals, and what they need clearance to build

Changes affecting the demolition of historic properties

Changes affecting the development of hillsides, canyons and coastal areas

Whether it's necessary to include any affordable units in the new buildings, or pay any impact fees in order to develop single-family properties at higher densities

How the new laws will lead to increased Wall Street ownership of California homes

Every homeowner in California should read this book. The book is free to download at https://TheEndofZoning.com/.

About the Author

Cary Brazeman is the author of "The End of Single-Family Zoning in California: How to Protect Yourself and Profit from Permissive New Upzoning Laws."

Cary is a real estate expert and neighborhood advocate from Los Angeles. He has a warning for California homeowners: "Get familiar with the new laws and decide for yourself whether to stay in your home, or sell your home before it is potentially devalued as a result of changes now allowed in your neighborhood."

"The End of Single-Family Zoning in California: How to Protect Yourself and Profit from Permissive New Upzoning Laws" is available for free download.

Media contact:

Elizabeth Stivers

[email protected]

310-205-3590

SOURCE Cary Brazeman
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Red Chickz  a TikTok famous Nashville hot chicken brand  is moving into 2022 with a productive year behind them and large goals for their future. After hitting one million followers on the platform, The Red Chickz saw the desire for their delicious hot chicken sandwiches and wants to continue bringing their food to people nationally for all to enjoy. The brand has plans to continue expanding, specifically throughout Arizona, Texas, Nevada and California. With their success in 2021, they have a new location opening in Culver City in February and intend on signing 85 new franchises within the next 18 months.

The Red Chickz continues to innovate to move the franchise into the future and provide their guests with an exceptional experience. With the pandemic still ongoing, customer and staff safety is a priority. To help everyone feel at ease, the brand plans to pilot self-ordering kiosks within their new Culver City location and eventually bring them into the rest of their restaurants.

"Our first location in Downtown Los Angeles has done remarkably well since opening in 2018 and we are confident that we will be just as successful in more places," said Shawn Lalehzarian, founder of The Red Chickz. "We see huge potential in continuing to expand in California, as well as entering markets like Texas, Nevada, and Arizona."

After immigrating to the United States from Iran, Lalehzarian found his first job working at a local restaurant in San Diego washing dishes. Not knowing much English at the time, he was able to improve his communication skills significantly as he discovered his passion for the restaurant industry. As he progressed through his career, he was promoted to higher-up positions and eventually landed a senior management role and it was then he realized his dream was to open his own restaurant. As a result, in 2018, The Red Chickz was then born. In 2021, Lalehzarian launched the franchise program for the Nashville hot chicken brand, showing that Shawn and The Red Chickz are a true example of the American dream.

"We are extremely passionate about serving high quality food in a fun, fast casual setting and the Southwest region is the perfect place for us to continue expanding," said Lalehzarian. "Our social media following and success in Los Angeles has made it clear that a lot of people want to try our food for themselves and we couldn't be happier to give them that opportunity."

The Red Chickz brings Nashville to you with their own version of the city's famous food. The initial investment necessary to open a single location ranges between $364,000 and $821,000.

For more information, visit: www.theredchickzfranchise.com

About The Red Chickz

Since 2019, Shawn Lalehzarian's dream of opening a concept restaurant based on his trip to discover the secret to making the perfect Nashville hot chicken has become a reality. The Red Chickz puts their West Coast spin on the Southern favorite, offering items such as Nashville hot chicken sandwiches available in six different spice levels, more unconventional items like hot chicken and French toast, and classic sides like potato wedges and coleslaw. Stop by The Red Chickz's Downtown Los Angeles location today and visit https://www.theredchickz.com/ for more information. Check out pictures and videos of their food on Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok.

SOURCE The Red Chickz
During its pioneering 50-year journey, the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development has funded 64 educational projects worth a total of AED2 billion ($540 million) across 15 developing countries in the world.

In its report, issued on the International Day of Education on January 24, ADFD emphasised the importance of supporting the education sector, one of the essential pillars for achieving humanitarian and societal progress.

The Fund also aims to develop the capabilities of individuals and to qualify future generations, empowering them to make societies more stable and productive.

Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director General of ADFD, said: Given the importance of education in developing and growing communities, it is one of the primary sectors that ADFD is keen to support. In line with the fourth objective of our Sustainable Development Goals, which is to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, the Fund continues to support the education sector by financing several strategic projects that contribute to sustainable economic and social development for developing countries.

At a local level, ADFD is committed to supporting the UAE education sector in order to fulfil the countrys education strategies and empower future generations. As key drivers of the development process, the Fund has continued to assist UAE organisations, enhancing their activities and their operational sustainability across many fields.

Last year, despite the pandemic's challenges, ADFD extended around AED53 million in financial support to Bloom Education, making it the first company to benefit from the Fund's AED1 billion initiative, launched in 2020.

This financing helped Bloom Education overcome the teaching challenges posed by Covid-19 and strengthen its financial position, enabling it to play its part in supporting the national economy.

The following examples are the outstanding projects funded by ADFD in education sector:

MOROCCO

ADFD has provided AED26 million to construct a university district within the Mohammed VI University of Health Sciences campus. The project undertaken by the Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Foundation in Morocco, designed to the highest international standards, aims to provide high-quality accommodation for 866 students from areas surrounding the city of Mohammedia, enabling them to complete their higher education.

JORDAN

ADFD allocated AED466 million to a programme that includes the development and improvement of nine public universities. The project involves the construction of faculty buildings, auditoriums, laboratories, solar energy power-generating stations, and water desalination plants.

The Fund is also financing the provision of state-of-the-art equipment to modernise the universities facilities and enhance the students learning experience.

RUSSIA

With a value of AED1.8 million, ADFD financed the supply of scientific laboratory equipment to the North-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) in Yakutsk, Russia to enhance the university's ability to develop its specialised research in the field of biodiversity.

The project will help preserve natural diversity, fund reproduction programmes and be used to resettle endangered species in their various habitats.

PALESTINE

In coordination with the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, ADFD administered a grant of AED42 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The funding supported the provision of education programmes to roughly 15,000 Palestinian refugee children across 14 schools in the Gaza strip.

SUDAN

ADFD funding secured the provision of educational materials, including chairs and desks, to 400,000 Sudanese students as part of the UAE's commitment to develop the nations education system. The funding also provided classroom resources and programmes to prepare students to flourish in a modern classroom environment.

In addition to the above, since its inception in 1971, ADFD has funded several projects in 103 developing countries, positively contributing to the improvement of their economies, which, in turn, led to important societal changes. The fund's total finance and investment to date is more than AED150 billion.-- TradeArabia News Service
In this role, Sfondeles will develop effective communication strategies for issue-oriented public relations and public affairs campaigns, using her experience covering Illinois and national politics and government to drive meaningful conversations in media outlets across Illinois.

"We are excited to welcome Tina to our team," said Ryan McLaughlin, President and CEO of Mac Strategies Group. "Her deep familiarity with the media landscape as well as state and national politics will further our ability to communicate complicated and nuanced subjects, allowing us to more effectively tell important stories and secure successes for our clients."

Sfondeles will be based in Chicago, where she began her career in journalism, starting as a transportation reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times before eventually being elevated to political reporter. Sfondeles covered numerous elections and administrations, including the historic two-year state budget impasse. She has been a frequent guest on television and radio, providing expert commentary to help the public easily understand the complex issues and personalities driving public policy. In 2020, Sfondeles moved to Washington where she covered Joe Biden's presidential campaign as a politics correspondent for Business Insider. In 2021, she joined Politico as a White House reporter and co-author of the influential West Wing Playbook, a newsletter about the people and power centers in the White House. An advocate for mentorship and professional development, Sfondeles has also served as an adjunct professor at her alma mater Loyola University Chicago, teaching students about essential writing skills, professional and business speaking and reporting.

"After a whirlwind experience in Washington, I'm so proud to be returning home to Chicago for my next adventure. I'm looking forward to working with Ryan and the Mac Strategies Group team to help drive conversations on important public policy issues that affect many people," Sfondeles said. "As an added bonus, I get to work alongside Monique Garcia, a former competitor turned close friend whose personal and professional skills I have admired for years."

Founded in 2008 by McLaughlin, Mac Strategies Group has a proven track record of conducting widely successful media relations and communication programs, earning more than thirty industry awards and becoming one of the most effective agencies for directing successful issue advocacy campaigns. The firm secures consistent earned media for clients, while also providing strategic counsel to meet goals and objectives.

As Mac Strategies Group continues the expansion of its capabilities with the addition of Sfondeles, Monique Garcia has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Public and Media Relations. A former Chicago Tribune Statehouse reporter, Garcia joined the firm in 2018 and helps lead its operations in Springfield. The firm's roster of talent also includes Matt Butterfield, a Peabody Award-winning Chicago broadcast journalist, as well as Matt Murphy, former deputy leader of the Illinois Senate, and Anne Schaeffer, who previously managed a multi-state government affairs practice for a global Fortune 500 company. Murphy and Schaeffer lead the firm's government affairs practice.

About Mac Strategies Group

Mac Strategies Group is an award-winning, full-service strategic communications, public affairs and government relations firm with offices in Chicago and Springfield, Illinois. Our clients include Fortune 100 companies, issue-advocacy coalitions, trade associations, units of government, public policy organizations, and non-profits seeking to enhance their profile and impact public opinion on the local, state and federal levels. Our team is bolstered by our combined experience having served in a variety of high-profile roles in governmental, public affairs and the media arenas, including positions inside newsrooms, the state legislature, Capitol Hill and prominent trade associations.

SOURCE Mac Strategies Group
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- From Pine Bluff to Little Rock, online and in-person, parents, students, educators, and community leaders are getting creative to bring school choice information, and school spirit, to Arkansans.

WHAT:

Week of fun celebrations for National School Choice Week

WHO:

Parents, students, educators, and community leaders all across Arkansas

WHEN & WHERE:

Tuesday, Jan. 25 : Virtual Town Hall for Military Families

: Virtual Town Hall for Military Families https://www.facebook.com/events/1248511612311981/

Wednesday, Jan. 26 : Statewide Wear Yellow Day

: Statewide Wear Yellow Day Friday, Jan. 28 : Community Art Night in Little Rock at 5:00 p.m.

: Community Art Night in at A Different Stroke of Art, 3702 John F. Kennedy Boulevard

Saturday, Jan. 29 : Community Art Night in Pine Bluff at 1:00 p.m.

: Community Art Night in at Boys & Girls Club of Jefferson County , 2701 Short Reeker Street

WHERE:

Public and private schools and homeschool groups throughout Arkansas

These celebrations are planned by The Reform Alliance.

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children, focusing equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of celebrations  such as school fairs and open houses to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. School Choice Week also develops resources and guides to K-12 education for families. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation. For more information visit schoolchoiceweek.com.

SOURCE National School Choice Week
WAREHAM, Mass., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --

Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission awards Trade Roots a final retail license to go along with Trade Roots' final cultivation and product manufacturing licenses

Adds two executive officers to further Trade Roots' growth and achievement of strategic objectives

Final Licenses

LDE Holdings, LLC (d/b/a Trade Roots) ("Trade Roots"), a vertically-integrated Massachusetts-based adult-use craft cannabis company, today announced the appointment of two executive officers ahead of its much anticipated retail store opening.

On January 20, 2022, Trade Roots was awarded a final license for retail operations by the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission (the "CCC"). With this license, Trade Roots becomes the first Massachusetts Social Equity Program participant to obtain final licensure in all three categories: cultivation, product manufacturing and retail.

Trade Roots' commencement of retail operations is subject to a Post-Final License Inspection by the CCC and satisfaction of certain final license conditions.

This is the final step in bringing Trade Roots' founders Jesse Pitts and Carl Giannone's vision to life. "It's a dream come true to be able to bring high quality, legal cannabis to the place where I grew up and where the community has been so supportive of our efforts," said Mr. Pitts, a Wareham native. He added, "We're also extremely proud to achieve these successes as a Social Equity Program participant and are excited to continue to support the Program's goals of inclusion in the industry."

Trade Roots' highly acclaimed concentrate products, including Northeast Leaf's "Concentrate of the Month" for November, "LSD x Lemon Skunk wax" are currently available in 30 storefronts throughout The Commonwealth. Sold under its Captain's Reserve brand, Trade Roots produces ultra-high quality, small batch cannabis extractions. Trade Roots branded craft cannabis flower will be available primarily at Trade Roots' retail store located at Six Thatcher Lane in Wareham.

Management Restructuring

With the anticipated launch of the store, growth in personnel and continued streamlining of operations, Trade Roots' Board of Managers approved a corporate restructuring that it believes best utilizes the company's talent to execute its strategic vision. Key to this restructuring is the addition of two executive officers from Trade Roots' existing team, Roger Williamson as Chief Operating Officer and Ilya Ross as Vice President  Corporate Development and Legal. These appointments are subject to and conditioned upon approval by the CCC via a Change-of-Ownership-and-Control application.

Mr. Williamson is currently the Trade Roots Director of Sales, where he has spearheaded relationship-building with valued wholesale partners. Prior to joining Trade Roots, Mr. Williamson was a Key Accounts Manager for Crocs, Inc. for over 10 years. "Working in the cannabis industry has been the most challenging and rewarding part of my career. A passion for the plant combined with incredible people is continuously driving innovation in cannabis. I am proud to be a part of it," said Mr. Williamson.

Mr. Ross is currently the Company's General Counsel and Compliance Officer. He has helped guide Trade Roots through final licensing and launch of operations. Before joining Trade Roots, Mr. Ross was Counsel at Vicente Sederberg LLP, a national cannabis law firm, where he oversaw and structured some of the first multi-state cannabis acquisition transactions as Chair of the corporate group of the firm's Massachusetts office. Prior to then, Mr. Ross was a capital markets attorney for over a decade at several New York-based firms.

As part of the restructuring, Mr. Giannone will also step into new roles as Executive Chairman of the Board of Managers and Chief Strategy Officer. "In these dual roles, I endeavor to assist the Company in further aligning its daily operations with our overall strategic vision," said Mr. Giannone. He added, "I'm confident that our new management team's experience and passion for our company's mission will take us to an exciting new phase of our corporate life cycle."

Mr. Pitts will continue to serve as the Company's Chief Executive Officer.

About Trade Roots



As an artisanal purveyor of "Craft Cannabis at The Gateway to Cape Cod," Wareham-based Trade Roots is a locally-owned, operated, and staffed business providing the highest-quality adult-use cannabis and cannabis products to Massachusetts residents. Trade Roots is a Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission-designated Social Equity Program Participant committed to driving positive impact and economic growth in its host community. Trade Roots will offer an extensive selection of locally produced, sourced and curated products in a beachtown boutique environment.

Forward Looking Statements



This press release contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws ("Forward-Looking Statements"). Forward-Looking Statements are based on certain expectations and assumptions and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events, results, performance and achievements to differ materially from those anticipated in these Forward-Looking Statements.

Forward-Looking Statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these Forward-Looking Statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any Forward-Looking Statements as a result of new information or future events, or for any other reason.

Contacts



Carl Giannone

Co-Founder

[email protected]



Jesse Pitts

Co-Founder

[email protected]



Ilya Ross

VP Corporate Development and Legal

[email protected]

SOURCE Trade Roots
LAS VEGAS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Urban Libraries Council (ULC) has announced that the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District has received a Top Innovators Honorable Mention award for its program "Bringing the Library to Transit Riders," developed in partnership with the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC). The program provides local transit riders with free access to movies, ebooks, eaudiobooks, and magazines on 400 city buses, using on board WiFi.

The ULC's annual Innovations awards recognize transformative programs that address structural racism, bridge digital divides, provide lifelong education opportunities, meet the needs of under-resourced populations and improve essential library service delivery from ULC's member library systems across the U.S. and Canada. The ULC announced the award during the 2021 Innovations Celebration held virtually on Jan. 2.

"Our partnership with the RTC is just one example of how the Library District is collaborating with other public entities to create smart, new and unexpected ways to serve the public," said Kelvin Watson, executive director of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. "Bringing the library onboard the RTC's 400 citywide buses introduces new audiences to the library's educational, entertaining, and life-changing resources. Our goal is inspire them to explore our buildings and our website and enjoy a wonderful world of discovery."

The Library District's program enables transit riders to instantly sign up for library access via the Libby app and the RTC's free WiFi on any of its 400 city buses in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Riders can immediately begin borrowing ebooks, eaudiobooks, magazines, and movies at no cost. The service is also available to Las Vegas visitors who can receive temporary access via a seven-day pass.

"We celebrate Las Vegas-Clark County Library District for developing a leading-edge program which will transform their library and community, serving as a model for all public libraries in North America," said Urban Libraries Council President and CEO Susan Benton.

About Las Vegas-Clark County Library District

The award-winning Las Vegas-Clark County Library District is an independent taxing entity that serves a diverse community across 8,000 square miles. Through its 25 branches and website, the Library District offers a collection of 3.2 million items consisting of books, movies, music (including streaming and downloadable), online resources, as well as free programs for all ages.

The Library District is a vibrant and vital member of the community offering limitless learning; business and career advancement; government and social services support; and best of all, a place where customers find a sense of culture and community. For more information, please visit LVCCLD.org.

About Urban Libraries Council

The Urban Libraries Council (ULC) is an innovation and impact tank of North America's leading public library systems. ULC drives cutting-edge research and strategic partnerships to elevate the power of libraries as essential, transformative institutions for the 21st century. More than 160 urban member libraries in the U.S. and Canada rely on ULC to identify significant challenges facing today's communities and provide new tools and techniques to help libraries achieve stronger outcomes in education, digital equity, workforce and economic development, and race and social equity.

SOURCE Las Vegas-Clark County Library District
ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admission v. University of North Carolina, federal lawsuits brought by a nonprofit membership organization in 2014 alleging that Harvard and UNC's admissions policies discriminate against Asian-American and white applicants.

After a three-week trial in 2018, a district court in Boston ruled in Harvard's favor. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the lower court's opinion. The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court in February, 2021.

The trial in the UNC case was conducted in November, 2020 with the court ruling in favor of UNC nearly one year later. On November 11, 2021, SFFA petitioned the Supreme Court to grant certiorari before judgment from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit so that both the Harvard and UNC cases could be heard together.

Edward Blum, president of SFFA, said, "We are grateful the Supreme Court accepted these important cases for review. It is our hope that the justices will end the use of race as an admissions factor at Harvard, UNC and all colleges and universities."

Blum added, "Both the Pew Research Center and Gallup have released surveys which indicate that nearly 75% of Americans of all races do not believe race or ethnicity should be a factor in college admissions. In a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation like ours, the college admissions bar cannot be raised for some races and ethnic groups but lowered for others. Our nation cannot remedy past discrimination and racial preferences with new discrimination and different racial preferences."

Blum noted, "Harvard and the University of North Carolina have racially gerrymandered their freshman classes in order to achieve prescribed racial quotas. Every college applicant should be judged as a unique individual, not as some representative of a racial or ethnic group."

Blum concluded, "The cornerstone of our nation's civil rights laws is the principle that an individual's race should not be used to help or harm them in their life's endeavors. We hope the Supreme Court will use these cases to begin the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that holds together Americans of all races and ethnicities."

Contact:

Edward Blum

703-505-1922

[email protected]

SOURCE Students for Fair Admissions
Major Stick Packaging Trends in the Stick Packaging Procurement Market

The pressure from substitutes and a moderate level of threat from new entrants has resulted in the moderate bargaining power of suppliers. This makes it extremely important to get the pricing and pricing model right. Buyers should align their preferred pricing models for Stick Packaging with the wider industry and identify the cost-saving potential.

The most widely adopted Pricing Models in the Stick Packaging Market

in the Stick Packaging Market Cost Plus pricing model



Competitive pricing model

Each pricing model offers optimum benefits and fitment in specific situations. Buyers should identify the model that suits their operations in the best manner and link supplier performance to the pricing models.

Download our free sample report to know more about the latest Stick Packaging trends and various pricing models

Will there be an Increase in the Spend Growth for Stick Packaging Procurement?

The Stick Packaging market will register an incremental spend of about USD 82 million during the forecast period. However, only a few regions will drive the majority of this growth. Moreover, on the supply side, North America, Europe, and APAC will have the maximum influence owing to the supplier base.

The growth is expected to be primarily driven by increasing demand and adoption of the category across those few regions. To get a detailed analysis of the volume drivers that are driving the adoption of the category across regions.

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This procurement report answers help buyers identify and shortlist the most suitable suppliers for their Stick Packaging Market requirements following questions:

Am I engaging with the right suppliers?

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Which supplier selection criteria are relevant for?

What are the workplace computing devices category essentials in terms of SLAs and RFx?

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SOURCE SpendEdge
NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report " Utility Communication Market to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis and Forecasts by Technology (Wired and Wireless); Utility Type (Private Utility and Public Utility)", published by The Insight Partners, the global utility communication market was valued at US$ 10,730.4 million in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ 35,138.1 million by 2027; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.3% during 20202027.

Get Exclusive Sample Pages of Utility Communication Market Size - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis with Strategic Insights at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/sample/TIPRE00009082/

Report Coverage Details Market Size Value in US$ 10,730.4 Million in 2019 Market Size Value by US$ 35,138.1 Million by 2027 Growth rate CAGR of 16.3% from 2020-2027 Forecast Period 2020-2027 Base Year 2020 No. of Pages 191 No. Tables 79 No. of Charts & Figures 89 Historical data available Yes Segments covered Technology; Utility Type Regional scope North America; Europe; Asia Pacific; Latin America; MEA Country scope US, UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Argentina Report coverage Revenue forecast, company ranking, competitive landscape, growth factors, and trends

Utility Communication Market: Competitive Landscape and Key Developments

ABB Ltd.; Ericsson; Fujitsu Ltd.; General Electric Company; Honeywell International Inc.; Omicron Electronics GMBH; Rockwell Automation, Inc.; Schneider Electric SE; Siemens AG; and Tejas Networks Ltd. are among the key players in the global utility communication market. The leading companies focus on the expansion and diversification of their market presence, and acquisition of new customer base, thereby tapping prevailing business opportunities.

In 2020, Verizon collaborated with Honeywell to help utilities speed up and simplify the deployment of new communication-enabled, intelligent sensors and controls for the smart electric grid. Honeywell would be integrating Verizon's Managed Connectivity LTE solutions into smart meters and other edge devices.

Inquiry Before Buying: https://www.theinsightpartners.com/inquiry/TIPRE00009082/

In 2019, Tejas Networks signed an MoU with Bharat Electronics Limited for using Tejas' optical transmission, access, and data-switching products for domestic and export markets.

Utility communication is a communication network that can ensure continuous transmission of voice, data, and video through LANs and WANs. Digital transformation can be described as the use of technology to enhance company efficiency or scope. Digital technologies and social networks are increasingly being used nowadays to improve interaction between government, corporations, civil society, friends, and family. Some of the most commonly used systems are Ethernet network control and data collection, SCADA and smart grid control. The smart grid infrastructure plays a critical role in the communications business of energy & power utilities. A smart grid influences ICT to converge and enable the flow of real-time information within the power utilities; between the power utilities, suppliers, and partners; and between the power utilities, business, and domestic customers. Smart grids and their implementations rely on a robust, secure, highly ascendable and always available communication networks. Owing to the willingness to improve service efficiency, service providers will also ensure regulatory enforcement and mitigate the detrimental effect of cost-cutting problems. Thus, the utility communications network is the basis for two-way communication through the system to all the data points. It assists in tracking and managing grid equipment, measuring network output, and providing real-time information.

In terms of industrialization, there is a correlation between the energy demands of modern society, the economic realities of the utility sector, and the environmental protection standards. This combination forces a new form of a power system to be developed and introduced. The growing usage of smart grid systems in the utility communications industry is driving the global utility communication market's overall growth rate due to its widespread application in various industries, especially the energy & power industry. The contact network forms the foundation of all logical, smart factories. Hence, ensuring its safe and efficient operation is the prerequisite for the successful realization of the Industry 4.0.

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The lockdown of various plants and factories in China affected the global supply chains and negatively impacted the manufacturing, delivery schedules, and sales of various electronic goods. The most striking effect of COVID-19 in the ICT sector was the cancelation of the Mobile World Congress scheduled to take place in Barcelona in February 2020. Companies such as Apple and Microsoft have already announced possible delays in product deliveries and slump in future sales of their products. In addition, the global travel bans imposed by countries in Europe, Asia, and North America are affecting the business collaborations and partnerships opportunities. All these factors are anticipated to affect the information and communication technology industry in a negative manner and thus act as restraining factor for the growth of various markets related to this industry in the coming months.

Smart grids facilitate quicker restoration of electricity after power disturbances, and help reduce management and operational costs of utilities; this ultimately lowers power costs for consumers. Moreover, various initiatives advancing the technological landscape pertaining to the energy sector are likely to drive market growth during the forecast period. The US electrical system announced its "Grid 2030" vision in collaboration with the electric utility industry, equipment suppliers, IT operators, federal and state governments, advocacy organizations, colleges, and national laboratories. This vision encompasses the following aspects related to the power sector: generation, transmission, delivery, storage, and final use. It describes the fundamental problems and obstacles in grid modernization, followed by making recommendations for policymakers and industries to assist them in the development of the electric distribution infrastructure of future, such as utility communications. Mobile network connectivity facilitates the management and tracking of the overall power distribution system operations. It enables contact between smart meters and utilities through nodes. The mobile network connectivity also supports the introduction of smart metering systems across a vast area network. Mobile networking or cellular network technologies include communication technologies such as 3G, WiMAX, and LTE. Thus, with the increased use and demand for smart grids and mobile devices, the need for utility communication channels is also increasing.

Buy Premium Copy of Utility Communication Market Size, Share, Revenue, Strategic Insights and Forecasts 2020-2027 Research Report at https://www.theinsightpartners.com/buy/TIPRE00009082/

Utility Communication Market: Technology

The global utility communication market, based on technology, is segmented into wired and wireless. The wired segment held the largest market share in 2019. Wired network is used to relay different types of electrical signals from one end to the other. Using T1 thread, cable modem, or by some other means, often in wired networks, an internet connection is established. Using a wired network definition, the connection is shared between multiple devices. Power Line Carrier (PLC) communication has gained confidence due to its robustness in access, efficiency, and security with the advancement in its technologies led by PRIME PLC over the past decade, and the latest development of PRIME 1.4 technology.

Browse Adjoining Reports:

Smart Utilities Software Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Deployment Type (Cloud-Based, Web-Based); Product Type (Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Smart Grid Distribution Management, Smart Grid Network Management, Grid Asset Management, Substation Automation, Billing and Customer Information System) and Geography

Metering ICs Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Function (Apparent Energy (kVA), Active Energy (kWh), RMS Energy, Reactive Energy (kVAR)); Type (Single-Channel, Multi-Channel); Application (Industrial, Smart Appliances, Smart Homes, Others) and Geography

Energy and Utility Analytics Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Type (Software and Service), By Deployment Model (On-Premise, Cloud and Hybrid), By Application (Load Forecasting, Customer Analytics, Grid Analytics, Asset Management, Smart Meter Analytics, Others), and By Verticals (Oil & Gas, Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, Electricity, and Water, Others)

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Market Forecast to 2028 - Covid-19 Impact and Global Analysis - by Device (Smart Meters, Communication Infrastructure, Home Area Networks (HANS), In-home Display Units); Solution (MDM, Meter Data Analytics, AMI Security Meter, Communication Infrastructure); Service (System Integration, Meter Deployment, Program Management and Consulting) and Geography

Smart Grid Sensors Market Forecast to 2027 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis by Sensor Type (Voltage and Current Sensor, Temperature Sensor, and Others), Voltage Range (Low to Medium Voltage and High Voltage), and Application (Substation Automation, Advanced Metering Infrastructure, Smart Grid Distribution Network, and Others)

Metering Pumps Market Forecast to 2028 - Covid-19 Impact and Global Analysis - By Type (Diaphragm, Piston/Plunger, Others ); End-Use Industry (Water and Wastewater Treatment , Petrochemicals, Oil and Gas , Chemical Processing , Pharmaceuticals , Food and Beverage , Pulp and Paper , Others) and Geography

Smart Gas Meter Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Technology (Automated Meter Reading (AMR), Advanced Metering Infrastructure); Type (Smart Ultrasonic Gas Meter, Smart Diaphragm Gas Meter); Component (Hardware, Software); End User (Residential, Commercial, Industrial) and Geography

Digital Water Solutions Market Forecast to 2028 - COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis By Solution (Hardware, Software, Services); Technology (Metering and Customer Management, Network Management, Work and Asset Management, Others) and Geography

About Us:

The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We specialize in industries such as Semiconductor and Electronics, Aerospace and Defense, Automotive and Transportation, Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Manufacturing and Construction, Medical Device, Technology, Media and Telecommunications, Chemicals and Materials.

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SOURCE The Insight Partners
ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) will be the epicenter of a global outreach effort Jan. 24-28 to connect students around the world with scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to discuss the array of opportunities available in the fields of STEM. As part of a growing collaboration between UVI and NASA, what was once a U.S. Virgin Islands event, is now a global affair with students participating virtually from the U.S. mainland, Hawaii, Scotland, South Africa and India. Students will learn how they can take part in NASA internships and other science education opportunities in live presentations with NASA scientists. Another topic to be explored is climate change.

"The University of the Virgin Islands is honored once again to host this outstanding educational event, and to work in collaboration with NASA," said UVI President, Dr. David Hall. "This event will not only highlight the work of students in the Virgin Islands and nationally but will be an inspiration to educators as well. As a University we are deeply concerned about climate change and our Caribbean Center for Green Technology has been a leading resource in the Virgin Islands for addressing this challenge. I look forward to welcoming all participants."

Veteran NASA astronaut, Joe Acaba, will also provide a virtual welcome from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. "My hopes are to inspire the next generation of explorers and leaders, and to elevate and highlight the teaching profession and its importance to our society," he said.

Week-long activities are scheduled for different age groups with special presentations on Wednesday, Jan. 26 for national and international students. Dr. Hall will welcome participants joined by Dr. Darryll Pines, president of the University of the Maryland and principal investigator of the e4usa National Science Foundation grant which supports pre-engineering in U.S. high schools.

A presentation for students aged 16 and over interested NASA internship programs and/or scholarship opportunities at UVI is scheduled on Tuesday, Jan. 25 from 5-6 p.m. A session for teachers will take place on Wednesday, Jan. 26 from 5-6 p.m.

To register for sessions, email [email protected]. To watch the events live, visit UVI Facebook or the UVI YouTube Channel.

For more information, contact [email protected]

SOURCE University of the Virgin Islands
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Vial announces that in conjunction with the 2022 Maui Dermatology Conference it will host an Advisory Board co-hosted by Leon Kircik, MD, FAAD.

Dr. Kircik and Vial, along with leading research sites will discuss and collaborate on how Vial can continue to help grow Dermatology research sites and tackle the biggest challenges facing Dermatology researchers today.

Launched earlier this year, under the tag line, "The CRO Built for Sponsors", the Vial Dermatology CRO promises higher quality and faster execution of trials powered by the Vial Clinic Network of over 35 Dermatology clinics across the country.

The Vial Dermatology CRO team is led by Betsey Zbyszynski as Head of Clinical Operations, Jason Shuris as Head of Sales, Janet DuBois, M.D. as Medical Director, Justin Withers as Head of Dermatology, and Mamta Hunt as Head of Quality. The CRO executive team joins Vial with over 100+ years of combined dermatology clinical trial experience.

The Vial executive team is attending the 2022 Maui dermatology conference to engage with sponsors leading the forefront of Dermatology research and top research sites.

The Vial CRO Advisory Board will discuss the challenges facing Dermatology clinical research today, determine ways that Vial can continue to help grow Dermatology practices, and engage the Dermatology community - sponsors, KOLs and leading sites. The Vial executive team will incorporate the Advisory Board feedback from Dermatology research sites into the Vial Dermatology strategy and release a whitepaper on the Vial.com website highlighting the feedback.

About Vial:

Vial's mission is to run clinical trials with faster execution and higher quality in order to bring new therapies to market. Vial has over 70 employees and is based in San Francisco, California. Vial partners with Dermatologists to support their research teams and has created a network of over 35 Dermatology clinics. The Vial network has contributed to over 150 trials for many of the leading sponsors in Dermatology having run trials across common Medical Dermatology indications (Atopic Dermatitis, Psoriasis, Vitiligo, Alopecia Areata, Rosacea, Hidradenitis Suppurativa, Prurigo Nodularis among others) as well as Cosmetic Dermatology indications. The clinic network runs trials from Phase I through Phase IV.

For more information on our Dermatology CRO

SOURCE Vial
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Techniques for increasing collaboration between schools and families to improve student outcomes is the focus of a publicly available, six-part webinar series launched by the Community Engagement Initiative (CEI), a California effort to improve schools by building connections among educators.

In the videos, the CEI's Cohort II, consisting of twelve geographically diverse school district teams, share their journeys and successes, describing what they have done to address one of six identified causes of ineffective community engagement, particularly with underserved groups. Viewers learn about strategies, practices and policies adopted by the districts to connect with their local communities.

"We believe this resource will help teachers, administrators, community members and stakeholders implement equitable and culturally responsive engagement that will enhance student success," said Ted Alejandre, the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (SBCSS).

The California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (CCEE), the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools (SBCSS), the California Association for Bilingual Education (CABE), and Families In Schools (FIS) jointly lead CEI.

"CEI helps the professionals behind the scenes at our schools engage one another and ultimately strengthen support for students," Alejandre said.

The CEI webinars, described below, are 30 minutes to one hour and can be accessed at californiaengage.org. A variety of helpful suggestions are offered in each webinar.

Episode I: Prioritizing Relationships

The first webinar video focuses on addressing the lack of belief that the system's success is critically dependent on its relationship with students and families.

The first webinar video focuses on addressing the lack of belief that the system's success is critically dependent on its relationship with students and families. Episode II: Students & Families as Experts Strengthening and transforming students and families to become better communicators helps improve engagement between students/families and teachers/staff.

Strengthening and transforming students and families to become better communicators helps improve engagement between students/families and teachers/staff. Episode III: Leadership Commitment

Enhancing the commitment of district and school leaders to be more dedicated, consistent and engaging, particularly when working with students and families. Examples of successful professional development are highlighted.

Enhancing the commitment of district and school leaders to be more dedicated, consistent and engaging, particularly when working with students and families. Examples of successful professional development are highlighted. Episode IV: Highly Effective Practices

Building highly effective practices within districts and schools to increase effectiveness and communication with students and families; parents as educational partners and ways to better engage with them, including two-way communication.

Building highly effective practices within districts and schools to increase effectiveness and communication with students and families; parents as educational partners and ways to better engage with them, including two-way communication. Episode V: Race & Culture

Reversing the lack of inclusivity for certain student population segments by building trusting relationships where parents, students, teachers, and administrators interact to create programs for building equity for all students in their educational experience and empowering student excellence.

Reversing the lack of inclusivity for certain student population segments by building trusting relationships where parents, students, teachers, and administrators interact to create programs for building equity for all students in their educational experience and empowering student excellence. Episode VI: Community-friendly Systems & Tools

Defining "community-friendly" communication and outreach and information delivery methods to engage families in district and school decision-making.

Designed to strengthen the system of support by building the capacity of school districts to authentically engage one another was the impetus for the creation of CEI. The webinar series is just one of the identified techniques to meet CEI goals, specifically identifying effective models of community engagement. For more details on statewide and SBCSS training on community engagement, go to californiaengage.org or call SBCSS Communications at (909) 386-2413.

SOURCE San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Community Engagement Initiative
A virtual launch of the English, Hindi, Urdu and Malayalam editions of the Arabic-language book Gandhi: His Engagement with Islam and the Arab World, written by Abdulnabi Alshoala, will be held on January 26.

The event, organised by Bahrain India Society, will be held via Zoom at 4 pm on Wednesday at the Isa Cultural Centre, Manama.

Alshoala will be joined on the occasion by Piyush Srivastava, the Indian Ambassador to Bahrain; Abdul Rahman Mohammed Juma, the Chairman of the Bahrain India Society, and Dr Shobhana Radhakrishna, a leading, internationally-renowned Gandhi scholar, who will be the keynote speaker.

The acclaimed book, first published in Arabic two years ago and now in its third printing in the regional language, was snapped up by four different publishing houses in India. The English language translation, published by a leading Indian company, is already in its second printing with the Indian languages versions also ready for the international market.

Alshoala is the Chairman of Dar Albilad for Journalism, Publishing and Distribution Co and the founding chairman, and advisor to the board, of Alfanar Investment Holding Co. Over his long and illustrious career, Al shoala has served as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs and, later, as Cabinet Minister of State. He has also served as a member of Bahrains Advisory Council and, also, been elected to the Board of Directors of the Bahrain Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Gandhi: His Engagement with Islam and the Arab World is both Alshoala s homage to the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known by the honorific Mahatma (meaning venerable), and an effort seeking to address issues faced by Islam and Muslim countries in a Gandhian way.

Alshoala is no stranger to India, having studied at the fabled St Xaviers College in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His book, he said, is intended to both express his gratitude to India for the hospitality he received while a student and, also, to strengthen ties between India and Middle Eastern countries.

Gandhis main principle was to solve differences through dialogue, Alshoala said. History shows that he was able to wrest the jewel of the British Empire from them through a policy of non-violence. As we look around this region and see so much conflict and wars all around, this is my humble way of suggesting that non-violence and dialogue would serve all concerned well going forward.

Alshoala revisits Gandhis intellectual heritage, reviews his appreciation of Islam and the Holy Prophet and takes an exhaustive look at the different stages of Gandhis life and the impact it had on not just Indian politics and society, but also the Arab world.
HOUSTON, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- A Houston woman has filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Rice University and a former piano instructor  who is serving time for indecency with another child  claiming years of abuse that began when she was 10 years old.

Blizzard Law PLLC is representing the victim, who is listed as "I.R." in the lawsuit filed in Harris County. For video/sound of the attorney speaking about this case and to read a copy of the filing, click here.

"I feel very betrayed," said the victim's mother. "We had been with Rice for many years, and I thought we were doing right by our child the whole time, when what we were actually doing was putting her in danger."

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Dariusz Pawlas began sexually abusing the child during private piano lessons at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music. Dr. Pawlas received his master's and doctorate in musical arts at Rice University, and his students ranged from first graders to high school seniors.

According to the lawsuit, the abuse consisted of groping the victim's inner thighs and breasts, to pressing his erection against her back while he stood behind her at the piano.

"This type of behavior by a trusted teacher in a young girl's life should never be tolerated," said trial lawyer Anna Greenberg. "Not only should he be held accountable to the highest degree, but Rice University is also responsible for the traumatic experiences this young girl and others experienced at the hands of Dariusz Pawlas."

According to court records, I.R. is the second known victim of Dr. Pawlas. He is currently incarcerated in Rusk County, following a 2016 conviction for felony indecency with another student who came forward with an eerily similar experience. Dr. Pawlas became eligible for parole on April 1, 2021.

Following the first complaint of abuse, Rice University neither fired Dr. Pawlas nor did it inform parents of his other students. Instead, the university waited six months to fire him, the day after he was criminally charged. In the interim, Dr. Pawlas had confessed his inappropriate conduct to police.

The case is I.R. v. William Marsh Rice University et al., Cause No. 2022-04366 in Harris County District Court.

Media Contact:

Alyssa Woulfe

800-559-4534

[email protected]

SOURCE Blizzard Law
Tirupati Graphite PLC (LSE:TGR, OTCQX:TGRHF)'s (Tirupati Graphite PLC (LSE:TGR, OTCQX:TGRHF)) Shishir Poddar talks to Proactive London to present their progress update for Madagascar expansion projects.

He says their growth projects across its primary graphite division remain on track to achieve total flake graphite production capacity of 84,000 tonnes per annum by the end of 2024.

Poddar says their Madagascan mines produce high-quality flake graphite concentrate, providing an essential alternative to Chinese sources and explain how they will fit into the growing market.
Advance Energy PLC (AIM:ADV) told investors Carnarvon Petroleum, operator of the Buffalo project, completed wireline logging for the Buffalo-10 well.

Only residual oil was encountered in the well, the company said in a statement. Buffalo-10 will now be plugged and abandoned.

Additionally, chief executive Leslie Peterkin added it is likely both Advance and Carnarvon will relinquish the Buffalo asset.

The results of B-10 are both disappointing and hugely surprising given the independently verified risk assessment which confirmed a highly likely commercial outcome from the well, Peterkin said,

Across the joint venture, we invested a significant amount of technical work into the project which underpinned our high degree of confidence that the well would unlock the significant value of the field.

The post-well evaluation indicates that the well was drilled into the hanging wall of a fault, although uncertainty in seismic resolution also contributed to the reservoir being significantly deeper than expected at this location. It is not the case that this result means that all of the attic oil volumes certified by RISC have been negated.

The Buffalo Joint Venture will conduct further technical analysis in the coming weeks to fully understand why the attic was not encountered as prognosed at the drilled location.

Looking ahead, Peterkin said Advance Energy remains funded for the immediate near-term, and, has a pipeline of identified, attractive opportunities.

We will now turn our full attention to bringing at least one of these to fruition this year. These are value accretive opportunities and include an opportunity with cash flow, which would be suitable for debt or vendor financing, Peterkin added.

In the meantime, the company intends to significantly reduce costs while it assesses the next steps.
Aviva Investors, the global asset manager arm of Aviva PLC (LSE:AV.), said it will hold the directors of the companies it invests in accountable if they fail to deliver on sustainability expectations and added that it wants a closer link between executive pay and sustainability goals.

In a letter sent to 1,500 companies in 30 countries, the 262bn asset manager said it has widened its sustainability expectations and that companies will be judged on biodiversity and human rights as much as on climate and executive pay.

The news comes after BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), the world's largest fund, last week called for stronger climate and environmental goals from its investees.

Mark Versey, chief executive of Aviva Investors, said addressing just one area of sustainability was less effective because it might trigger negative impacts that could undermine other aspects of the transition to a sustainable economy.

Simply cutting emissions but allowing the destruction of the rain forest to continue will do little to reverse global warming. Companies need to adopt an integrated approach for maximum benefit, he said.

The asset manager expects all its investee companies to target net-zero emissions by 2050 and to work towards Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) validation of their climate targets and plans.

It also said all companies must develop biodiversity action plans and implement human rights due diligence.

Last year, Aviva Investors voted at 6,648 shareholder meetings. It voted against the re-election of directors at 137 companies for lack of progress on ethnic diversity and opposed directors at 85 companies due to human rights concerns.

The firm also rejected 33% and 68% of executive pay proposals in the UK and US respectively.

The asset manager said it will divest companies that consistently fail to meet its requirements.

Mirza Baig, Aviva Investors' head of environmental, social and corporate governance, told the BBC that some companies intentionally set vague targets to avoid being held to account.

He said Aviva would increasingly use its vote as a shareholder to try to oust directors at firms that had a "high impact" on the planet but did little to rectify this.

Last year 280 firms changed their practices after pressure from Aviva Investors, Baig said. However, he urged more big investment firms to use their "loud" and "influential" voices to drive change.

"If there was enough pressure being put on businesses then the world would look very different," he said.

Meanwhile, parent company Aviva PLC (LSE:AV.) is facing pressure to return more cash to its shareholders from Europes largest activist investor.

Cevian Capital, an Anglo-Swedish investment firm, has lifted its interest in Aviva from 5% to more than 6%, giving it a stake worth nearly 1bn, the Telegraph reported.

Last summer, Cevian launched a campaign to pressure Aviva to hand out 5bn in excess cash gained on the sale of eight non-core international businesses.

The disposals, which were part of Aviva's plan to concentrate on Britain, Ireland and Canada, raised 7.5bn.

In December, Aviva announced that it would raise its planned share buyback from 750mln to 1bn.

Cevian is Aviva's second-largest shareholder, behind BlackRock (NYSE:BLK). With a stake of more than 5% it is able to call a shareholder meeting and have resolutions included at the AGM.
Samarkand Group PLC (AQSE:SMK) said FedEx (NYSE:FDX) customers will be able to use its Nomad technology platform to power cross-border eCommerce (CBEC) from international markets into China.

Under a new deal with the US logistics giant, Samarkand will make its Nomad checkout solution available to all FedEx clients via direct integration.

Merchants will be able to discover the Nomad checkout solution and quickly onboard using their FedEx account, Samarkand said.

The integration with FedEx represents an enormous potential pipeline of new clients for our solutions, David Hampstead, chief executive, said.

Nomad checkout, which will be the first specific solution in the programme for the Chinese CBEC market, integrates with existing eCommerce software such as Shopify (TSX:SH., NYSE:SHOP).

It provides a superior experience for merchants and customers, including improved site performance, localisation, Chinese payment methods, express logistics options, and integrated customs clearance, it said.

This results in faster shipping, reduced customs stoppage rates, more convenience for consumers, and lower customer service overhead for merchants.

We have already seen great benefits from our partnership with China's number one logistics company, SF Express.

These partners have combined annual revenues of over US$100bn and give us extensive reach across all of the key markets we want to address," Hampstead added.
Barratt Developments, Bellway and Berkeley Group PLC had their ratings cut by Jefferies as the US broker tried to work out the costs of their potential cladding liability.

The costs of cladding as an issue will become loud in the coming 2-3 months, said Jefferies.

With a potential addition 4bn bill for cladding remediation, the UK Housing Minister last week appeared to ramp up pressure on the building industry as a whole, and in particular the developers, to foot the cost.

The broker believes the government will make life as difficult as it can for the builders before final details of the proposals are published at Easter.

London builders are the most exposed, argues the broker, as 55% of high rise buildings need remediation, which is likely to mean further provisions for carrying out the work.

At this stage, we believe even the housebuilders themselves do not know the full extent of the cost (M&A through the period, lack of access, uncertain 'solutions', labour constraints, clawback from freeholders).

Barratt, Bellway and Berkeley are all now rated ''hold', from 'buy 'previously and shares in all three fell further today after big drops for the sector overall since the start of the year.

Berkely dropped 4.6% to 4,169p, Bellway 4.5% 2,850p with Barratt the worst hit with a drop of 6.5p to 630.6p.
Boris Johnson announced that Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing for fully vaccinated people arriving in the country is set to be scrapped in what is a boost for the airline industry.

Campaigning from airlines and falling Omicron cases are behind the easing of the travel testing rules, with Plan B restrictions also set to be scrapped altogether in England from Thursday.

"Although we have to be cautious, we are now moving through the Omicron wave, and you can see the figures are starting to get better, said Johnson.

Since the outbreak of the Omicron variant, many of the low-cost carriers (LCC), such as easyJet, saw the amount of passengers on flights fall in December following some months of recovering numbers.

Ryanair was forced to slash its profit guidance last month after it forecasted a fall in traffic in both December and January due to COVID-19.

Shares in LCCs fell again, though this was more likely to due to the sell everything mentality on a terrible day for the market overall.

Wizz Air shares are down 4%, with easyJet down nearly 5% in afternoon trading.

Current passenger numbers at Heathrow are still less than half of pre-pandemic levels, with December seeing just over 3mln passengers, though todays news left the boss of easyJet optimistic that a busy summer is ahead.

"We commend the government for removing all testing. easyJet plans to return to near 2019 levels of flying this summer and so we can't wait to welcome our customers back onboard." Johan Lundgren, easyJet chief executive said to Sky News.

The confirmed date for the rule change has yet to be announced, though the Travel Secretary is set to confirm the change later.




Solis Minerals Ltd (TSX-V:SLMN, ASX:SLM) has commenced diamond drilling operations at its flagship Mostazal Copper Project, 80 kilometres northeast of Copiapo, Chile, and within the Domeyko fault  a major structural control for some of the world's largest and most productive copper mines and 40 kilometres south of Codelco's El Salvador mine.

The Latin American-focused mining exploration company is fully funded to undertake this highly anticipated maiden drilling program.

It recently raised a total of A$5.5 million through the issue of 27.5 million Chess Depository Interests (CDIs) at A$0.20 and has more than A$7.0 million cash at bank.

Exciting milestone

Solis Minerals CEO Jason Cubitt said: We are very pleased to be on the ground and drilling at our flagship Mostazal Copper Project in Chile.

Our initial diamond drill holes are targeting near-surface high-grade manto style copper mineralisation, as well as the interpreted feeder system (porphyry) structures at depth.

With the geology and drilling crews mobilising to the site earlier last week, the drill bit has hit the ground, and we are now coring.

This is an exciting milestone for the company following our recent, strongly supported capital raising and listing on the ASX.

To be up and running so soon after listing reflects the hard work by our Chilean-based team.

We will continue to keep the market informed of our progress, as we put our first holes into this highly prospective project.

Drill plans

The initial phase of drilling will comprise four holes for an estimated 2,000 metres of drilling and will initially target both porphyry and manto-style copper mineralisation as well as the interpreted feeder system (porphyry) structures at depth.

Site preparations commenced in late December, with the mobilisation of earth-moving equipment and the construction of suitable drilling platforms and access tracks where required.

All planned drill sites have been established, ready for drilling the Phase I and Phase II campaigns.

Field crews and drilling equipment mobilised earlier last week to set up on the program's first hole, which will target a series of near-surface manto-style copper mineralisation lenses defined by historic diamond drilling.

The central target (Target Area 2) is characterised by a series of known stacked manto copper lenses where historical, relatively shallow drilling to a depth of around 150 metres, has encountered wide zones of high-grade copper mineralisation.

The proposed drilling is planned to penetrate through these lenses to confirm the existing mineralisation models and test for additional stacked manto lenses at depth.

As well as testing the near-surface copper manto mineralisation, the company intends to undertake the first-ever drill testing of the interpreted porphyry feeder system at depth.

Recent independent geophysical modelling of existing Induced Polarization (IP) survey data has highlighted a strong chargeability anomaly extending for over 1.6 kilometres along strike down dip to the west of the surface copper mineralisation.

Solis Minerals interprets this to represent the potential location of the primary feeder structured for the widespread copper mineralisation.

Following the completion of MODD001, Solis has planned three additional holes as part of its Phase I drilling campaign to test this compelling IP geophysical target.
Lotus Resources Ltd (ASX:LOT) has appointed Michael Ball as chief financial officer (CFO) in a move that will strengthen the companys executive team and help it further its uranium project.

Lotus owns an 85% interest in the Kayelekera Uranium Project in Malawi, which hosts a current resource of 37.5 million pounds of U3O8 and historically produced ~11 million pounds of uranium between 2009 and 2014.

The company completed a positive Restart Study which demonstrated that Kayelekera can support a viable long-term operation and has the potential to be one of the first uranium projects to recommence production in the future.

Ball will be integral to LOTs ambitions in Malawi.

Highly experienced appointment

With more than 20 years of experience, most notably in the position of CFO for several ASX listed resources companies, Ball brings a great deal of experience to the team.

Over the past 10 years, Ball has helped Alkane Resources Limited (ASX:ALK), Panoramic Resources Ltd (ASX:PAN) and Gascoyne Resources Ltd (ASX:GCY) in operations including project development through construction and into production.

Ball also has significant capital markets experience and was involved in leading and managing several project financings.

His expertise in feasibility study preparation, operational optimisation, commodity and currency risk management and contract tendering should prove invaluable for Lotus moving forward.

Ball replaces Chris Knee who held the position of CFO over the last two years.

The company is delighted to attract someone of Michaels experience to the role of CFO, LOT managing director Keith Bowe said.

Michaels blend of commercial, project development and operational experience is critically important for the company as we continue to position the Kayelekera Uranium Mine for a restart decision in the near future as the uranium price continues to strengthen.

I look forward to working with Michael, and all of our team, in what shapes as an extremely busy year for Lotus.
Evolution Energy Minerals Ltd (ASX:EV1) has appointed a new managing director, with Phil Hoskins taking up the position effective immediately.

EV1 has been hard at work restructuring its management team and Hoskins appointment is a nod to his intimate understanding of the companys Chilalo Graphite Project in Tanzania.

Hoskins has been involved with the project since it was first drilled in 2014.

The Chilalo Project hosts a high-grade mineral resource of 20.1 million tonnes at 9.9% total graphitic carbon (TGC) for 1.991 million tonnes of contained graphite, with EV1 committed to supplying sustainable graphite solutions for the global green economy and in doing so, create the first net zero carbon graphite mine.

A DFS confirmed the opportunity to produce high-quality flake graphite at Chilalo and EV1 intends to apply Chilalo flake graphite to downstream processing to produce battery anode material, expandable graphite, micronised graphite and graphite foil.

The Chilalo Project is an advanced quality asset that is supported by a team with considerable graphite marketing, financing and project delivery experience, Hoskins said.

Chilalo is strongly positioned for development, and I look forward to working alongside Trevor as we drive towards a construction decision by July 2022.

Trevor Benson moves from executive chair to non-executive chair.

Construction decision coming

Hoskins will apply his 10 years plus experience and knowledge operating in Tanzania to EV1s upcoming work program.

The new MD has extensive knowledge of the graphite market and well-established relationships with end users of graphite material.

EV1s key focus is now on completing the multiple work streams required to allow for a construction decision by H2 2022. These include:

Developing a project finance solution with the support of cornerstone investor ARCH Sustainable Resources Fund LP  a specialist investment advisory firm with deep experience in emerging markets, private equity, asset management, ESG matters and has significant project finance expertise and the capacity to access funding required for the development of Chilalo.

Concluding an agreement with the Government of Tanzania that provides the framework for the GoTs 16% free carried interest and other key factors that are fundamental to the development of Chilalo. EV1 is especially encouraged by the willingness of the GoT to readily engage with Evolution on the establishment of such an agreement and is heartened by the recent announcements of various arrangements between the GoT and minerals companies operating in Tanzania. The GoT has demonstrated its support for the development of minerals projects and appears to be committed to repositioning Tanzania as a favourable investment destination.

Negotiation of offtake agreements for the sale of Chilalo graphite concentrate and downstream products such as micronised graphite and expandable graphite. Through the extensive work on marketing and sales completed as part of the definitive feasibility study, the Company has well developed relationships with customers and engagement with those customers to put in place binding sales arrangements is a priority in the coming months.

Michael Bourguignon, Evolutions executive director, technical, will continue to manage project development, on the ground activities in Tanzania and implementation of the companys environmental, social and governance program.
With environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment principles fast becoming the norm for capital market participants, investors now have a historic opportunity to act as direct agents of change in an economy driven by ethically-minded consumers.



Moderating at the 2022 Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Forum (ADSFF), Cathrine de Coninck-Lopez, Global Head of ESG, Invesco, said: The performance of ESG-focused funds is being closely watched by investors and policymakers, particularly given the context of climate change and post-COVID market recalibration. This is why it is so important to get innovative solutions to market that unlock and catalyze ESG financing  because investors are increasingly looking to make a lasting impact through the portfolios they choose.



Incorporating ESG factors into investment decisions has seen significant growth in recent years. Asset managers strive to better understand how companies address ESG issues, and asset owners look for clarity over ESG-related decisions taken on their behalf. While this has created a proliferation of ESG-assessment tools, Invescos experts emphasize that the most important consideration is ESG integration, to ensure a holistic approach to responsible investing.



Coninck-Lopez added: ESG principles are the new normal for businesses that wish to seek buy-in from investors, customers, policymakers, the media, and all other stakeholders that their activities impact.ESG considerations are part and parcel of every corporate decision made in todays board rooms. As ESG becomes more embedded into every single business function, the next step will be for it to meet the same standards as long-standing processes and systems.



The strength of feeling across the investor community is such that the topic of conversation at ADSFF 2022 is less about whether ESG investing is important but about how to accelerate the development of new ESG products and solutions, how to harness data to understand and measure ESG impact, and how to work with policymakers to help formulate ESG investment regulations.



Major organizations and entities in the Middle East are coming forward with evidence that ESG is already a core consideration. There has been an increased focus on sustainable finance and interest in ESG issues as governments look to diversify away from oil and gas, and set their sights on their respective national economic and sustainability goals.



Several regulators in the region have established requirements for disclosure on sustainable activities and reporting. Regional sovereign wealth funds are at the forefront of the conversation, with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Saudi Arabias Public Investment Fund (PIF) among the founding members of One Planet Sovereign Wealth Funds.



Zainab Kufaishi, Head of Invesco Middle East and Africa said: Investors in the region are serious about sustainable finance, and so too are policymakers who understand the correlation between ESG investments, ESG corporate activity, and resilient, sustainable economic development. Capital market participants are at the forefront of influencing change, making the buy and sell decisions with the entities in which to invest. Approaches to ESG investing must therefore be diverse and flexible and innovative.



Research detailed in the Invesco Outlook for ESG in 2022 points out that there is a need to address the outcomes of engagement for investors who choose ESG portfolios. Improving the tracking of outcomes in the real world is an opportunity to ensure corporate accountability while scaling influence. Invesco is a strong proponent of active ownership, an ESG advocate and member of several initiatives. Invesco also developed a proprietary ESG rating tool that provides a holistic view on how a companys value chain is impacted by various ESG topics.



Kufaishi added: Greater convergence in reporting could fill gaps in core metrics that investors rely on to develop their screening tools and assessment methodologies. Convergence in ESG reporting standards would also enable such data to be audited, which is becoming increasingly important to investors that base capital allocation decisions on such information.



Invesco is a signatory of the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Declaration, underscoring its commitment to championing sustainable practices in financial services in the UAE economy, and also a signatory of the One Planet Asset Manager Initiative and the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative. - TradeArabia News Service
Marvel Gold Ltd (ASX:MVL) has appointed former executive director of exploration Chris van Wijk as the company's managing director.

Van Wijk replaces Phil Hoskins, who is moving on to another ASX-listed company, Evolution Energy Minerals Ltd (ASX:EV1). Hoskins will remain with Marvel as a non-executive director.

Base metal and gold experience

Van Wijk is an experienced geologist, specialising in project evaluation and project generation, with extensive experience in base metal and gold exploration in Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australia as well as joint venture management and project evaluation for major mining companies including BHP, IAMGOLD, First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FQM)and Fortescue Metals Group (ASX:FMG).

He joined Marvel in mid-2020 and has been instrumental in exploration work at Tabakorole, in Mali, which has delivered a mineral resource exceeding one million ounces of gold.

Van Wijk will continue to manage the companys Mali-based exploration team, which is led by exploration manager, Dr Richard Tomlinson, who has played a key role in the companys exploration success and assembling a highly prospective land package of 800 square kilometres at Tabakorole.

About Marvel Gold

Marvel Gold is an Australian resources company focused on gold in Mali, with advanced gold exploration projects and extensive landholdings in the south and west of the country.

The company has an experienced board and management team with specific skills, and extensive experience, in African based exploration, project development and mining.

Tabakorole Gold Project has a JORC mineral resource of 1.025 million ounces grading 1.2 g/t gold, with strong growth prospects along strike over an extensive landholding in excess of 750 square kilometres.

Tabakorole is held through 100%-owned licences as well as two separate joint ventures, with Oklo Resources Ltd (ASX:OKU), in which the company holds an 80% interest, and with Altus Strategies PLC (AIM:ALS, TSX-V:ALTS, OTCQX:ALTUF), in which the company holds a 51% interest.
First Graphene Ltd (ASX:FGR, OTCQB:FGPHF)s PureGRAPH has been found to be a superior additive for concrete and mortar in critical infrastructure applications, according to a study by the University of Wollongong in Australia.

The universitys research program indicates major improvement in sulphate resistance using PureGRAPH in structural concrete and repair-mortar systems.

These results, combined with improvement in compressive strength, demonstrate PureGRAPH to be a superior multi-functional additive for concrete and mortar in critical infrastructure applications.

The research, which has been underway since August 2021, is now in peer review phase.

It is expected to be published in a peer-reviewed journal in the second half of 2022.

The results of the study provide potential opportunity to participate in the global market for mega-infrastructure water projects.

First Graphene is engaging utility and infrastructure providers to develop advanced mortar and concrete applications with a view to improve asset longevity.

Encouraging results

First Graphene managing director and CEO Michael Bell said: These are encouraging results demonstrating graphene-enhanced mortar and concrete systems can potentially be used in applications requiring serious durability such as wastewater treatment infrastructure and structures exposed to seawater.

This development further justifies our focus in cement and concrete systems and complements the CO2-reducing capability of PureGRAPH in this segment.

We look forward to continuing the development of graphene-based products with the University of Wollongong and key industry partners.

Further research funding

University of Wollongong lead researcher associate professor Guangming Jiang said: Our research program is progressing well.

We have received good support from First Graphene and are excited to publish our results, which will inform future research in this important area.

We will work with First Graphene and other potential industry partners to seek further research funding from various sources including the Australian Research Council.

Test results

Extensive studies by the University of Wollongong, which is partnering with an Australian domestic water, sewerage and drainage statutory authority, confirm the addition of small amounts of graphene enhances the 28-day compressive strength of both concrete and mortar systems by 10% and 20% respectively.

Better improvements are expected to be achieved in longer time trials.

The projects initial test results have confirmed the addition of PureGRAPH reduces the apparent volume of permeable voids (permeability) of repair mortar and concrete systems by 19% and 12% respectively, while also reducing sulphate expansion in concrete by 64%, and 56% in the repair mortar.

First Graphene initiated a A$6,600 paid research program, conducted by the university, using its PureGRAPH graphene products to show it can enhance the properties of mortar and concrete.

Conducted by the Universitys School of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering, the research aims to understand how the addition of graphene platelets to mortar and concrete systems can enhance a range of physical, chemical and physio-chemical properties.

Cement mortar is widely used as a binding agent in concrete systems.

Significantly, several studies have shown graphene nanoplatelet additions of less than 0.1% can significantly enhance mortar properties.

Commercial potential

Significant reductions in permeability and sulphate expansion are consistent with higher levels of concrete durability due to reduced degradation from harmful acid sulphates.

This is expected to give a materially significant, longer service life to concrete assets and reduced need for concrete repairs.

The research shows promising signs for application in concrete infrastructure in environments requiring high levels of durability, such as wastewater collection and treatment plants, and coastal ports.

This is especially relevant because the degradation of concrete wastewater systems results in multi-million-dollar concrete repair and replacement challenges for water treatment providers.

Further develop applications

First Graphene is now engaging large utility providers and infrastructure developers to further develop these advanced mortar and concrete applications that can have a significant impact on the longevity of major infrastructure development projects.

While there are no immediate commercial opportunities or an assessment of economic impact, this research opens the door for First Graphene to another new global market segment.

Sulphates and corrosive water environments

Deterioration of concrete products used in water-related infrastructure projects is an issue that results in high maintenance and repair costs for the relevant authorities.

Achieving better resistance to sulphates and other corrosive chemicals that damage concrete infrastructure is seen as a high priority by the industry.

First Graphene believes the addition of its graphene additives could provide significant improvements in the performance and durability of concrete-based piping and infrastructure.

The work being undertaken by the university has been very supportive of this view.
Massive sulphides in TOR05 from drilling at the Thor 'Julimar lookalike' target.

Venture Minerals Ltd (ASX:VMS, OTC:VTMLF) is encouraged by the latest survey from Chalice Mining Ltd (ASX:CHN, OTCQB:CGMLF), which identified multiple new targets at Ventures Julimar-lookalike nickel-copper-platinum group element (PGE) target in Western Australia.

Seven new electromagnetic targets were unearthed during a ground program at the Thor target in the South West nickel-copper-PGE play, bringing the total number of targets to 11.

Promisingly, the new electromagnetic anomalies are of similar strength conductors to those that yielded wide and significant palladium intervals during the early drilling phase of the Julimar nickel-copper-PGE discovery.

Surveillance at the South West project forms part of a joint venture (JV) earn-in agreement between Venture and Chalice, struck up in mid-2020.

Under the deal, CHN needs to expend $1.2 million by July 29, 2022, to earn 51% of South West, and a further $2.5 million to earn 70% of the project.

Well placed for a new discovery

Speaking to the surveys findings, Venture managing director Andrew Radonjic said: Ventures JV partner Chalice Mining has now delivered several new EM anomalies within the Thor Julimar lookalike target from the first stage of the JV earn-in to the companys South West Project.

To have a partner that has one of the largest greenfield nickel-copper-PGE sulphide discoveries in recent history' will be of huge benefit in this very important second stage of the JV with Chalice, including a maiden drill program at Thor.

Venture, through its South West JV with Chalice, is well placed for a new nickel-copper-PGE discovery and the associated excellent exposure to nickel, which is now at 10-year highs, and palladium with its widespread applications in a green hydrogen economy.

The company looks forward to the commencement of drilling at the South West Project in the coming months, where success will only add to Ventures extensive portfolio of enviable resource assets.

Survey says

The first stage of Ventures JV earn-in with Chalice is focused on the Thor target, a 20-kilometre-long Julimar lookalike magnetic anomaly.

An airborne electromagnetic survey in 2018 identified 13 targets in the southern 6.5 kilometres of the Thor magnetic anomaly, while a maiden drill program at that target intersected 2.4 metres of massive sulphide.

One of the seven new electromagnetic anomalies identified in Chalices latest survey coincides with the 2.4-metre result, which averaged 0.5% copper, 0.05% nickel, 0.04% cobalt and contained anomalous gold & palladium, making that conductor a potential priority drill target.

Another new anomaly is one of the higher conductance plates and is well located 200 metres down-dip of the 17-metre zone of disseminated, semi-massive and massive sulphides intersected a previous drill hole.

In addition, one of the four previously stated electromagnetic anomalies generated by Chalice was within 10 metres of a previously drilled hole, which intersected 86 metres of disseminated sulphides with anomalous levels of PGE mineralisation.

The Chalice team is currently interpreting data on the 11 electromagnetic anomalies ahead of drill testing in the coming months.

Riley Iron Ore Mine update

Today, Venture also provided an update on its iron ore prospects in Tasmania.

The companys Riley Iron Ore Project remains in suspension since undertaking the first iron ore shipment in September 2021.

Venture is regularly reviewing all parameters of the project, including the recent strengthening of the Platts 62% iron price, which recently rallied to US$130 per tonne.

However, the discount for the Super Special Fines is still roughly 40% for January 2022, and the shipping price remains high around US$39 per tonne  well above the feasibility study levels.

The company's agents and advisors expect the iron ore price to continue to be highly volatile over the course of the year and Venture continues to position itself to allow for shorter campaign start-ups should the opportunity exist.

A review undertaken following first shipment resulted in Venture terminating its main contracts with Shaw Contracting (mining & processing) and Qube Ports (haulage & ship loading) in a bid to enter more flexible arrangements to allow for quick ramp-up and shutdowns of the mine.

While the company pivots focus to the neighbouring Mount Lindsay Project following its recent capital raise, Venture continues to work in the background on the Riley Iron Ore Mine.

A care and maintenance plan has been devised and lodged with the EPA, with the mine site operated by a locally employed mine technician based in Tullah.

All amenities  including power generators, pumps and the wet plant  remain in good working order onsite.
Arovella Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:ALA) has received firm commitments from institutional and sophisticated investors to raise $4.57 million.

The company, which is focused on developing its invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cell therapy platform, will release 120,230,220 new fully paid ordinary shares at $0.038 apiece, set at a 2.5% discount to the last traded market price.

There was strong support for the placement from institutional and sophisticated investors, including cornerstone participation by specialist life sciences institutional investor, Merchant who have subscribed for $3 million of the placement.

The placement will be followed by a share purchase plan (SPP) to raise roughly $1.5 million from eligible existing shareholders at the same offer price as the placement.

The money will be used to develop ALAs iNKT cell therapy platform and DKK1-peptide targeting monoclonal antibody, recently licensed from the world-renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center.

A significant step forward

This capital raising is a significant step towards bringing Arovellas highly prospective cell therapy pipeline to the clinic and, ultimately, to market. This is a testament to the hard work of Michael and the team in recent years, Arovella managing director and CEO Michael Baker said.

We are excited to receive strong support from Merchant and other long-term supporters in this capital raising, and we look forward to delivering value to all of our shareholders.

The funds from the placement and SPP will allow us to progress our pipeline of innovative cancer cell therapies, which we look forward to progressing through pre-clinical and clinical trials, towards commercialisation.

Raise details

Placement

Under the terms of the placement, ALA will issue 120,230,220 new shares to placement subscribers, raising $4.57 million at $0.038 per share.

This pricing represents a 2.5% discount to the last close on January 19, 2022 of $0.039.

Arovella directors will contribute up to $160,000 on the same terms as the placement, subject to the approval of shareholders.

Shares are expected to be allotted on February 1.

SPP

ALA will also offer a SPP to existing eligible shareholders at the same price as the placement.

The SPP is underwritten up to $1.5 million by Baker Young Limited, with a sub underwriting commitment by Merchant up to $750,000 of the SPP.

Under the SPP, eligible shareholders listed on the Arovella register on Friday, January 21, 2022, can apply for up to $30,000 worth of fully paid ALA shares without incurring brokerage fees or other transactions costs, irrespective of their holding size.

ALA reserves the right to raise more or less than $1.5 million in its absolute discretion.

The closing date for the SPP is March 9, 2022, with shares to be issued on 16 March.

About Arovella

Arovella is focused on developing therapies to treat human disease and has two focus areas: oncology and conditions that impact the central nervous system.

ALA is developing its iNKT cell therapy platform from Imperial College London to treat blood cancers and is also developing low-risk oral sprays to reformulate existing pharmaceuticals.

The potential benefits of administering drugs through the oral mucosa (i.e. cheeks, tongue, gums and palate) include ease of use, lower dosage, reduced side effects and faster response time.

Arovellas product pipeline includes an oral spray for the platelet lowering drug anagrelide to treat metastatic disease in the background of high platelets, and ZolpiMist, a first-in-class oral spray of zolpidem tartrate to treat short-term insomnia.

ZolpiMist is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the Ministry of Health (Chile) and is marketed in the US.

Arovella has rights to the product outside of the US and Canada.

Other products in development include oral sprays to treat migraine headaches, motion sickness, and drug-resistant epilepsy.
Native Mineral Resources Holdings Ltd (ASX:NMR) has secured a drill rig and is ready to begin exploration of its wholly-owned Helios target in the Nullarbor region of Western Australia in March 2022.

NMR will initially target the highest magnetic body defined with forward modelling of a recently completed drone-based magnetic survey.

Drilling has been designed to provide confirmation of the types of rock hosted at about 125 metres below the surface of the magnetic anomaly, which is directly comparable in scale and size to at least four other nickel bearing eye-shaped structures in the adjacent Frazer Range.

Drilling represents next critical step

The results recently obtained from the Helios eye target are continuing to add to the companys confidence in the exciting greenfields target that lies within a prospective, yet underexplored part of Australia, Native Mineral Resources managing director Blake Cannavo said.

The entire team at NMR are pleased to be able to announce that we have secured a rig to drill the target defined within the central part of the eye-shaped Helios nickel target.

The company, along with assistance from many industry experts, is progressing quickly to choose its best targets and complete the very first drilling in this area.

So far, every piece of information, from the initial targeting to the forward modelling of the magnetic data, has provided NMR with further confidence in the site.

The drilling represents the next critical step in what we consider to be an amazing exploration opportunity.

We are all looking forward to finding out what lies beneath the Nullarbor in the coming months. We will be providing the market with updates along the way.

Forward modelling of the Helios target supports early interpretations that the central magnetic high contains magnetite-bearing mafic rocks found in association with intrusion-related nickel-copper-cobalt deposits such as the Nova-Bollinger deposit.

The multiple high magnetic readings in the centre of the Helios anomaly represent several targets prospective for mineralisation that warrant further investigation.

Future work programs

Native Mineral Resources has secured a drill rig to commence drilling in early March. The company is planning to drill into a well-defined target that has been modelled and defined using high-resolution drone magnetics.

Up to 1,200 metres of drilling has been planned but the final metres drilled will be dependent upon the ongoing assessment of drilling results in this previously untested ground.

The knowledge obtained from the drilling of the basement rock types will be used to plan additional target-specific geophysics later in the year.

About Native Mineral Resources

Native Mineral Resources is an 100% Australian-owned company, with a portfolio of precious metal and base metal properties in pedigree Australian exploration settings.
Alkane Resources Limited (ASX:ALK)s Tomingley underground gold operations in New South Wales continued to perform well during the December 2021 quarter, achieving forecasts by pouring 16,935 ounces of gold.

The cutback in the northeast of the Caloma pit also performed well.

Alkanes site cash costs for the quarter were A$1,089/ounce with an all-in sustaining cost (AISC) of A$1,338/ ounce.

Gold sold for the quarter was 17,754 ounces at an average sales price of A$2,475/ ounce, generating revenue of A$43.9 million.

FY2022 production remains unchanged

The omicron COVID-19 outbreak in NSW has resulted in a number of employees and their close contacts testing positive, requiring isolation and recovery.

At times this has affected about 10 to 20% of the workforce.

In addition, very high rainfall has occurred in western NSW, resulting in some pit wall and ramp erosion that required remediation and stabilisation.

Despite these circumstances, FY2022 production guidance for Tomingley is unchanged at 55,000 ounces to 60,000 ounces.

FY2022 AISC guidance has however been lifted to $A1,500/oz to $1,650/oz due to the expectation of potential cost increase, due to productivity impacts.

Regional exploration

Alkanes focus of exploration during the quarter was the Boda Project, and the San Antonio/Roswell/El Paso deposits.

The drill program at Boda continues to show extensive mineralisation, including high-grade zones, over a 3-kilometre strike length from Boda Three to Kaiser.

Near-mine exploration continued at Tomingley targeting additional mineralisation outside the existing resource models at Roswell and San Antonio, as well as Macleans, El Paso and the Plains prospect to the east of Roswell.
Meteoric Resources NL (ASX:MEI) made considerable progress at its Palm Springs Project in Western Australia and Juruena Project in Brazil during the December quarter as it focuses on scoping studies aimed at outlining gold development opportunities.

Impressive cyanide leach recoveries have been returned from metallurgical test-work at Palm Springs with promising gold assays received from the Butchers Creek deposit.

Results from both programs provide the company with confidence as it advances a scoping study looking at open pit and underground development scenarios with results due later this quarter.

At Juruena, drilling results also provide encouragement for copper porphyry potential while a scoping study is underway assessing the gold development opportunity at Dona Maria, Crentes and Querosene deposits with results also expected this quarter.

Well-funded

At the end of the quarter, Meteoric had cash and liquid assets of more than A$4 million leaving it well-funded to continue to advance these projects in WA and Brazil.

This follows a strongly supported placement to sophisticated and professional investors that raised A$1.7 million and a fully underwritten share purchase plan (SPP).

This closed oversubscribed on December 8, with total applications amounting to $1,088,100 received.

The Butchers Creek deposit at Palm Springs presents strong prospects for early production.

Palm Springs tests

Metallurgical test-work out on drilled core from the sulphide zone at this deposit achieved gold dissolution of 96.4% after only 24 hours leach time and potential to improve on this result.

Tests show that ore from Butchers Creek is amenable to a low-cost processing route incorporating a standard CIL cyanide leach plant.

The results were achieved without the added complication of capital and operating cost imposed by either gravity recovery or flotation.

Further gold zones

Assays from drilling at Butchers Creek have added further zones of gold mineralisation and enhance the anticline hinge zone target. Results include:

29 metres at 2.0 g/t gold from 286 metres including 2 metres at 5.9 g/t from 291 metres and, in turn, including 2 metres at 8.8 g/t from 312 metres;

9 metres at 1.4 g/t from 311 metres;

57 metres at 1.6 g/t from 223 metres including 18 metres at 3.1 g/t from 234 metres; and

32 metres at 1.4 g/t from 266 metres including 4 metres at 6.0 g/t from 266 metres.

These results further confirmed the thick zones of gold mineralisation in the hinge of the Butchers Creek Anticline cored by a high-grade zone that backs up previous results.

Meteorics 2021 drilling season was carefully planned to improve confidence in the high-grade portions of the resource of 5.2 million tonnes at 1.9 g/t gold for 319,000 ounces comprising 3.3 million tonnes at 1.7 g/t in the inferred category and 1.9 million tonnes at 2.2 g/t in the indicated category.

Support scoping study

The drill results along with the test results continue the strong progress made by Meteoric at Palm Springs and support the scoping study that is progressing.

The following studies form the basis of the scoping study:

Open pit optimisations to develop ore immediately beneath the historic pit;

Underground development scenarios to exploit deepest portions of the resource;

Additional metallurgical studies on 2021 drill core; and

Assessing process route designs.

Outcomes from the scoping study will drive the companys Halls Creek strategy in 2022.

The company is also looking to further explore beyond Butchers Creek in 2022 with additional new prospective areas receiving Heritage clearance.

This regional exploration program will test for Butchers Creek extensions and repeats on several targets across the companys extensive tenement position.

Developing gold resources

At Juruena, Meteoric plans to forge ahead with development plans for exploiting the gold resources in conjunction with conducting the process for finding a project partner on the copper-gold porphyry exploration.

With the first part of this strategy, the company is working on a scoping study for the development of the Dona Maria, Querosene and Crentes gold deposits with Brazilian mining consultancy, GE 21.

Meteoric anticipates reporting the results of this study later this quarter.

The company has also started the application process for mining licences over the key areas proposed for open-pit and underground mining.

The global gold resource for Juruena stands at 1.9 million tonnes at 6.3 g/t for 390,000 ounces with more than 40% of the resource classified in the indicated category underpinning an exciting development opportunity.

Juruena porphyry potential

During the December quarter, the company announced results from a deep diamond drill program to test the porphyry gold-copper potential of a giant IP chargeability anomaly detected at Juruena.

Three holes for 2,421 metres were completed with a large copper-gold enriched magmatic-hydrothermal system intercepted centred on a series of intrusive, intermediate porphyries.

Porphyry copper potential is best exemplified in JUDD043 with 640 metres at 206 ppm copper within a thick zone of propylitic alteration centred on a cluster of intermediate porphyry intrusives.

Although economic porphyry copper-gold mineralisation is yet to be discovered, the drilling confirmed the presence of a significant porphyry system.

The recognition of the porphyry system is underpinned by the diagnostic veining and alteration zones observed in the deep drilling.

Seeking porphyry partner

As exploration for Tier 1 porphyry copper deposits such as the Juruena target is high-cost and high-risk exploration, Meteoric is seeking a major partner to advance this opportunity.

The Alta Floresta Belt is the focus of many major mining and exploration companies carrying out belt-wide geophysical surveys to identify porphyry copper exploration targets.
"The increasing grades within the extensions of the Bjorkdal deposit at depth to the east mark a significant development in the multifaceted efforts to lift ore grades produced from the mine and will be a major focus of our production in the years to come," said CEO Dominic Duffy

Mandalay Resources Corp. (TSX:MND, OTCQB:MNDJF) has reported exploration drill results from its Bjorkdal gold project in Sweden, which are highly encouraging for potential future production at the mine.

The assays hail from the firm's eastern extension drill programs and include some of the best grades seen at Bjorkdal, said Mandalay, which has already submitted an application to extend its mining license holdings to cover this extension.

"Predominantly, the intercepts are interpreted to be direct extensions of the Main and Central zone veining, however, the grades recovered from the Central Extension drilling show a distinct upgrading down plunge," said Mandalay CEO Dominic Duffy in a statement.

"The increasing grades within the extensions of the Bjorkdal deposit at depth to the east mark a significant development in the multifaceted efforts to lift ore grades produced from the mine and will be a major focus of our production in the years to come

"The Main, Lake and Central zones are all open to the north-east and those drilling results are showing higher grades the deeper and further to the east we drill. This is very exciting, and this drilling will continue to be one the primary exploration focuses over the course of 2022," he added.

At the Central zone extension infill drilling, a highlight result was 47.7 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 11.7 metres (m) from a depth of 66.3m in one hole, and at the Central zone extension testing drilling, Mandalay hit 5.14 g/t gold over 8m from 151m depth.

At the Central zone to Lake zone link, there was 19.3 g/t gold over 0.4m in one hole from 389.7m depth.

Since the success of the Lake and Main Zone extension projects, Mandalay has drilled a further 17 holes for 7,253m into the eastern extension of the Bjorkdal veining in three programs - the Central Zone Extension, Central Zone Conversion and Central to Lake Zone Link drilling programs.

Currently, these results have connected to the continuation of 21 existing veins and 16 new veins have been discovered.

So far, and to varying degrees, the veining has been extended up to 350m from current workings, said Mandalay.

Canada-based Mandalay Resources has producing assets in Australia (Costerfield gold-antimony mine) and Sweden (Bjorkdal gold mine), with projects in Chile and Canada under closure or development status.

Contact the author at giles@proactiveinvestors.com
Toronto-based Deepspatial said that the infrastructure and urban planning markets represent a huge opportunity

Deepspatial Inc. (CSE:DSAI) said it has expanded its partner program with a new infrastructure and urban planning partner in India.

The artificial intelligence company told investors that the new contract represents its first entry into the infrastructure sector.

Deepspatials technology will help to support organizations and provide data-driven decisions for governments, the company said.

Its Indian partner will remain anonymous due to privacy reasons, the company added. The project will encompass things like identifying healthcare requirements in certain areas, opportunities to minimize waste disposal, and road network conditions.

Toronto-based Deepspatial said that the infrastructure and urban planning markets represent a huge opportunity as it is expected to reach around US$192 billion by 2028.

We are expecting several key contracts to be executed which currently stand in our pipeline that will provide Deepspatial with meaningful revenue. We anticipate these key projects will play a crucial role in Deepspatials success and open the door to many opportunities in the Government sector, Rahul Kushwah, CEO of Deepspatial said in a statement.

We see a lot of gaps in parts of the world where our solutions can vastly improve the rough conditions of society, and we are excited to have the opportunity to make such an impact.

Deepspatial is an outcome-based artificial intelligence company, enabling organizations to enhance their decision-making capabilities by leveraging the power of data and AI.

Contact Angela at angela@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow her on Twitter @AHarmantas
Since the opening of its first branch in Dubai in 2011, Tim Hortons has never looked back, expanding to 77 outlets spanning Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, and Al Ain.

More than 50 years ago, the F&B concept opened its doors in Hamilton, Canada on May 17, and the only thing available on the menu back then was coffee and donuts.

Fast forward to 2011, the iconic retail group Apparel has introduced the iconic Canadian Tim Hortons brand to the Middle East, opening its first location in Dubai. The brand was received with unprecedented excitement from both locals and expats due to its renowned history, quality of food, and its popularity as the largest coffee chain with more than 4,000 locations in Canada.

The chain quickly became known in UAE for its freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked food, as its tagline Always Fresh, Always Delicious continually delivered this promise. In the years to follow, Tim Hortons expanded across the UAE where it became the cafe of choice for all.

Tim Hortons strongly believes in delivering superior quality products and services for its customers and communities through leadership, innovation and partnerships.

The UAE constituted an attractive environment for Tim Hortons that provides a developed infrastructure and business incentives that helped the chain to thrive and expand across the country and worldwide.

The inspirational vision behind the countrys leadership has created a prospering atmosphere for entrepreneurs and like-minded businesspeople to continue to establish their investments in the UAE.

Recently with UAEs National Day celebrations and achievement commemorations, plans were also being set into action for the next 50 years. As the UAE continues to grow and thrive, Tim Hortons will continue to grow with it, while always promising unparalleled moments of delight for its visitors.

Hesham Almekkawi, CEO of Tim Hortons Middle East, said: The business environment in the UAE has strongly contributed to attracting many regional and global companies. The Emirates is considered as the ideal location for them due to its achievements in developing a suitable business model for entrepreneurship and talents through the continuous efforts and support of its government.

Almekkawi added: With the exceptional achievements of the UAE, we are honoured and thrilled to be a part of this remarkable journey. And with the immense success the brand has experienced here, we are ready to push it to the next level and prosper with the visionary plans the UAE has set for the coming 50 years.

What gives Tim Hortons such a relevant place in the hearts of all its UAE customers is the fact that its concept stores cater to all segments of the community. From the drive-thrus and main street outlets to its branches in malls, community compounds, petrol stations, universities, and hospitals, the brand is present wherever you may need it, with plans to further expand throughout the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain; and soon in Kuwait, Egypt, and India.-- TradeArabia News Service
At Argosy, a total of 101,875 ounces of gold was produced at a grade of 12.7 grams per ton (g/t) between 1931 and 1952

Newrange Gold Corp has told investors that drilling will start at its North Birch project in early February this year, with at least 4,000 metres (m) set to be sunk in Red Lake, split roughly evenly between there and the company's Argosy gold mine property.

"We believe that Newranges winter drill program on its North Birch and Argosy gold mine projects will be the largest in the Birch-Uchi Belt this year, outside of the nearby Springpole deposit," said Robert Archer, Newrange's CEO, in a statement.

"Our two projects complement each other very well in that Argosy, being the largest past-producing gold mine in the belt, has known gold mineralization that is open to depth, while North Birch holds the blue sky potential for a significant new discovery," he added.

At Argosy, the focus will be on testing the depth extent of known veins below the historic mine workings and testing for continuity on certain other veins that were not previously mined, said Newrange.

A total of 101,875 ounces of gold was produced at a grade of 12.7 grams per ton (g/t) between 1931 and 1952 - from two inclined shafts on multiple levels but only to a maximum vertical depth of 900 feet (274m), it highlighted.

Meanwhile, North Birch, which spans 3,850 hectares (Ha) is interpreted as a potential iron formation hosted gold deposit, which is structurally similar to Newmonts Musselwhite mine, 185 kilometres (km) to the northeast, and the largest of this class of deposits in Canada.

Currently, five holes are planned at North Birch, along around three km of strike on the main target horizon. Additional holes will depend on the results from this first pass, said Newrange.

A LiDAR survey flown North Birch last summer highlighted a very clear break between two topographical domains interpreted to reflect a shear zone that follows exactly along the trace of the main fold limb and is at least eight km long.

Although gold mineralization is known elsewhere on the property, the main iron formation horizon has never been drill-tested as it lies under cover, noted the company.

Aside from Ontario, the companys Pamlico project in Nevada contains a large-scale multi-phase polymetallic mineralizing system with multiple gold and copper targets spread over more than 5,700 Ha.

Contact the writer at giles@proactiveinvestors.com
New exploration drilling, designed to further test the strike length of Fletcher, was highlighted by intersections of 3.3 grams per tonne (g/t) over 9.5m, including 5.5 g/t over 4.4m metres and 18.5 g/t over 0.8m

Karora Resources Inc has announced new exploration drilling results from its Beta Hunt Mine that materially extend the strike length of gold mineralization at the Fletcher Zone to over 500 metres (m).

The company said the recently discovered Gamma Block mineralization strike length has also been extended to over 200m. Both mineralized systems remain open along strike and at depth, it added.

Exploration at Beta Hunt continues to drive extensions of known primary shears and of newly discovered zones, underscoring the fact that we are only just beginning to understand the true potential of the mine, Karora CEO Paul Huet said in a statement. The new drilling announced today highlights the exciting potential south of the Alpha Island and Gamma faults.

First discovered by Karora in 2016, Karora said the Fletcher Zone is a parallel shear zone located approximately 350m west from the Western Flanks Zone and represents a third major shear zone at Beta Hunt.

New exploration drilling, designed to further test the strike length of Fletcher, was highlighted by intersections of 3.3 grams per tonne (g/t) over 9.5m, including 5.5 g/t over 4.4m metres and 18.5 g/t over 0.8m.

It said new exploration drilling completed south of the recently discovered Gamma Block gold mineralization, located at the southern extent of the existing mine development, encountered further encouraging results. The holes drilled served a dual purpose: to test both the 50C Nickel trough and the underlying Gamma Block gold mineralization.

Although Gamma and 50C can be mined separately, the company said they are close enough to be accessed from the same level development, potentially reducing cost and access time to mine both areas.

The company noted that significant gold intercepts returned from Gamma drilling were highlighted by a wide intercept of 3.4 g/t over 33.6m (including 6.0 g/t over 10.5m and 6.1 g/t over 3.8m), 7.6 g/t over 8.4m (including 12.1 g/t over 4.6m), and 12.9 g/t over 2m. The Gamma (gold) and 50C (nickel) highlight the exciting potential south of the Alpha Island and Gamma faults at Beta Hunt and represent a second new potential gold mining area, it added.

Fletcher is a third major shear zone at Beta Hunt that we have now materially extended for the first time since 2016, Huet continued. New drilling has extended the known strike extent to over 500m and over a 150m vertical extent. With strike potential up to 2 km, while remaining open at depth, Fletcher has the potential to form a long-term backbone of our operation in future years.

Huet said it is encouraging that both zones are easily accessed on the edges of existing development, lowering the cost associated with setting up mining activities.

He said the company expects to issue a progress update on its mineral resources later in the first quarter, which will include the addition of the maiden Larkin Zone mineral resource.

Karora Resources is focused on doubling gold production to 200,000 ounces by 2024 compared to 2020 and reducing costs at its integrated Beta Hunt Gold Mine and Higginsville Gold Operations in Western Australia.

Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com
Data collected from the study will further advance Mydecines drug development pipeline and its ability to bring a much-needed novel treatment to market

Mydecine Innovations Group Inc (OTC:MYCOF, NEO:MYCO) has announced a partnership with Combat Stress and the King's College London to utilize psilocybin as part of a psychoactive-assisted psychotherapy treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans.

Combat Stress is the leading charity aiding veterans mental health in the UK, providing treatment and support to former servicemen and women for over a century. They provide a range of online, community, outpatient and residential specialist mental health services to veterans with complex mental health issues related to their military service.

Combat Stress will be one of several sites for Mydecines upcoming clinical trials.

Meanwhile, Mydecine said that Dominic Murphy, head of research at Combat Stress and president of the UK Psychological Trauma Society, has been named a Principal Investigator for the study, which will utilize the companys lead psilocybin drug candidate, MYCO-001, as an adjunct to psychotherapy to treat severe PTSD in veterans that has otherwise been resistant to traditional forms of therapy.

Data collected from the study will further advance Mydecines drug development pipeline and its ability to bring a much-needed novel treatment to market.

I am truly excited to be leading this study at Combat Stress, Murphy said. We know that the gold standard treatments for PTSD, provided by Combat Stress and other organizations, work for most veterans. However, for a minority, their symptoms do not improve. This collaboration offers great potential for research focused on new, innovative therapeutics that offer significant opportunities to bring hope to those veterans still living with the trauma of their military experiences.

Mydecine Chief Medical Officer Rakesh Jetly noted that during his 31 years as a medical officer and psychiatrist in the Canadian Armed Forces, he has seen firsthand the impact PTSD has on vets and their families.

Sadly, many soldiers and veterans do not respond to the evidence-based treatments readily available to them and the search is on for new safe and effective treatments. Our troops fight and sacrifice together, so it only makes sense that we help them heal together, Jetly said.

Mydecine CEO Josh Bartch added: This partnership serves as another significant opportunity to expand our clinical trials and deliver on our mission to develop safe and effective alternative medicine people can trust. There is a big unmet need when it comes to treating PTSD and other mental health conditions, especially within the veteran population, and this partnership demonstrates the strong progress we continue to make in bringing psychoactive-assisted psychotherapies to the forefront of the market and bring hope for all those struggling with these conditions.

Contact the author: patrick@proactiveinvestors.com

Follow him on Twitter @PatrickMGraham
Washington, Jan 24 : Anthony Fauci, top US infectious disease expert, has said he is confident that most states in the country will reach a peak of Omicron infection cases by mid-February.

"You never want to be overconfident when you're dealing with this virus," Fauci added on Sunday in an interview with ABC News.

"Things are looking good. We don't want to get overconfident, but they look like they're going in the right direction right now," he said.

Fauci added that there are states in the northeast and in the upper midwest where cases have already peaked and declined "rather sharply." But cases are still rising in southern and western states, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There may be a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalisations in those areas of the country that have not been fully vaccinated or have not gotten boosters," he warned.

The recent Covid-19 surge in the US driven by the Omicron variant is leading to record high cases, hospitalisations and critical shortage of healthcare staff.

The country has recorded over 70 million Covid-19 cases and nearly 866,000 deaths as of Sunday afternoon, according to real-time data from Johns Hopkins University.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Dhaka, Jan 24 : The Omicron variant of Covid-19 is driving a huge spike in fresh infections in Bangladesh, a senior official has said.

Nazmul Islam, a Spokesman for the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), on Sunday told the media , "A huge spike in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which is gradually replacing Delta in the country." In a health bulletin on Sunday afternoon about the symptoms of the Omicron variant, he said that 73 per cent of people here detected with the Omicron variant have runny nose, 68 per cent have headache, 64 per cent have fatigue and 60 per cent have sneezing.

He added that 60 per cent of the patients have sore throat and 44 per cent have cough, Xinhua news agency reported.

"If we don't follow well hygiene rules, the upward trend in fresh Omicron cases won't stop," he said.

Bangladesh's new Covid-19 cases soared by 10,906 in the past 24 hours by 8 a.m. local time Sunday, taking the total cases to 1,685,136, according to the latest government data.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Lamu : , Jan 24 (IANS) Estimated eight construction vehicles and equipment were set ablaze by suspected al-Shabab militants at 29 km from Hindi Town in the coastal Kenyan county of Lamu, a government official said.

Lamu County Commissioner, Irungu Macharia on Sunday said the trucks are part of a fleet of vehicles belonging to the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) that is currently building the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor project access road.

Macharia also confirmed that there were no casualties during the incident.

He added the areas are marred with mobile network challenges, making it hard to communicate with police officers and units on the ground but promised that attackers were being pursued and that security has been heightened.

"I am aware the attackers destroyed construction equipment. It has been a challenge trying to reach my officers on the ground but security agencies are currently pursuing the gunmen. I will give more details as I get them," said Macharia.

Security reports indicate that the heavily armed gunmen attacked a parking lot at the mini-constriction at 4 a.m. and engaged the Kenya Defense Force before they threw gasoline bottles that burnt most of the equipment.

The site is manned by Kenya Defense Forces (KDF).

A fire exchange lasting for over two hours ensued at the site between the gunmen and KDF, before the militants were finally repulsed and retreated back into the Boni forest.

Officers who spoke on condition of anonymity said the network challenges in the area made it impossible for them to call for backup when the attack happened.

"There is no network in this area and that has been the major issue in dealing with the terrorists here. We called for backup but the response was slow due to that. By the time we got help, a lot of damage had been done," said the officer.

The LAPSSET project is touted as East Africa's largest and most ambitious infrastructure project connecting Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

On Saturday, intelligence reports indicated that the militia group was planning attacks in Lamu targeting the Lamu Port and the road leading to the facility.

The Chinese company is constructing the road that will run through Lamu, Ijara and Garissa.
Yaounde, Jan 24 : A fire in a nightclub in Cameroon's capital city of Yaounde has killed at least 16 people, the country's Communication Minister, Rene Emmanuel Sadi has said.

Sadi added that the tragedy occurred on Sunday at about 2:30 a.m. local time at Liv's Night Club Yaouba, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The incident which was caused by explosions resulting from fireworks usually used in this place, first consumed the ceiling of the building resulting in two explosions of high amplitude and caused panic and jostling among the people present inside the nightclub," he said in a statement, adding that eight people were "seriously injured" and were rushed to the hospital.

Several witnesses told Xinhua more than 100 people, mostly young adults, stampeded for the only available exit as the club was filled with smoke.

Arnold Samba, who was released from the hospital after minor injuries, described the club bursting into flames.

"In 10 seconds, the whole ceiling was all on fire. In the next five minutes, we rushed to a single door. People were pushing people aside and moving on some who were already dead to get out of the club and stay alive," Samba told Xinhua.

Several senior government officials visited the site of the tragedy early Sunday and announced the readiness of the government to support the victims.

Nightclub fire disasters are regular in Cameroon, but Sunday's incident is the deadliest in the Central African nation, according to the police.
Yerevan, Jan 24 : Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has announced his resignation, citing the lack of constitutional power for him to solve domestic and foreign policy problems.

In a statement posted on the Presidential website on Sunday, he attributed his resignation to "a paradoxical situation when the President has to be a guarantor of statehood without actually having any real tool." "Because of the responsibility I assumed as the President of the Republic. I was obliged to do everything in my power to rule out further deepening of the internal division, possible clashes, which could lead to extremely negative consequences. I also sought to use my reputation and connections gained throughout my many years of work, my international political and economic potential to build a strong, stable state," said the President in the statement.

Sarkissian pointed out in the statement that due to the lack of appropriate tools endowed by the Constitution, he failed to influence the political events that led to the current national crisis, Xinhua news agency reported.

The statement added that the President does not have the power to influence important domestic decision-making process which is important for the country.

He stressed that the purpose of his proposal "was not to move from one model of government to another, but to create a state system based on checks and balances." Sarkissian was sworn in as Armenia's fourth Head of state for a seven-year term on April 9, 2018.

Armenia has been transitioning from a direct presidential system of governance to a parliamentary one after constitutional reforms were approved in a national referendum in December 2015. The Parliament can elect a President with a three-quarters majority.

Under the new constitutional amendments, although recognised as the Head of state, the President will hold a largely ceremonial role with real executive power lying in the hands of the Prime Minister.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Svenja Schulze on Monday announced 200 million euros ($228 million), in new, additional funding for Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises.

This new funding brings Germany's total contributions to ECW to over 318.8 million euros. With this new multi-year announcement, Germany becomes ECW's number one donor and Germany becomes the leading donor to commit to multi-year funding.

Multi-year financial commitments are crucial to increase the predictability and effectiveness of education responses in protracted crisis settings.

The German contribution also brings ECW's Trust Fund to $1.1 billion; and, with over $1 billion leveraged through ECW in-country programmes, this makes ECW a $2 billion global fund in just a few short years since its establishment.

ECW's top three donors now are Germany, the UK and Denmark.

ECW Director Yasmine Sherif joined Minister Schulze in Geneva to announce the new funding on the International Day of Education, while highlighting the urgent need to mobilize additional resources to support the millions of crisis-impacted children and adolescents worldwide who today are denied their inherent human right to an education because of armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate-induced disasters and protracted crises.

"We warmly thank the people of Germany and the German government for this generous, ground-breaking contribution. Education provides safety, hope and opportunity for the millions of children and adolescents worldwide impacted by conflicts, COVID-19 and climate change," said Sherif.

On her part, Schulze said: "Education is the key that enables millions of girls and boys to break through the cycle of poverty and lead a dignified life. The Covid-19 pandemic is threatening to wipe out the educational successes of recent decades.

"Schools are closed around the world and there is a danger that many students will no longer be there when they reopen. There are also millions of displaced children who cannot go to school. The poorest people suffer the most, especially girls and children with disabilities.

"We have a shared responsibility not to lose this generation. That is why Germany is supporting the UN global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, Education Cannot Wait, with an additional 200 million euros.

"ECW's aim is to make it possible for millions more children and adolescents in crisis regions of the world to have access to quality education and a safe learning environment. Schools need to be places of safety and hope. This is true everywhere, but especially where girls and boys are impacted by emergencies, poverty and protracted crises." "These crucial contributions by the government of Germany are essential in achieving our goals to provide every crisis-affected girl and boy with the hope and opportunity that a quality education provides. We call on all governments and private sector partners to follow Germany's lead and support Education Cannot Wait's mission with $1 billion in urgent funding," said Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW's High-Level Steering Group.

To date, the ECW's investments have supported close to five million children and adolescents -- half of whom are girls -- with equitable, inclusive quality education.

The ECW's Multi-Year Resilience Programmes (MYRPs), bridge the divide between humanitarian interventions and longer-term development aid in countries affected by protracted crises.

These multi-year investments support holistic education services for the most vulnerable children and youth, including girls, marginalised communities, refugees, internally displaced children, and children with disabilities.

In all, ECW supports MYRPs in 24 countries along with fast-acting First Emergency Responses (FERs) in 35 countries worldwide.

Since ECW was launched in 2016, a total of 42 emergency and protracted crisis countries have benefitted from the fund's investments.

Schools play a crucial role in ensuring the delivery of essential lifesaving and life-sustaining services to crisis-affected children and adolescents.

These range from improved access to water, sanitation, health, food, protection and psycho-social services to support children's learning, and overall wellbeing and development.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Apple has once again extended its deadline requiring in-app purchases for paid online group events within iOS apps till June 30.

In 2020, Apple announced to support apps and developers that needed to adapt services from in-person to digital as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Specifically, it deferred App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1, which requires apps offering paid online group services to do so via in-app purchase.

"Given the recent resurgence of Covid and its continued impact on in-person services, we've extended the most recent deadline to June 30, 2022," the tech giant said in an update.

Apple earlier temporarily waived its customary 30 per cent App Store fee on in-app purchases for paid online events by small businesses on Facebook.

Amid the ongoing pandemic, Apple in April last year announced not to charge iOS apps providing online classes and group events until December 31, 2021.

The new guideline allows apps offering realtime person-to-person services between two individuals (for example, tutoring students, medical consultations, real estate tours, or fitness training) to use purchase methods other than in-app purchase.

"App Store Review Guideline 5.1.1 provides people with greater control over their personal data by stating that all apps that allow for account creation must also allow users to initiate deletion of their account from within the app," said Apple.

Due to the complexity of implementing this requirement, "we've extended the deadline to June 30, 2022 to give you more time".
Fast Track Solutions, a leading healthcare recruitment agency, has reformed the way hiring is done in UAE medical sector, which needs nearly 16,000 health professionals and specialty doctors by 2025.

With operations in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, 10,000+ specialised pool of candidates, 25+ sourcing countries and 82+ licences procured, Fast Track solutions provides end to end consultancy services in recruitment and career counselling of medical professionals in the healthcare Industry.

Apart from local demand for tertiary care, growth is also driven by booming medical tourism that saw around 350,118 visitors, registering a rise of 4% in medical tourism arrivals in 2019.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi are attracting medical tourists from world over; both the cities are ranked 6th and 9th respectively as per Medical Tourism Index as most popular medical tourism destinations in 2020-2021.

Commenting on the growth of medical tourism and subsequent talent acquisition, Seema Zaidi, Director, Fast Track Solutions, said: Post pandemic the medical tourism is expected to rise at record levels as visitors from GCC, African and Middle Eastern countries are looking for excellent treatment. Hospitals in UAE are offering exceptional infrastructure, specialised doctors and advanced care at affordable costs. Top specialty healthcare includes cancer treatment, cosmetic procedures, fertility procedures, dermatology, and orthopedics. Highly skilled doctors are looking to relocate to UAE because of better infrastructure, higher salaries, and long-term visas.

Fast Track Solutions aces in hiring for niche specialties such as super-specialised doctors like paediatric subspecialists, medical oncologists, hemato-oncologists, interventional radiologists, IVF experts, spine specialists, radiologists (MSK), fetal medicine etc.

Adding further Zaidi said: We have successfully placed super specialised doctors in different specialties such as fetal medicine, medical oncologists, pediatric neurologists etc, for startup as well as established hospitals. These positions are difficult to fill as the talent available with right qualifications, experience and DHA/MOH/DOH licenses is limited. Since we have vast pool of database from UK, US, Australia, Canada Germany, India, New Zealand, Middle East, we were able to fill up these positions in record time.

Fast Track acts as a consultant for their clients by providing customised solutions in non-clinical roles as well such as Marketing, HR, and Finance etc. For instance the agency has successfully placed Head of Service Excellence and Insurance Head with adequate healthcare experience for leading Hospitals in UAE.

Healthcare recruitment differs from other industry recruitments as it is an extremely demanding career, with patient lives on the line every day. Hence a number of special considerations have to be kept in mind while managing recruitment. For safe hiring Fast Track Solutions focuses on verifying candidates background through technology enable screening services.

The candidates undergo series of interviews, verifications, reference checks, tests and licence verification process as per UAE compliance to make them suitable for the job.

The agency not just offers support to hospitals but also takes care of candidates, their on boarding, training etc. so they are well placed and grow in their organisation.

After all our goal is to better patient experiences, better outcomes, and lower costs, added Zaidi.

-- TradeArabia News Service
London, Jan 24 : The European Parliament has approved a draft set of measures to tackle illegal content, especially targeted advertising, and to ensure that social media platforms are held accountable for their algorithms and improve content moderation.

The law will prevent Big Tech from using sensitive information for targeted advertising.

The 'Digital Services Act' will regulate platforms for a safer online space for users.

The bill provides for more transparent and informed choice for the recipients of digital services, including information on how their data will be monetised.

If their consent is refused or withdrawn, recipients shall be given other options to access the online platform, including "options based on tracking-free advertising".

"Much has changed in the 20 years since we adopted the e-commerce directive. Online platforms have become increasingly important in our daily life, bringing new opportunities, but also new risks," said Christel Schaldemose, who is leading the European Parliament's negotiating team.

"It is our duty to make sure that what is illegal offline is illegal online. We need to ensure that we put in place digital rules to the benefit of consumers and citizens," Schaldemose said in a statement.

Online marketplaces must ensure that consumers can purchase safe products online, strengthening the obligation to trace traders.

According to the bill, very large online platforms (VLOPs) will be subject to specific obligations due to the particular risks they pose regarding the dissemination of both illegal and harmful content.

"Targeting or amplification techniques involving the data of minors for the purpose of displaying ads will be prohibited, as well as targeting individuals on the basis of special categories of data which allow for targeting vulnerable groups," the European Parliament said.

The recipients of digital services and organisations representing them must be able to seek redress for any damages resulting from platforms not respecting their due diligence obligations.

"Online platforms should be prohibited from using deceiving or nudging techniques to influence users' behaviour through 'dark patterns'," it added.
Lalitpur : , Jan 24 (IANS) The Lalitpur police have filed a charge sheet against former district presidents of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj (BSP), among others, in connection with the alleged gangrape of a 17-year-old girl.

The teenager had registered a police complaint in October last year, alleging that she had been sexually assaulted for over four years. Her father, who used to run a transport business, is among 10 family members booked for the alleged crime.

"On the basis of the evidence collected, we filed a charge sheet recently against 19 persons, including the girl's father and local political leaders. Except for two accused, 17 persons are lodged in jail," a senior police officer said.

The police said the teenager came to the police station along with her mother on October 12 to file the complaint.

According to the police, she alleged that her father raped her when she was 14 years old after forcibly showing her pornographic videos.

He then allegedly started taking her to different hotels and fields where multiple people raped her. The girl told the police her father had threatened her to remain mum.
Ankara, Jan 24 : Heavy snowfall across Turkey, including the main cities of Istanbul and Ankara, have disrupted flight services and road traffic, while meteorologists have warned that the cold spell could last until the end of next week.

"Turkey is under the spell of a polar vortex, and we can expect temperatures to plummet to minus 14 degrees Celsius in some provinces. This episode is expected to last on and off for about two weeks," meteorologist Adil Tek told Xinhua news agency on Sunday.

"This is one of the longest cold spells in the last decade," he explained.

A total of 77 flights have been cancelled or delayed due to weather conditions from Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport located in the Asian side of the city on Saturday and Sunday, flag carrier Turkish Airlines announced.

Land traffic has also been disrupted in Istanbul. Up to 20 cm of snow has been recorded in some parts of the city, the Turkish State Meteorological Services announced.

In Ankara, roads were covered with a thick blanket of snow, disrupting traffic despite the round-the-clock efforts of municipal rescue trucks and hundreds of workers.

The country's eastern and southeastern provinces are also hit by severe snowfall in the last five days.

A snowstorm particularly hit hard the city of Gaziantep, the heaviest in the last 50 years, according to local authorities, wreaking havoc.

Diyarbakir, the main city of the region, has also been covered under snow, severely disrupting road travel.

While there is a downside to heavy snowfall, it is also a blessing as the country is reeling from drought.

The country's hydro dams will benefit from the snowfall after a dry spell, authorities said.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : A Delhi resident's cryptocurrency worth Rs 30 lakh (current value Rs 4.5 crore) was fraudulently transferred to three different foreign accounts of which one belonged to Al-QassamBrigates, a military wing of the Palestinian organisation, Hamas.

"The complainant had reported that some unknown persons had fraudulently transferred his Bitcoins, Etherum and Bitcoin cash, worth Rs 30,85,845 at the time of incident, from his cryptocurrency wallet," Deputy Commissioner of Police (IFSO, Special Cell) K.P.S. Malhotra told IANS.

The victim owned cryptocurrencies (6.2 Bitcoin/9.79 Etherum/2.44 Bitcoin Cash) of blockchain mobile wallet.

The DCP said initially the case was registered at Paschim Vihar police station, on the orders of the local Court. Later on, the investigation of the case was transferred to Cyber Crime Unit, Special Cell, Delhi.

During the course of investigation, the cryptocurrency trail led to startling facts, that the cryptocurrencies have ended in the wallets maintained by Al-QassamBrigates, which is a military wing of the Palestinian organisation Hamas and to the wallets which have already been seized by Israel, National Bureau for counter Terror Financing.

"The seized wallet belonged to Mohammad Naseer Ibrahim Abdulla," the official said.

The other wallets in which a major share of cryptocurrencies have been transferred were being operated from Giza, Egypt. One such wallet belonged to Ahmed Marzooq, a resident of Giza Egypt. Another wallet, in which cryptocurrencies were transferred belonged to Ahmed Q.H. Safi , a resident of Ramallah, Palestine.

Malhotra informed that the cryptocurrencies were routed through various private wallets and finally landed at the suspects' wallets, being used and operated in Gaza, Egypt and the military wings of Palestinian organisation Hamas.
Los Angeles, Jan 24 : Actor Jason Isaacs, best known for his role as Lucius Malfoy in the 'Harry Potter' films, addressed the controversy swirling around J.K. Rowling in an interview published regarding the author's statements on the transgender community.

In the past, Rowling has publicly stated that "sex is real and has lived consequences", reports deadline.com.

Her statements caused great division in the Harry Potter community, and resulted in cast members such as Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint issue statements amid the backlash.

Last week in The Times interview, Grint expressed that though he doesn't "necessarily agree with everything my auntie says, she's still my auntie" in reference to the author.

When asked about the Harry Potter creator, Isaacs refused to sound off on the mounting criticism and pointed to the positive humanitarian efforts Rowling has championed.

"There's a bunch of stuff about Joa I don't want to get drawn into the trans issues, talking about them, because it's such an extraordinary minefield," Isaacs said.

"One of the things that people should know about her too, not as a counter-argument, is that she has poured an enormous amount of her fortune into making the world a much better place, for hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children through her charity Lumos.

"And that is unequivocally good. Many of us Harry Potter actors have worked for it, and seen on the ground the work that they do," he added.

Isaacs believes he should only take a stance only after a frank, open exchange with Rowling.

"So for all that she has said some very controversial things, I was not going to be jumping to stab her in the front, or back, without a conversation with her, which I've not managed to have yet."
Kochi, Jan 24 : Interrogation of Malayalam actor Dileep and the others accused in a case related to hatching a conspiracy to attack the investigating officials in the actress abduction case started for the second day at the Crime branch office near here.

The Kerala High Court on Saturday had directed Dileep and four of his associates, including his brother, brother-in-law and two friends, to appear before the Kerala Crime Branch for three days starting Sunday for questioning.

On Sunday, the actor and the others left the crime branch office after 8 p.m.

Likewise, on Monday, the actor along with his brother and brother-in-law arrived in the same car for interrogation at 8.45 a.m.

The court, in its interim order on Saturday, said the accused should not be arrested till January 27 and that they can be interrogated for three days from January 23 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

It also directed the prosecutor to place before it a report on the interrogation on January 27.

Apart from Dileep, his brother Anoop, brother-in-law Sooraj, his aide Appu, alias Krishnadas, and close friend Byju Chengamanad are those being interrogated.

The questioning is being led by Crime Branch Superintendent of Police C. Mohanachandran.

Popular for playing the comic roles on screen, Dileep has been in the news for the wrong reasons after a frontline South Indian heroine complained that she had been abducted and sexually assaulted by a gang of goons in 2017 and certain scenes were filmed to blackmail her.

After the main accused Sunil was arrested and questioned, the prosecution charged Dileep with being the main conspirator in the case. Dileep was arrested and jailed. He spent two months in prison before getting a bail and the trial is on.

Recently, a former close associate of Dileep, Balachandrakumar, a movie director who had fallen out with the actor, revealed that Dileep had conspired to teach the investigating officer "a lesson".

He had alleged that Dileep, while watching a YouTube video of the then Superintendent of Police A.V. George in relation with the case, had spoken about "teaching a lesson" to the officer and engaging rowdy elements for it. Dileep's accomplices, according to Blalachandran had said that they would have to spend Rs 1.5 crore for this.

Balachandrakumar made the deposition before a magistrate's court along with a few audio recordings he had made at Dileep's residence.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : India has registered a substantial decline in the Covid-19 cases with 3,06,064 news infections surfacing in past 24 hours, as per the Health and Family Welfare Ministry data on Monday.

In the same period, a total of 439 deaths were reported pushing the total fatality count to 4,89,848.

Meanwhile, the active caseload has jumped to 22,49,335 which constitute 5.69 per cent of the country's total positive cases.

The recovery of 2,43,495 patients in the last 24 hours has increased the cumulative tally to 3,68,04,145. Consequently, the country's recovery rate stands at 93.07 per cent.

Also in the same period, a total of 14,74,753 tests were conducted across the country taking the cumulative tests so far to 71.69 crore.

Meanwhile, the weekly positivity rate has mounted to 17.03 per cent while daily positivity rate stands at 20.75 per cent.

With the administration of over 27 lakhs vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India's Covid inoculation coverage has reached 162.26 crore as of this morning.

More than 13.83 crore balance and unutilised Covid vaccine doses are still available with the states and UTs to be administered, according to the health ministry.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Sydney, Jan 24 : Senior coalition MPs in Australia on Monday accused China of foreign interference after Prime Minister Scott Morrison's account on Chinese instant messaging platform WeChat was hijacked.

First reported by NewsCorp Australia, the WeChat account was reportedly renamed and Morrison faced accessibility problems.

The Prime Minister is now unable to access the account at all.

The account has been renamed as "Australian-Chinese New Life", and the description is: "Providing living in Australia information for the Chinese community", reports ABC News.

"It is a matter of record that the platform has stopped the Prime Minister's access, while (Opposition Leader) Anthony Albanese's account is still active featuring posts criticising the government," Liberal representative Gladys Liu was quoted as saying in the reports.

In China, Tencent-run WeChat has faced growing regulation for collecting more user data than deemed necessary when offering services.

Coalition MP and chair of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, James Paterson, said he believed the move was an act of foreign interference by the Chinese government.

"WeChat is owned by Tencent, which is one of the most closely controlled, theoretically private companies in China," he told Sky News.

Federal Labour MP Mark Butler said the opposition was deeply concerned at the blocking on the Prime Minister's account.

WeChat official accounts allow public figures, media companies and businesses to connect to more than 1.2 billion active users in mainland China.
Chennai, Jan 24 : Vettaikaraniruppu police on Monday moved the Nagapattinam Chief Judicial magistrate court seeking custody of the wife and domestic help of the DMK councillor Devendran who was allegedly poisoned to death.

Currently, the DMK leader' wife Suriya (26) and their domestice help Chandrashekharan (32) are in judicial custody in connection with the murder.

A senior officer at Vettakarainiruppu police station told IANS that the police were seeking custody of the duo to ascertain whether there was someone else involved in the crime and also to know if any of the deceased belongings of had gome missing.

Devendran' relatives had lodged a complaint with the police against the two following his death.

According to the police, Suriya was in an extramarital relationship with Chandrashekaran for the past few years.

Devendran had married Suriya eight years ago when she was 18 years and the couple was childless.

Police said that Suriya and Chandrashekharan poisoned Devendran in his food in the last week of December. He was admitted to a private hospital in Tiruchi and passed away on January 6.

There was no complaint from the family as it was considered a case of food poisoning.

However, after the passing away of Devendran, Suriya was regularly seen chatting using her late husband's phone, and on being questioned by the relatives, she confessed to being in a relationship with Chandrashekharan.

Police on further interrogation found that the duo had killed Devendran by lacing his food with poison.

Suriya and Chandrashekharan were arrested on Saturday and produced before the Judicial first class magistrate court at Nagapattinam and was remanded in judicial custody.
New York, Jan 24 : An Indian-American police officer, who has been on the job for just over six months, is being hailed a hero for rushing to neutralise a gunman who shot a police officer and wounded another.

Sumit Sulan, 27, shot the assailant who surprised the officers opening fire on them in his mother's flat on January 21 where police were called because of a domestic dispute.

Jason Rivera, 22, was killed and Wilbert Mora, 27, was wounded, but Sulan who was in the police party advanced and shot the alleged gunman, Lashawn McNeil, 47, according to police.

McNeil is in hospital with serious injuries.

Before taking on the gunman, Sulan had moved the mother and her other son to safety, police said.

Sulan and his two colleagues had gone to the flat in the Harlem neighbourhood in response to a call by McNeil's mother that her son was threatening her.

He had a close escape when he rushed to take on McNeil as the man allegedly was firing with a super-charged weapon - a modified Glock pistol fitted with a high-capacity drum with 50 rounds, turning it into a virtual machine gun.

His mother Dalvir Sulan told the New York Post: "I'm proud. Everyone (says) he did good." She said that he was still struggling to deal with the events and "his brain is stuck on the situation".

According to her, the family had immigrated to the US about 15 years ago from India.

Sumit Sulan, who entered the police force only in April 2021, has been nicknamed "Super Rookie", according to the Post.

He had worked for the city as a taxi and limousine inspector before joining the police.

Sumit Sulan had responded earlier this month to a domestic violence incident during which a gun was seized, his police station tweeted with a picture of him holding the weapon.

In a city caught in a wave of escalating violence, Friday's incident was the third gun attack on police officers this month.

They are a direct challenge to Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, who took office on New Year's Day with a promise to crack down on crime.

He called the shooting of the police officers an "attack on the city".

Police have come under sustained attack around the country from the Democratic Party's left and its supporters with a sustained movement to either abolish or cut the police force in a campaign that started in May 2020 after the killing of an African-American by police in Minnesota.

While Adams, who is a Democrat, has pledged to take a hard line against crime, others in his party have taken the opposite tack.

His party colleague Avin Bragg, who was elected the public prosecutor for Manhattan, where the January 21 attack took place, has announced that he would not prosecute several categories of offences like most assaults; theft without guns that would affect Indian news-stand operators and Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants running grocery stores; not paying fares on the metro rail system, and resisting police, which in effect would decriminalising them.

So far the Black Lives Movement and the Democratic party's left have been silent on Sumit Sulan and have not attacked him for shooting McNeil, who is African-American, as they often do when a Black person is shot by police.

The slain officer and his wounded colleague are both Latinos, members of a minority community.
Omar Andres Haedo, left and his father Omar Haedo Sr. offer insurance coverage to fit your needs at Elan Insurance Group.
Washington, Jan 24 : Thousands of Americans from across the country gathered in Washington D.C. for a march against Covid-19 vaccine mandates and other pandemic restrictions, as people were frustrated and fatigued by the recent surge in cases and the overall health crisis.

During the march on Sunday called "Defeat The Mandates: An American Homecoming", protesters walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to decry Covid-19 mandates, reports Xinhua news agency.

The march was billed as a protest of vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, vaccines for children, and other pandemic requirements and restrictions.

Among those marching were firefighters, teachers, first responders, anti-vaccine activists and other groups.

"We are gathering together in peace and solidarity for the preservation of personal sovereignty and to STOP medical coercion, discrimination and mandates," organizers of the march said on the event's website.

The march came just a week after Washington D.C.'s vaccine mandate, which requires patrons of indoor businesses to show proof of vaccination, took effect, in response to a surge in Covid-19 cases and the highly infectious Omicron variant.

The march also came after US Supreme Court earlier this month blocked the Biden administration's vaccine-or-test mandate for large businesses amid an increasingly heated nationwide debate on anti-pandemic regulations.

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative-majority in the high court said the White House overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) rule requiring workers at US businesses with 100 or more employees to either get vaccinated or submit a negative Covid-19 test weekly.

The court's decision came as Americans are becoming intensely divided over coronavirus-related measures, and some are fed up and frustrated by the strain the pandemic has put on daily life.

At a press conference last week, President Joe Biden acknowledged that "there's a lot of frustration and fatigue in this country" due to the pandemic.

"I know that after almost two years of physical, emotional, and psychological weight of this pandemic, the impact it's had on everyone, for many of us, it's been too much to bear," Biden told reporters.

But Biden insisted that the US has made great progress in the fight against pandemic, and the administration will stick with vaccination efforts "because vaccinations work".

Nearly a quarter of eligible Americans remain unvaccinated against Covid-19, according to data of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, said on Sunday he is confident that most states in the country will reach a peak of Omicron infection cases by mid-February.

"You never want to be overconfident when you're dealing with this virus," Fauci said in an interview with ABC.

"Things are looking good. We don't want to get overconfident, but they look like they're going in the right direction right now," he said.

The recent Covid-19 surge in the US driven by the Omicron variant is leading to record high cases, hospitalizations, and critical shortages of healthcare staffs.

As of Monday, the country has registered a total of 70,699,416 cases and 866,540 deaths.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Dhaka, Jan 24 : Bangladesh on Monday commemorated the Mass Uprising Day which marks the climax of the movement of the people of the then East Pakistan for autonomy in 1969 that eventually led to the Independence War and emergence of the country in 1971.

On Sunday, President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages, expressing profound respect for those who had embraced martyrdom in the historic movement of 1969.

Although not fully comparable with what 1789 signifies for France, 1969 signaled the beginning of some revolutionary changes in the history of Pakistan. The end of Ayub Khan's decade of "guided democracy", and the end of Pakistani hegemony in its eastern wing eventuated the birth of Bangladesh. In a way, 1969 was the "best of times" and the "spring of hope" for what is Bangladesh today.

In his message, Abdul Hamid said Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared the historic six-point demand in 1966 to make the Bangalee nation free from Pakistani rule, exploitation, and deprivation.

The six-point was the charter of freedom, including autonomy, he mentioned.

Meanwhile, Hasina said the 1969 uprising is a significant chapter in the history of the country's independence.

The nation achieved independence following the 1952 Language Movement, six-point demand, 11-point demand, the 1969 uprising, and the armed War of Liberation, the premier said.

"We got an independent-sovereign Bangladesh," she added.

On January 24, 1969, Matiur Rahman Mallik, a standard ninth-grader of Nabakumar Institution, and Rustam Ali, a rickshaw-puller, were killed in police firing on demonstrators in Dhaka as Pakistani rulers desperately tried to suppress the popular uprising.

The killings led to intense protests across the country that eventually saw the fall of the autocrat Ayub regime.

The day teaches Bangladeshis the values of democracy and protests against oppression, said Hasina.

In the emergence of mass uprising, the government of dictator Ayub was forced to release Bangabandhu and other accused in the so-called Agartala conspiracy case, Hasina observed.

"As a result of this,the Ayub Khan's government fell. The mass uprising of 1969 against mal-governance and exploitation still inspires us today. The martyrs, who sacrificed their lives in the 1969 mass upsurge will be remembered among the people who love democracy," the premier said.
Shamli : , Jan 24 (IANS) The after-effects of the farmers' agitation have yet not worn off.

In Shamli district, villagers are opposing BJP leaders and workers and preventing them from campaigning.

In Lion village, the local residents have put up a notice on their gates and doors saying that only Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) people are allowed. "BJP people are not welcome", the notice reads.

People are angry with the local BJP MLA Tejinder Nerwal.

"This MLA has not come here even once after being elected five years ago. Even during the farmers' agitation, he never bothered to talk to us. Why should we vote for someone who only comes once in five years?" asks Radhey Shyam Tyagi, a local farmer.

He said that the RLD workers were welcome because they had been regularly visiting the village and assuring the local people of their support during the year-long agitation.
New Delhi/Lucknow, Jan 24 : Chinese e-commerce company Shopee, facing a controversy over FDI violations in the country, has been hit by an FIR filed by a customer in Lucknow for allegedly defrauding him.

In the FIR, filed at the Mohanlalganj police station in Lucknow on January 15 and seen by IANS, the complainant Shashank Shekhar Singh said that he ordered products online from Shopee on December 10, but what he received were duplicate products.

The FIR has named Shopee, its parent company Bengaluru-based SPPIN India Pvt Ltd, and senior company officials.

According to Singh, he ordered three products worth Rs 840, Rs 399 and Rs 1,299 from Shopee. What he received were not the products shown on the platform but the fake variants, accusing the e-commerce platform of defrauding him.

Last month, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to ban Shopee, which it claimed was operating in India against FEMA Rules and FDI Press Note of 2020.

CAIT accused the Chinese e-commerce company Shopee of violating the rules.

Shopee is a Chinese e-commerce giant which has commenced its operations in India through an entity, SPPIN India Pvt Ltd, held by two holding companies, SPPIN I Pvt Ltd and SPPIN II Pvt Ltd, both registered in Singapore, the traders' body claimed in the letter.

"These two entities are, in turn, held by another parent company SPPIN Ltd, registered in the Cayman Islands. This complex structuring of entities is nothing but an attempt to hoodwink the Indian government and infuse Chinese funds into India," CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal wrote in the letter.

The traders' body also alleged Shopee of adopting "predatory pricing tactics", thereby distorting competition in the market.

The Delhi High Court in November asked Centre's to reply on a plea seeking to block ecommerce websites and mobile apps operated by SPPIN India Pvt Ltd under the name of Shopee.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : In harsh winter conditions, one's skin requires a little extra attention for the foundation can be smooth and bright.

Before applying, your skin must be protected from strong cold winds and adequately prepped. Normally, cakey, spotty, and dry flakes form on the skin when the foundation is applied. Usually, the product is not to blame for this, and it can be easily avoided with basic skincare and cosmetic applications.

Before we start with foundation application, your skin needs to be prepped properly.

Skin prepping for the winter requires: Cleaning the skin but not overdoing it. Cleaners provide the perfect base for makeup, and gets rid of all the dirt and sebum. However, it tends to make the skin dry so using a lot of the product should be avoided, especially for those with dry skin. Cleansers such as the Cetaphil daily cleanser and the Bioderma Sensibio h20 can be used.

Apply a good non-alcoholic toner. This helps in keeping the skin hydrated and takes care of the flakes on skin. Good non-alcoholic toners include the Minimalist PHA 3 per cent and the Neutrogena alcohol free toner.

Apply a good serum. For example, the Minimalist Hyaluronic Acid 2 per cent and the Multi-Vitamin by Earth Rhythm. The serum should be specifically according to the type of skin. It helps unclog and shrink visible pores which can help the foundation be smooth, giving a nice finish.

Moisturize the face using products containing oil or petroleum jelly. This helps provide moisture and hydrates the skin in the winter dryness. However, if your skin is oily, then the use of these products should be avoided.

Using creams which double as a primer, such as the Hollywood Flawless Filter by Charlotte Tilbury and Lakme Absolute Hydra Pro tinted moisturizer, Embryolisse crAme and Bobbi brown vitamin E moisturizer can also be a good idea. Much like the serum, the primer will minimize the pores and the crAme will hydrate the skin.

Once the skin is properly moisturised and prepped, we have to choose the right foundation and its application technique.

1. Use a CrAme foundation formula or a hydrating foundation. It's a good idea to mix your moisturizer with foundation and apply all over the face with a stippling brush. This will not only give a very natural finish to the foundation, but a healthy glow will appear on the skin. It will also keep the skin moisturized for a long time and hence prevent flakes. It will smooth out the foundation, making the application both easy and effective. Some good foundation examples are Bobbi Brown skin wear Weightless foundation, L'oreal true match, Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Foundation.

2. Any face oil, such as argan oil can be mixed with the foundation to give a glowing finish to the skin. Oil provides the same benefits as a moisturiser and helps the makeup stay for a long time, without any complications. It will add an additional glow to the skin making it appear healthy and smooth.

(Nupur Gupta, CEO of Nupur Gupta Academy) (IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in)
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Outsider Art, a live auction at Rockefeller Center on February 3, 2022, features works by notable artists in the field, including Henry Darger, Bill Traylor, and Martn Ramrez, among others. Property from the William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, sold to benefit the Foundation and the Harlem Children's Zone, and property from the Collection of William A. Fagaly, sold to benefit Prospect New Orleans' William A. Fagaly Memorial Fund for Social Impact, are among the works in the sale.

William Fagaly (1938-2021), an internationally renowned curator, spent his whole career at the New Orleans Museum of Art enhancing the institution's presence of African art, Outsider art, and contemporary art. He was an early supporter of marginalised artists, making a strong effort to add work to NOMA's permanent collection from this group. When Fagaly started working at the museum in the 1960s, it only had about ten works of African art. It now has roughly 600 members. Sister Gertrude Morgan and David Butler, among the artists Fagaly gathered, built strong relationships with him. Fagaly curated many shows of Morgan's art, including the posthumous study The Tools of Her Ministry: the Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan at the American Folk Art Museum in New York in 2004. Butler was included in the seminal exhibition Black Folk Art in America 1930-1980, which premiered at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC in 1982, and he was the first curator to offer Butler a show in 1976. The sale will include Walking Stick with Figure, one of Butler's sculptures included in the Black Folk Art in America catalogue (estimate: $4,000-8,000).

Cara Zimmerman, Christie's Head of Americana and Outsider Art, remarked: "Bill Fagaly built a collection over many years with a curatorial eye and a masterful grasp of the field of outsider art. He really was at the forefront of reconsidering preconceived structures of art history and, early on, began to recognise many of the outsider artists we see today as having real power and gravitas. Over the course of his life, Bill developed long-term relationships with quite a few of the artists he collected-David Butler and Sister Gertrude Morgan, in particular. He would visit with both of them and get to know them on a personal level, which led to a unique understanding of their artistic practice. Bill's support played a large role in bringing both Butler and Morgan's work in front of the collecting public. Our February sale presents collectors with a rare opportunity to acquire some of the earliest and most coveted pieces by these self-taught masters." The sale also includes magnificent works from the Gene and Judy Kohn Collection of Outsider Art, including Bill Traylor's Untitled (Man and Woman) (estimate: $80,000-120,000), which is the top lot of the sale. Gene and Judy Kohn, a Boston-based couple, were early Outsider art collectors, acquiring a great collection of works long before the genre became more commonly known and appreciated.

Sale highlights will be on exhibition at Christie's New York galleries at 20 Rockefeller Plaza 13-20 January 2022 and the entire sale will be on view 29 January - 3 February 2022. Viewing is by appointment only.

IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in
New Delhi/Srinagar, Jan 24 : Soon after scrapping of J&K's special status and dividing it into two Union Territories on August 5, 2019, the Centre sanctioned Rs 1,200 crore to empower Panchayats and lay a foundation of "Naya Jammu and Kashmir". And since then there has been no looking back. Panchayats have emerged as new power centers with common man being the biggest beneficiary.

The Panchayat elections were held in J&K in 2018, after 7 years. These polls were boycotted by major political parties, including National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party. The then J&K Governor Satya Pal Malik had personally knocked the doors of NC and PDP presidents Dr Farooq Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti respectively. He had urged them to reconsider their decision to stay away from the process. However, the leaders of both these parties had termed Panchayat elections as a "futile exercise" and stayed away.

These formations saying no to these elections didn't make much of a difference as more than 75 per cent of the population across J&K exercised its franchise to elect local representatives.

After the Panchayat elections were over the Centre released Rs 800 crore in four installments between March and August 2019, ahead of its move to end J&K's special status, and after the decision was announced Rs 1,200 crore more were sent. In toto the Panchayats were given Rs 2,000 crore to work on the schemes aimed at benefiting a common resident of J&K.

The money sanctioned by the Centre was directly transferred into the Panchayats' accounts. Sarpanches no longer had to approach the officials to get the money sanctioned. This step empowered the local representatives and also made them accountable to the electorate.

The distribution of the money depended on the area and the population of the village. The village Panchayats received anything between Rs 80 lakh to Rs one crore to begin with and since then funds have been flowing.

It was for the first time in 70-years that panchayats were given direct funds and sarpanches were given responsibilities to develop the rural areas.

Sarpanches, Panches given formal protocol In September 2019, sarpanches and panches from Jammu and Kashmir met Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, in New Delhi. Shah told them that he expected 20 of them to be elected MLAs as and when Assembly elections were held in the Union Territory. He called them the leaders of "Naya J&K", and told them it was their responsibility to ensure that the benefits of government schemes reach the people. After meeting the Home Minister, an insurance cover of Rs 25 lakh for each panch and sarpanch, in case of death in militancy-related incidents was approved.

For the first time since Independence, elected grassroots representatives were given a formal protocol to unfurl the National Flag on Republic and Independence Days. The Panchayats were given powers to conduct social audits, address grievances and generate resources. Posts for Panchayat accounts assistants and Panchayat secretaries were advertised and filled.

Two delegations of 40 sarpanches each visited Pune, four delegations comprising 150 sarpanches visited Uttarakhand, two delegations comprising 80 sarpanches visited Rajasthan. The aim of these tours was to make them aware about how the panchayati raj system works across the country.

After August 5, 2019, two hundred new buildings of Panchayat ghars were approved for construction in J&K. Nearly 200 Panchayat ghars were renovated.

The Back to Village programme organized by J&K government was an instant hit as the officers visited the Panchayats and helped the village heads to execute the works that were identified by the local populace.

Around 19,000 loan cases worth Rs 372 crore were identified for financing during the Back to Village programmes. As many as 15,200 loan cases, including 4600 of women entrepreneurs, were sanctioned during the initiative.

All these steps led to people reposing their faith in the panchayati raj system in "Naya Jammu and Kashmir".

Prior to 2018, Panchayat elections in J&K were held in 2011 after a gap of nearly four decades. But these polls proved to be a cosmetic exercise as the then NC-Congress regime didn't make any sincere attempt to empower the sarpanches and panches. These elected representatives and their supporters were used to garner votes for the political parties. They were not given any major role by the erstwhile political regimes.

PM Modi set the ball rolling When Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day speech on August 15, 2018, announced that Panchayat elections would be held in Jammu and Kashmir, the Valley based politicians reacted sharply stating that there were many more important issues that need to be addressed and Panchayat polls were not a priority. The important issues for these parties at that point of time were to hold talks with separatists and Pakistan.

There was a strong reason behind PM Modi announcing Panchayat elections in J&K from the ramparts of the Red Fort. The elected Panchayats in J&K had completed their term in 2016. The polls were to be held in the same year but could not be conducted due to the five-month-long unrest in Kashmir following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani on July 8 that year. The then PDP-BJP coalition government headed by Mehbooba Mufti announced in December 2017 that the Panchayat polls would be held from February 15, 2018 on a non-party basis. The polls were again postponed as PDP was not that keen on holding the elections. It wanted to remain in the good books of the separatists, who since 1990 opposed every democratic exercise held in the region. At that point of time the PDP led regime cited the adverse security situation in most parts of Kashmir as a cause to postpone the elections.

Mehbooba Mufti remained the J&K chief minister till June 2018, when the BJP decided to pull out from the coalition led by her. During her tenure, Mehbooba didn't hold the Panchayat polls much to the displeasure of her coalition partner BJP. Besides appeasing separatists the politicians were in mood to share power with the grass root representatives.

After the fall of the PDP led government the Centre ensured that no one sabotages the holding of Panchayat polls and these were successfully held just few months after PM Modi's announcement.

Panchayat Representatives hold the ground After August 5, 2019, Panchayats have become one of the most powerful institutions in the Union Territory. Panchayat representatives despite facing threats and intimidations from militants have remained steadfast in their resolve to carry forward the mission of empowering a common man and provide him with all the benefits of the centrally sponsored schemes.

Recently the Jammu and Kashmir administration authorised sarpanches to grant permission for the construction, reconstruction or alteration of the residential houses in the Union Territory.

The Centre by decentralising the power structure in Jammu and Kashmir has opened a new chapter in the history of Union Territory. New Delhi has sent a clear message that in "Naya J&K" common man is the priority and the institutions which would safeguard his interests will be provided all the possible assistance. A common man is reaping the benefits of the bold decisions taken by the dispensation led by Prime Minister Modi. Local populace by endorsing the moves of the Centre has driven home a point that it had boarded the bandwagon of peace, prosperity and development.

In September 2021, NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah had acknowledged that not participating in the Panchayat elections was a mistake and his party regretted it. He had stated that whenever any elections were held his party would never boycott.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that Shiv Sena has wasted 25 years with BJP, the NCP which is an alliance partner in the state, has welcomed him to the national secular front and said he would be helpful in fighting the BJP.

Majeed Memon, NCP leader said, "If Maharashtra CM believes 'Hindutva' as a way of life where there is no religious discrimination and does not agree with what Dharam sansad proclaims, he would be welcome in secular confederation to fight BJP at national level." The MVA which is running the government in Maharashtra has been critical to the BJP and the party leader Nawab Malik too echoed the line and alleged that BJP wants to finish the party which allies with them and it's good to have pride in their own religion but should not have hatred towards others.

The MVA has Shiv Sena, Congress and the NCP in the government but the alliance could not be repeated in Goa despite efforts from Sena and NCP as Congress did not listen for alliance call, but NCP's acknowledgement of Shiv Sena outside Maharashtra could be a bigger political move to hit BJP on hindutva. But the Congress will have to rethink its strategy as it may be difficult for the grand old party to clarify Shiv Sena's past work and ideology.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Shiv Sena founder Balasaheb Thackeray, said he will step out and go across the state and show the power of Shiv Sena. He said the party nurtured the BJP for 25 years and they tried to finish Sena.

He also said that BJP's Hindutva is hollow and Shiv Sena has not left Hindutva. He also said that BJP was opposed to emergency but is now creating situation like that.
Suresh Gopi to take up pension issue of 84 year old engineer lady who first worked in staff of EMS. Image Source: IANS News

Suresh Gopi to take up pension issue of 84 year old engineer lady who first worked in staff of EMS. Image Source: IANS News

Suresh Gopi to take up pension issue of 84 year old engineer lady who first worked in staff of EMS. Image Source: IANS News

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 24 : Malayalam superstar-turned-politician Suresh Gopi will take up the cause of an 84-year-old retired woman engineer of All India Radio who is currently residing in a church-run old age home here.

K.V. Radha Rani, along with her daughter, lives in the old age home with the hope of getting her end of service benefits and pension after her service was terminated abruptly by the A.I.R in 1986. Her dreams of getting the benefits seemed far-fetched till BJP Rajya Saba MP Suresh Gopi's attention was drawn to her plight.

Soon after Radha Rani graduated in B.Sc. Physics from a leading college in Kollam, she joined as a staff in the office of the world's first democratically elected Communist government of EMS Nampoothiripad, here way back in 1957.

After the government was dismissed, she studied her engineering and moved to Delhi where she worked with the ONGC briefly and then joined All India Radio where she put in over two decades of service before being terminated.

She took active part in a strike while working in Delhi for service related issues in the early 80's and managed to win.

While working with ONGC, she married a Punjabi colleague, but he passed away years ago. Her her daughter is a Ph.D holder in Geography and worked as a teacher.

Today the mother-daughter duo are not in their best of their emotional and mental health and are holed up at an old age home.

The BJP MP came forward to help to ensure that the elderly gets her dues and dignity in society.

"Yes, I will take up the case like what I have done for many others in the past. Since she worked with All India Radio, I will have to ascertain the reason for her termination before taking it up with the highest echelons of power in Delhi," said Gopi.

Till recently, Rani led a life of a recluse.

Her house at Anjengo near the popular tourist destination at Varkala in the capital district is in a dilapidated condition.

Incidentally, her father retired as a top banker from the State Bank of Travancore and despite having a Central government job, she and her educated teacher daughter live in abject poverty.
Washington, Jan 24 : The US Department of State has ordered the departure of eligible family members of staffers at the from American Embassy in Kiev due to the "continued threat of Russian military action".

In a statement on Sunday, the Department said it "authorised the voluntary departure of US direct hire employees (USDH) and ordered the departure of eligible family members (EFM) from Embassy Kiev due to the continued threat of Russian military action".

It further said that American citizens in Ukraine "should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options".

"There are reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine. The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine's borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.

"Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kiev.

"US citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine would severely impact the US Embassy's ability to provide consular services, including assistance to US citizens in departing Ukraine," the Department's statement added.

In its latest update, the State Department has advised US citizens not to travel to Ukraine "due to the increased threats of Russian military action and Covid-19".

"Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk," said the advisory.
Jaipur, Jan 24 : Annapurna Krishnavat, 17, a resident of Lunda village in Udaipur, has been selected as an Influencer MP in UNESCO's World Teen Parliament.

Applications for this parliament were floated in July last year. The theme was - how the world can be improved.

Teenagers were asked to upload videos after which about 72,000 teenagers from all over the world came forward, out of which first 300 children were selected. After this, the top 200 were selected through zonal line voting which also included Annapurna. Now 100 MPs and 100 influencer MPs will put forth their suggestions in the Teen Parliament. They will debate on issues around the world like a parliament and discuss their solutions.

Annapurna, included in these 200 participants, suggested promoting digital working and paperless work in a 59 second video.

In her video, Annapurna said, "Digital meetings of ministers and leaders will save money and time spent on lodging and commuting in hotels. This money can be used for the right cause." Annapurna also questioned the manner in which ministers were selected in the cabinet. She said that the knowledge of the department should be the basis of selection of a cabinet minister. Annapurna believes that the person who holds the post of minister should have complete knowledge about his department. Just like the education minister should be better educated, the health minister should be from the medical profession. If a person does not have the qualifications related to the department and does not have any background, then how will he handle the department, she asked.

Annapurna also talked about changing the education policy. She argued, "Today's education policy says -- study and get a degree. Start doing some work and earn money. But education should not mean earning money, but earning knowledge." She also said, "Every person should have a place to live. Citizens should feel safe in the country." Annapurna's father is a farmer and mother is a housewife. The UNESCO team, which made the selection, shortlisted Annapurna's name on the basis of her views on education and Indian politics.

In the first Parliamentary Session of the World Teen Parliament in which the World's 1st 100 Teen Members of Parliament were shortlisted, Master Class was run by C.P. Joshi, Speaker, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly who spoke on topic - Parliamentary Ethics for Teen MPs.

Dhuwarakha Sriram, chief of Generation Unlimited (YuWaah - UNICEF), Youth Development and Partnerships spoke on the topic --How can Teens influence Global Policies, while Purushottam Kaushik, Head of the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network (INDIA), World Economic Forum, spoke on Economics of Democracy for Teens.
Canberra, Jan 24 : Australia on Monday approved Novavax for people aged 18 and over, making it the fourth Covid-19 vaccine to be approved for use in the country after AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer amid the continued battle against the Omicron-fuelled pandemic.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended the Novavax vaccine be given in two doses, at least three weeks apart, reports Xinhua news agency.

The government has ordered 51 million doses of the vaccine to be available in February, Health Minister Greg Hunt said.

"We will be able to commence that program in the week of February 21," he told reporters on Monday.

Australia on Monday reported more than 40,000 locally-acquired coronavirus infections and 58 deaths -- 24 in New South Wales, 17 in Victoria, 13 in Queensland and two each in South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, according to health department figures from states and territories.

Hunt said there were promising signs that Australia's wave of Omicron infections has peaked in some areas, with hospitalizations stabilizing.

"So, it's an important moment where we are seeing, now, clear signs that this Omicron wave, at least in New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT, has peaked," he said.

From Monday, millions of welfare recipients are eligible to receive free rapid antigen tests.

However, the industry's peak body warned that pharmacies do not have enough supply to meet demand but that pressure should ease by the end of January.
Los Angeles, Jan 24 : While some former Playboy models are speaking out against Hugh Hefner, the late magazine publisher, found support in model Brande Roderick. The former Playmate weighed in on Holly Madison's cult allegations on 'Secrets of Playboy' docuseries.

"For me, I have a real fond love for Hef, he was a wonderful person," Brande revealed to Ashleigh Banfield during an appearance on the 'Banfield NewsNation' show.

"I learned about art, I learned about music, you know, big band and jazz, old classic films," aceshowbiz.com quoted the former model as saying.

Further gushing over Hugh, the 47-year-old went on to say that she "learned grace from Hef".

"That's one thing that I learned and got to see firsthand is the way that this major iconic man, who's super famous, would react with everybody. He was just so graceful, which is something you don't see a lot of times from celebrities in Hollywood.

"Well, you're talking to someone who was there in the '70s. For me, it was not like that whatsoever. In fact, there was one night at one party where security came to Hef and said, 'There's somebody doing cocaine in the bathroom'. He had them kicked out and never allowed at the mansion again. He was very much against drugs.

"How about the girls there preying on these rich men?" the 'Baywatch' alum further questioned.

"I mean, come on, that's ridiculous. They were all there at their free will: No one was holding a gun to their head." Brande also criticised her fellow Playmates who only started speaking out after Hugh died in September 2017 at the age of 91.

"I feel so sad that I even have to defend him because he's such an amazing person who has done so much for so many people," she said.

"And the fact that some women are coming out because maybe they have a book coming out, maybe they want 15 more minutes of fame, maybe they're out of it, whatever, and to do it now, after he's dead, when he cannot defend himself, to me is disgusting." "Why not go on the other documentaries that have been made while he was alive and say these things about him? a He's not those things," she continued.

Brande's comments arrived after a trailer for the docuseries earlier this month.

In the clip, the participants detailed allegations about a "cult-like" atmosphere at the infamous Playboy mansion and what its parties were actually like.

"We were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as, like, this really good guy," Holly said in the video.

The 'Vegas Diaries' author added: "You started to feel like, 'Oh, he's not what they say in the media - he's just a nice man'. You had a 9 o'clock curfew, you were encouraged to not have friends over.

"You weren't really allowed to leave unless it was, like, a family holiday. I kept my waitressing job one day a week because I just wanted something easy to go back to, should things not work out. He said it made him jealous, and he would appreciate it if I quit my job." In response to the claims, Playboy issued a statement which read: "Today's Playboy is not Hugh Hefner's Playboy.

"We trust and validate these women and their stories and we strongly support those individuals who have come forward to share their experiences.

"We will never be afraid to confront the parts of our legacy as a company that do not reflect our values today. We are committed to our ongoing evolution as a company and to driving positive change for our communities."
Lucknow, Jan 24 : The CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI) has developed an indigenous RT-PCR diagnostic kit, called 'Om', for testing the new Omicron variant of Covid-19.

It is the first kit made by any government institution, and the third to be made indigenously, for specific testing of Omicron.

At present, two more such kits developed by private players are available in the market.

'Om' is likely to be launched in the second week of February, after it receives a nod from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

A team of three scientists, led by senior principal scientist Atul Goel and four research scholars, have made the kit within two months.

The kit will cost around Rs 150 and give the test result in around two hours.

'Om' has been tested and validated by the head, microbiology department, Prof Amita Jain of the King George's Medical University.

Senior principal scientist, Atul Goel, said: "The biggest benefit of the kit would be that the patient will be aware if he or she is infected with Omicron or Delta. If one is infected by Omicron, he or she will not panic as this variant is milder than Delta." He added that as Covid continues to mutate, diagnosis and treatment of different variants becomes difficult. Omicron, though milder in symptoms, is a super-spreader. It can be controlled if identified timely with the use of this kit.

Principal scientist, Niti Kumar, said: "Om will help in quick and cost-effective detection of Omicron as compared to genome sequencing." He added: "This technology can be aligned for detection of other emerging variants of Covid and other respiratory infections." CDRI director, Prof Tapas Kundu, said: "Our scientists have successfully developed INDICoV-Om for specific detection of Omicron. Ours is one of the few specific kits across the world for Omicron detection. Most of the kits do not confirm Omicron, therefore, this kit will be of great help."

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
Seoul, Jan 24 : A member of Seoul's municipal council has proposed an ordinance bill calling for the Mayor to draw up a long-term plan to ban dog meat consumption and put it into action, officials said on Monday.

"The culture of thinking of pets as part of the family has already become a worldwide trend," Yonhap News Agency quoted Yang Min-gyu, the councilperson from South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, as saying.

Yang added that the capital city should work to improve animal welfare and raise awareness of the issue.

Dog meat consumption has long been at the centre of controversy here, as it has been part of the country's cuisine for centuries.

South Korea's Animal Protection Law aims to prevent the cruel slaughter of dogs and cats, but it does not ban the consumption of dog meat.

Public interest in the matter has grown over recent years with a sharp increase in the population of those who raise pets.

A total of 6.38 million households across the country, or 27.7 per cent, had been raising pets as of 2020, Yang said, citing data from the Agriculture Ministry.

The bill will likely be put to a vote at the Seoul city council's session next month.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain an application seeking clarification on its judgement of October 7, 2020, in which the top court had said that public roads can't be blocked indefinitely. The apex court had passed the order in connection with a road blockade by protesters at Shaheen Bagh, against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

A bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and M.M. Sundresh told the intervener's counsel that the issue is already over, and wondered what clarification is sought on the judgment. "The judgment speaks for itself", noted the bench, adding that no clarification is necessary.

The counsel, representing an intervener, sought a short adjournment on the ground that the arguing counsel is not well. The bench said: "such applications are not maintainable".

The top court reiterated that judgment has already been passed and it will not entertain applications in already disposed of matter.

The top court judgment had come on a petition filed by advocate Amit Sahni, where it held that public roads and spaces can't be occupied in an indefinite manner for protests, causing inconvenience to the people. The top court had observed that demonstrations expressing dissent must be organised at designated places only.

Sahni had sought removal of the protesters, who had occupied a public road at Shaheen Bagh. The protesters later moved out of the site in the backdrop of Covid pandemic.
Srinagar, Jan 24 : About 104 to 135 militants are ready to sneak into the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC), Raja Babu Singh, Inspector General (IG) of Border Security Force (BSF) said on Monday.

The IG BSF said that post ceasefire agreement last year, the overall situation on Kashmir LoC remained peaceful, but the fresh intelligence inputs suggest that 104 to 135 militants are ready to sneak into this side.

"Some guides have crossed over to the other side of LoC to facilitate the infiltration of the waiting militants. Their movement is being tracked and their families are under constant watch of security agencies," the IG said while addressing the annual conference at the BSF headquarters in Humhama on the outskirts of Srinagar city.

The IG BSF Kashmir Frontier said, "Our inputs suggest that there are 104 to 135 militants at the launch pads who are ready to infiltrate into this side".

"Their movement is being tracked. The primary job of the guide is to bring groups of militants along", he said.

Asked about the drone threats on LoC, the IG BSF said that it guards 96 kms of LoC in Kashmir and the drone threat was real.

"We are procuring our own drones to counter the drone threat. Besides, a series of measures are in place to deal with drone threats," he said.

He said that last year 17.3 kg heroin worth Rs 88 crore was seized on the LoC by BSF and all efforts are being made to foil bids aimed at transporting narcotics from LoC.

He said the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan last year has not affected J&K in any form so far, but the security agencies are monitoring the situation closely.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that children of India have shown their modern and scientific temperament in the vaccination programme and since January 3, in just 20 days, more than 40 million of them have taken the Corona vaccine.

Prime Minister Modi made the observation while virtually interacting with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) awardees. Digital certificates were conferred on the PMRBP awardees for the years 2022 and 2021 using 'Blockchain Technology'. The technology was used for the first time for giving certificates to awardees. Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani and minister of state Dr Munjpara Mahendrabhai were among those present on the occasion.

"Children of India have shown their modern and scientific thinking in the vaccination program as well. Since January 3, in just 20 days, more than 40 million children have got the Covid vaccine," he said.

He also lauded children for their leadership in the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan. The Prime Minister appealed to them to be an ambassador for 'Vocal for Local' and lead the campaign of 'Aatmnirbhar Bharat'.

Addressing the gathering, the Prime Minister noted that these awards become all the more significant in the light of the fact that they have been conferred during the important period when the country is celebrating 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav'.

"This is the time to draw energy from the past and dedicate oneself to achieving great results in the coming 25 years of the Amrit kaal," he said. The Prime Minister remembered the glorious history of the Freedom Struggle and the contribution of Birbala Kanaklata Barua, Khudiram Bose and Rani Gaidinilu.

"These fighters had made the country's freedom the mission of their lives at a very young age and had dedicated themselves for it" the Prime Minister said.

The Prime Minister cited examples of the bravery and sacrifice of the sons of Guru Gobind Singh. He pointed out that when the Sahibzadas had sacrificed with immense valour, they were very young and their sacrifice for India's civilization, culture, faith and religion is incomparable. The Prime Minister asked the youngsters to know more about the Sahibzadas and their sacrifice.

The Prime Minister mentioned that a digital statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose has also been installed near India Gate in Delhi. "We get the biggest inspiration from Netaji - duty of the nation first. Taking inspiration from Netaji, you have to proceed on the path of duty for the country," he said.

The Prime Minister said that Youth is at the centre of all policies and initiatives of the government. He cited initiatives like 'Start Up India', 'Stand Up India', 'Digital India', 'Make in India' along with Jan Andolan of Aatmnirbhar India and creation of modern infrastructure.

This is in sync with the speed of the youth of India who are leading this new epoch both in India and outside, the Prime Minister said.

He underlined the growing prowess of India in the innovation and start-up sphere. He conveyed the nation's pride in the fact of major global companies being led by Indian young CEOs.

"Today we feel proud when we see the youth of India excelling in the world of startups. Today we feel proud when we see that the youth of India are innovating, taking the country forward," he said.

PM Modi also greeted the daughters of the country on National Girl Child Day.

He said that in areas where they were not even allowed earlier, the daughters are doing wonders in them today.

"This is the new India, which does not hold back from innovating. Courage and determination are the hallmarks of India today," he added.

-- The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text
New Delhi/Srinagar, Jan 24 : Jammu and Kashmir is ready to showcase its potential through government initiatives for a necessary boost to the handicrafts sector in the post-pandemic world.

Starting with export promotion in Germany, the Director Handicrafts and Handloom Kashmir, Mahmood Ahmad Shah held an extensive web meeting with Dr Suyash Chavan Consulate General of India (CGI), Germany.

The online meeting exclusively evaluated the scope of developing end-to-end export linkages to provide quality handicraft products of Kashmir to the German Market along with the rest of Europe. Since the beginning of the century, numerous German delegations, like the Indo-German Export Promotion have visited the valley with a keen interest in the handicrafts, especially Kashmiri carpets, which have immense potential in Europe.

Germany is the largest consumer of Kashmir carpets and in addition imports Chain Stitch, Papier-mache, and Walnut furniture from Kashmir. The country's cold winters make it an ideal destination for the use of Kashmiri shawls, rugs and carpets.

This liaison will also help to build a community of art lovers - handicraft importers of Germany with exporters from Kashmir - and result in shared knowledge pool to achieve master craftsmanship and connect with art connoisseurs through digital platforms, ensuring long term sustainability for arts like Papier-mache, Sozni, Kani shawl, basket weaving, Khatamband, wood carving, silver and copper carving, carpet weaving, leather, silk and Pashmina weaving amongst other crafts that Kashmir is celebrated for in German markets.

Earlier Kashmir-based firms have participated in the Domotex Hannover Carpet Exhibition, one of the biggest carpet exhibitions held every year in Hannover Germany, and stood out as the show-stoppers. Carpets in the historical backdrop of Kashmir go back to the time of the renowned Sufi Saint, Hazrat Mir Syed Ali Hamdani (1341- 1385 AD) of Persia. When he came to Kashmir, he carried alongside him exceptionally talented craftsmen and laid the base for the cottage industry in Kashmir. Kashmiri carpets are considered to be the finest carpets in the world second only to Persian carpets.

Kashmir's participation in upcoming Expos and Trade shows which shall provide international exposure and honor the unsold inventory of Covid days was discussed.

Firstly, GI certified products of Kashmir shall be presented to the Consulate General of India, Germany which includes Pashmina, Khatamband, Walnut wood carving, Sozni, Kani Shawl, Hand knotted carpet, Papier-mache, and Saffron for display purposes in the Consulate General Munich office and in the exhibitions at Germany. The consulate general was acquainted with the export incentive offered by the Government on GI certified goods and about the renewed focus on Handicrafts in view of the recent UNESCO Craft listing for Srinagar City.

He was briefed about initiatives taken to promote artisans through Craft tours, GI Labelling of Kashmir carpets and adaption of block chain mechanism to check piracy and misbranding of Kashmir handicrafts. The Counsel General was assured that digital content like pictures, videos, brochures will be provided to CG for disseminations in the German Market.

The Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC) is playing a catalyst role in connecting international buyers with Kashmir carpet exporters by creating various sourcing opportunities in India and other countries. CEPC has a great hand in skill development, market promotion, establishing key carpet production centres and latest innovation in the carpet industry.

In the previous years, 'Made in Kashmir' fairs, culture, crafts and handicrafts shows and exhibitions organized by Safeways Exhibitions in collaboration with the Impact International, a Germany-based company have also proven beneficial. Exporters are being motivated through government initiatives to showcase their talent. Other exhibitions include the Shanghai Handicrafts Fair and other fairs in China, a country which highly values tradition and culture passed through generations.

Through such exhibitions, conferences, and ASEAN Buyer-Seller Meets in the past, handicrafts worth more than USD 1,000,000 are easily booked. Such platforms have served as a breeding ground for attracting handicraft exports and people with a keen interest in handmade items. In Kashmir on an average handicrafts worth Rs 2,100 crore are sold annually with 2.5 lakh artisans directly employed.

The German awe for Kashmiri artisans goes back to the pre-electronic era - after the Second World War when German-made machines made of iron and steel, especially medical equipment, were common in the Valley. Kashmir was ruled by Maharaja Hari Singh in the 1940s. Impressed by the craftsmen who got a German tourist's equipment working again like no one else could have imagined, the Maharaja lovingly named them 'German Khars' (workers) owing to their expertise. Kashmiri artisans have exceptional magic in their hands. Although this craft has been preserved for decades, today only one blacksmith, Ghulam Mohiuddin, continues the work.

With promising propositions from various parties Kashmir art exporters are expecting booming sales in 2022 after witnessing a sluggish market for the last few years. This season both production and conceptualisation of new designs is being undertaken which will aid the sales and earn international recognition. Participation of Kashmir art contributors will also be ensured at Asia's largest gifts and handicrafts fair held biannually and organised by Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH). Dubai's famed exhibition-cum-trade fair is another major focus area.

Kashmir handicrafts and handlooms are a focal point in Jammu and Kashmir's Trade and Export Policy (2018-2028), which envisages it to grow almost five times in next five years. The policy provides an e-commerce platform for artisans to foster growth of the handicrafts sector. Just last year in November Union Minister of State, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, launched a pilot project to revive and promote the dying Namda craft in J&K, with impetus on raising the export from Rs. 600 crore to 6,000 crore. Two ambitious projects -- 'Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY) 3.0' and 'Upskilling of artisans and weavers of Kashmir under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), a component of PMKVY', were launched by the Union Minister of State for Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, Electronics, and IT. These programs will focus continuously on skilling, upskilling, and reskilling local youth to solidify the foundation of PM Modi's vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Beijing, Jan 24 : The popular Chinese battery and electric carmaker BYD is reportedly planning to release three new EVs this year.

According to GizmoChina, the rumours of the car manufacturer's supposedly upcoming models to be named as the BYD Seal, the BYD Seagull and the BYD Sea Lion.

BYD Seal, set to be announced in Q1 of 2022 in China, would be fully electric-powered sedan aimed towards the mid-range market.

The BYD Seagull is set to be announced in Q2 of 2022 in China and is aimed towards entry-level consumers who don't want to spend much on an EV.

Meanwhile, BYD Sea Lion is set to be announced in Q3 of 2022 in China. It will reportedly be an electric SUV competing with the Tesla Model.

Recently, SsangYong Motor Co, the South Korean unit of Indian carmaker Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd, signed an initial pact with BYD for EV battery development.

SsangYong Motor signed a memorandum of understanding with BYD Auto to develop car batteries and produce battery packs for its models, the company said in a statement.

SsangYong plans to install the car battery developed under the partnership on the U100 EV, which is under development for its mass production in 2023.

The two companies plan to expand the partnership to jointly develop an EV-only platform in the long term.
January 24 : Katrina Kaif took to her Instagram handle and shared a bunch of her happy pictures from her honeymoon in Maldives. The actress tied the knot with Vicky Kaushal on December 9 last year.

On Monday, Katrina took to her Instagram handle and shared three pictures of herself from her honeymoon in Maldives. The actress flew off to Maldives along with husband Vicky Kaushal immediately after their wedding. In the throwback pictures, Katrina can be seen laughing away, as she captioned the pictures as, #myhappyplace." In the photos, the Sooryavanshi actress can be seen wearing a dark green and white printed beachwear.

As soon as the actress dropped the pictures, fans started demanding that she share pictures with Vicky from their honeymoon. A fan commented, Honeymoon ki pics mein Vicky paaji kahan hain? Saath ki pics daliye na (In the honeymoon pics, where is Vicky? Share pictures with Vicky). A fan called her, Queen of million hearts," while another said, Queen is back.

Post their wedding, Vicky and Katrina went for a short honeymoon to the Maldives. On returning to Mumbai, both resumed their work. While Vicky flew off to Indore, Madhya Pradesh, to start shooting on a new film, Katrina took some time off from work and joined Vicky in Indore to celebrate one month of their wedding and also to ring in Lohri together. Katrinas pictures from her honeymoon came a few days after she treated fans to some of her selfies, which she dropped from a hotel in Indore.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Katrina announced a new film Merry Christmas with Sriram Raghvan. Sharing a picture after resuming work, Katrina wrote, Back on set with director #sriramraghavan for Merry Christmas! Ive always wanted to work with Sriram Sir, He is a master when it comes to narratives that showcase thrillers and it's an honor to be directed by him. Super excited to be teaming up with @actorvijaysethupathi for this one produced by @rameshtaurani & @sanjayroutraymatchbox @tips @tipsfilmsofficial @matchboxpix.

Katrina also has Phone Bhoot, Tiger 3 and Jee Le Zaraa in the pipeline.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The Indian telecom industry has been at the heart of the technology driven disruption over the last decade. With over 986 million active wireless subscribers, the industry has an opportunity to also drive transformation for businesses across industries.

IANS spoke to Dr Sanjeev Chaube, EVP and Head, Big Data & Advanced Analytics at Vodafone Idea to get his insights on how Cloud has been at the core of their digital transformation and how they are leveraging intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics.

Dr Chaube believes that there is a critical need for telecom service providers to transform from 'Telco to Techno' and technologies such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, IoT / IIoT / AIoT, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will enable this digital transformation.

Excerpts from the interview below: Q: What are the key strategic pillars of digital transformation at Indian Telcos as you look to transform from a connectivity provider to an orchestrator of value-added solutions that meet the needs of digitally-savvy, connected customers?

A: I believe businesses are fast turning to digital solutions to empower remote workforces, provide customers with better services, and create an immersive experience with increased visibility, resilience & agility. Moreover the need for eliminating traditional, hardware driven, and large expensive physical operations has been at the core of Digital Transformation worldwide across industries.

We need to understand that any transformation starts with data. Hence, a company captures customer data efficiently and leverages it to make smarter decisions. Goal should be to streamline key customer touchpoints to increase spends & reduce efforts.

The employees need to be well informed with relevant data, data driven decisioning culture, access to learning & development platforms empowering better organisational transformation.

Businesses need to shift from IT departments to consolidated enterprise platforms that can absorb & integrate latest technologies instantly. Datasets, processes, web and apps should be shared across the company and the data needs to be integrated to provide a single source of truth by building appropriate Data Lake, Data Warehouses/Marts over Cloud for massive storage & processing capacities.

There are wide range of technology stack for Data Engineering & Analytics such as Hadoop Ecosystem, AWS Cloud, HBase, Cassandra, MongoDB, Teradata, Exadata, Druid, Spark, Kafka, Python, SAS, SPSS etc. are available. Also effective digital transformation enablement requires mobile app development frameworks & technologies for cross-platform app development such as React Native, Ionic Framework, Node, Xamarin, NativeScript, and Flutter, etc.

However, the choice of technology stack whether Open-Source or Proprietary depends primarily on the Value vs Cost proposition. Also, the need for scope, scale, speed, quality & ease form the basis for finalising the tech stack.

Ensuring near Real-time Customer 360 view in form of Business Intelligence Reports and Dashboard for leadership and at different levels of management ensure better & contextual decision making.

Therefore, in my opinion, the key pillars and ingredients for effective Intelligent Digital Transformation Program are a) Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning & Data Science for Data Driven Decision Making, b) Customer Relevance & Centricity Business Processes, c) Engage & Empower Employees aligned around customer, d) Digital First Strategy with leanest possible technology stack, e) Bring Speed, Scale, Simplicity & Values with Platform, f) Enhance Personalization and g) Single Source of Truth & Data Engineering Q: How are you using Big Data, Advanced Analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Machine learning & Data Science to understand and cater to the needs of your customers better?

A: Big Data and Advanced Analytics is extensively adopted to improve customers experiences and business performance. Artificial Intelligence & Data Science techniques especially Machine/Deep Learning algorithms are significantly improving some of the crucial areas/services including Customer Segmentation, Targeted marketing, Personalised offerings & recommendations, Churn Prediction, Product development, Predictive Analytics, Call Drop Analysis, reducing fraud, Price optimization, Network experience optimization, Location based services etc.

Over the next five years, rise in mobile-phone penetration and decline in data costs will add 500 million new Internet users in India, creating opportunities for new businesses. Legacy data sets were all structured in nature, however over the last few years, with the explosion of data, unstructured data is gaining equal or more importance in the market. With the advent of 5G technology, the available data from voice, video, social media, messaging, IOT and all new 5G use case deployments are going to increase multifold from hereon.

This Big Data generated by telco's has all the features like massive volume, variety, velocity & veracity. It therefore becomes very critical for us to first organise and systematically store the data emerging from multiple applications within Data Ocean, Datalake, Data Warehouse /Data Marts be it using Cloudera Hadoop Ecosystem or Cloud infrastructure.

Secondly, this Big Data is then used to perform Data Analytics for decision making at different organisational levels from operations and strategy making perspective. All 5 stages of Data Science and Advanced Analytics lifecycle namely Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive, Prescriptive and Pre-Emptive Analytics are performed to extract information and patterns.

Machine learning use cases have great potential & value such as assisting with Customer Acquisition, Retention, Digital Engagement, Anomaly Detection, Root Cause Analysis, Predictive Maintenance, Ticket Classification, SLA Assurance and building intelligent networks with features like Self-Healing, Dynamic Optimization & Automated Network Designs. However, in order to work effectively, they require specific computational, pipeline and support infrastructure as well to support massive data & their parallel processing.

Predictive models whether Real-time or Batch processing basis business requirements leveraging structured data feeds such as demographic, usage, billing etc. or Unstructured data feeds like Chat, Text, Images, Video feeds are built to support business with insights beforehand.

Social media analytics is performed using Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing (NLP) & Text parsing techniques etc. to extract sentiments of customers across the country for decision making. Different Deep Learning Architectures of Neural networks ranging from Convolutional Neural Network, Recurrent Neural Networks, Self-Organizing Maps, Auto encoders, etc. are used appropriately as per desired intent.

Q: What did cloud technology allow you to do that you couldn't do before? A: Cloud is a key enabler of Large-Scale Transformation: be it benefitting Consumer Analytics, Digital Adoption, and Network Monitoring & Management and bringing efficiency in Operations by facilitating faster decisions at scale and speed.

As on date, we are India's first Telco to build a full-fledged Big Data AI/ML Cloud Advanced Analytics Platform on AWS Cloud.

Before embarking on our cloud journey, our data sets were collected in silos across the country. Then, they were aggregated to run the various machine learning & deep learning algorithms.

Also, as the data sets were huge in volume, the available compute & GPU support for data consolidation in the legacy infrastructure was a challenge. All of these complexities added delays to our operations & hampered the productivity of the teams. With the new data science platform deployed over AWS, we are able to address all of these challenges & achieve much more.

Using the compute & memory power available on cloud, we can consolidate data & effectively run our machine / deep learning algorithms & also do parallel data processing with ease. The time to run these algorithms have already reduced by over 60 per cent, and with further optimization, we expect our data science platform to deliver more in the near future.

Additionally, availability of deep learning frameworks like Tensor flow, MXNet, Keras, Pytorch, Gluon, etc. along with pre-trained ML models as APIs help us experiment more with data sets, at scale & speed & eventually in turn improve our customer experience. This feature rich data science platform with its scalability, elasticity & pay-as-you-go commercial model helps consolidate operations & effectively manage costs.

In the future, we'll be able to integrate & effectively use this platform to address our challenges across new technology initiatives including 5G, Edge, IoT monetization, customer 360, Network Function Virtualization transition & so on.

Q: What are your views on the rapid worldwide progress in AIoT & IIoT Analytics for Connected Intelligence with Cloud Technologies? A: As per Fortune Business Insights, global IoT market size is projected to grow from USD 381.30 billion in 2021 to USD 1854.76 billion in 2028. While if we follow Researchandmarkets report, globally the AIoT market itself will reach $78.3 Billion by 2026. Also, the Global IIoT market which was valued at about $216.13 in 2020 and is expected to grow to about $1.1 trillion by 2028.

The above data clearly sets the roadmap and vision for telecom as a connectivity service provider not only for India but telco's globally.

The use of AI for decision making in IoT and data analytics will be crucial for efficient and effective smart city solutions in terms of decision making. This is in line with the Indian government's plan to develop 100 smart city projects including smart airports, smart railway stations, smart public healthcare services etc., where the 5G, AI, IoT & Cloud technologies will play a vital role in developing these cities & services.

The convergence of AI and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and solutions (AIoT) is leading to "thinking" networks and systems. The AI-enabled edge device market will be the fastest-growing segment within the AIoT. AIoT automates data processing systems, converting raw IoT data into useful information.

AIoT solutions are the precursor to next-generation AI Decision as a Service (AIDaaS). With AIoT, AI is embedded into infrastructure components, such as programs, chipsets and edge computing, all interconnected with IoT networks. APIs are then used to extend interoperability between components at the device level, software level and platform level. These units will focus primarily on optimising system and network operations as well as extracting value from data.

These solutions will provide customer's ability to acquire leading wireless enabled AIoT products and reduce their time to market.

The key areas of AIoT solutions include Data Services, Predictive Asset Management, Intelligent Immersive Experience, Process Improvement, Next-Gen UI & UX and Intelligent Industrial Automation.

This Intelligent connectivity, Big Data & AI/ML technologies are expected to play a major role in key industrial areas such as Agricultural Productivity, Automotive, Transportation & logistics, Industrial & manufacturing operations, Healthcare, Public safety, and security.

Leveraged with AWS IoT Cloud services to collect, organise and analyse data from industrial & publicly installed sensors & devices at scale and for near real-time decision making, AIoT enables industries to seamlessly manage and control actions across the edge and cloud.

The key components for Artificial Intelligence + IoT (AIoT) Analytics consist of Sensors, IoT Gateway, Network, Storage & Analytics Engine for Data Analysis, Monitoring and Intelligent Automation for actions & notifications at the Edge.

Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning algorithms are leverage both at Cloud & Edge over emerging data from IoT sensors such as Visual/Optical Sensors, Temperature Sensors, Pressure Sensors, Infrared Sensors, Gas, Gyroscope Sensors, Accelerometers, Humidity Sensors, Level Sensors etc. to derive descriptive & predictive insights for effective & real-time monitoring, notifications and action fulfilment.
Seoul, Jan 24 : South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating rose 0.7 percentage points to 41 per cent last week, a weekly survey showed on Monday.

The negative assessment on Moon's conduct of state affairs shrank 1.6 percentage points to 55.1 per cent, according to the Realmeter survey.

Support for Moon's ruling Democratic Party added 0.6 percentage points to 31.9 per cent last week, reports Xinhua news agency.

The main conservative opposition People Power Party won 38.4 per cent of support last week, down 0.6 percentage points from the previous week.

The minor centre-right People's Party garnered an 8.7 per cent of approval score, trailed by the minor centre-left Open Democratic Party with 4.9 per cent and the minor progressive Justice Party with 3.8 per cent.

As for the approval rating of presidential candidates, support for the Democratic Party's Lee Jae-myung gained 0.1 percentage points over the week to 36.8 per ent last week.

Support for the People Power Party's Yoon Suk-yeol increased 1.4 percentage points to 42 per cent last week.

The country's presidential election is scheduled for March 9.
Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 24 : With close to 1.70 lakh new Covid cases in Kerala in the past four days and the daily test positivity rate reaching as high as 45 per cent, State Health Minister Veena George on Monday dispelled media reports that there is a huge shortage of health facilities following the massive spike.

George said on Monday that the media reports are baseless and unfounded that there is a shortage of beds in state run health facilities.

"At the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College there are 206 ICU beds and of these 40 beds are set aside for Covid patients and at present 20 beds are vacant, so is the case with other state run hospitals. Across the state in these centres 43 per cent of the facilities are occupied by Covid and non-Covid patients, while the rest are lying vacant," said George.

She added with regard to occupancy in the beds with Oxygen facility it's a mere 0.7 per cent while it's just 0.4 per cent ICU beds.

"We have now put into service 957 qualified counsellors who are available to people who are affected with Covid and requires a pep talk and by now they have made over 1.25 crore telephone calls and have counselled. Besides that, we have made all arrangements to ensure supply of medicines to the needy at their homes. The state is fully geared to face any eventualities and at the moment every aspect is under full control and there need be nothing to be worried," said George.

Meanwhile, reports have come that with a huge number of health care professionals turning positive, there are issues of heavy workload and testing centres are also flooded with samples and legislators are now calling up these centres to speed up the testing process and to provide for the results at the earliest.

Another feature during the third wave in Kerala is that some are not going out to conduct the tests and at many homes, they do the testing on kits available at the medical shops and hence these figures do not add up to the daily positive cases and the social media is being trolled. It would be better if the non Covid people remain indoors, while the positive ones can go out and the Congress and the BJP leaders are slamming George for her ineffectiveness.

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Kochi: Actor Dileep being taken to be produced before Judicial First Class Magistrate Court Angamaly in connection with the abduction and molestation of a popular actress in Kochi on July 14, 2017. (Photo: IANS) Image Source: IANS News

New Delhi, Jan 24 : In a setback for the Kerala government, the Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain its plea to extend the time to complete the trial in the actor rape case, involving Malayalam actor Dileep, who is allegedly accused of being the chief conspirator of the crime.

A bench comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and C.T. Ravikumar said such a demand can be made only by the trial judge and the judge can also submit a report before the top court seeking extension, if it is felt necessary.

Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, representing the Kerala government, sought 6 months more time, as the existing deadline to complete the trial is February 16. But, the bench made it clear that it will not grant the extension, at the instance of the Kerala government.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Dileep, opposed the Kerala government plea and submitted that the state government is trying to delay the trial. He vehemently argued that the time to complete the trial had already been extended several times.

He argued that after the examination of 200 witnesses, another man came with a fresh set of allegations, when the trial in the matter is about to complete.

The bench orally observed that it will not pass an order at the instance of the state government and disposed of the application. "We leave it at the discretion of the trial court to take an appropriate view in this matter...".

Rohatgi pointed out all the extensions in the trial were on the basis of the request made by the sessions judge and not by any of the parties. He added that the state government is not justified in seeking extension of time and it is for the judge concerned to seek extension of time, if he thinks it is required.

At the end of the hearing, Gupta urged the top court to keep the state government application pending, which was opposed by Rohatgi. The bench noted that if it is kept pending, then it will give a different meaning. Rohatgi said the state government is conducting a media trial against his client.

Dileep is allegedly accused of hatching the criminal conspiracy in connection with the abduction and the sexual assault of the victim, in a moving vehicle in the outskirts of Cochin city in February 2017.
Bengaluru, Jan 24 : Campus Front of India, a student organisation, on Monday condemned the Karnataka government's decision to set up a Sanskrit University in the state calling it an attempt to subvert the state language Kannada.

"Rs 359 crore has been allotted to establish Sanskrit University, but they are not bothered to develop Kannada Universities which is a mother tongue of Kannadigas. The state government must clarify why the government is giving importance to languages other than Kannada in Karnataka which has a population of about 6 crores. The state government is trying to please the Central Government by setting up a Sanskrit University while turning a blind eye towards our mother," Campus Front of India Karnataka State General Secretary Anees Kumbra stated.

Over the years, the government has not paid attention to the development of Hampi Kannada University. At the beginning, Rs 25 crore were granted each year. But now, it has been reduced to Rs 50 lakhs. Moreover, only 25 lakhs have been given while the rest 25 lakhs is still not granted. It is obvious that the government has completely neglected Kannada University, he stated.

The State Government must prioritise development of Kannada Universities over Sanskrit University and should give up on the attempts to establish Sanskrit University, stated the release by the Campus Front of India Karnataka.

Kannada organisations and activists have criticised the ruling BJP government decision to grant Rs 320 crore fund to establish 'Karnataka Samskrit University' in Ramnagar district in Karnataka.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The Railway Protection Force (RPF) Director General has written to the Chief Secretaries and Director Generals of Police (DGP) of the five poll bound states to provide better accommodation and transport facilities to the Force's troops deployed in these states, as per their ranks and keeping Covid-19 protocol.

RPF DG Sanjay Chandar, in a letter to CSs and DGPs of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur, informed that 70 companies have been deployed in these five states and they should be given accommodation and transport facility as per the other Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs).

"In this regard, your attention is invited towards the structure of RPF which is different from the structure of CAPFs. In RPF, Inspector is in charge of a Post/Company unlike CAPFs where Assistant Commandants are in charge of a Coy or company. At the same time, the Assistant Security Commissioners/Assistant Commandants in RPF are Group-A officers who are assigned supervision of Post/Coys like Deputy Commandants in CAPFs," the RPF DG said.

Therefore, Inspectors of RPF should not be compared with Inspectors of CAPFs and should be provided with facilities of accommodation, transportation etc at par with Assistant Commandants of CAPFs as in charge of Company while the RPF Assistant Security Commissioners should be treated at par with Supervising Officer of CAPFs and accorded facilities of accommodation, transportation etc at par with Deputy Commandants, the letter read further.

The para- military forces when deployed for election duty in state, their accommodation and transport facility is taken care of by the concerned state government and the civil administration is bound to provide them facilities according to their ranks, the officials in the CAPFs said.

In case of RPF, their organizational structure and designation is slightly different from the other para- military forces, therefore, it was essential to make the states' civil administration informed in time, the officials in RPF said.

The Union Home Ministry has already issued instructions to the five poll bound states to provide accommodations and other facilities according to the Covid-19 protocol and especially asked the CRPF which is the nodal agency for all CAPFs in this election, to inform the Ministry in case the requisite facility is not rendered to any Company during their election duty.

The poll bound states have been asked to set up polling booths specious areas so that the social distancing and other precautions for Covid can be taken. Similarly, the companies of CAPFs have been allotted specious and airy premises so that the protocol can be followed.

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Hyderabad, Jan 24 : The 19th edition of BioAsia, Asia's largest biotechnology and life-sciences forum to be held here next month will focus on future readiness of the life-sciences industry.

Over 30,000 participants from more than 70 countries will virtually attend the two-day event, which will kick-start on February 24.

Eminent speakers from government, industry, investors and academia will participate in the annual flagship event of the government of Telangana.

The theme of BioAsia 2022 is 'Future Ready' and would focus on exploring industry's current position and future potential, new approaches and capabilities required to be ready as the life sciences industry develops its future growth strategy.

Unveiling the dates and theme of the event, Telangana's Minister for Industry and Commerce K.T. Rama Rao said that Hyderabad has cemented its position as the life sciences hub of the country and the vaccine capital of the world.

"BioAsia has been an integral part of this extraordinary growth story and the event continues to help us in showcasing the prowess of Hyderabad in particular and India in general to the world. I invite stakeholders from around the world to take active part in the deliberations," he said Principal Secretary, industries and commerce, Jayesh Ranjan said that BioAsia is an excellent global forum for biotechnology, pharma and healthcare industries, academia and start-ups to showcase their innovations and network for better connections.

Over the years, it has been instrumental in promoting India and Telangana as key enablers in the global life sciences and allied sectors. Over the last 18 years, BioAsia convention has seen over 270 Lols (letters of intent), bilateral co-operation agreements and MoUs getting signed along with trade and investment to an extent of $2.6 billion so far.

"The first virtual edition held last year was extremely successful and impactful in continuing the dialogue in these unprecedented times. The 2021 event witnessed around 31,450 participants representing 72 countries with 60 high-profile speakers. We are confident that the 19th edition will bring together some of the most influential leaders to discuss about a wide range of topics concerning the opportunities and challenges in the healthcare sector," said Shakthi Nagappan, CEO of BioAsia and Director of Life Sciences, Telangana government.

The event will bring together leaders from the industry, research, innovation and governments from more than 70 countries to address the wide-ranging needs of the healthcare system.

The conference will provide a unique opportunity to pharma and biotech companies, CROs, CMOs, CDMOs, Biotech start-ups, academic institutions, scientists and researchers, policy makers, and regulatory experts across the globe to assess industry's current position and deliberate on the imperatives for future growth and other insightful topics related to the life sciences industry.

The two-day event will witness a wide array of panels focussing on the future of the life-sciences amid the ongoing pandemic and the ways the industry must be focussing on to combat any future pandemic.
Patna Jan 24 : RJD vice president Shivanand Tiwari criticised Nitish Kumar government over rise in crime in Bihar.

Reacting to the loot in a jewellry shop in Patna's Bakarganj on Friday, Tiwari said that such a loot had not happened in Patna in the past.

"Crime rate in Bihar has reached to the highest level but Nitish Kumar and officials of his government are busy in the search of liquor. People are laughing when they see that senior officials in the rank of chief secretary and DGP in Bihar are searching for liquor bottles," Tiwari said.

"The entire police and civil administration of Bihar are in the search of liquor in the state. Every time, when a liquor related incident comes to light, they use to suspend sub-inspectors or SHOs but they never held any police officer accountable for other heinous crimes like murder, gang rape, rape and loot. For Nitish Kumar, liquor consumption is the only crime in the state," he said.

"The awareness policies to avoid consumption of liquor not effective in the state too. The local police, on the ground, either having links with mafias or are scared of their liquor operations," Tiwari said.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : India had started their tour of South Africa on a bright note, winning the Centurion Test by 113 runs. But after that, South Africa came back to win the next two Tests and take the series 2-1. One expected that with the ODI series, there will be a change in results.

But the same script followed as India were blanked 3-0 by South Africa in the ODIs. Playing ODIs for the first time after July 2021 (for first-choice players, after March 2021), India were rusty and looked out of sorts in the 50-over matches. We dissect the reasons behind India's 3-0 loss in the ODIs against South Africa: Batting returns not up to the mark

A quick glance at the batting cards of both teams will show the difference between South Africa and India. Three of the four highest run-scorers in the series were all from the hosts. Quinton de Kock topped the chart with 229 runs at an average of 76.33 and strike rate of 96.62 with a hundred and a fifty, Rassie van der Dussen at number two with 218 runs with a whopping average of 218.00 (was unbeaten twice in the series) and strike rate of 112.95 with a hundred and fifty as well.

Skipper Temba Bavuma made 153 runs at an average of 51 and strike rate of 80.10, including a century in the first match.

For India, Shikhar Dhawan was their top run-getter in the series, sandwiched between van der Dussen and Bavuma, making 169 runs at an average of 56.33 and strike rate of 86.66, with just two fifties.

India's batters failed to aggregate 200 runs in the series. Moreover, no Indian batter got to the three-figure mark. While Dhawan and Kohli gave starts but were unable to make it big, the middle-order failed to stand up to the occasion and India's batting lost the plot from there.

With the ODI series against West Indies at home in February, India will be hoping to fix the glitches in batting.

Middle overs muddle It is no denying that India has a middle overs problem in batting, which was clearly illustrated in the ODIs against South Africa. In the first ODI, compared to South Africa's 171/2 in that stage, India were 148/6, unable to stop the wickets from falling and thus weren't able to make as many runs as they would have liked.

The script repeated when India batted first in the second ODI, making 160/5 in the middle overs phase. Then the script again repeated itself when chasing 288 on Sunday, India could muster 160/5 in the middle overs. Also, in terms of partnership, South Africa had at least a three-figure stand in every match of the series, something India did only once (in the second ODI).

Spinners outplayed Much was expected of Ravichandran Ashwin's off-spin and Yuzvendra Chahal's leg-spin against South Africa. But they couldn't put up a good show as South Africa's spinners outplayed them. In a complete reversal of 2018, where Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav bamboozled the South Africa batters, here the Proteas' spinners were getting the better of India's batters.

Overall, the troika of Tabraiz Shamsi, Keshav Maharaj and Aiden Markram took nine wickets in 65 overs while conceding 218 runs. On the other hand, combining Ashwin, Chahal, Jayant Yadav and Shreyas Iyer's numbers, India had just three wickets from spin in 32.1 overs while conceding 343 runs. In terms of pace, South Africa took 15 wickets while their Indian counterparts could get ten wickets. Clearly, the spin attack didn't do wonders for India.
The WCO East and Southern Africa (ESA) and West and Central Africa (WCA) Regional Experience-Sharing Workshop on Disruptive Technologies was held from 17 to 19 January 2022. The workshop was organized with the financial support of the Korea Customs Cooperation Fund (CCF Korea). It was the fourth of a series of regional workshops on disruptive technologies that started in March 2021. The objective is to respond to a growing need from WCO Members to learn about these technologies and how they can be mobilized in Customs and the broader border management environment.

The Workshop, which brought together 75 participants from 25 Members from the two regions, as well as regional economic communities, was officially opened by Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, the Secretary General of the World customs Organization. In his address, he encouraged participants to actively participate as their inputs will ultimately feed into the update of the WCO Study Report on Disruptive Technologies, which is expected to be finalized by June this year. Dr. Mikuriya also highlighted the WCO theme for 2022, dedicated to Scaling up Customs Digital Transformation by Embracing a Data Culture and Building a Data Ecosystem, indicating its relevance to the Workshop, which was focused on data.

In his capacity as Vice-Chair of the ESA region, Mr. Adrian Swarres, Ag. Commissioner for Zimbabwe Customs, that the WCO work on disruptive technologies will provide to the region a better understanding about the disruptive technologies and how they can be beneficial to Customs administrations. The Vice-Chair of the WCA region and Director General of Customs and Indirect Duties of Republic of Congo, Mr. Guenole Mbongo Koumou, highlighted the challenges linked to the introduction of these technologies within the region, in particular the lack of expertise and best practices. He thanked the WCO Secretariat for organizing the workshop, which allowed the sharing of experiences to familiarize Customs personnel with the various tools.

The first day of the workshop was dedicated to the general introduction to Disruptive Technologies. This gave rise to an opportunity for participants to familiarize themselves on the Study Report on Disruptive Technologies. Participants learnt from Members innovations projects for digital transformation and their practices on public-private sector partnership. Insightful presentations were shared on experiences, challenges and benefits of using these technologies.

The second day focused entirely on Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and blockchain. With presentations from Members from the ESA/WCA regions, the private sector, academia and Members from the Americas region, participants were able to gain an understanding of pilot projects using blockchain, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

The last day of the workshop was centered around the last of the three technologies that have already shown potential for the future use of Customs and border management - the Internet of Things. Exceedingly insightful presentations around the use of this technology were shared by Members in the two regions, academia and the private sector, focusing mainly on business continuity, cyber security and cargo tracking. Emphasis was placed on the importance of international standards, addressing largely on the relevance of the WCO Data Model and the latest developments in the field, as well as other international standards of importance to the cross-border movement of goods.

The workshop was concluded in an open discussion session on recommendations on the use of disruptive technologies in the Customs and border environment, giving Members the opportunity to share their suggestions, experiences and challenges encountered in using these technologies and also to gather their input for the update of the WCO Study Report on Disruptive Technologies.
Chennai, Jan 24 : With their premium income and solvency going southwards apart from suffering underwriting losses, government-owned general insurers have rolled out an incentive scheme for their administrative staff to carry out marketing activity.

The Business Development Incentive Scheme (BDIS) is an effort to bring in profitable retail business and also make the 'fixed cost' administrative staff more productive.

However, the unions representing the employees and the agents are opposed to the scheme.

"It is an irony. The new scheme is being launched at a time when many of the one-man offices are being closed and those who are bringing in business running into lakhs of rupees are asked to do administrative work," an employee of one of the government insurers told IANS.

A senior industry official preferring anonymity told IANS: "The insurers should work out such schemes in a holistic manner than in an isolated way, taking the overall picture in view." While agreeing with the view that `fixed cost' employees are being made productive, he said: "This will not give the desired result. The companies should have only three structural layers - Head Office, Regional Offices and Operational Offices - close/merge branches/divisional offices." Such a measure would reduce the company's management expenses drastically.

According to him, the companies had earlier decided to reduce the number of offices by 25 per cent. Many branches were opened in unviable places to please the politicians, which is biting the companies hard now.

Be that as it may, the new scheme called Business Development Incentive Scheme (BDIS) has been rolled out on a pilot basis till March end.

Under the scheme, administrative staff selected to don the marketing cap will be paid a business development expense of Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,500 based on their existing cadre, along with an incentive-based number of policies and overall profit from the business brought in.

"The incentive calculation is complicated. It should have been kept simple," said a senior industry official.

"It should also be ensured that the officials do not neglect their basic administrative functions as this is an add-on role. If the person is on the field full time, his/her business target should not be less than the annual salary," a retired official of a government non-life insurer told IANS preferring anonymity.

The official had headed a one-man office hub before his retirement.

"Some were doing well and some were not doing well. Each one-man office should be given a target of Rs 1 crore and branches Rs 10 crore. While the salaries went up regularly, the target per operational office did not go up in line with the pay hikes," the official remarked.

According to him, the insurers should make the PAN of companies, individuals the unique identity number for the policyholders so that cheating in calculation of incentives are blocked.

Meanwhile, the unions representing the employees and the agents are opposed to the new incentive scheme.

"The offices are already suffering from staff shortage. Sending these employees for marketing work will hamper the growth of the industry further. Our union had suggested that the company can go for appointment of career agents with a stipend for one year which will help in bringing the youth to take up marketing job," a member of the All India Insurance Employees' Association (AIIEA) told IANS.

The General Insurance Agents Organisation (GIAO) has opposed the BDIS and has sent an identical letter to all the four government-owned general insurers.

"The development officers of the public sector general insurance companies have all along been exploiting the hard labour of the agents. Business canvassed by the agents will be appropriated by them to their accounts," GIAO said.

According to GIAO, the insurers have been showing unmerited indulgence towards them by permitting them to remain in the business field, on payment of hefty remuneration, with liberty to use all the infrastructural facilities of the companies and the data collected by the agents, even after they had retired from service.

The GIAO is opposed to the BDIS as it has to contend with the new marketing force - the staff of the insurers - at the market place.

Further, the service to them and the policyholders at the operational offices will be affected, the GIAO said.

"It does not require much scholarship or expertise to understand that the permission given to the regular employees of the companies to work as insurance agents is also against the public interest. The regular employees will consider their official duties only of secondary importance. That will have a devastating effect on the very existence of the public sector insurance companies in the country," GIAO President Chandran Thottupuram wrote in the letter to the four government-owned general insurers.

On the other hand, the existing agents could be appointed as marketing officers, GIAO said.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)
Bengaluru, Jan 24 : The Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR Airport) has recorded its highest-ever cargo tonnage, despite a turbulent pandemic environment.

In Calender Year 2021 (CY 2021), the airport has also welcomed 16.07 million passengers, registering a growth of 18.9 per cent this year when compared to 13.51 million passengers in 2020.

During the period, the BLR Airport has been able to recover 48.0 per cent of the pre-Covid level traffic of 33.65 million passengers handled in CY 2019.

With the gradual easing of curbs by various state governments, domestic passenger traffic recorded a double-digit growth of 22.0 per cent, an upswing from 12.39 million in CY 2020 to 15.12 million in CY 2021.

During the period, the BLR Airport processed an all-time high tonnage of 406,688 Metric Tonnes (MT) of cargo, recording a significant growth of 28.6 per cent versus 316,305 MT in 2020.

Similarly, the international cargo recorded a 32.8 per cent growth, 265,873 MT processed, as compared to 200,209 MT in 2020. Domestic cargo grew at 21.3 per cent, 140,815 MT processed versus 116,096 MT in 2020. The US and Europe continue to be the top trade lanes from BLR Airport.

"The tremendous recovery in air cargo is a positive sign for the aviation sector that has been severely impacted by the pandemic," said Hari Marar, MD and CEO, Bangalore International Airport Limited.

"The key factors that contributed to the cargo growth at Bengaluru Airport are our resilient ecosystem that ensured efficient operations round the clock; focus on supply chain efficiencies; conducive geographic location, aided with robust infrastructure and technology; right mix of commodities, and adequate airline capacities to key markets, globally," Marar added.

13 airlines operate freighters to and from Bengaluru Airport to various domestic and international destinations.

Notably, the BLR Airport has emerged as the number 1 airport in the country for perishable exports, accounting for 31.0 per cent of India's total perishable shipments during FY 2020-21.

International passenger traffic shrunk by 15.5 per cent, from 1.12 million in CY 2020 to 0.94 million in CY 2021.

"The positive environment in 2021 ignited hopes for a better 2022 in terms of recovery. However, the recent outbreak of the new Omicron variant followed by a rapid surge in Covid-19 cases across the country is expected to suppress growth further," said Marar.

"We believe that air traffic will eventually recover. However, the pace of recovery will depend on factors such as favorable policies by regulators and easing of travel restrictions across the country and the globe, amongst others," he added.

The year also saw a significant growth in the number of domestic destinations from 54 (pre-Covid) to 74, the highest ever for Bengaluru Airport. Meanwhile, the BLR Airport currently serves 20 international destinations under the Government of India's Air Bubble arrangement.

The top domestic routes in CY 2021 were Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Goa, with these sectors contributing 40.0 per cent to the traffic. On the international front, Dubai, Male, Doha, London, and Frankfurt were the top cities, contributing 70.0 per cent to the traffic.

In January, Air India commenced the twice weekly, non-stop Bengaluru-San Francisco service. With this, BLR Airport became the first airport in South and Central India to have direct connectivity to North America.

Japan Airlines commenced flights under the Air Bubble arrangement between Bengaluru-Tokyo Narita from March 2021.

Meanwhile, United Airlines and American Airlines are expected to commence operations in 2022 to San Francisco and Seattle, respectively.

BLR Airport concluded the year 2021 on a "memorable note" by winning the CII Customer Obsession Award from the Confederation of Indian Industries. This is the "first time" that an Airport in India has won the CII Customer Obsession Award.

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Chennai, Jan 24 : Diversified products company Tube Investments of India Ltd, a part of the Rs 417 billion Murugappa group, has agreed to acquire electric tractor maker Cellestial E-Mobility Private Ltd for Rs 161 crore.

According to Tube Investments, in an all-cash transaction, the company will pay Rs 161 crore for the acquisition of 70 per cent stake in Cellestial with each Rs 10 share of the latter valued at Rs 11,356.

Cellestial is a startup entity engaged in design and manufacture of electric tractors, aviation ground support electric equipment and other electric machinery.

The company has already designed and developed two tractor prototypes for production.

With this, Tube Investments, which had earlier said it would venture in the three-wheeler electric vehicle segment, has now added electric tractors to its portfolio.

The company is now proposing to form a wholly-owned subsidiary to consolidate the electric three-wheeler venture and other electric vehicle related ventures.

The company will infuse initial capital to the extent of Rs 350 crore into the new subsidiary for clean mobility through a combination of equity, preference and debt instruments.

"The formation of a separate subsidiary and acquisition of a controlling stake in Cellestial will enable the company to bring required focus to the emerging growth opportunities in electric vehicles. These new EV products along with the existing product portfolio of bicycles and e-bicycles will further strengthen the company's efforts towards climate change and sustainability," said M.A.M. Arunachalam, Chairman, Tube Investments, popularly known as Arun Murugappan.
Chandigarh, Jan 24 : Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convener Arvind Kejriwal said when his party forms government in Punjab in 2022, the annual financial budget of the state will be prepared with the suggestions of the public.

He said in Delhi his government prepares budget by considering the public opinion.

In a statement here on Monday, Kejriwal said the AAP government of Delhi has started deliberations for the budget for fiscal 2022-23. Suggestions are being sought from the common people and businessmen of Delhi to prepare the budget.

In Punjab too, the budget will be prepared in similar manner when the AAP government is formed. Before preparing the budget of Punjab, opinions of all sections, including the common man, especially traders, businessmen, farmers, labourers, women, youth and employees, will be taken into account.

Kejriwal said the government of AAP will include the suggestions received during the meeting with the people of Punjab, traders and businessmen in the budget to solve their problems.

Neglected and deprived sections of the state will be able to directly convey their issues and suggestions to the government and the government will include their opinions in the budget and schemes.

Kejriwal said, "this budget of the Delhi government is Swaraj budget." Under this, the public and businessmen of Delhi will be made participants in the preparation of the budget and their opinion and suggestions will be included in the next year's annual budget.
Mumbai, Jan. Jan 24 : The decision taken by the Maharashtra government in September 2020 to slash stamp duty on residential properties from 5 per cent to 2 per cent has given a big boost to property sales in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), including luxury and affordable segments, an industry study released on Monday said.

The year 2021 witnessed a sale of 2,42,000 units (homes) -- a sharp increase of 53 per cent compared to 2020, and a 20 per cent jump over 2019, said the research report by CREDAI-MCHI, Colliers and CRE Matrix.

The state's move, coupled with reduced home loan rates, nearly stable prices and other factors have proved a boon for the realty industry in the past 15 months, said the study.

CREDAI-MCHI Incoming President Boman Irani said that a series of positive actions by Maharashtra government ensured that the realty sector and the overall economy got a boost, doubling the number of flats sold.

"Residential flats worth around Rs 1.30 lakh crore were sold between October 2020 and March 2021, in turn leading to an indirect collection of GST, of which the state received 9 per cent on the construction costs and another 2.5 per cent on the apartments' value," said Irani, terming it as a win-win situation for all.

He said the rationalisation of charges/taxes is resulting in total growth and the overall services and employment industry will also benefit from this spillover effect.

As per the report, Central Mumbai comprising Dadar-Lower Parel-Worli-Sewri-Mahim-Matunga-Parel-Wadala saw the highest revival in 2021 with registrations rising 93 per cent from 2019 and 71 per cent as compared to 2020.

Adjoining Thane accounted for the highest number of registrations with 42 per cent share, and highest stamp duty collection, said the report.

"The MMR residential market has shown a revival. New launches also rose 3 per cent in 2021 as developers launched projects to avail the discount premium while the market was on an uptick," said Colliers CEO and Managing Director, Ramesh Nair.

He said if the demand persists in a similar trend led by the huge propensity to purchase, the market will experience a better demand-supply equilibrium this year, with overall 2-5 per cent increase in prices in the latter half of 2022.

The state government's collections swelled on spurring sales despite rate cuts and discounts leading to 81 per cent higher stamp duty collections YoY, almost touching 2019 levels.

It benefitted even the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) which collected premiums worth over Rs 11,000 crore by December 2021, compared to its average collection of Rs 3,500-4,000 crore in the past 10 years.

Simultaneously, in 2020-2021, property tax collections hit a 10-year high -- Rs 5,135 crore or 98 per cent of the targets -- which is the second biggest source of BMC's revenues after GST.

Affordable housing and lower-mid segments sales also saw a fillip with registrations in 2021, up by 22 per cent compared to 2019, and accounting for 39 per cent of the total sales, with deals mainly in Thane, followed by the Western suburbs.

The demand for the luxury housing segment -- for residential properties worth more than Rs 3 crore -- returned after several years with sales doubling in 2021 compared to 2019, and accounting for the highest share of 28 per cent in the past three years, with pickups in Central Mumbai and Western suburbs, said the research report.
Chennai, Jan 24 : A group of three fishermen from Pushpavanam village in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district has complained that they were attacked indiscriminately by pirates in the sea during the wee hours of Monday.

The fishermen said that after attacking them, the pirates robbed the fishing nets and catch of the day.

Fisheries department officials, not wishing to be named, told IANS that the fishermen have been admitted to the general hospital in Vedaranyam with internal injuries. The marine police in Vedaranyam have registered a case.

B. Balamurugan, a fishermen's association leader at Nagapattinam, told IANS, "The pirates were most likely from Sri Lanka, and with the Navy on one side and pirates on the other side, life has become miserable for Tamil Nadu's fishermen. The state government and the Ministry of External Affairs must act immediately and provide a safe fishing environment for the fishermen of the state. Our livelihood is at stake and we don't know what to do." The elder fishermen of the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu have been telling the younger lot to go out in groups in the sea, as there could be more attacks from pirates from Sri Lanka due to the poor economic condition in the island nation.

Fishermen in Tamil Nadu are already agitated over Sri Lankan Navy arresting Indian fishermen -- mostly from Tamil Nadu -- for crossing the International Marine Boundary Line (IMBL) and confiscating their fishing vessels.

The Sri Lankan fisheries and aquatic department had published an advertisement in the newspaper declaring auction of 105 fishing boats seized from fishermen from Tamil Nadu.

Several fishermen's organisations in Tamil Nadu have already lodged protests with the Centre and the state government to prevent the auction of the vessels.

It may be noted that five fishermen from Tamil Nadu lost their lives in 2021 in attacks by Sri Lankan Navy, while 55 are under judicial custody in the island nation.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : A letter reportedly issued by the Dwarka Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) is making rounds in which he has ordered his staff to solve at least 11 cases of five police stations before Monday midnight "otherwise action will be taken against them".

A source has shared the copy of the letter with IANS.

"If these cases are not solved by midnight... action will be taken," read the first line of the order reportedly passed by the DCP.

However, speaking to IANS, the police officer said he had no knowledge of any such order, and denied passing it.

On the other hand, a source claimed that the order was passed by a top brass official.

The DCP said he was "busy due with Republic Day security arrangements, and no order was issued by him".

In the order, 11 cases have been mentioned which the DCP has asked to work out as soon as possible.

According to this order, these 11 cases would be taken on top priority by the district police personnel.

"FIR no 7/22 and 44/22 of Police Station Sector 23 Dwarka, FIR no 1/22 and 32/22 of PS Dwarka North, FIR no 14/22, 36/22 and 45/22 of PS Dwarka South, FIR no 1/22, 8/22 and 119/22 of PS Dabri and FIR no 89/22 of PS Uttam Nagar should be worked out by January 24, night," read the order.

The order reads that in case of non performance, (if the police personnel failed to work out the cases) the keys of rest room and government vehicles of Station House Officer (SHO) and ATO will be submitted before district line.

It further reads that the beat officials of each case/FIR (which will not be worked out) will report to district line, and a list of those, who will report to district line, will be made by the seniors so that arrangements of their replacement could be made available.

Reporting to the district line is a punishment to the police personnel. They are sent to district line as per disciplinary action.

The concerned staff, against whom the action will be taken, will have to attend a parade which will take place on Friday. This parade would be supervised by an ACP, and would take place in front of the DCP.

On Wednesday, the police personnel will have to do a drill before the actual parade.

"If any police official is found absent or missing during the parade, suspension proceeding will be initiated against him. It will be ensured that his one year service should be reduced in enquiry," read the order.

The 'bizzare' order doesn't end here. It further reads that senior officials of police station will censure the junior staff if they fail to work out any case within 21 days, and will initiate DE (departmental enquiry) proceedings against them.

The last para of the order reads that those who will be sent to district line will never be reassigned duty on the same police station. The seniors will ensure that they will be sent to a different police station.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a bail plea by Independent Uttar Pradesh MLA, Vijay Mishra, against the backdrop of the approaching Assembly polls in the state.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Mishra, submitted before a bench headed by Justice D..Y Chandrachud that efforts were on to prevent his client from contesting the upcoming Assembly polls. The counsel representing the Uttar Pradesh government, citing his influence, submitted that the cases against the petitioner could not proceed.

After hearing the arguments, the bench, also comprising Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, said this was not a case for granting bail to the petitioner.

"We are not inclined to entertain the bail," it said, but added that the petitioner would be at liberty to file for bail after recording of evidence in the matter.

Mishra has been a four-time legislator from Uttar Pradesh and faced over dozens of cases including those related to land grabbing and extortion but claims these cases were politically motivated. Mishra, who is currently represents Gyanpur assembly seat in Bhadohi, is currently lodged in Agra Central jail.
Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 24 : Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who came under heavy attack from the then opposition led by V.S. Achuthanandan in the solar scam, on Monday won a moral victory when a local court ordered the latter to pay Rs 10.10 lakhs in the defamation case filed by the former in 2014.

The solar scam rocked the Chandy government when in 2013 a woman Saritha Nair and her then live in partner cheated people by offering solar panels and not supplying them after collecting the money.

The scam took a heavy toll on Chandy's government, when it surfaced that three of his staff members had personal contacts with Nair. With the Opposition breathing down his neck, Chandy dismissed the three of them.

The present case pertains to an interview that Achuthanandan gave to the media where he alleged that Chandy had gone to the extent of starting a new company to siphon off the scam money.

Chandy in 2014, filed the defamation case and testified before the court and on Monday the Thiruvananthapuram Sub Court said the petitioner failed to produce any evidence to substantiate his allegation and ordered him to pay a sum of Rs 10.10 lakhs.

Even though Chandy had originally filed for Rs one crore, he later reduced it to meet the court expenses.

The counsel for Achuthanandan said he will file an appeal in the Thiruvananthapuram district court.

Achuthanandan is now 98 years old. Since the Covid pandemic, he has been remaining indoors and is presently convalescing at a private hospital here after turning Covid positive last week.

The then Left led by Achuthanandan had launched a campaign against Chandy and when he was all likely to return to office in the 2016 assembly polls, the sustained campaign against Chandy saw the Left winning a huge victory in the polls. However, the CPI-M sidelined Achuthanandan and named Pinarayi Vijayan as the Chief Minister.

And after the 2016 defeat of the Congress led UDF which he led, Chandy refused to accept any post and remained a legislator only. In the 2021 polls, he won and now his health also has deteriorated and with the pandemic striking hard, he remains confined to his home and party offices.

Chandy's stock statement ever since the scam surfaced has been that he has done no wrong and his conscience is clear and he has nothing to fear.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : An epidemic prevention employee from Central China's Henan province reportedly conducted nucleic acid tests on local garlic sprouts growing in the greenhouse, triggering a discussion on Chinese social media platforms, the Global Times reported.

The local government responded that affected by the epidemic, hundreds of tons of garlic sprouts had become difficult to sell. To ensure the vegetable is Covid-free, buyers asked local farmers for test certificates of the garlic sprouts. As a result, the local government decided to collect the results of nucleic acid tests on these vegetables to release the pressure from local farmers, the report said.

The video of the employee conducting nucleic acid tests on garlic sprouts has attracted much attention on Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo, with many netizens joking.

"It's the funniest and weirdest Covid-19 test I've ever seen," wrote a user.

"Both the buyers and sellers were overly cautious," one netizen commented, "But testing is better than getting infected without knowing." By Sunday, one new local confirmed case was reported from Henan province, with at least another eight provincial-level regions, including the capital Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, reporting new local infections.

"It's understandable why local governments are so cautious, but hopefully they can make more rational plans," another netizen wrote.

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From 17 to 21 January 2022, the WCO COVID-19 Project held an in-person workshop for Comoros Customs to improve its ability to manage the risks stemming from natural disasters and other disruptive events. This capacity-building activity, organized thanks to the generous financial support of the Government of Japan, allowed Comoros Customs to set up a plan and to move towards improved disaster management, in accordance with the undertaking of the WCO to provide Small Islands Economies with tailor-made policy and technical assistance.

The meeting took place in the city of Moroni and brought together more than 50 participants, including representatives of the Customs administration, other border authorities, ministries and national agencies involved in disaster management, International Organizations, the humanitarian sector and other stakeholders. During the five-day initiative, participants became more familiar with the WCO and other International Organizations instruments and tools for disaster relief, with particular attention given to the clearance of relief consignments at import, export and transit. Considering the challenges brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the agenda gave ample space to the recently released WCO tools on the facilitation of vaccines and to the WCO Guidelines for disaster management and supply chain continuity.

On behalf of the Government of Comoros, during the opening ceremony the Ministry of Finance representative, Mr. Kamaliduni Souef, commended the organization of the workshop and underlined its importance at a time when the country is not only fighting against COVID-19, but also recovering from the devastation caused by cyclone Kenneth, that hit the island in 2017. Other government representatives, such as the Ministers of Internal Affairs, Justice and Health, and the advisor to Comoros President, showed their strong support to the activity, including by attending the opening and closing ceremonies.

The workshop was designed to allow a fruitful exchange of experience between participants and with panelists and, during the following sessions, the WCO and partner International Organizations experts assisted the audience in reviewing the national legislative framework in the light of current international standards and in drafting Standard Operating Procedures to manage the clearance of relief goods efficiently and effectively. Working groups composed of different stakeholders analyzed existing Customs procedures relating to different categories of high priority relief goods and equipment and made recommendations for their improvement and simplification.

This national workshop allowed the analysis of the steps required to strengthen the preparedness of Comoros and better facilitate and treat relief shipments in case of future disasters, the fostering of the overall coordination with the stakeholders involved in emergency operations and the identification of the additional assistance the national Customs administration would welcome from the WCO to accomplish these progress, including through the organization of a simulation exercise in the coming months.
Hyderabad, Jan 24 : Telangana has joined the list of states who are "strongly" opposing the Central government's proposed amendments to the All India Services (Cadre) Rules, 1954.

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling it a dangerous move "which violates the spirit of Constitution and will further strain the Centre-State relationship".

A day after Kerala's Pinarayi Vijayan and Tamil Nadu's M.K. Stalin joined the list of chief ministers opposing the proposed amendment, Rao also demanded the Centre to drop the move.

KCR, as the Telangana Chief Minister is popularly known, wrote that the proposed amendments militate against the federal structure of the Constitution, both in letter and spirit.

"Further, the proposed amendments will also seriously erode the All-India Service (AIS) character of the IAS, IPS and IFS. Telangana State Government, therefore, strongly oppose the proposed amendments," reads the letter.

"The proposal shows scant regard to the administrative exigencies and requirements of the states. The proposed amendments threaten the spirit of mutual adjustments and accommodation between states and Central governments in the matter of shared All India Services and will further strain the Centre-State relationship," wrote the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief.

Stating that the proposed amendment is "nothing but amending the Constitution of India relating to the Centre-State relations", KCR said instead of such a "backdoor method" of amending the AIS Rules, the Government of India should muster "courage" to amend the provisions by the Parliament.

"Considering the criticality of functions discharged by AIS officers in the states, the present rule position and practice provides for concurrence of state governments in matter of deputation of officers to the Central government. The proposed amendment seeks to unilaterally disturb the above position, with the Central government assuming the power to take officers on deputation without concurrence of the officers of the state government concerned," he said in the letter.

KCR further asserted that if the proposed amendments are effected, the state governments would be reduced to be "insignificant" entities.

He said that the proposal is clearly a move to exercise indirect control by the Central government on officers working in the states.

"It amounts to interfering in the functioning of the state government, targeted harassment of officers and their demoralization, besides impacting accountability of officers to the state governments. It would also render state governments as helpless entities in matters of AIS officers," he added.
Geneva, Jan 24 : It is dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant, or the pandemic is going to end, when global conditions are seen as ideal for more Covid variants to emerge, said the World Health Organization (WHO) chief on Monday.

Addressing the 150th session of WHO's executive board, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Omicron, which was first identified in late November, has spread to 171 countries.

More than 80 million cases of the highly contagious variant have been reported to WHO, more than the Covid cases reported in the whole of 2020, he said.

However, he noted that the "explosion in cases" has so far "not been matched by a surge in deaths".

Ghebreyesus said that the pandemic is not going to end, rather new variants will emerge.

"It's true that we will be living with Covid for the foreseeable future," said the WHO chief.

"It is dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant, or that we are in the endgame.

"On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge," Ghebreyesus said, adding that the world cannot "gamble on a virus whose evolution we cannot control or predict." He noted that the world must learn to live with it, which doesn't "mean that we give this virus a free ride".

"We will need to learn to manage it through a sustained and integrated system for acute respiratory diseases, which will provide a platform for preparedness for future pandemics." He said to change the course of the pandemic, it is essential to achieve the target to vaccinate 70 per cent of the population of every country.

About 85 per cent of the population of Africa is yet to receive a single dose of vaccine, he lamented.

He also recommended strong clinical management, equitable access to diagnostics, oxygen and antivirals at the point of care; boosting of testing and sequencing rates globally to track the virus closely, and monitor the emergence of new variants.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Mohd Enamul Haque, who is a prime accused in an alleged multi-crore cattle smuggling case where he is facing corruption charges, saying that his custody is not warranted.

A bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Dinesh Maheshwari said: "We are of the opinion that continued detention of appellant in custody is not warranted." As Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, representing the CBI, urged the bench to not grant him bail in the matter as investigation in the matter is in progress, the bench pointed out that the investigation in the matter cannot remain open-ended.

"We direct the appellant to be released on bail subject to terms and conditions set by the Special CBI judge, Asansol....".

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, representing Haque, submitted before the bench that his client has been in custody for a long time and all the other accused, including the BSF Commandant, have been granted bail. He also pointed at the issue of the CBI's jurisdiction to investigate a case, when the state government has withdrawn its consent.

The bench said that against the backdrop of offences involved and the custody undergone by the petitioner, his further custody was not required. It also observed that the petitioner has already been granted default bail by the court in Kochi and he has been in custody since November 2020 and charge sheets have been filed in 2021.

During the hearing, it observed that Haque has been charged with offences having a maximum sentence of seven years' imprisonment.

The top court was hearing an appeal by Haque challenging the Calcutta High Court order, passed in November 2021, which dismissed his bail petition citing serious accusations against him.

It was alleged that a BSF Commandant in Roshanbagh, West Bengal, had accepted illegal gratification to allow cattle smugglers near the India-Bangladesh border go scot-free. The BSF Commandant was later arrested at a railway station in Kerala, and Rs 43 lakh was recovered from him. It was alleged that Haque had played a key role in the deal with the Commandant.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Shares of PTC India and PTC India Financial Services continued to decline after past week's losses primarily due to the recent resignation by the latter's three independent directors citing alleged lapses in corporate governance and operations.

The allegations were raised by the independent directors against its financial lending unit -- PTC India Financial Services.

PTC India Financial Services, a subsidiary of PTC India, is registered with the RBI as a non-banking financial company (NBFC).

On Monday, PTC India settled 5.3 per cent down at Rs 89.40, whereas PTC India Financial Services fell 9.1 per cent to Rs 18.10.

Also, market regulator SEBI asking the company to first address the corporate governance issues before holding any Board meeting dented investors' sentiment further.

"It is informed that the Company has received a communication dated 22nd January, 2022 from the SEBI informing that the company is directed to address the CG (corporate governance) issues and all other issues raised by the resigning IDs and ex-Chairperson first, before holding any Board meeting and to file an action taken report in the regard to SEBI within 4 weeks," the company in its latest regulatory filing.

The company was supposed to hold a Board meeting on Saturday -- its first after the resignations of the three independent directors.

The company, however, has filed an application with the market regulator for seeking exemptions to schedule the Board meeting for the appointment of independent directors, the filing said.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : About 9 in 10 people have lost some degree of vision during the last two years of Covid pandemic, health experts said on Monday.

It is because most of them skipped their regular eye check-ups and follow-ups due to pandemic-induced lockdowns, fear among others.

Retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy or age-related macular degeneration have few or minor symptoms at first and are only detected by eye examination or a screening.

These conditions have the tendency to create severe damage to the eyes if not timely intervened with.

"Unfortunately, 90 per cent of patients lost some degree of vision due poor follow ups, during the first and the second wave of Covid, especially the ones suffering from wet AMD (Age Related Macular Degeneration). These patients mostly missed taking their Intravitreal injection, owing to which the diseases progressed rapidly," Dr Ajay Dudani, CEO Vitreoretinal Surgeon, Mumbai Retina Centre, told IANS.

"Owing to the fear of Covid, we have witnessed a decline in patients coming for a regular eye check-up in the past 3-4 months. This has resulted in delays in diagnosis and treatment, which can compromise vision in the long run," added Dr Chaitra Jayadev, Senior Vitreo-retinal Consultant, Narayana Nethralaya Eye Institute, Bengaluru.

Doctors said that early detection and treatment is key to control the disease and prevent any loss in vision.

The longer one puts off visiting the clinic, the worse the eye health will get.

"While we should take precautions during this Covid wave, patients should not delay visits for macular degeneration or diabetic macular edema, unless the patient has Covid symptoms," Dr Raja Narayan, the General Secretary, Vitreoretinal Society of India, told IANS.

"With the third wave, we are seeing a similar pattern from the past, as patient visits, especially amongst elders, have dropped by nearly 50 per cent. Since the retina cannot be replaced, missing an injection, or treatment follow ups, can magnify the eye disease," Dudani said.

Doctors also encouraged patients to take up teleconsultations.

There are vision tests that one can undertake sitting at home, whose reports can be sent to the doctor for examination and further intervention.

"If patients experience symptoms such as blurred vision, sudden loss of vision or black spots in the visual field, they need to go for an immediate eye check-up, as these could be signs of diabetic retinopathy. To prevent worsening of such complications, diabetics must ensure that their sugar levels are under control," Jayadev said.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Mumbai, Jan. Jan 24 : The Maharashtra Congress on Monday urged Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to ban the film "Why I Killed Gandhi", set to release on various OTT platforms on January 30, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination.

Similarly, the All India Cine Workers Association has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding a total ban on the film, which 'seeks to glorify Gandhiji's assassin Nathuram Godse, and its exhibition would shock the people'.

The film features Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Amol Kolhe in the role of Godse, sparking friction among the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi allies Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress since the past few days.

Shooting off a letter to CM Thackeray, state Congress President Nana Patole said Mahatma Gandhi's ideology of truth, peace and non-violence is respected all over the world and his death anniversary is observed globally as the day symbolising his teachings.

"If the film 'Why I Killed Gandhi' is allowed to be released on the day of Gandhiji's assassination, it would give strength to the fascist forces. Hence, we request you to kindly order a ban on the movie," Patole said.

The AICWA sought a complete ban on the film's release as it seeks to "glorifies Godse, a traitor and killer of the Father of the Nation".

As the film ignited a massive controversy in state political circles last week, Kolhe said that he had acted in the film way back in 2017, and he had also informed the NCP leadership before leaving the Sena to join it.

Though the Congress has strongly opposed the film, the Shiv Sena has adopted a neutral stance, while the NCP feels it should be viewed creatively as a freedom of expression. The opposition BJP has said that there is nothing wrong if Kolhe plays the role of Godse.
New Delhi/Lucknow, Jan 24 : E-commerce company Shopee, which claims it is of Singaporean origin and is facing a controversy over FDI violations in the country, has been hit by an FIR filed by a customer in Lucknow for allegedly defrauding him.

In the FIR, filed at the Mohanlalganj police station in Lucknow on January 15 and seen by IANS, the complainant, Shashank Shekhar Singh, said that he ordered products online from Shopee on December 10, but what he received were duplicate products.

The FIR has named Shopee, its parent company Bengaluru-based SPPIN India Pvt Ltd, and senior company officials.

According to Singh, he ordered three products worth Rs 840, Rs 399 and Rs 1,299 from Shopee. What he received were not the products shown on the platform, but their fake variants, accusing the e-commerce platform of defrauding him.

In a statement to IANS, the platform said: "Shopee is a Singaporean company, not a Chinese company, committed to helping Indian small businesses thrive through their online e-commerce marketplace. The company aims to partner in India's digital economy mission while contributing to the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan." Last month, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) had urged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to ban Shopee, claiming that it is operating in India against FEMA Rules and FDI Press Note of 2020.

Shopee is an e-commerce giant which commenced its operations in India through an entity named SPPIN India Pvt Ltd, held by two holding companies, SPPIN I Pvt Ltd and SPPIN II Pvt Ltd, both registered in Singapore, the traders' body claimed in the letter.

"These two entities are, in turn, held by another parent company SPPIN Ltd, registered in the Cayman Islands. This complex structuring of entities is nothing but an attempt to hoodwink the Indian government," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal wrote in the letter.

The traders' body also accused Shopee of adopting "predatory pricing tactics", thereby distorting competition in the market.

The Delhi High Court had in November last year sought the Centre's to reply on a plea seeking to block ecommerce websites and mobile apps operated by SPPIN India Pvt Ltd under the name of Shopee.
Jammu, Jan 24 : General Officer-Commanding-in-Chief, Northern Command, Lt General Y.K. Joshi, paid a visit to his first Commanding Officer, Colonel K.S. Jamwal, VSM (Retired), at his residence in Jammu.

The Army Commander was commissioned into 13 JAK RIF known as the "Bravest of the Brave", the unit with two Param Vir Chakra awardees from the Kargil War, an official statement noted.

Col Jamwal has been a "role model" to emulate, contributing immensely in the "glorious military career" of General Joshi spanning nearly four decades.

"The meeting was a nostalgic throwback of Gen. Joshi's association with Col. K.S. Jamwal with both sharing and reliving the old memories. The meeting was a tribute by the General to his mentor who groomed him during the formative years of military career, giving a strong foundation to later grow into a war hero, an inspiring military leader and a soldier's General.

"General Joshi believes that first few years of unit life have been the most valuable part of his foundation as an Army officer and he credits Col. Jamwal for grooming and shaping him for future challenges and enriching contributions," it said.

Expressing gratitude to Col Jamwal, General Joshi said, "You're an incredible trainer, and I'm grateful for your guidance, encouragement and constant motivation, which pushed me to immense heights, I never imagined. Thank you for inspiring me to be excellent in everything I do." Col Jamwal recalled, "Gen Joshi was commissioned in 13 JAK RIF as 2nd Lieutenant and joined in Nagaland when I was commanding the unit. Right from his early service days, he exhibited the winning streak and was always in the forefront with a sound professional approach... I'm truly proud of him and his achievements." The officer also commanded 13 JAK RIF in Operation Vijay and Parakram.

Gen Joshi caught the attention of the nation during the Kargil War with his "outstanding leadership" when he led his unit to unprecedented success.

In Operation Vijay under his command, the unit was awarded a total of 37 gallantry awards including two Param Vir Chakras, eight Vir Chakras and 14 Sena Medals.

The unit was also awarded the Chief of Army Staff unit citation and the 'Bravest of the Brave' award.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The nurses' unions of Delhi government-run hospitals on Monday wore black ribbons to register their protest over pending ex-gratia which was announced by the Arvind Kejriwal-led government.

The nurses were protesting over the pending ex-gratia of eight nurses who died during Covid duty during the second wave the pandemic last year.

Delhi Nurses Federation (DNF) Secretary General Liladhar Ramchandani told IANS that it has been more than a year the Delhi government announced that any doctor, nurse, or other paramedical staff who die during Covid duty, his or her kin will get a compensation of Rs 1 crore.

"But our eight nursing staff died during Covid duty in second wave, but ex-gratia is still pending," he said. The state government must show sensibility towards this sensitive issues, added he further.

The nurses unions have said that they will continue the protest wearing a black ribbon on January 25 also without disturbing the patients care in hospitals. Delhi's top five state-run hospitals - Lok Nayak Jayaprakash (LNJP) Hospital, GTB Hospital, DDU Hospital, GB Pant hospital and Bhimrao Ambedkar hospitals along with other Delhi government-run facilities took part in the protest on Monday.

To intensify the protest, all the nursing officers will come out for 2 hours and register a protest across the hospitals from January 27.

If the amount is not paid to the families of the martyrs during this, the entire nursing cadre will go on an indefinite strike without any further notice, the Federation had said in a letter to the Lt Governor Anil Baijal dated on January 16.

"Our nurses who were martyred in Corona have not been given respect, nor they have been given their money. The families of the martyrs are wandering to get their rights, even the amount which is normally received according to the rules haven't been paid," said the DNF in a statement.

The Federation had also written a letter to the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on January 20, demanding an "early release" of the compensation amount.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 24 : An event organised by the Sikh and Punjabi community in Washington has thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his contribution to Sikh history, tradition and culture.

The event thanked Prime Minister Modi for the several initiatives taken for the community, including Veer Bal Diwas, opening of Kartarpur Corridor on Parkash Purab of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, repealing of three farm laws, bringing back Sikhs and Guru Granth Sahib from Afghanistan, and the Rs 43,000 crore project supposed to be launched in Ferozepur for Punjab.

Prime Minister Modi was also lauded for FCRA Registration for the Golden Temple in Amritsar, tax-free langar, Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji's 550th Prakash Parv, promoting teachings of Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji's 400th Prakash Parv and for powering the progress of Punjab.
Fort Polk, LA (71446)

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Foggy this morning, then partly cloudy this afternoon. High 88F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..

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New Delhi, Jan 24 : Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will hold a virtual meeting with nine states and United Territories on Tuesday to take stock of the prevailing Covid situation.

A source said that Mandaviya will interact with the health ministers of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Ladakh, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh.

This meeting will discuss the prevailing Covid situation and public health preparedness for containment and management of the pandemic in these states, he said.

Earlier on January 10, Mandaviya had held a meeting with the health ministers and senior officials of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Goa, Dadra & Nagra Haveli and Daman & Diu.

Mandaviya had told these states to utilise efficiently the fund provided under ECRP-II for strengthening the health infrastructure across the country, and urged the states to make robust preparations in terms of physical infrastructure.

Meanwhile, India on Monday reported a substantial decline in new Covid cases at 3,06,064. With the addition of 439 deaths in the last 24 hours, the country's overall Covid death toll has mounted to 4,89,848.

India's vaccination coverage has crossed 162.77 crore with over 49 lakh doses being administered till 7 pm on Monday. More than 87 lakh precautionary doses have been administered to the identified categories of beneficiaries so far.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Appreciating the efforts of the authorities taken regarding overcrowding in the city's Sarojini Market, the Delhi High Court on Monday told the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Delhi Police to ensure the removal of unauthorised street vending in the market area.

A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh also directed the NDMC and Delhi Police to submit status reports of the further developments before the court on next hearing in May.

In the last hearing on December 24, 2021, the court had turned its ire on the Delhi Police and the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) after taking note of reports, including a viral video, of an enormous crowd, virtually treading over each other, in a leading capital market, amid the rise in cases of Covid's Omicron variant.

Taking cognisance of reports of overcrowding in the Sarojini Nagar market, the bench had observed the situation is "frightening" and called on the DDMA and the police to work out a movement plan for the public at large visiting the market in light of the prevailing pandemic.

"There can be a stampede where hundreds of people can die. And don't say that this is stage-managed. Hundreds of people are pushing each other and there is no control that people have... They are just flowing like a river," the court said.

It was also suggested that if any squatter/vendor's goods are seized for encroachment of the pavement/market road, then these should not be released since the vendors are flouting the court directions and market rules.

"Their goods are released after paying a paltry fine. In this way they are able to perpetuate illegal encroachment," the court said.

Taking note of the third wave of Covid-19, the court said, whether it's Covid or no Covid, the situation is eerie.

The bench also said the Sarojini Nagar market should be regulated by fixing entry points and ensuring that it is not filled to capacity and there is no overcrowding on any given day.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Gandhinagar, Jan 24 : As part of a pre-poll preparedness drive for the BJP in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually interact with the party cadres at 11 am Tuesday.

Over five lakh BJP members will participate in the virtual meet using the NaMo application.

Apart from the five states going to the polls from next month, elections will also be held in Gujarat in the latter part of the year.

Around 5.25 lakh BJP members from Gujarat are registered on the NaMo app. According to party sources, the Gujarat page committees have 60 lakh registered members.

"This is the first time that over five lakh BJP members will be having a virtual interaction with the Prime Minister using the latest technology. The Prime Minister will guide us regarding the preparations for the upcoming Assembly elections," said Yagnesh Dave, media convenor for Gujarat BJP.

Modi is scheduled to visit Gujarat in March, and the BJP is making all preparations to connect all the karyakartas (workers) and office-bearers of the party through the NaMo app.

The Prime Minister held similar discussions with the party cadres in poll-bound Uttar Pradesh on Monday using the NaMo app.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Seeking an impartial investigation into the death of a high school girl, who recently committed suicide in Tamil Nadu's Thanjavur, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Monday staged protests across the country.

The ABVP alleged that the girl committed suicide due to the 'unbearable torture' she was facing after refusing to get converted to Christianity.

The ABVP claimed that she was being tortured by two female employees of her school.

In a purported video clip, the deceased was allegedly seen mentioning how her parents are being pressured by a female employee of the school to convert her religion.

"It is unfortunate that despite the video of the student coming to the fore and the testimony of his mother, no action has been taken by the state government or the police administration," ABVP said, adding that they demand a fair and transparent investigation into the suicide.

ABVP workers held symbolic demonstrations at 11 places in Delhi, after which a memorandum was submitted to the district administration.

ABVP's Siddhartha Yadav termed the incident as tragic and said that the organisation stands with the family of the deceased student in this fight for justice.

"By submitting the memorandum, we urge the Governor to ensure a fair and transparent investigation into the matter. We also urge for enactment of a new legislation as soon as possible to prevent forceful conversion," he added.
Patna, Jan 24 : Patna police managed to crack the case of the sensational jewellery heist in the Bihar capital with the arrest of five accused, including the son of a jewellery shop owner, officials said on Monday.

Five persons executed the broad daylight robbery in Bakarganj wholesale market on Friday, and had codenamed their operation "Ek Glass Pani".

Patna SSP Manavjeet Singh Dhillon said: "One of the accused was already arrested on the day of crime. He revealed the name of the other accused. All of them are natives of Jehanabad and one of them is a son of jewellers based in Jehanabad." The accused are identified as Nitesh Prasad, the kingpin of the gang and son of Ranjeet Prasad who is an owner of Raj Laxmi Jewellers of Jehanabad. The other accused are Akash Ojha, Sonu Kumar, and Raju Kewat. Rajesh Ram alias Sadhu was arrested with the help of local traders on the day of the incident on Friday. All are professional robbers and have served jail terms in the past.

"Nitesh has a complete idea of gold, silver and diamond jewellery. He is also a smack addict. He made a plan a month ago and did the recee twice before executing the crime," Dhillon said.

The accused committed the robbery in a successful manner but when they were fleeing from the spot, alert traders of Bakarganj pelted stones and bricks on them, lead to Rajesh Rai being injured and overpowered. He was later on handed over to the police.

"The accused were hiding in their native places in Jehanabad. We have conducted simultaneous raids at their hideouts and arrested them. The SIT, formed for the purpose, recovered 9 kg gold and Rs 4.32 lakh cash from their possession. Besides, we have also recovered a Toyota Fortuner, 5 bikes, two pistols, one country made Katta, several live cartridges and mobile phones," Dhillon said.

Victim Vijay Prasad, the owner of the SS Jewellers, had earlier claimed that they took away 35 kg gold, silver and diamond jewellery apart from Rs 14 lakh cash.
Hyderabad, Jan 24 : Cyber criminals hacked the serves of the A.P. Mahesh Cooperative Urban Bank and allegedly transferred over Rs 12 crore to different accounts.

The cyber crime wing of Hyderabad police registered a case and took up investigation on Monday after the bank officials lodged a complaint.

Some persons hacked into the servers of the bank and transferred the huge amounts to about 100 different bank accounts.

The bank officials lodged a complaint with the police after the fraud came to light during internal verification.

A police team visited the main branch of the bank to launch the probe. The team gathered details of the cyber security system of the bank.

This is said to be first such e-fraud targeting a bank in the city.

With its headquarters in Hyderabad, Mahesh Bank has 45 branches across four states.

In 2018, hackers had siphoned off Rs 94 crore from Pune-based Cosmos Bank, India's second largest cooperative bank, by cloning thousands of credit cards.

--IANS ms/arm

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New Delhi, Jan 24 : Exports of engineering goods jumped to $81.8 billion during April-December 2021 (Provisional) as compared to $52.9 billion during the same period in the previous year (2020), registering a stupendous growth of 54 per cent.

Engineering goods sector constituted the largest -- over 27 per cent -- share of India's total exports basket during the period. In December 2021, exports of engineering goods touched $9.79 billion, registering a growth of 38.41 per cent over $7.07 bn logged in December 2020.

As compared to April-December 2019 ($59.8 Billion), exports of engineering goods registered a growth of 37 per cent while this represents a growth of 49 per cent compared to April-December 2014 ($55.0 Billion).

The overall exports of engineering goods in the last financial year (March 2020-April 2021) was $76.62 billion, and with the sector already logging $81.8 billion in the first three quarters of FY2021-22, it is set to scale further record highs despite the impact of the Covid19 pandemic since January 2020.

India's top five export destinations for the engineering goods in April-November 2021 are: the US (14.7 per cent), China (5.8 per cent), the UAE (5.1 per cent), Italy (4 per cent) & Germany (3.4 per cent).

The impressive growth in engineering goods exports in recent years has largely been due to the zero duty Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and forms part of the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP).

The present Policy which came into force on April 1, 2015, was for 5 years with validity upto March 31, 2020. In order to provide policy stability during the pandemic period, FTP 2015-20 was extended up to March 31, 2022.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Amaravati, Jan 24 : The government employees in Andhra Pradesh on Monday served a notice on the state government that they will be going on indefinite strike from February 7 to demand rollback of a Government Order relating to pay revision.

Leaders of the PRC Sadhana Samithi, a body comprising various employees' unions, submitted the notice to Principal Secretary, General Administration, Shashibhushan Kumar as Chief Secretary Samir Sharma was away in Delhi.

A 20-member steering committee of PRC Sadhana Samithi reached the state secretariat and submitted the notice to the official stating that the employees will go on leave from midnight of February 6.

The leaders alleged that the Government Order (GO) on pay revision was issued without taking the views of the employees. They said the implementation of GO will result in loss to the employees, teachers, and pensioners.

The government official informed the leaders that the government has constituted a committee to hold talks with them. He handed over a GO in this regard.

The committee comprises ministers Botsa Satyanarayana, Perni Nani, Buggana Rajendra Prasad and government advisor Sajjala Ramakrishna Reddy. The Chief Secretary will be the member convenor.

However, leaders of employees' unions made it clear that they have two pre-conditions for talks - they should be given report of Pay Revision Commission (PRC) and salary for current month be paid as per previous pay scales.

Earlier, the government had invited the employees' unions for talks and the committee waited for the union leaders. However, the unions rejected the invitation for talks.

The employees say that there will be downward revision in their salaries under the new pay scale implemented as per the GO issued recently. They have been protesting for more than a week to demand the government to withdraw the GO.

PRC Sadhana Samithi leaders told reporters after submitting strike notice that the government should not dismiss their protest as insignificant. They pointed out that 13 lakh employees and pensioners will go on strike.

AP NGOs Association president Bandi Srinivasa Rao alleged that the treasury employees are being pressurised to pay salaries as per new PRC and wondered why the government was acting in hasty manner.

Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had announced 23 per cent pay revision earlier this month. A GO issued to implement the same sparked protest by employees who alleged that revised pay scales would result in reduction of their present salaries.

The employees' unions are demanding that the government pay their salaries as per 27 per cent interim relief which was announced pending implementation of the new PRC report.

However, the government maintains that there will not be downward revision of salaries. It claimed that with the payment of DA arrears since 2019, the gross salary will go up.
Agartala, Jan 24 : A final year student pursuing B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Information Technology-Agartala (IIIT-Agartala), has bagged Rs 1.15 crore package per annum offer from e-commerce giant Amazon, sources said on Monday.

National Institute of Technology-Agartala (NIT-Agartala) Assistant Professor Rajib Mallik said that Subham Raj, who has bagged the offer from Amazon with an annual Package of 1.3 lakh euros (Rs 1.15 crore), would join Amazon's Berlin office in September this year as a Software Development Engineer.

A student of the first batch of the institute, Subham, a resident of Kunj Vihar, Argora, Ranchi, is currently an eighth semester B.Tech student of IIIT-Agartala, which is currently under the mentorship of the NIT-Agartala.

Subham, 21, who previously did an internship in Google in 2021, was also selected in Global Competitive drive conducted by Google, Mallik told IANS.

He said that the entire fraternity of IIIT-Agartala and NIT-Agartala is proud of Subham's success.

The students of IIIT-Agartala for the academic year 2021-22 received an average annual cost offer of Rs 22 lakh.

The IIIT-Agartala was set up in 2018 in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model in accordance with the IIIT Act passed by the then Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Education Ministry) in 2014.

The IIIT-Agartala, which currently offers only B.Tech programme in Computer Science and Engineering, shares and uses the infrastructure, faculties and curriculum of the NIT-Agartala.

Mallik said that the Centre for Career Development of NIT-Agartala arranges internships and placement for IIIT-Agartala students and conducts many online workshops, webinars, mock-training and mock interviews through online mode and virtual mode.
New Delhi, Jan 24 : The Parliament will function in two shifts during the Budget Session from February under which the Rajya Sabha will function from 10 am to 3 pm, and the Lok Sabha from 4 pm to 9 pm, owing to the prevailing Covid situation.

The Budget Session will be held in two parts this year, from January 31 to February 11 and from March 14 to April 8. The Union Budget for FY23 will be tabled in the Parliament on February 1.

All Covid protocols will be in place in the Parliament to prevent the outbreak of the disease.

As per the schedule, President Ram Nath Kovind will address the joint sitting of the two Houses at 11 am on January 31.

"During the sittings from 31.1.2022 to 11.2.2022, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha chambers and their galleries will be used for sitting of members in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic," said a bulletin.

The bulletin said that members should arrive at the Parliament by 10.30 am on January 31 in order to obviate any inconvenience.

The President will arrive at the Central Hall of the Parliament at 10.55 am along with the Chairman of Rajya Sabha, Prime Minister, Speaker of Lok Sabha and the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs.

Seating arrangements for members have been made in the Central Hall, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha chambers and their galleries.

On Sunday, Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu tested positive for Covid-19.

The Secretary Generals of both the Houses have been instructed to suggest measures for the safe conduct of the upcoming Budget Session.

Sources said that over 700 Parliament staff have tested positive for Covid till now during random testing.

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Patna, Jan 24 : Thousands of aspiring candidates of the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) blocked the Kolkata-New Delhi main railway line at Rajendra Nagar terminal in Patna and Arrah district on Monday evening to protest its move to have two exams.

The agitating students went on the tracks and stopped the passage of various trains including Rajendra Nagar-New Delhi Tejas Rajdhani express, the Sampoorna Kranti express, South Bihar express and many more. A large number of trains were diverted towards Gaya and Patliputra rail sections to go towards Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati and other parts of north Bihar.

"There was only one examination mentioned in the RRB notification 2019. Now, RRB has issued fresh notifications where it mentioned two examinations. Many of the selected candidates are disqualified in the second examination. This is complete cheating by RRB. Its officials are playing with the futures of the students," said Randhir Sahay, a student, protesting at Rajendra Nagar Terminal, Patna.

Another student Rohan Rajput said: "We will not vacate railway tracks unless and until the Railway Minister announces one examination for Group-D." Due to massive protests, a large number of police of Patna and Bhojpur reached at Rajendra Nagar Terminal and Arrah junction respectively and carried out a baton-charge to disperse the protesters. They also fired tear shells. Still, the aspirants sat on the track and had not left till late evening.

Patna District Magistrate Chandrashekher Singh said: "The students are sitting on the tracks in large numbers. We are trying to convince them. As they are in large numbers, they are unfortunatelyleaderless. Hence, if we talk to a group of students, others start protesting against them. We have informed senior officials of the railway. They are on the way to address the issue they have." "As a precaution, SSP Patna and myself are keeping an eye on the developments. This is the main route of Kolkata-New Delhi rail section. We are trying to convince them and remove them from the track so that passengers who are suffering from it, would get relieved," he added.
Chandigarh, Jan 24 : An alleged sacrilege attempt was made at the historic temple in Patiala on Monday and the perpetrator has been arrested, police said.

The accused has been identified as Rajdeep Singh.

Senior Superintendent of Police Sandeep Garg told that the media the accused was arrested and additional police has been deployed at the spot.

The entire incident was caught on a CCTV and its footage has gone viral. In the video, a masked man was seen trying to deface the idol. The man was pushed aside by the priest, preventing the accused from commiting the crime.

Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, in a tweet, said: "Some vested interests are continuously trying to destabilise the social harmony of Punjab on the eve of the upcoming elections, but I will not let them be succeed in their malicious motives."
New Delhi, Jan 24 : Design training for Molela artisans in Rajasthan's Rajsamand, skill training for Muga Silk weavers from Assam's Kamrup, and sustained year-year trade facilitation of Lakadong turmeric from Meghalya's West Jaintia Hills have the same bedrock of economic empowerment through trade facilitation, capacity building, and product development, thanks to the Centre and state government concerned's collaboration in promoting products under the One District One Product (ODOP) initiative.

ODOP's work in e-commerce onboarding and its close association with large e-commerce players to support rural artisans in leveraging web-based sales through dedicated storefronts and the promotion of ODOP products from across districts and categories at international events such as the Dubai Expo 2020 was discussed at the conference organised by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry's Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.

The initiative's work in Jammu and Kashmir, especially its successes in trade facilitation for walnuts and apples, was discussed. Facilitation of Jammu and Kashmir's representation at the Dubai Expo 2020 and successful buyer-seller meets as well as focused trade discussions conducted therein were also highlighted. The rest of the states would also soon be facilitated to participate in events at an international level, said the UT's Principal Secretary, Industries, Ranjan Prakash Thakur while presenting a report, 'Changing Narratives for the Manufacturing Sector in Jammu and Kashmir'.

Uttar Pradesh presented the success of its model wherein artisans and producers from all districts have been promoted and assisted under the programme. UP provides a template for states to successfully implement and take forward the goal of creating each district as a hub for economic development through the product synonymous with it, Additional Chief Secretary, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Export Promotion, Navneet Sehgal, said.

Tripura outlined a roadmap for promoting remote districts and boosting the local economy and focussed on successful collaboration between the state government and the ODOP team thus far, and the next steps that would be taken to promote product development and exports from all its eight districts, Tripura's Additional Director, Industries and Commerce, Swapna Debnath, said.
Guwahati, Jan 24 : Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio on Monday said that the Special Investigation Team (SIT), set up by state government to probe the killing of 14 people in December in Mon district, is waiting for the requisite reports from the Central Forensics Science Laboratory (CFSL).

He said that the SIT has completed the probe but without the CFSL report, the findings would not be completed as the CFSL report would be a good evidence and scientific proof to the December 4 and 5 incidents to proceed further.

"Various organisations demand several issues and in democracy, they can do so but the government would also do whatever it deems necessary," Rio told the media in Guwahati referring to the demands of various Naga organisations.

The 22-member SIT, which had conducted the probe under the overall supervision of Additional Director General of Police, Law and Order, Sandeep M. Tamgadge, has submitted its preliminary report and would place the final report once it gets reports from the CFSL.

The one-month investigation timeline of the SIT ended on January 5.

Several Naga organisations including Eastern Nagaland People's Organisation, All Naga Students' Association, United Naga Council, have called for a Republic Day boycott alleging delay in delivering justice to the Mon district victims.

Almost all political parties and Naga organisations in Nagaland have been demanding repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) and demanded the government to make the SIT's report public.
Tehran, Jan 25 : Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman has ruled out the possibility of an "interim deal" in ongoing nuclear talks between Iran and the world powers in Austria's capital Vienna.

"Iran is looking for a stable and reliable agreement and will not accept anything less than that. The quality of the agreement is important to us, nothing less and nothing more," Saeed Khatibzadeh made the remarks on Monday in his weekly press conference.

"An interim agreement has never been on Iran's agenda, and we have a serious need to reach a qualitative and substantive agreement, and I hope Washington has realised this," he said, adding "obtaining guarantees is very important" to reach a stable and reliable agreement, Xinhua news agency reported.

Commenting on the status of the talks in Vienna aimed at removing anti-Iran sanctions and restoration of 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he said "good progress" has been made in some areas, and it is important that all parties in Vienna have agreed that the US should not leave a possible agreement again.

The JCPOA was signed between Iran and the world powers in July 2015. However, the US government under former President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed its unilateral sanctions on Iran.

In the current talks in Vienna since April 2021, Iran has insisted on obtaining guarantees that the succeeding US governments would not drop the deal again.
London, Jan 25 : WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has won permission from a court in London to appeal against his extradition from the United Kingdom (UK) to the US, where he faces espionage charges.

The High Court in London decided on Monday that Assange had an arguable point of law that UK Supreme Court justices may want to consider, Xinhua news agency reported.

However, the High Court refused him permission for a direct appeal, meaning the Supreme Court will first have to decide whether it should hear his challenge.

Assange's lawyers now have 14 days to prepare the application to the Supreme Court.

In December 2021, the High Court ruled that Assange can be extradited, as it overturned an earlier judgment based on concerns about Assange's mental health and risk of suicide in a maximum-security prison in the US.

Assange, 50, is wanted in the US on allegations of disclosing national defense information following WikiLeaks's publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked military documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars a decade ago.

He has been held at south London's high-security Belmarsh Prison since 2019.
Kolkata, Jan 25 : Within 24 hours after sending showcause letters to two BJP leaders in West Bengal -- Joy Prakash Majumdar and Ritesh Tiwari -- the saffron party has suspended them temporarily.

In a letter issued by the Office Secretary Pranmoy Roy, it has been said that as part of disciplinary action the BJP has temporarily suspended both the leaders.

The saffron party is conducting an enquiry and both the leaders will remain suspended till the enquiry is over. The two leaders were indulging in anti-party activities publicly.

Though, there was no immediate reaction available from the BJP regarding the suspension of the leaders, sources in the party said that the action was taken on the direction of West Bengal BJP President Sukanta Majumdar.

The party state unit has taken the permission of the central leadership before initiating action against the two leaders.

The letter of suspension comes after Joy Prakash Mujumdar met Union Minister of State for Port, Shipping and Waterways, Shantanu Thakur just after the showcause letter was given to the former and had a meeting with the latter for more than three hours. This didn't go down well with the top leaders of the state BJP unit.

It was even more surprising because the party had given both the leaders a time of 15 days for their reply to the showcause letter but within 24 hours they were suspended. The party didn't even wait for their reply.

On Sunday, the party gave showcause letters to two long-time leaders of BJP -- Majumdar and Tiwari -- for giving anti-party statements for the last few days. This was considered to be a serious breach of discipline. The two leaders were asked to reason why action will not be taken against them.

The letter comes few days after Union MoS Shantanu Thakur had a meeting with the disgruntled BJP leaders of the state, including two party MLAs -- Subrata Thakur and Ashok Kirtania -- and Sayantan Basu, who has recently lost the post of party's State General Secretary.

The meeting was also attended by Joy Prakash Majumdar -- one of the prominent faces in Bengal BJP, who has been demoted to a spokesperson from the party's State unit Vice-President, is also present in the meeting. Apart from that, three prominent leaders of the state BJP -- Ritesh Tiwari, Tushar Mukhopadhyay and Debashis Mitra have joined the meeting.

Just after the meeting, BJP State General Secretary (organisation), Amitava Chakraborty had filed a complaint with the central leadership against 10 rebel leaders for indulging in anti-party activities and breaking the basic protocol and discipline of the party.

Sources in the BJP had said that the central leadership also assured the party state unit that the matter will be taken up with all seriousness.
Rome, Jan 25 : Italy's Parliament gathered in a joint session of both houses for the first round of voting to elect the country's new President to replace Sergio Mattarella, whose term will end on February 3.

A total of 1,008 "grand electors" are set to choose the next Head of state, including all the members of the Parliament plus 58 representatives chosen by regional councils, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Italian constitution requires a majority of two-thirds in the first three rounds of voting, followed by a simple majority, or at least 505 votes, from the fourth one. One ballot a day will take place from Monday.

No clear name is in sight so far. While former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday withdrew his candidature, current Prime Minister Mario Draghi has been repeatedly named as a possible contender.

Draghi has repeatedly refused to say clearly whether he would be available to take the job.

The next one will be the 13th President of the Italian Republic. It is a figure that traditionally plays a ceremonial and balancing role in the country, although the President presides over the Superior Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Council of Defence.

Yet, the Head of state directly enters into the political playground in case of broad instability, tasked with helping solve major deadlocks between the government and the Parliament.

The President selects a new Prime Minister candidate, when the cabinet loses the confidence of the chambers and resigns; and in case of no agreement among members of Parliament on a new Executive, the President would dissolve the Parliament and call for new general elections.

For these reasons, the President is usually chosen among figures that all political forces perceive as non-partisan, but at the same time someone with broad political experience and deep knowledge of the constitution.

The election has been preceded by intense talks between the country's two main political blocks in Parliament, the center-left led by the Five Star Movement and Democratic Party and the center-right led by the right-wing League and Berlusconi's Forza Italia party.

The process is being followed attentively by Italian media and people as usual, and there might be additional reasons for that this time.

Mattarella has in fact played a visible role at social level in the last two years, dispensing reassuring messages that helped the country navigate through the difficult pandemic phase.

Secondly, the next elections to renew the Parliament and therefore form the new government are scheduled in spring 2023. In case Draghi will move to the Quirinale presidential palace, early elections might be called one year ahead of the natural end of the legislature.
Ouagadougou, Jan 25 : Burkina Faso President, Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained overnight by mutinous soldiers, local media has reported.

"President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained by soldiers," local radio Omega FM reported on Monday.

"The President was taken to a military camp following the mutiny," a security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

On Sunday, a country-wide curfew was imposed in Burkina Faso, following reports of gunfire in some barracks in the morning, according to a decree signed by President Kabore, Xinhua news agency reported.

Another statement, from the Minister of National Education, announced the closure of schools on Monday and Tuesday.

Gunshots were heard early Sunday morning in barracks in the capital Ouagadougou and other cities. The government confirmed the gunfire but denied reports on social media about an army takeover.

Also on Sunday, Defense Minister General Barthelemy Simpore said on state television that the situation was under control, and rejected reports as rumors that President Kabore had been detained by soldiers.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has called for calm and reaffirmed its support for President Kabore.
Copenhagen, Jan 25 : Two years after the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe and central Asia, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the region could be "entering a new phase in the pandemic with plausible hope for stabilisation." "The pandemic is far from over, but I am hopeful we can end the emergency phase in 2022 and address other health threats that urgently require our attention," WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge said in a statement on Monday.

Nevertheless, he warned in the statement that "it is far too early to relax" because new Covid-19 variants are almost certain to emerge, Xinhua news agency reported.

"With the millions of infections occurring in the world in recent and coming weeks, coupled with waning immunity and winter seasonality, it is almost a given that new Covid-19 variants will emerge and return," he added.

The WHO official elaborated by noting the challenges variants have caused, such as "the highly transmissible Omicron variant sweeping the region, from west to east." "Omicron is displacing Delta with unprecedented speed. Less than two months since it was first discovered in South Africa, it now accounts for 31.8 per cent of cases across the European Region, up from 15 per cent the previous week, and 6.3 per cent the week before that." While the Omicron variant "appears to cause much less severe disease than Delta," Kluge said that the region is "still seeing a rapid rise in hospitalisations due to the sheer number of infections," noting that most people needing intensive care across the region, as predicted, are unvaccinated.

"The unacceptable human cost we know: every single hour since the pandemic's onset, 99 people in the Region have lost their lives to Covid-19. We mourn the more than 1.7 million people in the European Region who are no longer with us," he added.

Although more than 1.4 billion vaccine doses have been administered in the region, Kluge said "huge disparities in access to vaccines remain." "If 2021 was the year of vaccine production, 2022 must be the year of vaccine equity in the European region and beyond. Too many people who need the vaccine remain unvaccinated. This is helping to drive transmission, prolonging the pandemic and increasing the likelihood of new variants," he added.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)

-- Except for the title, this story has not been edited by Prokerala team and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed
NAIROBI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Provision of basic education and life-long learning to African children and youth is facing new headwinds linked to COVID-19, inadequate financing and shortage of tutors, says a report launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Monday.

The sub-Saharan African region has fallen short of commitment to achieve universal school enrollment and lags behind other regions in attainment of universal education targets, said the report, "National SDG4 benchmarks: fulfilling our commitment," which was launched on the World Education Day.

SDG4 stands for Sustainable Development Goal 4, one of 17 goals set under the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It aims to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all."

The UNESCO report said that other parts of the world, except sub-Saharan Africa, are on course to meeting their universal primary education goal thanks to supportive policies, investments in teacher training and modern learning facilities.

"Challenges will remain in sub-Saharan Africa, where 8 percent of primary school-age children are still predicted to be out of school in 2030, down from 19 percent currently," the report said.

It said that sub-Saharan Africa, northern Africa and western Asia could miss the universal early childhood education target, given the shortage of trained teachers.

The UNESCO report said over a quarter of preschool teachers in sub-Saharan Africa will remain untrained by 2030, even as other regions achieve over 90 percent target in terms of population of trained pre-primary level tutors.

On a positive note, the report said the sub-Saharan African region is expected to reduce the rate of out-of-school upper secondary age youth from 47 percent to 31 percent by 2030, as governments allocate more funding toward post-primary education.

It said the continent should pay attention to key indicators like early childhood education attendance, out-of-school rates, completion rates, gender parity in school enrollment, proficiency in mathematics and reading, financing and teacher training as a prerequisite to achieve education-for-all goals. 
Beirut, Jan 25 : Lebanon's Foreign Ministry has condemned Yemeni Houthi militia's missile attacks on the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a statement on Monday, the Ministry expressed Lebanon's "solidarity with the brotherly UAE leadership and people, in the face of any attack on its sovereignty, security, stability and territorial integrity." On Monday, the UAE Ministry of Defense announced that its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthi militia aimed against the UAE. No casualties were reported as a result of the attack, Xinhua news agency reported.

Soon after the attacks, the UAE Ministry announced that a ballistic missile launcher in Yemen's Al Jawf governorate was destroyed.

The latest exchange of fire came after a Houthi attack on the UAE on January 17, during which three petroleum tankers burst into a fire near Abu Dhabi National Oil Company storage facilities in the UAE capital. Three persons were killed and six others injured in the attack.

The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the January 17 attack in the UAE, an active member of the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen.
Kiev, Jan 25 : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has welcomed the decision of the European Union (EU) to approve 1.2 billion euros (about $1.36 billion) macro-financial assistance to Ukraine.

"The EU once again demonstrates its firm support for Ukraine," Zelensky tweeted on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen announced the new financial assistance package to Ukraine, saying it will help the Eastern European country to address its financing needs, Xinhua news agency reported.

Soon, the EU will start work on another longer-term macro-financial assistance program to support Ukraine's modernisation efforts, said von der Leyen.
United Nations : , Jan 25 (IANS) UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres has told the international community to rally around education as a top political priority for the recovery and beyond.

"I call on everyone to unite around education as a public good and a top political priority for the recovery and beyond," the UN Chief said in his video message for the International Day of Education, which falls on Monday.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused chaos in education worldwide, said the Secretary-General.

"Some 1.6 billion school and college students had their studies interrupted at the peak of the pandemic -- and it's not over yet." He added that school closures continue to disrupt the lives of over 31 million students, exacerbating a global learning crisis, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Unless we take action, the share of children leaving school in developing countries who are unable to read could increase from 53 to 70 per cent," he said.

"Education is a preeminent public good, and an essential enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Guterres said, adding that "the international community cannot afford to be agnostic about its provision, quality and relevance." The International Day of Education, which came into existence on December 3, 2018, following an UN General Assembly resolution, is celebrated annually on January 24 for the role of education in bringing global peace and sustainable development.
Yangon, Jan 25 : Myanmar recorded 37 more Covid-19 cases of the Omicron variant, bringing the total tally of confirmed Omicron cases to 183, according to a release from its Ministry of Health.

The release said on Monday, the Omicron variant was found in 36 Myanmar nationals and one foreigner who recently arrived in Myanmar by relief flights, Xinhua news agency reported.

Out of the returnees infected with the Omicron variant, 15 were from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), seven from Malaysia, six from India, four from South Korea, three from Singapore and one each from Thailand and Russia, the Ministry said.

According to figures released by the Ministry on Monday, Covid-19 infections have increased to 534,163 in Myanmar with 92 new cases confirmed in the past 24 hours.

No new deaths from Covid-19 were reported in the Southeast Asian country on Monday, leaving the death toll at 19,310.

The Health Ministry said an additional 130 recovered patients have been discharged from hospitals, bringing the total number of recoveries from the pandemic to 512,331 in the country.

Latest updates on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Tripoli, Jan 25 : The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has said that more than 600 illegal immigrants were rescued off the Libyan coast and returned to Libya in the past week.

According to the IOM on Monday, 604 migrants were rescued or intercepted at sea and returned to Libya between January 16 and 22.

The United Nations agency reported that 12 illegal immigrants died and 16 others went missing off the coast of Libya on the Central Mediterranean route in the past week, Xinhua news agency reported.

In 2021, a total of 32,425 illegal immigrants were rescued and returned to Libya, while 662 died and 891 others went missing off the Libyan coast on the Central Mediterranean route, the agency revealed.

Since the fall of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the North African country has become a preferred point of departure for illegal immigrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European shores.
Real estate technology company, Hauskey, has launched its digital marketplace for off-plan properties in the UK, following its recent launch into the US and Canada.

The company operates a digital-first business model that allows buyers  both investors and homebuyers - to search for properties, and works with property developers such as Alliance Investments, Salboy, X1 Developments and Beech Holdings.

Hauskey has properties available to purchase across the UK including areas in the North West, East Midlands, South East and North East and says it plans to expand further. The firm also offers buyers the ability to purchase property using cryptocurrencies.

Neel Kawale, Co-Founder and CEO of Hauskey Inc, said: We are excited to expand our services to property developers, investors and buyers across the pond. The UK has seen rapid growth in residential development and it is certainly an exciting time to bring our experience and expertise to this promising market.

Ronald Garrett, Managing Director of Alliance Investments, said: We are delighted to be working with Hauskey - a like-minded partner that shares our vision and commitment to providing high-quality properties across the nation. Hauskey offers a unique proposition for investors and buyers alike, and this is something that is totally new to the UK market.
"With this experienced management team in place to lead our Editorial, Production, Journal, and Customer Service teams into the next chapter of Westchester Publishing Services history, I look forward to continued success for our company. Paul J. Crecca, President and CEO

Westchester Publishing Services has announced several key promotions and appointments to the senior management team, effective immediately.

Terry Colosimo has been appointed to the newly created position of Vice President, Editorial Services, taking the reins from Susan Baker who led Editorial Services for 20 years, until her retirement in December 2021. Scott Keeney has been promoted to Director of Production and Customer Service, stepping into the role previously held by Terry Colosimo. Celeste Bilyard has been named Director of Journal Services, overseeing services provided to one of Westchesters most important journal clients, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. All three will report to Paul J. Crecca, President & Chief Executive Officer of Westchester Publishing Services.

Additionally, Wendy Muto has been promoted to the position of Director, Editorial Services, reporting to Terry Colosimo.

Terry, Scott, Celeste, and Wendy have been with Westchester Publishing Services from a minimum of twelve to more than twenty years, and collectively possess more than a century of publishing industry expertise.

Deb Taylor, Director of Business Development and Marketing, who joined the company in September 2021 and also reports to Paul J, Crecca, will work closely with the expanded management team and across the company. She will be focused on identifying company-wide growth and technology advancements that best support the evolving pre-press and digital production needs of Westchesters publishing industry clients.

In announcing the expansion of the management team, Paul J. Crecca stated, It gives me great pleasure to recognize the significant contributions that Terry, Scott, Celeste, and Wendy have made throughout all areas of our employee-owned business. All four of these publishing professionals have consistently demonstrated a thorough understanding and commitment to Westchesters clients and staff. The pandemic has presented our company with a variety of never before experienced challenges requiring carefully considered decisions that balance the needs of both our clients and our global operations teams. Due to their adept capability, we were able to effectively and quickly transition our global editorial and production services staff to a primarily remote-based operational model. Using this approach, Westchester has successfully provided a safe working environment for our employees, while also offering an expanded range of pre-press services solutions that address the evolving needs of our nearly 400 publisher and content provider clients. With this experienced management team in place to lead our Editorial Services, Production Services, Journal Services, and Customer Services teams into the next chapter of Westchesters history, I look forward to continued success for our company.

Within Westchesters sales and marketing operation, Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer, announced that Hugh M. Shiebler, a sales professional with more than three decades of publishing industry experience has joined the company as the Director of Client Solutions. Im excited to welcome Hugh to the Westchester sales team. The extensive experience he brings to this role, along with a deep understanding of the academic publishing, university press, industry trade publishing, journal publications, and policy group spaces will prove to be a valuable asset for our clients when calibrating the customized services that are best suited to their publication projects, Carey shared.

# # #

About Westchester Publishing Services:

Westchester Publishing Services was founded in 1969 and is a trusted partner to the publishing industry, with an expanding array of editorial, composition, design, and digital conversion services. The company supports clients in trade publishing, university press, academic publishing, industry trade publishing, and policy group spaces among others, including Macmillan, Harvard University Press, The MIT Press, Fastcase, Bloomsbury, and Legend Times Group. Westchester Publishing Services became a US employee-owned company through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in 2014. Since that time, Westchester Publishing Services has launched Westchester Education Services, based in Dayton, Ohio, to serve the needs of educational publishers and ed tech providers, as well as Westchester Publishing Services UK, based in Stratford upon Avon, to provide added services for publishers in the United Kingdom and Europe. In 2021, Westchester Publishing Services, UK acquired River Editorial based in Devon, UK, to offer bespoke editorial services for clients in the United Kingdom and Europe. Westchester Education UK and International, also based in Stratford upon Avon supports our education and ed tech clients located outside the Americas region with market-specific education content development services.

Inquiries about new product or service offerings should be submitted to Deb Taylor, Director of Business Development and Marketing at: 203-448-2280 or deb.taylor@westchesterpubsvcs.com

Additional questions should be sent to: Nicole Tomassi, Marketing and Conference Manager at: 203-658-7135 or nicole.tomassi@westchesterpubsvcs.com. Further information is also available at: http://www.westchesterpublishingservices.com.
Handtevy, the leader in pediatric resuscitation systems with electronic, equipment and education solutions, continues to grow its executive team as the company scales. With clientele serving all 50 states, including some of the most prestigious hospitals, air medical units, and EMS agencies anywhere, Handtevy is proud to announce the addition of Brett Cross as Vice President of Education. Brett will help further Handtevys mission of improving the care for critically ill and injured children by expanding its national footprint and continuing to build upon its educational offerings.

Brett will be leading Handtevys Education Division, including direct EMS agency training, online education programs, as well as the nationwide cadre of Handtevy Certified Trainers. Handtevys nationally accredited education program has helped accredit countless EMTs and paramedics throughout the United States, and with Bretts leadership this footprint will continue to expand.

Brett joins Handtevy after working for the Utah Department of Health where he was a Director in the Bureau of EMS. In his role with the State Brett was responsible for trauma, stroke, STEMI, cardiac arrest, Emergency Medical Services for Children, performance improvement, and EMS education programs  a perfect fit for his new role with Handtevy. During the COVID-19 pandemic Brett served as the Medical Surge Branch Director for the State of Utah.

Im excited to take on this role at Handtevy after seeing the impact it had throughout the State of Utah. Paramedics and EMTs need best in class education combined with state-of-the-art technologies which is exactly what Handtevy offers.

Brett will continue working clinically in a part time role as a flight paramedic for Classic Air Medical, and as a firefighter/paramedic for North Fork Fire Department. He will also continue to serve as the Team Commander for the UT-1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team, a federal medical asset that responds to disasters and provides medical care in affected communities. Brett also volunteers as a member of the Education Committee for NAEMT and participates in other EMS committees, associations, and boards that advance the prehospital provider profession. He holds a bachelors degree in Emergency Services Administration and a masters degree in Public Administration. Brett is a combat veteran having spent nine years in the Army National Guard as a medic and completed a combat tour in Afghanistan.

About Handtevy:

Handtevy was founded by Peter Antevy, MD, a nationally recognized expert in the field of pre-hospital pediatrics. He is passionate about improving both adult and pediatric pre-hospital care and evaluating and improving upon currently accepted medical practice. He is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician at Joe DiMaggio Childrens Hospital and serves as the EMS Medical Director for Davie Fire-Rescue, Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department, Southwest Ranches Fire Rescue, and United Medical Transport. Dr. Antevy is also the Associate Medical Director for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue and serves as the President of the Greater Broward EMS Medical Directors Association, an organization whose providers serve the 1.5 million residents of Broward County, Florida. For his efforts, Dr. Antevy was awarded the prestigious Raymond H. Alexander EMS Medical Director of the Year Award in 2014 and in 2018 he was named National EMS Medical Director by the NAEMT. He also was honored as one of the 2015 Top Ten Innovators in EMS by JEMS.

For more information on the Handtevy System contact mailto:info@handtevy.com [info@handtevy.com __title__ null] or visit http://www.Handtevy.com
"Our new online identity reflects our values, showcases our capabilities, and allows our clients to fully understand who we are as an organization." - New Era Wellness Provider, Myrtis Agen-Davis, FNP

New Era Wellness, a Maryland based healthcare service provider announced an online brand refresh. They unveiled a new website to reflect the organizations wide range of services and to showcase their core values.

The New Era Wellness team of expert staff have assisted to provide primary healthcare services to the Maryland area. Their mission is to provide quality healthcare in the home, office, or assisted living facility while committing to excellence in everything they do. New Era Wellness is most notably known for assisting with hundreds of MMCC applications and completing multiple medical visits in the home and office.

Our organization has excelled well beyond what our online identity depicts. We invested considerable time searching for a marketing firm that aligned with our core values, and one with a proven track record. After meeting with CC&A Strategic Media we quickly realized their team could help us achieve our goals. Our new online identity reflects our values, showcases our capabilities, and allows our clients to fully understand who we are as an organization. We couldnt be more pleased with the outcome of this project. said New Era Wellness Provider, Myrtis Agen-Davis, FNP.

New Era Wellnesss expertise and team of dedicated staff are committed to their mission of pursuing health and wellness in the community. The New Era Wellness team has left their mark throughout the region by offering DOT examinations, primary care in the home or assisted living, medical cannabis recommendations, and medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorder.

New Era Wellness is an organization dedicated to excellence. After our first interactions we quickly realized the level of expertise within their organization is unmatched. While working through the process of building a new online identity, we experienced firsthand their extensiveness knowledge and capabilities. It is extremely impressive to see their success, and I have no doubt that success will continue for many years to come. Stephen Taormino  CEO of CC&A Strategic Media

For more information, visit http://www.newerawellnesshealth.com. Please direct all media inquiries and requests to Lauren Aversa at 410-931-6717 or by email at LAversa@cca-mail.com.
Our mission is to provide a convenient and comfortable way to sell your car, without the need for you to ever set foot in a dealership

A new tech startup is changing the way people sell their cars. The company, BestBid, is on a mission to provide an easy and convenient way for vehicle owners to sell their used cars for maximum value. The process is as simple as filling out an online application, receiving a real offer, then waiting for a BestBid representative to come to pick up your vehicle and hand you your payment

The company held a soft launch in November of last year and expanded its coverage starting in early January. Though currently active only in Southern California, BestBid plans to extend its services to encompass the entire United States by the end of this year.

We started BestBid to offer folks a better way to sell their vehicle, comments Tania Hernandez, the Chief Executive Officer of BestBid. Our mission is to provide a convenient and comfortable way to sell your car, without the need for you to ever set foot in a dealership.

Those looking to sell can visit the BestBid website where they can fill out a short application, sharing some basic details about their car. BestBids team sends back a real offer within just a few minutes. There is no obligation for vehicle owners to accept this offer, but if they do, they can then arrange to have the car picked up at a convenient time. BestBid provides quick payments, often providing them on the day the offer is accepted. The company buys all makes and models and offers optimal value for each one.

For anyone who has wanted a simple, headache-free way to sell their vehicle, were here for you, concludes Hernandez.

More information about BestBid is available at https://bestbidag.com. Those who wish to receive a personalized offer are encouraged to visit https://bestbidag.com/getmyoffer.

ABOUT:

BestBid Auto Group, LLC provides a convenient and comfortable way for vehicle owners to sell their used car, without the need to ever set foot in a dealership. More information about the company can be found at http://bestbidag.com. BestBid Auto Group may be reached at 18021 Sky Park Circle # J2. Irvine, CA 92614, or 949-822-9910.
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- China has seen a significant decline in ivory smuggling, as efforts to clamp down on the practice intensified, the General Administration of Customs (GAC) said Monday.

The total volume of seized ivory products plunged to 68 kg last year from 9.2 tonnes in 2019, Ni Yuefeng, head of the GAC, said at a work conference.

Ni said the customs authorities had always prioritized the fight against the smuggling of solid wastes from overseas, endangered species and their products, frozen commodities, refined oil products and narcotics.

In 2021, the customs investigated 4,259 criminal cases of smuggling, 23,294 cases involving smuggling practice, and 52,542 cases of irregularities and other violations.

China has also seen a sharp decline in the illegal import of wastes, as attested by the United Nations awarding the country the Asia Environment Enforcement Award for the fourth time in 2021, Ni said.

Last year, Chinese customs seized 42,000 tonnes of smuggled foreign wastes, down 97.4 percent from the previous year, according to the GAC.

Once the world's biggest recipient of overseas trash, starting in 2021, China banned imports of all solid wastes, the pinnacle of efforts to phase out the practice as the country shifts toward a greener model. 
School Bus Logistics, LLC, the leader in logistics consulting and support to school districts across North America, has added four new team members. Established in 2010, School Bus Logistics (SBL) has helped school districts optimize routing to aid in budgetary efficiencies and the safe transportation of school children.

Route Logistics Analysts, Dawn Simosky and Monaire Ogden, bring day-to-day logistics support to the SBL team and support to districts in Colorado and Illinois. Ogden brings Transfinder experience from her days as a dispatcher at Douglas County Schools in Colorado and will provide additional support to the routing team in Texas. As a former transportation director from District 308, Oswego, Illinois, Dawn will support Versatrans routing efforts in Washington state.

Rodney Sturgeon will serve as a routing consultant and work on various projects including bell time studies and route efficiencies for the company. He brings more than 30 years experience in the transportation industry and has worked with more than 130 districts during his career.

In addition to the internal hires, SBL has partnered with former Transportation Director, Douglas Carter, to plan and create high-level strategies for districts across the nation. Carter served as director of transportation for three school districts in the state of New York and has overseen budgets up to $35 million dollars and teams as large as 500.

Adding members to our team is always an exciting time, said Robert Jacobus, CEO and founder of School Bus Logistics, Each person brings unique skills and experience that make our team more diverse and understanding of individual districts needs. By broadening our team, we are more agile and equipped to find solutions to the ever-changing demands of safe pupil transportation.

For additional information about SBL, sales@schoolbuslogistics.com.

School Bus Logistics was created in 2010 to provide logistics consulting and support to school district officials and school bus contracting companies. With more than 60 years of combined routing software experience and routing operations, their focus is solely on pupil transportation routing and the challenges it brings to school districts and the communities they serve.
51 Lands End Dr Destin, FL 32541 The challenge we faced in this hot market is extremely low inventory...Even though the purchase price set a new benchmark for that area, the home and landscape are priceless.

Engel & Volkers Florida today announced the record-breaking sale of 51 Lands End Drive in Destin, Florida. Real estate advisor, Janell Doucet with Engel & Volkers Destin represented the buyer and Robert Ward with RE/MAX By The Sea held the listing. At $1,154.45 per-square-foot, the home surpassed the previous record earned by its neighbor, 50 Lands End Drive, in April 2019 for $1,016.87.

My clients knew they wanted a beachfront property somewhere in the Destin to Panama City area, said Doucet. The challenge we faced in this hot market is extremely low inventory. By the time we discovered this Destin Pointe gem that checked all the boxes according to them, it was unanimous that it was the one! Even though the purchase price set a new benchmark for that area, the home and landscape are priceless."

51 Lands End Drive is one of 17 homes in Destin Pointe. The three-story, custom home was offered fully furnished with professional interior design by Beau Interiors, a company that aims to capture coastal living as an elegant style. Each of the home's five bedrooms showcase beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico. Boastful features include motorized interior shades, elevator, and a six car garage. Fine touches include reclaimed barnwood oak floors and pecky cypress beams.

"Engel & Volkers Destin is committed to continue raising the bar in the Destin market, said Leigh Ann Fincher, License Partner of Engel & Volkers Destin. We achieved several records in 2021 and aim to repeat that success this year. Janell found her clients a beachfront home that backs up to Destin's iconic East Pass Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, connecting Destin Harbor to the Gulf of Mexico. The way the waters blend together here reflect gems of color. Only a few homes will ever share this idyllic spot.

Destin Pointe Resort is located at the tip of the Holiday Isle between the Gulf of Mexico and the Destin Harbor. In addition to breaking the record for price-per-square-foot in Destin Pointe, 51 Lands End Drive also earned the second spot in Holiday Isle; 118 Sandprint Circle, which currently holds the number one spot, sold for $1,161.63 in May 2021.

This sale is a great example of how Engel & Volkers global network attracts qualified buyers for luxury properties, said Peter Giese, Chief Executive Officer at Engel & Volkers Florida. With a continuous drop in active listing inventory throughout Florida, prices will continue to increase. As a global brand focused on luxury, we have the reputation and unmatched professionalism to continue to service this unique cliente in finding their dream home.

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Press contact:

Linzee Werkmeister, Junior Vice President, Marketing & Franchise Support

Email: Linzee.Werkmeister(at)evrealestate.com

Tel: (239) 348-9000

About Engel & Volkers:

Engel & Volkers is a global luxury real estate brand. Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1977, Engel & Volkers draws on its rich European history to deliver a fresh approach to luxury real estate in the Americas with a focus on creating a personalized client experience at every stage of the home buying or selling process for todays savvy homeowner. Engel & Volkers currently operates approximately 240 shop locations with 5,000 real estate advisors in the Americas, contributing to the brands global network of over 14,000 real estate professionals in more than 30 countries, offering both private and institutional clients a professionally tailored range of luxury services, including real estate and yachting. Committed to exceptional service, Engel & Volkers supports its advisors with an array of premium quality business services; marketing programs and platforms; as well as access to its global network of real estate professionals, property listings and market data. Each brokerage is independently owned and operated. For more information, visit http://www.evrealestate.com.

About Engel & Volkers Florida:

Engel & Volkers Florida is the Master License Partner of the global luxury real estate brand Engel & Volkers in the state of Florida. Recognized for uniquely recruiting, training and equipping some of the top professionals in the real estate industry, Engel & Volkers Floridas exclusive business model positions its franchisees at the top of the premium market to gain market share and support their bottom line. The company represents franchise locations in 44 markets: 30A Beaches, Amelia Island, Belleair, Boca Raton, Bonita Springs-Estero, Cape Coral, Clermont, Delray Beach, Destin, Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers Downtown, Gainesville, Hollywood Beach, Islamorada, Jacksonville, Jacksonville Beach, Jupiter, Madeira Beach, Marco Island, Melbourne Beachside, Melbourne Central, Melbourne Downtown, Miami Coconut Grove, Neptune Beach, Ocala, Olde Naples, Orlando, Orlando Downtown, Orlando-Winter Park, Palm Beach, Palm Coast, Pompano Beach, Ponte Vedra Beach, Sarasota, South Tampa, St. Augustine, St. Pete, St. Pete Beach, Stuart, Tampa Water Street, Venice Downtown, Vero Beach, Wellington, and Windermere.

Engel & Volkers Florida is continuing to strategically strengthen and expand its presence in premium real estate markets across the state of Florida. If you would like to know more about the Engel & Volkers brand or how to join its global networkwhich is known for demonstrating competence, exclusivity and passion, feel free to call our corporate office, located at 633 Tamiami Trl N, Suite 201, Naples, FL 34102 USA. Tel: +1 239-348-9000.

For more information about Engel & Volkers Florida, please visit http://www.florida.evrealestate.com
As the gold standard in delivering acoustical consulting, Cerami & Associates is a great addition to the Trinity family. This milestone adds another foundational component to Trinitys building sciences platform of acoustics, facility commissioning, and related specialty engineering capabilities.

Trinity Consultants, Inc., an international EHS, engineering, and science consulting firm, announces the acquisition of Cerami & Associates, a global leader in acoustic and technology consulting. Widely regarded as a pioneer of the field since its founding in 1965, Cerami delivers engineering consulting expertise in noise and vibration control, audiovisual design, security systems, IT infrastructure, construction monitoring, and acoustical virtual reality for every building type. Ceramis primary clients include global architecture/design firms and real estate development companies.

Cerami principals Victoria Cerami and James Perry will continue to lead their team of 75+ engineering and support professionals. Together, Trinity and Cerami synergies will expand service capabilities for clients, particularly in the area of carbon management for building designers on the Cerami side, and noise/acoustics capabilities for Trinitys industrial clients.

Paul Greywall, Trinity Director of Corporate Development stated, As the gold standard in delivering acoustical consulting, Cerami & Associates is a great addition to the Trinity family of specialty technical services. Vicki and Jim have created a unique organization that is respected for its expertise and employee-focused culture. This milestone adds another foundational component to Trinitys building sciences platform of acoustics, facility commissioning, and related specialty engineering capabilities.

The decision to join forces with Trinity is unequivocally the right step for Cerami, Vicki Cerami said. Along with its unparalleled expertise and focus on responsiveness, Trinity is as people and client focused as we are. Trinity has deliberately acquired leading companies with specialized technical expertise and synergized them to drive growth. We are excited to leverage Trinitys global footprint and EHS focus, to help expand its building sciences platform, and to create additional opportunities for our team.

AEC Advisors (http://www.aecadvisors.com) initiated this transaction and advised Cerami & Associates.

Background on Trinity Consultants

Founded in 1974, Trinity Consultants helps organizations overcome complex, mission-critical challenges in EHS, engineering, and science through expertise in consulting, technology, training, and staffing. With offices across the U.S., and in Canada, the U.K., Ireland, China, and Australia, Trinity supports clients across a broad range of sectors to help them ensure compliance with applicable regulations, international standards, and company specifications. This helps them avoid business disruption, speed products to market, address stakeholder concerns, and achieve business objectives.
Advanta Seeds achieved high ranks in Access to Seeds Index (ATSI) 2021 for contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

For the first time Advanta Seeds qualified for all regional indexes and debuted with an excellent rank of #4 in Africa, and raised to #2 in South and South-East Asia. In the previous 2019 global index, Advanta Seeds ranked in the top five seed companies.

We are proud to rank among the worlds top companies in the Access to Seeds Index. Improving access to quality seeds to farmers is a part of our core business strategy and it is critical for improving farmers productivity and ultimately food security, shared Bhupen Dubey, Global CEO Advanta Seeds.

The Index is an independent ranking that evaluates global and local seed companies based on their efforts to improve access to quality seeds for smallholder farmers.

In its third edition, the ATSI 2021 ranked 72 seed companies and their activities in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The ATSI 2021 was published by the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), a non-profit organization aiming to achieve the SDGs by 2030 by promoting transformational change from farm to fork.

The ATSI 2021 assessed the seed companies in six measurement areas across four focus regions: Latin America, West Africa, East Africa, and South and Southeast Asia. Advanta Seeds achieved consistently high scores across all indexes and taking leading positions in Capacity Building and Marketing and Sales.

Compared to 2019, the most significant improvement was in South and South-East Asia, where the company ranked #1 in three out of the six measures: genetic resources and intellectual property management, seed production and capacity building. In these areas Advanta Seeds demonstrated leading practices in the seed industry.

Advanta Seeds commitment to smallholder farmers is backed by a strong strategy, including the breeding and introduction of new varieties in staple and vegetable crops, engagement of smallholder farmers in its seed production, and value chain partnerships. In addition, together with its parent company, UPL, Advanta offers a range of capacity-building activities, such as smallholder farmer training and improved access to output market.

Advanta Seeds is recognized for its multi-stakeholder and women empowerment initiatives such as Realizing Gender Equality through Empowering Women and Adolescent Girls, in collaboration with UN Women and Farm Africa, and women marketing program for Indonesia, a finalist of the UN Women 2020 Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards.

Access to Seeds Index

The Access to Seeds Index 2021 was developed as a spotlight benchmark under the World Benchmarking Alliances (WBAs) food and agriculture transformation. It focuses on and provides deeper insights into the specific contribution of the seed industry to the SDGs, particularly SDG 2: Zero Hunger. The index evaluates the contribution of local and regional companies, and their global peers, in providing access to seeds for smallholder farmers in three regional indexes: South and South-East Asia (SSEA), Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), and Western and Central Africa (WCA).

Advanta Seeds

Advanta Seeds is a global seed company adapting to rapidly increasing food insecurity and climate change by providing farmers with innovation and new technologies. As part of UPL Group, Advanta Seeds aims to deliver high quality seeds with excellent agronomic practices and crop protection solutions. Advanta Seeds operates in over 80 countries under global brands of Advanta, Alta and Pacific Seeds. Advanta Seeds holds a leadership position in tropical and sub-tropical geographies in corn, grain and forage sorghum, sunflower, canola, rice, and a variety of vegetables. With over 60 years experience in plant genetics, Advanta Seeds provides seeds technology that ensures crop performance and farmers prosperity.
"The start of construction for The Remi is a step closer to assisting Los Angeles County seniors with this heavy burden and the LACDA is a proud partner is this effort. Emilio Salas, Executive Director, LACDA

Affirmed Housing, a leading provider of affordable housing throughout California, announces the groundbreaking of The Remi; a six-story development offering 92 studio and one bedroom apartment homes for low income and formerly homeless seniors in Los Angeles County. Located at 1216 Nadeau Street, the new community is scheduled to be complete in the Summer of 2024.

The Remi marks Affirmeds 10th affordable housing development in the County of Los Angeles. We are proud to serve and house LA Countys most vulnerable citizens, Seniors, during the pandemic. We thank our continued and new relationships amongst financial and development organizations that allow us to promptly secure necessary funding to begin construction on critical housing projects such as this one. Jimmy Silverwood, Executive Vice President, Affirmed Housing.

Currently a vacant, underutilized property, the Remi is located in a central location and will offer much needed affordable housing for Seniors living in the county of Los Angeles. Designed by Withee Malcolm Architects, the Remi is in proximity to several off-site amenities, such as transit, retail, dining, and grocery stores. The property will offer residents enhanced livability in a place designed to seamlessly integrate into the surrounding neighborhood.

On-site, supportive services will be offered by The People Concern and Engage. Service amenities and social activities will include classes such as adult education, health and wellness, lifelong learning, art and creativity, community building and more. Resident amenities include common areas for large gatherings and technology stations, the roof terrace on the second floor will feature open and shaded areas for residents to relax and take-in the surrounding city views.

Emilio Salas, LACDA Executive Director, said, According to the 2020 Los Angeles County Older Adults: Housing Needs Report, issued by the California Housing Partnership, three out of four older adult renter households that earn less than 15% of the area median income spend more than half their income on housing. The start of construction for The Remi is a step closer to assisting Los Angeles County seniors with this heavy burden and the LACDA is a proud partner is this effort.

Leveraging Affirmeds strengths, the development involved community engagement and complex financing and permitting expertise. Affirmed, alongside various development funding partners, including the County of Los Angeles, was able to skillfully manage various funding on the same timeline to move the project forward. The Remi is funded by a diverse group of stake holders including Capital One, Red Stone Equity Partners, The County of Los Angeles, CTCAC and Century Housing.

About Affirmed Housing

Affirmed Housing is a leader in affordable, multifamily housing development, delivering safe, sustainable, high-quality communities for families, veterans, seniors and people experiencing homelessness. The company works with municipalities and private owners throughout the state to promote housing stability and neighborhood well-being by leveraging deep expertise in public finance, low-income housing tax credits, and tax-exempt bond finance, as well as site selection, engineering, architecture, construction, relocation and marketing. Since 1992, Affirmed Housing has secured more than $2 billion in total financing to successfully complete 60 communities and house more than 10,000 vulnerable residents. To learn more, visit http://www.affirmedhousing.com
William Nelson, MD, Daniel Murariu, MD, MPH, MBA, FACS, and Andrea Moreira, MD, complete region's first robot assisted DIEP procedure. Were incredibly excited to offer our patients this state-of-the-art microsurgical technique for breast reconstruction after cancer, said Dr. Moreira. AHN brings together the technical expertise of its plastic and general surgeons to provide the optimal patient benefit and outcome.

Allegheny Health Network (AHN) plastic and reconstructive surgeons at West Penn Hospital (WPH) are the first in western Pennsylvania and among the first in the country to perform robot assisted breast reconstructions using a patients own tissue in the lower abdomen. Known as a robotic deep inferior epigastric artery perforator (DIEP) flap procedure, this minimally invasive technique is the latest advancement in the field of reconstructive surgery for areas of the body affected by aggressive cancer therapies.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in American womenmeaning about one in eight will develop breast cancer over her lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). Each year, more than 100,000 women undergo mastectomy procedures to treat or prevent breast cancer. The removal of the breast tissue often leaves many to consider subsequent surgeries such as breast reconstruction.

Led by Andrea Moreira, MD, director of reconstructive breast surgery and Daniel Murariu, MD, MPH, MBA, FACS, director of microsurgery and lymphatic surgery, AHN surgeons use the da Vinci Xi surgical system to harvest tissue, including blood vessels, skin, and fat, from the lower abdomen to rebuild the patients breast(s).

Christina Tina Jordan, a 54-year-old mother of three from Elizabeth, PA was diagnosed with cancer in October 2020. Nearly one year later, shes cancer free and the first AHN patient to undergo a unilateral robot-assisted breast reconstruction at WPH.

Were incredibly excited to offer our patients this state-of-the-art microsurgical technique for breast reconstruction after cancer, said Dr. Moreira. For this multi-specialty procedure, AHN brings together the technical expertise of its plastic and general surgeons to provide the optimal patient benefit and outcome.

In collaboration with the plastic surgeons, general surgeon William Nelson, MD, makes three, small (about 8 mm) incisions into the abdomen. The robot provides a magnified, high-definition 3-D vantage beneath the belly muscle. Through a special dye, Dr. Nelson can view the microvascular blood flow and perfusion in the tissue as they operate. Additional AHN surgeons with expertise in this portion of the procedure include board-certified colon and rectal surgeons Stanislav Nosik, MD, and Richard Fortunato, DO, who provide intraabdominal access for Dr. Murariu who then performs the vessel dissection.

Women undergoing reconstruction are often worried about the impact of the DIEP flap surgery to their core strength and comfort. Without the robot, traditional DIEP reconstruction techniques require a long muscle incision, increasing the likelihood of longer hospital stays, heightened pain, and weakened abdominal walls, said Dr. Nelson. Now, most patients who undergo a robotic DIEP experience a faster recovery with less pain and minimal need for narcotic pain medicine.

The robotic DIEP reconstruction can potentially decrease the chance of hernias or bulging in the abdomen compared to a standard non-robotic DIEP flap, as there is minimal disruption of the abdominal wall muscle and fascia. According to a study published in the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Journal, the use the robot to assist the DIEP flap harvest may be the next stage in the evolution of autologous breast reconstruction (Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery: The Robotic DIEP Flap doi: 10.1097/PRS.0000000000006529). The reported early experience with this technique suggests a reduction in postoperative pain, length of stay and enhanced overall recovery.

As the tissue is harvested from the abdomen and transferred to the patients chest, Dr. Moreira and Dr. Murariu conclude the reconstruction by reconnecting the DIEP flap blood vessels to the chest with the aid of a surgical microscope. Using a patients own tissue results in a more natural appearance and is a more permanent solution when compared to implant-based reconstructions, which can result in additional surgeries. To date, AHN doctors have performed 17 robotic-assisted DIEP reconstructions. All patients required fewer painkillers and were discharged in about three days after surgery.

AHN patients who undergo reconstructive procedures following cancer treatments are cared for by a compassionate, multidisciplinary team of oncologists and other caregivers from the AHN Cancer Institute. Clinicians from various cancer disciplines, including medical, surgical and radiation oncology, work together closely to determine the most effective course of treatment to meet a patients long-term health goals and needs.

For more information on the AHN Cancer Institute or to learn more about the AHN Plastic Surgery division, visit http://www.ahn.org.

About the Allegheny Health Network:

Allegheny Health Network (AHN.org), a Highmark Health company, is an integrated healthcare delivery system serving the greater Western Pennsylvania region. The Network is composed of 14 hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, Health + Wellness Pavilions, an employed physician organization, home and community based health services, a research institute, and a group purchasing organization. The Network provides patients with access to a complete spectrum of advanced medical services, including nationally recognized programs for primary and emergency care, trauma care, cardiovascular disease, organ transplantation, cancer care, orthopedic surgery, neurology and neurosurgery, womens health, diabetes, autoimmune disease and more. AHN employs approximately 21,000 people, has more than 2,500 physicians on its medical staff and serves as a clinical campus for Drexel University College of Medicine and the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.
This book details the result of the 2020 elections, the impact of the pandemic, the implosion of the leadership class, and the new coalition being built on the right.

Author Tom Donelson offers his solution to pulling America out of the dark in America At The Abyss: Will America Survive? ($16.99, paperback, 9781662836725; $26.99, hard cover, 9781662836732; $7.99, e-book, 9781662836749).

Donelson sees a dark future for America if it continues its current trajectory, but he also believes there is hope. In this book, he explores solutions such as a new GOP coalition of rural Americans, and combining Trump populism with classical conservatism.

This book details the result of the 2020 elections, the impact of the pandemic, the implosion of the leadership class, and the new coalition being built on the right, said Donelson.

Tom Donelson has authored eight books including his most recent book, the Rise of National Populism and Democratic Socialism. Presently Mr. Donelson is the chief political strategist of Americas PAC and research associate and project director of Americas Majority Foundation. He has contributed for the past four decades to various publications, websites and blogs.

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Liberty Hill Publishing, a division of Salem Media Group, is a leader in the print-on-demand, self-publishing industry. America At The Abyss is available online through amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
Harvey Jones, a semiretired enrolled IRS agent, avid traveler, and amateur photographer who has visited six continents, forty-nine states, and more than two hundred cities outside the US, has completed his new book Tokyo to Kyoto in Tanka: a beautiful travel diary capturing the beauty and culture of Japan.

This book has pictures and Japanese tanka poetry produced by the author, all original. On a recent trip to Japan, the author traveled from Tokyo to Kyoto. These pictures and poems represent some of the highlights of that trip.

Published by Page Publishing, Harvey Jones engrossing book is an excellent choice for avid poetry and culture readers of all ages.

Readers who wish to experience this engaging work can purchase Tokyo to Kyoto in Tanka at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing understands that authors should be free to create, not mired in logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and so on. Pages accomplished writers and publishing professionals allow authors to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
Each year, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate recognizes agents that have demonstrated outstanding listing and sales performance, a positive attitude, devoted work ethic and a positive impact on the community. The following agents were recently awarded for their accomplishments in 2021:



George Skarpalezos  Top Producing Agent of the Year

George Skarpalezos was honored with the Top Producing Agent of the Year Award. This award recognizes the exceptional level of accomplishment for the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper agent with the highest sales volume for the year.

George finished 2021 with over $34 million in total sales volume and over 67 transaction sides.

Pat Cooper, President and Broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate stated, Two years in a row! George Skarpalezos is a consummate salesperson that never stops for his clients, and I am not surprised that he is our Top Producer again this year. We are so proudand so honored to be able to present this award to him.

Jill Wright  Open Heart & Hands Award

Jill Wright was the recipient of the Open Heart & Hands Award for 2021. She was nominated by her peers for her numerous charitable efforts and positive community impact.

Jill is a hands-on volunteer and is very active in the Golden Isles Association of Realtors (GIAR), volunteering for events and serving on various committees. She is also passionate about animal rescue efforts and truly gives back with her time and efforts in so many ways.

Jill takes a lot of pride in her outreach work and always finds time to support several local organizations.and gets her peers involved! Its so wonderful to know that a member of our real estate family gives back and makes a difference in our community.

Connor Burke and Cindy Baird  Rising Star Award

The Rising Star Award recognizes an agent that has joined the real estate industry within the last 24 months who has demonstrated dedication, a positive attitude and has had a exceptionally outstanding listing and sales performance. Two REALTORS share the title of Rising Star Award Winner for 2021: Connor Burke and Cindy Baird.

Cindy sold over $6.65 million this year with 9 transaction sides; her clients sing her praises before, during, and after the transaction is done. Connor Burke, newly licensed in April of 2021, garnered 15 transaction sides and $4.2 million in salesall while joining over numerous GIAR committees, volunteering in the community, and continuing his real estate education.

We are incredibly proud of these agents for their outstanding achievements this year. I cant wait to see what 2022 holds for them. says Pat Cooper.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Hodnett Cooper Real Estate is a family-owned and operated company with five offices servicing Coastal Georgia. They offer a full range of real estate services including sales, residential rentals, property management and commercial sales and leasing. The brokerage is the premier real estate company in southeast coastal Georgia with a professional and diverse team of 100+ agents. Visit http://www.BHHSHodnettCooper.com.

About Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is a global residential real estate brokerage franchise network with more than 50,000 real estate professionals and nearly 1,500 offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East and India. In 2020, the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices global network represented more than $138 billion in real estate sales volume. The network, among the few organizations entrusted to use the world-renowned Berkshire Hathaway name, brings to the real estate market a definitive mark of trust, integrity, stability, and longevity.

Contact:

Catherine Maybank

(912) 638-5450

catherine@hcrega.com
Research shows that participation in formal swim programs like ours can reduce the risk of drowning by 88 percent among children. We cant think of a better way to help our community than to help teach children these critical life skills," said Bethany Fox, owner of British Swim School

After a record-breaking year that includes the sale of over 38 new territories, British Swim School is excited to announce the opening of its fourth franchise in the great state of Massachusetts, with swim lessons currently being offered in 10 locations via existing owners.

Swim lessons are currently scheduled for Monday's & Wednesday's from 3:30 PM - 7 PM and Saturday's 8 AM - 12 PM, at the 24/7 Family Fitness in Stoughton, MA.

Owner Bethany Fox, with support from her husband Ben, is eager to begin teaching the signature water acclimation, safety, and survival skills that British Swim School is known for to students of all ages, which are complemented by stroke development levels for more advanced children and adults. As parents of two small children and natives of the area, they know firsthand the need for proper swim instruction.

Weve lost at least 47 people to drowning accidents in our area this year. That is 47 too many. The rates of drownings and near drownings in Massachusetts have been on the rise since the onset of the pandemic, says Bethany Fox, owner of British Swim School Newton/Canton/Franklin. Research shows that participation in formal swim programs like ours can reduce the risk of drowning by 88 percent among children. We cant think of a better way to help our community than to help teach children these critical life skills.

The Foxes worked in corporate America their entire careers. Pre-COVID, they discussed a desire to open a business together  particularly a franchise, but nothing particularly caught their attention as a viable option at the time. Once COVID hit, Bethany made the call not to return to her corporate career. We decided to revisit the idea of owning our own business, given how much had changed in the world. We came across the British Swim School franchise and everything just clicked.

Sometimes when you work in a corporate setting, your children and your family are not considered assets. We immediately noticed the difference in our first interaction with the team at British Swim School, noted Bethany. This company is dedicated to its work with children and families. This stood out to us. We fell in love with the franchise and are so happy to be part of their mission  Survival of the Littlest.

We are thrilled to welcome the Foxes to the British Swim School family  we have a strong team of owners in Massachusetts, and we know the Foxes will be a great addition to the area, said Ashley Gundlach, British Swim School President. "As parents, their understanding of the need for formal swim instruction is high, and with them operating the business, we know more children will have access to this critical lifesaving skill."

British Swim School, a premier swim school franchise, launched in England in 1981. It was then brought to the United States and Canada and eventually grew to more than 200 locations.

About British Swim School

British Swim School offers swimming lessons for babies, children, and adults, focusing first on water survival skills needed to survive a water accident before moving onto stroke development and more advanced skills. British Swim School was founded in 1981 using the unique and highly effective teaching methods that are a recognized trademark of the brand today. Acquired by Buzz Franchise Brands in early 2019, British Swim School is the latest addition to the Buzz Franchise Brands family, which includes Pool Scouts, a pool cleaning and maintenance company, and Home Clean Heroes, a residential cleaning company. British Swim School currently operates over 200 schools across the United States and Canada. For more information about British Swim School, visit http://www.britishswimschool.com. To learn more about the benefits of British Swim Schools franchising opportunities, visit https://britishswimschoolfranchise.com/. For more information about Buzz Franchise Brands, visit https://www.buzzfranchisebrands.com/.
MACAO, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has affirmed the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government's policy response in containing the COVID-19 pandemic and the deployment of fiscal resources to soften its adverse impact on the economy, the Monetary Authority of Macao said on Monday.

The linked exchange rate system between the Macao pataca and the Hong Kong dollar continued to serve the Macao SAR well, underpinning its economic and financial stability, according to a concluding statement from the IMF Article IV consultation for Macao through virtual meetings from Jan. 10 to Jan. 21.

The IMF mission welcomed the initiatives of Macao SAR's Monetary Authority in launching new financial infrastructure to promote the development of modern financial services.

The IMF mission also recommended a multi-dimensional approach in enhancing the supply of skilled labor to support Macao's financial sector expansion, including additional investments in professional training and information and communication infrastructure, expediting regional integration and streamlining business regulations. 
Leading used CNC machines marketplace CNC Machines is pleased to announce that it has recently re-launched its annual scholarship for 2022. The scholarship ($2,500) will be awarded to eligible students and veterans studying manufacturing in the USA. Over the years, CNC Machines has awarded over $10K in scholarships, becoming one of the major solutions for closing the gap in manufacturing skills in the country.

The application process for the annual scholarship is now open. The last date of submission for the scholarship is September 23, 2022, 5:00 p.m. (EST).

In an exclusive interview, Curt Doherty, veteran CNC Machine dealer and founder of CNC Machines, shared that CNC Machines is driven by the mission to empower American manufacturers to upgrade their technology that will eventually contribute to the rise of a more powerful manufacturing industry in the country. The company aims to become the most contributing machinery dealer in the US.

We are excited to share with you all that we have recently re-launched our annual scholarship program for students and veterans studying manufacturing in the country. The national economy is in a dire state right now and manufacturing is one industry that can contribute functionally to the upliftment of the economy. Our investment is to promote the growth of American manufacturing. The future of manufacturing is in technology and being part of helping a student or a Veteran promotes the growth of American manufacturing, stated Mr. Doherty.

Speaking on, Mr. Doherty stressed that the national manufacturing scene needs to upgrade to latest technical advancements in the manufacturing scene and for that it needs a workforce equipped with state-of-the-art high-tech manufacturing skills and know-how. However, the advanced courses are usually high-end and hence unaffordable for many otherwise willing students. In that light, CNC Machines has launched the annual Scholarship program to help students (and veterans) pursue high-tech courses in manufacturing that will eventually help to create a cutting-edge workforce for the national manufacturing sector.

The CNC Machines annual scholarship is designed for students and US veterans studying manufacturing, engineering, or related fields. To be eligible for the scholarship, the applicant has to actively pursue a certificate, certification, associates, bachelors or masters degree.

The veteran applicants will have to upload DD-214 discharge papers and an explanation behind their interest in a career in the manufacturing industry.

The student applicants will have to submit a unique original essay on the manufacturing sector in the country. Essay topics are given on the student scholarship application page.

One of the most renowned names in the used CNC machines retail sector, CNC Machines is one of top 3 used machinery dealers in the US. CNC Machines is equipped with a vast and versatile inventory of used CNC machines in optimum condition. The company stocks machines from all major brands, including Haas CNC, Fadal, Mori Seiki, Mazak, and more. From CNC Mill to CNC Lathe- CNC Machines has it all to cater to a wide range of customers.

Under Mr. Dohertys leadership, CNC Machines has also grabbed a feature in the prestigious list of INC 5000 fastest growing companies in the US.

For further information, please visit https://cncmachines.com/scholarship
"Coretek has invested in building deep Microsoft Azure knowledge and services and we are pleased to recognize it as a Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Service Provider for the fifth year..." Rodney Clark, Corporate Vice President, Global Channel Sales and Channel Chief at Microsoft

The Coretek team is excited to announce their team has attained Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Service Provider (MSP) status for a fifth year.

Our teams are highly qualified and deeply experienced in Microsoft Azure technology. Our customers continue to reap the long-term benefits and competitive advantage that come along with partnering with a leading technology service provider. We are thrilled to continue to build on this success and support customers in the Azure space. Clint Adkins, Microsoft Azure Practice Director, Coretek

The process requires partners to validate their skills, successful customer projects, ability to scale, and a commitment to providing next-generation managed service offerings on Microsoft Azure.

Partners play a central role in Microsofts vision to support companies in their digital transformation projects. Coretek has invested in building deep Microsoft Azure knowledge and services and we are pleased to recognize it as a Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Service Provider for the second year. Rodney Clark, Corporate Vice President, Global Channel Sales and Channel Chief at Microsoft

Partners who offer full lifecycle managed services to customers can earn Azure Expert MSP status.

Microsoft employs an independent third-party audit company to assess compliance against the Azure Expert MSP Audit requirements. The audit is a systematic, independent, and documented process for obtaining evidence and evaluating objectively to determine the extent to which audit criteria are met.

An Azure Expert MSP must have the ability to guide customers toward creative business solutions that support the demands of high-performing, agile environments through the use of assessments, enablement services, and cutting-edge tools that allow them to manage the full customer cloud engagement lifecycle.

Azure Expert MSPs deliver solutions to customers' business challenges architected and managed by highly skilled and deeply certified technical consultants and architects.

Better Service

Azure Expert MSP makes it easier for customers to verify expert partners because only partners that pass the rigorous audit become Azure Expert MSP. Every service Coretek offers, and every customer interaction is held to the highest standards.

Broader Offerings

Our team is versed in wide range of Azure tools and services, so no matter your business needs, we deliver. Whether customers need to enable a better remote work experience for their workforce or migrate apps while ensuring security and complianceas an Azure Expert MSP, Coretek can handle it.

Closer Relationships

Coretek's longstanding and trusted relationship with Microsoft is even stronger due to the Azure Expert MSP recognition. Coretek's ties with the partner and technical teams at Microsoft provide first-to-market information that enables our teams to build the best future-ready solutions for your business.

About Coretek

Coretek (https://coretek.com) is the #1 Microsoft Azure Partner in the U.S. and an Azure Expert Managed Service Provider. Coretek consults, builds, manages, secures, and maintains IT infrastructure, enabling business leaders to spend less time thinking about technology and more time focused on their customers, culture, and communities. Coretek solves the world's most complex business challenges with the cloud.
On January 12, 2022, Intellias, a global technology partner to Fortune 500 companies and top-tier organizations, was recognized as the best IT employer by Forbes Ukraine. The annual report ranks the top 50 employers among the largest Ukrainian companies operating in various domains from agriculture to telecom and information technology. This years assessment shows Intellias was ranked 2nd among all listed companies compared to the 5th position in 2021. Additionally, the company became 1st among IT service providers for the second consecutive year, proving its focus on building up a human-to-human culture based on commitment, integrity and pursuit of excellence.

Intellias top position in the ranking is a demonstration of the companys accomplishments and excellence in growing successful businesses with a people-first approach while delivering value to partners and clients.

For over 20 years, Intellias has been bringing together smart technology and people-first culture to find solutions to the challenges of today and harness the opportunities of tomorrow. By fostering a healthy supportive environment of mutual trust and responsibility, the company today is a culture-driven organization that always puts people over processes.

Intellias was rated as one of the top IT employers for many consecutive years by DOU, the largest Ukrainian IT community. The company was also named the employer of choice for professionals by EY Ukraine and listed among the top 100 employers by MC.Today in 2020 and 2021. Recognized as an equal opportunity employer by UN Women, and awarded the title Business That Is Changing the Country by CSR Ukraine, the company advocates DE&I principles.

About Intellias

Intellias is a global technology partner to Fortune 500 enterprises and top-tier organizations, helping them accelerate their pace of sustainable digitization. Intellias empowers businesses operating in Europe, the US, the MENA region, and the APAC region to embrace innovation at scale. Over 2000 Intellias experts located in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates deliver competence and expertise in various domains. The company has been featured in the Global Outsourcing 100 list by IAOP, recognized by Inc. 5000, acknowledged in the GSA UK Awards, and named the winner of a Silver Stevie Award in the 17th Annual International Business Awards. With nearly two decades of experience, Intellias helps both industry leaders and startups deploy innovative customer-facing solutions, build award-winning software, and modernize technical infrastructure.
Dr. Chin Yee (left) of Georgia Retina performed the first Susvimo implantation in the state since its FDA approval. Dr. Robert Stoltz (right) participated in the procedures clinical trials. Susvimo implantation is an outpatient surgical procedure that in the hands of a skilled surgeon can be a game-changer for our patients' treatment of wet AMD, says Dr. Yee.

Dr. Chin Yee of Georgia Retina, one of the largest retina-only medical practices in the Southeast, recently performed the first Susvimo implantation in the state since the groundbreaking procedures approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This is the latest treatment option for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a blinding eye disease. The use of the procedure allows Georgia Retina to remain at the forefront of the field and serve as a reliable ophthalmology choice for those in need.

Susvimo implantation is an outpatient surgical procedure that in the hands of a skilled surgeon can be a game-changer for our patients' treatment of wet AMD, says Dr. Yee.

The surgeon implants a small device into the eye, which sustains the delivery of medications into the patients organ. The procedure lasts approximately 30 minutes and patients can go home the same day.

Prior to the advent of the procedure, most patients were required to come into the office for monthly medicinal injections. Susvimo implantation helps lessen the treatment burden by only requiring patients to return for bi-annual implant refills.

As the treatment of wet AMD continues to evolve, Susvimo implantation serves as an exciting new chapter, providing a level of convenience and efficiency patients havent experienced before, says Georgia Retinas Dr. Robert Stoltz, who participated in the procedures clinical trials. Dr. Stoltz recently discussed Susvimo implantation on The Weekly Check-Up radio program on 95.5 WSB Atlantas News and Talk.

Patients with wet AMD qualify for Susvimo implantation if they are currently receiving monthly treatment and showing a response, are healthy, and have an eye thats in good condition.

Georgia Retina is currently offering Susvimo implantation at its Surgery Center (1100 Johnson Ferry Road, N.E., Sandy Springs). Interested patients can schedule a physician assessment by calling 888-427-3846.

About Georgia Retina: As one of the largest retina-only medical practices in the Southeastern United States, Georgia Retinas board-certified ophthalmologists offer world-class expertise in the treatment of diseases of the retina, macula, and vitreous. Your vision is vital  that is why our doctors have received fellowship training in vitreo-retinal diseases and surgery, and are engaged in clinical trials with the goal of advancing retinal research by discovering the causes, finding the treatments, and striving for the cure.

Interviews are available upon request.
Mindy and the Rescue Crew: The Unwelcome Visitors: an educational and entertaining tale for young readers. Mindy and the Rescue Crew: The Unwelcome Visitors is the creation of published author Geri Storey, a loving wife and mother from Toronto, Ontario, who graduated from two postsecondary programs, namely, visual arts at York University (Bachelor of Fine Arts, 1981) and graphic design at Humber College (diploma of advertising and graphic design, 1983).

Storey shares, When the Hanlan brothers fly down over the fields of Pine Valley, Mindy and the Rescue Crew are afraid that their lives are now in danger.

Mindy, Rolo, Lily, and Kiwi become even more worried when they find three feathers belonging to a songbird. Can the little meadowlark be a victim of the scary flying hawks?

Together with their wildlife friends, the Rescue Crew make plans to protect themselves from the unwelcome visitors.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Geri Storeys new book is an enjoyable adventure across fields and woods to rescue a young songbird.

Storey pairs an engaging narrative with vibrant imagery within the pages of this charming childrens story. Thirty-eight illustrations animate and inspire the imagination of the young mind.

Consumers can purchase Mindy and the Rescue Crew: The Unwelcome Visitors at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Mindy and the Rescue Crew: The Unwelcome Visitors, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
The 2022 Toyota Tacoma Encompasses a Flurry of Robust Capability Features

The iconic Toyota Tacoma is back for 2022 and is available for sale at Dan Cava Toyota World in Fairmont, West Virginia. Customers looking for a dependable pickup truck with incredible value for money and a slew of safety and capability features can check out the new 2022 Toyota Tacoma. The truck has undergone several upgrades in the quest of reaching the top of its segment. The makeover has worked well for Tacoma, and it might likely end up amongst the best-selling pickup trucks in 2022.

Starting at $26,500, the 2022 Toyota Tacoma is amongst the cheapest pickup trucks. The 2022 Tacoma is available in five trim levels and other configurable options. Higher-end trims boast a 3.5L V6 DOHC 24 valve engine, while the base trim in the lineup comes with a 2.7L DOHC 16-valve engine. The 2.7-liter engine can make 159 horsepower and 180 pound-feet torque, and the 3.5-liter engine generates 278 horsepower and has a torque rating of 265 pound-feet. A six-speed manual transmission system or a six-speed ECT-i gearbox, depending on the trim, transmits engine power to the axles for driving the wheels. Furthermore, the truck has a combined fuel economy of 18 MPG.

On the safety front, the 2022 Toyota Tacoma has received above-par scores from both NHTSA and IIHS. The truck is home to the complete set of Toyota Safety Sense P (TSS-P). The TSS-P safety suite helps the driver avoid accidents by sending warning signals when other vehicles or pedestrians approach the truck from blind spots and also comes in handy at the time of any other possible collision. Other safety features include Rear Parking Sonar, Integrated Backup Camera, Blind Spot Monitor, and Toyota's iconic Star Safety System.

In and around Fairmont, West Virginia, pickup truck enthusiasts may contact the Dan Cava Toyota World dealership at (304) 366-2720 or book a test drive online. Those customers who want to discover the features of the 2022 Toyota Tacoma in more depth can visit Dan Cava Toyota World's website at https://www.cavatoyota.com or stop by the dealership at 2510 White Hall Blvd, Fairmont, West Virginia 26554.
Flying Flags Avila Beach is the perfect place to pause and take in the surrounding views and natural landscape, or an ideal home base for exploring, with access to ample recreational pursuits and the nearby Central Coast Wine Country," said Jacque Raffaele, Vice President of Operations

Highway West Vacations  a collection of 16 glamping, camping and boutique hotel accommodations throughout the United States, announces the debut of Flying Flags Avila Beach  a coastal RV resort and campground boasting sweeping ocean views. Located in the quaint fishing and boating town of Port San Luis, Calif., the resort slowly and safely began welcoming travelers in December 2021.

With road trip travel on the rise, travelers are seeking getaways to gather with friends and family in a beautiful, peaceful setting where they can disconnect from their everyday lives, said Jacque Raffaele, vice president of operations at Highway West Vacations. Flying Flags Avila Beach is the perfect place to pause and take in the surrounding views and natural landscape, or an ideal home base for exploring, with access to ample recreational pursuits and the nearby Central Coast Wine Country.

Situated above Port San Luis Harbor just steps from the beach, Flying Flags Avila Beach offers 14 cottages and 46 RV sites along with a collection of 23 car-tent camping sites, 22 hike- or bike-in tent camping sites and eight Jupes, all featuring stunning vistas.

Ocean View Beach Cottages

Designed with a modern beach aesthetic, the cottages step out to private patios with breathtaking, panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and below harbor, Adirondack chairs and fire pits. Fully turnkey, the interiors are accented by sleek furnishings and a neutral color palate, with light woods, natural textures and windows drawing in sunlight. The comfortable living space features a seating area with a couch, chairs and small table, heating and AC units, a kitchen area with a mini-fridge, sink, Nespresso coffee maker and glassware, among a separate queen bedroom and full bath featuring Malin and Goetz amenities.

RV & Camping Sites

The back-in RV sites, up to 70 feet long in size, offer configurations for both dry camping and full hook ups, all featuring fire pits and picnic tables.

Additionally, the resort features an array of campsites, ranging from dry camping car-tent sites to hike- and bike-in tent campsites, all featuring front-facing ocean views, fire pits, picnic tables and direct access to on-site facilities.

Glamping

Taking glamping to a whole new level, the Jupes are fully equipped, high-design tents created by a team of ex-Tesla, SpaceX, and Airbnb employees. These spacious units are 100+ square feet and each include a queen-size bed with a Nectar mattress, high ceilings, birchwood flooring, and plenty of storage space. The space-like travel pods are also equipped with solar panels to generate power for USB charging stations, electrical outlets and dimmable LED lighting.

Flying Flags Avila Beachs communal amenities serve as a gathering space and comprise the outdoor community center, offering guests fire pits, picnic areas and bocce ball courts; the lookout room, providing lounge seating, a collection of board games, a Nespresso commercial coffee maker, refrigerator and breathtaking views; guest restrooms with showers; and on-site laundry facilities. Nearby, guests can take advantage of various recreational pursuits, spanning paddleboard and surfboard rentals, hiking paths and beach access. The entire resort is dog friendly, allowing up to two dogs per group with a pet fee. In the near future, the resort will introduce a new pool and community center among additional RV sites, cottages, safari tents and airstream trailers.

Our growth strategy is to target unique assets in major leisure markets. We operate our hotels, inns, and lodges in a manner that provides an unforgettable guest experience while still honoring the historical roots and surrounding culture of the location, Raffaele added. We seek to make Flying Flags Avila Beach a true destination for guests seeking the natural beauty and preservation of this coastal community.

The opening of Flying Flags Avila Beach marks an exciting time of expansion for Highway West Vacations footprint in Central California. The brands regional portfolio also includes two properties in Buellton  the flagship Flying Flags RV Resort & Campground, a RV retreat featuring a collection of glamping tents, vintage airstreams, trailers, Jupes and themed cabins and neighboring Sideways Inn & Lounge, located just off the 101  among two new hotels in Solvang that debuted in Summer 2020  Vinland Hotel + Lounge and The Winston  both bringing a new energy to the charming Danish village while providing a perfect launching pad to enjoy all the culture, wine, cuisine and activities this region has to offer.

For more information and to make a reservation, please visit http://www.highwaywestvacations.com

###

ABOUT HIGHWAY WEST VACATIONS

Highway West Vacations offers unique camping, glamping and boutique hotel accommodations in 16 distinct destinations across the great American West, including Mount St. Helens, Wash., Grand Lake, Colo., Crescent Lake, Ore., Volcano Village, Hawaii, and several properties along the California Central Coast. Each location is inspired by its local surroundings with artistic touches and modern amenities that showcase its unique environment. For more information, please visit: w http://www.highwaywestvacations.com.
The 2021 Annual Data Breach Report shows that while the number of compromises reached a record high, the number of events involving sensitive information did not. "As organizations of all sizes struggle to defend the data they hold, it is essential that everyone practice good cyber-hygiene to protect themselves and their loved ones from these crimes," said Eva Velasquez, President and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center.

Today, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), a nationally recognized nonprofit organization established to support victims of identity crime, will release its 16th Annual Data Breach Report, supported by Sontiq, a TransUnion company, at the Identity, Authentication, and the Road Ahead Policy Forum hosted by the Better Identity Coalition (BIC), FIDO Alliance and the ITRC.

According to the 2021 Annual Data Breach Report, the overall number of data compromises (1,862) is up more than 68 percent compared to 2020. The new record number of data compromises is 23 percent over the previous all-time high (1,506) set in 2017. The number of data events that involved sensitive information (Ex: Social Security numbers) increased slightly compared to 2020 (83 percent vs. 80 percent). However, it remained well below the previous high of 95 percent set in 2017.

The number of victims continues to decrease (down five (5) percent in 2021 compared to the previous year) as identity criminals focus more on specific data types rather than mass data acquisition. However, the number of consumers whose data was compromised multiple times per year remains alarmingly high. Other findings in the 2021 Annual Data Breach Report include:



Ransomware-related data breaches have doubled in each of the past two years. At the current rate, ransomware attacks will surpass phishing as the number one root cause of data compromises in 2022.

There were more cyberattack-related data compromises (1,603) in 2021 than all data compromises in 2020 (1,108).

Compromises increased year-over-year (YoY) in every primary sector but one  Military  where there were no data breaches publicly disclosed. The Manufacturing & Utilities sector saw the largest percentage increase in data compromises at 217 percent over 2020.

The number of data breach notices that do not reveal the root cause of a compromise (607) has grown by more than 190 percent since 2020.

Download the ITRCs 2021 Annual Data Breach Report

In 2021, we saw a shift in the identity crime space, said Eva Velasquez, President and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center. Too many people found themselves in between criminals and organizations that hold consumer information. We may look back at 2021 as the year when we moved from the era of identity theft to identity fraud. The number of breaches in 2021 was alarming. Many of the cyberattacks committed were highly sophisticated and complex, requiring aggressive defenses to prevent them. If those defenses failed, too often we saw an inadequate level of transparency for consumers to protect themselves from identity fraud.

There is no reason to believe the level of data compromises will suddenly decline in 2022. As organizations of all sizes struggle to defend the data they hold, it is essential that everyone practice good cyber-hygiene to protect themselves and their loved ones from these crimes.

Later in Q1 2022, the ITRC will launch a free alert service for consumers where individuals can create a list of companies with which they do business. If an organization on the list is added to our notified data compromise database, a subscriber will receive an email alert.

Consumers and victims can receive free support and guidance from a knowledgeable live advisor by calling 888.400.5530 or visiting the ITRCs website idtheftcenter.org to live-chat.

About the Identity Theft Resource Center

Founded in 1999, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) is a national nonprofit organization established to empower and guide consumers, victims, business and government to minimize risk and mitigate the impact of identity compromise and crime. Through public and private support, the ITRC provides no-cost victim assistance and consumer education through its website live-chat idtheftcenter.org and toll-free phone number 888.400.5530. The ITRC also equips consumers and businesses with information about recent data breaches through its data breach tracking tool, notified. The ITRC offers help to specific populations, including the deaf/hard of hearing and blind/low vision communities.

Media Contact

Identity Theft Resource Center

Alex Achten

Head of Earned & Owned Media Relations

888.400.5530 Ext. 3611

media@idtheftcenter.org
Workforce diversity helps companies meet the needs and expectations of an increasingly diverse marketplace. Whatever the reasons for this exodus from the workplace, it comes at a time of rapid business growth and a heightened emphasis on workforce diversity. In many cases, outsourcing of selected business functions can help employers address all these concerns at once.

A record total of 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September of 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation.(1) While the chief reasons given for resigning were lack of adequate childcare and health concerns about COVID, workplace experts believe that many leave their positions in search of better work opportunities, self-employment, or higher pay.(2) Whatever the reasons for it, this exodus from the workplace comes at a time of rapid business growth and a heightened emphasis on workforce diversity, says Neelesh Rangwani, founder of Delhi-based virtual assistant provider Wishup, In many cases, outsourcing of selected business functions can help employers address all these concerns at once.

Workforce diversity, says Rangwani, helps companies meet the needs and expectations of an increasingly diverse marketplace. Recent research shows that a team with a member who shares a clients ethnicity is 152% likelier than another team to understand that client.(3) What applies to selling, Rangwani adds, also applies to hiring. According to a recent survey from Glassdoor, 76% of employees and applicants said that a diverse workforce was an important factor in their evaluation of companies and job offers.(4)

Furthermore, he notes, both the Great Resignation and an increased emphasis on diversity come at a time of very rapid economic expansion(5) when many companies find themselves in need of assistance for essential but non-core services such as purchasing, telemarketing, or data entry. By taking responsibility for an entire area of operation, says Rangwani, an outsource company can offer effective management of these functions without the need to revamp the management structure of the client companythus saving time and money, and allowing management to focus on outlook and strategy.(6)

In many cases says Rangwani, an outsourcing solution, particularly an offshore solution, can allow growing companies to keep up with businesses while significantly increasing the diversity of the firms overall workforce. He also notes statistics show significant benefits in the combination of diversity and outsourcing, including improved performance, minimized risk, and increased innovation.

3 Benefits of a Diversified and Outsourced Staff

1. Its cost-effectiveOutsourcing reduces payroll costs. There are two main advantages: first, the contracting firm does not have to pay employee benefits, since the outsourcing company pays those. And second, for the same contracting firms payroll amount, they can get more peoplemore talentfrom the outsourcing firm.

2. Its efficientBy outsourcing from an international companyparticularly from Indiathe contracting firm gets an efficient, result-oriented, disciplined and highly adaptable employeeagain, for less money.

3. Its recession-proofAn outsourced staff is more resilient in economic down times. Whatever may ail American economics at a specific point in time does not translate to an outsourced staff.

The Great Resignation springs from a variety of sources, says Rangwani, some of which will not be resolved quickly. In the meantime, however, U.S. companies have an urgent need for qualified, educated, English-speaking help. India, which has the second-largest English-speaking population in the world(7) and nearly a hundred million college graduates(8), is and should be, he notes, a primary source of such assistance.

Outsourcing, Rangwani says, should be a key tool in every corporate managers toolbox. Properly managed, it is the fastest, most effective, and most economical way for a company to build and diversify staff, boost performance, and increase internal stability.

About Wishup:

Wishup is a virtual assistant staffing agency that connects a talented pool of individuals with business owners/entrepreneurs. They work together towards a common goal to achieve business growth. Wishups dedicated Virtual Assistants work with the hiring company on a one-on-one basis, directly assigning tasks to them. Trained in more than 50 tasks in-house, Wishups Virtual Assistants are ready from Day 1. Only the top 1-2% of total applicants make the cut. For more information, visit wishup.co.

1. Richter, Felix. The Great Resignation: Why 4.4 Million Americans Left Their Jobs in September. World Economic Forum, weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/great-resignation-us-american-workers-jobs-quitting-quit/.

2. Quitting is Just Half the Story: The Truth behind the 'Great Resignation'. The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Jan. 2022, theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/04/great-resignation-quitting-us-unemployment-economy.

3. How Diversity Can Drive Innovation. Harvard Business Review, 1 Aug. 2014, hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation.

4. Miller, Jennifer. For Younger Job Seekers, Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace Aren't a Preference. They're a Requirement. The Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2021, washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/18/millennial-genz-workplace-diversity-equity-inclusion/.

5. Horsley, Scott. Shopping and Shots Power an Economy Heading to Its Fastest Growth since 1984. NPR, NPR, 29 Apr. 2021, npr.org/2021/04/29/991341955/shopping-and-shots-power-an-economy-heading-to-its-fastest-growth-since-1984#

6. Bucki, James. Ways Outsourcing Can Improve Your Business. The Balance Small Business, The Balance Small Business, 5 Feb. 2020, thebalancesmb.com/top-outsourcing-advantages-2533765.

7. List of Countries by English-Speaking Population. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Jan. 2022, wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population.

8. Higher Education in India. Wikipedia, 13 Jan. 2022, wikipedia.org/Higher_education_in India.
Launching Scholars

LaunchTech, LLC  a Women, Minority, and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned company with offices in Huntsville, AL, and Buffalo, NY specializing in technology and mission support solutions  empowers underrepresented girls to succeed in STEM through scholarships from Launching Scholars.

Launching Scholars is an initiative that stands to provide access to opportunities and scholarships for girls 15-18 who are interested in Technology, Aviation, and Aerospace. By removing common barriers, Launching Scholars aims to play a small part in ensuring a more diverse and inclusive workforce in STEM and showing girls that the sky is NOT the limit. With a deadline of January 26, 2022, the flagship scholarship will provide twelve girls from Western, NY, and North and Central Alabama with the opportunity to attend Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. For those traveling from Western New York, the initiative will also cover airfare and accommodations for the Scholar and one parent or guardian.

Buffalo, NY was the birthplace of LaunchTech, and in 2021 we opened a new location in Rocket City--Huntsville, Alabama. I wanted to bridge the gap and continue our support of STEM initiatives. With Service being one of our companys core values, we couldnt think of a better way to empower our future engineers, astronauts, and technologists, said Venus Quates, President, and CEO of LaunchTech.

ABOUT LAUNCHING SCHOLARS:

The brainchild of US Air Force Veteran and President & CEO of LaunchTech, Venus Quates, Launching Scholars is an initiative created to offer access and opportunities to girls 15-18 interested in Technology, Aviation, and Aerospace.

With a focus on equipping and empowering girls from under-represented groups, under-resourced neighborhoods, or income-challenged households, Launching Scholars aims to do our part to remove common barriers, close gaps, and change the workforce composition in STEM. To learn more about Launching Scholars, visit http://www.welaunchscholars.com.

ABOUT LAUNCHTECH:

LaunchTech is a Women, Minority, and Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned with offices in Huntsville, AL, and Buffalo, NY, committed to Solving the present and Growing the future of technology. LAUNCHTECHs proven experience providing information technology services, mission & operations support, and technology resale solutions to customers in the Space, Financial Services, Healthcare, and Public sectors. To learn more about LaunchTech, visit http://www.welaunchtech.com.
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday told the international community to rally around education as a top political priority for the recovery and beyond.

"I call on everyone to unite around education as a public good and a top political priority for the recovery and beyond," the UN chief said in his video message for the International Day of Education, which falls on Monday.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused chaos in education worldwide, said the secretary-general. "Some 1.6 billion school and college students had their studies interrupted at the peak of the pandemic -- and it's not over yet."

He said that school closures continue to disrupt the lives of over 31 million students, exacerbating a global learning crisis.

"Unless we take action, the share of children leaving school in developing countries who are unable to read could increase from 53 to 70 percent," he said.

"Education is a preeminent public good, and an essential enabler for the entire 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Guterres said, adding that "the international community cannot afford to be agnostic about its provision, quality and relevance."

The International Day of Education, which came into existence on Dec. 3, 2018 following an UN General Assembly resolution, is celebrated annually on Jan. 24 for the role of education in bringing global peace and sustainable development. 
I am looking forward to providing exceptional care and establishing relationships with patients at this well-respected dermatology practice, says Dr. Matthew Reschly.

Medical Dermatology Specialists, Inc. is a full-service dermatology practice located on Johnson Ferry Road near Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. They offer general dermatology and skin cancer treatment for patients of all ages. These medical professionals are dedicated to providing the latest and most progressive options for patients suffering from a variety of skin conditions, ranging from severe or mild concerns to various types of skin cancer. Dr. Matthew Reschly has practiced in the Atlanta area for 18 years, and has established himself as a superior dermatologist and is a great addition to the team. He provides patients with excellence in the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancer, including basal and squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma, as well as psoriasis, eczema, acne and all significant skin disease. Dr. Reschly is a skilled surgeon and cosmetic dermatologist who is able to meet a wide range of needs for patients of all ages.

Dr. Matthew Reschly prides himself in delivering honest and skilled dermatologic care and deeply enjoys personal interaction with patients. A graduate of the University of Florida, he received his BS with honors and went on to attend the University of Florida School of Medicine where he completed his internship. He did his residency in dermatology at the University of South Florida and was honored to be Chief Resident of Academics. He holds licensure in both Florida and Georgia and is a fellow and member of the American Academy of Dermatology, as well as other professional societies, and is held in great esteem by his peers. Dr. Reschly is available to treat a wide range of dermatologic needs at Medical Dermatology Specialists, Inc., and he is currently accepting new patients.

I am looking forward to providing exceptional care and establishing relationships with patients at this well-respected dermatology practice, says Dr. Matthew Reschly.

More about Medical Dermatology Specialists, Inc.:

Located at 5730 Glenridge Drive, Suite T-100 Atlanta, GA 30328, Medical Dermatology Specialists, Inc. provides general dermatology for patients of all ages. In addition, they offer advanced treatments for different types of skin cancer and participate in a number of clinical trials. Medical Dermatology Specialists is excited to open a Lawrenceville office in March of 2022. If you would like to get more information or schedule an appointment, please call their office at (404) 939-9220, or visit http://www.atlantamedicaldermatology.com.


The New York-based mochi ice cream company Mochidoki (http://www.mochidoki.com) today announces Claudio LoCascio as CEO & President. Mochidokis Founder Ken Gordon will step back from his role as CEO but remain on as Chairman.

Prior to joining Mochidoki as President in March 2020, LoCascio served as COO at Joyride Coffee, where he oversaw business development, production and supply chain. Before Joyride, Claudio was a Portfolio Manager at the Winebow Group, directing the national launch of a premium imported sake portfolio. He subsequently became an Investment Engineer with Bridgewater Associates, before returning to the food and beverage space. LoCascio holds a BA in Economics from Dartmouth and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

As CEO & President at Mochidoki, LoCascio will lead the companys national growth through channels including retail, e-commerce and wholesale while overseeing innovation, strategic partnerships and more. Discussing the shift, LoCascio shared:

In my nearly two years at Mochidoki, I have been incredibly proud of the growth we have achieved and of Mochidokis continued focus on providing a delicious, innovative, high-quality product to our customers across the country. As CEO & President, I look forward to leading the brands continued growth and strategy, with a number of exciting expansion plans in the works for 2022.

As Founder & Chairman, Ken Gordon will continue to support the companys vision and mission:

Since 2015, Mochidoki has provided exceptional mochi ice cream to fans across the country. Im very excited to be able to share the announcement of Claudio as the brands new CEO & President, and we are all looking forward to this new chapter. In addition to expanding our retail footprint in New York City this past year with the opening of our Upper East Side location, weve brought several new flavors into the fold and begun development on some exciting new projects for 2022.

Mochidokis retail stores are located in Manhattans Upper East Side and SoHo neighborhoods. The brands products are also available to ship nationwide via http://www.mochidoki.com. Mochidoki is also available at partnering restaurants across the country, including Nobu, Tao, Wynn Resorts, and many more.

For media inquiries, please contact RVD Communications at mochidoki@rachelvandolsen.com.

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About Mochidoki

Mochidoki is a nationally renowned, New York-based, mochi ice cream company, beloved for their imaginative and refined Japanese-inspired desserts. Using only the highest-quality ingredients, Mochidoki offers elegant flavors such as Red Bean with chopped azuki red beans, Salted Caramel with cracked caramel candy, Matcha made with organic, premium matcha, Vegan Mango with honey mango puree, and more.

After learning alongside Japanese pastry chefs and diligently researching the science and history of the hand-held treat, Ken Gordon launched Mochidoki in 2015 with co-founder Christopher Wong as a wholesale brand serving the foodservice industry. The companys ingredient-driven ethos and whimsical creations swiftly amassed a loyal following, and became the preferred mochi ice cream provider to top restaurant and hospitality groups nationwide, from Nobu and Tao to Wynn Resorts and Blue Ribbon. Building on this success, Mochidoki launched a direct-to-consumer website in 2018. The brand now brings a dynamic selection of signature and seasonal flavors to homes nationwide.

In spring 2020, the Mochidoki team debuted their first brick-and-mortar location: an interactive flagship in Manhattans SoHo neighborhood, and in 2021, their second shop opened on the Upper East Side. The storefronts offer a new kind of mochi ice cream experience, centered around flavor exploration.
OceanTomo.com Brian and Alan further strengthen Ocean Tomos ability to contribute at the highest level of client organizations  corporate Board of Directors and throughout the C-suite -- on the most important matters related to competition, technology, and litigation risk management.

Ocean Tomo announced today that two notables in the intellectual property (IP) market, Dr. Alan Marco and Bruce W. Napper, have joined the firm, expanding our capabilities in the areas of antitrust and SEP/FRAND litigation, financial damages, and related testimony.

Brian and Alan further strengthen Ocean Tomos ability to contribute at the highest level of client organizations  corporate Board of Directors and throughout the C-suite -- on the most important matters related to competition, technology, and litigation risk management, notes James E. Malackowski, firm Chief Executive.

Dr. Marco is the first to serve in the role of Chief Economist for Ocean Tomo. As the former Chief Economist for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Dr. Marco brings unique macroeconomic and global policy experience to the firm. Dr. Marco has experience advising many domestic and international organizations, including national IP offices. In his role as Ocean Tomo Chief Economist, Dr. Marco also works on client matters involving complex economic and competition issues and advises firm leadership on trends likely affecting our clients. In particular, he will contribute by:

Partnering with senior leadership and the firms board of advisors to guide future Ocean Tomo product/service development;

Working with other firm financial and IP market experts to provide subject-matter expert opinion to the courts in disputes at the intersection of antitrust and intellectual property rights; and

Serving as an outsourced peer advisor to Corporate Offices of the Chief Economist and senior law firm managing partners on econometric matters.

For two decades, Ocean Tomo has been at the forefront of innovation in the intellectual property marketplace, says Alan. As an economist, its exciting to be a part of a team of experts continually bringing new ideas to a dynamic industry.

Consistent with Ocean Tomos teaching, rather than telling form of expert testimony, Dr. Marco is a professor of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has published numerous articles, reports, book chapters, and papers, including a popular TEDx talk entitled Why the patent system should look more like Indiana and less like Kentucky.

Brian W. Napper, an IP industry stalwart, joins Ocean Tomo as a Managing Director and senior testifying and consulting expert in Ocean Tomos San Francisco office. He also participates as a member of Ocean Tomos leadership team. Mr. Napper has helped define IP-damages theory throughout his three-plus decade career while serving as an expert in many precedent-setting matters including Uniloc v. Microsoft and Lucent v. Gateway.

On more than 80 occasions spanning ten years, Mr. Napper has provided deposition, trial, and arbitration testimony across a wide range of courts and tribunals. He has provided testimony before the International Trade Commission (ITC) and several arbitration panels, including the International Chamber of Commerce on issues of domestic industry, economic damages, and Fair Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licensing rates. Beyond litigation, Mr. Napper has also analyzed the value of IP across hundreds of engagements, providing transaction, valuation, commercialization, and IP management advice. His work spans numerous industries including telecom, semiconductors, life sciences, medical device, software, cloud computing, and social media for clients in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Ocean Tomos worldwide reach, says Brian, provides an ideal platform for me to continue serving global clients in providing IP innovative strategy, use, valuation, licensing, and damages analyses to enhance company values.

About Ocean Tomo

Established in 2003, Ocean Tomo, LLC provides Financial Expert, Management Consulting, and Advisory services related to intellectual property (IP) and other intangible assets; corporate accounting investigations; regulatory and reporting obligations; solvency and restructuring; and contractual or competition disputes.

Practice offerings address economic damage calculations and testimony; accounting investigations and financial forensics; technology and intangible asset valuation; strategy and risk management consulting; mergers and acquisitions; debt and equity private placement; and IP brokerage.

Intangible assets comprise 90 percent of business value but are also subject to significant impairment due to enterprise and regulatory compliance risk. Ocean Tomo assists clients  corporations, law firms, governments, and institutional investors  in realizing Intellectual Capital Equity value broadly defined.
With a Head for Technology and a Heart for the World, Enactus India in collaboration with Open Weaver look forward to creating sustainable positive impact! - Shmita Ramkumar, Chief Program Officer, Enactus India

Open Weaver and Enactus India are co-hosting Tech for Good Week 2022, which brings together thousands of students, inspirational social change agents, and technologists.

The Tech for Good Week provides students an opportunity to collaborate with thousands of like-minded global students and industry experts in a unique learning and collaborative competition format. They will be inspired on how technology enables social good and learn how to convert ideas into scalable technology solutions faster.

The event will host over 3000 students from over 36 countries exploring key challenges across Skilling with and Scaling Remote Education, and Combating Disinformation. They will have an opportunity to ideate innovative solutions, learn how to build their solutions using technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Metaverse, and others, and compete to win exciting prizes.

Notable speakers at the Tech for Good Week 2022 are Sal Khan, Founder & CEO, Khan Academy, and Jukay Hsu, Co-founder and CEO, Pursuit.

Registrations are open for all college students till Jan 24, 2022. To register, visit https://enactustechforgood.openweaver.com/

Shmita Ramkumar, Chief Program Officer, Enactus India said, Enactus India has been serving the mission of social good for over 17 years and the one thing that has helped us amplify our impact over the last few years is the use of Technology in our projects. With a Head for Technology and a Heart for the World, Enactus India in collaboration with Open Weaver look forward to creating sustainable positive impact!

"We are excited to partner with Enactus India in co-hosting the Tech for Good Week 2022," said Ashok Balasubramanian, CEO of Open Weaver Inc. "Education, and Combating Disinformation are the need of the hour, and we are glad to be enabling the next generation technologists in coming up with scalable technology solutions for aiding the same."

About Open Weaver

Open Weaver is a SaaS tech company changing the way the world builds digital. Open Weaver is headquartered in New York, with operations across the US and India. Open Weaver's mission is Reinventing Digital Realization, and is investing in a multi-year roadmap for digital development enablers. For more information about Open Weaver, visit us at https://www.openweaver.com.

About Enactus India

Enactus is the world's largest experiential learning platform dedicated to creating a better world while developing the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders and social innovators. Since 2003, Enactus India is shaping NextGen Leaders who are passionate about taking Social Entrepreneurial Action to Create a Better India.

To learn more about Enactus India, visit https://enactusindia.com/

For more information, press only:

Open Weaver Media Relations, media.relations@openweaver.com
Howard Rambsy II, PhD, distinguished research professor in the SIUE College of Arts and Sciences Department of English Language and Literature. With his record of excellent scholarship and outstanding teaching, Dr. Rambsy has led the Department of English Language and Literature to the forefront of programs in African American literature.

The distinction and award only add to what many at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and elsewhere believe and feel about Howard Rambsy II, PhD  that he is an illustrious educator with years of innovative scholarship, culturally-based research, creative teaching and substantial mentoring to his credit.

A faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) Department of English Language and Literature, Rambsy, known for his depth of expertise and experience in the field of African American literary studies, has achieved the Universitys highest academic rank of Distinguished Research Professor. He achieved the recognition in fall 2021, making him the first Black professor at SIUE to do so.

Rambsy teaches courses in American and African American literature. Since he arrived at SIUE in 2003, Rambsy has published two books The Black Arts Enterprise (2011) and Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers (2020). He has published 25 scholarly articles on African American literature and culture, and he edited or co-edited four special issues of scholarly journals. Rambsy has curated several exhibits featuring black artistic culture in a variety of places, including Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, and Ibadan, Nigeria. He has co-developed and directed two Summer Institutes on Frederick Douglass in 2019 and 2021.

Rambsys primary reason for coming to SIUE was the opportunity to work with Dr. Eugene B. Redmond, SIUE emeritus professor of English and East St. Louis poet laureate. SIUEs Lovejoy Library opened the Eugene B. Redmond Collection and Learning Center in 2015. Rambsy continues to embed the scholarship of Redmond in his teachings of literature.

I am honored to have received this award, said Rambsy. But I do have mixed feelings about being the first Black person to receive the distinction. Im mindful that so many Black scholar-professors were far more distinguished than I, yet never received this acknowledgement for their contributions.

Since joining the SIUE faculty, Rambsy has received approximately $1 million in external grant funding, where he has served as principal investigator (PI) or co-PI. His research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Illinois Humanities Council.

Dr. Rambsy is an especially prolific scholar who has produced an impactful body of work in African American Studies, said Jerry Weinberg, PhD, associate provost for research and dean of the SIUE Graduate School. Notably, in addition to garnering the attention of his scholarly community, Dr. Rambsy is a remarkable public scholar. Through his books, presentations, invited talks and many funded grants, he has introduced numerous people outside of academia to African American studies. As a dedicated teacher-scholar, he also brings his remarkable work into his classes, which creates a richness to his teaching that is one of the hallmarks of SIUE.

With his record of excellent scholarship and outstanding teaching, Dr. Rambsy has led the Department of English Language and Literature to the forefront of programs in African American literature, said CAS Dean Kevin Leonard, PhD. The Department offers more courses in African American literature than almost any other U.S. university.

Dr. Rambsy has served as a role model for the hundreds of Black students who have enrolled in the FAME (Females of African-Descent Modeling Excellence) and GAME (Goal-Oriented African American Excel) programs since 2004, continued Leonard. Students in these programs recognize that they can excel in their programs of study and become successful graduate students and professionals. The College of Arts and Sciences is thrilled that Dr. Rambsy is being recognized for his extraordinary achievements.

Dr. Rambsy is committed to increasing access to African American literature and scholarship at the University and beyond, offered Tisha Brooks, PhD, chair and associate professor in the Department of English Language and Literature. His teaching and research are inextricably linked. Dr. Rambsy is an excellent model of what it means to be a teacher-scholar.

He is deeply invested in breaking down barriers to education, especially for Black students, continued Brooks, who says Rambsy has served as a key mentor for her since coming to SIUE in 2013.

Dr. Rambsy gives a lot of his time to students personally and collectively, said Lydia Jackson, assistant to the provost for library and community engagement and associate dean of Lovejoy Library. His style of teaching imparts a unique level of comfortability that captures students interest and encourages further research. Dr. Rambsy is also there to be of support to his colleagues, which further demonstrates his humanity.

Earleen Patterson, PhD, SIUE associate vice chancellor for Student Opportunities, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, emphasized the monumental impact Rambsy has had on students, and praised him for his longtime commitment to FAME and GAME.

Student Opportunities for Academic Results (SOAR) is appreciative for the opportunity to partner with Dr. Rambsy to serve underrepresented students at SIUE, shared Patterson. Through the Johnetta Haley Scholarship Reading Project, we provide opportunities for otherwise marginalized students to express their thoughts and opinions on contemporary issues and grow as informed readers and scholars. Dr. Rambsys leadership has been invaluable to that project.

Our students and the entire SIUE community are tremendously fortunate to have the talent, passion and commitment to advocacy that Dr. Rambsy consistently pays forward, added Patterson. He is truly distinguished among college professors, not only at SIUE, but also throughout the United States.

By preparing the next generation of leaders in a knowledge-based economy, SIUEs Graduate School fulfills the regions demand for highly trained professionals. Graduate program offerings include arts and sciences, business, education, engineering, nursing and interdisciplinary opportunities. SIUE professors provide students with a unique integration of theoretical education and hands-on research experiences. Students can obtain graduate certificates or pursue masters degrees, and be part of a supportive learning and rich intellectual environment that is tailored to the needs of adult learners. The Graduate Schools Office of Research and Projects supports and raises the visibility of research and creative activity at SIUE, which ranks highest among its Illinois Board of Higher Education peers in total research and development expenditures according to the National Science Foundations Higher Education Research and Development Survey.
SAFE awarded $120,000 in grants to seven nonprofits in 2021 to support programs designed to improve the lives of more than 7,800 residents of the Greater Sacramento region.

The grants continue to support programs in career opportunities for veterans, financial proficiency, as well as health and wellness. The credit union is set to provide further support to the community in 2022 with another $120,000 to be distributed in four rounds of grant funding.

In 2021, SAFE awarded grants to Soil Born Farms, Allegiant Giving, City Year of Sacramento, Keatons Child Cancer Alliance, Saint Johns Shelter for Real Change, Junior Achievement of Sacramento, and the University Foundation at Sacramento State. The grants illustrate SAFEs commitment to its three pillars of philanthropy: veterans, education, and health, says SAFE Credit Union Community Impact Manager Amanda Merz.

Through the variety of these programs, we are able to broadly reach others in all three of the areas these grants were intended to impact throughout our community, Merz says. Each program strongly and directly changes the lives of those they support.

In 2022, SAFE will provide grants in four phases focusing on a specific aspect of SAFEs philanthropic priorities. SAFE will fund up to $20,000 to organizations with programs supporting military personnel seeking civilian careers; mental health initiatives; financial capability and educational programs; and programs dedicated to curbing health inequities in the Sacramento region. Programming should include quality education, raising awareness, and developing clear revenue models so the program can continue to help people for many years to come. The first application deadline is February 15.

About SAFE

SAFE Credit Union is a leading financial institution in Northern California with over $4.4 billion in assets and more than 240,000 members. SAFE is a not-for-profit, state-chartered credit union with membership open to businesses and individuals living or working in Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, El Dorado, Sutter, Butte, Nevada, Solano, San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Yuba, Amador, and Alameda counties. Insured by NCUA. http://www.safecu.org.


Sellvia builds a free online store and gives full access to the companys resources to anyone wishing to try ecommerce.

The uniqueness of this option is that any person, regardless of their location and experience, can start an online venture within just one business day  and test their new status and occupation for 14 days, absolutely for free.

Every entrepreneur who decides to accept the offer, gets a turnkey online store built according to their preferences and packed with ready-to-sell products.

They also get unlimited access to Sellvias resources including:



Growing stock of quality products

US-based manufacturing

US-based fulfillment center

1-3 business days shipping across the US

Marketing guidance, services and promo materials

Free support from a personal manager

If new business owners find their venture rewarding enough and choose to keep it operating, after 14 days of the free trial they subscribe to the paid Sellvia plan and continue working and growing. Those who are not interested in continuing, simply dont pay for the subscription and quit, with no strings attached.

Theres a huge difference between theory and practice, and online entrepreneurship is no exception. Our new option of starting a business at no cost gives everyone a chance to try being a business owner, listening to ones feelings and deciding whether to go on. All with zero risk and zero investment  says Ilya Dolgikh, CEO & Co-founder of Sellvia. For over a decade, our primary goal has been to give people from all across the globe, equal opportunities for changing their lives for the better through entrepreneurship. And this offer is definitely a unique chance for everyone to achieve this goal, or at least try and decide  in practice, not theory  if an online business suits them.

The opportunity to launch an ecommerce store for free is open for all comers and can be taken at any time on the offers page.

About Sellvia

Sellvia is a full-scale ecommerce ecosystem, which includes all the technical, customer service and marketing features one needs to start, run and grow an online business. The company was created by a team of entrepreneurs and software developers, and its headquarters, manufacturing and fulfillment center are based in the US (Irvine, California). The teams joint expertise in ecommerce helps provide its merchants with unrivalled business opportunities and their customers with a seamless and enjoyable shopping experience. Visit the sellvia.com website to learn more about the company and its products.

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Stories Matter: (Re) Imagining Past and Future, highlights the power of words to embody change is the Theme for Helpful Workshops, and Engaging Keynotes for New and Experienced Writers

Thursday through Saturday, February 10th-12th, 2022, Sierra College Press will host the 2022 Sierra Writers Conference, featuring science fiction superstar, Kim Stanley Robinson, author and editor Nisi Shawl, Nevada County Poet Laureate, Kirsten Casey, and an amazing group of writers whose workshops focus on various elements of story, writing, and community.

In this time of profound societal change, let's come together to think, write, and reflect about our relationship with the planet and with each other, says Ingrid Keriotis, Professor of English and poet, who helps produce the event. Sierra Writers Conference 2022 will be a time for us to gather and be inspired by an amazing lineup of writers. Let's embrace this year's theme and reimagine past, present, and future as a community so that we may begin to heal the wounds--psychological, environmental, and otherwise--that have been weighing us down.

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bestselling Mars trilogy, and more recently New York 2140, Aurora, Shaman, Green Earth, and 2312, which was a New York Times bestseller nominated for all seven of the major science fiction awardsa first for any book. He was sent to the Antarctic by the U.S. National Science Foundations Antarctic Artists and Writers Program in 1995 and returned in their Antarctic media program in 2016.

In 2008 he was named a Hero of the Environment by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, the Clarion Writers Workshop, and UC San Diegos Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. His work has been translated into 25 languages, and won a dozen awards in five countries, including the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards.

In 2016 he was given the Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction, and asteroid 72432 was named Kimrobinson. In 2017, he was given the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society. A prolific writer and speaker, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Nature, and Wired, among many others, and he has lectured at more than one hundred institutions over the last 25 years. His most recent novel is The Ministry for the Future, which was selected as one of Barack Obamas Favorite Books of 2020.

Utopian fiction in our time has to engage with the Earths biosphere as well as human society. The stakes are higher, the bar is lower! Come hear Stan describe the craft of writing utopia in our perilous times.

Author and editor Nisi Shawl is best known for fiction dealing with gender, race, and colonialism, including the 2016 Nebula Award finalist Everfair, an alternate history of Africas Congo region. Theyre the co-author of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, a standard text teaching techniques for inclusive representation in fiction, and a co-founder of the Carl Brandon Society, an inclusivity-focused nonprofit. Theyre also a critic and essayist, with work appearing in Ms. Magazine, the Washington Post, Uncanny Magazine, and as the introduction to a volume of the Library of America. They have spoken at Duke University, Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College, and elsewhere.

Nebula Award Finalist, Shawl has edited and co-edited anthologies including Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler; Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany; and New Suns: Speculative Fiction by People of Color. Their collection Filter House is a co-winner of the Otherwise Award, formerly the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. Additional awards include the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, the World Fantasy Award, two Locus Awards, and an inaugural 2020 FIYAH Magazine Ignyte Award. Theyve served for over two decades on the board of the Clarion West Writers Workshop.

Kirsten Casey is the current Nevada County poet laureate, and an active California Poet in the Schools. Her poetry collection, Ex Vivo: Out of the Living Body, published by Hip Pocket Press in 2012, is inspired by odd stories, remarkable words, and the mysteries of the human body. Her second book of poetry, (with the working title Instantaneous Obsolescence,) explores historical and literary characters struggling with social media.

In 2019, she taught high school workshops as part of the Academy of American Poets Laureate fellowship granted to Molly Fisk, to facilitate the poetry anthology, California Fire & Water, which responds to Californias climate crisis. She was a co-editor of the book, which includes one of her poems. Currently, she is an associate editor of the book Small, Bright Things, a collection of 100-word stories by teens, with local author and editor, Kim Culbertson. As laureate, she is writing poems celebrating local historical places, people and events. Also, she is holding community workshops to promote poetry and to make the process of its creation more accessible.

She has lived in Nevada City for 28 years with her husband, and has three children in their twenties, who patiently assist her with technology.

Workshops and Sessions

In addition to showcasing these two dynamic personalities, each with powerful and timely messages, the conference will open with Sierra College creative writing students as well as feature an array of workshops provided by writers Marie Brennan, Dr. Victoire Chochezi and Staajabu, Ellen Szabo, Christy Hubbard and Jonathan Collier, Shirley Dickard and Catharine Bramkamp, Andrea Steward, and Devi Laskar. Each workshop addresses the craft of writing with special emphasis on speculative fiction, (re)imagining, social change, and/or world building. The conference also offers critique workshops designed to give writers individualized feedback on their own writing. Join renowned writers Kirsten Casey, Devi Laskar, Kim Culbertson, or Sands Hall for small group conferences about your own work. Critique workshop registration is limited, so sign up early.

Whether you just love to read, you are a beginning writer, or you are a pro, the 2022 Sierra Writers Conference has something for you. Engage virtually with a community of writers and powerful presenters whose works and workshops focus on equity, social and environmental justice, writing, and creativity. Enhance your stories and storytelling skills by engaging with a powerful writing community working for brighter tomorrows.

Registration

Registration and conference information are available at 2022 Sierra Writers Conference. Tickets for the three-day event are $50 and personalized critique workshops are $30. Sierra College students and staff attend for free. Those who cannot attend are encouraged to follow on social media using the hashtag #SierraWriters

About Sierra College

Sierra College District is rising to the needs of our community. Sierra College serves 3200 square miles of Northern CA with campuses in Roseville, Rocklin, Grass Valley, and Truckee. With approximately 125 degree and certificate programs, Sierra College is ranked first in Northern California (Sacramento north) for transfers to four-year universities, offers career/technical training, and classes for upgrading job skills. Sierra graduates can be found in businesses and industries throughout the region. More information at http://www.sierracollege.edu
We address a significant challenge  spectral efficiency. Its becoming increasingly clear that whoever controls the spectrum will control the battlespace. Astrapis capabilities help to achieve that critical advantage. - Jerrold Prothero, Ph.D., CEO

Astrapi Corporation has been awarded its second Phase II SBIR contract from the United States Air Force AFWERX program. The new contract provides support for Astrapi to deliver a Software Defined Radio (SDR) prototype. The SDR will implement Astrapis advanced communication capability  Spiral Modulation. Spiral modulation addresses congested and contested communication channels by enabling Warfighters to get more information through a channel using less signal power.

Astrapi continues to make foundational improvements at the core physical layer of the communications stack. This project is complementary to another Phase II SBIR project focused on Symbol Waveform Hopping (SWH), funded with support from the U.S. Space Force. SWH provides a unique way to secure signal transmission. Astrapi is currently working with a SDR hardware partner to demonstrate Spiral Modulation in a Ka-band radio that is radiation hardened and suitable for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) deployment. The miniaturized radio will have on-orbit signal processing capabilities and will be suitable for LEO, MEO and GEO.

We are quite excited to advance this application of Spiral Modulation toward deployment, stated Dr. Jerrold Prothero, Founder and CEO of Astrapi Corporation. We have a strong, accomplished teaming partner in Space Micro. And we address a significant challenge  spectral efficiency. Its becoming increasingly clear that whoever controls the spectrum will control the battlespace. Astrapis capabilities help to achieve that critical advantage.

Based on a new generalization of Eulers formula, the foundational mathematics for the telecommunications industry, Astrapi has the ability to engineer signals as the sum of complex spirals. This unleashes, for the first time, the ability to fully exploit the capabilities of a continuously non-stationary spectrum. Classical channel capacity theory contains, in the proof of the sampling theorem, an implicit assumption that the spectrum is at least approximately stationary. By violating this assumption, Spiral Modulation creates the opportunity to bypass the Shannon-Hartley law, the previous upper limit for spectral efficiency.

ABOUT Astrapi Corporation

Astrapi provides fundamentally new ways to optimize the use of the spectrum, to secure signal transmission, and to measure power in a non-stationary spectrum. Astrapi is able to improve the trade-off between the four fundamental parameters in telecommunications: bandwidth, signal power, data throughput, and error rate. The resulting efficiency translates into higher spectral performance with more bits available at a lower cost. Currently Astrapi has fifteen US patents issued, with more pending and with corresponding international patent coverage. Further information at http://www.astrapi-corp.com

ABOUT SPACE MICRO

Space Micro Inc., based in San Diego, CA, is an engineering-driven supplier of affordable, high-performance, radiation-hardened communications, electro-optics, and digital systems for use in commercial, civil, and military space applications around the world. Space Micro solutions include Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) transmitters, mission data transmitters, space cameras, star trackers, image processors, Command & Data Handling (C&DH) systems and laser communications systems.

For more information, visit spacemicro.com or contact Michael Dowd, Vice President of Business Development at (858) 332-0700, extension 122 or via email at mdowd@spacemicro.co

ABOUT AFWERX

AFRL and AFWERX have partnered to streamline the Small Business Innovation Research process in an attempt to speed up the experience, broaden the pool of potential applicants and decrease bureaucratic overhead. Beginning in SBIR 18.2, and now in 21.1, the Air Force has begun offering 'The Open Topic' SBIR/STTR program that is faster, leaner and open to a broader range of innovations.
Strolleria is going to benefit from the major shift to e-commerce that is happening in the parenting category.

Peninsula Capital Partners, a Detroit-based private equity firm and Weave Growth Partners, a Silicon Valley-based private investment firm, acquired a majority stake in Strolleria, a multi-channel retailer of high-end baby gear.

Founded by Drew Venzke and Amy Venzke in 2016, Strolleria sells high-end baby gear products such as strollers, car seats, high chairs, playards and related accessories. Typical customers are parents who value brand image and high-quality products and demand a high-touch and collaborative shopping experience.

Ty Clutterbuck, Partner at Peninsula, said, Strolleria is going to benefit from the major shift to e-commerce that is happening in the parenting category. We are excited about the growth that lies ahead of the company and are thrilled to partner with Weave to execute on these opportunities.

Austin Neudecker, Managing Partner at Weave Growth Partners, said, We are really impressed with the business Strolleria has built because of its deep knowledge of product lines and a superior customer service experience. We look forward to helping the company expand and continue to help new parents navigate what can sometimes be a confusing journey.

To learn more, visit https://strolleria.com/

About Peninsula Capital Partners

Peninsula Capital Partners is an investment company specializing in providing junior capital, including subordinated debt, preferred stock or common stock, either as a minority or control investor, to superior middle-market companies. Peninsula has raised seven investment partnerships totaling approximately $1.9 billion of committed capital, with over 130 investments in a wide range of industries. Founded in 1995, the Company is today owned entirely by its founders and senior management team members.

To learn more, visit https://www.peninsulafunds.com/

About Weave Growth Partners

Weave Growth Partners is a private investment firm based in Silicon Valley. As experienced investors, entrepreneurs and operators, Weave partners with management teams to create long-term value and bring technology expertise to portfolio companies. Weave brings a technology-enabled playbook of analytics and automation commonly used in high-growth Silicon Valley startups to portfolio companies.

To learn more, visit https://www.weavegrowth.com
OUAGADOUGOU, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained overnight by mutinous soldiers, local media reported on Monday.

"President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained by soldiers," local radio Omega FM reported.

"The president was taken to a military camp following the mutiny," a security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

On Sunday, a country-wide curfew was imposed in Burkina Faso, following reports of gunfire in some barracks in the morning, according to a decree signed by president Kabore.

Another statement, from the minister of national education, announced the closure of schools on Monday and Tuesday.

Gunshots were heard early Sunday morning in barracks in the capital Ouagadougou and other cities. The government confirmed the gunfire but denied reports on social media about an army takeover.

Also on Sunday, Defense Minister Gen. Barthelemy Simpore said on state television that the situation was under control, and rejected reports as rumors that president Kabore had been detained by soldiers.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has called for calm and reaffirmed its support for president Kabore. 
Morning Magnified: a potent reminder of the promise and purpose found within Gods Word. Morning Magnified is the creation of published author William McLeod, a loving husband and United States Army veteran who grew up in the Harlem area of New York City.

McLeod shares, When I look back over my life, I see nothing but the hand of God on my family. I was gifted with the ministry of encouraging and lifting people. I made a promise to God many years ago. I promised that every day that he wakes me up and put a word or song on my heart that I would write it and sing a joyful song unto the Lord. The people of the world have been experiencing depression, sickness, loss of hope, looking for someone or something to lift them and rescue them from the evilness of this dark world. My thoughts for each day are, if I can help someone along the way, as I journey through this world, then my living is not in vain. I have a testimony of the goodness of Jesus Christ, and I have to share it with the world God is good to me, and I know it. God is good to you, but do you know it? I pray that you will seek God and his righteousness and not the worlds unrighteousness. I pray that this book will be a blessing to you. Step out on faith in the Son of God and watch how he will pour out his blessing on you.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, William McLeods new book is an encouraging opportunity for spiritual growth.

McLeod shares in hopes of empowering others on their journey with Christ.

Consumers can purchase Morning Magnified at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about Morning Magnified, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.
Woolpert will provide on-call geospatial support services for Denver International Airport under a multiyear contract. Geospatial data streamlines and accelerates systems and processing at airports, assisting with workflow management, asset location and management, and overall coordination and execution.

The Denver International Airport (DEN) has selected Woolpert to provide on-call geospatial support services under a multiyear, $1.4 million contract. Services include geospatial and traditional survey, GIS data acquisition and development, digital elevation modeling and analyses, interior and exterior lidar acquisition, building information modeling and 3D scanning, civil engineering and application development.

DEN became the third-busiest airport in the world in 2021, serving approximately 59 million passengers for the year. The airport is Colorados primary economic engine, generating more than $33 billion annually for the region, and continues to expand to meet demand. Woolpert Aviation Program Director and Senior Associate Ed Copeland said the airports mature GIS system will benefit from the latest technologies and solutions, which support efficient and cost-effective decisions to help guide and accelerate recovery from the pandemic and growth.

Geospatial data streamlines and accelerates systems and processing at airports, assisting with workflow management, asset location and management, and overall coordination and execution, Copeland said. Were looking at integrating AutoCAD, BIM and GIS data with other systems to support operations and maintenance, utilizing the IoT (Internet of Things) and incorporating live information into dashboarding and other applications.

This on-call GIS airport contract is the most recent awarded to Woolpert, which is providing similar support to airports across the country. Woolpert is adept at providing aviation engineering and design, supporting both airside and landside development, and is a leader in geospatial technologies and applications.

GIS support for airports fits easily into our wheelhouse, sitting at the intersection of our aviation and geospatial expertise, Copeland said. We have developed a team that understands the needs of airports and how geospatial data successfully addresses those needs. Our combination of history and innovation enables us to develop and implement top-tier programs for valued clients like Denver, helping them work smarter and faster. Were excited to be able to provide these services and to get this contract underway.

About Woolpert

Woolpert is the premier architecture, engineering, geospatial (AEG) and strategic consulting firm, with a vision to become one of the best companies in the world. We innovate within and across markets to effectively serve public, private and government clients worldwide. Woolpert is an ENR Top 150 Global Design Firm, recently earned its sixth-straight Great Place to Work certification, and actively nurtures a culture of growth, inclusion, diversity and respect. Founded in 1911 in Dayton, Ohio, Woolpert has been Americas fastest-growing AEG firm since 2015. The firm has more than 1,600 employees and 60 offices on four continents. For more, visit woolpert.com.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk who became a global peace activist, renowned teacher, prolific author, and an advocate for applying eternal Buddhist principles to contemporary social issues, died on January 22 at age 95. He died at the same Buddhist temple in Hue, Vietnam, where he first entered at age 16 to fulfill his childhood dream of following the Buddha.

Born on October 11, 1926, Thich Nhat Hanh developed his transformative view of the contemplative faith in the early 1960s as bombs rained on Vietnam. To the idea of being mindful of every moment  fundamental to Buddhist philosophy  he added direct help. He organized the School of Youth Social Service with monks delivering food and medicine to victims in North and South Vietnam. He called it engaged Buddhism in his first book, Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire, which circulated underground in South Vietnam and was first published in English in the U.S. by Hill and Wang in 1967. The Trappist Monk Thomas Merton wrote the foreword. Parallax Press, the publishing house Thich Nhat Hanh co-founded in 1986 in California, will reissue the title in May.

By then Thich Nhat Hanh was in exile, banished for what came to be 39 years. He had been teaching at Cornell and meeting U.S. political, social, and religious leaders including Martin Luther King Jr. After their meeting in 1966, he was by Kings side at a press conference where King denounced the Vietnam War.

In succeeding decades, more than 100 booksnovels, poetry collections, spiritual guides, scholarly Buddhist texts, and collections of his Dharma talkshave born his name. He addressed, love, peace, anger, happiness and more, confronting topics from world governments to Google. Oprah Winfrey, in her 2013 interview with him, said she keeps his book, Living Buddha, Living Christ by her bedside. He told her, Jesus Christ is the Buddha of the West.

His most recent title, a bestseller, Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet, published by HarperOne in October 2021, brings his engaged (or applied as he later called it) Buddhist approach to environmentalism action. Like several of the works published following his debilitating stroke in 2014, it is a collection of his earlier essays and commentary. Zen was edited by one of his longtime colleagues, Sister True Dedication. Gideon Weil, v-p and editorial director at HarperOne, tells PW,  It was a privilege to work on nine books with Thay Thich Nhat Hanh who brought mindfulness to a broad audience and showed us how to incorporate it into our daily lives.

Although he worked with several U.S. publishers, he called Parallax his primary publisher and distributor. According to publisher Hisae Matsuda, both Parallax and monastic editors helped Thay develop almost all of his books in English over the years, including those published by the Big Five houses. Matsuda cited strong demand for mindfulness titles driving up trade sales for Parallax 23% in 2021. Parallax will bring out another title in their Mindfulness Essentials series by him, How to Focus, in July. Lists of their titles with him are posted by Plum Village, the French monastery and mindfulness practice center he and his followers established in 1982.

Matsuda tells PW, Thay was beloved for his compassion, generosity, and joy. His approach to Buddhist teachings was not dry nor detached, but deeply felt and grounded in practice, first from the heartbreaking experience of colonialism, war, loss, exile, and then from decades of living in community in nature. His words have an immense impact and power.  He will never be forgotten."

At Shambhala, a major publisher of English-language titles on Buddhism, president Nikko Odiseos says their social media channels went viral Saturday with the news of Thay (his well-known nickname, pronounced tie"). Thay had an incredible way of making the teachings of the Buddha immediately accessible to anyone regardless of their own backgrounds and beliefs: the Buddhas teachings were for everyone, not just Buddhists. As authentic as they come, he led by example, not by pronouncement, and this quality, rooted in deep practice and reflection, drew millions to his books and tens of thousands to his talks, teachings, and centers, Odiseos says.

Shambhala's website posted a directory of their seven titles by him and anthologies where he is included, and also posted excerpts from You Are Here: Thich Nhat Hanh on Dying and Living, in which the monk wrote: "Living is a joy. Dying in order to begin again is also a joy. Starting over is a wonderful thing, and we are starting over constantly."
Ring in the new year and drive out the winter doldrums with our selection of buzzy new stories for young readers. Find out how a prolific activist got their start on their journey to becoming a prominent part of history; join a young ballerina as she learns what it means to be part of a family of dancers; discover the story of a young Medusa; and much more.

Picture Books and Early Readers

Because Claudette

Tracey Baptiste, illus. by Tonya Engel. Dial, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-593-32640-4. Ages 68.

When 15-year-old Claudette Colvin boarded a segregated bus on March 2, 1955, she had no idea she was about to make history. This picture book biography pays tribute to her pivotal role in the civil rights movement. The book received a starred review from PW.

Cornbread & Poppy

Matthew Cordell. Little, Brown, $15.99 (80p) ISBN 978-0-7595-5486-3. Ages 48.

Cornbread loves planning. Poppy does not. Cornbread is ready for winter. Poppy is not. But Cornbread and Poppy are the best of friends, so when Poppy is left without any food for the long winter, Cornbread volunteers to help her out. The book received a starred review from PW.

The Faith of Elijah Cummings: The North Star of Equal Justice

Carole Boston Weatherford, illus. by Laura Freeman. Random House Studio, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-593-30650-5. Ages 69.

Best known as a voice for people of color and an advocate for equal opportunity, Elijah Cummings was a warrior for equality and change. Weatherford and Freeman introduce this politician and civil rights champion, detailing his inspiring story. The book received a starred review from PW.

Just Help! How to Build a Better World

Sonia Sotomayor, illus. by Angela Dominguez. Philomel, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-593-20626-3. Ages 48.

In a story inspired by her own familys desire to help others, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor takes young readers on a journey through a neighborhood where kids and adults, activists and bus drivers, friends and strangers all help one another to build a better world for themselves and their community.

Kick Push

Frank Morrison. Bloomsbury, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-5476-0592-7. Ages 36.

Epic loves skateboarding, but after moving to a new neighborhood and struggling to find his new skating crew, he ditches his board to try out other sports, to disastrous results. Dejected and defeated, Epic heads home, where his father encourages him to stay true to himself. The book received a starred review from PW.

Love in the Library

Maggie Tokuda-Hall, illus. by Yas Imamura. Candlewick, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-5362-0430-8. Ages 69.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Tama is sent to live in a War Relocation Center in the desert. All Japanese Americans from the West Coast now live in prison camps like Minidoka. Trying not to think of the life she once had, Tama works in the camps tiny library, taking solace in stories bursting with love and fairness. The book received a starred review from PW.

Mina

Matthew Forsythe. S&S/Wiseman, $17.99 (68p) ISBN 978-1-4814-8041-3. Ages 48.

Mina and her father live in a hollowed-out tree stump on the edge of a pond on the edge of a forest. Nothing ever bothers Mina, until her father brings home a suspicious surprise from the woods.

Olu and Greta

Diana Ejaita. Rise x Penguin Workshop, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-593-38490-9. Ages 35.

Olu lives in Lagos, Nigeria; his cousin, Greta, lives in Milan, Italy. Though their lives may be different, their ways of living and playing are quite similar. They both roller skate; they both skip down the street; they both play with toy trains, trucks, and they both dream of meeting and being together. The book received a starred review from PW.

On Babas Back

Marianne Dubuc. Princeton Architectural Press, $9.95 (24p) ISBN 978-1-61689-912-7. Ages 14.

Koko and Baba are a very close koala family, so close that Koko does everything on Baba's back. Then one day, when Koko wants to do something different, he takes his first step off Baba's back to go explore. The book received a starred review from PW.

When the Schools Shut Down: A Young Girls Story of Virginias Lost Generation and the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Decision

Yolanda Gladden, as told to Tamara Pizzoli, illus. by Keisha Morris. HarperCollins, $18.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-06-301116-8. Ages 48.

This autobiographical picture book presents the untold story of an African American girl who lived during the shutdown of public schools in Farmville, Va., following the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The book received a starred review from PW.

Where Is Bina Bear?

Mike Curato. Holt/Godwin, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-250-76220-7. Ages 48.

Tiny is having a party, but Bina Bear is nowhere to be found. Is that Bina hiding under a lampshade? Searching for Bina, Tiny realizes something is wrongand sets out to make it right. The book received a starred review from PW.

The Year We Learned to Fly

Jacqueline Woodson, illus. by Rafael Lopez. Penguin/Paulsen, $18.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-399-54553-5. Ages 58.

On a dreary, stuck-inside kind of day, a brother and sister heed their grandmothers advice to get creative. And before they know it, their imaginations lift them up and out of their boredom. The book received a starred review from PW.

Middle Grade

Code Name: Serendipity

Amber Smith. Razorbill, $17.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-593-20491-7. Ages 812.

Its been an awful start to the school year for Sadie. Her best friend moved away, her older brother is a jerk, and her grandfather is having more and more trouble keeping his memories straight. But when she comes across a stray dog, she discovers something wonderful and magicalshe and the dog can communicate telepathically.

Dream, Annie, Dream

Waka T. Brown. Quill Tree, $16.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-301716-0. Ages 812.

As the daughter of immigrants, Annie Inoue was raised to dream big. At the start of seventh grade, shes channeling that hope into becoming the lead in her school play. But when Annie succeeds in landing an impressive role, she starts to hear grumbles from her white classmates.. Annie decides to show everyone what shes made of.

Northwind

Gary Paulsen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $17.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-374-31420-0. Ages 1014.

When a deadly plague decimates his fishing village, an orphan named Leif is forced to take to the water in a canoe. He flees northward, following a wild, fjord-riven shore, navigating from one danger to the next, unsure of his destination. Yet the deeper into his journey he paddles, the closer he comes to his truest self. The book received a starred review from PW. Read our tribute to the late Paulsen.

The Odds

Matt Stanton. HarperAlley, $19.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-06-306894-0. Ages 812.

Kip is a quiet kid in a loud city. Shes easy to miss and thats the way she likes it, until one day, Kips quiet life is suddenly interrupted. Ten of her favorite characters have stepped out of their worlds and into hers.

Operation Sisterhood

Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich. Crown, $16.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-593-37989-9. Ages 812.

Bo and her mother always had their own rhythm. But ever since they moved to Harlem, Bos world has fallen out of sync. She and Mum are now living with Mums boyfriend, his daughter, twins, the twins parents, along with a dog, two cats, a bearded dragon, a turtle, and chickens. With so many people squished together, Bo isnt sure there is room for her.

Snow Struck

Nick Courage. Delacorte, $16.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-593-30349-8. Ages 812.

Neither Elizabeth nor her little brother, Matty, have ever been north of Georgia. When they fly to New York City to spend the holidays with their cousin Ashley, they want to experience one thing: snow. Ashley cant wait to show her cousins how magical Manhattan is. But instead of a week of fun, what they get is an arctic blast that knocks out the power and plunges the skyscrapers into darkness.

Sofia Acosta Makes a Scene

Emma Otheguy. Knopf, $16.99 (288p) ISBN 978-0-593-37263-0. Ages 812.

Its a good thing Sofia Acosta loves dreaming up costumes, because otherwise shes a ballet disaster, unlike her parents, who danced under prima ballerina Alicia Alonso. When the Acostas host their dancer friends from Cuba for a special performance with the American Ballet Theatre, Sofia learns theres more than dance holding her family together.

Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler

Ibi Zoboi. Dutton, $16.99 (128p) ISBN 978-0-399-18738-4. Ages 10 and up.

Zoboi illuminates the life of visionary storyteller Octavia E. Butler in poems and prose. Born into the Space Race, the Red Scare, and the dawning civil rights movement, Butler experienced an American childhood that shaped her into a groundbreaking science-fiction storyteller.

Young Adult

Aint Burned All the Bright

Jason Reynolds and Jason Griffin. Atheneum/Dlouhy, $19.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-5344-3946-7. Ages 12 and up.

Author Reynolds and artist Griffin, friends and previous collaborators, explore race and recent events in America through a poetic multimedia partnership told in three breaths. See our In Conversation with Reynolds and Griffin. The book received a starred review from PW.

Anatomy

Dana Schwartz. Wednesday, $18.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-77415-6. Ages 13 and up.

With an elegantly macabre touch, Schwartz stitches a haunting romance with the gritty realities of corpse-related medical practices in 19th-century Edinburgh. See our q&a with the author here.

Augusta Savage: The Shape of a Sculptors Life

Marilyn Nelson. Little, Brown/Ottaviano, $18.99 (128p) ISBN 978-0-316-29802-5. Ages 14 and up.

Augusta Savage was arguably the most influential American artist of the 1930s. A gifted sculptor, she was commissioned to create a portrait bust of W.E.B. Du Bois for the New York Public Library. After being denied an artists fellowship abroad on the basis of race, Savage worked to advance equal rights in the arts. The biography in verse received a starred review from PW.

Coming Back

Jessi Zabarsky. Random House Graphic, $24.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-593-12002-6. Ages 12 and up.

Zabarskys sophomore graphic novel is set on an island where individuals can shift form and shape elements, and where children are born through seeds left behind by the dead. When a strange, harmful mist emerges from the library that houses their peoples history, nonmagical Valissa volunteers to descend into the islands depths. The book received a starred review from PW.

Crushing

Sophie Burrows. Algonquin, $22.95 (160p) ISBN 978-1-64375-239-6. Ages 16 and up.

Destiny drives this lonely hearts tale, a graphic novel debut about yearning and missed connections between two Londoners. Nearly wordless, Burrowss pencil panels picture two singletons who pass like clumsy ships in the night. See our q&a with author-illustrator Burrows.

Lawless Spaces

Corey Ann Haydu. Simon & Schuster, $18.99 (496p) ISBN 978-1-5344-3706-7. Ages 14 and up.

Mimis relationship with her mother has always been difficult. But lately, her mother has been acting more withdrawn than usual, leaving Mimi to navigate the tricky world of turning 16 alone. What she doesnt expect is her mothers advice to start journalingjust like all the woman in her family before her. The book received a starred review from PW.

Medusa

Jessie Burton, illus. by Olivia Lomenech Gill. Bloomsbury, $19.99 (224p) ISBN 978-1-5476-0759-4. Ages 14 and up.

Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted by desire, love, betrayal, and destiny itself. The book received a starred review from PW.

My Fine Fellow

Jennieke Cohen. HarperTeen, $17.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-06-304753-2. Ages 13 and up.

In this gender-bent retelling of My Fair Lady, when Penelope and Helena meet Elijah, a golden opportunity arises: to pull off a project never seen before, and turn Elijah from a street vendor to a gentleman chef. The book received a starred review from PW.

Vinyl Moon

Mahogany L. Browne. Crown, $18.99 (176p) ISBN 978-0-593-17643-6. Ages 14 and up.

When Darius told Angel he loved her, she believed him. But five weeks after a violent incident, Angel finds herself in Brooklyn, far from her family, from him, and from the California life she has known. The book received a starred review from PW.

Waking Romeo

Kathryn Barker. Flatiron, $18.99 (384p) ISBN 978-1-25017-410-9. Ages 12 and up.

Its the end of the world and time travel is possible, but only going forward. Only a handful of families choose to remain in the now, living off the scraps left behind. Among them are 18-year-old Juliet and the love of her life, Romeo. But Romeo lies in a coma and Juliet is estranged from her friends and family due to the fallout of their romance. Then a mysterious time traveler arrives from the future with a mission that makes Juliet question everything she knows. The book received a starred review from PW. See our q&a with Barker.

When You Get the Chance

Emma Lord. Wednesday, $18.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-250-78334-9. Ages 12 and up.

In this Mamma Mia! re-imagining, nothing will get in the way of Millie Prices dream to become a Broadway star. But Millie needs an ally. When Millie discovers her fathers embarrassingly moody LiveJournal from 2003, she decides she is going to find her mother, based on three possible candidates. The book received a starred review from PW.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Purdue Universitys online Master of Science in aviation and aerospace management was just what Alex John was looking for  a path to advancing her knowledge of the aviation industry on the way to a career in the field, without necessarily flying airplanes.

I felt it was more well-rounded than an aeronautical university, she said of Purdues online degree program. The reasonable price point also allowed me to graduate without debt, which was a huge benefit.

And John, of Philadelphia, director of client relations for Solairus Aviation, a top private aircraft management and charter company, said her investment paid off.

Once I graduated, I immediately became more marketable in my job search, said John, a December 2020 graduate. It has helped open the door for me professionally.

Purdues history in aviation and aerospace education is long and storied. It includes the first university-owned airport, opened in 1930 and designated a historic landmark, as well as Amelia Earhart as a former advisor, and more than two dozen alumni astronauts. Purdue developed a four-year aviation degree with options in flight, maintenance and management in the 1940s. Not surprisingly, the university developed a 100% online masters degree in the field early on as well.

The current online masters program from the School of Aviation and Transportation Technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, has proven popular with working professionals across a broad spectrum of positions in aviation and aerospace, or who are looking to get into the field.

There were a lot of people who wanted to come to Purdue but could not pick up their lives and leave home, said Mary Johnson, associate head for graduate programs and professor. The online program allows you to be anywhere in the world. Its a great way to get a Purdue education to people who want it but cant come to Purdue.

People working for airlines; airports; air cargo, general aviation and charter operations; aircraft and aircraft parts manufacturers; aircraft repair and overhaul firms; aircraft financing and leasing companies; market forecasting firms in aviation and aerospace; and space and satellite companies are among those who can benefit from the program. Because it is 100% online, its attractive to military personnel, whose deployments may have them stationed around the world, Johnson said.

Courses are offered in a rolling format that allows students to complete the 30 required credit hours in 12 months to five years, with faculty and dedicated student support staff from Purdue Online available online or by phone to assist. Students are not required to have an undergraduate degree in aviation or aerospace to enroll.

We welcome people from many different backgrounds, Johnson said.

In their first semester, students work with their advisory committee to develop a plan of study incorporating industry-specific course choices that best fit their goals. In addition to aviation leadership, the curriculum covers such topics as international civil aviation regulatory systems, airline revenue management, resource analysis and optimization, aviation safety program development, issues in transportation security, risk management, and more. Like Purdues on-campus programs, the online courses are taught by faculty with extensive expertise and work experience in civilian and military aviation and governmental roles.

Its given me confidence and a well-rounded understanding of our industry, John said. I was also recognized more within the industry, and I am now on a few business aviation boards and councils. Simply put, I wouldnt be as far in my career without my masters from Purdue.

Jaime Moncada, a first officer on Airbus A320 airliners who lives in Mexico City, was based in the Middle East when he decided to enroll in Purdues online masters program. The ability to focus his studies on specific topics in aviation and aerospace attracted him.

I did not want to enroll in an MBA program, the June 2020 graduate said. I wanted a specialized degree that included aviation safety and operations management courses.

In addition to the Master of Science in aviation and aerospace management, Purdue offers a specialized Graduate Certificate in Aviation Safety Management designed to teach students to develop, lead and execute effective aviation safety programs. The 12-credit certificate, which includes such topics as risk analysis and risk mitigation strategies, can be completed in as little as 12 months. Courses toward a Graduate Certificate in Aviation Financial Management are starting in fall 2022.

While the global pandemic impacted the aviation industry negatively, a rebound is expected, according to AviationPros, with industry growth over the next several years driven by such trends as the explosion in e-commerce (creating increased demand for air cargo service) and pent-up demand for leisure travel. Meanwhile, business travel may be slow to recover to pre-pandemic levels given the trend toward remote work. Shifting trends like these point to a changing landscape in the industry, which will require trained managers to navigate effectively  the kind of training Purdues Master of Science in aviation and aerospace management is designed to provide. For more information on this online degree from Purdue, visit the program website.

Writer: Greg Kline, 765-426-8545, gkline@purdue.edu

Source: Mary Johnson, mejohnson@purdue.edu
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  August will mark 50 years since President Richard Nixon signed the Rural Development Act of 1972, creating the Rural Regional Development Centers located throughout the United States.

The North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD), currently hosted by Purdue University, reaches across this region to create resilient communities and economies, develop leadership and civic engagement, and promote health and wellness through the network of fellow land-grant universities.

Having the NCRCRD managed and hosted at Purdue under the capable leadership of Maria Marshall and the associate director Michael Wilcox is an honor for our college and university and further fulfills our commitment to our land-grant mission, said Karen Plaut, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of Purdues College of Agriculture.

Marshall, director of the NCRCRD and the Jim and Lois Ackerman Endowed Chair in Agricultural Economics, said that when Purdue began managing the NCRCRD in September 2020, COVID-19 obstacles initially made regular operations difficult.

Usually, directors go around and visit the 34 universities, and now it has been rather hit or miss doing that, Marshall said. So, weve been working on other ways to facilitate those meetings, which Zoom and Microsoft Teams have made easier. But there is nothing like physically being there at a university.

The one university Marshall has been able to visit between pandemic hurdles has been Ohio State University, where, Marshall said, she was able to meet with research and extension faculty and staff to assist in identifying areas of collaboration.

The NCRCRD has found ways to continue forward with its mission despite the hurdles, Marshall said, hosting webinar series to help connect rural development researchers and extension professionals with each other and with stakeholder groups.

Something NCRCRD has been working to build on over the last year is further involving the 1890, historically Black land-grant universities, and the 1994 land-grant Tribal Colleges and Universities, in fostering rural development.

Marshall said there are plans to celebrate the golden anniversary of the RRDCs through monthly pieces of content distributed through the centers newsletters, conferences and a series of listening sessions focused on rural prosperity and economic development.

Weve been here for 50 years, and weve done great work so far, she said. But we look forward to continuing through another 50 years of helping rural communities continue to prosper.

Writer: Jillian Ellison, 765-494-0948, ellison1@purdue.edu

Source: Maria Marshall, 765-494-4268, mimarsha@purdue.edu

Agricultural Communications: 765-494-8415;

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MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Injection medications can save the vision of older people with macular degeneration, but the ongoing regimen is taxing. Now a preliminary study raises the possibility that some patients can safely be "weaned off" the treatment.

Researchers found that of just over 100 patients they treated with the eye injections, nearly one-third were able to "pause" the therapy within the first year. And of those followed for at least two years, most did not need to restart.

Experts stressed that the findings are early and do not identify which patients might safely take a treatment break, or possibly even stop.

"Weaning is an interesting concept," said Dr. Emily Chew of the National Eye Institute (NEI) in Bethesda, Md., which helped fund the research.

But at the moment, she said, it is not a standard practice, and one of the big questions is: How do you "pick" patients who can stop treatment without endangering their vision?

Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, is the leading cause of vision loss in the United States, according to the NEI. The disease damages the macula, a part of the eye's retina that is responsible for sharp, straight-ahead vision.

In the most serious form, called "wet" AMD, new blood vessels form in the back of the eye, leaking blood and other fluids, and scarring the macula. Not long ago, Chew said, patients with the condition would suffer rapid vision loss.

But in 2006, the first anti-VEGF medication was approved to treat wet AMD. VEGF, which stands for vascular endothelial growth factor, is a protein that promotes new blood vessel growth. Blocking it in the eye can stabilize wet AMD in most people, and improve vision in some.

"We are very lucky to have these drugs," Chew said. "This is a highly successful therapy."

The problem, though, is the burden of regular trips to the eye doctor, indefinitely.

"It's difficult not only for patients, but for the family members who have to take them to their appointments," said Dr. Akrit Sodhi, lead researcher on the new study.

Trials of anti-VEGF drugs used a treatment frequency of every one to two months. But in the real world, where practicality and costs come up, doctors try different tactics, according to Sodhi, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

That includes a "treat and extend" approach: Patients who respond particularly well to the injections have their treatment interval gradually extended.

The question, Sodhi said, is whether some patients can ultimately be weaned off treatment.

For the current study  published online Jan. 18 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation  Sodhi's team reviewed records from 106 patients treated between 2013 and 2020.

Overall, 31% successfully paused anti-VEGF injections within the first year  meaning their eyes showed no fluid buildup or worsening vision for at least 30 weeks off treatment. A handful of other patients were weaned off during year two.

Twenty-two patients were successfully weaned off treatment and followed for at least two years. Of that group, 73% remained treatment-free at the end of year two.

What's clear is that there is no one-size-fits-all regimen for all patients, according to Dr. Rahul Khurana, a clinical spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

"This disease is chronic, variable and unpredictable," said Khurana, who was not involved in the study.

After initial trials using monthly injections, doctors learned that that was likely "over-treating" patients and the intervals could be extended, he said.

But whether some can ultimately stop remains an open question, Khurana said. The risk of suspending treatment is that any recurrence of new blood vessel growth could cause vision loss that is not always recovered, he noted.

If researchers can find objective markers that predict patients' likelihood of responding especially well to anti-VEGF injections, that would help. And Sodhi's team found that patients successfully weaned off treatment differed from other patients in their levels of certain proteins in their eye fluids.

Sodhi said more research is needed to see whether any of those proteins can predict treatment responses. As for treatment pauses, he said, no recommendations can be made until larger studies test the concept.

Both Chew and Khurana said there are other ways, both available and under study, to ease patients' treatment burden.

Last year, U.S. regulators approved Susvimo, a version of the anti-VEGF drug Lucentis that is delivered via a tiny implant in the eye. It requires only two visits a year for refills.

And, Chew said, studies are testing whether giving AMD patients equipment for home monitoring can reduce the need for office visits.

More information

The National Eye Institute has more on age-related macular degeneration.

SOURCES: Akrit Sodhi, MD, PhD, associate professor, ophthalmology, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore; Emily Chew, MD, director, division of epidemiology and clinical applications, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Md.; Rahul Khurana, MD, clinical spokesman, American Academy of Ophthalmology, San Francisco; Journal of Clinical Investigation, Jan. 18, 2022, online
Zodiak Kids and Family Studio UK, part of Banijay Kids and Family, has announced that Cheryl Taylor will be joining the production outfit this month as creative director.

Taylor has had a long and prestigious career in childrens and comedy television - holding the role of head of content BBC Childrens until last year. She was responsible for commissioning 500 hours of multi-genre content each year across CBeebies, CBBC and BBC iPlayer. Prior to this she held various commissioning roles at the BBC including controller BBC Comedy Commissioning and controller CBBC. She joined the corporation in 2005 from the independent production sector.

Taylor will be transitioning into the role of outgoing creative director Steven Andrew, who is retiring from the industry. They will be working together at Zodiak until the spring to ensure a seamless transition.

Andrew joined Zodiak in 2011 from CBBC and has been responsible for a wide-ranging slate of programmes during his tenure. From long running BAFTA award-winning interactive series Secret Life of Boys (CBBC/ABC Australia) to CITV gameshow Spy School, Flatmates for BBC iplayer, The Lodge for Disney and critically acclaimed Joe All Alone for CBBC. He has also been developing and executive producing up-coming international drama Silverpoint (CBBC/ZDF) and Teds Top Ten for CITV.

Taylor will be jointly reporting into Banijay Kids and Family CEO Benoit Di Sabatino and Zodiak Kids and Family UK COO Gwen Hughes.

Benoit Di Sabatino, CEO, Banijay Kids and Family, said: It takes at least the talent of Cheryl Taylor to succeed the very talented Steven Andrew. We will miss you Steven. Welcome Cheryl!

Andrew commented: I am very proud of the programming we have brought to life for millions of viewers during my 10 years at Zodiak Kids and will miss the incredible talent on and off screen that I have worked with during this time. However, I am thrilled the remit is being placed in Cheryls hands. Having worked together at the BBC and then on many of our series at Zodiak Kids I know she will be brilliant and am looking forward to working together as she comes on board.

Added Taylor: Zodiak Kids and Family has a stellar reputation for producing inventive stories for children of all ages and Im delighted to be joining a team who feel as strongly as I do about inspiring young audiences. Im honoured to be picking up the reins from Steven - hes been responsible for an exceptional canon of work and has always demonstrated enviable flair for growing popular titles and nurturing new talent.
On 14 January, the measurement firm released a study showing that in December 2021 Americans watched a total all-time high of 183 billion minutes of content across over-the-top platforms. Aggregate viewing during the month surpassed outgunned by some distance the 160 billion minutes watched during March 2020 when stay-at-home restrictions began in the US as well as the 178 billion minutes watched during the week of Thanksgiving just a month earlier.It is latest report, Nielsen found that amid the competition for audiences, its data showed that original content had more appeal among older audiences while acquired content has higher appeal among younger viewers. Consumers were most drawn to a few programming stand-outs, some of which simultaneously introduced audiences to content not focused on the US such as the Great British Baking Show, Squid Game and Luca.The analyst said that across platforms, mystery, drama, reality and childrens programming were largely in the drivers seat in 2021s tops of streaming lists. In the original category, Lucifer benefited from having 93 episodes available to consumers, which commanded more than 18 billion viewing minutes throughout the year, closely followed by The Great British Baking Show.It also emphasised that the prominence of long-running procedural Criminal Minds on the acquired list for SVOD leader Netflix showed the resonance of good content, regardless of which platform its developed for.And it stressed that given nearly three-quarters of US households have access to Netflix, the availability of this acquired content on the platform has the potential to reach an entirely new audience base, many of whom are streamers aged 18-34. Seinfelds move to Netflix was cited as another example another example of a program thats attracting new audiences, with 41% aged 34 and youngertoo young to have even been alive or watched it when the show first aired on broadcast TV. Today, 80% of the viewers of the 90s classic are under the age of 50.Even with only nine episodes available, Korean Netflix series Squid Game racked up 13 million-plus viewing minutes among US audiences. The audience for this program skewed younger than the Netflix average, as 37% of viewers were 18-34. Lucifer and The Great British Baking Show appealed to a very similar streaming audience, with the two programmes viewership skewing mostly female and evenly split across the 18-34, 35-49, and 50-64 age demographics. Going forward, Nielsen said the unfolding story of streaming remained the most high-stakes and compelling across the media ecosystem, with an increasing amount of choice for consumers. And that as it saw in 2021, content libraries, bolstered by high-profile originals and popular childrens movies, will be critical to gaining viewers attention and the dynamics of price (free vs. ad supported) may have an increasing role as more competition enters the fray. It predicted that similar to what happened to expanding cable packages, consumer decisions will be made as to which services are retained and which are discontinued or replaced.
DUBAI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Defense of the United Arab Emirates(UAE) stated on Monday that its air defense systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi militia aimed against the UAE.

A ballistic missile launcher in Yemen's Al Jawf governorate was destroyed shortly after it launched ballistic missiles against Abu Dhabi, the ministry announced in a statement on its Twitter account.

No casualties were reported as a result of the attack because the ballistic missile fragments fell in several locations around the UAE capital, according to the official Emirates News Agency, citing a ministry statement.

Video footage posted on the ministry's Twitter account showed huge fire erupting at an infrastructure, which was described by the UAE ministry as a ballistic missile launcher in Yemen, after it was hit by a missile. The missile was reported to have been launched by a F-16 fighter jet at 4:10 a.m. local time (0110 GMT).

The latest exchange of fire came after a Houthi attack on the UAE on Jan. 17, during which three petroleum tankers burst into a fire near Abu Dhabi National Oil Company storage facilities in Abu Dhabi. Three persons were killed and six others injured in the attack.

The Houthi militia in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the military operation that hit the UAE, an active member of the Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen.

In the week following Jan. 17, a Saudi-led coalition conducted a series of airstrikes across Yemen, hitting various Houthi-controlled targets and killing dozens of people. 
Last year saw some remarkable milestones in the world of crypto-currencies and more specifically Bitcoin. Its market capitalization crossed $1 Trillion, aBitcoin ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) debuted on the New York Stock Exchange, and El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, just to name a few.

Naturally, this meteoric rise and widespread adoption has come with intense scrutiny. Congress has taken an interest in Bitcoin and the blockchain validation process commonly referred to as Bitcoin mining. Unfortunately, some members of Congress hostile to crypto-currency have trotted out the strawman argument that Bitcoin mining is bad for the environment due to the amount of energy consumed for the mining process.

This week, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is hosting ahearing aimed at cleaning up crypto-currency. The title of hearing implies that crypto-currency and its mining activities are somehow dirty, which as we explain below is just untrue.

First, lets acknowledge that every industrial activity uses a large amount of energy. Bitcoin mining is no different, however, the network is by far more efficient and arguably has more social utility when compared to gaming for example. Globally, Bitcoin mining uses 188 terawatts of energy annually. While this number may sound extreme on first blush, its statistically insignificant accounting for only 0.122 percent of global energy consumption. For even better context, Christmas lights (201 terawatts) and computer games (214 terawatts) use more energy than the entire bitcoin network.

When compared to other extraction activities, such as gold mining, we see that Bitcoin mining uses only a third of the energy. Furthermore, the Bitcoin industry is consistently looking for ways to reduce energy consumption and integrate newer energy sources, including renewables. According to the Bitcoin Mining Council, 57 percent of its energy usage comes from renewable sources, which is the largest percentage of any other comparable industrial sector.

Second, Bitcoin mining can be used as an effective tool towards a lower-emissions energy future. This is already being demonstrated in the oil and gas industry around the country where operators are rapidly adopting methods to use flared gas to mine Bitcoin rather than burn it off into the atmosphere.

Renewable energy development can also greatly benefit. Projects paired with Bitcoin mining can generate revenue from day one of initial operations which allows private industry to undertake renewable grid expansion projects without risks of being unable to generate profits while they wait for residential and commercial development. While an obvious benefit to renewable energy infrastructure development, it is rarely if ever acknowledged by opponents of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining.

Additionally, Bitcoin mining can serve as a stabilizing force to the inherent mismatch between renewable energy supply and consumer demand that has undercut grid reliability. Since Bitcoin miners can easily turn on and off their operations, they maintain a higher load on the grid by pulling excess energy from the grid thereby reducing waste and providing a non-taxpayer funded revenue stream necessary to maintain operations for renewable energy projects. More importantly, when energy is in high demand miners can shutter operations that are helping to maintain a higher and consistent baseload on the grid. This ability to keep the grid baseload high and then ramp down at a moments notice allows utilities to send life-sustaining energy back to the grid. As we witnessed during Winter Storm Uri, grid stability can be a life and death matter and the evaluation of the benefits of Bitcoin mining should be taken seriously.

A major barrier to environmental improvements has always been cost. Traditionally, solving environmental issues has been contingent on taxpayer subsidies, but Bitcoin mining changes this. As Bitcoin mining expands it has the potential to not only reduce the networks environmental footprint as necessary, but all industrial activities tied to the electrical grid.

Congress should continue to seek out a better understanding of the opportunities related to Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications without prejudice. The environmental criticisms surrounding bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are nothing more than a red-herring.

Bitcoin mining is in fact developing some of the most creative solutions to longstanding environmental issues and has a very minimal impact on the environment. More importantly, Bitcoin mining can support low emissions energy technologies while strengthening our energy security.
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 01/24/2022



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USMAN and KIM

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GINO and JASMINE

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RELATED LINK: '90 DAY FIANCE: BEFORE THE 90 DAYS' COUPLES NOW: WHO IS STILL TOGETHER? WHO HAS SPLIT? WHERE ARE THEY NOW? (PHOTOS)

ALINA and CALEB

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MEMPHIS and HAMZA

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BEN and MAHOGANY

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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.

: Before the 90 Days featured Ximena admitting she thought Mike was "super gross," Gino second-guessing proposing marriage Jasmine, Johnny enraging and devastating Ella, Caleb and Alina revealing secrets about their past, Memphis giving Hamza an ultimatum, and Usman "SojaBoy" Umar agreeing to spend the night with Kim during the fifth-season episode Sunday night on TLC.: Before the 90 Days' new season stars Usman, a 32-year-old from Sokoto, Nigeria, and Kim, a 50-year-old from San Diego, CA; Caleb, a 28-year-old from Chandler, AZ, and Alina, a 27-year-old from Saint Petersburg, Russia; and Gino, a 51-year-old from Canton, MI, and Jasmine, a 34-year-old from Panama City, Panama.The series also stars Memphis, a 34-year-old from Muskegon, MI, and Hamza, a 28-year-old from Kairouan, Tunisia; Mike, a 34-year-old from Thiells, NY, and Ximena, a 24-year-old from Pereira, Colombia; Ella, a 29-year-old from Idaho Falls, ID, and Johnny, a 34-year-old from Jinan, China; Ben, a 52-year-old from Fraser, MI, and Mahogany, a 24-year-old from San Bartolo, Peru.Usman was previously married to Lisa Hamme , 54, whom he had met on Facebook two years before filming : Before the 90 Days' fourth season.Lisa struggled to trust Usman during their relationship and they split in May 2020. Usman later served Lisa with divorce papers in December 2020 and Lisa has since remarried with a childhood friend.: Before the 90 Days will follow long-distance relationships and document how each couple found each other as well as their first in-person meeting in a foreign country "and the countless surprises, drama and culture clashes along the way."In most : Before the 90 Days cases, lovebirds are hoping to get engaged and begin the K-1 Visa process.After traveling across the world, the couples will determine if love can conquer all as they experience challenges such as language barriers, interfering families, cultural differences, age gaps, ex partners, and "shady pasts," according to TLC.Below is what happened on the seventh episode of : Before the 90 Days' fifth season:Usman said Kim had impressed him with the way she had taken charge at his music-video photo shoot and he was ready to spend some quality time with her to find out if their relationship could truly turn into something romantic.Kim was also curious as to whether she and Usman would have sexual chemistry, and so she was hoping to move things along and at least kiss her love interest.The pair headed to Stone Town, a "historical place" and "old part of Zanzibar, Tanzania," according to Usman, and during the drive over, Usman told Kimberly, "I like you a lot.""I like you too... I love you!" she joked.Kim asked Usman to give up his hotel room and give it to someone on his team so they could spend a night together. Usman, however, didn't want to sleep in the same room as Kim until he determined they should be together and be official boyfriend and girlfriend."I agreed because that's what you wanted and I respect it, but I need you to respect my rules too," Kim snapped.Usman accused Kim of rushing things, but she assured him that she wasn't begging him for sex and that they only had a short time together in Tanzania.Kim became short and aggravated with Usman because she had been everything for him on this trip -- including his assistant, manager, friend and fan -- and she didn't know how else she could prove herself.Kim said she wouldn't ask Usman to stay with her again and he'd have to tell her when he was ready.With that being said, Usman decided to spend the night with Kim, and she was absolutely thrilled."Tonight could be the night that I've been waiting for! Please let it be tonight," Kim joked.Usman, however, told his Super Fan that it was "too early" for them to have sex.Kim expressed disappointment that she and Usman wouldn't be having sex that night, but she was at least happy they could cuddle and sleep next to each other.After a pretty dramatic day in which Jasmine had lashed out at Gino about his ex-wife and revealed she had been taking birth control pills, Gino seemed to feeling upset and uneasy. He had been hoping to get Jasmine pregnant and start a family right there in Panama.Jasmine said her divorce from her ex-husband had finally been finalized after she went through "hell," and so she planned to celebrate with her girlfriends that night."You don't invite your current new boyfriend to your divorce party. Also, things have been kind of hard between Gino and I -- not trusting him, the arguments. So I feel we could both benefit from a night away from each other," Jasmine explained.Gino was surprised Jasmine refused to allow him to join in the fun, but the couple was going to travel to a romantic island together the very next day.Jasmine's friends booked a suite at the hotel to celebrate her divorce considering she had experienced many "mental breakdowns" during the demise of her former marriage.Jasmine admitted to her friends that she felt "sick with jealousy" over Gino's ex and how his house had been decorated by his former wife. Jasmine's friends playfully called her crazy, and it quickly became clear her friends consider her "extraordinarily jealous."Jasmine revealed how she had modeled and danced for Gino before being intimate and essentially drove him wild, and then an exotic dancer arrived dressed as a military man for the group.Jasmine felt bad for looking at and touching the dancer, but she appeared to have a blast as Gino packed up his belongings for the trip ahead.When the dancer grinded on Jasmine and gave her a lap dance, she noted how Gino was going to be angry at her.Jasmine eventually welcomed Gino into her celebration at the very end of the night, and Jasmine admitted she had gotten a bit "wild" with a surprise. Gino watched a video of a man dancing on Jasmine, and his face suddenly dropped."I don't like it," Gino said. "She should have never had a stripper at the party to begin with. And why are her friends showing me a video?... What's the point of that?"Gino also didn't appreciate Jasmine laughing about the situation with her friends. He said it seemed like Jasmine didn't care about his feelings at all.Jasmine insisted she had "fun," but Gino pointed out how she'd be furious if an exotic dancer had touched him and danced all over him. With that being said, Jasmine apologized and promised not to do something like that again.Gino called Jasmine's behavior that night "immature," and he was still debating whether to propose marriage to her by the end of his trip.Alina and Caleb enjoyed a nice dinner out for Elijah's last night with the couple.Caleb revealed Elijah had walked in on the couple having sex and it was a very awkward moment for everyone involved. Elijah apparently had a key to the couple's hotel room and had dropped by to grab a brush, and he admitted he liked what he saw from Caleb.Caleb had mixed emotions about Elijah leaving, saying Elijah had been stepping on his toes and tended to be a bit of a diva. However, he also helped Alina a lot with her wheelchair and getting around.Elijah then suggested they should play "Never Have I Ever," which led to steamy revelations. Caleb revealed he had slept with over 100 women, which shocked Alina and made her worry that "he's just a player and not prepared for anything serious."Elijah also said, "Never have I ever kept a secret from my partner who I have known for 13 years," before calling Alina a "b-tch" and demanding she "spill it out" right away.Alina, frustrated and upset with Elijah, promised Caleb they would have a discussion upon returning to their room because she didn't want to have a serious conversation at a bar.Caleb looked forward to getting to know Alina better and pointed out over drinks how he didn't want to prematurely label their relationship, but then Alina snapped, "I kind of wanna. I am tired of hearing how you are being indecisive and all this stuff.""I don't want to give you an answer until I find out what you're hiding," Caleb said."You're just using that as an excuse right now," Alina argued.Alina worried her big secret was going to ruin her relationship with Caleb and cause him not to trust her.That night, while laying in bed, Alina told Caleb how she had briefly lived with her ex-boyfriend while she and Caleb were dating. Also, in the early stages of Alina and Caleb's relationship, Alina and the man she was living with were not completely broken up.Caleb took the news well, but he said this situation indicated why they needed to take things slowly and get to know each other better. Caleb refused to commit to Alina, but she at least hoped to have that conversation before parting ways."This solidified my reasoning... I want a relationship built on trust when she lives halfway across the world... Finding this out makes me question if it was a waste of time coming out here in the first place," Caleb said in a confessional.Memphis felt angry and deceived over Hamza's lie about his age. Hamza was only 26 years old at the time, which was two years younger than he had told Memphis.Regardless, Memphis and Hamza headed to an embassy two hours away to get the ball rolling on their marriage. They couple planned to stay in a hotel together overnight, but Hamza didn't have anything planned out.The couple's driver also forgot his insurance papers, and so Memphis told Hamza that he needed to be more prepared for things."Memphis nags me a lot. I do not like her attitude at all," Hamza complained.The couple wasn't going to make it to the consulate on time, and Memphis told Hamza that he didn't seem to care and getting married appeared to be a game to him. She accused him of being immature and "not being a man."Memphis, however, was very pleased with their room that night. Hamza said he only drinks with someone special, and Memphis joked about how she wanted to get her man drunk that night.Memphis essentially told Hamza that she didn't want to return to the United States just dating him. Hamza therefore got upset, thinking Memphis was more caught up in the papers than she really cared about him or their relationship."You like Hamza or you like marriage?" Hamza asked."I like both," Memphis admitted. "You have to show that you can do good for me. I need you to be the man."Memphis gave Hamza an ultimatum that they either get married or break up. She said if Hamza really cared about her, he would make sure they got married during that trip.Ella had been expecting Johnny to fly to Singapore and quarantine there for two weeks and then travel to the United States. But after Johnny's Singapore visa was denied, Ella started looking into another solution.Ella therefore met with her best friend Korbie and her husband to receive some advice and also vent her frustrations. Ella revealed she had discovered Dubai could be an option for Johnny since he wouldn't need a visa to travel there.Johnny could quarantine in Dubai for two weeks and then fly to America, but Ella said Johnny had decided to delay his trip because he was worried about COVID-19 and the Delta variant at the time.Johnny had purchased a ticket to Dubai in two weeks from that point, but due to his hesitation, Ella wondered if this was a sign Johnny was never going to come to America. This also wasn't the first time Johnny's plan to come to Idaho had fallen through."Every time, a new issue comes up, and it's getting a little on the ridiculous side of how much crap I've had to put up with," Ella lamented.Ella's friends wondered if Johnny had been hiding something, and Korbie's husband suggested maybe Johnny deeply values family and found moving away from his parents and son very difficult.Ella said she was tired of Johnny's excuses and having to wait for him, especially since he was vaccinated and had bought an entire safety suit for his travels.Over FaceTime, Johnny pointed out to Ella how his medical bills would be very expensive if he needed to be hospitalized in the United States, but Ella said the situation wasn't risky enough for Johnny to be so cautious and cancel their plans.Johnny wasn't sure his health and safety would be guaranteed, but Ella insisted Johnny would be fine and there appeared to be some things he was hiding from her. Johnny told Ella that his parents were happy for him and there was no issue there."It is true that my parents have concerns about my relationship... but [I will not let] my parents interfere in my relationship. If I get sick, then I cannot provide to my family," Johnny explained in a confessional.Ella asked Johnny to stop being hesitant because he was driving her nuts, and she noted how his behavior was resulting in "emotional trauma" for."I don't want to let you down," Johnny said."This is on you. I am not going to change my opinion. I want you here now. That is where I stand -- no exceptions," Ella said.Ella told the cameras that she felt "enraged and super devastated" and if Johnny wasn't willing to commit to her, she'd have to stop waiting and move on.Mike was worried Ximena had dated a very dangerous man, a hitman, but he was prepared to leave the past in the past.Ximena then had coffee on the patio and FaceTimed with her sister Wendy. Ximena shared how she had sweet moments with Mike and then other moments -- away from her kids -- weren't the best."He is super, super gross," Ximena admitted."He throws clothes everywhere like a kid. He'll let out a fart in front of me. And he burps on top of you. So it's like, 'Oh no!' It's funny but infuriating at the same time... Can you imagine three or four years from now?! It's crazy."Ximena wasn't sure she'd be able to tolerate such behavior for much longer and confessed how she is especially squeamish and Mike had disappointed her.Wendy advised Ximena to have an open and honest conversation with Mike, and so she agreed to speak her mind even though Mike would probably feel uncomfortable. Ximena said she wanted a partner on her level -- someone who's responsible and clean."He needs to change his ways before I spend the rest of my life with him," Ximena noted.Ximena later vented to Mike about the things she didn't like about him, including how he left messy clothes around their room and burped and farted in front of her after eating."It disgusts me. That makes me fall out of love," Ximena shared. "The truth is that I'm disappointed about all of those things."Mike apologized for his behavior but wondered where all of this was coming from. Mike said farting in front of Ximena was an accident and these were things he could easily change -- unlike "going to jail, running away from kids or killing people for money."Ximena said she wasn't going to act like Mike's mother, and he replied, "Okay, that's fair. I know I have a lot to work on, but I want to work on those things together to get better.""I love you," Mike said."I love you too, very much," Ximena said.But Ximena warned Mike that if he couldn't change those things about himself, she would be done with him and their relationship wouldn't advance.Mike, however, felt hurt. He wished Ximena accepted him for who he is and would work on things with him. He therefore wondered if something "deeper" was going on that he wasn't aware of yet.Ben was 12 hours away from traveling to Peru to met his girlfriend Mahogany in-person for the first time.Ben said he and Mahogany had developed the deepest emotional and spiritual connection he's ever experienced, but he had booked two separate hotel rooms in Lima since they were saving their physical relationship for after marriage."I think the best sex is worth waiting for," Ben shared.Ben's children were suspicious and displeased about Ben's new relationship, and they also questioned Mahogany's authenticity and whether she's a real person.But one of Ben's sons agreed to drive him to the airport and Ben talked about how "special" and "amazing" Mahogany had proven herself to be."If this fails and I fall flat on myself, I'm willing to take that hit," Ben said, before gushing about how his love for Mahogany was real and she loved him in return unconditionally.Ben and Mahogany weren't communicating much during his travel day, and Mahogany suddenly texted Ben about how her father didn't trust Ben's intentions and didn't want him to come to Peru. Ben was "speechless" over this news and didn't know what to think."This isn't the first time I've tried to meet Mahogany. About a month ago, I was going to fly down for her birthday and we were both super excited," Ben explained."We were counting down the days and even the hours, but when we were only three days away from taking off, she called and said that I couldn't come because she wanted me to meet her parents and her parents were away."Hearing Mahogany's dad was skeptical of him made Ben feel very worried and nervous. Ben told Mahogany that God was in control and she needed to trust her heart, and so he proceeded to fly to Peru."I am not giving up," Ben noted.Want more spoilers or couples updates? Click here to visit our homepage!
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Lisa Barlow says she was "surprised" by her Real Housewives of Salt Lake City co-star Jennie Nguyen's anti-Black Lives Matter Facebook posts.

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The television personality weighed in on Nguyen's past posts during Sunday's episode of Watch What Happens Live.

Nguyen faced backlash last week after several of her deleted posts resurfaced online. Nguyen had reposted memes and photos in 2020 that criticized protestors and included phrases like "BLM Thugs."

Nguyen apologized in a statement Wednesday.

"I want to acknowledge and apologize for my deleted Facebook posts from 2020 that resurfaced today. At the time, I thought I was speaking out against violence, but I have since learned how offensive and hurtful my words were. It's why I deactivated that account more than a year ago and why I continue to try to learn about perspectives different from my own," the star wrote.

"I regret those posts and am sincerely sorry for the pain they caused," she said.

On WWHL, Barlow said she doesn't condone Nguyen's posts.

"I don't condone those and I am completely anti-racist, so I hope everyone does better but I definitely don't condone those," Barlow said.

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"I haven't looked at Jennie's Facebook page for years. I was totally surprised. I was very surprised," she added.

Barlow also spoke out in a post Friday on Instagram.

"My heart is so heavy right now. I feel true hurt and disappointment by the posts that surfaced this week. I do NOT condone, nor am I aligned with them," she said.

Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is in its second season on Bravo.
iHeartMedia has announced a lineup for its second annual iHeartRadio Living Black event.

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The company said in a press release Monday that Lizzo, Big Sean , H.E.R., Ari Lennox, Moneybagg Yo and other artists will perform during the live stream concert in February.

The stream will take place Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. EST on TikTok and also broadcast on iHeartRadio's hip hop and R&B stations and the iHeartRadio app.

J. Cole, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Saweetie, Bas and other stars will also make appearances.

iHeartRadio Living Black spotlights "the power of Black culture -- past, present and future -- throughout Black History Month in February." The show "will may homage to the culture that sets the trends, creates the moments, and moves the world."

Throughout February, iHeartRadio stations will also "feature conversations that educate, inspire and celebrate the Black experience through a mix of custom audio tributes from artists, influencers and thought leaders."

"We are thrilled to once again honor Black History Month and Black culture through on-going and informative discussions about race and some very special performances during this year's iHeartRadio Living Black," iHeartMedia president of hip hop and R&B programming Doc Wynter said.

"We can't think of a better way to spotlight our community than partnering with these incredible artists and trailblazers, as together we celebrate the impact that Black lives have on American culture with a month-long celebration that will culminate with a special event across iHeartRadio's stations nationwide and on TikTok," Wynter added.
Evan Rachel Wood said the documentary Phoenix Rising, which premiered virtually at the Sundance Film Festival Sunday, is bigger than her experiences with Brian Warner, aka Marilyn Manson. The documentary follows Wood coming forward with allegations of abuse by Warner, and her involvement in the Phoenix Act to change laws about domestic violence.

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"Unfortunately, my story is not unique," Wood said at a virtual Q&A following the screening of Part 1 of Phoenix Rising. "[The purpose is to] not just expose this person but to explain domestic violence and how it works."

Wood, 34, met Warner when she was 18 and they dated from 2006 to 2011. Wood testified before the California Senate on behalf of the Domestic Violence Bill of Rights in 2019, but did not name the abuser she described.

In an Instagram post Feb. 1, 2020, Wood said Warner abused her. Because the three year statute of limitations had passed, Wood and Ilma Gore formed the Phoenix Act to advocate for laws to extend the statute of limitations.

"I was not only pursuing my own kind of justice, but I was paired up with some of the most incredible people that I've ever met," Wood said. "It ignited a desire and need in me to continue the conversation and do everything I could to raise awareness."

One of the advocates with whom Wood works is Shay Franco-Clausen, who attended the screening and Q&A of Phoenix Rising. Franco-Clausen said Wood is raising the profile of domestic violence issues for women who are often overlooked.

"A lot of people don't look at DV or human trafficking when it comes to Black women," Franco-Clausen said. "Inside jails, most women are survivors of domestic violence, which is a gateway from human trafficking or into human trafficking."

Another advocate involved in the Phoenix Act is Ashley Walters, who also testified as a former employee of Warner's. Walters said she experienced a catharsis similar to Wood's simply by being able to name Warner.

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"Nothing prepares you for what happens within when you actually say your abuser's name and tell the world what happened," Walters said.

Wood was friends with documentary filmmaker Amy Berg prior to Phoenix Rising. Wood asked Berg if she'd make a film about the Phoenix Act.

Phoenix Rising is a two part series that will air on HBO. Berg said Wood's tenacity in the face of the statute of limitations inspired her to make the series.

"When she was told that the statute of limitations had expired, that didn't stop her," Berg said. "She went on to change the laws in California. As a storyteller, everything is there to tell a really important and interesting story."

Berg said that the first part of Phoenix Rising is simply the backstory for the second half. Berg said the second part will also feature more stories from other survivors of domestic violence.

"I hope their stories will elevate courage in people who are living in domestic violence relationships in silence and looking for resources," Berg said. "Overall, this was always about identifying patterns and trying to educate people."

In the film, Wood describes techniques like grooming and love bombing, which are common among abusers, and Wood alleges Warner practiced them on her. Wood said the media also bears responsibility for shielding Warner for years.

"The way the press handled the story for many, many years is shameful," Wood said. "It's time we finally tell the whole story and for the narrative to change and for the survivors to take back ownership of their stories."

Berg said she still experienced industry figures protecting Warner. Phoenix Rising includes Manson's music and videos, particularly one for "Heart-Shaped Glasses," which Wood alleges captured her sexual abuse on camera. Berg said the film faced resistance when clearing Manson songs.

"People are still protecting Brian Warner and they don't want to participate in anything that might upset him," Berg said. "As an industry we need to take account at this point, not just for Brian Warner, for all the people who are being abusive towards women and men and children."

HBO has not announced the premiere date for Phoenix Rising yet. As the first audience viewed Part 1, Wood reminded them that this is not a celebration of victory. It is a cry for more help and support for the Phoenix Act and other protections for survivors.

"It's not a ticker tape parade," Wood said. "It's an SOS."

Phoenix Rising filmmakers state at the end of Part 1 that they reached out to Warner and his legal representatives. They did not elect to comment on the specific allegations made against Warner in the film, but reissued a previous statement denying sexual assault or abuse.
SHANGHAI, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Shanghai's foreign trade hit a record high of 4.06 trillion yuan (about 640 billion U.S. dollars) in 2021, with a robust year-on-year increase of 16.5 percent, data from Shanghai Customs showed Monday.

Last year, the metropolis in eastern China saw exports rise 14.6 percent year on year to 1.57 trillion yuan, while its imports jumped 17.7 percent to 2.49 trillion yuan, which led to a trade deficit of 917.3 billion yuan, said the customs authority.

During the same period, the value of imports and exports between Shanghai and the European Union (EU), its largest foreign-trade partner, reached 806.93 billion yuan, up 15.8 percent year on year. The number accounted for 19.9 percent of Shanghai's total value.

Meanwhile, the metropolis' trade with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United States and Japan totaled 538.08 billion yuan, 508.12 billion yuan and 411.56 billion yuan, accounting for 13.2 percent, 12.5 percent and 10.1 percent of total foreign trade value, respectively.

In 2021, Shanghai saw its exports of mechanical and electrical products hit 1.08 trillion yuan, an increase of 14 percent, making up 68.7 percent of the city's total export value. In particular, the city registered surging exports of automobiles, increasing by 206 percent to 57.01 billion yuan.

The customs authority also noted the increasing imports of integrated circuits in the metropolis, exceeding 300 billion yuan and making it the largest category of imported goods.

Privately owned businesses contributed 1.1 trillion yuan of Shanghai's foreign trade, which increased by 32.5 percent year on year, accounting for 27.1 percent of the total trade, 3.2 percentage points higher than that of 2020. 
Athens, GA (30605)

Today

Thunderstorms during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High 88F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Mainly clear. Low 61F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.
People gathered in Harmony Parking lot in Brattleboro on Friday, April 22nd for a street festival and parade in celebration of Earth Day. According to Nancy Braus of 350 Brattleboro, the goal was to celebrate the ways in which the community is working towards climate justice and to empower 
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 54F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

A shower or two around the area early, then partly cloudy overnight. Low 46F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Rain. High 54F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

A shower or two possible this evening with partly cloudy skies overnight. Low 46F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%.
Jim Haff is the Killington representative in the Windsor Central School District and Killington Select Board member. This commentary was written as an open letter to Vermonts elected leaders on Jan. 10. The opinions expressed by columnists do not necessarily reflect the views of Vermont News & Media.
DAMASCUS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- As many as 3,500 families have so far fled their homes in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah amid the U.S. airstrikes and clashes between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Islamic State (IS) militants, the state news agency SANA reported on Monday.

The U.S. airstrikes and the clashes between the SDF and IS have been escalating following the jailbreak of IS inmates from a Kurdish-controlled prison in the Gweiran neighborhood in Hasakah on Thursday evening.

Following the prison escape, the SDF engaged in fierce battles with IS militants inside and outside the prison while the U.S.-led warplanes kept on targeting residential areas where the IS fugitives could have reached.

Earlier on Monday, the U.S.-led warplanes struck a university campus in Hasakah and destroyed the university's parking lot, as part of their manhunt for IS, according to SANA.

Such a situation has pushed thousands of families to flee their homes close to the clashes sites in Kurdish-controlled areas.

SANA said the displaced families reached the government-controlled areas in Hasakah and settled in temporary displacement shelters, as the Syrian army opened safe corridors to secure the fleeing families.

Director of Social Affairs Ibrahim Khalaf said in a statement that due to the increase in the number of displaced families, two new temporary shelters were opened, bringing the number of centers to five in the city.

Khalaf pointed out that the work is underway to equip the sixth center in light of the continued influx of people from the southern neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, Syria's Foreign Ministry on Monday held an urgent meeting of representatives from the international organizations operating in Syria to address the crisis in Hasakah.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry repeated its demand for the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Syria.

Hasakah province is largely controlled by the U.S.-backed SDF, while some certain areas, particularly in the city of Qamishli, are still under the control of the Syrian government. 
AP file PhotoDr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, wears a face mask as he arrives for the the White House Covid-19 Response Team's regular call with the National Governors Association in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus in late December, in Washington.
The Whale Tea, a bubble tea franchise, opened a new location in South Norwalk on Sunday. The franchise is originally from Nanjing, Singapore, has around 300 locations in China and has been opening locations around Connecticut.

"We are very excited to be opened," said Leo Zhang, store manager of the business. The bubble tea business is located 11 N Main Street and is open Monday through Sunday from noon to 9:30 p.m.
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EAST HAMPTON  The 1998 homicide of a local home health aide who was strangled at an apartment above a Main Street laundromat is the focus of a new episode of American Detective With Lt. Joe Kenda on Discovery Plus.

Gerald Brian Tuttle, the buildings maintenance worker, was sentenced to 18 years in jail after being convicted of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree kidnapping in August 2016 for killing Gertrude Trudy Ochankowski, 60.

Ochankowski, the mother of two daughters, was found in a stream off Tartia Road in January 1998. An autopsy concluded that she had been strangled.

The shows season two premiere, The Creek, which was filmed in town, will be available for streaming Wednesday starting at 4 a.m.

The episode includes scenes of Lake Pocotopaug and Main Street.

The episode stars Kenda, who is retired from the Colorado Springs Police Department, and Detective Garritt Kelly, a former East Hampton police sergeant.

Tuttle was charged in December 2013 as a fugitive from justice at his home in Surfside Beach, S.C.

Trudy was a loving, warm person and she would give you the most amazing hugs you could possibly imagine, her friend Melissa Bradbury said in the show. Your whole world was safe when Trudy hugged you.

She always put her life aside for someone else, Bradbury added. You dont find people like that. You just dont.

Police had already been looking for Ochankowski that day after her car was found in a parking lot at 82 Main St. with the engine running. Her dog Muffin, a constant companion, was inside the car, which was parked outside the laundromat. Police said at the time they believed Ochankowski had been forced into an apartment above the laundromat and killed.

She would never do that. She would never leave her dog, especially for that extent of time. Somethings wrong, Bradbury said in the show. The way she was treated was awful  awful.

High school students went to a local hangout at Falls / Engel Falls, a remote area, after school around 3 p.m., Kenda says at the start of the episode. While throwing rocks into the water off a bridge, they saw something below, went down to investigate, and made a grisly discovery: A woman, face-down with her hands tied behind her back in shallow water, Kenda says.

Kelly immediately knew it was Ochankowski, he said, who had lived in town her entire life.

It takes a rare breed to solve the unsolvable, to catch a ruthless killer; to find justice for the dead, Kenda says in the show.

East Hampton at the time was a sleepy community, he added.

They hadnt had a homicide for 10 years, he said.

Ever since Kelly got on the force, he said in the episode, I always wanted to get involved in the big one. I had no idea what was to come.

Investigators eventually located some tape that was used to bind Ochankowskis hands, drag marks and tire tracks. Detectives realized they were looking at a dump site, not a crime scene, Kenda says in American Detective.

When officers interviewed her boyfriend, he mentioned a man who had been spying on her through her bedroom window, the episode details. Mr. Peeping Tom  someone of interest, finally, Kenda narrated.

As a result, Ochankowski wanted to move somewhere else, he added.

Almost from the beginning, investigators focused on Tuttle, police said at the time.

Sixteen years later, in 2013, advanced technology helped investigators identify DNA that was found in her car, Kelly said in the episode. They were able to match Tuttles cigarette butts while he was being questioned to the DNA found in Ochankowskis vehicle, he added.

When Tuttle appeared in state Superior Court at Middletown, Kelly was surprised to see he was morbidly obese, on oxygen and in a wheelchair, very immobile, he said in the show.

Karma comes back, Bradbury said in the episode.

Tuttle eventually pleaded guilty to the crime in August 2016 and was sentenced to 20 years in jail, suspended after 18 years, and five years probation for first-degree manslaughter and second-degree kidnapping. He was also sentenced to 20 years in jail, suspended after 12 years, followed by five years probation for kidnapping, according to state judicial records.

Film clips can be found at bit.ly/3qQmSWz. For information on the show, go to bit.ly/3IHKv9V. The episode link is at discoveryplus.com.
Jean, a 73-year-old grandmother, was at her Long Island home Thursday morning when she received a phone call from a man claiming to be her grandson. He was in jail for drunken driving, he said. He needed her help posting an $8,000 bail.

But there was one problem, Jean thought - her grandsons are far too young to drive. It was a scam. So Jean decided to swindle the swindler.

"I knew he was a real scammer. I just knew he wasn't going to scam me," Jean told WCBS, which identified her only by her first name.

Jean played along, eventually inviting an apparent bail bondsman to pick up the cash from her house. But it was a setup, and moments after Jean handed over an envelope stuffed with paper towels, police tackled the man to the ground.

Joshua Estrella Gomez, 28, was arrested and charged with attempted grand larceny in the third degree, according to the Nassau County Police Department. Gomez could not be reached for comment, and it is unclear whether he has an attorney.

Millions of senior citizens fall victim to elder fraud every year, according to the FBI. The crimes have gotten worse during the pandemic. A 2020 report from the FBI found that people over 60 were scammed out of $1 billion that year. Now, the annual losses are up to $3 billion, the FBI says.

There are several types of schemes, many of which involve people posing as technology support, the IRS or a charitable organization. The scammers exploit the vulnerable senior population because they often have financial savings and are "trusting and polite," the FBI says.

Even well-educated people can be duped. In July 2020, a swindler convinced a retired professor that he was an agent with the Social Security Administration and informed the 81-year-old that traffickers from Mexico were using his personal information to smuggle drugs and people across the border. The caller knew detailed information about the professor's life and persuaded him to send cash and gift cards worth thousands of dollars to Virginia, where the agent claimed he would use them as bait for the supposed traffickers.

The scam attempted with Jean on Thursday is also common. The criminal pretends to be a family member in desperate need of financial help. Sometimes the "grandchild" claims to be in a hospital and needs help paying a bill or, like with Jean, says they are in jail and need bail money. Jean talked to a few people - one of whom claimed to be someone from the Nassau County court system and another who pretended to be a lawyer named Matt Levine, she told Newsday. The self-identified lawyer knew Jean's address, full name and age.

Jean then texted her daughter and best friend, both of whom work at a 911 call center, according to Newsday. They alerted police, who sent two officers to Jean's home. While there, the officers witnessed the scammers calling Jean several more times, according to police.

When Jean told the purported lawyer that she had enough cash at home to pay for her grandson's bail, he said a bail bondsman would be at her house in 10 minutes to pick up the cash.

Jean was on the phone with one of the scammers when a man in a beanie, a camel-colored coat and dark pants arrived at her door and took the envelope. As the man turned around and walked away, two police officers busted out of the front door. Ring security-camera footage from Jean's home shows one of them tackling Gomez on the front lawn as Jean watched from her front porch.

Gomez was released from jail to await trial and will be arraigned on Feb. 3, according to police.

Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder warned that similar scams are prolific among seniors. He encouraged people to educate elderly family members and neighbors.

"Let them know - don't listen to these scams," Ryder said at a news conference Friday, according to WCBS. "These individuals sit at home and have nothing else to do but think of a way to take advantage of our elderly."

Jean said she felt vindicated by her ability to stop an alleged predator.

"I feel like - 'Gotcha!' " she told WCBS. "So many people fall for this, and you only hear about it on the other end after they've lost $8,000."
STAMFORD  A controversial petition to strike down a Zoning Board decision that would allow more development in defunct office parks is headed to the full Board of Representatives  but only in part.

Members of the Land Use Committee voted 9-2 to recommend that the full board take on the petition  despite opinions from the Law Department that the document didnt have enough valid signatures.

In order to preserve the prerogatives granted to the Board of Reps in the charter, I think it is to our best advantage to ensure that this petition is referred to the Board of Reps as required by the charter, Rep. Virgil De La Cruz, D-2, said in one of the few public statements in support of the vote.

Technically, the ruling from the Land Use Bureau and Law Department closed the traditional path for a petition to reach the Board of Representatives. In past petition cases, city lawyers have maintained that without adequate signatures, a petition cannot be referred to the Board of Representatives as the charter mandates.

Former city Director of Legal Affairs Kathryn Emmett backed that position in a memo from her department in December regarding the legality of petitions from the Stamford Neighborhood Coalition asking the Land Use Board reconsider its ruling.

Thursday before the Land Use Committee, current Director of Legal Affairs Doug Dalena took an identical stance.

It gets back to the original question, Dalena said. Is there a valid petition?

Members of the Stamford Neighborhood Coalition, a group of city residents pushing for less dense development, in December gathered about 1,000 signatures that they claimed represent approximately 580 properties across Stamford. By the end of the month, the citys Land Use Bureau, which staffs the zoning board, and the Law Department deemed the petition invalid based on the number of signatures.

Even though hundreds of residents had signed on, the Law Department concluded that not all those signatures were valid. Only the signatures of property owners who lived within 500 feet of the office park zones, often called C-D districts, could count toward the petition, according to their analysis of the charter. Within that framework, the Land Use Bureau counted signatures from only 67 of the eligible properties, falling short of the 100 signature benchmark necessary for this kind of petition.

Unhappy with the ruling, The Stamford Neighborhood Coalition spoke at a Board of Representative meeting earlier this month and laid out its arguments in favor of the petition in a four-page memo.

The group said the law department and Land Use Bureau had misinterpreted the charter language to benefit themselves.

In both opinions, language and qualifiers were inserted that do not appear within the City Charter, SNC leadership said in a Dec. 29 memo. This language was contrived to provide a structure in order to build and support a definition that is blatantly misleading and false and not found anywhere in the City Code.

In the SNCs interpretation, the city had created an incorrect distinction between zoning districts and zones. The SNC said the phrase zoning districts does not appear in the charter and argued that the insertion of that phrase changed the meaning of the law.

For a petition to be valid, the charter lays out that it must have signatures from either 100 landowners or 20 percent of the owners of privately-owned land within 500 feet of the area so zoned, whichever is least, if the proposed amendment applies to only one zone.

Petitions relevant to two or more zones in the city need 300 landowner signatures, but those signatures can come from anywhere in the city.

In the SNCs eyes, they had met the 300 threshold, and their petition impacted two or more zones. The legal department ruled that the commercial areas in question was a single zone but in multiple locations, and needed the more strict signature requirement.

The Land Use Bureau should be directed to turn over Petitions and documents pertaining to the Petition to the Board of Representatives immediately, the SNC wrote.

The Land Use Committee decides

The bulk of the discussion to refer the petition to the city board happened in a closed-door executive session where board members consulted with lawyer Patricia Sullivan of Bridgeport-based firm Cohen and Wolf.

Though the preliminary vote backed the SNCs suggestion, it wasnt without a fight. Members of the board at large made their opposition to the vote known once the committee emerged from the executive session, unequivocally backing the Law Departments interpretation of the statute.

While Rep. De La Cruz said early in the meeting that not taking on the petition would start a slippery slope of erosion to the boards powers, opponents of the move disagreed.

I think if we as the board go beyond what the charter provides as our authority, I think that becomes a slippery slope towards the board beginning to continually attempt to assume more power than the charter gives it, Rep. Eric Morson, D-14, said.

Morsons argument, and that of some of his colleagues, rests on conclusions from Stamfords previous petition battles.

For more than three years, the Board of Representatives has been embroiled in twin lawsuits after affirming petitions against the zoning and planning boards. In both cases, board members endorsed the petitions after Stamfords attorneys deemed the number of signatures insufficient according to provisions established by city charter.

State Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger ruled in 2020 that the Board of Representatives does not have the authority to validate or reject protest petitions  but neither does anyone else. Berger explained that the charter does not establish who gets, counts and confirms petition votes, a problem that took the city up to state Supreme Court back in 1992.

Though the resolution recommended by the Land Use Committee Thursday rebukes the citys Land Use Bureau for counting the votes on the petition instead of referring it to the Board of Representatives, it also introduces a potential solution to the verification problem.

If the item passes in February, the Board of Representatives will request the Town Clerks office to count all the petition signatures and submit a report of its findings before the Land Use Committee next convenes.

But even that comes with a hitch.

I dont know that there is a role in the charter for the Town Clerk when it comes to... signatures aimed at achieving a petition of this kind, Dalena told the committee.

Editors note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Doug Dalenas name.

veronica.delvalle@hearstmediact.com
UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday called on all actors in Burkina Faso to exercise restraint and opt for dialogue after the country's army deposed the president in West Africa's latest coup.

The UN chief "strongly condemns any attempt to take over a government by the force of arms" and "calls on the coup leaders to lay down their arms," according to a statement attributed to his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

Guterres also urged the coup leaders to "ensure the protection of the physical integrity of the president and of the institutions of Burkina Faso," the statement said.

Burkina Faso's army said on Monday it had ousted President Roch Kabore, suspended the constitution, dissolved the government and the national assembly, and closed the country's borders. 
CANTON  A Canton man pleaded guilty Monday to one count of distribution of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office for Connecticut.

Robert Eccleston, 58, faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing, scheduled for April 19, officials said.

Covert FBI personnel in two different field offices outside of Connecticut were monitoring various public groups on the social medial application Kik in 2020, according to court documents and statements made in court.

In August and September 2020, Eccleston, using the Kik usernames hartfordctguy and Mowgli100, distributed numerous pornographic images and videos of children in these Kik groups, including images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of toddlers and prepubescent children, officials with the U.S. Attorneys office said in a release. Eccleston also served as an administrator of one Kik group and required prospective members to send him videos of child sexual abuse for group access.

At the time of his December arrest, Eccleston was employed as a victim services advocate for the Hartford Superior Court, officials said. He has been detained since his arrest.

 This matter has been investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with the assistance of the Avon Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Angel M. Krull, officials said. This prosecution is part of the U.S. Department of Justices Project Safe Childhood Initiative, which is aimed at protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation .

william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
Scott Quiner, a Minnesota man whose wife sued over a hospital's plan to take him off a ventilator months after being diagnosed with covid-19, died Saturday. He was 55.

Quiner died at the Houston hospital where he was flown for care during the legal battle, according to Marjorie Holsten, an attorney for the family. She said he remained on a ventilator at the time, but she declined to identify the facility or provide additional details on the circumstances of his death.

The family's ordeal drew national attention this month as surging coronavirus cases overwhelmed hospitals across the United States. A GoFundMe in support of Quiner garnered tens of thousands of dollars in donations, and his wife told their story in media appearances.

"On behalf of the family of Scott Quiner, I would like to thank the public for the outpouring of love and support during this difficult time," Holsten said in an email to The Washington Post. "The family now requests privacy while they grieve the loss of their beloved husband and father."

Quiner was not vaccinated when he contracted the virus on Oct. 30, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the GoFundMe page. He was admitted to a hospital in Waconia, a city about 30 miles southwest of Minneapolis, with low oxygen levels. When his condition had not improved about a week later, health care workers placed him on a ventilator and transferred him to the ICU at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, about 45 miles away.

More than two months passed. Then, on Jan. 11, doctors told Quiner's wife, Anne, that they wanted to take him off the ventilator, she said in court records. She said she strongly objected as his medical representative.

A day later, she filed a petition in state court seeking a temporary restraining order to stop doctors from removing the ventilator. A judge granted her request on Jan. 13, shortly before the machine was to be turned off, according to court documents.

It's unclear why Mercy Hospital wanted to take that step. The system that operates the hospital, Allina Health, defended the treatment Quiner received there.

"Allina Health will vigorously defend the exceptional, evidence-based care provided to our patients by our talented and compassionate medical teams," the system said in a statement sent to The Post, adding that "our deepest condolences go out to his family, friends and loved ones."

Quiner was transported from Mercy Hospital in Minnesota on Jan. 15, according to Allina Health.

"His passing marks yet another very sad moment as collectively we continue to face the devastating effects of the pandemic," the statement added.

Jennifer Needle, an associate professor of bioethics at the University of Minnesota, said hospitals may take someone off a ventilator after concluding that the patient will not survive and that continued life support is prolonging the person's suffering.

It's rare, she said, for a hospital to go against the preferences of a patient's advance directive laying out their wishes, or those of a surrogate - "but it does happen." Needle, who is also a professor of pediatrics, emphasized that hospitals do not take such decisions lightly and have standard procedures to bring in multiple opinions.

Resource scarcity may play a role in the decision-making under "crisis standards of care," Needle noted, and some states have implemented those standards during the pandemic. Crisis standards allow hospitals to allocate limited staffers, ventilators and other tools based partially on patients' chances of survival. Minnesota has not adopted crisis standards, Needle said, but many hospitals in the state are effectively operating under those circumstances.

Whether scarce resources played into the decision-making in Quiner's case is not clear, and Needle cautioned that the case was probably complex.

"There is such a mistrust now of science that it has unfortunately bled its way into people not trusting medical providers, who have historically been one of the most trustworthy professions that there could be," Needle said. She pointed to some Americans' rejection of basic medical guidance on vaccination and coronavirus treatments.

Some families of coronavirus patients have sought to force hospitals to administer ivermectin, a deworming drug that has not been proved effective against covid-19 but is promoted by some as a vaccine alternative. Judges have rejected such requests.

Last week, the Star Tribune published an opinion article written by three physicians criticizing the judge's order to maintain Quiner's life support. They said the United States "is nearly unique in allowing families and courts to intervene in these situations, and to order that artificial life support must continue."

"When resources are scarce, the community consequences of continued active treatment become more significant and urgent - because other community members' lives are often at stake," they said, noting that many patients in Minnesota were waiting for limited treatment.

Keeping Quiner on a ventilator an additional 30 days as the judge ordered would take up resources that could have gone to 10 other patients, the doctors estimated, citing an average intensive-care stay of three days.

A statement Holsten previously sent to The Post alleges Quiner did not receive adequate nutrition while on the ventilator at Mercy and subsequently lost 30 pounds.

Anne Quiner told conservative radio host Stew Peters after her husband's transfer that he was "very critically ill."

"They are saying they're going to try everything they can do to save his life."

"Scott is fighting - they said he's absolutely fighting. He's moving, he's trying to do things. . . . He's not giving up, and neither are we, that's what they told me," she said on the show.

- - -

The Washington Post's Jonathan Edwards contributed to this report.
TORRINGTON  The Torrington School Building Committee is hoping voters on Tuesday will approve borrowing an additional $20 million for the middle-high school building project, which was approved for $159 million in 2021.

The referendum question reads: Shall the City of Torrington appropriate an additional $20,000,000 (thereby increasing the appropriation and bond authorization approved by the voters on Nov. 3, 2020 from $159,575,000 to $179,575,000) for the construction of a new high school, a new middle school, a new central administrative office, and for the demolition of the existing Torrington High School.

The referendum will be held at City Hall only, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Residents can read the referendum description at www.torringtonct.org/.../explanatory_text_jan_25...

Voters in November 2020 approved building a new middle-high school and administrative offices for $159 million. Earlier this year, the state legislature announced that instead of 65 percent reimbursement for all eligible costs for the project, that amount would be increased to 85 percent.

Residents voted in favor of spending $159.6 million, with the expectation that, with about $85 million in state reimbursement, the citys share would be lowered to $74.6 million. With the higher reimbursement, the citys share has been reduced to $28 million.

The increased costs, according to committee Co-Chairmen Mario Longobucco and Ed Arum, are driven by increased enrollment, and rising construction costs and materials. The co-chairmen told City Council in December that the districts enrollment has increased significantly, which will add to the overall footprint of the new facility. That, coupled with escalating construction and materials costs, have resulted in the project running over budget.

The bottom line is, the project was approved pre-pandemic, Longobucco said at the time. We had 71 percent of the voters approve it. Weve done preliminary designs, based on state requirements, and we find ourselves in a position where the money that was approved, pre-pandemic, is no longer sufficient to deliver the type of school we want.

This year alone, there are 137 new students in grades 7-12, that were not here pre-pandemic, he said. Construction costs $525 per square foot. And as we all know, everythings going up. Materials costs have gone up. ... So we had to go back to the drawing board.

Arum said the districts total enrollment increased by 267 students in grades K-12, as of Oct. 1, 2021. The state requires a certain amount of square footage per student in a school building; if expected or projected enrollment is up, the building must be made larger, Longobucco said.

Arum said in December that the increased enrollment is something that could stall the whole plan, unless the city acted quickly to get voter approval for the additional $20 million.
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BRIDGEPORT  On what would have been her 24th birthday, hundreds of people marched from the police department to the doorstep of the mayors office Sunday to demand answers and action in the case of Lauren Smith-Fields, who was found dead in her Plymouth Street apartment last month.

We want answers, Protect Black women, Save our daughters, Bridgeport, step up, they chanted on the third-of-a-mile journey from Congress Street to the Morton government center.

Mayor Ganim, step up, they chanted.

Smith-Fields family has raised questions about how police handled the case. On Friday, their lawyer, Darnell Crosland, filed notice that the family would be suing the city.

The city has not responded to specific questions about the case, citing an open investigation. Smith-Fields cause of death is pending further study, according to the states medical examiner.

At the end of the march, Smith-Fields family gathered at the plaza in front of the citys office building and reiterated their demands  an independent investigation by state police and attorney general, a transparent internal affairs probe about how local cops handled the case, and a bill in her name requiring cops notify families sooner in cases of untimely deaths.

They said they became concerned when Smith-Fields wasnt answering text messages and went to her apartment in Bridgeport. By the time they got there, she had already been dead for more than a day, and her body had been taken from the apartment, all without their knowledge.

Instead, Alexis Farrow, a family friend and spokesperson, said they were greeted by a note on her door.

It contained a number  not to police, but her landlord, who told the family she had died.

The police didnt even leave a note, she said Sunday.

Once the family was able to reach cops, they said, the first detective assigned to the case told them to stop calling to ask questions.

As Farrow spoke, a man in the crowd asked why Mayor Joe Ganim did not attend the rally.

Later, her father, Everett Smith, said the familys treatment by the city and police is totally unacceptable.

Shantell Fields said her daughter had been treated like rubbish.

The arrogance. The insensitivity, Smith said, describing his daughters life and achievements before taking aim at the police response. My daughter had a life. My daughter traveled the world. She was in college.

All we keep getting is doors closed in our face and empty promises, Smith said.

According to the police report on Smith-Fields death, a man she met through the dating app Bumble called police just after 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 12 when he reported waking up and finding her on the floor and not breathing with dried blood around her nose.

Medical personnel pronounced Smith-Fields dead at 6:49 a.m., and said she had been dead for at least an hour, according to the police report.

The march paused at one point at the top of the Broad Street Steps, where the family publicly identified the man they said was on the date with Smith-Fields the night of her death and discussed other information they said they had found out about him.

He has not been named as a suspect or person of interest in the case.

Maria Pereira, a city councilwoman who represents the district where Smith-Fields lived, noted she and fellow council members Michelle Small and Jorge Cruz were the only elected officials at the gathering.

I am angry about this as a mother, Pereira said, calling on Ganim to speak about the case.

Smith-Fields brothers, Tavar Gray-Smith and Lakeem Jetter, thanked those marching for showing up and wishing their sister a happy birthday.

We all loved her. She was a lovely spirit, kind-hearted, funny, a great dresser and a beautiful girl, and shes supposed to be here today, Gray-Smith said.

My sister was supposed to have breath in her lungs today, Jetter said.

Crosland, the familys lawyer, said he and the family will speak truth to power every hour of every day about the case.

We are sick and tired of being sick and tired, Crosland said. But we know this: Lauren-Smith Fields name will stand for change.

Naii Dawkins, a lifelong Bridgeport resident who said she has been involved in activism since 2019, said she came to Sundays march in solidarity with Smith-Fields.

Im an African-American female and Ill be 25 next month, Dawkins said. This could have been my life. My parents could have been here today doing something like this. So its important we stand together in unity and make sure we are highlighting things happening in the community and advocating for change.
Garrett Hedlund has been arrested for public intoxication.

The 37-year-old star was taken into custody on Saturday night (01.22.22) in Franklin County, Tennessee, TMZ reports.

Hedlund has already been released on a $2,100 bond.

The actor - who is due back in court in March - is currently on three years probation over a previous DUI case.

Hedlund is also being sued for a car crash that took place on the night of his DUI arrest in 2020. The 'Friday Night Lights' star is alleged to have crashed into another vehicle while passed out drunk behind the wheel of his Jeep.

Hedlund has also been accused of trying to flee the scene of the accident without calling an ambulance.

The actor's latest legal troubles come shortly after his split from Emma Roberts.

The celebrity duo - who have 13-month old son Rhodes together - recently called time on their almost three-year romance after a difficult few months in their relationship.

A source said: "It's sad, and they are trying their best to co-parent. It's been hard."

The pair first started dating in March 2019 and welcomed Rhodes in December 2020.

A friend of the duo previously praised the actor for "stepping it up" after Emma gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The insider explained: "Having a newborn in the pandemic has been a lot harder than either of them expected, but they're really, really trying their best to figure things out.

"Garrett totally stepped it up after Emma was still recovering after giving birth. He made sure that their house was stocked with things that Emma liked and needed so she felt comfortable. She's just starting to get back into a more 'normal' routine."
A failure to plan, the saying goes, is planning to fail. And over the past 30 years, this maxim has played out in the nations approach to climate-related disasters, particularly flooding. In 2021 alone, flooding has taken lives and destroyed homes and businesses from Tennessee and New Jersey to Washington state and Arkansas. The year was not an outlier: In each of the past five years, floods caused an average of $9 billion in damage and economic losses across the country.

But with good planning  and action  in advance of disasters, that number could be much lower. Congress and the White House have made strides recently to begin this process, but much more must be done to ensure that American communities are ready not only for the floods that are coming but also for those that were already experiencing.

First, the good news: On Nov. 5, President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law, authorizing significant funding to help states and localities prepare for and respond to climate impacts.

The new programs in the law include an $8.7 billion grant initiative to support state and local transportation plans and projects that incorporate climate resilience; $1 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program; and $3.5 billion for the FEMA Flood Mitigation Assistance program for use in efforts such as buying out repeatedly flooded properties.

The law also funds more than $500 million for research, including 10 new regional Centers of Excellence for Resilience and Adaptation aimed at making the countrys transportation infrastructure, and the communities that rely on it, more climate-ready. The regional centers, working in concert with a national center, will engage transportation experts and stakeholders to develop, refine, and pilot innovations and best practices for transportation resilience.

This good news comes with a hitch: To maximize the opportunity created by this federal action, states  which will be the primary recipients of much of this money  also need to do their part to develop resilience and adaptation plans to ensure that funds coming down the pipeline are spent wisely and efficiently.

Some are already making progress. New Jersey, for example, in October finalized its first statewide Climate Change Resilience Strategy, which incorporates sea-level rise through 2100 and calls for changes to the states infrastructure and community development patterns to respond to the projected impacts. A companion effort, New Jersey Protecting Against Climate Threats, uses the same projections to signal where and how the state will make future infrastructure investments. This work builds on New Jerseys ongoing efforts to help residents move out of especially flood-prone areas, notably through its Blue Acres Programa long-standing buyout initiative that the state plans to revamp and expand in response to Hurricane Ida in 2021.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, a measure signed into law in 2020 by Gov. Henry McMaster (R) required the hiring of a chief resilience officer to lead numerous projects, including making the state more flood-ready. With the new resilience officer in place, South Carolina is now on pace to release its first resilience plan in 2022.

And in Tennessee, which experienced devastating flooding in August 2021, municipalities are taking the initiative. Nashville recently completed its 400th buyout of homes in especially flood-prone areas, and Chattanooga in April released a regional resilience plan accounting for excessive flooding, heat, wildfires, and tornadoes. On average, flooding costs the state $243 million each year, according to a 2020 report from the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. Thats one reason a new coalition, Flood Ready Tennessee, is urging Governor Bill Lee (R) and other policymakers to commit to state-level resilience planning, technical assistance for local governments, and investment in flood mitigation projects.

Although all of this progress is encouraging, its critical that many more states follow suit. Residents across the country have learned the hard way that flooding isnt limited to the coasts, or to hurricane season, or to the so-called 100-year floods that now occur every few years in some places.

Buoyed by the new federal infrastructure law, states and municipalities have an excellent opportunity to plan for the more frequent and extreme rains and other climate emergencies that scientists tell us are coming.

Specifically, state and local governments should develop plans based on projected climate impacts and use those plans to direct the unprecedented influx of federal funding for resilience projects. States should look first to nature-based solutionsfor example, by expanding green space in flood plains to help absorb water, using permeable components instead of hard materials such as asphalt to better manage storm runoff, and restoring wetlands and other natural barriers that have been shown to reduce flood risk for communities.

By using nature to curtail flood risk, governments can improve communities quality of life, often saving taxpayers money while helping our planet. Additionally, plans should address historical inequities, such as the disproportionate climate impacts on low-income neighborhoods. With a comprehensive approach, governments can help to increase these frontline communities capacity to prepare for disasters, and encourage greater collaboration among all levels of government and key resilience partners such as nongovernmental organizations, academia, and the private sector.

By now, most policymakers recognize that climate change is real, that its getting worse, and that their communities must adapt to an ever-worsening flood threat. The pieces are in place for them to make those adaptations; its now incumbent upon federal, state, and local leaders to work together to plan for the future, before the waters rise yet again.
OUAGADOUGOU, Jan. 24 (Xinhua)-- Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore's Twitter account on Monday called on army to lay down arms and to safeguard democratic achievements.

"Our Nation is going through difficult times. At this precise moment, we must safeguard our democratic achievements. I invite those who have taken up arms to lay them down in the higher interests of the Nation. It is through dialogue and listening that we must resolve our contradictions," said a Twitter post from the account of Kabore.

Kabore has been detained by soldiers, local media reported Monday.

"The president was taken to a military camp following the mutiny," a security source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. 
China sent 39 military aircraft into Taiwans Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Sunday, the same day two U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Groups began a joint operation in the South China Sea.

The Chinese sorties included 34 J-16 and J-10 fighter jets, four Y-8 and Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft and a H-6 bomber, according to Taiwans defense ministry.

Taiwan scrambled fighters and issued radio warnings while air defense missile systems were deployed to track the Chinese aircraft activities, the ministry said.

The incursion, the largest since October, highlighted cross-strait tensions and also served as a warning message to Taiwan and the United States, said a prominent Taiwanese analyst.

By this, China wanted to say to the U.S. that it should think twice about the freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) rather than taking them as a matter of course, said Ming-Shih Shen, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwans Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), a government think-tank.

On the same day, the USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Groups with over 14,000 sailors and Marines began dual carrier operations in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy said. They had earlier joined a military drill in the Philippine Sea.

The U.S. Navy said the carrier strike groups will engage in joint operations to include enhanced maritime communication operations, anti-submarine warfare operations, air warfare operations, replenishments-at-sea, cross-deck flight operations and maritime interdiction operations to strengthen maritime integrated-at-sea operations and combat readiness.

The training will be conducted in accordance with international law in international waters, it said.

Just one day before that, the two carrier strike groups took part in a joint exercise with the USS Essex Amphibious Ready Group, the USS America Expeditionary Strike Group and Japanese Navy helicopter destroyer JS Hyuga in the Philippine Sea.

The strike groups precise location on Monday was not immediately clear.

Observers said China would not turn a blind eye to such a show of force. Last October when the U.S. Navy was conducting joint drills with British and Japanese ships near Okinawa, the Chinese military sent a record 145 fighter planes to Taiwans ADIZ prompting the Taiwanese minister of defense to say that cross-strait tensions were at their worst in 40 years.

Photo of aircraft, caption: U.S. Navy aircraft taking part in a joint exercise in the Philippine Sea, Jan. 22, 2022, involving the Carl Vinson and Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Groups. Credit: U.S. Navy Strategic waterway

Beijing has yet to comment on the latest event. In the past, it had said that such flights were to protect its sovereignty and target collusion between Taiwan and the U.S.

China considers Taiwan a breakaway province that should be reunified with the mainland while most Taiwanese people see their homeland, which is democratic and self-governing, as a sovereign, independent state.

An ADIZ is an area where civilian aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a countrys airspace. It does not restrict travel in and out of its limits, nor does it usually apply to military aircraft, although there is no international rule or law saying it cannot.

Taiwans ADIZ roughly corresponds to its exclusive economic zone, a 200 nautical mile boundary off its coasts. However, usually only those PLA flights that cross the median line between Taiwan and mainland China are reported as incursions.

A map provided by Taiwan's Defense Ministry showed the Chinese aircraft flew in an area to the northeast of the Taiwan-controlled Pratas (Dongsha Islands) in the South China Sea.

This area is at the crossroad between strategic waterways from the Taiwan Strait and the Bashi Strait to the South China Sea, explained Ming-Shih Shen from the INDSR think tank.

Chinas intensified flights here can, on the one hand, block military assistance from Taiwan to Dongsha Islands, and on the other hand monitor the entry of U.S. naval and air forces into the South China Sea.

Intrusions of Chinese military aircrafts in Taiwans ADIZ at a large scale are designed to eventually turn the Taiwan Strait into the inner sea of China. China would then have actual control of the Taiwan Strait and even the Bashi Strait, Shen said.

Countries [in the region] must pay attention to China's naval and air force deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea, he warned.

The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, insisted that U.S. ships presence and activities in the region are to support a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Rear Adm. Dan Martin, commander of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, was quoted in the Navy web portal as saying on Monday: We are committed to ensuring the lawful use of the sea and free flow of commerce while deterring those who challenge the shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific now and into the long-term future.
Goods from China are zipping across the border while products from Laos are getting stuck there.

This animated photo shows a passenger train at a station on the Laos-China high-speed railway.

Laos is eager to begin shipping goods to China via the newly completed Lao-China railway, but coronavirus controls at the border are preventing exporters from cashing in on what was supposed to be a rail freight bonanza.

A centerpiece of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative of state-led lending for infrastructure projects to tie countries across Asia to China, the railway is supposed to offer land-locked Laos the promise of closer integration with the worlds second largest economy.

The train connects the capital Vientiane with Boten on the Chinese border over 254 miles north before heading to Chinas southwestern city of Kunming.

Rail freight from China has been flowing into Laos, but the reverse route into China has been bottled up as Beijing restricts entry to try to contain several COVID-19 outbreaks ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics in February.

Laos government has been preparing to start shipping freight to its northern neighbor in the meantime.

We havent sent any freight to China yet, but our government is working on it, and the import-export companies will be shipping soon, an official of the Lao Ministry of Public Works, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFAs Lao Service Jan. 21.

Import export companies should register with the relevant department, the official said.

Graphic: RFA

The railway not only provides Laos with a link to China. It promises to do the same for Thailand, which lies just south of Vientiane, once the COVID-19 restrictions in China are lifted. About 100 containers of Thai goods destined for China had been held up at a logistics center in a suburb of Vientiane after arriving there on Dec. 4, Chanthone Sitthixay, president of the Vientiane Logistics Park Company, told local media on Dec. 31.

But on Jan. 20, Alongkorn Ponlaboot, counselor to the Thai minister of agriculture, posted on Facebook that some Thai freight had gotten through.

Thailand has shipped 20 containers of rice weighing 1,000 tons via the Laos-China railway to a city in eastern China. This is the first time that Thailand has transported goods to China via railway, Alongkorn Ponlaboot wrote.

Many companies in Laos, however, are still waiting.

Our company has not shipped any freight to China yet. Were only shipping goods within Laos, an employee of a Vientiane import-export company, who requested anonymity to speak freely, told RFA. I dont know why only China has been able to ship freight through the railway to Laos and Thailand but not vice versa.

Other companies are shipping goods to China the old-fashioned way.

Weve been sending goods to China, but by road, not yet by rail, said a worker for another company, who declined to be named.

Khampheng Xaysompheng, Laos minister of industry and trade, has asked the Laos-China Railway Company to improve the infrastructure to all the stations along the route to support more freight shipments.

Currently, only three of the stations  Natoei Station in Luang Namtha Province, Vang Vieng Station in Vientiane Province, and Vientiane South Station in the capital  are open for goods transport.

Another seven freight stations have been completed, along with 11 passenger stations.

Translated by Max Avery. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Anti-junta forces claim responsibility, but residents say they face arrest and interrogation just from passing by.

Two bombs detonated in Myanmars commercial capital Yangon on Saturday, bringing the total number of explosions set by prodemocracy militias in the city since the February 2021 coup to 121, according to an investigation by RFAs Myanmar Service.

On Jan. 22, a bomb exploded near the No. 20 Ward Administration Office in Yangons Hlaingtharyar township, and a remote-controlled explosive went off near a security guard post at a junta office near the citys Thanlyin Maritime University. Both explosions were later claimed by anti-junta militant groups.

At least 121 anti-junta blasts have gone off in Yangon over the past year, including 28 in Hlaingtharyar township between Dec. 1 and Jan. 22, 18 in Thanlyin, 16 in Mingaladon, 13 in South Okkalapa, 12 in Thaketa, 11 in Okkalapa, nine in Shwepyithar, eight in Dawbon, and six in Tamwe. No official statistics have been made available on bomb attacks prior to Dec. 1, 2021, and several of the incidents included in the total are based on RFAs reporting.

Most of the blasts occurred near places like schools, administrative buildings, the offices of utility companies, and police stations where security forces were stationed.

A resident of Mayangone township who identified herself as Thuzar told RFA on Monday that people try to avoid sites where security forces are stationed in Yangon, for fear of getting caught in an explosion.

There are blasts sometimes during the daytime and sometimes late at night. If there are security forces about, people choose another road because they do not want to have anything to do with these soldiers and police, she said.

We [also] stay away from the site of any [bombing] incident. If you are found near a site, you might get arrested for questioning. Even if we find injured soldiers near a blast, we wouldnt do anything to help them as we are fearful of the consequences.

Moe Myint, another resident of Yangon, told RFA that people who have no choice but to work in the city often are unable to avoid such incidents and sometimes get arrested and interrogated.

All these young people are working for the overthrow of the [military regime], but they warn people before they [attack], he said.

People have been warned to avoid places where junta forces are around, so they can at least decide which route to take if they need to go out.

Kyaw Lay, a spokesman for the anti-junta Yangon Federal Army, said the bombs the guerrilla group sets only target junta security forces.

Our people are mainly fighting against the junta forces to regain the democracy we have lost. This is a fight by the people for a just cause, he said.

We have sacrificed our lives and will continue to fight against the junta. We believe that even if we are gone, the next generation will carry on the fight. The military will be able to rule our Yangon only if we all die first.

Kyaw Lay told RFA that urban guerrilla groups conduct clandestine operations to try to keep people out of harms way.

Tenuous control in Yangon

Junta Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun told RFA that security forces are working to end the bombings. The number of attacks in Yangon had increased since September, he said, when the shadow National Unity Government declared war on the junta.

In the days following the announcement, there were about nine incidents in one day in Yangon. Even now there are still one or two bomb blasts a day in the suburbs, Zaw Min Tun said.

He said that the government is gaining control of the situation, without providing details.

Security analyst Kyaw Zaw Han said there will be no end to the bombings until the junta gives up control of the country.

Now that the opposition is able to produce their own weapons with locally available materials and not rely on imports anymore, there continue to be more, as some people are bent on taking revenge for their losses, he said.

Arresting and imprisoning people in connection with the bombings, instead of resolving the political crisis, would do little to address the issue, Kyaw Zaw Han said.

According to the Association Assistance for Political Prisoners, the military regime has arrested or detained more than 8,760 civilians arrested or detained since the Feb. 1 coup that deposed the democratically elected National League for Democracy government. The junta has killed 1,490 civilians, the Bangkok-based group says.

Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Latest action is another example of Chinas pervasive control of religion, source says.

A Tibetan Buddhist monk steps out of a prayer hall at Kumbum monastery in Qinghai in a file photo.

Authorities in northwestern Chinas Qinghai province are banning Tibetan social media groups tied to religion, warning group members they will be investigated and jailed if they continue to use them, sources say.

The order will take effect March 1, according to a Jan. 20 announcement by a provincial official, a Tibetan living in the region told RFA this week.

All online coordinating of religious activities and related events will be banned, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Anyone found violating this order will be investigated and punished, the source added.

Many social media groups have been created inside Tibet to coordinate religious activities online and to share information about pilgrimages, holidays or special observances where the lives of captive birds or fish are spared and they are released back into the wild, the source said.

But religious events and ceremonies performed or discussed on social media groups will now be banned completely, and online activities by the groups will be constantly monitored, he said.

However, religious activities conducted inside the monasteries will be allowed to continue as before, the source said.

In China, most religious activities performed online are carried on by Tibetans, so this crackdown is just another example of the Chinese governments pervasive control of religion, said Kunga Tashi, a New York-based analyst of Chinese and Tibetan affairs.

The new policy to restrict religious activity online in Qinghai follows recent campaigns forcing the expulsion of young Tibetan monks from their monasteries and the destruction in nomad areas of prayer flags and other traditional symbols of religious faith.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago.

Tibetans living in Tibet and in Tibetan areas of western Chinese provinces say they are subject to political, economic and religious discrimination as well as human rights abuses. Some fear Beijing is now pursuing ever more aggressive policies aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFAs Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Popular writer and poet Gendun Lhundrub was forced into a car by police in December 2020.

Popular Tibetan writer and poet Gendun Lhundrub is incommunicado more than a year after his arrest in western Chinas Qinghai province, with family members still in the dark as to his whereabouts or current condition, Tibetan sources say.

Lhundrub, aged around 46 and formerly a monk at Rongwo monastery in Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county in the Malho (Huangnan) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had been monitored by authorities for signs of political dissent over a long period of time before being detained, A Tibetan living in exile told RFA.

It has now been more than a year after his arrest, and very little is known about his condition or the official reason for his arrest, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his contacts in the Rebgong area.

Lhundrub was arrested on Dec. 2, 2020, while on his way to attend a religious debate held in Rebgong, the source said, adding, The event was witnessed only by a vegetable seller who saw him put into a black car by Chinese police, and no one else has any information about his arrest.

Though his family was informed by phone on Sept. 27, 2021, that Gendun Lhundrubs trial date would be set soon, there has been no follow-up about this, and we have heard that he is being forced to undergo political re-education.

Ordered by authorities to help translate Tibetan Buddhist texts into Mandarin Chinese, Lhundrub may have questioned the need to do this, leading to open disagreement, and he was arrested only a few days after voicing his objections, the source said.

Many Tibetan scholars and writers promoting Tibetan identity become the targets of the Chinese government, and most of them are eventually detained, said Pema Gyal, a researcher at the London-based rights group Tibet Watch.

The Chinese government believes that suppressing Tibetan scholars and writers will help to eradicate Tibets identity, so Chinese bilingual education policies and the translation of Tibetan Buddhist texts into Chinese are all part of this larger agenda, Gyal said.

Formerly an independent Himalayan nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force in 1950.

Language rights have become a particular focus for Tibetan efforts to assert national identity in recent years, with informally organized language courses typically deemed illegal associations and teachers subject to detention and arrest, sources say.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFAs Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Melikizat and Patigul Memet are among five female family members sentenced in 2019.

Two Muslim Uyghur sisters serving lengthy prison sentences for participating in religious gatherings in northwestern Chinas Xinjiang region are being held in a womens prison in the town of Sanji (in Chinese, Changji), detention center officials said.

The siblings, Melikizat and Patigul Memet, are from a family of five women in Korla (in Chinese, Kuerle), all imprisoned for religious activities in which they took part in 2013, according to a verdict issued in April 2019 and recently seen by RFA. The Korla Municipal Court gave Melikizat and Patigul jail sentences of 20 and seven years, respectively.

The womens mother, 78-year-old Helchem Pazil, sister Zahire Memet, and sister-in-law Bostan Ibrahim, were convicted of disturbing public order and inciting ethnic hatred for hearing and providing a venue for illegal religious preaching, RFA reported earlier, citing the document. At the time, it was not clear from the verdict where the women were serving their sentences.

They all were retroactively sentenced after China criminalized such activities in 2018 when it issued de-extremification regulations targeting Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang, purportedly, to prevent extremist violations and ensure social stability.

After making additional inquiries about the women, Sanji Womens Prison staffers told RFA that Melikizat and Patigul were serving their sentences there.

Melikizat, a 37-year-old housewife, was convicted of incitement to ethnic discrimination, collectively bringing social disorder, and taking others under her wing, by providing a venue for religious preaching and taking part in it, according to the verdict.

Patigul, a 52-year-old who worked at a veterinary hospital in Korlas Tekichi village, was convicted of collectively bringing social disorder by attending the religion services. She received a lighter punishment for giving an early and full confession and for showing grave remorse.

During follow-up calls to local official to try to find out where the women were being held, RFA contacted the police station in Tekichi village, though officers would not provide information about Patigul.

Likewise, the municipal prosecutors office in Korla declined RFAs request to speak with Pezilet Memtimin, the prosecutor in the case.

But during a subsequent call to the office, a staffer said that at least a handful of female Uyghur prisoners from Korla were serving sentences in Sanji Womens Prison.

When RFA contact the prison, an official asked for the national identification numbers of the five women, then confirmed that Melikizat and Patigul Memet were serving their sentences there.

Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Nguyen Thuy Hanh has been charged with disseminating materials against the state.

Vietnamese activist Nguyen Thuy Hanh holds a banner calling for the release of a prisoner of conscience during a protest in Hanoi, Vietnam, in an undated photo.

A well-known Vietnamese activist in Hanoi who raised money to support the families of jailed political prisoners before being arrested herself nearly 10 months ago was forced to undergo a month-long psychiatric evaluation while being held in pre-trial detention, her husband said Monday.

Nguyen Thuy Hanh, 58, who founded the 50k Fund to help pay for travel expenses for family members visiting prisoners in Vietnam, was arrested in April 2021 and charged with disseminating materials against the state, according to official media in the one-party communist state.

Before her arrest, Hanh was undergoing treatment for depression, Huynh Ngoc Chenh, Hanhs husband, told RFA. But the reasons she was given a mental health evaluation arent clear, he said.

They took her to a mental health hospital and kept her there for one month, from Dec. 7 to Jan. 7, for medical evaluation, Huynh Ngoc Chenh, Hanhs husband, told RFA. I learned this information from some patients at the hospital. The investigation agency did not inform our family about this issue at all.

At least four patients at National Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 in Hanoi called him about his wifes psychiatric examination, and a contact at the hospital verified the information, Chenh wrote on a Facebook post.

Hanhs family has not received any information about her health condition since her arrest, he added.

She used to have serious depression, and I had to take her to the France-Vietnam International Hospital in Saigon [Ho Chi Minh City] and to a specialist for treatment, Chenh said. Thanks to this specialist, her health had improved a lot. However, I havent had any information about her health since she was arrested in April 2021.

Authorities have not allowed Hanhs defense lawyers to see his client, Chenh said.

My wife had hired two law firms [to be her legal representatives] before she was arrested, he said. Their lawyers have registered to be her defense lawyers. However, the investigation agency said in cases related to national security, lawyers are not allowed to meet with their clients until the investigation is complete.

Local government authorities froze Hanhs Vietcombank account in 2020 after she raised about 500 million Vietnamese dong (U.S. $21,600) to support the family of Le Dinh Kinh. The elderly leader of the Dong Tam commune was killed during a police raid on Dong Tam amid a long-running land dispute that had landed many of his family members in jail.

Vietnamese authorities routinely order psychiatric evaluations of activists who oppose their detention for exercising their rights under Vietnams constitution. Other prominent detained Vietnamese, including land activist Trinh Ba Phuong, dissident writer Pham Thanh and blogger Le Anh Hung, also have been subjected to psychiatric exams.

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
MOGADISHU, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Six people were killed and ten others wounded in an explosion on Monday in a local restaurant in the southern part of Somalia, local security officials said.

The security officers told state-owned Somalia national television that the explosion occurred at a tea shop in Qalimow town in Middle Shabelle region, about 35 km north of the capital, Mogadishu.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks in Somalia but al-Shabab militants frequently stage such attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere.

The militants have intensified attacks in Somalia despite government forces having made intensive operations against the group in central and southern regions in recent months in an attempt to flush out al-Shabab cells. 
More than 100 people who were evacuated from a steel plant in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol have arrived in Zaporizhzhya, the Mariupol city council said, as Russian forces resumed their assault on the complex.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia's invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here.

The council said in a statement that the people who arrived in Zaporizhzhya -- a city about 230 kilometers northwest of Mariupol -- were receiving assistance after emerging from weeks in the bunkers of the sprawling Azovstal plant.



Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 156 people were evacuated. She said several hundred more people remained inside the plant and tens of thousands of women, children, and elderly remain in Mariupol.



"There is no medicine, water, or communication services," she said at a briefing on May 3, adding that the authorities needed to rescue everyone who wants to escape.



The United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross coordinated the evacuation of women, children, and the elderly from the steel works.

"We would have hoped that many more people would have been able to join the convoy and get out of hell. That is why we have mixed feelings," Pascal Hundt of the ICRC told journalists on a video conference call.



Osnat Lubrani, UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, said that 101 women, men, children, and older people could finally leave the plant, and several dozen more joined the convoy in a town on the outskirts of Mariupol. Some evacuees decided not to stay with the convoy and headed to destinations other than Zaporizhzhya, Lubrani said.



A few women who arrived in Zaporizhzhya held up handmade signs calling on the Ukrainian authorities to evacuate soldiers still holed up in the plant and their relatives and loved ones who are trapped.



UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he hoped the continued coordination with Kyiv and Moscow will lead to more humanitarian pauses that will allow civilians safe passage from the fighting.

WATCH: Current Time reporter Borys Sachalko comes under fire as he accompanies a Red Cross team attempting to evacuate a village that lies between Russian-occupied Kherson and Ukrainian-held Mikolayiv in southern Ukraine.

Despite the calls for additional evacuations, Russian troops began to storm the plant soon after the latest group of people got out, Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications under the National Security and Defense Council said in a statement on May 3.



According to the Vereshchuk, Russia purposely resumed the assault after some civilians got out.



"This was their plan: to allow some civilians to leave and then continue bombing. However, civilians remain there, there are people who did not have time to get out from under the rubble because the blockages were so heavy that in two days they simply could not lift them physically. We need to continue the humanitarian operation, including Azovstal," Vereshchuk said.

French President Emmanuel Macron also urged that evacuations from the steel plant be allowed to continue.



Macron spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on May 3, calling on Russia to rise to the level of its responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council by ending its devastating aggression, an Elysee statement said.



The storming of the plant comes days after Putin said he had called off plans for such an operation. Putin instead said he wanted Russian forces to blockade the sprawling plant "so a fly can't get through."

Later on May 3, Russian strikes began targeting the western city of Lviv. The strikes happened just before 8:30 p.m. local time. It wasnt immediately clear what was targeted.



Mayor Andriy Sadoviy wrote on social media that people in the city should take shelter. Train service out of Lviv was suspended.



Sadoviy acknowledged in another message that the attacks had damaged power stations, cutting off electricity in some districts.



The governor of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine said Russian troops shelled a coke plant in the city of Avdiyivka, killing at least 10 people and wounding 15 more.



"The Russians knew exactly where to aim -- the workers just finished their shift and were waiting for a bus at a bus stop to take them home," Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote in a Telegram post. "Another cynical crime by Russians on our land."

Kyrylenko said 11 more people were killed in the shelling of four towns in the region. The number includes five killed in the town of Lyman and four in Vuhledar.



Kyrylenko said the death toll on May 3 was the highest on a single day since a Russian strike on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk killed 57 people on April 8 and injured 109 others.

WATCH: Ukrainian troops southeast of Kharkiv survey heavy damage to a community cultural center, reflecting on the impact on locals, now all but gone.

Ukrainian officials say the Russian military also struck railroad infrastructure across the country on May 3.



Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of the state-run Ukrainian railways, said the Russian strikes hit six railway stations in the countrys central and western regions, inflicting heavy damage.



The governor of the Dnipro region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said Russian missiles struck railway infrastructure in the area, leaving one person wounded and disrupting train service.

Earlier on May 3, in a video address to the parliament in Kyiv, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced 300 million pounds ($376 million) worth of extra military aid for Ukraine.

Britain has already sent military equipment, including missiles and missile launchers, to Ukraine. The new aid will consist of electronic warfare equipment, a battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment, and thousands of night vision devices.



In his speech, Johnson referred to a 1940 address by World War II leader Winston Churchill as Britain faced Nazi Germany's aggression.

"The British people showed such unity and resolve that we remember our time of greatest peril as our finest hour," Johnson told the Verkhovna Rada. "This is Ukraine's finest hour, an epic chapter in your national story that will be remembered and recounted for generations to come."

"We will carry on supplying Ukraine...with weapons, funding, and humanitarian aid, until we have achieved our long-term goal, which must be so to fortify Ukraine that no one will ever dare to attack you again," Johnson said.

In Brussels, the EU's executive indicated it was prepared to propose another sanctions package to punish Moscow for invading Ukraine. But Slovakia and Hungary will not support sanctions against Russian energy, including on oil imports.



The two countries say they are too reliant on Russian oil and there are no immediate alternatives.

The sanctions will also target the Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, which will be excluded from the global banking communications system SWIFT, unnamed diplomats said.

Fighting also raged in the strategic port city of Odesa and across Ukraine's east. A 15-year-old boy was killed in a fresh Russian strike on Odesa, the city council said.

Ukraine's second-biggest city, Kharkiv, was under shelling, the military said on May 3, while the General Staff said Ukrainian forces were defending the approach to Kharkiv from Izyum, some 120 kilometers to the southeast.



Since Russia launched its unprovoked war on February 24, its troops have failed to completely take over any major Ukrainian city.

On the diplomatic front, Germany's conservative opposition leader traveled to Kyiv on May 3 for meetings with Ukrainian officials, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz made clear that he wouldn't be visiting Ukraine any time soon.

Friedrich Merz, who heads former Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Union bloc, visited the town of Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, which has been heavily bombarded by Russian forces.

Scholz refused to go to Ukraine because of Kyiv's refusal to invite Germany's head of state, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whom Ukrainians accuse of cozying up to Russia during his time as foreign minister.

"It can't work that a country that provides so much military aid, so much financial aid...you then say that the president can't come," Scholz told public broadcaster ZDF late on May 2.

The United States warned that Moscow was planning to formally take over regions in Ukraine's east.



Michael Carpenter, the U.S. ambassador to the OSCE, said Russia is planning to imminently annex the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, using referendums after failing to overthrow the government in Kyiv.



Russia encountered surprisingly staunch resistance in the north around the regions of Kyiv and Chernihiv, which forced it to redeploy its troops in the south and east, where fighting has intensified in recent days.



Ukraine's east and south are seen as key strategic goals for Russia, allowing it a land link to Crimea.

Separately, Russia's state news agency TASS quoted the Defense Ministry on May 3 as saying that more than 1 million people, including nearly 200,000 children, had been taken from Ukraine to Russia in the past two months.



Defense Ministry official Mikhail Mizintsev said those civilians "were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from the dangerous regions" of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, and from other parts that came under Russian control.

No details were provided on the location or circumstances of the moves.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, and dpa
MINSK -- A court in Belarus has begun the trial of businessman Alyaksandr Vasilevich, who has been charged with tax evasion, a move many activists say is politically motivated.

Judge Maryna Fyodarava ruled at the start of the trial on January 24 that the proceedings will be held behind closed doors.

Vasilevich was arrested in late July 2020 after he and others came to the building of the Belarusian Committee for State Security (KGB) demanding the release of Viktar Babaryka, a would-be presidential candidate who had been arrested for alleged corruption.

Vasilevich was sentenced to 14 days in jail for taking part in an "unsanctioned public event."

In August 2020, Vasilevich was rearrested and later charged with tax evasion.

In September 2020, human rights groups in Belarus recognized Vasilevich as a political prisoner.

Vasilevich is one of many Belarusians who have faced trials linked to mass protests against authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka following a controversial presidential election in August 2020 in which Lukashenka claimed reelection even though many Belarusians say the poll was rigged.

The protests were met with the heavy-handed detention of tens of thousands of people. Much of the opposition leadership has been jailed or forced into exile. Several protesters have been killed and there have also been credible reports of torture during a widening security crackdown.

Belarusian authorities have also shut down several nongovernmental organizations and media outlets.

The West, which has refused to recognize the official results of the presidential election and does not consider Lukashenka to be the country's legitimate leader, has imposed several rounds of sanctions against his regime.
Iran says it would negotiate directly with the United States in ongoing nuclear talks aimed at reviving the moribund 2015 nuclear accord with world powers if a good agreement can be reached.

Speaking at a press conference in Tehran on January 24, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian rejected reports that Iran and the United States are directly negotiating in European-mediated talks in Vienna.

But he added that if we get to a stage where reaching a good deal with strong guarantees necessitates direct talks with the United States, we will consider it.

The 2015 deal, which lifted crippling Western economic sanctions in exchange for curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions, began to unravel in 2018 after former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States and reimposed the sanctions.

That led Iran to start rolling back its commitments and restart some uranium enrichment activity, pushing the deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), to the verge of complete collapse.

Negotiations to restore the agreement led by the so-called 4+1 group -- China, France, Britain, Russia, and Germany -- began early last year but were put on hold in June with Irans presidential election, which brought an ultraconservative government led by President Ebrahim Raisi to power.

Washington is participating in the talks indirectly, with European mediators shuttling between U.S. and Iranian negotiators in Vienna.

After eight rounds of talks, key issues remain the speed and scope of lifting sanctions on Tehran, including Irans demand for a U.S. guarantee that it will not violate the agreement again.

The talks are also moving slowly over technical details about how and when to restore curbs on Irans atomic work, which has advanced significantly since the United States withdrew from the accord.

Washington is demanding the release of U.S. prisoners jailed in Iran as a precondition for a final deal. The U.S. envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said on January 23 that it is unlikely that Washington would strike a nuclear agreement unless Tehran releases four U.S. citizens.

"They're separate and we're pursuing both of them. But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran," Malley told Reuters in an interview.

"So even as we're conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file, we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages," he said.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on January 24 that the release of prisoners by Iran could not be a precondition, although he left open the option of a prisoner swap.

The nuclear talks are difficult enough without adding more "complicated issues, Khatibzadeh said.

However, the issue of releasing prisoners in the U.S. and Iran could also be settled relatively quickly under an exchange program," Khatibzadeh added.

More than a dozen Iranians with Western citizenships are imprisoned in Iran for alleged political offenses or espionage, including four U.S. citizens.

Tehran says Iranians detained in the United States, mostly for breaking sanctions, are being unjustly held.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters
BISHKEK -- A well-known Kyrgyz jazz musician, whom law enforcement in neighboring Kazakhstan arrested during deadly anti-government protests in Almaty and presented on TV as "an international terrorist" before his release, says he was severely beaten while in Kazakh custody.

Vikram Ruzakhunov wrote on Instagram on January 24 that he is currently in hospital in Bishkek after undergoing surgery for injuries suffered during his detention, which ended after the Kyrgyz government strongly protested the move.

According to the musician, he suffered a chest injury, broken ribs, a concussion and multiple bruises while in Kazakh custody.

"Until today, I had no idea of the scale of the reaction to the stupid move by Kazakhstan's media to broadcast the infamous video, because they took away my mobile phone, all my belongings, money, my ID card, driver's license, bank card. They did not return them to me, everything mysteriously disappeared," Ruzakhunov wrote.

Anti-government protests, sparked by a protest in the remote town of Zhanaozen over fuel price hikes, erupted in Kazakhstan in early January. Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev has publicly blamed "20,000 extremists who went through training in terrorist camps abroad" for attacking Kazakhstans largest city, Almaty, during the unrest. He has not produced any evidence to back up the claim.

Ruzakhunov's situation became amplified after a Kazakh television channel showed a video where he says that he had been recruited by an unspecified group to come to Kazakhstan to take part in the unrest for $200. In the clip, severe bruises can be seen on on Ruzakhunov's face.

The video sparked protests in Kyrgyzstan, where Ruzakhunov was immediately recognized by his fans. The Kyrgyz government officially demanded that Kazakhstan immediately release the musician.

On January 10, Ruzakhunov arrived in Bishkek from Almaty, but gave few details of his ordeal, only saying that he gave a false statement on camera with the hope it would secure his release.

In his January 24 post on Instagram, Ruzakhunov said that all of his previous official statements were made "for the sake of those who still remain hostage in Kazakhstan, most of whom have families, children, many of them are the only breadwinners for their elderly parents, disabled sisters, and my every single word could affect their situation."

In all, 10 Kyrgyz nationals were detained in Kazakhstan during the violence in Almaty. Some have been released and sent to Bishkek at the Kyrgyz government's request. Two Kyrgyz citizens died during the unrest.

Kazakh officials said 227 people, including 19 law enforcement officers, were killed during the turbulent events across the country.

Human rights groups insist that the number may be much higher as scores of people remain missing, presenting proof that many peaceful demonstrators and persons who had nothing to do with the protesters were killed by police and military personnel following an order by Toqaev's to "shoot-to-kill-without-warning."
Latvia has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine and is providing its army with anti-aircraft missiles, combat gear, and field rations, according to Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks. Speaking to Iryna Romaliyskaya of Current Time TV on January 24 in Prague, Pabriks said Russia "constantly needs to escalate the situation" in order to justify its own authoritarian policies.
Latvias defense minister says no country in the West wants a conflict with Russia, but that Ukraine has a right to defend itself as fellow NATO Baltic states send assistance to Kyiv.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania announced last week they would provide defensive aid to Ukraine, including anti-armor and antiaircraft missiles after the United States approved the transfer of the U.S. supplied weapons.

Intelligence reports assess that Russia has placed more than 125,000 troops near the border of Ukraine, spawning mounting concern over an imminent attack. Russia denies any intention of invading and accuses the United States and its allies of provoking the situation.

"We are gravely concerned about the situation near Ukraine's borders. We think that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend themselves, Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks told Current Time on January 24.

"No one is threatening Russia. Who in the West is interested in a conflict with Russia? No one. Russia, on the other hand, as an authoritarian state, constantly needs to escalate the situation to demonstrate the need for such a regime in Russia, he said.

The United States and Europe have vowed swift and severe consequences should Russia invade Ukraine, including sweeping economic sanctions.

Pabriks said he thinks the Kremlin may try to annex areas held by Russia-backed separatists in Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The West must prepare a response to such a move because it will mean that there is no war, but on the other hand, it would mean deployment of Russian troops on a territory that is lawfully Ukrainian, the Latvian minister said.

The nearly eight-year war in eastern Ukraine has claimed more than 13,200 lives since 2014, the same year Moscow illegally annexed Ukraines Crimean Peninsula.

Russia has used its menacing troop buildup near Ukraine to issue a list of demands to redraw the security architecture in Europe. Moscow wants NATO to abandon any prospect of Ukraine one day joining the alliance and seeks a major pullback of the alliances forces from Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states.

Washington and its allies say many Russian demands are nonstarters, but they have shown a willingness to discuss arms control, missile deployments, and confidence-building measures. Four rounds of high-level diplomacy this month between Russia and the West failed to reach a breakthrough.
Retired federal Judge Saidi Yangulbayev and his daughter have fled Russia after his wife was "abducted" by Chechen police from their apartment in the city of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia's Volga region, which is some 1,800 kilometers away from Chechnya.

The judge's son, Abubakar Yangulbayev, who is a lawyer for the Committee Against Torture, told Current Time on January 24 that his father and sister left the country fearing for their safety after the authoritarian ruler of the North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, publicly threatened to "eliminate" the family.

Subscribe To RFE/RL's Watchdog Report RFE/RL's Watchdog report is a curated digest of human rights, media freedom, and democracy developments from our vast broadcast region. It arrives in your in-box every Thursday. Subscribe here.

The 52-year-old Zarema Yangulbayeva, aka Musayeva, was taken from her apartment in Nizhny Novgorod on the evening of January 20 by masked men who introduced themselves as Chechen police officers.

On January 21, Kadyrov said Yangulbayeva faces a "real prison sentence for attacking a law enforcement officer" and that Chechen authorities "will take care of" her son, while her entire family could find themselves "either in jail or underground."

In a separate statement, Kadyrov called the Yangulbayev family, Igor Kalyapin, the chairman of the Committee Against Torture, and journalist Yelena Milashina, who often writes about rights abuses in Chechnya, "terrorists."

Amnesty International described Yangulbayeva's detention as "kidnapping" and urged Russia's federal authorities to act on the "lawlessness" that has "spilled out" of Russia's North Caucasus region.

Abubakar Yangulbayev told RFE/RL that his mother's lawyer has been unable to visit her and was not allowed to be present at a court hearing in Chechnya that decided on her pretrial arrest.

"We do not know where exactly she is now, on what grounds she was detained.... What is more important is the situation around the accusation about her allegedly attacking [a police officer]. According to what [the Chechen authorities] say, that incident most likely happened during detainment or while she was transported to Chechnya.

"In that case, it is illegal, as what they claim happened in a different judicial territory and Chechen authorities cannot prosecute her on that charge," Abubakar Yangulbayev said.

Yangulbayev, who is currently out of Russia, added that two houses in Chechnya that are home to 15 of his relatives are currently empty, suggesting that his relatives may be being held in custody.

He added that he has confirmed information that his three uncles are currently in police custody in the Chechen town of Urus-Martan.

"When [the relatives] were detained, police took their passports and property ownership documents. Some of my relatives were beaten. Police put plastic bags over the heads of almost all of them," Abubakar Yangulbayev said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on January 21 that the Kremlin is not aware of the situation around Zarema Yangulbayeva, emphasizing that she is the wife of a federal judge.

"The Kremlin has no details about the abduction of a federal judge's wife in Nizhny Novgorod and prefers not to believe in it," Peskov said at the time.

Abubakar told Current Time that Chechen authorities began their pressure campaign on his family in 2015.

Yangulbayev says his mother and father have been residing outside of Chechnya for many years and have nothing to do with any developments in Chechnya.

In late December, authorities detained dozens of relatives of Chechen bloggers who reside abroad and often criticize Kadyrov. Most of them were later released, but some remain in custody.

Russian and international human rights groups have for years accused Kadyrov of overseeing grave human rights abuses, including abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, and the persecution of the LGBT community.

Kremlin critics say Putin has turned a blind eye to the abuses and violations carried out by Kadyrov because he relies on the former rebel commander to control separatist sentiment and violence in Chechnya.

Chechnya went through two devastating post-Soviet wars and an Islamist insurgency that spread to other mostly Muslim regions in the North Caucasus.
When asked about a possible Russian invasion, residents of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv say they are "ready," but "hope that it won't happen." In an interview with The Washington Post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that, if there is an attack, Russia may try to occupy the industrial city located 42 kilometers from the border with Russia. Zelenskiy said this would signal the start of a "large-scale war."
The United States and its European allies are in total agreement on dealing with Russia's military threat on the borders of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden said on January 24 after a call with European allies.



"I had a very, very, very good meeting -- total unanimity with all the European leaders," Biden told reporters after the video conference.



British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a similar comment after the meeting with leaders of the United States, Italy, Poland, France, Germany, the European Council, the European Commission, and NATO.

"The leaders agreed that, should a further Russian incursion into Ukraine happen, allies must enact swift retributive responses, including an unprecedented package of sanctions," Downing Street said in a statement.



NATO allies said earlier they were putting their forces on standby and bolstering their presence in Eastern Europe amid concerns over the Russian military buildup.

Outlining a series of recent announcements by individual members of current or upcoming deployments, NATO said on January 24 that Denmark, Spain, France, and the Netherlands were all planning or considering sending troops, planes, or ships to Eastern Europe.

The United States said it was placing 8,500 troops on "heightened alert" to be ready to deploy to Europe, potentially at short notice, if needed to reassure NATO allies.

The announcements come amid intelligence reports that Russia has placed more than 125,000 troops near the border of Ukraine, spawning mounting concern over an imminent incursion.

NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the alliance, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

Biden has begun considering options to boost U.S. military assets in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, administration officials said, after he met with top national-security officials over the weekend.

The New York Times first reported the options presented to the president, who is expected to make a decision this week. One option under consideration is transferring 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the possibility of sending more should tensions flare further.

"The United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the alliance," the NATO statement said.

The Pentagon later said it was placing 8,500 troops on high alert but that no final decisions have been made on deployments.

"It's very clear that the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating," press secretary John Kirby told reporters.

Russia denies any intention of invading and accuses the United States and its allies of provoking the situation.

In reaction, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on January 24 that the United States and NATO were escalating tensions through "information hysteria" and "concrete actions," adding that the risk of an offensive by Ukrainian troops against pro-Russia separatists was "very high."

This is not happening because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is all happening because of what NATO and the U.S. are doing and due to the information they are spreading," Peskov said.

Russia has used its menacing troop buildup to issue a list of demands to redraw the security architecture in Europe. Moscow wants NATO to abandon any prospect of Ukraine one day joining the alliance and seeks a major pullback of the alliances forces from Eastern Europe. Alliance members Slovakia, Romania, Poland, and Hungary all border Ukraine.

Washington and its allies say many Russian demands are nonstarters, but they have shown a willingness to discuss arms control, missile deployments, and confidence-building measures. Four rounds of high-level diplomacy this month between Russia and the West failed to reach a breakthrough.

In a sign of the growing fears of a possible imminent Russian invasion, Britain and the United States announced the departure of some embassy staff and dependents from Ukraine.

The orders were issued "due to the continued threat of Russian military action," the State Department said in a statement.

Asked whether he thought an invasion was imminent, Johnson said intelligence was "pretty gloomy on this point."

"I don't think it's by any means inevitable now. I think that sense can still prevail," he said, repeating Western warnings that invading Ukraine would be "a painful, violent, and bloody business" for Russia.

Ukraine characterized the U.S. move as "premature," with Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko saying in a statement that it was important to "remain calm."

"We consider such a step by the American side premature and a display of excessive caution," Nikolenko said.

"The Russian Federation is currently making active efforts to destabilize the domestic situation in Ukraine," he said, adding that "disinformation, manipulation" was being spread by the media to "sow panic among Ukrainians and foreigners."

Borrell said on January 24 that the bloc did not have any immediate plans to order its staff out of Ukraine.

"We are not going to do the same thing because we don't know any specific reasons," Borrell said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels. "I don't think we had to dramatize as far as the negotiations are going on -- and they are going on."

After the meeting, EU foreign ministers warned Russia it would face "massive" consequences, echoing repeated comments from the United States of tough sanctions should Russia attack Ukraine.

But with the 27-member bloc divided on what the exact consequences would be, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told EU President Michel by phone that it was important for Kyiv that the EU showed unity.

"Ukraine will not fall for provocations, and together with its partners, will remain calm and restrained," his office said.

Separately, the bloc announced a 1.2 billion euro ($1.36 billion) financial aid package for Ukraine to mitigate the financial fallout of the tensions, which have hit Ukrainian government yields.

Meanwhile, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on January 24 that Russia has notified Dublin of Russian naval exercises in international waters in the Irish Sea, adding that they were unwelcome.

"We don't have a power to prevent this happening, but certainly I have made it clear to the Russian ambassador in Ireland that this is not welcome. This isn't a time to increase military activity and tension," Coveney said.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has urged Western governments to affirm Ukraine's status as "an important part of the West" as it faces Russian military threats. In an interview with RFE/RL's Inna Kuznetsova on January 21 in Kyiv, Kuleba expressed concern that some European countries are prioritizing their relations with Moscow over their solidarity with Ukraine.
TUNIS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Nadia Akecha, the chief of staff of Tunisian President Kais Saied announced on Monday her resignation from the post.

"Today, I made my decision to submit my resignation to the president of the republic, after two years of work," Akecha said in a Facebook post.

"I had the honor of devoting myself to the service of the best interest of my country," Akecha said, adding that because of "fundamental differences in viewpoints related to this best interest, I consider it my duty to leave my position."

Akecha was appointed as head of Saied's presidential office on Jan. 28, 2020. 
Britain and the United States have announced the departure of some embassy staff and dependents from Ukraine in a move that Kyiv has called "premature" following several rounds of inconclusive diplomatic talks between Washington and Moscow prompted by Russia's build up of tens of thousands of troops near the border with its western neighbor.

The European Union, however, signaled that it was not immediately following the U.S. and British moves, with a senior EU official saying on January 24 that there was no need to "dramatize" the situation as long as diplomatic talks with Russia continue.

The bloc also announced a 1.2 billion euro ($1.36 billion) financial aid package for Ukraine to mitigate the effects of the conflict with Russia, which has amassed some 100,000 troops on Ukraine's border.

The partial withdrawal of staff came as NATO announced it was putting forces on standby and sending extra ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe.

The U.S. State Department told dependents of staffers at the embassy late on January 23 that they must leave, while nonessential embassy employees can voluntarily leave at government expense. The orders were issued "due to the continued threat of Russian military action," the department said in a statement.

The security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders and in Russian-occupied Crimea and in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine, "are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice," the statement said.

'Prudent Precautions'

In announcing its decision, the State Department statement noted recent reports that Russia was planning significant military action against Ukraine, but the senior State Department official who briefed reporters did not cite any specific event that had preceded the announcement.



"These are prudent precautions that in no way undermine our support for or commitment to Ukraine," the official said.

Following the U.S. announcement, Britain's Foreign Ministry on January 24 said it was also withdrawing some staff and their relatives from its embassy in Ukraine in response to the "growing threat from Russia."

Both countries said their embassies will remain open for "essential work."

Ukraine characterized the U.S. move as "premature," with Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko saying in a statement that it was important to "remain calm."



"We consider such a step by the American side premature and a display of excessive caution," Nikolenko said.

"The Russian Federation is currently making active efforts to destabilize the domestic situation in Ukraine," he said, adding that "disinformation, manipulation" was being spread by the media to "sow panic among Ukrainians and foreigners."

"In this situation it is important to soberly access the risks and remain calm," Nikolenko added.

The European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said on January 24 that the bloc did not have any immediate plans to order its staff out of Ukraine.

"We are not going to do the same thing because we don't know any specific reasons," Borrell said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers which will include videolink attendance by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"I don't think we had to dramatize as far as the negotiations are going on -- and they are going on."

'Never-Seen-Before Sanctions'

During the January 24 meeting, the EU ministers will reaffirm Europes condemnation of the Russian military buildup near Ukraine, estimated at more than 100,000 troops, diplomats and officials said ahead of the meeting.

Arriving for the discussions in Brussels, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofold said the European Union would be ready to impose unprecedented sanctions if Russia attacks Ukraine.

"There's no doubt we are ready to react with comprehensive, never-seen-before sanctions if Russia were to invade Ukraine again." Kofod said.

EU Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen meanwhile said the bloc will help Kyiv with a 1.2 billion euro ($1.36 billion) financial aid package for Ukraine.

"The Commission proposes a new emergency macro-financial assistance package of 1.2 billion euros," von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels, adding that the package would be made up of both emergency loans and grants.

"This package will help Ukraine now to address its rapid escalation in financing needs due to the conflict," she said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO countries of escalating tensions around Ukraine even after top diplomats of the U.S. and Russia on January 21 agreed to keep working to ease tensions.



The Kremlin denies any intentions to invade its neighbor but has made de-escalation conditional on treaties guaranteeing NATO will not expand further eastward, especially to Ukraine.

Earlier on January 23, Blinken rejected calls for preemptive sanctions against Russia, saying that doing so would undermine the Wests ability to deter Moscow from any further potential aggression against Ukraine.

NATO said on January 24 that it was beefing up its eastern flank with more warships and fighter jets.

"NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement on January 24.

The alliance said that its beefing up its deterrence presence in the Baltic Sea area, as several members have offered troops and equipment.

The statement pointed to decisions in recent days by Denmark to send a frigate and warplanes to the Baltics, Spain bolstering naval deployments, and the Netherlands putting a "ship and land-based units on standby" for its rapid response force.

In reaction, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on January 24 that the United States and NATO were escalating tensions through "information hysteria" and "concrete actions," adding that the risk of an offensive by Ukrainian troops against pro-Russia separatists was "very high."



Meanwhile, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on January 24 that Moscow has notified Dublin of Russian naval exercises in international waters in the Irish Sea, adding that they were unwelcome.

"We don't have a power to prevent this happening but certainly I have made it clear to the Russian ambassador in Ireland that this is not welcome. This isn't a time to increase military activity and tension," Coveney said.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP
Ukraine has repaid more than $100 million in debt to a company owned by Rinat Akhmetov, the nations richest man, in a possible sign that tensions between the tycoon and the president are easing.

Ukraine last week finished paying off 3 billion hryvnyas ($106 million) it owed to Akhmetov's DTEK for renewable energy it had produced, the company said in a January 24 statement.

Ukrenergo, the state-owned power transmission company, last year raised several hundred million dollars through a bond sale in order to pay off debt owed to the nations renewable energy sector.

The government paid back all companies except DTEK, which accused the government of discrimination and threatened to sue.

The failure to pay DTEK came amid reports of growing tensions between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Akhmetov over a host of issues, including energy prices, media coverage, and new restrictions on powerful businessmen.

Akhemtov, whose net worth is estimated at about $7 billion by Forbes, owns a large slice of the Ukrainian economy, including steel and power plants, coal mines, banks, and media assets.

Zelenskiy last year pushed through parliament a bill called the anti-oligarch law that would force individuals designated as tycoons to sell their media assets or refrain from political activity.

Akhmetov voiced his criticism of the bill and described himself as an "investor," not an oligarch.

Shortly after the bill passed parliament, Akhmetovs television station stepped up its criticism of Zelenskiy, angering the presidential office, local media reported.

Akhmetov denied that he exerts influence over his television stations programming.

The fight between the president and the tycoon worried some in the West, who said it was ill-timed, coming as Russia massed troops on Ukraines border in what the United States has said could be a prelude to an invasion.

Zelenskiy in late November said Ukraine's intelligence service had uncovered plans by a group of Russian and Ukrainian operatives to stage a coup.

Zelenskiy claimed the plotters mentioned Akhmetov in their conversations, which were allegedly intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence.

Akhmetov vehemently denied any connection to a plot, calling it a lie.

Earlier this month, people close to Zelenskiy said the two sides were seeking to ease the tension.

Aleksandr Paraschiy, an analyst at Kyiv-based Concorde Capital, said the governments decision to repay DTEK in full is a sign of a calming down of the conflict between the Ukrainian president and Akhmetov.
Amid the persistent Russian threat to Ukraine, diplomacy seems certain to continue -- but for how long? Also, what to make of alleged Russian plots to install a friendly government in Kyiv, and a bill on recognition of the Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine? Russia analyst Mark Galeotti, the author of books including The Weaponization Of Everything, joins host Steve Gutterman to discuss.
KABUL, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- A delegation of the Afghan caretaker government on Friday left for neighboring Turkmenistan for talks on different issues, deputy spokesperson of the Taliban caretaker government confirmed.

"At the invitation of Turkmenistan, a senior delegation led by Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Mottaqi left for Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan on Friday morning," Bilal Karimi wrote on Twitter.

According to the source, the visit is aimed at holding talks on bilateral trade, energy, petroleum, railway and issues relating to education.

The two sides would also discuss the resumption of work on two major projects, namely the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) power project, according to Karimi.

The construction of the TAPI project has reportedly been completed on Turkmenistan's soil. Construction of the project in Afghan territory was inaugurated in February 2018, but it has been in process due to the war and conflicts in the country.

Earlier this week, the Taliban authorities have announced that the administration was aiming to re-launch the TAPI project after setting up 30,000 strong security force members for the project.

According to officials, the project, once completed, is expected to export up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year to the three neighboring countries. 
COLOMBO, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Health Ministry said on Monday it is looking into the possibility of proceeding with legal action against those who do not take booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Anver Hamdani, director of Medical Technological Services and ministry coordinator in charge of COVID-19 at the Health Ministry, told reporters that the health minister had sought the advice of the attorney general in this regard.

"Accordingly, we hope to work within a legal framework in the future based on that legal advice," Anver said. "The aim of imposing a fine or implementing such laws pertaining to the third dose of the vaccine is to safeguard the people."

According to official figures from the Health Ministry, over 70 percent of Sri Lanka's total population have been fully vaccinated. 
Danvers, MA (01923)

Today

Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain for the afternoon. High 52F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low 47F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
CANBERRA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Australia approved the Novavax vaccine for people aged 18 and over on Monday, making it the fourth COVID-19 vaccine to be approved for use in Australia after AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer.

The Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) has recommended the Novavax vaccine be given in two doses, at least three weeks apart.

The government has ordered 51 million doses of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine to be available in February, Health Minister Greg Hunt said.

"We will be able to commence that program in the week of Feb. 21," he told reporters on Monday.

Australia on Monday reported more than 40,000 locally-acquired coronavirus infections and 58 deaths -- 24 in New South Wales, 17 in Victoria, 13 in Queensland and two each in South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, according to health department figures from states and territories.

Hunt said there were promising signs that Australia's wave of Omicron infections has peaked in some areas, with hospitalizations stabilizing.

"So, it's an important moment where we are seeing, now, clear signs that this Omicron wave, at least in New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT, has peaked," he said.

From Monday, millions of welfare recipients are eligible to receive free rapid antigen tests (RATs).

However, the industry's peak body warned that pharmacies do not have enough supply to meet demand but that pressure should ease by the end of January. 
North County Transit District has approved the purchase of five new diesel locomotives for $37 million to replace the original used engines it bought in 1992.

The sleeker, more powerful engines will reduce air emissions by 90 percent and fuel consumption by 16 percent, transit district officials said. They will be built in Sacramento and are expected to begin service in 2021.

They are actually beautiful locomotives, Don Filippi, the districts chief operations officer, said Thursday.

The new vehicles will have a more slanted nose and will be 20 to 30 feet longer to make room for additional equipment including upgraded emissions systems, computers, data servers and automated safety equipment.

Bridges and tunnels prohibit any increase in the height or width of a train, so, the only way to go is length, Filippi said.

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The new locomotives also will be stronger, with a total of 4,400 horsepower, compared to 3,000 horsepower in the old engines.

They can pull more cars and get up to speed faster, Filippi said. Passengers will notice a difference.

Only the districts Coaster trains, which run between Oceanside and downtown San Diego will get the new locomotives. The districts Sprinter trains, which run between Oceanside and Escondido, use a different type of engine called a diesel multiple unit. Those engines are only about 10 years into an expected 25-year life.

Many factors affect the useful life of an engine, Filippi said.

The environment is very, very hard on these locomotives, he said, and the coastal climate is especially tough.

The damp salt air, it just wreaks havoc on the engines themselves. In dryer climates, you dont see the corrosion and the breakdown that you see over here. Thats something we have to deal with.

The new vehicles will be built from the ground up by Siemens at its plant in Sacramento, Filippi said. Once complete, several months of testing will be needed at the plant and then onsite for brakes, electronics and other systems.

The old engines must be destroyed as one of the conditions of a $10 million grant from the Air Pollution Control District being used to help purchase the new ones. Money also comes from the states Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.

The transit district has a total of seven Coaster locomotives. Two are newer models that have another six or eight years left on their expected usable life.

Also, to go with the new locomotives, the district plans to refurbish 16 of its 28 passengers cars inside and out beginning in fiscal 2019, he said. That work will continue for six to eight years.

The paint scheme for the new locomotives and refurbished cars will be chosen by officials working with district residents and train riders.

The transit districts board of directors approved the purchase at its June board meeting.

Businesses and commuters throughout San Diego County benefit from the convenience and the presence of the Coaster, and they will benefit even more from these updated vehicles, said board Chair Rebecca Jones, a San Marcos City Council member, in a news release.

The benefit of having cleaner-burning engines is of utmost importance to residents along the corridor, said Janet Roberts of the Train Coalition at Santa Fe Depot in San Diego.

The districts now locomotives are being built under a multi-state procurement agreement with the California and Illinois departments of transportation, which helps to lower the cost.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Contrary to alleged reports of women being confined to home under Afghanistan's Taliban administration, nearly a dozen women and girls are seen hard at work in a confectionery shop in the northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif.

The owner of the shop, Sayed Abas, told Xinhua that 10 women and girls work there regularly, making cakes and biscuits.

"The ladies working here have had no problems resuming work. We all enjoy working here," said Habiba Amini, one of the sweet makers.

Amini said that Mayor of Mazar-i-Sharif Mawlawi Qudratullah Tareq had visited the store to show his support for working women. The mayor rejected reports of women being beaten and confined to their houses by authorities, saying, "Women have the right to work."

The Taliban administration has, however, barred women from working in some government entities and has stopped girls from attending school beyond grade seven. In Kabul, spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said schools for girls would open in the new school year, which begins in March.

Following the abrupt withdrawal of U.S.-led forces in August 2021, Washington has imposed sanctions on the embattled country, seizing Afghan assets and compounding the poverty brought by 20 years of foreign occupation.

Women are an important part of what workforce remains amid the devastation in Afghanistan, most notably in health, schools and retail.

Mother of two Adalat Bahri is a manager of the Rabia Balkhi market, a bazaar for women who run their own businesses including confectioners, shoe shops, restaurants and handicrafts.

"I have been working for here for two years and make enough to support my family," she told Xinhua.

"Finding a job today is very difficult, even for men. I feel lucky to have a regular job and income," she said. "I want to see women working and jobs are provided for people who are hungry in the country." 
Everyone loves Costco, right? They treat their employees much better than other businesses, and they have competitive prices on a wide variety of items. In fact, Costco is known for some of the lowest prices on gas and if you want to shop gas at Costco, get a $20 Costco Shop Card for that.

But what do these low prices mean when it comes to Costco gas quality?

Cheap Gas But What About Costco Gas Quality?

Costco gas prices positively cannot be beaten. Typically, this means that a company saves money by making a cheaper product. This can call into question the quality of Costcos black gold.

When Costco is selling its gasoline for so much less than the competition, its natural to be skeptical and wonder if the quality is equal to brand-name gasoline such as Exxon, Shell, and Chevron. Most people want to know if Costco gas is good quality fuel, or if it might cause long-term damage to their fuel system.

Gas Quality Standards

First, its important to note that the government sets fairly stringent standards for all gasoline sold in the United States. When it comes to octane level and other specific gasoline characteristics, all gas is basically the same. The difference between the fuel that you buy at branded gas stations comes down to the detergents that are added to the gas.

Even with detergents, the government sets standards. The federal government has required since 1995 that all gasoline sold in the U.S. must contain a certain amount of detergent additives. These additives are Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved, and the amount of detergent which must be added to keep vehicle engines free from deposits is regulated. Costco gasoline meets all these requirements, despite being so much cheaper than surrounding stations. Just because you are saving money, that does not mean that they have skimped out, or skirted any regulations.

Is Costco Gas As Good As the Competitors?

So, Costco meets the minimum requirements, but is it still as good as other brand-name gasoline? A number of automakers made the decision that the U.S. government additive requirement wasnt high enough for many cars. As a result, they developed a Top Tier standard. In order to meet the Top Tier designation, the fuel sold at the gas station must meet additive requirements higher than required by the U.S. government. Costco fuel meets this top-tier standard, so that just goes to show the value that you are getting.

While Costcos gas isnt the same as the other brands, that does not make it a lesser product. After all, if it was the same exact gas, Costco wouldnt be able to set itself apart. Costco gasoline is practically equal to any other major brand gasoline. You should not notice any difference when filling up your vehicle at Costco as you would with any other brand. The only difference you should notice is a much lighter hit to the wallet.

Get Better Gas Quality and Save Money

If you arent sure that Costco gasoline is as good as another major brands, try this gas hack to save money. In most areas of the country, you can fill up at the Costco gas station, plus add quality fuel injector cleaner . If you add this fuel injector cleaner as recommended, you will still pay less for Costco gas and the fuel injector cleaner, than you would on gas alone at a major brand gas station. This, though, is more of a peace-of-mind improvement. Most mechanics will tell you that fuel injector cleaner really doesnt do much, so maybe just enjoy the savings that come with your yearly membership.

In the end, there is nothing to suggest that Costco brand fuel is inferior to any other brands of gasoline. Dont let the price alone dissuade you from filling up there, but we wont judge if the long lines drive you away.

From Around The Web

If youre interested in some fun gasoline reading, check out this story of a guy who figured out how to turn off the ads at the gas pump. And, here is the story of a guy who made $900 using the app, GetUpside. The best part is, he donated the $900 to buy gas for some nurses. The story is here.

Read More From Saving Advice:

Is a Costco Executive Membership Worth the Price?

Costco Gas Calculator: Will I Save Money Buying a Membership if All I Buy is Fuel?

What Is The Costco Return Policy?

The Costco Holiday Schedule Is More Surprising Than You Think

Yes, Costco Will Do Your Tires

(Photo courtesy of Adam Keys)

Do you fill up at Costco gas stations? What do you think about the gas quality?
MOSCOW, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Russian military cannot ignore an increase in military activities of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as tensions regarding Ukraine have flared up, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

Peskov made the remarks during his daily briefing shortly after NATO said its allies are "putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in Eastern Europe" to deter Russia.

In addition to the NATO maneuvers, Ukrainian authorities are concentrating a huge amount of forces on the line of contact with the two self-proclaimed republics in Donbass, he noted.

The threat of provocations by Kiev in the Donbass region in east Ukraine is now higher than ever, the spokesman stressed.

The current escalation of tensions was caused by the United States and its NATO allies, who have launched a propaganda campaign full of lies against Russia, Peskov said.

The United States and Britain are withdrawing some staff and dependents from their embassies in Ukraine, stoking fears that a conflict is looming. 
Scarsdale, NY (10583)

Today

Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 64F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Some clouds. Low 52F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
LONDON, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Britain has begun to withdraw staff from its embassy in Kiev, the country's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) said Monday.

Some embassy staff and dependents are being withdrawn from Ukraine, but the embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work, it said.

"The FCDO advise against all travel to Donetsk oblast, Luhansk oblast and Crimea. The FCDO advises against all but essential travel to the rest of Ukraine," it said.

Britain's move came after the U.S. Department of State on Sunday ordered eligible family members of staff at its embassy in Ukraine to leave the country.

Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it considered the U.S. decision "premature and a manifestation of excessive caution."

Meanwhile, Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, told reporters on Monday that "we are not going to do the same thing because we don't know any specific reasons." 
ANKARA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Turkey on Monday condemned the latest attacks against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, the foreign ministry said in a written statement.

"We condemn the terrorist acts perpetrated on Jan. 24 with ballistic missiles and drones against civilian targets in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia," said the ministry statement.

"We demand that these attacks, which constitute a clear violation of international law, stop immediately," it added.

The UAE said it intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting its capital Abu Dhabi on Monday with no casualties, following a deadly drone attack a week earlier.

Saudi Arabia on Monday said two people were injured after a Houthi ballistic missile fell on the kingdom's south, in the industrial zone of Ahad Al-Masarihah in the Jazan region.

Yemen's Houthi rebels on Monday claimed responsibility for the latest round of attacks on the UAE and Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones.

On Jan. 17, three petroleum tankers burst into a fire near Abu Dhabi National Oil Company storage facilities in Abu Dhabi. Three persons were killed and six others injured in the attack. Later, the Houthi militia claimed responsibility for the strike.

Last week, the Saudi-led coalition forces announced that they carried out airstrikes on Sanaa, the Yemeni capital held by Houthis, in response to the Jan. 17 attacks on Abu Dhabi.

Yemen has been mired in a civil war since the Houthi militia overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including 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 the Houthis forced him into exile. 
ATHENS, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- An intense cold front was sweeping through Greece on Monday, causing travel disruptions and power outages for several hours in many regions, the local authorities said.

The government has announced widespread closures across the public and private sectors on Tuesday.

The Acropolis hill and the thoroughfares in the capital Athens, and even the city's southern seaside suburbs, were covered in a thick blanket of snow. Uncharacteristically, the bad weather even brought snow to several Aegean Sea islands.

The Attica region, the island of Crete and many Aegean Sea islands were in "a state of special mobilization of Civil Protection," Greece's Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Minister Christos Stylianides announced. The state crisis management mechanism has been activated, citizens have been advised to avoid unnecessary travel.

"We need to take all precautions to avoid casualties," Stylianides said.

Travel disruptions have been reported nationwide. The snowfall temporarily paralyzed traffic on the country's highways, ships remained docked at ports and flights have been canceled, the Greek national news agency AMNA reported.

The army was mobilized to assist the Fire Brigade and police in evacuating hundreds of motorists stranded for hours on highways in the greater Athens area.

Drivers were urged to use snow chains even in the center of the Greek capital.

Greek national broadcaster ERT reported that three passengers were slightly injured in a train collision in central Greece.

"So far we have had a few power cuts only. Tomorrow will also be a difficult day. We all will have to stay on alert," Stylianides told a press conference.

In several parts of the country, schools will remain closed on Tuesday and shift to online classes.

Public sector services and private companies also shifted to teleworking, as the Civil Protection warned citizens against unnecessary movement.

The severe cold front began sweeping across Greece over the weekend. Meteorologists said that it will recede on Wednesday. 
From editor for emerging products and audio Sarah Feldberg:

The San Francisco Chronicles weekly politics podcast Its All Political, hosted by senior political writer Joe Garofoli, is joining forces with daily news show Fifth & Mission.

Hosted by Garofoli, Its All Political on Fifth & Mission will bring high-profile interviews and expanded political coverage to The Chronicles flagship podcast, starting today with an interview with Sen. Alex Padilla.

Im really excited about Its All Political becoming part of the Fifth & Mission family and getting to know its listeners and for them to get to know us, said Garofoli. Its always fun to talk politics no matter what the venue.

With It's All Political joining Fifth & Mission, our audiences will now be able to enjoy keener political insight and analysis, said Fifth & Mission Host and Producer Cecilia Lei. Theyll also benefit from Joes grasp of California politics and issues, which affect the day-to-day lives of Bay Area residents.

Since launching in 2017, Its All Political has featured some of the most prominent names in local and national politics. Garofoli has interviewed Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and then-gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, activist and author Van Jones and TV personality Chelsea Handler.

Alongside senior political writer and Washington correspondent Tal Kopan, Garofoli also hosted the limited series podcast Chronicled: Who is Kamala Harris? which won a 2021 Webby Award.

Joes been covering politics so long he remembers when Republicans got elected to statewide office in California, said Chronicle Executive Producer for Audio King Kaufman. Hes not just a great interviewer: He sees things. Just one example: We all know who Stacey Abrams is now. Joe was one of the first reporters outside Georgia who spotted her as a rising star.

Its All Political will be a regular, recurring segment on Fifth & Mission, with Garofoli continuing to host interviews with local and national politicians and analyzing elections and key political issues.

This is a great opportunity to include more people in our political conversation at a critical time in California. We always try to make sense of politics in our tumultuous era  while introducing listeners to smart people and new and emerging voices. Our credo: No matter what is going on in California, you know that at some level  its all political, Garofoli said.

Bringing Its All Political into Fifth & Mission will allow Joes podcast work to reach a much bigger audience, and theyre going to love him, said Kaufman.

The move is part of a larger series of exciting developments for Fifth & Mission and The Chronicle audio team. Last May, Lei joined The Chronicle as host and producer of Fifth & Mission along with co-host and director of news Demian Bulwa. Over the past nine months, the podcast team has produced a series of ambitious narrative episodes, covering stories ranging from school integration in Marin County to one of the largest homeless encampments in Oakland facing the threat of eviction.

In the fall, The Chronicle conducted an in-depth survey of Fifth & Mission listeners to better understand the issues our audience cares about most, and this winter the podcast began experimenting with Twitter Spaces, hosting a pair of live conversations with public health experts about COVID-19.

Most recently, Kaufman has been promoted to the role of Executive Producer for Audio to continue driving the growth and development of The Chronicles audio program.

Fifth & Mission just got a lot stronger, Kaufman said, and Im excited about some new podcast projects in 2022 that well be announcing soon.

About The San Francisco Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfchronicle.com) is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2000, The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. Follow us on Twitter at @SFChronicle.
Belvedere Lagoon, an H-shaped body of water in Marin County tucked between Tiburon Peninsula and Belvedere Island, made news last summer when it was infested by hundreds of dinner-plate-size moon jellyfish.

The affliction was notable enough that the Redwood Bark, the student newspaper of Redwood High School, ran a feature on the topic in which sophomore Jonah Momsen was quoted as saying that the jellyfish were a turnoff when it came to swimming, but scientifically intriguing.

Obviously it is not a huge problem that rich people on the lagoon cannot swim sometimes, but it would definitely be cool to solve it and it could be interesting to learn about it, Momsen said.

These days the jellyfish seem to have mostly vanished from the lagoon, but some local residents are concerned about the arrival of a different species that has been even rarer in Californias wealthiest town: housing developers.

For the first time in 33 years a developer is proposing to build a multifamily complex in Belvedere, which was deemed Californias richest city in 2020. The 42-unit, mixed-income Mallard Pointe development would replace the 22-apartment rental complex that currently exists on the 2.8-acre site. The development, owned by an affiliate of Thompson Dorfman Partners LLC, would include 19 homes fronting onto the lagoon as well as a 23-unit apartment building on the land side of the property.

The project would include five deed-restricted affordable units, priced at families making between 60% and 80% of area median income between about $77,000 and $100,000 for a couple. It would include six single-family homes on the lagoon, three of which would include more affordable accessory dwelling units. Another five of the apartments would be smaller, one-bedroom units, which will be affordable by design, according to developer Bruce Dorfman.

Dorfman said the project would represent Belvederes first-ever mixed-income development and that his group has tried to minimize impacts. At 13 units an acre it is significantly less dense than zoning would allow with state density bonus laws the parcel could accommodate 80 homes. The last affordable units built in Belvedere, 11 senior apartments, opened in 1989, while the last market-rate, multifamily complex opened in 1969. Belvedere does not have an inclusionary housing law that requires developers to include below market rate homes.

We are not trying to break a glass ceiling, Dorfman said. We are trying to do something that is consistent and contextual that the city should embrace. We think we have done that from a design standpoint.

However, the proposal, which will be submitted to the city next week, is causing consternation in a town where the average home sells for $3.3 million and where lagoon-fronting homes regularly fetch between $5 million and $10 million.

Ramin Rahimian/Special to The Chronicle

The development has prompted the formation of a group called Belvedere Residents for Intelligent Growth, or BRIG. In a statement, provided by retired attorney John Hansen, the group said it has serious concerns about the potential impacts on local flood control, zoning consistency and soil stability that could be caused by this large-scale waterfront subdivision.

We also share the concerns of our neighbors  seniors and young families  who face displacement from their rental units if the existing structures are demolished, said the BRIG statement. We are all for progress but smart progress. We are working with the City of Belvedere to ensure we meet our state-mandated affordable housing goals in a way that is environmentally sustainable and protective of the rights of existing residents and rent-paying tenants.

Dorfman said that existing tenants, who pay about $6,000 for a 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom apartment, would be given the right to return when the new units are built. They will be given $6,500 in relocation funds and another $7,500 if they choose to come back into the new apartments.

The current owners bought the property in 2020 for $21 million. At first they looked at renovating the existing units, which have cramped kitchens and tiny bathrooms that are not wheelchair-accessible. There are also soil settlement issues because the units were built on what was filled-in marshland. But those renovations would have required that the homes be jacked 6 or 7 feet higher.

Looking at it we thought, Why are we raising antiquated floorplans? Why wouldnt we start from scratch? Dorfman said.

The 66-acre lagoon, home to about 280 families, is owned and maintained by the Belvedere Lagoon Property Owners Association. While lagoon residents sail and kayak on the landlocked water, there is no public access. Motorized boats are not permitted. Most of the homes on the lagoon were built in the 1950s, although many have been torn down and replaced with more modern structures.

Under the state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation program  known as RHNA  Belvedere must plan for about 160 new housing units between 2023 and 2030. Like many other communities Belvedere appealed its RHNA allocation, arguing that producing 160 new homes was a stretch in a town that is largely made up of water and steep hillside lots that were long ago built on.

We are mostly water and a couple of islands and there is not a lot of open lots, said Belvedere City Manager Craig Middleton. Its a heavy lift, but we are committed to trying to do it.

The Mallard Pointe proposal is the only new housing in Belvederes pipeline.

Its a modest amount in terms of meeting the citys RHNA  but at least its something, said Eric Hohmann, a former Belvedere resident who is part of the development team.

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Middleton said he couldnt comment on the Mallard Pointe proposal because it has yet to be submitted. But he said the area is probably one of the few properties where densification is possible. Im looking forward to seeing it, he said.

Ramin Rahimian/Special to The Chronicle

Architect Alex Seidel, who bought a home on the lagoon 25 years ago, said the Mallard Pointe proposal is consistent with the renovations and rebuilds that have become commonplace. Seidel said he has watched the Mallard Point homes settle into bay mud over the years, and that the structures would need to be replaced soon in anticipation of further subsistence and sea level rise.

As a resident I embrace the idea the state has put out that all California communities should do what they can to increase housing stock, he said. Personally I would welcome the opportunity to share a rather lovely community with a few more folks and I think (Mallard Pointe) is our best opportunity to add some new housing units.

For younger Marin-natives like Ethan Strull, a Bowdoin College student who is concerned with environmental justice and housing affordability, the project could create some opportunities for families who have been historically shut out of the mostly white, wealthy Marin County. Strull grew up in Tiburon and San Rafael.

Growing up in Marin its not hard to see the inequities that are ever present here, he said. Every single part of Marin has a role in helping to desegregate the county and Belvedere is one of the most extreme examples.

Given that Belvedere has seen almost no new housing built since the Summer of Love, its not surprising that residents would balk at a new apartment, even one that is slated to be just 34 feet tall.

Its the Manhattanization of Belvedere, Dorfman joked. The pushback we are getting is the same you would get in Lafayette and in lot of other places where there is a sense of why do these state laws apply to us?

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen
A retired East Bay police sergeant was charged with murder Monday following a fatal crash in which he was suspected of driving under the influence.

Theodore Young, 63, of Sonora (Tuolumne County) was re-arrested for murder Saturday following a crash last week that killed a 27-year-old woman, according to the Tuolumne County District Attorneys Office.

Young is a retired police sergeant with the Pleasanton Police Department, according to CHP Officer Steve Machado.

District Attorney Cassandra Jenecke on Monday said Young is facing charges of second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated because he was previously convicted of a misdemeanor DUI in September 2017.

Under California case law ... individuals who have been previously convicted of driving under the influence, or individuals who knew or should have known that driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is dangerous to human life can be charged with second-degree murder, Jenecke said.

The latest crash happened in the afternoon of Jan. 18 in Tuolumne County, Machado said.

According to law enforcement officials, Young was driving a pickup truck northbound on State Route 49 at about 45 to 50 miles per hour while another driver, Rebekah Gall of Modesto, was traveling southbound on the same highway.

Youngs car drifted to the left, over the double yellow lines, and crashed into Galls sedan, Machado said.

Gall was flown to a hospital later died from her injuries.

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Our thoughts are with Rebekahs family and our community as we all mourn another senseless tragedy caused by drunk driving, the Tuolumne County District Attorneys Office said in a statement.

Young was uninjured and arrested, but was later released after posting bail. He was rearrested Saturday.

Jessica Flores is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jessica.flores@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jesssmflores
This past week, so much happened in the food world; Ill attempt to capture as much as I can into this Mason jar of a newsletter. So today, consider the newsletter a tasting menu  or for a more affordable metaphor, lets say the commentary is snack-sized.

I hope its not too on-the-nose, then, to start with John Paul Brammers fiery opinion piece on the M&Ms mascot revamp, promoted by candy company Mars Wrigley as a gesture toward a more progressive, dynamic world. The femme green M&M will swap go-go boots for sneakers; the red M&M will be less of a jerk; and the orange M&M will embrace his anxiety. Brammer writes that these gestures are hollow, as so many corporate gestures tend to be, and comically fold back into the retrograde ideas they claim to eschew.

Its not like the California Raisins, who even won an Emmy for their sweet, wrinkly musical act, were popular because they were relatable. If anything, Id much rather the things I eat not have the same mental illnesses that I have. The belief that we are looking to see ourselves reflected in corporate mascots, seemingly held by Mars marketing folks, already feels dated, and, frankly, demeaning.

But enough about dessert. In allium news, Michigan garlic farmer Carol Bontekoe has a message for food media: Not all garlic is made equal! In a viral TikTok video, she uses New York Times Cooking recipes to illustrate a key disconnect between urban food writers and the public they write for. Garlic is a foundational ingredient in many of these recipes, but most only call for one or two cloves at most. The problem is that most people in the United States dont have access to high-quality heirloom garlic, which means that if they followed the recipes to the letter, theyd end up with terribly bland dishes. Its a common trope on social media to brag about how much more garlic youre using compared to what the recipe calls for, and Bontekeos video explains why.

A recent NYT recipe for soup with lots of garlic does call for 10 cloves, but another, for garlicky carrots, only asks for one clove to flavor two whole bunches of carrots. Even something as simple as garlic can be symbolic of class divides and the loaded assumptions that experts can sometimes bring to their work. (I was relieved to see a recent Chronicle pasta recipe call for 5 big cloves of the stuff!) If anything, the garlic issue justifies the practice of home cooks going off-script with published recipes. Trust your nose!

In light of the upcoming reopening of the Stinking Rose, the S.F. restaurant famed for its 40-clove chicken and garlic-roasted prime rib, one has to wonder how nuclear its cuisine would be if it used the really, really good stuff.

Speaking of restaurant openings, few have been so intriguing as the opening of Birch & Rye, set to open in San Francisco on February 9. Before serving a single customer, the modern Russian restaurant has already cycled through three head chefs; now, it looks like owner Anya El-Wattar will be taking charge of the kitchen.

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Despite the upheavals, the menu does sound intriguing: A birch sap jelly enriched with gooseberries looks like a gorgeous hunk of purple jasper, and Im gripped by idea of a light rye bread, served smeared with thick smetana (sour cream) butter. Modern Russian cuisine isnt too common, including in Russia itself, so this is definitely a restaurant to watch.

And finally, I leave you with this brain-breaking look at what the McDonalds is cooking up at its test kitchen in Illinois. That Norwegian hummus salad topped with orange chicken (?!) looks like something a drunk person would put together from leftovers at 3 a.m., and Im here for it. It looks better than what I got from the ghost kitchens in my latest review, at least.
One fateful day in 1995, pro wrestlers Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage and Jimmy Hart gathered in the sleek steel-and-glass rotunda of the Mall of America, in the midst of a screaming crowd and spotlights glaring like precisely cut diamonds. They were there to promote the Hulksters newest restaurant venture: Pastamania, a place where fine Italian cuisine and pro wrestling could commingle at last. Short of taking on the Giant in a steel cage match at SuperBrawl VI in 1996, the restaurant was perhaps the riskiest of the Hulksters career moves.

All that flash for a place that ended up closing in less than a year, little more than a nano-size blip on the worlds culinary radar.

I thought of this display of opulence in Minnesota as I considered the modern version of celebrity restaurants. These days, the idea of a star-studded culinary experience is most visible in low-touch endeavors  like the collaborations of McDonalds with musicians like Saweetie and Mariah Carey, or ghost kitchens, which to consumers exist only online. DJ Steve Aoki sells pizza, while DJ Khaled has wings. Comedian George Lopez hawks tacos, and Pauly D of Jersey Shore, also a DJ, boasts subs. Mr. Beast, a 23-year-old whos made millions as a YouTube star, has embarked on a burger spot. All of these are delivery-only operations.

Ghost kitchens are ideal for the celebrity restaurant concept because, like celebrity itself, they primarily exist as a projection, a brand that you can pretend is your friend. Out-there dish names, like B*tch Don't Grill My Cheese and F#ck Gluten, are designed to make you stop scrolling through seemingly endless listings on delivery apps. They tell you as much about the food as an online dating profile can tell you about a person.

I decided to try the three that are available locally: Pizzaoki (from Aoki), Another Wing (from DJ Khaled) and MrBeast Burger (from the YouTuber also known as Jimmy Donaldson). I hoped that the attempts would reveal that, yes, DJ Khaled did have some talent somewhere, if not in music then perhaps in the kitchen; or that, at the very least, these concepts would appeal as food according to a basic dictionary definition of the word.

Spoiler: They largely failed in every regard.

Among celebrity ghost kitchens, Pizzaoki, which debuted in Los Angeles in 2018, is the elder statesman of the bunch. Conceived by Aoki, an American DJ and son of Benihana founder Rocky Aoki, the allegedly New York-style pizzeria offers dough infused with a mix of lit herbs, with pies topped with Mama Aokis pizza sauce and a proprietary blend of mozzarella cheeses. To make dinner a totally immersive experience, I put on a Steve Aoki YouTube playlist, lowered the lights and activated a multicolored light orb in my kitchen. If you order from here, I suggest that you do this mostly so that you dont have to meaningfully consider the pizza, which is horrible.

Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle Soleil Ho / The Chronicle / Soleil Ho / The Chronicle Left, the No Beef, a vegetable pizza from Pizzaoki; right, a colorful pizza box from the virtual restaurant. (Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle; Soleil Ho / The Chronicle) Left, the No Beef, a vegetable pizza from Pizzaoki; right, a colorful pizza box from the virtual restaurant. (Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle; Soleil Ho / The Chronicle)

The vegetarian pizza, No Beef ($18.99), was built on a thick and dense crust that was overcooked in some places and undercooked in others. Im not sure what lit means in a culinary sense here, but I detected nary a leaf of oregano nor cannabis, if thats what he was going for. The pie was bland yet overloaded with toppings: thick-cut red bell peppers and red onion, button mushrooms and black olive that stank of aluminum. Carelessly cut, the pizzas wedge-shape slices had to be reluctantly ripped free, like an old vine stuck to a wall. It was actually insulting to have to try so hard to eat something so bad.

Another pie, the Jaleo ($21.99), was marginally better, if only because the toppings of sliced jalapeno and pepperoni were more sparsely applied. Though the crust was apparently the same, it was thinner and more golden, like it was from a different kitchen. The tinny flavor of the tomato sauce became more pronounced, evocative of school lunch pizzas. At $21.99, the 12-inch pizza is expensive even for San Francisco, where you can get a fantastic, scratch-made pie from a spot like Pizzetta 211 for around $15. I dont know what youre paying for here  perhaps the pretty red-and-yellow box?

DJ Khaleds chicken concept, Another Wing, was even more disappointing, though the packaging, accented with the teal and pink of a Miami strip club, was nice to look at. Another Wing, which launched in November, offers fried chicken wings, tenders and waffle fries, available with a broad selection of punny dipping sauces named after the DJs oeuvre: I Aint Regular Ranch and Un Un Un Believable Buffalo among them.

Soleil Ho / The Chronicle / Soleil Ho / The Chronicle Soleil Ho / The Chronicle DJ Khaleds chicken concept, Another Wing, is disappointing, though the packaging, accented with the teal and pink of a Miami strip club, is nice to look at. (Soleil Ho / The Chronicle) DJ Khaleds chicken concept, Another Wing, is disappointing, though the packaging, accented with the teal and pink of a Miami strip club, is nice to look at. (Soleil Ho / The Chronicle)

You know how sometimes you can taste the suffering in a dish? Tragedy was the main note in the six-piece wing set ($9.85). The flesh in the fried wings was withered and mummy-like requiring lingering dips in sauce to rehydrate. The waffle fries ($3.95) were the other end of the texture spectrum, thanks to a long steaming session in a sealed container. Any takeout restaurant worth its salt will punch holes into containers of fried food to prevent this, so the fact that a takeout- and delivery-only fried food concept cant do that is inexcusable.

If someone is forcing you to eat something from this place, opt for the breaded tenders ($8.95 for four), flavored with seasoning salt and nicely moist inside. That said, you would save money and expend only the smallest amount of effort by simply purchasing a bag of frozen tenders from the grocery store and baking them yourself.

Finally, the most inscrutable concept on my list was MrBeast Burger, a restaurant from a YouTube creator known for giving away money. The concept, debuted with 300 locations in December, is inspired by a stunt where Donaldson and his team opened a one-day pop-up restaurant where they tucked wads of sponsor-provided cash into takeout bags and gave away a car. (If youre totally lost, just imagine Oprah Winfreys favorite things giveaways, cranked up to the nth degree.)

The menu features beef and Impossible meat in various basic configurations named after Donaldson and his creative team. Beast Style ($9.49) is a saucy double smashburger layered with ketchup, American cheese and brown mustard. It rests on a base layer of nearly a quarter-cup of mayonnaise mixed with chopped cucumber pickles, creating a sauce that dampens any crispness the cook might have worked to achieve on the grill. The components swirl into a vinegar-forward meat paste as you chew.

Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle The components of the Beast Style Burger swirl into a vinegar-forward meat paste as you chew. The Nashville hot chicken sandwich doesn't fare well either. (Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle) The components of the Beast Style Burger swirl into a vinegar-forward meat paste as you chew. The Nashville hot chicken sandwich doesn't fare well either. (Nick Otto / Special to The Chronicle)

The Karls Deluxe ($8.49), a patty melt-style burger, was accompanied only by American cheese and lightly caramelized onions. Its top bun was flipped with its cut-side out, bared like the vulnerable and vaguely dangerous-looking underbelly of a cat. The doughy burger seemed to shrink away in shame as I looked at it. Its all made worse by the fact that MrBeasts business model includes a savior element: Any restaurant can apply to serve the burgers, something that MrBeasts marketing suggests is his way to help small businesses earn income. If the work of saving restaurants was always this painful, wed be lucky to have any left at all.

The celebrity ghost kitchen is fascinating in its contradictions. The dishes are decked out in colorful and over-designed regalia of individuality, yet the contents are incredibly generic. Its pizza that tastes institutional; wings and chicken tenders fried fresh out of freezer bags; and floppy burgers in cute boxes. If this is one aspect of the future of food, we dont have much to look forward to.

These restaurants were not created for people who like to eat. At Pastamania, it was clear from the get-go that the pasta was just an excuse to get Hulk Hogans name in front of new eyes. It was enough for him to just open a spot in the Mall of America, just like being able to have the worlds most ambitious restaurant launch in Miami, New York, Paris, London and Dubai was justification enough for DJ Khaled to create Another Wing. But considering what you get in exchange for these stars ambitions, it all just feels like a con.

Soleil Ho is The San Francisco Chronicles restaurant critic. Email: soleil@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hooleil
Mark Twain described Lake Tahoe as a noble sheet of blue water lifted six thousand three hundred feet above the level of the seas.

This beautiful lake and its surrounding Sierra Nevada draw worldwide admirers. But over tourism, unfettered commercial growth into wildfire country and environmental carelessness are rapidly destroying the very qualities that make it special.

Talk to most Tahoe Basin residents and theyll tell you the legions of out-of-towners the past several years share much in common with kudzu, the vine that smothers most everything in its path.

Not every visitor bears blame, but when tourists arrive by the tens of thousands, our small mountain communities feel besieged. Over tourism first took root when rapacious real estate-investors-turned-Airbnb operators circumvented zoning rules for financial gain, turning private homes into short-term rentals. Next came tourism entrepreneurs, corporations and developers who lobbied elected officials and government agencies to turn a blind eye to the harms of unfettered short-term rental growth, lax oversight and inadequate infrastructure.

Destination management organizations like the Reno Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority profit by collecting transient occupancy taxes from Tahoe vacation rentals. A public records request uncovered a scheme by Airbnb to create a corporate partner agreement with the authority and its North Lake Tahoe tourism surrogates. The goal was to flood Tahoe Basins communities with visitors at the height of the 2020-2021 pandemic. Recall, at that time, no vaccine existed. Coronavirus infections and COVID deaths skyrocketed in the area to such a point that the largest hospital in northern Nevada was forced to create a pandemic triage overflow in the hospitals parking garage.

What was the message to Tahoe residents  from first responders to school teachers to grocery clerks to children and retirees? You are not the priority.

As the Tahoe Basins popularity soars, so too does encroachment into wildfire country. Hungry Realtors, rental operators and developers want to turn Tahoes majestic natural wonders into a Disneyland-like operation. A new North Lake Tahoe development in Nevadas Washoe County, for example, boasts 120 hotel rooms and 80 condominiums and promises to deliver 24/7 concierge service, a beach club and an event venue. Down the road, another new 40 condominium project also hopes to break ground. But in Californias Lake County, where comparable fire dangers abound, a judge recently halted a development project that did not adequately plan for what might happen when a wildfire erupts. Apparently officials in Washoe County do not share that concern, despite emergency evacuation always being a possibility.

The few roads within the Tahoe Basin are already congested. Record-breaking snowstorms recently created travel nightmares for residents and transportation workers as tourists clogged roads intent on getting to lodging because refunds would not be forthcoming. It got so bad in South Lake Tahoe that first responders had to escort hospital staff to their jobs. Nevadas governor declared a state of emergency to enable highway patrol to turn away nonresidents.

Summertime was no better. Wildfire evacuations last year led to apocalyptic scenes of residents and tourists fighting to access winding mountain roads engulfed in thick smoke. The fire hazard severity maps around Tahoe remain terrifying.

Lake Tahoes clarity has degraded year over year. Once pristine trails and meadows are littered with trash and pet waste. E-bikers and mountain bikers compete with hikers on crowded trails. Impatient visitors park haphazardly along narrow roads and neighborhoods. Local residents in California and Nevada are beleaguered. As a new petition started by North Lake Tahoe residents points out, the number of tourists here is far beyond capacity due in large part to the proliferation of short-term rentals. Housing once used by locals working in the service industry is no longer available for long-term leasing.

It doesnt have to be this way. We are not the first locale to contend with over tourism. Venice and Florence, Italy, are cracking down on Airbnb and its brethren. In 2019, the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions said it would no longer promote visitation but instead focus on managing the visitors it already gets.

Tahoe residents need government agencies and officials in both California and Nevada to prioritize the well-being of the Tahoe Basin and those who live there. We need the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and our local and state elected officials in both states to enact a coordinated, comprehensive and enforceable policy that limits unhosted short-term rentals in residential areas. Right now, theres little more than a whack a mole system that varies widely from county to county with residents often conscripted as short-term rental police. Such limits and other incentives would move units from short to long-term housing.

The region also needs a transit and reservations system for venues, parking and cars, much like Zion and Glacier Bay National Parks have. Nonresident vehicles can and should be intercepted and parked before entering the Tahoe Basin. Resources from the federal infrastructure package could help support the endeavor.

Until development is curbed and the tourism industry prioritizes environmental stewardship and sustainability, the natural splendor Twain once saw will always be under threat. Redirecting tourism funds to promote ideal visitor behavior before arrival can help preserve Tahoe so that future generations can revere and enjoy it responsibly.

Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos is a writer who lives in North Lake Tahoe.
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SACRAMENTO  California legislators will soon debate a proposal that would require all students to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend schools, eliminating the states existing personal belief exemption.

The bill would add COVID-19 to the list of immunizations that students must have in order to enroll in public or private schools, starting Jan. 1, 2023. It would apply to students from kindergarten through 12th grade.

State Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, announced the proposal Monday during a news conference at a high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Pan, a pediatrician, has long been the Legislatures most outspoken advocate for tighter vaccine requirements.

What were saying is that if you choose not to vaccinate your child, theres a consequence, Pan told The Chronicle. Its to protect the other children because they have rights as well. We need to give confidence and certainty to parents and to school districts that schools can stay open and that theyre safe.

The bill, SB871, would expand Californias existing COVID-19 vaccine mandate for students by removing the personal belief exemption. A small percentage of students could still receive medical exemptions if they have a bona fide medical condition that prevents them from being vaccinated.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last fall that the state will require children to get the vaccine to attend classes in person, starting the term after the shot receives final FDA approval for their age groups. The mandate could take effect as soon as July 1. But it includes a major loophole: Parents who object to the vaccine for personal reasons, including religious or political beliefs, can exempt their children.

California has already eliminated personal belief exemptions for the 10 other vaccines it requires students to receive, including chicken pox, measles, polio and tetanus. But state officials say Newsom cannot remove the exemption for COVID-19 without the Legislature acting first.

Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children can instead sign them up for independent study, a home-based learning program.

Newsoms office declined to comment on the bill because it is pending legislation. The Democratic governor has often touted his policy to make the state the first in the nation to mandate vaccines for students.

Any effort to remove the belief exemption is likely to spark fierce resistance from some parents opposed to mandatory childhood vaccines and from Republican legislators. Opponents said Pans measure seems overly aggressive when the coronavirus has become an endemic disease and many vaccinated people are still contracting the virus.

This being a midterm election year, with Dems not polling well, it would be political suicide for California Dems to sign on to support this overreaching, egregious, and wholly unnecessary piece of legislation, Stefanie Fetzer, a parent from Orange County who founded Parents United 4 Kids, said in a text message.

Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), called the bill an overreach and likened it to an allegorical George Orwell novel about authoritarianism.

I am both vaccinated and supportive of vaccines, but this draconian proposal undermines parental rights, Wilk said in a statement. Democrats in this building continue to implement their own version of Animal Farm.

Pan said its clear that not removing that exemption would allow for a free-for-all situation where so many parents claim the belief exemption that it would undermine the vaccines effectiveness. He said vaccines, coupled with masking and regular testing, are necessary to keep schools open and safe.

The problem with a contagious disease is that its contagious, he said. A personal belief exemption prevents the school from being able to slow down or stop an outbreak.

Public health officials say that while some vaccinated people are still getting infected with the coronavirus, they are less likely to catch it and far less likely to become seriously ill.

Unvaccinated people are four times more likely to get infected with the coronavirus, six times more likely to be hospitalized and nearly 18 times more likely to die from the virus than people who are fully vaccinated, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Vaccines are our greatest defense, Robert Wailes, president of the California Medical Association, the states largest advocacy group for doctors, said during the news conference. We must do more to stop the spread and the evolution of the COVID-19 virus.

The text of Pans proposal had not been released as of Monday afternoon, and its unclear whether COVID-19 boosters could be included in the measure.

Pans effort comes after the San Diego and Los Angeles unified school districts have faced litigation for seeking to impose vaccine mandates. He said the bill would cement Newsoms statewide mandate to help protect it from similar legal challenges.

The debate over belief exemptions is expected to be the focal point of a contentious fight over vaccine proposals at the Legislature this year. Last week, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, unveiled a bill that would allow young people ages 12 to 17 to receive vaccines, including for COVID-19, without parental consent.

Many at the Capitol are preparing for whats expected to be a raucous series of hearings and votes. Anti-vaccine advocates have routinely disputed legislative business in recent years with fiery protests and outbursts in public meetings.

The backlash came as California moved to strengthen vaccine requirements even before the pandemic. Six years ago, legislators passed Pans bill that eliminated personal belief exemptions for the 10 other vaccines required to attend school. In 2019, legislators passed another Pan measure that tightened restrictions on medical exemptions after public health experts said they saw a flood of fraudulent medical waivers after the belief exemption was removed.

Demonstrations over those proposals led to numerous arrests and some instances of violence. In 2019, a protester splattered blood from a menstrual cup on senators, forcing a temporary shutdown of the Senate. Pan was also assaulted by an anti-vaccine activist near the Capitol that year.

Pan said his earlier bills, which came in response to pertussis and measles outbreaks, are examples of how the Legislature must intervene at times to protect students from the harm of vaccine misinformation.

This bill is about protecting the rights and freedoms of families to send their kids to a safe school, he said of SB871.

Dustin Gardiner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dustin.gardiner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dustingardiner
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San Franciscos second-tallest building is getting one of the worlds swankiest clubs in one of the biggest bets on downtown since the coronavirus pandemic started.

New York-based Core club is building a luxury facility in the bottom three floors of the Transamerica Pyramid that will include three private restaurants, three bars, a fitness center, theater, six member suites and four private meeting rooms. The club, set to open in 2023, is part of a larger evolution of the pyramid under new owner Michael Shvo, who plans to separately invest $100 million in renovating the iconic tower at 600 Montgomery St.

Were starting a restoration, a transformation of that block that we believe will revitalize downtown, said Shvo, who said hes also in talks to bring three public restaurants to the pyramid.

It will be Cores third location after New York, where it is moving into another Shvo-owned building, and Milan, Italy.

Were very bullish on San Francisco and big cities generally, especially gateway cities, said Jennie Enterprise, founder and chairman of Core, which opened in 2005. We werent compelled to expand. It had to be an evolution that made sense. Its about finding a city thats internationally relevant and culturally vibrant.

Core

San Francisco is a center of innovation, culture and food, qualities that havent been dimmed by the pandemic, she said.

Core plans to create several hundred new jobs at the pyramid. The club will bring in chefs from around the world and plans numerous cultural events, including public ones at the adjacent Transamerica Redwood Park. Cores New York location has hosted 200 events a year including talks with high-profile actors and artists such as James Franco and Jeff Koons.

It wont be cheap to get in.

Cores initiation fees range from $15,000 to $100,000 for a founding membership, which gives access to an entire family. Only 20 are available in San Francisco, with annual fees ranging from $15,000 to $18,000. A membership, which is invite-only, gives access to the San Francisco, New York and Milan locations. Food, drinks and other services cost extra.

Core currently has 1,500 members. Enterprise wouldnt disclose any names, citing the clubs privacy policy, but the New York Post has reported that members have included former President Bill Clinton. Founding members in New York include billionaires like Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, and real estate moguls Steven Roth of Vornado Realty Trust and Aby Rosen of RFR Holding, according to the New York Times.

Core signed a 20-year lease for 45,000 square feet at the Transamerica Pyramid last year, part of a burst of business activity that came despite San Franciscos doldrums during the pandemic  office vacancy has more than tripled to around 20%. Shvo said hes signed and renewed leases at the pyramid with multiple tenants, including Core, totaling over 100,000 square feet in the past year, with rents over $100 per square foot annually, some of the highest in the country. Its a vindication, he said, of his strategy of buying only super prime real estate.

Core

Shvo and his partners bought the pyramid and two nearby buildings in October 2020 for $650 million from Aegon, the parent of Transamerica Corp. It was the first time the building had been sold since it opened in 1972.

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Shvo was born in Israel and owned a taxi fleet in New York before becoming a top real estate broker and launching his own eponymous firm in 2004, focusing on luxury condo projects around the world.

He pleaded guilty in 2018 to tax evasion tied to fine art, jewelry and a Ferrari purchase and settled for $3.5 million, avoiding prison time. New York prosecutors said, Shvos brand of tax evasion was an art form unto itself.

He has been one of the most active investors during the pandemic, scooping up the pyramid, along with 333 South Wabash in Chicago, a notable red building in the citys skyline, and 530 Broadway in New York. Shvos partners include Deutsche Finance America and Bayerische Versorgungskammer, Germanys biggest pension fund. He is also developing a 54-unit Mandarin Oriental luxury condo project in Beverly Hills, part of a West Coast expansion that has him hungry for more properties.

COVID is a moment in time, he said. There was life before COVID. There will be life after COVID.

He said he also plans to propose a new office building at 545 Sansome St. next to the pyramid, though no proposal has been finalized.

The pandemic has highlighted that in-person experiences and interactions are indispensable, another reason for Core to be expanding, Enterprise said.

You can Zoom all you want, she said. There is no substitute for community.

Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf
In mid-January Mayor London Breed lashed out at the Board of Supervisors, blaming its members for blocking her agenda and questioning if they were too driven by politics to make the right decisions for the city.

Now, Breeds supporters are continuing in that vein, attacking the board again over proposals  supported by some supervisors  to limit recall elections and reduce mayoral power in San Francisco.

GrowSF released a video Monday, calling the proposals  which are prospective charter amendments that would need voter approval  more of the same bull*&#t that has destroyed our city.

Grow SF describes itself as a nonprofit that aims to get residents to vote and get involved in local issues. It has also pushed for more housing and better transit. Its members include transit advocate Jane Natoli  who Breed nominated to the SFMTA board, but who was rejected by supervisors  and former tech CEO Sachin Agarwal.

The online video came out to coincide with a scheduled Board of Supervisors committee hearing Monday on proposed charter amendments, which would ultimately need six votes to get it on the June ballot. It signals an early volley in what might be a heated back and forth between the mayor and some supervisors over what goes before voters. The mayors spokesman said that Breed wasnt involved in the video.

One of two measures, authored by Supervisor Aaron Peskin, would curtail the mayors authority in appointing replacements for vacancies on the Board of Supervisors, school board and Community College board. Instead, according to the proposal, a majority of supervisors would fill vacant seats between election cycles.

The charter amendment would also limit recall efforts to after an elected officials first year in a term and before the officials last 18 months.

Supervisors Shamann Walton, Connie Chan, Hillary Ronen, Dean Preston and Myrna Melgar support the measure.

Peskin said last year the cost of recall elections is prohibitive.

At the end of the day, our taxpayers are left footing the bill, count them, for four elections next year, which is frankly money that I believe ... taxpayers would prefer is spent on improving quality of life, Peskin said.

In a brief interview Monday morning, Peskin said the proposal wasnt in its final form and he had met with the mayors office to talk about changes. On Monday, he had planned to introduce an amendment that supervisors could only appoint a fellow supervisor, for example, if that person was recalled, not for any other vacancy. However, the hearing was halted due to technical issues and was scheduled to resume Wednesday morning.

When asked whether his original proposal attempted to grab power from the mayor, Peskin didnt respond directly.

Im only really interested in what the final product is, creating legislation is a marketplace of ideas, he said. I think we need to land on something that makes sense for everyone.

The second, brought by Supervisor Connie Chan, would reform the City Administrators Office, make it more independent from the Mayors Office and give that position authority to recommend removal of department heads after corruption scandals toppled a couple over the past two years. It would also give more power to supervisors to appoint members to different bodies.

Chan swung back at the ad Monday morning in a text message before committee.

This is a gaslighting attack from people who want to continue the status quo because they benefit from government cronyism and corruption. It is time for us to clean house and reform. San Franciscans deserve better government, she wrote. And theyre right that it is a power grab: power to the people.

Supervisors have said their role is to be a check and balance on the mayors power and that constituents expect them to do that job.

The effort comes as city voters will weigh in on two recall elections, against three members of the school board, President Gabriela Lopez, board member Alison Collins and board member Faauuga Moliga, as well as District Attorney Chesa Boudin.

Opponents called the proposed charter amendments a power grab.

All politics is personal and the supervisors are being short-sighted in their power grab because they dont like Mayor Breed, said Steven Buss, one of the co-founders of GrowSF, which advocates for common-sense government. On restricting recalls, lets call it what it is: Its voter suppression.

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.

Nima Rahimi, executive board member at the CA Democratic Party, said the supervisors need to stop fighting the mayor.

We have so many challenges, from crime and homelessness to a severe housing shortage, the Board of Supervisors should be working with the mayor, not against her, to tackle them for the good of the city, he said. We call BS and say enough is enough.

Board President Shamann Walton said Monday the ad was misleading because it said the proposed charter amendment would protect the failed school board, although it wouldnt affect the current recall.

He also said the ad inaccurately took aim at the boards record supporting development and shelter projects to address the housing affordability and homelessness crises.

The board came under fire recently for rejecting more than 800 units of housing  supervisors said one project wasnt affordable enough and another wasnt large enough for families  and delaying the opening of a 250-bed shelter for more community input.

Walton defended his personal record supporting housing and shelter options in his district  with a new safe parking site just last week  and that of the board.

He said the board makes sure we are building housing. We just want housing to be responsible.

He added that if you dont like a charter amendment thats being proposed, exercise your rights at the ballot box.

The measure is one of multiple charter amendments proposed by Breed and supervisors, including efforts to streamline housing construction, reforming the building commission, rein in the school board, divest from fossil fuels and curb city corruption.

Jill Tucker and Mallory Moench are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com mallory.moench@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
MOSCOW, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- A total of 20 Russian warships and supporting vessels have entered the designated areas of the Baltic Sea to conduct exercises, Russia's Western Military District said in a statement on Monday.

The ships from the Russian Baltic Fleet, forming in several tactical groups, will carry out anti-submarine, air defense and mine-sweeping tasks, the statement said.

The drills are being held at a time when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe as tensions in and around Ukraine have escalated.

Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it is impossible for the Russian military to ignore an increase in NATO military activities in Eastern Europe. 
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

In October of last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nations first  and only  COVID-19 vaccine mandate for schoolchildren. Under that mandate, all children attending school in person across the state must receive the vaccine once the Food and Drug Administration fully approves the shot for the 5-11 and 12-16 age groups, consistent with existing procedures for other vaccines.

Among those existing procedures is the states personal belief exemption for certain vaccines. Currently, the personal belief exemption exists only for flu and HPV vaccines, but not for measles, mumps, rubella and other diseases. A new bill introduced by state Sen. Richard Pan would add the COVID-19 vaccine to that mandatory list and thus wipe out the personal belief exemption.
KIEV, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday welcomed the decision of the European Union (EU) to approve 1.2 billion euros (about 1.36 billion U.S. dollars) macro-financial assistance to Ukraine.

"The EU once again demonstrates its firm support for Ukraine," Zelensky tweeted.

Earlier in the day, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the new financial assistance package to Ukraine, saying it will help the Eastern European country to address its financing needs.

Soon, the EU will start work on another longer-term macro-financial assistance program to support Ukraine's modernization efforts, said von der Leyen. 
WASHINGTON - Thousands of protesters from across the country - including some of the biggest names in the anti-vaccination movement - descended on the nation's capital Sunday for a rally against vaccine mandates.

Almost two years into a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 860,000 Americans, the gathering on the National Mall was a jarring spectacle: A crowd of demonstrators, many unmasked, decrying vaccine mandates in the middle of a city that has adopted mask and vaccine mandates to reduce sickness and death from the surge of the virus's omicron variant, which has battered D.C. for weeks.

Organizers had estimated that 20,000 people would attend the rally, marching from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, according to a permit issued by the National Park Service. A smaller crowd of several thousand had arrived on the Mall by early Sunday afternoon.

Some were white-haired; others were being pushed in strollers. Most were White and many wore gear with slogans supporting former president Donald Trump. A group of men in front of a cart with a Don't Tread on Me flag started chants of "Let's go Brandon" and "F--- Joe Biden" to cheers. The few who wore masks risked the tirades of a man screaming "Take those masks off!" and "It's all a lie!"

Later, about 10 men wearing the insignia of the Proud Boys, an extremist group involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, lingered on the Lincoln side of the Reflecting Pool. They briefly engaged in a shouting match with a small group of counterprotesters at the edge of the rally, then walked away.

STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

The marchers carried posters and flags that included false statements such as "Vaccines are mass kill bio weapons" and "Trump won." A bus was parked beside the Washington Monument, wrapped in "Arrest or Exile" signs and displaying pictures of Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates and Jacob Rothschild - the last an echo of antisemitic conspiracy theories involving the Rothschild family. A speaker blared Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What doesn't kill you)."

Justin Perrault was demonstrating in D.C. for the first time. The 38-year-old from Fairhaven, Mass., said he had watched his body therapy and spiritual counseling business dry up as clients - afraid of catching the virus from an unvaccinated practitioner - stopped coming. He said he started using food stamps for the first time in his life but was ashamed and worried what his 8- and 4-year-old children would think of him. He said he came to D.C. with his wife and her best friend not only to protest vaccination mandates, but also to take a stand against the scientific consensus that the vaccines are safe.

Jaedyn Wetzel, 12, stood nearby holding a sign that read "I have natural immunity." She said she was infected with the coronavirus over Thanksgiving. She stood with her sister, Jessie, 14, and their parents, who didn't want to be named for fear of discrimination based on the family's unvaccinated status. They drove to the District for the day from Warfordsburg, Pa., for their first protest in the nation's capital.

They said they haven't faced coronavirus vaccine mandates in their schools or workplaces but wanted to protest because they are fearful mandates may be imminent. Their mother heard about the protest through Telegram channels, including one she said calls for auditing the presidential election results for Pennsylvania, and doesn't like using Facebook or Twitter because she says those companies employ "censorship."

Police reported no arrests or significant incidents. Law enforcement had a visible but not overwhelming presence on the Mall, with about 10 mounted officers lining the march route and U.S. Park Police vehicles parked nearby. Officers were also at the Lincoln Memorial, where fences had been erected to prevent people from walking up the steps. A Metro police officer paced the area around the exit of the Smithsonian stop as march participants carrying signs passed barefaced in violation of the transit system's mask mandate.

Metro officials said they are investigating an alleged assault Saturday night aboard a Red Line train in the District. In a Reddit post, the victim reported being attacked for wearing a mask by a man without a face covering.

The march was billed as a protest of mandates rather than the medicines themselves. But similar rhetoric - emphasizing individual autonomy rather than untenable scientific ideas - has long characterized the broader anti-vaccine movement, and the march's speakers included movement veterans such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Del Bigtree, founder of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network. The event was being live-streamed on Bigtree's website, the High Wire, which includes a prominent link that allows viewers to donate to ICAN.

Other speakers included physician Robert Malone, a prominent critic of the coronavirus mRNA vaccines. Public employee associations that have formed to protest their employers' vaccine mandates, such as Feds for Medical Freedom and D.C. Firefighters Bodily Autonomy Affirmation Group, also participated.

"The goal is to show a unified front of bringing people together - vaccinated, unvaccinated, Democrats, Republicans, all together in solidarity," said organizer Matt Tune, an unvaccinated 48-year-old from Chicago. He said he wants the event "to help change the current narrative . . . which is basically saying that we're a bunch of weirdos and freaks who don't care about humanity. And that's not true at all."

As speakers took to the stage - including a group of doctors in white coats - the crowd roared its approval at lines comparing vaccine mandates to the actions of authoritarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union and railing against the news media for its reporting on the scientific evidence supporting the coronavirus vaccines. (The Washington Post, like many other large employers, requires its workers to be vaccinated against the virus.)

Two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its first studies based on real-world data showing that the vaccines continue to provide strong protection against hospitalization related to the omicron variant, Malone stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and falsely told thousands of cheering spectators that "the science is settled. They're not working."

Anti-vaccine activist Kevin Jenkins, who is Black, invoked the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as he stood on the same site where the civil rights icon delivered his best-known speech.

"The people in this crowd are on the right side of history," Jenkins declared.

By the time Kennedy addressed the crowd, many participants were drifting away. The group had dwindled to a few hundred by midafternoon, when one speaker recited long-debunked claims about a link between a common childhood vaccine and autism.

Suzanne Robertson, 52, traveled from New Jersey for the anti-mandate march, carrying a sign that said she was a lifelong liberal Democrat until the last year. Robertson, who works in sales, said she contracted the coronavirus in March 2020 but only had mild symptoms. She said she campaigned for Bernie Sanders and voted for President Joe Biden and had never before voted for a Republican until recently - when she stopped identifying with any political party, disappointed in Biden's chastisement of those who choose not to get the shot.

"This is not a political thing," Robertson said. "If you want to get the vaccine, get it."

Lindsay Mikus, 38, came from Westchester County, N.Y., to oppose the mandates. Her 14-year-old son lives with his father and is vaccinated, she said, but her 7-year-old daughter - whom she home-schools - is not.

"I have children, and I believe they should live in a free country," Mikus said.

Mikus and Robertson said they are not vaccinated.

"I would die first," Robertson said.

An overwhelming body of evidence demonstrates that the coronavirus vaccines are safe and effective for most who receive them. As of October, according to the most recent estimates from the CDC, those who received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines and a booster were 40 times less likely to die of the virus than the unvaccinated.

The CDC on Friday released studies showing that the vaccines continue to provide robust protection against hospitalization from the omicron variant, even if they no longer ward off infection as effectively.

Nevertheless, national surveys show about 1 in 5 U.S. adults remain unvaccinated. Among children ages 5 to 11, who became eligible for the shots in November, fewer than 20% are vaccinated.

The rally benefited extensively from publicity in recent weeks on prominent social media and podcasting platforms. Tune said the march's website saw a "huge spike" in traffic after Malone mentioned it on Joe Rogan's popular podcast. Malone's appearance provoked a condemnatory letter to Spotify, which hosts the podcast, from hundreds of doctors and public health experts. Tucker Carlson also plugged the event during an interview with Malone.

More than 15,000 people joined a Facebook group for the rally, with many saying they would stay overnight and eat in Northern Virginia to avoid the District's vaccine mandate. Some commenters on the group's page have compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust and urged people not to get tested for the virus.

Aaron Simpson, a spokesman for Facebook parent Meta, said that because the page is ostensibly opposed to vaccine mandates rather than vaccines it does not violate the platform's policies on covid-19 and vaccine misinformation, which prohibit "content calling to action, advocating, or promoting that others not get the COVID-19 vaccine."

However, some individual posts and comments that contain misinformation have been removed, he said.

"Voicing opposition to government mandates is not against Meta's policies," Simpson said. "What we don't allow is content that promotes harmful false claims about the vaccines themselves and we remove those posts - including in this group."
WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Department on Sunday ordered eligible family members of staff at its embassy in Ukraine to leave the country.

The State Department said in a statement that it authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv.

"U.S. citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options," it said.

The authorized voluntary departure applies to non-essential U.S. government employees, who now have the option to leave Ukraine if they wish, reported local media. 
A passenger who refused to wear a mask on a flight from Dublin to New York City pulled down his pants and exposed his buttocks, threw a can at a passenger and put his cap on the captains head and told him, Dont touch me, prosecutors said in a case unsealed Friday.

After the Delta Air Lines flight from Dublin to John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jan. 7, the passenger, Shane McInerney, 29, of Galway, Ireland, was charged with intentionally assaulting and intimidating a crew member, prosecutors said. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison, prosecutors said.

On Saturday, McInerneys lawyer, Benjamin Yaster, declined to comment on the charges. McInerney made an initial appearance in federal court in the New York City borough of Brooklyn on Jan. 14 and was released on a $20,000 bond, prosecutors said.

The charges represent the latest example of the unruly and sometimes violent behavior that has surged on airplanes since the start of the pandemic. Many of the disturbances have involved passengers who refused to wear masks, as required by the federal government.

On Wednesday, an American Airlines flight from Miami to London turned around about an hour into its journey because of a passenger who refused to wear a mask, the airline said.

In October, a passenger was accused of punching an American Airlines flight attendant in her nose, giving her a concussion, after a mask dispute. And in December, a California woman pleaded guilty to repeatedly punching a flight attendant on a Southwest Airlines flight, bloodying her face and chipping three teeth.

Over the past year, we had seen a dramatic uptick in unruly passenger incidents, and weve undertaken a number of measures to get that under control, Steve Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, said during an online discussion this past week.

And Im happy to say that the rates are down significantly, year over year, but weve still got more work to do, Dickson said. And this is, again, something that we need to continue to stay focused on.

In a statement filed in court, an FBI agent said McInerney had refused to wear a mask despite being asked to do so dozens of times during the eight-hour flight. He threw an empty beverage can, hitting another passenger in the head, and kicked the seatback in front of him, disturbing the passenger there, the statement said.

At one point, he walked from his seat in the economy section to the first-class section and complained to a flight attendant about the food. While being escorted back to his seat, McInerney pulled down his pants and underwear and exposed his buttocks to the flight attendant and passengers sitting nearby, the statement said.

About two hours into the flight, the captain, while on a break, spoke to McInerney, the statement said. During the conversation, McInerney twice took off his cap, put it on the captains head and then removed it again, the statement said.

He also put a fist close to the captains face and said, Dont touch me, the statement said.

At least one of the passengers found McInerneys behavior to be scary, and members of the flight crew considered diverting the plane to another airport so that McInerney could be removed from the plane, the statement said.

The flight continued to New York. As the plane was making its final approach to JFK and everyone was buckled in their seats, McInerney again disobeyed the orders of flight attendants, according to the statement, which said he stood up, walked into the aisle and refused to sit back down.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
IN SUMMARY

With a huge number of Californians testing positive for COVID-19 during the omicron variant surge, many have been too sick to work. Here are some answers to commonly asked questions as rules and regulations for workplace safety keep changing.

By Grace Gedye

CalMatters

A new cough. The beginnings of a fever. A note from your boss about a COVID case at work.

As omicron ripples across California, workers are learning they've been exposed and coming down with symptoms. What happens next? There are rules employers and workers are supposed to follow to keep workplaces safe and limit the spread of the virus.

Most California workers who are working in person are covered by emergency temporary rules from the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, better known as Cal/OSHA (see www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/ETS.html). A subsection of workers, including some in health facilities, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, and drug treatment centers, are protected by different workplace rules.

Here are the answers to some questions Californians might have about their rights in the workplace during the pandemic.

Can I get time off to get tested?

Sort of.

If you get exposed to COVID at work, your employer is generally required by Cal/OHSHA's covid workplace rules to provide you with testing, at no cost, during paid time, unless you've recently recovered from COVID.

If your exposure is from outside of work, your employer is still required to provide testing at no cost to you, during paid time, if doing so would allow you to remain at work or return to work earlier under public health guidelines for isolatiolation and quarantine, said Erika Monterroza, a spokesperson for the state Department of Industrial Relations.

Unvaccinated, symptomatic workers must be provided with tests by their employer, at no cost to themselves, during paid time, regardless of whether there is a known exposure.

Can my boss make me come to work if there's a COVID outbreak at my workplace?

It depends.

If an outbreak happens at work, employers are generally required to immediately make testing available to workers who may have been exposed, at no cost to the workers. If you test positive, your employer is required to send you home with pay, and you should only return to work once you meet public health guidance for ending isolation.

If you were exposed but don't immediately test positive, whether or not you get sent home from work depends on which category you fall into in the state public health department's isolation and quarantine guidance.

If there's an outbreak but you weren't exposed -- say, for example, you work in a different building than the people who have COVID -- Cal/OSHA's COVID workplace rules don't prevent your boss from insisting you work in person, said Monterroza.

During outbreaks, employers are required to offer increased testing.

Do I need a mask at work? Do patrons? Who enforces the masking rules?

Yes, workers must wear masks while working indoors, under a statewide mask mandate that went into effect in mid December.

There are some exceptions, like for workers who are in a room by themselves, workers with a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a mask, and for when workers are actively eating or drinking.

Employers are responsible for ensuring their employees follow workplace mask rules. If an employer is not enforcing mask rules, workers can file a complaint to Cal/OSHA online or call the agency's center that handles workers' questions about COVID-19 at 833-579-0927.

There are other ways for workers to address workplace safety issues, including mask usage. Workers are entitled to band together to raise a labor issue with their employer, said Stephen Knight, executive director of Worksafe, a statewide occupational safety organization.

"Anything you do to raise a labor issue with your employer together with other colleagues at work is protected activity under federal law," Knight said, adding that it is safer for workers to raise issues collectively than to do so alone.

The statewide mask mandate extends to all indoor public settings, so customers coming into stores or gyms, for example, have to wear masks. Local law enforcement agencies are responsible for enforcing mask rules for customers, Monterroza said.

If I get COVID, do I get additional sick leave?

Probably not.

Individual employers may opt to offer supplemental sick leave for COVID. Some localities require that companies provide supplemental COVID sick leave, said Hannah Sweiss, an attorney who counsels employers on how to comply with workplace COVID rules. The city of Los Angeles, for example, requires large employers to offer extra sick leave.

But there's currently no statewide requirement that employers offer extra sick leave for COVID.

There was a statewide requirement that companies with more than 25 employees offer as much as 80 hours of supplemental sick leave related to COVID-19, but it expired in September of 2021. Legislators and the Newsom administration are currently negotiating over bringing back extra paid sick leave for COVID, with the goal of an agreement in the next several weeks.

Again, if you get COVID from a work-related exposure, your employer is required to send you home, with pay. If your employer provides sick leave beyond the three days required by law, it can require you to use those additional sick days while you quarantine or recover.

However, you can't be asked to use your three sick days to cover time out after a workplace exposure to COVID. Unless you are already receiving disability or workers' compensation for the time you're out after a workplace exposure, your employer is typically on the hook for paying you until you meet public health guidelines to return to work.

If you have to quarantine due to a COVID exposure or case that you're sure isn't work related, you can use any existing sick days you have. Beyond that, your employer isn't required to pay you for that time. However, you may be eligible for other benefits, such as disability insurance.

With omicron spreading rapidly, it isn't always clear if a worker was exposed to COVID from work or outside of work, said Mitch Steiger, senior legislative advocate with the California Labor Federation. Workers could think they got it off the job when they actually got it on the job, said Steiger, so workers may want to consider the possibility that their exposure was occupational.

Worker advocates are quick to point out that public health guidance telling COVID-positive workers to stay home for five days, while the state only requires employers to give three paid sick days, puts some workers in an impossible situation.

"We are muscling our way through a pandemic without sick leave," said Knight. "It needs to be changed, and I don't know what the people can do but call the governor."

Can I get workers' compensation if I get COVID at work?

Yes.

Employees who believe they contracted COVID at work should file a workers' compensation claim, said Monterroza.

Workers' compensation covers things like medical care, temporary disability payments if you lose wages because of COVID, and permanent disability payments if you don't recover completely.

It's pretty straightforward for a worker to start the process of getting workers' compensation, said Steiger. Once a worker reports having suffered an occupational illness, the employer is required to give the employee a form to fill out to start the process. The Department of Industrial Relations has a guide for workers about how the process works.

Steiger cautions that the process can move slowly, so employees should get it started as early as possible, and also consider whether they should be paid for time out from work under Cal/OSHA's COVID workplace rules.

A California law passed in 2020 made it easier for first responders and health care workers, as well as workers at a worksite that has COVID outbreak, to access workers' compensation, by building in a presumption that if these workers get sick it's due to exposure at work. The burden is on employers to prove the illness did not occur at work.

Can my employer change my job while I'm sick with COVID or quarantining?

If you're quarantining or sick with COVID because you were exposed at work, and you're not currently receiving disability or workers' compensation payments, your employer is required to maintain your pay, benefits, seniority, jobs status, and all other employee rights.

If you are quarantining or sick with COVID that your employer can show is not work related, your employer is not required to maintain your pay or benefits under Cal/OSHA's covid workplace rules. However, you may be eligible for other benefits.

Employers aren't supposed to disincentivize employees from reporting COVID exposures, said labor lawyer Ilana Morady.

If your boss fires you, or retaliates against you for following public health guidance after an exposure or positive test, your boss could be violating rules that require employers to ask employees to report COVID-19 symptoms and possible close contacts to their employer without fear of reprisal, said Morady.

Copyright  2022 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  2022 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
The National Weather Service in Sacramento tweeted Sunday that, despite California having a mostly dry January, snow depth and snow water content "is looking good and still running above average for this time of year."

Currently, the Northern Sierra is at about 113 percent of what is considered the normal amount of snow for this time of year. Central Sierra snow is at about 109 percent. Overall, the state has about 111 percent of its average snowpack right now, thanks to the record-breaking storms that came toward the end of 2021.

And while no rain is being predicted for the coming week, the NWS in San Diego tweeted Sunday "And more rain and mountain snow may arrive to California during the first week of February!"

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority will potentially mandate COVID vaccinations for its workers starting next week--a policy that may have a dramatic impact on its workforce.

Workers at the Santa Clara County public transit agency will have 60 days to comply with the policy once it goes into effect, according to a company-wide memo issued earlier this week. Workers who don't receive a vaccination or religious or medical exemption within that time frame face termination.

VTA spokesperson Stacey Hendler Ross said the policy is supposed to start Monday, but it may be delayed as the agency discusses details with its unions.

With the widespread outbreak of the omicron variant, at-home COVID-19 tests are vital but hard to locate.

To help meet this need, Santa Clara County will start distributing 60,000 COVID-19 rapid antigen test kits Saturday at four drive-through locations: Hellyer County Park, Martial Cottle Park, Vasona County Park and Foothill College.

Cal Fire said Sunday evening the Colorado Fire was 35 percent contained as of 8:25 p.m. with about 700 acres still burning near Palo Colorado in the Big Sur area south of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Officials say better map management shows the fire is smaller than the 1,050 acres reported Sunday morning, when the blaze was reportedly 25 percent contained.

The fire started at 5:19 p.m. Friday in the Palo Colorado Canyon area of the county, was initially reported to have burned 1,500 acres.

One structure has been damaged, so far. An emergency shelter opened late Friday evening at the Carmel Middle School, 4380 Carmel Valley Rd., Carmel-by-the-Sea, but only two people needed assistance, according to the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services.

Petaluma police late Saturday night arrested a man suspected of pointing a gun at another man inside a bar on the 100 block of Kentucky Street.

Police say Petaluma resident Jonathan Sawyers, 37, brandished a handgun at another bar patron just before midnight, witnesses allegedly told police.

Police say they found a loaded and unregistered Glock pistol in Sawyers' back pocket. The man was arrested without incident and booked on possession of a firearm in a public place, possession of an unregistered firearm and felon in possession of a firearm.

Amid a Covid outbreak, some are calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to release from the state's four juvenile facilities adjudicated youth who are within six months of their parole date and those with medical concerns.

Of the 640 youth currently being held, 175 recently tested positive for Covid-19, the highest infection rate since the correctional institutions reported the first case on June 14, 2020.

Across social media platforms this week, posts with the hashtag #ProtectYouthNow along with infographics detailing the rise in cases have been shared in an effort to convince Newsom to grant early releases for youth.

BART says passengers traveling on the Antioch line faced up to 10-minute delays in the Antioch and SFO directions Sunday evening, due to scheduled track maintenance between the Walnut Creek and Orinda stations.

The transit service said earlier it was replacing electrical lines and other support components critical for maintaining reliable train service. Riders were experiencing delays of 15 to 20 minutes in the area.

The repair work will also be conducted on Jan. 30, BART officials said.

The work is necessary, as the transit system's electrical infrastructure is 50 years old and must be replaced. Loss of power in this section of track without any backup would have a major impact on train operations for the entire BART system, transit officials said.

The National Weather Service forecast for the San Francisco Bay Area calls for sunny skies Monday, with daytime highs ranging from the high 50s to mid 60s, with overnight lows for most areas in the low to mid 40s and dipping into the high 30s in the East Bay's interior valleys. A beach hazard statement for sneaker waves and rip currents along the coast remains in effect until 1 p.m. Monday.

Dry and mild weather will persist at least through Thursday. The next chance of rain will be sometime between the very end of the month into early February.

Copyright  2022 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.

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By Tran Nguyen

San Jose Spotlight

On a chilly January evening, a group of students stood in formation and practiced their routine in Master CamBinh Nguyen's backyard. She looked out from a gazebo surrounded by medals and trophies and recalled the many years she's spent teaching generations of San Jose students the principles of Vietnamese martial arts, Vovinam.

"It's not easy--this job requires your heart, your mind and your patience," Nguyen told San Jose Spotlight in Vietnamese. "I'm still doing this because it's my life's calling."

Nguyen, a teacher's aide at Bridges Academy in San Jose, has devoted her whole life to learning and teaching martial arts. Growing up in Vietnam, Nguyen started practicing martial arts at a young age. She learned judo and taekwondo before practicing Vovinam, a form of martial arts originating in Vietnam.

Nguyen, 70, is the woman behind Vovinam San Jose, a martial arts club that also performs lion dances and Vietnamese traditional dance routines on the weekends. The martial arts class enrolls students as young as five and as old as 75. Some school-aged students in Nguyen's class, with their parents' permission, join her in performing dances at events across the South Bay on weekends. Nguyen's husband, Tran Binh, also practiced Vovinam and used to help run the club, but he retired several years ago, Nguyen said.

"The dances are much more popular than the martial arts demonstration, so it helps supplement the class," Nguyen said, adding her crew is booked up through at least February for Lunar New Year celebrations. "Whatever money we (get) goes right back to the class."

The history of Vovinam

Founded in Vietnam in 1938, Vovinam, short for Vo Viet Nam (Vietnamese martial arts), fuses elements of traditional martial arts with techniques from other styles. A full-contact martial arts style, Vovinam is famous for its signature leg-grappling technique, called "flying scissors." It also employs hand, elbow, kicking, wrestling, escaping and levering techniques. Practitioners also use traditional weapons such as swords, staffs and halberds.

Although most practitioners use it for self-defense, Vovinam teaches its students how to be better people and neighbors through its philosophy, Nguyen said.

"It's a martial art style with deep Vietnamese history and values," said Nguyen, who has practiced Vovinam for 50 years and is ranked as a master. "It's suitable for everyone, regardless of their health conditions or ages."

Vovinam has found a foothold across the globe in both Vietnamese practitioners and those of other nationalities. When Nguyen fled Vietnam and settled in San Jose in 1981, the 29-year-old joined a Voninam club in Campbell to continue practicing.

After the club in Campbell shuttered in the early 1980s, Nguyen sought to open her own. She taught private lessons in people's backyards before hosting after-school classes at Kennedy Elementary School, Roosevelt Park and Franklin Elementary School, among others. Nguyen's club grew gradually over the years, as word of mouth about a low-cost Vietnamese martial arts class taught by a strict, but passionate teacher spread far and wide. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Nguyen said she taught more than 100 students daily.

Vovinam's life lessons

Over nearly four decades, Nguyen has taught thousands of San Jose children self-defense and Vovinam's philosophical principles of self-discipline, modesty and a sense of community. Through practicing Vovinam, Nguyen said she helped steer many school-aged students who were tangled up in gang activities away from a destructive path.

"We would spend hours practicing, and once they're exhausted, I'd talk to them about the way to be a better student and a better child to their parents," she said.

With the ongoing pandemic, Nguyen couldn't host her club in schools anymore. Her class shrank down to roughly 20 students, who now practice in her backyard in a neighborhood between downtown and East San Jose.

"I just really want to keep it going," Nguyen said. "There's no other Vovinam classes in the area."

Thao Nguyen's children started practicing Vovinam with CamBinh Nguyen six months ago. She said she found the class through other community members. CamBinh Nguyen doesn't advertise her classes anymore due to limited space in her backyard.

"I really admire her," Thao Nguyen, who is now friends with CamBinh Nguyen, told San Jose Spotlight. "She does so much for everyone around her. I really don't know how she finds the time in the day to do everything."

Her sons, Bao and Lam, said the class gives them confidence in the new environment. The family just immigrated from Vietnam to San Jose several months ago.

"I can protect myself now," Bao said.

Their classmate, Kayla, 6, said she also enjoys the class despite the late hour after school.

"(Master CamBinh) is a little strict, but she helps others so much," she said.

Despite her club's popularity, CamBinh Nguyen worries about its future as she ages. Her club, with a monthly fee of $40 per student, doesn't have enough money to hire instructors to take over. Other local martial arts clubs charge upward of $300 a month per student.

Most students, who she spent years training and watching grow up, also left the club when they graduated high school.

"There's no money in this, so they moved on to college or work," she said. "One by one, they all left me. It's sad, but I can't quit. I want to keep on inspiring the 'dao' (principles) of Vovinam."

Thomas Than, a 75-year-old San Jose resident, started learning Vovinam with CamBinh Nguyen in 2020 after years of practicing other martial arts. He said the club is a bright spot during the pandemic.

"This is a special place that is doing a special thing," he told San Jose Spotlight. "I appreciate Ms. CamBinh keeps our Vietnamese traditions alive in San Jose."

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District Health Department No. 10 will no longer conduct individual-level contact tracing for positive COVID-19 cases in its 10-county jurisdiction, the department stated in a release.

DHD10s decision follows an announcement from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services that it too would be discontinuing universal individual-level contact tracing, the release stated. It added that it is now up to each individual who tests positive for COVID-19 to notify any and all potential close contacts.

The effort our staff has put in to perform contact tracing over the past two years has been enormous, stated DHD10 Health Officer Kevin Hughes. It is now time to empower the residents of our communities to take on this role and notify anyone they may have had close contact with while contagious.

The health department will now focus on targeted identification, response and mitigation of COVID-19 clusters and outbreaks, especially for vulnerable populations and those associated with settings where people congregate such as long-term care facilities, group homes, schools, shelters and dormitories.

The redirection of public health resources to focus on outbreak venues and clusters was made to maximize public health outcomes in an environment of strained and limited staffing capacity, the release stated.

DHD10 will, however, continue sending secure text notifications via TigerConnect to individuals who test positive for COVID-19 within the departments 10-county jurisdiction so that individuals can begin the process of notifying their close contacts. Individuals will receive a secure text message that reads as follows:

This is District Health Department No. 10. We are following up regarding your recent COVID-19 test. If you are positive for COVID-19, regardless of vaccination status, stay home for five days. If you have no symptoms or your symptoms are resolving and you are fever-free after five days, you can leave your house. Continue to follow strict mask wearing around others for an additional five days.

The text message will then proceed to provide instructions for completing an online survey to help case investigators learn about where an individual may have contracted COVID-19. The text also has links to the DHD10 website with information about quarantine and isolation guidelines as well as the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. The text also provides a link where the individual can notify their close contacts anonymously, https://tellyourcontacts.org.

Jeannine Taylor, public information officer at DHD10, stated in the release that people who receives text notifications can contact the health department to confirm the authenticity of the messages, as phishing scams are a concern. To confirm a message about COVID-19 status, call (231) 305-8675 or email covid@dhd10.org.

For those needing a COVID-19 test, DHD10 is hosting testing clinics at various locations throughout their jurisdiction. Find a testing site at www.dhd10.org/covid19-testing-clinics. COVID-19 testing also takes place at most pharmacies, urgent care centers and primary healthcare providers offices.
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For 50 years, Dog n Suds in Montague has been a local favorite and a huge part of owner David Hostickas life. Hostickas parents bought the building in the fall of 1965, when drive-in restaurants were an important part of American culture.

In the late 90s, Hosticka took over for his parents with a passion. When I took over, I was going to make it my career, he said. He spent many years renovating the restaurant from the wiring in the ground that connects to the menus, to the position of the building. The building once faced the opposite direction. Hosticka was highly dedicated to the success of Dog n Suds throughout his entire career.

Hosticka also owns the Muskegon location, making him the owner of the only two Dog n Suds left in Michigan. He renovated the Muskegon location, and he included indoor seating and what he says is the worlds largest Dog n Suds memorabilia collection.

In January of 2021, Hosticka was hit with news of health problems. My situation is that I was diagnosed with heart failure, he said. The timing could not have been worse, and I made the decision to focus on my health.

Hostickas passion for the generational restaurant had to come second to his health. I was working like Im 30 years old, and Im not anymore. Hosticka said.

With Hosticka unable to work in the way that he did before, and no family members with an interest in taking over, he is now working on selling both Dog n Suds buildings. He hopes to keep the two together, but more importantly, he wants the new owners to be aware of the important community history and cultural history of Dog n Suds.

Drive-in restaurants grew in popularity after World War II. During wartimes, rationing was a part of the war effort, and many families went without simple luxuries as Americans banded together in the war effort.

When the war ended, there was an economic boom that brought about a new culture. Hosticka explained that the cars from this time are classics, and with more disposable incomes, many indulge in the car craze. Drive-in restaurants represented a way of eating that was significant in showcasing the new American lifestyle after WWII.

In Montague, Dog n Suds was a place where high school students would hang out, likely in part because the staff has always been equipped with high school students. It was a community gathering place, said Hosticka.

Drive-ins were the original fast food restaurant, and the White Lake area had three of them at one time. Alongside Dog n Suds was the Nip n Sip and A&W, which later became Shortstop. These two businesses would eventually dissolve when a new business model was introduced in the U.S.

According to Hosticka, the drive-in restaurant began to fade out in the 80s. As U.S. life began to move at a faster pace, so did the people and subsequently the way they got their fast food. Drive-ins became drive-thrus. Hosticka remembers when McDonalds and Burger King entered the White Lake community as a time of big change for drive-ins. The Nip n Sip and Shortstop didnt survive the cultural transition.

My father had no high school education, but in many ways he was a genius, said Hosticka. He knew we couldnt compete with them at their game. Hostickas father decided to stay true to the way they ran their business, not attempting to bring customers in by becoming more like a drive-thru. This, the location on the lake, and a loyal community is what kept Dog n Suds alive.

During the shift, many drive-in restaurants across the U.S. closed for different reasons, but Hosticka thinks that the business model is useful during the COVID-19 pandemic and could pick back up. During the times when restaurants were closed, we were able to stay open. You could stay in the comfort and safety of your vehicle, said Hosticka.

Hosticka is hopeful that whoever purchases the properties will understand the importance of Dog n Suds in the history of both America and White Lake. I dont care how long it takes, he said,  Im trying to see that it gets into the hands of the right people.

Dog n Suds also offers a historical element to tourists that visit White Lake. A lot of people from different states grew up with Dog n Suds, but they arent there anymore.

Currently, Hosticka and his real estate agent, Charlie Brown of Greenridge Realty, have a few promising inquiries.

Ive lived a very blessed life and the community has supported us for two generations, and it still is, said Hosticka.
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Apolitical government body released the 100 most prominent academics list featuring many Indian American leaders and others of Indian origin.

FREMONT CA: Apolitical is a global government program that helps public servants find the ideas, experts, and partners they need to solve society's toughest challenges. It recently released its "100 Most Influential Academics in Government" list, including numerous Indian-American leaders in academia. The London-based organization aims to help governments work better for individuals globally.

The list recognizes work that has influenced policymaking by providing insights into policy problems, contributing creative ideas and solutions, or adding informative and appropriate data. According to a press release, each contender on the list is dedicated to enhancing government operations, and their research has already made an impact. Healing from Covid-19; Social Policy; Policy Processes and Approaches, Employment and Skills; and Climate and Sustainability are the five policy areas that academics are currently working in.

Indian Americans Featured This Year
According to an industry research, three out of four company founders predict the fundraising environment would be even stronger in 2022 after a record $38 billion poured into India's startup ecosystem in 2021. According to the Startup Outlook Report 2022, over 92 percent of founders who attempted to raise capital in 2021 had a positive experience, and 75 percent of them expect the environment to improve this year. 83 of the 100 startup owners polled have a larger predisposition for growth over profitability, which includes fintech, SaaS, D2C, B2B, logistics, and education. Almost 44 startups joined the coveted unicorn club of companies valued at more than $1 billion in 2021, during an investment frenzy.

We feel the prediction will not be wrong after watching the startup's funding every week and studying the startup ecosystem. This week, we explored the most recent startup funding patterns; check out this week's follow-up.

Your-Space

Student housing company, Your-Space has secured $10 million (about Rs 75 crore) from a group of investors to help it expand and thrive.

According to a statement from Your-Space, the firm raised the money in Series-A fundraising using a combination of pure stock and convertible debentures.

AJAX Capital and Holy Basil Consultancy, the family offices of Shantanu Rastogi (General Atlantic) and Ajay Gupta (Capital Foods), led the capital round.

Manish Choksi's (Vice Chairman of Asian Paints) family office, Sunidhi Group's family office, and Sanjaya Gupta (former MD & CEO of PNBHFL) were among those that took part in the round.

Arya.ag

Arya.ag, an agritech startup, has raised $60 million in a Series C funding round headed by Asia Impact SA, a Luxembourg-based investment group. Existing investors, such as Lightrock India and Quona Capital, took part in the fundraising as well.

According to a top company official, the company's post-money valuation has surpassed $300 million.

According to Prasanna Rao, cofounder and MD of Arya.ag, $14 million was raised via debt from investors such as the US Development Finance Corporation (USDFC) and ResponsAbility, a Geneva-based development finance institution.

Scripbox

In a funding round led by Accel Partners, online wealth manager Scripbox has secured $21 million in debt and equity.

Angel investors such as MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra, Freshworks CTO Shanmugam Krishnasamy, and Dell Technologies India MD Alok Ohrie participated in the fundraising, as did DMI Alternative Investment Fund through The Sparkle Fund, InnoVen Capital, Trifecta Capital, KPB Family Trust, LetsVenture, Kube VC, and YY Capital LLC.

The funds will be used to build the company's new product verticals, expand its customer base, and work with more independent financial advisors, according to the Bengaluru-based firm.

Threedots

Threedots, a community investment business, has garnered $4 million in a seed round headed by Kalaari Capital. Better Capital, Kunal Shah (Cred), Cloud Capital, Ramakant Sharma (Livspace), Lalit Keshre (Groww), iSeed, Jitendra Gupta (Jupiter), Amrish and Sweta Rau (Pine Labs), and others were also present.

Rishu Garg, Akul Agarwal, and Prakhar Bhardwaj, all BITS Pilani alumni who previously worked together at Groww, founded Threedots in March 2021. The founders have product and scaling experience, having worked with companies such as Clear (previously Clear) and smallcase.

The Threedots team intends to use the funds raised to improve its product offerings and expand its team.

Rocketlane

Rocketlane, a software as a service (SaaS) company, has raised $18 million in a Series A fundraising round led by 8VC and including Nexus VP and Matrix Partners.

The cash will be used to enhance product offerings, expedite marketing, and expand the company's personnel.

Gokul Rajaram, an angel investor, has also contributed to the newest round. The startup received $3 million in venture funding from Matrix Partners India and Nexus Venture Partners in June of last year.

The companys average month-on-month revenue growth has been upwards of 30%, said Srikrishnan Ganesan, CEO and cofounder, Rocketlane.

StockGro

StockGro, a social investment platform, has secured $32 million in a round headed by Bitkraft Ventures, General Catalyst, and Lightricks co-founder Itai Tsiddon.

The investment was also supported by existing investors such as Roots Ventures and Creed Capital Asia. The financing is a mix of primary and secondary fundraising, with early donors reaping significant rewards, according to the company. This round was also supported by a group of angel investors that included the Base 10 Capital founders, Junglee Games founder Ankush Gera, and Nazara founder Nitish Mittersain.

StockGro plans to utilise the funds to launch new products and aggressively ramp up recruiting across the board, according to a statement.

Settlrs

Settlrs, a B2B services rental platform, has raises $1 million in funding from a syndicate of investors led by Canbank Ventures.

The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, nurtured the Bengaluru-based startup.

Settlrs is a business-to-business (B2B) service rental platform for furniture, electric home appliances, and IT infrastructure. It is a startup based in Bengaluru that is currently a part of the IIM-B Startup LaunchPad. It enables consumers to spend and save smarter, allowing them to live smarter, thanks to its rapid, hassle-free, and cost-effective way of renting. Settlr's mission is to make luxury accessible to its consumers by allowing them to pay small and live BIG.

SaaS Labs

SaaS Labs, a contact centre software incubator situated in Delhi-NCR and Palo Alto, has secured $43 million in a Series B fundraising round headed by Sequoia Capital India.

Angel investors Amit Agarwal, Allison Pickens, Anand Chandrasekaran, and Michael Stoppelman joined the round, as did Base 10 Partners and Eight Roads Ventures.

The business intends to use the funds generated to hire top personnel internationally, introduce breakthrough products, focus on brand marketing, and pursue strategic M&As aggressively.

Gaurav Sharma founded SaaS Labs in 2016 to provide business automation tools for sales and support teams.
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In 2014 Russian seized Crimea from Ukraine and went on to invade eastern Ukraine. The war in eastern Ukraine continues with a total death toll to date of some 14,000. Today the fear is that Putin intends to finish the job. The US and EU are threatening massive penalties on Moscow if it invades. But sanctions are one thing, armed force another. Neither the US nor any of its European allies are proposing to employ armed force to stop any Russian invasion. The Western alliance has no appetite for war with Russia. But the stakes are much higher than the fate of Ukraine, or even the future of Europe. If Putin gets his way  by coercive negotiation or by invasion  he will confirm for all to see that US hegemony is finished. Predatory and revisionist leaders everywhere will be emboldened. None more than Chinas Xi Jinping. Like Putin, he calculates that the US is exhausted. If so, the Western alliance system  the US and its entire constellation of some 40 allies around the planet  is vulnerable. One of Xis favourite catchphrases is that the East is rising, the West is declining. Tellingly, hes been using this since 2014, the same year in which Putin invaded Ukraine. Coincidence? Of course not. Both Putin and Xi were reacting to the same event, a stunning moment in US statecraft. In 2012, Barack Obama warned Syrias Bashar al-Assad that it would be a red line for the US if Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. The next year, Assad did exactly that. And Obama? He did nothing. The implication was plain: America was a paper tiger.

It was open season for aggressors, revisionists and destabilisers. So, the year after, Putin launched his war in Europe and Xi dramatically stepped up his encroachments on the maritime territories of his neighbours in the South China Sea. They bet against US intervention. And they won. Now they are carefully assessing whether to bet again. Loading Americas humiliating retreat from Afghanistan is one signal. The Western response to the pandemic is another. The head of the think tank attached to Chinas Ministry of State Security, Yuan Peng, has said the pandemic may be the equivalent of war between the great powers. The Wests chaos and Chinas orderliness signalled a transition between the old and new world orders, posits Yuan. Here is Bidens dilemma. He came to power hoping to withdraw from Afghanistan and sideline Russia while turning full US and allied attention to the competition for the 21st century against China. Instead, his retreat from Kabul only emboldened Russia. And if he allows Russia to swallow Ukraine whole, this will only embolden China yet further. So should Biden consider using force against any Russian invasion of Ukraine? While that might demonstrate that America is still prepared to wage war to defeat an aggressor in Europe, it would also preoccupy the US military.

America and its Indo-Pacific allies could be left vulnerable to any adventurism that Xi might have in mind in Asia. On Sunday, Taipei scrambled its fighters to warn off 39 Chinese warplanes that flew into Taiwans airspace buffer zone, Beijings biggest intrusion in three months. Xi knows very well that the US no longer operates either the doctrine or the forces necessary to wage two major wars at once. Loading Could US allies be doing more to deter Putin? Yes. The US, Britain and the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine to help strengthen it. But Europes biggest power, Germany, is not only refusing to arm Ukraine, it actively is blocking attempts by others to do so. Australia has offered help to Ukraine in countering cyber intrusions, but has ruled out supplying arms. While many American allies hesitate to commit, Russia and China prepare to act. Whatever is about to happen in Ukraine, its going to have a lot to do with us, one way or another, like it or not.
A charming cleaner who had only ever shown kindness to her 92-year-old client lost $430 on the pokies and had just $11 left in her bank account before turning up at the womans home and launching a fatal assault, a Sydney court has been told.

Hanny Papanicolaou, 38, had a close relationship with Marjorie Welsh, whose home in the inner-west suburb of Ashbury she cleaned once a week until January 2, 2019, when she allegedly beat Mrs Welsh with her own walking sticks and decorative ceramics, and stabbed her with a kitchen knife.

Mrs Welsh died from her extensive injuries in hospital six weeks after the alleged assault, and Ms Papanicolaou was charged with her murder. She has pleaded not guilty.

Hanny Papanicolaou is on trial for the murder of 92-year-old Marjorie Welsh. Credit:Facebook

In his opening address to the NSW Supreme Court trial on Monday, Crown prosecutor Christopher Taylor said despite her injuries  which included multiple fractures to her face and limbs, multiple deep lacerations and a collapsed lung  Mrs Welsh was conscious and lucid, and able to tell first responders that she was attacked by her cleaner.
Coolth. The word isnt used as often as warmth. That could change with a $6 million pilot project  thought to be a world first  that will use artificial intelligence to reduce summer temperatures at a major Sydney park by up to four degrees compared to the surrounding precinct.

Under the project, Bicentennial Parks 40 hectares in Sydney Olympic Park will become a cooler microclimate, a green respite for the 80,000 people who by 2023 will live or work there every day.

Its 1.5 million annual visitors will be able to use a mobile phone app to find the coolest spot for a picnic on a hot day.

Dr Sebastian Pfautsch at Bicentennial Park. As one of the major parks used in Sydney, the area is part of a project to reduce heat. Credit:Brook Mitchell

We will maximise for coolth, said Sebastian Pfautsch from Western Sydney University, the project creator and research lead. He has been researching urban heat and how to reduce it using evapotranspiration, the process where plants release moisture through the pores in their leaves.
Twenty-three pages containing criticisms of police investigations into a fatal Brisbane nightclub firebombing have been made public for the first time.

The pages were removed in 2020 by a Queensland police officer under orders from her superior, Detective Inspector Damien Hansen.

Detective Inspector Damien Hansen is highly experienced and has led numerous high-profile investigations. Credit:Jorge Branco

The pages relate to police knowledge and actions in relation to the Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub firebombing in Fortitude Valley on March 8, 1973.

Fifteen people died in the fire. Two men, James Richard Finch and John Andrew Stuart, were convicted over the attack, but they were only charged with one count each of murder.
Queensland is becoming the hub for international efforts to help aid Tonga, as Japan launches aircraft from Brisbanes RAAF Base at Amberley.

Tonga was swamped by a massive tsunami after the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haapai volcano just 65 kilometres from the capital Nukualofa on January 14.

Humanitarian supplies are loaded on a C-130J Hercules aircraft bound for Tonga, at the RAAF base in Amberley. Credit:ADF

The disaster wiped out homes and damaged communication lines, and at least three people have died.

Last week, the Tongan government released images showing the scale of the damage, with children among the debris, ash covering cars and homes ripped to the ground, as HMAS Adelaide docked at Brisbane before heading to the battered island with supplies.
Leading a national body working to prevent violence against women, I talk a lot about inequality. Addressing inequality is at the heart of our mandate.

Violence against women is both a symptom and a cause of gender inequality.

Violence against women is both a symptom and a cause of gender inequality. Credit:Shutterstock

For women to be safe, they must be equal.

As we approach January 26, a painful day for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, inequality is squarely on my mind.
Police say they foiled an attempt to steal 1400 rapid antigen tests from a state-run testing site in Melbournes inner north-west.

Officers arrested and charged a 19-year-old employee of the testing site who they allege was in the process of stealing the kits from the site on Dean Street, in Moonee Ponds, about 4pm on Sunday.

Recent alleged thefts come amid a shortage of at-home tests. Credit:Flavio Brancaleone

The Heidelberg Heights teen was charged with theft and bailed to appear at Broadmeadows Magistrates Court on July 13. Police also arrested a 23-year-old from Lalor who was released pending further investigation.

Last week a Sydney man was charged after 42,000 rapid antigen tests were allegedly stolen from a freight depot at Botany. Police estimated those tests were worth about $500,000.
Hong Kong: Fair licensees get ex-gratia payments

The Food & Environmental Hygiene Department today said that ex-gratia payments have been granted to the licensees affected by the cancellation of the 2022 Lunar New Year fairs and the Fong Ma Po New Year Fair.

The Government decided to cancel the Lunar New Year fairs at 15 locations and the Fong Ma Po New Year Fair in Tai Po in view of the developments of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Apart from arranging full refunds of the stall licence fees for successful stall bidders in accordance with the licence agreement, ex-gratia payments pitched at 50% of the stall licence fees were also granted to them under the fifth round of the Anti-epidemic Fund.

All payments have been mailed to the affected licensees in crossed cheques without the need for any application.

All 950 stalls at the 15 Lunar New Year fairs and the Fong Ma Po New Year Fair at Lam Tsuen were let out through open auction. Based on the total auction amount of around $12.06 million, the ex-gratia payments disbursed amounted to over $6.03 million.

As for the 2022 Che Kung Festival Fair which was also cancelled, the department aims to arrange full refunds of the stall licence fees and disburse the ex-gratia payments, pitched at 50% of the stall licence fees, for the 42 successful stall bidders within this week.

The payments amount to over $590,000, it added.

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Press Release

January 24, 2022 De Lima urges gov't to prepare for possible further COVID-19 surges Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima urged the government to ensure preparedness on the possibility of further COVID-19 surges due to future variants. De Lima, a social justice and human rights champion, said the government should always prepare for COVID-19 surges to avoid more fatalities and suffering. "Huwag naman na sanang lumala pa ang kasalukuyang pandemya o magkaroon pa ng mga bagong COVID-19 variants. Pero ngayon pa lang, mas maigi nang laging handa ang gobyerno, pati na ang susunod na administrasyon, sa ganitong mga posibilidad o sa anupamang krisis na maaaring mangyari sa hinaharap," she said. "Government should always prepare for COVID-19 surges like a major disaster response. Enough portion of the budget must invariably be identified for addressing all pandemic-related programs. There must be budget always for continuous vaccination, testing, contact-tracing, isolation, social amelioration and livelihood assistance for those affected," she added. World Health Organization (WHO) Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently cautioned against a narrative that the fast-spreading Omicron variant is risk-free, stressing that "this pandemic is nowhere near over." He further warned that "with the incredible growth of Omicron globally, new variants are likely to emerge." As the virus mutates, De Lima said the government should be ready to procure and effectively roll out improved vaccines as soon as they become available. "We must keep up with the latest scientific developments and best practices for us to finally put an end to this pandemic," she said in a recent Tweet. The WHO Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Vaccine Composition said last Jan 11 that, "A vaccination strategy based on repeated booster doses of the original vaccine composition is unlikely to be appropriate or sustainable." The expert group, which is assessing the performance of COVID-19 vaccines, said that, in order to more effectively deal with emerging variants such as Omicron, new vaccines must be developed. De Lima stressed that region-wide lockdown should be avoided as much as possible in favor of more localized lockdowns. "Also we must encourage continuous local production of medicines, medical and personal protective equipments. Sa tamang paghahanda--sa maagap, responsable at siyentipikong pamamaraan na hindi idinadaan lang sa dahas o padalos-dalos na pasya, uusad pa rin ang ekonomiya habang tumutugon sa pandemya," she added. The lady Senator from Bicol stressed that everyone should do their part in ending this pandemic, especially by observing all reasonable measures, including getting vaccinated and the recommended booster shots, to avoid unnecessary deaths, suffering and further rounds of widespread lockdowns. "Let us all act responsibly. Be mindful of the symptoms. Isolate. Get a test or not, but isolate whenever there is even the slightest chance that you are carrying the virus. Contact trace on our own volition. Vaccinate if medically possible. Basically, have a care for others," she said. It can be noted that even though data indicate that existing COVID vaccines are less effective in protecting against Omicron transmission than against previous strains, the WHO Chief maintained that it remained vital to ensure broader, more equitable access to the jabs.
The Andrews government is reconsidering a promise to force poker machine players at Crown to commit to maximum losses and time limits before they can start gambling.

Last years royal commission into Crown, headed by Ray Finkelstein, QC, recommended tough new rules to make problem gamblers cut back on their losses, including mandatory pre-commitment limits on the amount of money and time spent playing the casinos 2628 poker machines.

The royal commission called for pre-commitment limits on the amount of money and time spent playing Crowns 2628 poker machines Credit:Peter Braig

The Andrews government, which raised $844 million in poker machine taxes in 2019-20, and a further $149 million in casino taxes, has said it supports all of Commissioner Finkelsteins 33 recommendations in principle.

But the pre-commitment recommendation is understood to have run into resistance from within the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
Units are poised to pick up in popularity, as last years runaway house price growth is tipped to force buyers into more affordable properties and some investors jump back into the market.

But agents say buyers will favour units more in Brisbane than Sydney and Melbourne, where upgraders still vie for the keys to houses that offer more space.

Priced-out buyers will be forced to turn to more affordable properties, such as apartments, according to experts. Credit:Louise Kennerley

There are a number of market conditions that should push unit prices up in 2022, according to Domains chief of research and economics Nicola Powell.

Theyve seen less growth than house prices, weve seen rising investment activity, weve got tight rental markets and the sheer inability for buyers to buy a house, Dr Powell said.
Wests Tigers forward Tuki Simpkins has been questioned by police after turning himself in for fleeing the scene of an accident while driving without a licence on Sunday morning.

Simpkins was driving a vehicle with multiple passengers in the car when he mounted the kerb and crashed into a fence in the early hours of Sunday. Its believed the passengers are members of the Tigers Jersey Flegg squad.

Wests Tigers forward Tuki Simpkins is in hot water after an incident in the early hours of Sunday morning. Credit:NRL Photos

Simpkins was not under the influence of alcohol and later told police that he was driving his teammates to McDonalds for an early morning meal when he lost control of the vehicle.

Police were due to interview the 20-year-old on Monday after he turned himself in when officers questioned the owner of the vehicle - Simpkins roommate - about the incident.
London: Julian Assange has won the right to ask the Supreme Court to consider an appeal to his extradition to the United States.

Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Burnett of Maldon denied Assanges application to appeal to the Supreme Court, but granted the Australians application to certify a point of law.

The point of law raised by Assanges team was in what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court of first instance in extradition proceeding.

Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London in 2017. Credit:AP

In their reasons, the Justices said that it does not appear that the Supreme Court has considered the question.
Putin does not have to worry about serious economic retaliation. Germany has effectively vetoed use of the financial nuclear option, which would be to expel Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments. Berlins argument is that such sanctions have asymmetric blowback. The US has little direct exposure and would suffer modest loss. German and European companies with large interests in Russia would take the brunt. This leaves little on the table beyond surgical sanctions on Russian banks and other manageable frictions. I dont see anything on the economic front that would seriously frighten Putin, said Ian Bond, former ambassador and British security planner now at the Centre for European Reform. If Putin is to attack, he must act soon. He has a narrow window for a combined-arms invasion with tanks and towed-artillery before the ground turns into a bog. The military imperative is to lunge deep into Ukraine and deliver a knock-out blow before the mid-March thaw. That is not easy: it took six weeks for Russian forces to clear the Chechen capital of Grozny in urban fighting. Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzia, and Odessa are all larger.

A team of ex-military officers and planners writing for the Atlantic Council say that Putin has over the past week set the conditions to execute a high intensity, multi-domain attack. This includes the deployment of air-defence systems, electronic-warfare platforms, Iskander-K medium-range ballistic missiles, and combat sustainment units. It has used forthcoming manoeuvres with Belarus as cover to bring forward Su-35 advanced fighters and S-400 surface-to-air missiles. Still missing is the clinching evidence that Russia has begun to call up reservists. Members of Ukraines Territorial Defence Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, train in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine. Credit:AP The Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington has laid out the likely options for the Kremlin in an essay by CIA veteran Philip Wasielewski and CSIS security chief Seth Jones. Putin could peel off the Black Sea coast and link up to the Crimea, perhaps pushing beyond Odessa to deprive Ukraine of its entire coast. However, the British warning on Sunday suggests that he aims for total decapitation of the Ukrainian state.

He could seize the whole of Orthodox Eastern Ukraine as far as the Dnieper River. But this would leave a large enough rump to survive as a viable state and permanent headache. The conquest would have to include Kyiv, the great prize for Putin, who harks back to Kievan Rus as the ancient cradle of the Russian nation in his mythologised ethno-nationalist version of history. The CSIS says Putin could go further and annex all of the country, except the mostly Catholic lands to the West (old Galicia). This former Habsburg pocket would be hard to hold down over time. Putin could try to take everything and announce a tripartite Slavic union of Russia with Ukraine and Belarus, reuniting all the Russias of the Tsars. This would require ruthless Russification, by the methods of Catherine the Great or Stalin.

Energy dependence has turned core Europe into an accomplice by default. Russia is currently supplying roughly 120 billion cubic metres of gas through all pipelines or as liquefied natural gas (ICIS data). This accounts for half of German needs in industry, power, and home-heating, and even higher ratios in a string of EU countries. Loading If this was cut off entirely  tricky for Russia without damaging its own gas fields  the gap could in extremis be plugged from global sources. It would take 160 LNG cargoes a month, out of the global total of 400, said Thierry Bros, former head of energy security at Frances economy ministry. It would be like the Berlin airlift. It is doable, but I think it would prove much harder than it looks on paper, he said. US liquefaction export plants are already running at 95 per cent capacity. Much of the global LNG supply to Asia is on fixed contracts. You cannot reroute cargoes on a huge scale except by political force majeure. Prices would go through the roof and there would be industrial rationing in Europe and Asia, a violent shock for supply chains. Europe has no stomach for such an experiment. Top figures in the German Social Democratic Party are not even willing to take Nord Stream 2 off the table if Putin annihilates Ukraine. Defence minister Chrisinte Lambrecht said there is no connection between the two issues. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has belatedly agreed to demands from Washington and his Green coalition partners that there should be some linkage, but the commitment is too vague and half-hearted to have much deterrent value. He still insists that the pipeline is a purely commercial matter.

Germany has not only refused to sell vital weapons to Ukraine - although it is the worlds fifth biggest arms exporter - but is actively preventing its NATO allies from doing so. Putin can ignore Europe. What he does have to worry about is what happens inside Ukraine itself. He cannot know for sure how much of the population will acquiesce in a Slavic Anschluss. He must contend with Ukraines battle-hardened army, equipped with US and British Javelin anti-tank missiles, and backed by 900,000 reservists on call and in location. It might resist tenaciously and greatly raise the political cost for Putin in Russia. Loading The Kremlin has overwhelming air superiority, but the US is upping the ante by providing Ukraine with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. These come too late to change the immediate battlefield balance, but they signal a US intent to supply a Mujahideen-style insurgency after any invasion. Washington is dusting down the Reagan Doctrine of the 1980s. The US judged - correctly - that it could bleed the Soviet Union dry by arming resistance movements wherever the Soviets were overextended. For every dollar spent, it cost Moscow $10.

Will Ukrainians go along with an attrition policy in which they pay the highest price? These are the unknowns that may yet cause Putin to hesitate. Investors are struggling to price this extraordinary showdown. Markets always have trouble adjusting to geopolitical convulsions. There is a reflexive assumption that talks will avert the unthinkable and that the status quo will reassert itself. The London and Paris bourses remained becalmed in the weeks before the First World War, slow to grasp why Sarajevo was different and unique, a gift from Mars as it was later discovered to have been called by the German high command. There again, perhaps the collective intuition of the markets is that earnings will scarcely miss a beat even if there is an invasion. It is a fair bet that Europe will roll over as it did over Crimea. A despairing Washington might accept a fait accompli and cut its losses. Such a squalid outcome is all too plausible. The Telegraph, London
Dubai: The United Arab Emirates has intercepted two ballistic missiles targeting Abu Dhabi, its state-run news agency reported, in the latest attack to target the Emirati capital.

The attack on Abu Dhabi, after another last week killed three people and wounded six, further escalates tensions across the Persian Gulf as Yemens years-long civil war grinds on.

This is the second missile attack on the Emirati capital in a week. Credit:Getty

That war, pitting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition, has become a regional conflict as negotiations continue over Tehrans tattered nuclear deal with world powers. The collapse of the accord has sparked years of attacks across the region.

The state-run WAM news agency said that missile fragments fell harmlessly over Abu Dhabi.
Washington: Fears of a Russian invasion into Ukraine have intensified, with the US putting up to 8500 troops on heightened alert, NATO sending ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe, and the UK warning of violent and bloody consequences if the Kremlin strikes.

After weeks of diplomatic talks designed to de-escalate Russias aggression, the Biden administration held a secure video call with European leaders on Tuesday AEDT to discuss an expansion of American military involvement in the region amid growing concern over President Vladimir Putins intentions.

A Tu-95 bomber at a Russian airbase. Russia has intensified its military drills. Credit:AP

I had a very, very, very good meeting - total unanimity with all the European leaders, Biden told reporters at the White House. Well talk about it later.

The talks come less than a day after the US State Department ordered the family members of US embassy staff to leave the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and urged all non-essential staff and Americans to depart the country.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The Sint Maarten Tourism Bureau (STB) together with the French Tourist Office partnered to launch two marketing campaigns with Expedia during 2021, the first one was successfully executed in Spring 2021. The second campaign launched in November 2021 is currently ongoing throughout Spring 2022.



The current ongoing Expedia marketing campaign continues to perform good resulting in high return on ad spend with a gross booking revenue of close to USD$ 1.0 million thus far.



The cooperative marketing campaign also generated over 2000 room nights since the launch of the campaign in November 2021.



In December 2021, there was a total of 33.879 stayover arrivals, which is an increase of 151% in comparison to December 2020 stayover arrivals.



The majority of travelers turn to OTAs (Online Travel Agent) throughout their purchasing journey for trip inspiration, planning, or booking.



The objective of the campaign is to promote the Dutch and French side of the island to the United States market with the aim to inspire, engage, and covert travel consumers to book a trip to the destination by leveraging on Expedias extensive product portfolio.



The marketing campaign is conducted online and consists of search result banners, homepage native ads, and display banner ads on Expedias platform.



This is used to maximize traffic to the dedicated destination-landing page, providing travel consumers with the opportunity to book their trip, as well as view inspiring content about places to stay and things to do while on the island.



Expedia continues to be one of the leading OTAs in the United States, and therefore carrying out a marketing campaign with Expedia will allow the destination to reach a broad range of active vacation seekers, said STB Marketing Director Gianira Arrindell.



Interest in the destination continues to grow, of which is evident in the high search and booking volume for the destination conducted on Expedia.



Therefore, it is important that we continue to be at the forefront increasing destination consideration and stimulating last minute and future bookings, Gianira Arrindell further added.



STB will continue to collaborate with OTAs, tour operators, and airlines in addition to carrying out other marketing activities to further increase destination awareness and stimulate bookings that will result in positive economic value for the destination.
PHILIPSBURG:--- Defense in the Caribbean again has an operational patrol vessel at its disposal. The naval ship His Netherlands Majesty's Ship (HNLMS) Friesland arrived in Curacao around 12:00 pm last Sunday. HNLMS Friesland will stay in the Caribbean for at least six months.

In the coming months, the ship will patrol the Caribbean Sea intensively. There it is deployed for, among other things, anti-drug operations, enforcement in the case of arms smuggling and human trafficking, but also for possible hurricane relief within or outside the Kingdom. The ship will also sail for the Coast Guard, and will also be involved in enforcing environmental regulations, for example when it comes to (illegal) fishing.

The new station ship is again an Oceangoing Patrol Vessel of the Holland class. HNLMS Friesland was last active as a station ship in the Caribbean in the spring of 2018. With the presence of the station ship, the armed forces fulfill their constitutional tasks, such as maintaining the international legal order. The previous station ship, HNLMS Groningen, managed to book record drug seizures five times in one month and intercepted thousands of kilos of drugs.
MARIGOT: --- The protestors that are supporting the Webster and Beauperthuy families that are facing the possibility of losing their lands blocked the road on Monday as they continue to put pressure on the State of France and the Collectivity of St. Martin to intervene in the ongoing land saga.

On Monday morning the family along with several politicians gathered on the property that is located next to Gedimat and just below Leader Price. On the scene was President Daniel Gibbs who spoke at length to Rudy Webster and his sons and other members of the family. Asked to comment on the ongoing land dispute President Gibbs said that the matter is a private matter since it is being handled in the court of law. Gibbs said that on Tuesday the Territorial Council will be meeting to discuss all matters related to land on St. Martin. The President said that the Webster land issue will be part of that meeting. He also said that even though it is a private matter he does believe that the local government could bring certain things to their attention.

Before the sun could rise, the founder of the Rassemblement Saint Martin Louis Mussington (RSM) arrived on the scene, and he remained there throughout the day giving the family the support they need as they stood up for their rights.

Mussington said in an invited comment he is of the option that this is an attempt by the French colonialist power to take away land from St. Martins people. Mussington said under those conditions no one on St. Martin should accept this type of injustice that is being done to them. He said now more than ever the people of St. Martin have a moral obligation which is to stand up and fight.

Also from the RSM was Julien Gumbs who was there in support of the family.

Also on the scene very early was Yawo Nyuiadzi who interacted with the protestors and then left. Nyuiadzi then returned to the location when the protest heated up. He was asked by the protestors to leave the scene because they allege that Nyuiadzi is responsible for stealing money and land from the people of St. Martin.

Cedric Andre and others from district four were also on the scene.

Jules Charville from the Hope Party came to the scene much later in the day. He, however, said that he was fully versed in the affair of Webster and Beauperthuy since he was there from the very beginning when they started the legal process.

Charville is of the opinion that the Collectivity took way too long to intervene, he said that he has two possible options that the family can use to get out of this unfair legal mess, one being is to start over the legal process because he felt there were several mistakes made, however, this option would cost the family a lot of money.

The second option Charville said is that the COM could intervene by saying they want all lands on St. Martin for St. Martin people, but this too would require certain things like having a project in place.

Up to the time this article is published the protest continues as the family said they were told that the President of the COM Daniel Gibbs, the State representatives, and the lawyers for the family that is based in Guadeloupe are busy in negotiations along with the court-appointed administrator. When these meetings are concluded and there is a concrete decision taken then it is expected that the President of the COM will return to the scene to update the protestors.

It should be noted and made clear that there are a number of Gendarmes on the scene controlling the traffic and assisting with keeping the peace. There has not been any type of power forced on the protestors.

In the meantime, the family and their supporters made clear that they will not budge or unblock the roads unless there is a concrete decision taken today, which is to completely cancel the planned auction scheduled for January 25th, 2022 in Paris.
Edith (Edi) Marie Smith, daughter of the late Glen Lester and Dorothy Jane Allison, was born in Youngstown, OH on Friday, October 11th, 1963, and she departed this life on Saturday, April 30th, 2022, having attained the age of 59 years. In addition to her parents, she was preceded in death b
Polaris or the North Star is a star that appears almost directly above the Earth's rotational axis. As the Earth turns, every other star seems to spin around the axis, tracing out a circle in the sky, but the North Star appears to stand still. But no matter what time of night or what season it is, following Polaris will lead a traveler in the Northern Hemisphere due north.

Polaris is part of the constellation known as Ursa Minor and the cluster of stars called the Little Dipper .

The North Star is not the star closest to us, nor is it the brightest star in the night sky. But culturally, scientifically and navigationally, it's one of the most important stars of recent centuries.

What is Polaris?

Polaris is a "pulsing" star, a type of star also known as a Cepheid variable , which means that it appears to vary in brightness ever so slightly  only one tenth of a magnitude  over a time frame of just under four days.

Although we call Polaris a star out of habit, it's actually a system of three stars, with the brightest dubbed Polaris A.

If you train a small backyard telescope on Polaris, you might notice a tiny companion star (called Polaris B) shining at 9th magnitude with a pale bluish tint. This companion was first sighted by William Herschel in 1779, reported astronomer Bob Argyle and co-authors in the 2019 book " An Anthology of Visual Double Stars ."

Astronomers believe that the main star and Polaris B are separated by about 2,400 astronomical units  one astronomical unit (AU) being the average distance of the sun to the Earth. The orbital period of the two stars may number in the many thousands of years.

An artist's depiction of Polaris in the night sky. (Image credit: AlxeyPnferov/ iStock/Getty Images Plus)

In 1929, by studying the spectrum of Polaris, a third companion star (Polaris C) was discovered. This one, a white dwarf, lies only 18.5 AU from Polaris A (about the same distance of the planet Uranus from our sun). Its extreme closeness to the far more brilliant Polaris A explains why it went unseen for so long.

Polaris is located at a distance of 323 light-years from Earth, according to a 2012 study in Astrophysical Journal Letters that was previously covered by Space.com . The main star boasts a luminosity nearly 2,500 times that of our sun, according to Jim Kaler , an astronomer at the University of Illinois. In modern times the North Star is somewhere around the 50th brightest star in the night sky  and, oddly, it appears to be getting brighter . Today, Polaris could be 4.6 times brighter than it was in ancient times.

Although it is one of the most-observed stars, Polaris is a bit of a stellar mystery, as Space.com reported in 2020. In a preprint paper, researchers Hilding R. Neilson, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto, and Haley Blinn, at the time an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, summarized the many discrepancies and conflicting observations of Polaris. The scientists noted that most large research telescopes can't train their gazes that far north. And the professional instruments that can sweep that part of the sky aren't designed to inspect stars as near and bright as the Polaris system.

How do you find the North Star?

Polaris is located in the constellation known as Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, which includes the group of stars called the Little Dipper. Polaris, the North Star, lies at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.

A few of the stars that make up that constellation can be blotted out with very little moonlight or street lighting. So the best way to find your way to Polaris, based on the experience of meteorologist and skywatcher Joe Rao, is to use the so-called "Pointer" stars. The stars, Dubhe and Merak, form the wall of the "bowl" farthest from the "handle" of the scoop-shaped Big Dipper. Draw a line between these two stars and follow it out about five times the distance between the two stars, and you will spot Polaris.

Exactly where Polaris appears in your northern sky depends on your latitude.

From New York City the North Star stands 41 degrees above the northern horizon; 10 degrees is roughly equal to your clenched fist held at arm's length, so from New York, Polaris would appear to stand about "four fists" above the northern horizon.

New York's latitude is also about 41 degrees, and that is no coincidence. At the North Pole, you would find Polaris overhead. At the equator, it would appear to sit right on the horizon. The North Star climbs progressively higher the farther north you go; when you head south, the star drops lower and ultimately disappears from view once you cross the equator and head into the Southern Hemisphere.

How do people navigate with the North Star?

Polaris is more constant than a magnetic compass, and as such has been a part of navigation and wayfinding techniques around the Northern Hemisphere for generations. Only about 0.7 degree separates Polaris from the North Celestial Pole, the pivot point directly north of the Earth around which the stars circle daily. That distance amounts to less than the apparent width of 1.5 full moons, making Polaris a truly remarkable fixed point in the night sky.

Traditional Polynesian wayfinding brought voyagers clear across the Pacific Ocean for thousands of years, cultural astronomy researcher Carla Bento Guedes and cultural astronomer Duane W. Hamacher wrote for The Conversation .

Polaris, the North Star, lies at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper (lower left), whose stars are faint compared to those of the Big Dipper (upper right). (Image credit: Starry Night Software)

The relative positions of the stars, including the North Star, have changed quite a lot in the last 3,500 years of voyaging, but stars like Polaris guided Polynesian people in canoes from Canada to Japan. To this day, navigators like Nainoa Thompson of the Polynesian Voyaging Society use Polaris, known in Hawaiian as Hokupa'a or "fixed star," to make voyages across the Pacific.

Explorers and colonizers like Christopher Columbus also used Polaris to navigate across oceans, to varying degrees of success.

And according to NASA , the Apollo astronauts used Polaris as one of 37 stars they could use to orient themselves and navigate on the moon.

What does the North Star symbolize?

Appearing fixed in the night sky, Polaris' reliability is a potent symbol and metaphor across northern hemisphere cultures.

According to Sky and Telescope , Norse mythology holds Polaris to be the end of a spike around which the sky rotates, while in Mongolian legend the star is a peg that holds the world together.

The coat of arms of Nunavut, Canada, features Niqirtsuituq, the Inuktitut name for the North Star. According to the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut , the star is included to symbolize constancy as "unchanged as the leadership of the elders in the community."

In 2008, NASA beamed the Beatles song "Across the Universe" to the North Star, in honor of several anniversaries  the 50th anniversary of NASA's founding, the 50th anniversary of the launch of Explorer 1 (the first U.S. satellite), the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Deep Space Network (which receives signals from deep-space probes such as Voyager) and the 40th anniversary of the recording of the song itself.

In Shakespeare's " Julius Caesar ," the title character proclaims, "But I am constant as the Northern Star, of whose true fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament." Ironically, although Shakespeare's Caesar meant to imply that he was unshakeable, at the time of Caesar's assassination in 44 B.C. Polaris would have moved across the sky. Until relatively recently, Polaris wasn't the North Star at all.

What's the next North Star?

Caesar wouldn't have used the North Star to navigate, because thousands of years ago Polaris wasn't aligned with Earth's rotational axis. It would have moved throughout the night, just like any other star in the night sky.

Our spinning earth is subject to torque, like a spinning top, that is caused by the gravitational forces of the sun and moon. As a result the earth's axis wobbles, a phenomenon called precession, wrote physicist David Stern for NASA . The wobble causes Earth's axis to describe a circle in the sky.

Related: As the world turns: Night sky photographer snaps Earth's precession

In 2020, NASA's TESS mission determined that Thuban, which was once the North Star, and its companion eclipse every six years. (Image credit: NASA/MIT/TESS)

So, as the centuries go by, the North Celestial Pole shifts.

Since it takes about 25,800 years for the Earth's axis to complete a single wobble, different stars have become the North Star at different times. For example, the star Thuban in the constellation of Draco was the North Star around the year 2600 B.C., during the age of the Pyramid builders of ancient Egypt. The star Kochab was the closest to a North Star at the time of Plato, around 400 B.C. Polaris took over sometime before the 5th century, when the Macedonian writer and historian Stobaeus described it as "always visible," according to Space.com sister site Space Answers .

Polaris is actually still drawing closer to the pole and will be at its steadiest on March 24, 2100. On this day, it will be just 27.15 arcminutes, or slightly less than the moon's apparent diameter, away from the North Celestial Pole.

By around the year 14,000 A.D., according to NASA , Earth's axis will point reasonably close to the star Vega , one of the brightest stars in the sky.

Additional resources and reading

For more information on Indigenous traditional constellations and navigation, check out this work from Science Friday on how the lost constellations of Indigenous North Americans can connect culture, science, and inspire the next generation of scientists. For a kid's look at Polaris and stargazing in general, visit the American Museum of Natural History's Ology site. And if you want a practical how-to guide on navigating with the stars, try David Burch's " Celestial Navigation: A Complete Home Study Course, Second Edition " (2015).

Additional reporting by Joe Rao, Space.com columnist, and Elizabeth Howell, Space.com contributor.

Bibliography
Shaheed Al-Hafed, 23 January 2022 (SPS) - The representative of the Polisario Front to the United Nations and coordinator with MINURSO Sidi Mohamed Omar affirmed Saturday that the Sahrawi people are determined to defend their rights by all legitimate means, pointing out that the visit of the UN envoy for Western Sahara Staffan de Mistura to the region enabled him to enquire about the situation of the Sahrawi people who are struggling for the liberation and strengthening of the Sahrawi States institutions despite the occupation.



Guest of the programme El Hadath aired on the Sahrawi television, Sidi Mohamed Omar said that the Sahrawis are ready to cooperate, as part of the efforts of the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU), to reach a peaceful, fair and lasting solution between the Sahrawi Republic and the Moroccan occupier, on the basis of the principles of the international legality and the UN relevant resolutions as well as the objectives and principles stated in the AU Constitutive Act.



The Sahrawi people are strongly committed to their inalienable rights to freedom and total national independence and are still ready to continue their struggle to defend their rights by all legitimate means, affirmed the Sahrawi official.



Since the outbreak of the armed struggle against the Spanish colonialism in 1973 and the proclamation of the Sahrawi Republic on 27 February 1976, the Sahrawi peoples claim remains the total national independence, that was the clear message that the Sahrawi people expressed to the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara Staffan de Mistura during his visit to the Sahrawi Republic, he added.



He underscored that de Misturas first visit to the region since his appointment in October is part of his meeting with the parties to the conflict (Morocco and the Polisario Front) and the two neighboring countries (Algeria and Mauritania).



He said that at a time when the Moroccan occupier attempted to impose the total blackout on de Misturas visit to the region, the UN envoys tour aroused great interest among the national and international media which accompanied him during his different stops in the Sahrawi Republic.



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Michelle Troconis attorney prevailed Monday when a Hartford judge ordered that the local states attorney respond in depth to a request for information related to two domestic violence cases filed against Kent Mawhinney, a co-defendant in the disappearance of Jennifer Dulos.

While the judge had stopped short of ordering the information be turned over immediately to Attorney Jon Schoenhorn, who represents Troconis, she told Hartford States Attorney Sharmese Walcott that she had a month to detail what information she had, what she didnt and what she objected to releasing to Schoenhorn.

Schoenhorns motion for disclosure comes amid a broader effort to learn whether Mawhinney, who was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the disappearance, had cooperated with authorities or been offered a deal in exchange for his testimony against Troconis, filings show.

But ahead of the hearing Monday, Schoenhorn had written in court filings that Walcott had not responded to this request.

Troconis also was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Both she and Mawhinney pleaded not guilty and are free on bond as their cases remain before a Stamford judge. Jennifer Dulos estranged husband Fotis Dulos died of suicide on Jan. 30, 2020, three weeks after he was charged with murder in the case.

I do think you need to respond to this request for disclosure, said Hartford Superior Court Judge Hope Seeley after listening to both attorneys during a hearing on the request Monday. Seeley said she wanted Walcott to clearly state what documents she had and didnt have in her possession. If thats not in your possession, rather than argue about it, say you dont have it, Seeley said.

Mawhinneys appearance Monday was for the two domestic violence charges before Seeley. The charges stem from incidents involving Mawhinneys ex-wife as the pairs divorce was pending in 2019, records show.

Schoenhorn wants all arrest reports and evidence in the domestic violence cases, along with any other evidence of a deal.

Schoenhorn contends he has a right to nearly all evidence in the domestic violence cases as he prepares to take his clients case to trial. Im not asking for anything that isnt being turned over to Mr. Mawhinneys attorney, Schoenhorn said.

Walcott told Seeley that she felt Schoenhorn should have filed his motion in Stamford Superior Court where the conspiracy to commit murder cases are proceeding.

But Walcott conceded that by law, Schoenhorn had a right to any documents or indication that a deal had been struck in her cases to gain Mawhinneys cooperation in the case against Troconis.

Of course, they should be turned over, Walcott said.

Jennifer Dulos disappeared on May 24, 2019, after dropping her five children off at school, police reports said. Her remains have not been found and she is presumed dead by investigators and her family.

Mawhinney was already facing sexual assault charges in connection with an incident that occurred with his estranged wife in South Windsor when Jennifer Dulos disappeared, court documents show. Mawhinney was later charged with violating a protective order barring him from contact with his estranged wife.

Both cases are still pending in Hartford Superior Court even though its been three years since Mawhinneys arrest on the sexual assault charges. His divorce was finalized in December of 2020. Mawhinneys conspiracy to commit murder case was placed on the trial list on Jan. 18.

Mahwinney was initially held on $2 million bond for months until October 2020 when his bond was reduced to $246,000. Mawhinneys release came weeks after he was interviewed by state police about Jennifer Dulos, Schoenhorn said in court papers.

He made statements to save his own skin, Schoenhorn said of Mawhinneys interview with state police.
Michael Cummo / Hearst Connecticut Media

Two Connecticut residents are walking away with full pockets, so to speak, after winning big with the Connecticut lottery last week.

A $2 million Powerball ticket was sold in Milford on Jan. 19. According to the Connecticut Lottery, the winning ticket correctly matched the five numbers of the drawing. That ticket was claimed two days later by an unnamed Milford resident.
Terry Mattingly leads GetReligion.org and lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He is a senior fellow at the Overby Center at the University of Mississippi.
Ashtabula, OH (44004)

Today

Rain showers this morning with overcast skies during the afternoon hours. High 53F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 44F. Winds light and variable.
Ashtabula, OH (44004)

Today

Rain showers this morning with overcast skies during the afternoon hours. High 54F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%..

Tonight

Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 44F. Winds light and variable.
Law enforcement will strongly intervene against any actions to intimidate the employees of the Bucharest Transport Company (STB) who intend to resume work, the Capital Prefecture said in a press release on Monday evening.

According to the cited source, the Prefecture of the Capital and the Bucharest City Hall established, during a working meeting on the STB strike, a series of measures, including the firm intervention of law enforcement against any actions to intimidate employees who intend to resume exercising the right to work, Agerpres.ro informs.

The following measures were established: maintaining the gendarmerie and police forces in the area of the STB depots and bus bases, in order to prevent any incidents in terms of public order and safety; maintaining the measure regarding the supplementation of the police and gendarmerie forces in the area of metro stations, both inside and outside; ensuring the traffic and local police units in the main intersections, for the road traffic flow and the provision by the STB of the population's information in real time regarding the available means of transport, through the info Transport Bucharest app.
As many as 114,000 doses of vaccine from Pfizer BioNTech and intended for the vaccination of children aged between 5 -11 will arrive in Romania on Tuesday.

"The vaccines will be delivered by air and will arrive at the airports in Otopeni, Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara. Transport to the storage centers is provided by the manufacturing company, including by land. The vaccines are transported safely in special containers, carbonic ice and sealed foil," informs the National COVID Vaccination Coordination Committee (CNCAV).

Thus, the vaccination process for children aged between 5 - 11 years old will begin on January 26, and the doses will be distributed as follows:

* Bucharest National Storage Center: 42,000 doses

* Brasov Regional Storage Center: 12,000 doses

* Constanta Regional Storage Center: 12,000 doses

* Cluj Regional Storage Center: 12,000 doses

* Craiova Regional Storage Center: 12,000 doses

* Iasi Regional Storage Center: 12,000 doses

* Timisoara Regional Storage Center: 12,000 doses.

"We remind you that the programming will be carried out only in the vaccination centers found on the platform with the name P_Ped, through the accounts of parents or legal representatives. At this moment, 220 pediatric vaccination offices are configured in the programming platform at national level. The map with the vaccination centres is available here: https://vaccinare-covid.gov.ro/platforma-programare/," the cited source shows.

Vaccination can also be carried out without an appointment, by direct presentation in the offices of the vaccination centers dedicated to children or in the offices of family doctors who have requested pediatric doses, during the working hours, Agerpres.ro informs.

The immunization schedule for children with the COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty is 10 micrograms/dose, at 21 days; each dose is administered intramuscularly, similar to other eligible age groups.

Starting with January 13, with the support of the Special Telecommunications Service, the electronic platform allowed the scheduling of children between the ages of 5 and 11, and until January 24, at 8.00, 3,355 such requests were registered.
Most new cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to the last report have been registered in Bucharest - 1,355 and in the counties of Timis - 987, Cluj - 802, Constanta - 741, Iasi - 495, Bihor - 453, informed, on Monday, the Strategic Communication Group (GCS), Agerpres reports.

The fewest cases have been reported in Ialomita and Braila - 41, Covasna - 55 and Gorj - 66.The Capital remains in the red zone in terms of the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate, with an incidence of 10.23 cases per thousand inhabitants, increasing compared to the previous day (9.5).The highest incidence is registered in Cluj (15.12), by the counties of Timis (13.66), Ilfov (11.07) and Brasov (10.04).
President Klaus Iohannis stated on Monday that the Unification of January 24, 1859, demonstrates the importance of the existence of a project to catalyze the energies of the Romanian people, Agerpres reports.

"The Unification of January 24, 1859 demonstrates the importance of the existence of a project that catalyzes the energies of our people. In trying times, Romanians have shown that they can act with a common conscience to achieve a historical goal. Without creating external dissension, the Romanians skillfully used the international context and chose a ruler who lived up to this ambitious project," said President Iohannis at a battle flag decoration ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Carol I Park.The head of state praised Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza's "act of bravery and assumption of leadership of the two principalities", who "laid the foundations of the irreversible historical process of transition to a modern state, deeply attached to European values.""The Unification has been an ideal since the 1848 [pasoptistii were called the 48-ers - ed.n.] Revolution and took shape through the double election of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, a clever strategy, generated by the deep patriotism and solidarity of the politicians of the time. In his short reign, Alexandru Ioan Cuza changed the course of history, he managed to consolidate the Unification by creating the first single Parliament and the first single Government. He was the one who laid the foundations of the modern Romanian state, carrying out numerous reforms in key areas such as the army, the electoral system, public administration, justice, education, agriculture or the fiscal system. At the same time, Alexandru Ioan Cuza obtained the recognition of the Unification by the great powers and its acceptance as a final and irreversible act, making known the fact that the will of the Romanian people could no longer be ignored," Iohannis stated.The President emphasized that "the Unification of 1859 showed that ethnic, linguistic and cultural unity must naturally be followed by political-administrative unity, the pragmatic path towards consolidating the power of the United Principalities"."In 1859, Romanians chose to build their future in accordance with European values and principles, and the fact that today Romania is a member of the European Union and the North Atlantic Alliance proves that despite the terrible trials history has subjected us to, the ideals of our people have always remained the same - freedom, democracy, national unity, and the proper functioning of state institutions. Another important element in the process of affirming national identity was the establishment of the war flag for the military units. At the ceremony of handing over the new military flags, Alexandru Ioan Cuza synthesized the significance of this national symbol, stating that the flag encompasses the entire history of the state. On the occasion of the 163rd anniversary of the Unification of 1859, I decided to decorate the war flag of the 282nd Armored Brigade "Unirea Principatelor" [Unification of Principalities], of the 8th Operational Tactical Missile Brigade "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" and of the 284th Tank Battalion "Cuza Voda"," President Klaus Iohannis went on to say.President Klaus Iohannis, Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca and Senate President Florin Citu took part, on Monday, in the decoration ceremony of the war flags of 282nd Armored Brigade "Unirea Principatelor" [Unification of Principalities], of the 8th Operational Tactical Missile Brigade "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" and of the 284th Tank Battalion "Cuza Voda", at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Carol I Park.The ceremony began with the singing of the national anthem and the performance of a religious service.The head of state laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The new draft law on dismantling the Section for the Investigation of Judicial Crimes (SIIJ) is an inadequate compromise, which violates Romania's obligations as a member of the European Union and of the Council of Europe, maintain the Romanian Judges Forum Association, the Association 'Movement for the Defence of the Status of Prosecutors, and the Initiative for Justice Association.

"The draft law published by the Ministry of Justice on January 21, 2022 abolishes the Special Section only formally, since the way in which the crimes committed by magistrates would be investigated, namely by prosecutors appointed by the Plenum of CSM [Superior Council of Magistracy] within the Criminal Investigation and Forensics Section with the Prosecutor's Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice (PICCJ) and the prosecutor's offices attached to the courts of appeal (PCA), preserves and even aggravates the problematic features of the SIIJ," shows a press release of the three Associations.

According to the cited source, one of the issues concerns the power to investigate all crimes committed by magistrates, therefore the corruption ones, too, which belongs to the prosecutors specifically appointed from the ordinary prosecutors' offices, although corruption deeds should be investigated by specialized prosecutors' offices, Agerpres.ro informs.

"In conclusion, the new draft law on the repeal of the Special Section represents an inadequate compromise, likely to violate the MCV [ the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism] Decision and the opinions of the Venice Commission, in particular Romania's obligations as a member of the European Union and of the Council of Europe. The natural solution remains the unconditional disbanding of the Special Section and the restoration of the powers of the specialized prosecutors' offices, such as DNA [National Anticorruption Directorate] and DIICOT [the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism], as proposed by the relevant European bodies," the cited source shows.

On Friday, the Ministry of Justice put up for public debate the draft law on the repeal of the Section for the Investigation of Judicial Crimes, Minister Catalin Predoiu announced.

The Minister explained that, after the disbanding of the SIIJ, its powers will be taken over by a structure inspired by the model of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, with 12 prosecutors at the center and 30 in the territory.

"We used a model inspired by the operation of the European Public Prosecutor's Office to investigate crimes that until now used to be under the SIIJ jurisdiction. That is, 12 prosecutors in Bucharest and 30 prosecutors spread across the country, two prosecutors per each court of appeal, a total of 42 prosecutors to investigate the crimes that used to be under SIIJ jurisdiction. The prosecutors will be appointed by the plenum of the CSM. The 12 prosecutors for Bucharest will be selected and appointed by the CSM plenum from among the Criminal Investigation Section of the Prosecutor General's Office, and the 30 prosecutors for the courts of appeal will be selected and appointed by the CSM plenum from the prosecutor's offices with the court of appeals," minister Predoiu specified.

He added that prosecutors from the Prosecutor General's Office will be recommended to the CSM plenum by the attorney general, and the prosecutors from the prosecutor's offices with the courts of appeal will be recommended by the chief prosecutors of the prosecutor's offices with the courts of appeal.

According to Predoiu, powers are divided among the two levels, namely the prosecutors of the criminal investigation section will carry out the criminal investigation in the case of crimes committed by CSM members, judges of the Supreme Court and prosecutors of the Prosecutor General's Office, judges of the court of appeals, prosecutors of the prosecutor's offices with these courts, judges of the Military Court of Appeal and prosecutors with this courts.
David Nicklaus David Nicklaus is a business columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Follow David Nicklaus Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

Banking regulators carry a big stick, but sometimes they can get results without actually using it.

Last month, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a report on the $15.5 billion a year that banks collect in overdraft fees. The agency has studied the issue before, but this research was accompanied by a pointed statement from its director, Rohit Chopra.

Many banks have become hooked on overdraft fees to feed their profit model, Chopra said. We will be taking action to restore meaningful competition to this market.

The mere threat of action is already producing results. The same day the report came out, Capital One announced that it was eliminating overdraft fees and a related fee for non-sufficient funds, which customers incur when a transaction is denied because they dont have enough money.

Several big banks have followed Capital Ones lead. Bank of America reduced its overdraft charge from $35 to $10. Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank said they will give customers a 24-hour grace period before levying overdraft charges. All three are eliminating the non-sufficient funds, or bounced check, fee.

Its a remarkably swift surrender on something that, according to the CFPB, accounts for nearly two-thirds of large banks fee revenue from checking accounts.

It is a big change, but theres a lot of reputational risk for banks that derive a large chunk of revenue from something that skews toward younger and lower-income consumers, said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

McBride said the banks were motivated by competitive pressure as well as the threat of regulation. Fin-tech startups such as Brigit and Chime Financial were already luring young consumers with the promise that theyd never pay for overdrafts, and online-only Ally Bank did away with its overdraft fee last summer.

It didnt used to be a competitive thing but its rapidly becoming so, McBride said. When you see the likes of Ally and Capital One moving to no fees, that puts more pressure on the traditional banks.

Consumer advocacy groups say the fees take advantage of low-income families, who sometimes must choose between paying $35 for an overdraft or being late with a rent payment. An earlier CFPB study found that 9% of account holders accounted for 79% of fees, with the median frequent overdrafter paying more than $700 a year.

Carter Dougherty, a spokesman for Americans for Financial Reform, hopes the CFPB will go ahead and put limits on overdraft fees. We believe there still needs to be strong federal regulation, particularly as regards the number of overdrafts allowed and the cost of overdrafts, he said. The power dynamic here is incredibly asymmetrical.

Consumers find it costly to switch banks, and Dougherty doubts that all 6,000 U.S. banks will voluntarily limit the fees. The Brookings Institution found last year that a few small banks collected overdraft fees that accounted for more than 100% of profits.

Whats not clear yet is how banks that are reducing overdraft fees will fill the revenue gap. McBride fears that theyll raise other fees, including monthly fees for maintaining a checking account.

Im not optimistic that the trend toward free checking is going to continue to be on an upward trajectory, McBride said. This is a big revenue gap that needs to be filled somehow.

If hes right, consumers in the aggregate may not save money, but at least the banks will no longer be playing a gotcha game with their poorest customers.

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4 Hens Creole Kitchen has joined the vendor lineup at the Food Hall at City Foundry. The restaurant opens Monday (Jan. 24) at the 5-month-old midtown venue.

4 Hens is a partnership between two married couples, Brandi and Brittany Artis and Brittani Gardner-Evans and Ebony Evans.

We are a Black, queer restaurant that is women-owned here in St. Louis, Brandi Artis tells Off the Menu.

Artis is 4 Hens executive chef. The Kansas City native first cooked professionally as a teenager at Godfathers Pizza and later attended both culinary and bartending school. More recently, before relocating to St. Louis with her family, she operated a culinary business in Chicago for 4 years.

That business was known for its street taco pop-ups in bars and clubs, Artis says, but she also catered larger events such as brunches where she would include Creole-based fare.

At 4 Hens, appetizers on the online menu include fried green tomatoes and the Slapp'n Shrimp (sauteed with Creole spices and sauced with remoulade).

Among the main courses are poboy sandwiches (andouille, chicken, shrimp or fried green tomato); shrimp and grits with smoked gouda cheese grits and Creole cream sauce; and the Big Easy, fries with mozzarella, Creole cream sauce and your choice of andouille, chicken, shrimp and crawfish.

In lieu of gumbo, Artis offers succotash soup, with okra, tomato, lima beans and corn: I didn't want to have gumbo because you do have a lot of Creole restaurants here in St. Louis, and so this is my modern twist on traditional Creole cuisine.

Review: Chez Ali proves long-anticipated Food Hall at City Foundry worth the wait Ali Thiam serves a small but appealing selection of Senegalese, Ivorian and Afro-Caribbean fare at his Food Hall kitchen.

Artis and her partners had looked at other commercial spaces before the Food Hall at City Foundry caught their interest.

I love architecture, and I love industrial design and industrial buildings, and so to be in this type of building, with such history, was something that I was like, Oh, my God ... I want in,'" she says.

For all her restaurant and kitchen experience, 4 Hens opening this week marks Artis debut as a restaurateur.

This is literally a dream come true, she says. And I could not be happier.

Six years after dream, City Foundry debuts long-awaited Food Hall The 30,000-square-foot hall opens with 11 vendors and four more due to open later this year.

4 Hens Creole Kitchen is open 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday and Wednesday-Saturday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday. The restaurant is closed Tuesday.

The Food Hall at City Foundry is located at 3730 Foundry Way.

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MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- A brain implant that helps control severe epilepsy in adults may do the same for children who suffer from unrelenting seizures, new research suggests.

The study is one of the first to examine the responsive neurostimulation (RNS) system in children.

RNS has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for adult patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, but the research for safety and efficacy in children has been limited.

"As we expand use of RNS to children, it is critical to consider how to determine the lower age limit," said study author Dr. Yasunori Nagahama, director of pediatric epilepsy surgery at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.

"Considering this procedure involves removing a portion of the skull to implant the device, the benefits and potential harm based on the variable skull development in individual patients should be considered. Children experience rapid skull growth within the first two years and reach about 90% of adult skull volume by around age 8," Nagahama explained in a Rutgers news release.

"In this study, there were two patients under 7 years at the time RNS was implanted, including a 3-year-old, who was the youngest reported patient to undergo RNS implantation," he added.

Nagahama and his team looked at 35 children and young adults, ranging in age from 3 to 25, who were plagued by drug-resistant epilepsy and were treated with RNS. Afterwards, 84% of the patients saw a reduction in disabling seizures, including 18% who had a reduction of more than 90%, and 6% who achieved complete freedom from seizures.

RNS involves implanting a device (similar to a heart pacemaker) that sends electrical charges directly to the brain, stimulating it when needed to prevent seizures. This system is being increasingly used in pediatric centers to help control seizures.

Of those plagued by epileptic seizures, up to 40% don't respond to medication, the study authors noted.

As an alternative to medication, RNS works by monitoring brainwave activity to detect developing seizures or any unusual electrical activity that may trigger seizures. The implanted device then delivers small pulses of stimulation to help the brainwaves return to normal.

"The findings suggest that responsive neurostimulation is an effective off-label surgical treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy in carefully selected pediatric patients," Nagahama said. "However, more research on long-term efficacy and safety is needed to determine which patients will benefit most."

Among the 35 patients in the study, only three experienced complications that required additional surgery. Interestingly, these complications were noted only in the young adults, not the younger children.

The findings were published recently in the journal Neurosurgery.

Despite the positive findings, RNS does come with risk, according to two experts who were not involved with the study.

"The RNS device is implanted into the skull, and in very young children there may be a risk for complications related to ongoing skull growth," said Dr. Keith Starnes, a pediatric epileptologist with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "Variability in skull growth and thickness should be considered on a case-by-case basis, and the potential benefits of neuromodulation weighed against the possibility of complications for an individual patient."

Another caveat to consider for RNS is the battery life of the monitor, Starnes noted.

"The expected battery life for RNS is currently about five to nine years. For children who have longer expected remaining life spans than adults, this could mean several more skull surgeries for battery replacement," he explained. "It is possible that this concern may be obviated in the future by advances in battery life and other technologies, but for now this is an important consideration."

Still, the findings suggest RNS is an effective, safe and well-tolerated treatment that can reduce the number of disabling seizures in children with epilepsy. But pediatric specialists should carefully select patients, who can be as young as 3, to determine if the implant is a suitable treatment for their condition.

Dr. Aparna Polavarapu, a pediatric epilepsy specialist and assistant professor at Montefiore Health System in New York City, said, "RNS provides a new way to approach seizure treatment; without the use of daily medications that may need periodic blood tests, drug interactions to be aware of or systemic side effects to monitor."

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on epilepsy.

SOURCES: Rutgers University, news release, Jan. 5, 2022; Keith Starnes, MD, member, Epilepsy Society, and pediatric epileptologist, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.; Aparna Polavarapu, MD, pediatric epilepsy specialist and assistant professor, Montefiore Health System, New York City; Neurosurgery, December 2021

Originally published on consumer.healthday.com, part of the TownNews Content Exchange.
MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Injection medications can save the vision of older people with macular degeneration, but the ongoing regimen is taxing. Now a preliminary study raises the possibility that some patients can safely be "weaned off" the treatment.

Researchers found that of just over 100 patients they treated with the eye injections, nearly one-third were able to "pause" the therapy within the first year. And of those followed for at least two years, most did not need to restart.

Experts stressed that the findings are early and do not identify which patients might safely take a treatment break, or possibly even stop.

"Weaning is an interesting concept," said Dr. Emily Chew of the National Eye Institute (NEI) in Bethesda, Md., which helped fund the research.

But at the moment, she said, it is not a standard practice, and one of the big questions is: How do you "pick" patients who can stop treatment without endangering their vision?

Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, is the leading cause of vision loss in the United States, according to the NEI. The disease damages the macula, a part of the eye's retina that is responsible for sharp, straight-ahead vision.

In the most serious form, called "wet" AMD, new blood vessels form in the back of the eye, leaking blood and other fluids, and scarring the macula. Not long ago, Chew said, patients with the condition would suffer rapid vision loss.

But in 2006, the first anti-VEGF medication was approved to treat wet AMD. VEGF, which stands for vascular endothelial growth factor, is a protein that promotes new blood vessel growth. Blocking it in the eye can stabilize wet AMD in most people, and improve vision in some.

"We are very lucky to have these drugs," Chew said. "This is a highly successful therapy."

The problem, though, is the burden of regular trips to the eye doctor, indefinitely.

"It's difficult not only for patients, but for the family members who have to take them to their appointments," said Dr. Akrit Sodhi, lead researcher on the new study.

Trials of anti-VEGF drugs used a treatment frequency of every one to two months. But in the real world, where practicality and costs come up, doctors try different tactics, according to Sodhi, an associate professor of ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

That includes a "treat and extend" approach: Patients who respond particularly well to the injections have their treatment interval gradually extended.

The question, Sodhi said, is whether some patients can ultimately be weaned off treatment.

For the current study  published online Jan. 18 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation  Sodhi's team reviewed records from 106 patients treated between 2013 and 2020.

Overall, 31% successfully paused anti-VEGF injections within the first year  meaning their eyes showed no fluid buildup or worsening vision for at least 30 weeks off treatment. A handful of other patients were weaned off during year two.

Twenty-two patients were successfully weaned off treatment and followed for at least two years. Of that group, 73% remained treatment-free at the end of year two.

What's clear is that there is no one-size-fits-all regimen for all patients, according to Dr. Rahul Khurana, a clinical spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

"This disease is chronic, variable and unpredictable," said Khurana, who was not involved in the study.

After initial trials using monthly injections, doctors learned that that was likely "over-treating" patients and the intervals could be extended, he said.

But whether some can ultimately stop remains an open question, Khurana said. The risk of suspending treatment is that any recurrence of new blood vessel growth could cause vision loss that is not always recovered, he noted.

If researchers can find objective markers that predict patients' likelihood of responding especially well to anti-VEGF injections, that would help. And Sodhi's team found that patients successfully weaned off treatment differed from other patients in their levels of certain proteins in their eye fluids.

Sodhi said more research is needed to see whether any of those proteins can predict treatment responses. As for treatment pauses, he said, no recommendations can be made until larger studies test the concept.

Both Chew and Khurana said there are other ways, both available and under study, to ease patients' treatment burden.

Last year, U.S. regulators approved Susvimo, a version of the anti-VEGF drug Lucentis that is delivered via a tiny implant in the eye. It requires only two visits a year for refills.

And, Chew said, studies are testing whether giving AMD patients equipment for home monitoring can reduce the need for office visits.

More information

The National Eye Institute has more on age-related macular degeneration.

SOURCES: Akrit Sodhi, MD, PhD, associate professor, ophthalmology, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore; Emily Chew, MD, director, division of epidemiology and clinical applications, National Eye Institute, Bethesda, Md.; Rahul Khurana, MD, clinical spokesman, American Academy of Ophthalmology, San Francisco; Journal of Clinical Investigation, Jan. 18, 2022, online

Originally published on consumer.healthday.com, part of the TownNews Content Exchange.
FESTUS  The fire chief here died Monday after being hospitalized for weeks with COVID-19 and its complications.

Mayor Sam Richards said in a statement Chief Kevin Cremer, 48, was a wonderful husband, father and friend.

He will be deeply missed by all who knew him, especially his city of Festus family and his brothers and sisters within the fire service, he said.

Firefighters on Jan. 9 held a prayer vigil for Cremer outside Mercy Hospital in Jefferson County where he had been admitted to the ICU.

Cremer was a 29-year veteran of fire service, working for 13 years at the Hematite Fire Protection District in Jefferson County before starting at the Festus Fire Department in September 2005, according to a city news release. He had been chief for four years.

He is survived by his wife, Tonya Cremer; children, Ashley Nolen and Jacob Cremer; and grandchildren, Cooper Nolen and Marcella Nolen.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by the Mahn Funeral Home in Festus, according to the city. Cremer's passing will be counted as a line of duty death because he died from complications related to COVID-19.

COVID case and hospitalization rates are showing early declines in parts of the St. Louis region. Deaths, however, are still elevated locally and statewide.

On Monday, St. Louis-area hospitals reported 1,236 confirmed virus patients, down from the record 1,444 patients reported one week earlier, on Jan. 17, but still well above last winters peak of 962.

Area hospitals reported 24 COVID deaths on Monday. The seven-day average was 19, compared with a peak last winter of 23.

The state has reported, on average, 13,448 new cases each day over the past week, down from 15,130 in early January, and an average of 61 daily deaths, the highest since February, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis.

Annika Merrilees of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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ST. CLAIR COUNTY  Prosecutors charged a man with murder in the shooting death Saturday of 54-year-old Alexander Graham in Washington Park, Illinois.

Michael A. Wilmington, 56, of Granite City, was charged Sunday with first-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm. Arrested in Missouri, Wilmington was being held Monday in the St. Louis County Jail, records show.

Illinois State Police investigated the case and said Wilmington fired a weapon at a building in the 5700 block of Westmoreland Place about 12:45 a.m. Saturday. Graham was hit and taken to a hospital in St. Louis, where he died.

Police have not disclosed a possible motive for the shooting.

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ST. LOUIS  City police have begun an internal investigation into the release of a domestic assault suspect earlier this month before charges were filed against him by prosecutors, Interim Public Safety Director Dan Isom said Monday.

Also Monday, Circuit Judge Annette Llewellyn at a hearing set $20,000 cash bail for the suspect, Mac Payne, 36, who had been rearrested Friday, and allowed him to post 10% of that to secure his release. Court records indicated he did so later Monday.

Another judge, in issuing an arrest order Jan. 5, had ordered that Payne be held without chance of bail.

Isom, in an online news conference, said Paynes release earlier this month by police at the citys main jail downtown was a poor decision and an aberration.

He also said that people suspected of violent crimes continue to be jailed even if they test positive for COVID-19 and that there had not been a recent change in policy as alleged by Jane Dueker, an attorney for the city police union.

Isoms statements were the first public comments by a city official on the release of Payne.

According to a probable cause statement filed by police, the female victim in the case said Payne pushed and struck her and threw a pot of hot soup on her, resulting in burns and missing skin.

Dueker has said in media interviews and on social media that the suspect was released after being held at the jail for just three hours after testing positive for the coronavirus even though prosecutors had indicated they would charge him and seek a no-bail order.

A person requesting anonymity who was familiar with the incident has confirmed Duekers account.

Dueker on Monday accused Isom of trying to shift the blame for Paynes initial release to police officers from policy set by the leadership of the police department and the jail and Mayor Tishaura O. Jones.

Isom didnt comment on whether the man had tested positive for COVID-19, saying a detainees medical status is protected private information. But Paynes lawyer, Melinda Gorman, confirmed that at the court hearing Monday.

Isom also didnt say whether Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardners office had asked that Payne be held as it prepared the criminal charges, as Dueker has alleged. A spokeswoman for Gardner has declined to comment.

It is currently under investigation who made that decision and the reason why they made that decision, Isom said of Paynes release Jan. 4. He also said we will make sure theres accountability in this matter and how this poor decision came to be.

A criminal complaint was issued Jan. 4 by Gardners office against Payne accusing him of two felony counts of domestic assault; Dueker said it was issued after his release.

The next day, Associate Circuit Judge David Roither followed up with an order barring Payne from being released on bond, but at that point, he no longer was in custody. Roithers order said he was a potential danger to the victim, the community or another person.

Alleged victim opposed release

On Monday, Paynes attorney, Gorman, convinced Judge Llewellyn to allow bail. Under the order, Payne would have around-the-clock GPS monitoring, house arrest and will have to maintain employment and steer clear of the victims home.

Payne entered pleas of not guilty Monday to the charges of second-degree and third-degree domestic assault.

At the hearing, Assistant Circuit Attorney Jonathan Phipps, in arguing against bail, expressed concern about a potential escalation of violence between Payne and the woman.

The woman spoke in court Monday, saying Payne is a danger to me and my child that this happened in front of.

I have anxiety, she said. I have issues that I have to deal with and hes exacerbated other medical conditions due to what he did to me on January 4th.

Gorman, Paynes lawyer, said Payne has no felony record and would live with his brother while awaiting trial. Gorman said that despite the states argument that the charges against Payne are serious, the evidence would show that the complaining witness did not receive medical treatment and did not go to the hospital for these alleged injuries.

Gorman also said that after Paynes release from jail earlier this month, the couple exchanged custody of their child peacefully with no problems between the two of them.

Gorman said in addition to testing positive for COVID-19, Payne is mostly deaf in both ears and suffers from diabetes, making him a poor fit for confinement.

Payne has worked as a full-time construction worker for the past 18 months, earning a $42,000 salary, Gorman said.

After the hearing, the woman paced in the lobby of the Carnahan Courthouse with tears falling down her cheeks.

They let that (expletive) out, she said.

She declined further comment to a reporter.

Jail policy

Isom asserted that the city corrections division doesnt decide whether someone is held or released.

This is the job of the police, judge and prosecutors, he said.

He also said there has been no change in policy that suggests we should release violent offenders because of COVID positive tests.

Dueker released a copy of a police department memo regarding prisoner processing, dated Jan. 12, that says when people taken to the jail test positive for COVID, police officers are told to ask their supervisor how to proceed.

The memo said the supervisor may have the person arrested medically released or may decide that he or she should be held. The person arrested is then taken to a hospital where it is determined whether they are fit for confinement.

While at the hospital, the memo said, the police chief needs to contact the corrections commissioner to receive approval to house the person arrested in the downtown jail.

Updated at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24.

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JEFFERSON CITY  Staffing problems at Missouris mental hospitals, often linked to the states low worker pay rates, have left hundreds of people needing treatment sitting in county jails for months.

Nearly 160 people are awaiting admission to the states psychiatric hospitals under orders from judges to receive competency restoration, according to the Missouri Department of Mental Health.

Another 65 individuals who, as of Jan. 20, have been evaluated and found to be incompetent to stand trial are awaiting new court orders that could lead to potential admission to state mental health facilities.

But even then, they will remain in jail until more space opens in a treatment center.

Upon receipt of court orders, these individuals will be added to the waiting list, said DMH spokeswoman Debra Walker.

The backlog, which is averaging about six months, has forced the department into a triage mode, pushing some with acute mental health issues to be treated in jails via mobile teams, if those teams are available, Walker said.

The waiting list at the department is just one result of a high turnover rate of employees in state government that has triggered a call by Gov. Mike Parson to give all state workers a 5.5% raise, while also lifting the base hourly pay rate for state employees to $15 per hour.

The lack of workers is not limited to the Department of Mental Health. At the Missouri Veterans Commission, officials have capped the number of military veterans it can care for at its seven nursing homes.

A lack of snowplow operators at the Missouri Department of Transportation has resulted in the agency planning to send mobile teams from around the state to help parts of the state that need assistance clearing roads.

And at the Missouri Department of Corrections, officials have closed housing units and moved inmates to accommodate staff shortages at various facilities.

Walker said the raises could help address the backlog.

If the proposed cost of living increase in the supplemental budget passes for state employees, it will make DMH more competitive for recruiting and retaining needed staffing, Walker said.

At the Fulton State Hospital, the states job postings include open positions for support care assistants with a base pay of $25,000. A job for a food service assistant also is open at an hourly rate of $12 per hour.

In a briefing with reporters last week, Parsons budget chief, Dan Haug, said state facilities in Fulton, including the states primary mental hospital, are competing for workers with a Dollar General warehouse operation.

Its not clear yet when or whether those raises will pass muster with members of the Republican-controlled Legislature.

In December, Parson announced his plan for the raises and said they need to be in place by Feb. 1 to address a situation that has seen more than one-quarter of the workforce leave their jobs this fiscal year.

In the House, the Budget Committee is still mulling the increases, which would cost at least $91 million in the current fiscal year.

Under the current timeline, it will be difficult for both chambers to get the emergency spending legislation to the governors desk by his deadline.

Rep. Robert Sauls, D-Independence, said he expects a vote in the House next week.

I believe there will be bipartisan support for approving that increase, Rep. Chuck Basye, R-Rocheport, said Monday.

But Rep. Peter Merideth of St. Louis, who is the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said Republicans are dragging their feet because some members oppose pay raises.

I think thats a sign of pushback, Merideth said.

Meanwhile, the governor is requesting an additional $2.7 million and 46 additional mental health workers in his regular operating budget, which would go into effect on July 1.

The spending plan says the money and staff would accommodate increased demand for psychiatric care of individuals requiring inpatient services.

In addition, the budget calls for moving 25 workers in one division of the agency to help fill staffing needs at Fulton State Hospital.

Updated at 3:45 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24.

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JEFFERSON CITY  Gov. Mike Parson is asking lawmakers for $10.4 million to create a better way to predict and monitor floods and drought in Missouri.

Budget documents released Wednesday show his request for the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to launch the Missouri Hydrology Information Center, which could help improve the states preparation and response to water-related events.

The call for the new agency is in response to the 2019 floods in the Missouri and Mississippi river basins, which caused an estimated $20 billion in losses.

The magnitude of this event and the subsequent understanding that we have to approach these events differently, in part by moving from a reactive to proactive approach, has demonstrated the need for a suite of innovative approaches to ensure better flood protection and future flood resiliency in Missouri, DNR spokeswoman Connie Patterson said.

Although Patterson didnt directly attribute the flooding to climate change, she acknowledged the 2019 floods were different from a devastating flood in 1993.

Duration of flooding well surpassed that of the 1993 flood, with locations on the Missouri River in declared flood state for 279 days and on the Mississippi for close to 100 days. Further, analysis shows that we are seeing and can expect to see more frequent and intense rain events, Patterson said.

The new office is among a handful of budget requests that have links to Missouris major waterways.

Parson also wants to spend $27 million in federal pandemic relief funds on a project at Columbia Bottoms, which is north of St. Louis where the Missouri and Mississippi rivers meet.

That project is designed to secure more than 3,000 acres of forested wetland at the confluence for additional flood storage. It also will relocate a road that was damaged in the 2019 flooding and add other features aimed at maintaining access to the river in the region.

If funded, the new center will attempt to improve the current system of measuring stream depth to provide more real-time stream level data at numerous statewide locations.

That enhanced monitoring will help forecast and communicate flood risks.

It will also help with the creation of flood inundation maps showing the extent and depth of predicted flood waters for dozens of Missouri communities, Patterson said.

The maps will be designed to quickly show people flood risk and help them make decisions to ensure their safety and protect property, she added.

The center also will work on drought-related issues by improving the mapping of underground aquifers, particularly in northern Missouri, where water supplies are scarcer.

It also will expand the states Missouri soil moisture network to provide a better early warning mechanism for a developing drought.

The proposal is already gaining some support in the Legislature.

Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, who is chairman of the Senates budget committee, said he was reviewing the request and was encouraged by the governors attention to water issues.

Hegeman represents a largely rural northwest Missouri district that was heavily affected by the 2019 drought when the Missouri River topped levees, inundated roadways and kept farmers out of fields for months.

The proposed new office is one result of a special task force formed during the 2019 flood.

The working group was chaired by top state agency officials, as well as representatives of farm groups, levee districts and county officials.

The Governors Flood Recovery Advisory Working Group in its final report submitted in May 2020, recommended the state develop an enhanced flood-monitoring system, and that such a system should include and draw upon the expertise of various university and state and federal government partners and be tailored to the specific needs of Missouri.

Patterson acknowledged that some of the information collected by the new office may already be in the hands of other agencies, ranging from the U.S. Geological Survey to the states emergency management agency.

But she said the office will attempt to serve as a clearinghouse to give residents and communities user-friendly information.

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LAFAYETTE COUNTY, Mo.  The Lafayette County Sheriffs Office is defending one of its jail employees for her decision to wear a red prom dress that featured the Confederate battle flag years before she began working for the agency.

Sgt. Samantha Bell, an employee with the jail division for the sheriffs office, wore a red shiny dress with a giant Confederate battle flag on her backside to her senior prom at Wellington-Napoleon High School in 2013.

Bell has been employed with the sheriffs office for the past five years. Lafayette County is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area, about 200 miles west of St. Louis.

The Kansas City Star contacted the sheriffs office Thursday after receiving an anonymous tip raising concerns. Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh said the photograph was discussed with Bell.

Our employee advises she was in no way making a racial statement by wearing this dress. She was simply stating her southern heritage in memory of her deceased Grandmother, the sheriff said in an email Friday.

Bell did not reply to The Stars request for comment via Facebook message.

My daughters heritage and my heritage

The anonymous tipster claimed Bell was also in the process of becoming a sworn police officer through the Central Missouri Police Academy, a detail The Star was unable to independently verify Friday. The police academy is located at the University of Central Missouri.

In a statement, the police academy declined to identify any of its trainees, citing the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. But the law does not in fact prevent the academy from commenting on such matters.

Holly Pierce, Bells mother, said that she made the dress for her daughter. Pierce contended there was nothing racist about the symbol.

Im not going to stand out here and freeze to death having this discussion with you, she told a Star reporter from the driveway of her Mayview, Missouri, home on Friday morning. You guys really need to take this up with Sam (Bell) and go back and read your history.

For you to come on my property and accuse me of something that absolutely has nothing to do with that Confederate flag except for my daughters heritage and my heritage is absolutely wrong.

Flags history

In recent years, Confederate symbols and statues  which were largely erected after the Civil War during the Jim Crow era and into the civil rights movement  have started coming down. Mississippi removed the battle flag from its state flag in 2020 as several states reckoned with the imagery.

In his message to The Star, Sheriff Alumbaugh said the agency has never received any complaints or concerns of racial bias during Bells five years of employment there.

Lauren Bonds, legal director for the National Police Accountability Project, said it is important for law enforcement departments to do extensive background checks for past extremist or racist statements or posts.

I do definitely think that this is going to undermine the trust that folks may have in this particular officer, Bonds said.

She added that there is a fine line when it comes to disciplinary actions that can be taken against employees who have done things in the past, before they were employed.
Regarding Proposed Missouri vaccine mandate restrictions raise workers rights, religious belief debates (Jan. 13): What dangerous threats to health, safety and welfare will our citizens confront as Missouri state legislators potentially open the flood gates on eliminating vaccine mandates, not just against the coronavirus?

Mandatory vaccination programs are proven, accepted measures that prevent the spread of deadly contagious diseases. The history of vaccine development goes back decades, if not centuries: smallpox (1796), rabies (1885), cholera, tuberculosis (1930s), polio, measles, rubella (mid-1900s). Mandatory vaccination against polio have eliminated domestic cases in the U.S. since 1979. Tuberculosis, smallpox, measles and others are rare because of vaccine mandates for school children.

In 2014, Missouri lawmakers mandated that students at public universities living on campus be vaccinated against contagious/deadly meningitis. Yet, lawmakers are now poised to do a complete about face on vaccinations.

Since 2020, the coronavirus has killed more than 850,000 in the U.S. Omicron quickly became the dominant variant, producing record numbers of cases and hospitalizations. Health care workers, praised as frontline heroes, feel like history is repeating itself as they continue fighting this disease primarily among the unvaccinated.

It is lawmakers duty to protect citizens health, safety and welfare. Yet Missouri legislators are debating the elimination of vaccine mandates. What has happened in Missouri that we may eliminate a proven, accepted health care practice for preventing the spread of contagious deadly diseases? We must recall the history of infectious diseases and enormous costs to humanity as lawmakers debate eliminating mandatory vaccinations. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Nancy Luetzow  Kirkwood
DGAP-News: Newrange Gold Corp. / Key word(s): Miscellaneous

Newrange Outlines Winter Drilling Program for Red Lake Projects



24.01.2022 / 09:14

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, January 24, 2022 (TSXV: NRG, US: NRGOF, Frankfurt: X6C) - Newrange Gold Corp. ("Newrange" or the "Company") is pleased to provide further details on the upcoming drill programs on its 100% owned North Birch and Argosy Gold Mine Projects northeast of Red Lake, Ontario. At least 4,000 metres will be drilled, split roughly evenly between the two projects, starting at North Birch in early February.

"We believe that Newrange's winter drill program on its North Birch and Argosy Gold Mine Projects will be the largest in the Birch-Uchi Belt this year, outside of the nearby Springpole Deposit," stated Robert Archer, Newrange's President & CEO. "Our two projects complement each other very well in that Argosy, being the largest past-producing gold mine in the belt, has known gold mineralization that is open to depth, while North Birch holds the 'blue sky' potential for a significant new discovery."

Iron formation hosted gold deposits occur in Precambrian rocks throughout the world and the 3,850-hectare North Birch Project encompasses a folded and sheared iron formation (see Figure 1) that is structurally similar to Newmont's Musselwhite Mine, 185 kilometres to the northeast and the largest of this class of deposits in Canada, with past production and reserves exceeding 7 million ounces (Ontario Geological Survey and Newmont Corporation). The LiDAR survey that was flown over the North Birch Project last summer highlights a very clear break between two topographical domains that is interpreted to reflect a shear zone (see Figure 2) that follows exactly along the trace of the main fold limb of the iron formation and is at least eight kilometres long.

While iron formation can be an excellent physical and chemical trap and remains the primary target, structure is the key to gold mineralization and adjacent rock types may also be mineralized. This is the case in the Pickle Lake District, in the next greenstone belt to the east of Birch-Uchi, which contains several deposits hosting gold in iron formation and adjacent rocks and has collectively produced 2.9 million ounces of gold since 1935 (MNDM archives). Both the magnetic and LiDAR surveys at North Birch highlight other structures on the property that will require future follow up. Although gold mineralization is known elsewhere on the property, the main iron formation horizon has never been drill-tested as it lies under cover.

At present, five holes are planned along approximately three kilometres of strike on the main target horizon. Additional holes will depend on the results from this first pass.



Figure 1: Airborne magnetic map of the North Birch Property highlighting folded iron formation (in red/purple), gold showings and primary target horizon for the 2022 drilling program



Figure 2: Digital Elevation Map (DEM) from the LiDAR survey on the North Birch Property highlighting topographic and structural features and primary target horizon for the 2022 drilling program

On the Argosy Gold Mine Project, the focus for the upcoming drilling will be on testing the depth extent of known veins below the historic mine workings and testing for continuity on certain other veins that were not previously mined. A total of 101,875 ounces of gold was produced at a grade of 12.7 g/t between 1931 and 1952. Production came from two inclined shafts on multiple levels but only to a maximum vertical depth of 900 feet (274 metres). Holes drilled in 2003-04 intersected gold mineralization to a vertical depth of 400 metres, including 10.46 g/t Au over 2.98 metres and 14.15 g/t Au over 1.65 metres, indicating that mineralization continues to depth.

Although no detailed production data exists, the Company has compiled information from 72 historic drill holes in conjunction with outlines of the underground mine workings to complete a preliminary 3D Leapfrog model (see Figure 3) that is being used to assist in planning the upcoming drill program. Further details on the planned holes will be provided once the process is complete.



Figure 3: 3D Leapfrog Model of the veins and historic underground workings on the Argosy Gold Mine Property. Click here to see a short video representation.

Qualified Person

The technical content disclosed in this press release was reviewed and approved by David Hladky, P.Geo., Senior Geologist for Newrange and a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101.

About Newrange Gold Corp.

Newrange is focused on district-scale exploration for precious metals in favorable jurisdictions including Nevada and Ontario. The Company's Pamlico Project in Nevada contains a large-scale multi-phase polymetallic mineralizing system with multiple gold and copper targets spread over more than 5,700 hectares. In the prolific Red Lake District of northwestern Ontario, the past-producing high-grade Argosy Gold Mine is open to depth, while the adjacent North Birch Project offers additional blue-sky potential. Focused on developing shareholder value through exploration and development of key projects, the Company is committed to building sustainable value for all stakeholders. Further information can be found on our website at www.newrangegold.com.

Signed: "Robert Archer"

President & CEO

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Sharon Fleming Dave Cross

Corporate Communications Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary

Phone: 760-898-9129 Phone: 604-669-0868

Email: info@newrangegold.com Email: dcross@crossdavis.com

Website: www.newrangegold.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-Looking Statement:

Some of the statements in this news release contain forward-looking information that involves inherent risk and uncertainty affecting the business of Newrange Gold Corp. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.

About CM-Equity AG:

CM-Equity is a Munich-based licensed and regulated financial institution according to 15 WpIG.

CM-Equity AG is a global financial institution providing services in the field of capital markets, corporate finance & traditional and digital asset management. The company is active in international proprietary trading and liquidity services.

For more information:

Visit: https://cm-equity.de/ | https://cm-equity.de/liquidity-services/

Contact: info@cm-equity.de
LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: Flutter and Aston Martin shine ahead of US Fed

Wednesday, May 4, 2022 - 12:48

Stock prices in Europe and Asia were lower on Wednesday, as markets prepared for the largest US interest hike in over two decades, but Wall Street itself was more upbeat, pointed to open higher, having closed up on Tuesday.

In the meantime, attention in London was on a batch of company updates, with Flutter Entertainment leading large-cap shares after hailing the success of its betting business in the US, while car maker Aston Martin also was in favour after changing drivers.

The Federal Open Market Committee will conclude its two-day policy meeting on Wednesday and announce its decision at 1900 BST. This will be followed by a press conference with Fed Chair Jerome Powell at 1930 BST.

Following a quarter-point increase in the benchmark lending rate in March, Powell and other US central bankers have said a half-point increase could be announced. It would be the first time since 2000 that the Fed has raised rates by 50 basis points at one meeting.

The FTSE 100 index was down 42.08 points, or 0.6%, at 7,519.25. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down 253.43 points, or 1.2%, at 20,267.62. The AIM All-Share index was down 7.33 points, or 0.7%, at 1,006.19.

The Cboe UK 100 index was down 0.4% at 748.55. The Cboe 250 was down 1.4% at 17,897.41. The Cboe Small Companies was up 0.1% at 15,125.24.

In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.5% and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was down 0.2%.

A half-point interest rate hike by the Fed is widely expected, AJ Bell's Russ Mould noted. Given the quantum of the raise is almost an open secret at this stage, all the attention will focus on any guidance around the pace of future increases and whether the recent surprise dip in US GDP has any impact on the Fed's thinking.

In the FTSE 100, Flutter Entertainment was the best performer, up 6.5%, after the gambling operator reported a positive start to 2022 with its US business particularly strong.

For the three months that ended March 31, revenue rose 5.4% to 1.57 billion from 1.49 billion in the first quarter last year. Average monthly player numbers increased 15% to 8.9 million from 7.7 million.

In the US, the FanDuel business delivered another excellent performance, Flutter said, with 2.4 million customers and revenue of $574 million during the quarter. FanDuel remained the number one US sportsbook with a 37% online sports betting share, Flutter said.

Flutter said it launched its FanDuel sportsbook in New York and Louisiana in January and expanded into Ontario in April. FanDuel set new records in the quarter, with Super Bowl Sunday the single biggest day ever for new customers with 1.5 million active customers on the day.

Ladbrokes betting chain owner Entain was the second-best blue-chip performer in London, up 2.4%, in a positive read-across.

In the FTSE 250, Aston Martin Lagonda was the best performer, up 10%. The luxury carmaker said its first-quarter performance was in line with expectations as it confirmed the appointment of a new chief executive.

For the three months ended March 31, revenue was 232.7 million, up 3.7% from 224.4 million the year before. However, its pretax loss was 111.6 million, widened from 42.2 million in the first quarter last year.

The carmaker said the revenue increase was driven by strong pricing dynamics throughout its core portfolio and Valkyrie programme deliveries of 14 vehicles.

Looking ahead for 2022, Aston Martin still expects an 8% rise in core volumes and a 50% improvement in adjusted core earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation. Promisingly, retail sales outpaced wholesales in the first quarter, the company said.

Aston Martin also confirmed a report by the Financial Times that Chief Executive Officer Tobias Moers will leave the board immediately and the company at the end of July.

The Gaydon, Warwickshire-based firm confirmed the appointment of ex-Ferrari boss Amedeo Felisa as its new CEO, with Executive Chair Lawrence Stroll saying the company needs to enter a new phase of growth and development.

Moers's dual role of CEO and chief technology officer will be split, with another former Ferrari executive, Roberto Fedeli, brought in to be CTO.

Fedeli was at Ferrari for 26 years. Aston Martin said he is considered the creator of Ferrari LaFerrari, the Modena, Italy-based company's first hybrid supercar.

Chair Lawrence Stroll said there is a need for the business to enter a new phase of growth with a new leadership team and structure.

At the other end of the mid-caps, Direct Line was the worst performer, down 6.9%, after the insurer said gross written premiums for the first quarter fell.

The Bromley, London-based firm said total gross written premium & service fees fell 2.4% in the first quarter to 734.3 million from 752.3 million the year before. Drops in Motor, Home, and Rescue of 5.4%, 9.9% and 2.2% respectively, were slightly offset by a 12% gain in Commercial premiums.

In Home, the insurer said UK Financial Conduct Authority's price reforms hit its trading performance, as customer retention was offset by lower new business volumes.

JD Wetherspoon was down 2.4% after the pub chain said virus woes have been replaced by considerable pressure on costs as a new source of concern.

Wetherspoon reported a 4.0% decrease in sales on a like-for-like basis in its financial third quarter, the 13 weeks that ended April 24. In its financial year to date, like-for-like sales were down 6.2%.

On AIM, boohoo Group was down 13% after the online fashion retailer said profit slumped and costs soared as it struggled to get to grips with difficulties caused by the pandemic.

Pretax profit for the 12 months to the end of February plunged to 7.8 million from 124.7 million the year before, as distribution costs rose and customer demand fell.

Boohoo expects high costs to persist throughout the rest of this year but said it has a series of cost-cutting initiatives in place to manage the business.

Despite the cost-cutting, prices for products could also rise, with the company only committing to mitigate where possible before passing prices on to consumers.

Sales were up 14% on the year to 1.98 billion and remain well above pre-pandemic levels, as high streets closed and shoppers turned to online.

Rival fashion retailers Superdry, ASOS and Quiz were down 6.3%, 5.3% and 1.4% respectively in a negative read-across.

The dollar was mostly subdued ahead of the Fed decision. The pound was quoted at $1.2510 at midday on Wednesday, unmoved from $1.2511 at the London equities close Tuesday.

The euro was priced at $1.0522, lower against $1.0535. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JP130.01, little changed from JP129.97.

Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a plan for the EU to stop Russian oil imports by the end of the year, as part of the bloc's latest round of sanctions against Moscow.

Brent oil was trading at $108.65 a barrel Wednesday at midday, higher against $106.12 late Tuesday.

The ban is to maximize pressure on Russia, von der Leyen told a debate in the European Parliament on Wednesday in Strasbourg, France, adding the move will not be easy.

The proposal to deprive Russia of a significant revenue stream comes after weeks of negotiations as EU member states wrestled with the economic fallout of an oil embargo. The plan gained momentum after Germany, a huge importer of Russian energy, announced it would support a ban.

The ban is to be managed in a phased approach to preserve the bloc's economic stability and global oil market prices, von der Leyen said, with the aim to minimize collateral damage to us and our partners.

Crude oil imports are to be phased out first within six months and the bloc is to remove refined products by the end of the year, von der Leyen said.

The OPEC+ group, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, meets on Thursday to consider its production targets.

The expectation is that global crude flows will re-work around the EU ban, with more Russian oil heading to China and India while more crude from the US and the Middle East making its way to Europe, commented Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.

Still, the likelihood is that there will be a downswing in Russian production that will tighten the global market, keeping a floor on prices at least for 2022.

Gold stood at $1,870.05 an ounce, down slightly from $1,873.30 late Tuesday.

New York was pointed to a higher open ahead of the expected Fed rate hike.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was called up 0.3%, the S&P 500 up 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.3%, based on futures trading. The stock indices had closed up 0.2%, 0.5% and 0.2% respectively on Tuesday.

Coffee house chain Starbucks late Tuesday reported second-quarter earnings growth despite margins coming under pressure.

Revenue for the second quarter ended April 3 rose 11% to $7.64 billion from $6.67 billion year-on-year, with global comparable store sales up 7%. Diluted earnings per share rose 3.6% to $0.58 from $0.56. Starbucks grew earnings despite its operating margin contracting to 17.1% from 19.3%.

The stock was up 6.0% in pre-market trade in New York.

Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
North Korea recently accused a Colonel Choe, serving one the military staffs in the capital, of corruption. Choe is accused of stealing 200 tons of petroleum products over the last few years. The missing fuel did not show up on the records kept of fuel delivered because Choe organized a system where small quantities would be stolen from many of the tanker trucks he controlled. To make this work he had to work with many other colonels, or their subordinates.

Choe worked in the department that organized transport of fuel supplies to military units. Choe apparently worked his way up to his general staff position as one of the officers in charge of delivering fuel to the one tank and two mechanized infantry corps that contain about 20 percent of North Koreas armored vehicles. During the last few years, the only ones receiving much fuel for training were the front-line tank and mechanized corps that barely received enough fuel to maintain minimal skills for the drivers. These three units consist of five armored and ten mechanized infantry brigades and a lot of support units. Although North Korea has over 4,000 tanks and 2,000 other armored vehicles, most of them are decades old models with obsolete protection and weapons.

South Korea believes that most North Korea armored vehicles are either not capable of operating, or at least not for long. The crews, especially drivers, have little training in operating vehicles they are assigned to. It used to be that about ten percent of the million men in the military were well supplied and trained. Those units have received less of everything over the last decade, especially food and fuel. Most units improvise by growing some of their own food and stealing from local farms. As long as no one gets killed, officers tolerate these thefts and the high command considers it foraging, something armies have done for thousands of years.

Fuel cannot be foraged and while colonel Choe had organized a discreet and difficult to detect system, someone noted that black market fuel merchants seemed to show up around the military tanker trucks often, but not obviously plundering the cargoes.

Colonel Choe will probably be executed but his arrest has not yet been officially announced. The Choe organization sold the pilfered fuel to black market merchants for about half the current black-market price. With the collapse of the Choe network, black market fuel prices have increased in parts of the country where the tank/mechanized infantry units are present, as well as some mobile artillery or any facility near the top of the fuel priority list.

Its unclear how much Choe made out of all this or how long he had been doing it. His network may have stolen far more fuel. Since the covid19 lockdown in January 2020, there has been less of everything in North Korea. That meant even small quantities of fuel were quite valuable, especially for black market merchants and customers.

Choe lived and worked in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. This was the best place to live and work in North Korea. Access and permanent residency are restricted. Pyongyang contains twelve percent of the population and about twenty percent of GDP. The city became the capital because it was a major industrial center during the Japanese occupation (1910-45) and has remained an economic powerhouse. The city also contains the headquarters and many subsidiary components of all national organizations. This includes the military and the secret police (Ministry of State Security or MSS).

Residence in the capital requires official permission and that is difficult to get. Restricted access to the capital is also a security measure for the senior leadership as well as another obstacle foreign spies must deal with. Police are constantly tracking down and arresting those entering or living in the capital without permission. Legal residence in the capital is not freely granted, mainly because it is a much nicer place to live. There is more of everything, including more hours of electrical power and more economic opportunities for illegal residents. Although the food distributions are only for legal residents, many of those legal residents were helping to support illegal family and friends living in the capital. Since the end of regular food distributions there have been more illegal food markets in the capital and fewer new illegals trying to settle down. There are poor families in the capital and the government is providing some of them with additional food once it is verified that these households are not harboring illegals. This prevents visible signs of starvation but not hunger, which long-time residents have not experienced since the Great Famine of the 1990s. The government is trying to avoid that by getting more food to the capital markets. This will keep prices from rising as fast as in the rest of the country.

Colonel Choe is not an unusual case, except for his location in a senior staff job and the cleverness of his corrupt scheme. Choe is one reason North Korea has maintained its status as the most corrupt nation in the world for the second year in a row. Meanwhile South Korea is still among the thirty least corrupt nations (out of 180 surveyed). South Korea, a democracy with a market economy, is far more prosperous. Put simply, per person GDP in South Korea is more than twenty times higher than in North Korea. South Korean annual defense spending is more than a third larger than the annual GDP of North Korea. That is one reason North Korea spends about a third of GDP on defense compared to three percent for South Korea.

Colonel Choe could live better and spend his illegal market oil income in Pyongyang because the city is the only place in the country where there are stores offering Chinese and Western goods for those who could afford them. For many North Koreans, that was an impossible dream, or, for colonel Choe, something to die for.
A skin condition brought on by shaving will no longer be sufficient grounds on its own for booting Marines from the service.

Pseudofolliculitis barbae, more commonly known as PFB or razor bumps, results in inflammation of the face and neck when a person shaves.

Last week, the Marine Corps announced that as of Jan. 31, a series of policy changes pertaining to PFB will take effect.

Previously, commanders had the authority to recommend involuntary separation for Marines diagnosed with PFB and could base their recommendation solely on that diagnosis. That will no longer be the case.

Also under the new rules, neither a diagnosis of PFB nor treatment for it will make Marines subject to a 6105 counseling, a formal reprimand that can severely damage a service members military career.

Marines who have been diagnosed with the condition will no longer have to keep a copy of their medical waiver, or shave chit, on them as proof.

Medical officers will be given final authority for granting temporary or permanent no shave status to Marines who have PFB. Under the old policy, medical officers could make recommendations, but the decision rested with the commanding officer.

The changes were adopted in accordance with the Talent Management 2030 plan, an overhaul of recruiting and retention aimed at remaking the Marine Corps into a service that more highly values experience and skills.

The Corps will not amend any separation documents for Marines with PFB who separated from the service before Jan. 31.
(Tribune News Service)  Drinking water quality test results for the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam water system will be made public faster, according to news release from the the Interagency Drinking Water System Team (IDWST).

The Jan. 13 version of the process allowed for the release of results after the Hawaii Department of Health amended health advisories and declared a zones drinking water safe to use.

Upon careful consideration of concerns from affected families, the IDWST decided to amend the process to be more transparent, according to the release. The updated process allows for earlier publication of validated test results as data will be made publicly available after both distribution system flushing and home flushing instead of only the latter.

The IDWST is a partnership between Hawaii DOH, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy. It was formed in response to the drinking water contamination crisis that sickened and displaced hundreds of service members and their families.

Also, the U.S. Navy released system flushing data for the Pearl City Peninsula (Zone A1) that was validated by the IDWST. DOHs Nov. 29 Public Health Advisory for the JPBHH Public Water System for Zone A1 remains in effect.

All Navy water system users should not use the water for drinking, cooking, oral hygiene or to satiate their pets thirst. Navy water system users who detect a fuel-like odor from their water should not use the water for bathing, dish washing or laundry, according to a IDWST news release.

We have thoroughly flushed, sampled, and tested the water distribution system lines (Water Mains) in Zone A1, according to the release. Based on the samples collected and tested, to date, this water meets all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and State of Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) standards that are applicable to the Navy Water System Incident.

No final conclusions or recommendations have been made because more drinking water samples are being collected and tested from water mains, residences, buildings, schools, and child development centers (after they have been flushed), according to the release.

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As the grim prospect of war casts a pall over Europes eastern frontier, those in power could do well to reflect upon the horrors of combat and the terrible human cost. A visit to any one of too many European sites where blood has been spilled, recently or hundreds of years ago, should serve as a sobering reminder of whats at stake when two sides go to war.

Detmold, Germany: The Hermann Monument, Hermannsdenkmal in German, recalls the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, fought in 9 A.D. Roman soldiers were defeated by the tribal forces led by the German leader Arminius (Hermann), who lured the Roman general Varus and his three legions into an ambush in the forest. Losses on the Germanic side are unknown, but thought to be minor; 16,000-20,000 fighters on the Roman side were estimated to have perished. The battle put an end to the long period of Roman expansion in northern Europe.

The Hermann Monument, completed in 1875, was constructed on what had previously been thought to be the site of the battle. A copper statue atop on an iron columned pedestal rises 170 feet into the air, the warrior raising his sword high into the air, where it serves as a lightning rod.

Although some historians continue to debate the true location of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, theres much evidence to support it took place near Osnabruck. The Varusschlacht Museum and Park Kalkriese brings the history of this site to life based on more than 30 years of multidisciplinary research. Through modern technology, Varus and Arminius are given the chance to openly discuss their world views and differences. The award-winning museum is open daily (closed Mondays Nov.-March); adult admission costs 9.50 euros. Online: kalkriese-varusschlacht.de

Leipzig, Germany: The Monument to the Battle of the Nations, Volkerschlachtdenkmal in German, remembers the Battle of Leipzig, also referred to as the Battle of the Nations, fought Oct. 16-19, 1813. It commemorates the defeat of Napoleon's French army by the coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden, led by Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg. Some 600,000 soldiers from a dozen nations fought in the battle, and more than 100,000 were killed, making it the biggest battle of the 19th century. The monument itself saw fighting in World War II, as Nazi forces in Leipzig made their last stand against U.S. troops there.

The 300-foot-tall concrete and granite structure, completed in 1913 to mark the 100th anniversary of the battle, stands at the spot from which Napoleon ordered the retreat of his army. Fronted by a large reflection pool, 364 steps lead up to a viewing platform offering views of the city and the fields in which the bloody battle was fought. The Forum 1813 Museum exhibits weapons, uniforms, equipment and personal mementos of the soldiers. The monument and the museum are open daily; adult entry costs 10 euros. Online: tinyurl.com/2p99caaf

Somme, France: The Battle of the Somme, fought July 1-Nov. 18, 1916, was one of the largest battles of World War I, and among the bloodiest in human history. The joint operation between British and French forces was intended to achieve a decisive victory over the Germans on the Western Front. Modern weaponry, a compact battlefield and failures by British military leaders led to the unprecedented slaughter of countless waves of young men. With more than one million casualties and the loss of 300,000 lives, its often regarded as one of the single largest battles in the history of warfare.

Numerous memorials scattered throughout the region commemorate the soldiers involved in the fight, who represent some 20 nationalities. The 57-mile Remembrance Trail between Peronne and Albert links memorials, cemeteries and vestiges of the battles. Included on the route is The Memorial at Thiepval, a majestic arched structure bearing the names of the more than 72,000 British and South African soldiers killed on Somme battlefields before March 1918 who have no known grave. Maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, it is the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world. Online: www.visit-somme.com/great-war

Cassino, Italy: The Battle of Monte Cassino refers to a series of four offensives conducted by the Allies during the Italian Campaign of World War II from Jan. 17-May 18, 1944. The objective was to break through German temporary defensive positions known as the Winter Line and occupy Rome. Overlooking the town of Cassino was the strategically located Monte Cassino, a historic hilltop abbey founded in 529. On Feb. 15, following repeated artillery attacks on Allied troops that led their leaders to conclude the Germans were using the abbey as an observation post, American bombers pummeled it with tons of explosives, leaving it a roofless shell and killing many civilians who had sought shelter there. The raid failed to achieve its objective, as German paratroopers quickly occupied the area, establishing advantageous defensive positions amid the ruins. The German defenders were finally driven from their positions, but at a high cost: The capture of Monte Cassino resulted in 55,000 Allied casualties; German losses were estimated at some 20,000 killed and wounded.

Visitors to Monte Cassino today can visit the renovated abbey and its museum, Hangmans Hill, the Polish War Cemetery and Visitors Center, the Cassino War Cemetery and the Cassino Memorial, which commemorates more than 4,000 Commonwealth servicemen who took part in the Italian campaign. On July 8, 2021, an Indian Army Memorial was inaugurated to memorialize the more than 5,000 Indian soldiers who laid down their lives in the epic battle. The remains of the American soldiers who fell in the Battle of Monte Cassino are interred in the Sicily-Rome American cemetery in Nettuno. Online: tinyurl.com/yckd365j
TOKYO  Japan is pushing ahead with efforts to field an electrically powered railgun capable of firing projectiles six times the speed of sound and defending against hypersonic missiles.

The railgun project was allocated about $56 million in the government's fiscal 2022 budget proposal, Japans The Mainichi newspaper reported Jan. 5.

A railgun uses an electromagnetic force to rapidly accelerate and launch a projectile between two rails, according to Naval Sea Systems Command.

Firing a railgun costs a lot less than launching a missile; however, power consumption, mobility and cooling are major challenges to developing such a weapon, according to Riki Ellison, chairman of the nonprofit Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

Even we (the United States) don't have it fully developed and proven to be operationally deployed, he told Stars and Stripes in an email last week.

The Navy spent a decade and $500 million developing railgun technology before abandoning its efforts last summer to concentrate on hypersonic missiles, Voice of America reported July 7.

Japan has already built a prototype and aims for a weapon that can fire a projectile at 6,562 feet per second or more, which is about Mach 6, according to the Mainichi report.

We plan to genuinely engage in research of railguns, which could deal with missiles, such as hypersonic missiles, an official from the Ministry of Defenses Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency told Stars and Stripes in an email Jan. 14. Japanese government officials typically request anonymity when speaking to the press.

The United States, China and Russia have tested hypersonic missiles, which travel at speeds faster than Mach 5. North Korea also claims to have tested them.

Railguns are an important project for the defense of our country [and] could be utilized for  missile defense and anti-ship attacks, the Defense Ministry official said.

Railguns are expected to vastly improve on the distance and power of conventional guns, he added.

A railgun projectile has a range of 110 nautical miles  20 nautical miles greater than the maximum range of the U.S. air defense missiles, according to the Navy.

Railguns can fly in hypersonic speed and counter hypersonic guided missiles; we hope it will become effective air defense technology, the Defense Ministry official said.

Projectiles fired by railguns cant be guided like missiles, but the weapon could fire fast and continuously. Projectiles fired by a railgun are low cost, small and hard to detect, the official said.

Japan has been researching railguns since 2016 and has increased the speed of projectiles and developed materials capable of conducting the strong electric current required, the official said.

During Japans next fiscal year, which begins in April, researchers will develop technology for stable projectile flight and automatic firing. The railgun research is scheduled to continue until 2028, the official said.

Although we aim for early practical application of railguns, it is hard to say at this point when it will be in use, he said.

Railgun technology is much less developed than missiles, with which nations and defense contractors are comfortable and competent, according to Arizona State University engineering professor Braden Allenby.

At some point, railguns might offer more effective firepower for less money than missiles, but that day isnt here yet, he said in an email Tuesday.

Its a reasonable strategy for most powers to choose to deploy missiles in the short term, especially if under immediate threat, and invest in railguns for the longer term depending on their other responsibilities, Allenby said.
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea  An American child actor who played an important role in a critically acclaimed South Korean film is now stationed in the country her grandparents emigrated from in the 1970s.

Because of them, Im here now, Army 1st Lt. Kirsten Kwon told Stars and Stripes earlier this month. Theyre the reason why Im an American citizen.

Kwon, 28, is the executive officer of the U.N. Command Honor Guard Company, roughly 50 service members who carry out the commands ceremonies, such as dignified remains transfers, and provide security for high-ranking officers.

The U.N. Command, established in 1950 to fight the war with North Korea, remains in place 68 years after the shooting stopped. Led by a U.S. general since its inception, the command continues to provide security on the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea.

"I do feel grateful that I'm here because I'm in my home country," Kwon said. "I speak the language  so it feels like I'm coming back home."

After the Korean War, Kwon's grandparents left the peninsula to pursue the "American dream," she said.

"I thought that if I can defend their freedom until the end, I will do that," Kwon said.

Kwon did not plan for an Army commission despite growing up on U.S. military bases. She was born at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and at age 4 moved with her family to South Korea, where her father, Tae Kwon, a Korean American and a noncommissioned officer in the Army, was posted to Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.

While Kwon was raised in the U.S. military community at Yongsan, living in South Korea presented her and her younger brother with opportunities beyond the garrisons gates. The bilingual children starred in various kids shows in South Korea and gained a little bit of acting experience, she said.

Kwons film career began at age 10 when a South Korean casting director heard her speaking English and asked her parents if they were interested in a role for her in an upcoming movie.

That film, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, featured a star-studded cast and was directed by Park Chan-wook, who is described as the man who put Korean cinema on the map, according to a New York Times Style magazine column from 2017.

Park also produced Snowpiercer in 2013 and directed 2003s Oldboy, a film that prompted director Quentin Tarantino to label him "one of the most exciting action cinema directors out there," Variety reported.

Released in 2005, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is a psychological thriller about a woman enacting revenge against a man who framed her for murdering a boy. Kwon played Jenny, the English-speaking daughter of the protagonist played by Lee Young-ae.

I didnt know [it] was a high-profile movie so I took it very lightly, Kwon said. Working with a cast that included Song Kang-ho of "Parasite" and Choi Min-sik of "Oldboy," at times was intimidating, she said.

Following the movie, Kwon played guest roles in several South Korean dramas but focused primarily on her education.

After graduating from the now-shuttered Seoul American High School in Yongsan, she studied political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated in 2016.

Kwon considered joining a research firm or working for a nonprofit agency but ultimately decided the Army was the best route to start her post-college career. She was commissioned through the Armys Officer Candidate School in 2019 and went on to her first duty assignment in South Korea the following year.

Its such a selfless job that you can have, Kwon said. Being in the military  it felt like a very noble job.
The new U.S. ambassador to Japan arrived quietly in Tokyo on Sunday, filling a diplomatic post that has been vacant more than two years.

Rahm Emanuel, 62, landed at Haneda International Airport with little fanfare and without a news conference due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, according to a news release the same day from the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

Emanuel, along with his wife, Amy Rule, also announced their arrival on Twitter.

Amy and I are excited to have arrived in Japan and are eager to meet the people of Japan as we travel throughout the country, Emanuel tweeted Sunday.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Emanuels appointment on Dec. 18 and he was sworn in Dec. 22 as the 31st ambassador to Japan, according to the embassy. He succeeds William Hagerty, who resigned in 2019 to return to Tennessee and run for U.S. Senate. Hagerty, a Republican, won that election and took office in January 2021.

In an October statement to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Emanuel said his top priority as ambassador would be to strengthen U.S. ties with Japan, which he called the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.

He also singled out China in the statement. Tensions between the U.S.-Japan alliance and Beijing have continued to escalate in recent years, particularly over the South China Sea and Taiwan.

China aims to conquer through division. Americas strategy is security through unity. That regional unity is built on the U.S.-Japan alliance, Emanuel said.

Emanuel, in a Jan. 5 interview with Japans Yomiuri newspaper, said it will be necessary to constantly strengthen that alliance, especially in the face of security threats from China and North Korea.

A Chicago native, Emanuel has had a lengthy history in public service. He began his career in the federal government as a senior adviser to former President Bill Clinton between 1993 and 1998. He was later elected to the House of Representatives, serving from 2002 to 2008.

Resigning as a member of Congress, Emanuel accepted an appointment as the White House Chief of Staff for former President Barack Obama in 2008. He served in that capacity for a little over a year before leaving to run for mayor of Chicago.

Emanuel served as mayor from 2011 to 2019, having been reelected in 2015. While leading in the polls for the 2019 election, he dropped out early to pursue the next chapter of his life, according to a 2018 Chicago Tribune report.
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KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany  U.S. personnel stationed in Germany and any others who received only the single Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 shot are no longer considered fully vaccinated under federal German rules.

Additionally, people who received the single J&J shot and a booster are no longer considered boosted, the German government said on its coronavirus website earlier this month.

As a result, they could be denied entrance to certain venues or be required to show proof of a recent negative coronavirus test, depending on diverging state policies.

Only people with three shots will be considered boosted, which is necessary in most cases to eat at a restaurant without showing a negative test in several states, including Rheinland-Pfalz, home to tens of thousands of U.S. service members and their families.

But Defense Department personnel who had the initial J&J shot, also known as Janssen, wont be able to get a third shot on a U.S. base.

Thats because the military follows U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which are now at odds with the guidelines adopted by Germany on Jan. 15.

The Army in Europe is aware of the discrepancy and is seeking a solution, said Gino Mattorano, a spokesman for Regional Health Command Europe.

In the meantime, those who were vaccinated with Janssen may have to undergo COVID testing to enter some host-nation establishments, Mattorano said.

Military personnel in Germany who received J&J shots may receive third shots off-base, but its unclear whether they would be blocked by their units or whether a third vaccination would be accepted by U.S. health agencies.

The Army has administered more than 190,000 COVID-19 vaccinations in Europe, more than the other services. Of those, about 12,000 first doses and about 400 booster shots were with J&J, Mattorano said.

When vaccines first became available last year, the U.S. military prioritized J&J for remote or austere overseas locations, including Afghanistan.

The one-dose inoculation was easier to ship and store because it doesnt require ultra-cold storage.

The Army stopped administering J&J at its European clinics late last year, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that Pfizer and Moderna were the preferred options for adults, given the mRNA vaccines greater protection and lower risk of serious side effects.

The J&J vaccine has been linked to very rare but potentially life-threatening blood clots, mostly in women.

U.S. health guidance still considers people who receive J&J and a second shot two months later fully vaccinated and boosted.

Germany is believed to be the first European country to require people to have two shots after a single dose of J&J in order for them to be considered boosted.

J&J shots showed a significant reduction in efficacy against the delta variant when compared with Pfizer and Moderna, said the Robert Koch Institute, Germanys disease control agency, in a Jan. 20 update on its website.

Though data for how well the vaccine protects against omicron is not yet available, the agency says it has seen the most so-called breakthrough infections during the pandemic from those who received one J&J shot.

The federal government relies, among other things, on studies that show that the immune response decreases quickly after vaccination with J&J, David B. Freichel, a spokesman for the Rheinland-Pfalz state health ministry in Mainz, told Stars and Stripes on Monday.

Currently, the Robert Koch Institute recommends J&J only for people 60 and older, and only then as an initial shot.

Unvaccinated people in Germany in many states cannot visit nonessential retail stores but can shop for food and go to the doctor, among other tasks deemed necessary.

Those who are fully vaccinated but not boosted typically must show proof of a negative antigen test taken within 24 hours or a PCR test no older than 48 hours for nonessential shopping or to visit venues like movie theaters.

However, there are significant variations between states.

In Rheinland-Pfalz, for example, anyone who received their second shot less than three months ago, even if one was J&J, does not need to show proof of a negative test at venues and shops, in line with rules for those who have received three shots.

But in Bavaria, also home to thousands of U.S. troops, anyone can go retail shopping, regardless of vaccination status, if they have an FFP2 or equivalent mask, according to Munichs official web site. Restaurants are open without a test to those who are fully vaccinated. Bars and clubs remain closed.

Stars and Stripes reporter Alexander Riedel contributed to this report.
STUTTGART, Germany  Up to 5,000 U.S. troops along with aircraft and warships could be deployed to central and Eastern Europe in anticipation of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a news report.

President Joe Biden could decide on the plan as early as this week, with the potential to increase troop numbers substantially should the security situation deteriorate further, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing White House officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

The focus on adding forces along NATOs eastern flank comes after weeks of talks with Moscow over its large-scale military buildup on the borders of Ukraine have so far failed to de-escalate the crisis.

There is no indication that the U.S. plans to boost troop levels in Ukraine itself, where the Biden administration has ruled out direct U.S. military involvement.

For the Stuttgart, Germany-based U.S. European Command, a White House order to send several thousand more troops east would present few, if any, logistical obstacles and could likely be executed quickly.

Options include parachuting the 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Vicenza, Italy, into Eastern Europe; convoying the 2nd Cavalry Regiment into Poland from its base in Vilseck, Germany; and boarding Germany-based American artillery units onto eastbound planes.

The U.S. and its NATO allies already have military units in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In addition to NATO battlegroups in the region, the Army has a rotational tank brigade and a combat aviation unit operating up and down the eastern flank.

Some of those forces could be massed in larger numbers at long-standing areas of concern, such as the Suwalki Gap, a 60-mile chokepoint that connects Poland to Lithuania.

In a worst-case scenario, security experts have long feared that Russia could use its nearby exclave of Kaliningrad to seal the Baltic states off from the rest of NATO by seizing the corridor.

Another possible move could involve deployment of U.S. fighters based in Spangdahlem, Germany; Aviano, Italy; or the United Kingdom to Poland, where an Air Force detachment operates at a base in Lask.

Such mobilizations are not without precedent and would resemble U.S. actions in the aftermath of Russias initial incursion into Ukraine in 2014.

Meanwhile, U.S. warships based in Rota, Spain, could be sent into the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea.

Should the White House decide to increase troop numbers beyond the possible 5,000, EUCOM might need reinforcements from the U.S., such as the 82nd Airbornes Immediate Response Force.

Alternatively, elements of NATOs Response Force could be deployed, but its unclear whether all members of the alliance would be on board.

In particular, Germanys reliability is being called into question by analysts and former political and military officials within the alliance. In recent days, Berlin has faced a backlash over its refusal to allow the Baltic states to send German-made defensive weaponry to Ukraine.

And over the weekend, Germanys top naval officer resigned following comments in India that Russian President Vladimir Putin just wants respect and that the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula is gone and will never come back to Ukraine.

Germany also has balked at the idea of imposing severe economic sanctions on Russia should it attack Ukraine, as it relies on Russia for gas supplies. To date, its unclear where Berlin stands on deployment of NATOs quick reaction force.

The U.S., the U.K. and other allies have been stepping up lethal military aid to Kyiv to be used if Ukraine comes under attack. A small contingent of Army National Guard soldiers and special operations troops also are in Ukraine on training missions.

Whether they would stay in the country if it is attacked hasnt been made public, but over the weekend the U.S. ordered family members of embassy staffers out of Ukraine.
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NAPLES, Italy  Four Italian regions, including two that are home to Aviano Air Base and Naval Air Station Sigonella, moved into Italys second-highest COVID-19 risk category Monday, triggering new restrictions for the unvaccinated.

The classification means people who are not vaccinated wont be able to travel outside of work or health reasons in most cases. They also wont be able to go to shopping malls on weekends but could go during the rest of the week, Aviano said on its website.

People who have been vaccinated in the last nine months or received a booster shot arent subject to any further restrictions, the base said.

In Italy, unvaccinated people already are barred from most activities and many services, including at restaurants and going to the cinema, sporting events or museums. They can still go to the grocery store or pharmacy but cant use public transportation.

The change would not result in additional restrictions for fully vaccinated personnel at Sigonella but the base strongly encourages vaccinations and continued mask usage, said Lt. Drake Greer, a NAS Sigonella spokesman.

Dr. Michael Parenteau, an NSA Naples lieutenant commander and region public health emergency officer, called the omicron variant a tidal wave that was starting to impact the on-base population, while speaking at an NSA Naples Facebook town hall meeting Thursday,.

However, the Navy in Naples, along with Sigonella, Naval Station Rota in Spain and Naval Support Activity Souda Bay in Greece would not release infection rates or other details, said Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Comer, a Navy Region Europe Africa Central spokesman.

Some of our bases have seen an increase in cases and continue to follow COVID health protection, reporting, and notification protocol in order to protect our communities and maintain operational readiness, Comer said in a statement.

Italys regions of Abruzzo, Piedmont, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Sicily were moved into the orange risk zone due to increased cases, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions, the Italian Health Ministry said Monday. Friuli Venezia Giulia and Sicily are home to Aviano and Sigonella, respectively.

Italy uses a color-coded system  red, orange, yellow and white  to classify COVID-19 risk and apply additional mitigation restrictions. NSA Naples and U.S. Army Garrison Italy in Vicenza remain in yellow risk zones.

The health ministry reported 138,860 new infections and 227 deaths on Sunday. There were about 1.18 million new infections and 2,440 deaths nationwide in the preceding week, the ministry said.
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WASHINGTON  A federal judges order temporarily halting President Joe Bidens coronavirus mandate for federal workers does not impact military service members, Pentagon officials said Monday.

Defense Department lawyers believe the injunction ordered by Texas-based U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown on Friday applies only to civilian federal employees, including DOD civilian workers, according to a defense official who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Top Pentagon officials do not plan to alter their current lawful orders requiring the coronavirus shots for troops, unless they are granted waivers for medical or religious purposes, the official said Monday.

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the Defense Department was not making any immediate changes for uniformed service members.

We have not been informed of any changes to the [coronavirus] vaccination policy for service members, the Pentagon spokesperson wrote Monday in an email.

That decision came as lawyers representing 35 Navy special operators in a similar but separate federal lawsuit asked another federal judge to bar the Navy from punishing any sailors who requested a religious-based exemption from the coronavirus mandate for troops. U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor, another Texas-based federal judge, on Jan. 3 granted the specific sailors  26 SEALS, five special warfare combatant craft crewmen, three divers and one explosive ordnance disposal technician  an injunction from any Navy punishment in response to their federal lawsuit requesting the mandate be struck down for troops with religious objections to the vaccine.

As of Jan. 19, the Navy said some 3,217 active-duty sailors had filed a request for a religious accommodation, but the service had not granted any.

Lawyers for the Navy special operators wrote Monday that OConnor should expand his injunction to protect those other sailors seeking a religious accommodation. The attorneys with the First Liberty Institute, a Christian conservative legal group based in Texas, accused the Navy of failing to consider sailors sincerely held religious beliefs in declining to grant waivers.

The new temporary injunction ordered Friday by Brown blocks the Defense Department from punishing unvaccinated civilian workers, though Pentagon spokespersons declined to comment citing pending litigation. The Justice Department plans to appeal the ruling, Reuters reported Friday.

In his 20-page order temporarily halting the inoculation mandate for some 3.5 million federal employees, Brown wrote Biden likely lacked the power to single-handedly require the jab for civilian federal employees. Browns ruling specifically cites Bidens Sept. 9 executive order mandating the shots for federal employees. It does not mention Defense Secretary Lloyd Austins Aug. 25 order requiring the vaccine for military service members.

Brown, who is based in Galveston, wrote his order was not meant to discourage vaccination efforts. He endorsed the need for Americans to get the shots.

It is instead about whether the president can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment, Brown wrote. That, under the current state of the law as just recently expressed by the Supreme Court, is a bridge too far.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday some 93% of federal employees had received at least one coronavirus shot and about 98% had been either vaccinated or filed a request for religious or medical exemption.

"We are confident in our legal authority to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for federal workers, Psaki told reporters.

The Pentagons top spokesman John Kirby said Friday before news of Browns ruling broke that service members have long faced mandatory vaccinations required by the Defense Department.

It's not uncommon for us to make vaccines mandatory  it's part of being a service member, he said. When you're ordered to get a vaccine, youve got to get that vaccine.

As of last week, 334 Marines, 22 sailors and 100 airmen have been separated for refusing the vaccine. The Army has not issued any separations to date, but last week said it would begin processing them in the coming weeks.

Also as of last week, the Pentagon had yet to fire any of its civilian employees for refusing the vaccine, Kirby said Jan. 13, adding the Defense Department was still finalizing guidance on how to process vaccine-refusal terminations for its civilian workforce.

The Marine Corps is the only service branch to date that has issued any religious waivers. The service had approved two out of 3,293 religious exemption requests processed as of Thursday.
WASHINGTON  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will once again look at whether universities may consider the race of applicants when trying to build diverse student bodies, an ominous development for those who say there is a continuing need for affirmative action in higher education.

The court said it would examine the admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, most probably in the term that begins in October. Lower courts found that both complied with Supreme Court precedents that said race may be used as one factor universities can consider in a wide-ranging evaluation of applicants.

But the slim Supreme Court majorities that decided Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003 and reaffirmed it in 2016 are gone, replaced by a much more conservative bloc. Challengers say the court should overturn those precedents and rule that considerations of race, which aid underrepresented Black and Hispanic students, violate federal law and the Constitution.

Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that spearheaded both challenges, said polls show that Americans strongly disapprove of race-conscious admissions.

In a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation like ours, the college admissions bar cannot be raised for some races and ethnic groups but lowered for others, Blum said in a statement. Our nation cannot remedy past discrimination and racial preferences with new discrimination and different racial preferences.

Blums group told the Supreme Court it would be fitting to end the use of racial considerations by overturning policies at the nations oldest private college and ... at the nations oldest public college.

There will be a lot of eyes on this, said Peter McDonough, vice president and general counsel of the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities. It will be a significant decision one way or another.

The group plans to support Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill and the lower-court rulings in those cases. The rulings affirmed the appropriateness of the manner in which they conducted their activities in light of longstanding precedent, McDonough said. We hope and expect this Supreme Court will consider and respect such precedent.

Both universities told the Supreme Court that, as the extensive examinations in the lower courts showed, they have respected federal law and constitutional rights in building their student bodies.

The University has embraced diversity, in all its forms, as a core feature of its educational mission, wrote North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D). It considers race flexibly as merely one factor among numerous factors in its holistic admissions process. And it has scrupulously studied and adopted workable race-neutral alternatives.

Harvard, whose admission policy is subject to review because it receives federal funds, said its process has been held up as a national standard.

To assemble the strongest first-year class, Harvard looks for students who excel beyond academics and who will bring distinctive experiences, perspectives, talents and interests to campus, its filing to the court says. To find the strongest applicants, 40 admissions officers conduct a time-consuming, whole-person review process in which each applicant is evaluated as a unique individual, the filing says.

The Trump administration had supported Harvards challengers in lower courts, but the Biden administration switched that position and told the court it should not accept the challenge.

In a 2016 decision, the court upheld the limited use of race in student admissions by the University of Texas.

The majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy reiterated high-court rulings that diversity justifies some intrusion on the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection, which generally forbids the government to make decisions based on race.

But Justices Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two members of that majority, are no longer on the court. And three justices nominated by President Donald Trump have proved themselves to be more conservative.

The dissenters in the Texas case remain in place  Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito Jr. While Roberts often plays a moderating role on the court and is reluctant to overturn the courts precedents, he has been a steadfast opponent of affirmative action.

The petition filed by challengers in the Harvard case made note of that in the first sentence, quoting an opinion written by Roberts during his first term on the court in 2006: It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.

The possibility of a ruling that would further limit or even ban the consideration of race in admissions will send tremors through higher education.

For decades, colleges and universities have relied on guidance from the Supreme Court that it is acceptable to take race into account as one factor among many in a holistic review of an application. Their rationale is that racial diversity on campus serves a compelling educational interest. In other words, students learn through encounters with peers who may look different from them.

But there are important caveats. The court has said that colleges must consider whether race-neutral admission practices can achieve their diversity goals. And it has forbidden the use of racial quotas to fill seats in a class.

Separately, some states, including California, Michigan and Florida, have banned the consideration of race in admissions to public universities. Such measures enjoy substantial political support. In 2020, California voters decisively rejected a proposal to repeal the states affirmative action ban.

Students for Fair Admissions, based in Arlington, Va., filed its suits against Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill in November 2014, alleging unlawful bias in the admissions practices of the two universities. Both schools denied the allegations.

The Harvard case cast a spotlight on the plaintiffs allegation that one of the worlds most selective universities was discriminating against Asian Americans while giving a boost to many Hispanic and Black applicants. The suit led to unprecedented exposure of the inner workings of Harvard admissions as the plaintiff obtained internal electronic records on more than 166,000 domestic applicants spanning six admission cycles through 2014-2015.

Harvards process, Students for Fair Admissions alleged, was stacked against Asian Americans based on prejudicial and stereotypical assumptions about their qualifications. The suit also alleged that the university seeks to engineer the demographics of incoming classes to meet predetermined goals through racial balancing, that it gives too much weight to race in making admission decisions and that it failed to give adequate consideration to race-neutral alternatives.

After a trial in Boston, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs rejected those claims in a ruling for Harvard in October 2019. Burroughs called the Harvard process imperfect but also a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster. She found no persuasive evidence of racial animus or conscious prejudice against Asian Americans.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld the Burroughs ruling in November 2020.

In the North Carolina case, the plaintiff contended that the states flagship public university discriminated against White and Asian American students. UNC uses race mechanically to ensure the admission of the vast majority of underrepresented minorities, Students for Fair Admission alleged.

After a trial in Winston-Salem, N.C., U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs ruled in October that UNC-Chapel Hills method of choosing a class was constitutional and not discriminatory. Biggs also emphasized the importance of the issue for students of color.

Black students were not allowed at UNC-Chapel Hill until the 1950s. Last year they accounted for 12 percent of the entering freshman class. The shares were 21 percent for Asian or Asian American students and 65 percent for White students. (Those numbers include some multiracial overlap.)

Race is so interwoven in every aspect of the lived experience of minority students, Biggs wrote. To ignore it, reduce its importance and measure it only by statistical models as [Students for Fair Admissions] has done, misses important context.

UNC-Chapel Hill is one of the more selective public universities in the country. It offered admission to 19% of more than 53,000 who applied to join its freshman class last fall.

For Harvard, admission is ultracompetitive. Last year it offered seats to 1,968 applicants in a record pool of 57,435 applicants. The university said 13% of those admitted identified as Latinx, 18% as African American or Black, and 27% as Asian American.
WASHINGTON  The Pentagon on Monday began placing 8,500 troops on heightened alert for possible deployment to Eastern Europe should NATO request help deterring Russia from invading Ukraine.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the affected units, which primarily include ground forces, to be ready to deploy within five days should the alliance activate its NATO Response Force, chief Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon.

This will ensure  the United States would be in a position to rapidly deploy additional brigade combat teams, logistics, medical, aviation, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, transportation and additional capabilities into Europe, he said.

The response force consists of about 40,000 multinational troops from NATO countries, Kirby said. It includes land, air, sea and special operations forces that the alliance can deploy on short notice, wherever needed.

Other nations are going to have to contribute as well, but for our part, unilaterally, we wanted to make sure that we were ready in case that call should come and that means making sure the units that we contribute to it are as ready as they can be on as short of notice as possible, he said.

Other NATO members have recently announced upcoming deployments to the region. Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands each plan to send sea and air support to the region, while France "has expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania under NATO command," according to a NATO statement Monday.

Kirby said he could not say what kind of Russian action could prompt deployment and NATO would make that decision.

What we're telling these units to do is to be ready to go on a shorter timeline than what they were before, he said. We are not deploying them now. We are not saying diplomacy is dead."

The heightened alert order is the latest in the U.S. and NATOs ongoing tensions with Russia since the country began stacking troops along its border with Ukraine last month, triggering fears Russia might invade the country.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent as the country has amassed more than 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine and in neighboring Belarus.

While we can't get into the mind of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin, we are seeing the preparations that they're making at the border, she said. We have been very clear -- and President [Joe Biden] has been direct -- that military action by Russia could come at any one at any time.

All 8,500 troops on alert are based in the United States, though Kirby did not say which units were preparing for the possible deployment noting that some had not yet been notified as on Monday afternoon. He also did not rule out American troops in Europe could be moved to new locations on the Continent should tensions over Ukraine escalate.

Most of them are active-duty troops, Kirby said, but he couldn't "rule out that there won't be reservists involved in this as well."

Some of the units just by nature of who they are and where they are were already under orders to be ready to deploy within 10 days if needed, he said. The alert requires the troops to be ready to leave in five days.

Other units not already on an alert status could have more work to do to make the preparations, Kirby said.

"It sends a very clear signal to Mr. Putin, that we take our responsibilities to NATO seriously," he said. "And we are also working with the international community to implement severe consequences for Mr. Putin, if he were to [invade] again in Ukraine."

To date, the U.S. has not sent troops to Ukraine to assist against a possible Russian attack, according to Kirby, though more than 100 Florida National Guard special operators are now in the country on an advise-and-assist deployment to help train Ukrainian troops. That mission has not changed.

Tensions simmer

The heightened alert order came the same day as the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier strike group kicked off its participation in a NATO exercise in the Mediterranean Sea. It marks the first time since the Cold War that a full U.S. carrier group has come under NATO command, according to NATO statement Monday.

While Kirby on Friday said the exercise, dubbed Neptune Strike 2022, was long-planned, he did not say why NATO members decided to continue with the exercise given the tensions with Russia.

There was due consideration given about tensions right now about our exercise posture and after all that consideration and discussion with our NATO allies, the decision was made to move ahead, he said.

Tensions have been on the rise since Russia has spent weeks sending approximately 100,000 troops to its western border with Ukraine and last week into Belarus for what it claims are military exercises. A senior State Department official on Jan. 18 warned the Belarus exercise might be a ruse to allow Russia to invade Ukraine from its northern border with Belarus.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and other NATO allies have been engaging in diplomatic discussions with Russian officials to come to a peaceful resolution.

Putin has said he wants NATO to bar Ukraine from any future membership in the alliance, a concession to which the U.S. will not agree, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday after discussing the issues with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday said it also wants the West to withdraw troops and military equipment from countries added to NATO in the past 25 years, such as Bulgaria and Romania.

Biden last week said the U.S. will increase troop presence in Poland, in Romania, etc. should Russia invade Ukraine.

The United Kingdom on Saturday said it had intelligence that indicated Russia aimed to install a pro-Putin leader in Ukraine as it considers whether to invade and occupy the country, the British government said in a statement.

The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking, U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in the statement. As the U.K. and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.

U.S. officials on Sunday declined to confirm the U.K.'s intelligence reports.

Hopes for diplomacy

Even as the Pentagon readies troops for potential deployment, Ned Price, spokesman for the State Department, insisted Monday that the United States was first focused on diplomacy and dialogue with Russia.

We prefer the path of diplomacy. We believe its the only responsible way to pursue a de-escalation and to put an end to Russias ongoing aggression, he said. But just because we are ready and engaged in the path of diplomacy and dialogue doesnt mean we arent preparing with defense and deterrence.

Despite the heightened alert status, Kirby echoed the same the sentiment about finding a diplomatic end to the tensions with Russia.

I don't think anybody wants to see another war on [the] European continent, and there's no reason why that has to occur, he said. This can be solved very easily by the Russians de-escalating by moving some of these forces away, which they haven't done."

The State Departments next step is writing to the Russia this week, Price said. The written response to Russias military buildup on the Ukraine border could address the potential for progress on reciprocal steps that the countries could take, he said.

Bidens administration is gathering feedback from European allies before writing to Russia. Biden had a video call scheduled Monday afternoon with leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, NATO and the European Union.

We have shared those ideas with our European allies and partners, we are taking their feedback and incorporating that feedback, Price said.

The Pentagons alert came a day after the State Department on Sunday ordered families of U.S. Embassy employees in the Ukraine capital of Kyiv to leave the country and authorized the employees themselves to leave should they so choose.

Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesman for the Ukraine Foreign Ministry, wrote Monday on Twitter that the U.S. decision to pull diplomats families from the country is premature, warning it is extremely important to avoid activity that could be used in the information space to increase tensions in society and destabilize the economic and financial security of Ukraine.

Price said Monday that the State Department was more focused on the safety of Americans there than whether the action would cause panic in Ukraine.

The White House on Monday also urged Americans in Ukraine to make plans to leave the country, as there is not an intention or a plan for any military evacuation, Psaki said.

We are conveying very clearly that now is the time to leave and that there are means to do that, she said. Of course, there's commercial airlines [and] you can depart over land.

The statement came after two senior State Department officials on Sunday warned reporters that the U.S. will not be in a position to evacuate U.S. citizens from Ukraine should Russia invade.

The officials declined to say how many U.S. citizens are in Ukraine, citing changing numbers and the governments lack of requirement for Americans to register their presence abroad.

Reporter Nikki Wentling contributed to this report.
Stillwater, OK (74074)

Today

Thunderstorms likely. Rainfall will be locally heavy at times. A few storms may be severe. High near 65F. Winds E at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..

Tonight

Thunderstorms. A few storms may be severe. Low 59F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected.
Bay of Plenty

If you love working out doors and in a small team then we have the role for you. We are needing someone who has either maintenance...



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Press Release

January 24, 2022 Jessica Soho's 'Presidential Interviews' raises standards of presidential interviews - De Lima Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima heaped praises on the GMA Network's "The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews" for raising the standards of presidential interviews to new heights with the program's excellent execution. De Lima lauded Soho, who hosted the three-hour program that aired last Jan. 22, for asking "tough, thoughtful and well-researched" questions that allowed candidates to present themselves and their platform to the public. "The Jessica Soho Presidential Interview was real journalism at its best! It elevated the level of discourse on national issues to professional ground, away from personalities and down to the urgent issues and core substance. It set the tone and raised the standards of presidential interviews to new heights that will benefit all of us," she said. "Kudos to Ms. Jessica Soho for asking sharp and pointed questions and handling the entire interview with gravitas and fairness. They have covered such a diverse range of crucial national issues that can enlighten the voters on why we need to elect a competent, sincere and principled president come May 9," she added. "The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews" featured the 2022 presidential aspirants, including Vice President Leni Robredo, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Manila Mayor Francisco "Isko Moreno" Domagoso and Sen. Manny Pacquiao. The candidates went through four rounds of questions in a one-on-one style interview, which followed a strict format wherein they were timed for their answers and they picked via draw lots who would go first. The lady Senator from Bicol also lauded the presidential candidates who joined the program in showing courage in answering the tough questions on national TV. "Our country deserves a leader who is not afraid of anyone, much less journalists, because he/she will be asked to defend our country against all threats. Cowardice is unbecoming of a President," she said. De Lima said Lacson "displayed his extensive experience in public service." Moreno and Pacquiao, she continued, exuded great energy and displayed sincerity, through their respective answers. De Lima reserved her best compliments to Robredo, whom, she said, was a paragon of integrity and the interview showed that there is nothing but superficial criticisms that can be hurled against her. "I congratulate VP Leni for her sterling performance in that interview. I so admire how she thrives even more under pressure and in high-tension situations. Her voice is so full of conviction, sincerity and eloquence. She truly inspires confidence and trust," she said. "Hindi lamang niya sinagot ang mga pragmatic questions on governance, kundi pati leadership values na dapat maibalik sa gobyerno at ang tunay na depinisyon ng katapangan bilang isang tao at isang pinuno," she added. With more of this type of presidential interviews, De Lima believes that the country can counter fake news and disinformation, as well as demolish the fake news peddlers. "This was a good opportunity for our voters to meet the candidates. We need more of these quality interviews which test the Presidential candidates and allow our people the opportunity to watch them speak for themselves and not just through spokerspersons," she said. Ultimately, De Lima maintained that a weak presidential candidate can't stand any gut-wrenching and unbiased interview because televised interviews and debates can expose the incompetent, the unprincipled, and the chronic liar. "Kung simpleng pagpapa-interview lang sa media, kinatatakutan na, paano pa nila ipaglalaban ang ating bayan sa harap ng mga makakapangyarihang lider ng ibang bansa?" she added. It can be noted that Presidential aspirant Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. skipped the show because his team said that Soho is "biased against the Marcoses." In defense, GMA Network said, "the questions are tough because the job of the presidency is tough."
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Installed: Aftermarket infotainment head-unit with Android Auto in my 2015 Audi Q5



The pic below is of my original Audi Q5 dashboard.





Picture below is of the new Audi Q5 2021 dashboard.





And this is how my dashboard looks after the change.





Some pics below showing the specs and features of the Chinese head unit.







A 12.2 Full HD Touch Screen (1920*720 pixels). The touch feature is well implemented and feels similar to my mobile phone. The screen remains bright and clear during day with panoramic sunroof screen pulled back (brightness at 100%). The finger smudge issue remains and the screen starts to look messy by the end of a long drive. However, 30 seconds with a clean microfiber cloth does the job.



Pictures below show close ups of the functions



The home screen





Google maps navigation. Currently i am using Android Auto through my mobile hotspot.





Spotify





The reversing camera



The observant would have noticed that the reversing lines are not properly aligned. This is because the camera is installed a little to the left of center. I am trying to have this issue resolved by having the camera shifted closer to the center of the car. This is a common problem as the center of the Q5, at the back, houses the boot opening latch.



Another little issue has been the control strip which fits into the center console air slot. The one that arrived with the system turned out to be designed for a left hand drive car. Im in correspondence with the seller and expect to resolve this in due course. Surprisingly, it fit quite snugly into the slot. But a close look clearly reveals the miss-match.





Over all Im satisfied with the upgrade. The car feels as good (ok nearly so) as the 2021 model. I confess this action was inspired by the upgrade done by Dinu2506 on his beautiful red Audi A4. I own a 2015 Audi Q5 and have been on the lookout for a good upgrade option for pretty much the same reasons. I had taken a test drive of the 2021 Q5 and found that, substantively, it was only the infotainment system, based on a floating 10 screen that was different from my 2015 Q5 (and the diesel engine). The floating screen actually seemed a little after-marketish. But it had quality finish and therefore fit in quite nicely. This had me salivating. One of the key reasons that had held me back in the past was my desire not to compromise on the original quality 'feel' of the cabin. The new model got me seriously thinking. One of my friends had got an aftermarket screen installed on his Toyota Fortuner and it looked pretty OK. But I was still a bit skeptical on the quality. The finish and specs of the screens i had seen were not impressive. That is till I chanced upon this Chinese website selling complete upgrades to radio heads for most popular cars including Audi. The specs were appealing, compelling even and after a bit of research i was sold. so I decided to import the head and have it installed locally in NCR. The pics below tell the rest of the story. The upgrade looks pretty cool. Though the aftermarket look is undeniable, its not too different from the new 2021 Audi. In addition to the usual benefits of Android Auto, touch screen, navigation, reversing camera etc, the screen also has a slot for a dedicated Sim card as well as a micro SD card. The advantage of the memory card is that additional apps you may download can be stored on the card without slowing down the main screen. A by-product has been an upgrade to sound quality as the system includes a better DAC. Furthermore, the screen is now placed higher up and closer to eye level.The pic below is of my original Audi Q5 dashboard.Picture below is of the new Audi Q5 2021 dashboard.And this is how my dashboard looks after the change.Some pics below showing the specs and features of the Chinese head unit.A 12.2 Full HD Touch Screen (1920*720 pixels). The touch feature is well implemented and feels similar to my mobile phone. The screen remains bright and clear during day with panoramic sunroof screen pulled back (brightness at 100%). The finger smudge issue remains and the screen starts to look messy by the end of a long drive. However, 30 seconds with a clean microfiber cloth does the job.Pictures below show close ups of the functionsThe home screenGoogle maps navigation. Currently i am using Android Auto through my mobile hotspot.SpotifyThe reversing cameraThe observant would have noticed that the reversing lines are not properly aligned. This is because the camera is installed a little to the left of center. I am trying to have this issue resolved by having the camera shifted closer to the center of the car. This is a common problem as the center of the Q5, at the back, houses the boot opening latch.Another little issue has been the control strip which fits into the center console air slot. The one that arrived with the system turned out to be designed for a left hand drive car. Im in correspondence with the seller and expect to resolve this in due course. Surprisingly, it fit quite snugly into the slot. But a close look clearly reveals the miss-match.Over all Im satisfied with the upgrade. The car feels as good (ok nearly so) as the 2021 model.
Why it matters: Google is warning that a 2020 ruling by the High Court of Australia could have a "devastating" impact on the entire internet, forcing the company to "censor" search results if a defamation charge is allowed to stand.

The Guardian reports that the case revolves around George Defteros, a Victoria defense lawyer who previously represented Melbourne gangland figures. He sued Google over claims that its publication of search results showing a 2004 article defamed him.

The article from The Age implied that Defteros had become more than just a lawyer for criminal elements but was also a friend and confidant, crossing professional boundaries. The piece also reported on the murder charges Defteros faced in relation to the killing of three men. Prosecutors withdrew the charges in 2005.

Defteros' lawyers contacted Google in February 2016 and asked it to remove the article, but Google refused as it said The Age was a reputable source. The piece was eventually removed in December 2016 after it had been accessed a further 150 times.

The issue ended up in the courts and Defteros was awarded $40,000 in defamation damages in 2020. Supreme court justice Melinda Richards said neither the article nor the Google search result indicated the murder charges against Defteros had been dropped. Google appealed the decision, but the Victorian Court of Appeals rejected it.

In a filing, Google argues that "a hyperlink is not, in and of itself, the communication of that to which it links," and that websites should only be liable if the hyperlink "actually repeats the defamatory imputation to which it links."

"The inevitable consequence of leaving the court of appeal's decision undisturbed is that Google will be required to act as censor by excluding any webpage about which complaint is made from its search results, even when, as here, the webpage may be a matter of legitimate interest to the substantial portion of people who search for it and is published by a reputable news source."

In September last year, the Dylan Voller case saw Australia's High Court rule that news sites should be considered liable for defamatory posts to their Facebook pages, rather than the posters themselves. This ruling led to some outlets blocking Australians from accessing their Facebook pages.
The big picture: While the metaverse seems to solve some contemporary problems, such as delivering practical presentations with quasi-physical objects in a work-from-home scenario, it does lend to some dystopian connotations. The movie The Matrix and the comic book Peace of Mind both warn that the AIs and corporations controlling the metaverse do not necessarily have humanity's wellbeing at the top of their priority list.

The metaverse seems to be the next in-thing in the tech world. Everybody is talking about it, and seemingly every Big Tech company wants in on the ground floor. Mark Zuckerberg is so enthusiastic about the metaverse he changed Facebook's name to "Meta."

For those unfamiliar with the metaverse idea, the concept is to create a virtual universe within the real universe where people can interact without leaving their homes. Think of work meetings with avatars that can move around a virtual room instead of Zoom meetings (below). Coupled with NFTs, metaverse denizens can even "own" things that do not exist.

However, not everyone is onboard the metaverse train. Ken Kutaragi, the inventor of the PlayStation and former CEO of Sony's gaming division, told Bloomberg that he couldn't see the point of a "quasi-real" world.

"Being in the real world is very important, but the metaverse is about making quasi-real in the virtual world, and I can't see the point of doing it," said Kutaragi in an interview. "You would rather be a polished avatar instead of your real self? That's essentially no different from anonymous messageboard sites."

The "Father of the PlayStation" also finds VR headsets "annoying" because they cut users off from reality.

"Headsets would isolate you from the real world, and I can't agree with that," he said. "Headsets are simply annoying."

Kutaragi is now the CEO of artificial intelligence startup Ascent Robotics, which is actually doing the opposite of Facebook/Meta. Ascent is working on technology that turns real-world objects into machine-readable data. The company just finished a round of funding with a $1 billion investment from Kutaragi's prior employer Sony.

Kutaragi, who is currently waiving his salary at Ascent, says "off-the-shelf" hardware will not cut it for his goals. His team will use the funds raised to build a robotics platform from scratch, including software, sensors, and machines.
A new study shows that light sensors in wearable devices do not work on people with obesity and darker skin tone.

Light Sensors Don't Work on Obese and Dark Skinned Users

The discovery serves as a bad sign for wearables like Fitbit and Apple Watch that are using light sensors for new applications, like monitoring the user's blood pressure, according to The Verge.

The author of the study, Jessica Ramella-Roman, an associate professor at Florida International University, said that the device's architecture needs to change.

The study focused on the photoplethysmography (PPG) signal, which is a technique that uses changes in how light is reflected to measure the user's blood flow, on three wearable devices: Fitbit Versa 2, Apple Watch Series 5, and Polar M600, as posted on NCBI.

A model was used to simulate how light moves through tissue and demonstrate how the wearable's light sensors behave with different skin tones.

Since people with obesity have thicker skin, it makes it more difficult for the sensor's light to go through the body's tissues.

Also Read: Meet Fitbit Alta HR: 'Slimmest Fitness Wristband' With Heart Rate Sensor

While the previous study on accuracy and bias in wearables has focused on the user's skin tone, Ramella-Roman said that a lot of studies had not included a lot of users with obesity despite the physiological differences.

The PPG signal of wearable devices decreases 60% if it is used by someone with obesity, while it decreases 10% if it is used by someone with a darker skin tone, according to Nature.

Signal loss appeared to be because of changes in skin thickness in users with obesity. There were changes in the peak of the PPG signal, which is used to calculate the heart rate but whose signal strength should not change based on the heart rate value.

The shape of the signal changed as well, which different groups are using to track blood pressure.

Diminishing Signal

The study noted that as they increased the BMI level and increased the user's skin tone, the signal decreased, and the other features began disappearing too.

The study only modeled how the wearables would detect signals in the lab. The team still has to use the devices on actual people to confirm their findings. They are currently in the process of doing the study, and they have enrolled 100 participants.

However, the issues revealed by studies like this complicate projects looking to use wearables to detect cardiovascular health for underserved groups.

The new study shows that researchers have to be careful in using PPG, especially for projects that aim to monitor the health of people with cardiovascular issues, most of which are associated with obesity.

Wearables also use light sensors to detect flu in users, which may be compromised.

The findings also suggest that other devices that use light sensors and PPG, as the blood oxygen measures in clinics or hospitals, may not work well for people with obesity.

Related Article: Fitbit Files Patent for Smart Ring That Tracks Blood Oxygen and Pressure Levels

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Written by Sophie Webster

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Android and iPhone smartphones are becoming more in-demand as Apple, Samsung, and other giant manufacturers release advanced models. Their new handsets offer better features than their predecessors, allowing consumers to have a better experience.

However, some individuals are addicted to their handsets, especially since the global COVID-19 pandemic prevents them from socializing or going outside.

Because of this, they tend to find ways to entertain themselves, such as scrolling on various social media platforms, using applications, and playing online games.

But, too much smartphone screen time can affect your health. Now, here are some of the Android and iPhone settings you can tweak to reduce your phone time.

iPhone, Android Settings To Tweak

According to the New York Post's latest report, your iPhone or Android offers a lot of useful settings that you can adjust. Tweaking them will actually help you reduce your screen time as much as possible. These include the following:

Also Read: iPhone 13 Pink Screen Issue Just a Software Bug? Apple Reassures Users It's Not a Hardware Flaw

iPhone

Checking Screen Time (Settings > Screen Time > See All Activity)

(Settings > Screen Time > See All Activity) Limiting Screen Time (Settings > Screen Time > Turn On Screen Time > This is my iPhone/This is My Child's iPhone > Downtime > Scheduled > Every Day/Customize Days)

Android

Screen Time Settings (Settings Menu > Digital Wellbeing & Controls)

(Settings Menu > Digital Wellbeing & Controls) Limiting App Usage (Settings > Digital Wellbeing & Parental controls > Set timer)

(Settings > Digital Wellbeing & Parental controls > Set timer) Limiting Apps Individually (Settings > Notifications > App Settings > Most Recent > All Apps > Off)

Effects of Too Much Screen Time

Psych Guides explained that using your smartphone for a very long period can affect your physical and mental health. These include the following side effects:

Mental

Depression

Sleep disturbances

Anxiety

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Physical

Neck pain

Illnesses caused by germs on your smartphone

Digital eye strain

The rumored under-display face ID for iPhone 14 is now delayed in other news. The new feature is expected to arrive by 2023. Meanwhile, Samsung decided to focus on foldable.

For more news updates about Android and iPhone smartphones, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: Top Android, iOS Privacy-Focused Browsers That Can Replace Your Google Chrome

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 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is about to reach its final destination, L2 (second Lagrange point).

Ever since the international space agency confirmed its development, many people got excited since it can capture images of space that are more detailed and accurate compared to those of other space telescopes.

When it was launched back on December 25, 2021, more people were intrigued by the advanced JWST, especially when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced that the giant telescope will enter an area where no other rockets has reached yet.

According to Digital Trends' latest report, James Webb Space Telescope is expected to reach L2 by Jan. 24. Now, here's where you can watch NASA's updates about it.

How To Watch NASA JWST's L2 Arrival

NASA announced that it will hold a news conference to allow the public to know what's happening with its James Webb Space Telescope.

Also Read: NASA to Pay $1 Million for People Who Can Find 'Innovative' Ways to Feed Astronauts in Space

Aside from this, the international space agency also confirmed that there will be a Science Live broadcast titled "What's Next for the James Webb Space Telescope?"

During this session, viewers can send their questions, which NASA's scientists will try to answer as much as possible.

Meanwhile, in the news conference, the space union's managers and engineers for JWST are expected to discuss the insertion burn and other updates of the giant space Telescope.

What To Expect Once JWST Reaches L2

Forbes reported that when James Webb Space Telescope successfully reaches the L2 region, space fans can expect some images comparison from JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope.

This means that people will know of JWST's new infrared capabilities are more efficient than Hubble's outdated ultra-violet functionalities.

Now, various experts shared the space objects of heavenly bodies that JWST might take photos of. These include the Pillar of Creation, the Tarantula Nebula, the Horse Head Nebula, the Monkey Head Nebula, and many more.

In other news, NASA captured the sun's mid-level solar flare, which forced SWPC to issue a warning for astronauts in orbit. Meanwhile, SpaceX secured the U.S. Air Force deal, which involves a 5-year contract.

For more news updates about NASA and its popular JWST, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

Related Article: NASA Buys Planet-Themed Comics From a Singaporean Student for $1,000! What Will the Space Agency Do With It?

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 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
With a lot of buyers still trying to get the PlayStation 5 and the limited amount of titles currently exclusive for the PS5, new console owners are wondering about backwards compatibility for consoles farther than the PS4.

Sadly, one of PlayStation's ads was misunderstood and Sony is actually not planning on bringing backward compatibility to their consoles.

Fans Thought PlayStation Teased Backwards Compatibility

According to a tweet by Push Square, fans actually thought that PlayStation was teasing backward compatibility for the PS1, PS2, and PS3. Sadly, it was actually nothing more than just an ad.

According to the article, the publication warns that it was not worth getting excited over the PlayStation Japanese teaser unless fans were also interested in Kenshi Yonezu. The infamous Japanese PlayStation ad had nothing to do with backwards compatibility.

1, 2, 3 Thought to Refer to the PS1, PS2, and PS3

The reason that fans ended up thinking that PlayStation would bring backwards compatibility is due to the visible 1, 2, and 3, which were actually nothing but just lyrics in the advertisement. The confusion is actually quite understandable as it does look like a potential tease for compatibility.

At the same time, the interpretation was just based on the numbers 1, 2, and 3, without any other context. Although there's no telling if Sony will later on decide to bring backwards compatibility to its consoles, one reason why the ad could have mistakenly been thought to be a teaser is due to it being in Japanese.

Why was There Confusion?

For English-speaking fans that come across the ad, the numbers 1, 2, and 3, followed by a Japanese character than the word "PlayStation" could be taken with optimistic imagination.

Previously, a PlayStation Japan tweet blew up due to fans thinking that it was referring to backward compatibility for the PS1, PS2, and PS3. The truth, however, is that it was a teaser ad with the 1, 2, and 3 actually being the launch date featuring the Japanese popstar and music producer known as Kenshi Yonezu.

Read Also: PlayStation 2021 Wrap-Up Tool Shows Your Gaming Activity: Favorite Games, Playing Time, and MORE!

The Actual Video Being Teased

Although fans were right that it was a teaser, it was not specifically what they thought it was. Rather, it was a teaser to this video. Since the video dropped, the confusion has been cleared as to what PlayStation Japan's Twitter page was referring to.

Although the number of gamers that have a PS5 has increased, the number of games that are PS5 "exclusive" are extremely limited. A lot of games for the PlayStation 5 are actually PS4 games played with backwards compatibility.

With Sony no longer producing the PS4, fans might see things shift to a more "PS5-focused" gaming environment soon. This means that potentially no more games would be released for the PlayStation 4. This, however, remains to be seen and only time will be able to tell if such is really the case.

Related Article: PS5 Scalper Says He Gives Other Folks a Chance To Be Entrepreneurs

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Kaspersky's cybersecurity researchers recently spotted a new breed of malware that can bypass normal security protection, like in the case of an antivirus.

According to the experts, it could not be removed easily, even in drive formatting or replacement. The latest finding also revealed that this security threat came from APT41, a Chinese-linked espionage group that the government sponsors.

How Dangerous is MoonBounce Malware

According to a report by FossBytes, the unique part of the MoonBounce malware is its ability to thrive in the motherboard's SPI memory.

Unlike other malware, which normally thrive in the hard drive, it would remain in the computer even after replacing its hard drive. Either way, reinstalling your operating system won't do anything to erase it.

Kaspersky stated that there is only one way to get rid of this pesky software. Since this malware is considered a bootkit, it can only be exterminated by doing a complex process called SPI memory re-flashing.

Another costly solution that can entirely delete it in the computer is replacing the PC's motherboard.

While this was the first time that cybersecurity analysts encountered MoonBounce malware, other malware already lived in the motherboard's SPI memory before. These include MosaicRegressor, ESPectre, UEFI bootkit, and LoJax.

The Kaspersky researchers said that this malware is challenging to remove at first since it appears to be unachievable. However, as time passes, they get used to it until it becomes a part of the norm.

Related Article: Australia Telecom Hack: Huawei Documents Point Out to Chinese Spies' 'Secret Activities'

Chinese Government-Sponsored Group Behind MoonBounce Malware

According to Kaspersky, in another report by Tech Radar on Monday, Jan. 24, the recently discovered malware is made for multi-stage attack, thus becoming a stage one malware.

There are times that this threat can be used to infect other systems by using a device or group of devices to carry out attacks. These gadgets will later become outlets of ransomware, remote code files, and data harvesters.

Despite its rarity, MoonBounce malware is believed to be under the control of an espionage group called APT4. This crew of cybercriminals is allegedly linked to the Chinese government.

Kaspersky said that the stage two malware and the MoonBounce were found to exist in the same device. They were caught functioning under the similar server infrastructure where APT41 operated.

As of press time, the Russian antivirus provider has not yet known the possible way MoonBounce actually entered on the affected devices.

"As a safety measure against this attack and similar ones, it is recommended to update the UEFI firmware regularly and verify that BootGuard, where applicable, is enabled. Likewise, enabling Trust Platform Modules, in case corresponding hardware is supported on the machine, is also advisable," Kaspersky said.

Chinese Hackers Are Everywhere

In connection to this article, Tech Times reported in September 2021 that the SideWalk malware was found to be connected to Grayfly, a known Chinese spy group.

Slovakian cybersecurity company ESET disclosed the details about this report. It said that this was the same group which is responsible for the spread of the Winnti malware.

Meanwhile, the Webdav-O computer virus was spotted to have exploited Russian federal agencies. This resembled Trojan, but under a special variant dubbed "BlueTraveller." It was reportedly under the control of TaskMasters, a notorious squad of Chinese hackers.

Read Also: Outdated WordPress Plug-ins, Themes Distribute Backdoors For Potential Supply Chain Attack, Jetpack Says

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Written by Joseph Henry

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Tehachapi, CA (93561)

Today

Mainly sunny. High 77F. ESE winds shifting to N at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Clear skies. Low near 45F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph.
"A security source even mentions a coup in progress... Hooded soldiers took position in front of national television," Le Parisien reported.

Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has been detained overnight by mutinous soldiers. He was taken to a military camp, local media reported Monday.

"The situation is confusing in Burkina Faso. Late on Sunday afternoon, shots were heard near the presidential residence... in Ouagadougou, the capital of a country plagued by jihadist violence and where riots broke out in several barracks. Faced with their tensions, Le Parisien reported.

Previously, a country-wide curfew was imposed on Sunday in Burkina Faso from 8:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m., following the report of gunfire in some barracks in the morning. Another statement from the minister of national education announced the closure of schools on Monday and Tuesday.

Gunshots were heard early Sunday morning in barracks in the capital Ouagadougou and other cities. Burkina Faso's government confirmed the gunfire but denied the information on social media about the army takeover.

Bullet holes are seen in a car that belong to the Burkina Faso presidency following heavy gunfire near the president Roch Kabore residence in Ouagadougou , Burkina Faso pic.twitter.com/yYDyRLLET5  worldnews24u (@worldnews24u) January 24, 2022

International outlets such as RFI, Reuters, AFP confirmed that the president was arrested overnight. "A security source even mentions a coup in progress. A statement is expected to be made in the next few hours. Hooded soldiers took position in front of national television," Le Parisien added.

According to local sources, later in the day, the headquarters of Burkina Faso's ruling party in Ouagadougou was set on fire by protesters. Internet was partially cut off.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has called for calm and reaffirmed its support for President Kabore.
A man accused in the fatal 2018 ambush shooting of his ex-girlfriend on College Drive pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter and other unrelated domestic abuse charges and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Billy G. Pettice, 41, had been scheduled to stand trial this week on a second-degree murder charge in the slaying of Dedawn Bush, 20, and would have faced a mandatory term of life behind bars if convicted as charged.

Pettice, according to Baton Rouge police, stole a gun from his cousin hours before he shot and killed Bush on a sidewalk in front of an apartment complex near the intersection of College and Bardwell drives on June 13, 2018.

+3 Man indicted in June shooting death of young woman on College Drive A 38-year-old man was indicted Thursday in the June 13 shooting death on College Drive of a young woman with whom he previously had a rocky ro

Pettice had been trying to get back together with Bush in the days preceding her death, repeatedly "proclaiming his love" for her via numerous calls and text messages, his arrest report states.

Pettice also pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated assault with a firearm and domestic abuse battery after he was accused in November of attacking a different woman, the mother of his two young children, while free on bond in Bush's killing.

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Police said Pettice strangled the woman while holding a gun to her head and threatening to kill her. Their children, ages 4 and 7, witnessed the assault, an arrest report says.

Police said the victim had broken up with Pettice and started dating someone else.

State District Judge Eboni Johnson-Rose sentenced Pettice under the terms of a plea agreement to concurrent terms of 12 years for manslaughter, five years for aggravated assault with a firearm and six months for domestic abuse battery.

Murder suspect arrested on domestic abuse after winning reduced bond, release from ankle monitor Almost two years after allegedly shooting his ex-girlfriend to death on College Drive and fleeing to Texas where he was later arrested, Billy 

The judge last summer relieved Pettice of his ankle monitor after finding he was unable to afford the monitoring fees. After his November arrest, the judge ordered him held without bond.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday narrowly approved Texas-based Great Hearts to start a classically oriented charter school, but rejected two other applicants.

The 5-4 vote for Great Hearts ran contrary to an outside evaluator who urged the board to reject all three applicants.

Great Hearts was supported by New Schools for Baton Rouge, but another charter proposal backed by the prominent nonprofit fell short.

The rejected applicants, Discovery Schools and Pelican Educational Foundation, can appeal Thursday's decision to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, known as BESE. If BESE rules in their favor, they would receive a broader Type 2 charter that would allow them to enroll students from any part of Louisiana.

To get approved, Great Hearts agree to scale down its proposal to opening just one school in southeast Baton Rouge that will eventually have about 1,400 students in grades K-12. It can apply in the future for the two additional schools it had proposed.

The votes come as the parish School Board approved a $489 million budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year that anticipates a big expansion of charter schools already approved in Baton Rouge. The school system would direct about $80.2 million to district-approved, or Type 1, charter schools, up from $57.4 million this year.

In a presentation, Chief of Schools Sharon Williams showed that the school system has already set in motion significant charter growth, even without approving the three latest applicants. She said if all those approved schools grow to their full capacity they will enroll more than 14,000 students, nearly triple the 4,800 students in such schools now.

Board member Mike Gaudet was one of the no votes on Great Hearts. He said he was drawing a line because the board has approved so many charter before and said those past decision will mean painful budget cuts in the future.

"This decision is easy tonight compared to those," Gaudet predicted.

3 new charter schools could serve 7,000+ Baton Rouge kids, but evaluator says they shouldn't open An outside evaluator is urging the rejection of the three latest applicants seeking to open new charter schools in Baton Rouge, including two 

But the prevailing board members were swayed in part by the liberal arts focus and the strong academic track record of Great Hearts schools in Texas and Arizona.

Here's how the final Great Hearts vote went:

For: Board members Mark Bellue, Connie Bernard, Jill Dyason, Evelyn Ware-Jackson and David Tatman.

Against: Board member Dawn Collins, Gaudet, Tramelle Howard and Dadrius Lanus.

The outside evaluator had different concerns with different schools, which combined sought to serve more than 7,000 students. She worried that they won't serve enough low-income students, don't bring anything new to the school system, or don't have a track record of academic success.

In years past, the recommendations of the outside evaluator and schools chief have, with rare exceptions, been the same. But in this case, new Superintendent Sito Narcisse sat silently during Thursdays discussion, by choice not offering no recommendation of his own, and no board member asked him for one.

Discovery runs two schools in Jefferson Parish, Great Hearts has 33 schools in Arizona and Texas, while Pelican has just one school, Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge.

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Pelican was rejected unanimously. Discovery was rejected in an 7-1 vote, with only Dyason voting in favor; Gaudet did not vote.

Discovery and Great Hearts are both backed by New Schools for Baton Rouge. The powerful nonprofit has recruited some of the Capital Citys most prominent charter schools, as well as offering financial support and even helping to build their campuses.

Mary Katie Blunschi, a former school administrator in Baton Rouge, has for the past several years served as the school systems legally required outside evaluator. She and several school system administrators interviewed the three applicants.

Charter schools are public schools run privately via charters, or contracts. Currently there are 29 charter schools operating in the parish, educating more than 11,000 children, or nearly 20% of all of the parish's public schoolchildren. Four more charter schools are set to open this fall.

Daniel Scoggin, president of the Great Hearts Foundation, said that he met with Superintendent Narcisse several months ago and remembers the superintendent asking him, Whats your innovation?

He said the charter schools focus on classical, liberal arts and use of the Socratic inquiry is innovative in Baton Rouge,

There is not an open enrollment, classical liberal arts in this parish, Scoggin said.

Great Hearts, however, is likely to have a low percentage of qualifying low-income students who are likely to attend the three K-12 classical, liberal arts-oriented schools the organization hopes to open in Baton Rouge.

Its application says its target is to have only 40% of their students qualify as economically disadvantaged. Evaluators noted that several Great Heart schools average about 20% on this measure, one with just 8%. By contrast, almost 80% of the students in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, and about 72% statewide, are considered economically disadvantaged.

State law requires that the demographics of charter schools, with few exceptions, mirror those of their sponsoring school district, coming within at least 15 percentage points.

The applicant does not meet this criterion, Blunschi concluded.

Pelican has applied before unsuccessfully to expand beyond the middle school it has operated since 2009 out of the former Kenilworth Middle School at 7600 Boone Ave. Unlike its past applications, Pelican this time is seeking not a high school but an elementary feeder school with about 330 students, while its middle school would shrink to just 170 students.

Blunschi urged denial of Pelicans request because the groups current school has a D letter grade. District charter policy specifies that groups already operating a charter school in Louisiana need at least a C letter grade to be considered for a new charter in Baton Rouge.

If I were to approve this charter, I think it would make our current charter policy meaningless, said board member Bellue.

Discoverys proposal had a lot of support from business leader, but Blunschi judged it as presenting nothing new and innovative. She noted several current schools are offering a variety of career-oriented programs, as well as Narcisses Pathway to Bright Futures initiative that would expand high school programs in several high-demand career fields. Consequently, the evaluators conclude that the application for Baton Rouge Discovery Academy presents nothing new and innovative.

Caroline Roemer, executive director of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools, said board members erred in not visiting the Kenner campus and seeing it in action.

Im telling you its a phenomenal place  Im telling you youve made a mistake on this one if you pass on it, Roemer said.
Daniel Ross wants to learn how to code his own video games and doesnt want to wait. So when it came time to select a high school, Baton Rouges newest high school, GEO Next Generation High, stood out. The 14-year-old was drawn in particular to its promise to let students like him take college courses while still in high school.

I just heard that I could go to college early, so I was just like, I dont need them other schools, I can just come here, Ross said.

And while many high schools offer college-level classes, GEO Next Generations model is to send its students to a college campus, in this case, Baton Rouge Community College. Vans will shuttle students back and forth each morning from the school to BRCC.

The new school officially opened its doors Thursday. Twenty-eight of its 102 students, however, have already been at school for weeks, taking a summer course at BRCC.

Quintasia McCray, 14, said her summer at BRCC, a place shed never been before, was fun but challenging.

You were learning college-level material, McCray recalled. You had to study a lot and refer back to notes.

Thursday was also the opening day of the 2019-20 school year for students attending public schools in Ascension and East Baton Rouge parishes, as well as schools in Central and Zachary. By Monday, schools all across the capital region will have returned from summer break.

+3 Some Baton Rouge high schoolers will head to class on a college campus through new charter school Doing college-level work while still in high school is nothing new in Baton Rouge, but high schoolers routinely taking courses on a college ca

GEO Next Generation is the outgrowth of two feeder schools: GEO Prep Academy of Greater Rouge, a K-7 school with which it shares space, and GEO Prep Mid-City, a K-8 school at 1900 Lobdell Blvd. Thirty-two of the high schools ninth-graders spent eighth-grade at GEO Prep Mid City.

The new high school is modeling itself after a school that its nonprofit charter management group, GEO Foundation, has run for years in Gary, Indiana, called 21st Century Charter School at Gary. That school has many students whove earned enough college credits while still in high school to earn an associates degree. A few of them have even managed to earn a bachelors degree in that time.

Thursday, though, the goals here were comparatively modest. Teacher Connie Brown focused on improving the listening skills of her fresh crop of ninth-graders.

Teaching a class called Introduction to Business Computer Applications, Brown had a simple request: Log into your Chromebooks and open up Microsoft Outlook.

What did you say? interrupted one boy, puzzled.

Ive given instructions. You were not paying attention, right? So you will ask two classmates before you ask Mrs. Brown? the teacher instructed him.

The boy then turned to two girls sitting near him, but they clearly didnt know the answer. Finally, he turned back to the teacher, still lost.

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Mrs. Brown, what did you say? he asked again, prompting a laugh.

East Baton Rouge, the second largest school district in the state, began the new school year with 40,866 students, 477 more than the first day of school a year ago. A lot of that growth can be traced to three charter schools, BASIS Baton Rouge, IDEA Innovation and IDEA Bridge. Those three schools on Thursday had about 500 students more than they had a year ago when they opened.

Overall enrollment in East Baton Rouge is expected to grow. Some children enroll during the opening weeks of school and some schools take longer to update their reports.

+13 'Words cannot describe' new, futuristic Park Elementary in Baton Rouge After 13 months of work, amid a lot of rain, the new Park Elementary is nearly ready to open when students return from summer break a week from now.

Superintendent Warren Drake said he visited six schools Thursday, including Park Elementary, which was rebuilt at an expense of about $21.7 million, and said all were operating smoothly, with pupils learning and a few in the offices trying to get their schedules straight. He also credited the districts Human Resources and Transportation departments for their work.

Its the best Ive seen in terms of staffing as well as transportation on the first day of school, Drake said.

Glen Oaks High School, which is in the third of four years of renovations and improvements sparked by the August 2016 floods, still is not as finished as I would like, with two to three more weeks of construction work still to go, Drake said.

Charter schools are public schools run privately via contracts, or charters. Twenty-six charter schools are currently operating in East Baton Rouge Parish. They usually are elementary or middle schools, not high schools.

But thats slowly changing.

GEO Next Generation is the fourth high school in town that is also a charter school. It joins Madison Prep, Mentorship Academy and Collegiate Baton Rouge. They opened in 2009, 2010 and 2017, respectively.

GEO Next Generation plans to expand over time from 100 to 400 students. It eventually plans to build a new campus on vacant land at its 2311 N. Sherwood Forest Drive address.

Collegiate Baton Rouge finally has a permanent home at 282 Lobdell Blvd. after two years in temporary spaces. The newly constructed $10.9 million facility has 28 classrooms covering almost 45,000 square feet. It expects to have 450 students when school starts Monday and to grow to about 600 students next year, when it will have its first graduating class.

Theyre here because their parents love them On a recent Monday night, at a time when other children their age were at home, the 17 sixth-graders who attend THRIVE Academy in Baton Rouge 

THRIVE Academy, an inner city board school, opened in 2012 as a charter school but in 2017 shifted to a state-run school. It enrolls about 200 students in grades six to 12 and had its first graduating class in May. Like Collegiate, THRIVE has finally completed years of improvement to 2585 Brightside Drive campus where it relocated in 2016. Its new $11 million academic center that includes classrooms, a gym, cafeteria and a healthcare center. Students arrive for school next week.

No more major construction projects are coming up, said founder Sarah Broome with relief. This will be the seventh building we have opened in eight years, and I, personally, am looking forward to not having any building projects ahead of us.
State education leaders are launching a new push to widen access to high school classes for college credit, including Black students who make up a small portion of those enrolled today.

The classes, called dual enrollment, allow high school juniors and seniors to tackle courses that count for both high school and college credit.

Barely 1 in 5 eligible students are enrolled in the classes now, and nearly two-thirds are White students.

Commissioner of Higher Education Kim Hunter Reed, state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley and others hope a new dual enrollment portal  Ladualenrollment.com  will provide a one-stop tool for students, boost the number of dual enrollment students and help make the classes more accessible to minority students.

The portal, which went up last week, includes frequently asked questions, how to search for both academic and technical college courses and a link to a new program that lets high school students earn an associate degree and other credentials, called Fast Forward.

It is set to be formally unveiled Tuesday during an annual convention in Baton Rouge that attracts about 800 educators, school counselors and industry leaders.

The portal is aimed in part at ending the notion that the classes are only for students headed to prestigious four-year colleges. "One of the things we have to push against is dual enrollment is for high fliers only," Reed said.

"Dual enrollment is for everyone," she said. "We want to make sure the portal sends that message."

Brumley said dual enrollment can pave the way for apprenticeships that allow high school students to graduate as a Level 2 carpenter or electrician. "The high school experience in Louisiana has to change," he said.

"It's important for parents and students to have pathway choices that fit their family such as dual enrollment, Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, career credentials or apprenticeships," Brumley said.

One of the roadblocks today, educators say, is the state has lots of information about dual enrollment but is too scattered to generate interest.

A focus group used by The Education Trust, a nonprofit group that works to narrow the opportunity gap between students of color and others, found that students have misconceptions on who can take the classes and opt not to apply.

"This digital tool signals that dual enrollment is for all students," said Doris Voitier, superintendent of the St. Bernard Parish School District and an educator for 50 years.

"It's our coordinated way to spread the word," Voitier said.

Voitier is a member of the Statewide Dual Enrollment Task Force, which was started after Gov. John Bel Edwards' bid to expand access to the courses failed in 2019.

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Task force created to study Louisiana dual enrollment classes, but 'still a lot of legwork' needed Gov. John Bel Edwards' bid to ensure that public high school juniors and seniors have access to two courses for college credit without charge 

The 12-member panel, which is co-chaired by Reed, is tackling a myriad of issues, including who qualifies for the classes, how they are financed and ways to ensure academic quality.

The portal was one of its first recommendations.

Critics contend eligibility rules, including meeting benchmarks on the ACT, which is supposed to measure college readiness, are one reason relatively few Black students pursue dual enrollment.

Louisiana has about 90,000 high school seniors and juniors, with fewer than 20,000 taking high school classes for college credit.

Fewer Black students in Louisiana take high school classes for college credit, report shows A major racial gap continues in who takes high school classes for college credit, an education consultant told Louisiana public school and col

About 65% of enrollment is White students and 27% Black students.

Under current rules, some students have to have a high school GPA of at least 2.5, earn a composite score of 19 or higher on the ACT and score at least a 19 on the math portion of the ACT and an 18 on the English section to qualify for dual enrollment.

Reed emphasized that some of the college classes do not carry those rules, and the portal can help students see that. Those benchmarks are under review by the state Board of Regents.

Louisiana is grappling with some of the same topics as other states, said Stephen Pruitt, president of the Southern Regional Education Board. "Access is always one of the issues," Pruitt said.

He said that, aside from scrutinizing eligibility rules for dual enrollment, the push to expand requires partnerships among local school districts and counselors. "Being able to find a way to help the adults in the building help the students in the building is going to be a huge undertaking," Pruitt said.

Backers say dual enrollment students are more likely to enter and finish college.

Regents Chairman Collis Temple III, earned his undergraduate degree in three years at LSU, then a master's degree and began work on a Ph.D at LSU without any head start on college courses in high school. "I wasn't really made aware of the power of dual enrollment," he said.

Temple said the importance of letting high school students see they can handle college courses cannot be overstated.

"It helps kids realize they can do it," he said.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board rejected two charter schools last week, with members expressing concern about what charter schools are costing the school district. But it approved a new K-12 school run by Great Hearts to open in an upscale subdivision at the southern tip of Bluebonnet Boulevard, not far from L'Auberge Casino.

Despite the debate over charter school funding, board members said they needed to approve a new school in the southeastern part of the parish, an area that went decades without new schools despite years of rapid growth. Those concerns are at the center of the effort to create a new, separate city of St. George.

The board rejected Jefferson Parish-based Discovery Schools, which wants to open a health-focused K-8 school in Baton Rouge and the Pelican Educational Foundation, which is seeking to expand its lone site, Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge, from a middle school to a K-8 school.

Two charter schools rejected, but Texas-based Great Hearts approved for one Baton Rouge school The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday narrowly approved Texas-based Great Hearts to start a classically oriented charter school

The denials  and the close 5-4 vote to approve Great Hearts  were less about the merits of the proposals and more about the growing unease with the growing financial cost of charters at a time when school leaders are looking for ways to fund their own improvement plans.

Where are the limiting boundaries for us with charter schools in this district? asked board member Mike Gaudet, who voted no on all three proposals. Do we have to accept every good charter that comes before us simply because they are a good charter and could be innovative?

Gaudet, a retired chemical engineer who has supported charter school proposals in the past, offered an analogy going back to his days working in a lab.

There were lots of experiments I wanted to run, but you know what? We couldnt afford to run all the experiments, Gaudet said.

Like Gaudet, board member Dadrius Lanus has supported charters in the past but voted no on all three proposals. He said new Superintendent Sito Narcisse and the board need more time to develop a strategic plan as well as facilities master plan to guide where to place schools and educational programs.

These schools are doing phenomenal jobs, Lanus said. Its just timing right now.

Discovery and Pelican can fight on by appealing their denials to the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. If BESE rules in their favor, they would receive a broader Type 2 charter that would allow them to enroll students from any part of Louisiana.

BESE last overrode East Baton Rouge Parish in 2015, approving two charters over the wishes of the board, both of which have since opened and closed.

BESE overrides EBR school board, authorizes creation of two new charter schools Louisianas top school board Tuesday overrode a decision by the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board and authorized the creation of two new ch

Charter schools are public schools run privately via charters, or contracts. Currently, there are 29 charter schools operating in the parish, educating more than 11,000 children, or nearly 20% of all of the parish's public schoolchildren. Four more charter schools are set to open this fall, with overall charter school enrollment expected to increase by more than 1,700 students.

That growth is coming at a financial cost. The school systems $489 million general operating budget, which was approved Thursday, is setting aside $124.7 million to fund charter schools, up from $101.8 million this past year. By 2024-25, with charter schools expected to add another 7,000 students, that figure is likely to top $200 million a year.

With those costs, plus a variety of district initiatives in the offing, Gaudet said tough budget cuts await, including school closings.

This is an easy vote compared to what were going to have coming up, he said.

Great Hearts approval

Great Hearts is a classical, liberal arts-focused charter management group with 33 schools operating in Texas and Arizona. They collectively educate more than 20,000 students, with another 14,000 on wait lists.

The educational model involves Socratic inquiry, and students read a variety of classics, ranging from Frederick Douglass to Homer. Its 2020 graduates had an average ACT score of 28 and SAT score of 1243, both well above national averages for those college placement exams.

New Schools for Baton Rouge, a prominent nonprofit, has spent years trying to get Great Hearts to come to Louisiana. The project is affiliated with prominent developer Mike Wampold, who along with partner John Fetzer was trying to find a school to place in his 2,500-home, mixed-use Harveston development.

3 new charter schools could serve 7,000+ Baton Rouge kids, but evaluator says they shouldn't open An outside evaluator is urging the rejection of the three latest applicants seeking to open new charter schools in Baton Rouge, including two 

Construction is expected to begin soon on 15 acres fronting Bluebonnet.

Adding a new public school in that part of town proved key for many board members who ended up voting yes.

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While one of the fastest growing parts of the parish, it is an area with few public schools. There are none south of Interstate 10 and east of Bluebonnet and none south of Burbank. The last school built by the school district in the vicinity was Kenilworth, which opened in 1973.

The southeast Baton Rouge area was left out by a decadeslong parishwide halt on school construction connected with the long-running school desegregation case, which finally ended in 2007.

The lack of schools has helped drive support for the movement to create a city of St. George. Indeed, Harveston is in the municipal boundaries of St. George and would almost certainly be part of the future St. George school district, which supporters plan to seek in the future.

In recent years, new charter schools have opened to serve the area, starting with South Baton Rouge Charter Academy, which opened in 2014 and now has nearly 800 students, and followed in 2018 by IDEA Innovation, which also has almost 800 students.

In April 2018, voters agreed to spend as much as $80 million to build new schools in the area as part of a 10-year construction plan. Although near the front of the line, the new schools have been slow in coming thanks to an extended and not yet complete search for suitable land to purchase.

Board member Evelyn Ware-Jackson justified her vote for Great Hearts by pointing to the delays in getting those new schools built.

The plan that we have, the tax plan, does not address quickly enough the needs that we have in that area, Ware-Jackson said.

Although voting no, Gaudet made a similar point. He said the board has to get moving on those schools or more charter schools will be approved to fill the void.

Its not an option any more. Its gone on too long, way too long, that we dont have seats in that end of the parish, Gaudet said.

Low-income students

Great Hearts had to overcome the recommendation of outside evaluator Katie Blunschi, a former school system administrator, who urged that the board reject all three applicants.

Blunschi had several criticisms, including the low percentage of qualifying low-income students who are likely to attend. Its application says its target is to have 40% of its students qualify as economically disadvantaged, making it one of the organizations most demographically diverse schools.

Evaluators noted that several existing Great Heart schools average about 20% on this measure, one with just 8%. By contrast, almost 80% of the students in the East Baton Rouge Parish school system, and about 72% statewide, are considered economically disadvantaged.

State law requires that the demographics of charter schools, with few exceptions, mirror those of their sponsoring school district, coming within at least 15 percentage points.

The applicant does not meet this criterion, Blunschi concluded.

Daniel Scoggin, the main speaker on behalf of Great Hearts, told the board that the organization is committed to diversity. He said its low-income students outperform state averages in Arizona and Texas.

In Baton Rouge, he said the group is already doing outreach in the Gardere area, which is near where it plans to open, and it will also recruit students from north Baton Rouge.

The group plans to offer free transportation to students, a sore spot with other charters that wont provide students with transportation.

Its more than a requirement, Scoggin said. Its also in our hearts to have a very diverse school.

New Schools for Baton Rouge forging ahead with charter push Launched three years ago with an ambitious education agenda, New Schools for Baton Rouge is finally beginning to live up to its name.

After the vote, Scoggin said he was surprised at how difficult it was to put the proposal over the top. At the same time, he recognizes that, as a newcomer to Baton Rouge, Great Hearts has to prove itself. That means nailing its first school before it can get approval to expand.

If we dont get that right, everything else is academic, Scoggin said.
The expansion of charter schools in East Baton Rouge Parish, briefly paused by the pandemic, got a fresh shot of adrenaline this past week as state education leaders approved three new charter school applications over the objections of two local school boards.

Two of those applications are big ones, each aiming to enroll lots of students. Their success would likely come largely at the expense of public schools in Baton Rouge, but also those in surrounding suburban and rural parishes.

+7 New high school promises to enroll students in college as new school year opens in Baton Rouge Daniel Ross wants to learn how to code his own video games and doesnt want to wait. So when it came time to select a high school, Baton Rouge

The approval of the biggest and the most controversial of the two big applications, submitted by GEO Academies, gives the green light to opening a large new K-8 school in the small city of Baker. GEO had originally requested opening three schools that would educate about 2,600 students in grades kindergarten to 12. The organization dramatically downscaled its request at the last minute.

The application was approved despite strong opposition not only from the City of Baker school system, which had no chance to vote on it, but also the operator of a rival charter school in Baker and the mayor and police chief of Baker. The application was also opposed by leaders of the East Feliciana Parish school district, from which GEO hopes to attract some students.

GEO Academies' original application sought to replicate in Baker the setup it has now in Baton Rouge, operating two elementaries and one high school. The charter school network, which has its headquarters in Indianapolis, opened its first Baton Rouge school in 2015. The chair of its Baton Rouge board of directors is Linda Johnson, a prominent local education leader.

GEO's lone K-8 school approved for Baker will educate as many as 900 students. The school is now scheduled to open a year later than originally planned, in fall 2023, with about 240 students to start.

Mayor Waites said Baker does not need any more charter schools.

I feel like we are surrounded by charter schools now, Waites said.

The 2,600 children the new GEO schools originally proposed to educate raised concerns because that's far more than the 1,900 students who now attend the six public schools in Baker, two of them charter schools.

Waites said granting the new charter to GEO might lead eventually to the death of the Baker school district.

If you keep bringing in the charter schools and they keep taking the funding in, its just gonna hurt us, Waites said.

Chakesha Scott, founder of Impact Charter School, which opened in Baker in 2014, said she supports school choice, but the new GEO schools would make it harder to find strong teachers at a time when teacher shortages are getting worse.

We have to make decisions that make logistical sense, Scott said.

State Schools Superintendent Cade Brumley noted that Baker public schools are among the lowest performing in the state. He said concerns about the future of the Baker school district and the many people it employs are not his foremost concern.

That doesnt resonate with me, Brumley said. What resonates with me is whats in the best interest of kids.

Two charter schools rejected, but Texas-based Great Hearts approved for one Baton Rouge school The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday narrowly approved Texas-based Great Hearts to start a classically oriented charter school

The other big application that was approved, from Kenner, La.-based Discovery Schools, creates a health sciences school in Baton Rouge in partnership with Ochsner Health System that would eventually enroll more than 1,400 students in pre-k through eighth grade. It would open in fall 2023 with about 400 students.

The third approved application, by the Pelican Educational Foundation, allows that nonprofit to expand its lone site, Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School in Baton Rouge, from a middle school to a K-8 school, doubling its size to about 750 students. It would open in fall 2023 with about 525 students, up from the 380 who go there now.

As part of the deal, though, Pelican plans to give up the 48-year-old Kenilworth campus at 7600 Boone Avenue and build a new campus elsewhere in Baton Rouge. Relinquishing Kenilworth could allow for that school to return to the parish school system after nearly 14 years under state control.

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education ended up approving all three applicants as Type 2 charters, meaning they can enroll students from anywhere in the state  not just from within the boundaries of the school district where they are located, which is the case with Type 1 charter.

The vote was a close 6-4 on the new Baker charter schools, with BESE members Belinda Davis, Kira Orange Jones, Thomas Roque and Doris Voitier voting No.

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Jones and Voitier said they were mostly concerned by the opposition of so many local leaders, several of whom complained the GEO leaders made little to no effort to talk to them about their plans.

Brumley agreed that GEO could have done more.

They have a lot of work to do to go into that community and gain trust, he said.

Baker school board promotes longtime administrator De'Ette Perry as new superintendent The Baker City School Board passed over two outside educators Tuesday to promote longtime school administrator DeEtte Perry to permanent supe

Charter schools are public schools run privately via contracts, or charters.

Thirty brick-and-mortar charter schools operate in the capital region, with all but two of them located in East Baton Rouge Parish. They educate about 10% of all public schoolchildren in the region and 20% of those in East Baton Rouge Parish. Their enrollment collectively has grown 47% over the past five years and 8% in the past year.

The charter schools that BESE just approved join schools coming to Baton Rouge that will be operated by well known charter school operators, the Knowledge is Power Program, or KIPP, and Great Hearts.

KIPP, one of the nations oldest charter school networks, has plans to take over and expand Capitol High School, though its not clear when that will be finalized. Meanwhile, Texas-based Great Hearts is planning to open a new K-12 school as soon as this fall in an upscale subdivision not far from L'Auberge Casino, with about 700 students to start and 1,400 at scale.

Meanwhile, 10 more charters approved years ago are still adding grades and students as part of their expansion plans.

That growth is coming at a financial cost to other institutions. The East Baton Rouge Parish school system, for instance, has set aside $124.7 million to fund charter schools this year, up from $101.8 million last year. It projects that, by 2024-25, that figure will likely top $200 million a year, because charter schools expected to add another 7,000 students.

+2 Charter school group KIPP nears deal to take over Capitol High, but some questions remain The prominent charter school group KIPP, which operates eight schools in New Orleans, is moving closer to taking control of Capitol High and m

Unlike the pitched battle over the new schools in Baker, BESE this week saw little opposition to the two Baton Rouge applications. The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board rejected both applications last June, but no board members testified against them this week at BESE and neither did Supt. Sito Narcisse.

Thats a stark contrast to the level of opposition exerted in years past when charter applicants appealed their Baton Rouge rejections to the state.

When the issue came up later in the week at a parish School Board meeting, board member Mike Gaudet was not very concerned. He said that just because a charter school says its going to attract a lot of students doesnt mean it actually will.

I dont take it as a given that all of those charter seats will be filled, if you do you have no confidence that we will have any ability to compete.

Indeed, several older charter schools in Baton Rouge have lost students in recent years and some newly created schools have fallen well short of their recruiting goals. For instance, Helix Legal Academy, which opened in August, has just 19 students, well short of its original goal of starting with 120 students.

At the same time, other new charter schools have become among the largest schools in town, IDEA Bridge and IDEA Innovation, which opened in 2018, now have more than 1,000 students each.

Discovery Schools new school, to be called Baton Rouge Discovery Academy, could join them. The organizations original school, Kenner Discovery Health Sciences Academy, has almost 2,200 students. Its second school in Metairie, Dr. John Ochsner Discovery Health Sciences Academy, has almost 600 students.

BESE member James Garvey said those figures understate demand. He noted that the Metairie school has a waiting list of 1,500 students.

A lot of students are trying to get in there, Garvey said. Maybe some of them would be willing to move to Baton Rouge to avail themselves of the new seats.

Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the details of GEO Academies' application. GEO was approved to open just one new charter school in Baker, not three. This new K-8 school will educate a maximum of 900 students, not 2,600 students as originally proposed, and the new school is scheduled to open in fall 2023, not this fall. At the last minute, GEO downscaled its application from three schools to just one.
The public will get its first look at 15 possible crossings for a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge in the spring of 2022, officials said Monday.

The list is then set to be trimmed to three possible crossings by the summer of that year.

Officials of the state Department of Transportation and Development and Atlas Technical Consultants LLC, which has a $5 million contract to do preliminary work on the project, made the comments during a meeting of the Capital Area Road and Bridge District.

The seven-member panel is trying to find ways to finance a new bridge, which is expected to cost at least $1 billion.

Kara Moree, project manager for Atlas, said the first phase of the study is set to be finished by the summer of 2022.

State declines to reverse choice for $5 million consulting contract Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development, declined Friday to overturn his decision for awarding a $5

The next section, an environmental review, is set to last until the summer of 2024 once a handful of viable sites have been decided.

How to pay for a new bridge is the key question.

Backers hope that a combination of a public-private partnership, tolls and possibly revenue from an increase in Louisiana's gas tax can make it happen.

Jay Campbell, chairman of the panel, asked about the possibility of speeding work on the effort amid daily traffic problems on and near the bridge.

"What would it take to get it done sooner,?" Campbell asked of forecasts that it will take until the summer of 2022 to finish the first phase of the study.

He asked about the possibility of finishing the initial review by December, 2021.

Push for new Baton Rouge bridge 'a slow process;' tolls could partially finance $1B project Nearing the two-year mark, a state panel trying to find ways to build a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge has little to s

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DOTD Secretary Shawn Wilson, a member of the commission, said the time is needed to meet requirements for federal aid and to obtain needed permits.

"This process has proven time and time again that it gets the project right," Wilson said.

"It is time consuming. it is going on longer than anyone wants."

New Mississippi River bridge? At least four more years to even begin construction, top officials say The state is at least four years away from starting construction of a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge even if financing

Paul Vaught, a DOTD official who is project manager for the bridge work, said the timetable stems from earlier negotiations.

"These timeframes are based on best practices," Vaught said. "What we have put together is a reasonable schedule, somewhat aggressive."

He said earlier in the meeting, "You have to go through the process, that you have considered all the prudent and feasible alternatives."

Vaught also said he has been commuting in and out of Baton Rouge for 20 years and understands the need for traffic relief.

"I certainly share the frustration on how long it takes to get this done," he said.

Fred Raiford, director of transportation and drainage for East Baton Rouge Parish, said if needed steps are not followed it can "throw your project totally out of loop and you have to start over."

East Baton Rouge Parish is one of five with seats on the panels.

The others are Ascension, Livingston, West Baton Rouge and Iberville parishes.
In a potential breakthrough, Gov. John Bel Edwards on Monday proposed spending $500 million to build a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge and called it Louisianas biggest infrastructure need.

"This is tangible funding being dedicated to turn what was once a dream into a reality, Edwards told reporters at a news conference. This is what it looks like to make the most of the dollars you have."

The governors proposal has the potential to end a years-old logjam on how to pay for a new bridge to alleviate issues with the Interstate 10 Mississippi River bridge, which plays a major role in daily traffic backups and even complaints from coast-to-coast travelers on the interstate who have to cross it regularly.

It is a key piece of Edwards' spending plan that will be debated during the 2022 regular legislative session, which begins March 14.

Neither House Speaker Clay Schexnayder, R-Gonzales, nor Senate President Page Cortez, R-Lafayette, could be reached for comment.

+3 Louisiana roads, bridges to get $300M-a-year boost; backers say its biggest investment in decades In something of a surprise, Gov. John Bel Edwards on Friday signed the biggest transportation bill in 37 years when he endorsed a measure that

The state expects $1.6 billion in higher-than-expected revenue, and Edwards said surplus dollars from the current year would help finance the bridge work. Louisiana is also set to get about $1 billion more than normal  $200 million per year  for the next five years because of the $1 trillion federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Edwards and Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development, said the commitment would send a message to private investors and federal officials that Louisiana is finally serious about making a new bridge reality.

The structure is expected to cost more than $1 billion, and state officials hope a public-private partnership will help finance key parts of the work. Tolls could be another component of any financing plan.

It will let the private sector know how serious we are about this bridge because we see this being a public-private partnership at the end of the day, Edwards said.

A public-private partnership is when private firms help finance state construction and other costs in exchange for a long-term revenue stream, plus a profit.

Edwards said his proposal will also boost chances the state can land discretionary federal dollars and help pay for pre-development costs that go with any megaproject.

Wilson said exact costs of the bridge are hard to pin down and construction expenses were rising 2.5% per year before the coronavirus pandemic and worldwide supply chain problems.

He noted that approaches on both sides of the river are essential and expensive.

"If we just build a bridge, we are doing ourselves a disservice, Wilson said.

U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, said he appreciates that Edwards is tackling the issue.

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This is something that should have been done not years ago but decades ago, Graves said.

But the congressman said it is inexcusable that up to 17 possible river crossings are in play, with public hearings on those options set for the spring.

+2 First look at possible crossings for new Mississippi River bridge nearly two years away The public will get its first look at 15 possible crossings for a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge in the spring of 2022

Graves also disputed comments that the $500 million plan alone will generate federal dollars.

Until we come up with a project, we dont have a chance to get money, he said.

Trey Godfrey, senior vice president of policy for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, praised the governors proposal.

"Having additional funding in place to build a new Mississippi River bridge in the capital region is a huge deal and sets the project up competitively for federal matches and private partnerships, Godfrey said in an email.

Scott Kirkpatrick, executive director of the advocacy group Capital Region Industry for Sustainable Infrastructure Solutions, echoed that view.

"This is another important step in making a new bridge in Baton Rouge a reality, Kirkpatrick said.

Push for new Baton Rouge bridge 'a slow process;' tolls could partially finance $1B project Nearing the two-year mark, a state panel trying to find ways to build a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge has little to s

About 150,000 cars and trucks use the bridge daily. Some residents have made job choices to avoid having to rely on getting across it.

The Horace Wilkinson Bridge carrying Interstate 10 over the Mississippi River is more than half a century old but is referred to in Baton Rouge as the new bridge to distinguish it from its U.S. 190 counterpart, Huey P. Long  O.K. Allen Bridge, a short distance north and opened in 1940.

A panel called the Capital Area Road and Bridge District has been meeting for months to discuss plans for a new bridge. However, the effort has been shadowed by the lack of a funding source for the structure, and repeated efforts to boost Louisianas long-stagnant gasoline tax have gone nowhere.

+2 First look at possible crossings for new Mississippi River bridge nearly two years away The public will get its first look at 15 possible crossings for a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge in the spring of 2022

The $500 million is part of Edwards' $1 billion-plus budget outline for roads and bridges. Other targets are $100 million for a new Interstate 10 Calcasieu River bridge in Lake Charles; $100 million for the Interstate 49 Lafayette connector; and $500 million for water and sewer improvements statewide.

However, Edwards is a Democrat and the Legislature is controlled by Republicans. In addition, the governor leaves office in January 2024, which means his influence is waning.
Nearing the two-year mark, a state panel trying to find ways to build a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge has little to show publicly for its efforts.

"I think there were false expectations of what the board could do and would do in the scope of what needed to be done to advance the bridge," said Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development and one of seven members on the board.

"This is the process," Wilson said.

How to finance the $1 billion structure remains the overarching question, as it has for years. Five sites for the location remain in the running, just as there were when the board met for the first time in February 2019. Whether a public-private partnership is feasible to help finance a new bridge is also up in the air.

"It is a slow process," said Fred Raiford, director of transportation and drainage for East Baton Rouge Parish, one of five parishes with seats on the commission.

New Mississippi River bridge? At least four more years to even begin construction, top officials say The state is at least four years away from starting construction of a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge even if financing

"People sometimes don't understand that," Raiford said.

"But you have to follow that process if you want to secure federal dollars," he said. "We are not going to make it work without those federal dollars."

The group is called the Capital Area Road and Bridge District.

Other parishes with seats on the panel are Iberville, Ascension, Livingston and West Baton Rouge. Officials of Ascension, Livingston and West Baton Rouge parishes did not return messages for comment. Gov. John Bel Edwards has one appointee.

The board, which meets quarterly, is set to convene on Monday at 2 p.m.

Reports are scheduled from DOTD and Atlas Technical Consultants, LLC, which is gathering information and doing other preliminary work.

Who will lead the charge on financing for a new Mississippi River bridge? Panel launches search A seven-member panel set up to find ways to finance a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge launched a hunt for a consultant 

The bridge has been a traffic sore spot for year in a metro area where gridlock is a near daily occurrence.

About 150,000 cars and trucks use the bridge daily.

"Baton Rouge punches above its weight class in our traffic congestion," said Liz Smith, senior vice-president for economic competitiveness for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.

"The amount of time people spend away from their families and away from their job is just absurd," Smith said.

"It is absolutely constraining our regional economic ability to grow," she said. "Companies can't move products and people fast enough to allow for that growth."

Officials have said from the outset that a public-private partnership is one of the keys for financing a new bridge. The state would have to find a firm or firms to help pay for construction costs in exchange for a long-term revenue stream, including a profit.

Tolls are another component, which could range from $3 for passengers vehicles to $8 for heavy trucks, according to state estimates.

State officials said in 2019 that tolls could handle up to 17% of the costs.

Recent estimates have said public-private partnership and tolls could account for perhaps two-thirds of the price-tag, leaving a gap of $300 million or so.

The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

A hike in the state gas tax  a heavy lift politically  is now being touted as a possible way to fill that last gap.

"That absolutely helps to make it happen," said Wilson, who led an unsuccessful effort to increase the gas tax by 17 cents per gallon in 2017.

Motorists pay 38.4 cents per gallon now, including 20 cents per gallon in state charges.

$700M improvements coming to Louisiana roads -- the largest spending plan in 30 years The largest transportation bill in the past 30 years won final approval Tuesday when the Louisiana House approved a $690 million spending plan

Each penny generates about $30 million per year for the state.

A boost in the state gas tax could be used in part to pay off borrowing costs for money that helps pay for a new bridge.

"Quite frankly maybe the best way to address that would be looking at the gas tax," said Raiford, who has filled in for Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome during some board meetings.

Contractors and others, led by former Baton Rouge state Rep. Erich Ponti, are trying to muster support for a gas tax hike during the 2021 regular legislative session. Backers envision an increase of 10 cents per gallon initially, and 22 cents eventually.

However, rounding up two-thirds support in the House and Senate  70 and 26 votes respectively  is considered a titanic political challenge.

Could tolls help finance a new Mississippi River bridge? Here's how much they'd cost drivers Toll revenue would pay for only 17 percent of a new bridge across the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, a top state official said Tuesday.

Hank Grace, director of economic development for Iberville Parish, said he doubts a gas tax could win legislative approval today. "But I think it is going to have to be raising the gas tax, tolls and a private-public partnership to get this done," Grace said.

The sites for a new bridge range from just south of Brusly on La. Hwy. 1 to south of Plaquemine, roughly across from St. Gabriel on the east side. All five would empty eastbound traffic onto La. Hwy. 30 from just north of Gardere Lane to just north of St. Gabriel.

"It remains to be seen if the group can all come together in agreement on one specific location," Grace said. "I feel pretty confident if you go around and ask the representatives for all the parishes involved you would get several different answers on where the bridge needs to be."

Officials in Iberville Parish favor a location south of Plaquemine.

Another unknown is whether the push for a new bridge will lose one of its key promoters: Shawn Wilson.

The DOTD secretary, who has held the job since 2016, is considered a possibility to fill a transportation post in the Biden administration.

Smith said that, while BRAC would love to see the effort move faster, "the reality is things are moving as fast as we can."

"We are really excited that the district, with a partnership from DOTD, is moving the project even though there is no identified funding," Smith said.

Whether the board is moving in the right direction is a valid question, Grace said.

"I do think that the Capital Area Road and Bridge District is making progress," Grace said. "Unfortunately for a lot of different reasons things are moving much slower than anticipated."
Higher than expected inflation dragged the ASX down sharply on Tuesday as investors prepared for a higher interest rate environment.

The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 dropped as much as 3.1 percent before ending the session 2.5 per cent lower at 6950 points -the first close below 7000 points since May 2021.

Forecasters scrambled to bring forward their interest rate expectations, while traders dumped stocks across all sectors. Equities do poorly when rates rise because it increases borrowing costs and inflation increases input costs.

Stockmarkets are under pressure as traders prepare for rising interest rates. Credit:Louie Douvis

Wall Street delivered volatile but slightly positive leads, but negative futures weighed on the ASX during Australian trading hours. The volatility index has returned to seven-week highs of 29.9 points.

ASX trading volumes were high with over 1 billion shares traded, as blue chip banking and mining stocks slumped. ANZ fell 3.6 per cent lower, Westpac dropped 2.8 per cent, and Commonwealth Bank dropped 2 per cent.

BHP declined by 1.3 per cent and Fortescue Metals fell 5 per cent after a trading update. Telstra fell 3 per cent, and oil producers Santos and Woodside fell 4.8 per cent and 4 per cent respectively.

I actually think we are going to see much higher volatility than everyone thinks, said Novus Capitals Gary Glover.

It is probably going to be tough for the next two quarters. Its a real traders market. I dont think its an investors market; the buy-and-hold is not going to work here.

Annual inflation beat expectations at 3.5 per cent for the October to December quarter - the third quarter in a row it has been above the Reserve Bank of Australias (RBA) target range of between 2 and 3 per cent.

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) chief economist Su-Lin Ong, said Tuesdays inflation numbers seal the fate of the end of quantitative easing (QE) in February and she now expected to see rates lifting in August rather than February next year.

But Deutsche Bank economist Phil ODonoghue said rates could rise as early as May if inflation remained high.

We previously felt there were enough idiosyncrasies for Australian exceptionalism amid the global rush, led by the (US Federal Reserve), into a hiking cycle, he wrote in a note to clients.

No longer. Even if Australian price pressures abate somewhat in coming quarters, we think the RBA no longer has the luxury of waiting for wage growth to ensure durability of inflation sustainably within target. Price and wage expectations are now at serious risk of ratcheting up and self-fulfilling a higher inflation environment.

GSFM advisor Stephen Miller said the Reserve Bank had a lot of work to do to keep inflation under control.

The RBA stuffed it up, he said in a briefing with journalists, saying the RBA should stop calendar-based guidance.

The market was already pricing in four 25 basis point increases this year, according to Mr Miller.
Australia, Dodson suggested, is a nation of jailers. The dominant culture isolates or imprisons people it fears into dehumanising spaces, Dodson explained, drawing an arc from Australias colonial history as a penal colony and its treatment of Indigenous Australians through to the locking up of people seeking asylum on prison islands.

Dodsons granddaughter Dalisa Pigram, and Rachael Swain, who run the bi-coastal intercultural arts company in Broome and Sydney, were seeking deeper answers in the wake of this documentary revealing a prison system that locks up 10-year-olds and places children as young as 13 in solitary confinement.

In 2016, the day after ABC-TVs Four Corners aired its program Australias Shame , exposing the issue of Indigenous children in detention, the artistic directors of dance theatre company Marrugeku sat down for a conversation with Patrick Dodson, the Yawuru law man, philosopher and West Australian senator, who is also their patron.

Pigram, who is also Yawuru, recalled an earlier conversation she had had with her grandfather about the concept of jurrungu ngan-ga, which translates as straight talk.

Its reflective of a kinship term used in my culture, in our language group, which forbids direct talk with particular family members which might be your mother-in-law or son-in-law relationship, says Pigram. That led to us thinking about that on a national scale: weve never had the ability to talk direct in the relationship in black and white Australia.

Jurrungu Ngan-ga has become the title of the companys latest show, featuring nine culturally diverse performers. Ever-present security cameras will project a live feed and zooming close-ups onto the wall.

Speaking from Broome, Dodson says there has been a failure to talk in a direct manner about the truth of the dispossession of Aboriginal peoples, and the incarceration as part of the system to assert the sovereign position of the crown and a way to subjugate the people to the imperatives of the colonisers, basically.

Jailing Aboriginal people is not just a modern phenomenon, says Dodson. Initially, he says, police were meant to be the protectors of natives from the more awful things that the colonists were doing at the frontier, to Aboriginal people, and then they became the agents who removed children of mixed blood from their families and communities  to totally induct them into the white system.
In her new book, Toxic Positivity, out today, she distinguishes between healthy positivity, which makes space for both reality and hope and toxic positivity, which demands happiness and denies other emotions. It forces us to suppress emotions, which can be destructive for our physical and mental health, explains Goodman. It also impacts our relationships. If I dont ever share that Im struggling, youre not going to either, and we continue to feel isolated, she says. I see that a lot. Besides, there is value in negative feelings.

Loading I think the most important thing it does is alert us to whats important in our lives and what isnt right, Goodman says. Of course, different people have different happiness set-points, that are temporarily affected by good or bad life events before returning to baseline. While neither extreme  chronic positivity nor chronic negativity  is helpful, being a happy person is not toxic positivity, Goodman emphasises. Denial of everything other than positivity, however, is toxic. I see people who are in complete denial of whats happening in their life and that can be huge  people who arent accepting that death was coming, or they had a terminal illness or disability and positivity was really stopping them from accepting reality, she says. Then you have people who are really aware that what they are doing is on autopilot and that it is not helping them. Yet, toxic positivity and the platitudes tied to it are hard to let go of, even for the cynics among us.

I suspect it has to do, in part, with the difficulty of dealing with painful feelings  ours and other peoples. To offer an uplifting platitude eases our discomfort and makes us feel like were helping to cheer them up when we feel helpless. We often rush into positivity because we genuinely want people to feel better, Goodman says. We hope that if we say just the right thing, their pain will go away. We also selfishly hope it works, so we can move away from a difficult topic and save ourselves the pain of being with someone who is struggling. Loading Despite good intentions, and instead of simply listening and showing empathy, we often just make the person feel silenced and ashamed. Toxic positivity is also everywhere  often being sprayed around social media by genetically blessed, privileged white women, smugly sharing how you too can be more like them if only you banish the negativity from your life, drink green juices and get manifesting.

Its ingrained in us, Goodman says. Its almost as if were afraid to admit that its not working because we have been told so many times that it should. Toxic Positivity by Whitney Goodman. And its not just that its not working. Toxic positivity has much deeper and darker roots too, as Goodman explores in her book. At its core, toxic positivity is a form of gaslighting, she says: It tells people that what theyre feeling isnt real, theyre making it up and that theyre the only ones who feel this way. This plays out across a variety of forums, Goodman argues: instead of equitable healthcare, were encouraged to use our mindset to cure disease; instead of improving accessibility for the disabled, we celebrate inspiration porn; instead of gender equality, we perpetuate the happy housewife myth, pitted starkly against the angry feminist; instead of changing diet culture and the systems that support it we tell everyone they should just love the skin theyre in; instead of finding ways to be more inclusive, we tell people on the margins they should be happy and grateful.

Positivity and happiness tend to uphold a lot of these other things like sexism and racism and other institutions that really want people to be quiet and to be happy, Goodman says. Conversations about happiness and positivity and even manifestation, Goodman says, cant be had without also talking about privilege  socioeconomic status, access to health care, healthy food, psychological and social support, absence of discrimination, gender. I think thoughts are powerful but I do not think they control our reality. There are a lot of other things that influence us and are much more important than just our thoughts. We think weird thoughts all the time. And as far as healthier ways to navigate challenging times, like a pandemic, Goodman says: We can accept reality and make room for hope. When people radically accept this is the situation that Im in, here are the things I cannot change and here are the things I have control over, that creates agency for people and also allows them to acknowledge the state of their life.
The master of a Singapore-flagged cargo chip that lost an estimated 50 containers at sea off the Australian coast in 2020 will stand trial in court over the mishap.

Mohd Zulkhaili Bin Alias, 44, appeared remotely in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Monday for the continuation of a committal hearing.

Containers on the APL England. Credit:Australian Maritime Safety Authority

He had two charges  disposing of garbage into the sea in the exclusive economic zone, and failing to ensure a vessel is operated so as not to cause pollution or environmental damage.

The charges were laid by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.
The Sri Lankan asylum seeker family at the centre of a high-profile campaign to return them to their adopted hometown in regional Queensland has won a court decision allowing three of them to reapply for bridging visas.

Federal Circuit Judge Heather Riley on Monday ruled Nadesalingam and Priya Murugappan, along with their six-year-old daughter Kopika, were denied procedural fairness by Immigration Minister Alex Hawke in June last year when he revoked their ability to reapply.

The Murugappan family still require the signature of Immigration Minister Alex Hawke to return to Biloela. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen/Supplied

The judgment hinged on two main questions: First, whether Mr Hawke properly explained his reasons for the revocation and, second, the meaning of the expression close of business as it related to deadlines, flexible work, the internet age and time zones.

Both questions landed in favour of the Murugappans.
Queensland has reported 13 more COVID deaths and 10,212 new infections as the children of essential workers return to schools across the state.

Chief Health Officer John Gerrard said the states Omicron-driven peak, which had likely passed on the hard-hit Gold Coast, might have less of an impact on hospital systems than expected.

Announcing a total of 878 people with COVID in Queenslands public hospitals on Monday  with 50 in intensive care  Dr Gerrard said while he was remaining cautious, it appeared the peak was tracking lower than expected.

We were certainly anticipating several thousand people in hospital, he said. So far the impact of the epidemic is less than we expected so far in this wave.
A Melbourne financial consultant says he was driving home from work when two men, pretending to be police officers, pulled him over, beat him, threatened him with a gun and stole his vehicle.

Richard George, 24, told Nine News that he saw flashing red and blue lights behind him about 2am on December 17 on Brunton Avenue near Melbournes MCG.

The men, allegedly posing as plain-clothes detectives, told Mr George his vehicle  an Audi A5  was suspected of being involved in a hit-run. He said the men asked for his drivers licence, and questioned whether he had been drinking alcohol.

When I asked for ID and stuff they pretended to call back-up, Mr George said.
The campaign, across TV, radio, social media, and newspapers would be translated into 41 languages, urging Victorians with mild symptoms to stay at home, rest, hydrate and take pain relief medication if they can, instead of going to hospital. Health authorities estimate only 0.7 per cent of the 550,000 Victorians who contracted coronavirus this month required hospital care. However, the sheer volume of cases meant hospital admission numbers still posed a significant challenge. Health Minister Martin Foley said patients would be supported through the governments COVID Positive Pathways program that was launched in October and seeks to monitor virus patients during their time in home isolation. Under the program, COVID-positive Victorians were assessed via a survey and linked to community health services, GPs and other providers, depending on the level of care they require.

With case numbers stabilising and a surge in infections predicted after school starts next week, Mr Foley said the time was right to take the program to a new level. This has stabilised, historically speaking, at extraordinarily high levels, he said. The notion that we are out of this is well and truly premature. Victoria recorded 14,836 COVID-19 cases and 29 deaths on Tuesday, ending a run of declining daily case totals. The people who died were aged in their 30s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. As of Tuesday morning, there were 1057 Victorians infected with coronavirus receiving medical care in hospital. Of those, 119 were in intensive care and 45 on a ventilator.

The states case numbers and hospitalisations from COVID-19 had fallen for four consecutive days before Tuesdays result, but both figures were higher than those recorded on Monday, when there were 11,695 cases and 998 in hospital. Mask mandates have been extended for another month in NSW with Premier Dominic Perrottet saying it was necessary to maintain a cautious approach. Other restrictions that had been due to lift this week will also stay in place. NSW reported 18,512 new cases of COVID-19 and 29 deaths on Tuesday. Tuesday also marked two years since Australia recorded its first case of COVID-19 involving a man from Wuhan who had flown to Melbourne from Guangdong on January 19, 2020.

The case was picked up by Victorian health authorities and prompted the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to recommend Australians not travel to Wuhan and Hubei Province. Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton tweeted about the two-year anniversary of the first case in Victoria on Tuesday. Its been extraordinarily disruptive and difficult since that time; hard to imagine what the world would go through and the awful loss of life, he wrote. But so much more to do  third doses, kids getting vaxxed, reaching the unreached.

There are currently 183,154 active cases of COVID-19 across Victoria. Of the new infections reported by authorities on Tuesday, 6297 came from PCR tests, while 8539 were self-reported from rapid antigen tests. Of the people who self-reported from rapid antigen tests, about 65 per cent took their tests on Monday, while about 17 per cent took their tests on Sunday. The remainder of people took their tests over the previous five days. The Chief Health Officers update warned the states system for self-reporting positive COVID test results would be down for about three hours from 8.30pm on Tuesday while it underwent a routine upgrade and maintenance work. If this means you have to report the result the following day, your isolation period wont be extended  because you are required to isolate for seven days following the date of your test, not the date you report, the update said.

Loading Health authorities in Victoria remain optimistic the latest wave of Omicron infections could have peaked last week, leading to a drop in community transmission. Hospital and intensive care admissions are expected to reach a high in the next two weeks before stabilising. However, authorities within the World Health Organisation have warned against assuming the worst of the pandemic is over, with the organisations director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus telling the agencys executive board in Europe on Monday that conditions were ideal for new variants to emerge. There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end, but its dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame, he said. WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said that while signs out of South Africa and Europe were encouraging, it was too early to talk about an end to the pandemic.

Loading What we are entering is certainly a different space ... were seeing it rise very rapidly when we see the enormous number of cases. But sadly, 50,000 people also lost their lives last week. So, were still in the middle of a really, really terrible outbreak, she told radio station 3AW. Dr Harris said figures out of South Africa showed Omicron surged rapidly to create enormously high peaks before plummeting, but that trend wouldnt necessarily be replicated in other countries. However, she remained optimistic things would improve in the near future, adding humanity had handled the pandemic better than any other outbreak of a novel virus in history. Weve developed vaccines within a year of knowing this existed, and also knowing that weve struggled to develop good vaccines against previous members of this [virus] family, she said.

Monday marked the final day of a four-day vaccination blitz across Victorias state-run clinics. It saw more than 100,000 Victorians immunised, a 38 per cent increase on the previous weekend. Government clinics delivered more than 28,000 doses of the jab on Monday alone, taking the total number of triple-vaccinated Victorians to 1.7 million. Mr Foley said there were 4 million people eligible to get their booster after the government slashed the waiting time between the second and third dose to three months. What this shows is that theres still a lot of people out there that need to come forward and get that third dose; a third dose that keeps them protected, their family and their community, he said.

Mr Foley said the vaccination clinic at the Royal Exhibition Building had its busiest week since the program started, with almost 3500 doses delivered on Sunday. Dandenong Plaza also experienced one of its busiest periods with double the usual number of doses delivered. About 19,500 children were booked to get the vaccine over the past week, with 4500 second-dose appointments recorded in the system. There are more than 230,000 vaccination appointments available for the next month, including just under 70,000 for children aged five to 11.
Demand for the Nurse on Call hotline has increased, with some people waiting several hours for health support as the government discourages patients from phoning triple zero or showing up at emergency departments strained by the Omicron wave of COVID-19.

The number of calls to the nursing hotline climbed 15 per cent in the second half of last year, when the new virus variant began squeezing health resources, eventually leading to last weeks code brown declaration at Victorian hospitals.

Noelene Nolan waited on hold for hours to Nurse on Call earlier this month. Credit:Chris Hopkins

Paul Gilbert, acting secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, said workers at Nurse on Call had not raised concerns about the service, and he encouraged people to keep using it.

But Cranbourne East woman Noelene Nolan, 47, a diabetic, said she waited on hold for 6 hours on January 6 with hundreds of ulcers on her shins, some of which burst.
Staff Reporter

Nyamekye Daniel has been a journalist for five years. She was the managing editor for the South Florida Media Network and a staff writer for The Miami Times. Daniel's work has also appeared in the Sun-Sentinel, Miami Herald and The New York Times.
In this March 8, 2020 photo, New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Shibinette speaks at a news conference in Concord, N.H.
Former lieutenant governor during the administration of Scott Walker, Rebecca Kleefisch announced she'll oppose Gov. Tony Evers in his 2022 reelection bid.
Police work outside the Molson Coors Brewing Co. campus in Milwaukee on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2020, after reports of a possible shooting.
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Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixons White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
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U.S. Border Patrol displays false identification cards, including fake Social Security cards and drivers licenses that they have confiscated in a file photo. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

1,200 Fake American Drivers Licenses from Hong Kong Seized in Indiana

The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized more than 1,000 counterfeit drivers licenses in Indianapolis, Indiana, that were smuggled from Hong Kong.

Last week Indianapolis CBP detained three shipments that were arriving from Hong Kong, CBP announced on Friday. The first shipment was heading to an address in Chicago and the other two shipments were heading to addresses in New York.

According to the federal agency, the containers were falsely labeled Game Card and had a value of $20. But when officers investigated, they discovered some 1,200 counterfeit state drivers licenses, including a shipment heading to Chicago, while two others were being sent to addresses in New York.

The falsified licenses were from 20 states including California, Michigan, Illinois, New Jersey, South Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and more, CBP said. Some licenses had the same picture but had a different name.

Hundreds of counterfeit driver licenses were

seized by CBP officers in Indianapolis in recent days (Customs and Border Patrol)

Counterfeit drivers licenses have historically been used by those under 21 years of age for the illegal consumption of alcohol, but fake IDs have also been used in criminal enterprises, such as identity theft cases and immigration fraud, Chief CBP Officer Tim Hubbard said in a news release. Customs and Border Protection officers will continue to be vigilance during enforcement operations, and we remain committed to the safety and security of our nation.

Another CBP official, LaFonda D. Sutton-Burke, said that the fake licenses related to identity theft, worksite enforcement, critical infrastructure protection, fraud linked to immigration-related crimes such as human smuggling and human trafficking, and these documents can be used by those individuals associated with terrorism to minimize scrutiny from travel screening measures.

Earlier in January, officials with the CBP office in Cincinnati, Ohio, discovered thousands of fake identifications from being shipped out of the United States, finding more than 2,000 international drivers licenses and paired booklets.

These counterfeit documents can lead to disastrous consequences, said Sutton-Burke. Criminal organizations use these counterfeits to avoid attracting attention to their illegal activities.

In August 2020, meanwhile, authorities seized some 20,000 fake drivers licenses that came from China, Hong Kong, and other countries.

Take a look at these IDssame person, different bio info, the CBP Chicago wrote on Twitter at the time. Officers in Chicago have kept a tally of how many fraudulent IDs have come through the OHare mail facility. From Jan. 1 to June 30, CBP officers have seized nearly 20,000 counterfeit drivers licenses.
The 1300 block of Park Avenue in Inglewood, Calif., in February 2020. Four people were killed and one was wounded when multiple shooters opened fire at a house party in this neighborhood early on Jan. 23, 2022. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

4 Killed, 1 Hurt in Ambush Shooting at House Party Near Los Angeles

INGLEWOOD, Calif.Four people were killed and one was wounded when multiple shooters opened fire at a house party near Los Angeles early Sunday, authorities said.

Police responded around 1:30 a.m. to reports of shots fired at a home in the city of Inglewood, Mayor James Butts told reporters.

Two women and two men were shot and killed and another man was hospitalized in critical condition and expected to survive, CBS2 reported.

Butts called the shooting an ambush involving multiple weapons including a rifle and a handgun. The mayor described the incident as the worst single shooting crime in Inglewood since the 1990s.

These are sociopathic killers that have to be sequestered from society, Butts said of the shooters.

Authorities are searching for multiple suspects, he said. Officers interviewed witnesses and canvassed the neighborhood looking for possible security camera footage.

Police havent released a potential motive or said if any of the victims were targeted. The man who survived admitted being a member of a street gang in another city and investigators are trying to determine if the shooting was gang related, CBS2 said.

Inglewood is a city of about 100,000 people 10 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Its home to SoFi Stadium, where the Super Bowl will be played next month.
One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson in Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia on Dec. 2, 2019. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Absolutely Critical: Aussie Senator Called for Royal Commission Into Goverments COVID-19 Handling

Australian One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has called on whichever party wins this years federal election to establish a Royal Commission in Australias handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The senator on Sunday said an honest and thorough examination is absolutely critical in examining the policies put in place by Australias federal, state and territory governments, although it will not be an easy exercise.

We need it because only a Royal Commission is likely to have the power necessary to compel the expert health advice Australian governments relied on to justify and implement pandemic measures  much of this advice has been hidden from the Australian people, she said.

The Australian people deserve a comprehensive account of the decisions made by their governments to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic and the governments attempt to manage it have seen thousands of people losing their jobs, businesses closing their doors, individual rights and freedom curtailed or discarded, and unelected bureaucrats having wielded extraordinary power.

People have died. The economy was shut down. Schools were shut down. Entire cities were effectively shut down. Borders were closed. Vast quantities of taxpayers money have been expended. Military personnel have been deployed, Hanson noted.

A Royal Commission is not to lay blame or find scapegoats, as the responsibility will always be passed to top leaders, but primarily to learn which pandemic measures worked and which didnt, so Australians are much better prepared for the next pandemic, Hanson added.

Because as sure as the sun rises every day, there will inevitably be another pandemic. The lessons learned from this pandemic must inform how we manage the next one.

Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.

Various inquiries have been made to scrutinise certain aspects of Australias COVID-19 response, including NSWs probe of the Ruby Princess cruise ship debacle and Victorias hotel quarantine inquiry.

Tony Harris, a former NSW auditor-general, told The Age on Dec. 28, 2020, that pandemic policies deserve to be examined as the pandemic is the biggest economic and social event since the Vietnam War.

But Victorian ex-premier Steve Bracks argued that when everythings over, when the vaccine has been rolled out and when were able to move around and travel again, maybe thats the time to look at [it].

Hansons call comes following the easing of restrictions in several Australian states such as NSW, Victoria and South Australia as national double vaccination rates reached 92.9 percent by Jan. 24.

Meanwhile, the Western Australian government recently backflipped on its border reopening scheduled on Feb. 5 despite the excellent vaccination coverage, leaving over two million West Australians faced being trapped indefinitely within their own.

Australias pandemic measures have sparked a large number of anti-lockdowns and vaccine mandates rallies across the country at the end of last year. Tens of thousands of Victorian citizens took to the street to protest Premier Dan Andrews pandemic bill and the lockdown, which is the worlds longest.
Crowd gathers at Lincoln Memorial for the "Defeat the Mandates" rally in Washington on Jan. 23, 2022. (Lynn Lin/NTD)

Allow People to Exercise Their Natural Immunity: Former HHS Adviser

Several prominent doctors joined about 30,000 demonstrators in the Defeat the Mandates march in Washington on Jan. 23. Among them was former federal government adviser Dr. Paul Alexander, who declared that COVID-19 mandates and rules have failed to prevent transmission of the virus.

Society has been so terrorized for two years, Alexander told EpochTVs American Thought Leaders program. We found the science shows us lockdowns, school closures, mask mandates; they all failed. Those policies have failed.

And its time now to end this pandemic emergency. The time has come now for us to move forward.

In some highly vaccinated places, such as Israel, which also has a vaccine passport system in place for restaurants and similar businesses, COVID-19 cases have soared. On Jan. 22, the country set its all-time record for cases, despite having one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

In New York and Los Angeles, which similarly employ vaccine passport systems, COVID-19 cases driven by the relatively mild Omicron coronavirus variant have spiked to all-time highs, according to government data.

If the vaccine does not prevent transmission, and if we are seeing  the vaccinated person is harboring infection, becoming grossly infected, and even transmitting to the vaccinated  why would we have a mandate? said Alexander, who was an adviser to the Department of Health and Human Services during the Trump administration.

Its only functioning to tear the society apart. We should allow people to exercise their natural immunity, because natural immunity is far superior.

According to some estimates, as many as 35,000 people attended the march in Washington. Many of the protesters demanded an end to compulsory vaccination policies, including rules handed down by various federal agencies tying workers vaccination status to their employment.

Several other doctors who attended the rally also spoke with American Thought Leaders.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ability to know what is the truth and what isnt the truth has been subverted by U.S. institutions and legacy media outlets, according to Dr. Paul Marik, who has served as chair of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia.

Most people who read the newspaper or listen to the TV are absolutely clueless and believe what theyre being told, Marik told American Thought Leaders on Jan. 23. The lies are so convincing that they are convinced by these lies.

He stated that these lies have been disseminated by the federal government and various state agencies on COVID-19.

They are filling Americans with misinformation and mistruth  to control Americans, Marik said.

Another physician, Dr. Richard Amerling, a nephrologist, told American Thought Leaders that he lost his job because of the mandate.

Im still a doctor. I should still practice, and I will always land on my feet, but [thats] not true for a lot of other people who were actually destroyed [by COVID-19 vaccine mandates], he said. [The mandates have] been extremely destructive. It obviously has not stopped this viral spread.  Its a horrendous public health and medical policy.
Charles Lieber leaves federal court after he and two Chinese nationals were charged with lying about their alleged links to the Chinese government, in Boston, Mass., on Jan. 30, 2020. (Katherine Taylor/Reuters)

As DOJ Cracks Down on Chinese Espionage, Critics Seek to Abolish Initiative, Citing Racial Discrimination

As the Justice Departments (DOJ) crackdown on Chinese-state-sponsored theft of intellectual property nets the high-profile conviction of Harvard Universitys former chemistry department chairman, Charles Lieber, a growing list of critics of the DOJs China Initiative seeks to abolish the program, which they say unfairly targets Chinese academics.

Notable opponents of the China Initiative include Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Judy Chu (D-Calif.); a Stanford University faculty group named Winds of Freedom; and the Chinese American organization Committee of 100.

Established in 2018, the initiative was billed by the DOJ as seeking to stem Chinas rampant theft of U.S. intellectual property and as an enforcement strategy for individuals whose primary profession is not intelligence collection, but who collect sensitive U.S. technologies and information on behalf of Chinese government entitiesthat is, non-traditional collectors.

Lieber is among a series of U.S. academics charged or convicted under the initiative. Many of these academics have been charged for failing to disclose their ties to Chinese funding sources.

According to prosecutors, from at least 2012 through 2015, Lieber served as a High-Level Foreign Expert in the Thousand Talents Program for the Wuhan University of Technology, receiving up to $50,000 per month in pay and approximately $158,000 for living expenses.

At the same time, Lieber was also supplied with more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab in China.

On Dec. 21, 2021, Lieber was convicted on two counts of failing to report foreign bank and financial accounts to the IRS, two counts of filing fraudulent income tax returns, and two counts of making false statements to federal authorities.

Prosecutors argued that Lieber was motivated by the desire to conceal his undisclosed connections with the Thousand Talents Program, which U.S. authorities say is a Chinese Communist Party recruitment plan that facilitates the transfer of foreign technology and know-how to China.

Critics, however, maintain the China Initiative betrays its original charter, claiming the government pursues process offenses and research integrity issues, which they allege arent crimes related to economic espionage.

In September 2021, Winds of Freedom, the Stanford faculty group, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland seeking the termination of the initiative.

Most prosecutions are for misconduct such as failure to disclose foreign appointments or funding, it stated. While such problems should be addressed, they should not be confused with national security concerns.

Vera Zhou

Rachelle Peterson, a senior research fellow at the National Association of Scholars, shared an alternative perspective with The Epoch Times.

Transparency of foreign gifts and contracts is crucial to public accountability. The public should know what foreign parties are buying influence over the colleges and universities that they attend, send their children to, or donate to.

She cited the story of a University of Washington student named Vera Zhou as one of the most poignant stories showing the power of foreign funding.

On a trip back to China to visit family, Vera used a virtual private network to access her homework, Peterson said. For this, she was arrested, sent to a reeducation camp, and then held under house arrest. Bob Fu, a Chinese dissident and pastor, advocated for her release. The State Department worked, too, to free Vera. The University of Washington did nothing.

From October 2017 to March 2018, Zhou was held in a reeducation camp in Xinjiang, according to Department of Education (DOE) records and State Department officials. After March 2018, Zhou was remanded to house arrest and remained under the watch of Chinese authorities until the State Department secured her release and return to the United States in September 2019.

When the State Department approached the University of Washington about asking for Veras release, the university refused, saying it was in the middle of negotiating a multimillion-dollar deal with China and didnt want anything to jeopardize that, Peterson said.

Shortly afterward, the University of Washington brokered a deal with Huawei, the Chinese tech firm designated by the FCC as a national security threat.

In December 2020, University of Washington officials published a letter in response to the allegations, writing, the insinuation that the University allowed financial interests of any kind to interfere with its handling of this situation is outrageous, adding that they had no idea what multimillion-dollar deal [was] being referenced.

However, DOE records that document the receipt of foreign gifts note that between 2018 and 2019, the University of Washington received millions of dollars from Chinese companies Huawei, Origincell Technology Group, Shanghai De Novo Pharmatech, and Futurewei. In addition, the University of Washington was also receiving money from its on-campus Confucius Institute, a Beijing-funded language center that has been criticized for promoting Chinese propaganda, and maintaining an exchange program with Tsinghua University.

Fu, the CEO of the Christian nonprofit organization China Aid, advocated on behalf of Zhous mother with the University of Washington before working with State Department officials to secure Zhous release. Fu told The Epoch Times he believes the University of Washingtons decision not to assist Zhou was 1,000 percent influenced by the universitys Chinese entanglements.

The timeline tells clearly theres a link, theres a relationship, Fu said. There are thousands of students from China at the University of Washington campus, and China pretty much controls them.

At a DOE press conference in October 2020, Zhou recalled her ordeal, describing the national security threat posed by undisclosed foreign money.

Donors can hold power over U.S. universities and influence actions.  I spent my Thanksgiving, Christmas, and 2018 New Year in that cell.  It makes me wonder, as a prestigious university, what do you really care [about]?

China Funding

A 2019 letter (pdf) sent by then-DOE Acting General Counsel Reed Rubinstein to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations announced the governments intention to correct historically lax oversight regarding the reporting of foreign money by universities.

Rubinsteins letter recounted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) national security threats discovered from an investigation into six universities: Cornell University, Georgetown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Texas A&M, and the University of Maryland.

While the name of the given institution responsible for each of the entanglements was withheld, the letter reported: One university accepted funds from a foundation suspected of serving communist Chinese propaganda and influence operations, one university received funds from a Chinese conglomerate to develop new algorithms and biometric security techniques for crowd surveillance capabilities, while another university had multiple contracts with the CCPs Central Committee.

In addition, as with the University of Washington, five of the six universities investigated had contracts with Huawei, which Rubinsteins letter characterized as a company that has been the subject of U.S. national security and trust concerns and banned from access to federal broadband subsidies for posing a national security risk.

Furthermore, while Rubinsteins 2019 letter detailed how between 2012 and 2019, the six universities collectively failed to report $1.3 billion from foreign sources, a 2021 follow-up letter to the subcommittee expanded upon the original investigation, revealing $6.5 billion in unreported foreign money accepted by universities.

Racial Profiling?

While there is documentation of ethnically Chinese victims resulting from Chinas operations on U.S. campuses, such as Zhou, and of ethnically non-Chinese academics, such as Charles Lieber, being targeted by federal prosecutors, critics assert that the China Initiative promotes racial discrimination.

A September 2021 white paper produced by the Committee of 100, a business organization of Chinese Americans, states, The China Initiative launched by the Department of Justice is clearly racial profiling and injustice.

Fu, the Chinese American pastor who advocated on behalf of Vera Zhou, calls such claims ridiculous.

The Communist Partys threat, their agents skin color happens to be yellowthat does not have anything to do with race, racial discrimination, or racism, Fu said. Chinas Communist Party is a Chinese Communist Party.

Nevertheless, critics such as Winds of Freedom view the number of ethnically Chinese academic defendants in China Initiative cases as evidence of the programs discriminatory nature.

We believe the China Initiative raises concerns of racial profiling. The investigations have been disproportionately targeting researchers of Chinese origin, the 2021 Stanford faculty groups letter states.

Meanwhile, Thomas E. Wheeler, who is a member of the Alliance for Asian American Justice as well as a former assistant attorney general for civil rights, responded to critics concerns of discrimination, racism, and racial profiling in China Initiative cases.

The Thousand Talents Program, as articulated by the Chinese Communist Party, targets individuals of either Chinese nationality or with Asian connections. Its designed to pressure those Chinese individuals who have come to the United States and been educated in the United States, who have chosen to stay and work in the United States to engage in espionage, he said.

The reason that a disproportionate number of Asians are implicated in the China Initiative is because China itself targets Asian Americansand, in particular, Chinese nationalities.

Confucius Institutes

In August 2021, Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita opened an investigation into Valparaiso Universitys Confucius Institute to determine the true intent of any relationships between Valparaiso Universitys programming and the Chinese Communist Party.

In recent years, dozens of U.S. universities have closed their Confucius Institutes amid heightened criticism of the centers role in hampering academic freedom and promoting CCP propaganda. As of Jan. 18, there are 24 Confucius Institutes in the United States, down from more than 100 in 2017, according to the National Association of Scholars.

The Trump administration in August 2020 designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center, which is a nonprofit that supports Confucius Institutes and Classrooms across the United States, as a foreign mission, in recognition of its role in advancing Beijings global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K12 classrooms.

While Rokita refrained from commenting on the active investigation into Valparaiso University, he told The Epoch Times: Illegal conduct doesnt know any specific border or kind of person. We go where the facts take us, its as simple as that.

What other attorneys general should do is recognize this soft power, this propaganda, is real. And its going on in their states.

Its unclear whether officials such as Rokita will succeed in convincing colleagues to be more cognizant of potential Chinese government clandestine operations. Likewise, it remains unclear whether critics of the China Initiative will succeed in persuading Attorney General Garland to abolish the program.
While many saw COVID-19 as a source of fear and anxietywith its mandates and masks, vaccines, quarantines, and testslast year, one California nature and astronomy photographer saw the virus as an opportunity to escape into the desert, and take stunning shots of sandstone formations in New Mexico set against a vast celestial Milky Way backdrop.

With the pandemic in full swing, it was the perfect time to drive to a remote desert and camp away from civilization for a few days, software engineer Marcin Zajac, 33, told The Epoch Times. The landscape here looks otherworldly, especially once the sun sets and the stars appear, Marcin added, speaking of a unique hoodoo outcropping known as the Alien Throne, which he captured in the states north-westerly Valley of Dreams.

The Alien Throne hoodoo formation in the Valley of Dreams, New Mexico. (Courtesy of Marcin Zajac and @mrcnzajac)

Setting up a wide-angle shot, Marcin photographed the stellar spectacle for his composition using a star tracker, which allows exposures of up to five minutes, increasing detail while reducing noise. Taking separate shots for his foreground, Marcin captured the extraterrestrial monolith for a composite montage. My goal is to capture the beauty of the natural world we live in, Marcin told the newspaper. I find myself drawn to grand landscapes under spectacular, vibrant conditions.

He submitted the fruits of his labors to NASA; and the photo was selected for the space administrations Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD), which features on their website.

The photographer, from Poland originally, now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, takes regular road trips throughout the Western U.S. in search of spectacular portraits of Heaven and Earth, which he presents on his Instagram.

A prescribed blaze in Yosemite National Park, California. (Courtesy of Marcin Zajac and @mrcnzajac)

A late-night Milky Way arcing over a canyon in Utah. (Courtesy of Marcin Zajac and @mrcnzajac)

Last spring, he captured the awesome sight of a blazing inferno in Yosemite National Parka prescribed fire he was privy towhich he described as a surreal experience, driving on a road flanked on either side by fire, inside his car feeling heat emanating from outside.

Also last year, Marcin went on a remote wilderness trip in Utah, traversing a washboard of dirt road for 50 miles in his rental car, which ultimately yielded a late-night Milky Way spectacle arching over a wonderfully S-curved canyon.

In addition to his NASA APOD laurels, Marcin was also shortlisted three times for the Astronomer Photographer of the Year Award, organized by Royal Museum Greenwichdistinctions he said hes immensely proud of.

Here is more nature photography that seems out of this world taken by Marcin Zajac:

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Bright newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Aussie Outback Full of Life After Back to Back Rainy Seasons

New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife have said major bird breeding events are being observed across the Macquarie Marshes, between Dubbo and Bourke, and the Gwydir wetlands, near Moree after two seasons of widespread rainfall in Australia.

Ecologist David Smith has said that at present the outback is full of incredible sights.

Theres a bit of a misconception about the arid zone, that its a lifeless place. But its incredibly biodiverse, and the critters that live out there are absolutely amazing.

Theyre not just surviving there; they thrive.

I encourage people to get out to the area. Its full of life.

Smith was surprised last week after he captured on film a large flock of endangered flock bronzewing pigeons taking flight in the Narriearra Caryapundy Swamp National Park in northwest NSW last week.

The birds used to fly in flocks of more than 100,000 a century ago, but their numbers are far fewer today.

Smith, a researcher with the Australian National Universitys Sustainable Farms, said hed only ever seen the birds twice in groups of about five.

All of a sudden, a flock took off, and at first I thought they were crows, Smith told AAP.

It dawned on me that it was flock bronzewings, and I was very excited to see that.

A very cool experience.

A storm had just passed over Tibooburra, providing a dramatic backdrop to their sandy-coloured wings.

Along with their endangered status in NSW, the birds are rarely seen because they frequent arid areas, like the national park near the borders of NSW, Queensland and South Australia.

Theyre arid zone nomads. Theres something cool about birds that move around the arid zone looking for where food and water is and where the conditions are right.

That theyre hard to find makes it really exciting. You never know whether theyre going to be around or not.

The greatest threats to the flock bronzewing pigeon are foxes and feral cats, along with grazing, which damages their grassland habitats.
Australias new online safety measures came into force on Sunday, which could mean social media platforms are now able to be forced to take down offending posts and, in some cases, unmask the identity of anonymous posters.

The wide-ranging Online Safety Act, which passed in 2021, grants new powers to eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant. She said the new rule would make online service providers more accountable for the safety of people who use their services and protect Australians experiencing serious cyber abuse.

Under the Act, Australian adults and children can report online harm to the commissioner. After a removal notice is issued, the platform must take down the reported post within 24 hours or risk a fine of up to 500 penalty unitsup to $111,000 for individuals (US$79,400) and up to $555,000 for companies (US$39,000).

The new changes would see big tech companies compelled to develop new codes to regulate illegal and restricted seriously harmful material. This includes content showing child sexual abuse or acts of terrorism, and content considered inappropriate for children, such as high-impact violence and pornography.

Additionally, eSafety can require social media providers to consistently report how they are responding to online harm under a new benchmark called the Basic Online Safety Expectations.

The scheme is not intended to regulate hurt feelings, purely reputational damage, bad online reviews, strong opinions or banter, Grant said. Serious harm could include material which sets out realistic threats, places people in real danger, is excessively malicious or is unrelenting.

Logos of the Big Tech giants are displayed on a tablet on Oct. 1, 2019. (Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images)

Communications Minister Paul Fletcher told the Seven Network on Monday the new laws would offer protections for Australians who are subject to vicious, online abuse, and that what victims of cyberbullying want is to have the material taken down as quickly as possible.

This is echoed by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who stated the vindictive nastiness has to be brought under control, and the people who have to control it are the people making money out of it.

The premise should remain with the person who makes the money, and that is Facebook and Instagram, Joyce said.

But Labor backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon doubts whether the new laws would have much of an impact.

The impact of bullying on the playground is immediate, no matter where it occurs, but in the playground, you get kicked out of the play area, he said. This is not kicking anyone off social media, I am not sure whether that is legally or technically possible.

Meanwhile, Mental Health Australia chairman Matt Berriman argued that quite simply, big tech and social media companies will put profit over people.

He told the committee on Friday: We cannot trust big tech and social media to moderate themselves despite their many hollow promises.

In its submission to Parliament, Facebook parent company Meta suggested the Committee should focus its attention on whether the slew of regulations is effective or necessary given the recent history of active rule-making.

Policymakers should be alive to the risk of overlapping, duplicative or inconsistent rules across different laws, the submission said.

AAP contributed to this article.
Australian State Rolls out 12 Million RATs to Ensure Get Kids Back to School

The New South Wales (NSW) back-to-school plan will be centred on rapid antigen testing (RAT) to ensure that classrooms stay open under the state governments COVID-Smart Plan.

Every student and teacher in the states 3,150 government and non-government schools will be eligible to receive RATs before the school year begins on Feb. 1. Over 12 million RATs will be distributed to schools to support four weeks of testing.

Primary and high school students, school staff and early childhood staff will be required to test twice a week for the first four weeks.

All staff and high school students will be required to wear masks, while children in primary schools are encouraged to wear them.

Interaction between year groups will be minimised and visitors to schools will also be limited, including parents.

The government previously invested in improving air quality in classrooms and air purifiers will be dispatched to classrooms that require it.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said safely returning to the classroom was vital for children and their education.

Students learn best at school, some students have spent a quarter of their schooling at home. Were committed to bringing students back safely, he said.

School students return back to school after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, at Glebe Public School in Sydney, Australia, on Oct. 18, 2021. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi)

NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said in the case a child tested positive, schools would not close.

Weve really shifted from that approach, she told Seven network. But as a parent, you will know youll be notified if theres a positive case in your childs year group will ask you to monitor for symptoms and ask you to use those rapid antigen tests just to check that your child continues to test negative.

Mitchell said the government was limiting visitors to schools for the first four weeks to minimise any disruptions to the community.

Well look to ease that restriction as soon as we can that we know its important to have mums and dads and carers there and were looking to do that as soon as we can, she said.

Professor Robert Booy, an infectious disease paediatrician, said air purifiers were important in keeping the air clean but added that there was yet to be conclusive evidence on how effective they would be in preventing people in a classroom from getting sick with COVID-19.

A lot of people can just open the window and make a big difference, Booy told Seven network. So thats what they did in the United Kingdom.

He reassured parents of four- and five-year-old children that less than 1 percent of this age group end up in the hospital, and those who do stay just two or three days because theyve got a cold.

The NSW government closely worked with the Victorian government to align their plans as closely as possible to each other.
Beijings Efforts to Force Repatriation of Chinese Immigrants in Canada a Concern, Says RCMP Commissioner

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says that the Chinese regimes efforts to repatriate its citizens against their will is a growing issue in Canada.

Its a growing problem, obviously, and something we want to work together with our international and domestic partners on, Lucki told The Globe and Mail in a Jan. 21 report.

A lot of it is about awareness and education, because things happen and we want to make sure people who are affected by this feel safe  that they can report this without fear of reprisal.

While calling the issue a growing problem, Lucki could not speak to the breadth and depth of it.

Lucki said the RCMP has a phone number where people with concerns can call, but could not say how much it is being used.

Mehmet Tohti, executive director of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project, told The Epoch Times he has lost hope that the government will take the issue more seriously after repeated pleas from the Uyghur community and other victim groups have fallen flat.

I havent seen any concrete, tangible solution or steps taken by the government, he said.

Tohti cited his personal experience attempting to report harassment through legal channels last month, when he says his phone and the phone of his legal adviser were hacked by suspected Chinese agents. After nearly three hours on the phone, his lawyer wasnt able to file a report with the RCMP, CSIS, or through other channels, as various agencies and units passed the call to one another.

Tothi added the hotline mentioned by Lucki is for general national security issues and not solely dedicated to reporting harassment from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), despite repeated calls from Chinese-Canadian groups for a direct line to be set up.

Theres nothing in Canada to report such an abusive practice by the Chinese government. Thats where we are at right now, said Tothi.

Luckis comments come on the heels of a new report by Spanish NGO Safeguard Defenders, which digs into Beijings operations to repatriate fugitives.

After Xi Jinping came to power, the CCP claimed some 18,000 officials had fled the country, says the report published on Jan. 18.

Xi became secretary-general of the CCP and chairman of the Central Military Commission in 2012, and then president in 2013.

Since then, Chinese asylum seekers has gone up by some 700%. Sky Net and sub-operation Fox Hunt were launched with the aim of repatriating and returning Chinese overseas to face trial, and plays a key role in Xi Jinpings signature anti-corruption campaign, says the report.

Safeguard Defenders says that Chinese government data indicates it successfully repatriated 10,000 people by end of 2021 from over 120 countries, many of them in Canada, Australia, and the United States.

The report says Beijing uses various methods to repatriate targets, with legal means such as extraditions being rare.

These measures include going after family members of the target still in China; sending police and agents overseas on illegal missions to intimidate the target to return; and use of direct kidnappings.

The report mentions cases in Canada, such as that of former Chinese Supreme Court judge Xie Weidong, who criticized Chinas justice system after moving to Canada. He was accused of corruption and asked to return, but after refusing, his family members in China were detained and persecuted. Yet, the Chinese regime was unsuccessful in that repatriation effort.

The report also mentioned that Canadian authorities have cooperated in the past with Beijing, providing assistance to its officials and police to carry out negotiations with targets in order to persuade them to return to China.
Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi waves to reporters as he arrives at the Chamber of Deputies to meet Mario Draghi, in Rome, on Feb. 9, 2021. Alessandra Tarantino/AP Photo, File)

Berlusconi Drops Bid to Be Elected as Italys President

ROMEFormer premier Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday bowed out of Italys presidential election set for next week, though he insisted he had nailed down enough voters to become head of state.

Berlusconi, 85, said in a statement that after much reflection he had opted to take another step on the path of national responsibility. The media mogul asked his supporters not to vote for him.

A lightning rod for political protests who survived sex scandals and a tax fraud conviction, Berlusconi said he doesnt want his name to be the cause of polemics or lacerations that the country cant afford in a pandemic.

The prospect of him winning a 7-year term as president, a position that is supposed to provide a kind of moral compass to the nation and represent national unity, already prompted a protest earlier this month in Rome.

Lawmakers in Parliament, as well as special regional electors, are expected to begin casting secret ballots on Monday to choose Italys next president.

Berlusconi said he planned to continue as head of the center-right Forza Italia party he founded three decades ago and to work to ensure that special presidential grand electors will elect someone able to reap a vast consensus in Parliament.

He also insisted that Premier Mario Draghi stay in office. The former European Central Bank chief is heading a pandemic-unity government but has indicated he is interested in becoming the successor to President Sergio Mattarella, whose term expires on Feb. 3.

Given the several hundred votes that Berlusconi and his right-wing allies could command in Parliament, Berlusconis insistence that Draghi stay in the premiers office could complicate any quest by the economist credited with helping to save the euro currency to become president.

For weeks, Berlusconi had been sounding out his own conservative allies as well as lawmakers from centrist forces to see if he had sufficient support to be elected.

Parliaments center-right bloc, including the parties led by anti-migrant leader Matteo Salvini, and far-right nationalist proponent Giorgia Meloni, had been pressing Berlusconi to make a decision about seeking the presidency as chances that he could garner enough votes by the elections fourth round appeared uncertain.

A two-thirds majority is required in the first three rounds, making it unlikely a winner could emerge early on, given no one political bloc accounts for such a big margin. The fourth round requires a simple majority.

Past presidential elections have gone for days before yielding a victor.

By Frances Demilio
A 49-year-old British man was found dead at his home in western Thailand, on Jan. 23, 2022, in a still from a video. (Reuters/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Briton Dies, Another Severely Injured in Thailand After Knife Attack, Police Say

BANGKOKA 49-year-old Briton was found dead at his home with knife wounds in western Thailand, and a Thai suspect was in custody, police said on Sunday.

Another British man, 55, suffered injuries and was in hospital, police in Kanchanaburi province said, adding that further evidence was being collected.

A Thai man was suspected of attacking the two with a rice sickle for drinking and playing music loudly, police said, according their preliminary investigation.

Police and forensic examiners were collecting evidence and weapons at the scene, footage from broadcaster ThaiPBS showed.

Police and forensic examiners collecting evidence at the scene where a 49-year-old British man was found dead at his home in western Thailand, on Jan. 23, 2022, in a still from a video. (Reuters/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

A witness said the suspect was believed to have a history of mental health issues, according to media reports.

Local media said the suspect had a history of mental health issues. Police said his history was still being investigated.

By Chayut Setboonsarng and Juarawee Kittisilpa
A nurse administers a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to a high school student at the California State University Long Beach campus in Long Beach, Calif., on Aug. 11, 2021. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)

Proposed Bill Requires All California K-12 Students Get Vaccinated for COVID-19

SACRAMENTOA bill was introduced Jan. 24 that would require all K12 students in California to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and eliminate the personal belief exemption.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced a statewide school vaccination mandate, but it wont take effect statewide until a vaccine receives full approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Senate Bill 871 by state Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) would require the shots even if they are only being offered under an emergency use authorization by the FDA.

We have an opportunity here to keep kids safe, Pan said Jan. 24 during a California Medical Association news conference, where the legislator and pediatrician announced details of the Keep Schools Open and Safe Act.

Sen. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) answers a question about their proposed legislation requiring parents to vaccinate all school children, during a news conference in Sacramento on Feb. 4, 2015. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

Under state law, personal belief exemptions must be allowed for any newly required childhood vaccine unless the legislature passes a law banning them.

Pan said closing the personal belief exemption loophole for the safe and effective shots ensures that every medically eligible student attending school in person is vaccinated.

The Keep Schools Open and Safe Act builds on Senate Bill 277, also sponsored by Pan, which eliminated the personal belief exemption for all other childhood vaccinations required for public and private school students when it became law in 2015.

City News Service contributed to this report.
In this photo provided by Ukrainian National Guard Press Office Canadas Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, right, greets Ukrainian soldiers during her visit to the National Guard base close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan. 18, 2022. (The Canadian Press/AP-Ukrainian National Guard Press Office via AP)

Canada Not Following US in Drawing Down Family Members at Ukraine Embassy: Trudeau

Canada wont be following the United States in evacuating families of diplomats in Ukraine and allowing non-essential staff to leave its Kyiv embassy at this stage and amid tensions with Russia, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Jan. 24.

We will make determinations based on safety on the ground, based on the concerns we have around a potential Russian invasion. We obviously continue to work very, very hard on a diplomatic track, on an international track, to try and get Russia to de-escalate, Trudeau said in a virtual press conference on Jan. 24.

Trudeau said the government is extremely concerned about Russian aggression and the ongoing threat of invasion into Ukrain but that there were many contingency plans in place, to protect Canadian diplomats and their families for whatever eventuality comes up.

The United States announced on Jan. 23 it had ordered the departure of all families of its embassy staff and authorized voluntary departures for non-essential U.S. government employees.

Senior U.S. State Department officials told reporters that the decision was made out of an abundance of caution due to continued Russian efforts to destabilize the country and undermine the security of Ukrainian citizens and others visiting or residing in Ukraine.

The officials would not say if the move was triggered by any specific recent development, only saying military action by Russia could come at any time.

When asked during the press conference if the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle played into Washingtons decision for the cautionary approach in Ukraine, the senior official said this is very much a decision that is focused on the situation in Ukraine and what is best for Embassy Kyiv and American citizens in Ukraine.

On Jan. 23, the State Department modified its travel advisory for Ukraine from Do Not Travel due to COVID concerns to Do Not Travel due to the increased threat of Russian military action. Canadas travel advisory states to avoid non-essential travel due to Russian aggression and military build-up.

A separate senior official representing the Bureau of Consular Affairs said he recommends U.S. citizens should consider departing the country now.

The officials also announced the U.S. is providing $200 million worth of new weapons to Ukraine, including ammunition for its frontline defenders, with a first shipment arriving in Kyiv on Jan. 22.

Ukraine was not pleased with the U.S. decision to drawdown its diplomatic staff.

While we respect right of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution, said Ukraine minister of foreign affairs spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko on Twitter on Jan. 24.

The United Kingdom has reduced the staff of its Kyiv embassy by half, the BBC reported on Jan. 24, while the European Union says it would not follow that path for now.

Canada announced it will be providing a $120 million loan to Ukraine last week and Trudeau said the provision of military aid wasnt off the table.

Were going to continue to be there to respond in ways that we can to to supporting Ukraine. This is something that matters deeply to us, Trudeau said, mentioning the Ukraine situation would be discussed in cabinet meetings in the next few days.
A view of the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City on July 16, 2013. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

China, Goldman Sachs, and Genocide Denial

Beijing and Moscows dark money should be illegal

News Analysis

Goldman Sachs, one of the worlds most successful banks, has apparently found legal loopholes so its clients can secretly fund genocide denial.

Its despicable, but the big bucks in Manhattan high-rises dont come free of guilt. Theres blood on those white shoe firms.

As Uyghurs see their population dwindle in China through concentration camp internment, forced labor factories, and subjection to rape, unwanted abortions, and birth control requirements, the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund is funneling money to organizations that deny the genocide recognized by both the Biden and Trump administrations, according to a new investigative report.

Alexander Reid Ross and Courtney Dobson argue in New Lines Magazine, well known for its reporting on Islamic countries, that the genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China is supported by propaganda funded through the Goldman Sachs fund. The authors describe the fund as a donor-advised charity that conceals its funders from the public record, making it a convenient clearinghouse for moving dark money to politically sensitive or controversial organizations.

The report, published on Jan. 18, reveals that over the past five years almost $65 million has filtered through various entities connected with people who have defended the Chinese government and downplayed or denied documented human rights violations committed by Beijing against the Uyghur and Turkic Muslim minorities.

The funding identified by New Lines is linked to an American tech magnate named Neville Roy Singham, who has long held an ideological affinity with the Chinese Communist Party, dating to his youthful membership in the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, a Mao-influenced group based in Detroit, Michigan.

Singham worked with Chinas Huawei between 2001 and 2008 as a strategic technical consultant, according to a Chinese recruitment platform. During that period, according to Ross and Dobson, he raved about Chinas economic model.

Research by IPVM, a video surveillance research organization, found that Huawei itself is implicated in the 2018 development of racialized facial recognition software that uses artificial intelligence to trigger a Uyghur alarm for police when it identifies an individual with Uyghur facial characteristics.

A display for facial recognition and artificial intelligence on monitors at Huaweis Bantian campus in Shenzhen, China, on April 26, 2019. (Getty Images/Kevin Frayer)

According to the New Lines investigation, Singham invested in three Chinese companies, including Shanghai Luoweixing, with a registered capital contribution of $20 million; and Gondwana Foods, with one of $32.5 million. Singham is also listed as the legal representative of a third company, Shanghai Shinong Company Ltd., registered in January 2020.

Singhams Thoughtworks company held a conference in Beijing, established itself in 17 countries, and did free work for progressive organizations like the Grameen Foundation and Democracy Now!, a left-leaning news organization that on March 16, for example, aired Beijings baseless criticism of the United States and allies for having a Cold War mentality.

In fact, Beijing is a territorial aggressor that is forcing Washington to depart from its preferred course of trillions of dollars in trade and investment with China that Americas biggest corporations find so lucrative.

Democracy Now!s Amy Goodman said on the show: While the United States faces accusations of hoarding vaccines and blocking efforts to waive vaccine patent rights at the World Trade Organization, China has shipped millions of vaccine doses to nations in the Global South in whats been described as a form of vaccine diplomacy. China has sent free samples of Sinovacs vaccine to 53 countries and has exported it to 22 nations that have placed orders. Recipients include Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Goodman did not mention that Sinovac vaccines are far less effective than Western vaccines, that there are strings attached to its donations, or that Chinese-made vaccines have sold at inflated prices relative to their effectiveness, likely due to Beijings corrupting influence.

Vails of Sinovac vaccine on the production line at Butantan biomedical production center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on April 23, 2021. (Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)

A British private equity fund bought Thoughtworks in 2017 for what is thought to be hundreds of millions of dollars. Since then, a web of organizations and individuals that promote apologetics for Beijing has emerged around Singham, according to the authors. Yet he maintains a low profile, without significant social media activity or public appearances. Curious.

One of the Singham-linked organizations that has an unmistakable bias in favor of the Chinese government, according to New Lines, is the Peoples Support Foundation, which was co-founded by Singhams apparent wife, Jodie Evans, and is capitalized at over $160 million. Yet the organization has no website. Doubly curious.

Evans co-founded Code Pink, which does have a website. But it links to dismissive views on the Uyghurs. According to New Lines, a video featuring Evans and British academic John Ross shows the latter characterizing the Uyghur genocide allegation as farcical and a total lie.

In 2020, Code Pink started a China Is Not Our Enemy campaign, in which the organization advocates for the U.S. to adopt a thoroughly conciliatory approach toward China, according to the authors.

A beneficiary of both the Goldman Sachs fund and the Peoples Support Foundation, via another intermediary, the United Community Fund, is an organization called Tricontinental, which bills itself as an Institute for Social Research.

Tricontinentals founder Vijay Prashad has focused on the Non-Aligned Movement and the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), both of which are heavily influenced and used by Beijing for its own political purposes of countering the United States and allies in international institutions and markets.

Goldman Sachs has over the years promoted the BRICS countries as investment destinations, bragging on its website of having written the report in 2001 that coined the acronym (which in this case is shortened to show just the first four countries). The Goldman Sachs site has a graphic of the four countries, in which China appears larger and at the top relative to the others diminutive size and lower placement.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the 2017 BRICS Summit in Xiamen, southeastern Chinas Fujian Province, on Sept. 5, 2017. (Kenzaburo Fukuhara/AFP/Getty Images)

After Prashads 2017 resignation from his professorship in Hartford, Connecticut, he became a senior fellow at a think tank associated with Chinas Renmin University. Ross is listed as a senior resident fellow at the institute.

Prashads own corpus has lately tended toward defending the Chinese government with respect to one of its worst human rights abuses: the mass internment, reeducation, forced labor and sterilization campaigns waged in the northwest province Xinjiang against ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim populations, according to New Lines.

On the March 16 Democracy Now! episode, Prashad argues that most of the U.S. corporate media have become stenographers of the U.S. State Department. You know, the credibility to have Mr. Mike Pompeo, former secretary of state, stand up there on behalf of the Muslims of China, after what the United States has done in Afghanistan, in Iraqand, dont forget, Pompeo used to head the CIAI mean, it strains credibility.

Prashad fails to mention the causes of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which include Saddam Husseins invasion of Kuwait, and the Talibans hosting of Osama bin Laden.

In an article published in April, Prashad presented the Uyghur genocide as U.S. propaganda meant to pave the way for offensive actions. The U.S. governments information warfare against China has produced the fact that there is genocide in Xinjiang, according to Prashad. Once this has been established, it helps develop diplomatic and economic warfare.

According to New Lines, Such articles appear to be part of a broader strategy to cultivate media outlets where pro-China propaganda can filter through.

Prashad has also posited a lack of evidence for the Uyghur genocide. Whats the evidence? He then answered his own question. Well, theres none, really.

The New Lines authors write, That Prashads denial of atrocities against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities should coincide with mounting evidence that implicates the Chinese government is particularly noteworthy because, until recently, his organization was on record lending credence to the fact that these abuses existed.

In 2018, Tricontinental described the detention of unknown numbers of Chinas Uyghur minorityand the arrests of Marxist students as very grave, according to the investigation, which posits that Prashads about-face could be due to his close association with Singham and his alleged funding of Tricontinental.

Tax filings, according to the investigation, indicate that Tricontinental received over $12 million from the Goldman Sachs fund. The Justice and Education Fund got over $15 million in 2019, and the Peoples Forum got $12 million, according to the authors.

They claim that as recently as Sept. 18, the Peoples Forum hosted an event, cosponsored by Code Pink and with a keynote by Prashad and the Qiao Collective, a self-described Marxist group  whose Twitter account routinely promotes the Chinese government narrative on most any topic, including denying the Uyghur genocide.

New Lines found that Housed within The Peoples Forum New York office is yet another media organization called Breakthrough News. Also pressing Uyghur genocide denial, this project is spearheaded by Rania Khalek, an apologist for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose previous media ventures, Redfish and Soapbox, were both exposed by journalists as cutouts of Russian state-funded media.

Democracies require transparency and unbiased news reporting to function, because they depend on informed voters to make their most important decisions. China-linked dark money is the opposite of transparency and democracy. The world, and more specifically U.S. voters, can stop the dark money problem, which produces propaganda for both left and right, from getting worse.

Demand better laws from our elected representatives that require public accountability and transparency of political and media donations, including those going to activist and news outlets that linked to dictators in China and Russia.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
People line up for nucleic acid testing during a citywide mass testing for the Covid-19 in Tianjin, China January 9, 2022. (cnsphoto via Reuters)

Data From Chinese City Shows Higher Proportion of COVID-19 Infection Among Those Vaccinated With Chinese-Made Vaccines

The Chinese regimes data from one new affected area of COVID-19 outbreaks in mainland China show a much higher rate of vaccination rate among the infected patients.

The data published by Yuzhou city in Henan Province shows the same trait. According to the data announced by local authorities, the vaccination rate of the infected people in Yuzhou is 92 percent. As reported by the regimes media China News Service, in Henan, a total of 141 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered and 64.61 million people had been fully vaccinated.

According to Chinas most recent seventh national census, as of November 2020, Henans population is 99.366 million. Based on the data, the overall vaccination rate in Henan Province is about 65 percent. The vaccination rate of infected people in Yuzhou is nearly 27 percentage points higher than this figure.

The Chinese communist regime only provides the Chinese people with domestically produced COVID-19 vaccines, including two doses of inactivated vaccines from Chinese companies such as Sinopharm or Sinovac, or one dose of adenovirus vector vaccine (Ad5-nCoV) from Tianjin CanSinoBio.

In this new round of COVID-19 outbreak this year in China, the Omicron variant was detected in Tianjin city, confirmed virus cases in Yuzhou City were of the Delta variant.

Judging from the breakthrough cases of Omicron, Delta, and other variant viruses, and the higher vaccination rate of infected people in Tianjin and Yuzhou far exceeds that of uninfected people in the same areas, Li Longteng, the former deputy director of Taiwans Department of Health, told Chinese edition of The Epoch Times, This shows that the Chinese made COVID-19 vaccine are ineffective. At most, it will produce a little antibody and reduce some serious symptoms or death.

The two major Chinese COVID-19 vaccines: Sinovac and Sinopharm have been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) for emergency approval and are widely used in lower-income countries.

Long Tengyun contributed to the report.

A previous version of this article misstated the vaccination rate in Tianjin City. The Epoch Times regrets this error.
GREELEY, Colo.Rep. Ken Buck of Colorados 4th district was present in the audience at Shen Yuns Jan. 22 matinee at Monfort Concert Hall.

Its really heartwarming, he said. The music was beautiful, but what I really loved about it was the cultural aspect, how the Chinese culture was displayed and accepted by the audience. I really felt that it was a special moment here to see that.

Shen Yun, based in New York, brings 5,000 years of Chinese culture on stage via classical Chinese dance and live orchestral music. It is known worldwide for its bright costumes, elegant choreography, and creative storytelling. Shen Yuns mission is to bring back the divinely inspired culture of China from before it was systematically attacked by the Chinese Communist Party.

It was such a positive message that was given, the song about whats so important on Earth and what in there are things that are more important than what we do here on earth, he said.

Audiences have commented that after seeing Shen Yun they feel a sense of uplift, hope, and compassion.

The music was really special. Its also a fusion of Eastern and Western music, and that was really heartwarming, he commented. It was some sounds that Im not used to hearing when I hear a Western orchestra, and so that was part of the beauty was just to hear some of the different sounds.

This performance was very positive and uplifting.  Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado

Buck encouraged people to go to Shen Yun, especially in these trying times.

I do think that because we are challenged right now with the pandemic, and because were challenged in other ways that are very serious matters going on in the world, and there are serious issues here at home.  I think people are depressed and really searching for something positive. And this performance was very positive and uplifting, he said.

I would tell everyone to do their best to try to see this performance and to make sure that they share it with their friends in the community because its great. If one person sees it, its even better if 10 people know the positive message.

I think that whenever you have a group of people who are expressing themselves through art, and the colors were so bright, and the music was so beautiful, and the dancing was so so talented, that its just uplifting, including the messages that were delivered with the compassion and truthfulness and tolerance and all of the positive things that the stories portrayed. All bringing that together was really beautiful.

Reporting by NTD.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006.
Gordon urges DOH to use saliva test to increase testing capacity

Senator Richard J. Gordon has urged the Department of Health (DOH) in augmenting its testing capabilities through the administration of saliva tests amidst a rise in Covid-19 cases across the country.

Gordon, chairman of the Philippine Red Cross (PRC), explained that they will be offering more saliva tests across its 13 functioning molecular laboratories as a cheaper yet effective alternative to the usually uncomfortable oronasal swab variation.

"Ang advice ko sa DOH, mas maiging gamitin ang saliva test kaysa maglalagay tayo ng sariling administered [antigen test]. Puwede rin iyon, pero ang kailangan natin doon, 'pag nag-administer ka ng antigen test, ire-report mo," mentioned Gordon during a radio interview.

"[Sa antigen test], mayroong mga false positive, false negative, kaya mabuti na ang RT-PCR pero mas murang 'di hamak ang saliva test. Iyon ang itutulak ko sa mga probinsiya," he added.

The PRC launched the saliva test over a year ago as a quicker and cheaper alternative to the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) swab test.

Results are expected to come out in 12 hours and is priced at Php 1,500, which is significantly cheaper than the swab test, which costs about Php 2,800, according to Gordon.

To extend its testing capabilities, the PRC partnered with motorcycle hailing app Angkas, training about 50 riders to safely bring and take saliva samples in the comfort of customers' homes in Metro Manila.

Despite indications pointing towards a less virulent yet more transmissible variant, Gordon reiterated caution, increased testing, and discouraged intentional infection, which others believe acts as a "natural vaccine."

"Akala niyo, bulletproof na kayo sa sakit. No. Ang dapat talaga, magpa-test. Dapat malalaman mo kung ikaw ay may sakit at iyong mga katabi mo ay 'di magkakasakit nang dahil sa iyo," Gordon pointed out.

"In fact, dapat nag-iisolate ka 'pag na-expose ka. Kahit na ikaw ay nabakunahan na, 'yan ay nakakamatay," he continued.

The PRC remains as one of the leading responders to the pandemic, administering over 5,400,000 swab and saliva tests, according to the latest tally.

It has also partnered with leading bus companies Ceres and Victory Liner in operating five Bakuna Buses committed to bring the Covid vaccines to far-flung areas.
Connecticut Governor Requires Nursing Home Visitors to Show Proof of Vaccination, Negative Test

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamonts administration announced it would require all nursing home visitors to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or show a recent negative test before entering.

We know that some of the people who are most vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19 include those who live in nursing homes, which is why we need to be doing everything we can to protect them from this virus, the Democrat governor said in a statement, announcing he signed an executive order (pdf) that applies to all nursing facilities in the state. This is one more precaution we can implement at these facilities to keep them safe.

Now, visitors have to show they have received a COVID-19 vaccine or if eligible, under FDA or CDC guidance, have received a COVID-19 vaccine booster, his office said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration.

Or, they will have to provide either electronic or paper proof of a negative COVID-19 test, according to his office. A rapid antigen result must have been carried out within the previous 48 hours, or if one took a PCR test, 72 hours.

Visitors can also take a rapid antigen test to see if theyre positive for COVID-19 at the nursing home, the office said. His order went into effect on Saturday, Jan. 22.

The order requires nursing homes to deny entrance to any visitor that tests positive for COVID-19 or who refuses to take a rapid antigen test, Lamonts office said. The order further provides, according to guidance from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, that a nursing home cannot deny entrance to any visitor who is willing to take a rapid antigen test but is unable to do so because the nursing home is not able to provide a rapid antigen test.

The state will also distribute tens of thousands of rapid antigen tests to nursing homes in Connecticut.

We dont know how long this will go for, we anticipate that it will be a while, so we need to make sure we are prepared for it, J.P. Venoit, CEO of Masonicare, told local media outlets. If someone refuses to take an antigen test and doesnt have a proof of vaccine, we cant let them into visit.

The latest COVID-19-related directive came as Connecticut nursing homes were recently asked by the state to accept COVID-19-positive admissions from hospitals, according to guidance from the Department of Public Health.

Hospitalized patients should be discharged from acute care whenever clinically indicated, regardless of COVID-19 status, Public Health Commissioner Dr. Manisha Juthani wrote in the two-page memo. Discharge should not be held due to a pending SARS-CoV-2 test, as receiving PAC (post-acute care) providers should now have quarantine policies in place based on COVID-19 vaccination status, Juthani wrote, referring to another name for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus that causes the disease COVID-19. PAC providers should be equipped to safely care for individuals with active COVID-19 who are ready for discharge from acute care.
A Navy member gets a COVID-19 vaccine on Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Va., in a file image. (U.S. Navy/Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jackson Adkins via The Epoch Times)

Court Asked to Block Punishment of All Navy Members Seeking Religious Exemptions From Mandate

A federal court that blocked the punishment of 35 U.S. Navy service members seeking religious exemptions to the militarys COVID-19 vaccine mandate should widen the ruling to cover any Navy personnel seeking an exception, lawyers said in a Jan. 24 filing.

The complaint in the case, U.S. Navy SEALs 13 et. al v. Lloyd Austin et. al, was amended to a class-action effort. That means the judge presiding over the case could widen the block of the mandate to the nearly 4,000 Navy active-duty or reserve members who are seeking religious exemptions.

Our clients are boldly leading the fight against the vaccine mandate, but no service member should face discipline or punishment for following their faith, Mike Berry, general counsel for First Liberty Institute, which is representing Navy personnel in the case, said in a statement.

The fact that the military continues to demonstrate hostility to anyone who expresses religious objection to the vaccine mandate shows that the Biden Administration does not care about religious freedom. The lawsuit seeks to protect as many service members as possible from further punishment. We have to put a stop to this before any more harm is done to our national security.

The Navy has approved zero religious exemptions, and only two have been approved by the entire U.S. military. That runs afoul of federal law, including the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, according to the plaintiffs.

U.S. District Judge Reed OConnor, a George W. Bush appointee, agreed, ruling in December 2021 that the Navy does provide a process to apply for religious accommodations, but by all accounts, it is theater.

The Navy has not granted a religious exemption to any vaccine in recent memory. It merely rubber stamps each denial, OConnor said.

A Navy spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email shortly after the ruling that the branch supports and respects the beliefs and religious practices of our Sailors.

Waivers for immunizations are balanced with operational readiness, unit cohesion, good order, discipline, health and safety, the spokesperson wrote. When this interferes with a members right to practice their faith according to the dictates of their conscience, the Navy works with the member to find ways to accommodate religious practice that are the least burdensome way possible for the member. All requests for religious accommodation, to include the COVID vaccine mandate, are handled in the same manner.

Twenty-two Navy members have been discharged for refusing to get vaccinated as of Jan. 19.

The military branch has only granted a single religious accommodation request since the beginning of 2015, according to documents filed in a different case challenging the military mandate, which was imposed by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin with support from President Joe Biden.

The amended complaint comes several days after Biden administration attorneys asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to overturn OConnors preliminary injunction, which blocks punishment against the 35 Navy personnel as the case is decided by the courts.

The administration hasnt yet submitted its argument as to why the injunction should be lifted. It was ordered by the court to provide certain information by Feb. 7, according to the docket.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 3, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

DOD Announces 8,500 Troops at Heightened Readiness to Deploy in Support of Eastern NATO Countries

The Pentagon announced Monday that at the direction of President Joe Biden its placing 8,500 American troops at a heightened readiness to deploy in support of Eastern NATO allies should the ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine warrant.

Department of Defense (DOD) press secretary John Kirby stressed to reporters at a Jan. 24 briefing that no decision has been made to deploy any troops at this time.

We remain committed to the (NATO) alliance, and we absolutely remain committed to bolstering the capabilities of NATOs eastern flank to the degree that they desire that extra support, Kirby said.

Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, as well as Russia-annexed Crimea and Belarus. Kirby said Monday that the Russian force has continued to grow in recent days.

If deployed, the U.S. troops would act in support of the multinational NATO Response Force (NRF), which comprises roughly 40,000 air, maritime, and land troops. The decision whether to activate NRF is up to NATO, Kirby said.

The heightened alert puts the United States in a position to provide additional brigade combat teams, logistics, medical, aviation, intelligence surveillance, reconnaissance, and other capabilities into Europe in the event the NRF is activated or under a deteriorating security environment.

In some cases, some of these forces were already on a heightened posturea readiness to deploy postureand [Secretary Lloyd Austen] decided to make it even moreshorten the tether even more, Kirby said.

Later on Monday, Biden will hold a video call with several European leaders on the Russian military buildup and potential responses to an invasion, the White House said.

The U.S. State Department ordered family members of U.S. government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave the Ukrainian capital and authorized the voluntary departure of non-essential civil servants on Sunday night.

Biden has said previously that sending U.S. troops to Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion is not on the table.

U.S. officials have been working to secure a united effort among the countrys allies in Europe to pose the threat of severe sanctions if Russia moves to invade.
SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk listens during a conversation with legendary game designer Todd Howard (not pictured) at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, Calif., on June 13, 2019. (Mike Blake/Reuters)

Elon Musks Brain Chip Company Neuralink Hiring Clinical Trial Director to Manage Clinical Trials

Elon Musks brain interface company Neuralink is hiring a clinical trial director in a sign that the startup is preparing to begin clinical trials in humans.

As the clinical trial director, youll work closely with some of the most innovative doctors and top engineers, as well as working with Neuralinks first clinical trial participants, the advertisement for the role in Fremont, California, states. You will lead and help build the team responsible for enabling Neuralinks clinical research activities and developing the regulatory interactions that come with a fast-paced and ever-evolving environment.

The applicant must be mission-driven, able to meet tight deadlines with accuracy and efficiency, and have an understanding of the clinical trial process from beginning to end.

Neuralink, which was co-founded by Musk in 2016, aims to build the first neural implant that will let you control a computer or mobile device anywhere you go, according to its website.

Referred to as a fully integrated brain-machine interface (BMI) system or a brain computer interface (BCI), the technology enables a computer and other digital devices to wirelessly directly communicate with the human brain.

In April 2021, Musk promised that the technology will enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs.

Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again, Musk said.

That same month, the neurotechnology startup published a video showing Pager, a 9-year-old macaque, playing computer games through a Neuralink chip inserted in the monkeys brain. The company also successfully implanted artificial intelligence microchips in the brain of a pig named Gertie in 2020.

During a live-streamed interview at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit in December 2021, Musk said his startup was doing a lot of testing to ensure that the device can be implanted safely and suggested that it may be ready to be used in humans in 2022 but didnt provide a specific date.

We hope to have this in our first humans, which will be people that have severe spinal cord injuries like tetraplegics, quadriplegics, next year, pending FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approval, he said.

I think we have a chance with Neuralink to restore full-body functionality to someone who has a spinal cord injury. Neuralinks working well in monkeys, and were actually doing just a lot of testing and just confirming that its very safe and reliable and the Neuralink device can be removed safely.

A Neuralink spokesperson didnt respond as of press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.

While the United States has been making waves in the field of brain technology, concern is growing that Chinese military officials are also spending billions each year on neuroscience, in an effort to weaponize the brain.

Li Peng, a medical researcher at a subsidiary of Chinas state-run Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS), wrote in a 2017 article, The study into brain science was born out of a vision for how the future warfare would evolve, and warned that such research has an extremely strong military characteristic and is crucial to securing a strategic high ground for every country.

In March 2021, a Chinese military-run newspaper described cloud-powered artificial intelligence (AI) integrating human and machine as the key to winning wars.

Amid concerns about the Chinese Communist Partys growing interests and activities in biotechnology, the United States in December 2021 placed trade and investment restrictions on Chinas Academy of Military Medical Sciences, the nations top medical research institute which is run by the Chinese military.

U.S. officials also placed the same restrictions on 11 affiliated biotechnology research institutes, accusing them of aiding the Chinese military with biotechnology and developing purported brain-control weaponry.
Ukrainian soldiers stand on a check-point close to the line of separation from pro-Russian rebels, Mariupol, Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Jan. 21, 2022. (Andriy Dubchak/AP Photo)

European Union Splits From US on Key Decision Regarding Ukraine

A European Union official on Monday said the 27-nation bloc will not follow the United States decision to evacuate personnel and family members from the Ukrainian embassy in the midst of heightened tensions between Russia and the West.

We are not going to do the same thing, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell declared at a meeting.

Borrell said he is looking to hear from Secretary of State Antony Blinken surrounding the State Departments decision to evacuate some personnel.

We know very well what the degree of threats are and the way in which we must react, and no doubt we must avoid alarmist reactions, Borrell said on Monday. You have to stay calm doing what you have to do, and avoid a nervous breakdown.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen similarly issued a statement after the State Department said on Sunday night that some evacuations would start, saying that the EU stands by Ukraine in these difficult circumstances while announcing a new financial assistance package to the country made of both emergency loans and grants.

We are firm in our resolve, von der Leyen said. The EU has already provided significant assistance to Ukraine, both to support the countrys resilience and modernization, and specifically to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2014, the EU and European financial institutions have allocated over EUR 17 billion in grants and loans to the country.

According to a statement from the State Department, family members of U.S. government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv were asked to leave the Ukrainian capital.

Authorized departure gives these employees the option to depart if they wish; their departure is not required, the embassy said on Sunday. Ordered departure for family members requires that family members leave the country.

Ukrainian officials have said that decisions made by the United States, UK, and other countries to evacuate staff are premature. Australia and Germany also confirmed some staff would depart Ukraine, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry told news outlets.

The Ukrainian ministry said in a statement Monday that there are 129 foreign consulates and embassies, and they have confirmed they will not evacuate.

On Monday, meanwhile, the United States placed about 8,500 troops on standby in case NATO activates its Response Force or if the situation in Eastern Europe deteriorates further, a chief Pentagon spokesperson confirmed.

Its really important to keep remembering that no deployment orders have been set, and no missions have been assigned. This is really about getting folks ready to go in case theyre needed, Kirby told reporters in Washington.
EXCLUSIVE: Male Student Allowed to Stay in School After Inappropriate Conduct With Multiple Female Victims at Florida Middle School

Parents demand action: 'these girls are afraid'

On Jan. 18, two parents informed Floridas Charlotte County Public Schools School Board that a male student has engaged in inappropriate conduct with several girls at Punta Gorda Middle School and is still attending the school and they are demanding action.

More than one child has been affected, Larry Benjamin told the board, revealing that his daughter was one of them. That student is still attending the school. Benjamin also shared the story of how another girl at Punta Gorda Middle School (PGMS) had been bullied relentlessly in 2015. Another of his daughters tried to protect her but things did not get resolved.

One morning, Benjamin found his wife down the road. She had responded to the screams of the girls grandmother.

My wife was the first respondent into this home, Benjamin said, and my wife had to respond to a lifeless body.

Two more Charlotte County students committed suicide the following year. In early 2021, PGMS was evacuated after a student joked about bringing a bomb.

Marlena Herbert, the mother of a 14-year-old female student at PGMS who has also had an issue with the male student, asked the board why parents had not been told exactly what is happening.

Herbert, who had emailed every single one of the board members about what had happened to her daughter, wanted to know why none of them had reached out to her and she wanted them to know this has affected her daughter tremendously.

Screenshot of Charlotte County School Board Vice Chair Kim Amontree at the school board meeting on Jan. 18, 2022. (Charlotte County Schools YouTube Channel)

School Board Vice Chair Kim Amontree said, its a serious matter when individuals come and let them know about very serious things that have happened within their schools. While admitting she didnt reach out to Herbert personally, she said she did send an email to Superintendent [Stephen] Dionisio at 6 a.m. and by 6:05 he had replied and said his people were investigating it. She then told Herbert that, just because she didnt respond personally to the email about what happened to her daughter, she didnt want her to think she didnt take this seriously and that obviously, she did.

In response to comments made by Mr. Benjamin, Amontree said if your daughter has experienced inappropriate conduct and this has not been investigated, she advised he speak to the superintendent and let him know this has not been investigated, and we will certainly do that because we take these allegations extremely seriously. There is nothing more important than the safety of these children within these schools. In response to the gratitude expressed by another resident during public comments, and to answer her question about what a school board member does, Amontree joked: We are the complaint department, and it is rare when somebody comes back and lets them know their complaints were addressed and to thank them.

The Epoch Times reached out to each of the board members seeking a statement regarding what steps they, as part of district leadership and authority, were taking about the very serious things that have happened within their school.

You need to reach out to the people you referenced in your email for any clarification of their statements or what is being done regarding this situation, Board Member Cara Reynolds responded. The other four board members, including Amontree, did not reply.

Its got to stop, Herbert insisted. Theres way too many problems in this Punta Gorda Middle School and somethings got to be done.

These girls are afraid, Benjamin told The Epoch Times. One girl has missed a lot of school. Her grades are falling because of this boy, and the administration keeps saying there isnt much they can do about it. They give you paperwork. They tell you to have the kids sign no contact agreements and stay away from each other. Nothing is being done. I dont want to sit here and watch another parent lose a child like the one the grandmother lost back in 2015. Its got to stop.

It was in November that Benjamin found out his daughter had been touched inappropriately by the boy. The next day, he took his daughter to school and addressed the matter with the School Resource Officer.

Redacted Police Report filed on Nov. 12, 2021, by Larry Benjamin after his daughter was sexually assaulted by a boy at Punta Gorda Middle School. (Courtesy of Larry Benjamin)

According to the report, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, School Resource Officer Terry Chow took the report on Friday, Nov. 12, 2021, at 8:05 in the morning at PGMS. He describes how the male student was placing his hands on the girls thigh and exposed her bra by pulling on her shirt. The girl asked him to stop but he continued. After Benjamin left, the student was taken to the officers office and questioned further. The boy did not deny the girls accusations but accused the girl of the same actions. The boy was advised there are consequences to his actions and the father wants to place a Stay Away contract in place that prohibits him from speaking to her by any means, including through text messages, friends, and social media. Officer Chow informed PGMS Assistant Principal Renee McClain of the situation and reported that she would be meeting with both students regarding the Stay Away contract, which both students are required to abide by. According to the report, no further police action was taken.

Screenshot of page four of police report filed Nov. 12, 2021, by Larry Benjamin regarding a sexual assault on his daughter at Punta Gorda Middle School by a male student. (Courtesy of Larry Benjamin)

Despite the Stay Away agreement, Benjamins daughter texted him from school the next morning to let him know the boy was there and demanding to know why she had told people about the incident. Angry that the boy was permitted to have contact with his daughter, Benjamin contacted the school immediately and demanded they get his daughter into the safety of the principals office until he arrived.

When Benjamin arrived at the school, the boy was with the school resource officer who was asking why he had made contact with the girl. The boys response was that sometimes, he just doesnt think. To Benjamin, this sent up red flags. The boy already had a known history of sexually assaulting girls at the school and was now admitting an inability to control his own actions. A few days later, Benjamin was horrified to learn from his daughter that one of her friends had become another victim of the same boy. He immediately contacted the parents of the new victim and told them the procedures they should take. Thus far, the only reprimand suffered by the boy has been a couple of days of suspension, after which he is permitted to return to school. In the meantime, he has been harassing his victims and telling them they need to drop this so they can talk.

Superintendent Dionisio was at the Jan. 18 school board meeting. He never addressed the comments made by the parents of the assault victims at Punta Gorda Middle School.

Screenshot of Charlotte County Schools Superintendent Stephen Dionisio during comments delivered at the January 18 School Board Meeting. (Charlotte County School Public Schools YouTube Channel)

Despite what has happened, Benjaminthe father of a combined family with 10 childrenis also concerned for the wellbeing of the boy who assaulted his daughter.

These schools just toss them to another school, Benjamin said, noting how a boy in Loudoun County, Virginia, had transferred to Stone Bridge because he had sexually assaulted another victim at a different school.

In October, reports exposed how a 15-year-old male student wearing a skirt was able to gain access to the womens bathroom at Stone Bridge High School in Loudoun County, Virginia, where he sexually assaulted a ninth-grade girl.

I dont want that for this kid. Hes got issues. Resources need to be made available so no other girls get harmed and that this kid gets some help so he can have a healthy future and know how to deal with things. We dont just lock people up and throw them away. This is what Im fighting for, and this has to stop.

The Epoch Times reached out to Principal Justina Dionisio and her husband, Superintendent Steve Dionisio, asking how long they had been aware of the issue, what was being done to protect the victims and other students at the school, and whether or not there is any merit to concerns expressed by parents that their marital connection posed a conflict of interest.

As a district our policy is that student discipline is confidential, thus we do not comment upon that, Charlotte County School District Community Liaison Michael Riley replied to The Epoch Times on behalf of the Dionisios.

I would also like to mention that when Law Enforcement is involved, we stand down as to not interfere with their investigation, Riley stated further in a second email moments later.

One Voice. One Team. One Message, his signature line reads, reiterating the Charlotte County Public Schools motto (pdf).

In response to Riley, The Epoch Times noted the inquiry was not about what disciplinary actions had been taken against the perpetrator of the assaults but rather what was being done to protect the victims and other students at the school.

Principal Dionisio is aware of the situation as well as Superintendent Dionisio, Riley confirmed. The school has taken the appropriate steps to correct the situation and see that the students in the school are safe.

PGMS Principal Justina Dionisio is married to Charlotte County Public Schools Superintendent Steve Dionisio.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill on May 11, 2021. (Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP)

Fauci As Confident as You Can Be That Most of US Will Hit Peak Omicron Infections Next Month

White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Jan. 23 that hes as confident as you can be that most of the United States will reach a peak in Omicron coronavirus variant infections within the middle of February.

You never want to be overconfident when youre dealing with this virus, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABCs This Week. But if you look at the patterns that weve seen in South Africa, in the UK, and in Israel and in the northeast and New England and upper midwest states, they have peaked and [are] starting to come down rather sharply.

There are still some states in the southern states and western states that continue to go up.

If the pattern follows the downward trend seen in other places, such as the Northeast, Fauci said the United States will start to see a similar turnaround throughout the entire country.

Since its a large country and a great deal of variation in the degree of vaccinations that we have in one region compared to another, ultimately, theyre all going to go in the same direction.

However, Fauci noted that those areas of the country that havent been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or received vaccine booster shots may still see a bit more pain and suffering with hospitalizations.

But we do knowthese are the recent data that have come out from the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]that, even with Omicron, boosting makes a major, major difference in protecting you from hospitalization and severe outcomes, so things are looking good.

While Bidens chief medical adviser appeared to be optimistic about the outlook for the United States with regard to hitting peak Omicron infections soon, he cautioned against being overconfident that things could move in this more positive direction.

Faucis comments come after World Health Organization (WHO) officials said the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over and that new variants of the virus are likely to continue to emerge.

Were hearing a lot of people suggest that Omicron is the last variant, that its over after this. And that is not the case, the WHOs technical lead officer on COVID-19 said at a briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, last week.

(From L) World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman Tarik Jasarevic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Health Emergencies Program head Michael Ryan, and WHO Emerging Diseases and Zoonosis head Maria Van Kerkhove attend a press briefing on the evolution of the new coronavirus epidemic in Geneva, Switzerland, on Jan. 29, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini / AFP via Getty Images)

WHO Health Emergencies Program Executive Director Dr. Michael Ryan said we may never end the virus because such pandemic viruses end up becoming part of the ecosystem.

However, Ryan noted that the worst of the pandemicsuch as deaths, hospitalizations, and lockdownscould be over in 2022, as long as issues with the distribution of vaccines and treatments are addressed quickly

What we need to do is get to low levels of disease incidence with maximum vaccination of our populations, so nobody has to die, Ryan said. The issue is: Its the death. Its the hospitalizations. Its the disruption of our social, economic, political systems thats caused the tragedynot the virus.

Last week, Israelone of the most vaccinated countries in the worldannounced the largest rise in infections since the start of the pandemic, driven by a surge in Omicron cases. The Israeli Ministry of Health stated that more than 72,000 people tested positive for COVID-19. Authorities are hopeful that a fourth vaccine shot will help blunt the current wave of infections.
People stop outside a COVID-19 testing site in New York City on Jan. 10, 2022. (Scott Heins/Getty Images)

FBI Searches Center for COVID Control Headquarters Following Complaints: Officials

Federal agents searched the Illinois headquarters of the Center for COVID Control amid a federal investigation into the multimillion-dollar testing business, an official confirmed.

Yvonne Gamble, a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services (HHS) inspector general, told The Epoch Times in an email that HHS agents and FBI agents had searched the Rolling Meadows, Illinois, facility.

An FBI spokesperson told news outlets it was  conducting court-authorized law enforcement activity in Rolling Meadows on Jan. 22.

Annie Thompson, a spokesperson for the Illinois attorney general, told USA Today that the office is working with the FBI and other law enforcement partners and will not comment on ongoing investigations as we work to hold accountable individuals who engage in unlawful conduct.

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services stated on Jan. 21 that its investigating numerous complaints associated with laboratories and testing sites run by the Center for COVID Control.

We take seriously any allegations of fraud or misbehavior by COVID-19 testing sites. CMSs Center for Clinical Standards and Quality investigates these kinds of complaints and is aware of several alleged instances of misconduct by this companys labs, Dr. Lee Fleisher, chief medical officer and director of the Center for Clinical Standards and Quality for CMS, told CNN in a statement.

The agency identified non-compliance on behalf of the Center for COVID Control and is waiting on an allegation of compliance from the laboratory to address the deficiencies cited, Fleisher said, without elaborating.

Earlier in January, the Center for COVID Controls founder and CEO, Aleya Siyaj, announced that the company would suspend operations between Jan. 14 and Jan. 22 due to unusually high patient demand that has caused staffing shortfalls.

Center for COVID Control is committed to serving our patients in the safest, most accurate and most compliant manner, Siyaj said. Regrettably, due to our rapid growth and the unprecedented recent demand for testing, we havent been able to meet all our commitments.

Later, the company stated that it is extending its pause on operations and remains committed to providing the highest level of customer service and diagnostic quality and will not resume collection of patient samples until staffing resources permit CCC to operate at full capacity.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison also filed a lawsuit against the firm earlier in January, claiming it had failed to deliver COVID-19 test results, had delivered them in an untimely manner, or had provided falsified results.

People reported receiving COVID-19 results that were riddled with inaccurate and false information including listing the wrong test type and false dates and times for when samples were collected from consumers, his lawsuit read. Others got negative results when they hadnt submitted samples to be tested, according to the suit.

Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Justice told local media it would investigate the company for possible violations of state law.

The Center for COVID Control didnt respond to a request from The Epoch Times for comment by press time.
Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino (2L) is pictured after the arrival of two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 strategic long-range bombers at Maiquetia International Airport, just north of Caracas, on Dec. 10, 2018. (Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images)

Former Intelligence Officer Says Russian Military Bases Exist in Venezuela

SANTA CRUZ, BoliviaExiled Chavista general and one-time director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, Manuel Figuera, disclosed the locations of two Russian military facilities on Jan. 17, which are in the Venezuelan states of Carabobo and Miranda.

In a letter penned just days after Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said he could neither confirm nor exclude the possibility of a military build-up in Latin America, Figuera revealed the location of one stronghold hidden with the 41st Brigade in the city of Valencia, and another in Manzanares.

Theyre playing the same old game, Russia and the West, political analyst Fernando Menendez told The Epoch Times.

Figuera stepped into the public eye back in 2019 as one of the key Venezuelan military figures supporting the former national assembly leader Juan Guaidos ill-fated attempt to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro.

Flanked by party members, Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido speaks during a press conference in Caracas on, Dec. 7, 2020. (Ariana Cubillos/The Associated Press)

Before the coup Figuera was one of Maduros top intelligence officers.

Figuera also claimed the sole objective of Russias military installations in Venezuela was to threaten the national security of the United States.

On Jan. 22 Russias ambassador in Caracas, Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov, responded by saying it was impossible to operate a military base in the South American nation.

Just look at Venezuelas constitution, which unambiguously states there cannot and must not be any [foreign] military bases in its territory.

Further, the ambassador accused the United States of trying to prevent the independence of Latin American countries and their right to choose different alliances.

Historically the prohibition of foreign operated military holdings is outlined in Article 13 of the Venezuelan constitution, which also forbids the assignment, transfer, or lease, even temporarily or partially, to foreign states.

Yet a loophole exists in this rule, according to the president of citizen control for the national armed forces Rocio San Miguel. He said a foreign military can occupy bases in Venezuela with the express permission of the national assembly.

Figuera said the criminal regime of Nicolas Maduro is a threat not only to the United States, but Latin America, and the rest of the free world.

Back in 2019, the now defected general met with Maduro regularly over matters of national security and intelligence. However, after being ordered to jail and torture opponents to the socialist regime Figuera betrayed the controversial leader and supported Guaidos coup. When the attempted ousting failed, he left for the United States.

Russias investment in Venezuela and long-standing support of the Maduro regime have been compared to their policies in Syria and their reinforcement of President Bashar al-Assad.

Both nations depend on Russia for critical military assets. Yet unlike Syria, Russias alliance with Maduro in Venezuela provides them with a critical foothold in the Western Hemisphere.

Menendez added that Venezuela is an ideal place to hide an army due to the nations large land mass and dense jungle terrain.

On Jan. 14, Colombian defense minister Diego Molano said hes been aware of Russian forces in Venezuela for months.

Molano said his nations heavy military presence along their shared border now served a dual purposeto combat narco-trafficking and to protect against the eventual arrival of Russian military forces.
DES MOINES, Iowa.The pandemic has made many afraid to get out of their homes for more than the essentials. But Mike and Pam Morrison, a public safety officer and a registered nurse, felt that more people should come out and experience Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Its an experience that people are missing because of the pandemic, Ms. Morrison said.

But they still need to come, Mr. Morrison added.

New York-based Shen Yun aims to revive the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization that has been all but lost due to the communist regime in China. Mr. Morrison expressed his support for what Shen Yun is doing to raise awareness.

Pam and Mike Morrison at the Shen Yun Performing Arts performance at Des Moines Civic Center on Jan. 22, 2022. (Kerry Qin/The Epoch Times)

We want to support the Shen Yun dancers and their mission against the Chinese Communist Partys tyrannical rule. And we love the freedom that their dancing represents. And we want to do all we can to help them, he said.

He felt that Shen Yun is very valuable and quite affordable, too.

The value is that I feel hope. And I feel that other people can learn more about traditional Chinese culture and what it can be, Mr. Morrison said.

Were Anxious to Get Back to Living Life

(L to R)Bill Frank, Steve Churchill, Lynn Frank, and Christine Branstad at the Shen Yun Performing Arts performance at Des Moines Civic Center on Jan. 22, 2022. (Stacey Tang/The Epoch Times)

Bill and Lynn Frank, Steve Churchill, and Christine Branstad were also in the audience this evening.

Mr. Churchill was a former chief of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and Christine is the wife of Terry Branstad a former ambassador of China and a past Iowa governor. As people who have lived in China, they shared their thoughts on Shen Yuns presentation of China before communism.

It definitely portrays China before communism, absolutely. When you look at what the lyrics were for the songs and when it talks about the Divinity, thats certainly something that we wouldnt see today, Mr. Churchill said.

Ms. Branstad said the performance was beautiful.

You know, we who definitely have faith in this country, it was very nice to see that portrayed because, like Mr. Churchill said, you did not see a lot of religion and faith there, she added.

Ms. Branstad also shared they were in China when the pandemic began and she is anxious to see life return to normal.

I mean, everybody is ready to be finished with the pandemic. And so any chance we have to go out and be with people and see a wonderful performance, were anxious to get back to living life, Ms. Branstad said.

Chinese culture is diverse in its ethnic groups and its long and deep history. Mr. Churchill expressed his appreciation of Shen Yun for portraying it so beautifully.

It was really nothing like I ever saw in China so it was really special.  Steve Churchill

I loved it. You can see the history in it and the beauty and how delicate it was, but how strong at the same time and the colors. And it was really nothing like I ever saw in China so it was really special, he said.

Reporting by Kerry, Stacey Tang, and Maria Han.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006.
A single online search for homeschooling resources will turn up myriad books, curriculum packages, and resources created specifically for homeschoolers. Of course, they all look amazing, so your wish list grows. However, depending upon the number of children you plan to teach, expenses can add up quickly. But I have good news for you: You can homeschool successfully and provide your children with a well-balanced quality education while keeping costs low because there are also myriad budget-friendly resources available.

Invest in a Good How-to-Homeschool Guide

The most valuable homeschooling resource for parents is a good how-to-homeschool guide. Let me shine the spotlight on a few excellent choices. The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise walks you step-by-step through the process of teaching your children based on each childs developmental stage and capacity to comprehend specific subject matter.

Dr. Ruth Beechicks The Three Rs and You Can Teach Your Child Successfully are based on common sense and the belief that parents can teach their children best. And Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Creative and Comprehensive Homeschool Curriculum by Rebecca Rupp helps you customize your homeschool program to meet each childs needs.

Youll refer to your how-to guide often throughout each year, and it will become a cherished resource and pay for itself before you know it.

Be sure to check out your local library, as most of them will have these top-rated homeschool guides. This way you can borrow the book(s), take notes on what you need, and renew, if necessaryall without spending a dime.

Follow a Scope and Sequence

A scope and sequence is basically a chart that shows you what to teach and when. Two great sites to find free scope and sequence charts specific to homeschoolers are SchoolhouseTeachers.com (K12) and HewittLearning.org (K8). Simply download the chart, print it out, and you have a priceless map for charting your home education course. Now choose from the free book and material options that you feel will best help each child to accomplish the objectives for his or her grade level.

I found that by following a scope and sequence chart, I was much less tempted to spend additional money on any extra homeschooling gems that just happened to catch my eye throughout the year.

Take Advantage of Free Homeschooling Materials

Lets talk freebies. Dont you just love that phrase? It certainly makes me smile. Your first stop should be a visit to some of these all-time favorites among the homeschooling community.

Homeschool Giveaways and Freebies (HomeschoolGiveaways.com) is a mega-site owned by homeschool mom Carrie Fernandez. You could literally spend days perusing this site with its vast amount of general homeschool planning, organization materials, curriculum reviews, tons of unit studies, teaching resources for preschoolers through high school students, parenting encouragement, and even recipes.

DIYHomeschooler.com has tons of free ebooks, unit studies, and The Findslinks to a wide variety of interesting and engaging educational activities. At FreedomHomeschooling.com, Sarah May, owner and homeschool mom, has gathered the best of the best free homeschooling curriculum sites all together in one place. Some other favorites are FreeHomeschoolDeals.com, Homeschool.com, A2Z Homeschooling.com, HomeschoolingOnAShoestring.com, and miscellaneous educational sites from NASA, National Geographic Kids, Smithsonian Learning Lab, Mensa for Kids, Funbrain, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Plimoth Patuxet Museums, and many more. And speaking of museums, many, such as the Louvre in Paris, offer virtual tours.

If youre looking for free classes, look no further than Khan Academy, Discovery K12, and Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool.

Also, public libraries across the country now allow you to borrow more than just books. Patrons can borrow a telescope, musical instruments, a sewing machine, museum passes, and even fishing poles and gear.

Another great option is to simply swap curricula with other local homeschoolers. This is a time-tested favorite among homeschooling families, because if youre able to connect with a nearby family, chances are that this can become an ongoing tradition.

If you dont know any local homeschoolers, you can contact your states homeschool association or the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), and volunteer veteran homeschooling parents will assist you in connecting with local support groups, many of which hold annual or semi-annual curriculum swaps.

Buy and Sell Gently Used Books and Materials

Ask any homeschool mom and she will undoubtedly show you her stash of used books and materials that she has collected over the years. And most, if not all, will look like new. My personal experience as a veteran homeschool mom of 16 years has shown me that most homeschoolers take excellent care of their stuff.

My best adviceand something that has served us well over the yearsis to not allow your kids to write in their workbooks or highlight text in their textbooks. Instead, to ensure that you get much better resale value, copy and print out any workbook pages and ask your kids to take notes and make charts and graphs of the important points in their texts.

Some well-respected websites to buy and sell your gently used homeschooling materials are Homeschool Classifieds, Homeschool Shopper, Second Harvest Curriculum, Thriftbooks, Best Homeschool Buys, and of course, Amazon and eBay. Also, if you plan to attend a state or regional homeschool convention, most of them hold used book sales.

And for you social media-savvy parents, consider joining these Facebook groups: Homeschool Market, Homeschool Curriculum & Book Swap, and Homeschool Used Curriculum Swap.

Another option for finding a great bargain is to shop at summer yard and tag sales.

Apply for a Curriculum Grant

The Home School Legal Defense Association offers a Compassion Curriculum grant to families experiencing financial hardship yet who also desire to continue to homeschool their children. Visit the HSLDA website to learn about eligibility requirements and how to apply.
A health worker waits for residents to be screened for COVID-19 at a makeshift testing station outside a building placed under lockdown at the Kwai Chung Estate public housing complex in Hong Kong on Jan. 22, 2022. (Louise Delmotte/AFP via Getty Images)

Hong Kong Asks Civil Servants to Work From Home as COVID-19 Cases Hit 18-month High

Hong Kong has asked civil servants to work from home as far as possible to rein COVID-19, a day after the Asian financial hub recorded a sudden surge in case numbers.

The city reported 140 new infections on Jan. 23 during the height of the fifth COVID-19 wavea record high in almost 18 months since July 30, 2020when nine more cases were recorded, authorities said during a daily press conference. On the previous day there were 26 cases reported.

About three-quarters of the locally-transmitted cases are reportedly linked to an outbreak at apartment blocks in Kwai Chung, a congested residential area on the Kowloon Peninsula. Thousands of residents there have been placed under lockdown and need to undergo testing daily.

In a Jan. 24 statement, a government spokesman announced a reduced flow of people in government buildings and offices, in a bid to contain the spread of Omicron.

Such arrangements may include allowing some of their staff to take turns to work from home as far as possible, the official said, adding that a temporary reduction in public services would occur.

Following Beijings zero COVID-19 strategy, Hong Kong has so far shut schools, bars, gyms, and beauty parlors, while banning indoor restaurant dining after 6 p.m. and some air travel over the past weeks.

Hong Kongs leader Carrie Lam urged people to avoid gatherings ahead of next weeks Lunar New Year holidays.

Last week, officials stirred a public outcry for ordering the killing of hamsters from dozens of pet shops after tracing an outbreak to a worker at a shop, and asked people to surrender any bought on or after Dec. 22 as soon as possible. The government described the outcry as irrational.

As of Jan. 22, a total of 2,512 animals, including 2,229 hamsters, had been humanely dispatched, according to a government statement. Only one hamster surrendered to authorities by pet owners had tested positive, authorities said on Jan. 23.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Hospitals Should Hire, Not Fire, Nurses With Natural Immunity

Commentary

Among many surprising developments during this pandemic, the most stunning has been the questioning of naturally acquired immunity after a person has had the Covid disease.

We have understood natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Here is Thucydides:

Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience and had no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twicenever at least fatally.  Thucydides

We have lived with endemic coronaviruses for at least a hundred years, for which we have long-lasting natural immunity. As expected, we also have natural immunity after Covid-19 disease, as there have been exceedingly few reinfections with serious illness or death, despite a widely circulating virus.

For most viruses, natural immunity is better than vaccine-induced immunity, and that is also true for Covid. In the best study to date, the vaccinated were around 27 times more likely to have symptomatic disease than those with natural immunity, with an estimated range between 13 and 57. With no Covid deaths in either group, both natural and vaccine immunity protect well against death.

During the last decade, I have worked closely with hospital epidemiologists. While the role of physicians is to treat patients and make them well, the task of the hospital epidemiologist is to ensure that patients do not get sick while in the hospital, such as catching a deadly virus from another patient or a caretaker.

For that purpose, hospitals employ a variety of measures, from frequent hand washing to full infection control regalia when caring for an Ebola patient. Vaccinations are a key component of these control efforts. For example, two weeks before spleen surgery, patients are given the pneumococcal vaccine to minimize postoperative infections, and most clinical staff are immunized against influenza every year.

Infection control measures are especially critical for older frail hospital patients with a weakened immune system. They can become infected and die from a virus that most people would easily survive. A key rationale for immunizing nurses and physicians against influenza is to ensure that they do not infect such patients.

How can hospitals best protect their patients from Covid disease? It is an enormously important question, also relevant for nursing homes. There are some obvious standard solutions, such as separating Covid patients from other patients, minimizing staff rotation, and providing generous sick leave for staff with Covid-like symptoms.

Another goal should be to employ staff with the strongest possible immunity against Covid, as they are less likely to catch it and spread it to their patients. This means that hospitals and nursing homes should actively seek to hire staff that have natural immunity from prior Covid disease and use such staff for their most vulnerable patients.

Hence, we are now seeing a fierce competition where hospitals and nursing homes are desperately trying to hire people with natural immunity. Well, actually, not.

Instead, hospitals are firing nurses and other staff with superior natural immunity while retaining those with weaker vaccine-induced immunity. By doing so, they are betraying their patients, increasing their risk for hospital-acquired infections.

By pushing vaccine mandates, White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci is questioning the existence of natural immunity after Covid disease. In doing so, he is following the lead of CDC director Rochelle Walensky, who questioned natural immunity in a 2020 Memorandum published by The Lancet. By instituting vaccine mandates, university hospitals are now also questioning the existence of natural immunity after Covid disease.

This is astonishing.

I work at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, which announced that all nurses, doctors, and other healthcare providers would be fired if they did not get a Covid vaccine. I spoke with one of our nurses. She worked hard caring for Covid patients, even as some of her colleagues left in fear at the beginning of the pandemic.

Unsurprisingly, she got infected, but then recovered. Now she has stronger and longer-lasting immunity than the vaccinated work-from-home hospital administrators who are firing her for not being vaccinated.

If university hospitals cannot get the medical evidence right on the basic science of immunity, how can we trust them with any other aspects of our health?

Whats next? Universities questioning whether the earth is round or flat? That, at least, would do less harm.

From the Brownstone Institute

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Johnson Orders Inquiry Into Claim of Islamophobia in Ministerial Sacking

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered an inquiry into claims made by Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani that she was sacked from her ministerial post because her Muslimness was making colleagues uncomfortable.

Following a phone conversation with Ghani on Sunday evening, Johnson asked the Cabinet Office to establish the facts regarding the allegations.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said, The prime minister has asked the Cabinet Office to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by Nusrat Ghani MP.

The spokeswoman said Johnson had previously recommended that Ghani make a formal complaint to Conservative Campaign Headquarters, but she did not take up this offer.

The prime minister has now asked officials to establish the facts about what happened, the spokeswoman said, adding that Johnson takes these claims very seriously.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Ghani said when she lost her job as a transport minister in February 2020, a government whip told her that Muslimness had been raised as an issue at a Downing Street meeting to discuss the reshuffle.

I was told that at the reshuffle meeting in Downing Street that Muslimness was raised as an issue, that my Muslim women minister status was making colleagues uncomfortable and that there were concerns that I wasnt loyal to the party as I didnt do enough to defend the party against Islamophobia allegations.

In the following weeks, I was informed that if I persisted in raising this that I would be ostracised by colleagues and my career and reputation would be destroyed.

On Monday, Ghani welcomed the announcement of the Cabinet Office investigation.

In a statement posted on Twitter, she said: As I said to the prime minister last night, all I want is for this to be taken seriously and for him to investigate. I welcome his decision to do that now.

The terms of reference for the inquiry must include all that was said in Downing Street and by the whip. I look forward to seeing the terms of reference, she said.

Ghanis claim was denied by Chief Whip Mark Spencer, who publicly identified himself as the individual who spoke to the former minister in 2020.

To ensure other whips are not drawn into this matter, I am identifying myself as the person Nusrat Ghani MP has made claims about this evening, he said on Sunday in a statement posted on Twitter.

These accusations are completely false and I consider them to be defamatory. I have never used those words attributed to me, he wrote.

Ghani, 49, was born in Kashmir to Pakistani parents and grew up in Birmingham. She worked in an investment bank, charities, and the BBC World Service before entering politics.

PA Media contributed to this report.
U.S. Supreme Court nominee judge Neil Gorsuch testifies at his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 21, 2017. (Reuters/Joshua Roberts/File Photo)

Justice Gorsuch Scorches Virginia City for Denying Churchs Tax Exemption

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch upbraided Fredericksburg, Virginia, for denying a tax exemption to two church leaders living in a church-owned house, after the city determined that the churchs own governing documents undermined its claim that the leaders were entitled to a tax exemption.

Gorsuch was the sole dissenter from the Supreme Courts Jan. 18 decision not to take up the case known as Trustees of the New Life in Christ Church v. City of Fredericksburg, court file 21-164, an appeal from a March 3, 2021, decision of the Supreme Court of Virginia. There was no indication of how many justices voted to steer clear of the appeal. At least four of the nine justices would have had to vote to hear the case in order for the high court to have accepted it.

In his dissenting opinion (pdf), Gorsuch, who was nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate in April 2017, wrote: I would grant the petition and summarily reverse. The First Amendment does not permit bureaucrats or judges to subject religious beliefs to verification. About this, the Court has spoken plainly and consistently for many years.

Such governmental intrusions into ecclesiastical questions are impermissible, Gorsuch wrote, citing precedent. Absent proof of insincerity or fraud, a churchs decisions on matters purely ecclesiastical, although affecting civil rights, are accepted in litigation before the secular courts as conclusive.

The Framers of our Constitution were acutely aware how governments in Europe had sought to control and manipulate religious practices and churches. They resolved that America would be different. In this country, we would not subscribe to the arrogant pretension that secular officials may serve as competent Judge[s] of Religious truth, Gorsuch wrote, quoting James Madison.

Bureaucratic efforts to subject religious beliefs to verification have no place in a free country, the justice concluded.

Although the relevant part of the Virginia Code doesnt define the word minister, the law provides an exemption from property taxes for real property and personal property owned by churches  and exclusively occupied or used  for the residence of the minister of any church or religious body, according to the churchs petition (pdf) to the Supreme Court.

New Life in Christ Church invoked the tax exemption for a property occupied by Josh and Anacari Storms. The church argued the Stormses were ministers according to the Presbyterian Church in Americas Book of Church Order because they were hired to teach and spread the faith to college students in the community.

Fredericksburg officials agreed that eligibility for the exemption turned on whether the Presbyterian Church in America considered the Stormses to be ministers, but refused the exemption. According to the citys interpretation of the Book of Church Order, only ordained persons with specific duties are deemed ministers of that church.

The church is free to name as many minsters [sic] as it wishes, but the Virginia Code permissibly provides a real property tax exemption for one residence onlyThe residence of the minister of the church, the city argued in a brief (pdf).

This case was never about delving into ecclesiastical pursuits or abridging the Churchs right to exercise its religion.

Kelly Shackelford, president, chief counsel, and CEO of Texas-based First Liberty Institute, which represented the church, expressed outrage at the Supreme Courts decision to decline the case.

This is a travesty, and it is dangerous. If a government bureaucrat can determine theology and tell a church who is or is not a minister, we are in trouble, Shackelford said in a statement.

Were disappointed that the Supreme Court allowed this dangerous abuse of government authority to stand.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to Steven Ray Minor, counsel of record for Fredericksburg, but hadnt received a reply as of press time.
Russia is threatening to invade Ukraine, and has already been building up its military along the border. A Russian lawmaker is stating that a war may be necessary, and U.S. Secretary of State Blinken is warning of a severe response if the threats are carried through. As this happens, the United States has begun supplying Ukraine with weapons, and other nations are showing mixed signals on which side they will stand.

Meanwhile, D.C.s Homeland Security & Emergency Management under Mayor Muriel Bowser posted an alert on Twitter, stating: If youre hitting the grocery store to prepare for winter weather, please just buy what you need and leave some for others! You may have noticed empty shelves in some stores due to national supply chain issues, but there is no need to buy more than you normally would. This is raising concerns that the supply chain crisis is hitting closer to home on basic goods.

In this live Q&A with Crossroads host Joshua Philipp, well discuss these stories and others, and answer questions from the audience.

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The Chinese regime is bringing back new lockdown for an alleged new outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. Videos have emerged of authorities welding shut the doors of housing complexes and locking people inside, and reports are increasingly emerging of people nearing starvation. These actions take place just ahead of the Beijing Olympics, and amid growing signs of an internal fight within the Communist Party leadership.

Whats really going on in China? What do the lockdown show us, not just of the social impact, but of the China model of governance itself; and what do the latest shifts in China and the ruling regime mean for the world? Join host Joshua Philipp and distinguished guest speakers Anders Corr, Patricia Adams, and Stephen Yates as we explore these topics in this special online event.

Join the event: Jan. 26, 8:00 pm ET, on EpochTV.com

Moderated by:

Joshua Philipp

Host of Crossroads, Senior Investigative Reporter at The Epoch Times

Distinguished Panelists:

Anders Corr, Ph.D

Publisher of Journal of Political Risk

Patricia Adams

Economist, Executive Director of Probe International

Stephen Yates

CEO, D.C. International Advisory

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Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) speaks to the press at the Capitol in Washington on May 12, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

Liz Cheney Faces Long Odds in Primary Battle After Trump, Jan. 6 Comments

News Analysis

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is facing a tough primary battle later this year after her comments about former President Donald Trump and her activities on the Democrat-dominated committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.

Since the Jan. 6 Stop the Steal rally, Cheney has increasingly distanced herself from the former president. However, thats a dangerous move for the would-be moderate, as Trump remains the leader of the Republican Party for many GOP voters.

Recent opinion surveys show that in both Wyoming and across the nation, Cheneys positions are far from popular among GOP voters, setting the Wyoming Republican up for a difficult primary challenge from Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman.

Cheney Sided With Democrats on Jan. 6 Protest

In early 2021, Cheney joined congressional Democrats in blaming Trump for the breakdown of order during the Jan. 6, 2021, protest which, according to Cheney, constituted an insurrection against the United States government. While the House commission has turned up no evidence that the rally was part of a larger conspiracy by senior Republican officials to overthrow the U.S. government, Cheney has persisted in the claim.

Cheney, who was stripped of her role as the Houses No. 3 Republican over her repeated criticism of Trump, also has joined Democrats on issues related to the 2020 election. Many Republicans, including Trump, have said that there were statistical improbabilities and other indicators of potential fraud in the 2020 election that throw the results of that election into doubt.

But Cheney, again, has rejected this claim.

Cheney is also one of only two Republicans with a seat on the Jan. 6 committee, which criticsincluding House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)have accused of blatantly partisan behavior in favor of Democrats.

While on the commission, Cheney and GOP colleague Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who himself has long been a Trump opponent, have joined Democrats in issuing subpoenas for top Trump-era officials, including former White House adviser Steve Bannon and chief of staff Mark Meadows. Bannon and Meadows refused the subpoena, citing executive privilege as former members of the executive branch.

While there is practically no legal precedent to address the competing claims of executive privilege and legislative subpoena, Cheney and Kinzinger joined with committee Democrats in advancing a contempt of Congress charge against both Bannon and Meadows.

Recently, Cheney and Kinzinger have joined Democrats in expanding their search for the still-undiscovered evidence of criminal sedition.

Thus far, the committee has asked two sitting lawmakers, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.), to appear and testify before the committee. Both have refused, potentially setting the stage for a censure vote or other punishment against the two.

Cheney also has been silent on the treatment of defendants arrested in connection with the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

In a months-long investigation, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and a coalition of other Republican lawmakers found that the conditions faced by the Jan. 6 political prisoners in the District of Columbia jail system have been nothing short of human rights violations.

Many of the defendants, according to Greene, have been held without bail and without a trial for months, in contravention of their constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial. Many have been denied visits with their families, while others have been denied razors, haircuts, and even bathroom access.

A recent surprise investigation of the D.C. jail by the U.S. Marshals Service, which found evidence of deficiencies in the jails living conditions, appears to vindicate Greenes claim. Acting U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia Lamont Ruffin said at the time officers had found evidence that water was shut off to inmates as punishment.

Along with others on the Jan. 6 committee, Cheney has been silent about the allegations.

Poll: GOP Voters Disagree With Cheneys Actions

Cheneys actions over the past year have done little to endear her to Republican voters, many of whom still look to Trump for leadership and guidance. Opinion polls have shown that a majority of Republicans, in addition to a substantial percentage of Democrats and independents, disagree with the Jan. 6 committees actions and claims.

One poll, conducted by Rasmussen Reports, asked likely voters about broad issues related to Jan. 6 and the 2020 election.

Rasmussen found that 61 percent of GOP voters agree that the Biden administrations Department of Justice and FBI have targeted non-violent American patriots. More surprisingly, more than a third of Democrat respondents (35 percent) and 49 percent of crucial independent voters agreed with the statement.

The poll also found that a majority of black voters (58 percent), who have historically caucused with Democrats, agree that Jan. 6 defendants are being held as political prisoners, compared to 44 percent of white voters who agree with the designation.

Voters also were asked whether they believe that President Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 election. Sixty-eight percent of Republicans said that he hadnt, in addition to 41 percent of independents and a surprisingly high 14 percent of Democrats.

These results are bad news for Cheney, who has thrown her fortunes behind the opposite positions.

Trump-Endorsed Challenger Wins Recent Straw Poll

While Republicans across the nation vie for Trumps endorsement before the 2022 midterm elections, in Wyoming, the former president has already endorsed a primary challenger against Cheney, attorney Harriet Hageman. In the small red stronghold of Wyoming, which has only one House seat, a primary victory all but guarantees victory in the general election.

For Cheney, achieving this primary victory is shaping up to be a steep challenge.

Hageman has vowed to stand up for election integrity, saying on her website that tens of millions of Americans have lost faith in the security and integrity of our elections.

We must rebuild that trust, she said.

Hageman has also promised that in Congress she will be demanding transparency in government and will help to rein in the surveillance state.

She has campaigned on America First principles, saying that she would work to secure the borders, keep manufacturing jobs in the United States, and restart Americas domestic energy sector, which is currently reliant on Russian and Saudi oil due to Bidens climate policies.

In both 2016 and 2020, Trump won the state by nearly 40-point margins. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won only 21.6 percent of the states vote; Biden fared only a few points better in 2020, winning around 26 percent of the vote.

While Cheney may hope that the so-called insurrection and Trumps claims of election fraud would change minds in the state, a recent straw poll indicates that Wyoming Republicans remain as enthusiastic for Trump as ever.

The Jan. 22 straw poll, which asked 71 Wyoming GOP activists to cast a vote in support of Cheney, Hageman, or someone else, ended conclusively in Hagemans favor. According to the Casper Star-Tribune, 59 votes were cast for Hageman. Cheney, by contrast, received only six. The other votes were cast for Wyoming state lawmakers.

I think its a good sign. Its not an endorsement, but these are the county activists, Hageman told the paper after the votes were tallied.

While the poll focused on the attitudes of GOP activists rather than on rank-and-file Wyoming voters, it provides a glimpse into the prevailing sentiment among the states Republicans.

In the 2020 election, Cheney won 68.6 percent of the state vote. If she wins the primary, she is likely to receive similar returns in the red stronghold.

However, several factorsthe sentiments of Republican voters on issues relating to Jan. 6 and the 2020 election, Wyomingites continued admiration for Trump, and the momentum that Hagemans campaign has already builtpaint a bleak picture for the former vice presidents daughter.

Cheneys sole Republican colleague on the Jan. 6 committee, Illinoiss Kinzinger, has already announced that he wont seek reelection in November, a fact that some speculate is related to his role on the panel. Cheney has announced no such intention.

While Republicans are widely expected to reclaim the House majority in the 118th Congress, its far from guaranteed that Cheney will retain her seat.

One thing is clear: Cheney and Hageman are bracing for a tough, dirty battle to take Wyomings lone House seat.

Zachary Steiber contributed to this report.
Airplanes of German carrier Lufthansa are parked at the Berlin Schoenefeld airport, amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Schoenefeld, Germany, on May 26, 2020. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)

Lufthansa, Air France Join Forces Against EUs Climate Plans for Aviation

BERLINAn alliance of airlines and airports called for changes to the European Unions planned climate change legislation on Monday, arguing it will make them less competitive with non-European rivals.

Taking aim at aviation, a sector deemed responsible for up to 3 percent of global emissions, the European Union presented plans last July that foresee stricter rules on CO2 emissions and the use of synthetic fuel blends, as well as the implementation of a kerosene tax.

The alliance, whose nearly 20 members include all Lufthansa subsidiaries, Air France-KLM, and major airports such as Frankfurt and Amsterdams Schipol, argues long-haul flights via non-European hubs would not be subjected to the same associated costs, leading to a potential shift in business to such carriers.

The alliance rejects a kerosene tax outright and proposes that the environmental protection surcharge be based on the entire flight route, not just feeder flights bringing passengers from the EU to international hubs such as Istanbul or Dubai.

In principle, the alliance is however in favor of the EUs Fit for 55 climate package, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels.
A member of the Malaysian navy has a communication exchange with a Chinese coastguard ship in the South China Sea, near Kuantan, Malaysia, on March 15, 2014. (Rahman Roslan/Getty Images)

Malaysia Needs Drastic Changes in Military Defense Amid Chinese Incursions: Former Deputy Defense Minister

The recent incursions by Chinese coastguards into Malaysian waters underscored the need for radical changes to the Malaysian army, as threats from the sea have increased, a former Malaysian deputy defense minister said.

Liew Chin Tong said last week that Malaysia is mired in jungle warfare at a time when maritime threats are growing, with Chinese coastguard and navy vessels repeatedly trespassing in Malaysian waters, South China Morning Post reported.

Alas, due to inertia, Malaysia too often acts as if jungle warfare is still the main form of conflict, concentrating security resources in Peninsular Malaysia, and colored by a land-based perspective, Liew said at a webinar held in Singapore.

Liew, who served as deputy defense minister under Pakatan Harapan from 2018 to 2020, claimed that the governments yearly allocation of 550 million ringgit ($131 million) to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency is highly inadequate.

The majority of the coastguards ships, donated by the navy and foreign donors, are dilapidated because the coastguard is unable to pay for the fuel used to operate the fleet, he said.

A decently functioned coastguard would relieve the navy of some secondary roles, particularly in patrolling, and allow the navy to focus on its primary role, which is be prepared for war, he remarked.

Malaysia has previously reported that Chinese coastguard and navy ships encroached into its territorial waters 89 times between 2016 to 2019 and often remained in the area even after being turned away by the Malaysian navy.

Liew pointed out that Chinas incursions into Malaysian waters were made by its coastguards, not its navy, highlighting the importance of Malaysia having a comparable coastguard to counter Chinese coastguard incursions.

It is therefore important that Malaysia has a comparable coastguard to respond with, rather than depend on the navy to respond to encroachment from other states, he said.

These incursions occurred in the South China Sea, a highly contested region in which Beijing maintains claims to 90 percent of the sea based on its so-called nine-dash line.

The Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan all have competing claims in the disputed sea.

Malaysia sent six diplomatic protests to China over encroachment in its waters, including one in 2017 in response to a Chinese note asserting its claim to the South Luconia Shoals, a fishing ground off the Malaysian state of Sarawak, the National Audit Department said in the report.

In October 2021, Malaysia summoned the Chinese ambassador to Kuala Lumpur to convey its protest against the presence and activities of Chinese vessels and a survey vessel in its exclusive economic zone off the coast of the eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak.

Malaysias consistent position and actions are based on international law, in defense of our sovereignty and sovereign rights in our waters. Malaysia had also protested against the previous encroachments by other foreign vessels into our waters, the foreign ministry stated.

In 2020, another Chinese survey ship engaged in a month-long standoff with an oil exploration vessel contracted by Petronas within Malaysias exclusive economic zone. China later stated that the vessel was carrying out normal operations.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Mississippi Senate Passes Anti-CRT Bill as Black Democrats Walk out on Vote

A bill that would ban tenants of critical race theory (CRT) from being taught in public schools and colleges has passed Mississippis Republican-dominated state Senate, with most of the Democratic minority refusing to vote on the measure.

Senate Bill 2113, proposed by Republican state Sen. Michael McLendon, was approved on Friday by 32-2 in a party line vote. All 14 black Democrats walked out of the chamber in protest against the proposal, leaving their two white colleagues to vote against it.

The one-page bill doesnt mention the CRT by name. Instead, it specifically seeks to prohibit public institutions from teaching that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or inferior, or that anyone should be adversely treated on the basis of their sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.

In addition, the bill would ban public institutions from making a distinction or classification of students based on account of race, except when they collect or report on data regarding demographics. State funding would not be allowed to be used for purposes that would violate the bill.

Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons, who requested a roll call before he led the black caucus out of the chamber, said the measure was unnecessary.

We felt like it was a bill that was not deserving of our vote, said Simmons, reported Mississippi Today. We have so many issues in the state that need to be addressed. We did not need to spend time on this. Even the author of the bill said this was not occurring in Mississippi.

According to McLendon, even though his bill doesnt necessarily mean that the CRT is being taught in Mississippi schools, hundreds of his constituents have reached out to him, saying they want to make sure CRT will not be taught to their children.

Systematic racism should not be taught to our children, he said.

It is almost certain that the bill will get approval from Gov. Tate Reeves if it passes the Republican-dominated state House. Last summer, the Republican governor said he was willing to sign into law a measure to prevent CRT from sneaking into Mississippi schools.

I am not aware of any school district that currently allows for it. Should that become an issue, I believe we ought to pass legislation, pass a law to make these school districts unable to teach CRT in our classrooms, Reeves said during an interview on The Gallo Radio Show.

Im willing to do it, he told host Paul Gallo. We dont have to do it if no districts are currently operating. But if that becomes apparent, I am prepared to support any legislation that eliminates the ability for CRT to be taught in Mississippis classrooms, much like many, many, many states around the country.
After trailing around 17 local fast-food joints looking for a job, and being rejected by all of them, a Missouri teen decided not to give up and instead change his track.

It got pretty tiring, Jonathan Bell, 17, told The Epoch Times. So thats when I decided to start my own thing.

Bell, a full-time student and senior at Parkview High School, said he always knew he had the spirit to work for himself in the future; however, he didnt know that it would be before the age of 18. After being turned down by local businesses, the then-15-year-old knew he had something much coveted in the modern worldand he knew he could use it.

Im part of Gen Z, he said. Growing up with technology and social media is something Ive always been great at.

With some past experience in marketing, combined with educating himself in learning algorithms and how social media truly works, Bell launched his own businessBells Marketing Consultant LLC, a digital marketing firm in Springfieldat the onset of the pandemic in April 2020.

Still a student at Parkview High School, Bell was able to use time spent at home, alongside remote learning, to build his dream.

With a mission to help small companies get through the pandemic and survive the unpredicted, the whizz-kid took charge of managing their social media accounts, online marketing, search engine optimization, and web design.

I wanted to make an impact on business owners lives, providing the highest quality of services while maintaining a healthy business relationship, Bell said.

Almost two years on, the business is a resounding success.

Ive grown my company and now have five employees to help me out, the young entrepreneur said. I worked with 15-plus small companies in 2021. What I consider success is knowing Im an asset to other companies and not just my own.

Bells incredible work ethic has earned him praise from his clients. According to News-Leader, Brent Gilstrap, a realtor with ReeceNichols Real Estate, contacted Bell on LinkedIn after being amused by his profile.

Impressed by his story, Gilstrap hired Bell to increase his social media presence.

He came back and he had a proposal and a fee for what he was going to do and it was just incredible, Gilstrap said. Hes got a great work ethic, a great mindset.

Crediting Bell for an increase in his social media presence, Gilstrap added that, while communicating with the teen, it didnt seem like he was in high school.

While Bells natural prowess with tech and professionalism has served him well, it was always going to take hard work, and there were challenges along the way, owing to his age.

I did get turned down at times, but I never let that get to me. I did convince some companies, but some didnt even hesitate to give me a try, the determined teen told The Epoch Times.

The whole process of setting up the business and managing it was a real learning curve for the high-school student, who marvels at the new skills hes acquiring: I learned that theres more than writing algebra equations to life. I feel like Ive learned 1,000-plus things in a month alone rather than being in school.

Hes also learned financial literacy, which is something he says hes keen on promoting among the younger generation, especially concepts such as taxes, communication, and self-development.

Achieving success at such a young age, Bell, who is also a talented musician, credits his family and community for stepping up to help him.

My parents have been extremely supportive, as have the people of Springfield, he said. Springfield is a wonderful city to me because of the amount of supportive local business owners in the area, taking me under their wing and helping me network.

For Bell, becoming a young entrepreneur feels amazing, as he is able to inspire other teens and younger people. He also has some inspiring words for his peers.

Never tell anyone youre too young to start a business, not even your parents, Bell said. We are the generation thats going to change the world; no one is stopping you but yourself. Break that habit, live, learn, and love what youre doing, its working for me, and it can you.

As for whats in the pipeline, Bell said he wants to build a strong local presence here in my area, innovating companies, and maintaining a powerful footprint.

Share your stories with us at emg.inspired@epochtimes.com, and continue to get your daily dose of inspiration by signing up for the Bright newsletter at TheEpochTimes.com/newsletter
Two F-35 fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force are seen in a file photo. (Courtesy of Netherlands Air Force)

NATO Places Extra Forces on Standby, Deploys Additional Warships and Jets to Eastern Europe

NATO announced on Jan. 24 that its placing extra forces on standby and sending more warships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe as Russia continues its military buildup near Ukrainian territory.

I welcome Allies contributing additional forces to NATO, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance, he added. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

The defensive alliance has increased its troops presence in the region even as Moscow demanded during high-level talks in Brussels earlier this month that NATO must no longer conduct military exercises or intelligence operations, or build infrastructure outside its 1997 borders, and halts further military expansion and the placing of missiles on Russias borders.

European countries that are part of the latest expansion are Denmark, Spain, France, and the Netherlands. The United States also made clear its considering increasing its presence on the eastern flank.

Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and deploying four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania, NATO said in the statement. Spain is considering sending warplanes to Bulgaria and confirmed that its deploying ships to join NATOs naval forces, while France also showed combat-readiness to deploy troops to Romania. The Netherlands said it will deploy two F-35 fighter jets to Bulgaria in April, and will also put a ship and ground troops on standby.

A service member of the Ukrainian armed forces walks at combat positions near the line of separation from Russian-backed rebels near Horlivka in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Jan. 22, 2022. (Anna Kudriavtseva/File Photo/Reuters)

Ukraine shares borders with four NATO countries: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.

NATOs announcement comes one day after the U.S. State Department ordered family members of government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave Ukraine, and authorized the voluntary departure of nonessential civil servants.

The United Kingdom on Jan. 24 also started to withdraw some of its embassy staff and dependents from Kyiv amid growing tensions on the RussiaUkraine border.

Shares across the world fell as the risk of conflict quashed demand for riskier assets, and tension over Ukraine was among the factors that pushed up oil prices.

Russia denies planning to invade Ukraine but has used its buildup of an estimated 100,000 troops near the border to force the West to negotiate over a range of demands to redraw the security map of Europe.

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, on Jan. 18, 2022. (AP Photo)

It wants NATO to scrap a promise to let Ukraine join one day and to pull back troops and weapons from former communist countries in Eastern Europe that joined the alliance after the Cold War.

Washington says those demands are non-starters but its ready to discuss other ideas on arms control, missile deployments, and confidence-building measures.

The United States and the European Union, wary of Russias intentions since it seized Crimea and backed separatists fighting government forces in eastern Ukraine in 2014, have warned Russia not to invade.

Russia Denounces Concern Over Boosted Military Presence

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said the West is showing hysteria and is putting out information laced with lies.

As for specific actions, we see statements by the North Atlantic Alliance about reinforcement, pulling forces and resources to the eastern flank. All this leads to the fact that tensions are growing, Peskov said.

This is not happening because of what we, Russia, are doing, he added. This is all happening because of what NATO and the U.S. are doing and due to the information they are spreading.

Reuters contributed to this report.

From NTD News
Surf rescue workers instruct swimmers to move away from the northern end of the beach at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on January 16, 2022. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

New South Wales Sees Spike in Coastal Drownings This Summer, Warning for Australia Day

The New South Wales (NSW) Government is urging beachgoers to be responsible for their own safety ahead of the Australia Day holiday (Jan.26) after an increase in coastal drownings so far this summer.

According to a media release on Saturday, since Dec.1, 15 coastal deaths and drownings have occurred, which is two up from the same time last year.

Premier Dominic Perrottet stressed the importance of swimming between the flags, being alert to water safety warnings, and looking out for loved ones in and close to the water.

Australia Day is traditionally a high-risk holiday on our waterways. While our lifesavers and first responders are always vigilant, this is one of the days where more rescues and sadly drownings often occur, he said.

Whether youre at a beach, pool, river or lake, my message to swimmers is to know the risks, be aware of your surroundings and look out for each other.

Minister for Emergency Services and Resilience, Steph Cooke, highlighted some simple precautions people can take to stay safe in and around water.

A tragedy can unfold in seconds on our beaches. Please supervise children, swim between the flags, wear a life jacket when required and always listen to the warnings from emergency services, she said.

I want to thank the 75,000 Surf Life Saving NSW volunteers and 129 surf clubs who have worked tirelessly this summer to keep locals and visitors safe on our beaches.

The volunteers of these 129 surf clubs patrol their beaches on weekends, while at the busiest NSW beaches, such as Bondi and Manly, councils also provide a professional lifeguard service seven days a week all year round.

However, many NSW beaches and beaches around the country are unpatrolled.

Surf Life Saving NSW CEO Steve Pearce said despite all the wet weather recently, Surf Life Saving NSW has been incredibly busy during the holiday period and reminded people ahead of Australia Day that alcohol and water activities dont mix.

Over the 2021 Australia Day long weekend, lifeguards and surf life-saving volunteers rescued 815 people in NSW, which made up 22 percent of all rescues recorded that year.

Meanwhile, since July 1, 2021, NSW has seen more than 31 coastal drownings and deaths in NSW, 5 of whom were rock fishermen.

This comes after the most recent National Drowning Report found that around Australias coastlines, 241 people lost their lives between July 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021136 due to drowning. This was 19 percent above the 17-year average of 114.

Males accounted for 90 percent of all coastal drownings, with 31 percent aged 20 to 34 years and 26 percent aged 60 to 74 years.

The majority of drowning deaths along the coasts occurred more than five kilometres from a surf life-saving service (51 percent), and 31 percent took place while swimming.

Coastal drownings involving a bystander trying to rescue someone in distress increased by 150 percent over the 12 months compared to the 17-year average, and strong rip currents at unpatrolled beaches were identified as the major cause.

Surf Life Saving Australia CEO Adam Weir called the sharp increase in fatal coastal incidents unexpected, but attributed it to the high visitation rates to the coast during and when coming out of lockdowns.

Weir said that 14.4 million Australians over 16 visited the coast over the 12-month period, on average three times a month.

Thats 500 million visits to the coast, he said.
Jason Miyares, who later won the election for Virginia attorney general and has been sworn into office, speaks at a rally in a file photograph. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

New Virginia Attorney General Fires Jan. 6 Investigator From University Job

Virginias new attorney general has removed two attorneys from university positions, including Timothy Heaphy, who took a leave of absence from his job at the University of Virginia to serve as the chief investigative counsel for the House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol breach.

Victoria LaCivita, a spokesperson for Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, confirmed the terminations. The firing of Heaphy, LaCivita told The Epoch Times in an email, had nothing to do with the January 6th committee or their investigations.

It is common practice for an incoming administration to appoint new staff that share the philosophical and legal approach of the Attorney General. Every counsel serves at the pleasure of the Attorney General, she wrote.

A spokesperson for the Jan. 6, 2021, panel didnt respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for the University of Virginia told media outlets that university leaders are grateful to Tim for his outstanding service to our community and disappointed to see it come to an end.

In a statement released by the school, Heaphy said being the colleges counsel for three years had been an honor and privilege.

While Im disappointed that my time as University Counsel has come to an end, Im confident that the office will continue to provide quality service as the University continues to thrive in the days to come, he stated.

Heaphy began working at the university in September 2018. He went on a leave of absence in August 2021 from that job and his job as senior assistant attorney general to become an investigator for the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mark Herring, Miyaress predecessor and a Democrat, said at the time that he was extremely proud that a member of his team was asked to help the committee with its work.

Timothy Heaphy (C) speaks to reporters in Washington in a file photograph. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

According to the announcement, Heaphy was expected to be on leave for an undetermined amount of time, or until the work of the Select Committee is completed.

Brian Walthers, who served as counsel at George Mason University, was also removed by Miyares. Walthers started at the university in October 1999. He has no other job experience listed on his LinkedIn profile.

Walthers didnt respond to a request for comment. George Mason told The Epoch Times in an email that Walthers has been a respected and valued member of the university community for 22 years.

He has conducted himself in a professional manner and done an admirable job at Mason. We are sorry to see him go, the school stated.

Miyares, sworn into office on Jan. 15 along with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, has quickly made personnel changes, including firing 30 people in the office of the attorney general.

Miyares also launched investigations into the Loudoun County Public School District and the Virginia Parole Board.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced the country will reopen its borders in time for snow season. (Mark Mitchell-Pool/Getty Images)

New Zealand Placed Under More Restrictions as Omicron Detected

New Zealand has shifted to the most stringent level of its traffic light COVID-19 restriction system after cases of the Omicron variant were reported in its most populated city, Auckland, and the Nelson-Marlborough region.

The shift took place just before midnight on Sunday, following a press conference by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern earlier that day. Ardern stated that the red setting will remain in place for some weeks according to local outlet Stuff.

A total of nine cases were reported, all within a single family that had flown to Auckland from Nelson on Jan. 13 for a wedding and several other events between Jan. 1516. Over 100 people were estimated to be at the various gatherings.

On Monday, eight new cases of the Omicron variant were reported including five in Auckland, one in Palmerston North, and two in the Nelson-Tasman region. As of Jan. 24, 19 people have tested positive for Omicron in the community.

An Air New Zealand flight attendant, who was on the flight to Auckland with the infected family, has since tested positive for the variant and has worked on four flights since then, between Jan. 16 and Jan. 20. The flight attendant was reported to be in good spirits according to company CEO Greg Foran.

The airline has since stood down 15 crew members who happen to be close contacts of the infected flight attendant, according to local outlet Radio NZ.

I understand that a couple of the other crew are showing symptoms at this stage, Foran told the outlet.

This will move quite quickly and we do anticipate well be dealing with quite a few more cases, he added.

Since September 2021, the airline had made it mandatory for its aircrew and customer-facing employees to be fully vaccinated. As of Dec. 14 last year, all passengers above 12 years of age have also been required to be fully vaccinated or to present a negative COVID-19 test 72 hours before departure.

Foran said that the company will also be upgrading face coverings to N95 masks for 5,000 or so customer-facing roles, as well as keeping seats empty to ensure social distancing between passengers and crew. Furthermore, vaccination requirements for international passengers will be in place from Feb. 1.

The origin case for the Omicron community cluster still remains unclear. The government intends to announce its three-stage plan to manage Omicron on Jan. 26.

Under the red setting of the traffic light system, businesses can operate as usual for the vaccinated, with additional restrictions on gatherings and tighter vaccine pass requirements.

The unvaccinated, however, will face restrictions similar to a level-three lockdown.
President Joe Biden talks to reporters during a news conference at the White House on Jan. 19, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Of Cabals and Elections

Commentary

Kids say the darndest things.

So does President Joe Biden.

Maybe the darndest of the presidents many darn expostulations (I confine myself to those that are intelligible) was his warning last week that the 2022 elections easily could be illegitimate.

Why would the president of the United Statesjoined by his vice president, Kamala Harrispreemptively warn that an election some 10 months in the future might be illegitimate?

Because, like the rest of the Democratic faithful, the only elections he regards as legitimate are ones that the Democrats win.

Thanks to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who broke ranks and voted against Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumers (D-N.Y.) effort to gut the filibuster, the Democrats effort to nationalize presidential elections failed.

Thats a win for the Constitution, of course, which vests the power to determine election rules in the state legislatures. Its a loss for the Democrats, though, because it has become increasingly clear that they cant win presidential elections without fiddling with the rules.

The trouble this time is the plunging poll numbers of the entire Democratic establishment.

Joes numbers are in the tank.

Kamalas are under the tank.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosis (D-Calif.) are lost somewhere in an abandoned exploratory tunnel excavated by Elon Musks Boring Company.

Every psephologist in Alpha Centauri expects the Democrats to lose the House in a historic tsunami of red redress.

The Democrats will lose 40, 50, maybe 60 seats. Some are predicting 70 seats will switch from blue to red in the House.

The Senate is more dicey, but more and more observers believe the GOP will flip the Senate as well.

But remember the premise.

Elections are only legitimate if Democrats win.

The 2022 midterms are almost certain to be a rout for Democrats, especially in the House, but also, if by a less dramatic margin, in the Senate and in many state elections.

Ergo, to the Democratic mouthpiece, the midterm elections will by definition be illegitimate.

To rubes like you and me, that seems preposterous.

We think that a free, open, and democratic election is one in which the election rules are known beforehand and everyone who is entitled to vote has an equal opportunity to do so.

That goes completely against the grain of the anti-democratic Democratic mindset.

One of the most remarkable essays about the 2020 election was The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, published in Time magazine last February.

By saved the election, the author meant saved the election for the Democrats.

This is Time magazine, so the anti-Trump animus is patent on every page.

Whats remarkable, though, is that the author cheerfullyalmost gleefullydescribes exactly how a cabal of anti-Trump operatives swung the election against Trump and then stymied his efforts to challenge the results.

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, we read.

Isnt that exactly what Trump partisans argued, much to the ridicule and contempt of their political opponents?

Yes, but its different when they do it.

Why?

Shut up.

What began gelling in 2019 was what Time frankly acknowledged was a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.

This cabal, Time noted, touched every aspect of the election.

We knew that, right?

Taken out of context, the litany that Time recited sounds almost exactly like what many pro-Trump commentators charged:

They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.

Yes, isnt that what we conspiracy theorists were saying all along?

They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time.

Yep.

They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.

True, too true, except that by disinformation, they meant certain facts about how the voting actually proceeded.

As Glenn Reynolds noted in December, America now faces a dangerous time, internationally, domestically and economically, with obviously inadequate leadership at the top. If disaster ensues, the people who openly bragged about their efforts to install the Biden administration may wish they had kept quiet.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
A maze of crude oil pipes and valves is pictured during a tour by the Department of Energy at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Freeport, Texas, on June 9, 2016. (Richard Carson/Reuters)

Oil Rises on Elevated Geopolitical Risks in Europe and Middle East

LONDONOil prices rose on Monday on worries about supply disruption amid concerns about Russia-Ukraine discord and rising tensions in the Middle East, which could make an already tight market even tighter.

Brent crude rose 33 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $88.22 a barrel by 1149 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 24 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $85.38.

Oil prices are profiting from supply risks and geopolitical tensions, said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

Further escalation of the Ukraine conflict and the fraught security situation in the Middle East justify a risk premium on the oil price because the countries involvedRussia and the UAEare important members of OPEC+.

Tensions in Ukraine have been increasing for months after the Kremlin massed troops near its borders, fuelling fears of supply disruption in Eastern Europe.

The U.S. State Department announced it was ordering diplomats family members to leave Ukraine.

Energy markets are likely to be hit if tensions turn into conflict. Europe relies on Russia for about 35 percent of its natural gas. JPMorgan said the tensions could prompt a material spike in oil prices.

However, Russia said on Monday that it remained a reliable energy supplier to Europe even at uneasy periods in our relations.

In the Middle East, the United Arab Emirates intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Gulf country on Monday after a deadly attack a week earlier.

Barclays, meanwhile, has raised its average oil price forecasts by $5 a barrel for this year, citing shrinking spare capacity and elevated geopolitical risks.

The bank raised its 2022 average price forecasts to $85 and $82 a barrel for Brent and WTI respectively.

Both benchmarks rose for a fifth week in a row last week, gaining about 2 percent to their highest since October 2014.

Oil prices are up more than 10 percent this year on the concerns over tightening supplies, apparently out of sync with global equities markets that are bruised from a massive sell-off triggered by concerns over tighter monetary policy around the globe.

The oil market is also tight, with OPEC+ struggling to hit its targeted monthly output increase of 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin
WeChat app is seen on a smartphone on July 13, 2021. (Dado Ruvic/REUTERS/Illustration)

Australian PMs WeChat Account Hijacked and Rebranded

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrisons official WeChat account has been hijacked and rebranded as a lifestyle pageleading one senator to accuse the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of foreign interference during an election year. WeChat is a Chinese social media platform.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the agency running the prime ministers WeChat account reported problems with posting content on the channel in mid-2021, when Morrison was attending meetings in the United Kingdom of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations.

Morrison had around 76,000 WeChat followers, but earlier this month, significant changes were made to the account without the knowledge of the prime ministers team.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra on Jan. 6, 2022. (Stringer/AFP via Getty Images)

Morrisons photo was swapped, and the channel name changed to Australian Chinese New Lifestyle from Scott Morrison.

A search for a WeChat account under the name Scott Morrison by The Epoch Times yielded no results.

Search results for the words Scott Morrison in WeChat on Jan. 24, 2022. (Screenshot by The Epoch Times)

This has been the most substantial act of interference with the prime ministers WeChat account, following an incident in December 2021, when the Chinese social media giant deleted a comment from Morrison.

Liberal Sen. James Paterson, chair of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, laid the blame squarely on the Chinese communist regime.

What the Chinese government has done by shutting down an Australian account is foreign interference of Australian democracy in an election year, Paterson told 2GB radio on Jan. 24.

It is very clearly government action in my view. No politician should be on WeChat and legitimizing their censorship.

Paterson said it wasnt at all surprising that the hijacking of the account and Morrisons actions at the G7 were connected.

During the most recent meeting, the prime minister circulated a document to world leaders containing a high-profile list of 14 grievances against the Australian government that Chinese officials had leaked to media outlets in 2020.

The 14 grievances included complaints about Australias banning of Huawei from its 5G network, recent foreign interference laws, the governments calls for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Paterson revealed WeChat had been silent on requests from the prime ministers team to restore access to the account.

The government has directly appealed to WeChat to restore access and no response has been given, which seems pretty clear WeChat has no intention on allowing the prime minister to continue to post, he said.

Paterson also revealed that WeChat hadnt taken the same action against Federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese.

Now that they are attempting to make a partisan intervention by blocking one side of politics getting out a message on there, it is incumbent on all politicians to get off the platform, he said.

A relatively small number (of politicians) are active on the platform, and I think that is appropriate given that it is a surveillance and monitoring platform of overseas Chinese.

Liberal Sen. James Paterson speaks in the Senate at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on Nov. 28, 2017. (Michael Masters/Getty Images)

Albanese later told 2GB that he would welcome a discussion with the prime minister on the issue.

Im certainly of real concern about any national security implications by any interference by any government in the process, but I do note we havent heard anything from the prime minister himself about these issues, he said.

In December 2020, the prime ministers team had an earlier run-in with WeChat censors.

Morrison was using the channel to respond to an inflammatory post on Twitter by the Chinese foreign ministry belittling Australian soldiers.

Our Chinese Australian community will continue to play an important role in ensuring we remain a successful, multicultural nation, he wrote.

The prime minister commended Australias transparency over war crimes allegations leveled at the Australian Defence Force and highlighted the strengths of liberal democratic nations.

Hours later, WeChat deleted the post, with moderators claiming it distorted historical events and would confuse the public.

Responding to the move, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said, What the prime minister did in his WeChat message before it was disappointingly deleted, he made it very clear Australia is proud of its servicemen and women who wear the uniform.
Pfizer Board Member Suggests End to Mask, Vaccine Mandates

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current board member at Pfizer, said that declining COVID-19 cases should signal to policymakers that it is time to lift more pandemic-related restrictions.

I think certainly on the east coast where you see cases declining dramatically we need to be willing to lean in and do that very soon I think as conditions improve we have to be willing to relax some of these measures with the same speed that we put them in place, he told The Squawk Box in a Monday interview when asked about whether mask mandates should be dropped.

Gottlieb said that a lot of the acrimony in the United States stems from a lack of clear goalposts about when some of the measures will end.

The former FDA commissioner also cited the Connecticut governments recent decision to rescind vaccine mandates for state workers as a policy that other policymakers should adopt in the near future as COVID-19 cases decline nationwide.

The only way to get compliance from people and get accommodation [is] if we demonstrate the ability to withdraw these [mandates] in the same manner in which we put them in, Gottlieb added.

The call for COVID-19 restrictions to be dropped comes as the overall infection rate in the United States has sharply declined in recent days. Data from the Johns Hopkins-run Our World in Data shows that 4,110 out of every one million Americans recorded infections on Jan. 10, but that rate was 2,643 as late as Friday and dropped to 615 per one million as of Sunday.

Outside the United States, more and more European countries have moved to rescind certain COVID-19-related rules, including vaccine passports and mask mandates. For example, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that starting Jan. 27, people in England wont have to wear masks in public or show proof that theyve been vaccinated to enter some venues.

But on Monday, World Health Organizations (WHO) director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that more COVID-19 variants may emerge and alleged that its dangerous to assume Omicron is the last one or that we are in the endgame.

There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could play out and how the acute phase could end. But its dangerous to assume that omicron will be the last variant or that we are in the endgame, Tedros told a WHO board meeting. On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge. He didnt provide evidence or data to back up his claim.
Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey attended Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Jan. 23, 2022. (NTD Television)

PITTSBURGH, Pa.I really enjoyed the power of overcomingthat message of overcoming, the whole situation where you never give up, said Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey.

Mayor Gainey was attending Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Benedum Center for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh.

You use your divine inner spirit to continue to grow, even in the midst of adversity.  Mayor Ed Gainey

Its thought-provoking. You use your divine inner spirit to continue to grow, even in the midst of adversity. That came through large and I really appreciated that message, he said.

Shen Yun is reviving Chinas traditional culture which celebrates 5,000 years of spiritual and cultural teachings. It presents classical and folk dances and music which illustrate Chinas illustrious past.

Gainey believed all history is great and that Chinas divine culture, as portrayed in Shen Yuns performances, should never be destroyed.

As a matter of fact, it should be celebrated because its the burst of civilization and how it started. So, when we talk about that divine being, when we talk about the history, we talk about the culture.

He appreciated Shen Yuns presentation of Chinese culture saying that without culture, people cannot grow.

Shen Yun performers practice Falun Dafa, an ancient spiritual way that combines a series of gentle exercises with meditation and a belief system based on truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.

Gainey could see that the performers were inspired by their practice.

Ive seen that and more, he said. Ive seen grace. Ive seen elegance. Ive seen practice. Ive seen discipline. Ive seen the ability to work as a team. Ive seen so much. Ive seen the whole spirit of motivationthe spirit of meditationjust allowing them to be able to demonstrate on a live stage exactly how they practice their [beliefs].

It was beautiful, it was beautiful in many ways, he said.

Gainey appreciated that Shen Yun had come to Pittsburgh and that he was able to attend.

People who came to see Shen Yun would be inspired, he said. And Im always about how do we inspire people because I believe when you inspire people you bring the best out of them.

Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey presenting Shen Yun Performing Arts with a formal proclamation welcoming them to Pittsburgh. (NTD)

After the curtain call, the mayor presented the performers with a proclamation, thanking Shen Yun for blessing the city and for the wonderful performance.

Reporting by NTD and Diane Cordemans.

The Epoch Times is a proud sponsor of Shen Yun Performing Arts. We have covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006.
Please Help Me Write My Book on Blue/Red MigrationThe Southbound Train

Commentary

I have committed to writing a book for the good people at Encounter Books (Roger Kimball & co.) on the you-could-almost-say-massive migration (some call it in-migration) to red states from blue that has been occurring the past few yearswhos making it, why theyre doing it, and what it means now and to the future of our country.

The working title is The Southbound Train, which comes from the lyrics to Darius Ruckers country hit Wagon Wheel: Yeah, rock me mama like the wind and the rain/Rock me mama like a southbound train.

Actually, those words didnt originate with Rucker but came from an unfinished song that Bob Dylan wrote nearly 50 years ago (1973). Nevertheless, Ruckers version is the one most people know and for good reasonits great.

It should be no secret part of the reason I want to write this is that its also my story. At the end of May 2018, my family and I left Los Angeles, where we had lived most or all of our livesI for roughly those same 50 yearsfor a new home in Tennessee.

Thats why, though I will try to fight against it, I am biased. I want to justify what I have done, to myself and to others.

I have noticed in the comments here and elsewhere that a number of longtime red-state residents are angry at, fearful of, or both, of us blue-state interlopers.

They assume we are coming to red states merely for economic advantage and are bringing our blue-state values with us. We are either overt or closeted liberals or progressives bent on turning our new home into our old home, even if that old home is more than ever an unholy disastrous mess.

Some may be like that, but a recent report, cited by my friend John Hinderaker of Powerline, has solid data strongly suggesting the opposite, at least for Florida. Apparently, since March 31, 2020, Republican registrations have increased a jaw-dropping 274,503 while Democrats have declined by 51,995, with 66 of 67 counties redder.

Traditionally purple Florida has turned fully red for the first time ever; call it the DeSantis Effect. Democrats cant suddenly have started to hate the beach.

Other red states arent quite as dramatic because they dont have governors quite as courageous as Floridas, which leads me to another observation that has prompted me to write this book.

In many instances, the newcomers are more activist-inclined, more concerned about the imminent danger to the future of our country, and more impatient to do something about it, than many of the current residents and politicians. (In that sense, they really are displaced New Yorkers, as in lets get back to a constitutional republic in a New York minute.)

It took me a while to realize it, but in a lot of ways, the old Democratic and Republican establishments in the South are remarkably similar. There are exceptions, of course, important ones, but, in Menckens words, its largely about the moneyin the case of Nashville, where I live, the hospital and music industries with tech giants (Amazon and Oracle) moving in, with all that entails.

Standing against that onslaught in Tennessee and other red states are those newcomers looking for an America thats more like the founding in which to raise their children. (The fight against critical race theory and other manifestations of the woke classroom are frequently fueled by blue state arrivals irate at the presence in their new home of the very things they were fleeing.)

Its a surprising conflict, but not necessarily cause for pessimism. Infusions of new blood can help states (and those states political parties and activist groups) as they often do businesses and countries.

But the new blood shouldnt become overly impressed with their own importance and forget some people have been wrestling for years with the same problems that the newcomers have just discovered. That would be as counterproductive as it would be unfair.

In all, its complicatedas it frequently is in life. But its a conundrum worth solving because the battle for this country is being fought in the red states. The blue states are largely lost, probably for a long time. In fact, the best, and possibly the only, way to save the blue states may be definitively to save the red states first and make them the model.

That will be, more or less, the underlying theme of my bookat least so far. But writing a book is always a journey fraught with surprises for author and reader.

So how can you help me?

You can send me your stories of in-migration and thereby help keep me honest. Also, I cant possibly go everywhere and see everyone to research this book.

I will be writing principally about what I know bestFlorida, Texas, and Tennessee (hence The Southbound Train)but all blue-to-red state migrants North, South, and West are encouraged to contribute, as well as internal migrants to red from blue counties within states. The book will benefit from as many perspectives as possible.

I have set up an email addressthesouthboundtrain@protonmail.comfor you to send those stories (or hurl brickbats, if youre so inclined). I cant guarantee your tale will appear in the bookthats the nature of the beastbut I will respond. For those that I do use in the book, you can be identified or anonymous, as you wish. Most likely too, you will be paraphrased, but if I quote you verbatim, I will certainly ask your permission.

If you dont want to bother with thesouthboundtrain@protonmail (just taking the opportunity to repeat the address) feel free to use the comments or to pass this article on to folks you know who have undergone this experience.

And in case youre worried (youre probably not), I will be continuing my frequent columns here, commenting on the affairs of the day, while writing the book. Sleep, they tell me, is overrated.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Since its public launch in October, Wordle has gained millions of fans and become a growing phenomenon. (Tada Images/Shutterstock)

Psychological Reasons Everyone Is Loving Wordle

A social psychologist reveals 6 reasons why heand many otherskeep playing this word game

Why have so many people become fans of Wordle? Social psychologist Matt Baldwin has some answers.

Wordle, the free, once-a-day word game, has gained millions of fans since its public launch in October. Unlike most players, though, Baldwin understands why our brains crave it.

Baldwin, a professor at University of Florida, points to several psychological concepts that may explain our infatuation with the simple but sharable game.

1. It Delivers an Aha Moment (Even if You Lose)

The moment at the end of the puzzle when the answer is revealed delivers what psychologists call a sudden influx of fluencysomething were hard-wired to pursue, Baldwin said.

Even when you dont get it, and the answer is revealed, finding that solution feels good, he said. That feeling of fluency is something that we seek out not only in games, but also when were trying to solve a problem in our work or in our relationships.

2. It Suits Our Pandemic-Addled Minds

We are now entering year three of the pandemic, and that has consequences. Were overwhelmed. Things cant hold our attention because were so bombarded with COVID stuff, Baldwin said.

Wordle can be an ideal way to create flow, the pleasurable immersion we feel when tackling an activity with the right combination of meaning and challenge.

Its not too easy or too hard, and it doesnt demand too much attention. Its also sort of purposeful: It feels like youre training your brain, not just stacking blocks or launching a bird, he said. It captures meaning and attention at that optimal level.

3. Its Shared

Have you ever liked a band that no one seems to know about, then got excited when you met someone who loves them too? Thats the essence of shared reality theoryour subjective preferences feel validated when someone else shares them. With its built-in sharing function, Wordle provides just such an experience, Baldwin said.

We like to tune our internal states to the internal states of others. I may think Wordle is fun, but when I see that everyone else on Twitter thinks its fun, then its like it becomes an objective fact, he said.

4. Its Bingeproof

Because Wordle is only offered once a day, its possible that it keeps the feeling from becoming too basic or too familiar, Baldwin said. The scarcity of this insightful moment may be something that keeps it interesting.

5. It Satisfies Our Urge to Fit in With Peers

If your Twitter network is into Wordle, youve likely seen someone tweet that theyve given in and started playing. Thats peer pressure, but peer pressure isnt inherently bad, Baldwin said. The concept of in-group identity can help us bond with others.

Norms give us the ability to tune our attitudes, beliefs, and identities to that of other people in our group. It gives us something to coalesce around and helps form a collective identity, he said.

For Baldwin, thats a distributed community of scholars who happen to be very into Wordle right now. If you opt out, you feel less connected to the group.

If I dont play Wordle at this point, what kind of academic am I? he joked. Sharing it on Twitter is a way of saying like, Look at me, Im also doing Wordle just like everyone else. That makes me a good group member.

6. It Shows How We Stack Up

Sharing your daily Wordle score doesnt just signify youre part of the group, it shows how you performed, which offers an opportunity for social comparison. For better or worse, Baldwin said, we love social comparison.

Comparison can be detrimental to self-esteem if youre always comparing upward to people who are unattainable. But I can learn something about myself by the way I stack up against others, and it doesnt always have to be a negative feeling. Maybe people just like the information they get from looking at what other people are doing and getting a sense of where they stand.

Stack these concepts on top of each other, and Wordles exponential growth begins to make sense. Its about more than guessing a five-letter word.

Shared experiences give a lot of meaning to life, Baldwin said. They help us orient toward whats good, whats meaningful, and whats worthwhile.

This article was originally published by the University of Florida. Republished via Futurity.org under Creative Commons License 4.0.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrive for the welcome banquet for leaders attending the Belt and Road Forum at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on April 26, 2019. (Nicolas Asfouri/Pool/Getty Images)

Recent Events Show How Beijing and Moscow Benefit One Another in Central Asia

News Analysis

Several days ago, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced successful ongoing preparations for a Russia-China summit between respective leaders Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Scheduled to take place in Beijing on Feb. 4, the meeting will occur on the opening day of the Winter Olympic Games. It is meant to further cement the rapidly expanding bilateral relationship between the two countries.

According to Lavrov, the meeting is representative of the intensive bilateral agenda and unique architecture of bilateral relations that Russia practically doesnt have with anyone else [besides China].

Relations between the two have been strengthening in the realm of security policy and economic interactions, especially as their respective relations with Western countries continue to deteriorate.

Last year a record growth of the trade turnover was achieved, a very substantial one at that, stated the Russia foreign minister. Recent events further illustrate this rapidly burgeoning Beijing-Moscow axis, especially in the critically shared region of Central Asia connecting the two countries.

Russia engaged in high-level security meetings at the NATO-Russia Council in Brussels, while also deploying peacekeeping troops to its southern neighbor Kazakhstan in order to help quell violent protests.

The former situation saw little movement in abating transatlantic fears over amassing Russian troops on its border with Ukraine. Moscow reaffirmed its right to station troops on its own sovereign territory, demanded that no new members be added to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and additionally stated its requirement that all of the latters forces be withdrawn from its eastern member states.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg responded by upholding the organizations open door policy as well as commitment to troop deployments on the territory of its eastern allies.

Stoltenberg additionally noted that there had been no movement in discussing missile treaties. The secretary general cited Russias noncompliance of existing frameworks as responsible for the collapse in negotiations, particularly its purported violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

U.S. President Joe Biden recently threatened to impose crippling sanctions on Russia, should Moscow attempt aggressive action against Ukraine. Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov responded by labeling U.S. accusations as empty and unfounded, and retorted that Russia will not be intimidated by such language.

This type of rhetoric and the total lack of positive developments from the Brussels summit point to transatlantic relations with the Russian Federation being at a post-Crimea annexation nadir.

Meanwhile, Russian troop deployments in Kazakhstan earlier this month came as a response to ongoing protests against the latter countrys government. Initially precipitated by a rise in fuel prices, demonstrations quickly deteriorated into violent clashes between angry Kazakh citizens and police forces. Under the auspices of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Moscow sent military forces into its southern neighbors major cities ostensibly in order to help restore order. Over 160 individuals were reported to have been killed, and Western politicians and pundits were quick to denounce what they interpreted as a violent crackdown on dissenting voices.

Russian peacekeepers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization guard an area in Kazakhstan on Jan. 12, 2022. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Putin has responded by attributing the unrest to another Western scheme aimed at inciting a color revolution and installing a puppet regime on Russias border. Xi wasted no time in affirming his support for the crackdown of violent protestors and reiterated Putins condemnations of foreign forces undermining stability. The Chinese leader is more than happy to support Russian-led CSTO security operations in Central Asian countries, so long as they protect critical Chinese economic interests.

This expanding nexus between Russian national security interests and Chinese economic considerations was further bolstered this month. On Jan. 12, Syria joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as One Belt, One Road), the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) massive international investment project. Syrias ascension to the ranks of BRI countries ensures that Damascus will be flush with Chinese capital in the foreseeable future. Beijing utilizes BRI to economically bind developing nations to CCP funds, precipitating massive financial deficits and subsequent debt traps that bring foreign governments under Chinese financial control.

Russia has had a key role in stabilizing the rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Wracked by multiple years of civil war, often against rebel forces armed and equipped by the United States, Putin capitalized on Western errors to defend and cement the position of his besieged ally in Damascus. Rather than prioritizing its focus on any ideological struggle or abstract moral perspectiveas the United States didBeijing cast in its lot with Moscow under the auspices of ensuring stability and prioritizing economic considerations.

While the West is prioritizing abstract notions of liberal democracy and values-based foreign policy, Russian peacekeeping operations aim to ensure stability and regime survival. China benefits from these scenarios as establishedand therefore predictableadministrations along its economic corridor are consolidated and expanded. This is advantageous to Beijings bottom line, and the CCP is more than happy to let Putin militarily posture in an attempt to garner Western respect and demonstrate resolve, especially as Moscow works to counterbalance NATO advances in Eastern Europe.

As the Olympic Games approach, the CCP has continuously battled Western calls for boycotts and labeling campaigns over its harsh treatment of ethnic Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China. Russia, undeterred by any potential human rights issues or repressive measures being enforced by the regime in Beijing, is undoubtedly grateful for Xis verbal support of peacekeeping actions in Kazakhstan; this is especially true as Moscow deals with escalatory rhetoric and record-levels of post-Cold War tension with NATO in its own backyard.

Both countries, China and Russia, are too vitally connected with the worlds energy security and economic functioning to realistically become international pariahs. However, international developments are slowly ensuring a convergence of interests that will only further push the two authoritarian regimes closer. The United States and its allies would do well to be prescient of this reality.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Roots and Wings: How an American Mothers Cuban Heritage Empowers Her in Fight Against CRT

Patti Hidalgo Menders, a mother of six in northern Virginias Loudoun County, has written her own story of resilience.

Since the summer of 2020, she has been fighting on the front line against the transmission of critical race theory (CRT) in the countys public school system, an ongoing battle that has drawn national headlines. Parents from across the country have protested CRT, a quasi-Marxist analytical framework, on the grounds that it classifies children as oppressors or oppressed on the basis of their skin color.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) students started virtual instruction in March 2020. As a result, parents became more aware of what their children were learning in schools.

Menders was one of those parents. She found out that in the spring of 2019, LCPS hired an equity-focused educational consultancy to conduct a systemic equity assessment of the schools policies. The result was the LCPS Comprehensive Equity Plan, with a primary recommendation to publish on schools webpages a superintendents message defining and condemning White supremacy, hate speech, hate crimes, and other racially motivated acts of violence.

This triggered alarm bells for Menders.

Not only did I, as a mom, know something wasnt right, my upbringing brought me to understand that communism is seeping its way into our country, she said at a conservative gathering in Loudoun County on Sept. 21, 2021.

So Menders started speaking out and supporting grassroots efforts to protest against CRT, an act that had repercussions for her and her family.

In March 2021, in the private Facebook group Anti-Racist Parents of Loudoun County, a member posted three pictures of Menders, her first and last name, her husbands name, and where her son went to high school. Online commenters called her racist and disgusting.

In September 2021, she left her job as a strategist at a marketing firm, which didnt allow her to speak to the media after the company was identified as her employer in a June media report without Menderss knowledge. Between her cause and her job, she chose the former, and she persevered amid her personal ordeals and supported other mothers who recognize her as a voice of strength, especially during her tenure as the Loudoun County Republican Womens Club chairwoman from 2020 to 2021.

The club had 25 members when she took over in December 2019. It grew to about 500 members by the time her two-year term expired. Between June and December 2021, during the height of Loudouns fight against CRT, Menders organized rallies outside the LCPS administration building before almost all of the bi-weekly school board meetings.

She has since emerged as the new community outreach coordinator in northern Virginia for newly elected Attorney General Jason Miyares. Now, shes doing what she loves full-time and is getting paid for it.

Alberto and Matilde Hidalgo, with their first-born Matilde Hidalgo Lima, fled Cuba and arrived in the United States of America in 1961. (Courtesy of Patti Menders)

Roots

Menders credited her parents for teaching her the value of freedom.

My mother would always say roots and wings. Her and my dads goal was to teach us six kids our roots. Our Cuban heritage and our American freedoms are our roots; our wings are to let us have the freedom to explore life and make our own families, she told The Epoch Times.

For decades, her mother displayed in the family room a plaque that reads, There are only two lasting things we can hope to give our children: one is roots; the other is wings.

In May 1961, Menderss parents, Alberto, 26, and Matilde Hidalgo, 21, fled communist Cuba and arrived in the United States, with only 21 Cuban pesos and a dime in their pockets.

Thats all that we carried to freedom, Alberto told The Epoch Times.

After communist leader Fidel Castro took control of the island in 1959, Alberto saw firsthand how everyone became equally miserable as a result of losing individual dignity and freedom.

Therefore, he worked with the underground movement against Castro. He would take people that didnt want to be part of the militia and help them find different homes. And Matilde sewed the money needed for the underground operations in the hem of curtains or hid the funds in a lamp post.

In the spring of 1961, their neighbors, who suspected them, reported the couple to the authorities. Although a resulting ransack of their home didnt yield any evidence, danger was looming, especially after the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961a landing operation orchestrated by Cuban exiles and supported by the U.S. government.

Alberto turned to his wife and said, We have to leave [Cuba]. At the time, his parents had already moved to Atlanta. So he arranged a fake telegram that said his father was very ill, to support an application for the couple to visit the United States for one week.

They landed in Atlanta on May 8, 1961.

Based on his college education in Cuba, Alberto was accepted into the masters program on chemical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. While working as a research assistant, he studied and obtained a doctoral degree in chemical engineering in 1967. From then on, he had a successful career in the consumer goods industry. He retired in 1996 as a vice president of research development with international responsibility.

Despite the fact that we came with utter poverty, this country enabled us to strive, to grow, to mature. Therefore, my adult life has been blessed by being a passionate citizen of this country, Alberto said.

Patriotism

Even Menderss name, Patricia, has ties to the familys love for America.

In 1969, Alberto and Matilde became U.S. citizens in Cincinnati on St. Patricks Day. He decided to name their daughter, who was expected at that time, Patricia to commemorate the day. Becoming an American citizen was a life-changing event for Alberto.

We really delved into the significance of the founding documents of this country, said Alberto, who studied the Declaration of Independence for the citizenship exam. As a result, the wisdom of the founding fathers of this country became a part of his law and credo.

In particular, the start of the second paragraph stood out for him, a passage that he often goes back to.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That is what is unique about this country. This country was formed by Founders who were very, very Christian men and women who thought that God had to be the centerpiece of this country, Alberto said.

Unexpectedly, the principles expressed in the founding document would draw the father and daughter closer many years later.

Menders and her father werent always this close. While she was growing grew up, Alberto was on frequent business trips, as much as 40 percent of the time. Matilde was the one who looked after the children daily.

Twelve years ago, Alberto had retired when Menders went through her divorce. She said his support helped her see what was truly important.

All the material wealth was not it. It was my faith, my family, and our freedoms. And I tried to really instill that in my children. Now happily remarried, she has six sons, three from her first marriage and three from her current marriage.

Patti Hidalgo Menders speaks at a rally outside the Loudoun County Public School administration building in Ashburn, Va., on Jun. 22, 2021. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)

Wings

Later, Patti and Alberto forged a new bond during the fight against CRT in Loudoun County, where she had moved 24 years ago. All her children attended LCPS. Her youngest is a junior in high school, and will graduate in 2023.

In the spring of 2021, LCPS launched its student equity ambassador program to combat systematic racism. Accordingly, student leaders of color, also known as student equity ambassadors, would meet with school and division leaders four to five times a year to discuss any racial incidents. LCPS would also create online forms for students to anonymously share their stories regarding issues of racism, injustice, and inequity. (pdf)

Children can anonymously tattletale on each other based on eight different criteria. And theyre all race-related, said Menders, adding that the program reminded her of what her parents went through in Cuba before they left in 1961.

And when Alberto learned from his daughter about the equity program and the underlying framework of CRT, he recognized a familiar beast.

Alberto said in an interview with Fides Podcast in November 2021, The CRT is nothing other than the Communist Manifesto expressed as a division of racist, the oppressor and the oppressed because communism cannot win unless they create a war between different people, whether its the worker against the owner of the enterprise, or races.

The reality is that were really confronting good versus evil. Thats whats happening here. Socialism and communism preach what they cannot and do not intend to provide for the people, he told The Epoch Times.

Alberto reviewed his daughters speech before she spoke at a rally hosted by CatholicVote (pdf), a conservative political advocacy group, in Leesburg, Virginia, on Oct. 2, 2021. He told her, You need to add this, referring to the statement in the Declaration of Independence.

Menders said that the moment made her realize that our rights come from God, not the government. She told her father, You solidified that for me, Dad.

It made me fight harder in the sense that Im doing this for my children. My dad and mom did what they did for us kids, she said. Now, Im doing the same thing for my children. It all goes back to the statement in the Declaration of Independence.

Roots and wingsour children grew with trying to understand what she meant by that, Alberto said. My wife taught our children the importance of their values, convictions, and courage to stand by their convictions.

And Menders was happy to see that the family tradition passed to the next generation.

She was proud when, in September 2021, her middle son Connor McCarthy, 19, sent a Twitter private message to someone who verbally attacked her on Twitter: What are you saying, talking about my mom like that? Who are you? If you got something to talk about, then take it up with her one-on-one.

You dont know anything about my mom, me, and my brothers. We love and care for one another.

You want to know what I think about her. I think shes a great mother, and I love her. [Shes] a great person who is trying to bring some attention to flaws in our school system.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a forum at the Presidential Executive Office in Moscow, on Nov. 30, 2021. (Mikhail Metzel/AFP via Getty Images)

Russia to Stage Not Welcome Live-Fire Naval Drills Off Irish Coast: Official

Russia is planning to hold war games near Irelands coast in international waters, which are not welcome, Irelands foreign minister said on Jan. 24 amid heightened tensions near the RussiaUkraine border.

This isnt a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of whats happening with and in Ukraine, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told reporters.

Coveney said the exercises are slated to take place about 150 miles off Irelands southwest coast within its airspace and exclusive economic zone.

The fact that they are choosing to do it on the western borders, if you like, of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that in our view is simply not welcome and not wanted right now, particularly in the coming weeks, Coveney said.

He added that Ireland doesnt have the power to prevent this happening but, certainly, Ive made it clear to the Russian ambassador in Ireland that its not welcome.

The remarks come as Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraines border, demanding that Ukraine not join NATO. Russia also has denied it is planning an invasion, and it says the Western accusations are merely a cover for NATOs own planned provocations.

Russia invaded Ukraine to annex the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Meanwhile, Moscow also backed pro-Russian separatists fighting in the eastern portion of the country known as the Donbas.

NATO on Jan. 24 said it may carry out potential troop and ship deployments to Ukraine, Britain said it would withdraw some diplomats from Kyiv, and the U.S. State Department on Jan. 23 ordered families of embassy staff in Ukraine to depart the country.

Ukraines foreign ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said the U.S. move was a premature step, asserting that Moscow is attempting to spread disinformation to spread panic among Ukrainians and foreigners in a bid to destabilize the country.

NATO will take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, said Jens Stoltenberg, the alliances secretary-general. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blamed the United States and NATO for sword-rattling and fear-mongering.

All this is happening not because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is happening because of what NATO, the U.S. are doing, Peskov told reporters, citing what he described as false reports that Russia is allegedly evacuating diplomats from Ukraine. Moscow has denied those claims.

Russian officials told state media RT that two Steregushchiy-class ships of the Russian Baltic Fleet were launched from their port in Baltiysk to participate in exercises in February. The Russian navy didnt specify where they would be sent but said they would go on a long-distance trip.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Solar-Powered Observatory Monitors Space Debris

A unique observatory in the Australian outback is using FM radio waves to track the thousands of satellites orbiting above the country.

A world-first, the passive radar space observatory is tracking space debris as far as 10,000 kilometers (6214 miles) away.

Were seeing increasing traffic in the space domain, so what were doing with sensors like this is getting an understanding of whats happening there to make sure that we can manage the space domain, says Dr James Palmer, Silentium Defence Chief Executive.

In other words, its like a traffic camera watching objects up to 10,000 kilometers (6214 miles) away and trying to avoid an outer space crash.

The danger of collisions in space is immediate in destroying things that are there but it has an ongoing effect, we still have debris in space from a collision in 2009, again thousands of pieces orbiting the earth, says Professor Melissa De Zwart, space law expert from Flinders University.

This observatory will help inform the highest levels of government, as well as the space start ups.

And its completely off the grid, with these solar panels helping power the project.

The Oculus observatory is located inside a reserve about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Adelaide, giving it access to some of the clearest and darkest skies above Australia.

Weve got all the conditions you need for a flourishing industry in terms of smart people, good government settings, everything about Australia is well set up for it, says Palmer.

The skys the limit for this growing industry in the South Australian outback.
State Department Orders Family Members of Embassy Personnel to Leave Kyiv, Elevates Travel Warning for Ukraine, Russia

The U.S. State Department ordered family members of U.S. government employees at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave the Ukrainian capital and authorized the voluntary departure of non-essential civil servants on Sunday night.

Authorized departure gives these employees the option to depart if they wish; their departure is not required, the embassy said. Ordered departure for family members requires that family members leave the country.

The U.S. Embassys departure status will be reviewed in no later than 30 days, it added.

According to the embassys latest update on social media, the State Departments decision is a special warning due to continued Russian efforts to destabilize the country and undermine the security of Ukrainian citizens and others visiting or residing in Ukraine.

It said that the U.S. Embassy Kyiv remains open and that consular services according to COVID-19 restrictions will continue without change or impact a commitment to finding a diplomatic solution to Russias deeply troubling build-up of forces in and around Ukraine.

We continue to reaffirm our support for the Ukrainian people and do so while committed to one of the Departments highest priorities, the safety and security of our diplomats and the American people, it said.

The announcement, made out of an abundance of caution, comes as the Ukrainian government in Kyiv, with the United States and its NATO allies, continue monitoring activities at the Russian-Ukrainian border amid an apparent impasse in diplomatic efforts to resolve the decades-long regional dispute.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Thursday, following talks with his Russian counterpart, that the United States had made clear it will consider any Russian movement across Ukraines border as a renewed invasion to be met with swift, severe, and a united response from the United States and our partners and allies.

The Russian Parliament is due to vote on a proposal by members of Russias communist party asking the Kremlin to recognize the independence of the contested Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine.

If backed by the Kremlin, which has been cautious about the proposal, the move could see an escalation in regional tensions, but Russia would meet with punitive economic sanctions.

United Russia lawmaker Alexander Borodai, former self-proclaimed prime minister of Donetsk during the height of the conflict in 2014 and current United Russia lawmaker, voiced support for the proposal. He told Reuters that a war will become a direct necessity in the case of the proposal passing.

Related Coverage Ukraine War Necessary If Russia Recognizes Breakaway Regions: Former Donetsk Separatist Leader Turned Russian Lawmaker

Blinken told NBC on Sunday that while the United States is building up deterrence and defense for Ukraine, diplomats also remain engaged in diplomacy, which is the preferable path forward for everyone.

According to the U.S. embassy, given allied intelligence that military action by Russia could come at any time, the Sunday announcement was made to help U.S. citizens make plans in the case of military action, including commercial flight options to leave, as the United States government will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency.

It emphasized that Russia put us on the current path.

While the United States continues to pursue the path of dialogue and diplomacy, if Russia chooses escalation and massive consequences due to significant military action against Ukraine, the current unpredictable security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, could deteriorate with little notice, the embassy warned.

Meanwhile, the state department has elevated its Level Four Do Not Travel advisory for Ukraine and Russia to include the regions of Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, citing security threats along the Ukrainian border.

On Sunday, Ukraines Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov confirmed that a second shipment of almost 90 tonnes of lethal security assistance from the Biden administrations $200 million approved in December had arrived in Kyiv to support the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The first shipment of assistance recently directed by President Biden to Ukraine arrived in Ukraine tonight. This shipment includes close to

200,000 pounds of lethal aid, including ammunition for the front line defenders of Ukraine. [1/2] pic.twitter.com/YeYanK0Px6  U.S. Embassy Kyiv (@USEmbassyKyiv) January 22, 2022
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenge to Controversial EPA Wetlands Rule

The Supreme Court agreed on Jan. 24 to hear a challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys long-controversial claim that the presence of surface water on private property makes it a protected wetland subject to federal regulations.

The National Association of Home Builders and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had urged the court to take up the case.

A ruling against the EPA could limit the reach of the Clean Water Act and allow Americans to relieve pressure on the red-hot housing market by building more new houses without becoming entangled in federal bureaucracy.

The high court agreed in an unsigned order to hear the case, Sackett v. EPA, an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

In its order, the Supreme Court indicated it would consider, Whether the Ninth Circuit set forth the proper test for determining whether wetlands are waters of the United States under the Clean Water Act.

The granting of the petition for review makes it the second major environmental case to be placed on the Supreme Courts current docket.

On Feb. 28, the court will hear West Virginia v. EPA, a potentially landmark case that could finally place limits on the sweeping powers of the federal environmental agency that critics have long said is out of control.

Energy companies and Republican-led states asked the court to rein in the EPAs authority to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act.

In the case at hand, Chantell and Mike Sackett had started building a new home in Priest Lake, Idaho, when the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers suddenly ordered them to stop all work, insisting they needed a federal permit and threatening more than $30,000 in daily fines. The EPA had determined years before that the parcel of land in question contained wetlands.

Although water is not normally visible on the land at issue, the government claims, based on aerial photography, that the lot is home to a fen wetland. Fens are peat-forming wetlands that rely on groundwater input and require thousands of years to develop and cannot easily be restored once destroyed, according to a USDA Forest Service report. Fens are hotspots of biodiversity and figure prominently in nearly all scenarios of CO 2 -induced global change because they are a major sink for atmospheric carbon, the report claims.

The Sacketts have been fighting in court since 2007. The Supreme Court previously heard the Sacketts case and ruled 9-0 against the EPA in 2012.

That opinion (pdf), written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, stated that the Sacketts could bring a civil action under the federal Administrative Procedure Act to contest the issuance of the EPAs order over their homebuilding project.

In the new case, the Supreme Court will look at whether their lot contains navigable waters subject to federal control.

The Sacketts ordeal is emblematic of all that has gone wrong with the implementation of the Clean Water Act, said Damien Schiff, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm that represents the couple.

The Sacketts lot lacks a surface water connection to any stream, creek, lake, or other water body, and it shouldnt be subject to federal regulation and permitting. The Sacketts are delighted that the Court has agreed to take their case a second time, and hope the court rules to bring fairness, consistency, and a respect for private property rights to the Clean Water Acts administration, he said.

The Sacketts are asking the Supreme Court to revisit its 2006 ruling in Rapanos v. United States, which was a fractured plurality decision that created uncertainty about the applicable legal standard. Led by Scalia, four justices found that the Clean Water Act regulates a wetland only if it has a continuous surface connection to another waterway. Then-Justice Anthony Kennedy devised his own legal test, finding that the law covers wetlands that have a significant nexus to a larger body of water.

The Sacketts say the high court should make it easier to divine the meaning of the water-related rule and adopt Scalias test.

Part of the significance of the Supreme Courts decision to hear this case again is to redress this question about what is the controlling test for Clean Water Act wetlands jurisdiction, which is an issue that has bedeviled EPA and the Corps as well as lots of lower federal courts for 15, 16 years, Schiff told The Epoch Times in an interview.

Schiff was optimistic.

I think we will find an as receptive if not more receptive audience in the court today than we did in previous years because the composition of the high court has changed, he said.

Now you have, on balance, more justices who are particularly attuned to the importance of text in the statute, and at the same time to the importance of recognizing that the federal government is a government of limited powers, and that  as we saw, for example, in the vaccine cases just a few weeks ago, that the court doesnt just assume that the Congress wants federal agencies to have vast powers of economic and social significance, Schiff said.

Yet thats essentially what EPA and the Army Corps have done over the last several decades, interpreting statutes to give them vast authority over almost any type of land use activity, he added.

The Epoch Times reached out to the EPA for comment but had not received a reply as of press time.
The Supreme Court is seen in Washington on Sept. 21, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Challenges to Colleges Using Race in Admissions

A students group that disagrees with how some colleges use race to determine which applicants to admit will have the opportunity to present their case to the nations top court.

The Supreme Court announced on Jan. 24 that it has granted writs of certiorarirequests for review of lower court decisionsfrom Students for Fair Admissions in cases involving the University of North Carolina and Harvard University.

The separate cases were consolidated and one hour was allotted for oral arguments at a later date.

The U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment and Title VI dictate that schools arent allowed to use race in the admissions process, according to the petitions to the court.

The same Fourteenth Amendment that required public schools to dismantle segregation after Brown cannot be cowed by the diktats of university administrators, the petitions read, referring to Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that found separate but equal educational facilities violated the 14th Amendment.

Harvard and the University of North Carolina have acknowledged that they use race as a factor in admission decisions, but say that such consideration doesnt violate federal law or the Constitution.

North Carolina Attorney General Joshua Stein and Solicitor General Ryan Park, responding on behalf of the University of North Carolina, said the college considers race flexibly as merely one factor among numerous factors in its holistic admissions process and does so in a way that abides by legal precedent established by earlier Supreme Court rulings.

Federal district judges have ruled in favor of the universities, and those rulings were upheld by appeals courts.

An attorney for Harvard University declined to comment on the Supreme Court action. Attorneys for the University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions didnt immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a statement made when lodging the petitions for review, the student group said the admission practices affect thousands of college applicants annually and that they should be ended.

The cornerstone of our nations civil rights laws is the principle that an individuals race should not be used to help or harm them in their lifes endeavors. We hope the Supreme Court will use the Harvard and UNC [University of North Carolina] cases to begin the restoration of the colorblind legal covenant that holds together Americans of all races and ethnicities, Edward Blum, president of the group, said at the time.
Supreme Court Rejects Republicans Challenge to Pelosis Voting Rules

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Jan. 24 to hear a legal challenge by Republican lawmakers to COVID-19-related proxy voting rules for House members that were set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The rules, which were set up in May 2020, allow members of the House to serve as proxies for colleagues in isolation due to COVID-19, the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, or who otherwise arent able to cast votes on the floor.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other GOP members filed a challenge with the high court to reverse a lower court decision in July 2021 on the rules. At the time, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia agreed that courts dont have jurisdiction to weigh in on the Houses rules and procedures, affirming another lower court decision that reached a similar conclusion.

The Pelosi-backed proxy voting resolution passed by the House enabled lawmakers to act as a proxy for as many as 10 colleagues at any one time, requiring that they disclose which members they intended to represent. It was embraced early in the pandemic and was intended to be temporary, but has been extended several times, and remains in effect until at least Feb. 13.

Republican lawmakers have said the measure is a violation of the Constitution, arguing that only lawmakers actually present within the halls of Congress can cast votes, with McCarthy saying in a statement that he wanted to turn back Pelosis perpetual proxy voting power grab.

GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said at a press conference last week with other Republican leaders: We believe in in-person voting. When Republicans win back the House, thats what we are committed to.

Republicans also have called the proxy voting resolution a way for Democrats to maintain their slim majority in the House regardless of whether all their members are present on Capitol Hill.

Nothing shook that uninterrupted traditionnot the Yellow Fever epidemic, not the burning of the Capitol in the War of 1812, not the Civil War, not the Spanish Flu, not two World Wars, not the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Republicans wrote to the Supreme Court in their filing.

But Pelosis team wrote in court papers that in light of the pandemic and advances in modern technology, the House has reasonably authorized members to vote remotely by providing binding, precise instructions to a member on the floor.

The House, meanwhile, has utilized other rules that were created during the pandemic, including a requirement for wearing masks and a prohibition on congregating in an area called the Speakers Lobby outside the House chamber. In addition, many House and Senate hearings are held virtually, and tourists arent allowed in the Capitol.

Reuters contributed to this report.
A medical staff member waits outside the operating room as doctors perform a caesarean section at a gynaecology and obstetrics isolation ward in Xiehe hospital in Wuhan, Hubei Province on March 7, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Surgeon Live-Streams Gynecological Surgery on Chinese YouTube, Public Outraged

A male doctor live-streamed a patients gynecological procedure on a China video-sharing website without her knowledge, raising a wave of questions on medical ethics and privacy violations.

A Chinese netizen reported that he stumbled across a live-streaming room on Bilibili, Chinas video-sharing website similar to YouTube, commonly called B site, on Jan. 15 and heard a female patient ask a female doctor who was present whether the male doctor was the one performing the surgery. The female doctor replied that he was an anesthesiologist. The female patient expressed reluctance to be approached by the male doctor even though she didnt know she would be secretly filmed.

According to the netizen, the footage showed that after the female patient was anesthetized, the anesthesiologist live-streamed the gynecological surgery, and repeatedly filmed her private parts. The female doctor who was present did not stop the surreptitious filming.

The live broadcast was cut off only after the netizen reported what was happening to the B site customer service.

The incident caused outrage among netizens, and the video had nearly 7 million views on social media app Weibo. Some people scolded the doctor who filmed the incident, while others questioned how such a video could pass the scrutiny of the B site. Is there no moral conscience left for the sake of internet traffic?

According to the netizens statement, the male doctors filming could have been done in two ways. One is holding a cell phone pretending to chat but actually filming, so the patient isnt aware, and another is to use a miniature filming device.

Qu Qingxue (a pseudonym), a hospital surgeon in Shandong Province, told The Epoch Times that it is doctors obligation to protect the privacy of their patients. This kind of live surgery is a criminal act that completely disrespects patients, violates their privacy, and damages their reputation.

Qu said that this happens not only because of the unethical doctors involved but also the tacit approval of their colleagues and the broadcast being allowed on the sharing platform.

Public security authorities in Rizhao city, Shandong Province said that the involved doctor, surnamed Li, was arrested on Jan. 18.

The hospital where Li worked is Rizhao Central Hospital, a comprehensive hospital that integrates medical treatment, teaching, scientific research, prevention, health care, and rehabilitation according to its official website.

Another netizen revealed that some accounts were newly set up for uploading to the B site public security surveillance videos that were suspected of being hacked from public venues such as schools, hospitals, and other places, according to Chinese media The Paper on Jan. 22.

Those accounts are used for attracting people into their group that paid for entry, which is likely forming a black industry chain.

Besides the public video head being cracked [maliciously hacked], home video heads would also face risks of being cracked and leaked outside, the netizen said.

In response to the incident, the B site announced on the same day, that they have taken down the relevant content and blocked the related account.

In China, the penalties for candid photos or films are practically negligible. According to article 42 of Chinas Public Security Administration Punishment Law, anyone who peeps, secretly films, eavesdrops, or spreads private details about others shall be fined less than 500 yuan ($78) and/or detained for less than 10 days.

Lai Yiming, a Japanese media worker, told The Epoch Times that the nature of the Chinese Communist regime dictates that the police are not interested in fighting covert video crimes since the main job of the Chinese police is to maintain stability of the Communist regime.

Chinese common public is the target of police surveillance and crackdown, so how can they [police] provide good service to those under their control?

Kane Zhang contributed to this report.
A health care frontline worker prepares people to get their rapid test following a surge of coronavirus infections in Taipei, Taiwan, on May 17, 2021. (Ann Wang/Reuters)

Taiwan Premier Says No Reason to Fear Omicron as Local Infections Rise

Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang on Sunday said there is no reason to fear the highly transmissible Omicron variant due to its milder severity, following a spike in domestic coronavirus infections fueled by the new variant.

Speaking to reporters at Taiwans Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), Su urged residents not to be afraid of the new variant, but rather stay vigilant and prudent by getting vaccinated, Taipei Times reported.

Su also called on residents to get their booster shots as soon as they were eligible.

The Omicron variant spreads very fast, so all of a sudden, most of the cases reported around the world are Omicron cases, Su said.

Its rapid spread is the variants charateristic, but most infected people have mild symptoms, or even no symptoms, which is also the case in Taiwan.

Taiwan reported 130 new infections on Saturday, 82 of which were local transmissions. Deputy Director-General of Taiwan Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Philip Lo, said local infections in the country totaled 166, but none of them resulted in severe symptoms.

Of the total domestic transmissions, 46 cases are asymptomatic, and 120 have had mild symptoms such as a sore throat, cough, fever, and runny nose, Lo said, Taiwan News reported.

There have been 461 Omicron cases detected in Taiwan so far.

Despite the increase in cases, Taiwans coronavirus alert level remains at 2, with several restrictions in place to limit the spread, such as a ban on eating and drinking on public transport and limits on the number of people visiting temples.

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said that rapid testing and contact tracing will also be enhanced to reach the largest number of possible contacts. Enforcement for registration at eateries will also be tightened.

According to Chen, the government may need to raise the alert level to 3 and tighten measures in a step-by-step approach to prevent Omicron from spreading further, which could overwhelm the countrys medical system.

Taiwans pursuit of zero COVID seems to be impossible now that local transmissions have increased, Chen said, adding that people may have to learn to coexist with the virus.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Taiwanese air force pilots run to their armed U.S.-made F-16V fighters at an air force base in Chiayi, Taiwan, on Jan. 5, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Taiwan Responds as China Sends 39 Military Aircraft Into Its Air Defense ID Zone

TAIPEI, TaiwanChina is showing no sign of easing its aggression against Taiwan, after the Chinese military sent 39 military aircraft into the islands air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Jan. 23, a record high in a single day in 2022.

The latest incursion involved 34 J-16 and J-10 fighter jets, one H-6 bomber, and four aircraft with electronic warfare capabilities, according to Taiwans Ministry of National Defense. In response, Taiwans military scrambled fighters, issued radio warnings, and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor the activity.

Chinese warplanes have been making forays into the islands ADIZ since September 2020, when Taiwans defense ministry began releasing information on the incursion amid a significant increase in the number of such flights.

There were about 380 sorties in 2020, according to the ministry. The number more than doubled to 961 sorties in 2021. That year, the Chinese regimes largest show of force happened on Oct. 4, 2021, when 56 military aircraft breached the islands ADIZ.

So far this month, there have been only five days when the ministry didnt report any incidence of Chinas incursion.

The Chinese Communist Party is trying to wear down Taiwans Air Force with its repeated air incursions. More importantly, the communist regime is hoping to intimidate the island into submissionso that Beijing could take over Taiwan without the need to resort to military conflicts.

But war has always been an option for the Chinese regime, as it has never renounced the use of force against self-governing Taiwan. In October 2021, Taiwans defense minister warned that Beijing would be capable of mounting a full-scale invasion of the island by 2025.

Taiwan military personnel stand next to the domestically produced corvette class vessel Tuo Chiang during a drill at the northern city of Keelung, Taiwan, on Jan. 7, 2022. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Lin Ying-yu, associate professor of Asia-Pacific affairs at Taiwans National Sun Yat-sen University, told local media outlet Central News Agency that the Jan. 23 incursion could be a way for Beijing to show off its military power in response to joint U.S. and Japanese military activities in waters near Japan.

For six days ending on Jan. 22, 10 U.S. military vesselsincluding aircraft carriers the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham Lincoln, a destroyer, and an amphibious assault shiptook part in a joint exercise with Japans Maritime Self-Defense Force, according to Japanese media outlet NHK. The exercise took place in waters south of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.

On Jan. 24, Japans Maritime Self-Defense Force wrote on Twitter that the joint exercise was to strengthen the capability of JapanU.S. Alliance for effective deterrence and response.

Another U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Reagan, has returned to the Japanese city of Yokosuka after months of deployment, according to the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command.

In early January, at an online defense meeting between top Japanese and U.S. officials, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin named China as a threat to the Indo-Pacific, according to the Pentagon.

Were meeting against a backdrop of increased tensions and challenges to the free, stable, and secure Indo-Pacific region that we both seek  challenges posed by North Koreas nuclear ambitions and by the coercive and aggressive behavior of the Peoples Republic of China, Austin said.

Chinas air incursion on Oct. 4, 2021, also coincided with similar U.S. Navy activities. According to the U.S. Naval Institute, six nationsCanada, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, the United States, and the UKtook part in a joint naval exercise in waters near Okinawa between Oct. 2, 2021, and Oct. 3, 2021.

Seventeen surface ships took part in the drill, including four aircraft carriersthe USS Ronald Reagan, the USS Carl Vinson, the British HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the Japanese helicopter carrier JS Ise.
A vehicle burns in the street after a blast ripped through a minivan in the city of Herat, Afghanistan, on Jan. 22, 2022, in this screenshot taken from a video obtained by Reuters. (Reuters)

Taliban Says Bombers Target Minivan in Afghanistan, at Least 6 Dead

ISLAMABAD, PakistanA bomb attached to a packed minivan exploded in Afghanistans western Herat province on Saturday, killing at least six civilians and wounding nine others, Taliban representatives said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion, but the ISIS terrorist group has claimed credit for similar attacks on civilians in the country since the Taliban terrorist group seized power on Aug. 15.

Saturdays bombing was the first such attack in Herat. Local Taliban representative Naeemulhaq Haqqani said investigations were ongoing.

Herat Ambulance chief Ebrahim Mohammadi said the victimsthree in critical conditionwere transferred to the provincial hospital.

Since their return to power, the Taliban have imposed widespread restrictions, many of them directed at women.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Saturday called on the Taliban to find two women rights activistsTamana Zaryab Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhelwho disappeared on Wednesday from Kabul.

We urge Taliban to provide information on their whereabouts & to protect rights of all Afghans, UNAMA said in a tweet Saturday. Taliban have denied any involvement in their disappearance.

An eyewitness said that at least ten-armed people claiming to be Taliban intelligence members broke into an apartment Wednesday in Kabul and arrested Tamana Zaryab Paryani and her three sisters.

The women rights activist posted a video on social media shortly before they were taken away, showing them frightened, breathless and screaming for help. She said that Taliban were banging on her door.

Paryani was among about 25 women who took part in an anti-Taliban protest last weekend against the compulsory Islamic headscarf, or hijab, for women.
Tasmanias Economy Beats Other States to Gain Top Ranking Again

As the Australian economy continues to stay strong despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Tasmania has been in the spotlight for eight consecutive quarters, Commonwealth Securities reported.

According to the quarterly State of States report composed by Commonwealth Securities (CommSec), Tasmania has managed to achieve the top position again and has a high chance of keeping it in the short-term. However, the largest online stockbroking firm issued a warning that many things can change in 2022.

CommSec noted that while Tasmania was the frontrunner, other states and territories did not fall behind considerably. South Australia came in second, while Victoria ranked third, Western Australia fourth, Queensland fifth, New South Wales sixth, the Australian Capital Territory seventh, and the final position belonged to Northern Territory.

Craig James, the CommSec chief economist, said: The Western Australian and South Australian economies have moved up the rankings, performing strongly during the pandemic.

WA economy has received a boost from a hike in iron exports and prices. On the other hand, strong government and business investments have continued to benefit SA economic landscape.

CommSec conducts quarterly assessments on the economies of Australias states and territories using eight key indicators: economic growth, retail spending, equipment investment, unemployment, construction work done, population growth, housing finance and dwelling commencements.

An aerial view of the city of Hobart and Mount Wellington in Tasmania. (AAP Image/Supplied by MACq 01 Hotel, Stu Gibson)

Tasmania ranked first on four indicatorsequipment investment, unemployment, retail spending, and dwelling starts. Meanwhile, it achieved second place in economic growth and construction work done.

Lockdowns have weighed on the economic performances of NSW and the ACT in the last survey, James said. While both of these economies could scale the rankings again, new challenges are presented by COVID-19 restrictions and the resulting labour shortages  not just for NSW and the ACT but for all economies.

The CommSec chief economist has an expectation that the Queensland economy is likely to receive further contributions from the opening of domestic and international borders.

James said that the economies of all Australias states and territories remain strong with support from a solid fiscal and monetary stimulus and historically low unemployment rates recorded in much of the country.

Labour is in short supply across many industries, a reflection of current COVID-related self-isolation requirements and border restrictions, he said. Ahead, the country will continue to face challenges managing the latest Omicron wave with infrastructure spending continuing to be a key driver of growth in 2022.
Tennessee Deputy Found Shot, Dead in Burning Home

SPRINGFIELD, Tenn.A Tennessee sheriffs deputy was found dead with a gunshot wound inside her burning home, officials said.

Deputy Savanna Puckett, 22, didnt report for work Sunday evening. A colleague went to check on her and found her home in flames, the Robertson County Sheriffs Office said.

Firefighters found Pucketts body insideshe had been shot and was declared dead at the scene, the sheriffs office said.

Puckett had worked with the sheriffs office for four years, officials said.

Words cannot express the sadness and grief that Savannas family and her Sheriffs Office family are facing right now, Sheriff Michael Van Dyke said in a statement. This is a tragedy that we are processing minute by minute.

The sheriff referred any questions to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. No other details were immediately released.
Texas Woman Arrested After Allegedly Trying to Buy Womans Child for $500,000 in Walmart

A Texas woman was arrested after she allegedly tried to buy another womans child for $500,000 as they shopped at a Walmart, police said.

Rebecca Lanette Taylor, 49, was charged with the sale and purchase of a child, according to police records obtained by local media outlets. An affidavit said that a white woman with blonde hair approached a mother and child in the self-checkout line at a Crockett, Texas, Walmart.

According to police records, Taylor began commenting on her sons blonde hair and blue eyes. She asked how much she could purchase him for.

The mother, who was not named, tried to laugh this comment off, thinking Taylor was joking. Taylor told her that she had $250,000 in the car and she would pay that much for him. [The mother] told her no amount of money would do, KETK-TV reported.

The mother also told police that Taylor was accompanied by another woman, who asked for the name of the child. Taylor told the woman that she wanted to buy the child for some time and allegedly knew the childs name despite the mother not having told them.

Taylor began screaming at (the mom), saying if she wouldnt take $250,000 for him, then she would give her $500,000 because she wanted him and she was going to take him while they were in the parking lot, according to the affidavit, which was filed by Lt. Ahleea Price with the Crockett Police Department, according to The Messenger newspaper.

The records also said the mother locked her children in the vehicle. Taylor kept saying that she wanted the child and would pay the mother $500,000.

Price wrote that officials went to Taylors residence to ask about the situation. In the affidavit, officials said that they watched surveillance video and it appeared to match with the mothers claim.

She told me that she doesnt like thieves, then she stated I could speak with her attorney and to get off her precipice. She slammed the door shut, Price said in the affidavit.

Taylor was taken into custody on Jan. 18 and was charged with the sale or purchase of a child, which is a third-degree felony under Texas state law.

She was released from jail on Jan. 20 from the Houston County Sheriffs Office on a $50,000 bond, reported Click2Houton.

Its not clear if Taylor has an attorney.
The DC Rally and the Rise of the Resistance

Commentary

By long American tradition, protest movements manifest themselves most fully in gatherings in Washington, D.C, starting at the Washington Monument and culminating in speeches at the Lincoln Memorial. At long last, after two years of astonishing attacks on fundamental rights that most everyone once believed were protected by the U.S. Constitution, this happened yesterday, Jan. 23, 2022.

It didnt just happen actually. It wasnt spontaneous. It was paid for, planned, organized, put together, and broadcast on online media. There was nothing but sincere love of what we used to call liberty behind these efforts. The speakers, organizers, and people who showed up took huge risks in order to salvage what is left of the Founders vision. They deserve every credit for this. Bless them.

The enduring question is: why did it take so long? Why did people not pour out into the streets on March 13, 2020, when the government first issued its lockdown directives that were put into place the next week and lasted for months after? How is it possible that governments around the country could have locked up the churches on Easter 2020, smashed 100K-plus small businesses, and kept many schools closed for the better part of two years and yet protests against lockdowns were few, far between, and mostly unattended?

Let us not forget that social distancing rules were structured to keep people separate, in the words of the crank doctor Deborah Birx who concocted all these protocols and talked Trump into accepting them. Combined with capacity restrictions, they amounted to a ban on public meetings. In many states, you could not gather with more than 10 people. This was enforced by the police and cheered by mainstream media.

So let us not be too hard on people for not living a life of utter defiance. In addition, in those days, people were utterly shell-shocked. They feared not only the virus (which data had already shown was not a threat to most people of working age) but also arrest, doxxing, and shaming. The George Floyd protests got the green light from the same institutions, so people used the occasion to let off steam, but that light quickly turned red thereafter.

The lockdowns gradually mutated into another attack on basic freedoms. The vaccines seemed like they might emancipate us from the panic and tyrannies but the beast of tyranny had already been unleashed. What seemed like a promising way of dealing with a disease revealed itself to be an unprecedented attack on individual choice and biology. People who have not complied have seen their lives utterly upended.

Meanwhile, in the midst of this whole trajectory of decline, the harms multiplied seemingly without limit, affecting every aspect of life quality for people of all ages. The political establishment and public-health officials have been stunningly obtuse, refusing to apologize and often only doubling down on the insanity, even though everyone knows they are lying. To everyones amazement, Big Tech and Big Media have not only gone along but allowed themselves to be enlisted in what amounted to a war against life and liberty.

So, yes, after two years, we finally have it, the D.C. protest weve long needed. I very much admire the speakers for keeping their composure in the midst of all this. After all, do we really need to explain that something has gone fundamentally wrong? Is it not unbearably obvious that weve been lied to, abused, and played very hard by a fascist-style regime that is utterly foreign to American ideals, institutions, history, and aspirations? We should not have to, but we do, and with the eyes of the world watching.

Many of the speeches spoke not only to the vaccine mandates but to the lockdowns, which seem perhaps like ancient history, but which are very much present day with cultural, economic, and public-health damage that has been inflicted.

The spirit of the event was striking. It was diverse in terms of religion, ideology, and demographics. The theme of every speech centered on that beautiful word freedom, even if there were a range of different perspectives heard from the microphones. And surely, freedom is a theme on which everyone can agree. And surely most people, once it is explained, understand that a medicinal mandate of limited public utility and questionable safety, as a condition for participation in public life or even for getting paid for ones job, is contrary to the ideal of freedom.

Why, then, were not millions present at this rally? Yes, there should have been. My answer: because this is not 1963. Consider:

D.C. has a vaccine mandate in place, so anyone not vaccinated, or anyone who refuses to participate in the new segregation, would have to stay and eat across the borders in Maryland or Virginia.

We live in very dangerous times when social-media trolls can wreck your life if you are targeted by them: showing up to an edgy, anti-regime protest in D.C. is very likely to enliven them.

Facial recognition technology allows anyone with a camera, including the major media, to capture a pic of any face and identify and discover everything there is to know about you, which means basically that there is no privacy anymore in public spaces.

The media had already spent days pre-reporting the event and characterizing it as a bunch of Trump-deluded anti-vaccination activists with dangerous associations with unseemly ideological movements.

Plane travel these days is a huge pain in the neck, with loudspeakers endlessly blaring patronizing messages about masking and social distancing, and filled with threats that non-compliers will have their lives ruined.

Plus, anyone could watch and listen to the speeches from laptops at home instead of braving the very cold weather.

The corporate media has spent the better part of a year doxxing and smearing absolutely anyone who showed up to the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump rally at the Capitol even if they didnt participate in the unruly entry into the building. They all became and remain suspects to this day. Do you really want to protest in D.C.?

Given all this, it strikes me as remarkable and a sign of great strength that several thousand people managed to show at all. And while anyone can criticize this speaker or that, this line in a speech or that, Im reluctant to do so simply because I have no idea of the herculean effort it would require to organize something on this scale and the anxiety that would be associated with all the landmines planted in such a terrain.

My attitude is: respect for those who did this.

The question is: for every person in attendance, how many people did they represent? I hope that every person there represents one million more. Ten million more. I do not see that as entirely implausible. We needed this rally if only as a show of what could be. And the overarching spirit, what was it? It was the most fundamental thing, the aspiration for simple freedom. That is what is at stake. Its more important than ideology, partisanship, religion, race, or any of the other things that previously divided us.

When foundational postulates of civilization itself are sweeping to destruction, what do we do? We do what we can in every way that is possible. If that means organizing a rally, or slogging to D.C., or pulling up an app to watch it on TV, great. Or maybe it means donating to a good organization like Brownstone. Or perhaps saying no whenever or wherever it is possible to do so. We are out of the habit of resistance, but if there is another way to fight against the end of human rights, I do not know it.

From the Brownstone Institute

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Bill Gates speaks during the Global Investment Summit at the Science Museum in London, on Oct. 19, 2021. (Leon Neal/WPA Pool/Getty Images)

The Inside Story of How Bill Gates and Microsoft Earned a 400 Percent Return on Comcast

Bill Gates and Microsoft Corporation recognized the true potential of high-speed data and video services through a cable delivery network back in the 1990s.

Microsoft announced it invested $1 billion in Comcast Corporation in 1997 to enhance the deployment of Comcasts network to better deliver broadband capabilities. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts discussed how the deal with Microsoft occurred in an interview with Bloombergs David Rubenstein this week.

Data Will Eclipse TV

A team of various cable companies was formed to meet with some of the leading technology firms, including Microsoft, Roberts said. During a meeting with then-CEO Gates, the worlds richest person delivered his vision: Someday soon, the data business would eclipse the television business.

Gates outlook happened to align with that of Comcast, as the company was busy investing in fiber optics, a new thing that no one really heard of at the time. In fact, the capital-intensive requirements resulted in an industry that Wall Street hated, Roberts said.

Thankfully Gates is as far away from Wall Street as possible and was happy to invest $1 billion in Comcast without any demands for board seats or the inclusion of Microsofts products. As such, Gates is responsible for starting the broadband wars that benefited consumers over the past 20 years.

Gates and Microsoft naturally emerged winners as well, with a 400 percent return on investment.

By Jayson Derrick

 2021 The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the conclusion of military operations in Afghanistan and plans for future counterterrorism operations on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 28, 2021. (Patrick Semansky/Getty Images)

Bigger Bonuses and Lower Standards Diminishes Our Readiness as a Force: Matthew Lohmeier

'There is a deliberate plan to weaken our US military'

As branches of the United States military are offering sweeter enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses, they are simultaneously lowering standards. Experts say this practice diminishes our readiness as a force and we will end up suffering horrific failure or a series of failures before the services are willing to recognize this trend and move against it.

As recruitment numbers continue to suffer in the aftermath of the CCP virus, the United States Army is offering a historic $50,000 enlistment bonus to what they describe as highly qualified recruits who sign up for at least six years. The previous record was a $40,000 incentive for selecting infantry and up to $65,000 in student loan reimbursement for certain occupations was offered in 2019 during the Obama presidency.

While the U.S. military met recruitment goals for full-time service members for fiscal year 2021, recent data shows recruitment began to fall as the year came to a close. For October and November 2021, only the Marines met recruitment goals. However, that achievement appears to be the result of lowering the bar in a new push for diversity rather than a drive to maintain standards to obtain qualified candidates. In 2017, the Marine Corps faced criticism for having two-tiered fitness requirements for men and women because it creates a double standard and implies that female Marines are not as physically capable as men. However, in December 2021, the Marines boasted of how they in fiscal year 2021 reached historic successes in diversity representation in that greater than 35 percent of all officer candidates were diverse including 15.4 percent of female officer accessions, the highest number of female officer accessions for the Marine Corps in any given fiscal year.

The Marine Corps was not the only branch to lower standards to boost enlistment. The Navy lowered fitness standards in 2017, and again in 2021. In 2019, the Army lowered physical fitness standards, especially for women. While only seven percent of men failed the Army Combat Fitness Test, about 54 percent of women failed. To bridge the gender gap, the Army introduced plans in May 2021 to use different scoring systems for men and women as they compete for promotions. In June, the Air Force announced changes to their fitness test. Planks replaced pushups. Rather than running 1.5 miles, members can now walk a shorter course. Even dress codes are being softened. The Armys dress codes (pdf) now allow women to wear earrings and certain colors of lipstick as long as it doesnt clash with their uniform. The Air Force dress code now authorizes cosmetic tattooing on the scalp for men, hosiery for women, and transparent piercing spacers for everyone.

In addition to lowering standards, women are now being coddled and given special privileges to help them advance in elite programs, where the bar is traditionally set higher. On Jan 6, reports surfaced that the Air Force acknowledged lowering the norms in the Special Tactics training program to advance a female trainee who failed to meet the programs rigorous standards. An anonymously published memo (pdf) described how Captain Morgan Mosby became known for quitting and getting preferential treatment, such as being given the opportunity to train with a personal trainer of her choosing and being able to take weeks off of work without leave or repercussions and had the ability to meet with various senior leaders. Mosby told other trainees she was too good for the community, and the reason why she repeatedly quit was because her efforts didnt receive constant praise. In the midst of her preferential treatment, Mosby filed an Equal Opportunity complaint, alleging she was being bullied by the instructors.

In April 2021 John Venable wrote for the Heritage Foundation that Air Force standards for flight training and promotions have been on a downward spiral since the Cold War ended in 1991 and that the service is about to remove factors from its flight school candidate screening process because it wants to increase the diversity of its rated force. When that next real war comes, Venable asserted, the cumulative impact of declining Air Force standards will prove fatal.

John Venable Senior Research Fellow For Defense Policy, Center for National Defense, Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. (Courtesy of John Venable of the Heritage Foundation)

To Venable, the idea that the new woke culture decimating Americas education system and corporations will also destroy our military is the sum of all the fears of folks who have been in the business for a while and understand how those standards have changed over time.

Right now, its identity that the service seems to be looking for rather than qualifications, so if you meet a certain profile or expectation in their minds with regard to your ability to serve then you can be brought on to the service and rise up into ranks that would be respected in most circles of America right now, Venable told The Epoch Times. What is lost in that is that they are stepping over, in very large measure, folks who are more qualified to fill those billets.

Venable is a Senior Research Fellow for Defense Policy, Center for National Defense, Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy. During his near 26-year career of flying fighter jets for the U.S. Air Force, he accumulated 4,400 total hours of flying time, of which approximately 3,300 hours were spent in F-16s. Venable also served two combat tours and ultimately became commander of the Thunderbirds.

While Venable finds it distressing that the Air Force lowered fitness standards to accommodate Capt. Mosbys inability to meet them, he said the other side is the thing the special ops community values more than anything else is your will to continue, that stamina, that perseverance, that determination that you will see a mission through no matter what. He explained how when Navy Seals are going through the BUD/S training (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) there is a certain drop bell that has great significance.

When you ring that bell and put your helmet under it that means you quit, Venable explained, and those people who quit that program are removed immediately and not asked to continue because no one in that community can have that kind of attitude where youre willing to give up. This particular captain quit twice. The fact that the Air Force highly encouraged her to stay, and re-admitted her for a third time, is the worst of all of their failures in this process. The leadership is so bent on getting the right appearance in their service that theyre willing to sacrifice proven standards.

To Venable, rewarding Mosbeys inability to meet standards and her penchant for quitting with advancement stands in humiliating contrast to the Herculean strength, will, and determination of Air Force Tech. Sgt. John Chapman, who was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Donald Trump on Aug. 22 for sacrificing his own life to save those of his fellow soldiers.

Now were willing to sacrifice the foundation that created people like Chapman in order to get the right look, the right gender, the right appearance in the courses. Theyre forcing people out who will not get vaccinated, theyre on a hunt for white nationalists. The changing of the culture where LGBTQ is celebrated in one sense and promoted in another. When people who have been in the service for a long time see this, they are less likely to encourage their children to follow in their footsteps. Thats where youre going to start seeing the culture in the Air Force, the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps start to implode and thats going to cause us to do things like offer $50,000 bonuses and describe them as highly qualified in the process.

According to Venable, the reason why the vast majority of people come into any of the branches is because of their parents, the lineage of service.

Those parents have shown these children what the life is like inside and promoted it at the dinner table, talking about what its like to be a pilot and a special operator. That makes these young men and women want to serve, Venable asserted.

To Venable, the type of people a $50,000 enlistment bonus will attract are those with little more than a high school diploma who support the idea that a non-white, non-male person is going to be promoted faster and achieve more because of their appearance and gender. They will not have the tenacity and faculties of those who came before them. Those folks, Venable said, we wont see again. When will we turn away from this?

My fear is that we will end up suffering horrific failure or a series of failures before the services are willing to recognize this trend and move against it. I hope were able to intervene before those tragedies start taking place but my history and how Ive watched the services, its going to take those tragedies to occur before we start moving into a different direction.

Incentives Versus Talent

Ex-Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier says one of the chief means by which our defense department leaders try to incentivize people of various career fields to remain interested in military service is by throwing money at the problem.

Matthew Lohmeier. (Courtesy of Matthew Lohmeier)

Thats been true in our pilot community for the better part of a decade, and this is just more of the same, Lohmeier told The Epoch Times. Based on what Im reading now about wanting to incentivize enlistment by throwing money at that problem is were just going to spend more of our taxpayer dollars trying to keep and get new talent. The question remains; Are you going to get more talent by spending more money on recruitment? The obvious answer is, not necessarily.

From what Lohmeier has seen in the pilot community, money doesnt necessarily incentivize people to stay who are already planning to leave. If people are being turned off by what theyre seeing in the news, like the woke agenda within our armed forces, money isnt going to help recruit those people, Lohmeier explained. Money is rather going to tip the scales for someone who is already on the fence about staying or on the fence about coming in.

Lohmeier also described what he calls a lose/lose situation for the Biden administration as military leaders join the shift toward wokeism. For those who are conservative and really reject the woke narratives of American history and race relations in this country, this new woke culture in the military will disincentivize them from enlisting. On the other hand, if you are left-leaning in your world political view and happen to buy in to the woke narrative, youre disincentivized from military service because youd rather be doing something else with your time than worrying about the country because its not worth defending or serving.

Still, while Lohmeier said he doesnt blame those who dont want to serve in a politicized military or police force, he says you cant have your best people leaving these jobs or these career fields to pursue other fields.

Where does that leave us as a country if good people are driven away from service in our military? Lohmeier asked rhetorically. It isnt money thats going to incentivize them to serve. Its the belief that the countrys worth serving and that they might be able to make a difference in the service rather than out. It doesnt help that one of our recruitment videos for the Army is about a young woman who is raised by two moms. Who exactly does that appeal to in the American audience? What exactly is the goal? Compare that to recruitment videos of our enemies. China and Russia are dead serious about developing their lethality and capabilities and, by comparison, the United States looks as if it lacks seriousness.

Still, in the midst of its recruitment challenges, the military could separate tens of thousands of service members for defying the Biden administrations vaccine mandate. The Marine Corps has already separated more than 300, and the Air Force more than 20. While the Marine Corps has only approved two requests for religious accommodation from the mandate, the total number of unvaccinated service members is estimated to be around 30,000.

On one hand, were throwing money at a problem to keep peoples interest in military service, Lohmeier said. Simultaneously, we are purging people into whom weve poured millions of taxpayers dollars to develop their talents, and were not just talking about young pilots. There are seasoned instructor pilots, some of whom belong to our nuclear enterprise, who have as individuals cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars alone. Were willing to abandon them and their families and their experience and their own lethality in favor of new, young fresh talent that were going to pay more money for so we can keep them interested in service. Thats a paradox that doesnt make a lot of sense. Its a waste of money. Its a waste of talent and in all likelihood diminishes our readiness as a force.

Lohmeier hopes the American people become more aware of the impact of the woke decisions being made by military leaders, of purging existing talent who chose to serve out of a desire to serve their country to replace them with people who join purely through monetary incentivization.

Its pretty perplexing, unless you believe as I do that there is a deliberate plan to weaken our U.S. military, Lohmeier said. I dont think that appears to be a conspiracy theory anymore while it might have been a couple of years ago. Its more and more apparent that our policy decisions and apparent missteps seem to be part of a larger plan to weaken the United States military influence on the world stage, all while our competitors increase their readiness and lethality. I dont think thats by accident. I think its deliberate. Theres no better way to bankrupt a country than to throw money at problems that can be fixed in other ways. This is one of those problems you dont need to throw money at to fix.

Frank Shirey of Williamson, Georgia, is terrified by the new trend toward wokeism in the military.

It really scares me, the direction the military is taking, especially compared to the way it was when I was in, Shirey told The Epoch Times.

Frank Shirey, retired Navy, husband, father, grandfather. (Courtesy of Frank Shirey)

Shirey joined the military right out of high school in 1976 and served two years in the Marine Reserves. On April 4, 1978, he joined the Navy and after 23 years and four months of service, Shirey retired on July 31, 1995.

Back then, things were tougher, more detailed, Shirey reflected. It was more mission-oriented. It wasnt so much about the individual but about the fighting force. The way theyre doing it now, theyre trying to develop people socially rather than with their skills and without a real mission in mind, the mission being to defend the country. Bonuses were originally used to recruit and retain people with exceptional skills who were doing exceptionally dangerous jobs. Now it seems they are using them to get people to go along with their terrible policies.

Shirey said he maintains contact with friends who are still serving, and he said they too are disturbed by the new direction the military is taking.

Frank Shirey on the day he retired from the Navy, July 31, 1995. (Courtesy of Frank Shirey)

We started getting away from disciplinary things even at the end of my career, he lamented, but the simple things that most people think are silly have a reason behind them. People dont shine their shoes anymore. It wasnt so much about shining your shoes and looking good. It was an attention to detail thing. We dont have that anymore. There is no detail. Look at these silly, blueberry uniforms the Navy was wearing that made no logical sense whatsoever. Were getting away from discipline and requiring discipline. We dont paint our own ships anymore. You dont see the crew out there painting the ship. There was a reason for those things besides saving money.

Shirey also noted the culture shift that labels male strength, once considered an admirable part of a mans role as a provider and protector, as toxic masculinity.

Men just arent tough like they used to be and its society thats doing it to them, said Shirey, now married with a daughter and two granddaughters. We still have the same gene makeup weve always had, the same DNA. But society has beaten everybody down to the point that men are afraid to be men anymore.

The Epoch Times reached out to the head of Army Recruiting Command Major General Kevin Vereen and the Department of Defense for comment.

Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
The Ordeal of Brandon Straka

Commentary

The ordeal of Brandon Straka, founder of the WalkAway movement, in the context of his involvement in Jan. 6 is a chilling window into how the media and the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) manipulate the truth in order to cover up a political prosecution. Straka, who was arrested in the aftermath of Jan. 6, pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor of disorderly conduct and is due to be sentenced today.

The Biden DOJ wants Straka sentenced to four months of home detention and three years probation for his conduct on Jan. 6. This by itself is not an unendurable sentence. As I told Straka myself, Its not so bad to be forced to live in your own home. Even so, the sentence is wrong and excessive for one simple reason: Straka basically did nothing wrong. Hes being prosecuted not for what he did but for what others did.

The left-leaning site Politico reported that prosecutors consented to a lighter sentence for Straka because he provided potentially significant information. The article implied that Straka was ratting out his fellow protesters, and also ratting out Trump. Obviously, the Biden DOJ would salivate at this prospect, and equally obviously Straka would be ruined among conservatives if he were perceived as some sort of sellout.

The truth, however, is quite different. I asked Straka directly about what he told prosecutors. He said he told prosecutors that they were mistaken in identifying him as the man who tried to grab a policemans shield. Prosecutors were ready to charge Straka with a violent offense based on video evidence. But Straka said the video clearly shows it was another man who grabbed the shield, and Strakas potentially significant information was to identify who that man was.

Based on Strakas information, this charge was rightly dropped. Obviously, Straka had every right to seek exoneration on a false charge. He didnt sell out Trump, and he didnt sell out other protesters. In their sentencing memo, prosecutors attempt to fault Straka with doing nothing to discourage the rioters from removing the shield. But its one thing to accuse a man of grabbing a shield from a cop, quite another to say he didnt do anything to prevent others from doing so.

Full disclosure: Straka is a friend of mine. Weve communicated since he founded WalkAway, a movement to encourage and embolden disenchanted Democrats and liberals to move right. I spoke at a WalkAway event in Portland a couple of years ago, and Antifa showed up with bats and sticks, only to discover that we had security guards armed with guns. The Antifa thugs suddenly became very well behaved, and one of them took out his flute and began to play it.

Straka went to the Capitol on Jan. 6 not because he was an insurrectionist or a terrorist but rather because, like most of the others there, he believed the 2020 election had been stolen. Notably, Straka never entered the Capitol. This is significant, because when Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who serves on House Speaker Nancy Pelosis Jan. 6 Commission, excused the actions of Ray Eppsthe man who openly urged protesters to enter the CapitolKinzinger noted that Epps didnt break the law because he himself did not go inside the building. Well, neither did Straka.

Lacking any genuine evidence against Straka, the Biden DOJ basically seeks to have Straka sentenced for his political beliefs. Straka, for example, posted on social media, Our government no longer listens & takes instructions from the People. Theyve decided to become dictators to the People. Its time to rise up. This is boilerplate political rhetoric; its hardly a summons to insurrection. Moreover, Straka posted this a month before Jan. 6, so his words can hardly be portrayed as an imminent call to action.

Contrast what Straka said with what Kamala Harris said during the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots that produced looting, arson, and even murder in the streets of many cities. Theyre not going to stop and everyone beware, because theyre not going to stop. Theyre not going to stop before Election Day in November, and theyre not going to stop after Election Day. Everyone should take note of that.  Theyre not going to let up and they should not and we should not. What is this if not an exhortation to violence by the current vice president of the United States?

In a final desperate move, the Biden DOJ attempts to saddle Straka with the actions of protesters other than himself. The sentencing memo says that if Straka and others had never showed up, there would have been no Capitol breach. True, but Straka himself never breached the Capitol. The government also lumps Straka in with the crowd, saying in effect that the crowd did this and the crowd did that. In a free country, however, were responsible only for our own actions.

I wish the presiding judge would consider Strakas actual culpable conduct on Jan. 6, which is nil, and give him the appropriate sentence, which is nothing. Thats not likely. But the judge can still send a message by giving Straka a token sentence. Hes already endured enough, over the past several months, and the real guilty parties are the ones who are trying to lock him up.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Tory MP Asks RCMP to Investigate Trudeau for Hateful Language Against Those Unvaccinated for COVID

A Conservative MP is asking the RCMP to investigate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for comments that the MP said many believe were made with the aim of promoting hate against Canadians who havent received a COVID-19 vaccine.

Colin Carrie, MP for Oshawa, Ont., said on social media that he has been getting calls, online messages, and in-person visits from his constituentsa majority of whom are double- or triple-vaccinatedover the past few weeks raising concerns. He says the constituents say the government-mandated COVID-19 vaccination requirement crosses a line, as does the idea of a vaccine tax like the one recently announced in Quebec.

Increasingly, fully-vaccinated constituents have grown more alarmed, worriedeven resentfulabout the tone and nature of recent comments by the PM and some of his Ministers officials, particularly their clear effort to divide Canadians with name-calling, demonization, and overly-harsh, off-base characterizations of our unvaccinated families and friends, Carrie wrote in a statement released on Jan. 21.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Prime Ministers Office for comment but didnt hear back by publication time.

This post is a bit long but heres what Im doing in response to the PMs ongoing effort to demonize some Cdns incl a good number of fair-minded & decent constituents of mine in #Oshawa. Pls have a read: https://t.co/jdPO79ZusQ. #UnitedNotDivided #OshawaStrong #cdnpoli #onpoli pic.twitter.com/cJLs1GuTui  Colin Carrie (@ColinCarrieCPC) January 22, 2022

Carrie said it is unhelpful and plainly offensive for Trudeau to say unvaccinated people are science-deniers and to call them derogatory names including extremists as he did during an interview on the French-language program La semaine des 4 Julie on Sept. 16, 2021.

They are extremists who dont believe in science. Theyre often misogynists, also often racists. Its a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people? Trudeau said.

Carrie said Trudeaus remarks are tantamount to inciting hatred against an identifiable group of individuals, which he says is punishable under Section 319 of Canadas Criminal Code and could result in up to two years imprisonment.

He noted that these comments have left many Canadians fearing for their safety, their jobs, and their well-being, with some becoming afraid of reprisals or being subjected to ridicule or hate in the public space or even among their own friends or family.

No one should be discriminated against or suffer threats, abuse, ridicule, or hate due to their freedom of choice, Carrie said.

He added that the vast majority of those who remain unvaccinated are not conspiracy theorists or so-called anti-vaxxers. Rather, many have legitimate thoughtful genuine concerns about their health, their bodies, or the well-being of themselves, their children, or families.

Fascist Psychopath: Justin Trudeau Calls the Unvaccinated Racist and Misogynistic Extremists Trudeau further bashed anyone unvaccinated, smearing them as science deniers.https://t.co/nAxnCa5te9 pic.twitter.com/LwLpj0WeSz  Amy Mek (@AmyMek) December 31, 2021

Carrie said that, at the urging of both vaccinated and unvaccinated Oshawa residents, he has written to the RCMP commissioner to raise the issue of the prime ministers comments in relation to the Criminal Code, given that hes refused to clarify, take back, or apologize for the comments he made on the Quebec-based television program.

The PMs egregious statements were, many believe, made with the express aim of promoting hate against an identifiable group of citizensand specificallyagainst individuals who, for whatever reason, remain unvaccinated, Carrie said.

On behalf of my constituents and those Canadians who are angeredand saddenedby the PMs hateful language and demonization efforts, Ive urged the Commissioner of our national police force to uphold the law and Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms and to investigate the PM for using his position to bully, coerce, punish, or demonize a subset of Canadians.

Trudeau has used strong words towards those who dont want to get COVID-19 vaccination on other occasions as well.

In September 2021, while at a campaign stop prior to the federal election, he referred to anti-vaccination protesters as those people and suggested that they are putting us all at risk.
A truck passes by the Canadian truck convoy/protest along the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia border in Fort Lawrence, Nova Scotia, Canada, on Jan. 23, 2022. (John Morris/Reuters)

Truck Drivers Protesting COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Begin March From Vancouver to Ottawa

A massive group of truckers protesting the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on truck drivers started their march from Vancouver on Sunday.

The Freedom Convoy 2022 left northern British Columbia en route to the Canadian capital city Ottawa in demonstration against the mandate, and truckers from Ontario and eastern Canada are also expected to arrive in Ottawa, according to local media.

Once there, drivers from every province then plan to join under a group called Canada Unity and form a large demonstration against the mandate on Jan. 29.

One truck driver told the Vancouver Sun that he estimates around 500 trucks from B.C. will join the rally before growing to around 5,000 to 10,000 trucks from across the country once in Ottawa.

Ontario Provincial Police East Region reported a convoy from Pembroke to Ottawa on Saturday, and told locals to please be patient and exercise care.

The march comes after the federal mandate for truck drivers went into effect on Jan. 15, despite opposition from members of the trucking industry.

Under the mandate, Canadian drivers returning to Canada must be vaccinated in order to avoid entering quarantine. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced similar requirements starting Jan. 22 for non-U.S. nationals crossing into the United States who are not vaccinated, including non-U.S. truck drivers.

Prior to the mandate going into effect, Canadian truck drivers were deemed an essential service meaning they were exempt from such border restrictions.

The convoy raised over $3 million in a week prior to the demonstration via a GoFundMe campaign. The money raised will be used to provide fuel, food, and lodging for the marchers, organizers said.

Our current government is implementing rules and mandates that are destroying the foundation of our businesses, industries, and livelihoods. Canadians have been integral to the fabric of humanity in many ways that have shaped the planet, the GoFundMe page reads.

We are taking our fight to the doorsteps of our Federal Government and demanding that they cease all mandates against its people. Small businesses are being destroyed, homes are being destroyed, and people are being mistreated and denied fundamental necessities to survive. Its our duty as Canadians to put an end to this mandate, the page continues.

The vaccine mandate could see 10 to 15 percent, or about 12,000 to 16,000 of truck drivers off the road, the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA), which said it does not support and strongly disapproves of the demonstrations, estimates.

The Government of Canada and the United States have now made being vaccinated a requirement to cross the border. This regulation is not changing so, as an industry, we must adapt and comply with this mandate, said CTA President Stephen Laskowski in a statement on Saturday. The only way to cross the border, in a commercial truck or any other vehicle, is to get vaccinated.

CTA added that the majority of truckers are vaccinated.

A similar demonstration took place in Emerson, Manitoba, near the U.S.Canada border on Jan. 17 when a convoy of truckers protested against new COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
A man stands along a beach as tanker ships are seen in the waters of the Gulf of Oman off the coast of the eastern UAE emirate of Fujairah on June 15, 2019. (Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images)

UAE Intercepts Houthi Attack, Saudi Arabia Reports 2 Injured by Fallen Missile

DUBAI, United Arab EmiratesThe United Arab Emirates (UAE) intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Persian Gulf country on Jan. 24 with no casualties, its defense ministry stated, following a deadly attack from the Iran-backed Houthis a week earlier.

For more than six years, the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE have been battling for control of Yemen. The Houthis have repeatedly carried out cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia. They also launched an unprecedented assault on the UAE on Jan. 17.

The remnants of the intercepted ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi, the ministry stated, noting that it was taking necessary protective measures against all attacks.

UAE newspaper The National cited residents reporting flashes in the sky over the capital at roughly 4:30 a.m. local time.

The Jan. 24 attack was the second on UAE soil since last weeks strike that hit a fuel depot in Abu Dhabi, killing three people and causing a fire near its international airport.

Houthi-run Al Masirah television reported that the group, which was designated as a terrorist group by the Trump administration only to have that designation revoked by the Biden administration, would announce within hours the details of a wide military operation against Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Saudi state media outlets said on Jan. 24 that the coalition intercepted a ballistic missile, with remnants from the missile damaging workshops and vehicles in the southern region of the kingdom. It said late on Jan. 23 that a ballistic missile fell in the south, injuring two foreigners and causing damage in an industrial area.

The U.N., which along with the United States has struggled to engineer a ceasefire for Yemen, has voiced concern over escalations and called for maximum restraint from all parties.

The Saudi-led coalition said it has ramped up air strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. At least 60 people were killed in a strike on a temporary detention center in northern Saada Governorate, Yemen, on Jan. 21, and about 20 were killed in the Houthi-held capital of Sanaa, Yemen, in an operation on Jan. 18.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015, months after the Houthis launched a coup and ousted the internationally recognized government from Sanaa.

The UAE had largely reduced its presence in Yemen in 2019 amid a military stalemate, but Emirati-backed Yemeni forces have recently joined battles against the Houthis in key energy-producing provinces in Yemen.
People hold up signs during a rally against critical race theory (CRT) being taught in schools at the Loudoun County Government Center in Leesburg, Va., on June 12, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

UCLA CRT Study Itself Shows Why Parents Are Revolting

Commentary

Ive read thousands of academic studies, but the worst of them just came out. Sorry for the excess verbiage in the next sentence, but its a trait of modern academics.

The study, The Conflict Campaign: Exploring Local Experiences of the Campaign to Ban Critical Race Theory in Public K12 Education in the U.S., 20202021, was published by the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at the University of CaliforniaLos Angeles (UCLA) in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.

It was written by Mica Pollock and John Rogers, along with seven other names I wont burden you with. Pollock is an anthropologist and education professor at a similar center at the University of CaliforniaSan Diego.

Ill try to pierce the thick academic jargon, but this is the way todays educators think. This study will filter down through the system to public and even private schools across the country.

A conflict campaign apparently means when parents get upset at whats going on in their kids schools and start doing something about it.

We call the anti CRT campaign a conflict campaign because it has both manufactured conflict to partisan ends, and exploited real divisions over how to teach about race and for inclusion in U.S. society, the authors wrote.

Manufactured conflict? No. Its the education establishment that assaulted kids and families. Partisan ends? The controversy in Loudon County, Virginia, in 2021 occurred in what now is a majority Democratic area. Most of the suburban momsas theyre now calledwho objected were Democrats.

Scare Quotes

Next, notice the scare quotes always put around critical race theory and CRT. The authors explain why. But, again, sorry for the verbiage! The study could have used a good newspaper editor translating it into basic English.

We put CRT in quotation marks throughout this report because so often the conflict campaigns definition of CRT (like its description of actual K12 practice) is a caricatured distortion by loud opponents as self-appointed experts. The conflict campaign thrives on caricatureon often distorting altogether both scholarship and K12 educators efforts at accurate and inclusive education, deeming it (and particularly K12 efforts to discuss the full scope of racism in our nation) wholly inappropriate for school, the study reads.

Whew! Are you still with me?

Self-appointed experts? Arent parents experts at raising their own kids? This attitude shows the authors arrogant assumption of superiority over parents.

Demonstrators gather in front of Los Alamitos Unified School District Headquarters in protest of critical race theory teachings in Los Alamitos, Calif., on May 11, 2021. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

The 1619 Project

Its also inaccurate to say parents dont want schools to discuss the full scope of racism in our nation. They just dont want their own kids demonized. And they dont want schools to use such distorting materials as the New York Timess 1619 Project.

The study praises it: In August 2019, the publication of the New York Times Magazines 1619 Project invites exploration of the foundational U.S. consequences through today of enslaving Africans and African Americansand the contributions of Black Americans to the nation. Teachers start to explore the resource to bolster knowledge about race and racism in American life.

Except that even liberal scholars have criticized The 1619 Project as chock full of distortions. Five such scholars signed a letter to the NY Times, decrying the factual errors in the project and the closed process behind it.  They suggest a displacement of historical understanding by ideology.

Those scholars wrote of the projects worst distortion: On the American Revolution, pivotal to any account of our history, the project asserts that the founders declared the colonies independence of Britain in order to ensure slavery would continue. This is not true.

Two of the scholars are the well-known James M. McPherson and Sean Wilentz.

Virginia Governors Race

Then theres the UCLA studys distortion of recent events.

On November 2, Republican Glenn Youngkin is elected Governor of Virginia, the authors wrote of this past falls election. Education and cultural issues are the centerpiece of Youngkins platform. He promises to ban the teaching of critical race theory in Virginias public schools.

But the study didnt bring up the pivotal moment of the campaign. That was when former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, seeking to regain his old seat, said in the Sept. 29, 2021, gubernatorial debate, I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.

Even the liberal CNN figured out in a headline what that meant: Virginia Republicans seize on parental rights and schools fight in final weeks of campaign.

And the study completely distorts the facts by attacking when Tucker Carlson describes an imagined K12 CRT as saying, If youre a straight White American, even if youre a very small child, youre guilty. Its your fault. Youre a bad person. Thats what teachers will be telling your children this fall.

But the study includes no footnotes for us to check the source of the Carlson quote. Fortunately, its easy to find it on YouTube. The quote was from Carlsons July 6, 2021, show. And heres the full section of what he said:

Last week, the largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association [NEA], announced that its new, and first, priority is making racist anti-American indoctrination, race-based indoctrination, mandatory in every classroom in the country. All K12 schools, the union declared, must teach children that, White supremacy, anti-blackness, anti-indigeneity, racism, patriarchy, cis-hetero-patriarchy, capitalism, ableism, and anthropocentrism are embedded in every aspect of American society. So if youre a straight white American, even if youre a very small child, youre guilty. Its your fault. Youre a bad person. Thats what teachers will be telling your children this fall.

The quote the UCLA study used was Carlsons paraphrase of the actual, inflammatory words of the far-left NEA. That really changes the context, doesnt it?

It took me two minutes to find Carlsons exact quote and the context. Why didnt Pollock et al. include it in their long study of 121 pages? Because theyre ideologues, not scholars. This is something worthy of Moscow University in 1936, not the modern United States.

A man holds up a sign against critical race theory during a protest outside of a Washoe County School District board meeting in Reno, Nev., on May 25, 2021. (Andy Barron/Reno Gazette-Journal via AP)

Serious Repercussions

There are two ways CRT harms the United States. First, it enflames divisions within our country. The United States is now a highly diverse country that needs reconciliation, understanding, and hope, not the envy and division promoted by CRT.

Second, CRTbasically a racial adaptation of Cultural Marxismis now seeping into the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math.

Californias new math proposal, which blends current ideas in social justice and antiracist thought with mathematics instruction, is a culturally driven agenda that will almost certainly fail those whom it is intended to help, Lee Ohanian of the Hoover Institution wrote. The proposal, whose curriculum focuses on social inequities using trauma-informed pedagogies, provides no compelling arguments for why this approach will be better than traditional math education.

This is serious, because some analysts say that Russia and China have jumped ahead of the United States in military technology. Liam Gibson wrote in December 2021 in Nikkei that secret weapons technology poised to propel China ahead of the U.S. We need real scientists trained in highly competitive schools, kindergarten through graduate school. We dont need CRT destroying the young minds that will produce the future here in the United States.

The reality is that CRT is a passel of lies that divides and weakens the United States. When will we stop funding it?

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Flags of the United Kingdom and NATO on the building of the UK Embassy in Kyiv on Jan. 24, 2022. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

UK, Australia, Germany Withdraw Embassy Personnel and Families From Ukraine

The UK and Australia said they have begun withdrawing some embassy personnel from Ukraine, while Germany offered assistance to staff members families and some civilians who want to leave.

The precautionary measures come as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that gloomy intelligence suggested Russia was planning a lightning raid on Kyiv.

The U.S. State Department has also ordered family members of U.S. government employees at its embassy in Kyiv to leave the Ukrainian capital and authorized the voluntary departure of nonessential civil servants on the evening of Jan. 23.

The UKs Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) said on Jan. 24 that it had started pulling out some embassy staff and family members in response to the growing threat from Russia.

It also advised against all travel to three contested border regions and all but essential travel to the rest of Ukraine.

The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work, its latest travel advice update said.

Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine. The FCDO said the pattern of Russian military build-ups near Ukraines eastern border and in illegally annexed Crimea started in late March 2021, and there is continuing uncertainty about Russian intentions.

The FCDO advised against all travel to Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast on Ukraines eastern border and Russian-annexed-Crimea. It also advised against nonessential travel to the rest of Ukraine, where the situation is now generally calm, in case of a fast-moving escalation of events.

Those who need to travel are told to keep their departure plans under close review and monitor the situation regularly.

Renewed military action anywhere in Ukraine would greatly reduce British Embassy Kyivs ability to provide consular support, the FCDO warned.

A convoy of Russian armored vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea on Jan. 18, 2022. (AP Photo)

Australia: Leave Now

The Australian government has also begun withdrawing dependents of Australian Embassy staff from Kyiv, it said on Jan. 24 in a travel advice update.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) told Australian citizens in Ukraine to leave now by commercial means if its safe to do so, and told others do not travel to the country due to the risk of armed conflict.

DFAT warned that flight availability could change or be suspended at short notice, and urged Australian citizens in Ukraine to register their whereabouts through a newly opened portal.

German officials on Jan. 24 offered help to assist family members of embassy staff and employees of German organizations who wish to leave Ukraine.

This is a measure we are taking to ensure the safety of the people we are responsible for there, DW quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Christopher Burger as saying.

The EUs High Representative Josep Borrell said on Jan. 24 that it doesnt plan to do the same thing because we dont know any specific reasons.

Following the U.S. announcement on Jan. 23 that it was withdrawing embassy staffs family members, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said the move was premature and a display of excessive caution.

The Russian Parliament is due to vote on a proposal by members of Russias communist party asking the Kremlin to recognize the independence of the contested Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

If backed by the Kremlin, which has been cautious about the proposal, the move could see an escalation in regional tensions, but Russia would meet with punitive economic sanctions.

United Russia lawmaker Alexander Borodai, former self-proclaimed prime minister of Donetsk during the height of the conflict in 2014, voiced support for the proposal. He told Reuters that a war will become a direct necessity if the proposal passes.

Meanwhile, Western countries are ramping up support to bolster Ukraines defense capabilities.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, officials from DFAT are in discussion with their Ukrainian counterparts about providing cyber assistance.

NATO is also reinforcing the eastern border region, with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg vowing to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies.

Russia on Sunday dismissed the UKs claims that Moscow was planning to install a pro-Russia leader in Kyiv, calling it very dangerous and foolish rhetorical provocations.

Melanie Sun contributed to this report.
Julian Assange speaks to reporters in London on May 19, 2017. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

UK Court Lets Julian Assange Appeal Extradition to US

A court in the United Kingdom on Monday ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his ordered extradition to the United States.

Assange, 50, is accused by American authorities of helping a former intelligence analyst obtain classified information before publishing the information on WikiLeaks for anybody to access, a series of actions U.S. prosecutors say endangered national security and the lives of sources who were named in the documents.

The High Court in London ruled last year that the assurances given by U.S. authorities were sufficient to guarantee that Assange would be treated humanely, overturning a lower court ruling that concluded sending Assange to the United States would be oppressive. Assange appealed the latest ruling several days later.

In a decision released Monday, the high court said Assange can appeal to the UK Supreme Court, but only if the court agrees.

The respondents application to certify a point of law is granted, the judges said in their pronouncement.

They said the issue of whether the High Court could rely on U.S. assurances about Assanges treatment, which had not been given in the initial proceedings, was a subject on which his legal team could seek clarification.

Whether or not the issue needs ventilation in that court is a matter appropriately for its decision. We would respectfully invite the Registrar of the Supreme Court to take steps to expedite consideration of any application for leave to appeal which follows.

Assange has 14 days to submit an application to the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court decides not to hear his appeal, the extradition can be approved by the home secretary, whose decision can also be subject to legal challenge.

Stella Moris, the partner of Julian Assange, speaks to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London on Jan. 24, 2022. (Kirsty OConnor/PA via AP)

Make no mistake: we won today in court, Stella Moris, Assanges fiancee, told reporters.

Our fight goes on, and we will fight this until Julian is free, she added.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement that it welcomed the ruling while reiterating its position, shared by other civil rights groups, that U.S. prosecutors should drop all charges against Assange.

The founder of WikiLeaks is described by Amnesty International as the first publisher to be charged under the Espionage Act. Supporters say WikiLeaks publishing of the classified document trove is protected by U.S. and international law.

U.S. authorities have defended the charges, claiming Assange is not a journalist.

This [was] made plain by the totality of his conduct as alleged in the indictmenti.e., his conspiring with and assisting a security clearance holder to acquire classified information, and his publishing the names of human sources, John Demers, the U.S. assistant attorney general for national security, told reporters in 2019

Tom Ozimek and Reuters contributed to this report.
British Airways tail fins are pictured at Heathrow Airport in London, on May 17, 2021. (John Sibley/Reuters)

UK to Scrap COVID-19 Tests for Fully Vaccinated Arrivals

The requirement for COVID-19 testing for fully vaccinated travellers arriving in the UK will be scrapped next month, the UK government has announced.

Eligible fully vaccinated passengers arriving in the UK will no longer have to take a post-arrival lateral flow test from 4 a.m. on Feb. 11, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the House of Commons on Monday.

That means that after months of pre-departure testing, post-arrival testing, self-isolation, additional expense, all that fully vaccinated people will now have to do, when they travel to the UK, is to verify their status via a passenger locator form, he said.

Under the new rules, passengers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated will no longer be required to do a day eight test after arrival, or to self-isolate.

They will still need to fill out a passenger locator form, to demonstrate proof of a negative COVID test taken two days before they travel, and they must still take a post-arrival PCR test, Shapps said.

Travel industry leaders have welcomed the announcement.

EasyJet boss Johan Lundgren said that millions of our customers will be delighted to see the return of restriction-free travel in the UK.

We believe testing for travel should now firmly become a thing of the past, he said. It is clear travel restrictions did not materially slow the spread of Omicron in the UK and so it is important that there are no more knee-jerk reactions to future variants.

He added that the airline intends to return to near-2019 levels of flying this summer.

Airlines UK boss Tim Alderslade said: This is a landmark day for passengers, businesses and UK plc. Nearly two years since the initial COVID restrictions were introduced, todays announcement brings international travel towards near-normality for the fully vaccinated, and at last into line with hospitality and the domestic economy.

Abby Penlington, director at ferry trade association Discover Ferries, said the announcement will make travelling easier, cheaper, and will be a further boost to consumer confidence.

A new study released last week showed that travel restrictions have had almost no impact on the spread of COVID-19 variants in the UK.

Governments are not able to implement travel restrictions quickly enough for them to be effective in limiting the spread of new variants, said the report by Edge Health and Oxera, a specialist research consultancy that works with Britains National Health Service.

It takes several weeks before governments become aware of new variants, and even longer to assess if they are variants of concern, the study found. By the time a new variant has been discovered and assessed, it is too late for restrictions to make any difference, said the report commissioned by Airlines UK and Manchester Airports Group.

PA Media contributed to this report.
Airmen and civilians from the 436th Aerial Port Squadron palletize ammunition, weapons and other equipment bound for Ukraine during a foreign military sales mission at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware, on Jan. 21, 2022. (U.S. Air Force/Mauricio Campino/Handout via Reuters)

Ukraine Receives Second Batch of US Weapons in Russian Stand-Off

KYIVUkraines Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Sunday the country had received a second consignment of weapons from the United States as part of defensive aid totaling $200 million.

Washington has said it would continue to support Ukraine amid concerns in Kyiv and among its Western allies over tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed on its border. Russia denies planning a military offensive.

The second bird in Kyiv! More than 80 tons of weapons to strengthen Ukraines defense capabilities from our friends in the USA! And this is not the end, Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

About 90 tonnes of lethal security assistance, including ammunition, from the package approved by the United States in December arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Saturday.
Ukraine Will Become the New Chechnya If Invaded by Russia: Boris Johnson

The UKs Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that an invasion of Ukraine will be a prolonged painful, violent, and bloody business for Russia.

Johnson said people in Russia need to understand that [Ukraine] could be their new Chechnyaa Northern Caucasus nation that was in conflicts with Russia for more than 26 years.

The UK on Monday said it has begun withdrawing some embassy staff and dependents from Kyiv, while the EUs High Representative Josep Borrell said it doesnt plan to do the same thing because we dont know any specific reasons.

Asked what the UK knew that the EU didnt, Johnson told reporters that a Russian plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see, as very clear intelligence showed that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine.

But Johnson added he didnt think the predicted invasion is by any means inevitable despite the pretty gloomy intelligence, and that the West needs to clearly warn the Kremlin that it would be a disastrous step.

The UK is leading on creating the package of economic sanctions, working with our partners around the world, Johnson said, adding that hes due to speak to Washington and his counterparts from other countries on Monday evening.

But we also need to get over the message that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent, and bloody business. And I think its very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya.

Johnson said he had been to Ukraine several times and believes the Ukrainians will fight.

The prime minister said the UK is also helping to stiffen the resistance of our Ukrainian friends including supplying defensive weaponry and expressing support for the people  and  the sovereign integrity of Ukraine.

Any invasion, any incursion of any kind, of any dimension into Ukraine is not going to be a cost-free business, Johnson stressed, in an apparent damage control effort over U.S. President Joe Bidens minor incursion comment.

There will be casualties. And I think that people in Russia need to understand that it could be their new Chechnya, he said.

The UK and Australia said on Monday that they have begun withdrawing some embassy personnel from Ukraine, while Germany offered assistance to staff members families and some civilians who want to leave.

The U.S. State Department ordered family members of U.S. government employees at its embassy in Kyiv to leave the Ukrainian capital and authorized the voluntary departure of non-essential civil servants on Sunday night.

Countries have also issued travel warnings to the Eastern European country over the risk of armed conflict.

Russia on Sunday dismissed the UKs claims that Moscow was planning to install a pro-Russia leader in Kyiv, calling it very dangerous and foolish rhetorical provocations.
A Haitian immigrant shows his cash card provided by the United Nations. He said his 3,500 peso payment (about $170 US) didnt deposit this month, in Tapachula, Mexico, on Jan. 14, 2022. (Todd Bensman/Center for Immigration Studies)

UN Giving Humanitarian Cash to Migrants Heading to US Border

US taxpayers helping fund illegal immigrant passage to southern border via UN cash cards

DEL RIO, TexasU.S. taxpayers are increasingly funding the passage of a constant flow of migrants who ultimately cross illegally into the United States, according to new reports.

A United Nations cash-based interventions program provides migrants heading to the U.S. border with debit cards, help with housing, transport, and medical assistance. The assistance is accessible in cities on the well-traveled routes from Latin America through Mexico.

Thousands of migrants converge in southern Mexico where they apply for asylumwhich gives them unfettered travel in Mexicothen most head directly to the U.S. border, where they cross illegally and claim asylum again.

Migrants there are issued debit cards that reload each month, according to Todd Bensman, who is reporting from the city of Tapachula at Mexicos southern border with Guatemala. Bensman is the senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies.

In Tapachula on Jan. 14, a Haitian man was waiting for his 3,600 pesos owed (about $170), Bensman said. A Honduran woman said her cash card provided 2,500 pesos per month for four people.

In the northern Mexico border city of Reynosa, families were receiving the equivalent of $400 every 15 days, he said.

The United Nations began ramping up CBI [cash-based interventions] in 2019, spending $60 million on 29,000 migrants in Latin America, and then doubling the outlays in 2020, with plans to vastly increase its use in the Americas during 2022 and beyond, Bensman said.

In fiscal year 2021, the United States contributed nearly $1.9 billion in humanitarian assistance to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), according to the State Department.

The United States funds about 20 percent of the total United Nations budget, which comprises 193 nations, and 40 percent of UNHCRs revenue, according to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations. The UNHCR budget for 2022 is $8.99 billion.

Cash-based interventions have been used by UNHCR for several decades.

They are often a more dignified way of assisting affected populations, as they empower people to determine their own needs and the best way of meeting them, according to the UNHCR.

Silvia Garduno, the U.N. spokesperson in Tapachula, Mexico, said the cash cards are strictly regulated as a humanitarian intervention.

Humanitarian cash assistance is available only to individuals with particular vulnerabilities who are seeking asylum in Mexico and who intend to remain in the Mexican state where they have applied for asylum until the process is completed, Garduno told Bensman.

It is provided to help ensure they can meet basic living expenses while their requests for asylum in Mexico are processed. This process may last three to four months.

However, Bensman said he questions that the program only applies to highly vulnerable people and wasnt able to get the actual criteria from authorities.

I suspect they are being very liberal on the definitions based on the migrant demographics I have seen, Bensman told The Epoch Times.

The vast majority of migrants congregating in Tapachula end up crossing the U.S. southern border within months.

Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) recently introduced a bill to put a stop to U.S. payments to the UNHCR, the U.N. International Organization for Migration, and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

U.S. taxpayers should not be subsidizing a mass invasion of our country by an endless stream of unknown and unvetted migrants, Gooden wrote in a statement at the time.

It is time for the Biden administration to put an end to this crisis and regain control of our southern border.
Activists wearing masks of IOC President Thomas Bach (L) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pose in front of the Olympic Rings during a street protest against holding the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, in Dharmsala, India, on Feb. 3, 2021. (Ashwini Bhatia/AP Photo)

US Lawmakers Demand IOC Prove Beijing Winter Olympic Uniforms Not Linked to Forced Labor

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recently stated that there are no extreme violations, such as forced labor, by suppliers of apparel for the Beijing Winter Olympics, including Hengyuanxiang and Anta, the two brands that have allegedly profited from human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Responding to questioning from a U.S. Congressman, the IOC stated on Jan. 19 that it had conducted a due diligence investigation of Beijing Winter Olympics suppliers, including the Hengyuanxiang Group and Anta Sports, and found no extreme violations of the IOC Supplier Code, including coercion, debt repudiation, contractual, or child labor.

The statement quoted the two companies explaining that, Hengyuanxiang claims that the cotton used in its products does not come from China, while Anta claims that it uses recyclable materials and does not contain cotton, but did not provide any proof.

Hengyuanxiang and Anta were appointed by the IOC as apparel suppliers for the Tokyo Summer Olympics and the Beijing Winter Olympics. Concerned about the Chinese companies apparel products, three members of the U.S. Congress sent a letter to the IOC on Jan. 12, asking it to ensure that the uniforms for the Beijing Winter Olympics are not related to forced labor concerns and stating that they do not want Olympic Committee members or athletes to wear garments made by forced labor.

The three legislators, all members of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Committee on China (CECC), asked IOC President Thomas Bach to certify that the IOCs contracts with Anta and Hengyuanxiang, which use cotton from Xinjiang, were justified.

The letter cites a bill signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in December 2021, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans all products from the Xinjiang region unless there is proof that they were not produced by forced labor.

Xinjiang is the largest cotton-producing region in China, and according to the Chinese Communist Partys National Bureau of Statistics, it accounted for 87.3 percent of Chinas total cotton production in 2020.

Public information shows that Anta and Hengyuanxiang have been using Xinjiang cotton in their manufacturing. For example, many of Hengyuanxiangs products are publicly advertised as containing Xinjiang cotton on e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, JD.com, and Suning. In addition, Hengyuanxiangs official website shows that the company has a factory in Xinjiang.

Anta, on the other hand, announced in March 2021 that it was leaving the international cotton watchdog, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), and publicly stated that we have always sourced and used Chinese cotton, including Xinjiang cotton, and will continue to do so in the future.

In October 2020, following an independent investigation, the BCI decided to stop sourcing cotton from Xinjiang due to ongoing allegations of forced labor and other human rights abuses in the region, where up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been imprisoned in what has been described as the largest internment camp since World War II.

BCIs decision was met with strong retaliation from the Chinese Communist Party. In March 2021, the Chinese Communist Party mobilized state-run media to encourage public criticism of BCIs actions and boycott international brands such as H&M and Nike that had followed BCIs recommendation to stop using Xinjiang cotton.

The Chinese Communist authorities have been strongly condemned by the international community for the mass imprisonment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, with countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Japan launching a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The IOC has remained silent on the issue of human rights in Xinjiang.

Japanese commentators Takamine Hajime and Yang Guiyuan told The Epoch Times that there is reason to suspect that the IOC has been bribed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that bribery is a tactic commonly used by the CCP.

Takamine Hajime said that the outside world could ask the IOC to provide evidence that suppliers are not using cotton from Xinjiang, or otherwise its just like Peng Shuais phone call with Olympic Committee President Bach that was used as concrete evidence to convince the public that she had complete freedom.

Of course, one other possibility cannot be ruled out. Even if the IOC were to give evidence, it would probably come from the Chinese Communist Party, which is also not credible, because the Chinese Communist Party is founded by liars, he said.

Yang Guiyuan told The Epoch Times: Analyzing the IOCs attitude towards the CCP would seem rather strange to those who are rational, they may question whether the IOC has been bribed by the CCP, and that the Olympic Games have gradually deviated from the principle of fair competition in sports.

Winnie Han Follow Winnie Han reports on China news for The Epoch Times.
In this long exposure photo, the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying the Boeing Starliner crew capsule lifts off on an orbital flight test to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force station, in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 20, 2019. (Terry Renna/AP)

US Needs Offensive Space Capabilities to Deter China: Air Force Secretary

The United States military must invest in both offensive and defensive capabilities in outer space if its to effectively deter potential adversaries such as China and Russia, according to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

Space is a domain which youre not trying to conquer per se, but use to provide services to your terrestrial forces, Kendall said at a recent webinar hosted by the Center for a New American Security, a defense-focused think tank.

Kendall, who serves as the senior civilian leader for both the Air Force and the Space Force, said vital space-based systems that are responsible for communications, GPS, target acquisition systems, and the strategic early warning arrays that tell U.S. commanders when theres a missile launch, are actively being threatened by the increasing contest for space dominance.

Theyre under attack, Kendall said of the systems.

To adequately maintain the defense of space-based systems and to ensure that the United States can deter conflict or, if necessary, win wars, Kendall said it would be necessary to develop and deploy offensive space-based systems.

We need to get to the right mix, he said. It is a combination of proliferation and [platform] desegregation.

CCP Space Threat Is Here Now

Kendall said he has developed a set of operational imperatives to address the greatest challenges facing the U.S. military, including deterring an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He said such deterrence would fail without adequate changes to U.S. basing and the deployment of offensive space capabilities.

We recognized several years ago that space was a contested domain, Kendall said.

He noted that competing in space would require a much more agile strategy than is currently being employed by the U.S. military, one that would allow it to create ambiguity, appear to be in multiple locations at once when it isnt, and utilize deception more effectively.

In space, specifically, it would require decentralizing the aging satellite architecture to ensure resiliency against attack by distributing vulnerable systems across larger constellations of smaller satellites, according to Kendall. Such an effort would also require the deployment of space-based systems capable of denying such services to the nations adversaries, he said.

Kendall didnt specify what form these offensive systems might take, be they directed energy weapons such as lasers or microwave technologies or something more subtle, such as cyber packages or analog mechanical systems such as grabber arms. However, he did say that China was wasting no time in its own pursuit of offensive space capabilities.

Theyve been moving very aggressively to operationalize space from a military perspective, he said.

The comments were similar to those made by Gen. David Thompson of the U.S. Space Force in November 2021. Thompson said the CCP was attacking U.S. space infrastructure every single day.

Such attacks require an active responsea counter capabilitybecause the type of attack the United States is trying to prevent is one of potentially catastrophic proportions, according to Kendall.

The kinds of conflicts were trying to deter  are more like D-Day than they are like the Air Forces strategic air campaign in Europe, he said, referencing the allied bombing campaign in World War II. Theyre very compressed in time. Theyre very high density.

To that end, Kendall also said much more needed to be done to adequately defend both U.S. space infrastructure and its basing architecture throughout the Indo-Pacific, which he said was vulnerable to Chinese military technologies.

[China has] noticed, its quite obvious, that we depend upon a small number of assets, including forward air bases, to conduct operations, he said. And because theyre fixed, theyre easily targetable.

[China] built the assets to come after them. So we have got to respond to that.

Kendall said the hour is late, the need is urgent, and that a failure to act now would be disastrous later.

We cannot go forward with a presumption of superiority, he said. These problems are already upon us. Theyre not a future thing that we have to worry about sometime in 5 or 10 or 15 years down the road. Theyre here now.

China and US have Different Set of Targets

Kendall said urgency doesnt mean that the United States must react blindly, however. He noted the recent discussions about hypersonic weapon development as one area he thought was too reactionary and missed the greater strategic situation of the United States.

China has a set of targets, and I can easily understand why they would want to field hypersonic weapons in reasonable quantities, he said.

He noted that China has fielded many conventional weapons over a number of decades that could attack specific U.S. targets and that it was now adding hypersonics to that list. Each of these weapons provides some specific advantage for how China would want to strike at certain targets, he said.

To that end, Kendall said hypersonic weaponry is important in some limited applications for the U.S. military, but that the United States doesnt share the same strategic priorities or targets as the CCP and therefore requires different military technologies.

We dont have the same target set that theyre worried about, he said.

As such, he said the service would be better served by chipping away at impediments to the development of cost-effective weapons systems and an out-of-control bureaucracy that made any project require multiple years to get off the ground.

The remarks echoed sentiments by former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Hyten, who said a brutal bureaucracy and risk-averse culture were preventing the United States from developing new weapons systems.

With that in mind, Kendall underscored the seriousness of the competition between the United States and China, saying that the clash of powers is something unseen since the Cold War. To win, the United States would have to compete agilely and aggressively.

I have 20 years of Cold War experience, worrying about an enemy who was thinking very hard about how to defeat us and trying to apply technology to that problem, he said. Weve got that again. Thats where we are today.
Victorian Government Releases Return to School Plan

The Victorian Labor Government have released its return-to-school plan for students with COVID-safe measures in place to minimise disruptions to face-to-face learning.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said that day one, term one, is very important. We want to have our kids back in the classrooms; we want kinder back, we want as little disruption to childcare.

The Victorian Government also stated that face-to-face learning was the best option with home-learning only considered as a last resort, close contact students and positive case students excepted.

Face-to-face learning is the best option for our kids learning and wellbeingthats why weve done the work to get students safely back in the classroom from the start of Term 1, said Andrews.

The plan, released Jan. 23, was devised after working in partnership with the NSW government. As with NSW, rapid antigen testing will be implemented twice a week for staff and students in Victoria, with 6.6 million RATs delivered in the first week and 14 million tests overall.

Specialist schools staff and students are recommended to test five days each week due to the higher risk of severe illness for medically vulnerable students.

Booster vaccines are also mandated for teachers and staff. Students aged 5 to 11 years of age are expected to have received both their vaccinations by the end of Term 1, with 30 pop-up vaccination clinics opening on school sites, alongside grants to pharmacies and GPs to deliver vaccines at schools.

Mask wearing will continue, with masks mandated for students in Grade 3 and over, outdoors excepted. Teachers will also be required to wear masks at all times when not actively teaching or communicating with students.

Additionally, the Andrews government has also invested $7.5 million (US$3.4 million) in early childhood services to improve ventilation. 51,000 air purifiers are also expected to be delivered to government and low-fee non-government schools by the first day of Term 1.

These purifiers are intended as a safety measure to slow the spread of the virus, particularly around high-risk areas such as staff rooms, canteens, and other high traffic areas.

The Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has also advised that Victoria is experiencing unprecedented and elevated rates of community transmission, and education settings are likely to be linked to a significant number of cases once the academic year commences after the holiday period.

To cover for any COVID-19 related workforce shortage, the Andrews government has also launched a pool of inactive teachers, retired principles and support and administrative staff in case of staff absences.

In the case of positive cases, schools and kindergartens will be required to inform staff, parents and carers of the event and to provide advice on any steps families are required to take.

As of Jan. 24, there has been 11,695 new COVID-19 cases and 998 hospitalisations in Victoria, with 32 percent of Victorians 18 and over that have received the third dose.
A school bus is seen during a safety event for children at Trailside Middle School, in Ashburn, Va., on Aug. 25, 2015. (Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images)

Virginia Schools Defy Governors Mask-Optional Policy, Isolate Students Who Refuse to Wear Mask

Some students in Virginia have been isolated from their mask-wearing peers after their parents sent them back to school without a mask per Gov. Glenn Youngkins executive order, reports say.

Jan. 24 marks the first day that Youngkins order took effect. Signed hours after the Republican governor assumed office, the order allows parents to elect for their children not to be subject to any mask mandate in effect at the childs school or educational program.

When some students arrived at school on Monday morning without a mask on, however, they were reportedly barred by school officials from joining other students who remain masked.

In an interview with Virginia radio station WMAL-FM, Megan Rafalski of Loudoun County sobbed as she described the way her son was treated.

Its unbelievable what theyre doing to our kids, Rafalski said. They wont let my son go to his classroom, because he wont wear a mask, because hes exercising his right. And theyre forcing him to sit in the office. Hes been strong armed, intimidated by his principal and many others.

Rafalskis son was not the only one forced to stay away from the rest of the students. Rafalski noted that her son has a lot of friends who were sticking together to stand up for their rights.

In a statement put out on Monday, Loudoun County Public Schools said that staff will meet with students who refuse to wear masks and contact their parents to discuss and identify the reason the student will not comply. Yet Rafalski said when she and other parents tried to go inside the school building to talk to school officials, they were told to stay outside in the freezing cold.

All we want is for our kids to be able to go to class with their peers and have fun, smile and learn, Rafalski said. Weve waited so long, we were so hopeful and our kids were so hopeful to go to school on Monday and not be treated this way.

The incident comes as seven Virginia school districts, which collectively serve a total of over 350,000 students across the state, announced that they are suing to block Youngkins order.

In a complaint filed Monday, the school boards of Alexandria City, Arlington County, the City of Richmond, Fairfax County, Falls Church City, Hampton City, and Prince William County accused the Youngkin administration of violating the state constitution and putting students well-being at risk.

Specifically, the districts argued the Virginias state constitution grants local school boards the authority to run their districts they way they see fit. They also cite a state law requiring school systems to follow federal health guidelines, which currently recommend universal indoor masking by students, staff, and visitors in K-12 schools.

This legal action centers on fundamental questions about  whether an executive order can unilaterally override that constitutional authority, the school boards said in a joint press release.

When asked Monday about the lawsuit, White House press secretary Jen Psaki spoke in favor of the suing districts, saying that they should be allowed to follow public health officials when it comes to decisions like mask mandates.

The President believes that public health officials have the best guidance on what we can all do to protect ourselves, including teachers, administrators, and students, Psaki said at a press conference.
Dr. Anthony Fauci arrives for an event at the White House in Washington on Jan. 21, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

We May Need to Boost Again: COVID-19 Vaccine Booster Protection Will Wane, Fauci Says

A second COVID-19 vaccine booster shot may be required because the protection against infection will wane, a top U.S. health official said on Jan. 23.

We may need to boost again, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Bidens chief medical adviser and the longtime head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on ABCs This Week. Thats entirely conceivable, but before we make that decision about yet another boost, we want to determine clearly what the durability of protection is of that regular boost, that third shot that were talking about.

All Americans aged 12 years or older are advised to get an additional shot, or a booster, because the vaccines effectiveness against both infection and severe disease isnt as good as time goes on from the primary regimen.

The vaccines also arent as strong against the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

Some 83 million Americans, or 40 percent of people who received a primary vaccination series, have received a booster dose as of Jan. 23, according to federal data.

In several countries, including Israel, a second booster has been cleared for many individuals in an attempt to reverse a surge in COVID-19 cases. A small portion of Americans can get a fourth dose.

Emerging data indicate that both an initial booster and a second booster restores some of the lost protection against the illness but that the effect quickly wanes.

Data from the United Kingdom, for instance, shows a booster of Pfizer or Moderna was 65 to 75 percent effective against infection 2 to 4 weeks later, but that the effectiveness dropped to 55 to 75 percent at 5 to 9 weeks, and 40 to 50 percent from 10 or more weeks after the additional jab.

It is therefore likely that current vaccines offer limited long-term protection against infection or transmission, the UK Health Security Agency stated in a report (pdf) on vaccine effectiveness earlier this month.

Israeli researchers said around the same time that a second Pfizer shot wasnt enough to prevent infection from Omicron.

A health care worker holds a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Miami, Fla., on Dec. 16, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

On the other hand, some studies have signaled boosters are protective against infection, at least initially, and much of the worldwide data on boosters show they elevate protection against severe disease and that that protection was still high weeks later.

The UK analysis found an initial boost to 92 percent effectiveness against hospitalization that dropped to 82 percent 10 or more weeks later.

Israels Health Ministry stated on Jan. 23 an initial review of data from about 1 million people showed a fourth dose of Pfizers shot shortly after being given tripled the protection against serious illness and doubled protection against infection among those 60 or older, one of the most vulnerable groups to COVID-19.

Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, told a conference this month that he expects the initial booster is not going to hold [up] great and that a second booster may be needed.

Asked about a second boostera fourth jab of Moderna or Pfizers vaccine, or a third dose of Johnson & Johnsons vaccineFauci said officials are unsure because we dont know the durability of protection from the first booster.

Certainly, you are going to see the antibody levels go down, Fauci, who last month said it was premature to be talking about second boosters, told ABC. Thats natural, but theres an element of the immune response, B cell memory and T cell responses, where even though you do see a diminution of antibody levels, it is quite conceivableand I hope its truethat the third shot boost will give a much greater durability of protection. Were following that very carefully.

Antibodies are considered a main marker of protection against infection while B and T cells are seen as a prime indicator of protection against severe disease.

When I say protection, I mean protection against severe disease, Fauci said. You are going to see breakthrough infections as weve seen now, even in boosted people, but for the very most part theyre mild or even asymptomatic.
When we buy a bottle of a famed wine, we take it on faith that its genuine and not a fake.

In fact, fake wine is precisely why corks began to be branded with the name of a winery as well as the vintage date.

Its also why most reputable wineries still use branded corks. When you order a bottle of wine in a restaurant and the waiter hands you the cork, the main reason is so you can inspect it and see if the brand is the same as the one on the label.

If you order a bottle of Chateau Palmer and the cork is blank, for example, that alone is sufficient grounds for rejecting the wine. (Very inexpensive wines often are sold with blank corks that have no brands.)

Is wine fraud rampant here? No, its almost nonexistent. But it happens elsewhere, and often enough that it has spawned lots of discussion and several books. It often takes the form of poor-quality wine with a falsified label that indicates its a great wine.

And fraudulent wine practices have led to scandals (and, rarely, even deaths).

Decades ago, antifreeze was used in some Austrian wine. Another time, some wine in Italy was found to have been adulterated. In both cases, the wines were sold only locally and never made it to the United States.

One famed scandal in Burgundy involved a producer bottling wines of two different quality levels in identically labeled bottles. He was caught.

Wine scandals take many forms and have existed for hundreds of years. The assumption by most fraudsters is that only experts can tell a great wine from an impostor. And wine fraud flourishes to this day. There have been numerous books on the subject.

The first major book explaining wine fraud was The Winemasters by Nicholas Faith (1978), a terrific history of the French wine trade. That was followed by Wine Scandal by Fritz Hallgarten (1986), Wine Snobbery by Andrew Barr (1988), and Is This the Wine You Ordered, Sir? by Christopher Fielden (1989).

Whats interesting is that all the writers above are European. There are few books on American wine fraud because so little of it existsor has been uncovered. Over the decades, there have been only a handful of trivial wine scandals in this country.

Even author Ellen Hawkes, who wrote an unauthorized biography of Ernest and Julio Gallo (Blood and Wine, 1993) never hinted at winemaking chicanery, even though her book did a lot of veneer-stripping.

There are many reasons the California wine industry is so free of taint. One thats not well known is the cooperative relationship between wineries and the government agency that regulates them, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB).

TTB gets a lot of barbs from winemakers, but most say they work closely with TTB inspectors and follow the rules. To do otherwise threatens their livelihoods. Licenses to operate are at stake.

Moreover, inspectors generally are fair-minded, not the ogres some make them out to be.

In Europe, most wine scandals are technical violations of complex regulations that mandate, among other things, how much fruit may grow in a plot of land or how long a bottle of wine must remain in the cellar before it can be sold.

Indeed, for the past several years, many European wine regions have been rewriting their wine regulations to address grievances that producers or trade groups say are hamstringing them. Some of the violations are simply because producers misread the new regulations.

By contrast, U.S. wine regulations are far simpler and thus much easier to follow.
A sign for Wall Street hangs in front of the New York Stock Exchange on July 8, 2021. (Mark Lennihan/AP Photo)

Winter Is Here for Stocks: Why This Analyst Recommends Defensives

Equity markets are going through a lean patch as investors shun risky bets amid the prospect of Fed tightening. An analyst at Morgan Stanley cautions that the downturn may have further legs and recommends investing in defensives.

Attention Turning to Slowing Growth

With the Feds pivot now well understood, investor attention now turns to growth, which is slowing and more than expected, Morgan Stanley equity strategist Michael Wilson said in a note.

The current deceleration in growth is more about the natural ebbing of the cycle than the latest COVID variant, the analyst said. The slowdown has a bit further to go and equity markets havent yet priced for it, he said.

The winter is here, Wilson said.

Defensives Over Cyclicals

Against this backdrop, playing defense makes more sense, the analyst said. The fatter pitch now is to be long defensives relative to cyclicals, he added.

The analyst said he continues to like staples over discretionary goods. Demand payback is becoming more evident in the discretionary goods space, and the high prices are continuing to deter investors.

Historically, staples is an outperformer in the macro regime such as the one seen currently, which is characterized by decelerating EPS growth, declining PMIs, and a tightening by the Fed, Wilson said.

Q4 Expectations

On earnings, the analyst said fourth-quarter results will beat estimates by the typical 3 percent to 4 percent The outlook could be more mixed, as companies guide for the full year for the first time, the analyst said.

Thus far, the median company beating earnings expectations traded down 50 basis points, and the median company missing was down 4 percent, he said.

S&P 500 earnings growth is tracking at 23 percent year-over-year, with all sectors but Utilities expected to see positive growth, Wilson said. The biggest contributors to index level earnings growth are expected to be Energy, Industrials, and Tech, with these three sectors likely to contribute more than half of the indexs growth, the analyst said.

By Shanthi Rexaline

 2021 The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
A map showing the village of Pemi in Northeastern Nigeria. (Google Maps/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Witnesses: Terrorists Abduct 17 Girls in Northeast Nigeria

ABUJA, NigeriaTerrorists have abducted 17 girls in northeast Nigeria, witnesses said Saturday as the West African nations military said it remains resolute in decisively countering the terrorists.

Members of the Boko Haram terrorist group attacked Pemi, a village in the Chibok local government area of Borno state, on Thursday, two residents told The Associated Press. The state is where Boko Harams decade-long insurgency against the Nigeria government has been concentrated.

In a statement late Friday, the terrorist group also claimed responsibility for killing many Christians and setting fire to two churches and several houses during an attack on the Borno town of Bimi.

Authorities blame Boko Haram for the killing of tens of thousands of people in Nigeria and neighboring countries in West Africa.

The abduction of the girls from Pemi recalled the 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, a remote town situated 80 miles south of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. More than 100 of the abducted students remain missing.

The terrorists targeted a church and Christians when they stormed Pemi on Thursday, according to local leader Hassan Chibok.

They were shooting sporadically after they rounded the community, Chibok said. Some could not have access to escape, so they abducted 17 girls. Eight of the girls came from one household, he said.

Nigerias military and government authorities did not immediately respond the APs request for comment on the abductions.

Another resident, Yana Galang, said the terrorists razed a church building and targeted nearby houses.

Some of them [the abducted girls] are 10, 11, 12 years, Galang said. They just parked their vehicle near the compounds. You know, as children, they just carried them and put them in the vehicle.

A Nigerian army spokesperson, Onyema Nwachukwu, told AP on Friday that the terrorists were desperate to grow their influence. He was commenting on a video from a Boko Haram offshoot which purported to show child soldiers executing Nigerian army personnel.

Having been depleted by our troops, the imbroglio in their ranks, and the massive surrendering of Boko Haram, the terrorists, in a desperate move, are embarking on a recruitment drive to shore up their strength with child soldiers, who they could easily indoctrinate, manipulate, and cheaply manage financially, Nwachukwu said.

The Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, the Islamic States West Africa Province (ISWAP) remain very, very dangerous in northeast Nigeria, United Nations humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said this week.

The insurgency and its resultant humanitarian crisis, Griffiths told the AP, is very difficult to deter [and] a grave and clear and present danger.

Security analysts have told AP one of the challenges the Nigerian military usually faces in rooting out the rebels is their use of women and children as cover during airstrikes.

They have also conscripted children, minors, who they engage as child soldiers and women, whom they use as sex slaves, army spokesperson Nwachukwu said.

By Chinedu Asadu
Young Volunteer Mentors Kathleen (L), Jaiden (2L), Mazzy (C), Candace (2R), and Benjamin (R), all 11-years-old, in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden.)

Young Volunteers Leading the Way at Musical Mentors

The picture of a volunteer of America may bring to mind older, seasoned citizens imparting the wisdom of their years to a younger generation.

But who thinks of the benefit an 11-year-old mentor can have on even younger children, who would be more impacted by someone close to their age?

Duff and Bonita Rowden have, do, and will continue to do so in the future. The couple found that pre-teen and teenage volunteers sometimes work best at their non-profit called Musical Mentors, started in California in 2007.

In the beginning, the San Juan Capistrano couple couldnt help but notice there was some trouble in paradise among Southern California young people.

They saw kids tangled up in a toxic mix of mis-direction, unintended family crisis, bad choices, and lack of parental know-how just when kids needed it mostwhen they were very young.

Intermediate students play at the Parents Progress Recital at Musical Mentors in San Clemente, Calif., in 2019. Maki (R) is the Volunteer Mentor for this group, having gone through the entire program himself. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

These are youngsters loaded with potential, said Duff Rowden, but they are so often overlooked. Sometimes theres trouble at school. Sometimes parents are stressed over critical life issues. Bonita and I knew that somebody had to step up and help them. Then we realized somebody was us. We had to do it.

Having something to offer troubled kids, though, was another story.

I began wondering what do I have that younger kids want, anyway? As a music pastor I play guitar and sing for a living. I thought Kids might want to learn that.

And learn the children have, for nearly 15 years. Establishing their nonprofit also in 2007 Duff Rowden estimates Musical Mentors has helped easily more than 1,000 kids, with their beginning, intermediate, and advanced guitar and ukulele classes.

Some of these kids can spend years with us, he said, because were about more than the music. Its about life support.

Eric, 8, warms up for the Progress Recital for Parents at Musical Mentors, in 2008. He stayed with the program for three years, and overcame many difficulties, said Duff Rowden. We were very proud of him. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

But the beauty is that its not just Bonita and me doing it, Duff Rowden said. Kids graduating from the advanced class were eager to turn around and help the newer, younger ones coming in.

The Rowdens also discovered that at times these young mentors were more effective than they were.

Though we do have adult volunteers when a 13-year-old pays attention to an 8-year-old beginner thats meaningful, Duff Rowden said. Young kids believe teenagers have absolutely no interest in them. When the older ones give them attention it makes them happy and gives their self-image a real boost.

Volunteer mentors watch closely as each student learns to play a single note; then a bar of music; then several bars, repeating it slowly until learned. Then they tackle an entire song.

Soon there is success and smiles! We call that going slow to learn faster, Duff Rowden said. The mentors love what they learned, and further, how they learned it, he said. So, the process becomes kids helping each other obtain a common goal. Thats very satisfying.

Zack, then aged 8, went on to graduate with honors from Musical Mentors. Here he plays guitar with Duff Rowden (R). (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

For many of our mentors this will be the first time theyre in a leadership position. Theyve been entrusted with helping develop younger people, Duff Rowden said. When they see admiration and respect, along with impact they are making, they think I am a big deal to someone.

They also pass on the critical life lesson of overcoming obstacles, he said.

Even an 11-year-old mentor knows that music is more than playing an instrument. Its about getting along with people. If youre going to play in a group you cant be selfish. You have to focus, think about what other people are doing and do it with them.

Bonita Rowden said entire families benefit from the process.

We have two recitals each class and parents see their children learning a skill others dont have making their kids feel special. Parents want to see their children smile, succeed, and stay out of trouble. Its encouraging for the whole family.

Duff and Bonita Rowden started Musical Mentors in 2007 to help kids learn how to play life right. More than 1,000 youngsters have gone through Musical Mentor programs. Photo taken in 2021. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden.)

Duff Rowden easily relates to the debilitating angst good kids can experience through an unexpected crisis.

My mother was driving our family to Disneyland one day, he said. There was a bad accident and she didnt make it. My father, two older brothers, and two sisters were never the same afterwards. Home became a depressing, sad, and sometimes violent place. I was the youngest boy and overlooked. Music became my escape to a happier place. Thats what I see when I look at some of our kids. They need support, direction, and a new focus to give them some life, just like me.

We are here to help the kids with problems they cant handle on their own, said Bonita Rowden. What we do is more than music. Its soul repairing. The music is the vehicle for healing and encouraging kids.

Be Like Zack

Musical Mentors encourages kids like Zack, who came when he was just 8 years old.

Zack had already learned to quit, said Duff Rowden. Thats abnormal for someone so young.

I told him, babies dont quit when theyre learning how to walk. They fall a thousand times, but keep getting up. They dont know even know how to quit. You can do what a baby can do, and not quit, right?

He reluctantly agreed and learned to play the guitar step by step. And he did it! He went through all our classes. Now I tell all our kids, Be Like Zack.

Zach, 17, in this 2017 photo was awarded the first guitar given by Musical Mentors. He became a volunteer mentor for two years. (Courtesy of Duff Rowden)

Bonita Rowden said, Beginning students are given new guitars if they complete the 16-week course and do all their homework. When Zach graduated, he was awarded his guitar and he went on to became a volunteer mentor.

These are the ones new kids really look up to, because they are just like them. They think If they can do it, I can do it.

The lessons learned at Musical Mentors are transferable into all areas of life, Bonita Rowden said.

Because Zach overcame his quit mentality, he went on to do more difficult things and succeed. He became a proficient videographer. Today, hes a ranger for the California Park Service and hes made some videos for them.

We are so proud of him. Thats learning how to play life right.

For more information contact musicalmentors.org.
Erik Trautmann / Hearst Connecticut Media

NORWALK  Students and staff at the local community college are not backing down from urging the citys transit board to maintain shuttle service between the school and the train station.

Norwalk Community College will hold a demonstration on Tuesday at noon to protest the elimination of the NCC shuttle that runs between the colleges West Campus and the South Norwalk Metro-North train station. The protest will take place in front of the West Campus bus shelter.
Salida, CO (81201)

Today

Clouds and some sun this morning with more clouds for this afternoon. High near 55F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

A few clouds. Low around 35F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.
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That release could not be found.
The former the spokesperson of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organisation during the 2019 elections, Kassim Afegbua has advised his former boss, Atiku Abubakar, not to contest the presidency in 2023.

He said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must zone its 2023 presidential candidacy to the south, and as such, Atiku should ditch his quest.

Afegbua in a statement on Sunday said Atiku should not make himself a perpetual candidate for the presidency. Atiku has unsuccessfully contested the presidency five times in the last three decades.

Afegbua said it is immoral for such an old man to attempt another round of political contestation.

He said the presidency belongs to the south, adding that the idea of an Atiku candidacy is akin to promoting an expired product.

Having concluded the convention of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, with a new leadership that looks promising, the party will have to rise above board to produce a presidential candidate from the southern part of the country to complete the narrative, the statement reads in part.

With the abysmal performance of President Muhammadu Buhari on account of age, incompetence and lack of capacity and political will to take deliberate and sustained action to bail out the country from all manner of challenges, it will be immoral for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to continue to express interest in seeking election in the 2023 presidential election having attained the retirement age.

He cannot assume the role of a perpetual candidate or professional aspirant year in, year out, of the party as though the party was established for him alone. It defeats all sense of logic for such an old man to attempt another round of political contestation at a time the general feeling and mood in the country supports a younger Nigerian from the southern extraction of the country.

For me, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should quit his quest for presidency and support a southern Nigerian candidate in the spirit of fairness, equity and justice, that will assuage the feelings of stakeholders from the southern part of Nigeria. It will be against the run of play and natural justice for any aspirant of Northern extraction to show interest in the 2023 presidential election within the Peoples Democratic Party threshold. It will offend national sentiments, emotions and logic for anyone from the North to show such interest given our diversities and hetereogenous political configurations.

After the 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar abandoned all of us in Nigeria and sought refuge in far away Dubai, thus exposing us to the intimidations, harassment and threats posed by the desperate APCs power oligarchs. It was a case of a general abandoning his troops in the battlefield. Rather than draw strength from his presence, his absence exposed us to all manner of challenges.

Afegbua said the promoters of Atikus aspiration know in their heart of hearts that it is a project that is dead on arrival.
The Integrity Youth Alliance has intensified consultations ahead of its Friday, 28th January, 2022 one day rally in support of the proposed removal of petroleum products subsidy.

Its Board Chairman, Adewole Kehinde in a press release on Monday, 24th January 2022 said that the Alliance will be meeting with heads of the 32 affiliates to finalize on how to make the support rally successful.

He also said that the rally is aimed at sensitizing Nigerians with what the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) said on deregulation as the decision on the new price regime belonged to the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited.

He said: The meeting today is to sensitize the youth leaders on how to mobilize the youths and other Nigerians.

Notification Letter have been sent to the FCT Police Command for the timely rally

The Group further faulted the proposed NLC rallies, saying that the deregulation of Premium Motor Spirit also known as Petrol is now a constitutional issue that can't be stopped by rallies.

"The good news is that the Federal Government has commenced rehabilitation of the existing refineries including establishing new modular refineries and Port Harcourt Refinery should start working by April, 2022 as announced by the MD of Port Harcourt Refinery when the House of Representatives Committee on Downstream Sector paid oversight function to the rehabilitation of the Refinery.

The statement further said with effective production of Dangote Refinery by September 2022, it will throw the price of Petroleum to market forces thereby reducing the pump price of petrol.
In his visit to Kenya on January 6, 2022, Chinas Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, emphasized Chinas support for economic progress in Africa, and in particular, the Horn of Africa.

Wang was continuing Chinas 32-year-old tradition of having their foreign minister begin each year with an overseas trip to Africa. In the first week of January, Wang met with officials in Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros. Both Eritrea and Kenya are located in East Africa, a region where Ethiopia, the second most populated nation in Africa, is engaged in a 14-month war to defeat an armed insurrection led by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front. Kenya, an important ally of China, is a key nation in Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Maritime Silk Road.

Eliminating poverty

Wang, in his press conference, focused on the number one challenge facing Africa: poverty and the extremely low standard of living affecting the majority of its 1.4 billion people.

He polemically stated,If there is any trap in Africa, it is the trap of poverty and the trap of backwardness, which he counterposed to the so-called debt trap that he referred to as a speech trap created by the West. China speaks with authority, which has accomplished a modern day miracle in lifting over 750 million of its people out of extreme poverty and has pledged to help Africa do the same.

A woman fills up her water jerrycan in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, January 1, 2022. /VCG

Chinas approach to the current challenges in the Horn of Africa is in stark contrast to that of the U.S. Instead of punishing Eastern African nations with sanctions and economic warfare, China is promoting peace and economic development. According to Wang, China will appoint a special envoy for the region, with the goal:

To support the Horn of Africa in realizing lasting stability, peace and prosperity, China is willing to put forward the Initiative of Peaceful Development in the Horn of Africa and support regional countries in addressing the triple challenges of security, development and governance.

Emphasizing Chinas infrastructure-led economic approach, Wang encouraged nations of the region to accelerate regional revitalization to overcome development challenges, adding that the two principal axes, the Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, and the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, should be enlarged and enhanced with the aim of expanding to neighboring countries at an opportune moment.

Wang announced that China would provide an additional 10 million doses of coronavirus vaccine to Kenya which follows President Xi Jinpings November pledge at the Forum on China Africa Cooperation conference in Dakar, to make 1 billion doses available to Africa.

Chinas policy guided by development

The dominant feature of Chinas relation to Africa is development, contrary to the Western geopolitical propaganda against China. The infrastructure-driven BRI has made physical improvements in African economies through the construction of railways, roads, power generation capacity, ports and airports. There is not a single Western nation that even remotely compares to Chinas level of investment in Africa.

As every African leader knows well, if China were to cease offering loans for infrastructure, there would be no Western nation to address the continents huge deficit in the field, and African nations would suffer terribly.

The U.S. has failed to modernize its own rail network and is incapable of building advanced transportation corridors in other countries, while China had constructed around 40,000 kilometers of high-speed rail by the end of 2021.

Unlike U.S. officials who travel to African nations, Chinese representatives do not attach political conditionalities or arrogantly dictate what domestic policies must be adopted by their host countries. Instead, China is thoughtful by responding to the most critical and urgent needs of African nations. That is the elimination of poverty, which necessitates massive investments in hard and soft infrastructure.

Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freemans stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton.
More often than not, calculations of realpolitik hold the UN Security Council back from taking action to deter or reverse military takeovers. Yet UN member states can use the body as a platform for efforts to keep soldiers in the barracks and away from politics.

In October 2021, ambassadors from the UN Security Council were on a visit to Niger when they heard that the Sudanese military had seized power in Khartoum, arresting civilian ministers. The diplomats briefly wondered whether they could hold an impromptu Council meeting on the crisis in their hotel. They decided not to do so, and the Council took a few days to hammer out a press statement expressing serious concern about the military takeover.

If the events in Sudan caught the Council on the hop, UN diplomats have become wearily familiar with what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called an epidemic of coup detats. The Council diplomats gathered in Niger in October had previously been in Mali, where they had met with Assimi Goita, a colonel who took power last May in the countrys second coup in just ten months. Over the last year, Council members have faced considerable criticism from both other UN member states and civil society for failing to take firm steps toward reversing the 1 February 2021 military takeover in Myanmar. The body did not even release statements regarding two further coups  in Chad and Guinea  that took place in 2021.

The Security Council has never been particularly adept at responding to coups.

This poor track record is not especially surprising. The Security Council has never been particularly adept at responding to coups. Oisin Tansey, an expert on international diplomacy around military takeovers, notes that the Council did not address coups at all until the Cold War ended and has taken only a highly selective approach to them since. It has responded to fewer than a quarter of the coups that have taken place in this period, ignoring military takeovers in cases including Pakistan (1999), Thailand (2006 and 2014) and Egypt (2013). Although it has acted forcefully on rare occasions  including mandating a U.S. military intervention in Haiti to restore the democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994  it more often confines itself to making statements of the type that it released regarding Sudan.

A Record of Inaction

There is no consensus among Council members about how far the body should go in responding to coups. Some, including China and Russia, argue that the Council should stay out of UN member states internal politics altogether and often aim to rein in Council comments on coups. Beijing and Moscow are generally suspicious of UN sanctions in principle and oppose applying such measures to coup plotters. Western diplomats grumble that their Chinese and Russian counterparts also frequently water down proposed statements  for example, refusing to use the word condemn regarding the military takeover in Sudan. But non-Western Council members counter that Western countries display double standards in response to military takeovers. Some Asian diplomats complain that the U.S., the UK and their allies pushed hard for the Council to speak out about Myanmars coup  which resonated strongly with domestic audiences in North America and Europe  while ignoring similar events in Chad and Guinea.

The Councils reticence in the Chadian and Guinean cases could be explained by neither country being on the bodys formal agenda. By contrast, the Council could hardly avoid addressing the coup in Myanmar and the subsequent events in Mali and Sudan, as the UN was already engaged politically with all three countries, with a special envoy covering Myanmar, a political mission in Khartoum and over 15,000 peacekeepers deployed in Mali. Yet the Council response in all three cases was still tentative. Members convened emergency sessions behind closed doors and released statements of concern. In each case, at first they released only a press statement, one of the weakest tools in the UNs diplomatic armory, and avoided explicitly using the word coup to describe what had happened; in Sudans case, at least, they inserted a reference to a military takeover. Only in Myanmars case did the Council eventually make a more formal declaration  in the form of a presidential statement  condemning the juntas actions, although it took over a month to do so. Since then, it has continued to put out press statements on specific acts of violence in Myanmar, with little or no observable impact. Turning to Mali, the Council included paragraphs on the May coup and the need to return to a democratic transition in the standard resolution renewing the UN peacekeeping force in the country.

The Council has seemed very keen for other actors to take the lead in responding to coups 

In general, the Council has seemed very keen for other actors to take the lead in responding to coups, although with varying degrees of conviction and cohesion. After Malis military arrested the president, the Council encouraged all the Malian stakeholders to work with the African Union (AU) and the sub-regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)  both of which have strong stances against coups written into their institutional guiding documents  to find a political solution. But there are limits to how far the Council will go. When ECOWAS announced stringent sanctions against Mali in January, Russia  which has deepening ties with the officers in charge in Bamako  and China stopped the Council from issuing a statement expressing its support.

Sometimes the Councils endorsement of other actors can look like an alibi for inaction. In October 2021, in the case of Sudan, the Council expressed strong support for efforts by the AU, League of Arab States and East African sub-regional organisation Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to handle the crisis, although none of these actors had a clear plan for how to end it. In debates over Myanmar earlier in the year, Council members including Vietnam and India as well as China and Russia insisted that the UN endorse diplomacy by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), although Western diplomats fretted that the regional organisation would move too cautiously to deal with the military, given its history of non-interference in its members internal affairs. In the event, ASEAN has indeed proceeded with a very light touch  although it refused to let Myanmar participate in a recent top-level summit  and some New York-based diplomats from the region have expressed frustration that the U.S. and other powers have not pushed for a tougher approach at the UN.

Despairing of the Council, a group of concerned states initially led by Liechtenstein tabled a UN General Assembly resolution in May 2021 condemning the Myanmar coup, a rare step. But this initiative also ran into diplomatic difficulties. ASEAN members diluted references to an arms embargo against the junta, and China and Russia refused to back the text. In the end, 119 countries voted in favour of the resolution, but it had no obvious concrete impact, and the General Assembly moved onto other priorities. Overall, neither the Council nor the wider UN seems able or willing to take firm action against coups.

Reasons to Hit the Brakes

Beyond fundamental disagreements about the Councils remit in countries internal affairs, there are three recurrent considerations that appear to contribute to its stuttering response to this type of crisis: confusion, geopolitics and the Councils lack of leverage in the countries concerned.

First, the element of confusion tends to be especially important in the early stages of the Councils response to a coup. In the aftermath of a military takeover, Council members often lack good information about what is happening on the ground. They may also have no clear instructions from their capitals. In the first days after Myanmars February 2021 coup, for example, Chinese diplomats appeared uncertain of Beijings priorities and were furious when someone leaked a draft Council press statement that may not have taken into account instructions from their home office. Under these circumstances, it is easiest for diplomats to hedge their bets, consult in private and avoid passing statements or resolutions that could complicate matters. Where the UN has envoys in a country who can talk to military and civilian leaders, it is also natural for the Council to let these officials try to resolve a crisis.

Secondly, as the initial diplomatic confusion following a military takeover dissipates, the geopolitical interests of the Councils five veto-wielding permanent members are liable to hamper its long-term response. While Beijing was surprised and displeased by events in Myanmar, where it had developed close ties with the civilian government, China grew somewhat closer to the junta over the course of 2021. (Anti-junta protesters attacks on Chinese-owned companies may have helped tilt Beijing in this direction.) Russia was even quicker to show support for the Myanmar junta  which is a limited but growing purchaser of Russian arms  sending a deputy defence minister to attend a parade in the capital Naypyitaw in March, despite signing off on the Councils previous statements calling for a return to democracy. Moscow has also cultivated close ties with the Sudanese generals and has started to build up influence in Mali, where the military authorities have allegedly invited the Wagner Group private military contractor into the country (explaining Moscows refusal to back ECOWAS sanctions against Mali).

Western powers have their own interests in the affected countries. In a situation such as Mali, most Council members  including the permanent five  appear to see their primary concern as limiting the risks that jihadist groups pose to their national interests. The Council and UN officials and peacekeepers on the ground, as well as Council members like France that have their own national military operations in Mali, have little choice but to work with the de facto authorities and local armed forces.

Even when Council members do make an effort to address coup-makers directly  their leverage is limited. 

Finally, even when Council members do make an effort to address coup-makers directly, they often find that their leverage is limited. One goal of the Councils visit to the Sahel in October was, after all, to encourage Malis acting president, Colonel Goita, to move ahead with elections planned for February 2022. Yet the visit also underlined the limits of the Councils influence. Diplomats say Goita, pointedly wearing his military fatigues, was extremely difficult to deal with. In December, the Malian junta announced that it would prefer to delay new elections as late as 2026. Broadly speaking, few diplomats in New York, whatever their national stances on coups, believe the body has the will or capabilities to take drastic action to reverse military takeovers.

Upholding an Eroding Norm

Against this backdrop, those diplomats who believe the Council can do a better job preparing for similar future challenges tend to focus on more modest goals, emphasising that the Council should keep a closer eye out for warning signs of military takeovers. One recent senior member of the Council told Crisis Group that the body failed to show interest in the Sudanese political situation prior to the October 2021 events, perhaps missing an opportunity to send useful signals of support to civilian politicians. In theory, the Council has many ways to flag its interest, such as visiting missions like the recent trip to West Africa. If such travel is too taxing, or remains difficult because of COVID-19 variants, the Council has numerous formats for public and private informal meetings  including videoconferences  with politicians, officials and civil society leaders from countries that seem at risk. Council members could convene these meetings to probe threats to civilian government in countries on their agenda more systematically.

Still, where they are not united  and the permanent five in particular are divided  over how to deal with a tottering civilian government or a recalcitrant junta, such engagements will count for very little. Sudanese military leaders assured a U.S. envoy in October that the army had no intention of seizing power literally hours before it did just that. It is hard to believe that the generals would have taken stern warnings from the UN more gravely.

States that want the Council to deter or reverse a coup will in many cases be best served by seeing it as a platform for public diplomacy around these crises. 

Accordingly, states that want the Council to deter or reverse a coup will in many cases be best served by seeing it as a platform for public diplomacy around these crises. If and when a substantial number of Council members express concern, they may at least create some impetus for other actors  such as regional organisations  to take more concrete action. Limited as ASEANs diplomacy regarding Myanmar has been, the group would probably have done even less if it had not felt pressure from the Security Council and General Assembly to step up.

Where regional organisations do favour a strong response to coups  as in the case of ECOWAS  their members can also use the UN as a platform to amplify their concerns. Ghana, an ECOWAS member which has backed a tough line on Mali and a firm AU posture on Sudan, has just joined the Council for a two-year term. It could use its tenure to focus attention on the deleterious effects of coups on peace and security  whether in terms of threats to civilians or the dangers of regional disruption  with formal and informal Council meetings about the problem. The Security Council is unlikely to respond more systematically or effectively to such challenges in the future. But it is a venue where those states that want to see militaries stay in the barracks and away from politics can continue to press for upholding the eroding norm against coups.

Diplomats at the United Nations are preparing for an unholy row over Ukraine. As Colum Lynch of Foreign Policy reported this month, the Biden administration is planning for a high-profile public showdown with Russia in the Security Council if Moscow launches a new offensive against its neighbor. If hostilities escalate, the United States, its allies, and Ukraine are also likely to push for other U.N. bodies, like the General Assembly and Human Rights Council, to condemn Russia. While Russian diplomats will reject these criticisms out of hand, the crisis could make it harder for Washington and Moscow to compromise over other crises on the U.N. agenda.

Opening Moves Played Before

U.N. watchers have a pretty good idea how this diplomatic battle will play out, at least in its early stages, because we have seen it before. In February and March 2014, prior to and following Russias annexation of Crimea, the Council held seven meetings  most of them in public  on the crisis. Western ambassadors and the then Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin engaged in rhetorical fisticuffs, before Churkin quite predictably vetoed a resolution affirming Ukraines continued sovereignty over Crimea. Ukraine then tabled a resolution in the General Assembly reaffirming its territorial integrity, garnering the support of 100 of the U.N.s 193 members. At the time, Vice President Biden called it an overwhelming vote.

The United States and its allies will most probably follow a similar playbook this year if war comes. Their goal will not be to stop the conflict  which will require negotiations far away from New York  but to shame Moscow. Russia, which holds the Security Councils rotating presidency in February, could try to block the Council discussing the issue. As long as nine members back a meeting, the U.S. can force a procedural vote on the matter, to which the veto does not apply.

The Russians may welcome a Council debate anyway. In the last year, the Russian mission has convened four informal Council meetings (known as Arria Formula sessions) on Ukraine-related matters. Outside briefers chosen by the Russian U.N. mission have given positive accounts of the situation in Crimea, warned of Neo-Nazi tendencies in Ukraine and rehashed the events of the 2014 Maidan revolution. While Western Council members have used Arria Formula sessions to challenge Russia over Ukraine in the past  including one on Crimea last spring  Russia has become increasingly keen to sell its version of events at the U.N. In the case of war, the Russians will counter Western criticism in the Security Council on their behavior with their own narratives about the origins and fallout of the renewed conflict.

No Winners: Rhetorical Stalemates

There is unlikely to be any clear winner in such a rhetorical stand-off. Aficionados of U.N. history often hark back to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson brutally dismantled his Soviet counterparts arguments in a televised debate. Yet in todays fragmented media environment, neither the Americans nor the Russians are likely to score such a decisive victory. Ukrainian, Western, and Russian media and social media channels will all publish their sides preferred versions of the outcomes of Council debates.

Unhelpful Tactics and Blocked Moves

The United States and its allies could aim to shape the debate by tabling a resolution condemning Russias actions and calling for it to pull its troops back. Russia would of course be ready to veto such a text. During the 2014 crisis some Council experts argued that the West could get around this by citing Article 27(3) of the U.N. Charter, which states that Council members are obliged to abstain on resolutions concerning disputes to which they are party, as long as they fall under Chapter VI of the U.N. Charter (which covers the pacific settlement of disputes). While this sounds like a clever ruse, it has some flaws. Neither the United States nor any of the other permanent five (P5) members of the Council are likely to want to create precedents for limiting their own veto powers in future, just to score what may amount to a symbolic point. Forcing Russia to veto a resolution  as the West has often done over Syria  would make the point equally clearly.

The bulk of U.N. diplomats prefer to stay out of spats between Russia and the West, which they rightly think the U.N. cannot do much about.

With the Security Council blocked, the United States and Ukraine would duly turn to the General Assembly to condemn Russia. While Ukraine might enjoy a lot of sympathy in the Assembly, many of the African, Asian, and Latin American countries that make up two-thirds of the U.N. membership will view this prospect with unease. The bulk of U.N. diplomats prefer to stay out of spats between Russia and the West, which they rightly think the U.N. cannot do much about. Although with the United States whipping votes, Ukraine was able to muster 100 supporters to back it over Crimea in 2014, it has seen its support dwindle in successive votes urging for Russia to withdraw from the territory.

Last December, just 62 countries voted in favor of Ukraines latest resolution on the topic. Even if a greater number supported a resolution rebuking Russia over any military action in the coming months  and indeed, a military intervention would probably change the scales  Moscow would likely calculate that this criticism too will fade over time.

In practical terms, the Assembly could call on the U.N. Secretary-General to appoint a mediator in the crisis, or authorize a Commission of Inquiry into its origins. In theory, it could also reach for a much-discussed but rarely-used formula called Uniting for Peace, dating back to the Korean crisis, by which the General Assembly can make non-binding recommendations on steps for dealing with crises including the use of armed force when necessary when the Security Council is paralyzed. This is popular with civil society activists around the U.N., but less so with diplomats and especially P5 diplomats, who do not want to see the Council supplanted as the main U.N. organ dealing with security matters. While Arab countries floated the idea of resorting to Uniting for Peace over Syria in 2013, the United States, France, and United Kingdom dissuaded them from doing so.

It is also hard to see what good invoking Uniting for Peace could actually do during a Ukrainian conflict. Facing a hot war involving Russia, few if any U.N. members would actually back the use of armed force to counter Moscow. Even a generic call for sanctions might prove difficult: The General Assembly took months to agree on a resolution on last years coup in Myanmar, and could not even agree on a plainly worded call for an arms embargo against the junta. U.S. and European diplomats might even bridle at the Assembly taking smaller concrete steps, such as calling for a U.N. envoy to address the conflict, as they wont want international officials getting in the way of their own diplomacy. When Poland raised the idea of appointing a U.N. envoy for Ukraine during a term on the Security Council in 2018-2019, France killed the idea.

Other Diplomatic Goals

For the United States and other backers of Ukraine, the point of going to the General Assembly would, therefore, still be more about public relations than actual peacemaking. The United States and its allies could also turn to the Human Rights Council to pass a further resolution on the crisis. U.N. human rights officials have already done useful work in Ukraine  for example by reporting on the situation in Crimea, which monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) do not cover  and, like the General Assembly, could launch an inquiry into events in Ukraine. But such mechanisms are unlikely to scare Moscow very much.

From a U.S. perspective, one particularly desirable symbolic win would be to get Beijing to distance itself from Moscow over the conflict in all these U.N. forums (China, like the United States and Russia, currently holds a Human Rights Council seat as well a Security Council one). In 2014, China did not join Russia in vetoing the Security Council resolution on Crimea. Colum Lynch reports that the Biden administration also hopes to place a wedge between Russia and its most powerful ally, China  a perennial if elusive U.S. foreign policy objective. This is not inconceivable but its significance should not be overestimated either. China has occasionally abstained on some Security Council resolutions over Syria that Russia blocked, but this has not stopped its forging a close working relationship with Russia at the U.N. over time. Even if it does not come to Moscows diplomatic aid in this crisis, Russia will assume that Beijing will revert to backing its positions on other U.N. matters before long.

Sacrificing Other U.N. Interests

Nonetheless, Bidens team has looked for opportunities to work with the Russians. 

One big question for the United States in challenging Russia at the U.N. over Ukraine is what the second-order effects of their clash will be for other U.N. business. The Biden administration has not had easy relations with Russia in Turtle Bay to date, arguing with differing levels of heat over issues ranging from the military takeover in Sudan to the international supervision of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nonetheless, Bidens team has looked for opportunities to work with the Russians. Last summer, the United States led a hefty diplomatic effort to stop Russia vetoing the Security Council mandate for U.N. agencies to deliver aid to rebel-held northwest Syria without permission from Damascus. After Russia agreed to this deal (despite refusing U.S. suggestions to open additional aid crossings) U.S. Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield praised this as proof that the United States and Russia could still work together in the U.N.

Nonetheless, diplomats around the U.N. fret that a breakdown over Ukraine could stop the United States and Russians making similar compromises in future. The Syrian aid regime, which is up for renewal once again in July, could be one potential casualty. Yet a complete fracture is not guaranteed. U.N. officials note that while Council debates over Ukraine were furious in the spring of 2014, this did not stop Russia and Western powers compromising over the original mandate for aid to Syria soon afterwards, and the Council launched a major peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic in the same year. Although the overall state of major power relations in New York has deteriorated since then, it is still possible that the P5 and other U.N. members will manage to compartmentalize Ukraine and other crises.

Perhaps Best Available Move

For all the sound and fury, the U.N. could ultimately also provide a framework for resolving a Russian-Ukrainian war. There is an outside possibility that it might. Russia insisted that the Security Council endorse both the 2015 Minsk II agreement that de-escalated intense fighting in Donbas. It might want the Council to play a similar role after a further round of hostilities. There have also been periodic discussions of whether U.N. monitors or peacekeepers could help patrol a future settlement in Ukraine, alongside or in place of OSCE monitors. It is just conceivable that the Security Council might eventually reach for such a deployment to end an escalated war in Ukraine. But the U.S. and its allies would surely have qualms about this option, especially if it looked like the U.N. would freeze the conflict on terms favorable to Russia, and it might be hard to find troop contributors willing to risk the mission.

Overall and in sum, the U.N. is unlikely to be much more than a platform for political theater over large-scale war in Ukraine. It might have considerable negative consequences for the U.N.s work in other trouble-spots. But if escalated war does break out, the United States and its allies will have little choice but show their anger at the U.N., if only to maintain the pretense that it still matters.
Anambra State has decried the disinformation campaign against the government which has continued more than two months after the November 6 2021 gubernatorial election in the state.

A statement by the state Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, C. Don Adinuba, provided instances of disinformation which, he explained, are designed to de-market the state, create trust deficit between the people and the government and manufacture a friction between the outgoing administration of Governor Willie Obiano and the incoming administration of Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo.

The latest instance is the sponsored false report on the social media that the Obiano administration budgeted a whopping N500m for the Professor Soludo inauguration on March 17 which the governor-elect rejected and rather opted for a N20m ceremony.

None of the figures bandied about has any iota of truth, as the governor never prepared a budget which Professor Soludo could have possibly accepted or rejected.

More embarrassing is the allegation that the governor-elect wants an inauguration ceremony which cannot cost more than N20m.

Professor Soludo, who is determined to run a frugal administration, wants a most modest inauguration which will last a couple of minutes in front of Government House, Awka, and cannot cost anything near one million naira (N1m).

Soludos decision has been conveyed to Governor Obiano who is delighted that his successor, whom he supported every inch of the way in his gubernatorial quest in the last few years, is resolved to run a lean administration so as to save money for Anambra people.

Governor Obiano has always stated publicly that he chose to back Professor Obiano on account of his outstanding brilliance, robust performance record, solid commitment to the public good and acute preparedness to transform the state within a short period.

Therefore, all the concocted reports about a fight between him and the governor-elect are baseless.

Commissioner Adinuba also commented on claims in the media last week that his absence and that of Governor Obiano at the inauguration of the Transition Committee led by Dr Oby Ezekwesili, a former World Bank vice president, was an indication of a rift between Obiano and Soludo.

The only reporter who filed this report, which went viral, obviously took fiction too far, even by standards of sensational journalism, and ended up embarrassing his colleagues who were at the venue and provided accurate reports of the proceedings.

Words I never used were ascribed to me and the point I was making about not being a member of the committee was taken out of context to fit into a narrative of a split.

Of course, Chief Obiano was not scheduled to attend the inauguration, as a large and competent government delegation led by the Secretary to the State Government, Professor Solo Chukwulobelu, was at the venue.

The SSG, commissioners, special advisers and heads of various agencies have since been providing all necessary facilities and information to the Transition Committee needed for a smooth handover.

The commissioner stated fictitious reports, sponsored by politically exposed individuals who lost out badly in the November gubernatorial vote, are meant to damage the states reputation.

It is regrettable that even Anambra International Passenger and Cargo Airport, which saw a phenomenal 3865 passengers and 145 flights in the first month of commercial flight operations which started last December, is also the butt of vicious attacks by politicians.

In a desperate effort to stop people from using the airport, they sponsored a report on the social media claiming that a large herd of so-called Fulani-owned cows broke into the airport, assisted by dangerously armed herders.

It is remarkable that all the airport stakeholders, including airlines, passengers, security agencies, technical and cabin crews, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Ministry of Aviation as well as serious journalists treated the report with the contempt it deserved.

Adinuba advised politicians who sponsor relentless reports against the state in the name of fighting a political war to desist from the attempt to de-market the state.

The election is over, he declared, and what our people need now is an atmosphere of cooperation, collaboration and solidarity to enable the governor-elect to kick off the desired revolution to launch Anambra State into a stratosphere of development.

Signed

C. Don Adinuba

Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment.
Ducati cop who killed doctor faces 7 charges

BANGKOK: The Metropolitan Police Bureau has laid seven charges against the policeman who hit and killed a woman doctor with his Ducati Monster motorcycle on Friday (Jan 21).

deathpolicetransport

By Bangkok Post

Monday 24 January 2022, 05:33PM

Bangkok police deputy commissioner Pol Maj Gen Jirasant Kaewsang-ek announces the charges laid against Pol L/Cpl Norawich Buadok, at a press conference at the Metropolitan Police Bureau today (Jan 24). Photo: supplied

MPB deputy commissioner Pol Maj Gen Jirasant Kaewsang-ek said today (Jan 24) that Pol L/Cpl Norawich Buadok was charged with reckless driving causing death, using a vehicle without a licence plate, failing to keep his motorcycle in the left lane, failing to give way to someone using a pedestrian crossing, using a vehicle with unpaid annual registration tax, using a vehicle that lacked required equipment, and not having third-party vehicle insurance.

He said Norawichs blood alcohol test was negative, reports the Bangkok Post.

Norawich confessed to the offences. He was temporarily released without bail because he turned himself in and did not tamper with any evidence or witness and did not commit any violent act, Pol Maj Gen Jirasant said.

The suspect met and apologised to the family of the victim and expressed his intention to enter the monkhood, he said.

Norawich, 21, is a crowd control policeman. He was riding a Ducati Monster motorcycle that hit and killed Dr Waraluck Supawatjariyakul, an ophthalmologist of the faculty of medicine at Chulalongkorn University, on Phaya Thai Road in Ratchathewi district about 3:10pm on Jan 21. She would have marked her 34th birthday on Jan 24.

Pol Maj Gen Jirasant said that Dr Waraluck worked at the Police General Hospital and her death was a great loss.

He also said the Ducati motorcycle was registered in Chiang Rai province and was not an impounded vehicle. Norawich had bought it through a garage dealer in Bangkok from its previous owner in Chiang Rai for B113,000 on Dec 14 last year.

The deputy commissioner rejected the accusation on social media that police concealed the doctors identity for two hours after the accident. Police did not know the doctor later succumbed to her injuries and were initially unable to contact her relatives, he said.

Police could not activate the doctors phone until it received incoming calls later, he added.
Phuket holds fast to Omicron policy

PHUKET: Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew presided over a press conference today (Jan 24) which saw no major changes to any policies regarding tourism and the treatment of people confirmed as infected with Omicron.

COVID-19Coronavirushealthtourism

By The Phuket News

Monday 24 January 2022, 06:45PM

Governor Narong made no announcements to any changes in policy regarding tourism or the treatment of Omicron patients. Photo: PR Phuket

Even the Test & Go tourist-entry scheme reopening to applications on Feb 1 was not mentioned at all.

Speaking at the old Phuket Provincial Hall today, Governor Narong continued to call on people to follow the COVID-prevention measures and to wear a face mask at all times while in public, wash their hands frequently and to register to receive the fourth-dose booster vaccination injection.

Dr Kusak Kukiattikoon, Chief of the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office (PPHO), said that the number of new infections in Phuket was falling, both for those infected in Phuket and for foreign tourists arriving on the island.

Phuket province still has strict measures to prevent and control the disease, Dr Kusak said.

He reminded people who test positive by antigen test kit (ATK) to contact the Aunjai Clinic at 076-254200 to receive instructions and advice on what to do, depending on the severity of their infection.

People in Patong who test positive by ATK can call an EOC team (Emergency Operations Centre) at 089-4741877, he added.

Alternatively, people may contact the Kathu District Public Health or add Line Home Isolate@Patong. People in Thalang District can inform their village headman or other community leaders, or call at 0652059200-1, he said.

There will be staff to help assess the level of symptoms. For patients with no symptoms or few symptoms and no risk factors such as congenital disease, patients can go to Home Isolation or Community Isolation. Staff will follow up with enquiries and ongoing care, along with providing medicines and essentials until the patient has recovered, Dr Kusak said.

Phuket Province currently has 1,874 infected people who are in the Home Isolation system, he added.

Provincial officials are pushing ahead with the mass vaccination booster campaign, and people are encouraged to register for their fourth-dose booster jab through the PhuketMustWin website, he said.

At present in Phuket the number of people vaccinated with their first dose is over 88%, the second dose is over 85%, the third dose is over 50%, and the fourth dose is about 8%, Dr Kusak noted.

From vaccinations, Phuket residents have immunity to fight the disease when infected. Most of the patients are asymptomatic and have few symptoms; 95% are Green patients and can self-medicate and self-isolate at home, he said.

Rewat Areerob, President of Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation (PPAO or OrBorJor), said that the PPAO has proceeded to buy doses of the Moderna vaccine for vaccination injections.

The first delivery of 21,000 doses will arrive tomorrow (Jan 25). Details of who the vaccination doses will be provided to as a priority have yet to be announced.

Dr Weerasak Lorthongkham, Director of Vachira Phuket Hospital, said that while 95% of the people currently confirmed as infected COVID, most likely the Omicron variant, 61% of the patient beds at the Field Hospital at the Prince of Songkla University (PSU) Phuket campus in Kathu were occupied, and 37% of the patient beds available at the Field Hospital at Phuket Rajabhat University were also occupied.

Dr Lersak Leenanitikul, Deputy Director of the Secondary and Tertiary Mission Group Vachira Phuket Hospital, pointed out that the countrys first electronic medical certificate was now available through Vachira Phuket Hospital, via the website https://www.vachiraphuket.go.th/

Nantasiri Ronnasiri, Director of the Phuket office Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), said that during the 207 days July 1, 2021 to Jan 23, 2022 there were 248,497 tourists coming to Phuket under the Phuket Sandbox project.

Foreign tourists entering Thailand under the Phuket Sandbox scheme stayed on average eight nights, spending on average B55,000 per person. The scheme during that period had generated B13.76 billion in direct income, resulting in B32.61bn in circulating income in the economy, she said.

Patchalee Chaopolkrong, of the Phuket Provincial Education Office, reported that the reopening of schools to on-site classes had gone well, with no clusters of infections reported.

Watcharin Rattanachu, Chief of the Phuket Fisheries Office, reported that his officers had investigated the reports of a crocodile sighted off Bang Tao Beach. He confirmed that the sighting was nothing more than a sunken trunk of a coconut tree several hundred metres offshore from the beach.

Therefore, people should not panic. However, if people see any foreign matter, they can report it to the Provincial Fisheries Office in order to inform the correct officials to investigate and find out the facts about the report, he said.
Prayut to visit Saudi Arabia to foster ties

BANGKOK: Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha lands in Saudi Arabia later today (Jan 24) for an official two-day visit to strengthen relations, with further details to be released after the weekly cabinet meeting before his departure.

politicsmilitary

By Bangkok Post

Monday 24 January 2022, 10:18AM

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha walks in Government House on Jan 18, 2022. He will visit Saudi Arabia tomorrow (Jan 25) and Wednesday. Photo: Government House photo

The cabinet meeting was brought forward from tomorrow to facilitate the trip, reports the Bangkok Post.

Prayut was invited by His Royal Highness Prince Mohammad bin Salman, also Saudi Arabias deputy prime minister and minister of defence, according to a Thai government source.

This is the first official government visit in 30 years, said the source, adding the priority is to strengthen bilateral relations.

Attempts to revitalise Thai-Saudi relations have been a key agenda item of the Prayut administration.

Prayut met a number of Middle East officials during the second Asia Cooperation Dialogue in Bangkok in 2016, including then Saudi foreign minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir and Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, then prime minister of Bahrain.

Since the meeting, Thailand and Saudi Arabia have been continuing their work to revitalise relations.

Prayut later met Prince Mohammad during a G20 meeting in Japans Osaka on June 28, 2019 to further discuss bilateral ties.

In addition, foreign affairs ministers from both sides have from time to time met on several occasions to talk about various matters.

Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai, paid an official visit to the Middle Eastern kingdom in Jan 2020, following an invitation from his Saudi Foreign Affairs Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud.

Gen Prayuts visit to Saudi Arabia is expected to end on Wednesday.

In the past, Saudi Arabia resolved to downgrade diplomatic ties with Thailand and adopt a number of measures. These included replacing the head of its diplomatic mission with the charge daffaires, prohibiting Saudi Arabian nationals from travelling to Thailand and stopping Thai workers from being employed in the Middle Eastern nation.

These measures had consequently hit travel between Thailand and Saudi Arabia and bilateral cooperation on labour, trade and investments.

Once relations between Saudi Arabia and Thailand have returned to normal, these negative measures are expected to be lifted so both nations can once again benefit from renewed cooperation, observers told the Bangkok Post.
Southern Pines, NC (28387)

Today

Mostly cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 87F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 61F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
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This bloke just returned home from the Military, but little did he know he was about to get the worst PTSD of his life...

20-year-old Joseph Pena had been in Germany for the last two years completing military service, before coming back to his parent's home in Colorado, USA.

He decided to surprise his parents with his return, and his sister was even filming what was meant to be a wholesome re-uniting. There was some uniting going on, but not the wholesome sort.

The video, which was first uploaded to reddit but then taken down, shows Pena barging into to his rents room without knocking, before saying "It's a robbery!"

Straight away he realises what's going on, turns the other way, and backs the f**k up outta there.

Pena's mum, Kaati recalls,

"We were surprised and beyond embarrassed.

"My husband and I were talking, which was our code word for sex when the kids were little, and we were in the moment when the door got kicked open.

"I screamed because I saw my son and of course realised he saw everything exposed," Mirror reports.

Pena was understandably mortified, and apparently avoided going round to his parents too much while he was on rest.
Press Release

January 24, 2022 SPONSORSHIP SPEECH OF SENATOR RISA HONTIVEROS ON THE BICAMERAL CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORT ON THE DISAGREEING PROVISIONS OF SENATE BILL NO. 1933 AND HOUSE BILL NO. 8998

(EXPANDED SOLO PARENTS WELFARE ACT)

January 24, 2022 Mr. President, distinguished colleagues. I have the distinct honor and privilege to submit to this August Chamber the Bicameral Conference Committee report on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill No. 1411 and House Bill No. 8097, or the Expanded Solo Parents Welfare Act. Kaming mga solo parents ay labis labis na nagpapasalamat sa Kongresong ito na itinawid ang mahalagang panukalang batas na ito na magbibigay ng karagdagang tulong sa aming mga solo nanay at solo tatay na mag-isang nagtataguyod ng aming mga anak. Sa mga co-author ko na sina Senator Richard Gordon, Senator Christopher "Bong" Go, Senator Bong Revilla, Senator Imee Marcos, Maraming Salamat. To Senator Pia, I am grateful to you for your important amendments. Kay Senate Majority Leader Migz Zubiri at Senate President Tito Sotto, who are also authors of this bill, and who shepherded the passage of the bill to passage, my deepest appreciation. Mr. President, I would like to move that the entire joint explanatory statement of the Bicameral Conference Committee be spread into the records. To give everyone a snapshot of the agreements between the two chambers, the following are the salient points of this legislative measure: The expansion of the definition of solo parents to include spouses of low-skill overseas Filipino workers away from the country for an uninterrupted period of time

The decrease in the number of months of employment before availment of the Solo Parent leave

The increase in the age ceiling of the child of the solo parent for availment of benefits, to align this measure with the K-12 educational system

The provision of a 1000 pesos ayuda for minimum wage earning solo parents, which I am happy to note the House of Representatives magnanimously accepted in exchange for the original hefty menu of discounts that both houses wanted to push but was objected to by the DOF;

Other benefits such as educational scholarships for eligible children of eligible solo parents, a 10% discount on specific medicines for low-income solo parents with children 6 years and below, prioritization in low-cost housing, and Philhealth coverage.

We also increased the safeguards of the law against fraud and leakage to ensure that only those who are really solo parents will enjoy the benefits of the law. Ito po ay lifeline na atin pong iniitsa sa mga solo parents. And during this time of pandemic and economic difficulty, this lifeline could not be more urgent. Maraming Salamat po.
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GRANITE CITY  No serious injuries were reported when a car collided with an Amtrak passenger train in Granite City Sunday afternoon.

At about 3 p.m. Sunday, a vehicle at the 25th Street crossing in Granite City was struck by the Lincoln Service No. 303 from Chicago headed to St. Louis. Witnesses said the person in the vehicle was able to get out of it and was seen walking around the site following the collision.
ALTON  On Friday, Jan. 28, a group called City Shapers will host a virtual event called Flourish Alton to tackle community challenges.

Group member Peter Hough said City Shapers is a cohort that was formed in September with 12 teams filled with leaders from Alton. Participants include business owners, nonprofit organizations, city council members, church leaders, school officials, police officers, therapists and professors.

The group will spend the next two years learning principles of community and economic development, according to Hough.

"The goal is to learn how to problem-solve as a community," he said.

The group has had help from The Lupton Center in Atlanta, Georgia to guide them through the effort.

"They really emphasize process over product," Hough said. "We could spend the next couple of years writing one plan for one problem or opportunity, or we can learn some principles to help us be better problem solvers."

According to Hough, between 80 to 90 percent of the Flourish Alton team members are residents of Alton. This includes Hough, a pastor for Alton Mission church.

In 2019, Hough spoke before the city council to advocate for the overnight warming centers in Alton. The council decided not to proceed with a motion pertaining to the centers.

Im glad that youve tabled the ordinance, Hough told them in 2019. I ask that you would eventually just withdraw it all together and create a task force that will create a strategic plan for addressing homelessness in Alton overall.

The church eventually created the Alton Housing Coalition to work on the issue of housing and the Deliverance Temple Church at 1125 East 6th St. in Alton now hosts an overnight warming center starting at 5 p.m. whenever temperatures drop below 20 degrees.

However, Hough said it was clear two years ago that the issue was more than having a place for the homeless to stay.

"We knew that there were so many other things involved in being able to maintain stable housing," he said.

That is when The Lupton Center was contacted and City Shapers was formed. The group has been in what Hough calls an "assessment phase" for the last four months. This week's meeting will allow the group to share what they have learned.

The Zoom meeting is planned 10 a.m. to noon on Friday, Jan. 28. To register, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/flourish-alton-tickets-240475146637.
WASHINGTON PARK  A Madison County man has been charged in a fatal shooting early Saturday morning.

At about 12:44 a.m. Jan. 22, the Illinois State Police (ISP) Division of Criminal Investigation  Zone 6 was asked to assist in the investigation of a death in the 5700 block of Westmoreland Avenue in Washington Park. Alexander Graham, 54, of Washington Park, was transported to an area hospital and later pronounced deceased.

On Sunday, Jan. 23, St. Clair County States Attorney James A. Gomric charged Michael A. Wilmington, 55, of Granite City, with one count of first-degree murder and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm in the death. Wilmington is alleged to have caused Graham's death.

According to state police, Wilmington, was outside a building in Washington Park and, with the knowledge that the building was occupied, knowingly discharged a firearm at the building.

Bond for Wilmington was set at $1 million, 10% to apply. On Monday Wilmington was in custody at the Saint Ann, Missouri, Police Department.

The incident was investigated by state police, Washington Park Police, St. Ann Police, the St. Louis Medical Examiners Office and the St. Clair County States Attorneys Office.
EDWARDSVILLE  A Granite City man was indicted Thursday for attempted murder in a Dec. 14 shooting in Granite City.

The case was one of several multiple-count indictments issued by the Madison County Grand Jury.

Rickie E. Tellor Jr., 29, of Granite City, was indicted Jan. 20 for attempted first degree murder, a Class X felony; aggravated discharge of a firearm, a Class 1 felony; unlawful possession of a stolen firearm, a Class 2 felony; and unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, an enhanced Class 3 felony.

The case was originally presented by the Granite City Police Department.

According to court documents, on Dec. 14 Tellor allegedly fired a gun in the direction of another man with the intent to kill; discharged a firearm in the direction of an occupied vehicle; and was in possession of a stolen Smith & Wesson 9 mm Shield handgun. Tellor has a 2018 Madison County conviction for aggravated robbery, making him ineligible to possess weapons.

In an unrelated case, Robert E. Lee, 40, of South Roxana, was indicted with aggravated criminal sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping, both Class X felonies; two counts of criminal sexual assault, a Class 1 felony; kidnapping, a Class 2 felony; and unlawful restraint, a Class 4 felony.

The case was originally presented by the South Roxana Police Department; he was originally charged Dec. 29.

According to court documents and information from the police department, between Dec. 24 and Dec. 26 Lee secretly confined a 42-year-old woman and sexually assaulted her. South Roxana Police Chief Bob Coles said an investigation into the incident led to multiple search warrants being executed in the 900 block of Biltmore, with Lee taken into custody at his residence.

The investigation was conducted with help from the Illinois State Police Crime Scene Unit and the Hartford Police Department.

Other indictments issued Jan. 20 included:

 Timothy P. Rodgers, 36, of Edwardsville, for home invasion and armed violence, both Class X felonies, as well as two counts of aggravated battery and one count of unlawful restraint, all Class 3 felonies. Charges were originally filed Dec. 22; the case was presented by the Glen Carbon Police Department. On Dec. 20 Rodgers allegedly entered a home in Glen Carbon while the owner was present and slammed the owner to the bathroom floor and struck (the victim) in the head using his head. Court documents stated Rodgers had a 12-gauge Savage Arms shotgun with which he struck the victim, described as older than 60, multiple times. Rodgers also allegedly refused to allow the victim to leave the bathroom or residence.

 Steven A. Leos, 56, of Phelan, California, was charged Jan. 6 with unlawful cannabis trafficking and unlawful possession of cannabis with intent to deliver, both Class X felonies. The case was originally presented by the Metropolitan Enforcement Group of Southwestern Illinois. On Jan. 5 Leos allegedly was stopped while driving a 2021 Chrysler 300 on Interstate 70 in Madison County and found to have more than 5,000 grams  at least 11 pounds  of cannabis.

 Myeisha L. Cook, 27, of Collinsville, was indicted for kidnapping, a Class 2 felony, and child abduction, a Class 4 felony. The case was originally presented by the Collinsville Police Department. On Jan. 11 Cook allegedly took 4- and 2-year-old children without the consent of their legal guardian and violated the terms of a Sept. 20 court order.

 Kenneth L. Reilly, 60, of Troy, was indicted for aggravated domestic battery. The case was originally presented by the Madison County Sheriffs Department. On Aug. 3 Reilly allegedly strangled a household or family member.
Its hard to know which is more messed up these days  air transportation, or the Biden Administration. As another case in point, consider the clash between airlines and wireless carriers over 5G.

Verizon and AT&T said Tuesday theyll delay a 5G rollout planned for Wednesday after airlines complained it would disrupt flights across the country. President Biden took credit for preventing anarchy in the skies, though his Administration created the mess.

At issue is the C-band spectrum that carriers plan to use to blanket metro areas with 5G. Carriers paid the U.S. government $80 billion for this valuable spectrum, but the Federal Aviation Administration now wont let them use it. The agency says the signals could potentially interfere with plane altimeters that measure the distance to the ground.

The Federal Communications Commission reviewed these concerns during notice-and-comment on its plan to repurpose C-band from satellite operators. In March 2020, it approved a 258-page decision that included a safe buffer between the bands occupied by altimeters and 5G  larger than many other countries require.

Yet some 20 months later, the FAA demanded to relitigate the FCC decision and took airlines and carriers hostage. If Verizon and AT&T didnt pause their 5G rollout, the FAA would order flights grounded or diverted. AT&T and Verizon didnt want to be blamed for that, so they twice agreed to scale back and delay their rollouts.

Two weeks ago they struck a deal with the Transportation Department to limit C-band signals within a mile of airport runways for six months and delay deploying 5G until Jan. 19. The FAA said it wouldnt ask for another delay. And if you believed that . . .

Recently the FAA said it had cleared only 45% of U.S. commercial airplanes to land in low-visibility conditions at only 48 of the 88 airports it deemed at highest risk from potential 5G interference. This didnt cover Boeings wide-bodied 777 and 787 models, which are flying in countries around the world with fewer 5G restrictions.

This meant airlines would have to reroute or cancel thousands of flights. The disruptions would cause immediate havoc while forgone 5G service wouldnt be felt by Americans. Wireless carriers would be blamed for the chaos, which is probably why they conceded Tuesday to more voluntary and temporary restrictions.

At our sole discretion, we have voluntarily agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers around certain airport runways as we continue to work with the aviation industry and the FAA to provide further information about our 5G deployment, since they have not utilized the two years theyve had to responsibly plan for this deployment, AT&T said.

Thats far too charitable to the FAA and Transportation Department. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rolled FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who has supported the carriers 5G rollout behind the scenes. And now he and Mr. Biden are portraying their blundering as a diplomatic victory. This Administration needs less political spin and more competent governance.
On Monday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois Education Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and other stakeholders announced that they have negotiated a compromise that will keep students and teachers safely in the classroom without penalizing vaccinated employees for taking COVID-required sick time.

"Vaccines are a vital tool in preventing the deadly effects of COVID-19, and those who take the steps to be fully vaccinated against this virus are doing their part to keep everyone safe," Pritzker said in a statement. "They deserve to be able to take the time they need to respond to the ongoing devastating impacts the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have on them and their families.

"This collaborative initiative will provide paid administrative leave for education employees who, despite doing all they can to keep themselves and their communities safe, continue to have their lives and livelihoods disrupted by COVID-19," Pritzker continued.

The joint initiative provides a number of protections for educators, school employees and their families. First, paid administrative leave will be provided for every employee of a public school district established under Article 10 or Article 34 of the School Code, public university and public community college who is fully vaccinated or has received the required doses to become fully vaccinated within five weeks of the effective date of the Act.

Those employees must also be required, or have a child that is required, to be excluded from school because of a positive COVID-19 test result or close contact with a person who had a confirmed case of COVID-19. Additionally, that employee must have been required by the school or school district policy to be excluded from school district property due to COVID-19 symptoms.

Another protection is the restoration of sick leave for every employee of a public school district, public university and public community college who is fully vaccinated or has received the required doses to become fully vaccinated within five weeks of the effective date of the Act.

The employee must have previously used sick time because they or their child were required to be excluded from school because of a positive COVID-19 test result or close contact with a person who had a confirmed case of COVID-19 and has been required by the school district or school district policy to be excluded from school district property due to COVID-19 symptoms.

"Keeping schools open and those inside them  and their families  safe has been our number one priority from the start of the pandemic," Kathi Griffin, president of the Illinois Education Association, said in a statement. "We want people to stay home when theyre sick, to be able to care for their children when their children need them the most, and to be paid when the circumstances that close their buildings are completely beyond their control.

"This bill protects school and university employees and all those they teach, drive to and from school, feed and care for in so many ways," Griffin continued. "Health care professionals and scientists have given us a path out of this pandemic and we should follow it."

The compromise maintains wage protections in House Bill 2778 for all hourly school employees, including but not limited to, custodial, transportation, food service providers, classroom assistants or administrative staff. This protection applies for the entire 2021-22 school year, including any days that a school has already closed or switched to e-learning which caused the paraprofessional to go without pay or take their own earned paid time off.

Also as a result of the deal, Pritzker has vetoed HB 2778, which passed through the Senate 53-1 and the House 92-23. Sen. Darren Bailey, R-Louisville, was the lone no vote in the Senate and in the House, Reps. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Jacksonville, Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, Amy Elik, R-Fosterburg and Jay Hoffman, D-Belleville, all voted yes while Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville, voted no.

HB 2778 would have amended the School Code and various Acts relating to the governance of public universities and community colleges in Illinois and required school districts and the governing board of each public university and community college district to provide paid administrative leave to an employee for purposes related to COVID-19 under specified conditions and that the employee must receive their regular rate of pay, as well as be returned any sick leave used during the 2021-22 school year related to the issuance of guidance, mandates or rules related to COVID-19 and public health.

"The pandemic has been physically, emotionally, and economically challenging for us all, and certainly no less so for educators, school staff, and their families," Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery said in a statement. "This legislation provides important relief and ensures that education personnel can afford to take time off if they or their families become ill with COVID.

"We applaud Governor Pritzker for his steady support of science and good public health and thank him for working with us to provide teachers, school staff and higher education professionals with critical resources that will help them keep kids safe and schools open," Montgomery continued.
EDWARDSVILLE  A Madison man charged in two murder cases has been indicted in one of them.

Larry D. Lovett, 40, of Madison, was indicted Jan. 20 on two counts of first-degree murder, a Class M felony, and one count of aggravated battery with a firearm, a Class X felony, in the shooting death of Ahmaad Nunley on Aug. 2 in Granite City.

Lovett was charged Dec. 15 for Nunleys murder. He also was charged Dec. 13 in the Dec. 7 death of Andre Hutson.

Both charges were sealed until he was taken into custody in St. Louis County.

In addition to the charges in the Jan. 20 indictment, Lovett faces three counts of first-degree murder, attempted armed robbery and unlawful possession of weapons by a felon in Hutsons death.

His bond has been set at $5 million for the most recent charges relating to Nunleys death and $3 million for charges related to Hutsons death.

In both cases, others had previously been charged.

Mantia Johnson Jr., 34, of Granite City, and Clyde Leonard, 37, of Houston, were indicted Sept. 16 in Nunleys death.

Johnson, who was originally charged Aug. 6, has been indicted on two counts of first degree murder; attempted first degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, both Class X felonies; aggravated discharge of a firearm, a Class 1 felony; and unlawful possession of weapons by a felon, a Class 2 felony.

The incident occurred in the early-morning hours of Aug. 2. Nunley and another victim were discovered to have been shot multiple times and taken to a St. Louis hospital where Nunley died from his injuries.

William A. Jenkins, 44, of Madison, was charged Dec. 13 with three counts of first degree murder, attempted armed robbery and unlawful possession of weapons by a felon in connection with Hutsons death.

At about 11:48 p.m. Dec. 7, the Madison Police Department received a 911 call about a shooting and male subject down in the 1700 block of Wayne Lanter Avenue. The victim, identified as Hutson, 38, of St. Louis, was pronounced dead at the scene and the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis was activated to investigate the incident.

According to court documents, Hutson allegedly was killed during an attempted robbery.
SPRINGFIELD  An Illinois law, rarely enforced, allows parents to be charged with neglect if they leave children under the age of 14 home alone  even for a short time.

State Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, says people want the law changed. She has filed House Bill 4305 to lower the home alone age in Illinois to 12, and she expects the bill will pass in the next few weeks.

I have lots of constituents who have reached out to me about this, she said. Its causing a lot of hardship on our working families.

People who have talked to me say, I have a 13-year-old and I want to leave them alone for a half an hour between when I have to go to work and when they have to go to school.'" she said. "It is very extreme the way the law is written right now.

Marie Coobes, a mother of two who works as team manager at the Illinois Childcare Resource Service, said 12 is an arbitrary age. Just because a child is 12  or 14, or even 16  does not mean they will be OK home alone by themselves, she said.

There are 12-year-olds who should not be home alone because they cant be trusted to keep themselves safe, Coobes said. Its so individual to the child.

Coobes said each parent needs to make their own determination based on the individual child.

It really is a gut feeling, Coobes said. Does it make you scared to think about leaving that child alone? Can you confidently walk out of the house knowing that the child will respect the boundaries that you set?

Some children do what you tell them and follow the rules, Coobes said. Others are more curious.

When nobody is looking over their shoulders, they are going to explore a little bit, she said.

Coobes suggested parents talk to their child about trust and what that means, and have trial runs where they leave a child for a short period of time to see how it goes.

Children home by themselves need phone numbers to call, she said. "They need to be able to reach somebody responsible if they get lonely or if they are afraid. And they need to have a safe place to go if there is an emergency.

If there is a fire or if some circumstance happens, there has to be a safe place for them to go, Coobes said.

Two things that children should not do when no one else is home are answer the door and have friends over. Coobes advises parents to have a short list of trusted people  a grandparent or an older sibling  that the child can let in the home when they are by themselves.

The child should understand not to open the door for anyone else, she said.

Allowing children to have friends over when no adult is home is setting the stage for mischief, Coobes said.

Putting kids with their peers encourages them to do things that they wouldnt normally do, Coobes said. I would not have friends in the home when you are not there.

As for babysitting younger children, that is a fraught situation, Coobes said. She does not recommend having 11- and 12-year-olds babysitting children under five, particularly if there are three or more children in the home without adults.

It is a responsibility that I am not sure a 12-year-old is prepared for, Coobes said. Some parents arent even prepared for that.
Chicago is one of a handful of American cities where a deadly fungal infection, Candida auris, has been spreading rapidly.

It was first detected five years ago. By 2019, researchers were noting the emergence of a strain of the infection that is resistant to antifungal medications.

C. auris is a superbug  an antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) infection that does not respond to existing medications such as antifungals. It kills 30% to 60% of patients who contract it, mostly in nursing homes and hospitals. And it is not alone.

As chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Rush University Childrens Hospital in Chicago and an expert in antimicrobial resistance, I have witnessed this crisis with my own eyes. But I need you to see it too.

Millions of people around the world contract drug-resistant infections every year, and almost 2,000 die every day. Our global health care system is on a collision course with a superbug pandemic. As a 2019 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found, America must stop referring to a coming post-antibiotic era  its already here.

The good news is that combating superbugs is not a question of the science. While developing better antibiotics and antifungals will be challenging, we can do it. The bad news is that distorted market forces are discouraging their development.

The problem we face is baked into the DNA of infectious bugs. Its in their nature to evolve and adapt. Thats why, especially in recent years, doctors have become increasingly judicious in prescribing antibiotics. Every dose encourages the microbes to adapt, strengthen and grow more resistant to treatment.

Under such circumstances, the prudent course is a two-pronged strategy. First, we must conserve our current arsenal of antibiotics to slow superbugs evolution. Second, we must elevate the development of new and stronger antimicrobials as a public health priority  to be ready as more AMR infections inevitably emerge.

The medical and scientific communities are working hard on our end. The federal government can help by enacting antimicrobial policies that address the problem.

Making new antimicrobials today is not economically viable. New antimicrobial products are not designed to be widely prescribed, but instead used sparingly, against infections resistant to current treatments. That means the market for them isnt large enough to support the cost of research and development.

Thus, the incentives of the health care system  which needs antimicrobials to support most modern medical care, from cancer chemotherapy to C-sections  are out of alignment with those of drug manufacturers, which cannot earn returns on their investments under current policy.

Changes to federal law could help microbiologists develop what I would argue are some of the most important medicines of the 21st century  medicines we need right now and know we will need more of.

A promising reform now under consideration in Congress is called the PASTEUR Act. Its a bipartisan bill that would change the nations purchasing system for new antimicrobials. In its current arrangement, the government buys antimicrobials based on the volume of doses. The PASTEUR Act would change this system to a long-term subscription model, in which the government would pay a set fee upfront for access to novel antimicrobials that address the most pressing public health needs.

Whereas the current system of sustaining research and development investments on per-dose sales does not fit the science or economics of the market for antimicrobials, the system proposed in the PASTEUR Act would provide the financing needed to spur the innovation of new antimicrobials and encourage their judicious use to protect the longevity of these treatments.

With Illinois as an epicenter of C. auris, our senators and representatives should be leading on this urgent challenge. Its a bipartisan policy issue with life-or-death consequences.

We cannot sit back and wait for AMR infections to overrun our health care system in another pandemic. Superbug preparedness is a choice  and one we cannot afford to ignore.
Scranton, PA (18503)

Today

Cloudy this morning with showers during the afternoon. High 67F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Cloudy early with some clearing expected late. Low 49F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Job Title: Intern  Innovation (UN Fresh Graduate Jobs)

Organisation: United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)

Duty Station: Uganda

Grade: SSA3

About US:

United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is the worlds largest humanitarian agency, fighting hunger worldwide. The mission of WFP is to help the world achieve Zero Hunger in our lifetimes. Every day, WFP works worldwide to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry and that the poorest and most vulnerable, particularly women and children, can access the nutritious food they need. In emergencies, WFP gets food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After an emergency, WFP uses food to help communities rebuild their lives. On average, WFP reaches more than 80 million people with food assistance in 80 countries each year. The organization has the global footprint, deep field presence and local knowledge and relationships necessary to provide access to food and contribute to lasting solutions, especially in many of the worlds most remote and fragile areas.

Job Summary: The Innovation Intern will support the Head of Area Office to facilitate and foster innovation in the context of WFP activities in Karamoja, help innovation projects to scale, develop and establish local innovation ecosystems in Karamoja sub-region to help achieve sustainable food and nutrition security in Karamoja. The Innovation Intern will support the development and growth of impactful and sustainable innovations by leveraging WFP brand, public and private partners, deep field access, and expertise to develop, nurture and scale sustainable innovations to increase food and nutrition security in Karamoja sub-region. The Intern will participate and support the identification of problem statements or (market) opportunities, sourcing of innovations, management of innovation programme implementation and events with the support of the country office, and support the scale-up of innovations through partnerships management and close coordination with relevant WFP and external stakeholders.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

Drive New Opportunities

Support development and execution of high-impact Area Office innovation strategy and roadmap aligned to the Country Strategic Plan, programme priorities and business goals.

Support the management of the portfolio of disruptive initiatives focused on programme and internal business process innovation.

Work closely with the programme and functional area business teams to create new programming approaches and internal business models to deliver innovative and impactful food assistance programmes.

Support promotion of the Area Office innovation agenda; influence and obtain support from programme and functional area teams for successful execution of the agenda.

Build and Grow Innovation Capabilities

Develop and maintain strong ties with all the teams in WFP Karamoja; educate and train teams on new solutions and innovations; drive innovation, presentations and innovation sessions.

Act as the Innovation champion for the WFP in Karamoja. Encourage colleagues in WFP Karamoja to innovate and support the shift towards a thriving innovation culture that nurtures and promotes ideas from across the organisation.

Organise education and support for new innovators amongst staff in WFP Karamoja including cooperating partners, the people that we serve etc.

Track and report on innovation metrics, programme and business impact on a regular basis.

Champion Innovation

Support the establishment of WFP as a recognised innovation leader in Karamoja sub-region to further enhance our brand, attract and retain talent.

Support the identification of external assets and partners that may accelerate innovation and through partnerships.









Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

Recent graduate with second-class honours bachelors degree qualification from a recognised university (certified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization  UNESCO) in Uganda in one of the following fields: business, innovation, design, technology, international development or another relevant technical field. Post graduate level training or certficiation in monitoring and evaluation, project planning and management will be an added advantage. Graduation must be within the last 3 years (i.e. 2019 to 2021) at the time of applying for the internship.

Demonstrated minimum experience in the following areas will be an added advantage: Real life application of design thinking and ability to help others to develop a strong understanding of design thinking too, so they can play their part in helping drive organisational change and innovation. Ability to demonstrate resilience in the face of resistance. Have a high level of emotional intelligence demonstrated through communication and engagement with empathy. Ability to put forward truly creative ideas however crazy they might sound. Excellent oral and written communication skills in English and Karimojong languages and inter-cultural communication. High ethical standards and understanding of sensitivities pertaining to food assistance issues. Ability to work collaboratively with others, build and maintain partnerships, innovate and embraces change, think and act strategically, drive to achieve impactful results, manages ambiguity and complexity.

Fluency in written and oral English and Karimojong languages.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified candidates who wish to join the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) are encouraged to apply online at the link below

Click Here

Deadline: 28th January 2022

For more of the latest jobs, please visit https://www.theugandanjobline.com or find us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline
Shares in Amigo Loans sank more than 40 per cent on Monday after the embattled subprime lender reiterated it will go bust if its new rescue plan and fundraising approach are not approved.

Amigo's previous rescue plan was rejected last year by London's High Court for short-changing claimants, so the company increased its compensation pot for those who had been mis-sold loans from 35million to 97million.

A further contribution of 15million to the scheme will come from an equity and capital raise.

Warning: Amigo said mis-sold customers would get back less if the new plan is not approved

But if the fundraising is not approved by shareholders or the new rescue plan is not approved in court, Amigo said it would become insolvent.

'In such a scenario, Redress Creditors will receive less than under the New Business Scheme, and the Company's shareholders would receive nothing in respect of Amigo Loans Ltd,' it added.

Amigo Loans shares slumped more than 50 per cent at one point, before recovering slightly to trade down 41.9 per cent at 3.48p by market close.

'Should creditors vote for the New Business Scheme and the Court subsequently approve it, these provisions provide additional protection for creditors and address certain of the concerns raised by the Court above the previous scheme,' Amigo Chief Executive Gary Jennison said.

'They are necessary for Amigo to survive and avoid insolvency.'

The rescue plan would also likely require a rights issue of at least 19 new shares for every share, diluting the stakes of existing investors, the company said.

Amigo lends money to those with a poor credit score, as long as they have a friend or family member  a guarantor  willing to pick up the bill if they cant.

But it has been battered by complaints after rule changes meant thousands of customers had been mis-sold their loans.

It has been wrangling over a customer compensation scheme with the Financial Conduct Authority, after it realised it could not afford to pay the millions of pounds of redress.

Amigo has also paused all new lending until it irons out a redress scheme.

'While it is positive that progress on the Scheme of Arrangement and Amigo's new business plans are progressing, the statement also starkly outlines the extent of prospective dilution for existing shareholders,' said Ronan Dunphy, a banking analyst at Goodbody.
Most large companies are conservative, hierarchical organisations, run by late middle-age men who are floundering in the world of woke.

Some pay grudging lip-service to millennial sensibilities. Others, like an embarrassing Dad at a disco, join in far too enthusiastically. Mocking the corporate vanity that can ensue is just too tempting, even if the cause is a good one.

When a company like Unilever claims it is 're-inventing food for humanity' with Knorr stock cubes, it's impossible to suppress a snigger. But beyond the silliness and vanity, there are serious points at stake.

A sign of the times: Businesses face new ethical challenges that require finely balanced decisions

Larry Fink is no woolly-minded activist, but one of the most successful asset managers. As the boss of Blackrock, he is the custodian of 7.5billion of savers' cash. Going green and allowing staff to work flexibly is not wokery, he argues in his annual letter to CEOs, but dynamic capitalism.

Businesses must re-invent themselves in line with the times or risk losing customers and be starved of the finance to grow.

Some find the spectacle of a billionaire like Fink lecturing firms on social responsibility highly hypocritical. But as he implies, some causes branded woke today will be viewed in future as right and just.

The idea of having more women on boards was once seen as dangerously militant feminism. Only when a distinguished male banker, Lord (Mervyn) Davies, took up the cudgels did everyone realise business performance was being harmed by the exclusion of talented females. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, students agitated for Barclays to pull out of apartheid South Africa. It took 16 years of boycotts before it did, but those protesters were on the right side of history.

Few would deny nowadays that the golliwog mascot on Robertson's jam was a racial stereotype, though shockingly, it did not disappear until as late as 2001.

So perhaps 20 years from now it will seem equally amazing that shops sold sweets named Midget Gems. Marks & Spencer and other chains are renaming the pastilles after protests about hate speech to those with dwarfism.

Companies are much quicker than they were to respond to protests partly because of social media and partly because ESG  environmental, social and governance  has become de rigueur in the City.

Some business leaders are behaving like activists themselves. Paul Polman, the former boss of Unilever, has been protesting volubly about the Government's new policing bill, describing it as anti-democratic and bad for business. He has no shareholders to please so can do as he wishes.

These rows take place against a highly politicised backdrop. The financial crisis caused a loss of trust in businesses and governments, which has deepened in the pandemic. Societies are becoming more polarised and new fault-lines have emerged, including the vilification of Big Pharma by the anti-vaxxers.

Businesses face new ethical challenges that require finely balanced decisions.

Along with pharma, the tech sector, which is adept at staying one step ahead of regulation, is the new ethical frontier.

Social media has already spawned a myriad of questions over child protection, fraud, privacy and the use of our personal data.

The next big thing is the metaverse, an immersive virtual world, populated by avatars, which will throw up more challenges.

Companies could use tiny cameras and sensors to harvest data about our facial and eye movements, and exploit this to bombard us with 'hyper-targeted' advertising.
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The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday that it was dangerous to assume the Omicron variant would herald the end of COVID-19s acutest phase, exhorting nations to stay focused to beat the pandemic.

Its dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant and that we are in the end game, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a WHO executive board meeting of the two-year pandemic that has killed nearly 6 million people.

On the contrary, globally the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.

Though Omicron has sent total cases soaring to nearly 350 million, its less lethal impact and the increasing prevalence of vaccines has led to optimism in some parts that the worst of the pandemic may have passed.

Tedros, the WHOs first African head who is running unopposed for a second term, urged discipline and unity in combatting the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 pandemic is now entering its third year and we are at a critical juncture, he told a news conference earlier. We must work together to bring the acute phase of this pandemic to an end. We cannot let it continue to drag on, lurching between panic and neglect.

GERMANY BIGGEST DONOR

Countries must maximise strategies and tools already available, such as testing and inoculation, for the global health emergency to end this year, he said.

Tedros bid for a second term received a boost when the WHO shelved a decision on his native Ethiopias request to investigate accusations of links to rebel forces.

He told board members he was seeking an overhaul of the agencys funding model, with Germany now the largest donor, supplanting Washington which had accused the WHO of pro-China bias under former President Donald Trumps administration.

The United States is resisting a financing proposal that would make the U.N. health body more independent, raising doubts about the Biden administrations long-term support.

SOURCE: REUTERS
The U.S. State Department announced Sunday it was ordering diplomats family members to leave Ukraine, as U.S. President Joe Biden weighed options for boosting Americas military assets in Eastern Europe to counter a buildup of Russian troops.

The order, which also allowed U.S. diplomats stationed at the embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to leave voluntarily, was one of the clearest signs yet that American officials are bracing for an aggressive Russian move in the region.

Military action by Russia could come at any time, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement. Officials will not be in a position to evacuate American citizens in such a contingency, so U.S. citizens currently present in Ukraine should plan accordingly, it added.

Ukrainian foreign ministry said in a statement that it considered the move as premature and a manifestation of excessive caution.

In fact, there have been no cardinal changes in the security situation recently: the threat of new waves of Russian aggression has remained constant since 2014 and the buildup of Russian troops near the state border began in April last year, it said.

Tensions in Ukraine have been increasing for months after the Kremlin massed some 100,000 troops near Ukraines borders, a dramatic buildup the West says is preparation for a war to prevent Ukraine from ever joining the NATO Western security alliance.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied planning to invade, but the Russian military already tore off a chunk of Ukrainian territory when it seized Crimea and backed separatist forces who took control of large parts of eastern Ukraine eight years ago.

The State Departments announcement comes a day after British authorities said they had information the Russian government was considering a former Ukrainian lawmaker as a potential candidate to head a pro-Russian leadership in Kyiv.

The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the British allegation as disinformation, accusing NATO of escalating tensions over Ukraine.

TROOPS AND SANCTIONS

Biden has begun considering options for boosting Americas military assets in the region, senior administration officials said, after meeting with top national security aides at his Camp David retreat on Saturday.

The New York Times said Biden was mulling plans to send 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the possibility of increasing the number should tensions flare further.

A senior administration official declined to confirm the numbers on Sunday but said we are developing plans and we are consulting with allies to determine options moving forward.

The United States has sent military assistance to Ukraine but has so far held back from sending American personnel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has rebuffed calls to immediately impose economic sanctions on Russia, saying on Sunday that doing so would undercut the Wests ability to deter potential Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Blinken was due to meet virtually with members of the European Unions Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday.

As U.S. troop deployments were discussed, a separate senior administration official said U.S. economic penalties on Russia would have far-reaching consequences should it drive any further into Ukraine.

The United States would use the Foreign Direct Product Rule to restrict the export to Russia of products incorporating microelectronics based on U.S. equipment, software or technology.

Britain has also promised stiff sanctions, with British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab telling Sky News there would be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade.

British officials say they have information the Russian government was considering former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevhen Murayev as a potential candidate to head a pro-Russian government in Kyiv.

Murayev poured cold water on the notion.

This morning I already read in all the news publications this conspiracy theory: absolutely unproven, absolutely unfounded, Murayev told Reuters in a video call, adding he was considering legal action.

He denied having any contact with Russian intelligence officers and dismissed the idea that he could be in league with the Kremlin as stupid, given he was placed under Russian sanctions in 2018.

Although he says he wants Ukraine to be independent from Russia as well as the West, Murayev, 45, has promoted some views that align with the Kremlins narratives on Ukraine.

The British foreign ministry declined to provide evidence to back its accusations.

In a message to Reuters, Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian adviser to the presidential office, said there was doubt among Ukrainians as to whether Murayev was too ridiculous a figure to be the Kremlins pick to lead Ukraine.

But Russia had propped up previously minor figures in leadership positions in annexed Crimea and separatist-held eastern Ukraine, he added.

Therefore one should take this information as seriously as possible, he said.

SOURCE: REUTERS
HUDSON  The city is planning a major modernization of its sewer system to cut down on leaks, sinkholes, and the millions of gallons of raw sewage the system ejects into the Hudson River each year.

Hudson's sewer system  some parts of which date back nearly two centuries  handles both raw sewage and precipitation runoff in the same pipes. The pipes lead to a wastewater treatment plant in the city's northwest corner, but during significant rainstorms, the system becomes overwhelmed, and the combined storm water and raw sewage is pumped directly into the Hudson River, untreated.

The project, which is made possible with $2.15 million in state grants matched with $350,000 in city money, will replace a major combined sewer line in the city with separate pipes for sewage and runoff.

Hudson's Common Council voted to appropriate the $350,000 at last Tuesday's regular meeting. The vote was unanimous after being urged through by Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson and City Treasurer Heather Campbell.

Hudson Superintendent of Public Works Robert Perry said he was "ecstatic" that the project got the go-ahead.

The combined sewer line being replaced was constructed in the 1830s out of stone, according to a 2014 city engineering report laying out the improvements. Failures of the trunk line, which runs through a residential area of the city, have become "increasingly common," leading to "serious public safety issues."

"The typical failure mechanism of this pipeline is a total collapse of the sewer, which results in large sink holes in Front Street up to 20 feet deep," according to the report.

As well as leaks and sinkholes, the combined pipeline leads to more than 20 million gallons of combined sewage being released into the surrounding environment each year. This sewage is ejected into a city pond at three release points, and into the Hudson River at six release points, according to the engineering report, including into two bays just north and south of the city.

Hudson's archaic sewer system is far from unique. In the Hudson Valley, Catskill, Kingston, Newburgh, Poughkeepsie and West Point all release sewage into the Hudson, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Capital Region and New York City have hundreds of release points between them.

Discharging sewage into the Hudson can have health consequences.

Riverkeeper, the Hudson River's preeminent environmental group, continually collects samples from the river, testing them to ascertain the Hudson's health. One of the major things they test for is the bacteria enterococcus, which is found in the human intestine and fecal matter.

The amount of enterococcus bacteria in a sample indicates the concentration of sewage in the water and correlates to the concentration of other pathogens found in fecal matter that can effect human health.

If a sample has more than 60 enterococcus bacteria per 100 milliliters of water, the water is considered unfit for swimming, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. A sample taken on May 20, 2020 off the City of Hudson showed only 2 enterococcus per 100 milliliters of water. However, a sample taken October 27  after 1.9 inches of rain fell in the previous 4 days, causing the city's sewage system to discharge into the river  showed more than 2,420 enterococcus per hundred milliliters of water, more than 40 times the threshold.

Dan Shapley, co-director of the Science and Patrol Program at Riverkeeper, said the EPA defined water as safe for swimming when less than three percent of people taking a dip become ill. Shapley said the illnesses generally amounted to stomach aches as opposed to significant sicknesses.

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Ever since the federal Clean Water Act of 1974 began regulating pollutants released into water bodies, the state of New York has been pushing communities with combined sewer lines to upgrade their systems to avoid discharges, according to Shapley.

New York does this through State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits, which are issued to waterway polluters, including companies and municipalities, and seek to regulate and limit pollution.

The idea is to further limit the amount of pollution allowed each time the permit is renewed, according to Shapley. Municipalities generally reach these goals by first upgrading their wastewater treatment plants, then by separating their combined sewer systems starting with the major pipes near the system's end-point and working their way back up the system.

The 525 feet of pipe being replaced in Hudson collects wastewater from smaller pipes further up the system, some of which are already separated, and some of which will be separated in subsequent projects, according to the city engineering report.

The current project in Hudson is a significant step, since the pipes being replaced collect water from the rest of the system, but city's sewer system involves miles and miles of pipes that would cost millions of dollars to replace.

It may take many more years for sewer systems in Hudson and other river towns to completely separate their sewage and run-off components.

When the Clean Water Act was signed by President Richard M. Nixon in 1972, it had ambitions of stopping all pollution discharges  including sewage  into freshwaters within 13 years. Fifty years later, the goals have not been achieved.
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ALBANY  Eight days after protesters and city police officers clashed at the entrance of South Station, Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Police Chief Eric Hawkins ordered dozens of officers Thursday afternoon to forcibly clear a small encampment that demonstrators had set up outside the police station.

Officers were seen throwing a resistant protester to the ground and zip-tying his hands behind his back, as well as another using a baton to bash camping chairs. Some police were seen with tape placed to obscure their badge numbers.

About two hours after the confrontation, a protester was seen being put into an ambulance. The severity or nature of the injuries was unclear Thursday evening. Demonstrators were chanting "Black Lives Matter" in the intersection as their former camp was cleared.

Police said they arrested eight people at the South Station on charges including disorderly conduct, obstruction of governmental administration and rioting. Five received appearance tickets for city court. The others were sent to Albany County jail. Police said some of the charges were related to the April 14 incident between police and protesters.

Samira Sangare, 23, said she was among those charged with the violation of disorderly conduct and returned to the scene in the evening. "They pushed me with their shield and I fell back," she said. "They dragged me by my legs."

Sangare described a friendly and welcoming atmosphere of Black empowerment before the scene was cleared. "Today was a traumatic time for peaceful protest."

At about 8:30 p.m. roughly 60 activists remained, behind a barrier with about a dozen state troopers guarding the station, as temperatures hovered near freezing. Organizers said their demands remained the same.

Its cold, said Jamaica Miles. But people dont look like theyre going anywhere anytime soon. Miles said activists' heating equipment and supplies were destroyed when police cleared out the encampment.

Speaking to the Times Union, Chief Hawkins defended the police mobilization. The three objectives were to clear the area, do it safely and create a safe space, he said. "And we accomplished all three tonight."

Hawkins noted that demonstrators acquired propane tanks and burn barrels and there were reports that they were trying to get a generator.

"And just the general cleanliness and not giving access to people in the area for emergency services," he said. He also expressed concern about the encampment growing into a situation similar to that in Seattle where activists maintained a prolonged presence.

Preparing for action

At about 3 p.m. Hawkins declared it "is time to end this unlawful occupation. He and Mayor Sheehan tweeted out statements.

Law enforcement sources said the forcible clearing was dubbed "Operation Save South Station" by police.

For several days, protesters have occupied the roadway in front of the South Station," Hawkins tweeted. "The Albany Police Department, in efforts to support the freedom of expression and to de-escalate a tense situation, did not interfere with this unlawful occupation.

Protesters may continue to peacefully demonstrate, but they must do so in a space that is safe and lawful," he continued.

Sheehan backed Hawkins' decision to clear out the protesters, claiming residents in the area had "reached out to my office expressing fear for their safety and describing the negative impacts this unlawful occupation has had on their ability to access resources."

Vacari Fox, 33, founder of social justice organization Community Matters, said she was at work when she saw images and videos of protesters being forcibly removed.

They said they support a peaceful protest, and we were doing that, but then they come here and do all of this, she said. Fox also said she was upset with Sheehan for not organizing a meeting with activists, just as protesters have demanded all week. She has not met with community leaders, and she has just shown us that she wont, Fox said.

It all took minutes

Minutes after protesters were pushed away from the station, a front loader and dump truck cleared out tents and other items. City Department of General Service workers were also seen hosing down the area where protesters had been setting fires to keep warm. City workers also used a ladder and a pole to remove a Black Lives Matter flag that was flying from an outside corner of the station. After the protesters were pushed out of the street, the police put more barricades up around South Station, continuing to block traffic through the area at Trinity Place and Arch.

Just before police moved in Thursday, officers told protesters they had 15 minutes to pack up their tents and belongings or face arrest.

About four dozen officers faced about 15 protesters, who had refused to leave. Officers made a line to push the demonstrators away from the camp.

It all took minutes, with police pushing people away from the South Station entrance to the intersection of Grand and Arch streets. By then about 30 more demonstrators had arrived, and parked cars in the intersection to block traffic. A second protest group also surrounded Albany City Court on Morton Avenue, where police vehicles are kept.

State Police and Albany County sheriff's officers were also present.

Alice Green, one of the citys most well-known civil rights advocates and director of the Center for Law and Justice, arrived and stood in front of barricades in front of the line of officers, barely recognizable wearing a scarf, hat, mask and winter coat to shield her from the cold weather. She walked through the line and had a conversation with one of the officers.

"Nobody's telling me anything," Green told the Times Union. "And I didn't expect them to come and move these people. It's just short notice. They created the situation that I think is not good for this community, because the people are really angry."

The Times Union had not seen any elected officials at the scene by 6 p.m., other than Albany County Legislature Chairman Andrew Joyce, who was standing off to the side.

The New York Civil Liberties Union put out a statement around 5 p.m. that said in part: There is no excuse for police violence against protesters anywhere in New York. Protests calling for an end to police brutality against Black New Yorkers should never result in more police brutality."

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

The NYCLU in its initial statement said tear gas was used, but Times Union reporters at the scene said they did not smell tear gas. Albany police said there was no tear gas used. There might have been confusion in watching videos from the scene as the demonstrators had lit fires, and the fires were put out by police with fire extinguishers. Later in the evening, the NYCLU said "we can no longer confirm that tear gas has been in use this evening."

'I'm not going'

One of the protesters, Brandon Brown, 21, declared before the officers arrived, Ill be here. Im not going nowhere. Brown had been pepper-sprayed in the face when a small number of protesters were at South Station's entrance on Wednesday, April 14.

He had a gas mask on Thursday and was pacing in front of a trash bin barrier demonstrators had created when they heard police were coming to forcibly remove them.

The police's decision to physically clear the camp Thursday came as pressure mounted on the chief. Demonstrators have been at the encampment for days, a move they say is aimed at drawing attention to police brutality and the confrontation last week  which resulted in an officer pushing a light out of a protester's hand, and pushing the megaphone of another protester, which caused her to fall on the pavement. Hawkins said the officer became agitated after a protester broke a window in South Station.

Sheehan spoke out, comparing the event to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The remark drew criticism and Sheehan later apologized.

Still, some police officers were outraged that the gathering on a public street was allowed to continue and it prompted the head of the patrol officers union to write a scathing letter critiquing department leadership.

About 20 people were at the encampment Thursday but several of those gathered throughout the day appeared to be people who came over from the Capital City Rescue Mission on nearby South Pearl Street.

The backdrop

Dozens of people who gathered at the encampment Tuesday rejoiced when ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder for killing George Floyd by kneeling on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020. Floyd's death triggered countless demonstrations around the country and spurred calls for social justice reform and restraint on police.

The local protesters praised the verdict but said much more needed to be done to end police brutality. They said they would not leave the Albany site until the city met a series of demands, which include firing the officer who grabbed at the light and megaphone.

The city fenced off the sidewalks around the police department's South Station early Wednesday morning  five days after protesters began the sit-in. Police said fencing was part of "normal safety protocol." It was unclear why the city waited five days to do it. Also on Wednesday, the police department released photos and videos of people they say they were trying to identify "in reference to activities" that occurred during the April 14 clash.

The protesters had put up tents on Arch Street, and lit fires inside large metal rings to stay warm. People have also written and painted on the outside walls of the station, including some messages with foul language and insults against officers.

Paul Buckowski and Pete DeMola contributed to this report.
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ALBANY  Police Chief Eric Hawkins said a city police officer shot and critically injured a knife-wielding man early Monday in what the chief said appeared to be a simply unavoidable use of force against a man aggressively sprinting at police with his weapon.

In a morning news conference at police headquarters, Hawkins told reporters he reviewed body camera footage from the scene of the incident, just blocks from Albany Medical Center Hospital.

The man shot by police was taken to the hospital, as were three officers, following the 12:50 a.m. incident.

Alice Green, the executive director of the Albany-based Center for Law and Justice, identified the victim as Jordan Young, 32, of Morris Street. Albany police later confirmed to the Times Union Young's name and age, and the fact that Young is Black, and the responding officers are white.

Green, who said she is acting as an official spokeswoman for Young's family, was unaware of his current health condition or whether he has an attorney. Green said his family is researching their legal options as of Monday evening and were at the hospital.

At the news conference, Hawkins defended police actions.

My initial assessment is that this was an appropriate use of force, Hawkins said. From what I saw on the camera, those officers  at least that officer who fired his weapon  was under attack. This was an armed subject who was aggressively sprinting toward this officer and this use of force was unavoidable.

He said the body camera footage was very, very compelling.

He said the investigation was ongoing. His staff was in contact with the offices of Albany County District Attorney David Soares.

Hawkins said the sequence of events began at 12:50 a.m., when someone in a home on Morris Street, between Knox Street and New Scotland Avenue, called 911 to report a group conducting an armed home invasion.

Police received information that a person climbed onto a roof and ran across the rooftops, Hawkins said. Two officers patrolling the neighborhood looking for the man saw a man in the middle of New Scotland Avenue walking with a large dog. They stopped, exited their patrol car and saw the man holding a knife to the throat of the dog, Hawkins told reporters.

It's unclear if the man who police shot had any connection to the home invasion police were investigating.

Hawkins said officers repeatedly told the man to drop the knife. The man released the dog, but continued to hold the knife, Hawkins said. He said officers continued to ask him to drop it, even as he started to move in their direction.

Eventually, the man began to sprint aggressively toward one of the officers while still holding the knife, Hawkins said. As he sprinted toward this officer, the officer continued yelling commands to 'stop, drop the weapon.' The officer back-peddled as this man sprinted toward this officer.

Hawkins said the officer fired his gun and struck the man several times in the torso area. He said officers gave aid and flagged down an ambulance.

Hawkins said three officers went to the hospital, including one who was bitten in the arm by the dog. The chief said police regret any use of force but, in this case, it appeared to be simply unavoidable.

Hawkins said he was limited in the amount of information he could reveal. He was unsure when footage of the incident could be released to the public due to the ongoing investigation.

Green, after speaking with family, confirmed that Young did have a dog and was armed with a knife at the time he was shot. Young suffers from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to his mother-in-law, Green said.

Green, who was at the news conference, said she was anxious to see the body camera footage. She said she did not understand why police stopped the man on the street because nobody reported anything in the 911 call about someone with a dog.

We're withholding judgment until we see the body cam. Hopefully, thats going to be soon, she said.

I just hope the person who was shot survives, Green said. Thats my main concern.

Green said that any time a Black man is shot by white officers it generates fear in the community. But Hawkins told her body camera footage will back the officers narrative.

People might compare it to what happened to Ellazar (Williams), but he said the footage speaks for itself, Green said.

On Aug. 20, 2018, a police detective shot Williams, whom police said had been armed with a knife behind the former Tony Clement Center for Education at 395 Elk St.

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

Police alleged Williams lunged at a detective. But Williams' lawyers questioned the scenario. The gunshot partially paralyzed Williams.

An Albany County grand jury declined to file charges against the officer who shot Williams, Detective James Olsen, and the district attorney's office declined to prosecute Williams who initially was charged with felony menacing.

Williams is suing the city in federal court.

All of Us co-founder Jamaica Miles also drew a parallel to the Willams case, noting the preliminary police report determined the shooting was justified and that the public was told that video footage would be proof.

This is just one of too many examples, Miles said. Albany (police) continues to use physical violence as an acceptable control of human life, deciding whose life is valuable.

Miles pointed at additional examples of perceived police misconduct by Albany police, including the use of tear gas against racial justice demonstrators in 2020 and last years forcible clearing of protesters on Arch Street, among other confrontations.

When the public can see this video, we will be able to judge, and we should, Miles said. "APD has proven time and time again that they should not be trusted. Theyve also proven that they are not willing to change their policies and practices to prioritize all life. They refuse to reimagine policing. They refuse to be held accountable for their abuse on the community they say they serve. They make excuses instead of change. When change happens, then the community might start to believe that they can feel safe when they see the police.

There have been several high-profile interactions in recent years that have led to the deaths of people experiencing mental health crises at the hands of police  including Daniel Prude in Rochester in 2020 , Daniel Satre in Ballston Spa in 2014, and Donald "Dontay" Ivy in Albany in 2015. As a result, police have gradually introduced reforms designed to reduce the use of deadly force, such as pairing officers with mental health crisis teams and mandating de-escalation training.

Authorities have not said if the victim in Mondays shooting had mental health issues.

Green acknowledged there remain several unanswered questions about Monday's incident, including if officers escalated the encounter.

Even if theres a suggestion that theres something wrong, we need to be very careful not to use deadly force, Green said. The question is what do you do?

Hawkins said he believed an officer attempted to use a Taser but said it was unclear if it worked or if it was used before the gunshots were fired.

Investigators had left the scene by 8:30 a.m. Monday, the only sign of the incident being police tape stuffed in a trash can at a grocery, Albany Fast Food Inc., which was closed. A customer attempting to buy a pack of cigarettes said the store was usually open by that hour.

Store owner Ali Abdullah said officers were at his business checking the cameras until 6 a.m. The employee who was working at the time was not available and isnt scheduled to come in until later.

Steve Hughes contributed to this report.
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TROY  While cameras filmed HBOs The Gilded Age using the citys intact Victorian architectural streetscape to stand in for 1882 New York City, actor Kelley Curran watched with fascination as so many Capital Region residents did in May and June.

Curran, a Bethlehem High School graduate who grew up in Slingerlands, had more than a passing interest in the nine-part series created by Julian Fellowes. Curran appears as Turner, an ambitious ladys maid, in the series that debuts at 9 p.m. Monday.

I wrapped up filming in Newport, Rhode Island, which we finished right before we came to Troy, said Curran, who came into town to have lunch with her mother Kathy, sister McCaela Donovan and her young nephew, Atticus Donovan.

Curran wanted to see what they were doing with production in Troy and see how they transformed the area. It was pretty spectacular.

Curran has worked professionally as an actor for 15 years after graduating from Fordham Universitys theater program at Lincoln Center. Her career has focused extensively on the stage and she has a deep background appearing in productions of William Shakespeares plays. She fell in love with Shakespeares works at Bethlehem High where she worked with teacher James Yeara. After Fordham she was a member of The Acting Company and debuted on Broadway in a revival of Noel Coward's "Present Laughter" in 2017.

When Curran, who now lives in Brooklyn, received her audition script and began reading her characters lines, she said, I just fell in love with Turner, even for all her shadows.

Turners journey through the series provides a strong storyline for Curran. Turner appears to have a hard outer shell and a coldness in interacting with her fellow servants.

Her life is not turning out as she expected and not as she hoped, And shes reached this point where it could really embitter her or it could inspire her to action Its such a delicious moment to meet this character and explore what shes going to do. Thats so much of the genius of Julians writing, Curran said.

Curran discussed Turner with Fellowes on the set. It was during their chats that Fellowes told Curran she reminded him of Linda Darnell, a star during Hollywoods Golden Age.

He talked about the sophisticated choices she would make in her films. Thats why he admired her. She would play a bit against character and subvert peoples expectations for the character, Curran said.

Fellowes remarks gave Curran insight into playing Turner, as well as spurring her to binge on Darnells films.

It was a really lovely thing to hear. And it also helped me play within the framework of the script in taking direction from our directors and thinking whats the obvious choice for this character in this moment, but maybe whats the unexpected choice, too. What do people expect? Curran said.

Just those few words from him always kept me searching the pockets of warmth and vulnerability in this character, Curran said.

Fellowes popular dramatic series "Downton Abbey" is known for its historic authenticity. "The Gilded Age" strives to recreate its period of late 19th century New York and the struggles between the old families and the new emerging rich. It takes place several decades before the action of "Downton Abbey" depicting the lives of British aristocrats in the early 20th century.

There is expected to be a crossover between the two series. Christine Baranski, Cynthia Nixon, Carrie Coon, Morgan Spector, Denee Benton and Louisa Jacobson are in the cast for The Gilded Age, according to HBO's synopsis.

When the coronavirus pandemic delayed production of The Gilded Age, Curran took the time to dig deeper into her ancestry, something that had always interested her. It took her back to her great-grandmother Delia Curran, who immigrated from Ireland and worked as a domestic servant in New York City.

I grew up with her and was very close to her. She was the warmest woman youve ever met in your life. She was beloved by everyone. I wonder what she shed have to say about Turner if she was to watch the show. I think about that, Curran said.

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

While Troy stood in for New York City, much of Currans performance was done at Old Bethpage on Long Island where the production had built up for 1880s New York. Troy provided a setting for Curran to take in the complexity of the production when she wasnt acting.

The scope of the show is so large, so many characters, so many different events and to watch them come to life during a pandemic and keep us all safe, its really astonishing, Curran said. It was nice to be a witness of it in Troy.
SARATOGA SPRINGS  City Judge Francine Vero dismissed charges against Black social justice advocate Jamaica Miles after Miles' attorney argued she was falsely accused and targeted by city police because of her race.

In a written decision on Monday, Vero dismissed the charges of unlawful imprisonment and disorderly conduct - charges police had alleged stemmed from blocking cars on Broadway during a July 14 protest - because, the judge wrote, "Ms. Miles was not the most culpable."

"She was simply the loudest," Vero wrote. "What differentiates Ms. Miles from the other protesters is the volume and intensity of her voice. Ms. Miles blocks the vehicle's path for about three minutes while other protesters stand in front of the car for the duration. ... Furthermore, the video plainly shows the crowd was already blocking the vehicle's path before Ms. Miles arrived upon the scene. Contrary to the assertion of the People at the Hearing, no evidence was introduced establishing that Ms. Miles was a 'leader' of the group in this case.

Last Thursday in court, Miles' attorney Kevin Luibrand offered photographic and video evidence showing that Miles did not initiate blocking traffic on Broadway near Phila Street during a July 14 protest.

"Jamaica was treated different not because of anything she did on July 14, but because of who she was, what she was saying and how loudly she said it," Luibrand said on Monday.

Luibrand also pointed to his other client, Molly Dunn, who is white and stood in front of the cars the entire time. Dunn, who testified at Miles' hearing, faced the same charges but hers were dismissed with an adjournment in contemplation of dismissal after 30 days.

"What is the difference?" Luibrand asked. "Molly is white, Jamaica is not."

The Saratoga County Assistant District Attorney Joe Frandino wanted Miles, who is a single mom of four with no criminal record, to plead guilty to disorderly conduct arguing she was the leader of the protest. Frandino argued dismissing the charges is "a slippery slope."

Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen office sent a statement on Monday evening, defending her office's stance, noting that even Vero acknowledged that Miles was blocking traffic.

"Clearly Judge Vero's decision is based not as much on the facts of the case involving Ms. Miles actions on July 14, 2021, but rather on the other factors involved in a motion to dismiss in the interest of justice," Heggen said in her statement. "The decision is about Ms. Miles background and community involvement not her actions on July 14, 2021. My office proposed a deposition of a plea to a disorderly conduct that took that background and personal information into account, but was rejected by Ms. Miles."

Heggen also said that she is concerned that the decision sends the wrong message to people who "violate the law and stop traffic" and said she might seek to overturn Vero's decision.

"If you have a background with involvement in your community and family, that can sway a court to dismiss the charges against you," Heggen wrote. "My office will review thoroughly the case law cited by the court to decide if we will seek appellate review of this decision."

Vero wrote the dismissal "will have a positive impact on upon the public's confidence in the criminal justice system in that defendants with the same clear criminal justice history and the same or similar charges stemming from the same incident will essentially receive the same disposition."

Miles, on Monday, released a statement on the decision in connection with the July 14 rally, which was assembled after Assistant Police Chief John Catone said he would use his family's 130-year history to end the narrative that city police are racists.

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

"Todays decision does not only impact me," Miles said in a lengthy statement. "It impacts every single person who dares to stand up and speak out for what they believe in. I was targeted because I speak out against injustice and people listen. Saratoga Police declared that they would stop the narrative, stop our speech, deny us justice. But today, the judge made a decision based on the furtherance of justice, something both the Saratoga Police Department and the Saratoga District Attorneys Office not only refused to do but were in direct opposition to doing. ... May todays decision be a victory that ensures no one else experiences what we have gone through for our rights and our freedoms.

At the protest, in which police were suited with riot gear, patrolled on horses and brought out an armored vehicle, officers charged and tackled retreating marchers on Broadway. On that day, five were arrested.

Police later said they listened to a 911 call from a man who was in his car on Broadway during the protest. He called to ask the police to move the protesters so he could get home to his heart medication. That led to an investigation and warrants being issued on Aug. 31, 2021 for those who allegedly blocked the car.

The arrest of eight additional protesters began on Sept. 7. Among them was Lexis Figuereo, the leader of Saratoga Black Lives Matter, who is also facing charges of disrupting a City Council meeting. Police also arrested the mother of Figuereo's children after she came to the station to call out Figuereo's arrest.

Many were held in custody for hours, one overnight, and shackled at their arraignment on violations like disorderly conduct.

Miles, a co-founder of the nonprofit group All of Us, surrendered to police on Sept. 9.

"Starting with the arrest of 13 people who were exercising their First amendment rights, the last four months have been difficult," the statement from Miles read. "Repeated trips back and forth to court, the ever present threat of losing ones freedom, time taken away from work and family, and the financial resources spent to defend our rights to freedom."

Since the fall arrests, the state Attorney General's Civil Rights Bureau has opened an investigation into Saratoga Springs police's treatment of protesters.

Note: This story was updated Tuesday morning to include District Attorney Karen Heggen's comments.
MATLA  A Malta town councilman and former board member of Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership was awarded a $7,000-a-month no-bid contract with the Partnership, the countys economic development arm.

Tim Dunn, who is founder of the marketing and communications firm Dunn Strategy Group, was entrusted with day-to-day operations of the Partnership in September at the end of a meeting in which he stepped down from his board position.

As part of the contract  the details of which were obtained from the county through a Freedom of Information Law request  Dunn receives a monthly base fee that over the six months ending in March will add up to $42,000. After that, the contract will be reviewed.

He also receives reimbursement of expenses, including mileage. Any expense above $500 requires pre-approval.

When reached on Monday, Dunn said that he couldnt talk about the county contract.

Any formal comment has to come from the county, Dunn said. Im not authorized to speak on the countys behalf. ... I generally dont speak on the record about my business dealings.

Dunn, a Republican, also said that he wasnt on the board when the contract was awarded. The contract officially began on Oct. 1 and runs through March 31.

While that's technically true, he was on the board at the beginning of the meeting, chaired by Wilton Comptroller Maria Moran, that ended with the contract being awarded. Minutes show that the board elected to go into executive session to discuss a contract negotiation, a vote that Dunn abstained from.

When the board, which also included county Board of Supervisors Chair Todd Kusnierz and County Administrator Steve Bulger, came out of executive session, meeting minutes show, Dunn announced his resignation at 4:55 p.m.

The next board action was entering into the contract with Dunn.

Echoing Dunn, Kusnierz texted the Times Union that the contractor "was not a board member when he was unanimously appointed by the board."

Kusnierz did not respond to a follow-up question about Dunn's resignation immediately before he was awarded the contract. County spokeswoman Christine Rush said the Partnership is not a county agency and that all questions on its activities should be directed to Moran, the board chair.

On Monday evening she sent a statement to the Times Union.

"Following the unexpected staff departure at the Saratoga County Properity Partnership, the SCPP Board unanimously voted to enter into a six-month agreement with Dunn Strategy Group to provide economic development consulting services previously handled by staff," Moran wrote in an email. "Not only has this emergency stop-gap measure ensured day to day operations could continue, but it has also provided the Partnership significant cost savings over previous operations and salary expenditures. Furthermore, in considering this arrangement, the SCPP Board carefully considered Mr. Dunn's decades-long economic development experience and followed all procurement protocols for professional services."

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

A person familiar with the contract who asked not to be identified said the county did not go out to bid for the service. The person said the Partnership currently has no staff, and Dunn's contract will require him to supervise and manage day-to-day activities of the entity along with outreach, marketing, engagement, strategic development and new program activities.

Former Milton Town Supervisor Benny Zlotnick said he was on the Partnership board at the time of Dunn's resignation/hiring, and explained that because the entity had no staff, the board members looked to Dunn.

"I'm sure Tim is doing a good job, but the way the board is configured it would have passed anyway," said Zlotnick, who voted yes to the contract. "The way things are now on the board, the board can do whatever it wants with the Partnership. It's kind of frightening. It's a Republican club."

The Partnership was established in 2015 by county officials after they fell into a dispute with the leaders of the longstanding Saratoga Economic Development Corporation. The county stripped SEDC of funding and financially backed the Partnership, where county elected officials and business leaders sit on the board. Until 2020, the Partnership was funded between $750,000 and $775,000 a year.

SEDC survived and has since seen some of its funding restored.

Meanwhile, the Partnership is by law entitled to half of the county's bed tax. In 2021, when the bed tax was greatly reduced due to the pandemic, the Partnership was given $450,000.

In the county's proposed 2022 budget, the Partnership is set to receive $350,000.
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Seven months after his Kentucky Derby drug violation, a hearing to suspend horse trainer Bob Baffert from racing at New York Racing Association tracks began Monday with fiery opening statements in which each party accused the other of seeking to destroy its business.

The high-profile disciplinary hearing represents an unprecedented instance of New York's top horse racing organization taking action to ban one of the nation's most successful thoroughbred trainers as a result of doping violations in other states.

On Monday, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) said Baffert had taken a "wrecking ball" to the sport of horse racing with his history of repeated drug violations. NYRA Attorney Henry Greenberg alleged Baffert's actions have also threatened the continuation of horse racing and NYRA's business.

NYRA has charged Baffert with engaging in conduct detrimental to racing, to the health of horses and jockeys, and to NYRA's business interests. It is attempting to suspend Baffert from racing at its tracks, the Saratoga Race Course, Aqueduct Racetrack and Belmont Park. Their action results from Baffert's drug violations in the Kentucky Derby and in horse races in other states, but not in New York.

Greenberg said NYRA is seeking a "lengthy suspension" for Baffert from the hearing officer, but did not specify a duration.

Baffert's attorneys argued Monday that NYRA is suspending Baffert because its board members had horses that competed against him and they were tired of losing to the famed trainer. Baffert's attorney Craig Robertson claimed NYRA has a "personal vendetta" against the trainer that it inducted into its "Walk of Fame" in 2018.

"The most that he (Greenberg) is going to be able to establish is that there were minor overages of lawful allowable medications used in horse racing every day," Robertson said.

In May, Medina Spirit, a thoroughbred trained by Baffert, tested positive for drug use after placing first in the Kentucky Derby. The incident drew national attention as the sport of horse racing has recently wrestled with a number of doping scandals. Then, in December, the horse died from a heart attack after a workout at the Santa Anita racetrack in California.

Baffert has won the Kentucky Derby a record seven times, garnered millions of dollars in races across the country and staked out a reputation as a preeminent thoroughbred trainer.

But Baffert has also been cited for at least 29 failed drug tests over four decades, according to the Associated Press.

In the hearing, NYRA highlighted that five of Baffert's horses tested positive for six drug violations since July 2019 (other than Medina Spirit). When California regulators searched Baffert's barn in August 2019, they found 25 unlabeled medications and "a tube of 'bute' paste," Greenberg said, referring to the analgesic drug phenylbutazone.

Baffert has never had a drug violation in New York, Robertson said, making a point that is supported by New York Gaming Commission data. Robertson noted that the state Gaming Commission, which regulates horse racing, has not taken any action to suspend Baffert or revoke his license to race in the 30 years he's competed in the state.

Soon after Medina Spirit tested positive for a medication not permitted for use in the Derby, NYRA swiftly moved to temporarily ban Baffert from racing at its tracks. Churchill Downs Incorporated, which hosts the Kentucky Derby, suspended Baffert for two years.

The results are in See the winners of each category of the 2022 Best of the Capital Region contest, as determined by popular vote.

Baffert countered by filing an action in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn against NYRA, and he initially won a preliminary injunction because the association did not give the trainer a hearing before suspending him or immediately thereafter.

NYRA then established its procedural steps for the proceeding and scheduled the disciplinary hearing that began Monday. It marks the first time NYRA has conducted this kind of administrative hearing.

On Friday, a judge dismissed Baffert's case against NYRA, saying the trainer's claims of injury by NYRA were not ripe for court yet since the hearing had not taken place. Baffert's attorney said after the ruling that they may revisit their claims in court depending on the outcome of the disciplinary hearing that is expected to last several days.

Baffert continued racing at NYRA tracks as the court case unfolded, winning $2.7 million at NYRA tracks in 2021, data collected by Equibase shows.

Baffert attended the hearing Monday, which took place in a Manhattan law firm's office. Retired judge and former New York Solicitor General Peter Sherwood is overseeing the administrative proceeding.

NYRA's and Baffert's attorneys gave opening statements Monday. The attorneys questioned one witness, a former New York Gaming Commission associate counsel, Rick Goodell, regarding the state's drug regulations and other rules.

At the same time that NYRA charged Baffert with conduct detrimental to racing and its business, the organization made similar charges of trainer Marcus Vitali, who also has accrued drug violations in multiple states. The New York Gaming Commission refused to issue a license to Vitali in 2019. Vitali's administrative hearing with NYRA is scheduled to begin on March 1.
ALBANY  Former state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who for almost two decades loomed as one of New York's most powerful lawmakers, died Monday at the age of 77 in a federal medical center prison in Massachusetts, where he was serving a six-year term for his conviction on bribery and corruption charges.

The Manhattan Democrat served as speaker from 1994 until his arrest in January 2015, weathering various scandals, including his chamber's handling of sexual harassment cases. Silver was sent to prison in August 2020 following his second conviction after the first was negated by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the outcome of his initial trial.

First elected to the chamber in 1976, Silver became speaker just months before Gov. George Pataki was elected to the first of his three terms  years in which the speaker served as the Democratic power center in negotiations with the Republican governor and GOP-controlled state Senate. He remained a canny negotiator even after Eliot Spitzer won the governorship in 2006, ushering in the current era of Democratic dominance at the Capitol.

Silver's survival as speaker included his swift demolition of a 2000 coup attempt engineered by Syracuse Democrat Michael Bragman, whose punishment  in the form of loss of title, staff and budget and relegation to a miserable office space in the bowels of the Legislative Office Building  stood as a warning to all who would try to depose the low-volume legislative leader.

Silver was, however, badly bruised at several points by what he admitted was poor handling of cases of sexual abuse of female legislative staffers. The accused in those cases included his top aide J. Michael Boxley, who in 2003 pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct, and Assemblyman Vito Lopez of Brooklyn, whose harassment of staff was covered up by confidential settlements before he was forced to resign in 2013.

Silver's downfall resulted from a sweeping investigation by the FBI and U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan that found Silver had secretly steered state contractors to a law firm in which he had an interest, generating millions in personal income. He was replaced as speaker by Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie less than a week after his arrest.

Last summer, Silver was briefly released from federal prison due to decarceral efforts in the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed last spring. The former legislator, who had expected to serve out the rest of his term in home confinement, had a short-lived homecoming: The U.S. Bureau of Prisons said his release was an error and he was returned to a medium-security prison in Otisville, Orange County.

At some point, Silver, who has struggled with health problems while incarcerated, was transferred to a federal medical facility prison in Devens, Mass. His name was still listed on that facility's inmate log on Monday afternoon, with his release date set for March 2026.

Silver's hard-fought legal battle with the U.S. Justice Department, including two appeals of his convictions by trial juries, ended in July 2020 when a federal judge sentenced him to 78 months in prison and fined him $1 million.

His conviction and sentencing were the culmination of a series of prosecutions by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan that rocked state government and brought down some of its most powerful and storied figures during a years-long crusade by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara that also led to the conviction and imprisonment of former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

The evidence at his trials indicated Silver had seized on the state's skeletal financial disclosure rules to enrich himself in an intricate money-laundering and bribery scheme using the power of his office and the fame of his position as one of New York's three most powerful figures.

Prosecutors, in a sentencing memorandum, cited a probation report that concluded Silver was simply motivated by greed.

"Silver is an example of why the public has lost faith in their elected officials," they wrote.

Although an appeals court had vacated three of the seven counts on which Silver was convicted at his second trial, they declined to pursue a third trial and asked the judge to sentence Silver on the four counts that were affirmed by the appellate decision, including a money-laundering charge. The government had requested a sentence of 84 months.

Silver remained free on $200,000 bond for many years after his arrest. He appealed both of his convictions to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals: His first conviction was vacated; his second appeal focused on the judge's instructions to the jury that had convicted him a second time.

He was convicted of two counts each of honest services mail fraud, honest services wire fraud and Hobbs Act extortion, and one count of money laundering. The jury found Silver had accepted nearly $4 million in fees in exchange for taking actions as a legislator that benefited a cancer researcher and real estate developers.

Silver was convicted of engaging in a two-pronged corruption scheme that padded his bank account with what prosecutors characterized as bribes and kickbacks disguised as legal fees.

Silver's appeals were based in large part on U.S. Supreme Court rulings that whittled away at the federal honest services fraud statutes that had long been among the Justice Department's favored weapons in white-collar and political corruption cases.

Silver was of counsel for the Manhattan law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg and accused of helping steer state grants to a doctor who funneled mesothelioma patients to the law firm. The three counts overturned by the federal circuit court related to that work.

He also did legal work for another Manhattan firm, Goldberg & Iryami, that handled property tax assessment appeals and was similarly accused of receiving legal fees through that firm from real estate developers that had extensive business before the Legislature.

Silver's attorneys argued that the definition of an official act was "the exercise of actual governmental power, the threat to exercise such power or pressure imposed on others to exercise actual government power."

Federal prosecutors, with whom U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni ultimately agreed, said an official act includes "any action taken or to be taken under color of official authority."
ALBANY  New political boundary maps are poised to be drawn by the Legislature after the Independent Redistricting Commission has again reached impasse on the maps that it was instructed to create.

Democratic members of the 10-person commission issued a statement Monday stating that Republicans on the panel have "refused to agree to a compromise" and negotiate the map proposals. The political standoff effectively stalled the long-awaited process that, without a new map presented to the Legislature by Tuesday, will be over.

Earlier this month, the commission was unable to present a single set of agreed-upon maps; the Democratic-controlled Legislature voted down the dueling set of maps that the commission's Democratic and Republican sides offered.

The move set up the Legislature to be able to draw its own maps.

In an interview responding to the Democrats' statement, Vice Chair Jack Martins, a Republican and former state senator, told the Times Union that their description of the situation was untruthful, which Chair David Imamura then rebuffed in a subsequent follow-up interview.

"That's a lie," Martins said in a phone interview Monday. "Anybody who says they presented a map, they didn't present a single map. They came back and said they're going to present their same map."

Democrats told them, Martins said, that the only change they offered was technical, regarding a state Senate boundary in which the numbers needed to be tweaked.

"The idea of presenting a map, or claiming that they presented a map, is a lie," Martins added. "It didn't happen."

There were about 10 differences remaining between the two sides, Martins said. They were primarily located on Long Island, where Martins lives, some in Brooklyn and Queens and a few upstate, including around Binghamton and the Southern Tier.

Imamura described a very different take of the events in an interview with the Times Union.

He said that Democrats proposed a map that included a concession over the congressional district in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The 11th Congressional District is currently held by a Republican and encompasses all of Staten Island.

Other concessions were not offered, Imamura said, because they "correctly and accurately reflect the people of New York state."

"The concessions that they were demanding were basically treating the most disenfranchised people in New York state and saying, 'let's continue to disenfranchise them in exchange for Republican gains in congressional and (state) Senate seats," Imamura said. "We did not join this commission to disenfranchise people and that's the concessions that they were demanding."

Binghamton is currently in the Republican-held 22nd Congressional District. The Democratic-proposed map would draw Binghamton into the 19th Congressional District, which is held by a Democrat and represents much of the Hudson Valley. The Republican-proposed map would draw Binghamton into a Southern Tier district, which would range to the edge of the state and lean heavily conservative.

Imamura said a version of the map Democrats were proposing last week would have to be obtained through a Freedom of Information Law request, but he maintains the map exists. Martins said the map did not exist. Neither side presented materials from their recent meeting, which would fall under deliberations that they view as generally protected from the public record.

Martins noted it did not make sense for Republicans to agree on maps that were effectively the same if it meant that would delay the overall process, which redistricting and elections experts note is a rather tight timeframe for the June primary. Instead, he said he would prefer for the Legislature to begin its process then postpone it one week with presumably voting down maps that he claims have not changed.
ALBANY  New York politicians uniformly and swiftly offered condolences following the death of a New York Police Department officer in a shooting that also critically wounded another officer late Friday night, but the incident also led many elected officials to call for changes to the state's criminal justice system.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has pledged with Gov. Kathy Hochul to combat violent crime, offered several spaces for change, including potential "tweaks" to state legislation that he said had "good intentions." It was apparent veiled reference to the state's bail laws.

"There's just certain places that we need to tweak to get the results that we're all looking for," said Adams, a former police captain and state senator. "If we the police just take thousands of guns off the street and we're putting dangerous criminals on the street or we're not addressing the flow of guns, then we're wasting our time."

While Adams and some Republicans quickly called for potential changes to the state's bail laws, New York remains under a state of emergency because of a surge in gun violence. The Legislature is preparing to negotiate the governor's budget that includes $224 million to stem gun violence, and which offers myriad strategies to stem the surge while sidestepping critiques to the pretrial system.

Adams, during the same news conference Saturday in the Bronx, also called for other reforms, which specifically were not about bail. Alongside federal, state and local elected officials, Adams said that it is time to "move to a place that we can identify and reconcile what are the feeders of this violence that we are seeing."

"Because many people often talk about bail reform, but there are other rivers that are feeding the sea of violence," said Adams, who plans to roll out a blueprint for combatting gun violence that he said will be a model for the nation. "If we don't identify them correctly and put into place plans to remove them, we will never resolve the issue of violence."

Despite the dialogue around bail, the events in New York City that directly led to the death of at least one officer at first appeared to have no connection to changes that have expanded the rules for releasing someone following an arrest and while their case is pending.

Officers responded to a call in Harlem from a woman about an argument with her adult son; the 47-year-old son is believed by the police to have shot at two responding officers with an illegal gun that had been stolen in Baltimore in 2017.

One officer, 22-year-old Jason Rivera, was pronounced dead. The second, Wilbert Mora, 27, was critically wounded. The identified gunman, Lashawn J. McNeil, is also in critical condition, according to the police.

Adams and state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, D-Bronx, said they support the passage of legislation of state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, D-Brooklyn, that would allow the state to potentially hold gun manufacturers accountable for shootings. The legislation was passed and signed into law last year by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

"New York has a law to hold gun manufacturers responsible," Myrie tweeted Friday night. "Its time we use it."

State Attorney General Letitia James said Friday night that "as we await the facts, my office may assert jurisdiction in this matter." It's unclear what statute James would invoke to declare jurisdiction on a matter that would normally fall to an elected district attorney.

Hochul said that "we must urgently confront the plague of gun violence in our state" while noting the investments her proposed budget proposed budget for fighting violent crime and extending the state of emergency that Cuomo had declared.

"I refuse to allow our cities to be gripped with fear," Hochul, a Democrat running for her first full-term this year, said in a statement. "New Yorkers deserve action from their elected officials  and they will get it."

Sunday afternoon, Hochul announced that her newly formed "Interstate Task Force on Illegal Guns" will meet for the first time on Wednesday at the New York State Intelligence Center in East Greenbush. It is to include law enforcement officials from nine northeastern states, including the NYPD, to address illegal firearm use.

Both Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins offered statements but both have indicated they do not support any changes to statutes that were adjusted over the past few years regarding bail and pre-trial discovery. Heastie said that "we need to end the epidemic of gun violence that has become part of our everyday life." Stewart-Cousins said she is "deeply disturbed and saddened by the horrific shooting and killing of one NYPD officer."

Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt and Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay offered similar takes. "God bless these two officers and all those who dedicate their lives to keeping New York safe," Ortt said. While Barclay noted "our focus and efforts must be directed at ending this ongoing violence."

Hochul's opponents in the upcoming gubernatorial election used the moment to weigh in on gun violence.

Moderate U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-Long Island, said "this must stop" in response to four NYPD officers being shot in three days. Progressive New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, D-Brooklyn, said that he has felt "anger, that the plague of gun violence continues to take a devastating toll."

Republicans U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin and Andrew H. Giuliani, in the immediate wake of the tragedy, both pointed to the state's approach to policing as contributing factors to the surge in gun violence.

"The only thing surprising anyone is that these politicians continue to believe it has nothing to do with their lawless policies," Zeldin said in his statement on behalf of the slain officer. He called the city's criminal justice system "powered by cashless bail."

And Giuliani said that "we have been told a fantastic lie that law enforcement is the problem with our society; the truth is that our police are the very best of us."

The path forward though may be more granular than addressing the state's bail laws. A roundtable discussion in the Bronx with Adams, Rivera and community organizers and violence interrupters offered more tailored needs.

There were calls for grants, like those from the gun violence state of emergency, that are not reimbursable but can offer capital for cash-strapped, established groups. And there was a desire for police to work more closely with the violence interrupters.
With the current group managing director David Smith set to retire at the end of March 2022, Continental has announced that Tarik Gorgun will become MD for the UK and Ireland effective March 1, 2022.

Gorgun has more than 16 years of experience in the tire sector, having started his career at Continental within the R&D department in Hannover, Germany. Moving forward, he held several managerial positions within the companys consumer and commercial vehicle tire areas before working in commercial positions in Continentals original equipment sector.

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Gorgun is currently the head of OE tires Japan and global key account manager for Honda and Subaru, a position he has held for the past four years, directing commercial activities in the Americas, EMEA and APAC regions.

David Smith joined the Continental Tyre Group as finance director in 2003 and went on to become the companys managing director in 2007. During his time in the position, Smith worked on the integration of Bandvulc and R&J Strang into the business and supported the reintroduction of the companys agricultural tires into the market.

Continental is a fantastic company, and it has been a privilege to lead the UK and Irish business over the last 15 years, said David Smith. I have been humbled by the talent and commitment of our people, and their passion for creating a truly customer-driven company.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Tarik on his new appointment and look forward to working with him on his transition to the role. Tarik inherits an exceptional team and I have every confidence that, with his leadership, Continental Tyre Group is well positioned to continue to prosper long into the future.

It is a huge honor to be appointed managing director for Continental Tyre Group, commented Gorgun. Im eager to build on Davids success and lead the team into an exciting new chapter of the business. Meeting with our valued customers and working closely with our expert teams in the UK and Ireland are what I look forward to the most as I start my new position. Id like to extend my gratitude to David for his remarkable leadership and wish him a long and happy retirement.
A legal debate over representation deserve consideration beyond talking points about equity and other buzzwords.



The most important part of the conversation is from local lawyers who claim they were excluded from the discussion . . .



Charles Lamb, a private defense attorney, expressed frustration, saying the meeting was a surprise to area attorneys who often fulfill a public defenders role.



Ive invested my entire career into defending the indigent people in this community, said Lamb. To say youre going to replace us with public defenders is not true. Were all public defenders. You said this is public comment. Were stakeholders. This board did not come to us, when I heard this was happening it was only recently.



Mike Nichols, who also opposes a public defenders office, said he is a court-appointed attorney in Wyandotte County and has represented clients appointed to him for 11 years. Like Lamb, he said he also received short notice.



He criticized BIDS for not bringing court-appointed attorneys together to discuss problems regularly. He said if he and other attorneys had been included, they could have avoided a lot of problems for clients.



I cannot believe that we got to this point without at least talking to those of us who have been filling this role for all of these years, doing this work for the community, said Nichols. I think that we should have had a voice at the table just as much as everyone in this room.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .
This morning the newspaper is making sure their political allies are first in line amid upcoming discussions about the new chief of police.

TKC doesn't have a problem with that if only it was properly labeled as political lobbying and not a "community" forum which excludes our neighbors in the Northland, reps from immigrant communities, LGBT leaders and maybe some aspiring Latino politico in a flashy suit.

If newsies are really going to mislead the community then we might as well make it seem inclusive and get the whole crew of the Starship Enterprise up there . . . If you'll allow us to force a bad metaphor about coalitions that don't really exist.



To be fair . . .



Here's the call to action . . .



The forum, which begins at 10 a.m Saturday., will be moderated by Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City who has been an outspoken critic of current Police Chief Rick Smith.



Damon Daniel, President of Ad Hoc Group Against Crime; Melesa Johnson, Deputy Chief of Staff for Kansas Citys mayor; Lora McDonald, Executive Director of MORE2; and Councilwoman Melissa Robinson, who represents the third district, are part of the panel.



The new chief will be chosen by the Board of Police Commissioners, whose members are mostly chosen by Missouris governor, and who include Mayor Quinton Lucas. But Kansas Citians taxes will pay the persons salary.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com paywall news link . . .
American soldiers might be on the move again as we pay tribute to hottie Sara in this well rounded peek at pop culture, community news and top headlines.



Check the TKC collection . . .

Hipsters Gear Up For Hype Week

MADE MOBB unite with the Chiefs for limited collaboration apparel line MADE MOBB collaboration with the Chiefs. // Photo by Fantasia Wesley "As we rise, we want to bring Kansas City up with us. It's been a dream come true," says Vu Radley, the co-owner and creative director of MADE MOBB. Founded in 2013, the local streetwear label MADE MOBB started by selling merchandise out of their vehicles.

Resources For The Troops Pitch In Amid American Scarcity

How non-veterans will be accepted into VA hospitals around Kansas TOPEKA (KSNT) - To help local hospitals that are overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, Gov. Laura Kelly announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will be providing ICU beds for non-veterans. This aims to reduce the strains Kansas hospitals are seeing across the state.

Kansas City Pushes Back Against Plague At The K

Missouri extending free COVID Testing clinic at Kauffman Stadium kauffman stadium parking lot serving as free covid testing site Kauffman Stadium will serve as a free COVID-19 testing clinic again. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced the clinic's extension Sunday. It will run from Monday through Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.Appointments are required.

Sara Shares Good Look

Sara Underwood's Instagram Photos Are Truly out of This World Sara Underwood is living a life like no other! The Playboy model and former Attack of the Show! co-host is currently residing at Cabinland, a series of tiny cabins and structures built by her and her boyfriend, Jacob Witzling, in the Pacific Northwest.

Prez Biden In Command

Biden weighing deployment of US troops to NATO allies: report President Biden Joe Biden US threatens sweeping export controls against Russian industries Headaches intensify for Democrats in Florida US orders families of embassy staff in Ukraine to leave country MORE is reportedly weighing the deployment of U.S. troops to NATO allies amid increased tensions with Russia and concerns that Moscow is planning an invasion of Ukraine.

MAGA Needs Money

Trump's team is directing allies to a January 6 legal defense fund Former President Donald Trump's team has been involved in discussions about a legal defense fund created to support aides targeted by the House panel investigating January 6, sources tell CNN.

Spy Games Persist

Assange wins first stage in effort to appeal US extradition LONDON (AP) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday won the first stage of his effort to appeal a U.K. ruling that opened the door for his extradition to U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges. The High Court in London gave Assange permission to appeal the case to the U.K.

WHO SEYZ MORE COVID ON THE WAY?!?!

Covid pandemic at a 'critical juncture' and we still have a long road ahead, WHO's Tedros says The Covid-19 pandemic is at a "critical juncture" as it enters its third year, the WHO's top official said on Monday. Speaking at a press conference during a meeting with Svenja Schulze, Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised Germany - the biggest donor to the WHO - for approaching global public health with "solidarity and multilateralism."

I'm Not Saying She's A Gold Digger . . .

Julia Fox rejects claim she's dating Kanye West 'for the money' Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

Kansas City Life Lessons Located

National News Literacy Week: How the Kansas City Public Library plays a role OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - The Kansas City, Missouri, Public Library calls itself the "doorway to knowledge." It employs a group of librarians called information specialists to help patrons find and understand that knowledge. "It's a tremendous responsibility," admitted Jenny Garmon, the library's legal and government information specialist .

Cash For Local Creatives

Cultural Producer Grants Unveiled in Kansas City - KC STUDIO No Divide KC is one of seven organizations to receive a Cultural Producer Grant from the Charlotte Street Foundation. Pictured above are No Divide KC's board members (identified front to back and left to right), Stacy Busch, Jacory Deon, Anna Joy Walker, Tanith K., John Chittum, Emily Spradling, Nita Hughley, Waleska Barroeta, JD Daniel.

As Always, Enjoy Today

Warm and breezy Monday -- until midday Hide Transcript Show Transcript STATE IN 2019. 608 ON YOUR MONDAY MORNING KATIE HORNER NOW THAT WE GO TTHE CHIEFS GAME OUT OF THE WAY YESTERDAY WE GET TO ENJOY SOME WARMER WEATHER TODAY. IT'S A SHAME STMO PEOPLE'S NIGHT 48 DEGREES WILL BEUR O TEMPERATURE AND I WISH THIS DIDN'T SAY AFTERNOON.

Charlie Puth - Light Switch is the song of the day and this is the OPEN THREAD for right now.
The upcoming midterms are literally dividing Kansas and sparking more debate about gerrymandering and/or the integrity of Johnson County . . . Lulz.



Here's an apt summary from a golden ghetto blog that's not any fun . . .



Opponents argued Republican leadership rushed the map and did not do enough to preserve the integrity of minority communities and other communities of interest, pointing to the decision to divide Wyandotte County along Interstate 70 and to move Lawrence into a rural district that stretches to the Colorado border.



Democrats described the proposed map as an attempt to shift power in favor of one party by shattering the 3rd Congressional District.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .
Brevard, NC (28712)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 82F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 53F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
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Well the full results are in for the Trinity Masters Open Waters Swim Meet and there's a new
Peace Talks with Rebels to Continue under Lacson Presidency

More at: https://pinglacson.net/article/peace-talks-with-rebels-to-continue-under-lacson-presidency

Peace talks with communist rebels - combined with the development of areas cleared of the New People's Army's presence - will continue under a Lacson presidency.

This was made clear Monday by Partido Reporma chairman and standard-bearer Sen. Panfilo "Ping" M. Lacson as he said that at the end of the day, the rebels are also Filipinos.

"Unang una, tuloy-tuloy ang peace talks. Huwag natin kalimutan na kababayan natin yan (First, we will continue the peace talks. Let's not forget that they are also Filipinos)," Lacson said on "Ikaw na Ba? The Presidential Interviews on DZBB."

But he maintained this must be combined with an honest-to-goodness implementation of development programs for areas cleared of the NPA's presence.

Without the development projects, he said continued poverty would force many NPAs who have surrendered to join the insurgency again.

Lacson said the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) was a good concept but was badly implemented, such that areas that needed funds did not get any while those that did not need funds received billions of pesos.

"Ang lugar na maraming surrenderees napagkaitan. Ito ang gusto namin i-correct (Areas with many surrenderees are denied the funds they need. This is what we should correct)," he said, adding that while the NTF-ELCAC is the right approach to bring rebels back to mainstream society, it should be implemented right.

This is part of Lacson's vow to fix the ills of government (Aayusin ang Gobyerno, Aayusin ang Buhay ng Bawat Pilipino) and go after robbers especially those in government (Uubusin ang Magnanakaw).
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in a phone call discussed Ukraine's European prospects, the strengthening of trade and economic relations and the development of green energy between the two countries, according to the Ukrainian government's website.

"Our intergovernmental cooperation is a shining example of the strength and effectiveness of the Ukrainian-Austrian partnership. In this regard, I hope that Austria will soon become the next country to support Ukraine's European perspective on a bilateral basis and that a [respective] declaration will be signed at a meeting with the Ukrainian president," Shmyhal said, inviting Nehammer to pay an official visit to Ukraine.

He stressed that January 24 marks the 30th anniversary of the resumption of diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Austria.

Shmyhal noted that in the future, Ukraine aspires to become the main supplier of green hydrogen to Europe, and in this context, the country counts on Austria's political support in the implementation of the project to produce green hydrogen in Ukraine.

During their conversation, both parties also discussed the increase in trade between the two countries. According to Shmyhal, since 2021, bilateral trade has started resuming after the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In the first 11 months of last year, trade between our countries amounted to more than $1.6 billion. We have set an ambitious goal of increasing our trade to $2 billion in 2022," he said.

Shmyhal stressed that there was great potential for expanding Ukrainian-Austrian business and investment cooperation. In particular, he invited Nehammer to launch an annual Ukrainian-Austrian business forum under the auspices of the governments. The first forum is to be held during an official visit by the Austrian chancellor to Ukraine.

For his part, Nehammer supported the idea of holding such an event and reaffirmed his intention to visit Ukraine this year.

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Implementing an effective policy requires timely detection and neutralization of threats to Ukraine's national security, as well as prompt response to the challenges facing the state.

Thats according to a greeting President Volodymyr Zelensky issued on Monday on the occasion of the Day of Foreign Intelligence (SZRU), Ukrinform reports.

"For eight years, Ukraine has been forced to wage war against a strong and insidious enemy, Putin's Russia. To withstand and successfully deter the aggressor is a responsible task for all of us, Ukrainians. Your intelligence data also allows Ukraine to monitor global trends in the world economy, the evolution and dynamics of the intentions of key geopolitical players in order to build the most effective models of relations with them," Zelensky said.

According to the president, the National Intelligence Program for 2021-2025 will help strengthen Ukraine's intelligence capabilities and bring Ukrainians closer to victory.

"I express my sincere gratitude to you for your dedicated service and wish you good health, new achievements, successful implementation of plans and ideas, optimism and confidence in the future," the president said.

In turn, Major General Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Chairman of the SZRU, posted his own greeting on Facebook.

Dear officers, employees, and veterans of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine! Please accept my warmest congratulations and sincere wishes on the occasion of the professional holiday  the Day of Foreign Intelligence of Ukraine. We live and work in an era of restoration of independence and the countrys democratic transformations, and at the same time  the occupation of Ukrainian Crimea, eight years of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, hybrid and cyber threats, terrorism, and destabilization of socio-political life," said the greeting.

According to the head of the agency, the leadership sees Ukraine's foreign intelligence as a modern and dynamic intelligence body that is rapidly transforming in accordance with pressing threats. Lytvynenko stressed that "together with our colleagues across the intelligence community, we are able to stand up to them with dignity in accordance with the best traditions of global collective security."

For us, defending Ukraine's sovereignty is not only about freedom, democracy, justice, but also about our successes and struggles, our values. It is in them that our unity and strength lie. I sincerely believe that we will continue to be a real team, ready to solve the most important tasks set before us by the Ukrainian nation for the sake of a strong, happy, and prosperous Ukraine," the SZRU chief said.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, January 24 officially marks the Day of Foreign Intelligence.

Photo: Ukrainian Presidents Office

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Refugee students receiving education at one of Egypt's schools.

By the end of 2020, more than 30.5 million refugees and asylum seekers had been forced to flee because of war, conflict and persecution. Leaving their past behind and seeking safety was not a choice but a mere necessity for their survival. Nearly half of these are children of school age. One of the unfortunate consequences of taking that journey to safety is that 48% of them are out of school, despite the fact that education is a basic human right, enshrined in both the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In Egypt, there are 271,102 refugees and asylum seekers registered with UNHCR, of whom around 37% are children. Refugee children from South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen are fortunate to be granted access to education in public schools on the same footing as Egyptians.

I want to be a pilot when I get old and travel the world

I want to be a pilot when I get old and travel the world, said Mohamed from Sudan, who lives with his single mother and older siblings after they sought asylum in Egypt. Mohameds family wish that they could live a stable life in safety. To them, being able to receive education means that the dream of a bright future is no longer unattainable.

Mohamed is one of millions of refugees around the world who did not choose to leave their homeland but were forced to seek protection out of their borders, when the situation in Sudan got dire. If they are denied access to education today, they will be left to face an unknown fate.

To support the enrolment of refugee children in schools, UNHCR provides students with education grants to contribute to the school fees and their supplements. In the academic year 2020/2021, UNHCR supported more than 48,000 students in public and community schools.

UNHCR additionally facilitated the selection of nine refugee students for a scholarship by the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development (SFSD) in 2021 to enroll in the Deutsche Hotelschule in El Gouna, where they are currently receiving high-quality hospitality education for three years.

I am super excited to learn how to cook different recipes from international cuisines by global chefs

I am super excited to start my training at one of the international hotels here in ElGouna next year, as I will learn how to cook different recipes from international cuisines by global chefs, said Ethar, a Sudanese refugee and a recipient of the SFSD scholarship. Ethar is the eldest daughter of her family, who sought asylum in Egypt in 2005.

In parallel, UNHCR strives to ensure and expand the access of refugee youth to the higher education system in Egypt, to give them a chance to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to access the job market and eventually rebuild their lives after everything else was taken away from them.

This includes providing several refugee youths from different nationalities with an opportunity to receive the Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative (DAFI) scholarship by UNHCR and the Government of Germany.

I remember when I was a kid in my home country, I used to study my elder brothers books, I was passionate about learning new stuff, and here I am now studying Medicine at Cairo University, said Fatima, a Yemeni refugee and 2021 DAFI scholar. The career I chose is the first step towards my future and I am proud it is medicine, she added.

Fatima lives in Cairo with her family who sought asylum in Egypt in 2017 after their country was no longer safe for them. While the family was suffering from the consequences of the ongoing conflict, Fatima decided to make the best of her new situation and chose to pursue a career that would enable her to help others.

The DAFI refugee scholarship programme was launched in 1992 and offers refugee youth all over the world an opportunity to develop their skills and to empower them. In 2021, more than 500 refugee students were selected from Egypt to receive a scholarship to study a wide range of academic fields.

I would like to succeed in my studies to prove that DAFI and UNHCR took the right decision when they decided to invest in us

I would like to succeed in my studies to prove that DAFI and UNHCR took the right decision when they decided to invest in us and to encourage others to support refugee youth, said Fatima.

The Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology (E-JUST) scholarship is another opportunity for refugee youth to continue their education in Egypt, fully funded by the Government of Japan. Four refugees, who were selected for this programme, are now studying Computer Science and Mechatronics, and UNHCR is proud to witness their graduation in 2023, among a group of prospective future scientists.

Among all the rights taken from refugees, the right to education remains one of the most important ones that UNHCR advocates for and encourages everyone to defend, to help create the opportunity for a better future for refugees and their host communities.

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At the start of each new school year, principal Horacio Montes* braces not only for the arrival of his returning students but for much less welcome visitors  members of the gang that controls much of the Laureles* neighbourhood of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, where Horacios school is located, demanding he hand over the keys.

It has become common practice throughout Honduras for gangs to use schools as safe houses to stash illicit drugs or weapons, and Horacios nursery-through-Grade Nine school is no exception.

It used to be that schools were off-limits, spaces that were protected by the community, said Horacio, 47. But now you find that schools where they [the gang members] have infiltrated have become drug trafficking hubs.

Weve had kids practically stumble upon weapons [in school], he said. Theyve found bullets and cartridges and they bring them to us.

Such school takeovers are but one of the dangers that teachers in Honduras face. Some are forced to pay bribes to get to work, forking out money every time they cross the invisible borders that separate one gangs territory from anothers. Others are victims of extortion, intimidation, and threats from gang members, who sometimes include their own students or their students parents. Female teachers are particularly vulnerable, as they can be targets for sexual harassment or even sexual assault.

We have seen several of our colleagues killed in the line of duty.

As trusted adults, Honduran teachers also find themselves on the front lines of internal displacement, which is thought to affect more than 247,000 people in the small Central American nation. Teachers say students seek them out to talk to them about being targeted with threats that often end up forcing them to drop out of school to seek safety in another region. But these confidences can unwittingly get teachers caught up in potentially deadly gang conflicts, forcing them to flee, as well.

A recent report by the office of Honduras Ombudsman found that from 2016 to 2021, some 269 teachers were either pushed into displacement or were at imminent risk of being displaced, although that figure included only those cases in which official complaints were lodged, meaning the true number could be substantially higher.

Teachers in Honduras are sometimes forced to flee their communities due to threats against them.  UNHCR/Biel Calderon

Alba Flores* says teachers cope with the dangers out of love for their students and the profession.  UNHCR/Biel Calderon

Educator Horacio Montes*, 47, says threats against Honduran teachers include extortion and assault.  UNHCR/Biel Calderon

Educator Miguel Lopez* says Honduran teachers put their lives on the line for their students.  UNHCR/Biel Calderon

UNHCR has helped Honduran teachers facing the most serious threats find safety outside their home communities.  UNHCR/Biel Calderon

A 2016 investigation by the Comite Docente, an organization that represents Honduran schoolteachers, along with UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the NGO Save the Children, identified teachers as among the groups in Honduras most susceptible to being pushed into internal displacement.

We have seen several of our colleagues killed in the line of duty, said Esperanza Flores,* a preschool teacher who is also a member of the Comite Docente. The group has been working since 2016 to find solutions to the entrenched problems faced by Honduras schoolteachers. The aim is to keep them in their jobs and in their home communities, but those who are in the most serious danger are referred to UNHCR, which works to relocate them to safety, either inside or outside Honduras.

Its because of the students that we do this work.

Miguel Lopez,* the 51-year-old principal of a school in Tegucigalpas Pedregal* neighbourhood, compared Honduras educators to mother hens, who care for their chicks.

There are times when we put our own physical integrity at risk in order to protect our students, he said, adding that although Honduran teachers are at risk, we dont have any sort of protection ourselves.

Alba Flores,* the assistant principal of a Tegucigalpa elementary school, concurred.

We get involved, she said, adding, the truth is that its very risky for us  because without meaning to, we wind up knowing all about the lives of our students.

See also: Honduran man devotes life to rescuing young people from deadly gangs

Paradoxically, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken such a steep toll on the lives of millions of people the world over, has provided a respite for Honduran teachers. Online learning allowed teachers to avoid many of the pitfalls they encountered both on their way to and from school and in the classrooms.

But with the overwhelming majority of students unable to afford devices or internet connections, many teachers have taken it upon themselves to defy the invisible borders between gang territories to hand-deliver printed materials to their students so they can keep up with their studies.

Teachers willingly take on such risks for their students, says assistant principal Alba.

We are always going to be their teachers and their friends [because] we love them and its because of them that we do this work.

*Names and places were changed due to protection concerns.
Jennifer Ann Hancock was born Nov. 20, 1956, in Atlanta, to William Roy and Martha Jones Hancock. She went home to be with the Lord on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, in Gray. She was preceded in death by her father, William Roy Hancock, and her brother, Timothy Roy Hancock, as well as grandparents
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Health authorities in Turkiye are all set to use the country's locally manufactured COVID-19 vaccine, Turkovac, as a booster dose after two shots of the BioNTech vaccine

ANKARA , (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :Health authorities in Turkiye are all set to use the country's locally manufactured COVID-19 vaccine, Turkovac, as a booster dose after two shots of the BioNTech vaccine.

Dr. Ihsan Ates, chief physician of the Ankara City Hospital, said Turkovac will be administered on volunteers, who have received two doses of the BioNTech vaccine at least 90 days ago, as part of Phase-2b trials.

A total of 1,034 volunteers will be given the shots and the study is expected to be concluded within three months, according to Ates.

Furthermore, Turkovac shots will be administered on teenagers as a primer dose, and pregnant women will receive the jab as of next week, he added.

In line with the pilot study on those younger than 18, 50 volunteers within the age range of 16-18 will be given Turkovac.

Also, 100 other volunteers aged 12-16 and 5-12 will be administered the vaccine.
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London, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :British newspaper The Guardian on Monday said it had been given permission to challenge a decision banning the media from a court case about Prince Philip's will.

A High Court judge in September 2021 ruled the will should remain sealed for 90 years, to protect the privacy of his widow, Queen Elizabeth II, and other royals.

The hearing was held in private and media organisations were not allowed to attend.

The Guardian said a Court of Appeal judge had allowed it to take legal action against the attorney general, who is the government's chief law officer, and the Queen's private lawyers.

Judge Eleanor King said there was "a real prospect" the newspaper would succeed in arguing the original judge had "erred in law" by preventing the media from attending, it added.

The left-leaning daily said its challenge would "focus attention on the secrecy that surrounds an obscure exemption that has been granted to the royal family" over wills.

Unlike those of ordinary members of the public, wills of the Windsor family are kept secret after their deaths.

More than 30 members of the royal family have successfully applied at private court hearings to keep their wills secret since 1910, the newspaper said.

Prince Philip, who was also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, died in April last year, just weeks short of his 100th birthday, after more than a month in hospital.

He and the Queen were married for 73 years.
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Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Mohamed Bin Zayed, telephoned Prime Minister Imran Khan and offered deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the Lahore blast of January 22

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, Mohamed Bin Zayed, telephoned Prime Minister Imran Khan and offered deepest condolences to the families of the victims of the Lahore blast of January 22.

The crown prince prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured.

He strongly condemned the terrorist attack that claimed three lives and left several injured, the PM Office said in a statement.

The crown prince expressed solidarity with the leadership, government and people of Pakistan.

The prime minister thanked the crown prince for his condolences and strong expression of support.

Reaffirming Pakistan's firm resolve to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, he said that the perpetrators of terrorist attacks would be brought to justice.

The Prime Minister expressed Pakistan's desire to work with the UAE for further strengthening of bilateral ties, enhancing cooperation in the multilateral fora and continue close coordination on regional and global issues of mutual interest.

Frequent and cordial interaction between the leaderships of the two countries is a hallmark of fraternal ties between Pakistan and the UAE.
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The Induction ceremony of PNS TUGHRIL, first of four Type 054-A/P, multi role frigates and 10 Seaking helicopters was held at Pakistan Navy Dockyard here on Monday

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :The Induction ceremony of PNS TUGHRIL, first of four Type 054-A/P, multi role frigates and 10 Seaking helicopters was held at Pakistan Navy Dockyard here on Monday.

President Dr. Arif Alvi graced the occasion as chief guest.

Upon arrival, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi received President Dr. Arif Alvi while a smartly turned out contingent of Pakistan Navy presented the chief guest Guard of Honour.

The contract for four multi-role frigates (Type 054-A/P) for Pakistan Navy was signed between Pakistan and China in June 2018.

PNS TUGHRIL, the lead ship of Type 054-A/P has been inducted into PN fleet alongwith Seaking helicopters gifted by the state of Qatar.

During the welcome address, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Muhammad Amjad Khan Niazi underlined that induction of PNS TUGHRIL and Seaking helicopters would further augment PN combat capabilities in safeguarding territorial integrity and maritime interests of Pakistan.

The Naval Chief also elaborated the role of Pakistan Navy in promoting peace and stability in the region through various maritime initiatives.

President Dr.

Arif Alvi commended the induction of state of the art ship PNS TUGHRIL and Seaking Helicopters in PN Fleet.

He expressed satisfaction and confidence that potent and highly capable Pakistan Navy Fleet and its air arm would continue promoting peace and stability in line with Government's policy while devotedly guarding our maritime frontiers.

The president stressed the need of well equipped Fleet with surface, air and sub-surface platforms to safeguard sea frontiers under the challenging security environment.

President Dr. Arif Alvi underscored that Pakistan was a land of peace and urges security and stability in the region.

During his address, the president congratulated all those involved in the Frigate and Seaking Helicopter Projects and emphasized that such projects were manifestation of the trust and mutual cooperation that existed with our time tested friends.

Later, the chief guest handed over traditional Ship's scroll and aircraft documents to Commander Pakistan Fleet followed by prayers from Almighty.

The ceremony was attended by guests from embassies of China & Qatar, Governor Sindh Imran Ismail and serving as well as retired officers of Tri-services.
WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) US President Joe Biden will hold a video conference call with European leaders on Monday afternoon to discuss Russia-Ukraine tensions, the White House said.

"In the afternoon, the President will hold a secure video call with European leaders as part of our close consultation and coordination with our Transatlantic Allies and partners in response to Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's borders," the White House said in a press release.

The virtual meeting will include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
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The president of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, is possibly detained following riots in the capital and reports about an attempted coup, the RFI radio broadcaster reported on Monday, citing sources

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) The president of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, is possibly detained following riots in the capital and reports about an attempted coup, the RFI radio broadcaster reported on Monday, citing sources.

The LSI Africa news portal reported in the early hours of Monday that the rioters were demanding the resignation of Kabore, who was under the protection of the Gendarmerie. In another tweet, the media outlet said that the president's family had left Burkina Faso.

Earlier in the day, media reported that imprisoned Gen. Gilbert Diendere, who was involved in the failed 2015 coup in the African nation, had been freed by mutinying soldiers.
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The EU is not following the US in withdrawing its diplomats' families from Ukraine, top European diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday, adding that there was no need to "dramatise" the situation while talks with Russia continue

Brussels, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :The EU is not following the US in withdrawing its diplomats' families from Ukraine, top European diplomat Josep Borrell said on Monday, adding that there was no need to "dramatise" the situation while talks with Russia continue.

"We are not going to do the same thing because we don't know any specific reasons," Borrell said as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers which will include videolink participation by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"I don't think we had to dramatise as far as the negotiations are going on -- and they are going on."
Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating admonished the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for remarking that China could launch an assault in the Pacific region in coordination with Russia, and said that Australia must embark on its own path in Asia independently of London

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating admonished the United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Liz Truss for remarking that China could launch an assault in the Pacific region in coordination with Russia, and said that Australia must embark on its own path in Asia independently of London.

Truss gave an interview to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on Saturday, in which she claims that cooperation between "aggressors," like Russia and China is gaining momentum, without ruling out the possibility of China embarking on an assault in the Indo-Pacific "following a Russian invasion of Ukraine."

"Remarks by the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss that China could engage in military aggression in the Pacific, encouraged by Russia's contingent moves against Ukraine, are nothing short of demented," Keating told the Australian Pearls and Irritations public policy journal on Sunday.

Keating defined Truss's remarks as irresponsible, stressing that they are grounded in the Australian government's "desperate promotion of Britain as a strategic partner of Australia in a policy of containment of China."

"Truss would do us all a favor by hightailing it back to her collapsing, disreputable government, leaving Australia to find its own way in Asia," Keating said.

He stressed that the UK's influence in East Asia has come to naught since the end of its imperial holdings and military commitments in the region.

"The reality is Britain does not add up to a row of beans when it comes to East Asia. Britain took its main battle fleet out of East Asia in 1904 and finally packed it in with its 'East of Suez' policy in the 1970s. And it has never been back," Keating claimed, adding that the UK "suffers delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation."

"Australia's great Foreign 'non minister', Marise Payne, supported by the increasingly strident Defense Minister Peter Dutton, standing beside the British Foreign Secretary looking wistfully for Britain's lost worlds of the 19th and 20th centuries. Really," Keating added.

He also noted that China indeed does not demonstrate an aggressor's behavior, citing Xi Jinping as saying at Davos economic forum last week that "major economies should see the world as one community."

Truss and UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace arrived in Australia on January 20 to discuss bilateral ties alongside the economic and security situation in the region. As part of her visit, Truss repeatedly claimed that China and Russia are consolidating their influence through collaborating with autocracies and harnessing bilateral cooperation, posing a threat to regional and global security, while praising joint counter efforts by Australia, the UK and the rest of "the free world."
New rules came into force in France on Monday requiring people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to enter bars, restaurants, trains and planes, after a fierce fight over details of the law in parliament

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :New rules came into force in France on Monday requiring people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to enter bars, restaurants, trains and planes, after a fierce fight over details of the law in parliament.

A negative coronavirus test will no longer be enough to access leisure activities, some work events and long-distance travel.

The pass would "protect all those who host the public, because it prevents infections and allows them to stay open," Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire told Franceinfo radio.

"Individual responsibility is the best protection against the virus," he added.

France is currently recording the highest daily infection rates of any major European country, with an average of 360,000 over the past week.

But outrage at President Emmanuel Macron's declaration early this month that he wanted to "piss off" the unvaccinated with restrictions until they accepted a shot slowed the vaccine pass law's passage through parliament.

The government had originally wanted to apply it from January 15.

Around 40,000 people turned out for anti-pass demonstrations this weekend according to interior ministry figures, down roughly 25 percent from the previous week.

"The more coercion is applied to my body, my freedom, the more my decision (not to be vaccinated) will be strengthened," an education worker who gave her name as Laurence told AFP at one march.

Opponents from left and right had criticised the bill as a new assault on civil liberties, especially a provision allowing bar or restaurant staff to check customers' identity documents to make sure they match the pass.

"We're used to quickly checking people's passes as they come in, the staff has got the knack and there's never been any problems," said Alain Deriot, manager of the Jour de Peche restaurant in northeastern city Lille.

"But I don't see myself doing identity checks, it's intrusive... we prefer to trust our customers," he added.

How France emerges from the current wave sparked by the Omicron variant is seen as crucial in April presidential elections, where Macron is widely expected to stand although he has yet to declare his candidacy.

Despite the high levels of cases, Prime Minister Jean Castex last week announced a timetable for lifting Covid restrictions in France from February 2.
TOKYO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) The Japanese government urges its nationals who are currently in Ukraine to be ready for any possible development of the situation in the country and take precautionary measures, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Monday.

"We continue to closely monitor the development of the situation in Ukraine in cooperation with interested countries. We intend to take the necessary decisions without delay. We urge our compatriots who are currently there to be ready for any changes in the situation and take all possible measures for their safety," Matsuno said at a briefing.

Overnight Monday, the US State Department updated its travel advisory for Russia, warning against trips to Russia over tensions at its border with Ukraine.

It also advised US citizens in Ukraine to leave the country on commercial means of transport, authorized the voluntary departure of US direct-hire employees, and ordered the departure of eligible family members from the embassy in Kiev amid security concerns.

Western countries have been accusing Russia of allegedly deploying troops near the Ukrainian border in preparation for "aggressive action." Moscow has repeatedly denied these accusations, pointing to NATO's military activity near the Russian borders, which it deems a threat to its national security. Russia has also affirmed that it has the right to move forces within its own territory and put forward security proposals to the US and NATO, which have yet to be accepted.
A journalist was killed in Tijuana Sunday, the local prosecutor said, the second media worker murdered in less than a week in the northern Mexican border city

Tijuana, Mexico, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jan, 2022 ) :A journalist was killed in Tijuana Sunday, the local prosecutor said, the second media worker murdered in less than a week in the northern Mexican border city.

Lourdes Maldonado Lopez was "attacked with a firearm while she was in a vehicle," said the Baja California state prosecutor's office.

Mexico is one of the world's deadliest countries for reporters.

Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders regularly ranks it alongside Afghanistan and Yemen among the world's most dangerous places for news media.

Maldonado had worked for several media outlets, including Primer Sistema de Noticias (PSN), which is owned by Jaime Bonilla, who was governor of Baja California from 2019 to the end of 2021.

She won a lawsuit a few days ago against PSN, which she had been suing for nine years for unfair dismissal, Mexican press reported.

Two years ago, Maldonado had asked Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for "support, help and justice" as she feared for her life, according to a video republished on social media after news broke of her assassination.

"I have been on trial for six years with him," she added about the governor, during one of Obrador's press conferences.

NGO the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Twitter it was "shocked by the murder of Lourdes Maldonado, the second reporter to be killed in the city of Tijuana in less than a week.

" The group called on local authorities to "thoroughly and transparently investigate the attack." Its representative in Mexico, Jan-Albert Hootsen, added that he was "shocked and horrified by four brutal attacks on journalists in Mexico in barely two weeks," including a non-fatal knife attack on a media worker in Merida, Yucatan state.

On Monday, photojournalist Margarito Martinez was found dead near his home in the city.

The 49-year-old, who specialized in news related to the police, had a gunshot wound to the head, according to prosecutors.

Authorities were also urged to investigate an attack earlier this month that led to the death of journalist and social media activist Jose Luis Gamboa in the eastern state of Veracruz.

Gamboa was taken to the hospital on January 10 after he was stabbed and left lying on the street, but his body was not identified until Friday.

It was unclear if the killing was related to his work.

At least seven journalists were murdered in Mexico in 2021, according to an AFP count, although it has not been determined if all the killings were linked to their work.

More than 100 reporters have been murdered since 2000 in Mexico and only a fraction of the crimes have resulted in convictions.
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MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) Imprisoned Gen. Gilbert Diendere, who was involved in the failed 2015 coup in Burkina Faso, has been freed by mutinying soldiers, media report.

The authorities of Burkina Faso have imposed a country-wide curfew following riots in the capital and reports about an attempted coup on Sunday.

LSI Africa said on Twitter in the early hours of Monday that Diendere has been freed from his prison cell by mutineers. Earlier, the media outlet reported that rioters in Burkina Faso were demanding that President Roch Marc Christian Kabore resign and that his family had already left the country.

The Africa Elects polling and election data aggregator said on Twitter that "heavy gunfire" was heard close to the president's residence in Ouagadougou, as well as in several other districts of the capital city.

In addition, soldier mutinies were also reported in a few barracks not far from the capital.

Radio France Internationale reported that intense gunfire was heard on Sunday morning in two military camps in Burkina Faso's capital. One of the camps was where Gen. Diendere was being held. Radio Omega also reported gunfire in the city of Kaya northeast of Ouagadougou.

The government confirmed over the weekend that there was gunfire in Ouagadougou, but denied reports that the military had seized power in the country. Burkina Faso's Defense Minister Barthelemy Simpore also dismissed claims that President Kabore had been detained and said that the situation in the country was under control.
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WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) The Biden administration is finalizing the process of identifying the specific military units that will be deployed to Europe to counter Russia and is writing up military orders, CNN reported on Monday.

While the administration has not yet made a final decision, President Joe Biden reportedly discussed options with top defense officials over the weekend to increase the number of US troopsin the Baltics and Eastern Europe, the report said.

Earlier on Monday, The New York Times reported that Biden is considering deploying US troops to NATO member states in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Defense Department reportedly introduced several possible scenarios of scaling up US military presence, including dispatching 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern Europe, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if the situation deteriorates.

NATO pledged to reinforce allied deterrence and defense amid rising fears of military escalation in Ukraine by dispatching additional ships and fighter jets to the alliance's deployment sites in Eastern Europe.

The US aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman strike group came under NATO command on Monday in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time since the Cold War during the current alliance-led Neptune Strike 2022 exercise in the Mediterranean.

Tensions around Ukraine have flared up in recent months, with the West accusing Russia of massing troops near the Ukrainian border in an alleged preparation for an invasion. Russia has dismissed the claims and reiterated that it has no intention of invading any country while reserving the right to move forces within its sovereign territory.

Russia has also raised concern over increased NATO's military activity near its borders, saying that the allegations serve as a pretext for expanding the alliance's military presence and deploying more troops in Eastern Europe.
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WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) The USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier and its carrier strike group came under NATO command on Monday in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time since the the Cold War during the alliance-led Neptune Strike 2022.

"Today (24 January 2022), Allied ships from the NATO Naval Striking and Support Forces Command and the U.S. Sixth Fleet initiated a series of patrolling activities across the Mediterranean Sea, within the framework of 'Neptune Strike 2022' ... It will be carried out until 4 February, and features the deployment of the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier aircraft carrier, along with its carrier strike group and air wing," the alliance said.

The activities mark the start of the massive Neptune Strike 2022 exercise in the Mediterranean.

"It is the first time since the Cold War that a full US carrier group comes under NATO command," the statement added.

Earlier in January, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that the NATO military exercise was not designed or planned with respect to Ukraine. He added that the drills have been planned since last year. However, he did say there was some consideration given to putting the drill on hold due to the situation in Ukraine, but the decision was made to go ahead.

The NATO countries will train in the Mediterranean Sea on coordinated maritime maneuvers, anti-submarine warfare training, and long-range strike training, Kirby added.
MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2022) The West is using Kiev as an instrument in order to advance its own interests in the region and influence certain processes, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"Ukraine is perceived by the West as an instrument of influence, of carrying out its interests in the region, destabilizing the situation, endlessly accusing us (Russia)," Zakharova said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.

She emphasized that Western countries need reasons to constantly justify anti-Russian sanctions and are using Ukraine in that respect despite the fact that there is no evidence of any plans to Russian "aggression.

"

"So they took Ukraine as a platform for experiments, the unfortunate Ukrainian people - multinational, by the way," Zakharova said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman reiterated that Moscow is waiting for a response from the US to its proposals on security guarantees.

"We have submitted written proposals to our Western partners, first of all the United States. We have been very open in our actions ... Now we have responded immediately to their desire to hold some kind of clarification meeting. It was held despite the schedule... We are showing absolute cooperation, we are waiting for written answers to each of the points," Zakharova told Izvestia.
(UroToday.com) The 2022 EAU Section of Oncological Urology (ESOU) Annual Meeting included a session on locally advanced and oligometastatic prostate cancer and a presentation by Dr. Mary-Ellen Taplin discussing neoadjuvant treatments before radical prostatectomy for high-risk prostate cancer. Dr. Taplin notes that ~15% of patients present with localized high-risk prostate cancer, which may be life-threatening to the patient based on 15-year prostate cancer-specific mortality rates as follows:

There are several potential benefits of neoadjuvant treatment for high-risk prostate cancer, which is already standard of care for breast, rectal, and bladder cancer:

Down-stage local disease, which may facilitate surgical resection

Reduce or delay post-surgery treatment

Provide an in vivo assessment of response to treatment

Historical neoadjuvant trials investigated LHRH agonists +/- first-generation anti-androgens, but with the majority of patients having low-risk disease. These trials did not systematically evaluate pathologic response and had limited long-term follow-up. More contemporary neoadjuvant trials are investigating more potent androgen targeting agents (abiraterone acetate, enzalutamide, apalutamide), the majority of patients have high-risk disease, there is systematic central pathology review to evaluate response, and long-term follow-up is ongoing.

The key to the success of neoadjuvant trials is a strong multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary approach, including buy-in from urology, medical oncology, radiation oncology, pathology, biostatistics, radiology, and basic science. As follows is a list of neoadjuvant trials that have been combined with LHRH agonists:

2007: Dutasteride versus dutasteride/bicalutamide versus dutasteride/bicalutamide/ketoconazole

2009: Abiraterone 3 versus 6 months

2012: Enzalutamide monotherapy versus enzalutamide/dutasteride/Lupron

2014: Enzalutamide versus enzalutamide/abiraterone

2016: Abiraterone versus abiraterone/apalutamide  6 versus 12 months

2019: Phase 3 Proteus trial of Lupron vs Lupron/apalutamide (12 months)

Dr. Taplin asks: What is the impact of intense suppression of the androgen receptor pathway in high-risk prostate cancer? Can we cure more men? As follows is the pathologic complete response and minimal residual disease for key neoadjuvant trials:

In 2021, McKay et al.1 reported results of 117 post-radical prostatectomy outcomes of patients enrolled in 3 randomized, multicenter, clinical trials of intense neoadjuvant androgen deprivation therapy prior radical prostatectomy. Among these patients, 92 (78.6%) had high-risk disease. Following neoadjuvant therapy, 21.4% (25) had 0-5 mm of residual tumor, including 9.4% (11) with a pathological complete response. Overall, 49 patients (41.9%) experienced biochemical recurrence and the 3-year biochemical recurrence-free rate was 59.1% (95% CI 49.0-67.9). Of the 25 patients with an exceptional pathological response, 2 patients (8.0%) developed biochemical recurrence while 51.1% of nonresponders (47/92) developed biochemical recurrence.

Looking at peri/post-operative complications amongst these patients, estimated blood loss was only a median of 100cc (range 20-100), only 2% of patients had intraoperative complications, and 28-day and 3-month post-radical prostatectomy complications were acceptable, suggesting that high-risk patients that have received neoadjuvant therapy are not at increased risk of complications after radical prostatectomy.

With regards to mechanisms of response and resistance, Dr. Taplin notes that a hypothesis is that ERG+/PTEN loss tumors are larger at baseline and/or have low ADT dependency, suggesting resistance to intense androgen deprivation therapy. Furthermore, tumors with dual ERG+ and PTEN-loss have high residual tumor volume. In 2021, Tewari et al.2 assessed molecular features of exceptional response to neoadjuvant anti-androgen therapy in high-risk localized prostate cancer. In this study, whole-exome and transcriptome sequencing were performed on biopsies from exceptional responders (pathological complete response) and non-responders (pathologic T3 or lymph node-positive disease). Clonal SPOP mutation and SPOPL copy-number loss were exclusively observed in exceptional responders, whereas clonal TP53 mutation and PTEN copy-number loss were exclusively seen in non-responders.



Dr. Taplin concluded her presentation by discussing several important ongoing neoadjuvant trials. First, the Proteus trial is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 study of apalutamide in subjects with high-risk, localized, or locally advanced prostate cancer who are candidates for radical prostatectomy. Patients are randomized to 6 months of apalutamide + ADT versus placebo + ADT followed by radical prostatectomy and 6 months of additional therapy (based on what they received prior to radical prostatectomy) post-operatively. The primary endpoints are pathologic complete response and metastasis free survival, and key secondary endpoints are PSA-free survival and progression free survival. The study schema for Proteus is as follows:

Second, the GUNS trial is a multi-arm, multi-stage adaptive trial in biomarker-selected patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer. The primary endpoint of this trial is pathological complete response rate and the trial schema is as follows:

Third, the Neptune study is a phase 2 multicenter single arm trial (n = 32) of high-risk patients with pathogenic or likely pathogenic germline or somatic BRCA1/2 gene alterations. These patients will be treated with olaparib + LHRH agonist for 6 months followed by radical prostatectomy. The primary endpoint for this trial is pathologic complete response + minimal residual disease, with the following trial schema:

Finally, neoadjuvant darolutamide + abemaciclib will be assessed in a phase I lead-in 3+3 design to determine RP2D, followed by a randomized phase 2 study of ADT + darolutamide + abemaciclib versus ADT + darolutamide followed by radical prostatectomy. The primary endpoint is rate of pathologic complete response + minimal residual disease rate, with the following trial schema:

Dr. Taplin concluded her presentation of neoadjuvant treatments before radical prostatectomy for high-risk prostate cancer with the following summary points:

Currently, there is no phase 3 data to support neoadjuvant systemic therapy with radical prostatectomy

Phase 2 data shows promise for ADT with second-generation agents, including favorable pathologic complete response, minimal residual disease, PSA relapse, and salvage therapy rates

The phase 3 Proteus trial will complete accrual of 2,000 participants in May 2022, with a co-primary endpoint of pathologic complete response/minimal residual disease and radiographic progression-free survival. It will also be important if this trial can validate pathological complete response rate as a surrogate for radiographic progression-free survival

Biomarkers suggest favorable response in SPOP mutated and poor response in p53 mutated and ERG+/PTEN-loss

There are ongoing correlative analyses to investigate response and resistance, including single-cell sequencing

Future trials are investigating novel strategies, including novel combinations (PARP inhibitors, immunotherapy, targeted therapy), biomarker stratification, and PSMA-PET as a biomarker of response

Ultimately, the goal is increased cure rates for men with localized high-risk prostate cancer.



Presented by: Mary-Ellen Taplin, MD, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA

Written by: Zachary Klaassen, MD, MSc  Urologic Oncologist, Assistant Professor of Urology, Georgia Cancer Center, Augusta University/Medical College of Georgia, @zklaassen_md on Twitter during the 2022 EAU Section of Oncological Urology (ESOU) Hybrid Annual Meeting, Madrid, Spain, Fri, Jan 21  Sun, Jan 23, 2022.





References:
From predicting suicidality to disinfecting masks, these faculty members are some of USFs top innovators.

Six USF researchers with innovations ranging from artificial intelligence that can detect and predict suicidality, to encrypting and protecting sensitive information from cloud servers, to disinfecting and recharging masks for safe multiple use, are recipients of this years USF Excellence in Innovation Award.

Three of the faculty members are from the USF College of Engineering, one is from the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine and two have joint appointments with both colleges. USF, one of the nations most innovative public research universities, ranks eighth among American public research universities and 15th among all universities worldwide in generating new U.S. utility patents.

The Excellence in Innovation Award recognizes faculty for their accomplishments in moving inventions to market through creating new startups and commercializing their technologies and by advancing research and development through publishing in peer-reviewed journals and securing grants to support their projects.

This award celebrates innovation and entrepreneurial success by our investigators and scholars  recognizing their contributions to the knowledge base, USF President Rhea Law said. These six outstanding faculty members embody high-quality research, invention, and entrepreneurship, inspiring our students and our community. Their work illustrates the level of engagement USF has in research and invention, creating whole new realities that make the world a better place.

This years awards cover achievements in innovation from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021. Nominations were reviewed by members of the USF chapter of the National Academy of Inventors.

The winners are:

Brian Bunnell

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine

In addition to demonstrating outstanding productivity, as evidenced by his 12 publications in health technology, Dr. Bunnell had many exceptional achievements during fiscal year 2021. He and his colleagues received a $551,840 National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) R56 grant to use artificial intelligence to detect and predict suicidality from electronic health record clinical note text. With a $621,296 NIMH grant, he developed Adhere.ly, a web-based platform to help mental health therapists engage youth patients in therapeutic skill development. He subsequently received an $837,485 NIMH Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant to expand the platform for use with adult patients. Dr. Bunnell formed a strategic partnership between his company, Adhere.ly LLC and Doxy.me Inc., a telemedicine platform with 1,000,000 provider users, to integrate Adhere.ly into its user-interface, which is being funded by a $136,289 award from the Florida High Tech Corridor. Adhere.ly LLC holds an exclusive option agreement with USF and is currently negotiating a license agreement with USF Research Foundation.

Jing Wang

Professor, Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering

Jing Wang holds 11 U.S. patents and several provisional patents, including one jointly filed with II-VI, a publicly traded global manufacturing company, and has multiple projects being funded by about a dozen technology corporations and organizations. In fiscal year 2021, three doctoral students and one masters student involved in industry-funded research projects graduated under his supervision. During this time, three invention disclosures were filed by student-inventors. He was also elected a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors and Agere Systems Endowed Chair, a tribute to his translational research and innovation.

Attila A. Yavuz

Associate Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, College of Engineering

Attila Yavuz's research focuses on efficient end-to-end protection of encrypted systems to enable trustworthy machine learning for users without revealing sensitive contents to cloud servers. Prior work has been expensive for embedded devices and relied on strong trust assumptions for data collection and analysis. Yavuz's research presents a series of new techniques that offer lightweight post-quantum signatures, consensus and metadata-hiding file-sharing properties. This research has resulted in several papers and a patent filing.

Ying (Sarah) Zhong

Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Sarah Zhong responded quickly to combat COVID-19 by enabling safe reuse of masks through corona discharge, which can simultaneously disinfect and recharge masks. This NSF-funded and patent pending technique addresses mask shortages and environmental burdens caused by the pandemic. It has drawn significant attention from the media and society. She also invented another patent-pending technology to realize ultra-fast binder-free printing through electrostatic printing. Zhongs entrepreneurial accomplishments include a registered startup company and participation in I-Corps training. She published four papers in top academic journals, which included being featured on the supplemental cover of Environmental Science & Technology and ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces. In addition to receiving an NSF RAPID award, she received a $25,000 USF COVID-19 Rapid Response Grant and a $20,000 USF Interdisciplinary Research Grant.

TEAM AWARD

Professor Richard Heller and Associate Professor Mark Jaroszeski

Medical Engineering, College of Engineering and USF Health Morsani College of Medicine

Richard Heller (photo on left) and Mark Jaroszeski (photo on right) have advisory and ownership interests in MMD Technologies, enabling them to commercialize intellectual property related to drug/gene delivery for the veterinary and human clinical markets. During the 2020-2021 fiscal year, they received four U.S. patents for new intellectual property and submitted applications for four utility patents and one provisional patent. Their entrepreneurial achievements resulted in forging a licensing agreement with MMD Technologies. Heller and Jaroszeski have successfully competed for a $25,000 Bull Ring Accelerator Award to foster commercialization and were awarded a nearly $60,000 National Institutes of Health Diversity Supplement to fund a graduate student for instrumentation development related to this technology. They also commercialized a USF-discovered product, partnering with medical device manufacturer PRESCO to design and build a commercial-grade device that is ready for the veterinary market.
What's up Vol Nation?! Check out @Sami_whamiii on this weeks episode of the Weekly Wrap-Up for news involving @tpusautk and their guest speaker @tomilahren, the largest increase to the HOPE Scholarship since its founding, @josiah.j.james declaring for the draft. As always, a wrap up of our 
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Rain showers early will evolve into a more steady rain for the afternoon. High 58F. Winds ESE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

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As the universal Church prepares for the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to be held in 2023, prelates in Africa are translating base documents and reaching out.

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA  Nairobi, Kenya.

Prelates in Africa have shared experiences leading the first tier synodal path process, the Diocesan phase. One of the many initiatives has been translating the base documents into local languages such as KiSwahili.

The main Preparatory Document was published by the Holy Sees General Secretariat for the Synod. The document is intended to facilitate the first phase of listening and consultation of the People of God in the particular Churches. The solemn opening of the Synod took place in Rome in October 2021. It will conclude in the Vatican in 2023 with the assembly of Bishops from around the world.

In a short video published Tuesday, 18 January 2022, the African Synodality Initiative (ASI) explained that the idea of Bishops working together and sharing experiences is to encourage best practices in reaching as many of the faithful in the dioceses as possible. The African Synodality Initiative comprises the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) and the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM).

Antoine Cardinal Kambanda of the Kigali Archdiocese, Rwanda, Archbishop Jude Thaddaeus Ruwaichi of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania and Bishop Willybard Kitogho Lagho of Kenyas Malindi Diocese shared experiences of spearheading the synodal consultation process in the dioceses.

KiSwahili as a leading lingua franca in Africa

The Ordinary of Malindi Diocese explained how the translation of the working document was carried out.

We appointed the lead person and team for the Diocese who have come up with a translation of the preparatory document in the Swahili language, Bishop Lagho said.

According to UNESCO, Kiswahili is one of the most widely used languages of the African family and the most widely spoken in sub-Saharan Africa. There are about 200 million speakers. Swahili is a lingua franca spoken in East, Central, and parts of Southern Africa.

Other Dioceses are already asking for the translated version, so that everybody, especially those who understand only the local language, can be in a position to know what is required of them concerning the Synod, Bishop Lagho explained.

Taking the Synod to the streets

The Bishops in Africa would like the faithful to be more involved in the synodal process. Cardinal Kambanda of Rwandas Kigali Archdiocese said everyone is welcome to be part of the synodal process. The Church is ready to listen, he underlined.

We have organised different (apostolic) movements who go as far as market places, bars, in the streets and in different social places ... as well as going out to other Christian denominations and religious communities like the Muslims, the Cardinal said, adding that the intention is "to listen to everyone.

Synod and Small Christian Communities

For his part, the Ordinary of the Archdiocese of Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania Archbishop Ruwaichi, disclosed that the faithful are very enthusiastic about the synod and have received the message as a moment of grace for the Church and are more than willing to participate in the synodal process which they see as an opportunity to enrich and re-activate the evangelising power of the Church, he said.

The Archbishop of Dar further disclosed that the Church in Africa would do well to borrow a leaf on participating from the model of Small Christian Communities (SCC) prevalent in Africa.

Small Christian Communities were adopted as a pastoral priority by the Bishops of the regional Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) in 1976. SCCs, as parish entities, emphasise personal relationships, togetherness, family bonds, solidarity, Christian belonging, sharing, working and celebrating together.
The Catholic Bishops of Poland and Ukraine issue a joint appeal for dialogue and understanding to avoid the danger of war. They also join Pope Francis in his call for prayers for peace.

By Linda Bordoni

It is with concern that we learn the news that the recent rounds of talks between Russia and the West have not led to an agreement, write the heads of the Catholic Churches of Ukraine and Poland as they issue a heartfelt call to leaders to refrain from war.

Their appeal comes in the wake of that issued by Pope Francis during the Angelus in which he calls for a Day of Prayer for Peace on Wednesday, 26 January.

Read also 23/01/2022 Pope calls for a day of prayer for peace over Ukraine situation Expressing concern over the increasing tensions that threaten peace in Ukraine, Pope Francis calls for Wednesday 26 January to be a day of prayer for peace.

The statement signed by the Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and by the President of the Polish Bishops' Conference and by other members of the Bishops' Conferences, notes the growing pressure of Russian military forces on the Russian border with Ukraine, and expresses the belief that the current situation represents a great threat to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the entire European continent.

Today, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Archbishop Stanisaw Gadecki, and their brother bishops say in the statement, signed on 24 January, We want to underline clearly that every war is a disgrace and can never be an appropriate way to solve international problems. It never has been and it never will be because it creates new, more serious conflicts.

The "senseless slaughter of war"

They decry the "senseless slaughter" of war, "a risk from which there is no turning back" that destroys the present and threatens the future of people: "With peace nothing is lost, with war everything can be lost".

Ultimately, the prelates say, War is always a defeat for humanity. It is an expression of barbarism and a rather ineffective tool for resolving misunderstandings.

Quoting Pope St Paul VI who described war as a crime against God and against humanity itself, they underscore the need to search for alternative methods to war to resolve international conflicts, also in light of the terrifying power of the instruments of destruction available to even medium and small powers and the ever-stronger ties existing between nations throughout the world today [that] make it difficult or even practically impossible to limit the effects of conflict.

The appeal

Fortified by the experience of previous generations, the Ukrainian and Polish bishops say: we call on rulers to refrain from war. We call on leaders to withdraw ultimatums immediately and not to take advantage of other countries as bargaining chips. Any divergence of interests should be resolved not through the use of arms but through agreements.

They also call on the international community to join efforts in solidarity and actively support those under threat in all possible ways.

They recall the fact that the promotion of peace is an integral part of the Churchs mission and invite everyone to join in common prayer:
A Ukrainian serviceman sits in a dugout on the frontline with Russia-backed separatists in the Donetsk region (AFP or licensors)

Several Ukrainian Greek Catholic Bishops in Canada have expressed closeness to people in Ukraine, while calling for solidarity as tensions grow with Russia.

By Lisa Zengarini

As Ukraine endures the threat of Russian invasion, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Bishops in Canada have joined Pope Francis and European bishops in urging for a peaceful solution to the crisis, while expressing the closeness of the Ukrainian Catholic diaspora to their "brothers and sisters in the homeland.

Read also 21/01/2022 European Bishops appeal for peace and support for Ukraine The Presidency of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences invites the international community to offer its support to Ukraine in the face of mounting fears of a possible ...

Tensions still high

Tensions over Ukraine still run high after the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on January 21.

Though Lavrov insisted that Russia is not planning to attack Ukraine and Blinken said that the meeting provided a "clearer path of understanding each others' concerns, there were no major breakthrough in the talks.

New escalation

Tensions between the two former Soviet Union countries began after the annexation of Crimea by Moscow in 2014 and Russian involvement in the armed conflict in the separatist Donbass region. It escalated again recently as Russia amassed some 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine.

Both the US and its European allies have warned that any Russian invasion would be met with a severe response. They have rejected demands by the Kremlin that NATO commit to never admitting Ukraine as a member and withdraw its troops and forces back to NATO's 1997 borders, before several countries in Eastern Europe were admitted.

Concern in the Ukrainian community in Canada

The 1.3-million-strong Ukrainian Catholic community in Canada is following the latest developments with growing concern.

In a statement released on 23 January, the Greek-Catholic Bishops of Canada assured Ukrainian people of their prayers and support: You should know that we remain united with you even more now during these threatening times, the statement reads.

Addressing brothers and sisters in Russia

The Bishops then addressed their brothers and sisters in Russia, asking them to reconsider the motives of their leaders in re-igniting the hardship that the citizens of Ukraine have undergone in the last seven years.

Surely a neighbourly solution of reconciling divergent political visions will prove more successful in building solidarity and mutual beneficial collaboration, they added. The bishops also appealed to the shared Christian faith which flows from the ancient Baptism of St. Volodymyr (the Kievan Prince who converted to Christianity and Christianized the Rus of Kiev in the 10th Century, ed.).

Peaceful solutions to the conflict

The Canadian Greek-Catholic Bishops furthermore appealed to all civil authorities that have any influence over the situation, and above all Russia, to consider peaceful solutions to the conflict.

This would not necessarily mean a compromise, but would prove to be a just and fair and even magnanimous solution, they said. History teaches us that forced compromises, unnecessary subjugation and unjust resolutions often only fester and eventually erupt in ways unforeseen which are often more devastating than an earlier bilateral resolution would have been.

Prayer and support to Ukraine

Finally, they called on all people of goodwill in Canada to see the ongoing not merely as another distant conflict on the other side of the world.

This is a conflict that has already brought tragedy and hardship upon millions of individuals and families, they said.

The Canadian Greek Catholic Bishops therefore urged the faithful in Canada to concentrate their efforts in three directions. Firstly, they should keep informed and inform others on what is going on in Ukraine. The world cannot look away; you should not look away. Seek and share the truth, which gives authentic freedom and wisdom, they wrote.

Secondly, they asked for financial support to humanitarian relief for the people affected by the crisis, who lack of clean water, fuel, food, clothes and medicines.

Finally, they called for prayer for peace and justice in Ukraine. May God protect Ukraine and its people from further harm, the statement concluded.

Read also 23/01/2022 Pope calls for a day of prayer for peace over Ukraine situation Expressing concern over the increasing tensions that threaten peace in Ukraine, Pope Francis calls for Wednesday 26 January to be a day of prayer for peace.

Pope calling for a Day of prayer

The Bishops statement was issued on Sunday as Pope Francis called for a special day of prayer for peace in Ukraine.

At the conclusion of Angelus prayer, the Holy Father reiterated his concerns over the tensions in the region which threaten peace and security in the entire European continent.

I make a heartfelt appeal to all people of good will to raise prayers to Almighty God that all political actions and initiatives may be at the service of human brotherhood rather than partisan interests, Pope Francis said.
A mock voting exercise at a school in Manila, ahead of the 9 May general election in the Philippines. (AFP or licensors)

Ahead of the May 9, 2022, general election, the CBCP and the NCCP are urging Filipinos to vote for genuine candidates with servant leadership qualities.

By Robin Gomes

With the Philippine general election less than 4 months away, the leaders of the various Christian Churches in the country are calling on voters to guard against the powers of darkness that defraud Gods plan for the Filipino people. The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) made the call in a joint statement on the occasion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Christian Churches in the Philippines mark the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity from 16 to 22 January. The ecumenical event is part of the worldwide Week of Prayer for Christian Unity observed from 18 to 25 January.

May 9 general elections

In the statement signed by NCCP general secretary Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines and Archbishop Angelito Lampon of Cotabato of the CBCP Commission on Ecumenical Affairs, the Churches urged the electorate to insist upon what they called servant leadership from those seeking their votes.

The NCCP, which is a member of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches, brings together the mainline Protestant and non-Roman Catholic Churches in the Philippines.

The 2022 election, scheduled for May 9, will give the country a new president, vice president, 12 senators, and a new term for local officials. President Rodrigo Duterte, whose 6-year term ends in June, cannot stand for re-election, as the constitution mandates a single presidential term.

Candidates who honour life, creation

In Christian unity, our prophetic voice and firm stand for Christ-like conduct and life-affirming principles will enable us to join with other Filipinos in discerning who should lead the country, the CBCP and NCCP statement urged. We must all take courage to work together, honouring life and Gods creation.

Denouncing the widespread killings in the governments brutal war against drugs and anti-insurgency operations, the Christian leaders said, the very dignity of life has been violated, as many have been extra-judicially killed. By peddling falsehood and evil, they added, governance has not only limited democratic space, but they have led to corruption, scandals and serious shortcomings in social, health, and other government services.

In these trying times, we must also guard against the powers of darkness that will seek to defraud, deceive, and destroy Gods intended goodness for the Filipino people, the Church leaders said.

As a community that evangelizes through active participation in the democratic process, we can lead by example, reflecting Christs love and joining in a journey toward our desired future, where justice, righteousness, and peace will take root and Gods Shalom will flourish among us, they added.

Solidarity with the vulnerable

Noting the struggle, hardship and despair of the people hit by Typhoon Rai and the Covid-19, the Church leaders said Christians must unite in solidarity with the most vulnerable among us. The Filipino people are in need of accompaniment and aid in these difficult times.

As we respond to the challenges of our time, we offer ourselves in service to the poor, the marginalized, and to the toiling majority who are striving for more prosperous and peaceful futures.

Forming a moral conscience

In a related development, the president of the Filipino bishops found it extremely worrying and disturbing that voters are being conditioned to support the probable winners rather than voting according to their conscience. While Filipinos tend to vote for candidates "based on the likely winner, we have failed in terms of forming a moral conscience among Catholics", said CBCI president Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan.

Speaking recently at a virtual forum organized by the "Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals", Bishop David denounced the proliferation of misinformation and false propaganda, especially through social media.

CBCP president laments "age of misinformation"

He pointed out that social media has been used to spread lies "and news without verification", unlike mainstream media, which employs professional journalists to verify information and validate reported facts. It is notorious, he recalled, the use of trolls and fake accounts on social media, used in favour of a candidate against his political opponents.

Bishop David said, "There is an urgent need for Filipino citizens to stand up for truth, honesty and transparency". "One of the crucial moral issues in the upcoming elections in May 2022, he said, will relate to the moral imperative of respecting the truth. The moral obligation of every Christian is to defend the truth. It has become particularly difficult in this age of misinformation.", the CBCP president said.
KAYLEE SUGIMOTO is a News and Features Reporter for The Vidette. Contract Sugimoto at ksugim1@ilstu.edu. Follow Sugimoto on Twitter at @kayleesugimoto1

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GRACE PIZZINI is a News and Features Reporter for The Vidette. Pizzini can be contacted at gepizzi@ilstu.edu. Follow Pizzini on Twitter at @gepizzini

IF YOU SUPPORT THE VIDETTE MISSION of providing a training laboratory for Illinois State University student journalists to learn and sharpen viable, valuable and marketable skills in all phases of digital media, please contribute to this most important cause. Thank you.
Vietnam has one of the oldest cultures in Southeast Asia. While national identity can be complex given Vietnams history, locals are proud of their language and its complexities, as well as the distinctiveness of their society and culture. The expression dat viet (Vietnamese land), for example, encapsulates the notion that Vietnamese society have an organic relationship to their environment.

Since the introduction of Doi Moi  or renovation policy  in the 1980s, which began the transition from the countrys socialist economy to a market economy, Vietnam has experienced many significant changes, including a rise in the standard of living. These factors have in turn inspired a flurry of foreign businesses looking to start operations or expand in the country.

But for those planning to do business in Vietnam for the first time, it is important to learn about the countrys vibrant culture and traditions. Those that do will find it easier to work in the country.

Greetings in Vietnam

While English is gaining in popularity, Vietnamese remains the dominant language: it is spoken by 86 percent of the population. Vietnamese appreciate it if a foreigner tries to learn simple phrases in their language such as xin chao (pronounced as seen chow), meaning hello in Vietnamese.

A handshake and a slight bow of the head is the general custom for saying hello and goodbye. Meanwhile, Vietnamese names are written and introduced in the following order: last name, middle name, first name.

Business etiquette 101

When possible, business meetings should be done in the presence of someone who can translate. Be prepared to attend several meetings as successful deals are rarely completed in a few encounters. Conversations held in person are preferred over online communication and emails.

Cold calling is not recommended. It is recommended to be introduced to a potential business contact by a common acquaintance or third-party reference. Business meetings should be scheduled in advance and should avoid major public holidays, such as Tet, which is the Vietnamese New Year celebration.

For first-time meetings, its best to meet at your potential partners office. This avoids the possibility of a last-minute cancellation because of any travel difficulties on behalf of your business partner.

When giving or receiving business cards, do so with both hands. Time should be taken to read the name on the card  hastily stuffing a business card or barely giving it a glance is deemed offensive. When possible, seek to create a business card that has both English and Vietnamese translations.

If offered tea at the reception, accept it, as this is a sign of hospitality. In the North, hot tea is typically served, while in the South, meetings take place with ice tea or soft drinks.

Its best to have an agenda before the meeting so the business partners can acquaint themselves with what will be discussed. It is also helpful to have all documents translated in Vietnamese.

Silence is common in meetings and means that your partners are thinking about your interests. Interrupting this time of reflection can be considered rude. Further, silence may be used when someone disagrees, and so not cause a loss of face for attendees.

Seniority and hierarchy are important in Vietnam. For example, showing the eldest person respect by giving them your business card first is appropriate.

Saying yes may merely indicate understanding, rather than actual agreement. Its best to follow up and confirm with your business partner to understand if you have agreed on a deal.

It is typically the guests responsibility to signal the end of the meeting.

The first few meetings will involve getting to know each other, as compared to the West, where first meetings tend to remain on a business level. Social connections are important, and Vietnamese may make most of their business decisions based on how they see you as a person outside of the business.

Many Vietnamese will ask questions that may seem personal to a foreigner. Discussing ones family and personal life is normal and is seen as a sign of friendliness and interest.

Its common to give gifts at the end of a business meeting. These can be small and does not need to be expensive. A possible item could be a pen or stationary with a company logo or an item typical from your country of origin.

Business attire

Business attire will depend on the location of the meeting. For example, Hanoi is known for its white-collar environment, while Ho Chi Minh City is more business casual.

Typically, business partners should dress modestly, avoiding bright colors. Suits are appropriate for men, while skirts and blouses are fine for women.

The Vietnamese working week is typically from Monday to Friday with office hours from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The concept of face

As with many other Asian countries, the concept of face is extremely important in Vietnam. While in the West being frank and direct is considered a good trait, direct disagreement or raising of questions in public can be seen as a person to lose face in Vietnam. Face is a concept that can be roughly described as reflecting a persons reputation, dignity, and prestige.

Foreigners should be aware of unintentionally causing a loss of face due to their words or actions. The important takeaway is to treat your business partners with respect. If you have suggestions or challenges, its best to bring them up carefully in private.

Eating and drinking

If invited as a guest in a Vietnamese home, bring fruit, sweets, flowers, or incense. Avoid giving handkerchiefs, anything black, yellow flowers, or chrysanthemums. The best dishes will likely be offered to you; be sure to taste and share these dishes.

Wait for the host to give the signal to start the meal before sampling any of the food. It is considered good manners to finish all the food in your plate.

At a restaurant, wait to be seated. In most cases, the oldest in the group will be seated first. Use both hands to pass items and never pass anything over someones head. When motioning for a person to come over, do not use your finger, and use your hand to beckon instead.

If paying, tipping of five to 10 percent is appreciated, though not customary.

Safety

Vietnam is a relatively safe country for travel. However, business travelers need to be aware of petty and opportunistic theft, particularly in major cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Valuables should be stored in hotel safes, while mobile phones and wallets should be kept out of sight to minimize the risk of pickpocketing, particularly in tourist areas. While the police are not always helpful, they will generally treat foreigners with respect.

Taxi scams are common, including the use of faulty meters, or taking a longer route to a destination. Business travelers should book transport through their hotel or use registered taxis such as Mai Linh (green) or Vinasun (white with green and red stripes). These taxi companies also have card machines for direct payment.
Vietnamese Lunar New Year, or Tet, is the most important public holiday in the country.

The longest holiday of the year marks a time of increased travel resulting in the closure of businesses, with planned events, and festivities during the holiday period.

Vietnam Briefing provides a general overview of the New Year Holiday including what businesses should expect and be aware of.

Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tet or Tet Nguyen Dan in Vietnamese) is the most important traditional holiday in Vietnam and also marks the longest public holiday in the country with up to ten consecutive work-free days.

The most important aspect of the Lunar New Year in Vietnam is the emphasis on the old traditions and family relations. For most Vietnamese, visiting their parents over the holidays is crucial; weeks before the holiday, flight and train ticket prices sharply increase, as people leave the major hubs of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang towards their hometowns.

Tet is the Vietnamese version of the Lunar New Year in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan but is also influential in areas with major Chinese diasporas, such as Singapore. Several other Asian countries, including South Korea and Vietnam, celebrate their own lunar new year holidays as well.

The date of the festival is dictated by the Lunisolar calendar and can therefore fall anywhere between January 21 and February 20. This year, the transition from the year of the Buffalo to the year of the Tiger will begin on February 1, though preparations begin already after the western new year and before. In 2022, the holiday begins from January 29 (Saturday) and lasts until February 6 (Sunday).

Though Tet shares the same origins with the Chinese New Year, it is celebrated with unique Vietnamese characteristics that distinguish it from forms of the festival anywhere else. One example is the preparation and consumption of distinctive traditional foods with their own symbolic value (glutinous rice cake, braised pork dishes, pickled vegetables, and candied fruits among many others).

In celebration of the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, families will be cleaning and decorating their houses to prepare for the Ong Cong Ong Tao (Kitchen Guardians Day) ceremony on the 23rd day of the last month of the lunar year. This is usually the time of the year for family gatherings as families will prepare a feast to worship the three kitchen guardians and ask for a full kitchen for the rest of the year.

Red envelopes, or Li Xi in Vietnamese, are commonly given to children, younger colleagues, and supporting staff during the Lunar New Year Period. The significance of these red packets is the red envelopes themselves, which are seen to symbolize energy, happiness, and good luck. Therefore, when a red envelope is given, this is seen as sending good wishes, happiness, and luck to the receiver.

Tet traditions and bonuses for businesses in Vietnam

One aspect especially business owners and also foreign employers should be aware of is the custom of paying a Tet bonus to each staff, which can be as much as a monthly salary or more.

During the 2021 Lunar New Year, over 30,000 businesses nationwide reported Tet bonuses with an average amount of VND 6.36 million (US$280), down 5 percent compared to the previous year due to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

According to a study by the HCMC Department of Labor Invalids and Social Affairs, the average Tet bonus was reported to be VND 8.8 million (US$386.76) this year, the same as that of 2021.

Despite the bonus not being a legal obligation, it can facilitate employee satisfaction and retention. More than a few foreign employers have seen their valued staff leave after the holidays due to the lack of a Tet bonus. Considering that the Lunar New Year is the high season for recruiting and job change, the bonus should be used to both motivate and retain employees.

Without an obligated rate, it should be determined based on business results and the employees work performance. Though employees are entitled to a holiday break, some businesses might require or offer them to work during this time depending on the nature of the work or special requirements. This is more frequent for foreign businesses than local counterparts.

Disclaimer: The above infographic is for reference and displays data before the global pandemic. The pandemic situation with extensive supply chain disruptions and lockdowns might dim the expectations of employees this year.

However, to do this, employers must pay them at least three times the normal wages. In addition to cash, enterprises can reward employees in other forms. In fact, many businesses give Lunar New Year incentives to employees in the form of train tickets to return to their hometowns as well as valuable and expensive objects such as household appliances and motorbikes (which is ubiquitous to Vietnam).

Besides that, especially in business, it is customary to send gifts (normally imported delicacies or wine) to top partners or clients as a wish of good relationships in the upcoming year). Usually, people prefer buying a pack of gifts that include different kinds of food such as cookies, chocolates, fruit baskets, wine, soft drinks, and other treats.

This variety is intended to symbolize the wishes for a fruitful, prosperous, and successful new year. In 2020, according to a report from Statista, the three most popular gifts for business partners were spirits, wine, and local delicacies.

This tradition might appear problematic to foreign businesspeople from western countries, as giving gifts is often seen as a form of bribery and is highly regulated in various compliance regulations. However, the difference in custom and culture is worth to be considered and should be communicated to headquarters overseas in order to create an understanding of the local business culture that may require exceptions.

Any company doing business in Vietnam should be prepared to adopt local practices over this festive period.

Business closures

Even though in 2022, Tet falls on February 1, businesses and factories in Vietnam will be closed for nine days, from January 29 to February 6. This includes five days promulgated by the Labor Code for the Tet holiday and the other four on the weekend for the 2022 Lunar New Year.

Banks and schools will also be closed during this time. To avoid delayed production and backlogs that can culminate up to one to two weeks before the holiday, factories should process orders according to their priorities and partner relationships.

It is advised that both manufacturers and buyers pay utmost attention to the ordering process. If the buyers place their orders early, problems with rushed production before and after the new year can be minimized.

Within the first week after the holiday, most businesses will slowly start reopening and planning their production, however, others might take longer to get ready for full operations.

Mass migration

Usually, millions of migrant workers in major cities will return to their hometowns to celebrate Lunar New Year with their families. This results in much-crowded airports, bus, and train stations prior to the holiday and during which, quieter and emptier streets in the cities. Domestic travel volume is likely to burst, especially the South-North route before-and North-South after the holiday. This is because many people from the North are moving to Southern cities for work.

However, this year may be a bit different. Within the past months, due to the pandemic, many workers were forced to return to their hometowns following business closures and a reduction in the labor workforce. It is likely that these employees will not return to the cities until after Tet. In addition, the discovery of the community transmission of the Omicron variant may deter people from traveling.

As of writing this article, the government has not imposed any stringent travel restriction measures, however, local provinces or cities may impose quarantine regulations and testing requirements for people traveling during the holiday. Local media has reported that some people have traveled earlier to complete their quarantine period before the holiday begins.

Therefore, before traveling or planning cross-region events, it is advisable to confirm COVID-19 testing and quarantine requirements with the local authority, hotels, and airlines in your destination city.

Potential delays after Vietnamese Lunar New Year

During the Lunar New Year period, the Vietnamese ports and port warehouses will be closed while the terminals continue to work full-time and are open for incoming vessels. The days before the festival, the ports work overtime and try to load all export cargo to unload all import shipments in time before the business closure.

After the holiday, the ports will be back to full capacity when they resume work. However, they might have to deal with heavy congestion at the terminals. Businesses should expect delays created by the week-long closure. It usually takes longer in the North than in the South for the timelines to get back to normal. This may further add to supply chain delays.

Foreign businesses with supply chains in Vietnam are advised to stay in touch with their suppliers who may face labor shortages and ensure that products are able to be shipped on time. While the festival comes to a close, it often takes some time for things to fully return to normal again.

Public advisories

Both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City governments have announced that they will limit mass gatherings and have canceled the fireworks show which usually takes place during the Tet holiday.

Some provinces and localities have also encouraged employees to stay in place and not to go to their hometowns to help prevent the spread of the pandemic. However, the government has stopped checking testing and vaccination papers at airports for domestic travel unless travelers come from a very high-risk area or come from neighborhoods placed under medical isolation.

Holiday spending and stay at home economy

Due to the significant impact caused to the economy by lockdowns and job losses in 2021, holiday spending may be curtailed this year but some other business opportunities such as the stay-at-home economy may emerge.

Many Vietnamese have put health as a priority and have decided not to travel for fear of spreading the disease to their family. In addition, due to job losses, many people have decided to curtail spending money and buying gifts, that the Lunar New Year bonus was used for before the pandemic.

Holiday Greetings

The traditional greeting to wish your clients a happy new year is Chuc Mung Nam Moi. It is customary to at least send a physical card or e-card to partner offices if the partnership does not require a gift.

In this spirit, the Dezan Shira & Associates Vietnam team wishes you a prosperous, successful, and healthy new year of the Tiger!
On Jan. 21, Hollywood star and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger was involved in a car accident in Los Angeles. According to the police, the incident involved a four-vehicle accident that took place at Allenford Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.

When the collision happened, Schwarzeneggers Yukon SUV crashed into a Prius, Porsche Cayenne, and another vehicle. The woman driving the Prius was injured in the accident; her head was heavily bleeding. An ambulance quickly arrived and took her to a hospital. The injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

One eyewitness says it was crazy  It looked like a stunt in a movie. The collision was intense enough that the airbags deployed on the Yukon One of the witnesses says it appeared the Prius was on Sunset Blvd and Arnold was on Sunset turning left in the opposite direction when the collision occurred, TMZ reported.

Law enforcement officers told the media outlet that they believed the accident was the fault of Schwarzenegger. He drove his car to the left when the left arrow at the traffic signal was still glowing red. The police have not issued the former California governor a ticket. No arrests have been made.

According to the actors spokesperson, Schwarzenegger was not injured and remained at the scene. The actor was apparently concerned about the injured woman and checked on her.

He also spoke with the police and firefighters. The spokesperson stated that Schwarzenegger was not drinking at the time of the incident, which the police also confirmed.

Neither alcohol or drugs are suspected as a factor in this collision All parties remained at scene. No further information will be made available, the LAPD said in a statement.

Jake Steinfeld, an actor, fitness personality, and a close friend of Schwarzenegger was also at the scene when the accident took place. When Schwarzenegger was the governor of California, Steinfeld was Chairman of the Governors Council on Physical Fitness. The accident took place roughly a mile from Schwarzeneggers home.

Schwarzenegger has been involved in vehicle accidents before. In 2006, the motorcycle he was riding collided with a car. Schwarzenegger did not have a proper drivers license status to operate his Harley Davidson motorcycle. However, police did not ticket Schwarzenegger, who was the California governor at the time. His upper lip had suffered damage and required 15 stitches.
A federal judge recently ruled in favor of the parents of Otto Warmbier in a case against the North Korean regime. Warmbier had been imprisoned in North Korea and then died in 2017 after his release. The judge awarded a quarter-million dollars to the family. The money was seized from a North Korean bank account in the United States.

In 2016, Warmbier visited North Korea as part of an educational tour. He was soon arrested by authorities on charges of stealing a propaganda poster from a hostel. Warmbier was taken into custody at the Pyongyang airport on Jan. 1.

A month later, he appeared in a video, crying and confessing to committing a preplanned crime. North Korea is known to force innocent people into fake confessions to a crime that they did not commit. In March, he fell into a coma. Warmbier came back to the United States in 2017 where he was sent to treatment. Six days later, he died.

The 22-year-old had suffered severe brain damage. North Korea was accused of physically torturing and beating Warmbier to the extent that his brain got damaged, a claim that Pyongyang officials denied. The North Korean administration alleged that Warmbiers brain damage resulted from a severe allergic reaction after he took sedatives for becoming sick.

An MRI discovered that Warmbiers brain was starved of oxygen. However, there were no signs of botulism, which North Korea claimed was a reason for his death. Doctors also found no bone fractures indicating that Warmbier might have been severely physically tortured.

Warmbiers parents quickly sued North Korea. In 2018, a judge from the District of Columbia ruled that Pyongyang was liable to pay $501 million in damages, arguing that such a punishment was necessary to deter North Korea from taking hostages and indulging in extrajudicial killings. However, North Korea refused to comply with the order. The family had originally sued for $1 billion in damages.

On Jan. 13, a judge from the Northern District Court of New York ordered the seizure of assets from the Kwangson Banking Corporation that is connected to the North Korean regime.

Judgment is hereby entered in favor of the Plaintiffs/Judgment Creditors Cynthia Warmbier and Fredrerick Warmbier with respect to the Subject Funds in the sum of $240,336.41, plus any accrued interest thereon, the order stated. The transfer is to be completed within 10 days.

Though many do not believe North Korea will pay the full compensation of $501 million, it is argued that such judgments are a way of raising awareness about Pyongyangs horrible human rights abuses.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, a legal analyst with the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group, stated that such judgments will make life a little more difficult for the leaders in North Korea, including Kim Jong-un.

Its unlikely that we will be able to, in the near future, investigate or prosecute these human rights violation cases from North Korea Having these civil lawsuits and being able to actually have these punitive damages or other financial penalties imposed on North Korea from a human rights angle, I think thats pretty important, Shin said.

In 2019, President Donald Trump met with Kim Jong-un in a second summit between the two leaders. Trump condemned the brutality of the North Korean regime, though he didnt believe Kim Jong-un knew about the torture of Warmbier.

Kim and his evil regime are responsible for unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity, Warmbiers parents stated.
On Jan. 22, Germanys Navy Chief, Vice Admiral Kay-Achim Schoenbach, stepped down from his post following comments that supported Russian President Vladimir Putin. He had also suggested that Ukraine would never take back Crimea from Russia. His comments triggered a diplomatic storm, attracting widespread criticism since it came at a time when Ukraine is being threatened by a potential Russian invasion.

I have asked Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht to relieve me from my duties with immediate effect The minister has accepted my request, Schoenbach said in a statement. He pointed out that his comments are increasingly putting a strain on his office. To avert further damage to the German military or the government, he felt that resignation was necessary.

When Schoenbach visited India on Jan. 21, he stated that Putin only wants respect and does not actually want Ukraine. He insisted that it is important to have Russia on the side against China. He called Russia an old and important nation. Referring to himself as a very radical Roman Catholic, Schoenbach noted that Russia is a Christian country and the fact that Putin is an atheist does not matter.

Is Russia really interested in having a tiny strip of Ukraines soil? No. Or to integrate it in the country? No, this is nonsense. Putin is probably putting pressure because he knows he can do it and he knows that it splits the European Union What he (Putin) really wants is respect. And my God, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost  It is easy to give him the respect he really demands  and probably also deserves, Schoenbach stated.

He also insisted that the Crimean peninsula is gone and that it will never come back. The vice admirals views contradict the official position of the EU and Washington which calls Russias 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula unacceptable.

As the video recording of his talk went viral, Schoenbach became the focus of massive criticism. Ukraine summoned the German ambassador, saying that Schoenbachs comments were categorically unacceptable.

The German government soon distanced itself from Schoenbachs comments, with a defense ministry spokesperson clarifying that the vice admirals statements in no way corresponds to the position of the Federal Ministry of Defense.

In an interview with a local paper, Ukrainian diplomat Andriy Melnyk said that Schoenbachs comments had put the people of Ukraine in deep shock. The comments massively called into question Germanys trustworthiness and reliability, not just from a Ukrainian point of view This patronizing attitude subconsciously also reminds Ukrainians of the horrors of the Nazi occupation, when Ukrainians were treated as subhuman, Melnyk said.

Schoenbach took to Twitter to accept that he made a mistake. There is no need to quibble: it was clearly a mistake My defense policy remarks during a talk session at a think tank in India reflected my personal opinion in that moment. They in no way reflect the official position of the defense ministry, he said in a tweet.

Germanys defense minister Christine Lamrecht has accepted Schoenbachs resignation. His deputy has been appointed as interim naval chief. The German government stated that it stands with Ukraine together with its NATO allies and warned Moscow that it will pay a dear price should it make military moves against Ukraine.

Russia is said to have deployed around 100,000 soldiers to Ukraines border regions. But despite Germany promising full support to Ukraine, it refuses to provide Kyiv with weapons. Berlin insists that supplying weapons to Ukraine will only make matters worse.
The Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) air force flew 39 warplanes into Taiwans air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Sunday night, the largest such move since the new year.

Taiwanese authorities reported seeing the planes fly over the self-ruled island amid tensions over an increasing military presence from mainland China as Beijing pushes to assert its presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

The PLA formation seen on the evening of Jan. 23, included 24 J-16 fighter jets and 10 J-10 jets, among other support and electronic warfare aircraft, according to Taiwans defense ministry.

Taiwans air force scrambled its own jets and tracked the PLA planes on its air defense radar systems, the ministry added.

The PLA sortie occurred as the U.S. military said that two of its carrier strike groups were sailing on Sunday in the South China Sea, led by USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln. The Pentagon said the two ships engaged in anti-submarine, air and combat readiness operations in keeping with international laws.

Communist China claims Taiwan, which is officially called the Republic of China (ROC), as part of its territory. The ROC used to rule all of China, but retreated to Taiwan in 1949 during the civil war.



The PLA has stepped up its pressure on Taiwan over the last two years, sending aerial sorties on a near-daily basis since the ROC government started regularly publishing such data. The largest sortie seen on the same day was 56 warplanes last October.



The activity has generally been linked to the southwest of the island and falls into the ADIZ that Taiwans military says it monitors out of national security considerations.

The mainland Chinese foreign ministry declined to comment on why the PLA had conducted the sortie on Sunday, adding that it was not a diplomatic matter and no international airspace laws had been violated.

Uncertainties over Taiwans future

Beijing has resorted to all forms of diplomatic and military means to isolate and intimidate the ROC since 1949.

In 1971, The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) was handed Taiwans U.N. seat in a 1971 decision, becoming the internationally recognized China. This status was further boosted when the U.S. dropped official recognition for Taiwan in 1979, though the two countries continue to maintain informal relations and military cooperation.



The U.S. and some countries in the West have shown continued support for Taiwan by selling it advanced weapons and fighter planes. In addition, the U.S. regularly carries out freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, which is claimed by the PRC.

Furthermore, under its One China principle, Beijing has insisted that any country wishing to pursue diplomatic relations with it must first break official ties with Taiwan. This, in addition to the ROCs expulsion from the U.N. half a century ago, has resulted in Taipei being isolated from the global community.



As a result, countries that have formed diplomatic ties with Taiwan have faced retaliation from Beijing. Most recently, Lithuania was targeted by the PRC government after it decided to open a Taiwanese embassy in its capital of Vilnius in November 2021.

READ MORE:

Lithuania Defying China, Opens Taiwan Embassy

The diplomatic action saw China call for a corporate boycott of the small Baltic nation and cracking down not only on Lithuanian imports but also on goods from other EU countries  such as France, Germany and Sweden  that included parts from Lithuanian supply chains.



Diplomatic tensions have also intensified since Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen as president in 2016. Beijing responded by cutting off previously established communications with the islands government and increasing military surveillance on Taiwanese soil.
North Korea has indicated that it is considering restarting long-range and nuclear weapons tests. According to Pyongyang, the tests will be conducted to prepare the country for confrontation with the United States.

Pyongyang had paused its nuclear and long-range missile tests in 2017 after leader Kim Jong-Un and U.S. President Donald Trump had a couple of talks to work out an agreement beneficial to both parties. But two years later, the talks collapsed, with neither side agreeing to a solution. Though Washington has reached out to Pyongyang for more negotiations on the issue since then, the North Korean regime has rebuffed the advances.

In the meantime, Pyongyang has restarted some of its missile tests, including what some say are hypersonic missiles. This has created instability in the region, with countries like South Korea and Japan raising concerns. Washington recently imposed new sanctions on the nation to curb North Koreas activities. In response, Pyongyang is committing to restart its nuclear tests as well as testing long-range weapons that can potentially reach American soil. The North Korean regime called the U.S. sanctions a provocation.

On Jan. 19, Kim Jong-Un convened a meeting of the state politburo which proposed promptly examining the issue of restarting all temporally-suspended activities. The politburo called for making thorough preparation against a potential long-term confrontation with U.S. imperialists. To support its view, the politburo pointed to the United States deploying weapons in the region, conducting joint drills with the South Korean military, and imposing sanctions on Pyongyang.

The hostile policy and military threat by the US have reached a danger line that cannot be overlooked anymore [Norths top officials] unanimously recognized that we should make more thorough preparation for a long-term confrontation with the US imperialists, state-backed media outlet KCNA reported.

On Jan. 17, North Korea tested two short-range ballistic missiles, which is the fourth time this year that Pyongyang has carried out such tests. The two projectiles are said to have hit their precise target in the East Sea. According to Nobuo Kishi, the Japanese Defense Minister, the two missiles were fired from North Koreas western region three minutes apart. The missiles are estimated to have flown at a maximum altitude of 30 miles and a distance of 186 miles.

[Pyongyang] appears to be signaling it will not be ignored and will respond to pressure with pressure North Korea is trying to lay a trap for the Biden administration It has queued up missiles that it wants to test anyway and is responding to US pressure with additional provocations in an effort to extort concessions, Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told CNN.

In an interview with Reuters, Jean Lee, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center, warned that Kim Jong-Un will use every opportunity he can muster to justify the North Korean regimes weapons testing. We should brace for more saber-rattling designed to create a warlike atmosphere  and possibly more provocation testing, Lee said.

However, some experts feel that it is unwise to take North Koreas rhetoric about its weapons test at face value. In an interview with NPR, Lee Ho-ryung, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a government think tank in Seoul, pointed out that although North Korea presents its weapons tests as a reaction to events like the South Korean presidential election, the actual fact is that the regime is only testing weapons according to an existing plan.

It usually takes about three years from planning a weapons development, to testing it So, to calculate back, North Korea has used the time since the breakdown of the 2019 Hanoi summit to develop these weapons, Lee said.
Britain is accusing Russia of plotting to put a pro-Moscow government in Ukraine. In a report published by the UK Foreign Office, Russia is said to be considering whether it should invade and occupy Ukraine. The Foreign Office pointed to former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev as a potential candidate for the pro-Moscow government.

Russian intelligence officers are also maintaining links with four former Ukrainian politicians other than Murayev. This includes, Serhiy Arbuzov, who was the First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2012-2014, Vladimir Sivkovich, the former Deputy Head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council (RNBO), Andriy Kluyev, First Deputy Prime Minister from 2010-2012, and Mykola Azarov, Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2010-2014. Some of them have contact with officers within the Russian intelligence apparatus who are allegedly presently involved in planning out the invasion of Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stated that the information released by the Foreign Office shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine. It also reveals the thinking of the Kremlin, she insisted.

Russia must de-escalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy. As the UK and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs, Truss said in a statement. The Foreign Office made it clear that the UK unequivocally supports Ukraines territorial integrity and sovereignty.

The UK Foreign Offices revelation attracted criticism from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which accused the British agency of circulating disinformation. It asked the Foreign Office to stop spreading nonsense and cease these provocative activities.

45-year-old Murayev, who had lost his parliamentary seat back in 2019, termed the accusations of the UK Foreign Office as nonsense. As he has been barred from Russia, placed under Moscows sanctions for four years, and saw his fathers assets in Russia frozen, Murayev said he finds it hard to comment on the allegations.

In a Facebook post published on Jan. 23, Murayev stated that the time of pro-Western and pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine was over. Ukraine needs new politicians whose policy will be based solely on the principles of national interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. Thirty years  a sufficient time to understand the simple truth  Ukraine is an independent, independent state and we can and must decide our own fate, the post said.

The UK Foreign Offices claims come as Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned against being naive when dealing with Putin. A source from the British government told Sky News that Boris sees the Russia-Ukraine standoff as gravely dangerous. Johnson feels the situation is the biggest test to the resolve and unity of the NATO alliance and the West.

It would be frankly naive to assume that Russia could be mollified by changes to the European security architecture  the Kremlins behavior has made that consistently clear, the source said.

Russia is said to have 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border. On Jan. 20, Russia announced it was deploying 10,000 military servicemen, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, 140 combat and supply ships, and more than 50 aircraft for a series of military exercises that will encompass seas washing Russia and also World Ocean areas of key importance.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said that there will be some exercises in the Mediterranean and Northern seas and the Sea of Okhotsk, in the Northeastern Atlantic and in the Pacific.
On Thursday, Jan. 20, Russia announced that it would be sending its fleet, complete with warships, aircraft and army personnel, for a series of military exercises to zones of responsibility.

Some of those warships have been reported to be en route to the Black Sea, creating concerns in the West that the Russian government could be preparing for an invasion of Ukraine.

Lining up at the borders

The announcement made on Thursday revealed that Moscow will be conducting a sweeping set of exercises in all zones of its fleets responsibility, in the midst of tensions between Russia and the West.

Overall, the fleet will consist of 140 warships and support vessels, 60 planes, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, and 10,000 military servicemen.

In accordance with a plan for training the Russian armed forces in 2022 a series of naval exercises will be held in January-February in all zones of the fleets responsibility under the general guidance of the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolay Yemenov, The Russian News Agency (TASS) reported.

The exercises will encompass seas washing Russia and also World Ocean areas of key importance, the Russian Defense Ministry said. There will be some exercises in the Mediterranean and Northern seas and the Sea of Okhotsk, in the Northeastern Atlantic and in the Pacific.

According to The Guardian, Moscow has sent troops to the borders of Ukraine, and missile systems into Belarus  both moves that western officials and analysts believe could allow troops to threaten the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

The Defense Ministrys Facebook page showed a new diesel-electric submarine as part of its Pacific Fleet, and it was observed conducting a test of a Kalibr cruise missile from underwater.

In addition to the planned exercises in Europes seas, Russia also began a trilateral naval exercise with China and Iran in an area of 17,000 square kilometers north of the Indian Ocean  a routine that began in 2019.

Russia has commented that it has no plans to invade Ukraine. However, the government has demanded that NATO not expand to Ukraine and other former Soviet nations. Washington and its allies have since rejected the demands, but have expressed their intentions of continuing negotiations to reduce the tensions.

Fears from the West

With the buildup of Russian forces in key areas, particularly those near Ukraine, several governments in the West are concerned with the movement of Moscows military.

According to the Associated Press, the announcement of Russias exercises came after U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that a minor incursion from Moscow into Ukraine could result in a more measured response from the U.S. and its allies.

Its one thing if its a minor incursion and we end up having to fight about what to do and not do, Biden said in a news conference, But if they actually do what theyre capable of doing with the forces amassed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further invade Ukraine.

Biden also made it clear with President [Vladimir] Putin that any Russian soldiers crossing the border to Ukraine would be considered an invasion, warning that killing Ukrainian soldiers would be crossing the line.

Washington has insisted that the U.S. and its Western allies will be united should Russia launch an incursion into Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday in Geneva to discuss Russias sweeping wishlist of security demands.

The U.S. embassy in Ukraine was told to evacuate family members, staff, as well as other government employees and Americans in general, in case of a Russian military move.

This week, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg claimed that the alliance will not compromise on core principles such as the right for each nation to choose its own path.

The New York Times reported that Biden is considering sending U.S. military forces to NATO Allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe in case of a Russian invasion.

According to the Ukrainian Navy on Facebook, Ukraine and France have both held joint exercises in the Black Sea, with Spain joining in by sending its own naval forces to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Russia cannot tell any country what to do, so NATO will protect and defend the sovereignty of any country that can or wants to join NATO, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Edrogan will be making a visit to Ukraine at the beginning of February to hold talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the hopes of de-escalating the tensions between Russia and the former Soviet nation.
The Biden administration is planning to send helicopters as part of military aid to Ukraine. Russia has positioned more than 100,000 soldiers near the borders of Ukraine, threatening an invasion in case its demands are not met. One of Moscows demands is a guarantee that Ukraine will never be made a member of NATO. The U.S. has been sending military equipment to Ukraine to help bolster the countrys defenses.

In a Jan. 21 press briefing, White House press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted that President Joe Biden has taken a lot of steps to defend Ukraine. Washington provided the European country with more security assistance in 2021 than at any point in history.

Last year, the U.S.supplied Ukraine with $650 million in security assistance, which brings the total spending by the U.S. on Ukraine to $2.7 billion since 2014. Theres more deliveries coming, she said. Biden has authorized the presidential drawdown authority to speed up lethal aid to Ukraine.

Washington has also sanctioned third-party transfers, thus allowing American partners and allies to move U.S.-originating equipment from their inventories to help the European nation.

Specifically, the State Department has given the go-ahead for three NATO Allies to rush anti-armor missiles and other U.S.-made weapons to UkraineIn identifying additional equipment held in DOD inventories that can be delivered under the Excess Defense Articles program, among other mechanisms, we recently notified Congress of our intent to deliver Mi-17 helicopters, Psaki said in the briefing.

On Jan. 22, the first U.S. shipment of assistance arrived in Ukraine. The $200 million package included roughly 200,000 pounds of lethal aid, including ammunition. The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv tweeted that the shipment is a demonstration of the United States commitment to helping Ukraine bolster its defenses against growing Russian aggression.

Meanwhile, Moscow is shifting two divisions of its S-400 missile defense systems into Belarus. According to the Ministry of Defense, this is being done as part of Russias upcoming military exercises in the country scheduled for next month.

Once the missile systems arrive in Belarus, Russian forces are expected to fortify the position. The S-400 is often considered to be one of the best surface-to-air missile systems in operation at present. It has been sold to multiple countries like China, Turkey, and India. Washington has long lobbied to block the sale of the S-400.

The February military drills in Belarus are being held to assess the quality of military coordination between the two nations. According to Oleg Voinov, a senior Belarusian military official, both militaries will practice redeploying troops and creating task forces within a short period of time in dangerous directions, with one of the goals of such drills being to reinforce the state border. The exercises are scheduled to be held between Feb. 10 and 20.

The military drills will take place at Belarus borders with Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland. In addition to troops, Russia has also deployed a division of Pantsir-S air defense systems and 12 SU-35 fighter jets to Belarus.

Combined with the S-400 systems, Russia will have a large deployment in Belarus, which will give Moscow the ability to attack Ukraine from multiple directions. In a potential conflict, Ukraine will have to face off Russian forces from Russia in the east and southeast, Belarus in the north, and the Crimean peninsula in the south, states an article by the Atlantic Council.

Basing troops in Belarus provides Russia with one particularly important logistical advantage. It gives Moscow the ability to reach Kyiv, which is just 90 kilometers (55.92 miles) from the Belarusian border, without crossing the Dnipro River. Military analysts fear that if the Kremlin launches simultaneous offensives from the north, south, and east, such a multi-pronged attack could severely stretch Ukraines defenses, the article states.
While tensions are flaring between the United States and Russia over the Ukraine issue, some are flabbergasted that Washington is yet to appoint an ambassador to Ukraine. It has been over a year since Biden assumed power but the American Embassy in Kyiv has remained without an ambassador for the entire period.

When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked in a Jan. 4 press briefing about the matter, she insisted that the position of Ukrainian ambassador remains vacant because Biden hasnt found the right person.

He absolutely plans to nominate an ambassador to Ukraine. Just like any position, hes always looking to find the right person to nominate to fill the role  an important one, Psaki said. When a reporter asked whether the president has interviewed anyone for the post, Psaki responded by stating that shes not going to get into more details about a personnel process.

Many lawmakers are flustered as to why Biden hasnt yet appointed an ambassador to Ukraine, especially since the European country is facing the threat of a Russian invasion. Moscow has reportedly stationed around 100,000 soldiers near Ukraines borders.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz blasted the president over keeping the ambassadorship open for too long and has asked that a nomination be quickly put forward. William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, finds the situation inexplicable.

Even when Taylor contacted some high-level people in the Biden administration and discussed the issue, he couldnt receive an answer.

Ive continuously raised to State Department officials the urgent need for this post to be filled in Ukraine Putins persistent provocations along the Ukraine border and increasing belligerence underscore the importance of having a U.S. ambassador seated in Kyiv to support our Ukrainian partners at this critical moment, Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation, told NatSec Daily.

One of the potential candidates for the post of ambassadorship to Ukraine is Bridget Brink, who is presently the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia and is a veteran of the Foreign Service. The current charge daffaires in Kyiv Kristina Kvien is another name that is being floated around. A third possibility is Geoffrey Pyatt, who led the Ukraine mission between 2013 and 2016 and is presently the U.S. ambassador to Greece.

Writing for The Washington Post, David J Kramer, the director of European and Eurasian studies at Florida International Universitys Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, blamed the Biden administration for being unusually slow in filling out candidates for national security positions that require Senate confirmation. In the case of an ambassador to Ukraine, the Senate is under no fault, he pointed out.

Among the names apparently being considered by the White House is a career Foreign Service officer who is currently an ambassador elsewhere. That means the person already has been vetted and approved by the Senate for the persons current posting and would likely gain quick approval if ever nominated for the Kyiv position. The White House delay in settling on a nominee is simply inexcusable at this point in the administration, the article claims.
Dredgers have been spotted off Cambodias Ream naval base, where China is funding construction work and deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.

The United States, which has sought to push back against Beijing's extensive territorial claims and military expansion in the South China Sea, reiterated its "serious concerns" about China's construction and military presence at Ream.

"These developments threaten U.S. and partner interests, regional security, and Cambodia's sovereignty," a spokesperson for the State Department said.

The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank said the dredgers could be seen in photos released this month by the Cambodian government and in commercial satellite imagery.

"Dredging of deeper port facilities would be necessary for the docking of larger military ships at Ream, and was part of a secret agreement between China and Cambodia that U.S. officials reported seeing in 2019," the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS reported.

It cited a 2019 Wall Street Journal report that said the deal granted China military access to the base in return for funding facilities improvements.

Last June, Cambodian media quoted Defense Minister Tea Bahn as saying China would help to modernize and expand Ream, but would not be the only country given access to the facility.

AMTI said a Jan. 16 commercial satellite image showed two dredgers and barges for collecting dredged sand. It said other images showed both dredgers arriving between Jan. 13 and Jan. 15.

They were also visible in a photo posted on Tea Banhs Facebook page following his Jan. 18 visit to Ream, it said, adding that the work "could mark a significant upgrade in the bases capabilities."

"The shallow waters around Ream mean it is currently only able to host small patrol vessels. A deep-water port would make it far more useful to both the Cambodian and Chinese navies."

AMTI said construction work had continued onshore, with land clearing in several locations in the southwest of the base since fall 2021 and said this and the dredging "indicates that the base is being prepared for significant infrastructure upgrades."

The State Department spokesperson said the United States urged Cambodia "to be fully transparent about the intent, nature, and scope of the project at Ream and the role the PRC military is playing in its construction, raising concerns about the intended use of this naval facility."

PRC stands for the People's Republic of China.

Last year, Washington sanctioned two Cambodian officials over alleged corruption at Ream and imposed an arms embargo and export restrictions on Cambodia over what it said was the growing influence of China's military in the country, as well as over human rights and corruption.
Russia said Tuesday it is watching with great concern following a U.S. move to put 8,500 troops on alert for possible deployment to eastern Europe.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated to reporters Russian accusations that the United States is escalating tensions in the crisis along the Russia-Ukraine border.

U.S. President Joe Biden met virtually Monday afternoon with key European leaders to discuss the ongoing threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

I had a very, very, very good meeting  total unanimity with all the European leaders, Biden told reporters after hosting a secure video call with allied leaders from Europe, the European Union and NATO.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons office released a statement that supported Biden's summation, saying, The leaders agreed on the importance of international unity in the face of growing Russian hostility.

Biden has not decided whether to move U.S. military equipment and personnel closer to Russia. But White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in advance of the meeting with the European officials that the United States has always said wed support allies on the eastern flank abutting Russia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin placed 8,500 U.S. military personnel on high alert of being dispatched to Eastern Europe, where most of them could be activated as part of a NATO response force if Russia invades Ukraine.

Its very clear the Russians have no intention right now of de-escalating, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. What this is about, though, is reassurance to our NATO allies.

The White House released a statement after the meeting that said, The leaders also discussed their joint efforts to deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine,

including preparations to impose massive consequences and severe economic costs on Russia for such actions as well as to reinforce security on NATO's eastern flank.

WATCH: US preps for possible deployment to Europe

Biden has ruled out sending troops to Ukraine if Russia invades the onetime Soviet republic but vowed to impose quick and severe economic sanctions on Moscow.

Kirby said the U.S. military is keenly focused on the Russian militarys 127,000-troop buildup along the Ukraine border and in Belarus. He said the United States was taking steps to heighten readiness over Ukraine, including for a NATO response force if the Western military forces are activated.

U.S. and Russian officials have had four face-to-face meetings in the past two weeks over Western concerns about the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and Russian fears of NATO operations in Eastern Europe, and Biden has also talked directly with European allies.

Russia insists the troops are on the border for its own protection but is demanding NATO provide guarantees it will stop its eastward expansion, beginning with not allowing Ukraine to join the alliance, a move Moscow perceives as a threat. NATO has repeatedly rejected that request, saying Russia has no veto over NATO membership for other countries.

The United States and Russia are planning to exchange written statements this week about their demands of each other.

VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report. Some information also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Shots were heard late Sunday near the home of Burkina Faso's president after soldiers staged mutinies at several barracks to demand the sacking of the country's military top brass and more resources for the battle against Islamist insurgents.

Residents also reported they saw a helicopter above the private residence of President Roch Marc Kabore in the capital Ouagadougou.

It followed gunfire earlier Sunday at several army bases, prompting fears of yet another coup in a volatile West African country prone to military takeovers.

Meanwhile, demonstrators protesting over the government's handling of the jihadist threat set fire to the headquarters of the ruling party.

But the government quickly denied rumors of a putsch, and a list of demands presented by the rebellious troops made no mention of trying to oust Kabore, while emphasizing the need for a better anti-jihadist strategy.

"We want adequate resources for the battle" against Islamist extremists, a soldier from the Sangoule Lamizana base in Ouagadougou said in a voice recording received by AFP.

The disaffected soldiers also wanted top generals to be "replaced," better care for wounded troops and more support for the families of soldiers killed in battle, the spokesman for the mutinous troops added in the anonymous recording.

The authorities declared an overnight curfew from 8 p.m. local time (2000 GMT) Sunday "until further notice" and the education ministry said schools would be closed Monday and Tuesday across the poor, landlocked country.

The unrest comes a little over a week after 12 people, including a senior army officer, were arrested on suspicion of planning to "destabilize" Burkina's institutions.

It also comes a day after police used tear gas to disperse banned rallies, arresting dozens.

Residents in the Gounghin district, where the Sangoule Lamizana base is situated, reported seeing soldiers firing in the air and sealing off the area around the barracks.

Shots were also heard at the Baby Sy barracks in the south of the capital, as well as at an air base near the airport, which was also surrounded by soldiers wearing balaclavas, witnesses said.

There was also gunfire at bases in the northern towns of Kaya and Ouahigouya, residents there told AFP, and mobile internet services were cut.

The government moved quickly to try to restore control.

"Information on social media would have people believe there was an army takeover," government spokesman Alkassoum Maiga said in a statement. "The government, while acknowledging that there was gunfire in some barracks, denies this information and calls on the public to remain calm."

Defense Minister General Barthelemy Simpore said on nationwide TV that "none of the republic's institutions has been troubled" by the revolt.

He added that there were "localized, limited" incidents "in a few barracks," and that he was investigating.

Police fired tear gas to break up a rally by around 100 people who gathered at a square in central Ouagadougou to show support for the mutiny, an AFP correspondent reported.

Sangoule Lamizana camp houses a military prison where General Gilbert Diendere -- a former right-hand man to deposed President Blaise Compaore -- is serving a 20-year term for an attempted coup in 2015.

He is also on trial for his alleged part in the 1987 assassination of the country's revolutionary leader, Thomas Sankara, during a putsch that brought Compaore to power.

Compaore, overthrown by a popular uprising in 2014, fled to Ivory Coast, and is being tried in absentia for the assassination.

The latest turbulence coincides with a jihadist insurgency that swept in from neighboring Mali in 2015, overwhelming Burkina's poorly trained and badly equipped armed forces.

Around 2,000 people have died, according to an AFP tally, while around 1.5 million people are internally displaced, according to the national emergency agency CONASUR.

Anger at Kabore's failure to stem the bloodshed has risen, spilling over into clashes with the security forces.

On November 27, dozens were injured when hundreds turned out to protest.

Among the soldiers arrested this month over the plot to "destabilize institutions" was Lieutenant-Colonel Emmanuel Zoungrana, who had been commanding anti-jihadist operations in the former French colony's badly hit western region.

In a statement, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it was very concerned at the situation and expressed its solidarity with Kabore, the government and its people.
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In a California senior care community, very special pets are helping residents keep their spirits up, fight anxiety and feel loved. Officials say these animals are therapeutic, low-maintenance and never get moody. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.



Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian
Separatists in western Cameroon have released eight rubber plantation workers they abducted earlier this month. But the anglophone rebels are still holding onto five government officials and a top chief they abducted months ago in Cameroon's Northwest Region.

In a video circulating on social media, scores of family members and supporters shout with joy that God has spared the lives of their relatives.

Police say the video, taken at the market square in the town of Tiko, also shows eight rubber plantation workers abducted by separatist fighters on January 15. In the video, the eight former abductees look tired and hungry but show no signs of physical injury.

Gabriel Nbene Vefonge, president of the Cameroon Agriculture and Allied Workers Trade Union, was in the crowd welcoming back the former abductees. He said the rubber plantation workers were found in the bush on Sunday and taken to the government hospital in Tiko for medical care.

He told VOA that they were reunited with their families on Monday.

"Family members generally were highly demoralized and we keep praying that such an incident should not occur any longer. These are breadwinners who toil so that they can put bread on the table for their family members. As they continue to join their families, once again we thank God for their release," he said.

Cameroonian authorities blamed anglophone separatists for the abduction of the eight workers. The military said in a statement Monday that the workers have regained their freedom but gave no further details.

Fighters on social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp say the workers were released after pledging never to collaborate with Cameroonian soldiers deployed to fight the separatists.

The whereabouts of five government officials abducted by separatists in the town of Ndian last year are still unknown.

Six government officials were abducted on June 16. One of them was found dead two days later.

The president of the Northwest regions House of Chiefs, an elected organ that discusses community development, also remains missing. The government said Fon Kevin Shumitang was kidnapped from his palace in the town of Bambalang by separatists on December 7.

Fru Angwafor, president of the Northwest Regional Assembly, a regional lawmaking body, said he is counting on the military to rescue Shumitang.

"At our level we have done the necessary contacts and in matters of security, we can only go to the competent services that have set up the necessary enquiries and strategies to get back our vice president of the regional executive council," said Angwafor.

Capo Daniel is deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, one of the separatists groups. He said fighters abducted Shumitang for collaborating with the central government in Yaounde.

"His arrest was as a result of his participation in that House of Chiefs that does not represent the aspirations of our people. All members of that House of Chiefs will be subject to arrest by the Ambazonian forces for violation of Southern Cameroon territorial integrity," said Daniel.

Separatists in English-speaking western Cameroon launched their rebellion in 2017 after what they said was years of discrimination by the countrys French-speaking majority.

The conflict has killed more than 3,000 people and displaced more than a half-million.
Germany doesnt appear to view Russian military threats against Ukraine with the same sense of urgency as the United States and some of its European allies, who have started to identify Berlin as a weak link in the Western alliance, say diplomats and analysts.

The countrys new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has added his voice to the stern Western warnings about massive consequences for Russia if President Vladimir Putin orders an invasion of Ukraine. But Germany has refused requests from Ukraine for military assistance, prompting exasperation in Kyiv. Berlin has also blocked the Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania from supplying Kyiv with German-made weapons.

Ukrainian dismay only deepened Saturday when the head of the German navy, Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach, described Western fears of a Russian invasion as nonsense and called for Vladimir Putin to be given the respect he demands  and probably deserves. The German defense ministry quickly condemned the comments, and the admiral promptly resigned.

That has failed to quell Ukrainian fury. Kyiv believes the admirals remarks reflect the thinking of a chunk of the German establishment and has called on Berlin to change its whole position on the geopolitical conflict.

Today, more than ever, the firmness and solidarity of Ukraine and its partners are important to curb Russia's destructive intentions, Ukraines foreign ministry.

Ukrainian officials point to a series of disappointing German positions amid rising Western fears that war momentum is building.

Everything is moving towards armed conflict, says Estonias defense chief Gen. Martin Herem. He and his counterparts in Central Europe are watching closely to see if Russian reservists are mobilized. They fear Putin has been rearming Russia the past decade for this moment and that hes only waiting now for frigid weather to harden the ground more so Russian armor has an easier time rolling across Ukraine.

Berlin has remained ambiguous about whether it will be prepared in the event of war to shut down the just-completed Nord Stream 2 undersea pipeline, which will pump natural gas from Russia to Germany.

Responding to increasing domestic and international pressure, Scholz said last week Germany is ready to discuss closing the pipeline should Russia attack but has demurred from committing to anything more.

Scholzs studied ambiguity is worrying many NATO members.

Berlin has pushed back on proposals that include cutting Russia off from the SWIFT international cross border payments system in any possible post-invasion sanctions package the Western allies announce. Last week, German officials told the countrys leading business newspaper that excluding Russia from SWIFT isnt being considered.

The U.S. National Security Council has denied this, saying no option is off the table.

Baltic states have also expressed their frustration with Berlins reluctance to give the go-ahead for them to supply Ukraine with German-made military equipment. Germanys defense minister Christine Lambrecht told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag Saturday that arms deliveries to Ukraine are currently not helpful. The Ukrainians have been lobbying Berlin furiously to secure vessels to defend their coasts on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

Some analysts say Scholz is in a tricky position in terms of Germanys domestic politics and that much of what is being interpreted by outsiders as pulling in a different direction from allies should be seen more as strategic ambiguity required to keep together his three-party coalition government, which is deeply split on relations with Russia.

Scholzs own party, the Social Democrats (SPD), the coalitions senior partner, has a powerful left-wing which advocates closer ties with Moscow, and its parliamentary leader, Rolf Mutzenich, has championed a new European peace order including Russia.

And even moderate SPD luminaries are reluctant to pursue a tough Russia policy; they favor detente and dialogue. Germanys defense minister Lambrecht and the SDPs secretary-general, Kevin Kuhnert, are opposed to shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, saying it should be kept separate from the unfolding geopolitical crisis.

They want to see the pipeline, which is awaiting regulatory approval, up and running. More than 60 percent of Germans agree with them, according to an opinion poll published last week by state broadcaster ARD.

The Greens and the center-right Free Democrats want Germany to pursue a much more forthright policy towards Russia. But to further complicate matters, the Greens, whose origins lie in the anti-nuclear peace movement of the 1970s and 1980s, are ideologically opposed to the export of weapons to conflict zones.

Since the new coalition government entered office in December, confusion has reigned about who is now setting the direction of its policy on Russia  the SPD-led Chancellery or the Green-led Foreign Office? This naturally includes the role and importance of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which still awaits approval to operate from German and EU regulators, comments Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a policy research organization.

The cacophony of different voices doesnt present a picture of clear German leadership, she adds.

Divisions within the German coalition are likely to be exacerbated, Puglierin says, in the coming weeks as fears mount about the countrys economic vulnerability to any fallout from the unfolding geopolitical confrontation. Germany exports machinery, vehicles and vehicle parts to Russia and the countrys politically influential auto-manufactures fear blowback.

The imposition of new wide-ranging and punishing Western sanctions on Russia will likely have major economic consequences for Germany, especially if Moscow retaliates by suspending natural gas supplies to Germany.

Like other Western European nations, Germany is battling an energy crunch and soaring energy prices. According to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, Germany buys 50 percent to 75 percent of its natural gas supplies from Russia.

Ten other EU members, including Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Latvia and Hungary, also get more than three-quarters of their natural gas imports from Russia.

Ukrainian officials  and Germanys NATO allies  fear any wavering by such a key player as Germany risks being seen by the Russian president, who has been adept exploiting European divisions in the past, as evidence that the alliance against him isnt as united as Washington and Kyiv would wish. They fear that could prompt the Russian leader to make a big military gamble.

Thats why Berlins decision on Friday to stop Estonia selling German-made weapons to Ukraine was a mistake, according to Tom Tugendhat, a British lawmaker and chairman of the British parliaments foreign affairs committee.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Monday its members are sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe in response to Russias military buildup along its border with Ukraine.

A NATO statement noted announced deployments or considerations for sending additional troops and equipment from multiple nations, including Denmark, Spain, France, the Netherlands and the United States.

NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the United States and its NATO allies of escalating tensions.

The United States and Britain also announced orders for their embassy staff and family members in Kyiv to leave Ukraine, citing the potential for Russian military action.

Ukraines foreign ministry noted the U.S. move but expressed displeasure.

While we respect right of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution, spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko tweeted Monday.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday the EU is not planning any similar withdrawals. He spoke to reporters as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers, which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to join virtually.

We are not going to do the same thing because we dont know any specific reasons. But Secretary Blinken will inform us, Borrell said.

In addition to its order Sunday for the departure of eligible family members from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, the U.S. State Department also authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees, asked U.S. citizens in Ukraine to consider departing the country and reissued travel advisories warning against traveling to either Ukraine or Russia.

Asked about the timing of these actions on Sunday evening in Washington, a senior State Department official told reporters they come against the backdrop of reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine.

The State Department official said security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.

The official said President Joe Biden has said a Russian military invasion of Ukraine could happen at any time, and if there is an invasion, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv would have limited ability to assist Americans who might want to leave the country.

The State Department officials who briefed reporters declined to give any estimates of the number of Americans working at the embassy in Kyiv or of the number of Americans living in Ukraine.

The State Department officials said these orders are being taken as a prudent precaution that in no way undermines U.S. support for the government of Ukraine, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will continue to operate.

The State Department also asked all U.S. citizens in Ukraine to complete an online form so that the State Department may better communicate with them, saying this is especially important for citizens who plan to remain in Ukraine.

Russia has massed 127,000 troops just across its border with Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, sparking fears of an impending Russian invasion. The United States and its European allies have expressed the need to use diplomatic channels to address the crisis and have said a Russian incursion would be met with massive sanctions.

Russia denies it plans to invade Ukraine and has sought guarantees against further NATO expansion in eastern Europe.

Earlier Sunday, Blinken warned Russia that Washington knows all of the tactics and techniques that Moscow can deploy to undermine the Ukrainian government but will continue to engage in diplomatic talks in hopes of easing tensions in eastern Europe.

It is certainly possible that the diplomacy the Russians are engaged in is simply going through the motions and it wont affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene, or not in Ukraine, Blinken said on NBCs Meet the Press show. But we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for  as far and as long as we can go because its the more responsible way to bring this to a closure.

In a separate interview on CNNs State of the Union show, Blinken ruled out the United States immediately imposing severe economic sanctions on Moscow, which it has vowed to do if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine.

If theyre triggered now, Blinken said of the possible sanctions, you lose the deterrent factor.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, following Blinken on CNN, accused the administration of President Joe Biden of a doctrine of appeasement in dealing with Russia over threats to Ukraine.

The sanctions need to be imposed now, Ernst said. President Putin only understands strength and power. We need to have firm resolve.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Pakistan swore in its first woman Supreme Court judge Monday in what is being hailed as a landmark moment in the historically male-dominated judicial history of the Muslim-majority nation.

Ayesha Malik, 55, took the oath at a ceremony in the capital Islamabad that was televised live. She now joins the bench alongside 16 male judges at the top court.

I want to congratulate Justice Ayesha Malik on becoming the first woman judge of the Supreme Court. I wish her all the best, Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted.

The process to elevate Malik to the top court from the Punjab provincial high court, which she joined in 2012, had been unusually contentious.

Pakistans nine-member judicial commission, which decides on the promotion of judges, had turned down Maliks elevation last year, before voting 5-4 to elect her this year.

Large sections of bar councils and lawyers' associations across Pakistan vehemently opposed her nomination, saying it was not in line with seniority lists as Malik was not among the top three most senior jurists of the provincial court.

Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed, who administered the oath to her, told reporters after the ceremony that Malik was competent enough to be elevated to the Supreme Court.

She deserved to become a judge of the Supreme Court [and] she became one. Thats what it is, Ahmed said.

Senior opposition Senator Sherry Rehman tweeted the picture of Mondays oath taking ceremony to congratulate Malik.



Christian Turner, the British high commissioner to Pakistan, said Maliks appointment as first woman Supreme Court judge will inspire girls to believe that there are no barriers to their aspirations.

Malik, who was educated at Harvard University, was widely hailed last year for her landmark Lahore High Court ruling, outlawing so-called virginity tests on sexual assault survivors in Punjab, the countrys most populous province.

She declared the practice "humiliating," saying it "had no forensic value" and "offends the personal dignity of the female victim and therefore is against the right to life and right to dignity."

Malik also directed the federal and provincial governments to take necessary steps to "ensure that virginity tests are not carried out in medico-legal examination of the victims of rape and sexual abuse."

The WHO has called the test unscientific, harmful, and a violation of women's and girls' human rights.

The biggest way Ive had an impact is that Ive become a voice. I'm there to call out the discrimination, call out stereotyping, and bring out the gender perspective, Malik said in a conversation with a United Nations media outlet when she was the provincial high court judge.

I'm the voice that nudges, reminds, and suggests ways to improve ourselves and make our system more inclusive.
Soldiers in the West African nation of Burkina Faso say they have ousted President Roch Marc Christian Kabore and that a military junta now controls the country.

More than a dozen mutinous soldiers appeared on state television Monday to make the announcement and said the takeover had been carried out without violence.

Captain Sidsore Kaber Ouedraogo said the new military leaders would work to create a calendar "acceptable to everyone" for holding new elections.

The development follows reports of heavy fighting near the presidential palace in the capital, Ouagadougou.

The whereabouts of Kabore are not clear. Reports earlier Monday said he was detained by mutineering soldiers along with other members of his government.

An announcement signed by Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba said Monday that those detained were at a secure location.

The statement blamed Kabore for failing to unite the nation and said he did not effectively respond to the country's challenges.

Kabore's party said earlier that he had survived an assassination attempt but gave no further details.

The new military leaders said they had suspended Burkina Faso's constitution, dissolved the National Assembly and closed the country's borders.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said it was "too soon" to officially characterize the events in Burkina Faso as a coup and said the situation remains fluid. He said the United States is aware of reports that Kabore has been detained and called for his immediate release.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned "any attempt to take over a government by the force of arms" and called on "the coup leaders to lay down their arms and ensure the protection" of Kabore, according to his spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric.

Burkina Faso has been embroiled in a conflict with terror groups linked to al-Qaida and Islamic State since 2015. Rumors of a coup have been rife for weeks after a military base in the north of the country was overrun by terrorists in November, killing 49 military members.

Kabore fired members of his Cabinet and military leadership in December in response.

The current unrest began early Sunday when heavy gunfire was heard inside Ouagadougou's largest military base, Camp Sangoule Lamizana. VOA journalist Henry Wilkins was temporarily detained inside the camp and spoke to one of the organizers of the mutiny, who relayed a list of demands from the mutineers, including "more money and more troops" to aid in the fight against terrorism, along with better training and the organization of a permanent military unit on the front lines.

The mutineers also demanded the resignations of the military chief of staff and chief of the intelligence services, and better care of the wounded and families of soldiers who have died in the conflict.

The apparent coup in Burkina Faso is the third in West Africa in the past 18 months, following those in Mali and neighboring Guinea.

VOA's Nike Ching and Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.


The Russian stock market took a dive Monday as war fears triggered a massive sell-off, with tens of billions of dollars wiped from the value of some of the countrys leading businesses.

As concerns mount that President Vladimir Putin is poised to order an invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the ruble also hit a 14-month low, prompting the Central Bank to intervene by halting its regular purchases of foreign currency to help prop up the ruble.

The Bank of Russia has decided not to purchase foreign currency on the domestic market, the bank said in a statement. This decision was made in order to reduce the volatility of financial markets.

The bank regularly converts the proceeds of the countrys oil and gas exports to avoid the ruble being impacted by swings in the value of global commodities.

The bank offered no details on when it would resume buying foreign currencies. The ruble was down 2.3% in early Monday trading but steadied after the banks announcement.

Meanwhile, the Russian stock market plunged more than 10% on Monday but was 7% down when trading concluded. Since the start of the Russian military buildup on the borders of Ukraine in October, the market has lost more than a quarter of its value.

Anders Aslund is chairman of the International Advisory Council at the Center for Social and Economic Research, a policy group in Warsaw, Poland. Aslund predicts the market could fall much further if the geopolitical confrontation between Russia and Western powers over Ukraine worsens.

So far, the Russian RTS stock index in USD has only fallen 27% from its high point on October 27 before Putin started threatening Ukraine, Aslund tweeted. It has far more to fall. In 2008, it fell by 80% from May to October (Georgia war + global financial crisis).

Meanwhile, the European stock markets have held fairly steady in recent weeks  a blitheness that's not necessarily reassuring, analysts say, as the European stock markets didnt miss a beat in the immediate wake of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914, a slaying that triggered World War I.

The London and Paris bourses were slow to grasp why Sarajevo was different and unique, noted Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, international business editor of The Telegraph.

European investors and traders appeared Monday to take greater note of the geopolitical maneuverings, and markets nudged down lower on the news that Britain was joining the United States in withdrawing some diplomats and their families from the embassies in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital.

The German and French stock markets were down about 2% in early trading, with analysts saying a New York Times report that U.S. President Joe Biden is considering deploying 5,000 troops to bolster the defenses of Ukraines NATO neighbors contributed to jitters.

The London stock market also traded lower. Some analysts suggested the dips were as much the result of traders watching what the U.S. Federal Reserve might do about tightening monetary policy than the unfolding Ukraine crisis.

With the crisis deepening, the attention of the markets and Western policy makers is turning to the possible energy implications for Europe, which gets about half of its natural gas supplies from Russia. Fears have been mounting that the Kremlin might retaliate by stopping gas exports in the event the West imposes fresh sanctions on Russia. The result would be an energy shock for a continent that is already mired in an energy crunch and experiencing soaring prices.

Should tensions between Russia and the Ukraine escalate, the initial uncertainty around its impact on gas flows would likely lead the market to once again add a significant risk premium to European gas prices," Goldman Sachs analysts told clients.

Last week, the Reuters news agency reported the U.S. State Department has been putting together a global strategy to increase supplies of liquefied natural gas to Europe in the event a Russian invasion of Ukraine leads to gas shortages.

Amos Hochstein, senior adviser for energy security at the State Department, has been holding talks with several Middle East and North African countries, as well as companies in Europe, about how to boost gas supplies if Russia seeks to weaponize energy.

In London Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters that the intelligence about Russian intentions was gloomy but added that a Russian invasion was not inevitable.

The intelligence is very clear that there are 60 Russian battle groups on the borders of Ukraine. The plan for a lightning war that could take out Kyiv is one that everybody can see. We need to make it very clear to the Kremlin, to Russia, that that would be a disastrous step, Johnson said.

He added, We also need to get a message (to Moscow) that invading Ukraine, from a Russian perspective, is going to be a painful, violent and bloody business. I think its very important that people in Russia understand that this could be a new Chechnya.

He was referring to the brutal wars fought between Russia and Chechen rebels in the 1990s that left tens of thousands of people dead. Chechnya had waged wars of independence against Russia.

Speaking as Britain started to withdraw some embassy staff from Ukraine, Johnson said, We do think it prudent to make some changes now.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said it will hear two cases that could determine if race can be used as a factor for college admission.

The cases, brought by the conservative group Students for Fair Admissions, targets Harvard, the country's oldest private school, and the University of North Carolina, one of the nation's oldest public schools.



The group maintains Harvard discriminates by using a quota-like system that disproportionately rejects qualified Asian applicants thus violating their civil rights.

"Harvard's mistreatment of Asian-American applicants is appalling," the plaintiffs wrote in their brief in the Harvard case. "That Harvard engages in racial balancing and ignores race-neutral alternatives also proves that Harvard does not use race as a last resort."

Harvard says race is only one consideration for admission.

"Harvard does not automatically award race-based tips but rather considers race only in a flexible and non-mechanical way; consideration of race benefits only highly qualified candidates; and Harvard does not discriminate against Asian-American applicants," the school wrote the court in its brief.

At UNC, Students for Fair Admissions is demanding a colorblind admissions process.

"Public schools have no legitimate interest in maintaining a precise racial balance," Students for Fair Admissions wrote in its brief to the court.

Both cases are seen as landmark challenges to affirmative action policies in university admissions. Affirmative action seeks to address disadvantages and discrimination certain groups have historically faced in America and ensure equal access of opportunity in education, employment and other areas.



UNC Charlottes website says it enrolls a diverse, competitive class of scholars each year and that the university prides itself on being one of the most diverse public universities in the state. The site adds: Having a diverse student body gives our students the opportunity to learn from other students from different backgrounds and cultures  to create a holistic and informed academic and social experience.



Institutions of higher learning that prioritize achieving racially-diverse student bodies have at times been accused of watering down admissions criteria for certain minority applicants and, in effect, penalizing more qualified applicants from other groups.



Chief Justice John Roberts has been an outspoken critic of affirmative action, famously declaring in a 2006 opinion, "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."



The cases will likely be heard during the Supreme Courts 2022 term, which starts in October.

Some information in this report comes from Reuters.
More than 50 Chinese aircraft have flown into Taiwans Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in recent days, marking the sharpest escalation in military sorties since the year began.

Sunday saw a record 39 flights enter the ADIZ, followed by 13 more on Monday, the government in Taiwan said. The ADIZ is an area of land and sea tracked by Taiwans military, including the Taiwan Strait and eastern China.

Taipei responded to the incursions by scrambling several of its fighters to confront the Chinese warplanes, and the military tracked them on its air defense radar systems.

There was no immediate comment from Beijing on the incursion.

China typically sends between one and five each aircraft each day in the direction of Taiwan each day, according to public data shared by Taiwans Ministry of Defense, but numbers can fluctuate depending on tensions in the Strait of Taiwan and other political events.

Sundays flights by the Peoples Liberation Army followed a joint freedom of navigation exercise between the US and Japan in the Philippine Sea, which included the aircraft carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Abraham Lincoln.

The incursions into the ADIZ in the past two days are likely related to the U.S.-Japan military exercises that took place last week. I think the Chinese are increasingly worried about U.S. military operations with allies in the region, and less worried about Taiwan's actions, said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Daily PLA flights toward Taiwan escalated to more than 940 last year, according to the MOD, including a record 56 in a single day in October. The incident coincided with the 100th anniversary of Chinas Communist Party, which has long viewed democratic Taiwan as a province that it hopes to take through peaceful or military means.

Flights into Taiwans ADIZ do not signify immediate military action by the PLA but are regarded as one of Chinas grey zone tactics to reduce morale in Taiwan while sending a signal to its allies like Japan and the U.S. that it is a formidable force.

Above all, I see the Chinese try to send a statement to Washington that they have the capability to counter all U.S. warships close to the Chinese ports, said Su Tzu-yun, a research fellow at Taiwans Institute for National Defense and Security Research.

Su told VOA that the volume of flights by the PLA is only one area of concern for Taiwan and its allies. Just as troubling, he said, will be the rollout of Chinas new and more powerful WS10 engine in its stealth fighter jets as well as its expanding nuclear arsenal and naval capability in the coming years.

The combined effect will transform the PLA from a green water navy, which must stay near ports or coastline, into an ocean-going blue water navy that can travel hundreds of nautical miles from shore  a potential threat to countries beyond Asia, he said.

Its not only Taiwan that is threatened by Beijing, Su said. Beijings sea power right now in 2022 is a so-called green water navy, however, they will get more aircraft carriers. My personal view is that the PLA navy will become a blue water navy by 2025 because its aircraft carriers will be in service and it can start expanding its air power beyond the first island chain.

Chinas growing naval and military power has brought renewed attention to Taiwan, which was once called an unsinkable aircraft carrier by U.S. General Douglas McArthur due to its strategic position between continental Asia and the Pacific Ocean.

It also plays a major role in the U.S. first island chain defense strategy, which incorporates Japan, parts of the Philippines and Malaysia, as well as Japans southern Ryukyu islands into a shield to keep China out of the Pacific.

The Financial Times reported on Sunday, however, that China has maintained an unprecedented military presence on the east side of the Ryukyus and Taiwan for the past six months.

"Last year more Chinese navy vessels and aircraft started operating east of Taiwan. Prior to that they were deployed primarily on the west side. As the FT noted, the PLA is operating regularly between the Nansei Islands and the east of Taiwan. Tokyo refers to the Ryukyu chain as the Nansei islands.

A range of actors including NATO and the European Union, has expressed concern over the past year about Chinas growing reach across the Indo-Pacific and its ability to control the Taiwan Strait, a globally important 177-kilometer waterway between mainland Asia and Taiwan. Concern is especially high in Japan, which relies on imports to meet 90% of its energy needs.

China has already expanded its regional footprint through island building in the South China Sea, as well as an extensive military modernization program that has upgraded the size and power of its armed forces.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
The United Arab Emirates said Monday it intercepted two ballistic missiles targeting Abu Dhabi.

The UAE defense ministry said in a statement the remnants of the missiles fell harmlessly and that no one was injured.

The ministry said the UAE is ready to deal with any threats and that it takes all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks.

Last week, an attack claimed by Yemens Houthi rebels hit a fuel depot in Abu Dhabi, killing three people and wounding six others.

The UAE is part of a Saudi-led coalition that has carried out multiple airstrikes against Houthi positions in Yemen since last weeks attack.

Saudi state media also reported Sunday that a Houthi-fired ballistic missile fell in the southern part of Saudi Arabia, injuring at least one person.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Press Release

January 24, 2022 Lacson: Presidency is All About Service, Not Power More at: https://pinglacson.net/article/lacson-presidency-is-all-about-service-not-power The presidency is all about service, not power. On this note, Partido Reporma chairman and standard-bearer Sen. Panfilo "Ping" M. Lacson stressed that the nation's leader must see himself as the people's ultimate servant. "We should all see Malacanang as the seat of public service instead of the seat of power. The people may not be its occupant's masters but definitely he is their servant," he said on his Twitter account. "Dapat ang occupant ang tingin sa sarili niya, servant. Ang ating kababayan may not be his masters but he is their servant. Kasi naluklok siya sa Malacanang, huwag niya isipin upuan ng kapangyarihan kundi upuan ng public service (The Palace's occupant should see himself or herself as a servant. Our people may not be his or her masters but he or she is their servant. If he or she were placed in Malacanang, it would be wrong for him or her to think that the Palace is the seat of power - it is the seat of public service)," he added in an interview on Bombo Radyo Philippines. During "The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews" last Saturday, when Lacson and other presidential candidates were shown a photo of Malacanang and asked to describe it, Lacson answered, "public servant" - in contrast to the answers of one of the other aspirants that it is the "seat of power." On the other hand, Lacson said that when he and the other aspirants were shown a photo of President Rodrigo Duterte and asked to describe it, he said "sayang," because Mr. Duterte could have used his popular support to properly implement his administration's programs - including the anti-drug war, corruption, and Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea. "Sayang, because he continues to have a very strong mandate from the Filipino people. He could actually have capitalized on his popularity and the people's support to execute properly his administration's all out war against illegal drugs without the PNP having to resort to 'extra-judicial' means - at least in the early years of the campaign. That said, I have no reason to doubt his sincerity and firm resolve to end the decades-old problem of illegal drugs without the prospect of being haled to court, worse the International Criminal Court," Lacson said. He added Mr. Duterte's fight against corruption in government "could have attained unprecedented strides with a supportive citizenry if he set and followed only one standard in running after the crooks in government, regardless of friendship and close association." A third "sayang" for Mr. Duterte was that with his friendship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Philippines allowed Chinese vessels to bully Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea. "Had he capitalized on his overwhelming mandate and immense popularity and good intention, we could have succeeded on those three issues," he lamented. Lacson has vowed to fix the ills in government (Aayusin ang Gobyerno, Aayusin ang Buhay ng Bawat Pilipino) and running after thieves especially in government (Uubusin ang Magnanakaw). During his 30 years as law enforcer and 18 years as senator, Lacson had "tasted power" but knew not to abuse it because the public positions he had are meant to serve the people. Meanwhile, Lacson said he will continue to stress this message in presidential debates and forums he takes part in. He added these forums give the public a glimpse of the candidates beyond the images they are projecting. "Huwag tayo tumingin sa panlabas na ginagawa ng kandidato. Maging discerning tayo para masuri natin ano ginawa na, ano track record and competence ng kandidato (Let's go beyond the images that candidates are trying to project. We should be discerning and check what the candidates have done and look into their track record and competence)," he said.
A United Nations report released Monday said the world is failing to insure that by 2030 all children are receiving an inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities.

The indicators used to determine a participating countrys success included: early childhood education attendance; drop-out rates; completion rates; gender gaps in completion rates; minimum proficiency rates in reading and mathematics; trained teachers; and public education expenditure.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, said countries were already failing their children even before taking into account the potential consequences of COVID-19 on education development.

This failure is a wakeup call for the worlds leaders, UNESCOs report said, as millions of children will continue to miss out on school and high-quality learning.

The education benchmarks are included in Sustainable Development Goal 4  one of 17 goals set up in 2015 by the U.N. General Assembly. The goals are intended to be achieved by 2030.
The United States is unlikely to strike an agreement with Iran to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal unless Tehran releases four U.S. citizens Washington says it is holding hostage, the lead U.S. nuclear negotiator told Reuters on Sunday.

The official, U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley, repeated the long-held U.S. position that the issue of the four people held in Iran is separate from the nuclear negotiations.

He moved a step closer, however, to saying that their release was a precondition for a nuclear agreement.

"They're separate and we're pursuing both of them. But I will say it is very hard for us to imagine getting back into the nuclear deal while four innocent Americans are being held hostage by Iran," Malley told Reuters in an interview.

"So even as we're conducting talks with Iran indirectly on the nuclear file we are conducting, again indirectly, discussions with them to ensure the release of our hostages," he said in Vienna, where talks are taking place on bringing Washington and Tehran back into full compliance with the deal.

In recent years, Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on espionage and security-related charges.

Rights groups have accused Iran of taking prisoners to gain diplomatic leverage, while Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their citizens, who they say are political prisoners.

Tehran denies holding people for political reasons.

Message sent

Malley was speaking in a joint interview with Barry Rosen, a 77-year-old former U.S. diplomat who has been on hunger strike in Vienna to demand the release of U.S., British, French, German, Austrian and Swedish prisoners in Iran, and that no nuclear agreement be reached without their release.

Rosen was one of more than 50 U.S. diplomats held during the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis.

"I've spoken to a number of the families of the hostages who are extraordinarily grateful for what Mr. Rosen is doing but they also are imploring him to stop his hunger strike, as I am, because the message has been sent," Malley said.

Rosen said that after five days of not eating he was feeling weak and would heed those calls.

"With the request from Special Envoy Malley and my doctors and others, we've agreed (that) after this meeting I will stop my hunger strike but this does not mean that others will not take up the baton," Rosen said.

The indirect talks between Iran and the United States on bringing both countries back into full compliance with the landmark 2015 nuclear deal are in their eighth round. Iran

refuses to hold meetings with U.S. officials, meaning others shuttle between the two sides.

The deal between Iran and major powers lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear activities that extended the time it would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb if it chose to. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.

Then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal in 2018, reimposing punishing economic sanctions against Tehran. Iran responded by breaching many of the deal's nuclear restrictions, to the point that Western powers say the deal will soon have been hollowed out completely.

Leverage

Asked if Iran and the United States might negotiate directly, Malley said: "We've heard nothing to that effect. We'd welcome it."

The four U.S. citizens include Iranian American businessman Siamak Namazi, 50, and his father Baquer, 85, both of whom have been convicted of "collaboration with a hostile government."

Namazi remains in prison. His father was released on medical grounds in 2018 and his sentence later reduced to time served.

While the elder Namazi is no longer jailed, a lawyer for the family says he is effectively barred from leaving Iran.

"Senior Biden administration officials have repeatedly told us that although the potential Iranian nuclear and hostage deals are independent and must be negotiated on parallel tracks, they will not just conclude the nuclear deal by itself," said Jared Genser, pro bono counsel to the Namazi family.

"Otherwise, all leverage to get the hostages out will be lost," he added.

The others are environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 66, who is also British, and businessman Emad Shargi, 57.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday the EU is not planning to follow the United States in withdrawing family members of diplomats from Ukraine amid tensions with Russia.

Borrell spoke as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers, which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to join virtually.

We are not going to do the same thing because we dont know any specific reasons. But Secretary Blinken will inform us, Borrell told reporters.

A short time later, Britain said it was withdrawing some of its embassy staff and family members from Kyiv in response to growing threat from Russia.

Ukraines foreign ministry noted the U.S. move, but expressed displeasure.

While we respect right of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution, spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko tweeted Monday.

The U.S. State Department on Sunday ordered the departure of eligible family members from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees due to the continued threat of Russian military action against Ukraine.

The State Department also asked U.S. citizens in Ukraine to consider departing the country using commercial or other privately available transportation options.

The State Department reissued its Level 4 Travel Warning for Ukraine, saying Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Previously, the travel warning had also been at Level 4, due to COVID-19.

The State Department also reissued a travel advisory Sunday night regarding travel to Russia: Do not travel to Russia due to ongoing tension along the border with Ukraine, the potential for harassment against U.S. citizens, the embassys limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, COVID-19 and related entry restrictions, terrorism, harassment by Russian government security officials, and the arbitrary enforcement of local law.

Asked about the timing of these actions on Sunday evening in Washington, a senior State Department official told reporters they come against the backdrop of reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine.

The State Department official said security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.

The official said President Joe Biden has said a Russian military invasion of Ukraine could happen at any time, and if there is an invasion, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv would have limited ability to assist Americans who might want to leave the country.

The State Department officials who briefed reporters declined to give any estimates of the number of Americans working at the embassy in Kyiv or of the number of Americans living in Ukraine.

The State Department officials said these orders are being taken as a prudent precaution that in no way undermines U.S. support for the government of Ukraine, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will continue to operate.

The State Department also asked all U.S. citizens in Ukraine to complete an online form so that the State Department may better communicate with them, saying this is especially important for citizens who plan to remain in Ukraine.

Earlier Sunday, Blinken warned Russia that Washington knows all of the tactics and techniques that Moscow can deploy to undermine the Ukrainian government but will continue to engage in diplomatic talks in hopes of easing tensions in eastern Europe.

Watch related video by Arash Arabasadi:

It is certainly possible that the diplomacy the Russians are engaged in is simply going through the motions and it wont affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene, or not in Ukraine, Blinken said on NBCs Meet the Press show. But we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for  as far and as long as we can go because it's the more responsible way to bring this to a closure.

In a separate interview on CNNs State of the Union show, Blinken ruled out the United States immediately imposing severe economic sanctions on Moscow, which it has vowed to do if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. Russia has massed 127,000 troops just across its border with Ukraine, a former Soviet republic.

If theyre triggered now, Blinken said of the possible sanctions, you lose the deterrent factor.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, following Blinken on CNN, accused the administration of President Joe Biden of a doctrine of appeasement in dealing with Russia over threats to Ukraine.

The sanctions need to be imposed now, Ernst said. President Putin only understands strength and power. We need to have firm resolve.

Blinken declined to comment on a British intelligence report that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraines government with a pro-Moscow administration. Moscow rejected the claim.

The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging app. We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that COVID-19 has now entered its third year and called on countries to come together to end the global pandemic.

We are at a critical juncture, Tedros said during a news conference in Germany. We cannot let it continue to drag on, lurching between panic and neglect.

Sunday, WHOs Europe director told Agence France-Presse that it is plausible that the omicron variant has moved Europe towards a kind of pandemic endgame. He speculated that 60% of Europeans would be infected with omicron by March.



There will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality, Kluge said.

However, he also warned, We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before COVID-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back.

Similarly, the leading U.S. epidemiologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told ABCs This Week show that the number of omicron cases in the U.S. has started to recede.

Things are looking good, he said. I dont want to be overconfident, but [the falling number of the coronavirus cases are] headed in the right direction.

For the seventh consecutive day Sunday, Beijings local government reported new COVID-19 cases, just days before the city hosts the Winter Olympics. Provinces near the capital also reported new infections.



Several thousand anti-vaccination mandate protesters marched in Washington Sunday along the National Mall. In the United States, the Supreme Court recently rejected a vaccination mandate President Joe Biden tried to impose on 84 million workers employed at large businesses but let stand a narrower mandatory vaccination order affecting 17 million hospital health care workers.

The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center in the U.S. reported early Monday that worldwide it has recorded more than 351 million COVID infections and 5.6 million deaths. The center said nearly 10 billion COVID vaccine shots have been administered.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Monday its members are sending more ships and fighter jets to eastern Europe in response to Russias military buildup along its border with Ukraine.

A NATO statement noted announced deployments or considerations for sending additional troops and equipment from multiple nations, including Denmark, Spain, France, the Netherlands and the United States.

NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the alliance, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the United States and its NATO allies of escalating tensions.

The United States and Britain also announced orders for their embassy staff and family members in Kyiv to leave Ukraine, citing the potential for Russian military action.

Ukraines foreign ministry noted the U.S. move but expressed displeasure.

While we respect right of foreign nations to ensure safety & security of their diplomatic missions, we believe such a step to be a premature one & an instance of excessive caution, spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko tweeted Monday.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday the EU is not planning any similar withdraws. He spoke to reporters as he arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers, which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to join virtually.

We are not going to do the same thing because we dont know any specific reasons. But Secretary Blinken will inform us, Borrell said.

In addition to its order Sunday for the departure of eligible family members from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, the U.S. State Department also authorized the voluntary departure of U.S. direct hire employees, asked U.S. citizens in Ukraine to consider departing the country and reissued travel advisories warning against traveling to either Ukraine or Russia.

Asked about the timing of these actions on Sunday evening in Washington, a senior State Department official told reporters they come against the backdrop of reports Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine.

The State Department official said security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.

The official said President Joe Biden has said a Russian military invasion of Ukraine could happen at any time, and if there is an invasion, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv would have limited ability to assist Americans who might want to leave the country.

The State Department officials who briefed reporters declined to give any estimates of the number of Americans working at the embassy in Kyiv or of the number of Americans living in Ukraine.

The State Department officials said these orders are being taken as a prudent precaution that in no way undermines U.S. support for the government of Ukraine, and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will continue to operate.

The State Department also asked all U.S. citizens in Ukraine to complete an online form so that the State Department may better communicate with them, saying this is especially important for citizens who plan to remain in Ukraine.

Russia has massed 127,000 troops just across its border with Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, sparking fears of an impending Russian invasion. The United States and its European allies have expressed the need to use diplomatic channels to address the crisis and have said a Russian incursion would be met with massive sanctions.

Russia denies it plans to invade Ukraine and has sought guarantees against further NATO expansion in eastern Europe.

Earlier Sunday, Blinken warned Russia that Washington knows all of the tactics and techniques that Moscow can deploy to undermine the Ukrainian government but will continue to engage in diplomatic talks in hopes of easing tensions in eastern Europe.

It is certainly possible that the diplomacy the Russians are engaged in is simply going through the motions and it wont affect their ultimate decision about whether to invade or in some other way intervene, or not in Ukraine, Blinken said on NBCs Meet the Press show. But we have a responsibility to see the diplomacy through for  as far and as long as we can go because its the more responsible way to bring this to a closure.

In a separate interview on CNNs State of the Union show, Blinken ruled out the United States immediately imposing severe economic sanctions on Moscow, which it has vowed to do if Russian President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine.

If theyre triggered now, Blinken said of the possible sanctions, you lose the deterrent factor.

Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, following Blinken on CNN, accused the administration of President Joe Biden of a doctrine of appeasement in dealing with Russia over threats to Ukraine.

The sanctions need to be imposed now, Ernst said. President Putin only understands strength and power. We need to have firm resolve.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Over the last few weeks we were in a semi lockdown again in the Netherlands, where all shops, bars, restaurants and musea and music venues were closed. If there is one thing most people love doing these moments it is decluttering their homes. And even I couldnt help to stroll through cupboards and make some big decisions and throw things out, and this time for real!

Only surround yourself with what you really love

To be honest I cant believe I am still looking at cupboards filled with cd collections, hundreds of concert pictures and numerous home decor accessories and extra bowls and stuff for when we have a dinner party even though the last really big family and friends gathering was years ago.

As you might know, I strongly believe you should only surround yourself with the things you really love and reflect your personality: Something you see in my home and on my blog. When making a Reals for my Instagram yesterday with items from my fairly new webshop. I realized that this certainly also applies to my shop.

The imperfection of natural materials x clean lines

Not only is every item in the store selected by myself, and therefore of my personal taste. All items really match each other and can be mixed together so well. I mixed the beautiful Japanese candles from my store with the black carbonized boxes. The tray is from the same material and the hand thrown espresso cups come from Iceland. Come have a look in my online store Thanks a lot for the support so far!

Images  vosgesparis
Stowe, VT (05672)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. High 53F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch..

Tonight

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 40F. Winds light and variable.
Key things to know about electing a president in Italy.

Italy's parliament convenes on Monday 24 January to begin the complex process of voting for a new head of state.

The next president will be Italy's 13th since the office was established on 1 January 1948 after Italians voted in a post-war referendum to replace the monarchy with a republic.

The new office-holder will replace Sergio Mattarella, 80, who has held the role since 2015 and whose seven-year term ends on 3 February.

Who elects Italy's president?

The president is elected by an electoral college of 1,009 "grand electors" comprising 951 parliamentarians - from both the chamber of deputies and the senate - along with 58 regional representatives.

How is Italy's president elected?

Voting is held in secret and a two thirds majority is needed on the first three ballots and then after that by an absolute majority.

This means that a candidate needs at least 673 votes in the first three rounds followed by a simple majority of at least 505 votes.

Who are the candidates in this election?

Lawmakers can vote for literally anyone they like, provided they are an Italian citizen aged 50 or over.

While prime minister Mario Draghi, 74, is the most tipped contender for the top job, there are no official candidates in the race which is wide open.

Draghi has steadfastly refused to confirm or deny his interest in the role but recently hinted that he would be willing to switch from prime minister to head of state.

A move by Draghi to the Quirinale would risk political turmoil, either triggering elections a year ahead of their scheduled end in spring 2023 or resulting in the installation of a new premier.

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi, 85, bowed out of the race over the weekend, saying that Draghi should remain at the helm of government.

In the meantime the number of possible contenders continues to grow.

The long list includes former premiers Giuliano Amato, 83, and Paolo Gentiloni, 67; former lower house speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini, 66; and the S. Egidio Community founder Andrea Riccardi, 72.

Italy has never had a woman president. Female contenders for the job include current senate speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, 66; current justice minister Marta Cartabia, 58; former justice minister Paola Severino, 73; and former Milan mayor Letizia Moratti, 72.

Covid effect

This presidential election has been complicated by covid-19, with voting - in person - to be conducted by a maximum of 50 electors at a time to avoid overcrowding in the chamber of deputies.

In addition the dozens of electors who are either covid positive or in quarantine have been granted special permission to attend a 'drive-in' vote in the car park outside.

What does Italy's president do?

The role of head of state, Italy's highest office, is largely ceremonial and the president acts as guarantor of the constitution.

The president plays a key role during times of political crisis and has the power to appoint a prime minister and give mandates to form a government, as seen when the Conte executive fell in February 2021.

The president's term of office is seven years, with an annual salary of about 239,000.

How long do elections take?

Voting begins at 15.00 on 24 January and is expected to take at least several days with the aim of electing a new president before Mattarella's mandate concludes on 3 February.

Where does the president live?

The president's residence is the vast Palazzo Quirinale, the sixth largest palace in the world, previously the home of 30 popes and four kings of Italy.

Extending for an area of 110,500 sqm, Palazzo Quirinale is 20 times larger than the White House and one third again the size of Buckingham Palace.

Who are Italy's past presidents?

Enrico De Nicola was president for 132 days in 1948, after serving as provisional head of state of republican Italy from 1946.

He was succeeded by Luigi Einaudi (1948-55), Giovanni Gronchi (1955-62), Antonio Segni (1962-64), Giuseppe Saragat (1964-71), Giovanni Leone (1971-1978), Sandro Pertini (1978-85), Francesco Cossiga (1985-92), Oscar Luigi Scalfaro (1992-99), Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (1999-2006), Giorgio Napolitano (2006-15), leading up to Mattarella who took office on 3 February 2015.

Cover image: Italian national guard of honour during a welcome ceremony at Palazzo Quirinale on 15 October 2018. Photo credit: roibu / Shutterstock.com.
Jamestown, site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, is seen last month, sandwiched between the James River and a swamp. (Julia Rendleman for The Post)

Retropolis The Past, Rediscovered
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Insights into the economy can be found in surprising places. In a brothel, for instance, how services are priced and who ends up working there can reveal a lot about the state of the business cycle. It also reflects structural changes in our economy and society. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight When I spent time at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch in Nevada while researching a book a few years ago, I was struck by how many of the women came from families where the men didnt work. Many had husbands, boyfriends, brothers and male cousins who werent in the labor force  without a job and sometimes not even looking.

This pattern has emerged in a growing number of American households lately. During each recession for the last 40 years, a sizable number of men  more than women  have left the labor force and not come back. So far, this has been true for the pandemic too, despite rising wages and the best job market in decades. The male prime-age labor force participation rate  the share of men age 25 to 54 who are either working or looking for work  has fallen over the years from 96% in 1970 to about 89% in 2020 before the pandemic.

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And despite plentiful opportunities now, the numbers havent recovered to pre-pandemic levels. As of the last estimate in November 2021, only 88.2% of prime age men are participating in the U.S. labor force. Which makes it clear we need a new approach to jobs.

Less-educated men are the most likely to drop out; the rate of prime-age male high school graduates in the labor force is still 1.37 percentage points lower than before the pandemic, and only 84% of men without college degrees are in the labor force. Some women left the labor force too, but not as many. Womens participation rate dropped 0.62%  even while bearing the brunt of irregular schooling. The numbers look worse in some areas: in November only 83% of prime age men were in the labor force in West Virginia and Vermont, and just 79% in Mississippi, while 92% of prime age men were engaged in the job market in Utah.

Economists have offered many reasons to explain why fewer men are working in their prime career years. One is that technology and globalization destroyed the routine jobs that provided employment to many. The idea is that these jobs disappeared and men arent getting the skills they need to thrive in the new economy. Some men live in areas with poor job prospects and Americans have become less likely to move. Theres another theory that better leisure options, like video games, reduce the desire to work.

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Also, changes in the disability program made it easier to claim benefits and never return to the labor market, and Americans are generally sicker: 35% of disabled Americans report a mental health disorder and 30% report disabilities that may be related to obesity. Opioids also play a role, but how that plays out isnt clear. The burden of an opioid addiction could keep people from working, or some economists speculate that a grim labor market like we had at the start of the pandemic might make more people turn to drugs.

Regardless of the cause, the results are terrible for families and the economy. Time out of work is associated with depression and poor health. Keeping people employed and productive is also important for a growing, vibrant, inclusive economy that offers the possibility of upward mobility. If prime-age males keep dropping out, we risk a permanent underclass that cant work to get ahead.

Policy so far has not been very effective in mitigating the trend. Mostly, weve relied on monetary policy with the hope that a tight labor market and higher wages will induce more people to work. But monetary policy is not well suited to deal with big structural problems. The labor market is very tight now and we still have a not-working problem. Ideas floated by the Biden administration and some conservatives also will fall short. For example, offering free community college to teach skills has a mixed track record  in large part because they often dont teach the skills people need  and drop-out rates are high. Guaranteed jobs wont do the trick, either, since the problem is not lack of jobs.

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We need to think bigger and create an economy where people of all skill levels can thrive and reach their potential. And that starts with better and more rigorous secondary school education and reviving vocational high schools. High school drop-out rates have been falling. These are the years when its easiest to reach young men, engage them and teach them the skills they need. The community college solution is just trying to make up for mediocre to poor high school educations. It would be more effective to make the time spent in high school more valuable and useful.

The pandemic intensified the challenges in our changing economy, and further alienated more young men from work. It also showed we need to try to something new.

More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:

 Can You Afford to Join the Great Resignation?: Stuart Trow

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 Youre Probably Getting a Raise But Falling Behind: John Authers

 Extra Benefits for Anti-Vax Jobless? Really?: Michael R. Strain

 The Fed Cant Make People Go Back to Work: Michael R. Strain

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. She is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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In todays China, behemoths like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. are out of favor, but little giants are on the rise. Thats the designation for a new generation of startups that have been selected under an ambitious government program aimed at fostering a technology industry that can compete with Silicon Valley. These often-obscure companies have demonstrated theyre doing something innovative and unique, and theyre targeting strategically important sectors like robotics, quantum computing and semiconductors.

Wu Gansha won the little giants title for his autonomous driving startup after a government review of his technology. That gave the Beijing company, Uisee, an extra dose of credibility and financial benefits. Last year, it raised more than 1 billion yuan ($157 million), including money from a state-owned fund. Its also become a unicorn, with a valuation of at least $1 billion.

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Its an honor to wear the little giant label, Wu said. The essence of the project is that the companies must possess some specialty that others dont have.

The program has been around for more than a decade, but it has taken on new prominence after Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown against leading companies like Alibaba and Tencent. The little giants label has become a valued measure of government endorsement, a signal for investors and employees that the companies are insulated from regulatory punishment. President Xi Jinping has given his personal blessing to the program.

This is helpful to startups in many ways: Its a subsidy. Its a grant. Its an honor. Its a stamp of approval, said Lee Kai-Fu, founding managing director of the venture firm Sinovation.

The program is key to the Communist Partys ambitious strategy to reposition the countrys technology industry. For two decades, China largely followed the Silicon Valley model, allowing entrepreneurs to pursue their ambitions with little government oversight. That led to enormous successes, including e-commerce pioneer Alibaba, social media giant Tencent and ByteDance Ltd., creator of the hit TikTok short-video app.

Advertisement

But in a series of regulatory moves over the past year, Beijing made clear the technology industry must realign to conform with government priorities. Alibaba and Tencent were quickly forced to eliminate anti-competitive practices, while games companies had to limit minors to three hours of online play per week. More broadly, the government has signaled softer internet services are out of favor.

Instead, Beijing aims to shift resources to strategically important technologies like chips and enterprise software. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has named 4,762 little giants since 2019, many in semiconductors, machinery and pharmaceutical industries. The designation typically comes with lucrative incentives from the central government or provincial authorities, including tax cuts, generous loans and favorable talent acquisition policies.

What the country is trying to promote is more hardcore technology, said Yipin Ng, founding partner of Yunqi Partners, a venture fund that is investing in little giants. In that sense, this is more in line with what they are trying to promote  things that makes China more competitive.

Advertisement

Governments from the U.S. to Africa have established programs to support smaller enterprises, but Chinas efforts dwarf those in terms of scale, resources and ambition. Xi, the countrys most powerful leader since Mao, has instituted a half dozen programs that will collectively disburse trillions of dollars in pursuit of economic might, social stability and technological independence.

The U.S. trade war has stiffened the Communist Partys resolve to build a self-sufficient industry. The countrys vulnerability was exposed when Donald Trumps administration blacklisted national champions like Huawei Technologies Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. That prevented them from buying U.S. components such as chipsets and industrial software, crippling operations.

Read how Beijings crackdown unfolded over a year

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The little giants concept dates back to at least 2005, when the local government in Hunan province instituted policies to support small enterprises. The central governments powerful MIIT endorsed the Hunan campaign, which included land grants and financial support, as a model for developing the private sector. Local governments in places like Tianjin began their own initiatives.

It was in 2018, with the trade war, that the central government began to seriously push the program. MIIT announced a plan to create about 600 little giants that would develop core technologies. The procedure for winning the designation was designed to foster competition and identify the most promising companies.

Candidates apply with a six-page form detailing financial status, number of patents and research accomplishments. In the first round of selection, each province could nominate no more than a dozen companies. The countrys top three tech hubs -- Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai -- had a combined quota of only 17 candidates.

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Guan Yaxin, chief operating officer of Beijing-based ForwardX Robotics, said the process was relatively smooth for her company because it has proven innovations, with 121 patents globally, including 25 in the U.S.

This government endorsement is very helpful when I expand the business because the clients will understand we are not just a random startup, she said.

MIIT has since expanded the program to thousands of companies, with about 1,000 priority little giants at the top of the hierarchy. Members of this rarefied club, which includes Wus Uisee, receive direct funding from the central government. In January, the Finance Ministry set aside at least 10 billion yuan to fund small and mid-sized enterprises until 2025, with the lions share directly financing the priority startups research. The goal is to create 10,000 little giants by 2025.

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Its quite clear that this is a selection of companies very much subordinate to Chinas specific industrial policy and needs, said Barry Naughton, a professor and China economist at the University of California, San Diego. They were partially picked because they are good firms, but an equally important criteria is they fit the urgent policy needs of the government right now.

There are substantial risks. The success of Chinas technology industry over the past 10 years came from giving entrepreneurs like Alibabas Jack Ma and ByteDances Zhang Yiming free rein to build their businesses. Flipping the model to focus on the governments priorities risks leading to waste and failure, Naughton said.

These are small companies that are being nurtured because they can potentially be alternative suppliers. How do you nurture them? You throw money at them, he said.

Advertisement

The little giants have become popular targets for venture capitalists, many of whom lost money on portfolio companies during Beijings crackdown. One VC said that some startups in the program have been able to raise capital in the last six months while boosting their valuations by 50% to 75%. Another VC reportedly invests only in companies identified as little giants by the government.

Zhang Hui, co-founder of Guizhou Changtong Electric Ltd., applied for the program in Guizhou province in 2020 and received the award last year, based on his companys power equipment technology. The startup soon landed more than 100 million yuan from state-backed funds, and other investors have been knocking on his door to offer additional capital.

Of course, venture investors will chase little giants for investment, he said. It would be a surprise if they didnt.

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Venture investments in China hit a record last year despite the crackdown. The value of deals rose about 50% in 2021 to $130.6 billion, according to the research firm Preqin.

Read how venture investments in China climbed to a record last year

EcoFlow Inc., a portable battery startup in Shenzhen, announced a 100 million yuan fundraising led by Sequoia as the company won the little giant label from MIIT. The four-year-old firm now plans an initial public offering in its hometown city within three years.

The government is also making it easier for these startups to go public, another incentive for entrepreneurs and venture investors. China set up a dedicated stock exchange in Beijing last year to help small enterprises raise capital.

Guan of ForwardX Robotics pointed out that founders retain control over their companies even if they participate in such government programs. Her company, which makes mobile robots used in manufacturing and logistics, has about 300 employees and plans to expand into Japan and the U.S. She sees the governments support as a big benefit as little giants try to grow.

Many of them are very small now compared with multinationals, she said. But the government sees the potential for them to become a real giants one day.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

GiftOutline Gift Article
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In todays China, behemoths like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. are out of favor, but little giants are on the rise. Thats the designation for a new generation of startups that have been selected under an ambitious government program aimed at fostering a technology industry that can compete with Silicon Valley. These often-obscure companies have demonstrated theyre doing something innovative and unique, and theyre targeting strategically important sectors like robotics, quantum computing and semiconductors.

Wu Gansha won the little giants title for his autonomous driving startup after a government review of his technology. That gave the Beijing company, Uisee, an extra dose of credibility and financial benefits. Last year, it raised more than 1 billion yuan ($157 million), including money from a state-owned fund. Its also become a unicorn, with a valuation of at least $1 billion.

Advertisement

Its an honor to wear the little giant label, Wu said. The essence of the project is that the companies must possess some specialty that others dont have.

The program has been around for more than a decade, but it has taken on new prominence after Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown against leading companies like Alibaba and Tencent. The little giants label has become a valued measure of government endorsement, a signal for investors and employees that the companies are insulated from regulatory punishment. President Xi Jinping has given his personal blessing to the program.

This is helpful to startups in many ways: Its a subsidy. Its a grant. Its an honor. Its a stamp of approval, said Lee Kai-Fu, founding managing director of the venture firm Sinovation.

The program is key to the Communist Partys ambitious strategy to reposition the countrys technology industry. For two decades, China largely followed the Silicon Valley model, allowing entrepreneurs to pursue their ambitions with little government oversight. That led to enormous successes, including e-commerce pioneer Alibaba, social media giant Tencent and ByteDance Ltd., creator of the hit TikTok short-video app.

Advertisement

But in a series of regulatory moves over the past year, Beijing made clear the technology industry must realign to conform with government priorities. Alibaba and Tencent were quickly forced to eliminate anti-competitive practices, while games companies had to limit minors to three hours of online play per week. More broadly, the government has signaled softer internet services are out of favor.

Instead, Beijing aims to shift resources to strategically important technologies like chips and enterprise software. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has named 4,762 little giants since 2019, many in semiconductors, machinery and pharmaceutical industries. The designation typically comes with lucrative incentives from the central government or provincial authorities, including tax cuts, generous loans and favorable talent acquisition policies.

What the country is trying to promote is more hardcore technology, said Yipin Ng, founding partner of Yunqi Partners, a venture fund that is investing in little giants. In that sense, this is more in line with what they are trying to promote  things that makes China more competitive.

Advertisement

Governments from the U.S. to Africa have established programs to support smaller enterprises, but Chinas efforts dwarf those in terms of scale, resources and ambition. Xi, the countrys most powerful leader since Mao, has instituted a half dozen programs that will collectively disburse trillions of dollars in pursuit of economic might, social stability and technological independence.

The U.S. trade war has stiffened the Communist Partys resolve to build a self-sufficient industry. The countrys vulnerability was exposed when Donald Trumps administration blacklisted national champions like Huawei Technologies Co. and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. That prevented them from buying U.S. components such as chipsets and industrial software, crippling operations.

Read how Beijings crackdown unfolded over a year

Advertisement

The little giants concept dates back to at least 2005, when the local government in Hunan province instituted policies to support small enterprises. The central governments powerful MIIT endorsed the Hunan campaign, which included land grants and financial support, as a model for developing the private sector. Local governments in places like Tianjin began their own initiatives.

It was in 2018, with the trade war, that the central government began to seriously push the program. MIIT announced a plan to create about 600 little giants that would develop core technologies. The procedure for winning the designation was designed to foster competition and identify the most promising companies.

Candidates apply with a six-page form detailing financial status, number of patents and research accomplishments. In the first round of selection, each province could nominate no more than a dozen companies. The countrys top three tech hubs -- Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai -- had a combined quota of only 17 candidates.

Advertisement

Guan Yaxin, chief operating officer of Beijing-based ForwardX Robotics, said the process was relatively smooth for her company because it has proven innovations, with 121 patents globally, including 25 in the U.S.

This government endorsement is very helpful when I expand the business because the clients will understand we are not just a random startup, she said.

QuicktakeChinas vast blueprint for tech supremacy over the U.S.

MIIT has since expanded the program to thousands of companies, with about 1,000 priority little giants at the top of the hierarchy. Members of this rarefied club, which includes Wus Uisee, receive direct funding from the central government. In January, the Finance Ministry set aside at least 10 billion yuan to fund small and mid-sized enterprises until 2025, with the lions share directly financing the priority startups research. The goal is to create 10,000 little giants by 2025.

Advertisement

Its quite clear that this is a selection of companies very much subordinate to Chinas specific industrial policy and needs, said Barry Naughton, a professor and China economist at the University of California, San Diego. They were partially picked because they are good firms, but an equally important criteria is they fit the urgent policy needs of the government right now.

There are substantial risks. The success of Chinas technology industry over the past 10 years came from giving entrepreneurs like Alibabas Jack Ma and ByteDances Zhang Yiming free rein to build their businesses. Flipping the model to focus on the governments priorities risks leading to waste and failure, Naughton said.

These are small companies that are being nurtured because they can potentially be alternative suppliers. How do you nurture them? You throw money at them, he said.

Advertisement

The little giants have become popular targets for venture capitalists, many of whom lost money on portfolio companies during Beijings crackdown. One VC said that some startups in the program have been able to raise capital in the last six months while boosting their valuations by 50% to 75%. Another VC reportedly invests only in companies identified as little giants by the government.

Zhang Hui, co-founder of Guizhou Changtong Electric Ltd., applied for the program in Guizhou province in 2020 and received the award last year, based on his companys power equipment technology. The startup soon landed more than 100 million yuan from state-backed funds, and other investors have been knocking on his door to offer additional capital.

Of course, venture investors will chase little giants for investment, he said. It would be a surprise if they didnt.

Advertisement

Venture investments in China hit a record last year despite the crackdown. The value of deals rose about 50% in 2021 to $130.6 billion, according to the research firm Preqin.

Read how venture investments in China climbed to a record last year

EcoFlow Inc., a portable battery startup in Shenzhen, announced a 100 million yuan fundraising led by Sequoia as the company won the little giant label from MIIT. The four-year-old firm now plans an initial public offering in its hometown city within three years.

The government is also making it easier for these startups to go public, another incentive for entrepreneurs and venture investors. China set up a dedicated stock exchange in Beijing last year to help small enterprises raise capital.

Guan of ForwardX Robotics pointed out that founders retain control over their companies even if they participate in such government programs. Her company, which makes mobile robots used in manufacturing and logistics, has about 300 employees and plans to expand into Japan and the U.S. She sees the governments support as a big benefit as little giants try to grow.

Many of them are very small now compared with multinationals, she said. But the government sees the potential for them to become a real giants one day.

(Updates with QuickTake on Beijings blueprint for the technology industry)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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A revolution in university admissions appears to be at hand. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases on affirmative action in higher education, raising the likelihood that it will strike down the practice in the near future. The only thing surprising about this development is the timing, in the same Supreme Court term that already promises blockbuster conservative judgments on abortion and guns.

The legality of race-based preferences in college admissions has been hanging by a thread for decades: Certainly since 2003, when Justice Sandra Day OConnor provided the swing vote in favor, and arguably since 1978, when it was Justice Lewis Powell. Today, it would take two swing voters, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, to preserve the status quo.

The legal background goes back to the 1970s, when Powell wrote a single-justice concurrence in a case called Regents of California v. Bakke that has remained the law ever since. The basic question, then as now, was whether it violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment for a public university to take account of an applicants race in making an admissions decision.

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Liberals devised affirmative action to remedy the history of racism in admissions. But Powell did not embrace that rationale to explain why it was constitutional. Instead, he said that it was permissible for universities to consider race as part of an effort to create a diverse student body. The rationale came from a friend-of-the-court brief filed by Harvard University (where I teach) in which the university articulated a vision in which all students were said to have something special to contribute, whether they were Idaho farm boys or people of color.

In the decades that followed, diversity became not just a legal rationale to allow affirmative action, but a value in itself, now inextricably linked to racial diversity. At the same time, conservative opposition to affirmative action has never waned. Constitutional attacks by activist groups have been a regular feature of the politics around it  both in the form of referenda, as in California, and in the form of legal challenges seeking to overturn Powells Bakke opinion.

In 2003, OConnor provided the vote to keep diversity-based affirmative action constitutional as part of an overall qualitative assessment of candidates, even as she also held that race could not be counted quantitatively as part of a points system. The cases were Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, both involving the University of Michigan.

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When OConnor retired and Justice Anthony Kennedy became the courts main swing voter, conservatives thought they were poised to end affirmative action altogether, since Kennedy had voted with them in Grutter and Gratz. But to their surprise and outrage, Kennedy flipped sides. In the 2016 case of Fisher v. University of Texas, he cast the deciding vote to uphold consideration of race as part of a holistic admissions analysis guided by diversity.

For both OConnor and Kennedy, the key motivation seems to have been that striking down affirmative action would leave elite universities with fewer Black and Latino students than the percentage in the general population. Neither justice wanted to be the direct cause of the cultural crisis that could emerge if those numbers changed drastically as a result of a judicial decision.

The question now is whether Roberts, who has consistently voted to strike down affirmative action, and Kavanaugh, who hasnt yet had the chance to vote on the issue on the Supreme Court, would go the way of Kennedy. That would entail betraying conservative orthodoxy. Roberts has shown a willingness to do that to preserve the courts reputation for judicial consistency. But to do it again he would need Kavanaughs vote, too.

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Kavanaugh has long-standing ties to both Yale, where he went for college and law school, and Harvard Law school, where he taught for many years as a visiting professor. He also clerked for Kennedy. Under different circumstances, those social facts might have given reason to suspect that he might be inclined to defer to the universities long-standing practices.

But Kavanaugh is already under criticism by conservatives for joining Roberts in upholding President Joe Bidens vaccine mandate for health-care workers. Deviating from the movements position on affirmative action would put him at risk for being treated as an enemy by liberals on some issues and conservatives on others.

The upshot is that this is likely to be the end of the road for the diversity rationale. Given that Harvards diversity theory provided the original rationale embraced by Powell in the Bakke case, perhaps its fitting that Harvard is a party to one of the two cases the court just agreed to hear. The key constitutional decision would have to come in the other case, involving the University of North Carolina, which is a public institution. The Harvard case, however, may serve the conservative justices as a good rhetorical tool.

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In the Harvard case, anti-affirmative-action activists argued that diversity provided cover for discriminating against Asian-American applicants. The lower courts rejected that charge. But the conservative justices could revive the claim to buttress the argument that affirmative action inherently violates the equal-protection guarantee for those who dont benefit from it.

If that happens, and affirmative action ends, universities will have to find ways to respond. They already are experimenting with potential mechanisms to do so  but that will have to be the subject of another column.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and host of the podcast Deep Background. He is a professor of law at Harvard University and was a clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter. His books include The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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The label on the shampoo I used this morning advised me to lather, rinse, repeat. This is a clear conflict of interest! The manufacturer gains if I double my consumption of its product. Is the label instruction for my benefit or the manufacturers profit? Why have I never seen a shampoo label say lather, rinse, then go out and buy a competitors product for a second shampoo?

If this sounds too silly for a Bloomberg Opinion column, here is an academic paper making the same points about model portfolios published by asset managers, a $4.9 trillion branch of the U.S. asset management industry.

Large asset managers provide model portfolios for many purposes  as options in 401(k) plans, as blueprints for institutional clients and affiliated financial advisors, and as suggestions for unaffiliated investment advisors. These have the lather, rinse, repeat conflict of interest. On one hand, the asset manager wants happy clients, so it wants the model portfolios to perform well. On the other hand, it wants investment management fees, so it has incentives to recommend its own products, especially ones with the highest fees.

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The same conflict exists in nearly every transaction. The seller wants satisfied customers  for repeat business and good word of mouth if nothing else  but also wants to get the most money for the least costly goods and services. Conflicts of interest are not evil. What matters is whether they are disclosed and how they are managed.

Model portfolios come with an explicit disclosure of the conflict. Moreover, any financial adviser who doesnt understand without specific disclosure that asset managers profit when investors use their products should find another profession. There are strategists not affiliated with investment managers who provide model portfolios, and they charge for the service. Financial advisers have to know that investment managers giving away model portfolios free are making money from it in other ways. To manage conflicts, large asset managers monitor recommendations to ensure quality. Skeptical readers may question how carefully disclosures are read, and how sincere oversight is, but theres nothing inherently dishonest about a producer recommending its own products.

The first problem with the paper is it analyzes model portfolios investment-by-investment. This defeats the purpose. Model portfolios are not intended to be lists of the best individual investments, but carefully balanced combinations of investments with the best portfolio characteristics, including risk, return, income, tax and other features. This is like criticizing the recipes that come on Philadelphia Cream Cheese packages (back when any was available) for recommending too many ingredients manufactured by parent company KraftHeinz. A recipe is not good or bad based on who makes its ingredients, but on how the result tastes.

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The next complaint is that the average fees of affiliated investments in model portfolios are higher than the average fees of unaffiliated investments. There is a substantial body of opinion that retail investment managers add no value, so investors should select the cheapest funds that are reasonably well run. But one does not expect retail investment management companies to share this opinion, nor people who ask those companies to construct portfolios.

For example, if BlackRock Inc. includes in a model portfolio its corporate bond ETF that has a 0.14% expense ratio instead of one from Vanguard Group Inc. that has a 0.04% expense ratio, its presumably because BlackRock thinks its product is worth the extra cost. If it didnt, it would be violating its clear legal fiduciary duty to fund investors. Thats a much bigger problem than putting it in model portfolios for unaffiliated financial advisors, to whom BlackRock has no specific legal duties.

Theres another body of opinion that investors should select funds with good historical performance. Usually this means a blended 10-year history balancing risk and return, as illustrated by Morningstar star ratings. The papers authors complain that affiliated model portfolio selections have worse year-to-date, one-year and three-year returns than unaffiliated selections. But the reason advisors use model portfolios is they promise analysis far beyond three short-term performance measures. The models try to incorporate all history, and also add forward-looking views. They consider risk as well as return. They consider correlations  how an investment fits in with the overall portfolio  and not just historical return and standard deviation. And they offer different portfolios depending on income needs, tax situation, risk tolerance, investment horizon, and other differences among investors.

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Finally, the paper complains that the affiliated investment choices do not have clearly superior future performance than the unaffiliated choices. But it would be very surprising if they did, because that would mean all affiliated model portfolio investments recommended by all investment managers had statistically significant market-beating performance as a group. We know its very rare for any retail fund to have statistically significant market-beating performance. The right question isnt how the affiliated investments in a model portfolio perform relative to the unaffiliated on an absolute basis, its how well the combined model portfolio performs relative to its stated goals.

Financial institutions, and particularly retail investment managers and advisors, are treated with suspicion beyond what is applied to shampoo and cream cheese. The routine conflicts of interest from all transactions are treated as inherently evil. Each individual investment in a portfolio is supposed to work on a standalone basis, rather than being evaluated in the context of an overall portfolio delivering what it promises. Fees beyond minimum operating expenses are considered unjustified, and all investments are supposed to beat all benchmarks over all time periods.

If this level of suspicion seems reasonable to you, then you should ignore model portfolios. Put your money in the cheapest index funds you can find, with the greatest diversification. You might consider buying generic shampoo and cream cheese as well.

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More From Other Writers at Bloomberg Opinion:

 How Safe Assets Became Investors Biggest Risk: Allison Schrager

 Three Steps to Yield F inancial Happiness: Teresa Ghilarducci

 The Stock Market Is Too Narrowly Focused: A. Gary Shilling

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Aaron Brown is a former managing director and head of financial market research at AQR Capital Management. He is the author of The Poker Face of Wall Street. He may have a stake in the areas he writes about.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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The Conservative Party in the U.K. is in a state of turmoil. Prime Minister Boris Johnsons fate hangs on a report by Sue Gray, a senior civil servant, that is due out any day now. The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are maneuvering for the top job, along with a growing list of rivals. An unknown number of Tory MPs have sent in letters demanding another leadership election. A former Tory MP has jumped ship for the Labour Party, with more to follow, according to many sources. And the Whips Office stands accused of telling one MP that he would lose funding for a local project if he didnt vote with the government and another that she was being sacked from a government job because of her Muslimness.

What on earth is going on? British politics has always been given to treason and plot. The Palace of Westminster  home of the U.K. parliament  is a rabbit warren of a place with endless hidden nooks and crannies (and indeed bars and cafes) where conspirators can huddle together (or brief the press). Anthony Trollope wrote a succession of thick novels about parliamentary shenanigans. Infant politicians at Oxford and Cambridge pride themselves on their ability to knife each other in the back.

And the Conservative Party has often been the prime vehicle for all this plotting. In 1962, Harold Macmillan sacked seven of his Cabinet ministers, a third of the total, in what was dubbed the night of the long knives. Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May were all brought down by their fellow MPs rather than the electorate. Throughout most of his time as prime minister, John Major was locked in battle with a group of bastards, as he dubbed them, who wanted to destroy him. The popular American TV series House of Cards was based on a British TV series starring Ian Richardson as a Machiavellian Conservative chief whip. This in turn was based on a series of novels by Michael Dobbs, a Tory Party apparatchik.

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But despite all this what is going on at the moment is unusual. Disobedience is now becoming an ingrained habit rather than a port of last resort. Turmoil is becoming a permanent state of affairs rather than a brief hiatus between two regimes. In the past an 80-seat majority would have brought years of unchallenged rule. Now it has no more power to awe critics than John Majors 21-seat majority.

The obvious reason for this is the prime ministers Marmite personality. The prime ministers style  part-old Etonian charm, part a natural rogues bluster, and part Cavalier disregard for the rules  instantly divides the country into lovers and haters. But there is more to the Marmite than this: Many people, particularly in the Tory Party, start off by liking him and end by loathing him. Johnson has a long history of using people to get what he wants: women, most obviously (hes had a string of mistresses and is now on his third wife), but also political colleagues and personal friends.

He is also congenitally disorganized. An insider describes Downing Street as being like Henry VIIIs court with petitioners perpetually surrounding the king and trying to get him to listen to their cases. Remember that Johnsons first run for the top job was cut short when one of his leading supporters, Michael Gove, suddenly withdrew his support for him and announced his own candidacy instead  on the grounds that Johnson was incapable of providing the leadership needed to lead Britain into its post-Brexit future.

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Johnsons inability to do detail has created a space for a powerful chief of staff. This job was first filled by Dominic Cummings who feuded with everyone around him  particularly with senior civil servants he regarded as jobsworths and back-bench MPs he looked at as dolts. (He memorably described David Davis, who recently called for Johnsons resignation, as thick as mince, lazy as a toad and as vain as Narcissus). Johnson eventually sacked Cummings and replaced him with a man who was as different as you can get. Too different, perhaps: Dan Rosenfeld is an organizational man who lacks the political experience to act as a peace broker between Johnson and MPs.

A second reason is ideology. For most of its history, the Tory Party has been a proudly anti-ideological party and its plots have all been about power and position. But this changed in the 1980s with the rise first of free-market radicalism and then of its ugly step-daughter, Euroscepticism. Ideology not only gave Tories something other than power to plot about. It dissolved traditional bonds of loyalty: A growing number of Tories felt that their ideological allegiance meant more than their allegiance to the party. The Eurosceptic European Research Group operated as a party within the party, with its own whipping system, and repeatedly destabilized Mays government in pursuit of a clean Brexit.

For a while, it looked as if Johnsons triumph in the 2019 general election might mark the end of ideology and its corrosive impact on Toryism. The generation-long civil war over Europe had been resolved in favor of Euroscepticism. Johnson tried to reconcile the left and right of the party with a mixture of nationalism and social interventionism (he described himself as a Brexity Hezza, referring to Michael Heseltine, Thatchers leading critic from the partys left).

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But both ideology and disobedience are habit forming. The Partys libertarian wing has turned against Johnson because of his willingness to side with the science over Covid lockdowns and his decision to raise National Insurance contributions by 1.25% in order to pay for social care. The likes of David Davis and Steve Baker have become serial rebels who revolt against the government whip at the drop of a hat  or the sight of a television camera. Davis has repeatedly bathed in the media spotlight during the current crisis, first calling for Johnson to resign by quoting Leo Amerys words to Neville Chamberlain on the verge of the Second World War (in the name of God go) and then calling for the scrapping of National Insurance increases.

The biggest worry for Conservative Party managers is that the problem is not just one of leadership that might be fixed by a change at the top but a problem of followership. Tory MPs have lost the habit of followership that is necessary to make parliamentary systems work properly. Tory MPs in general have been in power for so long that they have forgotten what life is like in the wilderness (Tony Blair was able to impose order on his MPs in 1997 because the party had been out of power for 17 years). And a significant number of them have become political entrepreneurs in their own right  they have learned to cultivate their own brands (and cut-out the party middleman) by feverishly posting on Twitter and Instagram, appearing on radio and television and writing in the newspapers.

Johnsons allies are telling anyone who will listen that the worst is over: Christian Wakefords defection to the Labour Party, they say, has had the paradoxical effect of reinforcing Tory loyalties. There is always the chance that Grays report will provide Johnson with enough wiggle room to escape. But even if this current storm blows over there are many more brewing just over the horizon.

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More From This Writer and Others at Bloomberg Opinion:

 Will Sterling Markets See a Silver Lining If Boris Leaves? Marcus Ashworth

 Boris Johnson Has Kicked Off a Tory Battle of Succession: Therese Raphael

 Boris Johnsons Fate Depends on Three Factors Now: Martin Ivens

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Adrian Wooldridge is the global business columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He was previously a writer at the Economist. His latest book is The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com/opinion

2022 Bloomberg L.P.

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The State Department ordered the departure of all family members of U.S. Embassy personnel serving in Kyiv on Sunday, citing the threat of Russian military action. The department also told nonessential staff they can leave the country  a decision that underscores the growing fears in Washington of an imminent military invasion of Ukraine by Moscow as it amasses tens of thousands of Russian troops around Ukraines borders.

The volatile atmosphere is the latest indication that efforts to de-escalate the crisis have faltered following talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday.

The security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice, the department said in a statement. U.S. citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options.

On Jan. 23, the State Department ordered diplomats' families to depart its embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, due to the "continued threat of Russian military actions." (Video: Reuters)

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The departure of family members and some nonessential staff comes as the Biden administration weighs sending thousands of U.S. forces, as well as armaments, to reinforce NATO allies in Poland and the Baltics, according to a U.S. official, who cautioned that a decision on such a deployment has not been made. The administration is not considering sending U.S. forces to Ukraine.

The Biden administration has regularly said that if Russia invades Ukraine, the United States will be forced to put more forces and weapons in allied nations along Russias periphery  the opposite of what Russian President Vladimir Putin says he wants.

But Russia has moved forces, armored personnel carriers and fighter jets to Belarus, allegedly to carry out joint military exercises in coming weeks. Military analysts worry the exercises could be a ruse to launch an attack on Ukraine across its northern border from Belarusian territory. The border with Belarus is just a few hours north of Kyiv.

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The deployments in Belarus have also alarmed the NATO countries on the alliances eastern flank, three of which  Poland, Latvia and Lithuania  share a border with Belarus and face a threat from the Russian buildup there.

The Baltic nations  Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia  have been pushing for a larger U.S. troop presence on their territory to deter Russia from invading. In a letter to U.S. lawmakers, reported by Politico, top Lithuanian officials wrote that effective deterrence against Russia can be achieved only by having forces already in place in the nation. The United States already has about 200 military trainers in Ukraine, which Moscow has characterized as a threat to its security.

U.S. officials declined to offer more details about why the departure order was being made now, other than relaying President Bidens recent remark that a Russian invasion could happen at any time.

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U.S. officials say they have intelligence of a Russian plan to invade Ukraine but acknowledge they dont know Moscows ultimate intentions.

On Saturday, Britain accused the Russian government of having plans to install a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician in Kyiv in the event that Ukraines pro-Western government collapses. The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied any intention to attack Ukraine and has accused Western governments of increasing tensions in the region through disinformation.

U.S. officials stressed that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will remain open and that Washington continues to support Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. They refused to provide the number of U.S. citizens who are in Ukraine.

The State Department modified its travel advisory on Sunday to carry a more urgent warning due to the coronavirus and increased threats of Russian military action.

The actions fall short of an evacuation order of U.S. personnel.

Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.

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Police officers mourn fallen colleague Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The funeral for New York City police officer Jason Rivera was being finalized, as his comrades in blue mourned the loss of the 22-year-old who joined the force to make a difference in what he had described as a chaotic city. A solemn scene unfolded Sunday with a column of police officers, as well as firefighters, flanking the streets as a hearse carrying the fallen officer left the medical examiners office.

Burial rites were scheduled for Friday, city officials said, while services were to be held Thursday at St. Patricks Cathedral.

Rivera and Officer Wilbert Mora were shot Friday night while answering a call about an argument between a woman and her adult son. Mora, 27, suffered a serious head wound, police said.

During a Sunday morning appearance on CNN, Mayor Eric Adams (D) stressed the urgency to deal with the underlying issues that are impacting crime in our city and has become a stain on the inner cities across our country.

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The medical examiner ruled Riveras death a homicide. Mora remained in life-threatening condition, Adams said Sunday. The man who police say shot them, Lashawn J. McNeil, 47, was also critically wounded and hospitalized, authorities said. Details about what led to the deadly confrontation were still emerging.

 Associated Press

Girl, 8, fatally hit by stray bullet in Chicago

An 8-year-old Chicago girl who was shot in the head and killed by a gunman targeting someone else on the citys Southwest Side has been identified.

The Cook County Medical Examiners Office identified the victim Sunday as Melissa Ortega of Chicago. A police report said she was walking on the street with her mother Saturday afternoon when someone fired shots at a 26-year-old alleged gang member who was leaving a nearby store, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Police said they believe he was the intended target.

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The girl was pronounced dead Saturday at a hospital. The man police believe was the intended target was shot in the back and hospitalized in critical condition. Authorities did not have an update on his condition Sunday. No one was in custody Sunday in connection with the shooting.

Police Superintendent David Brown said the department will not rest until the perpetrators are brought to justice. The shooting happened amid a spike in homicides in Chicago.

Last year was the citys deadliest in 25 years, with approximately 800 homicides.

Melissa was a student at Emiliano Zapata Academy in the Little Village neighborhood, according to the Chicago Teachers Union. The girl and her mother emigrated to Chicago from Mexico last year, according to family members organizing an online effort to pay for her funeral, which is expected to be held in Mexico.

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Cruise ship changes course to Bahamas after arrest warrant: A cruise ship that was supposed to dock in Miami sailed to the Bahamas instead after a U.S. judge granted an order to seize the vessel as part of a lawsuit. Passengers were taken by ferry to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Sunday. The suit was filed in a Miami federal court by Peninsula Petroleum Far East under a maritime procedure that allows actions against vessels for unpaid debts. The complaint says Crystal Symphony was chartered or managed by Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises, which are both sued for breach of contract for owing $4.6 million in fuel.

 Associated Press

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The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will once again look at whether universities may consider the race of applicants when trying to build diverse student bodies, an ominous development for those who say there is a continuing need for affirmative action in higher education. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The court said it would examine the admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, most probably in the term that begins in October. Lower courts found that both schools complied with Supreme Court precedents that said race may be used as one factor universities can consider in a wide-ranging evaluation of applicants.

But the slim Supreme Court majorities that decided Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003 and reaffirmed it in 2016 are gone, replaced by a much more conservative bloc. Challengers say the court should overturn those precedents and rule that considerations of race, which aid underrepresented Black and Hispanic students, violate federal law and the Constitution.

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The court  its six-member conservative majority strengthened by President Donald Trumps three appointments  has now accepted cases that could transform its jurisprudence on some of the most controversial issues of the day: abortion, gun rights and race.

Edward Blum, president of Students for Fair Admissions, the group that spearheaded the affirmative action challenges, said polls show that Americans strongly disapprove of race-conscious admissions.

In a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation like ours, the college admissions bar cannot be raised for some races and ethnic groups but lowered for others, Blum said in a statement. Our nation cannot remedy past discrimination and racial preferences with new discrimination and different racial preferences.

Blums group told the Supreme Court it would be fitting to end the use of racial considerations by overturning policies at the nations oldest private college and  at the nations oldest public college.

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Harvard does not discriminate, university president Lawrence S. Bacow said in a statement. He said the courts acceptance of the cases puts at risk 40 years of legal precedent granting colleges and universities the freedom and flexibility to create diverse campus communities.

Considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions produces a more diverse student body which strengthens the learning environment for all, he said.

Both universities told the Supreme Court that, as the extensive examinations in the lower courts showed, they have respected federal law and constitutional rights in building their student bodies.

The University has embraced diversity, in all its forms, as a core feature of its educational mission, wrote North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein (D) to the court. It considers race flexibly as merely one factor among numerous factors in its holistic admissions process. And it has scrupulously studied and adopted workable race-neutral alternatives.

Harvard, the admission policy of which is subject to review because it receives federal funds, said its process has been held up as a national standard.

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To assemble the strongest first-year class, Harvard looks for students who excel beyond academics and who will bring distinctive experiences, perspectives, talents, and interests to campus, its filing to the court says. To find the strongest applicants, 40 admissions officers conduct a time-consuming, whole-person review process in which each applicant is evaluated as a unique individual, the filing says.

The Trump administration had supported Harvards challengers in lower courts, but the Biden administration switched that position and told the court it should not accept the challenge.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing Monday that the administration strongly believes in the benefits of diversity in higher education, and we take very seriously our commitment to advancing equity and equal opportunity for historically underserved populations.

In a 2016 decision, the court upheld the limited use of race in student admissions by the University of Texas.

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The majority opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy reiterated high-court rulings that diversity justifies some intrusion on the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection, which generally forbids the government to make decisions based on race.

But Justices Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, two members of that majority, are no longer on the court.

The dissenters in the Texas case  Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.  remain, now joined by the Trump nominees, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

While Roberts often plays a moderating role on the court and is reluctant to overturn the courts precedents, he has been a steadfast opponent of affirmative action.

The petition filed by challengers in the Harvard case made note of that in the first sentence, quoting an opinion written by Roberts during his first term on the court in 2006: It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.

The possibility of a ruling that would further limit or even ban the consideration of race in admissions will send tremors through higher education.

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For decades, colleges and universities have relied on guidance from the Supreme Court that it is acceptable to take race into account as one factor among many in a holistic review of an application. Their rationale is that racial diversity on campus serves a compelling educational interest. In other words, students learn through encounters with peers who may look different from them.

But there are important caveats. The court has said that colleges must consider whether race-neutral admission practices can achieve their diversity goals. And it has forbidden the use of racial quotas to fill seats in a class.

Separately, some states, including California, Michigan and Florida, have banned the consideration of race in admissions to public universities. Such measures enjoy substantial political support. In 2020, California voters decisively rejected a proposal to repeal the states affirmative action ban.

The lawsuit against Harvard highlighted an especially explosive allegation: That the university allowed racism against Asian Americans to skew its review of their applications.

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Blums group cited data that it said showed a tendency for Harvard to give strong ratings to Asian American applicants for academic performance but penalize them in ratings of personal qualities such as leadership and compassion.

The suit also unearthed an internal Harvard review that suggested Asian Americans would be admitted in greater numbers if academic performance were the only criterion for admission  a study that the plaintiff contended Harvard buried.

The university said the review was incomplete and preliminary. It also denied discriminating against Asian Americans or penalizing them in any way.

After a trial in Boston, U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs rejected those claims in a ruling for Harvard in October 2019. Burroughs called the Harvard process imperfect but also a very fine admissions program that passes constitutional muster. She found no persuasive evidence of racial animus or conscious prejudice against Asian Americans.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit upheld the Burroughs ruling in November 2020.

In the North Carolina case, the plaintiff contended that the states flagship public university discriminated against White and Asian American students. UNC uses race mechanically to ensure the admission of the vast majority of underrepresented minorities, Students for Fair Admission alleged.

After a trial in Winston-Salem, N.C., U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs ruled in October that the schools method of choosing a class was constitutional and not discriminatory. Biggs also emphasized the importance of the issue for students of color.

The Supreme Court accepted the UNC case before it could be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.

Black students were not allowed at UNC at Chapel Hill until the 1950s. Last year, they accounted for 12 percent of the entering freshman class, according to the university. The shares were 21 percent for Asian or Asian American students and 65 percent for White students. (Those numbers include some multiracial overlap.)

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Race is so interwoven in every aspect of the lived experience of minority students, Biggs wrote. To ignore it, reduce its importance and measure it only by statistical models as [Students for Fair Admissions] has done, misses important context.

UNC at Chapel Hill is one of the more selective public universities in the country. It offered admission to 19 percent of more than 53,000 who applied to join its freshman class last fall.

For Harvard, admission is ultracompetitive. Last year the university said it offered seats to 1,968 applicants in a record pool of 57,435 applicants. The university said 13 percent of those admitted identified as Latinx, 18 percent as African American or Black and 27 percent as Asian American.

Eugene Scott contributed to this report.

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A report by the Office of Congressional Ethics alleges that Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) misused his congressional staff and resources by having aides run errands for his family and that he solicited or accepted improper gifts from his subordinates. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The report issued Monday found that Lamborns staffers were often asked to help out his children, including preparing his son for interviews for a job in the federal government, and throwing a party for his daughter-in-law after she became a U.S. citizen.

If mama aint happy, nobodys happy, Lamborns wife, Jeanie, allegedly told one staffer, according to the report.

Lamborn, in statements to the House Ethics Committee and The Washington Post, denied the allegations and said the OCE was acting against him on behalf of a former disgruntled aide.

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A thorough review of the facts will make it clear to everyone that no ethical violation has occurred, and the same should be dismissed, Lamborn said.

The board of the OCE unanimously recommended that the House Ethics Committee investigate.

Lamborns congressional office drew the OCEs attention after a former aide, Brandon L. Pope, accused Lamborn in a May lawsuit of allowing his son to live in a storage space in the basement of the U.S. Capitol for several weeks and recklessly exposing staffers to the coronavirus. Lamborn, Pope claimed, consistently disregarded ethical rules and guidelines for lawmakers and retaliated against him when he raised objections.

In his suit, Pope said he was fired after working from May until December as a defense and business adviser. At the time, Lamborns office denied the allegations, calling them unsubstantiated.

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In his written response to the OCEs investigation, sent to the Ethics Committee leaders last month, Lamborn denied the allegations. Lamborn accused the OCE of being partial toward Pope, citing a part of the report that claims that a staffer credibly cited his unwillingness to perform tasks for Lamborns family as proof that the OCE is on Popes side.

How has OCE determined that the person who has sued for money damages is credible, but none of the other witnesses are characterized as such? Lamborn wrote.

A spokeswoman for Lamborn, Cassandra Sebastian, said in a statement to The Post on Monday that the congressman is confident in the professional approach the House Committee on Ethics is taking to review the information collected by the overzealous Office of Congressional Ethics.

It is extremely disappointing that two disgruntled former staffers have weaponized the ethics process for political and personal purposes, Sebastian said.

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The OCE report said Jeanie Lamborn was deeply involved in all personnel aspects of Rep. Lamborns office, including but not limited to hiring, firing, and promotions. Lamborn, in a deposition, acknowledged that his wife had a role in interviewing certain staffers.

Jeanie Lamborn also had access to an official House email account.

While it is not unusual for spouses to play a role in a congressional office or have an official email account, evidence obtained by the OCE indicated that Mrs. Lamborn had a role in the office that exceeded what is permissible for spouses, the report states.

The OCE interviewed three current and two former Lamborn staffers for its report, and conducted a deposition interview with the congressman. According to one congressional staffer, running errands for Jeanie Lamborn was an unofficial errand for the office that was usually done during a lunch break. Such errands generally involved campaign-related matters, such as picking up mail, or personal errands, including setting up personal Zoom meetings or moving furniture at their home.

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Three current staffers said any personal tasks performed for the Lamborns were done voluntarily. In his deposition, Lamborn said staff volunteered to perform certain tasks, specifically campaign-related tasks. The two former staffers interviewed disagreed with that assessment.

According to the report, staffers were also asked to help the Lamborns son with job applications. While the congressman defended himself by arguing that his office wouldve done the same for an ordinary constituent, the OCE said evidence disproved that. A former staffer  which, in his letter, Lamborn identifies as Pope  said Lamborns chief of staff, Dale Anderson, tasked him with helping the congressmans son with whatever he needed regarding the job application process. The staffer then spent several hours providing guidance to the Lamborns son, reviewing his resume and conducting mock interviews  work he said he was not asked to do for ordinary constituents.

Lamborn argued that the assistance Pope provided to his son was geared to someone who had just gotten out of the military or was trying to decide what type of job he wanted in life. It was not for someone like Rep. Lamborns son who was highly educated and who had been working at a high professional level for over a decade.

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Rep. Lamborns son found the whole meeting a waste of time, but politely sat through it because he thought it would have been rude to leave someone who was trying to be helpful, the defense letter states.

On another occasion, the report alleges that staffers for Lamborns office were asked to throw a party for the couples daughter-in-law after she became a naturalized American citizen during the pandemic.

We had one party [a] naturalization party, a former staffer said. The day of, I was like, how am I going to get compensated for this? And, again, Dale Anderson just laughed.

The report also found that Lamborn may have allowed Anderson to solicit gifts from his staff on his behalf. While it is permissible to exchange gifts with congressional staff during special occasions, it is against federal law for a House member to solicit gifts from a subordinate.

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Current staffers interviewed by the OCE said they voluntarily participated in Christmas and birthday gift exchanges in the office, but two former staffers said the gift giving was obligatory, with one saying Anderson would send emails telling him to bring a gift. Another former staffer said Anderson instructed each office to provide gifts valued between $125 and $200 for the couple.

Lamborn, in his deposition, acknowledged that he receives gifts on a regular basis from his staffers. In his letter to the Ethics Committee chairs, Lamborn accuses the OCE of believing the testimony of a former disgruntled or discredited staffer over that of multiple other witnesses.

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Loogootee Postmaster Joe Fitzgerald present Daviess County CEO Facilitator Bill Turner with a letter from his former students during the annual An Evening with Young Entrepreneurs dinner in 2018. After leading the local program since its inception, Turner will retire at the end of the school year.
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Baillieu (Bails) Myer, the scion of Melbournes Myer retail dynasty and the man who led the groups merger with Coles in 1985, has died at the age of 96 at his family home at Merricks on the Mornington Peninsula.

Born in San Francisco in 1926 to famed retailer Sidney Myer and his wife Merlyn, Bails followed in his fathers footsteps into the retail trade  but not before spending some time mustering cattle as a younger man and as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II.

Baillieu Bails Myer in 2003. Credit:Fairfax

The couples youngest son, behind Ken, and brother to Marigold and Neilma, Bails spent decades charming Melbournes business circles with his silk cravats and wide smile.

On news of Bails death on the weekend, former prime minister Tony Abbott said: Someone with more public spirit than Bails Myer would be very hard to find. Whether on a naval ship in wartime, running a business dedicated to serving the customer or sitting on countless boards mostly charitable, he was always striving to do the best he could for his family, his community and his country.
As Jack Dorsey read out his opening statement to a hostile panel of US politicians examining Twitters role in spreading misinformation, eagle-eyed viewers noticed a strange object over the executives right shoulder.

Strategically placed within the frame of the video call delivered straight from Dorseys kitchen was a rectangular device resembling an old-fashioned flip clock that, instead of telling the time, presented a sequence of seemingly random numbers.

Cryptocurrencies are the new frontier for Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Credit:Bloomberg

The machine was, it turned out, a block clock, which displays Bitcoins price, the details of newly created coins, and users personal balances.

Dorseys message at the hearing last March was clear: he may have been ordered in front of Congress to talk about Twitter, but his heart lay in Bitcoin. In November, Dorsey turned that message into action. The founder of Twitter had led the company through two periods of tumult, taken away Donald Trumps microphone to the world and become one of Silicon Valleys most high-profile entrepreneurs, but after 15 years Dorsey announced he was quitting the social network with immediate effect.
The earth will move again as production of Hollywood TV series La Brea is to return to Australia for a second big-budget, effects-driven season.

The high-octane adventure show  about a sinkhole that opens up near the famous La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, creating a portal to the same location in 10,000 BC  debuted on NBC last September and has to date been watched by more than 47 million viewers in the States. The network commissioned a second season in November, before the first had even finished airing.

Eoin Macken as Gavin Harris and Zyra Gorecki as Izzy Harris in season one of La Brea. Credit:Sarah Enticknap/NBC

The show was filmed in Victoria between May and September last year, attracted by a combination of tax incentives and Australias success (at the time) in keeping COVID-19 case numbers low.

NBC Universal senior vice-president of production Richard Ross told this masthead last May that the savings from shooting in Australia due to lighter COVID protocols alone amounted to about $300,000 per episode.
Cleo Smiths abductor Terence Kelly has confessed to kidnapping the four-year-old from her family tent and keeping her captive for 18 days.

Kelly, 36, was arrested after detectives raided his Carnarvon house at 12.46am on November 3 and found the little girl alone inside a bedroom playing with toys.

Terence Kelly was not home when detectives found Cleo. Credit:Nine

The next day he was charged with child abduction and flown to Perth where he remains in custody at Casuarina Prison.

During an appearance in Carnarvon Magistrates Court on Monday, Kelly pleaded guilty to child abduction via video link.
Top lawyers have warned that a proposal by the federal government to change defamation laws in an attempt to target online trolls is likely to increase legal costs, waste court time and make it harder to get defamatory posts removed.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Attorney-General Michaelia Cash announced in November that they would amend defamation laws, traditionally a state and territory responsibility, to provide an easy and quick way for people to complain to social media platforms and have allegedly defamatory material taken down.

Scott Morrison and Michaelia Cash announced the defamation proposal last year. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen, Getty Images

They said the proposal would also help people unmask anonymous commenters, whom they dubbed trolls, as the first step to suing them for defamation.

In a submission to the federal government, top defamation barristers including Sue Chrysanthou, SC, say the draft bill bears no relationship to the governments stated objectives and offers platforms immunity  not accountability.
A daycare centre in the south-eastern Perth suburb of Thornlie is the latest addition to the list of exposure sites after a parent with COVID-19 visited last week.

MercyCare on Wilfred Court, Thornlie, is now listed as an exposure site for last Tuesday, January 18, 7.30am-7.45am, and last Friday, January 21, at 7.45am-8am.

The state government is urging people to get tested for COVID-19 even if they have few symptoms or have not been to a known exposure site. Credit:Holly Thompson

Advice to anyone who visited during those times is to get tested immediately and isolate until you receive a negative result, unless directly advised otherwise by the Department of Health.

Mercycare was contacted for more information.
Australians are willing to vote for a republic by a narrow majority of 54 per cent but are split over the best way to choose the head of state to replace Queen Elizabeth after calls this month for a new model to elect the leader in a popular vote.

Support for a republic is strong enough to gain formal approval in the biggest states, with 56 per cent backing the idea in NSW, 54 per cent in Victoria and 52 per cent in Queensland.

But an exclusive survey shows there is no momentum for the republican cause compared to opinion polls over the past two decades, while only 38 per cent back the proposal from the Australian Republic Movement (ARM) to elect the head of state.

Support is also low for legislating an Indigenous voice to Parliament in the constitution, a proposal backed by Labor but rejected by Prime Minister Scott Morrison in favour of a plan to legislate a new structure to give First Nations people a say on key policies.
Salisbury, MD (21801)

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Salisbury, MD (21801)

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A plan to add an extra lane to I-64 between Mellwood Avenue and the Watterson Expressway also faces significant public opposition, according to a report by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
National Nurses Week is May 6 to May 12, an annual celebration that recognizes the critical role nurses perform in our hospitals and for our community. This year, we recognize our nurses for their continued commitment and unfailing dedication to our patients and their families, and for alway
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Have a first look at the Fisherman's Friends musical  which will embark on its first UK and Ireland tour from September!

Playing from 1 September at Theatre Royal Plymouth, the piece is based on the group of Cornish fishermen who took shanties from their local hall to the Glastonbury stage. After Plymouth, the show will visit Birmingham, Cheltenham, Salford, Milton Keynes, Newcastle, Dublin, Cardiff, Bath and Leeds, with dates into 2023 to be revealed.

The band said: "Well not only did they make a film that we are not in, now there is a musical which we are not in as they dint think we were handsome enough to play ourselves! BUT we are thrilled that our musical is going on tour next year. We've seen it and it's bloody fantastic and the music will blow you away. You're all going to have a brilliant time."

The tour is directed by James Grieve and written by Amanda Whittington, with choreography by Matt Cole, set and costume design by Lucy Osborne, musical supervision and arrangements by David White, sound design by Dan Samson, lighting design by Johanna Town and casting by Jim Arnold.

Cast for the tour is to be announced.
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Williamson, WV (25661)

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Mainly cloudy. A few peeks of sunshine possible. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 73F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..

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Partly cloudy this evening with more clouds for overnight. Low around 55F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Press Release

January 24, 2022 Sponsorship Speech for Concurring Resolutions 12, 13 and 14

on the Grant of Amnesty

by Senator Panfilo M. Lacson

Jan. 24, 2022 More at: https://pinglacson.net/article/sen-lacsons-sponsorship-speech-for-bills-concurring-the-grant-of-amnesty Mr. President, distinguished colleagues: Never in our history has our nation sought and demanded a 'time of healing' with much fervor and tenacity than we do today -- healing from the health crisis which scarred our people; healing from the economic, social, and political distress that, by and large, spoiled our nation. I rise before you today for a parallel cause: a chance to heal the open wounds brought by our endless battle for peace and unification; an opportune time to embrace back into society those who went beyond the folds of our laws in furtherance of their political beliefs and aspirations. Mr. President, distinguished colleagues of this august chamber, pursuant to our Constitutional mandate of giving concurrence to the exercise of clemency powers of the President, I have the honor to report on the Senate floor the result of the public hearing conducted by the Committee on National Defense and Security, Peace, Unification, and Reconciliation, on the amnesties granted by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte as embodied in Committee Reports 372, 373 and 374 recommending the adoption of House Concurrent Resolution Nos. 12, 13 and 14, respectively. The aforementioned reports are in concurrence with Presidential Proclamation Nos. 1090, 1091, and 1092 to grant amnesty to members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or MILF; Moro National Liberation Front or MNLF; Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa ng Pilipinas, and Revolutionary Proletarian Army, Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPMP-RPA-ABB), and Executive Order No. 125, for the creation of the National Amnesty Commission. Mr. President, to say that this is an "act of compassion" may not be enough without emphasizing what it truly stands for, that is an act of mercy not only for those who will be granted amnesty but also for those who seek a true and lasting national peace and reconciliation. Looking back, our pursuit for a truly meaningful peace is an arduous and complex journey. In fact, our government's peace negotiations with the MILF began as early as January 1997. It continued in 2001 with the assistance of the Government of Malaysia, which ultimately led to the signing of the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro (FAB) in October 2012 that laid out the Transitional Arrangements and Modalities, Revenue Generation and Wealth Sharing, Power Sharing, and Normalization. This culminated in the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) in March 2014, which consolidates and affirms the understanding and commitment between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the MILF. The landmark breakthrough in this long process of achieving peace with our Muslim brothers is the creation of a new Bangsamoro political entity through the enactment of Republic Act No. 11054, otherwise known as the Organic Law for the the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BOL). This solidifies our commitment to the gradual normalization process of the MILF combatants, their families and communities, as well as the internally displaced persons and poverty-stricken communities. We have also traversed a long path of reconciliation since the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) launched its first offensive against the Government in October 1972. The MNLF referred their issues to the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), which later on facilitated the negotiations between the government and the MNLF. Such OIC-led mediation between the parties led to a ceasefire agreement and the signing of the 1976 Tripoli Peace Agreement - the basis for a just, lasting, honorable, and comprehensive solution to the problem in the Southern Philippines within the framework of the Philippine Constitution. There were bottlenecks and struggles along the way until September 1996, when the government and the MNLF signed and executed the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) intended to be the full implementation of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement. Meanwhile, the formal peace negotiations between the Philippine Government and the RPM-P/RPA/ABB or KAPATIRAN began in December 1999 under President Estrada. On 6 December 2000, a Final Peace Agreement between the GPH and the RPM-P/RPA/ABB was signed. The said agreement covers four (4) identified areas, namely: cessation of hostilities; confidence-building measures; releasing of political prisoners; and implementation of development projects. Subsequently, in 2002, a Clarificatory Document was signed to respond to the issues and led to the creation of the Joint Enforcement and Monitoring Committee (JEMC) to supervise and monitor the implementation of the GPH and RPM-P/RPA/ABB commitments under the 2000 Peace Agreement. On 19 July 2019, the Government executed the final step to the 2000 Peace Agreement through the signing of the Clarificatory Implementing Document (CID), pursuant to the directive of President Duterte to implement all signed peace agreements. Mr. President, this is just an abridged narrative of our decades-long battle against this political divide. In the foreground of all of these peace negotiations, nonetheless, is the promise of the government not only of socio-economic development but of the granting of amnesty. Mr. President, as the House of Representatives already gave their concurrence to the said Proclamations, it is now in our hands to likewise concur. It is high time that we finally stand up to our commitment to "walk the talk" to attain the objectives of our myriad of peace negotiations. Through these amnesty grants, we are handing out second chances to the over 7,600 prospective applicants who are willing to have a new start in life in a secure place in society. Indeed, amnesty is an act of compassion on the part of the government. It is a chance to mend our wounds from our constant struggle. More importantly, this is our time to heal. If viewed the same by all parties concerned, then our concurrence may be another step closer towards reconciliation, and ultimately the attainment of lasting peace. Thank you, Mr. President.
Willmar, MN (56201)

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H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media

The latest wave in the COVID-19 pandemic showed further signs of easing when the state reported Monday a drop in the positivity rate and 200 fewer hospitalizations through the weekend.

On Monday, the state said the weekends positivity rate was 11.36 percent with 12,057 new COVID-19 cases among 106,153 tests. The positivity rate was the lowest since right after the Christmas holiday.
Do you know this soldier? The Stewart Bell Jr. Archives at Handley Library would like to know the name of this World War II soldier, who was photographed standing in front of a building along U.S. 50 West and Route 612. If you know who this man is, call the archives at 540-662-9041, ext. 17, or email archives@handleyregional.org.
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Winchester, VA (22601)

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Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High near 75F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph..

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Mainly clear. Low 51F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.
Saskatchewan's premier said his government will refrain from imposing new COVID-19 restrictions in a shift toward learning to live with the virus Monday, just as new StatCan data illustrated the human toll of the pandemic and Ontario revealed many of its schools were hit by high rates of absences.

Students arrive for in-class learning at an elementary school in Mississauga, Ont., on Wednesday, January 19, 2022. New data out of Ontario shows many schools were hit by high rates of absences as in-person classes resumed last week, while Quebec continues to update its strategy to incentivize vaccination against COVID-19.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

Saskatchewan's premier said his government will refrain from imposing new COVID-19 restrictions in a shift toward learning to live with the virus Monday, just as new StatCan data illustrated the human toll of the pandemic and Ontario revealed many of its schools were hit by high rates of absences.

Premier Scott Moe said his Saskatchewan Party government didn't intend to impose additional public health measures to contain the spread of the Omicron variant, even as acute care hospitalizations related to COVID-19 reached near record levels.

Moe said the virus was not going away and society needed to learn to live with COVID-19 as it does with other diseases.

Saskatchewan has a mask mandate and requires proof of vaccination or negative tests in many settings, but Moe said he didn't believe that introducing more measures would produce significant benefits. He previously said he would consider further restrictions if hospitalizations continued to rise.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have climbed about 200 per cent in the past month, and government modelling suggests 500 people could be hospitalized due to COVID-19 in the coming weeks.

Saskatchewan reported on Monday that hospitals were treating 262 patients with COVID-19, including 29 in intensive care.

It came as Statistics Canada released preliminary data showing national life expectancy fell by more than half a year in 2020, the largest drop since 1921 when the vital statistics registration system was introduced.

The federal agency said national life expectancy, which is estimated on an annual basis, was 81.7 years for those born in 2020  down from 82.3 the year before.

The drop was greater for men, at more than eight months, than for women, at nearly five months, and the largest declines in the country were observed in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.

Meanwhile, education data in Ontario revealed more than 300 schools reported absence rates higher than 30 per cent by the end of last week, which saw planned classroom reopenings disrupted by harsh winter conditions in much of the province.

The numbers don't indicate the reasons behind the absences nor whether they are related to COVID-19. Ontario is no longer publishing information on cases in schools due to a restricted testing policy, but began sharing data on absences online today.

As of Friday, 337 schools had absent rates of at least 30 per cent, including 111 schools that were more than half empty. That's based on numbers made available for 3,451 of the province's 4,844 schools.

The province reported that 16 schools, or 0.3 per cent, were closed as of Friday.

Ontario logged 3,861 hospitalizations related to COVID-19 on Monday, including 615 patients in intensive care. Health Minister Christine Elliott noted that not all hospitals report weekend data.

Thirty-seven more people have died from the virus, officials said. The province reported 4,790 new COVID-19 cases, but Public Health Ontario has said this is an undercount because of changes to the province's testing policy.

Also on Monday, the Quebec government said it was adopting a new "positive approach" to persuade people to get their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as a complement to its expanding suite of punitive measures intended to increase vaccine uptake.

Junior health minister Lionel Carmant told reporters that a pop-up vaccination clinic will open in downtown Montreal this week and a telephone line will be set up and staffed by medical professionals to field calls from residents seeking information about the vaccines.

Carmant said the measures mark an intensification of existing efforts to reach the roughly 540,000 Quebecers who are unvaccinated, but suggested that a shift in mindset may be what's needed to convince people to roll up their sleeves for their first shot.

"I think this is the step we're missing up to now: a positive approach," he said.

The provincial government's touting of carrots came as it expanded its arsenal of sticks Monday, when its proof-of-vaccination requirements began applying to big-box stores, such as Walmart and Costco.

The province reported 3,299 hospitalizations related to COVID-19, including 263 intensive care cases.

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There were 52 more COVID-19 deaths, the province said. Officials reported 2,807 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, but said the tally didn't capture the scope of the virus's spread because PCR testing was limited to certain high-risk groups.

On the East Coast, Newfoundland and Labrador hit a new high of 21 people hospitalized with COVID-19. The province reported 349 new cases on Monday, and the province's 31st COVID-19 death.

In New Brunswick, officials said there were three more deaths linked to COVID-19, and 131 patients in hospital with the disease, including 12 intensive care cases.

Nova Scotia reported five more COVID-19-related deaths on Monday, as well as 15 new hospital admissions due to the disease.

There were two more deaths from COVID-19 on Prince Edward Island, bringing the province's total death toll to eight.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2022.
A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors associate with poor conditions within their homes.

Indigenous children play in the water-filled ditches in the northern Ontario First Nations reserve in Attawapiskat, Ont., Tuesday, April 19, 2016. A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors say relates to poor conditions within their homes. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors associate with poor conditions within their homes.

Researchers analyzed factors that could affect respiratory health in four First Nations communities in the Sioux Lookout region of northern Ontario, finding high levels of mould on interior surfaces and high levels of endotoxin, a residue of certain bacteria associated with wheeze.

Indoor air quality, dust mite concentration and contaminants from wood smoke were also analyzed.

The study, which included homes where 98 First Nations children aged three years or younger lived, found that 85 per cent of the houses lacked controlled ventilation, more than half had damaged windows, 44 per cent showed water penetration in exterior walls and six per cent had immediate safety issues.

Pediatric respirologist Dr. Thomas Kovesi, the lead researcher on the project, said housing inadequacies were linked to high rates of respiratory illness in children  21 per cent of kids in the study had been admitted to hospital during the first two years of life and one-quarter needed to be medically evacuated because of a respiratory illness.

"People talk a lot about inadequacies in First Nations' housing, but very few studies have quantified it," said Kovesi, a physician at CHEO, Ottawa's pediatric hospital, and a researcher at the CHEO Research Institute. "We now have high-quality data showing what kinds of problems these houses have.

"And our other key finding is that issues with air quality was associated with lung problems in the kids."

Wheezing with colds, a symptom indicative of asthma, was seen in nearly 40 per cent of children, although only four per cent were diagnosed with the condition.

Rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were also high in the Sioux Lookout region, which had roughly 44 RSV hospitalizations for every 1,000 babies born per year, compared to a rate of 10 in 1,000 in Toronto. Kovesi said rates of RSV hospitalizations in some areas of Nunavut have been as high as 300 in 1,000.

Kovesi said the study, most of which was done before the COVID-19 pandemic, took about five years of planning. Data was collected between 2019 and 2020.

Houses analyzed in the study were one-third smaller than the average small house in Canada, Kovesi said, but they had an average occupancy of 6.6 people per house, compared to the Canadian average of 2.5.

Overcrowding and reduced ventilation have been partly blamed for COVID-19 outbreaks, which have disproportionately spread through First Nations communities throughout the pandemic.

The Bearskin Lake First Nation in northern Ontario declared a state of emergency this month when an outbreak infected more than half its residents.

"I do think the connections (between poor housing conditions and COVID-19 outbreaks) are very clear and very direct," Kovesi said. "These are really overcrowded houses to begin with. And if somebody gets COVID, there's no other place they can go to quarantine."

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The authors urge action to improve housing and infrastructure in First Nations communities to benefit overall health.

"Without adequate ventilation, these houses are like living in a plastic bag," study co-author Michael McKay, director of Housing and Infrastructure, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, said in a release.

The study was conducted in partnership with the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre, Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Kovesi, who has done previous work on indoor air quality and lung problems in Nunavut children, said his team is extending its research to other Indigenous communities across Canada as part of a study called FEHNCY (Food, Environment, Health and Nutrition of First Nations Children and Youth).

"We know incredibly little about air quality in First Nations houses on reserve in Canada," Kovesi said. "But we have to start getting that data."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2022.
LONDON (AP)  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday won the first stage of his effort to appeal a U.K. ruling that opened the door for his extradition to U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges.

FILE - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange being taken from court, where he appeared on charges of jumping British bail seven years ago, in London, Wednesday May 1, 2019. Britain's High Court is set to rule on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can take his fight against U.S. extradition to the U.K. Supreme Court. The decision is the latest step in Assange's long battle to avoid being sent to the United States to face espionage charges over WikiLeaks' publication of classified documents. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

LONDON (AP)  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Monday won the first stage of his effort to appeal a U.K. ruling that opened the door for his extradition to U.S. to stand trial on espionage charges.

The High Court in London gave Assange permission to appeal the case to the U.K. Supreme Court. But the Supreme Court must agree to accept the case before it can move forward.

The decision is the latest step in Assanges long battle to avoid trial on a series of charges related to WikiLeaks publication of classified documents more than a decade ago.

Stella Moris, the partner of Julian Assange, speaks to the media outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assanges battle to avoid extradition to the U.S. will go to Britains Supreme Court after he was granted the right to appeal a lower court ruling. The High Court in London on Monday allowed Assange to appeal its decision that he could be sent to the U.S to stand trial on espionage charges. The decision is the latest step in Assanges long battle to avoid trial on a series of charges related to WikiLeaks publication of classified documents more than a decade ago.(Kirsty O'Connor/PA via AP)

Just over a year ago, a district court judge in London rejected a U.S. extradition request on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh U.S. prison conditions. U.S. authorities later provided assurances that the WikiLeaks founder wouldnt face the severe treatment his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.

The High Court last month overturned the lower courts decision, saying that the U.S. promises were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely.

Last month, the High Court overturned the lower courts decision. High Court justices Ian Burnett and Timothy Holroyd said the American promises were enough to guarantee Assange would be treated humanely.

They said the U.S. promises were solemn undertakings, offered by one government to another, which will bind all officials and prosecutors who will deal with the relevant aspects of Mr. Assanges case now and in the future.

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Assanges lawyers say those promises cant be trusted, and have sought permission to appeal to Britains highest court. They argue that the U.S. governments pledge that Assange wont be subjected to extreme conditions is meaningless because it's conditional and could be changed at the discretion of American authorities.

Nick Vamos, a partner at Peters & Peters solicitors in London and a former head of extradition at Britains Crown Prosecution Service, said it was unlikely that the appeal would be granted. Assange can only take the case to the Supreme Court if the High Court rules that there are matters of general public importance to consider.

Assange, 50, has been held at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in London since 2019, when he was arrested for skipping bail during a separate legal battle. Before that, he spent seven years holed up inside Ecuadors Embassy in London. Assange sought protection in the embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

American prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.

Lawyers for Assange argue that their client shouldnt have been charged because he was acting as a journalist and is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees freedom of the press. They say the documents he published exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
NEW YORK (AP)  California lawyer Michael Avenatti stole nearly $300,000 in book proceeds from porn star Stormy Daniels to pay employees at his debt-ridden law firm and to fund his personal expenses, a prosecutor told jurors as the once high-flying attorney's third criminal trial in two years began Monday.

Michael Avenatti arrives to Federal court in Manhattan, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022, in New York. Avenatti, the once high-profile California attorney who regularly taunted then-President Donald Trump, was introduced to prospective jurors who will decide whether he cheated porn star Stormy Daniels out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

NEW YORK (AP)  California lawyer Michael Avenatti stole nearly $300,000 in book proceeds from porn star Stormy Daniels to pay employees at his debt-ridden law firm and to fund his personal expenses, a prosecutor told jurors as the once high-flying attorney's third criminal trial in two years began Monday.

Avenatti has insisted he is innocent of wire fraud and aggravated identify theft charges and his lawyers say he is likely to testify during the trial in Manhattan federal court. Daniels, a prosecutor said, was not expected to testify until Wednesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Rohrbach told jurors that Avenatti lied repeatedly to steal nearly $300,000 from Daniels, whom Avenatti represented in 2018 in lawsuits against ex-President Donald Trump.

This is a case about a lawyer who stole from his client, a lawyer who lied to cover up his scheme. That lawyer is the defendant Michael Avenatti, Rohrbach said as he pointed at the 50-year-old on trial.

Defense attorney Andrew Dalack said his client didn't steal any money and had a fee agreement to share any money from the book deal.

This has no business in federal criminal court," Dalack said, contending it was a fee dispute between a lawyer and his client. And Mr. Avenatti is not guilty.

Dalack said Avenatti had transformed a rather obscure adult entertainer into a household name" and loaned her hundreds of thousands of dollars only to be faced with false accusations from her.

But he said that was not uncommon for Daniels, who "turned on the people closest to her" when she didn't get her way and, in Dalack's estimation, wanted all the benefits of zealous, fierce and loyal representation without having to pay for it."

Rohrbach said the $800,000 advance owed to Daniels for Full Disclosure, published in fall 2018, was paid in four installments. The initial payment went to Daniels before Avenatti diverted two other payments to himself, spending some money on airfare, food and payroll for his struggling business, the prosecutor said.

Rohrbach said Avenatti also had raised about $600,000 from the public toward legal bills for Daniels, a point raised to counteract a defense argument that a token $100 Daniels was required to pay Avenatti was made with the understanding that he would share in proceeds of other ventures.

Rohrbach cautioned jurors that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, notoriety as an entertainer who had performed in adult films and on a show about paranormal activity should have no bearing.

This case is not about her job, what she does for money," he said. It's about a fraud that's been committed."

The trial's first witness, literary agent Luke Janklow, testified that he had once viewed Avenatti as a folk hero for being aggressive in his television appearances about fighting for those who opposed Trump.

He acknowledged that he had referred to Daniels as impossible," but quickly added as I do with many of my clients."

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As impulsive and impetuous as she is, she's not as bad as some of my other clients," he later added.

A prosecutor elicited from Janklow that he discussed a book deal for Avenatti when he met him in March 2018, and eventually secured a deal that paid a $2 million advance, although only about a half-million dollars was paid. The revelation seemed aimed at showing that Avenatti wasn't just looking out for his client in book deal talks.

On cross-examination, Janklow said he liked him and believed in what he was doing," although communications between the men showed that he became increasingly frustrated as Avenatti insisted he not communicate with Daniels, who kept demanding to know where her money was.

Seated among spectators at the trial was Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer who  days before the presidential election in 2016  helped to arrange a $130,000 payment to Daniels to prevent her from talking publicly about her claims to a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.

Cohen served a year in prison of a three-year sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Congress and campaign finance crimes, among other charges. Daniels has since made up with Cohen, even appearing on his podcast, but Avenatti appeared to lob an insult at Cohen as he filed in.

Avenatti was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison last year after being convicted of trying to extort up to $25 million from sportswear giant Nike. He has not yet begun serving the sentence. He is also awaiting retrial in a California case  on charges that he cheated clients of millions of dollars  after a mistrial last year.
WASHINGTON (AP)  The Biden administration has issued its first clean energy loan guarantee, reviving an Obama-era program that helped launch the countrys first utility-scale wind and solar farms a decade ago but has largely gone dormant in recent years.

FILE - Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Nov. 23, 2021, in Washington. The Biden administration has issued its first clean energy loan guarantee, reviving an Obama-era program that disbursed billions of dollars in guarantees to help launch the country's first utility-scale wind and solar farms a decade ago but has largely gone dormant in recent years. The Energy Department said it would guarantee up to $1 billion in loans to help a Nebraska company scale up production of "clean" hydrogen to convert natural gas into commercial products that enhance tires and produce ammonia-based fertilizer. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

WASHINGTON (AP)  The Biden administration has issued its first clean energy loan guarantee, reviving an Obama-era program that helped launch the countrys first utility-scale wind and solar farms a decade ago but has largely gone dormant in recent years.

The Energy Department said it would guarantee up to $1 billion in loans to help a Nebraska company scale up production of clean hydrogen to convert natural gas into commercial products used in manufacturing and agriculture.

The revived loan program is part of President Joe Bidens efforts to slash planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030, amid legislative gridlock that has stalled a $2 trillion package of social and environmental initiatives. It's among the tools he can use without new legislation.

Under President Barack Obama, the program boosted Teslas efforts to become a behemoth in electric cars, but it stumbled after the California solar company Solyndra failed soon after receiving federal aid a decade ago, costing taxpayers more than $500 million. Republicans and other critics seized on Solyndra as an example of wasteful spending under Obamas stimulus program.

The aid to Lincoln-based Monolith Inc. is the programs first non-nuclear loan guarantee since 2016.

Monolith produces carbon black, a powdery substance that enhances tires and other rubber products, and hydrogen used in ammonia-based fertilizer.

Monolith says it can create both products while vastly shrinking their greenhouse gas emissions. The company plans to use the Energy Department guarantee to finance a major expansion of its existing Hallam, Nebraska, plant that produces hydrogen and carbon black.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm hailed the announcement as a sign the once-high profile loan program is back in business and ready to support deployment of clean energy, from biofuels to nuclear power and offshore wind.

Advanced, clean production technology like Monoliths are the types of impactful projects that support not just sustainability, but economic growth and clean energy jobs for the American people, Granholm said.

Monolith will use the loan guarantees to develop the innovation needed to help lead the clean energy transition, while also creating high-paying green jobs and strengthening our nations supply chain," said Rob Hanson, the company's co-founder and CEO.

Jigar Shah, who took over as director of the loan program office last year, said the program has drawn over 70 applications valued at more than $60 billion. The new bipartisan infrastructure law expanded the programs authority and broadened the pool of eligible borrowers. The agency has access to roughly $40 billion in loan authority and expects to make an array of loan commitments in 2022, Shah said.

While Tesla and Solyndra are the best known examples, the loan office manages over 30 projects worth more than $30 billion and generates $500 million in interest income for the federal government every year, Shah said.

We have a track record of our projects being winners,'' he said in an interview. And I know that we get a lot of press on the ones who dont succeed,'' but the program has suffered just over $1 billion in losses since 2011, or roughly 3.3% of its investment, a figure Shah said is on par with commercial banks.

Many people think were not taking enough risk,'' he said. But were in line with the best of the best.''

Some companies that apply for assistance want the Loan Program Office to be sort of your fairy godmother in Cinderella, where you show up in rags and I create a carriage for you out of a pumpkin and turn all the mice into horses and all that stuff,'' Shah said. "But its just not the way it works.

A former clean-energy entrepreneur who founded the SunEdison solar company, Shah said he understands the mindset of loan applicants you sell the dream, right?  but says his job as a government official is to provide a reality check even as he offers assistance.

Tell me how youre going to make the mice into horses, and pumpkins into a carriage and the rags into a beautiful dress,'' he said, continuing the metaphor. What processes and procedures have you learned to put in place? How are you going to protect my money?''

The loan guarantee program "is not intended to be a subsidy. Its intended to be market-rate debt,'' Shah said.

Monolith is the first-ever commercial-scale project to deploy a technology known as methane pyrolysis, which converts natural gas into carbon black and hydrogen. While carbon black typically emits large volumes of carbon dioxide and other gases, Monolith says its technologies aim to reduce greenhouse gases by up to 80% compared to traditional production.

Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, said he is highly skeptical that this can be done with low emissions, adding that he was very disappointed at the Energy Departments action.

I very much doubt that emission reductions will be anywhere near that large when the upstream fugitive methane emissions are included, Howarth said in an email.

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Howarth and Stanford professor Mark Jacobson published a research paper last year questioning climate benefits of so-called blue hydrogen produced from natural gas. Emissions from blue hydrogen are worse than if one simply burned natural gas for the energy instead, Howarth said.

Shah called Howarth a friend, but said he is confident Monolith can meets its projections on carbon pollution.

"Even with the worst case scenario, and methane leakage, we still have 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions versus the business as usual processes,'' he said.

Monolith said it would create about 1,000 jobs to support expansion of its hydrogen plant

Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., one of two tiremakers that has signed a letter of intent to purchase the carbon black, said in a statement it was excited to work with Monolith to reduce its carbon footprint.

As the only U.S.-headquartered tire manufacturer, its especially rewarding to be at the connection point of significant U.S. innovation with Monolith" and the Energy Department, said Richard Kramer, Goodyear's chairman and CEO.
ELKVIEW, W.Va. (AP)  While making biscuits and meatloaf at a fast-food restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic, 64-year-old Cynthia Nicholson often thinks back to her husbands coal mining days in West Virginia.

Former Tudor's Biscuit World employee Jennifer Patton, left, and current employee Cynthia Nicholson, right, show off their Tudor's Biscuit World uniforms and United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400 union stickers during an interview at Nicholson's Elkview, W.Va. home on Jan. 20, 2022. Patton said she was retaliated against and fired by management after she joined efforts to unionize the restaurant. Employees at the Elkview, W.Va., restaurant have already case ballots to decide whether or not they want to create a union. The votes will be read Tuesday. (AP Photo/Leah M. Willingham)

ELKVIEW, W.Va. (AP)  While making biscuits and meatloaf at a fast-food restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic, 64-year-old Cynthia Nicholson often thinks back to her husbands coal mining days in West Virginia.

In that job and in his time as a pipefitter, she said, the work was grueling and sometimes dangerous  but there were standards for safety, working conditions and wages, and people felt they were treated fairly. She said that was because he belonged to unions.

At Tudors Biscuit World in Elkview, a franchise of a regional chain that serves comfort food, Nicholson says workers have no such protection. With the coronavirus surging, she doesn't feel safe.

So, a few months ago she did the only thing that makes sense to her: She reached out to her late husband's union friends and asked for help. On Tuesday, after months of organizing, National Labor Relations Board officials will count votes cast by some of the franchise's roughly two dozen workers to find out if it will become the first unionized fast-food restaurant in the state.

The push for a union in this mountain town of fewer than 2,000 people echoes a larger national movement of organizing among retail and food service workers. In a business where workers have routinely been asked to stay on the job and interact with the public during the pandemic, they hope forming a union will give them more say in how they are treated.

The effort also resonates deeply in a state with a storied history of labor activism, coming 100 years after the largest worker uprising in U.S. history erupted in West Virginia coal country.

Were tired of being treated as badly as were being treated, Nicholson said. The workers are treated with no dignity, no respect, like theyre just a number.

The vice president of Tudor's Biscuit World did not respond to a voicemail or text message from The Associated Press, and no one from the chain's corporate offices responded to phone calls.

Relatively unknown outside the region, Tudor's Biscuit World is a staple of West Virginia: a must-stop eatery where diners can get made-from-scratch biscuits doused in gravy; country-fried steak and sandwiches including the Miner or the Mountaineer. Founded in Charleston in 1980, the chain now has more than 70 locations, mostly in West Virginia and in parts of neighboring states Ohio and Kentucky.

In one sense, the Elkview franchise, surrounded by hills and parked next to a Dairy Queen, is far removed from the West Virginia coal mines where men and women once stood in the vanguard of the American labor movement. In another, the connection is visceral.

Workers here feel connected to the states labor history in their bones, bonded by blood to men and women who saw the value of organizing for safer conditions and better pay in their own lives. Unions have been weakened considerably over the years, but many West Virginians remember a father, a husband or some other relative who once held a union job, and they witnessed the power of banding together.

Employees in the state have often gravitated toward unionization when concerns about job safety are heightened, notes West Virginia University historian William Hal Gorby.

Workers across sectors are saying, We are living through a moment in time where its making you wonder: Do you want to do this particular job because you could get sick and or die from it? he said. In the early 20th century, it was the coal mine and lack of regulations and now its COVID.

A century ago, concerns over safety and quality of life drew workers to Blair Mountain, where armed miners were subdued by government officials and at least 16 men died. It was a setback for the labor movement at the time, but union membership in the state reached a peak in the decades following the battle. In the 1940s and 1950s, roughly half of West Virginia workers were employed in heavy industries such as coal, steel and glass, and the majority of those workers belonged to a union.

By 2021, however, only 10.5% of West Virginia workers were represented by unions, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics released last week.

Nicholson is a retired dental assistant who lives in Elkview. She started working at Tudors about a year ago, earning $9 an hour as a prep cook for extra income after her husband died of cancer.

She saw things that worried her immediately. After an employee tested positive for COVID-19, the restaurant's employees were never informed, she said. When one of her coworkers questioned the stores COVID policy, Nicholson said, she started getting her hours cut. Employees often had to work past their scheduled hours to cover shifts and then were reprimanded for working overtime, she said.

Nicholson also alleges that she and other employees were shorted on their paychecks and charged hundreds of dollars for meals at work they never ate.

The belittling that goes on astonished me, she said, adding that in her previous job as a dental assistant, "You werent allowed to act like that.

Nicholson reached out to one of the unions her husband had belonged to: the Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 625, based in the capital of Charleston. Union officials there connected her with the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 400, which represents 35,000 workers across six states and Washington, D.C.

When a majority of the workers at Tudors Elkview franchise signed authorization cards, Nicholson said, there was a lot of excitement. They hosted rallies where people held signs saying, We love union biscuits.

But soon the temperature changed. Employees started worrying that they could lose their jobs or have their hours cut. Nicholson said she was written up for small things, something that hadn't happened before.

Former Tudors head cashier Jennifer Patton, 38, said she was afraid of joining a union at first, but felt more comfortable after talking to her father-in-law, who was a union man.

She signed on after she found out that an employee she had been riding with to another Tudors location had tested positive for COVID-19 and she hadnt been told.

Her decision had consequences: In the months that followed, she said, she was suspended multiple times even though she had never been disciplined previously and had even been promoted. Her bosses then took away her security clearance to work cashiers. Last week, she was fired.

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Pattons son just started his first year of college. She said paying for her sons education is important to her.

Me and my husband work every day, as many hours as we possibly can, and we still struggle," she said. "Nobody deserves to be talked to and treated the way we are.

Tudors employee Susie Thompson, 67, agrees.

I wouldnt be doing this job at my age unless I had to, said Thompson, whose ex-husband belonged to a union as a strip miner. Its hard. Morale is so low.

Nicholson hopes enough workers feel the connection to the states past to tip the balance in favor of a collective bargaining unit now.

Unions protected our family members, so many workers in this states history, she said. We need that protection at Tudors.
PARIS (AP)  The atelier  the workshop of hands  took the Dior center stage on Monday for a refined show on the first day of Paris couture week, which aims to elevate the work of the houses behind-the-scenes seamstresses.

PARIS (AP)  The atelier  the workshop of hands  took the Dior center stage on Monday for a refined show on the first day of Paris couture week, which aims to elevate the work of the houses behind-the-scenes seamstresses.

The stars came out in droves to the Musee Rodin venue, including actress Rosamund Pike and The Crown star Claire Foy, who posed for cameras, exclaiming: Its beautiful. Im in awe.

A model wears a creation for the Dior Spring-Summer 2022 Haute Couture fashion collection collection, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Another VIP in attendance, model and actress Cara Delevingne, was criticized for not donning a mask.

Here are some highlights of Mondays spring-summer 2022 couture collections:

DIOR CELEBRATES ITS CRAFT

Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri wanted to show how the craft of the petites mains seamstresses, some of whom have worked in the Dior atelier for decades, was equally important as the art or fashion itself.

This muse was a springboard for a sumptuous and archetypally couture display.

A case in point were the teeming white beaded tapestry embroideries gracing a structured ecru wool twill coat. Here more than ornamental, the chic embroideries actually created the garment's silhouette through sheer heaviness and swag.

A model wears a creation for the Dior Spring-Summer 2022 Haute Couture fashion collection collection, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Elsewhere, an ash gray crepe skirt with a high waist made a same statement: It seemed almost alive thanks to myriad long embroideries rustling and shaking on the pixie-like model.

Speaking through the clothes, Chiuri seemed to be saying: Art and craft are one and the same.

Embroidered tights were also a big theme for spring, with Diors army of seamstresses having gone to work in embellishing several statement pieces. Unfortunately the sheer weight of the paillette embroidering did not always cut the most flattering of shapes on some of the tights, all be them finely executed.

In style terms, there were hints of the on-trend 60s, with features such as Peter Pan collars appearing on sensuous sheer organza blouses, or neat fitted Bar silhouette tuxedo suits with bold menswear black satin lapels.

MASKLESS CARA DELEVINGNE AT DIOR

Stringent measures have been implemented across Paris Fashion Week to comply with French government guidance amid a surge of omicron-driven new infections.

COVID-19, which has has brought the fashion industry to its knees, has seen the cancellation of countless shows, even ending entire seasons, and fashion shows are only being staged again on condition that guests show proof of vaccination and wear face masks while seated. Its the same rule for everyone whether celebrity or journalist. France is currently registering Europes highest-ever daily coronavirus cases.

Actress Rosumund Pike set a fine example by carefully putting on her face mask as soon as she sat down even despite wearing an intricate couture Dior headpiece. Nearby, The Crown star Claire Foy also donned a mask after passing the photo call.

Model and actress Cara Delevingne, however, turned heads for all the wrong reasons: Failing to wear a mask throughout as she watched the creations from the front row.

Natalia Vodianova poses before the presentation of the Dior Spring-Summer 2022 Haute Couture fashion collection, in Paris, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

SCHIAPARELLI ASKS A HIGHER POWER FOR ANSWERS

Daniel Roseberry said of his couture collection that he wanted to respond to the pervasive sense of exhaustion and that luckluster feeling the pandemic has given many.

In particular, the Schiaparelli designer asked himself at the drawing board how the houses signature Surrealist motifs  first espoused by the late, great Elsa Schiaparelli between the two World Wars  can be relevant in a world where reality itself was in flux.

The answer? He went up to the heavens, channeling the celestial. It was, he said, a case of a move towards the elemental to understand the chaos.

This couture collection thus became the realm of the high couture priestess, one who donned exaggerated circular hat-headdresses, wore gold, black and white, and floated by gleaming and resplendent.

Gold jewelry  a specially created shade in 24K leaf  hovered around a models bust in all directions as if suspended by supernatural powers. Column silhouettes rose into spliced white bodices that opened up at the bust like a space-age flower, or into to a giant graphic bejeweled bib in black.

Some of the silhouettes verged on pastiche, such as jutting spikes that emanated incoherently from a models bust.

But the fastidious construction of many gowns  one had gold tentacles spilling down like a jellyfish  surely made up for it. The palatial setting -- Le Petit Palais  with its myriad moldings and busts also added to the Grecian drama.

GAULTIER REMEMBERS THIERRY MUGLER

French fashion designer Thierry Mugler, whose theatrical designs were worn by celebrities like Madonna, Lady Gaga and Cardi B, has died at 73. The announcement on his official Instagram said he died Sunday.

A contemporary of Jean Paul Gaultier who admired his work, Mugler was known for his architectural style, defined by broad shoulders and tiny waist. Much has been said over the years of the tensions between the two fashion greats, rumors that Gaultier has said belong to the past.

In a bittersweet message Monday, Gaultier told The Associated Press that his old acquaintance has now gone to revamp the angels and demons up there. The sky was his color.

Enormous talent, he added. Always in search of perfection with his unique style!

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AZZARO SHINES AND SHIMMERS

Olivier Theyskens brings out the romantic in all of us. In Mondays embellished affair, the Azzaro designer let rip with the sequins and shimmer and came into his own with unapologetic couture.

The brand, whose sheeny razzmatazz attracted stars including Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren in its 60s and 70s heyday, seemed to have found in Theyskens the right ambassador.

Designs were fluid in all senses of the word. First in the way that gleaming loose tuxedos dripped down the body. Second, for mixing menswear and womenswear on androgynous co-ed designs.

The houses iconic long 70s dresses were revamped, in one instance with a pared down aesthetic and plunging bare-all neckline that finished in a hoop at the midriff.

Small details, like gleaming bead embroideries at the shoulder, stayed true to the brand yet were subtle.
PARIS (AP)  It was a fashion history-making moment in Paris for Kenzo on Sunday as it unveiled the debut for its first Japanese designer since house founder Kenzo Takada.

Kanye West, centre, attends the Kenzo fall-winter 22/23 men's collection, in Paris, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly)

PARIS (AP)  It was a fashion history-making moment in Paris for Kenzo on Sunday as it unveiled the debut for its first Japanese designer since house founder Kenzo Takada.

Nigo, 51, thus becomes only the second Asian designer at the head of a European high fashion label, alongside Ballys Filipino-American Rhuigi Villasenor. His appointment represents a milestone as the luxury industry wrestles more broadly with questions over racism and diversity.

The show venue of Galerie Vivienne underlined the historic importance of the debut collection, teasing out parallels between the Nigo and Takada. Both are Japanese, both studied at the same Tokyo fashion college decades apart, both have an East-meets-West artistic vision and are considered fashion code breakers. The arcade is the very location where Takada held his inaugural fashion show in 1970.

Nigos close friend Pharrell Williams and Kanye West applauded amid the ancient bookshops alongside an audibly enthusiastic audience after his vibrant creations were revealed.

Here are some highlights of Sundays fall-winter menswear shows at Paris Fashion Week:

KENZOS FULL CIRCLE

Nigo first drew global renown with the streetwear brand A Bathing Ape that he began in 1993. Several decades later at the helm of one of LVMH luxury giants biggest labels Kenzo, those vibrant colors and streetwise prints were evident in creative fusion with some traditional Kenzo themes such the red poppy print.

Both designers, the house said, had an understanding of the synthesis between Japanese and Western wardrobe traditions. Nigo is envisioning it as a tunnel toward the future and beyond the borders of fashion.

Thus, exaggeratedly oversize berets mixed with clashing-color prints on silk, standout loose wool coats in maize, printed silk neck scarves, chunky sheeny leather loafers, and high-waisted chino pants. Stripes followed checks, tassels, straps and gold-buckled belts. There were even a series of finely tailored sartorial preppy looks with loose proportions, one of which nicely evoked the cross-over styles of Japanese clothing.

Nigo went all out, sending myriad styles and silhouettes  as well as men and womens designs  down this unusual runway. Sheer vibrancy was the one unifying theme.

WOOYOUNGMI GOES TO 1920s MOSCOW

Moscows glittering St. Basels cathedral seeded the colors and styles for menswear brand Wooyoungmi on Sunday to produce a collection that glistened with jewel tones of pinks, greens, blues and oranges.

The novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles was what the South Korean brand said inspired its Russian musing  with references to the ornate city and its famous churches peppering the show.

Scarves with frontal fastenings seemed to be the brands take on ecclesiastical headwear, while black patent statement boots that sported a chunky sole were a hip way of managing Russia's famed winter snow.

Loose proportions, layers and sumptuous material defined the collection that was carefully thought out and executed.

The best moment? When an unexpected decorated strap  evoking the military  appeared out of a beautiful, tailored minimalist bronze wool coat. It was subtle yet effective.

SACAIS BOOTS ARE MADE FOR POSING

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Gargantuan statement boots made from puffer jacket material were the leitmotif of Sacais show by Chitose Abe.

With hoops, zippers, laces, ribbing and toggles, the original footwear looked ready for a Moon landing, laying out a fashion forward aesthetic for the fall-winter season.

Elsewhere, an artistic collaboration with Japanese-born, New York-dwelling artist Madsaki produced some food for thought in the form of large spray paint prints and embroideries across sweatshirts and the back of jackets.

Sheeple Zombies and Kool-Aid, it read, referencing how people following the trends are unable to think independently.

It was a fine message for the house that prides itself on originality.

Abe was in nostalgic mood too  reworking themes she had introduced in her earliest shows such as lingerie, which was integrated here as bra-cup seams tailored into jackets.
BEIJING (AP)  Less than two weeks before the opening of the Winter Olympics, a few dozen COVID-19 cases in Beijing have prompted authorities to test millions of people in the capital and extend that to anyone buying cold medicine.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, residents line up to get a throat swab for the COVID-19 test at a residential area in Fengtai District in Beijing, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. People in a Beijing district with some 2 million residents were ordered Sunday to undergo mass coronavirus testing following a series of infections as China tightened anti-disease controls ahead of the Winter Olympics. (Tang Rufeng/Xinhua via AP)

BEIJING (AP)  Less than two weeks before the opening of the Winter Olympics, a few dozen COVID-19 cases in Beijing have prompted authorities to test millions of people in the capital and extend that to anyone buying cold medicine.

The tough new measures came even as the city of Xi'an, a major tourist destination that is the home of the Terracotta Warrior statue army, lifted a lockdown Monday that had isolated its 13 million people for a month.

More than 3,000 people have arrived for the Games since Jan. 4, including over 300 athletes and team officials, plus media and other participants, organizers said Monday. So far, 78 people have tested positive, including one who was an athlete or team official.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, a child gets a throat swab for the COVID-19 test at a residential area in Fengtai District in Beijing, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. People in a Beijing district with some 2 million residents were ordered Sunday to undergo mass coronavirus testing following a series of infections as China tightened anti-disease controls ahead of the Winter Olympics. (Tang Rufeng/Xinhua via AP)

Those found to be infected are sent to an isolation center or a hospital, depending on their condition.

Officials in Beijing undertook testing of the Fengtai district's 2 million residents, where the majority of the capital's 40 coronavirus cases since Jan. 15 have been found.

Beijing authorities have also announced that anyone who buys or who has bought fever, cough or certain other medicines in the past two weeks will have to take a COVID-19 test within 72 hours.

The far-reaching precautions, despite a relatively low number of cases, illustrate the acute concern of government officials in the run-up to the Olympics, which open in Beijing on Feb. 4.

People wearing face masks to help protect from the coronavirus cross an intersection in Fengtai District in Beijing, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. Chinese authorities have lifted a monthlong lockdown of Xi'an and its 13 million residents as infections subside ahead of the Winter Olympics. Meanwhile, the 2 million residents of one Beijing district are being tested following a series of cases in the capital. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

The current epidemic prevention situation is still grim and complicated, and all departments across the city must act proactively and swiftly, Beijing city spokesperson Xu Hejian said.

The overall situation is controllable, he added.

The ruling Communist Party has long pursued a zero tolerance COVID-19 policy that has brought drastic efforts to stamp out any signs of new outbreaks. But with the approach of the Olympics, that policy has become even stricter.

Overall, the number of reported new cases has been falling in China from more than 100 a day at the peak of the Xi'an outbreak to 18 on Sunday, six of which were in Beijing.

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, staff members wearing face masks hold giant panda cubs as they make a group appearance at the Shenshuping base of China Conservation and Research Center for Giant Pandas in Wolong in southwestern China's Sichuan Province, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. Giant panda cubs born in 2021 were brought out on Monday for an event to mark the upcoming Lunar New Year. (Wang Xi/Xinhua via AP)

Ahead of the Games, all participants will be tested every day and kept isolated from the public. Visiting athletes are required to be vaccinated or undergo a quarantine after arriving in China.

Ben Cowling, a public health expert at Hong Kong University, said COVID-19 infections still could leak out of the Olympic bubble.

I would estimate there is a good chance of at least one lockdown being implemented in Beijing in the coming month," he said.

The government told people in areas of Beijing deemed at high risk for infection not to leave the city. A number of nearby provinces reported cases linked to the outbreaks in the capital.

Beijing officials said an omicron cluster that infected six people had been brought under control. The Fengtai outbreak is delta-driven, and Chinese health officials say it is linked to imported frozen food.

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Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Control, said gene sequencing of virus samples from the frozen food was consistent with that in 28 infected people. Foreign experts are skeptical that COVID-19 can spread easily from packaging.

Access to Xian was suspended Dec. 22 following a delta outbreak. More than 2,000 people were infected in the city, which is about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) southwest of Beijing.

Other outbreaks have prompted the government to impose travel bans on a number of cities, including the port of Tianjin, about an hour from Beijing.

The stiff regulations are credited with preventing major nationwide outbreaks. China has reported relatively few cases of the highly infectious omicron variant.

___

Associated Press writer Huizhong Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed.
FREDERICTON - The licence for Atlantic Canada's only nuclear power generating station expires in June, and the New Brunswick Crown corporation that operates the aging CANDU-6 reactor is seeking to renew it for an unprecedented 25-year term.

The Point Lepreau nuclear power plant in Point Lepreau, N.B., is seen on Monday, July 9, 2018. The licence for Atlantic Canada's only nuclear power generating station will expire in June, and NB Power which operates the aging CANDU-6 reactor at Point Lepreau is seeking an unprecedented licence renewal of 25 years. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Bissett

FREDERICTON - The licence for Atlantic Canada's only nuclear power generating station expires in June, and the New Brunswick Crown corporation that operates the aging CANDU-6 reactor is seeking to renew it for an unprecedented 25-year term.

The last two licences to operate the Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station, located about 40 km southwest of Saint John, N.B., were for five years each.

"We are asking for a 25-year licence, which would be a first in Canada, based on some improvements that the regulator has made, but also on the very strong safety and reliability performance that we've seen from all the Canadian nuclear stations," Jason Nouwens, director of regulatory and external affairs for NB Power, told reporters in a briefing on Friday.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has scheduled the first phase of the application hearing on Wednesday in Ottawa.

Gail Wylie with the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development called the request for a 25-year licence "really absurd."

Wylie will be one of the public interveners when the safety commission holds the second phase of the application hearings in Saint John in May.

"We are very much interested in renewable energy because we know it's clean and we know the problems and history of nuclear energy here," she said in a recent interview. "Nuclear inherently has got its risks and the radioactive waste."

Wylie said she's concerned that extending the life of the 660-megawatt nuclear generator will slow the transition to what she calls cleaner and cheaper forms of renewable energy.

Point Lepreau opened in 1983 and operated until 2008, when it closed for a major refurbishment intended to extend its lifespan by 25 years. It was reconnected to the power grid in October 2012.

Wylie said NB Power's request for a licence until 2047 exceeds the lifespan targets that were announced after the refurbishment. She said she plans to ask questions about how the utility is dealing with staffing levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, threats of cyberattacks, and impacts of climate change.

Wylie also wants to know about how plans to develop advanced small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) on the Lepreau site will impact the operation of the main reactor. Two companies, Moltex and ARC, are working with NB Power to develop the portable reactor technology.

Nouwens, however, said the licence application doesn't include development of SMRs.

"The re-licensing process for Point Lepreau is completely separate from any licensing process for SMRs," he said. "Our 25-year licence renewal covers the scope of what's currently at Point Lepreau and what the plans would be for our current station operations."

Saint John-based clean air activist Gordon Dalzell was a longtime opponent of nuclear energy, but his position has changed.

Dalzell said he believes there's a role for nuclear power to play in helping meet energy demand as the province tries to transition to more renewable sources such as wind and solar.

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Still, he believes a 25-year licence renewal is too long.

"It's in the public's interest for maybe 10 years," he said in a recent interview. "That's when we're going to learn a lot more about the small modular reactors and their development and their relationship with Point Lepreau."

But Nouwens is defending the 25-year request, noting that many other countries have longer licence terms. The United States, he said. awards 40-year licences for new nuclear reactors.

He said the safety commission has permanent staff on site at Point Lepreau who can shut it down if they feel anything is unsafe.

Like Wylie, Dalzell said he also plans to ask questions about climate change and about how Point Lepreau's location on the shore of the Bay of Fundy could be affected by sea-level rise and extreme weather events.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2022.
ATHENS, Greece (AP)  A severe snowstorm disrupted road and air traffic Monday in the Greek capital of Athens and in neighboring Turkey's largest city of Istanbul, while snow blanketed most of Turkey and Greece, including several Aegean islands.

A woman makes a snow man during a snowfall, in Athens, on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. A severe weather front has hit Greece, with sub-freezing temperatures and snowfall in many parts of the country, including the capital Athens and many Aegean islands.(AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

ATHENS, Greece (AP)  A severe snowstorm disrupted road and air traffic Monday in the Greek capital of Athens and in neighboring Turkey's largest city of Istanbul, while snow blanketed most of Turkey and Greece, including several Aegean islands.

The Greek government declared a holiday Tuesday in the greater Athens area, parts of central Greece and the islands to keep people from leaving home. Key branches of the civil service as well as food stores, gas stations and pharmacies will stay open.

We ask citizens to avoid leaving their homes. It will be a difficult night, Climate Change and Civil Protection Minister Christos Stylianides said. The height of the snow is unprecedented in some areas.

A man runs as other walk in front of the Acropolis hill during a snowfall, in Athens, on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. The wave of bad weather hitting Greece is forecast to continue through Tuesday, and has seen snow falling even on some islands. Authorities have warned the public to avoid all but essential outdoor movement, and several major roads and highways are passable only with snow chains. AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

The storm snarled traffic in Athens and put most public transport out of action. Army and fire service teams were deployed late Monday to extract hundreds of motorists trapped for hours in snowed-in cars, taking them to rented hotel rooms. Some people abandoned their vehicles and walked home in the snow.

Rail transport was also affected, and state ERT TV reported that three people were lightly injured when an engine accidentally crashed into a stuck train with about 200 people on board that it had been sent to extract. The accident occurred near the town of Livadia in central Greece.

Turkish authorities in Istanbul, a metropolis of 16 million people, suspended intercity bus service and temporarily blocked travel to the city from Turkeys Thrace region. People stranded on roads abandoned vehicles to walk home or crowded subway and other public transportation. Schools across Turkey are closed for a winter break, but universities halted classes for two days. Public offices and shopping malls closed early.

The Istanbul governor's office announced that civil servants would be allowed to stay at home Tuesday, except for those employed in security, health and transportation sectors.

People walk on the snow-covered Syntagma square during snowstorm in Athens, Greece, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. Heavy snowfall has disrupted air traffic in the Greek capital of Athens and in neighboring Turkey's largest city of Istanbul, while several Aegean islands and much of Turkey are blanketed by snow. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

It is a difficult night, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu declared. He urged people not to leave their homes. Snow had reached 80-85 centimeters (31-33 inches) deep in some parts of Istanbul, he said.

Flights in and out of Istanbul Airport were suspended until 4 a.m. Tuesday. Authorities worked to clear runways and a road leading to the airport, where the roof of a facility used by Turkish Airlines cargo department collapsed from the weight of snow. No one was hurt.

Flurries were forecast to continue over the next few days in Istanbul and Greece.

In Greece, schools in many areas were closed. Government spokesman Giannis Oikonomou said more than 46,000 school classes were being held online.

The snow came down thick and fast throughout the day in central Athens, settling on the marble temples of the ancient Acropolis.

Snow chains were mandatory for cars on many roads, while trucks were banned from the main highway heading north from Athens. Nevertheless, the icy conditions and lack of snow chains on some vehicles left some drivers reported being stuck in their cars for more than five hours on the Greek capital's roads.

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Power cuts occurred in parts of Athens and nearby areas as well as the island of Evia in the evening, knocking out heating systems.

Several domestic and international flights to Athens airport were canceled, while subway service to the airport was partially suspended. COVID-19 vaccination centers in the wider Athens region and Evia were closed Monday and would remain closed Tuesday.

Snow is common in the Greek mountains and in northern Greece but is less frequent in central Athens and on Aegean islands. Last year, a major snowstorm caused severe problems in the capital, knocking out power for days. Thousands of trees collapsed from the weight of the snow and ice.

In neighboring Albania on Monday, all elementary and high schools closed for three days because of cold weather. Authorities advised people to avoid driving as temperatures reached -17 C (about 1 F) in eastern Albania.

___

Associated Press writers Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
LONDON (AP)  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday ordered an investigation into a Conservative lawmakers claim that she was fired from a government job in part because of her Muslim faith  the latest allegation of wrongdoing that is shaking the Conservative government and Johnsons grip on power.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson wears a face mask, during a visit to Milton Keynes University Hospital in Buckinghamshire, England, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (Adrian Dennis/Pool Photo via AP)

LONDON (AP)  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday ordered an investigation into a Conservative lawmakers claim that she was fired from a government job in part because of her Muslim faith  the latest allegation of wrongdoing that is shaking the Conservative government and Johnsons grip on power.

Former Transport Minister Nusrat Ghani says when she was demoted in 2020, a government whip said her Muslimness was making colleagues uncomfortable. She told the Sunday Times that she was told there were concerns that I wasnt loyal to the party as I didnt do enough to defend the party against Islamophobia allegations.

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrives at 10 Downing Street, in London, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022.(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

Chief Whip Mark Spencer identified himself as the person who spoke to Ghani in 2020, but called her allegation completely false.

Johnsons office said Monday that the prime minister had asked government officials to establish the facts about what happened. It said Johnson takes these claims very seriously.

Ghanis claim has deepened the rifts roiling Johnsons governing party, which is being wracked by allegations about lockdown-breaching parties in the prime ministers office while Britain was under coronavirus restrictions.

In the latest claim, ITV News reported that Johnson attended a birthday party in his Downing Street office and later hosted friends in his apartment upstairs in June 2020. His office denied it, saying that "in line with the rules at the time, the prime minister hosted a small number of family members outside that evening,

The partygate allegations have infuriated many in Britain, who were barred from meeting with friends and family for months in 2020 and 2021 to curb the spread of COVID-19. They are being investigated by a senior civil servant, Sue Gray, whose report, expected this week, will be a pivotal moment for the prime minister.

Ghani was elected to Parliament in 2015  the Conservatives first female Muslim lawmaker  and was made a junior minister in 2018. At the time her boss, then Transport Secretary Chris Grayling, said it was proof that the Conservatives were a party of opportunity. But some have accused the party of failing to stamp out anti-Muslim prejudice under Johnson, who in 2018 compared women who wear face-covering veils to letter boxes.

Two senior Cabinet ministers, Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, expressed support for Ghani.

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, left, with Helen Whately Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, center right, and Lord Agnew, right, Minister of State at the Treasury pose for photographers prior to Sunak going to the House of Commons to deliver the Budget in London, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. Britains anti-fraud minister Theodore Agnew resigned Monday Jan. 24, 2022, accusing the government of failing to stop fraudsters abusing coronavirus business loans. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

It takes a lot of bravery for someone to stand up and say: My religion was taken into consideration when I was being assessed for what I do as a job, Zahawi said. That should never happen and there is no room for it.

Ghanis allegation comes after another Conservative legislator, William Wragg, accused party whips of intimidating and blackmailing members of Parliament to ensure they supported the government. Wragg says he met with police on Monday to discuss his claims.

In another blow to Johnson's beleaguered administration, an anti-fraud minister resigned Monday, accusing the government of failing to stop criminals abusing coronavirus business loans. Theodore Agnew called counter-fraud efforts woeful and said the government was paralyzed by a combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance.

The British government handed out 47 billion pounds (more than $60 billion) in loans to help businesses stay afloat during the pandemic. It estimated last year that about 11% of the loans, amounting to 4.9 billion pounds ($6.6 billion), were the result of fraudulent applications.

Agnew insisted his resignation was not an attack on the prime minister. In a dramatic statement in the House of Lords, the junior minister said he hoped that giving up my career might prompt others more important than me to get behind this and sort it out.

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So far, only a handful of Conservative lawmakers have called openly for Johnson to resign. If Grays report is highly critical, more may be emboldened to call for a no-confidence vote in Johnson that could result in his ouster.

Even if he makes it through the week, many Conservatives have decided Johnsons days in office are numbered.

Salma Shah, a political consultant and former government aide, said Ghani's claim has really shocked Westminster and has become a very serious issue, adding to the pressure that already exists for the prime minister on the backbenches.

The reality is that the prime minister is in an incredibly perilous position.  It is going to be incredibly hard to pull back from where he is now, Shah said.

___

Jo Kearney contributed to this story.
OTTAWA - A federation representing truckers across Canada has denounced a series of planned protests against the federal government's cross-border travel vaccine mandate, arguing such demonstrations aren't a safe or effective way of resisting the policy.

Truckers and supporters raise their fists and hold a banner before a cross-country convoy destined for Ottawa to protest a federal vaccine mandate for truckers departed in Delta, B.C. on Sunday, January 23, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

OTTAWA - A federation representing truckers across Canada has denounced a series of planned protests against the federal government's cross-border travel vaccine mandate, arguing such demonstrations aren't a safe or effective way of resisting the policy.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance spoke out against the pending protests in a statement issued 24 hours before a convoy of unvaccinated truckers was set to leave British Columbia en route to Ottawa. They will be joined by fleets of other drivers from across Canada in the Nation's capital on Jan. 29, where they plan to hold a rally decrying policies that require drivers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

"The Canadian Trucking Alliance does not support and strongly disapproves of any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges," the statement read. "CTA believes such actions  especially those that interfere with public safety  are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed."

The "vast majority" of Canadian trucking industry members are vaccinated, the alliance said, noting the immunization rate among truck drivers is on par with that seen among the general public.

Alliance President Stephen Laskowski called for still greater compliance in light of the fact that both Canada and the United States have cross-border vaccination rules in place.

"This regulation is not changing so, as an industry, we must adapt and comply with this mandate, Laskowski said in the statement. The only way to cross the border, in a commercial truck or any other vehicle, is to get vaccinated.

Those opposed to the measure, however, were unmoved.

Were not backing down and we are going to Ottawa, Tamara Lich, a protest organizer from Medicine Hat, Alta., said in a Facebook Live video posted on Sunday.

Organizers describe the vaccine mandate as an example of political overreach resulting in economic harm, arguing the policy hurts small businesses and denies some workers the means to survive.

A GoFundMe page set up by organizers had garnered $2.6 million in donations, with more than half that total coming in the past 48 hours. The money will go toward the cost of fuel, food and accommodations for participating protesters, according to the fundraising campaign page.

Up to 26,000 of the 160,000 drivers who make regular trips across the Canada-U.S. border would likely be sidelined as a result of the vaccine mandate in both countries, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance and the American Trucking Associations.

Some 30,000 trucks roll across the border each day hauling nearly $850 million in freight, according to 2020 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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The Liberal government announced in November that all Canadian truckers looking to cross the border from the United States would need to be vaccinated in order to avoid a 14-day quarantine, a policy that came into effect on Jan. 15.

The mandate came into effect despite a previous statement from the Canada Border Services Agency that said unvaccinated and partially immunized truck drivers crossing into Canada from the United States would remain exempt from the mandate announced about two months before it came into force.

The federal government reversed itself again the next afternoon with a statement that said the information shared the day before had been sent "in error."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2022.

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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
The death of a man in a house fire in Brooklands last week has now become a homicide investigation.

The death of a man in a house fire in Brooklands last week has now become a homicide investigation.

And a man who died on Sunday after being shot is the citys third homicide of the year.

Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jay Murray said Monday officers and fire investigators saw things they considered suspicious at the fire scene in the 1900 block of William Avenue West, and those suspicions were confirmed after an autopsy.

Brian Robert Scibak, 61, of Winnipeg, was the victim in the fire Thursday just before midnight.

Police ask anyone who had contact with Scibak before the fire to step forward with information or video, calling investigators at 204-986-6508 or Crime Stoppers at 204-786-TIPS (8477).

"If you have access to video surveillance and you havent spoken to police investigators we ask to you talk to us," he said, adding even material from a few streets away could be helpful.

"Typically when crime like this happen people flee from the scene," Murray said.

He wouldnt say whether Scibak, who had lived at the address for several years, was known to police.

Last week, a spokesperson for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said the blaze at the single-family bungalow was well involved with heavy smoke and flames when crews arrived.

Firefighters launched an offensive attack at first, but had to pivot because of the deteriorating conditions. It took more than an hour to get the fire under control.

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Murray said a dogs body was found inside the home and police are determining the cause of death.

Meanwhile, Murray said officers rushed to the 400 block of Young Street on Sunday at about 8:45 a.m., after receiving reports of a man getting shot.

Murray said when officers arrived they immediately began administering emergency care to a man to the severely injured victim who was rushed to hospital in critical condition and later died.

He was identified as Dustin Curtis Kyle Gibbs, 28, of Winnipeg.

Murray said investigators havent yet determined if the shooting was random or not.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Manitobas Gujarati community is ready to help relatives of a family of four, including a baby, who died trying to walk across the border into the U.S. in a -35C blizzard.

Manitobas Gujarati community is ready to help relatives of a family of four, including a baby, who died trying to walk across the border into the U.S. in a -35C blizzard.

Community leaders are devastated and baffled by the tragedy, saying they dont know anything about the victims or seven people who survived the harrowing journey.

The RCMP said it would take days to confirm the identities of the man, woman, infant and a boy believed to be in his mid-teens. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-RCMP)

All 11 are Indian nationals. The undocumented survivors speak Gujarati, a language native to the western state of Gujarat, according to an affidavit filed in a U.S. court.

"We dont know who they are. Nobody knows them," said Kirit Thakrar, a Winnipeg accountant who moved from Gujarat about 40 years ago. "Everybody is very sad and upset about this. Once we find out (who the family is), well be there to help. Whatever (their relatives) need, well be standing beside them."

Hindu worshippers in Manitoba prayed for the victims during a virtual service Sunday.

Most of Manitobas Gujarati population, estimated to be 10,000, lives in Winnipeg, said Thakrar, president of the Hindu Society of Manitoba.

"Its a very tight-knit community. If anybody is desperate, they call us and everybody goes to help," he said.

Sanjay Patel, president of the Gujarati Cultural Society of Manitoba, said the community was waiting to find out more information about the family.

"We dont know anything yet," he said.

The RCMP said it would take days to confirm the identities of the man, woman, infant and a boy believed to be in his mid-teens.

Their frozen bodies were found in a snow-covered field about 10 kilometres east of Emerson, just metres from the border, Wednesday afternoon.

Autopsies were scheduled to confirm the cause of deaths.

The migrants were dropped off about one kilometre north of the border the night before in what is believed to be a wider human smuggling operation, the affidavit stated.

At least three other crossings have taken place in the sparsely-populated area in recent weeks.

Suffering from frostbite and hypothermia, Wednesdays survivors were just across the boundary when U.S. border patrol agents arrested them and alleged human smuggler Steve Shand about 11 kilometres northeast of St. Vincent, Minn.

A search was launched after a survivor told agents the family became separated in darkness while the group walked for more than 11 hours through deep snow.

Six survivors were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for processing.

The seventh, a woman who stopped breathing several times, was airlifted to a St. Paul, Minn., hospital. Part of her frostbitten hand could be amputated, the affidavit stated.

A survivor told U.S. border agents he paid a "significant" amount of money to enter Canada from India under a fraudulently obtained student visa.

After crossing illegally into the U.S. on foot, he expected to meet a driver and be taken to his uncles home in Chicago, the affidavit stated.

According to the document, Shand was supposed to pick up the migrants on a rural road just inside Minnesota. Two were with him in a rental van when he was arrested.

Charged with human smuggling offences, the Deltona, Fla., native is due to appear by video at a detention hearing in a Minneapolis court Monday.

His lawyer, public defender Douglas Micko, declined to comment.

Shand, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Jamaica, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in August 2018 to protect him from creditors, according to a Florida court filing.

The dad, who set up a business called Shands Taxi in November 2017, listed his occupation as "Uber driver."

He was supporting a daughter and two sons, and his assets included a house and two vehicles.

His monthly income of more than US$2,000 came mostly from social security payments, according to the filing.

Keith Cozine, assistant professor of human smuggling at St. Johns University in New York, said U.S.-bound migrants from overseas are usually forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to human smugglers.

Traditionally, he said, those migrants try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

"This case highlights the need for continued cross-border co-operation and co-ordination," he said. "If this becomes the new route, and once the weather gets nicer, that need for co-operation is going to be extremely important."

Last weeks fatal crossing incident was the first near Manitobas border border since May 2017, when Ghanaian citizen Mavis Otuteye, 57, died of hypothermia as she tried to walk into Canada near Noyes, Minn.

Most migrants who cross Americas northern border in winter do not understand how dangerous it is, said St. Paul immigration lawyer Ayodele Ojo.

"It is extremely cold. Nobody should be advised to make that trip," said Ojo. "Through desperation and hope, they believe they can make it."

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He called for a crackdown on human smugglers.

"They are criminals," he said. "They should be put out of business."

Dave Carlson, reeve of the Rural Municipality of Emerson-Franklin, hoped the tragedy would act as a deterrent.

"I think people are still just saddened and really surprised something like this could happen," he said. "I hope this underlines the fact that its dangerous and shouldnt be attempted, especially at this time of year."

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @chriskitching
April Intertas is overcome with emotion when she recalls the life-or-death moment she realized her calling was a career as a nurse.

April Intertas is overcome with emotion when she recalls the life-or-death moment she realized her calling was a career as a nurse.

As she helped to deliver a baby boy at a hospital in the Philippines, the newborn emerged with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, making it impossible for him to breathe.

April Intertas arrived in Manitoba in 2013 after three years as a nurse in the Philippines. Half of that time was spent at a government hospital, where she worked purely for experience and received no salary or benefits. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)

Instinctively, Intertas, who was doing her student practicum, put her fingers between the cord and the infants neck, allowing him to take his first gasps of air.

Once he was out of danger, the boy was placed into the arms of his grateful mother, who wept as she asked Intertas to name him. The name Jon Christopher popped into her head.

"I felt really privileged. Who would ask a stranger to name their baby?" Intertas, 33, said. "We shared this precious moment together. I wont forget that in my nursing career."

A few years later, that calling brought Intertas to Winnipeg, where she has been on the front line of Manitobas fight against COVID-19.

The registered nurse has cared for critically-ill patients in a coronavirus red zone. Staff have been there for patients who died without family at their bedside.

"Thats probably the hardest experience Ive ever had," she said, fighting back tears. "The pandemic, it changes you."

For decades, Manitoba has been turning to countries such as the Philippines to address staffing shortages in health and long-term care.

"Wherever you turn your head in a hospital (in Manitoba), you wont miss a Filipino nurse." Philippinesborn nurse

Hundreds of women and men from the archipelago in Southeast Asia have brought their expertise to the province through recruiting drives, family sponsorships or other channels.

For many who make the journey, nursing offers a gateway to a better life and an opportunity to provide financial support to loved ones back home.

Their contribution over the decades has been tremendous, and many second and third generation Filipino-Canadians are following in their footsteps.

Before the pandemic, the Philippine Nurses Association of Manitoba had about 300 active nurses, including Intertas.

"Wherever you turn your head in a hospital (in Manitoba), you wont miss a Filipino nurse," said a Philippines-born nurse, who asked not to be named.

Traditional family values and a culture that instils respect and care for the elderly make health care a natural career choice for Filipinos.

"Growing up, its in our culture that the kids take care of their parents at home as they get older," said Intertas. "Its very natural for us to take care of someone."

Hailing from the municipality of Subic, her father enrolled her in a nursing school without telling her.

Intertas arrived in Manitoba in 2013 after three years as a nurse in the Philippines. Half of that time was spent at a government hospital, where she worked purely for experience and received no salary or benefits.

Intertas then worked at a private hospital until her sister sponsored her move to Canada. However, she had to wait three years to work in Manitoba due to the language, training and certification requirements she had to complete.

"My patience got really tested. I almost gave up. Nursing is my passion, and I cant see myself doing anything else." April Intertas

"As an immigrant here, I imagined myself working as a nurse right away, and helping my family back home," she said. "My patience got really tested. I almost gave up. Nursing is my passion, and I cant see myself doing anything else."

Seeing people of Filipino origin working at every level in hospitals fills Dr. Gigi Osler with pride.

"It not only makes me feel quite proud to be half Filipino, but to see how that community is contributing more than ever to keep the health-care system going," she said.

As a child in Winnipeg, she was surrounded by family who worked in health care. Her mother, Flor Sharma, a nurse, arrived from the Philippines in 1966 in one of the first waves of recruitment.

"I grew up seeing the hard work, care and dedication of Filipinos in health care," said Osler, former head of the section of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at St. Boniface Hospital.

She was the first woman of colour to become president of the Canadian Medical Association, a role she held in 2018-19.

Despite Canadas huge Filipino population, it lacks doctors and specialists from that background.

"We know just by looking at the numbers Filipinos are underrepresented in medicine," said Osler.

In April 2021, she took part in a roundtable discussion  hosted by the Toronto-based Filipino Association of Medical Students  that explored barriers and potential solutions.

Medical organizations are making an effort to eliminate biases and racism, change culture and, ultimately, "level the playing field," said Osler.

Health-care workers from abroad must overcome several hurdles, including significant costs, before they are permitted to begin working in Canada.

For internationally educated nurses, they are first vetted by the National Nursing Assessment Service. They must pass an English exam and a competency assessment once they arrive in Canada.

In Intertas case, she completed those steps and moved on to a 10-month bridging course at Red River College Polytechnic.

She had to wait 18 months to begin her training because there was so much demand for the program at the time.

After graduating, she had to re-take her English exam because the results are valid for only two years.

The final step was passing the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN), clearing the way for her to start practising in Manitoba in 2016.

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Manitobas government has faced calls to speed up the process in order to remain competitive with provinces such as Ontario.

Some get discouraged and leave Manitoba for provinces where the process is faster, said a nurse, who is originally from the Philippines.

To those going through the process, Intertas advice is to "hang in there."

Last year, Manitoba said it would add about 400 nursing education spaces. It also pledged to offer up to $23,000 per nurse to cover the cost of everything from training to child care.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @chriskitching
A Canada-wide series of protests against the cross-border travel vaccine mandate for the trucking industry passed through Winnipeg on Monday afternoon.

A Canada-wide series of protests against the cross-border travel vaccine mandate for the trucking industry passed through Winnipeg on Monday afternoon.

A fleet of vehicles, called the "Freedom Convoy," started out in B.C. on Sunday. It is set to visit cities across the country before gathering in Ottawa to protest the policy that requires all Canadian truckers crossing the border from the United States to be vaccinated to avoid a two-week quarantine.

The policy was announced in November; it came into effect Jan. 15.

The Winnipeg leg of the protest began on Portage Avenue at the west Perimeter Highway, travelled east and ended on Broadway near the Manitoba Legislative Building, according to city police, who recommended motorists avoid the route, if possible.

A GoFundMe webpage started by organizers to fund the cost of fuel, food and amenities for those taking part has reached more than $3.5 million in 10 days.

By 12:30 p.m. Monday, around 30 vehicles  mainly personal vehicles, but a few commercial trucks  had stopped on Broadway, backing up traffic. Some carried signs with slogans critical of Canadas COVID-19 response, including signage reading "No Vax Pass" and "Mandatory injections are a global mass murder."

One supporter, who had signage around his personal vehicle comparing the COVID-19 pandemic to the Nuremberg trials and insinuating PCR tests were reading false positives, said he had come out because he has family in the trucking industry.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The Manitoba Trucking Association distanced itself from the protesters, saying it supports the Canadian Trucking Alliances stance concerning the convoy.

"Im here to support the truckers, because theyre all getting hurt, theyre losing their livelihoods," said the man, who didnt want his name published. "This pandemic has cost peoples jobs and businesses are hurting, and the science just doesnt support this pandemic."

The man said he works in the medical field. His passenger, who said she was a nurse, said the pair had found out about the convoy through "like-minded" social media groups.

Both implied the vaccine against COVID-19 was dangerous and the response to the pandemic had underlying political motives.

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"This has divided families  families are so divided now, were paying for it on so many different levels its not even funny," the man said.

The Manitoba Trucking Association distanced itself from the protesters, saying it supports the Canadian Trucking Alliances stance concerning the convoy.

A spokesperson from the Canadian Trucking Alliance condemned the protests, calling them ineffective and unsafe.

"CTA believes such actions  especially those that interfere with public safety  are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed," the spokesperson wrote in a statement.

"Members of the trucking industry who want to publicly express displeasure over government policies can choose to hold an organized, lawful event on Parliament Hill or contact their local MP. What is not acceptable is disrupting the motoring public on highways and commerce at the border."

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca
When hurricanes Eta and Iota barrelled into Central America in November 2020, they flooded towns and cities, caused catastrophic losses in the agricultural sector and contributed to food insecurity. In all, 4.7 million Hondurans were affected, and tens of thousands decided to leave, forming migrant caravans in a desperate attempt to rebuild their lives in the United States.

Opinion

When hurricanes Eta and Iota barrelled into Central America in November 2020, they flooded towns and cities, caused catastrophic losses in the agricultural sector and contributed to food insecurity. In all, 4.7 million Hondurans were affected, and tens of thousands decided to leave, forming migrant caravans in a desperate attempt to rebuild their lives in the United States.

Scientists ultimately linked that record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season to climate change, making it clear that climate change is already influencing migration.

My research studies the relationships between law, people and the environment.

The concept of deadly environments accounts for the social, political and ecological conditions that force someone to move. Including it in legal definitions would establish the environment as contributing to conditions of human rights deprivation and persecution.

Deadly environments absent in refugee law

The World Bank estimates that without radical and concerted efforts to slow climate change, 216 million people will be displaced within their own countries by 2050. With the scale of climate-induced migration, its inevitable that millions will seek refuge across borders, even if they are invisible to refugee law.

Migration researchers agree that it is often inaccurate to link migration choices to a single event. It has become common to examine climate change as one in a nexus of factors, including violence, conflict and disaster.

The uncertain speed of climate disruptions complicates matters further. Their onset can be slow, like ongoing droughts that cause food insecurity, or fast, like hurricanes and floods that destroy homes and crops.

Given this, how can we define people who have been displaced by climate? There is no internationally accepted definition of climate-impacted migrants.

The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers uses the term climate migrant, whereas a report by the White House uses climate change related-migration as an umbrella term. Some use the term environmental migrants, others use environmentally displaced peoples. Like some other adamant outliers, I use the phrase climate refugees to underscore the agency of those seeking refuge.

The debate over definitions misses the point. As British geographer Calum T. M. Nicholson explains, the key issue is not the cause of movement, but the rights violations suffered by migrants.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, climate change impacts the human rights to life, self-determination, development, health, food, water and sanitation, adequate housing and cultural rights. One only need to think about the 400,000 livestock herders in Southern Ethiopia who were displaced by climate-related drought between 2015 and 2019. They continue to require assistance for food, water and shelter.

Deadly environments and border practices

Shifting the focus to deadly environments makes it clear that they are produced not only by climate change, but also by the practices upheld along borders.

The Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy institute, reports that the worlds wealthiest countries spend more on militarizing their borders than they do on responding to the climate crisis. This often includes building walls, developing surveillance technologies and hiring armed border guards. According to the institute, rich countries are building a global climate wall to keep out people forced to migrate due to climate change with deadly consequences.

In her book The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago, Alison Mountz, a geographer at Wilfrid Laurier University, describes the steady development of asylum processing in places far away from physical borders, such as Australias offshore processing camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Mountz argues that the growth of offshore detention centres contributes to the physical deaths of asylum-seekers, as well as their political deaths, as news of drowned migrants becomes mundane and normalized.

The UN International Organization for Migration (IOM) has documented the deaths of nearly 46,000 migrants en route to safety since 2014. An estimated 23,000 have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea.

The border-crossing between the United States and Mexico is particularly deadly, with 2,980 deaths recorded since 2014. According to the IOM, the main direct causes of death identified in this area are drowning  and deaths caused by harsh environmental conditions and lack of shelter, food and water.

International refugee and human rights law must be urgently overhauled to recognize deadly environments as sites of persecution.

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Toward a new protection regime

The United Nations Refugee Agency has already established links between climate change and persecution. It finds that when a state is unwilling to respond to humanitarian needs that are the result of climate change, there is a risk of human rights violations amounting to persecution.

Deadly environments, including those transformed by climate change whether suddenly or over long periods of time, need to be considered sites of persecution. Their presence should trigger state obligations to provide protection for peoples forcibly displaced by climate change.

Central to this effort is establishing relationships among law, humans and the environment. This is one step toward recognizing that people displaced by climate change are, in fact, refugees.

Daniel L. Huizenga is a postdoctoral fellow in human geography at the University of Toronto.

This article was first published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca.
BRUSSELS (AP)  The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has put up to 8,500 troops on heightened alert, so they will be prepared to deploy if needed to reassure NATO allies in the face of ongoing Russian aggression on the border of Ukraine.

An instructor trains members of Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces, volunteer military units of the Armed Forces, in a city park in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022. Dozens of civilians have been joining Ukraine's army reserves in recent weeks amid fears about Russian invasion. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

BRUSSELS (AP)  The Pentagon said Monday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has put up to 8,500 troops on heightened alert, so they will be prepared to deploy if needed to reassure NATO allies in the face of ongoing Russian aggression on the border of Ukraine.

Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said no final decisions have been made on deployments. He said the order is about ensuring that the U.S. is ready to respond if NATO decides to deploy its response force.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. European Union foreign ministers are aiming Monday to show a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of Ukraine, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

What this is about is reassurance to our NATO allies," Kirby said.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.

BRUSSELS (AP)  Tensions soared Monday between Russia and the West over concerns that Moscow is planning to invade Ukraine, with NATO outlining potential troop and ship deployments, Britain saying it would withdraw some diplomats from Kyiv, and Ireland denouncing upcoming Russian war games off its coast as unwelcome.

The Western alliances statement summed up moves already announced by member countries, but restating them under the NATO banner appeared aimed at showing its resolve. It was just one of a series of announcements that signaled the West is ramping up its rhetoric in the information war that has accompanied the Ukraine standoff.

Russia has massed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraines border, demanding that NATO promise it will never allow Ukraine to join and that other actions, such as stationing alliance troops in former Soviet bloc countries, be curtailed. Some of these, like any pledge to permanently bar Ukraine, are nonstarters for NATO  creating a seemingly intractable deadlock that many fear can only end in war.

Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, left,, speaks with Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides, center, and Denmark's Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod during a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. European Union foreign ministers are aiming Monday to show a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of Ukraine, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

Russia denies it is planning an invasion, and says the Western accusations are merely a cover for NATOs own planned provocations. Recent days have seen high-stakes diplomacy that failed to reach any breakthrough and maneuvering on both sides.

NATO said Monday it is bolstering its deterrence in the Baltic Sea region. Denmark is sending a frigate and deploying F-16 warplanes to Lithuania; Spain is sending four fighter jets to Bulgaria and three ships to the Black Sea to join NATO naval forces; and France stands ready to send troops to Romania. The Netherlands also plans to send two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria from April.

NATO will take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies, Secretary-General jens Stoltenberg said. "We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense.

In Washington, Pentagon leaders have proposed a range of options for President Joe Biden to reinforce the U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe and the Baltics as a demonstration of American commitment, according to two officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Romania's Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu arrives for a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the European Council building in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. European Union foreign ministers are aiming Monday to show a fresh display of resolve and unity in support of Ukraine, amid deep uncertainty about whether President Vladimir Putin intends to attack Russia's neighbor or send his troops across the border. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

One of the officials said no specific deployments have been proposed but some unspecified U.S. military units have been told to plan for that possibility. The other official said Sunday it is possible that reinforcements could be sent from U.S. bases, in addition to possible shifts of troops within Europe, but for the moment the White House and Pentagon are only exploring options.

Weve always said we would reinforce our allies on the eastern flank and those conversations and discussions have certainly been part of what our national security officials have been discussing with their counterpart now for several weeks, said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

Later Monday, Biden is to hold a video call with several European leaders on the Russian military buildup and potential responses to an invasion, the White House said.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was NATO and the U.S. who were behind the escalating tensions, not Russia.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen makes a statement on EU financial support for Ukraine at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP)

All this is happening not because of what we, Russia, are doing. This is happening because of what NATO, the U.S. are doing, Peskov told reporters.

The NATO announcement came as European Union foreign ministers sought to put on a fresh display of unity in support of Ukraine, and paper over concerns about divisions on the best way to confront any Russian aggression.

In a statement, the ministers said the EU has stepped up sanction preparations and they warned that any further military aggression by Russia against Ukraine will have massive consequences and severe costs.

Separately, the EU also committed to increase financial support for embattled Ukraine, vowing to push through a special package of 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in loans and grants as soon as possible.

A woman walks past the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. The State Department is ordering the families of all American personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv to leave the country and allowing non-essential staff to leave Ukraine. The move comes amid heightened fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine despite talks between U.S. and Russian officials. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday and said the U.S. would give Russia written responses to Moscows proposals this week, offering some hope that any invasion could be delayed for at least a few more days.

The West is nervously watching Russian troop movements and war games in Belarus for any signs of an invasion. Russia has already invaded Ukraine once, annexing the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It also supported pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists fighting the Kyiv government in the country's eastern region known as the Donbass. About 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Asked whether the EU would follow a U.S. move and order the families of European embassy personnel in Ukraine to leave, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said: We are not going to do the same thing.

Britain said it is withdrawing some diplomats and dependents from its Kyiv Embassy.

In this photo taken from video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Russian military vehicles on a railway platform on their way to attend a joint military drills in Belarus, in Russia, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. Russia has sent an unspecified number of troops from the country's far east to its ally Belarus, which shares a border with Ukraine, for major war games next month. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said an invasion was not inevitable, but the intelligence is pretty gloomy. He added that "I think that sense can still prevail.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said the U.S. decision was a premature step and a sign of excessive caution. He said Russia is sowing panic among Ukrainians and foreigners in order to destabilize Ukraine.

Germany has issued no similar order, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressing that we must not contribute to unsettling the situation further."

At the EU meeting, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said he would inform his counterparts about planned Russian war games 240 kilometers (150 miles) off southwestern Ireland  in international waters but within Ireland's exclusive economic zone.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen makes a statement on EU financial support for Ukraine at EU headquarters in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP)

This isnt a time to increase military activity and tension in the context of whats happening with and in Ukraine. he said. The fact that they are choosing to do it on the western borders, if you like, of the EU, off the Irish coast, is something that in our view is simply not welcome.

NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said they plan to send U.S.-made anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine, a move endorsed by Washington.

But questions have arisen about EU unity. Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country bloc in its approach to Moscow. About 40% of the EUs natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine, and many are skittish about being cut off from that supply in winter.

Diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EUs executive branch, the European Commission. They were reluctant to detail the measures but said they would come within days of any attack.

In talks with European allies throughout the crisis, administration officials said they have remained cognizant that Europes trade, energy and financial linkages with Russia are far more significant than they are for the U.S.

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A senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said as theyve approached designing potential sanctions, theyve kept in the front of our mind the need to be responsible about their possible effect on European and global economies.

But the White House has also suggested theyve approached talks with Russia with a measure of confidence and backing from European allies that they didnt have before the annexation of Crimea.

Russia's brittle economy is overly reliant on energy exports. President Vladimir Putin has made clear his ambition to diversify the economy, particularly in sectors like defense and civil aviation, but the U.S. and European allies have a dominant position in producing and exporting the technologies, software and equipment crucial for Russia in those sectors.

Throughout the talks, European officials have underscored having a legitimate analysis and understanding of ... what will actually make Russia hurt and what the collateral costs might be, according to a second senior administration official.

___

Associated Press writers Yuras Karmanau in Kyiv, Ukraine, Dasha Litvinova in Moscow, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Aritz Parra in Madrid, Jill Lawless in London, Robert Burns and Aamer Madhani in Washington, Mike Corder in The Hague, and Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.
Last July, Micquel Jackson was thrilled to open his clothing store, a long held dream put on pause due to struggles with mental health, illiteracy and addiction. He opened the business intent on sending a message of love, acceptance, and community, but instead has found himself in receipt of the opposite, targeted several times for the color of his skin.

In the over six months since The Guy Girl Code Inc. opened, Jackson says he has experienced racism on a weekly basis, ranging from glares to comments to physical destruction of his property. The La Crosse Police Department has been contacted on more than one occasion following incidents at the store, located in Valley View Mall, and supporters have taken action on Jacksons behalf.

Members of Hope Restores, a local organization which works to empower the Black community, and local advocates have written local officials regarding the hate Jackson has been subjected to, calling on them to help him understand his legal options and to show their support following the most blatant act of racism at The Guy Girl Code Inc. thus far, which occurred last month. What happened, says Melanie Banks of Hope Restores, is an example of a modern day hate crime.

On Dec. 11, Jackson was working when a man and his teen and adult children entered The Guy Girl Code Inc. The man, Jackson says, waited until other customers had left before beginning his verbal harassment. After insulting the items displayed, the man grew more belligerent, referring to Jackson as a monkey and taunting him, offering bananas and sunflower seeds if he would close up shop and leave town.

My arm went numb, I was enraged, I was devastated, Jackson recalls.

According to the police report, filed Dec. 16, the man also made reference to firing off rubber bullets and calling the store an (expletive) show. The mans children, Jackson says, began pulling items off of hangers and yanking off tags. Jackson, upset and shaken, swore at the group and told them to leave.

Jackson believes there were political motivations behind the attack  Mandela Barnes, he notes, is running for Senate  and that the family sought out his store with the intent of provoking a response out of him which would reflect badly on him as a Black business owner.

Jackson took video on his phone following the incident, pointing out damage and explaining what had happened. A member of mall security confirmed to police that when he walked by the store he noticed Jackson was visibly upset and pacing around the store. Jackson spoke with the security employee about what had occurred and was informed to alert them if the customers return.

Per the police report, Further follow up is required in identifying the suspect(s) regarding this incident, questioning them and issuing a citation for disorderly conduct.

Mall manager Jeff Odom confirmed receipt of a phone message and email request for comment from the Tribune on Jan. 13. However, as of 4 p.m. press time Jan. 22 he had not offered a response to questions including whether there are mall policies on racism or harassment against store owners, if the mall is conducting an independent investigation, or if additional security has been provided for The Guy Girl Code Inc.

Followers of The Guy Girl Codes social media, and supporters of Jackson, believe they were able to track the suspects to a family in Iowa, one member of which wrote a negative review of the store and claimed her father said something about prices in a joking manner. Jackson responded to the review in a post, noting in part, You guys came in and verbally abused me, you ordered me around the store and then asked me, did I want bananas and mentally tortured me for 8-10 minutes. ... I was in fear for my life. ... It was a horrible experience.

In addition, Jackson wrote, Why cant we all just get along, its about to be 2022. We have to break this cycle. Im going to pray for you like I told you I would as I was escorting you out of the store yesterday. We educate the future in my store and racism, hate, disrespect and bullying will not be tolerated inside The Guy Girl Code.

Tashyra Jackson, Hope Restores co-founder and sister of Micquel, notes in the letter sent to local officials including Sen. Brad Pfaff and Rep. Steve Doyle that the incident left her brother shaken and frustrated  its a story I hear over and over. The community who walks through our door is living proof there is a need to stand strong against the racial discrimination in La Crosse.

Contacted by the Tribune, Pfaffs office stated, Senator Pfaff spoke with Mr. Jackson as he often does when a constituent reaches out with concerns.

Steve Doyle stated, As Tashyra Jackson requested, I spoke with a few lawyers at Johns, Flaherty and Collins after receiving the letter. A lawyer from my firm spoke to Tashyra Jackson at my request, and that conversation is ongoing.

While this is the probably the most aggravated and heightened incidence of this happening, this is not an isolated incident, Tashyra says.

The recurring instances of racial profiling have left Jackson with lasting trauma, he says. He has been open on The Guy Girl Code Inc.s Facebook page about his initial distrust of white men, fearing they enter his store to harass him. In several posts, Jackson notes he has passed judgment before recognizing the person was a kind individual.

God please forgive me for assuming ... every white man that walks in the store now (is racist), Jackson wrote in one post.

Jackson previously contacted police about a man allowing his service dog to repeatedly relieve itself in the store, and says he often sees parents discourage their children from going his store. He also describes an incident in which a woman  who entered in attack mode  indicated the stores name showed support for transgender people, which she took issue with. The name, she said, promotes gender confusion and suggesting alternates. She then inquired why Jackson had Black Lives Matter shirts, asking, Why dont white lives matter? and broaching the issue of class.

When Jackson informed her he was filming the encounter on his phone, her tone changed dramatically, he says, and she began offering praise.

The amount of privilege, and how that can be accompanied with ignorance  I cant imagine going into (another store) and suggesting (alternate) names, says Tashyra. In my experience, being a shopper if I go into a store and I dont like something I simply dont shop there. So we are witnessing something where they feel like its OK to come in and interrogate and antagonize. No other store is experiencing that. Suddenly its not OK for him to have made it as far as he has as a business owner, to be able to run his own store  thats the issue here. Why is this not happening anywhere else? He cant be there in peace.

The hate-fueled encounters go against everything Jackson wishes to promote  inclusivity, support, awareness  and he says, I dont know how to stop this stuff, but it has to get stopped. In my head Im programmed to believe it will never change.

Adds Jackson, Im actually thinking about shutting down shop and going to a bigger city. But why should I have to go to a bigger city? Ive been here 22 years and its home. I did this to make a difference in this community right here. I have a past but Ive been righting my wrongs. I paid all my dues to be there, to be an entrepreneur. I dont know what else to do. 

Banks says the persistent racism may discourage other Black individuals from opening establishments, and if Jackson were to close The Guy Girl Code Inc. it would be a detriment to the community  The store is so remarkable.

Banks praises the QRL codes throughout the store which shoppers can scan for resources and spark conversations, calling them progressive ways to educate people that Jackson wants to reach. It is outstanding. It would be a huge loss to have this man be so discouraged to not even continue what hes doing.

Jackson recently added a sign to The Guy Girl Code Inc.s window, stating, We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone! Racism, hate, bullying and ignorance will not be tolerated not matter who you are or who you think you are.

Tellingly, Jackson notes, no other store in the mall has needed such signage.

I feel embarrassed and ashamed I have to do that. Im the only store saying, Please dont be this way with me. Dont be this way with my space. Just give me a chance, Jackson says. Im just trying to make a living and make a difference at the same time. Its a whole different kind of humility when people got to walk past and read that and then look at me.

Emily Pyrek can be reached at emily.pyrek@lee.net.

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NEW YORK  Kohls confirmed that it has been approached about a possible sale of the department store chain, sending shares up more than 36% on Monday.

The Menomonee Falls-based company said that it would not comment further, but its confirmation follows media reports that the private equity firm Sycamore Partners had approached Kohls about a potential deal.

Days earlier, a group called Acacia Research, backed by activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP, reportedly bid $64 per share, or about $9 billion.

Kohls Corp. said Monday that its board is reviewing the offers. A spokesperson at Sycamore declined to comment, while Acacia couldnt be immediately reached for comment.

The reported offers come just a week after activist hedge fund Macellum Advisors released a letter urging Kohls to explore strategic options, including a sale, if the chain doesnt take action to improve its business and increase its stock price. The investor said it planned to nominate a slate of director candidates at Kohls shareholders meeting this year, unless Kohls decides to embrace some changes.

In April 2021, Kohls announced it was adding three independent members to its board of directors as part of an agreement it struck with a key activist investor group that included Macellum. In addition to Macellum, the group also included Ancora Holdings, Legion Partners Asset Management and 4010 Capital.
Portage officials have taken the first step to building a proposed housing subdivision on a 60-acre lot.

Portage Common Council approved a pre-development agreement at its last meeting. It is the first step in the process for a 105-parcel lot on the north side of Portage.

City Administrator Shawn Murphy said due to the tax incentive district statutes construction is not able to start until after Jan. 1, 2023. The process will go through a number of city meetings including the plan commission with public hearings to be held in the future. Along with the city, the state will need to approve the amendments to the TID.

Subdivision developments usually take between six and eight months, Murphy said. This is the largest subdivision in decades for Portage.

The proposal shows Gunderson Drive extended to connect with Hamilton Street.

This will be a mixture of housing, single family, duplexes and multi-family houses, Murphy said. It will also have a huge impact on the housing market with different types of housing and the portfolio of houses with be diverse.

Were really excited and appreciative of the s for their desire to build this subdivision, Murphy said.

Richard and Roderick of Farm purchased the 60-acre lot from Gunderson construction last year, according to city documents. Tax incentive district #9 was created in 2018 in partnership with Gunderson Construction to develop a business park.

Those plans never went forward and now the city needs to go through the process of amending the maps of the TID to allow for a subdivision. The land is undeveloped and will need to have infrastructure installed such as sewer, water and streets.

Representatives of Farms have put down a deposit of $15,000 as a good faith measure.

As the city goes forward with the project and adding the subdivision into the TIF (tax incremental finance) district, Murphy said. This process will take time, several months at least, this deposit allows the city to reimburse expenses if the s back out of the project.

Murphy said the s have been talking with the city for years about new development in Portage.

This is the biggest development in decades, Murphy said. The closest thing would be the Rolling Woods development. However, that development is all multi-family housing units.

The pre-development agreement states availability for owner-occupied residential dwellings in the city are at a historic low and is not meeting the citys demand for houses. That is adversely affecting commercial and industrial development overall population growth in the city.

Portage created the Portage Housing Task Force was created in 2021 to look at this need in the community. The group asked residents and businesses to take a survey and in September the results came back that there was a definite need for more housing.

Over 800 people responded to the survey and Kristin Runge presented the results to the Plan Commission in September. Runge is a Communication Research Specialist at the Community Development Institute with UW-Extension.

This is an issue in every Wisconsin community, Runge said. Every county is struggling with affordable housing and anytime we do a survey we ask these similar types of questions.

Steve Sobiek, Director of Business Development and Planning for Portage, said the survey results showed Portage residents are open to different types of housing options to help with the need for affordable housing in Portage.

There are a number of deadlines set-up with the project. In March, is set to submit financials and the Plan Commission will review the TID #9 amendment and schedule a public hearing. The Plat for the land will also be submitted by the city in March. The final Plat will be submitted in June with a development agreement being executed in August.

There wont be anything going on at the site until next year, Murphy said. There may be some grating and dirt moving on the site, but were still in the preliminary proposal phase.

Roderick of Farms said more details need to be worked out before he could comment on the proposed subdivision.

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Africa's strategy to draw investment needs work

Foreign investment is Africa's best shot at growth, but its share is still pitiful.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's visit to Kenya, Nigeria and Senegal in November 2021 was a rare event for an administration's first year, cautiously signalling the US's aim to reconnect with Africa and to recover confidence in the former's commitment to democracy.

With various promising moves in the pipeline, such as the appointment of a programme head for the Prosper Africa initiative, there may be movement with the African development agenda, especially in terms of foreign direct investment (FDI).

This is crucial, because as Dennis Matanda, Chief Executive Officer of Morgenthau Stirling in Washington DC, argues, "the first thing Africa should do is recognise that foreign direct investment is more effective than remittances and overseas development assistance at generating sizable economic growth and development."

Because the US is still the biggest source of global investment (USD 6.15 trillion in 2020), African countries must change their strategy to attract foreign capital in the next critical Biden/Harris years.

The continent's current strategy to attract money is not working. In the last 20 years, the 55 African Union member states drew less than five percent of global FDI and only 0.8 percent (about USD 47 billion) of US direct investment abroad.

This is an anathema in a time when the US private equity and venture capital markets raised over USD 790 billion in 2021 alone.

Africa, home to 1.3-billion people, and with trade valued at around USD 4.3 trillion, can open its market up, cut trade cost and become the next global trade and investment frontier, argues Professor Gilbert Khadiagala, Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States at Wits University.

There are several ways in which it can do this.

Firstly, the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is probably the continent's most important trade facilitation mechanism. Prioritising AfCFTA will see more investment in Africa, particularly from the United States.

Just as Biden was being inaugurated in early 2021, the first shipment under AfCFTA departed from Ghana. The ship bound for Guinea and South Africa symbolised a new era: the rapid implementation of a free trade agreement to create a more inclusive and prosperous future for Africa.

Secondly, Africa can also be crucial in pushing for a permanent African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

For the past 20 years, African countries have not played enough of a role in ensuring that African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) serves their interests.

AGOA is not a treaty per se but is US law passed by Congress that makes provisions for duty free access to US markets for thousands of African exports, if these nations meet certain requirements, such as fair trade. It is therefore important for Africans in the second year of the Biden administration to prevent AGOA from expiring in 2025.

AGOA's imminent expiration means the continent must formulate a new and comprehensive trade and export policy, which should be at the top of the African agenda, especially since experience demonstrates bilateral and multilateral trade pacts usually take more than five years to negotiate.

AGOA, or even a post-AGOA strategy, could become the core for a comprehensive negotiating stance by African states. Crucially, it can be Africa's agenda for future dealings with the US, regardless of the party in power in that country.

The third area in which the continent must focus its energy is in changing negative perceptions that discourage investment. African countries must counter the narrative that there are few opportunities for US investors on the continent. If Africa wants to obtain seed funding and private equity money, we must ramp up efforts to challenge negative narratives around stability, risk, economic growth, and infrastructure.

No public affairs of lobby firm in Washington will change the erroneous narrative unless Africans do it themselves. Once this changes, African countries will see a significant number of doors opening to engage on trade, investment, aid, remittances and tourism.

Bob Wekesa is Deputy Director, The African Centre for the Study of the United States, Wits University. This article was first published on News24.
The Zuck stops here

Its time to take on the tech giants to sustain media and journalism - you can use competition laws against the likes of Facebook.

This year, South African media houses, publishers and journalism bodies (hopefully civil society organisations in the media space and the government) will tackle the multinational tech giants that use content, and move readership to their sites, with no compensation to the authors or to local media.

Google, Facebook and Twitter take their sweet time to remove online hate, it seems, just to gain traction. The uglier, the more clicks  which plays into the dreadful numbers game. All in all, the biggest money spinners in the world (pandemic or no pandemic) have been the FANGs (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google). And after two horrendous years for the media, 2022 is likely to offer respite if advocacy efforts aimed at engendering fair competition bear fruit.

The past year was dominated by the pandemic and combating misinformation, while the industry continued to suffer big job losses because of the digital economy, loss of advertising revenue and economic downturns in media companies, all exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Besides these structural difficulties, some nasty blows for journalism and media include Independent Newspapers horrible embarrassment following its fake decuplets story, which got worse when its owner, Iqbal Surve, linked the nonexistence of the 10 babies to child trafficking.

Then, in December 2021, there was political interference at the SABC after recent dry runs during the Ramaphosa era. Quite bizarrely, the ANC recently blamed the SABC for contributing to its local government election losses.

But back to the global picture. You cant take sledgehammers to the ants, but you can use competition laws to stop the drain of local revenue to big techs laughing all the way to the bank. In a similar move to Australia, where the media were successful, the Publisher Support Services (PSS) in South Africa, supported by the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef), is hauling Facebook and Google to the Competition Commission.

Presently, the action is being taken by Media24, Arena Holdings, Caxton, Independent Media and Mail & Guardian Media, but other media companies may come on board.

The chairperson of the PSS, M&G CEO Hoosain Karjieker, articulated the reason for the impending action:

Globally, platforms like Google and Meta have been using publishers content at no cost to grow their market dominance. The objective was to get the giant multinationals to compensate South Africa media fairly and equitably for its journalistic efforts. Hence, we are making submissions on their behaviour in the local market to the Competition Commissions market inquiry into online platforms in South Africa.

Contributing to the pressure is Sanefs latest research on the matter, titled Fostering fair competition in the digital economy, which was outsourced to ALT Advisory, a public-interest advisory and research firm. The aim was to lead research that assessed the feasibility of possible competition reform in South Africa, aimed at advancing the sustainability and independence of journalism and a fair relationship between news media and tech platforms in the digital economy. The results of this research should be released soon.

The issue of regulation is a tricky one. There has to be a balance between freedom of expression but without hate speech and cyber misogyny. This has to be tackled from a local contextual perspective.

But there is also a global overlap because other countries face the same issue. You need government support, but you cannot have states banging the internet and digital companies with a sledgehammer. Theres also a need for consciousness-raising about online hatred, trolling and emotional violence. For example, researchers worked on the online bullying of women journalists and asked the government what they were doing about it.

The government said women journalists should report it to the police. Women journalists said they do, but police were bemused: But what is online violence?

Its really up to the media, with civil society, to take the lead on this. In South Africa, we are fortunate to have more than 20 media organisations, NPOs, NGOs, community-based organisations, academic associations and advocacy groups in the media space. All have different but overlapping interests.

Besides the PSS, they include Sanef, Gender Links, the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, the Press Council South Africa, the Media Development and Diversity Agency, Freedom of Expression Institute, Save our SABC, Media Monitoring Africa, Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Association of Independent Publishers, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa, National Press Club, Right2Know and amaBhungane.

In 2018 and 2019, countries started to think about the regulation and taxation of Facebook and Google. Internationally, many governments and NGOs, especially in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, have instituted commissions to investigate the impact of big techs on local news media. These inquiries are reaching similar conclusions: a new tax reform regime is necessary for tech giants Google and Facebook, who are now gobbling up journalism.

As countries look to each other, its now South Africas turn to tackle the tech giants. For example, Germany executes millions of euros in fines if hate speech is not taken down within 24 hours. Through this, countries can concentrate on the original mission of journalism: public service and public interest, to inform with facts, educate, comment and analyse  while making journalism sustainable.

Alliances with the government (for policy implementation and back-up), civil society and media houses can create huge pressure to tackle some FANGs and get the fair tax required to sustain local journalism.

Old profit models are dead. We need to start thinking about journalism as a public, not-for-profit good. Its urgent to stop the money flow to those tech giants who are not paying taxes in their own countries or in ours.

Glenda Daniels, an associate professor of media studies at Wits University, sits on the executive of Sacomm, the Press Council and Sanef. This article was first published in Daily Maverick.
Civil society responds to Zondo Commission report

The Civil Society Working Group on State Capture urges the Commission to ensure those who enabled state capture are held to account

On the 4th of January 2022, the State Capture Commission of Inquiry (the Zondo Commission) submitted to the Presidency and publicly released the first of its three-part report. The report sheds light on the far-reaching facts that lay bare the extent of the rot, corruption and capture that have hollowed out the states institutions and coffers. The cost of state capture has been felt most severely by the people of South Africa who bear the brunt of the looting. Contemporary state capture has led to deepening levels of inequality, poverty and unemployment, amongst host of other challenges. It is unconscionable that constitutionally enshrined human rights such as health care, social security, housing and basic education have been compromised because of the actions of corrupt individuals and corporations.

Now that the four-year State Capture Inquiry is drawing to a close and the first report has been released, nobody should be playing the waiting game. Urgent action must be taken to hold all responsible actors to account.

While we reserve a thorough and comprehensive review of the Zondo Commissions report for a time when all parts have been released, we welcome the first report that presents strong findings and good recommendations. The recommendations made are an important first step towards accountability. In particular, we welcome the Commissions recommendations regarding whistle-blower protection, which stand as a watershed advancement for the whistle-blower community in South Africa.

However, the strong findings made by the commission allow for stronger recommendations. We urge the commission not to shy away from making robust recommendations that can act as catalyst for wholesale state reform and will help to ensure that powerful corporations and individuals that have enabled state capture and corruption are held to account.

We call on all relevant actors to take swift and decisive action. The commission lays out a clear agenda for investigation and prosecution by the law enforcement agencies and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). However, we can not only rely on the NPA and law enforcement agencies. It is important that, constitutionally mandated oversight structures, such as national parliament, and professional oversight bodies, such as: the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (IRBA), the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA), Legal Practice Council, among others, step up and do their job to ensure that implicated individuals and corporations are held accountable.

The fight against state capture and corruption is inherently a fight for human rights. As civil society and the public we must remain vigilant and continue to demand accountability  the end of the Zondo Commissions hearings does not signal the end of state capture. Instead, this moment should be regarded as the window of opportunity that it is, to be seized by all in the pursuit for justice. While we work to pick up the pieces, the commissions report serves as a roadmap to rebuild and reform.

For inquiries, please contact:

Zen Mathe at zmathe@opensecrets.org.za

Mbekezeli Benjamin at mbekezeli@judgesmatter.co.za

This statement is endorsed by the following organisations in the Civil Society Working Group on State Capture:
After the Omicron wave, here's what experts say could come next in 2022
Covid-19 hospitalizations in the Northeast are down by about 11% after reaching a peak about a week ago and have also dropped slightly about 6% in the Midwest region, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
FILE - Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver leaves federal court in New York on May 11, 2018. Silver, one of the most powerful figures in state government for two decades before his conviction on corruption charges, died in federal custody on Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. He was 77. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
New York redistricting in the hands of lawmakers after bipartisan commission fails to come to consensus
BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua)  Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday exchanged congratulatory messages with Israeli President Isaac Herzog to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Xi noted that since the establishment of their diplomatic relations, the two peoples have deepened their friendship and bilateral relations have achieved remarkable progress.

Since China and Israel forged an innovative comprehensive partnership in 2017, exchanges and cooperation in various fields have yielded fruitful results, bringing tangible benefits to the people of the two countries, Xi added.

Noting that he attaches great importance to the development of China-Israel relations, Xi said he is ready to work with Herzog to take the 30th anniversary as an opportunity to enhance political mutual trust, deepen mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation, expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges, and promote the stable development of the China-Israel innovative comprehensive partnership, so as to benefit the two countries and their people.

For his part, Herzog said that since the establishment of diplomatic ties 30 years ago, the two countries have been deepening their bilateral relations with exchanges getting even closer.

Bilateral cooperation has reaped bumper harvests in such fields as economy, agriculture, health, tourism and culture, which has benefited the people of the two countries, Herzog added.

Noting that he highly values the innovative comprehensive partnership between Israel and China, Herzog said he looks forward to further promoting bilateral relations during his term of office.

Also on Monday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang exchanged congratulatory messages with his Israeli counterpart, Naftali Bennett.

Li said in recent years, innovative cooperation between China and Israel has made rewarding results and achieved win-win outcomes.

China stands ready to work with Israel to uphold the spirit of win-win cooperation, strengthen political mutual trust and further improve pragmatic cooperation in various fields, so as to push for greater development of bilateral relations, Li added.

In his message, Bennett said since the two countries fostered diplomatic relations 30 years ago, especially since the establishment of an innovative comprehensive partnership five years ago, bilateral cooperation has developed in an all-round way.

Bennett voiced confidence that Israel-China cooperation will continue to deepen in the future so as to bring more gains to the people of the two countries.

(Source: Xinhua)
Li Bolin (C) explains poems for students at Suyu Hope Primary School in Huitong County, central China's Hunan Province, Nov. 30, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Ge]

CHANGSHA, Jan. 23 (Xinhua)  "The cotton spits out the harvest."  Moved by the verse of her student three years ago, Li Bolin, a 26-year-old teacher started a poetic journey with her students in rural China.

Li teaches in Suyu Hope Primary School in Huitong County, central China's Hunan Province. Roughly half of the school's students lack the company of their parents since they migrate to remote cities for higher-paid work.

Amazing Verses

"When I grow up, I will definitely spend time accompanying my own kids, otherwise they would not be able to learn very well at school," wrote a student of Li's.

The words reminded Li of her childhood when she was an introverted girl since her family was impoverished. She realized that some of her students had emotional needs and desires to express themselves beneath their silent and seemingly rebellious exterior.

"In retrospect, I didn't often speak to my teachers during my school days. But they still tried to get to know me, accompanied by encouragement with great care and love," Li said.

Her personal experiences inspired her to become a teacher. After completing her education in pedagogical training, Li returned to her hometown to teach the Chinese language in a town-level elementary school.

As she explored ways to enrich the spiritual world of her students, Li found the value of verse and poetry.

Many questioned Li's plan and insisted that her way is not imparting knowledge and there was no use of teaching poetry writing to children in the impoverished mountainous area, where life is far from sublimated.

However, Li's poetry-writing activities produced enough inspiring works and gave her great confidence to keep going.

"Perhaps, winter is the lover of plum blossoms," a girl wrote.

"Why do the plum blossoms keep blooming despite the freezing winter? Because the blossoms want to meet the winter and they love each other. If only my mom and dad were like them," she told her teacher.

Li believes that writing poetry can help children solve their emotional problems to some extent.

Li Bolin explains poems for students at Suyu Hope Primary School in Huitong County, central China's Hunan Province, Nov. 30, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Ge]

What Is Poetry?

"Poetry is not a rose, but the scent of the rose."  This is Li's favorite answer to the question.

Li believes life itself is poetry. She encourages her students to play with grasshoppers, speak to grass, and share their secrets with the breeze. Only through seeing, hearing and touching the world can they feel the poetry of life, she said.

Initially, the students were happy to play but were reluctant to write anything down. "Write whatever comes to your mind," she told her students. At first, one of them wrote: "I can not write a poem."

Li keeps an open mind and thinks the children's poetry shall not be bound by tonal patterns, rhetoric or rhyme. "Their expressions, filled with childishness and naivety are all precious," she said.

Li never directly revised their works but guided them to ponder on their own.

When a second-grader was writing a poem about blue sky, "what does the blue sky remind you of?" Li asked her.

"The sea," the student replied.

"Then what does the sea have?"

"There are fish."

"What does the sky have?"

"Floating and moving clouds."

"What can the fish do? What can clouds do?"

"Fish can sing, dance, and spit bubbles."

Then a clever line popped up in the student's mind: "Why can't clouds spit bubbles?"

Emotion Vented

Li's school has over 1,400 students and about half of them are away from their parents and are cared for by grandparents or relatives. For some students who find it hard to speak their minds, poetry is a channel to express their emotional needs.

"My little sister got spanked because I broke the vase. But she was nice and didn't turn me in," a student wrote. Li was pleased that her students were willing to share with her their little secrets.

"In a fairy tale, a little tadpole got lots of help and finally found its mother frog on a lotus leaf," a student wrote. "But no one showed me the way when I tried to find my mom."

After reading this, Li came to the student and lent an ear to her talks about her feelings.

Li Bolin (C) plays game with students at Suyu Hope Primary School in Huitong County, central China's Hunan Province, Nov. 30, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhang Ge]

Another student was too shy to hand in his writing, which was actually quite good. Li wrote the poem out on the blackboard and got the entire class to read it together aloud.

The next day, the boy submitted his homework on time and neatly. Inspired by him, Li hosted a poetry reading session and invited all students to read their poetry works aloud to their classmates.

Now Li has a "box of treasures"  a collection of poems created by her students.

The parents of her students who work far away from home are touched by the writings and some are surprised by how the children actually feel.

Li holds that poetry is like a door to the heart of children who live in the mountains. "Beyond this door, you will see how much they love the world, and will also realize what can be done to love them more," Li said.

(Source: Xinhua)
People stand in line for free Covid-19 testing at a temporary site set up by the Center for Covid Control in Santa Fe, N.M., on Jan. 3.
U.S. discussing military deployment near Ukraine with NATO as West steps up response to Russian threats
Appointment of maternity and neonatal champions in bid to improve quality of services in Wales

This article is old - Published: Monday, Jan 24th, 2022

Maternity and Neonatal champions will be appointed to every health board in Wales in a bid to improve the quality of services as part of a new 1.15m initiative.

They will work with a new team reporting to the Chief Nursing Officer for Wales to improve the safety, experience and outcomes for mothers and babies in Wales, say the Welsh Government.

The Maternity and Neonatal Safety Support Programme in Wales will ensure clear and consistent approach to maternity and neonatal safety across Wales.

The first phase will see Improvement Cymru supporting Health Boards to identify key priorities and improvements which the Programme will deliver, to ensure every child is provided with the best start in life. The maternity and neonatal champions in each Health Board and the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust will drive forward these improvements locally.

The champions will report back to a national steering group to consider national challenges including the impact on services from the pandemic and support the delivery the Maternity Five Year Vision.

The programme has been set-up following the learning from the recommendations of the review into Maternity and Neonatal Services in Cwm Taf Morgannwg and the recently published Quality and Safety Framework which recognised the need for a thorough, consistent and strategic approach to safety in maternity services:

The Minister for Health and Social Services, Eluned Morgan said: I am delighted to launch the Maternity and Neonatal Safety Support Programme. This Programme will create national standards to ensure all pregnant people, babies and families experience safe, high quality health care and can influence decisions over the care they receive.

Reducing health inequalities, ensuring services are patient focused and creating an inclusive, flexible multi-professional, talented workforce are priorities for this government and this Programme will set the foundation for making these priorities central to all NHS services.

Chief Nursing Officer for Wales, Sue Tranka said: Women and children are at the heart of this program putting families at the centre of decisions so that all women, babies and their families get the highest quality of care which meets their needs. Improving maternity services is essential to support the healthy and happy families and communities of the future.

I am grateful for the enthusiasm and commitment of all those involved in developing this programme and we will continue to ensure pregnancy and birth remains a positive experience for families.
Nationwide pet retailer unveils plans to open new Wrexham store

This article is old - Published: Monday, Jan 24th, 2022

A nationwide pet retailer has unveiled plans to open a new store in Wrexham.

Jollyes is looking to expand its store numbers after it saw revenue increase to 42 million in the half year to 30 November, a 12.5 per cent rise in like-for-like sales against a year earlier and by 30 per cent the same period in 2019.

December also sales broke all company records, including a surge in demand for dog toys  reflecting the broader trend for humanisation, as dogs, cats and other animals are treated like companions amid growing awareness of the mental health benefits of keeping pets.

Now Jollyes is building on its success with plans to open 20 new stores in the next 12 months and looking for more acquisitions following the successful purchase of two businesses in 2021 which took the total number of stores to over 70 for the first time.

The company, which already has a store in Flint, has announced it will open a new store in Wrexham in a yet to be confirmed location during the first half of 2022.

Richard Cotter, executive chairman of Jollyes, said: To come through the pandemic and all of the challenges it has presented to retailers in such good shape is testimony to the hard work of everyone at the business.

The tremendous half year sales and record December numbers show how much customers appreciate the work weve done to develop our ranges and invest in our people.

Were well placed to push ahead with our ambitious growth and investment plans with an exciting pipeline of new stores and refurbishments, and keen looking for acquisition opportunities across the UK.
With COVID-19 infections and deaths rapidly climbing across most Australian states, there is growing anger and opposition among health workers to the catastrophic conditions they face.

Across the country, hospitalisations are at record highs, with 5,036 COVID-19 patients currently admitted to hospital and 392 in ICU. The Victorian government last week declared a code brown emergency, with the states hospital system under extreme pressure with severe staff shortages, as more than 4,000 healthcare workers are currently in furlough. In New South Wales (NSW), elective surgery has been postponed and health workers are being called back to work from leave and COVID-19 isolation due to chronic understaffing.

A man has a sample collected at a drive-through COVID-19 testing clinic at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

Health staff are being pushed to breaking point, with intolerable workloads and hours, in a system that was in crisis even prior to a major coronavirus outbreak, after decades of budget cuts by successive Labor and Liberal-National governments.

Health workers in hospitals in Queensland, NSW and Victoria spoke anonymously to the WSWS about the situation in their workplaces.

Senior clinical scientist from a major NSW public hospital

The number of COVID patients at my hospital has increased since Omicron. Originally there was a single COVID ward, which was only half of the respiratory ward, but that has now spilled over into at least one more ward with the number of COVID patients in ICU growing by the day. Thereve been instances of people presenting as inpatients for other reasons but who are discovered with COVID and can potentially spread it to other patients on the non-COVID wards.

There are no rapid antigen tests for staff coming into work and theyre not doing temperature checks at the door anymore. Staff are just being asked why theyre here and if theyre feeling well.

I work in an outpatient service and have two staff who have caught COVID. Weve received no information about how long they should be in isolation for. In fact, the requirements appear to be changing daily.

One of the staff members with COVID was young, physically active and had two doses of the vaccine but caught the virus the day before getting her booster. She spent the entire Christmas and New Year period in bed and has recovered but is still suffering from significant breathlessness. As she described itMy lungs are fried. This obviously raises questions about waning immunity.

The rising number of COVID cases has had a significant impact on remaining staff members who have had to do a lot more work. When youre understaffed you become far more stressed, distracted and tired and start to forget about some of the fundamentals. For example, you can walk into a room wearing the wrong mask and not realise it or forget to put gloves on or to wash your hands between patients. All this increases your likelihood of catching the virus at work.

Ive heard prior to Christmas nursing staff were told that they shouldnt expect to take holidays, or that their holidays would be limited, and that this would probably continue into January.

When the pandemic started there was constant information being provided to us, but remarkably, now were in the thick of it, the information is limited. Most of the information Im getting is from the media with nothing to very little useful information from hospital management. Information about daily cases has stopped. Prior to this we were getting daily emails about the number of cases in the district, then it became twice weekly and now its non-existent.

Catering worker from a suburban public hospital in Melbourne

We have 400 or more patients in the hospital, one ward has 36 patients and there are two COVID wards, a mental department ward, two ICUs and a big emergency department area. There are fewer non-COVID patients now, theyre being sent home because the hospital is keeping the wards vacant for extra COVID patients. Student nurses are now working in the wards because of staff shortages.

In the kitchen department there are numbers of casuals and they work extra time. I work full time as a permanent and am not called for extra hours but the casual workers are doing double shifts and are exhausted.

While Ive heard that some hospitals are mixing COVID patients with non-COVID patients, theyre not doing that here. There are still separate wards here for COVID patients, but the main problem is in the emergency department because you dont know who is arriving with COVID.

Theres a big temporary emergency area outside the hospital in a tent. Inside the hospital we have a red zone and a green zone inside the emergency department but in the tent all the people are mixed up before they go inside and often they have to wait three to four hours to get in.

Then theres a rapid antigen test. The triage nurses come to check which people are positive and then separate them, sending some to short stay and other areas. Theyre seen by the doctors after that. If it is dangerous, theyre sent straight to the theatre.

Last year a lot of hospital staff were put into isolation because of a COVID outbreak. I was in isolation for 14 days with COVID leave. Now its only seven days isolation and my friend, who also had to isolate because of a COVID contact, had it taken from her sick leave. Questioned about this, the Health Workers Union didnt give a straight answer. All the union said was it had to look at procedures.

Junior doctor from a Queensland public hospital

Queensland hospitals are chronically understaffed and unequipped, and not much preparation was made for COVID in between the waves.

In terms of PPE, Queensland Health only instituted N95 masks outside of ICUs and Emergency Departments in December last year. It hadnt previously required N95s to be widely worn. There are constant concerns about PPE running out. Theatre staff have been short of N95 masks, Ive experienced this myself, and in the general medical and surgical wards.

There are also bed shortages and COVID patients are often placed in inappropriate wards for their care. You often have people who are COVID positive who present with another medical condition that is more severe. Theyre placed in a COVID ward because the other wards didnt have the staff or resources to deal with them.

There is pressure on staff to work overtime, including unpaid overtime. Theres pressure, particularly on junior doctors, not to claim any significant amount of overtime, even though the average junior doctor works at least ten hours a week of overtime. In some units, it can be much higher than that.

Workloads are consistently high with hospitals normally running into over-capacity. Technically, a hospital is only supposed to be 85 percent full at any given time because they need to have reserve capacity for patients if theres an emergency. In truth, theres not been a single Queensland hospital on any given day in the past few years thats been under 95 percent capacity.

This has resulted in situationseven before significant increases from COVID patientswhere patients who needed certain heart surgeries and other procedures couldnt be operated on because there were no ICU beds available. Even the largest hospitals in the state regularly have had to divert patients because their ICUs are full.

The increasing COVID admissions are putting an additional level of burden on the hospitals with other services affected and cancelled and the staffing crisis becoming more acute because lots of doctors and nurses are getting sick from COVID. Thereve been significant disruptions to rosters and timetables. Many doctors and nurses are being asked to work extra shifts.

Lots of my colleagues tell me that theyre constantly required to do more with less, which is brutal. This means patient health is endangered and some have died for reasons that were entirely preventable.

This places health workers under immense psychological and emotional stress and leads to burnout. Thousands of nurses have quit the system and while this was a problem even before 2020, it has worsened during the pandemic. The burnout crisis in Queensland, and across Australia, is not just a question of exhaustion. Health workers are being asked to make sacrifices but the reason were being put under so much stress is because of the criminal actions of governments. We need to fight for a better system. We arent going to be able to protect our communitys health unless we have a better system.
The UK High Court has provided WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a route to appeal to the Supreme Court in his extradition case against the United States government.

Assange is seeking to overturn the High Courts direction last December that he be extradited, against the earlier ruling of the lower Magistrates Court that to do so would be oppressive on health grounds.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is seen in a prison van traveling to Westminster Magistrates Court in London, Friday, Dec. 20, 2019 (Credit: AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

The High Court upheld a US appeal against the Magistrates Court ruling despite accepting evidence of Assanges intense physical and psychological ill-health. It also did not contest the likelihood that the conditions he would be subjected to in the US, as discussed throughout the entire preceding court process, would likely result in his death by suicide.

The December ruling was overwhelmingly based upon supposed US assurances, issued months after deadlines had elapsed, that Assanges conditions in an American prison would not be as bad as previously accepted.

With numerous caveats and loopholes, the US assurances asserted that Assange would not be held under Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), a regime of total isolation, to which those convicted of terrorism offenses, along with drug lords and major serial killers, are sometimes subjected in federal prison.

The High Court found that the Magistrates Court should have solicited such assurances prior to its ruling.

In response to Assanges request for leave to appeal this decision yesterday, the judges certified a single point of law of public importance, the requirement for an issue to be heard in the Supreme Court. This was: In what circumstances can an appellate court receive assurances from a requesting state which were not before the court of first instance in extradition proceedings [in this case, the magistrates court].

Assanges lawyers had argued that profound issues of natural justice arise where assurances are introduced by the Requesting State for the first time at the High Court stage These issues have never been addressed by the Supreme Court.

As his solicitors elaborated in an explanatory note, There has long been a general approach by the courts that requires that all relevant matters are raised before the District Judge appointed to consider the case in the Magistrates Court, but this has been undermined by the treating of assurances as issues rather than evidence, allowing them to be introduced at a later stage in proceedings.

The defence argument is that despite being as demanding of close evidential scrutiny as the evidence already heard, and despite the content of the assurances being applicable to the testimony of witnesses already heard but not to be heard again, assurances have been afforded a different procedural position.

The assurances in question, accepted in good faith by the High Court, are given by a state with a decades-long history of lies and dirty tricks whose record in the Assange case was exposed a month before the High Court ruling as including plans to kidnap an assassinate the heroic journalist.

Based on the statements of 30 former US officials, Yahoo! News revealed that the Trump administration and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had discussed kidnapping or assassinating Assange when he was a political refugee in Ecuadors London embassy in 2017. The US indictment was first conceived of as a pseudo-legal cover for a possible CIA rendition.

The character of that indictment, as a concoction from spies and criminals, had been proven in June 2021. Sigurdur Siggi Thordarson, whose testimony still forms a crucial part of the indictment, admitted that all his substantive allegations against Assange were lies proffered in exchange for immunity from US prosecution. The star US witness is reportedly facing prosecution in Iceland on fraud charges, having been convicted of child molestation and embezzlement offenses prior to his latest collaboration with the American government.

Although the threat of imminent extradition has been stayed, Assange stands on thin ice. What began as a case on the most fundamental rights of journalists to expose war crimes and torturehas been whittled away by the British judiciary to the single question of how assurances of Assanges safety should be given by one criminal state to another.

The Magistrates Court upheld the sweeping US attacks on democratic rights contained in the attempt by a state to prosecute a journalist for publishing true information about its unlawful activities. This forced Assange to defend the US appeal on the grounds of the threat to his mental health posed by extradition and imprisonment in the US. The High Courts acceptance of the US appeal means Assanges defence is now limited to the question of when assurances should have been provided.

In keeping with the UKs courts trashing of democratic rights throughout this case, the High Court rejected out of hand the point of appeal that the assurances are worthless because the US asserts the right to withdraw them if Assange violates, or is alleged to have violated, certain conditions.

Assanges lawyers argued oppressive treatment is barred, whether or not the requesting state justifies its imposition by reference to conduct.The High Court replied that it did not consider these arguments to raise certifiable points for the Supreme Courts consideration.

It is now technically down to the Supreme Court to agree to hear Assanges case; it would be highly unusual, though not impossible, for it to refuse to consider an issue certified by the High Court.

If Assanges appeal is unsuccessful and his case is sent to Home Secretary Priti Patel to rubber-stamp his extradition, then his lawyers can seek to cross appeal the Magistrates Courts original decision on the substantive issues of the casepress freedom, the espionage act and the bar on extradition for political offences. But leave to do so is not assured and would mean years more incarceration as the new appeal works its way through the courts.

Whatever the outcome, the US and British governments are effectively using lawfare to ensure Assanges continued detention, even though he has been convicted of no crime.

He remains in the maximum-security Belmarsh Prison, dubbed the UKs Guantanamo Bay. With the British government allowing the mass spread of Omicron, in the latest stage of its homicidal herd immunity policy, the prison has reportedly been hit by COVID outbreaks. Assange, because of his fragile health, is at intense risk of succumbing to the virus. The repeated prison lockdowns intensify his isolation.

As Assanges fiance Stella Moris said outside the court, As long as this case isnt dropped, as long as Julian isnt freed, Julian continues to suffer. For almost three years, hes been in Belmarsh prison, and he is suffering profoundly day after day, week after week, year after year.

WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson added, Its a punishment by process, a serious human rights violation. The torture goes on in Belmarsh prison. He has been there for more than 1,000 days.

The US extradition request should have been thrown out long ago as an infamous frame-up, with those responsible themselves subjected to prosecution. Assanges appeal should be upheld and his freedom granted immediately.

But the experiences of the last decade, and especially the past three years of Assanges detention by the British state, demonstrate that no faith can be placed in the judiciary. The more the US case has been exposed as a criminal operation, perpetrated by a lawless state, the more British justice has presented the extradition request as a solemn proceeding involving the utmost due process.

Assanges freedom and an end to his persecution depends on a political movement of the working class. All the governments, official parties and corporate media outlets in the US, Britain and Australia are implicated in the attacks on his legal and democratic rights. These governments are at war with their population, epitomised by their profit-before-lives pandemic policies. Even as Assange is persecuted for exposing past war crimes, war is once again being threatenedagainst Russia and Chinathat would have far more devastating consequences than those in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is the mounting social and political opposition among working people these policies are provoking that defenders of Assange and democratic rights must mobilise.
Yesterday, amid a continuing wave of mass COVID-19 infection and death, leaders of the two worst-affected states, New South Wales Liberal-National Premier Dominic Perrottet and his Victorian Labor counterpart Daniel Andrews, unveiled their plans to reopen schools for face-to-face learning next week.

Underscoring the complete bipartisanship of the let it rip policies that have resulted in the unprecedented surge of the pandemic in Australia, Andrews described the two states plans as pretty much identical.

Pedestrians walk away from the central business district in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020. (AP Photo/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

In earlier stages of the COVID crisis, Andrews was identified with limited lockdown and public health measures, implemented under pressure from the working class.

By contrast, Perrottet, an extreme right-wing free-marketeer, is a longstanding proponent of herd immunity. The NSW premier was installed in a corruption coup late last September, in time to turbo-charge the lifting of lockdown measures and preside over UK-style freedom days. He has gone from being largely unknown less than six months ago, to among the most widely-despised political figures in the country, alongside Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Under these conditions, Andrews is playing the decisive role in legitimising the homicidal pandemic policies. He collaborated for weeks with Perrottet on the school plan and insists, as one with Morrison and the NSW leader, that there is no alternative to mass infection, including of children.

Andrews and Perrottet, working with Morrison, are laying down a blueprint for every other state and territory government, Labor and Liberal. Though some are delaying the start of term slightly for fear of widespread opposition, all are committed to the reopening.

The scale of what is being prepared was indicated by a Guardian report, stating that education administrators had been provided with advice that up to 20 percent of teachers could be off sick at any one time. In NSW and Victoria, thousands of university students, retired educators and principals are being recruited to keep the schools running as masses of teachers are infected with a potentially-deadly virus.

Under the reopening plans, staff and students will take two rapid antigen tests each week, but schools will not close if students test positive and there will be no contact tracing by state health departments. Instead, it will be left up to individual schools to contact parents advising them to monitor their children for symptoms.

The abolition of systematic tracing and the determination that schools will not close make clear that the surveillance-testing program is not about preventing the spread of the disease, but about creating a false sense of security for teachers and parents. The twice-weekly testing is planned to continue for just the first four weeks of term.

Mass gatherings, including assemblies, organised sport and excursions, will go ahead in both states. In Victoria, pupils in grade three and above will have to wear masks, while in NSW, masks will be mandated only for high school students.

As has been the case throughout the pandemic, the unions are playing a key role in herding teachers and students back into classrooms. NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) President Angelo Gavrielatos responded to the announcement yesterday with criticism of the decision not to mandate masks for primary school children, but otherwise endorsed the reopening.

Gavrielatos declared that the NSWTF will be closely monitoring the effectiveness of the risk mitigation strategies implemented by the government. In other words, the union will sit back and watch as thousands of teachers and students become infected with the highly transmissible and deadly virus.

What the unions will be closely monitoring, in fact, is the growing opposition among teachers, parents and students to the reckless return to in-person learning.

Teachers responded angrily to the NSWTF statement on the unions Facebook page. Michael Roberts wrote: [The] Federations lack of support is nothing short of disgraceful. Why must I QR-code when I arrive at school when there is no contact tracing? You have abandoned us, that is simple as that.

Meredith Peace, Victorian branch president of the Australian Education Union, openly endorsed a plan that will likely kill some of the workers she falsely claims to represent, saying: The measures outlined by the Andrews Government will help to reduce risk and also focus on the health and safety of staff and students, while balancing the need to have our students back at school.

The urgent drive to reopen schools is motivated not by concerns for the education of children, but by the need to force their parents back to their unsafe workplaces, so that full corporate profit-making activities can resume. Prime Minister Scott Morrison declared last week: If schools arent open, we could see the peak furloughing of our workforce go from 10 percent to 15 percent, which would have a devastating effect on our economy.

Andrews declared that reopening schools was safe because, we are vaccinated now, we have what we need to prevent, in the vast majority of cases, really serious illness.

This is an outright lie. Vaccines only became available for children aged 5-11 on January 10. While parents have rushed to have their children inoculated, in line with very high support for COVID-19 vaccines among the broader Australian population, only around one-third of primary school children have received their first shot, and none will be double-dose vaccinated until at least the middle of term one.

This is just one lie among many used to justify the reopening.

Numerous political figures have claimed in recent days that the Omicron wave is close to its peak. This utterly unscientific claim is based on increasingly limited testing, and completely dismisses the impact of policy on transmission. The current surge has taken place almost entirely during the summer holidays, meaning that schools, one of the major sources of transmission during the Delta wave, have so far played little role.

The fact that the return to face-to-face learning will lead to a surge of infections, regardless of risk mitigation strategies, is openly acknowledged. Andrews said yesterday: Once [schools] get back, given how much Omicron is in the community, there will be cases.

The character of claims that the peak has been reached, as an exercise in state propaganda, was bluntly demonstrated by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. He declared on Radio National this morning that there was nothing to worry about because people are not dying. Only when challenged by the host did Joyce retract the assertion.

But, undeterred, he continued to downplay the severity of the virus, saying it was a tragic thing to lose a family member for catching the flu.

Around Australia, 58 COVID-19 deaths were reported today, bringing the total for the first 24 days of 2022 to 922. This accounts for almost a third of all deaths throughout the entire pandemic. More than 5,170 people are hospitalised, 404 are in intensive care, and 139 are on ventilators.

New South Wales (NSW) reported the deaths of 24 people, of which 2 had received three vaccine doses, 16 two doses, 3 one dose, and 3 were unvaccinated. Two of the victims were in their 50sone had received three vaccine doses and the other had received two. This makes clear that neither vaccine nor relative youth provides complete protection from COVID-19.

The figures demonstrate that, far from peaking, the pandemic has entered its deadliest phase yet in Australia. Having previously claimed that infection numbers were of no significance, governments tout fluctuations in daily case numbers resulting in part from restrictions to testing, as a decisive metric. Before, as they were reopening and allowing the virus to run rampant, they said all that mattered were hospitalisations and deaths. Now that there are record fatalities, figures such as Joyce simply pretend that they are not taking place.

Workers, students and young people must reject the stream of lies. The dangers are not over, schools are not safe and Omicron is not mild. Governments are peddling this medical misinformation, despite condemnations from epidemiologists, to justify policies that will result in a further surge of infections, and consequently illness and death.

Above all, it is necessary to draw the political conclusions. All of the governments, Labor and Coalition, and the unions, have demonstrated in practice that their program is corporate profits above health and lives, including those of children.

Urgent action must be taken against the school reopenings, beginning with the formation of rank-and-file action committees at every school, uniting educators, students and parents. This must be part of a broader political struggle by the entire working class against the let it rip policies and all of those enforcing them.

Contact the Committee for Public Education to join this fight:

Email: cfpe.aus@gmail.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/commforpubliceducation

Twitter: @CFPE_Australia
This statement will be distributed by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) club members to students and young people around Australia as universities resume for the 2022 academic year.

The start of 2022 has brought young people around Australia face to face with the cruel reality of the ruling elites criminal policies amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australia was once hailed around the world as a success story for keeping case numbers and deaths low relative to countries like the US, Brazil, and those in western Europe. The country is now experiencing 100,000 daily infections spurred on by the highly transmissible Omicron variant. Fatality records are being broken multiple times a week, with 398 deaths in the last seven days alone.

South Australian teachers protesting attacks on their pay and conditions in 2019 (Credit: AEU SA, Facebook)

The vertical spike in Australian COVID infections is a result of the murderous live with the virus program promoted by governments and the corporate media around the world. Australian federal and state governmentsLiberal-National Coalition and Labor alikehave proceeded amid the surge in cases with the pro-business reopening of business, schools, and universities in the interests of the profits of the financial oligarchy, no matter the impact on the lives of ordinary people.

Young people and students must take up a fight against this homicidal profit-driven drive!

Youth are being placed on the frontlines of the governments ghoulish experiment on the population. As part of the campaign to reopen, universities and schools plan to return to in-person teaching. Cramming students around the country into crowded classrooms and lecture theatres will cause an uncontrolled spread of the deadly virus, resulting in further mass death and suffering.

The death earlier this month of fit, young, healthy, double-vaccinated James Kondilios in Sydney underscores that young people are not safe from the virus. It cuts across this government-media lieused to justify the profit-driven campaign to live with the virusthat youth are invulnerable to the effects of COVID-19. Child hospitalisations amid the Omicron surge are at record levels in almost every country. Unmentioned in the mainstream media as well are the effects of Long COVID, which are not yet fully understood. What is known, however, is that suffering can persist for many months after initial infection.

Despite the staggering case numbers, and record hospitalisations and deaths due to COVID-19, university campuses around the country are marching in lockstep with the calls by big business to resume face-to-face teaching.

Monash University in Melbourne announced that it will reopen its campus on January 27, while the University of Melbourne will have a blended online and on-campus model for onshore students. Sydneys University of New South Wales is also planning a return to campus for the first term of 2022.

University workers at Melbournes Victoria Universitywhich has a large working-class and immigrant student populationwere advised before Christmas that summer courses would resume in person despite COVID-19 case numbers spiraling out of control.

This reopening has gone ahead with the full support of the pro-business trade unions. National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Assistant National Secretary Gabe Gooding penned an article in the unions magazine, Advocate, on November 8, 2021, entitled Reflections on leaving lockdown and the road ahead. While the current surge due to the spread of Omicron had not yet begun, daily case numbers nationally at the time were over 1,000. In the article, Gooding wrote: This period as we transition out of lockdowns is the point where we must seize the moment and ensure that we dont transition back, but instead transition forward.

The NTEU has not written a word since on the exponential rise of cases around the country, let alone opposed the drive to reopen universities. The National Union of Students has similarly remained silent on the reopening of university campuses amid mass infections.

Australian children are being herded into unsafe classrooms. No longer is there any pretence that it is safe for children or their teachers or in the interests of their education. It is to force their parents back to work to produce profits for the financial elite. This is occurring under conditions in which many under 12-years-old remain unvaccinated. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted emphatically last week: Our objective is go back, stay back, day one term one.

Young workers employed in hospitality, retail, warehousing, delivery services, and other industries are on the frontline of the dangerous spread of the virus. They often have to work multiple jobs and living in cramped accommodation in order to pay for rent, food, bills, education, and other living expenses. In these sectors, youth are being pressured by bosses and their financial situation to return to work despite the dangers amid mass transmission.

In recent interviews published on the World Socialist Web Site, young workers exposed their unsafe work conditions and the indifference of government and business policies to the dangers that workers confront amid the live with the virus campaign.

But a shift is underway. Young people, students, and workers are not going to sit back and allow this mass death and misery to continue. Internationally, there is a growing movement of the working class against the homicidal big business policy of herd immunity and mass infection.

Teachers around the world are speaking out in opposition to the murderous plans to return to face-to-face teaching. In France, an estimated 75 percent of teachers participated in a national strike. In Chicago, 25,000 teachers took part in a powerful protest against the school reopening policies pursued by the Democratic Party on behalf of big business. There is also growing opposition among high school students in Australia to school reopenings while infections continue to rise. Educators and their supporters organised outside the politically bankrupt trade union apparatus in rank-and-file committees in Sri Lanka, Germany, Australia, the UK, Canada and elsewhere have discussed the need to stop reckless reopening of schools during the pandemic.

Internationally, there have been similar developments among autoworkers, postal workers, transport workers, and in other industries. It is to this social forcethe international working classthat young people and students must turn in order to end the pandemic and save lives.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a symptom of a much more terminal diseasethe decaying capitalist system. The pandemic crisis was predicted by modern science, and scientific knowledge also shows that it was entirely preventable and can still be ended. The suppression of the virus in China since the initial outbreak shows that scientifically-determined public health measures taken togetherstrict lockdowns, mask mandates, proper quarantining facilities, mass vaccination programs, and adequate contact tracingcan eliminate COVID-19. But this cannot be maintained in a single country. The eradication of COVID-19 requires an internationally-coordinated program of elimination.

However, this scientific program has been rejected by the tiny, wealthy minority as the closure of businesses would cut across their ability to make profits through the exploitation of the working class. The financial oligarchy in every country have continued to engorge themselves while workers, their families, small businesses and whole societies made to suffer. The drive to reopen the economy, including the resumption of in-person teaching in schools and universities, is an exercise in social murder at the expense of capitalist profits.

The World Socialist Web Site, published by the world Trotskyist movement of which the IYSSE is the global youth and student movement, has characterised the pandemic as a trigger event in world history, akin to the First World War, which will have a profound impact on social consciousness. Millions of workers and youth internationally are gaining an education outside of schools and universities. That lesson is in the abject criminality of the capitalist system which places profits over lives.

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality insists that the pandemic raises centrally the question of political program. Capitalism has not only produced the COVID-19 pandemic crisis but is also the cause of all the dire social problems confronting humanity: the drive to another catastrophic world war, environmental destruction, growing social inequality, and the threat of fascism.

The latest Oxfam briefing on inequality summed up the state of class relations in the world today. A new billionaire has been created every 26 hours, since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020 it stated. The report continued: The worlds 10 richest men have doubled their fortunes, while over 160 million people are projected to have been pushed into poverty. Meanwhile, an estimated 17 million people have died from COVID-19a scale of loss not seen since the Second World War.

If the capitalist system cannot prevent misery and mass death for the worlds population, then it must be overthrown and replaced with a socialist system to address the pressing needs of humankind.

As the only genuinely socialist revolutionary club on campus, the IYSSE will fight to mobilise youth and students against the criminal response of capitalism to the pandemic, and for an international revolutionary movement of the working class for socialism. We urge you to take your place in this struggle today by joining the IYSSE club or by forming one at your school or university. Contact the IYSSE to find out more.
Jakob Ondrey, a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) parent and the creator of the independent CPS COVID-19 Dashboard data tracking website, found that the school district had begun a coverup of its case reporting at schools before teachers and students were forced back into unsafe classrooms after the holidays.

Under the watch of Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot, CPS officials began a process of underreporting data by early January, when Ondrey noticed a clear discrepancy in the data.

The underreporting of COVID-19 data is now part of a broader trend that started in the Trump administration and has now culminated in the Biden administrations policies to end reporting of daily deaths by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The official policy nationally is now to downplay reporting of COVID-19 cases and declare the pandemic over despite over 700,000 cases daily and more than 2,000 deaths every day. A report by the Pew Research Center claims that many state health officials say theyre preparing to scale back the frequency of case count updates, possibly as soon as the current surge.

CPS COVID-19 dashboard and initial tweet (Credit: Jakob Ondrey)

Ondreys independent exposure of the coverup of cases in CPS mirrors these national trends. Last Thursday he broke the story on Twitter, noting, Today Ill share the story of how [Chicago Public Schools] has been displaying different sets of COVID data to intentionally deceive parents & the public about COVID in schools. Ill share evidence about how and (shockingly) WHEN they started fudging the numbers.

Ondrey pulls raw data from CPS district servers independently using their software application programming interface (API). His analysis showed that CPS continued to report district-wide infections and cases but reporting at schools was underreported. Individual schools would show far lower case counts, in order to convince parents and teachers that schools were safer than they appeared.

For weeks, parents and educators were already beginning to notice that the data they received from school principals did not match the data being updated by the districts for the CPS dashboard. One example Ondrey showed was at Lane Tech high school, where over 51 cases were missing, as shown below.

The investigation by Ondrey prompted an official response from CPS that acknowledged its underreporting but claimed that it did so to ensure confirmed cases and to protect the privacy of the students.

In an official statement, CPS explained this data suppression by claiming that it started to distinguish between open and closed cases. According to CPS, the open cases are not confirmed by the district for positivity, whereas closed cases are confirmed.

The statement added, CPS was reporting all school-level open cases on our COVID-19 data website pages until Winter Break. CPS updated the data dashboard Dec. 20, 2021 to switch from all open school-level cases to only closed cases at the school level  This change was made to provide a more accurate number of closed positive & confirmed cases & protect the privacy of our students and staff.

According to the Sun-Times, Ondrey did not buy this explanation that CPS was trying to protect the privacy of students and staff as the data is anonymized.

Anthony Moser, another CPS parent, requested a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on January 12 to investigate CPS data on COVID cases from the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). What he received was a heavily redacted report from the FOIA request.

Moser commented on Ondreys revelations: Whatever argument CPS wants to make about the correctness of one measurement versus another, they changed what they were reporting in a way that drastically lowers the apparent spread of COVID without telling anyone. Its fundamentally dishonest. This is the coverup.

As for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), they have largely ignored Ondrey's discovery. Instead, the CTU has done everything in its power to facilitate the reopening of schools, including shutting down the collective action of 25,000 teachers who voted overwhelmingly to stop unsafe in-person learning in the school district after the holiday break.

Moreover, according to Ondrey, as teachers voted temporarily [to] switch to remote because of the increase of COVID in the community, data on COVID at the school level was suppressed and not shown on school dashboards.

Cases in Cook County, including Chicago, went from 1,535 cases in the beginning of December to over 41,000 cases by January 3 as teachers and students returned to classes. On January 4, over 73 percent of teachers voted to go remote by January 5 until the surge subsided. Within a week, the CTU conspired with Lightfoot and CPS to send teachers and students back to in-person schools in an agreement that would allow for widespread infections to continue and inadequate testing.

Teachers, parents and students were incensed by the CPS-CTU agreement. Thousands of CPS students then conducted their own walkouts to oppose the unsafe school reopenings across the city.

Students protesting unsafe learning in Chicago (Credit: WSWS Media)

Opposition to school reopenings and the CPS data coverup by parents and teachers continues to grow. Dawn, a CPS parent, told the WSWS, We don't trust our high school numbers at all. And [our school] has high vaccination rates and also high cases. Our kids are home. And quarantining at the high school level is very spotty.

Another CPS parent, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke to the WSWS about the unsafe reopenings and the CPS data coverup. She said of the CPS coverup, explaining the reporting debacle in her sons school, I believe that report [by Ondrey]. Im a CPS parent for two kids in CPS. On the news I see CPS constantly saying they are supporting the parents decisions. However, Ive never been asked if I want my kids in person or remote. Last semester they sent a survey to parents. Obviously, parents were highly in favor of remote education when positivity was 4 or 5 percent. Now the positivity is at 11 percent and last week it was at 22 percent. We have no say whatsoever!

She reported that her son was in a classroom that had a positive case, but she was not informed. I came to find out from a parent that it was my childs classroom. Despite the positive cases and exposure her son faced, the principal demanded that her child return to class or face an unexcused absence. Theyre not working with us to protect our childs health, she said.

Theyre instead penalizing us and forcing us to send our kids back, she added. We all know if theres more kids back, the corporations make more money.

Parents, teachers and students are encouraged to send us reports about the cases at their schools or tell us their stories. Ending the pandemic is possible and can be done with a Zero COVID strategy. The Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Committee urges rank-and-file teachers, parents and students opposed to the unsafe school reopenings to join the committee.

Fill out the form below to learn more and build the Chicago Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee.
Are you a King Soopers worker? Contact the World Socialist Web Site today to discuss your reaction to the shutdown of the strike and the way forward for grocery workers.

The World Socialist Web Site calls on King Soopers workers in Colorado to reject the tentative agreement pushed by the United Food and Commercial Workers in voting meetings today. The strike must be immediately re-started, after the UFCW abruptly canceled it after 10 days without giving you the chance to even see the contract which you are now being made to vote on. You must form a rank-and-file committee to fight for the principle that workers themselves must decide how their struggle is conducted not privileged union bureaucrats!

King Snoopers in Colorado (Google Maps)

The flagrantly undemocratic methods through which the UFCW is carrying out the ratification vote can only mean that the contract is a sellout. Not only are you being made to vote on the contract after the union shut down the strike and without any chance to review or discuss the full contract, the union is imposing arbitrary burdens on workers by holding the ratification meetings 30 miles away from Denver near the airport. It is also forcing those who have already returned to work to request time off from management, opening them up to the possibility of harassment.

Shortly before the deal was announced, management obtained an injunction against picketing at stores. According to press reports, the union and the company remained far apart in negotiations. How could any deal have been reached so quickly under those conditions unless the union agreed to virtually every one of managements demands?

On principle, any contract being put to a vote under such circumstances should be rejected. You must demand copies of the full contract and at least a full week to study and discuss it with your coworkers before a vote.

King Soopers workers confront the parent company Kroger from a position of immense strength, not weakness. Before it was canceled, the strike was having a serious impact. Shelves at stores remained empty as the company was unable to hire enough strikebreakers to maintain operations, and, even more significantly, workers across the whole city refused to cross the picket lines by shopping at other stores.

Moreover, you have at your backs a growing movement of the working class across the country and even the world against poverty, inequality and the sacrificing of human lives in the pandemic for the sake of profit. Indeed, the same day that the UFCW called off your strike, high school students across Denver became the latest to walk out of classes to demand the shutdown of schools and a return to online learning. They know that the drive to reopen schools, one of the main centers of transmission for COVID-19, is being dictated solely by the desire to get their parents back to work producing revenue for major corporations.

The UFCW, to put it bluntly, called off the strike not because it was isolated but because its attempts to isolate and weaken the strike had manifestly failed. It kept King Soopers workers at Colorado Springs on the job with no explanation, even though they also voted almost unanimously in favor of strike action. The union also extended the contract at Safeway, which was due to expire shortly after yours, and many Safeway workers have been forced to pull 14-hour shifts in order to keep pace with increased demand from shoppers refusing to cross your picket line. Finally, the union limited the strike in advance to three weeks, giving management advance notice of how long they would need to hold out.

The UFCW and the official unions long ago ceased to be workers organizations and are now little more than a bureaucratic police force over workers which helps companies drive down wages by enforcing sellouts. Even as union membership has fallen, union assets have ballooned; the UFCW has more than $1 billion in assets, which it uses not to organize struggles but to finance a small army of officials making six-figure salaries, such as Local 7 President Kim Cordova, who makes more than $200,000 per year.

This is why the unions respond to popular pressure by betraying workers even more shamelessly and openly. Over the last year, the United Auto Workers shut down strikes at Volvo Trucks and John Deere, forcing workers to vote again on the same contracts which they previously voted down by wide margins. The Chicago Teachers Union, whose playbook the UFCW is following at King Soopers, shut down a job action earlier this month against in-person learning by forcing teachers to vote on a new deal with the citys Democratic mayor, after the union had already sent them back into the classrooms.

During the pandemic, the UFCW has helped keep workers in the food supply chain on the job in spite of major outbreaks. UFCW Local 7 has not lifted a finger to shut down production at the JBS beef plant in Greeley, forcing workers to launch a wildcat strike after six of their coworkers died of COVID-19 in the opening months of the pandemic.

In Waterloo, Iowa, the UFCW local even colluded with Tyson management at a pork plant to implement perfect attendance bonuses during the initial surge, even as management was privately taking bets on how many workers would become infected. At Kroger, the union has also called off strikes or forced workers to stay on the job without a contract in Houston, Arkansas and elsewhere.

You have a chance to stand at the lead of a massive counter-offensive by the working class, to inspire the mobilization of millions of working people everywhere. Workers must form rank-and-file committees, composed of democratically elected and accountable leaders who will take up the fight to continue, expand and win this strike.

A No vote against this contract would just be the beginning. The 10-day strike must be immediately re-started with no end date set in advance. Meanwhile, delegates from the committee must appeal for support and joint actions with all workers, including your co-workers in Colorado Springs, at Safeway and JBS, as well as teachers and workers in every industry. Teachers, warehouse workers and autoworkers across the country are already building such committees of their own to organize independently of the union bureaucracy.

You should formulate and fight for your own demands and establish an unconditional red line without which you will not accept any contract. We propose that these demands include the following:

A $20 an hour starting wage.

The permanent elimination of the tier system.

The implementation of an automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA).

The provision of high-quality masks, regular COVID-19 testing and pay for workers who have contracted coronavirus. To ensure these measures are not undermined, workers themselves must have oversight at each workplace, including having the authority to collectively decide to shut down locations when necessary.

The rejection of any no strike clause in the new contract.

Contact the WSWS to learn more about how we can help you form rank-and-file committees in your workplace. Place the struggle of the working class back in your own hands. Fight to expand the strike! Fight to build rank-and-file committees!
With 90 percent of all COVID cases detected at ports of entry being the Omicron variant, Malaysias Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin indicated last Thursday that the Omicron variant will inevitably overtake the Delta strain. He warned of an Omicron wave between February and March.

Daily new COVID cases for Malaysia reported on Saturday were 4,046. While this figure has fluctuated between 3,000 to 4,000 since late December, the number of Omicron cases is rising, particularly local transmissions.

A nurse prepares a dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for a secondary school student at a vaccine center in Shah Alam, Malaysia, Monday, Sept. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

The official Omicron tally so far stands at 439 cases with 54 cases from local transmission. Between January 14 and 18, 186 Omicron cases were detected. Of these, 41 were detected in Malaysias most populous state, Selangor, and 17 were detected in the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

The official figures are small but it is highly likely, given the extreme infectiousness of Omicron, that it is spreading undetected through the country. While genomic sequencing capacity in Malaysia is better than in Indonesia, it is still limited to about 400 tests every two weeks according to parliamentary reporting from September.

Recent Omicron modelling from the Malaysian Ministry of Health puts the reproduction number of COVID infections with the governments very limited restrictions at 1.6 during an Omicron wave. Any figure greater than 1 indicates that infections will continue to rise.

Based on the governments modelling, the number of daily cases is predicted to rise to more than 30,000. The highest daily case number recorded so far in Malaysia was 24,599 on August 26 2021 during the peak of the Delta variant wave.

Given the dangers, strict public measures are needed: stricter quarantine requirements, the shutdown of non-essential production and a shift to remote schooling with financial and other support for those impacted.

Like its international counterparts, the Malaysian government is pursuing policies that are the complete opposite of what is required and is vehemently opposed to lockdowns.

As the latest World Health Organization situation report for Malaysia notes, COVID clusters predominate at workplaces and schools, meaning that key pathways for Omicron to rapidly multiply already exist.

As well, home quarantine is permitted. This has recently been the chief point of the entry of Omicron infections as some pilgrims returning from Mecca mingle with visiting relatives at home.

Moreover, quarantine periods have been shortened from 10 to seven days for those who are asymptomatic and fully vaccinated. In addition, those who have received their booster shot and are asymptomatic are required to quarantine for only five days.

These changes have set the stage for a major new wave of Omicron infections that will put severe strains on the public health system and other infrastructure. Even before mass Omicron cases, the current COVID ICU bed usage stands at about 17 percent.

The shortening of quarantine times means that potentially infectious workers will be forced back to work placing further stresses on key services such as logistics and health care.

In spite of the serious warnings by scientific experts, the defacto head of the quartet of ministers handling Malaysias pandemic response, Minister of Defence Hishamuddin Hussein, stressed that the large-scale movement control order [MCO] that we all faced previously will not be re-implemented. That is, no more lockdowns.

The MCO during the Delta wave in August and September was a lockdown in name only. At the time, 18 manufacturing centres were allowed to operate, mainly at 60 percent capacity. These became vectors for further significant transmission of the virus, leading to terrible levels of death that peaked at almost 600 daily deaths in September.

The Malaysian governments gross mishandling of the pandemic during the Delta wave and the associated staggering loss of life was a significant factor in the ouster of former Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin.

To date, based on official statistics, there have been over 2.8 million cases and almost 32,000 COVID deaths, but this is a significant undercount. A more accurate estimate of COVID deaths can be established by considering current deaths over and above recent historical averages prior to the pandemic.

Such an excess deaths calculation by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington estimates total COVID deaths in Malaysia at about 52,500 deaths to date. That is, almost two in every thousand people have died from COVID. For older age groups who have borne the brunt of COVID deaths, the fatality rate is significantly higher.

While some COVID public health measures are still in place, such as mask wearing indoors and smart phone QR code check-in at public places, the overarching approach of the Malaysian government since October 2021 has been a criminally irresponsible drive to re-open the Malaysian economy and prop up businesses. This was the meaning of the comment by Director general of Health Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah at the time that the country was in the endemic stage of the virus.

Chief among the re-opening measures has been the resumption of face-to-face teaching which, in turn, facilitates the return of parents to work. Already there has been a large number of young people infected.

On Thursday, Khairy indicated that nearly 580,000 children aged 18 and under have been infected with COVID since the start of the pandemic. To date, there have been 144 deaths due to Covid-19 among those aged 18 and under. Of this, 31 were aged 5 to 11, he said. The death of so many young people is an indictment of the Malaysian ruling elite.

In addition, the young people who are infected face the danger of Long COVID.

As reported in early January, the Finnish Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services stated that Long COVID, whereby COVID symptoms persist for months after an initial infection, could become the largest, or one of the largest, chronic diseases in Finland.

The statement was based on a Finnish expert panels examination of more than 4,000 international studies which showed that one in two adults and around 2 percent of children may experience prolonged symptoms connected to COVID-19.

In line with its counterparts internationally, the Malaysian government is opening the door for mass infections and high hospitalisations that will inevitably lead to rising deaths and the long term debilitating impact of Long COVID.
Yesterday evening, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration is discussing plans to deploy thousands or tens of thousands of troops to the borders of Russia and Ukraine. Despite the Biden administrations threadbare attempt to present this as a defense of Ukrainian sovereignty against Russia, it is apparent that Washington is preparing a military escalation aiming to provoke Russia, a major nuclear power, into a war.

Biden apparently discussed plans with Pentagon strategists to deploy 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Romania and the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. This could be increased up to tenfold, to 50,000 troops. This comes after Washington announced plans to provide the Ukrainian government with armaments to build bases for missile systems that could launch strikes on Moscow in a matter of a few minutes.

US tanks are unloaded in Antwerp, Belgium to take part in the Atlantic Resolve military exercises. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

The New York Times story on the report acknowledged that this would be a major pivot for the Biden administration  moving away from its do-not-provoke strategy. It also cited calls for a former top Pentagon planning official, Jim Townsend, calling for a massive military build-up across Europe predicated on the assumption that war with Russia would erupt.

Its likely too little too late to deter Putin, Townsend claimed. If the Russians do invade Ukraine in a few weeks, those 5,000 [US soldiers] should be just a down payment for a much larger US and allied force presence. Western Europe should once again be an armed camp.

Yesterday, Washington ordered US diplomats families and advised US citizens to leave Ukraine, due to the continued threat of Russian military action, a measure usually taken if war is imminent.

US Colonel Alexander Vindman, an officer involved in top-level talks between Washington and the Ukrainian regime, bluntly spelled out US calculations yesterday. Calling for provocative NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine, directly on Russias border, Vindman told MSNBC: These things are already moving. Its almost certain that this is going to occur, and now is the time to take those last-minute steps.

Declaring that NATO is almost locked into a course of action, Vindman endorsed plans for war with Russia. He said, Why is this important to the American public? Its important because were about to have the largest war in Europe since World War II. Theres going to be a massive deployment of air power, long-range artillery, cruise missiles, things that we havent seen unfold on the European landscape more than 80 years, and it is not going to be a clean or sterile environment.

The pretext on which this war is being launchedthat NATO is defending Ukrainian democracy and national sovereigntyis a fraud. The far-right Ukrainian regime in Kiev was installed by a US- and German-backed putsch in February 2014 that toppled a pro-Russian government. Since then, Washington and the other NATO powers have been systematically moving to arm Ukraine as a base for operations against Russia. These plans are now being dramatically escalated.

Today, NATO is beginning war games in the Mediterranean, Neptune Strike 22, that will last until February 4, involving the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman. US defense department spokesman John Kirby on Friday claimed it had nothing to do with scenarios that could play out with regard to Ukraine. However, he then made clear the exercise aims to threaten Moscow over Ukraine.

Russias positioning of troops on Russian soil near the Ukrainian border, he said, continues to be concerning  Were going to make sure that we have options ready to reassure our allies, particularly on NATOs eastern flank. If theres another incursion and if they need that reassurance, if they need the capabilities to be bolstered, were going to do that.

Neptune 22 is one of a series of NATO war games surrounding Russia with vast forces. On February 20, the Dynamic Manta 22 anti-submarine exercise in the Mediterranean will begin, and on February 22 the Dynamic Guard exercise in Norway. This will transition into Cold Response 2022. The largest Norwegian-led military maneuver since the 1980s is to involve 35,000 troops from 26 nations, including 14,000 soldiers, 13,000 seamen, as well as 8,000 air force personnel and staff. The first troops are reportedly already on site and have begun exercises.

NATO claims that Russia is driving this confrontation are absurd on their face. It is denouncing Russia for having troops located on its own soil, while it is sending NATO troops and lethal weaponry up to Russias borders. A substantial faction of the ruling elite in the NATO countries is pushing for a war with Russia, speculating about Russian intentions while fabricating accusations in order to concoct a case for war.

The British government, reeling from a scandal over Prime Minister Boris Johnsons handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, launched a further provocation against Moscow yesterday. On Saturday, UK Foreign Minister Liz Truss and the British Foreign Office released a statement accusing Moscow of preparing a coup to install a pro-Russian regime in Kiev. This charge, for which London released no evidence, was a provocation that fell apart under the weight of its own incoherence.

We have information that indicates the Russian government is looking to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine. The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate, Truss declared.

Truss statement continued: The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking.  As the UK and our partners have said repeatedly, any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.

This claim was soon discredited: Murayev, the supposed leader of Londons hypothetical coup, pointed out that he faces a state ban in Russia and his assets there have been seized. Youve made my evening. The British Foreign Office seems confused, he told Britains Observer. It isnt very logical. Im banned from Russia. Not only that but money from my fathers firm there has been confiscated.

Nonetheless, the US National Security Council embraced this claim to again denounce Russia. Its spokeswoman, Emily Horne, said, this kind of plotting is deeply concerning. The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine.

The Russian foreign ministry, for its part, denied the story. The spread of disinformation by the British foreign ministry, it declared, is one more piece of evidence that NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, are escalating tensions around Ukraine. We call on the British foreign ministry to stop its provocative activities.

The campaign is not only a continuation of US-NATO interventions against Russian allies in Ukraine and in Syria, where NATO has fought a decade-long proxy war. It is also a reckless attempt to deal with internal class and social tensions that are reaching explosive levels as the world enters the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Desperation increasingly dominates the calculations of major capitalist governments.

The NATO powers as well as the post-Soviet capitalist kleptocracy in Russia have all imposed a disastrous policy of living with the virus on the working class. There have been over 2 million COVID-19 deaths in the NATO states and over 326,000 in Russia. Last week alone saw over 13 million new cases and 28,000 COVID-19 deaths in NATO, and at least 270,000 cases and 4,799 deaths in Russia. Yet governments across the region are ending public health measures to restrict the contagion and instead allow the virus to spread even faster.

Since the year began, mass protests and strikes have erupted against official pandemic policies in the United States, Greece, France and Italy. It is clear that, as they seek to impose further policies of mass infection and death upon rising working class opposition, the major imperialist powers are accelerating a turn towards militarism, police-state rule and wars that could threaten millions or billions of lives.

To prevent the ruling class from plunging the planet into the abyss, the growing opposition among workers and youth internationally must be mobilized based on a socialist perspective in a movement to oppose war and to end the COVID-19 pandemic. Control over the resources of society must be taken out of the hands of an irresponsible and historically condemned ruling elite. This requires the revolutionary mobilization of the working class against the capitalist system.
On Wednesday, January 19, the World Socialist Web Site spoke to Brazilian physician and neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, professor emeritus at Duke University, North Carolina, USA, about the development of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and around the world.

During our interview, Dr. Nicolelis received startling newly released data of the explosion of infections and hospitalizations in some Brazilian states. By the end of that day, Brazil reported a record 205,310 cases in a single day, nearly double the previous record of 115,041 infections set in June 2021.

Our conversation began with an evaluation of the global outbreak of the Omicron variant and the attempts by the official media and governments around the world to cover up its gravity.

Miguel Nicolelis: For over 30 years, I have been following the American media on a daily basis. The United States has crossed a million cases, and there were not even headlines in the New York Times; no headlines on CNNs website. And Anthony Fauci, the amount of nonsense he has spoken lately, is terrifying.

Dr Miguel Nicolelis (Credit: Fronteiras do Pensamento - Wikimedia Commons)

First, he said, Dont pay attention to the infections curve, its hospitalizations that will be important. The US broke the record of 157,000 people hospitalized. Then, it was the ICUs that were to be observed. They broke the record for ICUs. And then, it was the death curve that was not climbing. Well, it is exploding. There are 3,000 deaths per day. The moving average, which is the only thing the Times reports, is 2,000 deaths a day. When is that not a tragedy? They may reach a million deaths by the end of March.

And what does the United States do? In the middle of the Omicron outbreak, the CDC reduces the quarantine to five days and no testing for asymptomatic people. If you are thinking about peoples welfare, from a medical point of view, you dont reduce quarantines at the peak of a new variant that is still unknown. But it was intended to force people back to work. And then Omicron did the irony of ironies: it enacted the lockdown itself. It took the decision out of the administrators hands by leaving people so sick that they had to stay home. Even if they dont need to be hospitalized, most people are staying at home, and theres not enough people to work.

And what did Brazil do? It saw the CDCs decision, copied and pasted it without even discussing the Brazilian reality. We have people in much worse clinical conditions because of the food crisis, the crisis of the Unified Public Health System (SUS). And then they reduce [the quarantine time] in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and the Ministry of Health spreads the decision without any criteria. Last night, I spoke about the case of the government of Bahia, which reduced the limit of public gatherings from 5,000 to 3,500 people. Completely innocuous. They were supposed to be canceled, and everybody knows it. The governors know it, the health secretaries know it, but they cant get rid of the lobbies, even more in an election year.

I am sincerely shocked with how little human life is worth in Brazil and in the world. Look at France, it is reaching 500,000 daily infections in a country of about 68 million inhabitants. Thats an under-reported number, so more than a million French people may be getting infected every day. The United Kingdom, which is having 100,000 cases a day, is removing restrictions. In Scotland it has already been removed, with the country having again hundreds of daily deaths and the health care system on the edge, with 20,000 hospitalizations right now. Whats the logic?

The narrative that Omicron is mild, so let people catch it forgets that this virus can cause chronic symptoms. If the numbers we saw this week in Brazil are correct, and almost 50 million people have caught the virus, which I believe is underreported, the Brazilian health care system will be strained for decades to come. We will have children, young people, and adults seeking for decades medical services for chronic respiratory, cardiac, renal, and liver failure, for neurological problems. This is a virus not to be caught. That should have been the message from the beginning. Measles is as infectious as Omicron, and not everyone catches it. This fatalism is anti-scientific; it is against any health care logic.

I think the situation in Brazil in the next two to three weeks is going to break all records of infections and has the potential for a widespread health care collapse as great as in the second wave.

Tomas Castanheira: The last time we spoke, you commented about the imminent risk of a new wave of infections driven by the Delta variant in Brazil. We didnt see such an explosion at that time, and I believe neither did most South American countries. How do you think that situation is merging with that of Omicron today?

MN: I think there is already a reasonable explanation emerging for this. You remember last winter in the United States, when vaccinations started and there was a huge explosion of infections, then there was an interlude until June. The cases dropped and Biden went on television to announce that it would be the Summer of Joy. The Summer of Joy turned into a horror show, because by the end of July everything started to explode, driven by Delta. Delta arrived there in early May, but it took a while, I think, for the exact same reasons of the delay in Brazil.

I really thought that Delta would have a huge effect here. It turns out that the number of Gamma variant infections that we had in Brazil was too explosive. And in South America and Mexico, the same thing. The delay in Mexico was very similar to Brazil. What probably happened is that we had a temporary immunity window produced by the Gamma explosion, plus the vaccinations that started going up in June, and the sum of those factors flattened the curve. But, also, we had an under-reporting of data. We didnt have an explosion, but a lot of people died in Brazil during that period. Making the comparison with the USA, the perspective was that at the end of the year we would have a Delta explosion in Brazil and Mexico, because the Gamma immunity window was ending. Then Omicron arrived and overtook it, finding the number of susceptible people on the rise because of the delay of the second shot and the almost non-existence of people vaccinated with the third shot, which actually protects.

If we hadnt had the explosion in the first half of 2021, we probably would have had Delta ravaging here as it has ravaged other countries. I started noticing changes in the death data in November. From August on, the only thing you could really track in Brazil was the Civil Registry, which doesnt divide deaths by COVID and other causes. Deaths from all causes had been falling from July onwards. In October it stabilized; in November it went up a little, and in December it exploded. So, in November we could already see that something was happening. It was the beginning of the Delta cases and the influenza, which also came back out of season. If you look at Mexico, you will see the same thing. So, I have the hypothesis that Gamma, tragically, gave us a breathing space. It cost thousands and thousands of lives, but it offered a window that we should have taken advantage of, even more like having the Omicron notice a month in advance. But again, we missed the train.

Eduardo Parati: You were speaking of the severe underreporting of data in Brazil. Would it be possible to estimate the real situation of the pandemic numbers in the country?

MN: The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington had an estimate, that it already corrected. They thought that Brazil would reach 2 million infections a day in March. But this week, they changed it, pointing out that we are having 5 million cases a day. Certainly, I think it is more than a million. I think our underreporting is similar to Indias right now. In India, historically, the underreporting of cases and deaths is between 10 and 20 times. At the most severe period [of the pandemic in India], I was teaching a class at the University of Delhi, and after the class my friends said that from their windows they could see the funeral pyres on the city skyline. And they said, We are losing 10 times more than the official government figure of 4,000 deaths. That is, 30,000 to 40,000 people were dying every day during that dramatic period.

In Brazil, the deaths are less under-reported because of the Civil Registry, which works reasonably well. According to the Civil Registryand it is still preliminary because the data will be closed by mid-Marchthere were more than 1.7 million deaths in 2021. It was the most lethal year in Brazils history since the data has been reported. To get an idea, thats 500,000 more deaths than in 2018 and 2019, the two years before the pandemic. In other words, we had at least 500,000 excess deaths from various causes, including COVID, in 2021 alone.

We are halfway through January, it is still extremely preliminary, but the death trend is going up. If we have a hospital collapse again, people are going to die from multiple causes because of the lack of medical care. And there is a new factor, according to friends at the frontline: never in the two years of the pandemic have so many health workers been sick as now. In one week, from January 6 to January 13, Sao Paulo multiplied by 5.2 times [the number of health professionals on leave], from 260 to more than 1,400. And this number is going to grow.

We can already say that this is the worst moment of the pandemic. I still dont believe, and that may change, that we will have an explosion of deaths like the one in March and April last year. Per month, 100,000 excess deaths is too shocking. But we will have an explosive number of people needing to be hospitalized, and the system cant handle it. Two people who spoke to me anonymously in the last 48 hours think that [the health care system] has already collapsed in Belo Horizonte (capital of Minas Gerais) and probably in the interior of Sao Paulo. And the expectation of a professor at University of Sao Paulo, who spoke about it publicly, is that in the states capital the collapse will occur in the next few days.

EP: One of the most relevant features of this new variant is the impact it is having on children. We have the prospect of schools reopening in Brazil in February, and there is a campaign to justify this reopening because of the beginning of child vaccinations. Or worse, because infections would be desirable to make COVID-19 endemic. What answer do you give to this campaign?

MN: That was also a battle in the other waves. With much smaller numbers in the first wave, schools were closed. They only opened after a lot of fuss before the second wave, and I was against it. We have already seen what happened with the reopening of the schools now. In Spain, the schools were empty because of so many children got infected and didnt attend class. It is a recurring theme, and again my position is the same: We cant open schools until we have a very large percentage of the children vaccinated with two shots and the certainty that teachers and staff have had the third. How can we put these children and teachers in badly ventilated schools, without minimum hygienic conditions, having to take public transportation, having to crowd together?

And look, [child vaccination] began on Monday in Brazil and there was already a vaccine shortage. In some places of the country there is a lack of child vaccines. Worse, the Health Ministry managed to make the crass mistake of using adult vaccines on about 40 children, after delaying the beginning of vaccinations for a month. In other words, we missed the timing of vaccinating children before the upward curve of Omicron.

What is the sensible thing to do today? To close as much as we can for two weeks and prevent the health care system from collapsing. It is an absolutely logical decision. But you cant even mention this possibility. I posted yesterday on Twitter that we need two to three weeks [of lockdown], initially, to get a handle on the situation, to test, to measure what the real impact is, what the actual transmission rate is, and how hospitals are coping. My goodness! Some people almost said they would send a hit team to get me. When this is the sensible thing to do, if you put human life as a priority, obviously. If you dont, then it makes no sense at all.

I just received a message from a colleague from Minas Gerais. At this moment, Rio Grande do Sul and Minas Gerais have together reported nearly 50,000 infections. Rio Grande do Sul broke the record, with 21,000 cases, and Minas Gerais probably did too. [As we later checked, Minas Gerais did break the record with 27,683 new cases.]

And then people say: Look at the madness in China. But what option did China have, with 1.4 billion people? What could they do except try to eliminate it by any means they can when infections start and test massively? Contrast India with China. Very similar populations, neither country has public health coverage comparable to Brazil, for example. I am scared to look at Indias statistics tonight, because it was already up to 300,000, and I think it has already passed a few million [daily cases]. The University of Washington thinks it is over 10 million cases a day. Either you stop it at the beginning, or you will have a catastrophe in countries like these.

And then we take the Brazilian case. Despite these record numbers, ICU admissions increasing by several times, no new restrictive measures will be taken in Rio Grande do Sul, nothing. Nobody is openly talking about it in the media, but the administrators are indirectly saying: We dont care, let it burn like fire in dry bush.

TC: They have embraced herd immunity?

Nicolelis: They have embraced the herd immunity thesis. Even a very famous scientist from Rio Grande do Sul went on UOL to say that it was the beginning of the end, that everyone was going to catch it, and then it would be over. Its terrifying. But what needs to be said openly is what you have just said. They embraced the herd immunity thesis, they just didnt tell it to either the virus or to us.

And lets be fair, its the full political spectrum. Yesterday, I wrote a tweet that caused quite a stir. Because they said that former health ministers met with former President Lula [who is launching himself as the Workers Partys presidential candidate] to draw up a plan to combat the pandemic. Wait a minute, now? This plan has been presented since 2020. There was no need to hold a meeting just to appear on the news. And the Workers Party (PT) governors themselves, whom I know very well because Ive worked with them, gave up doing what needs to be done a long time ago. So, who are the progressives in this story? I saw the conduct of so-called progressive people that was very similar to that of Bolsonaro. They just had the varnish and the stamp of progressive.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced that the extremely transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19 is circulating in the community in New Zealandand confirmed that the Labour Party-led government will do nothing to stop it.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern addresses a post-Cabinet press conference at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand on October 4, 2021. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP)

This paves the way for a surge in infections and deaths, as has happened in every country where governments have adopted the murderous let it rip policy.

There are currently 19 known Omicron cases. On Sunday, 10 were confirmed in Motueka, in the Nelson-Marlborough region of the South Island. The cases were in a family that attended a wedding and other events in Auckland in mid-January. Another person at the wedding tested positive, and a flight attendant on the same flight as the family from Auckland to Nelson on January 16 also tested positive for the variant.

Officials do not know how Omicron entered the country. There is no known link between the Nelson cases and the border, meaning that it is likely already spreading in Auckland, and potentially Nelson and other areas. Fifteen Air New Zealand workers are in self-isolation as close contacts, and chief executive Greg Foran told Radio NZ that some were showing symptoms.

New Zealands COVID-19 traffic light setting has moved to red, but this is not a lockdown of any sort. Gatherings are now capped at 100 people and there are more rules around the use of masks, physical distancing and vaccine certificates. All businesses remain open, and schools are due to open on January 31.

Ardern has cancelled her planned wedding to TV personality Clarke Gayford due to Omicron. But hundreds of thousands of children will be herded into schools, which have been a major source of COVID-19 infections internationally. Only 20 percent of children aged 5 to 11 in New Zealand have been vaccinated or are booked to be vaccinated with a single dose of Pfizer, after becoming eligible just one week ago.

In the United States, Canada, France and other countries, teachers, parents and students are walking out and striking in opposition to in-person education. They are defying governments and the trade unions, which insist that schools must reopen to ensure parents stay at work and businesses remain profitable, no matter how many people get sick and die.

Ardern told a press conference yesterday that the government expects up to 1,000 cases a day within 14 days. She misleadingly said the government would take a stamp it out approach, and slow the spread and reduce the number of cases by using contact tracing and isolation.

These measures will not eliminate the virus, nor are they intended to, as Ardern made clear. Once case numbers escalate to thousands per day, which is expected in a matter of weeks, the government will make changes to contact tracing, the definition of contacts, and isolation requirements. This suggests that once these systems are overwhelmed by the number of Omicron cases, people will be compelled to work when they may have been exposed to COVID-19just as governments in the US, Australia and elsewhere are now doing.

The government has embraced an extraordinarily reckless policy, the opposite of the elimination strategy adopted early in the pandemic, which has kept New Zealands death toll relatively low at 52.

Last October, ignoring the advice of public health experts, Ardern announced that the government was ditching elimination. It then proceeded to lift lockdowns, allowing the Delta variant to spread across the country. There are currently 467 known cases of COVID-19 in the community, with the largest clusters in Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Rotorua.

In addition, 666 cases of Omicron are among returned travellers isolated in quarantine hotels.

Ardern misleadingly declared that for most people Omicron is a mild to moderate illness, but added that older people and those with health conditions are at risk of severe illness. The situation internationally proves that Omicron is not mild; it is far more transmissible, and poses significant dangers to people of all ages.

On Friday, the US reported nearly 4,000 deaths and a record 159,000 people in hospital for COVID-19. Children are being admitted to hospital in record numbers in the US, France, UK and other countries.

Australia, which has a similar vaccination rate to New Zealand, has recorded 1.9 million cases since mid-December and more than 800 deaths so far this year, with dozens more every day.

COVID-19 modeller Michael Plank told Radio NZ that up to half of New Zealands population of 5.1 million could become infected with Omicron. Microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles said the current public health settings were not good enough at stopping transmission and called for the closure of night-clubs and indoor dining.

Epidemiologist Michael Baker told Newshub: We will see tens of thousands of cases and unfortunately several hundred deaths in the next three or four months. He called for a faster rollout of vaccines.

The vast majority of people are not fully vaccinated. Only 23.2 percent of New Zealanders aged over 12 have received a third dose of the Pfizer vaccine, which is essential to significantly reduce the risk of catching and passing on Omicron.

There is a severe shortage of N95 and similar masks, which scientists recommend. COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins told RNZ today that surgical masks, which are much less effective at stopping the virus, are the best masks for the publics use. Ardern said the government is not considering making masks free.

In unleashing the deadly virus on the country, the ruling class is relying on the complicity of the trade unions to suppress opposition from the working class. As in other countries, the teacher unions, the NZEI and PPTA, are collaborating fully with the dangerous reopening of schools.

On January 19, FIRST Union general secretary Dennis Maga told Radio NZ that the union was talking to employers about making rapid antigen tests available to make sure that we can sustain the operation of businesses Its critical that we have enough workforce to maintain the supply chain.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisations (NZNO) Glenda Alexander told Radio NZ today were as prepared as we can be for Omicron, despite the crisis of understaffing and underfunding in public hospitals. She said the loss of staff to illness was a concern and would put immense pressure on an already stressed workforce.

None of the unions has called for a lockdown and a properly funded elimination strategy, such as the policy being pursued in China, which is the only way to stop the virus and save lives. In March 2020, the NZNO and the teacher unions opposed the calls for a lockdown from public health experts and tens of thousands of workersuntil it was finally announced by the government, which feared an upsurge in the working class.

The unions are pro-business organisations that support policies which will lead to mass infection and death. In order to stop the reopening of schools, close businesses, and eliminate COVID-19, workers must urgently take matters into their own hands by forming rank-and-file safety committeesindependent of the unions and the political establishment. We call on workers to contact us to discuss this perspective.
Widespread illness and quarantine have thoroughly disrupted classes in Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) as the Omicron variant causes record cases and hospitalizations in Alameda County. To defend themselves teachers have conducted a series of wildcat sick outs. Students began an indefinite strike last Monday.

In order to contain growing anger the Oakland Education Association (OEA) has threatened to call a vote for a safety strike with completely impotent demands that would do almost nothing to protect students, teachers and staff from infection.

Teachers protest for stronger COVID-19 safety protocols outside Oakland Unified School District headquarters on Jan. 7, 2022, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

According to an OEA email sent to teachers, their demands are:

Weekly, voluntary testing available for students and staff at all schools Highest quality masks available for all students and staff An adult covering every classroom vacancy

The popular and essential demand raised by many students and teachers for shifting to distance learning until cases come down is intentionally ignored.

The situation confronting students and teachers is dire. Daily new confirmed cases in Alameda County are four times higher than at any previous point in the pandemic while the test positivity rate sits at nearly 20 percent indicating that many cases are going undetected. Despite misinformation claiming that the Omicron variant is mild, this has translated into record high hospitalizations nationwide. Pediatric hospitalizations in particular are three times higher than their previous peak.

At a public meeting of the student strikers on Friday, students described the impact of seeing their classmates and teachers out sick, and their fear of spreading a deadly disease to friends and family. According to one sixth grader: There are mass amounts of students that have been out in multiple classes. Ive seen so many of my friends just not come to school for weeks because the plan by the district as a whole for how you are going to make sure COVID doesnt spread has been poor, to say the least.

The teachers and students of Oakland are part of a broader wave of educator strikes across the country against the bipartisan policy of mass infection. In just the past week, students and teachers have struck in St. Paul, Minnesota; Montgomery County, Maryland; Denver, Colorado; Round Rock, Texas; and Park City, Utah. The soaring number of infections has led numerous districts to switch to distance learning from a simple lack of staff to teach in person, including 250 districts in Oklahoma.

In order to save the lives of teachers, staff, students and their families, the West Coast Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee has been holding weekly meetings with the demand for The immediate closing of school buildings until teachers themselves, on the advice of scientists, determine that it is safe to return, and Financial support for parents who must stay home with their children.

In sharp contrast, the OEA is trying to keep schools open even as illness soars. Particularly pernicious is their demand for safe staffing levels. In a draft memorandum of understanding released Thursday, the OEA proposes assigning central office administrators to fill in for sick teachers in order to paper over the lack of substitute teachers.

Students need a safe education, not babysitters! No student can learn effectively with a revolving door of emergency substitutes. No teacher can effectively teach with 20 percent or more of their class out sick or in quarantine. In poll after poll, parents express a desire for distance learning, but the district refuses to offer it and the teachers unions refuse to fight for it because the political decision has been made from the Biden administration that schools must remain in-person no matter how many people are infected.

At every step of the way throughout the pandemic, the OEA executive board has fought to constrain the militancy of teachers within the bounds set by the district. OUSD initially switched to distance learning in March 2020 in order to prevent wildcat strikes. When the district demanded a return to in person instruction in March 2021, OEA dropped the demand of teachers that in-person education be tied to low community transmission. Despite widespread opposition among rank-and-file teachers, the union insisted that they had to vote for the districts proposal, because if teachers voted it down the district could enact it unilaterally.

By agreeing to in-person instruction no matter how severe the state of the pandemic, OEA set the stage for the current crisis. As the Omicron variant began to surge over winter break, the union remained passive, only asking teachers to write emails to the superintendent. When teachers and students began their wildcat actions to combat COVID, the OEA executive maintained silence as they negotiated a new memorandum of understanding with the district behind the backs of the membership. In protest over being cut out of the process, the union safety bargaining team resigned on January 11.

The way forward for teachers and students requires rejecting in its entirety the policy of mass infection being pursued with the support of the OEA leadership. We urge all teachers, students, staff and parents looking to fight for the closure of schools to sign up here to build or join a Rank-and-File Safety Committee at your school site.
On January 21, the Euclid Teachers Association (ETA), which negotiates on behalf of roughly 420 teaching staff in the Cleveland, Ohio suburb, filed a 10-day strike notice with the Euclid Board of Education. The ETA will now have to hold a membership vote to approve strike action.

The teachers have been working without a contract since the school year started. The ETA and board began negotiations on the contract last spring, with the most recent round of negotiations taking place the day before the strike notice was filed. This is the second time the union has issued a strike notice in the last three months.

Euclid High School (Screenshot)

The ETA says the main sticking point in negotiations is the boards demand that administrators be able to reassign teachers to other classes mid-school year. The Board demands that administrators have the power to remove teachers from their classrooms and reassign them at any point in the school year to any classroom of the Boards choosing, the union said in a recent statement. These changes in classes would destroy the teacher-student relationship which is an important foundation for learning, the statement said.

The Euclid Board of Education in recent statements have confirmed that negotiations reached an impasse due to the boards demand. The board has also claimed they are offering one of the biggest salary increases among any school district in Ohio in response to the current economic instability during the pandemic.

The board has also claimed that if a strike takes place, classes must and will continue. It is currently unclear who will be teaching the roughly 4,700 students in the event of a strike.

The next round of negotiations between the board and ETA is scheduled to take place on January 26.

While the ETA has claimed that in the event of a strike teachers would be out until a contract is reached, it is entirely possible a strike will be averted by the board and the union.

Throughout the negotiations, ETA officials have stated that a strike action is a last resort. In November, the union went so far as to file a 10-day strike notice and held a strike authorization vote. Despite educators voting in favor of the strike, the ETA did not have teachers walk off the job and instead opted to call limited protests.

The contract dispute at Euclid City Schools is representative of the larger crisis of public education in Ohio and across the US. Administrators hope to continue the decades-long attack on conditions for teachers but are curbed out of fear that their actions could further exacerbate a teacher shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the official teachers unionsthe National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) hope to dissipate mass anger among educators and other school workers and avoid a rebellion against the unsafe conditions in schools.

The board and ETA have focused the discussion on the ability of administrators to reassign teachers to different classrooms as it regards its impact on academic success. Despite multiple months of negotiations overlapping with the spread of the Omicron variant, which has resulted in numerous hospitalizations and deaths of children in the US, neither side has taken issue with the danger in-person learning poses to the students and teachers.

The spread of COVID-19 among teachers had a direct impact on the district. Both Euclid Middle School and Shoreview Elementary School had to shift to remote learning in early December due to the number of school employees calling in sick. A number of other school districts in northeast Ohio, including Akron Public Schools and Lakewood City Schools reported large numbers of teachers, custodians and bus drivers calling in sick.

Several Euclid elementary and middle schools had previously switched to remote learning in September because of a COVID-19 related shortage of bus drivers.

The developments at the Euclid school district are by no means unique. Since the start of the pandemic, there have been teacher strikes in Gahanna, Ohio; Scranton, Pennsylvania; and Chicago, Illinois. In every case, union officials attempted to prevent these strikes or end them as quickly as possible and block a nationwide movement to demand the closure of unsafe schools. Both the AFT and NEA, with which the ETA is affiliated, have fully backed the unsafe reopening of schools.

The AFT and NEAs support for the Biden administrations reopening of schools has been in sharp contrast to the position of numerous rank-and-file teachers and students. Over the last few weeks, students have organized walkouts in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Texas and Utah. In virtually every case, students are demanding stricter COVID-19 safety measures, including N95 masks and regular COVID-19 testing.

Any fight by teachers to address the pandemics impact in schools requires breaking out of the narrow confines imposed by the unions, and the broadest unity between teachers, students and larger sections of the working class. Euclid teachers who are interested in expanding their struggle should join the Educators Rank-and-File Safety Committee as the first step in building a committee in their district.
On January 20, members of the Pasadena City College (PCC) Faculty Association demonstrated against the resumption of in-person instruction scheduled for Monday, January 24, despite spiking Omicron infection rates.

Pasadena City College (Wikimedia Commons)

With a total enrollment of more than 25,000, the two-year community college services predominately working class youth and people already in the workforce seeking to upgrade their qualifications.

Full vaccination and boosters do not prevent breakthrough infections, and hospitals are overflowing. Students and faculty not only expose one another on campus, they also take the virus home with them and increase community transmission. This past week, Los Angeles County averaged more than 35,000 new cases and 50 deaths per day. Reopening campuses such as PCC will intensify the surge.

Similar Southern California schools are still weeks away from reopening. Cerritos College recently announced that in-person classes would not resume until March 7. For Whittier College, the date is February 21, and California State University, Northridge is slated to reopen on February 14.

In an interview with Pasadena Now during Thursdays demonstration, Communications Professor Mark Whitworth, the Faculty Association president, said of the demonstrators, who wore masks and stayed socially distant outside the administration building: Were here to send a message that the faculty do not feel comfortable returning on the 24th of January. Wed much rather be in line with the other schools in the area and return a little bit later in February when the surge is over.

Were here to call for a safe return to work, English Professor Mary-Erin Crook, the Faculty Association vice president, told the Pasadena Star-News. Were ready to go back but we are ready to go back when it is safe for the faculty, for the students and, really, for the whole community.

Our students take public transportation. They come from all over L.A. County. They have family members who are working, Crook added. And we feel that having 20,000 people here right now is not going to be safe.

Faculty and students should beware of attempts to limit the shutdown of in-person learning to a few extra weeks, and the role of the official unions in shutting down and selling out strikes, walkouts and protests by educators and students in Chicago, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and other cities. The struggle requires the building of rank-and-file committees independent of the unions that link up with the struggles at schools and campuses, as well as factories and other work locations, across the US and internationally.

Almost 80 percent of faculty who were polled supported delaying the resumption of in-person learning, which was discontinued almost two years ago. Simona Supekar, an English professor, told Pasadena Now that most of her students said that they dont feel safe returning on Monday.

As of Saturday afternoon, an online petition organized by students had at least 1,800 signatures calling for the continuation of remote instruction.

We should bear down and wait at least a couple more weeks to see where the trending data goes, said biology major Caressa Wong. All of us have family members who are at higher risk for complications. I dont think anybody really wants to get sick. And with the high case count at the moment, a lot of students and a lot of faculty just dont feel like its the right time to go back.

Wong encouraged students to join the united front.

Reflecting the intractable demand of the ruling class that workers and students expose themselves to infections, Alexander Boekelheide, special assistant to the president and executive director of PCCs Office of Strategic Communications & Marketing, said, The timing of the return to campus is not open for negotiation. According to Boekelheide, the January 24 reopening date has been planned since late December and the decision was announced to students, faculty and staff on January 1.

The Pasadena City College Board of Trustees supported the reopening of the campus at its board meeting last Wednesday. Student Trustee David Ramirez claimed that students were firmly in support of allowing students that feel safe enough to do so return to campus next week. He claimed that millions of dollars had been spent on improvements to provide a safe campus.

Ramirezs two years on the board have been conducted almost entirely via teleconference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During Wednesdays remote meeting, the Board of Trustees unanimously approved Resolution No. 705 (Authorizing Remote Teleconference Meetings of the Board of Trustees, its Regular Committees, and any other College Bodies as required by the Ralph M. Brown Act), through which the board elected to continue conducting its regular business and committee meetings using remote teleconferencing technology for the foreseeable future.

In October 2021, PCC announced that it would require all students, faculty and staff who come to the campus to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with limited exceptions. According to a campus spokesperson, upgraded ventilation and filtration systems have been installed in all campus buildings. Additionally, custodial staff have supposedly established enhanced cleaning and sanitation processes to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Once the campus reopens, all students and employees will be subjected to weekly COVID-19 testing and masks are required both indoors and outdoors. The college also anticipates distributing more than 12,000 KN95 masks to students and staff at no cost.

None of these measures are adequate to stop the spread of the virus, which takes place via tiny aerosol particles that remain suspended in the air for hours on end. This has been demonstrated by the record increase in infections and hospitalizations and soaring death rates all across the country since the reopening of schools and campuses. Infections, hospitalizations and deaths have risen disproportionately among children and teens.

Pasadena City College faculty, staff and students have joined the massive wave of protests that has swept the world against the reinstatement of in-person learning and against the herd immunity policies enacted by capitalist governments. Globally, 3 million people are infected with COVID-19 daily and no measures are being taken to eliminate the virus.

Capitalism does not care about the lives of educators and students and is indifferent to their health and needs. All students and educators need to enter into and support the working class struggle to eliminate COVID-19.

We call on students at PCC to contact us and build a chapter of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) on the campus to connect with IYSSE chapters at other campuses, and for faculty to join the educator rank-and-file safety committees to carry out a broad-based struggle to end the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Friday, Politico published the full text of a draft executive order written by Donald Trumps attorneys that would have deployed the military and National Guard across the country to seize millions of ballots cast by voters in the 2020 general election.

An analysis of the draft order makes clear: this was a charter for presidential dictatorship. It would have declared a state of emergency, suspended democratic rights, disenfranchised the electorate and placed the country under military rule.

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Cecil Airport, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The draft order, entitled Presidential findings to preserve collect and analyze national security information regarding the 2020 general election, is based on the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen by Joe Biden and foreign adversaries, and that millions of ballots were fraudulently cast for Biden with the aid of voting device manufacturers like Dominion Voting Systems.

Citing evidence of international and foreign interference in the November 3, 2020 election, the draft would have ordered the military to deploy across the country to immediatelyseize, collect, retain and analyze all machines, equipment, electronically stored information, and material records related to the election. This would have required the suspension of posse comitatus, the democratic principle that the military may not conduct domestic law enforcement. The military would have then been used to crush social protests and arrest opponents.

Anticipating the prospect of Democratic governors ordering state National Guard to protect ballots, the order would have given Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller the power to federalize the National Guard by name or by unit, language indicating that Trump planned to take control of the guard in states with Democratic governors, or to federalize units loyal to him in those states.

The draft order would have then mandated Trumps loyal, far-right Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliff to assess whether the election was stolen, within seven days of the issuance of the order, an assessment pre-ordained to reach Trumps desired conclusion.

This finding would then be presented as the conclusion of the intelligence community, at which point the order would have established a special counsel to oversee this operation and institute all criminal and civil proceedings as appropriate based on the evidence collected and provided all resources necessary to crack down on Trumps opponents. This would be the extra-judicial mechanism Trump would have used to prosecute, jail or execute Democratic lawmakers and political opponents on charges of sedition and treason. Given that the plan revolved around a claim of foreign election interference, the suppression of domestic opposition would likely have been combined with foreign military adventures.

As legal authority for such extraordinary measures, the order cites executive orders and statutes granting the president and intelligence agencies dictatorial power under a state of emergency.

It cites Executive Order 12333, a Reagan-era order granting the executive branch nearly unlimited power to spy on the population. Executive Order 12333 served as the basis for the mass NSA surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden. Trumps order also cites National Security Presidential Memo 13, a classified memo (the exact contents of which are not known) giving the military the power to undertake cyber warfare operations without pre-approval, and National Security Presidential Memo 21, which is so secret that its existence has not been publicly reported, Politico wrote. These memos indicate that Trump was planning to order the Pentagon to shut down or censor the internet and/or television stations.

For statutory authority, the draft order cites the National Emergencies Act (NEA) and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The NEA allows the president to declare a state of national emergency and exercise unchecked executive authority. This law served as the pseudo-legal authority for the Reagan administrations plans to implement Rex84, which would have suspended the Constitution and allowed for the indefinite detention of subversives. The IEEPA grants the president the power to declare national emergencies in response to an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and to seize assets and confiscate the property of individuals and organizations whom the president declares are engaged in that threat.

The publication of this draft order makes Trumps strategy from November 3, 2020 through January 6, 2021 clearer. The draft order is dated December 16. Two days earlier, on December 14, electors met in the state capitals and formalized slates to be sent to Washington D.C. for the formal counting of the Electoral College on January 6.

CNN reported last week that Rudy Giuliani was leading efforts in seven battleground states to mobilize Republican state legislatures to approve slates of Trump electors to send to Washington on January 6. Giuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, CNN reported, citing a source who said, there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives. Trump lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives.

When the state legislatures in question failed to elect alternate slates on December 14, the Trump campaign resorted to its next options. The draft executive order on ballot seizures was the most extreme version. If this was not ordered at the time, it was because the coup plotters were not certain of their support from within the military.

With the ballot-seizing executive order in his pocket, Trump and his advisors planned to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College in Washington on January 6. Their plan contained three possible routes to success.

First, Vice President Mike Pence could decide to reject the legitimate slates in states Biden won. Second, the Supreme Court could intervene to postpone the certification. To this end, on January 5 Trump lawyer Sidney Powell filed a request to Justice Samuel Alito asking him to issue an injunction halting proceedings on January 6 on a legal technicality. Third, a combination of Republican legislators and demonstrators could delay the certification of the Electoral College past January 6. In all three scenarios, a delay would be created, throwing the election to the House of Representatives, with one vote per state delegation and Republicans controlling the majority.

On January 6, all three scenarios were in play. The first scenario failed when Pence refused to support Trumps plot and announced he would certify the lawful slates. The second scenario was not at all a long shot and would have only required the support of one justice, the reactionary Bush-appointee Alito.

Throughout January 5 and 6, Alito refused to deny Powells request for a delay in the certification. Powell herself later acknowledged that Alitos delay forced Pelosi to reconvene the joint session on the night of January 6. This was not merely a symbolic move, as was reported in the media. She got notice when we made our filing, Powell said. She had to speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might have issued an injunction. It was not until the morning of January 7, after the coup had clearly failed, that Alito formally denied Powells request.

The third scenario, based on legislative delay and violent demonstration, took place in full view and came breathtakingly close to succeeding. The mob, spearheaded by armed assault teams of fascist Oath Keepers, was prepared to kidnap Democrats, and postpone the certification by force. This plan failed solely due to operational shortfalls, with Pence and congressional Democrats escaping with seconds or minutes to spare. The Democratic Party took no action to oppose an attempt at dictatorship out of fear that alerting the population to the danger of dictatorship would trigger massive social upheaval across the country.

January 6 exposed the rot at the core of the American political system. Democracy cannot survive in a society so riven by inequality, where the countrys resources are hoarded by a tiny financial aristocracy that controls the political system and both right-wing parties. Thirty years of permanent war have poisoned the political climate to such an extent that fascist trash like Trump and his advisers could occupy the commanding heights of state power. Although their plot failed on January 6, the chief conspirators are free to plot their next moves. The urgent defense of democracy from the threat of dictatorship requires the revolutionary mobilization of the international working class against the source of fascism: the capitalist system.
Two people died in a horrific house fire in Pontiac, Michigan, in the early morning hours of January 17. Eleven people were reportedly in the two-story wooden structure, which was completely engulfed in flames by the time firefighters from the neighboring suburb of Waterford arrived on the scene. While several residents were able to escape, two of the residents, including one who is believed to be a 19-year-old autistic boy, perished in the blaze.

The fire was called in at 2:44 a.m. for the home on the 800 block of St. Clair Street in Pontiac, an economically devastated former manufacturing center for General Motors, located 25 miles north of Detroit.

Firefighters found one body in a second-floor bedroom. A second was found on the first floor in the kitchen. Two men in their 60s were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, and a 58-year-old man suffered a broken leg.

Authorities have not released the names of the victims or the cause of the fire, which is still under investigation. The World Socialist Web Site has made inquiries with the Waterford Regional Fire Department and the Oakland County Medical Examiners Office and is still awaiting information.

Pontiac house in flames on the morning of January 17 (Source: Oakland Co. Sheriff's office)

Residents of the burning home had to jump from the windows to survive. I could feel the heat. I was like, No way Im going through thatI gotta jump out the window, Lebron Tyler told WDIV reporters. I thought it was over because when I did try to jump my leg got caught. I dont know how I made it, but I just made it, Tyler said.

Timothy Minor said he and others survived only because of the help from neighbors. It was terrifying cause I didnt know if I was going to live or die, he told local reporters.

Lachen Herring, who lives next door, said she called 911 and helped people jump from the second floor of the burning home. I was at the second window at the back. I had to take the shopping cart and break his fall on there, and then another guy had his leg out the window, and another guy was trying to climb down the bricks, Herring told WDIV reporters.

A 36-year-old man told sheriffs deputies he jumped from a second-story window and urged his 19-year-old stepson, who is autistic, to follow him. But the young man did not and disappeared back into the burning house.

I wish I could have done more, said Herring, whose own home was damaged by the flames. It was horrifying listening to them, and you dont know what to do.

It is believed the home was a boarding house for recent parolees. The Michigan Department of Corrections told local news stations that the home was not contracted or paid for by their department and that the parolees paid to stay there on their own. A rickety old staircase had been recently removed because it was dangerous, according to one of the tenants.

The burnt house where the two victims perished (Source: Oakland Co. Sheriff's office)

While the cause of the fire is still unknown, it is common for residents in poorly insulated and heated homes to use space heaters or other potentially dangerous heating sources to keep from freezing. Temperatures in Pontiac in the early morning hours of January 17 hit a low of 19 degrees Fahrenheit.

Seventeen people died, including eight children, in the Bronx, New York, apartment house fire on January 9, which was caused by an electric space heater. Doors on the apartment and in the staircase, which were supposed to automatically close, failed to operate, spreading deadly smoke throughout the 19-story apartment building. On January 5, 13 people, including seven children perished in a Philadelphia row house fire, where none of the smoke alarms were functioning.

As of January 19, 2022, there have been 13 deaths in nine fires in Michigan, according to the Michigan Fire Inspectors Society, a substantial increase in the number of fires (up 80 percent) and deaths (up 117 percent) from this time last year. Twenty-three percent of the fires were attributable to heating sources, 11 percent to cooking and 39 percent to smoking.

Between 2017 and 2021, 212 people died in 282 fires in Detroit and in Wayne, Macomb and Oakland counties; the latter includes Pontiac. Twenty-nine percent of the victims in the tri-county area were disabled, and 60 percent of the homes did not have operating smoke alarms.

GM Truck & Bus plant being demolished in 2012 (YouTube: MCM Industrial Services)

It is no surprise that Pontiac, which has been devastated by decades of factory closures and poverty, is contributing victims to this Winter of Death. More than a third of the citys residents, 34.1 percentlive below the official poverty rate, or more than double the states average of 15.6 percent. In addition, nearly half the citys schoolchildren45.8 percentcome from impoverished families.

The city of 59,000 residents (down from 85,000 in 1970) was once a major manufacturing center for General Motors and is the namesake of its Pontiac brand. Like nearby Flint, Saginaw, Detroit and other GM manufacturing centers along Michigans I-75 highway, tens of thousands of workers, black, white and Hispanic, came to Pontiac to join the ranks of the auto workforce, attracted by the relatively high living standards won by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union. In 1976, Pontiac was awarded the banner of All American City and boasted about its high rate of home ownership and quality school system.

Since the 1980s, GM has shut at least five major factories in the city, including the Fiero (1988), Pontiac West (1994) and Pontiac East (2009) assembly plants. The fatal house fire occurred a short distance from what remains of GMs Pontiac Stamping Plant. The facility has been incorporated into the Pontiac Metal Center, which only employs 191 production workers.

Pontiac Truck & Bus, formerly known as Pontiac East, was closed as part of the Obama administrations 2009 restructuring of GM, which shuttered 14 plantsincluding at least six in Michiganand eliminating 21,000 of the companys remaining 62,000 hourly jobs by the end of next year. The UAW collaborated with the Democratic administration in the gutting of jobs and agreed to slashing the wages of new workers by half.

After making billions in profits from workers, GM, once the largest taxpayer in Pontiac, left the city virtually bankrupt. In September 2011, Republican Governor Rick Snyder appointed an Emergency Finance Manager (EFM) to oversee the citys public spending and ensure the repayment of millions in debt to the banks and private investors. Under the states recently passed PA 4 law, Emergency Financial Manager Louis Schimmel had the power to conduct layoffs, cut wages and abolish existing contracts without oversight of the city council.

Similar EFMs were appointed in other automotive cities throughout the state, including Detroit and Flint, where the financial restructuring and payoffs to investors were key to the lead poisoning of the citys water supply. In every case, financial managers slashed public services to push the loss that had been made following the 2008-09 financial crash onto the working class of those cities.

In a widely unpopular move, Schimmel dissolved the Pontiac Fire Department and moved a fraction of its workers to Waterford, downgrading their pay and benefits. Since then, the single department has been struggling to keep up with demand. In 1984 there was a team of 123 active Pontiac firefighters. By 2011, there were only 57 before it merged with the Waterford Fire Department.

The plan put 42 of the 57 remaining Pontiac firefighters under Waterfords payroll, reducing them to new-hire status with accordingly lower wages and benefits. Firefighters packed a December 13, 2011, Board of Trustees meeting in Waterford Township to protest the deal. According to a report in the WSWS, Charli Yarbro, a retired Pontiac firefighter, denounced the move, telling the trustees, You guys are totally doing an injustice to the citizens of Waterford. You are totally doing an injustice to us because you will not be able to provide fire service in a timely fashion for the city of Pontiac.

People are going to die, she stressed, emphasizing the reduced manning at Pontiac stations to 12 total firefighters a night. Maybe you dont care. Maybe all you are thinking about is the bottom line, the money and the budget. But there is no way you should approve this budget tonight.

High rates of poverty and the drive by current Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer to keep the factories and schools open, even as the pandemic rages throughout the state, has contributed to the devastatingly high number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in Michigan. Last week, the state passed the COVID-19 death toll of 30,000, and its current number of record fatalities, 31,466, is roughly the same as all of Canada or Malaysia.

This has not stopped GM and the other auto manufacturers from making booming profits. While it is not due to release its full-year earnings until February 1, GM has told investors it expects to make $14 billion in profits in 2021.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced at a January 11 press conference that his right-wing Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) government plans to impose a significant health tax on Quebec adults who are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

Legault has reiterated this commitment several times since. While providing no further details about the new tax, the multimillionaire ex-Air Transat CEO has used every occasion to blame the unvaccinated for placing a disproportionate burden on the public health system. In Quebec, about 600,000 unvaccinated people, or 10 percent of adults, are said to account for up to 50 percent of hospitalizations, the total number of which now exceeds 3,400an absolute record since the beginning of the pandemic.

The health tax announced by the Quebec government is a reactionary diversion in the face of an accelerating health and social crisis. Legault is seeking to deflect popular anger over his governments catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic, which last week bumped the provinces seven-day average of daily COVID-19 deaths above 70.

Legault announced the tax on the unvaccinated at a press conference held to introduce Dr. Luc Boileau as the provinces new interim Director of Public Health. Boileau is replacing Dr. Horatio Arruda, hitherto a close ally of the premier in prioritizing safeguarding business profits over human lives, but whom the government decided to make a scapegoat for Quebecs disastrous Omicron-driven fifth wave of the pandemic.

Quebec Premier and multimillionaire ex- CEO Francois Legault (Wikimedia Commons)

Legaults proposed tax is so transparently an attempt to divert attention from the governments pandemic record and policies, that even the three opposition parties in Quebecs National Assembly, which have seldom made any criticism of the governments pandemic response, were forced to criticize it. Quebec Solidaire, a party that claims to be of the left, and the pro-independence Parti Quebecois have pointed out the obvious unfairness of the proposed tax, since the unvaccinated include many of the most vulnerable, from poor immigrants and the homeless to people with mental illnesses.

These criticisms are entirely opportunistic as the opposition parties have also announced that they will continue to work with Legault behind the publics back, participating in confidential weekly meetings where the Premier lets them know his intentions in advance and where they can give him their point of view. Only Liberal leader Dominique Anglade has stopped attending, as of last week, a decision she justified on the grounds she was being instrumentalized by the Quebec premier, not opposition to the governments rush to reopen schools and non-essential businesses.

At the federal level, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has conspicuously avoided criticizing Legaults plans to subject the unvaccinated to a special tax. When asked about it, he said he supports measures to encourage people to get vaccinated, then added that the Quebec measure will need to comply with the Canada Health Acts criteria of universal, government-funded not-for-profit health carecriteria that are already under constant attack.

In reality, the Trudeau government is supporting the campaign to paint the unvaccinated as those principally responsible for the continued spread of the pandemic. Prior to Legault bring forward his tax plan, the federal government had announced the unvaccinated will no longer be eligible for federal unemployment insurance benefits.

Conservative Party leader Erin OToole, as well as his fellow hard-right Conservative Alberta and Ontario Premiers, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford, have taken a demagogic stance in opposing Legaults tax, with Kenney flaying the proposal as un-Canadian.

In doing so, the various big business politicians are reprising their respective roles from last Septembers election campaign. Trudeau, who called the election in the midst of the pandemics fourth wave in a failed bid to win back his parliamentary majority, portrayed himself as the leading proponent of vaccines, while OToole courted the far-right by opposing vaccine-mandates and other necessary health measures in the name of freedom.

This sham debate was aimed at disguising the fact that all the partiesfrom the Liberals and Conservatives to the social-democratic NDPhave supported and, where in office, pressed for the full reopening of the economy and the abandonment of virtually all public health restrictions. For decades these parties have also implemented capitalist austerity, resulting in chronic hospital overcrowding and months-long queues for critical medical procedures even before the pandemic struck.

Having rejected the necessary health measures to curb the pandemic in order to preserve business profits and investor wealth, Legault and Trudeau are now joining an international campaign by capitalist politicians to scapegoat the unvaccinated for the catastrophic impact of their own policies. In France, where the let the virus rip policy is responsible for record numbers of infections, the president of the rich Emmanuel Macron attacked the unvaccinated in an obscene rant earlier this month. Italy, Greece, Austria and Indonesia have either adopted taxes akin to that proposed by the CAQ or other punitive measures targeting the unvaccinated.

The rapid development of vaccines that effectively protect against COVID-19 is an important scientific advance, and mass vaccination to stop the virus spread a basic public health requirement. In response to the far-right anti-vaccination campaign, the World Socialist Web Site affirmed last summer, There is no legitimate reason for workers who have ready access to COVID-19 vaccines to reject them. In particular, workers should reject the claims made by far-right libertarians and outright fascists, and echoed by some petty-bourgeois anarchists, that there is a right to refuse anti-COVID vaccination: No individual has the right or freedom to infect others with a debilitating and potentially fatal disease.

However, vaccination alone cannot defeat the pandemicespecially with the vaccine nationalism of Canada and the other imperialist countries blocking access to COVID-19 vaccinations in large parts of the world and thus allowing the coronavirus to spread and mutate into new, potentially more contagious and lethal variants.

As highlighted by the emergence of Omicron, mass vaccination must be combined with the systematic application of the full range of anti-pandemic public health measures developed over centuries so as to eliminate community transmission of the coronavirus worldwide. These measures include the closure of schools and non-essential production, with full compensation for all workers forced to shelter at home, isolation of infected individuals, contact tracing, and mandatory use of N95 or higher quality masks.

The campaign to blame the unvaccinated for the continuation of the pandemic is the flip side of the vaccines only policy of Canadas federal Liberal and CAQ, NDP and Conservative provincial governmentsa policy closely tied to their premature reopening of the economy. To preserve the illusion that vaccination alone is sufficient to stop the pandemic, the ruling elite wants the population to believe that its failure to halt the virus spread is due to the small percentage of people that refuse to be vaccinated.

The failure to contain or even curb the mass infection of the population is in fact the result of the profits before life policy pursued by all capitalist governments. It is precisely this failuretogether with the government and corporate media lies minimizing the danger of the virus, especially for childrenthat has opened the door to the far-rights agitation against vaccination, masks, lockdowns and other elementary public health measures. This agitation has itself been encouraged by the ruling elite as part of its effort to suppress working class opposition to its homicidal policies.

Around the world, it is the right and the far rightincluding openly fascist elements in the US and Germanythat have spearheaded the movement to lift health measures in order to keep the economy open and profits flowing for the wealthy.

Workers must oppose measures like the Legault governments health tax that demonize the unvaccinated to cover up the culpability of capitalist governments for mass death.

The imposition of a tax on the unvaccinated would, it also need be emphasized, open the door to other reactionary measures that would accelerate the privatization of the health care system. If the unvaccinated have to pay for the burden they place on the health care system, why not smokers or those who dont exercise regularly?

In opposition to Legaults reactionary health tax, the working class must fight for its own program aimed at the elimination of COVID-19. In addition to proven public health measures such as closing schools and non-essential workplaces, workers in alliance with principled scientists must push for a sustained public education campaign to refute the pseudo-scientific nonsense of the far-right anti-vax forces, as well as the anti-scientific propaganda of the ruling elite that vaccination makes it possible to live with the virus.
The last few days have seen a sharp escalation in the number of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition against its impoverished, southern neighbour Yemen, with a series of horrific attacks on civilian infrastructure and buildings that have played no part in the seven-year-long war. The attacks amount to crimes under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

On Friday, a Saudi airstrike on a detention center in Saada, northern Yemen, housing African migrant workers transiting through Yemen to Saudi Arabia, killed at least 82 people and wounded 266 more, with the number of casualties expected to climb as paramedics dig through the rubble.

Map locates two Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. One striking a prison in the northwest city of Saada and the other in the western port city of Hodeidah, where a telecommunications hub was struck, crippling the countrys internet access. (AP Photos)

A separate attack on a telecommunications center in the port city of Hodeidah shut down the countrys internet and killed three children playing nearby. Netblocks, which monitors internet blockages, described Yemen as experiencing a nation-scale collapse of internet connectivity, while the aid agency, the Norwegian Refugee Council, described the strike as a blatant attack on civilian infrastructure that will also impact our aid delivery.

Earlier this week, the UN said that this months violence could soon surpass that witnessed in December, when 358 civilians were killed or injured, as a result of an alarming number of airstrikes, drones and rockets used against civilians and non-military targets. According to the humanitarian aid organization Save The Children, the last three months of 2021 witnessed a 60 percent increase in civilian casualties.

There has been ferocious fighting in the Marib and Shabwa districts in southern Yemen, the last regional stronghold of the Saudi-backed government and location of most of the countrys oil reserves, as the Houthis reached the outskirts of Marib city. Its fall would signify the definitive end of the regime headed by President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who long ago fled to Riyadh. In the last few days, pro-Hadi fighters, aided by scores of Saudi airstrikes and UAE-funded and trained proxies, including the Giants Brigade, have pushed back the Houthis, killing hundreds of Houthi fighters. This in turn prompted the Houthis to launch a drone attack on Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on Monday that killed three people and wounded six.

On Tuesday, Saudi air strikes killed 20 people, including several civilians, in the capital and largest city Sanaa, where Houthi websites show horrifying scenes of women, children and the elderly alongside ruined homes, hospitals and clinics without medication and operating theaters lit by flashlights because there is no electricity. Other strikes on water treatment facilities have left more than 120,000 people in the capital without access to clean drinking water.

None of these atrocities could have been carried out without the fighter jets, bombs, weaponry, materiel, training, maintenance and logistical support, including targeting intelligence and aerial refuelling for Saudi planes, supplied by the US and UK. Washington and London have backed the Saudi-led coalition in its onslaught which began in 2015, providing it with political and diplomatic cover at the UN.

While President Joe Biden lifted the Houthis designation as a foreign terrorist organization and made a vague declaration shortly after taking office last year that he would end American support for offensive operations in the war, US support for Riyadh and the war has continued unabated. The Biden administration refused to order any sanctions whatsoever against Saudi Arabias de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who ordered the savage assassination and butchering of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey in October 2018, despite possessing conclusive evidence of his role. Last November, Biden approved a $650 million weapons sale to Riyadh that included 280 AIM-120C air-to-air missiles for use by Saudi Arabian fighter jets.

On Wednesday, Biden said that ending the seven-year war was going to be very difficult, which was as good as saying that he would back Riyadh and Abu Dhabi come what may. He went further, adding that he was considering re-designating the Houthis as an international terrorist organization, an act tantamount to starving the people of Yemen into submission, most of whom live in Houthi-controlled areas, since it would make it almost impossible for humanitarian aid to reach the country.

On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Saudi Arabias foreign minister to emphasize the US commitment to help Gulf partners improve their capabilities to defend against threats from Yemen.

Saudi Arabiawith the help of its regional allieslaunched an air, land and sea assault on Yemen in March 2015, following an uprising by rebels led by the Ansar Allah/Houthi movement that toppled the Hadi government, to restore its puppet to power. The ongoing war is part of the House of Sauds efforts to maintain the rule of the Gulf despots and their allies across the peninsula amid seething social tensions that came to a head in the Arab Spring of 2011.

Since then, Yemen has fragmented amid fighting by numerous competing militias, whose alliance and loyalties have repeatedly changed: the north and parts of the south are controlled by the Houthis; the southwest is under the control of the UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC); and the south and east are under the control of the Saudi-backed government, leading to open warfare between the local allies of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The Saudi-led war had by the end of 2021 killed 377,000 people both directly and indirectly through hunger and disease, according to the UN. Four million people have been forced to flee their homes. At least 75,000 children under the age of five have died of starvation, while the worlds worst cholera epidemic in modern times has infected 2.5 million and killed more than 4,000.

The war has crippled Yemens economy, with the central bank split between the rival authorities in Sanaa and Aden, as the rival powers struggle for control over trade flows and fuel taxation. The collapse of the riyals value in nominally government-controlled areas has pushed the price of imported goods such as food and fuel beyond the reach of most people. As a result, the UN has described the war as causing the worlds worst humanitarian disaster.

The naval blockade mounted by the UAE with US naval support with the aim of starving the Yemeni population into submission has compounded the devastating impact of the hundreds of thousands of Saudi airstrikes. Nearly 80 percent of Yemens 30 million population are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance or protection for their survival.

Last November, the UN said that five million people are on the brink of famine, with almost 50,000 already experiencing famine-like conditions. Nearly 2.3 million children under age five, the highest number ever recorded, are at risk of acute malnutrition. Four out of five children are in need of humanitarian assistance, 400,000 are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and two million are out of school. Last month, the World Food Programme said it was forced to cut aid to Yemen due to a lack of funds and warned there would be a surge in hunger in the coming months.

It is clear that the recent US-backed airstrikes are but the prelude to a total all-out war without even a passing nod to international law prohibiting attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and crimes against humanity to regain control of Yemen. Yet the responseor to be more precise the silenceof the major powers is striking. No government will call what has happened by its rightful name: a war crime. There is at best merely some tut-tutting over the dreadful scenes of mass carnage and suffering.

While Blinken had condemned the Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the UAE on Monday, there was no comment from the State Department about Fridays Saudi-led attacks on Yemen.

The UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, simply issued a bland statement in response to Fridays attacks, saying The escalation needs to stop. He added that the airstrikes, as well as others in different parts of the country, had resulted in child casualties and pointed out that attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, are prohibited by international humanitarian law.

The medias hypocrisy and cynicism know no bounds. The filthy pro-imperialist press remains silent about the crimes committed by US and UK allies in Yemen, as well as in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syriawhile raising a furor over US and UK reports, without a shred of evidence, that Moscow is planning to stage a false-flag operation that will then be used to justify invading Ukraine. In reality, this is just a cover for precisely such an operation by Ukrainian special forces, trained by US military advisers working inside the country, for an attack on Russia.

The reasons the House of Saud gets a free pass are clear. It is a key market for US arms and plays a vital role on behalf of US imperialism in suppressing the working class in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region and supporting Washingtons domination in the resource-rich Middle East. It has allied with Tel Aviv in an anti-Iranian axis that threatens to push the region into another catastrophic war. The only answer to this is for the working class to unite across borders in a struggle to take power and disarm the purveyors of death and destruction by means of socialist revolution.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lankas main Tamil parliamentary party, is stepping up its involvement in the US-led anti-China campaign following a visit to Washington last November by a TNA delegation. Led by parliamentarian M. A. Sumanthiran, the delegation met with senior US State Department officials.

The ostensible reason for the meeting was Washingtons concern over human rights and reconciliation issues following the protracted communal war in Sri Lanka that ended in 2009. The real reason was to intensify US pressure on the Rajapakse government to break its relations with Beijing and fully back Washingtons geostrategic interests.

Tamil National Alliance MP M. A. Sumanthiran [Image credit: Twitter via @masumanthira]

The TNAs latest denunciations of China, which are being echoed by other Tamil parties and the media, were made in a lengthy January 8 interview with Sumanthiran on the Morning website. Asked about potential Chinese projects and investments in Sri Lanka, the TNA parliamentarian bluntly declared: [T]he Chinese are not welcome in the North or the East.

Sumanthirans comment were in response to a two-day visit by Chinese ambassador Qi Zhenhong to the northern Jaffna and Mannar districts in mid-December. The trip was to investigate possible Chinese investment. That the TNA parliamentarian reacted in such a provocative manner to what would generally be considered a routine event, underscores the rising geopolitical tensions in the region between the US and India, on the one hand, and China on the other.

Sumanthiran said that he opposed China intervening in the North and East because the TNAs political quest is based on human rights and democracy, concepts he said, that are very alien to the Chinese. Chinese influence in the area will hinder progress for political rights, he declared.

The North and East are not located in the South China Sea, he continued, but close to the Indian coast and therefore not the legitimate defence concerns of China [A]llowing Chinese space in the North and East would be a hostile act towards India.

Sumanthirans rhetoric is a repetition of Washingtons and Delhis aggressive propaganda against China. The US feigns concern over democracy and Chinas human rights violations while hypocritically concealing its own suppression of democratic rights, including its brutal repression of immigrants.

Sumanthirans reference to the South China Sea echoes a key element of the US-led provocations against China. The US denounces Beijing for its illegal South China Sea claims and, on the pretext of freedom of navigation, sends US warships into the waters around Chinese-controlled islets.

Sumanthiran ignores US war crimes and its escalating attacks on democratic rights along as well as the Modi governments violation of human rights in Kashmir and other states and its whipping up of anti-Muslim sentiments.

Indias so-called defence concerns about Chinas presence in the North and East are part of its long-standing opposition to Chinese influence in what it regards as its backyard.

In order to pursue these ambitions, India has become a frontline state against China, joining the US-led quadrilateral military alliance (QUAD) with Australia and Japan. For its part, Beijing has sought to counter these moves by seeking to build its own relations with other South Asian countries.

The TNAs claim to be fighting for political rights based on human rights is a sham. The main concern of this bourgeois party is not the democratic rights of Tamil workers and the poor, but securing privileges for the Tamil elite which it hopes to obtain by slavishly embracing the US and India and their geopolitical agenda.

The US and India endorsed Colombos 30-year war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which saw the military kill hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians. Washington only began raising concerns about war crimes and numerous human violations during the final months of the bloody conflict that ended in May 2009.

These concerns had nothing to do with human rights but the US used the issue to try and pressure President Mahinda Rajapakses government to distance itself from Beijing. To this end Washington sponsored several resolutions in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). When this and other maneouvres failed, it orchestrated a regime-change operation to oust Mahinda Rajapakse and install the pro-US Maithripala Sirisena as president in 2015.

After Mahinda Rajapakses younger brother, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, became president in November 2019 and his cash-strapped government turned again to Beijing for financial assistance, the US, India and other major powers renewed the human rights campaign. Washington backed another UNHRC resolution calling for a war crimes investigation which was passed at its March 2021 session. The TNA and other Tamil parties supported the US moves.

In a December 27 interview with the Tamil Nadu-based Puthiya Thalaimurai television network, Sumanthiran declared, If India is able to arrange the devolution of power in the North and East  it can prevent the intervention of China in the region.

Other Tamil parties have joined the anti-China campaign. Eelam Peoples Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) leader Suresh Premachandran recently declared that China was attempting to change itself into the worlds policeman and referred to Chinese support for Colombos war against the LTTE.

Having given huge military logistics and war jets during war, China has made Sri Lanka its major indebted country, he declared and criticised Beijing for opposing the US-backed UNHRC resolution against Colombo.

Like the TNA, the EPRLF cynically hides US and Indian support for the civil war.

Not to be outdone, Tamil National Peoples Front leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam and Tamil Peoples Alliance leader C.V. Wignesvaran have embraced the anti-China and pro-Indian campaign. Irrespective of the tactical differences between these capitalist parties, they all serve the interests of US imperialism and India.

Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam (Facebook)

Responding to Sumanthirans allegations and the anti-China campaign, Chinese Ambassador Qi Zhenhong told a Colombo media conference on January 9 that his visit to the North was related to economic investments, and not against India. He pointedly added: Jaffna is a city in Sri Lankas north. It is not a city in the south of any other country.

These developments further underscore the deepening geopolitical rivalry in the region and the escalating attempts to bring Sri Lanka into line with the demands of Washington and New Delhi. They also bring into sharp relief the pro-imperialist degeneration of the Tamil nationalist parties and danger of catastrophic military conflict between nuclear-armed powers.

The democratic rights of the Tamil masses will not be won through these bourgeois organisations but only through a united struggle of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim workers, leading the oppressed in the fight for a Sri Lanka-Eelam Socialist Republic and based on an internationalist anti-war program. The Socialist Equality Party is the only organisation that fights for this perspective.
25 years ago: Riots and rising social tensions in Indonesia

On January 30, 1997, thousands of people, mostly young Muslim men, stormed through the West Java town of Rengasdengklok attacking the homes, businesses and places of worship of ethnic Chinese. In all, 72 businesses, 76 houses and three factories, as well as Christian churches and Buddhist temples, were destroyed or damaged. Hundreds of riot police and military police were rushed to the town to suppress the demonstrators. Clashes also erupted in West Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and the capital of Jakarta.

Suharto

The Suharto regime responded by establishing 240 military-based riot alert centers across Indonesia. Armed forces chief General Feisal Tanjung warned that the military would take tough action.

In the previous four months, there had been three major eruptions of ethnic violence. In October 1996, thousands of Muslims in the East Java town of Situbondo burned over 20 churches and a Buddhist temple. Five people were killed. In December 1996, thousands took part in a mass riot in the town of Tasikmalaya in West Java, leaving at least four people dead and more than 100 buildings destroyed. Six battalions of troops and the Army Strategic Reserve were mobilized to end the riot and impose a curfew. Also in December 1996, 5,000 indigenous Dayak in West Kalimantan burned and looted scores of homes and stores belonging to migrants from the island of Madura. Five people were killed.

The Suharto regime simultaneously confronted a rise in industrial struggles by the rapidly growing working class. Millions of young peasants had been drawn into the cities to work in the factories, supplying cheap labor to the multinational corporations. The year before the riots, vice governor of the National Defense Institute, Juwondo Sudarsono, warned that industrial change would inevitably lead to instability. He remarked that the root of the tensions was not religious but socialthe gap between the rich and poor.

The Suharto military regime claimed to have drastically reduced poverty in Indonesia, but in 1997, 22 million were living in poverty. According to some estimates, roughly 82 percent of the population lived on 60,000 rupiah, or $25 a month, or less. At the other end of society, the top echelons of the military dictatorship significantly increased their wealth, working closely with a layer of business cronies. The Suharto family alone was worth approximately $6 billion.

Backed by the US, the military in Indonesia had seized power in a bloody coup in 1965, murdering more than half a million communist activists, workers and peasants. In the following decades, opposition was ruthlessly suppressed, and elections were stage-managed affairs.

50 years ago: Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland

On January 30, 1972, the British Army shot 26 unarmed civilians in Derry, Northern Ireland, who were protesting against the mass arrest without trial and torture of suspected Irish Republican Army (IRA) members. Thirteen people were killed immediately, with one additional man dying days later from his injuries. The event, which became known as Bloody Sunday, sparked a wave of protests throughout Ireland.

Priest Edward Daly attempting to escort victim Jackie Duddy to safety. Duddy did not survive

Leading up to the shooting was a series of protests against the mass internment of Irish Catholics. Two weeks prior, a march had been planned to the site of one internment camp outside Derry. The marchers were driven off by soldiers, who fired rubber bullets and beat demonstrators with batons.

The Sunday, January 30, a mass protest march in Derry was held in defiance of a ban on all demonstrations imposed by Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner. Preparing to repress the demonstration, the infamous 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, or 1 Para, was deployed to Derry. The regiment was known for its brutal violence against Catholic demonstrators. Among its crimes was the Ballymurphy massacre in which nine civilians were killed in August 1971.

The march began with about 10,000 participants and grew as it passed through neighborhoods. It was originally intended to reach Guildhall Square, the seat of the Derry city government, where a rally would be held, but the British Army had barricaded the planned march routes. The march organizers decided to move the rally to the Free Derry Corner at the last minute. Amid the confusion, the march splintered into smaller groups with minor clashes between Catholic youth and the British soldiers. Witnesses reported seeing only handfuls of high school aged youth throwing stones at soldiers before being chased off, a common and minor occurrence in Derry. However, when some of the rocks landed near the 1 Para forces stationed on rooftops, they responded by firing their rifles indiscriminately into the crowd below. The paratroopers then began sweeping the streets in armored vehicles, ramming demonstrators, and beating them with clubs and rifle butts before arresting them.

As the street sweeps continued, the soldiers opened fire on any crowds they encountered. The unarmed demonstrators attempted to flee as the soldiers approached but were not able to escape the hundreds of rounds fired. Most of those wounded or killed were shot in the back. Some were shot while attempting to aid the wounded. Ten of those killed were under 30 years old; seven of them were teenagers. All were unarmed.

Outrage at the killings spread throughout all of Ireland. A general strike was held on February 2 with a mass rally held outside the British Embassy in Dublin, which was later burned down. Bloody Sunday became a rallying cry of support for the oppressed Catholic population in Northern Ireland. The nationalist IRA saw a sharp increase in support and recruitment in the aftermath.

75 years ago: Prosecution rests in war crimes trial of Japanese military chief

On January 14, 1947, prosecutors at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, organized by the victorious Allied powers of World War II, rested their case against Hideki Tojo, one of the most notorious Japanese war criminals of the conflict. Tojo was charged with crimes against peace and humanity, with prosecutors recommending the death penalty.

Tojo

Tojo had been minister of war between 1940 and 1944, throughout most of the war in the Pacific. He had also been prime minister for three of those years and had appointed himself as chief of the armys general staff in 1944, taking direct responsibility for its actions, before being removed as the countrys defeat approached.

A right-wing militarist, Tojo was implicated in almost all of the crimes of Japanese imperialism during the war. This included the mass killing of civilians in areas conquered by Japan, death marches of enemy soldiers and ordinary people alike in countries such as the Philippines, and the establishment of a network of comfort women throughout East Asia, especially in Korea, who were abused as sex slaves of the army.

Tojo was also implicated in mass murder in China, including the 1937 Nanjing Massacre during which Japanese troops went on a six-week rampage after they had sacked the Chinese city, killing an estimated 200,000 civilians.

The Allied powers drew attention to Tojos involvement in the attack on Pearl Harbor, which had served as the pretext for US imperialist intervention in the war. Tojo was the most prominent of a group of defendants tried at the same time.

General Douglas MacArthur and other top figures in the US occupation of Japan sought to assign overriding responsibility for a host of crimes to Tojo. This was bound up with their protection of the Japanese Emperor and his family, who were viewed as vital props of the authoritarian, US-controlled regime that had been erected after the war.

Tojo would be executed in December 1948.

100 years ago: British Indian police massacre hundreds in Bengal

On January 27, 1922, British Indian police fired on a protest organized by Mohandas Gandhis non-cooperation movement, killing over 1,500 people at a market in Salanga in what is now the Sirajganj District of northern Bengal, in modern Bangladesh.

Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish in later years

Crowds of peasants, artisans and merchants from the predominantly Muslim region assembled there to hear a speech by nationalist leader Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish, at that time only 21 years old. Many listeners had come to oppose the near monopoly of British goods at the market and the brutal oppression of the zamindars, the large landowners who collected taxes on behalf of the British.

When Tarkabagish attempted to speak, police officers arrested and began to beat him. As demonstrators came to his rescue, police lined up in front of a liquor store and began firing into the crowd, killing hundreds and provoking a stampede in which hundreds more died. Victims were buried in mass graves, or their bodies were thrown into the nearby river.

Tarkabagish later became a leading bourgeois politician and member of the Muslim League in British-controlled India, and, after partition in 1947, in East Pakistan. He resigned from the Muslim League over the Pakistan governments massacre of students in 1952. He subsequently became a leader of the Awami League and after 1971 a leader of an independent Bangladesh.
As of yesterday, there have been 72 million COVID infections and almost 890,000 deaths in the United States. At the present rate, deaths will reach 900,000 this week, and will top one million before winter is over.

But even as the Omicron surge continues its spread across the country, hosannas are being proclaimed that the end of the pandemic is nigh. Every media report claims to detect a silver lining in even the grimmest figures. Biden administration COVID spokesmen like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky endorse such distortions.

A registered nurse is illuminated by the glow of a computer monitor as a doctor examines a COVID-19 patient inside Scotland County Hospital in Memphis, Mo., on Nov. 24, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Dr. Ali Mokdad, a professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and chief strategy officer for population health at the University of Washington, told Bloomberg News, We are going to go through a couple more weeks that are very difficult on our hospitals but come mid-February, March, we should be in a very good position.

The only real objective evidence on this prognosis is that repeatedly, throughout the pandemic, high-profile scientists and political pundits have declared the latest surge to be the last. And each time a new, more virulent variant appeared, the same health officials quietly discard such claims into their social media wastebaskets as hospitals surge past their capacity and deaths pile higher, only to emerge once the wave recedes and proclaim once again that the last wave has passed.

Such prognoses are entirely in conflict with developments on the ground and lack any scientific merit:

The daily average number of COVID-19 cases remains over 700,000 per day, nearly five million people each week

The COVID test positivity rate for the US has surpassed 30 percent, demonstrating that even the current sky-high case metrics are underestimates

The daily average of patients admitted to hospitals is 159,000, the highest level of the entire pandemic

The daily average death rate has reached 2,162, above the Delta peak in September, and headed towards the all-time high of last winter

On Friday alone, there were 3,856 COVID deaths reported

Almost a million children (981,858) were infected last week, and, on average, 880 children are being admitted to hospitals each day

Fifteen children died last week of COVID

The Omicron peaks in regions along the Eastern seaboard, hit first by the new variant, are subsiding, as New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, Florida, and Massachusetts see both cases and hospital admissions declining, though the figures remain near pandemic highs.

However, the Mountain West, South and rural areas generallystates like Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, South Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kansassee cases, hospitalizations, and deaths all continue their ascent. And Omicron is now hitting resource-poor regions with the fewest people vaccinated and health systems in shambles.

Meanwhile, public health officials are moving to end daily case counting, and they declare that the Omicron surge will end with the virus entering a state of endemicity. This means that the virus remains indefinitely within the community at more or less stable levels. However, such a prognosis is ludicrous for a respiratory pathogen like SARS-CoV-2 that constantly mutates while population immunity achieved either by vaccination or infection is short-lived.

A report published by the Pew Research Center noted, Months into the pandemic, epidemiologists said COVID-19 ultimately would become endemic, infecting nearly everyone and remaining in the population indefinitely. That endemic era may have started. As a result, many state health officials say theyre preparing to scale back the frequency of case count updates, possibly as soon as the current surge.

Accurate metrics that include the number of daily infections, the positivity rate, an adequate scale of testing, location of outbreaks, and hospital statistics are a vital part of a functioning public health infrastructure. The essence of abandoning such metrics is the public health establishment embracing the principle of the ignoramus Donald Trump, that if you dont test, there is no disease.

This policy is being adopted wholesale even as the pandemic continues to kill thousands of Americans every day. It is an affront to the memory of the nearly one million or more that have perished in less than two years since the first US COVID death was officially reported at the end of February 2020.

In particular, the CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walenskys role in this regard is a nefarious one.

Her one-year tenure has seen the mismanagement of the COVID vaccine rollout, three massive surges of the pandemic, and the emergence of ever more virulent strains of the coronavirus. More than 450,000 Americans have died under her (and Bidens) watch, even more than under Trump, while hospitals and health care workers are drowning in cases.

As the pandemic enters its third year for the US, she effectively threw up her hands, telling Politico, I actually really think many people have thought [that] this is CDCs responsibility to fix public health [and] the pandemic. The CDC alone cant fix this. Businesses have to help, the government has to help, school systems have to help. This is too big for the CDC alone.

Later in the interview, on the state of the pandemic, she added, I would love to say I know exactly where we are because I think people really do want to know. But the most important thing that we can say is that we dont know exactly where were heading.

These statements are an abdication of her responsibilities as a public health leader and would warrant demands that she tender her resignation immediately. However, she receives her instructions not from the public, or the health care community, but from the White House and Wall Street.

When asked about what indicators she and the CDC are using to gauge where the country is headed, she said, When cases stay down  or if cases are high, [but] severity will be such that were in an okay spot in our hospitals  our masks might be more likely to come off. And then if you get a case of runny nose, you might say, Okay, well, Im going to stay home, because thats what I do when I have a runny nose. But you dont necessarily have to isolate.

Not once did she raise any genuine concern about the current state of hospitals, infections among children, chronic complications of Long COVID, the issue of anti-vaxxers and the unvaccinated, or the tremendous death toll, especially among the elderly and those with chronic and debilitating conditions.

Meanwhile, states like Alabama are at 143 percent hospitalizations compared to last winters peaks, with numbers continuing their climb. On a Facebook live event last week, Dr. Scott Harris, health officer for the state, admitted, Its just mind boggling, and we dont know how much longer its going to go on.

Dr. David Trasher, a Montgomery-based pulmonologist, said, Our hospitals are overwhelmed. The morale and the stress on our staff if really unbearable. These are sentiments repeated over and over.

More recently, the Omicron variant is hitting nursing homes again, infecting residents and staff in record numbers. According to the CDCs data, there has been a ten-fold rise in cases since November. Last week more than 40,000 residents tested positive while 67,000 staff were infected. Though this high-risk group has been heavily vaccinated, almost 1,000 deaths were reported among them the previous week.

Katie Smith Sloan, executive director of The Global Aging Network, told NPR, older adults who live in nursing homes have underlying health conditions. They tend to be frail. They live in a nursing home because they need 24-7 nursing care. And we know from the beginning of this pandemic that thats the population that was most at risk, and that hasnt changed.

Amid these developments in the US, there are reports of the spread of a new subvariant of Omicron, BA.2, which possesses 80 to 90 mutations compared to 60 mutations of the current Omicron variant. It is rapidly growing in northern Europe, specifically in the UK, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Professor Yaneer Bar-Yam, a complex systems physicist and head of the World Health Network, which calls for global elimination of COVID, noted, [They are] not the same thing. [BA.2] It is about as different as Delta started out from the original variant.

Any attempt to declare the pandemic over and implement a policy of living with the virus has disastrous consequences. Experience over the last two years has shown that the ruling elites place no limit on the misery that could befall the working class to ensure the engines of profit are operating at full capacity.
On Friday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) announced it had charged a 54-year-old Trump supporter, Chad Stark of Texas, for allegedly sending threatening election-related communications targeting Georgia state officials and election workers the day before former President Donald Trumps attempted coup of January 6, 2021. If convicted, Stark faces a maximum five-year prison sentence.

Along with the bulk of the Republican Party, Stark promoted Trumps stolen election lies following his electoral defeat.

Protesters stand with their rifles during a rally against Michigans coronavirus stay-at-home order at the State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, May 14, 2020 [Credit: AP Photo/Paul Sancya]

Trump declared that the vote was rigged in key battleground states, including Georgia, which he had lost to Joe Biden. Citing everything from fraudulent mail-in ballots to supposedly manipulated voting software, Trump, in concert with Republican lawmakers, far-right lawyers and media figures, high-ranking police and military officials and fascist militia groups, sought to overthrow the election and establish a military-backed dictatorship. The plot culminated in the storming of the US Capitol and came within minutes of succeeding.

On the eve of the joint session of Congress to formally certify the Electoral College results, Trump publicly attacked election officials and Republican elements that refused to illegally overturn the vote in Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan. This was the context in which Stark posted an online advertisement offering $10,000 to any Georgia Patriots willing to put a bullet into election officials and politicians who had been denounced by Trump.

The federal indictment quotes Starks ad, placed on the Craigslist website, without revealing the names of those specifically targeted for assassination:

Georgia Patriots its time for us to take back our state from these Lawless treasonous traitors. Its time to invoke our Second Amendment right its time to put a bullet in the treasonous Chinese [Official A]. Then we work our way down to [Official B] the local and federal corrupt judges. Its our duty as American Patriots to put an end to the lives of these traitors and take back our country by force If we want country back we have to exterminate these people. One good loyal Patriot deer hunter in camo and a rifle can send a very clear message to these corrupt governors militia up Georgia its time to spill blood we need to pay a visit to [Official C] and her family as well and put a bullet [sic] her behind the ears

Referencing the language of the fascist Oath Keepers militia, 11 of whose members are facing federal charges of seditious conspiracy for their role in the January 6 insurrection, the ad goes on to state:

Remember one thing local law enforcement the key word being local we will find you oathbreakers were going to make examples of traitors to our country... death to you and all you communist friends.

While their names are redacted in the indictment, the Washington Post identifies two of the targeted officials as Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Trump incited violence against the pair in television appearances, campaign rallies and on social media in the weeks following his electoral defeat.

In a January 2 phone call to Raffensperger, Trump said he wanted the top state election official to find the 11,780 votes needed to overcome Bidens officially certified margin of victory in the states popular vote.

The charging of Stark marks the first time anyone has been indicted by the Election Threats Task Force, which was announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland in June 2021. This is despite the fact that Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. of the task force admitted last week that his team had received over 850 reports of threats to election officials since its inception.

Many far-right militia members, former and current police, members of the military, white supremacists and petty-bourgeois elements who stormed the US Capitol in the attempt to overturn the election of Biden have faced few repercussions for their actions in service of Trumps coup.

The arrest and indictment of Stark for his role in inciting violence against officials who resisted Trumps coup plot only highlights the failure of the Biden Department of Justice to prosecute would-be Fuhrer Trump or his coup lawyers and congressional co-conspirators. Instead, Biden and the Democrats have sought to cover up the scale of the coup conspiracy and its continuance by the Trump-dominated GOP, while continuing to appeal to their Republican friends and colleagues.

Meanwhile, Biden has openly adopted Trumps COVID-19 herd immunity policy of mass infection and death, dismantling all safety protocols in order to keep schools and factories open, while terminating the limited restraints on evictions and extensions of jobless benefits enacted in the early stage of the pandemic.

The DoJ has done virtually nothing to prevent far-right elements from harassing, intimidating and threatening school officials and medical workers, who, like election workers and officials, have been the target of fascistic agitation.

Charges were finally announced last week after a December 30 assault on a vaccination clinic in Orange County, California. Thomas Apollo, a 44-year-old man, was arrested last Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of battery and resisting arrest for attacking medical workers at a vaccination clinic.

The disturbed man allegedly accused medical workers of being murderers and refused to wear a mask before assaulting two medical assistants. After being arrested and transported to a nearby hospital, Apollo allegedly tried to break a nurses finger and then sexually assault her.

Last week, a 42-year-old Virginia woman, Amelia King, was charged by the Luray Police Department and released on a low $5,000 bond after making death threats during last Thursdays Page County School Board meeting. King, who has a photo of herself on her Facebook page posing with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, threatened to come to school with her gun loaded in opposition to a proposed mask mandate.
Weather Alert

...The Flood Warning continues for the following rivers and locations in Indiana... White River at Edwardsport and Elliston. Wabash River at Montezuma. .Multiple rounds of rain over the last few days, including today, will lead to minor flooding along lower portions of the White River and upper portions on the Wabash River. Additional rainfall later this week should keep portions of the White and Wabash above flood stage through Saturday. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... Motorists should not attempt to drive around barricades or drive cars through flooded areas. Be especially cautious at night when it is harder to recognize the dangers of flooding. Additional information is available at www.weather.gov/ind. This statement will be updated within the next 12 to 24 hours. && ...FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT TO SUNDAY EVENING... * WHAT...Minor flooding is forecast. * WHERE...Wabash River at Montezuma. * WHEN...From late tonight to Sunday evening. * IMPACTS...At 18.0 feet, Montezuma agricultural levee is overtopped. Fourteen hundred acres of low bottomlands flood. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 10:45 AM EDT Tuesday the stage was 9.1 feet. - Forecast...The river will oscillate around flood stage with a maximum value of 16.4 feet early Saturday morning. - Flood stage is 14.0 feet. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood &&
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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WTHI) - Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb has announced the end of Operation Allies Welcome.

The program worked to resettle Afghan refugees housed at Camp Atterbury.

The National Guard base was the temporary home for nearly 7,200 people who fled Afghanistan during the pull-out of American forces.

Gov. Eric Holcomb called the resettlement operation one of Indianas finest hours in helping those who fled Afghanistan after the countrys American-backed government was overthrown by the Taliban in August.

The last of the remaining 200 refugees at Camp Atterbury were expected to depart for resettlement assignments by the end of this week, said Aaron Batt, a federal Department of Homeland Security coordinator for Operation Allies Welcome.

Camp Atterbury, about 25 miles south of Indianapolis, was among eight sites in the U.S. that the Department of Defense selected to temporarily house some 75,000 people evacuated from Afghanistan, including people who aided the American war effort in that country and their families.

Several Afghans housed in the camp, created a mural that depicts their story.

More than 700 refugees were expected to settle in the Hoosier state.
Crystal Symphony ship

JEAN-PIERRE MULLER/AFP via Getty

A cruise ship made a surprise detour to the Bahamas after a U.S. judge granted an order to seize the vessel amid a lawsuit over unpaid fuel.

The Crystal Symphony, which was originally scheduled to return its passengers to Miami on Saturday, instead headed to the Bahamian island of Bimini, according to CBS News.

The number of passengers affected remains unclear, but the vessel has a maximum capacity of 848 passengers according to the company's website. Those on board the ship were ferried to Fort Lauderdale the following day.

The change in itinerary came after a federal judge in Miami issued a maritime arrest warrant for the ship which allows a U.S. Marshall to take charge once it arrives in U.S. waters due to a lawsuit over unpaid fuel.

RELATED: Royal Caribbean Cancels Cruises and Quarantines Crew Members with COVID on Out-of-Service Ships

Peninsula Petroleum Far East filed a lawsuit in federal court against Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises for breach of contract to recover $4.6 million in fuel costs according to Newsweek.

News of the lawsuit came as a surprise to many passengers and crew members according to the Associated Press. In a Facebook post on Sunday, passenger Steven Heart Fales wrote, "We all feel we were abducted by luxurious pirates!" alongside images of himself on the boat.

RELATED: CDC Says All Individuals Should Avoid Cruise Ship Travel 'Regardless of Vaccination Status'

Crystal Cruises said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE, "This end to the cruise was not the conclusion to our guests' vacation we originally planned for," but noted they were unable to comment on pending legal matters.

The operator added that they provided "overnight accommodations Saturday evening with the ship's exemplary service and amenities offered and they were well cared for on board. Crystal arranged ground transportation to local airports, as well as PortMiami."

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RELATED: 55 People Aboard Second Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship Test Positive for COVID-19

Last week, Crystal Cruises announced it would suspend operations of its ocean and expedition voyages through April and pause its river voyages through May.

"Suspending operations will provide Crystal's management team with an opportunity to evaluate the current state of business and examine various options moving forward," the said in company a statement posted on its website.
airplane landing

Getty

A 22-year-old Kenyan man was found alive in the front wheel section of a cargo plane after the aircraft completed an 11-hour flight to Europe, according to authorities.

The man was found on Sunday morning in the nose wheel of the cargo plane, which flew from South Africa to Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam, Dutch military police said in a translated statement over the weekend.

"[He] is doing well under the circumstances and has been transported to the hospital," police said in a tweet.

In an update on Monday, police said they are looking into whether the incident is a case of migrant smuggling.

"Our first concern of course was for his health," military police spokeswoman Joanna Helmonds told Reuters. "This is definitely very unusual that someone was able to survive the cold at such a height  very, very unusual."

RELATED: YouTubers Kicked Off American Flight After One Hides Under First-Class Seat, Says Passenger

The man has since applied for asylum, police also said on Monday.

In comments to the New York Times, Robert van Kapel, a spokesman for the military police, said he was unsure about the circumstances around the man's asylum application.

"We of course see that a lot of people try to enter Europe for a better life," he explained. "We see it every day, not only in airports but also in ports and highways."

RELATED: 'His Body Was an Ice Block:' Stowaway Falls from Kenya Airways Plane, Plummets Into London Garden

Van Kapel believed the man boarded the aircraft in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, where it stopped en route to Amsterdam from Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa.

While stowaways on flights are rare, those who managed to sneak into an aircraft's wheel well will face freezing temperatures and low oxygen levels, increasing their risk of hypothermia and hypoxia, the Washington Post reported. They can also become crushed by the plane's equipment, or fall from the plane itself.

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In 2019, a stowaway fell from a plane flying over London and was killed when he crashed into a residential garden near a man who was sunbathing.

RELATED VIDEO: Newlyweds, 30 and 33, Die in Plane Crash on Scenic Colo. Honeymoon They Were 'Documenting Online'

In November, a 26-year-old man survived a flight from Guatemala to Miami after hiding in the plant's landing gear compartment.

At the age of 12 in 1946, Bas Wie became one of the earliest reported people to have survived a stowaway fight in a plane's wheel compartment. He went on to marry and have five children before dying in 2016 at age 82.
WASHINGTON  President Joe Biden consulted with European leaders on Monday afternoon as pressure builds between Russia and NATO over Ukraine.

NATO said Monday it would move more military equipment and troops into countries on the alliances eastern front. Russia has built up at least 100,000 troops on its border with Ukraine, threatening that conflict may be necessary to preserve its national security.

Also Monday, the Pentagon announced it is putting 8,500 U.S. troops on "heightened alert" for possible deployment to Eastern Europe amid the crisis.

"No decisions have been made to deploy any forces from the United States at this time," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Monday during a briefing.

Kirby said many of the troops put on alert were ordered to prepare to mobilize within 10 days. That will be shortened to five days for some, but not all, of the notified service members.

Its very clear that the Russians right now have no intention of de-escalating," Kirby said. The Pentagon wanted to make sure we were ready.

Denmark is sending a frigate and deploying F-16 warplanes to Lithuania; Spain will send warships and could send fighter jets to Bulgaria; and France stands ready to send troops to Romania.

"We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defense," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.

Biden said last week that the United States would move more troops and equipment into NATO's eastern countries, should Russia continue to threaten an invasion.

"We've never ruled out providing additional assistance to eastern flank countries in advance of any invasion," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a regular press briefing Monday. She said talks with allies on U.S. troop and weapons deployments are "ongoing."

Sunday, the United States ordered the families of U.S. diplomats to leave Kyiv, an action several European diplomats called premature. The United Kingdom announced the same move on Monday, saying it was in response to the growing threat from Russia.

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"Now is the time to leave, and there are means to do that," Psaki said in a message directed to Americans in Ukraine, noting that the situation was similar to emergency calls to evacuate in Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan , among others.

She said there are no plans to evacuate Americans from Ukraine by military aircraft, except the families of U.S. diplomats. Other Americans have been encouraged to leave via available commercial flights.

Diplomatic talks between the West and Russia slowed as negotiations expanded into a broader debate over the security structure of post-Cold War Europe.

The White House said Biden spoke Monday afternoon via a video call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, NATO's Stoltenberg, Polish President Andrzej Duda and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

The Kremlin lambasted NATO's troop movements, arguing that the West's mobilization was inciting "hysteria."

Ireland, a non-NATO country, said Russia performed military exercises off its coast, a move that was not welcome.

Ukraine says it was "premature" of the United States to evacuate the families of its diplomatic staff in Kyiv over fears of a looming Russian invasion.

European Union foreign ministers reconvened to show a united front supporting Ukraine in an effort to downplay concerns Europe would not respond cohesively to Russian aggression.

Learn more: What is happening at Ukraine's border? Putin's buildup of Russian troops sparks concern

Asked whether the EU would evacuate the families of diplomats from Ukraine, EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell said, "We are not going to do the same thing." He said he is keen to hear from Secretary of State Antony Blinken about that decision.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Oleg Nikolenko, said the U.S. decision was "a premature step" and a sign of "excessive caution." He said Russia is sowing panic among Ukrainians and foreigners to destabilize Ukraine.

Germany is monitoring developments, but Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed that "we must not contribute to unsettling the situation further; we need to continue to support the Ukrainian government very clearly and above all maintain the stability of the country."

Britain announced Jan. 24 it is withdrawing some diplomats and dependents from its embassy in Kyiv. The Foreign Office said the move was "in response to the growing threat from Russia."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expresses support for Ukraine at European Union headquarters in Brussels on Jan. 24.

Gas prices play role in EU unity over Russia

Diverse political, business and energy interests have long divided the 27-country EU in its approach to Moscow. About 40% of the EU's natural gas imports come from Russia, much of it via pipelines across Ukraine.

Gas prices have skyrocketed, and Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, said Russian energy giant Gazprom reduced its exports to the EU in late 2021 despite high prices. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Gazprom is respecting its contract obligations, not putting the squeeze on Europe.

Germany's Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which is complete but yet to pump gas, has become a bargaining chip. French President Macron renewed calls for an EU summit with Putin.

Late last year, France and Germany expressed doubts about U.S. intelligence assessments that Moscow might be preparing to invade.

Late Saturday, the head of the German navy, Vice Adm. Kay-Achim Schonbach, resigned after saying Ukraine would not regain the Crimean Peninsula and suggesting Putin deserves "respect."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban plans to meet with Putin next week to discuss a Russian-backed project to expand a Hungarian nuclear power plant.

Diplomats and officials said hard-hitting sanctions are being drawn up with the EU's executive branch, the European Commission. They were reluctant to say what the measures might be or what action by Russia might trigger them.

The aim, they said, is to try to match the doubts Putin has sowed about his intentions for Ukraine with uncertainty about what any retaliatory European action might look like, or when it would come.

Follow Matthew Brown online @mrbrownsir.

Contributing: The Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine-Russia tensions: Biden talks to allies; US troops put on alert
Anthony Blinken

Susan Walsh/AP/Shutterstock Anthony Blinken

A mysterious condition known as "Havana Syndrome"  which apparently first affected dozens of U.S. officials in Cuba and, later, government officials across the globe  is not the result of a nefarious campaign by a foreign power, American intelligence officials believe.

Still, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that his agency "will leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of" the root cause of the issue.

The so-called syndrome, named for where it was first reported, has confounded researchers since late 2016, when U.S. and Canadian embassy staff in Cuba began experiencing symptoms consistent with those who suffer from brain injuries.

A number of people have since reported medical symptoms, though a common cause has not been discovered. Skeptics say the cases are being over-interpreted, though some of those who have experienced the symptoms have spoken out and said they are being marginalized.

The U.S. reduced staff at its embassy in Cuba in response to the cases and in 2018, U.S. diplomats in China reported similar problems.

Undercover CIA agents working in other countries have also reportedly experienced the symptoms, which include headaches, memory loss and nausea.

The State Department announced in July it was investigating reports of illnesses with similar symptoms among up to two dozen U.S. officials stationed in Vienna that had cropped up since the beginning of the year.

A number of the cases began in a similar fashion, with Neurology Today reporting that suspected victims first heard strange grating noises, similar to what occurs when driving a car with the window partially rolled down, before experiencing the other symptoms later.

RELATED: U.S. Probing Reports of Mysterious Illnesses Among Government Officials in Vienna

The science behind this is a matter of debate among doctors and medical experts. Some have speculated that the symptoms could be the result of microwave weapons, which can cause sonic delusions and brain damage. Others disagree.

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The intelligence community is coming to its own conclusion, with the CIA ruling out foreign involvement in hundreds of cases of the ailment, instead finding plausible alternative explanations in a new assessment, according to NBC News. Sources familiar with the assessment told the network that the agency disputes the notion that Russia or another foreign country may be behind all of the symptoms, as some sort of larger, microwave-based attack.

NBC News reported Wednesday that the agency wasn't yet ruling out foreign involvement in the cases that spurred it all  those that originated at the U.S. Embassy in Havana beginning in 2016.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Secretary Blinken acknowledged the intelligence community's assessment, but said he had spoken directly to those impacted by the mysterious health issues and was convinced that they were sincerely affected.

"I've talked directly face to face, on the phone, by video with colleagues from the State Department around the world who have been affected, who have reported real experiences, real suffering, real symptoms," Blinken said. "And when you talk to people, when you hear them, when you hear what they've been through, there is no doubt in my mind but that they have had real experiences, real symptoms and real suffering."

He continued: "And we are going to continue to do everything we can with all the resources we can bring to bear to understand, again, what happened, why, and who might be responsible. And we are leaving no stone unturned."

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Suspicions of the so-called syndrome have impacted even the upper echelons of the U.S. government, with an August trip to Vietnam by Vice President Kamala Harris even delayed due to a "possible anomalous health incident" in the capital city of Hanoi, according to the State Department.

Though the State Department did not offer further details at the time, "anomalous health incident" is the term the U.S. government has previously used to described the Havana Syndrome.

According to a statement from the State Department, Harris' delegation "was delayed from departing Singapore because the Vice President's office was made aware of a report of a recent possible anomalous health incident in Hanoi, Vietnam. After careful assessment, the decision was made to continue with the Vice President's trip."
Kanyes demands for the final cut on Jeen-yuhs makes its Sundance premiere all the more fascinating.

The three-part Netflix documentary directed by Clarence Coodie Simmons and Chike Ozah is raw, rambling and riveting in equal measure. The press screener  labeled Work In Progress  features previously unseen footage from 21 years of the performing artists life. Its far from an exhaustive biography, but it offers an intriguing insight into hip hop, fame, race, grief, mental health and perhaps most of all, friendship.

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In Act 1: Vision, Coodies voiceover veers between interesting and intrusive as he narrates the process of making the documentary through the prism of his relationship with Kanye.

He knew it would take a lot for him to earn peoples respect as a rapper, he says, as we watch the young producer touting his wares at record companies. Coodie and Ozah keep the camera rolling during late-night recording sessions, car journeys and parties, capturing a good number of monologues that demonstrate the young Kanye Wests self-belief  though these seem more self-aware in the early days.

Doing this documentary right now, its a little narcissistic or whatever, but f*ck it, he says. Later, he declares, I might be living your American Dream, but Im nowhere near where my dream is.

A visit to Kanyes effervescent mother, Donda, causes Coodie to muse on her part in fostering this unwavering ambition. But like much of his narration, that didnt really need to be said: her pride and influence radiate from the screen in both Act I and Act II: Purpose. When her tragic death is announced in Act III, Dondas absence is felt deeply. But by now, Coodie is increasingly distant from his old pal, reduced to grabbing moments with him after a triumphant night at the Grammys rather than following his every move.

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Entitled Awakening, Act III has an increasing reliance on news and TV footage, but it zips past most of the headlines to focus on the rare moments that Coodie reunites with Kanye, such as in the run up to his presidential campaign in 2020. Theres a disturbing scene where Kanye rants almost incoherently during a meeting, referring to bipolar medication. Coodie explains that he ended up turning the camera off as he felt uncomfortable filming this, making its inclusion rather ironic. But the filmmaker still comes across as sincere in his affection. He always seemed to be in his best spirits when he was creating, he says of his friend, and theres love in his voice, albeit with a hint of wounded abandonment.

While we see Kanye with a long list of names, from Dame Dash to Takashi Murakami to Justin Bieber, theres not a great deal of insight into his creative process; less still into his relationships with women. Ex wife Kim Kardashian is only mentioned briefly, as a factor in him canceling a tour, and we dont see him with a girlfriend at any point. And while Coodie talks about the birth of his own child, Donda is the only mother really present in this film.

Fans are sure to take many different things from this documentary. There are funny moments, fascinating moments, weird moments, scrappy moments. I found myself oscillating between admiration, amusement and disdain, as well as frustration at what wasnt being shown. But the most lasting feeling was pity. This portrays Kanye incompletely but sympathetically, suggesting that behind the bravado hes a little lost and vulnerable  while never short of words.

The Netflix documentary debuts on the service on Feb. 16.

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Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the date of Bert Christman's death. He died on Jan. 23, 1942, becoming the first Fort Collins service member to die in World War II.

He's been gone for 80 years, but Janis Bunchman still remembers the stories about her Uncle Bert.

Her mom, Joanne, used to regale her with tales of their adventures, about how her big brother Bert  her father figure since their own dad had died when Joanne was a toddler  taught her how to ride a bike and ice skate on Sheldon Lake.

They ventured out on hikes together in Rocky Mountain National Park and caught the streetcar from their little house on Loomis Avenue to Fort Collins' downtown movie theaters.

But the stories end in late January 1942, when a military officer showed up at the front gate of the family's home.

"When the gate opened and the officer was there, they both broke down," Bunchman, now 71, said of her mom and grandmother, Elsie Christman. "They knew he was gone."

Bert Christman, a budding cartoonist and pilot with the First American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force, had died while flying a mission over what was then Burma on Jan. 23, 1942. He was 26 years old and left behind his mother, Joanne and an older sister, Ruth.

Bert Christman in an undated military portrait. The Fort Collins pilot was trained by the Navy and later joined the First American Volunteer Group of the Chinese Air Force in the lead-up to the United States' entry into World War II. He was killed during a mission over what was then Burma on Jan. 23, 1942.

With his death occurring just 47 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Bert was the first service member from Fort Collins to die in World War II, according to a report in the Fort Collins Express-Courier at the time.

On Sunday, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his final and ill-fated mission, several pilots plan to fly over Colorado State University's Christman Field, which was named in Bert's memory in 1943, according to a report in CSU's Source.

One of the pilots flying in the event  Evergreen resident John Newkirk  is the second cousin of John "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk, who did naval aviation training with Bert before the war.

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The airfield will open to the public at 11:30 a.m. and flyovers will go from noon to 12:30 p.m., weather permitting, according to CSU. Following the flyovers, members of the CSU Drone Center  which now uses Christman Field as a drone research and testing ground  will be available for public drone demonstrations.

"Just to have someone remember a hero like that, it's amazing," said Bunchman, who will travel from Arizona for Sunday's flyover. Her children, grandchildren, brother Rod Chisholm and other family members will also be in attendance, she said.

While Bunchman and her brother weren't born until after their Uncle Bert's death, Bunchman said her mother, aunt and grandmother talked about him often. They spoke of his years at Fort Collins High School and, later, Colorado A&M  now CSU  where he studied mechanical engineering and found a particular aptitude for architectural sketching, Bunchman said.

History of Horsetooth Reservoir: How it went from stone quarry to quenching thirst of fields, cities in 71 years

After graduating from college in 1936, Bert tried his luck in New York City and soon got a job drawing the Associated Press' "Scorchy Smith" comic strip about a pilot and adventurer. He's also credited with co-creating the original Sandman character for DC Comics.

Bert put his cartoon career on hold when he joined the U.S. Navy Air Service to get a taste of military life and gather material for a new comic strip he was planning to start after a three-year enlistment, according to a 1939 article in the Express-Courier.

A comic drawn by Bert Christman shows a young man dreaming of airplanes. Christman, who was born and raised in Fort Collins, found success as a cartoonist in New York City before joining the Navy to get material for a new comic strip he was planning. He would end up being Fort Collins' first casualty of World War II when he died during a mission in Southeast Asia on Jan. 23, 1942.

Ahead of the United States' entry into World War II, he requested leave from the Navy to join the First American Volunteer Group  a small group of American aviators who were hired by China to fight against Japan. They later became known as "the Flying Tigers."

While in Burma  now Myanmar  Bert sent stories and material back to Joe Wing, the editor of the Associated Press' feature service.

In a final letter penned to Wing three days before his death, and later syndicated in newspapers across the country, Bert wrote about recent close calls, including a mission that left him with a bullet graze wound to his neck.

"When 'this' is all over, Im sure Ill be content again to sit at a drawing board and pen my experiences and those of my friends in an authentic aviation comic strip," he wrote.

A sketch of Bert Christman signed by his former colleagues at the Associated Press, where Christman worked as a cartoonist on the "Scorchy Smith" comic strip in the mid- to late 1930s.

While Christman never got to return to his hometown, Bunchman said her grandmother Elsie stayed in Fort Collins  in the same Loomis Avenue home Bert grew up in  until her 1970 death.

As her mother and aunt were cleaning out her grandmother's house, Bunchman recalls them coming across all of Bert's things that Elsie had squirreled away: stacks of "Scorchy Smith" clippings he'd sent back from New York, college notebooks filled with architectural drawings, sketchbooks lined with years of doodles, photos of his brief stint working in an Alaska fish cannery, of pilot training in Pensacola and finally as a "Flying Tiger" in Southeast Asia.

"He was very adventurous," Bunchman said. "He packed a lot of stuff into life."

Checking in with Theda: Theda Ensminger survived the Spanish flu and world wars. Now 105, she looks back on life.

Erin Udell reports on news, culture, history and more for the Coloradoan. Contact her at ErinUdell@coloradoan.com. The only way she can keep doing what she does is with your support. If you subscribe, thank you. If not, sign up for a digital subscription to the Coloradoan today.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins history: Flyover honors pilot, city's first WWII casualty
For nearly two years, people were told to isolate for 10 days after testing positive for COVID or developing symptoms. But on Dec. 27, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a controversial change to its guidelines, shortening the recommended time for isolation to just five days instead of more than a week. This decision was motivated by science that suggests COVID transmission mostly occurs earlier in the course of the illness, per the CDC. The agency has been criticized for the change, in part because experts worry it adds to the confusion of how long people can spread the virus to others. With that in mind, read on to learn what data shows about how long you stay contagious with COVID.

RELATED: This Is How Long Your Omicron Symptoms Will Last, Doctors Say.

You can be contagious with COVID for more than 10 days.

There is no one standard for how long you could be spreading the virus, but some people can remain contagious for more than a week. COVID patients are "potentially infectious" two days before their symptoms arise and up to ten days after, Gary McLean, PhD, a professor of molecular immunology at London Metropolitan University, told Insider.

The U.K. Health Health and Security Agency (UKSHA), which helps inform COVID policies in the country, released data from its modeling study at the end of December, which gives insight into the potential periods of infectiousness for most patients. According to their data, about 5 percent of people who tested positive for COVID are still infectious after 10 days of self-isolation. And at least 1 percent might still be contagious 14 days after testing positive or developing symptoms.

But most people have a shorter period of contagiousness.

More people are infectious for a shorter period of time than this, however. According to the UKSHA data, around 16 percent of people are still contagious seven days after developing symptoms or testing positive for COVID. But at day five, which has become the new isolation benchmark in the U.S., 31 percent of people are estimated to remain infectious after symptom onset or a positive test.

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"During the course of a SARS-CoV-2 infection, viral load increases from 1 to 2 days before symptom onset, then peaks at symptom onset and in the first 5 days, indicating that this period has highest infectiousness potential," the agency's report states.

According to the CDC, the risk of being contagious for longer than a week is only higher for certain people. "The likelihood of recovering replication-competent (infectious) virus is very low after 10 days from onset of symptoms, except in people who have severe COVID-19 or who are moderately or severely immunocompromised," the agency says.

RELATED: For more up-to-date information, sign up for our daily newsletter.

People with Omicron might stay infectious longer.

On the other hand, past data might be somewhat inconsistent for the latest variant. A Japanese report released on Jan. 5 suggests that patients with the Omicron variant of COVID may shed the virus for longer after symptoms emerge than with prior versions of the virus. According to this report, preliminary data from the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, which conducts disease surveillance in Japan, shows that a patient's viral load is highest three to six days after testing positive or developing symptoms.

Paul Hunter, a professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said that the latest Japanese data "muddy the waters," according to an article on the report published in the BMJ on Jan. 13. While peak transmission with previous variants was between two days before symptoms and three days after, the new data indicates that the peak of virus shedding may be two or three days later with Omicron, Hunter said.

If you still have certain symptoms, you should stay home.

The CDC's guidelines have been updated to say that symptomatic people can leave isolation five days after onset only if their symptoms are improving and they have been fever-free for at lest 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing medication. "Loss of taste and smell may persist for weeks or months after recovery and need not delay the end of isolation," the agency notes.

Julie Parsonnet, MD, an infectious diseases epidemiologist with Stanford Medicine, told Healthline that in general, people who have tested positive for COVID and are symptomatic are more at risk of spreading the virus to others. So if you still have certain symptoms, you shouldn't go out, especially if you have symptoms that can release respiratory droplets easily. "People whose symptoms are not improvingparticularly if they have coughing and sneezingshould continue to stay home until they're feeling better," Parsonnet said.

And while this isn't an exact science, experts say it's likely the best course of action people can take to make sure they're not sending the virus off to other people. "We don't exactly how symptom duration relates to how long someone is contagious, but we do typically associate symptoms like fever as indication that someone is still infectious," John Carlo, MD, the CEO of Prism Health North Texas and member of the Texas Medical Association COVID-19 Task Force, explained to Healthline.

RELATED: If You Have Omicron, This Is When You'll Begin to Feel Symptoms.
A 12-year-old boy who wrote a letter to his governor asking for tighter gun ownership restrictions was killed just weeks later, after being struck by a stray bullet.

Artemis Rayford penned the letter to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who had just introduced new laws reducing gun restrictions in the state.

The young Sherwood Middle School student wrote that the law, which allows people aged 21 and older to carry a weapon without any training or permit, would be bad and people will be murdered, Meaww.com first reported.

It's not yet clear whether the letter managed to reach Governor Lee, while Shelby County Schools didn't respond to The Washington Posts request for comment.

Artemis life was taken tragically early on Christmas morning last year, when he was hit by a stray bullet that came from outside the Memphis home he shared with his mother and sister.

When school teachers found out about his death, one of them sent his mother a photo of the letter that was addressed to Governor Lee.

The boys grandmother, Joyce Newson, read the letter and was profoundly struck by the irony. Ms Newson said she hoped the governor would see the letter on local news, adding that she wants Artemiss letter to bring more attention to gun laws.

The governor hasnt reached out, she said. Thats why its only going to be thrown up under the rug.

Tennessee Gov Bill Lee (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The murder rate in the city of Memphis has been steadily rising for the past few years, with a record 346 homicides reported in 2021. According to WREG, about 150 children were treated for bullet wounds last year, while 31 were killed.

Sgt. Louis C. Brownlee, a spokesperson for the Memphis Police Department, claimed that investigators are looking into this senseless act of violence and that the department is asking people in the area to submit tips about what they saw that holiday night.
Human and sex trafficking operates in the shadows.

But make no mistake, it is happening in Bucks County.

Look no further, officials say, than strip-mall massage parlors with locked doors in the middle of the day, late overnight hours, cash exchanges in therapy rooms and customers who come and go through back doors, just to name a few worrying signs that raise red flags.

Chelsey Jackman, a former prosecutor now working as an assistant solicitor in the Bucks County Law Department, said she's frequently asked if human trafficking really happens in Bucks County.

"It does. This modern-day slavery is able to thrive in these massage parlors under the front of a legitimate business, but that's where forced sex work is occurring and unfair labor practices," she said at the county commissioners' meeting Wednesday.

In response, the commissioners Wednesday adopted an ordinance to regulate massage businesses countywide, becoming the first county government in Pennsylvania to have such a law of the books. They said the law is aimed at curtailing and eliminating illicit massage establishments that promote prostitution and sex trafficking.

File - The Bucks County Commissioners adopted an ordinance to regulate massage businesses countywide, becoming the first county government in Pennsylvania to have a law of the books. They said the law is aimed at curtailing and eliminating illicit massage establishments that promote prostitution and sex trafficking.

More: Feds: Philly man trafficked four in Bucks and beyond. They say he ran his network for 2 years

Nearby: Montgomery County launches task force focused on human trafficking, child exploitation

Chasing justice: Epstein's death another silencing of trafficking victims

A handful of Bucks County municipalities have their own ordinances, including Falls and Middletown. Bucks Commissioner Chairman Bob Harvie, a former Falls supervisor, said that town saw the benefits of having regulations in its efforts to stop illicit massage parlors from setting up shop.

"Governments have an obligation to serve and protect their residents," Harvie said in an email after the meeting. "That's true at every level of government. Exercising tighter controls over some businesses helps protect the workers in that business, potential customers and the community at large."

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Jackman, who previously prosecuted human trafficking cases in Bucks, said that officials have found "women suffering from some sort of addiction" sometimes turn to prostitution to feed their need and then come under the control of prostitution rings.

When this happens with a child younger than 18, it is not considered prostitution but human trafficking.

She also said that oftentimes people from foreign countries are brought to the United States but their passports are taken away and they are trafficked, frequently by rings that she said are established in New York. "They're very difficult cases," she said.

File - Chelsey Jackman, a former prosecutor now working as an assistant solicitor in the Bucks County Law Department, said human trafficking does happen here. "This modern-day slavery is able to thrive in these massage parlors under the front of a legitimate business but that's where forced sex work is occurring and unfair labor practices," she said at the commissioners' meeting.

By stopping illicit massage businesses from opening, municipalities won't have to use police resources to control them, Jackman said.

"When we work together, it (human trafficking) cannot thrive under our watch. It will free up police."

She said that a massage establishment that has late night hours or has its doors locked during the day could be suspect for illicit business. "There's no reason for doors to be locked," she said.

More: Bucks County to keep Newtown safe house open despite neighborhood opposition

State takes on issue: Pa. law increases penalties for some human trafficking offenses

The county ordinance, passed during Human Trafficking Awareness Month, has several measures related to licensing and how massage businesses must maintain cleanliness and good lighting. It also prohibits anyone younger than 16 from being in a massage salon except with a parent or guardian.

It also sets the hours that massage parlors can operate as between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m.; requires customers to enter by a front door unless getting an exception from the Bucks Health Department; says an owner or manager must be on duty during business hours; and makes the establishment maintain a list of clientele and services provided for not less than the 90 days after date of service. The charges for services must be stated clearly in business brochures and should not change.

The ordinance would make it unlawful for an owner or employee to "expose their sexual or genital area to any customer or other person" and would make it unlawful for them "to place their hands upon, touch, fondle or otherwise have any physical contact with a sexual or genital area of any other person" or to offer to do so.

Violators of the ordinance could be subject to fines between $100 and $1,000 and those guilty of violating the "unlawful conduct" section would be subject to imprisonment up to 10 days.

Middletown Supervisor Chairman Michael Ksiazek said the ordinance his township adopted last fall followed a police investigation which he believed led to the closing of two illicit massage parlors in the township.

He said township officials realized these businesses were targeting municipalities where there were no laws to regulate massage services.

Marc Levitan, one of the owners of Essential Salons in Doylestown and Warrington, said he gives a "seal of approval" to the new ordinance.

Levitan called the new regulations "common sense industry practices that massage businesses should embrace ... No legitimate massage business needs to be open at 3 a.m. or take cash payments in the therapy room."

He also noted that the new regulations don't go into effect for 180 days to give current operators time to make any changes.

A recent study by Heyrick Research in California showed that there are ways to help the public know if a massage business is legitimate, said Julie Dugery, co-chair of the Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking and a staff member of the Network of Victims Assistance (NOVA), a nonprofit dedicated to helping victims of sexual assault and other crimes.

Massage establishments that may be illicit often are open through the night, or advertise on adult websites, the study shows.

Michael Bannon, director of the Bucks County Department of Consumer Protection / Weights & Measures, said anyone suspecting a massage business of operating illegally can contact his department anonymously.

The department's phone number is 215-348-6060 or email consumerprotection@buckscounty.org.

Joining the Bucks County Commissioners (back row, left to right) Diane Ellis-Marseglia, Bob Harvie and Gene DiGirolamo are members of organizations marking Human Trafficking Awareness Month at the county administration building in Doylestown Wednesday. They include (front row, from left) Cindy LaBar, Bucks County Drug & Alcohol Commission; Jen Locker, A Woman's Place; Elyse Hoekstra, NOVA: Stephanie Shantz Stiver, NOVA; Julie Dugery, NOVA, Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking co-chair; Penny Ettinger, NOVA; Jenna Spadaro, NOVA; Brooke Engelbart, Worthwhile Wear; Kelly Teel, Bucks County Children and Youth; andChelsey Jackman, County of Bucks Law Department.

To contact Peg Quann, email mquann@couriertimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County to regulate massage businesses to combat human trafficking
Typing on a keyboard

According to a recent international Gallup poll, the United States is overwhelmingly considered the greatest threat to world peace, with Pakistan, China, North Korea, Israel and Iran (in that order) trailing distantly behind.

The Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam wars cost trillions of dollars and killed millions of people (mostly civilians). We now regret starting them, and never would have if wed had a basic understanding of the situation we were getting into.

Were about to embark on a new war with Russia, a far more formidable foe. Full-scale nuclear conflagration isnt inconceivable. Those who underrate the possibility of nuclear apocalypse havent looked carefully at the numerous times weve come close in the past.

Consider the Russians' point of view. Since the hopeful days of Perestroika and Glasnost, theyve seen a nuclear-armed NATO expand right up to their borders. Does anyone remember how the U.S. reacted to nuclear missiles 70 miles from our coast? Can we blame them for feeling threatened? Russia has demanded a guarantee that Ukraine not become a member of NATO. American negotiators call that non-negotiable.

Were teetering on the edge of unimaginable horror. Why arent Americans who yearn for a peaceful world speaking out? Why arent you?

John Linnemeier, Bloomington

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Letter: US greatest threat to world peace
Peter Dinklage has criticised the forthcoming revival of the 1937 childrens film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, calling the story f***ing backwards.

The actor, who has dwarfism, was discussing the concept of wokeness on the latest episode of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast when he made the comments about the live-action remake, which will star Rachel Zegler as the Disney princess.

Literally no offence to anyone, he said, but I was a little taken aback when they were very proud to cast a Latina actress as Snow White. Youre still telling the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Take a step back and look at what youre doing there. It makes no sense to me.

Youre progressive in one way and youre still making that f***ing backwards story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together, what the f*** are you doing man?

The first Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film was based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. The dwarfs in the original story and the Disney film did not live in a cave, but rather a cottage.

In other versions of the tale, including in Belgium and the Netherlands, Snow White is befriended by 17 robbers who live in a cave, rather than seven dwarfs who live in a cottage.

Dinklage, 52, added: Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soap box? I guess Im not loud enough. I dont know which studio that is but they were so proud of it. All love and respect to the actress and all the people who thought they were doing the right thing. But Im just like, what are you doing?

The Independent has contacted Disney for comment.

The 1937 film version (Disney)

The story has previously been criticised for being ableist because several of the dwarfs are depicted as being stupid or clumsy, and in the film, Snow White assumes they are all children.

Dinklage can next be seen in Cyrano, a new musical adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, out in the UK next month.

Directed by Joe Wright, its the film version of a 2019 Broadway play in which Dinklage also starred, written by Erica Schmidt. Her version is based on the original play, written by 1897 by Edmond Rostand, which fictionalises the real-life story of a 17th-century French writer and duellist.
Leer en espanol

After an argument at elementary school nearly 30 years ago, Philip Smith remembers coming home, looking in the mirror and trying to wash off his brown skin.

The other student had pointed out that Mrs. Smith, one of the school teachers, couldnt possibly be Philips mother.

She was white and Philip was not.

The exchange opened up a frightening complexity for the first-grader.

Who's my mom?

Why did he say that?

Why am I brown?

He asked those questions at home that night  and for years to come.

As an adoptee originally from the Philippines, Smith, now 35, has grappled with identity and race for his entire life. He traveled back to find his biological family in 2010 and has made dozens of visits back to his birth country since. Like many adopted Americans, Smiths journey stemmed from a desire to answer those questions for his own sake.

Yet today, in his home of Indianapolis, its not just about him  Philip Smith  anymore. Over the years, he has channeled that inner work outward, spreading Filipino culture here with pride and serving as an ambassador of sorts at the Philippines Cultural Community Center, which he co-founded in 2021. He has learned that not fluently speaking Tagalog doesn't make him any less Filipino, and being raised by adopted American parents doesn't make him any less their son. His identity is his own to forge.

This is who I am, Smith said. This is who we are. And I want to make the center something that even other people  even if they have questions about who they are, their self-identity, they can come to the center  Because it's difficult when you walk that journey by yourself.

Filipino-American, Philip Smith is the co-founder of The Philippines Cultural Community Center, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, in Indianapolis.

Growing up, he always knew he was different from his family. The episode in first grade kicked off years of incidents reminding him of that fact. Being asked one check or two? when grocery shopping with his mom, for instance. Or getting into a car accident in high school and remembering his mom repeatedly asserting, thats my son, thats my son, so she would be allowed into the hospital with him.

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But it wasnt until college, a visit to a friends home specifically, that his true journey into self-discovery began.

I saw this family picture and they all look alike, Smith remembers. They all have the same nose, same distance between the eyes and such. And I just realized that I didn't look like that in my family photo. And at that point  that just kind of planted the seed of curiosity really. Like, who am I?

Philp Smith pictured with his parents, James and Donna Smith (bottom) and older brother David Smith (top left). "Philip was Philip," Donna Smith said, praising her son's creativity and outgoing nature. "He brought a lot of talents and a lot of abilities into our family that we didn't have."

After that, he ventured onto a path of the unknown, he said, and began picking up remnants of his heritage in his daily life. He joined the Navy, and for the first time, met and befriended other Filipino Americans. He began attending Filipino church and exploring Filipino foods while living in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he insists that some dishes, like fried bananas, gave him an indescribable feeling of deja vu of his early childhood, thousands of miles away.

Indianapolis' diversity: Latino Hoosiers lead Indianapolis' population growth among racial and ethnic groups

Inspired by his cultural immersion, he took the plunge and started digging into his past. Based on just a few adoption papers  in a language he didnt speak  a Filipino government website and Facebook, he connected with his biological family.

At the age of 23, he booked a flight and headed overseas.

The Smith family

James and Donna Smith ended up in the Philippines for missionary work in the late 1980s.

They always felt like they did things their own way  putting themselves through college, twice, Donna Smith recalls. James Smith said he chose to attend Bible school instead of studying nuclear science, doing what he thought was right for his life, rather than following the money.

We kind of determined our own fate, Donna Smith said. We decided what we were gonna do  and didn't really have a factor on what everybody else thought. And thats the way we raised our kids.

When they moved to the Philippines, they already had one son, David. But theyd experienced several heartbreaking miscarriages over the years, including one in the Philippines. That baby would have been the same age as Philip now, she said.

After you lose a couple of babies, your arms start to ache to hold a little baby again, Donna Smith said. Phil was kind of the answer to our prayers, you could say.

Through word-of-mouth and pure chance, they heard about a tenant farmer family on another northern island hundreds of miles away. They already had seven or eight kids, and the family was struggling financially  would James and Donna be interested in adopting their baby?

After a major typhoon and travel to the capital city Manila, they adopted Philip when he was a week old.

Camp Atterbury: 7,200 Afghan refugees came to Indiana as guests. 6,000 have found new homes in the U.S.

His chosen name, they say, is just a coincidental namesake for his birth country. They already had a list of Bible names picked out, David Smith went to their first-born and Paul went to their second son, who was stillborn. "Philip" happened to be the next one.

"I was holding Philip as he's looking down at me, staring at me, looking like, 'Is this really gonna be my mom?" Donna Smith laughs, remembering one of the first times she held him as a baby. "You could almost put in words into his mouth, saying, 'What? Another mother??'"

And she hasn't let go since.

"We wouldn't give him up for nothing," she said. "He's ours, and we'll keep him."

James and Donna Smith were in the Philippines for mission work in the 1980s. After several miscarriages, they say bringing Philip into their family was like an answer to their prayers. They adopted Philip Smith when he was one-week-old, but they continued their stay in the Philippines until he was about 3-years-old.

'I was home'

Philip Smiths first trip back to the Philippines was wildly unfamiliar on all fronts.

When a Filipino American friend encouraged him to take gifts back for his family members, he remembers thinking, If anything, they should get me something because Im coming back.

But the gifts didnt have to be big or extravagant, his friend explained. They could just be simple tokens of American life, like nice towels or an Indy 500 T-shirt, anything made in the USA.

So, he arrived there and started passing out gifts to family members whom he was just meeting for the first time, whose language he did not speak. He handed out items one-by-one to his biological mother, but she barely gave them a glance and started crying. She must not like them, he thought, or she didnt understand what they were for.

She said something in Tagalog, and Smiths translator friend teared up, too.

She doesn't care about the gifts as long as I came back and I found her, Philip Smith remembers his friend explaining. And that still resonates with me.

Philip Smith is pictured with his biological mother in 2010, when he traveled to the Philippines to discover his roots and meet her for the first time. A sign at his birth home reads "Welcome Home Philip."

They cried together and hugged, and he unlocked a new feeling of love in his life. At that moment, I felt like I was home.

The year after meeting his biological family, Philip Smith dove deeper, moving to the Philippines to imagine what his life would be like if he hadnt been adopted.

He lived independently in Cebu for a year, away from his family, and worked various jobs  as a call center trainer, school counslor, water vendor and even a jeepney conductor, a type of public transportation created after WWII when American military jeeps were left behind.

I was just flabbergasted, Smith said. You know, like, there's a lot more to the world than just Indiana or just the U.S.

'Now what?'

Meeting his biological mother and living his alternative life answered a lot of questions, but it sparked many new ones, too.

OK  I feel fulfilled, he remembers thinking. I feel complete now. Now what? I asked that question again to myself, Now what?

Asking that helped him reorient his mission in life, Philip Smith said.

He came back from the Philippines feeling grateful for his family here and how he was raised. He sees his purpose and identity here in Indianapolis, crystal clear after years of uncertainty, and that purpose is to help other people.

Hes always been a leader, and he's always been doing things for other people, Donna Smith said. He likes to help.

At home, he and his husband, Doug, are eager to grow their own family and maybe "make a difference in the world," Philip Smith said. They've have fostered several children over the years, from ages 2 to 11, and have tried unsuccessfully to adopt.

At the Philippines Culture Community Center, Donna Smith said, he is the energy of that place.

He never does anything small, James Smith added.

Philip Smith, center, and Christina Miranda, right, serve up Philippine food during the weekly Taste of the Phillipines bazaar on Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022, at the Philippines Cultural Community Center in Indianapolis.

At a recent Saturday bazaar there, Smith fit the part. He showed off the centers various offerings, from authentic Filipino artifacts and colorful dresses to freshly cooked food. Along with the food bazaar each week, they also offer activities such as cooking classes and movie nights, all open to anyone. Their next mission is to open a Filipino restaurant.

Smith hopes the center will help people find acceptance and belonging, no matter where they come from. Just as he was longing for, all those years ago.

Culture is more than just skin deep sense, Smith said. It's how we're raised in a way, and at the end of the day, of course, we're all humans. So I hope that this center can attract more people, not just Filipino Americans, but people of other ethnic descent."

"We're all tied together in one way or another.

Contact Rashika Jaipuriar at rjaipuriar@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter @rashikajpr.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis man finds identity and purpose in the Philippines
BALTIMORE  Three firefighters were seriously injured after being trapped in a vacant home on fire in Southwest Baltimore, according to the city fire department and the firefighters union.

Crews are still working to recover a fourth firefighter inside, according to Baltimore Fire Department spokeswoman Blair Adams.

Around 6 a.m. Monday, firefighters arrived on the scene of a fire in the 200 block of South Stricker Street in the citys New Southwest/Mount Clare neighborhood. While fighting the blaze, the three-story home partially collapsed and trapped the four firefighters inside, Niles Ford, the city fire chief, said in a tweet. One firefighter was rescued immediately, he said.

Immediately & as quickly as possible, we removed piles of debris in order to located the trapped members, Ford said.

Two other firefighters were rescued within an hour and taken to Maryland Shock Trauma, Ford said.

By about 11:45 a.m., the home had collapsed entirely, and firefighters had taken to the roof of a home next door as smoke wafted from the ruins. Then, crews began using an excavator to clear the debris of the destroyed home.

My heart is with the firefighters, their families, and everyone at [the Baltimore Fire Department], Mayor Brandon Scott said in a statement Monday afternoon. Our BCFD members put the lives and safety of others before their own wellbeing each and every day. I ask that we all keep them in our prayers during this extremely difficult time.

Celeste Ireland, 55, said she was lying in bed in her home Monday morning when she began to see flashes of light. At first, she thought she was dreaming, but then her Shih Tzu began to bark and she arose and walked to her window.

When I opened the curtain  and my house is right behind it  everything was ablaze, Ireland said.

Her home is located behind the homes that caught fire, separated by an alley, she said.

The homes on fire appeared to be vacant, Ireland said. She saw the family that lived adjacent to the blaze be evacuated, she said.

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Then, she heard that firefighters were trapped in the blaze.

Im a godly woman, and I just started praying, she said.


James Lowrey, 40, was identified as the man shot and killed in an officer-involved shooting that took place Dec. 26.

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Two prominent Florida civil rights lawyers are threatening a lawsuit with Titusville over public records, suggesting that the shooting of a Black man right after Christmas was a possible case of mistaken identity.

The attorneys are saying that police may have killed the wrong man when 40-year-old James Lowrey was shot during an altercation with Titusville Police Department officers.

Prominent civil rights attorney Benjamin Crumpwho regularly appears on cable news networks to comment on police shootingsand Orlando attorney Natalie Jackson promised to provide more details at a press conference on Thursday.

In other news: Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump asks U.S. Justice to investigate killings, Brevard Sheriff's Office

And: Man shot and killed during chase, struggle with Titusville police officer

The two will appear Jan. 26 at 10:00am at the Historic Titusville Court House, located at 506 S. Palm Ave., in Titusville.

"Right now we are filing a public records lawsuit against the Titusville Police Department because they won't release body cam, the 911 tape or the redacted police report," Natalie Jackson said.

"We've sent them three inquiries and they said they won't release it."

Amy Matthews, Titusville Police Department spokeswoman, said that it is standard practice not to release information while an investigation is underway. Matthews also pointed out that it is no longer a TPD investigation and that FDLE would have to handle all records requests related to Lowrey's case.

Jackson said the attorneys have conducted their own investigation, showing that the 911 call leading up to Lowrey's death was in reference to a domestic dispute between a couple and did not actually involve Lowrey himself.

The shooting happened at about 7:20 p.m. Dec. 26 on the 1500 block of Gayle Avenue. Police were responding to a 911 call about a woman being beaten in the roadway by an unidentified man.

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According to initial reports, a man took off from the scene and after a brief foot chase, the officer and the possible suspect got into a struggle in a nearby yard when the officer fired his weapon and killed the man.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement were notified in order to conduct an independent investigation. FDLE investigations into officer-involved shootings can often take months before findings are released.

Jackson said releasing the relevant records would shed light on the shooting and provide answers to Lowrey's family.

Jackson and Crump previously have represented the family of Sincere Pierce, one of two teenagers who were killed by a Brevard County Sheriff's Office deputy in November of 2020.

Prosecutors found no wrongdoing in the shooting that left 18-year-old Pierce and 15-year-old A.J. Crooms dead. Crump and Jackson subsequently filed a federal lawsuit that is making its way through the court system now.

Tyler Vazquez is the North Brevard Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-917-7491 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @tyler_vazquez

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Lawyers say Titusville PD shooting a possible case of mistaken identity
The Northeast Georgia volunteers came upon this cross carved into a stump with a chainsaw and later learned it was done by a man from Bowman, Ga.

Earlier this month, a dozen men from Madison and Oglethorpe counties took a caravan of heavy equipment to Kentucky in a humanitarian effort to help people struggling in the wake of tornadoes that blazed a trail of death and destruction in December.

The gritty dozen stayed a week, clearing away downed trees still covering the ground four weeks after the Dec. 10 storms wreaked havoc on the land and splintered the forests.

There were places where there was nothing left. It looked like a war zone, like where a bomb had gone off. It just cleared the land, Charlie Snelling recalled about what he observed. I have a new respect for what a tornado can do.

The men, traveling in trucks and hauling trailers with two bulldozers, excavators, skid steers and other equipment, left for Lyon County, Ky., on Jan. 9 and stayed until the 14th.

The volunteers cleared driveways and roads so residents could get to their homes.

Snelling, retired and now living in Athens and a native of Carlton, where he once served as mayor, recalled that Colbert farmer Dennis Moon wanted to help the folks in Kentucky after seeing a news report that some werent getting the aid they needed.

He said a bunch of us ought to go up there and help these people out, Snelling said.

That bunch soon included David Whitehead, Larry Johnson, Tony Lastinger, Randy Ray, David Ash, Dennis Moon, Colt Hart, Bruce Moon, Mark Wiskow, Matt Ring, Snelling and a man who wished to remain anonymous.

Moon contacted a farmer he knew in Kentucky, who told him we have so many people up here that need help. People have lost everything  their homes, their barns, their livestock, Snelling said.

Moon coordinated with a lawyer, a judge and the sheriff of Lyon County to plan the trip.

The men then hooked their heavy equipment to their trucks for the nine-hour trek.

Among those who trekked to Kentucky were, from left, David Whitehead, Larry Johnson, Tony Lastinger, Randy Ray, David Ash, Dennis Moon, Colt Hart, Bruce Moon, Mark Wiskow and Matt Ring.

The first place we went to was a farm where he needed his fences cleared. Trees were down and his cows were out and he didnt have the equipment to clear it up, Snelling said.

This was followed by a trip to what was once a mobile home community. The mobile homes were gone  all scraped and removed  but the carnage of trees remained.

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When they arrived, a woman came to the site wanting to know who these strangers were and what they were doing.

We told her were just volunteers from Georgia. Were here to clean up for you if you want us to  at no charge. The lady just started crying, Snelling said. We put our equipment on the ground and cleared it all up. When we left, it looked like a site ready for building.

They then went to the house of a man who couldnt get to his home because of downed trees in his long driveway.

There were tears in his eyes when we left, Snelling said about the man who they learned was a veteran of the U.S. Marines.

This last farmer we worked with, he was just a good ol Kentucky boy with cows and a farm. He said, I had 17 people that I knew who died in this storm. I couldnt go to the funerals. I cant handle funerals with 17 people, Snelling recalled.

Once, they came upon a Christian cross that was cut into an oak stump by a man using a chainsaw. Surprisingly, the residents told them the man was from the Georgia town of Bowman in Elbert County.

Snelling said was pleased at how well they labored together for a week.

Charlie Snelling hangs a small American flag he found while clearing debris at the site of a home destroyed by a tornado.

We were giving each other a hard time, laughing and joking, and we had disagreements, but nobody was disagreeable, he said.

On early mornings, theyd have breakfast at the Our Daily Bread cafe in Eddyville, then a lunch of burgers at the worksite, followed by evening dinners. Local people treated them with a fish fry one night.

They were provided with cabins at the Buzzard Rock Marina in Eddyville and at another location in Dawson Springs, Ky.

When they were ready for the long haul back to Georgia, they were gifted with cured hams  and not just any hams, but meat cured by a man who won first prize for cured hams at the Kentucky State Fair.

This is a big deal in Kentucky, Snelling said about the cured ham competition.

The gritty dozen of Georgians helped many folks who were in need and the gratitude expressed still lingers with Snelling and the others.

They all said the same thing  you have no idea what this means to us, the volunteer said.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Madison, Oglethorpe volunteers help out Kentucky tornado victims
A new Veterans Affairs medical clinic that will be twice as large as the current Yakima facility is under construction in Union Gap, and the b
When people debate whether to forgive some or all of the $1.75 trillion in student debt weighing on millions of American families, opponents often argue that it would be wasteful and unfair: Too many relatively well-off, well-educated people would benefit at the expense of all taxpayers, many of whom never had the desire or opportunity to attend college.

Reasonable as this might sound, its the wrong way to think about a policy that could actually do a lot of good, for both individuals and the broader economy. It relies on a misleading concept of who counts as rich, and ignores the extent to which the debt itself is a manifestation of unfairness.

True, if one looks at the U.S. population by income, most student debt is owed by the highest-earning half of households. By one estimate, this group would receive about three quarters of the forgiven dollars (in present-value terms) if all the debt were canceled. This has led economists and politicians to label the policy regressive.

But this analysis is flawed on many levels. For one, its an inappropriate way to assess the policys regressivity: Social Security, the countrys largest safety net program, can look regressive, too  until one recognizes that low-income participants receive larger benefits compared with what they contribute in taxes. In the case of student debt cancellation, income-based evaluation ignores peoples starting positions  the household resources that determine so much in life, including whether they can attend college debt-free. In the U.S., those starting positions differ radically, in large part due to a long and ignominious history of racism that has, generation after generation, prevented Black families from building wealth.

Consider the investments the government has made in education over the past century. After World War II, the G.I. Bill paid for the college educations of millions of returning solders  with the exception of Black veterans, whose access to benefits was severely limited. Before the Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation in 1964, many public colleges and universities were largely tuition-free. But the political will to subsidize higher education waned as Black, Latino and Asian enrollment rates rose. Together with policies such as redlining, this fostered extreme disparities, in which white middle-class families accumulated the wealth to pay for a higher education, while Black families had to rely much more heavily on student loans to gain the college credentials that increasingly became a prerequisite for upward mobility.

As a result of such federally engineered inequality, otherwise similarly qualified and dedicated students graduate with very different debt loads, defined to a troubling extent by their race and family circumstances. A 2016 study found that four years after earning a bachelors degree, the average Black graduate had about $53,000 in debt, nearly twice the level of the average white graduate. Some 91% of Black medical-school students emerge with debt, with a median amount of $230,000; the comparable figures for white students are 71% and $200,000. Even if income-based plans keep payments low, these debts stay on personal balance sheets for decades, preventing borrowers from starting businesses, investing in homes and engaging in other activities  such as nonprofit work or public service  that would augment their own and the nations prosperity.

Efforts to address the student-loan burden have so far proven woefully inadequate. The Department of Education has rejected about 98% of applications to its Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Participation in income-based repayment plans is stunted by confounding complexity, bad management, and predatory practices on the part of loan servicers. Ultimately, it doesnt address the overwhelming balances. The Biden administration has moved to cancel the debt of students preyed upon by unscrupulous for-profit colleges, but the amounts are tiny compared with the overall burden. Even outright default provides little relief, because student debt remains nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy.

Blanket debt cancellation, by contrast, could take immediate effect and would be well-targeted at those who have the least wealth and have suffered the most discrimination. Researchers at the Roosevelt Institute estimate that if federal loans were canceled completely, about 70% of the relief dollars would go to the poorest half of Americans, as measured by household assets.

To be sure, forgiveness wouldnt address the underlying inequities that created the debt in the first place  which is why it should be accompanied by reforms to make a quality public higher education free. While some relatively high income people may benefit from relief, in many cases these are lower wealth households that managed to join the middle class against the odds, and such leakage is an inadequate rationale to reject a policy that could help so many so quickly. Instead of perpetuating the myth that student debt cancellation is for the rich, politicians and the Biden administration should recognize how regressive the status quo is, and do whats best for the nation.
Its been six weeks since President Joe Bidens videoconference with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the crisis in Ukraine. Since then, Putins saber-rattling has only gotten louder.

The Kremlin has been moving troops and military equipment into Belarus, a faithful Moscow ally that borders Ukraine on the north. Moscow also has been reportedly emptying out its embassy in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv  a move perhaps meant to intimidate, perhaps meant to ready for a full-scale invasion. Ukrainian authorities fear Russian hackers have planted destructive malware in the countrys computer networks, and are waiting for the go-ahead to activate.

And ominously, Russian officials have hinted about shifting nuclear weapons to locations not far from the U.S. coastline  a prospect unnervingly reminiscent of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. I dont want to confirm anything or rule anything out, Sergei Ryabkov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, answered when asked in Geneva whether the Kremlin was thinking about deploying military infrastructure in Cuba or Venezuela.

Putin is a master at signal-sending to accumulate leverage, so at this stage its impossible to discern whether Moscows latest provocations are chess moves or actual foundation stones for an eventual invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, Putins mission hasnt wavered. He wants Biden to acquiesce to the Kremlins demands that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO, and that the alliance end all security cooperation with Kyiv. The Russian leader also wants all American nuclear weapons removed from Europe, and an assurance that Western troops will no longer be deployed in NATO countries that once were Warsaw Pact states.

The Kremlins hand-wringing about NATO is hardly new. For years, Putin has railed against NATOs presence in Eastern Europe. Especially galling to him were the so-called color revolutions in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004 that elevated West-allied leaders who saw eventual NATO membership as key to their countries trajectories.

Since then, those countries have made little headway in bringing their NATO aspirations to fruition. And in the years that followed the popular uprisings in Tbilisi and Kyiv, NATO was far more preoccupied with the all-consuming battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan than it was with Kremlin chicanery.

NATO, however, has come full circle.

It came into existence after World War II as a firewall against Soviet aggression. The threat from Americas Cold War superpower rival was real. Its real again, though if Putin is looking for reasons why Russians should view NATO as their principal enemy, he should look in the mirror.

In 2008 he sent Russian troops into West-allied Georgia, effectively commandeering two Georgian provinces that, to this day, are Russian satellite regions.

During the civil war in Syria, Putin took advantage of President Barack Obamas waffling over how to deal with Bashar al-Assad and injected Russia into the campaign as the primary enabler of the barbaric Syrian dictator.

Then in 2014, Russian troops forcibly annexed Ukraines Crimea peninsula and engineered a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine that has led to more than 13,000 deaths and a war that endures to this day.

In 2016 he took direct aim at America with a meticulously crafted campaign to interfere in the presidential election.

Putins actions over the years have forced NATO to once again regard Russia as an existential threat. Its why the U.S. and its Western allies must show far more resolve against Putin than they did when he stole Crimea from Ukraine. What form that resolve takes remains to be seen, though harsh sanctions such as cutting off Russia from the global financial system, along with fully arming the Ukrainian insurgency that would follow any invasion, should be part of the arsenal.

Biden should also reconsider his reluctance to impose sanctions on Russias coveted Nord Stream 2 pipeline to bring natural gas to Germany. For the Kremlin, the project isnt just an economic boon  it represents another key energy tool that it can use as political leverage against Europe. Germany sees Nord Stream as vital to its economy, but top German leaders now say shutting down Nord Stream should be on the table if Russia invades Ukraine.

Biden and Democrats in Congress were able to help defeat Republican legislation in the Senate that would have slapped sanctions on Nord Stream 2. Germanys warming to the idea of Nord Stream sanctions, and the Biden administration should follow suit.

Anything less than a U.S.-European united front against Putin gives the former KGB agent exactly what he got in 2014 when he invaded Crimea  confidence that the West would huff about his audacious behavior, but ultimately acquiesce. Too much is at stake now, however, for that to happen again. The Soviet Union is long gone, but the rivalry between the West and the Kremlin is alive and more virulent than ever.

Biden, NATO and the rest of the West cannot afford to give Putin any quarter.
Greensboro, NC (27407)

Today

Sun and clouds mixed. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph..

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Some clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 59F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Government officials on January 24 confirmed that Air India will be handed over to the Tata group by the end of this week. The government, last year on October 8 sold Air India to Talace Private Limited - a subsidiary of the Tata group's holding company - for Rs 18,000 crore.

Following that, on October 11, a Letter of Intent (LoI) was issued to the Tata group confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 percent stake in the airline. On October 25, the Centre signed the share purchase agreement (SPA) for this deal.

Officials said on January 24, that the remaining formalities regarding this deal are expected to be completed in the next few days and the airline will be handed over to the Tata group by the end of this week.

Read also: Tata Motors to launch new exciting mass products soon, ramp up production

As a part of the deal, the Tata group will also be handed over Air India Express and a 50 percent stake in ground handling arm Air India SATS. Tata's had on October 8 beat the Rs 15,100-crore offer by a consortium led by SpiceJet promoter Ajay Singh and the reserve price of Rs 12,906 crore set by the government for the sale of its 100 percent stake in the loss-making carrier.

While this will be the first privatization since 2003-04, Air India will be the third airline brand in the Tata's stable. It holds a majority interest in AirAsia India and Vistara, a joint venture with Singapore Airlines Ltd.

With inputs from PTI
New Delhi: The domestic appliances and consumer electronics industry anticipates a rise in customs duty on completed items in the upcoming budget, as well as incentives for specialised R&D and localization initiatives under the PLI scheme, to deter imports and enable import substitution.

The budget session will start on January 31, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting the annual budget on February 1.

Air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines have all become necessary household appliances.

Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO at SPPL, Exclusive Brand Licensee of Blaupunkt in India said, As we are going through another wave, this is an indication of how important Atma Nirbhar Bharat is. To boost Indian manufacturing and MSMEs, we need a stable GST tax slab. No product should be above the 18% slab, and they must now encourage consumerism in order to improve market sentiment. By doing this, India could become the worlds third-largest market for television. The market size could grow by 15% each year, reaching 16 million units. We urge the government to not change any customs duties for the time being, as the industry is moving towards stable conditions.

The other most important sector where the government needs to intervene to take strict measures and review how they are misleading is the cargo sector. We've seen a 10x increase in sea freight in the last few years, and along with that timeline, it's increased 2x. There is a big syndicate in this sector, which is causing this delay and causing a huge loss to the economy as these delays are being managed at Indian sea ports as well, he added.

Pallavi Singh, Vice President, Super Plastronics PVT LTD (SPPL), India brand licensee of Westinghouse TV said, Given the current semiconductor shortage in the world, our government should aid the potential sector and afford schemes under the NPE. Those aiming to manufacture in India and contributing towards the growth of the economy can be provided aid in the form of subsidies. The NPE can also help in providing a shoulder for our country and reducing its dependence on foreign nations if it were to correctly subsidise those who are willing to bring the relevant infrastructure, especially with respect to semiconductor/chipset manufacturing, to India. This, ideally, should also be backed by tax subsiding schemes so as to reduce the burden on an entity since the quantum of investment required is huge. The NPE can also be expanded to include and aid those already manufacturing consumer electronics in India as opposed to importing them.

With the budget of 2022-23, we hope and sincerely urge that the government reduce GST on all consumer electronics to reflect those available on raw materials to reduce the disparity, especially since in todays day and age, consumer electronics are tagged as necessities by all categories of consumers in India. With the current rate of 18% on televisions up to 32 inches only, there is a vast range of televisions that comes under the ambit of the 28% rate. A reduction in the rate to 18% even in televisions up to 43 inches will bring a huge relief since the majority of the consumers in India fall under the 32 to 43 range, he further added.

Sandeep Lodha, Co-founder at Netweb Technologies said, Today, the government has quite a lot of proactive policies for server manufacturing, like PLI and other initiatives. Our take is that the budget should focus on a few important things for demand generation. We need to see how the local buying of made in India products is encouraged. The government should fund a scheme for tech adoption, and government purchases of high-end IT products should be encouraged/prioritized to help create more demand. Data Centre Operators should be incentivised to use more "Made in India" products. This will help the country to achieve the PMOs objective of achieving atamnirbhar bharat. Local server technology development will help to bring cutting-edge technology to the country while also addressing the nation's security concerns. Another thing I am looking forward to is the R&D side. There has to be special incentive for companies investing in R&D, there must be government incentivised and facilitated collaborations between the companies and premium Education and R&D facilities. This will be a major game changer as the R&D and education systems will become more aligned with the real world of commercially valid products, and the industry will benefit from innovation and local enhancement of technology to create global competence.

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New Delhi: Exporters have demanded support measures, including enhanced allocations for RoDTEP scheme, high import duty on plastic finished goods, setting up of an Indian shipping line and reinstating exemption for duty free import of critical inputs for leather products, in the forthcoming Budget to promote growth of the country's outbound shipments.

They have also suggested fiscal incentives to address logistics challenges, and reduction of income tax on partnerships and LLP's to support MSME players.

The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said that there is a need to encourage large Indian entities to build an Indian shipping line of global repute as it would help reduce dependence on foreign shipping lines.

It said that the export sector is facing major issues due to rising freight cost and its dependence on global shipping companies.

"Overseas marketing is a big challenge for exporters, more so for MSMEs, as it entails a very high cost. We need to bring the Double Tax Deduction Scheme for Internationalizations to allow exporters to deduct against their taxable income...A ceiling of USD 5 lakh may be put under the scheme so that the investment and tax deduction are limited," FIEO Director General Ajay Sahai said.

Mumbai-based exporter and Chairman Technocraft Industries Sharda Kumar Saraf said that Reimbursement of Duties & Taxes on Export production (RoDTEP) is one of the most important tools to support export marketing, but its present budget of about Rs 40,000 crore, is inadequate.

"We hope the finance minister will take cognizance of this fact and provide a suitable budget for RoDTEP," Saraf said.

Plastics Export Promotion Council of India (Plexconcil) Chairman Arvind Goenka suggested that the import duty on plastic finished goods should be atleast 5 per cent higher than polymer raw materials.

"For instance, import duty on PVC Resin is 10 per cent and that on value added PVC goods is also 10 per cent thereby there is no incentive to boost domestic production," Goenka said.

Council for Leather Exports (CLE) Chairman Sanjay Leekha recommended reinstatement of the exemption for duty free import of critical inputs for leather garments and footwear; and extension of the basic customs duty exemption for import of lining and interlining materials.

These measures would promote value addition within the country and make the products competitive in the global markets as compared to the goods of competing countries, besides boosting exports, Leekha said.

He has also recommended reinstatement of basic customs duty on import of wet blue, crust and finished leathers as the exemption was removed last year.

Sharing a similar view, Chairman of Farida Group Rafeeq Ahmed said that steps for the labour intensive sector - leather in the budget will help in creating more jobs and pushing exports.

"The government should consider removing import duty on finished leather. Measures should be announced for setting up micro parks for the sector," Ahmed said.

Hand Tools Association President S C Ralhan said that the government should announce some provisions to promote container manufacturing in India.

"Budget should also consider extending income tax concessions forMSME exporters," Ralhan said.

During April-December 2021-22, exports rose 49.66 per cent to USD 301.38 billion.

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India has positioned itself as one of the leading marketplaces for Electric Vehicles (EVs) globally with many local players now coming up with their electric vehicle offerings. EV adoption can be seen across different vehicle segments as well as different business segments. Favorable plans and policies have been developed by the government like National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP), Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles (FAME) Scheme to drive the transition towards the EV ambition of India.

Adding onto these, many state governments have announced their EV policies with varied focus that would enhance the demand for EV in their respective states. Some states, like Maharashtra and Delhi, have policies aimed at driving the demand, while other states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu intend to strengthen the supply side for EVs by encouraging local manufacturing of EVs.

India has also committed to net zero emissions by 2070 in Conference of Parties (COP26) and the country has taken many clean mobility related initiatives to boost EV adoption2. Electric mobility has thus become preferred choice in India owing to the international commitments that India has made, incentives for EV purchases and the efforts and initiatives that are taken for sensitization of the public.

Gaps in the EV industry which can be treated as emerging opportunities

While the government has brought important policy changes, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have put efforts to remove barriers through innovations, and consumers have demonstrated readiness and willingness to accept this change, the country still needs to introduce more initiatives to boost the supply side push, including local manufacturing of electric vehicles and components. In terms of value, an EV constitutes of 35% Battery, 25% drivetrain, 20% chassis and 20% systems and other equipment.

Currently, India imports majority of these components as there are limited manufacturing facilities in the country. India has matured in the conventional drivetrain and chassis manufacturing segment, however there is ample room for improvement by manufacturing these for EV specific applications which include lightweight chassis, electric drivetrains, etc.

Also read: IIT develops a new charging system half the cost of current EV tech

Further, EVs are technologically advanced and need semiconductor chips to ensure operations of their electronic components like wireless communications, autonomous vehicle systems, firmware, mobile applications, connected vehicle services and security. Thus, EV manufacturers are facing immense pressure owing to component short fall. It is thus imperative for the government to support the industry in devising innovative strategies to increase domestic manufacturing in accordance with the Make in India philosophy.

Along with EV components, there is also a need to enhance the EV charging infrastructure to cater to the rising EV demand. This infrastructure for EV charging comprises of EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment), battery storage systems and other related components. These components are assembled to manufacture the final product in India but are still majorly dependent on imports.

Many startups and EVSE SMEs (Small and Medium scale Enterprises) are now focusing on indigenization of these components. This indegenization can be further enhanced with government incentives/rebates and creation of favourable ecosystems for companies to setup manufacturing facilities.

The future of Indian EV ecosystem should be to encourage domestic manufacturing

Batteries contribute the largest share of EV cost which is around 35%. Also, the potential for localization of chassis, bodies and BMS (Battery Management System) are high, while localization of specialized components such as batteries and motors could be limited. Moreover, in order to facilitate the localization in India, the phasing of the investments may begin with assembling and then gradually move to manufacturing.

Also read: Updated Tata Nexon EV to get more than 400km electric range

This phased transition will help in import substitution of key auto components and improve its export share, meeting global demand giving a shift towards electric mobility and making India Atmanirbhar. An indicative phasing strategy for key components has been presented below:

The current budget thus needs to focus on ensuring robust supply of products and services in the EV automotive domain. It should factor in the taxation as well as incentivization mechanisms for EV manufacturing. Various national and state level tax rebates and incentives available for EV manufacturing may be coupled with rigorous implementation plans to boost supply of components and manufacturing EVs. Further, government may create conducive policy environment to support new technology partnerships and tie-ups of international players with Indian players leading to more localization and expansion of EVs manufacturing in India.

The supply side can be enhanced further with focused investment in R&D of EVs and EV components to cater to local manufacturing. The workforce also needs to have advanced training and upskilling for the upcoming developments in the EV automotive industry. There is also a need of added incentives and rebates for manufacturing of various EV components to ensure reduced dependency on imports. The import of finished products should be discouraged while encouraging domestic manufacturing.

To facilitate this, the budget can include proposals for manufacturing support specific to the EV industry focused on implementation support to localized manufacturing of electric vehicles and components as well as infrastructure components like EVSE, charger components and connectors.

The author of this article is Sumit Mishra, Director , Deloitte India and Sahil Bhandare, Consultant, Deloitte India. All views are personal.

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At this point, most everyone whos in the working and financial world (as in most adults) should have at least heard of payday loans at some point before. But even though most people probably know what they are, or at least have heard of them, the history of payday loans is not widely known.

In this article, were going to explain the history behind payday loans. Well examine how they first got started and why, and other interesting parts of their history. Keep reading now to learn everything you need to know about the history of payday loans.

How Did They Start?

The start of payday loans came about a little over a hundred years ago, when consumer credit was not a widespread market like it is today. Certain illegal lenders would offer salary loans to workers who needed money right away, charging high APRs on them until they were paid back. And like modern payday loans, which also typically have high APRs, borrowers were required to repay these loans by the time they got their next paycheck.

Many times, these loans would go unpaid, and borrowers would receive harsh treatment from these illegal lenders. This treatment included things like wage garnishment, harassment or public embarrassment, extortion, and the threat of job loss. As a response, state policymakers made an effort to do away with salary loans and illegal lending.

In the year 1916, the first Uniform Small Loan Law was passed, imposing a monthly APR of up to 3.5% on all small loans under 300. This spurred on the need for licensed lenders to provide small-dollar amount loans like these to the masses, and thus the first payday loans became legal.

Further on down the line, in the mid-1900s, the credit market became too large for individual state policymakers to handle effectively, especially as some lenders grew to operate on a national scale. Because of this, a series of federal laws were passed to regulate various aspects of loans and lending, including small loans like payday loans.

All of these regulations allowed for licensed payday lending stores to grow and expand, offering their services to even more consumers than was previously possible. Over the rest of the century, the payday loan market expanded rapidly until it reached the point that its at today.

Payday Loans Today

Payday loans today have been heavily influenced by everything that led up to their inception and institution at the state and federal level. Payday loans have become so widespread that several federally chartered banks and other large financial institutions have begun to offer them as well. It is no longer confined to small payday loan vendors, as more and more large banks are offering them too.

Besides this area of advancement, a number of lenders are offering payday loans online. This makes them more accessible than ever, which has led more and more consumers to take out payday loans in recent years.

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New Delhi: The Omicron variant driven wave of COVID-19 will now turn to small towns and villages in the coming few weeks after its transmission in metro cities, Dr Rajeev Jayadevan who is advising COVID-19 task force at IMA Kochi, Kerala, has warned.

"Each time, a wave first hit high mobility areas which include metro cities and then to smaller areas and villages. So, within the next few weeks, it (Omicron driven wave) will travel to the smaller cities or towns and then the villages. This is a trend that's been observed worldwide," Dr Jayadevan was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Speaking about whether Omicron could replace other Covid-19 variants and it is going to remain as a common cold, Dr Rajeev said, "That is not true in fact if you look at the history of the pandemic in the last two years, variants have all died down. In fact, there is no variant that is survived long enough to be dominant. There may be a few stray cases here and there."

Dr Jayadevan further cited an example of South Africa and said that their waves are classic.

"Six months apart the first wave was the original Wuhan variant, the second was Beta, the third was Delta and the fourth was Omicron. For India, we were hit by the original Wuhan variant back in March 2021 and then we got hit by Delta last year. Now this year, we have been hit by Omicron. So it is quite convincible that Omicron will hang around for a while. It's unlikely that Delta will survive in the long run," he added.

Dr Jayadevan also said that both variants at this time are behaving the same and none of them is more dangerous than the other because everybody knows Omicron behaves differently from Delta.

"When delta came, a large section of our population was scared because they had never seen the virus before and they were not vaccinated, whereas Omicron is reaching at a time when the vast majority of people have either had natural exposure to the virus or vaccinated," he added.

He also said there are also some studies that report that Omicron behaves slightly differently with different tissue cells and it is less amenable to cause infection in the lung. "I'm getting reports on the ground that lung disease specifically is lower with this (Omicron) variant," the health expert said.

However, Dr Vivek Nangia, Principle Director and Head, Pulmonology at Max Hospital said that people are developing COVID-19 symptoms even when they aren't going out.

"This is absolutely correct that Omicron has gone into a stage where it's more into community spread than only by the travellers coming from abroad which have led to a rise in COVID cases," Dr Nangia stated.

He also said that the Omicron variant is unlike the Delta variant of coronavirus infection because people recover early in the case of Omicron. "People who haven't even travelled outside and not even from their home they are also developing symptoms," he added.

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New Delhi: Assam government on Monday (January 24) prohibited the entry of unvaccinated adults in public places excluding hospitals and medical centres. The restrictions will come into effect from 6 am from January 25.

As per the order, all adults will have to carry proof of being fully vaccinated while visiting public places and spaces.

Non-vaccinated people shall not be allowed entry in public places/ spaces (except hospitals). All people are required to carry proof of being fully vaccinated while visiting public places/spaces, the order read.

Non-vaccinated people shall not be allowed entry in public places/ spaces (except hospitals). All people are required to carry proof of being fully vaccinated while visiting public places/spaces: Government of Assam#COVID19 pic.twitter.com/6V9voTE2jC  ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2022

The new order also makes full-vaccination mandatory for all the government employees to enter the public offices, failing to do so will result in extraordinary leaves and non-payment of salary.

All Govt servants (including contractual & fixed pay) should be fully vaccinated and shall attend office. Employees who aren't fully vaccinated won't be allowed to attend office and they'll have to avail leave if available or extraordinary leave for which they won't be paid salary, said the order.

This apart, the Assam government also issued an order tightening restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the state. It also directed authorities to shut schools for up to class 8 students.

"The status of COVID-19 in the state has again been reviewed and it has been observed that the number of COVID-19 cases has been gradually increasing over the last few days thereby increasing the positivity rate," Officiating Chief Secretary P K Borthakur said in the order.

Assam on Sunday reported 2,277 more COVID-19 recoveries than fresh cases as 6,118 persons recovered from the disease while 2,277 fresh infections pushed the tally to 6,92,811, according to the National Health Mission (NHM) bulletin.

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NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is expected to release the Class 10, 12 Term 1 exam results 2022 on Monday (January 24, 2022). CBSE spokesperson Rama Sharma had said during a press briefing, (We) will let you know once confirmed.

Another CBSE board official had said earlier this month that the board will review the evaluation process from the third week of January. He, however, did not give a tentative date for the results.

"The COVID-19 pandemic situations put an impact on the evaluation process, we are trying our best to announce the result soon. Can't confirm the result date now, as it depends on the progress of the evaluation process amid pandemic situations," the official had said.

CBSE Board Class 10, 12 term 1 exam results 2022 will be available on cbseresults.nic.in. Students need their roll numbers and school numbers to download scorecards.

The results may also be available on DigiLocker, UMANG app, through IVRS and SMS.

How to check CBSE Class 10, 12 Board Exam Term 1 Result 2022?

-Once results are declared, students need to visit CBSE's official website (cbse.nic.in).

-On the homepage, click on the 'results' link.

-You will be redirected to a new page where you need to click on the 'CBSE Class 10th Result 2022' or the 'CBSE Class 12th Result 2022' link.

-Enter your details including your roll number and click on the 'submit' option.

-Your CBSE Class 10 or 12 Board Exam Term 1 Result 2022 will be displayed on your screen.

CBSE term 1 board exams were conducted for multiple-choice questions. The board had earlier said the term 1 results will not be announced as pass, fail or essential repeat. The final result will be published after term 2 exams.

CBSE had removed a controversial passage from the Class 10 English question paper. All students will get full marks for questions asked on the passage.

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New Delhi: Congress on Monday (January 23) urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to place a ban on the movie Why I killed Gandhi in the state and on the OTT platforms as it hurts the partys sentiments.

The state Congress unit chief Nana Patole in a letter to Maharashtra CM office said the portrayal of Mahatma Gandhi's murderer as a hero is not acceptable and thus, his party seeks a ban on the movie.

Congress urges Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray to ban the movie 'Why I killed Gandhi' in the State and on OTT platforms. pic.twitter.com/vr7JGPAmxP  ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2022

A major row erupted after NCP leader Amit Kohle dropped the trailer of a 45-minute low-budget film, in which he portrays the role of Mahatma Gandhis assassin Nathu Ram Godse on social media.

As per the trailer, the movie depicts Godses trial following Gandhis assassination, justifying his actions.

Soon after the trailer was launched, Kohle became the centre of target from Congress as well as his own party.

Later, Maharashtra Congress President Nana Patole hit out at makers for 'glorifying' the man who killed the Father of the Nation and said would write a letter to the state government, seeking a ban on the movie.

Patole in the letter said that although Dr Kolhe is an artist, he is also a political party's MP and so he is expected to act more responsibly and opposed the portrayal of Gandhi as a hero.

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New Delhi: India continued to report over 3 lakh daily Covid-19 cases and recorded 3,06,064 new infections in the last 24 hours, the Union Health Ministry informed on Monday (January 24, 2022) morning.

With this, the country's active coronavirus caseload has now increased to 22,49,335. India has so far conducted over 71.69 crore Covid-19 tests, of which, 14,74,753 were conducted in the last 24 hours. While the daily positivity rate stands at 20.75%, the weekly positivity rate has increased to 17.03%.

India, the second-worst Covid-hit country in the world, also registered 439 deaths and 2,43,495 recoveries between Sunday and Morning morning.

Meanwhile, 162.26 cr vaccine doses have been administered so far under the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination drive. According to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, more than 13.83 crore balance and unutilized vaccine doses are still available with the States and UTs to be administered.

Omicron variant in community transmission stage in India

The Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) has said that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is in the community transmission stage in India. The consortium, in its bulletin released on Sunday, also said that Omicron has become dominant in multiple metros where new cases have been rising exponentially.

The consortium further stated that BA.2 lineage, an infectious sub-variant of Omicron, has been found in a "substantial fraction" in the country. India has so far reported over 10,000 cases of the new Covid-19 variant.

When will third wave of Covid-19 peak in India?

India's R-value has reduced to 1.57 in the week from January 14-21 and the national peak of the third wave of the infection is expected to come in the next fortnight, according to a preliminary analysis by IIT Madras.

According to Dr Jayant Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT Madras, the coronavirus peak in the country is likely to come in the next 14 days till February 6.

The earlier prediction was that the peak of the third wave is likely between February 1 and February 15.

R-value, notably, indicates the number of people an infected person can spread the disease to and a pandemic is considered to end if this value goes below 1.

According to the analysis shared by IIT Madras, the R-value was recorded at 1.57 between January 14 and January 21 and the number was recorded at 2.2 in the week of January 7-13 while it was 4 from January 1-6 and 2.9 from December 25- 31.

According to the data, the R-value of Mumbai was 0.67, Delhi 0.98, Chennai 1.2 and Kolkata 0.56. The R-value of Mumbai and Kolkata shows that Covid-19 peak is over there and it is becoming endemic while for Delhi and Chennai it is still close to 1.

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: Amid a declining number of daily Covid-19 cases, Maharashtra today (January 24, 2022) reopened its schools for offline classroom sessions.

Schools in the state were closed in the first week of January due to a spike in the coronavirus cases and in the wake of the emergence of the Omicron variant.

"Our SOPs are very strict and clear. We have given four days of advance notice to the management of schools to undertake vaccination and sanitisation and for preparation of time-table. The timing and other necessary decisions will be taken by the local authorities, such as district collector or municipal commissioner based on the local situations," Maharashtra minister Varsha Gaikwad had said on January 20 while announcing the decision.

The decision has been taken following detailed deliberations with the Hon'ble @CMOMaharashtra, cabinet colleagues,the paediatric task force & education experts. In these areas, the local administration is empowered to assess and take decisions regarding safe resumption of schools  Prof. Varsha Eknath Gaikwad (@VarshaEGaikwad) January 20, 2022

In Mumbai, the local civic body had announced the closure of schools for Classes 1 to 9 till January 31. However, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) assessment had indicated that the cases of Omicron infection are not on the rise, and it had said that the curve was flattening. It prompted the officials to propose the reopening of schools for physical attendance.

However, in cities like Pune and Aurangabad, schools will remain shut while classes continue in the online mode due to the current Covid-19 situation.

Majority of parents in Maharashtra unwilling to send children to school

About 62 per cent of surveyed parents in Maharashtra are unwilling to send their children to school from January 24. The findings were based on a survey conducted by the online community platform LocalCircle across tier-I, tier-II/III and tier-IV cities of the state that received 4,976 responses.

Of the total, 67 per cent of respondents were men and the remaining 33 per cent women, the survey showed.

Complete thought given to school reopening decision

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope has said that the decision to reopen schools for primary classes to XII from Monday was taken after complete thought was given to the issue.

Talking to reporters on Sunday, Tope said the opening of schools was necessary for the brain development of children and it was not right to keep them at home for long.

"We have given a lot of flexibility and also stressed that following Covid-19 norms is a must," the minister said, adding that parents must send their wards to school.

District education officials are in constant touch with Collectors and CEOs of respective areas to ensure safe resumption of schools. Directed district administration to take decisions regarding reopening based on local conditions.  Prof. Varsha Eknath Gaikwad (@VarshaEGaikwad) January 21, 2022

While Covid-19 cases have increased over the past few days, 90-95 per cent oxygen and ICU beds are vacant, he said, adding that restrictions would be eased if the rate of hospitalisation remains low.

The minister also informed that 90 per cent of eligible beneficiaries in the state have taken the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, while second dose coverage is in the 62-63 per cent range.

He, however, said several people had skipped their second vaccine dose and health workers were trying their best to get this section to overcome hesitancy.

Maharashtra sees 40,805 Covid-19 cases, 44 deaths

Maharashtra on Sunday reported 40,805 Covid-19 cases, taking its tally to 75,07,225, while 44 fatalities put the toll at 1,42,115. The discharge of 27,377 people during the day took the recovery count to 70,67,955 and left the state with 2,93,305 active coronavirus infections.

No Omicron case was detected in the state during the day, keeping the tally of those affected by the new variant to 2,759, of which, 1,437 have been discharged. The total number of Omicron cases in Mumbai is 1,009 and in Pune city 1,002, he added.

Mumbai, meanwhile, reported 2,550 new cases and 13 deaths on Sunday, taking the tally to 10,33,915 and toll to 16,535.

Mumbai division, which comprises adjoining districts, saw 6,665 cases and 21 deaths, leaving the tally at 21,79,271and the toll at 36,416.

Nashik division reported 4,777 cases, while Pune division saw 15,166 cases, including 6,284 in Pune city and 4,085 in Pimpri Chinchwad.

Maharashtra's Covid-19 figures

Total Positive: 75,07,225

Death toll: 1,42,115

Recoveries: 70,67,955

Active cases: 2,93,305

Total tests: 7,33,69,912

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi: With an objective to provide support and opportunities to the girls of India, National Girl Child Day is celebrated in the country on January 24 every year.

The Day was first initiated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2008 and aims towards promoting awareness about the rights of the girl child.

It also focuses on increasing awareness on the importance of girls' education, and their health and nutrition and also to promote the girls' position in the society to make their living better among the society.

Objectives of National Girl Child Day

The objective of National Girl Child Day is to create awareness about the rights a girl owns and to give them the opportunities like everyone else. The Day also aims at removing gender-based biases.

Educate, Encourage, Empower! Today is the day to renew our commitment twd providing equal opportunities to our girls. On National Girl Child Day, as we celebrate accomplishments of our daughters, we pledge to bridge the gender divide to build an inclusive & equal society. pic.twitter.com/qpglx0fS9y  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) January 24, 2022

Another objective of celebrating this day is to promote awareness about the inequalities that a girl child faces and educate people about girls education. It also focuses on changing society's attitude towards girls, decreasing female feticide and creating awareness about the decreasing sex ratio.

Steps taken by the Government to improve conditions of girls

The Government of India has taken various steps over the years to improve the conditions of girls. It has started several campaigns and programmes including the Save the Girl Child, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana CBSE Udaan Scheme, Free or subsidized education for girl child, Reservation for women in colleges and universities and National Scheme of Incentive to Girls for Secondary Education.

       -        ,            ! As we complete 7 yrs of Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP), my gratitude to citizens of India for transforming BBBP Ji into a Jan Andolan. pic.twitter.com/xl2WTYbsJx  Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) January 22, 2022

Today, Union Minister Smriti Zubin Irani will also interact with children from a few marginalised identities from across the country in an online event 'Kanya Mahotsav'.

National Commission of Women is also organizing a virtual discussion through which their speakers will contribute to raise awareness about the rights of girls and the importance of girls education.

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New Delhi: There is no Anti-Semitism in India, this phrase doesn't just exist", said Israeli envoy to India Noar Gilon as both sides begin the official celebration of the establishment of ties of 30 years.

Gilons statements came as anti-Semitism, or discrimination against Jews has been seen in many parts of the world.

"Jews have lived in India for over 2000 years in total equality and peacefully and as someone who arrived after serving quite an extensive period in Europe, I was very much surprised how much love and appreciation there is in India towards Israel, the top Israeli envoy in India explained.

India and Israel established full diplomatic relations on January 29, 1992, and this year both sides will celebrate 30 years of ties together to give further thrust to this fast-evolving engagement.

At a virtual event on Monday, a commemorative logo was launched. The logo features the Star of David and the Ashoka Chakra and forms the numeral 30 depicting the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations.

Calling relations between India, Israel as "exceptional", Israeli's envoy to India Naor Gilon said, "relationship did not start just 30 years ago" and "more than 900 Indian soldiers buried in the land of Israel, those who fought during first world war as part of the Indian British army, to liberate the area which later became Israel."

Gilon recalled that he once saw a picture of Gandhi on David Ben-Gurion and called "Gandhi and India as a sister liberation movement". David Ben-Gurion was the founding father and first prime minister of Israel.

The role of the Indian soldiers during the 1918 battle of Haifa has been well documented. During the 2018 visit of the then Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the name of Delhi's Teen Murti Chowk was formally rechristened as Teen murti Haifa Chowk in honour.

The 3 statues at the chowk in the heart of Central Delhi belong to the Hyderabad, Jodhpur and Mysore Lancers who were part of the British India forces who helped win the battle of Haifa.

Indian envoy to Israel, Sanjeev Singla was also present at the event and highlighted how, "Our people are connected by civilizational bonds, that go beyond trade and economic ties. Jewish people have thrived in India for centuries and in fact, enriched the composite culture of India." Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar saved the lives of several Jewish children during world war 2 by providing them shelter and taking care of them.

The Indian envoy said large India-Jewish community forms an "organic link and bridge that continues to grow" between the 2 sides. There are approximately 85,000 Jews of Indian origin in Israel, who are Israeli passport holders.

The majority of them are from Maharashtra (Bene Israelis) and relatively smaller numbers are from Kerala (Cochini Jews) and Kolkata (Baghdadi Jews). In recent years, some Indian Jews from the North-Eastern states of India (Bnei Menashe) have been immigrating to Israel.

2022 marks 5 years of a strategic partnership that was established during the visit of PM Modi.

"2022 provides us an opportunity to not only to look back and take account of the bilateral achievements of past 30 years but also 5 years when the relationship was put on a qualitatively high trajectory," said Gilon.

As part of 30-year celebrations, several high-level visits are planned, including by the new Israeli PM Naftali Bennett. Both Indian PM Modi and New Israeli PM met last year on the sidelines of the Glasgow summit. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar had visited the country last year.

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New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (January 24) interacted with the recipients of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar and urged them to support his famous 'Vocal for Local' campaign.

Adding that children and youth are at the centre of all policies being framed by his government, Modi said that they should encourage the usage of local and indigenous products at home.

Vocal for Local campaign

The Prime Minister suggested Bal Puraskar awardees to prepare a list of all the foreign products being used in their household and encourage their elders to replace them with local products.

Noting that the youth of the country is at the centre of all policies being framed by the government presently, he said, "Today we feel proud when we see that the youth of India are innovating and taking the country forward."

"Today we feel proud when we see that the CEOs of all the big companies of the world are young Indians and when we see the youth of India raising their laurels in the world of startups," Modi said.

Vaccination for kids

Lauding children over their participation in the Covid vaccination programme, the prime minister said children have shown their modern and scientific thinking in the vaccination programme as well.

"More than 40 million children got coronavirus vaccine till now since January 3," he said.

Modi also called these children inspiration for the whole society.

"You all must work keeping in mind how your work can help the country," the prime minister said while interacting with the Rashtriya Bal Puraskar recipients.

Bal Puraskar

The prime minister awarded the Bal Puraskar recipients certificates digitally using blockchain technology.

Twenty-nine children, including 14 girls, were awarded in six fields -- innovation, scholastic achievements, sports, arts and culture, social service and bravery.

Each child has been given a medal, a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000 and a certificate.

The prime minister also greeted everyone on the occasion of National Girl Child Day.

(With agency inputs)

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Chandigarh: Chief Electoral Officer of Punjab Dr S Karuna Raju has said that the filing of nomination papers for the upcoming Vidhan Sabha 2022 elections would start with issuance of notification on January 25 (Tuesday) and would continue till February 1.

Briefing the media on Sunday, he said that the scrutiny of nomination will be done on February 2, while the last date of withdrawal of candidature is February 4, adding "The scrutiny of the nominations would be done on February 2 and the last date of withdrawal of candidature would be February 4."

The nominations for the upcoming elections would be filed in the office of respective returning officers from 11 am to 3 pm from January 25 to February 1, 2022, Raju reportedly said, adding that the nominations papers are to be filed in FORM 2B.

According to him, blank forms are available with the respective Returning Officer. Typed nomination papers will also be accepted provided they are in the prescribed format, adding that in order to qualify for a Vidhan Sabha seat, a candidate should be registered as an elector for any Vidhan Sabha Constituency of state.

"To satisfy the concerned Returning Officer on this point, candidates should produce a certified copy of the relevant entry of the electoral roll in force," he said.

A certificate is also required to make and subscribe to an oath or affirmation in the prescribed form before the concerned Returning Officer or any other person is authorized by the Election Commission of India, he added.

No question of post-poll alliance with Congress, AAP: Amarinder Singh

Former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh has announced that his newly-formed Punjab Lok Congress will not form a post-poll alliance with the Indian National Congress or Aam Aadmi Party for the upcoming Assembly polls in the state. He expressed confidence in his party`s alliance with BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) to win the elections.

Taking to Twitter, Media Advisor of Singh Raveen Thukral said, "No question of post-poll alliance with Indian National Congress or Aam Aadmi Party. Punjab Lok Congress will win in alliance with BJP and SAD (Sanyukt). Hope Election Commission of India relaxes curbs soon so I can visit all 117 constituencies to talk to people and take our message to them."

The former Chief Minister also informed that he will be contesting the elections from Patiala Urban.

"Will contest from Patiala, won`t leave my family`s home of 300 years. Will seek votes on my own government`s achievements and Prime Minister Narendra Modi government`s accomplishments at Centre: Capt Amarinder," Thukral tweeted.

The PLC currently has 37 of the 117 seats in Punjab as a part of its alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and SAD (Sanyukt). Discussions on the possibility of another five seats for the party are in progress.

Bhagwant Singh Mann challenges CM Channi to contest from Dhuri

Aam Aadmi Party Punjab Chief Ministerial candidate Bhagwant Singh Mann on Sunday challenged Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi to contest against him from Dhuri. Mann's statement came after Channi challenged him to contest from Chamkaur Sahib.

"I am getting a lot of love. Every time I have come to Dhuri, I have always received love. Whenever I come here, the people of Dhuri always break their own record of love they had given to me so far," Mann told the media persons in Dhuri.

"Yesterday, Charanjit Singh Channi challenged me to fight from Chamkaur Sahib. That`s a reserved seat, so I can`t fight from there. That`s why I said that if you have so much passion to fight against me, then you come to Dhuri," he added.

On being asked about fear of arrest of Delhi minister Satyendra Jain, Mann said, "Even before this, there was Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation raid at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal`s house. Nothing was found."

Earlier on Sunday, Mann visited Dhuri to conduct door to door campaigning for upcoming elections in Punjab.

Notably, the Model Code of Conduct has come into force in Punjab from the date of the announcement of elections (January 8, 2022) by the Election Commission of India and shall remain in force till the completion of the election process.

There are total 2,12,75,066 registered voters in the state for these elections, out of which 1,11,87,857 male, 1,00,86,514 female, 695 third genders, 1,44,667 PWD voters, 1,10,163 service voters, 1,601 NRI voters and 5,13,229 voters are above the age of 80. There are 24,689 polling stations on 14,751 polling locations.

The polls to elect 117 members of the Legislative Assembly in Punjab will be held on February 20, and the counting of votes will be held on March 10. All the polling booths will be covered under web-casting on polling day, from 8 AM to 6 PM.

(With Agency Inputs)

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NEW DELHI: Amid an alarming spike in the new cases of coronavirus infection, respirators have been mandatory in public places in several countries including Austria. . Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, masks have been promoted as a shield to protect against the deadly Covid-19 virus and its variants. But several countries are now rethinking their Covid-19 mask advice for the community.

Austria was one among those Covid-19 affected countries that made it mandatory to wear a respirator in public places since the start of the pandemic. Austria is also one of the first European countries to make FFP2 masks mandatory.

Now the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recognized respirators as safer than masks and has suggested that it is time to upgrade masks for protection from Covid-19.

Respirators vs Masks

Studies on health workers and laboratory workers have found strong evidence that respirators are more effective than source control and personal protective masks. If the infected and the person coming in contact is wearing a fully fitted respirator mask, then one can be protected from infection for 25 hours.

At the same time, if the infected and exposed person is wearing a cloth mask, then there will be a risk of getting infected within 26 minutes. According to health experts, respirators are often wrongly confused as masks" because of their appearance. They are personal protective equipment made to a particular standard and designed to prevent inhalation of hazardous airborne contaminants.

In the US, respirator standards are managed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and cover three things - filter efficiency, breathing resistance and fit. A filter that meets the N95 standard (equivalent to Europes FFP2) must capture at least 95 per cent of particles in the most penetrating size range at a high flow rate.

Whats filtering facepiece respirator FFR?

A respirator that consists entirely of filtering material  rather than having layers, say for waterproofing  is called a filtering facepiece respirator (FFR). An FFR can be worn multiple times but must eventually be thrown away.

Research suggests FFRs lose their ability to fit well after 20 wears  due to stretching of straps or failure of the nose clip or edge components. The filter material is usually a non-woven polypropylene electret, which means the fibres carry an electrical charge to enhance particle collection while ensuring low breathing resistance.

Surgical Masks Vs Surgical N95 Respirators

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, N95 respirators and surgical masks are examples of personal protective equipment that are used to protect the wearer from particles or from liquid contaminating the face.

The FDA regulates surgical masks and surgical N95 respirators differently based on their intended use. A surgical mask is a loose-fitting, disposable device that creates a physical barrier between the mouth and nose of the wearer and potential contaminants in the immediate environment. These are often referred to as face masks, although not all face masks are regulated as surgical masks. Note that the edges of the mask are not designed to form a seal around the nose and mouth.

An N95 respirator is a respiratory protective device designed to achieve a very close facial fit and very efficient filtration of airborne particles. Note that the edges of the respirator are designed to form a seal around the nose and mouth. Surgical N95 Respirators are commonly used in healthcare settings and are a subset of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators (FFRs), often referred to as N95s.

Precautions for using N95 Respirators

-People with chronic respiratory, cardiac, or other medical conditions that make breathing difficult should check with their health care provider before using an N95 respirator because the N95 respirator can make it more difficult for the wearer to breathe.

-All FDA-cleared N95 respirators are labeled as "single-use," disposable devices. If your respirator is damaged or soiled, or if breathing becomes difficult, you should remove the respirator, discard it properly, and replace it with a new one.

-To safely discard your N95 respirator, place it in a plastic bag and put it in the trash. Wash your hands after handling the used respirator.

-N95 respirators are not designed for children or people with facial hair. Because a proper fit cannot be achieved on children and people with facial hair, the N95 respirator may not provide full protection.

According to the FDA, the respirator is intended to prevent specific diseases or infections. The respirator is labelled or otherwise represented as filtering surgical smoke or plumes, filtering specific amounts of viruses or bacteria, reducing the amount of and/or killing viruses, bacteria, or fungi, or affecting allergenicity

The respirator contains coating technologies unrelated to filtration (e.g., to reduce and or kill microorganisms).

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BSF Recruitment 2022: The Border Security Force (BSF) has announced over 2,700 vacancies and has invited applications from eligible candidates for the post of Constable (Tradesman).

According to the notification released on BSF's official website at https://rectt.bsf.gov.in, the recruitment will comprise of Physical Standard Test (PST), Physical Efficiency Test (PET), Documentation, Trade Test, Written Examination and Detailed Medical Examination (DME).

BSF Recruitment 2022: Vacancy details

Male: 2,651 posts

Female: 137 posts

BSF Recruitment 2022: Age limit

A candidate needs to be between 18 to 23 years as on August 1, 2021.

BSF Recruitment 2022: Salary details

The recruitment will be done in the Pay Matrix Level-3, Pay scale Rs 21,700-69,100 of 7th CPC (Revised Pay Structure). The candidate will also receive other allowances as admissible to Central Government employees from time to time. In addition, ration allowance, medical assistance, free accommodation, free leave pass, etc will also be granted which are admissible to BSF employees.

BSF Recruitment 2022: Last date

The facility for submission of online applications has opened on BSF's website https://rectt.bsf.gov.in on January 16. It will be closed on March 1 at 11:59 PM.

Please note that only an ONLINE application is to be submitted by a candidate. No other mode for submission of application will be accepted.

The candidates are advised to exercise due diligence at the time of filling out their application form.
Mumbai: NCP president Sharad Pawar on Monday said he has tested positive for coronavirus, but there is no cause of worry.

"I have tested Covid positive but there is no cause for concern. I am following the treatment suggested by my doctor," the 81-year-old former Union minister tweeted.

"I request all those who have been in contact with me in the past few days to get themselves tested and take all necessary precautions," added Pawar, whose party shares power with the Shiv Sena and Congress in Maharashtra.

I have tested Covid positive but there is no cause for concern. I am following the treatment as suggested by my doctor.

I request all those who have been in contact with me in the past few days to get themselves tested and take all necessary precautions.  Sharad Pawar (@PawarSpeaks) January 24, 2022

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Mumbai: The BJP on Monday reacted sharply to Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's remark that the saffron party uses 'Hindutva' for power and reminded the latter to introspect whether Shiv Sena is following late Bal Thackeray's ideology.

Before lecturing on Hindutva, Uddhav Thackeray should introspect whether Shiv Sena is following late Bal Thackeray's ideology, who had said that in politics and life his party will never join Congress, & if such circumstances arise, he would prefer locking party (office), Ram Kadam of the BJP said.

Before lecturing on Hindutva, Uddhav Thackeray should introspect whether Shiv Sena is following late Bal Thackeray's ideology, who had said that in politics & life his party will never join Cong, &if such circumstances arise, he would prefer locking party (office): Ram Kadam, BJP https://t.co/B4z29IQSXt pic.twitter.com/2S0v5CkjdH  ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2022

His remarks came hours after Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has used Hindutva for power and asserted that it will not leave Hindutva.

Shiv Sena Rajya Sabh MP Sanjay Raut also made a similar statement. We took BJP from bottom to top in Maharashtra. After Babri, there was a Shiv Sena wave in Northern India, if we had fought polls at that time, there would have been our (Shiv Sena) PM in country but we left it for them. BJP only uses Hindutva for power, Sanjay Raut said.

We took BJP from bottom to top in Maharashtra. After Babri, there was a Shiv Sena wave in Northern India,if we had fought polls at that time, there would have been our(Shiv Sena) PM in country but we left it for them. BJP only uses Hindutva for power: Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut pic.twitter.com/cDQKh8lzGJ  ANI (@ANI) January 24, 2022

Addressing the Shiv Sainiks virtually on the 96th birth anniversary of the party founder Bal Thackeray, Uddhav also said that the party will try to expand its footprint outside the state and aim for a national role.

Thackeray said that the Shiv Sena has left the BJP but it will not leave Hindutva. "We are the ones who supported them (BJP). We had an alliance for 25 years. BJP used Hindutva for power. We left BJP but will not leave Hindutva. BJP is not Hindutva. Tactics were used against us when we challenged them," he said.

"(Union Home Minister) Amit Shah said fight alone; we are ready to fight alone," he added.

The Maharashtra Chief Minister also said that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has shrunk as its old constituents like Akali Dal and Shiv Sena walked out.

As the Shiv Sena is now testing waters in other states too, the Maharashtra Chief Minister asked the party workers to not be overwhelmed by defeat.

"Even if we lose, don`t be overwhelmed. We will win someday," he said. Talking of the recent Nagar Panchayat elections where Shiv Sena secured just the fourth position, Uddhav said that the party did not contest all seats.

"Even though we are at number four today, more Nagar Panchayat seats were elected today than those we fought and even won in the alliance (with BJP). We must take this election seriously," he said.

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Mumbai: It's been a year since actor Varun Dhawan tied the knot with his girlfriend Natasha Dalal and the lovebirds are celebrating their first wedding anniversary on Monday. To mark the special day, Varun took to his Instagram handle and shared three posts with lots of pictures from the wedding festivities.

In the first one, he posted pictures from the wedding ceremony in which they can be seen dressed in coordinated ivory-and-gold outfits.The next post captured the fun and frolic from the Haldi ceremony.

In captions of both, he wrote, "1 love (heart emoticon)."

The third post captured beautiful moments from the dreamy Mehendi ceremony.

He penned the caption, "1 love (heart emoticon). To infinity and beyond - buzz lightyear."

Friends, fans and fellow film industry members poured in congratulatory messages.

"Congratulations," actor Tiger Shroff said. "Happy anniversary guys...stay blessed," actor Maniesh Paul chimed in. "Please don't delete this," a fan added.

The couple got hitched in a private affair that took place at The Mansion House, an exotic beach resort in Alibaug, Maharashtra.

Varun and Natasha have reportedly known each other since their school days. The two fell in love when they met at a music concert, years later. The duo had always kept their relationship low-key.Varun publicly acknowledged that he is dating Natasha when he posted a photo featuring himself with his girlfriend on her birthday in 2019.
New Delhi: Aadhaar card, the 12-digit identification number issued by UIDAI to the resident of India. Aadhaar card is issued for free of cost and is very handy when you have to submit it as a document proof. There is no age limit defined for Aadhaar Enrolment.

Even a new born baby can also get Enroled for Aadhaar, called the Baal Aadhaar.

To enroll your child for Aadhaar, you only need the child's birth certificate or the discharge slip from the hospital and the Aadhaar of one of the parents.

Here is the complete list of other documents that you can use for the child's enrolment in Baal Aadhaar:

POI (Proof of Identity) documents containing Name and Photo for Aadhaar Card

1. Passport

2. PAN Card

3. Ration/ PDS Photo Card

4. Voter ID

5. Driving License

6. Government Photo ID Cards/ Service photo identity card issued by PSU

7. NREGS Job Card

8. Photo ID issued by Recognized Educational Institution

9. Arms License

10. Photo Bank ATM Card

11. Photo Credit Card

12. Pensioner Photo Card

13. Freedom Fighter Photo Card

14. Kissan Photo Passbook

15. CGHS/ ECHS Photo Card

16. Address Card having Name and Photo issued by Department of Posts

17. Certificate of Identity having photo issued by Gazetted Officer or Tehsildar on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

18. Disability ID Card/ handicapped medical certificate issued by the respective State/ UT Governments/ Administrations

19. Bhamashah Card/Jan-Aadhaar card issued by Govt. of Rajasthan

20. Certificate from Superintendent/ Warden/ Matron/ Head of Institution of recognized shelter homes or orphanages etc. on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

21. Certificate of Identity having photo issued by MP or MLA or MLC or Municipal Councilor on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

22. Certificate of Identity having photo issued by Village Panchayat Head or Mukhiya or its equivalent authority (for rural areas) on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

23. Gazette notification for name change

24. Marriage certificate with photograph

25. RSBY Card

26. SSLC book having candidates photograph

27. ST/ SC/ OBC certificate with photograph

28. School Leaving Certificate (SLC)/ School Transfer Certificate (TC), containing name and photograph

29. Extract of School Records issued by Head of School containing name and photograph

30. Bank Pass Book having name and photograph

31. Certificate of Identity containing name and photo issued by Recognized Educational Institution signed by Head of Institute on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update.

32. Certificate of identity containing Name, DOB and Photograph issued by Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on UIDAI standard certificate

POR (Proof of Relationship) documents containing Name of applicant and Name of HoF (Head of Family) for Aadhaar card

1. PDS Card

2. MNREGA Job Card

3. CGHS/ State Government/ ECHS/ ESIC Medical card

4. Pension Card

5. Army Canteen Card

6. Passport

7. Birth Certificate issued by Registrar of Birth, Municipal Corporation and other notified local government bodies like Taluk, Tehsil etc.

8. Any other Central/ State government issued family entitlement document

9. Marriage Certificate issued by the government

10. Address card having name and photo issued by Department of Posts

11. Bhamashah Card/Jan-Aadhaar card issued by Govt. of Rajasthan

12. Discharge card/ slip issued by Government hospitals for birth of a child

13. Certificate of Identity having photo issued by MP or MLA or MLC or Municipal Councillor or Gazetted Officer on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

14. Certificate of Identity having photo and relationship with HoF issued by Village Panchayat Head or Mukhiya or its equivalent authority (for rural areas) on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

DOB (Date of Birth) documents containing Name and DOB for Aadhaar card

1. Birth Certificate

2. SSLC Book/ Certificate

3. Passport

4. Certificate of Date of Birth issued by Group A Gazetted Officer on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

5. A certificate (on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update) or ID Card having photo and Date of Birth (DOB) duly signed and issued by a Government authority

6. Photo ID card having Date of Birth, issued by Recognized Educational Institution

7. PAN Card

8. Marksheet issued by any Government Board or University

9. Government Photo ID Card/ Photo Identity Card issued by PSU containing DOB

10. Central/ State Pension Payment Order

11. Central Government Health Service Scheme Photo Card or Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme Photo card

12. School Leaving Certificate (SLC)/ School Transfer Certificate (TC), containing Name and Date of Birth

13. Extract of School Records issued by Head of School containing Name, Date of Birth and Photograph

14. Certificate of Identity containing Name, DOB and Photo issued by Recognized Educational Institution signed by Head of Institute on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

15. Certificate of identity containing Name, DOB and Photograph issued by Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

POA (Proof of Address) documents containing Name and Address for Aadhaar card

1. Passport

2. Bank Statement/ Passbook

3. Post Office Account Statement/ Passbook

4. Ration Card

5. Voter ID

6. Driving License

7. Government Photo ID cards/ service photo identity card issued by PSU

8. Electricity Bill (not older than 3 months)

9. Water Bill (not older than 3 months)

10. Telephone Landline Bill (not older than 3 months)

11. Property Tax Receipt (not older than 1 year)

12. Credit Card Statement (not older than 3 months)

13. Insurance Policy

14. Signed Letter having Photo from Bank on letterhead

15. Signed Letter having Photo issued by registered Company on letterhead

16. Signed Letter having Photo issued by Recognized Educational Institution on letterhead or Photo ID having address issued by Recognized Educational Institution

17. NREGS Job Card

18. Arms License

19. Pensioner Card

20. Freedom Fighter Card

21. Kissan Passbook

22. CGHS/ ECHS Card

23. Certificate of Address having photo issued by MP or MLA or MLC or Gazetted Officer or Tehsildar on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

24. Certificate of Address issued by Village Panchayat head or its equivalent authority (for rural areas) on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

25. Income Tax Assessment Order

26. Vehicle Registration Certificate

27. Registered Sale/ Lease/ Rent Agreement

28. Address Card having Photo issued by Department of Posts

29. Caste and Domicile Certificate having Photo issued by State Govt

30. Disability ID Card/ handicapped medical certificate issued by the respective State/ UT Governments/ Administrations

31. Gas Connection Bill (not older than 3 months)

32. Passport of Spouse

33. Passport of Parents (in case of Minor)

34. Allotment letter of accommodation issued by Central/ State Govt. (not more than 3 years old)

35. Marriage Certificate issued by the Government, containing address

36. Bhamashah Card/Jan-Aadhaar card issued by Govt. of Rajasthan

37. Certificate from Superintendent/ Warden/ Matron/ Head of Institution of recognized shelter homes or orphanages etc. on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

38. Certificate of Address having photo issued by Municipal Councillor on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

39. Identity Card issued by recognized educational institutions

40. SSLC book having photograph

41. School Identity card

42. School Leaving Certificate (SLC)/ School Transfer Certificate (TC), containing Name and Address

43. Extract of School Records containing Name, Address and Photograph issued by Head of School

44. Certificate of Identity containing Name, Address and Photo issued by Recognized Educational Institution signed by Head of Institute on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

45. Certificate of identity containing Name, DOB and Photograph issued by Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) on UIDAI standard certificate format for enrolment/ update

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New Delhi: The month of February is almost upon us. If you have bank-related tasks to do in February, it's critical that you know when the banks will be closed in the following month.

According to the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) list, a total of 12 days of shuttered banks will be closed next month. These holidays, however, will not be available in all states. In such a circumstance, check the Bank Holidays List before leaving the house to attend to bank business.

In February 2022, there will be six holidays, including Basant Panchami, Guru Ravidas Jayanti, and Doljatra, on which banks across the country will be closed. Closed till further notice (Bank Band). There will be a weekly (Weekend bank band) holiday on the second and fourth Saturdays and Sundays. In the coming month, there will be no business in the banks for a total of 12 days. Customers will be able to access ATMs, Internet Banking, Net Banking, and other services at this time.

List of bank holidays

February 2: Sonam Lochhar (banks closed in Gangtok)

February 5: Saraswati Puja/Shri Panchami/Basant Panchami (banks closed in Agartala, Bhubaneshwar, Kolkata)

February 15: Mohammad Hazrat Ali Birthday/Louis-Nagai-Nee (banks closed in Imphal, Kanpur, Lucknow)

February 16: Guru Ravidas Jayanti (banks closed in Chandigarh)

February 18: Doljatra (banks closed in Kolkata)

February 19: Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Jayanti (banks closed in Belapur, Mumbai, Nagpur)

Banks will also be closed on these weekends

6 February: Sunday (weekly holiday)

12 February: 2nd Saturday of the month (weekly holiday)

13 February: Sunday (weekly holiday)

20 February: Sunday (weekly holiday)

26 February: 4th Saturday of the month ( Weekly Holiday)

February 27: Sunday (Weekly Holiday)
New Delhi: The Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana (PMVVY) is a social security scheme for senior citizens intended to give an assured minimum pension to them based on an assured return on the purchase price / subscription amount.

In June 2020, the Cabinet announced extension of Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana up to 31st March, 2023 for further period of three years beyond 31st March, 2020.

Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana pension benefits

The scheme enables old age income security for senior citizens through provision of assured pension/return linked to the subscription amount based on government guarantee to Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). The upper limit of investment under this Scheme is Rs 15 lakh, offering monthly pension of Rs 10,000. The scheme provides an assured return of 8% per annum for 10 years.

The differential return, i.e. the difference between return generated by LIC and the assured return of 8% per annum would be borne by Government of India as subsidy on an annual basis. Pension is payable at the end of each period during the policy tenure of 10 years as per the frequency of monthly/quarterly/ half-yearly/yearly as chosen by the subscriber at the time of purchase. The minimum investment has also been revised to Rs 1,56,658 for pension of Rs 12,000 per annum and Rs 1,62,162 for getting a minimum pension amount of Rs.1000 per month under the scheme.

Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana minimum and maximum Purchase Price

The scheme can be purchased by payment of a lump sum Purchase Price. The pensioner has an option to choose either the amount of pension or the Purchase Price. The minimum and maximum Purchase Price under different modes of pension will be as under:

Mode Minimum Maximum of Pension Minimum Purchase Price Maximum Purchase Price Yearly Rs 1,56,658 Rs 14,49,086 Half-yearly Rs 1,59,574 Rs 14,76,064 Quarterly Rs 1,61,074 Rs 14,89,933 Monthly Rs 1,62,162 Rs 15,00,000

Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana Eligibility Conditions, maximum and minimum pension amount

a) Minimum Entry Age : 60 years (completed)

b) Maximum Entry Age : No limit

c) Policy Term : 10 years

d) Minimum Pension : Rs 1,000 per month

Rs 3,000 per quarter

Rs 6,000 per half-year

Rs 12,000 per year

e) Maximum Pension : Rs 9,250 per month

Rs 27,750 per quarter

Rs 55,500 per half-year

Rs 1,11,000 per year

Tax on Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana

The scheme is exempted from Goods and Services Tax (GST). The deposits made in the scheme are exempt from income tax under section 80C of Income Tax Act, 1961. However, the interest earned on the deposit is not exempt from income tax. Provisions of Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) are applicable to the Scheme.
All eyes are set for the Union Budget which is to be held on February 1, 2022. But what can we expect for the Railways this year? The Central government is going to present the Budget for Railways on February 1 along with the General Budget.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her fourth budget on February 1 and according to sources, the Central government is going to increase the outlay for the railways this time by 15-20 percent. Last year, the government had allocated Rs 1,10,055 crore to the Railways. This time, an amount of around Rs 2.5 lakh crore is likely to be earmarked. Ahead of the budget, there is an atmosphere of enthusiasm in many sectors related to railways. The Central government might announce new railway facilities for the passengers.

The Railways has suffered a loss of Rs 26,338 crore in the past year. However, despite the losses incurred during the Covid-induced crisis period, experts believe that there is little chance of witnessing a hike in the train fares. The Railways is also said to be considering measures excluding upping the fare to increase its earnings. About 10 new light trains (aluminum-built) could be announced for long-distance travel in the rail budget. A bullet train could also be announced between Delhi and Varanasi.

Read also: Indian Railways cancel more than 481 trains, check the full list here before travelling

During the Covid period, most of the earnings of the Railways came from freight. Therefore, an effort would be made by the Railways to prepare different freight corridors which will also reduce the pressure on passenger trains. Plans are being made to strengthen the rail connectivity of the election-bound states and metro cities. For these, the government might involve some private companies. The solar-power capacity would be developed in Indian Railways to reduce dependence on electricity and diesel, as well as to reduce carbon emissions.

Along with this, the target of 100 percent electrification by 2030 would be announced in the National Rail Plan. Re-development projects would be announced for the betterment of the stations through the PPP model. For this, 12 corridors have been identified. Several companies had shown interest in it.

This year, the government might also announce the formation of a Rail Development Authority, which would provide suggestions to the government on fare-related issues. Plans are likely to be implemented for the development of more projects like Tejas to connect various tourist destinations across the country. Also, more emphasis would be given to the development of dedicated freight corridors. In this, the East-West Corridor from Bhusaval via Kharagpur to Dankuni and the North-South Corridor starting from Itarsi to Vijayawada has already been announced.

Read also: Global Lithium shortage can derail increased demand for Electric Vehicles

While announcing the last railway budget, the Finance Minister had also announced the National Rail Plan 2030 for the development of railways. It was announced to give a new look to the railway facilities. The Central government has already planned to invest around Rs 1 lakh crore. By December 2023, 100 percent electrification of the major railway lines will be completed.

Further, the metro rail system is being prepared in the outer parts of two Tier-2 category cities and Tier-1 category cities, under which Indian Railways aims to become "the worlds first 100 percent green rail service" by 2030. Along with this, the Central government could announce the adoption of hyperloop technology in the rail budget this time. In this, pods carrying passengers travel through tubes or tunnels. This mode of transportation is faster than bullet trains.

The government could also make big announcements regarding infrastructure in the budget. Re-development of 500 railway stations could be announced in this budget, to be named `Kayakalp` by the government.

With inputs from IANS

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Florida: U.S. President Joe Biden said on January 19, 2022, that he thinks Russia will invade Ukraine, and cautioned Russian president Vladimir Putin that he 'will regret having done it,' following months of building tension.

Russia has amassed an estimated 100,000 troops along its border with Ukraine over the past several months. In mid-January, Russia began moving troops into Belarus, a country bordering both Russia and Ukraine, in preparation for joint military exercises in February.

Putin has issued various security demands to the U.S. before he draws his military forces back. Putin's list includes a ban on Ukraine from entering NATO and an agreement that NATO will remove troops and weapons across much of Eastern Europe.

What should we know about Ukrainians' relationship with Russia?

Ukraine gained independence 30 years ago, after the fall of the Soviet Union. It has since struggled to combat corruption and bridge deep internal divisions. Ukraine's western region generally supported integration with Western Europe. The country's eastern side, meanwhile, favoured closer ties with Russia.

Tensions between Russia and Ukraine peaked in February 2014, when violent protesters ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in what is now known as the Revolution of Dignity. Around the same time, Russia forcibly annexed Crimea.

Ukraine was in a vulnerable position for self-defence, with a temporary government and unprepared military. Putin immediately moved to strike in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. The armed conflict between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed over 14,000 people.

Unlike its response to Crimea, Russia continues to officially deny its involvement in the Donbas conflict.

What do Ukrainians want?

Russia's military aggression in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea have galvanised public support for Ukraine's Western leanings. Ukraine's government has said it will apply for European Union membership in 2024, and also has ambitions to join NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who came to power in 2019, campaigned on a platform of anti-corruption, economic renewal and peace in the Donbas region.

In September 2021, 81% of Ukrainians said they have a negative attitude about Putin, according to the Ukrainian news site RBC-Ukraine. Just 15% of surveyed Ukrainians reported a positive attitude towards the Russian leader.

Why is Putin threatening to invade Ukraine?

Putin's decision to engage in a military buildup along Ukraine is connected to a sense of impunity. Putin also has experience dealing with Western politicians who champion Russian interests and become engaged with Russian companies once they leave office.

Western countries have imposed mostly symbolic sanctions against Russia over interference in the 2020 U.S. Presidential elections and a huge cyberattack against about 18,000 people who work for companies and the U.S. Government, among other transgressions.

Without repercussions, Putin has backed Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's brutal crackdown on mass protests in the capital city, Minsk.

In several instances, Putin has seen that some leading Western politicians align with Russia. These alliances can prevent Western countries from forging a unified front to Putin.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, for example, advocated for strategic cooperation between Europe and Russia while he was in office. He later joined the Russian oil company Rosneft as chairman in 2017.

Other senior European politicians promoting a soft position toward Russia while in the office include former French Prime Minister Francois Fillon and former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl. Both joined the boards of Russian state-owned companies after leaving office.

What is Putin's end game?

Putin views Ukraine as part of Russia's sphere of influence, a territory rather than an independent state. This sense of ownership has driven the Kremlin to try to block Ukraine from joining the EU and NATO.

In January 2021, Russia experienced one of its largest anti-government demonstrations in years. Tens of thousands of Russians protested in support of political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, following his detention in Russia. Navalny had recently returned from Germany, where he was treated for being poisoned by the Russian government.

Putin is also using Ukraine as leverage for Western powers lifting their sanctions. Currently, the U.S. has various political and financial sanctions in place against Russia, as well as potential allies and business partners to Russia.

A Russian attack on Ukraine could prompt more diplomatic conversations that could lead to concessions on these sanctions.

The costs to Russia of attacking Ukraine would significantly outweigh the benefits. While a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is unlikely, Putin might renew fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Why would the US want to get involved in this conflict?

With its annexation of Crimea and support for the Donbas conflict, Russia has violated the Budapest Memorandum Security Assurances for Ukraine, a 1994 agreement between the U.S., United Kingdom and Russia that aims to protect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for its commitment to give up its nuclear arsenal.

Putin's threats against Ukraine occur as he is moving Russian forces into Belarus, which also raises questions about the Kremlin's plans for invading other neighboring countries.

Military support for Ukraine and political and economic sanctions are ways the U.S. can make clear to Moscow that there will be consequences for its encroachment on an independent country. The risk, otherwise, is that the Kremlin might undertake other military and political actions that would further threaten European security and stability.

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DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Gulf country on Monday with no casualties, its defence ministry said, following a deadly attack a week earlier.

For more than six years, Yemen`s Houthis have been battling a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE, repeatedly carrying out cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, and launching an unprecedented assault on the UAE on Jan. 17.

The coalition has in the past week conducted deadly air strikes in Yemen it says are aimed at crippling the capabilities of the Iran-aligned movement in a conflict that is largely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Houthi military spokesman on Monday said the group fired Zulfiqar ballistic missiles at al-Dhafra airbase in Abu Dhabi, which is used by the United States, alongside other "sensitive targets". The group launched drones at Dubai, he added.

The UAE defence ministry said remnants of the intercepted missiles fell in separate areas around Abu Dhabi and that it was taking necessary protective measures against attacks.

It later posted a video on Twitter of what it described as an F-16 warplane destroying a Houthi missile launcher in Yemen`s al-Jawf at 1:10 a.m. GMT which the group had used in the operation.

UAE newspaper The National cited Abu Dhabi residents reporting flashes in the sky around 12:30 a.m GMT.

Monday`s attack was the second on UAE soil since last week`s strike that hit a fuel depot in Abu Dhabi, killing three people, and causing a fire near its international airport.

The Dubai benchmark stock index was down 1% in early trade, while the Abu Dhabi stock index dropped 0.7%. The UAE is the region`s commercial and tourism hub.

The Houthi military spokesman said Monday`s operation also targeted "sensitive" sites in southern Saudi Arabia.

Saudi state media earlier said the coalition intercepted a missile, with remnants causing damage in a southern industrial area. State media ran images claiming to show winged remains of the projectiles and of the twisted metal of cars and buildings.

On Sunday night, state media said a ballistic missile fell near another region in the south, injuring two foreigners and causing damage in an industrial area.

The United Nations, which along with the United States has struggled to engineer a ceasefire for Yemen, has voiced concern over escalations and called for maximum restraint by both sides.

Coalition air strikes on Yemen killed at least 60 people in Saada province on Friday, and about 20 people in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa on Tuesday.

The coalition intervened in Yemen in March 2015 months after the Houthis ousted the internationally recognised government from Sanaa. The group says it is fighting a corrupt system and foreign aggression.
Washington: The United States updated its travel advisory for Ukraine urging American citizens to leave the country and authorizing the departure of some embassy employees. This advisory said that Russia is planning significant military action against Ukraine, said an ANI report.

This has come as several countries, led by the US, have reportedly accused Russia of amassing troops near the Ukrainian border in alleged preparation for an invasion. Moscow, however, said that it has no intention of invading Ukraine while stressing that it has the right to move forces within its own territory.

In an advisory on Sunday, the State Department said, "On January 23, 2022, the Department of State authorized the voluntary departure of US direct-hire employees and ordered the departure of eligible family members from Embassy Kyiv due to the continued threat of Russian military action. US citizens in Ukraine should consider departing now using commercial or other privately available transportation options."

It further said, "The security conditions, particularly along Ukraine`s borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice. Demonstrations, which have turned violent at times, regularly occur throughout Ukraine, including in Kyiv."

The State Department said that US citizens in Ukraine should be aware that Russian military action anywhere in Ukraine would severely impact the US Embassy`s ability to provide consular services, including assistance to US citizens in departing Ukraine.

It has urged American citizens not to take trips to the country amid "tension" along the border with Ukraine, adding "Do not travel to Ukraine due to the increased threats of Russian military action and COVID-19. Exercise increased caution in Ukraine due to crime and civil unrest. Some areas have increased risk. Read the entire Travel Advisory."

Kremlin planning to install pro-Russian leader in Ukraine: UK

Earlier on Saturday, the UK foreign office said that it has information that Kremlin is planning to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine. They said that the Russian government is planning to "install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv as it considers whether to invade and occupy Ukraine," said a CNN report. "The former Ukrainian MP Yevhen Murayev is being considered as a potential candidate," the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is quoted as saying by CNN report.

Murayev told CNN, "there is nothing to comment on" regarding the allegations, as he is a Ukrainian national and still facing Russian sanctions. The UK foreign office went on to name four other former Ukrainian officials, saying, "We have information that the Russian intelligence services maintain links with numerous former Ukrainian politicians" including Serhiy Arbuzov, First Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2012 to 2014, and acting Prime Minister in 2014; Andriy Kluyev, First Deputy Prime Minister from 2010 to 2012 and Chief of Staff to former Ukrainian President Yanukovich, Vladimir Sivkovich, former Deputy Head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council (RNBO); Mykola Azarov, Prime Minister of Ukraine from 2010-2014."

"Some of these have contact with Russian intelligence officers currently involved in the planning for an attack on Ukraine," the British foreign office statement added.

Early on Sunday, Russia`s foreign ministry urged the UK`s foreign office to "stop engaging in provocations," state news agency TASS reported.

"The misinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is another evidence that these are the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, that are escalating tensions around Ukraine. We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense and focus on studying the history of the Tatar-Mongol yoke," a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS.

According to CNN, NATO members Romania and Bulgaria slammed Russia`s demand to remove alliance troops from both countries as "unacceptable," with each arguing that the Kremlin has no right to interfere in the foreign policy decisions of other sovereign states.

The comments from both countries reportedly came just hours after Russia`s Foreign Ministry confirmed its demand for NATO to pull back troops from parts of eastern Europe including Bulgaria and Romania. The two countries are located on the Black Sea, which analysts believe Moscow sees as an important geostrategic buffer zone between itself and Europe.

Russia and NATO have been at loggerheads since late last year when the Kremlin deployed an estimated 100,000 troops to its border with Ukraine. The military posturing has prompted fears that Russia is planning another incursion into Ukraine after invading and illegally annexing the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

The United States and its NATO allies have repeatedly warned Russia any movement of its troops into Ukrainian territory would be met with what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called "a severe and a united response."

Diplomats from all sides have been attempting to negotiate a peaceful settlement, though one of Russia`s core demands -- that NATO withdraws foreign military forces and equipment from members of the alliance who joined after 1997 -- was quickly deemed a non-starter by Western diplomats, reported CNN.

Although US President Joe Biden ruled out sending American combat troops to Ukraine, Washington has approved the shipment of US-origin weapons to Kyiv -- including highly sought-after American anti-aircraft systems from Latvia and Lithuania.

(With ANI Inputs)

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CCTV: We noted that the Business Confidence Survey 2021/2022 produced by the German Chamber of Commerce in China in cooperation with KPMG indicates that German companies place confidence in China as an engine of growth, and almost 60% of companies in China reported improved business operations in 2021. We also noted that the 2022 AmCham Hong Kong Business Sentiment Survey shows that more US companies in Hong Kong have improved confidence in the business environment in Hong Kong and greater expectation for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on and resurges, the global economic recovery is faced with significant challenges. The sustained sound development of Chinas economy continues to contribute positive energy to the world economy. Chinas GDP reached USD 17.7 trillion at the yearly average exchange rate in 2021, accounting for more than 18 percent of the global economy and contributing an estimate of 25 percent to world economic growth.

China is committed to building an open world economy and focuses on fostering a business environment that is based on market principles, governed by law and up to international standards, which has provided strong safeguard for foreign businesses operation and investment in China. As measured by the World Banks Doing Business 2020 report, China ranked the 31st place in 190 economies and joined the ranks of the worlds top ten most improved economies for ease of doing business for the second year in a row. It is worth mentioning that China moved up 60 places in just eight years from the 91st in 2012, which speaks volumes about the remarkable improvement of Chinas business environment. These two surveys you mentioned also reflect how foreign companies feel and stand as a testament to the fact that Chinas effort and measures to expand opening-up and improve business environment have produced positive outcomes and been widely recognized.

Looking ahead, we will not change our resolve to open wider at a high standard; we will not change our determination to share development opportunities with the rest of the world; and we will not change our commitment to an economic globalization that is more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial for all. China will only open its door even wider to the outside world.

China News Service: It is reported that on January 20, the Group of Friends of Global Development Initiative (GDI) was officially launched at the UN headquarters in New York. Could you share more information? Whats the significance of the establishment of the Group of Friends?

Zhao Lijian: On January 20, the Permanent Mission of the Peoples Republic of China held the Launch Meeting of the Group of Friends of Global Development Initiative (GDI) at the UN headquarters in New York. Delegates from over 100 countries joined the meeting, including more than 80 ambassadors. The UN Deputy Secretary-General Ms. Amina Mohammed and Under-Secretary-General Mr. Liu Zhenmin attended the meeting and delivered remarks. More than 20 heads of UN agencies including UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Africa to the Secretary-General, Associate Administrator of UNDP, and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women participated in the meeting and delivered remarks.

The grand launch of the Group of Friends eloquently proves that the Global Development Initiative put forward by China is widely supported by all parties. Development remains an important theme of the times, accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is the common aspiration of countries especially developing countries, and strengthening the global partnership for development and realizing the common and sustainable development is a historical trend that can be held back by no force. In the meantime, the active participation in the Group of Friends by high-profile figures from the international community fully shows that GDIs core concept is based on wide international consensus, its key areas of cooperation are in line with the priority of parties and that its great potential in promoting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is recognized by all. The initiative has every basic condition to achieve steady and sustained growth.

The GDI is put forward by China, but it belongs to the world. Following the spirit of open and inclusive partnership and the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, the initiative is open to all countries. The Group of Friends is an important step in the building of the cooperation mechanism of the initiative and demonstrates Chinas firm determination to practice true multilateralism.

Going forward, China will continue to hold various activities under the framework of the Group of Friends to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, further build international consensus and chart the course for practical cooperation. China welcomes the active participation of all parties interested in accelerating the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. The Chinese side will closely communicate with all parties to constantly improve the cooperation mechanism, and jointly build the Group of Friends into an effective platform for parties to share experience, enhance cooperation and seek common development. Also, we will deepen cooperation in key areas, deepen and substantiate the GDI and inject new impetus into the efforts made by all countries, especially developing countries, to fight COVID-19, strive for recovery and development and achieve all 17 sustainable development goals as scheduled.

Xinhua News Agency: This morning, the Chinese side announced that President Xi Jinping will chair a virtual summit commemorating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the five Central Asian countries. Can you tell us more about the meeting and share Chinas expectation?

Zhao Lijian: On January 25, President Xi Jinping will chair a virtual summit commemorating the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the five Central Asian countries. This will be Chinas first major diplomatic action facing Central Asia this year and the first heads-of-state meeting between China and the five Central Asian countries. The summit is of great significance for all sides to take stock of the achievements and experience of China-Central Asia relations, and seek coordination and make plans for future bilateral cooperation across the board at a new historical starting point.

During the summit, President Xi and heads of state of the five Central Asian countries will deliver important remarks to jointly review the great journey traversed by China and the five Central Asian countries in growing their relations, look back on major achievements in bilateral cooperation, summarize the successful experience and draw up a blueprint for cooperation going forward. At the summit, China and the five Central Asian countries will adopt and release a leaders joint statement on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

Over the past three decades, the relations between China and Central Asian countries have witnessed continuous leapfrog development and come to the highest level in history. Those historical and groundbreaking landmark achievements in bilateral cooperation in various sectors have made the bilateral relations a model of a new type of international relations and promoted the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Standing at a new historical starting point, China is ready to work with Central Asian countries to build on past achievements and score for new progress with a pioneering spirit, deepen political mutual trust and expand mutually beneficial cooperation across the board so as to further upgrade the relationship and bring it to new heights.

TASS: According to a media report, the Chinese side raised its hope that Russia would not invade Ukraine during the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. The Russian Foreign Ministry and the Chinese embassy in Russia both denied the report, calling it untrue. This is not the first time that the Western media has reported fake news about Russia and China. What is your comment? Do these reports indicate certain Western countries deliberate attacks on the smooth development of Russia-China relations?

Zhao Lijian: Are you referring to the report by Bloomberg? (The journalist nodded.)

The report was purely made up out of thin air. It seeks not only to smear and drive a wedge in China-Russia relations, but also to deliberately disrupt and undermine the Beijing Winter Olympics. Such a despicable trick cannot fool the international community.

I want to stress that China-Russia relations today are mature, stable and resilient. The two sides maintain close communication at all levels, thwarting any attempt to play China off against Russia or to challenge their mutual trust. In the meantime, we support and practice the Olympic spirit. We oppose the politicization of sports and will not be misled by some forces in the world.

The preparatory work for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games has entered the home stretch. We are confident that we will deliver a streamlined, safe and splendid Winter Olympic Games for the world, and ensure the smooth and successful visits to and stay in Beijing by President Putin and other world leaders.

Reuters: First, some Australian Members of Parliament have said Chinas government is engaged in foreign interference after Prime Minister Scott Morrisons WeChat account was hacked. Do you have any response to this accusation?

Zhao Lijian: I am not aware of the relevant situation you mentioned and suggest that you ask Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his team running the account.

The accusation of China's interference is nothing but unfounded denigration and smear. We never engage in and have no interest in foreign interference.

Bloomberg: The US government suspended 44 scheduled Chinese airline flights from the US to China in response to restrictions placed on American carriers over COVID-19 testing protocols. Does the Foreign Ministry have a comment?

Zhao Lijian: To seek exception and special treatment out of self interest, the US groundlessly suspended Chinese airline flights. This act disrupts the normal operation of Chinese airlines and ignores the health and safety of Chinese and foreign travelers. It is arbitrary, unreasonable and extremely irresponsible.

Since June 2020, China has been strictly implementing the circuit breaker measure on inbound international passenger flights in accordance with laws and regulations in order to stem the cross-border spread of the coronavirus and protect the health and safety of all people. The relevant measure is applied to Chinese and foreign airlines alike. They are completely fair, open and transparent and are consistent with relevant bilateral air transportation agreement. Facts have proven that this measure has played an important role in effectively curbing the cross-border transmission and protecting the health and safety of Chinese and foreign travelers. The airlines of the overwhelming majority of countries respect and follow the circuit breaker policy.

As the world is facing a new spike in COVID-19 cases, all countries should enhance international communication and coordination while keeping up prevention and control measures at home so as to effectively stem the cross-border spread of the virus and strive for an early victory over the pandemic together. We urge the US to respect science and act in ways that help to protect peoples health and safety. It should scale up the efforts for epidemic prevention and control at home, stop politicizing the epidemic protocols involving flights and stop disrupting and restricting the normal personnel exchange between China and the US.

AFP: I have two questions. First, Taiwanese media reported that yesterday Chinas PLA sent 39 warplanes into Taiwans "Air Defense Identification Zone". I wonder if you have any comment on this? Second, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida on Friday agreed to push back against China in their virtual meeting. They expressed concern over what they called China intimidating its neighbor. This is the wording they used. Do you have any comment on this?

Zhao Lijian: On your first question, this is not a diplomatic issue. I would like to refer you to competent authorities.

On your second question, the US and Japanese leaders meeting has struck up the same old tune on China-related issues. Theyve once again wantonly discredited and attacked China and grossly interfered in Chinas internal affairs, seriously violating international law and basic norms governing international relations. China deplores and rejects this, and has lodged solemn diplomatic representation with the two countries.

The affairs of Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong are purely Chinas internal affairs. They brook no interference from any country or external force. No one is allowed to slander China on the basis of lies and prejudice. Diaoyu Dao and its affiliated islands have been Chinas inherent territory since ancient times. No matter what the US and Japan say or do, it will not change the objective fact that Diaoyu Dao belongs to China. No one should underestimate the strong resolve, determination and capability of the Chinese people to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. On maritime issues, the US and Japan should stop making trouble and sowing discord.

I want to stress that the US and Japan have clung to the Cold War mentality, incited ideological antagonism and confrontation between countries, manipulated the internal affairs of other countries in the name of democracy and freedom, and bullied and coerced other countries under the pretext of rules. This runs counter to the trend of seeking peace, cooperation and development in the region and beyond. The international community sees this clearly. China once again urges the US and Japan to follow the trend of the times, abandon the narrow-minded policy of zero-sum game and beggar-thy-neighbor, and return to the constructive track of dialogue and cooperation.

China Daily: The disaster in Tonga following volcanic eruption has attracted wide attention. Last week, you briefed us on the assistance offered by China. So far, what relief assistance has China provided for Tonga? Can you share more information?

Zhao Lijian: China has been closely following the situation in Tonga, and has been delivering our support via multiple channels against the clock. In addition to the first batch of relief supplies by the Chinese government and the USD 100,000 of emergency humanitarian aid in cash by the Red Cross Society of China to Tonga, the Chinese government decides to further provide three forms of emergency assistance to Tonga:

First, we will send a second batch of relief supplies worth 20 million yuan. China will spare no efforts to deliver these supplies to Tonga against all odds and as soon as possible.

Second, we will provide another emergency humanitarian aid in cash.

Third, we have also put together supplies worth one million yuan through our embassy in Fiji, which is close to Tonga. The emergency supplies include drinking water, emergency food, generators, water pumps and chainsaws, and have been shipped to Tonga today.

In light of the disaster situation and Tongas needs, China will continue to provide every possible assistance for Tongas relief efforts and post-disaster reconstruction.

Bloomberg: The UK has alleged that Moscow was plotting to install a pro-Russian leader in Kyiv. Does China have a comment on this?

Zhao Lijian: Chinas position on the Ukraine issue is consistent and clear, and remains unchanged.

We embrace a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable global security, and advocate balanced and just treatment of security concerns and security initiatives of relevant countries. We believe that efforts should be made to resolve differences through dialogue and consultation and promote global strategic balance and stability.
When outgoing race caller Shannon Sugar Doyle started at The Raceway at the Western Fair District, he was brought on to do more than call races.

Doyle, who previously called races at Northlands Park, in Edmonton, Alta., was hired in 2013, by then race manager Greg Blanchard.

Greg told me the days of a race caller just showing up to call the races were done, said Doyle. He wanted me to bring more to the table. So, we took the ball and ran with it. We focused on providing our race fans with the best product possible.

A key takeaway of Doyles during his time with The Raceway was the business of growing the handle at a racetrack.

That was something I learned a lot about at the Western Fair; the business of building up the handle, said Doyle. It was something that we worked really hard on as a team, and Im proud of where the handle is today as I leave.

The handle Doyle mentions is the second highest in Canada for a harness racing track, behind only Woodbine Mohawk Park, in Milton, Ont., with more than $400,000 a night being wagered.

Sugar's enthusiasm for the industry was evident every time he called a race. His knowledge of horses, horse players and connections in the industry were critical to helping our team grow our product to where it is today, said Rob Lumsden, the Director of Racing at The Raceway. While we will miss our eye in the London sky, we look forward to bringing in a new voice to join our team at The Raecway.

An on-track highlight during Doyles time at The Raceway came in the 2014 edition of the tracks flagship event, the Molson Pace, now the Camluck Classic.

Foiled Again - one of his favourite horses from his time in London - was going for a third victory in the event.

State Treasurer, another great horse, came all the way from the back from an early bobble, and a last place start, to chase down Foiled Again in the stretch. It was a race Doyle will never forget.

Foiled Again didnt win that night, but just being able to see horses of that caliber, and call those races, will always stick with me, said Doyle.

Doyle would like to thank Greg Blanchard for giving him his opportunity, as well as Greg Gangle, Amy OToole and countless others for their support during his time in London.

The Raceway at Western Fair District is still looking for a new announcer, live harness racing continues Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday nights.

(With files from Ontario Racing)
Hong Kong: Article 23 a top priority

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng

The rule of law, and with it the common law, remains the cornerstone of Hong Kong's status as an international financial centre and an international legal, deal-making and dispute resolution hub. It underpins our capitalist system and way of life. These attributes are protected in the Basic Law which codifies the innovative "one country, two systems" constitutional policy of China. The original aspiration of the Basic Law, as set out in its preamble, is upholding national unity and territorial integrity, and maintaining the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong. If we are able to uphold, honour and respect the fundamental precondition of "one country", there is no reason why the two systems underpinned by the common law would not continue.

First, Article 5 of the Basic Law guarantees that Hong Kong shall retain the capitalist system and way of life for 50 years. It does not mean that this will cease thereafter. Secondly, as a matter of common sense, if "one country, two systems" functions effectively and serves our country and Hong Kong well, there is no reason for it to change. Thirdly, as can be seen in the discussions surrounding the formulation and implementation of "one country, two systems", and as stated by Deng Xiaoping, 50 years was just "a figure of speech", and "for the first 50 years it cannot be changed, and after that, it would not be necessary to change". Importantly, President Xi Jinping and various leaders of the Central People's Government have repeatedly expressed unequivocal support and stern determination to implement "one country, two systems". It is therefore a matter for us to uphold the root of "one country" so that the "two systems" continue to flourish, and with it the continued application of the common law.

Judicial independence

One of the most valuable assets of the common law is the reasoned judgment, upon which stare decisis is premised and which, by reflecting transparency, is a testament to judicial independence. In exercising judicial function, it is a constitutional duty to act impartially and independently, free from any interference. This duty has not wavered notwithstanding the contemptible attempts to threaten our judicial officers and their families, made with a view to undermining the core value of our rule of law. The statements made judicially and extra-judicially by members of the permanent judiciary expressing commitment to judicial independence are supported by their unbiased consideration of law and evidence when adjudicating cases, as evidenced in the reasoned judgments.

25th anniversary of the establishment of the HKSAR

2022 is the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The fundamental foundation of "one country" that underpins our constitutional order has been reinforced in the past two years. 2021 has seen case law reaffirming the constitutional order, protecting national security whilst observing human rights safeguards guaranteed under the Basic Law.

National Security Law

In the enforcement of the National Security Law (NSL), case law has laid down with certainty and clarity how the NSL is to be applied. In the case of Lai Chee Ying4, Article 42(2)5 was considered. The Court of Final Appeal examined the background, context, and purpose of the NSL, observing that it is intended to operate in tandem with constitutional rights and freedoms and other applicable statutory norms as part of a coherent whole, noting:

"The cardinal importance of the primary purpose of the NSL, namely to safeguard national security and to prevent and suppress acts endangering national security, is clear. That is why changes, including the NSL 42(2) exception applying more stringent conditions to the grant of bail in relation to offences endangering national security have been introduced."

Another significant case on the NSL in 2021 is the case of Tong Ying Kit. The Court of First Instance comprising three judges, analysed the elements of the offences of incitement to secession and terrorist activities under Articles 21 and 24 of the NSL respectively, held that the slogan "Liberate Hong Kong Revolution of Our Times" was, in the relevant circumstances, capable of carrying a secessionist meaning, and the defendant was convicted.

The Appeal Committee in the case of Ng Hau Yi Sidney considered the scope of the phrase "offence(s) endangering national security" referred to in various provisions of the NSL and held that such phrase should be construed as referring to all offences under the NSL and offences of that nature under existing Hong Kong laws without distinction. The court further clarified that the offence of publishing seditious publications under section 10 of the Crimes Ordinance qualified as an offence endangering national security.

Basic Law

The wisdom of the Basic Law lies in facilitating development over time whilst preserving the fundamentals that must be observed. The Court of Appeal, in upholding the constitutionality of the Co-location Ordinance (Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (Co-location) Ordinance), affirmed the important principle that the Basic Law is a living instrument which meets changing needs and circumstances, noting:

"The Basic Law is accordingly drafted with an eye to the future.  Maintaining the Hong Kong system under the "one country, two systems" principle, however, does not mean stagnation. On the contrary, the Hong Kong system is expected to and indeed should continue to develop within the confines of the Basic Law to suit the contemporaneous needs and circumstances of our society, some of which may even be beyond the drafters' contemplation."

Improving the Electoral System

Another vital development made in the light of the actual situation in Hong Kong is the passing of the Improving Electoral System (Consolidated Amendments) Bill 2021 pursuant to the amended Annexes I and II of the Basic Law as promulgated by the National People's Congress Standing Committee. The enhanced electoral system aims to promote a consultative environment towards a common goal and minimises polarisation, leading to the gradual and orderly progress towards universal suffrage as provided for in Articles 45 and 68 of the Basic Law.

Rule of law education

The Department of Justice (DoJ) complemented these developments through education under the three "Es" programme of our "Vision 2030 for Rule of Law" (Vision 2030) initiative by taking an active role in educating students and teachers on the Constitution, the Basic Law and national security. At the professional level, the 2021 National Security Law Legal Forum titled "Security Brings Prosperity" drew together distinguished speakers sharing experiences on national security legislations locally and abroad. The "Articles & Reference Materials on the Law of the People's Republic of China on Safeguarding National Security in the Hong Kong SAR" and the proceedings of the Basic Law 30th Anniversary Legal Summit "Back to Basics" held in 2020, were also published, providing a learned source for the proper understanding of the Basic Law and NSL.

Insolvency framework with the Mainland

As mentioned in my speech in 2019, an expert group has been formed to look at mutual recognition of and assistance in insolvency and corporate debt restructuring matters with the Mainland. In May 2021, we have completed the first stage by signing a Record of Meeting with the Supreme People's Court. I understand that cases have already benefitted from this framework.

International collaboration

In 2019, I also announced the establishment of the Inclusive Dispute Avoidance & Resolution Office (IDAR Office) and since then, with the support from the Central People's Government, a number of international collaborations have been concluded. Of particular importance is the hosting of the 59th Annual Session of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO) in Hong Kong and, for the first time, in hybrid mode. Premier Li Keqiang delivered the Opening Remarks and announced the setting up of the AALCO Hong Kong Regional Arbitration Centre, stating that it will "provide more accessible and efficient dispute settlement services to Asian and African countries, and add more brilliance to Hong Kong as the Pearl of the East". AALCO, as an intergovernmental international organisation, provides a unique and important platform for collating perspectives from Asian and African states in engagement with international law. I have the honour of being elected as President of this 59th Annual Session, and active steps are taken to bring the Regional Arbitration Centre into operation.

Another intergovernmental meeting, the Intersessional Meeting of Working Group III of United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) was held in hybrid form in Hong Kong last year. The UNCITRAL Commission in July 2021 endorsed the suggestion of its Secretariat to collaborate with the DoJ Project Office for Collaboration with UNCITRAL to take part in the Inclusive Global Legal Innovation Platform on Online Dispute Resolution (iGLIP on ODR) that was set up in Hong Kong as referred to in my speech in 2021. We hope that, through projects with UNCITRAL, we will be able to cooperate in promoting, raising awareness and providing bespoke capacity building for online dispute resolution.

Last year's Legal Week featured the biennial UNCITRAL Asia Pacific Judicial Summit and the launch of our Rule of Law Database. The latter was a milestone event in our Vision 2030 initiative, and its study aims to bring together empirical and objective data to review the practice of the rule of law.

In terms of capacity building, arrangements with various international organisations have been concluded and practitioners from the public and private sectors would be seconded to Hague Conference on Private International Law in The Hague and International institute for the Unification of Private Law in Rome. Under the United Nations Junior Professional Officers Programme, we will be seconding a legal officer to the headquarters of UNCITRAL in Vienna.

As for the legal profession, the implementation of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) Legal Professional Examination, allowing our practitioners to practice PRC law in the GBA, is vital to opening up the legal market and merging with developments of the Motherland. The dual qualification of Hong Kong lawyers will put ourselves in a most advantageous position to serve the businesses in the GBA.

Amendments to the Legal Practitioners Ordinance

Finally, I am pleased that the Legal Practitioners Ordinance has been amended, permitting all legal officers (be they barristers or solicitors) who satisfy the eligibility requirements to be considered for appointment as Senior Counsel as a recognition of their competence.

Looking forward

Looking ahead, the first and foremost task for the Hong Kong SAR as a whole is to fulfil its constitutional duty to enact local legislation to implement Article 23 of the Basic Law to safeguard national security. This constitutional duty is not only expressed in the Basic Law but also in paragraph 3 of the NPC's Decision on May 28, 2020 (the 528 Decision) and Article 7 of the NSL. The DoJ will continue to provide full support and independent professional legal advice to the Security Bureau and draft the relevant laws.

The Law Reform Commission has published a report on Outcome Related Fee Structures for Arbitration (ORFSA). The Advisory Committee on Promotion of Arbitration has expressed support to adopt its recommendations and the DoJ is actively pursuing this. The adoption of the proposal is necessary to preserve and promote Hong Kong's competitiveness as a leading arbitration centre, enhance access to justice, and respond to increasing client demand for pricing and fee flexibility, and is supported by the business community.

Apart from arbitration, Hong Kong has also been promoting international mediation, in particular in the area of investor state mediation. Our trainings with International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes on this have received good rapport and we will continue to capitalise on this strength. Mediation is well suited to resolve international commercial disputes, especially those arising from long term projects involving states. It is the best form of conflict resolution between states, focusing on common interests whilst preserving relationships, in line with international principles of peaceful co-existence and the peaceful settlement of disputes as set out in key documents such as the United Nations Charter. We are also actively promoting the use of mediation under Working Group III of UNCITRAL. We are primed to provide services for and to promote international mediation. We have also worked with our counterparts in the GBA to have the GBA Mediator Accreditation Standards and the GBA Mediator Code of Conduct Best Practice, endorsed by the third Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area Legal Departments Joint Conference last December, and will continue to work together on other areas. We will spare no efforts in the pursuit of these matters and hope to bring to fruition some ideas that have been explored.

Various projects under Vision 2030 will continue and in particular, the study on the use of objective data launched in the 2021 Legal Week. This year we will hold the Basic Law Legal Summit titled "Stability to Prosperity", and launch a publication titled "Basic Law: Selected Drafting Materials & Significant Cases". The National Security Legal Summit titled "Thrive with Security" will be held to further the better understanding of the concept of national security.

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, with the present consolidation of "one country" as the fundamental premise in place and national security protected, I am confident that the common law will continue to apply in Hong Kong beyond 2047. It is high time we genuinely appreciate the "one country, two systems" policy. The DoJ will continue to further the proper understanding of the rule of law and the constitutional order, to protect the independence of our judiciary, to perform our professional role as government legal advisor, and to discharge our prosecution duties independently as required under the Basic Law. None of the above could be achieved without the full support from all my brilliant colleagues in the DoJ. I am most grateful to them for their dedication, resilience and professionalism.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng gave these remarks at the Ceremonial Opening of the Legal Year 2022 on January 24.

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Seismic surveys conducted at the Aypara structure in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea indicate a high probability of the presence of commercially significant oil and gas reserves there.

President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) Rovnag Abdullayev made the remarks during a meeting with a delegation led by Norwegian Equinor Vice President for Exploration and Production Al Cook.

During the meeting, the parties also discussed the progress of the Karabakh field project, which is being carried out on a parity basis by the companies. They also talked about the prospect of exploratory drilling in the Dan Ulduzu-Ashrafi-Aypara structure.

The parties also discussed other areas of cooperation, such as the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli block.

Equinor and SOCAR are working together in Azerbaijan to develop the Karabakh field and organize exploration and production in the promising areas of Ashrafi-Dan Ulduzu-Aypara. The companies are also involved in the development of the Azeri-Chirag and Deepwater Guneshli (ACG) oil fields.

SOCAR Karabakh and Equinor signed a Risk Services Agreement in May 2018 for the development of the Karabakh oil field in Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea sector. The companies have equal shares, according to the agreement.
By Trend

Some 48,000 tourists from Azerbaijan visited Ukraine in 2021, Trend reports with reference to the Ukrainian State Agency for Tourism Development.

According to the agency, the number of foreigners who crossed the border of Ukraine in 2021 increased by 26.3 percent compared to 2020 up to about 4.3 million people.

Most of incoming tourists in Ukraine in 2021 arrived from Moldova - 1.05 million people, from Russia  519,000 people, from Poland  311,000 people, from Belarus  273,000 people, from Romania  264,000 people, from Turkey  247,000 people, from Hungary  227,000 people, from Germany  154,000 people, from Israel  133,000 people and from the US  103,000 people.

Some 14.7 million Ukrainian people also crossed the Ukrainian border in 2021.

Around 4.5 million Ukrainian people visited Poland, 2.05 million people - Turkey, 1.7 million people - Hungary and 1.5 million people  Egypt in 2021, the agency said.
By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

The Russian Information and Cultural Center in Baku will host a concert on February 1 within "Youth Support" project. The concert is timed to the Azerbaijan Youth Day.

The public holiday takes its origin from the First Youth Forum which was held in 1996.

A year later, national leader Heydar Aliyev signed a decree according to which February 2 was declared the Day of Azerbaijani Youth.

As part of the concert, young musicians will perform well-known music pieces accompanied by the Honored Artist, pianist Nargiz Aliyeva.

Recall that "Youth Support" project has been held since 2016 to discover and support young talents in Azerbaijan.

The project is headed by the director of the State Philharmonic Hall, People's Artist of Azerbaijan Murad Adigozalzadeh, and the project coordinator is Ayla Karimova-Zekeriyye.

Within the project, concert programs are traditionally held several times a month.

The programs presented within the project are designed for a wide audience with different musical tastes, including connoisseurs of high academic performance, mugham, jazz, etc.
By Azernews

By Sabina Mammadli

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act by the American Congress, 20 of which it remained inactive due to a suspension by U.S. President George Bush at the time in 2002.

The amendment was adopted with the phrase "until Azerbaijan takes obvious steps to eliminate all types of blockades and offensive forms of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh".

Joe Biden, like his predecessors, suspended the section last May, implying that Azerbaijan will continue to receive direct American military assistance in 2022. Despite promising the Armenians during his election campaign that he would put an end to this, Joe Biden did not keep his word.

Following Biden's declaration of Ottoman Turkey's events in 1915 as "genocide", Armenians have decided that the time has come to seize the U.S. support for Azerbaijan and reactivate Section 907.

Armenia hoped that problems would arise between Washington and Baku as a result of those statements. The failure of these hopes is especially noticeable given that, during the amendment's 20-year inactivity, Azerbaijan has received twice as much U.S. military aid as Armenia. This disparity was especially pronounced during Donald Trump's presidency when Azerbaijan received $105 million while Armenia received only $16 million. It should be noted that the new administration, like the previous one, shows no signs of deterioration in relations with Baku and Ankara.

In a commentary to Day.az, American analyst, lawyer, and human rights activist Irina Tsukerman said that Biden's motives for promising the Armenians a refusal of military aid to Azerbaijan before the elections are unknown, but it is understandable that he needed to throw a bone to the Armenian diaspora in California, where Kamala Harris lives, for the sake of appearance.

"It is understandable that during election campaigns, candidates make many contradictory and unfulfillable promises to garner the most support from various segments of the population... It also happens that candidates simply do not understand the gravity of the consequences of their promises, and after taking their long-awaited seat, they revise their policies," she explained.

According to her, Biden could not abandon the Democratic Party's loyalists and important political allies in the upcoming elections, though it is unlikely that Armenian lobbyists would have sided with Trump even if Biden had not rushed with words.

"Biden is already in place, and the Armenian lobby will not go away in the next three years, but Azerbaijan can assist Biden with Europe, green energy development in the Caucasus, and even the restraint of aggressive Iranian policy. And, while Yerevan is willing to make some concessions on democracy issues, it is still very close to Moscow and will be unable to separate itself from it. Continuing military assistance to Azerbaijan, Biden is attempting to strike a balance 'for both ours and yours'," according to Tsukerman.

Back in late September 2021, President Ilham Aliyev explained very clearly and concisely the principles standing behind Section 907 passed by the U.S. Congress.

After all... the decisions that were made by some countries, they simply defy any logic. While it was Azerbaijani territory that was occupied, the U.S. Congress passed the notorious amendment to the Freedom Support Act, Section No. 907, which deprived Azerbaijan of direct military assistance, direct US assistance, not only military. And we, the affected country, we were essentially discriminated against, Aliyev said in an interview with Russias Natsionalnaya Oborona magazine.

He said that the rationale behind it was that Azerbaijan was blocking Armenia. Just imagine - Zangilan, Gubadli, Lachin and Kalbajar districts are occupied. And this is described as a blockade of Armenia.

He stressed that Armenias diaspora organizations and also the media controlled by the Armenian lobby distorted the essence of the conflict.

The fact that Armenia is an aggressor, an occupier which committed ethnic cleansing and an act of genocide in Khojaly, destroyed all historical and cultural buildings  all this was concealed, Aliyev said.

In April 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a telephone conversation with Aliyev that in 2021 too the waiver of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act was extended.

On October 24, 2001, the Senate adopted an amendment to the Act that would provide the President with the ability to waiver Section 907.

It should be noted that no amendment or any diaspora-manipulated document can have an impact on the state policy and national interests of Azerbaijan which in the 44-day war facilitated on its own the implementation of four UN resolutions urging the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories.

Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to join the global anti-terror coalition assembled by the U.S. government. Azerbaijan opened its airspace to the allied forces and assured its agencies would cooperate and provide information that would assist in American-led efforts.

Azerbaijans contributions to the US-led anti-terror campaign also included deploying a peacekeeping contingent in Afghanistan. Azerbaijani peacekeepers began serving there in November 2002, and by 2021 the contingent consisted of 120 servicemen. They left the country more than a week after the Taliban seized power on August 15, 2021.
By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Armenia's President Armen Sarkissian has resigned. The latter announced this on the Armenian president's website on January 23.

"I've been thinking for a long time, and after nearly four years of active work, I've decided to resign as President of Armenia. It is not an emotional decision; it is based on logic," the statement stated.

Sarkissian went on to say that the president "lacks the necessary tools to influence fundamental processes of domestic and foreign policy during this difficult period for the country and the nation."

Armen Sarkissian took office as Armenia's president on April 9, 2018.

According to Armenian media, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, and Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan are all potential successors to Armen Sarkissian.

Until the extraordinary presidential elections in Armenia, Speaker Alen Simonyan will serve as president pro tempore.

Extraordinary elections in Armenia must be held no sooner than 25 days and no later than 35 days after the president's resignation, according to the country's constitution.

Sarkissian's escape plans

Sarkissian published the text of his resignation from the British capital exactly 25 years ago, the Baku-based news website Day.az said.

"In 1997, when the atmosphere in Armenia was tense between President Levon Ter-Petrosyan and the leaders of the country's power structures over differences over the Karabakh settlement," the website noted, "Sargsyan fled to London under the pretext of illness and never returned to his post," the website said.

Sarkissian is using the disease trick for the second time, this time from London. Thus, amid the political upheaval in Armenia as a result of the devastating defeat in the Second Karabakh War, it was reported on January 5, 2021, that he "had been infected with a coronavirus and could not return to the country".

"The perfect alibi for Sarkissian's 'mini-vacation' was British Prime Minister Johnson's announcement of a new lockdown in the UK on January 4, which lasted seven weeks," the website stressed.

Day.az believes that Sargsyan was forced to flee a sinking ship because he realized that things were only going to get worse, that Armenia was sinking deeper and deeper into a swamp of economic, social, and demographic problems that could eventually lead to the loss of the rest of the country's sovereignty and independence.

Expected decision

Day.az described Sarkissian's resignation as an expected decision for a number of reasons.

It noted that, first and foremost, Sarkissian announced his resignation following Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's decision to initiate the process of forming a council of constitutional reforms in Armenia.

According to the Armenian newspaper Hraparak, "about a year ago, speaking about the need for constitutional reforms, Pashinyan did not rule out the possibility of switching to a semi-presidential system, but at the end of last year he expressed the opposite opinion, stating that he preferred parliamentary rule".

"However, at the start of the year, Pashinyan directed his political team to re-establish territorial structures and prepare for a constitutional referendum on changing the governance model for a transition to a semi-presidential system, in which the security forces would once again be subject to presidential control. Pashinyan has made it clear that he intends to take over the presidency," Day.az quoted the Armenian newspaper as saying.

Reasons

Elchin Alioglu, editor-in-chief of Baku-based news website Milli.az, outlined three major reasons for Sarkissian's resignation. Among them is the fact that, in addition to Russia, there is increasing Western pressure on Armenia, putting an official Yerevan in a difficult position.

Other reasons cited include the fact that the border demarcation and delimitation process with Azerbaijan will soon begin, and that negotiations between Turkey and Armenia will soon yield tangible results.

"A period of farewell to the Armenian 'Karabakh' ideology begins in all cases. He preferred to avoid escalating clashes between the authorities in Yerevan and the diaspora," Alioglu said.

Pashinyan aspires to be Armenia's president?

In an interview with Sputnik news agency, Armenian political analyst Suren Surenyan said that disagreements with Prime Minister Pashinyan over constitutional reforms could be the reason for Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan's resignation.

He claimed that Pashinyan wants to extend his power through constitutional reforms and a transition to a semi-presidential form of government.

The party of the ex-president believes that Armen Sarkissian decided to resign because he recognizes "a new external threat looming over Armenia".

"He clears the way for Pashinyan, who has concentrated all power in his hands, including through artificial constitutional reforms," said Republican Party Deputy Chairman Armen Ashotyan.
La Cancilleria defiende con total firmeza la soberania nacional y los intereses del Peru en el exterior. El medio ambiente es siempre una prioridad de la politica exterior.
Ya se encuentra en Lima el equipo de especialistas de las Naciones Unidas que evaluara y propondra acciones inmediatas para mitigar el impacto ambiental causado por el derrame de petroleo en Ventanilla.
La presidenta del Consejo de Ministros, @MirtyVas, junto al titular del @MineduPeru y ministros de Estado, instalo la Comision Multisectorial para el retorno a clases 2022. #JuntosPorElRetorno pic.twitter.com/hCuvHISCMs
?? Ministro @RubenJ_Ramirez_ participa en sesion conjunta de la @cdpueblos y la @ComisionClima del @congresoperu, para informar sobre las acciones sectoriales ante el derrame de petroleo que dano playas de Ventanilla y Ancon.

?? Mira aqui ??https://t.co/beZMVF5169
Llego el momento de los mas pequenos! Hoy inicia la vacunacion contra la COVID-19 de menores de 10 y 11 anos y de 5 a 11 anos del sector urbano que presenten comorbilidades o inmunosupresion. #ProtegeSuNinez ???



?? En vivo: https://t.co/fbZdZsrked pic.twitter.com/tq2V714GdK
Presidente @PedroCastilloTe: "Como Gobierno tenemos la obligacion de garantizar la salud, el bienestar y crecimiento emocional de los ninos. La ninez peruana es lo mas valioso de la patria. Con estas dosis de vacunas, garantizamos que no sean amenazados por la pandemia". pic.twitter.com/6kubCXtAZj
The group of experts will be arriving in Peru in the coming days with the mission of conducting a rapid assessment of the socio-environmental impact and providing advice to local authorities on response coordination and management.

Likewise, the UN will propose effective actions so as to reduce the risk of future disasters in the country.

Given this, the organization immediately activated the emergency care protocols so as to make technical support available to the Government through a mission of experts in environmental disasters.

Nota informativa sobre la asistencia que la ONU brindara al Peru ante el derrame de petroleo en #Ventanilla ??https://t.co/QAvL43hrv8 pic.twitter.com/KYOXb0RSR4
YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS (ANCA Press Release). The Young Liberal Movement of Australia has unanimously adopted a motion at its National Convention recognising the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides, as well as acknowledging the rights to self-determination of the indigenous Armenian people of the Republic of Artsakh, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).



The Young Liberal Movement is the youth wing of the Liberal Party of Australia, which is one of two major political parties in Australian politics and currently the party in Government federally, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.



The adoption of the motion demonstrates the growing discourse in Australian society supporting national recognition of the 1915 Genocides, which contrasts with the policy of the Morrison Government, who have continued to placate the denialist Turkish Government with the use of euphemisms instead of the word genocide when referring to the Ottoman massacres against the Empires Christian minorities.



Significantly, the motion also ensures the Young Liberals support the rights to self-determination of the Republic of Artsakh, which is currently under occupation by Azerbaijan following their attacks on the independent Armenian-populated state in 2020 during the Nagorno Karabakh War.



The 2022 Young Liberal Federal Convention was held from January 21 - 23, 2022 at the Hobart Convention and Exhibition Centre at the Hotel Grand Chancellor, with 44 voting delegates participating from six states and the Australian Capital Territory.



The motion was moved by ACT Young Liberal President Connor Andreatidis and seconded by one of his colleagues from the ACT Young Liberal delegation.



Andreatidis motion not only recognised the 1915 crimes committed by the Ottoman Empire, but also called on the Federal Government to recognise and condemn the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides.



His motion also linked the Armenian Genocide to contemporary acts of aggression, notably Azerbaijani hostilities against the Armenian nation witnessed in September 2020 and the pan-Turkic attempts to ethnically cleanse the Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) region of Armenians.



Andreatidis motion called on the Federal Young Liberals to recognise the right to self-determination of the Armenians of the Republic of Artsakh, and that the recent and ongoing attacks against the Republic of Artsakh by Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, are part of an ongoing legacy of Genocide and genocide denial.



Prominent members of the Australian Liberal Party were also present at the Federal Convention and witnessed the unprecedented motion, including longtime friend and ally of the Armenian-Australian community Senator Eric Abetz, fellow Tasmanian Senators Claire Chandler and Senator Jonathon Duniam, and Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein.



ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian welcomed the support of the Australian Young Liberal Movement and thanked them for adopting the motion.



This motion saw future leaders of our nation call out their current leaders by taking a unanimous stand in solidarity with the Armenian-Australian, Assyrian-Australian and Greek-Australian communities by addressing past and current injustices that remain unpunished, Kayserian said.



Thanks to the leadership of Mr Connor Andreatidis, some of the most politically active youth from around the country and members of our Prime Ministers own party have sent a collective, clear and unequivocal message that we must face our future challenges by recognising and condemning past injustices wherever they may take place, Kayserian added.



We thank Mr Andreatidis and past and present Young Liberal members who have supported this and similar motions which continue to demonstrate their ongoing commitment to advancing issues important to our communities.



In August 2020, the ACT Young Liberals passed a similar resolution recognised and condemning the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides and the right to self-determination of the Republic of Artsakh (see here).
YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. Indicted ex-defense minister Davit Tonoyan will remain jailed after being denied bail by a Yerevan court on Monday.

Tonoyans lawyer said that only one defendant  Artyom Hambaryan  was granted release on bail on a sum of 5,000,000 drams. Other defendants, including Tonoyan, were denied bail.

Two Members of Parliament from the ruling Civil Contract party  Kristine Poghosyan and Vilen Gabrielyan , as well as another MP Aram Sargsyan (Hanrapetutyun Party President, brother of late PM Vazgen Sargsyan) had vouched-in to the court for Tonoyans release.

Tonoyan and several others face corruption charges. They are charged with fraud and embezzlement that cost the state almost 2.3 billion drams ($4.7 million) in what authorities said was a deliberate acquisition of outdated rockets for the military during Tonoyans tenure as defense minister.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces General Artak Davtyan is also charged in the case.

They deny wrongdoing.
By Trend





Footage of Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Ghasemi arriving in Fuzuli International Airport has been published, Trend reports.

As part of his planned visit to Azerbaijan, Ghasemi arrived at Fuzuli International Airport and is getting acquainted with the situation in Azerbaijani lands liberated from Armenian occupation.

As part of the visit, Ghasemi is expected to hold several meetings with Azerbaijani officials.

Trend presents the footage:
YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. 1/4th of the total number of Members of Parliament can nominate a candidate for President, therefore both the ruling party and the opposition have the levers to nominate their candidates, according to opposition Hayastan faction MP Aram Vardevanyan.

He said that President Sarkissians resignation will cause concrete political processes.

Citing Sarkissians resignation address, Vardevanyan warned that the country is facing a very difficult situation and that new risks of challenges exist.

MP Vardevanyan said that if Sarkissian doesnt retract his resignation within a week and his resignation takes effect, then a 5-day period of nominating candidates begins. The opposition will hold discussions around this issue, he said.

Vardevanyan argued that the current Constitution provided for changing the presidents role through legislative amendments, however such amendments were not made. The MP said that the past 4 years showed that Sarkissian was complaining from his limited powers without even fully utilizing these powers.

The presidents role couldve gotten very seriously accomplished. After all, the powers of the president are a lot more than the powers of the Ombudsman. Youve seen how effective the ombudsman is working  praise be to Arman Tatoyan  but you have also seen how inert and passive the presidential institution was, Vardevanyan said, adding that now Sarkissians resignation could also be viewed as his attempt to avoid responsibility.
YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. Kristinne Grigoryan will officially assume the duties of Human Rights Defender of Armenia after incumbent Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyans term in office ends on February 23.

Grigoryan passed a confirmation vote in parliament on January 24.

Out of the 107 MPs, only 68 took part in the vote, all of whom voting in favor. The opposition boycotted the vote.

Grigoryan, who most recently served as First Deputy Minister of Justice, was nominated for the position of Human Rights Defender by the ruling Civil Contract Party.
YEREVAN, 24 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 24 January, USD exchange rate down by 0.49 drams to 481.63 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 1.19 drams to 545.49 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate down by 0.13 drams to 6.17 drams. GBP exchange rate down by 2.74 drams to 651.50 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price down by 149.08 drams to 28454.8 drams. Silver price up by 1.09 drams to 376.59 drams. Platinum price down by 155.98 drams to 16197.06 drams.
YEREVAN, 24 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. A peace treaty should be signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but the document must be finalized before it is signed, it is the result of negotiations, ARMENPRESS reports he said during an online press conference organized for the representatives of mass media and non-governmental organizations.

"We think that those talks should take place, Armenia is ready for that," Pashinyan said. He stressed that the whole purpose of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process was to sign a peace treaty. "When we look at the documents of negotiation, the goal of the whole process is to sign a peace treaty. We also have it as a peace agenda; we must pursue the agenda of signing a peace treaty. But you have to negotiate before signing any contract. Armenia is ready to negotiate. After all, the discussion of all these issues is for solving those problems," he stated.

Answering the question whether official Yerevan intends to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, whether it is possible to achieve peace in the region in case of aggressive rhetoric by Azerbaijan, Pashinyan said. "I would like to notice some nuances when perceiving the recent statements from Azerbaijan, which are not perceived in our reality, to distinguish the rational and emotional aspects in those statements. An analyst recently made a very strong observation during our discussion. He drew attention to the fact that statements are often made from Azerbaijan, which are a reflection of the statements made in Armenia after 1994. For example, when Azerbaijan announces that the Karabakh issue is resolved. That analyst drew my attention to the fact that for decades after 1994, statements were made from Armenia and Artsakh that the Karabakh issue had been resolved. There are often statements about Yerevan being an Azerbaijani city, etc. The analyst drew my attention to the fact that many statements have been made since 1994 that Baku is an Armenian city. In other words, there is a certain element of revenge in those statements, we must take it into account. That emotional state is not good for the process."

Referring to the discussions on whether Armenia should recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Pashinyan said that there was an agreement ratified by the Armenian parliament in 1992, which states that Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and the inviolability of its borders, and Azerbaijan has ratified a similar agreement.

He stressed that one of the Madrid principles that has become the basis of negotiations is the principle of territorial integrity, which has been accepted by both sides.

Speaking about the agenda of opening an era of peaceful development for the region and Armenia, the Prime Minister said. "It's a strategic agenda for us. When we adopted and recorded it in the government's program, I have said many times that we understand that it does not depend only on us, but it is obvious that we will consistently follow that agenda. I want us to look at issues from a rational standpoint."
YEREVAN, 24 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. Armenia will most likely accept the invitation to participate in the Antalya Diplomatic Forum in Turkey, but it all depends on the situation at that moment, ARMENPRESS reports he said during an online press conference organized for the representatives of mass media and non-governmental organizations.

The Prime Minister reminded that a format for normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations has been formed, the first meeting of special representatives has already taken place. "I think that if this dynamic is maintained, it is very likely that Armenia will accept the invitation to participate in this forum. Of course, everything depends on the situation at that moment, but at least after the first meeting, the probability increases that Armenia will accept the invitation, because if a conversation has started, it will be very illogical, if we miss that opportunity to speak, especially given the fact that we will have the opportunity to hold discussions in a much broader context," Pashinyan said.

He noted that the whole international community is very enthusiastic, supports the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations. Russia, the EU, the US. Pashinyan thinks that the countries of the region are also very interested. "It is true that we are raising the peace agenda, but I think everyone is interested in the peace agenda," he said.

Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Armenia was also invited to the 2022 summit of Antalya Diplomatic Forum to be held on March 11-13. The forum is attended by Foreign Ministers.
YEREVAN, 24 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. Armenia wants to establish relations with Turkey without preconditions, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan said during an online press conference organized for the representatives of mass media and non-governmental organizations.

"Do we want to open the Armenia-Turkey border? Yes, we are sincere in that position. It did not happen then (ed. In 2009), now we must try to take into account the previous experience," he said.

Answering the question to what extent it is possible for Turkey to put forward preconditions for the normalization of relations again, Pashinyan emphasized. "Yes, there were no preconditions in the Armenian-Turkish protocols of 2009, but later preconditions appeared. We cannot guarantee that this will not happen again. We need to understand how interested the parties are. The process is transparent from the very beginning of the political negotiations. This has never been the case before.

The Armenian PM mentioned that they have no secrets from the public. "Our policy will be in the realm of public announcements. But constantly leaking working information will not benefit the process."

Referring to the failure of the 2009 process, Pashinyan noted that there were factors that were different at that time. "At that time, the negotiations were conducted by the President on the Turkish side and the Armenian President on the Armenian side. But at that time Turkey was a country of parliamentary model of government. It is true that the President of Turkey was a representative of the ruling political team, but nevertheless, he was not the head of the country, the Prime Minister was the head. The dialogue is now taking place under a mandate given by the President of Turkey. In other words, this is one of the factors that can have a certain impact on the process, hopingly, a positive impact, the PM said.
YEREVAN, 24 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. It is in Armenia's interest for the Collective Security Treaty Organization to be an effective system, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan said during an online press conference organized for the representatives of mass media and non-governmental organizations.

Answering the question whether, based on the Kazakh precedent, any Armenian government in the future can suppress the internal political uprisings in the country bringing forward the same reasons, involving the CSTO forces, the Prime Minister said, After November 9, 2020, we have had undesirable developments in Armenia for the government. We demonstrated in practice our vision on the tools to overcome these situations. After the events of November 9, when the Government, the National Assembly, the government cottages were attacked, an assassination attempt was made on the National Assembly President, no shots were fired by the authorities in Armenia, no force was used by the Armenian government. Roads were blocked, no action was taken to open the roads. We have already shown our toolkit for solving internal political problems. We went to the early elections. Our law enforcement agencies have been at their height."

Answering the question why the CSTO did not suppress the revolution in 2018, Pashinyan stated that in 2018 there was no case of violence in Armenia. "When we decided to send a peacekeeping mission to Kazakhstan, there were already street battles there, there were casualties."

The Prime Minister reminded that from the first day of his government, the activity of the Armenian side in the CSTO was aimed at improving the crisis response mechanisms.

"It would be strange if such a situation existed for the first time, and Armenia would say that it is against. It is in Armenia's interest to have a CSTO as an effective system. This answers all the questions," he said.

Pashinyan stressed that Armenia has clearly stated that the CSTO forces cannot be involved in any internal political processes, but can be engaged in the protection of objects of strategic importance. "The Armenian Armed Forces have been defending a bakery in Kazakhstan. I do not think there is anything reprehensible in it. The protection of the bread factory does not affect the internal political process in any way," said the Prime Minister.
US President Joe Biden considers deploying several thousand of American troops in the Baltic States and in the east of Europe, as news.am informs, news.am informs, citing New York Times daily.

January 24, 2022, 09:44 US considers deploying American troops in Baltics, Eastern Europe - NY Times daily

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 24, ARTSAKHPRESS: "President Biden is considering deploying several thousand US troops, as well as warships and aircraft, to NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, an expansion of American military involvement amid mounting fears of a Russian incursion into Ukraine, according to administration officials," the daily reported.

The New York Times daily cited its source, who spoke on conditions of anonymity as saying that "In a meeting on Saturday at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, senior Pentagon officials presented Mr. Biden with several options that would shift American military assets much closer to Mr. Putins doorstep The options include sending 1,000 to 5,000 troops to Eastern European countries, with the potential to increase that number tenfold if things deteriorate."

The press service of the US Embassy in Ukraine reported on January 22 that a shipment of military cargo, including ammunition, weighing over 90 tonnes arrived in Ukraine. The embassy noted that last year, the US provided more than $650 million worth of military aid to Ukraine since 2014, while the country received $2.7 billion for these purposes.

Last Thursday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba confirmed information by Western media outlets that Kiev would receive $200 million worth of military aid from Washington. He noted that the country received a total sum of $650 million for these purposes from the United States last year.

Western and Ukrainian media outlets recently echoed claims about Russias alleged aggression against Ukraine. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier slammed such statements as "empty and groundless" saying that their goal was to whip up tensions. Peskov stressed that Russia did not pose any threat to anyone. He also said that provocations to justify the remarks at the issue were possible and warned that attempts at using force to settle the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have the most serious consequences.
The residents of the community of Mushkapat of Artsakhs Martuni region live and create in their native land.

January 24, 2022, 17:07 Mushkapat residents see their future only in Homeland. Head of Community

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 24, ARTSAKHPRESS: The head of the Mushkapat community Ruben Musayelyan told "Artsakhpress".



The village, founded in the 7th-8th centuries, today has 271 residents, who see their future only in the homeland.



In 2015 a community center was built , where a 160-seat club, an aid station and a library operate.

The school building was built in 1983. In 2005 it was renovated by the Armenian-French organization "Childhood Mission". 43 students attend the community school. Since 2019, the "I" educational foundation program has been operating in Mushkapat; the strategic goal of which is to prevent the emigration of young people from the villages," said the head of the community, adding that there are 16 vacant houses in the free housing stock of Mushkapat.



St. Astvatsatsin Church is located in the village; a place of worship for the residents. According to Musayelyan, the village is provided with electricity and water, but is not gasified.

During the 44-Day Artsakh War 2 of the fellow villagers have fallen and 2 of them have been wounded.

The community has 825.35 hectares of agricultural land. The villagers are engaged in cattle-breeding poultry, trying to overcome the loss and difficulties, Musayelyan said.
By Selena Li

HONG KONG, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Taiwan's largest pension fund is set to issue what a top official said is Asia's first climate change-focused stock mandate, worth $2.3 billion, amid mounting pressure for the global financial sector to support green investing https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/how-2021-became-year-esg-investing-2021-12-23.

The open-tender bidding process for asset managers seeking to be involved in the Bureau of Labor Funds mandate will commence in the first quarter of the year, Liu Liju, deputy director general at the fund, told Reuters in an interview.

The fund has Taiwanese $5.5 trillion ($199 billion) worth of assets, with around half of it invested in offshore markets, and currently global asset managers including BlackRock Inc, Fidelity Investments, and PIMCO manage the assets.

"Climate change is an ongoing process no-one can ignore," Liu said. "We have seen many making commitments by words, we are putting money where our mouth is."

Japan's Government Pension Investment Fund in 2018 allocated 1.2 trillion yen ($10 billion) to underlying companies covered by two S&P carbon-efficient indices, but it hasn't yet tapped external managers for a climate mandate to be run on its behalf.

Selected managers of the Taiwanese pension fund mandate are expected to deliver an additional 0.5% annualised return on top of the performance of a climate index, Liu said, adding the pension fund will likely refer to MSCI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned Index for benchmarking purposes.

All portfolio companies to be picked by the global asset managers are required to be index constituents.

A slew of pension giants armed with trillions of dollars of retirement capital in Europe and North America have introduced drastic policies to seek alignment with the 2015 Paris climate change agreement amid pressure of worsening global warming dangerously close to spiralling out of control.

Britain's biggest corporate pension fund, BT Pension Scheme with 55 billion pounds ($71 billion) in assets, announced in October over time all of the investment mandates it awards to asset managers would be aligned with the goal https://www.reuters.com/article/bt-pensions-carbon-idINL8N2GZ2U1.

($1 = 27.5760 Taiwan dollars)

($1 = 116.0100 yen) (Reporting by Selena Li in Hong Kong; Additional reporting by Simon Jessop in London; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Kenneth Maxwell)
By Trend

Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Rostam Ghasemi is paying a visit to Azerbaijani liberated lands, diplomatic sources told Trend.

As part of his planned visit to Azerbaijan, Ghasemi arrived at Fuzuli International Airport and is getting acquainted with the situation in Azerbaijani lands liberated from Armenian occupation.

As part of the visit, Ghasemi is expected to hold several meetings with Azerbaijani officials.
Afghan villagers wait to receive food after their home was damaged by last weeks earthquake in the remote western province of Badghis, (Abdul Raziq Saddiqi/AP) (AP)

Former prime minister Gordon Brown has helped to launch a petition urging the Government to hold an emergency multi-nation conference to raise money to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan

He warned that five million children and four million adults in Afghanistan are in immediate danger of acute malnutrition and 23 million people face famine in the coming months.

The petition is a direct call to the public to add their voices to the appeal for action to save Afghan lives.

Hunger is rife in #Afghanistan. Every province is affected.



98% of families do not have enough to eat. 5 million children are on the brink of famine.



Please sign our petition and ask the UK Government to stand up for Afghanistan's children now: https://t.co/DFsRRNxvwO pic.twitter.com/92dqedq8A0  Save the Children UK (@savechildrenuk) January 23, 2022

Mr Brown said no-one who has seen the TV reports coming out of Afghanistan could fail to be moved by the detail of the heart-breaking individual tragedies befalling so many.

He pressed the government to convene a multi-nation conference of the 40 countries who joined the American led coalition to fight the Afghan war, to help secure over 3 billion, which the United Nations says is desperately needed to prevent famine hitting millions of people.

Of the 40 countries who joined the American led coalition to fight the Afghan war, all should now contribute to the peace. There is not a moment to lose.

My friend Malala the Pakistan girl who was shot at by the Taliban for supporting girls education and won the Nobel prize, has told me she will be one of the first to sign the petition.

A boy stands near to his damaged house after it was hit by an earthquake in a remote western province of Badghis, Afghanistan last week (Abdul Raziq Saddiqi/AP) (AP)

Kirsty McNeill, executive director of policy, advocacy and campaigns at Save the Children UK, which is helping to organise the petition, added, Every province in Afghanistan is facing critical levels of hunger.

Story continues

Its now a race against time to get families the urgent support they need to survive. If no action is taken in the coming months, up to one million children could be at risk dying from malnutrition.

The crisis in Afghanistan has been called the worst humanitarian crisis on earth, but its not too late to prevent catastrophic disaster.

Its vital that the UK Government convene a global summit immediately to respond practically and financially to the full-blown humanitarian catastrophe under way.
OMAHA, Neb.  Newspaper publisher Lee Enterprises is asking its shareholders to help it fight off a hostile takeover offer from vulture hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

The publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Buffalo News and dozens of other newspapers, including The Citizen in Auburn and The Post-Star in Glens Falls, sent a letter to shareholders Monday asking them to support its board nominees in the dispute with Alden. Lee, which is based in Davenport, Iowa, already rejected Alden's $24 per share offer because it said the $141 million bid grossly undervalues Lee, but the two sides are locked in a court battle over whether Alden will be able to nominate its own directors.

A Vulture Hedge Fund is seeking to acquire Lee at a steep discount. Dont let it take value that belongs to you," Lee said in its letter to shareholders.

Lee also told shareholders that they should have faith in the company's current strategy to shift its publications over to online delivery because it has seen its digital-only subscriptions grow 65% over the past year to 402,000 at all of its newspapers.

Alden officials didn't immediately respond Monday to Lee's letter. The New York hedge fund, which is one of the nation's largest newspaper owners, filed a lawsuit last month asking a judge to force Lee to allow shareholders to vote on its three nominees for the company's board ahead of Lee's March 10 annual meeting.

Lee has argued that Alden's director nomination was invalid because it didn't meet technical requirements the company established before its deadline. A trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 7 in that lawsuit.

Alden owns more than 200 newspapers across the country including the Denver Post, Orange County Register and Boston Herald, and it bought up all of Tribune's newspapers last year. It has developed a reputation for using extensive layoffs and severe cost cuts at the newspapers it owns.

When it announced its offer to buy Lee in November, Alden said it already owned 6.3% of Lee's stock. Alden first disclosed owning Lee shares in 2020 after the company bought up Berkshire Hathaway's group of newspapers.

Berkshire, which is led by billionaire Warren Buffett, has thus far been silent on Alden's takeover offer even though it holds all of Lee's $483 million in debt. At the time Berkshire sold its newspapers, Buffett said Lee was the best steward for them. Buffett didn't immediately respond Monday to another request for comment.

Two other hedge funds that each hold more Lee stock than Alden  Cannell Capital and Praetorian Capital  have said they believe the company is worth much more than Alden is offering. Cannell holds 8.2% of Lees stock and Praetorian owns 7.3%.

Lees current board also owns or has options to buy up to 10.2% of the companys stock, according to the proxy statement Lee filed Monday.

Like other newspaper publishers, Lee has been struggling with shrinking revenue as it makes the transition to digital publication because of the ongoing loss of subscribers who used to pay more for print subscriptions. The pandemic also took a heavy toll on newspapers' advertising revenue as so many businesses struggled.

Between 2004 and 2018, Pew Research estimates that the newspaper industry eliminated nearly half of all newsroom jobs as publications consolidated or closed. Research from the University of North Carolina has said that roughly one-quarter of the country's newspapers have closed over the past 15 years.

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Frances C. Hansen is a skilled stained glass artist, she makes designer-quality clothing for children and infants, she is a photographer, and she has published stories in articles in The Old Schoolhouse, Brain and Life and The American Journal of Nursing. Adding to that list, she has a degree in graphic design, and she is both a registered nurse and a certified legal nurse consultant.

But this article is about Frans newest project: She recently published Dancing Under Evergreens," a memoir about caring for her husband as he suffered from PTSD, multiple sclerosis and the effects of being exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

In a chapter titled Night of Fear, Fran describes one of the earliest episodes of her husband Phils struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder. He thought he was back in Vietnam, surrounded by enemy forces. Fran was eight months pregnant with her first child, and she was driving. Her brother-in-law, who was also in the car, had persuaded Phil to let Fran drive.

Quoting from the book, At that moment, to him the cornfield was elephant grass in the jungle, and we were in a jeep surrounded by the enemy. ... The trees along the road blackened. Their branches lured us like groping tentacles, pulling us closer to the tall grass where Phil believed the enemy was. The dank smell of Autumn leaves hung in the air.

Fran described her reason for writing the book, a process that began around the turn of the new century, not long after her husbands death in March 1999. Writing the book had a cathartic effect. At one time we were homeless with three kids, and everything was going haywire. I started writing as a form of therapy. Eventually I had 25 chapters.

There were three children in the family with little money, relying on food pantries as they lived in a one-room cabin. In addition to caring for her now totally dependent husband, Fran homeschooled her children. Complicating the situation were frequent visits from therapists and aides, and trips to hospitals and clinics.

Writing has always been a part of Frans life. On her website she posted, I have always loved to write. It began with ninth grade essays about My Mothers Old Shoes, and the time I mistakenly ate mothballs in March. Stories about walking barefooted in the cemetery and my pet, Bozo, always came back to me with good grades. I had found a place where my imagination could take me to expound on real life experiences.

Fran also explained the significance of the title, written in the closing passage of the book: Somewhere between Hartwick and Oneonta, evergreen trees grow thick upon the hills. (Phil) pulls the car over, looks at me and smiles. Are you ready?

He cranks up the radio, gets out of the car and opens my door. He slips his arm around my waist. We move to the music while the evergreens look on.

Frans book became published after she researched various publishers and modes of publication. She finally settled on Book Locker Press. Dancing Under Evergreens is available through Amazon and may also be ordered directly from the publisher. An e-book version is expected to be available soon.

More information is available at Frans website, 1pagekeeper.com, which includes a contact page and a link to Amazon to purchase the book. Her email address is pagekeeper1@gmail.com.

Joe Sarnicola is a crafts artist and the president of the Finger Lakes Art Council, and can be reached at artcouncilfingerlakes@gmail.com or (315) 224-5071. For more information, visit facebook.com/fingerlakesartcouncil.

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The world's first liquid hydrogen carrier is ready to take the first cargo of a Japanese-Australian venture that produces hydrogen from brown coal from near Melbourne to Kobe in Japan.

The hydrogen-powered carrier called Suiso Frontier made by Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) arrived from Kobe last week as it followed a longer trip than its expected 16 days range for arrival as the owners wanted to avoid bad weather and rough seas said a spokesperson of the venture, Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC).

The venture which is a project worth $360 million and led by KHI is supported by the Japanese and Australian governments in an effort to move towards cleaner energy and cut carbon emissions. Last year, the project of extracting hydrogen from brown coal started. The team processed 70 kg of coal a day in a demonstration plant in the Latrobe Valley in the state of Victoria which is about 135 km east of Melbourne.

(Also read | World's first autonomous electric container ship makes debut)

The hydrogen is produced by reacting coal with oxygen and steam under high heat and pressure and in the process carbon dioxide is also produced. The partners want to scale the project up to 225,000 tonnes a year and they are planning to make carbon-neutral hydrogen by burying the carbon dioxide released in the process under the seabed offshore Victoria.

The partners of the project include Japan's Electric Power Development Co (J-Power), Iwatani Corp, Marubeni Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Australia's AGL Energy Ltd, whose mine is supplying brown coal.

(Also read | This electric surfboard is making big waves. Almost literally)

The mobility industry is seeing rapid changes in terms of electrification and usage of cleaner fuels in order to reduce greenhouse gases emission. Last year, a Norwegian company made what it claimed to be the world's first no emission, autonomous cargo ship, Yara Birkeland. It has been created by a chemical company called Yara International.

(With inputs from Reuters)

First Published Date:
In September last year, Ola Electric had announced funding of over 200 million dollars from Falcon Edge, Softbank and others.

Indian electric two-wheeler manufacturer Ola Electric has raised more funding to increase its valuation to $5 billion, roughly converted to 37 thousand crore. The company has announced that it has raised over $200 million, roughly converted to around 1,490.5 crore.

Ola electric said it has raised this fund from Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, Edelweiss and others.

Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO at Ola Electric, made a statement saying, Ola Electric is creating India's EV revolution and is driving cutting edge manufacturing from India for the entire world. With Ola S1, the best scooter ever made, we have changed the entire scooter industry and are now looking forward to bringing our innovative products to more two-wheeler categories, including bikes as well as cars. I thank the investors for their support and look forward to partnering with them to take the EV revolution from India to the world."

(Also read: Ola Electric bid for incentives under country's $2.4 bn battery scheme)

The latest funding comes months after Ola had announced another 200 million dollars from Falcon Edge, Softbank and others in September last year. Back then, Ola Electric's valuation was at around 3 billion dollars. Ola Electric had raised funding from other investors like Tiger Global and Matrix India earlier. In July last year, Ola Electric had announced $100 million (roughly converted to around 744.5 crore) 10 year-term debt financing agreement with the Bank of Baroda.

The funds came at a time when Ola Electric is aiming to step up production of its S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters. The Ola S1 electric scooter is priced at 1 lakh while the more capable S1 Pro is priced at 1.30 lakh.

The funding is likely to help ramp up Ola's production capacity at its 'Futurefactory', which aims to be the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturing facility. The facility employs over 10,000 women and is one of the largest women-only factory globally.

There has been a lot of interest around Ola Electric scooters. The company had opened pre-launch bookings of its electric scooters last year in July. The company claims it received around one lakh bookings against a nominal amount of 499 within just 24 hours. However, it took four months for Ola Electric to finally start delivering the scooters to its customers after launching the S1 and S1 Pro on August 15.

The Ola S1 e-scooter claims to cover 121 kms on a single charge. The more-expensive S1 Pro brags of going around 180 kms before needing a recharge even though the real-world range is around 130 kms.

First Published Date:
Beijing (Gasgoo)- On January 24th, the previously reported B round financing of Changan New Energy was declared official. The investment round helped the new energy subsidiary of Changan Auto raise RMB4.9773 billion.

Photo credit: Changan Auto



In April 2021, Changan New Energy initiated its B financing round, expecting to raise RMB3 billion. After elaborate negotiations, nine investors were decided for this round. The final settlement exceeded Changan New Energys initially expectation amount by roughly RMB 2 billion. After the deal, Changan Autos stake in the company was down to 40.66%, still its primary shareholder.

Actually, as early as December 2019, Changan New Energy successfully raised RMB2.84 billion in its Series A investment round, and increased its registered capital from RMB99 million to RMB202 million. After the A round, Changan Autos stake in the company was diluted from 100% to 48.95%. This investment round also helped Changan New Energy became the first state-owned auto company to complete mix-ownership reformation.

Moreover, Changan Auto is also the first state-owned auto company that spun off its new energy business in China. According to the president of Changan Auto, Wang Jun, the B round of investment will shine a new light on Changan New Energys development, enhancing its competitiveness and value within the industry.

The company positioned itself as a world-class mainstream EV brand, aiming to sell at least 700,000 vehicles annually by 2025. From 2019 to 2021, Changan New Energy sold 156,000 vehicles accumulatively. In 2021 alone, the compmay sold over 100,000 vehicles, soaring nearly 300% year on year.

The company plans to introduce eleven new products in the following three years, including coupes, SUVs, MPVs, and other innovative forms. Additionally, Changan New Energys new battery-electric C385 will start mass production and delivery next year.

Notably, Changan Auto made it clear that after the B financing round, Changan New Energy plans to file for an IPO around 2025, with consideration of another financing round if necessary.




As indicated during his 2022 State of the State address, we were pleased to learn that Gov. Doug Ducey is thinking about long-term water supplies for Arizona. We were dismayed, though, when the governor proposed a $1 billion desalination plant that would likely supply Phoenix and Tucson with fresh water from Mexicos Sea of Cortez.

Thats the quintessential massive project solution, one involving huge energy consumption for construction and ongoing water pumping, lots of earth moving, an international border, and another pipeline to disrupt the desert. It would likely have no benefit for parts of the state not served directly by the pipeline or the Central Arizona Project.

If desalination is to your liking, a better solution would be for Arizona to support federal funds for a desalination plant in California to produce fresh water to be used in California. That water would be offset by California ceding an equal amount of its Colorado River water allotment to Arizona, transported using existing infrastructure.

Better than desalination, the Flagstaff Water Group recommends healthy and sustainable local solutions. Existing water systems are generally built as single pass systems to collect, purify and distribute potable water. Once the water is returned via the sewage system, the water is treated to state standards in wastewater treatment plants, then mostly discarded and lost to the system.

Typically, most of the water evaporates or is lost to groundwater in an unplanned fashion. In some communities, a portion of the treated wastewater is reused as reclaimed water, often for irrigation, but is lost to the system by evaporation. All those losses need to be replaced by withdrawals from the communitys original source, e.g., aquifer, surface water supply, or pipeline/canal.

Whats a better plan? Indirect Potable Recovery (IPR) and Direct Potable Recovery (DPR) are conservation methods to retain and reuse the water in a communitys water system, thereby reducing net withdrawals from the source. In IPR, treated wastewater is stored in an intermediate surface water reservoir or aquifer before reuse. DPR skips the intermediate storage step by purifying wastewater to potable levels, then re-circulating it directly in the community water system. The purification is done using advanced oxidation, filtration, and monitoring methods.

Both IPR and DPR make sense in water-scarce environments such as Arizona. After seeing their aquifer drop to alarmingly low levels, El Paso, Texas came to this conclusion and is presently installing a large DPR facility. In Flagstaff, the Coconino Aquifer is dropping about 2 feet per year due to unsustainable consumption and drought, causing some local citizens to advocate IPR or DPR alternatives.

Flagstaff Water Services has announced plans to build a new 6 million gallons per day wastewater treatment plant within seven years. The Flagstaff Water Group advocates that it be built as an IPR plant with capability to be upgraded to a DPR facility when needed. Alternatively, it might be built as a DPR plant from the outset if the City of Flagstaff can secure required funds through the recently passed Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. That bill provides billions of dollars nationally for water infrastructure and water cybersecurity projects.

Theres an important caveat around all IPR plans. Before pumping water to an intermediate holding body (e.g., lake or aquifer), its vital to purify the wastewater well beyond present state standards to remove the known and unknown risks posed by synthetic organic chemicals that pervade our water systems. The long-term cancer, developmental, and neurological impacts of those chemicals are becoming increasingly well understood. It is by addressing those concerns that IPR and DPR can provide net improvements for water supplies and community health.

Using Gov. Duceys $1 billion to build IPR and DPR systems around the state would provide local jobs and local control. Those systems would improve sustainability and health throughout the state, much better than a pipeline from Mexico.

This piece was submitted by the Flagstaff Water Group: Bryan Bates, Ward Davis, John Nauman and Robert Vane.

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(Xinhua) -- Since the U.S. Capitol was besieged by rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, the rosy filter of American-style democracy has shattered in front of the world.

Even more than one year later, the aftermath of the astounding riot can still be perceived from spiking partisan fights in U.S. Congress and constant chaos in the American society. Along the way, U.S. democracy has been decaying amid growing division and disorder.

As partisan politics keeps deteriorating in the Capitol, the U.S. democratic system can no longer represent the will of the American people, as it exists only in form, not in substance. As American news website Vox has put it, in countries where democracy is at real risk of collapse or even outright defeated -- places like the United States among others -- "the real drivers of democratic collapse are domestic."

Over the past year, Democrats and Republicans have been wrangling over an array of crucial legislative issues related directly to American people's life, including a COVID-19 relief package, new social safety programs, climate initiatives and voting reform. Once again, the gnawing divide between the two parties stuck out over the congressional investigation into the Capitol riot.

Democrats have blasted the Capitol riot as an attack on democracy as supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump violently interrupted proceedings to certify results of the 2020 presidential election.

Republicans, however, have tried to play down the incident and its aftermath, as well as understated Trump's alleged role in inciting it. While expressing his party's opposition to the Capitol riot, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has accused Democrats of using the probe "as a partisan political weapon to further divide our country."

As conspiracy theories and disinformation abound, the country's political divide appears to be widening ahead of the 2022 elections, "with each side seeing the other not as opponents but as enemies," according to a forecast report by U.S. think tank the Atlantic Council.

Unfortunately, U.S. political elections are now widely regarded as a pure game of money as their costs have registered one record after another over the years. During the last election season, the presidential campaign saw a total spending of a record 6.6 billion U.S. dollars.

While dominating state power and policy-making, those elected political elites serve almost exclusively the interests of deep-pocketed and other vested interests groups, which are the main sources of candidates' campaign donations, rather than those of ordinary U.S. citizens.

Noting America's polarization and sectarian tensions look poised to only increase, the Atlantic Council warned that the year 2022 is "shaping up to be one in which American democracy erodes significantly."

At present, public trust in the federal government remains at an all-time low and more people grew disenchanted with the deeply-flawed U.S. democracy, as ordinary U.S. citizens have borne the brunt of a cascade of social chaos and disorder.

Since the beginning of 2022, the Omicron variant has fueled a renewed record surge of COVID-19 infections, with Jan. 3 seeing over 1 million newly confirmed cases in the United States. Despite the ravaging pandemic, Republicans have mounted challenges to the White House's vaccine mandates across the country, accusing the Biden administration of overstepping its authority.

The New York Times has called the pandemic "a nearly two-year stress test that the United States flunked," lamenting that "an already distrustful populace" was exposed to "a level of institutional failure that added fuel to the angry battles over how to respond."

Across America, there is also a pervasive outcry against systemic racial discrimination and rampant gun violence. Amid an escalating anti-Asian hate crime, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has recently urged the White House to make a public apology to Asian Americans for calling COVID-19 the "China virus" and other aggressive remarks of former President Donald Trump.

In his new book "The Next Civil War: Dispatches From the American Future," Canadian novelist and journalist Stephen Marche raised the alarm about a new civil war in the United States in the near future. The author penetrates into the realities of a politically tribalistic United States, burdened by racial and economic injustice, social resentments and a surging number of guns.

For the United States, it would be better if the Biden administration gives more "humility and attention" to the conditions of its governance, suggested Douglas Paal, a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stressing concrete progress over abstract discussions.

More than one year after the Capitol riot, America's democracy is still in shambles. One cannot help but wonder how close the Titanic of U.S. democracy is getting to the iceberg?

As the 2022 elections are only ten months away, those in the White House had better find out, for their own sake, how to prevent the Capitol from further faltering or being attacked again. And hopefully, they could learn a lesson from last year's shocking incident, so as to salvage America's crumbling democracy.
When Dave Eskra was a senior at Beatrice High School, he said many of his peers couldnt wait to get out, to go to a big city and live in a different kind of world.

For Eskra though, Beatrice was a magnetso strong its pull that he stayed here his entire life, pursuing jobs decidedly unrelated to the agriculture he studied at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Eskra, the Board of Public Works chairman, filed a run for Beatrice Ward 2 City Council.

Eskra worked in sales throughout his career. First, it was at Jostens, which meant traveling up and down the area to schools. He sold class memorabilia, back when everyone was still buying class rings.

In 2005, him and Steve Swarthout took over a local car dealership and named it Twin Rivers Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge, Inc.

For Eskra, working on the BPW is about learning from and helping out the community.

Its a matter of giving back and giving thanks, Eskra said.

He said is experience on the BPW, giving infrastructural recommendations to the City Council, paved his way to his run for City Council.

We save the City Council so much time, he said.  And it gives you insight into what makes a city run well.

Eskra said he wants to keep Beatrice moving in its current direction.

I want to keep Beatrice moving forward, he said. Ive said this for years. We couldve curled up with the $28.2 million from the Beatrice Six and just let that define Beatrice for the next forty years, and what a horrible idea that wouldve been. But no, we have new businesses, we have great economic development, we have a very vibrant downtown group in Main Street, a very active Chamber.

He said he hopes for growth in the community, but he said it comes slowly.

Theres no simple way to make people come here, he said. And its very, very difficult to [stave off decline] We need to keep the great things we have. Our good school system. Our good church system We should continue to keep the cost of living at a very reasonable rate.

Eskra said he wants to complete the Beatrice trail system and expand opportunity to businesses in the area.

He said he brings extensive experience in business and sales, which gives him a different perspective than others on the Council. He said he thinks Beatrice has great leadership.

My hope is to work with the Council, represent the people of Beatrice and keep it strong, he said.

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By Trend

Bulgarian energy minister Alexander Nikolov will visit Azerbaijan in February to take part in the meeting of the Southern Gas Corridors Advisory Council to be held in Baku, Trend learned from diplomatic sources.

Bulgarias delegation will be led by Alexander Nikolov  Minister of Energy, said the source.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is comprised of Shah Deniz 2, the South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion, the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) became fully operational on December 31, 2020.

Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) AG confirmed on Dec. 31 the commencement of gas flows from Azerbaijan. The first gas has reached Greece and Bulgaria, via the Nea Mesimvria interconnection point with DESFA, as well as Italy, via the Melendugno interconnection point with SNAM Rete Gas (SRG).

TAP transports natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe. The 878 km long pipeline connects with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crosses Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.

The first meeting of the SGC Advisory Council was held on February 12, 2015, the second meeting - on February 29, 2016, the third meeting - on February 23, 2017, the fourth meeting - on February 15, 2018, the fifth meeting  on February 20, 2019, the sixth meeting was held on Feb.28, 2020 and the seventh meeting on Feb.11, 2021.
The new lobby of the Beatrice Mary YMCA hums with spinning treadmills, thuds with weights and clanking bars.

Just above the space where dozens can now gather for coffee and community sprawls a recreation area much larger than what the YMCA previously had.

Monday marked the first day YMCA members could utilize the state of the art equipment in the recreation center. Jennifer Elliott, membership and marketing director, said the anticipation brought a flood of people into the facility.

We had seen over 150 people come in between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., which is a big number for that time of day on a Monday, Elliott said. We typically have around 100 people in by then, so we definitely had a lot more today Theyre so happy to be here.

Elliott said she hopes and expects that enthusiasm continues to the point of increasing membership, though, thanks to the efficiency of the new space, growth wouldnt be necessary to maintain the facility.

Changes to the space, including the large lobby, a teaching kitchen, an expanded swimming pool observation area and the second floor recreation area were part of the first phase of the YMCAs renovations. As soon as contractors set up temporary changing and showering areas by the pool, they will begin work on the second phase. The second phase will center on the locker rooms and is expected to finish by late April or May, Elliott said.

Elliott said one important aspect of the renovation is the lobby. She said the YMCA needed a large space where people could gather to chat.

There are so many people in this community who might not have family members or close friends who live by them, she said. So when they come to the Y, they know they can get some conversation. They know someone will be checking in on them We like to think the Y is kind of the hub of the community.

Elliott said another important part of the renovation is the recreation area, three times the size of the previous one. With many still chasing after their resolutions, the scheduled opening worked out perfectly.

The timing couldnt have been much better, she said.

For area farmer Ed McClure, the difference in the new space is night and day.

Its amazing, McClure said. This is a whole different environment. Theres natural light and so much space Its motivating.

But the staff at the YMCA thinks of wellness as more than just reps on a machine. The teaching kitchen is one space where staff and members can focus on wellness in nutrition.

In the teaching kitchen space, Bly Rash, a holistic nutritionist, will make shakes, salads, soups, snacks and smoothies. Rash said shell use all organic ingredients in the food items, which will be available for purchase in a few weeks.

Rash said she wants to meet people where theyre at and help them take steps improving their nutrition.

I love visiting with people about nutrition, she said. Theres a lot of power in food, and thats the information that needs to get out there. Everything you eat either affects you in a negative or positive way.

Elliott said the YMCAs staff is open to giving tours of the facility, even to non-members. She said phase two renovations will likely begin this week.

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Rather than rely on one business, Travis Peterson was looking to diversify as he and partners began building a new Meadowlark Brewing facility on Billings West End.

Then the pandemic hit.

Construction costs skyrocketed. At the same time, a building boom constricted the amount of work contractors were taking on. Problems with the supply chain slowed the delivery of materials.

So construction of the 23,000-square-foot facility at 3970 Pierce Parkway near ZooMontana, which broke ground in 2019 with a goal to be open by spring 2020, is now looking like it will be finished by this spring.

The most common question we get when someone walks in the door is: When are you opening?  Peterson said.

Sidney

Meadowlark is not new to the Montana brewing scene. Peterson and his family first launched their business in the Eastern Montana community of Sidney seven years ago. They built a strong local market that included a restaurant along with limited sales of bottles and cans in Montana and the Dakotas. The Sidney facilities will remain operational despite the Billings expansion.

Year-round the brewery churns out 24 different beers, only five of which arent seasonal. New to the Billings facility will be a small batch distillery, enabling the company to convert any unsold beer into vodka rather than throw it away.

When the Meadowlark partners decided to expand, they targeted Billings because of its central location for distribution as well as the larger market for retail sales. Sidney has a population around 6,400 compared to more than 109,000 in Billings.

We want to be a well-known presence or entity, and this is our platform to hit our goals, Peterson said.

When completed, Meadowlark will join about 99 breweries spread across 54 communities in Montana. Another five are in the planning stages.

Licensing

As construction problems out of Petersons control mounted, yet another frustration popped up: Having several businesses  a brewery, small batch distillery, restaurant and barber shop  under one roof made the state licensing process more difficult.

We want to be as inclusionary as possible, Peterson said. We want to be a community center.

Rather than hire a lawyer to navigate the intricacies, Peterson thought hed save money and take on the task himself. Looking back, he wonders if that was a good decision.

Max Pigman, owner of Lewis and Clark Brewing Co. in Helena, has hired several attorneys over the years to negotiate state licensing regulations since he opened in 2002. The best solution was often to sit down with agency officials, tell them what he wanted to do and ask for advice on how to proceed, he said.

Peterson said it is difficult to not have the brewery fired up to begin creating the 5,000 to 6,000 barrels of beer that are expected once everything is at peak production.

The brewing side is pretty much ready to go, he said. But the state wont give me a license until the [city] inspection is complete.

Czelsi Gomez, public information officer for the Montana Department of Revenue, said, Our office is currently waiting on local officials to provide their sign-off that the brewery and distillery meet local code before we are able to issue licenses.

Beer

Nationally, craft brewers have seen sales decline since the pandemic hit. According to the Brewers Association, 2020 sales were down 9% and 2021 sales trended behind 2020 in all but the first three months of the year.

COVID will be the nail in the coffin for some folks, Pigman predicted, as space on store shelves and tap handles has become crowded.

The Montana Brewers Association hasnt posted any numbers for 2021, but reported last year that the states craft brewers saw a 7% decline in production. Pigman said his canned beer business took a big hit last year as aluminum prices soared and cans were hard to find. In some cases he was losing 8 cents for every case he sold, but had to keep pushing them out the door to preserve his product on store shelves.

There was more money in the packaging than the beer, he said.

Matt Leow, executive director of the Montana Brewers Association, said the aluminum can issue has hampered many beer producers in the state just as the pandemic dropped sales in pubs as fewer people went out. One manufacturer required an order minimum of 1 million cans, which would be a two year supply for even the most popular of Montana beers.

"The margins are already tight on cans," Leow said.

By expanding into Idaho and Utah markets, Pigman has been able to continue to increase production by about 8% but has also faced rising labor costs to keep personnel from leaving for higher paying jobs. Selling more keg beer, where the profit margin is better, helped him squeak by.

I sure hope this year is the year we turn things around, he said.

Peterson is hoping 2022 is kinder to him as well. All of the construction and licensing setbacks have been frustrating, but he and his partners are finally close to opening the doors.

Were asking everyone to be patient, he said.

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Eight new applications for the role of state schools superintendent have been submitted to the Republican State Central Committee, raising the total number of applicants to 12.

The position of state superintendent, an official whos typically elected by Wyoming residents, is vacant because Jillian Balow, the former superintendent, resigned earlier this month to take on the same role in Virginia.

Now, the Republican State Central Committee and Gov. Mark Gordon are tasked with filling the position by next week.

The latest eight applicants include people with varying degrees of experience in education: Marti Halverson, Keith Goodenough, Angela Raber, Joseph Heywood, Joshua Valk, Thomas Kelly, Brian Schroeder and Jayme Lien.

Halverson is far-right former state representative who serves as chairwoman of the Lincoln County GOP. As a lawmaker, she did not serve on the Joint Education Committee, but she was a co-sponsor on multiple education-related bills.

I am not an educator. I have no degrees in Education, Halverson wrote in her cover letter. Im an English major with thirty years in business. I was publicly educated in an era where two years of high school Latin and four years of math, English and science were required.

While in office, Halverson was part of a group of lawmakers who attempted to give former Superintendent of Public Instruction Cindy Hill back her power after the Legislature in 2013 stripped Hill of most of her responsibilities and transferred the duties to a director of education.

At the time the bill was introduced, the matter was being hashed out in the courts. The state Supreme Court in 2014 ruled 3-2 that state lawmakers went beyond their purview.

The Legislature and the state party broke over that issue, and we never mended it, said Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, who voted against the legislation.

Another former state lawmaker, Goodenough has had some recent involvement in Natrona County GOP politics, but he has not always been a registered Republican. He served in the state House and Senate as a Democrat from roughly the late 1980s to the mid-aughts. He also ran for Natrona County Commission as an independent in 2012 and 2014.

During his time in the statehouse, he did not sponsor any significant education-related legislation, but did serve on the Education Committee for two years.

In more recent years, Goodenough served as a Republican precinct committeeman in Natrona County. He did not provide application materials to the state central committee, but said he plans to bring them Saturday.

The rest of the recent applicants do not have lengthy political histories. But they do have notable educational backgrounds.

Raber, an instructor at Sheridan Community College, and Heywood, the executive director of the Wyoming Virtual Academy, have doctorates of education, while Valk, the director of the University of Wyoming program, has a Ph.D. in higher education administration, according to their resumes.

Kelly is currently serving as the chair of the Political and Military Science Department at the American Military University, according to his resume.

Kelly and his family left Colorado for Wyoming in part because the schools were teaching climate change, multiple genders, and white privilege to grammar school children, he wrote in his cover letter.

They eventually moved to Sheridan in 2019.

Schroeder has experience in school administration, as a K-12 teacher and as a youth counselor.

Lien, like Goodenough, did not provide application materials. Further details on the earlier applicants can be found here.

According to state statute, the Republican State Central Committee is responsible for choosing interim superintendent nominees because Balow was a member of the GOP.

The central committee consists of the chairman and the state committeewoman and committeeman from each of Wyomings county-level Republican parties. That equates to 69 voters if everyone is present.

Those three nominees will then be sent to Gordon, a Republican, who will have five days to choose one to fill Balows spot until January 2023, when her term was supposed to end.

Exactly how the central committees selection process will work will be determined at the start of Saturdays meeting. The committee will have a chance to vote and amend the proposed rules that govern the meeting and spell out how superintendent selection process will work.

The selection of a new superintendent comes at a pivotal time in Wyomings education history. The Equality States K-12 education system has long been one of the best funded in the nation because of money from fossil fuels, but that revenue stream alone can no longer provide that support.

This past general session, after a month of debate, the Wyoming Legislature could come to an agreement and no changes were made to how the state pays for education.

Additionally, critical race theory and removing certain books from school libraries have become hot button issues.

In September, Balow appeared with two top state senators to introduce the Civics and Transparency Act. The superintendent was clear the bill was intended to challenge critical race theory. Critical race theory is not currently being taught in Wyoming schools.

Balow started her teaching career in Hulett. In the 25 years since then, she has served as a national literacy consultant, an executive in state government, a policy advisor in the governors office, and the state superintendent of public instruction.

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For the last two weeks Robyn Rofkar has been waking in the cold darkness of 3 a.m., rising early to begin simmering beans or baking blueberry muffins, making sure the 20 Shoshone speakers gathered in the Latter Day Saints church in Fort Washakie are taken care of.

Elders arrive at 9 a.m. each day and gather into small groups to remember and record words through a process called rapid word collection.

A linguist from the Language Conservancy, which the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center has partnered with to complete the project, names a category, something like sky. Shoshone speakers then list words that relate: from stars to the sun and the colors that make up the firmament.

The group has recorded more than 4,000 words, which will eventually be turned into an online dictionary. Its one more step toward ensuring the Eastern Shoshone people have a way of remembering and learning their own language, a project Rofkar, who is a member of the tribe, and the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center has been engaged in for years.

The oldest person to attend the daily gatherings of Shoshone speakers was 98 years old. Another woman celebrated her 90th birthday during the project. All the fluent speakers of Shoshone tend to be at least 60 years old, Rofkar said, and there are probably fewer than 200 of them in all.

Years ago it was forbidden for these same elders to speak their own language, Rofkar said.

Thats because generations of Native American youth were punished for speaking their language, said Wil Meya, president of the Language Conservancy.

The basic issue is that languages, especially in the United States, are all in tremendous danger, Meya said. To a high degree, that language endangerment was the result of government policies that forbade the use of language and things like the boarding school system that were in existence for over a hundred years.

By 1954 most tribal members stopped passing their language on to the next generation, he said, and those born after that year primarily spoke English.

Rofkars family didnt speak Shoshone when she was growing up, but she learned some words through Central Wyoming College courses. During her 28 years working at Fort Washakie School, she helped out with Shoshone-language-related programs. Post-retirement, Rofkar took a job as the administrative assistant at the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center, where she began applying for grants to revitalize the Shoshone language in her community.

New funding became available through the American Rescue Plan Act, and the Cultural Center was able to secure a grant that supported the rapid-word-collection process. While the Cultural Center already has a dictionary with roughly 8,000 words, it doesnt include pronunciations and spelling isnt standardized, according to Rofkar. Because of certain vocalization characteristics the Shoshone p is more of a b sound, for example. Writing Shoshone words without detailed pronunciation instructions poses a challenge, she explained.

Language has the power to shape our worlds. Shoshone, Rofkar noted, is so descriptive. A lot of the elders are always making jokes, teasing kind of, and there are these funny little ways of putting the words together. Its very enjoyable to hear.

The creation of a dictionary accompanied by recorded pronunciations can be a foundation for Eastern Shoshone people. The dictionary really becomes a great cornerstone for many of the other materials that might be needed, Meya with the Language Conservancy said. We kind of act as a bridge between generations, being able to work with the elders, and help bring the language out in a way that is then accessible to the young learners.

Rofkar is interested in potentially creating a textbook or online materials to help Eastern Shoshone learn their language. We need more Shoshone language teachers that are fluent, we need to really pass this on before its lost, she said.

The center is applying for another grant to put intensive learning programs in place, she said. The idea behind that initiative is that one or two fluent elders would gather with a group of learners, and within 18 months the learners would become fluent and be able to teach the language to others.

Rofkar, in the meantime, is also still learning Shoshone herself. Im working on it. I dont know if Ill ever be fluent.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

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A 140-year-old portrait of a prominent Bismarck woman and great-grandmother of Gov. Doug Burgum has been restored and is back at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum in Bismarck.

The oil portrait of Linda Slaughter was gifted to the museum in 1924 by two of her daughters, Jessamine Burgum, of Arthur -- Gov. Doug Burgums grandmother -- and Linnie Hedstrom, of Bismarck. The portrait done in 1880 shows Slaughter in a blue-green dress with lace details and a blue bow. She is wearing jewelry made of clearwater opals, which at the time the portrait was donated were still in the familys possession. The dress is of gray silk, was part of her wedding trousseau, and was made in Tennessee after the Civil War, according to information the family gave the museum.

Slaughter in the 1870s became the first Bismarck postmistress, taught at the citys first school and also served as superintendent of schools. She was a delegate at the Populist Party national convention in 1892, and in 1895 she passed the Washington, D.C., bar exam. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Womens Christian Temperance Union, National Womens Suffrage Association, and the Ladies Historical Society, which later became the State Historical Society.

We have a soft spot in our hearts for her, Museum Curator Jenny Yearous said.

Gov. Burgum in a statement to the Tribune noted Slaughter's accomplishments and added that she earned the nickname Zezula -- "one who helps" -- as she traveled with her husband, Dr. Benjamin Slaughter, while he aided the sick in Dakota Territory.

"Most importantly, she was a loving and caring mother," the governor said. "Our family is deeply grateful to the State Historical Society for having Linda Slaughters portrait restored with such great care and attention to detail, honoring her legacy as a historian and her foundational role in the formation of the State Historical Society.

The restoration process began in 2018, when museum officials sent the portrait to the Midwest Art Conservation Center in Minneapolis. It was chosen because of its age and historical significance, and in preparation for Bismarck's 150th anniversary this year.

"We wanted to have it ready to go," Yearous said. It's unclear when the portrait might go on display.

After an evaluation, workers began a six-month process that started the removal of the original varnish.

Old varnishes actually can hold on to dirt in the air, or if it was in a house where someone was a smoker, nicotine would stain it, Yearous said.

A tear near the portraits center was repaired, as were a number of small holes. The portrait got a new coat of varnish before areas of paint loss were filled, then another coat of varnish. The process, which cost about $5,000, allows for more work to be done in the future, if needed, without damaging the original paint.

Thats kind of the ethics behind a lot of this, is that anything that a conservator does has to be reversible, Yearous said.

The portrait also got a new frame with an interior border that looks much like the original frame, which was already damaged when the portrait was gifted. A few cracks are still visible in the canvas, but there was no reason to fix them, according to Yearous.

You dont want it to look like its brand new, off the painters easel, she said. You want to have it still look its age.

Little is known about the artist. The portrait is signed Cliff Artist in the lower right-hand corner. Family information states it was painted by a visiting artist named Cliff, an Englishman who afterwards moved to Seattle.

An infrared photo of the painting enabled conservators to see the layers beneath the paint without disturbing it. Marks on the canvas show the artists original sketch and adjustments that were made before paint was applied to the canvas. The artist likely held multiple sessions with Slaughter and continued his work between those sessions, Yearous said.

A letter from Jessamine Burgum on file with the museum states that the portrait is a very good likeness of my mother, who was a very beautiful woman as any of the old timers in Bismarck can testify.

Yearous doesnt anticipate any more will be done to the portrait. Time affects everything, but with proper storage and display methods, She should be looking just about like this a hundred years from now, Yearous said.

Reach Travis Svihovec at 701-250-8260 or Travis.Svihovec@bismarcktribune.com

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The North Dakota Court System is getting a federal grant of nearly $1 million for an effort to reduce delays in criminal case processing.

The U.S. Department of Justice was looking for case studies in rural states where services were sparse and where mental health and poverty might be factors, according to State Court Administrator Sally Holewa.

Were quite nimble because were small and flexible in introducing changes, she said.

The three-year project includes the Northeast, Northeast Central, East Central and South Central judicial districts. Bismarck-Mandan is in the South Central District.

Those districts represent a cross-section of case management practices, Holewa said, and include areas where mental health and substance abuse treatment programs are scarce. Court officials will use focus groups to note practices that work well, pinpoint issues that cause delays, and put changes into practice.

Its the first time the state system has won the grant, according to Holewa.

This is a great opportunity for us, she said. It will give us the expertise and the resources to help us do better.

The goal is to have cases completely processed within one year. Holewa told Prairie Public that while most criminal cases meet that deadline, some do not, due to a variety of reasons ranging from no one being available to do a mental health evaluation, to staffing shortages.

"It could be something as simple as a vacancy in the state's attorney's office, or an attorney who's ill, and no other attorneys can pick up the case," she said. "All of those things can be factors when cases get old."

She added that most rural counties have only one judge, and "If the judge gets ill, there's delay."

The National Center for State Courts will serve as the primary consultant and research arm for the project. Frank Racek, former presiding judge for the East Central Judicial District, will serve as an expert consultant on North Dakota law and case management. What is learned will be shared with other rural states.

(Prairie Public's Dave Thompson contributed to this story.)

Reach Travis Svihovec at 701-250-8260 or Travis.Svihovec@bismarcktribune.com

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A South Central District judge was right to reject a Mandan mans claim that undisclosed DNA evidence would clear him of manslaughter, the North Dakota Supreme Court has ruled.

Rodney Friesz, 56, in 2016 was convicted of manslaughter and arson and acquitted of murder in the death of Eugene Geno Jassmann, 62. Friesz in 2014 shot Jassman with a .22-caliber rifle and set fire to his own brothers mobile home to conceal the evidence. Friesz claimed in police interviews that he shot Jassman in self-defense. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Friesz in May 2020 appealed his conviction on several grounds, including insufficient evidence, ineffective counsel, failure of the court to suppress certain evidence, and the prosecutions failure to disclose DNA evidence.

Prosecutors asked Judge David Reich to dismiss the appeal because they said it wasn't filed within the two-year deadline allowed by law and because there was no proof such DNA evidence existed or that it might affect the verdict if it did exist. Reich agreed with the prosecution, but the Supreme Court justices later sent the case back to allow Friesz time to respond to the prosecutions argument.

Friesz in that response stated he was told by a State Penitentiary corrections officer that the Morton County Sheriffs Department had DNA evidence that was never disclosed. Prosecutors again argued that Friesz offered no proof that the DNA existed or that it would change the outcome of the case if it did, and asked for dismissal. Reich again agreed with prosecutors.

The justices in affirming Reichs decision said Friesz failed to meet his minimal burden to provide at least some competent evidence to support his claims in his response to the states motion.

Reach Travis Svihovec at 701-250-8260 or Travis.Svihovec@bismarcktribune.com

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Supporters of a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana through North Dakota's constitution have again fallen short of signatures to prompt a public vote.

Their deadline was Saturday to submit at least 31,164 valid signatures to the secretary of state. They did not do so.

Measure sponsoring committee member Dustin Peyer, of Driscoll, told the Tribune on Sunday that the group gathered 19,500 signatures in its one-year time limit.

Supporters already are forming committees to propose two future ballot measures related to quality and accessibility of medical marijuana -- which is legal in North Dakota -- and use of recreational marijuana by people ages 21 and older, he said.

Peyer said the signature threshold "is a lot of signatures for an unpaid volunteer effort."

"We grew support across the state through a network of small businesses," he said. "The biggest obstacle is those who are pushing the hardest are disabled, parents, business owners, or have generally a lot going on in their life."

Petitioners also have faced backlash in their efforts, he said.

Measure Chairwoman Jody Vetter, of Bismarck, did not return phone messages or an email regarding signature-gathering.

The proposed measure would have restricted recreational marijuana to people 21 and older, banned its use in public, and allowed the Legislature to license and regulate the industry. The measure also would have allowed home-growing of up to 12 plants.

The effort was another shot after an unsuccessful try in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hampered the group's signature-gathering.

Marijuana was a major topic in the Republican-controlled Legislature last year. State representatives brought bills to legalize and tax the drug as an effort to head off Vetter's group, but the Senate killed the House-passed bills, along with one to decriminalize marijuana. The Senate also rejected the introduction of a proposed ballot measure.

Two other proposed ballot measures for voters this year would put term limits on the governor and the Legislature, and would raise the bar for amending the state constitution.

Those petition deadlines are not for a few months.

North Dakota voters in 2016 approved of a state medical marijuana program; in 2018 they rejected recreational marijuana by 59%.

Reach Jack Dura at 701-250-8225 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com.

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By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Azerbaijani Defence Minister Zakir Hasanov received a Finnish delegation led by Director-General of the Foreign Ministry's department for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia Maria Livala on January 24.

Hasanov briefed the guest, who is on a working visit to Azerbaijan, on the activities carried out in the liberated lands as well as the situation on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border, the Defence Ministry said.

The minister emphasized that Azerbaijan and Finland successfully cooperate as part of the NATO Partnership for Peace Program.

In turn, Livala emphasized the importance of strengthening ties between the two countries.

The officials also talked about bilateral relations, regional peace and stability, and other topics of mutual interest.

In late September 2021, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met his Finnish counterpart Pekka Olavi Haavisto on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly.

The sides expressed satisfaction with the level of development of bilateral relations and multilateral cooperation and exchanged views on prospects for expanding these ties. They also stressed the mutual understanding existing between Azerbaijan and Finland at all levels.

During the meeting, the ministers exchanged views on various aspects of the bilateral cooperation agenda, including strengthening of political, economic, humanitarian, educational, agricultural, high tech, investment, cultural cooperation, as well as regional security issues, implementation of the provisions of the trilateral statements and realization of confidence-building measures.

Bayramov briefed Haavisto about large-scale acts of deliberate destruction committed by Armenia in Azerbaijan's liberated lands, destruction of historical and cultural heritage, large-scale damage to the environment, as well as the threat of landmines and broadly informed Pekka Olavi Haavisto of the ongoing reconstruction.

He noted that despite decades of the aggressive policy pursued by Armenia against Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan is ready to normalize relations with the neighboring country on the basis of the principles of international law.

Minister Pekka Haavisto said that his country is interested in expanding relations with Azerbaijan in various areas. He said that Azerbaijans position on the normalization of relations with Armenia is commendable and stressed the importance of implementing the trilateral ceasefire agreement signed by Baku, Moscow and Yerevan in November 2021.

Finland recognised Azerbaijan's independence on December 30, 1991. Diplomatic relations were established on 24 March 1992.
The North Dakota Supreme Court will again take up a case concerning oil and gas royalties from the development of state-owned minerals.

The state Board of University and School Lands has appealed several 2021 rulings from a lower court in a case involving Newfield Exploration Co. that has had implications for numerous other state oil and gas leases. The appeal challenges part of a 2021 law that put a limit on how far back the state can retroactively collect unpaid royalties, and it raises matters surrounding the state's relationship with Newfield.

The state previously brought a breach of contract claim against Newfield for underpaying royalties, but Northwest District Judge Robin Schmidt dismissed the matter last fall. She wrote in an order that she could not find a record of a contract between Newfield and the state among the documents included in the litigation.

The state is appealing that decision "to ensure stability and add clarity to the issues," Land Commissioner Jodi Smith said in a statement.

Smith leads the North Dakota Department of Trust Lands, which is overseen by the five-member Board of University and School Lands chaired by Gov. Doug Burgum. The group better known as the Land Board has been involved in this dispute for several years.

The Supreme Court has heard other issues in the case already and released a ruling in 2019 favorable to the state, which has since sought to collect what could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid royalties from a number of oil and gas companies. At the center of the original dispute was whether companies such as Newfield could deduct transportation and gathering costs from royalties paid for the development of state-owned minerals.

The Land Board's attempts to collect the money have faced significant pushback from the oil and gas industry, which viewed the state's initial efforts as punitive. The industry backed legislation last year that capped the length of time for which the state could seek to collect unpaid royalties at seven years.

Schmidt upheld that law after it passed. The Land Board still takes issue with its retroactive applicability, as the law prohibits the state from collecting royalties owed before August 2013. The state is asking the Supreme Court to consider the matter in its appeal.

The Department of Trust Lands has estimated that the state will forgo collecting $69.4 million in royalties owed before August 2013 because of the new limit. Royalty money benefits public education through a number of trusts managed by the board and the department.

Land Board members directed their attorney to move forward with the appeal in a session closed to the public. No vote took place, Smith said. North Dakota Newspaper Association Attorney Jack McDonald said that process appears to have followed the state's open meetings laws.

"While it would have been nice to have a vote on the record, it's not required," McDonald said. "A board can act by consensus."

Newfield has been acquired by the oil and gas producer Ovintiv, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the appeal Monday.

Neither party has submitted any written arguments in the appeal to the Supreme Court. The state filed a notice of appeal last week.

Reach Amy R. Sisk at 701-250-8252 or amy.sisk@bismarcktribune.com.

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Whether Boris Johnson in the U.K. or Pelosi, Newsome, Whitmer, and Lightfoot in the U.S., political elites tend to think the rules are only for the little people. What we need is a return to the true citizen legislator. []

Each mornings headlines in the British press bring new details of parties happening inside Boris Johnsons government while the rest of the United Kingdom and much of the world was locked down in isolation because of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020 and well into 2021. It doesnt appear that it was just the prime minister and his staff breaking protocol, but dozens of bureaucrats and ministers scattered throughout the PMs office and Whitehall more broadly, even while the nation mourned the passing of the prince consort, the 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh.

During the same span of months, prominent U.S. politicians made the news when they broke COVID protocols. In September 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was photographed at an indoor appointment with a hairdresser in San Francisco. Just a couple of months later, California governor Gavin Newsome attended a birthday party in Napa Valley that violated the protocols he himself had mandated in the state. Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot vehemently defended her own salon appointment as essential just days after saying, getting your roots done is not essential. And more recently, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who had ordered some of the most controversial and draconian COVID lockdowns in the nation, was photographed having dinner in a restaurant with a group of friends twice as large as her own protocols allowed. While there seems to be significant political fallout in the U.K. for Boris Johnson, there has been relatively little for the U.S. politicians, with these stories having all but vanished from the news cycle.

While these events have occurred in two countries with two different political systems, two different press corps, and very different electorates, what will probably end with Johnsons fall from political power but no lasting consequences for the others in the U.S. cannot be reduced to a generalized and vague media bias. After all, Johnson is no Thatcherite, and there remain questions about his commitment to conservative principles as government spending and intervention soar under this Tory government with a huge majority that would allow for the enactment of almost any policies with little effective opposition. Apart from Brexit, a left-leaning media should appreciate much about Johnsons policies.

The personal hypocrisy of these politicians and their political allies in two different parts of the world reveals a problem common to the political class regardless of whether they are generally on the left or on the right. The problem just manifests itself differently because of the different ways in which right and left tend to frame political speech in public discourse. We have entered an unfortunate phase of political life in which even the usually unnuanced and vague labels of left and right have become particularly unhelpful and unmoored from any coherent principles. But it is safe to say that the political landscape in the West is dominated by activists and populists.

Activists, of the left or right, promise (and usually deliver) the use of the levers of power to shape society and coerce certain behavior. This manifests itself in policies like vaccine mandates and extravagant taxation of certain behaviors as a deterrent rather than a means of raising revenue for necessary government functions.

Populists, who are also found on the left and the right, frame their political manifestos in people vs. elite terms. The populist politician is, at least according to the rhetoric, a political outsider just as disgusted with government corruption and inefficiency as the average voter. He or she is on the side of the little guyfamily business against corporate interests; Smalltown, USA against Washington, D.C.; the North of England against London. Populists usually promise (and deliver) policies like protectionist tariffs and policies with at least a veneer of disadvantage to corporate elites.

A problem common to both groups is that they understand government to be a weapon rather than a tool. For the activist left, the government provides the means to realize a better world by forcing people to act in certain ways, insisting that the majority (or at least the right-thinking) will (finally) fall into lockstep once they experience how wonderful the world can be. For the populists, the government provides the means to grab the reins of power from the elites and right the ship of state by redistributing privileges and disadvantages.

In practice, neither group ever thinks of itself as having emerged from the electorate. They are not citizens who happen to hold elected office and are entrusted with dangerous tools that can easily become weapons. They are, depending on the rhetoric, revolutionaries or deliverers or champions of some disadvantaged class or more perfect ideology. It should come as no surprise, then, that it never occurs to them that rules apply to them. The unwashed masses gathering maskless in homes, restaurants, or in salons otherwise mandated to be closed are a threat to public health. But when the politicos do the same, such threats magically evaporate.

Both perspectives threaten the stability and legitimacy of liberal democracy. If there are two classesthose subject to the law and those above itthe rule of law has functionally ceased to exist. Trust is a key ingredient in political legitimacy, and if elected officials cannot be trusted, then that legitimacy wanes. Unfortunately, the West is well beyond a crisis point on this front, and the lockdown parties of Boris Johnson and hair appointments of Nancy Pelosi have merely added fuel to already raging fires.

It would be naive to argue that the West needs a sentimental return to any political discourse or type of politician of a past age or era. The West does need, however, the realization and cultivation of Alexis de Tocquevilles ideal citizen, who who knows how to take his place [in the polity] and to participate in its governance. This citizen is one who has an active and conscious awareness of his status as citizen while secondarily being a mere participant in government. Citizens who merely participate in government have a stake in the law because it is the law that will ultimately be the guarantor of their rights, enjoin their actions, and define their obligations to their neighbors. Such citizens know how easily they could be mourning the loss of a spouse of 50 years who is dying alone in the ICU with loved ones or even the final comforts of clergy available only through an iPhone. The gravity of the consequences of the law, any law, is always a consideration of Tocquevilles ideal citizen because every citizen shares in both the promises and the liabilities of the laws that govern our common lives together.

Boris Johnsons political career is likely all but over, while Newsomes, Pelosis, Whitmers, and Lightfoots are still stable, and the reasons for that are complex. It is notoriously hard to compare politicians from different national contexts, but what appears to be true is that all of them lack a vigilant awareness of their status as citizens that places them under the laws to which they would subject the rest of us, and that is not a hopeful sign for our political discourse or the stability of our democracies in the immediate
"BA.2" is a bad name, but that's what we're are stuck with. Maybe we can call it "batu," which means "prevailing" or "preponderant" in Turkish. That's appropriate because this variant is kicking omicron's ass in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Singapore, and India.

From City A.M.

Various media across Scandinavia and the UK are reporting the emergence of a new Covid variant that is so infectious and spreading so fast that nearly half of all cases in Denmark are now the new mutation, named BA.2, with more than 400 confirmed infections across the UK.

The new mutation has reportedly also popped up in Norway, Sweden, Singapore and India.

Reuters reports that UK health authorities are investigating 426 confirmed cases of BA.2 in Britain, while officials in Denmark said that just over 45 per cent of all new infections in the country are now the new variant.

WHO representatives have rushed to Copenhagen to investigate BA.2, nicknamed 'stealth Omicron' in Danish media as the mutation seems to be pushing the Omicron variant aside fairly quickly.
First, you start calling things "non-lethal aid". Then you start calling weapons "lethal aid". The phrase appears sporadically in news coverage, slowly normalizing itself as a term of art among military-watchers and foreign policy nerds. Then it suddenly bursts into widespread use because of intensive use in military and government communications about "lethal aid" (i.e. to Ukraine). Some media put the term in quotes, because it's a creepy dead-eyed euphemism like "collateral damage" or "enhanced interrogation techniques" and they know it. As time passes, though, media stops putting the term in quotes. After all, everyone knows that it means arms shipments, right? Hey, we're not here to educate readers.

Many outlets HAVE put the phrase in appropriate quotes, however, including Fox News. But NPR and WaPo, those liberal media stalwarts, not so much. pic.twitter.com/c5lnANstz1  Joe Dunman (@JoeDunman) January 23, 2022

Military euphemisms creeping into headlines is a lot like police press releases about "officer-involved" incidents. The intent is different, but the end is the same (facts less clear to readers) and the means requires the co-operation of journalists who know better but have other priorities (productivity, continued access, editors to please, etc.)
A Texas Walmart shopper found just what she was looking for while waiting in the check-out line  a blonde, blue-eyed baby. When she offered his mother $250,000 to purchase the one-year-old boy, the mother said no. So the woman screamed, saying she really wanted him, and upped her offer to $500,000. But the stubborn mother wouldn't give in.

From MSN:

The police, after reviewing footage from Walmart, said the video appeared to confirm the mother's story, according to outlet.

The mom waited for the woman, who was later identified as Rebecca Lanette Taylor, and another person Taylor was with to leave the store before heading to the parking lot, where she was confronted once again. 

"Taylor began screaming at (the mom), saying if she wouldn't take $250,000 for him, then she would give her $500,000 because she wanted him and she was going to take him," the police report stated, according to the newspaper.

The mom, who was with her 1-year-old and another child, locked her children in her car, while Taylor stood behind a black SUV parked next to it. Police said Taylor kept saying she wanted to purchase the baby before eventually leaving in the SUV.
It may only be the start of the year, but the Western New York beer scene already has a handful of noteworthy events. And since we all need something to look forward to in the coming months, why not let local beer be the light at the end of your tunnel? Or cider. Or seltzer. Or whatever fills your glass.

From beer festivals centered around the best of New York State barrel-aged beers and barleywines to an event brewed by beer fans for beer fans and another dedicated to showcasing small batch and one-off brews, the first quarter of 2022 is shaping up to be one for the ages.

Here are five cant-miss beer festivals that you need to buy tickets for immediately.

2 to 6 p.m. Jan. 29 at 42 North Brewing Company, 25 Pine St., East Aurora (805-7500)

Barrel Jam is a beer festival dedicated to barrel-aged beer. Festivalgoers will receive a tasting glass for four hours of sampling, a voucher for food from Fat Bobs, live music and a Rail Jam Freestyle Competition. The event is held across 42 Norths brewery campus, including the new 42 Below Barrel-House, an event space and brewery floor. Participating breweries include Eli Fish Brewing Company, Community Beer Works, Thin Man Brewery, BlackBird Cider Works, Lilly Belle Meads and Clarksburg Cider. Tickets: $49.

2 to 5 p.m. Feb. 6 at New York Beer Project, 6933 S. Transit Road, Lockport (743-6927)

The Brewers Invitational, New York Beer Projects annual beer festival, features limited-edition and small-batch beers and the chance to mingle with brewers, brewery owners and fellow beer lovers. Guests will receive a commemorative tasting glass, gift card for NYBP's gastropub and access to tastings of creative craft beers. Breweries include Wandering Gypsy, Four Mile Brewing, RiverWorks Brewing, Britesmith Brewing, Pressure Drop Brewing and West Shore Brewing. Tickets: $45.

1 to 4 p.m. and 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Feb. 12 at Buffalo Niagara Convention Center, 153 Franklin St.

Buffalo On Tap returns to the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center after last taking place at the Hamburg Fairgrounds. Tickets include unlimited refills of craft beers, hard seltzers and ciders from 12 Gates Brewing, 42 North Brewing, Buffalo Brewing, Community Beer Works, Four Mile, Southern Tier, West Shore Brewing, Woodcock Brothers and more. The event will also feature food, craft vendors and live music. Tickets: $40 - $60.

Noon to 5 p.m. Feb. 20 at The Powerhouse, 140 Lee St.

Members of the Buffalo Beer Geeks have teamed up with a number of Western New York businesses for the CollaBEERation Festival, which will feature small-batch creations from 34 breweries, three cideries, two meaderies and more that was created specifically for this event. Participants include 1927 Brew House, Belt Line Brewery, Big Ditch Brewing, Fifth Frame, Frequentem and Pantomime Mixtures. Craft vendors and food trucks will also be on hand. Tickets: $55.

Noon to 4 p.m. Feb. 27 at Community Beer Works, 520 Seventh St. (759-4677)

The second annual Thee Barleywine Classic, an intimate gathering of select craft breweries coming together to celebrate and showcase the wonderful style of barleywine, returns for 2022 to Community Beer Works. Tickets include 10 tastings with the option to buy additional tasting tickets, a custom tasting glass, bowl of chili and cornbread, and live music. Featured breweries include Bolton Landing Brewing, New York Beer Project, Old First Ward, Prison City Brewing, Rare Form and Resurgence Brewing. This intimate festival gives you the opportunity to take your time with each round, ask questions and enjoy every ounce of many delicious barleywines. Tickets: $45.

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By Trend

Croatia will send three delegation to Azerbaijan for the upcoming Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Councils meeting in February, Croatian embassy in Baku told Trend.

There will be 3 delegations from the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development of the Republic of Croatia: State Secretary Ivo Milati?, Director Kristina ?eli? and Florijana ?edovi?, Head of Business Unit of EU Funds at Plinacro Ltd, said the embassy.

Reportedly, Croatia will also take part in the meeting dedicated to the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP), which is supposed to connect to TAP to transport gas to more countries in South-East Europe.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is comprised of Shah Deniz 2, the South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion, the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) became fully operational on December 31, 2020.

Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) AG confirmed on Dec. 31 the commencement of gas flows from Azerbaijan. The first gas has reached Greece and Bulgaria, via the Nea Mesimvria interconnection point with DESFA, as well as Italy, via the Melendugno interconnection point with SNAM Rete Gas (SRG).

TAP transports natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe. The 878 km long pipeline connects with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crosses Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.

The first meeting of the SGC Advisory Council was held on February 12, 2015, the second meeting - on February 29, 2016, the third meeting - on February 23, 2017, the fourth meeting - on February 15, 2018, the fifth meeting  on February 20, 2019, the sixth meeting was held on Feb.28, 2020 and the seventh meeting on Feb.11, 2021.
Lisa and Randy Beiner found the perfect place to worship six years ago in Amherst, about 20 minutes from their Fort Erie, Ont., home.

Members of Congregation Brith Hadoshah, a Messianic synagogue, became like family for the couple, whose closest biological family members are in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

But travel restrictions between Canada and the United States during the Covid-19 pandemic have made it nearly impossible for the Beiners to attend services and celebrate religious holidays with their adopted family.

Mentally and emotionally it really takes a toll. Thats our place of worship. Its family, said Lisa Beiner, who was among a dozen people who rallied Sunday afternoon at Mather Arch in Fort Erie for the two nations to reopen the border fully again, without onerous Covid-19 testing requirements. "We don't have family here. That's our support system."

Three people showed up at Pat Sole Park in Buffalo, near the base of the Peace Bridge, to protest border crossing requirements.

Frank Lowinger, rabbi of Congregation Brith Hadoshah, said the current restrictions are unfair and impractical.

Were here in solidarity with friends in Canada, he said. Its been keeping families apart for two years and closing borders isnt going to make any difference in regards to Covid.

Technically, the border is not closed to travelers either way, but Canada requires a negative molecular test prior to entry, even for fully vaccinated citizens. The United States on Saturday began requiring all noncitizens and all nonpermanent residents to show proof of vaccination prior to entry.

Beiner said it would cost $500 for her and her husband to get tested to reenter Canada, and another $500 for their two children, with no guarantees that they could get testing results back in a timely manner to make the trip. Government-provided health insurance in Canada doesn't pay for testing, nor does Lisa Beiner's supplemental insurance through her employer, she said.

We cant afford to spend that money. Groceries are going up. Bills are going up, she said. As long as the testing is there, we cant go.

Canadians can get free PCR tests in Erie County, but results often don't come back in time, and the tests are difficult to schedule for travelers spending only a day or two in the U.S.

Beiner said both she and her husband got vaccinated with the idea that it would allow them to travel freely back and forth across the border.

The Beiners arent the only family from Southern Ontario who are members of Congregation Brith Hadoshah on Alberta Drive. The next nearest Messianic synagogue, where congregants celebrate Jewish holy days and traditions while also believing in Jesus as Messiah, is in Toronto, an hour to 90 minutes away.

The small local rallies Sunday coincided with a larger movement in Canada to protest a mandate requiring unvaccinated truckers entering Canada from the U.S. to get a Covid-19 test and quarantine. Vaccinated truckers may enter and not have to quarantine. The mandate took effect Jan. 15. A convoy of protesting truckers took off from Vancouver on Sunday and is expected to arrive in Ottawa on Saturday for a sit-in at the Canadian capital.

A local group, Families are Essential, began regularly protesting border crossing prohibitions last April. Those protests stopped after both countries lifted their travel bans, but the group organized the rallies Sunday to call attention to cumbersome testing requirements, said Marcella Picone of Williamsville.

Picones Canadian fiance, the father of their two children, lives in Hamilton, Ont., and was unable to come into the United States for two years.

Picone said she entered Canada prior to a new vaccine mandate that took effect Jan. 15 and will stay indefinitely so that my family can be together.

She was fortunate to do so because she can work remotely, but other families may not have such flexibility, she said.

Picone said Families are Essential does not take a position on vaccines.

Its all just lift the mandates, she said.

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ALBANY  I have covered lots of big, important issues, and a ton of not-so-big. Done all the campaign stuff, witnessed imploding political careers and reputations, and encountered many serious and smart people doing work that directly affected the lives and wallets of millions of New Yorkers.

I came to Albany from Washington, D.C., in 1988 on the one-year plan. Marriage, kids, friends and the great opportunity to cover such an important state capital kept me here.

As I step back from daily journalism, here are some memories. These are not the big, history-making moments at the Capitol, but just some I take with me.

In no particular order:

Hidden spots

I was staking out then-Gov. Mario Cuomo in the early 1990s at the Capitol as his car arrived in a narrow space under the soaring set of stairs on the east side of the Capitol. If you wanted to grab a governor, it still is the best spot if you can time when they are entering the building (about six or seven minutes after their helicopter lands at a spot several miles away). The long stairway outside was already etched in my memory. Somewhere there is a photo of me, when I was about 9, on my first trip to Albany, standing on those steps the day my parents and I traveled with my oldest brother to an Army office to sign some papers before being sent to war in Vietnam.

Youve been a real (expletive) to me, but come on," Cuomo said as I approached him. He then took me on a tour that included the secret elevator between the first and second floors of the Capitol, with a stop in a deeply hidden room where, he told me, Franklin Roosevelt, as governor and with polio, would receive massages. I credit Mario Cuomo  after watching him make mincemeat of some colleagues  with teaching me how to ask a question in ways that 1) didnt backfire on me and 2) gave less wiggle room for politicians to avoid.

Pataki v. Cuomo

This was election night in 1994, after filing a final story around midnight that Cuomo lost his bid for a fourth term. I walked from my hotel to the nearby Hilton in midtown Manhattan, already exhausted after flying around the state with George Pataki in the final days of his campaign  including a remarkable brawl between Cuomo and Pataki supporters outside the governors mansion in Albany. I tapped the penthouse button on the elevator, and, upon emerging, a full but surprisingly small celebration was underway. The newly elected governors at-the-time tiny State Police detail didnt stop me. So, I entered to see if I could grab any color for a story the next day. Pataki came up to me, pounded me  hard  on my shoulders and said, repeatedly, You didnt think I could beat him. You didnt think I could beat him. I actually never thought that. Many of us believed Pataki and his rag-tag team had perfectly figured out a path to victory against Cuomo.

Life can be humbling

One day, I happened to be hanging outside Patakis office just checking who was going in and out. A Syracuse-area school group came by on a tour. Pataki, always gracious, walked up to them, greeted them and gave them some great insights about the Capitol. He finished his chat after a few minutes. The teacher turned to him and asked: And you are? He responded: Governor George Pataki. It was funny to witness, but also provided multiple lessons for me, and perhaps, Pataki.

Humbling moments, Part II

In 2007, Eliot Spitzer went to an Albany Head Start program to try to show his soft and cozy side after quickly earning a reputation at the Capitol for having anything but those characteristics. He read the youngsters If You Give a Pig a Pancake. He told the kids they could call him Eliot. I want to call you clown," one boy said. A second kid agreed with the title. And another. Spitzer, a father and former prosecutor, sought some control of the situation. All right. Do you like clowns? he said to them. In response, a fourth kid said: I want to call you Chuck E. Cheese.

Pork, pork and more pork

I once spent months researching how the late then-Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (RIP), an Albany area Republican, used his influence to pump billions into the counties in and around his district. The Buffalo News ran a multiday series about the Bruno largess for the Albany area and how it represented pork barrel politics at its worst and vividly illustrated the power of a legislative leaders influence on his community at the cost to other regions. On the final day of the series, I went to a speech Bruno gave to a local business group at an Albany hotel. In his speech, he singled me out as I stood in the back of the room, and noted, proudly, that even The Buffalo News recognized all the money he had provided for his Albany-area communities. I recall him winking at me as he left the hotel.

An aviation tragedy

In the aftermath of the Flight 3407 airline crash in 2009 in Clarence, a devastating moment for so many people, my paper had extensive follow-up stories by reporters who I already knew to be among the most committed and talented journalists in any newsroom anywhere. My interest was on commercial aviation training, given what appeared to be, long before the investigation was complete, a problem with how the pilots handled the plane. I spent months talking to pilots, crash investigators, air traffic controllers, pilot instructors, airline sources and others. Among the many themes I kept hearing: the eroding stick and rudder skills of pilots. I talked to so many pilots, including former Navy aviators, who kept mentioning training shortcomings, and how too much reliance was placed on automatic pilot software by some pilots.

Stick and rudder. What did that mean? I found an aerobatic pilot who took me up in his Citabria plane. After takeoff from the grass runway in his backyard, we rolled, stalled, hit near zero G force, did a touch-and-go outside Woodstock on a narrow grass runway with trees seemingly within touch as we landed on what was aptly called the Strip-in-the-Woods. We then headed above the Catskills, and he banked left and right to follow the curves of the mountains as we descended through a dizzying stretch. In that hour, I came to appreciate stick and rudder skills. The series, which I wrote with my partner, Jerry Zremski, would go on to help change the nations commercial pilot training rules.

Off-script

I dont recall the exact school, but it was a high school from one of the suburban Buffalo districts. Students were touring the Capitol and one of their teachers asked if I would speak to the students about how Albany works, how a bill becomes law and such civics lessons.

Perhaps my opening line was a bit of a hammer, and, OK, rather insensitive in retrospect. Forget what youve been told in your high school classes," I said as I then went into a talk  it was NOT a rant  about how Albany really works, the role of money in politics and government, corruption. My memory is the teachers thanking me in the end, but not too wholeheartedly. It's probably just a coincidence that no other visiting high schools over the years asked me to provide my keen insights to their students.

A hockey fan

In 2012, The Buffalo News had an idea: I would record audio interviews of people and it would be put on the papers website. One of those I asked was then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. I didnt want to talk politics and government, but hockey. He was an avid New York Rangers fan, a season ticket holder. I grew up a Rangers fan and he thought I followed the team far more than I actually did. Besides, they had already finally won the Stanley Cup in my lifetime by then.

Not one to be overly revealing or to ever really show emotion, Silver opened up in talking about hockey strategy, gave tips for how to play against certain teams, his chats over the years with Wayne Gretzky, and on and on. He talked of becoming a different person at hockey games. "Yes, Im cheering  Yes, I wear my Rangers hat, except when Im in Buffalo at Rangers/Sabres games, obviously," he said of his annual trips to Buffalo to see the two teams play mixed in, conveniently, with a fundraiser for himself.

In 2018, I was covering yet another corruption trial, this time in a Manhattan federal court featuring Joe Percoco, the longtime friend and adviser of Andrew Cuomo, and others. After one of the days proceedings, the court cleared. Minutes later, Silver went in. He was to appear before the same judge in advance of a retrial in his own separate corruption case, which would eventually send him to prison.

I popped back into the courtroom. His lawyers were huddled off to the side with prosecutors as they awaited the judges entry. By himself standing at a table was Silver, who I had not seen or talked to in years. His first words when he saw me: So, you going to the Rangers game tonight at the Garden?"

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Last Wednesday, Senate Republicans employed the filibuster to block legislation that would have restored provisions from the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and made it easier for most voters to participate in elections, including by expanding early voting, same-day registration, and mail-in balloting.

In a last-ditch effort to push the legislation through, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-NY, moved to reform the filibuster to render it incapable of blocking bills that are supported by a 51-49 majority. That measure also failed, meaning that federal action to strengthen voting rights in 2022 looks to be a nonstarter.

As New York City modeled last December, however, when the City Council established provisions granting non-citizens the right to participate in municipal elections if they meet residency requirements, local governments can step in to strengthen democracy where the federal government fails to do so.

New York Citys example is particularly instructive for places like Buffalo that benefit from large and growing immigrant populations. Indeed, while Buffalo celebrates its first-in-seven-decades population growth, which was ostensibly made possible by immigrants and refugees, it denies those residents the ability to participate in municipal elections to help shape the government of the city they are currently helping to revitalize. But this affront to the core democratic principle of being included in collective decisions that affect ones life is not unchangeable  as our counterparts downstate have so clearly demonstrated  nor has it always been standard practice.

For the first 150 years of U.S. history, immigrants in as many as 40 states and territories were capable of voting in American elections. Voting rights were predominantly tied to residency, not citizenship. Nonetheless, the institution of resident-based voting, which started out as common and noncontroversial, was steadily eroded, one state at a time, by nativist power holders who increasingly perceived and framed immigrants as a collective threat to the status quo. By the end of World War I, citizenship requirements for voting had come to supplant resident-based voting almost everywhere on the map.

The reason that resident-based voting was able to occur in different states and times, and why it can still occur in places like New York City (effective next year), is that the U.S. Constitution does not preclude it. States and local governments decide who can and cannot vote in their elections.

NYCs experience shows that home rule cities in New York have the power to strengthen their local democracies by restoring immigrants rights to participate in municipal elections. Buffalo has an extraordinary opportunity to join NYC in establishing stronger voting rights at the local level, thereby prefiguring and setting an example for stronger democracy at the state and national levels.

To read more about resident-based voting rights and how they can be enacted in Buffalo, or to explore data on the size and geographies of Buffalos non-citizen voting-age population, visit highroadpolicy.org.

Russell Weaver, Ph.D., is a geographer and research director at the Cornell University School of Industrial Labor Relations Buffalo Co-Lab.
In Williamsville, the Village Board doesnt care about residents health and also doesnt care how much they have to spend proving that they dont. A majority of them would rather spend thousands of dollars than pay a small fine and get serious about public health.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz announced last week that the county Health Department had fined Williamsville $300 for flouting mask-wearing rules. Against all common sense, the Village Board on Thursday voted, 3-2, to retain attorney Todd Aldinger to wage a legal fight against the fine. Among those approving this attack on logic was Mayor Deb Rogers.

The village undoubtedly spends more than $300 a year on ink for its office printers. To commit what will likely be thousands of dollars in village resources to contest a $300 fine looks more like an investment in getting publicity than anything else.

Village Trustees Christine L. Hunt and Eileen Torre both cast no votes. Torre said after the vote that the $300 citation could easily cost the village $10,000 or more just to fight it, whether we win or lose our legal defense. And, lets be clear: What the village hopes to win is the right to more easily spread a virus that continues to kill, here and around the world.

The county citation says if the village does not agree to pay the $300 fine, it must appear at a hearing where penalties could be as much as $1,000.

Erie County levied the fine following a Jan. 10 Village Board meeting at which the mayor and members of the audience did not wear masks, in violation of county and state mask mandates.

Rogers said in a radio interview last week that she had complied with Erie County regulations by posting signs in Village Hall stating that masks are required for those who are able to medically tolerate them. She added that enforcing the rules is up to the county Health Department.

I am going on the assumption that if someone is at one of my board meetings without a mask, I am going to assume at that point that they are not medically able to tolerate it, Rogers said on WBEN.

The mayor did not say if that was her reason for declining to wear one herself on Jan. 10. But shes the leader. She should set the example. Instead, she plays games.

And, of course, the county is enforcing the mandate. It levied the fine.

Rogers told the radio station that she is not anti-mask, but that she believes our business owners should have the ability to decide whether or not they want to put a mask requirement into their business. She said several business owners had told her that the county guidelines on face coverings had hurt them financially. But what does that have to do with paying a fine that her own misbehavior invited? At best shes being disingenuous; at worst, deceitful.

Its nothing new for government regulations aiming to contain Covid-19 to fan the flames of political discord. Executives who assume emergency powers to meet the health emergency are resisted by opponents who claim their constitutional rights are being trampled.

In Virginia, the opposite scenario is playing out. The states new Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, issued an executive order rescinding the statewide mask mandate in schools. A group of 13 parents of students enrolled in Chesapeake City Public Schools filed suit last week, saying the governors order violated the state constitution and conflicts with a Virginia law passed last summer that requires schools to follow federal health guidelines to the maximum extent practicable.

The outside attorney hired by the village, Aldinger, maintains a Twitter feed thats full of derogatory references to face diapers and the libs, and showing support for vaccine resister Novak Djokovic, the tennis star. That betrays the villages thinking about this and shows that residents tax dollars are being spent to reward a political agenda rather than put this embarrassing mess behind.

  

Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing.
I believe using taxpayer dollars to support and defend a personal agenda is, in one word, immoral.

The Village of Williamsvilles Mayor, Deb Rogers, is attempting to do just that  by hiring outside counsel to defend the Villages (Rogers) decision to ignore the mask mandate.

Mayor Rogers, I do not like government interfering in my affairs either. However, Western New York, and specifically the Village of Williamsville, are not the Wild West. There are laws, mandates and rules which must be followed. If you and your followers do not like them, you have an option: move.

My suggestion is to simply ask the Village of Williamsville Trustees for their support to allow you to authorize payment for the fine issued by Erie County. Just pay the fine and move on. Everyone makes mistakes. Ive had to pay fines for my mistakes and have never regretted doing so once I put my arrogance and ego aside.

My suggestion for the villages next agenda item would be to more closely monitor Timothy Masters, the Village of Williamsvilles Code Enforcement Officer to make certain our Village continues to be the beautiful Village it is.

Florence Krieter

Village of Williamsville
Recently a news story appeared about a letter sent between friends in Northern Ireland. The two had wanted to keep in touch but they had neglected to give each other their proper addresses.

The determined sender of the letter decided to take a chance, so she wrote her friends name and his city, then a mini-biography of him which hed casually chatted to her about previously, on the envelope in hopes the postal workers in his city could identify him. Things like: Lives across the road from (where) his ma and da used to own.  Plays guitar and used to run discos in the '80s. Friends with the fella runs the butchers in Waterfoot.

When the letter arrived at the post office in its city of destination, one of the mail sorters said, I know exactly who that is, and the letter was duly delivered.

The story reminded me of a similar incident when I was an exchange student in Exeter, England, during the 1960s. An American friend attending university in another English city sent me a letter during spring holidays when I was staying in digs, British slang for a student boarding house.

The letter contained information about our upcoming trip to London, for which I needed to finalize our itinerary. My friend knew I had moved from my usual dormitory, which was closed over the break, into digs near it, but did not know the digs exact address, so she wrote on the envelope: Judi Geer: somewhere in digs near Hope Hall, University of Exeter. The letter was delivered by the postal service to the custodian at Hope Hall who was a friend of my digs landlady. Long story short, I got the letter  and had a great time in London.

Maybe its from our English forebears, whose Royal Mail Service was started in 1516, that our nations founders were inspired to establish the U.S. Post Office, which they did definitively by making sure it was part of our federal Constitution (Article II, Sec. 8, #7).

Since then, the U.S. Postal Services tenacious workers have steadfastly maintained the chain on which we Americans have strung our thoughts, dreams, business transactions, travelogues and love stories.

Could be I have a stronger attachment and deeper appreciation for the postal service because my mothers father was a mail carrier in Binghamton in the early 20th century, and I grew up hearing her stories about him. I have a picture of Grampie in his long-coated gray woolen uniform, flat-topped cap on his head, and large leather satchel over his shoulder.

Mother said he walked 20 miles a day, 10 miles out and back in the mornings, then hed repeat the same route in the afternoons after eating a very large dinner at lunchtime to stoke his energy.

Those were the days when the mail was delivered twice every working day. He even walked his route Christmas morning, which is why it was tradition in our family to open our presents on Christmas Eve since that was what Mother was used to doing throughout her childhood.

Because of my grandfather, and also one of my dads cousins who was the kindly postmaster in Holland for many years, I know those who work for the postal service contribute enormously to human interactions in this country; interactions basic to preserving a sense of community among us.

Our postal service strengthens our democracy by being the venerable connecting tissue between we the people and our social and governmental institutions. It deserves our gratitude, esteem and support.
FILE PHOTO: FILE PHOTO: Sign of Cathay Pacific is seen at its headquarters Cathay City in Hong Kong

By Jamie Freed

(Reuters) -Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd said on Monday that it expected to resume burning cash because of stricter crew quarantine measures after flagging a surprise profit in the second half of 2021 due to cost cuts and a strong cargo market.

The airline forecast it would post an annual loss of HK$5.6 billion to HK$6.1 billion for 2021, well below the average HK$10.2 billion estimate from 12 analysts polled by Refinitiv and its HK$21.65 billion loss in 2020.

The full-year forecast was also narrower than the first-half loss of HK$7.57 billion, with Cathay pointing to positive cashflow generation in the second half.

However, the airline forecast it would burn through HK$1 billion to HK$1.5 billion of cash a month starting in February after the government tightened crew quarantine restrictions, forcing the airline to cut cargo and passenger capacity sharply.

Cathay is operating about 2% of its pre-pandemic passenger capacity and about 20% of its pre-pandemic cargo capacity in January.

Rival Singapore Airlines Ltd, which also lacks a domestic market but has less-strict travel rules, forecasts it will reach 47% and 45% of pre-COVID passenger capacity in January and February respectively.

The schedules listed on Cathay's website for February and March appear about as light as January, with only a handful of flights per month to destinations such as London, Sydney and Tokyo that had multiple daily flights before the pandemic. Flights to mainland China are less affected.

"Until conditions improve, we are doing everything in our power to maximise capacity, and estimate that mitigation measures to increase crew resources will enable us to operate approximately an additional 5% more cargo flight capacity than we are currently operating," Cathay Chief Executive Augustus Tang said in a statement.

Hong Kong, which has been pursuing a "zero-COVID" strategy in hopes of opening its border with mainland China, has suspended transit flights from most of the world.

Story continues

The financial centre last month introduced tighter crew quarantine rules after two Cathay crew members who broke self-isolation measures sparked a COVID-19 outbreak in the city.

The two have since been fired, arrested and charged over the breaches.

($1 = 7.7880 Hong Kong dollars)

(Reporting by Jamie Freed in Sydney; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Gerry Doyle)
Denise Netzley embracing nomadic living. Denise Netzley

Airbnb is seeing users book longer stays, with 20% of nights booked for a month or more.

One long-term traveller told Insider she has been living on Airbnb for the past six months.

Although she's funding the trip with an inheritance, her monthly costs are comparable to her former rent.

The decision came  as life-changing ones tend to do  in the middle of the night.

It was January of last year and Denise Netzley said she had been thinking for several weeks about moving out of her apartment in Los Angeles and living for the foreseeable future on Airbnb.

"I woke up," she told Insider, "and I was just like, 'Yeah, I'm doing this, 100% I'm doing this.'"

The following morning she started getting rid of what belongings she could, moved the rest into storage, and made reservations on Airbnb.

At 59 years old, Netzley had some savings from a career producing ads for Hollywood films, followed by a personal assistant business that was winding down. She also received an inheritance following the death of her father three years ago, which she said made the whole plan possible.

Denise Netzley Denise Netzley

In becoming a full-time Airbnb guest, Netzley was joining a growing set of power users who are booking longer and longer reservations on the platform.

Company data show that roughly a fifth of nights booked were for stays longer than a month, CEO Brian Chesky said in a recent Twitter thread in which he announced that he too is now "living on Airbnb."

The first reservation Netzley made was the one where she's currently living  in her father's birthplace of Kansas City, Missouri. From there she worked backwards, filling in the months with stays in Mexico and South Africa.

In making the reservations, Netzley discovered by accident that some hosts offer discounts ranging from 15% to 50% when a reservation passes a certain length.

In May of last year, Netzley handed over the keys to her LA apartment and departed for a six-week stay in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico.

Story continues

"The first few days there I was completely overwhelmed, a fish out of water," she said. "But after the first week I got the lay of the land and I got comfortable enough to rent a car and start taking these day trips to different places, like Tulum."

Denise Netzley in South Africa. Denise Netzley

Netzley's advice to similarly out-of-water fish is simple: "Sit at the bar in any restaurant when you go, people are going to be more inclined to be conversational. The bartender is going to help make connections. I just always sit at the bar almost anywhere I go."

She spent August in a Kansas City neighborhood that she was considering to live post-travel before jetting off to Cape Town where a condo in a ten-unit building became her two-month base-camp for shorter jaunts around Africa.

"I found that I like having a home base," she said. "I just love the idea that I didn't have to schlep everything. I could just take a small bag and leave my stuff."

Netzley added that she was able to get by with bringing about half the amount of stuff to Africa that she had brought with her to Mexico.

And although she wasn't keeping a close eye on her budget, the purchasing power of the US dollar overseas meant that she was effectively living at a similar or lower monthly cost to what she would have paid in rent and expenses had she simply stayed in LA.

On her way back to the US in December, she passed through Uganda and went on a gorilla trek that she said was the "absolute pinnacle" of the six-month journey.

Now back in Kansas City at the same Airbnb host she stayed with in August, Netzley says she's "at a crossroads" trying to determine how she can continue to support her future travels, including launching a new business idea.

Before she had set out in the first place, she had decided not to become attached to the inheritance money from her father, and now she's determined not to let this new business take over too much of her life.

"I've discovered in this travel  and in this year  that there's so much joy out there," Netzley said." I would never give up that for money, ever."

Read the original article on Business Insider
South Africa: NICD urges people with 'unexplained' fever to get tested for malaria

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) is calling on everyone presenting with a fever or a flu-like illness residing in Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga or people who have travelled to Mozambique in the past six weeks to be tested for malaria.

According to the NICD, in a statement released on Monday, tests can be done by blood smear microscopy or rapid diagnostic test and patients should be started on malaria treatment immediately if they test positive.

Despite South Africa entering its peak malaria season, many malaria cases are being misdiagnosed as COVID-19. Both malaria and COVID-19 have similar non-specific early symptoms including fever, chills, headaches, fatigue and muscle pain.

The NICD has cautioned that undiagnosed and untreated malaria rapidly progresses to severe illness, with a potentially fatal outcome.

In addition, the institute said patients should always remember to inform their healthcare provider of their recent travel, particularly to neighbouring countries and malaria-risk areas locally.

Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga are considered South Africas malaria-risk areas, while Mozambique is among the 10 nations with the highest burden of the fatal disease worldwide.

Odyssean or taxi malaria', transmitted by hitch-hiking mosquitoes, should be considered in a patient with unexplained fever who has not travelled to a malaria-endemic area, but is getting progressively sicker, with a low platelet count, the NICD explained.

According to the NICD, malaria is a potentially life-threatening disease caused by blood parasites of the genus Plasmodium, which are transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes.

In the human body, the parasites first multiply in the liver and then infect the red blood cells.

Globally, malaria is one of the six major causes of death from communicable diseases, of which 90% of the worlds approximately 440 000 annual malaria fatalities occur in Africa.

According to the NICDs data, from 2015 to 2019, South Africa had between 10 000 and 30 000 notified cases of malaria per year.

The Elimination Eight Initiative (E8) is a coalition of eight Southern African countries working across national borders to eliminate malaria by 2030.

Meanwhile, South Africa is one of four front-line E8 countries earmarked to eradicate malaria by 2025.

While South Africa has made significant progress towards eliminating malaria, the NICD said the country still needs to do more.

Access to malaria services needs to be expanded to ensure that all malaria carriers are detected and treated to prevent the seeding of secondary transmission.  SAnews.gov.za

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
By Trend

Republic of Serbia will be represented at the upcoming Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Councils meeting in Baku in February by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of mining and energy, prof. Zorana Mihajlovi?, PhD, Serbian ministry of mining and energy told Trend.

Serbian delegation will also include a secretary of state and assistant minister, said the ministry.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which is comprised of Shah Deniz 2, the South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion, the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) became fully operational on December 31, 2020.

Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) AG confirmed on Dec. 31 the commencement of gas flows from Azerbaijan. The first gas has reached Greece and Bulgaria, via the Nea Mesimvria interconnection point with DESFA, as well as Italy, via the Melendugno interconnection point with SNAM Rete Gas (SRG).

TAP transports natural gas from the giant Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea to Europe. The 878 km long pipeline connects with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Turkish-Greek border in Kipoi, crosses Greece and Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Southern Italy.

The first meeting of the SGC Advisory Council was held on February 12, 2015, the second meeting - on February 29, 2016, the third meeting - on February 23, 2017, the fourth meeting - on February 15, 2018, the fifth meeting  on February 20, 2019, the sixth meeting was held on Feb.28, 2020 and the seventh meeting on Feb.11, 2021.
Panasonic could start mass producing larger-capacity batteries for Tesla as soon as next year. The 4680 cell is said to boost the range of electric vehicles by over 15 percent. As Nikkei notes, that could boost the range of the Model S from 650km (404 miles or so) on a single charge to 750km (around 465 miles).

Although the battery is said to be twice as big as previous versions, it has a fivefold increase in energy capacity, according to Nikkei. As such, cars need fewer of the batteries, which are already 10 to 20 percent cheaper to produce. It's estimated that batteries account for 30 percent of the cost of EVs. A cost reduction could make EVs more affordable and hasten the transition to electric vehicles. What's more, a longer range means drivers won't need to charge batteries as often.

Panasonic, a long-time partner of Tesla, is reportedly investing around 80 billion yen ($704 million) on new equipment to produce the 4680. It's said to be expanding an existing plant in Japan and making the batteries there to begin with. Nikkei reports the company will start making the cells on a small scale this year to develop safe and efficient processes before entering mass production in 2023. It may mass produce the batteries in other countries later.

The company confirmed to Reuters that it was setting up a test production line in 2022, though didn't say when it will start making the batteries at a larger scale. "We are studying various options for mass production," it said.

Panasonic started working on the cell following a request from Tesla. The head of Panasonic's battery division said in November that the company hasn't ruled out producing the cell for other automakers, though Tesla is its priority. Tesla CEO Elon Musk previously said that although his company plans to make its own batteries , it would continue to source them from other suppliers.
Evan Rachel Wood claims Marilyn Manson "essentially raped" her while making the music video for his 2007 single "Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)."

The allegation was made in Phoenix Rising, the documentary about Wood's life, including the four-year relationship she was in with the shock rocker. Wood revealed in 2016 that she had been previously raped by a significant other  and in February named Manson as her alleged abuser.

Evan Rachel Wood claims Marilyn Manson "essentially raped" her in his 2007 "Heart-Shaped Glasses" video. "We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real," she says in her Phoenix Rising docuseries. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for HBO)

In the first part of the docuseries, which debuted Sunday at the Sundance Film Festival and will premiere on HBO in March, Wood discussed being groomed into the relationship with Manson (real name: Brian Warner), who was 18 years her senior, in 2006 when she was just 18. She said his "first crime" against her allegedly took place a year later when making his 2007 "Heart-Shaped Glasses" video.

"It's nothing like I thought it was going to be," the actress said of the video, which ended with their characters having sex in bed while drenched in blood. "We were doing things that were not what was pitched to me."

The Westworld actress claimed Manson actually had sex with her. She said she had been fed absinthe on the set and felt barely conscious.

"We had discussed a simulated sex scene, but once the cameras were rolling, he started penetrating me for real," she said. "I had never agreed to that. Im a professional actress, I have been doing this my whole life, Id never been on a set that unprofessional in my life up until this day. It was complete chaos, and I did not feel safe. No one was looking after me."

Manson has denied Wood's allegations  as well as those of others. "My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners," he has said. (Photo: Kurt Krieger - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Wood said it was "a really traumatizing experience filming the video. I didnt know how to advocate for myself or know how to say no because I had been conditioned and trained to never talk back  to just soldier through," explained the Thirteen actress. "I felt disgusting and like I had done something shameful, and I could tell that the crew was very uncomfortable and nobody knew what to do. I was coerced into a commercial sex act under false pretenses."

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She said, "Thats when the first crime was committed against me and I was essentially raped on camera."

Manson has denied Wood's allegations  as well as those from other accusers who came forward, including Game of Thrones actor Esme Bianco and his former assistant Ashley Walters Manson.

Obviously, my life and my art have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality," he said last year. "My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how  and why  others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth."

In the doc, Wood talked about being groomed by Manson, who she claims isolated her from her friends and family. He was the the first adult man who she ever kissed, recalling Manson jamming his tongue down her throat when they were talking and feeling "icky" after. She spoke about them branding their relationship, carving their initials on each other. Wood, who is Jewish, talked about how he also began to express interest in Nazism while they were together, hanging the words "Kill All the Jews" over their bed.

The doc also looks at Wood championing the domestic violence bill Phoenix Act in California, which extends the time victims have to come forward and get justice. It was signed into law in 2019.

Wood spoke after the screening in a virtual Q&A, saying she agreed to make the doc, directed by Amy Berg, because: "It's time for me to tell the truth. It's time for me to finally tell my side. I can't have it told for me anymore and people are going to believe whatever they're going to believe. It's not my job to convince people. I'm not lying. It's my job to tell the truth and that's what I've done."

Wood added, "Unfortunately my story is not unique. Its unique in the way that its been in the spotlight and that its gone virtually unnoticed, but the tactics and everything involved is very common."
Trainee nurse Chloe Slevin with her painting Corona Lisa, which she is to auction for charity (Brian Lawless/PA)

A trainee nurse who reinterprets artistic masterpieces to tell the story of the pandemic has painted the Corona Lisa to raise money for charity.

The striking piece by talented artist Chloe Slevin has Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa dressed in full PPE

The 21-year-old, who is a third year nursing student at University College Dublin is auctioning the painting to raise funds for Irelands childrens hospice LauraLynn.

She drew inspiration from her experiences during a recent placement on a childrens emergency ward.

****FOR RELEASE TODAY AT 11AM****Trainee nurse Chloe Slevin, with her painting Corona Lisa which she is to auction for charity. Ms. Slevin who has reimaged some of the worlds most famous artworks to tell the story of the pandemic has painted the Corona Lisa to raise money for LauraLynn, a hospice for children with life-limiting conditions. Picture date: Friday January 21, 2022. PA Photo. See PA story IRISH Coronavirus Painting. Photo credit should read: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

The PPE became normal to us and we were wearing it day in, day out and thats kind of what inspired the Corona Lisa, she said.

I loved this placement but it was a very tough time. There I experienced my first paediatric cardiac arrest and thats something youd never forget. You never forget the moment you got that phone call, we ran in to put on our PPE and we did everything we could.

It was probably the toughest thing Ive gone through so far, it was an incredibly difficult time. The impact it had on me, I still get emotional talking about it today. With this painting, I was able to turn to this and use that as my own form of art therapy and a distraction.

I suppose the painting holds a special place for me now because of where it came from and it shows what myself and so many other healthcare staff have been going through during Covid

Youre smothered in PPE and its tough. It was a very tough placement but I hope to one day get a job there. Thats my dream to work in an emergency department.

Chloe Slevin with her Covid-themed version of The Separation Of Adam, which she auctioned in aid of childrens ambulance service Bumbleance (Brian Lawless/PA) (PA Archive)

The Corona Lisa is the latest famous artwork the Dublin student has recreated with a Covid twist.

Earlier in the pandemic she painted the outstretched hands in Michelangelos The Separation Of Adam wearing surgical gloves.

That raised 520 euro (435) for Irelands childrens ambulance service Bumbleance.

She also created the Girl With A Surgical Mask in a nod to Johannes Vermeers Girl With A Pearl Earring.

That raised 400 euro (335) for the Feed the Heroes charity, which delivered food to hospital and emergency workers during the height of the pandemic.

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Ms Slevin said she has learned a lot about the palliative care offered to children at LauraLynn during her course, including art therapy, and she wants to support its work.

Theyre such an important charity and the work they do for these families is amazing, so I really want to put this one out there for them, she said.

Chloe Slevin with her painting Girl With A Surgical Mask (Brian Lawless/PA) (PA Archive)

Cathy White, a community fundraising executive at LauraLynn, said art plays an important role in the hospices mission to help create memories for families.

One of the things we always say is that we cant add days into a childs life but we can make those days mean more, and we can help families create memories, she said.

Art is so important and it really gives our children, especially those who might be non-verbal, the chance to communicate.

Most children love art and they love painting and anything like that. It is amazing to see a child enjoy something like that and gosh we probably have more bits and pieces of childrens art in the hospice than I think any school in Ireland, its just amazing.

An online auction for the Corona Lisa will be run on the website of auctioneer Herman & Wilkinson from 10am on January 31 to 6pm on February 3.

Bids can be placed at https://www.herman.ie/.
Man stowed away on Cargolux plane (Flickr/Christian Junker)

A stowaway managed to survive the 11-hour journey from South Africa to the Netherlands while hiding inside the wheel of a cargo plane.

The unidentified man was discovered by Dutch authorities when the aircraft touched down in Amsterdam at Schiphol Airport on 23 January.

Believed to be between 16 and 35 years old, the man was discovered alive after the harrowing journey but with a low body temperature.

We learned that a person was found having stowed away on a cargo plane at the airport's cargo platform this morning, a Schiphol Airport spokesperson told CNN.

Ground crew notified the authorities as soon as the plane, operated by Cargolux, had landed and they spotted something that looked like a person in the nose wheel.

The emergency services were called to the scene and the Dutch Royal Military Police have now taken charge of the situation.

We were surprised upon finding this man but even more surprised at him being alive after the plane flew over 10,000km in very, very cold temperatures, said a Royal Dutch Military Police spokesperson.

When the man has recovered and cleared by the hospital, he will then be processed at the Asylum Seekers Centre (AZC) where his status will be determined if he indeed is looking for asylum.

After medical staff had stabilised the man at Schiphol Airport, he was transported to a hospital in Amsterdam.

Its not the time a traveller has stowed away on an aircraft.

In February 2021, a Kenyan teenager survived a flight from London to Maastricht after climbing into the landing-gear bay area of the fuselage.

The 16-year-old boy was found after the cargo jet landed in the Netherlands.

A spokesperson for Maastricht Aachen Airport said at the time: He had tremendous luck to get through this.

The spokesperson told the NetherlandsNewsLive website that temperatures within the landing gear bay of the Turkish Airlines Airbus A330 would have fallen to minus 30C, adding: Stowaways on airplanes are rare, and most people sadly dont survive the journey.
A Georgia timber company is turning to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its six-year quest to build a frac sand facility on western Wisconsin wetlands.

Meteor Timber is asking the high court to grant a permit for the $75 million project, overturning findings of two lower courts and an administrative law judge.

A state appeals court last month upheld lower court rulings that the state Department of Natural Resources violated the law when it issued Meteor Timber a permit to fill 16.25 acres of wetlands in Monroe County.

The three-judge panel found the DNR lacked sufficient information to assess the environmental impacts of the proposed project and improperly amended a permit that was granted despite dozens of unanswered questions.

The rescinded permit would have been the states single largest destruction of wetlands for a frac sand project.

Meteor argues that the administrative law judge who revoked the permit should have deferred to the agencys expertise and relied less on the testimony of a recently retired DNR ecologist who said there wasnt enough data to assess Meteors mitigation plan.

The petition, filed last week, claims the judge also placed too much emphasis on a heading on the initial permit conditions.

In his view, the heading operated as a specific admission that the Department lacked sufficient information to assess environmental impact, Meteors petition states. To be sure, the heading was not artfully worded. However, it is reasonable to suggest that the meaning of the heading is more ambiguous than perceived

Meteor argues the courts review will develop and clarify the law regarding wetland permit conditions and how much weight administrative law judges should give to government agencies.

The Supreme Court has not said if it will hear the case. Opponents, including Clean Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation, have until next week to respond.

Midwest Environmental Advocates, which has represented the Ho-Chunk Nation, said the court should reject the case but the group is prepared to defend the previous victories.

Meteor Timbers attempts to obtain a permit have been denied by the courts at every level, yet they appear dead set on destroying these irreplaceable wetlands, said MEA spokesperson Peg Sheaffer.

The appeal is the latest act in a five-year legal saga that spans two administrations, multiple courts, and shifting markets for the high-quality Wisconsin sand used to extract oil and gas from deep rock formations.

Meteor applied for the permit in 2016, saying it needed to fill the wetlands to build a processing and rail loading facility near the town of Millston that would serve two nearby mines on land the company acquired when it purchased nearly 50,000 acres of Wisconsin forest.

The company argued the site, on the Union Pacific rail line, was the only viable option to economically deliver its product to oil producers in Texas.

Despite finding that the project would result in permanent and irreversible impacts and the loss of 13.4 acres of exceptional quality imperiled habitat, Gov. Scott Walkers DNR granted a permit that included dozens of conditions and questions. The agency issued a final permit five months later with some of those questions unanswered.

Clean Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation challenged the permits, and an ALJ revoked it after a five-day hearing in 2018.

Meteor petitioned then-Secretary Dan Meyer to overrule the judges decision, but Secretary Preston Cole, appointed by Gov. Tony Evers in January 2019, closed the case without acting on the petition.

Monroe County Circuit Judge Todd Ziegler and a three-judge appeals panel agreed with the ALJs ruling.

In the years since the initial application, Wisconsins sand industry has seen bankruptcies, consolidation and closures amid competition from mines in Texas.

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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 23)  Veteran lawmakers running in the 2022 senatorial polls emphasized the need for the country to forge miltary alliances with neighboring Southeast Asian countries and first-world nations to defend its sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea.

Former Senator JV Ejercito said that while the country must send its most modern military equipment in the disputed waters, they cannot match what China has.

Beijing refuses to honor Manila's victory in the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, which nullified the Asian superpower's expansive claims in the South China Sea.

Ejercito added that military alliances with the country's Southeast Asian neighbors and nations like the United States, Australia, and Japan are vital in maintaining South China Sea as a zone of peace and free travel.

"We won the arbitration in The Hague. It is enshrined in our Constitution that we have to protect and fight for our territorial integrity at all costs," Ejercito said during CNN Philippines' Senatorial Forum on Sunday.

The son of former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada also said the country must emulate Vietnam's strong stance against Chinese vessels entering their territorial waters.

Several Filipino vessels have been involved in incidents with Chinese ships, which entered areas that are within the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Also in the forum, reelectionist Sen. Richard Gordon explained the country needs those military alliances as it is risky to have a "one-on-one" confrontation with China.

"China has a very big influence, kaya tagilid tayo dyan [that's why we can't win]. Ang attitude natin [Our attitude should be] we cannot deal with China one-on-one," Gordon said.

Gordon said the country's assertion of its sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea will help preserve our aquatic resources, boost food security, and protect the livelihood of Filipino fishermen.

Sorsogon Gov. Francis "Chiz" Escudero also said Manila must demand the inclusion of the 2016 arbitral ruling victory in the South China Sea code of conduct between Southeast Asian countries and Beijing.

Escudero said the Philippines is having a hard time asserting the international tribunal ruling because it also affects the interests of other claimant Southeast Asian nations in the South China Sea.

"Hindi man natin kayang ipatupad ang arbitral ruling laban sa China, dahil malayong mas makapangyarihan ang China kumpara sa atin, dapat hindi natin bitiwan o pakawalan ang interes at karapatan natin sa mga karagatan at islang iyan," Escudero said in the televised forum.

[Translation: We may not be able to enforce the arbitral ruling against China, because China is more powerful than us, but we should not let go or relinquish our interests and rights in the seas and islands.]

The country has filed a number of diplomatic protests against Beijing's incursion in areas inside the archipelago's EEZ.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  The government will look into the recommendation of Philippine Red Cross chairman Sen. Richard Gordon to use COVID-19 saliva tests, especially in provinces, to raise the country's testing capacity.

"That can be an option for us and it's going to really help sa mga areas na mahirap maka-access ng [in areas that do not have access to] laboratories," Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire told CNN Philippines' The Source on Monday.

According to Vergeire, Gordons suggestion is "workable and acceptable" especially since there are many PRC laboratories operating in different regions.

However, she explained why the government currently favors the use of antigen test kits among symptomatic individuals.

"Ang antigen kasi very useful ngayon yan sa ating communities kasi ang antigen [Antigen (testing) is very useful in our communities now because it] is most accurate when you have symptoms and a lot of individuals right now are having symptoms," Vergeire explained.

"In a few hours kasi you get the test result already and you can manage the cases already. That's why the antigen test is being pushed by the Department of Health right now," she added.

Vergeire also said that during the Delta surge last year, the government used antigen tests to boost the active case finding and was able to lock down areas with clustering infections.

She said, however, that while the Health department has received over 1.2 million submissions from antigen test results since March last year, they cannot include them in the government's official COVID-19 tally because they only have a 30% proven accuracy.

Vergeire said that clinics and local governments are also mandated to submit antigen test results to them for internal guidance, but that "compliance has been very low."

She added that the department is exploring a chatbox mechanism to communicate with people who yielded positive results from their at-home antigen kits while undergoing isolation.

The Food and Drug Administration is still evaluating the use of antigen kits that can be approved at home. So far, all the antigen tests currently approved by the FDA are only administered by laboratories and healthcare professionals.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III previously shared that mass testing is not feasible at the moment. He said it would incur the government expenses of about 400 million pesos to test 200,000 people every day, or 12 billion a month.
Metro Manila ( CNN Philippines, January 25)  Children aged 5 to 11 can soon receive their coronavirus shot starting Feb. 4, vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. said.

During the weekly televised Cabinet briefing, Galvez said the memorandum guidance will be released within the week, while trainings, meetings, and other preparations in connection to the program have been ongoing to ensure proper implementation.

RELATED: COVID-19 vaccination for kids 5-11: What you need to know

Makaka-assure po tayo, Mr. President, sa ating mga magulang na very safe ang ating gagamitin na bakuna dahil ito ay mas mababa ang formulation na angkop para sa mga bata, he noted. Ngayon mas prepared po tayo at mas experienced.

Galvez said the first batch of supply is expected to arrive next week.

Currently, Pfizer is the only vaccine brand given emergency use authorization for pediatric use.

Based on his presentation, the proposed rollout of vaccines for kids will be done in phases. In the pilot implementation, two sites will be established per city in the National Capital Region that will either be hospital or non-hospital settings.

After this, immunization of kids will be expanded in other sites in NCR and in other regions.

The government aims to inoculate about 14.7 million children belonging to the 5 to 11 age group.
Azerbaijan launches regular bus routes to liberated territories from today.

Regular intercity bus routes are carried out on the Baku  Shusha, Baku Aghdam, Ahmadbayli Shusha, Fuzuli International Airport Shusha, Barda Aghdam directions.

Test runs have already been carried out on each route, the buses that will be operated have been determined.

Trips will be organized on the Ahmadbayli Shusha route four times a week, to other destinations  twice a week. The activities of the bus route Fuzuli Shusha International Airport will be coordinated with air travel.

The fare on the route Baku-Shusha-Baku in one direction will be AZN 10.4, on the route Baku-AgHdam-Baku - AZN 9.4, on the route Ahmadbayli-Shusha-Ahmadbayli (express) - AZN 7, on the route Barda-Agdam -Barda (express) - AZN 5, on the route Fuzuli International Airport - Shusha - AZN 6.

Passengers must book round-trip tickets at the same time.

The movement of passenger buses through the liberated territories of Azerbaijan will be accompanied by police. Passengers must return back on the day of departure. The Azerbaijan National Agency for Mine Action (ANAMA) has conducted mine safety training for drivers.

Buses will run on a specific route. Those wishing to travel to the liberated territories can purchase tickets electronically. For this purpose, the portal yolumuzqarabaga.az has been created.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Half of all retail payments will shift to digital by 2023 with a number of initiatives in place, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas said on Monday.

Monetary officials told a virtual briefing they are working with the Philippine Payments Management, Inc. on the interoperable bills pay facility, request to pay facility and direct debit. They said they hope to roll these out for merchant payments, which comprise 70% of financial transactions.

The bills pay facility allows clients to settle their bills "even if your financial institution is not the same as your biller," said BSP Assistant Governor Edna Villa.

Meanwhile, the request pay facility allows the payee to prompt the payor on the amount and details of transaction.

"From the perspective of the payee, it reminds the payor. From the perspective of the payor, he is now able to eliminate input errors because he already has the exact transaction details of the payee," said Villa.

The direct debit facility, meanwhile, allows the authorization of payees to pull the required payment from the customer's account.

"Based on our conversations with the industry, we should be able to get this off the ground maybe during the first half of this year until maybe the third quarter of this year," Villa said.

Given these efforts, BSP Governor Benjamin Diokno said the digitization target will be achieved by the end of his term next year.

"With all these digitalization initiatives in the pipeline, the enhancements to the existing payment streams, and the continued expansion of the e-commerce industry in the country, we remain optimistic that the 50% digital payments target by end-2023 is very much doable," he said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines Life, Jan. 24)  This week, read a book about memory and abortion, visit an audio-visual exhibition by Unique Salonga, attend a series of artist dialogues on islandness, learn about career opportunities in art, and treat yourself to some roast chicken.

Read Happening by Annie Ernaux

Much has been said about Annie Ernauxs Happening, her account of her abortion in the 1960s. But reading the book retains much of its power  despite abortion being legal now in France for up to 12 weeks after conception  because Ernauxs ordeal could very well resonate with Filipino women today as the procedure is still very much illegal here (as chronicled in one of our most read stories here). In the book, Ernaux  then a student  desperately looks for an abortion. She gathers all the information that she can, from acquaintances, classmates, or hints from doctors (who will be barred from practicing if found guilty of administering abortions). In the end, she gets a procedure done by a nurse, at a back-street house. The way Ernaux writes of the experience remains in my head days after reading it. Its not just her matter-of-fact tone, as if just simply recalling an everyday experience  its the harrowing implications of what shes done. Ernauxs searing pain, physically and mentally, is grimly conveyed in her words, portraying the urgency of having a choice when it comes to your pregnancy. But Happening is much more than this. Its about processing events thats forever embedded in our memories and what we can do with them. For Ernaux, she put it down to words  the process itself fraught with much thinking and overthinking  imprinting them there for eternity for everyone to learn from them.  DON JAUCIAN

Purchase a copy through pageandturner.ph.

Oblivion is an audio-visual exhibition by Unique Salonga. File photos of Unique from 2018 by JL JAVIER

Visit Oblivion, an audio-visual exhibition by Unique Salonga

Many were surprised early last week when Unique Salonga dropped his new song Oblivion. The single, a one hour-long opus that contains no lyrics, seemed to be part of a larger project of the artist. This project turned out to be Uniques painter debut with Oblivion, an audio-visual exhibition that shares the songs title. Guests are encouraged to bring their own headphones to complete the whole experience.  CNN PHILIPPINES LIFE STAFF

Oblivion is open at Secret Fresh Gallery, Ronac Art Center, San Juan until Feb. 5.

Attend a series of dialogues on islandness

Arts organization Emerging Islands is holding another series of online dialogues this Jan. 26. This time, collaborators will be invited to explore the different facets of islandness and the way they can inform the production of art. Panelists include visual artists Kanade Yagi, Joar Songcuya, amd Archie Geotina, Yuhei Higashikata, poet and essayist Larry Ypil, Lokal Siargao co-founder Marc Pintucan and Executive Director Kara Rosas, and Link co-founder and instructor Celso Jucutan. Live visual notes will be taken by Pushpin Visuals.  CNN PH LIFE STAFF

Register here.

Learn about career opportunities in art at the Walang future sa arts! (and other Pinoy stereotypes) online discussion

This weekend, Metrobank Art & Design Excellence (MADE) is hosting a discussion that might prove useful for those who want to pursue a career in the arts in the Philippines. With answers to questions like like Who can be an artist? and Why is creativity important in this day and age?, the talks panelists will be debunking popular misconceptions about being an artist or creative practitioner in the Philippines.

The discussion will be led by DLS-CSB Arts Management Program chair (and CNN Philippines Life contributor) Alain Camiling, visual artist and community organizer Alee Garibay, and cultural and museum worker Rica Estrada.  CNN PH LIFE STAFF

The talk will be held on Jan. 29 at 2 p.m. RSVP at their event page.

Treat yourself to a Sunday roast, even on a weekday

Nothing says home to me like a plate of chicken and rice. Is there an iteration of this combo that doesnt work? Proving my point is home cook Maia Lopezs kitchen experiments, which eventually led to her small business Baon ni Luna at Caio. Lopez cooks up her own takes on classic chicken roast dinners, complete with the accoutrements that make it uniquely her own. I was able to try the Mediterranean Chicken set (1,250), which comes with a whole spatchcock chicken in Mediterranean spices, roasted carrots and potatoes, turmeric rice, and garlic sauce. (The chicken is delivered to you cold, and you can reheat it by brushing the roast with an accompanying heating sauce.) Eaten individually, the roast is passably delicious; its in the combination of chicken, veg, rice, and garlic sauce that make it particularly special. The flavors are strong but not overpowering, and its an eating experience that simply grows on you as you finish it off your plate. Best part is, its reheat-friendly so you can work on it for the rest of the week and have a delicious home cooked dinner without the trouble of cooking. Oh, and take note that Baons signature sauce for this roast is called a No Kissing Garlic Sauce for a reason. But trust me when I say that its worth skipping a smooch session or two.  MARGA BUENAVENTURA

Follow @baonlunacaio to order your own chicken roast set.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 23)  The One COVID-19 Allowance (OCA) proposed by the Department of Health is "discriminatory" as it involves unequal distribution of benefits among health workers, the Alliance of Health Workers said on Sunday.

It said the DOH should do away with the risk stratification and distribute benefits to all health workers evenly.

"Nakakagalit kasi discriminatory ito sa mga health worker, at the same time, divisive sa mga health worker. Wala sanang pinipili kung low, medium, or high kasi ang virus wala naman pinipili," said AHW president Roberto Mendoza.

[Translation: It is disappointing because it is discriminatory and divisive to health workers. We hope they would do away with the low, medium, or high risk classification because the virus does not choose who to infect in the first place.]

The DOH earlier said the OCA will replace the special risk allowance. Instead of receiving it in tranches, the OCA will be given to hospital employees on a monthly basis.

Risk, meal, transportation, and accommodation allowances are included in the OCA.

But for the health workers' group, these are "not enough." Mendoza expressed hope that their proposed benefits, including the special risk allowance of 15,000 and active hazard duty pay of 5,000, would still be granted.

"Ang problema sa Department of Health, tinipid ang ating health workers. Sana iparamdam naman ng gobyerno ang pangangalaga at pagmamahal nila sa ating health workers dahil matagal na (silang) dismayado," he said.

[Translation: The problem with the Department of Health is that it's not providing enough for our health workers. We hope they will do something about this because our frontliners have long been dismayed with the government.]

The DOH said it is up to the hospitals to identify employees who are at low, medium, or high risk.

"This will be given on a monthly basis. It depends on the risk or stratification of the risk they are having for COVID. Different administrations, or the hospital directors, (will clarify) who the health workers in the low-risk category are, who will receive 3,000, and the medium-risk category to receive 6,000, and the high-risk category to receive 9,000," said Health Undersecretary Leopoldo Vega.

He also said non-medical workers, such as janitors and security guards, of hospitals will receive the OCA.

"Pwede sila makatanggap as long as they are employed by the institution on a contractual basis," said Vega.

[Translation: They are also entitled to benefits as long as they are employed by the institution on a contractual basis.]

The agency said it allocated 50 billion of its 2022 budget for the OCA, but only 7.9 billion is "for later release."

Groups such as the AHW urged the government to give the appropriate amount of benefits to medical workers, who are on the front lines of the battle against COVID-19. They also hoped the distribution of the promised benefits will be on time.

CNN Philippines' Currie Cator contributed to this report.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 23)  Aspirants for senatorial seats in the coming polls say they want more for the country's healthcare workers -- not just monetary compensation, but also enough rest to make sure they can take on the challenges of the pandemic.

Former Senator JV Ejercito, Sorsogon Governor Chiz Escudero and Senator Richard Gordon, who took part in CNN Philippines' second Senatorial forum on Sunday, were one in saying that the country's healthcare workers deserve better.

Include temporary, contractual workers

Escudero said existing laws cover only permanent healthcare workers and employees.

"Kung may batas na gagawin, dapat isaklaw o isama ang temporary, job order, at contractual workers dahil sa totoo lang...sa pananaw ko, pareho lang ang ginagawang trabaho ng contractual, ng job order, at permanente," he said.

[Translation: If there is a law that should be made, it should cover temporary, job order and contractual workers because in my opinion, they do the same work.]

The governor said the country has been left behind by its Asian neighbors when it comes to wages for healthcare workers. He said this was the reason why so many have left to work overseas.

Escudero says proper recognition and compensation must be given to all health workers for their work and sacrifice, especially during the pandemic.

He also said he does not believe there are no funds availble to fund his proposal.

"Kung may pera para bumili ng ilang kagamitan na hindi kailangan, may pera din dapat sila para magbigay ng pagkilala't kumpensasyon sa tunay na naaasahan sa panahon ng pandemya," he said

[Translation: If there are funds to buy some unnecessary items, there should be funds to recognize and compensate those who can be relied upon during the pandemic.]

RELATED: Health group: One COVID-19 Allowance 'discriminatory'

Give them due allowances

Ejercito, on the other hand, said while the country may not be ale to pay its healthcare workers as well as other countries, proper PPE supplies, food, and transportation allowances should be provided to them.

The former senator said he could also see no reason why funds cannot be released to raise their salaries when it was done for uniformed personnel.

"Ngayon, sa giyerang ito ang ating foot soldiers ay ang health workers," he said.

[Translation: Now, in this war, health workers are our foot soldiers.]

They should be allowed sufficient rest

Senator Gordon, meanwhile, said it should not just be about pay  health care workers should be given enough rest to recover from the stresses of their jobs.

"Hindi dapat ibababad doon. Meron dapat tayong mga 'bubble' na kung saan nilalagay ang mga nurses na nagpapahinga para hindi sila lalabas. Kahit ilagay mo sila sa hotel, tinatamaan pa rin sila," he said.

[Translation: They should not stay long there. There should be "bubbles" where they can go and rest so they don't have to go out. They can still get infected even if they stay in hotels.]

He also stressed that funds must be given to those who need them the most.

Watch the CNN Philippines' second Senatorial Forum:
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday said it has approved the use of two brands of self-administered COVID-19 antigen test kits.

In the weekly televised meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte and Cabinet officials, FDA officer-in-charge Oscar Gutierrez said one of the products is the Panbio COVID-19 antigen self-test kit manufactured by Abbot, while the other is the SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid test for home use made by Labnovation Technologies, Inc.

So far, only the two brands of self-test kits have been issued special certification by the regulatory agency. The FDA said 31 others have been turned over to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) for evaluation.

Gutierrez reminded the public to only buy FDA-certified test kits to ensure accuracy of results.

Importante po talaga na dumaan sa performance validation ng RITM. Kasi po kung mababa po ang sensitivity ay marami pong false negative po na mangyayari, he said.

[Translation: It is important that the test kits undergo performance validation by the RITM. Because if these kits sensitivity is low, there may be a lot of false negative results.]

He also urged consumers to only go to licensed drug outlets, as well as to take note of expiration dates and carefully follow instructions found in the package insert.

The FDA has certified a total of 116 coronavirus test kits of different types, including PCR, antibody, and antigen.

Meanwhile, Gutierrez said 86 have been removed from the market. He explained this could be over low performance validation results after the product was already approved, voluntary surrender of special certification, or the test kit was found to be uncertified.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 24)  Presidential hopeful and Manila Mayor Isko Moreno admits he kept 50 million in campaign donations during his senatorial bid in 2016, but assures he committed no violations as he paid taxes for these funds.

Yes, because I have to pay taxes. Kapag may natira sa kampanya, dahil yan naman ay pooled account, pooled money, iba't ibang tao  you have to declare, he said during The Jessica Soho Presidential Interviews over the weekend.

[Translation: Yes, because I have to pay taxes. When you have unused campaign funds, and since theyre from a pooled account coming from different people  you have to declare.]

Tapos kapag yun ay nasayo na, kailangan mo magbayad ng buwis which is 'yun ang ginawa ko, he further explained.

[Translation: Once these (funds) are with you, you have to pay taxes which is what I did.]

The city mayor also confirmed he paid 9.7 million in taxes for the concerned funds. When asked if he didnt violate any rules, he said yes  for as long as one is paying taxes with the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Iyon ang sinasabi ng BIR eh. Kailangan kasi hawak-hawak mo ang pera, e limited ang gastusin mo sa kampanya, sumobra ang donation mo, so tangan-tangan mo ang pera, kailangan ka magbayad ng buwis at yun ay lumalabas na income mo, said Moreno.

[Translation: Thats what the BIR is saying. Since youre holding the money, but you have limited campaign expenses and your donation exceeded, you need to pay taxes as that appears to be your income.]

BIR Revenue Regulation No. 7-2011 says unutilized or excess campaign funds shall be considered as subject to income tax. With this, they must be included in the candidates taxable income as stated in their income tax return filed for the subject taxable year.

The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in 2016 reported the concerned amounts, adding Moreno sent them copies of his quarterly income tax return and a manager's check to confirm these.
(CNN)  The chief of German navy has resigned after suggesting that Crimea would "never come back" to Ukraine, a statement that is in direct contradiction to the stance taken by the German government, the European Union and NATO.

Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach said he asked the German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht to relieve him of his duties "effective immediately." His resignation on Saturday came at the time of extreme tension between Russia and the West over recent buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border.

Schonbach got into hot water over several remarks that included a suggestion that Russian President Vladimir Putin "probably" deserved respect.

A video of his talk at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, a think tank, was posted on YouTube on Friday. In it, the Vice-Admiral is heard as saying: "Is Russia really interested in ... a small, tiny strip of Ukraine's soil? No, this is nonsense."

"What he really wants is respect. And my God, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost ... so if I was asked, it is easy to even give him the respect he really demands, and probably also deserves," he said, adding: "Russia is an old country. Russia is an important country. Even we, India, Germany, we need Russia, because we need Russia against China."

The remarks sparked criticism in Germany and abroad. Ukraine's Minister of Foreign Affairs has summoned the German ambassador to Ukraine over the comments, saying it "strongly rejected" Schonbach's statements on Crimea never returning to Ukraine.

Schonbach said that the comments he made during the talk reflected his personal opinion "at that moment" and that "they correspond in no way with the official position of the ministry of defense."

However, he said the remarks were "increasingly weighing on my office" and therefore he decided to resign.

Schonbach took over as the chief of navy, officially known as the Inspector of the Navy, in March last year, after more than 35 years in the navy. He served as the commanding officer of NATO Maritime Group 2, NATO's standing maritime immediate reaction force.

Meanwhile, as Russia amasses troops on the Ukrainian border, the Ukraine government has been asking NATO countries for help. While the US, UK and several other NATO countries shipped weapons to Ukraine, Germany has so far refused to do so.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told journalists earlier this week that Germany often restricted the export of weapons to crisis areas.

"Germany has a special tradition of showed great restraint when it comes to exporting weapons and arms to crisis areas," she said. "We have tried to assume responsibility in different ways. We, for example, have helped expand the military hospital."

This story was first published on CNN.com, "German navy chief resigns after suggesting Putin 'deserved respect'."
(CNN)  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken amplified his warning against a Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying "a single additional Russian force" entering Ukraine "in an aggressive way" would result in a severe response by the US and its allies.

"If a single additional Russian force goes into Ukraine in an aggressive way, as I said, that would trigger a swift, a severe and a united response from us and from Europe," Blinken told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" on Sunday.

The comments from the secretary further clarify the US' position on any additional aggressive military action by Russia after the country amassed tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine. Though US officials have been issuing warnings to Russia in recent days, President Joe Biden muddled the message of severe consequences last week, saying at a news conference that a "minor incursion" might not trigger the same response from NATO as an invasion.

The President later clarified that any Russian troops crossing Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion, and Blinken, following a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last week, also warned that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be "met with a severe and a united response."

Blinken on Sunday also defended the administration's unwillingness to impose sanctions against Russia preemptively, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urging the US and its allies to penalize Moscow now for its massive troop buildup along Ukraine's borders.

"When it comes to sanctions, the purpose of those sanctions is to deter Russian aggression," he said. "So if they're triggered now, you lose the deterrent effect. All of the things that we're doing, including building up in a united way with Europe, massive consequences for Russia, is designed to factor into President (Vladimir) Putin's calculus and to deter and dissuade them from taking aggressive action, even as we pursue diplomacy at the same time."

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said in a separate interview on "State of the Union" Sunday that the Biden administration should impose a new round of sanctions on Russian officials immediately to deter an invasion of Ukraine.

"We do need to go ahead and impose sanctions on Russia now. We need to show them that we mean business and we will be there for Ukraine should (Russia) invade," Ernst, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Bash. "Once an invasion happens? Lives are lost. You can't go back from that. So those sanctions need to be put in place now."

The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee echoed Ernst's sentiments on Sunday, saying that without US sanctions, Putin will invade Ukraine.

"If we don't do something strong right now, I'm afraid that he's going to invade Ukraine, which will have ... global ramifications here," Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas told CBS News.

"This President has made so many concessions with nothing in return," he added. "That's why Putin smells weakness. He's wanted this, as you and I talked about, for a long time. It's his legacy issue. And if we don't provide that deterrence, he will go in."

Last week, Biden vowed withering economic consequences on Russia should Putin send his troops over the frontier, including restricting its financial transactions in US dollars. The President said that after speaking with Putin twice last month, he believed his Russian counterpart had a good understanding of the economic sanctions he was preparing to enact.
An area man faces felony charges this month after allegedly pulling a gun on a police officer on New Year's Eve.

Justin Caruthers, 33, of Desloge, has been charged in St. Francois County with first-degree assault, unlawful possession of a weapon, resisting an arrest, and unlawful use of a weapon.

According to a probable cause statement from the Park Hills Police, on Dec. 31, an officer was dispatched to the area of southbound US 67 at the Fairgrounds Drive exit regarding a person in dark clothing walking on the northbound shoulder and jumping into traffic.

While the officer was traveling southbound on US 67 in the right-hand lane, he reportedly noticed a person had suddenly jumped to their feet and out in front of his patrol car. The officer then shifted his patrol car to the highway's right shoulder and reversed northbound on the southbound shoulder toward the person.

The report states that as the officer got close to the man, a brown pit bull dog that was unleashed and walking in the thick grass near the man charged the officer and barking viciously. The officer reported he did not see the dog until that moment, and at that time, he unholstered his duty weapon and began yelling for the subject to control the dog, so he did not have to shoot the animal in fear of being attacked.

The man then reportedly turned around and charged after the dog and began yelling at the officer to put his gun away or he was going to "blow [the officer's] head off."

The subject, identified as Caruthers, reportedly walked the dog to the sapling and began screaming for the officer to put his gun away. The officer reportedly told Caruthers he would holster his firearm, but only after the man had secured the dog and allowed the officer to pat him down for weapons. The officer then requested additional units to the scene.

The report states that after realizing that Caruthers would not comply, he told the man he would put his gun away. Instead, the officer reportedly shut off the flashlight mounted to his duty weapon and lowered it to a safe and ready position to where Caruthers could not see it.

Caruthers tied the dog to the tree, placed his hands in the air, and approached the officer, according to the report. The man complied with the officer's order to sit on the ground.

While sitting in the grass, the report states that Caruthers said, "I grew up in the backwoods of De Soto, Missouri. Where I come from, if someone puts a gun in your face, you stick one back in theirs."

Startled by the statement, the officer asked Caruthers if he had a gun, to which the man reportedly answered, "you're damn right," and dropped his arms.

The report states that two other Park Hills officers pulled up to the scene just as the man dropped his arms. Caruthers then reportedly drew a small black pistol and pointed it in the initial officer's direction, approximately 15 feet away with his finger on the trigger.

The officer reportedly began to back up and rotate to his right while screaming for Caruthers to drop the weapon. The officer reported that he believed at the time of drawing the gun, Caruthers pulled the trigger on the firearm as he was pointing it toward him. The officer reportedly thought the weapon did not fire because there was not a round in the chamber when recovering the gun; however, the magazine was reportedly loaded with four rounds.

The report states that after the weapon failed, Caruthers threw the pistol in the officer's direction. The other two officers then tackled the man in an effort to detain him as they had reportedly witnessed him pull the gun on the other officer.

As the officers struggled and wrestled with Caruthers, the report states he was able to get on his hands and knees and began crawling toward the weapon he had thrown. An officer ran to the gun and stepped on it to keep the man from regaining control of it. Eventually, police on the scene were able to take Caruthers into custody.

An arrest warrant was issued last week, and the man was detained on Friday. He was booked at the St. Francois County Jail, and a $100,000 bond was set in the case. If released on bail, Caruthers is ordered to comply with pre-trial monitoring.

Court records show that Caruthers is a convicted felon and prohibited from possessing firearms. The man pleaded guilty in 2009 to a count of first-degree burglary in Jefferson County. He received a seven-year suspended prison sentence for the burglary and was placed on five years of supervised probation.

Bobby Radford is a reporter for the Daily Journal. He can be reached at bradford@dailyjournalonline.com

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Some could argue that the paperwork involved in college enrollment and financial aid is almost as tough as any of the tests it might take to get in. If students and their parents arent used to filling out lengthy forms and they arent familiar with basic financial, educational and bureaucratic jargon, it can take a lot of time, patience and mental gymnastics to make sure all the Ts are crossed and the Is are dotted.

Fortunately, in the case of financial aid, several FAFSA Frenzy events are taking place at dozens of locations around Missouri, and one is happening at the Missouri Job Center on Tuesday.

FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a form that current and prospective college students use to find out whether they qualify for student financial aid, and if they do, how much support they can expect to get through scholarships, grants, work-study opportunities and federal student loans.

The Park Hills Job Center will help parents, guardians and students fill out the FAFSA form on 1-6 p.m. Tuesday at 403 Parkway Dr. in Park Hills.

Veterans Representative Daniel Alfaro is with the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, and is located at the Park Hills Job Center. He is spreading the news about the event.

Well, not only are the college attendance numbers down, but our workforce participation numbers are down as well, he said. What that says is, we have a lot of people who are needing to re-skill and gain credentials to move into new career fields.

Alfaro said if more students can see their way into college at an affordable rate, it could have an extended impact on the global economy.

If we can help them retool, that will, of course, get our workforce members back up and hopefully help alleviate a lot of the problems that we're having economically throughout the whole country, he said.

Alfaro mentioned that, even if someone is cautious about entering college soon and isnt sure about filling out a financial aid application like FAFSA, its possible to still contact the Job Center to see what sort of programs might be funded through Missouri.

I mean, the transportation sector and all that is part of the supply chain. A lot of the shortages that we're seeing in the stores is due to the inability to move merchandise because we don't have as many people driving trucks as we used to, he said.

There's the truck driver training at MAC and actually there are Workforce Development Board staff that funds some of that training if people are low income. They have to meet certain qualifications. So there is a chance that if someone is wanting to become a truck driver, they can come to the Job Center and work through the Workforce Development Board to get that paid for them.

Sarah Haas is the assistant editor for the Daily Journal. She can be reached at 573-518-3617 or at shaas@dailyjournalonline.com.

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By Azernews

By Vafa Ismayilova

Three anti-personnel mines, one anti-tank mine, and nine unexploded ordnance were found and defused on the liberated territories, Azerbaijan's Mine Action Agency has reported.

The demining operations were conducted on January 17-22 in Tartar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Shusha, Gubadli, Jabrayil, and Zangilan regions.

Moreover, 67.4 hectares of land were cleared of mines and unexploded ordnance.

Armenia submitted to Azerbaijan all mine maps of Azerbaijan's liberated territories as a result of talks held through the Russian Defence Ministry's mediation on December 4, 2021.

On December 12, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told reporters that mine maps provided by Armenia so far are not fully accurate.

"New minefield maps given by Armenia are being analyzed by the experts. It will take time. We can prevent the growing number of deaths as a result of mine explosions," he said.

It should be noted that ANAMA, along with the partner countries, carries out demining activities on Azerbaijan's liberated territories.

Armenia deliberately and constantly planted mines on Azerbaijani territories, in violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention, thereby being a major threat to regional peace, security, and cooperation.

On December 9, the Prosecutor-General's Office reported that 29 civilians and seven military servicemen were killed, as well as 109 servicemen and 44 civilians received injuries of varying severity as a result of mine explosions in the countrys lands since November 10, 2020.

Previously, on June 12, Azerbaijan handed over 15 Armenian prisoners in exchange for a map detailing the location of 97,000 mines in formerly-occupied Aghdam.

On July 3, Armenia submitted to Azerbaijan maps of about 92,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines planted during the occupation of Fuzuli and Zangilan regions.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a Russia-brokered peace agreement on November 10, 2020, to end 44 days of fighting and work toward a comprehensive resolution.
There are so many ways to explore our natural world. Here are five to consider.
Risty Vlavianos cant bring herself to believe its really going to happen.

The Cavalier Diner, her second home and second love after her husband Sal, is slated to close on Jan. 30 after more than a decade serving up classic diner fare from pancake-wrapped breakfast links and Greek omelets to gyros and cheeseburgers.

Whats putting her out of business is not the ongoing shortage of restaurant staff, although thats been a problem. Its not the loss of income during a forced pandemic closure or socially-distanced tables once it reopened.

The building has been sold and the new owner doesnt want a restaurant in here, she said, sitting at a table in the Emmet Street diner with some patrons who consider themselves friends. Its hard to believe. We made it through a recession, a pandemic, a staff shortage and a supply shortage and even a car driving into the building, only to have this happen.

Vlavianos and Sal have been looking for a new location for the diner, but the piping hot real estate market in Charlottesville and Albemarle County makes finding a spot for a traditional American diner difficult.

There are a lot of restaurants that have gone out business in the past couple of years, but finding a site thats suitable for a diner isnt that easy. You dont want it too big. You need parking space, she said.

You dont want a high-end establishment, and you want it in a convenient location. And you need the rents to be affordable, she said. Rents in this area are so high. It makes it difficult for a local restaurant to survive. There are so many chains coming in now and theyre the only ones who can afford it.

The Vlavianos family has been cooking up meals for people in Charlottesville for five decades. Her parents, Nick and Margarita, arrived in Charlottesville in 1971 from Connecticut after emigrating from Greece.

They opened the Expresso restaurant on West Main, then Expresso Steak and Lobster House. They also operated the eclectic Emmet Street eatery known as the Italian Villa Pancake House before retiring and leaving the restaurant business to their daughter.

I learned everything from them. I grew up in the business and was always in the restaurant. When I wasnt in school, I was in the restaurant. I always loved it, Risty Vlavianos recalled. They tried to push us kids away from the restaurant business because its hard work, its seven days a week and its 16 hours a day, but I loved it.

Vlavianos sister followed her parents advice. For a short time, so did she. She went to James Madison University and earned a masters degree in history. She taught in high school for several years before the restaurant business called her home.

After working with her parents at the Italian Villa Pancake House, she left when they did and took over the former Hoos Kitchen/Sams Kitchen at the corner of Emmet and Earhart, across the road from Bodos Bagels.

The restaurant has always been a homey spot, from the comfort food served to easy-going wait staff. Once the diner reopened after the pandemic, social distancing was enforced by stuffed animals sitting in the seats where humans were not allowed, a touch of humor in an otherwise humorless time.

Thats in keeping with Vlavianos way of doing business. The Cavalier Diner has been not only a way for her family to make a living, but a way to make friends.

Its the people. You meet so many interesting people from so many walks of life and every day is a different day. I met some people from Alaska the other day who were joking about our snow. We meet a lot of people who are in town because of the University of Virginia Medical Center, she said. You get to know them. A lot of people will come in on a regular basis and you get to be an extended family and thats what the restaurant means to me.

For some regulars, regular visitation means nearly every day.

Seven days a week, said Melva Farish, sitting at a table with Vlavianos and customer Ralph Davidson, joking with waitress Melinda Wood as she proved how bottomless her coffee cup, brought in from home and kept behind the diners bar, can be.

My grandkids grew up in here. Every morning Id pick them up to keep them for the day, load them up in the car and come over, Farish laughs. Weve met so many good people here and we have a great time together.

Farish said the diner is much like the old television series Cheers, but without the bar and with better food.

Its just a great hangout place. I have my own coffee cup here and I come in for the food, coffee and company, she said.

What shell do when the diner closes after Jan. 30, Farish isnt sure.

I guess Ill just plan on staying home until Risty finds another place, she said. If she does, then Ill go there.

For Vlavianos, the harsh reality of the sale and the rental market makes it hard to believe shell be able to reopen the restaurant. Still, she hasnt completely given up.

Its something thats out of my hands, but I would really like to stay here. I love the diner and the people. Theyre not just customers, theyre friends. I keep hoping something will turn up, that well find another place. This is what Ive always wanted to do and Id hope to keep working here until I retired, she said.

If we close, it will be the first time in 51 years there hasnt been a restaurant run by the Vlavianos family, she said. Theres a part of me that cant believe were really going to close.

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Virginia state senators signed off on a bill Monday to allow Charlottesville to ask voters for a raise in the local sales tax in order to pay for school construction projects.

Under Senate Bill 298, the city would be able to increase the general retail sales tax by up to 1% if voters approve the measure in a referendum. The additional revenue would help to pay for the renovation and expansion of Buford Middle School.

City officials say that the increase would bring in about $12 million a year. The Buford project is part of the first phase of reconfiguration, which would bring all the middle grades in Charlottesville under one roof. That first phase is expected to cost $75 million.

As part of reconfiguration, sixth-graders would move to Buford and fifth-graders would go back to the elementary schools. Walker Upper Elementary, where those two grades are currently, would then be turned into an early childhood center in an eventual second phase.

The sales tax increase would expire after 20 years.

So far, nine localities in Virginia have received similar authorization from the General Assembly to issue a referendum. The bill making Charlottesville the 10th is sponsored by Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, and passed the Senate, 28 to 12.

Having these as options to help us move forward on a reconfiguration of our middle school, which was built in 1966, is very important, Charlottesville School Board chairwoman Lisa Larson-Torres said at a committee meeting last week.

The sales tax legislation is a top priority for Charlottesville as it seeks to move forward on reconfiguration after more than a decade of discussions.

Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, is sponsoring Senate Bill 472, which would give all localities the authorization to seek approval from voters, eliminating the need for cities and counties to first request permission from the General Assembly. That statewide authorization was one of several recommendations from the state Commission on School Construction and Modernization,

McClellans bill also passed the Senate on Monday by the same margin.

The Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee passed both bills Jan. 19 by a vote of 14 to 2. Isle of Wright also is seeking authorization, which was approved by the committee.

Del. Sally Hudson, D-Charlottesville, is the chief patron for two similar bills in the House  one of which would give all localities the authority to levy the sales increase if approved in a voter referendum and one just focused on Charlottesville. Both of those bills  HB 531 and HB 545  have been referred to the finance subcommittee No. 3.

Hudson is part of that committee along with area lawmakers, Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper and Del. Chris Runion, R-Rockingham.

Deeds and McClellan said at the committee meeting that they wanted to keep the different school construction sales tax bills separate until they see what related bills pass in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates.

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Most of the school districts in the Charlottesville area are keeping their mask policies in place, citing state law and a legal challenge to an executive order concerning masking in schools.

Only school systems in Greene, Madison and Orange counties have relaxed their mask policies following Gov. Glenn Youngkins executive order that says parents can opt out of school mask mandates. That order goes into effect Monday, but a group of parents in Chesapeake City challenged the orders authority in a lawsuit filed last week with the Virginia Supreme Court.

Our plan is to follow the law and the Virginia Supreme Court should provide us with the legal clarity necessary to make any further decisions with confidence, Louisa County schools Superintendent Doug Straley said in a message to families Jan. 19.

Louisa County had initially said parents could choose whether their child would wear a mask, though Straley noted they were awaiting additional guidance from the state. Until the school division receives further clarification from state lawmakers and the Supreme Court, masks will be required for students and staff.

Critics of the executive order, educator groups and parents in the lawsuit have argued that the order conflicts with Senate Bill 1303, which was adopted last year by the General Assembly and signed into law. That law requires schools to provide five days of in-person instruction and to adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines to the maximum extent possible. Currently, the CDC is recommending universal masking for K-12 schools.

Executive Order 2 is not about pro-masks versus anti-mask, its about empowering parents, Youngkin said in a news release Friday. I am confident that the Virginia Supreme Court will rule in the favor of parents, reaffirming the parental rights clearly laid out in the Virginia code  1-240.1. In the meantime, I urge all parents to listen to their principal and trust the legal process.

The Charlottesville, Albemarle County and Nelson County school divisions cited that state law in their separate announcements last week that the existing mask mandates would stay in place.

Senate Bill 1303 expires in August.

The debate over whether masks should be required comes amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations fueled by the more transmissible omicron variant, which also has been cited among those who want to keep masks on.

The Blue Ridge Health District has reported 8,026 new cases and 149 new hospitalizations  both of which are records. Charlottesville and Albemarle schools also have seen significantly higher case counts since winter break.

Charlottesville schools reported 109 new cases among students and 12 among staff members last week. In Albemarle County, 100 students are currently in quarantine because of a possible exposure to COVID-19 in the schools. The district reported 114 new cases among students and 22 among staff members.

The Greene County school division will be the only one in the health district that wont require masks on Monday. The School Board voted 3-2 during a special meeting Friday evening to lift the mandate, according to NBC29. Board members said parents should have the final say.

About 23% of Greene County students have been absent since winter break as well as 13% of staff, according to data presented during the meeting. The district has had 95 new cases since winter break.

In Fluvanna County, superintendent Peter Gretz wrote in a message to families that he had learned about an effort among some students who were encouraging students to go to school Monday without a mask.

I urge you not to bring conflict to our schools Monday, and certainly not to involve children in it, he wrote. Our students have missed too much school, they need instruction, connection and normalcy. Deliberately encouraging students to come to school without masks will not only be disruptive, but damaging to the entire school and community.

Fluvannas mask requirement is staying in place while the district awaits the Supreme Courts ruling in the Chesapeake lawsuit and a School Board decision. He encouraged families to pause and wait until theres more information.

I am confident we will have crystal clear direction soon regarding the executive order and masks in school, Gretz wrote. When we do, the prevailing disposition will invariably upset a great number of people. Some of you desperately want everyone masked in school, others want just as desperately to see the mandate removed. My hope is that what will unite all of us is our commitment to making life and school as normal, rewarding and enjoyable as possible for our children, given the current conditions.

Outside of the health district, the Buckingham County School Board voted 4 to 3 on Jan. 20 to keep the mask policy in place  a decision that will be revisited when current conditions change, according to board documents.

Madison Countys School Board voted Jan. 13 to change its mask policy and allow families to opt-out in anticipation of a change at the state level. Following the boards decision, all staff members, students and parents were allowed to request and automatically receive an individual exception to the indoor mask requirement.

Madison County also is seeking to provide each student and staff member with an N95 or similar high-quality mask as soon as practicable, per board documents.

A daily struggle

A contentious School Board meeting in Orange County on Thursday ended with a 4-1 vote to make the wearing of masks optional and the seemingly unrelated retirement of superintendent Cecil Snead.

John Lyon, a history teacher at Orange County High School, said Sunday that hell be interested to see how many people have resigned from the school on Monday.

Lyon said he has seen educators resigning all year but the recent mask debates seem to be a breaking point. The staff shortages and concerns about safety at school have led to an intense level of frustration, he said.

Lyon said that he hasnt received much guidance following the boards decision other than a document outlining a change to the divisions mitigation protocols. In addition to ending the mask requirement, the school division will no longer investigate positive cases at schools to determine who mightve been exposed. Those who do test positive will be required to stay at home for five days and then wear a well-fitting mask for five days when they return.

Honestly, it has been a daily struggle not to turn in my resignation, Lyon said. Ive been involved in education in some way, shape or form since 1999, so clearly Im kind of invested in public education. But ve got an elderly parents that Im worried about, and I help take care of them.

He told board members at the meeting that if asked to choose between his family and a job, my family wins out every time, he said.

The boards decision comes after a longtime employee at Orange County High School died this month from COVID-19.

She was basically the heart and soul of that school, he said. ... For me personally, her loss was pretty impactful. I think that certainly our school system, or our school, its going to take a while to recover from that. I just worry that were not reflecting on what happened with her enough. Its like, oh, this happened, so were moving on, we have new problems to face. And were not learning anything from what happened.

School staff members spoke during public comment in favor of keeping masks, sharing stress theyve been under and their fears of carrying the virus from the classroom back home to vulnerable family members.

Those who spoke against the current policy said making masks optional would put parents back in control of raising their children.

Snead recommended to the School Board that the current mask requirement stay in place. He cited the high case numbers in Orange County and guidance from the CDC for universal masking.

We are short on staff, he said. Its not sustainable for them.  Theres this balance. My heart goes out to everyone who has different opinions and beliefs. Sometimes those opinions and beliefs become so impassioned that all logic escapes us sometimes.

Only board chairwoman Sherrie Page voted for keeping masks mandatory.

Few board members acknowledged the concerns raised by staff members during their comments. One board member did propose that the division explore purchasing N95 masks for staff members.

Mike Williams, a School Board member, participated remotely because he has COVID-19. He said he was vaccinated and that his symptoms were more mild.

Its my estimate that the individual ultimately must understand and fend for them and their families, Williams said. Parents have given and given over the last two years. The masks are not going to go anywhere. The only thing is theres going to be an option.

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Albemarle County will begin redrawing its magisterial districts and voter precincts to match 2020 U.S. Census figures, including considering a request to add another district and member to the countys Board of Supervisors.

The county will hold its first virtual public information session about the redistricting process on Monday at 6 p.m. County Registrar Jake Washburne said the meeting will review preliminary redistricting guidelines, but no maps will be presented.

The Board of Elections, the county attorney and county GIS staff have been working on new maps with proposed updated magisterial districts and voter precincts, Washburne said. Those should be ready for the Board of Supervisors in the coming weeks.

In a letter to the board, the Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors has asked supervisors to consider adding a seventh member and to draw at least one map reflecting seven single-member districts.

CAAR requests Albemarle County Board of Supervisors fully engage with the public regarding the countys considerations involved in the redistricting process, the letter from Pam Dent, CAAR president, states.

Dent said CAAR wants the board to include a minimum of one map that includes adding a seventh member, for public comment in late January.

The CAAR request echoes long-held support for more districts by the League of Women Voters of the Charlottesville Area. The league has supported increasing the number of districts to an odd number, either seven or nine.

Board Chair Donna Price said she is not in favor of adding a seventh member to the board, either by an added district or an at-large board member.

In order for something to be approved, requiring the majority means you have to have four [votes] to approve something, Price said. I really have come to appreciate that because it tends to build consensus more than a simple majority.

The county is running late on redistricting this year due to delayed 2020 Census results. Localities are required to redraw their magisterial districts every 10 years, which would normally have happened in 2021.

Albemarle saw a population increase of about 13.6%, from 98,970 in 2010 to 112,395 in 2020. If the county were to keep its six magisterial districts, each district would have a population of about 18,700 people.

A state law enacted in 2020 requires each precinct to be wholly contained within a single congressional district, state Senate district, House of Delegates district, and local governing body or school board district.

County staff said in a report they could not definitively avoid [split precincts] until the new state and federal districts are finalized.

Even then there could be a problem. Albemarle remains almost entirely in the 5th Congressional District, but a new 7th District made up of Rockingham and Greene counties includes a small sliver of Albemarle County

The small sliver has about 110 residents. It also has its own humor-based Twitter account.

Why do I exist, the sliver asked in a pinned tweet from Dec. 28, 2021.

My Blue Ridge slopes are beautiful, but they also mean I get more snow, the sliver tweeted prior to a Jan. 16 snowstorm. This weekend I will be one snowy small sliver. Stay safe Albemarle.

Washburne said due to that 7th District sliver, there will have to have one split precinct, for which it must apply to the state Board of Elections for a waiver.

It is just not possible [to accommodate the sliver in a separate precinct], because were prohibited from creating a precinct with about 60 registered voters, he said.

Late last year, the Supreme Court of Virginia approved new state maps, after the Virginia Redistricting Commission failed to draw them within the 45 days allotted by the state constitution. In the Virginia Senate, all of Albemarle is part of a new 11th District, which also includes Charlottesville, all of Nelson and Amherst counties and part of Louisa County.

Albemarle is split between the 54th and 55th districts for the Virginia House of Delegates and three precincts need to be adjusted to avoid a split precinct in the new House districts.

Washburne said the Census data delay actually helped the county avoid the problem of developing its map at the same time the state created the legislative maps, usually without coordination.

We were working away here with our new lines, and the left hand didnt know what the right hand was doing, he said. So when it was all done, we wound up  all across the state, not just in Albemarle  with a lot of split precincts, and that is a real pain to administer.

The Board of Supervisors may adjust the redistricting schedule to get it completed in time for a possible June primary.

If there is a June primary, [the current schedule] would give us real problems, because we have to start early voting on May 6 and if people didnt know who they were voting for, that would be a problem, Washburne said.

Community members can join the meeting at albemarle-org.zoom.us/j/82650796375.

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State

Long before Colleyville synagogue standoff, Texas houses of worship were preparing for violent attacks

Briana Vargas/For The Texas Tribune Houston police Sgt. Heidi Rose guards an entrance to the Congregation Beth Israel in Houston. Photos by Briana Vargas/For The Texas Tribune Houston police Lt. Ed Valentine registers visitors as they enter Congregation Beth Israel. He is in his third year assisting with the synagogues security and considers himself a part of the community. Briana Vargas/For The Texas Tribune As part of measures implemented to maintain community safety, surveillance cameras record monitored footage of the Congregation Beth Israel premises in Houston, shown Friday.

When Pam Kutner heard the gunshot, she froze.

Kutner, the executive director of Congregation Beth Israel in Houston, participated two years ago in an active shooter training where trainees were instructed to run, hide or fight when a simulated gunshot went off. But she said she couldnt move once it did.

Ive never heard that sound before, she said.

After last weekends hostage situation in Colleyville, she said she aimed to practice and commit the lessons from that training to muscle memory.

On Jan. 15, a gunman held four hostages in a standoff that lasted around 11 hours at Colleyvilles Congregation Beth Israel, a synagogue northeast of Fort Worth not affiliated with Kutners. The FBI said Friday it is considering the incident a terrorist act and hate crime.

All four hostages escaped before FBI agents shot and killed the suspect, authorities said. A rabbi who was among the hostages said undergoing training scenarios for how to deal with active threats prepared him for that day.

Those types of trainings are now common. Religious leaders in Texas, concerned about the violence and threats against places of worship in recent years, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours on training, security and preventive measures in case of an attack.

You just know this is the reality of your life, because youre so used to antisemitism, and youre so used to hearing all these horrible things, Kutner said. We have to protect ourselves.

A history of violence

Religious communities in Texas have been the target of several deadly attacks in recent years. In 2017, a gunman opened fire inside First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, killing 26 people and injuring 20 more  the deadliest shooting in an American place of worship in modern history.

In 2019, days after Christmas, a shooter attacked the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, killing two people and injuring one.

Hate crimes committed against people because of their religion made up 20% of all hate crimes reported in the U.S. to the FBI from 2015-20. In 2020 the percentage was lower than average at 15%. However, the FBIs reporting of hate crimes is thought to be a vast undercount because it relies on local police to voluntarily submit data, according to a 2019 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

In addition, attacks and hate acts against Jewish people are on the rise. Over the past five years, antisemitic incidents have increased by 60%, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate organization. Advocates fear last weekends hostage situation could spur further violence and threats.

Kutner said preparing for potential attacks is just part of the reality of being Jewish.

Congregation Beth Israel of Houston typically spends about $175,000 a year on hiring Houston law enforcement officers to patrol its campus, she said. The synagogue is large  with an annual budget of $5 million  so while its budget for security personnel is significant, Kutner said its manageable.

On a normal day, there are at least two guards present at all times, carrying guns and wearing full police gear. That number increases depending on how many congregants are expected to visit the synagogue.

Kutner said her synagogue has always poured a lot of time, energy and funds into security. The building has bulletproof windows, a check-in system to track who is on the campus at all times and cameras that cover every square inch of the property. Whenever the building is being used, at least one security guard is required to be present.

On Jewish high holidays, the precautions are even greater. Over 1,500 congregants could be in the building, she said, so the synagogue employs as many as 15 security guards, along with bomb-sniffing dogs.

At the Islamic Center of San Antonio, Fridays are the busiest days of worship. But joining visitors are up to half a dozen armed off-duty law enforcement officers on patrol. Security cameras protrude from the building, keeping a record just in case.

Just like the Houston synagogue, the San Antonio mosque is on constant guard against attacks.

Religious groups have always been the target of hatred, said Michael Martin, a spokesperson for the center. While the mosque has never faced an attack, he said it could be next at any time.

We see it in the news all the time, Martin said. Its not if its going to happen. Its when its going to happen.

Volunteers and training

But not every religious organization pays for security guards each week.

In 2019, Texas made it legal for visitors to carry guns inside places of worship, unless congregation leaders prohibited them. And in 2017, Texas passed a law that made it legal for churches to have armed volunteer guards. Many congregations enlist their own members to keep careful watch  and use deadly force if necessary.

In the 2019 church shooting in White Settlement, the carnage stopped when the gunman was shot and killed by the head of the churchs volunteer security team.

Companies like Fort Worth-based Protex Firearms Training specialize in providing instruction for churches that dont want or cannot afford to hire security.

It is our duty to preserve life, said Eric Ogea, who runs Protex and has trained churches on what to do during attacks. And sometimes preserving life is defending life.

Ogea teaches people to have an exit strategy first before confronting an intruder. The congregation should know where the exits are, who is going to call 911 and if there is a medical expert in the group.

But Ogea also teaches his clients a last recourse  using deadly force. Ogea trains religious leaders and churchgoers on firearm safety and how to use guns if necessary.

The Department of Homeland Security provides money to houses of worship and other organizations at high risk of becoming targets of terrorism to help them bolster security against attacks and hate crimes.

Kutner said synagogues rely on those funds to help pay for security efforts. However, that money doesnt help pay for permanent security personnel, she said. If those funds were freed up to do so, she said it could be a game-changer, especially at smaller houses of worship that cannot afford security otherwise.

Many anti-hate advocates have called for those funds to be increased as well, and those calls became louder after last weekends attack.

Being welcoming vs. being ready

Ellen Smith, 20, has attended Congregation Beth Israel of Colleyville since she was a kid. And when the gunman held her rabbi hostage, she listened in horror to a livestream as the events unfolded until it cut out.

Smith said she thinks shell continue to carry that anxiety with her in religious spaces. On Monday, she attended a healing service at a church near her synagogue meant to bring the community together after the attack.

Every time the back door opened in the middle of the service, I tensed up, she said. And I think that thats just how its going to be in the future  it will always be in the back of my mind no matter where I go, if its a Jewish space.

Smith drew comparisons to the school shooting drills she went through in high school. She said she always kept an eye on exits and had an escape plan in case of an active shooter.

I think now that thats going to be the same sort of thought process Ill have walking into a synagogue, she said.

Still, Smith said she does not support having armed police officers present in religious spaces.

My understanding of Judaism specifically [is that] it should be a welcoming space where everyone feels welcome and safe, she said. And I think that while it might make some people feel safe, it also might stop other folks from entering, like Jews of color or Jews with a criminal record or even homeless people who are looking for a safe place to come in.

She feels the same way about congregants carrying guns.

I think that if someone had a gun on Saturday, that situation might not have ended with every hostage getting out safely, she said. I personally would not feel safe if people had guns in services.

Kutner, with the Houston synagogue, said she thinks the benefits of having police officers present outweigh potential costs.

I believe safety is much more important than being welcoming, Kutner said.

She noted that the officers know the congregants by name and are a familiar and friendly presence. And although her synagogue doesnt allow congregants to carry firearms inside, she said she would consider employing volunteer security guards if a lack of funds made hiring police impossible.

Kutner said members of religious organizations must be prepared to put safety first. She thinks that the Colleyville situation could have been avoided by simply not opening the door.

The gunman from last weekend reportedly entered the synagogue after knocking on the glass door. The rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, let him in and made him a cup of tea.

Would you open your door to your house for a homeless person? I mean, I wouldnt, Kutner said. So thats something that we talked to the staff about as well.  We also are relying on the staff to be alert to notice things and to determine if they should or shouldnt open the door.

But Cytron-Walker said hed offer a stranger a cup of tea again.

This was one individual, he told NPR. Even if they do not look like the stereotypical person whos going to come into a Jewish synagogue, I want them there.  I want them to know that they are going to belong. Hospitality means the world.

Thats the struggle, Kutner said: In the end, religious leaders must balance their desire to foster welcoming and friendly places with practices that could potentially save lives.

Its just the world we live in, Kutner said.
The hotel construction activity across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) witnessed a sharp decline last year with a total of 130,225 rooms being built, down 5.5 per cent over 2020, according to December 2021 data from STR.

On the MEA scenario, the final planning saw a total of 38,765 rooms (-14.3%); while the planning saw 67,142 rooms (+2.8%). The total under contract rooms hit 236,132 down 4.9% over 2020.

The regional activity was mainly led by heavyweights Saudi Arabia (40,269 rooms) and the UAE (31,715), stated the leading provider of premium data for the global hospitality sector.

Globally too, the hotel construction activity fell with a total of 221,789 rooms being built in 2021, down 7.6 per cent over the previous year. Only the Asia Pacific region witnessed increased hotel construction activity, said the STR report.

On Europe, the report said a total of 221,789 rooms were built, down 7.6 per cent over 2020.

The final planning saw a total of 163,805 rooms (-4.9%); while the planning saw 159,232 rooms (+4.7%). The total under contract rooms hit 544,826 down 3.5% over 2020.

For the European region, Germany (45,121) and the UK (31,464) were the main growth drivers.

For the Asia Pacific region, which was the most active globally in terms of hotel construction activity, the in-construction rooms were: 473,983 (+5.0%); final planning: 170,210 rooms (-3.8%); Planning: 297,687 rooms (+16.3%) and total under contract: 941,880 rooms (+6.5%).

Among countries, China (290,265) topped the region with the most rooms in construction, followed by Vietnam (30,546).

For Americas, in construction was: 211,453 rooms (-16.8%); final planning: 220,044 rooms (-20.6%); planning: 329,474 rooms (+39%); total under contract: 760,971 rooms (-1.0%)

The US holds the majority of rooms in construction in the region. After the Americas, Mexico (14,020) and Canada (6,856) ranked second and third, respectively, in room construction.
Humanitix, an Australian nonprofit ticket selling company, has picked Denver as its United States headquarters, according to a Monday news release.

The compassionate capitalism company gives 100% of its booking fee profits to social causes in partnership with its network of childrens charities, according to Humanitix. It hopes to create 136 full-time jobs with an average salary of $52,276 in the next eight years, but could add up to 210 jobs.

Last year, New Zealand company FileInvite announced that Denver would be its U.S. headquarters, and Australian fintech company Finder also chose to open a Denver location with up to 200 new positions. Square Comp of India picked Fort Collins in 2021 to start a U.S. hub with plans to create up to 50 full-time jobs in the coming years.

The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade agreed to give Humanitix a Strategic Fund Grant of $884,000 for the creation of those new jobs, which would be incentivized at $6,500 per new job contingent on those hired coming from Low and Moderate Income (LMI) backgrounds using the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developments (HUD) wage thresholds, according to the office. Grants of $1,000 per job can be earned for all other hires.

Roles include general management, software engineers, finance and customer support/call center operators. For listing of current openings, check the Humanitix website.

We believe businesses that align profit with purpose can solve the world's biggest problems, and that humane use of technology can help us reinvest in humanity far beyond traditional corporate responsibility, Adam McCurdie, who founded the company in 2016 with Joshua Ross, said in the release.

The business climate that is authentic to Colorado complements our own business model and will allow us to effectively serve markets across the United States and North America, said McCurdie.

Officials with Denver Economic Development and Opportunity agreed to subsidize the company with an in-kind donation of office space at the Commons on Champa, as well as human resources support and introductions to area foundations and nonprofits.

Were proud to have introduced Humanitix to Denver through our Global Business Development program, Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock said in the release. Its been our goal to not only create ideal conditions for international companies to make Denver their U.S. entry point, but to also attract businesses that have the same values as our community.

Humanitix was also looking at space in Texas and Pennsylvania.

Company officials have already plugged into Colorado contacts, and recently agreed to sell tickets for the next Telluride Mushroom Festival.

Humanitix is an experiment in compassionate capitalism and a new model for charity and business, said Ross. The state of Colorado saw and endorsed this potential, and worked with us extensively to secure an incentive through the Strategic Fund that made it easy for us to choose Colorado.
SnapDNA, a company that created technology to improve food safety testing, picked Broomfield as its new headquarters, state officials announced Wednesday, joining a growing number of foodtech companies locating or growing in Colorado.

The company, now based in the San Francisco Bay Area, plans to hire up to 144 workers in the coming years with an average salary of $124,573. Colorado sweetened the pot by adding up to $1.45 million in job creation tax credits over the next eight years.

SnapDNA is excited to be part of Colorados emerging centers of excellence in bioscience, technology development, and product manufacturing, CEO David Medin said in a news release. Colorado is ideally located and central to the countrys largest and most influential food companies; a number of which we are already engaged with  and our employees love the can-do culture and world-class outdoor activities that Colorado offers.

SnapDNA creates molecular detection technology for food safety, which enables rapid onsite detection of foodborne pathogens, according to paperwork submitted to Colorados Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

It was also looking at Austin, Texas, or remaining in California with a combined headquarters and development facility. When Colorado's Economic Development Commission discussed the project in September, the company only had four employees and contractors. But the company agreed to raise significant amounts of capital as part of its deal with the state.

Some of that capital infusion came from the Rocky Mountain Venture Club as well as the economic development offices Global Business Development Advanced Industries grant program, which provided a $250,000 Early Stage Accelerator grant. Commissioners said the company would help with growing and diversifying the food and agriculture industry in Colorado and, in particular, the foodtech sector.

Colorado is a hub for innovative technologies including those in the bioscience and food tech sector, Gov. Jared Polis said in the release. We welcome the opportunity to work with SnapDNA to support our vital food and agriculture industries while creating more than 140 good-paying jobs for Coloradans.

Those jobs include microbiologists, production and test engineers, sales and marketing workers, and managers.

SnapDNA invented the first self-contained, rapid, on-site analysis designed to replace food pathogen lab tests. Results are available in less than 1 hour and hundreds of samples can be analyzed per day. The technology promises to enable predictive analytics that can reduce the occurrence, risk and severity of large-scale outbreaks, lower production costs and (provide) fresher, safer food for consumers, according to the release.

The state reported that 15 Colorado startups in food tech received $244 million in venture capital funding last year, the sixth highest total in the U.S.

Snap DNA joins a rapidly growing national hub for bioscience and food technology in Colorado, where companies such as Evolutionary Genomics, Growcentia, and Myco Technology are pioneering revolutionary solutions for the future of food and agriculture, according to the release.
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This year's National Western Stock Show has come and gone, but before its gates closed Sunday until next January, more than half a million people in cowboy boots, buckles and hats took in the show.

Despite hosting 586,756 people over a 16-day period, attendance was down 18% from previous record-breaking years prior to the pandemic, organizers said.

"We have been fortunate to see record-breaking attendance year after year, prior to the pandemic," said Paul Andrews, the president and CEO of the show. "Today we are grateful to have hosted this epic event. We are blown away by the support and outreach from the nearly 600,000 guests who came back to celebrate the western lifestyle that is so important to so many."

Organizers canceled the stock show in 2021 due to COVID-19 concerns, marking only the second cancellation since its inception in 1906.

Although attendance dropped, the amount of money gained during the auctions broke records, with bidders spending $1.1 million, $110,000 more than the previous record.

The top eight champions for the Junior Livestock Auction accounted for nearly half of the total as the animals brought in over $510,000. The grand champion steer sold for a record $160,000, organizers said.

Other events such as the Citizen of the West dinner and Coors Western Art Exhibit & Sale also earned an estimated $800,000.

All three are major funding events for the National Western Scholarship Trust, which provides scholarships to exhibitors and others who attend colleges and universities in Colorado and Wyoming.

One hundred and ten scholarships were funded through the trust this year and range between $2,500 and $15,000, organizers said.

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With its economy so heavily dependent on tourism, the Maldives has suffered heavy economic as well as health casualties during the pandemic. The country had a relatively short period of lockdown and was willing to welcome visitors back as early as July 2020.

But the effective shutdown of international air travel for most of the year resulted in the bottom falling out of the Maldives tourism industry, taking GDP down 32% in the process. The economy fared better in 2021, with a return to growth, yet it may still be a few years before the countrys key industries can return to the same level of prosperity that they previously enjoyed.

The Maldives telecoms market is experiencing a similar level of pain because of the pandemic, due to being overweight in the mobile segment. That is because, historically, the countrys high number of tourists and expatriate workers has inflated the penetration rate for mobile services, making it one of the highest in the world. That rate crashed in 2020 as demand for SIM cards (primarily prepaid) dried up. However, the number of contract subscribers increased as locals took advantage of competitive pricing offers from operators.

Everything now rests on a fast return to normality, with tourists helping to boost the nations coffers as well as buying up those prepaid SIM cards. With commercial 5G services already launched and fibre networks rapidly expanding around the country, the Maldives is primed to deliver world-class telecommunications services to its domestic and international customers.

This report includes the regulator's market data to August 2021, telcos' financial and operating data updates to September 2021, assessment of the global impact of Covid-19 on the telecoms sector, and other recent market developments.

Key developments:

The Maldives telecom sector starts to show signs of recovery after being pummelled by the Covid-19 crisis.

Ooredoo Maldives launches the Maldives first commercial 5G mobile service in Greater Male.

The Maldives-Sri Lanka (MSC) cable system is lit, less than a year after construction began.

Inmarsat and Cobham SATCOM are awarded a contract to connect fishing vessels operating in the Maldives Economic Exclusion Zone to Inmarsats Fleet One maritime broadcast services.

Get a Full Copy of this Report

Developing Telecoms market report summaries are produced in partnership with BuddeComm, the worlds largest continually updated online telecommunications research service.

The above article is a summary of the following BuddeComm report:

Report title: Maldives - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Edition: November 2021

Analyst: Sebastien De Rosbo

Number of pages: 77

Companies mentioned in this report: Dhivehi Raajjeyge Gulhun (Dhiraagu), Ooredoo Maldives, DhiMobile

Single User PDF Licence Price: US$890

For more information or to purchase a copy of the full report please use the following link: https://www.budde.com.au/Research/Maldives-Telecoms-Mobile-and-Broadband-Statistics-and-Analyses/?r=83
IT service management company ETIX Everywhere acquired a 67% interest in Genesis data center, in Bang Chalong 30 kms from Bangkoks historical center. This data center will form the basis of a new data center campus which will be jointly developed with its local partner Interlink Telecom.

According to a press release, the Genesis data centre, renamed ETIX Bangkok #1, is already live with 2.4 MW of IT power and the future development of the campus will offer significant additional capacity. This data center campus is the first in the market offering such a high level of redundancy with 4 diverse routes for fiber access and power supply coming from 2 distinct substations.

Louis Blanchot, Group CEO ETIX Everywhere said: We are very excited to announce our expansion into Asia starting with this acquisition in Bangkok, one of the most dynamic markets in the zone. This first step in Asia is a major milestone in ETIXs strategy to support our global customers providing them our best-in-class colocation services wherever they need.

Nuttanai Anuntarumporn, CEO of Interlink Telecom PLC said: We are very pleased to have a strong partner like ETIX Everywhere with experience in this industry. We believe that our partnership will support the booming Southeast Asia data center and cloud industry and lead us to common success.

With a large population and a strong internet penetration, Thailand is an important growth market for the public cloud and OTT service providers. They need to bring their data as close as possible to the end-users in order to deliver a better service which will drive demand for colocation services.
Bahrain Telecommunication Company (Batelco) has launched three new independent digital companies that will provide ICT, cloud computing, cyber security, and digital communication services.

The principal telecommunications company in Bahrain said in a press release that the new brands Beyon Cyber, Beyon Solutions, and Beyon Connect join the Beyon portfolio. "The new companies provide state-of-the-art solutions that cater to the emerging needs of todays business in areas such as ICT, cloud computing, cyber security, and digital communications," it said.

Batelco Chairman, Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said, We are extremely delighted with the progress weve accomplished in turning our long-term digital transformation strategy into reality. Today, were witnessing the outcome of three years of strategic planning and hard work.

The newly launched companies are independent entities that are positioned to cater to emerging business needs in todays corporate world. Innovative digital solutions and cyber security are key requirements for any business today, he added.

Beyon Cyber is provider of advanced end-to-end cyber-security solutions, providing managed services and advisory to organizations across Bahrain and beyond. Equipped with a team of highly skilled professionals, the company leverages an exclusive network of global partnerships to provide simple, cost-effective, world-class security services to customers, and enable them to accelerate their digital potential.

Beyon Solutions caters to the full range of technology needs of the public and private sectors. Capitalizing on its solid partnerships with ICT providers from across the world, BEYON Solutions is an agile IT and digital transformation consultancy offering cutting-edge system integration solutions to businesses of all sizes, to help them build scalable, efficient, and secure IT landscape.

Beyon Connect is focused on delivering new technologies with great innovation potential, Software-as-a-Service platforms, and advanced IT solutions to both the public and private sectors in the MENA region.

Batelco Chief Digital Growth Officer, Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa said, We have been motivated by the positive response weve received since the launch of Beyon Money back in December, and accordingly, we have accelerated our efforts to launch our new digital brands and establish our presence in different verticals.

The new companies will be positioned as key players in the digital solution space across the region and bring to market innovative products and services that respond to the needs of the public and private sector, addressing challenges they are facing in the evolving digitising economy, Shaikh Mohamed concluded.
Integrated satellite and terrestrial network operator Intelsat has made news recently  both in disaster relief and in the more sedate area of commercial and business aviation services.

Intelsat has joined a number of big names in telecommunications that have been supporting the relief effort in Tonga, where last week a volcanic explosion and subsequent tsunami knocked out a number of undersea internet cables, disconnecting a region that is home to over 100,000 people.

Intelsat, in cooperation with Australian operator Telstra and New Zealand operator Spark, has deployed emergency communications services to support humanitarian aid to Tonga and the archipelago for Digicel Tonga (whose efforts we reported late last week) and Tonga Communications Corporation.

Intelsat is providing space-based broadband connectivity on Horizons 3e and Intelsat 18, while partners Telstra and Spark are providing the ground infrastructure, including VSAT hubs at their teleports, uplink, internet access and remote kits.

The services provided are now fully provisioned, expanding broadband and voice services.

Additionally, Intelsat is providing services in conjunction with Optus, owned by Singapores Singtel, to the New Zealand Defence Force, which will provide humanitarian support in Tonga.

Intelsat has also been in the news after satellite networking technology company Gilat Satellite Networks announced that it was expanding its strategic partnership in commercial aviation with the operator.

To enable the expansion of commercial and business aviation services in Asia, Intelsat will be using Gilats SkyEdge II-c system, which, in addition to providing in-flight connectivity, is designed to deliver fixed and mobility services for maritime and land mobility.

Its management system, TotalNMS, enables full configuration, control and monitoring of all system elements and remote terminals. SkyEdge II-c is a proven operational system that, Gilat says, allows aviation service providers like Intelsat to streamline service fulfilment and provide a superior user experience to airline passengers.
Statement at Security Council Briefing on Libya

Statement

Thank you very much, Madam President,

Id also like to thank our briefers this morning, Under-Secretary-General di Carlo, Ambassador Tirumurti, and a special thanks to our civil society briefer, Elham Saudi. You delivered several very important messages to us this morning, and we will reflect on your cogent and very courageous remarks.



Thank you.

Let me begin by noting that we look forward to the substantive renewal of UNSMILs mandate at the end of the month. The Mission continues to do vital work on the ground in Libya.

Madam President,

At the first meetings of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum in November 2020, participants representing the full spectrum of Libyan society committed to a roadmap leading to democratic, inclusive and credible national elections. Libyans, and the international community, reaffirmed this solemn commitment in Berlin, in Tripoli, and once again last November in Paris.

2.8 million Libyans have since registered to vote, showing their determination to decide their own future, and to turn the page on a lost decade of conflict and instability. We call on all Libyan stakeholders to address the underlying issues that have held back progress in the electoral process to date, and to swiftly commit to holding free, fair and inclusive elections as soon as possible.

The international community and the UN stand ready to support the Libyan authorities. I commend the critical work carried out by the High National Electoral Commission in preparing the country for a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned electoral process, against a challenging background. This crucial work now continues.

Madam President,

As Ms. Asma Khalifa told this Council in September, and as we have heard again this morning from Elham, Libyan women have been repeatedly failed by all actors in Libya. We should not accept that only those who have been involved in conflict get a chance to shape the peace. As Libyans continue on the path to peace, the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women, and the inclusion of youth in all areas of Libyas political, economic and security sectors, must be secured. Libyan women must be included in the political discussions that determine the future of their country, Libya.

Madam President,

The Ceasefire Agreement of October 2020 cleared the space for a political process. We commend the progress to date on its implementation. The Coastal Road between Sirte and Misrata has remained open, allowing the Special Adviser to travel and engage with a diverse group of Libyans. The deployment in October and December of the first UN ceasefire monitors marked an essential step forward and we hope for future progress on this track.

We are concerned, however, by ongoing security threats, including those stemming from competition between armed groups. The unity of Libya must be safeguarded, and that includes unifying the security sector. We reiterate our call for the withdrawal of all foreign fighters, forces and mercenaries. This will require close consultation with Libyas neighbours, and a UN-supervised, gender-responsive DDR process. We commend the 5 + 5 Joint Military Commission for its close and ongoing cooperation with neighbouring states, the African Union and UNSMIL.

Madam President,

The impact of a decade of conflict in Libya has been devastating, including most tragically for Libyas children.

We are appalled by reports of killings, maiming, and abductions of children, despite the ceasefire. UN OCHA estimates more than a quarter of a million children in Libya are in need of humanitarian assistance. We call on all parties to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, pursue accountability for violations and ensure unimpeded humanitarian access across the country. In this regard we also continue to support the important work of the Independent Fact Finding Mission on Libya.

Child migrants and refugees arbitrarily detained in Libya face deplorable conditions and abuse. We urge the Libyan authorities to seek alternatives to detention that prioritise the needs and rights of migrants and refugees, including children.

Last week, we marked the 25th anniversary of the Children and Armed Conflict mandate. Surely rights of children in Libya should be safeguarded, as a step towards ensuring the hope and prosperity of an entire future generation.

Thank you, Madam President.

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In response to a dramatic increase in pedestrian fatalities in 2021, Alabama Troopers launched a pedestrian safety campaign to bring awareness to roadway hazards.

Troopers with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agencys (ALEA) Highway Patrol Division, in conjunction with other law enforcement partners across the state, investigated 769 pedestrian-related traffic crashes which resulted in 125 pedestrian fatalities.

That number is subject to change as local agencies may continue to report additional numbers to the Center for Advanced Public Safety at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Statewide statistics, which include deaths investigated by local law enforcement, showed that 105 pedestrians were killed in roadway accidents in 2020 compared to 114 in 2019.

Last week, ALEA launched the Everyone is a Pedestrian safety campaign to help bring awareness to the issue but to also ensure that both pedestrians and motorists fully understand the hazards associated with crossing or walking near the roadway.

It is extremely important for all motorists in Alabama to understand that once they exit a vehicle near a roadway, they automatically become a pedestrian and should take extra precautions, ALEA stated in a press release.

ALEA Secretary Hal Taylor said recently far too many troopers have been called to the scene of a traffic crash involving a pedestrian.

It is absolutely troubling to see such a dramatic increase in pedestrian fatalities across the state. Friends and families are losing loved ones to a senseless tragedy that can be easily avoided, Taylor said.

Col. Jimmy Helms, director of ALEAs Department of Public Safety, agreed with Taylor and encourages everyone to adhere to safety measures for both pedestrians and drivers.

Our agencys goal is to bring awareness to this issue and offer safety tips for both pedestrians as well as motorists in an effort to reduce pedestrian-related crashes and to keep all citizens and visitors safe while traveling on Alabamas roadways, Helms said.

ALEA offers these additional safety measures for pedestrians:

Walk on a sidewalk or path when one is available. If no sidewalk or path is available, walk on the shoulder  facing traffic.

Be cautious night and day when sharing the roadway with vehicles. Never assume the driver sees you. Make eye contact with drivers as they approach.

Be predictable, and cross streets at crosswalks or intersections when possible.

Be visible, and wear bright clothing during the day, and wear reflective materials or use a flashlight at night.

Do not walk when under the influence of alcohol or drugs, which impair your judgment and coordination.

ALEAs safety measures for drivers include:

Look for pedestrians everywhere. They may not be walking where they should be or may be hard to see  especially in poorly lit conditions, including dusk/dawn hours, at night and in inclement weather, including fog.

Always stop for pedestrians in crosswalks or where pedestrian signs are posted.

Never pass vehicles stopped at crosswalks. They may be stopped to allow individuals to cross the street.

Never drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Follow speed limits, slow down around pedestrians.
Dubai Land Department (DLD) has signed MoUs with three companies specialised in providing smart and advanced real estate solutions: Bayut, DXBinteract.com, and Property Finder.

These are aimed at providing Dubais real estate market with the best solutions that rely on data and interactive reports, which contributes to enhancing the digital transformation trends witnessed by Dubais real estate sector as well as supports DLDs vision of positioning Dubai as the world's premier real estate destination and a byword for innovation, trust, and happiness.

Through the MoUs, the three companies will provide qualitative, private and interactive data on real estate prices by region, and according to real estate construction, including the regional buying and selling prices, and the changing data that takes place in the real estate market during price changes, among others, depending on the stage it is going through.

On the key deals, Director General Sultan Butti bin Mejren said: "DLD is firmly committed to Dubai's real estate market transparently and providing the most effective smart and advanced real estate solutions, which contributes to raising the level of trust among investors and customers."

"These MoUs are part of our strategic goal and journey aimed at consolidating the emirate's position on the global real estate market," he stated.

They also contribute to building the best economy in the world, in line with the Year of the 50th charter recently announced by the wise leadership for the next 50 years, he added.

Real Estate Promotion Investment and Management Sector CEO Majida Ali Rashid said: "DLD seeks to permanently and continuously develop the services it provides in the interest of local and foreign investors. Through these partnership agreements, we will provide customers with a secure real estate environment and accurate and reliable data."

"This will contribute to enabling them to keep track of changes in the real estate market according to the map and follow up on price changes immediately, which would support our futuristic directions and strategic vision by providing real estate services with complete professionalism and transparency in information, systems, data and procedures," she added.

Bayut & dubizzle CEO Haider Ali Khan said: "We believe that such collaborative partnerships play a vital role in achieving national objectives and creating a better environment for all stakeholders."

"We hope this partnership will provide property seekers across the UAE a more informed browsing experience and more elevated standards when searching online," he noted.

Firas Al Msaddi, CEO of Oratec, the developer of DXBinteract.com, said: "We are pleased to sign this agreement with DLD to provide an interactive environment for the first time in the Dubai real estate market through DXBinteract.com."

"DLD can also view profiles of these real estate investors whether local or international to gauge interest in Dubais real estate sector," he added.

Property Finders Founder and CEO Michael Lahyani said: "We share the same vision along with the Dubai Land Department in further professionalising the real estate market. With operations across the wider Mena region, we have access to the largest set of proprietary data on asking prices and a number of other metrics that attribute to the larger real estate picture."

"We believe this partnership will further advance the property market in Dubai and increase transparency," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a nation to care for the Army, according to former Sgt. Maj. of the Army (SMA) Daniel Dailey.

The retired SMA was the guest speaker at the Fort Rucker  Wiregrass Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) luncheon recently held at the Dothan Civic Center. Dailey serves as the vice president of Noncommissioned Officer and Soldier Programs for AUSA national.

Dailey said AUSA operates with a small staff to oversee the day-to-day business. Still, it is blessed to have a global community of volunteers made up of veterans, military family members, community members, and caring citizens. They comprise an organization made up of seven regions that span across the country and the globe, he said.

Dailey noted those volunteers throughout the regions are the lifeblood of AUSA because they carry out the mission to educate, inform and connect Americans with soldiers and our Army. Members and businesses that are community partners or chapter sponsors not only are part of the oldest military service association, but they also know that 100% of their proceeds help the chapter take care of soldiers and their families.

The association serves active-duty soldiers, national guard, reservists, and veterans. These are the men and women, Dailey said, who leave their family, friends, and hometowns to endure some of the most austere conditions, deploy all over the world and defend the rights, freedoms, and liberties of their countrymen and women.

In many cases, they will re-enlist to do it again, and again, and again  put their own lives on hold, and accept far less compensation working nights, weekends, and holidays, he said.

We have the best army in the world because we have the best soldiers in the world. They have spent more time in combat than any previous generation in American history, and they have prevailed.

Dailey said he is proud to be part of an organization like AUSA dedicated to supporting the American soldier, the nations greatest resource.

The pandemic did not slow AUSA down in its fight for soldiers. Dailey said the team conducted more than 100 virtual leaders development sessions with soldiers, ranging from a squad to 6,000. They assisted the National Guard and the Army Reserve with the execution of virtual drills to keep those soldiers paid when many of them were losing or being laid-off due to COVID-19.

We pressed hard on Capitol Hill advocating for important things like pandemic relief, passing of the National Defense Authorization Act, pay raises for soldiers, increases in Basic Allowance for Housing to offset some of the effects of the explosive housing market and more, he said.

At the end of 2020, the national association kept everyone at work, continued to support the chapters, increased membership, and pledged $2 million to the Army Emergency Relief fund to help families struggling with food needs.

Although tough times are not behind us yet, Dailey said there is hope somewhere out in front. Despite hard times, AUSA will be here for our Army, and in fact, its the hard times when the Army needs us the most, he said. Thank you for sticking with us, thanks for riding out the storm with the Fort Rucker  Wiregrass Chapter and thank you for helping row AUSA through the waves.

For information on how to join the Fort Rucker  Wiregrass Chapter of AUSA, go to www.ausawiregrass.org and look under the information box.
Vi Van Biet (L) and Tran Thi Hanh, his wife and kidney donor, at Cho Ray Hospital in HCMC on January 21, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/An My

Doctors in Ho Chi Minh City have successfully performed a kidney transplant without the same blood type, the first case of its type in Vietnam.

The transplant was performed at Cho Ray, a leading hospital in southern Vietnam.

The recipient is Vi Van Biet, 54, and the donor is his wife, Tran Thi Hanh, 51. Biet has blood type A and Hanh, type B.

Biet had had to rely on dialysis since December 2020 as he reached the end stage of renal failure.

For almost two years, Biet had to undergo the process three days a week in HCMC. For the procedure, he had to leave home in Ben Tre Province in the Mekong Delta to take a bus at 5 a.m. and return home in the evening.

Traveling and dining out cost him VND10 million ($440) per month.

"Whenever returning home from dialysis, I always felt exhausted. I had to spend almost the entire next day resting and couldn't do anything," he said.

Biet's older brother, who has the same blood type, wanted to donate a kidney, but health examination shows he was not qualified.

His wife, Hanh, has the same wish, but their blood type did not match.

"Our son is just 16 so I really wish for his father to live on and be there for him."

Thai Minh Sam, head of the Department of Urology, said around 300 patients register for kidney transplants every year but the hospital could not cure 100 because of different reasons, with one of them being the lack of donors with the same blood type.

Sam said the process to transplant kidneys between recipients and donors with incompatible blood types has occurred in several countries.

"To perform incompatible organ transplant, it requests meticulous preparation and calculation or the recipient could suffer anaphylaxis and die shortly after the operation," said doctor Sam.

"Over the years, the hospital has sent doctors abroad to study and coordinate with dialysis units and blood transfusion centers to develop detailed plans," he said.

To transplant a kidney with different blood types, doctors must first stop the production of antibodies in the blood to avoid rejection. The patient is then subjected to the maximum removal of circulating antibodies by plasmapheresis, a term used to refer to a broad range of procedures in which extra corporeal separation of blood components results in a filtered plasma product.

Eventually, the hospital and Biets family reached an agreement for his wife to give him a kidney.

For the unprecedented kidney transplant in Vietnam, Biet and Hanh had to be hospitalized two weeks instead of two days before the operation.

Nguyen Minh Tuan, head of the Department of Artificial Nephrology at Cho Ray, said the goal of plasmapheresis is to remove antibodies from the patient's body.

"Fortunately, in this case, the patient has low antibody levels, so only three filtrations are needed," said Tuan.

The operation took place on Dec. 29 last year and the recipient could urinate right away.

The next day, he could eat and drink normally. His health has kept improving day by day.

"Im feeling a lot better now. From now on, I no longer have to go through dialysis. My wife has recovered speedily after the operation," he told VnExpress on Jan. 21.

Biet has since been discharged from hospital.

The cost of the operation is thrice higher than normal but thanks to health insurance, Biets family only had to pay VND100 million ($4,400), similar to a normal kidney transplant.

Nguyen Tri Thuc, director of Cho Ray, said: "This initial success is a great signal that opens up a lot of opportunities for kidney patients."

In Vietnam, where organ donation is considered taboo as many believe one should die wholly prepared for the afterlife, black market kidney transactions are common.

In most cases, those with kidney failure have to register to wait in line for a legal kidney, which normally takes several months or even more due to a serious donor shortage. This has prompted many kidney patients to gradually lose hope and turn to the black market. In many cases, donors and receivers have no information on each other.
An aerial view of downtown HCMC at night. Photo by VnExpress/Tran Ngoc Dung

A survey has found that 90 percent of Singaporeans plan to visit Vietnam this year once entry restrictions are completely lifted.

In the poll of 1,000 people by Changi Airport Group, the operator of the island nation's airport, 95 percent said they would stay in Vietnam for over seven days for their holidays, and their favorite destinations are Hanoi, HCMC, Da Nang, and Ha Long Bay.

Three in five said they have visited Vietnam before, and most respondents were impressed by Vietnam's diverse cuisine, natural landscapes and traditional culture.

Vietnam resumed commercial flights to and from Singapore on January 1.

In November the government started allowing in foreign tourists under a vaccine passport program, and nearly 8,000 have arrived so far.

But they are only allowed to come on package tours with limited itineraries.

Khanh Hoa, Kien Giang, Quang Nam, Quang Ninh, and Binh Dinh provinces and HCMC and Da Nang City are the only localities they are allowed to visit.

Various industry trade groups have called on the government to consider fully reopening the country to foreign visitors from May 1 to revive the tourism sector.
China says not ready to resume Vietnam flights

A Vietnam Airlines aircraft takes off at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, Guangzhou, China, 2019. Photo by Shutterstock/Markus Mainka

The Civil Aviation Administration of China has rejected Vietnam's proposal to resume commercial flights since strict entry measures remain in place to control Covid.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said last month it wrote to its Chinese counterpart about restarting flights, but was informed that with number of Covid cases still remaining high globally as well as in China the government was yet to ease control measures, Giao Thong (Transport) newspaper reported.

It has not been authorized to discuss resumption of flights with other countries yet, the Chinese agency said, promising to start discussions with the CAAV as soon as the government relaxes pandemic prevention measures.

China is one of the few countries in the world still pursuing a zero-Covid policy and stringent entry requirements.

Vietnam resumed regular flights from Hanoi and HCMC to Bangkok, Phnom Penh, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, and Tokyo on January 1.

On Monday it will restart flights to Russia, the U.K., France, and Germany.

Before the pandemic, China was Vietnam's biggest tourism market with nearly 4.8 million Chinese visiting in 2019.

Besides, around 36,000 Vietnamese nationals live in China.
The U.S. mission in Iraq has officially transitioned from a combat mission to one of advising and supporting the Iraqi security forces. Some 2,500 U.S. forces remain in Iraq and approximately 1,000 are in Syria as part of the U.S.-led Coalitions ongoing fight against ISIS, known as Operation Inherent Resolve.

U.S. forces remain at risk in the region, and not only from ISIS. During the first week of January, bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria were the target of a series of attacks. Among them were two explosive-laden drones directed at U.S. forces near the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq. Base defenses destroyed both drones. In addition, the Green Village, a Syrian Democratic Forces base in northeast Syria, which hosts a small presence of American and Coalition troops, took indirect fire from within civilian infrastructure.

The attacks occurred during the days around the second anniversary of the U.S. strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps  Qods Force and was responsible for the injury and death of thousands of U.S. troops. The United States designated the Qods Force a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2019.

At a recent press briefing, Defense Department Spokesperson John Kirby said the recent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria are very much in keeping with the kinds of attacks weve seen from Iran-backed militias. . .Our working level assumption is that such groups were responsible for these.

Both Spokesperson Kirby and the Commander of the Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve Major General John Brennan made clear that the U.S. military can and will act in self-defense. The Coalition reserves the right to defend itself and partner forces against any threat and will continue to do everything within its power to protect those forces, said Major General Brennan. Our Coalition continues to see threats against our forces in Iraq and Syria by militia groups that are backed by Iran. These attacks are a dangerous distraction from our Coalitions shared mission to advise, assist, and enable partner forces to maintain the enduring defeat of Daesh [ISIS].
ELKO  An Elko man who has been sentenced to prison five times over the past decade was arrested on felony charges after police spotted him driving a stolen pickup.

On Wednesday afternoon near 12th Street and Lamoille Highway, an Elko Police Department officer pulled over a Ford pickup that matched the description of one that had been stolen a day earlier.

The driver, Derek R. Goff, 35, was arrested along with passenger Joshua G. Kay, 35, of Elko.

According to an officers report, Goff told police he borrowed the truck about a week earlier from someone named John, but he could not provide further identifying information.

Goff was searched before being placed in the patrol car and police said they found a small baggie with a white crystal substance inside that later tested positive for methamphetamine.

According to Nevada Department of Corrections records, Goff has been sent to prison five times over the past decade on charges of theft, grand larceny, drug possession, third offense domestic battery and coercion. His last parole hearing was in 2019.

Goff was also arrested last month on a felony domestic violence charge in Elko.

Kay was booked at Elko County Jail on a charge of failure to appear after bail on a felony crime.

According to jail records, Kay was arrested three times in 2021 on charges including stolen property, petty larceny and driving with a suspended license. He was also arrested in 2020 for violating probation.

Kay was also arrested on felony charges in July 2018, November 2016 and in October 2014.

He was sentenced to prison in 2017 after being convicted of attempted possession of a firearm by an ex-felon, and in 2020 for attempted home invasion.

Bail was listed at $25,000 for Goff and Kay on the most recent charges.

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AD Ports Group has signed a new agreement with Eni Abu Dhabi, a local unit of the world-renowned Italian integrated energy company, to establish a marine logistics base at Mugharraq Port supporting offshore drilling operations in the heart of Al Dhafra region.

Mugharraq Ports ultra-modern infrastructure and its strategic location close to the regions offshore oil and gas facilities will be made available to Eni Abu Dhabi operations.

Boasting over 480 m of heavy-lift berths, six dedicated Ro-Ro ramps, and over 85,000 sq m of yard, Mugharraq Port provides a wide range of general cargo handling, bulk, break-bulk, and logistics support services, said the statement from AD Ports Group.

In addition to being provided a dedicated quay wall, marshalling yard, as well as manpower and logistical equipment, the company will also have access to liquid mud and bulk plant facilities onsite, it added.

Head of Ports Cluster Saif Al Mazrouei said: "It gives us great pleasure to welcome Eni Abu Dhabi, a major player in the worlds energy industry, who leads several offshore operations around the world, to join our flourishing industrial maritime community within the Al Dhafra region."

"Utilising the industry-leading infrastructure and service capability that we have on offer at Mugharraq Port, Eni will be able to operate in proximity to its offshore drilling facilities benefiting operational efficiency," noted Al Mazrouei.

A high-performing commercial maritime facility, Mugharraq Port has undergone extensive modernisation in recent years with AD Ports Group investing heavily in the development of the ports logistical infrastructure and capabilities, as well as enhancing its capacity to meet the evolving needs of the regions fast-developing offshore oil and gas segment.

The port was also recently recognised as an international port facility and received its official certification from the UAEs Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure as per the guidelines of the International Code for the Security of Ships and Port Facilities (ISPS Code).

As part of its new status, Mugharraq Port is now able to receive and service a host of international and local vessels.

Mubarak Al Mazrouei, Port Director  Al Dhafra Region, AD Ports Group, said: "It has a rich history as a leading maritime facility in Al Dhafra region that has long supported a wide-range of offshore, general cargo, bulk and break-bulk, and commercial logistics operations."

"With enhanced capabilities to serve the GCCs oil and gas market, as well as the recent recognition as an international port facility, Mugharraq Port is now well equipped to meet both the regional and global requirements of the Middle Easts leading energy players," he added.
As the situation on the Ukraine-Russia border continues to escalate both the United States and the United Kingdom have began advising diplomats and their families living in Kyiv to leave the country.

The US has warned that an invasion could come at any time and recommended that all relatives of embassy staff leave the Ukrainian capital. The decisions are thought to be precautionary at this stage but with more than 100,000 Russian troops stationed at the border the withdrawal is an acceptance of the precarious situation in Eastern Europe.

A travel advisory from the State Department added: The security conditions, particularly along Ukraines borders, in Russia-occupied Crimea, and in Russia-controlled eastern Ukraine, are unpredictable and can deteriorate with little notice.

For now, the US has not sent any troops to Ukraine to help secure the border with Russia, but ongoing conversations in Washington focus on the need to curb the threat of Russian expansion.

US considers sending troops to the Ukrainian border

The New York Times reports that President Biden is considering deploying several thousand troops to support NATO allies in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, amid mounting fears of a Russian invasion.

The United States has maintained a fairly restrained position on Ukraine, appearing unwilling to provoke Russian forces into a more aggressive action. However as Russian forces continue to amass at the border hopes of a diplomatic solution seem increasingly unlikely. President Putin has long seen Ukraine a major strategic goal for Russia and his refusal to back down in recent weeks may push Biden to seriously consider intervening.

On Saturday Biden met with senior Pentagon officials at Camp David and was presented with several options to mitigate Putins ambitions in Eastern Europe. Sources suggest that this could include sending up to 5,000 troops to the area to be deployed by NATO allies, with a contingency to increase that number ten-fold if required.

Even as were engaged in diplomacy, we are very much focused on building up defence, building up deterrence, Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted on CBS yesterday. NATO itself will continue to be reinforced in a significant way if Russia commits renewed acts of aggression. All of that is on the table.

Military support sent to aid Ukrainian defences

The US remains unwilling, for now, to send Americans to the Ukrainian border but Biden has approved a significant distribution of lethal aid to support Ukraines military. NPR report that around $650 million in defence equipment and other services has been pledged over the past year.

Most recently, in December President Biden approved a $200 million shipment comprising more than 90 tons of military aid for Ukraine. But as Russian forces continue to gather at the Ukrainian border there is concern that additional support may be required. It is thought that this could potentially include additional ammunition, mortars, Javelin anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missile systems to help resist a Russian occupation.

"The United States and its allies and partners are standing together to expedite security assistance to Ukraine," Blinken tweeted last Friday. "We are utilizing all available security cooperation tools to help Ukraine bolster its defences in the face of Russian aggression."
Over the weekend two earthquakes were recorded in northern Israel in the space of just a few hours, sparking concern that a major incident could be on its way.

The second quake hit the country at midday on Sunday, around 10 miles southeast of the city of Tiberias. The 3.5-magnitude quake has not yet been linked to any reports of injuries or damage and it is considered a level two Moderate earthquake by GNS Science.

Geological activity is far from uncommon in this area and a series of fault lines run along the Red Sea, the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley.

Two earthquakes hit Israel in short succession

The second quake on Sunday followed another one recorded from 11:36pm on Saturday, which struck around 12 miles northeast of Beit Shean on the Israeli border with Jordan. The first earthquake notched up a magnitude of 3.7 and locals report furniture moving around their homes and walls beginning to shake with the force of the quake.

Speaking to The Times of Israel, one Haika resident said: It went on for a relatively long time. It moved things around in my house My desk was moving by itself for four or five seconds. The whole house, the bed, the room shook.

Authorities have reiterated the importance of following earthquake protocols and advised that anyone who fears they are in immediate danger should move to an open space. Those who are unable to leave their buildings should enter a bomb-proof secure room, the stairwell of their building, or shelter in the corner of the room.

If you happen to be outside during a quake, stay clear from buildings, trees and any structures that could fall during the earthquake. Anyone near the coast should stay at least one kilometre away from the water in case of flooding or tsunami.

Earthquakes pose a major threat in Israel

In the aftermath of the two fairly moderate quakes over the weekend a local mayor has outlined the devastating impact that a more serious seismic event could have on the area.

Speaking to local radio station Army Radio, Beit Shean Mayor Jacky Levy revealed that he had been told during a briefing in 2005 that the town sat right on the Syrian-African fault line. The combination of that location and a low standard of building in the town means that thousands of residents could lose their lives unless infrastructure improvements are made.

Mayor Levy said that Beit She-an, which has a population of around 20,000, could suffer 10,000 deaths if a major earthquake was to hit the area. In recent years a significant investment from the central government was supposed to help reinforce buildings in earthquake hotspots but Levy has claimed that none of the money was actually allocated.

Everyone knows that there is going to be an earthquake but no one is doing anything, Levy said. The State of Israel doesnt know how to handle an earthquake and the number of casualties will be insane.

The solution is action and not just talking. We need an immediate budget to reinforced buildings that could collapse.




President Nguyen Xuan Phuc is greeted by local public security officers. (Photo: VNA)

President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who is also Chairman of the National Defence-Security Council and Commander-in-chief of the Vietnam Peoples Armed Forces, made the request during his visit to the municipal public security departments headquarters on January 24 to check the forces' preparedness during the upcoming holiday.

He highlighted the key role of the public security forces in maintaining security and social order in the city, particularly during the time when the southern economic hub was struggling to contain the fourth COVID-19 wave last year. The city has seen positive progress in combating crimes, with the crime rate down more than 11 percent in 2021, he said.

The State leader conveyed his Tet greetings to local public security officers and families of those who have died or injured on duty in the fight against the pandemic, requesting the Ministry of Public Security and its HCM City department to ensure social welfare for these people.

The president particularly required the HCM City Department of Public Security to speed up investigations and legal proceedings against child abusers and strictly punish them.

On the same day, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc visited HCM City High Command. He hailed the armed forces for having made significant contributions to the citys COVID-19 fight. Last year, the HCM City High Command established and run 20 COVID-19 treatment hospitals and eight quarantine sites, while sending personnel to work at many other hospitals.

The President urged the high command to stand ready to coordinate with other forces to protect security and social order during the New Year festival and keep up the good work in 2022./.
According to statistics from January last year to January this year, stocks of renewable energy companies all grew significantly, Truong Thanh Energy and Real Estate JSC (TEG) grew 175.59 percent, Licogi 13 JSC (LIG) rose 167.21 percent, Gelex Group JSC (GEX) gained 163.28 percent, Fecon JSC (FCN) increased 142.02 percent, Bamboo Capital Joint Stock Company (BCG) rose 141.22 percent.



"There are a few reasons why renewable energy stocks have risen sharply in recent times, such as predictions that this power source will account for the largest proportion in the total capacity of Vietnam's power sources. The commitment of the Vietnamese Government to achieve net emissions of "zero" in the recent COP26 is a great motivation for businesses to continue participating in and expanding the exploitation of renewable energy sources, namely solar power, wind power, said Ha Duc Tung, analyst of VNDirect Securities JSC.



Multinational Investment & Development JSC's workers install a rooftop solar power system for a frozen seafood factory in Dong Thap province. (Photo: VNA)



Bamboo Capital Joint Stock Company (BCG) has signed cooperation deals with international enterprises like Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy, SP Group, Sembcorp Utilities. Gelex Group JSC (GEX) has established a subsidiary named Gelex Electrical Equipment JSC specialised in renewable energy listed on UPCOM.



Many enterprises have positive business results in the first nine months of 2021. Truong Thanh Energy and Real Estate JSC (TEG)s nine-month revenue reached 199.4 billion VND, up nearly 44 percent over the same period last year. The company's net profit reached more than 19 billion VND, an increase of more than 2,300 percent - the highest growth rate of profit after tax among renewable energy companies.



Bamboo Capital Joint Stock Company (BCG)'s net profit in nine months reached 701 billion VND, up nearly 579 percent over the same period last year. According to BCG, this growth was achieved thanks to the cash flow earned from renewable energy projects that were energised at the end of 2020.



Gelex Group JSC (GEX) earned a profit of 1.16 trillion VND, up 81.3 percent, KOSY Joint Stock Company (KOS) reported 15 billion VND, up 68.9 percent, Alpha Seven Group JSC (DL1) achieved 35 billion VND, up 57.3 percent.



In terms of efficiency per dollar spent, Bamboo Capital Joint Stock Company (BCG) ranked first with return on equity (ROE) reaching 13.74 percent, followed by Power Construction JSC No.1 (PC1) (12.52 percent), Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) 12.27 percent, Gelex Group JSC (GEX) 8.56 percent.



As for the return on asset (ROA), Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) was the champion as its ROA reached 6.68 percent, followed by Power Construction JSC No.1 (PC1) 4.78 percent, Sao Mai Group Corporation (ASM) 3.26 percent and Truong Thanh Energy and Real Estate JSC (TEG) 3.02 percent.



Many analysts forecast renewable energy stocks still have room for growth in the long term.



Yuanta Securities Vietnam Joint Stock Company forecast that electricity demand will grow by 9.8 percent per year to support the expected GDP growth in the 2021-2030 period from 6.5-7.0 percent.



With the same opinion, Agriseco Research assesses that the electricity industry will achieve good growth this year following the recovery of the economy. In the medium and long term, thermoelectric power and renewable energy are expected to gradually replace traditional energy sources such as coal and hydroelectricity.



Under the Government's plan, the installed capacity of solar and wind power will reach 35GW and 41GW by 2045, accounting for 20 percent and 23.3 percent of the total installed capacity of power sources in the country. Thanks to the incentives on electricity generation prices, the capacity of solar power has reached 16,500 MW.



According to Agriseco Research, thanks to the application of technology and price competition among the world's turbine and solar cell suppliers, net costs, which include installation costs, management costs, operation management, repair costs, in the life cycle of renewable energy projects tend to decline sharply.



As a result, the installation costs of solar and wind power projects onshore may be cheaper than coal power projects in the next few years when the equipment market is saturated.



Meanwhile, in a recent analysis report, VNDirect Securities JSC highly valued the stocks of companies with renewable energy projects with attractive preferential feed-in-tariff (FIT) mechanism prices and low-cost development.



The government's supportive policies may facilitate wind power companies to develop in the future such as Ha Do Group JSC (HDG), Gelex Group JSC (GEG), Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corporation (REE) and Power Construction JSC No.1 (PC1)./.
A health worker gives a COVID-19 jab to a resident in Vientiane, Laos. (Photo: XINHUA/VNA)



The government has obtained its goal to vaccinate at least 50 percent of the population by the end of 2021, putting the pandemic under control. However, challenges remain and more lessons are to be learned to ensure a larger segment of the population get vaccinated in 2022.



The Vientiane Times on January 24 quoted Phonepaseuth Ounaphom, Director General of the Department of Hygiene and Health Promotion under the Ministry of Health, as saying that the country made good progress last year under the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan.



Large numbers of people in priority groups have been fully vaccinated, including children aged 12 and over, pregnant women, and essential workers such as school teachers.



In order to increase vaccine coverage, striving to achieve the goal of at least 80 percent of the population being vaccinated by the end of 2022, the Ministry of Health has directed authorities to set up more vaccination centres in community health stations and in villages to make it easier for local people to access. The ministry also urged unvaccinated people or those who have not been received two shots to be vaccinated to minimise the impact on peoples health and the economy.



As of January 21, the percentage of people who have one dose of COVID-19 vaccine has accounted for nearly 64 percent of the population while those with two shots reached 53 percent.



Regarding the COVID-19 situation, the Ministry of Health on January 24 said that in the past 24 hours, the country recorded only 340 new infections and one fatality, the lowest in many months in the country. The national tally reached 130,293 cases, with 527 deaths./.


Workers inspect seamless steel tubes at a plant of Ansteel Group Co., Ltd. in Anshan, northeast China's Liaoning Province, July 5, 2019. (Xinhua/Pan Yulong)

BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Most of capital goods monitored by the Chinese government registered higher prices in mid-January compared with early January, official data showed Monday.

Of the 50 major goods monitored by the government, including seamless steel tubes, gasoline, coal, fertilizer and some chemicals, 32 reported rising prices during the period, 15 registered lower prices, while three saw prices remain unchanged, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Hog prices lost 6.7 percent in mid-January compared with that in early January.

The readings, released every 10 days, are based on a survey of nearly 2,000 wholesalers and distributors in 31 provincial-level regions. 

Editor: ZAD
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Union will provide a new package of financial assistance to support Ukraine.

She made the announcement on Monday on her Twitter page.

"The EU stands by Ukraine. We are firm in our resolve. I am announcing a new financial assistance package, made of emergency loans and grants, to support Ukraine in the medium and long-term," the president of the European Commission said.

In a statement spread by the European Commission, von der Leyen recalled that last Friday, she spoke with President Zelensky "to assess the situation in Ukraine created by Russia's aggressive actions."

"We discussed how the EU could continue to support Ukraine, both in the immediate and medium term Today, I am announcing a new financial assistance package to the country made of both emergency loans and grants. First, the Commission proposes a new emergency macro-financial assistance package (MFA) of EUR 1.2 billion. This package will help Ukraine now to address its financing needs due to the conflict," she said.

She expressed hope that the Council and the European Parliament to adopt this emergency MFA as soon as possible.

"We will then proceed to the rapid disbursement of a first tranche of EUR 600 million. Moreover, we will soon start work on a second, longer-term MFA programme to support the country's modernisation efforts. Second, the Commission will almost double its bilateral assistance to Ukraine in grants this year: Another EUR 120 million will be allocated. This support will strengthen Ukraine's state-building and resilience efforts," she said.

She also said that the European Commission will continue to invest in the country's future, "thanks to our Investment Plan for the country."

"This plan aims to leverage over EUR 6 billion in investments. Let me be clear once more: Ukraine is a free and sovereign country. It makes its own choices. The EU will continue to stand by its side," von der Leyen said.
Ukraine has 12,915 new cases of COVID-19, as well as 2,430 recoveries and 67 deaths in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Health Ministry said on Monday.

"Over the past day, January 23, Ukraine has recorded 12,915 new cases of COVID-19 (including 1,826 children and 224 medical workers), while 22,541 persons have been vaccinated for COVID-19, including 8,280 who received their first shot of a vaccine, 8,835 who received the second dose, 87 who received an additional dose, and 5,339 who received a booster shot. In the past 24 hours, 1,836 people have been hospitalized, 67 have died, and 2,430 have recovered," the ministry said on Telegram.

Ukraine reported 15,444 new infections the day before.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ukraine has seen a total of 3,870,370 COVID-19 cases, including 3,585,338 recoveries and 99,282 deaths.

Meanwhile, 15,164,118 people have been vaccinated for COVID-19 in Ukraine, among them 15,164,116 who received the first shot of a vaccine, 14,466,084 who received both doses, 13,108 who received an additional dose, and 208,784 who received a booster shot. In all, 29,852,092 shots have been administered to date.
EU not going to evacuate families of diplomats from Ukraine

Head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell said on Monday that he sees no reason to evacuate the families of diplomats from Ukraine.

Borrell said, commenting on reports about the U.S. decision to evacuate the families of American diplomats from Ukraine, that they are not going to do the same as the United States, because they do not see any specific reasons for this.

He said he sees no reason for European diplomats to leave Ukraine while negotiations [with Russia] are underway.

At the same time, the head of European diplomacy noted that he expects U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to explain the reasons for Washington's decision during the meeting of the foreign ministers of the EU member states.
The United Kingdom is partially withdrawing its diplomatic staff and their families from Ukraine due to "the growing threat from Russia," the British government said in a statement on its website on Monday.

"Some Embassy staff and dependants are being withdrawn from Kyiv in response to growing threat from Russia," the statement said.

"The British Embassy remains open and will continue to carry out essential work," it said.
The UAE Ministry of Defence said its air defence forces had intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles targeting the UAE, which were fired by the Houthi militia.

The ministry confirmed that there were no casualties resulting from the attack, as the fragments of the ballistic missiles fell in different areas around the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, a Wam news agency report said.

The ministry affirmed its "full readiness to deal with any threats," adding that it will "take all necessary measures to protect the UAE from any attacks."

The ministry also called on the public to follow the news from the UAEs official authorities.
NATO is putting its armed forces on alert and sending additional ships and fighter jets to Eastern Europe in connection with the build-up of Russian military forces near Ukraine.

"NATO Allies are putting forces on standby and sending additional ships and fighter jets to NATO deployments in eastern Europe, reinforcing Allied deterrence and defence as Russia continues its military build-up in and around Ukraine," a statement published on the NATO website reads.

The communique says that in the past days, a number of Allies have made announcements regarding current or upcoming deployments. Thus, according to the statement, Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is set to deploy four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania in support of NATO's long-standing air-policing mission in the region. Spain is sending ships to join NATO naval forces and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria.

In addition, France has expressed its readiness to send troops to Romania under NATO command.

The United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance.

NATO is also expecting that the Netherlands will send two F-35 fighter aircraft to Bulgaria from April to support NATO's air-policing activities in the region, and will put a ship and land-based units on standby for NATOs Response Force.

"There were no NATO forces in the eastern part of the Alliance before 2014," NATO says.
Germany allows relatives of diplomatic staff members in Ukraine to leave country

The German Foreign Office has decided to allow relatives of officers of its diplomatic missions in Ukraine to leave the country if they wish to, German Foreign Office spokesperson Christofer Burger said.

"It has been decided to enable family members of officers of German foreign missions in Ukraine and family members of employees of German organizations in Ukraine, for example, the Goethe-Institut or DAAD [the German Academic Exchange Service], to leave voluntarily," Burger told journalists on Monday.

If relatives of a German diplomat wish to leave Ukraine, the German Foreign Office will refund their tickets, he said.

Burger did not specify how many people could use this opportunity.
Lithuania will supply the Ukrainian army with U.S.-made Stinger man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) amid the ongoing Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border, the Lithuanian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

Latvia will deliver MANPADS of the same type, while Estonia is planning the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles.

"The assistance is rendered following the approval by the United States Government to transfer U.S.-made equipment to a third party," it said.

"As we are handing over the weaponry, my sincere hope is that Ukraine will not need it. The Baltic states are calling on Russia to cease its aggressive and irresponsible activity," Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said.
Gulf Capital, a leading thematic alternative investment firm in the GCC and Asia, said that its portfolio company, Cedar White Bradley (CWB) Legal, has opened its new headquarters in Abu Dhabi.



The company was awarded a licence by Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM) to operate from one of the most attractive, accessible, and innovative International Financial Centres. CWB Legal is one of the largest intellectual property legal consultancy firms in the region, with footprint in 22 countries.



Dr Karim El Solh, co-Founder and CEO of Gulf Capital, said: ADGM is a world-class financial ecosystem that offers our portfolio company, CWB, the perfect platform for growth across Asia and Emerging Markets. Based in ADGM, CWB is now ideally positioned to expand across neighbouring markets, especially the CIS, Asian and African markets.



Gulf Capital has a long track record over the last 15 years of building global leaders out of the UAE and we believe CWB is ideally positioned to become, in its own right, the Emerging Markets leader in Intellectual Property services. Its new home at ADGM is the ideal launchpad for this ambitious global expansion.



Juma Al Hameli, Chief Strategy Officer & Business Development Officer of Abu Dhabi Global Market: We warmly welcome Gulf Capitals portfolio company, Cedar White Bradley (CWB) Legal Limited to ADGM and hope it will continue to flourish and add to ADGMs vibrancy. Through its patent enforcement and commercialisation services, we look forward for CWB to develop pathways for companies and entrepreneurs to achieve their aspirations."



ADGM is strategically positioned in the centre of the East and West corridor, linking economies and time zones and providing the ideal location for companies and financial institutions to conduct their global operations and access high-growth opportunities.



Halim Shehadeh, CEO of CWB Legal added: We are excited to open our headquarters in Abu Dhabi as another step in achieving our international growth plans. This marks a major milestone for us as a firm and happens at an important junction in our growth phase. The UAE is not only the second largest and most advanced economy in the GCC, but also its capital Abu Dhabi is a city at the crossroads of East and West.



We intend on leveraging ADGMs world class infrastructure to enable and facilitate our expansion across emerging markets including the CIS, Asia, and Africa and to bring us so much closer to realising our goal of building the global emerging markets leader in IP. The sweeping legal reforms announced recently in the UAE, including those in the Intellectual Property laws, formed the largest legal reforms in the countrys 50-year history, and further strengthen our case for being domiciled in Abu Dhabi, ADGM, and the UAE.



ADGM is home to more than 4150 registered entities, comprising some of the regions and the worlds largest financial institutions - banks, investment firms, fund management companies, treasury centres, corporations, energy companies, technology firms, tech start-ups, corporate and professional services and other businesses.



CWB serves a long list of global multinational clients, consisting of many of the worlds largest and most famous brand owners, in their intellectual property matters across the Mena region.  TradeArabia News Service
Egypts Food Safety Authority (FSA) announced on Tuesday that it has given Indomie Egypt 48 hours to pull from Egyptian markets its chicken and vegetables flavoured instant noodles as well as instant noodles with chili packs as they are are unfit for human consumption.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi attended on Monday a celebration of Eid El-Fitr with the families of Egyptian Armed Forces and police personnel killed or injured in the countrys battle against terrorism.
Germany's top court said Tuesday that it has rejected the appeal of a former member of Syria's secret police who was convicted last year of facilitating the torture of prisoners in his home country.
Saudi Public Transport Company (Saptco) has signed a contract worth more than SR150 million ($40 million) with the Eastern Province Municipality for a major public bus transport project.

The project will be implemented in Dammam City and Al Qatif governorate within a period of five years, said Saptco in its filing to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The project is expected to have a positive impact on the companys revenues during the first half of 2022, it added.
State-owned Bank Misr has carried out an ownership transfer transaction for fellow state-owned Banque du Caire in a deal valued at EGP 6.9 billion, the Egyptian Stock Exchange (EGX) announced on Thursday.
'The consequences of Hariri's stepping down may be dangerous for the future of the situation in Lebanon,' the AL chief was quoted as saying in an AL statement

Arab League (AL) Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit expressed late on Thursday "great disappointment" over the decision by Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to step down.

"The consequences of Hariri's stepping down may be dangerous for the future of the situation in Lebanon," the AL chief was quoted as saying in an AL statement.

Aboul-Gheit made the remarks from the US city of New York where he is participating in a UN Security Council session on Libya, according to the statement.

He held all Lebanese politicians responsible for "such a deteriorating condition" that the Lebanese people don't deserve, vowing that the AL would continue its support for Lebanon in this crucial stage of its history.

Hariri gave up the effort to form a new government on Thursday after a meeting with President Michel Aoun, citing that "it's clear that nothing changes and it seems that we disagree with the president."

Hariri's failure to form a non-partisan cabinet in the crisis-torn country narrows the chances for a cabinet formation any time soon to save the country from worsening financial conditions.

Aboul-Gheit urged the international community to stand by Lebanon and support its people in this critical phase.

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The UAE vowed reprisals after a drone attack on Monday claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels triggered a fuel tank blast that killed three people in Abu Dhabi.

The UAE vowed reprisals after a drone attack on Monday claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels triggered a fuel tank blast that killed three people in Abu Dhabi.

The United Arab Emirates is part of a Saudi-led military coalition that supports Yemen's government against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have repeatedly targeted Saudi Arabia with cross-border strikes.

But this is the first deadly assault on its own soil acknowledged by the UAE and claimed by the rebels, who said they had fired ballistic missiles and deployed armed drones.

Two Indians and a Pakistani working for oil giant ADNOC died as three petrol tanks exploded near a storage facility, while a fire also ignited in a construction area at Abu Dhabi airport in the heart of the UAE, a renowned safe haven in the volatile Middle East.

Police said "small flying objects, possibly belonging to drones" were found at both sites. Drone attacks have been a hallmark of the rebels' assaults on neighboring Saudi Arabia.

"We condemn the Houthi terrorist militia's targeting of civilian areas and facilities on UAE soil today... this sinful targeting will not go unpunished," UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan said in a statement, as his ministry described the attack as a "heinous criminal escalation".

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said that they had "carried out... a successful military operation" against "important and sensitive Emirati sites and installations" using both ballistic missiles and drones.

The incident follows a surge in fighting in Yemen including advances by UAE-trained troops. The rebels also seized a UAE-flagged ship and its international crew earlier this month.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation all condemned the "terrorist" attack. Eight Houthi drones targeting Saudi Arabia were also intercepted, the coalition said.

The rebels have previously threatened to target Abu Dhabi and Dubai, the gleaming crown jewels of the UAE which last year opened its first nuclear power plant.

'Clear Warning'

Abdul Ilah Hajar, adviser to the president of the Houthis' Supreme Political Council in Sanaa, said it was a warning shot from the rebels.

"We sent them a clear warning message by hitting places that are not of great strategic importance," he told AFP.

"But it is a warning if the UAE continues its hostility to Yemen, it will not be able in the future to withstand the coming strikes."

Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry condemned "in the strongest terms the cowardly terrorist attack" while Bahrain and Qatar also slammed the strikes.

The incident comes two weeks after the rebels hijacked the UAE-flagged Rwabee, and released footage purporting to show military equipment on board.

The UAE said the Rwabee, whose 11 crew are now hostages, was a "civilian cargo vessel" and called the hijacking a "dangerous escalation" in the busy Red Sea shipping route.

The rebels later rejected a UN Security Council demand for the ship's immediate release, saying it was "not carrying... toys for children but weapons for extremists".

Yemen's conflict has been a catastrophe for millions of its citizens who have fled their homes, with many on the brink of famine, in what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

The UAE joined the coalition against the Houthis before announcing a change of tack in 2019.

The pro-government Giants Brigade troops, backed by the Saudis and UAE, recently delivered a significant blow to the rebels by recapturing three districts in Shabwa governorate.

The clashes were part of an upswing in violence in the shattered country, where the war is being fought on several fronts.

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Satellite photos obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday appear to show the aftermath of a fatal attack on an oil facility in the capital of the United Arab Emirates claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels.

The attack brought the long-running Yemen war into Emirati territory on Monday. That conflict raged on overnight with Saudi-led airstrikes pounding Yemen's capital, Sanaa, killing and wounding civilians.

The images by Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP show smoke rising over an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the Mussafah neighborhood of Abu Dhabi after the attack. Another image taken shortly after appears to show scorch marks and white fire-suppressing foam deployed on the grounds of the depot.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., known by the acronym ADNOC, is the state-owned energy firm that provides much of the wealth of the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula also home to Dubai.

ADNOC did not respond to questions from the AP asking about the site and damage estimates from the attack. The company had said the attack happened around 10 a.m. Monday.

"We are working closely with the relevant authorities to determine the exact cause and a detailed investigation has commenced,'' ADNOC said in an earlier statement.

The attack killed two Indian nationals and one Pakistani as three tankers at the site exploded, police said. Six people were also wounded at the facility, which is near Al-Dhafra Air Base, a massive Emirati installation also home to American and French forces.

Another fire also struck Abu Dhabi International Airport, though damage in that attack could not be seen. Police described the assault as a suspected drone attack. The Houthis have described using cruise and ballistic missiles in the attack, without offering evidence.

Meanwhile Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen announced it had started a bombing campaign targeting Houthi sites in the capital of Sanaa.

Overnight videos released by the Houthis showed damage, with the rebels saying the strike killed at least 12 people. An international aid worker in Sanaa said there were civilians among the dead. He said the airstrike hit a house for a senior military official who was killed along with his wife and son. The worker spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

For hours Monday, Emirati officials did not acknowledge the Houthi claims over the Abu Dhabi attack, even as other countries condemned the assault. Senior Emirati diplomat Anwar Gargash broke the silence on Twitter, saying that Emirati authorities were handling the rebel group's "vicious attack on some civilian facilities'' with "transparency and responsibility.''

The office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had been in the Emirates on a state visit, said he spoke to Abu Dhabi's powerful Crown Prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, immediately after the attack.

The statement quoted Sheikh Mohammed as saying the attack had been "anticipated.'' The two had been scheduled to meet during Moon's visit but the event had been cancelled prior to the attack over an "unforeseen and urgent matter of state,'' according to Moon's office.

The Emirati Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment over Moon's statement.

Although the UAE has largely withdrawn its own forces from Yemen, it is still actively engaged in the conflict and supports Yemeni militias fighting the Houthis.

The incident comes as the Houthis face pressure and are suffering heavy losses. Yemeni government forces, allied and backed by the UAE, have pushed back the rebels in key provinces. Aided by the Emirati-backed Giants Brigades, the government forces took back the province of Shabwa earlier this month in a blow to Houthi efforts to complete their control of the entire northern half of Yemen.

While Emirati troops have been killed over the course of the conflict, now in its eight year, the war has not directly affected daily life in the wider UAE, a country with a vast foreign workforce.

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Top US and Russian diplomats agreed Friday to keep talking in the standoff over Ukraine, even though their meeting produced no movement in the crisis that has seen Moscow mass tens of thousands of troops at the border and the West ramp up supplies of weapons to Kyiv.

With fears of an invasion of Ukraine running high and seemingly intractable demands, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met for about 90 minutes in Geneva at what the Americans said was a "critical moment.''

Expectations were low going in, and there was no breakthrough.

Blinken told Lavrov the U.S. would give Russia written responses to Moscow's proposals next week and suggested the two would likely meet again shortly after that, offering some hope that any invasion would be delayed for at least a few more days.

Blinken said the U.S. and its allies remain resolute in rejecting Russia's most important demands, which were reiterated Friday. Moscow wants NATO to promise that Ukraine will never be added as a member, that no alliance weapons will be deployed near Russian borders, and that it pull back its forces from Central and Eastern Europe.

Despite that, there was no indication the U.S. responses would be any different from the flat-out rejections already expressed by Washington and its allies, clouding future diplomatic efforts.

"We didn't expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are now on a clearer path to understanding each other's positions,'' Blinken said after the meeting.

Blinken said he also wanted to use the opportunity to share directly with Lavrov some "concrete ideas to address some of the concerns that you have raised, as well as the deep concerns that many of us have about Russia's actions.''

Blinken said Lavrov repeated Russia's insistence that it has no plans to invade Ukraine, but the U.S. and its allies were not convinced.

"We're looking at what is visible to all, and it is deeds and actions and not words that make all the difference,'' he said, adding that Russia should remove its troops from the Ukrainian border if it wanted to prove its point.

Lavrov, meanwhile, called the talks "constructive and useful'' but declined to characterize the U.S. pledge.

"I can't say whether we are on the right track or not,'' he told reporters. "We will understand that when we receive the U.S. written response to all of our proposals.''

Blinken suggested there was no leeway on Russia's demands, saying firmly: "There is no trade space there: None.''

The U.S. and its allies say Russian President Vladimir Putin knows the demands are nonstarters, adding that they're open to less-dramatic moves.

Blinken said the U.S. would be open to a meeting between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden if it would be "useful and productive.'' The two have met once in person in Geneva and have had several virtual conversations on Ukraine that have proven largely inconclusive.

An estimated 100,000 Russian troops have been sent to areas near Ukraine, and more were moving into the neighbourhood for training exercises with neighbouring Belarus.

Western allies were supplying weaponry and equipment to Ukraine. Britain sent anti-tank missiles earlier this week, while the defence ministers of the Baltic nations issued a statement saying they received U.S. approval to send Stinger air defence missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles to strengthen Kyiv's defences.

"Today Ukraine is at the forefront of separating Europe from the military conflict with Russia,'' said Estonian Defense Minister Kalle Laanet. "Lets face it, the war in Ukraine is ongoing and it is important to support Ukraine in every way we can so that they can resist the aggressor.''

The Pentagon said the USS Harry S Truman aircraft carrier and its strike group will participate in a NATO maritime exercise in the Mediterranean, which will continue through Feb. 4, something that has been planned since 2020, said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby. He said officials considered whether to go ahead with the exercise, because of the ongoing tensions and decided to move ahead.

Kirby said the exercise wasn't planned to anticipate a Russian move on Ukraine and is "not designed against any of the kinds of scenarios that might happen with respect to Ukraine.''

On Thursday, Russia had announced sweeping naval manoeuvres through February, some apparently in the Black Sea.

The U.S. and its allies scrambled to present a united front. Washington and its allies have repeatedly promised consequences such as biting economic sanctions against Russia, though not military action if it invades.

Blinken repeated that Friday, saying the U.S. and its allies were committed to diplomacy but also committed "if that proves impossible, and Russia decides to pursue aggression against Ukraine, to a united, swift and severe response."

After the meeting, Blinken spoke by phone with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba to brief him on his talks this week and reaffirm U.S. support for Kyiv's sovereignty and stress that no decisions would be made without his country's input, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. He also will brief the foreign ministers of Washington's European allies.

Biden plans to spend the weekend huddling with his national security team at Camp David, press secretary Jen Psaki said.

In other diplomatic moves, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland said he spoke with Putin by phone on European security and Ukraine, saying it was "imperative to preserve peace in Europe,'' according to his office.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of NATO member Turkey, which touted its strong ties with Russia and Ukraine, renewed an offer to mediate between the two countries. Erdogan said he plans to visit Kyiv next month, adding that he would also hold talks with Putin.

Ukraine is already beset by conflict. Russia seized control of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in 2014 and backed a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, part of a simmering but largely stalemated conflict that has killed 14,000. Putin faced limited international consequences for those moves, but the West says a new invasion would be different.

Blinken met Ukraine's president in Kyiv and top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany in Berlin this week.

Blinken's effort to stress U.S. unity with its allies took an apparent hit Wednesday when Biden drew widespread criticism for saying retaliation for Russian aggression in Ukraine would depend on the details and that a "minor incursion'' could prompt discord among Western allies.

On Thursday, Biden sought to clarify his comments by cautioning that any Russian troop movements across Ukraine's border would constitute an invasion and that Moscow would "pay a heavy price'' for such an action.

"I've been absolutely clear with President Putin,'' Biden said. "He has no misunderstanding: Any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion.''

Adding to its warnings, Washington stepped up sanctions Thursday by slapping new measures on four Ukrainian officials who Blinken said were at the centre of a Kremlin effort begun in 2020 to damage Kyiv's ability to "independently function.''

The United States and allies say countries like Ukraine are entitled to their own alliances as part of sovereign security measures, but Lavrov countered that Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have also agreed that no nation can ensure its security by undermining security of others.

In eastern Ukraine, a soldier stationed near the front line with Russia-backed separatists called Blinken's visit to Kyiv "very important for our country.'' The soldier, who identified himself only by his first name, Serhiy, in line with official rules, voiced hope that if Russia attacked, "we can count on our forces' and our allies' power."

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The Egyptian and Saudi armed forces concluded on Saturday the Tabuk 5 joint exercise, which had been conducted in Saudi Arabia over the previous days, Egypts Military Spokesman Gharib Abdel-Hafez said on Saturday.

Special forces, infantry and armoured forces from both sides participated in the exercise, the statement said.

The exercise comes within the framework of the Egyptian-Saudi armies plan to unify military concepts and exchange training expertise, the spokesman said.

The concluding phase included a military exercise to raid and clear a border village seized by terrorists, with participating forces conducting airborne and mechanised assaults on the target, according to the spokesman.

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Russia's Foreign Ministry on Sunday rejected a British claim that Russia was seeking to replace Ukraine's government with a pro-Moscow administration, and that former Ukrainian lawmaker Yevheniy Murayev was being considered as a potential candidate.

Britain's Foreign Office on Saturday also named several other Ukrainian politicians it said had links with Russian intelligence services, along with Murayev who is the leader of a small pro-Russia party that has no seats in the parliament.

The U.K. government made the claim based on an intelligence assessment, without providing evidence to back it up. It comes amid high tensions between Moscow and the West over Russia's designs on Ukraine.

``The disinformation spread by the British Foreign Office is more evidence that it is the NATO countries, led by the Anglo-Saxons, who are escalating tensions around Ukraine,'' Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on the Telegram messaging app Sunday. ``We call on the British Foreign Office to stop provocative activities, stop spreading nonsense.''

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the information ``shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking.''

Truss urged Russia to ``deescalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy,'' and reiterated Britain's view that ``any Russian military incursion into Ukraine would be a massive strategic mistake with severe costs.''

Britain has sent anti-tank weapons to Ukraine as part of efforts to bolster its defenses against a potential Russian attack.

Amid diplomatic efforts to defuse the crisis, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to meet Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for talks in Moscow. No timing has been given for the meeting, which would be the first U.K.-Russia bilateral defense talks since 2013.

The U.S. has mounted an aggressive campaign in recent months to unify its European allies against a new Russian invasion of Ukraine. The White House called the U.K. government assessment ``deeply concerning'' and said it stands with the duly elected Ukrainian government.

``This kind of plotting is deeply concerning,'' National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne said. ``The Ukrainian people have the sovereign right to determine their own future, and we stand with our democratically-elected partners in Ukraine.''

The assessment came as President Joe Biden spent Saturday at the presidential retreat Camp David outside of Washington huddling with his senior national security team about the Ukraine situation. A White House official said the discussions included efforts to de-escalate the situation with diplomacy and deterrence measures being coordinated closely with allies and partners, including security assistance to Ukraine.

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Egypt condemned the recent Houthi "terrorist attacks" against Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry stated on Monday, hours after the two Gulf countries had destroyed ballistic missiles launched by the Yemeni militia.

The UAE said it intercepted two ballistic missiles targeting Abu Dhabi earlier today, a week after it had suffered a deadly attack that killed three civilians.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, said it downed a missile launched towards Dhahran Al-Janub.

Both Gulf countries reported no fatalities or injuries.

Egypt said the Houthi attacks were "cowardly," represent "a blatant" threat to the security and stability of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and constitute "a grave" violation of international law.

Egypt reiterated its "full" support of all the Saudi and UAE measures to fend off Houthi attacks and preserve their security and stability, the foreign ministrys statement continued.

The Houthis have been launching missiles against Saudi Arabia for almost seven years, since a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE intervened in the Yemeni civil war to fight the militia.

They also launched several attacks on the UAE.

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An Islamic State group attack on a Syrian prison, the jihadists' largest operation in the country in years, has fuelled fears it foreshadows a fully-fledged comeback for the extremists.

More than 100 IS fighters late Thursday stormed the Kurdish-run Ghwayran prison in the northern Syrian city of Hasakeh using suicide bombs and heavy weapons, freeing prisoners and setting off days of clashes.

Fighting continued for a fifth day Monday, with more than 700 minors thought to be inside the jail, who the UN childrens' agency warn they could be "harmed or forcibly recruited".

Here are assessments by analysts as to whether it marks a turning point.

How sophisticated was the attack?

IS expert Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi called it the group's "most sophisticated operation" in Syria since its so-called caliphate fell in 2019 in the riverside hamlet of Baghouz.

In a statement from its Amaq propaganda arm, IS said it carried out a "wide and coordinated" operation that started with the detonation of two truck bombs at the outer gates of a prison housing fellow jihadists on Thursday night.

IS fighters then simultaneously attacked several points around the prison, the statement said, while inmates inside raided a weapons storage room and took several captives.

The group claimed hundreds of inmates were set free after jihadists infiltrated parts of the facility, but it remains unclear how many managed to escape.

More than 150 people, most of them jihadists but also dozens of Kurdish fighters, have been killed according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside the country.

On Monday, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by US-led coalition forces, locked down Hasakeh in a bid to trap IS fighters.

What's the goal?

Depending on the number of jihadists who make it past the Kurdish security cordon, IS "capabilities could be bolstered to carry out more sophisticated, large-scale operations", Tamimi said.

But he added that this would in no way compare to the group's capabilities in 2014, when it managed to overrun swathes of land across Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

"There is still a long way off before getting anywhere near to that and seizing large amounts of territory," Tamimi said.

The Ghwayran prison attack, however, is a step in that direction, according to Nicholas Heras of the Newlines Institute in Washington.

"IS needs to spring its army from jail," Heras said. "We can expect more of these types of operations in the future, especially because the SDF is under-resourced to defend prisons where IS fighters are incarcerated."

A UN report last year estimated that around 10,000 IS fighters remained active across Iraq and Syria, many of them in Kurdish-controlled areas.

Kurdish authorities say some 12,000 IS suspects of more than 50 nationalities are being held in several of their jails in Syria's northeast.

Prisoners' wives and children are languishing in overcrowded displacement camps in the region, that are increasingly becoming a hotbed for extremism and radicalisation.

What's next?

Pieter Van Ostaeyen, a historian and Syria expert, said surviving IS fighters "will likely disappear again in the desert" after the attack.

"I do not see any immediate threat of them conquering swathes of territory again," he told AFP.

The US-led coalition battling IS said the Ghwayran assault would leave the group weaker because it incurred heavy casualties.

"While Daesh remains a threat, it is clearly no longer the force it once was," the coalition said Sunday, using an Arabic acronym for the extremists.

Charlie Winter, an IS expert and conflict researcher, said that while the attack in Hasakeh province may not have an immediate impact on the ground, symbolically it was "absolutely huge".

"I haven't seen IS's online supporters excited like this in years," said Winter, who monitors the jihadist group's social media channels.

"This kind of ability to animate supporters has revitalised a lot of the community," especially in Syria, he said.

Security measures will prevent most of the jihadists and inmates from making it out of the province, Winter told AFP.

"But the symbolism and the kind of momentum that this attack will give to the IS insurgency in general could stand to have its own material implication," Winter said. "This is a demonstration of its capability, of its defiance."

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The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will dedicate a total of $130 million for green bond issuance in Egypts private energy sector to be the first private green renewables-backed bond issued in the Egyptian market, according to the banks website.

The issuance is for Scatec SOLAR ASA, a leading renewable power producer headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

The issuance totals $340 million, according to the EBRD.

Scatec develops, builds, owns, and operates solar, wind, and hydro power plants and storage solutions, and has more than 3.5 GW in operation and under construction on four continents.

The Benban projects are ultimately owned 51 percent by Scatec, 25 percent by Africa 50, and 24 percent by Norfund, according to the EBRD.

Africa 50 is an investment vehicle established to help bridge Africa's infrastructure funding gap by facilitating project development, mobilising public and private sector finance, and investing in infrastructure on the continent.

Norfund is the Norwegian Investment Fund for developing countries, owned and funded by the Norwegian government. Its role is to assist in building sustainable businesses and industries in developing countries by providing equity capital and other risk capital.

EBRDs participation will include $100 million in the form of a direct subscription in the bond, and the provision of $30 million stand-by liquidity facility for the benefit of the participating private institutional investors.

EBRD said that the bonds proceeds are expected to be utilised to support a portfolio of six operational solar power plants in Egypts Benban site.

Being the first private sector entity to take such an action, the Commercial International Bank (CIB) issued its first green bond in the Egyptian market in June 2021 with a total value of $100 million.

The tenor of the issue is five years. Proceeds will be used to fund a portfolio of green loans extended by the CIB to its corporate as well as small and medium-enterprises (SMEs), with an aim of funding the CIB's green building capital expenditure for up to 20 percent of the proceeds.

The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, was assigned as the subscriber to the full value of the issuance.

On a sovereign level, Egypt issued its first of a kind green bond in 2020 in the local and international market as well through offering it in the London Stock Exchange Bourse (LSE) with a gross value of $750 million.

The bond proceeds are set to be used in financing eco-friendly green projects, achieving the countrys sustainable development plans in clean transport, renewable energy, reducing population, adapting to climate change, uplifting energy efficiency, in addition to applying sustainable development protocols to water resources and sanitation in light of Egypts Vision 2030.

The bond managed to attract 16 new investors from Europe, the US, East Asia, and the Middle East with 47 percent, 41 percent, six percent, and six percent, respectively.

Egypt plans to kick off a second issuance of green bonds in 2022 ramp up its first-ever Islamic bonds (sukuk) issuance.

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Reflecting the Infiniti brands interpretation of contemporary Japanese luxury, the all-Infiniti QX55 SUV will be available across all showrooms of Al Masaood Automobiles.

With a powerful stance, striking coupe silhouette, digital piano key taillights, origami fold patterned grille, the QX55 is the only premium crossover coupe offered by a Japanese brand.

Al Masaood Automobiles is the automotive arm of Al Masaood Group and the exclusive distributor of the Infiniti brand in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and the Western Region.

Al Masaood Automobiles has become synonymous with the name Infiniti, as it represents the complete range of Infiniti vehicles in Abu Dhabi and has established itself as one of the leading Infiniti distributors in the Gulf.

The sleek and stylish QX55 was unveiled in a special celebration during VidCon Abu Dhabi 2021, where Infinitis brand values of being human and bold were showcased, along with its forward appeal to young generations. From a proactive design perspective, the newly revealed luxury SUV model has a coupe roofline and bold interior and is the successor of the brands iconic FX series.

Irfan Tansel, CEO, Al Masaood Automobiles, said: The all-new, premium, two-row QX55 SUV reflects the Infiniti brands interpretation of contemporary Japanese luxury. The new model is not only powerful, sleek, and serene, but its features are also specifically designed to resonate with a younger audience. This is evident in its more stylish and modern interiors as well its suite of intelligent safety technologies such as its predictive forward collision warning, lane departure warning, pedestrian detection, and blind-spot warning, amongst others. We are happy and excited to bring the new SUV crossover to the UAE market at a time when we are seeing great demand for best-in-class vehicle models. This move shows Al Masaood Automobiles continuous commitment to provide car owners with the best experience. We are confident of the markets positive response, especially among young car enthusiasts, and we cannot wait for them to drive home their new Infiniti QX55.

The digital piano key taillights of the new model combine 45 separate LEDs in a single housing and create an elegant light signature. Moreover, the Infiniti logo on the tailgate is also similarly advanced and houses the power liftgate release, which further frees the rear end from clutter.

The new models rear emphasises the subtlety of the automaker's design and interpretation of Japanese minimalism by combining a clean liftgate with attractive, modest technology to create a memorable impression. In addition, QX55 features the standard 20-inch wheels, intelligent all-wheel drive, intuitive technologies, and active safety features.

The impeccable interior of the SUV features a dual-screen InTouch TM infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto TM compatibility, multiple USB ports for charging, dual touchscreens, and Bose series audio system that offers a concert-like acoustic experience.

The spacious interior has seats adorned with leatherette, leather, or semi-aniline leather and sliding second-row seats that give flexible cargo capacity or increased legroom, as per requirement. In addition, tasteful and flowing lines of QX55 reach from the hood, over the front fenders, across the doors, and over the rear wheels.

Named the most proactive production yet, the newly unveiled model also features an award-winning and innovative variable compression turbo four-cylinder engine that outputs 268 horsepower and delivers enhanced efficiency or on-demand power as per the needs of the driver. That power is shifted through a confident continuously variable transmission with manual shift mode and delivered to Infinitis intelligent all-wheel drive system, a standard on all QX55 models. In addition, it also has a drive mode selector with programmable settings such as standard, eco, sport and personal to tailor each drive.

The safety features of the new QX55 include an array of intelligent safety technology, such as predictive forward collision warning, lane departure warning and prevention system, forward emergency braking with pedestrian detection to blind spot warning and intervention and backup collision intervention.

The new cutting-edge, high-end version of the popular Infiniti model is now available in three well-equipped categories such as luxe, essential, and sensory across all Al Masaood Automobiles showrooms. Customers can also experience the state-of-the-art technologies offered in the all-new Infiniti QX55 through test drives.-- TradeArabia News Service
Tehran on Monday said it is "possible" to reach an agreement on the two issues of Iran-US prisoners' release and the Vienna talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal.

"They are two different paths, but if the other party (the US) has the determination, there is the possibility that we reach a reliable and lasting agreement in both of them in the shortest time," foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said during his weekly press conference.

Khatibzadeh's comments came in reaction to remarks made by the US envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, who on Sunday said it is unlikely that Washington would strike an agreement unless Tehran releases four US citizens.

"Iran has not accepted any precondition from day one of the negotiations," Khatibzadeh said. He added that "the negotiations are complicated enough, and should not get more complex with complicated remarks".

The four US citizens held in Iran are Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi, 50, and his father Baquer, 85, as well as environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 66, and businessman Emad Sharqi, 57.

"It is a humanitarian issue and it was on our agenda, both before these negotiations and during them," Khatibzadeh said, referred to the situation of Iranian nationals kept in US.

Regarding the latest situation of nuclear talks in Vienna, Khatibzadeh said "we are seeing progress in the negotiations in the right direction in Vienna," but "very important issues still remain" which require political decisions by Washington.

The drive to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal resumed in late November, after talks were suspended in June as Iran elected ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi.

The 2015 deal -- agreed by Iran, the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- offered Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.

But the US unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump and reimposed biting economic sanctions, prompting Tehran to begin rolling back on its commitments.

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The joint naval exercise Morgan-17 between Egyptian and Saudi naval forces has kicked off in Saudi Arabia, the Egyptian Armed Forces announced on Monday.

The military drills, which will take place over several days, will include theoretical lectures and training conferences as well as tactical exercises by naval special forces using various small arms and surface-to-surface artillery.

The drills will also include surface-to-air targeting, the Egyptian army said in its statement.

The Morgan-17 exercise is taking place at the King Faisal naval base in Jeddah on the Red Sea, according to Saudi Ministry of Defence.

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African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat on Monday condemned an "attempted coup" in Burkina Faso after the country's president was reportedly detained following a mutiny by soldiers.

"He strongly condemns the attempted coup d'etat against the democratically elected president," the AU said in a statement.

"He calls on the national army and the country's security forces to strictly adhere to their republican vocation, namely the defence of the country's internal and external security."

President Roch Marc Christian Kabore was reportedly held by soldiers on Monday along with members of his cabinet after troops rose up at several army bases across the West African state on Sunday.

Soldiers had demanded the sacking of the military top brass and more resources to fight the Islamist insurgency that erupted in 2015.

Faki called on troops to ensure the "physical integrity" of the president and his detained ministers, and urged for the crisis to be resolved through dialogue.

The West African regional grouping ECOWAS on Monday also said it held the soldiers responsible for the wellbeing of the president following what it also described as a "coup attempt".

Mobile internet has been cut since Sunday in the capital Ouagadougou, making it difficult to verify the situation on the ground.t since Sunday in the capital Ouagadougou, making it difficult to verify the situation on the ground.

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Europe's busiest airport shut down in Istanbul on Monday while schools and vaccination centers closed in Athens as a rare snowstorm blanketed swathes of the eastern Mediterranean, causing blackouts and traffic havoc.

The closure of Istanbul Airport -- where the roof of one of the cargo terminals collapsed under heavy snow, causing no injuries -- grounded flights stretching from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and Asia.

Travel officials told AFP it marked the glass-and-steel structure's first shutdown since it replaced Istanbul's old Ataturk Airport as the new hub for Turkish Airlines in 2019.

The winter's first snow created a fun atmosphere across the squares of Istanbul's ancient mosques, where children built snowmen and tourists posed for selfies.

But it proved a major headache for the 16 million residents of Turkey's largest city, where cars ploughed into each other skidding down steep, sleet-covered streets and highways turned into parking lots.

The Istanbul governor's office warned drivers they would not be able to enter the city from Thrace -- a region stretching across the European part of Turkey to its western border with Bulgaria and Greece.

Shopping malls closed early, food delivery services shut down and the city's iconic "simit" bagel stalls stood empty because suppliers could not get through the snow.

The storm blocked roads across central and southeastern Turkey before crossing into neighbouring Syria, where it piled more misery on the war-scarred country's northern refugee camps.

Istanbul Airport serviced more than 37 million passengers last year, becoming one of the world's most important air hubs.

But critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had long questioned his decision to place the airport on a remote patch along the Black Sea coast that is often covered with fog in winter.

"Due to adverse conditions, all flights have been temporarily stopped for air safety," the airport said in a statement, posting pictures on Twitter of yellow snowploughs circling stranded airplanes.

The airport extended its suspension twice, saying late Monday that service would not resume before 4:00 am (0100 GMT) Tuesday.

'Everything Is Frozen'

Most of Turkey's main institutions stayed open.

But in Greece, where overnight temperatures plummeted to -14 degrees Celsius (6.8 degrees Fahrenheit), the storm suspended a session of parliament and forced schools and vaccination centres to close in Athens.

Hundreds of motorists were trapped in cars around the capital -- many of them venting their anger on TV stations -- despite attempts by police to seal off motorway entry points to the north of the city.

"My wife has had nothing to eat since morning. We had a small bottle of water between us," one driver who identified himself only as Christos told private Star TV.

"Everything is frozen stiff."

The army, firefighters and police began work to free the stranded motorists in the early evening.

Greece's climate crisis and civil protection minister Christos Stylianides apologised for the chaos and blamed the company managing the motorway for not keeping it open.

A cold snap with sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds last hit Athens in February 2021, killing four people on the islands of Evia and Crete and leaving tens of thousands of households without electricity for days.

Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens, told ANT1 TV that the capital had not seen back-to-back winters like this since 1968.

The snow uncharacteristically fell on several Aegean Sea islands, isolating some mountain villages on Andros, Naxos and Tinos, and covering beaches in Mykonos, in summer a party island.

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Egypt reported 1,651 new coronavirus cases on Monday, the countrys highest single-day rise since June 2020, bringing the total infection tally to 411,749, said the health ministry in its daily coronavirus update statement.

Amid the continual increase in the daily coronavirus infections that has been seen over the past weeks, Egypt has recently implemented new coronavirus-related restrictions at airports, seaports and land crossings to contain the spread of Omicron along with its previously announced plan.

Last week, Presidential Adviser for Health Affairs Mohamed Awad Tag El-Din affirmed that the highly infectious coronavirus variant Omicron is responsible for the vast majority of cases in Egypt. Hence, the health ministry has urged people suffering from common cold symptoms to consider that they may have contracted COVID-19, and should therefore self-isolate and avoid sharing personal tools with family members.

Twenty-eight new deaths have been reported over the past 24 hours as well, bringing the total number of deaths from the virus to 22,396, as per the country's health ministry count for Monday.

As many as 1,803 patients have been discharged after recovering from the virus, raising the total number of recoveries to 345,774.

The Egyptian Drug Authority (EDA) issued on Monday an emergency use authorisation for Mercks COVID-19 drug Molnupiravir and has allowed five national companies to manufacture the oral antiviral as a first stage.

The local companies have manufactured 25,000 Molnupiravir packages that are ready for use, head of the EDA Tamer Essam said in a health ministry statement on the same day, adding that Egypt has enough raw material to manufacture an additional 150,000 packages.

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Egypts health ministry is currently studying lowering the age of coronavirus vaccination for children from 11 to five years old, health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar said on Monday.

The ministry is studying lowering the vaccination age for children using the Pfizer vaccine following a statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) that mRNA vaccines can be used to safely vaccinate children five years and older, Abdel-Ghaffar said.

Egypt is currently using the Pfizer vaccine to inoculate youngsters aged 12 to 18.

On Saturday, Egypt received a new shipment of 1.8 million Pfizer vaccines donated by the United States via the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) programme and the Vaccine Alliance.

The new shipment comes from a 500 million Pfizer vaccine inventory that the US is distributing to African Union countries through COVAX.

Egypt has obtained a total of 132 million vaccines, administering 36.6 million as first doses and 24.1 million as second doses, according to acting Health Minister Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar.

Abdel-Ghaffar also announced recently that 489,700 booster shots have been administered, bringing the total number of jabs administered to the public to 61.3 million.

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Egypt will focus on meeting the obligations of the Paris Agreement on climate change and explore how the private sector and NGOs can play a role in financing green investments during COP27, which Egypt is set to host this year, said Egypts Foreign Minister and COP27 President Designate Sameh Shoukry.

Shoukry made his statements during the AmCham in Egypts two-day forum, which kicked off on Monday under the title Building Momentum to the UN COP 27 Strengthening Public-Private Sector Collaboration on Climate Challenge.

Shoukry said that Egypt is committed to working hand-in-hand with all parties to address climate change and its related negative impacts and to ensure the availability of sustainable and credible investments required in this regard.

The minister also noted that COP27 will build on the momentum of COP26, which was held in Glasgow in October 2021.

Shoukry asserted the need to push forward all efforts to meet climate action goals by 2030 by closely collaborating with the business community on the global and domestic levels. He also affirmed that Egypt is working closely with the US business community in the same area.

During the event, Egypts Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly showcased the governments efforts on climate action, which include legislating new laws and amending existing ones to support green investments, setting environmental regulations for all business entities in the country, issuing MENAs first-ever green bond at $3.7 million, enacting a waste management law that encourages investors to pump investments in this area, and including green finances in the action plans and policies of banks operating in Egypt.

The First US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Action John Kerry said that the world is not on a good track in terms of dealing with the severe impacts of climate change, adding that the current usage of coal is responsible for about 90 percent of the warming issue.

Kerry noted that even though natural gas is important for green transition, the world needs to go faster and cleaner by capitalising on renewables and technology solutions to address climate change and to meet the goal of reducing the global temperature by 1.5 degrees by 2030.

On COP26, Kerry said that countries that account for 65 percent of the global GDP have committed through this conference to meet its obligations on climate action.

However, Kerry said the world does not have the ability to meet the 25 percent net zero goal by 2030 amid the ongoing challenges in terms of global supply chains, the spread of COVID-19 variants, and business disruptions.

The business community has the ability to drive the green transition and to utilise its financing to reach innovative and good solutions for climate change. The private sector can structure the required financing for this transition and do what governments cannot do, Kerry explained.

In this respect, Kerry asserted the need of collaboration between the private sector, banks, and financial institutions to secure the required finances going forward.

He added that he has managed to conclude deals with six of the major banks in the US, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, to secure investments totalling $4 trillion through 2030 for the sake of climate action.

He also stressed that adaptation, mitigation, and finance are the major issues that all countries have to focus on in their climate action efforts.

For her part, Suzanne Clark, the President and CEO of the US Chamber of Commerce, said that Egypt is uniquely positioned to host COP27 as a leading country in the region and the African continent.

She also affirmed the role of the private sector in leveraging climate solutions and securing finances in this area.

Clark pointed out that 2022 marks 100 years of diplomatic ties between Egypt and the US, stressing that the US in committed to backing Egypts efforts in addressing climate change.

Mayron Brilliant, the Executive Vice President and Head of International Affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, emphasised the role the private sector can play in leading the process of clean transition, especially in the energy sector, and driving forces to meet the UN2030 climate goals.

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Tebboune is on a two-day official visit to Egypt, which is his first since he assumed office late in 2019.

Upon his arrival, Tebboune met with members of the Algerian community in Egypt at his residence in Cairo, according to a statement by the Algerian presidency.

Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra paid an official visit to Egypt last week, during which he discussed boosting bilateral relations in meetings with President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry.

Lamamra has also agreed with El-Sisi to continue extending support to Tunisian President Kais Saied and the measures he has adopted in the face of unrest in the country.

They also highlighted the importance of achieving stability and security and preserving the sovereignty and unity of Libya and its national institutions to end the presence of foreign troops and mercenaries in Libya.

Lamamra also paid an official visit to Egypt in July last year, conveying a message of love and brotherhood from Tebboune to El-Sisi.

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The United Arab Emirates intercepted two ballistic missiles targeting Abu Dhabi early Monday, its state-run news agency reported, the latest attack to target the Emirati capital.

A spokesman for Yemen's Houthi rebel militia later said they had launched attacks targeting both the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, without elaborating.

The attack on Abu Dhabi, after another last week killed three people and wounded six, further escalates tensions across the Persian Gulf as Yemen's yearslong civil war grinds on.

That war, pitting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition, has become a regional conflict as negotiations continue over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers. The collapse of the accord has sparked years of attacks across the region.

The state-run WAM news agency said that missile fragments fell harmlessly over Abu Dhabi.

The Emirates ``is ready and ready to deal with any threats and that it takes all necessary measures to protect the state from all attacks,'' WAM quoted the UAE Defense Ministry as saying.

Videos posted to social media show the sky over the capital light up before dawn Monday, with points of light looking like interceptor missiles in the sky. The videos corresponded to known features of Abu Dhabi.

The missile fire disrupted traffic into Abu Dhabi International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Etihad, for about an hour after the attack.

A Houthi military spokesman did not immediately respond to questions from the AP on Monday's attack. Mohammed Abdul-Salam, a Houthi spokesman, later tweeted: ``The Yemeni armed forces will reveal, in the coming hours, details of a military operation in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.''

The U.S. Embassy in Abu Dhabi later issued a security alert to Americans living in the UAE, warning citizens to ``maintain a high level of security awareness.'' The alert included instructions on how to cope with missile attacks, something unheard-of previously in the UAE, a tourist destination home to skyscraper-studded Dubai and its long-haul carrier Emirates.

The attack came a week after Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed an attack on the Emirati capital targeting the airport and an Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. fuel depot in the Mussafah neighborhood.

New, high-resolution satellite photographs obtained by The Associated Press from Planet Labs PBC showed repair work still ongoing at the fuel depot Saturday. Emirati officials have not released images of the attacked sites, nor allowed journalists to see them.

In recent days, a Saudi-led coalition that the UAE backs unleashed punishing airstrikes targeting Yemen, knocking the country off the internet and killed over 80 people at a detention center.

The Houthis had threatened to take revenge against the Emirates and Saudi Arabia over those attacks. On Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition said a Houthi-launched ballistic missile landed in an industrial area in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, slightly wounding a foreigner.

The hard-line Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, just Sunday published a front-page article quoting Houthi officials that the UAE would be attacked again with a headline: ``Evacuate Emirati commercial towers.''

The newspaper in 2017 had faced a two-day publication ban after it ran a headline saying Dubai was the ``next target'' for the Houthis.

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NATO said Monday it was sending jets and ships to bolster its eastern European defences, as the US and EU looked to coordinate a tough response to Russia if it invades Ukraine.

Tensions have soared over Russia's deployment of some 100,000 troops and heavy armour at its neighbour's borders, despite the Kremlin's insistence it is not planning a new incursion.

The United States and Britain ordered diplomats' families to leave Ukraine -- but both Kyiv and the European Union said the moves appeared premature amid divided views over how imminent any attack could be.

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was to dial in to a meeting of EU counterparts in Brussels to brief them on his talks Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, where the two sides failed to make a breakthrough but agreed to keep working to ease tensions.

The US is trying to marshal its allies to prepare an unprecedented package of sanctions for Moscow if its sends in more of its forces -- and European Union members insist they could hit the Kremlin with "massive consequences" within days if needed.

The US-led NATO alliances said its members were placing troops "on standby" and sending ships and jets to bolster eastern Europe's defences in response to the Russian buildup, pointing to recent decisions by Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands to mobilise forces.

"NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all allies," NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said.

The Kremlin accused the alliance of ramping up tensions through "information hysteria" and "concrete actions", adding the risk of an offensive by Ukrainian troops against pro-Russia separatists was "very high."

EU foreign ministers will sound out Blinken over a written response Washington has committed to provide to Moscow this week after the Kremlin laid down a series of security demands that would stop Ukraine joining NATO and roll back the alliance's forces in eastern Europe.

The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc has as yet no plans to pull personnel out of Kyiv, adding there was no need to "dramatise" the situation while talks with Russia continued.

- 'Never seen before' -

The EU -- in consultation with the US and other allies -- is pushing to put together a package of sanctions against Moscow that it hopes will help deter Russia from any military action.

Foreign ministers are not expected to give approval to any options for sanctions on Monday, but an EU source said Russia's mammoth oil and gas supplies to Europe could be targeted.

"There's no doubt we are ready to react forcefully with comprehensive sanctions -- never seen before," Danish Foreign Minister Denmark FM Jeppe Kofod said.

The 27-nation bloc faces a complex task compiling its raft of measures as its members have starkly differing approaches and ties to Russia.

The new government in economic powerhouse Germany has faced criticism from Kyiv over its refusal to send arms to Ukraine and hesitation over calls to cut Moscow from the global SWIFT payment system.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock insisted any further aggression from Moscow would get a "clear response" from Europe and talked up economic support Berlin gives Kyiv.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc was preparing a 1.2-billion emergency financial aid package for Ukraine.

The West is struggling to work out at what point Russian actions would trigger the sweeping response it has threatened -- after US President Joe Biden spoke of a "minor incursion" last week.

Britain, which left the EU at the end of 2020, ramped up the rhetoric with Moscow over the weekend by alleging it had information the Kremlin was seeking to install a "pro-Russian" leader in Kyiv.

The current fears of a Russian invasion follow Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Kyiv is already fighting a low-level conflict with Russian-backed rebels controlling a chunk of the east of the country that has claimed 13,000 lives in the past eight years.

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Hong Kong: 109 virus cases identified

(To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating 109 additional COVID-19 cases, of which 11 are imported and 98 are locally infected.

Among the local cases, 69 are related to Kwai Chung Estate, 24 are linked to other cases, while the sources of infection for the remaining five cases remain unknown.

At a press briefing this afternoon, the centre's Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan noted that there are so far about 210 positive and preliminary positive cases linked to Kwai Chung Estate.

She also reported that both the Delta and Omicron mutant strains have been detected in the sewage samples taken in Wong Tai Sin, reflecting that there may be silent transmission in the district.

Dr Chuang said: "For the Delta cases, we found two confirmed COVID-19 cases with the suspected Delta variant and they live in the same building. There is also a preliminary positive case in that building. They all live in Flat E on different floors of that block.

"So we are doing a multidisciplinary investigation and a site visit there to see what happens.

"In the three cases, one preliminary positive case who stayed in Flat E of the building, we just noted that he kept a hamster that he bought recently in a shop, but we are still asking for the details."

She appealed to residents and those who work in Wong Tai Sin to undergo voluntary testing as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the Hospital Authority announced that a patient who visited Prince of Wales Hospital's psychiatric specialist outpatient clinic on January 18 tested positive for COVID-19.

In view of the case, 31 clinic staff members were arranged to undergo testing. One nurse preliminarily tested positive for the virus.

As the nurse wore appropriate personal protective equipment at work, none of the patients or staff members were classified as close contacts.

Separately, the Government made restriction-testing declarations tonight to cover Ha Kwai House of Kwai Chung Estate, Hing Fung Building in Sham Shui Po and Fu Tak House of Tai Wo Hau Estate, requiring people in the restricted areas to undergo compulsory testing.

For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Government's dedicated webpage.

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
UAE-based Aldar Properties has entered a clean energy agreement with Emirates Water and Electricity Company (Ewec), a leading company in the integrated coordination of planning, purchasing and supply of water and electricity across the UAE.

Through the agreement, 100 per cent of Aldars owned and managed operating assets will be powered by Ewecs clean energy sources for up to five years in a move that aims to promote the adoption of clean energy and support the expansion of decarbonisation in the real estate sector.

At present, scope 2 emissions, associated with the purchase of electricity from the grid, represent the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions at Aldars real estate assets and this agreement will reduce those emissions and support decarbonisation across the companys portfolio.

The clean energy, which will be supplied to Aldars assets from Ewecs clean energy sources, will be validated via Clean Energy Certificates registered by the Emirati group.

It is a scheme that was launched by the Abu Dhabi Department of Energy to enable Abu Dhabi companies to validate claims of producing and consuming renewable or clean electricity as part of their efforts to achieve sustainability goals, it stated.

Ewec is one of the key parties enabling the implementation of Abu Dhabis Clean Energy Certificate scheme, acting as Single Registrant and auction operator to establish a primary market for this new instrument, conducting auctions every quarter that any organisation can participate in.

On the agreement, Chief Financial and Sustainability Officer Greg Fewer said: "There has never been a time more critical for the corporate community to acknowledge the impact that real estate assets have on the environment."

"Buildings account for 37 per cent of today's global CO2 emissions when both operational emissions and embodied emissions of materials are taken into account. It is evident that sustainable buildings are one of the most effective means of tackling this global challenge and we are proud to make this milestone move with Ewec as our partner," he added.

Ewec Commercial Executive Director Francois Brice said: "We are really excited to see key Abu Dhabi companies such as Aldar taking the lead on reaching Zero Carbon by certifying the origin of the power consumed from the grid through the clean energy certificate scheme, joining other major energy, industrial, healthcare, and commercial entities taking positive action to reduce carbon emissions."

"Aldar moved swiftly to participate in the scheme, becoming the first real estate development, management and investment company and one of the larger market participants," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
The British government announced Monday that it is scrapping coronavirus testing requirements for vaccinated people arriving in the UK, news hailed by the travel industry as a big step back to normality.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that ``to show that this country is open for business, open for travelers, you will see changes so that people arriving no longer have to take tests if they have been vaccinated, if they have been double vaccinated.''

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the change would take effect Feb. 11, coinciding with a midterm holiday break for many schoolchildren.

``Border testing of vaccinated travelers has outlived its usefulness,'' Shapps said. ``Today we are setting Britain free.''

Tourism and travel firms that have been hammered by pandemic restrictions welcomed the move, which makes the UK one of the most open countries in the world for international travel.

Tim Alderslade, chief executive of airline industry body Airlines UK, said it was ``a landmark day.''

``Nearly two years since the initial COVID restrictions were introduced, today's announcement brings international travel towards near-normality for the fully vaccinated, and at last into line with hospitality and the domestic economy,'' he said.

Johan Lundgren, chief executive of budget airline EasyJet, said ``testing for travel should now firmly become a thing of the past.''

``It is clear travel restrictions did not materially slow the spread of omicron in the UK and so it is important that there are no more knee-jerk reactions to future variants,`` he said.

Currently, travelers who have had at least two vaccine doses must take a rapid coronavirus test within two days of arriving in the UK. Those who are unvaccinated face stricter testing and quarantine rules.

Britain is also easing rules for the unvaccinated, who will have to take coronavirus tests before and after traveling to Britain but will no longer face quarantine.

Monday's announcement applies to England. The other parts of the UK, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland _ set their own public health policies but have generally adopted the same travel rules as England.

Coronavirus cases in Britain soared in December, driven by the extremely transmissible omicron variant, though hospitalizations and deaths have remained well below previous pandemic peaks.

Britain has seen over 154,000 deaths in the pandemic, the second-worst toll in Europe after Russia.

Johnson's Conservative government is also lifting mask mandates and other restrictions this week and is relying on vaccinations and widespread testing to keep the virus in check.

Britain has recorded more than 150,000 coronavirus deaths, the highest toll in Europe after Russia.

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A UK government minister resigned Monday in protest over the government's handling of fraudulent loans granted as part of a pandemic business support scheme.

Theodore Agnew, a minister at the Cabinet Office and Treasury with a seat in the House of Lords, dramatically walked out after resigning from his posts during a speech criticising the "Bounce Back Loan Scheme".

Related Boris Johnson adviser resigns over lockdown party video

While Agnew said he was not resigning over the "Partygate" allegations surrounding Prime Minister Boris Johnson, it was another blow to his government's reputation.

Agnew's resignation came after the Treasury revealed in documents published online this month that it expects to write off 4.3 billion in Covid payments lost to fraudulent claims.

The country's consumer spending watchdog in December estimated the fraud cost at 4.9 billion.

Agnew complained that oversight by the ministry for business and a government-owned development bank had been "nothing less than woeful", criticising "schoolboy errors" in the way loans were allocated.

He added that the Treasury appeared "to have no knowledge or little interest in the consequences of fraud to our economy or our society," claiming his counter-fraud team was unable to work effectively.

"Given that I am the minister for counter-fraud, it would be somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly, let alone defending our track record," he said.

He pinned the blame on a "combination of arrogance, indolence and arrogance" that "freezes the Government machine".

"It is for that reason that I have sadly decided to tender my resignation as a minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate effect," he announced. He had held the position since 2020.

Slamming his red folder shut, he walked out to applause from the Lords.

Labour politician Angela Smith commented: "We've just witnessed one of the most dramatic moments we've ever seen in your Lordships' house".

The "Partygate" controversy erupted over revelations that Downing Street staff were partying while the rest of the country was in strict lockdown against Covid.

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Palestinian singer, composer, and flute player Nai Barghouti said on Facebook that her first album, Nai 1, is about to be released

She wrote, We worked so hard to make this album come to life from our hearts to yours, she posted on her Facebook on Saturday without revealing any details.

Barghouti's post received many encouraging comments.

Barghouti, 24, was born in Ramallah, the West Bank. Both her parents are involved in the world of art and music, and her older sister began taking violin lessons at the Edward Said Conservatory in Ramallah at an early age.

Barghouti began her singing career in 2011, at the age of 14, performing Arab Tarab.

In May 2019, Barghouti graduated from the Conservatory of Music in Amsterdam with distinction, and began studying for a Master's degree in music at the same institute.

Fusing jazz and Middle Eastern sounds, Barghouti performed several concerts in the Middle East and Europe. She has been in the limelight for her renditions of covers of Fayrouz and Rahbani Brothers' music.

In 2020, Barghouti won the Young Talent Award, presented by the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, one of Europe's most prestigious theatres.

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A temporary exhibition titled The Rare Collection was inaugurated on Sunday at the Royal Carriages Museum. The exhibition will last for 30 days and will display a collection of rare artefacts from the Mohamed Ali family and items from the museum that have never been exhibited before.

Director of the museum Ahmed El-Sabagh said that among the most beautiful objects is a small vehicle that was once used as a toy by toddlers in the royal family. Decorated with small lamps, a small metal whip, and a bronze bust of Khedive Ismail, the metal maquette of the vehicle is embellished with paintings of angels, natural scenes, and ladies.

The exhibition also hosts a collection of hats of different shapes and styles for men and women, along with a statuette of a horse made of porcelain and a horseshoe shaped ashtray made of bronze and leather.

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KYODO NEWS - Jan 24, 2022 - 21:55 | All, Japan, World

Japan is considering evacuating its nationals in Ukraine amid fears of an imminent Russian invasion, Japanese government sources said Monday, following such an order by the United States to family members of its embassy staff.

The Foreign Ministry warned against traveling to Ukraine for any purpose. Its second-highest Level 3 advisory, which previously covered parts of the Eastern European country, now applies to the whole of the nation.

About 250 Japanese citizens including family of embassy staff live in Ukraine, according to the ministry.

Japan is also "moving in that direction," a senior ministry official said in reference to the U.S. order issued Sunday, while underscoring that "the situation is changing rapidly" in the Eastern European country.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the government has reminded Japanese residents in Ukraine to prepare for unforeseen circumstances.

"We will continue to closely monitor the changes in the situation and take necessary measures promptly while working closely with the United States and other related countries," the top government spokesman said at a press conference.

Tensions have been rising over a military buildup by Russia with estimated 100,000 soldiers along its border with Ukraine, with no progress seen in talks between Western nations and Moscow on European security issues.
KYODO NEWS - Jan 24, 2022 - 14:28 | Japan, All

Japan will not consider South Korean opposition in deciding whether to push ahead with a plan to nominate a gold and silver mine site on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture for the 2023 UNESCO World Heritage list, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Monday.

Hayashi made the remarks after South Korea said it was deplorable that a Japanese state cultural body had recommended that Tokyo seek listing of the mine, where Koreans were subject to forced labor during Japan's 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula, and called for immediate retraction of the plan.

"We are not giving any diplomatic consideration to South Korea," Hayashi said at a House of Representatives session. "We are comprehensively considering within the government what would be most effective" in seeking the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's World Heritage designation, he added.

In the same session, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, "We place emphasis on issues pertaining to historic understanding," apparently referring to South Korean media reports about the issue. "Japan will firmly respond to unjust slanders," he added.

Among conservative members of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party, calls for nominating the site as planned are growing.

Sanae Takaichi, policy chief of the LDP, said in the session, "This is a situation that relates to the state's honor. We should nominate the site in fiscal 2021."

The government will consider its options until the Feb. 1 deadline for submitting a recommendation to UNESCO.

Japan's Council for Cultural Affairs last month selected the mine as a candidate. Niigata Prefecture has said the mine has a history of outstanding mining technology development before and after industrialization and became one of the world's largest producers of gold in the 17th century.

Tokyo and Seoul also remain at odds over a Tokyo-based information center on Japanese industrial locations listed as World Cultural Heritage sites. Seoul says the center does not give an adequate account of Korean victims of forced labor at such sites.

Related coverage:

Japan mulls delaying controversial Sado mine list for World Heritage

South Korea court orders sale of confiscated Nippon Steel assets

Japan PM urges South Korea to abide by 2015 agreement on "comfort women"
KYODO NEWS - Jan 24, 2022 - 23:49 | All, Japan

New U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel said Monday the United States and Japan can together "confront common challenges," including "aggressive actions" that threaten the "democratic rules-based order."

"Today we face a critical juncture. But our nations can confront common challenges, united in the belief about shared values, our shared interest and our shared goals," Emanuel said in a video message posted on the U.S. ambassador's official Twitter account, a day after arriving in Japan.

"This work, our work will determine the destiny of the democratic examples," he added.

Known for his close ties with President Joe Biden, the 62-year-old former top aide to former President Barack Obama filled a key post that has been vacant for more than two years.

Emanuel said the U.S.-Japan partnership has promoted peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region for more than 60 years as a "beacon of endless possibility and promise."

The ambassador added, "Our two nations will not shy away from any challenge, any adversary who undermines those (democratic) values."

During the flight from Chicago to Tokyo, I kept thinking about my parents. Their values and dreams lit a spark in me to pursue public service. Here is my story. pic.twitter.com/oRxDS7cLi9   (@USAmbJapan) January 24, 2022

The Japanese government welcomed his arrival.

"It will be a good opportunity for us to take a new step toward the realization of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, as well as further strengthening of the Japan-U.S. alliance," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said at a press conference earlier in the day.

The U.S. ambassador post in Japan had been vacant since William Hagerty stepped down in July 2019 to run for the Senate.

Related coverage:

New U.S. envoy Emanuel arrives in Japan to further bolster alliance

Japan, U.S. concerned over China bid to undermine rules-based order

Senate OKs ex-White House aide Emanuel as U.S. ambassador to Japan
KYODO NEWS - Jan 24, 2022 - 19:50 | World, All

A former professor of Peking University in Beijing has issued a statement against a reunification of Taiwan with the mainland by force, in a rare move by a Chinese intellectual to openly challenge the government's policy on the island.

Zheng Yefu, a 71-year-old sociologist, warned that a military threat to Taiwan would prevent peaceful unification and could even lead to a war among nuclear powers including the United States, while emphasizing the importance of fostering anti-war public sentiment.

He posted the statement on social media on Friday. Zheng told Kyodo News that he has not come under pressure from the Chinese government so far because of the statement, although the post has been apparently censored by the authorities as it cannot be forwarded.

In recent months, a large number of Chinese military planes have entered Taiwan's air defense identification zone, sparking concern that the government of President Xi Jinping may attempt to reunite the democratically ruled island by force.

Xi said in a speech in October that the Communist Party-led government can reunify Taiwan with the mainland, but added that national reunification "by peaceful means" serves Beijing's interests.

In his statement, Zheng said, "Taiwan is virtually independent," while saying a military threat from the mainland has aroused the island's hatred and may develop into a situation where Beijing, Washington and Taipei find themselves unable to make concessions to "save their faces."

China and Taiwan have been governed separately since they split in 1949 as a result of a civil war. Relations have deteriorated since independence-leaning Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan's president in 2016. The mainland considers the island as a renegade province.

The United States switched its diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. But it maintains substantive though unofficial exchanges with the island and supplies it with billions of dollars worth of arms and spare parts for its defense.
Manama, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Bahraini demand for Chinese vehicles is increasing with car imports from China reaching nearly 18 million Bahrain dinars (about 48 million U.S. dollars) in 2021.

Ridha Mohammed Abas, a showroom manager of China's auto manufacturer Changan, said that the Changan vehicles were introduced in Bahrain in 2018, and their sales have been climbing over the years.

The high demand is mainly for two reasons, the innovative designs and the increasing confidence of local consumers in Chinese vehicles, he told Xinhua.

People want to have Chinese cars because they are reliable, with distinctive features and competitive prices, Ridha explained.

"We opened a larger showroom, and the maintenance and post-sale services have drastically improved in the past years," he explained.

The affordability was the main reason that made Fatima Mohammed, a Bahraini, buy Chery Tiggo as her first and only car in 2019. "I fell in love with the car as I wanted an SUV, and it was within my budget. The car is still with the same performance as the first day I bought it," she told Xinhua.

Noora Khamis Al Sadoon, the director of economic statistics at Bahrain's Information and eGovernment Authority (iGA), affirmed to Xinhua that the kingdom had imported 3,814 motor vehicles from China in 2021.

According to the country's foreign trade statistics, Chinese motor vehicle imports in 2021 totaled 17,955,457 Bahrain dinars, Al Sadoon noted.

Meanwhile, Abas revealed that the Changan showroom in Bahrain sold 480 vehicles in 2020, and the number jumped to 640 last year.

The success of Chinese vehicles in the local market is evidence of Bahrain consumers' understanding of the high quality of cars and their manufacturing process, Ahmed Ghazwan, head of public relations and marketing at Tas'heelat Automotive Company, had told the press last year.

He predicted that Chinese vehicles would dominate the global auto industry with competitive prices and high-quality standards, as China has developed the ability to produce the best vehicles in the world. 
Photo taken on Jan. 23, 2022 shows a snow view of Istanbul, Turkey. Heavy snowfalls in most of Turkey, including main cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, have disrupted air and road traffic while meteorologists warned the cold spell could last until the end of next week. (Xinhua/Shadati)

ISTANBUL, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Heavy snowfalls in most of Turkey, including main cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, have disrupted air and road traffic while meteorologists warned the cold spell could last until the end of next week.

"Turkey is under the spell of a polar vortex, and we can expect temperatures to plummet to minus 14 degrees Celsius in some provinces. This episode is expected to last on and off for about two weeks," meteorologist Adil Tek told Xinhua.

"This is one of the longest cold spells in the last decade," he explained.

A total of 77 flights have been canceled or delayed due to weather conditions from Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport located on the Asian side of the city on Saturday and Sunday, Turkey's flag carrier Turkish Airlines announced.

Land traffic has also been disrupted in Istanbul. Up to 20 cm of snow has been recorded in some parts of the city, the Turkish State Meteorological Services announced.

In Ankara, heavy snow buried roads under a thick blanket in the city and surrounding areas, disrupting traffic in some parts despite the round-the-clock efforts of municipal rescue trucks and hundreds of workers.

The country's eastern and southeastern provinces are also hit by severe snowfall for the last five days.

A snowstorm particularly hit hard the southeastern city of Gaziantep, the heaviest in the last 50 years, according to local authorities, wreaking havoc in the city and its surroundings.

Diyarbakir, the main city of the region, has also been covered under snow, severely disrupting road travel.

While there is a downside to heavy snowfall, it is also a blessing as the country is reeling from drought. The country's hydro dams will benefit from the snowfall after a dry spell, authorities said. 

People walk in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, on Jan. 23, 2022. Heavy snowfalls in most of Turkey, including main cities such as Istanbul and Ankara, have disrupted air and road traffic while meteorologists warned the cold spell could last until the end of next week. (Xinhua/Shadati)
Yokogawa Electric Corporation will release the Collaborative Information Server (CI Server) R1.02 in March 2022.

This new version of CI Server, a product in the OpreX Control and Safety System family, will have the ability to be delivered on Yokogawa Cloud, the company's cloud platform.

Since its release in January 2021, CI Server has been adopted for use in plants all over the world. By integrating the handling of all kinds of data from plant equipment and systems, this solution facilitates the optimised management of production activities across an entire enterprise, while also providing a remote operation environment to ensure efficient plant operations from any location.

In order to help customers drastically reduce their system infrastructure design, maintenance, and management workload, this release of CI Server has been enhanced to enable cloud-based operation, in addition to conventional system configuration in an on-premise environment. Customers will be able to use CI Server in a platform as a service (PaaS) format that combines Yokogawa Cloud, a software licence, and maintenance.

The use of CI Server together with Yokogawa Cloud will ensure a high security environment.

Key Benefits:

*Lower cost project implementation and swift project launch;

*Running CI Server in a cloud environment enables a reduction in the number of PCs and other such hardware in plants. This eliminates the need for design and configuration work necessary for hardware setup, and speeds up project development. Furthermore, given that projects can be launched without having to purchase additional hardware, initial implementation costs are lower;

*Safe and efficient operation

With the reduction in hardware, maintenance workload is reduced. And as server capacity can be scaled up for cloud-based operations, it is possible with this version of CI Server to swiftly respond to changes in the operating environment.

The combination of CI Server with Yokogawa Cloud can also reduce the need for cloud environment-related maintenance. In addition, the provision of operating system updates, anti-virus software management, and security monitoring services help customers improve the safety and efficiency of their operations.

Oil and gas upstream, midstream gas and liquid pipelines, petrochemicals, chemicals, renewable energy, power, pulp and paper, pharmaceuticals, food, mining, iron and steel, water distribution, and wastewater treatment are the major markets for the product. -- TradeArabia News Service
People visit a car company selling electric cars made by China's Geely Auto in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Nov. 10, 2021. (Photo by Gil Cohen Magen/Xinhua)

-- Over the past 30 years, bilateral trade and economic relations between China and Israel have developed at a fast pace, Israeli Ambassador to China Irit Ben-Abba has said.

-- Active academic cooperation between universities of the two sides and cultural events held by both countries have largely boosted exchanges and understanding between the two peoples, she said.

BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Israel and China have witnessed "substantial" bilateral cooperation since they established diplomatic ties 30 years ago, with political, economic, cultural and people-to-people exchanges booming, Israeli Ambassador to China Irit Ben-Abba has said.

"If I look at what we have achieved in 30 years, it's quite substantial," Ben-Abba told Xinhua in a recent interview on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic ties.

Over the past 30 years, bilateral trade and economic relations have developed at a fast pace, said the ambassador. Data from China Customs showed that bilateral trade volume has grown from 50 million U.S. dollars in 1992 to 22.8 billion dollars in 2021.

Meanwhile, active academic cooperation between universities of the two sides and cultural events held by both countries have largely boosted exchanges and understanding between the two peoples, she added.

Photo taken on July 25, 2019 shows explosion-proof light rail trains being manufactured jin CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles Co., Ltd. in Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province. (Xinhua/Wang Haofei)

In 2017, Israel and China established their innovative comprehensive partnership, which offered a direction for both sides to develop collaboration in sectors including business, technology, health, education, agriculture and environment, the ambassador noted.

Looking to the future, Ben-Abba said such a development momentum in bilateral relations should be maintained and further developed, and people-to-people exchanges be enhanced.

Israel is perceived as a young and innovative country of entrepreneurship, Ben-Abba said, adding that the two countries can work together to develop innovative technologies in such fields as water usage and renewable energy to help confront global challenges like climate change.

Noting that the Jewish nation and the Chinese nation have enjoyed a time-honored friendship, she said, "We should learn more about each other, (about) our histories, our cultures and our traditions, especially for the young generation in both countries. They have to interact more with each other."

An artist performs Sichuan opera during a culture and tourism presentation held in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Guo Yu)

Ben-Abba served as the minister of the Israeli embassy in Beijing from 1994 to 1996. The veteran diplomat said she is impressed by China's fast development, especially the infrastructure construction that has built up mobility across the country.

"It is so accessible to everyone. You can get to the most remote places in China in no time, either by a bullet train or an airplane or a very modern bus," she said while recalling her travel experiences in China.

Ben-Abba spoke highly of bilateral cooperation in combating COVID-19, especially information sharing between medical workers and hospitals. She also thanked China for providing assistance when the virus appeared in Israel.

She said she hopes the two countries will join hands to conduct research, work on vaccine and drug development and find appropriate solutions to possible pandemics in the future.

Ben-Abba also wished the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympic Games a success and wished all the Chinese people a Happy Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 1. 
DHAKA, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh recorded 14,828 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 15 more deaths on Monday, bringing the total tally to 1,699,964 with 28,238 deaths, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) said.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 positivity rate in the Asian country surged to 32.37 percent from 31.29 percent on Sunday.

The official data showed that 45,807 samples were tested across the country in the past 24 hours.

Among Bangladesh's eight divisions, the DGHS data showed Dhaka recorded the highest number of cases at 10,165 and that of deaths at six.

The total number of recovered COVID-19 patients in the country rose to 1,557,859 including 998 new recoveries, said the DGHS.

According to the official data, the fatality rate in Bangladesh is 1.66 percent and currently recovery rate is 91.64 percent.

A health official has said the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is driving a spike in fresh infections through community transmissions in the country.

"Huge spike in infections is being driven by the Omicron variant, which is rapidly replacing Delta in the country," Professor Nazmul Islam, a spokesman for the DGHS, told reporters on Sunday.

As Bangladesh reels from a fresh spike in COVID-19 cases spurred by the quick spreading of the omicron variant, the central bank Bangladesh Bank on Monday ordered all banks in the country to operate with only half of their employees physically present in the workplace until Feb. 6.

The Bangladeshi government has already listed a number of restrictions including closure of educational institutions considering the upward trend of COVID-19 infections.

Bangladesh recorded its highest daily new cases of 16,230 on July 28 last year and the highest number of 264 deaths from the pandemic on Aug. 5 and again on Aug. 10, 2021. 
"A decade ago, very little was happening between our two countries. In the subsequent years, relations grew significantly on almost every front, from academic exchange and cooperation to scientific collaboration and joint research, from business investment to infrastructure development," said Carice Witte, founder & executive director of Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership.

by Xinhua writers Shang Hao, Lyu Yingxu, Wang Hao



JERUSALEM, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- Though 4,000 miles (about 6,437.4 km) away from each other, China and Israel, since establishing diplomatic relations in 1992, have seen bilateral cooperation developing and expanding to the great mutual benefit.

Especially in 2017, China and Israel announced the establishment of innovative comprehensive partnership, which opened a new chapter of their friendly cooperation.

From the Belt and Road cooperation to technology and innovation exchanges, over the years, China-Israel relations have achieved fruitful cooperation in various fields.





BRI PROMOTES COOPERATION

Busily and efficiently, the new port in northern Israeli city of Haifa, a transportation and industrial center of the country, deals with tons of cargo every day.

Inaugurated in September 2021, this port is expected to decrease import costs and present an economic boon for Israel, where most international trade is handled via maritime routes.

The new port is an automated container port constructed primarily by the China Shanghai International Port Group, which was franchised to run the new port for 25 years. With 1.7-billion-U.S.-dollar investment, the new port has an annual handling capacity of 1.86 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

"The new port opened a new gateway to the world," said Merav Michaeli, Israeli transportation and road safety minister, at the inauguration ceremony, adding that the new port will accelerate Israel's economic development, increase export and trade, bridge social gaps and lower prices.

Supported by the Israeli government, the Haifa new port becomes a microcosm of the win-win cooperation between China and Israel, under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aiming at building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

Data released by the Israeli Ministry of Transportation shows that the country is now investing 4-5 billion dollars each year to upgrade its transport infrastructure and is building airports, seaports, railroad tracks, roads and tunnels, which reflects the huge complementarity of the respective economic advantages between the two countries.

In recent years, Chinese companies are handling major infrastructure and transportation projects in Israel, including winning the tenders to build new ports in Haifa and southern Israeli city of Ashdod, as well as building a key section of the Tel Aviv light rail system.

Chinese companies and investment have brought tangible benefits to Israel. So far, over 30 Chinese enterprises are operating in Israel, creating around 10,000 jobs for Israel, figures from the Chinese embassy in Israel show.

"The Belt and Road Initiative is a vision that reflects the ability of people to connect and work together across the world, to build bridges for all peoples, and eventually a better future for all," said former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.





INNOVATION AS BOOSTER

During the past 30 years, innovation has been playing one of the leading roles in promoting China-Israel relations, especially after the establishment of their innovative comprehensive partnership in 2017.

"Israel is widely regarded as the innovation hub of the world, but its economy size is limited, while China is a giant economy with significant manufacturing power, which makes Israel and China the perfect match and highly complementary," said Qiang Hao, general manager of the China-Israel (Shanghai) Innovation Park.

Also, as China is transforming the economy to focus quality-oriented development, innovation cooperation between China and Israel has started to span from modern agriculture to medical devices, from cybersecurity to smart cities.

Eying China's tremendous market, Israel is trying to form a long-term strategic relationship with the oriental country. Supported by the two governments, more and more Israeli start-up companies have obtained investment from China and accesses to its market.

China-Israel Changzhou Innovation Park, the first experimental zone for innovation cooperation established by the two governments and inaugurated in 2015, can be an example.

Located in east China's Jiangsu Province, the park provides physical proximity for Israeli firms to get funds and collaborate with Chinese companies in industrial research and development, becoming a prototype project for innovative cooperation between the two countries.

"By the end of 2021, the park has gathered 155 Israeli-owned and China-Israeli joint ventures and facilitated 40 China-Israel scientific and technological cooperation projects," said Chen Shunming, deputy director of the management office of the park.

Another milestone in scientific cooperation between the two countries is the China-Israel (Shanghai) Innovation Park inaugurated in 2019.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, some 70 companies were attracted to operate in the park with an outcome of some 200 intellectual property rights, according to Qiang, general manager of the park.

Focusing on design innovation, Israeli company GIAYO Studio began operating in the park in last August.

"I think we bring something new, new design, new experience and new product to our customers," said Roy Grinfield, founder of GIAYO Studio.

"I think China is amazing at the moment. There are so many opportunities here. We're currently recruiting and trying to grow the team, because we have a lot of requests from new clients. We have big plans for 2022," said Grinfield.

Like Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a phone conversation with his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, in November, "Innovation has become a highlight and booster of bilateral relations."





MORE FRUITFUL OUTCOMES EXPECTED

"A decade ago, very little was happening between our two countries. In the subsequent years, relations grew significantly on almost every front, from academic exchange and cooperation to scientific collaboration and joint research, from business investment to infrastructure development," said Carice Witte, founder & executive director of Sino-Israel Global Network & Academic Leadership, an Israeli policy organization that specializes on China-Israel relations.

Despite setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the two countries have not stopped their efforts to enhance cooperation. Data from China Customs showed that bilateral trade in goods between China and Israel amounted to 20.4 billion dollars in 2021 from January to November, up 28.9 percent year-on-year.

Also, China and Israel are working on a bilateral free trade agreement, which will boost the economic cooperation and bring more benefits to people and businesses from both sides.

As the year of 2022 marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic ties, people from the two countries are looking forward to further cooperation in all areas for mutual benefit.

Yoav Kisch, member of Knesset, the Israeli parliament, described China as a growing player in the Middle East "without using military force at all, but only as of its strength in the economic and tech areas."

"I believe that Israel must develop a rational, wise, and close relationship with China, which is a great friend and a leading country with growing influence," said Kisch.

According to Chen, the China-Israel Changzhou Innovation Park will be expanded from five square kilometers to 72.8 square kilometers.

"We will build the park into a model of innovative comprehensive partnership between the two countries and help apply the innovation resources and technological achievements from Israel to Chinese industries," said Chen.

"I hope that the two countries will promote cooperation in innovation of life and health, and overcome the COVID-19 pandemic as soon as possible," said Qiang. He also hoped that the ending of the pandemic and China-Israel interaction and cooperation without COVID-19 limitations will bring bilateral ties "to a new level."

Dai Yuming, charge d'affaires ad interim at the embassy of China in Israel, made an analogy saying China's growth is like an express train heading to the future despite all odds.

"We welcome all countries, including Israel, to hop onto the train and get a share from China's growth dividends," said the Chinese diplomat.

(Xinhua reporters Wang Jingyuan, Yang Kai and Xu Xiaoqing in Shanghai, Chen Shengwei and Zhang Zhanpeng in Nanjing also contributed to the story.)

Produced by Xinhua Global Service 
JERUSALEM, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese Embassy in Israel held an online celebration on Monday for the 30th anniversary of the establishment of China-Israel diplomatic relations.

Chinese Ambassador to Israel Cai Run and Minister of Economy and Industry of Israel Orna Barbivay delivered respective video speeches to mark the historical occasion.

"Over the past 30 years, with the joint efforts made by leaders and peoples of both countries, China-Israel relations achieved sound and stable growth, and our traditional friendship has been renewed," said Cai in his speech.

The past 30 years have witnessed ever-increasing political mutual trust, vigorous development of mutually beneficial cooperation and deeper friendship between Chinese and Israeli people, he noted.

Calling history a mirror that illuminates the present and the future, the Chinese ambassador expected the two countries to continue to stick to basic norms governing international relations such as mutual respect for each other's sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs, so as to lay a more solid political foundation for bilateral ties.

"China and Israel share similar visions, complementary strengths, great potentials and bright prospects for cooperation. We have every reason to achieve win-win results," Cai concluded.

Hailing China one of Israel's most important trading partners since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Barbivay noted that China and Israel complete each other well and have created numerous partnerships, explored various business opportunities and collaborated in the fields of innovation in the benefit of the two peoples over the past 30 years.

Israel sees great importance in deepening economic relations with China and is happy to contribute to stronger trade, industry, and technological collaboration between the two countries, she added.

A recomposed music video "Chinese Melody," written by former Israeli President Shimon Peres, was released during the online celebration.

The celebration also includes a Chinese traditional folk concert and a photo exhibition that showcased more than 70 photographs on important events between the two countries in the past 30 years.

On Jan. 24, 1992, China and Israel signed the agreement establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. In 2017, the two countries announced the establishment of an innovative comprehensive partnership to raise their bilateral ties to a new level. 
Photo taken on Oct. 28, 2021 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Truth will ultimately prevail. The Havana Syndrome story is yet another farce of self-serving Washington and another old trick in its playbook full of lies. If Washington continues to act recklessly without genuine self-reflection, it is in for a credit bust.

BEIJING, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has eaten humble pie, admitting recently that most cases of the mysterious ailment known as the "Havana Syndrome" may have been caused by environmental factors, undiagnosed medical conditions or stress.

The latest CIA finding, which ruled out "the role of a foreign power" in most cases, overturned a finding more than a year ago by a team from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, which was "commissioned" by the U.S. government to investigate the matter.

The team had linked the syndrome, reportedly experienced by U.S. diplomats in Cuba starting in 2016, to alleged "directed" radio frequencies, setting off sustained, worldwide concern.

The Havana syndrome has become the latest episode of the U.S. centuries-old lying saga. As former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boasted, "I was the CIA director, we lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment."

People participating in a rally against U.S. embargo pass by the U.S. embassy in Havana, Cuba, Aug. 5, 2021. (Xinhua/Zhu Wanjun)

For quite some time, Washington, in disregard of the facts, has been obsessed with fabricating lies to either discredit and suppress other countries, or to justify and cover up its violence and plundering.

Its typical rumor-mongering goes like this: In Iraq, a test tube of washing powder was taken as evidence for "weapons of mass destruction." In China's Xinjiang, largely mechanized cotton fields were labeled as places of "forced labor." And a number of international companies have fallen victim to suppression and bullying on the suspicion of "endangering U.S. national security."

Back in the Cold War days, the United States hyped up a groundless "armed invasion" threat to Western Europe from the Soviet Union, and today it is still reviving the Truman Doctrine at times.

In fact, Washington blows the fake whistle literally everywhere. It has staged the "White Helmets" video of false-flag airstrikes and chemical attacks on civilians to pave its way for a military intervention in Syria. It has openly supported Hong Kong rioters, discredited the local business environment, and stirred up trouble in Hong Kong.

Photo taken on Sept. 17, 2021 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The U.S. media have been leading by example how facts-based news stories can be written into spy stories by distorting facts and blaming the innocent.

Just as German author Michael Lueders has revealed in his book "The Hypocritical Superpower," the U.S. government and its interest groups are apt at influencing and shaping public opinion by selecting information and polarizing the public's views.

He who excuses himself accuses himself. When Washington groundlessly accused China's Belt and Road Initiative of creating a debt trap for partner countries, it was itself the biggest de-facto producer of international debt problems. When it slandered Beijing as a threat to global digital security, it was in fact a reckless seeker of digital hegemony with an appalling record of eavesdropping. And ironically, with its genocidal past and human rights atrocities, this cold-blooded killer of Native Americans is telling a lie of "genocide" in Xinjiang.

But truth will ultimately prevail. The Havana Syndrome story is yet another farce of self-serving Washington and another old trick in its playbook full of lies. If Washington continues to act recklessly without genuine self-reflection, it is in for a credit bust. 
WINDHOEK, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Namibia's Police Force seized 32,238 kg of cannabis valued at 322,380 Namibian dollars (about 21,650 U.S. dollars) in December 2021, a police statement said.

Various types of drug substances were seized including 352 mandrax tablets, two grams of cocaine powder, 46 units of crack cocaine, six MDMA capsules and 41 LSD stickers.

Total value of drugs seized is 375,860 Namibian dollars. A total of 132 suspects were arrested, involving 119 Namibians, one Angolan, one German, one South African, nine Zambians, and one Zimbabwean national, accordin to the statement issued by Deputy Commissioner Kauna Shikwambi.

"Dealing with drugs remains a huge concern in our societies and hence the police continue encouraging the public to desist from using these substances, moreover to report especially the drug dealers or any suspicion of drug-related matters." 
ISLAMABAD, Jan. 24 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Monday met with visiting Sri Lankan Minister of Trade Bandula Gunawardena to discuss bilateral and economic relations, the Foreign Ministry of Pakistan said.

During the meeting, the Pakistani foreign minister highlighted the importance of strengthening the existing fraternal relations between the two countries through high-level exchanges, it said in a statement.

Qureshi underlined the need to capitalize on the immense goodwill that exists between Pakistan and Sri Lanka by expanding cooperation across diverse areas including trade and investment, tourism, culture, education, defense, agriculture, and human resource development, said the statement.

"All efforts must be made to enhance bilateral trade relations through optimal utilization of the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA), particularly by expanding interaction between the business communities on both sides, and joint ventures and investments in high potential sectors," he was quoted as having said.

Both sides also agreed to continue close collaboration in multilateral fora and to strengthen regional cooperation, the Pakistani foreign ministry said. 
Mumbai:

The next Maharashtra chief minister will be from the Shiv Sena and the Sharad Pawar-led NCP has not demanded the top post during state-level meetings on government formation, Congress leader Manikrao Thakare said on Friday. Sources suggested that the chief ministerial post may go to the Shiv Sena for five years. Thakare also said that leaders of the three parties will sit together later on Friday to clarify some pending issues and also to decide the time to approach Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to stake claim for forming government.

The chief minister will be from the Shiv Sena...The NCP did not demand the chief ministers post at the state-level meetings. The Congress, too, did not make any such demand, he said.

He made the statement before attending a joint meeting of the Congress and NCP with their pre-poll small allies here.

Asked whether the chief ministerial post will remain with the Shiv Sena for five years, a senior Congress leader said, It may happen so. Dont think anyone else (other than the Shiv Sena) will insist on it (five-year term).

Meanwhile, Thakare said the Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress are holding their internal meetings and will decide the timing of their joint meeting later.

The Congress is also scheduled to elect its legislature party leader later in the day.

AICC general secretaries Mallikarjun Kharge and K C Venugopal are expected to attend the meeting to elect the legislature party leader.

A motley alliance of the once-rival parties is being stitched in Maharashtra, which has been placed under the Presidents rule since November 12.

The BJP and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena had contested the October 21 Maharashtra Assembly polls jointly and won 105 and 56 seats respectively.

However, the saffron partners fell out after the Sena persisted with its demand for sharing the chief ministers post on rotational basis.

Now in a bid to form a government, the Sena is in talks with the NCP and Congress, who have won 54 and 44 seats respectively in the 288-member Maharashtra Assembly.
New Delhi:

A former top White House adviser on Russia on Thursday termed the impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump as fictional narrative pushed by Russia. Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry over claims that Trump pressured Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to look into what the US leader said were corrupt business deals involving Biden. Fiona Hill said that such a fictional native is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russians.

Based on questions and statements I have heard some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps somehow for some reason Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves, Hill said.

"Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional expert career foreign service is being undermined. US support for Ukraine which continues to face unto Russian aggression has been politicised," she said.

She said the Russian government's goal was to weaken the US, to diminish America's global role and to neutralise a perceived US threat to Russian interest.

Last week, Donald Trump dubbed the impeachment proceedings against him as a "double standard never seen" in US history. This came after US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch deposed before the Congressional panel on the second day of impeachment hearings. A double standard like never seen before in the history of our Country, Trump tweeted as Yovanovitch was grilled on president's interaction with Ukrainians.

Asserting that he has done no wrong, Trump released transcripts of his first phone to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after his electoral victory.

According to the ABC News-Ipsos poll released on Monday, slim majority of Americans believe President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office. Fifty-one per cent of those asked said they think Trump should be tried and convicted in the US Senate, while another six per cent favour impeachment but not removal, according to the poll. The ABC-Ipsos poll suggested as well a drop in the number of people opposing impeachment, to 38 per cent, compared to the FiveThirtyEight average of about 46 per cent.

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New Delhi:

The controversy surrounding the electoral bonds rocked the Lok Sabha on Thursday with the Congress alleging that the entire scheme was a scam. Dubbing it as a political bribery, the Congress launched a scathing attack against the Modi government both inside and outside Parliament. In Lok Sabha, Congress lawmaker Manish Tewari said that, I want to draw the attention of the House towards electoral bonds. The electoral bond scheme was limited to elections. A 2018 RTI revealed that government overruled the Reserve Bank of India on electoral bonds. Latest media reports on Thursday claimed that then RBI Governor Urjit Patel had warned the Modi government against the electoral bonds.

A Telegraph report said that the ex-RBI governor wrote at least three letters to then finance minister Arun Jaitley in 2017 warning that allowing anyone other than the central bank to issue electoral bonds is fraught with risk and that the entire exercise could undermine the positives of demonetisation.

Another senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor slammed the government and said that, when electoral bonds were introduced, many of us had raised serious objections about how it could easily become a way for rich corporations and individuals to influence improperly political parties, particularly the ruling party.

On Wednesday, the Congress had raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha and demanded the government must disclose all details about electoral bonds before Parliament, alleging that the scheme resulted in money laundering and destroyed transparency in the funding of political parties.

Describing electoral bonds as a "political bribery scheme", the opposition party said it was a scam that tarnished the image of the Indian democracy. "What we are talking about today leads straight to the PM's office. The BJP govt is running 90 per cent of the business in this country with a few industrialists," senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad said. He alleged that the scheme of electoral bonds resulted in money laundering and destroyed transparency in the funding of political parties.

The Grand Old Party of India further claimed that the government introduced the scheme by ignoring the objections of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and that it was a way of political extortion of money.

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The German National Tourist Office (GNTO) is targeting higher engagement with high-level international travel and tourism industry professionals via the launch of On the MIC with Petra Hedorfer  a new monthly podcast series exploring a wide variety of industry topics with in-market experts offering territory-specific and global insights.



Petra Hedorfer, Chairwoman of the board of the German National Tourist Board, said: On the MIC with Petra Hedorfer welcomes a rolling roster of guest contributors every month, with notable guests thus far including Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, CEO of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, and Matthew D. Upchurch, Chairman and CEO of Virtuos, the global network of luxury travel agents.



In line with our strategy and commitment to constantly review how we reach prospective travel audiences, in this case the senior heads and leaders of travel agencies and companies capable of attracting worldwide markets to Germany, On the MIC with Petra Hedorfer fills the need for on-the-go content through a tailored podcast offering insights and information to like-minded trade professionals, said Yamina Sofo, Director Sales & Marketing, German National Tourist Office.



The German Federal Governments Covid-19 travel restrictions allow for entry for EU-approved vaccinated travellers, over the age of 12, from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates but all travellers need to register on einreiseanmeldung.de before travel. Passengers below 12 years old who have not yet been vaccinated will be accepted for travel if they are accompanied by at least one fully vaccinated parent. Every passenger 6 years old and above must have proof of their Covid-19 status when entering Germany, regardless of the country they are travelling from.



Travellers from Oman can enter Germany regardless of individual vaccination status, meaning visitors can enter the country with a negative Covid-19 test taken 72 hours before travel. The EU issues and updates its travel recommendations to member states regularly. The safe list is reviewed and revised every two weeks by the EU authorities and members states.  TradeArabia News Service
Mumbai:

The Shiv Sena on Thursday targeted the Modi government over Delhi polices inhuman lathicharge on JNU students, including those challenged visually, during a protest against hostel fee hike, saying no government should run amok in this manner. The Sena, engaged in talks with Congress and NCP to form a coalition government in Maharashtra, said the ruling BJP would have created a ruckus in Parliament had such action against students been taken during the Grand Old Partys rule.

As Delhi is a Union territory, the responsibility to maintain law and order rests with the Centre, it said.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party said it was worrying to see the way visually-challenged and divyang students were allegedly thrashed by Delhi police on Monday, after they were stopped from marching to Parliament against hostel fee hike by the JNU administration.

While the students alleged they were baton charged, police have denied having used force.

The lathicharge on JNU students in Delhi was inhuman... The BJP would have created a ruckus in Parliament and organisations like ABVP would have given a call for nationwide bandh had such an incident taken place during the Congress rule, the Sena said in an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana.

The police force which thrashes visually-challenged ones cannot be servants of people and protectors of law. Do not trample down at least the students. No government should run amok in this manner, it said.

The party, however, said students also need to maintain discipline.

None will support the students action of crossing barricades during protest on Monday, it said.

Terming the hike in JNU hostel fee exorbitant, the Sena sought to know what the government has done to address the concerns raised by the students.

It said the minister concerned could have reached out to the students and heard their grudge out. It said those following right-wing ideology have been alleging that the JNU is a den of Naxalites and people with left-wing inclinations.

The university, however, has also produced Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee, some of the top politicians and experts, it said, observing none of them followed right-wing ideology.

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Indore:

The Indian Institute of Management-Indore has scaled the Rs 4-lakh-mark stipend this year as it completed the summer internship placement on Thursday, while the average stipend offered is Rs 1.68 lakh for the two-month long internship, the institute said. A spokesman of the institute said 589 students from two major courses participated in the placement process for summer internship being attended by over 160 employers.

Some of the companies who came for the placement interviews include Google, Aditya Birla Group, Amazon, BCG, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, EY, Goldman Sachs, HUL, ITC, JPMorgan Chase and PwC. The spokesman however did not name the company that offered the Rs 4 lakh package Or the name of the student who bagged the hottest job offer.

The current batch is the largest by number (589) among all IIMs across the country, who will complete their courses in 2021 in either two-year PG management programme or the five-year integrated management programme.

About IIM, Indore

Established in the year 1996, IIM Indore was formed as the 6th IIM after IIM Calcutta, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore, IIM Lucknow and IIM Kozhikode. The Business school offers two-year full-time PGP (Post Graduate Programme) in Management. It is one of the leading and prestigious b-schools of the country.
New Delhi:

In yet another case that highlights the poor safety records in India, a 16-year-old girl was allegedly raped and set on fire by her neighbour in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal district. The girl, who was referred to Delhis Safdarjung Hospital, is battling for life. According to police, the accused barged into the girls house when she was alone and raped her. Before the girl could regain her senses, the man brought kerosene from his house and set her on fire. The accused did so to apparently destroy the evidence of the crime., Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alok Jaiswal said that the accused has been arrested and an FIR was lodged on the complaint of the family member.

The recently released NCRB data showed disturbing, upward trend of crime against women. As many as 3,59,849 cases of crime against women were registered across the country in 2017, continuing the upward trend for the third consecutive year, the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data released showed. In 2015, 3,29,243 cases of crimes against women were registered and 3,38,954 cases were registered in 2016. The cases categorised as crimes against women include murder, rape, dowry death, suicide abetment, acid attack, cruelty against women and kidnapping, etc. According to the NCRB data for 2017, which was released after a delay of more than a year, the maximum cases were registered in Uttar Pradesh (56,011) -- the country's most populated state.

Majority of cases under crimes against women were registered under cruelty by husband or his relatives" at 27.9%, followed by assault on women with intent to outrage her modesty" at 21.7%, kidnapping and abduction of women" at 20.5% and rape" accounting for only 7.0%. While the crime rate" is defined as offences registered per one lakh people", Assam recorded the highest crime rate of 143 in the country in 2017. Odisha and Telangana came in second, recording a crime rate of 94 each, followed by Haryana at 88 and Rajasthan at 73.

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New Delhi:

Samajwadi Party supremo Akhilesh Yadav Thursday ruled out any alliance possibilities in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls to be held in 2022. The SP chief said that his party will form the next government in Uttar Pradesh. We do not need alliances and will contest the 2022 polls on our own strength," he said. The Samajwadi Party allied with the Congress in the 2017 Assembly elections and was not only voted out of power but left with 47 seats in the state assembly that has 403 members.

In 2019, the SP allied with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the alliance was touted as a game changer. However, the Samajwadi Party was left with five seats and the BSP snapped the alliance, accusing SP cadres of not supporting BSP candidates.

On Wednesday, Akhilesh attacked the BJP government over its claimed efforts to make the state's roads pothole-free, saying the saffron party's "corruption" is the biggest hurdle to this. "When we say there are potholes, the BJP government doesn't believe it. That's why the government should issue a helpline on which people can send photographs and inform about potholes. Will the government believe the people?," Akhilesh said in a tweet in Hindi.

"The biggest 'gaddha' (pothole) is the BJP's corruption, without filling it all the efforts and preaching are useless," the former Uttar Pradesh chief minister had said.

He also tagged a headline of a newspaper that said Executive Engineers will be suspended if roads are not made pothole-free by November 30.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has reportedly set a deadline for authroties concerned to make the states roads pothole-free.

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New Delhi:

There were nearly seven lakh vacant posts in different central government departments as on March 1 last year, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Of the total of 6,83, 823 vacant posts, a total of 5,74,289 are in Group C, 89,638 in Group B and 19,896 in Group A category, as on March 1, 2018, according to a data given in a written reply by Minister of State for Personnel, Jitendra Singh.

Based on the vacancies reported by the user departments, the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) has started the recruitment process to fill up 1,05,338 posts during the year 2019-2020, he said.

During 2017-18, centralised employment notifications (CENs) for 1,27,573 combined vacancies of various Group C and Level-1 posts were notified by the ministry of railways and railway recruitment boards (RRBs), for new and future vacancies to arise in two years' time, Singh said. Another five CENs covering 1,56,138 vacancies of various Group C and Level-1 posts were also issued in 2018-19, the minister said.

The department of posts have also conducted examination and notified to fill up 19,522 vacancies, other than those to be filled up through SSC, in various grades, he said. "Thus, recruitment process to fill up 4,08,591 vacancies by the SSC, RRBs is in progress," Singh said.

To reduce the recruitment cycle, recruiting agencies have switched over to computer-based online test, interview for non-gazetted posts has been discontinued with effect from January 1, 2016 and provisional appointment is being made pending verification of antecedents of the candidates, he said.

In another reply, the minister said there were backlog reserved vacancies for scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBCs). The Personnel Ministry monitors the progress in filling up of backlog reserved vacancies for SCs, STs and OBCs with ten ministries and departments, having more than 90 per cent of the employees in central government.

Out of these ten ministries and departments, six have informed that as on December 31, 2017, out of 13,968 backlog vacancies for SCs, 11,040 backlog vacancies for STs and 20,044 backlog vacancies for OBCs, 6,186 backlog vacancies for SCs, 4,137 backlog vacancies for STs and 9,185 backlog vacancies for OBCs were filled up, the minister said.

As on January 1, 2018, 7,782 backlog vacancies for SCs, 6,903 backlog vacancies for STs and 10,859 backlog vacancies for OBCs remained unfilled, he said. "Besides the above six, three more ministries/departments have informed that as on December 31, 2018, out of 9,624 backlog vacancies for SCs, 8,659 backlog vacancies for STs and 7,293 backlog vacancies for OBCs, 7,911 backlog vacancies for SCs, 6,129 backlog vacancies for STs and 5,520 backlog vacancies for OBCs were filled up," Singh said.
New Delhi:

Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday took possession of the attached properties of the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists in Kashmir in a terror funding case. These properties worth Rs.1.22 crores are located in Anantnag, Baramulla and Bandipora districts of Kashmir in the names of 7 terrorists.

The terrorists whose properties were seized are Mohammad Shafi Shah, Talib Hussain Lali, Gulam Nabi Khan, Zaffar Hussain Bhat, Abdul Majeed Sofi, Nazir Ahmad Dar, and Manzoor Ahmad Dar.

Enforcement Directorate (ED) takes possession of attached properties of the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists in Kashmir in a terror funding case. These properties worth Rs.1.22 crores are located in Anantnag, Baramulla and Bandipora districts of Kashmir in the names of 7 terrorists. pic.twitter.com/0Nob1geItu  ANI (@ANI) November 21, 2019

Provisional Attachment Order against these properties was issued during March, 2019. After the confirmation of the provisional attachment of the properties by the Honble Adjudicating Authority under PMLA, the possession of the six properties were taken.

It may be recalled that ED has taken up this case related to terror funding under PMLA, based on FIR registered under Section 120-B read with Section 121-A of the Indian Penal Code and Section 17, 18, 39 & 40 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 by National Investigation Agency.

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New Delhi:

The Supreme Court on Thursday told the Jammu and Kashmir administration that it will have to respond to each and every question raised on the restrictions imposed in the erstwhile state after the abrogation of Article 370. A bench headed by Justice NV Ramana told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the administration, that petitioners challenging the restrictions have argued in detail and he will have to answer all questions.

Mr. Mehta you have to answer each and every question raised by the petitioners who have argued in detail. Your counter affidavit does not help us to come to any conclusion. Dont give the impression that you are not giving enough attention to the case, said the bench, comprising Justices R Subhash Reddy and BR Gavai.

Mehta said most of the averments made by the petitioners on restrictions are incorrect and he will respond to each and every aspect when he argues in court.

The solicitor general said he has a status report with him but he has not filed it in the court as the situation in Jammu and Kashmir is changing every single day and would like to show to the court the exact status at the time of his submission.

At the outset, the top court clarified that except for one petition it does not have any detention matters pending before it.

We are not hearing any detention matters with regard to Jammu and Kashmir. We are currently hearing two petitions filed by Anuradha Bhasin and Ghulam Nabi Azad which are on restrictions in freedom of movement, press, etc, it said, adding that only one habeas corpus petition is pending.

It said only one habeas corpus (against detention of a business man) is pending because the petitioner had simultaneously moved before the JK High Court and the Supreme Court.

Now they have withdrawn from the high court and hence the petition is pending here, the bench said.

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New Delhi:

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday arrested former Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd CMD Sanjay Singal in connection with its probe in a multi-crore money-laundering case linked to an alleged bank loan fraud. According to ED officials, Singal was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after he was questioned for several hours in the evening in connection with the case.

Singal was placed under arrest as he was not cooperating in the probe and will be produced before a local court here on Saturday to seek further custody, an ED official said.

The ED recently attached assets worth Rs 4,025 crore of Bhushan Power and Steel Limited (BPSL) in this case.

"An amount of Rs 695.14 crore was introduced as capital by Sanjay Singal, the then CMD of the company, and his family members in BPSL out of artificially generated long-term capital gains (LTCG) by diversion of bank loans fund of BPSL," the ED had said.

LTCG was exempted from income tax during the relevant time, the agency said.

The ED's case of money laundering was filed after studying the FIR registered by the Central Bureau of investigation (CBI) against the company, Singal and others on charges of corruption.

The CBI's FIR had alleged that BPSL, through its directors/staff, fraudulently diverted about Rs 2,348 crore from the loan account of Punjab National Bank (Delhi and Chandigarh), Oriental Bank of Commerce (Kolkata), IDBI Bank (Kolkata) and UCO Bank (Kolkata) into the accounts of various companies or shell companies without any obvious purpose and thereby misused the funds.

The ED said that BPSL had also made RTGS payments to various entities against "fictitious purchases" of capital goods.

Against the RTGS payments, these entities had transferred cash to BPSL which was ultimately traced to have been used for generation of artificial LTCG by jacking up the prices of penny stocks by way of synchronised trading, the ED had said.

Another amount of Rs 3,330 crore invested as equity (share capital and premium) by promoter companies was also found to have been routed out of the funds obtained as various loans and diverted from accounts of BPSL in the shape of advances shown to various shell companies by the different entry operators, the agency had alleged.?

The proceeds of crime in this case, the agency said, were laundered by way of introduction into the books of accounts as equity for window dressing the debt equity ratio.

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Tokyo:

Researchers have, for the first time, found the presence of sugar molecules involved in the formation of early life in meteorites, an advance that sheds more light on the potential role played by space rocks in sparking life on the Earth. The study, published in the journal PNAS, suggests that sugars important for biological processes, such as ribose, can form in space, and the arrival of such sugars on Earth may have sparked the formation of some of the earliest complex biological molecules.

The researchers, including Yoshihiro Furukawa from Tohoku University in Japan, analysed three stony, non-metallic, carbon rich meteorites -- one of them being the Murchison meteorite that landed in Australia in 1969.

They said extraterrestrial samples containing amino acids and other biological building blocks were found in earlier studies, and added that sugars were some of the essential elements of biological systems.

The study revealed that ribose -- a foundational component of ribonucleic acid (RNA) -- was present in the meteorites, as well as other biologically important sugars.

"Ribose is particularly essential as a building block of RNA, which could have both stored information and catalysed reactions in primitive life on Earth," the researchers wrote in the study.

With further analysis, they also found that the sugars were extraterrestrial in origin, and not the result of contamination here on the Earth.

The researchers also conducted a laboratory simulation experiment of a potential sugar formation reaction in space.

The presence of pentoses (sugar molecules containing five carbon atoms) in meteorites, and the composition of the products of the laboratory simulation suggest that the sugars found in the space rocks were formed by a process called formose reaction, the researchers said in the study.

The sugars may have formed before, or immediately after the formation of the asteroids from which the meteorites originated, the study said.

The researchers suggest that early life forming molecules, such as ribose, may have been delivered to an early Earth by space rocks.

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New Delhi:

Union Minister and Republic Party of India (RPI) Ramdas Athawale on Saturday blamed Shiv Sena for the dramatic turn of events in Maharashtra. Bringing his poetic skills out during the media interaction, Ramdas Athawale took a jibe at the three parties which were supposed to together and form the government in Maharashtra. He said, "Shiv Sena ko BJP ne latka diya hai, Congress ko fatka diya hai, aur NCP ko apne jaal mein atka diya hai." A video of his poetry has also gone viral.

The poem from Ramdas Athawale comes hours after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) formed the government in Maharashtra.

Talking to the media, Ramdas Athawale urged NCP chief Sharad Pawar to walk over to the NDA camp, hinting that he might be rewarded with a plum portfolio at the Centre. "Sharad Pawar, too, should consider revising his stance and joining the NDA. He may get some good portfolio at the Centre," Athawale added.

It is to be noted that Maharashtras month-long political impasse ended dramatically today early morning with Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar took oath as chief minister and deputy chief minister, respectively. Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath to Fadnavis and Pawar at the Raj Bhavan in Mumbai around 7.30 AM.

This comes at a time when deliberations between the Congress, the NCP and Shiv Sena to form a government in Maharashtra reached the final stage on Friday and the three parties inched closer to announce an alliance.

Also Read: After Maharashtra Twist, NCP Likely To Get Place In Modi Cabinet: Sources

The BJP, which emerged as the single largest party in the state elections last month, could not earlier stake claim to form a government after it could not reach an agreement with its former ally Shiv Sena on its "50:50" demand. The BJP won 105 seats in the 288-member assembly followed by the Shiv Sena (56). The NCP won 54 seats and the Congress had won 44 seats.

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New Delhi:

Superstar Rajinikanth on Thursday told reporters that the state of Tamil Nadu will ensure a huge miracle in the 2021 Assembly polls. On Tuesday, Rajinikanth had said he would join hands with actor-turned politician Kamal Haasan for the welfare of people of Tamil Nadu if such a situation arose.

Rajinikanth, who has announced he would launch his political party to contest the state assembly elections due in 2021, was responding to questions from reporters on Haasans remarks earlier on Tuesday that he (the latter) would join hands with him for Tamil Nadus welfare.

"If a situation arises wherein me and Kamal have to join hands for the welfare of people of Tamil Nadu, we will surely come together," Rajinikanth said in a brief interaction with media at the airport here.

While backing Rajinikanths comments on Chief Minister K Palaniswami which have drawn the ire of ruling AIADMK, Haasan said he would "travel together" with his contemporary for Tamil Nadus welfare. However, Haasan gave no indications of the two aligning politically.

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New Delhi:

Farooq Abdullah, the former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and the National Conference president, has found place in the Parliamentary panel on Defence. Abdullahs inclusion has stirred up the Kashmir debate as the leader has been in detention under the stringent Public Safety Act for more than 100 days since the abrogation of Article 370.

The committee is headed by Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. Other members include former defence minister and NCP chief Sharad Pawar, according to a notification issued by Parliamentary Affairs Ministry. Abdullah was detained on August 5, hours before the Union government scrapped the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the state into two union territories.

His son and former chief minister Omar Abdullah and another ex-chief minister Mehbooba mufti were also detained along with more than 5,000 others across the state. Abdullah was slapped with the stringent PSA on September 17 on the eve of a Supreme Court hearing on a habeas corpus pertaining to his detention filed by MDMK leader Vaiko.

The National Conference chief and three-term chief minister has been booked under the 'public order' provision of the PSA under which a person can be kept in jail from three-six months without a trial.

The panel list created controversy after Pragya Singh Thakur, the BJP's MP from Bhopal, accused in the 2008 Malegaon blasts case was nominated to the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministry of Defence. Thakur will be part of the 21-member consultative committee, which is headed by defence minister Rajnath Singh. The BJP MP who is currently under trial for multiple charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was granted bail by the Bombay high court on health grounds in April 2017 in the Malegaon blasts case that killed six people, injuring over hundred.

Pragya Thakur defeated Congress stalwart and former chief minister Digvijay Singh from Bhopal Lok Sabha Constituency.

During her campaigning days, the Malegaon blast accused had stirred a controversy that former Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Hemant Karkare died in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks as she had cursed him for treating her very badly while she was in custody in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. Hemant Karkare falsely implicated me. He died of his karma. I told him, he will be destroyed. I told him his entire dynasty will be erased. Maine kaha tera (Karkare) sarvanash hoga, she had said.

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New Delhi:

A day after meeting the NCP, the Congress Working Committee on Thursday reviewed the political logjam in Maharashtra. Congress sources said a final decision on Maharashtra is expected by tomorrow. Another meeting between Congress and NCP is to happen Thursday night and a final meeting with Shiv Sena will happen Friday in Mumbai. The decision on government formation in Maharashtra will be announced in Mumbai on Friday, the sources said to news agency PTI.

The CWC, the sources said, has broadly agreed to go ahead with government formation with Shiv Sena and the NCP.

Congress general secretary KC Venugopal told the media after a meeting at party chief Sonia Gandhis 10 Janpath residence that that the CWC was briefed on the discussion between NCP and Congress on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, senior leaders of the Congress and the NCP held talks with a focus on firming up the modalities for taking a shot at government formation in Maharashtra.

The meeting took place at the residence of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar. Congress leaders Ahmed Patel, Jairam Ramesh, Mallikarjun Kharge, Prithviraj Chavan, K C Venugopal and Balasaheb Thorat attended the meeting.

Those representing the NCP included Supriya Sule, Ajit Pawar, Jayant Patil and Nawab Malik.

As per the power-sharing formula being discussed, Maharashtra is likely to have rotational chief ministers from Shiv Sena and NCP while the Congress may get deputy CM's post for full five years, a highly placed source told News Nation on Wednesday.

In the October 21 Maharashtra polls, the BJP-Sena saffron alliance secured a comfortable majority by winning 105 and 56 seats respectively in the 288-member assembly. The Congress and the NCP, pre-poll allies, won 44 and 54 seats respectively. However, failing to evolve a consensus over the chief ministers post, the Shiv Sena parted ways with the BJP and decided to explore the possibility of tying up with the Congress and the NCP.
There are reports from Hollywood that actors are going to separate from each other. Similar reports surfaced about many artists after Kim Kardashian. Now there is another news that Kelly Clarkson filed for divorce from her husband Brandon Blackstock in 2020. But now they have reached an agreement on Montana's farm ownership. And the agreement was going viral on social media. The agreement was signed on the ownership of Montana Farm. But this agreement is also now stuck in the middle.

Kelly Clarkson filed for divorce in 2020: In fact, Kelly Clarkson applied in June 2020 to separate from her ex-husband Brandon Blackstock. According to media reports, the former couple has reached an agreement on the ownership of their Montana farm. In their ongoing divorce battle, the voice judge had earlier appealed to the court to implement its earlier terms of the agreement, in which both sides are covering their own lawyer's fees as Blackstock was demanding 2 million for it.

The talk show host had also appealed to the court to return his last name to his first surname, Clarkson. The recent update in this fight is about the settlement of the ownership of his Warren Peak Farm in Montana. Kelly has signed 5.12 percent of Blackstock's ownership, which is about USD 900,000.

This development was the last installation in their divorce battle. In October, the court also ruled in Clarkson's favour with regard to their property rights, Brandon wanted a clean 50/50 percent of ownership on all assets and properties. The judge validated a pre-marital agreement that directs that all assets and assets with ownership were separated during the marriage.

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Data from the Ministry of Land reveals, South Korea's air traffic increased 10.8% last year due to increased internal flights, while foreign travel continued to suffer because to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Infrastructure, and Transport, over 465,000 domestic and international flights travelled over South Korea last year. In recent years, air traffic in the nation has progressively climbed from roughly 739,000 in 2016 to 842,000 in 2019, before plummeting to around 421,000 in 2020 due to the pandemic.

Despite concerns about new Covid-19 variants, the number of overseas flights increased just slightly to 203,029 last year, up 1.8 percent from the previous year. According to the Ministry, domestic aviation traffic increased 18.9% year on year to 262,440 flights as more people travelled within the country despite signs of a slowdown in the pandemic last year.

With an average of 455 flights per day last year, Jeju International Airport was the busiest airport in South Korea, followed by Gimpo International Airport and Incheon International Airport.

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YEREVAN: Armenian President Armen Sarkissian has resigned, citing a lack of constitutional authority to address domestic and foreign policy issues.

In a statement posted on the Presidential website on Sunday, he cited "a paradoxical situation in which the President is required to be a guarantor of statehood without any real tool." "As a result of the responsibilities I took on as President of the Republic. I was obligated to do everything possible to avert further escalation of the internal division, to avert potential clashes that could have extremely negative consequences. Additionally, I sought to leverage my reputation and connections developed over the course of my many years of work, as well as my international political and economic potential, in order to establish a strong, stable state "The President stated in a statement.

Sarkissian said in the statement that due to a lack of constitutionally mandated tools, he was unable to influence the political events that precipitated the current national crisis. The statement read, "The President does not have the authority to influence critical domestic decision-making processes that affect the country."

He emphasised that his proposal's objective was "not to switch from one form of government to another, but to establish a state system based on checks and balances." Sarkissian was sworn in as Armenia's fourth Head of State on April 9, 2018 for a seven-year term.

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DHAKA: Bangladesh commemorated Mass Uprising Day on Monday, marking the climax of the people of then-East Pakistan's movement for autonomy in 1969, which culminated in the Independence War and the country's emergence in 1971.

President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages on Sunday expressing their profound admiration for those who embraced martyrdom during the historic 1969 movement.

Although not quite comparable to what 1789 means for France, 1969 marked the start of some revolutionary changes in Pakistan's history. Bangladesh was born as a result of the end of Ayub Khan's decade of "guided democracy" and the end of Pakistani hegemony in its eastern wing. 1969 was, in some ways, the "best of times" and the "spring of hope" for what is today's Bangladesh.

Abdul Hamid stated in his message that in 1966, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman issued the historic six-point demand for the liberation of the Bangalee nation from Pakistani rule, exploitation, and deprivation. He referred to the six-point plan as the charter of freedom, which included autonomy.

Meanwhile, Hasina stated that the 1969 uprising was a watershed moment in the country's independence history. The nation attained independence as a result of the 1952 Language Movement, the six-point demand, the eleven-point demand, the 1969 uprising, and the armed Liberation War, the premier stated.

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Katrina Kaif is a great actor and has won everyone's heart with her work. The actor also makes everyone go berserk with her looks. Now, after a month and a half of marriage, Adakara reached maldives and is seen laughing there. You can see their laughter is amazing. Well the biggest reason for her laughter is that she has reached her favourite place. You can see by sharing your picture and in the caption he described Maldives as his happy place. Katrina Kaif has gone alone on this trip.

Yes, Vicky is not an actor with Kaushal on this trip as Vicky is busy shooting for his film. Katrina is enjoying herself. You can see these pictures look very cute and beautiful. She is seen posing for candid photos in different ways on the beach. Tell all of you that the actress is going to be busy shooting after her wedding after a few days. She is actually working with Salman Khan in 'Tiger 3'. The shooting of the film has already started and she will also join the team soon.

She will also be seen soon in 'Bhoot Police' along with Siddhant Chaturvedi and Ishaan Khatter. She is also working with Priyanka and Alia in Farhan Akhtar directorial 'Ji Le Zara'. Apart from all these films, she will also be seen in Merry Christmas. The film will release on Christmas next year.

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BEIRUT  Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah stated during a visit to Lebanon that his country has made suggestions to President Michel Aoun on how Lebanon can reestablish trust with the Gulf states.

"All of these suggestions are based on international legitimacy resolutions and League of Arab States resolutions," Al-Sabah said during a press conference on Sunday following his meeting with Aoun on the second day of his two-day visit to Lebanon. Kuwait does not want Lebanon to be used as a platform for verbal or physical attacks against Arab states, he noted.

The Lebanese President, for his part, stated that Lebanon is committed to implementing the Taif Agreement, and also relevant international legitimacy and Arab resolutions, and that Al-proposal Sabah's will be subject to consultations. Aoun reaffirmed the strength of Lebanese-Kuwaiti relations, praising Kuwait for its unwavering support for Lebanon during difficult times.

This is the first visit to Lebanon by a senior official from a Gulf country in an effort to mend bilateral ties since the two sides developed a diplomatic rift in 2021.

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Islamabad: Moscow and Islamabad are in discussions to finalise plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Pakistan this year, according to a Sunday media report.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has already extended a formal invitation to Putin, according to a report, adding that Imran Khan reiterated the invitation during their recent telephone conversation.

According to the Pakistani newspaper, Putin's visit had been discussed for two years but was unable to take place due to a variety of factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic. The report added that Moscow also wants the Russian president to announce "big-ticket projects" or other initiatives during his final visit to Pakistan.

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement last year for the construction of a 1,100-kilometer-long gas pipeline connecting Karachi and Lahore.According to Pakistani media reports, the signing of the Pakistan Steam Gas Pipeline in July last year increased the likelihood of Putin visiting Pakistan. Pakistan is eager for President Putin to inaugurate the more than USD 2 billion gas pipeline project, which will connect Karachi and Kasur.

According to the newspaper, this is a signature project that Moscow and Islamabad intend to undertake in order to usher in a new era of bilateral relations. The project was not only economically significant for Pakistan, but also strategically significant, as per report, citing officials familiar with the development.

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KABUL: A visiting Taliban delegation led by acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi reportedly met with a group of Afghan civil society members in Oslo, where the two sides reportedly agreed to collaborate for the benefit of the war-torn nation.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul following the meeting on Sunday, "participants listened patiently to one another's perspectives and exchanged views on the country's current situation."

"They affirmed that Afghanistan is a shared home for all Afghans and emphasised the importance of all Afghans cooperating for the country's political, economic, and security prosperity. "The meeting's participants recognised that only mutual understanding and cooperation can provide a lasting solution to Afghanistan's problems. "All participants, speaking in unison, declared such meetings to be in the national interest," the statement continued.

The members of Afghanistan's civil society have not yet been identified. On Twitter, US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West, who is also in Oslo, expressed his appreciation for Norway taking the initiative to convene the meeting.

"We warmly welcome our hosts' initiative to convene a dialogue between Afghan civil society and the Taliban. Civil society leaders, he stated, are critical to the health and prosperity of economies and societies.

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Seoul: South Korea's Unification Ministry said Monday that it is closely monitoring North Korea's nuclear and missile activities in response to Pyongyang's last-week hint at lifting its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests.

On January 19, North Korea's ruling Workers' Party's Politburo met under the chairmanship of leader Kim Jong-un and decided to consider resuming "all temporarily suspended" activities, citing Washington's "hostile policy" toward the country, according to reports.

North appears to be maintaining its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, which was said to have been decommissioned in 2018, Ministry spokesperson Lee Jong-joo declined to confirm "detailed intelligence on North Korea's nuclear facilities," but said the government is monitoring related moves.

"The government is closely monitoring North Korea's nuclear and missile activities with close coordination from South Korea and the United States," Lee told reporters here.

It is also monitoring the possibility of a high-profile event in North Korea to commemorate two significant national holidays  the 80th birthday of Kim Jong-late un's father, Kim Jong-il, on February 16 and the 110th birthday of his late grandfather, Kim Il-sung, on April 15  amid indications the country is preparing a military parade.

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The Unification Ministry in Seoul stated that South Korea is closely monitoring North Korea's nuclear and missile operations with the US. The declaration comes after reports that the North Korean regime appeared to be keeping a nuclear reactor operating at its main Yongbyon site.

According to recent satellite photos, steam was detected coming from the 5-megawatt reactor on Wednesday, indicating at least one generator is in functioning, as US monitoring website predicted. When asked about the claim, deputy Ministry spokesman Cha Duck-chul said the government is keeping an eye on the North's nuclear facilities but declined to clarify "intelligence concerns."

"The government continues to watch North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes with close coordination between South Korea and the United States," he said during a press conference.

Seoul keeps a close eye on North Korea's nuclear and missile activities

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The Talibani govt has decided a new academic year in Afghanistan begins in March, which also happens to be the first month of the new solar year.

Aziz Ahmad Reyan, an official for the Ministry of Education, said in a statement on Sunday that the Taliban are dedicated and enthusiastic about reopening schools for girls, and that they are working on it "seriously and ceaselessly." Reyan asserted that the Taliban was creating a secure system for girls by banning girls from taking high school classes.

"We have paid the salaries of female teachers since the Taliban has no objection to females' education. For females, we will recruit more female instructors "The spokesman said to the media.

The spokesman went on to say that they were focusing on strengthening the capability of female instructors and that they wanted to increase the number of female teachers so that only girls were taught.

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Tehran: Iran has regained its right to vote at the United Nations General Assembly after South Korea paid its membership dues with frozen Iranian funds, Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations announced.

Majid Takht-Ravanchi said late Saturday that as soon as Iran's arrears are paid in New York, the country's voting rights should be restored automatically, according to the official IRNA reports.

South Korea confirmed on Sunday that it had paid Tehran's UN membership dues, totaling USD 18 million, using Iranian funds frozen in the country..

Takht-Ravanchi earlier said that negotiations between Tehran and the world body were underway to restore the country's right to vote in the General Assembly and enable it to pay membership dues, expressing hope that the talks would soon yield favourable results. He noted that Iran, as an active UN member, has always demonstrated a commitment to timely payment of membership dues.

The Ambassador emphasised that Iran has been unable to pay its membership dues for the second consecutive year as a result of US sanctions, which have harmed Iran's ability to purchase humanitarian aid and medical devices but also hampered the UN's work.

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Indian Grandmaster Vidit Santosh Gujarati has also suffered a 36-move defeat to Jordan One Forest of the Netherlands in the 7th round of the Tata Steel Masters Chess Tournament. This is Vidit's first defeat in the tournament. He has slipped to the joint third position.

World number one Magnus Carlson has taken the lead by defeating India's R Pragyanananda in 34 moves. Carlson has beaten debutant Pragyananda with black pieces. Kalerson has scored five points with this win.

Daniil Dugov lost his match against Anish Giri as the Russian grandmaster has refused to play wearing a mask. Organisers had urged Dugov to do so as their close contact has been found infected with corona virus. Shakhariar Mamedayarov of Azerbaijan has come second. He is half a point behind Carlson. Vidit is third with three other players collecting four points.

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Embracing the urban tattoo culture, Manisha Sharma, 22, tattooed her mothers portrait on her right arm three months ago. Sharma, who works for a social organisation, shares, It was painful, but the pain was worth it as I always wanted to have my mothers mark on my body.

The tattoo got complete after five hours of needling, with bloodstains on her arm. I am thankful to tattoo artists for letting me fulfil my much-awaited desire of inking my respect towards my mother on my body.

Sharma says her mother was also elated when she saw the image although she was worried about the pain she had to go through while getting that done.

It is not only Sharma and her mother that love tattoos in Nepal currently; there are millions like them. Whereas traditional tattooing being practised in some communities of Nepal faces a risk of disappearance, the trend of getting tattoos as a part of pop culture has been on a constant rise in urban areas of the country as it is popularly known as tattoo culture. From teenagers to even some elderly people are getting inked, share tattoo artists.

They credit the emerging surge in tattoo culture in Nepal to the changing perceptions towards tattoos and many people being tattoo literate. Also, tattooing in Nepal has become bigger as well as better in terms of hygiene, professionalism and technology, they claim.

Changing perceptions

When Mohan Gurung, one of Nepals pioneer tattoo artists, started making tattoos in the late 1990s, very few people looked at tattoo culture from a positive perspective and appreciated tattooing as an art form like it is done today.

Tattoo artist Prahlad Shrestha, owner of Tike Jhya Tattoo. Photo: Aryan Dhimal.

Tike Jhya Tattoo studio. Photo: Aryan Dhimal.

Back then, people with tattoos on their skin were considered junkies, thugs or bad people. No doubt, there were also clients who were actually junkies and bad people, he says, But, I mean to say, overall, there was not much respect for the profession.

However, now, things have changed for the better: all kinds of people are getting inked, from elderly people to professionals such as doctors, and government officers. Gurung thinks such diversification is important because it makes tattoo culture a common thing among everyone.

Tulove Thapa, who runs Gagan Tattoo Inn in Thamel, one of the oldest tattoo studios in Nepal, agrees with Gurung. Gagan Tattoo Inn in Thamel was the extension of Gagan Tattoo Inn, which was started in Pokhara in 2002 by tattoo artist Gagan Thapa.

Tulove Thapa, who has been into tattooing since the early 2000s, says, There has been an immense change in Nepals tattoo culture, and most of it is positive. People today are aware of the tattoo designs they want to make, the tattoo artists whom they want to make their tattoo, and the importance of hygiene and safety in tattooing.

Adding to this, Prahlad Shrestha, who started Tike Jhya Tattoo back in 2007, thinks tattoo culture in Nepal has been driven by both passion and fashion. He says, Tattooing is not only accepted nowadays but is also appreciated as an art form.

Gurung says many Nepali tattoo artists including himself and Shrestha have garnered fame internationally, further contributing to the increasingly positive outlook towards tattooing in Nepal.

Tattoo artist Raju Bajracharya of Yala Ink Tattoo. Photo: Shankar Giri

Raju Bajracharya, another renowned tattoo artist who owns Yala Ink Tattoo Studio (2013), credits International Tattoo Invention, initiated by Mohan Gurung and Bijaya Shrestha since 2011, local and international coverages of tattoo culture, science and symbolic meaning behind tattooing, and hygiene issues among others for the changing mindset of people.

Rising professionalism

Gurung first started making tattoos on his friends skins for free and as per their encouragement, he decided to professionally get involved in tattoo culture. He then opened Mohans Tattoo Inn in Pokhara in 2000.

At that time, I would ask my friends, even some international clients, to source the materials including machine, and ink. Gradually, machines and other stuff for tattooing were available in Thailand, shares Gurung.

Now, all the machines and inks are easily found in Nepal and they have been more advanced making the process of tattooing safe and hygienic.

Further, Bajracharya describes, The tools we used earlier made irritative sound, had cables and a lot more problems. But, with the advancement in technology, tattooing tools have also become advanced and easy to work with.

Besides this, the working system has always been more organised and systematic, believe all the tattoo artists. Gurung, who has already inked 8,000 plus people, says, Neither there was any system of taking appointments nor signing any consent form in the past. But, we work in a system now.

Yala Ink Tattoo studio. Photo: Shankar Giri.

Bajracharya narrates that earlier there were not any signature styles of any tattoo artist. We used to make many flash tattoos: clipart works, dragons, mountains, Buddhas, and Swayambhunath eyes. But, Shrestha and Gurung say that now tattoo artists have their own speciality in different forms of tattoo and generally make custom tattoo designs consulting with clients. For example, Shrestha is a pro-realistic tattoo artist, who also works in Germany.

Covid-19 impact on tattoo culture

But, the ongoing pandemic has had a great impact on the tattoo industry in Nepal, according to stakeholders.

Since the pandemic started, we have not been able to organise conventions, which is a great hindrance for tattoo culture in Nepal, says Gurung.

Along with this loss, Tulove Thapa states the flow of tourists has declined a great deal. In tourist-dependent places like Thamel and Pokhara, the pandemic caused a great loss. Still, with a surging number of local clients, the tattoo industry in Nepal has continued to rise.

Yet, all the tattoo artists are hopeful of a bright future for the tattooing scene in Nepal.
" " Despite having relatively little screen time or lines in the original "Star Wars" trilogy, fans fell in love with Boba Fett. Disney+

Instead of going out with a bang, the galaxy's No. 1 bounty hunter went out with a burp. Or so it appeared at the time.

Released May 25, 1983, "Star Wars: Episode VI-Return of the Jedi" was the last installment in the original "Star Wars" trilogy. It also seemed to mark the death of a now-classic villain, the masked Mandalorian Boba Fett.

Boba Fett had been introduced a few years prior, unveiled to the public at a parade in California. A spacefaring bounty hunter, the character was stoic, efficient and armed to the teeth. Hollywood westerns were a big influence on "Star Wars;" Boba Fett felt like a sci-fi callback to the Clint Eastwood gunslingers.

Faster than you can say "ichthyodont" (that's a large reptile-like creature that lived on the moon Panna Prime for those of you not so-well-versed in "Star Wars" speak), Boba Fett developed a cult following. Some of those hardcore fans weren't too happy about his fate in "Return of the Jedi," criticizing his "death" scene as anticlimactic.

Early in the movie, an equipment malfunction sends Boba Fett tumbling into the cavernous mouth of a sarlacc, one of the desert monsters found on planet Tatooine. You could argue the scene was played for laughs; after the creature swallows Boba Fett, it makes a belching noise.

But it's hard to keep great characters down. Even if you're a sarlacc.

Through 40-plus years of "Star Wars" prequels, sequels, spinoffs, novels and comics, audiences have learned a great deal about the once-mysterious Boba Fett.

" " Boba Fett's look came from an alternate suit of "super trooper" armor that was sleeker and more threatening than the original Stormtroopers seen here. Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG/via Getty Images

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Super Troopers

We recently caught up with Holly Frey, a managing executive producer at iHeartRadio who also hosts the "Star Wars" podcast "Full of Sith."

"From a design standpoint, [Boba Fett] is the baby of two great minds: concept artist Ralph McQuarrie and art director-visual effects Joe Johnson," Frey says in an email.

You don't have to be a "Star Wars" nut to recognize the saga's Imperial Stormtroopers. Clad in ghostly white armor, these warriors made their debut in the movie that started it all, 1977's "Star Wars: Episode IV-A New Hope."

(Yes, we know that's not the film's original title. Please bear with us.)

A sequel called "Star Wars: Episode V-The Empire Strikes Back" soon entered development. Late in the 1970s, franchise creator George Lucas approached Johnson with a request: Upgrade the troopers.

He took the job to heart. Johnson and McQuarrie designed an alternate suit of "super trooper" armor that was sleeker and more threatening. Lucas loved it.

There was just one problem. Everyone agreed the prototype suit looked terrific, but the production didn't have enough money to mass-produce it for a legion of new Stormtroopers.

So instead of abandoning the outfit, the filmmakers repurposed it. "George Lucas liked the look so much that even though they couldn't afford to produce it in numbers large enough to make an army, he thought the design could be a bounty hunter," Frey says.

And lo, Boba Fett was born.

" " Boba Fett is finally "unmasked" and his character is played by Temuera Morrison, who also portrayed Jango Fett, Boba's clone father. Disney+

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Boba On Parade

Technically, the character made his first public appearance in the San Anselmo County Fair Sept. 24, 1978, when film editor Dwayne Dunham strapped on the costume to help promote the "Star Wars" brand.

Less than two months later, CBS aired a movie-length program called "The Star Wars Holiday Special." Intended to keep the franchise relevant until "Empire" came out, Lucas flat-out hated the show.

Nevertheless, "The Star Wars Holiday Special" is notable for formally introducing Boba Fett, who appears in a cartoon viewed by Chewbacca's son, Lumpawarrump (aka: "Lumpy"). Here, the antihero is voiced by Don Francks.

In the cartoon, Boba Fett and Darth Vader conspire to upend The Rebellion. Big, bad Darth gives the newcomer some instant street cred when he says, "I see why they call you the best bounty hunter in the galaxy."

"The Holiday Special has never been canon  though people still love it!" Frey says. "So much so that the animated short from it featuring Boba Fett is now available on Disney+ as 'The Story of the Faithful Wookiee.' There's also a Little Golden Book adaptation of the story."

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Cold, Hard Cash

As planned, Fett returned in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980). In the original cut of the movie, he was voiced by Jason Wingreen while Jeremy Bulloch served as his "suit actor." Note that the "Star Wars Special Editions" swap out Wingreen's voice with that of New Zealander Temuera Morrison. Stay tuned for more about him.

"Empire" is pretty coy about Boba's backstory; we learn this guy's a bounty hunter with an implied reputation for disintegrating folks. And that's about it.

The film pits Boba Fett against Harrison Ford's Han Solo, who'd run afoul of the slug-like crime lord Jabba the Hutt.

"Jabba... put out a bounty on Han Solo, and while many bounty hunters scrambled to collect the scoundrel-turned-rebel, Fett was the one to capture [him]  which also fulfilled the needs of the Empire," explains Frey.

By finding Solo, Boba Fett killed two birds with one stone. The Empire had placed its own bounty on Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon. Boba tracks the vessel and leads Vader right to it. Then, after Solo is frozen in carbonite, he's handed off to the bounty hunter.

We next see Boba Fett hanging out at Jabba's Tatooine lair in "Return of the Jedi." A fight ensues and the newly freed Solo unwittingly smacks Fett's signature jet pack, which sends him careening down the sarlacc's throat.

It wasn't the demise fans were looking for.

"In the case of Boba Fett's death, had I known he was going to turn into such a popular character, I probably would've made it a little more exciting," Lucas said on a "Return of the Jedi" DVD commentary. "He became such a favorite of everybody's that, for having such a small part, he had a very large presence."

" " Boba Fett didn't die when he fell into the sarlaac pit in "Return of the Jedi." "The Book of Boba Fett" picks up right after he escapes. Disney+

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Boba Unmasked

Large presence, indeed.

"Initially, I think Boba Fett's appeal was that there were a lot of gaps that fans could fill in with their imaginations," Frey says. "He only had four lines of dialogue in the original trilogy. He was onscreen less than seven minutes, and for most of that, he just stood around and looked menacing, in armor that a lot of folks fell in love with. So, he always seemed like a mysterious badass."

Then along came the prequels. "Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of the Clones" (2002) is about an army of made-to-order troops who all happen to be clones of the great bounty hunter, Jango Fett (Temuera Morrison). Some of the Stormtroopers in the original movies came from this very stock.

"Part of Jango's compensation was that the cloners of Kamino would make him a genetic replica of himself with no growth acceleration to raise as his own," Frey says. Being Jango's adopted "son," and his biological duplicate, young Boba Fett (played by Daniel Logan) had a close bond with his caretaker.

He's left an orphan by Jedi Mace Windu, who beheads Jango during the movie's final battle. The young Boba Fett would go on to become a recurring character in animated "Clone Wars" media.

"The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett," two original shows created by Disney, continue the saga. Both series take place after the events in "Return of the Jedi."

Spoiler alert: Boba Fett didn't die in that sarlacc pit after all.

He appears as a supporting character in Season 2 of "The Mandalorian," which tapped Morrison to play him. Morrison reprises his role for "The Book of Boba Fett," a new series dedicated to his journey.

"Thanks to 'The Mandalorian' and 'The Book of Boba Fett,' we get to see what became of him after he escaped the Sarlacc pit out on the Dune Sea. He became a very different man after that experience, someone less comfortable, it seems, with working as a bounty hunter," Frey says.

"We're still seeing that unfold, and the character's story gets richer and richer."

Now That's Funny To date, the Boba cartoon is the only portion of "The Star Wars Holiday Special" that's been officially released on any streaming platform. George Lucas made sure that the full show was never rebroadcast or made available on physical media (DVD, VHS, etc.). He once said that if he "had the time and a sledgehammer," he'd smash every copy of the program.
Novant Health's integration of Aidoc's AI solutions, amid the latest wave of the Omicron variant, expands upon its existing slate of innovative technologies designed to improve delivery of patient care and outcomes

NEW YORK, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Aidoc , the leading provider of enterprise-grade AI solutions for medical imaging, announces a partnership with Novant Health , a health network of over 1,800 physicians with 15 medical centers across three states. By incorporating Aidoc's AI platform, which includes seven FDA-cleared solutions for triage and notification of patients with acute medical conditions, Novant Health is taking proactive steps to improve patient outcomes and reduce emergency department (ED) length of stay amid resource constraints inflicted by the Omicron variant.

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With a dedication to digital transformation for improving workflow efficiencies and patient outcomes, Novant Health is one of the first health networks in North Carolina to adopt Aidoc's AI platform. Novant Health has integrated multiple technologies and has been recognized by the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives' (CHIME) "Digital Health Most Wired" program five years in a row for effectively applying "core and advanced technologies into their clinical and business programs to improve health and care in their communities."

"When diagnosing and treating critical pathologies like pulmonary emboli and hemorrhagic strokes, every second counts," said Dr. Eric Eskioglu, Executive Vice President Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, Novant Health. "We are thrilled to partner with Aidoc to bring yet another leading-edge AI-technology to Novant Health. For years, we've been committed to harnessing innovative technologies to improve patient safety and outcomes through the Novant Health Institute of Innovation and Artificial Intelligence. With Aidoc's technology, our physicians will be able to more quickly identify and prioritize these patients and provide rapid life-saving treatments."

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From Aidoc's AI platform, Novant Health will be utilizing the intracranial hemorrhage (brain bleeds), pulmonary embolism (lung blood clots), incidental pulmonary embolism, c-spine fracture, and abdominal free air AI solutions. In one example, a study conducted by the Yale New-Haven Health System found that Aidoc's intracranial hemorrhage AI solution was able to reduce ED length of stay by approximately one hour.

"With rapidly rising numbers of people infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant, we can see the hard impact on hospital emergency room capacities and resources across the U.S.," says Elad Walach, CEO and co-founder of Aidoc. "We're proud to partner with a leading, innovative hospital network like Novant Health, which serves a large portion of the population in the three states its facilities are located in. Together, through our AI solutions and their state-of-the-art facilities, we will enable radiologists and related hospital providers to expedite care for tens of thousands of patients, contributing toward a mitigation of the current emergency room situations and setting an example for integrating innovation during turbulent and non-turbulent periods."

About Aidoc

Aidoc delivers the most comprehensive and widely-used portfolio of AI solutions, supporting providers by flagging patients with suspected acute conditions in real-time, expediting patient treatment and improving quality of care. Aidoc's healthcare AI platform is currently used by thousands of physicians in hospitals and radiology groups worldwide and across multiple care coordination service lines, having analyzed over 10.3 million scans in the past year. For more information, visit www.aidoc.com .

About Novant Health

Novant Health is an integrated network of physician clinics, outpatient facilities and hospitals that delivers a seamless and convenient healthcare experience to communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The Novant Health network consists of more than 1,800 physicians and over 35,000 employees who provide care at nearly 800 locations, including 15 hospitals and hundreds of outpatient facilities and physician clinics. In 2021, Novant Health was the highest-ranking healthcare system in North Carolina to be included on Forbes' Best Employers for Diversity list. Diversity MBA Magazine ranked Novant Health first in the nation on its 2021 list of "Best Places for Women & Diverse Managers to Work." In 2020, Novant Health provided more than $1.02 billion in community benefit , including financial assistance and services.

For more information, please visit our website at NovantHealth.org . You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook .

Ariella Shoham

VP Marketing

ariella@aidoc.com

Cision

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aidoc-partners-with-novant-health-providing-imaging-ai-to-expedite-treatment-for-patients-in-the-emergency-department-301466537.html

SOURCE Aidoc
Barak A. Bassman

Partner, Blank Rome LLP

Partner, Blank Rome LLP

Philadelphia, PA, Jan. 24, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blank Rome LLP is pleased to announce that Barak Bassman has joined the firms Philadelphia office as a partner in the Corporate Litigation group. At Blank Rome, Barak will notably advise healthcare and other clients in both general trial and dispute resolution as well as antitrust litigation and counseling. Barak joins Blank Rome from Troutman Pepper where he was a partner in the firms business litigation practice.

Barak represents healthcare and other clients in payment disputes, managed care contract negotiations, terminations, and antitrust issues, among other dispute resolution matters, as well as provides counseling advice on healthcare and insurance regulatory matters. Some of his notable experience includes advising hospital systems, physician practice groups, ancillary providers, and behavioral health providers in the negotiation of participating provider and risk-sharing agreements with Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and commercial payors, in addition to representing third-party payors in claims asserted by providers under ERISA and commercial health insurance policies. His clients include healthcare providers, life sciences companies, and third-party payors, among many others in varied industries, including some of the countrys leading hospital systems, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and healthcare analytics companies.

Baraks significant experience serving as lead litigation counsel across the country in the healthcare industry as well as in antitrust matters makes him a great fit for our firm, said Grant S. Palmer, Blank Romes Managing Partner and CEO. Our clients are increasingly seeking healthcare and antitrust counsel, and we are pleased to bolster our national team with someone who can meet their evolving needs.

Outside of the healthcare industry, Barak has represented clients in antitrust litigation and advised on antitrust and distribution matters. He has counseled companies under investigation by state, federal, and government agencies, and handled individual and class action litigation. Some of his notable experience includes representing major truck, glass, and consumer-packaged goods manufacturers in putative class actions involving alleged price fixing, antitrust, and monopolization claims.

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Given the significant disruptions to companies operations these past several yearsand within the healthcare industry, in particularBlank Rome has been seeking to expand our business litigation offerings and capabilities, stated Larry R. (Buzz) Wood, Co-Chair of the Corporate Litigation group. Baraks background handling a wide range of disputes not only in the healthcare space, but also in industries like manufacturing and trucking, will greatly benefit our clients across the country.

I have known many Blank Rome attorneys for years and was drawn to the firms warm, collegial culture, added Bassman. I am confident that my clients will benefit from the firms expansive service offerings and capabilities, and I look forward to growing my practice at Blank Rome and working alongside many former colleagues of mine.

Barak received his J.D. from New York University School of Law and his B.A. from Grinnell College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He serves on the board of trustees of the Delaware Art Museum.

About Blank Rome

Blank Rome is an Am Law 100 firm with 13 offices and more than 600 attorneys and principals who provide comprehensive legal and advocacy services to clients operating in the United States and around the world. Our professionals have built a reputation for their leading knowledge and experience across a spectrum of industries and are recognized for their commitment to pro bono work in their communities. Since our inception in 1946, Blank Romes culture has been dedicated to providing top-level service to all of our clients and has been rooted in the strength of our diversity and inclusion initiatives. For more information, please visit blankrome.com.

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CONTACT: Kate Tavella Blank Rome LLP 215.988.6988 tavella@blankrome.com




AUSTIN, Texas, January 24, 2022--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Brigham Minerals, Inc. (NYSE: MNRL) ("Brigham Minerals," "Brigham," or the "Company"), a leading mineral and royalty interest acquisition company, today announced that based on the recommendation of the Nominating & Governance Committee and the unanimous approval of the Board of Directors, the Company has appointed two independent directors, Gayle Burleson and Stacy Hock, to the Companys Board effective immediately. In addition, Howard Keenan has concurrently announced his resignation from the Board of Directors. With the appointment of Ms. Burleson and Ms. Hock concurrent with the resignation of Mr. Keenan, the Board of Directors will have nine members.

Robert M. ("Rob") Roosa, Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are extremely excited to appoint Gayle and Stacy to our Board and believe that weve taken significant, meaningful steps to add both complimentary skill sets and differing perspectives to the Board. Gayle brings significant expertise in US Shale development with a deep knowledge of the Permian Basin via 15 years of senior leadership experience with Concho Resources Inc. Stacy is a dynamic leader with a strong strategic vision via her experience as a private investor, philanthropist, and public policy advocate. She brings a unique viewpoint to the Board and will provide a fresh perspective given her significant board level experience."

Robert M. ("Rob") Roosa, Chief Executive Officer, concluded, "I want to personally thank Howard for his dedication and service to our Company since 2013. Howard has been a staunch believer in the minerals space since we first met to discuss forming the business. His visionary support, unwavering service and sage counsel have been critical to our evolution into a premier, publicly traded mineral company. On behalf of the entire Board and Management team I would like to thank Howard for all he helped us achieve over the past eight years and we wish him the best as he shifts focus to other investments and opportunities."

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Ms. Burleson currently serves on the boards of Select Energy Services, Inc (NYSE: WTTR) and privately held Chisholm Energy Holdings, LLC. Ms. Burleson was most recently with Concho Resources Inc. (NYSE: CXO) as the Senior Vice President of Business Development and Land and held that position until Conchos acquisition by ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) in January 2021. She was employed for 15 years at Concho Resources in various roles and capacities with ever increasing leadership responsibilities. Prior to joining Concho Resources, Ms. Burleson served in a number of engineering and operations positions with BTA Oil Producers, Mobil Oil Corporation, Parker & Parsley Petroleum Company, and Exxon Corporation. Ms. Burleson received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Texas Tech University.

Ms. Hock is a private investor and currently serves on the boards of Aminex Therapeutics, a privately held clinical stage drug development company, the African Dream Initiative and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She also serves on the Blanton Museum of Art National Leadership Board, The University of Texas at Austin McCombs MBA Advisory Board, and The University of Austin Board of Advisors. Ms. Hock previously held senior management positions in the software industry, including IBMs WebSphere Software Services business. Ms. Hock received her B.S. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her M.B.A from the University of Texas in Austin.

ABOUT BRIGHAM MINERALS, INC.

Brigham Minerals is an Austin, Texas, based company that acquires and actively manages a portfolio of mineral and royalty interests in the core of some of the most active, highly economic, liquids-rich resource basins across the continental United States. Brigham Minerals assets are located in the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, the SCOOP and STACK plays in the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma, the DJ Basin in Colorado and Wyoming, and the Williston Basin in North Dakota. The Companys primary business objective is to maximize risk-adjusted total return to its shareholders by both capturing organic growth in its existing assets as well as leveraging its highly experienced technical evaluation team to continue acquiring minerals.

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, forward-looking statements contained in this press release specifically include the expectations of plans, strategies, objectives and anticipated financial and operating results of the Company, including the Company's production and other guidance within this press release. These statements are based on certain assumptions made by the Company based on managements experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, anticipated future developments and other factors believed to be appropriate. Such statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, which may cause actual results to differ materially from those implied or expressed by the forward-looking statements. These include, but are not limited to, continued downturns or delays in resuming operator activity due to commodity price fluctuations, the Companys ability to integrate acquisitions into its existing business, changes in oil, natural gas and NGL prices, weather and environmental conditions, the timing of planned capital expenditures, availability of acquisitions, operational factors affecting the commencement or maintenance of producing wells on the Companys properties, the condition of the capital markets generally, as well as the Companys ability to access them, the proximity to and capacity of transportation facilities, and uncertainties regarding environmental regulations or litigation, global or national health events, including the ongoing spread and economic effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, potential future pandemics, the actions of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other significant producers and governments and the ability of such producers to agree to and maintain oil price and production controls and other legal or regulatory developments affecting the Companys business and other important factors. These and other applicable uncertainties, factors and risks are described more fully in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020, and any subsequently filed Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K, Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties occur, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, the Companys actual results and plans could differ materially from those expressed in any forward-looking statements.

Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made and the Company undertakes no obligation to correct or update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise except as required by applicable law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220124005690/en/

Contacts

At the Company:

Brigham Minerals, Inc.

Blake C. Williams

Chief Financial Officer

(512) 220-1500

InvestorRelations@brighamminerals.com
DUBLIN, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market Research Report by Design IP, by IP Source, by IP Core, by End-User, by Region - Global Forecast to 2026 - Cumulative Impact of COVID-19" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

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The Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market size was estimated at USD 5,718.96 million in 2020, is expected to reach USD 6,095.50 million in 2021, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.82% to reach USD 8,499.67 million by 2026.

Market Statistics:

The report provides market sizing and forecast across five major currencies - USD, EUR GBP, JPY, and AUD. It helps organization leaders make better decisions when currency exchange data is readily available. In this report, the years 2018 and 2019 are considered historical years, 2020 as the base year, 2021 as the estimated year, and years from 2022 to 2026 are considered the forecast period.

Competitive Strategic Window:

The Competitive Strategic Window analyses the competitive landscape in terms of markets, applications, and geographies to help the vendor define an alignment or fit between their capabilities and opportunities for future growth prospects. It describes the optimal or favorable fit for the vendors to adopt successive merger and acquisition strategies, geography expansion, research & development, and new product introduction strategies to execute further business expansion and growth during a forecast period.



FPNV Positioning Matrix:

The FPNV Positioning Matrix evaluates and categorizes the vendors in the Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market based on Business Strategy (Business Growth, Industry Coverage, Financial Viability, and Channel Support) and Product Satisfaction (Value for Money, Ease of Use, Product Features, and Customer Support) that aids businesses in better decision making and understanding the competitive landscape.



Market Share Analysis:

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The Market Share Analysis offers the analysis of vendors considering their contribution to the overall market. It provides the idea of its revenue generation into the overall market compared to other vendors in the space. It provides insights into how vendors are performing in terms of revenue generation and customer base compared to others. Knowing market share offers an idea of the size and competitiveness of the vendors for the base year. It reveals the market characteristics in terms of accumulation, fragmentation, dominance, and amalgamation traits.



Company Usability Profiles:

The report profoundly explores the recent significant developments by the leading vendors and innovation profiles in the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market, including Achronix Semiconductor Corporation, ARM Ltd., Cadence Design Systems Inc., CEVA Inc., Cobham Gaisler AB, Dolphin Integration SA, Dream Chip Technologies GmbH, eMemory Technology Inc., Eureka Technology, Inc., Faraday Technology Corporation, Fujitsu Limited, Imagination Technologies Group PLC, MediaTek Inc., Mindtree Limited, Open-silicon, Inc., Rambus Incorporated, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Synopsys Inc., Transpacket AS, VeriSilicon Holdings Co., Ltd., Wave Computing, Inc., and Xilinx, Inc..



The report provides insights on the following pointers:

1. Market Penetration: Provides comprehensive information on the market offered by the key players

2. Market Development: Provides in-depth information about lucrative emerging markets and analyze penetration across mature segments of the markets

3. Market Diversification: Provides detailed information about new product launches, untapped geographies, recent developments, and investments

4. Competitive Assessment & Intelligence: Provides an exhaustive assessment of market shares, strategies, products, certification, regulatory approvals, patent landscape, and manufacturing capabilities of the leading players

5. Product Development & Innovation: Provides intelligent insights on future technologies, R&D activities, and breakthrough product developments



The report answers questions such as:

1. What is the market size and forecast of the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market?

2. What are the inhibiting factors and impact of COVID-19 shaping the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market during the forecast period?

3. Which are the products/segments/applications/areas to invest in over the forecast period in the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market?

4. What is the competitive strategic window for opportunities in the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market?

5. What are the technology trends and regulatory frameworks in the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market?

6. What is the market share of the leading vendors in the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market?

7. What modes and strategic moves are considered suitable for entering the Global Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market?



Key Topics Covered:



1. Preface



2. Research Methodology



3. Executive Summary



4. Market Overview



5. Market Insights

5.1. Market Dynamics

5.1.1. Drivers

5.1.1.1. Growing Demand for Connected Devices and Modern System on a Chip (SOC) Design

5.1.1.2. Increasing Demand from the Healthcare Industry in Electronics

5.1.1.3. Need for Teleconference Instruments in Wake of COVID-19 Outbreak

5.1.2. Restraints

5.1.2.1. Fluctuations in the Development of the Chips with the Change in the Technology

5.1.3. Opportunities

5.1.3.1. Technical Advancement in Multicore Technology for the Consumer Electronics Industry

5.1.3.2. Huge Demand from Avionics and Aerospace & Defence Industries

5.1.4. Challenges

5.1.4.1. Lack of Security Including IP Thefts, and Counterfeits

5.2. Cumulative Impact of COVID-19



6. Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market, by Design IP

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Interface IP

6.3. Memory IP

6.4. Processor IP



7. Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market, by IP Source

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Licensing

7.3. Royalty



8. Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market, by IP Core

8.1. Introduction

8.2. Hard IP Core

8.3. Soft IP Core



9. Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market, by End-User

9.1. Introduction

9.2. Automobile

9.3. Computers and Peripherals

9.4. Consumer Electronics

9.5. Industrial



10. Americas Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market

10.1. Introduction

10.2. Argentina

10.3. Brazil

10.4. Canada

10.5. Mexico

10.6. United States



11. Asia-Pacific Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market

11.1. Introduction

11.2. Australia

11.3. China

11.4. India

11.5. Indonesia

11.6. Japan

11.7. Malaysia

11.8. Philippines

11.9. Singapore

11.10. South Korea

11.11. Taiwan

11.12. Thailand



12. Europe, Middle East & Africa Semiconductor Intellectual Property Market

12.1. Introduction

12.2. France

12.3. Germany

12.4. Italy

12.5. Netherlands

12.6. Qatar

12.7. Russia

12.8. Saudi Arabia

12.9. South Africa

12.10. Spain

12.11. United Arab Emirates

12.12. United Kingdom



13. Competitive Landscape

13.1. FPNV Positioning Matrix

13.1.1. Quadrants

13.1.2. Business Strategy

13.1.3. Product Satisfaction

13.2. Market Ranking Analysis

13.3. Market Share Analysis, By Key Player

13.4. Competitive Scenario

13.4.1. Merger & Acquisition

13.4.2. Agreement, Collaboration, & Partnership

13.4.3. New Product Launch & Enhancement

13.4.4. Investment & Funding

13.4.5. Award, Recognition, & Expansion



14. Company Usability Profiles

14.1. Achronix Semiconductor Corporation

14.2. ARM Ltd.

14.3. Cadence Design Systems Inc.

14.4. CEVA Inc.

14.5. Cobham Gaisler AB

14.6. Dolphin Integration SA

14.7. Dream Chip Technologies GmbH

14.8. eMemory Technology Inc.

14.9. Eureka Technology, Inc.

14.10. Faraday Technology Corporation

14.11. Fujitsu Limited

14.12. Imagination Technologies Group PLC

14.13. MediaTek Inc.

14.14. Mindtree Limited

14.15. Open-silicon, Inc.

14.16. Rambus Incorporated

14.17. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation

14.18. Synopsys Inc.

14.19. Transpacket AS

14.20. VeriSilicon Holdings Co., Ltd.

14.21. Wave Computing, Inc.

14.22. Xilinx, Inc.

15. Appendix

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/rufy09

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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SOURCE Research and Markets
(Bloomberg) -- A group of state attorneys general, including Texas, Indiana and Washington D.C., said Monday they were suing Alphabet Inc.s Google over what they allege are deceptive tactics designed to trick consumers into disclosing location data to more accurately target advertising.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Even when consumers turn off location tracking on their phones, Google continues to track their movements using a separate function called Web & App activity, the attorneys general said. They cited a 2018 Associated Press report as the basis for the assertion and said the company has since removed a consumer notice claiming that the places you go are no longer stored. Portions of the lawsuits were redacted, and the copy of the Washington D.C. complaint said it was filed under seal.

In reality, regardless of the settings they select, consumers who use Google products have no option but to allow the company to collect, store and use their location, according to a complaint posted on social media by Washington D.C.

The claims amount to yet another legal challenge to Googles information gathering, which has come under intense scrutiny from regulators and consumer advocates claiming it is more invasive than consumers want or realize. The company is already facing questions about whether it continues to track web browsers who believe its incognito mode cloaks their identity, and whether users can effectively block its activity-tracking cookies.

A Google spokesman, Jose Castaneda, said in a statement that the lawsuits are based on inaccurate claims and outdated assertions about our settings. We have always built privacy features into our products and provided robust controls for location data. We will vigorously defend ourselves and set the record straight.

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According to the attorneys general, the company also has conflicting and confusing user settings, making it almost impossible for consumers to stop Google from collecting their location data.

Definitely Confusing

The District of Columbia lawsuit cited internal Google discussions in which employees said its location history disclosures were definitely confusing, and that account settings appeared designed to create the illusion of user control but were difficult enough that people wont figure it out. The complaint did not cite the source of the communications.

The lawsuits say the tactics lasted from 2014 to at least 2019, and occurred through devices using Googles Android operating system as well as Google apps and web-based services such as search and maps.

A similar case was filed against Google by the state of Arizona in 2020, which alleged Google makes it impractical if not impossible for users to meaningfully opt-out of Googles collection of location information. Like the cases announced Monday, the Arizona lawsuit said Google continued to track user movements through Web & App activity and other means even if they chose to turn off the location history.

Google said it has introduced a host of new features that give users more control over their data, including auto-delete of location data, incognito mode on Google maps and more detailed disclosures on their policy statement. The company also said a judge declined Arizonas request in 2021 for a finding that Google engaged in deceptive practices. The judge cited Google disclosures that it would still collect location data for users of its services even when location history was shut off, the company said.

(Adds Google response, background)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2022 Bloomberg L.P.
Governor Mark Gordon Proclaims Jan. 23-Jan. 29 "Wyoming School Choice Week" as Families, Teachers Celebrate Learning Choices

PR Newswire

CHEYENNE, Wyo., Jan. 22, 2022

Wyoming communities plan more than 40 events for nation's twelfth annual celebration of K-12 school choices

CHEYENNE, Wyo., Jan. 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Jan. 23-Jan. 29, 2022 will officially be Wyoming School Choice Week, thanks to a recent proclamation from Gov. Mark Gordon. This is the ninth time in ten years that Wyoming School Choice Week has been proclaimed by the state's governor.

National School Choice Week 2022 (PRNewsfoto/National School Choice Week)

Gov. Gordon joins more than 25 other governors and several hundred local leaders around the country who have issued proclamations to coincide with the twelfth annual National School Choice Week, which celebrates opportunity in K-12 education.

Wyoming parents, teachers, and community organizers have planned 44 events for the Week, including school open houses, at home celebrations, and more. The goal of these events is to celebrate the school choices available to families and spark conversations about how parents can find the best educational fit for their children.

Nationwide, more than 26,000 independently planned events will raise awareness about school choice. Schools of every type  traditional public, public magnet, public charter, private, online, and homeschool  will join in the celebration.

"Wyoming students have different needs and learning styles, and the Week celebrates all the education options that serve those needs," said Andrew Campanella, president of National School Choice Week. "We are glad to see Gov. Gordon recognize the Week and we wish Wyoming families the best in their festivities."

National School Choice Week shines a spotlight on effective K-12 education options for children. As a not-for-profit effort, the Week focuses equally on traditional public, charter, magnet, online, private, and home education options. Every January, participants plan tens of thousands of events and activities  such as school fairs, open houses, and student showcases  to raise awareness about school choice across all 50 states. Year-round, National School Choice Week develops resources and guides to assist families searching for schools or learning environments for their children. The effort is nonpolitical and nonpartisan and does not advocate for legislation.

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For more information, visit schoolchoiceweek.com/wyoming .

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FORT WALTON BEACH  In the 75 years and counting history of Saint Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church, an early October day in 1995 stands out for longtime church member Netta Holley.

On Oct. 4, 1995, Hurricane Opal, a Category 4 storm, struck the church as it tore across Northwest Florida. After it passed, Holley was among the first church members to go inside, admitted in by a friendly police officer, to survey the sanctuary.

St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church was built in 1946.

"We walked into that nave, into the church, it was full of crabs, black muck, fish," she recalled. "The stench, it was horrible."

But she quickly added that there also was a sign of hope amid the aisles of the ruined church, behind the cross at the front of the nave.

Fort Walton Beach over the years: How has FWB changed over the last 15 years and where is it going? Chamber president reflects.

Telling Crestview's story: 105-year-old Lorenza Bush House to become history museum

"The one thing that absolutely was fabulous is that behind the cross, we have what you call the ambry, which has the blessed elements in it (for Communion), the wine and the wafers, and above that ambry is the ambry candle. It never went out."

Nor were the Communion elements disturbed by the hurricane, Holley added.

"When I looked up there, I just got on my knees," she said. "I was like, 'Thank you, God.' Because yes, it (the storm) did a lot of damage, but the building was still here."

Netta Holley points to a plaque that marks major milestones in the life of St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church. In addition to expansions over the years, the church also sustained damages from fires and floods. A golden line just beneath the plate shows the floodwater level of Hurricane Opal.

What happened next, though, was equally notable, as other church members began to show up to start digging the church out of the hurricane.

"Everybody just started coming," Holley remembered. "We grabbed the prayer books and the hymnals and everything, and we spread them out there on Highway 98 (U.S. 98, which passes directly in front of the church along Santa Rosa Sound) trying to dry them all out.

Liz McCartney sits in the sanctuary of St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church. McCartney's grandmother, Liza Jackson, donated the land for the church, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary.

Feel-good story: A lifetime together: Bluewater Bay couple to celebrate 70th wedding anniversary

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"It was horrible. It was just horrible," she added.

But in the same breath, she said, "I just felt compelled to be here. You just felt like God was calling you to be here. It was wonderful. Everybody just started showing up with their mops and buckets, trying to help, doing whatever we could do."

Today, the memory of that time lingers in part in a metal marker, mounted about three feet up an interior church wall, noting the height to which the water and muck rose in the church from Hurricane Opal.

St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church and U.S. Highway 98 behind it were flooded during Hurricane Ivan in September 2004.

Another physical connection to an unpleasant part of Saint Simon's past also resides in the nave to this day. In 1965, an arsonist entered the church, stacked prayer books and robes high in the sacristy  the space where vestments are stored and the priest prepares for services  and scattered candles and flammable materials on the altar and the ambry.

Flames leapt so high that they reached the roof trusses, and the church sustained thousands of dollars worth of damage.

The church was restored by the end of 1966, and the cross which still stands behind the altar was fashioned from charred timbers remaining from the blaze, accented by shining rays of metal radiating from the center of the cross.

A photograph from 1946 shows church members gathered on the site of what would become St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church.

And indeed, other memories of the church's 75-year history abound, from its beginnings in the 1940s, when the Episcopalians who had been traveling from Fort Walton Beach to Saint Andrew's by the Sea in Destin  in those days, it was a boat trip  began meeting in the Fort Walton Beach home of W. C. Harbeson.

From there, the fledgling congregation moved to what is today the southern county office of the Okaloosa County School District, which at the time was a combined elementary school and high school, for services.

In 1945, the congregation was granted mission status by the Episcopal Church, and later that same year, well-known local benefactor Liza Jackson donated the property on the Sound where the church still stands today for construction of a mission church.

The first services in the first building on the property were held on June 16, 1946. Four years later, the nave was erected, followed by the construction of a parish hall in 1955. Other additions, including a chapel and restoration work, continued periodically through 1998.

To this day, Saint Simon's on the Sound has a flesh-and-blood connection to that initial property donation. Liz McCartney, Jackson's granddaughter, is a longstanding member of the church. She was there at its beginning as a youngster, and after getting married and moving away from Fort Walton Beach, she subsequently returned to where the roots of her faith were established.

An early photo shows St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church. Originally, the back wall of the church had windows looking out over Santa Rosa Sound.

Still, she was just the slightest bit irreverent when asked why her grandmother, who also donated land for other local churches, donated the land for Saint Simon's.

"I think she felt like, well, maybe my family will get interested in the church," McCartney laughed. As far as she was concerned, though, it worked. "My sister and I, we sang in the choir, and my aunt played the piano," she said, remembering those early days.

Then, turning serious in speculating how her grandmother might feel in seeing the church reach its 75th anniversary, McCartney said, "I think she would be so proud, and so happy to know that it did, and that her family  which is me  is still part of it."

Saint Simon's has a number of longtime parishioners  "We've never done a study to see how many people have been here, you know, since they were children, but there are a lot," said Holley  while at the same time it is now seeing young families in the ranks of its worshippers. It's something that has become particularly noted, Holley said, as restrictions imposed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have eased and allow people to opt out of watching services remotely in favor of a communal worship experience.

"People have started coming back to the building itself, which is great," Holley said. "More so than in years past, I see more young families coming back to church, which is good."

Over the years, Holley added, the location of the church  it sits on a strip of land between the Sound and U.S. 98, making it highly visible  has certainly contributed to the numbers of people attending services and getting involved in the life of the church.

"So many times," Holley said, "somebody will say, 'You know, I've been up and down that highway so many times, and I just decided I was going to stop and come to church.' And once they did, they just said, 'Well, this is where I need to be. I've found my church family.'

"And you're not going to find a prettier building or a prettier site," Holley added.

Being in a military community and in a popular area for extended visits by people from colder climates, Saint Simon's finds itself serving, at least in part, a somewhat transient population. But according to Holley, those worshipers do manage to make Saint Simon's their church home.

"We welcome them to come," she said. "They may only be here a couple of months, but they get involved. That's what's so cool. They come to the spaghetti dinners or whatever we're having. They want to be a part of it."

"And I think they enjoy it," McCartney echoed.

Looking ahead to the next 25 years at St. Simon's  looking 75 years into the future was a bit of a stretch, she suggested  Holley said she would like to see the church continue its tradition of community service, which has included feeding those in need of a meal and sheltering people from the cold.

"To stay involved in the community, to continue to open our doors to anybody who would like to come and worship here," Holley said of her hopes for the future of the church.

McCartney, looking back on her long connection to Saint Simon's, had a simple reflection to offer.

"I feel like it's home to me. I really do. When I see the church, I know I'm home."

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Saint Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church marks 75 years
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Another day, another controversy over supposed left-wing indoctrination in public schools and its right-wing backlash.

Virginias new Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin last week issued an executive order banning divisive concepts, including critical race theory, from the states public schools. Mississippi, too, joined the growing roster of states passing de facto anti-CRT legislation, following a walkout by Black members of the state Senate. And there were reports on initiatives in at least a dozen states to require schools to post all teaching materials online, sometimes with an option for parents to withdraw children from certain classes.

These GOP-led efforts, which include moves to banish undesirable books on race and gender from school libraries and reading lists, are widely-decried as an assault on intellectual freedom and a thinly veiled racist backlash. Critics on the left say the anti-CRT panic is absurdcritical race theory, which analyzes the way racism is embedded in social structures, is taught mostly in higher education, especially in law schoolsand also a cynical strategy to target all discussion of racism in K-12 education.

The Aristocrats Funding the Critical Race Theory Backlash

Prominent progressives have urged the liberal writers and academics who signed the 2020 Harpers Letterwhich was critical of intellectual intolerance on the leftto engage in public reflection over their supposed role in fueling anti-CRT measures. (Many of the signers have, in fact, spoken out against these laws, but their detractors want more self-criticism.)

Meanwhile, any suggestion that the anti-CRT revolt may reflect some legitimate concerns about the way anti-racism is taught in public schools is likely to get you accused of right-wing stoogeryor, at best, disingenuous centrist both-sidesism.

But what if this is a case where each side has both valid gripes and willful blind spots?

There is no question the anti-CRT backlash has been crude, filled with hyperbolesuch as claims by anti-woke activists that racial equity initiatives in schools are a cover for atheist Marxist ideology or communist valuesand often conducted in bad faith. The most prominent figure in this crusade is Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo, who has freely admitted to a strategy of tying various cultural insanities to the CRT brand and even tried to blame wokeness for the U.S.s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

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While some anti-CRT legislation has been misrepresented in news reports, there is little doubt that most of these billswhich include bans on teaching The New York Times 1619 Projectare either aggressively illiberal or dangerously vague.

Even ostensibly straightforward transparency bills supported by the anti-CRT movement are a tough call, since they could tie up teachers in endless online posting of classroom readings, subject to a hecklers veto by a loud minority of parents. (At the same time, theres a certain irony in the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union, which previously supported making curriculum materials publicly available as a means of ferreting out socially conservative or religious influences in public schools, now decries such measures as thinly veiled attempts at chilling teachers and students from learning and talking about race and gender.)

And, quite often, anti-CRT activism sounds like a right-wing version of the safe space mentality conservatives have long ridiculed among the snowflake left.

For example, anti-CRT parents in a Tennessee school district objected to the book Ruby Bridges Goes to School, written by the famed activist Ruby Bridges about her experience as the first Black child at a previously all-white New Orleans school in 1960apparently because a reference to a large crowd of angry white people who didn't want Black children in a white school was deemed too harsh.

Its almost as if some conservatives are intent on living up to the white fragility stereotype of white people who feel threatened by any discussion of racism in America.

And yet its no less true that the anti-CRT backlash has exposed some pretty toxic elementsat least if you believe that awareness of racism, historical or ongoing, should not include essentializing individuals on the basis of race.

The motives and methods of right-wing culture warriors like Rufo undoubtedly warrant skepticism. Nonetheless, Rufos reportsusually informed by verifiably legitimate leaked documents, and even discounting his uncharitable spin on those materialshave also exposed real and troubling practices.

At an elementary school in Cupertino, California, a 2020 classroom exercise asked third-graders to read about identity and power, map their various social identities, and write short essays on two of their identities that hold power and privilege and two that do not. While the school principal told the Washington Post that the exercise was canceled before it began, due to complaints from mostly Asian American parents who saw the slides, the superintendent later confirmed that it was conducted once before the parental rebellion took place.

Or take the picture book Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness by Anastasia Higginbotham, which has been reportedly used in K-5 reading in more than 30 school districts. This book not only tells kids that their relatives who claim they dont see color are the bad guys but presents whiteness as a literal devil who offers you stolen riches and special favors but gets to claim your soul and to mess endlessly with the lives of  fellow humans of color. (While the book notes that whiteness is not the same as being white, this fine distinction is often hard enough for adults to parse, let alone 7-year-olds.)

There are plenty of other examples of anti-racist school lessons that veer into blaming and shaming. Last year, a high school assignment on white privilege and whiteness in Mancelona, a lower-middle-class community in Michigan, asked students to ponder everything you may be doing to promote/maintain white privilege and informed them that the world is set up for [white peoples] convenience. Those on the left who think such lessons are appropriate should openly explain their position instead of taking refuge in denial and tarring all dissent as bad faith.

Tucker Admits Hes Never Figured Out What Critical Race Theory Is

Whether or not this kind of anti-racist education can be equated with critical race theory, its indisputable that public schools have been heavily influenced by teacher education programs that embrace social justice as a key mission. And its plenty relevant that the nations largest teachers union, the National Education Association, last summer passed a business item to oppose CRT bans which explicitly endorsed critical race theory as one of the tools needed for racial honesty in education. (Later, apparently fearing negative attention, the NEA scrubbed all its business items from its site.)

Many progressives would no doubt assert that teaching rooted in such activism simply conveys the truth about privilege and systemic racism. But despite the continuing reality of racism and race-based disadvantage, America in 2021 is far more diverse and complex than this perspective allows.

In Not My Idea, for instance, Blacks exist only as victims of oppression and whites as privileged perpetrators or enablers. (Only anti-racist activists of any race are allowed to exist outside this crude dichotomy.)

So yes, there are at least two sides to this issue.

Older kids should certainly be expected to discuss current issues and controversies as part of their schooling. But these discussions should include a variety of perspectives on such issues as racism, oppression and privilegerather than a single anti-racist orthodoxy that brooks no dissent.

Likewise, the teaching of American history should allow for multiple perspectives as long as they are backed by respected scholarship (which means both the 1619 Project and its critics on both the left and right).

If we hope to make any progress, we need a more honest dialogue that allows divisive conceptssuch as Americas tragic history of slavery and institutionalized racismto be honestly explored without enshrining a single viewpoint and mandating either activism or penitence.

And mainstream journalists could help bridge the divide by more accurately reporting on the conflicts over schools, instead of leaving it to Rufo or Fox News to cover progressive overreach and spin it as creeping Marxism.

Theres a conversation to be had here, but it cant happen with speech bans or rigidly orthodox education.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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A look at the shareholders of Sheffield Resources Limited (ASX:SFX) can tell us which group is most powerful. Generally speaking, as a company grows, institutions will increase their ownership. Conversely, insiders often decrease their ownership over time. Warren Buffett said that he likes "a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people." So it's nice to see some insider ownership, because it may suggest that management is owner-oriented.

Sheffield Resources is a smaller company with a market capitalization of AU$151m, so it may still be flying under the radar of many institutional investors. In the chart below, we can see that institutional investors have bought into the company. We can zoom in on the different ownership groups, to learn more about Sheffield Resources.

View our latest analysis for Sheffield Resources

What Does The Institutional Ownership Tell Us About Sheffield Resources?

Many institutions measure their performance against an index that approximates the local market. So they usually pay more attention to companies that are included in major indices.

We can see that Sheffield Resources does have institutional investors; and they hold a good portion of the company's stock. This can indicate that the company has a certain degree of credibility in the investment community. However, it is best to be wary of relying on the supposed validation that comes with institutional investors. They too, get it wrong sometimes. When multiple institutions own a stock, there's always a risk that they are in a 'crowded trade'. When such a trade goes wrong, multiple parties may compete to sell stock fast. This risk is higher in a company without a history of growth. You can see Sheffield Resources' historic earnings and revenue below, but keep in mind there's always more to the story.

Hedge funds don't have many shares in Sheffield Resources. The company's largest shareholder is Tangshan Yanshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., with ownership of 9.9%. For context, the second largest shareholder holds about 6.8% of the shares outstanding, followed by an ownership of 3.9% by the third-largest shareholder.

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On studying our ownership data, we found that 23 of the top shareholders collectively own less than 50% of the share register, implying that no single individual has a majority interest.

While studying institutional ownership for a company can add value to your research, it is also a good practice to research analyst recommendations to get a deeper understand of a stock's expected performance. Our information suggests that there isn't any analyst coverage of the stock, so it is probably little known.

Insider Ownership Of Sheffield Resources

The definition of an insider can differ slightly between different countries, but members of the board of directors always count. Management ultimately answers to the board. However, it is not uncommon for managers to be executive board members, especially if they are a founder or the CEO.

I generally consider insider ownership to be a good thing. However, on some occasions it makes it more difficult for other shareholders to hold the board accountable for decisions.

Our information suggests that insiders maintain a significant holding in Sheffield Resources Limited. It has a market capitalization of just AU$151m, and insiders have AU$22m worth of shares in their own names. It is great to see insiders so invested in the business. It might be worth checking if those insiders have been buying recently.

General Public Ownership

The general public -- including retail investors -- own 60% of Sheffield Resources. This size of ownership gives investors from the general public some collective power. They can and probably do influence decisions on executive compensation, dividend policies and proposed business acquisitions.

Private Company Ownership

We can see that Private Companies own 17%, of the shares on issue. It might be worth looking deeper into this. If related parties, such as insiders, have an interest in one of these private companies, that should be disclosed in the annual report. Private companies may also have a strategic interest in the company.

Next Steps:

I find it very interesting to look at who exactly owns a company. But to truly gain insight, we need to consider other information, too. To that end, you should be aware of the 2 warning signs we've spotted with Sheffield Resources .

Of course this may not be the best stock to buy. Therefore, you may wish to see our free collection of interesting prospects boasting favorable financials.

NB: Figures in this article are calculated using data from the last twelve months, which refer to the 12-month period ending on the last date of the month the financial statement is dated. This may not be consistent with full year annual report figures.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



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.
ST. LOUIS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Mississippi Lime Company (MLC) announced today that Fiona Woody will join MLC in its newly created role of Director of Sustainability and ESG. In leading the Company's sustainability mission, she will partner with key business leaders to accelerate, integrate, and strategically communicate sustainability and ESG initiatives.

Fiona Woody

She joins MLC from Bayer, formerly Monsanto, where she gained valuable expertise in sustainability programs, operations, and regulatory affairs during her 20-year career.

"As one of our company's Core Values, we have always focused on sustainability. Creating this important role visibly underscores our dedication to sustainability for our customers, vendors, communities, and the lime industry as a whole. We are serious about elevating the priority of sustainability in our business and sharing our successes," said Paul Hogan, President and CEO of MLC. Hogan added, "I'm pleased to welcome Fiona to MLC. Her background and expertise make her an ideal candidate to accelerate our progress and formally communicate our sustainability strategies." She holds a Bachelor of Arts with an emphasis in communication from Arizona State University.

About Mississippi Lime Company

Mississippi Lime Company ("MLC"), headquartered in St. Louis, MO, is a leading global supplier of high-calcium lime products and technical solutions. With over a century in business, the company has built a reputation on the purity of its products, commitment to research and development, and tradition of customer satisfaction. Mississippi Lime operates the largest lime facility in the Americas and mines some of the purest limestone reserves in the world. The company supplies high-calcium quicklime, hydrated lime, calcium carbonate products, trucking services, and technical solutions from a diversified, reliable network of facilities in Ste. Genevieve, MO; Calera, AL; Verona, KY; Vicksburg, MS; Weirton, WV; Chester, SC; Mobile, AL; Prairie du Rocher, IL; Bridgeville, PA; Kansas City, KS; as well as several distribution sites throughout the country. For more information, visit mississippilime.com.

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Contact:

Bailie Moore

Lambert & Co.

bmoore@lambert.com

(217) 714-9429

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SOURCE Mississippi Lime Company (MLC)
Seattle, Washington--(Newsfile Corp. - January 24, 2022) - Pervasip Corp. (OTC Pink: PVSP) ("Pervasip" or the "Company"), a developer of companies and technologies in high value emerging markets, and its subsidiaries, Artizen Corporation ("Artizen"), are in the process of finalizing several strategic partnerships.

On the heels of being named the 9th best-selling cannabis brand in North America according to MJBiz Magazine, Pervasip is launching various partnerships that will not only develop a new state of the art cultivation but also upgrade existing facilities and set the stage for expansion into additional markets.

"As one of Washington's original cannabis brands, Artizen-branded products have tremendous consumer and retailer recognition. Our goal has always been to bring the highest quality products to market. And to that extent, all our development efforts have a single focus - provide the best possible assets, tools and processes to our independent cultivators for their quest to grow and manufacture the high quality product for Artizen branded products. It is the single most important means by which we will see historic growth not only inside our home state but across various recreational markets. "

Artizen-branded products have earned the all-time fourth best-selling position in Washington across all product categories, and the all-time third position in flower, with five of the all-time top ten selling products in flower. Eighths of Artizen's flagship Dutchberry flower are the all-time top selling flower product in Washington. Artizen's commitment to quality and consistency have fueled more than $69 million in wholesale sales to a distribution network with more than 200 retailers, corresponding to more than $200 million in retail value since inception in 2015.

Pervasip Corporation

Pervasip Corp., a developer of companies and technologies in high value emerging markets, owns Artizen Corporation and its subsidiary, Zen Asset Management LLC, a diversified asset management company founded to acquire, develop, and support companies and technologies in the cannabis industry. ZAM's existing clients operate four licensed cannabis cultivation and one processing facility in Washington. Most of the biomass produced by these independent cultivators has been sold historically under the Artizen brand, including all-time top selling products in flower in Washington state. Additional information on Artizen-branded products is available online at www.artizencannabis.com. Pervasip additionally owns 5% of KRTL Biotech, Inc., a developer of biotechnologies with a focus on pharmaceutical applications of cannabinol and psilocybin. Additional information on KRTL is available online at www.krtlbiotech.com. Additional information on Pervasip can be found at www.pervasip.net.

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Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent that they are not historical fact, may constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include financial and other projections, as well as statements regarding future plans, objectives, or economic performance, or the assumption underlying any of the foregoing. In some cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as may, would, could, will, likely, except, anticipate, believe, intend, plan, forecast, project, estimate, outlook, or the negative thereof or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. Examples of such statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the objectives and business plans of the Company; ability to realize benefits from its recent corporate appointments; ability to retain its key personnel; the intention to grow the Company's business and operations; the competitive conditions of the industries in which the Company operates; and laws and any amendments thereto applicable to the Company. Forward-looking information is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. The material factors and assumptions used to develop the forward-looking information contained in this news release include, but are not limited to, key personnel and qualified employees continuing their involvement with the Company; and the Company's ability to secure financing on reasonable terms. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, without limitation, risks relating to the future business plans of the Company; risks that the Company will not be able to retain its key personnel; risks that the Company will not be able to secure financing on reasonable terms or at all, as well as all of the other risks as described in the Company's periodic disclosure statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any such forward-looking information. Further, any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company's management to predict all of such factors and to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Company's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking information. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect information or events after the date on which it is made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law, including securities laws.

For further information, please contact:

T: 855-464-2535, Extension 1

E: info@pervasip.net

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/111094
TORONTO, January 24, 2022 /CNW/ - RBC Global Asset Management Inc. ("RBC GAM Inc.") today announced the launch of RBC Global Choices Portfolios, an efficient way for investors to access the expertise of a diverse set of investment managers while diversifying beyond their Canadian holdings.

RBC Logo (CNW Group/RBC Global Asset Management Inc.)

At launch, the five RBC Global Choices Portfolios will be invested in a selection of 10 funds managed by eight different firms and will draw on RBC GAM Inc.'s extensive experience in managing portfolio solutions.

"RBC Global Asset Management has been managing multi-asset portfolio solutions for over 35 years, including our RBC Select Choices Portfolios launched in 2000," said Doug Coulter, President of RBC GAM Inc. "RBC Global Choices Portfolios further expand our solution set, offering Canadian investors a curated selection of funds and ETFs managed by leading third-party managers while providing exposure to global equity markets."

To accommodate the varying risk and return profiles of investors, five options are available, ranging from very conservative to all-equity. The asset mix and management fees for the full RBC Global Choices Portfolios suite are as follows:

Asset Class RBC Global Choices Very Conservative Portfolio RBC Global Choices Conservative Portfolio RBC Global Choices Balanced Portfolio RBC Global Choices Growth Portfolio RBC Global Choices All-Equity Portfolio Global fixed income 75% 60% 40% 25% 1% Global equities 22% 35% 53% 66% 88% Emerging markets equities 3% 5% 7% 9% 11% Management Fee (Series A) 1.60% 1.60% 1.85% 1.85% 1.85% Management Fee (Series F) 0.85% 0.85% 0.85% 0.85% 0.85%

The funds are also offered in Series O units.

Coinciding with today's launch of RBC Global Choices Portfolios, RBC GAM Inc. also expanded its lineup of index-based solutions with the addition of five new RBC Index ETF Funds. Leveraging the RBC iShares strategic alliance, each fund will invest in one or more iShares ETFs. For more information, please read here .

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Please consult your advisor and read the prospectus or Fund Facts document before investing. There may be commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses associated with mutual fund investments. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. RBC Funds, BlueBay Funds and PH&N Funds are offered by RBC GAM Inc. and distributed through authorized dealers in Canada. RBC iShares ETFs are comprised of RBC ETFs managed by RBC Global Asset Management Inc. and iShares ETFs managed by BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited. RBC GAM Inc. is a member of the RBC GAM group of companies and an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada.

About RBC

Royal Bank of Canada is a global financial institution with a purpose-driven, principles-led approach to delivering leading performance. Our success comes from the 87,000+ employees who leverage their imaginations and insights to bring our vision, values and strategy to life so we can help our clients thrive and communities prosper. As Canada's biggest bank, and one of the largest in the world based on market capitalization, we have a diversified business model with a focus on innovation and providing exceptional experiences to our 17 million clients in Canada, the U.S. and 27 other countries. Learn more at rbc.com .

We are proud to support a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments and employee volunteer activities. See how at rbc.com/community-social-impact .

About RBC Global Asset Management

RBC Global Asset Management (RBC GAM) is the asset management division of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) and includes money managers BlueBay Asset Management and Phillips, Hager & North Investment Management. RBC GAM is a provider of global investment management services and solutions to institutional, high-net-worth and individual investors through separate accounts, pooled funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, exchange-traded funds and specialty investment strategies. The RBC GAM group of companies manage approximately $580 billion in assets and have approximately 1,500 employees located across Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia.

SOURCE RBC Global Asset Management Inc.

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With Samsung scheduled to announce its next Galaxy S flagships in February, a new leak suggests the company may have a pricing change planned for its high-end phone lineup. Per a tweet spotted by Android Police from WinFutures Roland Quandt, European pricing for the Galaxy S22 series will start at 849 (roughly $1,018), with the base models of the Galaxy S22 Plus and Ultra slated to cost 1,049 ($1,188) and 1,249 ($1,414), respectively. Effectively, this means in 2022 Samsungs Galaxy S lineup will cost just as much as it did in 2021. Whats more, Quandts tweet suggests the company will continue its practice of charging a 50 premium for a storage bump on the standard and Plus models.

Whoever said S22 series was to be cheaper, didn't think of Covid, parts shortages and inflation.



Actual official EURO prices:

S22 8/128GB = 849

S22 8/256GB = 899

S22+ 8/128GB = 1049

S22+ 8/256GB = 1099

S22 Ultra 8/128GB = 1249

S22 Ultra 12/256GB = 1349

S22 Ultra 12/512GB = 1449 pic.twitter.com/QRnfrhkzTz  Roland Quandt (@rquandt) January 22, 2022

What may change is that Samsung could tweak the base model Ultra variant to offer less value than its predecessor. In Europe at least, the 1249 Galaxy S22 Ultra will ship with 8GB of RAM, according to Quandt, and cost the same amount as money as the entry-level Galaxy S21 Ultra, which features 12GB of RAM. Consumers in Europe will reportedly need to pay a 100 premium to get the S22 Ultra with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. Its not clear if Samsung will implement the same pricing strategy in the US. As Android Police points out, a separate leak earlier this month suggested the company could charge an extra $100 stateside for every model in the Galaxy S22 lineup. As always, well have to wait until the company shares official pricing information before we know just how much it will cost to own the latest Galaxy S phones.
The Satanic Temple's Lawsuit Against Texas Abortion Restrictions Stayed Pending Supreme Court Ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization

PR Newswire

SALEM, Mass., Jan. 24, 2022

Case stayed until SCOTUS rules on whether to uphold Roe v Wade, Planned Parenthood v Casey in Mississippi case

SALEM, Mass., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On December 20th, 2021, the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued a ruling staying The Satanic Temple's lawsuit against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. TST is suing the state for impeding on its members rights to perform their abortion ritual under both the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Texas law requires those seeking abortions to endure a gauntlet of procedures designed to manipulate patients away from obtaining medical care from their healthcare professionals.

Co-Founder of the Satanic Temple Lucien Greaves

"It's the very definition of government overreach," explained The Satanic Temple's Director of Campaign Operations Erin Helian. "Texas is interjecting government control directly into people's private medical decisions when those decisions have zero bearing on any coherent government interest."

The stay pauses the progress of TST's suit until the Supreme Court hands down a ruling on Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization. The ruling is likely to have a big impact on the legal right to abortion throughout the United States, with the Mississippi Solicitor General openly calling for the Court to overturn Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey during oral arguments.

The Satanic Temple's attorney Matthew Kezhaya responded to the stay stating, "After Dobbs comes down, we will reassess our legal strategy to continue fighting the good fight based on the new and anticipated developments in law."

This suit is another part of The Satanic Temple's ongoing efforts to secure abortion rights access in spite of anti-abortion legislation and court rulings across the United States. TST is also simultaneously engaged in a lawsuit against the state of Texas over its controversial new anti-abortion legislation, SB8, which allows private citizens to bring civil actions against any person who performs or aids in the performance of an abortion, creating a Supreme Court-abetted end-run around Constitutional abortion protections.

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About The Satanic Temple

The Satanic Temple, subject of the critically-acclaimed documentary, Hail Satan?, and the academic analysis of modern Satanism, Speak of the Devil, confronts religious discrimination to secure the separation of church and state and defend the Constitutional rights of its members. In response to Oklahoma and Arkansas placing a Ten Commandments statue on Capitol grounds, TST offered its bronze Baphomet statue to stand alongside the Christian monuments. TST hosts the "After School Satan" club to counter the Evangelical "Good News Clubs" in public schools across the country to promote a plurality of religious viewpoints. The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits for the individual will. For more information about The Satanic Temple, visit https://thesatanictemple.com/ .

Contact: Karen Campbell, karen@karenelizabethcampbell.com

The Satanic Temple (PRNewsfoto/The Satanic Temple)

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SOURCE The Satanic Temple
<span class="legendSpanClass">Calling on All Minnesotans to Help with Resettlement Efforts</span>

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- As the United States continues to evacuate families from Afghanistan, Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Governor Mark Dayton are coming together to support the work that Minneapolis-based global humanitarian organization, Alight, and veteran-led disaster response organization, Team Rubicon are doing to help Afghan families resettle throughout the state. The two organizations, along with other key partners including representatives from the Afghan Diaspora in Minnesota, are playing a vital role in helping to establish homes over the next few weeks for approximately 250 families and individuals that were evacuated from Afghanistan, and they're asking Minnesotans to help.

Alight Logo (PRNewsfoto/Alight)

'Many of these individuals have sacrificed so much for our troops and for our country,' said Senator Klobuchar. 'It's not just our obligation to help them in return, it is our privilege and honor to assist them.'

Leveraging Alight's human-centered approach to help displaced people build full, meaningful lives, the partners will work together to create warm and welcoming homes as Afghan families start their new lives in Minnesota. Everything from big ticket items such as furniture to smaller, everyday items like dishes, towels and cleaning supplies need to be in the homes and ready for the families upon their arrival. The Welcome Home program not only ensures these items are in place for families as they arrive, but also leaves them feeling dignified and empowered to begin this next chapter in their lives.

"We want to create the warmest welcome possible for Afghan families arriving in Minnesota and provide an environment where they can thrive," says Alight Afghan Response Project Lead Sonia Anunciacion. "Alight is concerned for refugees and displaced people wherever they may be in the world. We work internationally, but our global support team has been based here in Minnesota for the last 40 years, serving in over 19 countries, providing support to more than 3.5 million displaced people around the world annually. This is work we know how to do."

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"Team Rubicon is honored to be assisting Afghan families as they transition into communities across the country," says Caroline Griffith, Task Force Leader for Team Rubicon's Minneapolis operation. "Afghan family resettlement is a deeply personal mission for many of our veteran volunteers and with our partners and the Minneapolis community at-large, we look forward to providing the new families with a warm welcome."

Alight is seeking financial donations from individuals, foundations and the private sector throughout Minnesota and the United States to supplement funding to support furnishing each home. In-kind donation drives for furniture, everyday household products, and culturally relevant items are also underway.

To learn more about this transformative work and to make a donation, please visit the campaign homepage .

ABOUT ALIGHT

Established in 1978 by founder Neal Ball, Alight , formerly known as American Refugee Committee, is an international humanitarian organization, working to create conditions for refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, trafficked and displaced people to build full, meaningful lives. Providing health care, clean water, shelter, protection and economic opportunities to more than 3.5 million people in over 20 countries each year. Alight believes in the incredible creativity, potential and ingenuity of the displaced and works to shine a light on their humanity, the tremendous amount of good that's already happening and the possibilities to do more. In 2020, Alight received the prestigious 4-Star Rating from Charity Navigator for the tenth consecutive year, celebrating a decade of impactful work.

ABOUT TEAM RUBICON

Team Rubicon serves communities by mobilizing veterans to continue their service by leveraging their skills and experience to help people prepare, respond, and recover from disasters and humanitarian crises. Founded following the Haiti earthquake in 2010, the organization has grown to almost 150,000 volunteers across the United States and has launched nearly 1,000 operations both domestically and internationally. Amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, Team Rubicon has not only pivoted to be able to continue to deliver disaster response and rebuild services in core mission areas but has also expanded their scope of missions to meet community needs brought about by COVID.

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SOURCE Alight
Starting on Friday and through Sunday, Canadians can support Special Olympics Canada by buying a limited-edition Choose To Include Donut at participating Tim Hortons restaurants, with 100 per cent of the proceeds being donated directly to Special Olympics Canada.





The partnership is designed to raise both funds and awareness to help empower Special Olympics Canada's 41,000+ athletes reach their full potential  in sport and in life.





Individuals with an intellectual disability have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. For Special Olympics athletes, being away from their in-person programs has meant being away from their friends, their healthy activity and their network of support. Every Choose To Include donut sold will help Special Olympics athletes return to the playing field.

TORONTO, Jan. 24, 2022 /CNW/ - Tim Hortons is proud to be partnering with Special Olympics Canada in launching the Choose To Include fundraising donut, starting this Friday, with a goal of raising funds to help expand the quality, opportunity and accessibility of Special Olympics' daily community sport programs to Canadians with an intellectual disability.

Tim Hortons and Special Olympics Canada team up to launch limited-edition Choose To Include donut in support of Special Olympics programs nationwide (CNW Group/Tim Hortons)

The limited-edition fundraising donut will be sold at participating Tim Hortons restaurants across Canada for $1.69* starting this Friday and through Sunday, with 100 per cent of proceeds supporting Special Olympics Canada.

The Choose To Include donut is a chocolate cake ring donut with white fondant, coloured sprinkles and whipped topping. The multi-coloured design was inspired by the themes of diversity and inclusion that are central to the Special Olympics mission.

"At Tim Hortons, we believe in the power of sport. We know that through sport, we can discover new strengths and abilities, develop new skills, and find joy, confidence and fulfillment. We're so proud to be a long-standing partner of Special Olympics Canada and to play a role in helping support this important organization's incredible work," said Hope Bagozzi, Chief Marketing Officer of Tim Hortons.

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Special Olympics Canada is part of an international movement dedicated to enriching the lives of Canadians with an intellectual disability through sport. Their vision is that sport can open hearts and minds towards people with intellectual disabilities to create inclusive communities all across Canada. There are more than 41,000 Special Olympics athletes across the country.

"The need for funding to help our community prepare for the safe return to sport for Special Olympics athletes and volunteers is urgent," said Sharon Bollenbach, CEO, Special Olympics Canada. "People with intellectual disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and limited access to social and physical activities have played a major role in the challenges our community is facing. Every Choose To Include donut purchased for our cause makes a difference and we look forward to seeing Canadians take part in our movement."

To support the launch of this fundraising donut, local Champions of Inclusion have been nominated by Special Olympics Canada. These athletes have experienced the power of inclusion and are sharing their stories to help create more inclusive communities across Canada.

One of those Champions of Inclusion, Monique Shah of Bradford, Ont., will appear in the national campaign to promote the Choose To Include Donut. Shah was Special Olympics Canada's athlete of the year for 2020, where she was recognized for her athletic achievements and championing inclusion in sport amongst her teammates. She believes we can all play our part when it comes to creating a more inclusive society.

"Special Olympics makes me healthy and strong. I love to run! It's a place where I am included and I always feel like I belong. The fight for inclusion needs all members of society to participate, all year long. Everyone should Choose To Include," said Shah, athlete ambassador, Special Olympics Canada.

Tim Hortons has been a proud sponsor of Special Olympics Canada since 2016. In addition to creating the Choose To Include fundraising donut, they are also the lead corporate sponsor of Special Olympics Canada's youth programs: Active Start, for two- to six-year-olds, and FUNdamentals, for seven- to 12-year-olds.

*Plus applicable taxes. Prices may vary by region.

About Tim Hortons

In 1964, the first Tim Hortons restaurant in Hamilton, Ontario opened its doors and Canadians have been ordering Tim Hortons iconic Original Blend coffee, Double-Double coffees, Donuts and Timbits in the years since. Over the last 55 years, Tim Hortons has captured the hearts and taste buds of Canadians and has become synonymous with serving Canada's favourite coffee. Tim Hortons is Canada's largest restaurant chain operating in the quick service industry with more than 4,000 restaurants across the country. More than a coffee and bake shop, Tim Hortons is part of the Canadian fabric and guests can enjoy hot and cold specialty beverages  including lattes, cappuccinos and espressos, teas and our famous Iced Capps  alongside delicious breakfast, sandwiches, wraps, soups and more. Tim Hortons has more than 5,000 restaurants in Canada, the United States and around the world. For more information on Tim Hortons visit TimHortons.ca

About Special Olympics Canada

The Canadian chapter of this international movement is dedicated to enriching the lives of Canadians with an intellectual disability through the transformative power and joy of sport. Operating out of sport clubs in 12 Provincial and Territorial Chapters, this grassroots movement reaches beyond the sphere of sport to empower individuals, change attitudes and build communities. From two-year-olds to mature adults, more than 41,000 athletes with an intellectual disability are registered in Special Olympics year-round programs across Canada. They are supported by more than 17,500 volunteers, including more than 12,000 trained coaches. For more information, visit www.specialolympics.ca or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @SpecialOCanada.

SOURCE Tim Hortons

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As the Philippines gears up for a hotly contested presidential election, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the next leader to continue President Rodrigo Duterte's China-friendly policy, saying it serves the interests of both countries.

Duterte, who took office in 2016, will step down after the May election in line with the country's one-term limit.

Voters are highly concerned about relations with China and Beijing is watching closely for any shift in Manila's policy on the South China Sea dispute, which has become a dangerous flashpoint in the region.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Without naming the US or its allies, Wang called for Manila to maintain "an independent and autonomous foreign policy" in the face of "provocations by a number of extraterritorial forces ... in an attempt to undermine the good momentum" in bilateral ties.

In a taped address on Monday to officials and scholars at the opening of an online forum organised by the Chinese embassy in Manila, Wang said Duterte's "strategic decision" was "fully in line with the fundamental interests" of both China and the Philippines as well as the region.

"I am sure that insightful people from both countries will stick to this right direction," he told the Manila Forum for China-Philippines Relations, according to a transcript published by the Chinese foreign ministry.

On Monday, Wang also announced a 100 million yuan (US$15.7 million) relief package to the Philippines in the wake of Super Typhoon Rai, which slammed into the archipelago late last month leaving nearly 400 dead and thousands homeless.

Relations between the two countries were strained under Duterte's predecessor Benigno Aquino when Manila took its South China Sea territorial dispute with Beijing to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and won.

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But they took a U-turn after Duterte pledged to set aside the ruling that denied China's claim, based on the nine-dash line that encompasses almost all the South China Sea.

In 2018, the two countries started negotiations for joint exploration and development of energy resources in the disputed waters, including Reed Bank, though no agreement has been reached.

Wang told the forum Beijing would not use its strength to bully its smaller neighbours.

Wang said Beijing was willing to closely work with Manila to manage the disputes and the two sides "should resolve early on to move forward with joint development without prejudice to our respective claims".

During his five-year term, Duterte has nurtured cordial ties with Beijing while moving away from the US, a long-standing treaty ally.

The Philippines has received billions in infrastructure investment funded or built by Chinese companies through President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative. And in 2020, China was the Philippines' largest trading partner.

But tensions have flared from time to time, particularly over the South China Sea, where China's extensive claims over the resource-rich waterway are also disputed by other countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

In November, Philippine Foreign Minister Teodoro Locsin claimed Chinese coastguard vessels "blocked and water cannoned" supply boats from the Philippines. The boats were on a resupply mission to Second Thomas Shoal, an atoll in the Spratly Islands which is also claimed by China and Vietnam.

The US has also said it would defend the Philippines under its 1951 treaty.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright  2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Heroes recognized in annual awards ceremony on Jan. 23

MISSISSAUGA, ON, Jan. 24, 2022 /CNW/ - Five Canadian "heroes" received World Vision Heroes for Children awards for their commitment and passion in helping the world's most vulnerable girls and boys.

World vision heroes (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

Dr. Joelene Huber, a physician, author and on-air medical contributor, received the Courage Award in recognition of her years of leadership as a paediatrician and her public engagement and advocacy efforts for the health of mothers and new-born babies as a volunteer through the ENRICH: 1000 Day Journey grant. The six-year program supported women and children's health and nutrition in some of the highest-needs communities in four African and Asian countries, with the support of the Government of Canada and the partnership of World Vision.

Dr. Huber says her journey to Bangladesh to see the impact of the program will leave a lasting impression  abroad and at home.

"Seeing the program's impact and challenges faced by parents to support the health of their children truly enriched my life, expanded my global awareness, and enhanced my perspective in my care for patients and families in Canada," says Huber.

Sara Hildebrand received the Ruth Roberts Award, in recognition of an individual who has started or contributed to a movement to help improve the lives of children and families. A resident of Stoney Creek, Ontario, Hildebrand is the Founder and Director of Millennium Kids  an ongoing youth movement that, in 2021, was a key partner in the "Love My Neighbour" campaign that encouraged faith communities to donate thousands of COVID vaccines to vulnerable children around the world through UNICEF's GiveAVax program.

The Rev. Dr. Ken McMillan Award, recognizing an individual who has demonstrated Christian faith in action, a heart for leadership and a commitment to the church was awarded to Rev. Dr. Gerald (Gerry) Michalski of Soul Sanctuary in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Michalski has inspired his congregation and community to care for those in need. His church partnered with World Vision on its Global 6k water initiative and was the first church in Canada to launch Chosen, a new way of supporting child sponsorship.

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Onome Ako, CEO, Action Against Hunger, received the Voice for Children Award, recognizing an individual who has used their public voice or role to lift and promote the needs of children and families. Action Against Hunger is an international humanitarian organization that fights hunger and its root causes worldwide. With over 15 years of experience in international development, Ako has led initiatives in more than a dozen countries with organizations including World Vision, AfricaRecruit and UNESCO  Regional Bureau for Education in Africa. As chair of the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health, she is a leader in advocating for the critical health needs of children.

The late Evon Hedley received the Power of Generosity Award in recognition of an individual who has been philanthropic with their time, influence and gifts to improve the lives of children and families. As a young man in 1937, Hedley started his career in ministry with Youth for Christ in Brantford, Ontario. He went on to provide key leadership in several faith-based and charitable organizations in Canada, the United States and around the world. Hedley was one of the first leaders of World Vision in Canada, joining in 1963 and helping the organization get its startand inspiring thousands of Canadians to be generous toward programs for children. He actively mentored leaders until he was 100 years old. Hedley died in 2018. Members of his family accepted the award on his behalf.

"At World Vision, we have a heart for children, especially the world's most vulnerable," says Michael Messenger, President and CEO, World Vision Canada. "We are committed to ensuring that every girl and boy has the chance for a full life, each living up to their God-given potential, free of fear and full of opportunity. We are so grateful for and celebrate this year's award winners as our partners, leaders and friends, as heroes who stand with us to fight poverty and injustice and help build a better world for children."

About World Vision

World Vision is a relief, development and advocacy organization working to create lasting change in the lives of children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Inspired by Christian values, World Vision is dedicated to working with the world's most vulnerable people regardless of religion, race, ethnicity or gender. For more information, visit worldvision.ca or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Evon Hedley - Brantford, Ontario. (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

Dr. Joelene Huber - Bangladesh (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

Onome Ako - CEO - Action Against Hunger (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

Rev. Dr. Gerald Michalski - Soul Sanctuary (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

Sara Hildebrand - Millennium Kids (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

World Vision Canada Logo (CNW Group/World Vision Canada)

SOURCE World Vision Canada

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HICKSVILLE, N.Y., Jan. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- New York Community Bancorp, Inc. (NYSE: NYCB) (the "Company" or "NYCB") and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition ("NCRC") announced today the Company's commitment to provide $28 billion in loans, investments, and other financial support to communities and people of color, low- and moderate-income ("LMI") families and communities, and small businesses. The Company's Community Pledge Agreement (the "Agreement") was developed with NCRC and its members in conjunction with the Company's pending merger with Flagstar Bancorp, Inc. ("Flagstar"). The Agreement is subject to the closing of the Flagstar merger.

(PRNewsfoto/New York Community Bancorp, Inc.)

The Agreement includes $22 billion in community lending and affordable housing commitments and $6 billion of residential mortgage originations to underserved and LMI borrowers and in LMI and majority-minority neighborhoods over a five-year period. These significant investments will cover both communities already served by the Company and those it will expand into through its acquisition of Flagstar, and further the positive community impact our merger with Flagstar will have.

"Over the past several months, members of both NYCB's and Flagstar's leadership teams have met with NCRC and nearly 80 of its member organizations and were humbled by everything they do for their communities," said Thomas R. Cangemi, Chairman, President, and CEO of New York Community Bancorp, Inc. "This multi-year agreement reflects our commitment to provide greater economic opportunities for LMI communities and communities of color in both of our market areas and bridge the racial wealth gap that exists today."

Added Sandro DiNello, President and CEO of Flagstar Bancorp, Inc., "Flagstar goes into this agreement with the momentum of an outstanding CRA rating and a long history of investing in underserved communities. This is a far-reaching, substantial agreement that aims to move the needle on closing the racial wealth gap and bringing expanded CRA initiatives to the broader footprint of our pending new company. We thank the leadership of NCRC and its members for their hard work in bringing this agreement to fruition."

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Once the NYCB/Flagstar merger closes, the combined company will have $85 billion in assets, operate nearly 400 branches in nine states, and 84 retail loan production offices across a 28-state footprint, as well as a national mortgage origination and servicing platform.

"We appreciate the leadership and commitment of NYCB to collaborate with us and our members to create this impactful community agreement," said Jesse Van Tol, President and CEO of NCRC. "This plan is a significant commitment to increase investments, services and loans for low- and moderate-income communities and neighborhoods of color where these banks operate. With this agreement, we established a new product change and innovation committee that we hope will lead to significant product offerings and added a 40% increase over 5 years in community development loans and investments."

The Agreement addresses several important areas of need within our communities that were identified during our meetings with NCRC and its member organizations. These include, but are not limited to:

Affordable Housing and Residential Mortgage Lending: NYCB pledges to originate $5.7 billion of loans for home purchases, refinances, home improvement, and home equity loans to underserved and LMI borrowers and in majority-minority communities. The Company will also provide loan products or participate in affordable housing programs which address the specific needs of LMI borrowers and create a $10 million down payment assistance fund to support home ownership for LMI borrowers.

The Continuation of our Responsible Multi-Family Lending Practices: NYCB is committed to promoting fair and responsible multi-family lending practices for all multi-family loans within its portfolio. These include practices designed to prevent community harm and protect tenants' rights, such as displacement, speculative investing, landlord vetting, lead paint abatement, and tenant outreach programs.

Small Business Lending: NYCB will provide $542 million in loans to small businesses with less than $1 million in revenues and in LMI and majority-minority communities. In addition to originating loans directly to small businesses, the Company will also provide funding to nonprofit organizations that assist small businesses and provide grants to small businesses, including those that were impacted by COVID-19.

Community Development Lending and Investments: The Company intends to invest $21.7 billion in community development loans and investments, including those that address the needs of LMI communities and individuals and New Markets Tax Credit and Low Income Housing Credit projects. As part of this, NYCB will invest in home ownership and affordable housing strategies with minority-led organizations and organizations that address housing issues in minority communities.

Philanthropy: NYCB will commit $16.5 million in philanthropic support to nonprofit organizations that meet the needs of LMI and majority-minority communities and individuals. This includes support for those organizations with majority-minority leadership and nonprofit organizations serving immigrant and refugee communities, housing counseling, foreclosure prevention, and workforce development.

Access to Banking Products and Services: As a result of the merger with Flagstar, NYCB does not plan to close any branches, including branches in LMI or majority-minority communities. In addition, the Bank will seek to maintain a diverse and inclusive workforce which reflects the demographics of the communities it serves and will endeavor to maintain its practice of staffing branches by individuals who live in the same communities and who are conversant in the language spoken in their communities. NYCB will also prioritize employment opportunities within the local communities. The Company will continue to offer banking products and services to financially underserved communities and individuals, including access to its Bank On certified "Simply One" product.

Additional initiatives include financial education programs for seniors, adults, children, and small business, supplier diversity, and age friendly banking.

Added Mr. Cangemi: "We believe that this important and groundbreaking level of commitment will benefit all of the communities we currently serve and the newer communities we plan to serve once our merger with Flagstar closes. I would also like to thank Jesse Van Tol and his team at NCRC for their leadership and guidance during this process."

About New York Community Bancorp, Inc.

Based in Hicksville, NY, New York Community Bancorp, Inc. is a leading producer of multi-family loans on non-luxury, rent-regulated apartment buildings in New York City, and the parent of New York Community Bank. At September 30, 2021, the Company reported assets of $57.9 billion, loans of $43.7 billion, deposits of $34.6 billion, and stockholders' equity of $7.0 billion.

Reflecting our growth through a series of acquisitions, the Company operates 236 branches through eight local divisions, each with a history of service and strength: Queens County Savings Bank, Roslyn Savings Bank, Richmond County Savings Bank, Roosevelt Savings Bank, and Atlantic Bank in New York; Garden State Community Bank in New Jersey; Ohio Savings Bank in Ohio; and AmTrust Bank in Florida and Arizona.

About the National Community Reinvestment Coalition

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition and its grassroots member organizations create opportunities for people to build wealth. We work with community leaders, policymakers, and financial institutions to champion fairness in banking, housing, and business. NCRC was formed in 1990 by national, regional, and local organizations to increase the flow of private capital into traditionally underserved communities. NCRC has grown into an association of more than 6oo community-based organizations in 42 states that promote access to basic banking services, affordable housing, entrepreneurship, job creation, and vibrant communities for America's working families. More can be found at: www.ncrc.org.

Investor/Media Contact: Salvatore J. DiMartino (516) 683-4286

Cision

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SOURCE New York Community Bancorp, Inc.
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ALTHOUGH Charlie

Chaplin honed his craft

in the now dust-covered formats of vaudeville and silent film, the worlds first global movie star remains an important voice who speaks to us about key questions involving political power and our shared humanity.

Chaplins films explored societal problems and possible remedies that spoke to his time, and still speak to ours. The iconoclastic, controversial, and tumultuous work of Chaplin provides an important backdrop for appreciating his legacy as one of historys most effective users of mass media to shape political and cultural messages.

Like most of us, Chaplin didnt always have a clear answer to the vexing problems of modern life, as the sometimes-silent comic could be vague and uncertain when it came to messages in his movies. Indeed, Charlie Chaplins political messages and his life experiences could be a labyrinth of conflicting views. But decoding the man and his work is part of what makes him so interesting.

Despite his films focus on social and political themes, there is no record that Chaplin ever voted in his native Britain, nor did he ever seek to become a U.S. citizen during nearly four decades of residence in California. Chaplin was troubled by expansive governmental power, but he enthusiastically backed the New Deal to counter the Great Depression.

His friends ranged from John Steinbeck, the radical author of The Grapes of Wrath, to Winston Churchill, the conservative wartime U.K. prime minister who adored Chaplin as an entertainer and reveled in how Chaplins anti-Nazi filmmaking helped energize the British public against Hitler.

At his core, Chaplin expressed a great belief in The People, and the potential of human collectives to work together to solve difficult problems. He had great contempt for those elites who created those problems, which he blamed largely on political authorities who abused their power and sought to rule by intensifying the fear and hatred of one group against another.

Chaplin hated war, but he hated dictators even more. In his passion-filled finale to The Great Dictator, for example, Chaplin tried to impress upon filmgoers his personal belief in collective human potential: We dont want to hate or despise each other. His expansive mockery of Hitler in that film stands head and shoulders above the parody of political figures offered in the years since on film or in the political comedy of late-night television.

To Chaplin, even his signature character The Tramp knew that human beings were smarter, kinder, and better than to be fooled for long by the charlatans who often end up in positions of power. Unlike many more-cautious filmmakers of his era, Chaplin took risks when he challenged political authority and power, and mocked the absurdity of political blowhards who might talk about making things better but rarely delivered.

Chaplin sometimes could be an angry populist, prone in his films to kick an abusive police officer in the backside when he was not looking and to ridicule a clueless rich person. To FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, though, these often comic and sometimes bitter criticisms of capitalism and governmental authority added up to dangerous anti-American subversive messages. Hoover had agents monitor him for years, just waiting for an opportunity to pounce on one of Americas most visible non-citizens. When Chaplin left the U.S. for a European promotional tour during the depths of the McCarthy era, the U.S. government revoked his U.S. visa and thereby blocked his return. Rather than challenge the decision, which was made without any hearing, Chaplin instead moved to Switzerland.

In his battles with the J. Edgar Hoovers, though, Chaplin had the last laugh, returning briefly to Hollywood in triumph in 1972 to receive a lifetime achievement Oscarand what still stands as the longest standing ovation in the history of the Academy Awards.

Chaplins oldest films are now being seen by the great-great-grandchildren of their original viewers, and his extraordinary mixture of politics, social comedy, and slapstick humor keeps us thinking about politicsand laughing about those with money and powerto this day.

Stephen Farnsworth is professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington and the author or co-author of seven books, most recently Late Night with Trump: Political Humor and the American Presidency.  He will speak on Chaplin as part of UMWs Crawley Great Lives Series on Tuesday, Jan. 25, at 7:30 p.m. The talk will be live-streamed and can be accessed via the program website: umw.edu/greatlives.
After years of caring for surgery patients at a Canadian hospital, a veteran nurse has left the profession to start a new, high-demand career as a long-haul truck driver.

Leah Gorham, 42, said she loved being a nurse but frustrations over persistent staff shortages -- which she said started before the Covid-19 pandemic -- and a lack of advancement led her to look for new opportunities.

Her boyfriend, who's also a truck driver and an independent owner-operator, suggested she might like life on the open road.

Keep scrolling for a ranking of the occupations expected to grow the most over the next decade

"I was just going to regret my career being where it was and not being able to advance was really maddening to me," Gorham told CNN. "So I just I needed to do something else."

Gorham's career change comes as the trucking industry struggles to fill a huge number of vacancies to help shore up the struggling supply chain. In October, the American Trucking Associations said the industry was short a record 80,000 drivers.

Gorham enrolled in a 12-week truck-driving program last October, spending almost $8,000 ($10,000 Canadian) to get her license.

Now she and her boyfriend drive together.

"Eventually, we're going to be trading off like, I'm going to sleep when he's driving, but right now, while I'm still training ... it's almost like we're one independent super-driver," she said.

Gorham talked to CNN from a truck stop in Tom Brooks, Virginia, on Wednesday where the couple had stopped on the way to South Carolina. They were headed back north on Friday to haul a load of tires to Quebec and will then make a run to Indiana.

Before she started driving, Gorham hadn't traveled much, or even left New Brunswick Province very often over the past 20 years.

Now, she's getting to see a lot of the US and Canada from the cab of the 18-wheeler.

Gorham was inspired to become a licensed practical nurse (LPN) by the healthcare workers who cared for her dad, who died of pancreatic cancer at 40.

"It was something that I just took off with, and I absolutely loved it and for a long time," she said. "I couldn't even imagine doing anything else."

Gorham worked at St. John Regional Hospital in New Brunswick for almost 16 years in neurosurgery and then general surgery. She applied to go back to school for her bachelor's degree, so she could become a registered nurse, but her applications kept getting rejected.

Gorham said she'd gotten about as high as she could on the career ladder without upgrading her qualifications.

The New Brunswick government has been working to increase the number of available nursing school seats in the province, and a 2019 report by the Department of Health predicted a shortage of 130 nurses per year over the next 10 years -- and that was before the strains caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

"This nursing problem has been there my entire career, Gorham said. "The pandemic is just showing the real stress of the situation."

The New Brunswick Nurses Union told the CBC, a CNN news partner, the province has 1,000 registered nurse vacancies between nursing homes and the regional health authorities.

The union said there's also a shortage of some 300 licensed practical nurses, the CBC reported.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, said Friday the infections from the Omicron variant may have peaked nationally.

"However, daily hospital and ICU numbers are still rising steeply, and many hospitals across Canada are under intense strain," Tam said.

Gorham said the staff shortage was hard on everyone and "there was no end in sight."

But Gorham does miss nursing and the people she worked with and has tremendous respect for the hard work they do. She's kept her license on an inactive status, so she could go back to nursing.

"I do have time to see [if] maybe I want to go back casually or something like that just to maintain my license because, I put my time in I did really love it," she said.

But for now, she's really happy behind the wheel.

Gorham's only gotten one paycheck so far, but said it was more than she got at her old job.

"What we're interested in is sort of having the freedom and not pushing that real hard and still living," she said. "It's sort of just a balance. We don't need to be rich over this."

Gorham said driving is more relaxed than the hectic, always-on-the-go life at the hospital, but maneuvering the massive, 13-speed vehicle presents new challenges.

"It is not anything like my standard car," she said. "There's a lot of hazards involved in it. I find a lot of people are unaware how difficult it really is."

***

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Taliban representatives held talks with Western diplomats in Norway on January 24 on Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis and human rights -- their first official meeting in Europe since the hard-line Islamist group took over control of the war-torn country in August 2021.

On the second day of the 15-member delegations three-day visit to Oslo, its members held closed-door discussions with representatives of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union, and Norway, as a major economic crisis has pushed millions of Afghans to the brink of famine since the Taliban takeover.

The all-male delegation, led by Afghanistans acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, was expected to request access to billions of dollars in assets that were frozen after the group seized power in the midst of the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.

No country has yet recognized Afghanistans new rulers, whom human rights defenders accuse of committing serious violations, particularly over the lack of rights of women to education, employment, and participation in political and social life.

Muttaqi hailed the Oslo meeting as an "achievement in itself," while Norways invitation was criticized by some experts and Afghan exile groups, who said any cooperation with the Taliban would only serve to strengthen its position. Protests have been held outside the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

But Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said 1 million children may die of hunger if aid does not reach them in time and an unfathomable 97 percent of the population may fall below the poverty line this year" as the country is being overwhelmed by an economic collapse, the COVID-19 pandemic, and drought.

Huitfeldt had earlier stressed that the talks were not a legitimation or recognition of the Taliban.

The Taliban delegation will not be granted meetings with cabinet-level ministers, but may meet with a junior minister, Norway has said.

Afghanistan faces a worsening humanitarian crisis, with 22.8 million people suffering from acute food shortages and 8.7 million near starvation, according to the UN.

Since August, international aid, which financed around 80 percent of the Afghan budget, has been suspended and the United States has frozen $9.5 billion in Afghan Central Bank assets. Unemployment has skyrocketed and civil servants' salaries have not been paid for months.

The Taliban's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said the discussions in Oslo focused on issues including the economy, humanitarian aid, security, the central bank, and health.

"From these meetings, we are sure of getting support for Afghanistan's humanitarian, health, and education sectors," Muttaqi told reporters.

Ahead of the talks, Taliban delegate Shafiullah Azam said that the group is requesting them to unfreeze Afghan assets and not punish ordinary Afghans because of the political discourse.

On January 23, the Taliban delegation met with Afghan civil society members for talks on human rights.

Feminist activist Jamila Afghani told AFP that the meeting was positive. The negotiators "displayed goodwill.... Let's see what their actions will be, based on their words," she added.

While the Islamists claim to have modernized, women are still largely excluded from public-sector employment, and most secondary schools for girls remain closed. Two women activists disappeared this week in Kabul.

Thomas West, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan, tweeted on January 23: "As we seek to address humanitarian crisis together with allies, partners, and relief [organizations], we will continue clear-eyed diplomacy with the Taliban regarding our concerns and our abiding interest in a stable, rights-respecting and inclusive Afghanistan."

Among the members of the delegation is Anas Haqqani, a leader of the Haqqani network, which is responsible for some of the most devastating attacks in Afghanistan. The network has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and dpa
Pakistan sent a secret delegation to neighboring Afghanistan to hold talks with the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as part of efforts to revive peace efforts with the militant group, sources told RFE/RLs Radio Mashaal.

The TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has intensified its attacks in Pakistan since a monthlong cease-fire expired and peace talks collapsed in December.

The Pakistani delegation held several days of talks with TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud and members of the extremist groups leadership council in Afghanistans southeastern province of Paktika, said sources with knowledge of the discussions.

The delegation -- which arrived in Paktikas Bermal district on January 9 -- consisted of influential Pashtun tribal elders from Pakistan, the sources said. Many members of the TTP are Pashtuns from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which straddles the border with Afghanistan.

A massive Pakistani Army offensive in 2014 drove out TTP militants from Pakistan's tribal belt and across the border to Afghanistan.

The elders stayed there for two nights and held three or four rounds of discussions, said a source close to the delegation. The TTP leadership welcomed the delegation with traditional Pashtun hospitality and slaughtered two sheep.

The source added that the talks centered on reviving the expired truce and resuming talks over a negotiated end to the TTPs 14-year insurgency in Pakistan, where thousands of people have been killed in militant attacks and clashes between the TTP and the military.

The talks between the Pakistani delegation and the TTP were mediated by the Afghan Taliban, which has close ideological and organizational ties with the TTP. The Afghan militant group is also a longtime ally of Islamabad, its main foreign sponsor.

The Pakistani delegation also visited the Afghan capital, Kabul, where they met senior members of the Haqqani network, a key Afghan Taliban faction, said a source with knowledge of the delegation's visit. The network is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

The Talibans Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the Haqqani network, has been the key facilitator for the talks between Islamabad and the TTP. But the delegation did not meet with Haqqani, the source said, adding that the reason was unclear.

In November, the Afghan Taliban mediated a monthlong cease-fire between Pakistan and the TTP. The truce was agreed after weeks of secret talks in Afghanistan between Pakistani military officials and representatives of the TTP.

But the cease-fire ended on December 9 after peace negotiations broke down over terms, triggering a new wave of TTP attacks in Pakistan.

The TTP demanded the release of some 100 fighters in Pakistani prisons, while Islamabad only released a dozen. In return, the government demanded a nationwide truce. The TTP also demanded the implementation of Islamic Sharia law in Pakistans tribal belt, a demand that observers said the government would likely reject.

The delegation proposed an offer [on behalf of the government] to release half of the 100 TTP prisoners, said a member of the delegation who did not want to be named. But the TTP leadership did not agree.

A source close to the delegation said TTP leaders complained that Islamabad had repeatedly backtracked on a promise to release all the prisoners.

The delegation returned to Pakistan on January 11. They were expected to brief Pakistan military officials upon their return, the sources said.

A Pakistani government official, speaking to Radio Mashaal on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that Pakistans powerful military had sent a secret delegation to meet with TTP leaders in Afghanistan. The Inter-Services Public Relations, the military's media wing, did not respond to an email from Radio Mashaal seeking comment.

Pakistans attempts to revive peace talks comes as the TTP intensifies its attacks in northwestern Pakistan, its former stronghold.

Riven internally, debilitated by the death of successive leaders, and forced from its strongholds, the TTP was seen for years as a largely spent force. But the group has reemerged over the past two years, unifying squabbling factions and unleashing a wave of deadly attacks.

The TTP claimed 45 attacks in December, the highest of any month last year.

Pakistan recorded at least 294 militant attacks in 2021, a 56 percent increase compared to the previous year, according to the Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. Most of the attacks were attributed to the TTP.

Pakistan has not witnessed a respite in TTP attacks since the new year. On January 18, the TTP claimed responsibility for a deadly gun assault on a police checkpoint in the capital, Islamabad, as the countrys interior minister warned of the potential for further attacks in the capital. The attack killed an officer and both assailants, police said.

On January 14, a Pakistani soldier was killed in northwestern Pakistan in an attack claimed by the TTP.

Observers said the Talibans military takeover of Afghanistan in August has further galvanized and strengthened the TTP.

The Afghan Taliban has been unwilling to bow to Islamabads demand that it expel the TTP or prevent it from using Afghan territory from carrying out attacks in Pakistan.

The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan in August has also significantly reduced U.S. air strikes in the region, allowing the TTP to operate more freely, experts said.

TTP fighters have also obtained sophisticated weaponry, including U.S.-made firearms, which their Afghan allies seized from Afghanistan's defeated armed forces.
Suzanne Morphew, top, was reported missing on Mothers Day 2020. Photo evidence provided by Chaffee County, above, that shows a wound on the arm of Barry Morphew has been presented during Morphews preliminary hearing. He stands trial for the murder of his wife, Suzanne.
The Colorado Springs Fire Department responded to a "small" grass fire at a homeless encampment near The Citadel mall Sunday afternoon, firefighters tweeted.

Crews responded near the intersection of East Platte Avenue and North Chelton Road before 12:15 p.m. to a blaze that was "putting up a lot of smoke" but no injuries were reported, the agency said.

The fire was at least the second time firefighters extinguished a fire at a homeless camp this weekend. Crews were called to the Mission Trace Shopping Center off South Academy Boulevard and Jet Wing Drive early Saturday morning.

Fire danger in Colorado Springs remains elevated due to lack of moisture this winter.
Less than a week after burying her husband, Air Force Maj. Philip Ambard, in May 2011, Linda Ambard returned to her teaching job in Colorado Springs. The soft-spoken and shy mother of five was in a fog of grief, but hoped forcing herself to leave the house and go back to the school she loved would be what she needed to start inching her way through.
A citizens group filed ballot language Monday with the Colorado Springs City Clerk's Office that could ask voters in a special election to legalize recreational marijuana sales at existing medical dispensaries.

The proponents argue taxes on expanded sales could generate $10 million to $15 million annually that could be used to fund mental health services, post-traumatic stress disorder treatment programs for veterans, and public safety, a news release said. The group noted that recreational marijuana is already available in nearby communities, such as Manitou Springs, and Colorado Springs is losing tax revenue to those communities.

Opponents said expanded access could lead to an increase in property crime around shops and would not stem black market sales.

An early step in placing the question on the ballot  filing the language  triggered some drama Monday, with proponents sending out a news release saying they had been denied the opportunity to file.

City Clerk Sarah Johnson said she had no intention of blocking them from filing the language, she just wanted them to be aware that the timing of the filing could trigger a special election. If they waited two weeks, the question would go on the November ballot, she said.

"You are making that choice today," she told them in a meeting attended by several members of the press.

The timing of the election depends on how long it takes to get through the process, so the question could still make the November ballot, she said in a follow-up interview. A special election could cost $400,000 to $450,000. Participating in a November election can cost between $180,000 to $300,000 depending on the questions on the ballot and who participates, she said.

Cliff Black, an attorney and the lead elector petitioning the city, said after the meeting that the group didnt want to wait two weeks to file the question, so it would have time to work with city staff on crafting and revising the ballot language. He said he was concerned about delays in the city process.

It wasnt clear to him why the ballot language was initially denied, he said.

"I think Sarah Johnson did just want to go through the process with us to make sure we were making a clear and informed decision," he said.

Black and his fellow organizers must still go through the citys internal processes for placing a question on the ballot and collect signatures. Since the group is aiming to change the citys charter, it would need to collect about 30,000 valid signatures in 90 days, Johnson said. She suggests organizers collect about double the number of signatures needed to ensure they have enough that are valid.

The Colorado Springs City Council weighed placing a question to legalize recreational marijuana sales in 2020, but it did not gain enough support from councilmembers who had concerns it could hurt the towns chances of retaining U.S. Space Command. The question was also unpopular with the marijuana industry because it would have allowed only 24 stores to transition to recreational sales.

"Politicians have declined to provide a regulatory structure to collect precious tax revenue for our city. Today, Colorado Springs residents are taking this decision back into our own hands to finally give ourselves the choice to vote on allowing recreational sales in our community," said Karlie Van Arnam, a former Colorado Springs City Council candidate who was the general manager of Pure Medical, a medical marijuana business, when she ran last year, and a member of the petitioning group.

If the question moves forward, Mayor John Suthers said he would oppose it.

At the time the council weighed a local ballot question in 2020, past promises made by supporters of the 2012 statewide measure that legalized recreational marijuana sales in Colorado  such as reining in the black market  had not been kept, Suthers said. The city has wrestled in recent years with the high cost of enforcement, he said.

Luke Niforatos, executive vice president at Smart Approaches to Marijuana  an Alexandria, Va., based organization that advocates for a "health first" approach to marijuana that "neither legalizes, nor demonizes" it  said expanding marijuana recreational sales would contribute to property crime, particularly around the shops, increased access and exposure among children and teenagers. He noted the expansion of the industry is, to some degree, mirroring the growth of big tobacco, with release of more potent THC products.

His group sees it as a public health issue that is reversing some of the gains made in recent decades against cigarettes.

"Opting out of sales means less storefronts advertising  less availability of these products," he said.
Just after midnight on Nov. 19, 2019, a huge, banana-yellow moving truck with the company name "Denver Small Moves" emblazoned on the side circled a neighborhood bicycle shop. Surveillance video shows a man dressed in black get out of the truck and creep across the sidewalk, casing the expensive merchandise in the store windows of Base Camp Cyclery. He then jiggles a loose security fence, returns to his truck and takes a practice run before he full throttles in reverse through the fence, obliterating the storefront.

It was one of eight times Base Camp Cyclery was hit before year's end.

I was massively stressed out, owner Harley McClellan told The Gazette. I didnt want to go to sleep wondering which night the alarm would go off.

Since just before the pandemic, smash and grabbers have terrorized bike shop owners up and down the Front Range. The Colorado Attorney General's Office launched an investigation dubbed "Operation Vicious Cycle," resulting in the arrests of eight men believed tied to an organized criminal ring with links to Mexico, where bicycles stolen from Colorado are turned around and offered on Facebook at premium prices.

The AG's Office described it as ruthless organized crime. But bikes are also being stolen from individuals at an alarming rate. Bicycle theft reports in Denver are up about 50% over the past five years, with a significant surge since the beginning of the pandemic, Denver police data show. About 4,500 bikes were reported stolen in 2020, and about 3,900 in 2021, both years far outpacing the preceding years. And those numbers likely undercount the true number of stolen bikes because often people dont bother to report them.

Denver Police Sgt. George Kenny says it's best to either write down or use your phone to take photos of the bike's serial number, as well as the bike itself, so that police can track it once it's gone. Police recommend using a U-lock over a cable lock and also to secure it to the bike's frame and front wheel rather than to the back wheel.

"We see a majority of bike thefts from peoples open garages and from bikes left in alleyways," Kinney said. "They'll cut locks off of apartment storage units and take bikes."

Kinney also said bikes aren't safe on car racks, as thieves can easily cut them off.

Standing bicycle racks are common in Denver, with 600 of them scattered about downtown. Kenny says bikes are less likely to get stolen if they're secured on a rack under a street light, or near a security camera. Downtown, where young professionals often live and work, free locked indoor bike storage has become a sales angle for high rise and condo developers looking for renters.

No locale is immune to bike theft.

Two days before Christmas, someone entered Charlie Madden's Boulder garage and hauled away a Specialized Stumpjumper, an E-bike, a single speed bike, a child trailer and a baby bike seat he'd bought for his 1-year-old.

"Why they took that, I don't know," said Madden, who is not sure whether or not his garage door went down the night before.

Thanks to a concerned citizen who took the time to snap a photo when he saw a guy who he thought looked suspicious riding the Stumpjumper, Boulder police recovered it. But Madden is not counting on ever seeing his other bikes again.

"At least we have our health," the Boulder dad laughed.

Big business items

The rise in bike thefts isnt isolated to one-off crimes of opportunity. The $2,000 to $8,000 price tag on upscale bikes means big business, made evident by the multi-agency criminal sting operation led last year by Attorney General Phil Weisers office.

Operation Vicious Cycle uncovered a lucrative $1.5 million bike theft ring that was stealing mountain bikes from mom and pop stores and transporting them across the border to Mexico. An online bike tracking index believes the bikes were taken to Juarez, Mexico, where they were advertised for sale on a Facebook page called Alexanders Bikes, and sold for close to dealers price.

The investigation focused on six months of the rings criminal activity. Eight suspects were arrested. However, there's now reason to believe the ring has started up again.

The eight men were indicted last November on 227 counts for a brazen heist operation carried out in 2019 and 2020. The charges included violating Colorados Organized Crime Control Act, second degree burglary and aggregated vehicle theft. In a scene reminiscent of an action film, the indictment described an operation where thieves stole vans and moving trucks from various businesses, including a nonprofit that provides lunches for at-risk children. Then they crashed the vehicles into storefronts, smashed shop windows with landscaping rocks or used bolt-cutters to get in, then stole as many bicycles as they could, tossing them into the waiting stolen vehicle. They then drove off with the goods before police could catch up.

In the November 2019 caper at Base Camp Cyclery, the indictment describes an almost "dumb criminal" scenario where the suspects stole a van that was so big and brightly yellow that it was impossible to miss. Suspects drove the 16-foot-long vehicle from Aurora to Denver to Highlands Ranch in a bike-stealing spree that involved alluding the Greenwood Village police in a car chase. The thieves then abandoned the damaged truck on a Denver street, and a concerned citizen called it in from the company phone number painted on the side. When it was eventually recovered, two stolen bicycles were still inside.

Contacted by The Gazette, Denver Small Moves' Jay Hernandez said he was surprised that the truck even started. "It was our first truck, so it was old and we used it for storage. We were shocked. Who steals a moving van?"

The suspects made plans over Facebook Messenger, according to the indictment, including arrangements to have the pilfered bicycles transported from Denver to El Paso, Texas, in a white box truck. The driver, Luis Saenz, then drove the truck across the border to Juarez 158 times and walked across nine times in just one year, starting in August 2019, the document reported. Investigators tracked large cash withdrawals in Denver and deposits in El Paso associated with the bank account of another man who owned the box truck. Salvador Mena-Barreno told law enforcement that he made some of his fortune in the El Paso flea market business and denied that his truck ever crossed the border.

Both Mena-Barreno and Saenz are among the eight who are facing criminal charges for the bike thefts. Another, Maurice LeDay, accidentally left his cellphone near the driver door of a stolen truck. The wealth of data that detectives found in his social media accounts, plus his fingerprints, were major clues in the case.

Returning to the scene

The bike robbers seemed to gravitate toward the same shops over and over, the investigation found, once returning to an Evergreen bike store by removing plywood owners had installed over windows that were broken in an earlier theft.

Denvers Mojo Wheels at Sheridan and Dartmouth got hit, only to get hit again. According to the indictment, the first Mojo Wheels heist happened overnight on Sept. 7, 2019, when thieves broke into the Denver Public Schools' parking lot at 2320 West 4th Ave. with a plan to steal a van. After failing to start two vehicles, they were successful with a third. Once they got to Mojo Wheels, they stole six bikes worth $30,000.

Everyone thinks theyre in an action movie. They rammed in from the front, stole a bunch of new bikes and customer bikes in a smash and grab, Mojo Wheels sales manager Garret Hamilton said.

Less than a month later, the same group of criminals hit eight more bike stores along the Front Range, according to the indictment.

It was horrible, remembered Mike Bendele, a sales associate at Bike Source in Highland Ranch.

In one burglary the suspects stole $90,000 worth of bicycles in under five minutes. In all, the indictment cited 29 burglaries and multiple attempted thefts. One store was hit twice in 10 days. Littletons Giant Cyclery, which has since closed, was struck four times.

Mojo Wheels was reeling from the shock from its first smash and grab when the suspects returned three weeks later for more merchandise. We got hit a second time with a box truck. This time, they tried to crash through the back door, hit the structural I-beam and shifted it 8 inches. The whole roof was gonna fall down on us," manager Hamilton said.

Bad luck followed Mojo Wheels. Hamilton says the robberies continued when they moved to a temporary space while the old one was being repaired; and didnt stop when employees moved bikes back into the Sheridan and Dartmouth in Denver store to start over.

The good news? Mojo hasnt had a theft in over a year.

We have installed concrete pylons to the building and theres metal strapping on the inside of the windows and the bikes are locked down, Hamilton said. Honestly, at this point, were crossing our fingers.

A potential remedy?

Bryan Hance runs a free nonprofit bicycle registry out of his Seattle home. He refers to his Bike Index website as a bike thiefs worst nightmare. If a bike is stolen, the owner can report it on Bike Index and receive messages and tips through a secure messaging platform.

In early 2021, he started getting messages from eagle-eyed bike lovers who noticed that a number of stolen bicycles from Colorado were showing up on a Facebook page called Alexanders Bikes which was run out Juarez.

People said, Man, youve got to look at this guy. Hes got a lot of bikes that have Colorado indicators on them, Hance told The Gazette. It was weird to see an entire inventory tying back to a single location.

Hance saw red flags: Some of the Alexander bikes were decorated with decals and stickers from Colorado bike stores, they had scrapes and scratches in weird places as if theyd been stacked on top of one another, and many of them had no pedals. No pedals means they shipped them. And when you see a brand new bike with scuffing and scratching it means it was pulled out of a window.

As Hance investigated further, he saw that the owner of the Facebook site had region-locked his sellers page to Mexico-only, a move which he found suspicious.

The cynic in me says this guy doesnt want Americans to find their bikes, he said.

Hance gathered 150 photos from the site, and sent emails to people throughout the country he calls his ambassadors. Within the hour, he had identified 10 stolen bicycles.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel, Hance said.

Hance, who gives all of the credit for the sting to law enforcement, eventually handed his information over to a Colorado detective and waited. When Operation Vicious Cycle was announced last November, he was free to open up about what hed found.

And about what he continues to uncover.

At the time of publication Bike Index has compiled more than 1,000 individual postings and over 15,000 images from Alexanders Bikes that represent hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory. Hance found that bikes which sell for $2,000 to $8,000 in America are going for about that much in pesos.

No one has ever quantified the gray market for bikes. What this data proves is that these bikes are selling for 90% of their U.S. value, Hance said. This isnt some addict who stole a bike and used the money to get high. This is straight-up organized criminal activity.

Even though the eight men arrested in the Vicious Cycle bike sting are off the street awaiting trial, the Colorado bicycle thefts roll on.

Still disappearing

A huge fitted piece of plywood welcomes customers to eBikes USA in Cherry Creek. Grainy black and white surveillance video from last April shows what happened.

It shows a van back into the front window in a spray of glass and metal.

They hit it so hard there was glass everywhere, said co-owner Julie Moarefi. There were 3,000 square feet of glass all the way to the back of the store.

For Moarefi and her husband Houshmand, who started selling eBikes from the back of their garage, this was personal.

Moarefi says that Cherry Creek security guards happened to be nearby and took after the panicked store-crashers, who twice drove the wrong-way down a one-way street. She feels no store is safe and once you buy your bike, no lock is theft-proof.

We tell our customers a lock is a deterrent, she said. All you are doing putting a lock on your bike is trying to keep them from stealing it right away.

Since the hoopla of national attention from Colorados bike sting, Hances tipster army has grown. Hes even heard from Mexican residents who alert him to other criminal bike operations dotted across Mexico using the same style of online Facebook shop that Alexander's Bikes uses.

Hance said he alerted Facebook about the possible criminal operations happening under their noses.

Alexanders Bikes disappeared over the holidays, but Jan. 11, it was back online posting ads for bicycles.

Im throwing up my hands, Hance said. Ive done all I can do. What the hell? We really wish Facebook would have woken up and done something.

If your bike is stolen:

If you have had a bike stolen in Colorado, check The Bike Index at bikeindex.org. In Denver, bicycle owners can take note of their bike's serial number and register the bike with the city at no cost. If you're a commuter riding into Denver from another city, you can still register with Denver in case the bike is stolen there. If your bike is stolen, a Facebook page called Denver Stolen Bikes is a good place to post photos of your bicycle in hopes of finding it.
The already chippy Republican primary for the Colorado congressional seat held by U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert dialed up a few notches on Friday as the incumbent and one of her GOP challengers hurled insults over each other's tone.
Hong Kong: 2022 legal year opens

The ceremonial opening of the legal year 2022 was held at the Court of Final Appeal today.

In his opening remarks, Chief Justice Andrew Cheung noted that attempts to intimidate or exert improper pressure on judges involved in trying cases arising from the events in 2019 or national security cases are on the rise, which he said are a direct affront to the rule of law and judicial independence and certainly deserve condemnation.

What should also be stressed is that these attempts to threaten and pressurise our judges are completely futile and pointless. The work of our courts remains wholly unaffected by them and our judges continue to dispense justice as it ought to be.

Mr Cheung also emphasised that designated judges handling cases concerning offences endangering national security would not affect the impartiality of courts.

It is conducive to public confidence in our judicial system to assure the community that, from the Judiciarys perspective, there is no question of the impartiality of our courts being affected by this special arrangement under Article 44 (of the National Security Law).

The Chief Justice noted that judicial independence in Hong Kong has attracted a fair amount of attention in the past two years, both locally and overseas, and made it clear that the Judiciary always welcomes healthy attention and constructive comments on its work, but not those which are not based on facts.

When such attention and comments are not based on objective facts and rational arguments, but rather on surmises, political stances or geopolitical considerations, they are of no value to the advancement of the rule of law in Hong Kong or the upholding of judicial independence.

Also speaking at the event, Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng said the original aspiration of the Basic Law is upholding national unity and territorial integrity, and maintaining the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong.

She added that if the fundamental precondition of one country is upheld, honoured and respected, there is no reason why the two systems underpinned by the common law would not continue.

Article 5 of the Basic Law guarantees that Hong Kong shall retain the capitalist system and way of life for 50 years. It does not mean that this will cease thereafter.

Secondly, as a matter of common sense, if one country, two systems functions effectively and serves our country and Hong Kong well, there is no reason for it to change.

Importantly, President Xi Jinping and various leaders of the Central Peoples Government have repeatedly expressed unequivocal support and stern determination to implement one country, two systems.

Looking forward, Ms Cheng said implementing Article 23 of the Basic Law is the first and foremost task for the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to fulfil its constitutional duty.

The Department of Justice will provide full support and independent professional legal advice to the Security Bureau and draft the relevant laws, she added.

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
When Lyndon McLeod texted photos of a flamethrower and asked her to leave New Orleans and join him in Denver, Amanda Knight wrote haha. Days later, on Dec. 29, 2020, his texts were more insistent. Its like nobody takes one word I say seriouslywhich I suppose I deserveFor we get what we deserve in life, eh? But it is strange to be completely serious and still have people think Im joking.

Thats when Knight decided to get law enforcement involved. I told them that he was wanting to buy flamethrowers to burn buildings in Denver. You have to understand they thought I was crazy. I told them (Denver police) and Shelby County (in Memphis, Tennessee) and they were so dismissive. It was like someone calling me on their lunch break and they were annoyed, said Knight.

"I told them that I felt like he was threatening. I felt like his energy, the way he changed, his mentality. I was like, he needs some help. Hes hurting," said Knight, 41.

Knight called Shelby County in Memphis because thats where she and 47 year old McLeod were roommates for a time in 2020. Denver police have confirmed that they then reached out to her on Jan. 4, 2021; but there was no report filed despite the fact that she was the second person in a two day period to alert Denver authorities about McLeods instability.

Attempts to contact the Shelby County investigator who took Knight's call were unsuccessful. Denver police say they called her on Jan. 4 regarding the gunman, but never wrote a report.

We did not create any records as a result of that conversation, Denver Department of Public Safety Records Administrator Andrea Webber wrote The Gazette in an email.

While the review of the January 2021 DPD investigation is underway, we do not have any additional information at this time," she wrote The Gazette.

A German man concerned about McLeod's intentions, Andre Thiele, also contacted authorities. He told The Gazette that he communicated with the FBI and Denver police on Jan. 3, about McLeods questionable behavior and sent a link to a trilogy of books he wrote in 2019 and 2020 called Sanction. Thiele wrote law enforcement in one document that While the book is not political in itself, it could be read as a far-right manifesto and a terrorist prophecy.

My goal was to motivate law enforcement professionals to take a close look on what I had discovered and make an educated decision, Thiele told The Gazette over in a social media message. I knew the facts were thin and circumstantial and that my prediction at that point in time was nothing but a hunch.

He said he wrote Denver Police over email and sent a letter to the FBI through the U.S. Embassy in Frankfurt and Berlin through the German version of the CIA, called the BND Bundesnachrichtendienst. He wrote that the Denver police are the only ones who contacted him. The Denver police told The Gazette that they looked into the tip but did not find enough evidence to file criminal charges.

This past Dec. 27, Thiele and Knights greatest fears became frighteningly true. That afternoon, McLeod calmly walked up to four businesses and a residential high rise and carried off a shooting rampage which mirrored the plot of his second book in a deadly real-life attack.

In the span of one hour, he drove a black van to eight stops including three tattoo parlors and a suburban hotel, killing five people and wounding two more, including a Lakewood police officer. McLeod died of a gunshot wound on the streets of Belmar shopping center that night. Lakewood police officer Ashley Ferris was shot in the stomach and was released from the hospital Jan. 6. It is unclear whether she shot him or whether he shot himself.

In a press conference the next day, Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen told reporters that McLeod was on law enforcements radar.

There were two previous investigations into this individuals actions. Neither of those investigations resulted in state or federal charges, said Pazen.

Though little is known about the gunman's whereabouts in the final two years of his life, he lived in Denver earlier.

The 9Wants to Know investigative team and Gazette partner 9NEWS reviewed a series of police responses to McLeods address in the years leading up to the shootings.

There were 11 calls to police from his home since 2012; four calls for domestic violence, one to report a suicidal person, several to answer alarms.

More information about these calls is unclear because police did not file reports on any of their interactions with McLeod or others at that address.

Knight first met McLeod online in the summer of 2019 after she read his Sanction trilogy and they eventually became roommates when he moved into her second home in Memphis in September 2020. They became close friends over the next three months. She last saw him when she dropped him off at the airport for a flight to Denver on Dec. 15, 2020. In the following weeks, they texted on and off.

The Dec. 29 text led to a fight, which caused a rift in the relationship. It was radio silence for a year and the next thing, we are seeing this on the news, said Knight from her New Orleans home. It was awful. Who in their right mind would do something like that? And thats why I tried a year ago to get him some help because I thought Hes really gonna do this.

On Dec. 30, three days after the shooters murderous rampage, Knight got a phone call from the Lakewood police. They had found items of hers in the van, which she says belonged to the gunman's girlfriend: Antibiotics, gifts and art which he made for her.

Two hours later, at 4:53 pm, the FBI was knocking on her door. They asked if she knew the murders were going to happen. I said I told you guys! And they said, Well next time this happens call the FBI not Denver and Im likeokay I dont think theres gonna be a next time.

When asked for comment, FBI spokesperson Amy Sampson responded, "As is always the case, the FBI is not able to comment about ongoing investigations. However, the FBI continues to work very collaboratively with both Lakewood and Denver Police Departments to identify why the subject chose to commit these senseless acts of violence."

Knight has a recurring nightmare. Shes calling 911, and its busy. I push the numbers and I cant get anyone to help me. I wanted to help my friend and I wanted to help these people. I tried.
FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2020, file photo, a droplet falls from a syringe after a health care worker was injected with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a hospital in Providence, R.I. An untold number of Americans have managed to get COVID-19 booster shots even though the U.S. government hasn't approved them. They're doing so by taking advantage of the nations vaccine surplus and loose tracking of those who have been fully vaccinated.
Police are looking for a man they say robbed a Clear Lake convenience store on Sunday morning.

Clear Lake police responded to the Casey's General Store at 202 Hwy. 18 E. at 8:37 a.m. on a report of a robbery, according to a press release issued by Clear Lake police on Sunday.

There, store employees told police that an unknown man entered the business and demanded money from the clerk. The man then grabbed the cash register and fled on foot from the scene, according to the release.

No weapons were displayed and no injuries were reported. The suspect remains unidentified at this time, but investigators believe the person left the Clear Lake area and poses no immediate threat to the community, according to the release.

The incident remains under investigation. If you have any information about this case, please contact Detective Jim O'Keefe at 641-355-4405, or Crime Stoppers of North Central Iowa at 800-383-0088. You may remain anonymous.

Clear Lake officers were assisted by the Cerro Gordo County Sheriff's Office and the Iowa State Patrol.

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The conservative-dominated Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the consideration of race in college admissions, adding another blockbuster case to a term with abortion, guns, religion and COVID-19 already on the agenda.

The court said it will take up lawsuits claiming that Harvard University, a private institution, and the University of North Carolina, a state school, discriminate against Asian American applicants. A decision against the schools could mean the end of affirmative action in college admissions.

Arguments are expected to take place in the fall.

Lower courts rejected the challenges, citing more than 40 years of high court rulings that allow colleges and universities to consider race in admissions decisions. But the colleges and universities must do so in a narrowly tailored way to promote diversity.

The court's most recent pronouncement was in 2016, in a 4-3 decision upholding the admissions program at the University of Texas against a challenge brought by a white woman. But the composition of the court has changed since then, with the addition of three conservative justices who were appointed by then-President Donald Trump.

Two members of that four-justice majority are gone from the court: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, and Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018.

The three dissenters in the case, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, remain on the court. Roberts, a moderating influence on some issues, has been a steadfast vote to limit the use of race in public programs, once writing, "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."

The court already has heard arguments in cases that could expand gun rights and religious rights and also roll back abortion rights in a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973.

Last week, the justice's weighed in for the first time on President Joe Biden's vaccine policies, halting a rule requiring a vaccine or testing at large businesses while allowing a vaccine mandate for most of the nation's health care workers.

The affirmative action case probably will be argued in the spring. Both suits were filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a Virginia-based group run by Edward Blum. He has worked for years to rid college admissions of racial considerations, and the court's new lineup breathed new life into his project.

The group is calling on the court to overturn its 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan's law school admissions program.

The Biden administration had urged the justices to stay away from the issue, writing in the Harvard case that the challenges "cannot justify that extraordinary step" of overruling the 2003 decision.

The Supreme Court has weighed in on college admissions several times over more than 40 years. The current dispute harks back to its first big affirmative action case in 1978, when Justice Lewis Powell set out the rationale for taking account of race even as the court barred the use of racial quotas in admissions.

In the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Powell approvingly cited Harvard as "an illuminating example" of a college that takes "race into account in achieving the educational diversity valued by the First Amendment."

Twenty-five years later, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor likewise invoked the Harvard plan in her opinion in the Michigan law school case.

Now the Harvard program is under fire from opponents of race-based affirmative action.

Students for Fair Admissions claims that Harvard imposes a "racial penalty" on Asian American applicants by systematically scoring them lower in some categories than other applicants and awarding "massive preferences" to Black and Hispanic applicants.

Harvard flatly denies that it discriminates against Asian American applicants and says its consideration of race is limited, pointing out that lower courts agreed with the university.

In 2020, the federal appeals court in Boston ruled that Harvard looked at race in a limited way in line with Supreme Court precedents.

Harvard's freshman class is roughly one-quarter Asian American, 16% Black and 13% Hispanic, Harvard says on its website. "If Harvard were to abandon race-conscious admissions, African-American and Hispanic representation would decline by nearly half," the school told the court in urging it to stay out of the case.

The Trump administration had backed Blum's case against Harvard and filed its own lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian American and white people at Yale University. The Biden administration dropped the Yale suit.

North Carolina's flagship public university prevailed in a federal district court in October. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs ruled that the school's program was intended to produce a diverse student body and had shown the benefits of doing so.

The court accepted the North Carolina case for review even though it has not been heard by a federal appeals court. Blum filed a Supreme Court appeal with the hope that it would be bundled with the Harvard case so that the justices could rule on public and private colleges at the same time.

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Make-A-Wish Central and Western North Carolina will hold a Wine for Wishes virtual wine tasting at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 27.

Co-hosts, Forrest Doolen and Amy Alvarez from Make-A-Wish, will lead.

Participants will taste four wines, learn how to build the perfect cheeseboard for Valentines Day and shop wine accessories with Macys fashion experts.

Today, Jan. 24, is the deadline to make a reservation as the wine will be shipped to participants doors. The Tasting Line-ups are: 4-pack is $60 plus $14.95 shipping, 8-pack is $122 with free shipping and 12-pack is $156 with free shipping. The event benefits Make-A-Wish.

The nonprofit granted 11 wishes during December.

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Cornerstone Baptist Church at 5736 Inman Road in Greensboro will offer GriefShare from 9:45 a.m. to noon Wednesdays, Feb. 9-May 18.

GriefShare is for people grieving the death of a family member or friend.

The cost is $20, which includes a workbook.

The lead facilitator is Beth Coleman.

To register, call 336-665-1944. Also, visit www.griefshare.org.

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Wesley Memorial Church in High Point will offer The Talk with Ellen Martin at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 26.

The workshop will focus on empowering parents to discuss sex and human sexuality as open and ongoing conversations with their children.

It will include sessions for parents and their children together and separately. Lunch will be provided. The day ends with team building and a chapel service.

Register at www.WesleyMemorial.org/kids.

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Triad Adult & Pediatric Medicine moved their location formerly on Commerce Avenue to 606 N. Elm St. in High Point, directly across from Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Hospital. The four-story building that was previously a neurology office was completely renovated.

In this new office, patients of any age can be seen for well and sick physical exams, laboratory services, all childhood immunizations, flu and COVID-19 vaccinations, behavioral health, specialty care referrals and more. A city bus stop is at the corner of Elm Street and Westwood Avenue for patients using public transportation.

The practice is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays.

For information, call 336-884-0224.

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Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order four, at-home COVID-19 tests. The tests are completely free. Orders will usually ship in seven to 12 days.

To place an order, visit https://special.usps.com/testkits.

For information, visit www.covidtests.gov.

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A Walk for Black Wellness is set for 10-11:30 a.m. Feb. 19 at Kathleen Clay Edwards Family Branch Library, 1420 Price Park Road in Greensboro.

Black people are 2.5% more likely to die from diabetes than white people in North Carolina. Learn about health care disparities and how trail walking can benefit a persons overall wellness.

Attendees should meet the group near the entrance of the branch. Snacks and trail and safety information will be available before the walk.

To register, email Melanie.Buckingham@greensboro-nc.gov.

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A grand opening celebration of Achieving Your Wellness Nutrition & Fitness is set for noon-3 p.m. March 12 at 4015 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville.

The event will feature free product tastings, giveaways and motivation, as well as food and fun.

Visitors can learn about the programs fitness offerings and sign up for a 21-day fitness challenge with the opportunity to win money and more.

For information, call 336-422-6144.

Send press releases to people@greensboro.com.
When Wendy and Janet Norman decided to have a baby, they went sperm shopping through Xytex Corp., a sperm bank.

The couple chose Donor #9623. Xytex, the Normans later claimed, told them the man spoke multiple languages and was pursuing a doctorate.

Xytex had also assured them that it carefully screened all donors by reviewing their family health history and criminal records and that it subjected donors to intensive physical exams and interviews to verify the information.

But after Wendy Norman gave birth to a son in 2002, the couple learned their child had inherited a genetic blood disorder for which Wendy was not a carrier. He would, much later, require extended hospitalizations because of suicidal and homicidal thoughts.

Even later, they learned that the donor, James Christopher Aggeles, had lied to the sperm bank about his background and that the sperm bank had not verified the information he provided. Nor did it make him supply his medical records or sign a release that would have made it possible to obtain them.

As law professors who study reproductive technology, we see this case and others like it as showing why the government should tighten regulations over sperm and egg donation so that prospective parents and donor-conceived adults receive accurate and complete details about their donors medical, academic and criminal history.

A wrongful birth?

Aggeles wasnt pursuing an advanced degree when he began donating sperm. He didnt even have a college degree at that point. He also failed to disclose his diagnosis of schizophrenia, a severe mental health condition requiring lifelong treatment. Schizophrenia has a high level of heritability in families. He had also been arrested at the time of his donation and was later incarcerated for burglary.

When the Normans sued Xytex, a local court initially dismissed almost all claims in their case. They appealed to Georgias Supreme Court, which in 2020 allowed several of their claims to go forward.

The Normans could, for instance, seek financial compensation, partly to cover the additional expenses they might have avoided had they learned about the donors medical history sooner. The court also told the Normans they could try to recover the price difference between what they paid for the sperm they received and its market value.

Finally, the Normans were allowed to allege under the states Fair Business Practice Act that the sperm bank had misrepresented to the public the quality of its sperm and its screening process.

The Supreme Court of Georgia did not, however, permit the couple to sue over what is known as a wrongful birth claim. These claims are negligence actions brought by parents based on the birth of a child with disabilities or genetic disorders because of a providers failure to identify the risk.

The case is still pending.

Limited regulation

The Normans lawsuit is hardly unique.

Other families have sued sperm banks after having donor-conceived children who wound up with a variety of genetic disorders.

In many of those cases, the sperm banks said they routinely test sperm and exclude donors who could pass along genes that cause genetic diseases. In those instances, the families have grounds for accusing the sperm banks of fraud and negligence.

This litigation is on the rise because of the growing popularity of direct-to-consumer DNA testing, which makes it easier to identify previously anonymous sperm donors and to learn about genetic risks donor-conceived people may have inherited from them.

Its also happening because of the absence of clear rules and laws regulating sperm banks. There is little regulation of reproductive technologies of any kind, including in vitro fertilization, a procedure that fertilizes the egg with sperm in the laboratory instead of the body, at the state or federal level.

Because the government does not track artificial insemination, the number of donor-conceived people is unknown.

The federal government requires only that donated sperm and eggs be treated like other human tissue and tested for communicable diseases  infectious conditions that spread through viruses, bacteria and other means  but not genetic diseases.

There are also no federal requirements that sperm banks obtain and verify information about a donors medical history, educational background or criminal record.

The movie Delivery Man revolves around what happens when a sperm bank uses a single donors sperm to make hundreds of babies.

What is the basis for these lawsuits?

The allowable grounds for fertility negligence vary by state.

Some states let families sue clinics that fail to screen donors, even when the parents seek damages associated with the birth of the child with a dangerous genetic condition. This would essentially allow a wrongful birth claim to go forward.

But a growing number of states, at least 14 so far, prohibit such claims. That is leading many courts, like the Supreme Court of Georgia, to define the injury as distinct from the birth of the donor-conceived child.

The end of anonymity

One complication in terms of resolving these disputes is that most sperm donations are anonymous.

At odds with the donors interest in keeping his identity a secret, we argue, are donor-conceived peoples strong interests in learning about their donors, including their medical, educational and criminal history  and even identity.

DNA tests, including direct-to-consumer kits like 23andMe, are rendering donor anonymity impossible to maintain. And internet searches, as the Normans discovered, can make it possible to see whether a donor, once identified, has misrepresented their personal information.

The movie The Kids Are All Right hinged on the complications that can arise when a family gets to know a sperm donor.

States are beginning to set rules

Because Congress has taken no action regarding assisted reproductive technology since 1992, states have slowly begun to step in.

In 2011, Washington required the disclosure of donor-identifying information and medical history when a child turns 18.

On Jan. 1, 2022, Connecticut enacted the Uniform Parentage Act, which is based on model legislation drafted by a national nonpartisan commission to fill widespread legislative gaps. The measure requires that fertility clinics collect identifying information from donors and indicate whether donors have agreed to disclosure.

Another pending measure in New York would require sperm and egg donor banks to collect and verify medical, educational and criminal felony conviction history information from any donor. That legislation would also provide prospective parents who purchase eggs or sperm and donor-conceived people with the right to obtain such information without personally identifying the donor. This option could make it possible to preserve donor anonymity, at least theoretically.

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The bill was drafted at least partially in response to the experience of Laura and David Gunner, whose donor-conceived son died of an opioid overdose. After their sons death, the Gunners learned that a few years earlier, the donor himself had died and that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The donor had not disclosed his mental illness or hospitalizations for behavioral issues.

Costs are not a barrier

Its possible that measures like the one pending in New York state would make fertility treatment somewhat more expensive.

Genetic testing, however, might not add much to the cost because it would only be done once, rather than each time a patient obtains a vial of sperm. With artificial insemination, its rare for a pregnancy to occur on the first or second try.

As we learned from Tyler Sniff, an advocate for the New York bill and a director of the nonprofit U.S. Donor Conceived Council, DNA testing companies offer relatively inexpensive options that can cost less than $300.

To be sure, disclosure requirements might overpromise how much prospective parents can learn about their future children. But we are certain that these issues will become even more critical as technology continues to outpace its regulation  and as both donor-conceived adults and an increasing number of people who used sperm banks advocate for their interests.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
The N.C. Economic Investment Committee has delayed by a day  until 11 a.m. Wednesday  a meeting that could provide the final approval of a potential high-yield economic-development project at Piedmont Triad International Airport.

The Triad may learn this week whether Boom Supersonic, an aspiring Denver-based airplane manufacturer, will pledge to a $500 million capital investment at PTI that could create at least 1,750 jobs paying an average annual wage of $60,000.

The days delay in the committee meeting could be an attempt to line up the three local and state incentive public hearings.

The Guilford County Board of Commissioners are set to discuss an incentive offer to a manufacturer at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, while the Greensboro City Council will discuss its offer at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Sources told the Greensboro News & Record and the Winston-Salem Journal last week that a press conference involving Gov. Roy Cooper has been scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Greensboro airport. The sources declined to be identified.

The N.C. Commerce Department and Piedmont Triad Airport Authority have had no comment on the potential economic-development announcement. The governors office has not responded to requests for comment.

The press conference appears to involve Project Thunderbird, which surfaced out of the blue in November.

Two Triad elected or economic officials  who declined to be identified  said it was their understanding that Boom is the potential airplane manufacturer that could benefit from up to $106.5 million in infrastructure improvements at PTI.

That funding was included in House Bill 334 that Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law on Dec. 6. The committee is required to approve JDIG proposals submitted by Commerce.

Because the committee typically makes public a high-level breakdown of JDIG proposals, the governors office tends to send out a news release within an hour following a JDIG approval.

On Dec. 6, the committee approved a JDIG offer worth up to $320 million in performance-based incentives for what could be the biggest single capital investment in state history.

A few hours later, Toyota Motor North America Inc. announced at a Cooper news conference that it had chosen the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite for a $1.29 billion production plant with 1,750 employees initially when production begins in 2025.

Cooper was accompanied by Toyota officials and state legislative and local leaders. Toyota Battery Manufacturing N.C. will build lithium batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles.

Other incentive offers

The first local meeting is set for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday with the Guilford County Board of Commissioners considering incentives for a manufacturing corporation that would create 1,761 jobs and invest up to $500 million in the Greensboro area.

The performance-based Guilford incentives would be 80% of the manufacturers eligible taxes for 10 years, according to a legal notice released by the county.

Melvin Skip Alston, the boards chairman, would not confirm Friday the company is Boom, but said the project is gonna be great for Greensboro.

In December, the commissioners approved $2 million for PTI to support infrastructure costs related to economic development.

Meanwhile, the Greensboro City Council is scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. Wednesday to discuss an economic development incentive to an unnamed corporation. The meeting will be at the Melvin Municipal Office Building, 300 W. Washington St.

If the project comes to fruition, construction is projected to begin in 2022.

Boom says on its website that its Overture supersonic airplane is slated to roll out in 2025, fly in 2026 and expected to carry passengers by 2029.

PTI has a nearly 1,000-acre aerospace site available, one of four megasites being marketed by Piedmont Triad Partnership and Carolina Core.

The property, connected to the airport by a new taxiway bridge, has already received preliminary approval for development by the EPA and is ready to host a major tenant, according to the Carolina Core website.

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About a month before 18-year-old Madison Workman died of a fentanyl overdose, she told her mom, Amber DelVechio, she wanted to get into a substance use treatment program that used suboxone. This sort of program, called medication-assisted treatment, was new to the family. Workman had been in a recovery program before, but it was abstinence-only and it hadnt helped the teenager stop using drugs for very long.

Her mom was skeptical.

I felt like it was taking one drug and replacing it with something else, DelVechio remembered. Still, she told her daughter shed look into it. DelVechio began researching. She read up and spoke with her daughters counselors from the other program.

Eventually, she revised her position. This treatment sounded like a good idea.

DelVechio said, I told her, whenever youre ready, Im ready.

MAT programs use medications, such as suboxone, methadone and buprenorphine, to help the brain find a new equilibrium after its chemistry has been altered by habitual drug use. These drugs act on the same brain structures that opioids do, but they have different effects. Methadone, for example, stays in the body much longer than heroin or oxycodone, reducing cravings, without altering consciousness the way oxycodone does.

DelVechio arranged for her daughter to start a year-long MAT program in Louisiana. But Madi, as her mom called her, didnt get the chance to start. She died early in the morning on July 28, 2017, after ingesting 9.6 nanograms of cyclopropyl fentanyl, about the size of a grain of salt.

Her intake appointment for the program was scheduled for later that day.

Id forgotten all about the appointment, obviously, DelVechio said, until the clinic called to reschedule. As you can imagine, it was bad. There was, like, this dead silence on the phone.

Structural barriers to accessing MAT

Between April 2020 and April 2021, a year soaked in pandemic-related malaise, 3,332 North Carolinians died of drug overdoses, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is nearly 40% higher than the 2,422 people reported to have died from overdoses in 2020. Its also higher than the overall nationwide increase of 27%, and higher than the rate increases of overdose deaths in more than 30 other states.

North Carolinas state data shows slightly different numbers: the state reports 3,278 overdose deaths from January through October 2021, compared to 2,576 between the same period in 2020, a rise of 27%.

Regardless of which numbers are used, the rise has been steep. On the list of reasons why, those who work in the field say there are many causes.

One big reason: newer restrictions on prescription opioids meant prescribers started pulling back.

Thats when the heroin moved in, and that just raised the stakes considerably, said Jana Burson, an addiction medicine doctor in North Wilkesboro.

Beyond heroin, much  if not most  of the illicit drug supply is now tainted by fentanyl. There have been long-standing cuts to mental health services in the state, and COVID-19 has wrought havoc on nearly everyones well-being.

Some factors impacting the rising deaths run even deeper, though. Theyre structural. Limited access to MAT sits high on this list, despite robust scientific evidence supporting the treatments effectiveness.

Barriers to treatment

We have two really highly effective medications for opioid use disorder with the medications buprenorphine and methadone, said Jamie Carter, a primary care and addiction medicine doctor in Durham, at the North Carolina Institute of Medicines annual meeting at the end of October. These are medications that reduce overdose and all-cause mortality by up to 50%.

Very few patients are actually accessing these medications who have opioid use disorder. About 20% of patients, in most estimates, are getting any type of treatment, and very small numbers are actually getting effective medication treatments, Carter said.

The federal governments historic approach to MAT is largely to blame for the treatments limited uptake, providers say.

It was illegal from, what, the 1930s up until 2000 when the DATA 2000 Act passed, explained Burson. Doctors were actually forbidden to prescribe a medication to treat opioid use disorder. So, you have 70 years where it was prohibited and all of a sudden, theyre like, OK, the laws changed. Now you can prescribe buprenorphine.

It just takes time for that to change, and this nation has had such a strong abstinence-only approach. That stuff doesnt change overnight.

Carter said some North Carolina clinics erect high barriers that limit peoples access to MAT. Many programs, she said, which receive state funding through the states regional mental health management organizations (known as LME/MCOs), will discharge patients for things such as missing appointments and group therapy sessions, or continuing to use certain drugs.

Practically, what this means is that most programs are really selecting for the most stable patients and discharging or refusing or declining to treat patients who are less stable and at highest risk for overdose, Carter said. We should be spending our state opioid funding on high-quality treatment and right now were not doing that.

A reason for these strict rules, Carter said, are state Medicaid guidelines, which were updated in 2021.

Unfortunately, theyre still bad, she said.

I think one reason why providers across the state may be confused about transitioning to low-barrier care, or conflicted about it, is because theyre looking at the state Medicaid guidelines and saying, Well, this is what the state is recommending for me to do, she said.

How to motivate providers

Whether because of a general stigma against those who use drugs, or the complicated legal history surrounding MAT, theres a dearth of MAT services in many areas.

Marisa Domino, a health economist at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, works with a UNC program aimed at increasing the number of health care providers in the state offering MAT, called Project ECHO. Domino and her colleagues struggled to recruit for the program.

It was hard to get providers to commit to participating for one to two hours a week for about six months, she said. So, they decided to do what researchers do best: a study.

They wanted to figure out how they could motivate health care providers  physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners  to participate. They sent out four different versions of a letter to more than 15,000 primary care providers in North Carolina.

All the letters invited the workers to participate in Project ECHO and become MAT providers. One version explained that the providers would be reimbursed for time spent participating in the project, another included pro-social messaging that explained how the particular community the provider works in has been impacted by substance use disorder and how their training could help the community, a third letter included both messages, and the fourth, control group, letter contained neither.

Both forms of nudges, as the researchers referred to them, increased responses compared to the control group. Talk of financial incentives increased the response rate by 6%, while the pro-social messaging increased responses by 27%.

As an economist, it was very surprising to me, Domino said. Most surprising, though, was the response to both messages.

Based on other peoples research, having both of those approaches  social messages and reimbursement together  we really thought that they were going to kind of crowd each other out, Domino said. Instead, the providers who received letters including both messages responded at a rate nearly 50% higher than those who received the control letter.

We got much more of a response from providers who are in counties with proportionately higher overdose death rate, she said. If thats the marker for the unmet need in those counties, then providers in those counties are stepping up to the plate even more.

The findings show the possibility that through very little effort, the provider network for MAT could grow exponentially.

If the market isnt bringing enough providers who are willing to provide treatment, then some kind of government intervention seems in order. And so maybe its the state Medicaid agency, maybe its some other branch of the state Department of Health and Human Services, Domino said. Government is charged with trying to correct for market failures like this.

An attempt to increase access to MAT

At the beginning of the pandemic, the federal Department of Health and Human Services implemented policy changes to MAT prescribing rules. Before, people needed to go to the clinic most days to get their medication. After the change, providers were permitted to prescribe stable patients with a 28-day supply of buprenorphine, methadone or naltrexone; less stable patients could receive a two-week supply.

The point was to reduce the number of clinic visits to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2, said Nabarus Dasgupta, a physician scientist at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, at the same North Carolina Institute of Medicine meeting.

Dasgupta heard early on from colleagues in syringe service programs that while the policy sounded good on paper, it was not playing out on the ground.

They said, Lets do a study, Dasgupta recounted. The scientists randomly selected three methadone programs in central North Carolina and surveyed 104 participants about their access to medication during summer 2020.

They found that take-home doses increased substantially after the policy change, but the supply patients received varied.

In one clinic where all enrollees received a take-home, only 13% received medication for a week or longer. In another clinic, of so-called stable patients whod been receiving treatment for longer than a year, just a third of them received enough for seven days or more. Under the policy change, all of them should have received a months worth.

Despite all the efforts, whats happening on the ground is really heterogeneous, he said.

Medicaid expansion

Another complicating factor for expanding MAT access is the huge number of uninsured people in the state, upward of 13%, according to 2019 U.S. Census statistics. Elyse Powell, the state opioid coordinator at NCDHHS, argues that Medicaid expansion is the most important tool to prevent overdose deaths in North Carolina.

Just for people who overdose and show up in an emergency department, of those people, 40% have no health insurance at all, Powell said. They overdose, they come to the emergency department, (and) theyre saddled with a potentially quite large emergency department bill.

Without insurance, these people often leave the ER without being connected to services.

Access to evidence-based treatment is what works to prevent overdoses, period, Powell said. If you have health insurance, you can access basic mental health care that prevents you from going down the road of really getting into the depths of a problematic addiction in the first place.

Powell added that because North Carolina hasnt expanded Medicaid, a good chunk of federal grants received by the state go toward paying for MAT for 20,000 uninsured people each year.

The need is much, much, much larger than that, Powell said. Not having Medicaid expansion both means that we are using a huge chunk of our federal grant dollars that we could use toward other things, like funding post-overdose response teams, and more naloxone and justice-involved programs.

Carter, the Durham addiction medicine doctor, explained that this federal money for opioid treatment primarily goes to the LME/MCOs, while almost none goes to local community health clinics, also known as federally qualified health care centers, even though these clinics are a major source of care for uninsured people.

Theres just no pathway right now for that funding to go directly to FQHCs. No FQHC, or very few to my knowledge, has been successfully able to contract with their local LME/MCO, Carter said. What that means in practice is that an uninsured patient who seeks care from an LME/MCO-funded program has been able to get care for free, with no cost barrier for the appointment or for the medication, while a patient who seeks treatment at an FQHC has a sliding scale copay thats based on their income, which is often somewhat burdensome.

Would Medicaid expansion help?

This sort of block grant funding adds a complicating factor to the role Medicaid expansion might play in reducing overdose deaths, explained Domino, the health economist. Before two years ago, she said, she assumed expansion would have a huge impact on reducing overdose deaths in the state.

If patients have reimbursement or coverage for services, you would think they would demand more services and providers can get reimbursed and therefore, it increases the statistical argument for participating in treatment, Domino said. One of her doctoral students studied what was happening in expansion states.

The results were surprising.

He really didnt find much of an effect, Domino said. We thought that it was because substance use is a little bit different because there are state block grant funds that can be used to pay for substance use services.

Other studies have shown similar results. While many people experiencing substance use disorder gain insurance coverage in expansion states, they dont necessarily access more substance use treatment services.

Many working in harm reduction argue that this result demonstrates how expansion is still critical to those with substance use disorder. Even if people experiencing addiction arent getting treatment specific to their disorder, it can help improve their overall health.

In a state that doesnt have Medicaid expansion, people are suffering from lack of health care coverage, said Michelle Mathis, the executive director of the harm reduction organization Olive Branch Ministry. They cant even go to the pharmacy and buy Narcan or naloxone, the overdose reversal drugs that are in short supply recently due to manufacturing issues.

Instead, they must rely on organizations like Olive Branch for their naloxone, which often have to rely on donations or a buyers club in order to obtain the drug.

Our infrastructure for naloxone distribution in the United States is teetering on this network of sharing, said Dasgupta. This critical piece of our response to overdose deaths cant be teetering on GoFundMe pages and bake sales.

Going upstream

Access to naloxone and MAT can save lives for those experiencing substance use disorder. Still, for many in the field, the highest level goal is to help people from becoming addicted in the first place. This requires going way upstream, said Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, at the North Carolina Institute of Medicine meeting in October.

Looking upstream means looking at the role social determinants of health and adverse early childhood experiences play in the development of substance use disorder and implementing policies that help break that cycle.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org .
The sister of a man who died in police custody has sued five former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers and the city of Charlotte, saying the officers failed to get her brother medical help after watching him swallow cocaine, beg for water and tell them he couldnt breathe.

Instead, CMPD either handcuffed or shackled him, denied him water, and left him alone to die, Andrell Mackey said in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Mecklenburg County Superior Court.

Mackeys brother, 41-year-old Harold Easter, died on Jan. 26, 2020, three days after his arrest and detainment in a police station, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

The city is responsible, too, for what happened to her brother, Mackey said in the lawsuit, in part because its responsible for ensuring officers are adequately trained.Her lawsuit seeks more than $25,000 in damages, which is the minimum amount required for such civil lawsuits to be filed and considered in court.

City spokesman Cory Burkarth on Saturday declined to comment about the lawsuit.

Police chief reaction

Documents released by CMPD later in 2020 revealed the officers knew Easter put drugs in his mouth, which Easter admitted to during his arrest.

The four officers and a sergeant were cited for termination by Police Chief Johnny Jennings for not following policy of seeking medical assistance for Easter, and all five resigned from the force, the Observer reported at the time.

The resignations came just two days ahead of the release of police video footage showing Easter shackled to the floor of the CMPD interview room, alone, as he suffered heart issues and seizure.

Its difficult to watch and to know that had our officers followed our policy, that Mr. Easter may be alive today, and had offered more concern for the sanctity of Mr. Easters life, we may not be looking at such a tragic outcome, Jennings told the Observer in September 2020.

The CMPD Metro Division officers involved were Brentley Vinson, Michael Benfield, Michael Joseph and Shon Sheffield, and the sergeant was Nicolas Vincent, the Observer previously reported.

All five are listed as defendants in Mackeys lawsuit, along with the city.

The officers failed to take Easter to the hospital or give him medical aid until he had what appeared to be a seizure and lost consciousness inside a police interview room, according to police documents and Alex Heroy, the lawyer representing Easters family in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed last week.

Shackled to the floor

A review of internal police documents, released in September 2020 by CMPD, showed the officers saw residue on Easters tongue and discussed how much of the substance hed swallowed as he was being arrested during a drug investigation just outside uptown Charlotte on Jan. 23 that year.

At a police substation, Easter was strip-searched, shackled to the floor and left unattended for at least 20 minutes as he began having life-threatening health issues.Jennings, in announcing he had recommended the officers be fired, said the four officers and sergeant had intimate knowledge that Easter had swallowed cocaine during the traffic stop that led to his arrest.

The Observer had previously reported the officers and sergeant failed to follow a long-standing CMPD policy that states anyone suspected to have ingested drugs must be evaluated by Medic before being taken to jail. Also in September 2020, District Attorney Spencer Merriweather described Easters death as an abject failure on police procedures.

But Merriweather said he lacked proof that a crime occurred and the officers wouldnt be criminally charged for involuntary manslaughter.
Workers in the U.S. just suffered a gut punch.

On Jan. 13, the six conservative justices of the U.S. Supreme Court blocked implementation of an emergency temporary standard issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The standard directed that employers with 100 or more workers must require their employees to either be vaccinated or else mask and undergo weekly testing at their own expense. It was not a vaccine mandate. It encouraged vaccination but allowed other options.

Even so, six justices turned their thumbs down. Congress, they said, hadnt authorized OSHA to issue such a sweeping rule. They also argued that since COVID-19 is a public health problem and not one limited to workplaces, its not in OSHAs bailiwick.

The courts three liberal justices vehemently dissented. The Occupational Safety and Health Act, they said, expressly calls for emergency temporary standards like this one. The enormity and seriousness of the problem justified taking this big step. And nothing in the act suggests that, if a hazard presents a grave danger that extends beyond the workplace, OSHA is powerless to take action. According to OSHA estimates, the proposed rule would have saved 6,500 lives and prevented 250,000 hospitalizations over the next six months.

The court majority did leave open the possibility that a new rule, narrowly tailored to workplaces with the greatest risk of COVID-19 transmission, might survive their scrutiny. But hours after the decision was handed down, President Joe Biden signaled that its now up to individual employers and the states to protect workers against a virus that has already killed some 850,000 people in the United States.

That doesnt bode well. The law creating OSHA was passed more than 50 years ago because many employers werent doing enough to protect their workers from injury and death on the job, and because states werent stepping into that breach. So Congress provided a federal right to safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women.

The law is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives and preventing countless injuries and illnesses. And yet, in the face of the greatest occupational health challenge this nation has ever faced, six justices effectively told OSHA to back off.

COVID-19 calls for a concerted national response; tossing worker safety back to the states is anything but. Worker advocates and unions have been pushing for a federal emergency rule since the pandemic began. When the Trump administration refused to act, some states  California, New Jersey and Virginia among them  issued mandatory safety standards of their own. Others did nothing.

In fact, after the Biden administration proposed the vaccine or testing rule, it was the states  specifically 26 red states  that sued to prevent its implementation, leading to the Supreme Courts action in mid-January.

But now its back to the states to tackle COVID-19 transmission in the workplace. Some may pass new rules, perhaps including vaccine mandates. Others will do nothing or, worse, even prevent employers from requiring vaccines or testing. Businesses will be left wondering what the rules are, or will be.

OSHA was created to set a floor on workplace safety in all 50 states, and the vaccine-or-test rule was designed to save lives consistent with that mandate. Six justices devised reasons to block that effort, and now each state will either address the workplace COVID threat  or not  as it sees fit.

Thats no way to honor our workers  or the will of Congress.

Michael Felsen of Jamaica Plain, Mass., retired in 2018 after a 39-year career as an attorney with the Department of Labor, This column was produced for The Progressive magazine and distributed by Tribune News Service.
" " In 1984, some scientists predicted that an HIV/AIDS vaccine would be available within two years. It is now 37 years later and there is still no vaccine. Rapeepong Puttakumwong/Getty Images

Smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the Earth following a highly effective, worldwide vaccination campaign. Paralytic poliomyelitis is no longer a problem in the U.S. because of development and use of effective vaccines against the poliovirus. In current times, millions of lives have been saved because of rapid deployment of effective vaccines against COVID-19. And yet, it has been 37 years since HIV was discovered as the cause of AIDS, and there is no vaccine. Here I will describe the difficulties facing development of an effective vaccine against HIV/AIDS.

I am a professor of pathology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. My laboratory is credited with the discovery of the monkey virus called SIV, or simian immunodeficiency virus. SIV is the close monkey relative of the virus that causes AIDS in humans  HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus. My research has contributed importantly to the understanding of the mechanisms by which HIV causes disease and to vaccine development efforts.

Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses the difficulty of finding a vaccine for HIV/AIDS in 2017:

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HIV Vaccine Development Efforts Have Come up Short

Vaccines have unquestionably been society's most potent weapon against viral diseases of medical importance. When the new disease AIDS burst onto the scene in the early 1980s and the virus that caused it was discovered in 1983-84, it was only natural to think that the research community would be able to develop a vaccine for it.

At a now famous press conference in 1984 announcing HIV as the cause of AIDS, then U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler predicted that a vaccine would be available in two years. Well, it is now 37 years later and there is no vaccine. The rapidity of COVID-19 vaccine development and distribution puts the lack of an HIV vaccine in stark contrast. The problem is not failure of government. The problem is not lack of spending. The difficulty lies in the HIV virus itself. In particular, this includes the remarkable HIV strain diversity and the immune evasion strategies of the virus.

So far there have been five large-scale Phase 3 vaccine efficacy trials against HIV, each at a cost of over US$100 million. The first three of these failed quite convincingly; no protection against acquisition of HIV infection, no lowering of viral loads in those who did become infected. In fact, in the third of these trials, the STEP trial, there was a statistically significant higher frequency of infection in individuals who had been vaccinated.

The fourth trial, the controversial Thai RV144 trial, initially reported a marginal degree of successful protection against the acquisition of HIV infection among vaccinated individuals. However, a subsequent statistical analysis reported that there was less than a 78% chance that the protection against acquisition was real.

A fifth vaccine trial, the HVTN 702 trial, was ordered to confirm and extend the results of the RV144 trial. The HVTN702 trial was halted early because of futility. No protection against acquisition. No lowering of viral load. Ouch.

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The Complexity of HIV

What is the problem? The biological properties that HIV has evolved make development of a successful vaccine very, very difficult. What are those properties?

First and foremost is the continuous unrelenting virus replication. Once HIV gets its foot in the door, it's "gotcha." Many vaccines do not protect absolutely against the acquisition of an infection, but they are able to severely limit the replication of the virus and any illness that might result. For a vaccine to be effective against HIV, it will likely need to provide an absolute sterilizing barrier and not just limit viral replication.

HIV has evolved an ability to generate and to tolerate many mutations in its genetic information. The consequence of this is an enormous amount of variation among strains of the virus not only from one individual to another but even within a single individual.

Let's use influenza for a comparison. Everyone knows that people need to get revaccinated against influenza virus each season because of season-to-season variability in the influenza strain that is circulating. Well, the variability of HIV within a single infected individual exceeds the entire worldwide sequence variability in the influenza virus during an entire season.

What are we going to put into a vaccine to cover this extent of strain variability?

HIV has also evolved an incredible ability to shield itself from recognition by antibodies. Enveloped viruses such as coronaviruses and herpes viruses encode a structure on their surface that each virus uses to gain entry into a cell. This structure is called a "glycoprotein," meaning that it is composed of both sugars and protein. But the HIV envelope glycoprotein is extreme. It is the most heavily sugared protein of all viruses in all 22 families. More than half the weight is sugar. And the virus has figured out a way, meaning the virus has evolved by natural selection, to use these sugars as shields to protect itself from recognition by antibodies that the infected host is trying to make. The host cell adds these sugars and then views them as self.

These properties have important consequences relevant for vaccine development efforts. The antibodies that an HIV-infected person makes typically have only very weak neutralizing activity against the virus. Furthermore, these antibodies are very strain-specific; they will neutralize the strain with which the individual is infected but not the thousands and thousands of other strains circulating in the population. Researchers know how to elicit antibodies that will neutralize one strain, but not antibodies with an ability to protect against the thousands and thousands of strains circulating in the population. That's a major problem for vaccine development efforts.

HIV is continually evolving within a single infected individual to stay one step ahead of the immune responses. The host elicits a particular immune response that attacks the virus. This puts selective pressure on the virus, and through natural selection a mutated virus variant appears that is no longer recognized by the individual's immune system. The result is continuous unrelenting viral replication.

So, should we researchers give up? No, we shouldn't. One approach researchers are trying in animal models in a couple of laboratories is to use herpes viruses as vectors to deliver the AIDS virus proteins. The herpes virus family is of the "persistent" category. Once infected with a herpes virus, you are infected for life. And immune responses persist not just as memory but in a continually active fashion. Success of this approach, however, will still depend on figuring out how to elicit the breadth of immune responses that will allow coverage against the vast complexity of HIV sequences circulating in the population.

Another approach is to go after protective immunity from a different angle. Although the vast majority of HIV-infected individuals make antibodies with weak, strain-specific neutralizing activity, some rare individuals do make antibodies with potent neutralizing activity against a broad range of HIV isolates. These antibodies are rare and highly unusual, but we scientists do have them in our possession.

Also, scientists have recently figured out a way to achieve protective levels of these antibodies for life from a single administration. For life! This delivery depends on a viral vector, a vector called adeno-associated virus. When the vector is administered to muscle, muscle cells become factories that continuously produce the potent broadly neutralizing antibodies. Researchers have recently documented continuous production for six and a half years in a monkey.

We are making progress. We must not give up.

Ronald C. Desrosiers is a professor of pathology and vice-chair for research at the University of Miami. He receives funding from the National Institutes of Health.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. You can find the original article here.
Joseph Eugene Lafromboise: 1987 felony deviate sexual conduct and felony sexual assault, sentenced to 20 years in prison. Revocation of suspended sentence dropped by prosecutor in December 2021.

Arnold Galo Garay IV: 2009 felony sexual intercourse without consent, dismissed by the court. Felony assault with a weapon, amended to felony criminal endangerment. Sentenced to 10 years probation. Suspended sentenced revoked multiple times. Revocation of suspended sentence dropped by prosecutor in December 2021.

Veronica Rose Maggard: 2013 felony theft exceeding $1,500, sentenced to 10 years with five years suspended. Suspended sentence revoked multiple times including in December 2021.

Keith Michael Johnson: 2015 felony burglary, sentenced to 10 years with five years suspended. Revoked in December 2021.

John James Laverdure: 2015 felony robbery amended to felony theft, sentenced to 10 years with eight years suspended. Revoked and sentenced to eight years in prison in December 2021. 2021 felony robbery, sentenced to 10 years in prison. Felony theft charge dismissed.

Brandi Lanae Lehman Harper: 2017 felony deceptive practices (common scheme), sentenced to 10 years all suspended. Revocation dropped by prosecutor in 2020. Sentence revoked again in December 2021, sentenced to 10 years all suspended.

Shala Lynece Hood: 2019 felony custodial interference, sentenced to five years all suspended. Two counts of felony endangering the welfare of children, dismissed by the court. Suspended sentence revoked in December 2021.

Justin James Fifield: 2020 felony malicious intimidation or harassment of civil or human rights, dropped by prosecutor.

Josh Eric Morris: 2020 felony strangulation of a partner or family member, sentenced to four years all suspended. Misdemeanor partner or family member assault, dropped by prosecutor. Felony bail jumping, dropped by prosecutor.

Joseph Wayne Seymour: 2020 felony burglary amended to misdemeanor theft of property by embezzlement, sentenced to 10 years all suspended. Three counts of felony burglary, dropped by prosecutor. Suspended sentence revoked in December 2021.

Deanna Lynn Harrison: 2018 felony elder exploitation, deferred imposition of sentence.

Scott Xavier Williams: 2020 felony theft exceeding $5,000, dropped by prosecutor.

James Michael Krenzer: 2021 felony PFMA, sentenced to three years with two years and 11 months suspended. Misdemeanor unlawful restraint, dropped by prosecutor. A revocation of the suspended sentence was dropped in December 2021.

James Edward Tonkovich: 2021 two counts of felony assault with a weapon, a felony theft charge and a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge, all dropped by the prosecutor.

Max Randy Keiser: 2021 felony strangulation of a partner or family member, misdemeanor PFMA and misdemeanor obstructing an officer, all dropped by the prosecutor.

Ashton Lee Kurtz: 2021 felony sexual intercourse without consent, dropped by prosecutor.

Shannon Elizabeth Dinsdale: 2021 felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, deferred imposition of sentence. Misdemeanor DUI (first offense), sentenced to six months with one day suspended. Misdemeanor paraphernalia possession, dropped by prosecutor. Misdemeanor assault with bodily fluid, deferred imposition of sentence.

Forrest L Parry: 2021 felony criminal possession of drugs, deferred imposition of sentence. Misdemeanor paraphernalia possession, felony tampering with or fabricating evidence and misdemeanor resisting arrest, dropped by prosecutor. Misdemeanor obstructing a peace officer, sentenced to six months in jail, all suspended.

Danielle Eileen Staiger: 2020 felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, sentenced to three years all suspended. Misdemeanor paraphernalia possession, dropped by prosecutor.

James Michael Rickard: 2021 felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, sentenced to three years all suspended.

Sergio Scott-Allen Thomas: 2021 felony assault with a weapon, amended to felony criminal endangerment. Deferred imposition of sentence.

Aaron Roberts Twoteeth: 2021 felony forgery, dropped by prosecutor.

Jayce John Herron: 2021 three counts of felony assault with a weapon, felony criminal endangerment, felony robbery and felony tampering with evidence, all dropped by the prosecutor.

Zepha Laura Personette: 2021 felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, misdemeanor paraphernalia possession, misdemeanor displaying fictitious license plates and misdemeanor driving with a suspended license, all dropped by the prosecutor.

Derrik Michael Haley: 2020 felony theft, deferred imposition of sentence.

Suzanne Marie Menth: 2020 felony theft, deferred imposition of sentence.

Charles Allen Samoray: 2021 felony assault with a weapon, remanded to lower court.

James Sedrick Freiburg: 2021 felony aggravated burglary, misdemeanor criminal mischief and misdemeanor resisting arrest, dropped by prosecutor.

Hayden Michael Rushford: 2021 felony sexual intercourse without consent, dropped by the prosecutor.

Cordell David Richmond: 2021 felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs, felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor paraphernalia possession, all dropped by the prosecutor. Misdemeanor DUI, sentenced to 180 days in jail, all suspended.

Dennis Barnes McCranie: 2021 felony theft, dismissed by the court.

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As families of Afghan refugees resettle in the Queen City, Helena Public Schools is preparing to serve students who may not have much experience with the classroom environment or the English language.

The local resettlement effort is being sponsored by nonprofit organization Hands On Global and its newly formed Helena Afghan Refugee Resettlement Team (HAART). The group has brought three families with children to Helena so far, and more are likely to come in the next few weeks and months.

According to assistant superintendent of elementary education Brian Cummings, the school district has been working closely with the administrators of individual school buildings and members of the local resettlement team on how to ensure the safety, security and education of these students from Afghanistan.

For Cummings and the rest of the administration, providing a comfortable environment for refugee students and their families is job No. 1.

"With any family we meet one-on-one, if necessary, and work to make them comfortable in the setting," Cummings said. "Supporting the family with the culture of the Helena Public Schools is important to us. These kids and families have been through a lot and we always think of the social/emotional aspect of the needs of families in addition to academics. So we really have to make sure that aspect is handled first."

Cummings said the school district helps all students with the social/emotional aspect of school and will do the same for refugees adapting to a completely different culture.

"These schools are a safe place. They embrace any level of diversity that comes through these doors," Cummings said. "We want to create an education of support. Every child moves into social interactions at different rates. We are going to go out and support them at their level."

The official languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari, which is a variety of the Persian language also known as Farsi.

HPS spokeswoman Karen Ogden said all school districts in the United States are required to provide an English Learner (EL) program, and Helena Middle School teacher Larry Goyette coordinates the program for the entire school district.

Parents must fill out a Home Language Survey when they enroll their child in school, Ogden said. If the parents indicate that the child's first-learned or home language is anything other than English, an assessment is completed to determine whether the student qualifies for EL services.

"Each child is unique. We determine what needs best fit the child's English language proficiency goals and that assistance really does vary," Goyette said. "It can range from providing a translator or a tutor, to simply providing the child with extra time to read."

There are currently 26 students in the school district's EL program spanning a range of languages.

The district also employs a teacher who serves as a case manager for EL students and is required to provide a translator, tutor or other support staff as needed.

"It can look a lot of different ways," Cummings said. "But our human resources department is ready to go with contracting or hiring people as necessary."

According to the nonprofit Aschiana Foundation, which invests in the education and well-being of vulnerable children in Afghanistan, about 60% of school-age boys and less than 30% of girls attend school in Afghanistan.

Cummings said the school district has taken in students as old as teenagers who had never been in a classroom environment, and it has served students from other countries who speak no English or English as a second language.

"These kids can be on-par or above-par quickly. We have a strong instruction framework here," he said. "The foundation is to understand the culture they're coming from. The framework of this school has to understand where they're coming from. We may have to go slow due to cultural differences."

Though Cummings is the assistant superintendent for elementary education, he said the district is prepared to welcome refugee students at any grade level.

"I am excited. This is something we do well and this community does well," Cummings said. "I'm ready and these schools will be ready."

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Todays Highlight in History:

On Jan. 24, 1989, confessed serial killer Theodore Bundy was executed in Floridas electric chair.

On Jan. 24:

In 1848, James W. Marshall discovered a gold nugget at Sutters Mill in northern California, a discovery that led to the gold rush of 49.

In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco.

In 1945, Associated Press war correspondent Joseph Morton was among a group of captives executed by the Germans at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria.

In 1965, British statesman Winston Churchill died in London at age 90.

In 1978, a nuclear-powered Soviet satellite, Cosmos 954, plunged through Earths atmosphere and disintegrated, scattering radioactive debris over parts of northern Canada.

In 1984, Apple Computer began selling its first Macintosh model, which boasted a built-in 9-inch monochrome display, a clock rate of 8 megahertz and 128k of RAM.

In 1985, the space shuttle Discovery was launched from Cape Canaveral on the first secret, all-military shuttle mission.

In 1987, gunmen in Lebanon kidnapped educators Alann Steen, Jesse Turner, Robert Polhill and Mitheleshwar Singh. (All were eventually released.)

In 2003, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge was sworn as the first secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security.

In 2011, a suicide bomber attacked Moscows busiest airport, killing 37 people; Chechen separatists claimed responsibility.

In 2012, declaring the American dream under siege, President Barack Obama used his State of the Union address to deliver a populist challenge to shrink the gap between rich and poor, promising to tax the wealthy more and help jobless Americans get work and hang onto their homes. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released his 2010 tax returns, showing that his annual income topped $20 million and that he had paid about $3 million in federal income taxes.

In 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the lifting of a ban on women serving in combat.

In 2017, President Donald Trump moved swiftly to advance the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines, signing executive actions to aggressively overhaul Americas energy policy and deal a sharp blow to Barack Obamas legacy on climate change. The 89th annual Academy Awards nominations were announced; the retro musical La La Land received a record-tying 14 nods; eight went to eventual best picture winner Moonlight.

In 2020, health officials in Chicago said a woman in her 60s had become the second U.S. patient diagnosed with a new virus that had emerged in China; shed returned from that country in mid-January. Fifteen-year-old Coco Gauff upset defending champ Naomi Osaka in the third round of the Australian Open.

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New Braunfels, TX (78130)

Today

Isolated thunderstorms during the morning, then windy this afternoon with overcast skies. High around 90F. Winds SSE at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 30%. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening followed by scattered showers and thunderstorms overnight. Low 72F. Winds SSE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50%.
HIDDENITE  Yolanda Prince and Samantha Tilley, both of Hiddenite, received Artist Support Grants in December 2021. The grant opens in the fall to North Carolina artists through their area arts councils.

The program was administered by the Hiddenite Arts and Heritage Center, Burke Arts Council, Caldwell Arts Council, United Arts Council of Catawba County, Iredell Arts Council, McDowell Arts Council Association, and Rock School Arts Foundation, in partnership with the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

This program provides financial support to committed, gifted individual artists, as well as small unincorporated groups of collaborating artists residing in Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Iredell, and McDowell counties and is intended to support a broad range of talented artists in the genres of visual arts, performing arts, literary arts, music composition, choreography, and interdisciplinary arts.

Tilley works as a stained glass artist from her home studio in her spare time when shes not home schooling her sons or caring for her family. Her love of stained glass and the inspiration to become a stained glass artist came from her adoration of the beautiful windows in the church she attended as a child. Tilleys work ranges from wall hangings and church windows, to ornaments and commissioned works of art.

Tilley was a recipient of the Artist Support Grant in 2020 as well, and has used funding to upgrade her equipment and studio. Grant funds will enable Tilley to purchase equipment. The public is invited to visit her Facebook page Badger Glass, for information on purchasing stained glass or contacting the artist for commissioned work. Tilleys work is also for sale in the Hiddenite Arts and Heritage Centers gift shop. She sells her stained glass at area festivals and has been featured on the Third Floor Emerging Artist Gallery at the Lucas Mansion.

Prince is a leather artist and leather worker. Her love of the art of carving and tooling onto leather started by signing up for a belt-making class through the Hiddenite Center many years ago. The art of leather working became her passion and she creates Bible covers, journals, gun cases, gun belts with holsters, guitar straps, belts and wallets, and various other leather accessories.

She enjoys demonstrating the art of leatherwork to students at the North Carolina Heritage Fair, and selling items from her website and at festivals such as Villages of Yesteryear at the N.C. State Fair, the Hiddenite Celebration of the Arts, and the Folk Life Tent at Merlefest. The funding will provide equipment.

The public is invited to visit Princes Facebook page at Princes Custom Leather for contact information or to place an order.

To learn more about the Hiddenite Arts & Heritage Center call 828-632-6966, email info@hiddenitearts.org ,visit www.hiddenitearts.org, or visit the Centers Facebook page.
" " The earliest cities for which there exist records appeared around the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Gradually civilization spread northward and around the Fertile Crescent. The inset map shows the countries that occupy this area today. Encyclopaedia Britannica/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

When the last ice age ended nearly 12,000 years ago, the climate warmed, the seas rose and rains fell on the grassy steppes of the ancient Near East. It was here, archaeologists believe, in a semicircular region now known as the Fertile Crescent, that agriculture may have first taken hold, some of the world's first great cities were built, and humans developed some of the first clear hallmarks of "civilization," including writing, mathematics and religion.

The term "Fertile Crescent" was coined in 1914 by the American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted in his popular high-school textbook "Outlines in Human History." He used it to describe a roughly crescent-shaped region encompassing modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and parts of Turkey and Iran.

"The earliest home of men in this great arena of western Asia is a borderland between desert and mountain  a kind of cultivable fringe of the desert  a fertile crescent having the mountains on one side and the desert on the other," wrote Breasted. "This great semicircle, for lack of a name, may be called the fertile crescent."

More than 10,000 years ago, the nomadic peoples of this region harvested the wild grasses that grew in the rain-fed foothills and gathered together in small village settlements. Over millennia, they began to domesticate wheat and barley (beer was one of their first and best ideas), and to breed wild game into domesticated goats and sheep for meat, dairy and wool.

The agricultural revolution began in earnest when farmers learned how to irrigate the fertile soils of the river valleys, where mineral-rich layers of silt enabled larger and more consistent harvests, which supported larger and more permanent human settlements.

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Welcome to Uruk, the First Great City

There were very large settlements and even some proto-cities in Mesopotamia as early as 5000 B.C.E., but nothing compares to the grandeur and cultural importance of Uruk, a massive walled city in Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) that reached its height from 4100 to 3100 B.C.E.

"Uruk was huge, it was fortified, it had monumental buildings  it really eclipsed anything else in the region," says Amanda Podany, author of "The Ancient Near East: A Very Short Introduction" and a history professor at California State Polytechnic University. "I'm always hesitant about saying 'the first' of anything, but Uruk really does seem to be a remarkably large and highly innovative city for the time that it was founded."

The agricultural abundance of the region meant that people had the resources and the time to build some of the world's first monumental architecture, including huge temples on terraces. They also constructed storehouses for surplus grain and fortified walls around their cities.

" " This picture shows the archaeological site of Uruk, which was renowned for its walls that were first built 4,700 years ago by the Sumerian King Gilgamesh, hero of the epic named after him. ESSAM AL-SUDANI/AFP via Getty Images

"You don't build walls unless people are threatening you," says Daniel Snell, an expert on the ancient Near East who taught history at the University of Oklahoma. Podany wonders if one of the reasons Uruk grew so large was that people gathered there seeking refuge during a warring period.

At its height, archaeologists estimate that between 25,000 and 40,000 people lived inside Uruk's massive mud-brick walls. While many were farmers, there were also weavers, artists, priests, scribes, construction workers and brewers. Podany says that the Uruk period signaled the beginning of an urban revolution that reshaped human society worldwide.

"It was a slow revolution, but in terms of human history, it's revolutionary," says Podany, "because once people started living in cities, they never stopped."

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Writing Began as Recordkeeping

Perhaps the greatest cultural innovation to come out of the 1,000-year Uruk period was writing. Some of the earliest cuneiform tablets have been recovered from Uruk, where historians believe that ancient scribes used the wedge-shaped script to keep track of grain harvests, domestic animals and other commodities, which were collected and redistributed to the population and to the gods.

"These are cultures that had an impressive ability to memorize lots of stuff, but there was a limit to that," says Snell. "A colleague of mine says that cuneiform was like an ancient zip drive. When they needed more memory, they had to figure out a way to store it."

Podany says that the people who first invented writing wouldn't have thought they were inventing writing, at least not writing in the way that we think of it. All they wanted at first was a system for keeping track of commodities and numbers, not to convey complex ideas or poetry.

Over time, though, the flexibility of that original cuneiform script was adopted by different ancient cultures and languages (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, etc.) and was employed for increasingly complex forms of expression, including ancient literature ("The Epic of Gilgamesh") and law (Hammurabi's Code).

" " This cuneiform tablet, an administrative account of barley distribution found in Mesopotamia, was probably from Uruk, circa 31002900 B.C.E. Of the many legacies left by the ancient civilizations of southern Mesopotamia, the invention of writing was one of the most important. Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

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The Wheel Also Got Rolling Here

If writing wasn't enough, there's also evidence that the wheel was invented around the Uruk period. Interestingly, the very first wheels weren't used for transportation, but for making pottery.

"The pottery from the Uruk period is the first to be thrown on a horizontal wheel," says Podany, which means that they were able to mass produce pottery in a way that wasn't possible before."

Historians don't know when, but at some point around the Uruk period someone got the bright idea to turn the horizontal potter's wheel on its edge and pair it with a cart, enabling the long-distance transport of commodities and people over land. Since those ancient wheels were made of wood, none of the early specimens survive, but Podany says that tiny wheeled carts made of clay  toys, perhaps?  have been recovered from Uruk and other sites in Mesopotamia.

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60 Seconds in a Minute? Thank the Sumerians

More than 5,000 years later, we tell time using a number system invented by the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia. Today we use a "base 10" (decimal) system for most of our calculations, but the Sumerians relied on two other systems: "base 12" (duodecimal) and "base 60" (sexigesimal).

The number 12 makes sense, since the Sumerians were the first to figure out that there are 12 lunar cycles in a year and to divide the day and night into 12 periods (a precursor of the 24-hour day). Historians like Podany believe that 60 was such an important number to the Sumerians because it could be easily divided into so many whole numbers.

For example, if a mina (about a pound) of grain was worth 60 shekels in ancient Mesopotamia, then it was simple to come up with prices for half a mina (30 shekels), a third (20 shekels), a quarter (15 shekels), a fifth (12 shekels), a sixth (10 shekels) and a tenth (6 shekels).

The use of base 60 was passed down over the millennia from the Sumerians to the Babylonians to the Greeks to medieval Islamic scholars and finally to Europe, where the first clocks with second hands weren't invented until the 16th century.

Now That's Cool Ancient Mesopotamians used cylinder seals to impress elaborate designs into clay. The unique impressions functioned simultaneously as seals for doorways and containers, signatures and proofs of ownership.
Ms. Goodman is a graduate student at Concordia University and an HNN intern.

Michael J. Klarman, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of History at the University of Virginia, recently won the 2005 Bancroft Prize for From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality. This book primarily examines the relationship between the Supreme Court and race relations in the United States. Klarman focuses on race related legal decisions that occurred between 1896, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in Plessy vs. Ferguson in favor of the separate but equal doctrine, and 1954, when the Court overturned Plessy in thevs. the Board of Education decision .

HNN asked Mr. Klarman to discuss his book and the award. The interview was conducted by email.

You write in your preface that "I signed a contract to write this book in the spring of 1998, but in some sense I have been working on it since the first semester that I taught constitutional law at the University of Virginia School of Lawthe spring of 1988." What made you decide after a decade of scholarship on race in legal history that prompted you to write a full length book on the topic?

I started thinking about writing a book around the time my 1994 Journal of American History article on Brown 's backlash was published. My interest in race intersected with my interest in the Supreme Court, how it functions, the relationship between the Court and public opinion, and the often complicated and unpredictable consequences of Court decisions. Having figured out (at least provisionally) what I thought had happened in Brown and how it had affected the larger world of race relations, it was natural to work backwards toward Plessy v. Ferguson, which seems a natural bookend to Brown . But a lot of the project really emerged out of one of the classes I began teaching around 1991--a course on Constitutional History from Reconstruction to Brown . Many of the ideas from that course ultimately found their way into the book.

Besides the fact that Brown vs. Board of Education is considered the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century, what led you to develop such an interest in the journey for civil rights?

My interest in (some would say, fixation upon) Brown comes from being a Constitutional Law professor. Anyone who teaches Constitutional Law ultimately has to make peace with Brown v. Board, which is one of the most famous and important cases in the Court's history. To me, making peace with Brown involves two separate issues. First, there is the normative question--why is Brown right, which everyone today assumes it was, even though many of the justices in 1954 had significant doubts about whether striking down school segregation was constitutionally justified. Second, how important was Brown --to the civil rights movement, to our conception of the Court, to the justices' own conception of their role in American society? Those were the questions I started with.

Do you feel that your clerkship for Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affected your career and the way you look at constitutional law?

I don't think that clerking for Justice Ginsburg affected my perspective on Constitutional Law, though I have great admiration and affection for her. It is true that we both share some doubts--perhaps unusual among political liberals--as to whether wide-ranging judicial review is a good thing. For example, Ginsburg has expressed the view that the Court may have gotten involved too quickly and too aggressively in the abortion controversy in Roe v. Wade in 1973, thereby possibly inhibiting the cause in the long term. I share the view that Court decisions can produce political backlashes when they get too far in advance of political opinion. Brown had such an effect on southern politics, though I also believe that the violent backlash produced by Brown ultimately generated a counterbacklash when northern audiences watched peaceful black demonstrators being beaten by law enforcement officers on television. I think today we're seeing such a political backlash against the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in November 2003 that protected same-sex marriage under the state constitution. I believe that ruling produced an enormous political backlash in the 2004 elections, including the adoption in thirteen states of constitutional prohibitions on same-sex marriage, a decisive impact on a couple of U.S. Senate races, and possibly on the presidential race in Ohio.

Who were your mentors? Did they have any impact on your writing of your book or your teaching, and if so how?

The best teacher I ever had was a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania named Mark Blitz, who today teaches at Claremont McKenna in L.A. He was a truly inspirational teacher, and I think my interest in teaching was born in the classes I took with him as an undergraduate. There were people at Stanford Law School whom I modeled myself upon as a teacher--Tom Jackson, Barbara Babcock, Mark Kelman, Bill Cohen. But my scholarship is very different from what most Constitutional Law professors do; I'm much more interested in situating constitutional change in a social and political context than I am in legal doctrine or its intellectual history. So I don't think I've consciously modeled my scholarship on that of any law professor. There are many historians whose work I hugely admire: Eric Foner, Ed Ayers, David Potter, Stanley Elkins & Eric McKitrick. But because I'm mainly interested in historical questions that intersect with Constitutional Law, it's the scope and ambition of their work that inspires me more than their methodologies. In legal academia the people whom I have tried hardest to emulate, especially in their commitment to scholarship, are probably Bill Stuntz--a long-time colleague and now probably the nation's leading criminal procedure expert--and Mike Seidman, one of the most interesting and creative constitutional theorists around.

Did teaching your courses on Constitutional History influence the way you chose to approach the subject matter of this book?

Yes, absolutely. People sometimes talk of the synergy between teaching and scholarship, and I consider myself very fortunate to have found that to be the truth. A lot of the topics I've written about--both in law review articles and in my book--emerged from my Constitutional History courses. If you looked at the syllabus for my course on Constitutional History from Reconstruction to Brown and compared it to the table of contents of my From Jim Crow to Civil Rights, you'd see a striking resemblance. Indeed, it's sad to say that publishing the book has risked ruining that course for me because I no longer have much to say to students in class that they haven't already read in the book.

How did you research From Jim Crow to Civil Rights? Why did you rely so heavily on secondary sources in writing the book?

The book relies on a mix of primary and secondary research. Each chapter covers a different era, and in each I begin with a sketch of what race relations looked like at the time, in order to then situate the Court's decisions within that context. Because the history of race has attracted so much scholarship and because I was trying to paint a broad picture of the racial context of each era, I relied heavily on secondary literature for that part of each chapter. But the other portions of the chapters tend to rely more on primary sources.

My main primary sources were the courts cases themselves--Supreme Court and lower court--the justices' private papers, the NAACP papers (which are a gold mine of information for someone trying to assess the consequences of Supreme Court decisions involving race issues), and the Southern School News, which is a phenomenal resource for anyone interested in developments in southern education, desegregation, and southern politics from 1954 through the late 1960s.

What made you decide to write From Jim Crow to Civil Rights as "more as political and social history than as intellectual history of legal doctrine"?

There are, roughly speaking, two sorts of legal historians--those who tend to see legal change as a product of external political and economic pressures and those who take a more internalist approach, seeking to understand judicial decisions in terms of the factors that judges invoke in their opinions--the text of legal materials, judicial precedents, legal principles, etc.

My own view is that judicial decision making in the Constitutional Law area is heavily influenced by the judges' own values, and those values are partly a reflection of the broader context of the times. For example, on most important issues of Constitutional Law these days--abortion, affirmative action, school prayer, gay rights, campaign finance reform--the justices tend to divide 5-4 or 6-3, and along predictable political lines. To me, this suggests that the judges' personal values have a great deal to do with their decision making. But, having said that, the Court rarely gets significantly out of step with public opinion. For example, the Court never protected women under the Equal Protection Clause until after the women's movement, and it never protected gays until after the gay rights movement. Brown was rendered possible only by dramatic changes in racial attitudes and practices flowing out of World War II. Thus, if one wants to understand why the Court by a 7-1 vote upheld racial segregation in 1896 but then unanimously invalidated it in 1954, I think one needs to understand what was happening in the broader world of race--political, economic, social, ideological, demographic changes--because the relevant legal materials guiding constitutional interpretation didn't change in significant ways during the interim.

What do you feel was the overiding purpose of the book? How do you feel the book will impact the historiography of race relations, civil rights and constitutional history?

The purpose of the book is to use the race context to show how judges decide cases and to assess the consequences of those decisions. One of my main targets is the myth that the Court has played an heroic role in protecting the rights of racial minorities. I don't think the justices have either the inclination or the capacity to contravene dominant public opinion in the way that would be necessary to protect a truly oppressed group. When blacks were most oppressed, the Court did not intervene in any significant way to alleviate that oppression. The Court only began to protect the rights of African Americans after they had begun to exercise some political, economic and social power.

I'm also very interested in the consequences of Court decisions. Many of the Court's early race rulings were circumvented without great difficulty by white southerners. For example, the Court said as early as 1880 that it violated the Constitution to exclude blacks from juries because of their race, yet almost no blacks served on juries in the South until the 1960s. The Court declared in 1917 that it violated the Constitution to segregate the races in neighborhoods by law, but segregated housing patterns became more prevalent after the ruling.

I'm trying to convince lawyers that the Supreme Court may be somewhat less important than they think. There are still lots of people in the legal academy--fewer I believe in history departments--who think Brown v. Board created the civil rights movement. The justices themselves knew better. They were all struck by how dramatically racial attitudes and practices were changing after World War II.

This is not to say that Brown wasn't important--I think that it was--but it didn't create a movement for racial reform because one was already well under way.

As to the impact on the historiography, I'd like to convince legal historians that it's worth looking at other constitutional developments in a similar framework. Most large scale shifts in constitutional law over time, it seems to me, are ripe for explaining in terms of political and social history. For example, changes in Establishment Clause doctrine, which have been enormous in the last half-century, almost surely are best explained in terms of growing religious pluralism, shifting political alliances among religious groups, and so forth. Constitutional lawyers get fixated on the doctrine, but the doctrine isn't autonomous. It's responsive to shifting cultural attitudes about Catholicism, to the appropriate role of religion in public life, to concerns about domestic subversion and the importance of religion in the battle against communism, to the increasing political role played by Christian evangelicals in the last quarter century, etc.

Why in your opinion when lynchings of African Americans were at an all time high did the justices wait until the interwar period to intervene "against the worst abuses of Jim Crow"?

The cases the justices saw where the abuses were greatest tended to be criminal prosecutions of African Americans by southern states in circumstances that precluded fair trials. Scottsboro is a good example--8 death sentences for 9 African Americans charged with rape in mob-dominated trials with a defense lawyer appointed the morning of trial. My guess is that the Court didn't see such cases in earlier decades because such defendants would simply have been lynched. So, somewhat ironically, the Court intervened against a racial injustice only as the situation in the South improved somewhat. But this wasn't an isolated instance of the Court intervening only after conditions had been somewhat ameliorated. The Court in Sweatt in 1950 ordered the admission of a black man to a white law school on the ground that a separate black school established overnight couldn't possibly be equal. Ironically, before the 1920s southern states had provided nothing at all for blacks seeking professional and graduate education without prompting even a lawsuit challenging that obvious inequality. It turns out that it's possible to be so oppressed that litigation can't do much to help. A group needs to have access to lawyers, some financial resources, some security from physical violence for legal rights to matter.

How much do you believe post World War II Supreme Court decisions had to do with "the Cold War imperative for racial change" as opposed to national sentiment which seems to be emphasized throughout your book?

It's always hard to know for sure which of the broader forces for racial change were most important. So many different forces were at work in the post-World War II period--black migration to northern cities leading to greater black political power; the democratic ideology of the war; the greater militancy shown by blacks as a result of the war, growing levels of black and white education, the increasing urbanization and industrialization of the South. I think the so-called Cold War imperative for racial change was another important factor. The Justice Department's brief urging the Court to strike down school segregation in Brown put that Cold War imperative front and center. And justices such as Minton and Burton, who easily voted to invalidate school segregation despite conservative voting patterns on many civil liberties issues, may well have been influenced by the Cold War imperative. So I think that factor mattered, but it's impossible to know whether it mattered more or less than any of the other factors that were conducive to progressive racial change at this point in time.

You claim that "Only the violence that resulted from Brown 's radicalization of southern politics enabled transformative racial change to occur as rapidly as it did." Does this not undermine the direct importance of the decision rendered in Brownvs. the Board of Education had for the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation?

I think Brown mattered in a variety of ways: it gave much greater salience to the school segregation issue; it gave blacks reason to be hopeful about the future; it motivated blacks in the South to litigate against school segregation; and it mobilized southern whites to resist progressive racial change. I think that most whites outside of the South agreed with Brown in the abstract from the very beginning. What changed between the mid 1950s and the early 1960s was their willingness to actually do something to implement that abstract commitment. It seems pretty clear that what finally motivated northerners to demand civil rights legislation was the violence used to suppress civil rights demonstrations at places like Birmingham and Selma.

What I've tried to do in the last chapter of my book is to show a direct connection between Brown , the radicalization of southern politics, and the resort to such violence. I don't think this minimizes the importance of Brown . It simply shows that the consequences of Court decisions are often complicated and unpredictable. And I don't buy the argument that Brown mattered greatly in educating white Americans to condemn racial segregation. There is ample evidence that Americans don't take moral instruction very well from the Supreme Court. For example, consider the popular reactions to Court decisions threatening to invalidate the death penalty or condemning school prayer (or, even more pertinently today, the reaction to the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in November 2003 protecting a right to same-sex marriage). There's little reason to believe those rulings educated many people to agree with the Court. I don't see much evidence that Brown was any different in this regard.

In your conclusion you write, "The antimajoritarianism of the Senate raises the interesting possibility that the Court's race decisions from the 1920s onward may have reflected national opinion better than did Congress's (in)action." Why do you believe that the Senate was more antimajoritarian than both the Supreme Court and the House, when especially in the latter part of this time period approximately half the coutry supported desegregation?

The House passed antilynching legislation in the 1920s and 1930s and opinion polls demonstrate that a majority of the public supported such legislation. The House passed anti-poll tax laws every two years in the 1940s, and opinion polls showed about 70 percent of the public supported such legislation. The Senate refused to pass either sort of civil rights legislation. The Supreme Court in 1944 invalidated the white primary at pretty much the same time that the Senate was blocking passage of the anti-poll tax law. I think that's pretty good evidence that the Court actually was more reflective of popular majorities than was the Senate. The same is true in the 1950s when opinion polls show that half the country supported Brown, yet Congress wouldn't have dreamed of passing civil rights legislation requiring school desegregation.

From your book it becomes clear that you believe that the justices' views coincide with the changing views of the country. Do feel that the "social and political contexts of the times" that had affected the Supreme Court's decision regarding Brown vs. Board of Education also affected its ruling in Roe vs. Wade? In your opinion, was the climate in the country right for this decision, especially since the country still remains divided in half on abortion?

Yes, I think my basic claims about the Court's role in the race relations context are applicable in other areas as well. You mention abortion. I don't think it's any accident that the Court decided Roe v. Wade in the wake of the women's movement rather than in anticipation of it. The justices wouldn't have dreamed of invalidating restrictions on abortion ten years earlier, when even the ACLU was not challenging them. The Court just doesn't play this vanguard role. It speaks volumes that by the time the Court decided Roe, half the country agreed with that decision, much as I argue was the case with Brown. There are a few occasions when the Court intervenes against majority opinion, as with school prayer, flag burning, and certain criminal procedure rulings. But even on those occasions, the Court usually has a good 30-40 percent of the country on its side.

The difference between Roe and Brown is that public opinion on the former really didn't shift much after the Court's ruling whereas with Brown, the country in the next couple of decades fell in line behind the Court. I think that pretty much explains why Brown is widely celebrated as a noble, visionary decision and Roe is still intensely controversial. Sometimes the justices do a better job of predicting the future than at other times.

Do you believe that the Supreme Court should have heard the Schiavo case? In general should the Supreme Court get involved in the right to life issue?

I don't think there was any federal issue in the Schiavo case. More generally, the justices have been reluctant to get involved in the issue of assisted suicide because of their perception that in Roe they got involved too quickly, with the result that for the next 30 years they were the targets of extraordinary animosity from religious conservatives. In 1997 the Court was asked to declare a constitutional right to physician-assisted suicide, at a time when only one state--Oregon--had recognized such a right through the political system. It was clear from the oral argument in that case that the justices were determined not to repeat their "mistake" in Roe by preempting a popular debate on the issue.

Did you ever imagine the reception your book would have when you initially signed your book deal?

No, I was trying to write a book that would interest law professors, lawyers, and historians interested in legal issues. When I started the book, I had not thought of Brown 's 50th anniversary in 2004. Someone pointed out to me in early 2001 that this was an anniversary I should work hard to hit. Brown 's anniversary attracted extraordinary attention, not just in law schools but in the popular media. It was because of that anniversary that my book got reviewed in places like the New Republic and the New Yorker, that I was invited to contribute an essay to the Nation and an oped piece to the New York Times, and that I appeared on National Public Radio on the date of the Brown anniversary. I don't think the book would have gotten nearly that much attention in the media had it not been for the Brown anniversary. And when I started the book I wasn'tthinking about such things at all.

Has winning the Bancroft Prize changed your life and how do you feel it will change your career?

I don't know if winning the Bancroft has changed my life. I've tried to leverage the award into greater respect at home, but my wife and kids just aren't that impressed. It's a huge honor professionally, especially for a law professor. As far as I can tell, only one other law professor has ever won the award--Morty Horwitz at Harvard. It's so hard appealing to such disparate audiences--law professors and historians. They are interested in different issues, employ different methodologies, and have very different expectations about scholarship. Winning the Bancroft tells me that I was more successful in bridging the divide between academic disciplines than I could reasonably have hoped. This is a huge source of satisfaction to me.

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Mr. Shenkman is the editor of HNN.

Remember Watergate?

That was the scandal which brought Richard Nixon down after it was disclosed that he or his minions, among other things: spied on Edward Kennedy, played a dirty trick on Edmund Muskie, broke into the Democrat's national headquarters, planned to break into McGovern headquarters, compiled an enemies list, ordered the IRS to audit political opponents, arranged for illegal wiretaps, faked diplomatic cables to implicate John Kennedy in the assassination of South Vietnam's Ngo Dinh Diem, offered clemency to keep some witnesses quiet, paid other witnesses hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep them quiet, destroyed evidence, plotted the fire bombing of the Brookings Institution, and schemed to kidnap leading student radicals so they wouldn't disrupt the Republican National Convention in 1972.

That, anyway, is Watergate as most Americans-and historians-remember it. That is not, however, how many right-wingers do.

In what seems like a surreal continuation of the original Nixon cover-up, intellectuals on the right have been arguing in a shelf-full of recently published books that Watergate was really little more than the third-rate burglary Press Secretary Ron Ziegler initially said it was. Whatever oath-breaking offenses Nixon may have committed-and some right-wingers aren't willing to concede he committed any-they argue vehemently that his crimes were relatively minor.

In their Rip Van Winkle history-written as if the writers went to sleep before any of the charges against Nixon were proven true-Nixon has become the aggrieved apostle of right-wing resentments, the good president driven out of office by bad liberals before he could complete his conservative reforms of the federal government. Conservatives, to be sure, still haven't forgiven the SALT-treaty-signing, Mao-meeting, Taiwan-selling out president known for detente. But in the interest of undermining Bill Clinton they have begun advancing a revisionist account of Watergate to try to demonstrate that Monicagate (as they frequently refer to the Clinton scandal) was, by comparison, far far worse.

Shockingly, bad as their tendentious history is, it's finding a large and appreciative audience.

Nearly twenty-five years after Woodward and Bernstein's All the President's Men became a New York Times Best Seller, Ann Coulter hit the list last fall with High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.

Coulter, one of the articulate young conservative lawyers who can be seen regularly on the television talk-show circuit, provides the most egregiously apologetic account of the Nixon presidency since Victor Lasky's It Didn't Start with Watergate.

I could summarize her views, but perhaps it is best to let her speak for herself. Readers might think I was making this all up:

"Invoking a single, somewhat legitimate privilege once, telling one lie to the public, allowing one part of an investigation to be delayed for two weeks-this was how Nixon engaged in 'conduct that might adversely affect the system of government' and committed 'offenses that subverted the system of government.'"

Yes, that is what Ann Coulter believes led to the second impeachment inquiry in our history and the first forced resignation of a president.

Let us deconstruct:

"Invoking a single, somewhat legitimate privilege once." Coulter argues that unlike Bill Clinton, who invoked numerous privileges to conceal his offenses, Nixon cited just one, executive privilege, to conceal his. This much is true (though it hardly seems exculpatory). But she goes on to insist that Nixon's use of executive privilege was limited to a single occasion, which is laughable. Nixon repeatedly and ostentatiously used executive privilege to prevent the Watergate tapes from being heard, first by challenging Archibald Cox's subpoena for 9 tapes, then Leon Jaworski's subpoena for 64 tapes, then the House Judiciary Committee's subpoena for 147 more.

Her belief that Nixon's invocation of the privilege was"somewhat legitimate" is patently specious. While the Supreme Court upheld the existence of executive privilege, as she rightly points out, the Court unanimously ruled that it could not be used to conceal criminal behavior, which was precisely what Nixon was using it for.

Apparently recognizing the weakness of her argument, she goes on to make the additional claim that Nixon"somewhat legitimately" could argue that he had a national security basis for withholding the tapes because their release could lead to the exposure of the activities of the Plumbers, the group established to plug government leaks following the publication of the Pentagon Papers. This hardly strengthens her case. If all the Plumbers had done was to point out the source of the leaks, then she might be right. But that wasn't the case. Their job was to go after the leakers, using means both legal and illegal to do so. The Plumber's illegal activities, including the infamous break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, were patently offensive regardless of the motivation.

"Telling one lie to the public." Coulter maintains that Nixon's only lie was to tell the American people that a White House investigation had found that no one in the White House was involved in Watergate. Huh? This is one of the great howlers of our time. Nixon, of course, lied repeatedly. He resigned from office when supporters in the Senate grew tired of his lies. As Senator Barry Goldwater said,"We can be lied to only so many times."

"Allowing one part of an investigation to be delayed for two weeks." Once again Coulter has part of the story right. Two weeks after telling Pat Gray, the acting head of the FBI, not to follow the money found on the Watergate burglars because that would expose a secret CIA operation in Mexico, he seemingly reversed course, telling Gray to conduct a full and aggressive probe. But Nixon wasn't through covering-up. He simply had concluded he couldn't use the CIA excuse to sabotage the investigation, the CIA having refused to be drawn into the affair. Anyway, subsequently Gray himself took an active role in the cover-up, personally burning some of the most embarrassing documents found in E. Howard Hunt's White House safe. (A grateful Nixon then nominated Gray to be permanent head of the agency.)

One comes to understand why Coulter wants to minimize Nixon's crimes. It is not to right a great wrong. In fact her aim is to prove to the reader that Nixon should have been impeached. As she reasons, his removal for the lesser crimes of Watergate amply proves (in her view) that Clinton should be impeached for his supposedly far worse crimes. (She believes Clinton guilty of numerous felonies, stemming from his involvement in Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate, though we now know that even Kenneth Starr decided no case could be made against Clinton in connection with these matters.)

Coulter is, in fact, a brilliant debater. Anyone ignorant of the facts of Watergate might be persuaded by her arguments, which she, for the most part, craftily couches in lawerly phrases, bolstering the appearance of credibility. To those familiar with the record, however, her account is ludicrous. She even claims that Nixon never succeeded in politicizing the IRS. The facts? At his direction the agency set up a new bureaucracy, the Special Services Staff, to open investigations into the tax records of thousands of Americans whose only crime was that they disapproved of the administration of Richard Milhous Nixon.

Bad as Coulter's history is, Paul Johnson's is even worse. In his recent best seller, A History of the American People, Johnson recycles the tired, two wrongs make a right, claim that Nixon was no more guilty of an impeachable crime than FDR, JFK or LBJ, each of whom also authorized illegal wiretaps and bugs. This is the same argument Nixon apologists made twenty-five years ago; it is no more convincing today than it was then. But by selectively focusing on wiretaps and bugs Johnson is able to avoid the inconvenience of confronting the long list of Nixon's other offenses.

Johnson apparently has never met a felonious Republican he didn't immediately embrace. In an earlier book, his best selling Modern Times, he even defended Spiro Agnew's acceptance of cash bribes while vice president. LBJ, Johnson insisted, did the same. I can remember at the time this book came out being shocked by his account and so turned to the endnotes to discover his source. It was Robert Caro, the celebrated LBJ biographer. I then checked Caro. Caro never says a word about LBJ receiving bribes while vice president.

Paul Johnson is now known to be careless with facts. His History of the American People, according to the New York Times, is replete with errors. In an interview for the paper's magazine Johnson acknowledged the errors and said he'd correct them as soon as his critics pointed them out. He left the writer of the piece under the impression that it was the critics' responsibility, not his, to vet the book.

His most serious factual mistake in the Watergate chapter is the statement that Nixon did not know in advance about the plan to break into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. This was indeed what Nixon claimed, with John Ehrlichman as a supporting witness. But we now know that Egil Krogh, who was in charge of the Plumbers, told John Dean that the break-in was Nixon's idea. (Krogh subsequently pleaded guilty to violating the psychiatrist's civil rights; he admitted to Leon Jaworski that the operation was not undertaken to protect national security, as was claimed when the break-in first became known.) Nixon himself always worried that one of the Watergate tapes would confirm that he had prior knowledge of the break-in. In his memoirs he wrote,"I do not believe I was told about the break-in." With Nixon, a half-hearted claim of innocence was almost always compelling evidence of guilt.

Johnson does not believe that Nixon should have been impeached and admits to this day that he and other Europeans (Johnson himself is British) never understood what the fuss was about. His explanation is that Nixon was simply the victim of an old fashioned American witch hunt led by a publicity-seeking judge, John Sirica, and a wise-cracking operator, Sam Ervin. So much for the heroes of Watergate.

Bill Bennett, the former Secretary of Education, whose brother defended Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, readily admits in his new book, The Death of Outrage, that Nixon was guilty of impeachable crimes in Watergate. (Bennett formerly was a Democrat; this perhaps explains his willingness to face the past more straightforwardly than his new Republican friends. He, unlike they, wasn't compelled to defend Nixon during Watergate.)

But Bennett too distorts history. At the end of his book he includes a list of the similar arguments used by Nixon and Clinton to show (he thinks) how similar their scandals are. It is an old rhetorical trick and some readers may find it suggestive. After all there is an eerie similarity to Nixon's use of executive privilege and Clinton's. Both, for instance, abused the privilege to cover up their offenses. But the implication that the two scandals were similar is startlingly anti-historical. While the cover-ups struck similar notes (as might be expected), the underlying offenses that prompted the presidents to resort to cover-ups were decidedly different. Nixon was covering up abuses of power, Clinton, adolescent sex.

And then there is Robert Bork's account, to be found in his recent screed, Slouching Towards Gomorrah. I was anxious to see how Bork treated Watergate for he actually played a bit part in it during the infamous Saturday Night Massacre. When Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus refused Nixon's demand to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, Bork, then solicitor general, agreed to do the dirty deed.

Perhaps because he was there Bork, in the few places where he mentions Watergate, declines to mythologize it. But like his fellow conservatives he simply can't help feeling that the affair was overblown. In a blast at the National History Standards, he cited as evidence of bias the recommendation that"Fifth graders receive [in Bork's phrasing] a thorough indoctrination in Watergate."

And what exactly does he mean by bias? Bork tells us it is the belief that America is ... bad. In other words, teaching students about a president who was forced out of office for committing impeachable crimes is evidence that the country is bad. Most people take the opposite view: that Watergate showed the system worked.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., the publisher of the American Spectator (the magazine which published the first reference to Paula Jones) and Gary Aldrich, the former FBI agent who claimed that Clinton used cocaine, do not directly concern themselves with Watergate in two of their recent books. But Tyrrell in the Boy Clinton and Aldrich in Unlimited Access cannot resist bringing it up. Both score well-placed blows. Tyrrell, with some justice, says that Clinton is a better liar than Nixon ever was. (True.) Aldrich, with equal justice, notes the irony that Hillary Rodham worked on the same Judiciary Committee to impeach Nixon that is now considering impeaching her husband. (True, too.)

Fair enough. But in their eagerness to defame Bill Clinton, a task Bill Clinton himself has made astonishingly easy, they mistakenly reduce Watergate to a handy debater's point.

The misuse of history is an old story. Movie makers, politicians, patriotic societies-all from time to time have been caught falsifying history in an attempt to advance their own agendas. Rarely, however, have the falsifiers been as brazen as the latest crop. They act as if no one has access to the facts when the facts are easily available to anyone with a library card or a computer mouse.

This is an odd time for these misguided accounts to be circulating. For we have recently had evidence that Nixon was even more of a scoundrel than we thought he was. Thanks to historian Stanley Kutler, who painstakingly went through hundreds of hours of Watergate tapes, we now know that Nixon set a minimum price of $250,000 on the sale of ambassadorships, personally thanked a businessman for raising hundreds of thousands of dollars from supporters of the right-wing junta that took over Greece (money which went to pay off the Watergate burglars), and once began a meeting by saying,"Well, what dirty things should I know about today?"

This is the real Richard Nixon. It is worth remembering that. Whatever may be said in his favor he deserved what happened to him. As he told David Frost, he gave his enemies a sword and they drove it in.

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Mr. Lichtman is a professor of history at American University and the author of The Keys to the White House (1996).

This article was published by TomPaine.com in 1999.

Forget the polls and the pundits. Political conditions now favor the victory of Vice President Al Gore over Texas Governor George W. Bush or any other Republican nominee for president in 2000. However, Democrats could still forfeit the election by worrying about meaningless polls and waging the kind of bloody nomination struggle that invariably has foretold defeat for Democrats seeking to retain the White House.

That is the verdict of the Keys to the White House, a prediction system based on a study of every U.S. presidential election since 1860. The choice of a president, history shows, does not turn on debates, advertising, speeches, endorsements, rallies, platforms, promises, or anything that is said or done during a campaign. Rather, presidential elections are referenda on the performance of the party holding the White House.

The Keys predicted well ahead of time the winners of every presidential election from 1984 through 1996. They called Vice President George Bush's victory in the spring of 1988 when he trailed Mike Dukakis by about the same margin that Gore now lags behind the younger Bush. The Vice President defied the polls in 1988, not because he suddenly discovered negative ads, but because voters ratified the performance of the Reagan administration.

Next year, the Democratic candidate for president will win or lose on the record of the Clinton administration. No party has ever retained the White House by running away from its incumbent president.

The Keys predict election results by assessing the performance and strength of the party holding the White House. There are thirteen of them. They take into account all the factors that decide elections from the obvious (how the economy is doing) to the more subtle (whether the party in power has achieved major policy change). If eight or more of the keys favor the candidate of the incumbent party, he wins. Any fewer, he loses. Currently, these seven keys favor the Democratic party.

Victories in U.S. House elections of 1996 and 1998 secures the party mandate key.

Unless an unexpectedly strong insurgent candidate emerges -- who does not represent a split in the GOP -- the incumbent Democrats will hold the third-party key.

Unless the robust economy collapses, Democrats will win the long-term key (growth during the term matches growth during the past two terms) and the election-year economy key.

In the absence of sustained, violent upheavals like those of the 1960s, the incumbent party retains the social unrest key.

The war in Yugoslavia averts loss of the foreign/military failure key.

Despite leading the Republican field, George W. Bush doesn't match the charisma of Theodore Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan, keeping Democrats from losing the challenger charisma/hero key.

They lose the incumbent candidate key, with President Clinton ineligible to run again.

The stalemate between Clinton and the Republican Congress topples the policy-change key, which the incumbents win only through historic changes like the New Deal or the Reagan Revolution.

The Lewinsky fiasco costs Democrats the scandal key.

Despite escaping humiliation in Yugoslavia, the administration still lacks the grand triumph needed to earn the foreign/military success key.

Neither Al Gore nor former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley has the magic to win the incumbent charisma/hero key.

The following five keys fall against the Democrats:Thus, the outcome of election 2000 turns on the thirteenth key. This is the still undecided incumbent party contest key, which falls unless the nominee of the incumbent party controls at least two-thirds of Convention delegates. Since 1860, this key has been the best single predictor of victory or defeat for incumbent Democratic administrations.

In seven of eight elections in which incumbent Democrats won the contest key, they kept control of the White House. The only exception came in 1888 when President Grover Cleveland captured the popular vote, but lost in the Electoral College.

By contrast, all six times that the incumbent Democrats lost this key, they lost the White House as well. In 1860, pro-slavery southern states bolted the party and Democrats held two conventions before nominating Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, who lost to Abraham Lincoln.

In 1896, Nebraska Congressman William Jennings Bryan won a fifth ballot nomination after his stirring"Cross of Gold" Convention speech. But he couldn't overcome the burden of the"Democratic depression" of the 1890s and lost to William McKinley.

In 1920, after Woodrow Wilson's two terms, Democrats nominated Ohio Governor James Cox after forty-four ballots. Cox lost to Warren Harding in the worst beating ever suffered by an incumbent party candidate. In 1952, party pros rejected the rank-and-file favorite, Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, and gave a third-ballot nomination to Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, who lost to war hero Dwight Eisenhower.

In 1968, the Vietnam War and the assassination of Robert Kennedy splintered the Democratic party. Vice President Hubert Humphrey, nominated in the divisive Chicago Convention, lost a close contest to Richard Nixon. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter withstood a challenge from his left by Senator Edward Kennedy, but lost badly to conservative Republican Ronald Reagan.

Barring surprises such as an economic collapse on the negative side or major policy change on the positive side, Democrats will win in 2000 if and only if they unite around a single presidential candidate. Otherwise, Republicans will win the presidency, likely retain both houses of Congress, and make several Supreme Court appointments, thereby controlling all branches of national government for the first time since the 1920s.






Mr. Greenstein is a professor of politics at Princeton.

Dwight David Eisenhower is the least well understood of the modern presidents: enormously popular with the American public from his time as supreme allied commander in Europe during World War II through his death in 1969, but long held by analysts of American politics to have been a non-performing president.



A poll of specialists on the presidency conducted the year after Eisenhower stepped down relegated him to the rank of nineteenth-century nonentities like Chester Arthur. Within two decades, however, a transformation of Eisenhower's reputation had begun in the scholarly literature. As the inner records of his presidency came into the public domain, an Eisenhower emerged who was far removed from the image he cast as figurehead president -- giving the lie to the 1950s joke that it would be terrible if Eisenhower died and Vice President Nixon became president, but infinitely worse if Sherman Adams (Ike's stony-faced chief of staff) died and Eisenhower became president.



How interesting to discover, in the declassified record, that Eisenhower really was president -- a skilled political operator with an interesting and complex personality who engaged in the kinds of politicking that many believed he left to subordinates. But he politicked in a nonstandard manner, with an indirect approach that preserved his popularity by leaving it to his subordinates to carry out his administration's most controversial policies.



LEADERSHIP STYLE



Eisenhower's oblique style would be hard for modern presidents to emulate. Behind-the-scenes leadership works better for a deeply trusted national figure who earned the nation's confidence in a non-political role than for a leader whose public support depends on day-to-day results. It does not serve less conservative presidents with more ambitious domestic aims. It also is less likely to succeed in the goldfish bowl of contemporary Washington. Still, Eisenhower's practice of down-playing the divisive side of presidential leadership and accentuating the president's ecumenical responsibilities can be politically rewarding even today, if appropriately adapted.



ORGANIZATION OF THE PRESIDENCY



No other chief executive entered the White House with the organizational experience of the commander of the Normandy invasion, and none has put comparable effort into making his White House work: For example, Eisenhower's process for national security policy planning. Eisenhower initiated a procedure in which the top planners of each of the agencies represented in the National Security Council met regularly to flush out policy disagreements, which were spelled out in option papers, sometimes in parallel columns, and debated and resolved at the NSC's weekly meetings. Eisenhower himself made decisions in the presence of small groups of aides in the Oval Office, not in NSC meetings.



PUBLIC COMMUNICATION



When it comes to use of the bully pulpit, Eisenhower is a negative role model. His pre-existing public support made it unnecessary for him to sell himself, his hidden-hand leadership style reduced his interest in public persuasion, and, to top it off, he was an earnest, but uninspiring, speaker. Eisenhower's shortcomings as a public communicator proved costly in the tempest of allegations that his administration had allowed a"missile gap" to develop favoring the Soviet Union. Eisenhower's lack of success in refuting that charge brought Kennedy into the White House pledging to remedy a non-existent deficiency and pressing on with a massive increase in the nation's nuclear arsenal.



POLICY VISION



Unlike the many leaders primarily concerned with maneuver, Eisenhower was most attentive to policy. As a veteran strategist, Eisenhower's response to an emerging problem was to reach for a governing principle. Of the eleven presidents from FDR to Clinton, only Nixon compares to Eisenhower in the extent to which his leadership was informed by explicitly defined policies. By the end of his first year as president, Eisenhower and his national security team had framed what came to be known as the"New Look" -- a national security strategy that relied on deterrence rather than conventional forces to hold the line against international communism while maintaining a thriving economy.



Eisenhower's preoccupation with policy was strikingly displayed in the internal debate over whether to employ American military power in Indochina in the 1954 Dien Bien Phu crisis. At the first NSC meeting after it became known that the French forces at that garrison had been besieged by the Vietnamese communists, Eisenhower opened the discussion with an incisive act of policy analysis:"This war in Indochina would absorb our troops by the divisions!" In the months that followed, he drew on the rationale of the New Look to insist that it would be foolish to squander the nation's resources on a peripheral conflict, when its real adversaries were China and the Soviet Union, a rationale clearly not followed by his immediate successors.



INTELLECTUAL QUALITIES



Eisenhower also had formidable intellectual strengths. He had a gift for lucid written expression markedly at variance with the famously jumbled syntax of his press conferences, a capacity to cut to the core of problems, and an ability to arrive at persuasive assessments of complicated problems. Eisenhower was less articulate than a number of his aides, but in the end he was the one who resolved contentious issues, not just because he was president but also because his aides respected him for his sound judgment.



EMOTIONAL QUALITIES



Eisenhower had a temper that could burst forth like a summer thunderstorm, but that subsided just as rapidly. He also had a quality that has come to be called"emotional intelligence," the ability to turn one's feelings to constructive purposes and prevent them from impeding the performance of one's responsibilities. In this strength he contrasts with such emotionally flawed presidents as Richard Nixon, whose suspicion and anger led him to take actions that doomed his presidency, and, of course, Bill Clinton, with his famous lack of self-control.



Eisenhower's capacity for dispassionate leadership derived in part from his sound emotional makeup, but it also was a result of his pre-presidential experience. Having made his mark before becoming president, Eisenhower had no need to prove himself in the White House -- an equanimity illustrated in a memory recalled by his brother Milton, who was president of Penn State University during the first term of the Eisenhower presidency. In 1955, Ike was the Penn State commencement speaker. To Milton's distress, storm clouds began to brew on the morning of the outdoor ceremony. When Milton asked his brother for advice, Ike's reply was,"Milton, I haven't worried about the weather since June 6, 1944."



Courtesey of TomPaine.com
Mr. Troy is Professor of History, McGill University, and the author of the new book, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980s. He is a member of HNN's advisory board.

Pop quiz: can anyone remember any particular phrase, proposal or idea linked to President George W. Bushs first inaugural? Political junkies may speculate that he called for compassionate conservatism, but most would be remembering the 2000 campaign rather than the 2001 inauguration. Probably the 2001 inauguration was most memorable for proceeding so smoothly; perhaps the defining image showed the Clintons, Gores, Cheneys and Bushes amiably but cautiously navigating the rain-slick Capitol steps, united by an all-American commitment to the rule of law, and an all-too-human fear of slipping on national television.

Had President Bushs first term unfolded as he expected, his inaugural calls for civility, decency and, yes, compassion  he used the word not the phrase -- might have resonated. Of course, the horrors of September 11 and the unexpected war on terrorism upstaged the inaugural address, along with the rest of the first eight months of Bushs presidency.

This lesson is worth remembering amid the orgy of post-inaugural analysis. Watching the parade of prognosticators handicapping the presidents speech, weighing its historical significance, trying to predict the historical future, few will be willing to admit that it takes years to appreciate an inaugural addresss true significance. Sometimes, that meaning changes. Four years from now, if Iraq is democratic and stable, Bushs celebration of freedom will provide the historical peg on which to hang a celebration of his era; if, however, Iraq is a catastrophe, Bushs words may come back to haunt him.

Still, Bushs second inaugural made three things clear. He dismisses the now infamous values-motivated 22 percent of voters who fed media buzz that the 2004 election was about red versus blue America. To Bush the realities of September 12 remain: its the war on terror, stupid. But Bush cleverly refuses to let his mission be defined in the negative  echoing phrases from the pantheon of liberal Democrats, George W. Bush gave a FDR-Four-Freedoms, JFK-Pay-Any-Price-Bear-Any-Burden, expansive, interventionist embrace of freedom worldwide. Finally, like his model  Ronald Reagan (not his father)  Bush knows that every successful presidency is rooted in a narrative. Reagans story went from the chaos of the 60s and the despair of the 70s to Morning in America; Bushs narrative began with the fight against Communism, continued with the defeat of Communism, noted what he called the sabbatical or years of repose during the Clinton years, and now, post-9/11 has become yet another glorious all-American fight for freedom.

Of course, what he says in the Farewell Address he expects to give in 2009 will demonstrate whether he still feels comfortable being judged by the standards he so clearly set out on Thursday.

One of the most famous phrases uttered at an inauguration may have been misunderstood. In 1801, as the United States experienced its first successful transition from a governing party  the Federalists  to an opposition party the Republicans, the victor Thomas Jefferson said: We are all Republicans  we are all Federalists. These eight words became an iconic phrase in American history  signifying reconciliation after the bitter partisanship that helped Thomas Jefferson unseat his old friend John Adams. But Joseph Ellis argues in American Sphinx that in the text, Jefferson did not capitalize republicans or federalists. Thus Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists chose to hear a Jeffersonian concession emphasizing amity despite the partisanship, rather than a platitudinous acknowledgment of Americans common faith in a republican form of government and federal power-sharing with and among the states.

Ronald Reagans two inaugurations also proved to be historically malleable. In 1981 Reagan ambled into office amid a grand display of inaugural opulence. Not since the Kennedy debut twenty years before had an inauguration made such a cultural stir. The presidents thousand-dollar morning suit, the First Ladys $10,000 gown, the $16 million-dollar inaugural price tag, the fleet of private planes and corporate jets landing at National  now Reagan -- Airport, the squadrons of limousines on the ground, the decision to mount the inauguration facing West not East, all reflected Reagans determination to break with the past.

Reagans own conservative movement harbored an ascetic streak that recoiled at such excess. When youve got to pay $2,000 for a limo for four days, $7 to park and $2.50 to check your coat at a time when most people in the country cant hack it, thats ostentation, the conservative stalwart, Senator Barry Goldwater, grumbled. Radical Democrats such as Congressman Ronald Dellums agreed, blasting the incongruity between President Reagans apparent call for sacrifice and the wall-to-wall furs and limos.

Eschewing the Carter eras cardigans and jeans, the Reagans championed a new designer ethos  and were cheered. Americans wanted a return to glamour, as evidenced by Dynastys premiere the week before the Reagans. Yet many establishment Democrats indulged the new president. Lyndon Johnsons aide Horace Busby acknowledged that Reagan had a mandate to bring a class show and suggested that critics were hitting the wrong button to suggest that the U.S.A. is a dried-up, resentful little country.

In fact, Reagans first inauguration helped solidify Reagans claim that he won a mandate from the American people to repudiate the Great Society. Analyzing the election suggests it was an ABC election: Anybody But Jimmy Carter, the embattled incumbent. The inauguration marked the climax of a successful 10 week campaign to transform ambiguous electoral results into authorization for action. The boost Reagan received from the inaugural, and the delight even some Democrats took in his exuberance, drowned out the critics. Four years later, Reagans second inaugural was less controversial  but in the long run less memorable, as the second term became defined by external events such as the Iran-contra scandal and the warming of relations with Mikhail Gorbachevs Soviet Union.

It is possible that the presidencies of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan have followed contrasting trajectories. Reagans relatively clear first-term mandate, be it conjured or real, degenerated into a mushier second-term muddle, partially due to Reagans own all-too-sugary Morning in America re-election campaign, and partially due to the unanticipated foreign shocks. Bush seems to have gone from muddle to mandate, from an ABC  Anybody But Clinton -- contested victory in 2000, to a clearer triumph in 2004, and a clearer focus after 9/11. Of course, this formulation while elegant, might be way off - history cautions us that it is just too early to tell.
Key cryptocurrencies are bleeding from losses of more than 20 per cent in a week, as the market adjusts to news that Russia is pursuing a ban on the trade and mining of cryptocurrencies.

The value of one Bitcoin dropped from $US43,293.80 to just $US33,629.50  a 22 per cent decline  in less than five days after the Central Bank of Russia proposed a broad ban on cryptocurrencies, which it said resembles a pyramid scheme built on energy-hungry crypto mining practices.

The volatility of cryptocurrencies poses risks that are much higher for emerging markets, including Russia, the bank warned, recommending that financial institutions be blocked from using cryptocurrencies for any transactions and advised that the exchange of crypto for fiat currencies be banned.

Individuals would not be banned from owning cryptocurrency, according to reports that noted Russians currently trade around $7b ($US5 billion) on the digital assets.

However, crypto exchanges would be prevented from operating within the country, and the Central Bank of Russia would engage with regulators in other countries to monitor the crypto transactions of Russian citizens.

Monitoring of cryptocurrency has become an increasingly common goal for governments as they seek to take away the anonymity that has allowed cryptocurrency to become the de facto currency of the cybercriminal underground.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO), for one, has been using data matching to trace crypto transactions since 2019.

Whatever its promise in hindering criminals, the proposed ban drew condemnation from Russian tech giants like Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who noted that no developed country bans cryptocurrencies and that such a ban will inevitably slow down the development of blockchain technologies in general.

These technologies raise the efficiency and safety of many human activities, he continued, noting that Russia is one of the leaders in terms of the number of highly qualified specialists in the blockchain industry and warning that a ban will lead to an outflow of IT specialists from the country and destroy a number of sectors of the high-tech economy.

Such a ban is unlikely to stop unscrupulous players, but it will put an end to legal Russian projects in this area.

Cracking down on instability

Crypto investors initially saw the ban as a non-event, insisting the market would absorb the news without issue  yet the rapid decline in Bitcoin, an industry bellwether, suggests that the proposed ban has indeed rattled many cryptocurrency investors.

Russia joins a small group of countries that have moved to clamp down on, or outright ban, cryptocurrencies  including Egypt, Iraq, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Bangladesh, and China  which, in September, dropped the hammer on the industry by declaring crypto trading as illegal financial activities.

Some 42 other countries have clamped down on banks trading in cryptocurrencies, with some doing so for practical reasons: Irans recent shutdown of crypto mining until 6 March, for example, was linked to the need to reduce the risk of blackouts during that countrys cold winter.

Yet for all the grandstanding against cryptocurrency mining, there are indications that miners have become good at adapting to change: after Chinas cryptocurrency ban, for example, neighbouring Thailand saw a boom in crypto mining.

Other countries  Australia included  are increasing their official scrutiny of cryptocurrency transactions and their role in the overall financial system.

In December, treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced that the government would be undertaking legislative reform around cryptocurrencies during 2022, with consultation due to be finalised by mid-year.

The governments announcement came just weeks after the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced it would partner with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini to allow CBA customers to buy and sell cryptocurrency assets through its online banking app.

The emergence and growing demand for digital currencies creates both challenges and opportunities for the financial services sector, said CBA CEO Matt Comyn, highlighting the need for capability, security and confidence in a crypto trading platform.
The mission of the Mattoon Chamber of Commerce is to serve our members, promote an environment where businesses can grow and prosper and enhance the quality of life in the Mattoon area. One of the biggest challenges all our local businesses are facing right now is underemployment. We simply have too many open positions in all sectors of the economy.

The traditional fields that are typically shorthanded, including retail, restaurants, manufacturing, industry and service companies, now have to compete with shortages from the full spectrum of businesses. Even local professional accounting and law firms are struggling with finding accountants and lawyers to fill open positions.

A significant example is the current teacher crisis. The Regional Office of Education 11 recently shared some startling statistics. In Illinois, there are over 2,000 teacher positions that are either unfilled or filled with under qualified individuals. Ninety-six percent of Illinois schools are reporting a substitute teacher shortage. Further, over 400 schools had to cancel classes because they simply lack the necessary number of teachers.

Local businesses that typically pay minimum wage have to dramatically increase hourly wages to hire new associates. This has a ripple effect where the employers have to increase the wages of their current employees to retain them and keep pace.

The local manufacturers have been steadily increasing their starting wage just to get applicants for their open positions. Many are offering $20 or more per hour with full benefits starting day one. At $20 per hour this equates to over $40,000 per year which is a decent starting salary based on the local cost of living.

Many municipalities and economic development organizations are creating "out of the box" programs to try to entice people to relocate to their cities and help fill the plethora of open positions. Some larger cities are offering incentives that equal up to $10,000 that they offer to families that are willing to move to their cities, purchase a home and obtain gainful employment for at least a year.

The Chamber is working with city leaders, local business professionals and the Mattoon in Motion Work Force committee to pick the best of the enticements that are being offered by other cities and offer a package to potential employees as well.

Another key component of the plans to help fill local positions is to leverage our local resources to keep people who are already here in Coles County such as Eastern Illinois University, Lake Land College and even local high schools students who will be starting their careers after graduating. These students already have a connection to our community and the plan is to encourage them to plant their roots and build their careers in our area.

Ed Dowd is the executive director of the Mattoon Chamber of Commerce.

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A major economic development announcement is planned for Wednesday afternoon at Piedmont Triad International Airport thats most likely Boom Supersonic committing to establishing an aircraft manufacturing plant on the campus.

Company and local economic development entities, along with state and local elected officials, will attend the 2 p.m. event, according to a notice sent Monday by the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce.

Two Triad elected or economic officials  who declined to be identified  said recently it was their understanding that Denver-based Boom Supersonic is the potential airplane manufacturer that could benefit from up to $106.5 million in infrastructure improvements at PTI.

In return, Boom is expected to pledge to a $500 million capital investment at PTI that could create at least 1,750 jobs paying an average annual wage of $60,000.

The chambers announcement appears to be the final sign that Boom is coming to PTI.

Preceding the announcement are separate incentive hearings set for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday by Guilford County Board of Commissioners and 10 a.m. Wednesday by Greensboro City Council.

The legal notices for each incentive meeting describes capital investment and job-creation requirements very similar to the states Job Development Investment Grant package.

The states Economic Investment Committee will meet at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The committee is required to give final approval to the largest N.C. Commerce Department incentive packages.

If the project comes to fruition, construction is projected to begin in 2022.

Boom says on its website that its Overture supersonic airplane is slated to roll out in 2025, fly in 2026 and expected to carry passengers by 2029.

PTI has a nearly 1,000-acre aerospace site available, one of four megasites being marketed by Piedmont Triad Partnership and Carolina Core.

The property, connected to the airport by a new taxiway bridge, has already received preliminary approval for development by the EPA and is ready to host a major tenant, according to the Carolina Core website.

Guilford commissioners are considering incentives for a manufacturing corporation that would create 1,761 jobs and invest up to $500 million in the Greensboro area.

The performance-based Guilford incentives would be 80% of the manufacturers eligible taxes for 10 years, according to a legal notice released by the county.

Melvin Skip Alston, the boards chairman, would not confirm Friday the company is Boom, but said the project is gonna be great for Greensboro.

In December, the commissioners approved $2 million for PTI to support infrastructure costs related to economic development.

The Greensboro Council released Monday the details of an incentive proposal it will consider at its special meeting.

Although the resolution doesnt name Boom, the companys description also matches reports of Booms investment.

The incentive is for the amount of $1,500 per job for at least 1,761 jobs and a projected investment of $500 million at PTI by Dec. 31, 2030.

The resolution says the company would not locate in the Greensboro area without the incentive.

The incentive resolution to be voted on requires the jobs to pay at least $15 an hour with an average annual wage of $69,000.

According to the resolution, the incentive would be paid in five annual installments of no more than $1 million each.

Background

The press conference appears to involve Project Thunderbird, which surfaced out of the blue in November.

The $106,5 million in funding for a potential high-yield economic-development project was included in House Bill 334 that Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law on Dec. 6. The committee is required to approve JDIG proposals submitted by Commerce.

Rep. Donny Lambeth, R-Forsyth, said Nov. 29 on the House floor that the Project Thunderbird inclusion in HB334 is something we all should be proud of. It is a very exciting project and should give a real boost to that area for the manufacturing sites that weve lost.

Lambeth has said the potential airport project will be a game changer for this area and PTI. He said Friday he did not have an update on the project.

Rep. Jon Hardister, R-Guilford, and House majority whip, has said the PTI project would be transformative in the sense that it would bring many high paying jobs to our region.

I would submit that success brings more success. As advance manufacturing continues to flourish in our region, you are going to see other companies invest in our area. You are probably going to see ancillary companies locate here.

On Dec. 6, the Economic Investment Committee approved a JDIG offer worth up to $320 million in performance-based incentives for what could be the biggest single capital investment in state history.

A few hours later, Toyota Motor North America Inc. announced at a Cooper news conference that it had chosen the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite for a $1.29 billion production plant with 1,750 employees initially when production begins in 2025.

Cooper was accompanied by Toyota officials and state legislative and local leaders. Toyota Battery Manufacturing N.C. will build lithium batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles.

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COVID-19 has claimed the lives of an additional eight Forsyth residents, while new cases remain at near record levels across the county.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services reported Monday there were 2,848 new cases reported in Forsyth between Friday and Monday afternoon.

Since the pandemic began, Forsyth has had 81,738 cases and 668 related deaths.

Local and state health officials caution that the current rate of COVID-19 related deaths could continue through at least early February.

The vast majority of people hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, state Health Secretary Kody Kinsley has said.

Meanwhile, North Carolina reported 34,803 new cases Saturday, 24,172 Sunday and 18,452 Monday.

The record-high statewide count stands at 35,759 cases, reported Jan. 14

North Carolina has recorded 2.29 million cases and 20,289 COVID-related deaths since the pandemic began. The statewide death toll was up 96 since Friday.

Forsyths positive test rate over the past 14 days was at 38% as of 12:45 p.m. Monday, while the statewide rate was 37.8%.

With Fridays report, Forsyth is averaging 259.1 cases per 100,000 people over the most recent two-week period. Thats up from 67.6 cases per 100,000 as recently as Dec. 31.

Statewide, 4,896 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized as of Monday, the highest the number has been since the pandemic began and up 29 since Friday.

Hospitals in the 17-county Triad region reported a combined 1,108 COVID-19 patients as of Monday, down 25 from the previous report.

Of the latest totals, 490 patients are on ventilators, including 111 in the Triad region.

There were 98 children hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide, including 22 in the Triad region.

The chief executives of Baptist, Cone Health and Novant are asking people to follow vaccination and testing recommendations and urging the public not to seek COVID-19 testing in emergency departments.

Novants latest public appeal includes ads, including in the Winston-Salem Journal, that read We are not telling ... we are not asking ... we are begging  get vaccinated. Do your part. So we can do ours.

Unvaccinated impact

As of Jan. 15, DHHS reports that more than 76% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in North Carolina are unvaccinated. Among ICU patients, more than 86% are unvaccinated.

While we will continue to pull every lever we can to safeguard hospital care, each North Carolinian can do their part by staying up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccinations and wearing a well-fitting mask when around other people as we weather this surge, Kinsley said.

Both Forsyth health director Swift and Dr. David Priest, an infectious diseases expert with Novant Health Inc., have said the number of COVID-19 cases likely is underreported.

Most at-home test results arent reported to county health officials, and some infected individuals have mild cases and dont seek care, they say.

Priest said that if someone tests positive with an at-home testing kit, they should stay at home for at least five days even if they begin to feel better. If their symptoms worsen during that period, they should seek another test and medical care.

If you have symptoms of COVID, you likely have COVID given the high level of positivity right now, Priest said.

Booster data

About 49% of adult North Carolinians have received a booster shot, or 2.88 million, as of 12:45 p.m. Monday.

That includes 65% of North Carolinians ages 65 and older.

In Forsyth, 103,494 residents have gotten a booster shot, or 45% of the 228,883 considered fully vaccinated.

Fully vaccinated continues to be defined as vaccinated with two doses of Moderna or Pfizer vaccine or one dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Under that definition, 70% of North Carolinas adults are considered fully vaccinated.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is discussing whether to amended the definition of fully vaccinated to require at least three doses of vaccine.

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GREENSBORO  The number of families remaining at the former Jamison Mobile Home Park after several deadlines to move is down to nine, but theyve secured an important extension for getting out: two weeks after the end of the current school year.

The developer heard what the children in those families had to say about wanting to finish the school year there, said Marc Isaacson, an attorney representing the company Owls Roost Properties, which is under contract with the sellers to buy the 3-acre location in the shadow of UNCG and plans to build multi-family housing units there.

We want to cooperate as much as reasonably possible, said Isaacson, who has also had talks with Mayor Nancy Vaughan and the citys neighborhood development Director Michelle Kennedy.

Still, the issue of whats next is being figured out.

Vaughan and Kennedy have also been meeting with the families and Siembra NC advocacy staff every other week to work on it. Walker Sanders, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, which has focused on housing issues in the community, confirms the agency is working with potential donors to help with the situation and looking to bring in others who might be interested.

Tenants were outraged to get letters in July from Family Properties notifying them that the land they rented underneath the mostly privately-owned mobile homes had been sold and that they would have roughly two months to leave before the water was turned off. It was less than what was legally required, and the seller later amended the date. North Carolina statutes require that tenants of mobile home parks which are being repurposed have at least six months to vacate the premises.

The property had been in the hands of various members of the Jamison family over three generations. One of the longtime owners, Shirley Todd Jamison, worked in the Guilford County Health Department, and spent nearly four decades in Latin America as a nurse and missionary. She died in March 2017, which precipitated the sale.

Some of the tenants had lived for decades on this stretch of Hiatt Street raising families and paying $315 for the monthly lot rent. Jamison had been a tight-knit, affordable mobile home community within the city limits for decades and especially attractive to immigrants since the 1990s and offered good schools, a location near downtown, nearby public transportation and put them within walking distance to a university and the Greensboro Coliseum.

They reached out to Siembra for help and quickly formed a tenants group with the hope of buying the property themselves.

The sellers received approval for rezoning the land. A notice of the meeting was placed on the property, but the mostly Spanish-speaking residents say they realized too late what was going on.

It is unclear what Owls Roost is paying for the property, but the land has a tax value of about $350,000. It is couched between an apartment complex on one side and an abandoned building with broken windows on the other.

The families held a protest in front of the property management office downtown, and later a fundraiser and community outreach in summer 2021 that raised about $13,000. A verified Help the Hiatt Families GoFundMe crowdsourcing fundraiser has raised about $7,000. They also attended a City Council meeting, where the children asked for their help and secured the pledge that officials would meet with them over their concerns.

The tenant group started out about 18 families strong, but some of the worried families took advantage of reduced rate offers from other mobile home parks to move their homes. They also had to take on debt.

Recently, inspectors assessed the stability of each of the remaining units and found they were stable enough to move elsewhere. Kennedy is waiting on estimates to move them  and working with the Community Foundation and others to figure out funding.

The hope is that we can identify locations for folks in the next few weeks, Kennedy said.

She said she cannot speak for the families but has been clear on the citys involvement.

Its a really difficult conversation to have, but I have told them repeatedly in our meetings that that is not a viable option, Kennedy said of the initial desire for families to remain on the property.

Kennedy had also been looking at a variety of housing and emergency assistance sources to help, but any available city housing money would not be nearly enough. The Community Foundation stepped in to bring interested individuals together.

I live in Lindley Park, and they are my neighbors  and I get it, Kennedy said. This is one of those things where the private sale of a property has far-reaching impact. We cant upset that sale. We cant change that.

Kelly Morales, Siembras executive director, said that the city has pointed the residents, who want to stay together, to parcels of city land that are suitable for mobile homes. But they were either already sold or in a community that didnt allow mobile home parks in its development plan.

If the zoning board takes land zoned for mobile home parks off the table in one area, we believe it must be added back somewhere else, Morales wrote in an email exchange. Otherwise, we are simply zoning certain residents right out of being able to live in Greensboro.

As part of those discussions with the city, those residents have been asked if they would be willing to sign something saying they understand they will receive this deadline extension if they promise to not stay past that date, Morales said.

We understand that moving mobile homes is costly and complicated  weve already seen the costs pile up for residents like Randy and Jose who left the mobile home park before the end of the year, Morales said. We believe that if the residents of Hiatt Street are going to be asked to sign anything, they should have a feasible Plan B first.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 336-373-7049 and follow @nmclaughlinNR on Twitter.

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Nic Mains used to be afraid of oompa loompas. Now hes sharing the stage with the little workers in Willy Wonkas factory.

I was very afraid of oompa loompas as a kid, Mains said. I used to do gymnastics and there was a lock-in night, a sleepover at the gymnastics studio. They projected Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on a big screen. I remember being so scared and having to leave because of the oompa loompas.

When I saw the oompa loompas we have, I had kind of a flashback."

He's no longer afraid of them, which is a good thing, considering he is part of the cast for the musical version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the latest adaptation of Roald Dahls classic 1964 novel that became the 1971 movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The 2013 musical, written by playwright David Greig, with original score composed by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Shaiman, aimed at being a contemporary update of Dahls story about the boy, Charlie Bucket, caught in the factory of eccentric chocolate maker Willy Wonka.

But Mains said Wonka fans shouldnt be concerned that Dahls story has been altered beyond recognition.

It really does follow the story pretty much, Mains said. There are some changes to make it fit a little better on stage. Like when we meet each of the Golden Ticket winners, those moments are a lot longer, so you get to know each one of them and who youre rooting for  although everyones rooting for Charlie.

If You Go What: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Where: Lied Center for Performing Arts, 12th and R streets When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, and Jan. 28. 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 Tickets: $14.50 to $79. Available at liedcenter.org, by phone at 402-472-4747 and at the Lied ticket office.

That said, Mains acknowledged that the musical isnt all jokes or a light-hearted retelling of Dahls tale.

It does have a slightly darker tone to it in some places, he said. It takes it to a place where its not too much for the kids, but its more adult. The creatives were really conscious of, if were retelling this story, well tell it in a way to relate to our current times rather than revisiting this relic from the past.

Mains plays the glutinous, greedy Augustus Gloop, one of the Golden Ticket winners, whose misadventures find him encountering the factorys chocolate river

Hes really fun to play, Mains said. When I got the role, Id never thought about how iconic Augustus Gloop is. People really know him. When I step out on stage, theres always a big cheer that goes up. Its, honestly, such a blast because hes so excitable and fun. He really goes for what he wants, maybe too much.

Mains has now played Gloop 75 times in front of audiences around the country, which is just what the Chicago native wanted to do when he moved to New York a few years ago.

This is my first tour, which has been a dream of mine for a long time. Mains said in a call from Boise, Idaho a couple hours before a show last week. I moved to New York with the dream to do a show like this. So it truly is a dream come true.

Mains will add four more performances to his total next week at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, including matinee and evening shows on Jan. 29.

I used to think it would be really difficult, Mains said of doing two shows in a day. .Maybe getting up for the first show is a little herder, were used to working later in the day. But once we go through that first show, I feel pumped up and ready to go, So the second show is usually really good.

Regardless of whether its a single show or a two-show day, Mains said it's clear from the stage that everyone in the house is having a good time throughout the show.

Ive noticed that while the kids really have a good time, the adults are surprised by how much fun they have, Mains said. There are jokes for the kids and for the adults, that they can really appreciate. To the kids, theyre fine. But you see it a little differently when youre older and its fun.

But he said, like Dahls novel, and the two movies, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical really connects with the younger set.

One of things that is great with this show is seeing how the kids respond to it, Mains said. For a lot of them, its their first experience with theater and Broadway theater. Seeing their dreams come into being really warms the heart.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com. On Twitter @KentWolgamott

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After the Nebraska Legislature approved a bill in April 2021 requiring the state's law enforcement agencies to adopt a duty to intervene policy by Jan. 1, nearly every agency in the state has complied with the mandate.

Three weeks after the New Year deadline, 91 of Nebraska's 93 sheriff's offices and 108 of 111 police departments now have a written policy requiring employees to intervene and report instances of excessive force, according to the executive director of Nebraska's Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice.

Don Arp said the agencies that failed to meet the deadline  police departments in Bancroft, Edgar and Newman Grove, plus sheriff's offices in Dundy and Johnson counties  are all small with limited staffing, but each of them is working with the commission to adopt an intervention policy.

The requirement came as a legislative response to George Floyd's murder, aiming to prevent incidents such as the one that led to Floyd's death from happening in Nebraska, where such intervention policies hadn't been required until now.

The state's crime commission released a model intervention policy in October, allowing agencies without their own to adopt it verbatim, or to add elements of the model policy to their own written intervention guidelines.

The state model requires an officer to jump in either verbally or physically when another law enforcement officer  regardless of agency  uses a level of force that exceeds what an officer "would reasonably need to use in the situation." It also requires officers to report instances of excessive force to agency supervisors "as soon as feasible."

In addition to the five agencies that missed the Jan. 1 deadline, Arp said another three police departments  in Crofton, Spalding and Cedar Bluffs  are currently without a police chief or any sworn officers, leaving them unable to draft or adopt a policy.

Lancaster County drafts hybrid

The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office was among the Nebraska agencies without a written intervention policy until Jan. 1, when the office instituted its own policy, drawing elements from the state's model policy and the Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement Project, a national training initiative the agency's command staff participated in last month.

Sheriff Terry Wagner described an officer or deputy's duty to intervene in instances of excessive force or criminal acts as inherent, but he said he understands the importance of a written policy and the training that comes with it.

"It's common sense," he told the Journal Star. "You expect people to do their jobs with honor and integrity and to know what's right and wrong  and when they see something wrong, to do something about it.

"But having something in writing reinforces that to all of our employees."

The sheriff's office's written policy, similar to the state's model policy, requires employees to intervene and report behavior in circumstances when other law enforcement officers are using illegal or excessive force.

The guidelines also provide explicit protections against potential retaliation toward employees who report excessive use of force and even notes that effective implementation of the written policy would be considered in evaluations and promotions.

Wagner said the active bystander training  which will be provided to all deputies in the coming months  could also help shore up any hesitancy employees have about correcting the actions of a superior, offering applicable tactics and strategies to intervene when they feel compelled to do so.

"That's the important component," he said. "If you're gonna give subordinates a license to call out  if you want to call it that  call out a superior officer, they need to be able to do that and not worry about being retaliated against for their actions."

LPD takes policies further

The Lincoln Police Department had already introduced a written intervention policy months before the Legislature voted to require agencies to do so, adopting a policy in August 2020 in the wake of Floyd's death and the calls for accountability that ensued.

Assistant Police Chief Jason Stille said the policy was updated again in January 2021, when LPD moved to include specific language protecting employees who report wrongdoing from retaliation  a provision that still isn't required in Nebraska statutorily, even though it's included in the state's model policy.

Stille said the department first began work on an intervention policy as a means to retain national accreditation with the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. At the same time, Stille said, the department worked with the Malone Center and other local advocates to develop the policy.

Now, as many of the rest of the state's law enforcement agencies catch up, Stille said the department has introduced new polices this month after its annual review, adding a "bias by proxy" measure.

That update aims to prevent LPD officers from inheriting potential racial biases of a caller making a report to police. The measure directs officers to "use their critical decision-making skills drawing upon their training to assess whether there is criminal conduct."

"If there's somebody that calls in that has some type of bias  they're only calling in certain kids that look a certain way that are playing in the street  the police sort of inherit that bias when we show up," Stille said. "And automatically, people bristle, going 'Why are you here?'

"Before, our stance was that we would send law enforcement officers out there and then they would be in the best position to filter out whether or not this was a report made because of potential bias. Now, we're sort of empowering folks at all levels of the agency to recognize where we're getting that bias by proxy ... and perhaps not sending officers at all."

Lincoln Police Chief Teresa Ewins in 2020 served as the executive sponsor to a similar change in San Francisco, where she was a commander in the city's police department. Before San Francisco's Police Commission approved the policy in May 2020  four days before Floyd's murder  Ewins said it was one of the first departments in the country to introduce the bias by proxy policy.

Now, more than 19 months later, it has arrived in Lincoln.

Reach the writer at 402-473-7223 or awegley@journalstar.com. On Twitter @andrewwegley

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The conservative-dominated Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a challenge to the consideration of race in college admissions, adding another blockbuster case to a term with abortion, guns, religion and COVID-19 already on the agenda.

The court said it will take up lawsuits claiming that Harvard University, a private institution, and the University of North Carolina, a state school, discriminate against Asian American applicants. A decision against the schools could mean the end of affirmative action in college admissions.

Arguments are expected to take place in the fall.

Lower courts rejected the challenges, citing more than 40 years of high court rulings that allow colleges and universities to consider race in admissions decisions. But the colleges and universities must do so in a narrowly tailored way to promote diversity.

The court's most recent pronouncement was in 2016, in a 4-3 decision upholding the admissions program at the University of Texas against a challenge brought by a white woman. But the composition of the court has changed since then, with the addition of three conservative justices who were appointed by then-President Donald Trump.

Two members of that four-justice majority are gone from the court: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, and Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018.

The three dissenters in the case, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, remain on the court. Roberts, a moderating influence on some issues, has been a steadfast vote to limit the use of race in public programs, once writing, "It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race."

The court already has heard arguments in cases that could expand gun rights and religious rights and also roll back abortion rights in a direct challenge to the Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973.

Last week, the justice's weighed in for the first time on President Joe Biden's vaccine policies, halting a rule requiring a vaccine or testing at large businesses while allowing a vaccine mandate for most of the nation's health care workers.

The affirmative action case probably will be argued in the spring. Both suits were filed by Students for Fair Admissions, a Virginia-based group run by Edward Blum. He has worked for years to rid college admissions of racial considerations, and the court's new lineup breathed new life into his project.

The group is calling on the court to overturn its 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the University of Michigan's law school admissions program.

The Biden administration had urged the justices to stay away from the issue, writing in the Harvard case that the challenges "cannot justify that extraordinary step" of overruling the 2003 decision.

The Supreme Court has weighed in on college admissions several times over more than 40 years. The current dispute harks back to its first big affirmative action case in 1978, when Justice Lewis Powell set out the rationale for taking account of race even as the court barred the use of racial quotas in admissions.

In the Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Powell approvingly cited Harvard as "an illuminating example" of a college that takes "race into account in achieving the educational diversity valued by the First Amendment."

Twenty-five years later, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor likewise invoked the Harvard plan in her opinion in the Michigan law school case.

Now the Harvard program is under fire from opponents of race-based affirmative action.

Students for Fair Admissions claims that Harvard imposes a "racial penalty" on Asian American applicants by systematically scoring them lower in some categories than other applicants and awarding "massive preferences" to Black and Hispanic applicants.

Harvard flatly denies that it discriminates against Asian American applicants and says its consideration of race is limited, pointing out that lower courts agreed with the university.

In 2020, the federal appeals court in Boston ruled that Harvard looked at race in a limited way in line with Supreme Court precedents.

Harvard's freshman class is roughly one-quarter Asian American, 16% Black and 13% Hispanic, Harvard says on its website. "If Harvard were to abandon race-conscious admissions, African-American and Hispanic representation would decline by nearly half," the school told the court in urging it to stay out of the case.

The Trump administration had backed Blum's case against Harvard and filed its own lawsuit alleging discrimination against Asian American and white people at Yale University. The Biden administration dropped the Yale suit.

North Carolina's flagship public university prevailed in a federal district court in October. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs ruled that the school's program was intended to produce a diverse student body and had shown the benefits of doing so.

The court accepted the North Carolina case for review even though it has not been heard by a federal appeals court. Blum filed a Supreme Court appeal with the hope that it would be bundled with the Harvard case so that the justices could rule on public and private colleges at the same time.

***

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A pro-Trump social media influencer who posted video of himself at the U.S. Capitol during last year's riot was sentenced on Monday to three months of home detention after a federal prosecutor accused him of abusing his online platform to stir up the mob.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said she finds it deeply disturbing that Brandon Straka, 45, used his social media influence to encourage and defend the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Election challenges are fought in the courts, not by storming the Capitol, Friedrich said.

The judge also sentenced Straka to three years of probation and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine.

Straka's personal Twitter account has nearly 500,000 followers. Using his significant public profile, Straka encouraged others to storm the Capitol, to take a protective shield from a police officer and to hold the line even after he departed the Capitol grounds, a prosecutor said in a court filing.

Even if he didnt personally engage in violence or property destruction during the riot, Straka encouraged and celebrated the violence of that day, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brittany Reed wrote.

Straka, a former hair stylist, founded the #WalkAway Campaign after posting a video that went viral in 2018. The video, titled Why I left the Democrat Party, has nearly 900,000 views on YouTube. He also chairs a tax-exempt nonprofit  the #WalkAway Foundation in Fairfax, Virginia  that reported more than $600,000 in revenue in 2019.

Straka told the judge that he and his social media followers dont condone violence.

Its not who they are, and its not who I am, which is why they love our movement, he said. My relationship with my fans and followers is not just about politics. Its about love.

Prosecutors had recommended four months of home detention for Straka, a longtime resident of New York City. The Nebraska native pleaded guilty in October to a disorderly conduct charge, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of six months imprisonment.

More than 720 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. Unlike most riot defendants, Straka isn't accused of either entering the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, or engaging in violent or destructive behavior.

His attorney, Bilal Essayli, accused prosecutors of attacking Straka's constitutionally protected political speech and attempting to make a public example of a prominent Trump-supporting influencer.

The judge, however, said Straka wasn't prosecuted or punished for his political views or personal beliefs.

None of the criminal conduct to which Mr. Straka has admitted is covered by the First Amendment, Friedrich said.

Essayli also said that when federal authorities interviewed Straka, they were focused on establishing an organized conspiracy between Straka, former President Donald Trump and Trump allies to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.

Straka answered all questions truthfully and denied the existence of any such plot, his lawyer wrote in a court filing.

After President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Straka frequently told his followers that it was time to rise up as part of a civil war, according to Reed, the prosecutor.

Many of these messages contain rhetorical flourishes that are common in political speech. However, some of Strakas references to concrete planning and action could reasonably have been interpreted by some readers as a call for more than just a figurative struggle, Reed wrote.

Straka was scheduled to speak at a rally near the Capitol on Jan. 6, after Trump's speech near the White House. Straka learned that the Capitol had been breached before he arrived at the building.

A video captured Straka telling the rioters to go, go, go as they tried to enter the Capitol. Straka also can be heard saying take it, take it as rioters grabbed a shield from an officer.

Straka tweeted, Patriots at the Capitol - HOLD. THE. LINE!!!! after he left the area. Thousands of Twitter users liked or retweeted the message.

Straka did nothing to display to these followers that his conduct was shameful. He even boasted about his conduct by posting about the riot the following day, Reed wrote.

Straka made statements on social media that were in retrospect irresponsible and potentially inflammatory, but he hadn't witnessed some of the worst violence on the west side of the Capitol, Essayli wrote.

Once understanding the full context of the events, Brandon retracted and removed his prior statements, Straka's lawyer added.

Straka was jailed for two days after his arrest in Omaha, Nebraska, last January.

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Let me tell you a story about Vi and Heather  two women from very different backgrounds brought together to do wonderful things for people here in Lincoln.

Vi See, a familiar name in the nonprofit world, is a Nebraska native who followed a very traditional path to Lincoln. She came for college and never left.

Heather Loughman, on the other hand, is relatively new to our city. A guy she knew snatched her and brought her here from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Look it up, its a real place. Read on, I promise youll be impressed with what theyre doing and hopefully encouraged to help out.

See came to Lincoln from a cattle ranch to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and found a family, home and meaningful work here. She has dedicated her life to serving agencies such as the Girl Scouts, United Way and more recently Community Action Partnership of Lancaster and Saunders Counties. Nearly a dozen years ago, during a challenging economic time for many families, she helped broaden the mission and financial support for Community Action.

If youre like me, youre aware of Community Action but have no idea just how broad this agencys umbrella is. Community Action seeks to empower people living in poverty to reach economic stability. It does this through a wide variety of programs and services in four major categories including Early Childhood Education, Homelessness Prevention, Financial and Family Well-Being and Hunger Relief/Healthy Food Access. Each of these areas includes a number of ways the people of Lancaster and Saunders Counties are assisted. The list includes several Head Start programs for young children, rental assistance and help for the homeless, weatherization of homes for needy families and healthy meals served at The Gathering Place seven days a week.

Then theres Loughman. She grew up in Michigan and came to Lincoln just 10 years ago. There was this guy Bill who had a hand in it. Anyway, new to town, Heather was searching around for something meaningful to do, so she took on the challenge of writing grant proposals for Community Action. The work she did helped broaden the agencys financial support and increased awareness of its services.

When we work together, theres no limit to what we can do to help people in need, Loughman said.

Recently, as See stepped down, Loughman accepted the challenge to fill the position of CEO of the partnership that See had grown into such a broad and dynamic agency.

In addition to working together at Community Action, the two women connected with many across Lincoln through their participation in Leadership Lincolns Fellows program.

I was part of the eighth class, noted See, and through my participation I got to know how our community works and I made some wonderful, lifelong friends.

Loughman is a more recent graduate of the Fellows program in 2019, and she said her participation helped her get to know the people who make Lincoln so special.

One of the things we did during our time was to bring something that was very special to us and give it to someone else in the Fellows class, Loughman said. I brought an apron that my grandmother had given me and gave it away. That helped me become more human as a leader.

As these two incredible women shared their passion for helping those in need, the talk turned to the future. See noted that even with the progress made in helping people in poverty reach economic stability, There are things that happen which bring people into financial vulnerability. The COVID-19 pandemic is just one example, and another is a major illness that hits an older family. She hopes that as people get to know and understand the social issues that others face, theyll have a greater desire to serve to make a positive change.

Loughman, as Community Actions new CEO, notes that much of her work will be to take advantage of the incredible desire to help that the people of Lincoln have. The more we can leverage this desire, the more well be able to end the systemic racism and poverty in our community, she said.

So there you have it, in a nutshell. Two women from very different backgrounds drawn together to help fight and end poverty through the Community Action Partnership serving Lancaster and Saunders counties. I hope youre not only informed and impressed, but also encouraged to roll up your sleeves and help out.

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I am writing to oppose LB859. Lincoln was able to enact measures that protected our residents during the pandemic because of the thankless work of the mayor and health director while other communities in this state were hamstrung by party allegiance and politicking that used human lives as currency.

This bill is not intended to create equal footing for the health departments of Nebraska. It is designed to tug on the leash of city officials in Lincoln who put safety before popularity and politics. If this bills true intent was to create equal footing, each community health department would be given the freedom to make the best choice for their community, without having to go through the Department of Health and Human Services (an extension of the will of the governor).

If the state's Republican Party were truly interested in small government, then the reality of this power grab at the expense of Lincoln-Lancaster Country would be apparent. But instead, the state Legislature is tearing autonomy from the hands of Lincolnites because it is too intent on posturing for a base.

The state, once again, is strong-arming the Capitol City and saddling us with the ineptitude of an uninformed and partisan populace that does not reside here. This state, and its government, must do better to put human lives first and politics second.

Because of the mandate and the local government, I felt safe in my community. Because of the state Legislature, I worry that my safety will come second to political pandering.

Brandon Proffitt, Lincoln

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NICOSIA, Cyprus  Academics from Wisconsin, who have helped locate Holocaust mass graves and execution sites in Eastern Europe, are using ground-penetrating radar to seek burial sites on Cyprus of people missing since the 1974 Turkish invasion and earlier interethnic strife.

Team leader Harry M. Jol told the Associated Press on Friday that they scanned several pre-selected sites between Dec. 28 and Jan. 6, using a system that creates subsurface images without the need to dig.

Traces of ground disturbance from human activity were found among the half-dozen sites searched, but confirmation of burials would require excavation.

Very few other methods have the resolution that GPR has and can map in a grid-like format, Jol, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claires Geography and Anthropology Department, said in an email. We used the same equipment for (hundreds of) surveys at sites worldwide.

Jol said he passed on to the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP)  an expert group that has since 2006 been seeking more than 2,000 missing Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots  information on where soil disturbance was found.

It is these disturbances that we map  be it buried building structures, mass graves  unmarked (graves)  and other structures, said Jol, who worked with assistant Joe Beck.

The data continue to be processed and interpreted in collaboration with CMP staff, while Jol said there are plans for his team to return to the east Mediterranean island nation in the near future.

Leonidas Pantelides, the Greek Cypriot member of the CMP, told the Associated Press that the team visited six sites where there was information that the remains of missing persons could be located. He said its hoped that the academics will bring additional equipment on their next visit that could yield even more precise results.

The academics trip was mostly funded by the U.S. government with support from the CMP  also composed of a Turkish Cypriot member and a third-country national selected by the United Nations  which relies on donations to operate.

CMP experts have so far exhumed the remains of 1,114 people and identified 1,023. However, 778 Greek Cypriots and 201 Turkish Cypriots still remain missing since the 1974 Turkish invasion, which split the island along ethnic lines, and intercommunal fighting in the decade before. The invasion followed a coup that aimed to join the island with Greece.

Digs at potential burial sites have primarily relied on information provided by witnesses or individuals with information about the disappearances. But locating such sites has become increasingly difficult amid reluctance by some to offer information, and because many eyewitnesses have since died.

Beck said the team of academics has over the last five years travelled to countries including Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in search of mass graves dating back to World War II.

They primarily used GPR, but also drones that capture images across the electromagnetic spectrum. Beck said GPR is currently being used in Canada to locate potential Indigenous graves.

Both Jol and Beck praised the CMPs professionalism, which they said could serve as an example internationally.

Working on the various sites, given the context and the personal connections the various members of the CMP had to the locations evoked, a powerful emotional experience, said Beck.

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Three people were killed in a crash into a semi early Saturday morning just off Interstate 94 near Black River Falls, the Wisconsin State Patrol reported.

Shortly after 1:30 a.m. Saturday, a semi-tractor trailer was leaving a parking lot, attempting to cross Highway 54 into a Kwik Trip parking lot, when a car that was westbound on Highway 54 struck the trailer, Sgt. Jeffry Hudacek said in a statement.

The three occupants were not wearing seat belts and all died at the scene, Hudacek said.

They were identified as driver Leonard R. Hopinka, 34, of Black River Falls, and passengers Tyler E. Decorah, 36, also of Black River Falls, and Jorden L. Vidana, 35, of Onalaska.

No information was provided on the semi driver.

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An attorney for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Monday said he provided little guidance to former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman about how to respond to requests for public records related to his ongoing review of the 2020 election.

At a hearing in Dane County Circuit Court Monday, Assembly staff attorney Steve Fawcett also testified he has not received weekly reports from Gableman on the review, which is required under the contract between the former justice and the state Assembly. Assembly Chief Clerk Ted Blazel also testified, but more than two hours of Mondays hearing focused on Fawcett.

Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn noted Fawcett helped negotiate the Assemblys contract with Gableman and is listed as the former justices point of contact for the agreement. Bailey-Rihn again questioned why so few documents have been provided in the case, which was filed last year by liberal watchdog group American Oversight.

Hes supposed to be doing weekly investigative reports, Bailey-Rihn said. Im just having difficulty believing that Mr. Gableman did nothing for three months and received payment.

Fawcett said he has no idea whether Gableman has been compiling the weekly reports.

Gableman was hired last summer by Vos, R-Rochester, to review the election at a cost of $676,000 to taxpayers. His contract expired at the close of December, but Vos has said he hopes to have the review finished by the end of February.

The case stems from one of three ongoing lawsuits filed by American Oversight over public records requests the organization filed last year. Attorneys for American Oversight have asked that Vos be held in contempt for not releasing the records sooner, while attorneys for Vos have said all available records have been provided.

Bailey-Rihn ordered Vos to turn over records last November. She said on Monday she will decide at a future date whether to hold Vos in contempt.

She added on Monday that ultimately the buck stops with Mr. Vos and his office to produce relevant documents.

Fawcett also said he did not try to obtain Gablemans records or ask him to provide documents in response to the initial request from American Oversight. Fawcett later said he notified Gableman of Bailey-Rihns November court order seeking the records; however, he added he could not remember whether he specified what records were requested. He also noted he does not know what parameters Gableman used when searching for records.

Fawcett also said Gableman at times used text messages and a personal Yahoo email account to discuss his ongoing review. He added he does not know whether Gableman uses other means of communication such as Facebook Messenger or encrypted messaging apps such as Signal.

In a separate case, Dane County Circuit Judge Frank Remington on Friday ordered Gablemans office to provide the court with documents responsive to a records request regarding his 2020 election review by Jan. 31. That order will only stand if the court has personal jurisdiction over the case, which the judge will review at a hearing Jan. 27.

A recount and court decisions have affirmed that President Joe Biden defeated former President Donald Trump in Wisconsin by almost 21,000 votes. Similarly, reviews of the election by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty found no evidence of widespread fraud but did lead to recommendations on how elections can be improved.

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NEW YORK  Kohls confirmed that it has been approached about a possible sale of the department store chain, sending shares up more than 36% on Monday.

The Menomonee Falls-based company said that it would not comment further, but its confirmation follows media reports that the private equity firm Sycamore Partners had approached Kohls about a potential deal.

Days earlier, a group called Acacia Research, backed by activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP, reportedly bid $64 per share, or about $9 billion.

Kohls Corp. said Monday that its board is reviewing the offers. A spokesperson at Sycamore declined to comment, while Acacia couldnt be immediately reached for comment.

The reported offers come just a week after activist hedge fund Macellum Advisors released a letter urging Kohls to explore strategic options, including a sale, if the chain doesnt take action to improve its business and increase its stock price. The investor said it planned to nominate a slate of director candidates at Kohls shareholders meeting this year, unless Kohls decides to embrace some changes.

In April 2021, Kohls announced it was adding three independent members to its board of directors as part of an agreement it struck with a key activist investor group that included Macellum. In addition to Macellum, the group also included Ancora Holdings, Legion Partners Asset Management and 4010 Capital.

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Editor's note: This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have come more into focus in recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced by reporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West.

Montanans seem of two minds regarding grizzly bears in their midst.

A University of Montana survey completed this year found nine of 10 Montanans believe grizzly bears belong in the state, while just 3 percent thought grizzlies should not be anywhere in Montana.

Yet the same survey also found 83% of Montanans supported some level of grizzly bear hunting season.

We were extremely surprised at the strong, overwhelming public support for grizzly bears, said UM researcher Alex Metcalf, who co-authored the survey paid for by Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks. To get 90% agreement on anything is rare. But 92% of Montanans say bears have a right to exist in Montana.

The strong support for a hunting season was equally surprising, Metcalf said. Only 16.7% felt grizzlies should never be hunted.

However, responses fragmented when asked more specific hunt-related questions. Just over a third of Montanans agreed that hunting would make grizzlies more wary of humans, while another third disputed that claim and 29% were undecided. About 61% said people should be allowed to hunt grizzlies as long as the bear population can withstand the pressure. But only 46% supported using grizzly hunting to reduce human-bear conflict, while 36% opposed the idea and 18% had no opinion.

This sort of makes sense in the context of other wild animal management we have in Montana, Metcalf said. We like to have wild animal populations and we manage them by hunting them. And the survey sees lots of agreement that hunting is a viable tool. If were going to do something other than that, we need to have that conversation.

For many, the lines are clear: Grizzlies should be available to hunt like any other charismatic western big game animal. In an interview with the Billings Gazette shortly before the 2017 delisting effort failed in court, now-Gov. Greg Gianforte said he was all for allowing a trophy hunt.

"Id be the first one putting in for a tag," Gianforte said in 2016. I did a grizzly hunt once up in Alaska. I didnt connect, but  I look forward to the day when we have a grizzly hunt in Montana.

Asked at the time if he though a grizzly hunting season would eventually arrive in Montana, Gianforte bet it would.

Again, this is part of bringing science back to the process," he said. "We need to conserve and preserve our wildlife. I think one of the best ways to do that is through scientifically set hunting quotas to keep them at sustainable levels. I think, when Montana issues a grizzly tag, theres going to be a lot of people applying, and I will be one of them."

That presents a biological challenge.

Studies in Alaska have shown that places with lots of grizzlies can sustain a lot of hunting for mature male bears, if the females and cubs are protected. But the evidence is inconclusive that hunting is effective at targeting problem bears or reducing conflicts.

At a December gathering of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Bear Specialist Group, bear biologists and game wardens from all over North America compared notes on the effectiveness of grizzly hunting. Chris Servheen, who led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly program for 35 years, supervised the session.

"Hunting bears teaches bears nothing, as death is not a learning experience," Servheen said. While some Montanans claim that grizzlies were more leery of humans before the end of legal grizzly hunting in 1993, that's more likely because there were actually very few grizzlies left to get into conflicts, he said. And the practice of sport hunting has little relationship with conflict-management, as it's extremely difficult for a private hunter to find and kill the specific bear that raided a chicken coop or other depredation. Furthermore, hunting tends to be extremely restricted for safety reasons in residential areas where food-attracted bears get into trouble.

And the total population of grizzlies in the Northern Rocky Mountains is a sliver of the 20,000 or more grizzlies in Alaska. The 1,000 or so grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem could quickly see a population crash after a few over-successful hunting seasons. The Cabinet-Yaak, with perhaps 50 grizzlies, cant stand to lose a bear.

Alaska continues to allow big-game hunting of grizzly bears, although neighboring British Columbia banned trophy grizzly hunts in 2017. Wildlife biologist Sterling Miller, whos worked in both Montana and Alaska, said his experience revealed a complicated relationship between hunter and hunted.

In Alaskan places where grizzlies were hunted, Miller said they showed extra wariness when humans were nearby. But historically, most successful grizzly hunting grounds were near national parks or other refuges, where bears got habituated to human presence and then fell to hunters just over the border.

You can hunt wildlife populations in a sustainable way, Miller said. But its more problematic for small or isolated populations like grizzlies. Theres less resilience in those small systems.

Hunting grizzlies also risks a public backlash that could have unintended consequences. A 2021 study published in Conservation Biology by Chris Darimont at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, warned that opposition to grizzly trophy hunts could hurt big-game hunting overall.

The killing of large carnivores for trophy and not food, conducted by few hunters, has potential to threaten the social license to hunt afforded to the larger group who hunt for food, Darimonts study found. Social license means the general public acceptance of an activity.

Only 2 percent of U.S. hunters pursue black bears. In places with more opportunity, such as the Rocky Mountain West, wolf and bear hunters made up about 18 percent of Montanas hunting community.

In 2018 court filings favoring delisting, Safari Club International argued hunting grizzlies should be allowed to reduce the threat big-game hunters seeking other species faced when in grizzly habitat. The second reason was that grizzlies were considered a high-value trophy for those who enjoyed hunting. If the population was large enough to endure some hunting take, it should be allowed, the SCI lawyers claimed.

Those are just code words playing to a narrow political base, looking for a way to rationalize killing a big predator, countered Kevin Van Tighem, a retired Canadian national parks superintendent and grizzly bear biologist. The number of bears is irrelevant. The question is: Can we achieve something useful for society by hunting?

Van Tighem said his experience managing Banff, Elk Island and other grizzly-frequenting Canadian parks showed that hunting bears tended to address human concerns more than species management.

"Far more people killed every year by mishandling of firearms, and I know how you (Americans) think about firearms," Van Tighem said. "Your problem isnt the bear. It s the fear."

This Julys grizzly mauling death of a bicycle camper in Ovando happened a few months after the Montana Legislature passed a collection of measures directing the state Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks to take a much more aggressive approach to predator control than it had in the past. Public policy in Wyoming and Idaho have also taken a harder stance toward grizzlies. Yet in Washington, D.C. the winds have shifted in the opposite direction.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lost its latest bid to delist the grizzly bears of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) two years ago, and to date hasnt announced how it plans to go forward. A five-year status report on grizzly recovery released last March found that while the NCDE and GYE grizzly populations were biologically recovered, grizzly populations in four other recovery areas remained precarious or non-existent. As when they were first listed, human-caused mortality and habitat loss remain the top threats to grizzly survival. In sum, it recommended keeping grizzlies under the Endangered Species Act.

The GYE delisting effort was initiated under President Barack Obama, but collapsed under President Donald Trump. Trumps Interior Secretary David Bernhardt visited Montana and promised more federal effort to kill problem grizzlies. President Joe Bidens Interior Secretary Deb Haaland co-sponsored legislation to protect grizzlies in perpetuity when she was a Congresswoman from Arizona.

The two biggest recovery areas, the NCDE and GYE, both anchor around popular national parks. Millions of tourists come each year, supporting thousands of local businesses and employees. Many dream of seeing a bear, and they post their success on social media with videos that professional biologists used to spend entire careers hoping to see. In August, amateur videographers caught two grizzlies fighting over a bison carcass in the Yellowstone River and a sow grizzly digging a marmot out of its burrow in Glacier Park while its cubs watched. Grizzly 399 in Grand Teton National Park has her own series of bumper stickers, among other fan memorabilia.

The University of Montana survey also found Montanans supported trying mitigation tactics like carrying bear spray, following food storage guidelines and securing attractants from property. Each of those proposals drew at least 90% agreement.

More livestock-related tactics such as changing ranching practices or using carcass-removal programs drew more opposition, but still had at least two-thirds of Montanans in favor.

Wildlife managers and wildlife biologists have widely differing attitudes about the effectiveness of grizzly hunting to achieve desired goals. While big-game species such as deer and elk number in the tens of thousands across Montana, the state holds about 1,000 grizzlies. Grizzlies are the slowest-reproducing mammal in North America.

Theres overwhelming agreement that grizzly bears are a positive contribution to the economy of Montana, Metcalf said of the survey results. Theres also a great deal of support for encouraging conflict-reduction. Were trying to balance the costs of bears and the value of bears.

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Editor's note: This story is part of the Lee Enterprises series "Grizzlies and Us." The project examines the many issues surrounding the uneasy coexistence of grizzly bears and humans in the Lower 48, which have come more into focus in recent years as the federally-protected animal pushes farther into human-occupied areas. The 10-part series, comprised of more than 20 stories, was produced by reporters and photojournalists across the Rocky Mountain West.

OVANDO - Which grizzly bear defined the summer of 2021?

Was it Monica, the aging sow on the northern edge of Glacier National Park who had to be killed by game wardens after she and her subadult cubs of the year went on garbage-raiding sprees at cabins along the North Fork of the Flathead River?

Or Felicia, an equally prolific female with cubs who became a traffic hazard on Togwotee Pass east of Grand Teton National Park, inspiring a posse of volunteer bear patrollers who tried to keep the peace between camera-slinging tourists and bears trying to make a living along a federal highway?

Or was it the unnamed 4-year-old male grizzly that killed a bike-camper in her tent in Ovando, roughly halfway between Glacier and Grand Teton, in the middle of whats fast become one of the most contentious Endangered Species Act debate in the nation?

The July 6 mauling death of Leah Davis Lokan, 65, made international headlines.

To say the incident happened in downtown Ovando overstates the size of the ranching center along Highway 200 thats grown equally popular with trout anglers and long-distance bike tourists. But looking at where Lokan pitched her tent, a dozen feet from the Brand Bar Museum, next door to the post office and across the main street from a grocery, cafe, and fly-fishing store, puts the attack squarely in the center of human habitat.

The details of the other two grizzlies, including the names Monica and Felicia, illustrate how humans have pushed the other way, into places grizzlies used to dominate. When Lewis and Clark made their Voyage of Discovery at the opening of the 19th century, an estimated 50,000 grizzly bears inhabited the Lower 48 States west of the 100th meridian  the longitudinal line running roughly from North Dakota to Texas.

A dozen decades later, the bear emblazoned on the flag of California was nearly extinct throughout its natural range. Systematic destruction of its habitat and numbers, by ranchers, farmers and government agents, removed the grizzly bear from virtually every place except the preserves of Yellowstone and Glacier national parks.

Remarkably, the grizzlys attractiveness to tourists spared it from National Park Service predator culls. An 1895 Yellowstone superintendents report mentions the bears had increased notably after the U.S. Army put out garbage to feed them, while other bounty hunters were eradicating the wolves, mountain lions and coyotes in the park.

When the grizzly bear became the eighth animal given protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1975, somewhat fewer than 600 individual bears remained between Canada and Mexico. Over the next 45 years, two numbers changed: Grizzly populations grew from 600 to an estimated 2,100 in the recovery zones of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. And humans in the same space expanded from 1.9 million to 3.4 million.

What didnt change was the size of the landscape. Put another way, people in the Rocky Mountain West went from 5.9 per square mile to 10.3 per square mile between 1975 and 2020. Grizzlies went from .002 to .006 per square mile.

Monica the North Fork grizzly was about 20 years old when Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks killed her and her three yearling cubs in early September. In her lifetime, annual visitation to Glacier National Parks Polebridge entrance went from 31,000 to 89,000, data shows.

While she often spent time near homes and was observed by residents, she did not cause conflicts that we knew about until the fall of 2018 when she had just two of her three yearlings with her, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks bear manager Tim Manley noted in a report to the North Fork Preservation Association. The initial reports we had were that the family group had ripped into a yurt, damaged two vehicles, got into unsecured garbage and had pushed on a trailer.

Wardens captured Monicas two yearlings, who were suspected of causing the most trouble, and killed them. She gave birth to three more cubs in 2020, but had no reported conflicts. Things stayed quiet until this summer.

Manley said in late August, Monica and her triplet yearlings got into trouble all over the Polebridge vicinity. They knocked over barbecues, broke into improperly closed bear-resistant trash cans, pulled garbage out of a horse trailer, broke windows out of a pickup topper to get food, damaged a car that didnt have any food, and tore the wall out of a camper trailer to get a big food reward.

The sow and all three of her yearlings were captured and killed.

I have said it many times before, killing bears is the worst part of my job, Manley told the homeowners. We try to avoid having to do it, but when bears become very food-conditioned and start causing property damage and breaking into vehicles, trailers and cabins, those bears are removed.

Outside Grand Teton, the opposite problem developed. People wouldnt leave Felicia alone.

Wildlife biologists call the bear by her number, 863, which means she was the 863rd bear to be caught and affixed with a telemetry collar in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. On social media, she became Felicia.

Either way, the female with cubs who likes to munch on grass and clover near Highway 26/287 in western Wyoming has become one of the most famous grizzly bears after fellow Grand Teton Bear 399. And her propensity to be near traffic  and apparent nonchalance about hordes of people gathering to take pictures  helped make her into a bit of a social media sensation. She also created a traffic hazard, according to Wyoming wildlife and law enforcement officials, not to mention the daily possibility that one of those photographers will inch just a little too close before everyone remembers too late that grizzly bears on the side of the road are still grizzly bears.

Were trying to alter the bears behavior but also trying to fix peoples behavior, and thats where the big challenge is, said Dan Thompson, large carnivore section supervisor for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. From a human psychological standpoint its been fascinating to be involved with.

Draw a line about 25 miles to the south and the human behavior aspect of the story changes.

Ranchers say theyre struggling against an increasing number of grizzlies preying on their cattle. Problem grizzlies must be managed, and often lethally removed. Their ranching livelihoods depend on it. Conservation groups are suing to stop those killings, and leasing in general. Grizzlies and cattle dont mix, they say, among other things.

At the same time, new homeowners are buying houses and property, often sight unseen, throughout the stretch of land bordering Yellowstone National Park on any side. The buffer has long been a place where grizzlies could wander with minimal impact, with its human residents long-ago trained in the art of keeping food away from bears. Wildlife managers worry the flood of new residents may not be so bear wise, and that conflicts will only increase.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, Wyoming Highway Patrol and Forest Service tried placing flashing signs telling people not to stop on the side of the road. They threatened tickets to those standing in traffic, ignoring oncoming vehicles. Eventually, the Fish and Wildlife Service decided to spend a couple of weeks hazing the female with cubs to make her leave the road and move further into the mountains.

Jack Bayles understands that some people behaved irresponsibly. Watchers started a live video stream from Togwotee Pass to alert anyone following them when she appeared. People from as far as Montana, Salt Lake City, Utah and Colorado came to the area, and some approached her and her cubs far too closely.

But the best reaction wasnt to shoot the bear with rubber bullets and bean bags, he said. Instead, Bayles said he believes officials should have managed the human side of the situation.

They have no problem when that section is a parking lot in the weekend in the winter and people are dragging trailers 90 mph down icy roads, Bayles said. Its not the land of many uses, just the land of uses we approve of.

Bayles is one of countless guides in the Yellowstone region and across bear country stretching from Jackson to Katmai National Park in Alaska that take people out to watch bears and other wildlife. He started his business in 2015 with his wife, Gina, and named it Team 399 after the regions other famous bear.

The accidental ambassador of her species, she is representative of a new age in human  wildlife relationships where coexistence and understanding are the new way, where a love of the wild is foremost in our hearts and minds, their website reads.

He wants to raise awareness for conservation issues. He wants to give back to the wild places and wild creatures that have given so much to us. He also knows that most people coming to Yellowstone or other areas with grizzly bears are there, at least in part, for the chance to see a grizzly bear.

Its the only place in the world where the common middle class person can see a grizzly bear in the wild, Bayles said. You could say over the course of our life, bear 399 is a billion-dollar bear to the Wyoming economy.

There is going to be conflict between bears and people, Thompson said. We will have to lethally remove grizzly bears for the greater good  theres the potential for humans to be injured and even killed, and thats the reality of it. The notion of a future of bears and humans together without conflict is very naive.

As far as the future? I dont think its going to get any easier.

In Ovando, the future holds a lot of work.

While complete details surrounding the death of Lokan await the release of a Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee Board of Review report, a big part of the small town was on the scene that night, trying to staunch the campers fatal wounds and wondering what had triggered the attack.

For many, it was a replay of The Night of the Grizzlies, the famous book chronicling the 1967 tragedy when two women in two separate campgrounds were attacked and killed by two separate grizzlies on the same night in Glacier National Park. At the time, resort managers in both Glacier and Yellowstone national parks deliberately left garbage out to attract grizzly bears for tourist viewing. Some Yellowstone hotels even set up bleachers to watch the evening show.

That food conditioning combined with growing popularity of backcountry camping put two 19-year-old hotel workers in the path of two predators in a place marketed and managed for recreation.

The grizzly that killed Loken had also raided a chicken coop nearby the same evening. Two nights later, a game warden staking out another chicken coop spotted it with night-vision goggles and shot it to death. The entire time, strings of long-distance bike riders kept pedaling into Ovando, often off-the-grid and bewildered by the swarm of armed agents, helicopters, culvert traps and law enforcement vehicles infesting their vacation itinerary.

This is one of those absolutely very rare and extremely unfortunate events, like a lightning strike, said Seth Wilson, the executive director of the Blackfoot Challenge, whose office sits about 75 feet from where Lokan was killed. This is not a time where we say Lets throw our hands up and go home, but Lets roll up our sleeves and see what we can do to improve our work.

The rural region south of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex where the Blackfoot Challenge works has endured many economic lurches, from the collapse of logging and mining to the rise of tourism and the ever-volatile agriculture sector. It also sits on the southern tip of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem  the most productive grizzly bear recovery area in the Lower 48 States with about 1,000 resident bears.

Ranchers who grew up rarely seeing a grizzly in their childhood now fear for their grandchildren when they visit favorite fishing spots or hunt pheasants in thickets. Ovando and nearby Lincoln both sit in the middle of major wildlife corridors, and bears as well as elk and deer and wolves make a constant presence. That means new costs and hassles in damaged fencing, plundered crops, harassed cows and frightened workers.

Among the most effective changes the Blackfoot Challenge has helped instill has been a carcass pickup program thats overwritten the old practice of boneyards  dumps for dead livestock on the far edge of a ranch. Those boneyards were regular feeding grounds for grizzlies and wolves. But as the numbers of both predators increased, Wilson said ranchers started to see that getting free meat off the menu discouraged big scavengers from hanging around herds.

On the human side, Ovando residents quickly raised several thousand dollars to upgrade protections for chicken coops, buy bear-resistant trash cans for landowners, create a stockpile of bear spray for residents to use and install four new food storage lockers for bike tourists moving along Highway 200. The plan is to first increase Ovandos bear-awareness, and then work with the visitors whose behaviors are harder to influence, Wilson said.

Weve come to expect some level of bear activity in these small towns, Wilson said. Were located in the middle of prime grizzly bear habitat.

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1. Yes. Raising the bar for future developments will boost the citys housing market.

2. Yes. It will help in newer areas, but more needs to be done to change Killeens image.

3. No. The new standards will just slow down homebuilding and drive away developers.

4.No. The ordinance will do little more than drive up the price of new homes in the city.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say what the effect will be until they have been in place for a while.

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Three local farmer-led watershed councils in the Tainter Creek, Bad Axe River and Coon Creek watersheds have announced upcoming meetings:

Tainter Creek

The Tainter Creek Watershed Farmer-Led Council will meet on Thursday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m., at the Franklin Town Hall in Liberty Pole. Discussions about the 2022 event schedule and the DATCP grants will be on the agenda.

Bad Axe River

The next Bad Axe Farmer-Led Watershed Council meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 24, at the Harmony Town Hall, located at E2905 Newton Road, There will be a 6 p.m. social hour, and a 7 p.m. business meeting. The agenda will include a discussion of ideas for 2022 field days, educational opportunities, promotional materials development, and signing up for subcommittees.

Coon Creek

The next meeting of the Coon Creek Community Watershed Council is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 2, is at the Coon Valley Conservation Club. The meeting will begin with a 6 p.m. social hour and chili supper, followed by a business meeting at 7 p.m.

The meeting will be devoted to discussion of the groups purpose, mission and organizational structure. To learn more or to be sent materials to read in advance of the meeting, contact Nancy Wedwick at nancywedwick45@gmail.com.

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Support of the Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) mission has taken many forms, which includes technological and financial support from Fort McCoys Network Enterprise Center and Resource Management Office.

The first challenge NEC faced upon receiving word of the OAW mission in August 2021 was how to quickly increase network capacity and connectivity to handle the demands of the mission.

The NEC immediately began extending network connectivity into the OAW support areas, to include extending commercial internet and unclassified networks into multiple buildings to provide expanded network access to interagency and nongovernmental organizations, as well as military support units designated to support OAW operations, NEC Director John Baltich said.

NEC also helped Task Force McCoy and Logistics Civil Augmentation Program to expand wireless internet and access points for the Afghan guests, allowing them to communicate again with friends and family members. Expanded internet access also improved the ability to effectively out-process the guest population quickly and efficiently, Baltich said.

NEC staff members provided ongoing support by responding to ongoing technical or communications-related issues that arose as OAW support personnel arrived on the ground, Baltich said. One example included expanding video teleconferencing support, including on weekends, to assist collaboration efforts. NEC staff members also created additional Army network accounts for units coming to Task McCoy for OAW.

Support has been available 24/7 through Fort McCoy NEC in order to enable quick responses to critical mission-support requirements, Baltich said.

Overall, the IT and communication support provided by the NEC would not have been possible without the full commitment of all NEC personnel, as well as the collaborative effort and support from the Task Force G6 office, 7th Signal Command, 106th Signal Brigade ARNORTH G6, and all mission partners and directorates across the Fort McCoy Garrison, Baltich said.

Baltich said he would also like to recognize Tim Simonson, NEC Business and Operations Division chief, and Sherm Thayer, network operations specialist, for their critical roles in supporting the OAW mission.

Any mission requires money, and RMO played a crucial role in making sure garrison organizations had the funds needed to quickly support OAW.

RMO was involved from the very start, former Resource Management Officer Maureen Richardson said. The budget officer and the RMO chief were in every planning meeting, getting card holder limits raised.  We created line of accounting in the financial systems and coordinate with higher headquarters to obtain resources for the mission.

As the mission continued, RMO established a cell in the Task Force McCoy headquarters, which became a feeder for garrison, 88th Readiness Division, and 181st Multi-Functional Training Brigade offices to make purchases, modify contracts, and assist in finance for soldier payments, Richardson said.

Richardson said she would like to recognize Matt Schroeder and Mike Jensen from RMO for their hard work in supporting OAW. (They) adapted quickly to take on new and continually changing roles, she said.

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At a meeting over the weekend the La Crosse County Republican Party overwhelmingly showed its support for former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Sen. Patrick Testin in the race for Wisconsins next governor and lieutenant governor, respectively.

The results came from a straw poll conducted at a caucus meeting on Saturday, Jan. 20, at the 3rd Congressional District headquarters in Onalaska, where members voted between Republican candidates for each office.

Party chair Bill Feehan shared the results in a media release Monday that showed 85% of those in attendance supported Kleefisch for governor and 89% supported Testin for lieutenant.

Testin, who is from Stevens Point, announced his campaign last fall. He represents the states 24th Senate District, which includes Jackson and Monroe counties.

Kleefisch was lieutenant governor under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker from 2011-19. She has emerged as the Republican frontrunner for the 2022 gubernatorial race, and both she and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers have each outraised their fellow candidates in what is expected to be a historically expensive race.

Other Republican candidates running for the positions ranked lower with the county party. Kevin Nicholson, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2018, received 7% support for a possible run for governor; Adam Fischer received 2%; Jonathon Wichmann received 2%; and 4% of those in attendance were undecided.

For lieutenant governor, David Varnam received 7% of the vote and the remaining 4% of votes were undecided.

Feehan said that attendance at Saturdays meeting was the highest in over a decade, and endorsed 3rd Congressional District candidate Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, was among the group.

According to Feehans statement, Van Orden said to the caucus, Republicans know that western Wisconsin will determine the outcome of the most important elections in the country. We have an outstanding slate of local, state and federal candidates who are leading the way to take back our communities, culture and country.

A primary for Wisconsins gubernatorial race will be held Aug. 9 and the general election will be Nov. 8.

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An avid outdoorsman, Saint Marys University 2018 alumnus Christopher Virruso III is utilizing lessons hes gathered from the classroom and his knowledge of the outdoors to protect forestland acreage, communities and other natural resources.

Virruso, who majored in environmental biology, works as a firefighter; however, there are no big red trucks in his line of work  only shovels, axes and long days.

The Chicago native is employed as a wildland firefighter and forestry technician by the U.S. Forest Service and is stationed in White River National Forest. Working on a team with 10 other firefighters, Virruso and his coworkers hike into the Rocky Mountains of Colorado during fire season  sometimes working 16 hours a day for 14 straight days  to suppress wildfires with hand tools and chainsaws.

We dont have any hoses or water. Were digging. Digging and cutting, he said. Our job is to remove brush and separate unburned fuel from the fuel thats burning so we can suffocate the fire.

Virruso has worked as a wildland firefighter for three years now. He said its a career he didnt even know was possible when he was growing up  not even as a student at Saint Marys. Yet, he says his experience at Saint Marys set him on the path to his current career.

Having an uncle who briefly attended Saint Marys, Virruso says he visited Winona several times as a child. Being familiar with the landscape of the Driftless region, he knew Saint Marys was a place where he could immerse himself in nature as part of his college experience..

When I was looking at colleges, I just wanted to study and learn more about the environment. I wanted to be outside, and I felt like the Mississippi River Valley was the perfect place, he said.

After enjoying the opportunities to work and learn in the bluffs, streams, and rivers of the Winona area, Virruso knew whatever job he took after graduating would have to be outdoors.

After graduation, Virruso began working for the Rocky Mountain Youth Corps (RYMC) and was assigned to conservation projects in national parks and forests in Colorado. It was here where he was acquainted with wildland firefighting and began considering the profession.

I liked building trails and being outdoors with the RYMC, he said. But the firefighting portion of the work seemed very meaningful to me. Youre doing something that not only benefits you, but youre also protecting folks.

Entering the profession at a time when wildfire dangers are growing, Virruso has kept busy.

In 2020, his crew was called to the Pine Gulch Fire near Grand Junction, Colo., which was (at that point) the largest fire in the states history. From the ground, he said it was hard to tell how big the fire was. It wasnt until family and friends told him about news reports theyd seen that he understood the magnitude of the event. During a particularly slow fire season in Colorado, he had the opportunity to return to Minnesota to respond to fires in the Boundary Waters.

Wildland firefighting may not have been a part of his coursework at Saint Marys, but he says he regularly applies lessons learned at the university into his daily work.

The biggest takeaway from Saint Marys was how to communicate with others, he said. Which is important because of how dangerous the job is and how absolutely imperative it is that everybody knows whats going on.

While the dangers and physical demands of the job can take a toll, Virruso says he doesnt see himself in any other job.

We get paid in sunrises and sunsets, thats kind of our motto. Even on the toughest days, it can be amazing. Well be up at 5 a.m. hiking, and well see the sun come up over the Rockies, and Ill just say, Wow, this is the most magnificent place Ive ever been, he said. Im lucky to be able to do this. I dont know what tomorrow will hold, so the opportunity to travel and experience the outdoors and wildlife is amazing.

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Absentee ballot drop boxes will be allowed in the Feb. 15 spring primary, a state appeals court decided Monday as it blocked a recent ruling by a Waukesha County judge.

The state District 4 Court of Appeals issued a stay against the earlier ruling by Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren, which barred the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in the state. The appeals court said in an order Monday that the lower courts ruling creates the potential for voter confusion and uncertainty in the upcoming primary.

In their order, appeals court judges Brian Blanchard, Rachel Graham and Jennifer Nashold agreed with the Wisconsin Elections Commissions concern that some voters may have already deposited their absentee ballots in drop boxes or given them to a spouse or caregiver to be mailed or delivered to a clerk.

The commission reported that, as of about 8 a.m. Monday, nearly 8,400 absentee ballots had already been sent out by local clerks and at least 1,845 ballots have already been delivered or are currently out for delivery, according to court records.

If the current guidance is withdrawn at this stage of the election process, there is significant uncertainty as to whether these votes would be counted, the court wrote. Given this situation, the risk of confusion  and possible disenfranchisement  is compelling.

The appeals court will decide at a future date what measures need to be in place for elections after the spring primary. At the same time, the state Supreme Court also could take up the matter.

Todays ruling will stop new barriers to voting from being imposed, and almost certainly prevent some Wisconsinites from being disenfranchised, in the upcoming February elections, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul said in a statement. We will continue protecting Wisconsinites freedom to vote.

On Jan. 13, Bohren ruled in a case brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty that there is no statutory authority to have drop boxes used for the collection of absentee ballots outside of a specifically allowed alternate absentee ballot location or at a clerks office. Bohren also ordered that voters cannot have anyone else return their ballot for them.

WILLs lawsuit was filed days after the state Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, turned back a separate attempt by a major Republican donor to ban the boxes.

The state Department of Justice filed a motion for an appeal late Friday following Bohrens decision that day denying a request to put the ruling on hold until after the upcoming spring primary. The state Elections Commission and a group of voting rights advocacy organizations also appealed the ruling last week.

The bipartisan commission was originally scheduled to discuss Bohrens ruling later Monday, but the meeting was canceled in light of the Court of Appeals decision.

Widely used

State statutes do not address the use of ballot drop boxes, though the commission issued guidance in early 2020 to allow election clerks to make use of them. The boxes were widely used in the state that year as an alternative for voters worried that, with the crush of absentee ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic and potential delays in mail delivery, their ballots might not make it back before Election Day.

At least 34 states used or planned to use ballot drop boxes in the 2020 election and about 16% of nationwide voters in the 2016 general election made use of the boxes, according to the commissions website. Only four states prohibited the use of drop boxes when the commission issued the 2020 guidance for their use in Wisconsin.

State elections commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said in testimony in the circuit court case last year the commission was aware of at least 528 drop boxes being used across the state in the 2020 November election. While some cities installed multiple boxes, Wolfe said the boxes were ultimately used by more than 430 communities.

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said in a statement she was happy to hear the state appeals court recognizes that drop boxes are a normal part of elections in our state and that changing the rules right before an election is inappropriate.

I am confident that they will recognize that removing drop boxes altogether risks disenfranchising voters in Madison and across the state, Rhodes-Conway added.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court also could take up the topic of drop boxes in a lawsuit filed last year by Republican gubernatorial candidate and former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch challenging the commissions guidance on drop boxes. The states high court has not said if it will take up the case before it goes through lower courts.

Another lawsuit was filed earlier this month by a Waukesha County resident represented by WILL. The voter is suing the Elections Commission for rejecting a complaint he filed last year regarding ballot drop boxes.

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Gov. Tony Evers is urging Wisconsin residents who cant afford internet service to sign up for new federal subsidies.

Administered by the Federal Communications Commission, the Affordable Connectivity Program provides discounts of up to $30 a month for eligible households and up to $75 a month for homes on tribal lands.

Established this year with $14.2 billion from the federal infrastructure act, the affordable connectivity program replaced a previous program known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, cutting the benefit from $50 but expanding eligibility.

Some households can also receive up to $100 toward the purchase of a computer.

Only about 20% of the estimated 650,000 eligible households  representing nearly 1.6 million people  were enrolled in the broadband benefit program, according to research by the website broadbandnow.com. There are nearly 47,000 Milwaukee County households enrolled and about 8,500 in Dane County, according to the program administrator.

Evers said Wisconsin residents should not have to choose between essential needs and internet access, which has become increasingly important since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We know that the digital divide in our state is holding our communities back, as high-speed internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity to learn, work, and access critical resources in our state and country today, Evers said in a statement.

According to a 2021 report from the Federal Communications Commission, roughly 394,900 people in Wisconsin lack access to quality broadband service, though a private study estimated the actual number could be higher than 600,000.

That has long been a problem in rural Wisconsin, especially remote areas where there arent enough customers to justify the high cost of running wires, but a recent UW-Extension study found internet access is also a problem in cities where many cant afford it.

To qualify for the affordable connectivity program, households must have income less than twice the federal poverty guidelines  about $46,000 a year for a family of three  or receive certain types of government assistance such as Medicaid, SSI or school lunch subsidies. Current recipients of federal Pell Grants are also eligible.

Participating broadband providers  including AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, and TDS  receive money directly from the program and apply the discount to customer bills.

Those enrolled in the previous program will continue to receive benefits through February but may need to re-enroll after March 1.

Eligible households can enroll by visiting acpbenefit.org or by contacting participating broadband providers. Customers who need additional assistance can call the FCCs information line at 877-384-2575.

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In the 2021 blockbuster "Spider-Man: No Way Home, audiences can see the titular webslinger swing, fight and jump from one expansive set piece to the next.

And among the hundreds of people responsible for the film, which has grossed $700 million and counting, one is a Lancaster County native.

Eagle-eyed Marvel fans, already known to wait through the credits for an Easter egg or trail of breadcrumbs towards the next comic book movie, can see the name Daniel Enrique De Leon among the 15 modeling artists responsible for making the improbable, realistic.

There's no real distraction, it's more like a weird, super unique spike of dopamine when you're watching the movie and you think, 'Oh, I remember working on that shot, but I was looking at it in my monitor and it didn't look this good, says De Leon, 39, about watching his work on the big screen.

De Leon who has lived in Los Angeles with his dog, Ein, since 2014, has been working in the field of VFX(visual effects) for close to two decades. The path was not a straight one  at one point, De Leon was a double-major at Millersville University, primarily working towards a biology degree.

Whenever I tell people that I majored in biology and art, they're like, 'How does that work?'" de Leon explains. They always think, 'Medical illustrator! and I'm like, 'Hell no! That is boring and limiting, and you're constrained by the body and what it looks like.'

De Leons journey started, as it does so often with young boys, as a childhood fascination with dinosaurs. Michael Crichtons Jurassic Park novelization came first, and De Leon devoured the book with the help of his older sister, Ruth. Enrique, De Leons father, introduced Daniel to films like Gremlins, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Aliens, jumpstarting a lifelong appreciation for film.

I felt like I had such a great curated set of movies as a child, De Leon says. And then, of course, he exposed me to a few movies that were definitely too early for me as a child, but I didn't know any better and loved them.

When at last the Jurassic Park film premiered in June of 1993, the elder and younger De Leons went to see it, with family friend Brad Igou in tow. Igou met the family when Enrique emigrated to the United States from Guatemala and Igou was teaching English as a second language at the York Spanish American Center. The De Leon children were born when their parents moved to Pennsylvania.

When I was a kid, I was a big dinosaur fan, too. It's funny how dinosaurs stay in the consciousness of little boys, I guess, says Igou, remembering the fateful trip to the movies. We all loved Jurassic Park.

The wrinkles and scale of the dinosaurs in the movie heightened De Leons early love for realism as opposed to stylized art. When he was even younger, De Leon and his sister would watch Disney movies, pause them to draw the scenes and characters, and then unpause to continue the film.

Many artists will tell you that it's the wrong way to go about art you want to do the broad sketch first, and then you refine it and it gets more detailed, similar to sculpturing, De Leon says. But as a kid, I would often get obsessed with details.

Though De Leons parents were supportive of his artistic endeavors, De Leons father suggested that he get into medicine, as the elder De Leon had wanted to be a doctor at one point.

De Leon would, briefly, have his cake and eat it, too, by majoring in art and science at Millersville. In college, De Leon also worked in the ER at Lancaster General Hospital, often leading to all hours of his days being accounted for with some type of work.

I would study my books, fall asleep on those, wake up and finish my drawings for Drawing 2, pull that together, go to class, finish up, work near eight hours in the ER, then go home and do it all over again, De Leon describes. It was way too much.

California love

Feeling the emotional weight of long nights in the ER, De Leon dropped out of Millersville in his junior year in 2002. Around that same time, the world of visual effects got a boost through the release of ZBrush, a digital sculpting tool.

Anything computer-generated that you see in a film, especially something organic-looking, 99% of the time it started life as a 3D model in ZBrush, because it's such naturalistic sculpting, almost like you're working with clay on a computer, De Leon says. There's a steep learning curve, but the basic idea is just knowing this one option makes you add material, then this other tool inverts it and scrapes out data.

During this time, De Leon held a day job of creating wood and stone patterns for Ikea furniture with online ZBrush masterclasses. Soon enough, De Leon would not only take masterclasses, but also asked to help moderate and teach classes. Through his work for ZBrush parent company Pixelogic and the Stan Winston School of Character Arts, De Leon was beginning to make the necessary connections towards a career in VFX. Thanks to a freelance gig in 2013, De Leon was able to procure his first 3D printer, which helped him land a gig at Sight & Sound Theater creating models for its Moses show.

On weekends, De Leon would travel to conventions such as 3D Printer World Expo and the SIGGRAPH Conference. One connection made on these trips proved to be invaluable. Michigan native Solomon Blair worked at Pixelogic for several years before meeting De Leon, who struck him as particularly motivated to get into the industry.

I vaguely remember him talking when he was working at Sight & Sound and just getting into sculpting and building real 1:1 scale figures, Blair says. I remember him wanting to make the transition into something bigger.

After getting to know De Leon and understanding his passion, Blair made De Leon an offer difficult to refuse  he invited De Leon to come to Los Angeles and live in his apartment, rent-free.

I know plenty of people who weren't able to make it or stick it out, including people that have passion and skills to make it, Blair says. The only thing that they lacked was maybe support or guidance. There's so many factors that play into it.

De Leon hit the West Coast running, creating highly detailed dinosaur models to sell online. After Blair moved out a year later, the 3D-printed dinosaurs and other freelance gigs helped him pay the rent. Eventually, he was able to make connections at Digital Domain 3.0, a VFX company that has worked on movies the likes of Ready Player One and Avengers: Endgame. Now, while still a freelancer, De Leon is contributing to the likes of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and DCs upcoming Black Adam, where he helped create 3D models of star Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

And of course, "Spider-Man: No Way Home, a project that he began work on in 2020.

As a fan of most things nerdy, De Leon immediately knew the scale of the film, but not all the secrets and spoilers contained within.

We don't read the scripts, De Leon says. Those of us who are creating the effects, we're just seeing the shots that we're working on and what's in the department library, but it's just chunks and snippets. I remember seeing so many shots that I had no context for, in general. I didn't really have a full idea, but I gathered enough to think that it was going to be pretty good.

Much of his work on the film was making sure that Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, moved in a realistic way and not, as De Leon says, like Gumby.

There was an incredible amount of artistry and work that had to go into the shots for everything in motion, De Leon says. You'd sculpt in a bunch of work, and let's say he's throwing a huge punch, winding up and coming back down. Right when it's a quarter of a way around the wind-up, all the geometry and rotations change so much that, the sculptural data that you sculpted when he backed up for the punch, if you let it go past that quarter-point, it would make the arm looks so weird and off.

So, you have to stop the instructions for that data, and start a new set from this quarter to the next quarter for the next motion, and again and again when you're talking about rapid-fire punching, kicking or swinging. Our brain still picks up on whether a human body is still holding the shape of a human body, even while it's blurred.

True to his Millersville days of perhaps loading his days down with too much work, De Leon also recently completed work on an entirely different project  pop star Katy Perrys new Las Vegas show Play, which opened in December and runs until March. Described by De Leon as Alice in Wonderland meets Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, the stage set pieces consist of items like giant mushrooms and insects and one large, crushed Budweiser can.

Along with his freelance work on stage and screen, De Leons current free time is taken up by a burgeoning interest in augmented reality and his own pet project, a short film based off a pre-existing Sony Playstation game.

End credits

Despite all the projects on the other side of the country, De Leon returned to Lancaster for the first time in several years over the holidays, where he was able to reconnect in person with Igou.

Igou, sure that De Leon has already seen Spider-Man: No Way Home several times by the time that it was released in December, bashfully asked De Leon if hed want to see it at Penn Cinema. Not wanting to make De Leon point out every detail that he worked on while the film was running, Igou instead asked De Leon to silently point at the screen throughout, which he did. Nearly three decades removed from one of the key lightning bolt moments of De Leons life, the two sat in the theater at movies end, only this time, waiting for one of their own names to appear on screen.

To me, seeing his name in the credits here, it was just part of that evolution of him following his dream and doing what he wanted to do, Igou says. It brings me a lot of joy to see someone who is thriving and enjoying every second  or at least most of the seconds  pursuing the thing that they want to do.

Though it was a long and winding road to get to this point, de Leon chooses a different Beatles song to describe how he got to where he is today.

I love that song by The Beatles, because it's my life  I get by with a little help from my friends, De Leon says. Like, yes, I worked my ass off, but I'm also incredibly ingratiated to so many wonderful, obscenely generous and kind people.
The newly Republican-controlled Manheim Township Board of Commissioners voted Monday night to replace Democrat-appointed Township Manager James Drumm with former township fire Chief Rick Kane.

Board President Donna DiMeo said in a text and a statement the decision was a mutual separation, the result of differences between the board and Drumm, who did not attend the meeting.

We can dream more, do more and learn more, DiMeo said as she welcomed Kane, who will be sworn on the morning of Jan. 31 and in a ceremony at the Feb. 14 commissioners meeting. We are fortunate to have him back on board. Kane attended the meeting but did not speak.

The board unanimously voted to give Drumm a 30-day notice of termination and to hire Kane to fill Drumms unexpired term, until the first Monday of January 2024. Kane recently resigned as fire chief, saying he planned to take a position in the private sector.

Drumm, who previously served as city manager in Brunswick, Georgia, was appointed manager last March at an annual salary of $135,000 when the board was controlled by Democrats. It has since flipped to Republican control. He was reappointed at the Jan. 3 meeting.

Commissioner John Bear congratulated Kane, noting that its best to harvest from within Manheim Township.

The move to replace the townships top administrator comes as one of the first acts of the newly elected Republican board majority. At the boards first meeting of the year, the new majority voted to abolish a police advisory commission created in 2020 by the previous board.

Prior to Drumms hiring, the township manager position was held by Sean Molchany, starting in 2014. He worked for the township for 26 years before his firing in 2020, after the then-newly Democratic board wanted a new manager who would help pursue the boards legislative and policy agenda, former Commissioner Sam Mecum said at the time.

Molchany received nearly $80,000 in unused sick days and an additional $60,100  half of his annual salary, which was $120,200. He was hired in Akron Borough as the assistant borough manager in February 2021, where he remains employed.

During the 2021 municipal election campaign, the GOP slate of candidates criticized their Democratic opponents firing of Molchany for political gain.

Kane, Drumms replacement, announced his resignation from the township in September 2021, and officially left the fire chief position this month. At the time of his resignation, he told the board he was pursuing a new job in the private sector.

Kane led Manheim Township Fire and Rescue since 2007. Over that time, he was credited with transitioning the townships three fire stations into one department, adding several full-time firefighters, creating a fire marshals office with a safety inspection program for commercial businesses, serving as the townships emergency management coordinator during the COVID-19 pandemic, and more.

 Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed reporting for this story.
LNP|LancasterOnline publishes submitted obituaries in each of its daily editions and in a searchable format online at lancasteronline.com/obit
James Buchanan and Thaddeus Stevens  Lancasters best-known politicians of the 19th century  have never been treated equally in their adopted home.

President Buchanans house, Wheatland, has been restored as a magnificent example of how a wealthy Pennsylvanian lived in the middle decades of the 1800s. Wheatland is a primary local tourist attraction.

On the other hand, builders of the Lancaster County Convention Center destroyed the rear half of U.S. Rep. Thaddeus Stevens home and office years ago. LancasterHistory.org is finally preparing to restore whats left.

Buchanan has two statues  one in Buchanan Park here and one in Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C., plus a large stone pyramid monument in Buchanans Birthplace State Park in Franklin County.

Stevens has only one statue  at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster  and that was not erected until 2008. Three other initiatives to erect Stevens statues over the years have fizzled.

A 19th-century bust of Stevens has been lost. A group failed to erect a statue of Stevens, prime defender of public education in Pennsylvania, in Harrisburg early in the 20th century. A plan to erect a statue at the historic Thaddeus Stevens School in Washington, D.C., also died a few years ago.

But the Thaddeus Stevens Society, headquartered in Gettysburg, soon will unveil the second Stevens statue. It will be dedicated in front of the Gettysburg Courthouse on April 2 as part of a three-day celebration of Stevens 230th birthday.

Why is one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, a man who coddled the slave-holding South before and during his pre-Civil War presidency, more noticeably memorialized than the man who did as much as any other to promote racial equality before, during and after the Civil War?

Ross Hetrick, president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, provides pertinent comments about the relatively shabby treatment Stevens has received over the years in the January issue of the societys online newsletter, Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles.

Stevens has not been properly memorialized, Hetrick writes, because his admirers did not follow through on elaborate proposals to honor him following his death in 1868.

But a larger reason, Hetrick notes, is that [Stevens) enemies  the people who wanted to destroy the country and preserve slavery  were more determined to demonize Stevens as a part of the Lost Cause propaganda effort to distort the historic record of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

In recent years, efforts to promote the discredited Lost Cause have faltered as the bitter truth of the terrible toll of slavery and racism has become ever more clear. At the same time, Stevens star is slowly rising as his passionate dedication to equality has become more widely recognized.

Buchanans reputation was ruined before he left the presidency. It has never recovered. But Lancaster is stuck with his mansion and his statue and his tomb in Green Hill Cemetery. Presidents, even the weakest ones, are memorialized forever.

Stevens deserves at least equal public recognition. After his new statue is unveiled in Gettysburg and his home/office is restored in the first block of Lancasters South Queen Street, the Scribbler hopes an old idea  naming the intersection of South Queen and Vine streets as Stevens Square  will be revived.

As major construction and reconstruction (and gentrification) around that intersection proceed over the next several years, pressure to create Stevens Square to add to Penn Square and the recently renamed Ewell Plaza should increase.

Jack Brubaker, retired from the LNP staff, writes The Scribbler'' column every Sunday. He welcomes comments and contributions at scribblerlnp@gmail.com.
LA City Attorney Announces Plan To Combat Increasing Gun Violence

Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer today announced an eight-point plan to address increasing gun violence in Los Angeles.

Feuer  who is running for mayor this year  submitted a plan calling for an inter-jurisdictional response to gun violence to Mayor Eric Garcetti, the City Council, the Board of Police Commissioners, Police Chief Michel Moore, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon. In his letter, Feuer noted that 278 people died in Los Angeles from gun violence in 2021, 1,499 people were shot, and the Los Angeles Police Department recovered 30% more firearms than during the previous year.

A number of specific approaches to grapple with this epidemic are in

place  but as the continued increase in gun violence demonstrates, these

important efforts are insufficient, Feuer wrote. Feuers plan calls for collaborations from officials across jurisdictions to address gun violence, including through a Gun Crime Violence Review Commission that would be tasked with analyzing fatal and non-fatal shooting cases with other jurisdictions to identify patterns, trends and community factors that cause gun violence. The commission would then work to implement prevention strategies.

Feuers plan also seeks to foster more city/county collaboration on

gun violence prevention by having officials meet regularly to discuss the

issue. Feuer also called for the city to add resources to the LAPDs Gun Unit

to help it address the 136% increase in unserialized ghost guns that were

recovered in 2021 compared to 2020. He also called for more gun buyback

programs to give people a chance to turn in unwanted firearms and reduce the amount of firearms in Los Angeles.

ADVERTISEMENT

The causes of L.A.s increasing gun violence, which is mirrored in

major cities across America, are complex. There is a huge number of firearms on our streets, fueled by an increase in gun purchases in the last federal

election cycle and easy online access to ghost guns, Feuer said. The

pandemic has compounded the emergency, increasing stress, anxiety, disconnection and isolation, causing disproportionate economic hardships in

already disadvantaged communities, closing schools and diminishing community-based prevention and intervention programs.

To address neighborhoods that have persistent gun violence, Feuers

plan calls for the creation of a Neighborhood Solutions Program that brings

representatives from city departments and elected officials together to

identify priority problems and work across jurisdictional lines to address the

issues.

Other points of Feuers plan include:

making immediate investments in intervention programs that have

been proved to work

been proved to work expanding his offices REACH program, through help from private

foundations, in its goal to provide interventions and therapy to children who are dealing with trauma from violence

foundations, in its goal to provide interventions and therapy to children who are dealing with trauma from violence expanding the citys program to clean and beautify neighborhoods

(he noted a study that found that gun violence declines when sources of blight are cleaned and high-crime neighborhoods are beautified).


British scientists have created a fast, less costly process for genome sequencing each coronavirus case they examine.

Britain is now a world leader in COVID-19 sequencing. This helps public health officials follow the spread of new variants, develop vaccines and decide when restrictions on movement are necessary.

Researchers at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge and other laboratories in Britain have a new mission. They are sharing what they have learned with scientists around the world.

The Omicron variant now spreading in many countries shows the need for worldwide cooperation, said Ewan Harrison. He is a top researcher at Sanger.

Omicron was first found by scientists in southern Africa who quickly informed the world and gave officials time to prepare.

Since dangerous mutations of the virus can happen anywhere, scientists must continually watch its development to protect everyone, Harrison said.

We cant just kind of put a fence around an individual country or parts of the world, because thats just not going to cut it, he said.

Cambridge University Professor Sharon Peacock understood the importance of sequencing the virus early in the pandemic. She knew sequencing would be important to fighting the virus. She received British government money for a national organization of scientists, laboratories and testing centers known as the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium.

The consortium is now working to increase knowledge of sequencing around the world. It has built training programs for researchers in developing countries. The programs include planned online classes on information sharing and working with public health officials. The goal is to help researchers build national programs to sequence COVID-19 viruses.

There is inequity in access to sequencing worldwide, the group said, adding that it wants to end the unequal situation.

By sequencing as many cases of the virus as possible, researchers hope to identify variants of concern as quickly as possible. They can then follow their spread and give early warnings to health officials.

Britain has supplied more COVID-19 sequences to researchers around the world than any country other than the United States. It has also sequenced a bigger percentage of its cases than any large nation.

Researchers in Britain have released about 1.68 million sequences, or about 11 percent of reported cases, said GISAID. GISAID is an international organization that works for quick sharing of virus information.

Over the past two years, labs around Britain have refined the process of gathering and studying COVID-19 viruses.

This has helped cut the cost of examining each genome by 50 percent. It has also reduced the time it takes to sequence from three weeks to five days, said the research group Wellcome Sanger.

Increasing sequencing ability is like building a pipeline, said Dr. Eric Topol. He is head of innovative medicine at Scripps Research in San Diego, California. In addition to buying costly sequencing machines, countries need supplies of reactive chemicals for the machines. They also need trained people to do the work and who understand the sequences. They also need systems to share the information quickly.

Meeting those needs has been difficult for many nations, including the U.S. It is even harder for developing nations, Topol said.

Many of these low- and middle-income countries dont have the sequencing capabilities, particularly with any reasonable turnaround time, he said. So, the idea that theres a helping hand there from the Wellcome Center is terrific. We need that.

Virus samples arrive from around the country. Lab assistants carefully prepare the genetic material. It is placed into the sequencing devices that read each samples unique DNA. Scientists then examine the information and compare it with other identified genomes to follow mutations. They want to see how the virus is developing.

Because COVID-19 mutates all the time, it is important to look for new, more dangerous variants that might be resistant to vaccines, Harrison said. This information will help researchers change existing vaccines or create new ones to fight the virus.

Harrison praised South Africa for quickly informing the world about the Omicron variant. But other countries, he said, punished South Africa by restricting travel and harming its economy. All nations must be permitted to publish new variant information without fear of being punished, he said.

Im Susan Shand.

The Associated Press reported this story. Susan Shand adapted it for Learning English.

__________________________________________

Words in This Story

genome n. the entire set of genetic instructions found in a cell

sequencing  n. a process of finding out the order of the amino acids forming the genetic material of an organism

variant  n. something that is different in some way from others of the same kind

mutation  n. a permanent change in the genes of an organism

consortium  n. a group of people or companies that agree to work together

access n. the ability to get something, enter a place or meet someone

refine  v. to improve (something) by making small changes

sample n. a small amount of something that is used to give information about what it was taken from

unique  adj. used to say that something or someone is unlike anything or anyone else

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The American lobster industry has greatly slowed down because of trade difficulties linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But those issues have not done much to slow Chinas love for lobster. The demand rose during the 2010s in part because of the expansion of Chinas middle class.

Lobsters are especially desired in China during the winter. The tasty sea creatures are often eaten on Chinese New Year, which will be celebrated this year on February 1.

American exporters sent more than 6 million kilograms of lobster to China during the first 11 months of 2021, The Associated Press reports. That was a 6 percent increase over the same period in 2020.

The pandemic has made the already hard job of sending live seafood across the world even more difficult. But Maine lobster exporters are expecting a good amount of business for Chinese New Year, Bill Bruns told the AP. Bruns oversees The Lobster Company in Arundel, Maine.

Bruns said the shipping process is more difficult now because the company cannot send lobsters directly to Beijing because of COVID-19 restrictions. But they are still able to send lobsters to other airports, such as Shenzhen.

Chinese New Year was always a crapshoot the last couple years, Bruns said. But I'm prepared for it. I have the staff. Because otherwise it's going to be a long spring.

China buys lobsters from the U.S.  where the industry is mostly based in Maine  as well as Canada. Exports from Canada were up even more than the U.S. during the first 11 months of 2021, said John Sackton. He is an industry expert and the creator of SeafoodNews.com.

Sackton said the seafood industry could also gain business from the Beijing Winter Olympics, which are set to begin February 4. And he said he expects lobster sales during the Chinese New Year to be higher than last year.

The U.S. lobster industry had similar difficulties during the first year of the pandemic in 2020. But companies still reported a strong export season during that year. While the value of exports in 2020 was down from a record year in 2018, it still added up to more than $100 million.

High lobster prices have raised the value of exports this year. Business publisher Urner Barry reported the price for a live 1.25-pound hard shell lobster was $11.25 per pound in New England this month. That was more than one-third higher than in January 2021.

To send lobsters to China, American and Canadian fishermen have to trap them in the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Bad weather has made that difficult in Maine this year. But fisherman are still having a productive winter on the water, said Kristan Porter. He is president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association.

When guys get out there, they are doing OK, Porter said. He added: It takes someone hardier than me to fish the wintertime.

Im Caty Weaver.

The Associated Press reported this story. Dan Novak adapted it for VOA Learning English.

__________________________________________________

Words in This Story

crapshoot  n. something that could produce a good or bad result

staff  n. the people who work for an organization

hardy  adj. able to live through difficult conditions


Researchers recently examined an unusual coral reef that was discovered near Tahiti in the South Pacific Ocean. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.

Dive supported by UNESCO

The newly found reef stretches 3 kilometers. It was studied late last year during a dive supported by UNESCO. Unlike most of the worlds mapped corals, which are found in shallow waters, this one was deeper  between 35 meters to 70 meters.

Such depths are difficult to explore. The deeper a diver goes underwater, the shorter the amount of time he or she can safely spend at each depth. The dive team had special air tanks and did 200 hours of diving to study the reef. The team took photographs, measurements and samples of the corals.

Corals are tiny animals that grow and form reefs in oceans around the world.

The reef is in a place where many researchers have not spent a lot of time, said Mark Eakin, formerly of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Well be seeing more of these discoveries as the technology is applied to these locations, said Eakin. We may find some bigger ones somewhere, but I think this is always going to be an unusual reef.

Recreational dives and future research

Laetitia Hedouin said she first saw the corals months earlier with a local diving group that was on a recreational dive. Recreational is a term that means done for enjoyment.

When I went there for the first time, I thought, Wow  we need to study that reef. Theres something special about that reef, said Hedouin.

She is a researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Moorea, French Polynesia.

Hedouin noticed that the corals looked healthy and did not appear to be affected by a bleaching event in 2019. A bleaching event is when corals lose their colors and turn white.

Around the world, coral reefs have been damaged from overfishing and pollution. Climate change is also hurting corals, including those in areas near the newly discovered reef.

Between 2009 and 2018, 14 percent of the worlds corals were killed, says a 2020 report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Project.

The recent volcanic explosion in Tonga that created large waves across the Pacific has not affected the reef off Tahiti, said Hedouin.

Hedouin hopes the recent research can help experts understand why the reef has not been damaged by climate change and human activities. She also hopes scientists can better understand what part these deeper corals might play in the ocean. More dives are planned in the coming months.

Julian Barbiere is the head of UNESCOs marine policy and regional coordination.

Barbiere said, We know very little about the ocean, and theres still so much that needs to be recorded, needs to be measured."

Im John Russell.

Victoria Milko reported on this story for the Associated Press. John Russell adapted it for Learning English.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

coral reef  n. : a long line of coral that lies in the water  usually in warm, shallow water

shallow  adj. having a small distance to the bottom from the surface or highest point

location  n. a place or position

marine  adj. of or relating to the sea or the plants and animals that live in the sea
United States President Joe Biden says he will not send troops to Ukraine if Russian soldiers invade.

The U.S. has no responsibility to support Ukraine. But doing little to help the former Soviet Union nation has risks, too. Experts say that if the U.S. does not push back, it could hurt the stability of eastern Europe. Russia could consider moves against other countries like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Those nations, however, have the support of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Europe this week for meetings with Ukrainian officials and NATO allies. He also plans to meet with Russias foreign minister.

Blinken has said the U.S. supports Ukraines independence and right to defend its territory. He has not explained how the U.S. would respond to a Russian invasion.

Why not help Ukraine fight?

President Joe Biden said earlier this week that he guessed Putin will send fighters into Ukraine, but it might not be a full war. In the past, Biden said he would not send the U.S. military into Ukraine to help fight Russia. On Thursday, however, he added Russia will pay a heavy price if it starts a war with Ukraine.

Russia responded by saying it is not planning an invasion. It accused the U.S. and other nations of provoking Russia by sending weapons and supplies to the area.

Russia has said it does not want NATO to expand further east. The U.S. has rejected that demand. There is already fighting in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russia-backed rebels. More than 14,000 people have died over eight years of fighting.

In Washington, both Republicans and Democrats are urging Biden and Blinken to do more. Congressman Jim Hines of Connecticut, a Democrat, said the U.S. should be sending more supplies and military trainers into Ukraine to help.

Philip Breedlove is a former general in the U.S. Air Force and was the top NATO military leader in Europe from 2013 to 2016. He said if Putin invades Ukraine and no one fights back, we will see more of the same.

What can Biden do to stop Russia?

It would be difficult to stop a Russian invasion, but experts say the U.S. could make strategic threats to make Putin hold back.

Seth Jones is a political scientist, and Philip Wasielewski is a former CIA officer. They wrote about Ukraine on January 13 for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. They said the best defense would be preventing a quick Russian victory. If Russia believed that a war with Ukraine could take a long time and have economic, political and military costs, it could think twice about an invasion.

Bidens advisers say they are thinking in a similar way.

How is the U.S. supporting Ukraines military now?

John Kirby is the press spokesperson for the Pentagon. He said there are about 200 members of the U.S. National Guard in Ukraine training soldiers along with other special U.S. troops. He said the U.S. does not plan to send more people.

The U.S. recently said it will send another $200 million in military aid to Ukraine. That is in addition to about $2.5 billion of military aid sent since 2014.

What would the U.S. do to help after a Russian attack?

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. would increase support for Ukraine, but did not say exactly how.

The U.S. also said it might increase military support to NATO member nations in Eastern Europe.

Jones and Wasielewski wrote that the U.S. should make it clear it will fully support Ukraine financially if Russia invades. They said the aid could be delivered by U.S troops or by the CIA. However, these actions would put Americans in the middle of a war the U.S. is trying to avoid.

Im Jill Robbins.

Robert Burns wrote this story for the Associated Press. Dan Friedell adapted it for for Learning English.
Seventeen employees of Nebraskas prison system more than doubled the size of their paychecks during the past fiscal year.

How? They made more in overtime pay than they did in base salary, according to data the state recently provided the Flatwater Free Press.

Some 145 employees of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services made at least half their base salary in overtime  part of spiraling overtime costs in the prison system that have cost taxpayers $48 million over the past three years.

The states highest overtime earner  a corrections caseworker named Donald Hiatt  made nearly double his salary in overtime between July 2020 and June 2021. He earned a base pay of $47,840, and an additional $97,400 in overtime pay.

Hiatts total annual pay: $145,240. He did not return Facebook messages and emails seeking comment.

The large individual overtime payments reflect an ongoing crisis faced by the states prisons, long overcrowded and now severely understaffed, according to state leaders and experts.

And while recent raises for prison staff offer some hope, Nebraskas most understaffed prisons have seen little relief in reducing the need for overtime hours, said Scott Frakes, director of the Corrections Department.

In the short term, overtime will cost taxpayers even more: Before the recent raises, it cost 15% more to pay overtime than it did to hire a new employee. The raises  which also supercharge overtime pay  boost that difference to about 55%, Frakes said.

It will always be more economical to find and hire and onboard new people, Frakes said. Thats been our emphasis all along, to reduce mandatory overtime to the bare minimum.

Overtime pay pads paychecks. It can also contribute to burnout, fatigue and high turnover rates among prison staff, say experts and former guards  especially because overtime work often becomes mandatory for essential prison employees.

Hiatt, for example, worked an average of 97 hours per week  his regular 40 and then 57 more in overtime  according to state prison officials. The next-highest overtime earners, Curtis Hurst and Bemnet Habtu, both corrections corporals, worked an average of 49 and 50 hours in overtime, respectively.

Frakes confirmed that, for some corrections employees, an 80-hour week is not unusual.

Youve got to be on your toes, be alert, said Mark Foxall, former director of the Douglas County Department of Corrections and now a faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Those things are challenging in an eight-hour shift, let alone a 16-hour shift. Are you as alert in hour 14 as you were in hour 1? How does that physical and mental fatigue accumulate over the course of several overtime shifts in a week?

Six months after the initial records request, the state in January disclosed the overtime pay earned by all state employees during the 2021 fiscal year. The Flatwater Free Press has added that data to a searchable state salary database.

The state spent $35.7 million on overtime during that period. Nearly half, $15.4 million, went to employees of a single department, the states prisons system.

The top five highest overtime earners in the state were all Corrections employees. Out of the top 20 highest earners, 15 worked in Corrections.

The Flatwater Free Press reached out to 10 of the top overtime earners in Corrections. None returned emails seeking comment.

Those top earners, who often work up to 80 hours a week, are most likely volunteering for the majority of those shifts, Frakes said.

The union contract grants staff members the right to work overtime without an upper limit, and seniority determines who can claim voluntary overtime shifts.

What we look for is performance, as opposed to straight hours, Frakes said. Are they able to perform at the level that we establish good performance? Are they staying awake and alert? If they're doing all those things, then there's no issue to address.

Mandatory overtime shifts, on the other hand, are assigned in order of reverse seniority. Recently, Frakes said, some prison guards have often been required to stay four more hours after their regular 12-hour shift.

The states two maximum-security prisons, the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution and at the State Penitentiary in Lincoln, rely heavily on overtime shifts to fill mandatory posts.

Some Corrections staff like the overtime, said Michael Chipman, president of the Nebraska Fraternal Order of Police 88, the union representing Corrections officers and other security staff. But even an excessive amount of voluntary overtime still causes burnout, he said.

Nebraska correctional officers described a continual sense of fatigue and worried about the impact of overtime on their well-being, according to a 2021 report by Doug Koebernick, inspector general of the Nebraska Correctional System.

Former employees told the Flatwater Free Press that the long hours took them away from their families, and brought on panic attacks and sleep loss.

Rapid turnover continues to be an issue for Nebraskas prison system. By the end of September, state Corrections had lost 330 prison guards over the course of 2021. The department projected that one out of every four prison employees would leave their job in 2021, according to its most recent quarterly report.

Corrections is not the most glamorous job. Its a challenging job, said Foxall, discussing high turnover in American prisons. Hiring problems predate the pandemic. The pandemic has exacerbated problems.

The state hopes the recent raises announced for correctional officers will help recruit and retain staff, lowering the departments reliance on overtime to stay afloat. Within six weeks of the change, the department saw 630 applications for corporal positions, compared with 162 applications the five weeks prior.

The department has hired about 140 of those applicants, Frakes said.

But the new union contract will drive up overtime expenses as well  in addition to increasing hourly salaries, the contract boosted overtime pay from time-and-a-half to double.

Since the raises went into effect, droves of Corrections employees have volunteered for overtime or holiday shifts, Koebernick said.

Now, with the increase of people wanting to get overtime because of the pay, I think were going to see a significant change in the amount of money spent on overtime, Koebernick said. I think were going to get blown away.

That 100 Nebraska prison employees made more than half their base salary in overtime last year is a testament to the level of need, said Eric Thompson, director of the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It signals that theres a limited number of people qualified to do the essential  and often unpleasant  work of guarding inmates and managing their cases.

Rampant overtime is far from ideal. But its also currently necessary, said Dustin White, an economics professor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

In the short run, you just have to find people, White said. Its essentially a bribe. Youre trying to figure out, how do I convince people to do this for now until I can figure out a better solution?

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraskas first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraskas first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.
If not for Jane Does courage, former Rep. Aaron von Ehlinger, R-Lewiston,  a man who stands convicted of raping her and now faces spending the rest of his life in prison  would no doubt be on his way toward securing a second term representing this area in the Legislature.
Your People Professionals has been providing business owners throughout California with HR outsourcing and consulting services for over 30 years, including recruiting and compensation services.

Steve Wilner is the companys Business Development Manager with 35 years of experience and holds an MBA from Santa Clara University.
A 16-year-old Middleton High School student has been taken into custody after staff reported he had a gun, sending the high school and two other nearby schools into lockdown Monday afternoon, Middleton police said.

At around 12:22 p.m., the Middleton High School resource officer was notified by a staff member that there was possibly a student with a gun at the school, and the school was put into lockdown as authorities searched for the student.

The 16-year-old boy from Middleton, who was found about 45 minutes into the search, was taken into custody without incident. The student did not have a gun when he was arrested, nor was one found on campus, said Lt. Scott Moen. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.

The lockdown was lifted and classes continued as normal after the student was taken into custody. Clark Street Community School and Kromrey Middle School were also put under full lockdown due to their proximity to the high school, district spokesperson Shannon Valladolid said. Sauk Elementary School was put under a building secure status.

The staff and students at Middleton High School, in partnership with our law enforcement partners should be commended for keeping our students and staff safe during this situation, Superintendent Dana Monogue said in a statement. The high school will have extra student services staff members on hand to speak with any students who need it.

A press conference tentatively scheduled for Monday by officials with the district was later canceled.

State Journal reporter Elizabeth Beyer contributed to this report.

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Jordan Bittrick is trailblazing as a high school female learning the welding trade.

Bittrick, 17, a senior at Stoughton High School, is among a small number of female workers welding at Stoughton Trailers as she participates in the Youth Apprenticeship program managed by the Dane County Schools Consortium.

School Spotlight: Adventures in learning, inside and outside the classroom Each Monday, the Wisconsin State Journal features a story about learning in Wisconsin. Here are School Spotlight stories from the past year.

As part of the apprenticeship, she took a welding class last semester and was one of just two girls, and that likely will be the case for the welding class she will take this semester. She is the only girl in her advanced auto class.

Bittrick, who hopes to become a steamfitter, seems unfazed.

Honestly, at my work (mostly at the Evansville plant for Stoughton Trailers), they dont treat me any differently. They treat me the same as everyone else, she said. Its not like, Oh you are a woman, you cant do this. So this is what is really nice about that environment, they all support me.

While she didnt intend to forge a path, she is leading the way for other girls to pursue nontraditional fields. That is something the consortium is trying to encourage, along with boys taking less traditional routes for males such as nursing assistants and other health care careers.

Its one of the focuses of the Dane County Schools Consortium, which will hold three information nights for students to learn more about the Youth Apprenticeship program and the entrance requirements. An online program will start at 6:30 p.m. Monday, an in-person event will take place at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 16 at Monona Grove High School, and another online program is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. March 1. For more information, go to go.madison.com/apprentice.

Josh Fassl, director of the Dane County School Consortium, said the annual information nights are designed for students to learn about the apprenticeship program so they can sign up for the related school courses and build enough time in their schedule to work for a company.

In addition to trying to create interest in nontraditional fields, new areas have been added to address other interest areas and emerging technologies. Some of the new areas added in 2021 were arborist, heavy equipment operator and IT-broadband technician.

New pathways to be launched this spring include utilities field technician, supply chain assistant, aviation maintenance and avionics, which involves electronic systems and equipment specifically designed for use in aviation.

A goal is to attract a greater diversity of students for the apprenticeship program, Fassl said. While the consortium has run multi-lingual events for years, it also is doing outreach to minority groups and minority chambers of commerce.

This year we are trying to connect with minority-owned business leaders, he said. Students cant see themselves in an industry if they cant see adult role models in that industry.

Fassl said the consortium tries to get out the message that taking part in the apprenticeship program does not have to mean you are choosing going to work over attending college. Instead it is choosing an apprenticeship as a pathway to reach a career goal, he said.

Stoughton Trailers ran a Women in Welding Series last fall where eight students were introduced to welding and they celebrated their last day by bringing family members to see them finish their welding project. This was the first time the program was held and there are plans to do it again, said Roxanne Betts, senior manager in training and organizational development at Stoughton Trailers and a mentor in the apprenticeship program mentor.

Betts said the program is designed to have students learn alongside female welders and see the possibilities.

Its a little intimidating, Betts said about welding. Its not easy, lets face it, its welding.

Ron Jake, marketing manager at Stoughton Trailers, said the apprenticeship program encourages more students to take up a career in welding and is a pipeline for the company, which needs workers for this critical part of manufacturing.

This need will never go away, he said.

Bittricks interest in welding comes from her family background. Her great-grandfather, Ken Spink, of McFarland, was a welder and has given his welding equipment to his great-granddaughter. Her father, David Bittrick, works in construction.

At a young age, I always hung out with him, she said of her father. I worked on cars and helped him fix things.

While she didnt seek the accolades, there have been some perks at her high school.

In my welding class, a lot of students came up to me and asked for help, she said.

In addition, the school football team wanted a pad rack and Bittrick was the only one who was considered for making it.

Bittrick also was asked by Stoughton Trailers to work in its booth at a Blackhawk Technical College career fair. She said some girls showed interest, and the company wound up with five pages of names of students interested in the program.

Kristin Natzke, a school counselor at Stoughton High School and a mentor for Bittrick in the apprenticeship program, said having more females in nontraditional roles is fairly new. More are interested in the pharmacy or veterinary technician programs, but there are still not many who are attracted to the automotive or construction trades, she said.

Jordan is really like our first one that is making a headway in what would be a nontraditional role, Natzke said.
A Georgia timber company is turning to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its six-year quest to build a frac sand facility on western Wisconsin wetlands.

Meteor Timber is asking the high court to grant a permit for the $75 million project, overturning findings of two lower courts and an administrative law judge.

A state appeals court last month upheld lower court rulings that the state Department of Natural Resources violated the law when it issued Meteor Timber a permit to fill 16.25 acres of wetlands in Monroe County.

The three-judge panel found the DNR lacked sufficient information to assess the environmental impacts of the proposed project and improperly amended a permit that was granted despite dozens of unanswered questions.

The rescinded permit would have been the states single largest destruction of wetlands for a frac sand project.

Meteor argues that the administrative law judge who revoked the permit should have deferred to the agencys expertise and relied less on the testimony of a recently retired DNR ecologist who said there wasnt enough data to assess Meteors mitigation plan.

The petition, filed last week, claims the judge also placed too much emphasis on a heading on the initial permit conditions.

In his view, the heading operated as a specific admission that the Department lacked sufficient information to assess environmental impact, Meteors petition states. To be sure, the heading was not artfully worded. However, it is reasonable to suggest that the meaning of the heading is more ambiguous than perceived

With billions at stake, Wisconsin lawmakers seek to block power line competition Wisconsin's three transmission utilities would be able to block competitors from bidding on projects within their territories, which opponents say would boost their profits at ratepayers expense.

Meteor argues the courts review will develop and clarify the law regarding wetland permit conditions and how much weight administrative law judges should give to government agencies.

The Supreme Court has not said if it will hear the case. Opponents, including Clean Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation, have until next week to respond.

Midwest Environmental Advocates, which has represented the Ho-Chunk Nation, said the court should reject the case but the group is prepared to defend the previous victories.

Meteor Timbers attempts to obtain a permit have been denied by the courts at every level, yet they appear dead set on destroying these irreplaceable wetlands, said MEA spokesperson Peg Sheaffer.

The appeal is the latest act in a five-year legal saga that spans two administrations, multiple courts, and shifting markets for the high-quality Wisconsin sand used to extract oil and gas from deep rock formations.

Meteor applied for the permit in 2016, saying it needed to fill the wetlands to build a processing and rail loading facility near the town of Millston that would serve two nearby mines on land the company acquired when it purchased nearly 50,000 acres of Wisconsin forest.

Wisconsin lawmakers signal support for fossil fuel pipelines The resolution comes amid mounting public opposition to Enbridge Energys plans to reroute a pipeline across northern Wisconsin.

The company argued the site, on the Union Pacific rail line, was the only viable option to economically deliver its product to oil producers in Texas.

Despite finding that the project would result in permanent and irreversible impacts and the loss of 13.4 acres of exceptional quality imperiled habitat, Gov. Scott Walkers DNR granted a permit that included dozens of conditions and questions. The agency issued a final permit five months later with some of those questions unanswered.

Clean Wisconsin and the Ho-Chunk Nation challenged the permits, and an ALJ revoked it after a five-day hearing in 2018.

Meteor petitioned then-Secretary Dan Meyer to overrule the judges decision, but Secretary Preston Cole, appointed by Gov. Tony Evers in January 2019, closed the case without acting on the petition.

Monroe County Circuit Judge Todd Ziegler and a three-judge appeals panel agreed with the ALJs ruling.

In the years since the initial application, Wisconsins sand industry has seen bankruptcies, consolidation and closures amid competition from mines in Texas.

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Gov. Tony Evers is urging Wisconsin residents who cant afford internet service to sign up for new federal subsidies.

Administered by the Federal Communications Commission, the Affordable Connectivity Program provides discounts of up to $30 a month for eligible households and up to $75 a month for homes on tribal lands.

Established this year with $14.2 billion from the federal infrastructure act, the affordable connectivity program replaced a previous program known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, cutting the benefit from $50 but expanding eligibility.

With billions at stake, Wisconsin lawmakers seek to block power line competition Wisconsin's three transmission utilities would be able to block competitors from bidding on projects within their territories, which opponents say would boost their profits at ratepayers expense.

Some households can also receive up to $100 toward the purchase of a computer.

Only about 20% of the estimated 650,000 eligible households  representing nearly 1.6 million people  were enrolled in the broadband benefit program, according to research by the website broadbandnow.com. There are nearly 47,000 Milwaukee County households enrolled and about 8,500 in Dane County, according to the program administrator.

Evers said Wisconsin residents should not have to choose between essential needs and internet access, which has become increasingly important since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We know that the digital divide in our state is holding our communities back, as high-speed internet is no longer a luxury but a necessity to learn, work, and access critical resources in our state and country today, Evers said in a statement.

According to a 2021 report from the Federal Communications Commission, roughly 394,900 people in Wisconsin lack access to quality broadband service, though a private study estimated the actual number could be higher than 600,000.

That has long been a problem in rural Wisconsin, especially remote areas where there arent enough customers to justify the high cost of running wires, but a recent UW-Extension study found internet access is also a problem in cities where many cant afford it.

To qualify for the affordable connectivity program, households must have income less than twice the federal poverty guidelines  about $46,000 a year for a family of three  or receive certain types of government assistance such as Medicaid, SSI or school lunch subsidies. Current recipients of federal Pell Grants are also eligible.

Digital divide: Health, education, prosperity depend on high-speed internet The study finds the problem may be worse than we thought, with implications for health, education and prosperity -- problems that are further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has pushed nearly every aspect of daily life online.

Participating broadband providers  including AT&T, CenturyLink, Comcast, and TDS  receive money directly from the program and apply the discount to customer bills.

Those enrolled in the previous program will continue to receive benefits through February but may need to re-enroll after March 1.

Eligible households can enroll by visiting acpbenefit.org or by contacting participating broadband providers. Customers who need additional assistance can call the FCCs information line at 877-384-2575.

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Some conservatives are taking aim at policies that allow doctors to consider race as a risk factor when allocating scarce COVID-19 treatments, saying the protocols discriminate against white people.

The wave of infections brought on by the omicron variant and a shortage of treatments have focused attention on the policies.

Medical experts say the opposition is misleading. Health officials have long said there is a strong case for considering race as one of many risk factors in treatment decisions. And there is no evidence that race alone is being used to decide who gets medicine.

The issue came to the forefront last week after Fox News host Tucker Carlson, former President Donald Trump and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio jumped on the policies. In recent days, conservative law firms have pressured a Missouri-based health care system, Minnesota and Utah to drop their protocols and sued New York state over allocation guidelines or scoring systems that include race as a risk factor.

JP Leider, a senior fellow in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota who helped develop that states allocation criteria, noted that prioritization has been going on for some time because there arent enough treatments to go around.

You have to pick who comes first, Leider said. The problem is we have extremely conclusive evidence that (minorities) across the United States are having worse COVID outcomes compared to white folks. ... Sometimes its acceptable to consider things like race and ethnicity when making decisions about when resources get allocated at a societal level.

Since the pandemic began, health care systems and states have been grappling with how to best distribute treatments. The problem has only grown worse as the omicron variant has packed hospitals with COVID-19 patients.

Considerable evidence suggests that COVID-19 has hit certain racial and ethnic groups harder than whites. Research shows that people of color are at a higher risk of severe illness, are more likely to be hospitalized and are dying from COVID-19 at younger ages.

Data also show that minorities have been missing out on treatments. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published an analysis of 41 health care systems that found that Black, Asian and Hispanic patients are less likely than whites to receive outpatient antibody treatment.

Omicron has rendered two widely available antibody treatments ineffective, leaving only one, which is in short supply.

Calculating risk

The Food and Drug Administration has given health care providers guidance on when that treatment, sotrovimab, should be used, including a list of medical conditions that put patients at high risk of severe outcomes from COVID-19. The FDAs guidance says other factors such as race or ethnicity might also put patients at higher risk.

The CDCs list of high-risk underlying conditions notes that age is the strongest risk factor for severe disease and lists more than a dozen medical conditions. It also suggests that doctors and nurses carefully consider potential additional risks of COVID-19 illness for patients who are members of certain racial and ethnic minority groups.

State guidelines generally recommend that doctors give priority for the drugs to those at the highest risk, including cancer patients, transplant recipients and people who have lung disease or are pregnant. Some states, including Wisconsin, have implemented policies that bar race as a factor, but others have allowed it.

St. Louis-based SSM Health, which serves patients in Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, required patients to score 20 points on a risk calculator to qualify for COVID-19 antibody treatment. Non-whites automatically got seven points.

State health officials in Utah adopted a similar risk calculator that grants people two points if theyre not white. Minnesotas health department guidelines automatically assigned two points to minorities. Four points was enough to qualify for treatment.

New York state health officials guidelines authorize antiviral treatments if patients meet five criteria. One is having a medical condition or other factors that increase their risk for severe illness. One of those factors is being a minority, according to the guidelines.

A public debate

The protocols have become a talking point for Republicans after The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by political commentators John Judis and Ruy Teixeira this month complaining that New Yorks policy is unfair, unjustified and possibly illegal. Carlson jumped on Utahs and Minnesotas policies last week, saying you win if youre not white.

Alvin Tillery, a political scientist at Northwestern University, called the issue a winning political strategy for Trump and Republicans looking to motivate their predominantly white base ahead of midterm elections in November. He said conservatives are twisting the narrative, noting that race is only one of a multitude of factors in every allocation policy.

It does gin up their people, gives them a chance in elections, Tillery said.

After the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative law firm based in Madison, sent a letter to SSM Health on Friday demanding that it drop race from its risk calculator, SSM responded that it already did so last year as health experts understanding of COVID-19 evolved.

While early versions of risk calculators across the nation appropriately included race and gender criteria based on initial outcomes, SSM Health has continued to evaluate and update our protocols weekly to reflect the most up-to-date clinical evidence available, the company said in a statement. As a result, race and gender criteria are no longer utilized.

America First Legal, a conservative-leaning law firm based in Washington, D.C., filed a federal lawsuit Sunday against New York demanding that the state remove race from its allocation criteria. The same firm warned Minnesota and Utah last week that they should drop race from their preference factors or face lawsuits.

Erin Silk, a spokesperson for New York states health department, declined to comment on the lawsuit. She said the states guidance is based on CDC guidelines and that race is one of many factors that doctors should consider when deciding who gets treatment. She stressed that doctors should consider a patients total medical history and that no one is refused treatment because of race or any other demographic qualifier.

Minnesota health officials dropped race from the states criteria a day or two before receiving America Legal Firsts demands, Leider said. They said in a statement that theyre committed to serving all Minnesotans equitably and are constantly reviewing their policies. The statement did not mention the letter from America Legal First. Leider said the state is now picking treatment recipients through a lottery.

Utah dropped race and ethnicity from its risk score calculator on Friday, among other changes, citing new federal guidance and the need to make sure classifications comply with federal law. The states health department said that instead of using those as factors in eligibility for treatments, it would work with communities of color to improve access to treatments in other ways.

Leider finds the criticism of the race-inclusive policies disingenuous.

Its easy to bring in identity politics and set up choices between really wealthy folks of one type and folks of other types, he said. Its hard to take seriously those kinds of comparisons. They dont seem very fair to reality.
Back in 2004, the Chicago Sun-Times launched a marketing campaign calling itself The Bright One. The branding effort was a reprise of a similar promotion in the 1970s and, like all marketing efforts cognizant of the importance of positioning, it had its eye on the market-leading competition, in this case the Chicago Tribune.

The Bright One, three well-matched words for a lively Midwestern tabloid, was designed to suggest that the Chicago Tribune was, on occasion, a tad snooty and stodgy. (So stipulated.) But it was also supposed to remind Chicagoans that the Sun-Times had kept up with their evolving lives. As Adweek noted approvingly at the time, one ad featured a mother and her baby. The headline was, No matter how much Ive changed, the Sun-Times has always kept up with me.

The board of directors of Chicago Public Media, the parent company of public radio station WBEZ-FM 91.5, recently voted to acquire ownership of the Sun-Times in a noncash deal orchestrated by the papers lead investor, Michael Sacks, who had been looking to make an exit from a less-than-profitable endeavor without attracting the civic reputation of being a newspaper-closing pariah. ...

By persuading the WBEZ board that foundations would offer increased financial support to cover any perceived risk, Sacks pulled it off.

Coverage of the merger from the two entities closest to the deal was rhapsodic. The acquisition would create a new journalistic powerhouse, wrote WBEZ, pairing the citys award-winning, top-rated morning news station with the gritty tabloid made famous by its corruption-busting investigations, Roger Eberts movie reviews and Irv Kupcinets gossip column, and crisp sportswriting.

So The Bright One is to be a nonprofit, owned by a public radio station with a very different listener demographic from the tabloids traditional readership. ...

The Chicago Tribune welcomes what appears to be a far more secure future for the Sun-Times, our worthy competitor for many decades. The editorial rivalry has made both papers better over the years; many of the writers you have read in this newspaper began their careers across the street and a lot of great Tribune journalism has come from the fear of being scooped by the Sun-Times. ...

Most civic-minded journalists welcome more journalism on the grounds that the more reporters there are with their ears to the ground, the more government can be held to account for the betterment of all citizens. Much has been written about a so-called crisis in local journalism, but in Chicago weve actually seen a recent explosion of small, nonprofits, some with distinct political agendas and others focusing on hyperlocal reporting. We dont so much see a crisis as a flowering.

As with all mergers, of course, this one invites a lot of questions. Nonprofit status has many advantages in an era when social media giants have eaten the lunch of many great metro newspapers when it comes to advertising revenue, even as they have profited from the papers content and reporting. Without the need to turn a profit, the theory goes, journalistic entities can focus on their missions.

But theres a downside too. Nonprofit ownership is not the panacea, and for-profit ownerships not the devil itself, despite how theyre frequently depicted, especially on the political left. The reality is far more complicated.

If you want to read political endorsements in future elections that matter in Chicago and Illinois, youre going to have to read them in the Tribune, or in for-profit competitors, since the Internal Revenue Code prevents nonprofits from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office. That doesnt necessarily prevent political investigative reporting, but the Sun-Times has, at various points in its history, campaigned in passionate, repeated, furious opposition to candidates for public office. Rightly so. It now will have to check with its lawyers with more frequency. And that could chill its most daring reporters and opinion columnists.

But the bigger challenge, we think, will be reporting honestly on the powerful foundations with budgets in the billions that are part of this mergerand that deserve the same scrutiny as government entities or corporations.

Thats compounded here both by the presence on the new Sun-Times board of directors of Kristen Mack, the managing director for communications for the MacArthur Foundation, and the identity of the chair of the WBEZ board, Brian Traubert, husband of former U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, the sister of Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The Pritzker Traubert Foundation is a supporter of this deal.

Weve no reason to believe any of these high-achieving Chicagoans will impede editorial independence, but wise heads will look for certitude. Penny Pritzker, who has many talents, could run again for office or occupy a key government position in a future J.B. Pritzker administration. What happens then?

And has Mack attested that MacArthur, a cultural powerhouse and gatekeeper in progressive circles, wont interfere with any future Sun-Times reporting on itself? Transparency will be required, as will some promise of fairness toward Republican points of view. ...

The new merger has yet to make clear its precise plans with regard to the two newsrooms. It has trumpeted their combined power and size, but that is less relevant if they are to run separately, in which case they wont be collaborating. If that changes, as seems likely, there will be battles ahead with unions understandably concerned with job security.

The Tribune is hardly a disinterested party, of course. And weve been buffeted by economic headwinds ourselves. New models like this are worth trying.

At the Tribune, were dependent on our readers, subscribers and advertisers for our survival. Simple as that. And for the record and being free from those nonprofit strictures, our editorial page has every intention of endorsing those we think can best serve our city, state and nation, and opposing those about whom we feel precisely the opposite.
Its hard to know which is more messed up these days  air transportation, or the Biden administration. As another case in point, consider the clash between airlines and wireless carriers over 5G.

Verizon and AT&T said Tuesday theyll delay a 5G rollout planned after airlines complained it would disrupt flights across the country. President Biden took credit for preventing anarchy in the skies, though his administration created the mess.

At issue is the C-band spectrum that carriers plan to use to blanket metro areas with 5G. Carriers paid the U.S. government $80 billion for this valuable spectrum, but the Federal Aviation Administration now wont let them use it. The agency says the signals could potentially interfere with plane altimeters that measure the distance to the ground.

The Federal Communications Commission reviewed these concerns during notice-and-comment on its plan to repurpose C-band from satellite operators. In March 2020, it approved a 258-page decision that included a safe buffer between the bands occupied by altimeters and 5G  larger than many other countries require.

Yet some 20 months later, the FAA demanded to relitigate the FCC decision and took airlines and carriers hostage. If Verizon and AT&T didnt pause their 5G rollout, the FAA would order flights grounded or diverted. AT&T and Verizon didnt want to be blamed for that, so they twice agreed to scale back and delay their rollouts.

Two weeks ago they struck a deal with the Transportation Department to limit C-band signals within a mile of airport runways for six months and delay deploying 5G until Jan. 19. The FAA said it wouldnt ask for another delay. And if you believed that ...

A week ago, the FAA said it had cleared only 45% of U.S. commercial airplanes to land in low-visibility conditions at only 48 of the 88 airports it deemed at highest risk from potential 5G interference. This didnt cover Boeings wide-bodied 777 and 787 models, which are flying in countries around the world with fewer 5G restrictions.

This meant airlines would have to reroute or cancel thousands of flights. The disruptions would cause immediate havoc while forgone 5G service wouldnt be felt by Americans. Wireless carriers would be blamed for the chaos, which is probably why they conceded last week to more voluntary and temporary restrictions.

At our sole discretion, we have voluntarily agreed to temporarily defer turning on a limited number of towers around certain airport runways as we continue to work with the aviation industry and the FAA to provide further information about our 5G deployment, since they have not utilized the two years theyve had to responsibly plan for this deployment, AT&T said.

Thats far too charitable to the FAA and Transportation Department. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rolled FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel, who has supported the carriers 5G rollout behind the scenes. And now he and Biden are portraying their blundering as a diplomatic victory. This administration needs less political spin and more competent governance.
Our political system is broken. Much of its deterioration can be traced back to a single factor: money.

More and more, politicians have been drawn to the extreme on different subjects to satisfy different niche special interests. This means that mainstream America gets sold out to help politicians campaign more, as they seek higher office or reelection.

Though its easy to complain about money in politics, here is a simple plan to mitigate the bulk of the influence of special interests:

Require disclosure of all donors in political advertisements and activity.

Forbid all members of Congress from owning individual stocks.

Mandate term limits.

Allow 48 hours for legislators to read bills before passing, this will eliminate hidden agendas.

Prevent any organization that receives funds from government contracts from contributing to political activity. This step would eliminate pay-to-play activity.

But the most impactful way to reduce special interests influence over government is by reducing the size and scope of government. Government has entered every part of our lives. The more it grows, then the more incentive special interests have to get involved. Smaller government means better government.

Sam Wahlen, Yorkville
After a snowy weekend into Monday across southern Wisconsin, temperatures will be headed back below zero for the next couple of mornings, according to forecasters.

Mondays snow was expected to exit southern Wisconsin by mid-day, with 1 to 3 inches of accumulation, said Marc Kavinsky, National Weather Service lead meteorologist.

The bitterly cold air will move in by Monday night and linger into Wednesday, with the bottom on Wednesday morning, when temperatures will be double digits below zero and wind chills down to 20 below to 30 below.

A wind chill advisory has just been issued for parts of south-central Wisconsin, including Madison, from 3 a.m. to noon Tuesday, and overnight Tuesday into Wednesday is predicted to be even cold so another may be needed then.

"Northern regions of the U.S. have been no stranger to cold air this month with several injections of cold air being felt from the Midwest into New England," said AccuWeather meteorologist Lauren Hyde. "Times of cold air are far from over, and next week could feature not one, but two cold air masses moving into the Lower 48.

In Madison on Monday, look for cloudy skies, a high near 20, south winds at 5 to 10 miles per hour turning out of the north and increasing to 10 to 15 mph, the Weather Service said.

After an overnight low around 5 below with wind chills of 10 below to 20 below, Tuesday should be sunny and cold, with a high near 4 and wind chills of 15 below to 20 below.

After a low overnight Tuesday into Wednesday around 14 below with wind chills of 20 below to 25 below, Wednesdays forecast features sunny skies, a high near 9 and west winds at 5 to 10 mph turning out of the south in the afternoon.

The Weather Service said quiet weather should continue into the weekend, with just a 30% chance for snow showers Thursday, mainly after noon.

Skies over Madison should be mostly cloudy Thursday, mostly sunny Friday and Saturday, and partly sunny Sunday, with highs near 30, 15, 21 and 26, and lows Wednesday night through Saturday night around 15, 1 below, zero and 10.

27 Storm Track meteorologist Max Tsaparis forecasts more bitterly cold air moving in overnight and mostly quiet weather for the next week, with just some spotty, light snow possible later in the day on Thursday.

Tsaparis said highs for Madison Monday through Sunday should be near 20, 5, 10, 29, 16, 21 and 29, and overnight lows around 6 below, 13 below, 8, zero, 2 and 7.

Sundays high in Madison was 14 at 1:52 a.m., 13 degrees below the normal high and 36 degrees below the record high of 50 for Jan. 23, set in 1909.

Sundays low in Madison was 2 at 7:06 a.m., 9 degrees below the normal low and 29 degrees above the record low of 27 below for Jan. 23, set in 1963.

Officially, 0.08 inches of precipitation was recorded at the Dane County Regional Airport on Sunday, boosting Madisons January and 2022 precipitation total (rain plus snow converted to liquid) to 0.32 inches, 0.76 inches below normal. The meteorological winter (December through February) total rose to 2.01 inches, 0.7 inches below normal.

Madisons record precipitation for Jan. 23 is 0.89 inches, set in 1898.

Officially, 1.3 inches of snow was recorded at the Dane County Regional Airport on Sunday, boosting Madisons January and 2022 snow total to 7.2 inches, 2.6 inches below normal. For meteorological winter, Madison has received 13.7 inches, 8.1 inches below normal. For the snow season (since July 1), Madison has received 14.3 inches, 11.1 inches below normal.

Madisons record snowfall for Jan. 23 is 9 inches, set in 1898.

Madisons official snow depth is 7 inches.

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WASHINGTON  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack faced questions on how his agency is doling out emergency pandemic aid and fostering collaboration with historically Black colleges during a Thursday hearing before the House Agriculture Committee.

Committee Chairman David Scott, a Georgia Democrat, asked Vilsack for critical updates on the implementation of pandemic relief programs, including the American Rescue Plan, and the status of disaster assistance.

Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa who also served as agriculture secretary during the Obama administration, said the Department of Agriculture is working to distribute money provided by the American Rescue Plan to farmers who have suffered during the pandemic.

Rep. Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican, asked Vilsack how some $10 billion in disaster relief for extreme weather is being distributed.

Vilsack said about $750 million went to the livestock industry and that the agency is using crop data to figure out how much in payments should go to farmers in the grain industry.

The goal here is to try to get these payments out this spring, he said.

Republicans on the committee aired concerns about hiring problems, regulations and the supply chain. Austin Scott said that the chemical industry in his state has reported difficulty with distributing materials and has struggled with labor shortages.

The top GOP lawmaker on the committee, Glenn GT Thompson, (R-Pa.), said that he was also concerned about labor shortages and supply chain issues.

Our communities are looking for solutions, and they dont need regulatory burdens, he said.

Thompson added that he felt there was a disconnect between the Biden administration and farmers not only in his state but across the country.

We are concerned by the lack of truck drivers, Vilsack said, adding that USDA is working with the Labor Department to speed up the process to get apprentices certified to operate semi trucks.

How historically Black Land Grant Universities can work with the USDA

Rep. Alma Adams, (D-N.C.), pressed Vilsack on USDAs commitment to fund and work with historically Black Land Grant Universities.

Rural communities continue to face challenges that need to be addressed to achieve growth, she said.

Adams said that 1890 Land Grant Universities play an important role in teaching, reaching out to those rural communities and conducting research in agriculture science. She asked if USDA could better partner with those institutions.

Vilsack said he recently had a meeting with the Council of Presidents representing Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

First order of business is to make sure there is an understanding in the HBCUs of the extraordinary scope of the programs that we have at USDA and to encourage grater collaboration, he said.

Vilsack said that USDA allocated $21.8 million to HBCUs to fund 58 projects to expand their reach into the community. He said that USDA also awarded $12 million to Hispanic Serving Institutions.

He added that the agency is also investing in research and development that examines the best practices for addressing climate change in farming.

Republicans advocate for less regulations for U.S. farmers

Rep. David Rouzer, a North Carolina Republican, criticized USDAs Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration enforcement efforts, which aim to provide fair marketing practices for agricultural products.

Rouzer was critical of USDA application of GIPSA regulations to the meat and poultry industries, arguing that new rules and regulations add to cost.

Farmers deserve a fair share in the marketplace and they dont get a fair shake, Vilsack said. They have the rug pulled out from them on many occasions. This is about fundamental fairness.

Vilsack said those regulations are a part of USDAs business and oversight and are necessary because 85% of beef processing belongs to four companies, 70% of pork processing belongs to four companies and 50% of poultry processing belongs to four companies.

Its simply too concentrated. Theres not enough capacity and theres not enough competition, he said.

Frankly, if we had more competition wed give consumers more choice and if consumers had more choice, then I guarantee thats also going to impact and affect price in a positive way.

Food insecurity threatens families during pandemic

Rep. Shontel Brown, (D-Ohio), said she was concerned about the rise in food insecurity due to the coronavirus pandemic, particularly among Black and Latino families.

Our communities cannot flourish when so many people  especially our students  still lack regular access to nutritious food, she said.

Brown asked what USDA, which runs multiple nutrition programs in schools and for low-income families, was doing to reduce food waste in the U.S.

Vilsack said that the agency is working with schools, grocery stores, universities and food processing companies to find creative ways to deal with food waste.

He added that the agency is preparing to host a series of webinars this year to look into the issue and to study how other countries are handling this issue.

Thirty percent of whats grown is wasted, he said.

Vilsack said some solutions could include encouraging restaurants to give people choices on their portion sizes to try to limit food waste.

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Nicholas Dimos Named Assistant Director of the Finance and Facilities Division

Director Christopher Wray has named Nicholas Dimos as the assistant director of the Finance and Facilities Division (FFD) at FBI Headquarters in Washington. Mr. Dimos most recently served as the deputy assistant director of the division.

As assistant director of FFD, Mr. Dimos is responsible for overseeing the FBIs finances, facilities, and logistics functions and serves as the chief financial officer, head of contracting activity, and real property officer.

Mr. Dimos joined the FBI in 2006 as a budget analyst in the Finance Division. In 2009, Mr. Dimos was promoted to a team leader in the Budget Formulation and Presentation Unit, where he oversaw budget development across several areas.

In 2012, he served as an acting supervisor and transition leader during the establishment of a new procurement unit that focused on strategic sourcing, complex contracting, and workforce development. In 2013, he transferred to the development team of the Bureaus new financial system, which Mr. Dimos helped implement across the entire FBI.

Mr. Dimos was named the national intelligence financial manager in 2014 and served as the FBIs senior financial liaison with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress on national intelligence financial matters.

He was promoted in 2015 to assistant section chief of the recently unified Finance and Facilities Division, overseeing budget formulation, execution, and reporting across all FBI funding sources.

In 2017, Mr. Dimos was appointed as the deputy assistant director of FFD, serving as the FBIs deputy chief financial officer. He was responsible for budget, procurement, accounting, and audit functions, and led several initiatives to modernize financial services. Mr. Dimos also stood up the new procurement and budget operations at the FBIs new campus in Huntsville, Alabama.

Before he joined the FBI, Mr. Dimos was a middle school science teacher in Philadelphia through Teach for America. He earned a degree in economics from DePauw University in Indiana and a graduate degree in security studies from Georgetown University.

This story has been published on: 2022-01-24. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.
BOISE  Fewer people believe Idaho is headed in a positive direction and more think the state is on the wrong track, a new survey says.

While 46% of respondents answered right direction compared with 41% saying wrong track, the gap between the two answers has shrunk significantly compared with past years, according to the new Boise State University survey.

Results from the seventh annual Idaho Public Policy Survey were released Friday, offering a glimpse into the minds of Idahoans as the early days of the legislative session are underway.

The right direction/wrong track question has been asked each of the seven years of the survey. As recently as 2019, the gap between the two was 30 points. Now, its down to five.

The answer to that question along with the publics response to growth issues were among the major takeaways for Matthew May, the survey research director. The researchers surveyed 1,000 Idahoans from Nov. 13-21.

The most movement we saw was that the state seems to be having an inflection point for growth issues, May said in an interview. We saw an uptick in concern over property taxes. We saw more concern over housing. I would say that were seeing more and more attention being paid to those particular issues relative to prior years.

Among Republicans, 56% said the state is going in the right direction and 33% said its on the wrong track. Democrats differed, with 30% saying right track and 60% saying wrong direction.

Researchers also broke the state into three geographic regions: northern, southwestern and eastern. Southwestern Idaho was the only region in which the wrong direction (49%) received more agreement than the right track (39%).

As in past years, Idahoans ranked education as their top legislative priority. Housing made the biggest jump in priority ranking from last year to this year but still trailed jobs and the economy, and health care.

Regarding what to do with the states budget surplus, the top three responses were to increase teachers pay (26%), give tax relief (24%) and increase workforce or affordable housing (23%).

Among Republicans, tax relief was the top choice. Among Democrats, workforce or affordable housing was.

For the first time, researchers asked Idahoans statewide about the pace of growth. Seventy-one percent of respondents said Idaho is growing too fast, and 20% said its growing about right. Among people who have lived in the state for at least 10 years, 75% said its growing too fast. Among people here 10 years or less, 58% said Idaho is growing too fast.

The too fast belief spanned across party lines as 79% of Republicans, 65% of Democrats and 66% of independents agreed.

Regardless, 60% of respondents said Idaho should continue to recruit companies with high-paying jobs even if it means continued population growth.

Idaho was the second fastest-growing state in population from 2010 to 2020 and has been the fastest-growing state for each of the past five years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The growing population may be hurting the sense that Idaho is uncrowded. Vanessa Fry, interim director of the Idaho Policy Institute and a co-author of the new report, pointed out that hiking trails and ski mountains may be becoming more popular.

One of the reasons people come here and stay is because theres a little bit more space. With more people, that will shrink a little bit, Fry said in an interview. ... People might say its not that I dont like people that are coming, but my experience of the place is different.

When asked what type of tax relief would be preferred, 37% said property tax and another 37% said income tax. Property tax relief received support from 44% of homeowners, their most popular form of tax relief. Half of renters said theyd prefer income tax relief while 22% of renters said theyd prefer property tax relief.

Last year, Idahoans were split between whether property taxes were too high or about right. This year, 46% of Idahoans think theyre too high and 41% think theyre about right. People in Canyon County expressed the most property tax concern with 58% saying theyre too high.

We think its important for the decision-makers, Fry said. (Are these topics) a local problem or is that a state problem? It appears to be more of a state issue. Maybe its a more immediate need in some places but the need is pretty broad.

Other results:

45% of respondents said they live in Idaho because of family, 16% because of quality of life and 14% because of work.

68% said they would support state funding for full-day kindergarten.

27% of respondents said they believe cities are the most responsive level of government, and 24% said counties are the most responsive. 20% said state government is most responsive. Only 7% said they feel the federal government is most responsive to their needs.

46% of respondents said there shouldnt be any COVID-19 vaccine or testing requirement for large organizations or public events. 20% supported vaccine requirements, and 29% supported a choice between vaccine requirements and regular testing.

Researchers said the sample of people surveyed was representative of the states population geographically and demographically. The survey had a simple random sampling margin of error of 3.1%. The survey reached respondents by cell phone (43%), landline phone (17%), online (30%) and text message (10%).

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BOISE  Idaho is once again in a health care crisis.

The states health and welfare director on Monday announced he re-activated Idahos crisis standards of care rationing protocol that morning.

Saint Alphonsus Health System requested the activation last week, and Idaho Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen convened the Crisis Standards of Care Activation Advisory Committee virtually on Jan. 21, according to a news release Monday.

This crisis declaration applies only to Southwest District Health, Central District Health and South Central District Health, which surround the Boise-Nampa metro area, the Twin Falls metro area and the Ketchum-Sun Valley area.

Other regions of the state are likely to move into crisis standards, too, if current COVID-19 trends continue, the release said.

The highly contagious Omicron variant has thrown us a curve ball, Jeppesen said in the release. Once again, the situation in our hospitals and health systems is dire  we dont have enough resources to adequately treat patients. Please get vaccinated and boosted if you can and wear a high-quality protective mask in public places. Omicron is so much more contagious than previous variants, and even though a lower percentage of cases are ending up in the hospital, the record number of cases is still putting strain on our healthcare system.

The health care rationing protocol is meant to help health care providers make decisions on how to use scarce resources. It does not mean that patients will be left to die.

The states prior crisis declarations  from early September through late December  resulted from a surge of unvaccinated, critically ill patients with the delta coronavirus variant. There were too many sick patients, and not enough hospital staff or beds.

Other states, including Montana, were driven to crisis standards by the delta surge. Now, Idahos neighbor Washington is also teetering on the edge of crisis standards as omicron surges there.

This crisis is more complicated.

Not only do hospitals have too many patients coming in with COVID-19, and not enough nurses and beds for all of them, hospital workers themselves are out for COVID-related reasons.

Jeppesen said this month that 10 times as many (hospital) staff are out now as they were at the end of December, during the delta surge, which made the staffing struggles worse.

Idaho hospitals on Sunday reported 510 patients with COVID-19.

Idaho Deputy State Epidemiologist Dr. Kathryn Turner recently shared data showing that omicron infections are more than 2.5 times more prevalent among Idahoans who arent fully vaccinated; and, even with breakthrough cases, that divide between vaccinated and not is growing fast.

What you can do Idahoans can help in this crisis. You can donate blood (see other box). You can volunteer to help as part of Idahos Medical Reserve Corps. You can send a card to health care workers at facilities in your community, to let them know theyre appreciated and not alone in this fight. You can get your COVID-19 vaccine  or booster, if youre already vaccinated  and get your annual flu shot.

Hospitals also dont have enough blood to give people who need a transfusion, causing a shortage of that lifesaving resource.

Idaho Division of Public Health Administrator Elke Shaw-Tulloch this month issued a plea to the public to donate blood. According to the American Red Cross, we are facing the worst blood shortage in over a decade, posing concerning risks to our patient care, Shaw-Tulloch said. I have my appointment to donate blood tonight, and I encourage you all to make an appointment today.

Blood products help patients survive and recover from a wide variety of injuries and illnesses, from women who lose blood in childbirth, to car crash and burn victims, to cancer patients.

How to donate blood Whether youre a first-time blood donor or a seasoned pro, you can help by donating blood. Visit redcrossblood.org for more information and to find a local blood drive.

Dr. James Souza of St. Lukes Health System, in a recent media briefing, echoed that call to action. Were doing everything we can, he said, explaining that St. Lukes was taking steps to ration blood products and postponing elective surgeries that can create a need for blood transfusions.

On top of hospital staffing, bed and blood shortages, there is a logjam of patients in Idahos hospitals.

Long-term care and rehabilitation centers cant take patients who are ready to leave the hospital, but not ready to go home.

That is dramatically slowing the movement of patients through the hospital, Jeppesen said this month.

The reason is that long-term care facilities are struggling in general just to hire staff  coupled with (high rates of COVID-19) among their staff, causing them to be out of work, Jeppesen said. The staffing problems are worse than at any point before in the pandemic, he said.

That is actually causing patients who are ready for discharge to stay at hospitals until either something opens up at a long-term care facility or they get well enough that they can be discharged to home, he said.  So, that causes them to be housed at the hospital.
Schools shut down in Nampa. Hospital staff and clinic workers calling out sick. Out of stock at restaurants and stores. Limited hours at some Boise city buildings and the Pocatello public library.

Idaho has stayed open for nearly the entire pandemic. Then omicron arrived; some parts of Idahos economy are now struggling to stay open in spite of the virus.

This was predictable. You could see it coming from over in Europe, New York, and now is the time for Idaho to take a turn in the barrel, Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry President Alex LaBeau said in an interview last week. The realities were pretty apparent.

The states top health officials continue to implore Idahoans to get vaccinated, get booster shots, don masks and try to avoid catching and spreading the omicron variant.

Idaho has recorded many COVID-19 cases among people who are vaccinated; however, data from Idaho and elsewhere show that vaccination keeps people from getting severe illness that may have lasting effects.

Chart showing weekly cases of COVID-19 broken down by vaccination status, with unvaccinated Idahoans far outpacing those who were vaccinated

I would like to leave you with a reminder that we all must take action collectively, and use those preventive measures, to keep our schools and businesses open and protect our health care capacity, Idaho Division of Public Health Administrator Elke Shaw-Tulloch said in a media briefing last week.

Getting vaccinated is important, she said. And if you are vaccinated, get boosted, get tested if youre sick or if youve been exposed. Stay home if youre sick. Wear a mask with the highest level of protection if possible and keep your distance from others.

That week, Idaho legislators gathered at the Capitol, with very few wearing masks. Some state lawmakers tested positive for COVID-19.

Collectively, we can advise, we can share the best information we have, Idaho Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen said in a media briefing last week. But if a large portion of the population doesnt want to follow that guidance, the cost is the risk that we take  not only as a cost in human life, (the cost of) people dying earlier, going to the hospital or getting debilitating diseases that last the rest of their life. The cost  particularly in this wave  could be a direct impact to our economy, and to our schools, and to our health care, and to the way we live our lives here for  some period of time.

Jeppesen said it is up to Idahoans to trust their local public health officials and health care providers, and to follow guidelines.

Omicron as a last straw for some industries

Idaho is likely to end up in crisis standards of care again, as Idaho hospitals and long-term care facilities face staffing shortages related to COVID-19.

Saint Alphonsus on Monday had 142 employees out for reasons directly related to COVID-19. Thats out of about 6,000 employees, but is more than double the number of staff out on Sept. 29  when Idaho was in crisis standards partly due to staffing  and more than four times the number of staff out on Sept. 14, 2020.

Let me say it this way, Dr. James Souza, chief physician executive for St. Lukes Health System, said in a media briefing Monday. Our sick call-offs are up more than twentyfold in the last three weeks.

Souza said St. Lukes has once again had to pull doctors from clinics to work in hospitals. That creates a ripple effect in the clinics, too.

Some of the numbers Idaho touts as indicative of a strong economy are the very same numbers that put Idaho in a bind.

The states unemployment rate is at historic lows  2.4% in December, according to the Idaho Department of Labor. That could be a result of the Great Resignation, a wave of early retirements, the housing crisis or a ripple effect of high-paid remote workers moving to Idaho.

Regardless of the cause, Idaho employers went into 2022 with a tremendous amount of unfilled jobs, LaBeau said.

Where we find ourselves as employers is that situation where were already running thin because we had a lot of job openings, then omicron comes up and takes a swipe, and sure enough a bunch of people are at home now, including me, LaBeau said.

LaBeau and his son stayed home in isolation last week because they had COVID-19  with minimal symptoms, which he attributes to being vaccinated.

What happens when child care and schools shut down?

The labor crisis demonstrates where Idaho needs to improve its social infrastructure, LaBeau said. One example is child care, he said. Child care centers in Idaho went into the pandemic understaffed; they couldnt pay workers enough to keep them, because Idaho families paying full freight for child care couldnt afford to pay higher rates.

When child care is out of reach  either because of cost or staffing shortages  it keeps parents from working full-time, or sometimes working at all.

As COVID-19 rages out of control, the staffing challenges are magnified.

Even those who have steady child care are facing unexpected closures mid-January due to a surge of Covid-19 cases among children and teachers, adding to the stress for Treasure Valley parents, Karen Lehr of KIVI-TV, Idaho News 6, reported last Monday.

Idaho schools also faced the reality this month that face-to-face education and even virtual school cannot happen if teachers and students are out sick, in quarantine or caring for sick family members.

At least five districts and one school closed last week for a day or two, and at least 11 other schools and districts are closing for parts of this week, Kyle Pfannenstiel of Idaho Ed News reported Tuesday.

Jeppesen and other officials have repeatedly warned that waves of illness  especially severe illness  from COVID-19 would hinder efforts to keep schools open.

We will continue to broadcast the message that we know is accurate and what will work best to help people avoid those outcomes, Jeppesen said last week. But ultimately, its what the people will choose to decide, and there will be consequences for those choices.

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Two ballistic missiles aimed at Abu Dhabi were shot down in the early hours of Monday, the Ministry of Defense has said.

Authorities confirmed that the attack did not result in any casualties, as the remnants of the intercepted and destroyed ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around the emirate.

The ministry said the weapons were launched by the Houthi terrorist group, state news agency WAM reported.

Flashes were seen in the sky over the capital at about 4.30am, residents said.

The ministry said it is ready to deal with any threats and that it is taking all necessary measures to protect the state from attacks.

In Saudi Arabia, the Coalition said it destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis towards the city of Dhahran Al Janub early on Monday.

Shrapnel from the intercepted missile landed in the citys industrial zone and pictures of burnt vehicles were published by local media.

The attacks came just hours after the Arab League held an emergency meeting at the level of permanent representatives in Cairo to discuss the Houthi militias terrorist attacks against civilian facilities in Abu Dhabi on January 17.

The meeting condemned the strikes on Abu Dhabi and called on the international community to designate Yemens Houthi rebel group a terrorist organization.

The attacks constituted a blatant breach of international law and a genuine threat to vital civilian installations, energy supplies and the stability of the world economy, the pan-Arab group said at the end of the Cairo meeting.

The strikes had laid bare the terrorist nature of the Houthi rebels and exposed their aim of undermining regional peace and stability, the Arab League said.

After the blasts of January 17 that killed three oil company workers and injured six, the US administration condemned the attacks and said it is considering to designate the Houthis a terrorist group.

The UN Security Council had also unanimously condemned the strikes as heinous terrorist attacks and called for the perpetrators to face justice.
Egypt and South Korea have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for cooperation between the two countries in the fields of antiquities and museums online on the sideline of the visit of the leader of the Asian country, Arab Finance reports.

Mostafa Waziri, the Secretary-General of Egypts Supreme Council of Antiquities and Kim Hyun-Mo, the Head of the South Korean Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) inked the deal.

The agreement aims at contributing to establishing policies for the sustainable preservation of cultural property, supporting mutual cooperation in the fields of antiquities and museums, as well as exchanging experts and expertise between specialists from both countries.

Both countries, equally under the deal, will strengthen cooperative projects related to combating illegal trafficking of culture. They will also exchange experience in the field of cultural heritage management, managing archeological sites, their institutions and museums, sunken antiquities, the preservation, maintenance, and protection of cultural property, Arab Finance notes.

President Moon Jae-in visited the Arab country last week as part of his international tour which also took him to the UAE.

South Koreas envoy to Egypt, Hong Jin-wook, also announced that Seoul will provide the North African country $1 billion as loan, with further details.

Both countries also, according to Jin-Wook during the South Korean leaders visit, would hold talks in view of signing a trade agreement between the two countries during the visit.

Cooperation on EVs, water desalination, green hydrogen and renewables are among the other top priorities for discussion.
Saudi Public Transport Company (SAPTCO), the kingdoms public bus operator, has signed a contract worth more than 149.6 million riyals ($39.8 million) for a public bus transport project across the Gulf country, Zawya reports.

In a statement to the Saudi stock market, Tadawul, the company said the contract for the project, which will be implemented in Dammam City and Al-Qatif governorate, has been signed with the Eastern Province Municipality.

The project will be carried out in five years and is expected to have a positive impact on the companys revenues during the first half of 2022, the firm added.

SAPTCO had narrowed its losses to 57 million riyals in the third quarter of 2021 from more than 121.7 million riyals in the same period in 2020, Zawya reports.
A doctor looks over a patients medical records. Credit: Ami Vitale / World Bank, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A critical shortfall in neurologists in Africa must be addressed in order to meet the health needs of patients with disorders that affect the brain, nerve and spinal cord, a study says.

The study published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences found that ten African countries including Djibouti, Eritrea, Guinea Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, and South Sudan do not have a neurologista medical specialist who managers disorders of nerves and the nervous system.

Yahya Naji, a co-author of the study and a resident doctor at the neurology department of Morocco's University Hospital Mohamed VI, says new approaches are needed to swell the number of neurologists in Africa.

Telemedicine could be part of the solution for training African physicians as telecommunication infrastructure on the continent continues to expand, according to Naji.

"There are many solutions such as establishment [of] new centers of scientific research, seek funding from international organizations, collaboration with developed countries, increase the budget for research and medical formation," Naji tells SciDev.Net.

According to a 2021 study, the WHO African region has only a median of 0.043 neurologists per 100,000 inhabitantswell below the WHO-recommended ratio of one per 100,000.

"The low numbers of neurologists signify that access to neurological care is too difficult, so all the neurological diseases will remain undiagnosed," says Naji.

The shortfall of trained neurologists in Africa could lead to some patients seeking care from traditional healers, who may manage the disorders wrongly, putting patients' lives at risk, adds Naji, who also works at the Marrakech Medical School of the University Cadi Ayyad in Morocco.

Neurological disorders are medical conditions that affect the brain, nerve and spinal cord, and include medical problems such as stroke, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, speech and language disorders.

A separate study from 2014 showed that neurological disorders accounted for 20 percent of adult hospital medical admissions, more than five percent of deaths and about 14 percent of all disability in Sub-Saharan Africa.

To assess the number of neurologists in Africa, researchers used a questionnaire to collect data from experts in 50 African countries from March to December 2020, and analyzed WHO data for four countries that did not respond to the questionnaire.

"More than 17 countries (31.5 percent) have more than 11 neurologists while 27 countries (50 percent) have between one and ten neurologists," the study says. "In some African countries, neurologists can be found only in [the] capitals (13 percent).

The analysis shows that only two African countries have more than 200 neurologistsEgypt (3,108) and Algeria (330)and only six countries including Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia have 30 to 200 neurologists.

The researchers warn that the shortage of neurologists in Africa could last for decades, with the COVID-19 pandemic and strain on health care likely to make the situation even worse.

Rufus Olusola Akinyemi, deputy director at the Centre for Genomic and Precision Medicine of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, says that the lack of neurologists in Africa is partly due to brain drain and lack of training programs.

Akinyemi, an expert studying degenerative brain disorders, tells SciDev.Net: "The study demonstrates the huge neurology human resource gap in Africa.

Coupled with the lack of high cost and poor access to neuroimaging facilities, correct neurological diagnosis may be limited and paving way for a lot of quackery in the space."

He calls on African governments to invest in building human resource capacity by training more neurologists.

According to Akinyemi, the current shortfall is putting lives at risk. "In places where there are no neurologists, general physicians and medical officers with limited neurological expertise often stand in the gap to make neurological diagnosis," he explains.

"The consequences of all this is the lack of or delayed diagnosis, poor treatment of cases and often poor outcomes in terms of quality of life and higher mortality."

Explore further People in rural areas less likely to receive specialty care for neurologic conditions

Provided by SciDev.Net
Rice scientists added a bone-targeting peptide to an antibody used to fight breast cancer to curtail metastasis to the bone. Credit: Xiao Research Group

A moderate amount of a peptide-enhanced, biological cancer drug goes a long way in treating breast cancers that metastasize to the bone.

A study by scientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine demonstrated the effective treatment of such cancers in rodent models, bringing hope for new therapies to treat bone metastases.

The open-access study, to appear on the cover of the American Chemical Society journal ACS Central Science, advances techniques pioneered by Rice chemist Han Xiao and his co-author at Baylor, biologist Xiang Zhang.

They discovered through extensive testing that engineering "bone-homing" peptides and attaching them to a common breast cancer drug, the antibody trastuzumab, effectively targets and attacks bone tumors.

The researchers reported their surprise that injecting more of the drug compound doesn't make it better. The drug contains an engineered peptide that finds and binds to bone, but worked best when a moderate amount was delivered.

"The negative charge of the peptide has an affinity for the positively charged bone cancer niche," said Xiao, whose lab created a library of modified antibodies for testing. "We found the therapeutic efficacy is best with the antibody that has mediocre affinity. That's a really big discovery."

Rice graduate student Chenfei Yu, left, and postdoctoral researcher Zeru Tian analyze results of study that determined a moderate amount of a peptide-enhanced antibody effectively targets metastasis to bone from breast cancers. Credit: Xiao Research Group / Rice University

As many as 40% of breast cancer survivors eventually experience metastases to distant organs, most often to the bone. Xiao noted bone tumors are notoriously difficult to treat, given the hard nature of the material and its limited vascular network. Delivering a low amount of a drug, he said, can also help tumors develop resistance.

The study showed that peptide-enhanced antibodies also prevented secondary metastases from bone to other organs.

The researchers hope to find collaborators to move the strategy toward human trials.

Rice postdoctoral fellow Zeru Tian and graduate student Chanfei Yu are co-lead authors of the paper. Co-authors are Baylor postdoctoral fellows Weijie Zhang and Zhan Xu and postdoctoral associate Ling Wu; Rice graduate students Kuan-Lin Wu, Chenhang Wang and Yuda Chen, and Rice alumna Ruchi Gupta, now a graduate student at Yale School of Medicine.

Xiao is the Norman Hackerman-Welch Young Investigator and an assistant professor of chemistry, biosciences and bioengineering. Zhang is an associate professor of molecular and cellular biology and the McNair Scholar in the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor.

Explore further Drug doubles down on bone cancer and metastasis

More information: Zeru Tian et al, Bone-Specific Enhancement of Antibody Therapy for Breast Cancer Metastasis to Bone, ACS Central Science (2022). Journal information: ACS Central Science Zeru Tian et al, Bone-Specific Enhancement of Antibody Therapy for Breast Cancer Metastasis to Bone,(2022). DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.1c01024
Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A team of investigators from six universities across the U.S. reports that an intervention designed to reduce poverty had a direct impact on children's brain development. After one year of monthly cash support, infants in low-income families were more likely to show brain activity patterns that have been associated with the development of thinking and learning. The paper will be published online by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 24 at 3 p.m. ET. Collaborating institutions include: Teachers College, Columbia University; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the University of California, Irvine; Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy; New York University; and the University of Maryland.

This study measured brain activity among a sample of 435 one-year-old children who were participating in a landmark randomized controlled trial known as "Baby's First Years." The larger trial, the first direct poverty reduction evaluation in the United States to focus on early childhood, recruited 1,000 mothers with low incomes from postpartum wards in a dozen hospitals in four U.S. metropolitan areas: New Orleans, New York City, Omaha, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Shortly after they gave birth, participating mothers were randomized to receive either a large monthly cash gift of $333/month or a nominal monthly cash gift of $20/month. The gifts were disbursed on debit cards, and the mothers, most of whom were Black or Latina, were free to spend the cash gifts in whatever way they chose, with no strings attached. The new study reports the initial findings on infant brain activity after the first 12 months of the poverty reduction intervention. The mothers will continue to receive the cash gifts, funded by charitable foundations, until their children are four years and four months old.

"We have known for many years that growing up in poverty puts children at risk for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health," says senior author on the study Kimberly Noble, Professor of Neuroscience & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Poverty has also been associated with differences in children's brain development. "However," notes Noble, "until now, we haven't been able to say whether poverty itself causes differences in child development, or whether growing up in poverty is simply associated with other factors that cause those differences."

Because of the randomized controlled trial design, the authors were able to distinguish correlation from causation, concluding that giving money directly to mothers living in poverty can translate to changes in their infants' brain activity.

Under the direction of lead author Sonya Troller-Renfree, postdoctoral research associate at Teachers College, Columbia University, brain activity was measured using electroencephalography (EEG), a technique in which a cap is placed on an infant's head and used to record the brain's electrical activity (known colloquially as "brainwaves"). Past research has linked high-frequencythat is, fastbrain activity to the development of thinking and learning. The study reports that infants whose mothers received $333/month had more high-frequency brain activity compared with infants whose mothers received $20/month.

Children's brain activity was measured in their homes. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, the researchers ceased collecting data in-person, precluding measurement of brain activity for a portion of the larger study sample. Despite the smaller-than-planned sample size, co-author and economist Greg Duncan, Distinguished Professor of Education at the University of California-Irvine, says that the differences "are similar in magnitude to those reported in large-scale education interventions," such as reductions in class size. Duncan was the lead author on the 2019 "Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty" from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, which synthesized evidence-based guidance on policies to cut U.S. child poverty rates in half.

Noble, the lead neuroscientist on the larger Baby's First Years project, notes that children's brains naturally adapt to their experiences. "All healthy brains are shaped by their environments and experiences, and we are not saying that one group has 'better' brains. But, because of the randomized design, we know that the $333 per month must have changed children's experiences or environments, and that their brains adapted to those changed circumstances."

The authors note that they do not yet know whether these differences will persist over time, or whether they will lead to differences in children's cognitive or behavioral development, which will be measured in future waves of the study. Likewise, the authors do not yet know which particular experiences were involved in generating the impacts on brain development. Work is underway to examine potential mechanisms, including how mothers spent the money, and how having more money may have changed parenting behaviors, family relationships, and family stress. Co-author Katherine Magnuson, Vilas Achievement Professor and Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and lead social scientist for the larger Baby's First Years study, notes that "families are all different, and the potential promise of money as a way of directly supporting families is that it allows parents to make choices about what their children most need. Thus, there may not be just one way in which money positively affects families; money may matter in a lot of small ways."

"We hear from the mothers in our study how challenging it is to raise children without enough money," says Magnuson, noting that "a few hundred dollars a month has the potential to do a lot of good for these families, and we are grateful that we will continue to learn from them about how the money has helped them meet their goals."

"Global evidence is thin on how children are affected by cash transfers, especially with respect to very young children," says co-author Lisa Gennetian, Pritzker Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies at Duke University. "This is mostly because it is so hard and expensive to objectively capture children's development. This study's findings on infant brain activity are unprecedented and really speak to how anti-poverty policiesincluding the types of expanded child tax credits being debated in the U.Scan and should be viewed as investments in children."

The researchers began planning the study in 2012, long before the Biden Administration's one-year expansion of the Child Tax Credit, which expired in December and provided $250 to $300 per month per child for most U.S. families. While the tax credit, which the Administration is working to renew as part of larger budget legislation, bore some resemblance to the Baby's First Years cash gifts, the team points to important differences, most notably that the expanded Child Tax Credit provided payments for all children in the home through age 17.

Additional contributors to the PNAS paper include co-authors Molly Costanzo, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Nathan Fox, University of Maryland; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, NYU; and Sarah Halpern-Meekin, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Baby's First Years study was designed, conceptualized and implemented by, in alphabetical order, Greg Duncan, Nathan Fox, Lisa Gennetian, Katherine Magnuson (Social Science Lead Investigator), Kimberly Noble (Neuroscience Lead Investigator), and Hirokazu Yoshikawa.

Explore further Low-income kids use different brain function to ace achievement tests

More information: "The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain act," by Sonya V. Troller-Renfree et al. PNAS (2022). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences "The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain act," by Sonya V. Troller-Renfree et al.(2022). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2115649119
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75% of the COVID-19 survivors who were treated in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) experience physical, mental and/or cognitive problems one-year post ICU. This shows the large-scale MONITOR-IC study led by Radboud university medical center, in which the health status of ICU survivors is monitored with questionnaires up to five years after ICU admission.

The study regarding long-term health problems, published in the scientific journal JAMA, was conducted among 246 COVID-19 patients (176 men/70 women) who were treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) in the Netherlands. Their mean age was 61 years. Using questionnaires, they were asked how they were doing one-year post ICU. Worldwide, this is the first scientific research regarding long-term problems among COVID-19 ICU survivors. Patients in this study were admitted to the ICU during the first COVID-19 surge between March and July 2020.

Majority of patients experience health problems one-year post ICU

This study shows that three quarters of the COVID-19 ICU survivors experience problems one-year post ICU. These are primarily physical problems, whereby half of the patients experience feelings of fatigue. Other physical problems are e.g. a reduced condition, pain, muscle weakness and shortness of breath. Also, mental symptoms are common; one in five COVID-19 ICU survivors experience feelings of anxiety or post-traumatic stress. Furthermore, one in six have cognitive problems such as memory or attention problems.

These various problems negatively affect former ICU patients' daily live. Over half of them indicate that they have work-related problems because of the health problems: they reduced their working hours; they are still on sick leave or have even given up their job.

Principal investigator Marieke Zegers of Radboud University medical center says that "this study shows what an incredible impact an ICU admission has on the lives of former COVID-19 patients. Even after one year, half of them is tired or experience lack of the energy to fully resume their work."

Explore further Large number of COVID-19 survivors will experience cognitive complications

More information: Marieke Zegers et al, Clinical outcomes among patients with 1-year survival following intensive care unit treatment for COVID-19, JAMA (2022). Journal information: Journal of the American Medical Association Marieke Zegers et al, Clinical outcomes among patients with 1-year survival following intensive care unit treatment for COVID-19,(2022). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2022.0040
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More than 800,000 rapid COVID-19 tests passed their expiration date recently in a Florida warehouse, prompting concerns that they would go to waste.

But the manufacturer, Abbott, obtained a three-month extension on the expiration date after supplying additional data to the FDA.

Such testswhich work by detecting antigens (pieces of viral proteins) on the patient's swab samplewill eventually expire. But the exact date in each case is an open question, in part because some of the manufacturers are new at this game.

Even Abbott, which has years of experience making similar tests for other purposes, has extended the expiration dates on its COVID tests several times, after demonstrating that the components remain stable.

For a crash course on what is meant by expiration in this context, and how to make sure your test is still OK, we spoke to Emily Volk, president of the College of American Pathologists, and Matthew Pettengill, director of clinical microbiology at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Why the tests expire

The chemistry behind the antigen tests typically depends on two key components: a liquid reagent that is used to extract protein fragments from the patient sample, and customized antibodies that are painted on the test strip.

If coronavirus proteins are present in the sample, the antibodies bind to them in such a way that the strip changes color, said Volk, chief medical officer of Baptist Health Floyd Hospital in New Albany, Ind.

Both components, the reagent and the antibodies, start to degrade at some point, Pettengill said. They won't go bad the very day of the printed expiration date, but eventually the accuracy of the test may start to decline.

To be on the safe side, use a test that has not expired.

"It's really no different than when your medications expire," Volk said. "They have a shelf life. Afterward, they don't work as well."

But be aware that with the COVID antigen tests, the expiration date may be a moving target.

How to tell if your expiration date has changed

Generally, the expiration dates are stamped on the back of the package. In the case of Abbott's BinaxNOW tests, the date is printed alongside a small icon of an hourglass.

A second, earlier datethe day the test kit was assembledis typically printed below that, next to a mysterious-looking icon with a jagged line. Make sure you're looking at the expiration date.

But for certain tests, that expiration date may have been extended beyond what is stamped on the packageprovided the manufacturer has demonstrated to the FDA that the components remain stable.

The type of Abbott tests in the Florida warehouse are now deemed to have a shelf life of 15 months, up from 12. The shelf lives for tests from some other manufacturers have been extended as well.

In some cases, the companies have inserted notices into the packages with the updated info. In others, new expiration dates are posted on company websites, organized by lot number, but finding them can be a challenge.

If there is any doubt, stick with the date on the package. With the number of cases still high, you'll likely be using the test long before that date anyway.

Says Pettengill:

"Most of these antigen tests have a pretty good shelf life," he said. "They're pretty stable for over a year."

How to store tests so they last longer

It may seem obvious, but read the instructions.

Generally, the tests are designed to be stable at a wide range of temperatures.

Abbott says its tests can be stored between 36 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit, but that the kits should be at room temperature at the time they are used. Another test, called the QuickVue SARS Antigen Test, is designed to be stored at 59 to 86 degrees.

What if packages are exposed to temperatures outside those ranges for short periods, such as during shipping?

They are still fine, according to WHEC, the NBC affiliate in chilly Rochester, N.Y., which posed that question to manufacturers. But stick to the recommended temperatures as much as possible. That guidance is based on how the products were tested.

2022 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the American Heart Association and collaborating organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association for Respiratory Care, the Society of Critical Care Anesthesiologists and the American Society of Anesthesiologists, continue to provide interim guidance to address the latest scientific research related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, particularly the Delta and Omicron variants. The updated "2022 Interim Guidance to Health Care Professionals for Basic and Advanced Cardiac Life Support in Adults, Children, and Neonates With Suspected or Confirmed COVID-19," published today in the Association's journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, addresses the emergence of COVID-19 variants that are more transmissible than previous strains.

"Based on evolving epidemiology reports and emerging science, the volunteer committee comprised of more than 40 global resuscitation experts has issued new guidance for the resuscitation of patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19," said Comilla Sasson, M.D., Ph.D., FAHA, a practicing emergency medicine physician and vice president for science & innovation for emergency cardiovascular care at the American Heart Association. "This guidance also reflects the recommendations issued recently from both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."

Most significantly, due to new, more highly contagious variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the guidance emphasizes the need for PPE, including respirators, gowns, gloves and eye protection. In the event initial responders are not already wearing appropriate PPE, they should immediately put on PPE and then begin CPR. As the science surrounding COVID-19 and variants evolves, health care professionals should continue to follow the most-up-to-date recommendations from the WHO, CDC and their regional health authorities and local institutions.

"Health care professionals are paramount to the health of communities around the world, especially during a pandemic, and they should be protected while performing health care procedures including resuscitation," said Dianne Atkins, M.D., FAAP, volunteer chair of the American Heart Association Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee, a pediatric cardiologist and lead author of the new interim guidance. "Protecting the health and safety of health care professionals remains critical and includes ensuring the recommended personal protective equipment is available and that health care professionals are trained to use it properly."

Additional updates in the guidance include:

Incorporating the most recent CDC and WHO guidance: All healthcare providers should wear a respirator (e.g., N95) along with other PPE (gown, gloves, and eye protection) for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection, when performing aerosol-generating procedures (AGP)s or in a setting where such procedures are regularly performed. This includes wearing appropriate PPE (including a respirator) before performing the components of resuscitation that are aerosol-generating, which include but are not limited to chest compressions, defibrillation, bag-mask ventilation, intubation or positive-pressure ventilation. Reinforcing resuscitation best practices: Cardiac arrest survival rates have decreased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of hospital cardiac arrest survival in 2020 also declined in regions/timeframes that did and did not have significant COVID infection rates. The reasons for this decline are both unclear and complex. Cardiac arrest survival is dependent on early initiation of CPR, including chest compressions as soon as it is safely possible. Patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 should receive the best resuscitative efforts possible. Ensuring adequate PPE supply: At this time, all healthcare providers should be following appropriate precautions and should have access to PPE in all clinical settings, regardless of the potential of encountering resuscitation events. Effective use of PPE is critical for the safety of healthcare providers performing resuscitations. Healthcare organizations should continue to secure appropriate PPE as available, ensure training regarding appropriate application and use of PPE, reinforce effective use of PPE, and create systems so that health care providers have immediate access to appropriate PPE when emergency care is required.

As the COVID-19 pandemic persists and new variants arise, the American Heart Association with its collaborating professional organizations will continue to provide the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidance on resuscitation and supporting the health care professionals that provide these life-saving procedures such as CPR.

American Heart Association guidance articles promote greater awareness about cardiovascular diseases and stroke issues and help facilitate informed health care decisions. Scientific statements and guidance documents outline what is currently known about a topic and what areas need additional research. While scientific statements and guidance documents inform the development of formal guidelines, they do not make treatment recommendations. American Heart Association guidelines provide the Association's official clinical practice recommendations.

Explore further Interim guidance for pediatric resuscitation care to reduce COVID-19 transmission
As Marylands surge of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations begins to decline around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., after several weeks, other parts of the state may have longer to wait before relief comes.

Spreading first in more densely populated and urban areas before fanning out to rural regions, the coronavirus tends to follow a similar pattern with every wave, according to public health researchers and medical experts. That means the outermost parts of Maryland may be on a different timeline than the rest of the state.

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Its not all coordinated, said Eili Klein, associate professor of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins who researches how individuals contribute to the spread of infectious diseases, in an interview earlier this month. Eastern and Western Maryland are behind ... those areas are going to be stressed a little bit longer.

As challenging as omicron has been for the states weary health care workers in the Baltimore area  where several hospitals shifted to crisis-mode standards of care in recent weeks  the surge may be especially painful in the states outer edges, where resources are more scarce and vaccine acceptance is less prevalent.

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Already, state data shows the infection rates falling in Central Maryland while continuing to rise on the Eastern Shore and in Western Maryland. As of the latest data, Dorchester County led the state in the 14-day average case rate, with more than 30 cases per every 1,000 people, according to the latest figures. Allegany County followed, with more than 25 cases per every 1,000 people. Wicomico County, Dorchesters neighbor, trailed close behind with more than 24 cases per every 1,000 people.

In the Baltimore area, the citys case rate stood at about 16 cases per every 1,000 people, followed by Harford and Howard counties with about 13, Anne Arundel and Baltimore with about 12 and Carroll County with more than 11.

Driving this latest surge is the new and more contagious omicron variant, which quickly became the dominant strain in Maryland and nationwide after being identified by the World Health Organization right after Thanksgiving. It now accounts for more than 95% of all Marylands lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday.

The high volume of people contracting the virus has translated to a crush of patients needing hospital care at once. Faced with limited testing options, many people flooded emergency departments to find out whether they were infected, which state officials have sought to counteract by opening new testing centers and making at-home kits more available.

The daily case totals, while improving, remain high  with close to 2,700 infections recorded statewide Monday. The testing positivity rate now stands at around 15%, down from a peak of nearly 30%.

Until the situation improves, Dorchester County Health Officer Roger Harrell said he will pick and choose his battles.

Despite the health departments outreach and state and federal partners helping to get more people immunized, Dorchesters vaccination rate remains stubbornly low in certain areas, he said, which he attributes to some residents cultural attitudes about vaccines. His focus has pivoted to other measures that can keep his county safe, such as handing out high-quality face masks and keeping testing options open.

Weve done the best we can, but its all going to come down to behaviors. Are they going to follow what theyre asked to do? Harrell said. Be it COVID, [sexually transmitted diseases] or teenage pregnancy, how do you change those behaviors?

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We give you the tools, and if you dont use them, I cant use them for you. We give them as much support as possible.

Less than 55% of Dorchesters population is fully vaccinated, according to state data. But Harrell said hes encouraged by the number of masks the department has distributed lately, taking it as a sign that residents are heeding the departments warnings.

In Allegany County, where nearly half of residents are fully vaccinated, health officer Jenelle Mayer said her staff also is focused on testing and has seen volumes soar over the past several weeks.

Six months ago, about 40 people would show up at the Allegany County Fairgrounds testing site each day. That number has ballooned to as high as 400 on a given day, Mayer said.

While the countys case rate remains well above the states, Mayer said internal projections show a slowdown coming soon.

We continue to encourage county residents to get vaccinated and boosted, wear a mask, get tested if experiencing symptoms, and follow [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] isolation and quarantine guidelines, Mayer said in an email.

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Boosters have been especially critical in keeping people from contracting acute illness as a result of omicron, the CDC said Friday, but Americans have been slow to get them and many people remain ineligible because they are still within six months of receiving their second shot. About 39% of vaccinated Americans have been boosted, according to the CDC.

Meanwhile, in highly vaccinated Maryland, close to 44% of the vaccinated population has gotten a booster, data shows, or just over 1.9 million people. Nearly 4.4 million people have been fully vaccinated, according to state figures.

Health care officials on the Eastern Shore said the majority of patients needing hospital care for COVID-19 have not been fully immunized. Of the patients seeking treatment at the University of Maryland Shore Regional Health facilities, less than 5% have received a third dose, chief medical officer Dr. William E. Huffner said.

As of Friday, Shore Regional  which serves Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Annes and Talbot counties  had 34 COVID-19 patients receiving inpatient care and an additional four in waiting rooms. More than 90% of beds were full, Huffner said, higher than typical bed occupancy.

In addition to booster shots, Huffner said Eastern Shore residents should seek out tests, as well as wear masks in public places and keep distance from others until the case rates fall. He said the Eastern Shore typically lags behind statewide declines by about two weeks.

Its frustrating to know that the most important tool to combating COVID is vaccination, and we see so many patients choose not to. Its unfortunate, said Huffner, also the COVID-19 incident commander for the Eastern Shore facilities. Its sad when we have so many sick people.

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The situation is similar at TidalHealth, which operates medical centers in Salisbury and Seaford, Delaware. Most of the patient population is not vaccinated, said Sarah C. Arnett, vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer at TidalHealth.

The medical network shifted its hospitals to crisis-mode standards of care on Jan. 10 and Jan. 11, allowing them to delay some surgical procedures, cut back on documentation and paperwork duties temporarily, and redeploy staffs to different units.

Arnett said that though TidalHealths staffs are discouraged, they may better understand patients reservations about getting vaccinated compared with their peers in more urban areas.

We are a representation of our community, and there are varied opinions [about vaccines] in our health care workforce as well, Arnett said. Overall, people are frustrated and tired, but ... the concern is were not able to provide the level of care we want to provide.

Aside from physical limitations on where to house patients, Arnett said, a shortage of staff  particularly nurses, respiratory therapists and other ancillary support workers  makes matters worse. She said providers can sense tensions rising in the community, too.

Theres been an increase in aggressive behavior and verbal aggression toward staff and toward other patients who are waiting. We understand there will be longer waits for care and service than people are accustomed to; its stressful for our health care providers to know that, she said.

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Were hoping in about two weeks, or at the end of [the] month at least, there will be sustained plateau where we can come out of crisis mode and return to a more normal, operational approach to our care.
ZAMBOANGA CITY  Eight villages in the southern Philippine province of Sulu are now free from the influence of the pro-ISIS group Abu Sayyaf...
MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- The coronavirus can leave more than 40% of children hospitalized for COVID-19 with headaches and other lingering neurological symptoms, a new study claims.

And the kids who developed these headaches or experienced an altered mental status known as acute encephalopathy were more likely to need intensive care, said researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), in Pennsylvania.

"The SARS-CoV-2 virus can affect pediatric patients in different ways: It can cause acute disease, where symptomatic illness comes on soon after infection, or children may develop an inflammatory condition called MIS-C weeks after clearing the virus," said lead study author Dr. Ericka Fink. She is a pediatric intensivist at the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

The study findings were published recently in the journal Pediatric Neurology. They are the first insights from the pediatric arm of GCS-NeuroCOVID, an international, multicenter consortium aiming to understand how COVID-19 affects the brain and nervous system.

"One of the consortium's big questions was whether neurological manifestations are similar or different in pediatric patients, depending on which of these two conditions they have," Fink said in a hospital news release.

For the study, the researchers reviewed the cases of 1,493 children who were cared for at 30 pediatric critical care centers around the world. Those included 1,278, or 86%, of patients who were diagnosed with acute COVID-19 and 215 kids with MIS-C, the multisystem inflammatory syndrome that can appear several weeks after children have recovered from the virus.

The research team found that neurological symptoms were more common in kids with MIS-C, who were also more likely to have two or more of those symptoms.

In the children with MIS-C, researchers often saw headaches, acute encephalopathy and dizziness. In the children who had acute COVID-19, they also saw headache and acute encephalopathy, as well as seizures. Less commonly, symptoms included loss of smell, vision impairment, stroke and psychosis.

About 44% of children from these two groups had neurological symptoms.

"Thankfully, mortality rates in children are low for both acute SARS-CoV-2 and MIS-C," Fink said. "But this study shows that the frequency of neurological manifestations is high  and it may actually be higher than what we found because these symptoms are not always documented in the medical record or accessible. For example, we can't know if a baby is having a headache."

The research team is now doing a follow-up study to determine whether the COVID-19 virus or MIS-C can have lasting effects on children's health or quality of life, whether they have these neurological symptoms or not.

"Another long-term goal of this study is to build a database that tracks neurological manifestations over time  not just for SARS-CoV-2, but for other types of infections as well," Fink added. "Some countries have excellent databases that allow them to easily track and compare children who are hospitalized, but we don't have such a resource in the U.S."

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on COVID-19.

SOURCE: University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, news release, Jan. 21, 2022

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MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines abounds, and people with depression are more likely than others to fall for it, a new study finds.

"One of the notable things about depression is that it can cause people to see the world differently  sort of the opposite of rose-colored glasses. That is, for some depressed people, the world appears as a particularly dark and dangerous place," said lead author Dr. Roy Perlis. He's associate chief of research in the psychiatry department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"We wondered whether people seeing the world this way might also be more susceptible to believing misinformation about vaccines. If you already think the world is a dangerous place, you might be more inclined to believe that vaccines are dangerous  even though they are not," Perlis said in a hospital news release.

Falsehoods run the gamut from stating the vaccines are dangerous to suggesting they contain microchips.

For the study, Perlis and colleagues analyzed the responses from more than 15,400 U.S. adults who completed an online survey between May and July 2021. Participants first completed a questionnaire about symptoms of depression, and then responded to statements about COVID-19 vaccines.

Levels of depression among the participants were at least three times higher than before the pandemic, the study found. Those with depression were 2.2 times more likely to support at least one of four false statements about COVID-19 vaccines. And those who supported at least one false statement were half as likely to be vaccinated and 2.7 times more likely to report vaccine resistance.

It is known that unvaccinated people are more likely to develop severe COVID-19 and die from it compared to folks who are vaccinated.

The researchers also had more than 2,800 of the participants complete another survey two months later. The results showed that those who had depression in the first survey were two times more likely than those without depression to endorse more vaccine misinformation in the second survey than in the first.

The study was published online Jan. 21 in JAMA Network Open.

"While we can't conclude that depression caused this susceptibility, looking at a second wave of data at least told us that the depression came before the misinformation. That is, it wasn't that misinformation was making people more depressed," Perlis said.

The investigators also found that the link between depression and belief in vaccine misinformation wasn't due to getting news from different sources and wasn't limited to people with particular political beliefs or in certain demographic groups.

The findings have significance given that mental health in the United States has reportedly worsened during the pandemic.

"Our result suggests that, by addressing the extremely high levels of depression in this country during COVID, we might decrease people's susceptibility to misinformation," Perlis said. "Of course, we can only show an association  we can't show that the depression causes the susceptibility, but it's certainly suggestive that it might."

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines myths and facts about COVID-19 vaccines.

SOURCE: Massachusetts General Hospital, news release, Jan. 21, 2022

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Standing outside a Baltimore home, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge joined members of Marylands congressional delegation and state and city lawmakers Monday to tout the federal agencys awarding of millions in grant money to help keep more Americans safe from their own houses.

The department, known as HUD, said earlier this month that it would distribute nearly $105 million in grants through its Healthy Homes Production Grant Program to 60 nonprofit organizations and state and local agencies across the country that tackle home health hazards such as lead poisoning. Three groups in Maryland  Enterprise Community Partners Columbia, Green & Healthy Homes Initiative Inc. and Maryland Rural Development Corp.  were selected to receive close to $5.2 million in funding to take on nearly 500 homes.

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In all, the 60 organizations will target some 7,400 homes that belong to individuals who earn 80% or less of their areas median income, according to the federal agency. Fudge said the department had a responsibility to protect families from untimely deaths and preventable illnesses.

Children should never have to live in a place where they cannot breathe, Fudge said. We cannot, we must not, and we will not allow for children to die for things that we can fix, and we are going to fix them.

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U.S Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia L. Fudge, at the lectern, was joined by, from left, Ruth Ann Norton, president of Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, Baltimore City Councilman Ryan Dorsey and Baltimore Deputy Mayor Ted Carter to report on $105 million in grants awards to nonprofits and government agencies to eliminate health hazards in homes of families whose incomes are at or below 80% of area median income level. Behind them is the home of Deborah Carter Gaddis on Woodlea Avenue in Walterson, where remediation was completed under this program. Jan. 24, 2022 p1 (Amy Davis/Amy Davis)

HUD provided some of the funds that went into the work done on the Northeast Baltimore home of Deborah Carter Gaddis, a homeowner with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. Gaddis cares for her grandchildren inside the home in the Waltherson neighborhood, the site of Mondays news conference.

The effort, led by the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, found mold, poor air quality, structural deficiencies, and a lack of other safety features such as smoke and carbon monoxide alarms.

Baltimore City Councilman Ryan Dorsey said Gaddis home is representative of the many in his district in need of subsidized upgrades.

We hear almost every week from somebody looking for some kind of assistance to stay in their homes, said Dorsey, who represents District 3.

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Fudge and others at Mondays news conference called on Congress to pass President Joe Bidens infrastructure agenda, known as the Build Back Better framework. A version of the bill passed in the U.S. House of Representatives last year but has stalled in the Senate. The framework includes a commitment to increase the affordable housing stock and remove lead paint from hundreds of thousands of homes.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said that in addition to Build Back Better, Congress is finalizing its annual budget, which would include some $90 million for HUDs healthy homes program.

Clearly this challenge of making healthy homes is something we have to work on, the Maryland Democrat said. This is one example and a very important example, of all of us coming together to get the job done.

In all, organizations in 29 states will receive federal dollars to remediate home health hazards, according to HUD. In December, the agency also awarded nearly $13.2 million in grants to state and local government agencies in three states through its Lead Based Paint Hazard Reduction Grant Program.

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Lead poisoning, a pervasive problem nationwide, has been a focus of Maryland lawmakers and nonprofits for decades.

Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, said the federal grants will help the organization reduce childhood lead poisoning, which causes physical and developmental harm.

This funding will further our goal of ending the toxic legacy of lead and unhealthy housing conditions and will equip us to create affordable, healthy and climate-friendly homes for our most vulnerable and overburdened families, Norton said. We applaud HUDs commitment to creating healthier, more stable and affordable housing for our children, families and seniors.
Missoula County is inching closer to finalizing an overhaul of its outdated zoning laws to better align with its growth policy.

Staff from the county's Land Use and Community Planning office presented an updated draft on Jan. 18 of the zoning plan, the culmination of what has been nearly a five-year process, to Missoula's Consolidated Planning Board.

Missoula County is completely rewriting its zoning code, which was first written in 1976.

"Zoning is meant to change over time, it is not meant to be static, it is not meant to be permanent or in place forever. It is meant to evolve," senior county planner Andrew Hagemeier told the planning board last week.

The new zoning code is meant to address housing, climate and protection of agricultural and wildlife areas, among a variety of other issues. The area being focused on includes Bonner, East Missoula and the Wye and does not include anything within city limits.

Hagemeier and Lindsay Romaniello have helped lead the project.

"There's been so much that's gone into this and the time of not only us, but the countless people who have taken the time to come out and comment ... there were definitely groups that we've spent hours going through this code with," Romaniello said. "There's a lot that's gone into it and it's definitely made it a better project."

Romaniello presented a number of changes over the last year that followed conversations with community members and stakeholders in the project.

There were a few larger changes, including taking out some standards meant to address wildfires. Missoula County is, with priority, looking at a different project that will incorporate pieces of zoning, building codes and other laws and ordinances that are designed to prevent structure loss during fires into a larger, codifying document.

"It became apparent that we need to remove this and address all of these things at once, so we're putting that aside for now, but that's something we're going to pick up the minute this is done," Romaniello said.

Other changes included moving some areas designated for higher density closer to the Sxtpqyen (pronounced S-wh-tip-KAYN) Master Plan, which is mostly along Mullan Road.

The county also added an overlay district to the Target Range area, which combines new zoning plans for the area with an older neighborhood plan. Overlays are not expected to be common, but there will likely be one in the area around the airport, Hagemeier said.

A major concept of the plan is to reduce how many special zoning districts there are and provide more clarity for everyone in the community regarding what can be built where.

"Sometimes overlay zones allow you do to extra things, sometimes they add extra restrictions," Hagemeier said. "This one sort of specifies the intent of the Target Range Neighborhood Plan, so there's an intent statement in there that's different from the normal rural residential and small agricultural zone.

"Their plan very specifically says 'We do not want density bonuses' and so that's the main thing."

The agricultural community also has some concerns. A noise standard exemption for those areas was added, as was more clustering required for subdivisions built on land where agricultural soil is present.

That means those areas will have to have higher density and will not be spread out as much.

Lighting standards were also added and closely align with city policy. The zoning plan is incentive-laden, meaning developers can scale up density for meeting sustainability, resource protection and other goals.

Incentives for cleaner electricity were added to the plan as well.

"Everything in the code is intentional  everything." Hagemeier said. "It has a purpose and it has a reasoning behind it."

The county has included the city in discussions around the zoning regulations. They are meant to mesh with city zoning laws, which are changing as well.

Tuesday's Planning Board meeting was the first of two leading up to a planning board public comment process, which is required by law. That will begin on March 1, according to a Missoula County news release.

Following the planning board's public comment process, there will time for additional public comment with the Missoula County Board of Commissioners. After that, the commissioners will vote on the new zoning laws, which could be in effect by this summer.

Comments on the plan can be submitted at mczoningupdate.com. The website also has extensive information on the proposed changes.

Jordan Hansen covers news and local government for the Missoulian. Shout at him on Twitter @jordyhansen or send him an email at Jordan.Hansen@Missoulian.com

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Its easy to take homeschooling for granted in 2022. Easy, that is, if you havent been watching the legislative action in Montana over the last 40 years. The opportunities homeschoolers have today are the result of thousands of families joining forces and speaking up, time and again, for the right to choose their childs education.

This National School Choice Week (Jan. 23-29), the uphill climb for homeschooling in Montana is a reminder that expanding choices for our children requires hard work and stick-to-it-tivity.

Just think back 40 years. Nearly 10,000 Montana students identified as homeschooled last school year, but in the early 1980s, school choices were few and far between. Parents like us who wanted to home educate their children faced big legal challenges. This didnt change until 1983, when an extraordinary bill provided an "exemption" from public school enrollment for students attending nonpublic or home schools. Parents from across our state filled the hearings to overflowing, showing support for the flexibility and opportunity afforded by school choice. The Legislature overwhelmingly supported the bill too.

Imagine how the recent pandemic  when the rate of Montana households homeschooling jumped from 8% to 18% in a six-month span  would have hit families even harder if we hadnt stood up for that choice then. Both then and now, when families freedom to choose the best educational fit for their children expands, its worth celebrating. But it also requires commitment for educational freedom to last. Community organizations and regular meet-ups can be invaluable ways for parents to stay invested in preserving and expanding learning opportunities. In fact, thats why other parents and I originally formed the Montana Coalition of Home Educators in 1988.

As a case in point, just a few years after the coalition formed, a bill was introduced that would adversely affect homeschoolers. In response, we worked together to draft a bill spelling out our God-given right to be responsible for the educational philosophy, curriculum, instruction, and testing of our children.

What took place in that 1991 session has not been forgotten by those who were there. Our bill (with 48 co-signers, both Democrats and Republicans), passed out of the Senate and into the House. Again, the room was filled with supporters from across the state. Through the hard work and commitment of those willing to speak up for choice, our bill passed in the House, was signed into law with zero changes, and is an important component of Montana homeschooling law today.

The battle for greater educational opportunity continues for Montana families. Encouragingly, in 2021, the door was opened for private and homeschool students to participate in public school extracurricular activities. This bill received support from both sides of the aisle. It represents a growing recognition that families need flexible learning arrangements, and hearkens to a future where hybrid learning opportunities will be more widespread.

These good developments, which recognize that families know their kids learning needs best, dont come from thin air. They require steadfast commitment, like that of the more than 4,000 supporters of homeschooling who showed up in the 2007 session, making it the largest hearing turnout in our states history.

Challenges to parental rights in education remain. Parents, educators, and legislators must come together and continue the task of refining education law and policies. We must always appreciate and defend our freedom to be the primary educators for our children. At heart, thats who the battle for school choice is fought for: our children, the next generation.

Steve White is a homeschool father and founding member of the Montana Coalition of Home Educators. He has led the effort to pass positive home education bills in legislative sessions over the past 30+ years.

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After three generations and 80 years, a Morganton family decided it was time to hand off their keys to someone else.

John Greene Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM on Jamestown Road sold the dealership to Team Automotive, based in Salisbury, on Dec. 13.

Johnny Greene said the decision to sell the dealership involved several factors. One reason was none of the younger generations in the family wanted to take it over.

The other reason is his age. Working long hours, it became a little bit overwhelming and burdensome, and he wants to enjoy retirement.

Greene, 63, worked in the business for 40 years. He discussed the decision of whether to sell the dealership with his mother and father, Jane and John Greene, who co-owned it.

His father retired from the business in 2010.

They all knew the dealership would have to be sold at some point, he said.

So this was just an extremely good opportunity at this time, Greene said.

Greene said several parties were interested in buying the dealership but Team Automotive was very interested in acquiring a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram franchise. He said the Morganton dealership is the first Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram franchise for Team Automotive, which also owns five GM dealerships.

I could have refused it but the future was it was gonna have to be sold at some point, Greene said. And when when you turn 63, Ive had a lot of good friends that havent had as many birthdays as I have, you know, that are no longer with us. That reality was evident. So it was just better for it to take place while I was healthy. And then maybe I can enjoy some years with my family. Ive got three grandchildren now.

In 1941, Tux Bowers, Greenes grandfather, started Tux Bowers Motor Company at 200 W. Union St.in Morganton. Tux Bowers son-in-law and Greenes father, John Greene, joined the dealership in 1963 and its name was changed to Bowers-Greene Motor Company in 1978. And then it was changed to John Greene Chrysler Dodge Jeep, and then it added RAM when they separated the Dodge truck to be RAM made by itself, Greene said.

While Greene grew up around the business, he officially started full-time in 1982.

The community has always been very supportive and we have enjoyed the decades of having a business in Burke County, Greene said.

Like with many business that are lucky enough enjoy success for many years, there also were challenges during the 80 years.

And COVID was just the latest one. Greene said while there were issues with supply chains and employees and their families getting sick with the virus, the dealership was able to maintain excellent business.

Other challenges throughout the years included spiked interest rates, an oil embargo and no gas, high gas prices and major recessions.

While there were challenges and long hours, Greene said the sale is bittersweet.

He already misses the customers and especially the employees.

Ive really enjoyed working with customers and making vehicle sales but so much of it had changed and become so specialized with the marketing and the financing and all, it just was a little overwhelming for single-point dealership to continue on, Greene said.

But hes also looking forward to what retirement may bring. A recent afternoon found Greene doing yard work at his home.

I dont know exactly what Ill do, but right now, Im enjoying all the time away from the 50-hour weeks that I did for many, many years.
As Buttes industrial works grew, the need for energy grew with it. By 1883, the Colorado Smelter built in 1879 at Williamsburg needed more and more timber to fire its furnaces.

The Basin Flume Company was established in early 1883 by A.A. Smith, Henry Williams (manager of the smelter and namesake of Williamsburg), and J. Ross Clark, brother of William A. Clark who was the primary owner of the Colorado Smelter. They planned a 14-mile-long aqueduct, a flume, to bring water from the falls of Basin Creek south of Butte to the smelter on Silver Bow Creek, but it wasnt mostly the water they wanted. The flumes water was just the transportation medium for bringing lumber from the forests around Basin Creek.

Work on the flume began in February 1883. The wooden structure was three feet wide and 24 inches deep, and much of it ran on elevated trestles 20 to 70 feet above ground level. Construction took about 900,000 feet of lumber and 350 kegs of nails, and the project was complete on June 10, 1883. The next day, 100,000 board feet of lumber, much of it in timbers 30 feet long, floated in a man-made trough circling around the east side of Timber Butte on its way to the smelter.

When water flow was good, 800 cords of lumber came down the flume every 12 hours, the equivalent of what 800 two-horse teams pulling wagons could have brought. A small army of woodcutters worked in the headwaters around todays Basin Creek Reservoir to supply the flow.

Work on the flume was disrupted in mid-May 1883, when an immense three-day storm system destroyed 500 yards of one trestle, where six carpenters were working when a sudden onrush of wind and rain splintered the entire structure. The only uninjured man, C. Costello, jumped 30 feet to the ground, but his brother fell with the trestle, broke his back, and died. The others suffered serious broken bones, cuts, and bruises.

Joseph Levesque, a lumber teamster, was hit by a bolt of lightning that killed three of his four horses and shot through his body from his right ear to his heel, but he survived. A man standing at the corner of Main and Broadway was also hit by lightning at 11:00 a.m. It split his hand open, but he too survived.

The same storm system dropped as much as 15 inches of snow in eastern Montana, where lambing season was in progress. A rancher at Dearborn, near Wolf Creek, lost 600 sheep. Tornadoes spawned by the long-lived system hit Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin on multiple days over the next two weeks, killing at least 16 people in Racine, Wisconsin.

Within four years, the Basin Flume Company had become a subsidiary of William Clarks Colorado Smelting Company, supplying not just the smelter but other businesses and private homes as well.

Local geologist and historian Dick Gibson has lived in Butte since 2003 and has worked as a tour guide for various organizations and museums. He can be reached at rigibson@earthlink.net.

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Felony DUI

A trooper with the Montana Highway Patrol arrested Dane Avery Peters, 34, of Butte at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday near the intersection of Aluminum and Wyoming for felony driving under the influence (child endangerment). Also arrested was his passenger, Amanda Katherine Bowers, 40, of Butte.

According to a MHP report, Peters had children in the vehicle when he was pulled over. He was taken to the Butte Detention Center where he was booked for the felony DUI, and the miscellaneous offenses of no license plates, no liability insurance in effect, driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, failure to wear a seat belt, and driving with a suspended or revoked drivers license.

As for Bowers, she was jailed for the misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and obstructing a peace officer.

The MHP reported that Bowers was yelling and screaming so loud that people living nearby came out of their homes to investigate.

Misdemeanor DUI

Kirsten Bealynn Wold, 18, of Butte was arrested by a MHP trooper late Sunday night for the misdemeanor offenses of driving under the influence (under 21, with a blood alcohol of .02 or greater) and possessing alcohol or intoxicant.

Gas stolen

It was reported Friday that someone drilled holes in the gas tanks of two Chevy vans parked in the 3200 block of Kennedy and took all the gas.

Whoops! My mistake

Just after 1 a.m. Saturday, a man called police to report his car had been stolen in Uptown Butte. Turns out, the car was not stolen  he just forgot where he parked it.

Knock it off

A late-night party Saturday on the 100 block of ONeill was getting a little loud and out of hand. Officers arrived and told the party goers to knock it off. They heeded the advice and left the area.

More than once

On Saturday afternoon, a man living in the 1000 block of North Emmett Street reported that someone has been dragging his garbage can down the street and then throwing it over his fence. According to the complainant, this has happened a couple of different times.

Tablet missing

Early Saturday evening, a woman living in an apartment on Broadway Street reported that she let some people into her apartment because they were cold. When they left, she noticed her tablet was missing.

Salon stiffed

This weekend, someone who had just had their hair done at a salon on Front Street said they needed to run out to the car for their wallet. Instead of returning with said wallet to pay, the person took off.

Plate taken

A license plate was taken early Sunday from a vehicle parked in the 1500 block of Elm.

Tire slashed

Just after midnight Sunday, someone slashed a tire on a vehicle parked in the 1800 block of Lowell.

Money gone

Sometime early Monday, money was taken from a car parked in the 1300 block of Cobban.

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ARCHIVED - Spain on yellow alert for frost and low temperatures: Monday January 24



Seventeen provinces in Spain have been issued with a weather warning, although a Filomena has been ruled out

A total of 17 provinces in Spain will remain on yellow alert on Monday January 24 with temperatures as low as -8C forecast, according to State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).

At dawn and first thing in the morning, extremely cold frosts are expected to hit the areas of Huesca, Teruel, Zaragoza, Avila, Burgos, Leon, Palencia, Salamanca, Segovia, Soria, Valladolid, Zamora, Guadalajara, Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona.

In addition, Cadiz will be on yellow alert for coastal phenomena, with force 7 winds, occasionally rising to 8, in the west of the Strait.

The Valencian Community and the Region of Murcia can expect scattered showers throughout Monday, while cloudy skies will prevail throughout most of the southeast. Morning mists are forecast in the southeast of Castilla-La Mancha and inland Galicia, according to Aemet, which has also issued a warning for hazy weather in the southeast of Spain.

Temperatures will rise slightly in the Cantabrian mountain range, the Basque Country, Navarra and the Pyrenees while frosts will persist in much of the north, east and central Spain.

Despite the recent cold snap , meteorologists have ruled another episode similar to storm Filomena, which wreaked havoc across much of Spain this time last year. The forecast shows that January 24 was actually the most likely day for this weather phenomenon to occur, but while the day will be colder than normal for the most part, it will also be much drier than usual.

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MUSCATINE  Students of Susan Clark Jr. High are hoping to bring a new sense of fun to a theater classic with their latest school musical.

They will perform Pirates of Penzance Jr. on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 29 and 30, at the former Central Middle School auditorium.

In this kid version of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Pirates of Penzance Jr. tells the story of a pirate named Frederick who decides to leave his pirate crew on his 21st birthday. From there, comedy ensues as the pirates try to prevent him from leaving, all while Frederick falls in love with one of the daughters of Major-General Stanley.

Its a pretty cool play, said Bryce Taylor, who is co-directing it alongside Joanna Brewer. There are just things going on all over the place, and its a lot of fun.

Taylor said they had thought it would be a fun show for the students while also being a chance for them to do something different.

Its a play we hadnt done before, and it was also something we thought would sort of challenge the students, Taylor said. Being an operetta, it has very heightened language and is very 18th century, so it brings the students out of their comfort zone a little bit.

But while the life of a pirate is never easy, the SCJH students have stepped up to the challenge and, according to Taylor, have been working hard to bring the show to life while also enjoying the chance to be a bit more silly.

(The students) have been absolutely loving it and having a blast, he said. All the pirate puns are incredible, and they are just so into it. They cant wait for people to see all the hard work that theyve been putting into it.

In a cast of 17 students, Taylor added that only five of them have had experience with theater productions.

Our tech crew has also been doing a great job, he said. We have a bunch of different set pieces, and the time-period clothing can be hard to work with sometimes. We have a lot of hardcore makeup that goes into it, and our audio and light team is working hard as well, so we have about 42 kids all together that are working their butts off to make this the best show possible.

Taylor said audiences would enjoy the unique music and the natural silliness of the comedic story.

Performances are at 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Streaming tickets are also available at https://scjhs.booktix.com. Tickets cost $5 for ages 5 or older, $6 for the streaming tickets.

We just really want people to come by and experience this show, and when people buy tickets for our show, that support is going toward the school and will lead to more art, musicals and theater in the future," Taylor said.

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If you walk or drive by the American Visionary Art Museum this week and notice something is missing, dont be alarmed. There hasnt been an art heist.

The museums signature 55-foot-tall outdoor piece, known as the giant whirligig, is coming down for conservation, starting Monday. The process, which will give some much-needed maintenance to the sculpture, is being funded by a $50,000 grant from the Maryland State Arts Council.

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The museums signature 55-foot-tall outdoor piece, known as the giant whirligig, is coming down for conservation, starting Monday. (Posted by Ruth Schaefer, Community Contributor)

The sculpture has been in place since 1995, when it was installed by North Carolina farmer and visionary artist Vollis Simpson. At the time, it was the artists largest whirligig design and took a year to build and a day and a half to put in place. Simpson, who died in 2013, designed the work to be observed dancing in the wind from ground level, eye level on AVAMs cafe balcony, and from atop on Federal Hill Park benches, according to a joint news release from the museum and the arts council.

The 3-ton whirligig has a lot of moving pieces, so to speak. The wind-driven kinetic sculpture featuring windmills, cats, ducks, an airplane, angels, bicycle wheels and other intricacies is being dismantled and carefully crated for conservation in two locations.

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The main lattice boom or 40-foot pole that balances the sculpture is being sent to Elkridge for a new coat of paint, among other updates. The aluminum whirligig pieces that rest atop it will travel to the conservation studios at the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park and Museum in Wilson, N.C.

Both components will return to the AVAM in early April looking like new, said AVAM spokesperson Greg Tucker.
DES MOINES  Increasingly driven by fentanyl, opioid-related deaths continue to surge in Iowa and across the country at a shocking rate, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said Thursday.

The deaths that weve seen have just been heartbreaking, Miller said during a news conference, which he called after seeing the latest national drug overdose statistics issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The pain and suffering of people that are addicted, and their families and their friends, is just enormous.

The Iowa Public Health Department estimates that deaths in Iowa due to fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, rose from 31 percent of all overdoses in 2016 to 87 percent in 2021.

While there is pharmaceutical fentanyl for treating severe pain  50 to 100 times more potent than morphine  the most recent cases of fentanyl-related harm, overdose and death in the United States are linked to illegally made fentanyl, according to the CDC.

According to Iowa public health officials, all opioid-related deaths including those caused by fentanyl in the state increased by over 18 percent between 2018 and 2020, hitting a total of 213 that year. The state reported another 73 opioid-related deaths between January and April 2021.

Nationally, the nearly 64,000 fatal fentanyl overdoses from April 2020 to April 2021 were 32 times higher than the 2,000 that were recorded just 10 years earlier, in 2011.

What we think happens, and were not positive but relatively sure, is the manufacturers, which are almost exclusively in China, are the ones that bring this about, Miller said. A couple of theories about why they put fentanyl in: One is that its cheaper than the other products that theyre doing. So theyre saving themselves a small amount of money and putting people at enormous risk of fentanyl.

Miller invited to the news conference a pair of experts from the University of Iowa and the UI Hospitals and Clinics.

Dr. Gerard Clancy, a professor of psychiatry and senior associate dean for external affairs at UIs Carver College of Medicine, said the COVID-19 pandemic has added stress to the states mental health care system. Clancy estimated that over the course of the pandemic so far, the share of emergency room visits to UI Hospitals that are related to psychiatric conditions has gone from 10 to 30 percent.

So the pandemic is changing, and the stress of the pandemic is becoming additive, Clancy said. And in the midst of that is the fentanyl issues, which have made things much more complicated.

Dr. Alison Lynch, a professor of psychiatry and family medicine and director of the UIHC opioid addiction clinic, said it can be more difficult for health care workers to resuscitate someone who has overdosed on fentanyl.

In the past, if someone had a heroin overdose, we could use Narcan and often one dose or maybe a couple doses would work, Lynch said. Now that fentanyl is in the drug supply, it can take multiple doses of Narcan or Naloxone, and even then it can be really hard to get somebody out of that overdose. Its again made it just more scary.

Miller said his office has worked to address the opioid crisis by joining lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors.

Iowa was set to receive roughly $25 million from a $4.3 billion settlement with the owners of Purdue Pharma, the company that made the opioid painkiller OxyContin.

But a court rejected that settlement, and Miller said that decision will be appealed in federal court and could ultimately wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unfortunately the money thats available there to Iowa  is not available at this time, Miller said. But the larger settlement, hopefully up to $170 million (from a settlement with opioid distributor Johnson & Johnson), will be available this summer. And eventually well get money from Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers (family that owns the company). But its a very complicated case that continues to go on.

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Anti-abortion activists march in Washington, hoping it's the last time under Roe v. Wade
The Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of animal rights activist Bool Smuts, who publicly posted another mans name, address, telephone numbers, workplace, and picture on Facebook.

Smuts posted the particulars of Herman Botha online  a practise referred to as doxing  after being sent photos of a baboon and porcupine that had been trapped on his farm and left to die of dehydration.

A crucial detail was that Smuts afforded Botha a chance to explain himself. Over WhatsApp, Botha told Smuts that he had a valid permit to hunt, capture, and kill vermin such as baboons and porcupines.

Smuts then posted screenshots of the conversation, together with Bothas details and a picture of him holding his six-month-old daughter on Facebook.

BizNews investigations editor Martin Welz said the court found that when you put your face, address, telephone number, or views on Facebook, and it is available on a Google search, it is no longer private.

The Appeal Court judges, all five of them, concur that Botha deserved to be exposed, Welz said.

BizNews reported that Appeal Judge R S Mathopo (pictured) wrote the judgement, with judges Zondi, Plasket, Mbatha, and Unterhalter concurring.

In addition, the judges ruled that it would serve no useful purpose in publishing the photographs without stating where they were taken, by whom the traps were used, naming the farm, and identifying the owner.

Mathopo, Zondi, Plasket, Mbatha, and Unterhalter also stated that freedom of expression does not require politeness.

Public debate does not require politeness. What Mr Botha seeks to do

is to unjustifiably limit Mr Smuts right to freedom of expression and his entitlement to make a fair comment on the facts that are true and related to matters of public interests.

Cyclist Nicholas Louw discovered the scene that sparked outrage among animal rights activists on 23 September 2019 while on an early morning adventure ride through farmlands in the Eastern Cape.

After receiving the photos, Smuts contacted Botha, who stated that he had a valid permit to hunt, capture, and kill vermin such as baboons and porcupines.

Smuts then posted screenshots of the conversation, together with Bothas particulars, to the Landmark Leopard & Predator Project Facebook page.

He took a photo from Bothas public Facebook page, in which he held his six-month-old daughter, and included it in his posting.

In the post, Smuts stated:

We spend our efforts trying to promote ecologically acceptable practice on livestock farms to promote ecological integrity and regeneration. These images are from a farm near Alicedale in the Eastern Cape owned by Mr Herman Botha of Port Elizabeth, who is involved in the insurance industry. The farm is Varsfontein. This is utterly vile. It is ecologically ruinous. Mr Botha claims to have permits to do this. The images show a trap to capture baboons (they climb through the drum to get to the oranges  often poisoned  and then cannot get out.) See the porcupine trap too. Utterly unethical, cruel and barbaric.

Botha obtained an interim interdict on 4 June 2020, ordering Smuts and the Landmark Foundation to remove the photo, references to his name, place of work, the farm and its address, and contact details.

On appeal, the Supreme Court overturned the decision.

It said the High Court approached the case incorrectly by asking whether Smuts could have exercised his right to freedom of expression with greater restraint to afford Bothas right to privacy greater protection.

A court should not act as a censor to determine how best persons might speak, the Supreme Court of Appeal found.

In this case, Mr Smuts enjoyed the right to express his views about animal cruelty and attribute to Mr Botha the practice of animal trapping. That information was true, never denied by Mr Botha nor hidden by him.

While the Supreme Court ruling clarifies some issues around personally-identifying information posted on public platforms, it is not a licence to dox.

Social media law specialist Emma Sadleir explained during a 2020 webinar that the circumstances and context of a case are essential.

Over the last few decades, the law has come up with a common law test for privacy which basically says that if I can show that I have a legitimate expectation of privacy in a particular set of circumstances and somebody infringes on it, I can sue them, Sadleir stated.

An expectation of privacy could change based on the circumstances.

There were two defences when dealing with this  consent and public interest.

The Supreme Court specifically mentioned the issue of public interest in the Botha vs Smuts case.

Today, we essentially treat online and digital content as we would public content in any space. What I say on Facebook will be treated exactly the same way as if I had written it in a newspaper or on a poster, said Sadleir.

The principles are there, and they are good, but it is a question of how are we going to apply these very old laws to these very new ways of communicating and living.

Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in Smuts vs Botha

SCA 2022 Bool Smuts and another vs Herman Botha

Now read: These WhatsApp messages can now land you in jail in South Africa
Food delivery service Bolt Food has revealed details about its most loyal customers in South Africa in 2021, including those who placed the most orders and spent the most money on a single order.

In South Africa, the platform first launched in Cape Town in April 2020. It rolled out to select parts of Johannesburg in October 2021.

Bolt Foods most loyal customer in these two cities placed 942 orders during 2021, an average of 2.5 orders per day.

The customer who ordered from the widest range of restaurants was a Capetonian who bought food from 82 different outlets during the year.

One customer was not afraid to spend big.

The most expensive order on the platform in South Africa was for a seafood feast delivered to an address in Cape Town, with 226 items costing just over R40,000.

When it came to the popularity of dishes, Simply Asias Roasted Chilli Paste and Cashew Nut Noodles was the most-ordered dish in both Johannesburg and Cape Town.

Spur claimed second and third place in Cape Town, with the Spur Burger and T-Bone Steak. These were followed by Rocomamas Yomojo and G-Shake.

In Johannesburg, Pizza Huts pizzas were the second and fifth most popular, while Spurs Peppermint Crisp Tart and Garlic Rolls were the third and fourth-placed favourites.

Bolt also observed some interesting patterns regarding the most popular order times and dates.

For Capetonians, the most popular time to place an order was around 18:00, whereas Joburg residents most popular slots were midday during the week and 18:00 over weekends.

The busiest day for Bolt Food in Cape Town was on 19 November, while Joburg recorded its biggest number of orders on 30 November.

Now read: Shoprite taking the fight to Takealot and Mr D
An attempted break-in Friday night at a house in Napa resulted in the arrest of an El Sobrante man on suspicion of burglary and vandalism, according to police.

At 11:32 p.m., officers were called to the 1700 block of Elm Street after receiving a report of a prowler in the area, according to Sgt. Mike Walund. Police arriving at the scene heard a woman screaming that a man was forcing his way into her home, Walund said.

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Officers detained 29-year-old Joel Sosa, who showed signs of being under the influence of drugs and had suspected methamphetamine on his person, according to Walund, who said Sosa was unknown to the Elm Street resident.

Sosa was booked into the Napa County jail for investigation of vandalism, burglary, and committing a crime while free on bail, as well as misdemeanor counts of drug intoxication and possessing a controlled substance.

No injuries were reported as a result of the break-in.
Far Nientes historic, landmark stone winery was state-of-the-art when built in about 1885 and now the owners have a vision of whats needed for the 21st century.

Produce more wine. Entertain more visitors. Remodel inside the stone winery. Expand the non-historic Carriage House. Improve winery traffic circulation. Add an Oakville Grade left turn lane.

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On Wednesday, the Napa County Planning Commission approved these and other proposals.

"To me, this project has been well-thought-out, well designed," Commissioner Dave Whitmer said.

Far Niente winery was established in 1885 by San Francisco financier John Benson with the building of the three-story stone winery. The building is easily visible from Highway 29 near Oakville and looks like a fairytale house set against a hill.

Hamden McIntyre designed the stone winery. He also designed several other prominent Napa Valley wineries, including Inglenook, the former Christian Bros. winery, what is today's Trefethen winery, and Beaulieu Vineyards.

In 1979, Gil and Beth Nickel and partners decided to restore the then-deteriorating winery. The stone building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The winerys last major use permit changes came in 1997. Winery officials told the Planning Commission on Wednesday that the time had come for more change.

"The project before you will allow for another stage of renewal," Beth Nickel told commissioners.

Among the changes sought by the winery were to:

Increase annual wine production from 175,000 gallons to 225,000 gallons.

Increase total annual visitation  both daily tasting visits and marketing events  from 44,400 to 72,700.

Change uses inside the historic stone winery.

Expand the Carriage House from 11,930 square feet to 26,046 square feet.

Go from 30 full-time employees to 45 full-time employees and seven part-time employees.

Establish a 16,308-square-foot outdoor tasting and event area and a 6,687-square-foot outdoor tasting and event area.

Install a left turn lane on Oakville Grade to Acacia Drive.

Improve winery access, including widening Acacia Drive, replacing a bridge, and creating one-way traffic flow throughout the property.

Several neighbors wrote letters supporting the Far Niente requests.

We feel that the left turn lane and widened shoulders will improve the safety for all who use the Oakville Grade Road, wrote Rev. Mark Kissner of the Carmelite House of Prayer.

Marcia Mondavi Borger and Brian Borger wrote that Beth Nickel of Far Niente had reached out to them to explain the project.

I must say that I remember Far Niente when it was a ruin, but with great potential, the letter said. Gil and Beth Nickel turned that ruin into the beautiful stone winery and landscape we see today. This renovation enables them to grow while keeping the historical stone cellar whole and their neighbors happy.

But county resident Yvonne Baginski said the project will mean cutting down 10 oak trees and two poplars.

"To take this bucolic site, and rip it apart in the interest of expanding to a marketing venue for visitors and events, seems to fly in the face of original intent," she wrote. "Their website copy glorifies the history and the love that's gone into the creation of this facility."

Far Niente president Greg Allen said the property has 144 oaks and about 400 trees. Six trees to be removed are associated with the Carriage House expansion and six with road improvements, though this is a worst-case scenario.

The winery will collect acorns from its valley oaks and will replant oaks on the property at a 5-1 ratio for those lost, per county policy, he said.

"Informing our plans, we have taken great care to preserve as many trees as possible while also addressing critical business needs...we love and cherish our trees here and we go to great lengths to protect them," he said.

The Planning Commission vote was 4-1 for approval. Commissioners Whitmer, Anne Cottrell, Megan Dameron, and Andrew Mazotti voted in favor. Commissioner Joelle Gallagher voted against it.

"This is a beautiful site," Gallagher said in explaining her vote. "It's a well-managed business and winery. Clearly, the issue with the road being brought up to county road and street standards is really critical for safety and fire improvement, etcetera."

But, she said, more than six million gallons of water annually is used there not on agriculture, but landscaping.

"I just want to take that principled stand," Gallagher said. "That is a huge amount of water...That's my sticking point."

You can reach Barry Eberling at 256-2253 or beberling@napanews.com.

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CENTREVILLE  Maryland state prosecutors will investigate the death of a motorist arrested by troopers and held in a cell before he became unresponsive, authorities said Saturday.

In keeping with a state law approved last year, the Independent Investigations Division of the Office of the Attorney General will examine the death of the man, who wasnt identified by the office or by Maryland State Police.

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Troopers conducting a traffic stop early Friday evening arrested the driver and accused him of possession of a controlled substance, according to news releases. The driver was conscious and responsive to questions at the time of his arrest, according to authorities.

He was taken to the state police barracks in Queen Annes County and placed in a cell. About two hours after he arrived at the barracks, the driver began exhibiting signs of distress and became unresponsive, the releases said. Troopers intervened and notified emergency medical services, which took him to a hospital where he died shortly before midnight, according to state police.

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There is some camera footage, according to officials, which the Independent Investigations Division generally can release within 14 days of what happened.
The coronavirus poses a threat to non-contact peoples who have voluntarily refused to interact with civilization, RIA Novosti reported.

People of such races and tribes are aware of the existence of other developed peoples, but have decided not to cross paths with them in any way.

Scientists explain that small nations do not have immunity to the most common diseases because their bodies have not developed protective antibodies against them.

So, there is no need to even talk about the spread of the coronavirus among such small nations. According to scientists, this can lead to the disappearance of many small nationsas was the case with measles.

Brazilian scientists have stated that there is a risk of dying from COVID-19 among radical peoples, and this risk is six times higher than among the general population.

Scientists from Ecuador also speak of a similar trend. According to them, small nations, which make up about 7% of the worlds main population, put their lives at risk by refusing medical care and communication, in general.

According to scientists, some peoples, despite their isolation, can still contract the coronavirus.
Many teenagers in New Zealand are illiterate

AFP: EU proposes to impose sanctions on Patriarch Kirill

Beijing closes over 60 subway stations due to COVID-19 outbreak

Armenia FM meets with US National Democratic Institute president

Armenia ruling force MP: Opposition will not achieve its goal

Armenia 2nd president Robert Kocharyans son blocking road with citizens in Yerevan

Oklahoma bans almost all abortions

Number of children in Japan falls to record low

Karabakh President meets with of Free Homeland-UCA parliamentary faction members

Armenian judge waves Artsakh flag at Ironman Triathlon (PHOTOS)

There is still lot to do in 'October 27' case, says Armenia Prosecutor General

Ambassador Wiktorin to finance minister: EU ready to continue providing assistance to Armenia government

Armenia Prosecutor General admits there are difficulties in investigation of 'March 1' criminal case

Copper price is stable

3 COVID-19 new cases confirmed in Armenia

American Armenian youth hold protest rally outside Armenia embassy in Washington

Japan protests against North Korean missile

Gold is getting cheaper

U.S.-Armenia Strategic Dialogue issues joint statement

Newspaper: Armenia Patrol Guard Service head to be summoned to Investigative Committee to give explanation

Armenia parliament regular sittings continue

Newspaper: Armenia opposition members falling into National Security Service trap by opening links

Civil disobedience protests resume in Yerevan

Earthquake shakes Armenia-Georgia border zone

Mark Milley: Potential for significant international conflict between great powers is increasing

EU: Poland fines in rule of law dispute now top $170 million

Putin and Lukashenko discuss ongoing situation

Greece and Bulgaria say new LNG terminal will help reduce dependence on Russia

German vice chancellor calls for rapid construction of LNG terminals

Rally of Resistance Movement takes place in France Square

Robert Kocharyan takes part in opposition march

Mario Draghi calls on EU to abandon requirement of unanimity in making foreign policy decisions

Finland and Sweden not yet decided whether to join NATO

Croatian president uses veto power to block Finland and Sweden from joining NATO

Slovakia will seek exemption from the EU embargo on Russian oil imports

NEWS.am digest: Blinken meets Mirzoyan in US, people detained during protests in Yerevan

Turkish Foreign Ministry on meeting of special envoys in Vienna

Opposition rally in central Yerevan starts with Sirusho's performance

Italy to face serious issues in winter if Russian gas supplies are cut off now

Johnson announces new military aid to Ukraine in amount of 300 million euros

Resistance Movement rally on France Square in Yerevan

EU hopes to adopt sixth round of sanctions against Russia at next EU Council meeting

Peaceful rallies of disobedience held in Spitak

Spain extends OVID-19 entry restrictions

Vayk joins demand for Nikol Pashinyan's resignation

Putin and Macron discuss Ukraine

Citizens demanding Pashinyan's resignation block road from Vayots Dzor to Yerevan

Peaceful rallies of disobedience held in Vanadzor demanding PM's resignation

Citizens demanding Pashinyan's resignation block Gyumri-Yerevan highway

Sirusho: Today I will join our compatriots in France Square

Third meeting of Armenia and Turkey special representatives held in Vienna

Dollar rises slightly after long decline, euro also goes up in Armenia

Civil disobedience actions in regions: Yerevan-Goris highway blocked

Azerbaijan settling occupied Armenian Hadrut, Shushi cities of Artsakh

New colors and new services: Team Telecom Armenia completes rebranding

Armenia legislature speaker receives France-Armenia Friendship Group delegation

France senator: We are leaving for Armenia with Senate group

Putin signs decree on economic measures against unfriendly countries

Armenia legislature speaker: Authorities have repeatedly proposed dialogue to opposition

Backpack action of protest being held outside Armenia parliament (PHOTOS)

Armenia defense ministry: Azerbaijan MOD statement does not correspond to reality

Armenia defense minister receives Kansas National Guard delegation

Armenia Police: Yerevan-Sevan motorway reopened

Ned Price: Mirzoyan-Blinken meeting will launch US-Armenia strategic dialogue

Mirzoyan, Nuland discuss Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement process

Civil disobedience actions are carried out in some Armenia cities

Armenia 2nd-President Kocharyan, ex-deputy PM and now lawmaker Gevorgyan trial to resume

Pashinyan to Morawiecki: This year we mark 30th anniversary of Armenia-Poland diplomatic relations

No new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Armenia Central Bank leaves refinancing rate unchanged at 9.25%

Demonstrators demanding PM Pashinyan's resignation block Sevan-Yerevan motorway

Police: 117 demonstrators apprehended in Yerevan

Kansas National Guard leadership visiting Armenia

Bloomberg: EU new gas partners

Armenian member of Turkey legislature says he was thrown at table of wolves

Italian PM slams Lavrov for his 'Hitler' statements in interview with local television

South Korea and US plan to start air force exercises on May 9

Police special forces apprehend Armenia ex-president Robert Kocharyans son

Police: 70 people apprehended from Yerevan streets

World Press Freedom Index 2022: Journalism as a profession is humiliated in Armenia

Newspaper: Armenia ruling party MPs are worried

Borrell speaks on possible disconnection from SWIFT of new Russian banks

Cyprus becomes first EU country with full 5G coverage

Police apprehending participants of civil disobedience actions in Yerevan

State Department: Deepening US-Armenia cooperation in nuclear energy will strengthen bilateral relations

Peaceful disobedience actions resume in Yerevan early morning

Mirzoyan: Armenia appreciates US support for developing energy sector

Blinken underscores US commitment to help Armenia, Azerbaijan find sustainable peace, prosperity

Eurozone economic sentiment falls much more than expected in April

Apple faces big fine

Armenia ex-president joins discussion in France Square

Poland wants the EU to set a clear date for stopping Russian oil imports

Armenia FM meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken

Armenia FM meets with Director of USAID Samantha Power

Ann Linde says Finland will almost certainly apply for NATO membership

Police beat reporters, obstruct their work in Yerevan

European Commission may relieve Hungary, Slovakia of embargo on Russian oil purchase

Resistance Movement to continue large-scale civil disobedience actions on 3 May in Yerevan and regions

EU countries to continue to pay in euros or dollars for Russian gas

Resistance Movement participants return to France Square
At the beginning of Mondays regular sitting of the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia, NA speaker Alen Simonyan made a statement on the letter of resignation by President Armen Sarkissian.

Simonyan noted as follows, in particular: "The President of the Republic has submitted a letter of resignation in accordance with Article 142 of the Constitution and Section 1 of Article 147 of the Rules of Procedure Constitutional Law of the National Assembly. According to Section 2 of Article 147 of the Rules of Procedure Constitutional Law of the NA, if the relevant official withdrawswith a written petitionhis/her letter of resignation within a week after the announcement of the resignation, the NA President makes a statement about it.

If he/she does not withdraw his/her letter of resignation, a record on the termination of his/her powers is drawn up, which is signed and publicized by the NA President. The resignation is considered accepted from the moment of publicizing of the record."

As Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier, Armen Sarkissian issued a statement Sunday evening, announcing that he has decided to resign from the post of President of Armenia.
A Yerevan court announced Monday the decision on the precautionary measures of former Minister of Defense of Armenia Davit Tonoyan, former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Stepan Galstyan, arms supply businessman Davit Galstyan, former Chief of Military Aviation Avetik Muradyan, and suspended Chief of Aviation Armament Artyom Hambaryan.

The court ruled that Davit Tonoyan, Stepan Galstyan, Davit Galstyan, and Avetik Muradyan shall remain in custody, whereas Artyom Hambaryan was released on an AMD 5mn (approx. $10,000) bail.

The defense had motioned to release Davit Tonoyan on personal guarantee. And for the other former high-ranking officials arrested, the defense had motioned to commute their pretrial measure of detention to a measure other than imprisonmentincluding bail.

These former high-ranking officials are accused in the criminal case into purchasing obsolete missiles for $4 million to the Armenian army. According to the National Security Service, this ammunition was procured at a price almost twice as much as the purchase price of the previous batch of such ammunition.

Davit Tonoyan is charged with large-scale embezzlement, Artak Davtyanabuse of power and or inactionStepan Galstyanabuse of power, which has caused serious consequences, and Davit Galstyancommitting fraud.

The former high-ranking officials do not accept the charge and consider it a fake criminal case.
The World Health Organization (WHO) does not rule out an end to the pandemic in Europe after the current wave of the Omicron strain, said the WHO director for the European region Hans Kluge in an interview with AFP.

According to him, it is likely that the region is moving toward the final phase of the pandemic. However, Kluge warned of the need for close monitoring of possible new strains of SARS-CoV-2.

As the WHO representative noted, once the Omicron wave in Europe subsides, "there will be for quite some weeks and months a global immunity, either thanks to the vaccine or because people have immunity due to the infection, and also lowering seasonality". The approaching warm season can also affect the situation.

"We anticipate that there will be a period of quiet before Covid-19 may come back towards the end of the year, but not necessarily the pandemic coming back," Kluge summarized.

The WHO estimates that more than 60 percent of people in the European region could become infected with the SARS-CoV-2 omicron mutation by March. Strain B.1.1.529, dubbed "omicron," was first identified in Botswana and South Africa in November 2021. The WHO gave it the status of "of concern" at the time.
The Young Liberal Movement of Australia has unanimously adopted a motion at its National Convention recognizing the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Genocides, as well as acknowledging the rights to self-determination of the indigenous Armenian people of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).

The Young Liberal Movement is the youth wing of the Liberal Party of Australia, which is one of two major political parties in Australian politics and currently the party in Government federally, led by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

The adoption of the motion demonstrates the growing discourse in Australian society supporting national recognition of the 1915 Genocides, which contrasts with the policy of the Morrison Government, who have continued to placate the denialist Turkish Government with the use of euphemisms instead of the word genocide when referring to the Ottoman massacres against the Empires Christian minorities.

Significantly, the motion also ensures the Young Liberals support the rights to self-determination of Artsakh, which is currently under occupation by Azerbaijan following their attacks on the independent Armenian-populated state in 2020 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

In August 2020, the ACT Young Liberals passed a similar resolution recognized and condemning the 1915 Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Genocides, and the right to self-determination of Artsakh.
The security zone on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border should not be fetishized. Security should not be cut off from people, making it a separate topic of discussion. Kristine Grigoryan, former Deputy Minister of Justice and only candidate for the post of the new Human Rights Defender (ombudsperson), said this during the debates on the matter of electing a new ombudsman at the Mondays sitting of the National Assembly of Armenia, when answering the MPs' questions.

According to her, the matter is first of all about the safety of the people.

"The process of [border] demarcation and delimitation in Azerbaijan is quite complicated and complex. There is also a political component in it. Nonetheless, it is very important that human rights issues also underlie it. For example, if we pay attention to the practice of international organizationsin particular, the OSCEwe can see that, issues related to ensuring the normal functioning of the population are also considered equal to the solution of political issues there," Grigoryan explained.
Amalie Ward, parent of Baltimore students, was one of the protesters who dressed satirically in 2019 as "millionaires" to protest the "dark money" fundraiser held by Gov. Larry Hogan at Live! Casino and Hotel and in support of better public education funding. File. (Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun). (Amy Davis / Baltimore Sun)

Letter overstates education rights

As a friend and admirer of Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan, I regret that his death should have provided an occasion for special pleading by two education activists, Bebe Verdery and Kalman Hettleman, who know better (Recalling Judge Kaplans big impact on public schools, Jan. 11).

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While Judge Kaplan in two unappealable opinions said that there was a constitutional right in Maryland to an adequate public education, the Court of Appeals in 2005 said: we caution the court to be careful in the kinds of declarations and orders it issues. No such right to education appears in Marylands constitution and recent experience with COVID closings suggests that until the power of teachers unions over teacher certification and salary schedules is broken, massive appropriations and well-intentioned judicial admonitions will not improve Marylands schools.

George W. Liebmann, Baltimore

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Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.
NATO allies are putting forces on standby and sending more ships and fighter jets to NATO deployment sites in Eastern Europe, bolstering allied deterrence and defense as Russia continues to build up its military presence in and around Ukraine, the NATO website notes.

In recent days, a number of allies have made announcements about current or upcoming deployments. Denmark is sending a frigate to the Baltic Sea and is about to send four F-16 fighter jets to Lithuania to support NATO's longstanding air policing mission in the region. Spain is sending ships to join the NATO navy and is considering sending fighter jets to Bulgaria. France expressed its readiness to send troops under NATO command to Romania. The Netherlands will send two F-35 fighter jets to Bulgaria from April to support NATO's air policing activities in the region, and will bring one ship and ground units into reserve for the NATO Response Force. The United States has also made it clear that it is considering increasing its military presence in the eastern part of the Alliance.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg noted: I welcome Allies contributing additional forces to NATO. NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment, including through strengthening our collective defence.
The Iranian side does not rule out reaching an agreement on the exchange of prisoners with the United States, but this issue should be discussed separately from the nuclear deal, said at a press conference by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Said Khatibzadeh.

With regard to the situation of Iranian citizens who are [in prisons] in the United States, we have stated our concern on this issue from the first day. This topic remains on our agenda, however, it is natural that these are different issues (we are talking about the exchange of prisoners and returning to the nuclear deal), he said. The diplomat added that if the opposite side shows a desire, then an agreement on both issues is possible as soon as possible, TASS reports.

Earlier, State Department Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley said in an interview with Reuters that Washington is unlikely to conclude an agreement with Tehran on a nuclear deal if the Iranian side does not release four US citizens. According to the Americans, the Islamic Republic is holding these people hostage.
The European Union is ready to impose unprecedented economic sanctions against Russia in the event of an "attack on Ukraine", Denmark said, and EU foreign ministers said they would send a joint warning to Moscow, Reuters reported.

"Knowing Russia's tactics, I'm sure one of their aims is to splinter the West," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said.

Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod told reporters that there is no doubt that we are ready to respond with comprehensive, never-before-seen sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine again. He declined to say which sectors would be targeted by the sanctions.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged Europe and the US to think carefully when considering sanctions. Asked whether Russia should be cut off from the global SWIFT system, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that the heaviest stick may not always be the best way to deal with such a situation.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said everything was settled, but also pointed to Austria's dependence on Russia for 40% of its gas.

When asked about possible sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, he said that the imposition of sanctions on what is not yet working is not a real threat.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to join the online EU meeting.

So far, the EU has no plans to recall the families of diplomats from Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said after Washington announced such a move.

The British Embassy in Ukraine stated that some of the employees are being taken out of Kyiv.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has received permission to appeal the decision to extradite him to the United States, where he could face life in prison, AFP reported.

Washington wants to put a 50-year-old Australian on trial over the release of 500,000 classified military files relating to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In December, the London High Court overturned a lower court's decision not to send him to the United States on the grounds that he might commit suicide.

But Assange's lawyers then challenged the decision, arguing that the country's highest court should rule on questions of law of public concern.

Defendant's motion for proof of eligibility is granted, Judges Ian Burnett and Timothy Holroyd said in a written order.

Now the Supreme Court must decide whether to hear the case.
When Baltimore States Attorney Marilyn Mosby mounted her first bid for reelection in 2018, she faced two serious challengers in defense attorney Ivan Bates and former prosecutor Thiru Vignarajah.

The pair attacked the then first-term incumbent on the citys homicide rate and her effectiveness in office, but Mosby still took the race by a landslide margin.

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Now, as Mosby enters her third campaign season, she again faces two Democratic opponents. But this time, the citys top prosecutor confronts a very different landscape: one shaped by a federal criminal indictment brought against her earlier this month on charges of perjury and making false statements.

Local political observers are divided on what the charges may mean for the states attorneys chances at another four years in office. Conventional wisdom suggests criminal charges for the woman responsible for prosecuting the crimes of others opens the door for a challenger. But some argue the indictment actually could work in the states attorneys favor  rallying her base at an opportune time.

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One thing is clear: There have been few, if any, races like the one thats shaping up in Baltimore.

Theres a lot of noise here. This is not a typical campaign, said Roger Hartley, dean of the University of Baltimores College of Public Affairs. Shes campaigning, defending herself and trying to run one of the most important offices in our city at a time when crime is a number one issue.

Hartley is among the observers who sees an opportunity for a challenger. But for Democrats Ivan Bates or Roya Hanna, the two candidates who have entered the race so far, to overtake Mosby, its going to require some strong fundraising and work to build name recognition, Hartley said.

Hartley pointed to a study conducted by the University of North Carolina showing incumbent prosecutors win 50% of the time. Thats a lower success rate than incumbents in better known up ballot races like governors or senators  who typically win reelection better than 90% of the time. But not all prosecutors have Mosbys level of name recognition.

People are less likely to know who their prosecutor is and that gives even more power to name recognition and the incumbent, he said.

Karsonya Kaye Whitehead, a Loyola University Maryland professor and host of a local radio show, said she expects the indictment to make Mosby stronger, not weaker. The states attorney already has a strong support base, and the charges will only motivate them, Whitehead said.

Some stations are hammering it home every day, she said of local television and radio coverage of Mosbys indictment. If youre a Marilyn Mosby supporter or someone who understands what its like to be an underdog, it is going to rile you up.

The charges against Mosby, include allegations that she lied to prematurely withdraw thousands of dollars from her city retirement account without a tax penalty, then used the funds to purchase two vacation homes in Florida. Prosecutors said she claimed she had faced financial hardship from the COVID-19 pandemic to complete the withdrawal, when in fact she had received a raise during that time period, and she failed to disclose a federal tax lien as required in mortgage documents.

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Whitehead said Mosby should continue to deliver the messaging her attorney A. Scott Bolden has used thus far in her public defense: that the states attorney is being unfairly prosecuted for personal, political and racial reasons.

Mosbys record, too, resonates with voters, Whitehead said. Her decision to prosecute six police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray has not been forgotten, she said, even if those officers were ultimately not convicted. Whitehead also sees Mosbys policy against prosecuting low-level crime, introduced in March 2020, resonating with the Black community, in which many have lost family members to the corrections system.

For Baltimore residents in the struggle, that matters, Whitehead said.

Anthony McCarthy, a longtime political operative who worked for several Baltimore mayors, also felt Mosbys indictment had strengthened her position in the race. Callers to a radio show McCarthy hosts have been overwhelmingly supportive of the states attorney, he said.

They dont talk about specifics of perjury, McCarthy said of his callers. They dont talk about loan applications. What they talk about is she has changed the conversation when it comes to marijuana convictions and she has gotten Black men out of prison who were wrongly convicted.

McCarthy said Mosbys public statements in the wake of the indictment pledging to fight have resonated with Black women in particular, a powerful faction of Baltimores voting population.

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They want safety, and crime-fighting is a top priority, McCarthy said. But that can be trumped if they see a Black woman being unfairly targeted.

To win, Bates and Hanna will need to draw distinctions in how they would prosecute differently than Mosby, McCarthy said. And they also must make the case that she cannot prosecute while under indictment, he said.

Theyve got to give people a reason, and it cant be Im not Marilyn Mosby, he said. Proclaiming that youre not Marilyn Mosby wont get you elected.

Mosbys challengers have been reluctant so far to address the charges against the states attorney.

Ms. Mosbys issue, thats her issue, Bates said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. Im totally focused on the campaign and talking about the crime thats happening in the city.

I was always running based on the issues as it relates to the states attorneys office, as it relates to crime, homicides in the city, Hanna said. That hasnt changed.

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Bates has spoken with his war chest, however. The two-time challenger in the race raised $361,707 in the last year toward his bid for office  topping Mosby by more than $43,000 once a personal loan he made to the campaign was discounted.

Mosby is in the unique position of raising money for two separate funds this election season  another anomaly of an election held in the midst of an indictment. In addition to her traditional campaign account, a legal-defense fund has been established for Mosbys benefit and has been accepting donations since last summer.

Hartley questioned whether the parallel funds would dilute the money Mosby is able to raise for campaign purposes. Ethics filings, due this spring from officeholders including Mosby, may offer the only glimpse at who has donated to the legal defense fund.

Vignarajah, who challenged Mosby in 2015, questioned whether Mosby may be able to use the controversy to increase her campaigns financial position.

This could be a boon for fundraising, he said. She wouldnt be the first candidate to use adversity as a lightning rod.

Maryland Policy & Politics Weekdays Keep up to date with Maryland politics, elections and important decisions made by federal, state and local government officials. >

Vignarajah said the indictment is certainly a material change in the landscape of the race. He and Hartley questioned whether other candidates will be enticed to join the contest due to Mosbys perceived vulnerability. The filing deadline is still one month away. A wider field, like Baltimore saw in its last mayoral race, would mean the winning candidate could prevail with a smaller margin of votes.

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Youve got to believe some folks are at least going to entertain the possibility, said Vignarajah, adding that he has no plans to enter the race himself.

Still another peculiarity of an election in the midst of an indictment may be the importance of endorsements. While coveted and touted by politicians, endorsements in most races are largely irrelevant to voters. But now that Mosby has found herself under a legal cloud, those who stand behind her publicly will be telling, observers said.

Just as important, Whitehead said, will be those that dont.

Dr. King said In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends, Whitehead said. Baltimore is that kind of place.

Marilyn Mosbys friends are not being silent, she said.

Baltimore Sun reporter Alex Mann contributed to this article.
It is likely that these decisions may be reviewed as early as February, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, stated this to UNIAN, commenting on the decision of a number of states to remove part of the embassy employees from the country.

First and foremost, all the diplomatic missions of Western states continue to work and nothing changes on a practical level. We consider these decisions as a result of certain internal political discussions in some countries where the authorities do not want to face obviously excessive criticism through the dangerous nuances of the work of diplomats, he said.

Podolyak noted that "if there is rhetoric regarding a military threat, then it is predictable that there may be certain decisions as a consequence of this rhetoric." At the same time, he stressed that such actions of foreign states are not evacuation, because most of the employees of diplomatic missions remain in Ukraine. It is likely that these decisions can be reviewed as early as February, added the adviser to the head of the OP.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine considers the evacuation of the US Embassy staff to be premature and a manifestation of excessive precaution.

The US State Department authorized the voluntary departure of its employees and ordered the departure of the relevant family members from the embassy in Kiev. Also, US citizens in Ukraine should consider leaving immediately using commercial or other private vehicles.

The decision to recall part of the staff of their embassy in Ukraine because of a possible invasion was taken by the UK, Germany and Australia.
The European Union has called on Russia to defuse tension around Ukraine. The 27 EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels said the bloc condemns Russia's continued aggressive actions and threats against Ukraine and calls on Russia to de-escalate.

The EU Council statement noted that "notions of 'spheres of influence' have no place in the 21st century...any further Russian military aggression against Ukraine would have enormous consequences and high costs."

The EU confirms its unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and other Eastern Neighbourhood partners within their internationally recognized borders, and it calls on Russia to re-engage constructively in existing international frameworks for the sustainable and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

The Council reaffirms the united approach of the EU and the ongoing strong cooperation and coordination with the United States, NATO, Ukraine and other partner countries.
"It hasn't been talked about and sometimes not very well perceived, but we have to state that there is an agreement ratified by the National Assembly of Armenia, according to which Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity and inviolability of borders of Azerbaijan. It was ratified back in 1992. Azerbaijan also ratified it.

The second nuance, as you know, one of the Madrid principles is the principle of territorial integrity, which both sides accepted as a basis for negotiations. What I mean here is that de jure Armenia and Azerbaijan have recognized the inviolability of borders and territorial integrity since 1992, and within the framework of existing borders and territories in the CIS," Pashinyan said, adding that this does not solve numerous nuances of the problem.

"Yes, the process of border demarcation and delimitation is very important. Just recently, Russia's Foreign Minister said that delimitation and demarcation have nothing to do with the settlement of the Karabakh issue. These are different processes.

From this point of view, there was a peace agenda, it is a strategic agenda for us. We understand that it does not depend on us at all, but we will follow this agenda consistently.

There is a lot of talk about signing a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We believe that such a treaty must be signed, but first this treaty must be formed and formulated. For this there should be negotiations, and Armenia is ready for that.

With regard to the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict that is mandated by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship the main goal of the negotiation process is to sign a peace agreement," he said.
There is a high probability that Armenia will be invited to the diplomatic forum in Antalya, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during his online press conference on January 24.

Pashinyan said that the format for settling Armenia-Turkey relations has been formed, the first meeting of representatives has taken place, and if this dynamic continues, there is a high probability that Armenia will accept the invitation to participate in this forum.

"Of course, everything depends on the situation at the moment, but in any case, after the first meeting there is an increasing probability that Armenia will accept that invitation. We can state that the whole international community supports the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey. It's true that we are the ones voicing the peace agenda, but I believe the peace agenda is interesting for everyone," he said.

Asked whether establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey is possible this year and how he would comment on the results of the first round, Pashinyan said, "The first round is, so to say, the opening stage, where there is just getting acquainted, technical issues are discussed and, of course, the atmosphere is formed. The fact that the sides have agreed without discussing preconditions will already substantially ease the tension around the process and the negative atmosphere."

Pashinyan said that he cannot foresee whether the establishment of diplomatic relations will take place this year.

"It will be logical if, for example, we achieve such a result, particularly the establishment of diplomatic relations and opening of borders. This process is in the international spotlight. I see a red line in these international analyses: if this process lasts very long without a concrete result, it will simply become an ordinary phenomenon in which both parties and the international community will lose interest," he said.

He also commented on the Armenian-Turkish protocols on establishing diplomatic relations signed in Zurich in 2009.

"In the protocols that were signed in 2009, and there were no preconditions, but later in other contexts, yes, there were preconditions. We can't guarantee that that won't happen. In fact, since the beginning of the political negotiations, the process has been transparent, it has never been in the past," Pashinyan said.
NATO may deploy additional combat units in Eastern Europe in response to "a build-up of Russian military power on the border with Ukraine," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, Reuters reported.

"We are considering to further enhance our presence in the eastern part of the alliance, this could include the deployment of additional NATO battlegroups," Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.

So far, NATO has deployed about 4,000 troops in multinational battalions in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, supported by tanks, air defenses and intelligence and surveillance units.
The provision stipulating that representatives of any nationality in the proportion of the population that was in 1988 should take part in the proposed referendum on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh disappeared from the negotiating document after Kazan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during an online press conference.

His remarks came in response to the question answering the question of the Artsakh public television about what position Armenia takes regarding the occupied territories of the Republic of Artsakh, given that Hadrut, Shushi and some settlements of Martakert were located on the borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, in comparison with Karvachar, Kashatag and other territories, the status of which is disputed from a legal point of view.

We are back to the topic, which, after our previous interview, became the reason for a lot of noise. In the negotiation process until 2018 and after that, the NKAO was never considered as only Armenian territory. That's exactly what I said in the wrong way last time. That's exactly what I said in the wrong way last time.

Was the issue of Shushi at the talks or not? Then I spoke about the principle contained in the Madrid Principles, according to which representatives of any nationality should participate in the proposed referendum in the same proportion as they were in 1988 In translation, this means that both the Armenians should participate in deciding the future fate of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Azerbaijanis who lived in the NKAR.

I draw attention to one strange fact: this circumstance then disappears from the negotiation process, papers, and this issue is raised not by Azerbaijan, but by Armenia, with the signature of Serzh Sargsyan, addresses the co-chairs, mediators, stating that this situation needs to be restored, it is unacceptable that it does not exist, can you imagine? The provision providing for the participation of Azerbaijanis in determining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh is withdrawn from the negotiation process after Kazan, this has not been fixed, and the request for the return of this provision is submitted not by Azerbaijan, but by Armenia.

Why? Did Serzh Sargsyan dream that the Azerbaijanis would take part in deciding the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh? Of course not. He wanted the 1988 provision to keep the proportion back, as in 1988 70 percent or more of NK's population was Armenian. In the negotiation process in 2016, it is stated that a very important buffer has been lost, which may raise the question: one minute, there is a problem related to proportionality. Therefore, last time I said that the Armenian side never disputed the participation of Azerbaijanis in the referendum, which, according to the negotiation package, should have been residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. I did not create this, there was an impression that it was my dream, I inherited this wording."

"This provision was not returned, it was blurred, he himself (Serzh Sargsyan - ed.) wanted to keep the buffer of proportionality. No one knows, for example, how many 40,000 Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh were in 2017 or 2018. Considering that this referendum should be held within the terms agreed by the parties, Azerbaijan says: Very well, in my opinion, there will be no referendum in the next 50-100 years.

Armenia says I do not agree and insist that this referendum should be held in 5 years.

Azerbaijan says: The term should be determined with the consent of the parties, right? He says yes, he says he does not agree with this, but Armenia says that he does not agree either.

And Azerbaijan says: If you do not agree, then there will be no referendum either in 5 or 100 years. This is what we're talking about. I can answer much more directly, but let's not do it, I answered the question, I have already given all the information necessary to give an accurate answer to the question, and the rest, please, they will compare, Pashinyan said.
After November 9, 2020 undesirable developments for the government took place in Armenia, and in practice they demonstrated their tools to overcome them, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference in Yerevan, answering the question of whether in the future any government in Armenia could follow the path of Kazakhstan and put pressure on internal political protests within the country, and involve for this purpose CSTO forces.

After November 9, when there were attacks on the government, the National Assembly, an attempt was made on the chairman of the National Assembly, the authorities did not shoot, there was no military operation. The roads were closed, but we did not take measures to open them. We have already shown our tools for solving domestic political problems, we went to extraordinary elections. Not a single shot was fired, despite the fact that in Armenia, as a result of the war, there was an unlimited number of weapons, including our opponents, Pashinyan said, adding that the opponents did not use weapons either due to the fact that state structures were at their best. .

According to Pashinyan, the question arises: why didnt the CSTO suppress the revolution in 2018? But then there was no violence in Armenia, not to mention the victims. When we decided to send a peacekeeping mission to Kazakhstan, there were already street fights in the truest sense of the word, there were victims among law enforcement officers, Pashinyan noted.

When asked if Armenia could not refuse to send peacekeeping troops to Kazakhstan, justifying this by the fact that some territories of Armenia were occupied by Azerbaijan, and in the absence of a response from the CSTO to Armenias statements, the Armenian Armed Forces should only be engaged in protecting the borders of Armenia, Pashinyan notes: From the first day, our activities were aimed at eventually improving the CSTO crisis response mechanisms, it would be very strange for such a situation to be on the agenda, and Armenia would declare that it is against it.

Armenia could do whatever it wants, but we want the CSTO to be, of course, it is beneficial for us that the CSTO be an effective and functioning system, and that says it all. Almost on the same day when we decided to send troops to Kazakhstan within the framework of the CSTO, on the same day the Armenian MFA issued a statement, stating the protection of the rights of citizens to hold peaceful assemblies, we clearly stated that the CSTO forces cannot be involved in any -the internal political processes, the CSTO forces can only be engaged in the protection of objects of strategic importance.

The armed forces of Armenia were engaged in the protection of the bakery, and I dont think that there is something bad in this - it in no way affects the domestic political situation, Pashinyan said.
Kennesaw State University dean receives $3.3 million NIH grant to study women empowerment and mental health in Uganda

KENNESAW, Ga. (Jan 24, 2022)  Kennesaw State University researcher Monica Swahn has received a multimillion-dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a study that will determine if vocational skills and economic empowerment improves mental health among young women who live in poverty.

This innovative study will provide young women in low-income areas with new job skills, socio- economic strengthening and entrepreneurship skills in Kampala, Uganda. The project, a first of its kind, builds on Swahns decade of research in Uganda and will assess the impact of the skills training and how it may improve mental health over time.

We are so grateful for this funding. Its a very exciting opportunity to extend our research and test if this low-cost skills training improves mental health outcomes among young women who face tremendous hardships, said Swahn, dean of the Wellstar College of Health and Human Services.

The new study continues Swahns interdisciplinary research on health risk behaviors and disparities among youth in the U.S. and globally. The NIH award is for $3.3 million over five years.

If the study shows that vocational training and entrepreneurship skills make a difference in terms of mental health for young women, it is a very viable and low-cost strategy for addressing the unmet mental health needs in Uganda, Swahn said. The results of the study could be used to advance vocational training and entrepreneurship skills  and by extension improve mental health outcomes  in underserved communities in the United States, she added.

There should be more opportunities and consideration for vocational and entrepreneurship training, particularly for young women. Even though this kind of training cannot replace mental health services, it can help unemployed women who live in poverty, Swahn said. It could be a transformative approach and one that may build on other initiatives for addressing unemployment, skills training and workforce readiness in vulnerable communities.

The team of 10 co-investigators spans two continents and three universities. It includes Kennesaw State associate professor of psychology Ebony Glover, who contributes her expertise in applied neuroscience to examine stress levels and trauma in the study population. The group also includes two professors from Georgia State University School of Public Health and the Byrdine F. Lewis School of Nursing and Health Professions. Six professors from Makerere University in Kampala round out the group.

This study also focuses on community engagement and capacity building with Swahns long- established community partner, the Uganda Youth Development Link, led by Executive Director Rogers Kasirye. They will conduct the training of the young women in the study.

I am thrilled with the collaborative approach for this project which builds on the mission of the Wellstar College to serve communities both locally and globally to address mental health disparities, Swahn said.

 Dave Shelles

Photos by Jason Getz

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A leader in innovative teaching and learning, Kennesaw State University offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees to its nearly 43,000 students. With 11 colleges on two metro Atlanta campuses, Kennesaw State is a member of the University System of Georgia. The universitys vibrant campus culture, diverse population, strong global ties and entrepreneurial spirit draw students from throughout the country and the world. Kennesaw State is a Carnegie-designated doctoral research institution (R2), placing it among an elite group of only 6 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with an R1 or R2 status. For more information, visit kennesaw.edu.
Nato sending planes, ships to eastern Europe

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says NATO will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend its allies. File photo: AFP

Nato allies have put forces on standby and sent ships and fighter jets to bolster Europe's eastern defences as tensions soar over Russia's military buildup around Ukraine, the alliance said on Monday.



"Nato will continue to take all necessary measures to protect and defend all Allies, including by reinforcing the eastern part of the Alliance. We will always respond to any deterioration of our security environment," Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement.



The Western alliance pointed to decisions in recent days by Denmark to send a frigate and warplanes to the Baltic states, Spain bolstering naval deployments and the Netherlands putting a "ship and land-based units on standby" for its rapid response force.



The statement also highlighted a recent offer from France to send troops to Bulgaria and said "the United States has also made clear that it is considering increasing its military presence".



Tensions are mounting as the West accuses Moscow of threatening to invade Ukraine by massing over 100,000 troops on its border. Russia denies it is planning an incursion.



Nato's eastern members have been calling for reinforcements.



Latvia's foreign minister Edgar Rinkevics tweeted: "We are reaching the point where continuous Russian and Belarusian military buildup in Europe needs to be addressed by appropriate Nato countermeasures. It is time to increase allied forces presence in the alliance's Eastern flank both as measures of defence and deterrence."



The alliance is preparing a proposal for further talks with Russia after the Kremlin issued a raft of demands that would see Nato stop Ukraine joining and roll back its forces in eastern Europe.



Nato insists it will not negotiate over its "core principles" including defending all allies and allowing partners to chose their own path.



The alliance bolstered its forces in the Baltic states after Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea from Kyiv and is currently weighing plans to deploy more troops to Romania and Bulgaria. (AFP)
The University of California Office of the President invites comments on proposed revisions to the UC Policy on Supplement to Military Pay. The revisions include the following:

Removal of all references to the four-year review provision.

Removal of all references to the four-year review provision. Additions/update of existing policy language including scope, definitions, benefits terminology, compliance/responsibility and procedures.

Additions/update of existing policy language including scope, definitions, benefits terminology, compliance/responsibility and procedures. Updated links and addition of gender neutral language throughout the policy.

This proposed policy text is available online.

Comments on the proposed revisions may be submitted to the Policy Coordination Office at pco@ucsc.edu by close of business April 20, 2022.
The UN and the Human Rights Watch (HRW) have demanded the immediate launch of an inquiry into the disappearance of two Afghan activists, who were reportedly abducted from their homes, the media reported. In a statement on Sunday, the UN Assistant Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) expressed grave concerns over the "disappearance of two Afghan women activists, Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel, reportedly abducted from their homes overnight on Wednesday (January 19)", reports TOLO News. "We urge the Taliban to provide information on their whereabouts and to protect rights of all Afghans," the UNAMA said. Paryani and Ibrahimkhel had staged demonstrations in support of women's rights in Kabul. "We are deeply concerned about the whereabouts of the two protesters who were arrested on Wednesday night. It has been four days now that they have been missing and there is no information. The Taliban have denied that they have taken these women, but they also haven't indicated that they have any knowledge of their whereabouts or any plan to try to locate them," said Heather Barr, Associate women's rights director of the HRW. Meanwhile, some women's rights activists staged gatherings in the capital Kabul and central province of Bamiyan, where they called for the release of Paryani and Ibrahimkhel. "We are not aware of the location of the women who have been detained despite five days passing. Why is everyone silent ... at least inform us about their health condition," said a participant. "We call on the UN to hear the voice of Afghan women, especially the voice of female protesters, because protesting is the right of every citizen. The protestors must not be suppressed," said Waheeda Amiri, a women's rights activist. However, the Taliban government have denied the alleged arrests of these two activists, saying that it has started an investigation into the case. "The investigation is underway to find out the truth, but we haven't found any clues about them. Efforts are underway," TOLO News quoted Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman, as saying. The disappearance of Paryani and Ibrahimkhel sparked a widespread reaction among social media users in Afghanistan. Some prominent Afghan figures condemned the crackdown on women rights activists' residences, saying such actions are not in accordance with human values. --IANS ksk/ ( 386 Words) 2022-01-24-09:42:04 (IANS)
Industry leaders are happy after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, where he dwelt on India's infrastructure development mission in detail, informing the world leaders that an investment of $1.3 trillion is being made, especially on connectivity infrastructure. Through innovative financing tools like asset monetisation, a target to generate $80 billion has been set and India has also launched the 'Gati Shakti National Master Plan' to bring every stakeholder on the same platform for promoting development. Under this National Master Plan (NMP), work will be done on infrastructure planning, development, and implementation in an integrated manner. This will give a new impetus to seamless connectivity and movement of goods, people, and services. Budget 2021-22 seems set to reflect the government's commitment to boost economic growth by investing in infrastructure development. This was substantiated by an increase in capital expenditure by 34.5 per cent (Rs 1,42,151 crore) over BE 2020-21. In the last three Budgets, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways' demand for grants shows the total Central expenditure on the sector was Rs 78,248.72 crore in Budget 2019-20, which was later increased up to Rs 10,1823.22 crore in Budget 2020-21, and Rs 11,8101.00 crore in Budget 2021-22. The Prime Minister's 'Gati Shakti National Master Plan' echoes the sentiments of industry and trade bodies. Asked about the expectation from the government in the infrastructure sector in the upcoming budget, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) says that the government should focus more on strengthening logistics and related infrastructure, rationalise the time across all major ports and customs,and encourage membership to the authorised economic operator (AEO) programme, which carries several benefits for industry. On infrastructure, the CII says that the government should promote digitisation of court procedures, facilitate publication of model contract templates and promote Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism, create dedicated benches of the NCLT for matters related to IBC, revamp cost of electricity supply from the grid to reduce costs, and standalone captive generators should not be penalised with electricity duty. The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) seeks that the government resolve the issue of non-fund credit to the infrastructure sector. It says that industry has a problem with non-fund-based credit. The major problem relates to bank guarantees, in the way such BGs are required by clients, the way they are issued by banks, and most importantly, the way they are extinguished. This is adding unnecessarily to project costs and will be the single biggest obstacle to rapidly completing construction under the NIP. Typically, 20 per cent of the project cost is locked up in BGs that extend into over 4 to 10 years. Hence, if the NIP is targeting Rs 40 trillion in FY 21 and FY22, the BGs of Rs 8 trillion would have to be taken by the private sector only in 2 years. It is time to go for revolving bank guarantees or insurance surety bonds, it said. Along with this, the FICCI requested the government to issue a quarterly bidding calendar for the National Infrastructure Pipeline as well as the National Monetisation Pipeline as this will help the private sector in active participation. ASSOCHAM thinks that the launch of the PM Gati Shakti programme is a landmark policy and execution enabler for providing ultra-speed to crucial infrastructure projects as India would see a cohesive approach to a holistic development with the Gati Shakti multi-modal connectivity, through a common technology-driven platform, not only bringing 16 different Central ministries to a common goal and vision but also taking the state governments on board. That is going to make a critical difference to the speed and cost-effectiveness of the projects, it said. ASSOCHAM Secretary General said the Gati Shakti programme would infuse a great sense of urgency to the $1.5 trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline across different sectors, be it railways, ports, airports, waterways, and gas pipelines. Its execution would lead to a huge reduction in transaction costs and improvement in ease of doing business, as it is addressing a critical issue of quality infrastructure. Besides, at this point in the global economic paradigm, more and more progressive nations are focussing on raising spending on infrastructure as that has a great multiplier for the rest of the economy. --IANS nimesh/vd ( 731 Words) 2022-01-23-22:52:03 (IANS)
Dubai [UAE], January 24 (ANI/NewsVoir): SRAM & MRAM Group, a global leader in the Nitrile Glove market, to participate in the Arab Health Tradeshow 2022 in the UAE from January 24-27, 2022. The group will be showcasing "Walletz4u" during the summit. The group will be showcasing several offerings and will be present at booth H8.H13. The platform will offer an opportunity to discover and evaluate thousands of products on display. The summit will be taking place in Dubai from 24 to 27 January 2022. The event will be witnessing around 4.000 exhibiting companies and 56.000 healthcare and trade professionals, from 170 countries, and will host 60 exhibiting countries and 12 CME conferences live in person with 550 speakers. This year's theme is "United by business, forging ahead", with new technologies and the latest innovations taking center stage. Arab Health Tradeshow has been a leading healthcare exhibition in the region, bringing together influencers from all major medical disciplines on a single platform. The summit will aid in learning and improving knowledge and skills through educational opportunities. The event will be hosting a series of conferences, workshops, and training sessions to brief upon the latest healthcare innovations. SRAM & MRAM Group with their flagship brand Walletz4u at the summit will be focusing on showcasing the product portfolio to a larger audience from all across the world. The brand is synonymous with its high-quality latex, vinyl, nitrile, and rubber disposable gloves. Each glove is backed with the seal of approval and with the commitment to bringing the products that one can trust to help keep you safe, healthy, and comfortable. Walletz4u is the world's largest gloves OEM; one of the largest glove manufacturers and resellers in the ASEAN and the global markets. On the global front, the group is planning to start a manufacturing factory of gloves in The United States of America very soon. Currently, the brand has an inventory of 1.5 million in the USA. Speaking on the participation, Raghav Ram Kapur, Business Development Director, SRAM & MRAM Group quoted, "The Arab Health Tradeshow is a leader in the region. It offers a unique proposition for exchanging ideas through one platform about the latest offerings, the best technology, products, and services. We are elated to be a part of such an important event." The exhibitors from across categories will utilize the platform to launch new products/services and to showcase new developments such as: Medical equipment and devices Disposables and consumer goods Imaging and diagnostics Orthopaedics & physiotherapy Healthcare & general services IT systems & solutions Healthcare infrastructure & assets Wellness & prevention "We are happy to express that this forum will bring interesting opportunities to engage with thought leaders and stakeholders. We are looking forward to hosting the influencers and the decision-makers from all major medical disciplines under a single platform. It will certainly bring us the opportunities of a great business and the alliance too," quoted, Rashika Wijekoon, Business Development Manager, SRAM & MRAM Group. Speaking on the development, Anamika Chhawal, Head of Strategic Alliances at SRAM & MRAM Group, India division, operating out of Mumbai quoted, "SRAM & MRAM group has been instrumental in bringing in world-class health gear with global standards. With the participation in the summit, this will certainly benefit the India market too. This will open up new horizons in the subcontinent." With its vision of uncompromising commitment to quality standards, people and environment, SRAM & MRAM Group is committed to delivering in the healthcare sector by building relationships that last generations while serving the global community. Arab Health Tradeshow is the largest healthcare exhibition and congress in the MENA region. The event is an annual event that features global healthcare professionals and features a range of scientific lectures, industry briefings, product demonstrations and networking opportunities. With technology and innovation taking center stage, Arab Health, the leading medical equipment exhibition in the Middle East, it will be representing an exceeding range of healthcare products and services showcased by more than 3,500 exhibitors from across the world, this January at The Dubai World Trade Centre. Arab Health 2022 will bring together more than 56,000 healthcare professionals eager to learn, network and trade, and will feature a wide range of CME accredited conferences. For more information, kindly visit; www.arabhealthonline.com/en/Home.html This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
Pune (Maharashtra) [India], January 24 (ANI/SRV): IntegriChain, delivering Life Sciences' only comprehensive data and business process platform for market access, announced it has expanded its India operations with new A-Grade facilities, complete with new-age employee-friendly features, in Pune, Maharashtra, following 100% year-on-year growth consistently over the past three years. The Company also announced plans to add more than 100 technology employees to its India team in 2022. IntegriChain is a data, technology, and business process company serving the $500 billion US pharmaceutical industry. The Company started its operations 15 years ago with a vision to help pharmaceutical manufacturers transform access to innovative therapies that significantly improve patient lives. Today, IntegriChain is a leading provider of therapy commercialization data and insights as well as business process operations and optimization. More than 250 pharma manufacturers rely on IntegriChain's ICyte Platform to address the complicated processes of commercial and government payer contracting, patient services, and distribution channels. For more than a decade, the Company has leveraged and grown its India operations, expanding its team of data, technology, and business process professionals by 100%. "The power of IntegriChain is to help patients start therapy faster and stay in therapy longer. Our ICyte data and business process platform gives pharma manufacturers the insights to ensure patients have access to life-saving and life-changing therapies. To do this, we are continuously employing leading-edge technology to maintain our forefront position in the market and to improve patient access to therapy, and we rely on our outstanding Pune team to help drive technology innovation and implementation," said Kevin E. Leininger, Co- Founder & Chief Executive Officer at IntegriChain. "At IntegriChain, we continue to invest in developing our workforce, adopting exciting new technologies, and improving our operational processes to provide differentiated products and services to our customers. With our recent rapid growth, we look forward to expanding our Pune data science and technologies teams and to continuing to enable the career development of our employees," said Sachin Sadekar, Vice President and Managing Director, India Operations at IntegriChain. IntegriChain India Operations Culture IntegriChain believes that taking care of employees is the key to success. The Company focuses on building an employee-friendly culture, with policies, schemes, and packages that nurture the overall well-being of their employees. "Our people are our biggest assets, and we're doing everything we can to create a positive environment for them to function at their best. While compensation and benefits are just one part of the picture, the culture we have created is one where everyone feels respected and valued. Our focus is on making work enjoyable and rewarding, rather than an element that adds stress," said Prajakta Jagtap, Director People & Culture, India, at IntegriChain. IntegriChain promotes open communication, where the employees are encouraged to share thoughts and ideas with any level of the hierarchy, eliminating the noise in between. The Company utilizes employee "non-wage compensation," which is merit- and outcomes-driven. IntegriChain also focuses greatly on the healthcare needs of employees, addressing both mental and physical well-being. IntegriChain employs a hybrid model of work In which team members work with the managers and colleagues to design a model of partly working from the office and partly from home that suits each employee's preferences and yet ensures significant collaboration. IntegriChain also employs constructive programs and events for employee wellness such as vaccination drives, mental health camps, unlimited paid leaves, wellness webinars, and many more that benefit employee satisfaction. This story is provided by SRV. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/SRV)
Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], January 24 (ANI/PRNewswire): The best-selling Automatic Electric Pressure Cooker across all Indian markets available on Amazon/ Flipkart/ JioMart/ TataCliq/ CRED and its own brand website, launched its first brand campaign, 'Pressure Off, RoboCook On.' The campaign is helmed by a digital film created for social media platforms. The campaign revolves around Indian households revisiting conventional 'kitchen-time.' Research shows Indian women spend an average of 5 hours a day in the kitchen. That works out to almost 10 years of cooking and cleaning in one's lifetime. The campaign describes how Geek RoboCook changes all that by removing micromanaging from cooking. One does the prep work, chooses the dish they want to cook from pre-set menus and the rest is taken care of by Geek RoboCook while they are free to spend their time as they choose. Murugan/ Prathap, Founder of Harkin Global Solutions, responsible for bringing the Geek Robocook brand to India says, "We want to revolutionize the way Indians cook. Most of our cooking is dependent on the preparation, quantity and quality of ingredients used. With Geek RoboCook, you still control this part. It's cooking that is intelligently pre-programmed with Programmable Intelligent Cooking technology to give you back your time. The proprietary PIC technology automatically adjusts pressure, time and temperature giving you tasty, healthy food every time you cook. Our vision is to convert every traditional pressure cooker in Indian households with the smart automatic Electric Pressure Cooker - Geek RoboCook." The ad film was conceptualized by The Suits. "My mother has spent so much of her waking time in the kitchen but cooking does not have to be as time consuming and tiring as it is today. It can be quick, healthy and safe. This allows people like my mother or my sisters to choose how to spend that extra time - with family or friends or their own selves," said Anbu Balachandran, Founder of The Suits, a marketing strategy consultancy. Geek RoboCook - Features Geek RoboCook's automatic electric pressure cooker has gradually increased its market share since its entry in 2019. Geek RoboCook features the first-of-its-kind 16 pre-set menus including popular Indian dishes. The BIS approved electric pressure cooker performs 11 different functions including sauteing, steaming, slow cooking, baking, and pressure cooking, among others. Additional accessories like tempered glass lids, egg boiling racks, steamer basket and racks, etc further offer the opportunity for a wider array of food to be made. Geek RoboCook's circumvent cooking retains food's nutrition better than conventional pressure cooking. It also comes with a delay timer of up to 24 hours and can slow cook up to 8 hours with inbuilt 7 safety features. Geek RoboCook Range Geek RoboCook's range of products include Zeta - the classic popular model that comes in 5 and 8 litre variants, Digi - the ultra-smart digital model with a cooking time indicator and a smart dial, Nuvo - the latest with the 16 pre-set menus including Slow Cooking and Fryo - the smart air fryer lid that is compatible with all Geek RoboCook models. The brand has planned for a slew of launches including the Zest (3L) compact model focusing on nuclear families and the Hexa(6L) with a ultra-modern design along with some unique accessories in the year 2022. Geek Appliances, based out of New Jersey, USA has its presence in 5 Countries - USA, Canada, Australia, China & India across 3 continents with digital first focus in all the countries of operation. Geek is the leader brand in most product categories in ecommerce in all the countries it is present in. Geek RoboCook-11in1 Electric Pressure Cooker is a revolutionary product that completely changes the way we cook and reduces the time we spend in cooking. Built with the most advanced Programmable Intelligent Cooking(PIC) technology which automatically adjusts Temperature/Pressure and Timer to provide the best and consistent quality of food every time. Here is a link to the film on our Social Platforms: Stuck in the Kitchen? Geek Robocook Electric Pressure Cooker Will Take The Pressure Off Cooking - YouTube For further brand/ product details, do visit www.geekrobocook.com This story is provided by PRNewswire. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/PRNewswire)
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], January 24 (ANI/NewsVoir): The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 24th January as the International Day of Education to celebrate the pivotal role that education plays in creating peace and development. UNESCO states that, "Without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all, countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and breaking the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth, and adults behind." The pandemic has however perpetuated this cycle and made us question if the old methods of imparting education were adequate. Education expert Rajesh Bhatia who is the founder of the pioneering online preschool chain TreeHouse Education believes that the future of education is inclusive, equitable, and virtual. Here are the five emerging trends that could redefine the meaning and expanse of education according to Rajesh Bhatia. Education will be hybrid and digitally adaptive Rajesh Bhatia says, "According to a post on unesco.org, 258 million children and youth in the world still do not attend school and over 617 million children and adolescents cannot read and do basic maths. The pandemic has exacerbated this inequity more and I believe only hybrid, flexible and adaptive education can help bridge these gaps. This means that where we cannot build infrastructure, we must create digital networks to teach children. Education will have to adapt to the post-pandemic world with a mix of online and offline modules." Innovations like gamification have altered the way students engage with their curriculums and more digital tools will make learning increasingly interactive. Rajesh Bhatia says, "Online schooling is estimated to be USD 2 billion in India by 2021 and online schools are going to grow in big numbers. This will also make schooling more affordable and inclusive." Education will be more personalised Rote learning and lack of individuation will now be a thing of the past, says Rajesh Bhatia and adds, "We must prepare students to not just fit in but stand out as global citizens who have something unique to offer. It is hence important to engage with young minds with caution and sensitivity and mould them to process knowledge rather than just imbibe it passively. We will have to create modules where unique talents are encouraged rather than erased to blend into a sea of mediocrity. Excellence comes from the passion for learning and knowledge and that is missing from our curricula right now." Education will become less focused on ranking systems The obsession with marks, percentage, and ranks is unhealthy, generates unnecessary anxiety and stress, and serves no purpose, says Rajesh Bhatia and adds, "The pandemic showed us that grading and rankings are not as important as bridging learning gaps, taking care of the mental health of our children and encouraging them to be their best rather than aim for unrealistic scores. I hope this becomes normative in the future and our education system becomes less rigid and more empathetic to the different ways in which children learn and encourage them accordingly." Artificial Intelligence (AI), he adds, will also be employed more and more in the assessment process. Vocational training and unconventional courses will gain importance TreeHouse Education has already initiated vocational courses for school-going children, informs Rajesh Bhatia, and says students do not just need to be educated but employable when they step out in the real world. He adds, "They will need to be abreast with new learning strategies and with digital advancements in various fields like Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. They will need to have in-depth knowledge of how industries work and have skills that can be applied in multiple fields. They will have to constantly upskill themselves to meet the demands of the global job market and mere academic learning is not enough to help them succeed." He says courses in digital content creation, video editing, design PR, etc are also gaining popularity along with conventional ones that engage with industries like law, banking, hospitality, etc. In a nutshell, vocational courses will have to become an intrinsic part of the learning process along with all the nourishment that conventional education provides via books. Education will focus on creating well-rounded individuals Empathy is the distinguishing feature of a well-rounded individual and in a world where economic and social disparity abounds, education will have to sensitize students to actively engage with their environment and help change the narrative, says Rajesh Bhatia. He explains, "The pandemic has made it amply clear that a crisis impacts those without economic privilege most severely. We cannot just sit out this pandemic as educators and not teach students how to become active citizens and not just exist in a bubble. Helping others is one way of helping yourself because only equitable growth is sustainable in the long run." This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)
Pune (Maharashtra) [India], January 24 (ANI/TMT): SecureThings AI, a USA based leading Automotive Cybersecurity product company, has been recognised and lauded with the 2020 Technology Innovation Leadership Award by a prominent American business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. SecureThings.ai (https://www.securethings.ai), founded in late 2017, provides a machine-learning based real-time cyber security solution for connected vehicles. SecureThings.ai team has rich experience in cyber security and domains concerning Automotive. They are an advanced and cost-effective cybersecurity solutions. They are revolutionizing the automotive industry with its innovative solutions and in terms of quality of service. SecureThings.ai experts help automotive manufacturers understand the potential risks and vulnerabilities around their products by assessing the life-cycle of automotive production. With recommendations and best practices provided by them, automotive manufacturers have built security from the very early stage of the development of Automotive Grade Products. Based on its recent analysis of the Indian automotive cybersecurity solutions market, Frost & Sullivan laudedSecureThings.ai for addressing connected-vehicle cybersecurity challenges through continuous vehicle monitoring and disruptive solutions. Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has developed a product with innovative features and functionality that is gaining rapid acceptance in the market. The award recognizes the quality of the solution and the customer value enhancements it enables. "SecureThings.ai offers comprehensive and customized protection solutions for real-time in-vehicle, network, and in-vehicle network use cases," said Kaushik Madhavan, Vice President - Mobility at Frost & Sullivan. "Real-time in-vehicle protection provides three security layers to protect a vehicle from various attacks. The first layer secures physical and remote interfaces from any unwanted code entering into the automobile's systems. The second layer delivers protection from memory-based attacks, such as memory corruption and buffer overflow attacks. The final layer protects the entire vehicle network by leveraging machine learning software, ensuring security by identifying threats through real-time intelligence." "SecureThings.ai's protection solution design incorporates deterministic and machine learning approaches that help customers achieve significant improvements in their cyber defense ratings," noted Madhavan. "Leveraging its industry-leading technologies; advanced research labs; and a cost-effective, customized solution, SecureThings.ai aims to incorporate innovative products and services in its portfolio in the coming years." Vishal Bajpai, CoFounder and CEO at SecureThings.ai said, "We are delighted to announce that SecureThings.ai has been recognised by Frost & Sullivan for our leadership in effectively addressing Cybersecurity challenges for the Automotive manufacturers as they bring their connected features to the market; making the vehicles Cybersafe for the current and future cyber threats." SecureThings.ai has entrenched itself in the market by providing OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, and mobility service providers with exclusive services, such as cybersecurity assessment, penetration testing, and ethical hacking. The company's research and advisory team searches and monitors risk-prone cars and devices to identify new exploits and zero-day vulnerability. SecureThings.ai's research lab employs a talented pool of industry experts in enterprise cybersecurity, in-vehicle security, machine learning, and hardware security to recommend best practices in rolling out robotic cybersecurity measures to alleviate risks. SecureThings AI was also recognised by CIOReview in 2019 as '20 Most Promising Cybersecurity Solutions Provider'. This story is provided by TMT. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/TMT)
New Delhi [India], January 24 (ANI/NewsVoir): Once Upon A Trunk, a leading startup operating an online marketplace that connects brands with customers through digital celebrities and new age influencers, is all geared up to roar and establish its space in the industry with i-commerce. Offering fashion clothing, apparels and more while connecting brands to their customers, it is working to create a "quality experience". Engaging with the consumers, it is providing them with a platform that offers meaningful shopping experiences with an intention to make reality shopping fun. Recognising the enormous potential in this market, Once Upon A Trunk is treading forward with the next-gen fashion commerce for young Indians. The platform is aiming to cater to the target market through exclusive home grown brands and top-notch content, which is further helping the brand to stand out from the crowd, beating its competition. Once Upon A Trunk's i-commerce (influencer-commerce) strategy and the digital storefront consists of the venture offering their services to the young emerging brands while simultaneously aiming to sell homegrown and young D2C brands and Instagram boutiques. The focus is to connect with 1000+ selling partners and become the new voice of the brands, which are synonymous to influencers as per Once Upon A Trunk, by the end of 2022. Recognising the impact of influencer's channel to grow an e-commerce and pre-validate the shopping experience for a customer by the new age fashion doctors. There is a large gap in the quality of content for upcoming influencers in terms of the right infrastructure along with a groomed ideation strategy. This has inspired the brand to bridge this margin by highlighting the significance and stature of influencers, youth-icons and internet celebrities in the market, as put by Shivaani Jain, Co-founder, Once Upon A Trunk. The company supplies a suite of services like studio, stylist, content, and merchandise for emerging influencers/talent to connect with fans on one hand and brands and retailers on the other. They are creating an academy where upcoming influencers are facilitated, groomed, helped and catered to with their content creation and market reach. This further implies influencers receive training to grow their fame and create exclusive digital content to market products and grow with the company. Such companies are "facilitators" or "incubators". They not only empower young brands and boutiques but internet celebrities and the consumers as well. Once Upon A Trunk; The iconic platform which coined the term "i-commerce"; brought content and real time shopping experience in true sense to the e-retail fashion. By the end of 2022, this platform will be a mix of 1000+ brands, Instagram boutiques, homegrown and emerging D2C brands. The company has taken care of everything from packaging, logistics, strategic social media marketing, i-commerce, content to customer care for the home grown brands that lacked the capital bandwidth for the same. A special merchandising team has been put in place to assist the easy on-boarding process of these brands and also to help curate the catalogue. This massively helps in introducing these brands to the marketplace with much ease and expertise. On one hand, the company is assisting the upcoming brands with their marketing strategies and on the other, they've assisted emerging influencers with their consumer reach. It's a wholesome process, where the influencers grow, the emerging brands generate impressive revenue and the customer gets the finest and most unique finds to style their lives. "The entire chain consisting of brands, influencers and customers is taken care of with utmost dedication. The most unique and exclusive picks are brought onboard for trendsetters and fashion enthusiasts. Taking care of everybody onboard, we also tend to keep the prices affordable and pocket friendly," says Adhira Kashiva, Business Head Once Upon A Trunk. There's so much more to come to their fruitful journey and so much more they plan on giving to the world of fashion, beauty and living! Once Upon A Trunk, a venture of Shivaani Jain and Saanchi Jain, is an e-commerce marketplace that exhibits the collections of home-grown indigenous designers and brands in India at affordable prices. Based in Delhi, the platform was launched in 2015 with a vision to become the fastest home grown designer-wear delivery e-retailer. The portal caters to the fashion aspirations of women in the age group of 25 - 45 years. The online portal reaches out to 22,000+ pin codes of metropolitan and tier 1 cities. Notching up the fashion quotient in the market, Once Upon A Trunk has been manifesting designers' true potential and offering the customers a vast range of apparel, jewellery, home decor and kidswear. Delivering to the farthest of regions, the platform is catering to the audience across the maps and further envisions to reach out to tier 2 and tier 3 cities in the near future. Website Link - www.onceuponatrunk.com. This story is provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/NewsVoir)